Welcome to Episode 134. We are setting the stage for a
showdown between two giants of the gaming world, Origins Game
Fair and Gen. Con.
It's a tale of two tables, each with its own vibe, its own
heartbeat, and its own unforgettable moments.
Origins, as we described weeks ago in our recap, feels like a
slow pour of your favorite brew. Familiar faces, plenty of room
to breathe, and tables full of connection.
You'll find yourself sinking into rich Euro classics like
Catan, Rococo and Raw, where every move invites conversation
and strategy grows organically. It's a place where shared
experiences matter more than shopping, and where friendships
form in the quiet in between turns.
Then there's Gen. Con last week, guys, a beast of
pure energy and industry. It's a Thunder clap of dice
rolls and discovery where adrenaline runs high and the
halls echo with excitement. There we rode the tracks of
Lightning Train, we scaled the walls of Castle Risers and
recruited members to our secret society in Clandestine.
Gen. Con is the place where every
second is packed with possibility, from sneak peeks to
surprise reveals to that one game you didn't plan to love but
now you can't stop thinking about it.
And it's living rent free in my brain.
But no matter the con, it's the shared moments of the table that
stick with us. It's the inside jokes, the
triumphant cheers, and the vibrating tension of the true
dungeon. Whether you're deep in the
strategy weeds or laughing through a chaotic Co-op, it's
those connections that make the con worth it.
So settle in and roll with us, and let's unpack the unique
magic of these two unforgettable gatherings.
Joining me once again, as promised, is Chris Preston.
Chris, thanks for returning. How are you?
I'm great man, thanks for having me back.
Yeah, yeah. Well, we promised we were going
to do this. And we, we deliver on our
promises. That's right.
So Gen. Gencom was a week ago.
Yes, it was. I know, right?
It's crazy. So let's let's see.
You were at, if I remember correctly, you were at Origins
and you were working on the vendor hall floor for a game
publisher Bite wing. Bite Wing.
Yep. And this year you were at Gen.
Con working the vendor hall floor for Pandasaurus games,
right? Pandasaurus.
Yes. And the only other time we've
been to Gen. Con was in 22, three years ago.
We worked with Pandasaurus that year as well.
So they obviously treated you well.
Yeah, they're super great to work with.
They cover a badge, get a little bit of an hourly pay, we each
get 2 free games and then 50% off up to five more games.
Oh, that's cool. So, I mean, it's a pretty sweet
gig. So Pandasaurus had a lot of
content, a lot of games that came out that we had.
Oh my gosh, they. What did you decide to take
home? What were your free copies?
What were your? What did you get?
We got I'll just, I've got, I've got them right here.
So the first one we picked was Gatsby as a two player game.
Theme doesn't matter at all. We had so many people saying I
love the Gatsby book. What does this have to do with
the book? Absolutely nothing.
Nothing. But the art style is very art
Deco nice. The theme is there if you really
want to try. They did a really good job in
the rule book of like quoting the book and try to make it.
But it's a great little two player tug of war, push and pull
game. People loved it.
We got let's see, I should have had these.
That's OK. We.
Got we got umbrella, which is a really interesting.
It's not really a slide puzzle, but you're kind of sliding
umbrellas from zones above and below or left and right of your
board and trying to slide the the umbrellas around on your
board. You'll slide one into a row and
you'll push the next one off to the opposite side with the goal
of you've got these goal tiles you're trying to arrange to
match one color to match the tile.
And if you do that, you'll play scoring marker and you pass the
tile to the next player. It's a neat little like.
Yeah, it's. Kind of slide puzzly in a way,
but the the weird thing is is you're going to have three or
four of these these puzzles you're trying to fill, you have
to plan multiple steps ahead or you're going to have a bad time.
And then we got. So it sounds like I'm going to
do terrible at that game. We got tricky kids.
Oh, that's our. Great friend Danielle Reynolds.
Yes, and Steven Ungaro, affectionately to me and a
community of people online known as Plurpy.
This is one of his first published designs.
It was funny. I was talking to Danielle about
it and she was like, I want to I had this idea for a trick taking
game, but I hate trick taking games.
I don't play them. So I reached out to Steven and
was like, hey, help me with this.
But the twist here is the cards don't have numbers on them at
the start of the hand you're going to write numbers on them,
but your total hand cannot exceed 21 or any of your points
are lost. Nice.
So, and after each trick, you get your card back in front of
you. And so you can kind of do the
math toward the end of the hand and be like, well, you've played
16 points in cards. You have 3 cards left.
Yeah. And you can kind of do some
math. And then the last one we got was
look at the stars. This is the one Caitlin really
wanted. It's a flippin, right?
Where you're drawing constellations and you're trying
to draw them in certain ways to score points.
Excuse me, isn't it? We played it one night in our
hotel room and really enjoyed it.
And we need to try to play it again this weekend.
We've been playing with the kids, trying to play through our
stack of games we brought home. We've played most of them.
Well, that's good. We haven't.
Played the big ones yet? So.
Still, we still have a few games that we picked up from Gen.
Con that we haven't hit the table just yet, but we're we
made a lot of progress this week.
So we went to Pandasaurus Thursday morning because I, I
stopped to see Danielle at Wise Wizard Games booth.
She was working and she's like, you got to get tricky, tricky
kids because she's like, I think it's my best game ever and I'm
like wow because it's an. Old same because caution science
is awesome and it won more awards and they sold a ton of it
again this year. And to keep with the comparison,
it won the fan favorite at Origins.
Yeah, they had the trophy at the booth for Caution Science, so
that was great. But they were sold out on
Thursday, I guess. You know how they do that.
They bring out so many copies each day and they sell out, but
then you go back to the next day.
I never made it back. Back in time.
So we didn't get tricky kids. Bummer.
We did get Gatsby on recommendation from our good
friend Craig and Becky to get into games on air, shoot out a
little plug. Yeah, So it's funny.
Craig was texting me throughout the weekend and he was like just
giving me directions. You need to get this, you need
to go get that. Actually, I would do it every if
he told me to go get it. I went and got it and.
Absolutely. Right.
And so we we picked up Gatsby. You're right, The theme is.
The theme is. The theme is great if you're
into it, but it's kind of pasted on.
Yeah, which is in AI mean that game takes 15 to 20 minutes to
play. It doesn't need to have the most
immersive theme in the world. No, absolutely.
And it's. There was some, so that was one
of the ones that Caitlin and I taught a lot throughout the
weekend. I so basically working with
Pandasaurus, I taught a far away a few times.
I taught a lot of Gatsby, a lot of sea salt and paper, and a lot
of Pixies. Oh yeah.
And a couple games of Kodo and then a whole lot of The Mind
Soul. The Mind Soul Mates and Gatsby
were probably the two I ended up teaching the most.
But we kind of like floated. I had like 4 tables.
I just constantly was like floating between and.
It was very chaotic. That's because you're a machine
and I don't think Pantosaurus realized what an asset you are.
