The Meeple Mountain team is back in action on the tabletop convention circuit…this time in Indianapolis for Gen Con Indy 2024. Our team took on a different look for 2024’s visit–Justin made his fourth straight trip, Andy made his first trip in years, and our new team member Abram (a Gen Con veteran himself) joined the festivities as well.
Gen Con is all the way back, setting records with more than 70,000 attendees blah blah blah and selling out the show in advance for the first time ever. That meant the expo halls were packed, the hotels were packed, the food truck lines were packed, and the airport rideshare lines were packed as badly as maybe anything else. But that also means people were excited to come to Indy and see new games, and we will talk about some games for sure! (If you missed our pre-convention coverage of the 22 most anticipated games of the show, be sure to give that a look, too.)
In no particular order, here are some thoughts about Gen Con Indy 2024!
We’re Gonna Party Like I’m Not Staying for Gen Con (Andy)
It’s hard for me to make it to Gen Con. I’ve got 4 kids and school in Nashville starts just a few days after Gen Con which makes for a really tough situation. That said, I was fortunate enough to be at a family gathering just 2 hours south of Indianapolis on Wed before the main event. Even though I couldn’t attend Gen Con proper, I could still make it to all of the media parties the night before for my favorite part of conventions—meeting people (old friends and new).
I arrived at 4pm and hopped from the Asmodee press demo, to having drinks with David Chircop of Mighty Boards, then crashed the Allplay party where they were celebrating the highly anticipated release of River Valley Glassworks (complete with costumes and custom made dresses). Then we moved on to the Lucky Duck party, and finally closed out the night with the Hachette team. Then it was off for my 2 hour drive home, and even though I was tired my mind was alight with all the great people I got to spend time with.
Shout outs to Monique & Naveen from Before You Play, Jenna from Board Game Garden, Dale Yu from The Opinionated Gamers (written content for the win), Paula Deming from Things Get Dicey and Watch it Played, Amy & Maggie from ThinkerThemer, Dan King (The Game Boy Geek), my boys Ben Pinchback & Matt Riddle of French Quarter, Three Sisters, and Fleet: The Dice Game fame, David Chircop (an incredibly nice guy), Beneeta Kaur, Kasey (Brain in a Jar), the Hachette Games US crew (T. Caires, Lindsay, and Jason), the marketing team at Flat River (Danni, Twuana, Olivia, Katie, Matt), and many more. And of course finally getting a chance to meet one of our newest team members, Abram Towle.
This Year at Gen Con, Thursday “Felt Like a Saturday” (Justin)
I always think the crowds at Gen Con align this way: busiest on a Saturday, then Thursday, then Friday, then Sunday. In part, that’s because the overall volume on the expo hall floor is nasty on a Saturday, but on Thursday, it feels close to that because there are so many people trying to bust down the doors when they open at 10 AM in order to secure one of the very limited copies of the game they have dreamed about for months.
This year, more than a dozen people—often, unprompted—complained to me about the sheer volume of people on the show floor on Thursday, using the exact same line: “Thursday felt like a Saturday.” I was one of those people complaining! In a strange twist, we found that Saturday was quiet this year, at least when comparing Gen Con Saturdays past and present.
Landmarks Gives Codenames New Direction (Abram)
I hadn’t really given Landmarks much of a second thought when planning out my trip to Indy, but on Saturday night our group sat down in The Nest-gaming areas hosted by Magpie Games in the Hyatt-with a copy of Landmarks borrowed from a friend. Codenames is a game that hasn’t hit my table in years, whereas it used to easily fill that “gateway game” slot. Landmarks completely replaces that game for me now. The focus is centered around clue-giving for a handful of starting words using dry-erase hex tiles as the Pathfinder hopes to guide the group across the map to find amazing treasures.
By adding in this objective mechanic, Landmarks feels much less abstract and also gives a lot more autonomy around the order in which you give clues. Do you want to try and lead the group around all of the Traps and Curses or is it worth taking an early hit to utilize a shortcut? The dwindling pile of tiles that represent your water supply is a very satisfying clock that prompts action and urgency, reminiscent of games like Forbidden Island.
And it prompted a rare purchase from me, which is really saying something!
