Our Next Night of Gaming for Good on Top of the World: Pi and Play!

It's happening! Seattle recently experienced Snowmaggedon, receiving unprecedented amounts of the fluffy stuff, but we’ve managed to burrow our way out and launch our next event! On March 14, 2019, dice will be thrown, cards shuffled and dealt, and maybe a meeple or two will be mishandled at our Night of Board Gaming for Good on Top of the World.

Coincidentally, it will also Pi Day! 🥧 How appropriately geeky.

Early bird tickets are available but you'll want to get them soon because they never last long. 

We’ve hit the blindingly busy ramp-up to the event where we’re working on so much behind the scenes: we’ll keep you posted on raffle prizes, sponsors, and who our mystery VIP guests will be in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

It's shaping up to be a fan-Tak-stic evening!

“My next several hours were spent learning how to play Tak. Even if I had not been nearly mad with idleness, I would have enjoyed it. Tak is the best sort of game: simple in its rules, complex in its strategy. Bredon beat me handily in all five games we played, but I am proud to say that he never beat me the same way twice.”

— Kvothe, The Wise Man’s Fear

Tak was first introduced in the second installment of The Kingkiller Chronicle, The Wise Man’s Fear, written by our guest of honor, Patrick Rothfuss, and later brought to life by designer James Ernest and published by Cheapass Games. It is a beautiful, elegant two-player abstract strategy game reminiscent of classics like Go and mancala. Cheapass Games has been a longtime friend and sponsor of our events and they have completely outdone themselves, sending us multiple copies of Tak to celebrate the occasion!

Not only will there be demos of Tak throughout the night, you have a chance to win copies of Tak University Edition in our raffle, and our VIPs also receive a copy of Tak the Tavern Set. VIPs sit at the table with our Guests of Honor, Pat Rothfuss himself and game designer Gaby Weidling, in addition to receiving a whole host of other VIP perks. 

Tak has been hailed as a lovely elegant abstract game but if you are also in the mood to, say, burn down some villages and wreak some havoc, Cheapass Games will have you covered. 

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Trogdor!! The Board Game

From the Brothers Chaps and James Ernest comes Trogdor!! the Board Game. For centuries, the legendary wingaling dragon Trogdor the Burninator has terrorized the peasant kingdom of Peasantry with his scorching flames and greased-up beefy arm. 

Now, he has descended from the mountains once again and will not stop until he burninates the entire countryside and all those unfortunate enough to get in his way!

Trogdor!! is a co-op puzzle, area control game where 2-6 players work together to help a beefy-armed dragon completely decimate a kingdom using unique powers and items all while avoiding knights and archers bent on stopping you. 

You and up to 5 friends -or maybe people you just paid to come over- take on the roles of a cult of hooded creepos calling themselves the Keepers of Trogdor who have devoted their lives to aiding the mighty dragon in his quest for total and complete burnination.

Take turns guiding Trogdor on his destructive lost weekend around Peasantry. Help him avoid pesky knights and archers, devour peasants, burninate the countryside, and, of course, the thatched roof COTTAGES!!

Iello. Is it (Vikings) meeples you're looking for?

We have a countdown on our official event page for our Night of Gaming for Good on Top of the World and to see the number of days go from double into single digits fills us with nervous excitement! 

We're over 80% sold out, so anyone who hasn't nabbed their tickets yet shouldn't delay. We're working hard to finalize it all and make it a most epic evening of gaming, including games from longtime sponsors Iello Games for you to play and win in our raffle. You can win faves like Bunny Kingdom and Decrypto, the code-breaking communication game that was a big hit at our last event, and their latest release, Raids, in which you get to play with Viking meeples!

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Prepare your Viking crew

Prepare your crew and steer your Longship to the best locations to discover the most treasure and earn the greatest glory.

In Raids, players sail from island to island to collect vikings and viking-related paraphernalia, using them to fight one another for good spaces and to fight monsters for points.

Another player may have his sights set on the same location as you. Don’t hesitate to order your Vikings aboard his ship to threaten him and try to make him flee. Only one of you can leave with the treasures you’ve discovered!

VIKING MEEPLES! In more detail, the game lasts four rounds, and at the start of each round tiles are laid out at the various locations on the path that all players must follow. On a turn, a player moves to either an empty spot on the path to claim one of the tiles located there or to an occupied spot. In the latter case, the attacking player must sacrifice a viking, then the defending player must sacrifice two vikings or vacate the space; if they sacrifice two vikings, then the attacker must remove three or leave. Eventually, someone must leave.

You can collect runes with an eye toward having lots of the same type or collect goods to sell at the end of the round. Alternatively, you might gather axes to give you better odds against monsters. You can also collect more vikings for your crew.

At the end of each round, players score majority bonuses depending on the tiles that were revealed before the round started. After four rounds, whoever has the most points wins!

Please Welcome Patrick Rothfuss and Gaby Weidling

We like to think of ourselves as calm professional adults here on the FTW Events team but when we confirmed this, we aren't ashamed to say we flipped our geeky little hearts out. Here are the incredible guests of honor that you'll meet at a Night of Gaming for Good on Top of the World!

Be sure to welcome legendary epic fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss and puzzlemaster game designer Gaby Weidling. They'll be dining with our VIPs in the private VIP dining rooms and then later playing games in the main rooms.

Word to the wise, we currently only have a handful of VIP tickets left! If you'd like to pick through the brains of Gaby and Pat and pick your entree choice from the exclusive VIP menu (and enjoy a whole host of other VIP perks), be sure to act fast and claim those last few tickets!

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Patrick Rothfuss

Patrick  is a magnificent wordsmith known for his epic fantasy series The Kingkiller Chronicle. His first novel, The Name of the Wind, won the Quill Award and was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Its sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear, debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestseller chart. It was in The Wise Man's Fear that the abstract strategy game Tak made its first appearance. Through a collaboration with designer James Ernest and Cheapass Games, a real version of Tak was developed and released to great acclaim. 

The first expansion of the upcoming Call to Adventure, from Brotherwise Games, will also be set in the world of The Name of the Wind.

Pat has also guest role-played in Acquisitions Inc., Penny Arcade's live Dungeons & Dragons games, in Geek and Sundry's show Critical Role, and had a guest appearance on Wil Wheaton's Tabletop. He lives in Wisconsin, where he brews mead, builds box forts with his children, and runs Worldbuilders, a book-centered charity that has raised more than seven million dollars for Heifer International.

 

Gaby "Gabberwocky" Weidling

Gaby is a game, puzzle, and experience designer who loves a gouda cheese pun. She got her start at Lone Shark Gamesworking on games like Apocrypha, the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow’s Walk, and puzzley nonsense like the Dragon Egg Hunt for BioWare, the Gen Con Puzzle Hunt, and The Maze of Games amongst other things. She also had a brief stint at Epic Team Adventures, an escape room company in Belltown. 

She still helps out at Lone Shark Games, most recently as the developer of the new edition of Puzzlecraft. Now Gaby’s working on getting her own company, Owl and Bumbershoot, off the ground. She is powered by cats, coffee, and cussin’.

A comic book story of your own making? Thank you, Lone Shark Games!

Two weeks until we play board games on the 76th floor of the Columbia Tower, all for a great cause! We have some incredible guests of honor lined up, be on the lookout for an official blurb on them (that's a funny word, "blurb") in our next post. Although some of you may have seen this teaser posted on our Facebook page regarding one of our guests, with kitty in a Tax box. 

Well, the cat's out of the bag (or should that be "out of the box")! A quick peek at our updated event page and you will see what we mean. ;)

Well, the cat's out of the bag (or should that be "out of the box")! A quick peek at our updated event page and you will see what we mean. ;)

The raffle prize list and our sponsors page are being updated daily because we are regularly receiving items they've sent us - it feels like Christmas when they arrive! Except these gifts are going to be going home with you! For now, rest assured that kitty is guarding them all, ensuring their safety.