So if anyone, if anyone who is an actual employee of
Pantosaurus and you're listening to this podcast and you're
looking for employees, Chris Preston is available and he's
done some great work for you in the past.
So there you go. There you go.
I did not ask for that. No, he didn't crack that at all.
He did not. So the other thing that we
picked up at Pandasaurus was the extra pepper expansion.
Or I wanted it but I didn't get a copy of it.
That was like priority number one.
We have to get extra pepper. We've got extra salt, salt and
sea salt and paper is a huge, fantastic game, fantastic
design. I.
Really want to play extra pepper even more than extra salt.
Extra salt adds some cool dual alternatives.
Yeah, but Pepper sounds like it. It is.
So I did manage to get the Pixies expansion before we sold
out. Oh, good, good.
Which is really cool. Yeah, so.
But. Yeah.
No, we, we had some, what I was saying with that with all the
tables is Gatsby had some really fun moments watching people play
and get it. And some of the bonus effects.
Like there was one where somebody had filled up a
racetrack, but the racetrack they filled up the last spot was
swap a token and then they stole the race.
And it was this big like, oh, you can't do that.
I was like, no, you can't. So we had to look at the rules
and verify the order of operations.
So I mean theme, sure, who cares.
But it's it's a great little push and pull tug of war if you
like 2 player games at 1520 minutes with some good strategy.
I will say that the one thing that I thought was unique about
Gatsby is it is the push and pull.
But you basically you could have 3 little games going on, right?
So you had mentioned the race tracks, so you're putting tokens
to try to get a majority and so many race tracks.
And then there's that. What do you call it that like AI
call it? AI call it the tower.
The tower, the tech tree, whatever you're trying to move
up. And as you move up, you get
bonuses. And then there's like a table
where you're trying to draw in a line.
Yeah, Yeah. So that was kind of cool.
And then you had like a special action that was set reserved
just for yourself. That makes the game.
So, yeah, yeah. So that so it had the design of
the game, had some cool moments. Absolutely.
I mean, it's also. But the theme was Bruno.
Cathalo is one of the designers on it, so he knows what I mean.
Right. He's been at this a long time.
The the theme though, I think, I think if there's any weakness in
the game, it's that you could strip the theme off and you
could put something. Else in his place, yeah, I think
they did an OK job trying, but Oh yeah, at the end of the day,
it's still a great game and the artworks great.
Yep. So how would you rate your
overall experience of Gen. Con this year?
Before or after we found out we came home with COVID?
Well, that doesn't count. We're going to put an asterisk.
We're. Going to put an asterisk there.
That's the one thing Origins has a leg up on as I didn't come
home sick man, it's hard. It was I saw one of my friends
talking about it online and he said for some reason this year
felt so much more exhausting than other Gen. cons in a good
way like not a bad thing, but just that they were worn out
more than normal. Sure.
And I think I felt that more this year than three years ago.
OK. And I don't know why because I
don't think we did. I think we even did less this
year than we did three years ago.
But that's not to say anything negative to the score.
It's just hard because it it just felt like a lot.
That said, it was an absolute blast.
And you know, your intro, you mentioned the adrenaline of it
and that's something that I didn't feel it origins right
there. There's a vast difference of
1618 thousand and 7580 thousand and it just I mean that
adrenaline of like I've got to get through the hall again.
I've got to, you know, here's these boosts that I didn't get
to yet or I've got to get this game before it sells out and
I've got to get my galactic cruise all in bundle and we and
we did. Good for you.
You know, so it's just one of those things and there there
wasn't enough time, right? Like I think I had a list and we
didn't get through it all and. OK.
And not that that's a bad thing, I put so much on the list to
look at, but there were a few boots that I was bummed I didn't
make it to. There were a few games I wanted
to look at that I didn't get to, but that's the nature of the
beast. That hall is just insanely
massive and even though I feel like we walked the whole thing 3
or 4 times throughout the weekend, there were still boots.
I never saw the Oink boots right?
Like I don't even know where it was.
Ice, I saw it because it had one of those hovering signs over
top, but I never made it to the Oink booth proper.
Hell, let's be honest. So let's break it down real
quick how I experienced Gen. Con overall the show because
Katie and I did things a little bit differently.
She was with me on Thursday and she was with me on Saturday,
Friday or Sunday, Sunday along with her sister.
So and that's when we saw each other, which we'll definitely
come back to that. So Friday and Saturday was PJ
rapping out meeple to meeple, networking, just going wild
crazy. So Thursday we walked the vendor
hall. Katie and I had specific people
we wanted to either see or we wanted to purchase games or look
at games to demo to determine if we wanted to buy.
And so we did. We did that right.
We hit that list and then she left Thursday afternoon.
And then Friday and Saturday was just epic.
And then Sunday we casually walk the vendor hall with her and her
sister with the focus primarily on two things.
We had two objectives on Saturday, on Sunday.
I don't know why I keep saying Saturday, Sunday, Sunday.
So we were looking for games focused on our five year old
nephew who Katie had spent the weekend with her sister and her
son. And so his birthday's coming up.
So we were looking for more games for him because he's turns
5. He's getting to that age where
he's starting to show an interest in board games.
So that was the first thing. Our second goal was that we had
to see you and your wife. Yeah, that was that.
Because we. Because I had missed you.
Yes. Thank you.
You came by the booth Thursday morning.
I don't know how we didn't see each other.
I don't know. I was, I think because we were
focused on get this, we needed extra Pepper and Gatsby.
So we got it and we moved on. It's very mission focused on
Thursday. Yeah, absolutely.
But we did see you on Sunday and we got to chat for a bit while
you were teaching you salt and paper.
Yep. So yeah.
So how was the, how was the vendor hall floor experience
between Origins and Gen. Con, putting aside the sheer
number of people? Because that's obviously, yeah.
I mean teaching games wise it was pretty similar.
Bitewing is a much newer and not quite as big of a company as
Panda so I think people are still learning them and
discovering their games. But the excitement level of both
booths and the games there between the two cons was pretty
comparable. OK.
Because Bitewingers had had had some stuff just delivered that a
lot of people were interested in and had on their list at
Origins. And they were easy teachers.
They were easy cells. People wanted them.
And same thing with Pandasaurus. Now Pandasaurus, like you
mentioned, they had, it was probably 7 or 8 new releases at
Gen. Con.
I mean, just the sheer number of games on the shelves was insane.
And we had what, 678 demo tables, I think, in the booth.
And so, I mean, it was just as far as the booth and Asaurus was
much busier constantly. But I think a large part of that
is part of the crowd size because it was rare at Origins
that we weren't doing anything. You know, I was pretty much
teaching constantly or talking to people, answering questions
about games. And so it was, you know, pretty
comparable experience, similar excitement, energy level.
I think Panda Source is probably just a little bit busier.
But again, that that could just be the nature of Gen.
Khan being so much larger than Origins.
