Top 10 Games to Demo at Gen Con

10. The Hobbit: There and Back Again

I love the Middle Earth setting, but this is the only Middle Earth set game that is making my Gen Con to demo list. There is also The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship. A “pandemic” style game in some ways. But I know more about that one. The Hobbit: There and Back Again, I don’t know much about it. I hope that it’s a fun and interesting game themed around The Hobbit. As board gamers, I think we have a lot of Lord of the Rings themed games that are good, but The Hobbit, not so much.

9. Crits & Tricks

Crits & Tricks is a fantasy themed trick taking game. I like trick taking so that is what drew me to this one right away. It sounds like each trick is a quest that you play out and that you win loot at the end of it. The theme founds fun and interesting. Or maybe each hand is a quest, so that is interesting and maybe as you progress through the quest, different hands, that is where the suit can change. Either way, I really like the sound of this trick taking game.

8. The Battle of the Divas

The Battle of the Divas is a game that jumped out at me because it is such a different theme for a game. I believe there is another game in this series from Salt & Pepper Games. But the idea is that it’s a two player back and forth game where you want to be the best opera diva. And it is based around actual historical opera singers, Callas and Tebaldi and their clash to be the best. So it is just exciting sounding as a very different game.

7. BattleForge: Berserker

Creative Games Studio LLC is the game company behind BattleForge. And I like the one game of theirs I’ve played. Though I need to play it more. And I am excitedly waiting for their next one Dante: Inferno to come. I think it might be shipping soon-ish. But BattleForge is a cooperative game again, which I love that they make cooperative games. But this one I don’t if it supposed to be a campaign. Either way, I want to know more about it as it comes out and Gen Con is going to be a great spot to demo it.

6. River Market

River Market seems kind of to be a third in the line of Creature Comforts and Maple Valley. Now, each of the games is different from KTBG, but there is a similar aesthetic. And the designer of River Market is Roberta Taylor who is the designer of Cafe Baras, a cafe capybara game. I think that game is light and fun, so I am excited to see what this game can be.

5. Tea Witches

Manny Vega and Sandara Tang are two people working on Tea Witches. If that seems familiar they also did the design and artwork, respectively, for Flamecraft. That’s the game about little dragons who help around town. So a new game with Sandara Tang’s artwork is always going to interest me. I don’t know much about the game play, but it’s tea, it’s witches, and the artwork gives me a vibe of Little Witch Academia, so I’m all in for it.

4. Camp Grizzly

Camp Grizzly is a game that is already out. And if you want to buy it now, it is going to cost you around $600 on ebay. What is this game? It’s a horror movie themed game, or horror themed game in the theme of classic horror movies set at camps. The artwork on it looks great, and I love horror films. So the idea of this theme is really interesting and exciting to me. And it is one that I did look, a year or ago or so, on ebay to see about getting it. But it is crazy expensive. So I think it is coming back to crowdfunding and when it does, I’m very interested.

3. Class of ’89

Paverson games is making a name for themselves. I have the game Luthier which is coming and that looks amazing. But their first game, Distilled, is really popular and is on my shelf to get played. Class of ’89, though, does seem like a little different game. This is a game about making a year book. And that itself sounds lighter as a theme. But it is also a theme that sounds like a ton of fun. So I want to know more about their next project. And I really hope that I like it because I really love the theme.

2. Viking Route

Viking Route I think was on my most anticipated games coming to crowdfunding or maybe coming this year. But now at Gen Con is the time to demo it. This is a ship sailing game but it uses a mechanism for navigating your ship that I think sounds great. What is that mechanism? Magnets. You play magnets around the board to move the ship and affect the way the compass is pointing. That mechanism is in another game that I own and I need to get played.

1. Mystic Curling Club

So after so many amazing sounding games, how is it that Mystic Curling Club is the top of the list? One word, curling. I love watching curling as a sport. And I want at some point in time in my life to do some casual curling. And yes, where I live doing some casual curling is a possibility because the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro has multiple locations with curling. But this is going to be a dice flicking game witch magical powers in it as well. This sounds silly and fun and I love the theme so it is easily my #1 game to demo at Gen Con.

Final Thoughts

As always, I wish I was going to Gen Con. I think that all of these games sound wonderful to play. And there are a ton of different and unique things among them. So someone want to check them out for me and let me know their thoughts?

