Paula's Top 10 Convention Games!

0:00 hello my name is Paula dimming and it's time for another very serious not a parody board game top 10 list I was recently at the board game convention aircon in the UK and I was also thinking about the board game convention Dice Tower West which was happening the very same weekend in Las Vegas which is why I was only thinking about Dice Tower West instead of attending because I've seen enough 90 sitcoms to know it's never a good idea to try to be in two places at once different conventions focus on different things some focus on showing off hot new releases some focus on buying and selling games and some focus on just sitting around and playing games and that's something that I think aircon and dice tower West have in common they're both mostly about playing games so I started thinking about the kinds of games I find myself playing at conventions and what I think works best in a convention setting and that brings us to my top 10 convention games now what I'm after in a convention game experience might be a bit different from what you're after in a convention game experience so at the end of this list I'll be doing some quick fire honorable mentions sourced for my patreon supporters number 10 conventions are the perfect place to play a game that requires a larger group that you might not be able to get organized for a regular game night which is why Blood on the clock tower is my number 10 game this is a social deduction game similar to werewolf but if your character is

1:31 killed you still get to play an active role in the game there's a huge variety of roles that can be assigned to players and lots of bluffing and lying and trickery I only want to play this game in a convention setting if you sign up for an organized game of it you're going to get someone running the game for you who knows it really well which is more likely to give you a smooth and immersive experience you're also more likely to be playing with a larger group size who all want to be there sometimes trying to play a social deduction game at a regular game night means roping in some people who aren't really into it and won't buy in then that can kind of sour the experience of the game right but at a convention the people who signed up to play probably really want to be there and that is the ideal way to play something that has such a social and interactive component to it number nine when I'm at a convention I am often looking for games that can play quickly that's because I might be needing to run off to a work obligation but also mostly because I'm easily distracted at a convention it's a lot of stimulus and it's overwhelming and I'm always thinking like who's over there oh what game is that oh I want to go check that out so quick and simple games are a convention go-to for me because they're what I'm able to focus on and one that is a lot of shouty fun is P for pizza this is a word association game where you have triangle shaped cards that match up letters with categories and you need to be the first person to shout out

3:03 something in that category that starts with the matching letter that wins you the card which you can use to build a giant slice of pizza it's quick and shouty and silly and it always goes over really well you'll just want to play it in an area where it isn't too loud so that you can hear what the other players are shouting number eight it's Crook and all this is such a great classic dexterity game it's ranked number 54 on Board Game Geek so I have pretty good taste in its year of release is listed as 1876 so it's old but it requires a large wooden board that can be pretty pricey and hard to store because of its size so it's not really the easiest game to have an opportunity to play but you can just about always find tables of it set up at a convention and if you do you've got to take advantage of it and play this game players take turns flicking circular wooden discs across a circular wooden board trying to get your disc to land in certain areas of the board to score points with extra points if you sync the disc right in the middle of the board which is so satisfying you can also knock your opponent's discs around with your own and ruin their plans diabolical it's unreasonably fun and lovely and feels really good to play from a pure really tactile perspective and a convention is the perfect place to play it without having to commit to owning it and finding somewhere in your home to keep it number seven this is

4:34 another dexterity game but it's really different from crocodile it's fast-paced frantic and perfect for people like me who love air hockey it's class this is another game with a special wooden board that takes up more space than a typical game and might be harder for you to have in your own home though it is much easier to fit on a shelf than crocodile the clask is very likely to have a booth set up at a convention with a ton of copies set out for you to walk up to and start playing it's a great convention activity and if you have kids with you it's perfect for them too in class you're trying to hit a ball into your opponent's goal using these magnetic sticks that you operate from underneath the board there are also magnets on the field that might stick to your stick if that happens your opponent scores if you accidentally knock your own stick into the hole that is your own goal your opponent's course if your opponent knocks the ball into your goal your opponent scores Etc can you tell that I don't score very often in this game it's all about my opponent scoring it's wacky high energy dexterity silliness and that's honestly everything I want while at a convention number six this game was introduced to me at a convention by Rodney Smith did you know I make videos for what you played go check them out and this game is so great and it's so fun it's called Deja Vu and it's another game that is quick and silly and energetic it can play up to six people which is great for when you have a semi-larger group gathered at a convention you can teach

