This weekend I got to go to the Newberg Game Con and demo Junkyard Juggernauts, and the Con continues to be a good experience for not only meeting more people in the board gaming hobby, but getting more exposure to JJ.
Saturday
My son and I arrived at the con at about 7:40, got set up in the annex (a key difference between this year and prior where I was typically set up in the main gaming hall). Since we were going to be apart for parts of the day I gave my son some of the bookmarks I had made for JJ to give out to people he played games with in the main hall, hoping that they may draw people over to the annex.
Not sure how well the bookmarks worked, but JJ did end up getting way more people demoing the game than it had in past cons. On that note thank you to Kendrick, Kevin, Mark, Megan, Natalie, Scott, Sydney, and Zed, for trying JJ, as well as a huge thank you to Justin for playing a whole game!
It was also great to meet some fellow designers and content creators: Brian from Fat Bottom Games showing his abstract game Otani, Zed who is making the game Goober Garden, and Ryan from How I Roll on YouTube.
So great first day, but then there was Sunday…
Sunday
Having attended the con three times prior, I can certainly attest to Sunday being a slower day than Saturday, and this year was no exception. However, being in the annex made this slow down very acute, with only a handful of people making it over to the demo area of the Con. Brian from Fat Bottom wisely decided to have demos set up in the main Con area. My friend Brian S. who came down Sunday to help me (thank you Brian S.!) and I tried to follow suit but every attempt was met with all the tables occupied in the main gaming space 😔. This lack of traffic did give Brian and I a chance to play Zed’s game Goober Garden, and got to play a full game of JJ.
I did ask a couple of the organizers about why demos weren’t in the main game hall like previous years (big props to Paul and Glen for putting on the Con) and the main reason was the limited space/fire code for the main gaming area, which given the Con more than doubled in size over last years, makes sense.
All in all, glad to have attended the Newberg Game Con, and hope to be back next year, perhaps with copies of JJ to sell. Speaking of…
Junkyard Juggernauts Crowd Sale
There is just over two weeks left in the Crowd Sale for Junkyard Juggernauts
Reminder that in a Crowd Sale, every 10 copies that are backed, the bigger the discount on the game’s price that all backers will receive, and we are 7 away from the next discount. Not to mention, if you back you won’t just be hoping to get a copy some day, you will get a copy of JJ if you back. The Game Crafter’s current estimate is shipments starting June 2, 2026.
If you read this far, thank you and will remind you that I am not the Warlord!
Godspeed Mageineers.