We're So Board!
We're So Board!
Episode 38 - GenCon 2022
In this episode we talk about our experience at GenCon 2022, the largest gaming convention in North America. It was our first time attending and it did not disappoint! There were so many games to play, so many things to buy, and so much love for board games to share! Listen to find out who got lost searching for games and who searched high and low for an out-of-print game!
Also, join our giveaway!
GenCon Stats Article
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The city of Indianapolis and between 50 and 80,000. People love each other very, very much. And they get together, and they make a convention about board games. Hello, and welcome. I'm Jake.
Rachel:I'm Rachel.
Jake:And we are so bored. The Podcast where each episode we take a close look at a tabletop game and discuss our personal experiences with said game to help answer the question. Will this cure boredom?
Rachel:That's right, we normally look at the mechanics complexity and replayability in a game to determine if it's the perfect alternative to say, I don't know getting to the airport two hours before your flight, then being told that your flight is delayed by an hour. So you decide to explore all the other sections of the airports and find the best restaurant. And then you're told that your flight is leaving right now, right this second now, while you're literally as far away from your gate as you could possibly be. So you rush to pay for your food and run across the airport and you get there and then you're told that your flight isn't leaving for another two hours.
Jake:This does actually sound quite familiar. You also forgot to mention the part where we got into the hotel at 5:30am instead
of 1:30am.
Rachel:Yes. This may sound familiar to what happened in our last episode where Jake was complaining about getting delayed at the airport. But guess what? It happened again? Thanks, Southwest. So good times. That was our trip getting to Gen Con very fun.
Jake:Yep, it was.
Rachel:But by the way, today, we're talking about Gen Con. But first, let's talk about streaming.
Jake:Yes, we have started streaming again on a regular basis on our channel. We are going to be streaming on Wednesday evenings. That's going to be depending on a Wednesday, five or seven ish in the evening. Pacific Eastern. Oh, no. Pacific route. We live on the other East Coast. Yes. We live on the east coast. Yes. And I am going to get back to a regular streaming schedule as soon as I can. Just with everything that's been happening and Gen Con and everything. I haven't been streaming as much in fact, I haven't really even played video games all that much lately. You can find our Twitch dot tv slash so board podcast. That's S O B O ARD and I am on Twitch as well at twitch.tv/naughty Dock 541 That's NAU GH TYD OC 541. I just got a new game today. I'm very excited about playing on stream. It's a dating sim. Oh, yes. Is it the pigeon one? No. And it's not hataful boyfriend. It is a Dead by Daylight killers dating sim. Ah, yes. Yeah. You're dating killers from another video game in this dating sim. A very excited. That sounds ridiculous. It does. It looks amazing, though. Like amazingly hilarious.
Rachel:Okay. Well, the last announcement before we really get into what we were talking about today. So we're talking about Gen Con, we went there and we spent way too much money. But we're giving some of it back to you.
Jake:Not the money though.
Rachel:Not the money, but all the money that we spend on things. We're giving some of that back to you. Yes. So this is I don't know what to call this. This is our Christmas in August, that sort of boring name and my
Jake:birthday giveaway
Rachel:is your birthday. Happy birthday.
Jake:I know my birthday will have been four days before this released on the 12. So we're going to be doing a giveaway for not only celebration to Gen Con, but my birthday. So you all get crappy gifts because I'm a crappy gift giver.
Rachel:Actually, I think this is pretty awesome. Because usually our giveaways are a single game. And this time, we not only have more than one game, we have more than one like a bundle of games that we're giving away to more than one winner. And so I'm really really excited about this. We've got three bundles of games that we're giving away. So I am calling these the backpack bundle. The monsters bundle and the people bundle. Yes.
Jake:One of yours gonna get just a big stack of people.
Rachel:Yes. All it is, is like a little girl Holding a giant bag of meeples, the meeple people, the meeple people, the backpack bundle is a bunch of smaller games, card games or games that come in small boxes that can easily fit in your backpack, you can take, you know, on a road trip or something. The monsters bundle contains several games that have monsters or just inhuman creatures, I guess. And then the people bundle has has games that feature more kind of real life type stuff, where people leave things going on. But it's pretty cool, because what we actually did was, there was a mystery box sale going on at the everdell booth. And the money that you spend on buying these mystery boxes goes towards Toys for Tots, we decided to buy two of these mystery boxes. And we have taken the games kind of out of that and mix match to them. Along with some other games that Pandasaurus very generously gave me for working with them. So go to our social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to see pictures of what is actually in each of these bundles, and you'll be able to enter our giveaway on Facebook, it's going to be a gleam giveaway, there's multiple ways to enter. Most of them are free. There's like maybe one or two that you could spend some money on. Yes. Just like, I don't know, subscribing to us on Twitch or something.
