OGC 2026 - Creators & Guests Round Table (Omaha Gaming Convention 2026)

0:05 Yo, give me something to dance to.

0:13 Hello everyone. Welcome. And we are at the first annual Omaha Gaming Convention. I'm Amanda Panda. I am Panda Angel everywhere that's p a n d a the number eight n g e l. I do the live Twitch and YouTube streams.

0:29 I'm Jesse with I Heart Board Games. We're a YouTube channel, Twitch channel, everything about board games.

0:34 I'm Derek Porter and Kitty Wilksby from Board Game Geek.

0:38 I'm an Arwen Kathy from the Cardboard Time podcast. You can find all of my content on any of your podcast providers.

0:45 All right, friends. Favorite game you've played at Omaha Gaming Convention. Arwen, go.

0:49 Um, I would have to say Cretaceous Rails by Amber Melee Journey. She is a local designer. It is such a wonderful game. Uh, there's route building, there's tableau building. You get to play with these cool dinosaurs and volcanoes are everywhere. You're trying to get uh your passengers from the future back to the past and get them to see all the stuff that they want to see. Such a wonderful game. I went on Game Found immediately afterwards and backed it. It was wild.

1:20 Yeah, Ticket to Ride with Dinosaurs.

1:22 Yeah, and then some. I love the action selection system on that grid.

1:26 Yeah, that's the other thing. Like putting your stamp down between two actions and being able to get both.

1:32 And so refreshing.

1:33 Yeah.

1:33 So fun to try this one.

1:35 Thunderworks did a whole line of like Dinosaur Island and all that stuff. So I was not sure how different it was. Did you play those? No.

1:42 Yeah, so I would say it's definitely a different experience than Dinosaur Island.

1:47 All right, good.

1:48 I had a dinosaur day where I played Dinosaur Island and Cretaceous Rails.

1:53 That sounds like the perfect day to me.

1:55 Um, I would say Cretaceous Rails has the cooler dinosaur set up cuz there was giant giant minis.

2:01 Okay.

2:02 Okay.

2:03 So, what was your favorite game at the convention?

2:05 It's another big one. It's going to be Wondrous Creatures just because Aloha Gaming Convention had exclusive first look at the new expansion.

2:14 Ooh.

2:15 Yes. So, that was really fun. Uh, they had someone teach it and so it was very easy. We sat there. Uh, I wouldn't say

2:24 does it add?

2:25 It adds uh two separate boards. It adds snowflakes that you can collect. It adds three additional scoring options, which means that you will get a higher score than in base Wondrous Creatures. It has spirits and event cards. It adds more things to put onto the board that will go away once people use it a certain number of times. It's a very interesting timing aspect to it. Uh, and so it definitely adds more for people who love Wondrous Creatures. They've played it a lot, but definitely don't put it in there for someone who's never played it, you know.

3:01 Yeah.

3:02 But, uh, yeah, if you like heavy strategy games, yeah, definitely get Wondrous Creatures. Definitely check out the expansion if you like Wondrous Creatures, but I love it. So, that was very fun today.

3:13 I just played Wondrous Creatures here at the Aloha Gaming for the first time.

3:16 The base game?

3:17 Yeah, the base game. They have it here in the library. The library is huge, so of course they got it. But, um, yeah, I really enjoyed it. It actually took me by surprise. Everybody was telling me it's Pokémon, which No, it doesn't really have that. But, it's a still a cool worker placement that does things with the double spaces.

3:32 Yeah, that would work.

3:32 And you still collect your eggs. I mean, that's I think that way there.

3:35 Yes, I went all out on eggs. All the way to the end. Kept going, you know. Kept getting the two-point bonus.

3:41 Bought a lot of new games this weekend.

3:44 I did. I just got some new stuff from Origins, so it was nice to be able to play that with everybody and and share that.

3:50 Yeah.

3:50 Dinosaur eggs are my second favorite eggs in board games.

3:53 Okay. What are your first eggs?

3:55 Oh, dragons, of course.

3:56 Okay. Okay.

3:57 That makes so nice.

3:58 What about you, Jason?

4:00 Every time we go to a summer convention, we love to break out this big Stefan Feld. Sometimes it's one I've played before, and it was true this year as well. We played a game called Civolution.

