Welcome to Episode 134. We are setting the stage for a showdown between two giants of the gaming world, Origins Game Fair and Gen. Con. It's a tale of two tables, each with its own vibe, its own heartbeat, and its own unforgettable moments. Origins, as we described weeks ago in our recap, feels like a slow pour of your favorite brew. Familiar faces, plenty of room to breathe, and tables full of connection.
You'll find yourself sinking into rich Euro classics like Catan, Rococo and Raw, where every move invites conversation and strategy grows organically. It's a place where shared experiences matter more than shopping, and where friendships form in the quiet in between turns. Then there's Gen. Con last week, guys, a beast of pure energy and industry. It's a Thunder clap of dice rolls and discovery where adrenaline runs high and the
halls echo with excitement. There we rode the tracks of Lightning Train, we scaled the walls of Castle Risers and recruited members to our secret society in Clandestine. Gen. Con is the place where every second is packed with possibility, from sneak peeks to surprise reveals to that one game you didn't plan to love but now you can't stop thinking about it. And it's living rent free in my brain.
But no matter the con, it's the shared moments of the table that stick with us. It's the inside jokes, the triumphant cheers, and the vibrating tension of the true dungeon. Whether you're deep in the strategy weeds or laughing through a chaotic Co-op, it's those connections that make the con worth it. So settle in and roll with us, and let's unpack the unique magic of these two unforgettable gatherings. Joining me once again, as promised, is Chris Preston.
Chris, thanks for returning. How are you? I'm great man, thanks for having me back. Yeah, yeah. Well, we promised we were going to do this. And we, we deliver on our promises. That's right. So Gen. Gencom was a week ago. Yes, it was. I know, right? It's crazy. So let's let's see. You were at, if I remember correctly, you were at Origins and you were working on the vendor hall floor for a game
publisher Bite wing. Bite Wing. Yep. And this year you were at Gen. Con working the vendor hall floor for Pandasaurus games, right? Pandasaurus. Yes. And the only other time we've been to Gen. Con was in 22, three years ago. We worked with Pandasaurus that year as well. So they obviously treated you well. Yeah, they're super great to work with. They cover a badge, get a little bit of an hourly pay, we each get 2 free games and then 50% off up to five more games.
Oh, that's cool. So, I mean, it's a pretty sweet gig. So Pandasaurus had a lot of content, a lot of games that came out that we had. Oh my gosh, they. What did you decide to take home? What were your free copies? What were your? What did you get? We got I'll just, I've got, I've got them right here. So the first one we picked was Gatsby as a two player game. Theme doesn't matter at all. We had so many people saying I love the Gatsby book. What does this have to do with
the book? Absolutely nothing. Nothing. But the art style is very art Deco nice. The theme is there if you really want to try. They did a really good job in the rule book of like quoting the book and try to make it. But it's a great little two player tug of war, push and pull game. People loved it. We got let's see, I should have had these. That's OK. We. Got we got umbrella, which is a really interesting.
It's not really a slide puzzle, but you're kind of sliding umbrellas from zones above and below or left and right of your board and trying to slide the the umbrellas around on your board. You'll slide one into a row and you'll push the next one off to the opposite side with the goal of you've got these goal tiles you're trying to arrange to match one color to match the tile. And if you do that, you'll play scoring marker and you pass the tile to the next player. It's a neat little like.
Yeah, it's. Kind of slide puzzly in a way, but the the weird thing is is you're going to have three or four of these these puzzles you're trying to fill, you have to plan multiple steps ahead or you're going to have a bad time. And then we got. So it sounds like I'm going to do terrible at that game. We got tricky kids. Oh, that's our. Great friend Danielle Reynolds. Yes, and Steven Ungaro, affectionately to me and a community of people online known as Plurpy.
This is one of his first published designs. It was funny. I was talking to Danielle about it and she was like, I want to I had this idea for a trick taking game, but I hate trick taking games. I don't play them. So I reached out to Steven and was like, hey, help me with this. But the twist here is the cards don't have numbers on them at the start of the hand you're going to write numbers on them, but your total hand cannot exceed 21 or any of your points
are lost. Nice. So, and after each trick, you get your card back in front of you. And so you can kind of do the math toward the end of the hand and be like, well, you've played 16 points in cards. You have 3 cards left. Yeah. And you can kind of do some math. And then the last one we got was look at the stars. This is the one Caitlin really wanted. It's a flippin, right? Where you're drawing constellations and you're trying to draw them in certain ways to score points.
Excuse me, isn't it? We played it one night in our hotel room and really enjoyed it. And we need to try to play it again this weekend. We've been playing with the kids, trying to play through our stack of games we brought home. We've played most of them. Well, that's good. We haven't. Played the big ones yet? So. Still, we still have a few games that we picked up from Gen. Con that we haven't hit the table just yet, but we're we made a lot of progress this week.
So we went to Pandasaurus Thursday morning because I, I stopped to see Danielle at Wise Wizard Games booth. She was working and she's like, you got to get tricky, tricky kids because she's like, I think it's my best game ever and I'm like wow because it's an. Old same because caution science is awesome and it won more awards and they sold a ton of it again this year. And to keep with the comparison, it won the fan favorite at Origins.
Yeah, they had the trophy at the booth for Caution Science, so that was great. But they were sold out on Thursday, I guess. You know how they do that. They bring out so many copies each day and they sell out, but then you go back to the next day. I never made it back. Back in time. So we didn't get tricky kids. Bummer. We did get Gatsby on recommendation from our good friend Craig and Becky to get into games on air, shoot out a little plug. Yeah, So it's funny.
Craig was texting me throughout the weekend and he was like just giving me directions. You need to get this, you need to go get that. Actually, I would do it every if he told me to go get it. I went and got it and. Absolutely. Right. And so we we picked up Gatsby. You're right, The theme is. The theme is. The theme is great if you're into it, but it's kind of pasted on. Yeah, which is in AI mean that game takes 15 to 20 minutes to play. It doesn't need to have the most
immersive theme in the world. No, absolutely. And it's. There was some, so that was one of the ones that Caitlin and I taught a lot throughout the weekend. I so basically working with Pandasaurus, I taught a far away a few times. I taught a lot of Gatsby, a lot of sea salt and paper, and a lot of Pixies. Oh yeah. And a couple games of Kodo and then a whole lot of The Mind Soul. The Mind Soul Mates and Gatsby were probably the two I ended up teaching the most.
