Gen Con 2012 - Day 1

Thursday, the official start of Gen Con, is usually dominated by the opening of the Exhibit Hall. After being delayed in an unsuccessful search for my Captain Hammer t-shirt (I settled for my Evil League of Evil t-shirt and found my Captain Hammer shirt on the top of my laundry pile Monday) and stopping to get breakfast, I made my way to the ICC just shortly after the X Hall opened. While there is a certain excitement in the opening moments, I'd rather avoid the huge mob. Even with my delaying tactic there was a large crowd as people sought to get limited supplies of certain games or items being releashed by game companies at the con. A few times I wondered if I was in a traffic jam or a line (one time was a line for something Privateer Press was selling - whatever it was I had better things to do with tow to three hours).

I made sure to stop at the booths of people I knew. One of these was Gorilla Games, who produced World Conquerors (which we played the night before with the designer Jeff Siadek. Another was in the authors' alley, RudderHaven. The X Hall is too much to be taken in during one pass. Even on Sunday I was eeing things I had somehow missed the previous days. There were all of the usual companies, including the traditional trying to unload cheap gaming book companies (one started at $5 a book on Thursday and dropped to $1 by Sunday), as well as a plethora of dice vendors.

I made sure to get a feel for the dice in case @knharter wanted any. Look at all those 20s, how could they not be lucky? I also helped @knharter introduce a co-worker and fellow geek to Gen Con for the first time, plus there was some obligatory costume shopping. Thursday night, I was signed up for the Zombie Carnivale with my friend Weasel. It was billed as a casino-like event, so we were looking forward to few hours of lively mingling and zombie-themed games.

I think it was to shill zombie games by a publisher, but it didn't do a good job of that and the prizes were pretty lackluster (consisting of said games). About halfway through the event we bailed, giving our remaining zombie currency to a random player.