Michael Pennisi
United States
Carpentersville
Illinois
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GenCon06 has come and gone In the past I have given day-by-day reports on the happenings but some strange things happened this year A: the geek was down for the first day so I figured “what’s the point of writing something” and B: I kinda liked not having to stay up to 3 am writing the report so in the spirit of laziness I am writing my entire four-day report after the con.
Thursday
We (my wife Christy and I) arrived at the convention center at 9:30 as usual. I was proudly wearing my BGG.con shirt and noticed someone else wearing a G.o.F. shirt. I decided that my shirt was cooler. We sat down and inspected our s(ch)wag bags until the great hall opened. In the bag were the usual lame CCG’s, ads, and dice. There was also a Pirates of the Spanish Main pack and a few CD’s for Guildwars and City of Heroes. All in all it was not bad. Gencon also provided nice fabric badgeholders this year instead of the elastic strings. As I was inspecting the bag I realized that I had left my camera and game journal in the car, as a result my game information is sketchy for Thursday. It sure seemed more crowed this year but I haven’t seen any official numbers.
As we burst into the great hall, I realized that I wasn’t in a rush to see anything so we meandered a bit. The first thing I noticed was the World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade demo. I thought to myself “why do I want to play someone else’s character for five minutes?” so I didn’t bother to try it but some of the new weapons look pretty cool. We then passed Atlas games and demo’d the new Pieces of Eight game which is a pirate-themed game that uses nothing but coins. You hold some coins in one hand and a coin in the other and on your turn you fight with the characters/abilities on the coins until someone’s captain coin is destroyed. The problem with this game for me came down to price. For $20 you get 16 coins which is only enough for one player, that means a two player game would cost $40 (and you can play it with more than two if you have even more $20 sets). To me, that’s a little steep and Christy agreed. A show special: two boxes for $30 would have been nice. Next to Pieces of Eight was Recess which I showed to Christy. There was no demo available unfortunately. Looking at Recess reminded me that Morgan Dotanville wouldn’t be there this year. We missed ya bud.
After this we wandered around the rest of the great hall, running into many people we knew and setting up gaming plans for later. We saw a new pirate-themed MMORPG and it looks like Sid Meier’s pirates meets WoW with more intense ship combat. I think Christy is looking forward to getting it. After a thorough run-through of the hall, it was back to Mayfair’s booth to start earning ribbons. Just like at Origins, Mayfair was giving ribbons for demo’ing games. If you collected a set of 5 ribbons, each with a different Settler’s commodity you got “knighted” and received 50% off a game purchase. This promotion was again hugely successful and by Saturday, Mayfair sold a lot of games. First up was The Wine Handler, a light auction game that was really fun and had some neat twists: you are collecting wine but you also bid with the wine as well and whatever you bid trickles to the next lowest bidder. Then we tried Station Master, a rummy variant which was not so fun. Then we played Hey That’s My Fish which I already have but I wanted the ribbon and it's a quick game.
More wandering around led us to C&C games which I dread (long story… see my GenCon 04 post) and much to my joy and surprise the Rio Grande demo area was not attached to their booth. In fact we stumbled on Rio Grande shortly afterwards attached to Out of the Box and… get ready… OTB was offering Rio Grande games at a discounted price! Christy and I sat down to play Stephan Dorra’s Buccaneers. Christy and I both liked this light, quick game and now I think Dorra is the king of light-filler games. We decided to buy it. This is the first time I have bought a Rio Grande game at GenCon in five years and it felt good. We also tried Masons which Christy liked but I don’t care for.
By now it was 4 pm. We needed to check-in and eat which we did. Instead of the Omni, we tried the Radisson this year and it was pretty nice. I suppose the fact that we got bumped up into a suite instead of a standard room might be influencing my opinion. Tradition dictated that Thursday dinner be at the RAM and so that’s where we went. We had dinner with Jay and Sarah Moore and a few of their friends, Ron Magin of Café Games, and Mike Stocchetti my friend from back home. Good conversation and food was had by all although I was kinda insulted that they served beer in plastic cups. After dinner we headed back to room 500 for boardgames.