But we kind of like floated. I had like 4 tables. I just constantly was like floating between and. It was very chaotic. That's because you're a machine and I don't think Pantosaurus realized what an asset you are. So if anyone, if anyone who is an actual employee of Pantosaurus and you're listening to this podcast and you're looking for employees, Chris Preston is available and he's done some great work for you in the past. So there you go. There you go.
I did not ask for that. No, he didn't crack that at all. He did not. So the other thing that we picked up at Pandasaurus was the extra pepper expansion. Or I wanted it but I didn't get a copy of it. That was like priority number one. We have to get extra pepper. We've got extra salt, salt and sea salt and paper is a huge, fantastic game, fantastic design. I. Really want to play extra pepper even more than extra salt. Extra salt adds some cool dual alternatives.
Yeah, but Pepper sounds like it. It is. So I did manage to get the Pixies expansion before we sold out. Oh, good, good. Which is really cool. Yeah, so. But. Yeah. No, we, we had some, what I was saying with that with all the tables is Gatsby had some really fun moments watching people play and get it. And some of the bonus effects. Like there was one where somebody had filled up a racetrack, but the racetrack they filled up the last spot was swap a token and then they stole the race.
And it was this big like, oh, you can't do that. I was like, no, you can't. So we had to look at the rules and verify the order of operations. So I mean theme, sure, who cares. But it's it's a great little push and pull tug of war if you like 2 player games at 1520 minutes with some good strategy. I will say that the one thing that I thought was unique about Gatsby is it is the push and pull. But you basically you could have 3 little games going on, right?
So you had mentioned the race tracks, so you're putting tokens to try to get a majority and so many race tracks. And then there's that. What do you call it that like AI call it? AI call it the tower. The tower, the tech tree, whatever you're trying to move up. And as you move up, you get bonuses. And then there's like a table where you're trying to draw in a line. Yeah, Yeah. So that was kind of cool. And then you had like a special action that was set reserved
just for yourself. That makes the game. So, yeah, yeah. So that so it had the design of the game, had some cool moments. Absolutely. I mean, it's also. But the theme was Bruno. Cathalo is one of the designers on it, so he knows what I mean. Right. He's been at this a long time. The the theme though, I think, I think if there's any weakness in the game, it's that you could strip the theme off and you
could put something. Else in his place, yeah, I think they did an OK job trying, but Oh yeah, at the end of the day, it's still a great game and the artworks great. Yep. So how would you rate your overall experience of Gen. Con this year? Before or after we found out we came home with COVID? Well, that doesn't count. We're going to put an asterisk. We're. Going to put an asterisk there. That's the one thing Origins has a leg up on as I didn't come
home sick man, it's hard. It was I saw one of my friends talking about it online and he said for some reason this year felt so much more exhausting than other Gen. cons in a good way like not a bad thing, but just that they were worn out more than normal. Sure. And I think I felt that more this year than three years ago. OK. And I don't know why because I don't think we did. I think we even did less this year than we did three years ago.
But that's not to say anything negative to the score. It's just hard because it it just felt like a lot. That said, it was an absolute blast. And you know, your intro, you mentioned the adrenaline of it and that's something that I didn't feel it origins right there. There's a vast difference of 1618 thousand and 7580 thousand and it just I mean that adrenaline of like I've got to get through the hall again.
I've got to, you know, here's these boosts that I didn't get to yet or I've got to get this game before it sells out and I've got to get my galactic cruise all in bundle and we and we did. Good for you. You know, so it's just one of those things and there there wasn't enough time, right? Like I think I had a list and we didn't get through it all and. OK.
And not that that's a bad thing, I put so much on the list to look at, but there were a few boots that I was bummed I didn't make it to. There were a few games I wanted to look at that I didn't get to, but that's the nature of the beast. That hall is just insanely massive and even though I feel like we walked the whole thing 3 or 4 times throughout the weekend, there were still boots. I never saw the Oink boots right? Like I don't even know where it was.
Ice, I saw it because it had one of those hovering signs over top, but I never made it to the Oink booth proper. Hell, let's be honest. So let's break it down real quick how I experienced Gen. Con overall the show because Katie and I did things a little bit differently. She was with me on Thursday and she was with me on Saturday, Friday or Sunday, Sunday along with her sister. So and that's when we saw each other, which we'll definitely
come back to that. So Friday and Saturday was PJ rapping out meeple to meeple, networking, just going wild crazy. So Thursday we walked the vendor hall. Katie and I had specific people we wanted to either see or we wanted to purchase games or look at games to demo to determine if we wanted to buy. And so we did. We did that right. We hit that list and then she left Thursday afternoon. And then Friday and Saturday was just epic.
And then Sunday we casually walk the vendor hall with her and her sister with the focus primarily on two things. We had two objectives on Saturday, on Sunday. I don't know why I keep saying Saturday, Sunday, Sunday. So we were looking for games focused on our five year old nephew who Katie had spent the weekend with her sister and her son. And so his birthday's coming up.
So we were looking for more games for him because he's turns 5. He's getting to that age where he's starting to show an interest in board games. So that was the first thing. Our second goal was that we had to see you and your wife. Yeah, that was that. Because we. Because I had missed you. Yes. Thank you. You came by the booth Thursday morning. I don't know how we didn't see each other.
I don't know. I was, I think because we were focused on get this, we needed extra Pepper and Gatsby. So we got it and we moved on. It's very mission focused on Thursday. Yeah, absolutely. But we did see you on Sunday and we got to chat for a bit while you were teaching you salt and paper. Yep. So yeah. So how was the, how was the vendor hall floor experience between Origins and Gen. Con, putting aside the sheer number of people? Because that's obviously, yeah.
I mean teaching games wise it was pretty similar. Bitewing is a much newer and not quite as big of a company as Panda so I think people are still learning them and discovering their games. But the excitement level of both booths and the games there between the two cons was pretty comparable. OK. Because Bitewingers had had had some stuff just delivered that a lot of people were interested in and had on their list at Origins. And they were easy teachers.
They were easy cells. People wanted them. And same thing with Pandasaurus. Now Pandasaurus, like you mentioned, they had, it was probably 7 or 8 new releases at Gen. Con. I mean, just the sheer number of games on the shelves was insane. And we had what, 678 demo tables, I think, in the booth. And so, I mean, it was just as far as the booth and Asaurus was much busier constantly. But I think a large part of that is part of the crowd size because it was rare at Origins
that we weren't doing anything. You know, I was pretty much teaching constantly or talking to people, answering questions about games. And so it was, you know, pretty comparable experience, similar excitement, energy level. I think Panda Source is probably just a little bit busier. But again, that that could just be the nature of Gen. Khan being so much larger than Origins. And I tell you, when the doors open Thursday morning at 10:00, we were slammed immediately for about 3 hours.
