London/Essen 2013 - Sidekick Journal

My lord what a long day! But wonderful. Many thanks again to Mezike for getting me from the airport and entertaining me for quite a while. Amongst other things we had a lovely game of Sentinels at a lovely pub. Put the smackdown on advanced Plague Rat.

We had a great dinner and then headed to the Harp for a great meetup. There were drinks. And drinking games. And I'm bloody tired. More later.

Very happy to have others post here. The only reason I created a new thread instead of posting in the UK game day was 'cuz I'm going to write about Essen, too.

First, a brief story to illustrate the wonderful selection of drinks in London. At the pub last night I asked at the bar what Cider they would recommend. I don't know how many different ciders they actually had, but there were enough different questions about the different ciders that I might like that I eventually just asked for something middle of the road.

Leisure Games was a smashing success. If anyone wants one of the more recent promo cards, they've got ome. We had five games going simultaneously and it was great to meet forumites and others. Note that GtG did not bring any demo games (due to packing considerations), but enough people brought and graciously allowed us to use their copies of the game that this was no problem. This included a full color version of Vengeance printed from the almost final proofs. I know I saw Matchstickman, Ameena, Silverleaf, and PWatson. If I'm forgetting anyone, please let me know. Yes, I took at least a couple pictures. Not sure when I'll get them posted somewhere. Anna had five different crocheted figures, which we lined up for a group shot. So cute!

Food in London has been great. Breakfast was particularly good. We went to a no-frills kind of place just down the street from Leisure Games and were treated to hearty spreads of breakfast meats and other fixings. I tried black pudding (blood sausage) and liked it pretty well. For dinner we went to a Persian restaurant. The service might have been slow, but the food was great. I particularly liked the warm, mint tea. 

At dinner and on the bus ride away, we were with Silverleaf and her beau and spent quite a long time just peppering Christopher with questions. He would often, of course, give uninformative answers, but there were plenty of little bits that he dropped. It's really a pitty that my memory is so poor. And I don't say that to tease you. If I could remember what he'd shared, I'd be happy to do so. One thing that did stick with me is that, though Munnin and Huginn's names may come from Norse mythology, there are no Norse gods active in SotM.

Tomorrow is purely a sightseeing day. The British Museum and drinking are on the agenda, but nothing else specific.

I did not play Sentinels of the Multiverse today. I didn't even talk very much about Sentinels of the Multiverse. I sure did talk a lot about Greater Than Games, though. In particular I got a chance to hear from Paul about what he envisions for future conventions and various other things related to the business of Greater Than Games. It's not clear if I'm allowed to repeat any specifics, but in general-- bigger and cheaper. We will likely see even larger booths at future events, and GtG is looking for ways to make it cheaper to get games to people outside of North America. No promises, mind you, and even if they get something in place it might be a few years, but they recognize the issue and have some ideas about what to possibly do about it. Bigger booths are likely to be necessary because there will be a bunch of different games to demo. By next GenCon, for instance, there will be Galactic Strikeforce and perhaps Sentinel Tactics.

We all had a great time being tourists today. Most of the day was spent at the British Museum. The Assyrian and Sutton Hoo collections got the most attention. Paul continued leading us on a Pub crawl of establishments serving Cask Ale. I had a scotch egg made from blood sausage. Good times.

Tomorrow will be walking to tube to train to plane to train to subway to walking to get to the hotel. Tomorrow night? German food!

I was glad to hear this from Christopher just now:

(paraphrased) There is just as much story, it is just as deep, it is just as rich in Sentinel Tactics as there is in the card game.

We've made it to Germany, had good beer and food, and are about to move on to Scotch. We've gotten the very excellent news that a shipment that was feared to maybe not arrive until Thursday has arrived, so we should be able to set the booth up fully tomorrow. 

No one really has a good idea of how much traffic will come by the booth. There are eight or so people signed up to volunteer and the booth has enough space for four tables. Since the volunteers don't work the entire convention, necessarily, we will probably rarely have volunteers for all four tables, but on the other hand I'm hopeful that we'll find people who know the game well enough and want to keep playing that we can fill the tables with people happy to teach others.There's lots of people doing pickups of Shattered Timelines. I expect many of them will also stay to play and get promo cards. 

