I hardly know what to say. PAX Unplugged is always a highlight of the year, for various reasons. For one, it's just very good. I like all kinds of games but with the advent of Battletech: Alpha Strike and various Tendrils of Warhammer I think that painting and playing with dolls is steadily rising to the fore, alongside anything that involves the scooting of various chips, wooden people, and the clattering of cubes varied and lovely. Even by these standards, this show was a supernatural portal to a Realm Beyond.

I was on stage a lot during this show, maybe that was part of it - fun, good games with friends are a net positive energy wise, even if I have two of them in one day as I did Saturday. That day started with an excursion into the Gloomhaven RPG in Ryan's experimental new TTRPG Theatre, with Jasmine, Laura From Work in another incredible turn on the stage, Gloomhaven Designer Isaac Childres, and also myself somehow. This is one of the funniest games I've ever been part of - this group has played together before, and everyone has marinated in their characters long enough to offer precision hijinx. The system kicks ass, too - they just added secret objectives and it added a really nice layer on top of an already strong original system.

It might go without saying that Acquisitions Incorporated was hotly anticipated, being the culmination of an initial live show at PAX West, then a ten episode Kickstarter series you funded. I wouldn't want to spoil anything here but I had more than one person who decided to give our game a shot even though they'd never seen it before or were even dragged to it by their erstwhile allies, and were so surprised by this new medium and what it could accomplish that they became newly minted fans. Well, they're in luck. There's fifteen years of that shit lying around, and it all led up to Saturday night's game.

I also had a great time at our Black Remnant live game on Sunday, also - Black Remnant being our wargame/RPG hybrid set in Catalyst Game Labs' legendary Battletech Universe. Political Hard Sci-Fi set in a crisp bed of our fresh nonsense, it combines their excellent Mechwarrior Destiny roleplaying system with the streamlined, miniature centered wargame combat of their Alpha Strike system, the starter box for which is probably the best value in wargaming. I love this game, which is basically just Kiko, Eric, and myself playing in a sandbox in the backyard. But you can come too if your mom says it's okay. It's a young show; only twenty episodes, and might be the highlight of my week. Here's the playlist.

I also got to be there with my friend Michael, even if he did require a sacrament to perform the ritual. I hope you had as much fun as we did, because we had fun that pegged very near the theoretical limit.

(CW)TB out.