I mean we had they had a cash wrap line that zigzagged 3 times and then went down and out the booth and it was just crazy. So I've said this before, on previous episodes with Gen. Con recaps, I've talked about this. I'm a firm believer that Thursday at 10 AM. Don't be in the craft. Yeah, that's the running of the nerds. Everyone goes wild. Crazy. I think it's a absurd and I want no party. It's fun to watch. It's not even fun to watch. From above, it's fun to like
see. Having done that, I'm like, oh look, it's a mass of people. Just that is no thank you. So we had an 8 to 10 AM play test session on Thursday at the first exposure play test hall and we play tested this really great game called Galactic Frontier. So be on the lookout for it guys. It's by Diamond Design Studios. It's almost as if I've got the business cards prompted right here. So it's this interesting X, but it's a card game and the cards
are your exploration of the map. They're your resources, they are your ships there, your, your crew. So like the, the deck of cards represents everything. So it's just a deck of cards. There's no other tokens or anything like that, which is it does it really well. It was really just just boggling for us. So that was that was really cool.
And then those of you who listen to the Gen. Con prep episode between me and Drew Denning, so that after that play test session, we had a moment that Drew and I described in the episode. I walked up to him and I was trying to read his body language to see if he had which hat he was wearing. Is this Drew busy or can I go and talk to him? He was busy, but I waited. We hugged, we took a picture. And then I had to take off for another event, which was at 10 AM.
So I missed the running of the nerds. I didn't rush into the vendor hall. I don't. Yeah. Yeah, well, and that's one of the things I like about working is you get in ahead of the rush, your shifts over, the rush has died down, and you just get to go peruse the hall.
Now the interesting thing is I don't know if you remember 3 years ago when we were there, when we actually met in person the first time, Pandasaurus had an event room across the way from the main hall and that's where we worked. So we each I. Do remember that. We did 2 sessions, two of those ticketed event 2 hour blocks where we taught a game and walked them through the play. We did that two of those blocks for a four hour shift and then
we were free. And so we didn't even get to like we I found a video on my memories recently where I was going to the bathroom or getting some water and I had to like snake through that crowd Thursday morning before the doors open. And it was crazy. But so it's interesting being in the hall and seeing it rush in. That was like, it was, you know, it was really cool. But I don't know, I don't know why they didn't do the event
room. I know it's a whole lot more money and it's a lot more to manage and maybe they just didn't feel like they can pull it off. But I think it had pros and cons. I think I liked being in the hall better because it's more more energizing and more and it's easier to see people and you know, there's so many people that just stroll by the booth as opposed to coming in the room because it's a little more out
of the way. The only drawback is that, well, it's a catch 22. Our shifts that year were from 8:00 to noon, which meant we had to get up a lot earlier, but then we were done at noon so we could take a little bit to breathe and eat lunch and then have one to six in the hall every day, right? Well, this year we didn't get off until 2/2, 2:30, depending on the day and just teaching a game and getting out of the booth. And so we didn't have near as much time.
We got to sleep in a little bit more. Sure. Didn't have to get there quite as early, but we also didn't have as much time in the hall. So it's kind of one of those things. It's kind of a bummer. I think we still have plenty of time in the hall. But you mentioned that adrenaline. When I've got my list and I don't have a lot of time, Caitlin gets a little irritated. She's like, I'm gonna go sit down. I'm gonna go let you do your thing.
Yeah, cuz she doesn't. Standing all day is really hard for her and she doesn't enjoy standing and hearing demos of games. If she can sit and learn it, it's a whole lot better. And that's, you know, most booths don't have that and some do. And that made it a lot easier when they did. But but yeah, so that, that was the one thing drawback, cuz we just didn't have quite as much time to peruse the hall as I wanted, right? And there were several. And as a result, I had to prioritize.
And, you know, I knew there were a few booths that were top of the list that I wanted to get to. There were some that I really wanted to check out the games and potentially buy. Well, they were sold out by the time I got there later in the weekend because they ended up being a hotter ticket item. Yeah. Was it Broadway toys? I think they had a game called Wondrous. Was it Wondrous Museum? Something like that. And I ended up getting a quick.
Sold out so I. Don't know, yeah, I got a quick overview of it and it seemed like a game we would enjoy. But you know, they were out so I didn't get to do it. But we spent plenty of money, so it's not a big. Deal. Oh yeah, I hear you. What was the the one the one get you missed? Like what was it that you're really, I really wanted this
game, but they sold out. Koi probably, yeah, we well, and the frustrating thing is, is we didn't even get to demo it until the very end of hall hours on Sunday just because of every time we went by there, the table was full and we wouldn't have been able to buy it anyway because they did an allotment each day and they were pretty much sold out by the time we would have gotten there. But we're in, we're we're doing the demo on Sunday and Caitlin and the lady said we're sold
out. We should have more in stores in October and Caitlin's birthdays in November. She's like, hey, it's just in time for my birthday. So I like it. I know I had messaged you about that one ahead of time. I don't know if you got to check it out or not. But I saw it, we we looked at it and it was kind of like it was just one of those things where it's like, yeah, we know we can get it later. So we passed. So the game for me, the the one that I missed, it's the same situation.
They had an allotment. It went a lot. And that was the Battle of Hoth from. Yeah, several people got a copy of it that I know. I know, so did I, I knew some folks who got copies. It was one that I was really, I wanted to get a copy of it and you know, okay, I know it'll come out, it'll hit retail. Yeah, it'll hit retail and I'll get a copy and that'll be fine. But I was really hoping to get that and take it home.
So I realized that, and some people said this, it's just the days of Wonder, Undone, Undaunted, or Memoir 44. Memoir 44 Star Wars, which makes it automatically better. Well, so I agree in this instance because Katie's not really big into war games, historical war games. Storming the beaches of Normandy is not really something that will thematically. Capture her. We're kind of the same way. But the Battle of Hoth from Emperor Strikes back, it's just, it's classic and.
And it's epic looking. It is like the way they did the design and the table presence. It just looked, Yeah. Did you see the giant version? I always I was like, I really, I tried to, I went up to so I went up to one of the asthma day. I don't know if it was contract workers or they were actually employed, but I was like, do you have a copy about old Hoth? I know it's an absurd question, Like, Oh no, we're sold out the allotment. I'm like, I understand.
