Sunday, September 7, 2008

GwenCon Recap

The last couple hours were spent posting about GwenCon. For those unfamiliar, GwenCon is a micro gaming convention that takes place in the home of Gwendolyn Kestrel and Andy Collins every year. Attendance has varied between roughly 50 and 120 people in the years we've been participating. This year seemed a little lower than the previous two years, but still pretty busy.

We attended from 5pm Friday to 1am Saturday, and then again from 11:30am Saturday to 3:00am Sunday. Much fun was had by all.

Index of blog posts about other games I played at this years' GwenCon:

We skipped going today. Sarah's usual bedtime is between 9 and 10 pm (and I trail just shortly after her). Last night we got home about 6 hours past that, so we were barely able to leave the house at noon today. If I'd gotten into Andy's "Something Extraordinary" scenario, that would have been worth setting an alarm, and another 2 car hours on limited sleep. Since it filled up before I could email my prereg, we decided to rest.
  • (While I'm at it, I'll point you at this post about my favorite GwenCon game from last year, cause that game was just that good: League of Extraordinary Cowboys.)
Sleep isn't the only thing holding us off from Sunday, to be honest. It's also that Sunday is kid's day at Gwen Con. There's all these little rug rats running around, and a lighter schedule of almost entirely kid-friendly games. Honestly, I suspect the Kid's day on Sunday is part of why attendance is down this year. On paper, having a kid's day is a way to include families, and ensure the tykes don't show up to more adult games on the first two days of the con. However, it means the third day is less fun for those who don't have kids. Anecdotally, it seems that before there was a Kid's day, you'd end up with 2 or 3 kids at the whole event, as most gamers would send the tykes to grandma's house for the weekend. Now, instead of geeking out for a whole weekend, some parents are just coming for Sunday while non-parental gamers are avoiding Sunday. When we first started going to GwenCon, we just assumed we'd go every hour it was running, and make a mini-vacation out of it. Now, the prospect of 20 or 30 kids running around makes us think twice before driving down on the last day. One day, I may have kids of my own and reconsider that stance, but for now I'm most comfortable gaming with adults.

No comments: