While the main dealer hall can’t be beat for concentrated gaming information, the adjacent gaming hall is a great place to stop in and play games. Some publishers rent space to provide an area for a full playthrough of their games and/or host tournaments during the weekend. This includes some people without a booth in the dealer hall. The gaming hall provides a bit of exposure and much more room for gaming for what I suspect is a lower price point.
Since I usually went through the gaming hall on my way in and out of the convention, I was able to check out several publishers who weren’t to be found in the main dealer hall. Tesselation Games was an easy visit because they were showing off String Theory, the crazy-looking yarn-unspooling game of conspiracy podcasting. I also tried their older game, Berrymandering, consisting of repeated I-split you-choose results until the board is finished off.
As a fan of the League of Legends videogame, I was happy to see Incredible Dream Studios bringing back the cooperative Mechs vs. Minions campaign game. You can get it with cardboard and acrylic pieces or the old-school pile of plastic figures. Not technically the game demo hall, but I caught up with a friend at the freeplay ballroom to see how his car-battler Vroom Zoom Boom from Lime Green Games is coming along.
Tesselation Games
String Theory Dani Aretskin, Eliot Aretskin-Hariton, Asya Aretskin-Hariton
One of the more eye-catching tables in the play hall was a table filled with a giant hexagonal grid filled with clothespins and bits of string. String Theory is a three to five player game about making your own podcast on conspiracy theories. Players compete to get the most followers, indicated with sheeples, which work as victory points in the game. In the elevator pitch players try to connect conspiracies, collect evidence, and then prove them true to increase the number of their followers. 
Each player has their own skein of yarn which starts in one location and is unrolled during the course of the game. Turns consist of players continuing to unroll their string from their last location to a new spot on the board. Crossing over a length of an opponent’s string will grant the opponent bonuses, as some of your followers (metaphorically) will also be led to the opponent’s podcast.
At the game start there is a global goal of connecting 3 conspiracies, each location on the board is a specific conspiracy, Connect the appropriate locations to earn the stated victory points.
Players also have black cards that show a personal, secret agenda, scoring these when they are accomplished.
Players spend cards to move around the board – indicated in the upper left corner of a card. Arriving or passing through a location grants resources. When resources are spent to match the lower left symbols on a card, a player can earn the sheeple points shown in the lower right.
Look for a crowdfunding campaign to start up sometime in October.
Berrymandering by Eliot Aretskin-Hariton, Justin Gray
New to me, although it’s been out for a few years, Berrymandering is a two player game where one player creates groups of tiles and their opponent chooses which group to score. The idea is to cut up a cake decorated with berries, players get to keep the slices in which they have the majority, and obviously you want as many slices as possible.
The game starts with a full 6×6 grid of cake tiles showing various numbers of strawberries, blueberries, and six mystery tiles. The first player sorts the playfield into groups of four tiles (see the tetris shapes on the board edge above.) The second player then chooses one of the sets of four tiles to score. Whoever has the most berries showing on that set of 4 tiles wins that challenge. Those tiles are now flipped face-down.
Play continues with the players switching roles and the new active player making new sets of four tiles. Play proceeds until all nine groups of 4 are scored. Whenever a set is chosen that contains a mystery tile, one of the mystery tiles next to the board is flipped to reveal its contents. There are six mystery tiles, each side has two tiles worth one berry and one tile each worth two berries.
The most eye-catching bit of the booth was the oversized game made out of wooden blocks.
Can you tell whose turn it is?
In a few months, they hope to print a new run of the game, entitled “BEARymandering” with a slightly less political theme (color-wise) of the bears and the bees.
Several versions of the custom wooden Berrymandering maps.
Incredible Dream Studios
Mechs and Minions by Chris Cantrell, Rick Ernst, Stone Librande, Prashant Saraswat, Nathan Tiras
Many moons ago (about 124), Riot Games (the folks who created the real-time videogame League of Legends) created their own boardgame. Something you can do, I guess, when you’re the publisher of one of the most-followed professional e-sports leagues. Mechs vs. Minions is a cooperative tabletop campaign for 2-4 players set in the world of League of Legends lore. It was a fairly popular game, winning many awards, but it was not kept in print and has become a bit pricey in the secondhand market. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the boardgame, Incredible Dream Studios is republishing the game in two versions.
