Covid-19 Update: We are Canceling
Well, I suspect anyone interested in attending Hattanooga in May very likely saw this coming. I should begin by apologizing for the radio silence as of late. Some of you may know that I run the Night Merchandising floor at our local Costco and providing supplies to people has been challenging the last while; we have been working a lot. The above photo is an adequate summary of how things have been going lately, and I don’t see much improving in the immediate future.
So, while I’m sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, we have made the decision (been mandated, really) to shut down Hattanooga for this year. With the US/Canada border being closed to travelers this weekend and the ensuing pandalerium this thing has caused/is going to keep causing, there is no other responsible course of action. Disappointing, certainly. But there are silver linings buried in this somewhere and I intend to find and focus on them. My little family is doing it’s best to take this in stride, as are the other organizers and friends of the con. I hope you will too.
We will be processing refunds over the next week and making every effort to ensure we keep everyone informed about what we plan to do bigger and better next year. For the time being, stay healthy, diligently utilize what you already have at hand and take this thing a day at a time. I plan to connect with old friends, catch up on some projects and spend a bunch of time with my kids reading, laughing and playing hide and seek. (I tried to hide in the dryer last time and got stuck, but this time it’s going to work for sure!)
Stay well everyone.
The Cult Of The New vs The Cult of the Old

One thing that always astounds me is the capacity for people to innovate. The other day I watched an add for revolutionized eye glasses. They are weighted in the back to keep them from falling off of your face when you tilt your head or do something active. (I hear people do things that are active, but this information is secondhand.) I was blown away that someone had made good improvements to something as commonplace and established in it’s design as eyeglasses. I am waiting for the day when I wake up to find that the drinking glass has been turned on it’s head and for the improvements to seem so obvious once I am exposed to them. “What the hell were we doing all that time, drinking like cavemen. Why didn’t someone think of this before now!” we would all exclaim before consuming our favorite beverage in the way of the future….. Moon straws or whatever.
In 18xx terms, I have always been rather preoccupied with the innovation that is lost, forgotten or abandoned. This has put me somewhere in the periphery of the periphery, 18xx is not what I would consider ‘the mainstream’ when it comes to gaming in general. Oh, we are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were even 5 years ago in terms of circulation and availability and I daresay the ‘community’ of people has grown to a decent size, but lets not kid ourselves. We are still a niche within a niche. My particular proclivities do rear their head in my tastes and interests and so it would make sense that it would bleed into the format, structure and content of the Convention I helped to produce.
In years past, we have struggled somewhat with ‘identity’, as it were, but I felt that last year, we came into our own. I have come to decide that the place we fill in the hobby is a forum for players to come and explore those lost ideas. I hold fast to the notion that somewhere in one of these games is the mechanism or idea that inspires the next generation of innovators to push past what has been held as conventional wisdom. (This may explain my fondness and admiration for 31) Somewhere, buried in one of these games forgotten by time and gamer’s alike, will be an idea that breeds the new ‘family’. These are the hallmark games, the milestones that push the hobby in new and interesting directions. 1873 did this and spurred a family of games. (Good on Wolfram for picking up on this because 18Ruhr is super duper and DO has come a long way.) 1822 did this, Simon may not have understood what he was doing to the hobby at the time, but you can’t attend an event without seeing a table with men pushing cubes around auction tracks.
This year, just as in previous years, we will have 2 feature game. One is new and one is old. The new feature game this year is 1840 by Lonny Orgler (More on that in the coming weeks) but this year may be the first year where we have more than one old game to feature. The reason for this is that we will have in attendance a player with the same sort of special disease that I have, a curiosity for old, forgotten curiosities. (Again, this is a teaser, pay attention in the coming weeks.)
In 2017, we played whatever and got our feet wet with planning a con and executing the thing. In 2018, I decided then that on the Sunday of the con, I would be selfish and play something I had always wanted to, and we did. Kimmo, Kurt and I sat down to tackle 1827. (There are previous blog posts about that, so I won’t relive it here.) Last year, we decided upon 1899KP. This is a game set on the Korean Peninsula and has the distinction of having the most racist rule book I have read to any game, ever.
The volume of work and the people involved in these projects can not be understated. Translating rules, overhauling graphics, communications with designers and people, all so that we could table and fight with some antiquated design that never saw the light of day. Why? Why do all this? Well, because I’ve decided it’s important mostly, but also to discover. To discover what could have been, what we could do within this new framework we think we are familiar with and to discover the thing that improves the eyeglasses. I am chasing that lost idea that turns our notions of 18xx on it’s head, so we all can say ‘Why haven’t we been doing this all along?” Romantic, maybe. Productive, probably not, but the process has put me in touch with some of the most generous, patient and interesting people I have had the privileged of coming across, and while it’s maybe not the intended goal, it’s not nothing.
