Thursday, August 13, 2015

Classic Con Report - Gen Con 2015


High light: I met a lot of people that influenced my career choices at this show. Joe Dever, in particular, wrote the first fantasy books I ever read and he was fantastically charming and gracious. I'm going to be a dad next year and I can't wait to bust out the boxed set for the baby when he or she is old enough.

Low light: Not enough time. I feel like I missed seeing so many people at the show.

Best experience: Sunday night dinner at St. Elmo's continues to be a highlight of the con. That first bite of the Filet Mignon is like a vacation within a vacation.

Worst experience: Finding out some bad family health news on the way home. Nothing like crying in a Steak and Shake parking lot to kill off your big post-Gen Con buzz.

Best bargain (had to buy it, no freebies): 4 D6 Star Wars books I didn't have for $18.

Best Freebie: Gene Ha, the artist for the award-winning Top 40 comics series, handed out some sketches of audience members he did at the comics panels at the show. I was one of the lucky ones, which is the rough equivalent of a reknowned chef wandering by your table at dinner and asking if you want a free steak.

Most welcome surprise: Our usual Friday night room game didn;t go off, but I still had fun just hanging out and talking with folks I usually only see at cons.

Most unwelcome surprise: Despite having most of my time back to myself, I didn't really get a chance to play a lot of games until Sunday.

Best game: Flick Em Up is a Wild West dexterity game where you have a shootout in a little meeple town. It is painfully adorable and a blast to play a few drinks deep.

Most interesting game concept: Flick Em Up, a wild west shoot'em up meeple game, was a ton of fun throughout the con.

Sleeper game:  Yashima, a wuxia kung-fu deckbuilder, did just enough cool things in the demo to get me to buy it.

Coolest booth: The Flick 'Em Up booth had a Texas-sized version of the game to demo, complete with a duel area for quick illustrations of how the game worked.

Strangest moment: Watching my roommates hack the hotel TV so that we could watch Netflix as we wound down on a few nights.

Played: 
Monarch
Nefarious
Flick 'Em Up
Superstar Smackdown
Firefly RPG
Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn

Purchased:
Flick 'Em Up
Yashima
Seventh Hero
Star Wars books
Cthulhu Apocalypse
Mythos Expeditions
Lone Wolf Adventure Game
Ravenloft books
Street Legends expansion

Swag:
Leverage Companions
Sixth Gun RPG
Deadlands Kickstarter
Chill 3rd Ed
Feng Shui 2
Pathfinder map packs
Legendary Encounter organizer
Revelations of Mars
Ravenloft boxed set
Gene Ha sketch
Cypher System bag

Things to pick up after the con:
Mysterium
Urban Shadows
Serpent's Skull Adventure Path
Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn

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