Jake:Yes, that may or may not be an option this time. Yeah, now that we made affiliate, now we need subscribers, you know,
Rachel:I'm not gonna make it so that like, that's the only way to win though. It's going to be worth a decent number of entries, because you are paying real money for it. But I'm not going to make it. So it's like 1000 to one chances or something like that.
Jake:This will be pretty fair, it will be a significant amount of entries, you will still have a fair chance without paying any money. We want to make sure that everybody understands that. This is not a pay to win society that we're running here.
Rachel:Exactly.
Jake:We're not blizzard. You know, we're not running Diablo immortal.
Rachel:I don't know anything about that.
Jake:Oh, it's bad. Like in order to max out your character. I think you have to spend hundreds of 1000s of dollars.
Rachel:That's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's definitely not what we're going for. No. But anyway, go check it out. It will be open for about a month. So you've got plenty of time to go and enter. But three winners three bundles a bunch of games.
Jake:Yeah, please check it out.
Rachel:All right. So we're talking about our adventures at Gen Con. What is Gen Con?
Jake:Well, Gen Con is when the city of Indianapolis and between 50 and 80,000. People love each other very, very much. And they get together. And they make a convention about board games.
Rachel:I love it. Yeah. That was a really good explanation.
Jake:I'm glad that it was okay. It is actually the longest and largest running gaming convention in North America. As I said it does take place in Indianapolis didn't always used to be other places. And then it used to be called something else. I mean, this goes back into it's over 50 years old, this convention. But it's all about board games, and general nerd culture. It's great. I loved it. Despite my crippling social anxiety, and having 80,000 other people around me it was really good.
Rachel:Okay, so some actual stats. It wasn't 80 According to what I found, I couldn't find an exact number, but it was somewhere around 50,000 attendees. So that's still quite a lot. It is the largest, like gaming convention in North America. Also, there was 530 companies they're exhibiting this generated approximately$57.4 million in economic activity for restaurants, hotels and local businesses in the city of Indianapolis, and over$40,000 was raised for the potter Chu foundation. Sorry if I'm pronouncing that wrong, but that is a nonprofit that provides meals and learning experiences to children in Indianapolis.
Jake:See, I didn't know that. But that's awesome.
Rachel:Yeah. I'm not sure what exactly contributed to that if it was just like parts of ticket sales, or certain things that you could buy that were contributing to that. That's an article that I found.
Jake:That's really cool. And we're actually going to link that article if you're interested in learning more about Gen Con and And what it is and where the finances and revenue came from, you could go look at that later would that's not really what we want to talk about in the episode. But it is interesting to some people. So our experiences at GenCon This is my first very large convention. And the last time we did a convention episode, we talked about days what we did on this day and the next day, and the next day, we're going to do something different. This time, we're going to talk about specific aspects of Gen Con in different sections. So first, we're going to talk about the exhibition hall. This is the main section of Gen Con, this is where the retailers are. This is where all the booths are, this is where the nerds come, if you build the exhibition hall, the nerds will come.
Rachel:I wouldn't say it's the main part of it. The gaming Hall is just as large.
Jake:Right. But when you think of a convention, this is what you're thinking of. Sure. Okay. Yes. So at ComiCon, I'm sure there are gaming tables there as well. But that's not what you're thinking of, you're thinking of the booths, you're thinking of the merchandise you're thinking of the main section to see all the stuff. That's what I think of when I think of convention.
Rachel:Okay, so tell us about it.
Jake:Well, it was huge. As you said earlier, there were over 530 companies exhibiting I got lost looking at booths, like I would go and find one booth that was really cool. And I would spend 10 15 minutes in it. and think, Oh, I'm gonna come back to this later because to give you an idea, there was one booth, odd Fish Games booth that I kind of wanted to shout out that they did something that I thought was really unique. They had these little tins these round TINs that were filled with these different multicolor almost bead like things, and they were all labeled things like cinematic gunfight engine room, fairy circle, fertile farmland Goldmine, pool of acid. So different locations or different environments, environments is a good word for it. And when you open up the tins, it makes that smell it smells like that. One of the ones that really impressed me was the warm bakery smell. It smelled so good.
Rachel:Yeah, so I had just met up with Jake and he was kind of exploring this booth. And he walks up to me, and he's like, smell this. Like, I don't know what this is. But okay, I go and smell it. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that smells delicious. this
Jake:What is designed for is to create a more immersive environment for your role playing games. So people playing Pathfinder, Dungeons and Dragons, any sort of TableTop RPG, we think of sight and sound. But smell is not something that is ever really addressed. And it actually does create a very immersive environment when you include smell. So that was one booth that I found. And then I kind of lost it. I meant to go back to it later. And I couldn't find it because there's just so many. Another booths I wanted to go back to was a booth called Tea and Absinthe. They just had a bunch of different teas. I went to them once. And I got one sampler of one of their teas called Irish whiskey. I haven't tasted it yet. It sounds really good. There's another T location that I meant to get to that was on the all the way on the other side of the exhibit hall. And I mean, all the way they're not close together. I think the exhibit hall is probably half a mile long or longer. I don't know about that half a mile. Yeah. From one end to the other. It's
Rachel:over a quarter mile, maybe a third of a mile, about a third
Jake:of a mile walk one way to the but they're filled with booths. So it's not like you can just see where you want to go, like, gotta walk up and down these aisles and you get lost. And anyways, point being there was another tea place that I heard had really good tea, didn't make it to it.
