My Adventures at GenCant 2016

August 7, 2016

by GenCanterpillar

When I was born a couple days ago, I learned that there was a board game convention made just for me! I guess it's more of a can'tvention though. For those of you who don't know, Gen Con is a huge board gaming convention held every year. But there's also GenCant (named after me, of course), which is for all those people and animals who can't attend Gen Con in person.

The first thing I did was get my badge. Apparently I'm a Very Important Guest! I must be, because I'm pictured on the badge!

Me with my badge

I made sure my friend Ambie had her badge too. Unfortunately, on Friday Ambie had to do some work instead of playing games at GenCant. I decided to be a great friend and help her finish her work so that we could get out to the gaming hall as soon as possible.

Me helping Ambie with work. I can type faster because I have 4 arms

I also was able to play along with some online gaming that was going on for GenCant. They had great play along games/puzzles for Potion Explosion (Amazon), A Fake Artist Goes to New York (Amazon), and Panic Lab (Amazon). I had never played any of those games, but I really enjoyed doing the puzzles. That kept me occupied until Ambie was finally done with work, and we could get to more gaming.

On Friday night I got to play Arkwright (Amazon) with Ambie and some of her friends. We had all watched the How to Play video so we all knew the rules. It was a really exciting game. Since there were four players, all the workers got hired really quickly, so there was always a bunch of demand for the products! I was shipping a lot, so I didn't care much about the demand, but in the last couple rounds I stopped shipping, and then not everyone could sell what they produced. The game took about 3 hours, so by then it was time to call it a night.

Starting the game of Arkwright

The accommodations at GenCant were great. I got a good night's sleep, and the bed made it feel just like home!

Resting after a long day. I sleep with my eyes open

I was able to get a lot more gaming in on Saturday. Ambie and I met up with a bunch of people to play games for GenCant! There were a lot of games, so I decided to be a great convention volunteer and help caterpillar the library.

The GenCant Library was pretty big. I could barely lift the games

I got to play 1889 with Ambie and her friends. Ambie had been raving about these 18xx games, so I decided to give it a try. 1889 is apparently a beginner version of the 18xx games, since it's a smaller map and a shorter game. Our game was super quick for an 18xx game - it was under 2 hours including set up! It was engaging the whole time. Every decision was important - two companies got dumped, and the unfortunate player who received those companies ended up going bankrupt.

Laying my first tile! Although the board is small, it was still huge for me!

I got the first permanent 5 train, so I didn't have to worry about that company

After 1889, we played Endeavor (Amazon), a game where you get buildings to do different actions, and you're also trying to conquer cities on a central map. It was interesting because all the players did different strategies (getting cards, going shipping track, colonizing, and/or conquering), but the score was really close!

Playing Endeavor. All of these games are life-size for me!

We also played Elder Sign (Amazon), a dice game based on Lovecraft. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this game that much. Although the artwork was really nice, there wasn't much lore and immersion in the game. I like the full stories of Arkham Horror and Eldritch Horror more. Also, it's hard for me to roll dice well, since my hands are so small - only one die fits in each hand! There were 6 dice to roll, and I only have 4 hands! We ended up losing.

Elder Sign

Then we went to the vendor hall. I actually signed up to be a vendor, so I went to my booth, which was mainly meeple-themed items. Since I was in a generous mood, I had everything at a super discounted rate of free! Ambie bought everything, so I was sold out after 2 minutes.

My GenCant booth

Oh, another thing to mention about GenCant is the food! The food was amazing - a very wide selection and I could have anything I wanted! Of course, since I'm a vegetarian, I mainly just wanted to eat leaves, but Ambie said the steak was good too.

Saturday night dinner

Now it's Saturday night. I'll be leaving GenCant tomorrow, so the gaming is winding down. The last thing is my haul of games! I got some new games and accessories! After I played 1889, I got really into train games, so of course I bought a bunch of those. But they're all really big and hard for me to carry, since I'm so small. Luckily, I've got big humans like Ambie to help.