Search Results for: Games Plus auction

Adventures in Gaming Discovery: The Games Plus 2020 Spring Auction

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Yesterday I attended the 2020 Spring Auction at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois. I exhibited more self control than I usually do, but that’s not saying much. My budget was $700, and after seven hours I reluctantly put away my bidding card, when my purchases finally tipped the scales at $1,000. That’s considerably less than I spent in 2019 or 2018, but it still filled eight boxes, and it took the combined skills of three gaming professionals to Tetris them into my…

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The Games Plus 2019 Spring Auction, Part Two

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Two months ago I assembled a photographic record of the games I brought home from the Games Plus 2019 Spring Auction. I didn’t do a final count, but it was roughly 100 boxed games, and several boxes of RPG gamebooks, totalling some 15 boxes. In that first piece I tried to capture the overwhelming experience of sitting in the front row for seven hours as thousands of new and used SF & fantasy games flashed by. It’s a deep immersion in the…

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The Games Plus 2019 Spring Auction: Part One

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A few of the treasures acquired at the 2019 Games Plus Spring Auction I’ve been attending the Games Plus Auction in Mount Prospect, Illinois ever since David Kenzer first told me about it, when we worked at Motorola in the late 90s. So, twenty years, give or take. I’ve been writing about it here ever since my first report in 2012 (in the appropriately titled “Spring in Illinois brings… Auction Fever.”) The four-day auction occurs twice a year, in Spring and Fall.  Each…

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The Games Plus 2013 Spring Auction

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Tomorrow is one of the highlights of my year — the Spring Auction at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois, one of the finest game stores in the Midwest, about an hour’s drive from my house. I’ve written about the Spring and Fall 2012 auctions (in “Spring in Illinois brings… Auction Fever” and The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games, respectively) and I’ve been looking forward to returning this year. The Games Plus auctions are just about the friendliest I’ve…

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Robots, Deep Space, and Star Trek: Free RPG Day at Games Plus in Mount Prospect

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Free RPG Day is not something I can remember ever taking part in…. mostly because the only local gaming store here in St. Charles died ten years ago. But when I saw the Facebook announcement from Floyd at Games Plus on Friday (above), I was intrigued enough to make the 30-mile drive to Mount Prospect Saturday morning. Games Plus is easily the best gaming store in the the Chicago area — perhaps in the entire country. It’s the home of the Games…

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When Disney Meets Mad Max: Aftermath: an Adventure Book Game by Plaid Hat Games

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Gen Con 2020 is, as of this writing, still scheduled to take place July 30 – August 2, 2020. But now that other major events, such as the massive San Diego Comic Con have been canceled due to the threat of the coronavirus, I expect it won’t be long before Gen Con is canceled as well. I hope it isn’t, but frankly I think the only thing keeping it on the schedule at this point is blind optimism. I’m enormously grateful…

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Diplomacy and Trade in the Vastness of Space: Among the Stars by Artipia Games

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I’m still processing all the treasures I brought home from the Games Plus Fall auction on Saturday. Things move fast at the auction, and you frequently have to make a snap decision to make a bid, or lose your chance forever. So more than once I raised my bidding card while thinking “What the heck is that thing?” That was the case with Among the Stars, a peculiar board game/card game hybrid… that I ended up winning for $16. It…

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To Hear the Lamentations of Their Women (at the Auction)

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Well, I survived the Spring Auction at Games Plus. Not just survived, but triumphed. I brought home a fabulous assortment of treasures old and new, including classic titles from Task Force Games, Metagaming, Avalon Hill, FASA, and dozens of others. Overall, I carted home four boxes of games. Not a bad haul, I happily told Alice. She wasn’t quite as happy as I was. Not only did I go a bit over budget (say, by about three boxes), but I have nowhere…

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The Paris Fashion Week of Games, Spring Edition

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You know what happens tomorrow? Think hard. That’s right! The Spring Auction at Games Plus here in Chicago — only the best auction in the entire country for dedicated game collectors of all stripes. I reported on the Fall Auction here, and confessed to a painful bout of auction fever at last year’s Spring Auction here. I used to attend these as part of a constant quest for rare science fiction and fantasy collectibles — things like Judge’s Guilds epic Wilderlands…

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The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games, Part II

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Last Monday I talked a little bit about the Fall Games Auction at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois. I compared it to Paris Fashion Week because, much like a fashion show, it’s an opportunity to see everything new all in one place. And not really in a leisurely, browsing-in-a-bookstore fashion, either. While you’re gawking at a fabulous fantasy game you never even knew existed, people all around you are bidding in a frenzy, intent on making sure you never…

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