T - minus 3 hours... headed to Strategicon!

I don't know how or why this happens, but as usual I'm awake mere hours before I have to get up and leave for a convention. This time I'm driving (or riding) to L.A. for Strategicon - mostly because I never got around to buying plane tickets, and now they're ridiculously expensive.

But after the 22 hour drive to Indiana, this 8 hour trip to L.A. should be no big deal :)

I have been so overwhelmingly busy leading up to this convention that I have done no preparation for it whatsoever. No plane tickets, no pre-registration, no scheduling of games... I was pretty close to deciding to just not go. But I'll be there, and I spent all day today preparing some prototypes to take with me.

I'll be bringing 8 prototypes - 9 if you include new Heroes for Dungeon Roll:

Captains of Industry, and City Hall, by Michael Keller
Two great economic games, both coming soon from TMG. Watch for a Kickstarter for these two in about a week!

Scoville, by Ed Marriott
A 2014 release from TMG about breeding peppers :) Cross primary colored peppers to get secondary colored peppers, and cross those to get even better peppers. Fulfill orders and complete recipes to score. So far just about everyone I've played this with has loved it. Watch for a Kickstarter project for Scoville this November (to coincide with BGG.con).

Battlecruiser, by Philip DuBerry
A quick card game, reminiscent of Libertalia, but much simpler and quicker (and therefore I like it better).

Rockin' Roll (in house TMG production)
A follow up to the very successful Dungeon Roll. If things go well we should have a Kickstarter project for this around the end of the year, and hope to deliver in time to debut the game at Gen Con.

Exhibit: Artifacts of the Ages, by Seth Jaffee
The Bluff Auction game. This one is not a TMG game, but it has gotten some foreign publisher interest. However, the publisher has become very busy, so it hasn't moved forward in a while.

Now Boarding, by Timothy Fowers and Seth Jaffee
A cooperative optimization puzzle, which may or may not have some time pressure. I'm having trouble identifying whether players will tolerate a real time game clock.

Eminent Domain: Exotica (and Escalation), by Seth Jaffee
Exotica is just about done, and I'll have my Escalation prototype with me as well. I'll also have the color proofs for Escalation (and Belfort: the Expansion Expansion) to wave around.

Dungeon Roll: Legends Booster and Holiday Heroes
We're working on the next Hero booster pack for Dungeon Roll - Legends. These heroes are more powerful than the original heroes, so they don't level up. These are first drafts, so they're not done yet, but they will likely have flavor and story text on the back, as well as some personal achievements a player can try to accomplish with them.

We've also got a holiday promo planned, with some holiday themed heroes such as Klaus, Saint of the North (Santa Clause!). I have these heroes (also first draft) in case anybody wants to give them a try.

So if you're at Strategicon this weekend, come by and say "hi!" I'll be in the boardgaming ballroom pretty much the whole time. Hopefully I can score a table and just set up all these games to teach to whoever wants to try them.

I'm also hoping to play some games that I didn't have a hand in. I played 1/2 a game of Spyrium at Gen Con (the only published title I even looked at all weekend) and I wouldn't mind playing a full game of that. I haven't played much Hanabi in a while. I picked up The Scoundrels of Skullport expansion to Lords of Waterdeep, but haven't tried it yet. I'm sure there's some other stuff I've been missing out on recently as well.

Ok, maybe there's time for a REM cycle or two before I have to leave. See you in L.A.!