Our Gen Con 2024 Recap

 

 

Listen to the mp3 of our conversation above. Read below for a poorly edited transcript.

 

Josh: Welcome to Unscripted, a lighthearted, unrehearsed, and sometimes silly Q& A series with the Rose Gauntlet Entertainment team that includes CEO and Co Founder Isaac Vega, COO and Co Founder Lindsay Rhoad, and me, CCO Josh McCurry. So if you're listening to this, welcome to our first ever unscripted recording.

We're going to give this new style a whirl and see how we like it as opposed to the usual written format. But most importantly, do you like it? Let us know in the comments. On today's episode, we're going to spend some time reminiscing on the best four days in gaming. Let's talk Gen Con 2024.

Hey, that, that opening, that went okay. I think that went okay.

Lindsey: That was a good first take.

Isaac: It all went great. It didn't feel read at all.

Josh: Hey, so Gen Con, first off, the big question, how did it go?

Isaac: Well, I am incredibly tired, so we must have done something. [00:01:00] I feel like something happened. What happened? It's all a blur. But, Lindsay, how about you take it off. What was your first experience at Gen Con?

Lindsey: The very first moment of my Gen Con was accidentally arriving at the wrong shipping yard. And realizing that I wasn't at Gen Con, and then having to scramble 20 minutes to the correct place. I don't know what happened there. I luckily gave the rest of the team the correct address, and then typed in the wrong address for myself.

So, I was the only one to miss it.

Josh: We never talked about that. I don't know what happened there.

Lindsey: I'm just so happy that you all were sent the correct address, and I just completely blacked out doing my own. But yeah, we used the Yard for the first time. That was an incredible experience.

Incredible, not always really positive, but that was a cool I feel like we've been through, like, the true gauntlet, if you will. Like, this was the Gen Con where, you know, we had, like, the booth with a sold out product. We [00:02:00] used the Yard for the first time. We had like the dream team like it was just their biggest show ever I would say

Isaac: Yeah, I mean the show's gonna start off good if the very first thing that happens is that Someone threatens to call the police on you and that's not the first time that happens

Lindsey: You haven't been personally part of setup, please volunteer and participate in the joy that is this the setting of Gen Con.

Isaac: Yeah, and make sure you're parking in the right place, apparently.

Josh: Once we got the marshalling yard figured out, things went a lot smoother. Gen Con is kind of like like a classic, like, ghost story.

It's like, it's really easy to get in, but impossible to get out. By the end of it, like, it It started off kind of rocky, went to the right places, it went smooth, and there's never air conditioning inside the exhibit area, which is awesome.

Isaac: Yeah, everything starts out real sweaty at Gen Con, and remains with a sense of sweat throughout the rest of the show, depending on which vicinity you are in.

Josh: Yeah, so this was Rose Gauntlet's second exhibited Gen Con for having exhibit space. We did sell out of all our products, so that went well. I thought the booth looked nice. It was

Isaac: the best booth we ever had. Great job, Josh.

Lindsey: I never thought fake grass could be so sexy.

Josh: Yeah, the, the fake grass I thought looked nice. We had the flowers and everything set up. We had a new backdrop, new tablecloths, new, new, new. If you didn't see it at Gen Con and you're going to be at PAX Unplugged, surprise, it's going to look very similar, but it'll be new to you, so it'll be fine.

Isaac:. That's fine. We're taking the show on the road. That's what people want.

Josh: Yeah, but beyond the booth I think from, at least from my side, I think everything went really well. It can be chaotic and everything at the show, but I know a lot of the time was spent in meetings and up at the BIPOC lounge, but I think all that stuff went really well too. You guys tell me.

Isaac: Yeah. I mean, the meetings went excellent. Everybody is super excited about what we currently have out. Wild gardens went super, super well at the show. Turnup was a massive surprise was also doing super well. Ken was having just wonderful little joyful moments. just demoing the game throughout the entire show and I loved seeing him just giddy with the amount of people just enjoying and loving his game.