We started with Ave Caesar since there was a big group of us. While we were playing Rick Thornquist walked by and said hello. I had a few conversations with Rick but didn’t get in any games with him this year. Everyone enjoyed Ave Caesar and I’m really looking forward to this coming out. Next up was Category 5 with 8 people. Maybe this game is more interesting with fewer people but, to me, this game might as well be called “randomly play a card and see what happens”. We then left 500 to go to the Hyatt for 2 games of werewolf with the Jay and Sarah’s entourage. We played 2, 20 player games of werewolf. In the first game, not a single werewolf was hung (although I knew my wife was a werewolf but I couldn’t convince anyone). In the second game the villagers won but it went down to three people. That was about it for Thursday.
Friday
Friday’s breakfast at Einstein’s Bagels was disappointing even though we did have a nice conversation with an English gentleman while in line. By now they should know that GenCon people love going there for breakfast and they should have more staff. Not only did we wait in line for 25 minutes but they were out of almost everything (and this was at 8:30 in the morning!). The bagel I did get was barely cooked and barely toasted. We did not go back to Einstein’s for the rest of the weekend.
Once into the great hall, we went to work on collecting Mayfair ribbons again. First up was Beetles. It’s a neat real-time/memory game with a little “musical chairs” mechanic thrown in. If you are looking for a quick, fast-paced game you should check it out. Next up was “Shear Panic” with Dave, Jack, Christy and me. Yeah, the sheep are cute and gimmicky but it’s also a fun game. The game plays in rounds of variable length and each round presents a different challenge for scoring. During your turn you may make one of about 12 different moves to arrange the herd of sheep in a way that gets you the most points or an optimal position. The catch is that once you make a move, you can’t make that move again for the rest of the game. After this I spied the Catan box perched atop on of the shelves. The Catan box is a big wooden box that holds Settlers, all of the expansions, and one historical scenario. I have wanted one for a while and for $99 it seemed like a good deal so I bought it along with The Wine Handler and Shear Panic (both for 50% off since Christy and I had both collected ribbons).
After this we spent a lot of time walking around and socializing. I watched Rick Thornquist playing Emira, a new game from Phalanx/Mayfair and it looked pretty cool. I looked at the new Marvel Heroes game at Fantasy Flight but didn’t get to play it. Christy and I tried the the new Knizia game: Great Wall. This is another great example of a game that says 2-6 players but shouldn’t be played with 2, it was dreadful. It reminded me a lot of “Loot” , also by Knizia. Maybe with more it might be better.
We wound up back at Rio Grande and tried Time Square by Reiner Knizia which was another disappointment. It’s plays a lot like Heave Ho. I don’t buy it when Reiner says he doesn’t play other people’s games. Then we went to try Funny Friends by Friedeman Friese. Jay Tummelson was giving constructive advice to a young, aspiring game designer and all the other demo people were busy so we had to teach ourselves. The set up rules were a bit vague and as I was reading through them, a gentleman sits down and says “I played this, I can help you”. He then begins reading the rules aloud to us. I’m not kidding. I was ready to run away screaming. How is reading the rules to me better than me reading the rules myself?! Fortunately Jay came to the rescue and explained the game to us. I’m not terribly impressed with it.
We then headed to a delicious and filling dinner at Buca Di Peppo with most of the werewolf group from the previous night. Afterwards we headed back to room 500 for a game of Powergrid:France with David (from Chicago), Me, Christy, Sarah, Krisin, and Leanne. Kristin won and it was her first time playing. Everything fell apart after that game and we wound up going back to our room where we watched Gung Ho starring the delightful Michael Keaton and Geddy “The Donger” Watanabe.
