The breakers on the high seas whisper of a fabulous storm just beyond the horizon. The crew watches nervously for signs of darkened clouds, but the fine folks lining the pier promise us a powerful send-off indeed! As we take a stroll across the deck, we note some of the fine features that will make this voyage a memorable one!

We Have Games! Our event schedule is filling up with a broad selection of board games, card games, RPGs and live action roleplaying events! With more than 90 GAMES already on the schedule, finding something to suit your tastes is virtually inevitable! And if you don’t see what you want… you can still submit it yourself!

The board game selection hitting the tables at TsunamiCon 2017 includes a variety of fantastic titles, including community favorites, rare gems, and even brand new items hot off the trail from GEN*CON! We are continually updating our Game Library as new contributions and acquisitions roll in, and we have a growing selection of Play-To-Win items that you might very well have a chance to take home after the con! You can check out games from the library, enjoy demos from Cardboard Carnage and numerous other gamers bringing in their favorites, or even bring games of your own to share with the masses. You can look for games on the event schedule, or drop in and join or start a game on the fly.

If you’re a roleplayer – or interested in trying it out – you will find an amazing variety of games and systems at TsunamiCom, from standards like Dungeons & Dragons and Shadowrun to rare selections like Post World Games‘ Protocol Series, Mutant: Year Zero from Modiphius Entertainment, Yggdrasill from Cubicle 7, and even Doctor Who. A small strike force of community GMs have put forth the time and energy to prep scenarios and schedule games for your entertainment, so check out the schedule and sign up in advance or just come to the con and see what’s available. Or even bring a favorite game of your open, grab an open table, and put up a flag that says you’re looking for players (flags provided free of charge!!).

And if you’re a fan of Live Action Roleplaying – or, again, never tried it but want a chance to check it out in a friendly, immersive environment – we have some very cool LARP events on the schedule, as well. Get your badge today and sign up in advance, or show up ready to play… most of these events can handle a lot of players.

We Have Entertainment! We love gaming, but a gaming convention provides us a powerful excuse to do so much more! At TsunamiCon, you can take a short break from the games and enjoy some of our Featured Events, visit with our Special Guests (who are also running games!), cheer on the contestants in our Cosplay Contest, take in a comedy show, or even join the bridge crew of the Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator!

Also, this year Puzzle Plex from Derby, Kansas, joins us with a unique escape room scenario and scavenger hunt to add another fine badge to your TsunamiCon achievements. We’ve put an escape room somewhere on the premises… but not only do you have to solve the riddles of the room, you have to find it and figure out how to get inside. If you want to know more about escape rooms and how they work, check out their website, book a room, and drag your friends and family in for an exciting and immersive experience!

TsunamiCon is your hometown tabletop gaming convention, put together by folks who love to play games and spread the joy of our hobby to anyone who will drop in and spend some time at the tables. So be sure to spread the word! Bring your friends, bring your family! The bigger it gets, the better it gets in the years ahead! With only a few weeks to go, now is the perfect time to plan your TsunamiCon experience. Buy your badge today, sign up for some games, and get ready for three long days of geeky goodness!

The engines are heating up! The crew is on standby and preliminary checks are underway! TsunamiCon 2017 is finally in our sights, and we’re getting ready for a crushing victory! So run through the paces and start the count down with a few of our newest developments!

We Have the Games! This year’s convention is a fantastic place to try out something new or enjoy some of your old favorites! With more than 90 GAMING EVENTS on the schedule already – and more to come! – and a GAME LIBRARY with more than 100 games you can check out and play to your heart’s content, you’ll find a plethora of exciting board games, card games, RPGs, LARP events, and more! Here’s a few highlights:

Cardboard Carnage returns this year with a full schedule of game demos featuring some of the latest and greatest industry hits! As of this weekend, their demo team has more than 30 games already on the schedule. You can register in advance to reserve a seat at the table, or stop by their table in the Great Hall during convention and check out what they have planned. Gregg and his team have years of dedicated experience teaching a variety of games to all kinds of gamers – from hardcore to casual – and provide a fun and accessible experience every time.

Cardboard Carnage and the Tabletop University program are community staples in our fair city. Check out their website for gaming podcasts, reviews, and the latest on events in and around the city of Wichita, and be sure to let them know how much you appreciate their hard work and determination as the spread the joy of our hobby to the masses!

We’re Giving Them Away! Every year we score a selection of games from publishers, designers, and retail outlets to give away to our attendees, and this year is no different! Several games in our Game Library are available as Play-To-Win selections. Just check out the game and give it a spin, then you and whoever else tried it out can enter to win a copy of the game during Closing Ceremonies on Sunday evening! Last year we gave away more than two dozen Play-To-Win prizes, and this year’s selection includes some brand new titles and a few community favorites, with more to come!

