PAX Unplugged 2024 - Day 2

PAX Unplugged is a three-day convention focusing on tabletop gaming. Board games, card games, role-playing games, and all the surrounding peripherals can be found. Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX, was started by the creators of the Penny Arcade webcomic, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. The conventions are centered around gaming culture, with the Unplugged version, first run in 2017, being entirely based on tabletop gaming. PAXU 2023 was held at the beginning of December in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, as it always is. The folks at Penny Arcade first came to Philly in 2017 and, apart from 2020 (you know why), have been back every year. This is the second year I’ve attended as a “Content Creator” for all three days, and every year, I go home amazed, exhausted, and excited about the board gaming hobby.

PAX Unplugged 2025 badges on sale now!!

https://unplugged.paxsite.com/en-us/registration/buy-badges.html

PAX Unplugged 2024 Day 1 - https://www.comicbookyeti.com/post/pax-unplugged-2024-thursday-night-day-1

It's Day Two of PAX Unplugged 2024, and as always on Saturday of the convention, a few of my friends make the trip up to sunny Philadelphia to walk the floor with me. This year, my brother Nick and our buddy Hook showed up bright and early. I met them in the First Look section, and we ended the night in Free Play. Eleven new to us games later, my voice was raw from reading rules out loud. But we had a blast, and this may be how I spend every Saturday at PAX from now on.

Fellow CBY Contributor Jimmy Gaspero was supposed to be here, but he forgot to actually buy the tickets when they were in his cart. Really....REALLY!?!?!?!

First up was Time Trouble by publisher Hans im Glück. This co-operative game has its players taking the roles of four animal characters that are racing to capture the escaped Fluffies, who are causing trouble with the timeline. There are seven levels that you must navigate, capture Fluffies, and get to the goal to complete. Spaces range from neutral spaces, keys to open locks, energy, and Fluffies. Moving is done through a real-time card play phase where you stack transparent cards with icons for each character on them. When the timer runs out, the visible icons are the space where you can move those characters. The communication, limited planning, and real-time card play were fun and challenging.

Next up was Looping Games' 1980 Sixtina. It is 1980, and you are restoring the Sistine Chapel. Cards represent the frescoes with different kinds of restorations indicated by color. Technique cards come in different colors and values. You have three actions of drawing technique cards, discarding technique cards to gain materials, and playing technique cards to restore the frescoes on the board. How well the value of your cards played match the value needed for the restoration alters the points on the cards. How many cards you play determines how many of your materials you can play on the card. Once all restoration spaces are covered, points are given from most to least.

This is one in a list of games from Looping Games' 1900 series, and it piqued my interest enough not only to seek this game out for myself, but to check out others in the series as well.

A big presence at this year's PAXU was The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game. It sold out quickly each day, and the demo booths were packed, but First Look had a few copies. In this co-operative trick-taking game, players take the roles of the different characters of the first installation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Each chapter has different characters for the players to choose from, and each character has different winning conditions that must be met. This follows the book, so get ready all you Bombadil fans. The stained glass artwork is great, and with two more books to cover, Office Dog is sure to have two more hits.

Around the World in 80 Days is another fun game from Looping Games. Players use train and boat cards to plot the course they take to get around the world and earn fame points along the way. The cards have actual distances on them that can be either one straight line or multiple straight lines, allowing the player to pivot. Cards cost both time and money. There are icons on your map that, if you end your turn on them, will determine how much income. Income cards change the value of each icon as you play. Characters from the novel can be obtained and have special abilities. Ending with the most fame points gets you the win.

We moved to the Expo Hall next and were able to get in a game of Excalibur from Roxley Games. At the time, we were playing with a prototype, but the game has since successfully funded on Kickstarter. Tokens are spread across three regions, and each token is a character with an ability. The goal is to end the game with Excalibur in your hand, but not both Excalibur and the Curse Blade. To do this, you use the chips you are holding to perform various actions in the game. For example, the Peasant allows you to draw or steal a chip and return one to a region. Merlin forces the player holding Excalibur to shout, "Avalon is mine!" Such a fun game, and the production I'm seeing on the Kickstarter page is tremendous. Hats off to designer Manny Trembley.

For lunch, we walked over to Reading Terminal Market and got Roast Pork and Roast Beef sandwiches from DiNic's. Wow! Delicious, messy, and grab lots of napkins. No pictures as the messiness was real, but I can guarantee I'm going again next year.

Finally, we landed a the Free Play area and continued our day of gaming with only "New to Us" games. First up was The Adventures of Robin Hood by Kosmos. This is a story-driven game where your choices point you in different sections of a book. Like a choose-your-own-adventure type game. This is not a game to play in a convention hall after reading out loud the rules for the previous 6 hours. We discovered this quickly and decided to come back to this at a later time. Nothing against the game, just not the right environment.

Caravan by Rio Grande Games was a welcome surprise. The box doesn't do much for it, but the gameplay is quick and easy to learn. You have action points you use to set up your caravan of camels on the board and to move goods to their city to sell them. More exotic good cities are on the outside and score more points. There is also a steal ability that always strikes a little fear.

This was such a fun play, and I was surprised to find it on Board Game Arena, where we have had many more games played.

Istanbul was by far my favorite game of the day. It is a classic for a reason, and we found out that reason very few rounds into the game. The goal is to collect rubies. Collecting rubies can be done at multiple locations, but you need money or goods to acquire the rubies. Locations are activated by moving your merchant and assistant stack to that location. If you leave an assistant there, you can perform that action. But plan accordingly, because you will eventually need to get your assistants back, and you don't want to waste turns with no action as you run around getting your assistants back. We only had the one play, but it is high on my buy list. Pegasus Spiele will be hearing from me soon.

Other games played but without pictures were Oriflamme and Quest for El Dorado. And with that, we closed out Saturday in the convention center. Nick and Hook made their way back home, while Chrissy and I headed back to the hotel lobby. Waiting for us was Chris Barrows from Tabletop Express and Chrissy's second PAXU purchase, Rebel Princess. But let's discuss that later.

Tomorrow I'm solo and have a lot of meetings with publishers. That backpack gets heavy as I make my last day purchases and everything from the passed three days catches up. Join us next time for Day 3!!!!

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