Gen Con — North America’s largest convention dedicated solely to tabletop games — kicks off today. In honor of it, we decided to ask a few of the Kickstarter creators in attendance for a recommendation. Here are the games that they’re excited about playing.
Mike Selinker, Lone Shark Games: I’m super-excited to see some of the games from Cards Against Humanity’s Tabletop Deathmatch come to life. Last year, some other game designers and I judged some phenomenal games, and eventually chose Discount Salmon and Penny Press as our winners. And even beyond those, Deathmatch entries like The Amberden Affair and Jupiter Rescue are debuting at the con, and others like The Shadow Over Westminster and Pack the Pack are rising up through Kickstarter now. It’s great to see that our encouragement and sometimes our criticism helped make these games a reality. And of course, we’re filming another season of Deathmatch during Gen Con, so I’ll get to see even more great games.
Jamey Stegmeier, Tuscany: Expand the World of Viticulture: I’m really looking forward to seeing a few Kickstarted games, including Xia: Legends of a Drift System and King’s Forge. Gen Con is becoming a great place for game designers to showcase prototypes of games they’re working on (for publishers or for Kickstarter), so I would say I’m most excited about those unexpected, unique gems.
Jordan Weisman, Harebrained Schemes: Well obviously the biggest thing for us at Gen Con is the release of Golem Arcana, the digitally enhanced miniatures game, which was funded in part by Kickstarter backers. I’m pretty stoked to see the new capital ship Star Wars game from Fantasy Flight and excited for the launch of Liz Spain’s Incredible Expeditions which was [also] funded on Kickstarter.
Peter Adkison, The Devil Walks in Salem: On Wednesday I’m playing Burning Wheel with a group of guys I play with at every Origins and Gen Con. Burning Wheel is my favorite roleplaying game in the world and it was designed by Luke Crane! Another game I’m looking forward to is a 15-20 player game of Don’t Give Up the Ship! This is the other game co-designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, back in the 1960s. It’s a historical miniatures game set in the Age of Sail. Every player commands a ship of the line from the 18th or 19th century. This is how games were played before Dungeons & Dragons came along. It’s also being run by Mike Carr, the only human who’s been to every Gen Con since its inception in 1967, who also worked on the rules of this game back in the ’70s.
And I have a film recommendation. Premiering at Gen Con is The Devil Walks in Salem, a 30-minute film (a long short?) that was funded by a Kickstarter campaign, directed by yours truly, and produced by my film company, Hostile Work Environment.
Jerry D. Grayson, Atlantis Theragraphica: I’m looking forward to AMP: Year One, A Modern Supers RPG from Third Eye Games, a very cool looking postmodern game of super heroics. Also, D&D 5th edition by Wizards of the Coast. This one is highly anticipated and the grandfather of them all. D&D is the mitochondrial eve of roleplaying games.
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