Task Team Might Be My Gaming Moment of the Year (Justin)
Nowadays, the Wednesday night before Gen Con serves as the night when many larger distributors and publishers host parties for the media. This year was no different, with events held by our friends at Asmodee, Hachette, Lucky Duck and Allplay. The Hachette party is always best for me because it is the last one of the night, and has featured lots of yelling (thanks to T. Caires, Hachette’s US sales director), drinks, and actual game playing.
I joined a small crew that included Jenna from Board Game Garden, Ilya and Tylor from Kovray Studios, Naveen from Before You Play, and Jay from Bezier Games to play Task Team, a party game that has an interesting history: it’s 25 years old, but was previously only available in France until this year, when a version was released in the US. My first play of it before the show was only OK, but this time, with eight players who clearly love party games, it was my single favorite gaming experience of the year. If you have a group silly enough to try all the shenanigans in the box, I highly recommend purchasing Task Team at your earliest convenience…we played Task Team for almost 90 minutes AFTER the game was already over. What a great time!
Signing Up for Events Early is King (Abram)
Gen Con has countless events and there really is something for everyone, from cosplay panels to board game demos to entertaining live shows. Most (read: all) of these events require you to sign up and secure your spot ahead of time through the ticketing system. These events sell out incredibly quickly when the Event Catalog goes live, so having them queued up in your wishlist is key to getting some events penned into the calendar.
In talking with several people, there are still many who don’t realize the importance of signing up for these events in advance. This is especially important for some demos; I doubt I’d have been able to get a hands-on demo of Arcs without getting it squared away ahead of time. If you’re going to the convention for the first time, I don’t recommend filling up every waking moment with events, but doing a bit of research ahead of time to try and snag a few premium events is a smart idea.
“That’s Right, You’re That Writer” (Justin)
Anonymity is beautiful, especially when no one stops you (mobs you?) because you are a famous TikTik/YouTube tabletop personality. And nothing is more true than when I move through the shadows of that anonymity at a show where I can’t afford to be stopped because I was dumb enough to try and pack 34 meetings into a single weekend.
But that anonymity extends into our content creator community, most of whom I have to essentially reintroduce myself to at every show. “Ahh, yeah, Meeple Mountain…that’s right, you’re that writer!” became a very common response to meeting me from time to time over the weekend. I’m cool with this, because I’m not looking to become a superstar who hosts a fan night at a tabletop convention…but I do love seeing my friends in this space. Being a writer has a lot of benefits, and I’m surprised how happy I am each time a fan stops one of my media friends to say how much they love their YouTube/TikTok content while ignoring me completely.
That Expansion Can’t Come Soon Enough (Abram)
Gen Con attendance broke its record again-to nobody’s surprise-but that means the convention hall was more packed than ever. Hotel room availability and space have remained largely stagnant, and it really is beginning to take its toll and be even more pronounced each year. Luckily, ground was broken on a convention center expansion that will add an extra 800 hotel rooms and 143,000 square feet of space. This seems like a drop in the bucket, but it will be a much-appreciated mini release valve for a center that is bursting at the seams.
What remains is still a place that struggles with providing enough gaming tables to support the influx of gamers. Add in a blink-182 concert and I’m surprised that downtown Indy could handle it all. It’s often a welcomed relief to walk a few blocks away from the convention center and away from the intense congestion created by the 70k+ attendees. It’s a necessary mental break before heading back and submerging yourself in the Best Four Days of Gaming.
Sales Were Outrageous (Justin)
There was a major upside to the big crowds on Thursday: massive sales numbers.
“Thursday was our single biggest day of sales at Gen Con in our team’s history.” This line, shared by a publisher I saw at the Panda Manufacturing party on Friday night (thanks, Jennifer and Ben!), was not the only time I heard someone talking about how outrageously great sales were at this show. And a lot of my friends also spent tons of cash buying games at Gen Con this year.
Look, I’m the first to say it—I don’t buy games at shows, because the prices are often higher than retail and then I have to carry those games around for hours on a crowded show floor before walking them 10-15 minutes back to a hotel room. I am lazy, and that is a turnoff. But I get that many people like securing that treasure and whipping that same treasure out the same day it was purchased.
