Who's Yer Con: Day 1

First day at Who's Yer Con was successful. I came away content but tired and glad I was able to play some new games.

The day started off with three hours of volunteering at the registration tables. I became the runner, escorting High Rollers (those who contributed $100) to the HQ tables to claim their swag bags.

The bulk of my volunteer time was listening for the names of pre-registered guests and finding their packet in several alphabetized boxes. It kept me active and was nice to know that I helped keep the lines moving quickly.

Even volunteering is gamified.

For my three hours of work, I received a free pass to the hospitality room for snacks. My plan is to use it later on Saturday between sessions. If I wanted, I could volunteer more and level up for even better prizes!

In the afternoon I enjoyed a two hour session learning to play Splendor. This is a resource management game where the goal is to be the first person to collect 15 points. In the two hours we played three games, with the final game including one of the expansion pack options.

Splendor uses a limited number of coins that are chosen and exchanged for cards. The cards represent different gems and posses varying values. Ultimately you are trying to win the favor of a Lord or Lady by collecting enough of the right combination of gem cards. What makes the game interesting is the variety of cards that cycle through game play.

That evening, I joined five other players around a huge, three hour version of the board game Power Grid. I've seen this game in stores and wanted to try it, so this was a great opportunity.

Power Grid is a Ticket to Ride style resource management game

Our game host had taken the normal board and blown it up to an 8x10 foot laminated playing space. Light up party cubes were used as Power station tokens where colors represented each player. All the other playing devices were expanded as well, poker chips instead of paper money and station cards pasted onto large playing cards.

Power Grid is also a resource management game where you must build power supply stations, purchase enough natural resources to run them and have enough money left over to expand the following round.

We played until someone had built fourteen stations. In the very last round of play, three players secured their fourteenth station so the tie breaker would have been cash on hand. But I was the last player to go and I had just enough resources to build a fifteenth station - thus winning the game!