Gen Con Day 1 Highlights

Playtested the still-in-development Marvel TCG from Upper Deck—extremely simple game play, with cards belonging to one of five teams (Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic 4, Marvel Knights, or Villains).

New Pathfinder RPG products on sale at the Paizo booth included the Core Rulebook (“limit 6 per customer”), Tome of Secrets (from Adamant Entertainment), Council of Thieves: The Bastards of Erebus (first adventure path book), Crypt of Everflame (standalone adventure) and matching Game Mastery Flip-mat, and Bonus Bestiary (preview of the upcoming monster book).

Arcane Legions for sale, though still not in stores for another month.

A WizKids Heroclix booth—small, off on the side, and quiet.

Fantasy Flight Games displaying three empty black boxes to show that they will be producing new big box games this coming year. Meanwhile, new releases at the booth included Battlestar Galactica: Pegasus expansion, Ad Astra, BattleLore Heroes, Chaos in the Old World, Rogue Trader, Penny Arcade Card Game, and Middle Earth Quest.

AEG’s got some nice new board games, including the fun and light Abandon Ship (Reiner Knizia rescues rats) and Monkey Lab (favorite demo quote: “That moves Murray,” the inept security guard).

John Wick’s The Shotgun Diaries zombie horror game—if you use the fear die from your pool to succeed, you must do it by abandoning the party and protecting yourself.

A seminar on how to submit products to mass-market game publishers by Ben Clark (game printer), Mike Gray (Director of Acquisitions for Hasbro), and Richard Borg (game designer).

Good shoes are an important accessory for a pleasant convention experience:

• Zachary Houghton of RPG Blog II—”My beat up old Nike’s.”
• John Wick, RPG designer—”Generic Chuck Taylors with the tag still on because I paid for it.”
• Munchkin from Steve Jackson Games—clowny things with curved spikes.
• Derk Solko of Board Game Geek/Geekdo—Merrells.