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With Magic's popularity and tournament attendance being higher than ever, there's a lot of downtime at events these days. Some people spend their time between rounds reading or playing handheld games. Some snack aggressively (somewhat guilty). Some even just play more Magic.
More recently I've noticed players playing other games that don't have large time commitments. About a year ago Matthias Hunt was rallying players at a PTQ to play a bluffing game called Coup, and I've seen a number of tweets from him lately about a game called Hanabi. I haven't played Hanabi yet myself, but a quick Google search tells me that it involves fireworks, so it's probably pretty sweet.
A lot of larger events in Minnesota take place at the Fantasy Flight Game Center, which gives players access not only to a lot of board games that the store has on hand for their board game nights, but also the games that Fantasy Flight produces themselves.
My favorite quick game to play between rounds is called Love Letter. Love letter is another bluffing game that is very inexpensive and that plays very quickly. It also has a rule that they player who most recently went on a date gets to play first in the first round, which can open up some comical discussions.
Other players even spend their time refining games of their own design, which is a great way to elicit opinions from outsiders on how your development is going.
What's your favorite way to spend your downtime at events?
I’m from the EU, and I love board games. Sometimes I do demonstrations for some companies on different events (= getting paid to play board games all day!).
Love Letter is a great game. Initially, it was released on Spiel in Essen as a promo for a few other board games. All games are part of a flavor story in some kind of city, so you’ll see the characters on these cards also in the other games. They are also against expansions, so if you buy a game, you get the whole game.
(I talked with some of the developers in Essen).
Love letter was so popular in Essen they started to sell the game for 3€ (I bought one).
Now the game is more expensive, but you get the rose tokens too of course. My version has only the cards.
It’s my hipster moment in board games. Every time I explain the game, I convince someone to buy it too. So it’s really a great game for many people.
Others on our list:
King of Tokyo (check who made that game!!)
Interesting back story. Thanks for commenting!
King of Tokyo is definitely a sweet one. It’s been taking off in Minnesota lately. They even carry it at Target now.
Star Realms
A cigarette. Possibly a “one hit quit” if time permits. Sociol interaction makes opponents comfortable, i play to win. Well, at least im honest, and will smile genuinely as you are underhoofed by siege rhinos. Oh, but of course i can not forget that death grip hand shake and “good game bro”.