Adventures in Boardgaming

Sometimes a plan just comes together. Nabeel and the rest of the Hyatt family decided to travel to Philadelphia for a board-gaming convention – PAX East – to do some research for Nabeel's new side-hustle The Tabletop Library in Berkley, and unofficially promote 'Race to Kepler' the game that Kaden and Liam created and are self-publishing. Somewhat last minute, Nabeel checked to see if Joe and I would want to join. Somehow Joe didn't have work that weekend, and I didn't have plans. Plus since I just missed out on my trip to Brazil because of the shutdown, which enabled Elaine to spend a long weekend in Cape May with Karen, it really seemed like the perfect time to catch a train to Philly for some board gaming adventures. 

I made it into Philly around 11 and met up with the crew in the Lobby of the Hilton which had some ideal tables to camp out at for a long day of gaming. Which is exactly what we did aside from a not so quick excursion to pick up take-out for dinner. Oath, Wild Tiled West, and Tax the Rich being notable games for the day, plus some play-testing of alternate rules for Race to Kepler. I crashed in Joe's room and in the morning we hit the convention floor after breakfast. After racing to pick up a few hard to find games for The Tabletop Library and exploring the convention for a while, we found a table in a high-traffic area near the game library to set up the 'Race to Kepler' banner and play games while Kaden and Liam waited for interested convention goers to ask about their game. We played It's a Wonderful World, Flip 7, and Northgard, taking up most of the day, then after the convention closed for the evening we had dinner at Sampan and went back to the Hilton lobby to play test a prototype of wild west showdown game that Joe has been working on, before I caught the late train back to DC. All told a fun weekend with good friends!

(click here for all the pictures)