And I tell you, when the doors open Thursday morning at 10:00,
we were slammed immediately for about 3 hours.
I mean we had they had a cash wrap line that zigzagged 3 times
and then went down and out the booth and it was just crazy.
So I've said this before, on previous episodes with Gen.
Con recaps, I've talked about this.
I'm a firm believer that Thursday at 10 AM.
Don't be in the craft. Yeah, that's the running of the
nerds. Everyone goes wild.
Crazy. I think it's a absurd and I want
no party. It's fun to watch.
It's not even fun to watch. From above, it's fun to like
see. Having done that, I'm like, oh
look, it's a mass of people. Just that is no thank you.
So we had an 8 to 10 AM play test session on Thursday at the
first exposure play test hall and we play tested this really
great game called Galactic Frontier.
So be on the lookout for it guys.
It's by Diamond Design Studios. It's almost as if I've got the
business cards prompted right here.
So it's this interesting X, but it's a card game and the cards
are your exploration of the map. They're your resources, they are
your ships there, your, your crew.
So like the, the deck of cards represents everything.
So it's just a deck of cards. There's no other tokens or
anything like that, which is it does it really well.
It was really just just boggling for us.
So that was that was really cool.
And then those of you who listen to the Gen.
Con prep episode between me and Drew Denning, so that after that
play test session, we had a moment that Drew and I described
in the episode. I walked up to him and I was
trying to read his body language to see if he had which hat he
was wearing. Is this Drew busy or can I go
and talk to him? He was busy, but I waited.
We hugged, we took a picture. And then I had to take off for
another event, which was at 10 AM.
So I missed the running of the nerds.
I didn't rush into the vendor hall.
I don't. Yeah.
Yeah, well, and that's one of the things I like about working
is you get in ahead of the rush, your shifts over, the rush has
died down, and you just get to go peruse the hall.
Now the interesting thing is I don't know if you remember 3
years ago when we were there, when we actually met in person
the first time, Pandasaurus had an event room across the way
from the main hall and that's where we worked.
So we each I. Do remember that.
We did 2 sessions, two of those ticketed event 2 hour blocks
where we taught a game and walked them through the play.
We did that two of those blocks for a four hour shift and then
we were free. And so we didn't even get to
like we I found a video on my memories recently where I was
going to the bathroom or getting some water and I had to like
snake through that crowd Thursday morning before the
doors open. And it was crazy.
But so it's interesting being in the hall and seeing it rush in.
That was like, it was, you know, it was really cool.
But I don't know, I don't know why they didn't do the event
room. I know it's a whole lot more
money and it's a lot more to manage and maybe they just
didn't feel like they can pull it off.
But I think it had pros and cons.
I think I liked being in the hall better because it's more
more energizing and more and it's easier to see people and
you know, there's so many people that just stroll by the booth as
opposed to coming in the room because it's a little more out
of the way. The only drawback is that, well,
it's a catch 22. Our shifts that year were from
8:00 to noon, which meant we had to get up a lot earlier, but
then we were done at noon so we could take a little bit to
breathe and eat lunch and then have one to six in the hall
every day, right? Well, this year we didn't get
off until 2/2, 2:30, depending on the day and just teaching a
game and getting out of the booth.
And so we didn't have near as much time.
We got to sleep in a little bit more.
Sure. Didn't have to get there quite
as early, but we also didn't have as much time in the hall.
So it's kind of one of those things.
It's kind of a bummer. I think we still have plenty of
time in the hall. But you mentioned that
adrenaline. When I've got my list and I
don't have a lot of time, Caitlin gets a little irritated.
She's like, I'm gonna go sit down.
I'm gonna go let you do your thing.
Yeah, cuz she doesn't. Standing all day is really hard
for her and she doesn't enjoy standing and hearing demos of
games. If she can sit and learn it,
it's a whole lot better. And that's, you know, most
booths don't have that and some do.
And that made it a lot easier when they did.
But but yeah, so that, that was the one thing drawback, cuz we
just didn't have quite as much time to peruse the hall as I
wanted, right? And there were several.
And as a result, I had to prioritize.
And, you know, I knew there were a few booths that were top of
the list that I wanted to get to.
There were some that I really wanted to check out the games
and potentially buy. Well, they were sold out by the
time I got there later in the weekend because they ended up
being a hotter ticket item. Yeah.
Was it Broadway toys? I think they had a game called
Wondrous. Was it Wondrous Museum?
Something like that. And I ended up getting a quick.
Sold out so I. Don't know, yeah, I got a quick
overview of it and it seemed like a game we would enjoy.
But you know, they were out so I didn't get to do it.
But we spent plenty of money, so it's not a big.
Deal. Oh yeah, I hear you.
What was the the one the one get you missed?
Like what was it that you're really, I really wanted this
game, but they sold out. Koi probably, yeah, we well, and
the frustrating thing is, is we didn't even get to demo it until
the very end of hall hours on Sunday just because of every
time we went by there, the table was full and we wouldn't have
been able to buy it anyway because they did an allotment
each day and they were pretty much sold out by the time we
would have gotten there. But we're in, we're we're doing
the demo on Sunday and Caitlin and the lady said we're sold
out. We should have more in stores in
October and Caitlin's birthdays in November.
She's like, hey, it's just in time for my birthday.
So I like it. I know I had messaged you about
that one ahead of time. I don't know if you got to check
it out or not. But I saw it, we we looked at it
and it was kind of like it was just one of those things where
it's like, yeah, we know we can get it later.
So we passed. So the game for me, the the one
that I missed, it's the same situation.
They had an allotment. It went a lot.
And that was the Battle of Hoth from.
Yeah, several people got a copy of it that I know.
I know, so did I, I knew some folks who got copies.
It was one that I was really, I wanted to get a copy of it and
you know, okay, I know it'll come out, it'll hit retail.
Yeah, it'll hit retail and I'll get a copy and that'll be fine.
But I was really hoping to get that and take it home.
So I realized that, and some people said this, it's just the
days of Wonder, Undone, Undaunted, or Memoir 44.
Memoir 44 Star Wars, which makes it automatically better.
Well, so I agree in this instance because Katie's not
really big into war games, historical war games.
Storming the beaches of Normandy is not really something that
will thematically. Capture her.
We're kind of the same way. But the Battle of Hoth from
Emperor Strikes back, it's just, it's classic and.
And it's epic looking. It is like the way they did the
design and the table presence. It just looked, Yeah.
Did you see the giant version? I always I was like, I really, I
tried to, I went up to so I went up to one of the asthma day.
I don't know if it was contract workers or they were actually
employed, but I was like, do you have a copy about old Hoth?
I know it's an absurd question, Like, Oh no, we're sold out the
allotment. I'm like, I understand.
I was like, so that big copy on the table, how much do you want
for that? I was like, when the con is
over, I'll buy that. Oh my God, it was so cool.
Even the cards like. Yeah, they were massive.
