The morning of Gen Con Indy 2015 day two started a little later than usual. After a long night of gaming in our hotel room, we decided to sleep in a bit and hit Gen Con at about 9:30 a.m. We took a quick trip around the event hall to get a look at some of the costumes and vendors. That’s when we saw my favorite costume at the convention: a steampunk version of Doctor Octopus from Spiderman.

Our first planned event of the day was a Battletech Boot Camp. Battletech is a miniature game in which the user controls a mech or set of mechs to do battle with other players. Mechs are essentially piloted fighting robots. The boot camp was designed to allow players to become familiar with the current ruleset of the game. We were familiar with the game already but did still learn some of the new rule changes and discovered some things that we had been doing incorrectly.

We followed up the boot camp with a Battletech Grinder. The way this worked was that a participant started out with a lower weight class mech and did battle with several other people. As you went further along in the game and your mech was destroyed, you were allowed to upgrade to the next higher weight class. This was a lot of fun. On top of getting to see how the system works in real gameplay, you had the joy of destroying the mechs of your friends and force them to upgrade.

We finished the grinder at 2 p.m. and grabbed some lunch. Our next scheduled event wasn’t until 7 p.m., so we decided to take some time and play some games in our hotel room. We played a couple of games of King of New York. This is a game produced by Iello Games in which the players play as monsters attacking New York City. I can’t recommend this game enough. It is a king of the hill-style game where one monster tries to control a particular area of the city and acquire 20 victory points to win. Your monster must overcome the other players and the military to be the top monster on the board.

At 7 p.m. we started our final event of the day, a special Pathfinder event called The Sky Key Solution. I have to admit that, as an avid player of Dungeons and Dragons, I was a little skeptical going into this one. I would like to say that the game surprised me and changed my mind but, unfortunately, I just didn’t enjoy it. It is essentially just a repackaged version of D&D 3.5 Edition that didn’t bother hiding it. The event placed 1,000 players in the same room working on the same quest. Unfortunately, it never felt like your particular group of adventurers was actually contributing to the overall mission. I’m sure there were people who enjoyed it, but it just wasn’t for me.

That wrapped up day two for us and put us at the halfway point.

Gen Con Day Three

We didn’t plan a whole lot for day three. Our gameplan was to wander the vendor hall during the early part of the day and find game demos to try out. This plan didn’t end up working out for us. It turned out that most of the vendor hall games had waiting lists, and they were pretty much full by the time we got there. We did take the opportunity to pick up a few things in the vendor hall. I have a tradition every year of picking up a new set of d20 dice to use for our games at home. This year, I went with a set of metal dwarven-themed dice from Q-Workshop. They were a bit pricey, but I love them and plan to use them a lot.

Our planned event for the evening was a visit to the Gen Con game library. You could spend every moment of Gen Con in the library and never play every game in there. We tried a few games that night. The highlight was Bang: The Walking Dead version. In this game all of the players are different survivors from “The Walking Dead” comic book universe. Each player is trying to eliminate all or some of the other players based on what faction you belong to. This game was a ton of fun and one that I am definitely considering picking up.

The lowlight of the evening was the game Abyss. Let me start off by saying that the artwork on the game is beautiful. From the box to the cards, the art is exceptional. The positives pretty much end there. The worst part of the game is easily its insistence on using “pearls” or little balls of plastic as the currency in the game. This flaw was easily recognizable as soon as you opened up the box and had to gather up all of the little white balls rolling around inside.

Gen Con Day Four

Our final day of Gen Con is often the shortest, and so it was for us, too. Typically we just make our final purchases for the weekend and take one final lap around the convention center before making our way home. This year, however, my friend’s wife surprised us by bringing his three girls up for family day. We checked out of our hotel and met the girls at the convention center.

We started by giving the girls a tour around the convention. We showed them some of the cosplayers, the various gaming rooms and the vendor hall. My friend picked up a few items for the girls before we went to get some lunch. When we came back we made another trip to the game library and played a board game called Hirelings: The Ascent. This was a fun little game about a group of hirelings who had accompanied heroes into a dragon’s lair. The heroes were dispatched by the dragon and your hireling characters are now trying to make their way out of the lair one their own.

That pretty much ended our day and our Gen Con. Only 368 more until the next one.

Be sure to check out more photos in our Gen Con Indy 2015 Facebook album.

Gen Con has been dubbed “The best four days in gaming,” and every year it seems to reinforce that claim. With nearly every conceivable board game, card game and role-playing game company represented, Gen Con has continually been one of the largest conventions in the United States and shows no signs of slowing down.

While Gen Con is a tabletop gaming centric event, it also has a lot to offer in other arenas. There are event halls to PC and console gaming and, one of my personal favorites, the “BattleTech” gaming pods, which allow you to pilot your favorite mechs from the game as if you are in the cockpit. Gen Con also offers special events, such as concerts, author signings, art shows and the opportunity to listen to developers talk about upcoming games.

