Everything Action at Pax Unplugged 2024
At Pax Unplugged‘s annual board game event, cards were drawn, points were exchanged, and our mana was replenished for our adventure. This event celebrated classic gaming creativity, games that require more physical involvement, and social interactions that can’t exactly be replicated from a screen. Whether played with cards, miniatures, or with a creative dungeon master, board and tabletop games have unique aspects that make them stand out from being lumped in with video games.
We looked forward to three incredible days of checking out the latest in board gaming, meeting energetic creators, and hanging out with the PAX community. The vendor hall was packed with game companies and shops, panelists giving insightful talks, and endless games waiting to be opened and played. We explored new products from various studios, got a few sneak peeks at upcoming titles, returned to the classic board game room, caught Unplugged’s first concert, and grabbed a few Philadelphia treats while we were here. Read down below to discover our highlights at Pax Unplugged 2024!
Early Arrival
We arrived on Thursday before the convention began to pick up our badges and saw the final preparations to get the convention ready for the following day. The badge pickup was in a different area than it had been in previous years, so we had a bit of a hike across the entire convention center to get there, but we did get to see some of the displays in the convention hallways for various companies and the Voodoo Ranger Lounge, ready to provide an area to play games and drink some brews during the weekend.
Let the games begin
The crowds were out bright and early every day of the convention, but luckily, the lines moved swiftly, and everyone was able to get out of the cold and onto the floor to roll some dice and create characters in a timely manner.
Helpful Banners
We’re always on the lookout for the PAX tradition of bizarre and hilarious banners. This year, PAX Unplugged did not feature many banners, but we saw some excellent designs, especially the parody of TJ Maxx. It’s a fun sidequest at every PAX to try and find the joke banners, and they are spread out throughout the entire convention, so you need to explore everything if you want to see them all.
Show floor
Unplugged utilizes the Philadelphia Convention Center’s central area for dozens of tables and booths between the Expo and Freeplay Hall. The Expo Hall is dedicated to various companies and groups selling products and showcasing games. The Freeplay Hall is dedicated to demo tables, tabletop miniatures, and a free play area where you can borrow games from a gigantic board gaming library. The floor was crowded, especially on Saturday. Still, it never felt completely unmanageable, and it was reasonably easy most days to make your way around and get to the booths and events you wanted to see. You can easily get distracted by new games and cool artwork and hear fantastic pitches from hardworking reps. It was pretty cool to hear about a game from a vendor booth and then find a rep running a session at the demo tables so you can decide if you want to purchase it. Events and games were happening all day, so we dedicated time to running around this level for most of our trip.
Kess
Sonic Speed Battle: We saw Sonic Roll last year at PAX Unplugged, which let 1-4 players use dice to race their way through iconic Sonic stages. Sonic Speed Battle is an entirely card-based game with three different games in one. You can choose from 24 different Sonic characters with unique abilities and actions. You can then play either Action Race, where you compete to be the first to 10 points, Shoot Battle, where you are trying to knock out all the other players, or Treasure Hunt, where you are looking to get 2 Chaos Emeralds before anyone else. There are elements of the classic card game War, where the highest number wins, mixed with the different “suits” on the cards, allowing for special abilities to alter the game. It seems like a fast and fun game for 2-4 players, and it’s out now.
Trying our luck: One of the big draws at the Kess booth was their giant dice tower game, where you tossed a giant-sized D20, and whatever number came up corresponded to a prize. If you managed to roll a natural 20, you could win a copy of one of Kess’s games, but there were also pins, puzzles, and discounts for other rolls. Chris managed to score a pin the first day, and Zach won a Drop Dots Dice, but the luck wasn’t there on Saturday, with just discounts on merch at the Kess booth.
