Baby's First GenCon!...Baby's First Fever

Suveera got to go to her very own GenCon this weekend! She also promptly had her very first fever. Luckily, I don't think either of those things were related.

She got sick for the first time right when she started daycare after our last vacation. By the middle of the second week she was sniffling and coughing. It didn't seem to affect her too much, so after two days of keeping her at home it was back to daycare.

She's been at least a little bit sniffly every day since. Shaila got sick the first weekend, and I managed to hold off until my birthday weekend. It was just some sniffles and a cough, so we didn't think much of it, and we thought GenCon was going to be fine. And it was, for the first day.

Ever since I've been going with Shaila we've gotten an Airbnb and stayed with a bunch of friends. They're all either people Shaila knew from Cincinnati or people she met at GenCon itself over the years. Each successive year we've spent less time at the con and more time just playing games together at the house.

We usually get there on Wednesday afternoon and then reserve the first day for a walk of the con floor. We did that this year and up until then everything was fine. We wore masks like we usually do at big events, something I was doing anyways since I still had a cough from the weekend before, but was feeling fine otherwise. We got a couple of games we were excited about, I got a copy of the new D&D PHB 2024 edition, and Suveera seemed to really enjoy herself getting rolled around the con all day. She was looking at everything and seemed constantly happy. She dozed off a couple of times, but at her regular nap times and for as long as we'd expect. Of course, since she's the cutest baby in the world she also got a ton of complements.

We played games on Thursday night mostly like normal, though I did go to bed a little early because I was still sick and wanted to get some rest.

Friday we had mostly set aside to play games with one of our friends from Cincinnati who doesn't go to the con, but just comes to play games for the day. Suveera was mostly fine, but definitely sick. Towards the end of the night she was feeling a little warm and sure enough she had a fever of 102. We called the nurses line for our pediatrician, they calmed us down, and we did our best to make her comfortable. I was still dealing with being sick, so Shaila checked on her overnight. By morning, her fever was gone.

While the baby seemed to be better, I still wasn’t. And Shaila was wiped from keeping Suveera all night. While we had tickets to two events including a live show, DesiQuest, we spent the day at the airbnb getting rest and playing the occasional game. I ended up crashing earlier than everyone else as I continued to feel worse and worse.

When I woke up with a fever Sunday morning, it was pretty apparent I had caught whatever additional thing Suvi had. I got myself together enough to get us packed up and Shaila drove us home while I slept.

All in all, while it was definitely the worst GenCon experience I’ve ever had, it had almost nothing to do with the con and everything to do with sickness. It was still a great time and I’m glad we went. I only wish we could have done more.

We picked up some new games, played ones others picked up, and even played one I’ve had for a bit from a Kickstarter but never got around to playing.

This is the one I got from a Kickstarter. License to Grill is a 3-5 player polyomino game where you’re all vying for space on a community grill, trying to be the first to cook 4 dishes for the picnic the best you can while keeping dishes properly separated, seasoned, sauced, and rested. We played it 4 player and it was a lot of fun. I think it would really shine at 5 players, but we only got it to the table the one time. I want to play it more!

License to Grill (Buy)

This is a game I first saw on TikTok and knew immediately that I wanted to play it with my usual group of friends. We all love Codenames and this looked like a fresh take on the ‘one word clue, you need to figure out how I mean it’ genre. It's 2-10 players, with both cooperative and competitive modes. We only ever played it in the cooperative mode and while it was fun, at its base rules it definitely lacked a bit of edge. I want to try it with teams and see if it works better. It was enjoyable, it just needs a little more threat.

Landmarks

This is a game I’ve been excited to play since I saw the SUSD review of it. It didn’t disappoint. We played it three player, and it was the first time for all of us. I think it has a lot of potential, and I'm excited to play more of it. I'm especially looking forward to 4 player, and the campaign. There was definitely some analysis paralysis in the first play through, but the base actions are pretty simple. It's just going to take some time to get used to them all.

I feel like it has the potential to be like one of my other favorite games, Tapestry (Buy), which we actually didn't get to the table at all this year. But one of the things I really like about Tapestry is that there are a lot of options per turn, but rarely do you feel really punished for wrong decisions. It frees you up to make quicker decisions and adapt if they don't quite work out. Even games you lose rarely feel punishing because you got to try something new and learn. I feel like Arcs is going to have that same sort of cushion for trying things out.

Arcs (Pre-order)

Cities is a 2-4 player worker placement/drafting/building game where you're tasked with building out a 3x3 city grid to meet group and individual objectives. We didn't buy this one, but our friends Rita and Harrison did. We played it 4 player and I enjoyed it. It wasn't my favorite game of the weekend, but it's definitely something I'd play again in the future.

Cities (Pre-order)

That was all the new games we played but not all we played period, not to mention the games we bought that never made it to the table. As a whole we played Ark Nova, Spirit Island, My City: Roll and Build, Letter Jam, Codenames, The Crew, HeroQuest and surely a few others I'm forgetting.

We purchased a lot as always, and I'm excited to get all these to the (very pretty) table eventually.

All in all, outside of the sickness, it was a pretty good weekend, but that definitely dragged us down. Here's hoping Suveera's immune system continues to get better as she's attacked by fresh bugs at daycare and we can eventually move past this "always a little sick" phase.

Until then we're still planning on camping for Labor Day and then potentially a trip to London in January. We'll see how it goes!