And so it ends – GenCon 2011 is coming to a close. Today was all Exhibitor Hall, all the time. I hung there for an hour on my own, finally working my way to the far end of the hall, having seen all of the booths (however briefly). I chatted with the people from Fantasy Grounds; of the many virtual tabletop programs I checked out at GenCon, Fantasy Grounds is the one that would actually make me consider switching from MapTool (though it would cost me $150). I stopped by the Ennies booth to pick up my swag bag to thank me for volunteering on Friday. It contained a whole bunch of books – unfortunately, I don’t think I’m going to get much use out of most of them (although Mythmere’s Adventure Design Deskbook looks intriguing). There was a nice mini in the bag, though, that will be great for one of my wife’s characters.
I then brought my wife over to the Exhibitor Hall and we did some shopping. She picked up a Dragon Pet (a rubber dragon that wraps around her arm), a copy of Caylus Magna Carta (a board game she played last night), some minis and some paints. Also, a purple cat tail to wear on her belt (we intend it ultimately as a toy for our cats).
We admired the Dwarven Forge and Hirst Arts terrain. We drooled a bit more over the Geek Chic tables (especially one that was filled with awesome Hirst Arts terrain). We tried to find T-shirts but didn’t really see anything that struck our fancy (I’m still shocked at that). I caught up one last time with Jason, the player from my Friday night online game who lives here in Indianapolis.
On the way out of the convention center, we stopped into the video game room where people were playing Kinect games and Rock Band projected hugely onto the walls, as well as playing other games while sitting at normal computers. The “center stage” area had people playing one of the original 8-bit Nintendo Mega Man games. Too cool.
And thus ends our experience with the best four days in gaming. We’re staying one more night in Indianapolis to give ourselves a chance to rest before getting back to real life. We get home Monday night. It has been a ton of fun, and I feel confident in saying that this first GenCon will not have been my last.