Gen Con 2006 Report, Part 5: Sunday

Just last week I was in Indianapolis for Gen Con. Sunday is the last and final day. It was also the day I spent the most time in the exhibitor hall. The exhibitor hall is Darwinism in action. Usually on Thursday everybody is anxious to promote their RPG/comic/game/dice. By Saturday some are despondent. By Sunday those with the weak ideas are suicidal.

:: SUNDAY

My buddy and I went to a Italian restaraunt called Buca di Beppo. They had huge portions. The small portion was intended to be shared by two people. Fortunately, they have a lunch menu. I had a terrific meatball sandwich.

As we were walking to the convention center we noticed a wedding party leaving a hotel. The car had the words Just Married written on it. The family and friends gave hugs and kisses and waved as the couple left. My buddy reminded me that Archon usually has a wedding party every year. Sadly, we have not witnessed a gamer wedding at Gen Con.

Let me give a rundown on the things I noticed in the Exhibitor Hall. First of all, Hecatomb is dead. Instead Wizards of the Coast was promoting a new collectible miniatures game called Dreamblade. At the Fantasy Flight Games booth I noticed that John Kovalik lended his art talent to MagBlast. Has anybody played it? There was hate, HATE for WizKids this year. Several of their former volunteers really felt betrayed. Not suprisingly MageKnight which had them lined up for blocks two years ago is dead. Their latest product HorrorClix has no gravitas. Monte Cook and Malhavoc Press were there with a 672 page game system named Ptolus. At $120 you have to be hardcore to even consider it.

There were a host of video games. Flying Lab Software showed off its Pirates of the Burning Sea, a pirate game meets MMORPG. It looked ok with nothing compelling about it. Next there was IIXII: The Continuum, a collectible online wargame. This is an interesting idea for a MMORPG. Basically you do not pay a monthly fee but instead pay for your characters. Their idea is to make a turn-based war game where the characters are collectible and can be traded. I think they are walking a fine line. Once you establish how much a character is worth, if a server ever crashes and the character is lost, then the company can be sued.

I also saw early versions Warhammer Online and Neverwinter Nights 2. Warhammer looked like a World of Warcraft clone. I have only played WoW briefly. But that is my first impression. Neverwinter Nights 2 is a great looking improvement over its predecessor. I understand that they updated the game to include Dungeon and Dragons 3.5 Rules. So, this is something I am going to be watching for in the future.

I was disappointed that Munchin Impossible by Steve Jackson Games was not available at Gen Con. But they just recently announced Munchkin Cthulhu. So, I have two more games to which to look forward.

Titanic Games had a full color version of Kill Doctor Lucky. This game is like Clue in reverse. Your goal is to kill Doctor Lucky. It looks like a lot of fun.

I demoed the City of Heroes collectible card game (CCG) at the AEG booth. It was ok. I am not a fan of theirs ever since they killed the Initial D CCG. Also, the Spycraft CCG is dead. They have killed off a few interesting games.

Captain Squash and I picked up copied of the Kobolds Ate My Baby LARP rules by 9th Level Games. We plan to run a game of it at Archon. Stay tuned for more details!

Lastly, I picked up a copy of A Great Disturbance by Aegis Films. They promised that their documentary, 20-Sided, would be completed soon. We shall see. I will try to post a review of A Great Disturbance if I like it.

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Posted at 11:48 PM