Rachel:Yeah, so the exhibition hall was absolutely massive. However, I feel like the creators of Gen Con did a really good job of helping you get around, there was an online map that was actually linked on your badge with a QR code. So you could just scan your badge and it would automatically pull up this map where you can go and type in and search for whatever game company or whatever booth or you know, whatever you're looking for, you could type it in and it would pinpoint it and show you where exactly where it is on the map. Now, sometimes it would be helpful to also have a you are here, pin but I didn't have too hard of a time kind of orienting myself and figuring it out because you can you know, you can just look around and see where you are. And okay, let me do a search for I'm at the renegade booth. Oh, okay. So this is where I am and then I search for the thing I really want and you can kind of orient yourself there. But the point is that I feel like they prove provided you with a good and accurate resource to really help you get around. Because without that, I mean, I would have never found anything. So like Jake was working at the steeped games booth, that was one of the first things I did was I typed in that steep games into that map to figure out where we needed to go. Because otherwise, you're just left with whatever, like major landmarks. And I don't know, some people are good at dealing with that. Me not so much. If you tell me that you're right next to the eBay booth, I'm expecting you to be right next to the eBay booth. And if you are slightly not right next to the eBay booth, I can no longer find you
Jake:and see I'm not like that. I'm pretty good with landmarks.
Rachel:Yeah. Which this will come in to effect. We'll talk about this more in the next section that we're going to
Jake:talk about. Yeah, we will. And we'll also talk more about working with the vendors in a later section.
Rachel:But there were definitely too many booths to look at. I talked to somebody while I was there who said that their First Gen Con literally all he did for four days was just come into the exhibition hall and walk up and down the aisles to see everything. And that's how he spent four days. That's a legit way to spend the time. If that's how you want to do it. There's enough to see. Absolutely, then if like if you sit down, because a lot of them, it's not like, it's not necessarily like it's just, hey, this is a store where you can buy things like you can actually sit down and learn how to play a lot of these games and get demos, and really kind of get an idea for what the game is. So you know what you're getting
Jake:Yeah, there was a booth for a new upcoming dim sum game yourself into. called steam up that I sat down and played that game for a little bit. It was so cool. It was so cute. I loved it. Because one I love dim sum. And I love food.
Rachel:Yeah, so that game has been on my radar for a while, I've been kind of keeping an eye on it, hoping that it would come out. It's been in production for quite a while.
Jake:Well, it was there. And they said that they would be coming out soon. I would say probably a good third of the booths, if not more. When you go there have a game for you to demo. Yeah, so it's not just hey, you know, I'm gonna look at this store for five seconds. Oh, it's full of dice. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, some of them were that way. But others were unique things like this odd fish that had the unique smelling tins. Some of them were just strictly board game companies like what I was at. As Rachel said earlier, I was just steeped games. And some of them were kind of a mix and match of things.
Rachel:Yeah, so that's the other thing I was gonna say is that I feel like there was a really good selection of booths so that there was a good mixture of like, just straight up board game companies, artists, authors, other people selling like Hobby related things like dice. There was a several booths that had like just cosplay armor and weapons. That was pretty cool. Some that had like these really neat, like bags that are for cosplay. Some that are just selling literal bags to help you carry your board games, right. There was a Goosebumps booth. What? I didn't wait, what? No, no, that's the one you pointed out to me. I thought it was a Goosebumps booth is like way over there in the corner where I got where you got your your favorite pin.
Jake:Oh, no, that's so that is actually a board game company.
Rachel:Is it? I literally thought it was just a Goosebumps. Yeah, but they had just lost I didn't see them selling any board games. Like they had a lot of pins. Her like kind of creepy occult kind of pins. And I actually I got my sister this really neat purse that looks like it's a like a spell book. It says like book of spells on it. And it kind of hangs from your shoulder. I thought that was super cool. So I got that for her. The
Jake:name of that company was trick or treat games. They had, I think three or four different board games that they were selling there. I didn't even see them. The one that I saw go out most was a game called nightmare productions. It's actually number 864 on the Board Game Geek list. Hmm. Okay. So yeah, no, not a Goosebumps. So when you said goosebump was like what? Okay, I thought that's what it was. So that leads me into what you kind of were saying like, there's all sorts of like clothing as well, and artists and authors that lead me into something that I wanted to mention, there was one thing that I was looking for that I saw a lot of people have at the convention that I was not able to find at the convention. That would be a kilt. Okay, I was, I would have spent good money on a kilt.