Rabble Games – Finding Calm
We played Lovestruck last year from Rabble Games and had fun playing out a trashy reality dating show. The Rabble team has got more zen this year with their newest game, Finding Calm. Based on the tarot, the game is part puzzle and part meditation aid. You draw cards, which feature absolutely gorgeous artwork, into a grid of 3×3. As you place cards, the symbols around the border will determine if the cards around it will flip face up or face down. Your goal is to get down to a single face-up card. Once you have that card, you can look in the game’s included guidebook to find the section for that card and follow the meditation and intentions for the day based on that card. The game was designed with an actual therapist, Dr. Silvi Guerra, and will hopefully provide a way for players to reduce stress and anxiety. Finding Calm is looking at a March 2025 release date.
Evil Genius Games
Evil Genius Games hit the TTRPG scene with their Everyday Heroes system, which is based on d20 Modern and lets you role-play in modern, action-packed settings. The company spun this into IP adventures, including Pacific Rim, Rambo, Total Recall, and The Crow, which build on the core system but add new elements and scenarios based on those properties. The latest expansion will be The Return of the Living Dead, which will be out sometime in 2025 and feature new mechanics and rules inspired by the zombie classic. It will also feature four adventures that feature the franchise’s dark humor and punk rock style.
Floodgate Games
Landmarks: One of the newest games from Floodgate Games, Landmarks is a co-op word association game that feels like a mash-up between Forbidden Island and Codenames. You and your friends play as treasure hunters on an island, but only one person has the map of the island’s treasures and dangers. The person with the map needs to try to guide the other players to the treasure and avoid hazards by writing 1-word clues on tiles and giving them to the rest of the team. They then need to figure out how that relates to the other words already in play and make a path. For instance, if one of the tiles on the boarad was “egg”, the player giving the clue may want to write something like “shell” or “salad” to get the other players to place that tile near “egg”. It’s a cool mechanic that makes you think outside the box and puts a unique spin on a familiar concept. It’s available now.
Hedge Mage: Hedge Maze is coming soon from Floodgate. It’s a game with a cutesy theme with a ton of strategy and mechanics. You and an opponent play dueling wizards engaging in a prank war on each other’s gardens. You are trying to set up a hedge maze in your garden using polynimo shapes to prevent your opponent from quickly navigating it while you are simultaneously trying to break over into your opponent’s garden to cause mayhem. You can enchant gnomes that live in the garden, and your goal is to get them to escape from the opponent’s garden to score points. It was a bit overwhelming to hear about all the game mechanics in a quick demo on the show floor. Still, it seems like a game where you need to play it and learn how everything interacts, and then, once you know that, it seems like there are many different strategies and options at your disposal.
Mark Cope & WatchMojo Games – Terrible Influence
Launching early 2025 on Kickstarter, Terrible Influence comes from designer Mark Cope and is being published by WatchMojo Games. You play as one of several classes, including Podcaster, Instagram Model, Game Streamer, etc., and then work your way up the game’s board, building wealth and power with the ultimate goal being to take the White House. You can pick up various attributes that will give you different abilities and boosts while avoiding scandals and other events that could cost you fans and money. We talked to Mark about how the idea for the game came about: to let players role-play in a unique and modern setting and how to break down the cycle of influencer culture into the different skills and events that players will encounter. You see a pattern repeatedly with streamers and social media influencers, and there are many cards where, even though they are generic, you know precisely what specific person or event they are referencing. It seems like a super fun party game with strategic and role-playing aspects that give it more substance.
