It’s GameHole Con week, and if you’re in the Madison area, this is what my schedule will be like:
THURSDAY OCT. 15
- 1 PM – CARTOONISTS ON GAMES AND GAMERS (seminar) 1 hour, with Stan! Brown and James Lowder. “Gaming Comics” are their own sub-genre these days. Stan! Brown and John Kovalic have spent decades making light of games, gamers, and themselves, and are ready to spill the beans on the humorous side of the hobby!
- 2 PM JOHN KOVALIC SIGNING in the Dorkstock Area
- 3 PM – JOHN KOVALIC’S EUROGAMES (boardgames) 2 hours – In CASH ’N GUNS, an abandoned warehouse houses the gangsters splitting up loot…it’s time to let the guns do the talking. GRAIL CUP is a hilarious hidden role game, reminiscent of Citadels, as your knights bluff their way to victory (and avoid the dragon).
- 9 PM – DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL (spectator/streaming) 2 hours – Dungeon Crawler Carl RPG Actual Play with Dan Taylor, LaTia Jacquise, and Elisa Teague. A live, actual-play Dungeon Crawler Carl Roleplaying Game show, presented by Catacombs & Comedians. The players on stage are a group of hopeful meat-based lifeforms making objectively poor decisions as they navigate traps, monsters, and a rules system specifically designed to test friendships, morals, and one’s ability not to scream under pressure. They were selected because they are professionals at handling silence, bombing gracefully, and masking panic with humor. None of those skills will help them here.
FRIDAY OCT. 16
- 2 PM – PLAYTEST TIME WITH JOHN KOVALIC (party games) 2 hours – ONE of these days John will publish SOME of these party games, but for now, he’s simply having a blast playing them at cons with a select few!
- 3 PM JOHN KOVALIC SIGNING in the DorkStock area
- 5 PM – 30 YEARS OF DORK TOWER AND 25 YEARS OF MUNCHKIN(seminar) 1 hour, with Steve Jackson. John Kovalic, creator of the Dork Tower comic and illustrator of over 8,000 Munchkin cards, and Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson games, the publisher os Munchkin, discuss the intertwined history of both fan-favorites in conversation with Dan Taylor (Catacombs and Comedians).
- 6 PM – YOU ART NOT ALONE: ADVICE ON CREATING YOUR CREATIVE LIVE, THERAPY FOR THOSE ALREADY LIVING IT(seminar) 1 hour – with Shanna Germaine, Ronin Wong and Teos Abadia. As a creator, how do we balance the demands of our career with everything else in our lives? How can we be our best healthy selves, enjoy the process of creating, and feel good about our future goals and past accomplishments?
- 9 PM – THAT OTHER STARSHIP (spectator/streaming) 2 hours Star Trek Adventures Actual Play, with Dan Taylor, Sarah Babe and Bryan CP Steele. That Other Starship offers a hilarious look at what happens after Captain Kirk and the Enterprise depart on their next mission, leaving a mess for the Sancho’s crew to mop up. It’s the Lower Decks of The Original Series.
SATURDAY OCT. 17
- Noon-ish – There will be CAKE, to celebrate the start of DORK TOWER’S 30th year running!
- 4 PM – JOHN KOVALIC SIGNING in the DorkStock area
- 6 PM – SHADOWDORK (roleplaying) 2 hours Join Igor, Carson, Gilly, Stell, Matt and Ken in the lands of DORK TOWER’S Warhamster in a one-off RPG dm’ed by John Kovalic. Will the lands of Aurora ever be the same? Dragons don’t slay themselves, you know!
- 9 PM – THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE ELDRITCH(spectator/streaming) Call of Cthulhu Actual Play, with Dan Taylor, Sarah Babe, Matt Forbeck and Elisa Teague. The Good, the Bad & the Eldritch is a live Call of Cthulhu actual-play comedy packed with cowboys, cultists, questionable decisions, unspeakable horrors, and whatever other trouble the investigators manage to stir up along the way. Expect eldritch terror, Old West mayhem, and the kind of unpredictable chaos that only happens when dice, players, and ancient unknowable forces are all working against each other.
SUNDAY OCT. 18
I will be away from the show, for my kid’s birthday.
- John