Over the weekend I went to a local bard game swap down in Renton to try and cull some games from my collection. I think I brought a total of around 30 items to try and sell. So for these items that left my collection, I'll give a quick blurb about them.

Presale

These were items that sold via the BGFlea forum, typically from other sellers who were looking to reserve items.

Trail Story: America

I remember getting Trail Story: America because it looked like a lighter adventure-like game. It's meant to mimic wandering through the wilderness of America in the 1930s. So it's kind of like a survival style game with random events and encounters. I thought it was just okay, not really something to pay solo though, and I didn't feel all that strongly about it. I think with recent additions to the collection, I have way more compelling options for adventure and open world games.

Bebop

I've written my impressions of Bebop before, so yeah, not something I need to keep if I'm trying to free up space from the library.

Black Forest

Black Forest I was interested in because of the compliments of Uwe Rosenberg's resource wheels. Having tried it solo, I thought it was interesting, and the novelty of moving around the board of locations for actions was nifty. But overall, I was captivated by it and I got the feeling that it wouldn't have got any interest from the people I play with either.

On the Underground

This one I was a little sad to see go, but hopefully they'll get played by the new owners. On the Underground: London / Berlin and On the Underground: Paris / New York are games where you're building out metro lines for a passenger who will move about and navigate the fastest route across the city map. I originally got it for the striking cover art and how Tom Vasel gave high praise for this game. For the longest time I didn't get around to playing it because there wasn't solo for it. Ironically, I backed the Paris / New York crowdfunding campaign because they introduced solo modes for both and it left my collection before I got a chance to try it.

Kyoto No Neko

I mentioned in my post that I was willing to let Kyoto No Neko go and I'm happy someone picked it up.

Rune Stones

A bit of a blast from the past, Rune Stones was one of my early acquisitions when I was building out my library. It's a deck builder with a twist that you're always losing one card when playing cards. So you have to choose wisely what to play. I was hoping the theme would interest my husband, but he didn't get to try this one out. I managed to get one of the expansions for it and was waffling on getting the second one since they're kind of hard to find.

On site

These were the games that got sold during the event.

Dorfromantik: The Duel

So I really enjoyed playing Dorfromantik, both the board game and the video game. I played through the entirety of the board game as a solo campaign. I picked up the Sakura version because I figured the theme would appeal to my husband and its a new experience. It's also why I picked up The Duel version, I thought it would be interesting to try a more competitive version since all the other ones are cooperative. Unfortunately, never got to play it.

Circadians - Chaos Order

I feel like this one would have been impossible to bring to the table. Circadians: Chaos Order is the sequel to Circadians: First Light, but a completely different game from the first. Chaos Order is asymmetric area control whereas First Light is worker placement with dice. I originally backed the First Light reprint campaign for that and figured why not get Chaos Order with it since that was new. But I feel like the complexity of Chaos Order would have gotten in the way of teaching my group, and without any solo mode for it basically hindered any means for it to get played.

Glory: 2nd Edition

Another lightweight adventure game that I never played, Glory: 2nd Edition thankfully got picked up by someone who was trying to get his group more and more into TTRPGs. I think I was initially drawn in by the art and that it would be an easier game to play I thought it would be something that might interest people. But I guess I wasn't really impressed by it and it faded from my mind.

Sushi Roll

I really do like Sushi Roll and actually prefer it over the card game, dice are just fun to play and it works with the drafting mechanism. The biggest issue is that the theme might not resonate with all, particularly my husband, and for the size of the box for the lighter play experience I felt like it was okay to let it go.

Deep Dive

Originally I was backing the campaign for Point City, since I liked Point Salad and was interested in the follow up game for that. Deep Dive was the game they were releasing together with it so I felt since its cheap why not get a small box push your luck game. Never got around to playing it, my impression was that it was too light anyways for me and my group.

Flowers

Mandala sets quite a high bar for 2-player focused games. So I was surprised to see there was a multiplayer version of a Mandala game called Flowers, I picked it up but didn't get to play it.

Freelancers

The Crossroads series of games are on my watch list ever since I played Forgotten Waters, which I did bring to try and sell. Freelancers is the fantasy-based version of the same system, but I just didn't get around to playing this one. Apparently there's now a space themed version called Wandering Galaxy, that one I might try for since I would like the theme more.

Final thoughts

I definitely got lucky that it stayed overcast throughout the event. Though I was feeling a little more cold from how I was dressed, at least it was relatively comfortable throughout. I think in the future I ought to have a canopy like other places had. I brought an umbrella in the event I needed shade but thankfully didn't need to use it. It was smart to have brought the chair to sit in through, I would have been miserable if I didn't have that. That and the cart to wheel boxes around.

Price was definitely a factor. I think I should have had post it note or something to put price labels on to the items. I remember I went back and forth last night with the price. I ended up lowering everything down by like $5 and even further sometimes because the key thing is people are looking for a deal here. Often people would ask for just $5 off and I was more than willing to drop down. Especially when there's already so many stalls and items up for offer, I'd rather just seal the deal because there's a high likelihood they won't come back.

But one thing I noticed is people were quite discerning for games. I was trying to sell the deluxe version of Steam Up, and I felt like it was appropriately priced compared to the standard game. However, even though multiple people took interest in it, I think the price put them off from it. People would browse and just look stuff up themselves to make a judgement on a game rather than ask. It kind of makes sense that people are going with intent for what they're looking to buy rather than trying to make a discovery. The other thing that I was surprised was trading, I had one offer for trades for my "big ticket" item, but unfortunately because my library is already pretty vast the games they offered that I would have any interest in I already owned.

Setup wasn't as bad, finding a place to be set up was a little hard. I felt bad that people had to setup tables in the trees and dirt just because there really wasn't enough room. The difficult part was loading back up, I saw quite a lot of people packing up early since the auction was happening and it was the last event. I decided it wouldn't hurt to leave early too so I needed to do two treks to the other parking area. That was such a hassle to do on my own, with the cart overflowing with games and the worst was the heavy table, especially when my arms were still sore from workout that week.

While I did get to rely on the other vendors adjacent to me for bathroom breaks and quick browsing, I didn't feel the need to leave all that much since I felt like I needed to have a presence at the booth. I think there were a couple of games that caught my eye the rare time I got to roam, but nothing that was a must have. Also was glad to have packed food and water with me, even though it got cold due to the weather.

It was still a worthwhile event for me, selling games, meeting people, just was a bit tiresome for sure. Lessons learned for next time I go to this event.