March 2024 Newsletter
3 Events on sale right now!
Right now, we have not 4, not 5 but 3 megagame events available right now!
As I hit send on this email, Deephaven (the tongue-in-cheek, free-form Dwarf game) only has 9 tickets left so if you want one, grab it quick before it vanishes.
Deephaven - Louisville, KY - March 9th
Den of Wolves in Ypsilanti Michigan, for those of you (like me) are geographically challenged, is on the outskirts of Detroit.
If you haven’t played Den of Wolves it’s the Battlestar Galactic game with the copyright tag filed off. You all play as ship captains, engineers or council members dealing with extremely limited resources whilst being smacked around by the overwhelming Wolf forces. It’s incredible.
Den of Wolves - Ypsilanti, MI - March 30th
And we are also running Den of Wolves in Columbus, Ohio at OSU. There’s already an active table top group at OSU who run Megagames occasionally so I’m hoping we’ll attract some folks from there. Experienced megagamers always bring spice to a megagame as they know the limits and how to push them.
^ Wrong universe Den of Wolves players :D
Gen Con
The past 2 months have been pretty crazy, working with the MGC to finalize what we want to do at Gen Con this year. We’ve had to recruit game runners, review designs and put together a schedule based on all game runner preferences and attempting to predict what rooms we’ll be given. Anyway, here’s what we’ve got:
Huge disclaimer here - this is all subject to change by us (the MGC) and by Gen Con. It’s not firm until it appears in the Gen Con event list which isn’t released until May 5th this year (and even then it can still change).
You may spot in this graphic that 3 of these events are ours. I’m personally going to be running “It belongs in a museum” and “It came from… The Skies!!!”. Fellow Duke and good friend Forrest will be running Gods of the Ancient World. Even though this is my design, he was interested in stepping up and running it. I’ll be around to provide support and make sure he has everything he needs but I’ll be stepping away and letting him run with it. I’m super excited for him - he’ll run a fantastic game.
All that said, this will be the biggest line up of events the MGC has ever put on which is incredible. But of course it’s not possible with valiant heroes willing to chip-in and volunteer. That said, we need YOU!
A few weeks ago, I hosted a little seminar which had 2 purposes: to teach people how to be a good facilitator and provided lots of information on volunteering at Gen Con 2024. You can watch the recording of that here:
So if you’re interested in helping, here’s the signup form: https://forms.gle/KQKU9dPDLX6Wn3gv9
Media Mentions
I’ve added a new page to the website called Media Mentions where I’ll put links to anywhere the Dukes appear outside of the our own postings. As I mentioned last month, there were 2 podcasts where I’d been interviewed and now there’s a third! In this one, we talk about what it takes to publish a Megagame (which is what I did with Gods of the Ancient World last fall). Here’s the direct link to that: The Great Game Podcast.
I was also interviewed by a local board game reviewer called Legends of Nerdvana who are based out of southern Indiana. Here’s the direct link to their video: Legends of Nerdvana. They’ll actually be joining us for Deephaven as players so be sure to say hello if you’re also playing. And be a good viewer and give them a like and subscribe. Randy has the biggest board game collection I’ve ever seen so he certainly knows what he’s talking about.
Anyway, for the entire collection of Media Mentions, here’s the new page on our website: https://www.dukesofhighland.net/media-mentions
Social Media
Our social media presence is chugging along. Outside of Discord (if you even count that as social media), Facebook seems to be our biggest draw. I gave up Zuckerbergs cracksite on a personal level a few years ago because I found myself doom scrolling and looking at posts about politics, dogs, and meals over and over again. So it’s taken me a little while to get back into the swing of it.
What I’m finding is that it’s a great tool for organizing. When I put up one of our games on there as an event, its very easy to share that I’m going whenever I’m posting in a local gaming group. That makes it easy for others to follow and get more information. In addition, when one of YOU gets excited about a game, you can share the event and other related posts directly to your feed which means that your friends and family will see that you’re interested in it and be more likely to be click through to see what it’s all about.
So here’s my call to action for you: If you are a Facebook user and love our events, whether you’re attending the next event or not, please “Like” our page, say you’re interested in the events and share my posts to your feed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this hobby is primarily a word-of-mouth hobby and most of it’s excitement comes from passionate players. It’s easier to describe in-person what a megagame is than it via graphic art, photos or text only.
^ Look at what Chase is doing. Be awesome like Chase.
So what are we videogaming?
I may be a little late to the party but that’s the story of my life. I’m currently plowing through Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Absolutely phenomenal. And that’s all I have to say about that.
Next newsletter will be after 2 whole megagames have been run! What a crazy Q1 this is/has been.
-Tony