GenCon Again

I took off on Wednesday around noon and flew to Indianapolis via Chicago to attend my 25th GenCon. Considering this was GenCon #40, I think that's a pretty good streak. Sure, some years I only made it for a day, but I've been to them all.

Thursday morning Gil and Aron and Clint (two of our playtesters) and I went to set up the booth and work for the day. Jim and his friend Dean left early in the morning to drive to the warehouse and pick up a bunch of cases of the game because the shipment was delivered after everyone had left for the show. So, off they went; six hours there, six hours back with a van full of games.

Our manufacturer had overnighted a few cases of the games to us, so we had a few in the booth when we opened, which was good.

Overall, the show rocked. We were constantly busy with people playing demos the entire time. And considering it's a four-player game, that's a lot of demos. The really great thing was that pretty much everyone had a great time playing the game. There were a few people who had some pretty bad die rolls, which made the game rough for them, but in general the games were all interesting, fun, and gave excellent first impressions to the players. We had quite a few people look over to their friends during the demos and say, "Hey, this is actually pretty fun." That was good to hear, especially since it wasn't directed toward us.

Over the course of the show I had a good time catching up with some friends who'd come to the show, including John Kasab, John Arrington and his wife, James Chott, Shana, Tyler, people from WizKids, and a ton of other industry folks that I unfortunately only get to see a few times a year.

I really enjoy this industry and I hope I can be involved in it one way or another for a long time.

I picked up some good games that I've enjoyed reading and looking through in the last couple of days. I'll run down a list of them soon, but not right now.

Sunday morning I was up at 5:15am and on my way back to Seattle via St. Louis. I arrived at 11:15 and Julia picked me up and carted me over to 13 Coins for some breakfast. I was very happy to see her again.

Now I'm back to work and I have to say that it's nowhere near as fun or as interesting to me as working on games. I really have to get back to that.

I'm pretty tired right now, so I'm not sure if everything I'm typing actually flows very well, but I guess I'll read it later and see how bad it is.

Next year, you should go to GenCon, too. Y'know, if you're into games.