6:06 it as you play and it's over in about 15 minutes so it's perfect for when your group can't pick a game to borrow from the library you pull this out give it a go and you'll still have time afterwards to sit down for whatever they finally decide on in deja vu you have a bunch of tokens with images on them in the middle of the table and they're all different but also deceptively similar to each other then you start flipping over cards that have those images printed on them if a card flips over and you think you've seen that image on a previous card grab the token from the table did you see the life vest or was it actually the cone if a later card flip reveals that the token you grabbed hadn't already been seen twice you're out of the round at the end you score based on how many correct tokens you grabbed and then you play two more rounds each round it gets harder to remember did I see that already this round or was that last round you start to question everything and people are frantically grabbing for tokens and then having immediate regrets and is equally wonderful and horrible to play late at night when everyone is already tired it's so simple and so good and it makes me laugh with my friends number five strike if you play strike at a convention you will end up with curious people coming over to see what the heck you're having such a good time playing this game was also introduced to me at a convention and I fell in love with it it can play

7:37 two to five and it's all about chucking dice into a bowl inside of the game box and getting matching values you roll one die at a time if you get any matches you take those Dice and then your turn-ins you don't get any matches you can keep going or you can pass to the next player if the bowl is ever empty at the start of your turn you have to throw all your dice in and see what you get if you run out of dice you're out and the last player with dice remaining wins look it's got dice rolling which I love it's got Pusher luck it's got the kind of mishaps that can only happen in a dexterity game where you Chuck a die and things go flying and everyone starts laughing it's another game that teaches in about 30 seconds and plays for about 10 or 15 minutes and to me as you can tell that makes it just perfect for a convention number four I was introduced to this game at aircon 2022 right as it was being re-released by oink games and becoming the new hotness and it is Scout Scout will always come with me to conventions from now on because it's so small it's perfect to throw in a bag or a suitcase and carry around and pull out and play combine that with it being really fun and easy to teach and it it has to go on this list Scout is a ladder climbing game that means that someone plays a card or set of cards and then the next player has to play down a set of cards of equal or higher value then the next player has to meet or beat

9:08 those cards and so forth and so on like you're climbing a ladder in Scout you want to get rid of as many cards in your hand as you can because they're negative points at the end of the round you also earn points if you play a set and the other players can't beat the value of what you played the trick here is that each card has two values on it and once your cards are dealt to you you decide which way you want them to face for which values you want but then you can't rearrange your hand and the sets of cards you play have to be adjacent to each other already in your hand if you can't play anything you Scout a card from what's on the table and then you can put it anywhere you want in your hand which might help you create a really high value set there's some Pusher luck involved and some really tricky decisions about when to play and when to scout because sometimes you might want to scout even if you can play because you're trying to build a really high value set that's going to be harder for everyone else to beat and I just don't think this game will ever get old number three this is another smallish card game that is easy to carry around and pull out which makes it ideal for a convention and it's got a campaign narrative so you can play it for just a few minutes if you want to do not the narrative or for a lot longer if you want to do the campaign narrative and you can pause and come back to it throughout the con it's the crew specifically Mission deep sea but really either version is good this was the game of the con for me at aircon 2020 and it stayed one of my top

10:39 games ever since I rarely meet a trick taking game I don't like and the crew is cooperative trick taking with missions and very limited table talk slash player communication and it's just one of the best games ever the missions might be something like one person has to win the pink five and another person can't win any pink cards at all and another used to specifically win whatever the third trick of the round is when you all get on the same page and magically complete a really tricky Mission as a team without ever telling each other what cards are in your hand I mean no accomplishment feels as good as that number two Yokai septet is a game I picked up at Pax unplugged at the end of 2022 but didn't actually get to play until aircon this year which is 2023 if you're watching this in the future it's another trick taking game I love them and the reason I think this is a great convention game is that it plays best at four players and finding three other people to play a game with you at a convention that'd be pretty easy it's another game that's super easy to carry around and isn't a huge time commitment play for 20 minutes and then run off to the next panel you wanted to go see or a demo you have scheduled or that Meetup you wanted to do you play Yokai septet in teams of 2v2 and your goal is for your team to win four tricks that contain boss Yokai cards which are value seven before you win seven total tricks winning seven tricks before you have four boss cards will lose you the hand and the suits in this game have

