At 7am we headed down for breakfast (which ended up being an awkward and sureal experience based on miscommuniaction, lack of staff training, and expectations. It’s best left at that).
It was so peaceful at that time of the day with a lot of gamers either still sleeping in at the hotel or not even having arrived at the venue yet. We found our gaming friend, Hilary, and settled down for some small games while we waited for the marthon to start at 9am.
Last year I managed to play 16 different games across the 24 hours. This year I hoped to beat that number, even if only by one. Let’s find out if I was successful, shall we.
MARATHON WARM UP
With our bellies full we figured we’d kill the last hour with some warm up games.
While our friend was finishing up a solo play of CASCADIA, the wife and I started with a game of HIVE. This one has a special place in our hearts as it was the first game we ever played in person together, and it was instrumental in my marriage proposel last year. As always my wife went aggressively on offensive, allowing me to play defense while she put most of her pieces out trying to trap me. I did my best using the Bee to stretch her pieces out and make most of them unmovable before going for the attack. I triggered my first move of this plan just in time and managed to trap her Bee with one turn to spare. I’ve never discussed my tactics with her before, so after she reads this I expect future outcomes to differ. It was good while it lasted, I guess, lol.
Our friend Hilary always carries X NIMMT! with her and she’d introduced it to us last year. It has a nice twist on the original game with only three rows being available, each having a different limit on it (3, 4, and 5 cards). It mostly plays the same except that scoring cards are placed in front of you where they might be flipped and doubled if you’re not careful. It’s a great addition to the series.
After that we set up the next game just as 9 o’clock rolled around. Dan Apsey, the event organiser made the announcement, and with that, we began this years 24hr Board Game Marathon.
GAME #1 – SURVIVE: ESCAPE FROM ATLANTIS
When you’re trapped in a venue for a long period of time, why make friends when you can make enemies. SURVIVE: ESCAPE FROM ATLANTIS is one of my favourite games for just getting everyone on the same page of having fun and not worring about winning or tactics or skill level. It’s just pure chaos and once players start taking each other out it just gets the whole table cheering when it’s not them being eaten by Sharks. Alliances were made and quickly broken, meeples were sacrificed, and monsterous creature of the deep did not go hungry. A great way to start a gaming event.
GAME #2 – SO CLOVER!
Last year we were introduced to FUN FACTS, a good little party game where it’s all about organising peoples guesses and answers. This year we tried another game from the same company; SO CLOVER! You’re once again writing answers on odd shaped piece of brightly coloured plastic, only this time you’re trying to get people to work out word placement in four different sides of a square in pairs. There’s more to it than that of course, but that’s the premise in a nutshell. It was pretty good. The wife and I messed up the first try by looking at the clue words wrong meaning others had zero chance to guess correctly, but we got there in the end. And despite some clues being really difficult to link in pairs, we managed to pull off three 100% clovers.
GAME #3 – WITS & WAGERS
Due to a player shortage the three of us got asked to join a game of WITS & WAGERS with stream host Shelley and Whose Turn Is It Anyway podcast host Becky around late morning. The game sees players guessing the answers to numerical questions (years and numbers). But wait, there’s more. Once the answers are revealed, they are put face up on a mat in assending order and then it’s up to the players to bet on which they think is right. So you don’t always need to know the answer, just be sure on who you think does know. You use your winnings to bet on future questions so there is a lot of risk reward.
I did manage to mess up the teach a little due to my overeagerness at the ‘test’ question being comic book related (you can watch the live stream in chunks on the 24 Hour Board Game Marathon YouTube channel) . I was pretty chuffed about only being 2 years out on the CROKINOLE creation date later in the game, and a last minute bet move at the end of the game was enough to get me $4100 and the win. Definieity a game I’d play again when asked. A lot of fun.
GAME #4 – TOKAIDO
The three of us headed back to the main hall and took on a nice game of TOKAIDO. This is one of my favourite games of all time, and it was the one that really pulled me into the hobby about five years agoi. The relaxing journey along the coast has players visiting shops, meeting strangers, and painting panaramic views as they compete to have the most relaxing journey.
GAME #5 – THE QUACKS OF QUEDLINBURG
I’ve not played this push-your-luck game for quite a while but I remember it being fun. Of course push-your-luck isn’t my strongest game style, and so it was that I spent most of the time far far far far behind, at one point having 11 rat tails to try and help me!. Pulling chips out of a bag is the name of the game as you try to retrieve as many useful ingredients without your cauldron exploding. There’s a nice variety to the ingredients effects and each has about four different rule sets so the game doesn’t get boring the more you play. I think I prefer CUBITOS over QUACKS OF QUEDLINBURG, but I’d always be up for a game.
