Indie Games On Demand at Gencon Oz 2009

Do you like indie games?

Are you undecided about going to Gencon Oz 2009?

I have good news for you! With some other indie-minded GMs, the indie games on demand event will run on Friday and Saturday of the con. We were booked solid last year, running as the indie games explosion, so make sure you register early.

And to whet your appettite, go and see the indie games on demand event site. Go see it now!

Indie Games Hoedown

I'm musing over names for the indie games event for Gencon this year.  Indie Games Explosion is a great title, but what we do here is different to the IGE in America.  We could try for Games on Demand, but I really want the word "indie" in the title.

Indie Games On Demand?  Then it's the Indie GOD.  Hmm.  We could finally have justification for the totem pole at the event.

An indie summary of Gencon Oz

The first Gencon Oz was, for indie games, a good experience. We had games from Australian designers being launched, we had seminars on indie game play and design, and we had full registrations for all tables of the Indie Games Explosion. Best of all, the organisers are enthusiastic about our contribution and are keen to give us more space for larger events in 2009.

And now for some details.

Seminars
There were two seminars for indie games across the four days. The first was on Thursday night, with a panel of Nathan Russell, Michael Wenman and Robin Laws (and I got to be MC for this illustrious group) and the topic was "Steal This Trick - The indie games you should play at least once". For an hour the panelists spoke on the topic and took questions from the audience.

The second one was in the last day of the con, and wasn't actually advertised in the programme, but we still managed to get people to come. It was intended to be a session on indie game design, primarily with the guys who were launching games, but we turned it into a Game Design Roundtable as was done at Dreamation. Two games were thrown on the table and dissected by the assembled group. Both of the designers set themselves goals to have ashcans ready in six months, in time for Melbourne's Arcanacon.

Indie Games Launched
Michael Wenman came up from Sydney to launch The Eighth Sea, his game about time-travelling pirates with a penchant for making money from temporal disturbances. He ran two or three sessions every day, and was fully booked (and over booked!) for each one. The pre-orders list grew quite well, I hear.

Nathan Russell decided to only run his game - Space Rat - through the IGE, and was handsomely rewarded. I sat in on an hour of one session and enjoyed it immensely. Due to a delay in printing from Lulu he didn't have any product to sell, but he handed out stacks of postcards and flyers. He generously left me with one of his few pre-release copies to add to my library. Thanks, Nathan!

Indie Games Explosion
According to the registration table, all sessions were fully booked and even though about 10-20% didn't turn up, we had gamer after gamer approaching us and ask about empty spaces at the table. We estimate that about half of them had never heard of any of the games, and were still keen to play. We also estimate that about two-thirds finished the games and asked, "Where can I buy this game?" Unfortunately, the only thing we could do was point them to the IPR online store. We hadn't really expected people to try and buy these games from us, but they were keen. I would have loved to point them towards one of the retailers, but none of them were carrying indie stock either.

In short, the indie gamer crowd had more demand than supply and the organisers noticed. I suspect that we left our mark partially through the registration database and partially through the periodic visits from Robin Laws, Peter Adkison and the Gencon staff. I need to give a big thank you to Scott Vandervalk, Nathan Russell and Michael Wenman for bringing content to the con. I also need to point out the great support from Peter Ball and the rest of the con organisers for squeezing a non-standard event into the programme.

And now... go plan the next one.

Editorial Addition
In my original post, I forgot to thank the folks who came to the round table. Thanks to Scott V, Louise, Lon, Michael (and his wife), Craig and Danica. We'll do it again next year.

Halftime at Gencon

So it's halfway through Gencon and I have to say that the con is exceeding my expectations in almost every way. The gaming has been great, but the best thing has been the response to the Indie Games Explosion. When internet pre-registrations closed (the Monday morning before the con) we had 47 places left from our 90 places available. At that point I thought we would have a lot of flexibility, and perhaps half-full sessions that we could use to run games that were more focused on a smaller number of characters. The reality, after just one day, is that we have had every table of every session full. Even overflowing at least once. I couldn't have expected it. Over and above this, I heard yesterday that all our sessions for today (Saturday) are full already, and that we might be offering one final session on Sunday. It's not in the programme right now, but at this stage anything seems possible.

This is largely due to the great work by Peter Ball. He looks tired, but he is still happy and works hard to make it all happen. I'm glad he's involved in this because he's supportive, helpful and friendly. Great work, Peter.

To close, I'm going to give a very quick summary of what I've been up to so far.