4:11 Yeah, I love that one.

4:12 Yes. Although, I feel like it plays better at two or three player, but four this time. Very long game, but it's still feels really good to play. It's like playing Civilization on the table, except in the way Stefan Feld always goes. With the six-sided dice, you never know what you're going to get with those. And sometimes you just roll doubles, or in this case, way more than doubles, cuz doubles in a Stefan Feld game is a curse. But, that game still holds up for me, and taking home with me is my game at the con, cuz, you know, I had to I brought it in, but it's still very fun time.

4:49 Yeah, and the combos and trying to figure out to make that combo

4:53 Mhm.

4:54 work, like that's so fun.

4:56 Yes. I need to figure out

4:57 tech tree, right?

4:58 Yeah, it's 22 different actions you can take.

5:00 Yeah.

5:01 So, I need to play it more and more to find out which actions are the ones I need to be looking at.

5:06 Yeah.

5:07 But, yeah, it's a fun game.

5:08 I think that's one of the great things is being able to have the time and the people around to be able to play those games, cuz you

5:16 Mhm.

5:16 can't get them out at home sometimes.

5:18 No. It's it's a scary thought if you're inviting people over at 6 or 7:00. It's like, "Do you want to be here till 3:00 a.m. playing this one game?"

5:28 It's weird, because usually at cons, or at least game days, I don't like to do big ones, because you're stuck at the table, and then you're not seeing everyone.

5:36 Mhm.

5:36 But, like, because this the first one is a little bit small, it's nice. And over the three days, you can switch groups, and you can play games with everyone and meet people and stuff, so it's really fun going.

5:47 Derek, I think I know what your favorite game is. at the con.

5:50 Yeah, so I had the distinct pleasure of the second game I played upon arriving in A lot of was Arwen taught me Tricksterus from Smirk and Dagger. It's a trick-taking push-your-luck

6:02 kind of game.

6:03 Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that that is the elevator pitch for the game. Um, I'm kind of sort of on a trick-taking kick right now. I'm

6:11 A lot of people are.

6:12 I'm kick-taking, I guess. I don't know.

6:15 Uh, but yeah, it's uh you you every trick you win moves you up on a score track, um, which I presume you played uh they seem I think four-player games.

6:25 Uh-huh.

6:26 Is it always nine?

6:27 It's always nine.

6:27 Okay. So, yeah, so yeah, there's a nine-space track and so every trick you take moves you up. However, if there is a player in the space ahead of you, you leapfrog past all the filled spaces. So, you know, so if you you're trying to sort of gauge when you can be as high as you can, but if you go off the track, you fly too close to the sun and drop back down into last place.

6:49 Me, every trick every push-your-luck game is a fun time doing it.

6:54 Well, it it I mean, it push-your-luck is a little disingenuous because sometimes the other players are just trying to force you.

7:01 It's so hard though. You were up there. I was like, "We're going to get you." And then it's so hard plus there's these five cards that flip everything. And then they flip your hand and they flip the trick mid-trick. And so, it's really really weird. We just then you're like, "Oh, now all the numbers are completely different. The trump suit might be in there because it's on the other side." And then you're like, "Now it changes things, you know?" The timing of that, yeah.

7:29 Yeah, now I there is a variant in the box which I have not played yet. You you think that a little bit it's the with the storm cards.

7:35 Yeah, so there's a couple of storm cards that you add into it and when you play one of those, and the only time that you can play it is when you can't follow or when you're the very first player to lead anything. Um that switches the chip out which the chip has the trump suit on it. So instead of suns and moons, now it's rain and clouds. So those previously useless suits are now very very important.

8:02 Yeah.

8:03 Uh so it adds another dimension onto this once you get to know the base game.

8:07 I think that I need that What was that called?

8:09 Trickery.

8:10 It's trickery. It's like paper but with trick at the front.

8:14 Because you're little air pierces with little feather like flying up. Yeah.

8:18 Yeah. We all look like little little flying suit

8:20 Yeah. Yeah. It's a It's the heart is very cute.

8:25 I like it. Love it.

8:27 All right.

8:28 I'm here with Marcus Ross, world famous game designer and awesome human being. And who are you with?

8:34 Oh, I'm with Scott Morris. He's fantastic as well.