Also, we’d like to offer a hearty congratulations to MATT T. and JOHN J. as this week’s winners of our prize drawings for Kickstarter backers! Thank you so much for your support, and enjoy the games!

It’s Time for a New Adventure! Some of our community Dungeon Masters made the trip to GEN*CON this year and returned with a special D&D Adventurers League exclusive adventure book, Lost Tales of Myth Drannor! This is your chance to take advantage of their good fortune and run your D&D Adventurers League PCs through some brand new material:

“Since the destruction of Myth Drannor by the Netherese of Thultanthar, the elves of Cormanthyr have grown silent. THe new First Lord of Hillsfar, Vuhm Yestral, has a tenuous hold on power and seeks to make allies of old enemies while exploiting the nearby forest resources. Heroes are needed to carry the First Lord’s message into the Forest of Cormanthor and explore ruined Myth Drannor.”

You can expect to see these games appear on the schedule within the next few days.

Game Masters! Time to Git ‘R Done! If you want your game or panel listed in the event program, now is the time to get it submitted! In the next two weeks, we’ll be finalizing the details for this year’s beautiful, full-color program booklet, and we want to ensure that we have as complete a list of events as possible for our attendees to check out. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

So pick up your badge today! Get your TsunamiCon badge either at The Burrow or on our website, and prepare yourself for the exciting voyage ahead. Them are rough waters on the horizon, and you can expect an adventure of epic proportions!

On Monday night, we crossed the threshold and officially hit our funding goal for TsunamiCon 2017. We then shot confetti out of a cannon. We then fought over who was going to clean it up and whether or not it was a good idea to shoot cannons off in our living room.

But ultimately, we were happy.

TsunamiCon has certainly been a challenging pursuit over the past few years, and I finally feel like we’ve laid the crowdfunding foibles of 2016 to rest. And the best part is, we’re not done… we have some very cool stretch goals, and the barrier to achievement is very low. We now add class and quality to our con with every new backer, every pledge, every ticket and T-shirt sold. And that’s not a small thing. In fact, it’s kinda huge. Either way, we’ve won… now it’s just about making the win even bigger.  Here’s a couple ways you can help:

Volunteers: Volunteers are the lifeblood of any convention. Too few, and your organizers are working overtime just to stay on top of things. Too many… well, as an old game master of mine used to say, “heavy ordinance is not a problem.” It’s important to us that we have our bases covered AND that you understand how much we value your commitment. Consequentially, there are three reward levels on the Kickstarter campaign geared specifically toward volunteers. Each of these rewards includes a 3-Day pass to the convention discounted for the number of hours you’re willing to commit:

You’ll notice that the verbage includes a discount for GMs, as well. That’s because we’re offering the same price break for Game Masters who schedule their games in advance and cover the requisite hours of play.

If you’re volunteering, be sure to also fill out our Volunteer Application.
If you’re hosting a game, be sure to submit your event(s) at the earliest possible convenience for maximum exposure.

Vendors: The TsunamiCon Marketplace has always been a fun and eclectic environment characterized by a broad selection of game vendors and designers, local artisans and craftsmen, and artists and authors. It’s a great place to get your name and/or product in front of local and regional gamers, show off your designs or innovations, or spread awareness of your product, cause, or brand. We’re able to offer the best price ever for vendor space this year, and now is the best time to get your foot in the door. If you’re interested in securing a booth at TsunamiCon 2017, be sure to pick up the appropriate reward on our Kickstarter page and fill out an Exhibitor Application.

Most of all, spread the word.  TsunamiCon 2017 is happening this October, and we plan to make it bigger and better than ever!

We’ll even leave the confetti cannon at home.

With the first two weeks of our Kickstarter campaign down, we’re currently sitting at 74% of our basic funding goal, which is excellent. Anyone who has ever run a Kickstarter will bemoan the quiet period in the midst of the run when pledges just trickle in, and we’ve been weathering it fairly well. That being said, we do have some ground to cover… and some important stretch goals waiting just the other side.

So let’s talk about some of that.

When I launched our first Kickstarter campaign back in 2014, I was building on the support of a community which was largely comprised of the Metagamers Anonymous listener fanbase. One of the cooler things I’d had the opportunity to do as a podcast producer was schedule interviews with industry folk who enjoyed talking about their persons and products. One of the more entertaining conversationalists on the show – in fact, we were lucky if we ever even got around to talking about his products – was Jim Pinto of Post World Games. It seemed only natural that Jim would be the first guest I tried to enlist as a stretch goal for TsunamiCon.

Four years later, I’m still trying to make it happen.

