GenCon Day 3

Whenever someone from the non-gaming world learns that I go to GenCon every year, the first thing they ask me is "Do you dress up?" The answer is no. No I do not dress up. It's a gaming con, yes. But I work in the industry. I can't very well meet with vendors dressed as Slave Leia, can I? Anyway, there is more to GenCon than cosplay.

There are games, for one thing. We playtest a lot of games during these 4 days. Some are games that are in prototype stage and the designers are looking for feedback. Some are in beta and the designers are looking for backing. Most of them are newly released or soon-to-be-released games that we are deciding whether to carry in our store.

This one, for example, was a simple, fun game. The object is to stack all of your cats without toppling the cat tower. On your turn, you might have to stack one or two cats, a fat cat, stack your cat upside down, make someone else stack a cat, or divide all the cats equally between players. Very quick and very fun. The girls and I tested this and decided we would all have to get this.

T and I played this one, Jupiter Rescue. It's not new or anything, but I hadn't played it before and I really like this company's games. Basically, you're trying to get colonists into escape pods and off the space station before alien creeps can bodysnatch them. I must say, it was rather fun, even if it is a cooperative game (and I like to play to win!) and even if we totally failed at rescuing the colonists.

I don't mean to imply there were no costumes. Perish that thought. Saturday is the Costume Contest. So there are a lot of costumes.

Just kidding. That last one is R and I. We're not wearing costumes. Unless you count our awesome costumes.

M and Bre and I also took a craft class. You know in the past, we've done fused glass and the like. This year, we did a beaded wire tree. Here is mine:

And Bre's:

And M's:

They are all so pretty. I think this is a great craft. I would be intested in doing this again.