Rose City Games – Floppy Knight
Floppy Knights was initially released as a video game in May of this year, and a tabletop version will be on Kickstarter soon. The “Analog Battle System” has you choosing a character from the Floppy Knights universe, and then you use cards to program your actions, such as moving, attacking, and using special abilities. The game is a battle royale, so your goal is to take out all the other players. The programming aspect makes you rethink your strategy, as you need to anticipate what your opponents might do and plan your moves accordingly. The game shares the fun, cartoony style of the video game version. The Kickstarter for Floppy Knight: Analog Battle System will be up sometime in 2025
UVS Games
The Universe game card system (UVS) has been a popular collectible card game since 2006 and was heavily inspired by fighting games like Street Fighter, Soul Caliber, and The King of Fighters. Instead of attacking and defending against multiple avatars or “creature” characters, UVS emphasizes strategic resource management. Players assume the role of iconic characters and make tactical decisions to reduce their opponent’s health to zero. Cards are broken into five categories: Character cards, Attack Cards, Foundation Cards, Asset cards, and Action cards. Each deck features Character Cards, which define a player’s health, abilities, and playstyle, acting as the foundation for the deck. Attack Cards are the primary tools for dealing damage, offering a variety of speeds, powers, and effects to overwhelm opponents. Players rely on Foundation Cards to support these attacks, which provide resources and long-term benefits, enabling stronger plays as the game progresses. Asset Cards represent equipment or tools that enhance the character’s abilities, adding versatility or situational advantages. Finally, Action Cards deliver immediate effects, such as countering opponents or boosting attacks, for critical moments. Players must strategically balance these card types, managing resources and timing attacks effectively, to reduce their opponent’s health to zero and win the game.
We interviewed Matthew Lockwood, a marketing manager at UVS Games, who explained UVS Games’ excellent relations with video game studios, manga publishers, and TV studios that have helped bring together many fan-favorite characters into one game. Not many games can have a character from Tekken 6 unleash an attack from My Hero Academia, defend with a move from Cowboy Beebop, and then use a boost from Mega Man. UVS Games wants to represent the characters and stories from all their license partners, so there is a lot of development that goes into balancing cards and keeping the creativity within the game fresh. The newest deck series, Star Trek: Lower Decks, was released during Pax Unplugged, so people familiar with the series got an early chance to see how well the TV show gets translated into card battles. Lower Decks is a fun spin on the typical Star Trek narratives, and its self-aware humor is a fun addition to the card system.
Dead Alive Games
We stopped by the Dead Alive Games booth to meet with Bernie Lin, a game designer and co-owner of the company. We cozied up in a corner to get a rundown of their mission to create and release high-quality games for sci nerds.
Lunar Skyline: Lunar Skyline is a competitive city-building strategy game set in a futuristic lunar colony. Players act as architects tasked with constructing thriving cities on the moon’s surface while balancing limited resources, complex terrain, and the challenges of zero-gravity engineering. The game features a dynamic tile-placement system where players draft and arrange structures like habitats, energy plants, and research facilities to optimize their cities. Players must manage infrastructure, compete for prime building locations, and fulfill mission objectives to score influence.
CyberPet Quest: Cyberpet Quest is a cute spin-off title of Omicron Protocol. Instead of cybernetic agents trying to survive a mysterious infection, players become cybernetic companions trying to rescue their owner in a dystopian cyberpunk world. Each player controls a customizable cyberpet with unique abilities: Jane the cat, Clay the dog, Freya the raccoon, and Roman the goose. Players face various challenges and battles against rogue AI and rival hackers across different chapters of an epic quest. Cyberpet Quest combines deck-building mechanics with RPG stat building for an interesting, family-friendly title that is great for casual fans of tabletop games.
Choose Your Own Adventure
We’re long-time Choose Your Own Adventure fans, so we had to check out their booth at the con. CYOA has been republishing classic stories and creating new, modern gamebooks, with new subseries aimed at younger readers and ones like Spies based on actual historical figures, like Mata Hari and Houdini. They have also put out tabletop games with House of Danger and War with the Evil Power Master. The latest “game” is The Tarot Deck, which features fantastic artwork that combines the style of CYOA with the classic Tarot arcana. The deck has a guidebook that will teach you how to do readings on yourself or others. Rana Tahir, a CYOA author and tarot practitioner, wrote the guide. You can check out The Tarot Deck and all the CYOA books at their website: https://www.cyoa.com/
Kickstarter Booth
The Kickstarter area for board games was an exhilarating experience, offering a glimpse into the creativity and innovation driving the tabletop industry. Among the highlights was discovering a diverse collection of titles from five game companies, each presenting unique themes and mechanics. From intricate strategy games to fast-paced party favorites, the variety showcased the ingenuity of independent creators. Each booth was brimming with passionate developers eager to share their visions, offering demos, prototypes, and insights into their design processes.