GAME #6 – SPOTS
Cute dogs and lots of dice. SPOTS is such a fun game. Players are trying to get specific numbers to cover spaces on dogs. Each complete dog card can be flipped and the first to flip six dogs wins. Each turn you have 6 ‘tricks’ to choose from and when a player uses a ‘trick’ it’s done until they all get refreshed. There’s a push-your-luck element as dice you’re unable to use each turn get put in your doghouse, but you can’t exceed 7 on the pips there. It’s a lot of fun, and everyone is always engaged on each others roll so the down time it short and entertaining. I did my usual thing of using the Run ‘trick’ which stresses out my wife when I’m doing it across six cards and none have been flipped.
GAME #7 – PORT ROYAL
One of the things I always hope to do at large meetups like this is trying games we enjoy at higher than 2-players. PORT ROYAL is a great little card game but it only feels average at two. So when a 3-player game became a 4-player (thank you Sam for joining us) we got to enjoy a really good playthrough. In PORT ROYAL the active player reveals market cards until they bust be flipping a card that matches the sail colour of a previously flipped ship. In two player there isn’t much money flying around, but in 4-player we all seemed more willing to pay off active players to gain market cards from their turns. Normally I might get 1 gold every now and then when it’s just the wife and I, but when you get a decent market laid out, you can get your chosen card plus 3 gold from others if they like what they see. Overall I tink PORT ROYAL works fine at two, but I really liked it more at four.
GAME #8 – KILL DOCTOR LUCKY
Hilary had brought KILL DOCTOR LUCKY along to the marathon and it’s a game I’d never heard of. When she set it up I got nervous due to its CLUDEO looking vibe. But it ended up being a very different beast. Players are trying to secretly murder their host, Doctor Lucky, for varying reasons (all descibed in quite funny text on your player card). As you all stalk him around the board (his own mansion!) you’re trying to get in a postion where line of sight to everyone else is broken, allowing you to strike. You have a hand full of cards that you use; weapons to attack, movement to move, and so on. Even at this point it still sounded a little vanila. But then two things were explained and it piqued my interest. First was that a failed murder attempt allows you to increase your base strength by one each time. This incourages you to go for the kill even if you know you’ll fail because you’ll be better for the next time. The other fun aspect is that other players can play cards to block your attack. And they’ll want to because if they don’t, you’ll win. But how many cards they’ll play is determined but what cards they have and what they are willing to scarifice. There’s a real semi-coop feel to it and it gets quite tense.
The game also comes with a varient mode that acts as a part two. You stay where you finished the main game, but now it’s last man standing as you try to kill each other and escape the slightly pissed off ghost of Doctor Lucky.
GAME #9 – CODENAMES
This is a game that I’ve not really enoyed in the past. It depends on the players and the player count. As we didn’t know 25% of the players at the table, and because it was only 4-player game, I didn’t think it would be fun. But it was actually one of the better games of CODENAMES I’ve played. It was the classic girls vs boys, and despite a strong start from us, we fell apart and started accusing innocent civilians (who all looked like they’d misplaced their child and didn’t know what to do) while the red team took the win. This was silly to the point of it making the game for me because of how stupid we felt.
GAME #10 – ECOSYSTEM
Lost in a sea of green boxed nature themed card games, ECOSYSTEM is one that I was only vaguely aware of the box art and that’s about it. Turns out it’s a card drafting game a little like SUSHI ROLL but instead you pick animals with different scoring mechanics and place them into your own 5×4 grid. It started slow as we learnt the variuous different scoring rules, but we all definitely started to find or focus in the second half of the game. Not one I’d own, but one I’d happily play as a palete cleanser between bigger games.
GAME #11 – WEREWORDS
This was another game that Hilary had brought with her. Similar to ONE NIGHT WEREWOLF, this has the same mechanic of hidden roles and a night phase, but instead of finding the Werewolves, you’re tryint to guess a word that the Mayor has choosen by only using yes and no questions. However, the Seer knows the word and needs to steer the questions for the others without giving away that they know. In this playthrough the Mayor was the Werewolf, which felt a little wierd, and also the main hall of the venue was starting to fill up so it was difficult to hear the app. I think I’d like to give this one a try in a better environment with a few more players to get a better experience.
GAME #12 – PATCHWORK
While Hilary went off to join a D&D session, we settled down for some dinner and a game of PATCHWORK. Easily one of our favourite polyomino games, we both sat and chatted while enjoying some much needed food and making our cardboard quilts. It was a close game, and despite me having more left over spaces, I’d managed to get the big button tiles meaning I only went down to -5, enough to grab the win.