Saturday
First up for Satuday was a game of Emira at Mayfair. This is a nice “meatier” game and feels familiar. In this game you are a sheik trying to attract princesses but you have a specific goal for example you may need 5 princesses but one must be able to cook, another to keep house, and a third be pretty. Yeah… it’s pretty sexist. You spend each round trying to make yourself better able to attract and keep the princesses. During each round you can take one action but there is an auction for the right to choose an action. If someone else takes the action, then you can’t. Once a player reaches their goal for princesses they win. The main problem with the game is that the rules are vague about camels I think they are either misprinted or the player mats are. I would have bought the game but I can’t see playing this with my students and I already have so many lengthy games that it wouldn’t be a good fit in my library but I think many people will like this game.
Some more walking around led us to room 500 where we ran into Ron Magin and we played another game of Ave Caesar with Chris Aniballi,who is an Elgin Eagle and Paul (didn’t get his last name). After that we played Spectral Rails by Morgan Dontanville. It’s not out yet but it should be in a few months. It’s a pick-up and deliver game with a pretty unique feel and everyone liked it.
After that we walked around the great hall some more and then headed for a light dinner with Jay and Sarah Moore followed by a game of Wine Handler and then Blue Moon City. Blue Moon City is a hand & resource management / area control game and I liked it, although I wish the theme was more engaging than a sci-fi world that I’m not familiar with.
After this, the drinking began at The Claddagh. While there we celebrated Sarah Moore’s 31st birthday and Jay started polling people about what age they first got drunk. Everyone who came in the bar was asked. This group of three attractive women and one guy came in and Jay asked them the question and the women shot us this look and I’m telling you it was the same damn condescending/disgusted look the “beautiful people” gave us geeks back in high school. You know what? You people aren’t that cool anymore and try getting some maturity.
We all stumbled to the Hyatt and found an empty conference room that still had microphones in it from a panel discussion. I had a lot of fun with those until someone pulled the plug on me (er ahhh the chair recognizes the distinguished senator from Texas ... We will break you .... I will not have these proceedings become a witch hunt, etc…). We then played two games of big-group Time’s Up which was great fun. I gave vice-president as my one world clue and was DQ’d but I say it’s one word not two. After that it was pretty late so we stumbled back to our hotel.
Sunday
As always Sunday is pretty short for us but we did get two games in. The first was a card game called It’s Good To be the King and despite the delightful Mel Brooks reference it was not a great game. There were too many “surprise… take that” cards and a runaway leader problem (the winner of the previous hand gets more cards than the other players and therefore more options). Next was Take Stock by Simon Hunt from Z-man games. It’s a fairly simple card game but it’s also a lot of fun. On your turn you can either increase the value of any of 5 stocks, add shares of stock to your holdings, or take “market” cards which do crazy things. It should be out soon and I plan on getting it.
Well that was it for GenCon 06 and, as always, it was fantastic. I met a lot of new people which is always the best part of GenCon for me. I wish I could have played a few more games with my Elgin Eagle buddies but, of course, I’ll see them Thursday anyway.
A few final thoughts:
Downtown Indy smells. Really, you walk down the street and then you get a whiff of sewage out of nowhere.
There’s a lot of panhandlers in Indy.
Utili-kilts are a clearly an alien mind-subversion plot and must be stopped.
I personally handed out a lot of Dice Tower magnets. If you got one, at least check out the show once. Tom, if you read this, I got yelled at by a FFG volunteer who told me “don’t advertise in our area” which I wasn’t doing (I was promoting, not advertising). If the guy only knew how much you plug their company on your show…
Best Games I Played: Wine Handler, Emyra, Take Stock, Ave Caesar, Spectral Rails
Worst Games I Played: Time's Square, Great Wall, Funny Friends, It's Good to be the King
Well that’s it. Thanks for reading.
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phil foster
United States
indianapolis
Indiana
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fizzix wrote:
Downtown Indy smells. Really, you walk down the street and then you get a whiff of sewage out of nowhere.
There’s a lot of panhandlers in Indy.
The smell is due to the lovely white river and a very poor sanitation system in place now.
