January 29, 2012: At The Halloween Show With Gum And Camera

Phil and I are at the Halloween Expo in Houston this weekend, ably assisting, and being assisted by, Paul Chapman (former SJ Games, now PSI), Justin De Witt (former SJ Games a couple of times, now Fireside Games), and Megan Hinterman, of PSI. You will, of course, recall that PSI is our fulfillment house; whether you buy Munchkin from Target or from Scary Eddy's Game Van, PSI helps to get them there. So we definitely have our first team at this show, and we're going to show them that they really need games in their Halloween stores!

We hope.

It went well for the first day. Met a lot of people, some of whom recognized us. Answered a lot of questions; talked to other, more experienced exhibitors, and many mighty views were exchanged. Most of the folks here are quite friendly to the new kids.

We will be here until Tuesday, learning about the growing Halloween seasonal market and trying to convince it that its life has been empty and bare without Zombie Dice and perhaps Cthulhu Dice. This whole "we can show you the game in five minutes" is an awful lot of fun.

And after the show, we ate at Bombay Pizza, and it was excellent. Rumor has it that an Austin location is in the offing. We approve; we officially approve! Also, at least one terrible idea erupted from my fevered mind, and I got to playtest a couple of new games, including one from Justin.

Time to write up a couple more Munchkin Apocalypse monsters and go to bed. 8am comes too soon.

-- Steve Jackson