15 Games Played at SaltCon 2023

SaltCon Spring 2023 — The open gaming hall tables are ready to be played on!

SaltCon Spring just keeps getting bigger and better every year!

This year over 2,000 people enjoyed playing board games, card games, dice games, party games, and more for 4 days straight as part of SaltCon Spring 2023.

And with that many people, there’s a broad range of gaming interests. That’s why there are also areas in the convention center set aside for RPGs, miniatures painting, dexterity games, play-to-win games, competitions, and an Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator.

But even as the event itself keeps getting bigger, this year the game playing for me was much more intimate.

That’s because this year I had family attend as well as a good friend. (That family member was a nephew from Idaho – not one of my kids). So instead of playing with tons of different people this time around, most of my game playing was with those same few people. And we played most of our games in one of the offset rooms rather than in the massive open gaming hall.

Being back in another room was nice because of less commotion. But the downside was that I didn’t run into all the people I love bumping into at SaltCon each year. And for that, I feel a bit of a loss. Because meeting up with a lot of people that I only see once a year is one of the main things I love going to SaltCon for. And it was my bad for missing out on that interaction this year. Note to self: Don’t make that mistake again.

I was also only able to be at SaltCon for 2 of the 4 days this time around. So my game playing time was a bit shortened.

The good news is that I was able to play a bunch of new games as well as a longer game that has sat unplayed on my game shelves for far too long (I’m looking at you Battlestar Galactica).

Games I played at SaltCon Spring 2023:

Rather than dive into details about each game, I’ll just highlight some of the highs and lows and which I enjoyed playing the most.

I’ll start off by saying Endless Winter: Paleoamericans is aptly named. Because that game sure felt endless to me. It was one of the Hot Games at SaltCon so we took advantage of learning it early in the morning before the crowds showed up. We knew it would be a long game. But after 35 minutes of instruction and 2 hours of playing, we were only half way through the game. So we called it good at that point to let other people experience the game.

The other 4 Hot Games we played were Flamecraft, Wild: Serengeti, Heat: Pedal to the Medal, and Gift of Tulips. Of those 3, we liked Heat and Flamecraft the best.

Wild: Serengeti has fantastic components and I love the puzzle of figuring out how arrange the animals in such a way to score point. However, it likewise took too long to play and overstayed its welcome. Mainly because in a 4-player game, the board changes so much by the time it gets back to your turn that you can’t do a lot of planning ahead and thus have to spend part of your turn thinking rather than doing. So it drags out.

Gift of Tulips is a simple set collection game but also includes influencing the market value of the tulips you collect. It’s super simple to play but it didn’t feel like it had a lot of replay value. I’m fine with just playing it once.

Flamecraft has super cute dragons and great artwork and also has interesting choices to make about where to go and what to collect. Game turns also flow quickly so the pace seems well suited for the level of complexity of the game.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a racing game with strategic card playing. I enjoy racing games and Heat didn’t disappoint. However, in stacking it up against my favorite racing game, I’m going to stick with Downforce at the top. But I’ll gladly play Heat when it hits the table.

I was excited to finally play Space Base as well. I’ve heard so many great things about Space Base over the years that when one of our group checked it out from the Game Library, I was super happy to dive in. It reminded me of Machi Koro and Valeria Card Kingdoms where all players can benefit from the dice rolls of the other players. So there really isn’t any downtime and it feels great to get more powerful as the game progresses. I totally look forward to playing Space Base again when I get a chance.

We saved playing Battlestar Galactica for the late night game Friday night. It’s a longer game and was a great way to end the day. The game is based on the reimplementation of the TV show Battlestar Galactica and is a semi-cooperative game with traitors – or in this case, Cylons. One thing that’s cool about the game is that halfway through the game, role cards are distributed out a second time. So you may have gone through the first half of the game being on the human team and then it turns out you really are a Cylon and need to find a way to thwart the human goal. It turned out that in our 4-player game, 2 of the players ended up being Cylons and they won the game. So fun. I won’t wait as long to get it to the game table again.

I also brought a few of my own games to play that I was looking forward to teaching my nephew. The ones we ended up playing were Solenia, Rattus, and TRAILS. I still get a kick out of Rattus because I think the theme is unique and I like the variability of the different roles that shift around throughout the game. And I really love the game play of Solenia how the board is in perpetual motion – shifting from day side to night sight as players move the ship along with their card play.

Games Traded

As I wrote about last month leading up to SaltCon Spring 2023, I really look forward to the game Math Trade. And I’m happy with the many game trades I was able to make. Some of them are games I’ve played before and enjoyed enough to want a copy to have on hand (Nidavellir, Gingerbread House, Skull, Floor Plan, Silver).

One of the games I came home with has already been a huge hit as a lunch time game at the office this past week – Skull. It’s a social deduction game that’s so simple to play yet delivers hoots and hollers every time. We’ve played Floor Plan a number of times in the evenings this past week as well.

You may have noticed one of the games I got is Silver Amulet. And you may wonder why I got a copy of that since I just recently reviewed it. Well, that’s because I leave my copy of Silver Bullet at the office for lunch time gaming because it’s been a hit there. But I also enjoy it so much that I’d like to have one of the sets here at home too. So now I’m set.

I’m looking forward to playing all of these newly acquired games as a family and with my monthly game group over the coming months.

And yes, I’m already looking forward to my next SaltCon experience!