Too Many Games 2012

Hey questers! This weekend we had the opportunity to check out the local Philadelphia gaming convention Too Many Games. Originally known as East Coast Gaming Expo and started in 2004, Too Many Games is a convention to celebrate gaming of all kinds, whether it be table top rpg, board, card, retro video, or even current video games. There was a great deal of things to do there ranging from all kinds of gaming type set up, vendors, a few celebrities, panels, some concerts, and they even had two game jams going on.

Unfortunately, the convention was quite underwhelming. The main focus of this year’s convention was set towards the game jams for both video and board games. The arcade cabinets were not set to free play, and the classic systems that were set up were only a few consoles along the far wall. With a name like ‘Too Many Games’, and this having been my first year going, I went in with high expectations of having a lot to play and do. On Saturday there were a few game tournaments, but a majority of them were fighting games. I even asked a few attendees who were at the convention in previous years and they even said that the entire convention scaled down. They also had a huge area with open tables, but there were no available table top games to demo and play. You are allowed to bring your own games to play, and I was half tempted to go out to my car to get munchkin, but I feel they should have provided some games to play. There were a great number of game vendors at the convention, and most of them were selling many kinds of games with a good number of rare games. So if you are a collector or just someone with a great amount of disposable income you just might find that one game that you have been looking for since you started going to conventions.

The convention was lacking the personal entertainment aspect of many other conventions, but there were some cool people there, and some great bands. I had the privilege to meet Brent Black also known as Brentalfloss. He had a concert on Saturday and immediately afterward, he had a panel. His show was more up close and personal type of show, he allowed those in the audience to get right up to the table that he had set up. He recently released a CD on iTunes, called “Bits of Me”, so check it out when you get a chance. Immediately after Brentalfloss, the South Jersey Megaman X rock group known as The X-Hunters played an hour long set. They use real instruments to play the original score of the Megaman X games. The set they played was amazing and we got video. Along with the video we took of Brentalfloss and The X-Hunters, we also were able to get video at the after party of the minibosses. All video will be posted as soon as we draft the final edits. The convention also had the Angry Video Game Nerd, but unfortunately no matter how many times I went by his table I was never able to catch him. I also want to give a shout out to DJ Cutman, he was planning on giving a secret show at the end of the day but unfortunately they cleaned everything up before he had a chance to play.

The main focus of the weekend at the convention was the game jam, and the indy developers. For those who do not know a game jam gives a group of developers a certain amount of time to make whatever they want. Too Many Games had two game jams going on one was for video games and the other was for board games. I didn’t get too much time to talk to the developers, I didn’t want to distract them too much with the limited time they had. Of the two groups I want to give a shout out to Quadratron and their top down isometric shooter where you play as a mutated child on a spinning merry-go-round fending off hordes of Stalin Ghosts, Hockey Players, and Cosmonaut Monkeys. I hope you guys won. Along the edges of the convention floor, they lined tables with a few indy developers. The indy development team PMW created a top down shooter, the game currently is unnamed and still in early development stages, but for a small group it looks pretty cool. I actually signed up for the beta so when I get the email I will give it a shot.The indy dev section of the convention did help us at One-Quest learn what exactly our competition is. Also I need to give a shout out to Island Officials and their Pixel Lincoln card game. It is a deck building card game where you play as Abraham Lincoln traveling through time to stop evil, using meat and your beard as weapons.

This year was One-Quest’s first year at Too Many games and we would like to thank them for being such amazing hosts. The convention was overall a decent time. We are eager to see what the convention has in store for the next few years, we just hope they bring back a lot more games. There was so much empty space within the center that they had a lot of room to work with. For just $18 dollars for a one day pass and $25 for the entire weekend it is worth the money just to check it out. If you are lucky enough you can even pay the $75 for the limited pass that allows you entrance to the after party on Saturday.

Now that you’ve read our review of the con, don’t miss out on all our photo coverage over on our Facebook page.

Walnut is our note taker, resident rager and rage quitter, and also occasionally writes stuff on One-Quest You can Email Richie or follow Richie on Twitter @B_Walnuts or Facebook

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