And people really, really turned towards it. So I think Turnip is, you know, definitely exceeding our expectations and going further, which is exactly what we wanted, but man, is it awesome to just see it out in the wild and finally happening. And that was our first like, Oh, we're just dropping this game without any crowdfunding type of game.

So it's just like, Seeing that and seeing that be successful means that we'll likely do something like that again in the future. It's just like what, what game is going to be the right one and seeing how Turnip does in distribution will also paint the picture as to how we want to move forward with that.

And then like people are also super excited about what's happening with the Bird series that's coming up and those four games and people are just like gravitating towards that too. And then Gone to Gaia also hit it out of the park winning best in show from Gaming Trend as well even with Quinn just having a pretty rough looking prototype, but people were just digging it and he was demoing that thing all weekend long, so.

All of our stuff was really resonating with people, and that felt really good to see because it's just been so long with us toiling with one game on the market and just kind of like, we're doing stuff guys, we have stuff coming out, and this show is really kind of like an explosion of everything that Rose Gauntlet is trying to be and to see so many people resonating with that feels really good.

How do you feel everything went, Josh?

Josh: I know on the, the bird series so we had kind of like a surprise last minute invite from Backerkit. Cause we're going to be on Backerkit for the bird series. And we got a kind of last minute invite to demo the bird series in the booth. So we had Ken, who's the designer of Flock, one of the games for the bird series.

Down at the backer kit booth and I was a little nervous. I was like, hey, maybe you need to like bring people from the That you find like friends people the foundation like bring somebody down to play it but he went down there and he's like, yeah, there was people the whole time We played a bunch of flock like it went really well.

I was like, all right, cool every all the content creators that we showed the game they connected them with them like really easily things seemed super smooth and then the Gone to Gaia side it was the same thing it was like all of those you had to get tickets to be able to sign up to play.

It's a one to two player game so there's not a lot of slots available, but it was like The night before we left or something like that. I was looking I was like, oh man Quinn signed up the designer for like I don't know, eight different sessions and like one or two of them were sold out. And I was like, Oh man, how's this going to go?

All sold out, everything sold out, everything went super well. I'd go down to check on them. Everything's going great. Lots of smiles from everybody. People super interested into the game. And I mean, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a early prototype. It's still like, yeah, it looks smooth. It's Quinn's super organized too, with all that stuff.

So like, it's got like a, it didn't look chaotic and messy and stuff like that. It still looked really nice.

Lindsey: Yeah, I think it was just, it's so cool because we've really been hunkering down for the past year, year and a half. You know, very, we haven't really been talking a lot about what we've been doing.

We've kind of just been like putting our heads to the grindstone. So get to see the trade off of like this explosive amount of new content, all dropping at Gen Con and then seeing the fans and the community react to that. And just like the validation was amazing. I'm not going to lie. Like it was so cool seeing everyone be like, Oh, what's next?

And I'm like, Oh, buckle up because we're at like four to five different tables you can visit to see what's next. And that was just so incredible. And I think it kind of like almost caught people off guard, especially Ghana Gaia in particular. I think no one really expected that to demo at Gen Con and not only for it to demo, but then for it to win best of Gen Con was really, really exciting.

Isaac: Yeah, yeah, that was amazing. But like, kudos to you, Lindsey, and all of the hard effort that you put in into actually getting our product to the show. Because that was such a nightmare and we had no idea up until the day before the show whether or not we'd have Wild Gardens there, whether or not we'd have Turnip there.

We just had so many shipping nightmares take place and Lindsey was on the phone with everyone like all the time Trying to make sure that our product would get there and it did and we had it there and that really guaranteed us having a good show. Cause otherwise we would have just been sitting at the booth twiddling our thumbs with the nothing.

