Prospering at Game Conventions and Conferences
What you'll learn
- What people do at cons
- How to save money going to cons
- Descriptions of some specific conventions and conferences
Requirements
- No materials, no prequisites
Description
"Game conventions and conferences" is for typical hobby game players and for game designers. Conventions (where people play games, mostly tabletop games) and conferences (where people talk about creating video games) are common and attendance is growing. They vary in size from dozens of attendess to more than 50,000. There's probably one or more within a hundred miles of you.
In this course I talk about what people do at cons and how you can save money when attending, and I describe several specific cons in the southeastern and midwestern USA: GenCon, WBC, Origins, East Coast Game Conference, and PrezCon.
There are no requirements or prerequisites for the course.
This course is likely to slowly grow over time.
Lewis Pulsipher
Who this course is for:
- Anyone who's thinking about attending a game convention or conference
Course content
What are we doing (and why)?2 lectures • 8min
- What do people do at conventions and conferences?Preview06:19
- Brief Introduction to the course and instructor (same as promo video)Preview01:41
Descriptions of some recent conventions12 lectures • 1hr 2min
At the convention or conference8 lectures • 42min
Bonus Material4 lectures • 19min
Instructor
![Lewis Pulsipher](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 3.9 Instructor Rating
- 237 Reviews
- 19,158 Students
- 11 Courses
Dr. Lewis Pulsipher (Wikipedia: "Lewis Pulsipher"; "Britannia (board game)"; "Archomental" ) is the designer of half a dozen commercially published boardgames. His game "Britannia" is described in an Armchair General review "as one of the great titles in the world of games." Britannia was also one of the 100 games highlighted in the book "Hobby Games: the 100 Best". He has over 17,000 classroom hours of teaching experience including teaching video game design and production, and over 20 years of part-time graduate teaching experience.
His book "Game Design: How to Create Video and Tabletop Games, Start to Finish" (McFarland) focuses on practical advice for beginning game designers, about how you actually create and complete game designs. He also contributed to the books "Tabletop: Analog Game Design," "Hobby Games: the 100 Best," "Family Games: the 100 Best." His game design blog has been active since 2004, and he is a contributor and "expert blogger" on Gamasutra, the #1 site for professional video game developers.
His latest published game is the 2011 reissue with additions of "Dragon Rage," originally published in 1982. Three new versions of Britannia, including a 90-120 minute version and a diceless version, are forthcoming, as well as several other games from Worthington Publishing and others. His Viking adventure game "Sea Kings" was published by Worthington in August 2015, and the video game "Lew Pulsipher's Doomstar" on Steam in September 2016.
Lew has a Ph.D. in military and diplomatic history from Duke University, from ancient days when degrees in media, computer networking, or game design did not exist--nor did IBM PCs. In 2012 he was a speaker at the East Coast Game Conference, PrezCon, Origins Game Fair, and World Boardgaming Championships. Long ago he was contributing editor for White Dwarf and Dragon magazines, and publisher of various game fanzines. In 2013 he was Industry Insider Guest of Honor at GenCon, and in 2014 is again speaker at the ECGC.
Game design blog and teach game design blogs are on blogspot
"Expert blogger", Gamasutra
former contributing editor, White Dwarf, Dragon, Space Gamer, etc.
former publisher, Supernova, Blood and Iron, Sweep of History, etc.
"Always do right--this will gratify some and astonish the rest." --Mark Twain