Rachel:Did you actually look at the clothing booths? Did they not have any good? Yeah, no kilts. You should have come with your own kilt.
Jake:I'm gonna have the next time. You would have fit right in. I love wearing a kilt. It's comfy. It's breezy. Yeah.
Rachel:So is that it for the exhibition hall? Do you have anything else to say?
Jake:It was a little overwhelming at times, I did have to take a Xanax one time in the exhibition hall, because it was just insane. Other than that, it was pretty
Rachel:good. The difference in like how busy the hall was from Thursday to Saturday, the difference in those days was quite significant. Like Thursday, it was pretty comfortable. I feel I was like, Oh, this isn't so bad. I thought that there was going to be like 5 million people here. And then Saturday. It's like, oh, there's 5 million people here.
Jake:There are 5 million people here.
Rachel:Okay, so let's move on to talk about the gaming. So I got a couple bones to pick about this. There was a lot, a lot of gaming in the hall for gaming was just as big as the exhibition hall. Yeah, it was, it was difficult to find the proper gaming tables. So the way that this worked was, I don't know, a month or two ago, they opened up like the gaming schedule online. And you could go and get your tickets for the various games that you want to play. And some of them cost money. Some of them were free. Honestly, all of them were reasonably priced. I don't know if I spent more than like $5 on any single game. So I was actually really pleasantly surprised by that. But the hall that this was in was kind of it was logically divided into multiple halls going ABCD. But I say logically, because there's no physical divide, like you just kind of keep walking in it, all of a sudden, you're in section B, all of a sudden you're in Section C. And so the only division of that is by these banners that are hanging from the ceiling. And then sometimes on the wall, it will say like you're in section B. So imagine this just giant, long, long, long, long, long hall. And all these tables that are just set up basically, all right next to each other all on top of each other with a couple of pads carved out for people to walk. And you have to go in there and you have to find the table where you're playing. I feel like the GenCon designers had an idea for how to help people locate their tables. There were like different colored. I don't want to call it a tablecloth, but like paper that covered the whole table. Like a plastic tablecloth. Yeah, It wasn't plastic, those paper. But so like different colored paper that kind of lined the table. I think there was supposed to be numbers on all of the tables, some of the tables had numbers. And so I think the idea was okay, your game is in Hall be on purple table 15. And that worked once that was used to help us find our game, once I signed up for multiple games over the course of the weekend. And most of them, they described their location in terms of the company that is running the game or the is producing the game. And so instead of using these colors and these numbers, you're really just looking for some kind of banner that stands for that particular company, or maybe even a banner that just says that particular game.
Jake:And some companies did a better job than others showing where they were at.
Rachel:Yes. So like, Renegade, they had a big thing hanging from the ceiling. That said, this is where Renegade is. So some of them had just almost like little booths set up or like little tables with kind of a banner. That was an okay way of kind of landmarking yourself. But a lot of them honestly, it was literally just this kind of flag that was sitting on the end of your table. And the problem with that is that people had multiple flags that they were switching in and out depending on what games were currently being played. And so if you go and look for your table at the wrong time, your flag might not be there, and you might not be able to find your table. I had at least two games that I was like actively walking around the hall and really looking for the gaming table and I just simply could not find it. The landmarks that were described in the directions, just I couldn't find them. And so I missed these two games, because I just I could Find it.
Jake:Yeah, I totally agree the hall was so large, and some people did a really good job of showing where they were at. Unfortunately, most people did not. And that really is a detriment to the whole gaming experience at a game convention. Right? Yeah. So on our flight over, we were sitting next to a guy who was specifically working at a booth, so he could get in free, and then was running games, during all the time that he wasn't at that booth. And that's all he was doing is running games. He wasn't even playing other people's games, he was running a table top or RPG game. And that's what he did. And for somebody to sign up for his game, and then not be able to find it. That's a real shame.
Rachel:Yeah. And so for all the games that I was able to find, there was always no shows there was always people who just didn't make it, you know, whether or not that's that they couldn't find it, or they forgot, or whatever
Jake:that is true about the gaming Hall. However, some companies had rooms that they had reserved outside of the gaming Hall between the gaming Hall and the exhibition hall, one of them being Pandasaurus . That's true. We showed up for our panda Source game. And we were only able to get one ticket for this game, because it was a brand new game that had just been announced. It was created by the creator of one of our favorite games wingspan, Elizabeth Hargreaves, it is called the fox experiment. I'm very excited to get this game. It is based on a real Russian experiment, to breed foxes to basically be cute and domestic. It didn't work. But it's cool idea. And the game was really fun. Like they did such a good job with it. I digress. What I meant to say is, those games were much easier to find because you knew exactly what room it was in. Not only that, but they had staff to direct you. Hey, you're at that table right there.
