So Every year my esteemed Co-host Chris “Dice Hate Me” Kirkman does an amazing pictorial recap of gen con, so I figured since I took a ton of pictures and saw some great things this year, that I would do one myself for once. So here we go!!!
Each year we have a great informal Meetup Wed night at Gen Con. This year we were again at the Yard House, and we had a blast and met a bunch of great listeners. Thanks to Glen and many others who came out!
So Wed at Media Day We got to see Age of Sigmar Champions by Play Fusion. It’s got a fun little engine to it. 4 Champions, 4 blessings and 30 cards in the deck. No mana to cast things just 2 actions per turn and you can cast any card for an action. There’s also a very unique card rotating mechanism for regular cards and champions. I really dig this one and have all 4 of the current starters, expect to hear more of this one on the show in the future.
So First up I got to see some new things from Paradox Interactive. Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis.
This is kinda a Civ game over a few generations. You will draft some cards that will help you get some influence on the board, so get heirs, and of course mess with people. I usually don’t like these sort of games, but the way it seems to play and the bag building mechanism (where you put “Traits” into the bag that are positive and negative and you draw these to succeed or fail at tasks), really made me think this could be a decent one to play with my group.
Europa Universalis.
This next one was a bit more “War/Dudes on a map” for my taste. but still there was something I really enjoyed about this short 1 round play. Again if I played this with my group and people I enjoy playing with, I might just give it a shot.
Some pretty cool sights at the USAopoly booth. I liked a bunch of what I saw. Of course I already love Thanos Rising, but there is the remake of Quartz with the Snow White theme coming that I think a lot of families will love. There’s a little less take that, but it’s still there.
So I watched some of the Fantastic Beasts Co-op game. I really thought it seemed very cool, it’s got a bunch of beasts, player powers and dice rolling. I am a sucker for a fun family co-op, and while it looked challenging I think I might just have to pick this one up.
So this one is Court of the Dead:Mourners Call by Project Raygun. I think it’s being distributed by USAopoly, but it was at their booth. It looks absolutely beautiful. I would really like to get a play of it, very thematic card driven game-play. I was asking about another print run outside the initial KS run, and it didn’t sound like that was a huge thing in their mind right now. It sounded more like they will put it out to backers, see what the buzz is like and then weigh if they want to hit the print button again or not. I am at the very least quite intrigued to get a play of it once it’s delivered.
Did I mention Blizzard was there? Their little corner of Hall A looked amazing. And basically all they did was sell merch and have a little area for people to play Heartstone. Seems a bit weird to me and wonder if it paid for itself. I assume it must have… anyway I was really hoping they would have some sort of board game announcement but alas, it never came. Maybe next year??
As always Haba NEVER disappoints. Their booth was always hopping and they had a bunch of great games for sale, for both kids and adults alike.
One HABA Game that I cannot get enough of is Conex. It’s a bit abstract (which I normally don’t like) but I love it none the less, and it was one of my big hits of the con. You play cards from your hand, which have other “corners” and other colors on them, onto other cards already played to the board, or the main square scoring board. As you play these you will score points, and roll the die. From there you can score more points, draw cards and make people discard cards. The main objective is to get t o the end of the little score track from these points. First person who does. is the winner.
So King of the Dice, is a quick playing, light dice chucker. The dice in them have different colors on different faces (2 each of 3 different sets), and you roll them Yahtzee style. You are trying to match different goals on some of the cards for points. If the color of the card you get matches the location card it is under, you get that card as well. Sure, it’s dice but MAN is it FUN. I really dig this one as well for family weight fun.
Last up is BOOM, BANG, GOLD! A bit of a dexterity game, where you throw down the dynamite with one hand and collect face up chits of gold and other stuff with the other hand. It’s set collection and some dexterity and take that all in one. I didn’t get to play but it was very cute and think kids would enjoy it.
Oh Did I mention there’s a new Game From Stronghold and Friedemann Friese called Fortune? It’s along the lines of Fear, where you are this time trying to have the highest hand of 3 cards. You will be drawing or taking a card from the middle and discarding a card, easy peasy. But of course as the game goes on there’s much more then that. If you liked Fear, then check this one out for sure.
Next up is a couple of Demo’s of games that will be on Kickstarter in the next month or two. First up is Stygian Society. It’s a co-op dungeon crawl by Ape Games and Kevin Wilson. It’s got a cube tower like Shogun or Amerigo for doing actions, and also resolving the monsters actions. It’s pretty tough but in a good way and I really enjoyed the player leveling and powers in it. And did I mention a flipping CUBE TOWER!!! I really love those and I think people will love this game. Maybe even some of those who don’t like Co-ops. So look for it soon.
Of course I was the Doctor in Stygian Society.
The next demo we played was The Artemis Project, coming out by the Grand Gamers Guild. They describe it as Homesteaders meets Alien Frontiers, and well, that’s a pretty damn good way to describe it. You roll dice and assign your workers, trying to get some resources, go one expeditions and help build up the buildings on Europa. Another fun game I think people will want to back on Kickstarter. Be sure to hear our thoughts about it on the Gen Con review of The Geek Allstars (dropping monday Aug 20th).
