Dale Yu: Report from Gencon (2 of 2)

Well, this entry will conclude my report on my 2008 GenCon experience.  (The first half of my report appeared last week.) GenCon was a whirlwind four days in Indianapolis with many people to talk to and many new games to see.  Most of the “breaking” news was in the first entry – but then again, by the time you’re reading this – it’s been over a week and a half since GenCon happened!

APE Games

I had a chance to catch up with the nice folks at APE Games.  They were featuring Duck! Duck! Go! at GenCon.  Designer Kevin Nunn was there to help show the conventioneers the new game.  The game, which I have described in an earlier column, was a great hit, and it was sold out by late Saturday.

One of the best features of the game were the many different ducks that you could get in the game.  If you purchased the game at the convention, you were given a random assortment of four ducks.  However, if you order the game online, you will be able to choose which four six ducks you’d like to include in your box!

Some examples of the varied ducks.

Yet more ducks…

Even more ducks!

FRED Games

Another busy booth was that of FRED Games.  They had a number of consistent sellers there including Brass and the new release Ice Flow.  It was hard to find time at their demo table to try the new games.  The only picture I have from FRED though is a new game they apparently just picked up during the show – Pirate King.  I have yet to try the game, so I can’t tell you much about it yet – but I hope to get more details from Sean or Keith in the near future!

The box of the mysterious Pirate King

Valley Games

Sharing the booth with FRED were the nice Canucks from Valley Games.  They had a three games at their booth: Titan, Municipium and Supernova.  Having had a good chance to look at all three games, I must say that the production quality is outstanding!  The games are all beautifully produced and were all well received by the public.

Though I understand that there was a hullabaloo about Valley offering a few copies of Titan to the public at the show.  It appears that there were only a very limited number of copies at GenCon, and frankly, I think it was a nice bonus for the luck GenCon attendees who were able to pick one up there.  It does appear that the preorders are also in the process of being sent out soon, so everyone should be able to get their copy soon!

While I was there, I was also able to have a conversation with Oliver Harrison, one of the designers of Supernova.  He gave me a quick overview of the game, and it sounds very intriguing!  I was able to pick up a copy of the game and I look forward to getting it on the table soon!

The Supernova board set up at the Valley Games booth

The super-cool Supernova box, which already comes presigned by the designers

Random notes about the city of Indianapolis and the hotels

I’d like to take a break here to talk a little bit about Indianapolis.  It is a great convention town, and the downtown area is eminently suited for the large crowds seen with GenCon.  The Convention Center is right downtown and it is in the center of everything.  There are multiple hotels close-by and hundreds of restaurants within walking distance.  Everything from fast food to $50 steaks can be found within a 10-minute walk from the convention center.

The city does seem to go out of its way to welcome the GenCon visitors.  Many of the restaurants had special signs in the front windows welcoming guests to the city and offering specials for conventioneers.  One restaurant, the somewhat-famous RAM brewery even goes as far as to offer special gaming oriented versions (D&D as one example) of their menu.  Unfortunately, I’ll likely never eat at the RAM again as this restaurant provided the only negative bit of hospitality of the entire weekend.  By the time that we went, they were out of at least half of the things our table ordered… and this particular microbrew went the classy route of serving their beer in plastic cups.  The server told us that we shouldn’t expect anything else because they couldn’t afford to use their real glasses with the likes of the GenCon folks.  Given this combination of things, I’ll never patronize that particular restaurant again.

Otherwise, the city and its hotels and restaurants were perfect for me and for the crowds of people.  My hotel, the Omni, even had a chocolate fondue table set up each day… Admittedly, it was better to get there earlier than later as it was a bit skanky near the end of the hour, but still – a nice touch.

One other moment about GenCon 2008 that I’ll never forget happened Saturday night… We were a bit late coming home from the Rio Grande room, and got back to the hotel around 10:30.  As we walked into the hotel lobby, there was a crowd of about 200 folks – half in evening gowns and tuxedos and half in GenCon wear – in the lobby staring at the televisions in the bar.  We had walked into the start of the 400 Medley relay, and the crowd was cheering on Michael Phelps and the rest of the US team.  The spontaneous cheers of U-S-A! brought a swell of patriotic pride.  After the race, the crowd dispersed… half went back to their tables to resume their games and the other half retreated to the back ballroom to go back to the wedding reception they had all abandoned.  The bride didn’t look as dismayed as I expected her to look – first for having her wedding reception hijacked by the Olympics or second for having to share her hotel with the GenCon regulars!

Remember to get to the fondue early!

Campaign Coins

You may have already heard about the Campaign Coins from Scott Tepper’s Origins report.  The company was back at GenCon, and they had a special on offer… 121 coins, enough for a very small D&D campaign, for the low low convention special price of $60!  While it does seem a bit steep, it’s really not that expensive for a game accessory when you consider things like David Fair’s pimped out Agricola set!

Here’s what your $60 can get you at GenCon! ($70 after the fair)

The non-gaming stuff

No trip to GenCon would be complete without mentioning the non-boardgaming side.  There’s lots of role-playing there, and a little bit of cosplay.  And corsets.  There are LARPs and mock battles.  And corsets.

All of the NSFW pictures were summarily deleted from my computer before the kids could see them.  Here are the few that survived…

Corsets anyone?

You never know who might attack you with a battle axe!

Simply Fun

I had a nice meeting with Don Beyer, the designer of Kayakchaos – a new race game.  The players try to race to the end of the river while avoiding obstacles in the river.  The players use a varying set of action cards to make sure that every race is unpredictable!  It looks like a lot of fun, and I think that this would be great with the kids…

The start of a Kayakchaos game

Asmodee

There were a few new games at the Asmodee booth including Okko – which I talked about in my Gulf Games report.  However, the biggest game for me was the new Formula De remake called Formula D.  This appears to be a new street-racing themed version of the game.  There was only one copy there, and it wasn’t really being demoed – at least not in the few times that I ran by the booth.  I was able to take a few quick pictures of it though.

The big advertising banner at the booth

A quick snap of the back of the box – looks like the old paper pads to mark your engine are going to be replaced by a box and pegs!

The SPAM Carving contest

This year, there was a nice SPAM carving contest on Sunday.  Contestants had a limited amount of time to create the best Spam-a-licious sculpture they could come up with.  As an added bonus, the “shavings” were all collected in bowls and were free for spectators to eat as they watched the festivities… Here are pictures of the winners!

First Place! A Monty-Pythonesque foot

Second Place – A SPAM TV set

A SPAM dragon or something like that…

Mayfair

I’ll close out the report with the Mayfair booth.  First, I’d like to congratulate Todd Sweet on his win in the Settlers of Catan World Championships.  This was one of the big events at the Mayfair area this year… The other was the Catan guy.  Really, words cannot do justice to the photo.  I wonder how much that guy had to be paid to wear that for 4 days?!

The big advertising banner at the booth

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

Comments:

< Back Home