>> PAYTON: The convention circuit has had a rough year.

It turns out an entire industry built on bringing strangers packed into a building to meet with other strangers does not mix well with a plague.

That void was felt hard with Gen Con, the largest tabletop gaming convention in North America that had roughly 68,000 attendees in 2019, and went to an entirely online model in 2020.

But now, things are... back?

Things are better?

Listen, okay, this intro would have been a lot more fun in June, when we thought we saw light at the end of the tunnel.

Turns out, that light was just a train coming right at us.

But this year, Gen Con is back.

Game developers from all over the world have descended upon the Circle City to show off their games.

Myself and a thousand of my closest friends are ready to see them!

Friends and folks welcome to "Flyover Culture."

My name is Payton Knobeloch, and I'm excited for this one because I have never been to a Gen Con before.

And I was thinking that has got to be absolutely terrifying, to be working on a game for months or years, and then debut it in front of a crowd this large.

And that's what I want to find out.

What does it take, and what does it feel like to put yourself out there in front of one of the largest focus groups in gaming?

Let's head inside, play some games, and find out.

♪ Now, we are getting ready to head into the First Exposure Playtest Hall.

That is where developers and publishers bring their prototypes for eager fans to road test.

Designers get feedback on how their game holds up, and players get to try something new before anybody else.

It's a win/win.

So let's head inside and see what we are playing.

>> One of the best parts about Gen Con is obviously these are such experienced gamers that have a lot of great thoughts and feedback.

So coming in here and play testing a couple of new games and getting ideas of how to -- takes a lot of play testing.

We are just getting feedback on some new concepts, and then we'll tweak and we'll try it with different people, and hopefully we'll have a couple of new published games at some point.

Monster Slayer, you are trying to get sets of monster cards so that you can slay the monster.

It's a realtime game where you are passing cards around, trying to get the sets of monster cards you need, and then also you need the weapon card to kill them.

So you can try to kill the monster without the right weapon, maybe somebody else has the weapon, but then they can challenge you into a dice-rolling duel to be able to kill the monster instead of you.

>> PAYTON: Tell me, what are you showing off today?

>> It's called Gempire Zarmund's Demands, and I actually started it -- I started it four years ago.

King Zarmund is trying to choose a new capital city, and basically they are all playing the lead architects of their city in the Gempire.

So King Zarmund makes three demands for the capital, and whoever can meet two of them first wins.

And those will change every game, because that deck has 15 cards in it.

People don't like waiting their turn.

So you make a game where everybody gets to go at the same time, and nobody is ever waiting.

People like replayability.

They don't like to feel like after playing twice, they have learned the game and it's basically the experience is over.

So you just kind of throw all of those elements together in one game, and you just keep -- you just kind of keep polishing it and keep polishing it until you fix the things that don't really work, and then, you know, after a few years or so, you eventually get it down to where you are really confident that it's really given the experience that you want.

>> PAYTON: What games are you showing off at first exposure?

>> Salon de Paris.

So you are a painter set in late 1800 Renaissance Paris.

And you are going around gathering inspiration by touring the city.

You also go through and acquire resources such as, you know, frames, picture frames, and then you assemble and paint those pictures and then hang them on the salon wall for victory points.

>> PAYTON: When a game comes to first exposure, about what stage in the development process is it at?

Like, how finished is it?

>> So for publishers, we actually use like percentage ratings.

So how much effort we actually have to put in to actually bring it to print.

Usually we have seen games between, you know, 20 to about 80% complete, and then depending if the publisher starts to partner them, that's when you start to get some of the finalized art.

So you still have to do UI testing.

>> I think this is a place where want to come where you know you have a game on your hands, and this is the place to come to find those final tweaks and get some ideas for how to make it flow better, and make it work.

It is interesting, though.

You know, a game -- you can get to 80% fairly quickly, and that last 20% takes twice as long to figure out as that first 80% did.

