GenCon Games I played, commentary.

I despise GenCon, and lets start with that. There’s very few places to actually play games, and the con is really one giant press event/tournament venue/shopping mall.

Here’s what I saw and played and saw, but I will preface this by saying there wasn’t a lot of new, cool stuff I was interested in:

STARSHIP SAMURAI - fiddly but awesome fighting space game. Influence track based. Great models.

GEN7 - Really neat legacy style game about manning and maintaining a generation colony ship. Great theme, game isn’t my thing but I really think people will.

13 MINUTES - a microgame that tried and fails to emulate 13 Days. Horrible game.

SPORTS DICE: FOOTBALL - Really dumb dice game that I think can be fixed.

CRISS CROSS - Really dumb roll and write crossword type game with symbols and a couple of dice.

REMNANTS - Cool dice and card driven postapoc game. Was the one game I wanted to pick up.

CURIO - Puzzly game like escape games but that is replayable. VIRTUALLY themeless.

YELLOW AND YANGTZE - They made a Tigris and Euphrates with a Chinese setting. Really looks great. If I didn’t hate T&E it would be an autobuy.

DISTRICT 9 TBG - Incredible looking game. Must have, despite knowing I’ll never get to play it.

NEON GODS - Cool area control game with a cool alt-90’s vibe setting. Fighty as hell.

Pandemic Rising Tide - Really bad ass new Pandmeic version about global warming or something involving rising seas.

ARTEMIS PROJECT - Like Alien Frontiers mixed with Aquasphere. Million ways to score points.


Huge News:
ASCENDING EMPIRES IS GETTING A REVISED EDITION.

STONE AGE ANNIVERSARY EDITION releases in a couple of months, has great upgraded components. I’m going to preorder

Thanks, Pete. I saw Starship Samurai in my FLGS on Friday. Didn't pay much attention because it seemed like just another Twilight Imperium-style game, but your note made go watch Vasel's review and there might be something there. Not a "run out and buy it" there, but something.

When you say District 9 was "incredible looking", is that "incredibly fun to play-looking" or just "incredibly well produced-looking"?

I think District 9 was both. Some DoaM fighting, territorial, resources, Events that impact gameplay as a timer mechanism. It was a juicy demo.

I like it a lot better than their robot fighting game.

I regret never going and looking at District 9.

I demoed Starship Samurai at Origins. It's a fun, light area control game. Not as deep as my group generally goes. The mechs are cool.

I bought Street Masters... like all of Street Masters. Also got Zpocalypse 2 and its expansion for a deep discount. I've had my eye on it for a while, it looks like it has some stand-out elements. Met the designer, he was cool.

Before I forget, the sleeper hit of the convention is the dexterity game Dino Dunk

It was literally the only game being played this weekend where people were howling with joy. I didn't find out about it until after the exhibit hall was closed though, so I leave without a copy. Man-baby tears.

hotseatgames wrote: I regret never going and looking at District 9.

I demoed Starship Samurai at Origins. It's a fun, light area control game. Not as deep as my group generally goes. The mechs are cool.

I bought Street Masters... like all of Street Masters. Also got Zpocalypse 2 and its expansion for a deep discount. I've had my eye on it for a while, it looks like it has some stand-out elements. Met the designer, he was cool.

FUUUUCK. I wish I’d have known. I’m one of the three people who thought Zpoc was the pinnacle of Zombie game design. When you get sick of it sell it to me

Completely forgot that I demoed the new Death Note: Confrontation game. This is a 2 player game, with one player controlling Kira, and the other L.

It's also, I'm sorry to say, a glorified version of Battleship.

Note to self: when I go to a convention, open a group chat with everyone I know at the convention.

I think there's a slack channel for that...

hotseatgames wrote: Completely forgot that I demoed the new Death Note: Confrontation game. This is a 2 player game, with one player controlling Kira, and the other L.

It's also, I'm sorry to say, a glorified version of Battleship.

Played this a couple of times today and didn't get that impression at all. Still feeling it out. Any other thoughts on it?

Not really. From what I recall, you are guessing at approximate locations on a grid, and narrowing things down. Just like Battleship. Or if you want to get modern, a smaller-scale Captain Sonar. But Captain Sonar has the real time chaos going for it.

I'm basing all of this on spending about 8 minutes with the game.