As promised, here is the Q&A session I recorded with Michael Schacht at Orccon 2009. We sat down and let the audience ask Michael questions about his history in games, his ludography, hits and misses, and some of his process. I hope you enjoy his interesting commentary.

Be sure to listen for the way to send in an entry for our exclusive Michael Schacht contest. You can win one of the following:

1. A copy of the Strategicon exclusive Zooloretto expansion, "King K."
2. A signed copy of the Spielbox Zooloretto expansion.

Send in your entries today. We'll take them until March 21th (something I conveniently forgot to mention during the recording...) and then pick a winner.

Thanks again for downloading and listening to Boardgame Babylon.

Orccon 2009 is at a close and I missed a chance to do much blogging on Sunday due to a heavy demo schedule. I showed Hogwarts House Cup Challenge, Heads of State, Middle Kingdom (x2), Supernova, Municipium, Draco Mundis, The Club, and Roll Through The Ages. Luckily, Devi Hughes was nice enough to demo Titan for me. This left me no time for gaming and less time for blogging.

However, I'm editing the Michael Schacht Q&A for posting shortly and should be giving away a copy of the exclusive Strategicon Zooloretto expansion (entitled "King K.") to one lucky listener. Watch for the show later this week. I have material for at least one additional show, if not two (plus one show I recorded last week but didn't get a chance to edit).

The convention was a lot of fun, very crowded and I got a very warm reception to all games I showed. I guess it was all the advertising I did but all but one demo went off and they were nearly all packed to the point of turning people away. I did a few extras to get in some of the folks who really wanted to learn the games (notably: Municipium, Hogwarts House Cup Challenge and Roll Through The Ages). I'm exhausted for the work week now but at least I had dozens of folks that appreciated the chance to learn games instead of reading the rules themselves and it was fun to see so many of them come back with the games they had just learned in hand, having purchased it in the dealer room. That's a nice feeling - knowing I helped introduce them to something they will enjoy.

Thanks for downloading and - in this case - reading Boardgame Babylon.

It's getting late here on Saturday night at Orccon. I'm heading home tomorrow afternoon but before then, I'm getting some games in tonight and some demos tomorrow morning. This evening, I had another shot at Diamonds Club – a Rudiger Dorn tactical shopping game that I thought was just-okay at BGG.con. I'm not sure I've changed my opinion but I liked it a bit more the second go-round with everyone knowing the rules. We had to abort the game due to some tournaments, including my participation in a Der Elefant im Porzellanladen event. Okay, okay – it's Bull in the China Shop in the U.S. but I truly hate that version (a note I shared with M.S.) because the original German version was so lovely. I was horribly targeted because I'd played the game a few times and it gave my friend Paul (who was quiet about his one play of it at Essen a few years back) a chance to sneak in and win on the strength of one huge 40 point scoring round.

After this, I bolted over for Michael Schacht's other major new release, The Golden City. This one is a building game with various bonuses available from building from the ports on four sides of an island (each with different kinds of territory) through the fields and into the city for big bonuses. There are scoring opportunities every turn depending on where you place your shops and also which goods you have acquired. Players build by acquiring territory cards and if someone takes the pair you like, you can pay to grab it instead (and back and forth). Nice game and one that plays in about forty-five minutes.

I'm happy to say it is sunny and gorgeous here today. I promised Michael the 'sun-kissed hills' described in his game California and today, despite forecasts of storms, we get to make good on that. Not that we got out of the hotel at all…

The day started with some good demos. Supernova was enjoyed by some folks, even though the game didn't end up working particularly for me. Then the Roll Through The Ages madness! I demonstrated the game three times in a row because there were so many people lined up to play it. The excitement over the game was palpable – nearly every person said they wanted to buy it (notably – one very slow game was played where all four players kept the game going slowly by focusing solely on infrastructure – had two naysayers). I also managed to get in a Ticket to Ride Dice Game expansion demo for five that left two very excited players that thought the Dice expansion improved the game. Although I cannot agree with that assessment, I do like the Dice expansion quite a bit – particularly with boards we play less frequently (like Switzerland and Europe).

