What is Button Shy?

I've owned buttonshy.com for a long time. Years ago it was a button making company that I owned and ran, and with the help of my wife and brother we made hundreds of thousands of 1" buttons for bands, stores, and for lots of people. The business faded over time, but the website has been hanging on ever since. I've used it as a subdomain for a whole bunch of other sites that I'm a part of, (/fruitlesspursuits, /pixellincoln, etc.) but Button Shy has been sitting quietly in the background.

It's time for that to change.

Button Shy will now be the central hub of all of my tabletop game related projects. The origin of the name will never change, but the intent has shifted a bit.

Here are the plans for the new and shiny Button Shy.

-Re-posts of my board game article from Fruitless Pursuits and Board Game Geek.
-Information about my own game projects as well as projects that I am involved with.
-The home of the upcoming podcast Designing Out Loud.
-Much more!

Gen Con Recap (Part 3)

Originally posted at http://www.fruitlesspursuits.com.

Part One covered Friday. Part Two covered Saturday and Sunday. So what is left to talk about?

GEN CON MONDAY!

You may be wondering what Gen Con Monday is all about. It's the day where your flight is canceled and you are stuck in Indianapolis for an additional 24 hours. Luckily, I was stuck there with designer Jay Treat who A) was great company, and B) had a few games on hand.

Click through the jump for a look into our extended Gen Con and all of the games we were able to play. Not a ton of personal photos this time around.... sorry!

Gen Con Recap (Part 2)

Originally posted at http://www.fruitlesspursuits.com.

After a full day of gaming and meeting people, it was time to get to work! On Saturday I scheduled 8 hours of game sessions at 3 different locations and my play time was limited... but I managed to squeeze in some fun.

Not as much fun as this guy though.

Click through the jump for more Gen Con madness, including Mars Needs Mechanics, The Game Crafter, and a super secret prototype from Tasty Minstrel Games.

Gen Con Recap (Part 1)

Originally posted at http://www.fruitlesspursuits.com.

After a whirlwind of a weekend in Indianapolis, I'm finally home from Gen Con and looking back at my first experience at the largest board game convention in the US.

There were tens of thousands of people playing thousands of different games. It's by far the biggest convention I've ever seen (even bigger than the Philly car shows) and one of the best weekends you can experience as a gamer.

Click through the jump for the recap!

Origins Mega Recap

Originally posted at http://www.fruitlesspursuits.com.

Last weekend I drove out to Origins Game Fair in Columbus, OH. It was my first time to Origins and will definitely not be my last. I met up with great friends, and made plenty of new ones. I played some unreleased board games, ate some ridiculous food...

And in between all of that, I had this photo taken.

Please ignore the massive water spot on my shirt.

If I could recap Origins with just one photo, that would be it. 

But if you want to read a LOT more about the event (including meeting Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton, game designers Loren Overby & Chevee Dodd, games like Sentinels of the Multiverse & Swinging Jivecat Voodoo Lounge, the whole Tentacle Bento controversy, and much more….) then click through the almighty jump!

Dexcon 15 Recap

Originally posted at http://www.fruitlesspursuits.com. 

It was super last minute, but on the eve of the 15th annual DexCon I made plans to head up to Morristown, NJ and attend my first Double Exposure Convention.

Double Exposure has been around forever in NJ, hosting conventions like DexCon (board games, miniatures, RPGs, LARPing, etc), Metatopia (all about game design) and Dreamation (more games, just in the winter) since the early 90's.

And let me tell you... at a glance, DexCon is pretty hardcore. Almost every single wall in the convention center looked like this:

Over 1000 game events in 5 days. Some big tournaments as well as friendly sessions of favorite games.

It was quite different than anything I've ever been to. Even while standing in line to enter the show, a girl was asking if anyone wanted to jump in on a game of Skip Bo. A group in front of me jumped in on it after saying that they've never heard of it. That was a pretty good example of how the day would go. Friendly gamers, playing games.

I spent most of the day at my table, next to WizKids/Neca, but I did a fair amount of wandering in-between my game sessions. Click through the jump to see what DexCon is all about.