Setup went with very little difficulty today. The booth is wider than it is deep, perhaps 10 meters wide and 4 meters deep. The back is a temporary wall. One corner has been turned into a temporary 2x2 meter storage room, complete with four walls and a door. We've got five tables set up and a small merch area. For the first time all of the merch can actually be locked away when the booth is closed, rather than just covered by sheets.

This convention puts down carpet for the booths, but not for the aisles. For the booth carpet, though, they  cover the carpet with plastic to protect it until you are ready to pull up the plastic yourself. They then build things like walls and counters on top of the plastic, which makes getting the plastic up a bit annoying, though certainly doable.

Alcohol rules are different here. A local tavern has a booth at the show and came by to offer us free tastes of blackberry and strawberry/rhubarb honey wine in exchange for having flyers for their booth at ours.

We had our volunteers dinner tonight and I got to meet seven of the eight of them: Yulia, Antje, Daniel, Mario, Antonia, Fabian, and Yan. My apologies for any names I've gotten wrong! It was a good time and I'm looking forward to working with them. Unlike a convention where everyone speaks the same language, it will be a bit more of a puzzle to match languages of demoers and demoees. Should be fun!

We're expecting to completely sell out. Taking product home is expensive. Not selling product to people who want to buy it is a missed opp. GtGs tries, therefore, to bring enough to sell out near the end of the con. On top of that, the only stock available for this con was a modest amount set aside to make sure there was _something_ for this con. If I understood correctly, there are no core or expansions in the warehouse at the moment, though there are a bunch more soon to arrive.

Want an idea of what kind of impression the GtGs folks make on people? The waiter at our restaurant recognized them from last year.

Show opens tomorrow. Volunteer orientation will be at 9. Doors open at 10. Woo hoo!

Oh, and I got in some rules questions of Christopher tonight, but writing up the answers properly will have to wait until I have more time.

First day of the show.

My expectations of our level of business were not met. I had in my mind what it was like at PAX East where we got absolutely slammed and were deputizing people to teach the game to others almost relentlessly, using, at our peak, nine tables. Even so, we still had a good amount of traffic. We had all five tables full a considerable amount of time and at least three or four tables going most of the day. I hear that sales were pretty good. I think about 60% of the expansions have been sold and about 40% of the base game have been sold. I doubt the stock will make it much past Sat morning.

Dealing with multiple languages adds an interesting twist, as we needed to not only match people to seats, but also make sure that the people learning could understand the people teaching. Of course most people can understand either English or German or both, so it's not _that_ complicated of a scenario, but it can still be interesting. One of our volunteers was very fluent in both German and English and, even though her native language is German, she preferred to teach in English so she didn't have to go back and forth between reading the English and speaking in German. We also have a volunteer who knows enough French to be willing to teach in that language, but despite having people who would have been happy to learn in French, that particular volunteer wasn't available at the same time. Likewise w/ one of our volunteers speaking Spanish but not being present for the Spaniards.

A ramification of the language issue is that on a fair number of occassions the people learning the game would learn from more than one volunteer. One person would get them started, but then that person would match up better with another group that was starting up, so a different volunteer would jump in to finish a game. There was one instance were a volunteer had started teaching a game in German to one person when another person wanted to join in. I ended up getting the  second person caught up to the first person using English, while the volunteer finished teaching the first person in German. I think they then started playing in German. A third person wanted to join later when I was off helping somewhere else, so Paul got them up to speed using English so they could join into the in-progress game.

There was another time when a bunch of tables turned over in quick succession while a bunch of people came up to ask to play in succession, so there was a lot of fluidity in who was sitting where. There were some English speakers at a table and a couple of native Germans somewhat grudgingly were joining that table. Then another table was starting up that was going to be an English table. Then some more German speakers showed up at the same time that a bunch of people from Ireland walked up. In the process of sorting things out I ended up saying something like, 'All the Irish go sit over in the back by yourself'. Not my most sensitive, articulate moment.

