![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/PXL_20241207_144608663.MP_exported_828-1024x664.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/I\/515oKaIwh+L._SL300_.jpg\")
\n <\/div>\n <\/span>\n The session was a blast. I don\u2019t do much in the way of talks or video in the tabletop space, so getting mic\u2019d up and talking to gamers at shows is something I don\u2019t do nearly enough. It was also a great reminder of how the word \u201ccomplexity\u201d can vary quite widely. I did a complete two-player game of In the Footsteps of Marie Curie<\/i> in about 20 minutes, and the game is very straightforward to me. But our learn-and-play session featured players at all points of the complexity spectrum, with some groups finishing their game while other groups struggled to understand the core mechanics.<\/p>\n
Nothing teaches patience quite like these moments, so it was a thrill to walk players through the various mechanics of the game. Better still\u2014handing out five copies of the game to teachers who were in the room for the play session. Beneeta invited me back for next year\u2019s session, and I\u2019m crossing my fingers that we\u2019ll get another chance in 2025.<\/p>\n
Tournaments and Championships (Will)<\/h2>\n
As I\u2019ve said across multiple reviews on this website, I\u2019ve been bitten by the miniatures bug. With my foray into Marvel: Crisis Protocol<\/a> that began in Spring 2023, my small collection has grown to almost 200 miniatures. My husband, Brock, is just as all in on this adventure as I am. So, as you can imagine\u2026 our bank account weeps. For my money, MCP is the most fun you can have with one of these games. It\u2019s got enough variety that you can be nigh-infinitely creative with how you build your team. It\u2019s deep enough that it rewards clever strategic play, but at the end of the day it\u2019s also a dice game, so even two players of mismatched skill are brought to an even playing field depending on the outcome of dice rolls.<\/p>\n We spent our first day at PAX Unplugged in an all-day MCP tournament. Atomic Mass Games this year announced official competitive scene support in Grand Tournaments, a welcome surprise for a community of players that had to build their own second-tier competitive scene due to lack of official competitive support. The final Grand Tournament of the year took place at PAX Unplugged. It began around 10 AM with check-in and registration and was slated to run until 9:00 PM. It was a lot of standing on the hard convention floor and hunching over tables, so when the final award was handed out, I immediately retreated to my hotel room and laid flat on the floor as my bones punished me for my decisions. Still, it was worth it, as I snagged second place in the 30-person event.<\/p>\n PAX Unplugged is fantastic because it can be a hub for many competitive games like this. Tournaments are firing for board games all weekend, and I noticed there were also competitive events for Star Wars: Shatterpoint<\/i>, Star Wars: Legion<\/i>, and several different Warhammer <\/i>titles. It\u2019s cool that you can come to town for a competitive event and then, as a bonus, spend the rest of your time exploring the abundance of games on display in the expo hall.<\/p>\n I go to a lot of shows\u2026and a lot of those shows don\u2019t have great food near the convention hall.<\/p>\n Indianapolis, for Gen Con<\/a>? The fast food options are great, but beyond that, Indy isn\u2019t the food beacon one hopes for in a major city. Essen, for SPIEL<\/a>? Don\u2019t get me started. It\u2019s not that the food is bad\u2026the food in Essen is uninspired. You will survive just fine, but no one I know has shared tales of legendary culinary experiences during those visits to the German suburbs.<\/p>\n But, Philadelphia? Oh my goodness, the food options are sensational. The food stands inside of Reading Terminal Market are great. Chinatown? Great. The elevated options? Pricey, but still great. And there seems to be great fast food, cheesesteaks, and fast casual food everywhere. Plus, the ethnic cuisine space in Philly is top notch.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not Chicago (I\u2019m a little biased), but PAXU will always be on the radar because I can eat so well with so many great people.