GenCon 2007 Post No. 2: What I Demoed

What I Demoed this year:

Going in, we knew The Plan - My wife was going to focus on Wicked Witches Way, and I was going to focus on Dungeon Twister.

As they say, however, no plan survives intact first contact with the enemy customers.

Games I ran demos for:
Dungeon Twister - Big surprise, there. I know. I love this game, but didn't get to play it as much this year - the other games in the booth were more popular, and our booth was CONSTANTLY packed.

Wicked Witches Way - My wife was theoretically in charge of demoing this one. It ended up working a bit differently, but we sold a fair number. A lot of people saw this as being "a kid's game." Stephanie set them straight pretty quickly on that front - while kids can play it, it's got enough depth to keep grownups occupied.

Wooly Bully - It's a simple tile-laying game with a few twists. I only got to demo this once this year, but it led to a sale. I like this game best with three, I think.

Mall of Horror - My wife spent a lot more time playing this than I did. It wasn't new for this year, but it'd been sold out at distributors for a while. It drew a constant audience and sold like crazy. I love this game.

Mission: Red Planet - This game was supposed to be at GenCon last year, but hadn't arrived from the publisher, yet. I enjoy this game, but after playing it at GenCon this year, I like it a bit less than I did before GenCon. It's not a bad game, I just looked forward to the other games more than I did this one.

Jungle Speed - The most dangerous game in the booth. Also a game that doesn't sell unless it gets demoed (and then it's difficult NOT to sell). We didn't have our usual demo table this year due to a mixup at the warehouse. Which is both good and bad - we really didn't have room for the demo table, due to the crowds who showed up for Mall of Horror and Ca$h 'n Gun$.

Mr. Jack - Asmodee is distributing but not publishing this. There has been a lot of demand for this game in the US, and it's easy to see why. My wife and I have had this game for six months, now, so we had a natural edge. I played more games of this than any other game at GenCon. And my enjoyment of it just grew as I played.

Age of Gods - There hasn't been much buzz on this one - we had the printer's proof at the booth. I played it two years ago with some friends, and very much enjoyed it. The game itself is very simple, but setup can be slow, and it's not the easiest game to explain. It's a bit too long to be able to demo effectively, but if you have the time, it's a lot of fun. I'll write more on this one once it's out and I have my copy.

Frontiers - I love miniatures games, but I don't always have the time to paint, and finding an opponent can be a real pain sometimes. Battleground: Fantasy Warfare has become one of my favorites, as I can carry six or seven armies in my pockets. And there's no painting necessary. Frontiers is a good intermediary step between Battleground and actual metal. The rules are simpler than Battleground, and the play feels more like a board game than a miniatures game.

Ave Caesar - I only played this a couple of times, but I'm starting to realize that there is a fair amount of depth hidden in this extremely simple package. Every time I demoed it, it led to a sale. I freely admit it: I disliked this game when I first played it. It was too simple and not competitive enough for me. But this GenCon, there were several instances where I was blocked out of the Caesar Lane, and so lost for not paying homage! Another time, I managed to have a hand of all sixes at the end, and so had to pass my turn until someone else passed me. I was two spaces from the finish line. I'll be writing an entire entry on Ave Caesar soon, I suspect.

Iliad - Our focus game from last year. I only played it two or three times this year, but each time was different. My wife has a better grasp of this than I do, so she regularly defeats me when we play. With two, it's ... okay. With three or more, it's a much better game. It has similarites to Condottiere, but there are some rather considerable differences as well.

Werewolves of Miller's Hollow - The late-night large group Convention Game. Seriously. The game holds (out of one box) 8-18 players, and is all about reading people effectively (and bluffing effectively). I'd love to play this game with a world-class Poker player sometime. We had one game of 28 people. It took two boxes and nearly two hours to complete. And everyone stuck around until the end. Even the dead. It came down to the final three, too.

Ca$h 'n Gun$ - This is one of my favorite filler games. It's fast and fun. The rules are simple enough that the basic game can be taught in about three minutes. The ease of demoing this game led to LOTS of sales. And four to six people in the middle of the booth pointing orange foam guns at one another drew constant crowds TO the booth. My only problem with this game is the minimum of four players.

