After the slightly chaotic start to my travel to expo, day 1 proper of the con started much more smoothly over breakfast with Adam from Punchboard and my friend Rich who is room sharing with me. Although the Arden hotel is a little further away from the convention than I had realised, the walk in the morning isn’t a bad way to get my thoughts together for the day.
Rich and I spent the day basically getting the lay of the lands and talking to anyone we wanted to. Starting in hall 1 we snaked our way through the aisles seeing the what grabbed our attention. The scale of the con is almost overwhelming for me this year. Last time I was here hall 1 was filled and hall 2 was half open gaming. Now both those halls are filled and open gaming is its own entire hall! The feel of the Friday was much busier than when I had been here in previous years so I have no idea what today is going to be like! Manic I would suspect.
We kicked off our tour with a demo of “Into the Unknown” a new Star Trek game from Wizkids. The demo was a bit uninspiring to be honest but the production of the game was really nice. It seemed to be a take on their Attack Wing game, but trying to inject more of the diplomacy and science that is a feature of the series.
I found myself gravitating towards indie RPG folk a lot over the course of the day. I started off with “By Odin’s Beard” a company making a game called ‘We Deal in Lead’ that I had heard of. This is a Stephen King’s Dark Tower inspired RPG og post apocalyptic gunslingers. Seems really neat and they have a few other games on the go.
Just down from them was Soul Muppet Publishing. They had a fairly substantial stand with loads of RPGs. The range was pretty impressive. From playing ‘sad space cowboys’ (their words not mine) in “Orbtial Blues”, to Arthurian tragedy in “Inevitable” they cover a wider range of settings. I interviewed Zach who is the creative lead and head honcho of the company about what they do, and was very pleased that my new mics worked well. I didn’t pick anything up from them but am likely to head back today to grab something as they seem to be an up and coming publisher with a lot of cool ideas. They did give me a really fancy quickstart of their game of ‘sad vampires’ called “Paint the Town Red”.
One of the most intriguing stands I visited on my first day was Mousehole press. This was a one person band in the form of Jack making RPGs. The one that drew my attention was a game called the Slow Knife that had an intriguing looking pinboard setup for play. This is a game about revenge where you play the villains who have wronged someone in the past. I picked up a copy later in the day and had a chat with him for the cast. Really nice person, and some intriguing games.
Drifting into hall 2 the first stand I noticed was Goblin King Games. Those who follow my socials might have spotted me playing Moonstone a little while back. This is a skirmish game set in a fantastical world. Factions are fighting over Moonstones, that are d4s dropped from height and scattered around the battlefield. They are a depth equal to their number. The whole game is adorable and plays really dynamically. The miniatures are also gorgeous. I picked up some things for my brother-in-law and made a contact for reviews. I plan to review the game regardless because I think it is pretty neat.
At the top of Hall 2 we came across not one, but two dead CCGs being lovingly resurrected by the fans. Null Signal is the fan version of Netrunner and you all know how much I love that game. You can hear me wax lyrical about it on the latest episode of Cult of the Old. I also got to speak to Serenity who I had interviewed way back in 2020. It was lovely to speak to Serenity and see that Null Signal is still going strong with more planned.
Much as I love Netrunner it was far from my first experience of falling for a CCG. That honour probably belongs to Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (V:TES), a complex, political, card game that was also designed by Richard Garfield. Black Chantry are a fan revival of V:TES and they are doing some really smart things. There is a 5 player starter set for £60 that has decks balanced against each other. You can then buy other starters that are balanced against those. Then there are starter decks that standalone, or can be used to expand that core. Just really considerate and thoughtful production.
After grabbing an early lunch, I recommend doing this to avoid the lunchtime queues at the excellent food trucks, we dived back into hall 1. We stopped at Goodman Games one of the big players in the OSR scene, though my friend Rich will correct me on the actual term for what they produce. Dungeon Crawl Classics has been on my radar for a while and Goodman want you to play that game. I got a 500 page soft back core rulebook for a tenner. I have no idea if that game is for me, but as an interesting piece of RPG production and history I felt compelled to own a copy and cast my critical eye on it.
I had two appointments over the course of the afternoon. One with Hegemonic games who are producing Hegemony and their forthcoming game New World Order. These are big, meaty, economic and political simulation games that I am at once intrigued and scared of! Look really nice and one of the team talked me through what their games were all about.
Last appointment of the day was with Paverson games. This is Dave Beck who I know a little through one of the local board game groups. He did Distilled a worker placement game about whisky and other spirits, and then is working on Luthier, a game about making musical instruments. It looked amazing and Dave was a really interesting guy to talk to.
Ended up in the Hilton bar at the end of the day and the open gaming. Caught up with the excellent Roland McDonald who is ‘the most prolific artist no-one knows’ (his words). He is the artist behind all the Undaunted games and one of my favourite deckbuilders Ruthless. A lovely guy and please check out his games. You will see his art everywhere, even if you don’t know the name.
It’s time to head off for day two. Thanks to everyone I chatted with today and I am looking forward to just wandering the halls and playing a bunch of demos. Of course I finished yesterday with this. Never Stop Stopping.