Lindsey: Oh, that would have been so awkward. There was this amazing moment in the marshalling yard. I was checking in the truck. And getting our parking passes at the beginning of the show and I got the phone call that all the product had arrived on time and was in our booth ready to go. And I like shouted out loud from joy and every other owner of a company or worker who was also in line with me turned around and like, did your games deliver?

And I said, yes. And the entire line started cheering. For our company because everyone goes through this. This is like if you start a game company, this is just your life and they all immediately could relate and then also celebrate by achieving it with me. And that was a very cool moment.

Josh: Yeah. I would say this isn't one of the, the questions I wrote down for this interview, but also just like lessons learned.

I'm like, all right. If you have a, Pre release or Gen Con release that you want to have at the show. Oh my god, get it to fulfillment super early. Do not wait around with that. That was really scary. Park at the marshalling yard and, and to all of that for unloading and loading. But of course Lindsay can attest get there super early at the end.

The end is the time to get there early to actually get out of there. What else? What other, what other stuff are we like, Oh my god, don't do that again. Or we need to do this.

Isaac: Well, we're definitely going to try to set up a day earlier next year. Because this year, oh my gosh, like, just moving through the hallway and, and during set up was insane.

Like the amount of trucks and shipments and people and like boxes and things that were in the way. It was crazy. For us to just try to move through the convention center was insane. So if we can, because we're setting up not only the booth, but we're also setting up the BIPOC lounge, like it's just craziness.

So being able to get there a little bit earlier next year. I think it's gonna help us out a lot because in that way our team can get through the convention center and actually get our stuff to where it needs to be Much easier and then we can have a lot more of a chill Wednesday before the chaos starts on Thursday.

Josh: Yeah, two other lessons to if, if it's within the budget, being able to stay at a hotel that is connected to Gen Con, what a huge difference that made for everybody.

Isaac: It was so nice because for the last two years we had been in an off site hotel that was 15 to 20 minutes away driving and that's if traffic was perfect, which it often wasn't. And this year would have been even worse because like Indianapolis itself was like under a lot of construction and craziness and there were so many loop de loops so I'm so glad we were at the Wesson this year and being able to walk to our hotel room just to take a breather away from the show or to go to the bathroom or just have a minute to like lay down.

That was So worth it. It does not matter the difference in cost. It was so worth it. So yes, absolutely. We are going to do that every year if we can.

Josh: Yeah. And from, from a packing perspective Isaac is right. It's especially at the start is very sweaty. And at the end is very sweaty. So packing it's, it's more like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat. Make sure, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Isaac: The full change of clothes, pack the big suitcase. Now, and then maybe another suitcase for the games that you decide to bring back. Luckily, we all drove to the show. So we were able to take back whatever we wanted, which was nice. I bought way too much art.

Lindsey: You did buy a lot of art.

Isaac: I bought a lot of art. And then I also gifted art. And it was just, It was everything I wanted, but I still didn't get enough time in artists. I still don't see all the artists, which is bad. And I didn't spend as much money as I wanted to. That's

Josh: let's, let's skip to that question.

What's the favorite art piece that you either got or saw from artist Sally?

Isaac: So I bought a lot of things and it's hard to name everything that I. But the thing I ordered that was the most expensive is probably up there because I ordered a tapestry of Hollow Knight and that was 300. But it is so cool and immaculate and the artist, the way they did the art is kind of like this really cool, sketchy, kind of not super detailed way, but the way that it printed on the tapestry and on the fabric.[00:14:00]

Perfect. And I'm so excited to actually get it. So it's actually being delivered to me because they didn't have it to give me at the show. But I should be receiving that soon. They just sent me the shipping confirmation. So I am excited to hang it up on my wall or use it as a blanket. I don't know.

We'll see. But it's beautiful. I love it. But I love all the pieces that I got. I got so many. What about you guys?

