|
As loyal readers know, I've kept my toes in a number of various industries besides consumer electronics over the years. Experimental carpentry. Avant-garde beverage research. Time travel. This sort of thing. I've also kept up with game design -- everyhting from board games to dice games to massively-multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). Keeps me young. And so I recently took a trip to the gaming world's annual mecca.
GenCon , the annual Indianapolis convention that draws more than 80,000
gamers from around the world, is the planet's largest annual gathering
of “hobby game enthusiasts” -- more commonly known as D&D geeks.
Actually, the scope of the event is much more ambitious, encompassing
board games, strategy games, dice and collectible card games – just
about any game that doesn't involve sports or gambling.
 I've been attending for several years now, and it's about as much fun
as you can have if you're at all into this sort of thing. Gamers are an
intense bunch, and many attendees spend all four days “in character,”
dressing up as elves, wizards, ninjas. stormtroopers, vampires, what
have you. One of the great spectacles of the show is watching the gamer
crowd and the downtown service economy collide.
At one point, a large group of passers-by stopped in front of the
convention center to watch a squad of fully armored medieval knights
try to pile into a cab. Trickier than you might think, what with the
plate mail and shields and all. At the Starbucks, I watched Darth Vader
order a soy latte, and later joined a table of vampire dominatrixes in
a round of Bloody Marys at the pub. Good, clean American fun.
GenCon really is the event horizon of contemporary game design, with
hundreds of independent companies exhibiting their wares alongside
industry heavyweights like Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, publisher
of Dungeons & Dragons and the collectible card game, Magic: The
Gathering.
Probably the single game I was most impressed with at this year's con
is The Continuum, a multiplayer online game from the Chicago start-up
company Seven Lights. The game has a lot going for it. Hardcore gamers
will appreciate its ambitious mash-up of strategy wargame, RPG, and
collectible card game elements. But it's friendly for casual gamers,
too, as the game can be played online from any Internet-connected
computer. The setting of the story, which takes a refreshingly casual
approach to time-space conventions, is wildly inventive. Check it out, and prepare to set aside the next few weeks of
your free time.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
