Happy Gen Con week. It’s only a couple of days away from the start of Gen Con. I won’t be there this year, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to talk about the games that I’d want to buy or demo at Gen Con. I already did the first list. So let’s see what games are available to demo. We’re going to start with my video for those who want to check it out, and then the five that I’d be looking forward to.

Top 5 Games I Want To Demo At Gen Con

5. Satchel Quest

This is a bag building game. What is a bag building game, it’s like deck building, but instead of cards you are adding tokens to your bag and you draw from those. This gives it a fantasy theme as you are building out your bag to go adventure, fight monsters and create interesting combos. So it’s a dungeon delving game but not a campaign game.

I feel like Satchel Quest is going to offer something unique and fun as a game from building up the dungeon, heading to town to heal, upgrade and buy more tokens and then delving back into the dungeon. So a fantasy theme which I find fun with good sounding mechanism and unique sounding mechanisms for that type of game have me really curious.

4. Class of ’89

I was alive in 1989, though no where near graduating. But this game, from Paverson Games, sounds like a lot of fun. And Paverson Games has hit it out of the park with both Luthier and Distilled in terms of people loving the game. This game is about building your best yearbook and that just sounds fun. I think and maybe even hope that this will be a lighter game, but when you give me a good theme, the Paverson Games production values and attention to detail in games, I’m super excited for this one.

3. Excursions

Excursions is going to be a top game to demo for a lot of people. Why, because this is a follow-up game to Galactic Cruise from Kinson Key Games. Now, I know that I like Galactic Cruise. I’ve played it a few times and I really like the game. That one is all about scoring points by being the best cruise planner and launching cruises. This one is more about the cruises that are already in the air and now you are making sure everyone is having a good time there.

That theme is a lot of fun. And I like that it’s a continuation of the theme from Galactic Cruise. But it’s not something that would be locking them into just being that sort of company for their games. If you want to demo this game, get there first thing in the morning, I’d say. This is of course assuming they have a demo at their booth. It might be only ticketed demos, I haven’t looked.

2. Wobbly Life: The Board Game

This game just sounds like dumb fun. And that is a great type of game to tryout at Gen Con instead of just buying it. Now it’s not available to buy, but let’s talk about the game.

This is a dice rolling dexterity game where my assumption is that you are flicking your character around a board to land on different life events. And depending on how well you do that, you get a job, make money, buy a house, all the things that you would do in The Game of Life. But this just sounds more silly and fun. Honestly, this is a game that I’ll probably look to track down when it comes out.

1. War of the Dragon: The Wheel of Time

I like the series for The Wheel of Time a lot. It’s one that just has that classic epic fantasy feel to it. And I considered backing the game when it was on crowdfunding. But I held off on it for two reasons. The first is, I watched a little game play and I wasn’t sure how much I’d love it. I think that I would, but not completely sure. The other is that it’s a 2 player game (it says 2 to 4 but I assume really 2) and 2-4 hours per game. That is a lot of time.

So this is the perfect type of game for me to demo at Gen Con. I would give it a try and see if I like it. If I do, then doing a late pledge is always going to be an option for me.

Honorable Mentions:

Mistborn: Well of Ascension is just an honorable mention because I already know that I like the game. It’s a deck building game around the Mistborn series from Brandon Sanderson. So this is just going to be more stuff for that game and I’m excited for that.

Defenders of the Dictionary is another that I already know that I like quite well. I got to demo it two years ago now at Gen Con and I had fun with it. It’s a cooperative Scrabble type of game where you are trying to create words that connect different spots on the board and dealing with enemies as well. Interesting combo but works.

Final Thoughts

If you are heading out to Gen Con this year and demo these games, let me know. I’m really excited to hear more about all of these and how they play. Maybe one of them, or more, will be duds and that’ll be good to know. But I’m excited for all of them, am tempted to buy all of them when they show-up, and would love to know if that’s a good choice or not.

What games are you excited to demo at Gen Con?

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