Rincon Fundraiser a big success!

Last Saturday we hosted a fundraising game day for Rincon. I was a little worried that not many people would show up, and that we wouldn't end up making much (if any) money... but I guess that's just typical me - I'm kind of a pessimist. I'm happy to report that in fact, 70 people came to our event, some from Tucson, some from Phoenix, and some from Sierra Vista. And from what I could tell, everyone had a really good time!

18 of those people played in the poker tournament, expertly run by Jeff Becker. Karl Davis came out on top after a hard fought, back and forth heads up battle with Russel Knox. Karl won a hotel room for the weekend of Rincon, while 2nd and 3rd place (Russel and Brenda Lundt) walked away with free passes to the convention.

We also had several prize drawings, sponsored by games donated by myself, Brian Poe, and Patrick Nickell of crash Games.

That day happened to be National Tabletop Day, and at least a couple of people found out about our event through the Geek and Sundry TabletopDay website. The event was bustling from 10am to 10pm, and everyone seemed to have a great time! We managed to raise significant funds for Rincon, and by any account I think it's fair to say the Game Day was a resounding success! It was so great, we're planning another similar event for June!

Thanks to everyone who came by and supported Rincon and SAGA!

Rincon 2013 - planning and a Fundraiser

I mentioned last year that I hosted a game convention here in Tucson, and it was a resounding success!

This year we have a much better idea what to expect, and have started planning much earlier. We hope to make Rincon13 bigger and better than last year. We've got the same venue booked, the event will occur Friday through Sunday, October 4-6, 2013 at Holiday Inn and Suites Tucson Airport. Watch Rincongames.com for details!

In an effort to make Rincon bigger and better, we're going to hold a couple of Fundraising events, the first of which is coming up Saturday, March 30th. It's a Game Day and Poker Tournament, and I think it'll be a lot of fun. Here are the details:

Rincon Fundraising Game Day and Poker Tournament

Saturday, March 30, 2013
Barcelona Room, Holiday Inn and Suites Tucson Airport.

Game Day - 10am - 5pm

Come and enjoy 7 hours of gaming. Borrow a game from our library or bring your own. Learn a new game, or play an old favorite that's hard to get to the table. Participants also receive a Rincoin, which will be good for prize drawings at Rincon. All this for a mere $5 donation to Rincon.

Poker Tournament - 6pm - 10pm

Try your luck at No Limit Texas Hold'Em in this tournament run by Jeff Becker. A $25 donation to Rincon will buy you in with 3000 chips (donations from the game day count toward this, and an optional $10 add-on gets you 2000 more chips). Will you survive to final table to vie for the Grand Prize: 2 passes to Rincon and a hotel room for the weekend? There will be additional prizes (passes to Rincon) based on attendance, and all participants will receive Rincoins as they survive in the tournament.

So save the date - I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

Dallas, Denver, Grandma, a new year, the beach, and Orccon!

I haven't posted in about 3 months, ever since I got robbed, again. Since then a few things have happened, so in case anybody's trying to keep up, here's a quick update:

November
2 significant things happened in November 2012, 1 petty good, 1 not so much.
As I do every year, I headed to Dallas for BGG.con, one of the best game cons I go to each year. It was a great time, as always, though this time I got kinda sick a day or two in, and that put a little damper on the week :(

Sadly, while in Dallas, I got a call that my Grandmother was in the hospital. We had a bit of a scare, but she's doing much better now. After a week in the hospital she's been in a rehab type place for a while, and she's now graduated to whatever's after that. I'm glad she's doing better, but I'm afraid she'll never be quite the same again :(

December
On a happier note, a good friend of mine invited me and a couple other friends to join him in Denver for the weekend. he didn't tell me exactly why, but I kinda figured it out. It turns out the pl an was to surprise his girlfriend at her birthday party... not just by showing up, but by proposing! That weekend was one of the best I have had in a long time, just hanging out with 3 of my closest friends

Holiday season was fun as well - spent a lot of time with a lot of friends who were in town for the holidays. Steve came to town for over a week, and it's always nice to have him around.

January
As usual, I headed up to Phoenix for a New Year's Day hat tournament. Despite the lack of cartilage in my hip and my general out-of-shape-ness, I felt like I was able to run pretty good (if not particularly fast), and I had a really good time.

3 weeks later I went to L.A. for Lei-Out. I was going to pass on it because I didn't have a team, but at the last minute I was invited to play with some friends, and so I went after all. The weather here had been cold and crappy for a while, so it was refreshing that the L.A. weather was absolutely gorgeous.

And today I bought plane tickets to go to Orccon - Strategicon's February event! I always enjoy that con, and the plane tickets were just $155 - a decent deal.

That's probably enough for 1 update. I'll post separately about how Rincon 2013 is shaping up :)

Robbed. Again.

So here's a funny story:

I went out to do some laundry today, and what did I find? No washer and dryer.