But out of all of these, the one that I want to try the most is Mystic Curling Club. But as I say that, I think I am apt to just buy that one for the theme no matter what. So I think that The Battle of the Divas is the one that I want to see and try the most because I am less likely just to buy that one sight unseen. Even then, if I can find it or it’s predecessor cheap, I think I may pick it up. I play games at two players fairly often, so a two player only game is pretty easy to get to the table.

What is your most anticipated game to demo at Gen Con?

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Thoughts on the Gen Con Demos

Let’s face it, there are always going to be a ton of games to demo. Whether it’s new ones to demo at Gen Con for the first time or ones that maybe were the busiest the year before. I want to demo a ton of games. Thankfully that’s generally what I go to Gen Con for. I think last year I demoed around 40 different games. So if I only demoed new games, I’d still only make it through a third of them.

That is the wonderful thing about going to Gen Con or a convention like this. There is always a game for everyone to demo. It won’t matter if you like heavy euro games or you want to find the latest party games. All of those options are going to be out there and all are going to have new games announced for demo. That is an experience that I really appreciate about Gen Con, and one that can feel a bit overwhelming.

The reason I put out a video like this one is because I like to get my thoughts onto a game. But also because a list like this can be overwhelming. Even if you know what you’re getting into with Gen Con knowing the size, the BGG list is long. So I take the chance to chat about it, give my uninformed opinion, and maybe, if your tastes align with mine, you can find some games that might interest you.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I play small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well. And I might do more deck construction with Star Wars Unlimited on Mondays as well or pack openings. Right now it’ll be more Slay the Spire.

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. I plan on playing a campaign game coming up. Right now I’m torn between two games. Well, more than that if you watched through the end of the video. And that is more of The 7th Citadel. I plan to keep playing through The Drums of Desolation for a while so join me for that.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Keep Looking at Events

When Gen Con events catalog went live, I think there were just shy of 20,000 events on the catalog. That is now over 21,000 events, so around 1,500 events have been added. A lot of them won’t interest you and a lot of them will be hard to track down when they are added. But if you missed out on events, about now is when I’d start looking to see what new events there are in time slots that you maybe want an event. I’ll get into why you want to do that now.

Review the Gen Con Game List

Another thing that you can start doing is reviewing the games that’ll be at Gen Con. Every year Eric Martin and others work and create a list on Board Game Geek. You can find that here. That is going to be hundreds of games that you can demo or buy at Gen Con that will be there for the first time in whatever state they’re ready for.

This is a list that grows a lot from now until Gen Con and just went up about a week ago. More publishers will be adding things to the list. And, especially, as they know stuff can or can’t make it to Gen Con because of shipping timing, companies will keep the list updated. Every Gen Con I go through the list over on Malts and Meeples but that is closer to when I leave for Gen Con.

Tickets

Yes, you should already have your tickets and your housing and your transportation figured out by now. And some elements, like getting into the Gate Ten parking, those are done, you can’t get into them anymore. But what I mean by this is know how you’re going to get your tickets for the events you signed up for. I always have them shipped two me but you can also do will call and pick them up at Gen Con.

The benefit of doing will call is that if you add events late you might need to pick them up there anyways. But the downside is, you go to get your tickets at the wrong time, it’s going to be line. The upside of shipping, you avoid that line and you avoid the line for getting your badge, it comes to your door. Downside, it costs extra to get it shipped. Know what works best for you, I prefer shipping, but that is just me.

Double Check Your Housing

If you are in a hotel, this is not an issue. But for people who are AirBnB or VRBO like I do, double check it. Odds are no issues, but there are some sketchy people out there. And there are some people who get out of the AirBnB or VRBO and might just drop it. So keep an eye on that, the odds are extremely thin and you’d know if that was the case. But double check your housing, if you are flying, make sure you get your travel confirmed, but these are big and obvious things that you should be doing so I won’t harp on them.

Final Thoughts on Early Gen Con Prep

This is about when I think you can start ramping up for Gen Con again. Especially with the Board Game Geek preview and verifying your events. Events in particular, I didn’t mention it but with the tickets and badge shipping, your time to get event tickets shipped to you is limited. So if you want to get all your events shipped, you need to add them now. Otherwise some will ship and some will be at will call.

And then with the preview, use it to plan what you want to see and track down. I like it for knowing some things that I want to demo, I’ll have a list of 10, and some things that I might want to buy. Both of those lists will come out closer to Gen Con, but when it comes to the dealer hall, that’s going to be one way to plan your attack browsing knowing what some things are that you want to find.

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