Pete's Log: Gen Con!
Entry #3070, (Games, Travel)(posted when I was 48 years old.)
Finally, I have been to Gen Con! And boy do I want to go again!
Wednesday I rented a car, picked up Nes, and headed to Indianapolis. After checking in at our hotel (about 20 minutes from the convention center), we drove downtown to scope things out. Nes has come to basically every Gen Con since 2009, so he was a good guide. When we got back to the hotel, a group of people was playing a board game in the lobby.
Thursday morning we grabbed hotel breakfast and basically every person in the lobby was wearing a Gen Con badge. We drove downtown and wandered around a bit until the vendor hall opened at 10.
We then spent an epic eight hours (minus a 30 minute lunch) going up and down all the aisles in the vendor hall. We had to rush a bit at the end, but we finished the last aisle as they announced the hall was closed.
The vendor hall was fun. I especially liked the artists area and seeing them signing Magic cards they had illustrated or taking commissions. I mentioned to Nes that I'd be excited to find Squirrel tokens, so he made it his mission to spot them for me (my final squirrel token haul was 3, which is more than I expected).
There were a lot of opportunities to see demos of games or even play games, so we did a lot of that. Trying to keep a list was probably futile, but games we played or partially played included Hell of a Deal, Mindsweeper, Star Wars: Unlimited, LEGO Ninjago Destiny's Bounty Adventures, Odd Logic, Triangulation, Ancestree, Phantom Ink and Summoner Wars. We also found Bert and Ruby at the Mattel booth where they were playing Uno.
After the vendor hall closed, I told Nes I could see myself wanting to come back every few years. But then things only got better.
We headed to the JW Marriott where there was a large open gaming room. At the door was a stack of orange cones and you could place one on your table if you wanted players to join you. Nes and I grabbed a cone and proceeded to set up Rebirth (winner of Kennerspiel des Jahres 2026) which I had purchased. Nobody joined us at first, so we played a two player game before being joined by John and Chris for a three player game (Chris just wanted to watch). Everyone agreed it was a great game. It's an area control game with fairly simple rules and a fairly abstract concept of resettling Scotland (or Ireland in the advanced mode).
Then we started setting up 12 Rivers, which Nes had bought (he wanted to buy it last year, but they were sold out then). LX (who Nes had met last year) found us and decided to join, and then Robert (who was scheduled to run demos of 12 Rivers for the vendor on Sunday) decided to help show us how to play the game (I guess as practice for Sunday). It was another solid game.
After open gaming I changed my tune and told Nes Gen Con might be an every year thing for me. We drove back to our hotel and saw a game still going on in the lobby.
Friday we started with checking out the submissions so far to the miniature painting contest, then watched a cool big size version of Roborally made out of LEGO with 8 players controlling robots via their phones. Bert and Ruby happened to be there too.
Then Nes and I took another run through the vendor hall. It’s amazing how much I missed despite having gone down every aisle yesterday.
Then we headed to the next hall where there were a bunch of tables set up for ticketed events. There we saw a StarCraft miniatures game (though sadly without Void Rays).
We signed up for a "Learn to Play" session for Heroscape. It cost us $10 each, we got to play for an hour, and we got a free miniature as a gift afterwards.
Next we returned to the open gaming room at the JW Marriott. We happened to walk in at the same time as Joe who was looking for people to play the copy of Ecos he had just bought. Joe was cool and Ecos was fun and after we finished, Joe gifted Ecos to Nes—he'd bought it used for just $10 and he didn't think anyone in his gaming circle would play it.
We finished with one last visit to the vendor hall, which featured a round of Red Dragon Inn with Aaron and Nes purchasing Enemies of Gotham City. Satisfied with our adventure, we headed to the car and returned to Illinois.
My haul:
Purchased:
- Rebirth
- Bärenpark
- Sage Stones
- Green Dragon Playmat
- The Light in the Mist
- Dragon's Nest Instant Coffee
- Sun King koozie
- Squirrel, bird and spirit tokens
- Stickers
Free:
- Dungeon Crawl Classics quick start rules
- Heroscape miniature
- Red Dragon Inn promo cards
I think this year was mostly a scouting mission to figure out what Gen Con is all about. Things I might change next time:
- Go more than two days
- Try to get a hotel in walking distance
- Peruse the schedule in advance and sign up for more ticketed events
But overall an excellent experience. Everyone was super friendly and it felt like a safe space where everyone could be their true selves. And for those keeping count, I spotted 18 people wearing kilts.
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