That's right, somebody broke into my shed and stole my washer and dryer.

It's not like you sneak in somewhere and think "hmm... what could I grab... Oh! Two major appliances!" No, it takes at least a small degree of planning, and perhaps some tools. This kind of thing has got to be premeditated... right?

So that's a little disconcerting. Did someone break in the shed before, note the appliances, then come back to take them? If so, when? Or who? Perhaps the person who broke into my house before? Or someone else entirely?

Bah! I really hate having to think about these things. I just bought that washer about 16 months ago. I'm not sure which really bothers me more - the money it'll cost to replace the appliances, or the hassle involved in actually getting it done. :/

Monthly Recap - October 2012

With Rincon behind me I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I am so happy it went over so well! Now to make it more profitable for next time!

The highlight of October for me is definitely my trip to Essen. I spent the entire last week in Germany for the worlds largest game fair! I've always thought it would be fun to go, but until recently I didn't have any real reason to. My current situation would allow it, so I started considering the trip. After mentioning this online I was contacted by Piotr from LocWorks, a Polish distributor that sells Tasty Minstrel products, offering me a free room for the week, and asking if I'd spend a few hours in his booth signing copies of Eminent Domain! How cool is that? Michael wanted to go too, and it turned out there was room for him as well - and a pretty good deal too: only 150 Euros for the week. On the down side, it was a 15 minute walk, a train ride, and a subway ride to get to the convention hall (total travel time: 45-50 minutes) - but it was fairly easy and very inexpensive. If possible, I'd like to try and stay closer next time, perhaps at the Atlantic Congress (RIGHT next to the convention hall), or perhaps at a hotel near the main train station (the same subway ride, but minus the walk and train). Then maybe I can more easily participate in more of the night gaming I hear so much about.

Essen was pretty amazing. It's kinda like Gen Con, but just the exhibit hall, and with 3 times as many people. Michael and I were trying to decide if we thought the space was actually all that much larger than the Gen Con exhibit hall, I think we decided it was probably about 50% bigger - but it was split into 12 spaces. It was kind of a maze to navigate, but I liked the large maps they had above each portal from 1 hall to the next.

There were a bunch of little snack windows as well as a cafeteria, but I wasn't a huge fan of the food options. Waffles (but no syrup - instead they had a lot of Nutella) or hot dogs mostly. I got some pork and potatoes at the cafeteria one day for lunch, and I got a hot dog once - other than that I really didn't eat in the convention hall.

I wandered around the booths to check everything out. Unlike Gen Con, most booths had tables for demoing games. Like full plays of big games. Many booths were stores, and even they had tables to play games. At Gen Con very few booths have that kind of space - Mayfair and Asmodee do for sure, and probably a few others, but most of the demos at Gen Con are just showing the game and maybe the consumer will buy it and go play it elsewhere.

That brings me to the next big difference between Essen and Gen Con... at Essen, there isn't any "elsewhere." The whole con is the exhibit halls. At Gen Con there are many different rooms including a library, open gaming, and scheduled RPGs and seminars and whatnot. None of that here - just booths demoing and selling games.

People attend Essen just to buy games - like a big shopping trip. Seriously, people go all the way to Germany (from the US, for example) with the intention of buying stuff. I've always seen the "Essen haul" geeklists at BGG, people bragging about what they picked up, with photos of games stacked over their head - but I never thought about what that means to the publishers. One publisher told me he easily sells 8-10 times as much product at Essen as he does at Gen Con.

I did not go to shop though. I was mostly scouting it out for a potential future TMG booth. I also met with some publishers and designers. It was interesting being on both sides of a game submission meeting - one time in the exact same meeting!

Since I was going, the guys at Panda Game Manufacturing invited me to play on Team Canada in the Europmasters Challenge - a big team boardgame tournament. We played Village, Airlines Europe, Vanuatu, and Last Will. Two of those games I'd never even played before! I did OK - winning Village, placing 3rd in Airlines and Vanuatu (tied for 2nd even), and last in Last Will (miserable performance there). We finished something like 19th out of 33 teams, which I guess wasn't so bad. It was fun! I've always wanted to play in a tournament like that. And I even got to keep the games! Thanks Panda!

Overall I think the trip was definitely worth it, and I had a great time. I'm really glad Michael decided to go, because I don't think I would have enjoyed traveling like that by myself.

The rest of October will be relatively uneventful compared to that. but next month I'll be heading to Dallas for BGG.con - so that should be good. If we're really lucky, we might even have a super-advance copy of Kings of Air and Steam for people to play!

Monthly Recap - September 2012

3 weeks late, but who's counting?

Looking at my dry erase calendar, September must have been busy... there's ink on almost every single day!