Rachel:Yes. So totally agree, much easier to find. And like so it's like this hallway that's got these separate, I don't know, like they're supposed to be conference rooms or something right, that are set up for individual companies. So like, for example, the panda Soros one, it has like a big banner on the outside of the door telling you this is where panda Soros is. And then you go inside, and there's like eight tables that are set up each with like a different game, and a specific person that is designated at each table to teach the people for this game. And so that was a much better experience going through, you know, that kind of gaming setup. Only the fox experiment. Out of all the games that we played on that I played, only the fox experiment was in one of those separate rooms. Yes. Okay, so I played a game called four humors. This is by Adam's apple gaming. Super cute. I really like the concept. So this is based off of the, like medieval theory of basically, you know, what makes up our personalities. And the idea was the person that you are, is made up of a combination of was it black bile, yellow bile, red blood, and white phlegm? Yeah, it's this medieval theory, you know, of how, like pharmaceuticals and stuff were prescribed based on these things that made up your personality.
Jake:And we're using that word pharmaceuticals very loosely for that time period. Yeah,
Rachel:yes.
Jake:It's more like, oh, Doctor, I'm sick. It's probably demons, you should do cocaine about it.
Rachel:Yeah, it's like that. So the game, the way it plays is that you have these different tiles that make up kind of the map of a city. And then you've got these other tiles that are kind of zoomed into a specific location on that map. And so you've got like, I don't know, four or five of those out at once. They're zoomed into these different locations. And you can see the people that are in those locations. So like, you zoom into the dungeon, you see a couple of guards in there, and then a bunch of people being tortured, and the people that are in there, you can see what their humors are, they always have to and so the idea is that you have these different potions, these different drugs, but you are prescribing to these people based on the humors that they have. And it has kind of a hierarchy in terms of what precedes what and you know, what kind of overtakes what, and so everybody is putting down these potions facedown. It's kind of a bluffing game and you're trying to figure out what you know is the best situation, what are other people trying to do so that I can fall somewhere in this hierarchy where I actually, you know, get points and get to take control of this location. It was a really cool game, I'm not normally into like social deception or like bluffing games, but it felt it didn't feel too significant in that area. For me. Honestly, I felt like it was even a little bit more deductive, just like oh, based on all the people that we have here, and based on what I see you doing, I'm predicting that you're using these humors instead of those ones. And I can kind of make a decision to beat you based on that information that I've deduced. So that's kind of my little shout out for a game that I played.
Jake:So the game that I played that Rachel kind of watched a little bit of mine wasn't really social deception, it was more of a social deduction game, it was called mask of the Red Death. It's kind of an interesting concept, because it's based on the Edgar Allan Poe poem mask of the Red Death, you're playing a noble at a party from six until midnight, each round takes an hour quote, unquote, of time away. So for the first round, it's from the six o'clock hour to seven, second round is from seven o'clock to 8/3, Round Eight o'clock tonight. During those first few rounds until midnight, you're trying to figure out where the Red Death will be in the 12 o'clock hour. So from 12, to 1210 1210, to 1220 1220, to 1230, and so on, until one o'clock in the morning. At the end of the deduction phase, once the Red Death starts moving around, you want to avoid the room he's in, if you're in the room using you die. So the first half of the game first two thirds of the game is really kind of deducing where he's going to be by getting different clues from a clue deck, and then taking them from other nobles gaining favor, which is kind of like victory points in the fact that it only matters if there are multiple survivors at the end. And I was so close. So I had decided in the last round, you have to decide what turns you're going to take as far as moving room to room. And you can only move one room clockwise or run one room counterclockwise in each 10 minute segment. And if I had just not moved on the last one, because I moved into where he was not knowing that he would be there. Because at the end of the game, the Red Death in each of those time slots is in two rooms at a time. So you have to avoid two rooms. And there are seven rooms total. So it's kind of this back and forth of dancing between where he is now and where he is going to be in avoiding all of that. Long story short, if I had just done nothing, I would have won. But it was it was a cool experience. It was a very interesting games. I've not played anything really like it before.
Rachel:I wasn't really paying attention to that too much. I was bored. So I went and I walked around the exhibition hall while you were doing that.
Jake:I know. The game we played together really was a social deception game. The stuff of legend, which I I'm very interested in getting it, but it is very expensive. For what you're getting. It is pretty expensive. Yeah, it was so fun, though. You play as toys. There's a teddy bear. There is a Jack in the Box or the jester, I guess is what he's really called. There is a hippo I think a stuffed hippo.
Rachel:Me who I was. Yeah. No, I think he's a piggy bank.
Jake:Oh, yeah, he is a piggy bank. You're right. And then there's like a toy top. And then there are a couple other toys anyways, you are these toys that belong to the boy. That's all he's called. And the boy gets kidnapped by the boogey man and you have to go and find him. However, there are loyalties in the game. Some of you are loyal to the boy for certain in the beginning. And then there's a possibility that there is a traitor in the game that is loyal to the boogey man.
