Gen Con '26 Opening Day Vlog

0:00 One of the beloved DC superheroes finally got their own movie and now they're represented here at Gen Con. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Supergirl. It is day one of Gen Con. Doesn't necessarily feel like it when we show up Tuesday, Wednesday being setup day, but finally we're beginning Gen Con. The first day it is 6:00 in the morning or 6:30 in the morning, I guess. So, not many people out, but everything, you can feel the buzz. The con's about to wake. Here we go,

0:43 Eric. It's Thursday morning. The crowds are bustling all in this direction here.

0:46 Bustling.

0:47 There's a there's a certain energy in the air that's inexplicable or it's very explicable because of all the loose cables because of the miles of construction going on up I can explicate.

0:58 It's effervescent.

1:00 Effervescent.

1:01 It's an effervescent energy in the room.

1:03 M

1:04 is it in the room with us right now?

1:06 Yes. Where are the bubbles?

1:09 Find me the bubbles of energy.

1:21 Ghost Galaxy.

1:25 Mike. No. No, you need a coaster if you're going to touch the Lord of the Rings.

1:30 Well, when people aren't threatening to be setting down their wet wet cups of coffee on the table, this is what it actually looks like. I'm joking about the coffee. Uh Lord of the Rings, the confrontation with the leg. Good morning everybody. Today is the first official day of the fall opening here where all our the booths are going to be including our booth in there and there's folks already lining up. They'll be opening in a while. Still over an hour away, but folks are getting ready to go in there and get all all the new goodies. As you can see, there's already plenty of people in here, but oh, it's going to get much more crowded. Don't you worry. This is a booth I'm absolutely excited for. 25th Century has a fantastic lineup of games. They've got the entire raw cinematic universe. They've got a bunch of stuff here. imports from Salt and Pepper Games. Take a seat, which I really liked before and I highly highly recommend Motor City Games. Other imprints that they're bringing in, include Oh, that's right. That's right. This is the six of eight. Highly recommending this trick tagger there. So, yeah. All all bunch of good stuff they got going on.

2:56 minutes till the doors open. The tension is palpable. It can be palped. Let's palp some tension.

3:21 Renegade Games booth over here is leaning a little bit into this whole dungeon crawl guy. Look at him. Look at him. He looks just like Joey. That is what Joey looks like when he's off uh off of duty. So that's uh that's Joey Crawler Carlos. Okay, they're coming here. I got to get out of the way. Everyone's running for the game. Dwarves of Aqualon, folks. They're mad. They're crazy. They have to have it. Tom is meeting. He's greeting. And he's pedalling the dwarves of Aqualon. We got some happy buyers right here. Oh yeah. Look at this. Dwarves and Nacho the cat. This is a good day.

4:11 So those synergies uh those help you build these up. They let you meet your requirements and they also like I said they scale for certain characters and abilities. Um but any program or character you have in play cuz you'll have persistent programs. They're kind of like an enchantment. Uh

4:28 so you can destroy your own characters, put them in the bin. When you force quit them, there's an exception to that rule. Instead of coming back running, he comes back refreshed.

4:35 Got it.

4:38 Like I said, nice push and pull. Yeah.

4:44 So, we've already played here Neuroscape and uh figured it out. It did pretty well. I'm going to go ahead and crack open a booster pack. Now, this from the the Kickstarter set, Genesis set. Let's see what I get and see if I understand what's going on in here. Here we go. See if I can open it first of all. All right. All right, I'm going to have to do this the old school way.

5:10 Oh my gosh.

5:13 There's actually a perforation in here, I think, in the seam in the back.

5:27 You You earn these cards. All right, here we go. I'm in. I'm me and you guys. I'mma hack my way in this pack. Okay, let's see what we got. Hackathon is the first card. That makes sense. Hackathon. Take a look. Okay, here we go.

5:44 Fishing, which is another They're Swift. So, right away, like an instant binary blast. That's going to be a drug. Yeah, it is.

5:55 It's delicious. Coder data scrape hacker. Sweet digital spectre. Nice dark stone data shard.

6:11 Nice. The fool. Oh, this like a tarot card.

6:16 We have all the major arcana. They're part of the mystic.

6:18 That's sweet. I love the details on there. There. Oh,

6:24 that's cool. Skin Smasher. Okay. Okay. Cool. This is for the the thrashers.

6:33 Enhance a program.

6:38 Oh, I like that. I get to mess with the top of your deck. Yeah.

6:41 Okay. Mad Honey.

6:47 All right. Sweet. White Knight. That's awesome artwork.

6:51 Wonderland card. That's We have a white knight and a red knight that they're connecting our actually.

6:55 Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah, that's sweet. I can see how we would continue this way. Yeah. Oh, hey.

