As Bill noted, "BrakkeCon" was a lot of fun this year. When I sent out the invite email in early October I wasn't expecting almost everyone invited to say yes. Hence the need to seat 8-10 people for a game at any given time on Saturday. I never have that kind of luck when trying to get people together for games during the rest of the year. Go figure.
Fortunately, a 6-hour session of Arkham Horror ended up being a good time for all (once we got going) and wrapping up the night with a 10-player session of Formula De was nice. Still, next year I think I need to manage it a bit better. When nearly everybody said, "yes," I thought it would be a simple matter of running a pair of concurrent games, but then you run into the issue of who ends up where, playing which game and everybody not at my table feeling ripped-off because they're unable to fully bask in my presence. Plus, it's just not nearly as much fun as getting everybody around one table. Next year I'll have to keep it in the 5-7 range like we did last year. That or we'll have to plan which games we're playing in advance to take advantage of the larger group. It was a turn of good fortune that Bill brought Arkham this year.
Speaking of which, Arkham Horror is a great game. I may have to pick that one up. I'm at a loss for how to describe it. Everyone plays on the same "team" (so to speak) and you end up battling the game itself in a sort of dark, gothic horror setting; it's a very different experience from more competitive fair like Railroad Tycoon or Mare Nostrum. Even with Fury of Dracula (which was the first game of the box on Saturday) there's a competitive element at the table since you're still trying to beat another physical player. Having a group of eight all trying to pull in the same direction was great; though, the gap between turns can be an issue since you end up doing a lot of waiting.
As for my dropping the ball with Touch of Evil. Bill's right. By the time I put the manual down and said we should move on to something else even I loathed me. I really need to make some time ahead of last weekend to just play through the game solo and get a feel for it. Had we tried to press on with it we might still be at the table. Live and learn.
Anyway, it was a great time and despite the complication of having so many crammed into my not-so-big house; it was kind of surreal (but in a good way) getting all these people from different corners of my life into the same room... and then not having them all want to kill each other by the end of the evening. Must've been the tasty "bad" food.
