Our 2026 Gen Con Wrap Up!
Transcript
Hi everybody.
Hello, I'm Ryan.
I'm Bethany.
And we are Ryan and Bethany Board Game Reviews.
And I know it's been a couple weeks post, but we're finally going to give you our Gen Con wrap-up video.
Gen Con is the biggest North American tabletop gaming convention there is, and we go every year and love it every year. Uh so we decided to kind of give you our thoughts on this particular year, some new things that happened for us, and some Uh we wanted to talk about our experiences there. Favorite things that we saw, favorite games that we had a chance to experience, all kinds of stuff. We just wanted to give you a quick wrap-up, and as we can kind of digest about it, too, because uh it was just so chaotic, you know, that we just don't get a chance to digest and like take it all in until we had a chance to kind of debrief ourselves on it, which is we had the chance to do while prepping for this video. So yeah, let's talk about Gen Con.
Yes, so in the past, in all the past Gen Cons, we have brought our children. We've always brought our children. We're just those people. Um and we've brought our girls as when they were babies before, but we have not brought a baby before while we were making content. So that was a brand new experience for us. He honestly was great. He did a really great job. Um
For context, we have a 13-year-old, a 9-year-old, and now a 0-year-old. So they've been coming with us to Gen Con from since they were all infants themselves.
Yes. Yes, so we've been doing this for a while. Um and he was great, but it was just a different experience. And it's also kind of weird as you're like you have to have somebody you have to watch 24/7, and then also people you kind of just can like let go. It's I don't know, that was kind of weird. But it was a different experience, not necessarily good or bad, um just different. But because of the baby, I wasn't able to go to a lot of the parties at night, um but Ryan was able to go to a lot of those. Honestly though, that kind of worked for me, because I was able to decompress at night, cuz I had to take care of the baby.
Yeah, no, that kind of worked out for both of us as an introvert and extrovert, accordingly. I went to a lot more of the events, so I'll be talking about some of those. Um man, Gen Con with a baby was interesting. I mean, there's they sold out before the event even happened this year. So, they don't give an exact number, but it's 70,000 plus every year, and it sold out ahead of time. Instead of last year it sold out during the event, this year it sold out ahead of time.
And there's like all day badges, and then day badges. Are all week badges, and then individual day badges, and they all sold out. Yeah.
And it felt like it. I feel like sometimes Thursday's kind of the light day, Sundays are kind of light days, and then Friday and Saturday are heavy. No, right out of the gate Thursday was packed.
Yeah.
Packed, packed, packed, packed, packed. So, again, carrying an infant around made some challenges, but one thing we have noticed since we've been doing this for whatever, 12, 13 years with with kids, is back then we were the only ones with kids.
I kid you I'm not even exaggerating. The first year in 2014 is when we went, so we had a year and a half old, and I looked and there might have been other people there with children. I mean, obviously there had to have been, cuz there were some children events happening. I didn't see them. I didn't see a single other person, and I felt so out of place. Not only did I not see them, but I definitely we definitely got like looks.
Like dirty looks. People even made comments, why would you bring a kid to Gen Con? You're ruining it for everyone else if they cry or something. And our kids were like awesomely behaved, including our little one. He did amazing. But, so the shift from back then, when our 13-year-old was an infant, to now, when we have our new infant, the culture has completely shifted.
night and day difference.
Now it's like, oh hey, cool, you got a a baby? Yeah, you got gamer kids? Awesome. Cuz guess what that means? More people game with.
Everyone has accepted that oh, this is not just for like old single dudes or whatever like it used to be. You know, it's for everybody. Gaming is fun for everybody. And you if you start them young, then they'll be good gamers to game with later.
The market has shifted.
Yes, so I in this way it is shifted in all the right ways. There was families there, not just on Sunday where they kind of like in the past been relegated to.
Yeah.
This is the family day for like loser families. This and this is all for the hardcore gamers.
Yeah.
The whole time was for hardcore gamer families.
Yes. Yes.
So that's what I really like seeing. And everyone was unbelievably cool with us and just really excited to see a baby there. It was just night and day difference which we were really excited about.
