BGG.con report - Publishers

One of the main things I wanted to do at the convention was connect with Zev from Z-man and Jay from Rio Grande, to show them my games and talk to them about the possibility of publishing them. I've heard that both Zev and Jay are extremely nice and approachable. I had met Zev once at KublaCon over a year ago, but I'd never met Jay.

Zev Shlasinger (Z-Man)
I talked to Zev via email before the convention, and despite his being extremely busy he said he'd try and make time for me to show him All For One and Wizard's Tower, which he said he'd read about a bit on either BGG or BGDF. I thought that was really nice of him, and I intended to take him up on that. In addition I was supposed to be delivering Lost Adventures to him for Steve and Jeff.

I had hoped to play some games with Zev over the course of the weekend. He had one that I saw just as they were packing up which looked really good (and they said it was really good), I was sorry I missed out on that. I saw Zev and Simon Hunt playing a submission that I recognized from the BGDF, so I really would have liked to get into that game, but i was about to start a game of Kingsburg which I was waiting all weekend to play. In retrospect I wish I'd bailed on Kingsburg in order to play Genji with Zev and Simon.

I never got a chance to play All For One with Zev, but I did play a game of Wizard's Tower with him when he had half an hour before the dealer rooms opened on Saturday. Later that day I handed off Lost Adventures, and showed him All For One. He even recognized the board :) I briefly described the differences, but it would be difficult to glean the details without playing. He took the game with him, and hopefully he'll try it soon and I'll see if he likes the changes that have been made since the last time he saw it (which are significant). I advised him to play with 4 first, as that's the best player count. First time players sometimes complain about chaos in the 5 player game.

Finally, I showed him the bits and described Terra Prime. He didn't seem turned off by it, and I think I'll be emailing him about sending that and Wizard's Tower for further consideration.

Jay Tummelson (Rio Grande)
I didn't see Jay all weekend, which disturbed me a little. I guess it wasn't rocket science, he was in the Rio Grande booth all the time. I had a few different friends that know him and they were going to introduce me - I was iffy about just walking up to him out of the blue even though I've heard he's open to that kind of thing. I was telling this to someone on Sunday, and Jay walked nearby, so the person I was talking to called him over and introduced me. It turned out Jay wasn't leaving until Monday, so he said we should get together after the convention officially closed and I could tell him about my games. Later I went to approach him about it, but he was engrossed in conversation with Derk and Aldie. When I mentioned a meeting, he suggested wqe do it later. At the end of the day I was (finally!) playing a game of Cuba, which I had thought would be my favorite game of the con, and Jay came back from dinner and started teaching Cuba at an adjacent table. Sadly, when Cuba was over it was pretty much time to go, and Jay was still in the middle of his game anyway. I told him it was nice to meet him and asked if he didn't mind my emailing him about the games, to which he said that was fine. I'm a little bummed I couldn't manage to meet with him. I guess I'm just not aggressive enough.

I guess I'll be sending him email as well.