PAXU 2024 Recap!

Welcome to another PAX Unplugged Recap! It was a great weekend filled with games, shopping, press meetings, and more. Check out aaaaallll the highlights from my experience, (strap in for a long post) and let me know what you liked best if you were there. And if you weren’t there, mark your calendars for next year!
PAXU 2025 will be November 21-23, 2025!

Expo Hall

The Expo Hall was great, as usual! There were a ton of vendors, lots to see, and for the most part, plenty of room so you could stop and look at things without feeling in the way. A few of the aisles at the end did feel a bit tighter, but overall, it wasn’t bad, especially given the number of people in attendance. I also always appreciate the aisle signs to quickly see what number booths are where!

Media Room

I loved having an area where I could sit between my meetings that was a little more quiet. It was fairly busy in there, but there were still plenty of seats. I also loved the view of the vendor hall from the windows! My big issue was that it was super dark in there. I did not understand why it was kept so dark, so it did make it difficult to review the notes I was taking on the show.

Pinny Arcade

I love pin trading at PAX! I thought the wheel and the plinko board at the merch booths were both fun, and I thought the boards were just packed with great stuff to trade with, which was awesome. I also always like attending the trading events because it’s fun to meet a lot of other pin collectors and see what you can trade for! I even got to trade a pin for a friendship bracelet, which was very exciting for me, haha!

First Look / UnPub

First Look and UnPub were in a very different location this year, waaaay up the tallest escalator. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the walk, since I always come in from the secondary entrance, I actually loved the new location, and hope to see it used again. It was a nice sized area and all the tables were nicely spaced out. And because it was farther from the “main” area, it was a slightly quieter environment to play games, which I was a fan of. As usual, there were a lot of really rad games to check out in both sections, and always a must-visit on my list!

Library / Freeplay

I didn’t frequent the library much at this PAX, but when I did, I thought it was a pretty smooth experience! It could get very crowded, which, of course, is hard to avoid, but check-out was very quick, especially with the QR codes on the badges, and returns are always super fast and easy. Freeplay was definitely crowded (which, I mean, is a great sign because we’re here to game, right?!) but it wasn’t too hard to find a spot if you kept your eyes peeled.

Indie Games Night Market

This was new! This was a little market for some designers to share small batches of (mostly) hand-made games, which they had pretty limited copies of. It was a super unique thing to experience, and while none of the games were quite for me, it was still cool to see what people had put together. I was also a little surprised to see how packed the line was for this! It was exciting to see the interest, so I hope this is something the show does again in the future.

PAX-XP

This was a little scavenger hunt that hasn’t been done since the very first PAXU in 2017! You just go around the show scanning QR codes for in-app badges and then you earn a little prize at the end! It’s a cute kind of “side quest” which I think is fun, and I enjoyed the photo station that was part of it 🙂

Ekans Toss

Crocheted Ekans tossed around crocheted Dugtrios? What’s not to love?! This was a super cute and super fun game, and I’m glad I got to take part. Check out Katzer’s Creations to see more of their pieces!

Press Chats

Alderac – I met with Whitney at AEG and we talked about some changes coming to the creator program. We had a pretty general discussion about AEG’s titles (many of which I’m a big fan of) particularly Cascadia Junior which is the talk of the town right now! I don’t have kids, but I love Cascadia, so it’s cool to see a title to make it accessible to even younger audiences too.

We also talked about some upcoming titles such as Misfit Heroes, which will have some deck construction, and Knitting Circle which is a follow up to Calico!! I’m excited for both. She was also kind enough to give me a copy of Cascadia: Rolling Rivers to review, so keep an eye out for that!

Brother Ming Games – I learned how to play Re;ACT – The Arts of War from designer MingYang Lu, and it is pretty neat. It’s a highly asymmetric, competitive game with a bunch of unique artist characters, and it’s snappy and quick, playing in just about 30 minutes, which is definitely for me. I’m excited to be reviewing it!

Rabble – George from Rabble showed me Finding Calm which is a tarot card game about trying to guide your day. They worked with a therapist to make this, and it’s all about trying to, well, find your calm. I definitely need to play this one once it’s out! He also gave me a sneak peek at something very exciting coming in the pipeline…but I can’t say much more yet, other than it’s going to be a hit!

Czech Games Edition – I met with Shelby at CGE, who ran through SETI with me, which I’m hoping to review in a month of so. It’s all about exploring space, finding alien life, and completing missions. There’s lots of upgrade opportunities, and it seemed like just a lot of paths / scoring potential, which I love. It seems fairly heavy, but also seems like it will get easier as you play it, and it does have a lot of useful reference material.

She also showed me a bit of Mu and More, which is a trick-taking type game in line with Euchre that you’re bound to like if you like trick-taking. Being that trick-taking is one of the only types of games I don’t love, we didn’t spend a lot of time on this, because it probably isn’t for me.

Flat River Group – I sat down with Danni and a few other creators to play a preview game of Zenith, which is a 2 or 4 player tug of war type game of card play and a bit of track movement (my favorite!), and it’s a race to a certain score. It was pretty neat, so I’m excited for when it comes out!

Capstone Games – I met up with Christopher from Capstone who told me a little bit about the organized play coming for Pagan: Fate of Roanoke, which I recently reviewed. I got a few of the play packs, which are alt-art cards, some foiled, which are neat! I also got to check out Butterfly Garden which is a pretty light and quick pathing game. It’s not really for me, but I think it’ll have some appeal from players who like Tsuro!

Weird Giraffe Games – I met Carla who showed off Way Too Many Cats, which sounds like a spacial puzzle game that’s right up my alley! It seems like there’s a bunch of ways to score, which I always think is cool. I’m so excited to review this one.

She also showed me Wicked and Wise, which sounds like a very unique, asymmetric trick-taking game, so I am hoping this changes my mind on trick-taking as a whole! And Studies in Sorcery has a magical theme, of course, which I love, and has hidden pile drafting, which I’ve always been a fan of.

Other – I also had some quick meet-ups with Thunderworks Games, Beadle & Grimm’s, Mayfair Games, Off The Page Games, Weird City Games, and Millrat Studios, who all showed off some of their new or upcoming games to me, and I got a few things for review as well!

Everyone I met with was so nice and friendly, and it just makes me so happy to be part of the gaming community 🙂