Daryl chats with William Attia at GOF...

Daryl Andrews & William Attia (Gathering of Friends 2013)

Where do I start?! I have spent the last 4 days at the Gathering of Friends and it has been beyond amazing. I confess I am not even sorry for not posting much about it, because I have been busy enjoying it too much. So many highlights to share. Where do I start?!

Today, I played a prototype copy of Spyrium designed by William Attia (maker of the great game Caylus - basically the best classic heavy euro game of all time). You can see a picture of us above. First off, the game is amazing! It does everything I love in games. Its deep, with tough decisions and never enough turns to make them all. Every turn is fun, and even in your downtime you are engaged and care what other players are doing. 

Jay Cormier teaching us (Ian, Debbie, Jeff, & I) Spyrium 

However, this was not the highlight of my interaction with William. Later I found out that he is also keeping an eye out for games for Ystari publishing AND he wanted to see my game Londonderry that I co-designed with Stephen Sauer. WHAT?! We played the game and it was tons of fun. Thanks to Gord Hamilton & Ian Mackey for joining us. William expressed Londonderry is not necessarily his taste in games, but offered great feedback and encouragement. My bias but favourite comment after he found out I liked the game "Rialto" by Stefan Feld, "well I can tell why you like that game because this game reminds me of it very much, but I like your game more." 

After I came back down from cloud 9, William spent a significant amount of time sharing his story, talking about his progress as a board game designer. It was so amazing to hear a candid and personal story from such an accomplished designer about his journey. From a simple beginning of organizing a Puerto Rico tournament in game store in Paris, meeting the shop owner that hosted the tournament, becoming friends, helping him develop a game called Ys, which lead to his friend starting Ystari board game company, to initially starting to design Caylus in January 2005 and having it out in print by October 2005. And still today most would say its the greatest worker placement game ever designed.

I doubt Londonderry will get published by Ystari, but after such an amazing experience meeting William, and hearing about all the care and development Ystari puts into their games, I must confess I really hope some day I have the honour and privilege to work with them in the future. They sounds like a great company that cares about games and wants to work to make the best products possible for their customers. And you can tell when you play Spyrium, it is amazing. I plan to buy that game. And every person I have at GoF who has tried the game, is planning to buy the game too. Its that good!      

I want it, I want it, I want it!

I've mentioned before how much I love Ystari games. I find Yspahan and Mykerinos delightful and Metropolys one of the most original auction games around. And I can't even tell you how great Caylus is....

Well, it looks like they are releasing a big expansion, called the Ystari Box, with new bits for six of their games. I am particularly excited about getting my hands on the Nile expansion for Mykerinos, which was only previously available at conventions. Adding a river and another character to that game will be fantastic.

Current favourite publisher...

Would definitely have to be Ystari Games based in France. I own 4 of their recent releases and am eager to collect more. Their games are clean, elegant, aesthetically pleasing, and loaded with depth (and each one features a 'y' and 's' in the title!) Check out...



This the original worker placement game and probably still the best. With absolutely zero luck and a dizzying wealth of options and strategies, Caylus is the ultimate heavyweight eurogame. The only reason we don't play this game more is because the four hours of brain-burning ends up being quite exhausting. A must-own for anyone who loves a good strategy game...






Metropolys, which just came out last year, probably has the most original auction of any game of the past 10 years. It's surprisingly simple and yet loaded with subtlety and vicious player interaction. Although the board is kind of drab, the game itself is a ton of fun and plays in just under an hour. Brilliant.






This is probably my favourite game of theirs. A game of archaelogy (sort of...), Mykerinos lets you capture point scoring tiles and then display them for points in the museum. The five special character powers aren't complicated but add just enough depth to make every decision an agonizing one. In the end, this game is really just an area-majority game, but it's done so originally it feels like something totally new. AND it plays in 45 minutes!


The latest addition from Ystari to enter my collection is Yspahan. Yet another game that is quite hard to describe, this delightful game plays in just under an hour and yet offers an enormous amount of choices and many paths to victory. It also features one of the most creative use of dice to decide one's actions in any game of recent memory. Yet another winner and a beautiful looking game for which I look forward to many more plays.


What to play next? Well, I've heard great things about Ys, their secret bidding game that has been out for a few years, but the one I'm really excited about is their release for this year, Bombay (also their first one without the 'y' and 's' in the title...) Check out the hella cute elephant pieces!