That’s me, standing in the IELLO booth, demoing Uchronia. Photo by IELLO’s Patrice.

So this was, perhaps, my 18th consecutive Gen Con; I believe my streak started in 1995. This year, as last year, I boothed for IELLO Games USA. I had many friends among the nearly 50,000 attendees, a few of which I actually managed to have conversations with, but others whose presence I was only aware of from their Facebook or Twitter updates.

Two things to notice in the picture of me in the booth: first, I’m wearing my Pivothead camera glasses; all of the photos and all but one of the videos I shot during the con were taken with those glasses. I’m still loving that purchase. And second, that’s Raz demoing at the right-hand table; Raz is the brains behind our Quizgle puzzle website project.

IELLO had the lovely and talented Dr. Horrible (Stephen) demoing Titanium Wars:

Dr. Horrible demoes Titanium Wars to the Rebel Alliance representatives. Photo by J. Hunter Johnson, released under CC-BY-3.0

Lexi Farron Strife as Super Nova. Photo by IELLO Games.

And IELLO also had Lexi Farron Strife cosplaying as Super Nova for the Guardians’ Chronicles demos. Prototypes of Heroes of Normandie and Zombie 15′ were shown, King of Tokyo flew off the shelves, and the new game, The Three Little Pigs, proved popular across a surprisingly wide demographic range.

King of Tokyo tournament. And a wolf. Photo by J. Hunter Johnson, released under CC-BY-3.0

Gen Con 2013 broke the attendance record, and it was marvelous. Mayfair Games capitalized on the opportunity and set a world record for most people playing a board game, with their mega Catan event. Paizo debuted Mike Selinker‘s Pathfinder Card Game, and I heard that they sold out of their con stock on Thursday. And IELLO ran King of Tokyo tournaments all weekend, with attendees standing in line for a shot at winning one of the coveted Space Penguins. Between the booth and the tournament area, I was well occupied during the exhibitor hall hours, which is my excuse if I missed seeing you!

For the last couple of years, Gen Con has been giving some gamers the opportunity to upgrade their pass to “Very Important Gamer”, gaining early access to the exhibitor hall on Thursday morning. This is my view of the registration line and the VIG line then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpG79eMr_4E

IELLO also hosted an industry event to introduce their upcoming games, some debuting at Essen Spiel, others coming later:

[but you'll have to wait until early September for this one; sorry!]

That video was shot with my phone; the mic on my glasses did not capture the sound from the presenters well enough to be used. And on Saturday, I shot was is so far my most-viewed video on YouTube: the Gen Con Costume Parade:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e7AjCi8XNk

Thanks to Stephan & the IELLO France crew, my roommate (and Gen Con rookie) Ivan, booth wrangler Russell, tournament wrangler Brian, and all the volunteers—it was a great show!

—jhunterj

The sound stage

The Miami Valley Restaurant Association partnered with Yuengling this past weekend to bring Dayton “Brews, Bands, & BBQ” at Carillon Park this weekend. I got there in time for Love and Theft‘s set (and for the closing bars of Parmalee‘s set). Randy Houser came on later in the evening. And of course, it was another opportunity to exercise my camera glasses. I captured this video of Love and Theft’s performance of “Runaway”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqbjhL_BS-w

The Shish Wraps stand

I spent my food tickets with Shish Wraps. The guys at SW were having a rough time of it, with a series of mechanical snafus, so I was loitering for a while in front of their stand, waiting for my chicken wrap. They spotted me some falafel for my time, and in the end, everything was delicious, especially their “shish-lava”.

It was a big crowd, but the logistics were well-planned. It was easy to get through the crowd, easy enough to get beer, and you could hear the music from anywhere in the park. The weather was perfect as well. They’ll be back at it again next year, so look for it!

The Carillon bells

My full gallery (lower-quality) is public on Facebook here.

—jhunterj

Stubbs Park path

I’m still playing with the Pivothead Glasses, this time on a half-mile jog through Stubbs Park. This is a portion of the 3-mile walk-and-jog that I was doing more regularly last year, before tearing a tendon, and the glasses are giving me the incentive to get back into it. Overhead view to the right, point-of-view below. (YouTube has a nice video-stabilization option available if it detects that your upload is shaky. Slick.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlwmRfXsQfQ

—jhunterj

Aly Tadros at Ghostlight

So Aly Tadros, my close personal friend of several days now, started a tour of the Midwest right at Dayton’s very own Ghostlight Coffee, along with Jus Post Bellum. They played Ghostlight Afterhours on Wednesday night, to an inexplicably spartan audience. The last time Aly was in town, the place was packed, but that was on a weekend instead of a Wednesday, and there seemed to be more social marketing behind it then as well—at least, I found out about that show online then, and the new show only because I’ve been following Aly since that appearance.

But no matter. The new show gave me the chance to get acquainted with Jus Post Bellum’s Geoffrey Wilson and Hannah Jensen. Here they are at Ghostlight performing “Sonny”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQeiXaFPiPI

Now, this was also an experiment of mine, trying out the video recording of my Pivothead glasses. I think it worked very well, apart from the user error of forgetting I had just started recording around 50 seconds in. But after bombing my own recording, I remembered myself for the rest of the song. Kind of like how DJs will talk over the instrumental opening of a song anyway…

Later, Aly took the stage, playing through many different guitar-family instruments, which occasionally leads to humorous starts like this one for “Bad Thing”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69GenqXV7is

They are continuing their tour. If you’re in the Midwest, check out the schedule at http://alytadros.com/tour/ and try to take in a show—they’ve got great vocal & lyrical chops.  The sets are also being captured and sold through Dejaset: Aly Tadros and Jus Post Bellum. They also have CDs: Devil Winter (Jus Post Bellum), The Fits (Aly Tadros), and Things Worth Keeping (Aly Tadros).

I’m also transcribing an interview I did with the three of them after the show, so watch this space!

—jhunterj