THE RAFFLE – SIDE A
We had a decent amount of raffle tickets for this year, so at 7pm we settled down as the hall filled up with the other attendies. The prize pile itself was insane. A lot of companies and people had donated games and hobby adjacent items making the pile so big (think the McCallister’s Christmas tree at the end of Home Alone 2) that they had to split the prize giving into two parts. Thats’ right, it took two 1 hour slots to get though it all.
And I did pretty good. A couple of games that will go to friends and family (sorry MINIONS DOBBLE, but my Marvel version won’t allow you to share the shelf), and a couple of gems (including PORT ARTHUR which I’m quite keen to try). I also got a really cool Fallout art print, and a copy of MY FIRST STONE AGE, which I had been looking to get for my son when his birthday rolls up later this year. The only negative I have with the raffle (and it was the same last year) is that with so many winners, my hands get really sore from all the clapping. I might take gloves for next time. I’m so fragile.
GAME #13 THE WHITE CASTLE
THE WHITE CASTLE is one of our favourite games of the last year. We will never ever ever say no if asked to play. So when we saw a guy named Mark setting it up at the far end of our table and he had a ‘Players Needed’ sign next to him, we answered the call. We were joined by James (@boardgamejimmy) and had a fantastic time playing. So much so that we then spent the next few hours sat with them. THE WHITE CASTLE is great game at all players counts. The dice staking means spaces don’t get blocked as quickly, but they still get blocked eventually, and there was constant frustraction from someone throughout the play as spaces couldnt be used and even vanished from cards being taken.
And, in a non gaming related twist, not only did James and I realise halfway through the game (during a side discusion about THE RED CATHEDRAL) that we both followed each other on Instragram and had chatted on a couple of posts, but we’d also both been the previous two guests on the I’m Having My One podcast (episodes 54 and 55). And to get even weirder, not only did we have the same Oakley glasses case for our glasses, but we’d chosen the same frames! Spooky moment indeed.
GAME #14 – FARAWAY
As we still had 30 minutes or so before the second half of the raffle started, the four of us carried on with some small box game. FARAWAY is one that had a lot of hype, and one I’ve enjoyed despite never being able to beat my wife at it. And while it’s okay at 2, it’s once again a game that shines much more at 4. I still had to fight to get my brain to understand what I was trying to do with the right playing / left scoring mechanics (stupid brain), I found that the bigger market and increased opponents made the game feel less rushed and gave more options.
GAME #15 – SUBASTRAL
With time still remaining before things got crazy, Mark was keen for us to try SUBASTRAL. I’ll admit that the rules didn’t make much sense to me, and the first few turns were beyond vague. But then it clicked and I have to say that it’s a pretty fun and clever game. You have cards in colums 1-6, and cards in your hand that range 1-6 and have one of eight biome symbols. When you place a card in it’s matching column you can then either take cards from a single column to the left and put them in your hand to use later, or take cards from a single column to the right and put them in your tableau. Of course there are placement rules and scoring rules above this simple explanation, but once you see what’s going on it can be quite the puzzle to get what you need for more points. Clever game.
THE RAFFLE – SIDE B
The hall filled up once more and the raffle dispenced with the remaining deluge of epic games, with VOIDFALL being the big finale. My luck had run out by this time, so we did’t get any more games to take home (much to my wife’s gratefulness). A lot of money got raised by that raffle, and a lot of awesome games got new homes.
GAME #16 – GLEN MORE II: CHRONICLES
It was coming up to midnight when my wife decided that she’d have to call it a night. At the same time Hilary returned unscathed from what ever fantastical adventure she’d been on. Mark and James decided they had one more game in them before they had to make their drive home and they were super keen to teach Hilary and I GLEN MORE II: CHRONICLES. It’s another big game that I’ve heard of but had absolutly no idea what it was about. A brillant teach from Mark had us going in no time as we enjoyed Chronicle 7. The game uses the player turn mechanic from TOKAIDO as players move around a loop of tiles. The tiles become your actions as you take them to place into your tableau infront of you while manourvering your meeples to allow actions on future turns. It’s very clever even at a base game level, but the fact that the chronicles give you different modules to change each playthrough in variuous ways is really cool. I’d have to say that this was one of my top three games of the marathon and I’d really like to try it again. I also think my wife would really enjoy it too.
So, as James and Mark said farwewill and headed home, and my wife drifted off to the land of dreams up in our room, Hilary and I found ourselves on the wrong side of midnight with 8 more hours to kill.
We’d also hit game number 16 with that last play, so beating the challenge was now a simple no brainer. But we weren’t going to stop at 17, were we? Surely we still had a good few games left in us.
(Continued in part 3 –)
Always Play Blue 
wow!! 89And that was August 2024
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