12:10 different values so in some the seven card the boss card is on the high-end that suit and in another suit it might be the lowest card in that suit or it might be in the middle of the values so each boss card is going to require a different strategy to win and if a trick doesn't have a boss card in it you really don't want to win it and that's what makes this game so great knowing when to try and win a trick and when to try and lose a trick and gosh forcing the other team to take a trick I know they don't want makes me feel so dank smart and Trixie and I love it is an amazing trick taking game and again the size the length of the game the player count it makes it really great for a Convention as evidenced by the fact that I played it four times at aircon this year number one this game was actually an honorable mention on my top games of 2022 list but it wins the number one spot on this list because it is by far the game I played the most at aircon 2023 I going to continue to get a lot of convention Play It's sea salt and paper again there's a running theme Here a small box card game that's easy to teach quick to play and able to be thrown into a bag and carried around all day at a convention plus it's so beautiful to look at it's just it's dang good y'all in sea salt and paper you're set collecting on your turn you'll draw two cards from the deck and choose one to keep discarding the other into one of the two face up piles or you'll take one card from one of those face up piles if

13:42 you have two cards in your hand that match you can play them down in front of you to activate their special power so two sailboats get you another turn two crabs lets you take a card from one of the face up discard piles a shark and a swimmer pair let you steal a card from the hand of an opponent Etc when you have seven points from cards in your hand or played in front of you you can end the round and score your points and this is where you can push your luck a bit with a tricky decision do you call stop and let everyone score whatever card points they have so I have eight and you get five and you get six or do you call last chance and give everyone else one more round betting that they won't have as many points as you do at the end of that last round if you bet correctly you'll score your cards plus a bonus for the color of cards you have the most of and everyone else just scores their color bonus but if you're wrong everyone else gets their full score and you just get your color bonus risky there's a fair amount of luck involved in the card draw but also it's quick so it never feels too bad if you're unlucky and it's fascinating that depending on the style of the people I'm playing with the game can feel really different so some people want to call Last Chance a lot and some people always want to just call stop and let everyone score and some people really use the shark and swimmer to steal cards and some people just ignore that and each of these Styles totally changes how the

15:13 game plays out and I love that and I played it more than six times at aircon and it never got old so as you can see I have a specific style of game that I like to play at a convention but that might not be the style of game you like for conventions so with that in mind here are some quick fire honorable mentions provided by my patrons and if they sound interesting to you go check them out hey y'all jumping in real quick from the editing room with a last minute editors honorable mention Edition I just played veiled fate for the first time and I had to jump in now and add it to this list because if I had played it before I filmed the rest of this list it would be on the actual list it would 100 be in the top 10 of this but because I didn't and I've not actually played it at a convention it is an honorable mention a special honorable mention spot so here we go veiled fate strategic social deduction misdirection and Mischief High player count secret teams seriously this is a perfect convention game I am so excited to have played it I loved it I can't wait to play it more okay back to the regularly scheduled patreon submitted honorable mentions raw Reiner commencia auction bidding set collection Pusher luck plays in under two hours can get raucous for carrion steampunk magicians heavy Euro longer

16:44 play time so it might be easier to get convention goers to commit to that compared to your regular gaming Group Seven Wonders good for larger groups not too long but more than a filler requires some thinking and strategy but won't overtax your brain sidereal Confluence sci-fi trading and negotiation best at higher player counts plays up to nine highly interactive longer play time so perfect for people looking for a convention experience that's a Time investment and here are some great late night large group games dead last a social collusion game betray your friends Liars dice so much bluffing can't stop ultimate push your luck dicer Lane pit frantic card training and shouting with the tagline the world's liveliest game so there you have it my top 10 convention games let me know what you like to play at conventions down in the comments below thank you so much for watching this video I really hope you enjoyed it I'll be doing more of these from time to time so stay tuned for those along with some board game playthroughs for my twitch streams and of course things get dicey sketch comedy if you'd like to support what I'm doing here on YouTube you can join my patreon or buy some sweet merch okay that's all thanks bye