Well, GenCon has been over for almost a week now and I'm just getting around to writing about it. For me this year was balls to the wall from the word "go" and you know what, I loved every minute of it.
It started Wednesday evening as we met up with my friends over at Fear the Boot. We shared a hotel room with them so we got the keys and unloaded all of our stuff. Then we headed out to World Wide Wing Night (which I'm reasonably certain was only recognized in Indy). Our party was placed out on the patio where the Booters where occupying several tables even before we arrived. As luck would have it the rain began as soon as we got there. The wait staff was very accommodating and found us space in the restaurant in good time. Several of us went out to the bar after that. We didn't get back to the room until 3am. That would prove to be a theme of the week.
Thursday morning we woke up at 6am, not by choice but Chris, Chad, and Wayne wanted to get their GenCon press passes good and early so they could get into the dealer's hall before it opened to the public. Dave and I couldn't get back to sleep after that. So we putzed around the hotel room and with three hours of sleep I felt like total crap already. That's a great way to start the con.
Our first stop was the board game library where we played Memoir '44. I own BattleLore and Battle of Westeros (FFG's new BattleLore game based on A Song of Ice and Fire) so Memoir had tons of elements that were familiar to me. I think out of all three Command and Colors games that I've played I like BattleLore the best.
When we were done with that it was just about time for the dealer's hall to open and with that...so did my wallet. Within the first...I don't know, 20 minutes of my being in the hall I bought a ton of cool pastic terrain for Warmachine and then I made a beeline for Luke Crane's booth. I picked up the brand new Adventure Burner and the two printed BW settings, Jihad, and The Blossoms are Falling.
After lunch I got a hold of my fellow TOFtBCHs (The Official Fear the Boot Communications Hub), Dan (grungydan), and Christian (zeikecoppereyes) back in the dealer hall, where we made a far more thorough go of it. We stopped and talked to Bob Arens for a bit, who was organizing demos for Wildfire games. It didn't take much convincing for me to pick up Poo. It's the game of competitive monky-feces slinging. It's pretty fun, very light...very.
After a bit more walking around we found Arc Dream Publishing's booth where I chatted with Shane Ivey for a bit. I had spoken with him over email a bit earlier in the year. He was gracious enough to donate prize support to a contest I was working on with Fear the Boot for the March of Dimes (yes, this GenCon will be very FtB heavy). I picked up Reign from their booth. I wish I had picked up a couple of their other games as well.
Then I went to the Red Dragon Inn which is the restaurant/bar on the ground floor of the Marriot hotel. They retheme it for GenCon. I met up with Dan, Pat, and John G. for a while there. Dan and I went back to Arc Dream's booth to talk to Shane again only this time we were there for a lot longer. I can't call myself a fanboy (yet), but I dig the ideas they build their games off of and (again), Shane's a great guy. I hope this company does well.
Eventually we end up at dinner at Alcatraz steak house. It's comparable to Applebee's in menu selection, price, and quality. We head back to the room, play some Poo, and then my friends from Michigan (who had arrived in time for dinner) head back to their hotel room some 20 minutes out of downtown. At this point I head down to the FtB beer tasting where we more or less hung out until 3am again. Had a nice little chat about the state of the industry with Chad on the way back to the room. I go to bed...exhausted.
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