The show died _way_ down around 5pm. With two hours to go we had only a couple of games going. We are in hall 2. The really popular, long-attending booths are concentrated in hall 3. I took the opportunity around then to do a little walk through to see what the rest of Essen outside our little corner looked like. 

It's big, of course. Far bigger, booth wise, than even GenCon, which is massive. It is, however, not very flashy. It's just booth after booth and table after table of people, for the most part, playing board games. For me, it's gone past the point of interest to ridiculousness. It's like in a grocery store where there are 25 different types of sauce that are all just variations on the same thing. I won't go so far as to say that there is no reason for there to be this many games, but there is a mind-numbingly large number of them. I didn't realize just how little I know about the board game industry before I was confronted with recognizing virtually nothing of row after row of games.

And Essen is unglamorous. The convention center is old and concrete. The show does a minimal amount to dress up the place. There's carpeting in the  booths, but not between them. The bathrooms are inconvenient. It is still a spectacle due to its size and still _THE_ place to find the latest euro games and perhaps also the most obscure, but it's not as much of a SHOW, more just the largest gaming flea market.

This has been an odd show for me in that I have not actually played Sentinels much. At PAX East I did a fair amount of just directing traffic, as it were, but I also ran a bunch of games. At PAX Australia I ran games almost the whole time. I'm actually starting to itch to play, which I never imagined would happen when I was working in the friggin' booth! We almost got together a volunteers game at the end of the day today, but everyone was a bit too tired. We'll see. Maybe tomorrow.

Time for sleep. Another long day tomorrow.

Thanks, Val! If you come by the booth, I hope you'll say hi. And please consider volunteering in the future.

Today's greatest success, perhaps? Finding tape and a knife. They hadn't been shipped from the US, there aren't any obvious stores nearby, and we'd missed our chance to look for them when we'd gone grocery shopping and then later shoe shopping (there's an Ecco store here) on Tue and Wed. Asking at the information desk in the hall I was told by someone sheepishly that there's a little shop on the premises that is supposed to be open, but no one was answering the phone. I was given a hand-drawn route that took me through one of the halls and then out a service door to the loading area. Hunting around I found a little corner shop that was closed. Peering in I saw a combination of a few tools, shipping paraphenalia, snacks and drinks. But, as mentioned, it was closed. Unwilling to give up, I approached the next person I saw, who was nearby having a smoke, and asked if they happened to have any tape I could use. He proceeded to put out his cig, walk past me back towards the shop and motion me to follow. He then unlocked the door, turned on the light, invited me in, and went and stood behind the counter. A short while later I emerged victorious with a roll of duct tape and a box knife.

Today was very good. Maybe just a little busier than yesterday, but mostly the same. I found it quite exciting when we had demos going in three different languages at the same time -- English, German, and French. Over the two days we've also had native speakers of Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, and Russian that I know of. We also had at least a couple people who looked to be of East Asian descent, but I didn't interact with them enough to know what their native languages were.

Not sure if I misunderstood how much stock was left yesterday or if sales were just significantly slower today, but the current estimate is that the expansions will maybe sell out by the end of Saturday and the core games some time on Sunday. There are about ten people who have still not picked up their Shattered Timelines Kickstarter rewards. That product is going to be released to others on Sunday, which will provide a precious few more oversized villain cards and mini-expansions that are otherwise sold out.

I love our volunteers so much. It has just been super fun to have them in the booth. At any given minute I might not be showing it, because I'm focusing on the crowds, but it has just been great to have their help and hang out with them.

We had a fair number of tables today with people who'd played before -- sometimes tables that liked the game enough and wanted to play again immediately, sometimes people returning from yesterday or even just fans of the game who came by to play. At one point we had two different games going against Iron Legacy simultaneously. One lost and one won, though the table that won probably should not have -- they went for a few rounds on Iron Legacy's flipped side before they realized Iron Legacy was supposed to heal on that side. There was also a group that had complained about the game being easy, who then next took on Voss. I wanted to make sure they had a challenge, so stacked the deck such that the Stalwart and a Forced Deployment were the first and fourth cards. They ended up winning that, though again I think there might have been some missed rules here and there.

