GAMA Expo 2024 – Day 1

Brant Guillory, 4 March 2024

We’re back at the GAMA Expo – the main publisher-to-retailer trade show run by the Game Manufacturers’ Association – and this time we didn’t have to catch a 4am flight to get there.  We did have to drive to Louisville, KY, an adventure that also included a 90-minute highway delay thanks to an overturned glue-hauling tractor trailer.  No, you can’t make this shit up.

Last year we spent part of day one exploring the Peppermill Resort.  This year, we spent day one standing in line for registration.

Once our materials were in hand – including our woefully-inadequate lunch vouchers¹ – it was off to try to secure a seat for the upcoming keynote talk, due to start at 1030.  Unfortunately, the room had seats for about 1200 people, and at least 1600 already crammed in there.  It might’ve been interesting to hear, but not under those circumstances.
Instead, I popped up to the media working room and took a few minutes to go through the site book to try to offer the audience a sense of the programming here, and how it’s different from a consumer-focused event like Origins, or PaxU, or even your local convention.

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We mentioned it in the video, but want to make sure folks know: we’re here on the Hosted Media program, which means that GAMA is covering a chunk of our costs to attend.  That said, they’ve not asked for an opportunity to review anything we’re publishing or sharing.  Hell, we barely get a good review in before it goes live here.  Also, all photos / images you see have been cleared with the publishers before sharing, to make sure we don’t violate any embargoes.

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After a lunch break, a welcome session for the media followed by a terribly chaotic semi-networking discussion, and quick dash back to the hotel to grab a refillable water bottle, it was time for the media first look program.  Last year, this event ended up being over-run by non-media folks and difficult (at best) to really get much discussion with the publishers.  This year, GAMA had staffers checking for media badges at the door (yay!) but tables way too close together for the number of people moving through the room (boo!) – especially since a bunch of those tables were empty and could’ve been removed to make traffic flow easier.

click images to enlarge

This year, the first look program did not include the announcements of the Origins Awards nominees.

So what did we see in the room?  Not as much as last year, but that’s in part because some of the people we wanted to talk to were busy, and in part because there just weren’t as many interesting games on tables this year.

 

Space Lion: Divide And Conquer

This one is a “lane battler” where you deploy your cards left/center/right and match up against your opponent. Some cards are hidden.  Some have activated effects.  Some are discarded, or trashed, or manipulated, as you try to score medals for winning your duels.  Where this one differs from other similar games is that it scales up to 5 players, with ‘lane battles’ with your neighbors as well as center-table free-for-all.  This leads to some 7 Wonders-style interactions among players, all of whom have unique factions with which to play.

 

ARCS

Leder Games new sensation is here, with expansions, and yes, we’re going to dig into this much more this week if we can get close to the table.  If you want to hear Cole talk about the development of ARCS, check out our episode with him on the podcast.

 

Loke Battle Mats

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One of our favorites from last year is back again, with a super-size book of great combat-grid maps and a smaller coordinating book that fits in both scale and theme to allow for either extensions of the big maps, or zoomed-in detail.

That said, they also have our favorite new product (so far) – the Deck of Many Insults.  Only about half of them are SFW, and even with the off-colo(u)r language on the cards we show here, we’re not even close to how racy these can get.  Yes, it’s and insta-buy when we see it in a store.

 

Molly House

A confession, Drew Wehrle and I spent more time talking about Origins than we did about Molly House, so go watch Liz’s video for the details on the game.  Meanwhile, if you come see us at the Wargame HQ, there’s a non-zero chance you could end up in a game with Drew this Summer.

 

Did we mention that Renegade Game Studios brought back Heroscape ?

Hell, yeah.

 

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GAMA EXPO 2024
PART ONE ~ PART TWO ~ PART THREE ~ PART FOUR

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1. a $15 lunch voucher isn’t enough to cover a sandwich, chips, and soft drink