I was like, so that big copy on the table, how much do you want for that? I was like, when the con is over, I'll buy that. Oh my God, it was so cool. Even the cards like. Yeah, they were massive. You could see them. There was down the down. Yeah, Asthma Day had a couple of games that supposedly were supposed to be out for demo but weren't, and I was kind of bummed about, I don't know if maybe 7 Wonders Dice was one of
them. I don't know if maybe it just didn't make it in time, but I asked people a couple of times and they're like, I don't know what you're talking. About nobody saw. That contract worker and they don't know, but that was one that I was hoping to try. 7 Wonders is a good series I enjoy. I think Dual's my favorite of it, but I always like a dice twist on a game, and so I was really interested in that one, but it wasn't there, so. It's.
Disappointing. Yeah. But that that happened with several publishers were there, like, we just, it didn't come in in time, You know, shipments, shipping is kind of a mess right now. And it really. Yeah, I mean, that was Pandasaurus. All their new stuff they air freighted. And so Shackleton Base was a hot ticket item and it didn't sell out quite as quick as they thought it would, but it still sold out Saturday at some point
in the day. But because they had to air freight everything, that box is huge and heavy and they only could afford to air freight so many copies over. So you were in a unique position because you're working the vendor hall floor, which means even though even though you're teaching a game, whatever that is, people are talking about things they saw and then you walk to the hall yourself. So at the end of the convention, was there like 1 designer or one
game? That generated a lot of buzz that either it either surprised you or just in general, what was everyone talking about? What did you get a sense of? Because there's just so much. There is so much, there is so much. But that is one thing I do enjoy about working the conventions and even, you know, conventions I don't work at. Anytime we're waiting in line for bathroom or library, I'm always like, hey, what's hitting for y'all? What are you finding? Like what's, what's standing out?
Because I like to know. And so anytime I'm like teaching a game, if once I've taught it and they're playing it or we're wrapping it up, or if I'm resetting it while I'm resetting, I'm like, so what's standing out to you? What have you found this weekend? I don't know that there was one. I mean, a lot of people are talking about battle, ha. A lot of people were talking about what were a couple of the other hot tickets. So why you that's OK? Why you think about that?
OK. I'll tell you because there was one that it stood out for me personally, but I heard a lot of designers. So it was interesting because Friday and Saturday I was rapping out meatball to Meatball. So I was interacting with a lot of designers, a lot of marketing managers for different publishers. There was a lot of talk about Mosaic games from and yes, that is our good friend Palgan, who was featured on the show. But and I got to meet him and it
was really exciting, but. Well, good for you. I tried. I went by the booth and right as we got there, somebody's miking him. Is that his wife? That's his wife who had like they were going. Yeah, they were miking. They were miking them up to do a video interview. Right as we got there, they were getting ready for it. So like, I was right there. I was at the booth.
I did get an overview of Try Garam and one of the other games, but I didn't get a chance to meet him and that was the first day and we'd ever made it back over. There, Yeah. But I tried. But everyone, everyone kept talking about mosaic games, Yeah. Which is super cool. Yeah, Tom Vassell made his way over to the booth and he did a, he did a little thing there, board game. Steph and her partner were over there.
There was just a lot of lot of people repping out Mosaic, and I'm glad because it was their first Gen. Con. I know that was a big deal. They brought uninvited guests at a wedding, which was their. Yeah. That was the other one we got an overview of. It was Jag, Aram and that. Game is fun that game that. Seemed really interesting. Yep, It's kind of a, it's kind of a, it's a deduction game, not a social deduction, but a card deduction game.
And you're trying to hide the evidence that you're there, but then you're trying to accuse the other players to fight, you know, to discover who they are and reveal that to the host. Hey, look, Chris is a uninvited guest, so I can survive.
But a very cool game and. But it was cool hearing about that from them because the lady that that showed us the game, she's like, you would be surprised as to like how big of a deal like people just show up to eat at these weddings completely uninvited and it is not abnormal and you're just trying to blend in, get your food and get out. So it was it was super cool hearing about their culture. Yes, and where the game design came from, you know, And so I thought that was super neat, yeah.
So shout out again to Palgan and his team at Mosaic. Hopefully, Palgan, I'll get to meet you next time. Yeah, I tried. He'll, he'll be back. He'll be back, I'm sure. Yeah, definitely. All right, I have a question for you. Yeah, go ahead. I've been pondering because I've been seeing it on social media posts because of course, after Gen. Con, what do you do?
You take a picture of everything you brought, you post it on all the groups and everybody Gox and everybody's like, oh, I bought those or some of those games are terrible, but some of you know all sorts of conversations. Sure. Alongside of that are always a handful of posts in the board game groups of why do people buy all these games at Gen. Con? Like what's the point? Why do you go to Gen. Con?
Why spend all this money on games that you can buy in a month or two at a store and you don't have to go to the convention? So I've been processing my thoughts on that and several of the the comments were helpful, but I'm curious as to if you have any thoughts on that for you personally. There are multiple layers to that question. Oh absolutely. Which question is it that you want to ask me? Yes. Both and. Yeah. So let's start with the games.
Like what's because you even mentioned there's two games you didn't get. Well, there's probably more than that, but we mentioned 2 specifically that you'll just buy them later. Yep. So for you, when you go to Gen. Con with a list of games to buy, what's the point of buying at Gen. Con versus waiting for retail? So. Because then you have to travel with them, then you have to haul them around a convention and so. Absolutely, absolutely.
You know, Candy and I have become more discerning in the things that we purchased at Gen. Con and we in fact, we commented when we looked at our hall, our Gen. Con hall of games, the stack of games that we got for free versus the stack of games we purchased. The free games were more we didn't, we didn't spend as much, which brings me to my next point. So I have very strong opinions about Gen. Con halls and the photographs that people share on social media. Now everyone's free to do
whatever they want. This is simply an opinion. I'm not a big fan of the photographs of Gen. Con halls. See I always post my con halls and I just. I don't, I I do not because here's the thing, at the end of the day, this is what you're doing. Look at all the things I bought that you didn't get to buy because you didn't go like, OK, I'm trying to I'm trying to reduce the amount of FOMO when I go to a con and I publish shorts on YouTube, do these episodes.
It's not to say make you feel bad that you missed out on the opportunity, but to merely share with you and let you get a feeling as if you were there and get kind of an idea of what to expect if you do go in the future. Now the other, the other side of that is when you see those Gen. Con halls, they're not all games purchased by said content creator who has taken that picture.
For example, half of my games were given to me free by designers and publishers, and I know that to be true of many content creators who post their Gen. Con halls. And most of them are putting some games or promotional games, Yeah. But I'm just, I'm not even necessarily saying from a content creator standpoint, just like general person of the board game group on Facebook, Facebook, hey, look what I bought. This is what I'm excited about.
