500 Miles to Gen Con

0:10 it's time to go to chiang kang it was our first trip to gen con in indianapolis also known as the best four days in gaming it's early we're off first we had to get there by driving the board game mobile a 2010 toyota matrix to the toronto airport in mississauga to pick up two of our wonderful patreon supporters who had flown all the way from victoria british columbia to road trip down with us we have a very expensive toll highway in our neck of the woods so we always tell our map apps to ignore toll roads which means it's also going to ignore the toll tunnel and the toll bridges that would get us across the border in a reasonable amount of time so instead we drove through buffalo which i mean i don't recommend it that means we took the scenic route down to indianapolis which we are expecting to be about an eight-hour drive it was 13.

1:03 but we eventually made it here's a little spin through our airbnb kitchen a couple bedrooms and only a 20-minute walk to the convention center gencon was being super safe this year by requiring masks and proof of vaccinations so the first task was to wait in this unbelievably long line to show our vaccination papers you thought getting on splash mountain took too long if you want to go hit the comment section complaining about masks and vaccines don't even bother because i'm going to delete it cheryl and i haven't contracted covid yet but we thought for sure that attending a conference of 50 000 people will get the job done but we stayed masked all week and when we got home look at that no covid it's funny how that works anyway we got to the end of that line and success the press room was closed by then so we had to wait until the next day to get our badges no one else was closed every restaurant in the city it was 11 o'clock after all so if you're gonna go to gen con i definitely recommend eating first and lining up later we got our press passes the next morning and we're ready to go first order of business was meeting up with the rest of

2:33 the night surrounded table patrons they were kind of camera shy so this is just a quick pan we began the day by checking out the new starship captains game and deal with the devil from the designer of alchemist which multiple cge reps described as bonkers so i can't wait but talk about bonkers then it was into the 50 000 person fray here's a booth there's lots of walking here's some footage i shot at the inside of my pocket because i'm a pro like that honestly we shot very little footage that first day because it was all so overwhelming but we ended the day by playing some games with our patrons in the open gaming area i got to play beach dogs with its designer who's eight years old we also played cat in the box which was a fun game but i thought the component quality was a little crummy even in this deluxe version then at last it was off to slumber by land and wake up sucka it's day two halmer hawk taught us how to play his game evergreen and a new one coming up in essen called the great split we learned a game from danny stanton who's sitting there thinking she's all that and she's absolutely right made the catan sheet mobile honk its horn honk that horn scoped out a tornado shelter match madness duo was a really cool really tough pattern matching puzzle game fox mind also showed us their fidget toy bubble pushing game which isn't a great fit for this channel but i was pretty good at it we got a quick spin through the red cathedral and its expansion i'm really excited to try it out also from deveer games is walkie talkie which you might enjoy if you're a fan of enomia mark swanson gave us a little spin

4:04 through feudum with all the upgraded components and we loved every second of it pampero which is about building wind farms in uruguay looks a bit dry and not in a good way xyz game labs yarn bomb these planters we found a few people dressed up as nerds after another exhausting day the show floor closed i looked around for people to interview not many takers i'm not sure why all right so boxers are briefs indianapolis wound up being my least favorite city that starts with i and ends in indianapolis took the skywalk to the open gaming area again where match madness duo turned out to be a compelling hit i was tired though this is the view of the ballroom from lying flat on your back beneath the serving table i'm just gonna i just could close my eyes for a little bit oh god it's gen con baby booth booth booth booth booth booth game game game game game game this game has something to do with buildings i don't even know i just wanted to go to bed they're like robots sand castles bob ross apparently had terrible taste in pierogies this was my favorite mask of the show by the way oh seriously we're so tired from all this schlepping we hiked all the way out to the lucas oil stadium about 50 miles away in the insufferable heat and humidity where there was this gigantic board game library that they'd unloaded from two full tractor trailers the noise level was

5:35 perfectly manageable in there but because it was separately ticketed everyone wanted to play in the free and noisy open gaming area again here's a clue that there's a board game convention going on in your hotel i got to play psychic pizza deliverers go to the ghost town i had fun playing the mayor but i don't think anybody else enjoyed it they also played scout which was the perfect level of complexity because i don't even think my head hit the pillow before but before we get to that let me just say that this gencon trip couldn't have happened without the support of those wonderful people i mentioned on patreon and of course i would love your support on patreon too we've got a really great community going you can get early access to videos exclusive content that no one else gets to see all of the backers who attended gen con got the first ever nights around a table t-shirts that might burst into flame when the sun hits them if you back me on patreon i can't promise that we'll end up sharing an airbnb together where you'll see me in various states of undress sleepwalking to the kitchen to put my socks in the refrigerator but after this trip i mean i can't promise that's not gonna happen the final day of gen con sunday morning we came full circle and spent the morning playing starship captains with a ray on the cge live stream the conference mercifully came to a close that afternoon and we got what felt like seven minutes of sleep that night before we packed everything up and headed home again this time with tolls turned on which took us to detroit where i got some pizza at buddies detroit

7:07 seemed way cooler than indianapolis by the way let's have gencon there next year we drove through this insane storm and the straps from the boot on top of our car let a bunch of water in so cheryl jerry rigged these tim hortons cups as rain barrels to keep us dry we dropped off our conference buddies and went back to oshawa it was still somehow a 13-hour long trip but i was so happy to finally get some proper shut-eye oh my god i'm still driving did you just watch that whole thing oh hey to 100 this video click the badge to subscribe and then click the bell to get notifications when i've got new stuff