Hammercon II - Wrath of Con

On Saturday, when a lot of people were at Neoncon in Vegas, some of us people in the GTA and further went to an awesome spot called Hammercon in Hamilton which is about 45 minutes outside of Toronto going West on the QEW. Now, this is probably not the same party scene but there were a whole pile of people who make games there. You'd find me, Darcy, Corey and a host of other people there running our stuff and having a good time.

The game of Gaesa that I ran went off really well. We started out slow, working out of Louis XIV's France with a Musketeer, a Shepherd, a Server at the Palace, the English Diplomat and the Revolutionary Innkeeper gathered around a table to tell a story. By the end of it we had discovered where the King of England's illegitimate child was behind held and the Innkeeper was the first one there and he manage to squirrel away the child with the French army and our intrepid musketeer on his heels. The big winner was the shepherd who managed to play both sides against the middle and come out richer than he had ever imagined. It was a good time.

The other key thing I wanted to talk about was Speed Gaming. Wow, that sucker was hard. It was 32 people in a room with 9 designers. Each Designer gets 15 minutes to pitch their game and play it with the people involved. It was great for generating buzz, out of 9 tables at least 7 asked for more information and wanted to hear more about the game later. There was one table that didn't really get the concept until the 15 minutes were up, and the last table was just as beat as I was. I think this is something that more cons should do, because it was really a good way to get a lot of things done at once. The first is that you got to expose your game to 32 different people in the span of about 3 hours. The other one was that you got to refine you pitch to a point, there was no time for any extra talking. It was just go, go, go, go, go, which is a damned good thing to have under your belt.

Not only did I get to hang out with people I had met before, but I got to meet a couple designers that I hadn't yet. I got to meet Francois Valentyne from Face up Games which has a game being published by Zev at Z-Man Games. I also got to meet a couple that has a new CCG. Jey Legarie from Gifted Vision with their Dungeon Crawler CCG. Check it out and let them know what you think.

I love this con. I can't wait to go back next year and you should go too damn it!