| Strategicon

Yeah, it was a mixed bag of craziness. Was fun just doing some random small gaming and signing up for events. Should come out. Just fyi, they moved back to the Radisson, aka wyndham aka hyatt from Westin around 5 years ago. The Radisson is really nice though. Some elements of the con

Game design competition hosted by Labs:
Open gaming seemed crowded but was decieving because they also consolidated, miniatures, open gaming, and boardgaming. The trend this time around was a "Game design" competition with a panel of professional industry judges/testers which brought out a lot of home brewed games littered with paper chits and maps. I met some interesting game design professionals, including an old friend who founded a consulting company for publishing games. I also met a graphic director from the Art Institute of Gaming, that taught 3D graphics modeling, art design etc. This might be good if I actually tried to publish my game. But after seeing the game design competition, it's no wonder why 99.9% of most games fail. Just the INCREDIBLE amount of game concepts/inventors ther are out there in the works. (The girls were nice too)

Dealer room:
Dead. There were 2 major booths, the rest were displays. most just couldn't compete with online pricing, which diminishes the spending value of the dealer dollars

Notable new games:

I saw this game demoed Excilis - Have you seen this rude? was better in person. Half computer simulated events (die rolling, combat) which saves time, and half miniatures for movement.

Thunderstone - Imperial was the first of this type of 500 card based game. Won the 2009 game of the year. Imperials a conquest type game, but Thunderstone is a Role playing game/adventure party type variant utilizing the same 500 card progression system.