Day One: Recap

Wow.  What a day it was!

We were there bright and early to open and punch games so that we were ready for the hordes.

At nine, the VIGs entered the exhibit hall.  The VIGs are "Very Important Gamers."  They paid a fair amount of money for an extra hour in the exhibit hall on Thursday morning. They're not there for demos. The VIGs are there for promos. Or to purchase games for which stock may be a bit low at the show.  So we didn't do any full demos until almost ten o'clock.

Which was fine, because we were working as a team to figure out who should cover what area of the demo room.

We didn't do what we've done in previous years, which was tie folks more-or-less to individual tables. I think we had more tables than people, but I'm honestly not sure. There sure are a lot of us this year.

We did discover a few holes in coverage - only two people in the booth, for example, know Hyperborea. And I'm apparently The Cyclades Guy. And - oddly - none of us seem to know Lewis and Clark.  But every single other game in the booth has at least three people who can teach it (and often more).

These holes, by the way, are part of why I was up at 5:00 AM local time (2:00 AM at home).  I'm reading rulebooks to cover these gaps.  I assume the crew went over Hyperborea in their hotel last night, but I'm not 100% sure.

I know there is gaming and such that goes on with the rest of the team that Steph and I miss out on by staying in a separate hotel, but we're also a lot more flexible for other things that may be going on in the convention center. And it means we can stay up late reading or be up early reading and studying.  In fact, I have just over three hours to study right now.

If we were staying with the rest of the crew, I'd have to be figuring out how I was getting to the convention center (which eats up time) and then travelling to the convention center (which eats up more time).

In past years (up until about two or three years ago), the rest of the crew was often either late or arriving just as the doors opened.  Staying separately means that at least someone was in the booth ready to stall paying customers and/or run demos until the rest of the crew arrived, too.  And there's still the possibility of bad traffic or no available parking for the rest of the team.

Once it got rolling, yesterday was busy.  Today is going to be busier. Tomorrow is Saturday, which is crazy-busy. Sunday starts to slack off a bit and then ends abruptly.

Sales of Abyss were good yesterday.  Good enough that I suspect we may sell out.  Desperadoes of Dice Town, by contrast, appears to have barely been noticed. Black Fleet and  Lady Ching are similarly-themed but are VERY different gameplay-wise.

It's amazing to me the breadth of games we have this year.  We have a bunch of lighter games (Desperadoes of Dice Town, Black Fleet, Romans Go Home, Concept, Ca$h 'n Guns), and we have some medium-weight games (Lady Ching, World of Tanks: Rush, Abyss, Cyclades). We really only have one heavy game in the booth (Hyperborea), but it's apparently on par with Eclipse or Nations in terms of complexity.  And those aren't the only games we have, either. There are a ton of really good games in the booth

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to dig back into Hyperborea.