BGG.con: Train of Thought

I got to see (and touch and play) the final published Train of Thought game!  Here’s a picture of a proud Jay with boxes of the finished product and the Tasty Minstrel gang, Michael Mindes and Seth Jaffee!

I spent a lot of the convention stationed at the Tasty Minstrel booth giving demos to anyone and everyone!  The first copy was sold before I could get to the booth (as I had to wait in line to register), but the first copy I was asked to sign was to Brent Llyod, a fellow Canadian!  We did find the person who bought the first copy of our first published board game, and got a picture of him too!  Thanks a lot Adam!!

Here’s what the Tasty Minstrel booth looked like – nothing amazing, except for all the Train of Thought of course! 🙂

At BGG.con players can rate every game they play on a scale of 1-5 (no half points allowed).  Then all the data is calculated on the fly and a projected “Geek Buzz” list of the top 25 games cycles through on a large screen in the main lobby.  This is great to see which games are hot and worth trying out.  The list constantly evolves throughout the 5 days as more people play and like or dislike a game.  Well, colour me surprised when Train of Thought ended up as #1 at the end of the first day!

By the end of day 2, Train of Thought moved down to #13, which made more sense – but was also surprising.  To put this in context – almost all the new games that debuted at Essen earlier this year were here as well as all other games that have ever been released!  So to have a party game higher than some of these big gamery games was truly outstanding!

Day 3 we ended up moving up to #10 and by the end of day 4 we were up to #5.  To my humblest surprise, Train of Thought ended the convention at #3!  Can you believe it?  Train of Thought was the #3 game of BGG.con this year!!!

In addition to all this it was absolutely amazing to me to walk around the convention and see people playing the game.  It’s a bit mind blowing.  It was also flattering to hear people tell me stories about them playing Train of Thought to 3 or 4 in the morning.  One group of people told us to submit the game to the Mensa competition!  They were serious and they said that they think it would win as the Mensa group likes quick games that involve communicating and making you think differently – which exactly describes Train of Thought!  We’re in the process of understanding the requirements to submit it.

The good news doesn’t end there though.  In discussions with Michael Mindes, the owner of Tasty Minstrel Games, he let me know that he had a conversation with the distributors, PSI.  PSI has a great relationship with Barnes and Noble and PSI showed B&N the box for Train of Thought.  B&N loved the box and said they’d like to see the game when they go to the New York Toy Fair in February.  If they like it, then they will stock it in their stores – all across America!  That would be huge!

Does the good news end there?  No it does not.  On the last day of the convention, Michael had a meeting with Queen Games and Queen Games will be publishing and distributing Train of Thought in Germany! Obviously they will redo the entire game in German – but it will be Train of Thought!  Our first game just went International!

So this was a very good convention for me and Tasty Minstrel – and this is just about Train of Thought!  Both Tasty Minstrel and I have more good news coming…  Stay tuned!