So now we're going to talk about some specific events and also some games that we were able to um come home with. Just five games. There's a ton of games, but five specific that we're really excited about. And then just some um of the um things that happened. So the first thing that we're going to talk about that happened was our eldest was able to volunteer at the Taco Cat booth this year, which was so much fun for us as parents and for her as well. Just to get some of those um work skills essentially in. Um she only worked there for two hours on Sunday, but it was so much fun seeing her like teach these people how to play game. She was like on cloud nine when she was done with it. Saying that she interacted with I don't even remember tons of people with it.
Yeah, it was non-stop demos and she was just doing a great job cuz she loves games and loves sharing them.
experience and she like wants so badly to be a Cedar kid. So this was almost practice practice practice for her to be like
on
on stage, right? For you know.
So huge thanks for Taco Cat for letting her do that. It was it was so fun as parents, and she had a blast working at that booth.
She called herself a a nepo a board game nepo baby.
Yes, it was so funny.
Of like our we're in the in the industry as as you know, whatever, and now she is in the industry too as a as a demoer. She called herself a board game nepo baby.
Board game nepo baby. Oh my gosh, it was
I can't stop thinking about that. It's like one of the funniest things I think I have ever heard.
All right, so again, we talked about kids, and I don't want to belabor this too much, but uh because we have kids, and we make their arts as fun for them as possible as well as ourselves. There's an area called Motley Kids, or the organization that speci- you know, specifies and works with kids in making nerdy crafts at conventions and things like that. So, every day around lunchtime, we make sure we do a craft with our Well, now our middle child. Um so, she gets to go and be creative and makes She's in the past she's made cool things like dice towers, uh dice holders, little fairy gardens.
Yeah.
Uh this year she made a three-dimensional D20 that lights up in the middle of it. There's all kinds of cool stuff that she's made with these crafts over the years, and she's kept so many of them uh if they survived the drive home.
Yeah.
Uh but, it's a great way to have kids go do something that's about them with during a family vacation cuz it is a family vacation, but so much of it could turn into just the adults having fun if you let it. Uh so, we try to make sure they get a chance to go go make some have some creativity, have some fun, be about them for just a little bit. And also, this year they kind of smartly had this idea of calling it like a like parents could buy tickets too, so that way they can kind of go in there and and you know, eat their lunch, get away from the noise and the crowds for a little bit, uh and at the same time support this awesome little area where kids can get away. So, we did that as often as possible as we bought the tickets so that way we could uh get them some extra money because it all goes to supplies and stuff they use to buy more craft supplies and keep the kids having fun.
Um normally we're too busy and we don't have time to, but this year I actually had time to go out to the block party. So much fun, got ice cream. It was awesome and delicious. Highly recommend it. Um but I was able to go out there and there are so many good and fantastic choices. There's a million food trucks. It's hard to choose which one you want to go to because they're all delightful. It smells wonderful back there. It's that type of like vibrant happy loud that you like in in an area like that. That's like what you want. Just really fun. There's like coffee. There's um what's that pop company?
Wild Bill's.
Yes. Um so there's just all this stuff going on and we never get a chance to participate in it. And I was able to go and um you know with some friends there. It was really fun and lively. So cool. You know what would be really cool if they could have some of the um musicians that they have like out there. If there would be like a little stage and they could like perform out there. Anyway, I really enjoyed being able to participate in the block party this year before the tornado came.
Yeah, we'll get to that in a little bit later. Uh but so other things you can do outside of Gen Con. There is a cigar bar that we found two years ago.
Three years ago.
Three years ago.
Yeah.
Uh and it's so it's not our scene at all, but this is like this awesome like you know you go down the secret stairs and you go under and this is go to the cigar bar and just melt into this lounge chair and you know we got I got a mocktail uh and a little cigar and just it was just so much fun just to kind of have this luxurious secret little uh getaway or away from all the hustle and bustle uh and enjoy some great conversation with some friends as well. Uh that was a highlight for me. Another one that was really weird was we a friend and I got a chance to go to a wrestling event put on by Pandasaurus. Uh so they have a new wrestling game coming out. So they hosted a a pro-wrestling style match.