In the game, players take on the roles of four Yordles, little furry creatures who tend toward the intelligent, hardworking side of things. The four Yorkles are well known ones from League of Legend lore. (Corki, Tristana, Heimerdinger, and Ziggs if you must know… so sad that they didn’t include Teemo…)
The goal is for the characters, in their mighty Mechs, to fight off an army of advancing minions – thus the name. This is done through a mixture of modular boards and the use of cards to program a character’s actions.
The game is played over a series of missions, one tutorial and then 10 different missions, each taking about 60-90 minutes.
Incredible Dream is bringing the game back in two new versions. The OG version called Classic Edition is a higher price-point, deluxe game that features the original release’s massive size and fancy bits. In many ways, it was an early leader (before Gloomhaven even) of the giant game box full of piles of miniatures style of game.
The Bandle City Edition (Bandle City is where most of the Yordles live) is a reimagined version aimed at a more mainstream audience. At a much lower price point, this version has acrylic standees for the characters and bosses, with cardboard tokens for all the minions. The box is far smaller and the included storage trays are there to help set up the game quickly. The art is drawn with a friendlier, more vibrant color palette to set off the busy Bandle City. It also includes 10 new solo-puzzle scenarios.
Lime Green Games
Vroom Zoom Boom by Scott Starkey
Not technically in the demo hall, but close enough. I was able to meet up with a friend to get a pre-preview of his upcoming game, Vroom Zoom Boom (or at least its name for now.) It’s a car racing/demolition game for 2 to 4 players (maybe 5?) where players earn points for pleasing the crowd by carrying flags to the goal and/or damaging the other cars.
Each player is given a car template which can be used as-is but works even better if a player uses their personal favorite match-box sized car to represent their ride. This template helps to trace facing/sides as well as provides the base on which players will place their movement template.
At the start of the turn, every player chooses four cards from their hand of maneuvers and programs them face-down for the round. Cards consist of left and right turns, drifts, and swerves as well as a U-turn, short straight and long straight. There is also a single Boom card which can only be placed in the first or last place in the order.
Once everything is set, players simultaneously reveal all their cards. If anyone put their Boom card in the first slot, they now get to fire all their weapons that have a valid target. Cars have damage cubes on all four sides as well as a few in the middle. When a car is hit, the attacker is given any lost damage cubes and they are set aside as points at the end of the game. Losing all your internal damage cubes eliminates you from the game. If you happen to be the first to be eliminated you are given the Monster Truck to drive. It has no weapons but you can use it to run over those cars who have earned your wrath. After the second elimination, the game ends.
Once any initial Boom cards have been resolved, everyone lays out their track templates according to their programmed cards. Collisions are not checked along the way, players just put down their templates and then warp their cars to the end of the chain. If any templates overlap, those two cars are considered to have collided and damage is handed out to one or (more likely) both cars. In other words, collisions are checked and damage happens but the cars “pass through” each other to facilitate much faster play. Cars ending the round in the same place will need to be slightly adjusted though. Finally, any Boom cards placed as the last card are resolved, firing off against all valid targets.
Players have one or more weapon cards they can attach to their vehicles, everyone starting with a simple one and (usually) dealt one or two extra before the start. Players can earn more weapon cards by driving through colored areas on the board. Each colored area has a flag token worth points as well as a specific type of weapon upgrade.
Players can collect as many colored flags as they want (one per color) but will only score points for them if they are brought back to the starting area in the center of the board. As mentioned, the game ends after the second player elimination. Vroom Zoom Boom is still in very early development. The hope would be to have a crowdfunding effort sometime in 2027.
As a side note, we played in the open gaming room in one of the ballrooms in an adjoining hotel. It was pretty nice, much much quieter than any of the large convention halls. Gamers can grab an open table and set up. If you are open to more players, place an orange cone next to your game as you are setting up. If you just want to play and are looking for a game, grab a cone and carry it around with you.