You could see them. There was down the down.
Yeah, Asthma Day had a couple of games that supposedly were
supposed to be out for demo but weren't, and I was kind of
bummed about, I don't know if maybe 7 Wonders Dice was one of
them. I don't know if maybe it just
didn't make it in time, but I asked people a couple of times
and they're like, I don't know what you're talking.
About nobody saw. That contract worker and they
don't know, but that was one that I was hoping to try. 7
Wonders is a good series I enjoy.
I think Dual's my favorite of it, but I always like a dice
twist on a game, and so I was really interested in that one,
but it wasn't there, so. It's.
Disappointing. Yeah.
But that that happened with several publishers were there,
like, we just, it didn't come in in time, You know, shipments,
shipping is kind of a mess right now.
And it really. Yeah, I mean, that was
Pandasaurus. All their new stuff they air
freighted. And so Shackleton Base was a hot
ticket item and it didn't sell out quite as quick as they
thought it would, but it still sold out Saturday at some point
in the day. But because they had to air
freight everything, that box is huge and heavy and they only
could afford to air freight so many copies over.
So you were in a unique position because you're working the
vendor hall floor, which means even though even though you're
teaching a game, whatever that is, people are talking about
things they saw and then you walk to the hall yourself.
So at the end of the convention, was there like 1 designer or one
game? That generated a lot of buzz
that either it either surprised you or just in general, what was
everyone talking about? What did you get a sense of?
Because there's just so much. There is so much, there is so
much. But that is one thing I do enjoy
about working the conventions and even, you know, conventions
I don't work at. Anytime we're waiting in line
for bathroom or library, I'm always like, hey, what's hitting
for y'all? What are you finding?
Like what's, what's standing out?
Because I like to know. And so anytime I'm like teaching
a game, if once I've taught it and they're playing it or we're
wrapping it up, or if I'm resetting it while I'm
resetting, I'm like, so what's standing out to you?
What have you found this weekend?
I don't know that there was one. I mean, a lot of people are
talking about battle, ha. A lot of people were talking
about what were a couple of the other hot tickets.
So why you that's OK? Why you think about that?
OK. I'll tell you because there was
one that it stood out for me personally, but I heard a lot of
designers. So it was interesting because
Friday and Saturday I was rapping out meatball to
Meatball. So I was interacting with a lot
of designers, a lot of marketing managers for different
publishers. There was a lot of talk about
Mosaic games from and yes, that is our good friend Palgan, who
was featured on the show. But and I got to meet him and it
was really exciting, but. Well, good for you.
I tried. I went by the booth and right as
we got there, somebody's miking him.
Is that his wife? That's his wife who had like
they were going. Yeah, they were miking.
They were miking them up to do a video interview.
Right as we got there, they were getting ready for it.
So like, I was right there. I was at the booth.
I did get an overview of Try Garam and one of the other
games, but I didn't get a chance to meet him and that was the
first day and we'd ever made it back over.
There, Yeah. But I tried.
But everyone, everyone kept talking about mosaic games,
Yeah. Which is super cool.
Yeah, Tom Vassell made his way over to the booth and he did a,
he did a little thing there, board game.
Steph and her partner were over there.
There was just a lot of lot of people repping out Mosaic, and
I'm glad because it was their first Gen.
Con. I know that was a big deal.
They brought uninvited guests at a wedding, which was their.
Yeah. That was the other one we got an
overview of. It was Jag, Aram and that.
Game is fun that game that. Seemed really interesting.
Yep, It's kind of a, it's kind of a, it's a deduction game, not
a social deduction, but a card deduction game.
And you're trying to hide the evidence that you're there, but
then you're trying to accuse the other players to fight, you
know, to discover who they are and reveal that to the host.
Hey, look, Chris is a uninvited guest, so I can survive.
But a very cool game and. But it was cool hearing about
that from them because the lady that that showed us the game,
she's like, you would be surprised as to like how big of
a deal like people just show up to eat at these weddings
completely uninvited and it is not abnormal and you're just
trying to blend in, get your food and get out.
So it was it was super cool hearing about their culture.
Yes, and where the game design came from, you know, And so I
thought that was super neat, yeah.
So shout out again to Palgan and his team at Mosaic.
Hopefully, Palgan, I'll get to meet you next time.
Yeah, I tried. He'll, he'll be back.
He'll be back, I'm sure. Yeah, definitely.
All right, I have a question for you.
Yeah, go ahead. I've been pondering because I've
been seeing it on social media posts because of course, after
Gen. Con, what do you do?
You take a picture of everything you brought, you post it on all
the groups and everybody Gox and everybody's like, oh, I bought
those or some of those games are terrible, but some of you know
all sorts of conversations. Sure.
Alongside of that are always a handful of posts in the board
game groups of why do people buy all these games at Gen.
Con? Like what's the point?
Why do you go to Gen. Con?
Why spend all this money on games that you can buy in a
month or two at a store and you don't have to go to the
convention? So I've been processing my
thoughts on that and several of the the comments were helpful,
but I'm curious as to if you have any thoughts on that for
you personally. There are multiple layers to
that question. Oh absolutely.
Which question is it that you want to ask me?
Yes. Both and.
Yeah. So let's start with the games.
Like what's because you even mentioned there's two games you
didn't get. Well, there's probably more than
that, but we mentioned 2 specifically that you'll just
buy them later. Yep.
So for you, when you go to Gen. Con with a list of games to buy,
what's the point of buying at Gen.
Con versus waiting for retail? So.
Because then you have to travel with them, then you have to haul
them around a convention and so. Absolutely, absolutely.
You know, Candy and I have become more discerning in the
things that we purchased at Gen. Con and we in fact, we commented
when we looked at our hall, our Gen.
Con hall of games, the stack of games that we got for free
versus the stack of games we purchased.
The free games were more we didn't, we didn't spend as much,
which brings me to my next point.
So I have very strong opinions about Gen.
Con halls and the photographs that people share on social
media. Now everyone's free to do
whatever they want. This is simply an opinion.
I'm not a big fan of the photographs of Gen.
Con halls. See I always post my con halls
and I just. I don't, I I do not because
here's the thing, at the end of the day, this is what you're
doing. Look at all the things I bought
that you didn't get to buy because you didn't go like, OK,
I'm trying to I'm trying to reduce the amount of FOMO when I
go to a con and I publish shorts on YouTube, do these episodes.
It's not to say make you feel bad that you missed out on the
opportunity, but to merely share with you and let you get a
feeling as if you were there and get kind of an idea of what to
expect if you do go in the future.
Now the other, the other side of that is when you see those Gen.
Con halls, they're not all games purchased by said content
creator who has taken that picture.
For example, half of my games were given to me free by
designers and publishers, and I know that to be true of many
content creators who post their Gen.
Con halls. And most of them are putting
some games or promotional games, Yeah.
But I'm just, I'm not even necessarily saying from a
content creator standpoint, just like general person of the board
game group on Facebook, Facebook, hey, look what I
bought. This is what I'm excited about.
