Words by David C. Obenour
Gen Con | August 1-4, 2024 | Indiana Convention Center & Surrounding Area
The western hemisphere’s largest dedicated celebration of tabletop fun requires more then just one post! So take another swig of water and switch that messenger bag over to the other shoulder, it’s time to head back into the exhibitor hall for part two of our highlights from Gen Con 2024.
Lure (Allplay)
Secretly rummage through your tackle box to find just the right combination of dice, then cast them out and see what bites! Less dice are the quicker lines out but more dice are juicier to the fish swimming about. Simple but surprisingly engaging, Lure is great inventive fun in rolling dice!
Babylon (Flat River Group)
Design the gardens of history and lore, as you construct the pillars, bridges, statues, balconies, and fountains of your own hanging world wonder in Babylon. Utilizing a dizzying array of three-dimensional puzzley play, even the prototype elements to this game made for beautiful player boards. Still in development, opening Flat River Group’s finished game box promises to carry an excitement similar to excavating desert ruins!
First in Flight (Artana)
Sometimes succeeding can come simply from failing less grievously. In First in Flight, players take on the role of historical figures from the race to build a successful aircraft. Using clever time-tracking rondel action selection, players add successes and mitigate failures in a deck that represents their test flights. On each attempt taken, flipping these cards introduces an exciting push-your-luck element as records are broken – and so are planes!
Hamster Roll (25th Century)
For as high up as you get on the wheel at times we all slide back down its spokes. I doubt Jacques Zeimet had this existential theme in mind but in Hamster Roll players alternate placing shapes further and further than each other last’s on a free rolling wheel. The first to successfully play all their pieces wins but any that you cause to tumble go back into your possession. Simple fun for children or those otherwise easily amused by bright colors and shapes – like me!
Nekojima (Unfriendly Games)
While Japan’s fabled cat islands may seem idyllic, complexities arise when humans are so vastly outnumbered by other spieces. In Nekojima, players work to construct electric poles amongst these aging and small human communities – zigging and zagging lines amidst each other and the playful felines with their own penchant for zigging and zagging. Straightforward in play with balance and dexterity plus adorable in theme and components.
Six Crowns in Hell (Gallant Knight Games)
How the internet would say, “Dudes will look at this and say hell yeah.” Acknowledging dudes of all gender, those of us known to delve into the black metal / “pile of sticks” album bins at record stores will immediately want to pick up this book. Rifling through its pages, a cvlt AF solo-adventuring tale unfolds as you cast off your lowly demonic station and kill the six knights of hell to take the crown for yourself. Hell yeah!
Dro Polter (Oink Games)
Japan’s Oink Games maximizes small fun in every aspect. Usually taking up no more space than a deck of oversized tarot cards, their game boxes are adorned with delightfully minimal illustrations and filled with equally delightful components. And after it’s out on the table, the fun had by players is just as compact and enjoyable too! In Dro Polter, ghostly figures appear, flipped cards reveal which lucky charms are needed, then it’s a frantic race of palm shuffling to having the right combination in hand.
VHS: Trashbag (Studio 2 Publishing / Aces Games)
Get ready for campy thrills that you can feel the well-worn cardboard edges, envision the grainy resolution and deteriorating tracking, and maybe even smell the mold damage. Trashbag is the latest release from Very Horror Stories (VHS) – a role playing system paying homage to 70s horror movies. Packaged with premade story films, characters, monsters, and more – all you need to do is press play!
Obsolete Shitty Rules (Tin Hat Games)
Lean into all the obsolete and shitty tropes of sword & sorcery ttrpgs with Obsolete Shitty Rules! Designed to be easy to learn and easy to play – take nothing seriously as you go head-to-head against the hated GM. With an attention to detail that can only come from a deep self-awareness (or loathing), if you can’t laugh at yourself – I probably don’t want to game with you anyway. Plus there’s even more obsolete fun with a deluxe edition gatefold vinyl soundtrack!
Parkade (Game Days from Façade Games)
Frantically circling and circling for what feels like an eternity (but is really only moments), it’s a blacktop battle to find parking spaces under the discerning eye of the parkade attendant. Spaces open up as the attendant puts down lot cards of words and to park there it’s up to you to create meaningful (or at least, passable) connections with the words on your vehicle cards. A different kind of frantic grammatical thinky.
Landmarks (Floodgate Games)
Treasure – and curses – await in Landmarks as you set off navigating your way through the shortest-spoken pirate’s treasure map. An inventive take on the fun offered by popular party game, Codenames, this game cooperatively builds out a map of single word clues as players guess their way through hidden risks and rewards. A new mix that’s familiar enough to be intuitive but different enough to be exciting.
HIFI (Smirk & Dagger)
Fifty years ago, one of the hottest bands out there left half album on the cutting room floor. But time – and dwindling royalties – heals all wounds! In HIFI you’re part of the team of producers working to revive these recordings for fame and fortune. Wrestle control of this box of awesome studio components to mix tracks, set levels, and leave your mark on musical history… plus maybe a larger share of the sales too!
Boxtop Pinball: Haunted House (Pandasaurus Games)
Stand like a statue. Become part of the machine. Feel all the bumpers. Always play it clean. Do all of these things and you too might be a pinball wizard at Boxtop Pinball: Haunted House! One of two variants announced (Las Vegas being the other), Boxtop Pinball is an enjoyable game of point-dice flicking, cardboard bumping, cascading down the pinball table board mayhem. The most analog of analog entertainment, take all my quarters!
Finders Creepers (MGA Games)
I tend to be a bit of an analog purist with my tabletop gaming (you got peanut butter in my chocolate!) but Finders Creepers has found a fun way to engage this curmudgeonly late adapter. Tabletop monster hunting mayhem proceeds over round-based turns but then the haunts unleash into realtime “get up and run about” augmented reality. Aided only by your maniacal AI assistant, there’s no need to ask folks to put away their phones with this game.
G.I. Joe Battle for the Arctic Circle (Avalon Hill)
“G.I. Joe Battle for the Arctic Circle powered by Axis & Allies” is a sentence that probably could have existed on my vision board as a teenager. Well good news, you awkward board gaming bandgeek! It’s 2024 and your vision has finally materialized! The marriage of these intellectual properties is inspired and I am fully here for it (along with most other men of a certain age). Now you too know and knowing is half the battle!
And that concludes the games we played at Gen Con 2024! If you hadn’t seen it, be sure to look at part one of our Gen Con highlights and our full gaming section.