A Wonder-ful PAX Unplugged Recap + Preslab Final Claim Reminder!
The Wonders team made our way to the PAX Unplugged game convention Dec. 6-8 in Philadelphia, and what an amazing response we had!
We demoed Wonders from open to close all weekend. This year’s attendance is estimated to be upwards of 40,000. That makes it the second-largest tabletop game convention in North America!
We ran games all day, teaching new players, answering questions, and meeting fans. We also got to meet with lots of retailers and other industry pros and hear what they are looking for in new products like ours.
This was also our first chance to try out the actual card face designs with new players. And it was the first time in a while that we got to interact with a lot of players learning the game for the first time. Our seats were filled with experienced tabletop gamers who wanted to try the game.
Some of our take-aways:
Attendees walking by were drawn in by the art and stones. As we walked the countless rows of other games being played, there’s nothing that looks like the seven-stone array of Wonders. You can recognize it anywhere.
Players loved the big close-up art that let them connect with the character personalities. Other games have much smaller art and it’s harder to see the details of the characters.
Players got to choose which of the 6 starter decks to play. Petraia and Thalwind were popular choices. The Petraia deck is looking to be the strongest skill differentiator, meaning it’s the strongest deck in the hands of a skilled player, but the easiest to misplay for a newbie.
The most frequent confusion points were the lands that say “untap when you play a third land.” Those types of abilities will probably need reminder text on the cards to help explain them in the future. Another frequent question was about tap abilities. Players don’t expect Wonders to be able to battle while tapped.
Apart from those questions, players were able to onboard quickly and even pick up our rules details, such as the difference between On Play and On Arrival, and how symbiosis works, no problem! New players finish their first game in about 35 minutes with an experienced player.
A few favorite cards were Sylira Shadowstalker (Goblin Assassin), Terring Faia, Solaris Stormcaster, and of course Rylan Windstrider, who has a habit of winning games that appear to be totally lost. Rylan is becoming known as simply “The Cat.”
Quite a few backers came to meet us and get some games in. Just walking around the game play hall, people recognized our Wonders of the First shirts and let us know they were backers!
We also learned that a lot of other game publishers and media are following our progress. Industry people knew our development story even though they aren’t active in our community. We are on a lot of radars.
To summarize, the show was a big success for Wonders. We’re lining up our future convention calendar for 2025, and we’ll keep you informed when we get times and locations for each show as we finalize.
PRERELEASE PRESLAB CLAIM ENDS TONIGHT!
REMINDER: The Prerelease Preslab Claim closes at midnight TONIGHT! If you ordered over $150 in our Kickstarter and have not received your code, please email info@www.wondersccg.com.
To claim your code, go to claim.www.wondersccg.com.
And as always, may your adventures bring you treasures!