Yeah. I think that the reason for
doing that for sharing your Gen. Con holes or more to the point,
why you go, because I think that was the end of the part of your
question, right, is like why even go if you can buy it at
retail? I think that that question is
easy. It's the people, right?
Absolutely. We how many times do I have this
conversation and everyone always talks about the people.
That is always the story that is up front and personal with
everyone I talked to. Why do we go to Origins?
Why do we go to Geek Way? I mean, yes, it's the games that
bring us to the table, but it's seeing each other, right?
It's people that make it special.
It's it's walking the vendor hall, walking up to Pandasaurus
on a Sunday morning and seeing my beloved friend Chris teaching
sea salt and paper to a lovely couple right there.
And my trying not to interrupt. Well, you know.
But you did. I got.
Distracted, you know, and I got really hard not to.
It's fine. But yeah.
I think most people are understanding in that moment
though. I.
Think you're right, sometimes they're not, you know, cuz
emotions run high. I mean, especially when you get
to the end of the day at event hall.
But yeah, so I mean, you know, post your Gen. hall, your Gen.
con hall or don't. Either way, I don't.
And that's why what I'll do is if there was a game that I
picked up, whether it was given to me complimentary or I
purchase it myself, that really stands out, I will take a
picture of it and share it because I'm excited about this
game. I want you to know about the
game. But just to tickle because I did
it to my first few Gen. cons. Oh, I got to put everything on
the table, make it look pretty, take my picture, look at all the
things I bought. And after I did that, I was
like, why am I doing that? Sure.
We don't do that for anything else.
I don't go to make groceries and take a picture of me and go
Chris. We should.
We should start doing that. Yeah, we should start doing
that. You're you're, you're.
Yeah, no, that's interesting though.
I hadn't thought about the FOMO side of it.
And I, I would like to think most people's motives aren't,
hey, look at me. I think there may be a level of,
hey, look at how what I got and how much I got and how cool it
is, which can induce some FOMO in people.
I think, you know, the, the questions and conversations I
saw more were interesting and, and it's more of like a month.
Like why go there and spend all that money in one weekend when
you can just go buy it in a store in a month or two when it
releases? And that's true.
And that's, that's an interesting push and pull that
I've thought of. Now for me, some of the games I
wanted I can't get in a store, right.
You can't get the galactic Cruise bundle.
I know you lucked out and you got galactic cruise at your
store. I've never seen it in a store.
But it wasn't the bundle, right? It was just the retail, but
I've. Never even seen the game and
stuff. OK.
Sure. And so I think for some people
that don't have as easy access to an FLGS or a big FLGS that
stocks all the cool, hot big stuff, you know, like that's
true. Some stores are stocking all the
nemesis stuff. Most aren't, you know.
And so if you don't have access to that, a lot of comments I saw
were interesting because they talked about how you can meet
the designers and the artists and the publishers and there's a
relational transaction as you're buying the game that you don't
get now, sure, you can get that with Bobby at your local game
store if you built a relationship with them, and
that's not a bad thing, but you're still going to check them
out. But you know, I was able to get
get Danielle and and Steven to sign my rule book for Tricky
Kids because I was super excited about their game.
I've made friends with some other designers.
I got to see Darryl Andrews and hug his neck and he's crushing
it right now with several. Games coming out and.
You know, so there's the relational transaction along
with the game purchase of seeing the designers or the artists and
the publisher and getting to put faces with names of games that
you like. And absolutely.
And I think. You don't, you don't get that
outside of a con like this, and even more so at Gen.
Con and Origins. That's one big comparison is #1
there's so many more publishers and #2 there's so many more
designers and artists at Gen. Con, just because that's the
nature of it being four times the size.
Absolutely. Yeah.
No, that's totally correct. Absolutely.
I agree with that. And that's to my point, right,
is why do you go to Gen. Con?
Why do you go to these conventions?
The people. The people, right.
Yeah, it's definitely people. I want to talk about an
experience that I had because you had mentioned working a
booth. OK, so I was, I think it was
Saturday. The day is irrelevant.
I was walking through vendor hall, bumped into a friend and
she's like, what are you doing? I was like, I was about to go to
Pegasus Spiel's booth and check them out.
I know that I have a few of their games on my shelf.
I wanted to see what they had available.
And that's the thing too, Pegasus Spiel is not, it's not a
brand that is carried in a lot of local game stores.
So you you either got to order online or you could pick it up
right there. You can touch it.
That's the other thing about Jamie Connors.
You the game, kind of hold it and go, oh, yeah, I want this.
So I looked at their, I was looking at their shelf and I
realized I have more of their games than I realized.
Yeah, absolutely. There was nothing they didn't
have anything that I didn't already own.
And so I was just looking around.
And so one of the employees and this is he's a guy that works
for Pegasus feel he came up to me and he's like, he's like,
yeah, what are you guys doing? You know, what are you can we
show you anything? I was like, no, we're just
looking around. I was, you know, we were
chatting and he's like, hey, do me a favor, tell me a story.
The coolest thing you've seen at Gen.
Con today. And I was like, OK, He's like,
because, because every year at Gen.
Con I work the booth. So the only thing I I see is the
four corners of my booth and the wall right across from me.
You can understand this is someone working the Venter Hall
floor. You don't get to see a lot,
right? Sure.
And Gen. Con's got a lot going on.
And so I told him a story. I told him exactly what he
wanted to hear and I'll share with you right now.
I had an amazing play test session, I think it was on
Friday morning. I play tested this game called
Forever Soup. It is a cooperative.
It is a cooperative campaign card game that is in development
by 4 undergraduate students at Bradley University in Peoria,
IL. This is part of their senior
project and they were play testing their game.
This thing, this was, it blew me away, including the three other
players who were with me. We were like, this game is so
credible. It took us by storm.
And the fact that it's being designed by undergraduates as
part of their undergraduate degree.
And this is the coursework. So I told I told them all about
it and we started talking about, you know, community and board
game designers and where just everything like that.
And so his name is Anton Torres. I hope that he listens to this
because I'm emailed him and I can't wait to hear back from
him. So Anton, if you're listening to
this episode, reach out to me. I want to get you on the show.
It was just this incredible. No, I'm loaded.
I've got business cards like crazy.
I know I'm ready to go. I'm ready to mention everybody
if I can. But yeah, it was just really
cool experience and it was a great moment where I connected
with him, he connected with me. It was just, it was a great
moment. And you can't do that anywhere.
Else. You can't.
You just you can't. So that's why you go to Gen.
Con. It's for the moments, it's for
the memories, it's for the stories and it's for the play
testing, which I did a lot of. See, that's a weird thing for us
is like we hardly left the hall. We got there, we went to the
booth, we perused the hall, and then we had some friends that we
met up with just about every night and we they were working
for Thunderworks in their event space in Hall D.
