I do not miss wearing a mask for most of a game night. Our big game nights are 10+ hour affairs, and that's a LOT of time to have a mask on. Even the most comfortable cloth mask can get tiring to have on the longer things progress. But it was still a good idea, especially since our host venue had some ongoing construction, so there was an above-average amount of dust and debris particulates that the mask was helping to filter out. But despite reapplications of Vicks throughout the night, eventually I was sneezing into my mask, aside from occasionally coughing a bit. This just told me I had hit my threshold in terms of how much irritation my respiratory system could handle for the night.
Despite my personal struggles, we had a lot of fun and got to play a wide variety of games.
We opened with Ra (Amazon affiliate link), the brilliant auction game by Reiner Knizia. We actually played this twice - once at the beginning of the night and once again at the end. At this point, we split into two groups and tackled two games. Tobie led a group in playing Boonlake (Amazon affiliate link), which is a big strategy game with a strange theme but a lot of interesting game mechanics put together. We knew this would take a very long time, but those are the kicks. My table started with Wyrmspan (Amazon affiliate link), the dragon-focused successor to Wingspan (Amazon affiliate link). I generally enjoy this game, but I recognize that I'm not the best at it, and that leads to a particular sense of frustration whenever I tackle it. I'll crack the code one day...maybe.
Our table finished first, so we ended up playing a bunch of medium-weight games while waiting for Tobie's Boonlake table to finish. We started with the Singapore original Mooncake Master, and followed that up with Point Galaxy (Amazon affiliate link), the latest game in the series. It's a good thing that Tobie and I had taken the time to learn the game the night before, as I was in a decent position to teach it to the others fairly quickly without using more words than necessary (to protect my throat). We STILL had time to kill, and that led to quick sessions for other small games like Bus & Stop, Tic Tac Trek (Amazon affiliate link), and finally the old classic Cardcassonne. I kinda regret that we don't own a copy of that last one because I had forgotten how enjoyable it is, despite feeling a little distant as something Carcasonne-adjacent.
And when the tables finally got to merge back into a single group, we had a session of Rebel Princess (Amazon affiliate link) before the aforementioned final round of Ra. So I ended up playing a lot more games than Tobie, but I still kinda envied the fact that he got to play Boonlake again. Such is the weirdnesss of the board game life.
I'm not in as much respiratory stress as I was last night, so today has been more about some lingering sniffles and the persisting itchiness in my throat. I'm still following a cough-related OTC medicine strategy, which does seem to keep the worst of the coughing fits under control. At least I don't feel as sore or as gummy in my throat today, so talking is generally easier. That's sort of progress, right?
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