Rachel:Well, at the number of players that we had, there was definitely at least one traitor and then the possibility of a second Yes,
Jake:but the game is cool because it allows you to Actually Trade loyalties with people throughout the game. Which is kind of an interesting aspect to a hidden traitor. A game that I've not really seen a lot is really cool. We don't have a whole lot of time to talk any more in depth about it other than it was really fun. And this is coming from somebody who doesn't like social deception games.
Rachel:I feel like you say that, but I don't know. So Jake was the traitor in this game, and I knew it. I knew it. I knew it's
Jake:you didn't know, because I got you to start agreeing with me. You were like, No, I can kind of see what you're saying.
Rachel:Jake was arguing this whole weird strategy like, Hey, there's this thing that we need to do right here. But instead of doing this one that's right here, let's go all the way over to the other side of the map and do that one. So that if we have to come back, and then we don't have to go back again, or I don't even know, I can't keep up with what you're trying to argue. It didn't make any sense.
Jake:My argument was basically limit the amount of backtracking that you have to do.
Rachel:That's what you're saying the argument is, but it doesn't actually make sense.
Jake:I was arguing that that was what I was saying. But it wasn't actually what I was saying. I was actually saying no, let's take the long way around.
Rachel:Yeah. So I'm like, I'm so freaking confused about what you're saying. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I can't trust you.
Jake:But yeah, Rachel was actually the only person that well, there were two in the beginning that we knew we could trust. And then one of them got their loyalty switched with something one of the facedown loyalty, so we don't know if we can trust her anymore. So Rachel was the only one that we knew for certain we can trust you. So you need to go check things. Out. It was a really cool game. If you're interested in that kind of game. Go check it out. It's on Kickstarter right now.
Rachel:Yeah, I think actually, by the time this episode releases, the late backer will have just closed but I'm sure it'll be selling in retail.
Jake:I specifically asked them about that. Yeah.
Rachel:Okay. So the next section that I want to talk about is the community. I love. Like geek culture, I love nerd culture. Everybody at the convention is super polite, super accepting, like I was standing in line to get a t shirt. And they only had like the very beginning of the line and actually like roped off, and then after that they had like tape on the floor, just indicating that this is where you need to stand and go. And someone else was saying, you know, only at like a gaming convention, would you find people like actually staying within these lines and following the tape, you know, anywhere else, you could have it roped off and people would still be crawling under trying to get ahead. I feel like that's kind of true. Like, geek culture. nerd culture is like, Yeah, we're gonna follow the rules. And we're good. And we're like, just respectful people. And I love it.
Jake:Yeah, I kind of agree with that. I didn't have any problem with anybody. And also, I thought that the community was really, really accepting and I mean, just nice in general. And okay, this is gonna sound mean of me. Okay. There was not nearly as smelly as I thought it would be. Oh, my gosh, to be fair, 50,000 people and single hall like that's, that's a lot of bodies to pack in there. So it was not nearly as smelly as I anticipated. But it was really, really good. Everybody was nice. I don't think I heard anybody say or do anything mean at all?
Rachel:Yeah. And one of the things that I thought was super cool was on your way, like down to the convention, there was just this little table set up that had a bunch of badge ribbons, just things that you can like tape onto your badge. And those included pronoun ribbons. So you could do he him, she her they them. And almost everybody at the convention was wearing one of those. It was really cool. Like just a really cool way to like make that normal.
Jake:One of my favorite badge ribbons I saw and that I actually picked up and put on was it it was a bright pink one with white lettering that said it's okay to say gay in the right way.
Rachel:Yeah, I was wearing that one too. I thought that was really cool. So like I said, just very accepting community. Also, speaking of the community, I just want to kind of talk about like, some of the community kind of events or things that they had going on, not necessarily dedicated events that were happening, but kind of just things that were going on. One of the first things is like just this area of the floor where people were kind of building this card structure thing. So like I took a picture of it on the very first day when I happened to be passing over it like I was able to get a picture from above. And it you know, it started out just saying Gen Con 2022 And it had, you know, kind of some ornate lettering and just design around it. But as the convention was going on, I saw that there were people actually just sitting there and like constantly contributing to it building towers, rivers building, like anything, you can think of just kind of adding to it, because there was all these cards just sitting there that you could fold and bend and then kind of stack up and do whatever you want with to make these different designs.
Jake:Yeah, it was really cool. Actually. Also, that kind of goes back to like the whole people being nice. I really, really, really wanted to go in and destroy it, because I wanted to be like Godzilla and, and stomp on things. And I can't be the only one like, I really can't. But nobody did anything like that.
Rachel:So I have news for you. Apparently, I didn't find this out until Sunday night. But apparently, on Saturday night, you can go and throw coins at it. And like that's when they are getting ready to take it down and pick it up. So you can go and throw like coins and try to knock the towers over and things.
Jake:No, I wanted to be Godzilla. So sorry.