8:36 All right. We try to be good human beings. Uh where where are we?

8:40 Uh we're at Omaha, my very hometown.

8:41 We're in Omaha. We're at the Omaha Gaming Convention, first ever Omaha Gaming Convention which is amazing. And Grant, the man behind the camera who is not going to go on camera, asked us Yep, there he is. Asked us what are You said what's our favorite game, right? At the convention. What's your favorite game?

8:55 Oh man, I've been teaching Fit Fellowship. It's fantastic. And I've loved it.

9:00 So how many times have you died in Mordor?

9:02 Uh only once.

9:03 That's good. It's good.

9:05 Successfully destroyed the ring last yesterday. So it was very nice.

9:08 I have two favorite games. I have my game Rainbow Boulevard which is designed by Adam Wise which is going to be on Kickstarter later this year. Everyone was nice enough to play it and give us feedback and it was awesome. And then I actually played Nippon last night. I hadn't played the new edition which was amazing. Tony taught me it and it was so much fun and it blew me away. I was not expecting it to be as fun as it was but what really really

9:28 Good stuff.

9:29 And the coolest part to me is not this, it's not that.

9:33 Hm.

9:34 It's us.

9:34 Oh yeah. I

9:35 us. It's the human beings and the community that Starla and everyone on the team has put together here. And well, it's just it's amazing. So, come. You will not regret it. Next year it'll be amazing.

9:45 Oh, yeah. Face-to-face time is incredible.

9:47 Hello, I'm Dwayne.

9:48 I'm Alicia.

9:50 And this is Black Board Gaming. We have a YouTube channel called Black Board Gaming where we try to talk about and introduce people to this wild world of board gaming. You know, there's so many board games out there and we're trying to bring the information to you. So,

10:06 We can be found on YouTube, uh Facebook,

10:11 Instagram,

10:12 and Blue Sky.

10:13 Yeah, under Black Board Gaming.

10:16 So, the favorite new game I played was Jinxso.

10:21 Can you explain it a little bit?

10:23 Okay, it's it's kind of it's kind of like uh what's that other game?

10:29 Green Team Wins.

10:30 It's kind of like

10:30 Three of a Kind, that type of game.

10:32 of like a mix between Green Team Wins and Three of a Kind. But, it it was a a 3x3 grid and it was just fun to see what other people came up with and see how close you came to other people's. [clears throat]

10:46 Yeah, that's why it's called Jinx. No, for me my favorite game was Sweet Land. That was a long game. I think we it took 4 hours for us to play it. But, I can see what the hype was about. I really loved Sweet Land about building up your own sugar empire, you know. So, I really enjoyed that one.

11:08 It was building up your sugar empire. Since I love sweets, maybe I need to play that one, too.

11:12 I don't know you can play that one.

11:16 Um so, rather than talking about a favorite game at the con cuz I mostly played my own games with with folks who wanted to play them. Um I would like I'm going to cop out and say like I just loved being here and playing games in this intimate little setting with uh with folks that like I got to spend real time with, like real one-on-one time with. I would spend at like the average con I went to, like Gen Con or Origin, even like BGG Con, which I love. Like I'll spend like 5 6 minutes, maybe talk to each individual person. Here I got to spend like hours. I get to go have lunch with like a fan I've never met before or a new new friends from the Omaha area, uh which by the way, I explored every square inch of downtown Omaha. Really enjoyed it. Um I just I don't I just love the con. My favorite experience was checking in all day Friday, all day Saturday, and all day today. I liked all of it. It's a cop-out, but you're going to deal with it. Pretty much.

12:13 Well, one thing I've really enjoyed about this convention is getting to see the city of Omaha and getting to know it a little bit better. You have this perception of the basically center of the country in the Midwest just being kind of like boring in that, but Omaha has so much cool stuff going on here. You know, we had the opportunity to take a tour of Omaha. I actually got one even before that. So, there's a lot of wonderful green spaces and parks, uh Spielbound Cafe.

12:47 was fun.

12:48 Yeah. Well, those drinks, the coffee drink Did you get one?

12:52 I got a lemonade, like a lemonade tea lemonade mix. It was so refreshing. It was really good.