7:01 Oh, there you go. Got a back to back. That's awesome.

7:06 That's sick. That's cool. That's very, very cool.

7:11 Yeah, I got another tarot card, Judgement.

7:15 Nice.

7:17 And here's the rare. Super symmetry. All characters base attack values are swapped with their base defense values. I love that you can super build a deck around that.

7:29 All right. And then in the back here, a optics

7:36 side winder, a dust run. Very nice. And that one's your main frame. Okay, cool. Nice. I love it. Great artwork, too. Very cool.

7:45 The wait is over. Check this out.

7:47 Trick or treat. What is this? Camp Grizzly.

7:53 Oh, buddy. All right. You got to tell me how many people have died at Camp Grizzly already today.

8:01 Probably most of them.

8:02 Yeah, they have. Oh, right. Here at Trick-or- Treat Studios. Introducing Camp Grizzly. Do you want to go to Camp Grizzly?

8:11 I love it.

8:12 You would love it. Here at the Dice Tower booth, we have people looking at promos. And these are just our old old promos from forever ago. And so you can sort through them. If I were looking from the other side, you see all the nice organization that's there.

8:39 Of course, one of the coolest things at any con is to see Heroescape setup. This is a bunch of new stuff that you can see. There's mushrooms and a bunch of the new characters. Here's the guy riding his creature. This is a promo type character. Whatever that monstrosity is, grossness, a clockwork dragon. Lots of cool stuff.

9:01 Over here at the AG booth, they have Electrify, Into the Machine, Misfit Heroes by good old Phil Walker Hardy, and Cascadia Alpine Lakes. So, these are demos that they have going on. actually got to try into the machine, which is pretty cool.

9:16 Joey has something that he wants to say to you guys.

9:21 Yes.

9:25 Huh.

9:26 Oh, well. Well, look who it is. Dungeon crawler Carl.

9:30 That's what I was going to say. Look, if you're not here to buy, it's time to keep walking, boy. Keep walking. Keep Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

9:37 Here in Hall D is where a lot of demos happen. Demo and play testing, things like that. And here in the deir section, we see the new claustrophobia. Super excited about it. Originally, I didn't like this cuz I thought the artwork was a little too cartoony. It's still more cartoony than the one it's based on, but it looks a whole lot better in person, I think, than than it did on the campaign. So,

9:58 this guy can shoot.

9:59 Super excited about that.

10:01 So, here at the the big wall, this is usually where the the balloon structures were in the past, but for health reasons, they couldn't have the balloon structure this year. So, the op sponsored a picture wall and so you get your picture taken up there. They give you a column and a row and then a copy of your picture. So, I'm going to go to column C66 and I'm looking for row A R17. I'm so tired. There you go. C66R17. I place it in there so nicely. Try to C66R17. See, I just place it in there nicely like such. And now all in all, I'm just another brick in the wall.

10:43 All right, you can see an early version here. Lord of the Rings Kings Gambit. Looks absolutely amazing.

10:55 All right, we have Eric Summerer here at the Dice Tower booth playing Guess the Messbox games. Hello. Hello.

11:03 Fun is being had by all. Yes.

11:06 Yes.

11:07 Incredible. probably like you want to do this on camera.

11:31 Number three is lost and found department. Hey, we're playing Guess the Mess here. Uh, this is a lovely party game where we are sifting through this pile of stuff and collecting pictures that match our secret place. We got 2 minutes to do that and hopefully we've done a good job sifting through the mess and creating a a a tableau as it were that really represents our chosen place. Then we're hopefully they're going to guess the correct answer and we all score points and everyone has a great time. I'm having a blast.

12:09 This right here's my shopping list. Check. Check. And done. Okay, I'm over here at the demo table for Frog Unseen. I just wanted to take a peek at this. Oh, it's so beautiful. You know, I've heard a lot of people tell me this is their first Gen Con ever, and it's my first one back in a while. Couple tips. Stay hydrated. Um, take breaks, get some food. I feel so much better now that I had a little food. But this exhibit hall is so fun. Like, it's just fun to look at the stuff. It's just fun to see everything that's there. So, take it at your own pace. Take some breaks, eat some food, enjoy your time.

13:06 All right, so I'm over here at Army Painter and they have speed paint pens. So, they do that speed paint effect where it has the dark that falls into the edges and the light. Uh, but it's all at a pen.

13:17 Look at what type of a display they put on here. This is amazing. They had something similar last year, but I'm going to walk into this one. They're glad that I'm here. Look at this. Wow. What

13:34 a setup. Look at this.

13:36 Austin Ivy Games. He's not tired of talking to people yet. So, I got him. I got him.

13:42 I still love my voice.

