Archive for August, 2012

So GenCon was cool.

I got to hang with several notables in the field of nerdom.  I went to dinner with Howard Taylor and Michael Williamson.

The crew of Smirk and Dagger Games invited me to hang out.  They didn’t even get mad when we came up with the most horrible Run For Your Life Candyman supplement ever.

The guy that invented Killer Bunnies came to my booth to tell me how much he like Redshirts, and I managed to avoid squealing like my daughter when she gets a new stuffed animal.  But just barely.

I spent time chatting with Randy Milholland of Something Positive, and Lar Desiuza of Least I Can Do and Looking For Group.

I had a booth right across from Slugfest Games.   Years ago one of their bigwigs graciously allowed me to pitch one of my board games to them.  And then in a polite, professional, and not unkind manner they ripped it apart.  I used the advice they gave me to improve how I went about game design.  I would quite literally not have my company today if it wasn’t for them.  I told them so too.

I met a lot of folks who retail my game, and sold a lot of product.  Like a ridiculous amount.  We sold through all of the promo cards we had in stock and our artist, David Reddick was there to make custom Redshirts.  We actually turned a profit going to GenCon, and I have been informed that doesn’t happen very often.

And  managed to trade copies of my game for a few hundred dollars of other peoples games.

I only had one person say that the rules were so badly written that they practically ruin the game.  Granted they were a famous cartoonist, but hey, you can’t win them all.

There are days when it sucks to be Skippy.  Those four days in Indianapolis where not among them.

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I know I’ve been gone a long time.  But between running a business and caring for children, something had to give.  This site was one of those things.  So for those of you on subscription, or occasionally popping back in, hello again, I am now going to be making an effort to keep up on here.

I arrived at Vegas for the Star Trek Creation con on Tuesday.  Nichelle Nichols was present as a guest of the con.

Over the weekend, she had moved on to Space City Houston, where there was another booth set up by the WeaselPants team.  Suspicious.

At GenCon Ms. Nicholls was a guest of Honor yet again.  I think that she is stalking us.

Vegas was hot and expensive.  We sold some product (although not as much as I would have liked) and made a ton of good contacts in the Star Trek community.  I got to finally meet my artist David Reddick, in person.

Lessons learned from the Star Trek con:

1. If you get the theme from the Gary Shandling show stuck in your head, it ain’t coming out any time soon.
2. If you take a booth assistant to a Star Trek convention, make sure she knows something about Star Trek.  So she doesn’t accidently try to sell your game to LeVar Burton.
3. This is the theme to Gary’s Show…
4. Be nice to people.  You never know when that woman you helped in booth set up might turn out to be the personal assistant of a famous Trek Actor.
5. Australians in Star Fleet uniforms are crazy.
6. …the theme to Gary’s show…
7. Most famous actors are very pleasant well-adjusted people.  But a few will go off like a human land mine.  They don’t have anything personal against you, but if you happen to be there when they detonate, it will end badly.
8. For some reason, people will approach your booth, tell you that they bought your game online, and hated it.  And then they will buy the promo cards.
9. …Gary called me up and asked me if I would write his theme song…
10. There is such a thing as a Tribble crane machine.

More details on GenCon soon.

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