Gen Con 2015 day one was a blast. We got here around 7:30 a.m. to pick up our badges and get things rolling. An initial stroll around the amazing Indianapolis Convention Center allowed us to take in some of the fantastic cosplay and mingle with our fellow gamers. We eventually settled in the game library for our first bit of gaming this weekend. We were able to playtest a game that is still in development and tried the game Dead of Winter. Dead of Winter is a great zombie game that allows you to either cooperate for the survival of your group or potentially sabotage your group and escape on your own. I highly recommend it.

As the day progressed, we started our events. After meeting up with another friend, we tried out a superhero RPG called AMP. Fortunately we had a good game master, and the game turned out to be a lot of fun. A little too much of an X-Men ripoff for my taste, but it was still enjoyable.

Gen Con night moves

We finished the night with a couple of really fun events. The first was a Firefly Drinking Songs concert with Mark Gunn in one of the ballrooms at the Westin. Words cannot accurately describe how much fun this was. There are few things more enjoyable than sitting around with your follow Browncoats and singing songs about the ‘verse. The second was a live recording of the d6 Generation podcast. The guys were great and involved a lot of audience participation capped off with a four-way audience game of Family Feud. The best part is that all participants got to walk away with prizes ranging from miniatures to old ’80s board games.

I have thoroughly enjoyed Gen Con thus far, and that was just day one. The rest of the weekend promises plenty more fun and excitement.

So, you are going to Gen Con Indy, which for thousands of gamers in all walks of life is holy ground. Congratulations, you have several days and evenings of great gaming experiences ahead of you! But, if you plan to make it through to the other side a winner, here are a few pointers to survive and thrive at Gen Con.

Plan, plan, plan

Planning applies when attending most events, and it is just as true for a sprawling show like Gen Con Indy.

In terms of getting there, pack your bags with enough room to bring back keepsakes or purchases, making sure to bring only what you know you need. Here’s one con-goer’s packing list as an example. If packing includes items like a beastly gaming-class PC or bulky cosplay costume, that’s OK, but plan and prepare for how to take it with you.

For the show itself, pick your exhibitors to visit, special guests to meet and games you want to play. If you don’t mind the email reminders, sign up for the Gen Con newsletter. It’s a pretty fair way to keep up with any subtractions, additions, highlights and reminders for the show schedule.

The Gen Con mobile Web app will help you plan your Gen Con activities on site. Any Internet-capable device will do the job for navigating the schedule and event types you want to focus on.

Dress for comfort

Whether you plan to be on your feet all day, surfing the expo floor or sitting down for hours playing board and card games, it makes sense to know what you plan to do, so make sure to dress for comfort throughout the day. This is especially true when it comes to shoes, which can be a source of never-ending torment by the dinner hour and miles racked up on your feet.

Managing food and drink

This can be tricky. The Indiana Convention Center is like a sports venue, bar or movie theater, so outside food is not permitted. However, if you don’t want to pay higher venue rates for food, one safe option is to eat and drink what you need to in advance. Take a break outside the convention center if you need another food or beverage recharge. If that is not an option, budget what you need for pricier food and drink inside the convention center. In the past, food trucks have parked right outside the center to accommodate con-goers.

For the 21 and older set: Manage your adult beverage consumption carefully. If you don’t want to miss half a day of Gen Con because of a hangover — or as bad or worse, be reminded of something unfortunate you did while drunk that would be worthy of a Captain Picard-style facepalm — then know your limits, and keep to them.

Know where you can escape the mayhem

There’s nothing like a seven-hour stretch of games, surrounded elbow-to-elbow with kindred spirits, with the ebb and flow of the beehive of activity. But from time to time, it helps to recharge or get away for other needs. Gen Con has that covered.

The Quiet Room (room 237) is a self-monitored room where attendees can de-stress, decompress and regroup — short of sleeping anyway — for most of the duration of Gen Con. For mothers, nursing areas are available in various parts of the convention center when a relaxing, private place to feed their child/ren might be needed. Last but not least, Gen Con even provides access to open-area chair massage spa services, if Gen Con’ers need the stress of the show worked out.

Don’t be a bad person

One might hope this would be common sense, especially with thousands of others around, but there are those all-too-common stories about convention attendees behaving badly. In the case of Gen Con Indy, if an attendees is caught “threatening, stealing, cheating or harassing others,” among other nefarious activities, the official Gen Con policy states the offender can be booted from the show without a refund. Not the best way to conclude any show and possibly an unpleasant media footnote to Gen Con’s story. Besides, it’s just more fun for everyone to be, well … fun to be around!

Here’s a good general guide to convention etiquette that might be helpful to your Gen Con experience.

Have other ideas, tips and tricks to make Gen Con Indy more fun, easier to plan for and attend? Share them in the comments!