Strategicon

I mentioned Strategicon in last month's update. It was a lot of fun meeting Antoine Bauza and playing a bunch of his new games. One of them, Tokaido, was a big hit at Essen - selling out early and making a big splash. I guess that's to be expected from a designer who's other games (7 Wonders, Ghost Stories, Hanabi) are so popular :)

Rincon

I spent a lot of time last month making last minute preparations for the game convention that I had been working to put on. I'm happy to report that Rincon ended up being a big success! 366 people attended, which is more than I expected. Many were there for only 1 day though, but it's still a great turnout for what was essentially a 1st time con. The volunteers and convention staff did a GREAT job, and everyone seemed pretty happy with the convention. We have a lot of ideas for how to make improvements for next time.

Frisbee

I've still been playing ultimate 1-2 times a week, and my hip has still been holding up, so that's good.

That's a short recap for September, some of which was covered last month. See the next installment for more details about Essen and my trip to Germany!

Monthly Recap - August 2012

I seem to gravitate toward compartmentalization, so I will try giving topic headers for the various aspects of my life, then summarize each:

Games

Mike got an advance copy of Noblemen, and while I've only been able to play it about 4 times myself, I set it up at Strategicon and I know about 4 different groups of people played it there. I'm really excited about this one, because I had a hand in it. A friend from BGDF.com made the game, and sent me a prototype about 4 years ago. I played it a lot and offered many suggestions, most of which made their way into the game in one way or another. Finally the game is being published, and I'm proud to say that TMG is in on that with Pegasus Spiel from Germany!

In addition to that, I've played a couple of other games which TMG has decided to go in on: Rialto by Stefan Feld, and Il Vecchio by Rudigor Dorn. It'll be awesome to get some of those big names in the TMG lineup.

Other than that, I haven't been playing much. Most of the time I play anything lately it's been the Eminent Domain expansion (called Escalation), which should have all the illustration done by this weekend, when everything will go to the graphic designer. Pretty soon that one will be all wrapped up, and I'll have to turn my focus toward the next expansion, or another game altogether.

RinCon

RinCon planning is humming right along. I visited several game stores in Phoenix to hand out posters and Vendor packets, hopefully some of them will come down for the convention. I also hit up every vendor in the dealer room at Strategicon, and one of them has signed up to come to RinCon! We're currently at about 150 people - I wouldn't mind another 100 though. I'm sure there will be some latecomers signing up in this last few weeks. The show is less than 3 weeks away! If you're reading this, tell your friends to spread the word. We have a bunch of special guests now as well.

Kickstarter

Mike had to cancel the Stack It! kickstarter project because of potential copyright issues, so TMG doesn't have anything currently on Kickstarter. Past KS project Ground Floor (and Skyline) are on track for Essen delivery, according to the guys from Panda when we talked to them at GenCon. And Josh is wrapping up Kings of Air and Steam (another past KS project) as well. I look forward to both of those being completed and seeing final copies of them.

I've heard some chatter on podcasts or online about people being "done with Kickstarter" - deciding they've gotten over he novelty of it and aren't interested in supporting any more games on it. That's all well and good, but their reasoning makes me chuckle. People don't seem to differentiate between one type of Kickstarter project and another - they seem to lump it all together in one big pot and assume that any given project on Kickstarter is equivalent to any other given project. To me that sounds pretty silly - akin to "I've played enough published games I didn't like that I'm going to stop shopping at game stores." Each project may or may not have merit, whether it's on a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter or whether it's on the shelf at the store. It continues to amaze me how many people don't recognize that.

Travel

 In August I spent a week in Indiana at GenCon. It was an interesting and fun trip, Mike and I picked up a couple of submissions to consider, and we met some interesting people. It was a relief not having to be leashed to the booth the entire week, but at the same time, leaving the sales of TMG stuff up to someone else meant we couldn't do much when they weren't selling very well. Next year I think TMG is going to have a dedicated booth again.

At the very end of the month I went to L.A. again for Strategicon, where I met famous game designer Antoine Bauza. He was very cool, and even played one of my games!

That's nothing compared to next month's travel update... (that's right, a teaser in a blog post!)

Frisbee

I mentioned before that my hip is old and busted. It had been really getting me down, and I got sick of that, so I have started playing frisbee again. I am playing summer league, and I've started going back out to pickup on Sundays - and better yet, a group of club players have started playing a higher level pickup/practice on Saturdays and Mondays, and I've been going to that as well, at least when I'm in town. So far so good! My hip is holding up, and between that exercise and eating a bit less I think I've lost about 4 or 5 pounds.

Friends

This month a good friend moved to Hawaii with his girlfriend. We had a going away BBQ like old times, and like old times we played some Guitar Hero (which we've not done in several years). This makes 3 friends now that live in Hawaii, I'd better get out there to visit them before they start to leave! In fact, I think Steve might be moving back to the mainland sometime soon.

Speaking of friends from Hawaii - Tyler is in town right now, I am going to go hang out with him. See you next month!