Lindsey: Let's see. I did not get as much of a chance to check out Artist Alley. I kind of ran through it looking for a specific Cowboy Bebop print that Josh told me about from an artist that I unfortunately don't know the name off the top of my head, but I know Isaac, you're a massive fan and have owned many, many of

Isaac: his Pokemon

Lindsey: prints.

Isaac: He's the same artist that did Sea of Stars. So Yeah.

Lindsey: So

Isaac: His, his name is Bryce Coe. So I actually have his art book for sea of stars right here next to me. And it's very beautiful.

Lindsey: It's so gorgeous. So I went all the way down there. [00:15:00] Unfortunately, that print was sold out by the time I got down. Ah, which is such a bummer so I'll be placing an order online. Yeah. And then other than that, I got this really cute little tiger pin, which is like the year of the tiger, which is my year. But it's playing with an adorable ball of yarn. isn't nice, and I love that pin.

Josh: So I've got, I've got one small story that we can talk about, but I personally like my favorite thing. I mean, all the stuff that I got was like my favorite thing. Isaac gifted me a Godzilla print, which looks amazing and is definitely going to go in. My we're having a baby in September and it's gonna go in the baby's room.

Isaac: That's gonna be great. That's amazing.

Josh: Everybody's been bugging us about like, what's the theme?

What's the theme of the room? And somebody gifted us like a safari like rug. And then that's just become a thing. It's like, well, it's safari, it's animals, it's, well, it's like, well, it's not. And I'm like, well, if it's animals, I've got a Godzilla. So that was great. It was awesome. The artist for Slay the Spire was there.

So I got a signed print from him. That was really cool. There's another artist that Is building I asked him like how long have you been working on this? It's like 40 years 20 years I can't remember something. But like he's in an interesting twist has created and crowdfunded, a couple campaigns for lore books for a world for games that aren't out yet.

The games are coming second, which is such like a reverse thing, but the books were gorgeous. And I got one of the art pieces from it. That's really creepy and cool and right down my alley. And then Babs web look her up. She does really cool a lot of like black and white gothic kind of stuff.

My wife is a historian. She loves her stuff. I got her a print last year, so I got her a second one this year. But her booth, I've asked everyone I talked to the show is like, did you see Babs Webb's booth? And I described it [00:17:00] and they're like, no. And so now I'm wondering if this didn't exist and things like My face is going to show up on the print when I look at it or something.

And this is all just a terrible, like Stephen King fever dream. She had a booth that had a black wall on the front and like spider webs or something, I can't remember in the front. It was, it was pretty neat. And then like a little carved out box in the front hole, like square hole where like she would ring people up and do orders and stuff.

It would be impossible to miss if you're walking by it. But no one saw it.

Isaac: I actually did see it. Okay, thank god. So you won't have someone steal your face.

Lindsey: I did not see it. So maybe my soul is just the only one that wasn't completely captured at Gen Con.

Isaac: But yeah, her stuff is really cool and very spooky.

Yes. But she has a lot of great pieces. For people that love like Elden Ring and stuff, she has some really cool Elden Ring pieces as well.

Josh: Okay. So, beyond Artist Alley let's move on to, you know, it's Gen Con, Games. What was your guys favorite game played? We didn't play a lot. We're working so, so much there, that we didn't play a ton. Is there a game played that was your favorite?

Isaac: What was the game that we played with Jonathan Ying that night?

Lindsey: I was about to ask you the same question. You're talking about the one where it's like, the if or, like the question game. The one about squirrels that's not about squirrels.

Isaac: Yeah, it's just like a ridiculous squirrel word game, but it has nothing to do with squirrels.

Josh: Who was the designer? I forgot. It was somebody, it's somebody quasi famous. They've done a lot of stuff. I can't remember.

Isaac: It wasn't Vlada, was it?

Lindsey: It wasn't, I don't think. It was a name when you read it and you're like, of course, of course this is who made this. This is such a simple, dumb concept that immediately was a hit. It's called That's a Question.

Isaac: Yes.

