Gen Con Day 1! First Game I Bought Was...

0:00 Dave official one Josh ready for this? I'm so excited dude. We are here at 10:15 a.m. Not too bad. Just opened up 15 minutes ago. Hopefully that means a crowd. We're fully in the exhibit hall. This is huge and the art is insane. Monte Cook Games Buried Giant Studios Oh man, it's packed in there. See this right here is the will call line. If you don't get your badge on day one it's all the way back there. Like all the way there. This is probably the most I've seen for the merch line ever at Gen Con. They're offering a lot of different things.

0:52 This is the main entrance hall right smack down in the middle. Fun fact you know that Gen Con brings in a lot this year, brought in 75,000 attendees. I think $82 million in local businesses for funds. And then it started in like 1968 in Wisconsin. So it's the longest and biggest convention in the US. We're going to start all the way in the corner over here line by line and just do some per day. This is row 100. There's a lot of D&D esque items here. Old school Conan books.

1:38 Goodman Games A lot of table top RPGs. Reminds me of a swamp thing. Fro scratches dice towers There's a very very long line here for

1:58 success

2:00 tickets This long line is for these the tickets. for Christmas ornaments

2:13 You just have one rather long like

2:15 I'm going to find something you need.

2:17 I like the chocolate world.

2:18 So tiny.

2:23 There are these mini mini TMNT set. I honestly might get this. This is so cool. You even have the last Ronin uh Raphael. I got for those uh TMNT minis. Sadly, they don't come painted. If I start painting, I'm not going to stop, so maybe I'll get it later. These cards apparently have their own card game now. Look at this setup. This is cool. Cyberpunk combat zone. Oh my gosh, there's so many stories. Look at this map. So cool.

3:03 A bunch of cockies and we're calling aisle 200 is a huge library of games in this booth. Lockwood's Asylum, a competitive survival horror deck building game.

3:28 Oh, that's so tiny.

3:29 10 cards in everyone's deck. You buy good cards in your deck to make them better. Uh you buy bad cards in other people's decks to make them worse. So, it's a lot more interactive than most deck builders.

3:37 Oh, fun.

3:39 Uh so, at the start of your turn, if you have uh any monsters in your hand, the monsters get put in your room, which is just your play area. And then you draw cards to replace them. If you draw into monster, it just hangs out, which is generally good because monsters have higher buy costs than rather purchase costs than other cards. Then you use these to buy cards in the asylum. If you buy a monster, it goes into the room of the person to your side. If you buy an ally, it comes into your room. So, for instance, if you had bought these two people at the end of your turn, they fight. So, your allies fight first, so two damage here and one damage here is three. So, you can allocate those however you want. So, like, oh, we'll kill this guy. And the monster damage backs. So, if he does one damage uh two and one, so this one dies. Some cards have effects that kick in when they are killed. Some have effects that happen when they survive.

4:27 Like this uh nurse says that, oh, if she lives through the fight, you choose a player, that player loses one health.

4:31 Oh, cool.

4:32 Great for you.

4:32 Yeah.

4:32 Don't choose yourself. Uh there's more monster damage than allies can absorb. The extra comes down and hits your personal health total. If that hits zero, then you're killed and eliminated from the game. And your goal is to be the last person standing.

4:44 Made the first purchase of the con, Lockwood Asylum, survival horror. We got a quick little demo of it. Super fun. Immediate purchase. So, that's slot one out of 10 that's

4:54 Dice Tower has a booth here.

4:59 They're currently playing Guess the Mess. There's Chris Yee.

5:11 Move along. Move along. Crowding up the aisle here.

5:14 Sir, danger. You're against guy in the back.

5:16 Danger to society.

5:18 Who is this? Captain

5:21 J. That's right.

5:24 Love your mustache.

5:25 It loves you, man. It's It's growing in. It's growing in. Thank you. Thank you, brother.

5:30 How's it going?

5:30 Appreciate it.

5:31 It's going good, man. It's going good.

5:34 The game makers here in full production. It's nice.

5:36 Oh, thanks.

5:37 Yeah. Yeah, apparently someone made a really good video and fell in love with the game.

5:41 Oh.

5:42 That's cool.

5:43 Yeah.

5:44 I like that, too.

5:45 Look at this.

5:45 I'm not yet what this is.

5:46 organized Unlike me, coming in here blind.

