BGG.con runs from Thursday to Sunday at the Westin hotel at DFW airport. Setup and unofficial gaming took place today, Wednesday. Like all previous years, the number of attendees is up (900 this year), and many hopefuls had to be turned away. BGG.con is organized by Aldie, Derk, and co of Board Game Geek, the Internet’s largest social site for table top gaming, as well as the largest database of table top game information.

BGG.con offers a few scheduled gaming events and tournaments, as well as vendor sales and giveaways. There is an area dedicated to designers and their prototypes. It’s primary focus is on open gaming. Aldie has amassed a vast library of games – in the thousands – that he makes available, and many other people bring games they want to play or trade. Finding a group to play with is easy; finding a group to play a specific game is somewhat harder, unless it’s a fresh copy of a newly-released game.

This is my third BGG.con; I also attended years 1 and 3. My travel adventures are often beset with trials and tales; this year was relatively smooth until I hit DFW airport: I waited nearly two hours for the courtesy van from Days Inn. They claimed that they sent a guy twice and he couldn’t find me, but I can assure you that the person was not looking in the right place. They finally sent a different driver who had no trouble finding me (the designated courtesy van pickup spot in terminal B, and no one else was anywhere near me).

This year, like year three, a game I created for the con will be included in the goody bag handed out to all participants. Similar to the previous effort, it’s a 900 player simultaneous social trading game: players trade and collect cards, and hand in up to five of them to me before a certain time on Saturday night. The highest score(s) will win some as yet unnamed prizes. This year’s game is wizard-themed and essentially one big information puzzle. I’m expecting it to be somewhat easier than the last game (I’m afraid it might be too easy).

I’m looking forward to playing a bunch of newer games to decide if I want to buy them, playing a bunch of older games that I don’t often get to play at my game group, and meeting a whole lot of great people, many of whom I’ve met previously.

I arrived early and help set up, and then I played a number of games.

Here are some pictures from prep day.

Games I played