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.

Unpub Mini West Chester

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

Yesterday was the latest of the mini Unpublished Game Festival events (otherwise known as Unpub), with a full day of gaming in West Chester, PA. I was there along with 4 other designers, displaying board and card games that are in various stages of design and development. It's always a great opportunity to test your game and play others at the peak of the creative design process.

This was my third Unpub event, and as always it was a wonderful time. The Games Keep in West Chester, PA was the perfect host location with regular customers coming in and out and jumping into games, and plenty of space for everyone to spread out. 

Click through the jump for photos and descriptions of the 5 games that were on display: Pixel Lincoln: The Deckbuilding Game, Co-Op Tower Defense, Mecha Mayhem, Aether and Pilatch.

Unpub Mini Philly

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

Last weekend at Redcap's Corner in Philadelphia, game designer John Moller hosted the first of his series of Unpub Mini events.

If you haven't heard of Unpub, it's short for Unpublished Games Festival, a showcase for tabletop game designers who would like to playtest, and showcase their unpublished games. More than that, it's a chance to get feedback from gamers as well as other designers in a controlled, exclusive environment. John runs a great event (with the great help of Katherine), and everything went off very smoothly. There were over 30 people playing games from 7 designers throughout the day.

I had the chance to display my game Sandwich City, as well as the opportunity to play a few really cool new games. Check out the full recap after the break.