Oath of Ember: Oath of Ember is a narrative-driven strategy game set in a dark fantasy world of chaos and fire. Players take on the role of exiled warriors bound by an ancient oath to reclaim their shattered homeland from demonic forces. The game blends tactical combat with resource management as players recruit allies, gather powerful relics, and make critical decisions that shape the fate of their campaign. Featuring a rich storyline, branching choices, and a deep combat system, Oath of Ember challenges players to balance strategic prowess with moral dilemmas. The game’s immersive world is brought to life by the game creator Halo Grey, whose amazing fantasy artwork immediately caught our attention before we learned about the game. He gave us a quick interview about the process of making the game, his work as a tattoo artist inspired him to create a fantasy world, and where he sees his game in the future. The Kickstarter for the project is coming soon, and you can check out the trailer of the game here.
Chicken Fried Dice: Launching soon on Kickstarter, Chicken Fried Dice is a roll-and-write game from Urban Professional Games. Each player takes on the role of being a food truck operator, represented by some fantastic components. There are dice in a shared marketplace, and you need to race and try to get the dice you need to complete orders before the other players. Each customer has specific criteria to complete their desired meal; the longer they wait, the worse their rating will be. You can also use dice to upgrade your food truck, giving you more options for how you want to manipulate dice and complete meals.
Dire Wolf:
Dire Wolf Games showed off several digital versions of some of their titles. These digital versions aren’t exactly “video games” as they have the visuals and gameplay elements like their tabletop counterparts.
Dune Imperium: Dune: Imperium is a strategic board game set in an alternate Dune universe. It blends deck-building and worker placement. Players take on the roles of powerful leaders vying for control of the desert planet Arrakis, balancing political intrigue, military might, and resource management. Players compete to gain influence, harvest valuable spices, and outmaneuver rivals by building a tailored deck and strategically placing agents on the board. The game’s dynamic mechanics and story depths capture the tension and complexity of war within the royal houses.
Ark Nova: Ark Nova is a dense zoo simulation game designed by Mathias Wigge. You compete with other zoo operators to have the best animal habitats and gain lucrative research and sponsorship deals. The digital version has a detailed tutorial, which you’ll need to work through because of the many different resources and mechanics. You need to manage animals, zoo attractions, staff, research, and conservation projects to upgrade your facility’s attendance and prestige and gain victory points. You can play the digital version solo or against other players locally via pass-and-play or online. The digital version seems like a great option if you want to learn the mechanics or don’t have other local players to get together for the physical version.
Cascadia: Similar to Ark Nova, Cascadia is another animal-based game in which you compete to build the best Pacific Northwest ecosystem. The physical game won the Spiel de Jahres, one of the world’s top board game awards. The digital version of Cascadia allows solo against AI and local or online multiplayer play. There are also 15 solo scenarios that you can try to complete that offer unique challenges and conditions. You use tiles to build different environments, like water or forests and then play different animals to live in those environments. You gain points by expanding the areas and adding more animals. You can strategize and focus on specific animals and environments or try to play a wider variety, which may not earn as many points but will give you more options. This feels, like Ark Nova, like a great way to experience the game more affordably or if you don’t have a dedicated tabletop group locally.
Loot Studios – Malediction
Malediction is an ambitious new “Miniatures Card Game” that combines elements of deck-building card games and strategic wargames like Warhammer. Set in an original dark fantasy universe called Agnar, you choose from several factions, like the ruthless Primal Blood faction, which uses aggression and strength to overwhelm opponents but lacks defense. Each faction has several “Seekers” who are the leaders of the “warband” group you control. The game has cards for each faction and miniatures, and you position your miniatures and then use the cards to cast spells and attack the enemy. There are also relics and other environmental elements that can cause different effects and add to the cool factor on the table. Usually, you would play something like Magic or a war game like Warhammer, but the combination of both feels unique and interesting. You can play 1v1 or play in teams of up to 4 players.