>> PAYTON: What kinds of feedback are you hoping to get?

>> Did the players get the experience that I wanted them to get from it?

So, like, are they -- are they having fun because they are not waiting their turn, right?

I like to see no one sitting around just kind of like -- >> PAYTON: Or checking their phone.

>> Yeah, that's the big thing, is checking their phone.

And I feel like nobody does that because you are choosing an action every turn and -- >> PAYTON: It's that mechanic that you really wanted to experiment with.

>> Yeah.

>> PAYTON: You are hoping to see if that works out?

>> Mm-hmm.

>> I mean, we treat it like a science experiment in some sense where you are controlling the variables, right?

And so a lot of it is, okay, I -- I haven't decided yet if the game is more fun this way or this way.

So let's keep everything else the same, and we'll play it and try to get an answer.

>> PAYTON: I will be the first to admit, I never made a game before.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> PAYTON: Is there anything, you know -- especially after doing something like first exposure -- needs demystifying or something like that, about the publishing process or the development process?

>> Publishing is a beast.

I mean, it's one of those pieces where for first-time publishers, there's a lot of places where you can mess up.

The beauty about the board gaming industry and the community is you can pretty much ask anyone any question, and there's no secrets.

It's not like these are trade secrets.

I mean, you will have some companies that will have, like, quiet and major announcement releases because they don't want the IP to get out or what they are launching.

But for the most part, the community is tight knit.

I do a lot of mentoring for designers, developers, and publishers, first-time publishers as well.

>> If you are planning to do kick starter, this is a place to build fans for your game that then once you take it to a crowdfunding platform, now these people are invested in the experience of the game, and things like that.

It's also a great place, you know, where maybe you don't want a kick starter.

Maybe you want to go pitch it to publishers and stuff like that.

>> PAYTON: Right, right.

>> So that's a lot of what we do when we are here too, is have meetings with different publishers.

This is a way to access a lot of people at the same time.

You can pitch your game and try to get it signed.

That's what we did at Gen Con 2019.

>> Why I'm excited about this is because we have 13 sessions for five people.

That's 65 people.

>> PAYTON: That's a lot.

That's a lot of sessions.

>> That's coming up on, you know, probably almost the amount of people that have played it around Evansville.

>> PAYTON: Right, right, yeah.

This is a huge con.

You know, this is something you have been working on mostly by yourself.

You finally brought it here, and you are on the same stage as a lot of these people who have been around the block.

How does that feel?

Is that cool?

Is that, like, a nice like -- it gives you a little boost?

>> Yeah, I mean, it's actually not daunting.

I feel very at home around people that like board games.

So I know a lot of people have more experience than me, but everyone is very welcoming and easy to get along with, especially if you -- you know, if you offer an attitude that is easy to get along with, they reciprocate that.

Yes, I have been waiting for this a long time.

And it's -- so far, it's been everything that I hoped it was going to be.

You can hand people a business card.

You know, you can hand somebody something that they can look at and maybe be intrigued by it, but if they haven't played it, they don't know what is special about it.

If you want reliable support that will stick with you, I think, you have to have people experiencing the game for themselves and actually seeing what is special about it.

>> There is no secret sauce.

It's just getting it on the table and playing with people and figuring it out.

That's the only way to design a game.

You can do all the theoretical work you want, but until you start playing it with other people, it's all just going to be theoretical.

And so I think this is a good event to demystify, the fact that you can make a game.

Anybody can make a game.

You got an idea, then go for it!

>> PAYTON: And there you have it.

Just a little look at what it takes to put out a game on this kind of stage.

A very big thanks to all the developers for talking with me today.

And I know this is just a little fraction of all the stuff there is to do at a con like this.

So I will head back inside and rack up some credit card debt.

Thanks for watching.

>> Now, did you say you left from Evansville today?

>> We left at 3:00 in the morning.

>> PAYTON: Good luck to you!