Lindsey: Yeah, that's a question and it's Vlada.

Isaac: Oh, it was, it was Vlada.

So yeah, yeah, it's a ridiculous game. I don't know if I love it. It wasn't necessarily that I loved it, but I loved the conversations that came out of it. And I loved having it with that group of people. And we were all just so tired. And it's the end of like, it was Saturday night, right? Like it was Saturday night, the second to last day of the con.

And. We're all so tired and we're just answering these things in ridiculous ways. And it's just lovely to spend time with Jonathan and you guys. Like, we actually all three got to sit down and play, which is so rare for us to all have time to be available at the same moment. But it was pretty late.

And yeah, it was just an enjoyable moment and I think it was the only game I actually played at this show. I don't think I played any other game.

Lindsey: We also played Startups from Oink Games. We did a quick game of that, which I really enjoyed. I want to kind of play it again because I started to kind of really grasp the strategy of it near the end.

But I would love to play it again. I love Oink Games. It's just really impressive what they can fit into a small deck of cards from a gameplay perspective.

Isaac: And Quinn joined us that night too, so it was just nice to be able to relax with him and get to know him a little bit better, which is really cool.

Josh: I think my favorite, I mean, it was, it's not fair, just because I love those games, but we played Arkham Horror on Sunday morning. And playing through. I didn't love the, if anyone listening has played Arkham Horror Living Card Game, it, the, the game itself is a big enough competitor that I don't actually need another competitor.

And in fact, the clock in the game is a good enough clock that I don't need to feel rushed anymore. But they had it like competitive to the people basically to the left and right of you trying to get achievements done before other people and like that part of it. I was like, I actually don't need more pressure on my play through and trying to be efficient, but.

The actual, the, the new standalone that they had and everything was really fun. It was just fun to play. And again, it's like, it's the last day getting to take a moment. We need to do more of those at future shows and immerse ourselves into the con and actually play some games and stuff.

Isaac: Both you and Lindsey got to do an event and I was a little jealous.

So next year I'm going to try to make sure. That I can do an event to because I have actually I've been at Gen Con for I've gone to Gen Con for over 13, 14 years at this point. I've never done any of those. Like, I've always just worked this show.

Lindsey: Yeah, it's so rare for people who work it to get to but I think it's important to because, like, Only by playing these events will we understand what's fun about them and what's not fun about them and how to do a better job, you know?

So it is like, and on top of that we just, we deserve to play games too sometimes.

Isaac: Right.

Lindsey: Like it's just enjoyable to play games together.

Isaac: It really does reinvigorate our drive for what we do and just being part of the community in that way is so nice. So yeah, that's, that's good. And I'm glad we're going to try to build more of that into our con experience in general.

Josh: Yeah, it's just getting to see like what other people are enjoying, but like being at the tables and stuff and understanding like, hey, you know, like we were trying to play Arkham and I was like, this table is too small for this also, like, it's kind of crunched and like, Just having that understanding when we want to have our own stuff, like at these tables and how we want to do this and all that kind of stuff is just, it's, it's like being, being amongst the people, you know, like instead of stuck in meetings and everything, the whole time is, or being stuck at the booth and you're just, it's transactions and sales and explaining the same game a million times.

So, Favorite that's favorite game played favorite game acquired. This one's easier because we all we all bought games. What's maybe even not everyone's had a chance to play all the game. None of us have played all the games. We've got but what maybe what's the one you're most excited about?

Isaac: So I'm excited. I didn't actually, I don't think I actually bought anything at this show, but I am getting sent something. And I'm excited to play that, but I did have, I did go with a Dave and Danny who's like my local game group as well. And they picked up Windmill Valley, which I'm super excited to play. And we already have that scheduled for this week for game night.

