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Dale Yu: 2006 GenCon Report
I was able to make it to GenCon this past weekend in Indianapolis. It was an interesting three days of gaming and catching up with old friends. There were many highlights and lowlights of the convention, and I hope to go over at least a few things not yet reported on by Rick in his daily thoughts from GenCon.
For those of you that have never been to these large events – it’s a scene that has to be seen with your own eyes (and sometimes smelled with your own nose) in order to believe it. It is a huge mix of boardgaming, RPGing, Cosplay, poker, and much much more. But, I’ll try to describe my three days at GenCon to give you a better feel for what it’s all about. Mind you – I only spent time doing the boardgaming things, so I left about 60-70% of GenCon unexplored!
I usually follow the same pattern at these larger trade shows. The first day is full of exploration and scouting out the new games that I have been anticipating. The rest of the days are to follow up on leads given to me by my other gaming friends as well as catching up with old friends and finding time to play new games. Finally, if I’m still there on the last day of the show, I like to make one last pass around the hall to see if there are any blowout sales to take advantage of. And during the entire weekend, there are always giveaways that you have to be right on time for – such as the limited edition Heroscape figure or getting a free game from Immortal Eyes if you were one of the first five to their booth each morning with the appropriate coupon in hand!
Friday was my first official day at GenCon. I was able to get a good look around at the fair early with my special press pass – being part of the “industry� allows you to get into GenCon one hour before everyone else! Of course, as I really didn’t have anything to set-up – I took the opportunity to scope out some of the different booths and acclimate myself to the setup which was conveniently similar to years previous.
The large dealer hall looks similar each year. The huge room is split up into aisles (16 this year) with booths lining both sides of each aisle. Some of the larger displays – Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, Fantasy Flight, Upper Deck, Rio Grande, etc – take up large blocks of space that disrupt the otherwise regular pattern of the aisles. Many booths are simply constructed of 8-foot tables covered with tablecloths with the wares spread out upon them. The larger booths have carpet in their area with large structures such as a castle or other decorative stuff. Fantasy Flight, among others, had excellent gaming tables set up that had pre-printed wraps on them with board layouts. This makes game setup extremely quick when you don’t have to fiddle with the board setup for longer games like Descent or Arkham Horror. It also helps you quickly visualize what a game might be like when you can see a board setup at a glance.
I took a quick lap of the hall with my companions at the time, fellow BGNers Rick Thornquist and Valerie Putman. There still wasn’t much to look at early on Friday as many of the booths were still setting up. One exception to this was Jay Tummelson from Rio Grande Games who did take a few minutes to show us the production demo of his new game Shogun (a remake of Wallenstein). The game got the appropriate oohs and aahs, and Rick took the pictures that were posted from Friday. Unfortunately, there was only one copy available, and it did not have any rules. So, Rick, Valerie and I were deprived the honor of being among the first to play it on American soil. C’est la vie.
As the hall opened officially, the masses streamed into the main room. Rather than be overwhelmed by the initial surge of gaming humanity, Rick suggested that we go off and find room to play Emira. Emira is a new game from Mayfair which has a theme of attracting women to join your harem. It was quite interesting with a number of interesting decisions to be made. The three of us all seemed to enjoy it and had generally positive things to say about it. But, I’ll not mention much about the game now as I’ve only played it once and it was with three players – a number that the game doesn’t seem particularly suited for based on the rules. The special rules that are used for three players really seem like they were tacked onto the ruleset at the end of game development just so the game box could proudly display “3-5 players�. The changes to the overall game seem to be significant as compared to the rules you would follow for 4 or 5 players. However, since I have not yet been able to play the game with 4 or 5, I really must reserve any comments about it until I have more experience with it.
The rest of Friday was spent exploring the huge dealer hall. Generally, I just pick one corner and make a snaking path back and forth through the aisles. There were a few stops that I knew I would make; at Immortal Eyes to see Terra Nova, at Mayfair to look at Emira and Bison, and Fantasy Flight to look at their new releases. Otherwise, I just systematically made my way through the hall trying to lay eyes on every booth there at least once – I always want to be sure that I don’t miss a chance at finding a hidden gem! I didn’t make any purchases on the first day, but Valerie (who had the advantage of playtesting some games at Origins) was quick to pick up Emira and Terra Nova. Factoring in all the time I spent stopping and chatting with people, it took about 4 hours to navigate the entire hall for the first pass (almost my entire time in the main hall on the first day). The rest of the day was spent helping out my brother at the Mattel booth. As I’m sure you have heard, he has two new games out, Desert Bazaar and Voltage, which seemed to be well received. I was asked to help give demos at the booth and happily did so during the weekend. I was only mistaken for Brian four times on the first day which wasn’t too bad.
Friday night was set aside for gaming. Some of our group set into a large game of Descent while I managed to get in a few challenging games of 2-player Terra Nova. Surprisingly, I found that Terra Nova plays very well with two. I say that it is surprising because I very much enjoyed it with four players, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was better with only two! There are not many games out there meant for 4-5 that play better with only two. (If you’re interested, my list in that category would include Scotland Yard, Axis and Allies, and Carcassone.)
