Gen Con is behind us now, but we’re still feeling the lingering effects – shock, anger, and the sugar rush of eating too many Peanut M&Ms that manifested from a joke.
It’s time to recognize the funny, the weird, and the untold stories from North America’s largest board game convention. It’s time for Going Analog’s Non-Award Awards!
The “We Don’t Want a Copy of this Game” award
Czech Games Edition (CGE) gave us a behind-closed-doors demo of their upcoming Kingdom Come: Deliverance board game. It’s a massive open-world adventure based on the video game of the same name. How massive? It has:
- More physical material than CGE’s SETI and Lost Ruins of Arnak: Adventure Chest (with included expansion) combined
- Over 19,000 words (double all the words in all Arnak products combined)
- Over 700 cards
- Over 200 re-wood components
- An estimated weight of 13-15 pounds
- A listed play time of 90 (!) minutes per player (and we all know how optimistic estimated play times are…)
Kingdom Come: Deliverance looks pretty awesome, in the truest sense of the word. It’s already impressive just on the sheer amount of content alone.
And we’re actually eager to play it. We just don’t want to own it. Not just because insurance probably won’t cover any shelves and floors that buckle under KCD’s weight – or our withered, bloody finger nubs from punching out and sorting the million components. We just want someone else to organize everything, learn the game, then teach it to us.
Honorable mention: The Monolith. We very much enjoyed our demo of this violent area-control game that’s due to hit Kickstarter this month (August 2026). Publisher Plaid Hat offered to send us home with one of the early copies of the game, but this chunky box (that has to accommodate all those miniatures and that titular tower) wasn’t going to fit in any of our luggage without us purging all our pants and underwear.
Most bizarre moment: Getting called “nerds!”
It’s not unreasonable to assume that some of us experienced some bullying when we were children (key word: children). So imagine our shock when a random middle-aged woman walked past a group of of us playing board games in the airport (a common post-Gen Con sighting) and called us “nerds!” in earnest.
Several of us had to chuckle at this grown woman who seemed to be reliving her mean-girls high school (or junior high school) glory years, and it didn’t seem like she legitimately hurt anyone’s feelings. Still, we hope to run into her again someday, so we can return the favor – perhaps with a toilet bowl swirly.
The “That’s a Good Reason for a Change” award: Dominant Species’ cones
Publisher Allplay is giving the highly rated, highly regarded Dominant Species a makeover. But an interesting anecdote popped up during this announcement at their press conference.
The original designer, Chad Jensen, passed away in 2019. His wife has given her blessing for Allplay to remake the game but with one caveat: no cones.
Dominant Species, originally published by GMT, is complex strategy game about different species of animals competing (quite aggressively sometimes) and surviving before the impending ice age. It has lots of cubes, hexes, and, oddly, cones.
According to Jensen’s widow Kai (who's also a game designer), the original cones were a manufacturing mistake, and by the time they caught it, it was too late to do anything about it. The factory had already done its (wrong) part; the cones were in. Plus, reportedly Kai did not like how the cones were not friendly for people with grip or dexterity issues.
So now you know why you won’t see any cones when the redesigned Dominant Species hits crowdfunding in 2027.
This year’s big trend: Trading card games
Every year, a new trading card game (TCG) seems to pop up, followed by questions about how it can possibly survive in a seemingly saturated market dominated by Pokemon and Magic the Gathering.
Well, publishers still seem willing to stress test this – a lot more this year than usual. A few of our TCG-loving friends independently noticed this as well.
These are photos of just a few that we saw advertised around the convention hall. We doubt they’re all going to be here by this time next year, but hey, they’re shooting their shots.
Honorable mention: Cat-themed games are still hanging in there, just like last year.
The “This would’ve been a good way to die” award: The almost-tornado
You might’ve seen the clips on social media: We were hit with torrential rain (that flooded parts of Gen Con) and actual tornado warnings! (What the National Weather Service says about a “tornado warning” – as opposed to a “tornado watch” – “Take action! A tornado has been sighted or indicated by weather radar. There is imminent danger to life and property.”)
Alarms blared, vocal alerts told us to stay away from windows and to seek shelter, and…no one seemed all that concerned about it all (other than the vendors actively being soaked by the new waterfalls that just sprung up indoors). Hey, we’ve all got board games to see and play. Plus, if a tornado did rip through Gen Con, the resulting twister of cards, meeples, cubes, dice, game boxes, etc. should look pretty darn cool.
View this post on Instagram
Cuddliest board game container: The plush hedgehog bag
Just look at this thing! You can buy it here.
Our favorite PR moment: Hachette + Peanut M&Ms
When Hachette Boardgames Marketing Manager Niki Shults emailed us to set up a meeting for Gen Con, Going Analog Co-Host/Producer Shoe jokingly put in the calendar form that he required red Peanut M&Ms at the meeting.
We show up to the appointment at Gen Con, and what did Niki have waiting for us? A full bag of Peanut M&Ms! She refused to separate out the red ones for Shoe, though, so we’ll be taking this up with her superiors.