Don’t Forget About Those Who Came Before (Abram)
Whenever Gen Con rolls around-and any convention for that matter-people always get caught up in the hot, new releases. With so many games coming out each year, it’s important to remember that the hotness doesn’t discount or nullify games that were hyped in previous years. I was able to finally get a game of Mistwind in this year, which was a highly lauded title that was only available to fawn over last year while waiting for Kickstarter. And wow, it was really great.
I’ve been able to see some fantastic games this year, including Spotlight, Cities, Rock Hard 1977, and while it’s really wonderful to be swept off your feet by the cult of the new, there’s no way that I can actually keep track of every game hitting the shelves. I’m always pleasantly surprised when I ask an exhibitor about a game’s release and find out that it actually came out years ago. It just goes to show that good games don’t only need to be found in the here and the now.
Jackie Fox is Pretty Cool (Justin)
Rock Hard 1977 was the most “thumbed” game in BGG’s 2024 Gen Con Preview, beating out games that I thought were even hotter, such as Arcs, SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Galactic Cruise. In part, that’s the magic of Devir right now, the only publisher that had two games in the top 10 hottest games pre-show (the other being Cities, the newest from Phil Walker-Harding and Biblios designer Steve Finn).
Rock Hard 1977 was also hot, in part, to designer Jackie Fox, who made appearances seemingly everywhere during the show and at the Devir event room. Fox was game for anything and that was true even before the show, providing a “designer diary” on BGG that showcased the fact that Jackie is not only a former actual rockstar but a legitimate gamer. While I have not tried the game myself, it’s been interesting to watch a new designer garner this much buzz, and I’m hoping to have a review of Rock Hard 1977 ready later this fall.
The Pandemic Guy Now Has a Dexterity Game (Justin)
Beneeta Kaur, a friend of the team who has found great success as both an influencer and a marketing rep currently at Friendly Skeleton, hooked me up with a play session of their new dexterity sci-fi theme game Flickering Stars, co-designed by Josh Cappel (In Too Deep) and none other than Matt Leacock, the man behind tabletop classics such as Forbidden Island, Era: Medieval Age, 2024 Kennerspiel des Jahres winner Daybreak, and of course Pandemic and its many iterations.
The best part of our play session? Leacock himself was on hand to teach the game.
Flickering Stars has a very approachable concept, with three scenarios that slowly introduce various elements of play by offering a bite-sized version that features players flicking ships to planets to pick up people and small magnet-powered cannons that can be used to shoot at other players. The first scenario took all of 15 minutes to teach and finish, then we got to see the second scenario which added more ships and different options to extend turns by picking up goods that offer bonus actions.
It’s always tough to tell how good anything is when a legitimate gaming superstar teaches you a game…but, as folks will tell you, I love a good dexterity game, so I’m very excited to play Flickering Stars a bit more when it releases later this year.
“So Nice to Finally Meet You” (Abram)
Writing in the tabletop space accompanies a bunch of communication with amazing folks, including publishers, marketing specialists, content creators, other writers, and more. Most of my interaction with people is in the form of short-form social media posts or email, neither of which are really known for being suitable replacements for face-to-face conversation.
Generally speaking, Gen Con is the one convention that I attend every year, and so being able to finally have actual conversations with people that I’ve only interacted with digitally is something I really look forward to. The energy of the convention is infectious and fills all attendees with the same abundance of enthusiasm. Every year I continue to meet people that I’ve known for years, but for the first time in-person. Nothing beats it.
Hear hear! (Andy)
I’ve been running Meeple Mountain since 2015 and I’ve still only met a handful of the team who don’t live in Nashville (where Meeple Mountain is based). So any time I get a chance to spend time with my team, I take it. Hopefully I’ll get to do this more often as my kids get older.
Rebel Princess is Legit (Justin)
Bézier Games is pushing aggressively into the card game space in 2024, mirroring what some other publishers are doing to ride the trick-taking wave while looking at products that are a bit easier to push into the marketplace. While Xylotar and Seers Catalog are getting a lot of buzz, don’t sleep on Rebel Princess, a game that is getting the Cat in the Box-style “deluxe” treatment from Bézier thanks to the new edition of the game originally published by Zombi Paella last year.
Fans of Hearts and/or Spades will feel at home with the initial rules…at least, until Rebel Princess flips those rules upside-down then adds a series of new rules each round (plus once-per-round player powers) that make each round spicy. I did a five-player game with friends one night during the convention and had to admit that the game won me over with a variety of hilarious, over-the-top moments that power the gameplay. I don’t think this would work with three players (functionally it would be fine, but the tension just won’t be the same with a smaller player count), so I’m looking forward to trying this one with other players.