5:50 this. Also, there are different customers coming and they all come in at different time and coming in different requirements. So, in the round when the round begins, you will draw a couple of the customers and you place it and you also draw draw a couple of the tile that comes in different flavor and place it right here. And when you pick, you have to pick the whole rows. These little things actually give you abilities to win the game. So, when you pick and then you place it right here onto the on the

6:20 Oh, cool.

6:21 Oh.

6:22 After you place it, you kind of have to

6:25 All right, it has to be you. All right, I got you. No, don't even worry about it.

6:29 After you place it, there are different requirements and when you placing your tile on the on the sand that has different flavors, you're going to try to match with the requirements that's out there. The more you match, the more satisfied you are, you get higher scores.

6:42 Oh, cool.

6:43 And a little cool gimmick right here is you actually calculate the score every two rounds. How do you know it's two rounds?

6:50 Oh, there's actually water drops. That's funny.

6:52 Yeah, you drop one on each round and when it drips, that's when you know you calculate your score.

6:59 Oh my god, I love that. It's so funny. So, outside the main hall, we just saw what rows 100 to 200 and then across the hall is a bunch of individual rooms that publishers host that you might have seen from day zero.

7:19 Look at who it is.

7:21 Hey, let's see. It's wild. Let's go check out the card game. Oh, the halls look nice.

7:33 Is that how it goes?

7:34 Uh-huh.

7:34 And instead of it being like your life comes from a card pool, it's like a life total like in Magic, right? Once you go from 15 to zero, you lose.

7:40 Oh, wow. Okay.

7:41 Um the way it works is there's two main resources in this game. You have your summon card and your chakra card. The way your summon card works is that you in order to play a character from your hand, you have to rest your summon card first. So, you can't just like swarm all guys on the board. You have to like spend this resource. Once it's tapped for the turn, it's tapped for the turn, right?

7:57 get one summon card?

7:58 One summon card, yep. And then the way the chakra works is you only get five chakra cards. You start the game with all five chakra cards available to you as well. Not everything costs chakra. Certain abilities cost chakra, right? So, not everything you're going to do is going to make you spend chakra. But the way the chakra works is that when you a card costs chakra, you flip that card face down. And so, at the beginning of your turn, you get your summon card back. All of your characters refresh. You don't get your chakra back. You have to spend a game action to get chakra back. So, you don't just get it back for free. So, if you tap out of all your chakra on turn one,

8:25 Uh-huh.

8:25 you don't get it back unless you do something to get it back. So, basically every leader has an ability where you can tap your leader or to unfliip all your chakra, basically.

8:32 Poink Games. A couple of new titles. So, this one's really cool cuz highest number wins, but then the Kōbe Kōbe is like this middle number, which you can use. And then on your turn, you play with the high number or you see if that middle number can help you out. Afterwards, you bet chips and wager. Highest number wins, and then the Kōbe Kōbe, which is that middle neutral number, will go to whoever has the lowest.

8:57 10.

8:58 Eight.

8:59 That 10 will go to the person with the three. So, this will end up in second place, first place, and of course last third place. Highest number wins.

9:08 Hey. Oh, cool. Thank you.

9:10 Welcome to my humble tea shop.

9:12 Thank you so much.

9:13 Everybody can

9:14 cool.

9:14 smell any of the blends. Just open up the little jars on the other side.

9:17 Awesome.

9:18 I'm a self-serve sniffer.

9:20 I saw Devil Fruit Tea in the comment right away. It's so cool.

9:23 It doesn't actually have any Devil Fruit in it.

9:25 No. Right. It's so cool. Devil Fruit Tea. Hi.

9:35 Uh, hi.

9:36 What the Your voice is gone? Oh my gosh, Von. You okay?

9:41 Yeah, I have a show in an hour.

9:43 You ready?

9:44 No, I have to go to my hotel room.

9:46 Right now?

9:47 Yeah.

9:47 Lunch break and we're on the way to the Westin now for a Lord of the Rings demo. And uh, the booths this year, Josh? The booths are pretty crazy.

9:56 Pretty good. Yeah, you know, I'm taking my time. Last year, I uh, kind of zoomed through just taking a face look at everything, but now I'm demoing the games. I'm really diving into a lot of games.

10:05 What's up?

10:05 Woah, woah, woah, hey. Slow down there with your experience level, man.