So I'm super excited to give that a try. It looks like this very gorgeous hero with some of the same, like, gear movement mechanics of Tzolk'in which is interesting, but everybody has their own gear, like, in front of their, on their player board, and it looks super gorgeous and well put together, so I'm excited to play that, and then I'm getting a copy of Arcs sent to me as well. So I'm excited about that.

Yeah, I did see it at my local game store that I was at this weekend, so they had a few copies, but they had everything that was like a hit at Gen Con. I was like, this is crazy. Like, how did you get this? How did you get all of this stuff and you still have stock of it? That's insane.

I don't know what it is with Common Ground Games. I know the owner and he, he just has access to stuff like super early. It's amazing. So, like, I, I, I love seeing, I love seeing what they always have in stock cause this store is immaculate. What about you, Lindsey?

Lindsey: Let's see, so I'm also getting a copy of Arc's shipped to me, which I'm really pumped about. It was really hard to be patient for that and then not get it at the show.

But that is by far the thing I'm most excited about. The other thing I'm super pumped about is a game that I've wanted for a long time and just like, it's never been in my local game store. But I know that most people have probably already played it and it's Sleeping Gods. The new one, I'm really pumped about it.

We have our game group starting it on Monday. Next Monday, which is a few days away. So I'm really, really pumped. Again, not a new release. It's, everyone else has probably already played it for a while. But I finally have a copy and I'm super pumped. Let's see, we've been playing a lot of Unmatched.

I introduced my family to Unmatched and it was a massive hit,

Almost to a point of regretfulness because now it's all they want to play. And then finally I got Drop Polter from Oink Games. Again, not a new game, but it's been really hard to find. And I knew that they would have it at the show, so I went and grabbed a copy and I introduced that to my game group this past weekend.

And it was an instant classic as it always is with every game group I've ever seen play it.

Josh: Yeah, it'll be interesting. So like Sleeping Gods, I've played a lot with my wife, and then we got Sleeping Gods Distant Skies, which is the one you're talking about. It'll be really interesting, interesting playing with like, an extended game group, because like, my wife and I were pretty like, yep, we'll go wherever.

You have like four people are all wanting like different places. They want to go somewhere else. They'll be really interesting. It's like a nice stress test for like people trying to cooperate together. So

Lindsey: Yeah, it should be really interesting. But I don't think it even comes close to the. ridiculous game that you brought home that is big enough to hide a body in.

Josh: Oh, yeah. Well, I, I was surprised you, I mean, we could always come up with a question of like, game you really wish you bought, but you didn't. Cause you didn't mention Pagan, Fate of Roanoke, which.

Lindsey: Look, I have nothing against Pagan, but just tell me if you liked it or not. I have, it's not a theme I'm very interested in.

Josh: I think I'm gonna like it. I bought it. It's head to head. My wife and I usually do co op, but we do a few head to heads. It just seemed really neat. It's the art has like the darkest dungeon kind of vibe to it. So it looked pretty cool. And Lindsay, I know you're really jealous about it, but The other game one of the big ones that I got was Agemonia.

And I try to, like, every show, like, find, like, what's the next, my wife and I play a lot of big campaign games, and so trying to find, like, what's, what's one we don't have? What's, what's a new one, maybe, that we missed out on? And Agemonia, I believe, delivered from crowdfunding last year, or sometime early this year, and then they just completed a crowdfunding campaign for a second printing.

It's kind of weird. It looks like the box I have is the second printing. I have minis that are part of the second printing, but it's not, it's not exactly the second it's, it's like I have the, maybe they, they manufactured them first before the campaign, but they're not delivering the second printing stuff until they do all the new stuff.

So I'm missing like a lot of the new stuff. So if we really like it, I may end up getting that new stuff. Pledge from their website. I was asking them about that. It's gigantic. I, I think it may have really freaked Lindsay out seeing the size of that box and then thinking about how much Gone to Gaia is going to cost.

Lindsey: It did. That was an accurate description of my reaction when I realized that Gone to Gaia would have a similar size box. And I thought about what it would cost to ship all those boxes to everybody.

