GenCon 2020 was my first virtual convention. I attended one seminar (about Tabletopia), the Doubleclicks concert, played the new game from Smirk & Dagger, “The Night Cage”, and browsed through the GenCon Looking Glass (virtual exhibit hall). Although a far cry from the hundreds of gaming hours that I would put in at in-person GenCon, it was a big step for me. I have been wary of jumping into the world of virtual gaming. There are so many platforms and programs. It’s daunting.

I have had very limited virtual gaming experience, but am working my way into it. Gamicon has a staff discord where we have been holding meetings. Discord seems to be the major communication channel for every virtual convention that I have seen (which isn’t many tbh). I have also played a few games on Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator. I’ll have separate posts with better introductions to these platforms.

GenCon’s lure was the free ticket. How could I go wrong with a free ticket? It was a great motivator to give it a try. This was super smart on their part, because it got people engaged, if only for one or two panels. Their e-mail communication regarding what was happening, when events opened up, etc. came in the form of an email newsletter and was helpful, informative, and really got me interested in joining in the con.

When the events opened up, I didn’t immediately jump in. I really wasn’t sure if or what I wanted to participate in. Then I saw a note that Tabletopia was doing a seminar about their platform. What a great opportunity to learn from the company, showing a hands-on demo about how the platform works. I had already used it, but was excited to see what they had to say. Bonus: it happened during my lunch hour and was free. I signed up.

I follow the Doubleclicks, and got an email from them saying they were doing a GenCon concert. I’m in! Sign me up.

I had Kickstarted “The Night Cage” and saw that they were doing demos at GenCon, so I checked it out. $1 ticket. Great! Saw they were using Tabletop Simulator, which I had struggled with a bit. I thought it would be a good experience and I would get to actually play the game before I got it.

So how was the experience? It was great. The communication on how to find your event, turn in your ticket and attend was really good. I knew the discord was there if I had problems, but I didn’t need it for anything other than “The Night Cage” Demo. I received an email notifying me that my event was coming up with the link to the event for both the Tabletopia seminar and the Doubleclicks concert. They were informative and fun.

Due to personal life happenings, I was unable to attend on Saturday, but had scheduled my game demo for Sunday afternoon. I received a reminder email, went to my ticket page, redeemed my ticket and followed the instructions that were put in the chat linking to the discord channel. Lo and behold, it was none other than Curt Covert himself on the other end (Yay, love that man!). Everyone showed up and we got started. He gave us the code for the Tabletop Simulator (TTS) room, and I got in easily. Everyone already had their TTS accounts all set up, so with very little waiting we were able to get started. Curt did a demo on the TTS controls and the game at the same time, and we got right to playing.  (It’s a great game by the way.) Everyone was polite and friendly. While I would have loved meeting everyone in person, it was still nice to sit down to a game with some new people and try something new.

I sat down after the game to look at the virtual exhibit hall, which they call the looking glass. This is where I was really impressed. It had the feel of the actual exhibit hall, without all the traffic. It is a web page filled with Icons. When you click on an icon, a splash page comes up for that vendor. The splash pages contained an image, the company name, a brief blurb, and links to their website, promotional page and/or their GenCon events. You could sort the icons by artists, authors, charities and exhibtors. Each Icon was the company logo and was searchable, so if you were looking for something specific, you could easily find it. I lost so many hours in there, but it was fun. I’d love to see this continue in the future, and would love to know how they set this up so we could do something similar for our conventions. It’s up until the end of August 2020, so check it out here.

https://www.gencon.com/looking-glass?x=9344&y=9856&z=3.75&c=17

Overall, GenCon was a good experience. I am glad I only did a few things. I am not sure I’d take off work and make it a “staycation” and fill the day with lots of things, like I would do at an in-person convention, but I would certainly do it again. Their end of con survey asked what I would pay for a virtual convention like this in the future. For the right price point, I can see this being an alternative way to attend GenCon for those of us who can’t get the vacation time to attend in-person, and still be a part of the event. I’d still rather attend in-person, but I can see this being a way to include more people in the GenCon experience and expand to people who have barriers to attending in-person. My concern with running the two in tandem is the strain it would put on the game companies. I can’t imagine having the experience I had with Curt from Smirk and Dagger, if he was also running games in-person. I imagine online experiences would be delegated to lackeys, and for smaller game companies, this would be a hardship to try to staff. We’ll just have to see what happens next!

Did you go to Virtual GenCon? What did you do? How was your experience? Please keep comments PG and on topic. Thank you.

It’s almost time for the biggest gaming event in the United States. GenCon is celebrating 50 years this year, and with expected crowds of more than 70,000, it’s gonna be a wild one. I attended GenCon way back when it was held in the Mecca Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Once it moved, we were less motivated to go, plus we had a small child.

Flash forward about 16 years to GenCon 2016 last year.

I have become involved with a group call Double Exposure Envoy as a “Herald”. The Herald program lets you demo games for companies in exchange for getting the game for free as long as you agree to run it X number of times (depending on the game and company). But around these big convention times (Origins, GenCon, and several other larger cons), these game companies need help manning their booths. They turn to Double Exposure Envoy for help and offer some pretty swanky perks for doing so. You will usually get a badge to the con, and maybe a shared hotel room. Some companies pay in store credit, others give great bags of swag. I got set up to work with Bezier Games. I had a super awesome time running the games and being a part of the convention.

This year, my whole family is going. They’ll be doing some RPG’ing while I work, then we have all number of cool things scheduled to do. Honestly, we couldn’t even go through all the things there are to do. Some of our highlights include an Escape Room, Pathfinder, and a few panels. (I get to go to my first Dice Tower Live! show… squeee!)

I could spend my entire convention in the dealer room and NEVER GET BORED! It’s amazing. Trying out new games, seeing all the cool accessories for sale, wandering the artist section and drooling over the amazing art on display. I expect this year to be super crowded though, and hope to do a few other things.

If you end up with some time, scope out the first exposure playtest hall. You can help beta test new upcoming games, give feedback, and you’ll get to play games before anyone else! It’s really interesting. Last year I helped a designer playtest their rules. Oh, how I wish more companies would do that!

So what is the “cult of the new” that I want to check out this year? Hotshots from Fireside Games definately tops my list. It sounds like they won’t have it for sale, but hopefully I can get a demo in. It looks like a lot of fun. I’m planning on picking up Biotix from Smirk and Dagger. I like their games, and the collaboration between Smirk and Dagger and Tina Bongorno, the artist on the game has a special place in my heart. They were both guests at Gamicon (run by Mindbridge Foundation, whose page you are on), two years ago. While I was talking with them, Curt Covert looked at Tina and said “I may have a project for you…” I feel priviledged to have been a very tiny part of making this combo happen.  One of my favorite games, King’s Forge by Game Salute has a new “Gold” expansion out, so I’m hoping to pick that one up. I’d really like to get a chance to play “Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time”. I don’t know much about the game, but with a title like that, it sounds amazing!

Lots of companies have special GenCon 50 promotions, and I hope to pick some of them up, and may even try to partake in Mayfair’s Ribbon quest. You play games and get various ribbons. Once you have collected all of the ribbons, you can get a special ribbon and promo and discounts & stuff.

If you go to GenCon, come say hi! I’ll be in the Bezier Booth from 10am-2pm every day. Ask for Michele.