ACD Games Day 2013 I – Fluxx: The Board Game, IRONDIE, Krosmaster: Arena, Island Fortress & Game Salute

In early April 2013 I attended ACD Games Day 2013, organized and run by U.S. game distributor ACD Distribution.

Why? After travel burnout from a whirlwind trip to Nürnberg, Germany at the end of January 2013 and ten days on the road in mid-February – including a stop at NY Toy Fair 2013 – I thought that I'd be a homebody until Gen Con in August, but Adrian Sullivan from ACD contacted me about attending the event (which I'd never considered attending previously) and its timing and location (along with the offer of a comped hotel room) spurred me and my wife to action. We'd be able to take our son and our exchange student to Chicago along the way to Madison, Wisconsin, giving her a chance to revel in the boredom that comes from driving across the vast U.S. interior – boredom broken up by thoughts of what it would be like to live in Bland, Virginia; Salt Lick, Kentucky; and Floyds Knobs, Indiana.

Oh, not to mention the iconic and headscratching "Hell Is Real" / "Jesus Is Real" double-sided billboard in Indiana. I'll give it points for legibility, something that dozens of billboards failed during our trip, but this is supposed to be convincing somehow?

Unattributed photo from this post on able2know

In any case, we made it to Madison with only slight hiccups along the way, including an incident in Chicago in which my son wanted to sleep on the street (in 35ºF weather) since the store at which he had wanted to buy a toy had closed for the night. He climbed a short fence around one of those miniscule patches of nature that large cities keep around to show you what you're missing, lay down on the ground, then proceeded to scoop handfuls of dirt on himself while crying that he didn't need blankets or his bear and he'd be fine outside all night and why can't we go back to the LEGO store and play there some more?! Hell is real, you say...

ACD Games Day turned out to be even more low-key than Spielwarenmesse in Nürnberg. Thursday was the only full day, with seminars for game store retailers in the morning, an exhibit hall with publisher displays in the afternoon, and a huge game demo space in the evening. I took advantage of this time to record 22 videos, most of which highlight one particular game. Here's the first batch of these videos, with more to come in the next few days:

• Kristin Looney from Looney Labs was showing off Fluxx: The Board Game, which is due out July 26, 2013 and which like its namesake card game is all about change, change and more change. If you have an opinion about Fluxx, that opinion is likely to carry over to the board game as well – but who knows? Maybe if you immerse yourself in the tie-dye experience inherent in the Looney outlook, you'll find your worldview – or perhaps just your eyesight – permanently altered.

• Davide Averara's IRONDIE has been through a couple of incarnations, with the latest one coming from Italian publisher Irondrake and available in the U.S. through WorldWise Imports. Here's my first attempt of the day at filming something on my own from behind the camera. I had lots of practice doing this throughout the day, and while somewhat successful I think having a dedicated cameraperson is a huge bonus since you have smoother transitions, better control over what's in the shot (since your attention isn't divided), and more facetime by me, which I'm sure is a plus on everyone's list.

• Miniatures games have been attracting crazy levels of support on Kickstarter, and Japanime Games' Krosmaster: Arena – originally from French publisher Ankama – has followed in the less attractive footsteps of Zombicide, Sedition Wars and Kingdom Death: Monster to offer cute little anime-style figures that bash one another to pieces. Japanime's Eric Reasoner gives an overview of the game, which is due out June 2013 with multiple expansions following to keep players giddy with even greater levels of cuteness.

• Bryan Johnson's years-in-the-making Island Fortress has shipped out to Kickstarter backers and is scheduled to be available at retail stores on April 19, 2013. Here Game Salute's Dan Yarrington gives an overview of the game. I still can't believe the size of that governor token – and it's purple, too. So imposing!

• I also did a pan-and-scan of the Game Salute stand, which featured lots of titles at various stages of publication including a forthcoming game from Richard Launius titled Legends of the American Frontier. In retrospect I should have asked Yarrington to repeat his summary of the game on camera rather than have me poorly summarize what he said. A lesson for the future. I'll poke him about creating a game entry so that we can all know more about this future release.

ACD Games Day 2013 I – Fluxx: The Board Game, IRONDIE, Krosmaster: Arena, Island Fortress & Game Salute

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ACD Games Day 2013 I – Fluxx: The Board Game, IRONDIE, Krosmaster: Arena, Island Fortress &amp; Game Salute

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ACD Games Day 2013 I – Fluxx: The Board Game, IRONDIE, Krosmaster: Arena, Island Fortress & Game Salute

New Game Round-up: Yedo Comes to France and the U.S., Anthony Rubbo: Renaissance Man & Sheep in Spaaaaaaaaace!

Links: Game-Related Fundraisers, Richard Garfield on Luck in Games & Designing for the Far, Far Future