13:43 You do? And uh it's a lovely voice as well. Look at what we got. Look, we got all kinds of demos going on. We got Veiled Fate. We got brank happening back there, or at least getting ready to happen. All of this installed just specifically in this room for this event. Tom is unreasonably excited about uh Crossfire coming back. So, I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot of content about that on the channel.

14:20 So, I just did a sleing competition here at Ultra Pro. These are the times for the leaders today, which is insane. It's about sleeving 40 cards, those 40 cards, as quickly as possible. That was my time right there. I will say these two gentlemen are lovely when one of them left. I did beat both of them. So, I'm feeling pretty good about that. by a mile actually

14:44 by by a few seconds by not a whole lot but I but I did and we got some goodies here for participating as you can see some sleeves and then

14:53 that which is very cool looks like a cookie I kind of want to eat that'll be honest and

14:59 that yes I am going to play all through the future I get to view and rearrange the top three cards of the draw pile

15:10 I'm going to play a really fun one that's a brand new that there are four kittens over there.

15:22 Those are not good odds.

15:25 Well, I wasn't going to draw.

15:26 Oh my.

15:27 All right, we just played Exploding Kittens Rage Mode. There were a lot of explosions. One of them, the big one, that was me. So, this is the booth that has Emerson Matsuchi's uh hidden movement game. Which one? I know. Uh but rumor is that he's actually hiding in the booth and you get $25 if you find him. It's pretty amazing. I'm here at the incredible dream uh area inside of Hall A. And I just happen to look over. One of my favorite games is here. Kinfire Council. I signed this game. I don't remember when I signed it, but I signed it and it's got a place of honor. I feel honored. Wow. So, yes, they are showing off Kingdom Come Deliverance, the board game. And so, they were running demos, but they actually have one set up. So, I can kind of show you um what it looks like. I don't know if these are final components, but you'll get a pretty good idea. This is a game that has quite the designer pedigree involved and a whole lot happening here, but I know there are a lot of people that are very, very, very excited about Kingdom Come Deliverance. And it looks like it's available for pre-order right now.

16:53 If you rescue, you're moving one of these back to here. Take two from here or one in. Got it.

17:10 So, if I draw these cubes in here, I'm fine.

17:12 They're just Yeah, they're just

17:13 I might load up a bit cuz I have a lot in my bag.

17:17 Yeah, I'm sure you do.

17:22 All right, I just got done playing Invincible, the hero building game season two. This is an expansion for the original game that adds four characters. Black Samson, Shrinking Ray, Duplicate, and my favorite, Monster Girl. Each of these plays completely different than the original ones. For example, Monster Kate hurts yourself, but gets stronger along the way. Duplicate has multiple people. They're fantastic, and it mixes very easily in with the base game. You can now you have eight different heroes to pick from. There's also more upgrades. There's uh new missions. There is all kinds of new cards and it all just fits right in. You can play even if you you're playing a base game for the first time. Fantastic edition. Follows the events from the season two of the cartoon. Love it.

18:06 We've got Salame, the man, the I was I was going to say method. That makes no sense. Anyway, Salame, he does our great how to play videos and so make sure if you have not checked those out, you need to do so. So, have you been to Gen Con before Sal? My first time at Jen Con and I cannot be more thrilled. This has been an awesome experience. If you guys haven't been here or even if you have been here,

18:29 awesome. Come out, check us out. Come and see us at the booth. Come and meet all of us here from Dice Tower. We're having such a great time.

18:35 That's right. D, have you uh picked up some games today?

18:38 I have actually. I picked up What did I pick? I picked up Layers. Yeah.

18:41 I picked up uh the the Game Makers. Okay.

18:44 Oh my goodness. I picked up uh what else did I get? Oh, the expansion for uh uh Wondrous Creatures.

18:50 Oh, I love that. The

18:52 A few, but I still got some more going. So, it is just day one. So,

18:55 it is. And I actually picked up a bunch of stuff myself, Salame. You know, I tried to get most of my shopping done today. So, um here's the thing. I don't know how to play almost any of the games I got today. So, u can you just teach them to me now?

19:08 Yeah.

19:08 Yeah. Can you you can teach me how to play?

19:10 Sure. You want me to? Yeah, I'll teach them all. I am that good.

19:14 Yeah, you are that good. All right, we're starting to line up here. We're getting the first of the crowd for the Dice Tower Award show are just starting to line up. I think uh we're going to have trouble figuring out where the line ends, but other than that, I think everything is getting set up. So here in front stage actually some but from in front of the scenes there's uh Jason and Andrew and they're going off uh over the table map because these are the tables where the award nominees are going to sit and the award winners are going to be panned to with these uh with these cameras these panable panable cameras. That's that's the best description I've got for you. So anyway, they'll be able to come up stage, come up to the lect turn, as I turn learned that that is the official term, not a podium. Podiums are pieces of crap. Do you understand me? That's a lect turn.