Rachel:But that was cool. Also something else that was really cool. On Thursday, all day, they were kind of building this big balloon dragon. I also have pictures of that up on our social media. So that was completely built up by Friday. And then on Sunday, they invited like kids and younger gamers to come and pop all the balloons. So that gave them some kind of pokey pointy tool
Jake:Lawn Darts.
Rachel:It wasn't Lawn Darts. No, because people were doing it's like a sword or something. But it's got a bunch of pricks on it. So it pops a bunch of balloons all at once. Like I thought that was also just a really cool like kind of thing. Especially for like kids to go in and just kind of like, Oh, I'm slaying the dragon. You know,
Jake:I'm disappointed that it wasn't that they didn't use Lawn Darts. But here we are.
Rachel:And it would have taken so long to pop all those balloons.
Jake:Also, you know, Lawn Darts can kill you. That's why they stopped making them. Yeah,
Rachel:I can see that. Okay, so
Jake:next we wanted to talk a little bit about our experience with working with vendors. I was, as we said earlier with steep games. They make Chai and Chai Tea for Two. And they are coming out with a couple of new games next year that I'm very excited for. They actually got the rights to an old Reiner Kneizia game. So they're going to be re re releasing that with some new expansions and then some of their own original games, which goes up through the desert. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. So they're going to be doing that next year. And some other games, some of them look really cool. One looked a little more complicated than the other one of them is kind of like a splendor esque game. And the other one is, that's the simpler one. One of them's a little more calm anyways, overall, I had a great experience working with Dan and Brian, and jazz and everybody else at the booth. They were all super nice, even though I showed up really, really late on my first day, like halfway through my shift. Because remember, I did not get into the hotel room until 530. On that day, that was supposed to be at the booth at 10. That didn't happen. But everybody was super nice. And I know it got busy. And I'm usually okay. As far as an experience like this. To give a little bit of background, my first job my very, very first job, I worked at a music store, and the music store I worked in, they specialize in actually renting music, musical instruments to kids for the school year. So I got hired on at 16 during the rental season, to just be another body to take rental forms and payment and give an instrument to a kid. In sales, I was used to having a line of 60 people, 70 people 80 people waiting on us, and us just going and going and going and going and going and getting this all through. So I wasn't really overwhelmed by that. It was very similar to that experience at the convention. As far as my previous, you know, experience in sales. That really helped me not feel overwhelmed. But everybody was also super nice. Everybody was interested in hearing about the games that we had out and that we were demoing. I really liked it actually it was kind of refreshing change of pace from my day to day job.
Rachel:was supposed to do was cover somebody's lunch and I was gonna be there alone and it was like Hey, nobody even showed me how to like ring people up. anything, it's like just go. So I'm really glad I got there a little bit early. So I could kind of shadow just for a little bit. I don't need like full on training, but hey, show me the application to be able to ring people up and like, How do I look up the prices for things, stuff like that. So but what I was doing was I was working in the Pandasaurus event room. So that's like the room where they have the demos for like the fox experiment and everything. And about half the time I was behind the counter or behind the table, like helping actually, you know, assist people with purchasing things. And then about half the time I was teaching the Dinosaur Island Rawr and Write game, I significantly enjoyed teaching people the game more than running the sails, which is funny, because it's like the exact opposite for Jake.
Jake:Yeah, it's true. I was not a fan of teaching people the game, because, like, I'd say the same thing over and over and over and over and over. And I get tired of that,
Rachel:I guess I kind of get that I didn't have the same exact experience, because I wasn't in the exhibition hall. Right. So the people that I was teaching were legitimately like sitting down and playing a full game. And I was just there to kind of explain it in the beginning. And then I just kind of watch them and assist them as they play. So a little bit of a different experience. But I had way more fun with that, and just kind of hanging out with people and talking and seeing how they're enjoying the convention. And it was a really good experience. So I don't know, Pandasaurus is awesome. I, you know, had a really awesome time. Everybody was super friendly and nice. And it felt like, like a family kind of just everybody's kind of banding together. And you know, figuring out, oh, somebody needs to teach game x. And we need to move people around so that we can figure out okay, well, this person over here who's supposed to teach game y they know game x, so let's move them and get someone else to play or to teach game y. So I got pulled over to teach Brew, great game at one point, because I know that game very well. Yes. Awesome game. Also reminder back to the giveaway that we're doing brew is in one of those bundles. But yeah, I had a really awesome experience working with them.
Jake:I'm glad because like, I want to go to our next convention as partners with companies again, whether or not Dan will have me back, that would be awesome. I would love to go and help them out again, those guys were awesome. If not, if they already have all the help they need, I get that that's fine. I'll reach out to someone else, I think and see if I can get in and help them out. I'm looking at you Mythic.
Rachel:So I was hoping to work with Panda source again for PAXU maybe. But it looks like they already have their team selected. And you know, I just wasn't on that list. You know, nothing? Nothing personal.
