Gen Con 2012: Saturday Dealer Room

Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo which is now the longest continually attending vendor at Gen Con (and one of the oldest companies in the biz). He has been here since Gen Con 9.

Larry Elmore continues to be one of my favorite game fantasy artists.

Nichelle Nichols, still active in the fan community and a big NASA booster too (her latest post is a personal note about the recently-deceased Dr. Sally Ride). Sorry this photo is so blurry, we'll try to frame-grab some video if we can for a clearer shot.

This Chtulhu-like mini is from Cool Mini or Not. I took one close up for detail...

...and a group shot next to some 25mm figures to show how large it is.

In the same display is an Elder Thing. These are some really well detailed minis. Even though it looked like painted plastic from China was going to kill this industry ten years ago, the sculptures keep getting better on the customer-painted metal side of the hobby.

Here's a very disturbing creation from Elizabeth Galindorf

The proud artist, who has an Etsy store for those who still have sanity after visiting her personal site above.

A hideous closeup, which is doubtless going to give the Chimera webmaster trouble sleeping tonight.

From WorldWorksGames and Wyrd Miniatures comes TerraClips, a great gaming accessory.

The walls and floors are stiff cardboard printed in full color, which you punch out and clip together with the company's TerraClips.

There are even stairs...

...and multiple levels.

When you need to have that 3D dungeon but do not have the skill to carve out of foam and  spend days painting, this may be the way to go.

Each of the settings retails for $49, while a package of TerraClips are $18.

The Miniature Building Authority...

had a good Nessie model.

Next I got to check out Tap a Nuko, a card game which works with a free iPad app. You place your game card on the screen and the program recognizes it. You are then able to use the animal or monster (depending on which game you play). There are quests and other standard game activities, where you travel through pretty renderings using the iPad's accelerometer to control your creature by the way you hold the iPad. They gave me a Dark Chimera card, so big kudos to them -- I will download this when I get home.

Tap a Nuko was not being sold at the show, only demoed. Price points are 99 cents, $1.99 and the box for $28. Ages 3 and up, believe it or not.

Tanto Cuore is a deck building game, set in an anime "cute maid" world. The object is to have the most victory points when one of the pools of maids runs out. The player is the Master of a house and gains prestige towards becoming the Perfect Master by having more maids. Better skilled maids give more victory points. Unlike, say, Magic: the Gathering, this can be played multi-player without having to buy more cards.

The cards are visually attractive anime/manga style drawings. Maids are purchased with Love cards, which serve as currency. The turn mechanism is simple - draw to a hand of 5, play one maid, buy something, discard. An interesting mechanic is that when you buy a maid it immediately goes to the discard pile. Points are counted at the end from all cards you have, both in hand and in discard. Maids in play give you the usual game-changing abilities such as extra actions, extra love, etc.

Neko, demoing the game, also runs D20 Girls Magazine, a fellow indie gaming mag.