Vocabulary

I was chatting with one of our regular Wednesday Game Night attendees the other day, and it was revealed to me that she had never seen The Dark Crystal.

A quick question-and-answer period later, and I discovered that there were a significant number of films that she'd not seen. Films which I considered to be Geek Vocabulary Essentials, either because they are extremely quotable or else because one or more of their elements is repeated (or parodied) elsewhere in pop culture.

It led to a long discussion on Geek Vocabulary: We don't speak the same language as the rest of the English-speaking world. I'm not excluding non-English-speaking Geeks, here, either - they have different Pop Culture In-Jokes.

This specialized vocabulary is one of those things which makes it harder for non-Gamers to get into the hobby.

Remember All Your Base? Did you and your buddies ever have to try to explain it to a non-Gamer?

We get a fair number of people through the game store that are interested in gaming. They have read newspaper articles about these wonderful European import games, and they want to learn more. I do my best to try to tell them about the games, but it can be difficult - try explaining Mission: Red Planet, for example.

To one of you, I could easily say, "It's an Area Control game with a Simultaneous Action Selection mechanism which is very similar to that used in Citadels. There is a bit of resource management, but you can spend a turn to recycle your available resources by choosing the 'Recruiter' as your character for the turn."

I can't use that lingo with a non-Gamer. I'd lose them as soon as the words, "Area Control" left my mouth. Instead, I have to explain,"You are competing with other players to harvest resources on Mars. You have a set of specialists, and every turn you use the ability of one of these specialists, so that you can get more pieces into the various regions of Mars - only the player with the most pieces gets the points for that area." It's a longer description, and actually conveys less information. But it's more approachable to non-Gamers.

At a convention (as a Demo Team member), I need to be able to quickly feel out someone standing near the booth - I need to figure out their relative game experience, so that I'm not talking down to them. Or above their heads.

It's tricky - especially when there is an experienced 12-year-old with their non-Gamer parents asking me about a game.

...

And this is before I even start to discuss cultural humor (Wood for Sheep, anyone?).

In many ways, we've pulled ourselves out of the mainstream. Gaming is a Hobby Industry in part because we make it impenetrable to non-Gamers - not because we can't communicate with them, but because we don't realize they don't understand what we're saying. Because we've spoken the language for so long, we forget how different it is from standard English.

Something, I guess, that I need to keep my eyes on.

Mission: Red Planet Errata and Clarifications

There isn't a lot of errata for Mission: Red Planet. There also aren't many clarifications. Other than the production issues, this turned out pretty well.

First, the Errata:

Page 4, 2nd Paragraph. Change the sentence about "starting from" the starting player - it should read "starting with" the starting player.

Page 6, 1st Paragraph. Remove the last sentence. This is a HUGE error, and I don't know how it slipped past both myself and Mr. Faidutti.

Clarifications:

1) When performing character actions, always load your Astronauts first before using the character abilities.

2) No, the "Analysis Error" card and "Lost in Space" card were not deliberately mangled. I have a pre-printing .pdf of all the cards, and there are no missing letters on these cards in that file - it's apparently an issue with the printer.



The actual text should read:

Analysis Error
The resource token in this zone is discarded and replaced with another resource token chosen at random. If there were any score tokens left in this zone, they are also replaced by new score tokens matching the new resource.

L.I.S. (Lost In Space Memorial)
At the end of the game, received one Bonus Point for each of your Astronauts lost in space, killed by the Femme Fatale, the Saboteur or the Soldier

Small Update

Sorry for the delay in posting: I'm picking through my copy of Mission: Red Planet for errata. I should have it up some time on Saturday.

Also of note: Asmodee wanted me to go to Kublacon over Memorial Day weekend. I can't make it, but my wife will be there demoing Dungeon Twister (Including Forces of Darkness, which is now available).

And, finally: Yehuda also posted this entry that is well worth reading. In fact, I suggest reading his blog regularly.