What Happened at Gencon 2025? With Ryan Guerra

0:00 Miniature Market has thousands of board games at discounted prices. Click the direct link below to see all those discounted games. What's up, friends? I am back from Gen Con and I'm still trying to catch up on some sleep, but wow, what a blast. It was amazing and I want to share a bit of that experience with you. One of the most exciting things was the giant hall of games I collected while I was there. And I would love to show them to you, but since I had to fly back to Canada, I had them shipped and they still haven't arrived yet. So, keep an eye on my Instagram in the next week or two and I'll be sharing my giant Gen Con haul there. Instead of doing a top list of my experiences, I thought I'd just walk you through the event and give you a taste of what Gen Con was all about. So, I took off Tuesday night on a red eyee from Vancouver to Indianapolis with a connection in Chicago. Unfortunately, I missed my 6:30 a.m. connection. It's bit of an embarrassing story if I'm honest.

0:56 So, I had a bonus 4-hour layover while running on zero sleep. Not the best start, but I survived. Once I landed in Indie, I grabbed the classic airport photo and headed straight to the convention center to check in and grab my media badge. The con doesn't officially start until Thursday, but Wednesday night had four back-toback media events. First up was the Asthma Day media event. I got to check out some of their latest upcoming games, including Duel for Cardia and a Lego game called Brick Like This. I also got to meet Richard Borg, designer of Battle for Hoth and Memoir 44. And a huge highlight, Eric Lang, who showed me his upcoming game, Clash of Clans. I'm so stoked for that. From there, I ran to the allplay party celebrating the launch of Twinkle. Designer Ammon signed my copy and the food was amazing and the energy was high. Then it was over to the Lucky Duck party for their newly releasleased Sims board game. A real nostalgic throwback. I met up with friends from Mele Mountain and we even tried one of those 360 video booths for the first time. The night wrapped up at the Hashet media party where I demoed Gwent based on The Witcher with my new friend Desiree. A packed night, but super fun. Thursday is when Gen Con officially kicked off. If you've never been, it's hard to explain the scale.

2:11 Seas of people everywhere. I think attendance was around like 80,000. The convention takes over the Indiana Convention Center, the Lucas Oil Stadium, and more. I wish I had better shots of the crowd. It was wild. My Thursday was packed with meetings and checking out games, including many from my top 10 most anticipated list. I even saw some unreleased games that I'm not even allowed to share photos of yet. That evening, I hit three more publisher events. First was a Ravensburgger event for their card game, Lorcana. I hadn't heard much about Lorcana before, but I had a blast with the Collector's Quest and left with a nice big stack of Disney cards. Big win with my daughters when I got home. Then I stopped by the indie boards and cards event, which was celebrating the upcoming release of Journeys Aar, the Ketsui by my good friend Travis Archans. Very exciting title. After that, I headed to Lucas Oil Stadium for the AEG event. The stadium has open play on the field and private suites for events. AEG had some great previews, especially Electrify, which looks awesome. Friday brought more meetings and even more game demos.

3:12 Highlight of the day, definitely getting to try the Game Makers hosted by Jay Bernardo from Bezier Games. I played alongside Jonathan and McKenzie from Terodise Games and Andrew Styles, designer of Wine Seller. Great group, great game. That evening, I went to a party hosted by Backer Kit, complete with axe throwing. In my head, I thought I'd be pretty decent at it. In reality, not so much. Still a blast. After that, I wrapped up the night hanging out with Jay from Bezier and Andrew Styles, playing a super fun trick-taking game I'd never played before called No Loose Ends. Saturday was more of the same, publisher meetings, but I also squeezed in more gameplay, which is rare for me at a convention. I got to try Runes, which I've been really looking forward to, and also Naishi. I also played the new haunted version of Above and Below by Ryan Lockett. It's a great follow-up to an already solid game. I also checked out the Deve Showcase, including Red Carpet and Phoenix, and a few other things. Oh, and Dice Throne was there bringing back Pogs. Serious throwback.

4:13 If you don't know what Pogs are, go Google them, but prepare yourself for some '90s weirdness. I also wanted to bring home a gift for each of my daughters. So, I decided to win a gloomy from the claw machine. Problem is, I'm about as good at claw machines as I am at axe throwing. It took me a while, but I finally scored two of them and earned some serious dad points. Sunday, the final day was all about wrapping things up, chatting with folks, consolidating my games for shipping, and heading to the airport. There at the airport, I bumped into Kendrick Winks and Ken Ber, the designers of Gilblins, which I recently reviewed. They had a copy of Up or Down, the new Capstone release, and we sat down to play it. I was having such a good time that I nearly missed my flight. I sprinted through the airport and made it just in time. Gen Con was awesome, but as always, the best part wasn't the games, it was the people, reconnecting with old friends, making new ones, and sharing this amazing hobby together. Huge thanks to everyone who made it such a memorable weekend. If you weren't there, I hope we'll see each other at another convention soon. And if you were there, drop a comment and let me know your highlights, what you saw, loved, played, or just had a blast doing. Thanks so much for watching and have a great rest of your week.