Tomorrow/Saturday, like any convention, is expected to be the biggest crowd. We may have to try to be more careful to keep the games to simpler/faster decks, though it's unclear how much more we can do. We are a bit hampered by the fact that we are using three sets of decks to cover five tables. Not every game can be Baron Blade in Insula Primalis with the volunteer using Legacy. We started off using Omnitron in place of Baron Blade, but those games have been running pretty long. We switched today primarily to games involving Ambuscade, but those can run pretty long, too, and I saw a group of players get absolutely destroyed by nasty combination of lots of devices, lots of one shots that lead to more card plays, and the Ruins of Atlantis causing a bunch more villain card plays. I switched to Plague Rat for at least a couple plays, which I like fairly well, but can be pretty complicated unless the person leading the game can explain the Infections and flip mechanics succinctly. Other possibilities include La Capitan and Akash'Bhuta, but both of those are often quite long games, too.  

The heroes get interesting as well. If two games are run out of the same box and I put Legacy, Tempest, Ra, Expatriette, and Chrono-Ranger (the last two so that I could get a couple of expansions represented) at the first table, who do I put at the second? I settled on Visionary in place of Legacy and Haka and Fanatic were pretty clear choices, but after that all the heroes are a little less straightforward for one reason or another. Wraith and Tachyon ended up being used. What I wanted was to give new players less complex heroes, have multiple expansions represented at each table, and have a good mix of genders of the heroes at each table. That's a pretty tall order.

Lots of people have asked about Galactic Strike force or about translations (usually for German). The GtGs folks are looking seriously into the translations, but nothing is set yet. I get the sense that there's a pretty decent potential market in at least a few places if there were translations available.

And now I'm off to try to figure out if there's anything I can reasonably do to make my super scratchy throat feel better before I try to get some sleep.

Hello again! Day three finished. Today was supposed to be the big surge of people. Frankly, I didn't see it, though Christopher said that sales were good today. Shattered Timelines and all of the mini-expansions are out. There are a handful each of RC and IR. Not sure how many pre-orders remain unclaimed, but not too many.

The booth seemed no busier today than previous days and a significant portion of that was people playing multiple times and a bit more aggressive recruitment of players. There were just a few times when players had to be turned away/wait. 

The games were much more in German today than other days. I wonder if that's because the majority of people who would come just on the weekend are more likely to be local.

Iron Legacy went down in defeat in a thrilling game today. I'm hard-pressed to remember a whole lot about other particulars of individual games. Kizmet, Plague Rat, The Dreamer, and the Matriarch managed to each get to the table at least once today, along with the staples of Baron Blade, Ambuscade, and Omnitron. I don't know if any of our volunteers had any trepidation before the con showed, but none have seemed to have any problem at all having a great time teaching the game. I think the biggest challenge may be that with only exactly 25 chairs and the tables often completely full, there has been quite a lot of standing and leaning -- using muscles that maybe don't get used regularly.

Sadly, I have been sick. Got a sore throat overnight that was nasty enough that I sought out a doctor's advice to make sure it wasn't something more than a cold. Doesn't seem to be. I'm on acetaminophen, which helps a little with the pain at least. The silver lining is that I had a beautiful walk this morning to find the hospital and then to find the pharmacy.

At dinner tonight I ended up  sitting next to a couple from England who are massive Sentinels fans, to the point of having created their own system of doing Sentinels campaigns. I've encouraged them to join the forums and share their system. I sometimes forget that there are probably far more big fans of Sentinels who are _NOT_ involved in the forums than vice versa.

I'm not involved with any of the GtG business dealings, but it has been interesting to hear bits and pieces -- discussions about how to maybe go about getting German and French translations and various conversations with other people in the industry about how to help other people starting up with either creating a game or with some other facet like distribution or fullfillment.

