Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.  This week, Scott Thorne shares his top-of-mind games and programs from the Alliance Open House.

Holy guacamole, what a couple of days.  The Alliance Open House, as with all the other open houses and trade shows, overloaded my brain but there were quite a few things of note that caught my attention.  In no particular order except as I remember them:

Thanks to Alliance Distribution, the staff of the Grand Wayne Convention Center and the 100 plus publishers, Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze, that put on the show.  At least from my side, it was a great show with everything running smoothly.  Not sure who at Alliance does what in terms of coordinating the event but as in the past, they did a great job.  I also want to thank Mike Webb, who for the past several years has hosted a pre-Open House gathering at his home.  Opening your house and feeding a couple of hundred Open House attendees is a pretty major undertaking but the Webb family made it look easy.

The Phyllis Opolko Memorial Auction.  Phyllis Opolko worked as the marketing manager for Alliance Distribution for a number of years and organized a number of successful Open Houses for the company.  One of her many initiatives was the annual Open House Charity Auction which always offered 50 to 100 donated items up for auction, with the proceeds going to several different charities.  She passed away from cancer several years ago and Alliance has opted to continue the auction as a memorial to her work.

Return to Catan.  Catan has been a staple in the industry for about two decades now and Catan Studios has put a major promotional push behind the line this fall with the Return to Catan promotion.  In exchange for purchasing 4 copies of the core game and 2 each of most of the supplements, retailers will receive a freestanding cardboard display unit, promotional tiles and a listing in the promotional materials.  Catan Studios expects Catan to sell very well this holiday and has created this promotion to encourage retailers to stock up.

Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr.  I found this game the most intriguing title shown at the Open House and really wish I had not started my demo about 11 p.m.  Holding On is a cooperative boardgame in which the players work together to care for a 60 year old man who has just suffered a massive heart attack (see "’Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr’").  The players must provide him with appropriate care and respond to medical emergencies while gaining his trust and piecing together his memories to put together his troubled past.  I only played a couple of turns but quickly found myself trying to figure out how to make this fictional character comfortable during his last days while plumbing his memories.  Fascinating game.

The Lady and the Tiger.  From Jellybean Games, the art in this game was some of the nicest I saw at the show and game play, at least the version I played (16 cards are included with rules for 5 different games), was pretty elegant (see "Three New Games from Jellybean").  Certainly worth a look.

Wordsy.  Another small press game I liked, from Formal Ferret Games.  Players form words from the set of letters laid out on the table.  Players can use letters other than those found on the table but only those in play get scored.  A game plays in less than 20 minutes and works well for 1 to 6 players, which will please the growing number of players looking for a game with solid mechanics that will play solitaire as well as with a group.

There were a lot more games I found interesting and I plan to get to them next week.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.