Our friends at Lone Shark Games have out-done themselves with a generous donation of several copies of their newest games: Thornwatch and The Ninth World: A Skillbuilding Game for Numenera.

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Inside a comic book story
of your own making

Deep in the Eyrewood, dark creatures would spread their corruption to the people of the forest. Thankfully, the citizens are protected by the Thornwatch, stalwart spirits who come to help when a bramble knot is tied in a birch tree.

This gorgeous game immerses players into a comic book world, where monsters roam and the Ebb corrupts all. Through the game’s unique modular storytelling structure, players get the experience of an RPG in a board game.

A graphic novel adventure game that bridges the gap
between board games and RPGs
One player takes on the role of the Judge, a powerful guardian spirit that rules over a domain of the Eyrewood.  Each player has a deck of cards with which to seize the momentum and drive the corruption from the forest. These decks of cards give skills and actions, as do playmats and trait cards to show their unique outlook on the world, and custom dice hero dice to manifesting these traits. The game takes place on one of many maps that display forests, swamps, and villages of the Eyrewood.

The pawns lay flat, as if the heroes, enemies, and denizens of the forest are characters in a set of comic book panels. The core engine is the momentum system. 

This system tracks turn order and monster health, encourages teamwork, and creates dynamic combat with priorities that change turn-by-turn and round-by-round. Thornwatch is created by the designers at Penny Arcade and Lone Shark Games and is the first of three interlocking games in the Eyrewood Adventures line.

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A billion years into the future

The Ninth World: A Skillbuilding Game for Numenera is an epic game of exploration and skill, you’ll adventure and explore the
Ninth World in search of strange creatures and cryptic artifacts. Gameplay is an innovative blending of technology tree advancement, bidding, and deck building.

Based on the incredibly popular roleplaying game from Monte Cook Games, players take on the roles of clever Jacks, stalwart Glaives, and powerful Nanos to explore the mind-bending world of Numenera in competitive, cooperative, and solo games.

One part deckbuilder, one part Eurogame, and one part RPG, that can be played competitively, cooperatively, or solo.

In competitive mode, gameplay is simultaneous and every action is rewarded with victory points. Each round, characters simultaneously explore regions, choose how much time to spend performing actions with their five skills — scouting, tinkering with cyphers and oddities, charming allies, combating, and focusing on skill advancement — and then bid against the other heroes for the choicest cards. 

You can also adventure in the relative safety of town, or head out to the unpredictable wilderness. 

In co-op mode, you can work together to defeat the creatures and garner the relics, but there's a catch: the wilderness is trying to kill your town. It is the same in solo mode, except no one is there to help you.

You can see it all in action in this how to play video with two of the designers, Paul Peterson and Mike Selinker, both of whom will be in attendance at the event!

The Prize List: PAX 2018 Event Edition!

The following is an evolving list of the prizes we are giving away on August 31st! We'll be adding to this up until the event, so check back often to see what's new. We are literally receiving boxes from our sponsor donors every day! Be sure to check our sponsors page often, too, as sometimes, even though they've committed, we don't know what they're sending us (it's like Christmas when we get them)!

Also, we're more than excited to have a few new names joining us! We welcome them and can't wait to see what they send us. 

Don't have tickets yet? If you like games and helping kids to boot, you definitely don't want to miss this one!

Here's the Prize List!

Platinum Sponsors

Calliope Games
12 Days (x6)
Ancestree (x6)
Capital City (x6)
Dicey Peaks (x6)
Double Double Dominoes (x6)
Hive Mind (x6)
Menu Masters (x6)
Roll For It! Deluxe Edition (x6)
Roll For It! Purple (x6)
Roll For It! Red (x6)
Running With the Bulls (x6)
Shutterbug (x6)
Thieves! (x6)
Tsuro (x6)
Tsuro of the Seas (x6)
Ugh! (x6)
Wordoku (x6)

Cheapass Games
BRAWL: Bennett (x33)
BRAWL: Chris (x33)
BRAWL: Darwin (x34)
BRAWL: Hale (x34)
BRAWL: Morgan (x33)
BRAWL: Pearl (x33)
Button Men (x2)
Kill Doctor Lucky (x3)
The Island of Doctor Lucky (x3)
Tak Cloth Board (x30)
Tak Tavern Set (x30)
Tak University Set (x3)
Unexploded Cow (x2)
 

Gold Sponsors

Art's Ideas / Jenga Giant
Jenga Giant JS7 (x2)
Jenga Premium Hardwood Game (x4)
Jenga Ocean Game (x6)
Jenga Throw 'N Go Hardwood Game (x6)

Crafty Games
Mistborn: House War plus promo pack (x8)

Daily Magic Games
10 Minute Heist: Wizard's Tower
Crabs
Go Nuts for Donuts! (x6)
Merchants of Araby
Quests of Valeria (x12)
Villages of Valeria (x12)

Fantasy Flight Games & Asmodee
Crossfire
Game of Thrones Catan
Game of Thrones: The Trivia Game
The Labyrinths of Lunacy: Arkham Horror Card Game
Majesty for the Realm
Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition
Mysterium
Pandemic Legacy Season 2
Star Wars: Legion
Twilight Imperium 4th Edition

Iello
Bunny Kingdom (x2)
Decrypto (x3)
King of Tokyo (x3)
Mountains of Madness
Nesoos (x2)
Raids (x4)

Japanime Games
Heart of Crown (x6)
Tanto Cuore (x6)

Lone Shark Games
Apocrypha (x4)
Maze of Games / Theseus Guide (x8)
The Ninth World (x3)
Thornwatch (x3)

WizKids/NECA (Courtesy of Mike Elliott)
DC Dice Masters: Batman Factory Set
DC Dice Masters: Justice League Factory Set
DC Dice Masters: War of Light Factory Set
Marvel Dice Masters: Civil War Factory Set
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Dice Masters

Silver Sponsors

Grey Fox Games
7 Ronin (x2)
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong + Undercover Allies (x2)
Multiversium (x2)
Order of the Gilded Compass (x2)
SUPERHOT: The Card Game (x2)

North Star Games
Evolution (x6)

Slugfest Games
Red Dragon Inn: The Battle for Greyport (x2)
Red Dragon Inn 6: Villains (x2)
Red Dragon Inn 7: The Tavern Crew (x2)

Steve Jackson Games
Castellan
Conspiracy Theory
Dungeon Fantasy Box Set
Mars Attacks Dice Game
Munchkin Apocalypse Edition
Munchkin Guest Artist Edition (x3)
Munchkin Loot Letter (x9)
Munchkin Messenger Bag
Munchkin Sketch Edition
Ogre 6th Edition

Stronghold Games
Animals On Board
Bear Valley
Crazy Creatures of Dr. Gloom (x2)
Five Cucumbers
Get the Cheese
Little Devils (x2)
Pit Crew
Stellar Conflict

USAOpoly
Clue: Game of Thrones
Deadpool vs. the World
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle
Marvel Codenames
Privacy
Telestrations

Wyrmwood
Dice Tray

Bronze Sponsors

AEG
Thunderstone Quest

Brotherwise Games
Boss Monster + Tools of Hero Kind + Implements of Destruction (x2)
Unearth

Fireside Games
Dead Panic
Remnants
The Village Crone

Gamelyn
Tiny Epic Western

Indie Boards & Cards
Aeon's End: War Eternal
Coup / The Resistance (x2)
Flash Point: Fire Rescue

Thing 12 Games
Click Click Boom (x2)
Dice of Crowns (x2)

Top Shelf Fun
Blue Meepillow
Green Meepillow
Orange Meepillow
Red Meepillow
Game Haul Bag