The art design is also very cool, and there was an imposing statue of one of the Seekers, Thundersteps, at the booth, which showed off the dark fantasy feel they were going for. Loot Studios will sell the cards at retail but will also make the cards and miniatures available to print and play. If you have a 3D printer, you can get the files for the various miniatures and make them yourself, which saves Loot Studios manufacturing costs, keeps the retail price down, and lets you customize what you want in your game. You can download a free print-and-play demo that will allow you to experience the basics of the game in 30 minutes.
Kosmos
The Gang: Poker has had a great year of reinterpretions, thanks to games like Balatro. The Gang puts a co-op spin on Texas Hold ‘Em by using the mechanics of Poker to have players try and unlock bank vaults. You and your friends play as criminals looking to pull off a series of heists. You must successfully rank everyone’s poker hands from best to worst to break into the vaults. Without talking, you bet on how well your hand is compared to the other players based on the cards facing up from the flop, the turn, and the river. If the hands are all ranked correctly, the team gets to unlock a vault, unlock three vaults, and the team wins. Along with the normal playing cards, you can add “specialist” cards that allow players to use special actions and add some more strategic elements to the game.
Australis: Coming out in Fall 2025, Australis is a game that sees players racing through the East Australian Current as sea turtles. With each turn, you use dice to determine what actions you want to take, including feeding schools of fish, moving further down the current, placing coral reefs, and more, all of which earn you points. Each round ends with a dice showdown, with the higher quality dice usually winning, which may mean you want to use your action to skip doing anything and be the first one to choose the dice next turn. The game has a gorgeous underwater art style, and it seems like it will have tons of depth and strategy for avid tabletop gamers.
Steve Jackson Games
Car Wars: Sixth Edition: The sixth edition of the venerable Car Wars series takes the game in a more streamlined and modern direction. Designed by Sam Mitschke and Randy Scheunemann, we got to talk to Randy about the gameplay changes, including a new Starter Pack that lets you get a two-player game started much more quickly. The car models are also bigger than the previous models and come unpainted, so you can paint and customize them however you want. There are also new reference cards and an easier-to-understand dashboard component, which helps you keep track of the status of your car and weapons more easily. Many heavy stat elements have been shaved off, so you can spend more time battling your friends and less time on things like the weight of your car, the amount of ammo each weapon has, etc. There are many options for how you want to customize your driver, weapons, etc. There are many other car combat tabletop games, but Car Wars is the OG, and the changes made in this new Sixth Edition should help new players jump in and hopefully please veteran fans as well.
Tabloids: Tabloids is a new party game from Steve Jackson Games that will let you unleash your inner Weekly World News. Similar to games like Card Against Humanity or Apples to Apples, players compete to come up with the funniest, wackiest headline using random tiles with a word or phrase on them. There are 328 tiles included, so there are plenty of crazy combinations that you can come up with. You complete your headline, and then everyone reveals them and votes on which is the best. This is a slight change from the other similar games as they require a judge each turn who doesn’t play that round, here everyone is always playing.
Munchkin: Shadowrun: The Munchkin universe continues to expand and heads into cyberspace with Munchkin: Shadowrun. Set in the popular cyberpunk universe, this new version of Munchkin features races (Elves, Dwarves, Orks, or Trolls), equipment, and spells from the Shadowrun universe. The main gameplay is the same as other Munchkin versions, where, on your turn, you “kick down the door” and either face an enemy, get cursed, or collect an item. As you defeat enemies, you move up in power level, aiming to reach level 10 and win the game. The most unique aspect of Munchkin: Shadowrun is The Matrix, which provides an alternate route to victory if you can complete the series of cards that make up The Matrix. The game can also be played with any other Munchkin versions so that you can have wild combos of races, weapons, and equipment. Munchkin is such a solid base to build off of, and Shadowrun seems like another great expansion in the series.
