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In any case, here are a few highlight videos of games demoed and sold at Gen Con 2016, starting with the fastest sellout of the convention: Rob Daviau's SeaFall from Plaid Hat Games. The line of VIP buyers on Thursday morning wrapped clear around the PHG booth, leaving copies available for only two "normal" people at the end of the line, so if you want to know what the price of a VIP ticket gets you, it gets you access to buy SeaFall. If you missed out on SeaFall — as most people did — you have the consolation of listening to Daviau sum up several years of design work in less than eight minutes.
• We didn't feature SeaFall in the BGG Hot Games room — partly because we didn't have a copy and mostly because it wouldn't make sense to have a legacy game in that environment — but we did have two copies of Vast: The Crystal Caverns from Leder Games, and those copies were in constant use, thanks in part to co-designer Patrick Leder pretty much always having someone on hand to teach the game to newcomers. Given the nature of the game — that is, five asymmetric roles — a teacher seems like a great thing to have on hand to get you started, and Leder takes on that role in this overview.
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• Stronghold Games donated one of everything new to Gen Con 2016 to the BGG Hot Games room, and while prepping Terraforming Mars on Wednesday night before the start of the con, I kept saying to myself, "Self, who's really going to dive into Terraforming Mars on their own from the rulebook? Stephen was a sweetheart to donate this along with his other titles, but maybe he just needed the tax write-off because no one's going to play this." So of course when I visited the Hot Games room on Thursday night practically the first game that I see on the table is four players in the midst of Terraforming Mars. Shows what I know about con behavior...
• Ice Cool from Brain Games was one of the three games that I played at Gen Con 2016, mostly because I wanted to teach others in the Hot Games room. The overview video doesn't really capture the joy of flicking the penguins all over the place, with one person trying to catch the others before they can shoot through the doorways and grab their fish. I've played with kids as young as three — although it was "played" more than played — and it's been a blast each time.
• Let's close this post with our wrap-up video for day 1 of Gen Con 2016, which mostly consists of me being really tired, yet simultaneously energetic enough to talk over Stephanie as she tries to lead me to more fertile areas of conversation. Watching yourself on video can be quite educational!
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