12:59 Hm. That was great. Their selection of board games was fantastic. You can go in They're a cafe, but they also sell board games as well.

13:07 They have games you can borrow. They have tables you can play on.

13:11 Finally getting to see the big bridge.

13:13 Oh, yeah.

13:14 Yeah.

13:14 We walked the walk. We walked into a different state. Yeah, we got to scramble.

13:20 Yep, we went over to Iowa for a little bit.

13:23 And then promptly came back. We had gaming to do.

13:28 Yeah, yeah.

13:29 We called the troll.

13:30 Yes, we called the troll.

13:31 We had

13:33 a lot of really neat stuff. Really good food, too.

13:37 Oh, yeah. We went to Cascio's. That was really good. I had the prime rib there. Yeah, fantastic steakhouse here in Omaha. Loved it.

13:44 Oh gosh, we went to Bella Luna's, pizza place. All right, so there's this ice creamery that everybody says is really good. And so we're like, what's good food near there so that we can go there, not just for the ice cream. Go there for lunch and Bella Luna's was suggested by Jason who was helping run the con. Oh my gosh, we're like it's a individual 12-in pizza with thin crust but crunchy and they had some really great topping mixes. They have like a special seasonal pizza as well. They have good beers but we didn't partake. And then we went to the creamery, the ice cream.

14:25 Yeah, Coneflower.

14:26 Coneflower.

14:27 Heard good things, yeah.

14:30 I tried Starla's favorite flavor.

14:33 The butter brickle?

14:34 I believe.

14:35 Yeah, is it blackberry? I can't ever say it.

14:39 It's the butter brickle.

14:40 Yeah.

14:41 Explain brickle.

14:42 No, there's little bits of like it's like caramel like

14:47 Yeah. Okay, kind of like okay, kind of like okay. Yeah, I see what you're

14:53 But they have good mixing. Like if you get something with the mix in they're like good pieces that you can taste and crunch on but also not too big. Like you had a sour cherry.

15:03 Yeah, the the tart cherry crumble. See, you had crumble pieces in there. You had giant pieces of cherry in there. It was awesome.

15:11 I should have gone with you.

15:14 Eric Lane just messaged me, I heard you're going. I'm going with you.

15:20 He just going to crashed her ice cream and pizza party.

15:23 yeah, yeah. Always welcome, by the way.

15:25 Yeah, absolutely. It was really good. I actually walked him there because he's a walker.

15:30 Yeah.

15:30 He walks He walked all over the city already like twice. Uh and so we walked there and there's some parts that are more under developed and a little bit sketchy, but you know, it's not too bad to walk around. There's a lot of great like you said parks and stuff like that. But um it was It was a nice walk. It wasn't too bad. There was enough shade for most of it. So I feel like walking is a good city that you could actually walk through.

15:59 Yeah, and I I think the people here have been very welcoming as well, you know, which has been great to see. I've never felt out of place, uncomfortable walking around. It's been very very pleasant and great experience.

16:13 And there's a lot of good pizza places and other places like the 10 10 15 minute walk

16:18 Yeah.

16:18 around here. So

16:19 That's really my experience of Omaha so far.

16:21 Yeah, and I felt comfortable walking here. I'm from the south where you don't feel comfortable walking anywhere. So being here, it's clean. It's um It's all the construction

16:32 Yeah.

16:33 Whatever. That's temporary. But as soon as they clean that up, it's going to be even more beautiful.

16:37 Yeah, it's going to be even more easy to actually It's going to be easier to get around and then we could try more restaurants because there's so much good food in here. So many good restaurants. Yeah.

16:50 I I needed like two extra days of of con to go try food.

16:54 No, I needed an extra day for the zoo. Everyone

16:58 said I couldn't go to the zoo.

17:00 We're going there tomorrow.

17:02 Oh, that's our

17:03 That's our day to explore. But um yeah, this should start on Wednesday.

17:10 That would be a good day to go to the zoo because everyone's working and you know, it won't be too busy and you know, what I mean?

17:16 Exactly. One And so often we don't get to experience the city itself.

17:22 Yeah.

17:22 And we've had time to be able to do that, you know, go out, walk around, explore, you know, really get to see kind of the heart of the city and and it when I'm traveling I like to do that. You know, it's just a pleasant ability to to go out and and see some things.