Yeah. I think that the reason for doing that for sharing your Gen. Con holes or more to the point, why you go, because I think that was the end of the part of your question, right, is like why even go if you can buy it at retail? I think that that question is easy. It's the people, right? Absolutely. We how many times do I have this conversation and everyone always talks about the people.
That is always the story that is up front and personal with everyone I talked to. Why do we go to Origins? Why do we go to Geek Way? I mean, yes, it's the games that bring us to the table, but it's seeing each other, right? It's people that make it special. It's it's walking the vendor hall, walking up to Pandasaurus on a Sunday morning and seeing my beloved friend Chris teaching sea salt and paper to a lovely couple right there. And my trying not to interrupt. Well, you know.
But you did. I got. Distracted, you know, and I got really hard not to. It's fine. But yeah. I think most people are understanding in that moment though. I. Think you're right, sometimes they're not, you know, cuz emotions run high. I mean, especially when you get to the end of the day at event hall. But yeah, so I mean, you know, post your Gen. hall, your Gen. con hall or don't. Either way, I don't.
And that's why what I'll do is if there was a game that I picked up, whether it was given to me complimentary or I purchase it myself, that really stands out, I will take a picture of it and share it because I'm excited about this game. I want you to know about the game. But just to tickle because I did it to my first few Gen. cons. Oh, I got to put everything on the table, make it look pretty, take my picture, look at all the things I bought. And after I did that, I was
like, why am I doing that? Sure. We don't do that for anything else. I don't go to make groceries and take a picture of me and go Chris. We should. We should start doing that. Yeah, we should start doing that. You're you're, you're. Yeah, no, that's interesting though. I hadn't thought about the FOMO side of it.
And I, I would like to think most people's motives aren't, hey, look at me. I think there may be a level of, hey, look at how what I got and how much I got and how cool it is, which can induce some FOMO in people. I think, you know, the, the questions and conversations I saw more were interesting and, and it's more of like a month. Like why go there and spend all that money in one weekend when you can just go buy it in a store in a month or two when it releases? And that's true.
And that's, that's an interesting push and pull that I've thought of. Now for me, some of the games I wanted I can't get in a store, right. You can't get the galactic Cruise bundle. I know you lucked out and you got galactic cruise at your store. I've never seen it in a store. But it wasn't the bundle, right? It was just the retail, but I've. Never even seen the game and
stuff. OK. Sure. And so I think for some people that don't have as easy access to an FLGS or a big FLGS that stocks all the cool, hot big stuff, you know, like that's true. Some stores are stocking all the nemesis stuff. Most aren't, you know.
And so if you don't have access to that, a lot of comments I saw were interesting because they talked about how you can meet the designers and the artists and the publishers and there's a relational transaction as you're buying the game that you don't get now, sure, you can get that with Bobby at your local game store if you built a relationship with them, and that's not a bad thing, but you're still going to check them
out. But you know, I was able to get get Danielle and and Steven to sign my rule book for Tricky Kids because I was super excited about their game. I've made friends with some other designers. I got to see Darryl Andrews and hug his neck and he's crushing it right now with several. Games coming out and. You know, so there's the relational transaction along with the game purchase of seeing the designers or the artists and the publisher and getting to put faces with names of games that
you like. And absolutely. And I think. You don't, you don't get that outside of a con like this, and even more so at Gen. Con and Origins. That's one big comparison is #1 there's so many more publishers and #2 there's so many more designers and artists at Gen. Con, just because that's the nature of it being four times the size. Absolutely. Yeah. No, that's totally correct. Absolutely. I agree with that. And that's to my point, right, is why do you go to Gen. Con?
Why do you go to these conventions? The people. The people, right. Yeah, it's definitely people. I want to talk about an experience that I had because you had mentioned working a booth. OK, so I was, I think it was Saturday. The day is irrelevant. I was walking through vendor hall, bumped into a friend and she's like, what are you doing? I was like, I was about to go to Pegasus Spiel's booth and check them out. I know that I have a few of their games on my shelf.
I wanted to see what they had available. And that's the thing too, Pegasus Spiel is not, it's not a brand that is carried in a lot of local game stores. So you you either got to order online or you could pick it up right there. You can touch it. That's the other thing about Jamie Connors. You the game, kind of hold it and go, oh, yeah, I want this. So I looked at their, I was looking at their shelf and I realized I have more of their games than I realized.
Yeah, absolutely. There was nothing they didn't have anything that I didn't already own. And so I was just looking around. And so one of the employees and this is he's a guy that works for Pegasus feel he came up to me and he's like, he's like, yeah, what are you guys doing? You know, what are you can we show you anything? I was like, no, we're just looking around. I was, you know, we were chatting and he's like, hey, do me a favor, tell me a story. The coolest thing you've seen at Gen.
Con today. And I was like, OK, He's like, because, because every year at Gen. Con I work the booth. So the only thing I I see is the four corners of my booth and the wall right across from me. You can understand this is someone working the Venter Hall floor. You don't get to see a lot, right? Sure. And Gen. Con's got a lot going on. And so I told him a story. I told him exactly what he wanted to hear and I'll share with you right now.
I had an amazing play test session, I think it was on Friday morning. I play tested this game called Forever Soup. It is a cooperative. It is a cooperative campaign card game that is in development by 4 undergraduate students at Bradley University in Peoria, IL. This is part of their senior project and they were play testing their game. This thing, this was, it blew me away, including the three other players who were with me. We were like, this game is so credible. It took us by storm.
And the fact that it's being designed by undergraduates as part of their undergraduate degree. And this is the coursework. So I told I told them all about it and we started talking about, you know, community and board game designers and where just everything like that. And so his name is Anton Torres. I hope that he listens to this because I'm emailed him and I can't wait to hear back from him. So Anton, if you're listening to this episode, reach out to me. I want to get you on the show.
It was just this incredible. No, I'm loaded. I've got business cards like crazy. I know I'm ready to go. I'm ready to mention everybody if I can. But yeah, it was just really cool experience and it was a great moment where I connected with him, he connected with me. It was just, it was a great moment. And you can't do that anywhere. Else. You can't.
