Gencon 2022

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Montag
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Gencon 2022

Post by Montag »

Who is going and are there any plans for a get together?

I am local and live on the south side and 15 to 20 mins to the convention center.
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Zarathud
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by Zarathud »

Have fun. I’m hoping to make it back next year.
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YellowKing
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by YellowKing »

I'll be there. Going with a buddy of mine from our gaming group but would be happy to meet up and say hi.
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hepcat
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by hepcat »

Seppe, another friend and I will be there for the whole thing. I don’t believe Harkonis is going this year though. He’s usually one of the folks that always ends the days out in open gaming with us.
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Blackhawk
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by Blackhawk »

Nope - although I wish I could. The friends I always stayed (and went) with are no longer in-state. The best I'd be able to pull off now would be a one-day pass where I drove up in the morning and drove home at night.
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YellowKing
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by YellowKing »

GenCon 2022 Recap Time!

I'm finally back from an exhausting 5-day trip, but it was a ton of fun.

Highlights:

- Meeting the designer of Paint the Roses, Ben Goldman. Super nice guy, he talked with us awhile about his favorite logic deduction games. This one was a hit with our gaming group and it was nice to be able to tell him personally.

- The Castle Panic 2nd Edition launch party. Not only did I get to play the brand new version of Castle Panic with the new Crowns and Quests expansion (which is excellent, by the way), but we also got to meet designer Justin De Witt. For such an iconic gateway game, it was a bit like meeting designer royalty. Also a really nice guy. And to top off the evening, I won a copy of the 2nd Edition and the expansion in the door prize! Insane!

- Meeting The Dice Tower crew - got to shake hands with Tom Vasel and talked quite a bit with Wendy Yi at their booth. Attended their live show as we do every year and it was as funny as always.

- Getting to see R.A. Salvatore. I didn't get to meet him as the lines were crazy and we didn't have time between events, but just being able to walk by the guy who invented Drizzt was insane. I also got to see Margaret Weis, whose Dragonlance novels pretty much saturated my early high school years.

- As a horror fan, finding out Trick r Treat Studios opened a gaming division had me absolutely floored. Not only did we get to check out some cool new horror titles like "Nightmare Productions," we got to see an early copy of the upcoming Texas Chainsaw Massacre board game.

- Chip Theory's booth is always fun (and expensive), but it was a joy to finally see Hoplomachus: Victorum in person, complete with the new stadium holder they've been touting in the Kickstarter communications. Can't wait for that game.

Games Played/Demoed:

The Spill - My buddy has the deluxe version of this coming, but they only had the standard set at GenCon. Light (but challenging) co-op in which you're trying to rescue animals from a rig leaking oil into the ocean. The gimmick for this one is the black oil dice that are dropped into the center rig and randomly distribute around the four ocean quadrants. Really enjoyed this one.

E.T. The Extraterrestrial - At the risk of ridicule, we got our ass royally destroyed by this game at the official demo. However, we tried it again in the Hot Games Room and figured out the general strategy. Cute little co-op with a great love for the film, but that can also be very challenging at higher player counts. It didn't blow me away, but was fun enough that I'll grab it in a Target 2-for-1 at some point.

Sentinels of the Multiverse: Definitive Edition - I'd been wanting to get my hands on this to see the differences, and I came away putting it on the to buy list. Yes, it still retains some of the original's fiddlyness, but the quality of life and art improvements are fantastic. Will definitely be upgrading my copy, as I can see this one actually getting to the table.

Rescuing Robin Hood - We sat down to demo this one with creator Bryce Brown, and I came away quite impressed. It's essentially a deckbuilder in which you're trying to clear stacks of guard cards to free villagers which strengthen your deck. There are press-your-luck elements, some nice strategic decisions, and a good bit of math. Listening to Bryce excitedly talk about card averages and how he tweaked it to make it challenging but not insurmountable was a joy for geeks like me who like to see how the sausage is made. Light enough to be played with the whole family, but devious enough not to feel like a kid's game.

Mission Control: Critical Orbit - A high stress cooperative real-time roll and write sounds like exactly the type of game I will never buy, and I was right. However, I still had fun demoing this one as our group clicked instantly and we did pull off a win. 3 people play mission control engineers while the fourth plays a stranded astronaut. The astronaut has 20 minutes to create enough oxygen to survive. To get her parts, she rolls dice which the engineers use in various mini-games. One engineer completes sudoku-type puzzles, another creates Tetris-style shapes, and a third does some bar graph charting. Not my cup of tea, but part of the fun of GenCon is trying stuff I'd never try otherwise.

Tranquility - This tiny box card game came out in 2020, but I played it perhaps more than any other game just because the guy I was traveling with bought it and we'd pop it out whenever we had downtime. Your goal is to create a 6x6 grid with numbers ascending from the bottom left to top right. Cards are numbered 1-80, and you can place a card anywhere on the grid from your hand of 5 cards. The catch is that if you play a card next to a card already there, you have to pay the difference by discarding cards from your hand.

Creating an entire grid of ascending numbers is incredibly challenging, especially since you're not allowed to talk to your partner about card placement or what's in your hand. We only won once out of 5 or 6 attempts, but by the end were starting to figure out a mathematical system to up our chances. It's a neat little game, and I'm looking forward to the sequel Tranquility: The Ascent.

Games Bought:

I had no plans to buy anything in particular this year, but once you get on that vendor floor it can be hard to pass up at least 1 or 2 goodies.

I grabbed:

G.I Joe: The Deckbuilding Card Game - this one had been on my radar because I had read that it offered a challenging solo experience. And I love G.I. Joe and deckbuilders, so I figured it would be a great match. Renegade enticed me with promos that came with the core set and the expansion, and I was helpless to resist.

