O-Con, Council Bluffs, Iowa

 

This weekend, we are in Council Bluffs, Iowa vending at O-Con Expo. It's a multipurpose convention located on the western side of Iowa. 

Several things are playing into this convention. First, there's a flood. The Missouri River is inundated with runoff from a series of storms plaguing the area. Although there is a large number of people here, spending is not very generous. I have a feeling the flood has caused people to be a little more cautious with their surplus equity. For those not involved with the retail, it might seem this to be an unrelated event. However, for attendees, natural disasters will directly impact spending habits. This is a factor to which we cannot fault the convention organizer.

Secondly, we have game sessions running throughout the convention. The crowd is very receptive to the game and its overall concept. The demos are stimulating interest in the game - making the convention a target for a return visit. We seem to have picked up a few fans and I'm anxious to see if this develops into a local play group.

Finally, the people really are nice. Not only are the staff and organizer nice, but the community as a whole are super friendly. I don't think we've met a customer that was rude or offensive or even non-responsive to our booth or display. A lot will be determined tomorrow but we are definitely looking at the convention as a possible return.

Through the convention, we managed to meet up with a printer and couple of artists. We're excited about the prospects these offer. The artist for obvious reasons - we are working on new books and modules and would love to feature original pieces. The printer would provide us with the opportunity to produce new products and product lines. We also picked up a few new leads on other conventions in the area that may prove to be good markets as well.

One last note: we are looking at getting into tee shirts. The shirts and patterns are ordered and should be in this week. The plan is to have the designs ready for this next show and test it at Infinity Con in Tallahassee, FL. This should be interesting.

Thanks for reading,

K. B. Kidder
www.torturedearth.com




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Never Ending Cycle

Image
Part of launching into this industry is the continual creation process. The development of Tortured Earth was a means to an end - the development of a framework in which a broad range of stories could be told. Now that the system is finalized, the process of storytelling must begin. Kevin and I are currently focusing on the development of one-shot adventures. These kits are retrofitted from the 2.0 Core Ruleset and give players a taste of the system without having to invest in multiple books. Other game systems have developed similar products for the same goal. The Rules Lite versions allow for replayability while the core books provide the full flexibility of the system. A creative GM will be able to adapt the Rules Lite version for homebrew adventures fitting in the world setting for which the kit was built. Currently in the editing phase are four such adventures. Two have been completed and are already in production and being distributed through the convention circuit. Eventually, t...
Read more

General Notes on Creature Development

Image
I have a Bachelor's in Biology and a Master's in Environmental Chemistry. Clearly, I have an analytical approach to solving problems and a flare for fiction. I love how nature seems to fit together to make functional systems. I also love stories having unusual elements somehow fitting seamlessly together and creating new and alien worlds. This makes stories both relatable and believable.  Unfortunately, this concept has yet to reach game designers. Many designers create creatures having features not in line with the environments from which they supposedly originated. A classic example being the red dragon. A massive carnivore living on mountaintops, breathing fire, and living in hot environments. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the white dragon. Another massive carnivore living on mountaintops, breathing ice, and preferring cold environments.  This imagery makes absolutely no sense.  Let's begin with the red dragon. To begin with, life on this planet has deve...
Read more

Iron City Comic Con and New Developments

Image
Today we leave for Birmingham, AL to vend at Iron City Comic Con . We're actually pretty excited about it. Birmingham used to be a staple on our convention circuit. The company we used to follow split apart and the original show fell by the wayside. One of the partners of the original show decided to return to Birmingham and rebrand under the new name. We are VERY excited about the return! In other news, we do have a few announcements. First, Dark Origins has finally arrived. We will showcase the new module at Iron City Comic Con. When formatting the book, I had some reservations about going full color. We received some negative feedback on the original books color format, I was hesitant to produce another full color print. However, the text layout against the faded page looks really good. The pages are interesting and the text is easy to read. Of course, the story is amazing! We're really happy to have Anthony Kallas on board. Anthony has also announced he's working on a ...
Read more