20:06 Okay. And then uh that's where they'll be accepting the speeches for accepting this. That's where they're going to Good night. Hey everybody. Uh I don't know how to talk. This is the awards.

20:16 Alina is doing her best bouncer mode.

20:20 Yeah. No, I'm not messing.

20:21 Where you going?

20:21 Yeah.

20:22 Hey Andrew, I'm making fun of you now. I'm editing this vlog so you literally can't make fun of me.

20:26 I am making fun of you relentlessly. Oh, I wear stripes in my shirt. That's the best I can do. You're You're actually pretty pretty pristine. You got a clean record.

20:34 Did you look at his youthful shoes?

20:35 Oh my gosh, look at you. You got You're wearing Aldos. What are those?

20:40 I got them from Aldi.

20:41 Aldi. Aldi brand shoes.

20:44 CGE is in the splash zone.

20:47 Eric Summer. consumate professional behind the scenes at the Dice Tower Ward. It's going to be happening at any moment. Eric is going through his blocking.

20:57 Eric's blocking is a thing of beauty. He spends 80 plus hours on his blocking. If there's one thing that Eric Summer is known for, it's blocking. And Jason Lavine is trying to learn something about blocking from Eric Summer. But I'll tell you what, you need a lifetime to learn blocking. Like Eric Summer knows blocking.

21:24 Oh, I just learned that the chair is part of the blocking. Where's the rip cord that you pull and all the water splashes down on you?

21:32 I I'd have to throw my head back and then the pawn would fall.

21:38 The blocking. We've talked about the blocking. I can't go on enough about the blocking, but look at what's happening here. This award show is as the result of hours and hours of preparation by people who have obviously mastered jazz hands. Now that's at least 70 hours of preparation. You can see those hours put to work. Right now when it comes to actually presenting and performing on stage that was scheduled for next week. So we'll see what happens. But one thing I guarantee you is going to happen. Number one, blocking. Number two, jazz hands. I'm so sorry, folks. Okay, here we see some pre-show planning. This is the big Dice Tower events. Awards, what am I saying? Events. Dice Tower Awards show.

22:29 It is an event. An event. And so, you've got uh some of the Brain Trust over there doing some pre-show planning here. Here you can get a little bit of a glimpse of what it looks like behind the scenes here. This piece of equipment here, very specialized piece of equipment, is a catalytic converter. Uh catalytic converter, it's really going to be controlling all of the audio and video at the same time. Here we've got a um Commodore 64. Commodore 64. Uh this is a very high-tech piece of equipment and I obviously know exactly what I'm talking about here. coordinating, blocking, jazz hands, everything that a show needs.

23:09 Are we good, guys?

23:10 He did it. I kind of need to do jazz hands. Success.

23:12 Then after this one, I'm in this one, which I guess we should talk about cuz we haven't talked about that at all.

23:18 Yeah. Okay.

23:25 5 minutes till go live. We're ironing out the final of the details to make sure everything goes as smooth as possible. Z is managing stuff behind the scenes. Uh Andrew is going to be managing the PowerPoint, but the excellent Gen Con mainstage staff here. We got the video engineers over here. We've got the audio engineers over here and in a s in an audio booth uh up there. Sound booth, I guess, is just as acceptable as sound booth. Uh but I don't know cuz I'm not a professional. These guys are the professionals. These guys and ladies are super awesome every year. So huge huge huge shout out to them for making the Dice Tower Awards awesome. Four minutes he'll go live and Tom Vassel has turned into his inner Michael Jackson. He's now going to spin move crotch grab. Let's see it.

24:10 [clears throat]

24:14 I've never seen him like this before.

24:17 How many Celsius have you had so far?

24:20 Uh just one. Just one.

24:23 This is a side of Tom I've never seen either. Actually,

24:26 it's a lot riding. Can't mess up. At least I'm not sing if only things were different.

24:49 We're now at the Panda afterparty. All kinds of people in the industry here. So many things going on. I'm going to eat like three snacks and then go to bed cuz I'm super tired. Thanks for watching our vlog everybody. I'm Tom Bass from Gen Con 2026. We'll see you next time. Hey, uh thanks for watching another video here on the Dice Tower. Uh we really appreciate you stopping by and checking our things out. Thanks so much for joining us today. And hey, if you really like what we're doing here at the Dice Tower, then there are different ways to support the Dice Tower. One of those ways is through Patreon. We have links in the description to this video and we have links to lots of other things we do down there. So, definitely check it out. But either way, we're glad you watched us. Tell your friends about the Dice Tower. Until next time though, I'm Tom Vassel and I hope you enjoyed this video.