I’m going to shower Jim with a little praise now, which I’m sure will annoy him to no end. Jim has been a guest on the show three times, as much or more than any of the other excellent game designers I know. He’s an accomplished writer and designer who has contributed to every part of the hobby in some way and his name graces some truly memorable products. I have backed seven of his Kickstarters over the past few years and been very pleased with the products I purchased, and he has been a great sounding board for my own ideas and promotional efforts. He even designed the current logos for Prismatic Tsunami, Metagamers Anonymous, and all the logos for TsunamiCon, some of it on his own time and without asking for a thing in return. (For some of it, I paid him anyway.)

Our basic funding goal is only $3500 this year, which makes it more than likely that we’ll hammer right through our first couple stretch goals and be on the fast track to flying Jim down from Seattle. At TsunamiCon, he’ll not only spend some time visiting with folks and join us for the live podcast, but he has some very cool RPGs of his own that he’d love to show off to the Wichita crowd. I truly want to show Jim how much we’ve appreciated his patronage of our community and his contributions to our hobby with some Midwestern gamer hospitality at TsunamiCon 2017.

So let’s make it happen.

Happy Monday, friends!

Join us for yet another full day of tabletop gaming on International TableTop Day – Saturday, April 29th – at The Burrow! As always, admission is FREE, and there will be open gaming for RPGs and board games, with room for anyone to sit down and play some games. Features of Tsunami GameDay include:

• Advance registration for scheduled games
• Drawings for prizes and giveaways
• Amazing sales on all gaming products
• Sanctioned venue for the Unrivaled Boardgame Tournament

You can register now to run a game or get a seat at someone else’s table. Though you can schedule an event at any hour of the day, we recommend long-form games such as RPGs be scheduled from 1pm to 5pm OR 6pm to 10pm to maximize flexibility for players who want to play more than one game and have time to grab dinner in between.

Remember, TABLES ARE LIMITED! We can handle four organized games at a time. Please register your games AND advertise them on our Facebook event page. If you have any questions, contact us directly or post them to Facebook.

Today is the day.  All the plotting, scheming, budgeting, marketing, and general malfeasance comes to a screeching halt this morning as the wave crashes down upon us and the Tsunami arrives with terrible fury.  Of course, in our case, terrible fury arrives in the form of a sprawling manse fitting at every end with gaming tables, eager gamers, and more fun than you can shake a broken oar at.

TsunamiCon has arrived.

We open the doors at noon today, and our scheduled games kick off at 1 pm.  We will have plenty of room for more gaming, so if you want to bring something of your own or sample one of the many offerings from our Game Library, you’ll have no problem finding a table.  If you haven’t purchased a ticket, they’re available at the gate.  It’s going to be a cool day, and the venue has a concession stand with hot food, snacks and soda, and there will be beer for sale this evening.  Opening Ceremonies are at 5:30 pm, so if you’re stuck at work today you still have time to get here, and Mikey Mason will be performing live at 6 pm.  Altogether, I expect you to show up, be on your second-best behavior, and help us celebrate our love of tabletop gaming for the next THREE DAYS STRAIGHT.

I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

#tsunamicon2016

With less than four weeks to go, the convention planning is simultaneously heating up to a fever pitch as the weekend schedule takes shape, and cooling into a deceptive lull as the production phase – ordering swag, print materials, finalizing the programs, and so forth – winds to a close.  We’ve grown our Game Library, worked with the community to build a game schedule, and worked on features, In the coming weeks we’ll be turning a lot of our attention to boring, operational details… everything from sound equipment to schedules for streaming content to table stands and placards.  It’s not sexy, but the details are what really create a quality event and make the experience memorable.

Why is that?  Well, I’m glad you asked.

From the very first Tsunami GameDay event in Wichita nearly four years ago, I’ve always planned big.  Even then, I treated a small free event like a big deal, with online game registration, live podcasting, in-store savings and prizes.  We printed flyers and advertised on social media, via our podcasting network, and on industry forums. It was profoundly satisfying to soak up the excitement, and I’ve striven to keep every GameDay since on a similar level.  We even limit them to strictly seasonal events to help retain a sense of anticipation and focus on devoting more resources to each outing.

TsunamiCon is, of course, on a whole new level.  From our very beginnings, we’ve always planned the con as a three-day event at a major venue.  We partner with local hotels and catering companies, we organize live entertainment and featured events both on-site and extracurricular, and we produce a selection of commemorative swag for attendees to take home, if they so desire.  The costs are frankly staggering, and we’ve yet to make a single penny (last year, in fact, we ended a little in the red), but it’s been worth it.

So that being said…. boring operational details, here I come.

Be sure to spread the word, let your friends and family know about the con, and plan for an amazing weekend.  We have lots of games on the schedule, a ton of giveaways, some very cool vendors, and some really fun events planned for this year’s convention. And as always, if you have a question that you can’t find an answer to on the website, you can check our FAQ or drop me a line at info@tsunamicon.org.