Saturday in the hall was spent playtesting. GenCon certainly offers the opportunity for some free playtesting. Many of the other gaming events at GenCon need tickets in order to participate. For instance, in the open gaming room, if you’d like to play a game of (insert any game name here), you’ll need to have purchased event tickets beforehand (I think for $2 each) and then give one up in order to play in the game. On the other hand, if you’re lucky enough to get one of the very limited seats for play in the main hall, you can playtest a new game for free. Sometimes you can play a whole game, and sometimes you just want someone to go through the rules of a game so you can get a better feel for it. I took a look at a number of games including WordSpot (Front Porch Classics), Monkey Arena (3AM games), Conquest of Pangea (Immortal Eyes), Pieces of Eight (Atlas), Dragonology (Sababa), Xig (Xig Games), and many others. It’s a great opportunity to see new games and try them out to see if you like them. While all the games I saw were interesting, suffice it to say that the only two games that I came home with were Seismic (Atlas) and Terra Nova (Immortal Eyes). A fair amount of time was also spent taking in the other visitors to GenCon. Though I personally don’t understand the fascination with Cosplay or why you’d travel across the country to then dress up in a Klingon suit with full makeup to walk around all day – it sure provides some interesting conversation and great eye candy. Tyler and I spent a fair amount of time taking in the sights and trading comments about the goths, pregnant/fat Leias, and cheerleaders passing our way.
Saturday night was again more gaming in the hotel room. With a clever appropriation of a bench from the hotel hallway, my hotel room was able to accommodate 7 gamers for the evening. My brother and Tyler Putman started a game of Twilight Struggle while the rest of us played other games on the bed. John Palagyi managed to get at least one of the new releases from StrataMax games, Hatu Matu, onto the table. Initial opinion was positive (at least from what I overheard as I didn’t get to see it). Rick wanted to see Iliade (Asmodee), so my copy was brought out for a quick 5-player spin. Unfortunately, due to a printing error, the game was not available in a truly finished format in English at GenCon, but it should be available soon. Ted Cheatham also joined us and we got to play a game of his new release, Silk Road, which was done with Bruno Faidutti. The production version looks great, and I look forward to the day when I can buy this game from Z-Man Games. After Silk Road, Rick suggested we try his copy of It’s Good To Be The King (3AM Games). Unfortunately, I don’t think we got the rules right, so at this time, all I can say about the game is that it has a great personality. I’ll have to defer to Rick to give us a better update on the game as he was intending to talk to the guys at 3AM for a better explanation of the game.
Sunday is traditionally the day for bargains. I wasn’t looking for many games at this point, so I didn’t really take advantage of some of the blow-out specials on offer from the booths. Oftentimes the dealers will decide that it’s more cost effective to sell their wares at reduced prices rather than ship them back to wherever they came from… I did get a nice deal on card protectors (2 packs for a dollar) and deck boxes (4 for three dollars – with protectors inside the box already!). However, the rest of my money was carefully stashed away to help pay for the fuel bill for my drive back home.
GenCon was a great experience this year. The larger trade shows have a much different feel than many of the other conventions that I go to throughout the year. The main reason for this is that there is less of an emphasis on playing games. In fact, this year, during the hours that GenCon was open, I played about 7 games total in three days. The rest of my time was spent looking at stuff, listening to rules explanations without being able to play (because I wasn’t there soon enough to grab a seat), talking with friends, or sitting back and watching the people walk by. However, there are so many new games to see and people to watch that your whole day is still full of activity even if you’re not playing games. Again let me mention that there are areas set aside for boardgaming play, but I did not choose to go there this year as I was busy enough in the main dealer’s hall.
I know that this is no substitute for being there yourself, but maybe you can get a better feel for what GenCon is all about! If you have a chance to go, it is certainly something to be seen. Indianapolis is a great town for a convention such as this. The entire downtown area was overrun by gamers, and the city seemed to go out of its way to put out the welcome mat. There must be at least 75 restaurants within walking distance from the convention center, and there were signs in just about every restaurant we were in saying “Welcome GenCon�. Some of the restaurants had specially themed menus for gamers, and I even heard that some of the hotel restaurants had special lower-priced menus more in line with the budgets of traveling gamers rather than the usual type of client they generally take care of.
KIDS’ GAMES FROM GENCON / PLAYCHEST GAMES
OK, so there isn’t much at GenCon targeted towards children. In fact, with the numbers of women dressed as cheerleaders, fairies, Stormtroopers in nice form fitting uniforms, naughty cheerleaders, naughty Stormtroopers, Princess Leia in her golden bikini, naughty elves, goths, naughty goths, naughty corseted goths, corseted cheerleaders, etc…—it’s clear that youngsters are not necessarily the target audience of this particular convention! But while working at the Mattel booth, I did run into a few children’s games that I had not seen before. I had not seen them because they are currently for sale exclusively on the Net (at amazon.com, walmart.com, kmart.com and elsewhere). Playchest Games is a new line of children’s games that is being put out by Mattel. I had a chance to talk with one of the team designers, Ben Blagg, who took some time to show Valerie Putman and I some of their new games. The target age for their games is 4+. All of these games have good production value with nice cheerful graphics. Sturdiness may be a long term issue as some of the pieces are just laminated cardboard, but in our demonstration, the pieces were actually quite sturdy and look like they would hold up to normal play from my kids.