The Michael Schacht Q&A session was enjoyable. We had plenty of good questions and once I give the recording a polish, it will be up. I'm also doing a follow-up with Michael as well but as we finished up, we encountered the squad from MyNerdGirl.com. Apparently this is a social networking-style site and I'm hoping to post our brief conversation with their two representatives along with a second podcast with some additional questions I had for Michael that didn't get into the Q&A – hopefully including a preview of Zooloretto Exotic, Valdora and The Golden City.

The most amazing part of the day – the raucous response to Antoine Bauza's Hurry'Cup. We had a full complement of six for this party-style race game and a great time was had by all. This is a race game from Asmodee that has a personal speed element (i.e., you grab pawns to find out how quickly you will move). One player actually left the table mid-game to run to the dealer room to buy it because he'd noticed that there were not a lot of them available. I think I got a few action shots from the insane diving for the good pawn each. We had a nice crowd, too, and lots of interest for another demo tomorrow.

Right now, I'm running a demo of Andrew Parks' Hogwarts House Cup Challenge for a bunch of Harry Potter-mad folks. There are quite a few people here and I think a second game will be starting just after this one. This was meant to be my last demo of the day but if the players are there, I guess I'm teaching it again. The game is a family adventure game where you wander the grounds of Hogwarts in search of points for the Gryffindor house. Your encounters add to the glory of Gryffindor but also that of your own character – so although the House wins, there is an individual winner, too.

Got a chance at my first new Michael Schacht game of the convention tonight. We'd made an appointment to play Valdora at 8:30 and were joined by another convention attendees. Valdora ("Golden Valley" or something like that in German) is an enjoyable pick-up-and-deliver style game with gorgeous components and a clever selection mechanic that is like turning the pages of a book to find the item you are seeking. I'll talk more about it in a podcast but I enjoyed Valdora and not just because I beat M.S. at his own game. ;)

I also taught Roll Through The Ages to a few groups of enthusiastic folks – Matt Leacock's (of Pandemic fame) latest has a lot of fans here and I just hope the retailers in the dealer room listened and brought enough to sell. All four people at the last game were swearing they would get one tomorrow morning (Saturday, when the dealer room opens). I also showed Ghost Stories with great success – although the players did not win. For me, Ghost Stories remains just as much fun when you lose as when you win. The nice thing is that it is easy to vary the difficulty with some tweaks like giving the players more life tokens or playing with the haunted space numbers a bit.

Tomorrow, we show off Valley Games' Supernova and Titan, FRED's Gem Dealer and Roll Through The Ages, NECA/Quixotic's Hogwarts House Challenge, Z-Man's Middle Kingdom and Heads of State, and many more. But I'm really looking forward to the Q&A session with Michael Schacht. There isn't much time to send in questions but if you do, I'll try to get them in. I'll probably do a follow-up show with him as well to ask all my questions that do not get in during the Q&A so even if you send them after 1 PM PST today, I might have time to ask him.

If I can get the darn pictures off my camera or Blackjack, I'll upload some soon.

Playtesting will be a top draw this weekend. Not only do I expect to play in many of Michael Schacht's playtesting events but I've just run into jim pinto (yes, he's like k.d. lang) from Alderac Entertainment. He the man in charge of their board gaming department and he has some interesting new titles that he's offered to show me. At least one seems to be up my alley so I'm looking forward to giving them a look later this evening.

I've just finished teaching Municipium (myu-nih-KIP-ee-um – unless you like church Latin) to some excited players. We had about four additional folks listening in and I think the next demo will likely fill again. I'm fond of this middle-weight Knizia (okay, maybe light-middle) and the art has really grown on me.

Orccon 2009 is here (or at least I'm here)! Michael Schacht has arrived and I've had a few moments to speak with him. He's a charming, pleasant fellow and we're looking forward to spending the weekend playing his new games and revisiting many older ones. He has a nice stack of the Zooloretto Strategicon Exclusive that the convention will be handing out to those who attend Schacht events (including our Q&A session Saturday at 1 PM).

In fact – if you have any questions for us to ask Michael Schacht in the Q&A session tomorrow, drop me an e-mail at sheylon AT gmail DOT com (or click the Connect link to the left) and I'll try to get your question in. Send them in soon!

Tonight, I'm doing demonstrations of Valley Games' Municipium, FRED Distribution's Roll Through The Ages, and Asmodee's Ghost Stories.