Well, it is over and done with… I popped my cherry. My first Con is over with, and unlike a 16 year-old girl in the backseat of a Chevy, I have no regrets. I didn’t get to spend as much time at VeriCon as I had initially hoped, but I did get to attend the events I was most looking forward to. And for that, I am left feeling quite satisfied with the experience.

The day began with Carl arriving at my place in Jamaica Plain early in the morning (8:00 am, if my pre-coffee recollection is accurate). We decided to drive to Cambridge rather than take the subway because there is a very reasonably priced ($1/hr, max $10) parking garage in Central Sq., which is only a short walk from Harvard Sq. There was a breakfast joint in Harvard Sq. I wanted to try, but in my pre-coffee state-of-mind, was unable to locate. We ended up at the Greenhouse restaurant (as I had sampled their breakfast offerings before) and I promptly ordered up some coffee and food.

After finishing breakfast, Carl and I decided it was time to make our way to Harvard University so we could check-in at the Con. It wasn’t long after 9am, and the first event we wanted to attend began at 10am. Oh, must make a mention of something that I forgot. Sorry for the interruption in story flow, but I meant to include this bit earlier. During our walk from Central Sq. to Harvard Sq, I saw a church with a crucified Christ adorning the exterior wall. This ornament included a floodlight placed above statue-Christ’s head pointing downward. At seeing this, I immediately tried to picture what this must look like at night, when it is illuminated. Then promptly, I uttered to Carl, “Christ looks creepy.”

Anyway, back to checking in at the Con. We arrived at the Harvard University campus, and began looking for Sever Hall, where registration/check-in was located. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that familiar with the Harvard University campus, and I hadn’t bothered to take a look at the campus map on the Con’s website. We figured we could find someone dressed as a japanese hyperspace janitor from the 1690s *snicker* and just follow them, but we had no such luck. I suppose they decided to sleep in on this fine Saturday morning. Luckily for us, the first building we came across had a sign that read, ‘This is Emerson Hall, Sever Hall is that way’ and an arrow letting us know which direction to follow. Yay!

Upon entering Sever Hall, we were greeted by a sea of Apple PowerBooks. It felt out of place, as there wasn’t hip indie music playing, and not a latte to be had anywhere. After wading through the sea of pretty laptops, we were greeted by the young lady handing out badges. Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges! Sorry.

Now that we had our badges, we could head to the first event on our list, the Webcomic Workship. Being that this event was held at Harvard University, all of the events were held in classrooms. The workshop seemed right at home in a Harvard lecture hall. After some fidgeting with the classroom projector, Jeph Jacques began giving us a demonstration of how he illustrates his webcomic Questionable Content. I just sat and watched in awe as Photoshop, a Wacom tablet, and a PowerBook seem to be in perfect harmony. I believe a tear formed in the corner of my eye. It was beautiful.

After Jeph’s demonstration, Randy Milholland talked about his process for creating Something Positive. He basically sketches out the comic in a more traditional manner (i.e. pen and paper) and scans it to be colored in Photoshop (if I remember correctly). Afterwards, the dynamic duo fielded questions and offered advice to would-be webcomic authors.

Dave had showed up to the workshop about a half-hour late. Unfortunately, that meant he missed Jeph’s magical demonstration. Now that Dave was here, we decided that after the workshop was a good time to grab a bite to eat. And, of course, we would hit a gaming store on the way. Pandemonium Books & Games fit the bill nicely. Since Dave had some left-over store credit from when he cleared his inventory of old gaming books, he decided it was about time he introduced Carl and I to Magic: The Gathering. He promptly purchased 3 decks (specifically, the Champions of Kamigawa decks) and we made our way to Au Bon Pain. Although a lot has changed in the world of Magic since Dave has last played, he remembered enough to walk Carl and I through a match. It seems like a fun game, although I couldn’t see myself buying lots of cards and becoming completely absorbed in it. My one deck should suffice.

After our Magic primer, we made our way back to the Con and headed to the Webcomic Panel. This panel featured Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content, Randy Milholland of Something Positive, Tim Buckley of Ctrl+Alt+Del, and Michael Terracciano of Dominic Deegan. It was a fun panel. Unfortunately, the room was pretty packed and the seats were quite narrow. This meant that I wouldn’t be able to leave early to head to the Game Design panel on-time. Well, I suppose I could have left early, but I would have annoyed the hell out of everyone around me.

We spoke about the Game Design panel briefly on Episode 16 of the BostonGeek Podcast. It would have been nice to be there for the entire panel, as it sounds like (from what I have gathered) that there was some interesting discussion in the first half of the panel that would have made the 2nd half easier to follow. However, regardless, it was still very interesting to hear the panel members talk to the audience members about their game ideas. Basically, the panel members would dissect an individual audience member’s game idea. Usually, after a few minutes of probing questions by the panelists, the audience member would have an “Aha!” moment where they finally understood what their game was really about. The panelists included Jared Sorensen of Memento Mori Theatricks, Vincent Baker of Dogs in the Vineyard fame, and Luke Crane creator of the Burning Wheel.

After the panel was over, Jared offered to run a quick game of InSpectres for a few of us. Of the four of us playing, three had never played the game before. Surprisingly, after a very brief overview of the game and rules, we were playing… and enjoying it.

Briefly, as players we take the role of ghost, umm, hunters. During the game, you not only have to figure out the best way to defeat a possessed, re-animated, stuffed bird but you must also figure out how to grow your business. The thing that separates this role-playing game from the typical role-playing game (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons) is that there is alot of emphasize placed on role-playing and very little emphasis on detailed, restrictive rules. In D&D, the person in the role of Game Master is the script-writer, director, and narrator. In InSpectres, the Game Master primarily takes the role of director (with occasional narration). The players write the script, narrate the game, as well as make some direction decisions. It was quite a nice change of pace for me, and I hope to share some InSpectres goodness with my regular gaming group soon.

Unfortunately, at this point, both Carl and I had (separate) plans for the evening and had to leave the Con. As a Con experience, one could argue that I didn’t really see much. I mean, no LARPing, no Cosplay? But, for a first Con experience, I think it was perfect. Enough to get a taste for what this type of Con is all about, but not too much to scare me away. I certainly plan on attending VeriCon again, and am looking forward to finding other local Cons.