And so. Basically, when they were done,
they just plopped down on an empty table and saved a spot for
us. And so we went from the main
hall through the end into Hall D, and then we left and went
home. Like we didn't see anything else
the entire time, which I mean is crazy because there's just so
much to do. So much and I don't.
Feel like we barely scratched the surface.
And you're just talking about the halls in the Convention
Center. We you didn't.
You didn't get to go. We never made it out of the
Convention Center. Nope.
Yeah, the JW for open gaming, which I did a lot of that.
Now, the last time we did make it to the Marriott and met up
two nights with some friends and one of the ballrooms there, but
that was about the only time we left the hall that year.
And so there's just but that's The thing is there's just so
much to do and see in so many spaces and you're there for I
mean, we were there for five days because we helped with set
up and I don't feel like we saw anything outside the exhibitor
hall. You know, it's crazy.
And that's the. That's why I had that moment
with Anton, because he doesn't get to see much of it.
Yeah. I do think too, one of the
things with people talking about why do you go and buy all the
things? There's a, there's a couple cool
things I think is #1 there's a lot of free promos handed out
with games. That's true.
You're not. You're not going to get
elsewhere. That's true.
Unless you order it from their website or you know, somebody
gives it to you. Yep.
So that was cool getting some, getting some free promos with
some of the stuff was neat and sales.
So most games aren't any cheaper than you'll get them at a store.
Most games. That is true.
But there were a couple of booths 125th century.
I want to shout out Chad because he's somebody.
I love that dude. I don't know if you know Chad I.
Don't know Chad, I don't know anyone from 25th century.
You need to know Chad because he's just a genuinely nice dude,
but he always has two or three games that he puts on sale and
we got a copy of Agueta. I don't know if you've ever seen
Agueta. I've seen it, never played it.
Yeah, it's a beautiful game. He had a copy of the deluxe
edition. He had it in Origins for 30.
And I think. It's 45 or 50 full price, OK,
But it sold out before I got it, so we made it a point they want
to go see if he still had it. The component quality of that
deluxe edition for $30 is just stupid.
I mean he has, he has no business selling that game with
those components for that cheap in my opinion.
I don't know. And the other booth was Borden
Dice. I don't know.
I don't know that we've talked about Borden dice, you and I
much, but they've become I see you got Barcelona right behind.
You, yes. Which I do to somewhere right
behind me. You do.
They've become one of my favorite publishers and I wanted
to go. I had a question for them that's
a long story and I won't get into, but I also wanted to check
out Tianchia, which is the new T game that originally they
weren't going to have. And then they got their shipment
in just in time and so I wanted to go take a look at it.
Well, when we got there, they had anything else they had stock
of in their US warehouse was at most $20.
We're talking Tequenu for 15, Founders of Teotihuacan for
five, they had, Terracotta Army for 10 or 15 they had.
I'm bummed the Reef project was sold out by the time we got
there, but I think it was $10. I mean just insane prices on
$60.00 games that. Are at most. $1520 And so I
don't know why they were doing it, but I mean they were, they
were offloading them and I'm pretty sure that whole stack was
gone in two or three days. Yes, I believe that.
Absolutely. But we ended up getting Tiancha
and I ended up, I'd been wanting to canoe for a while,
technically wanted in a giveaway, but I got the wrong
game, which is why I was talking to him about it.
I couldn't work it out. But Caitlin was just like, it's
$15, just buy it. And I was like, is it really?
And that's when I saw the sign. And then I was like, well, I've
heard good things about founders of Teo.
So for five bucks it's worth a get.
Play it one time. If we don't like it, pass it on.
Exactly. So those are a couple of the
cool things or the sales, the discounts and some free promos
aside from the relational aspect.
No, absolutely. And I want to, I want to go back
to that because I had another experience.
So why do you go to Gencot on Thursday?
Katie and I are walking the hall.
We knew we wanted to stop at Brooks Fun Games and they made
Legacies. So Katie, Katie and I had the
retail version. We did not get the big fancy
deluxe version and we wanted to see.
If they had, I don't know if I've seen this.
I'm going to look it up while you're talking.
You look it up at Brooks Fun Games, the designers, Jason,
Brooks, Jason, shout out to you. So we went to the booth.
We were looking for upgraded components for legacies.
We didn't know what they had available, but we were
interested and they had it. They had a few things.
They had a beautiful neoprene mat with the nighttime alternate
art. And so we bought the neoprene
mat and we just had a really good time chatting with a
different Jason at the booth. Got to talking to him and he's
like, well, do you want to see? And I mentioned it in the intro,
He's like, would you like, would you be interested in seeing
Clandestine? And we're like, yeah, sure, go
ahead. And so he gave us the, you know,
the 10,000 foot view of Clandestine where you are in
charge of a secret society and like Victorian England and the
way that the game is got a modular build based on the
number of players. Now it was set for three
players. When Katie and I get one of
these high level kind of, it's not even a demo.
It's just kind of an explanation of the game.
We always ask this question, how does it play at two players?
And he's like, it plays well. It does this and that.
So I gave him my business card, told him about the podcast, was
really interested in talking about it some more.
And he said, would you like to get a one-on-one teach by Jason
Brooks, the designer of the game at two players?
And I'm like. Yes, yes.
OK, this. Do you want to know why you go
to Gen. Con?
This is why you go to Gen. Con, Yeah?
Absolutely. So on Saturday I went back to
the booth at the preordained time.
That's right. The time was preordained and I
got to meet Jason Brooks and he taught me Clandestine and it was
just at two players because that's what I was interested in.
This game is incredible, guys. It's on pre-order right now.
It's already been fully funded. He's doing some late pledges.
Check out Clandestine. It's incredible.
There will not be there will not be a retail version.
There's only this deluxe version, so got to check that
out. Clandestine.
It was great. So I got to play the 2 with the
designer. Hopefully he's going to come on
the show and talk about it and talk about his journey, which is
amazing. Yeah.
That's why you go to Gen. Con.
That's why you go for things like that.
I can't go to Titan Games and play Sagrada and expect Adrian
to be there and be like, yeah, let me show it to you.
That's not. Yeah, yeah.
That's that's cool. That's a really cool thing.
Yeah. I'm trying to think.
We had, I don't guess we got to outside of just, you know,
regular demos and stuff. We didn't have a super cool
moment like you, but you're just so much cooler than me.
Y'all don't listen to him. So what?
What game did you bring home that you were just like, this is
awesome. It's just, you know.
So that was that was Caitlin and I's conversation.
Part of the car ride is you know what of what that we got?
Are you the most excited about? And she immediately said
Galactic Cruise, which we talked about this on the last podcast.
I was tempted to buy the origins.
I needed her to play it to justify the money.
Well, we borrowed a copy, played it at three players.
She loved it. We played it the next night at
two players to see so she could experience the two player
variant. It's good.
And she was like, we've got to get this.