You just you can't. So that's why you go to Gen. Con. It's for the moments, it's for the memories, it's for the stories and it's for the play testing, which I did a lot of. See, that's a weird thing for us
is like we hardly left the hall. We got there, we went to the booth, we perused the hall, and then we had some friends that we met up with just about every night and we they were working for Thunderworks in their event space in Hall D. And so. Basically, when they were done, they just plopped down on an empty table and saved a spot for us. And so we went from the main hall through the end into Hall D, and then we left and went
home. Like we didn't see anything else the entire time, which I mean is crazy because there's just so much to do. So much and I don't. Feel like we barely scratched the surface. And you're just talking about the halls in the Convention Center. We you didn't. You didn't get to go. We never made it out of the Convention Center. Nope. Yeah, the JW for open gaming, which I did a lot of that.
Now, the last time we did make it to the Marriott and met up two nights with some friends and one of the ballrooms there, but that was about the only time we left the hall that year. And so there's just but that's The thing is there's just so much to do and see in so many spaces and you're there for I mean, we were there for five days because we helped with set up and I don't feel like we saw anything outside the exhibitor hall. You know, it's crazy.
And that's the. That's why I had that moment with Anton, because he doesn't get to see much of it. Yeah. I do think too, one of the things with people talking about why do you go and buy all the things? There's a, there's a couple cool things I think is #1 there's a lot of free promos handed out with games. That's true. You're not. You're not going to get elsewhere. That's true. Unless you order it from their website or you know, somebody
gives it to you. Yep. So that was cool getting some, getting some free promos with some of the stuff was neat and sales. So most games aren't any cheaper than you'll get them at a store. Most games. That is true. But there were a couple of booths 125th century. I want to shout out Chad because he's somebody. I love that dude. I don't know if you know Chad I. Don't know Chad, I don't know anyone from 25th century.
You need to know Chad because he's just a genuinely nice dude, but he always has two or three games that he puts on sale and we got a copy of Agueta. I don't know if you've ever seen Agueta. I've seen it, never played it. Yeah, it's a beautiful game. He had a copy of the deluxe edition. He had it in Origins for 30.
And I think. It's 45 or 50 full price, OK, But it sold out before I got it, so we made it a point they want to go see if he still had it. The component quality of that deluxe edition for $30 is just stupid. I mean he has, he has no business selling that game with those components for that cheap in my opinion. I don't know. And the other booth was Borden Dice. I don't know.
I don't know that we've talked about Borden dice, you and I much, but they've become I see you got Barcelona right behind. You, yes. Which I do to somewhere right behind me. You do. They've become one of my favorite publishers and I wanted to go. I had a question for them that's a long story and I won't get into, but I also wanted to check out Tianchia, which is the new T game that originally they
weren't going to have. And then they got their shipment in just in time and so I wanted to go take a look at it. Well, when we got there, they had anything else they had stock of in their US warehouse was at most $20. We're talking Tequenu for 15, Founders of Teotihuacan for five, they had, Terracotta Army for 10 or 15 they had. I'm bummed the Reef project was sold out by the time we got there, but I think it was $10. I mean just insane prices on
$60.00 games that. Are at most. $1520 And so I don't know why they were doing it, but I mean they were, they were offloading them and I'm pretty sure that whole stack was gone in two or three days. Yes, I believe that. Absolutely. But we ended up getting Tiancha and I ended up, I'd been wanting to canoe for a while, technically wanted in a giveaway, but I got the wrong game, which is why I was talking to him about it.
I couldn't work it out. But Caitlin was just like, it's $15, just buy it. And I was like, is it really? And that's when I saw the sign. And then I was like, well, I've heard good things about founders of Teo. So for five bucks it's worth a get. Play it one time. If we don't like it, pass it on. Exactly. So those are a couple of the cool things or the sales, the discounts and some free promos aside from the relational aspect.
No, absolutely. And I want to, I want to go back to that because I had another experience. So why do you go to Gencot on Thursday? Katie and I are walking the hall. We knew we wanted to stop at Brooks Fun Games and they made Legacies. So Katie, Katie and I had the retail version. We did not get the big fancy deluxe version and we wanted to see. If they had, I don't know if I've seen this. I'm going to look it up while you're talking.
You look it up at Brooks Fun Games, the designers, Jason, Brooks, Jason, shout out to you. So we went to the booth. We were looking for upgraded components for legacies. We didn't know what they had available, but we were interested and they had it. They had a few things. They had a beautiful neoprene mat with the nighttime alternate art. And so we bought the neoprene mat and we just had a really good time chatting with a different Jason at the booth. Got to talking to him and he's
like, well, do you want to see? And I mentioned it in the intro, He's like, would you like, would you be interested in seeing Clandestine? And we're like, yeah, sure, go ahead. And so he gave us the, you know, the 10,000 foot view of Clandestine where you are in charge of a secret society and like Victorian England and the way that the game is got a modular build based on the number of players. Now it was set for three
players. When Katie and I get one of these high level kind of, it's not even a demo. It's just kind of an explanation of the game. We always ask this question, how does it play at two players? And he's like, it plays well. It does this and that. So I gave him my business card, told him about the podcast, was really interested in talking about it some more. And he said, would you like to get a one-on-one teach by Jason Brooks, the designer of the game at two players?
And I'm like. Yes, yes. OK, this. Do you want to know why you go to Gen. Con? This is why you go to Gen. Con, Yeah? Absolutely. So on Saturday I went back to the booth at the preordained time. That's right. The time was preordained and I got to meet Jason Brooks and he taught me Clandestine and it was just at two players because that's what I was interested in. This game is incredible, guys. It's on pre-order right now. It's already been fully funded. He's doing some late pledges.
Check out Clandestine. It's incredible. There will not be there will not be a retail version. There's only this deluxe version, so got to check that out. Clandestine. It was great. So I got to play the 2 with the designer. Hopefully he's going to come on the show and talk about it and talk about his journey, which is amazing. Yeah. That's why you go to Gen. Con. That's why you go for things like that.
I can't go to Titan Games and play Sagrada and expect Adrian to be there and be like, yeah, let me show it to you. That's not. Yeah, yeah. That's that's cool. That's a really cool thing. Yeah. I'm trying to think. We had, I don't guess we got to outside of just, you know, regular demos and stuff. We didn't have a super cool moment like you, but you're just so much cooler than me. Y'all don't listen to him. So what? What game did you bring home that you were just like, this is
awesome. It's just, you know. So that was that was Caitlin and I's conversation. Part of the car ride is you know what of what that we got? Are you the most excited about? And she immediately said Galactic Cruise, which we talked about this on the last podcast. I was tempted to buy the origins. I needed her to play it to justify the money. Well, we borrowed a copy, played it at three players.
She loved it. We played it the next night at two players to see so she could experience the two player variant. It's good. And she was like, we've got to get this. And so I wasn't sold on the all in bundle, but when I got there, I was like, well, I want the expansions at that point, you might as well get the bundle because you got to have the upgraded bits. And at that point getting the play mat and the sleeves were like 15 more dollars.
