When will we meet again?

It has been nearly a full year since we held our last gamers guild meet up, when will we meet again? Meeting as a gamers guild during good or bad times revolves around the availability of three things: time, games, and location.

Time

I still think that when we start up again we will stick to evenings during the first Tuesday of the month since that worked before. I think this worked for many people and will continue to do so. However, when we decide to start meet ups again we may post a survey to see if another day will work well for people. Or we may just go with what worked in the past since getting responses online can be difficult.

Games

So this is one thing that is still doing well. I personally have acquired some fun new games that I think would work well in our gamers guild and I have no doubt that several others have some games they would like to play as well. The industry as a whole seems to be doing well depending on what part of it you look at. The impression I get is that games are selling well during the pandemic but that brick and mortar stores are suffering since people are avoiding in person contact and going online.

Location

This is the thing that is the problem. We have three options for a location as I see it: Woodland, Someone’s Home, and the Library.
The pavilion at Woodland can work but requires good weather and almost no wind, both things that can be hard to plan for weeks in advance so that makes it not ideal for a consistent meet-up.

Someone’s home could work but is also not ideal for a few reasons. The first reason is that it is quite an imposition on that person and their family and while many if not most are good-natured about that it still is something to consider. The second reason is that while some people have more tolerance for Covid-19 risk than others we don’t know if the risk will go up or down between now and the event and it could be very awkward for someone who feels uncomfortable with the increase in risk to try to cancel an event.

Lastly the Library. Previously this was a great place to hold our gamers guild meet ups and we hope to hold them there again some day.

Currently, we (mostly Shayen, bless her) stop by every few months to ask what the state of the library is. The trend has been less and less available. Basically, the meetup space has gone from socially distanced with a limited number, to completely closed, to the library itself requiring a reservation just to look at books. This is no shame on the library. They are under pressure to maintain safety and serve the public and are doing the best they can and to be honest even if they were to throw open their doors I don’t think it would be safe for us to hold a meet-up there.

The Elephant in the Room

So now we come to the depressing topic that everyone, including me, is a bit sick of Covid-19. No one wants to be sick or get others sick and no one really knows for sure how the risk will change in the future. Vaccines are getting out and from many accounts, Utah is doing a good job of distribution, my parents went in to get their first-round and found it a very well organized and well thought out affair. Right now the crystal ball says that things will be getting better on the order of months. My hope is that Fall or maybe even Summer will see things calm down to the point that the library will open its doors, people will feel comfortable, and we can all sit down to a few fun games some Tuesday evening.

A few fun finds

So after all of that depressing talk here are a few of my new favorite games that we will have to play next time we get together for the very few of you that have bothered to read this far.

Silver & Gold

This was a bit of an impulse buy from Target that has become one of our quick go to games. This is essentially a “flip and write” where you flip over a card with a “Tetris” polyomino shape on it and you cross off squares on your cards matching that shape. Yes, you use dry erase markers on the cards themselves. You get points for completing cards and crossing off coins and palm trees.
BGG Link: Silver & Gold

Mysterium Park

Did you like Mysterium but didn’t like the complexity? Mysterium Park is essentially Mysterium but distilled down to the base mechanic of a “ghost” trying to get people to guess which image is theirs using nothing but abstract art cards from their hand. I love that this is faster to set up, faster to play, and easier to explain to new players.
BGG Link: Mysterium Park

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

Didn’t think we would like this one at all. It is a trick-taking (think Hearts) cooperative game. First, it won the Kennerspiel des Jahres which is the connoisseur or expert game of the year from the German Essen Spiel convention. Then everyone started ranting about how great it was. Then I saw the low price point. Then my mother-in-law wanted to get me a birthday present and I thought “why not”. Yeah, like most I hate to be a part of the hype train but it really is that good. Shay and I played through all 50 levels of difficulty in a few weeks and will be going back for more. A game of little to no communication where you have to figure out why people are doing what they are doing so that you can get specific people to win specific tricks often in a specific order.
BGG Link: The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine