First-look at 'complex' new board game, with champion to be crowned
In an upstairs room, unbeknown to many, Wellington spent the weekend poised on the vanguard of dice-rolling. The capital was briefly the avant-garde in card shuffling, a world leader of meeple.
And somewhere in there, a new world champion waited.
An estimated 1700 people made their way past the better known Jurassic World Lego exhibition at the newly-opened Tākina exhibition and conference centre, and up a long escalator to Wellycon – Mecca for those who like board games, and somewhere short of that for those who don’t.
The turnout at the two-day Wellycon board game convention is testament to the rise and rise of board games which, in recent years, have seemingly surged in popularity. The event started 16 years ago with just a few participants. Last year, at the Indian Cultural Centre, about 1200 attended.
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And, late on Sunday afternoon, virtually every table was full. A quiet hubbub filled the multiple rooms.
Dozens of games were demonstrated, with 200 play-to-win titles on offer. But the big drawcard for the day was a game, never played publicly before, out of the box and able to be played alongside the actual people who tested it to guide players through.
The Great Western Trail New Zealand is the final part of the popular trilogy of Great Western Trail board games devised by Austrian Alexander Pfister.
Graeme Edgeler was one of those testers, roped in by Pfister to help with local knowledge and to test the game out ahead of release. He
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