I’m feeling a lot less tired than last night, so this post may be less terse than the last one ((My friend Sandy sent me e-mail to tell me I seemed tired from my last post. She worries about me.)).
According to what I hear, the attendance here is about 35,000, which is about 20% higher than last year. The dealer hall has been moved ((It has, in fact, been moved to the farthest part of the complex from our hotel, which was chosen because of its proximity to the previous dealer hall.)), and seems bigger, so the crowds seem a little thinner. At least, that’s my impression.
Anyway. Here’s a picture of our booth (711) before the hordes descended on us this year.
Things moved pretty quickly once the doors opened at 9:00 for the Very Important Gamers. I heard that Cubicle 7, who are sharing our island, were going to have a limited number of copies of The One Ring, so I ducked around the wall right at 9:00 and bought myself a copy. As you can see, it’s very pretty. I’m going to be reading it tonight.
I missed out on hitting the Fantasy Flight Games booth before the line got stupid long, so I’m going to have to try that tomorrow. I did manage to make it down to Pelgrane Press and speak with Robin Laws and Simon Rogers, both of whom said some nice things. I said some nice things to them, as well; I didn’t buy anything, because I’ve got all their current stuff already or preordered. I also finally got to meet Clark Valentine face-to-face, and that was nice. He came by as I was talking with Cam Banks at Margaret Weiss Productions, gushing about Cortex Plus, and we had a nice, geeky talk. Cam gave me a copy of an intro adventure for the Dragon Brigade game, which looks pretty cool, but was understandably tight-lipped about the big license announcement they’re making tomorrow ((“It’s not Star Wars,” he told me, grinning. Of course it’s not; FFG just announced that they have the license.)). Both Clark and Cam had some nice things to say about this blog, so thanks for that, guys.
I also tracked down Outrider, which company Rob Donoghue had mentioned on his blog, and grabbed their books. They are very nice people, and they’ve got a nice deal on at the con: both their games at $40, instead of $50, along with a nice d6 (the only die you need to play), and .pdf versions of the games. Stop by and check them out.
I didn’t make it down to IPR, mainly because I couldn’t find it. I’ve tracked down where it is, now, so I’m going to make it a point to get there tomorrow. I’d also like to get over to Games on Demand to try out Technoir.
Oh, and if you haven’t heard, Fiasco won the Diana Jones Award this year. It’s a well-deserved victory, though all the contenders were strong games. Congrats to Jason Morningstar and Steve Segedy at Bully Pulpit Games.
That’s about all I’ve got to say for today; I need to go find some food and then do some reading. I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of neat people who came by the booth.