Rock Manor Games – Disco Heist Laundry
We got to play an extended demo of Disco Heist Laundry from Rock Manor Games. Set in the 80s, 1-4 players play as crime kingpins looking to make the most cash while avoiding the cops. Each kingpin has unique abilities that you can spend resources on once per game, as well as different starting resources. Each player also has a set of cards that let them do specific actions, like pull a heist, deploy goons, or launder money. You can play the card to do the initial action and then “tap” it like in Magic to use a secondary ability. Once it’s tapped, you can’t use the card again until you play the Launder card, which will get all the used cards back into your hand and let you collect points that will put you closer to victory.
There’s lots of planning involved as you want to think ahead and figure out where you want to go, what resources you have, and what you can do without getting caught. The police are an automanous factor on the board, moving to different locations based on dice rolls. Specific actions will raise your “heat” level (basically the GTA wanted level), and as it rises, police will arrest you if they see you and eventually start chasing you down if you are on the streets. You can hire specialists for your crew, which you’ll need for the heists. Each heist has different stages that require a particular type of character. Your Kingpin is one type, but you’ll need others to complete the heist fully. If you don’t have the criteria for a certain level, you can skip it and avoid the penalties if you have intel tokens or take it but risk raising the alarm and your heat level. As the game progresses, the heists get more challenging, the police evolve into cars, and eventually, SWAT vans, roadblocks, and snitches appear. There’s lots of strategy and planning involved, but the game is also pretty easy to understand, and you get into the rhythm of play after a few rounds. Disco Heist Laundry will be coming to Kickstarter in 2025.
Gamey- Galaxy Fighters
Inspired by classic shoot-em-up arcade games like Space Invaders, Galaga, and R-Type, Galaxy Fighters from Gamey sees you and a group of friends trying to fend off an alien invasion. Each player controls a side of the board and picks out their ship, each of which has a unique ability, and you can pick two other skills from various weapons, shields, and items. On your turn, you roll dice and then use them to attack the invading aliens, use your abilities, and move your ship. After your turn, the aliens move based on a card drawn from the alien deck. The card details what aliens move and where. If the aliens stack up, the entire stack moves if that square is on the alien movement card, which can result in catastrophic damage for you and your team. The alien pieces all have a movement direction, so not all of them may move toward you on your turn, but you could screw your friend if you don’t help them out with some of the aliens closing in on their base. If the aliens reach your base on your side of the board, your ship is blown up, but you can “respawn” with another ship from the game’s roster. The art and color of the board are fantastic, with bright neon colors and designs that evoke the classic video games it’s inspired by, and there are plenty of pieces to fiddle around with. The game will launch soon; you can get more info on their website.
Drayer Ink – Bubble Net
We played Bubble Net in the Unpub area of PAX Unplugged 2023, and we saw it out on the show floor as an official release. The game, from Catherine Drayer and Drayer Ink, had a successful Kickstarter campaign. The game has each player playing as a pod of humpback whales, using a real-life technique to create a rush of bubbles that confuses and herds schools of fish, making them easier for the whales to eat. Each player has a board with a school of fish and a pattern of bubbles on it. The bubbles move every turn and push the fish toward the center. Each player has two whales that they can use to move fish like the bubbles do or hold and keep the fish where they are for three adjacent board segments. At the end of everyone’s turn, a fish card is drawn, showing how the fish respond to the bubble net and try to escape. The game’s goal is to push the most fish into the center of your board so your pod can eat them and score points. One of the coolest parts of PAX Unplugged is playing a game in an early state in an area like the Unpub section and then seeing it become fully realized a year or two later and having a booth on the main floor.