So which I know you're feeling on the play mat, you don't like the sleeves. Well, that makes I I don't sleeve as intensely as I used to, but I still games like that that are high dollar and I play with my kids and I've got a protect the games. So I know Caitlin's number one without hesitation was galactic cruise, and I think I'm with her on that just because we both really liked it and I think that's one we're going to enjoy together.
I think the one that I was the most excited to get was probably Tiantia, just because I really have enjoyed board and dice stuff, the T game series. Yep, and so I'm really excited to try that one. It looks incredible. The artwork is better than some of them. Some of them are very drab looking.
The artwork is pretty good and it's a little bit different of a setting and it it's less of a dice game and more of a worker placement game and there's a kind of a semi cooperative element where you're trying to build the walls to protect the
lands from attack. I don't know the full details of the setting and everything there, but I was talking to some people that were demoing it and he was kind of telling me he's like, you know, you, you're either going to hurt together or you're going to feel Better Together. You're still competing, It's still fully competitive, but as far as like, if you don't build the walls in the right spots, everybody's going to be hurting. So that sounds like an
interesting thing. And so I'm really excited about that. And one of the other ones I was excited to get. I don't know if you've played Spectacular I. Have not not have gotten this. Game is fantastic and we played it last night with James, who you met a little bit ago before we started recording. It was one that I played at BGG Spring with Kyle and we both loved it and I knew Caitlin would like it. We walked by, kind of showed it to her.
Didn't really feel like spending the money on it that day. Well, we happened to walk back by their booth on Sunday and they had it marked $10 off and I was like, I can't pass that up. Nice. We got it. There were two games. I think you kind of asked what I'm bummed I missed on. There were two games that I kind of wanted to get. We got to play Kalamala Saturday night. Yeah, and it was fantastic.
We both really liked it. So I made it a point to bust it over to their booth Sunday after our shift to see if they still had it. They did. It was just a little bit more than what I wanted to spend at the time. Sure. After spending more than I intended to throughout the weekend. It happens to the best. And in the car ride home, Caitlin was just like, I shouldn't have talked to you out of it.
We should have just got it. And I was like, well, it is what it is. But that was a really good game. Ruins from All Play was another one that I had high up on my list because of how popular it was at Origins and how many friends I know that really liked it. Right. Well, we went to the all play booth day one to demo it and all their demo staff was busy, but there were a couple other guys at the Ruins table looking at it and one of them said I got a quick demo.
This I got a quick this morning. I could probably teach it. If anybody ever says that at a convention, maybe don't trust them. I say that some people would be fine. Some people are, so you never know. It's true. He didn't teach it super clearly and accurately. And so we didn't really get a good feel, and we just kind of
clunked through one round. And I don't think anybody knew what was going on. And as a result, Caitlin was just kind of like, OK, well, all weekend long I kept saying, hey, do you want to go look at that again? Hey, do we want to grab that? And every time, like, yeah, I don't know, we're in the car ride on the way home and she's just like, you know, I really was interested in that game. I was like, are you kidding me? I asked you like 10 times
throughout the weekend. And every time you're like, no, I think I'm OK. So Ruins, Ruins is living rent free in your head, right? Yeah, yeah. That was, that was just kind of a funny one that I had to give her a hard time about. I was like, I asked you about that so many times and you didn't seem interested at all. And now you're like, why didn't we just buy it? And then there was one. There was one I heard about Sunday. OK, my last demos called Ofrenda. Themed around on this.
Themed around Dio de Los Muertos. OK, I've got a really good game in the same setting. We'll put it out out anyway. So we were going to try to make it over to the booth. Osprey, Osprey games, they were one that I didn't make it to their booth. It was on the clear other end of the hall. We were going to try to make it over there to look at it because it sounds like something that would really hit, especially for
Caitlin, but also for myself. And the whole game is about like organizing your Dio de Los Muertos altar area. I don't know the correct lingo. I'm not trying to, you know, get it wrong, but that's the theme of the game as you're trying to lay out your family stuff and your altar around that holiday. And so it just sounded really cool. And unfortunately we didn't make it over there.
So that's one that I'm going to keep on my list to check out at some point in the future because it sounded, the way they explained it, it sounded like a fantastic game. If you want something that's a little bit smaller, easier to travel and that is accessible, that's Potsquaro. But weird Giraffe Games, we picked that up last year. It's the same thing, but it's like cards and you're building the altar. Potsquaro. Yeah. OK.
So it's funny you brought up all play game that blew our minds and is living rent free in my head. We didn't we didn't buy it. We could have. We had the opportunity at all play and we didn't. And that's Twinkle, Twinkle really. We got a chance to play it Sunday night with our friend Angel at the end of the night and we were like, this is good. Like it's always a challenge when everyone's like hyping up a game. Is it really? Worth it? Is it really is good? Yeah. Yes.
Usually not, but. Twinkle, Twinkle is. Really interesting. It is so strategic, so simple in its theme. You're just, you know, it's, Oh my gosh, the acrylic tiles that place on your player board. And that's not a deluxe version. It's. They look great. It's really fantastic and I'm like, man, we need to get a copy of that and it's living here. Yeah, we, we looked at it when we were at the booth that day and it looked really cool. Yep.
But we didn't play it. Yeah, it's probably one that we would enjoy, but we. Just would you? Know Caleb was ready to move on so. You absolutely would, but there it is. Was there a game for you that was at a booth? But it's not come out yet, has not been released? Like something you're looking forward to maybe next year and maybe you didn't see many of those because there weren't a lot. There were a few.
Think Luthier's One. I think it's kind of delivering on Kickstarter and it was available to buy. Yep. That game looks amazing but holy cow is it expensive. Yeah, it's. Jeez. And Pete? 'S it's a monster. That's one that I I want to get. I want to get to play it at some point. OK. Just come. Just come visit us again because luthier should be arriving soon, OK? Because we backed it last year. Yeah, no, I don't. I don't think there's anything that I played that's not coming out yet.
So there's there's one, there's one on my list that's Arctica. It's it's made by play deep and Explore Horizons. These are the guys who did ice. Ice was one that I wanted to check out but didn't get to it. Well, I didn't really give much thought to ICE, but we were walking the vendor hall Sunday and they had Arctica set up. Oh my God, Chris, this game is beautiful. It is a heavy hero.
