Gen Con 2015

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

Gen Con 2015 was an amazing experience, as always. Over 61,000 people packed out downtown Indianapolis for the best 4 days of gaming. I played some games, did some cosplaying, and spent time at 2 booths. At the Christian Gamers Guild booth, a lot of people came and said "Woah, we hadn't heard about this before!" We had a great time letting gamers know that not all Christians are against their hobbies. At one point someone came to the booth shocked as she never expected "to find these two things together".

Aaron came back the day after buying 42 excited for the journey.

I spent some time at Nathan Marchand's book table, which is where one important conversation took place, but it wasn't even me in the conversation. This was one of those times when I had to take a back step as Nathan talked with a guy who is developing a world for his writing to take place in. He had not had any of the other authors listen to him the way Nathan was and I simply watched the book table while he and Nathan talked. This guy had been through depression and was having a hard time and Nathan's listening and discussion for what I think was at least 45 minutes very helpful to him.

I also helped with the Sunday morning worship service. I was involved with Communion by setting up, giving some instructions and praying over it in the service. The Geek Preacher discussed fighting battles and how the best way to fight the dragon is to put down our weapons and not let it control our interactions with people.

42:Discovering Faith through Fandom flew off the tables. The CGG ran out of copies of it on the second day and at the end of the con we only had 1 copy left! 1 person who had talked with me about the book felt like responses from both Christians and Gamers/Nerds might respond harshly to this idea. He came back later feeling like he had offended me and but I was able to say that I was not offended at all.

Unfortunately I did not get to demo very many games. I did play Cinque Terre and Lost Cities the Board Game for the first time. Cinque Terre was fun and very similar to Ticket to Ride. I would play it again. Would I buy it again? I don't really know. I guess it would depend on if someone I game with regularly would also play it but they might feel it is to similar to Ticket to Ride. I also got to demo Sentinel Tactics which I thought was quite interesting. I like pre-built miniatures games and that is how the game play is designed so I might invest in that someday. Lost Cities was interesting and I would consider getting it as it easy to learn with reasonable game play. It does not have a lot of player interaction, though.

Just part of the board/miniatures gaming hall!

Many cosplays were out and about, especially on Saturday.

Nathan Marchand and I got to meet Summer Glau!