The Week That Was

GenCon was great. I had a very full calendar between walking the floor to find the cool new things, talking with Jim, testing some new games he brought with him, going to meetings, and hanging out with friends.

First on the agenda; cool, new things. I picked up roleplaying games exclusively, but I was interested in a couple of boardgames that I'll have to find at some point. Here's what I got:

Agon: A competitive roleplaying game that centers on Greek heroes that are trying to complete quests and become legends. I used to game with the author (and I wish I still did) and he did a great job of pulling together bits and pieces of other games in very interesting ways that I'd like to try. And since Harper's a graphic designer, the game looks great.

Burning Empires: I loved the comics by Christopher Moeller and I really enjoyed The Burning Wheel game, so I figure I'll like this combination of them. The book is beautiful, but I haven't dun into it yet.

Faery's Tale: Ostensibly a roleplaying game for kids, but it seems much too wordy and complicated. Certainly the goal is to make the rules clear to adults who will be running the game for kids, but I think they may have gone a bit too far in defining how the game plays. Kids rarely stick to the rules when they're so specific.

Hollow Earth Expedition: A very cool-looking pulp adventure game with some interesting mechanics. The rules are pretty simple (dice pools similar with those used by White Wolf), but the designer put some thinktime in and came up with some good ideas to make things flow a bit better than a lot of other games.

City of Heroes Primer: An updated and printed copy (as opposed to the pdf they had originally) of the City of Heroes rpg. I'll read through it, but I'm hoping to see the game soon.

The other things I liked were Ticket to Ride (I've played it and liked it, but I haven't picked it up yet. Yet.), Shadows Over Camelot (which I haven't played, but I've heard a lot of good things about), and Desert Bazaar (which I demoed and liked). I was most curious about Desert Bazaar because it looks like Mattel is the publisher and they're targeting the "adventure gaming industry." Which I thought was interesting to say the least.

Since GenCon I've been spending time with my family. Visiting with my nephews, seeing my grandma, and running lots of errands. I've also been working on making a new game that came to me at GenCon. I'll update again, but now I have to call Julia.

More later.