Teaching Inis

There’s a particular board game I love. It’s been at the number one spot on my favourite’s list for a number of years now. Designed by a French designer, published by a French publisher, it is entirely themed on Irish mythology. 

Inis is about trying to control key gameplay states on the board to be crowned king of The Island. It has an awesome table presence, from it’s uniquely shaped modular board pieces, to the lovely little minis each player moves around the board, to the stunning artwork on the cards, all licensed from a world famous Irish artist that specializes in Irish mythology art. When the game is laid out on a table, it just screams at anyone walking by “Hey you! Come look at me! I’m beautiful!” 

SHUX is a convention run by a popular board game review site based in the UK. The twist is, because they love me and wanted to spend time with me, they chose Vancouver to host their convention! I got a ticket to the very first one, sight unseen, day one of sales, some 10 months before the actual event. 

I played Inis four times over those two days. Worse, I taught Inis NINE times over the two days. By early on the Sunday, people were hunting me down because other attendees had been tweeting about me. I had The Teach down to a fine art, a swift 25 minutes, filled with gags to keep players engaged. 

On Sunday morning I borrowed a second copy from the actual owner of the company that publishes Inis and ran two games side by side. It was an amazing sight that made my heart sing with joy. 

But even so, I was burned out by Sunday afternoon. Staying up gaming in the convention hall until 1am Saturday night/Sunday morning probably didn’t help. So, as I was expalining the game for the nineth time, I decided that this was the last one. 

Halfway through The Teach, someone walked by the table, stopped and said “Ooohh! Inis! I’ve wanted to play this all weekend but never got the chance.”

Inside my head, my brain silently screamed “NOOOOOOOOOOO!! Don’t you-“ but my mouth involuntarily responded “I can teach you once I’m done here.”

I heard a door slam and my brain stomped off angrily into the foggy ether of my subconsciousness. 

Thankfully, he thanked me, but said he was heading to the airport soon and would have to take me up on the offer next year. 

My brain shouted “You’re on your own!” as it drove out of sight in an imaginary red Ferrari, and I really don’t recall much of anything from the rest of that Sunday. 

The moral of the story is: Don’t stay up until 1am at conventions when you have a whole other day to come, even if it is to school a table of friends in your first game of Nations: The Dice Game by winning with at least a twenty point gap to second place.