Thoughts on GenCon 2008

1) Zombie Cinema is amazing. It really took a lot of people by storm, and I hope that Eero sold the crap out of it. Every time I looked, I saw him running demos, which bodes well for sales.

Also, listening to Eero talk about his game is super entertaining, because Zombie Cinema with a Finnish accent comes out sounding like “Chombie Kinema”. The rest of the Forge/IPR booth people were enthralled, and there was much talk of “chombies” throughout the con.

I told pretty much everyone that I talked to at GenCon for longer than 60 seconds that they needed to play this game. So hopefully Eero will do well.

2) I suck at visualizing people on the internet. I thought Graham would be large and bulky, so imagine my surprise when he was… well… small. Also, Josh Roby was way taller than I thought he’d be. The funny thing is that I never really know how I picture people until I meet them and am then surprised.

3) Tony LB is working on a card/roleplaying game that simulates shoujo anime hauntingly well – Misery Bubblegum. It’s short, maybe an hour and a half, and he ran about a million games at the con. He had people who didn’t even like shoujo sold on the game. I can only apply the term “gut punching emo porn” to this game in the most positive way imaginable.

I knew nothing about this game going in, other than having heard Lenny (one of the Evil Hat guys) rant about how amazing Misery Bubblegum was. The group of people I played with were, by and large, pretty tired. But we played the crap out of it and wound up with a heart-wrenchingly sad tale with a pretty heartwarming end.

This is far and away the game that I am most excited about for next year. It warms the cockles of my little heart, and I told Tony that I would have given him money right there and then if he had had decks to sell.

I also have fanart of Misery Bubblegum which I will post later, I just haven’t had a chance to scan it yet.

4) Flow charts and diagrams were my obsession of the con. I discovered that making sarcastic flow charts is quite fun.

5) Thou Art But A Warrior, as mentioned previously, sold very well. I ran a crap-ton of demos of it, which was good. Sadly, I discovered that my demo is much stabbier than I thought it would be – owing the fact that I often had to stab NPCs to make people state that they wanted a conflict, despite stating up front that they could declare a conflict whenever.

Lenny enjoyed my demo far too much, as the stabbing made his eyes light up.

6) Speaking of Lenny, one of the Evil Hat guys described him as a rabid ferret. I found that a very accurate description. He’s a very cool guy to talk to and game with, but holy shit. You could use him to power a lap top.

7) Graham ran Poison’d for myself, Vincent, Joshua Newman, and Danielle Lewon, and it was officially the best roleplaying game I have ever played. EVER. At one point, Graham said the following to Vincent, of course in his adorable British accent: “the crew would like to tie you to the mast, if that’s not too much trouble”. I laughed so hard that I cried at many points.

I played an utterly reprehensible human being named Bloody Harry, and was kind of relieved at the end when he got a chisel through the eye socket. Also, I kind of traumatized Vincent, which still amuses me to no end because Vincent was the one who pulled this out of his brain in the first place.

8) Seeing Graham surrounded by women for most of the con was pretty amusing. It must be the accent.

9) I only bought three games, which kind of surprised me given how many new games there are this year. I demoed a lot of them, and plan on keeping on eye on them while I make up my mind if I want them or not.

I think I’m just tired of buying games that I know I won’t ever play.

More later, I’m sure, as I think of more amusing things to share