And so I wasn't sold on the all in bundle, but when I got there,
I was like, well, I want the expansions at that point, you
might as well get the bundle because you got to have the
upgraded bits. And at that point getting the
play mat and the sleeves were like 15 more dollars.
So which I know you're feeling on the play mat, you don't like
the sleeves. Well, that makes I I don't
sleeve as intensely as I used to, but I still games like that
that are high dollar and I play with my kids and I've got a
protect the games. So I know Caitlin's number one
without hesitation was galactic cruise, and I think I'm with her
on that just because we both really liked it and I think
that's one we're going to enjoy together.
I think the one that I was the most excited to get was probably
Tiantia, just because I really have enjoyed board and dice
stuff, the T game series. Yep, and so I'm really excited
to try that one. It looks incredible.
The artwork is better than some of them.
Some of them are very drab looking.
The artwork is pretty good and it's a little bit different of a
setting and it it's less of a dice game and more of a worker
placement game and there's a kind of a semi cooperative
element where you're trying to build the walls to protect the
lands from attack. I don't know the full details of
the setting and everything there, but I was talking to some
people that were demoing it and he was kind of telling me he's
like, you know, you, you're either going to hurt together or
you're going to feel Better Together.
You're still competing, It's still fully competitive, but as
far as like, if you don't build the walls in the right spots,
everybody's going to be hurting. So that sounds like an
interesting thing. And so I'm really excited about
that. And one of the other ones I was
excited to get. I don't know if you've played
Spectacular I. Have not not have gotten this.
Game is fantastic and we played it last night with James, who
you met a little bit ago before we started recording.
It was one that I played at BGG Spring with Kyle and we both
loved it and I knew Caitlin would like it.
We walked by, kind of showed it to her.
Didn't really feel like spending the money on it that day.
Well, we happened to walk back by their booth on Sunday and
they had it marked $10 off and I was like, I can't pass that up.
Nice. We got it.
There were two games. I think you kind of asked what
I'm bummed I missed on. There were two games that I kind
of wanted to get. We got to play Kalamala Saturday
night. Yeah, and it was fantastic.
We both really liked it. So I made it a point to bust it
over to their booth Sunday after our shift to see if they still
had it. They did.
It was just a little bit more than what I wanted to spend at
the time. Sure.
After spending more than I intended to throughout the
weekend. It happens to the best.
And in the car ride home, Caitlin was just like, I
shouldn't have talked to you out of it.
We should have just got it. And I was like, well, it is what
it is. But that was a really good game.
Ruins from All Play was another one that I had high up on my
list because of how popular it was at Origins and how many
friends I know that really liked it.
Right. Well, we went to the all play
booth day one to demo it and all their demo staff was busy, but
there were a couple other guys at the Ruins table looking at it
and one of them said I got a quick demo.
This I got a quick this morning. I could probably teach it.
If anybody ever says that at a convention, maybe don't trust
them. I say that some people would be
fine. Some people are, so you never
know. It's true.
He didn't teach it super clearly and accurately.
And so we didn't really get a good feel, and we just kind of
clunked through one round. And I don't think anybody knew
what was going on. And as a result, Caitlin was
just kind of like, OK, well, all weekend long I kept saying, hey,
do you want to go look at that again?
Hey, do we want to grab that? And every time, like, yeah, I
don't know, we're in the car ride on the way home and she's
just like, you know, I really was interested in that game.
I was like, are you kidding me? I asked you like 10 times
throughout the weekend. And every time you're like, no,
I think I'm OK. So Ruins, Ruins is living rent
free in your head, right? Yeah, yeah.
That was, that was just kind of a funny one that I had to give
her a hard time about. I was like, I asked you about
that so many times and you didn't seem interested at all.
And now you're like, why didn't we just buy it?
And then there was one. There was one I heard about
Sunday. OK, my last demos called
Ofrenda. Themed around on this.
Themed around Dio de Los Muertos.
OK, I've got a really good game in the same setting.
We'll put it out out anyway. So we were going to try to make
it over to the booth. Osprey, Osprey games, they were
one that I didn't make it to their booth.
It was on the clear other end of the hall.
We were going to try to make it over there to look at it because
it sounds like something that would really hit, especially for
Caitlin, but also for myself. And the whole game is about like
organizing your Dio de Los Muertos altar area.
I don't know the correct lingo. I'm not trying to, you know, get
it wrong, but that's the theme of the game as you're trying to
lay out your family stuff and your altar around that holiday.
And so it just sounded really cool.
And unfortunately we didn't make it over there.
So that's one that I'm going to keep on my list to check out at
some point in the future because it sounded, the way they
explained it, it sounded like a fantastic game.
If you want something that's a little bit smaller, easier to
travel and that is accessible, that's Potsquaro.
But weird Giraffe Games, we picked that up last year.
It's the same thing, but it's like cards and you're building
the altar. Potsquaro.
Yeah. OK.
So it's funny you brought up all play game that blew our minds
and is living rent free in my head.
We didn't we didn't buy it. We could have.
We had the opportunity at all play and we didn't.
And that's Twinkle, Twinkle really.
We got a chance to play it Sunday night with our friend
Angel at the end of the night and we were like, this is good.
Like it's always a challenge when everyone's like hyping up a
game. Is it really?
Worth it? Is it really is good?
Yeah. Yes.
Usually not, but. Twinkle, Twinkle is.
Really interesting. It is so strategic, so simple in
its theme. You're just, you know, it's, Oh
my gosh, the acrylic tiles that place on your player board.
And that's not a deluxe version. It's.
They look great. It's really fantastic and I'm
like, man, we need to get a copy of that and it's living here.
Yeah, we, we looked at it when we were at the booth that day
and it looked really cool. Yep.
But we didn't play it. Yeah, it's probably one that we
would enjoy, but we. Just would you?
Know Caleb was ready to move on so.
You absolutely would, but there it is.
Was there a game for you that was at a booth?
But it's not come out yet, has not been released?
Like something you're looking forward to maybe next year and
maybe you didn't see many of those because there weren't a
lot. There were a few.
Think Luthier's One. I think it's kind of delivering
on Kickstarter and it was available to buy.
Yep. That game looks amazing but holy
cow is it expensive. Yeah, it's.
Jeez. And Pete?
'S it's a monster. That's one that I I want to get.
I want to get to play it at some point.
OK. Just come.
Just come visit us again because luthier should be arriving soon,
OK? Because we backed it last year.
Yeah, no, I don't. I don't think there's anything
that I played that's not coming out yet.
So there's there's one, there's one on my list that's Arctica.
It's it's made by play deep and Explore Horizons.
These are the guys who did ice. Ice was one that I wanted to
check out but didn't get to it. Well, I didn't really give much
thought to ICE, but we were walking the vendor hall Sunday
and they had Arctica set up. Oh my God, Chris, this game is
beautiful. It is a heavy hero.
And if Adam from Tabletop Vibes is listening, one of the things
we talked about when we did our back-to-back episode earlier
this year was circular boards. The boards about this one maybe?