Jake:No, I think they're a bigger company that just has a lot of people available.
Rachel:Yeah. And they probably need a smaller team for PAXU it's not nearly as big as Gen Con. I'm reaching out currently to some other designers and producers to see if I can help out at anything else. So that's the plan.
Jake:Yeah, I definitely would do it again.
Rachel:I also kind of wanted to just talk about how like this is an abnormal, I guess experience. Most people don't go and work with vendors. But you as a regular person may be qualified if that's something that you're willing to do. So they did pay for our badges. There are some vendors that will even pay for your hotel stay or like with Pandasaurus, you can build up basically experience points, the more you work with them, and they give you more and more stuff, eventually working your way up to them covering your hotel stay. That's pretty cool. Yeah, you know, you have to you have to be willing to actually, you know, show up and do the work and help out with that. But it's a legitimate way to spend the convention, you know, and the only thing that they are really looking for is people who are friendly who can deal with sales and who can like Teach games. So we both qualified because we we essentially teach games through this podcast, but I think lots of other people who don't have that could argue that they're good at teaching games.
Jake:I'm not very friendly but my sexy looks makeup for
Rachel:you too sexy for this shirt.
Jake:It's true. I am actually recording this shirtless because it is so hot in here. We turn off the air conditioning when we record.
Rachel:It's true. Well, that was our last section to talk about our experiences at Gen Con.
Jake:So that means we need to go back Come now we need to find out. Rachel, would you rather go to Gen Con over getting to the airport two hours early for your flight, then being told your flight is delayed by an hour. So you decide to explore the other section of the airport to find the best restaurant then being told your flight is leaving right now. While you're literally as far away from your game as you could possibly be, that you rushed to pay for your food, literally run across the airport to get there and being told your flight has been delayed by another two hours.
Rachel:So we kind of needed one to get to the other. But if I could go to Gen Con without having that experience. Yes, absolutely. 100% I would do that
Jake:I mean you could you just have to move to Indianapolis.
Rachel:I could or I could drive or I could not fly southwest.
Jake:Oh. Oh, see. Southwest did me dirty. They did me dirty this time. Coming back with no problem now. For either of us.
Rachel:Maybe bad luck. Anyway, that is Gen Con 2022. Thank you so much for listening. Hit us up on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at so bored podcast. That's S O B O A R D podcast. I'd love to hear it. If you were at Gen Con. What did you do? How did you spend your time? How much money did you spend? No, you don't have to tell me that. Or if you're hoping to go to Gen Con next year. Or if you're just living vicariously through us hit us up. You can also find short stories and pictures of other things that we're doing in general on those social media accounts. And if you feel like emailing us because you don't like social media, that's fine. We're at we are so bored@gmail.com That's W E ar e s o b o ar D we are so bored@gmail.com Lastly, make sure that you subscribe that will ensure that you get notified when new episodes come out. It also helps us you know become a bigger podcast helps other people find us. So does leaving a rating which you can do on Spotify now. All of that helps other people find us so that we can do more awesome things like giveaway three giant bundles of games. Yes.
Jake:And real quick, I wanted to give a shout out to Dan from steep games. Thank you so much for having me work at the booth. Brian, thank you for having me work at the booth. And a shout out to Pandasaurus for having Rachel at the booth as well. We really appreciated the opportunity and we would love to do it again.
Rachel:I'll give a shout out to the Pandasaurus sales manager Brian who just I don't know it was like, I don't feel like packing up all these games people just take games. Take them all.
Jake:That's awesome. And thank you to a&t podcast management for editing this episode. They are professional podcast editors and can be found at and T hyphen podcast management.com. We also want to thank Mitchell Mims, the designer of our art he is currently accepting commissions. So check him out at misco Sa ra on Instagram or on his website, Mitchell Mims. That's mi ch e l m i m s dot c AR ar d.co.
Rachel:Once again, we are giving away many, many, many games we've got three bundles of games, go check it out. It's available now on our Facebook page. It's a gleam giveaway. Most of the ways to enter are free. Go and do it. Three winners. It's gonna be awesome. And
Jake:once again, we are streaming every Wednesday on Twitch starting at about five or seven pacific time depending on whether or not I work that Wednesday. We're not six. So we ever stream it's six. I mean, I said between five and seven, so anytime between them. That's when we start. Okay. That's what that meant. And that is at twitch.tv/snowboard Podcast. I'm also streaming on Twitch, I will be getting back to a more regular schedule. And I am at Naughty duck 541 That's twitch.tv/nau gh t y d OC 541. I'm going to stream the Dead by Daylight killers dating sim soon.
Rachel:That sounds fun. Right? That
Jake:sounds fun. It sounds ridiculous.
Rachel:All right. Well, that is all folks. Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time. Bye. Bye.
Jake:I love wearing a kilt. It's comfy. It's Breezy.