Hey, you know what’s cool? Tabletop gaming! We’ve been celebrating tabletop gaming for years here at Denver Pop Culture Con. We’ve welcomed past guests like Felicia Day (*we love Geek & Sundry*) and Wil Wheaton, who does a great job hosting the online show TableTop with celebrity guests including past DPCC guests Kelly Hu and Troy Baker and this year’s guest Alan Tudyk. (Seriously, would it kill Ashley Burch to come record our outgoing voice mail message as Tiny Tina?)
Anyway, tabletop gaming is awesome. We’re talking your straight-up old-school board games. We’re throwing dice and leveling up your RPG action, baby. We’re crushing our tiny enemies and seeing them driven before us in our miniature war games. We’re crushing our games of GO and slapping down our Mahjong tiles like a boss. Lawful good or chaotic evil, we’ve got you covered. We fight among ourselves about the virtues of deterministic games versus stochastic games…oh, alright you caught us. We’re giant gaming nerds and we carry our twenty-siders with pride. We’re totally down with tabletop gaming and we’re welcoming some of the best gaming companies in the business to this year’s E.D.G.E. Gaming & Development area at DPCC’15.
First, what is the E.D.G.E.? It’s our gaming and development experience expanded and redefined to include a wider variety of entertainment, gaming, creation and educational offerings in an experiential setting. It goes like this:
E: Entertainment, including videos, podcasts, streaming entertainment and more.
D: Development and Design, for all makers, DIY-ers, crafters, coders, engineers and developers.
G: Gamers, from the casual to the hardcore and from PC enthusiasts to console junkies.
E: Education, for like-minded people who think pop culture, gaming and other media are great platforms for teaching young people about the world.
First of all, we’re proud to welcome MINDzei Games, the brainchild of illustrator and homegrown hero Monte Moore. This independent game developer already has a whole host of cool tabletop games including the motorcycle-themed Boneyard; Grubfist, the game of Gambling Goblins; and Pirates of Gold Cove, a captivating and whimsical game for families.
Our many thanks to our E.D.G.E. sponsor, The Wizard’s Chest. This 8,000 square-foot superstore in the heart of Denver is a gamer’s dream come true. A hands-on play environment is encouraged throughout the whole store, and it is a rare day if you do not find someone juggling, spinning a Diabolo, or playing a new game with a staff member. Wind-up toys rattle across table tops, one of the in-house magicians astounds a budding Houdini, a young engineer buys her first solar robot kit, and a group of friends conquer an army of orcs in the corner. Visit them now in Cherry Creek and come check out their new location at 451 Broadway soon.
DPCC is also proud to welcome Zone 2 Games. The indie developer’s two co-founders, Nick Grieco and Cooper Heinrichs, met at music school, where their love of rock and roll and all things geekery forged a lifelong friendship. As two creative behemoths, the two collaborated on homemade Halloween costumes, music, art, and eventually games. Working together for over a year, the two are on the brink of bringing their first game, CORE, to market. Sign up today to test the alpha version of the game and come visit the team in the E.D.G.E. at Denver Pop Culture Con.
Also on sale is the new game RoarStack, a range of fun innovative visual creativity storytelling card games where you tell a story based on what you can see in the your cards. This game exercises your creativity, visual recognition, and storytelling plus the innovative and twisty game will have you and your friends roaring with laughter. Visit their website to check out their Kickstarter Pre-Launch and visit them in person at the tabletop gaming expo in the E.D.G.E. Gaming & Development area.
Another Kickstarter-backed favorite returns to Denver Pop Culture Con with the makers of Alterkine: Dossier. This RPG supplement is suitable for any d20 Modern or Future campaign. Inside you will find hundreds of ways to customize your character in the world in which you are deposited. Develop your Talents and play as a member of the occult or a battle hardened warrior, a wanderer of the wastelands or a raving lunatic. With careful planning, continue on with one of more than a dozen Advanced Classes including: Confidence Artist, Goodfella, Law Dog and Ninja.
Some of these companies are way out there and their games are a ton of fun to play. We’re pleased to welcome Cheeky Dingo Entertainment back to Denver Pop Culture Con and the E.D.G.E. This diverse and imaginative game developer will have their games ElfQuest, Living Starship, HouseBoy, Drag Show, Dog Walker and more, all available to play. You can even meet one of their illustrators, comic artist Stan Yan, at the show.
Finally, Denver Pop Culture Con is pleased to welcome Board Gamer’s League. It’s a league based playing style for board gamers. Played in a similar fashion as a sports recreation league, where you compete on a weekly basis and have finals. The overall spirit of the league is to enjoy the community and possible prizes, while having friendly board game match competition. Enjoy league play, prizes along the way and a chance for a free pass to the Denver Pop Culture Con and 10 free board games.
That’s it for today’s rundown of Tabletop Gaming at Denver Pop Culture Con. Come down to the E.D.G.E. for more tabletop games, video games, 3D-printing, maker culture, and more! There’s a ton to explore and even more to do at E.D.G.E. Gaming and Development at Denver Pop Culture Con. (Plus there’s that whole underground bot-fighting thing. I’d watch your toes if I were you.)