I don't know. That's it.
But you don't even know, OK? That is it, yes.
I that cover looks great, there's no other pictures.
No. So the board is circle, and it's
from a bird's eye view of the Earth over the North Pole, so
that the Arctic Circle is the centerpiece.
And so you can see the continents.
You can see a little bit of Canada and Greenland and Russia
and whatnot. And there are events, and when
those events take place, they're environmental events.
It's all about preserving the environment of the Arctic
Circle. Tiles will show up and it will
change the landscape of the continents just outside the
Arctic Circle. The game is gorgeous.
The components are amazing. Samson Peret is the CEO.
He's from, I think he's from Sweden.
I probably shouldn't say too much because I don't want to be
wrong because I'm hoping to have him on the show.
And if I if I say things wrong, he may not come on.
Yeah. Look, it looks cool.
It's coming out in 2026. It looks fantastic.
All the components are made from sustainable materials.
Compressed wood for the wood components, recycled cardboard.
Just magic. Be on the lookout for that next
Year in 26 Article I. Thought of two.
Yes, lay it on me. So 1 is hanami.
Yep, that. Is launching on Kickstarter in
September from Keymaster and that is the reskin slash update
of Kanetia's samurai right. That is the theme is great.
Jen from key master was kind of telling me about it.
She's like the whole theme is staking out your picnic spots,
which apparently can be a really ruthless thing in Japan.
And like there are families that hire people to wait until the
time to go grab the picnic spot. Like it's just this whole like,
you know, weird cultural thing over there that doesn't make
sense to us. But but it looks like if you've
ever seen her played Samurai. I remembered in enjoying it but
I didn't understand it the one time I played it and I got my
butt kicked. That sounds about.
Right. But it's, you know, kind of
blandish. But this board is just gorgeous,
with lots of purples and Blues and flowers, and it looks very
peaceful and serene. But from what they were saying,
it's still got a lot of that cutthroat gameplay of samurai.
So I'm really interested in that.
And then the second one is, if you're a classic slasher movie
fan like myself, there's a game out there that you can't find
unless you want to pay a lot of money for it.
It's called Camp Grizzly, and you can find it for about four
or $500 on eBay from time to time.
But Trick or Treat Studios got the rights to it earlier this
year, last year, they announced it within the last year, but
they've got a new addition coming to Kickstarter, I think
this coming week, I think it's this.
It's either this Tuesday or next Tuesday.
OK. And so similar gameplay,
updated, tweaked some rules, updated some of the components.
Now, the interesting thing is, is this was a game that was high
on my list to try at some point, but you can't find it anywhere
because it's been out of print for years, and people are
sniping it up as soon as they can when it's available.
But I got to play it last year at Nerdfest in Detroit, which is
the trip that I hung out with you guys on.
Yeah. And is it the greatest game
ever? Absolutely not.
But if you love, you know, Friday the 13th Halloween, those
classic slasher movies where you're fighting for your life
and running from, you know, mass crazed maniac and in the woods
and trying to survive. It was like we just had so much
fun with it. And if you've never played it,
check out the Kickstarter. If you have played it and you've
been looking for a copy, your chances coming up.
It's about to be available so make sure you jump on and and
support Trick or Treat Studios, which we ended up buying a game
from them too. While we were at the booth, we
got Immortal. I don't know if you've.
Seen this, have you? I have not.
Have you ever played Querkel or Rummy Cube?
Yes. So this is a weird love child of
those two games mashed together where you're decorating A
graveyard with flowers. So the board is a graveyard and
you're putting flower pieces on it to decorate the graveyard.
OK, but you're placing them in groups of either the same color,
consecutive numbers, or different colors, same number,
and you have to place at least three tiles.
But then before at the medium return, you can rearrange.
So kind of like Rummy Cube where you can break and move things
around, right? But then like Quirkle, you're
building out a pattern of same but different, you know?
So it's kind of those two games kind of mashed into one with a
kind of fun macabre theme, which if you can't, we really enjoy.
Sure. So one last question to wrap up
here. It's kind of tied to why go to
Gen. Con?
What would you say about if people were wondering about
trying to get on with a publisher to do what you did and
work the vendor hall? Do you believe it's a good
opportunity? Is it worth it?
Should people consider it? Is it too much?
What do you think? I think that is entirely up to
the individual. OK, Caitlin and I have decided
that we love doing it. We really enjoy teaching the
games. On the financial side of things,
for us, we couldn't have afforded to go to Gym Con, but
getting the free badge, getting some hourly pay, the hourly pay
will basically cover our hotel room.
There you go. Now, we stayed about 25 minutes
out of downtown to get a cheap room, but part of that was
because we waited so late, too. But you know, helps cover travel
cost, right? Which is a huge deal.
And the free badge is nice because Gen.
Con badges aren't cheap. I don't know, it's like 150 or
something like that for the weekend.
So, you know, for two of us, that's $300 that we didn't have
to pay. And getting the free games is
nice. On the relational side of
things. It makes it easy to see people
because you say, hey, this is where I'm going to be, come by
and say hi. And most people do.
As far as the time commitment, that's where it's up to the
individual because all of those things are everybody wouldn't,
nobody would argue with money and free badges and the
relational aspect, free games. The time commitment is a push
and pull, right? Like I mentioned, last time it
was great because we worked 8:00 to noon, ate lunch, and then had
five or six hours in the hall. This time we didn't have that
because they didn't have the event space, so our time in the
hall was limited. It felt a little more rushed, a
little more frantic than last time.
I feel like we just casually perused the hall every day.
And so that's the tough part. You know, if you're willing to
spend the four hours a day and miss out on some things to get
all the perks right, then it's totally worth it.
There you go. I think for us, we've decided
it's worth it, but I can't say that it's worth it for everybody
because it's just, you know, it's up to you.
Origins was the same way. That's the only reason Kyle and
I went to Origins is because I got invited to work with Bite
Wing. So it makes the experience
accessible and affordable. Yes, absolutely.
So there you go. Yeah.
But well, it is it does come with a sacrifice, so.
It does, absolutely, but I appreciate you taking the time.
Thanks for joining me once again to do this guys.
Gen. Con is a wrap.
Origins is done. I think only thing left the big
convention in the US is PAX U. Pax U.
We do have Essence Spiel in Germany in October.
There might be some coverage from our long lost friend
Gareth, who's going for the first time.
So there, we'll we'll see about that.
That'll be exciting. And we've got some great things
on the pipeline. So I managed to get 7
commitments on the show while it was a Gen.
Con, 25 leads of people who expressed interest that I had to
follow up with. Yeah.
And I gave out almost 500 business cards while a Gen.
Con so. Awesome.
It was, it was great. It was a great day for the
podcast. Got to create new relationships,
nurture some old ones. This is why you go to Gen.
Con. So absolutely, it's all about
the people. So be kind to one another and
remember to play more games.