Board Game TED Talks Are the Best (Abram)
Communicating dense swathes of information to a room full of gamers can be a challenge. Oftentimes, each table or pair is assigned a person to run through the rules and conduct the teach. However, with a room with 15 games running simultaneously, the spiel can get muddled and the room gets loud before play even begins.
During our demo for Arcs, Sam from Lord of the Board and de facto Leder Games expert gave the entire room a well-organized, succinct rules overview complete with easel, large printed sheets, and personal mic. I felt like he was going to be fielding questions about the game and promoting a self-help book as a Keynote address. It worked out so well because then the other Leder Games mentors were patrolling the tables to answer questions as we dove in. Best demo experience I’ve had.
“No, No, It’s Cool–Mail It” (Justin)
One thing you have to be careful of as a tabletop media member: picking up too many games at a convention. Between scheduled meetings, evening parties, and run-ins with designers who offer copies of their newest games, you can end up with 30-50 games in your possession pretty quickly. (This year, I ended up with 39, although many of those were gifts and/or games I won’t be covering on the site.)
Gen Con 2024 was the first show where I finally put my foot down and began asking partners to mail review samples where possible. That will ultimately delay some of our coverage but I’m finding that it is beneficial for all parties to spread out the coverage of the hottest games, rather than only covering them as a blitz when a game first hits retail or fulfills with backers. And, it means that I got all my Gen Con pickups into a couple suitcases.
Starfinder 2E Makes First Edition Feel Like The Real Playtest (Abram)
Paizo’s takeover of the Sagamore Ballroom each year is always my first stop, if for nothing else but to take in the gigantic banners of the iconic characters that line the perimeter. I slotted in a session of the Starfinder 2E Playtest to see how the game felt now that Paizo is bringing everything under the core Pathfinder 2E umbrella. To put it simply: it’s much better. I’m always willing to go to bat for Starfinder despite its general feeling of clunkiness and confusing starship combat, but with that iteration slowly becoming a distant blip in the rear view window of the starship, I can confidently say that I’m ready for 2E.
The 3 Action economy has become something of a second nature now, for Pathfinder fans. and the abilities of all the iconics at our table fit in quite comfortably as we investigated the cause of the shattered shield protecting a lush planet. I played as the iconic Mystic, Chk Chk, and had no problem going from zero Starfinder 2E rules knowledge to blasting off void damage like I was born with it. The benefits of having a core rules foundation limits the cognitive load of playing a “new” system immensely and the reception seems to be vastly positive. There’s no starship combat yet; apparently that’s a beast that needs more taming.
A Note About Mindclash (Justin)
As usual, I spent some time with the team at Mindclash, including my man Robert Pratt (one half of the greatest rulebook writing and proofreading duo in the industry IMHO) and Soma Gal, the marketing lead for the Mindclash team.
Here’s all I can say—next year is Mindclash’s 10-year anniversary. It may be worth keeping an eye on their release plans for 2025.
Two Words: Del Frisco’s (Justin)
After almost four days’ worth of eating chips, granola bars, Ricola lemon lozenges and cookies that masqueraded as my meal plan during the show, I decided to up my game and grab a nice meal at one of the steakhouses near the Indiana Convention Center.
In a weird stroke of luck, a brand new Del Frisco’s opened two blocks from my hotel just in time for Gen Con, so an industry friend and I snagged a table and split a steak. (For those who dine at the Steak n Shake near Indiana Convention Center during the show, please note that the steak at Del Frisco’s is a little better than the ones at Steak n Shake.) Man, it was great to eat a decent meal—with vegetables!!—after pounding so much junk food the first few days of the event.
Sunday, I Played Some Games! (Justin)
I left my Sunday schedule completely open to play games, and I did partial plays of a number of titles to see what all the hype was about on the show floor.
A few plays left me very impressed, starting with Landmarks, which Abram has highlighted as a “Codenames on a map” clone that does great things with cluegiving, a board, and an incredible amount of variety built into the box. Trekking the World (Second Edition) was exceptional as a family-weight move-and-grab travel game that has apparently received a rules overhaul for this new edition. (I’ve only played the new version.) I had fun with Word Traveler, another word association game from Office Dog that will be distributed by Asmodee.