And if Adam from Tabletop Vibes is listening, one of the things we talked about when we did our back-to-back episode earlier this year was circular boards. The boards about this one maybe? I don't know. That's it. But you don't even know, OK? That is it, yes. I that cover looks great, there's no other pictures. No. So the board is circle, and it's from a bird's eye view of the Earth over the North Pole, so that the Arctic Circle is the centerpiece. And so you can see the continents.
You can see a little bit of Canada and Greenland and Russia and whatnot. And there are events, and when those events take place, they're environmental events. It's all about preserving the environment of the Arctic Circle. Tiles will show up and it will change the landscape of the continents just outside the Arctic Circle. The game is gorgeous. The components are amazing. Samson Peret is the CEO. He's from, I think he's from Sweden.
I probably shouldn't say too much because I don't want to be wrong because I'm hoping to have him on the show. And if I if I say things wrong, he may not come on. Yeah. Look, it looks cool. It's coming out in 2026. It looks fantastic. All the components are made from sustainable materials. Compressed wood for the wood components, recycled cardboard. Just magic. Be on the lookout for that next Year in 26 Article I. Thought of two. Yes, lay it on me. So 1 is hanami.
Yep, that. Is launching on Kickstarter in September from Keymaster and that is the reskin slash update of Kanetia's samurai right. That is the theme is great. Jen from key master was kind of telling me about it. She's like the whole theme is staking out your picnic spots, which apparently can be a really ruthless thing in Japan. And like there are families that hire people to wait until the
time to go grab the picnic spot. Like it's just this whole like, you know, weird cultural thing over there that doesn't make sense to us. But but it looks like if you've ever seen her played Samurai. I remembered in enjoying it but I didn't understand it the one time I played it and I got my butt kicked. That sounds about. Right. But it's, you know, kind of blandish. But this board is just gorgeous, with lots of purples and Blues and flowers, and it looks very
peaceful and serene. But from what they were saying, it's still got a lot of that cutthroat gameplay of samurai. So I'm really interested in that. And then the second one is, if you're a classic slasher movie fan like myself, there's a game out there that you can't find unless you want to pay a lot of money for it. It's called Camp Grizzly, and you can find it for about four or $500 on eBay from time to time.
But Trick or Treat Studios got the rights to it earlier this year, last year, they announced it within the last year, but they've got a new addition coming to Kickstarter, I think this coming week, I think it's this. It's either this Tuesday or next Tuesday. OK. And so similar gameplay, updated, tweaked some rules, updated some of the components.
Now, the interesting thing is, is this was a game that was high on my list to try at some point, but you can't find it anywhere because it's been out of print for years, and people are sniping it up as soon as they can when it's available. But I got to play it last year at Nerdfest in Detroit, which is the trip that I hung out with you guys on. Yeah. And is it the greatest game ever? Absolutely not.
But if you love, you know, Friday the 13th Halloween, those classic slasher movies where you're fighting for your life and running from, you know, mass crazed maniac and in the woods and trying to survive. It was like we just had so much fun with it. And if you've never played it, check out the Kickstarter. If you have played it and you've been looking for a copy, your chances coming up.
It's about to be available so make sure you jump on and and support Trick or Treat Studios, which we ended up buying a game from them too. While we were at the booth, we got Immortal. I don't know if you've. Seen this, have you? I have not. Have you ever played Querkel or Rummy Cube? Yes. So this is a weird love child of those two games mashed together where you're decorating A
graveyard with flowers. So the board is a graveyard and you're putting flower pieces on it to decorate the graveyard. OK, but you're placing them in groups of either the same color, consecutive numbers, or different colors, same number, and you have to place at least three tiles. But then before at the medium return, you can rearrange. So kind of like Rummy Cube where you can break and move things
around, right? But then like Quirkle, you're building out a pattern of same but different, you know? So it's kind of those two games kind of mashed into one with a kind of fun macabre theme, which if you can't, we really enjoy. Sure. So one last question to wrap up here. It's kind of tied to why go to Gen. Con? What would you say about if people were wondering about trying to get on with a publisher to do what you did and work the vendor hall? Do you believe it's a good
opportunity? Is it worth it? Should people consider it? Is it too much? What do you think? I think that is entirely up to the individual. OK, Caitlin and I have decided that we love doing it. We really enjoy teaching the games. On the financial side of things, for us, we couldn't have afforded to go to Gym Con, but getting the free badge, getting some hourly pay, the hourly pay will basically cover our hotel room.
There you go. Now, we stayed about 25 minutes out of downtown to get a cheap room, but part of that was because we waited so late, too. But you know, helps cover travel cost, right? Which is a huge deal. And the free badge is nice because Gen. Con badges aren't cheap. I don't know, it's like 150 or something like that for the weekend. So, you know, for two of us, that's $300 that we didn't have to pay. And getting the free games is nice. On the relational side of
things. It makes it easy to see people because you say, hey, this is where I'm going to be, come by and say hi. And most people do. As far as the time commitment, that's where it's up to the individual because all of those things are everybody wouldn't, nobody would argue with money and free badges and the relational aspect, free games. The time commitment is a push and pull, right? Like I mentioned, last time it was great because we worked 8:00 to noon, ate lunch, and then had
five or six hours in the hall. This time we didn't have that because they didn't have the event space, so our time in the hall was limited. It felt a little more rushed, a little more frantic than last time. I feel like we just casually perused the hall every day. And so that's the tough part. You know, if you're willing to spend the four hours a day and miss out on some things to get all the perks right, then it's totally worth it.
There you go. I think for us, we've decided it's worth it, but I can't say that it's worth it for everybody because it's just, you know, it's up to you. Origins was the same way. That's the only reason Kyle and I went to Origins is because I got invited to work with Bite Wing. So it makes the experience accessible and affordable. Yes, absolutely. So there you go. Yeah. But well, it is it does come with a sacrifice, so. It does, absolutely, but I appreciate you taking the time.
Thanks for joining me once again to do this guys. Gen. Con is a wrap. Origins is done. I think only thing left the big convention in the US is PAX U. Pax U. We do have Essence Spiel in Germany in October. There might be some coverage from our long lost friend Gareth, who's going for the first time. So there, we'll we'll see about that. That'll be exciting. And we've got some great things
on the pipeline. So I managed to get 7 commitments on the show while it was a Gen. Con, 25 leads of people who expressed interest that I had to follow up with. Yeah. And I gave out almost 500 business cards while a Gen. Con so. Awesome. It was, it was great. It was a great day for the podcast. Got to create new relationships, nurture some old ones. This is why you go to Gen. Con. So absolutely, it's all about the people. So be kind to one another and remember to play more games.