17:40 Yeah. Beautiful place.

17:42 Solid.

17:43 So, Jesse, in your mind, with first Omaha Gaming Convention, what were some of the things that you liked and some of the things that you think might be able to be improved?

17:52 My expectations were pretty low cuz I've been to a lot of first-year conventions.

17:57 Yeah.

17:57 And this one definitely outdoes that. I think what it was was they had a lot of research coming in.

18:04 Going to different conventions, yeah.

18:06 And then knowing what they wanted to build here, and I think they achieved that. Yeah. From the beginning, it's already outgrown itself.

18:13 Yeah.

18:14 Yeah, exactly.

18:15 Definitely outgrew itself. Like, that's awesome. So many people like asked, you know, can we buy tickets on site?

18:24 Yeah, exactly.

18:26 And you're not going to see that at many conventions. We have one in Louisiana, Southern Gaming Fest. It's all about but they had the same problem but they started a much smaller space. It was like a side room in a museum.

18:38 Oh, wow.

18:38 But from then on, they overdrew it though.

18:41 Yeah.

18:41 Uh they went to a they went to a convention hall in a uh college.

18:45 Oh.

18:46 And that was too big.

18:47 Oh, yeah.

18:48 And then they had to take a step back and find a space. But I think um I think Omaha Gaming Convention is going to be a little bit smarter about that because um they've seen the failures and they've seen successes and they need to follow in successful steps. But one thing this convention has that I really really sets is heart.

19:06 Yes. And it's the best community. Well, you have the RPG community and then you have the working way to meet. And then they advertised it well to Omaha in general.

19:17 Yeah.

19:17 So, I think they built a great community that they didn't realize they were all going to come in because most of the time most of the time the first annual convention is locals only. But

19:28 This is half of the people are from

19:30 Yeah.

19:32 including myself.

19:33 Yeah, me too.

19:33 it was like 18-hour drive for me.

19:35 Yeah, actually all of us.

19:36 Yeah. Yeah, and I drove in. Yeah.

19:40 Yeah, I'm from Colorado. And yeah, having day one growing pains for a convention is like that's that's good. Uh like cuz the only misstep I noticed was the vendor hall is just kind of out of sight, out of mind. It was present for registration, so so so everybody got to experience it while we were registering, but during the con people are going to the library, they're going into here to play games, and then they're going out to eat.

20:08 Yeah.

20:09 And

20:10 There's tons of way in and out.

20:11 the vendor hall is not in any of those paths.

20:14 Yeah.

20:14 Right. If they could use the lobby more, that would have been a better place for it.

20:18 Right, like the right

20:18 That and registration. As soon as you walk in, I mean everything is open. It's air-conditioned better.

20:24 Yeah.

20:25 Yeah, there would have been a little bit of a problem if you spaces had got toasted and you know, but again, this is like this is just because everybody showed up before the first OGC.

20:33 Yeah, exactly.

20:34 It's sold out. It's a full house. So as far as discomfort in being sold out, it was just yeah, the library got hot. It was so cold in here. This is random single room just sweltering out.

20:50 It'd be cool if because there's a room across from the library that if that was the vendor hall, and then when people are going in and out there.

20:59 Um and it is really exciting to hear that I think they've already outgrown this space, so we're already looking into going to a bigger spot, which is this hotel has been very very nice and very wonderful, but it's not an event center hotel. And so, yeah, but it is it is nice to know that we're already going to be looking into a larger space.

21:18 The beds were good.

21:19 Oh, the beds were so comfortable. Yeah. So, but but yeah, we are in the largest room in this hotel outside of the lobby. So,

21:32 one one of the things that I really liked has been how inclusive everything has felt and I think that goes back to the heart of the convention.

21:40 Yeah.

21:40 And being somebody who's coming from Ohio, you know, the world being what it is today, sometimes you don't necessarily feel included in certain spaces, but I have not felt unincluded anywhere here.

21:56 Yeah.

21:56 The the inclusivity of being able to sit down at a table, meet new people, make new friends has been outstanding.

22:04 Yeah.

22:04 It's been unlike any convention that I've been to.

22:07 And lately I've preferred regional cons over the big cons because of that reason.

22:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

22:11 I'll go to an Origins or something like that and I'll talk with people online, "Hey, let's meet up." And it never happens. You got five days to do it and it just doesn't happen. There's too much other stuff going on.

22:22 Yeah.

22:22 But I you know, I feel like I'm seeing everyone I know from the internet

22:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

22:27 all the time here. It's great.

22:29 Well, this is this is a Games First Con, which is

22:32 Yeah.

22:32 as the the more years I spend in this hobby, that is my favorite of the things

22:36 Yeah, it's to attend really.

22:38 Um obviously being from BGG, I'm very familiar with the the theme the Board Game Geek conventions and this is in that same vein where it is it is games first. There's not other there's not a lot of fringe events. Um and and the events that are here are just more games.

22:53 Yeah.

22:54 This is games with more intentionality.

22:56 Yeah.

22:57 Play to win.

22:58 Yeah.

23:00 Yeah. The only thing is that the tables are six long.

23:05 Yes.

23:05 Which leaves a lot of empty chairs, which then people can't find a table because they're not connected anyway. Like we're sitting at one that is 12 long because they put two and two end to end, which is good because then you can have four, five people multiple people can be on this table, but they had them stacked this way like horizontally, which means that then if you had a group of four, then two people can't find a space because

23:34 If

23:35 the game might be too big. Or if you had a group of two, then you know, they might not be able to find that space because they're also playing a big game. So they needed a mix of four-person tables and then these longer tables

23:51 Yeah.

23:51 to make it.

23:52 And that's just a byproduct of the space we're in and the way tables fit in this space and like but again, these are the the year one new things that are good. Yeah.

24:03 So I really like that they did the BGG Con hot games type of day because at BGG Spring you have the Spiel des Jahres where they decided it all up and then anyone could come and then they have teachers. So they did that here with the hot games where they had teachers that sitting there and then they set up the the games, they know it and anyone can walk up and just sit down and play.

24:27 Yeah.

24:27 And it's less pressure to find, you know, someone to teach them and less pressure to find a group to play this game that you really want to try. So I thought that was really cool that they did that and not a lot of other cons that are just gaming have those dedicated teachers for the ones that they know people want

24:45 Yeah. And just personally for me, the my favorite thing about this convention is not just the timing of it, but the location. This is at BGG There are I have friends that are at this convention. This is their first convention experience ever because so many other board game conventions are just most of them are on the coast or just in in areas that are hard to get to. But it's like this is like I'm from Colorado. I only had to jump, you know, a state line to get here. So, and so it's very like I I I love that we have a convention here geographically that's easy to get to. Cuz otherwise the closest convention I can go to is the one in Chula Vista, you know?

25:28 Yeah, that's true.

25:29 So.

25:30 Louisiana.

25:30 Yeah.

25:32 Yeah, but

25:33 See,

25:33 it being on the coast, I got a a bunch of water under me. So, I'm not going that way.

25:39 Yeah.

25:39 And then it's I got to go all the way down 8 hours just to get to a decent convention.

25:44 Yeah.

25:44 You know, Dallas being the closest. I mean, yeah.

25:48 It's worth the drive, though.

25:49 Yeah.

25:50 Well, that's it for us at Omaha Gaming Convention. We're going to be back very soon to do this again. But let me tell you where you can find us in the meantime.

25:57 I'm Derek Porter, aka Witzby at Board Game Geek. You can find me at my Twitch channel, twitch.tv/witzbycheck12.

26:04 I'm Arwen Cacki on the Cardboard Time podcast. You can find me on Instagram at cardboard_time, Blue Sky at cardboardtime, or go to cardboardtime.com.

26:14 I'm Amanda Panda. You can find me 4 days a week on Twitch and YouTube under Pandangel. That's p a n d a the number eight n g e l. That's my handle for almost every social media platform except for Instagram. It's pandangel_loves_games. You can also find me on the 555 podcast and on the BGG podcast.

26:36 I'm Jesse with I Heart Board Games. Go to iheartboardgames.com for everything. We do uh playthroughs on YouTube, live streams on Twitch, and even some fun games for you to play right there on iheartboardgames.com. Until next time, we love you, family.

26:50 Boom!

26:52 Boom!

27:19 What's

27:19 going on in the world?