Yeah, I'll I'll put up some as I'm talking I'm sure you'll be watching some clips that I'm adding in. Uh but basically full-on pro-wrestling guys giving it their all doing it but last extremely entertaining. One guy in particular because Pandasaurus is the publishers of The Mind the board game. At one point this guy had to wrestle The Mind which was an invisible board game that he was having to fight. Uh and The Mind beat him up pretty good.
But he was throwing himself all around the ring. It was awesome. It was so much fun just to see this and be a part of this weird crossover between wrestling and or pro-wrestling and and board gaming. We were all cheering and it was just it was wild. It was some super super fun.
All right. So speaking of there was a tornado like I had mentioned earlier. Um huge storm. We didn't really realize it was happening. It was just raining. You know, we're Midwesterners. It rains. Rain gets bad. It gets windy sometimes. You know, no big deal. So we're um we're finally in the car driving back to the hotel. Um
Drenched from the rain just cuz it even the 2 seconds that we were out there
Yes.
drenched.
Yes, completely drenched. Um and so like we're driving away and it's really bad. Like Ryan at one point doesn't have any visibility. But we're on the interstate and it's not like you can pull over. We saw two different cars um
submerged flooded.
submerged in the water and we're like oh
One of them was a Corvette. The other one was a Honda Fit. So both lower riding cars.
Yes, like they were they were completely flooded out. Couldn't see anything. It was It was so bad and it was a little scary and I wasn't driving. Thanks the Lord I wasn't driving. I probably would have had a panic attack. So I really appreciate you driving through that. And we were trying to like play play card games to distract right not like distraction from driving but distract him from the stress. We played a round of telephone in the car. Just to try to get that So we and then and then the convention center I'm sure if you're watching this video you've seen the clips of the convention center getting rained in like something happened in one of the halls and like water got in the convention center and I guess there really was a tornado that came. It was like It was intense. So intense.
One of the things that people don't talk about at a big convention like Gen Con is the gaming itself. I feel like it's all about the spectacle, all the different wild stuff that's going on over with new releases, all of the the buying and the commerce that happens and all that is really fun and exciting. And so what you talk about is some gaming some [snorts] conventions are gaming conventions as opposed to buying conventions.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And so this one gets put into the category of the buying conventions a lot of times and that is broadly true but there's so many opportunities for gaming. I feel like in all the halls of Gen Con itself there's just people off the side playing card games that they had just bought. Every hotel had uh the the you know the whatever the breakfast area or the lobby area all those tables always full of people playing games. So some of my favorite events specifically this past year one again one of my favorite times when one of my friends just texted me up completely different hotel and saying hey I'm gaming at this hotel come on over let's play some games. So we went over and we played some games with them and then somebody else texted him and said, "Hey, we're at this other hotel. Come join us. We're playing some more games." So, we went to that hotel and we played more games until like 1:00 in the morning.
There's so many opportunities to play games here, but either as a scheduled event or as an impromptu thing. Gaming is everywhere here as well as the commerce half of it as well. If you want to look for it, it is there.
Yeah.
All right. So, we don't do the whole Gen Con Hall thing. Uh we've been really blessed to be able to get review copies of some games because we make content in exchange for it for that. Uh but we do want to showcase just a few things that whether we bought them or whether we got them as review copies of some like five games that we're really excited about uh that we're going to get a chance to play in the coming weeks and months. All right. So, the first one we're talking about is a Viking route or root. The route or root?
Route.
I think you can say it either way if you want to.
Route Route 66.
Yeah, it could go either way. I don't know.
Yeah.
Uh but this game is a game where you are you have a pirate ship that you're in control of, but it's being moved around by magnets and a compass. So, as you know, a compass is affected by magnets. It's always pointing towards north unless it's affected by magnets. So, you have these magnets all over the board that are affecting where this compass is aiming. And that's how I think how the ship moves. I think that's how it works.
Yeah.
And what a cool crazy mechanism. I cannot wait to unbox this and figure out how these magnets affect this compass and how that all plays together. What a crazy cool idea. Let's talk about some more crazy cool ideas.
