Hello everyone!

On Saturday, I went and joined The Analog Club for a Hallowe’en-timed horror-themed(ish) event!

I found out about the club when I was checking out the Port Credit Legion for an event I was thinking of putting together. They told me that there was a game club that ran events there already, and put me in touch with their president, Matt Mason. He told me that the theme of the club is “digital decompression”, and many of the members are veterans, even though their events are open to anyone. Their purpose is twofold: first, it is a place for veterans to share and deal with shared experiences and find support, and secondly, a place for people to have face-to-face interactions without the distraction of social media and all the digital stresses we have on our lives already.

Because of this separation of the digital, I was not able to take any pictures of the event, but I will tell you all about it! From the moment I arrived, Matt himself was friendly and welcoming. He introduced me to a couple of the people who were already there, and I waited around while things got set up and more people began to arrive. My plan was to join the AC circuit of the tournament, playing Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, 7 Wonders, King of Tokyo, and Dominion. I had played all of these except for Ticket to Ride, so I read the rules online (and refreshed my memory for Carcassonne, which I have not played for a few years) the previous night. Unfortunately, a few people who had said they were going to attend found out that they could not. There were some people there playing Twilight Imperium, a few playing Axis & Allies 1914, and then a few showed up to do the DC Circuit, so I joined them. We decided to play Puerto Rico, which none of us had played before. It was a bit complex to figure out for our first time, but once we got the hang of it, it was a lot of fun!

That took us a while, but when we finished (and I had finished thoroughly last in victory points), we played Carcassonne. Here was my chance to earn some more victory points and get back to the top of the list (the tournament consisted of an aggregate VP score across all the games). But I finished last in that too.

Next was a horror-themed trivia quiz! Maybe this was a chance to redeem myself… and redeem myself I did! I answered 18 out of the 30 questions correctly for first place! The second place finish scored 10 out of 30. Some of the questions were quite specific, but if you know your horror, you had a pretty good shot at it. My prize was a brand new copy of Arkham Horror! Sweet!

I was there from 12:30 – 9pm and I had a great time! The Legion hall was great.  While we were there in our room, there was a wedding and a hallowe’en party going on in other rooms.

I need to thank Matt for inviting me and making me feel welcome. Also, a shout out to Chris, Rahul, Abe, and Max who also welcomed me into their group and made me feel comfortable with a bunch of people I’d never met before. They are all invited to join any of our events, and I will certainly be attending the Analog Club’s next event which will be in December (theme to be announced).