Josh: You know, it's, it's a big box when the lid doesn't fit on the box and they're like, yeah, that's part of it because you break down cardboard and then the box can close a little bit better.

So it's, it's a big game. It's a really cool narrative and everything. We've already played a couple of scenarios. It's fun. So yeah, I'm glad I picked that up, but yeah, there's more, there's going to be something at PAX Unplugged. I'm all fine.

Isaac: Josh was so excited about this game that he took some time to go back to the hotel room, sit down, punch everything out of it, in a storm, all over his bed, and put it all together that very same day, which was insane because there's a lot of stuff there.

Josh: So, I go to the show floor, it's before open, we're looking around kind of scouting the area. I see this game and I'm talking to the designer about it. And I'm like halfway through. Cause there's just, it's, it's hard to talk about a game like this, especially if you don't have like space to show everything.

And I was like, listen, I'm going to buy this game. Don't worry about it. Like I'm, I'm going to do this. And he was very lovely, man. I bought the game and then the exhibit hall opened and I was like, Oh my God, this is probably the worst time, but like, there's no good time to buy. a game that is like the weight of four watermelons and like trying to like carry that out of the exhibit hall but like there's a rush of people and so I’m like oh I just I got to bring this up to the room I think went to the bipoc lounge first had a meeting or something and I was like I got to bring this back and then I brought it back to the room and I was like you know what like I also just need a minute and I was like, I'll just, I'll just open this up.

I just want to look, which is like the gateway drug of just punching everything out, at least for me. And the next thing I know, I'm sitting in the middle of my bed, punching out this gigantic game. And once you start, it's impossible, like to work, you have to organize it before you put it away. So you're committed.

And then I'm like, Oh, this is going to be so weird. If like my, my hotel roommate comes in and is like, I'm just sitting there like in my boxers on, on the bed. punching everything. I'm surrounded by cardboard and cards and I'm just like, Oh my God, this is, I'm sick. This is, this is an illness right now that I'm dealing with.

And I got it all punched, but it felt great. And then we just got to play it when we got home. So it was perfect. All right. Final question. Favorite moment from the con?

Isaac: I'll go with this because we kind of asked this question at the con and it's kind of a weird moment but there was this moment, I think on Saturday morning where I just had like a 30 minute To myself, I actually went into the BIPOC lounge before it opens and kind of sat there and was just kind of looking at everything we had put together and reflecting on everything that we had done up into the show.

At that point, we were almost sold out of all the products. The BIPOC lounge was looking fantastic. We had helped so many people. We had gotten so many compliments on how the, the BIPOC Lounge has just continued to expand its resources and the way it's been able to help the community there and just seeing how all of our games have been received and just having that 30 seconds to eat a sad breakfast sandwich. But just being a little bit of peace by myself and reflect on all of that during the show was such a rarity and such a sweet moment and something I'll probably remember for a very long time. And I just appreciate so much everyone's hard work around the dream that we've been able to put together with this company and what we're able to do for the community and for GenCon.

We, there was a panel. At the end of the show, where people were able to kind of come in and talk about ways in which Gen Con can improve, and we have received so many compliments on the work that we're doing with the foundation and the BIPOC Lounge. And it's just lovely to continue seeing that the stuff that we're putting out there is being received so well and is having an impact on the community.

Having that time to reflect was just lovely and I just really appreciate doing the work that we're doing because there's just so much, so much wonderful feedback and wonderful little ripple effects that we continue having in the industry. And it's nice to be able to reflect on that.

Lindsey: Oh, don't worry. I got it. Mine didn't involve Isaac either.

Josh: My favorite moments were when you guys weren't there.

Lindsey: Yeah, when we were separated. We had a breakfast the final morning. Isaac, you had already left for Texas. Cause you did, you pieced out very early that morning cause you had a long drive. And we stopped at a breakfast place, the rest of the team, and that breakfast was so wonderful.