Um another one we're really looking forward to is Mystic Curling Club. So, this is where you are these little witches, but you um are huge fans of curling. So, what you're doing is you take these dice and you're literally like flicking them across the board to try to get to the center of it's curling, but with with dice. And it's just I don't know. We got a chance to get like a preview of this last year, and I'm like, we need this game. This is so cool, and I'm really looking forward to that.
It is it's non-stop laughter.
Yeah.
All right, the next one I want to talk about, this is Encyclopedia of Monsters. It is uh five separate boxes in this bigger box set, kind of like the old school like Encyclopedia Britannica's that you would see that were all like in those like folios or whatever they're called. And so, I'm not exactly how sure how it works, uh but it's a cooperative game, it's a memory game, but I think you can play each of these are continents, I believe, and so there's these different monsters all over these different continents, so you're learning about real world geography while playing a cooperative memory game about monsters. And like, that shouldn't go together at all, but it does, and I can't wait to see how, so that's pretty cool.
All right, the next one that we're really excited about is the next Illumineer's Quest. We played the first two in this. I really like it. So, this is based in the the Lorcana Disney's Lorcana trading card game. So, every not every set, but whenever they there's some new sets that they have a Illumineer's Quest come out, and so this one is The Great Honey Rescue. And I like these cuz it's a chance for you to play cooperatively, so you get cards from this set, and um you get to work together to win. Yeah.
So, yeah, you get to play your own decks or the decks that come with it.
Yeah.
Play together. Love it. All right, the last one we're going to talk about is Flip Tunes. This is Flip Tunes season 2. Flip Tunes season 1 came out, and I don't think that anyone realized how much how big it was going to be. I don't even think the publishers themselves they usually do bigger kind of adventure style games, and the Cartographers um world um role player in the role player world. Uh and they're like, hey, we got this fun game. Check it out if you get a chance. It's fun. Played it, loved it, introduced it to my people, they all bought copies of it.
like almost every single person that Ryan has played this game with has gone out and bought the game.
So, I had friends that were like, "Ryan, go buy me a copy. Go get a copy uh of Flip Tunes 2 for me." So, I did. I went and and bought some copies of this for my friends as well because uh it's going to get a lot of play, guaranteed. All right, one last thing I want to show you. We back maybe one Kickstarter or game, you know, crowdfunded game a per year. Uh we just We have a lot of games that we just don't play enough as it is. So, we don't back a lot of games. Uh but when we do, we try to back one that's really going to um I don't know, get a lot of play out of it, get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Maybe on the pricey your end cuz we want to if we're going to do it, let's do it right, you know.
We want to back a game pack back a game that we're going to have forever and it's best version.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, as a small preview, uh we chose this year the King's Gambit. And if you had pre-signed up for the King's Gambit uh um page or whatever, you got a cool mini. So, pretty excited about that exclusive mini uh of the Witch King of Ag- Witch King limited edition little mini we got, I don't know. Whatever. It's not the game itself, but it is a little momento from Gen Con about our future thing that we're backing.
So, that's our wrap-up. If you actually want to see more of what happened, we did do a vlog every single day. So, go back and watch those vlogs. If you just want to see actual footage of what we did at the convention center, things that we saw,
the tornado,
the tornado, all of that stuff. I would definitely go and watch that. If you actually want to play a game with us, though, we do have a convention that we're coming up to shortly and like less than a month, right?
Yeah, September 11th through 13th, the Stronghold Gaming Convention is in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Probably pronouncing it wrong. It's fine. You'll You'll be able to Google it and figure it out. Uh but that we are running a lot of games there as well as just going to be walking on playing jumping in on on games as well. Uh, so if you want to game with us and you're in the Midwest, join us in Wisconsin for some awesome gaming September 11th through 13th. Uh, Stronghold Gaming Convention.
Everybody, thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to leave a comment below. Tell us anything you were interested in. If you were at Gen Con, what was something that you enjoyed? If we're able to go next year, what is something that you would like us to talk about? Let us know in the comments below. Until then, you can find us in all of these places.
Yeah, thanks for watching and we will see you next time. Bye.
Bye.
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