The volume of work and the people involved in these projects can not be understated. Translating rules, overhauling graphics, communications with designers and people, all so that we could table and fight with some antiquated design that never saw the light of day. Why? Why do all this? Well, because I’ve decided it’s important mostly, but also to discover. To discover what could have been, what we could do within this new framework we think we are familiar with and to discover the thing that improves the eyeglasses. I am chasing that lost idea that turns our notions of 18xx on it’s head, so we all can say ‘Why haven’t we been doing this all along?” Romantic, maybe. Productive, probably not, but the process has put me in touch with some of the most generous, patient and interesting people I have had the privileged of coming across, and while it’s maybe not the intended goal, it’s not nothing.
So in closing, if you’re wondering what makes Hattanooga special, it’s a few things. The people are tremendous, as is the pulled pork. But if I had to pick one thing that makes this con different, it would be the feeling of discovery I share with the people who take opportunity to sit with me and play something together for the first time, maybe ever. I have a short list of selfish ideas for this con’s Sunday, but more on that in another post…. I started this blog with a picture some of you might be curious about and I want you to hold onto that feeling. Bring it with you to Alberta in May, I’ll help you to see what that can turn into. 😉
The Life and Times of Marc Voyer (or the impact of socks on 18xx)

The Life and Times of Marc Voyer (or the impact of socks on 18xx)
I met Marc what seems like ages ago now and what follows is a piece written by him outlining his experiences as it relates to discovery of 18xx in the cardboard medium. Something funny I learned about Marc a while back was that for a very long time he was under the mistaken impression that 18xx existed only in the form of the 1830 computer game. Then he was invited to Fallcon….., but I will let Marc tell the story. What follows is a multi-part escapade through Marc and I meeting and some of the influences we have had on each other over the years. Also, this provides some pretty great insight into the design process of what is now 1882. (which is a bloody fantastic 18xx in the Winsome vein for those that haven’t played it) I have very little interest in design, I have too many other games to try to play and even more I don’t feel familiar enough with yet to move on… Anywho, I’ll let Marc take over from here.
“Browsing BGG at some point in 2015, I was shocked when discovering a specific thread. It was a call for players to join an 1830 tournament at a local convention. Boardgaming popularity was on the rise, however 18xx was almost unknown in Calgary. There was no mulling it over, I instantly purchased a ticket. As an introvert, I am not a fan of large conventions, but this was an exception. That’s where I met Tyler, a grand-master 18xx archivist, and architect of Hattanooga. We played a range of 18xx and a few splotters. I remember being introduced to one of Tyler’s favorite games, Roads and Boats. That was quite deranged with 4 people. From the outside, it probably looked like we were playing twister with our arms and hands.
We also playtested one of my first “boxes of socks” with several others during Fallcon. Designs are like a ‘box of socks’, if socks were ideas. Have you ever bought a pair of socks, and after a period of time they mix with other socks? Eventually you may end up with some mismatched pairs. What about socks with holes? Achieving an organized, functional drawer of socks is a constant battle. Sorting out a box of ideas, throwing out the ones that don’t work, and putting the right ideas in the right place is quite similar. I had this shiny new “box of socks” that also had “bells & whistles”, a horrid mess of a rule set, and was otherwise broken. It went public far too soon. Being new at this, in my naivety I assumed it would be a breeze. Boy was I wrong. On a positive note, the play testers agreed there was some interesting bits worth investigating. Fast forward to 2016. For design work, I accomplished very little. I had made some changes to my design early in the year and tested it, but I moved onto other things. Our local groups played quite a few non-18xx games. We did manage to play 1817 several times, including several games of it at Fallcon. In one particularly interesting game of ’17, I was experimenting with how many loans and companies could be started in an attempt to dig my way out of a hole. Companies were sprawled across two tables. We were briefly captured by a cameraman, and aired on a nationally televised news broadcast. It may be the only nationally televised game of 1817 in existence! Surrounded by smiles and laughter, it was one of the most enjoyable games I have ever gone bankrupt in. I have a video clip of it saved somewhere…
Guests wandered the convention, some asking what we were playing. One comment was “It appears to be a cross between Poker and Monopoly”. In early 2017, I returned to designing. I dived back into that first box. I took a pair of scissors to the socks and turned them into hand warmers, bean bags, chia pets, dog chew toys…. and something unusual was born. More on that later. That reminds me… something else was born in 2017, Hattanooga! It’s hard to believe its only the 4th year. I have met so many wonderful people there, I can’t wait for May long weekend. Stay tuned for more…”