<\/p>\n Since my Friday was entirely occupied by playing in a tournament, I dedicated my Saturday to exploring the floor and meeting with publishers. Brock and I started at the Asmodee media preview, and let me tell you, other publishers should take note! We had a private room set aside for about 10-15 media and influencers. We filed in and sat around various tables. Asmodee\u2019s Jason Brown took us through an extended presentation showing off all of the upcoming games, which were all present in the room and available for playtesting. (This doesn\u2019t include a few games that unfortunately missed the boat.) We had time to sit and play through Pergola<\/i>, the upcoming release from Rebel Studio. It\u2019s a cozy set collection\/tile placement game where you build a garden and grow plants to attract insects and critters. Let me tell you, this game is an absolute feast for the eyes and is charming as heck to boot. I know several people on my list that I\u2019ll grab a copy for when it releases.<\/p>\n \n \n Purchase from Amazon\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n \n\nWe were whisked away from Asmodee on a series of meetings and demos. Among them, we got a run-through from KOSMOS of all their offerings on display. Cooperation was the name of the game this year, with several twists on classic co-op formulas on display. Perhaps the hottest seller was The Gang<\/i><\/a>, a co-op take on Texas Hold \u2018Em<\/i> that they couldn\u2019t keep in stock at the booth. They released copies for sale each morning at a set time and sold out daily. There are so many more meetings to discuss, and we will undoubtedly get to reviewing the games as they\u2019re ready to be reviewed. Massive shout out to Dead Alive Games and Zephyr Workshop for providing two of my favorite conversations at the convention.<\/p>\n Last year being our first big show, it felt unwieldy. This year, though, it felt fantastic. Talking with Silvio Compagnoni, Head of Marketing for Loot Studios, he mentioned that his team loved PAX Unplugged for the conversations. He said that people just stop in for a few seconds at other big shows and leave the booth quickly. He valued the extended, lengthy discussions and genuine passion people seemed to have when stopping by. It\u2019s not as big or flashy as something like GenCon or SPIEL, but that leaves more breathing room to make those connections and work the relationships more personally.<\/p>\n This note is mostly an annual reminder for our friends at US-based conventions, such as Gen Con and PAXU, that they need to align with press guidance at shows in other countries. Please let the media into the main halls early! It\u2019s easier to have meetings with publishers when it\u2019s quiet, while audio and video recording is much <\/i>higher quality when there are no fans milling around. Early admission gives media members and content creators a chance to cover your convention more efficiently!!! (Remember the part where you remind us that the press badge comes with a cost\u2014talk up the event? We are already working for you! Make it easier for us to service your needs!!)<\/p>\n The team behind PAX Unplugged is very receptive to feedback. Nearly every complaint or suggestion I had about last year\u2019s event was rectified this year. They expanded their footprint, allowing more free-play seating and walkways between vendor booths. They moved the First Look area to a separate section of the convention center, meaning getting in a game was quieter and more manageable. That being said, this convention feels shockingly short. Arriving on Thursday, there\u2019s no programming available. When the convention opens on Friday, half your morning is spent in line to get into the convention center, and the expo hall closes at 6 PM. By Sunday, it\u2019s a half day as most people are packing up to leave.<\/p>\n This year, I felt the time crunch primarily because I used Friday to participate in non-media events. Give us a half day on Thursday or something! With Sunday mainly being a travel day for people and the convention hall closing up slightly earlier, it only gives two full days to take in everything. There\u2019s just so much content at PAXU in the expo hall alone that it seems like two days isn\u2019t enough, and that\u2019s not to mention all the panels and shows that I\u2019ve never been able to check out due to the packed schedule. One more day, PAX! I\u2019m begging you!<\/p>\n I went hard in one specific direction for my fifth and final board game convention of the year: I didn\u2019t schedule any meetings. I did, however, schedule a couple of demo games, including Aliases<\/i> from Allplay. Aliases<\/i> is a Codenames<\/i> \/ Just One<\/i><\/a> – adjacent card game, where players must collectively use clues placed on comic book-style villains to determine who the perpetrator is in a 13-card tableau. Our demo featured a full player count of six players, and we had a fun time trying to marry our criminal clue words into a single word clue that would help the table eliminate all but the most evil of suspects.