The first game we got to look at was Penguin Plunge (designed for 5+). It is a clever game that has each player taking the role of a mother penguin. Your job is to collect your three kids (labeled 1, 2 and 3) in order and then return to your home igloo. The pieces are molded so that each baby penguin, when collected, will attach to the head of the mother penguin. The main mechanic is roll and move. However, there are times that will cause you to roll a special penguin die. When you roll this die, you will either place a penguin into the ice tower in the center (what we called the ‘Penguin Pokey’), release the penguins from the tower, or possibly get to move 5 spaces and do nothing to the penguins. The use of the Penguin Pokey helps keep the penguins moving around and makes the game more interesting that your usual roll-and-move kids game. Additionally, I can certainly see how the tumbling penguins will delight young children both by sight as well as sound.
The next game shown to us was Once Upon A Castle (meant for 4+). This is a somewhat more complex version of Memory. It is a 2-player game, and each player is given a mat on which he or she will construct a tower. The goal is to get 5 pieces of your castle together so you can raise your flag and win the game. Each player mat has a set of three symbols on it, and this tells you what symbols you are trying to collect as you build your castle. These symbols are found on the backs of the 5 different castle piece types. There is a track on which you place your pawns. You roll the die and move your pawn the number of spaces. On each space there are symbols corresponding to the different types of castle pieces. You choose an appropriate piece and see if it has a type of symbol that you are trying to collect. If it is, you add it to your castle. If it is not a match, you return it to the table. There is also an ogre in the game that moves around the board. If it lands on you OR if you land on it, you lose one of your already built castle pieces. The game continues until one player has finished his castle by building all 5 pieces.
The last game we looked at was Silly Story Maker (ages 5+). This is a nice game to help your children with make-believe story telling. The game is driven by a deck of cards. Each card has an easily recognizable picture of something (dog, hot air balloon, girl in love, horse-drawn carriage, bicycle, etc). The cards also have an icon in the corner and well as a colored border. On your turn, you play a card from your hand which matches either the icon in the corner from the previous card played or the color of border from the previous card. When you play your card, you then add to the story that has already been started. For example, in our game, our first card was a treehouse. Our story started “Once upon a time, there was a mermaid who lived in a tree house�. The next card played was of a horse-drawn carriage. The story was then changed/continued: “Once upon a time, there was a mermaid who lived in a tree house who had a nice horse drawn carriage to ride in.� The third card was of an ogre carrying a club. The story then took a turn for the worse: “Once upon a time, there was a slutty mermaid who lived in a tree-house. She had a nice horse-drawn carriage to ride in. Her wife-beater of a husband demanded that she take that carriage into town to go buy some eggs.� As you can probably guess, our story soon turned lurid and risqué and should not be repeated in this nice pleasant public forum. So let me continue by saying that the game goes on until 10 cards have been played and there is a (hopefully) nice clean story to be told by your kids. There isn’t really a winner or loser in this basic game as the goal is just to get your kids to cooperate and use their imagination to tell a story using the cards as cues.
I hadn’t heard of these before because they’re not available in stores, and thus, I hadn’t run across them in my trips to the local toy store. However, these games are supposedly the beginnings of a new line of children’s games which will hopefully enter the mainstream distribution with future releases. Admittedly, none of these games are revolutionary – but they would all make nice additions to the shelf for younger children to pull out and play by themselves or with their parents.
That’s it for this week (my fingers are starting to cramp)
Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor
Posted by Dale Yu on Aug 16, 2006 at 03:00 AM in Columnists, Dale Yu / 1738
Comments:
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Dale,
Terra Nova got an excellent review in the German Spielbox magazine. Some of the reviewers noted that it’s especially good with two, as you observed as well. Based on these comments, it’s now definitely on my shopping list!
Peter Posted by Peter Hein van Mulligen on Aug 18, 2006 at 01:19 AM | #
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Cartagena and other Colovini games also fit that category of “multi-player games that should be played with only two.” Go West is good with two, really! I liked Terra Nova with four and am glad to hear that two-player is even better. Maybe this is something we should keep in mind for Italian games… Posted by W. Eric Martin on Aug 18, 2006 at 06:10 AM | #
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I’ve heard several players express their preference for playing El Cab with two. The one time I played with that number, it felt kind of sterile and not all that enjoyable. I much prefer playing with three or four. Excellent game, but hard to get on the table. Posted by Larry Levy on Aug 18, 2006 at 08:07 AM | #
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