Legends of Sleepy Hollow - I had been looking at this game since my first GenCon back in 2018, but had sort of lost interest. While I absolutely LOVE The Sleepy Hollow theme (I'll read any book or movie based on it, period), the game got good but not stellar reviews and sounded like a pretty by-the-numbers dungeon crawler.

However, we were doing our final sweep of the vendor hall at 3pm Sunday and they were advertising the base game ($100) plus the expansion ($45) for...........$60. WTF? I had to do a double take. Greater Than Games DEFINITELY didn't want to ship that stack of copies back home! So I snatched it up. I don't know how good a game it is, but with my love of the theme and some cool Sleepy Hollow minis, I'll get my $60 worth out of it no matter what.

Conclusion:

Overall GenCon felt a bit "down" this year in terms of games I was excited for, which are primarily co-op titles. The hot games room was really lackluster this year compared the last two years I've gone, and there weren't many surprises as a lot of the stuff I was interested in had either already been released or I had on the way via Kickstarter.

However, the vendor hall is always a hell of a good time, and the unique experiences (like meeting designers) were well worth the trip. And I wound up with a handful of new games to enjoy in the coming weeks.

I went in 2018, 2019, and skipped 2020 (which was canceled) and 2021 due to the pandemic. However, I don't see myself continuing that every year tradition. It's just too far, the airfare/hotels are too crazy, to justify. I've had a blast every time, but it doesn't make sense economically when that same money could be used to put together some damn fine family vacations (or buy like 25 games). So probably my last GenCon for at least a couple of years.
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Blackhawk
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by Blackhawk »

I really miss it. My friends who lived in Indy and always hosted me are now halfway across the country, which makes it much, much harder for me to attend.
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hepcat
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by hepcat »

We were there Thursday through Sunday and had a blast.

Highlights were:

Buying Cosmic Frog from Jim Felli at the Devious Weasel booth and having him sign it for me. Sure, I paid full retail, but I like supporting Jim. Zarathud, Seppe, and I all have a soft spot for that guy as he's such a nice guy and designs some truly unique games. His Shadows of Malice game mastered sessions at Gencon or Origins (when he ran them) were always on our list of things to do.

Getting a copy of My Father's Work and realizing it's more blinged out than a Chip Theory game. Seriously, this thing is ludicrously bespoked. I was drooling over it on Thursday morning after they ran out, but thankfully one of our companions found a stack of a few remaining restocks later that day and grabbed one before they ran out. I read the rules on it Friday and was concerned it might be TOO simple. But then we played a game on Saturday night and realized that the app actually dictates the direction of the game and throws things at you to shake things up. I really had fun with it, even if we only got to finish 2 of the 3 generations. The only complaint I have is that I wish there were more picture examples in the rulebook (we had some issues trying to figure out if the miniatures we were using for servant, self, caretaker and wife were the right ones....although we eventually just figured it didn't matter as the base shapes were the real deciding factor; then we had some trouble figuring out what the colored borders were on experiment cards), and the veritable wall of text that will be thrown at you at times in the game. It kind of interrupts the flow of things when you have to stop for about 5 minutes to read a story. But I think we were more frustrated by that because it was late night at a convention hall and it was really hard to hear, as well as us being tired.

I also got a chance to see some great stuff coming down the pipe from Blacklist Games!

Image

The one thing I really regret is not picking up the Breen and Dominion expansions for Star Trek Ascendancy while I was there. They had tons of them....but I could have sworn I'd already pre ordered them on miniature market. When I got home, I double checked to see if they'd shipped, and realized I had actually not pre ordered them. And they're listed as out of stock everywhere for pre orders. :x

Anyway, had a lot of fun. Played a lot of demos (nothing really stands out though) and some great full of games. Sold about 5 games at the auction (oddly enough, HexploreIt II and my sentinels of the universe old edition did not sell, so I just donated them to the charity auction for next year as I did not want to lug them around Sunday morning). And I bought some fun stuff (I also got Blitzkrieg which has excellent reviews and bills itself as a wargame in 20 minutes).

Looking forward to next year already!
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Blackhawk
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by Blackhawk »

Make sure you clean your shoes when you get home. You probably stepped in Indiana.
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hepcat
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by hepcat »

I grew up in Ohio so it's not really a big change for me.
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YellowKing
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by YellowKing »

They claimed crowds were at pre-pandemic levels, though to me it didn't feel as crowded as 2019. Though my first one in 2018 was a really down year, so maybe 2019 just felt slammed by comparison.

I also had a good laugh at the empty Blacklist Games booth.

I wish my group was not so rigid on only playing co-operative games as My Father's Work did look amazing.

As far as Indianapolis goes, I think it's a great city as long as you don't need an abortion. We stayed at a hotel along the canal, so we had a really pleasant walk to the convention center every morning.

I forgot to mention my highlight for most anticipated - Weirdwood Manor. It's not even hitting Kickstarter until next spring, but the designer had a prototype that looked incredible. The board is a series of concentric rings that rotate, making rooms of the manor accessible or inaccessible as a day/night cycle occurs. The day/night also determines what actions you can take on your turn. Had some really neat mechanics I had not seen before.
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baelthazar
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by baelthazar »

YellowKing wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 11:30 am As far as Indianapolis goes, I think it's a great city as long as you don't need an abortion.
Since this is in the Gencon thread... Gencon had threatened (along with Eli Lilly and Cummins) to pull out of Indiana over this. For context, Gencon makes $74 million in revenue for local businesses, higher than almost any other event in Indiana) which is around 7 million in sales tax for the state.
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hepcat
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Re: Gencon 2022

Post by hepcat »

I really hope they do for 2023. But I think they're locked into a contract or some other legally binding agreement until 2026.
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