Indianapolis is finally working on plans to correct it long term.
There aren't a lot of pan handlers in indy (I live here and worked downtown for the past 7 years)
But when a big con comes to town, they come out in force. -Sorry about that.
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Scott Nicholson
United States
Cambridge
Massachusetts
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fizzix wrote: Utili-kilts are a clearly an alien mind-subversion plot and must be stopped.
Have you worn one for a day?
Don't knock it until you've tried it...
(and, for those of you whom care, I can say that I have no other piece of clothing that gets conversations and good comments from "the ladies"...)
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Mike zebrowski
United States
Unspecified
Minnesota
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fizzix wrote: I personally handed out a lot of Dice Tower magnets. If you got one, at least check out the show once. Tom, if you read this, I got yelled at by a FFG volunteer who told me “don’t advertise in our area” which I wasn’t doing (I was promoting, not advertising). If the guy only knew how much you plug their company on your show…
The quote sounds like it was Tony. If it was, then he was probably being sarcastic and really didn't mean it.
Mike Z
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Thee Insidius Doktor Glaze & His Sidekick Donut Boy with the Amazing Monkeytime Dancers Ooh!
United States
Shorewood
Wisconsin
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fizzix wrote: Utili-kilts are a clearly an alien mind-subversion plot and must be stopped.
ack! I have a previous encounter with these.! Utili-Kilts is tied for 'most unbelievable webiste" in existence [the other is an extreme hip-hop Jesus-mime troupe].
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Arcadian Del Sol
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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please dont let me derail the thread here, but after not knowing what a utilikilt was, and then doing a google image search, i now know.
Its a skirt.
no no - save your explanations and even your rebukes. If you think it is anything other than a skirt, then please stop trying to fool yourself.
A kilt is a kilt. anything else that tries to be a kilt, but isn't a kilt, is just a man-skirt.
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Michael Pennisi
United States
Carpentersville
Illinois
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pfoster wrote:
The smell is due to the lovely white river and a very poor sanitation system in place now.
Indianapolis is finally working on plans to correct it long term.
Thanks for the info. Now I know that there is a reason for it.
Quote: There aren't a lot of pan handlers in indy (I live here and worked downtown for the past 7 years)
But when a big con comes to town, they come out in force. -Sorry about that.
This is also good to know but it's too bad the police don't shoo them along. I walked by one corner where four were sitting and they were all smiling and having a conversation while shaking their cups. Between them and all of the puddles from the rain, it was difficult to navigate the sidewalk in that area.
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Mark Taraba
United States
Lake in the Hills
Illinois
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pfoster wrote:
The smell is due to the lovely white river and a very poor sanitation system in place now.
Indianapolis is finally working on plans to correct it long term.
Yeah, I don't really care what the reason is. It's gross. Pump some vanilla extract down the sewer during Gencon. Then the whole place will smell like cookies (with a little bit of sewer smell underneath.)
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Chris Garlic-13 Aniballi
United States
Sleepy Hollow
Illinois
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The first year I was there in Indy steam shot out of the sewers like the whole damn town was ready to blow. I'd never seen it, pretty cool stuff.
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grey endres
United States
Lenexa
Kansas
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Mike
I agree, those Settlers boxes were very cool. I bought the smaller one that holds the Settlers card game and all the expansions. It looks awesome next to my Settlers 3-D chest.
grey
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Scott Woodard
United States
Burbank
California
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If "women" REALLY loved utilikilts, you'd see them in films and on TV... You'd see celebrities wearing them on the pages of People magazine... And you'd see them hanging from racks in Nordstroms... Alas, the only public places I ever see them are science ficiton conventions, game conventions and Rennaisance faires...
While I kinda' dig traditional kilts (tartans and all) utlikilts do NOTHING for me.
That said, if you want to wear them, go for it, but you won't catch me donning one (unless it's made of wool and I'm wearing a sporran...) 
~Scott
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Posted Mon Aug 14, 2006 1:46 am
