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My con demos
07-30-2012, 03:40 AM
Post: #1
My con demos
Whew. I'm just back from Ropecon, the biggest con in the nordic countries with almost 4000 visitors per year (I also believe it's the biggest non-commercial con in Europe). Aside from taking part in a Vampire the Eternal Struggle CCG tournament, I demoed Eden the whole weekend. 20 demos and now I'm pretty exhausted. Even lost my voice Saturday evening, but luckily got it back in time for Sunday's demos.

The response for phenomenal. There was always someone I was demoing to so that I barely had the time to eat just one very quick meal on the whole of Saturday (demoed from 10 to 22).

But it was fun! People loved Eden and most I demoed to started either strongly considering or outright said that they would get a force. They loved the small number of minis required and the small table space needed. And it was fun to see that people not very familiar with minis games took to the game extremely well, while veterans started instantly pondering on the possibilities of the system. The rules are clean and simple (for a minis game) but offer so much. Many commented on the "board game" style design philosophy with the "game" aspect coming before "simulation" and the innovative systems such as bidding strategy points for the initiative and so on.

I went with a very simple approach of three minis per side and simple mission cards starting in media res with the minis already pretty close to one another and playing for just three rounds. I quickly explained the scope of the game and that the demo was smaller than usual and then went over the stat card fronts noting that there's a lot of abilities in the back but that I would mention them when they became appropriate. I introduced the fighters in general terms and explained the missions.

Then I went over the strategy points and bidding for initiative, action points and the three basic actions. All of this took very little time and then the game was under way. I played with the Matriarchy against the Resistance unless there were two people taking part in the demo in which case I sat next to the table. Interestingly I managed to lose every single game even though I didn't actually try to do that - I mean, I didn't aim to win at all costs but wasn't doing anything superbly stupid, either. When I demoed for two people, the win rates of the two sides were pretty even.

But yeah, I guess my point here is that the game sells itself really nicely. If you wish to build a community, offer to demo the game and if the response is anything like it was here, you'll get a lot of players.

Next I'm thinking of holding a tournament during the fall.

I wish to thank Taban for their handsome sponsoring of the event - I ended up raffling two starters among the demo participants (and advertising this also drew some crowds).

Here's a couple of pictures:

[Image: 2wex5b5.jpg]
[Image: xmioaa.jpg]
[Image: 1hurp.jpg]

The gaming board was a bit on a budget version (four one euro 30x30cm pieces of cork stuck onto pizza box cardboard). This was because I had ordered a rubber gaming mat from Zuzzy but it hasn't arrived quite yet and a friend of mine with a better board was unable to attend, so I had to throw something together the night before. And the scenery is similarly not very superb - I really need to build some post-apocalyptic terrain. But the minis sold the game on a visual level so it still worked out ok.

Resistance is non-futile.
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Messages In This Thread
My con demos - Lemminkäinen - 07-30-2012 03:40 AM
RE: My con demos - Berf - 08-01-2012, 10:28 PM
RE: My con demos - Lemminkäinen - 08-03-2012, 06:35 PM

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