I was less impressed with the brief overviews I got on Faraway (a finalist for one of the awards given at this year’s Festival International des Jeux) and Charcuterie, so I am hoping to get more plays of those games a bit later.
Pirate Borg is Buried Treasure (Abram)
Even though I’m busy enough with my weekly Pathfinder game, my group has been known to switch gears to try new systems and play through one-shots to see what else is out there in the tabletop roleplaying space. Mörk Borg is on our short list, but I’m giving it the bump for the Pirate Borg hack published by Limithron. It’s fully contained within the single book, including a little adventure to close it all off.
The art and layout of this delightful bit of plunder is phenomenal, luring potential RPGers in with its siren song (with great effect). For me, however, an even bigger draw was the Foundry VTT implementation, which is my preferred virtual tabletop environment considering that our games are primarily remote. I can’t wait to hit the high seas and belt out the high C Sharps as a First Mate on a bring galleon.
Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza: The Book (Justin)
Here’s how well things are going for the team behind the world’s best card party game: now, there’s also a book.
Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza and The Case of the Missing Hat is a published book. Yes, designer Dave Campbell and the Dolphin Hat team have given the world a freakin’ book, and I have to admit that my kids love that this is a thing. (I do too.) I’m always amazed when I meet people who have never played Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza given the millions of copies the game has sold, but that just gives me another opportunity to whip this one out.
Living for the Live Shows (Abram)
Another opportunity that Gen Con affords its attendees is the improved accessibility to live shows in the tabletop roleplaying game space. Many channels, podcasts, and networks often will take advantage of the concentration of fans (and potential fans), putting on some kind of ticketed event for entertainment purposes. After burning your brain on board game hotness and walking around the vendor hall all day, being able to kick back and share a few laughs is just what the doctor ordered.
It’s become a routine for me to make sure I get tickets for Glass Cannon Live, which is always on Thursday night at Helium Comedy Club. It’s a playthrough of Paizo’s Strange Aeons Adventure Path that’s been ongoing for many years at this point. There’s a certain kind of magic to be in the crowd with superfans on the first night of Gen Con that sends day one off with a bang while still energizing me for the rest of the weekend. If you can find live shows for your favorite entertainers, I highly recommend looking into that opportunity.
Bagged & Boarded is Still Great (Justin)
I met up with Nick McCollum, the designer of Brick & Mortar and the head of Octoraffe Games. He showed me the most up-to-date prototype of Octoraffe’s next big game, Bagged & Boarded, which I played a couple years ago at another convention with the game’s designer, Tyler Mayes. It still works, it’s got a nicer-looking board, the card art is solid, and the game still plays fast. (Apparently, of the nearly 150 plays Nick and his wife Natalie have completed, I was a part of the fastest demo on record, at just under 40 minutes.)
The Shut Up & Sit Down gang thought Bagged & Boarded was their game of the show at UK Games Expo a couple years ago (they, like me, played the prototype back in 2022), so I am excited to see what others think as the game gets closer to release via crowdfunding. The game does a lot of things right and has the economic tension that works so well in Brick & Mortar. Keep this one on your radar folks!
“It’s Cool, It’s Day Four” (Justin)
No matter how excited I get for Gen Con each year, I always forget how tired I get by the end of four days of crowds, four days of talking over those crowds, four nights of parties, and maybe (in a parallel universe) four days of gaming.
But my feet told me that by the afternoon of the fourth day, it was time to go home.
“It’s cool, it’s day four” became a common response to my interactions with demo staff—many of whom were hoarse as all get-out—marketing leads and publishers who mostly looked like they were all tapped out. All of us get joy from being a part of this space, but there’s only so much energy one can throw at the public after long days at a convention, and Gen Con is no different.
With that said, a big thank you to all our partners for putting on such a great show. And as someone who usually finds ways to complain about certain aspects of the big shows, I thought Gen Con 2024 operated without any major bumps (certainly nothing like the shenanigans that included people being trampled during points of the Disney Lorcana release last year) and that in and of itself is a huge win.
Our team is looking forward to heading back to the show in 2025. We’d love to hear about your favorite convention moments in the comments below!
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