10:08 Oh, look at all of these. We got arcs and a bunch of other ones here. Galactic Cruise Duelist The frogs. One's upside down.

10:36 We have miniatures. The scale of Battlefront is just so insane. I I I can't wrap my head around how crazy this Battlefront looks. Cool.

10:57 I'm excited to see your final video.

11:00 Chilling in the Biopak lounge. Yes.

11:07 Chilling in the wonderful lounge.

11:10 Love coming here every year. It's like super awesome. And they always save me here. Fresh coffee. Last part of the day for Dan Con. is uh, almost closing time, 5:52, and I'm going to pick up my one game that I pre-ordered. Also, I see Symbiosis, which I played yesterday with Jason and Alex. And because I played with them yesterday, I need to go buy it. Shucks. Thunderworks booth for Flip Tunes 2.

11:56 We're on to our last thing of the day, which is a show for All Play. We'll see going there cuz Flonzo will be in the show along with several other creators playing a game called Gibber Jabber. So, we're a minute late. We're almost there to room 144 ICC, which is one of the hallway rooms. So, let's book it there.

12:23 I hope you guys are having a good Gen Con. It's my first Gen Con. I'm really excited to be here.

12:26 It's your first? I thought it What?

12:30 Hello. My name is Bonds the Greater, aka Bonds, and I'm a family-friendly programmer AND VIDEO EDITOR.

12:37 THANK YOU ALL FOR being here tonight. The goal is to get that player to guess the secret word by collectively providing them with three clue words. The catch is that you have to spell those clue words out one letter at a time without any table talk as to what clues you're trying to give. And I would say, if you're getting nervous because you're like, I can't spell to save my life, I can't either. And I designed the game. So, you will be totally fine. It's actually one of those games where it's a little bit better if things go off the rails. So, absolutely no pressure there. Okay? Are you doing a medium?

13:15 All right.

13:15 Here we go. Don't look at that one.

13:19 So, we're starting?

13:20 R

13:23 Grab a chair.

13:25 Gibber. Listen to what I say, Gibber. Okay, I'm going to go with

13:29 E.

13:32 I just heard Adam's not smart.

13:35 I was homeschooled.

13:37 Well, that that's that's that's not great.

13:41 I'm going to figure out the next one.

13:42 Oh, I got it. Wait. N. I don't like being at this end of a word.

13:47 Okay.

13:48 O. And I think it's jibber. That's wrong.

13:53 Prove that.

13:53 Jibber.

13:55 Say it again. Jibber.

13:56 Jibber. What was it?

13:58 R.

13:59 E and S.

14:01 So, no matter.

14:09 I knew it.

14:10 That's a nice camera you have there, um, Iris and Jen. Wait a minute. We're all matching.

14:16 It's the It's the best camera, so

14:18 I love how we're matching.

14:19 It's the best camera. You have a really cool, like, special lens.

14:23 It's okay. It's just the same thing.

14:25 Hello.

14:25 Hi.

14:26 Okay. Thanks, Grant.

14:28 Oh, hey.

14:29 Thanks, man. All right, back from day one of Gen Con. Time for a little unboxing. All first, this Look at this bag. Okay, I recently do claims they have the best bag at Gen Con. I agree wholeheartedly. This is such a nice double bag. Look at this. It even has a pass-through pocket for luggage. Pocket. [snorts] Pockets all over the inside. You got pockets here. Oh my gosh, and the quality is I B Studio quality. All right, let's see what games we got here. So, the the whole goal of Gen Con overall, and I doubt I'm going to stick to this goal, but you know what, we're going to go with it, okay? 10 max to bring home.

15:16 There are 10 equipment slots available for this whole trip. Okay, I'm limiting myself because I want to make sure the games I bring home are ones that I'm trying to get us played as much as possible here and I want to minimize my shelf of shame. All right. So, first up, Flip Tunes 2. This is the only game that I looked up for Gen Con because I didn't make any lists. I have absolutely no idea what to get at Gen Con. I'm literally just walking on the show floor and seeing what catches my eye. Flip Tunes was the only one that I actually pre-ordered and picked up today. So, season 2 here along with the big button two micro expansion. Here they are again with their little mini expansions. Well, this should just be part of the game itself, but different story for a different day.

