GAMA Trade Show 2010 Report–Part 7

This Part 7 of my ongoing coverage of the GAMA Trade Show 2010! We are in the home stretch! This short post is due to me passing off writing duties to Haaldaar for the remaining companies. Monday brings another full post of 10 companies and we should be done by Thursday. Check back tomorrow for more or subscribe to the Livingdice.com RSS feed and not miss a single post.

Dragonfire Lasercraft

Dragonfire, wielders of a magical fire (an automated laser cutter) were showing off their latest wares; water bottles. The two in the image were clearly designed for fantasy gamers, but Dragonfire stated they do custom work. The etching cost per bottle changes depending on the number ordered, so contact them directly for pricing.

I also got a kick out of the dragon boat. It comes unpainted, but even bare it still looked great.

Owl’s Nest Games LLC

This simple “roll and move” educational game teaches survival skills for different outdoor environments. The publisher (working the booth) designed it after working as an EMT/Search and Rescue tech for many years. “Live by Your Wits” stresses practical knowledge and an environmental ethos. The entire game is made of recycled plastic bottles, even the game board! The board is fabric and designed to go into a pack or other small place. The game mechanics are too simple for any real strategy, but as an educational tool for those new to the great outdoors it is great.

Gorilla Games

Gorilla Games returned this year with “Who Would Win?” WWW is a party game designed for large groups. Each player takes a card representing a famous person and then a “task” card is taken. My example was Martha Stewart (criminal and homemaking legend) versus Stephen Hawking in an ice skating head to head. Each person gets 20 seconds to explain why they would win and bystanders choose by acclimation. I always felt this game would run very well at a cocktail party after the third or fourth round.

Greater Games Industry Catalog

The GGIC produces a great catalog for retailers listing all of the new hobby gaming products across the spectrum, as well as some articles of interest. Readership is limited to retailers and publishers, so not much to photograph here.

Samurai Game Labs

“Arena Assault” is a scalable card game that supports up to 24 simultaneous players! I say it in action and it resembled MTG a bit, with a comical theme. Some of the decks are ninjas or cats or robots. Each one has a different style of powers, based on their theme. Sadly, I did not get a picture. Apologies.

Merchant OS WEb-Based Point of Sale Cash Registers

Merchant OS provides inventory control and cash registers to small retailers. Nice little setup and had the ability to place orders based on current inventory levels. If I had a store, I would want something like this to track all of those little miniatures! Relatively cheap at $50.00 per month for a single register and since it is web-based, expandable to many stations relatively easily.

Academy Games

“Conflict of Heroes:Storms of Steel” is the newest release in the “conflict of Heroes” series. COH is a faster, more exciting version of a traditional war game. The actions take place simultaneously to reduce down-time and keep the action fierce. Still, there is some complexity and thought to the game, so it is not dumbed down to the level of “Risk.” A sort of “in-between” simple war games and the hardcore simulations. I am tempted to give it a spin at Gen Con.

Wattsalpoag Games

Wattlalpoag brought “Jet Set” to GTS. “Jet Set” is a “train game in the sky,” with players claiming routes for airlines. That said, it is also simpler and more family oriented than some other games of the genre. Play time is usually about one hour and there is an expansion coming in October adding more routes to the base game. They also had the rest of their line, “Fruit Fair,” Claim It” and “Nomads of Arabia” on display.

Grognard Games

Grognard shared a booth with Uber Goober, but they had some interesting product and deserved a separate entry. Grognard sells a line of pre-painted metal miniatures, including bases for their Napoleanic war game “Glory!” The miniatures are 28 mm, fully painted and include neodynium magnets in the base. I thought it a clever use of a relatively new material. I picked some up from the bases and the magnets made the miniatures very, very stable. The minis were of good quality also. Once again, no image. Towards the end of the show ran out of energy and my brain got fuzzy.

Uber Goober Games

Totally new to me, “Undead States of America” is a miniature game based around zombie wars. The publisher even has scenario rules to re-fight some of the fictional battles in “World War Z.” The “Battle of Yonker,” specifically. Uber sells several rule and scenario books as well as a 200zombie horde of miniatures for $65.00. A historical supplement with ancient zombie scenarios was quite amusing also.

The “Universal Space Combat System” is Uber Goobers answer to “Starfleet Battles.” Uber claims it runs faster and has fewer rules than SFB. They also had a nice spread of dreadnoughts in battle.

Haaldaar takes over writing duties to on Monday to start his run of GTS 2010 posts. Stay tuned!

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

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trask

Trask is a long-time gamer, world traveler and history buff. He hopes that his scribblings will both inform and advance gaming as a hobby.

One thought on “GAMA Trade Show 2010 Report–Part 7

  • April 5, 2010 at 10:57 pm
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    Trask,
    I will gladly show you how to play Conflict of Heroes at GenCon. It takes about 5 minutes and the intro firefight can be played in under 1/2 hour. I warn you though, I take no prisoners! LOL.
    Uwe

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