<\/p>\n Azkadelia Hattress, the marketing rep for Allplay, was properly aggressive to ensure we had a full table of players to try the game, and it was fun doing a bit of buzzy promotion for the game after our demo play. Again, I have more of a radio face than a TV face, so it\u2019s always strange to me when I spend time talking to the camera about anything, let alone a board game. But these are the chances we get now at PAXU thanks to our strong partner relationships. Plus, it is just fun to actually play games at a game convention for a change!<\/p>\n Though PAX Unplugged offers excellent access for media, it\u2019s also a fantastic shopping experience. Plenty of the booths are selling merch. I had to pry my husband away from so many<\/i> pretty sets of dice. There are t-shirts, coasters, dice towers, books, and everything you could want to enhance your tabletop experience. But there are also plenty of publishers with copies of games that are impossible to find otherwise.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been searching for a copy of Obsession<\/i><\/a> for months. While chatting with the folks at the Dead Alive Games booth, I saw another person walk by with a tote bag containing a shrink-wrapped copy of Obsession<\/i>. I stopped him to ask where he got it, and once he pointed in the direction, my husband Brock took off running in that direction and returned a few minutes later with a bag full of every piece of content released so far for Obsession<\/i>. I thought we were done, but on Sunday, just before exiting the convention hall, we stumbled into the Chip Theory Games booth where they had exactly one copy of Too Many Bones<\/i> left. We walked out of there with stacks of games we\u2019d been looking for, and our wallets are unhappy with us.<\/p>\n Even though I\u2019ve been to a lot of shows this year and met with dozens of contacts, it\u2019s always a blast to meet some of the people we work with \u201cin real life\u201d for a change.<\/p>\n In the fall, Meeple Mountain had the opportunity to partner with the team at Eagle-Gryphon Games for a review and a live playthrough of the game Speakeasy<\/i><\/a>, the latest design from Vital Lacerda (Vinhos: Deluxe Edition<\/i><\/a>, On Mars<\/i><\/a>, Kanban EV<\/i><\/a>). Over the course of about six weeks, we were in touch with EGG\u2019s marketing and community team on a daily basis. Prior to PAXU this year, I had never put a face to a name until the show, when I met with Rachel Crownover and her husband while talking about the game Voidfall<\/i><\/a> at the Mindclash booth.<\/p>\n It was a fun moment for me, in part because I love meeting people who are passionate about heavier, more serious game experiences. (I also love meeting people who love Voidfall<\/i>.) This kind of thing happens to me once or twice at every show, and it helps when you are wearing a large Meeple Mountain logo on the back of your hoodie. A big thanks to Rachel and the entire team at EGG for their collaboration on one of the best games I played this year, but more importantly, it\u2019s just great to be in person at these shows and make the kinds of connections that really last.<\/p>\n There were plenty of fantastic games on display at PAX Unplugged. If I spent time listing out every game that impressed me or caught my eye, we\u2019d be here for days, so just trust me when I say to keep an eye on our upcoming 2025 reviews because some absolute bangers are waiting to be released. That being said, there are two games that I wanted to give a special shoutout to.<\/p>\n The first is a silly award I\u2019m calling \u201cGame Most Likely to Take Over the World.\u201d That belongs to Malediction<\/i>, an upcoming competitive skirmish wargame. It\u2019s a unique mixture of miniatures combat and trading card game mechanics, like if Magic: the Gathering<\/i> and Warhammer<\/i> had a baby. Each of the four starter sets has all the necessary cards and cardboard standees to represent each model. The creators behind this, the team at Loot Studios, made their name in creating STL files for 3D printing for tabletop RPGs. When you buy Malediction, you get all the STL files you need to print your own copy of the miniatures if you want to go through the effort! It appeals to both the hobbyists who want to paint everything and those who just enjoy the core gameplay loop and deckbuilding aspect. The gameplay itself is fantastic \u2013 look for upcoming coverage from us next month talking about it in more depth.<\/p>\n The next is the \u201cGame That Made Me Fall in Love With a Mechanic I Thought I Hated.