A lot of numbers

This last weekend was SaltCon. It was pretty great. I got 11 new games, played about that many games which I hadn't played before, and met a lot of great people.

Thursday I presented The Age of Vikings to the judges for the Ion Award. It didn't go very well, so I wasn't surprised when (on Saturday) it was announced that I didn't win. I went into the finalist judging with presentiments, because Dan announced that the highest scoring game scored an average of an 8, and that matched my highest score (which means that my average was lower than that).

I had also talked to another of the finalists, and he said that he had gotten calls from two of the judges asking for more info about his game.

Fortunately I held back on submitting Terran League of Defense Robots this year. I have made so many good changes to it since I submitted all of my games that I know that it will have a much better chance next year.

I got to play the game that won the Ion Award this year - Palooka Precinct, by Glen Dresser. It was quite a fun and interesting game. It was a deduction game with a campaign and character development.

Another finalist was Zodiac Dice, which I played before in the Sandy Board Game Design meetup, so of the three finalists that showed up I played them all.

I noticed today that Palooka Precinct is also a finalist in the Cardboard Edison, so I am gonna be going up against it again. That is fine by me, since it is a really good game, and if it wins it would be better than if a random game I had never played wins.

Though I didn't go out of my way to talk with publishers, I did end up talking to a few. That is something that I should be more proactive about, but it is hard to make the time to do it when I much prefer playing games with people to trying to sell my games to people. Making games for me is more about the love of games than it is about trying to make money.

I tried out Flip City during the convention for the first time, and it was pretty fun. I liked the backwardness of turning residential areas into apartments, and the way that it built up to victory smoothly. My wife beat me handily, so that was also good. Whenever she wins the first game it is much easier to play a second one.

I didn't get to play Tigris and Euphrates, however, which I had hoped to play. It is such a fun game.

Finally, I just looked over my game design page, and noticed that I have made 19 games so far. That is amazing. I never realized that I have worked on so many.

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