Gen Con 2016 Recap

August 15, 2016

Anna, Eric, and Francesc went to Gen Con 2016 in Indianapolis (August 4th-8th), one of the best and biggest board game conventions in the world with 500 exhibitors and an attendance of 60 819.


There, we had the opportunity to buy, play, and demo games that are not even out yet. These are our most anticipated games that will probably end up in our shelves and game nights for all to play.

Game Of Thrones: The Iron Throne: Game of Thrones retheme of a game that some of you know: Cosmic Encounter. The gameplay matches the theme beautifully. In this game, you will negotiate, bluff, forge alliances, threaten your rivals to claim the Iron Throne.

Captain Sonar: a real time, team vs team game in which you and your teammates control a submarine and are trying to locate an enemy submarine in order to blow it out.

Islebound: Sail your ship around a group of islands, collecting resources, recruiting crew, conquering ports. From the creator of Above and Below, Ryan Laukat who both designs and illustrates all of his games, this naval themed game is a nice simple game where players take turns doing actions to try and achieve the most wealth through careful diplomacy or all out battle.

Potion Explosion: This game is essentially Candy Crush in real life. It uses marbles in a unique apparatus. Each turn you take out one marble from the contraction, which results in marbles sliding down. If marbles of the same color touch, an explosion occurs and you get all the marbles. Collect these marbles to complete your potions. Drink your potions to get even more marbles to become the best potion maker!
When I dream…: a party game that the designer described as a mix of Codenames and Dixit.  Every round a player is having a dream (with their eyes closed of course), while the other players take the roles of good and naughty spirits. Good spirits will try to give the dreamer as many elements of the dream as possible, while the naughty spirits try to confuse him.

And these are the games that we brought back with us and we will be able to play:

The Networks: You and your opponents are new television networks, and you need new programming. For this, you’ll need Shows, Stars, and Ads to gain the maximum number of viewers.

Covert: In this game, players control network of spies, gather intel, and break codes in time set during Cold War Europe.

Secret Hitler: a secret identity game on the vein of one of the club favorites, Resistance. Clueless liberal party members need to find Hitler (or Trump) before fascist reach the power.
The Last Friday: a “slasher movie” themed, secret movement game about a maniac killing campers. With the twist, that at some point of the game the hunter will became the prey.
London Dread: This is a co-operative game set in Victorian England with a hint of terror and supernatural elements. Players take on the role of investigators trying to uncover plots on the way to confronting a story specific finale.
Junking: A small card game in which players play the role of scavenger imps sifting through the massive piles of garbage looking for prestigious items to raise their social standing with their tribe.

If you want to know more about these games, you will have to come to one of our next events.

Not all is about playing games, one can also meet game designers and see cosplay contests, theater, concerts, and other entertainment.  In fact we went to see the Dice Tower and Shut Up and Sit Down live podcasts.  

Oh, and parties, like the Japanime Games one for which our friend Matt (Elm City Games) was in charged to spiced up with a contest of pretty princesses. (see picture below).  We even got a free Naruto game.

Or The secret Cabal party in which we had the opportunity to hang out with a lot of media creators of the hobby.