We went back to the convention from 1:00 - 6:00 today. Since we didn't get a babysitter lined up, I mostly spent the time with my daughter, though I did observe some stuff and played one round of King of Tokyo with my wife's friends. They liked that a lot more than King of New York - KOT is still quite a bit of luck, but it's a lot more straightforward.
My wife and her friends played a round of Healthy Heart Hospital, thanks in large part to a volunteer whose name I did not catch. He was a jolly fellow in his 60s and walked them through a couple of phases of the game to make sure they knew how to play. (My wife did a learn-to-play session at Gen Con last year but never followed up past that; the others were all new to the game.) They ended up stopping about halfway through the game and playing other stuff. The four of us all enjoy playing cooperative games when we get together for game days, but something about the morbid/skeevy nature of the mechanics put the girls off. (In HHH, one of the loss conditions is that so many people have died at your hospital that you've either run out of settlement money or run out of places to put the bodies.) I did enjoy the mechanics, from what I saw - it was a risk-based blind draw system similar to that found in Pandemic: The Cure, where you are aware of what's left in the draw bag because you have perfect information about what's already been pulled from said bag, and you can make informed decisions about the odds of success of various actions and choose accordingly. Obviously there's still luck involved, but that level of risk mitigation appeals to me a lot (says the guy who mains Visionary in Sentinels, to no one's surprise). But I didn't actually PLAY it, so I can't speak to how well it works.
My wife took the kiddo for a bit so I could do a quick round of King of Tokyo, then I took the kiddo back and wandered a bit because she is a toddler and hates sitting in the same spot for too long. As I carried my daughter around, we ran into both arenson9 and Rabit, and I made time to chat with them both for a bit. Andy was talking to a lady in the library room, explaining Spirit Island, and I listened in. I keep hearing how good it is, but keep getting scared off by the stated playtime of 90-120 minutes. Andy assured me that it didn't take that long as a solo or 2-player game, and since that's mostly how I would be experiencing it, my interest was re-piqued. I'm about to be in a life situation for a couple of months where 2-player gaming will be a common thing, so maybe, just maybe, I'll finally bite on Spirit Island. Still won't make a good game for work lunches though, and that's kind of a bummer when that's my most commonly available time to play.
After I tired my daughter out by letting her run around the dealer room and up and down some ramps, I went back to the open gaming room and watched some newbies take on a round of Pandemic (stopping to watch solely because two of them were wearing paraphernalia from the college I went to). I sat silently until they asked a rules question - since I've played the stuffing out of Pandemic, I was able to answer it, then I resumed just watching. By the time the rest of my party was ready to go, they'd cured 3 diseases with 0 outbreaks, so it was looking pretty good.
Oh, and my party played another food game while I wasn't around - something called Donut Drive-Through. I didn't get the chance to look at it, but since there were only a couple dozen cards and 8 tokens, I imagine it was a short little game. Something tells me my wife is going to add to the food game shelf soon...