Massive update – PAX East, Lazer Ryderz getting published, E3, and much more!

Hello fans! Nicole here. We’ve been super busy here in Cardboard Fortress land!

Christopher Badell and Douglas Morse playing Lazer Ryderz with Anthony!
Christopher Badell and Douglas Morse playing Lazer Ryderz with Anthony!

From April 22nd to April 24th, we ran the UnPub booth at PAX East, and had an absolute blast! We got all of our prototypes to the table over the weekend – Kismet Dice, Kobolds!, Lazer Ryderz, and Turret Town. But the crowd favorite seemed to be Lazer Ryderz – even when we didn’t have it set up, people came around asking for it! So we ran it quite a bit. It was even chosen as one of Cardboard Republic’s favorite things at PAX East!

PAX East was exciting for so many reasons. I was on some panels, I got to see so many of my friends, and I got to hug Alan Tudyk and Nolan North. But the highlight of PAX East was being offered a contract for Lazer Ryderz by Greater than Games! This marks the second PAX East in a row that a publisher has signed one of our games. As I say at the end of every PAX, this was the best one yet.

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Me on the "Adventures in Game Writing" panel - you can find the video here!
Me on the “Adventures in Game Writing” panel – you can find the video here!

After we returned from PAX East, we ran an event at Redcap’s Corner for International Tabletop Day the following weekend. There were 16 indie games being run by 14 different designers and companies, and each game was on a bingo card. The rest of the squares on the bingo card were things like “come in last place in a game” and “win a four-player game.” Players showed up, played the games, scored bingo, and won prizes. It was a great time, especially because many of us got to try one another’s games!

Clockwise from top left: The Plot Thickens, Convert, Bearicades
Clockwise from top left: The Plot Thickens, Convert, Bearicades

We had a brief respite from events in May, during which we were working on a lot of game development and design, and also shopping for a car to make getting to events easier. We finished the month out at the inaugural Drexel Games Conference, which was a great event.

On the left: some great maneuvering in Lazer Ryderz! On the right: a rare double line with four cards in RESISTOR_!
On the left: some great maneuvering in Lazer Ryderz! On the right: a rare double line with four cards in RESISTOR_!

It was right back into the excitement in June, with two packed weekends! First, we were judges for the Button Shy Wallet Game Contest, which was filled with some really incredible games. The winner was Circle the Wagons, followed by my personal favorite, Find Your Seats. Nitro Drift, a game very similar to the first iteration of Lazer Ryderz, came in third. The second weekend in June was another fun UnPub Mini at The Games Keep.

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Two days after the Mini, I boarded a plane bound for Los Angeles to go to E3! RESISTOR_ was chosen as one of IndieCade’s E3 Showcase Selections, so I was off to demo it for three days in the madness that is E3. It was very difficult being a board game at an event so centered on electronics and software, but I had a really amazing time, and introduced the game to so many people who were excited to see analog games at the show. It can be difficult for a board game to stand out even when it’s at an event centered around the board game industry, but despite this being a video game event, the reception was welcoming and the people who played the game were passionate about it.

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From LA, I flew to Columbus, Ohio and met Anthony to attend our very first Origins. We didn’t get a table and weren’t officially there for business, but working at events for so long made us antsy, and I’m afraid we didn’t really enjoy the event as much as we’d hoped we would. It was hard for us to relax and play games and see what Origins was all about. We fretted about not having sell sheets or making appointments to pitch to publishers. In the end, I felt that Origins was all right, but that we would have been better off working than attending. It didn’t help that I was sick!

On the left: Derek and Nelly Guder try Kobolds! On the right: Me with Christopher Badell!
On the left: Derek and Nelly Guder try Kobolds! On the right: Me with Christopher Badell!

The last weekend in June was our very first Dexcon, which was a lot of fun! We showed off almost all of our games – RESISTOR_, Lazer Ryderz, Kobolds!, and Kismet all hit the table over the course of the weekend. We got to play a lot of games as well – I even entered a tournament for a rad game called ABXY and ended up winning! The game is on Kickstarter now, so be sure to check it out – it’s super fun!

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Other than that, our plans for future events aren’t 100% solid yet. We’re making plans for both Gen Con and PAX Prime, and we will have a table at Game and a Curry’s event, the Indy Hangover! So you can see us there for sure.

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Hope to see you soon!

Signing off,

-Nicole & Anthony