And yes Playing games on a football field is cool as all hell
Oh I nearly forgot another demo I did at the Space Cowboys booth. Orbis was one that I had on my top 11 to try for Gen Con, and it was one I actually got to sit down and play. And spoiler alert I loved this one too! It’s a nice light mechanical game in sort of the vein of Splendor. It’s simple you pick a tile to put in your pyramid tableau (you will end up with a base 5 then 4 on top 3 on top and so on), and it might cost cubes and it will also likely put more cubes on the other tiles around the one you picked up. Some will give you points or have a small objective you will need to do to get more points. But it’s got some thinking ahead and some long term planning as well for points (Chris would call that both Tactical and strategic decisions… yes Chris I listen to you on our show!). Once you get to the top of the pyramid of tiles you have on your board you will then draft one of the god tiles. These might just be points, might be point for most of a certain color tile or another objective. But that’s it easy peasy to play and not too overwhelming. If you like mechanics and a little puzzle (like I said think Splendor) then you will like this one.
Let’s keep this demo train rolling shall we???? I wandered past the AEG booth and I saw my good buddy David Short (name drop) and designer of another game I wanted to try Sorpius Freighter (along with Matthew Dunstan). It’s a bit of a tableau builder with 3 rondells and with you having a crew on your ship kinda player powers as well. Hell, it’s got a bunch of things going on, including kinda pick up and deliver with having to fulfill contracts as well. It really enjoyed the planning of your turns as other people are going, b/c well you have to since you are all sharing these ronells and you have to think of what your options are, and what you want to do. Do I upgrade my ships storage? Do I upgrade my crew? Do I fill up my ship with money or goods? Or do I pick up a contract. There’s a crap-ton to do and every decision feels very fun to do. Holy cow this one is going to be good, and I hate that I have to wait till Essen to get my hands on it. So put this one on your buy list at your FLGS or Online store ASAP. It’s gonna be good.
It’s no secret I love Ascension and I am a total Justin Gary fanboy. It was great to chat with him about all thing Ascension, Shards of Infinity and Dungeon Draft. The next expansion for Shards will be out in October, and it’s got what we all were waiting for, Player Powers. But not just automatic, each faction will have 2 cards with abilities that they can unlock one at 10 shards. And with the other cards in the expansion, this will complete the 1st block of shards and will be very good.
Also Check out Justin;s new book Think Like A Game Designer, that is part of the charity humble bundle. (It might be over but if you check quick you might still be able to get it or check on Amazon for the book as well).
Tower of Madness by Smirk And Dagger, is Cthulu Kerpplunk. That’s kinda all you need to know about it. Sure there’s dice rolling and some take that cards with player powers which are all cool and all, but TENTACLES AND MARBLES MAN!!!! You fail on your dice rolling and you have to pull a tentacle. OR if you are already insane from the marbles not falling in your favor then you just go ahead and pull more marbles. So if you pull 3 doom marbles everyone loses (unless of course you are insane when you cause it to fall then you actually win), or if you get through all the investigation cards as the investigators before the doom comes then you add up the points and see who wins. But did I mention you pull tentacles and marbles might fall??? Yeah that’s the real fun.
Oh wait everyone needs a visit from JURY!!! Always good to hang with my buddy Jury and John Teasdale. We make it a bit of a Sunday night thing to get together when the bustle dies down and have some cold ones and play some games. Grats to those guys for delivering on Action News (another great improv-y game we have covered on the show) and I had a blast playing Medium with these guys.
Last up before I throw some obligatory pics of Cos-players (man I love some cos-play!), I want to show a couple of pics of Sorcerer by White Wizard. It’s a LCG sorta, as you put a deck together from 12 different decks. A race, a class, and a hometown, there are 4 of each of those to choose from and you shuffle the three of them together and you have your play deck. You will use this deck to fight over 3 locations in the city, first one to capture 2 of them wins. It’s pretty slick with some great art. I think it might be heavier then some might like, but still right in my wheelhouse.
Now for some Cos-play!! I am a sucker for some Overwatch cos-play as well.
So here we have Halloween Mercy, McCree and Sombra, and Moira getting some first aid for her costume. There’s always a multitude of great cos-play at the con and this only scratches the surface.
An amazing Dr. Doom!
I took this one of the multiple Spidy’s, mainly b/c the Spidy/Captain America/Deadpool amalgam just cracked me up.
It’s not every day you see a Firestorm Cos-play, and I kinda liked the look and simplicity of it.
So I hope you enjoyed this pictorial re-cap of Gen Con… I enjoyed doing it and enjoyed seeing everything this year and meeting so many great people who listen to The Geek Allstars and mentioned the segment I do on TMSPM as well….
Oh crap.. THERE’S MORE!!!!
I got to play Founders of Gloomhaven when I got home with 2p, with Mosley. So I won’t go into it now, but it’s a dry as all hell city building euro in all the BEST WAYS POSSIBLE. I loved it and really can’t wait to get to play it with 3/4.
Thanks for checking this out, and by all means go buy Scarabya!!