Panda Cult Games – Shovel Knight: Dungeon Duels
Shovel Knight has had several spin-offs, and Shovel Knight: Dungeon Duels takes the side scroller into the world of analog gaming. Each player chooses a character from the Shovel Knight universe and competes to make it through stages and battle bosses. The board comprises several segments, and at the end of each round, one segment “scrolls” off, and any enemies or players on that segment are dead. Players can move, jump, attack, and roll dice to see if those actions are successful based on the symbols that come up. Each character has unique abilities that they can also use on their turn. You aim to gain the most treasure, whether by uncovering it from dirt mounds on the board or by defeating enemies. When you complete the level, you will enter the boss fight, which has unique tiles, and the boss attacks using cards drawn that show how they will move and strike. You can attack the boss and score treasure, but you’ll lose some if they hit you. The game nails the feel of a side scroller, and it’s got plenty of variety between the different ways the stages can be set up and the different characters. It also seems like a lot of fun to screw over your friends by doing things like getting them shoved into a spike pit and then stealing their gold after they die. The game is available now.
Tabletop Free Play
As always, many games were available in the PAX Unplugged freeplay area. Many of the games featured at the various vendor booths were available to check out and try here, so if there wasn’t room or the demo table was busy, you could find and try the game with your friends. It’s also a great way to try games you may have been wanting to buy or have been interested in, and it’s also a great way to find a group of like-minded gamers and check out bigger games you may not have had the numbers to play before. This seemed possibly the biggest library PAX Unplugged has ever had for the Freeplay area. They added an entirely new section of Freeplay tables up near the First Look/Unpub area on the upper floor of the convention center. If you couldn’t find something in the Freeplay area to play, you weren’t looking hard enough, as every game you could think of probably had at least one copy available to check out.
First Look
One of the unique features of PAX Unplugged is the First Look area, where games that have not come to the US yet make their debut. The upside is that you can check out interesting games that no one else in the US has ever played unless they traveled to Europe or imported them, but the downside is that many of them don’t have English rules, so you either have to try and translate them with something like Google Translate or rely on the notes that the Enforcers and PAX showrunners have left to explain the rules. We tried a few games but couldn’t figure out exactly what we should be doing. There is staff available to explain things, but there’s so much to see and do that we had to move on. It’s still a fascinating convention area, and hardcore tabletop gamers need to head there and check out some of these games.
Unpub
Sharing the same area as First Look, Unpub is another unique and interesting feature of PAX Unplugged, where you can play works in progress, provide feedback to the designers, and potentially help shape the next big tabletop game. Some of the games are pretty far along in development, but some are nothing more than sheets of paper with a drawing of a board. It’s cool to check out the area and try a few of the games being featured because you never know which ones might take off and get an official release from a major publisher or have a massive Kickstarter campaign. We’ve seen several games over the years start in Unpub and become fully realized tabletop games, and you can be there right from the start sometimes.
RPG Room
While we’re not RPG players, it is fun to check out the Tabletop RPG library and see what worlds are available to role-play. All the major franchises in RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, Cyberpunk, and Shadowrun are represented, but there’s also stuff like Power Rangers, Terminator, and GI Joe that lets you create creators and play in those universes. Star Wars and Star Trek are also massive in the world of tabletop RPGs. There weren’t as many truly wacky RPGs as the Dallas RPG, but there were still plenty of options to choose from if you and a group of friends wanted to spend the convention having an adventure in a fantasy world.
Classic Board Game Room
Classic Cardboard is a PAX Unplugged staple and features many games from decades past. Games from your childhood, outdated ideas, and bizarre oddities are all represented, and you can pick out and play whatever you wish. There’s also a selection of VHS games that you can check out on the provided TV and VCR. It’s like a time capsule to look through the selection of games and remember ones you may have had and played as a kid or ones you may have seen at the store or in a Christmas or toy catalog but never got to play.