Thursday
- Met Nathan Russell in person for the first time. And from that point, I met a bunch of people from the Newcastle gaming scene, and frequenters of Imbercorvus.
- Bought some Campaign Coins. Wow. These things are great. They have good heft and are already in use for my Don't Rest Your Head games.
- Played a demo of Heroclix, and was soundly beaten by my friend Mat. 3-0. Ack! He's a great tactical player who didn't even use one of his minis.
- Played a game (or part of a game) of Cleopatra. This looks like an interesting strategy game and it has some great supporting plasticware for game pieces.
- Hosted (was MC of...) the Steal This Trick seminar, with Robin Laws, Nathan Russell and Michael Wenman. This was a great seminar, with about 30-40 people.
- Had dinner with Robin Laws. He's a great guy with interesting things to say on a wide range of topics. My only regret was the "Vietnamese" restaurant we chose wasn't all that Vietnamese. Ah well.

Friday
- First session of the IGE: I played Spirit of the Century with a great group. That adds 6 to my count of new people to game with. Some of these guys had played SOTC before, and most were from Brisbane. If I can find my notes from the game, I'll add their names.
- Second session of the IGE: 80% of the group demanded Don't Rest Your Head. So that's what we played. I don't feel that it was my best game, but the last hour of game play was pretty good, and I especially like the epilogues that the players created to close off the session. Fantastic.
- Played Grey Ranks with Peter Adkison, Robin Laws and Luke (no surname, just like Prince and Madonna). This was shakey at first, but after the first round of learning, the second and third rounds were fantastic. I hadn't played it before, but now I want to play it again. I also have to say that Robin is a great gamer, showing great rhythm between silence and speaking, between plot development and plot resolution. I learnt a lot. Thanks Robin!

And now... time to embrace Saturday at Gencon. See you there.

Where to find me at Gencon

So, if you're looking for me at Gencon, this is my schedule so far.

Thursday
6pm Steal This Trick. I'm the MC for this seminar, featuring Michael Wenman, Nathan Russell and Robin D. Laws.

Friday
10am Indie Games Explosion
2pm Indie Games Explosion
6pm Indie Games Explosion

Saturday
10am Indie Games Explosion
2pm Indie Games Explosion
6pm Indie Games Explosion

Sunday
9am Robin's Laws of Gamemastery
4pm An untitled seminar on game development


And that's it! I've left some good space in there to wander the floor and chat with passersby, but mostly it's about the games. Let's roll them bones.

IGE Games List

And the list of games for the IGE just keeps growing! This is where we're at right now, and I'm still waiting for the other few GMs to say what they're going to offer.

Primetime Adventures
Dust Devils
Cold City
With Great Power
Hero's Journey
Spirit of the Century
Don't Rest Your Head
Agon
Nobles - (yes, a playtest session for my own game!)
InSpectres
Og
Vs Monsters / Vs Outlaws
Space Rat

The Gencon Oz schedule is up!

The Gencon Oz schedule is up and the Indie Games Explosion is there. Get yourselves some tickets now and play the best games you never knew existed.

The other Secret Project (tm) is not yet up. I'll let you know when the cat is allowed to come out of the bag. Until then, the cat stays there.

American Convention Season

I see that the American Summer convention season has started with GTS. Everything's starting with a bang. IPR is well represented - thankfully - with a booth. Check out Fred Hicks' blog for a great photo of it.

My plan is to make use of Gencon this year to get a sense for others who are interested in my style of gaming. And by "my style" I mean the short-run games with a handful of sessions, based around different kinds of stories and different kinds of mechanics. So Gencon will be about a lot of networking with other GMs and game stores. When I can find a good venue, we'll kick it off.

Indie Games at GenCon Oz

I feel quite encouraged by the folks organising GenCon Australia. They seem to be quite responsive to the efforts of a few of us indie games folks and are coming up with ways for us to promote indie games (ours, and others). I can't give out details at this stage, but I can say that I'm keen for it and that if you're looking for indie game events, either as a player or a developer, then there will be plenty of opportunities for you at the con.

Make sure you drop by the tables.

The Event Is In!

Indie Games Explosion has been submitted to GenConOz. I'm thrilled! We won't be the only ones running independent games there, but that's the point. We want to be part of it, making the games happen and increasing exposure for the talented and creative types out there who have invested so much into creating these great games.

GenCon Oz Publicity

There are only five months to go until GenCon Australia becomes real. I don't think I can convey just how excited I am about this. The chance to play games with such a wide range of people is something I can only imagine.

With that in mind there are a two things to say about it. The first is that the previous name of "Games On Demand" has been dropped and instead we're going with Indie Games Explosion. Since we're going to model the event after an existing event in the US GenCon, we may as well steal the name too.

The second item to pass on to you is that we're starting to raise the profile of the IGE on various message boards. Take a look around the usual places for indie games and you'll get more details about it. You'll also see the same details here, so if you're lazy you can just check back here.

See you at GenCon!