\u201d It just rolls off the tongue, doesn\u2019t it? That honor belongs to Chicken Fried Dice<\/i>, an upcoming game that will hit crowdfunding sometime in Q2 2025. Created by Ashwin Kamath and Rob Newton, it\u2019s a frantic real-time roll and write game that made me think maybe I don\u2019t hate roll and writes after all! All players roll a handful of dice into a big pool and then, in real-time, scramble to grab dice and place them to resolve customer orders. Take too long to feed a hungry customer, and they\u2019ll walk away from your food truck and leave you a negative review. It\u2019s an absolute chaotic blast to play, as evidenced by the giggles around the table among shouts of \u201cYes, Chef!\u201d when the head chef called in an order. I cannot wait for this one to hit crowdfunding.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have skipped shows like PAXU in the past because I conduct so many meetings at the other shows in late summer and fall (Gen Con and SPIEL). While there were almost no new-to-me games at PAXU, some exhibitors only attend PAXU and not the other events.<\/p>\n That makes PAXU a must for our team, and what really brings it home is how game-play-friendly PAXU is. There are tables EVERYWHERE near and inside of the expo hall. The hotels that surround the Pennsylvania Convention Center host a lot of open gaming as well. Getting those shiny new toys onto tables quickly is very doable in the PAXU environment.<\/p>\n PAXU is certainly more \u201cplaycon\u201d (game-playing convention) than \u201ctradecon\u201d, due to the somewhat diminished number of vendors at the show. But the aisles featuring small and independent vendors is where it is at\u2014so many fun ideas, great prices, and amazing fare that is outside of the games larger publishers push out each year. In the future, I\u2019ll come to play more games, but also to consume more activity in those independent artist\/publisher-focused aisles on the expo hall floor.<\/p>\n PAXU was a great time once again this year. That works for some of our writers well, particularly around timing: PAXU is the only show in town during the month of December.<\/p>\n But in 2025, that is going to change, with PAXU scheduled for the weekend before Thanksgiving. Given the timing of other shows such as SDHistCon and BGG Con (with the latter being the exact same weekend as PAXU), along with the late start for SPIEL in 2025 (late October), it will be interesting to see how this is going to work for many of our media and content creation peers.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a question for another day. Thanks again to the folks at Penny Arcade and ReedPop for putting on a great show! PAX Unplugged is not as big as some other conventions out there, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in heart and quality. Read on for our takes from PAX Unplugged 2024 board game convention!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":310195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":true,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[1363,2632],"coauthors":[2130,6089],"class_list":["post-310189","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-board-game-convention","tag-pax-unplugged"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![](\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/I\/61h0+2pNMZL._SL300_.jpg\")
\n <\/div>\n <\/span>\n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paxu-01.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Food in Philly is the Best in the Tabletop Convention City Business (Justin)<\/h2>\n
Meetings on Meetings on Meetings (Will)<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/pergola-768x1024.jpg\")
![\"The](\"https:\/\/m.media-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51xl-xhjIkL._SL300_.jpg\"\n)
\n <\/a>\n \n Dear PAXU, You Need to Let Media in 30 Minutes Early (Justin)<\/h2>\n
Dear PAXU, You Need an Extra Day (Will)<\/h2>\n
Oooh, a Demo! (Justin)<\/h2>\n
Pray for My Wallet (Will)<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/paxu-02.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNames to Faces (Justin)<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/PXL_20241207_181322262.MP_exported_943-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\nShow Superlatives (Will)<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/malediction-1024x768.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.meeplemountain.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/chickenfrieddice-1024x768.jpg\")
More Playcon Than Trade Show (Justin)<\/h2>\n
Hmm\u2026November?<\/h2>\n
\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"