Everyone was exhausted, but everyone was so happy. The company was like, it was such a hopeful, everyone was talking about the future, everyone was really pumped about what was coming next. The conversations all revolved around how excited we were, how well the show had gone, and just all of the cool things we're going to do for next year's GenCon, and all the cool things that are going to be out for next year's GenCon, and all the amazing projects that we're going to be working on in the future.

And I think for me that moment was probably the most special because it was a really amazing team moment and everyone was just syncing up so well and it was cool to see how much excitement and joy there is for another year like this one, which we've worked really hard and has been pretty grueling. So the fact that everyone wants to do it again and is that pumped up to go back to work was a really, really amazing moment.

Josh: Wow, these are really sweet and thoughtful. Now I feel super guilty and I'm just trying think of something.

Lindsey: Just crushing someone in Arkham. Destroying someone in Arkham.

Josh: Yeah, I mean there was a lot of little stuff. There was, you know setting up the booth and being like, Oh my god, this is the first time I've been able to actually have eyeballs on everything.

And like, you know, It all fits. It's all how it's supposed to be like things don't there's nothing weird or wrong or So that was really it's more like reliefs on some of these things. That was such a relief having the product there was such a relief. Being able to Have time to go through with Everyone working the booth and walk through the games.

Like that was something that was a bit chaotic last year. So it was nice to like sit with everybody, ask questions, like hear people's pitches about the games and like offer like feedback and just kind of like work through that stuff was really nice. If you can tell I'm very structured, organized typically.

So these, these are the things that bring me relief is having that kind of structure and it's the same at the end being able to like. Officially meet right before we started packing up and talk through how the event went and what we'd want to adjust. But it was, you know, having a broader team and being able to hear from everybody.

They're different perspectives and stuff like that. I thought was really valuable and was nice. But my favorite, my favorite thing. It's, it's not a thoughtful or nice thing, but we were walking. The booth one morning and looking at games and Lindsay thought somebody was talking to her and she responded and they were not talking to her.

And I watched I watched a grown person's soul leave their body.

Lindsey: It was a pretty, it was a great moment.

Josh: Listen, it was amazing. Not just that, like, it's, it's, I guess it's just that you don't usually like, I've done that a million times myself. And usually no one's there to witness that and then you just spend all day, at least with me.

I'm just like, Oh my God, that was so embarrassing. Oh my God. I can't believe I did that. And it just like kills you. But to have an audience, I was like, this is such a rare moment. I don't usually see these things and no one sees me when this happens that I just. Found it hysterical pretty much for the rest of the con.

Lindsey: You can imagine how awesome it was to have this like really awkward, embarrassing moment where you're like answering questions and then realizing that no one's even talking to you and then you turn and someone's just staring straight at you and like with full context and knowledge of what you have just done.

Josh: That was amazing. That was, it was one of my favorite. That was, that was, yeah.

Lindsey: Yeah. I believe you said that in the moment as well. You turned to me and goes, this is amazing. I can't believe you just did that. I was like, thanks Josh. Thanks for marking this moment in time.

Josh: It'll be locked in forever. That was, that was Gen Con 2024.

Well, hey, that's a wrap on this conversation. Thank you. Thank you to Isaac and Lindsay. Thank you to everyone listening. Thank you to any poor souls reading through this very long and messy transcript. We'll try to be a little tighter in the future. It's just exciting. It's Gen Con. We have a lot of stuff.

It was a whole week of our lives together. Remember, if you like this new format, let us know in the comment section. If you miss the old format, let us know that too. If you don't like either, you could probably keep that to yourself. That's fine. And yeah, that's a wrap on another edition of Unscripted.

We'll talk to you next month. It'll very likely be highlighting our new crowdfunding campaign, the Bird Series, coming to Backerkit in September. So we'll see you then.

Lindsey: See you then.

Isaac: Bye.