As usual, we had a car full as we set off for Indianapolis! Lillian made the trip with us this year for her first Gen Con ever.

As is our custom on long road trips, we broke out Cow, Tiger, Santa Claus from Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback! Nobody won this round since we never saw a clown – but maybe that was a good thing.

The tradition continues! We always stop off in Nitro, West Virginia to visit the Balzout World Headquarters. Not only is it the halfway point to Gen Con, it also helps us to have a hardcore day.

This was a good omen.

Part of the joy and majesty of Gen Con for me is the long process of setting up the booth in the exhibit hall. Thankfully, we have awesome people like Matthew, Jodie, Jenn, and Craig who know what they’re doing and I don’t have to work very hard.

Another fun tradition is the Geek All-Stars meetup on Wednesday nights. This year we met at the Yardhouse for drinks and some dexterity games. Here, Jake Bock from Draft Mechanic and Lillian took me on in Bonk, which is an insane dex game where you fling steel balls all over the place.

Day 1 was crazy, as usual, with the annual Running of the Bulls. The GTG booth was swamped for most of Thursday!

This was the theme of the con, as we had to limit daily sales of Spirit Island. We eventually sold out of it completely, along with Lazer Ryderz, and only had a handful of Fate of the Elder Gods left by the end of the show.

Speaking of Lazer Ryderz, this guys tat was awesome! He had gotten it years before and when he saw Phantom Cosmonaut he just had to have the game.

Richard Launius, Darrell, and I spent Thursday morning signing copies of Fate of the Elder Gods for people, as well as 90 of them for the Elder God level Kickstarter backers.

Thursday night we had a big Greater Than Games launch party with free booze and lots of news about our current and upcoming releases! Here I’m sharing all about Legends of Sleepy Hollow, hitting Kickstarter on Oct. 16th!

One of the most ridiculous booths (and games) at Gen Con was Upper Deck’s Shark Island, complete with beach music, a lifeguard shack, and cabanas!

Phil freaking Foglio!

Part of my ongoing Faces of Boardgaming series – Rick Schrand of Tasty Minstrel Games.

The legendary David MacKenzie of Daily Magic Games!

Ben Harkins of Floodgate Games.

Emily Tinawi, making the Floodgate Games booth brighter.

The uber-talented Kwanchai Moriya!

Brandon Nall of Brawling Bros. podcast (working the Inside Up Games booth).

A.J. Porfirio, head of Van Ryder Games!

Nicole Klein and Anthony Amato, designers of Resistor and Lazer Ryderz.

Bruce Voge, drumming up business for North Star Games.

Dominic Crapuchettes, the man behind North Star Games.

Heather Newton, marketer extraordinaire, selling tons of copies in the Grand Gamers Guild booth.

Jonathan Chaffer, designer of Stroop!

Sriraman Subbaraman, one of the co-designers of the awesome Phoenix Covenant.

It took over a year, but I finally got to sit down and demo Menu Masters with the one and only Chris Leder from Calliope Games!

The Bottom of the 9th digital app released at Gen Con, and here we see Guise and Setback, two stars of the Sentinels of the 9th expansion pack, drumming up business at the GTG costume contest.

Richard Launius pops in to help with the taunting in a game of Fate of the Elder Gods. One of the players had three curses on him – not surprising since Bokrug was in the game!

Here’s Ben Pinchback and Matt Riddle guiding Robb and Cristina Rouse of the Blue Peg, Pink Peg podcast through the first chapter of Legends of Sleepy Hollow!

The adventurers after the first chapter of Legends of Sleepy Hollow.

After the game with Robb and Cristina, Matt, Ben and I headed upstairs to record some video testimonials for the upcoming Legends of Sleepy Hollow Kickstarter – coming Oct. 16th!

Wasteland Express Delivery Service designed by Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback! I got a chance to play this at the show and it is totally awesome!

This is from my play of Wasteland Express Delivery Service with Lillian and Daniel Newman. I lost miserably, but I still had so much fun.

I found Waldo.

The very last copy of Lazer Ryderz at the show!

W. Eric Martin doing his thing interviewing Bruno Cathala about all sorts of upcoming titles.

Everybody was losing their minds about Star Wars: Legions from Fantasy Flight. The game is a tactical skirmish miniatures game and I can’t say I blame everyone for being excited. It looks phenomenal.

More Star Wars: Legions.

Even more Star Wars: Legions.

Awesome miniature terrain!

More awesome minis.

Even more awesome minis from the Walking Dead minis game.

I love miniature displays like this, and they are all over Gen Con.

Giant Santorini!

Rising Sun from CMON Games!

An artsy fartsy shot of dice at the Koplow booth.

The Gaia Project. I have absolutely no idea what this is.

It’s nice to know that Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition will leave just as big a mess after the game as Third Edition.

Fallout from FFG.

The upcoming Civilization from FFG.

Believe it or not, we did actually play some games at Gen Con! I picked up Custom Heroes from AEG, which is a ladder-climbing trick taker that uses the Card Crafting System from Mystic Vale. It’s a great beer and pretzels game, and you can create some amazingly cool and hilarious combos like a school girl carrying a giant gun and a cabbage.

Mountains of Madness from iEllo was at the top of my list and it was a fresh surprise. I didn’t know quite what to expect, so it’s nice when a game can deliver something fun and unexpected.

The heart of Mountains of Madness lies in the madness cards. During the 30 second Team phase, everyone has to try and work together to tackle a challenge, but they all have to do it while acting out their madness. In this photo, Dan is constantly cold and has to shiver. That’s a level 1 madness. My level 3 madness was that I could only say “yes” or “no” during the Team phase. Yeah, it gets pretty ridiculous.

This year’s haul. Very modest compared to previous years, but I was kept in check by many vendors not selling early to other exhibitors.

Behind the scenes of all the glitz and glamor of the show – tear down is the worst.

This Gen Con was special because it was the 50th anniversary. But it was made extra special because I got to witness a total eclipse in Bowling Green, Kentucky with awesome people – from left to right, Dan Patriss, Chris Mosley, Matt Wolfe, and Lillian Hagmann.