Gamicon Omega Day 1: Sasquatch Sweaters And The World's Most Dangerous Stapler

Howdy folks! I'm in my hotel room eating a late night burger as the first day of Gamicon (AKA "Arctic-Con") comes to a close. Had some thrills, some chills, some disappointments, and some victories. Let's get to the highlights from Iowa's longest gaming convention, shall we?

• Dan and I had breakfast at the Bluebird Diner, a jaunt up the street from the hotel. A pretty famous place locally and well-regarded by Those In The Know. Hey, they had pancakes and bacon, so the morning started off right. (Though the walk there was extra-frosty as I only had a pair of earmuffs on, which really didn't do much for my face. Or head. Or neck.)
• Upon our return, we got the booth set up. Since Dan had thought to get two tables, we had a lot more room to show off the product. Dan had brought a couple of bookracks which displayed everything nicely. He also brought a copy of Star Explorer freshly printed from Game Crafter which was getting a lot of interest from passers-by.
• Artist and all-around Good Guy Steve Zieser stopped by and spent time in the booth with us. (You might know him from such art as the covers and interiors to Labyrinth Lord, LL Advanced Edition Companion, and the LL Screen, amongst many, many other works.) With him in the booth with Dan and me, lots of obnoxious cracking-wise was had by all. Steve is a fan of all things "sasquatch-y," so Dan surprised Steve with a "Sasquatch Sweater". It is one of the coolest sweaters I've ever seen.
• Asked about the official Gamicon con shirt, but sadly they don't have any available for purchase at the show. If I want one, I think I need to order it from Cafepress. Bummer.
• I scheduled a game of Timemaster for 2 p.m., but there were no sign-ups. It might have something to do with the fact the con started today at 12:30 p.m. so there wasn't enough time to drum up interest or for folks to sign up. So the Damoreans have run ramshod all over the Old West resulting in the eventual destruction of the Confederate States of America by the United People's Republic of Korea.
• However, at 7 p.m., I ran five brave souls through Condition Critical for Cryptworld. They managed to defeat Experiment TB-4 in spite of some incredibly bad rolls in the beginning as well as some dubious choices to "split up and go look for the thing." (That quickly ended after a few surprise attacks from "nowhere.") My favorite part was when Robyn grabbed a stapler as an impromptu weapon and scored a CRITICAL HIT with it. It became his (surprisingly effective) "go-to" weapon for the rest of the game. Another player, Tim, sprained his ankle, so he used a chair on wheels to scoot around. When he saw The Thing attacking another player, he scooted over to assist, only to have the chair fly out from under him, slamming the victimized player in the back. (And there were the oxygen tanks used as cryo-freezing weapons and the animated skeleton throttling Steve...) But at the end, they managed to defeat "Science Gone Wrong" and escape with their lives. Great game!

And now that I've finished my burger, I'll wrap up with some photos of the con:

Plenty of Pacesetter games ready for perusal and purchase!

 Dan and I manning the booth as we wait for Gamicon to start.

 Steve Zieser gettin' his Squatch on.

 The gaming room was about half-full around 4 p.m. and is expected to be completely full at noon tomorrow.

Will the players survival the horror of Condition Critical?

My sole purchase thus far. Big fan of the original Escape: The Curse of the Temple, and I can't wait to give this new zombie-themed version a go!