16:03 Then, what else do we got? We got this promo from Lord of the Rings: The King's Gambit. I'll finish every single day talking about like my my favorite thing today. This is the favorite thing that I saw for today and it was Lord of the Rings: King's Gambit. This is a a Witch-king limited edition promo that they're passing out to every attendee for free at Gen Con at their booth and we got this from seeing a quick demo of King's Gambit and this game looks so cool. I I love that there's Minas Tirith over here and Mordor on the other side and just this huge terrain and there's just so much going on with that game and I'm so excited about it. So, that's definitely my number one pick for the day. Other games I got aside from Flip Tunes 2, hypothetically, thank you Austin for sending this over from I miss you though. I've talked to Jason about it and a couple other creators and they've all have been raving about this one. So, I'm excited to play this one cuz it just sounds like a really funny time. You pick a scenario, you write your answer and then your friends will guess your answer, but I think the fun part here is that it captures the in-between moments cuz usually the party game is like, "Okay, you have a strict time, you have a strict limit and you can't ask any questions or hints or anything." But, in this game, I think I haven't read the rules yet, okay? From what I've heard so far, you are allowed to ask as many questions as you want and I think that's where the fun part lies in this party game. So, hypothetically, number two, my first ever purchase of Gen Con 2026, however, was Lockwood's Asylum and I think it would just make for a really fun gameplay video and I love the aspect of that you are trying

17:34 to give that you're buying monsters to put into other players rooms, which I thought was really funny. It reminds me a little bit of Super Boss Monster, but this is definitely a bit more gritty, right, with the artwork and everything. There's a really fun storytelling elements in each card and what I really love is that there is no way for you to just dog pile on one person, which usually I'm the person getting dog piled on. So, I love that it limits you to just one monster per person. You can only buy monsters for the person onto your left. So, that sold me and that's why it was my very first purchase. Plus, very tiny box. Love that. So, that was number one and the second game that I bought was one that we played yesterday during Gen Con day zero at the Hachette's room, at the Hachette event. So, this is Symbiosis. Really love this game. It's a really great fit for my family on trips and everything cuz it's such so tiny and so easy to play. Flip over a card and you set different winning conditions and that's just so fun. I love the art. Frog themed.

18:35 What can I say? Last game is Gibber Jabber. So, at number one here, let's say one person's given the word, so it's kind of hard to see, mustache. Okay? So, that person, if it was me, I would not look at that word at all. I wouldn't know anything about it. But, everyone else around the table sees the word mustache. And then, starting with one person, they would say one letter for the clue that they're thinking about. So, let's say they're thinking about the word face. So, one person can say F. Next person maybe can totally mix it up. Maybe just for example's sake, they're thinking of the word friend instead of face and then they throw an R. So, that throws a wrench into the mix and that is where the game gets fun. What what I was really scared of is that a game like this can easily get frustrating if people are not along the same wavelength cuz it just invites that kind of frustration, right? If they're not even saying a word, I'm like, "Ugh, I'm getting frustrated." But that's where you should really play with the hints in this game. The hints give you special abilities like this one here. It says, "Party time.

19:31 On the count of three, everyone except the guester shouts a letter at the current player." So in case someone needs help, you can play that card and this makes a huge deal. I would never play this game without hints. So this is a really good mediator for kind of those moments to avoid frustration. So I can definitely see us playing this a lot. Super Jambo, super fun show, love seeing all my friends there, and of course love playing as well. And Daisy also did mention they got two other games, too. The one I really wanted was Enchanted Ivy, solo only game from All Play. Definitely one that I can potentially talk about in my next five portable solo solo games video. And then I'm not going to count this one cuz I already have Phantom Ink, but now they have it in my only hollow foil box, but a very tiny box. So more portable version. I love that this can actually replace the one that I have at home. I'm not going to count that. All right? So one, two, three, four, five, six.

20:25 Six games of art. We're going to try to stick to 10. I highly doubt it's going to happen, but one can dream. So with that said, hope you all enjoyed today's recap video, and sorry for spamming everyone's inbox for the next couple days. I don't want to bring you all along on our adventures here through Gen Con 2026. So thank you all so much for watching. If you made it to the very end, go ahead and comment slots cuz that's what we're doing here, okay? We are adding in these different games for all of these slots. Just imagine, picture, slots of inventory, digital here, that I am equipping to bring home. Thank you all so much for watching, and I'll see you all in the next one.