Tuesday is super early setup day… The big boys may have been here as early as the weekend, but for most everyone else, Tuesday is the day to show up and start setting up the booth.  Admittedly, it was still pretty sparse today, but it was a good chance to walk around and take in the fair in its new layout.  The whole fair is now contained in three larger halls: 1, 2, 3. 

Based on the square footage, it looks like there is more sq ft in the current layout than last year, but I must admit when walking around, it doesn’t feel as big.  I think that this might just be because you don’t get the 30 second breaks in scenery as you walked through the multiple smaller buildings and the connector areas between them.  On the map, some of the older areas look quite small.  Also, with the current lack of buildup, it’s hard to see how crowded the halls could get. 

BGG was doing its best to get set up. As usual, the amount of tech setup they have is massive, and not having a reliable source of electricity was making it harder to test this year’s Geekbuzz setup.  After finally snaking a cord all the way to an external wall, they were able to get the projector and laptops up.  I think that everything was a “go” as of this evening – assuming, of course, that they are able to get a more readily available source of juice.  The booth will be busy this year with a full schedule of videos being taped there.  Additionally, for the first time, the BGG promo store will be in effect – there are about 100 little bins at their booth that were being filled up with goodies today…

Given that I only had one day to acclimate to the time change, my brother and I elected to just run around and stay busy until bedtime.  We walked all around town, the fair, back downtown, all around the local area – according to my fitbit Ultra, I walked just under 31,000 steps for a total of 16 miles yesterday.  Good thing that I have been running this year.  I’m envisioning 10-12 miles every day here.

Managed to run into a few old friends, and I was able to get a few games.  Mission Control from Swan Panasia is officially the first game of the fair for me.  Concept (in English) as well as Rampage.  Templar from Queen also made it home.  We set it up on the hotel room table and went over the rules in about 15 minutes.  We got started, and about three rounds in, jetlag came and pretty much kicked us in the butt.  We have left the game set up and will be able to resume it (or restart it) on our next break on Wednesday.

The Atlantic Congress Hotel was on lockdown last night, making it quite hard to meet our friends for dinner – the Champions League match last night between Chelsea and Schalke was scheduled for 2045, and Chelsea was staying at the Atlantic Congress, and leaving around 1800 to head to the stadium. Couldn’t get within 100 meters of the lobby during this time. So, I couldn’t get really close nor could I get my camera out – but I think my brush with non-gaming greatness was that I was no more than 15 meters from John Terry and Frank Lampard today.

Also, trying to sleep at 2130 is hard when there are dueling champions league matches going on – and two local teams are playing.  Our hotel happens to have two or three bars at ground level, and I’ll be honest with you…  At the time, I did not know who scored, but the roar and cheering after Lewandoski’s 82nd minute goal went on for a good 5 minutes here.  It looked like there were just as many Schalke fans as Dortmund walking around, but Dortmund surely had more to cheer about.

Some little news and notes

Looks like Caverna will only be for pre-orders on Thursday with the bulk of their shipment coming on Friday.

Prosperity (Ystari) should be here according to Cyril.

I am so lost in the new halls. It will probably take until Saturday to feel acclimated. And then I’ll be heading home.

2F only got a partial shipment of their Folders, but this should be fixed by the time the doors open on Thursday.

R&R Games has everything but New Haven, and this is supposed to make it tomorrow.

I am sad to report that I have not yet seen pallets of either of Jeff Allers’ games, but I am also not sure where the WGG or dlp booths are.  I do not get my press guide until tomorrow. So there’s no reason to suspect it won’t be here, I just haven’t seen them yet.

Amerigo and Dark, Darker, Darkest are both in the huge Wallenstein/Colonia boxes.  I will have to see how the luggage situation looks before deciding on these… On the bright side,  I did talk to Keith Blume of Queen USA.  He said that Dark, Darker, Darkest and he said the pallet of games is already on the way to the USA.  The initial set of games is already earmarked for Kickstarter backers first, and then after that, the games will be released into the retail system.  Though there are still things that can get in the way (Customs, etc) – having them available on the marketplace before the end of the calendar year should happen.

The Japon Brand cards have very suggestive ostriches

OK time to get ready for Press day!

I’ll try to post more tonight – but late night meetings tonight are on the schedule.

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor