Saturday, September 22, 2018

FallCon, my first Gaming Convention

So today I had the opportunity to attend my first Game Convention, and although it was a small one compared to the huge cons I see on the many game sites out there, it was still a great chance to interact with gamers and designers in Alberta.
I started the morning by playing a fantasy dice game already in publication, called Dice Throne, by Roxley Games.  Had never heard of it and was invited to try it, it was a fun and fast battle game loosely based on a Yahtzee dice roll with some major add-ons...
Dice Throne is an accessible and strategic dice dueling game where players choose their Hero and square off against their opponents in an intense head-to-head or team battle.

After that I checked out quite a few other games already in play, then played an unpublished game called Borders of Kanta, a hex laying area control game by a game designer from Edmonton.   Had some good discussion with the designer Lorne, and was able to see the kind of quality that Print and Play company does for game production.
Also met the designer of Tiny Ninjas, a guy named Ryan who lives not too far away from me.  He had a great campaign with over $30k on his KS.  His game was manufactured with LongPack games and seemed to look pretty good as well.

I set up and ran my table for four hours, getting in two productive playtests and some discussion with passers by.  Everyone that came by was interactive and friendly, so a very good experience overall.  I was able to see where game time could be sped up by starting the game off in a later state (a common recommendation you see on game design sites anyhow), and will be adjusting the game to reflect characters being in a stronger position as the game begins.

After the demo I was able to meet a few game store owners and hand out a few more business cards to raise awareness for FunDaMental Games.  The environment is very difficult to actually sell a rookie product since there is so much established product available, but was still great to network and see visually a ton of the great games I don't own that people always talk about.
Examples include Scythe, Sagrada, Santorini, Twilight Emperium, and many more.

The con was a perfect break-in experience to the Con world, looking forward to the next opportunity to do it again!


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