GAMA Board Game Expo Showcases Industry Trends And New Titles

It was time for board game designers to shine at an annual convention this week. The Game Manufacturer's Association Expo took place from March 1st to 5th at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville.  GAMA is not your typical board game convention; unlike GenCon or the Board Game Geek Convention, GAMA focuses on the business side of the board game industry.

There are still a lot of new titles getting unveiled, such as Ace of Spades - Call of Zombie expansion by Devir, Tag Team - Arthur's Legacy by Hachette, and King of Tokyo-Godzilla by iello.

Table Talk's gaming expert from Games by James, William Pankratz, was there. He spent long hours checking out everything the convention had to offer. He says he saw a lot of cool new titles:

"We saw a bunch of nice little card games and one I really liked that I think might fly under the radar, for many people, is, "Trickarus." It's a cute trick-taking, push your luck game, and it's being brought to the states by Smirk & Dagger."

Pankratz says the DC Brave & Bold, a bag buidling battle game, by Resurrection Games looks pretty great as well. They announced the 8 characters that will come in the base game, including Superman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luther, and Clayface.

The Dice Tower's Camilla Cleghorn joined the show this week as well. She updated us about Dice Tower West taking place this week, from March 11 to the 15th in Las Vegas. She says it is a great place to make life-long friends:

"That's probably the number one feedback that we get is just bout the community and how they met their friend there. I came alone, is it okay to come alone, it's scary to come alone, I have a little bit of aniexty and am I going to be able to find a game or find people to play with?"

She says the 24 hours of gaming really set Dice Tower West and East apart, and they often have sneak peeks of games that will be coming out at GenCon or other conventions.

It was the third time she took time to join us on Table Talk.  She always has a lot of great insight to share about what is going on at the Dice Tower.

Cleghorn also chatted with us about setting yearly gaming challenges for yourself, and some upcoming games she is excited to get a look at.

You can tune into Table Talk every other Saturday on WJON at 8:10 a.m., after the news, to hear more gaming news and fun conversations with industry designers and experts.

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READ MORE FROM AUTHOR PAUL HABSTRITT