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 Aug 19, 2008
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Dale Yu: Report from Gen Con (1 of 2)
Well, I just got back from Indianapolis and another fun-filled weekend at Gen Con. I will have to admit that I wasn’t able to spend as much time roaming the exhibitor hall as usual as I was also working for Rio Grande Games at the convention, but I was still able to get a good deal of news about what is to come in the next few months. Just like Origins, I brought a camera, so I’ll tell my story with a mini photo essay. There will be plenty of other reports here on BGN, I’m sure, as the columnists were there in force. Over the four days, I saw Valerie Putman, Ted Cheatham, Kris Hall, Travis Reynolds, and Matt Carlson at Gen Con.
Rio Grande Games
Well, I’ll start my story with Rio Grande as I spent the majority of the weekend in Jay’s room. This year, Rio Grande chose not to get a booth in the convention hall proper. Instead, Jay rented a room just across the hall from the main exhibitor hall. The room was large enough for about 18 eight-foot tables, and there was plenty of room to try out the new RGG releases. Unlike the other boardgame areas, Gen Con attendees could play the games for free here – they did not need to “rent” the games with generic tickets. Furthermore, Jay kept the room stocked with sodas, water and fruit/cheese/vegetable/meat trays. There was even an ice cream sundae bar on Saturday! Finally, the room had extended hours as compared to the exhibit hall, so we were open for gaming from 9 am until about 11 pm (while the exhibit hall was open from 10 am to 6 pm).
Though there wasn’t a lot of advertising for the room – only a single banner out in the hall – the room was plenty busy all day, and even more so after 6 pm when the exhibit hall closed. Plenty of people had a chance to play the new games, and a lot of the other exhibitors stopped in to see what was going on. As a result, I had the interesting experience of having the news come to me rather than me having to walk the halls finding the news!
From memory, the games available for play were: Dominion, Khronos, Utopia, Hanging Gardens, Metropolys, Manhattan, Ys, Race for the Galaxy, Stone Age, Nefertiti, Cash-a-Catch, Batavia, Ming Dynasty, Tzaar, In the Year of the Dragon, and Hamburgum. I’ll freely admit that it was tough to teach all of these games from memory, and I wasn’t able to do it! However, with some good teamwork amongst the demo monkeys, we were able to get most people into the game of their choice with whatever help they needed. I found that I was most comfortable with Dominion, Metropolys, Ys, Stone Age, Batavia, Witch’s Brew, ITYOD and Nefertiti – so the majority of my demos were with those games. However, over the course of the weekend, I taught every game in the room except for Utopia and Khronos. (Thank God that Valerie and Scott Russell were there to save my bacon each time I almost had to teach those games.)
As far as news from the RGG camp, here’s what I know:
1) Dominion is being sent to the printer this week. This keeps us on pace for an Essen release. The card art is finished, and it looks fantastic. I wish I could share the art with you, but at this time, it’s still confidential. The box art, however, has been posted to the RGG website.
The Dominion Box
2) Batavia and Witch’s Brew are now available – both of these arrived on the Friday morning of Gen Con, and we were expected to be able to teach them as soon as they arrived!
3) There is a high possibility that Queen will do a version of Wabash Cannonball (released by Winsome at Spiel 07). If Queen does this version, RGG will likely also release it here domestically. This is not yet set in stone, but it’s an interesting piece of gossip nevertheless.
4) Jay has confirmed RGG’s presence at BGG.con in November. Attendees at that convention will get a chance to play the newest Essen releases all weekend in Dallas.
WizKids
I had never seen the Star Wars PocketModel TCG – it’s a game where you build little Star Wars vehicles from flat cards. At Gen Con, WizKids had huge models of the PocketModels and a huge board taped on the floor to play on. While the WizKids booth wasn’t as large as it has been in the past, it was still prominently placed near the front of the hallway closest to the main entrance to the Exhibit hall.
One of the stands for the huge StarWars Pocketmodels
Here are a few of the huge models – use people in the background of the picture to get a feel for the scale of these things!
Z-Man Games
I had a nice long conversation with Zev. He seemed to be having a good show, though it could have been so much better if he had had copies of Agricola and Pandemic available for sale at his booth. Nevertheless, his new games were getting a lot of attention, and they certainly all looked great!
The new version of Traders of Carthage
Shazamm!
The beautiful board for the new Tales of the Arabian Nights (sorry for such bad flash glare)
But of course, this is just a mock-up…
Fantasy Flight Games
The Fantasy Flight area was perhaps the busiest area on the exhibit hall floor. They had their trademark huge tables with the gameboards pre-printed on them. All of their new games had at least one demo table and there were always gamers waiting for their turn to try them out.
The game that most caught my eye was Moto Grand Prix – a nice motorcycle racing game. It has a modular board which should provide lots of customization and replay value. Unlike a lot of other racing games, the way that you can use the dice is novel and allows for a lot of clever play. In this game, you roll 2d6 for your turn, but you may flip any die to its opposite face (trade a 5 for a 2 for instance).
Age of Conan was also there in prototype form. However, the crowds around the table were so large that I really never got a good chance to take a closer look. I had intended to go back on Sunday to look at it again, but I had to leave Indy for home before I was able to get another chance. Maybe if someone from Fantasy Flight is reading this, they can feel free to send my an advance copy so that I can complete my review!
Battlestar Galactica was another hugely popular game. The FFG booth seemed to be sold out of this by late Friday, and it seemed to be the game at the Fantasy Flight area that had the longest line to see it. This is a semi-cooperative game where the players each take on the role of one of the TV show characters. They work together to try to save the human race. Similar to Shadows over Camelot, one or more of the players is secretly aligned with the Cylons and these traitors must be ferreted out in order for the others to win. The production quality was beautiful, and I look forward to my first chance to try it. Though I normally don’t like these cooperative (or semi-cooperative) games, I still am intrigued enough by this to give it a shot.
Finally, there was a prototype there called Constantinopolis. I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say about it now, so I’ll say nothing other than it looks really good. Maybe you can figure stuff out from the picture below.
Fantasy Flight game developer Rob Kouba and the Constantinopolis demo set
Geek Chic Gaming table
I’ll end this first installment of my Gen Con report with the Sultan Gaming table. This was on display all weekend from a new company (at least to me) called Geek Chic. It is a huge table – at least the size of a standard billiard table – with incredible woodworking made specifically for gaming.
The table has room for at least six gamers, with individualized stations for each player. The playing surface itself is recessed from the table to allow all players to see and reach it easily. There is room on both ends for storage and easy access of rulebooks and other player aids. The sides have individual stations for players. Cupholders are built in and they slide in and out nicely. There are also a few drawers where players can store their own stuff. Furthermore, the top of the area folds down to form a little desk area with built-in counter storage areas.
The cost was not readily available at the booth, and when pressed, the staff of the booth gave me that look which said: “If you really need to ask the price, it’s too expensive for you.” My guess is $10,000 to $15,000.
An overview of the table
A look at the end shows you the slots for rulebooks and other reference material
One of the cupholders extended from the body of the table; the area on the left shows a player area which has not been folded out
The player area with the desk portion folded out; you can see the areas for counter storage on the rim of the table
That’s it for this week. The rest of it will come in seven short days.
Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor
Posted by Dale Yu on Aug 20, 2008 at 01:00 AM in Columnists, Dale Yu / 168
