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The GenConmen, 2015: Day One
It’s that time of year again, the cusp of Augusthood, when summer keeps on being summer and gradually transitions into more summer. In faraway exotic Indianapolis, capital of the grand state of Iowa, a largely unknown gathering formerly known as the Generalissimo Convención (now commonly nativized to GenCon) has begun anew, a complex mating dance of exhibition halls, cardboard, and people dressed as their favorite fictional characters. It’s a fabulous but dangerous dance, and —
You know what? I’m done talking about the dance. Let me show you.
Space-Biff! Was Recently Devastated
Back in the day, our game group used to hold these little house tournaments all the time. Mostly Summoner Wars, though we could be counted on to make a lively competition out of nearly anything, from Omen: A Reign of War to The Duke. If we could play more than one match at a time, sharing table space and laughing about each other’s flubs, we were set.
Then, for whatever reason, we stopped playing like that.
Over the next year we occasionally discussed giving it another shot. Especially if we could hold a tournament using BattleCON: Devastation of Indines, because a colorful fighting game full of thirty asymmetrical characters, dead simple rules, and outguess-your-opponent gameplay seemed like the perfect sort of thing for a winner-takes-all brawl. Even so, our plans never coalesced into an actual event.
Well. A few weeks back, entirely unexpectedly, we were treated to a perfect situation: exactly eight players, all of whom arrived exactly at 8, nobody who reported needing to get to bed early, and every single one of them ready and willing to play.
It was on.
Best Week 2014, Staff Mutiny!
![Wait, what's going on? Wee Aquinas, is that— [muffled scuffling]](https://spacebiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/0-best-week-occupied.jpg "Wait, what's going on? Wee Aquinas, is that— [muffled scuffling]")
Ah. Hello. You were probably expecting Dan, weren’t you? I can tell by the facial tics projected through your webcam that you’re a little surprised by this turn of events — after all, hasn’t Best Week 2014 come to an end?
No. It has not. Because we’re in charge now. And this only ends when we say it ends.
Don’t worry, Dan will be fine. Brain damage on par with a night of heavy drinking, or maybe drowning for a few minutes. So let’s just call this a guest submission. Because we, the undersigned, are not content with Dan’s tyrannical “Top Thirty” list, or whatever he’s calling his puppet regime these days. We merely aim to correct his errors with the actual top games we played this year.
Best Week 2014, Day Five!
At long last, here we are. The top six games of the Space-Biff! year, sort of sorted into a coherent list of preference.
Appropriately, every single one of them contains zombies.
Okay, that was a big damn lie. Only some of them contain zombies.
Best Week 2014, Day Four!
“Why thirty?” someone asked me long ago, on Monday. “Why a top thirty, and not a twenty-five? Or a ten? Or a fifty?”
And honestly? It’s because I think thirty is one of the most underrepresented numbers among our generation. Anyone can do a top ten, or a top twenty-five, or a top fifty. But a top thirty?
Only on Space-Biff! Literally.
Best Week 2014, Day Three!
Fun (And Informative) Best Week 2014 Fact: One particular publisher has been highlighted every day of Best Week so far, and will be highlighted again today. Can you spot which one it is? Five space pennies for the victor, and off with the heads of the losers.
Yes, all of them. Off with all their heads.
Good luck, gladiator. If you won’t do it for your country, do it for your head.
Best Week 2014, Day Two!
Another day, another gaggle of six of the best games we played this year. It’s Best Week 2014, and today we’re playing mancala, flicking some monsters, and programing the weeks to come.
Best Week 2014, Day One!
Over a hundred games enter. Thirty games leave.
You know what that means: it’s Best Week 2014, and we’ve got five straight days of the year’s best games! Provided “the year’s best games” is strictly interpreted as “the games Dan Thurot and his gang of pals played and reviewed in 2014, whether they came out this year or not.” But what else could it mean anyway?
Welcome to Day One, also known as The Dog Day Legacy of the Dystopian Shmup in Boomtown Space. As you were, cadets.
Space-Biff! vs. Three Years
If what I’m reading in these childhood development manuals holds true, then this is the year that Space-Biff! becomes truly annoying. Mostly by throwing tantrums in public and insisting it can put on its own pajamas, it can it can it can! *stomp stomp stomp* … (fails miserably at putting on its own pajamas).
Yay?
Anyway, it’s fun looking back. But even more fun looking forwards! Thanks everyone who actually reads this nonsense, and here’s to three years!
The League of Extraordinary GenConmen
GenCon is no SaltCon, that’s for sure. Or perhaps that should be writ the other way around — SaltCon is no GenCon. That’s for sure.
Dan and the Space-Biff! crew, or at least one of the Space-Biff! crew, flew all the way to Indianapolis, which is in Iowa, I think, for the largest board game convention in these the United States. The original thought was to deliver a daily report of all the GenCon goings-on, but Dan was too timid to actually interview anyone, though he claims it was because the Wyndham West didn’t have working internet, which it really didn’t, and we don’t recommend anyone stay there if they want to Skype their baby’s first steps.*
What follows is the true story of how Dan and Steve navigated the crowds, fell asleep at odd hours in their hotel suite, and generally GenCon’d it up. Fun fact: there were more people at GenCon than in the entirety of Dan’s hometown!**
SPACE-BIFF! 