Dynamite: One of the games we checked out in the Classic Cardboard area was Dynamite. Released in 1988, Dynamite sees players trying to build bridges around the outer edge of the plastic game board and make it all the way around. You roll a dice, which determines how far you will move or if you need to press the central dynamite plunger. The plunger will randomly detonate a section of the board, exploding whatever pieces and players are there. The explosive gimmick is fun for the first few minutes, but we quickly got caught in a cycle of moving forward, getting blown up, going back, getting to the same spot, blowing up again, and going back. It’s one game where the concept is better than the actual gameplay.
Star Trek: The Next Generation Interactive VCR Board Game
A lot of times at conventions like PAX Unplugged, we are so busy checking out the main vendor floor and the other areas of the convention that we don’t have time to see a lot of panels and events, but we had to make an exception for a life-size game of Star Trek: TNG The VCR Board Game. In a meeting room adjacent to the Classic Cardboard room, the games’ board and components were blown up to full size, with the six players representing the playing pieces and walking around the board after rolling a giant dice. The game’s hilarious and infamous VHS component was played on a projector screen so everyone could experience the incredible performance of Klingon warrior Kavok in his full glory. It was a hilarious and chaotic experience and something that you’ll probably only find at PAX Unplugged.
Unplugged Concert
We stopped at the concert on Saturday night to relax with laughs and nerdy tunes. This was Unplugged’s first concert, and it followed the theme of being “unplugged” with some of the best comedic musicians playing acoustic instruments. The concert was designed to be nerd folk rock, meaning it was soft music filled with pop culture references and mature innuendos.
Paul and Storm opened the concert with songs encouraging people to chant, rave, and shout pirate phrases. Their set, which included many jokes, improv songs, and funny insights, was hilarious from start to finish.
Jonathan Coulton played a range of classic hits that almost everyone in the hall knew and sang proudly. He explained the inspirations behind a few of his songs, which usually stem from his adventures from appearing on morning TV talk shows, movies he watched, or working with Valve. It was cool to hear a live performance of Still Alive, which retains the sweet and eerie tones after all these years.
Ending the concert was the team-up of Jonathan with Paul and Storm, which is a sample of what it’s like on the JoCo Cruise. The combined comedic force of these musicians brought everyone laughing, even themselves, as they poked fun at each other, improvised songs, and flubbed a few lyrics between giggles.
Gaming breaks
As much as we love to game all day and night, sometimes you must step away. Nothing helps, like grabbing hot food and cold drinks and checking out local sights to recharge the mind and body. Everyone has opinions on who does the best Philly Cheesesteak; one place does the layering of meat better than the others, and one place has the better cheese whiz sauce and so many other details to keep people debating forever. We grabbed a hot Geno’s sandwich and relaxed at the Garage, a local Philly bar with a fine selection of beers that will match how you feel now.
On another night, we headed to Bar-Ly, a sports bar with Asian cuisine conveniently located across the street from the Philadelphia Convention Center. It’s a nice spot to grab a hot bowl of Pho, a few beers, and then return to playing games.
Lastly, Philadelphia was celebrating RockyFest on the same weekend as Unplugged. 2024 was the movie’s 48th anniversary, and Philadelphia held multiple Rocky-themed events across the city. At City Hall, Rocky’s statue in his iconic workout attire was ready for anyone to pose with, so we snapped a few shots before crowds swarmed over it.
Last thoughts
Pax Unplugged 2024 was another amazing event that allowed us to explore new worlds, battle monsters, and think critically with a roll of dice or a turn of a card. Tabletop events have a great community that makes it easy for gamers of all ages to pick an empty seat and start playing. We love learning about the games and their creators and seeing how a simple idea can become extraordinary. (Sometimes, they require 60 minutes to play to get an idea of the game loop.) We always look forward to running through the gauntlet of games we see and try our best to explain why they are fun for everyone to check out. But the best way to get a good idea of these games and more is to find out firsthand, so we hope to see many of you at the next Unplugged or PAX event soon!