Last day tomorrow! I'm hoping to take some time during the exhibitor only hour to get over and play a friend of mine's game. I'm not expecting a whole lot out of tomorrow. I think a lot of people will have left and most people will have made their purchases. Perhaps we'll get a lot of people coming by hoping to find bargains, but I don't think they'll find them. 

That's all the ramblings I can think of for today. Peace out.

There was some filming of an interview with Christopher in the booth today, so at some point I think we'll have that to look forward to.

The show is over.

Frankly, it ended with a bit of a whimper rather than a bang. Foot traffic was light and sales seemed pretty light. There was no auction. Paul and Christopher found various retailers/distributors willing to buy the remaining stock at wholesale prices.

There was a quite exciting game against Kizmet by Christopher and some of the volunteers this morning. They squeaked out a win with just one hit point left amongst the heroes, I think. They were saved by Fixed Point in the final round.

There doesn't seem like much else to say. I was pretty burned out by the afternoon and didn't muster the energy to try to entice passers-by to play the game very often. A couple of times when I did it paid off nicely, though, as people tried to the game and seemed to really like it. 

In the end, I can't really recommend Essen that highly. Yes, it's huge, and if you want to try all of the latest games, it's the place to do it, but ... it's a bit dingy, frankly, and I don't get the same feel like I do from GenCon or PAX of people being at a celebration of gaming, rather than just a massive flea market. Of course, when you have friends in a place, you can have a great time, and we did -- not just seeing people in the convention hall, but going out to dinner and drinks in the evenings.

That's it, folks! Feel free to ask questions, if you happen to have any. Tomorrow we head back to the US. Tonight I am watching Paul and Christopher play 'Tetris' as they try to figure out how to get all of the games people have given them into the suitcase they bought in London.

Hi, Jan!

I'll probaby post an epilogue at some point when I'm more rested. I've made it home and had a full night sleep, but am definitely still recovering -- both mentally and physically. More sleep and getting over a cold would be nice, but as well my brain needs a chance to process everything.

The thing that makes almost any situation for me is the people. Being with Paul and Christopher is great and you volunteers were really wonderful. We also had many other excited existing and new fans come by, but not at the same levels as I've seen at other conventions. Cultural and language barriers played a part. I couldn't connect with people as easily and couldn't judge as well how people were reacting. 

I don't think there's any doubt that being at the show helps introduce the game to new people and raise excitement about the game. Given the cost to get GtG and stock to the show, though, and the relative size of Essen compared to other convetions (much bigger), the comparatively modest interest from attendees was a surprise to me and may not prove to be enough to justify the expense. 

BUT, I don't want anyone to think that I'm not thrilled to have gone. I enjoyed my trips to London and Essen immensely, was very happy to see the spectacle of the Spiel, and to be with great people. Plus, schnitzel!

Hello Antje! Hello Fabian! Lovely to have you guys here.

Julia! Welcome, welcome, welcome. So glad to see you here, too.

One point about Essen that it occurs to me that I may not have properly paid homage to is that it has GAMES. Lots and lots and lots of board games of various stripes. The only real comment I made about this above is that I found it overwhelming, but as I think more about how Essen compares to GenCon, PAX(s), and Origins, anyone who is used to Essen is going to find these other conventions scandilously devoid of board games. Yes they have them, but they are not the focus. At PAX, the focus is video games. At GenCon, the focus is roleplaying games. At Origins, board games comes a close second, but the major focus is probably tabletop miniatures.

Were I to have been an attendee at Essen, while I might have missed the party atmosphere of everyone being into geek culture, and while I might have been overwhelmed by the immensity of SO MANY CHOICES, including a ton of Euro-games that are too similar to each other and not interesting enough to me to hold my attention, I could have easily spent the entire four days doing nothing but trying cool new game after cool new game. It really is an incredible bonanza. All I did was attempt to walk around enough of it to feel like I'd seen most parts, even from afar, without stopping at any booths, and just that took me an hour.

By the way, I partially botched this joke, leaving out the first half:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_flies_like_an_arrow