I’m not making it to Gen Con again this year, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t games that I’d love to pick-up or that I’m excited for. So let’s dive into all of that. And let me know what games coming to Gen Con for the first time that you’re most interested in. As normal my Gen Con preview is going through all of the board games on the Board Game Geek list, and while I won’t be there, I have a list of a few that I’m hoping can be picked-up there and shipped to me. We’ll go through those and some pre-orders that I already have.

Gen Con Pre-Orders

Let’s start off with a kind of list of games and expansions that I’ve already ordered because you can get a lot of these around the time of Gen Con even if you aren’t going to Gen Con.

The first one is the Flip Toons Season 2 standalone expansion. What’s a standalone expansion, you can play it by itself or mix it with Flip Toons. Flip Toons is a game of building out your best two by three grid, exceptions of course to this sort of game, that is going to score you the most points. Everyone improves their grid by getting rid of cards and adding in new ones. This doesn’t change up the core game, but it just adds more to it.

The next is Tag Team: Arthur’s Legacy and I’m not sure if this is standalone as well as an expansion, but it’s more stuff for Tag Team. Tag Team is an auto battling game where you try and outsmart your opponent so you knock one of their characters out before they knock out one of yours. It’s awesome and so easy to get more characters for because you just swap out who you play with.

Final three are Camp Grizzly, Jisogi and Hell of a Deal. Both of these were crowdfunding games. Camp Grizzly is a horror game of trying to survive that classic scenario of a summer camp gone wrong. And Hell of a Deal is a cooperative poker game playing poker against the devil. I backed both on crowdfunding and Camp Grizzly will be here soon. Hell of a Deal should follow shortly, but might not get it before the Gen Con folks do. And Jisogi is all about running your best anime studio in a heavy game.

Top 5 Games I Want From Gen Con

5. Kobayakawa

A little trick-taking-esque game from Oink! games. This one is one that I’d love to get and play from Gen Con. The idea is really interesting. You want to win the trick, but to do that, you need the highest number. The twist is that there is a card in the middle of the table. And the player with the lowest number in the hand gets to add that to their total. Now, that might not be high enough to win, but it might be. And instead of playing cards as traditional in trick-taking, you can swap your card with one from the deck, or you can swap that middle card.

4. Mystic Curling Club

This is one that last year I was interested in how the game demoed. I heard some about it, but now it’s a thing and I’m curious about how it plays. The theme is what has me for this game, a magical curling club, plus then dexterity as you flick your curling stones (dice) down the board. I hope that it is a game that is silly fu n and when reviews start coming out that people will love it, because it’s one I really want.

3. Azure

I wrote about Azure as it’s one of the new games I’ve played this year, but now I’m talking about it for Gen Con. This is a two player abstract game of scoring points and winning majorities in some areas. I like how it works with the majorities because you are able to flip them and they give you an advantage. Also the spots you play depend on the cards you have in hand, but you can make spots cheaper by having your stones in that row or column. Fast, abstract, and really fun.

2. Pet Quartet

This one is probably an odd one because it’s about drafting animals. But it’s done in an “I split, you choose” sort of manner. And only animals that are by themselves or in a quartet at the end of the game are going to score you points. So I expect it’s going to be light and fast, but how do you split the cards so that you can get what you want all while not giving your opponents what they want. Of course, if you make one good for you, will they steal it and block you from it.

1. Torchlit

Torchlit sounds just like my type of game. It’s a trick-taking game and I like trick-taking games a lot. But it’s also a dungeon crawler, kind of. More that you have to fight and defeat monsters as part of that trick-taking which I assume is going to be what gives you points. That theme is just on point for me and from Allplay, I find that I like most of their games.

Bonus Gen Con Expansions

So let’s quickly talk a few expansions that I’d love to get my hands on as well. There is another princess for Rebel Princess which I love, so that one would be awesome to get. And then one that I expect is going to be really popular the Rock Hard 1977: Ear Candy sounds good, I really like that game. And then for a couple of games that I like more tiles for Castle Combo and Faraway just adding a little more to those games. Finally two from PlayPunk Captain Flip: Isla Bomba is just new maps, not new rules for Captain Flip and for one of my favorite games, more stuff for Zenith.

5 I’m Asking To Be Bought For Me

Now, you might think that I’d just ask for the games that were in my top 5. And while that is tempting, some of them are a little bit more expensive. And they are also larger so with shipping costs not being cheap I don’t want someone to do that for me and have to lug those games around.

The five that I’m most interested in getting shipped to me Kobayakawa, Pet Quartet, and Torchlit make it from the list. The other two are Questline from Thunderworks Games. This one maybe should have been on the list, but also is less important that it is. It’s a game company that I’m always down to try their games and Questline looks like a good time. And then between Phantom of the Opera a two player trick-taking game and Trick to the Future another trick-taking game but one where you can rewrite tricks that have happened?

Final Thoughts

There are so many amazing games coming out this year at Gen Con. That is always true, but I think it’s worth highlighting again. While not all of the games are for me, if I were at Gen Con, I’d probably sit down and try any of them.

What games do you hope to pick-up at Gen Con?

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