Poena Studios

Mark your calendars, friendos – a new demo day approaches! On Saturday, February 21st, I’ll be demoing Battletech at The Rubicon Hobbies and Games in Quakertown!

As you may already know, I am a Demo Agent on the Catalyst Demo Team (CDT). Sadly, not an employee of the Catalyst Game Labs, just a volunteer that helps demonstrate games such as Battletech, Shadowrun, and Leviathans, to name a few. It’s pretty fun, and I’ve gotten to meet a lot of awesome people through this! Part of volunteering means actually going out into the bright blue yonder and demoing games so people can see them in action, try them, and maybe pick up the game for themselves. (Side note – while I would hope it goes without saying, I’ll say it anyway: Opinions expressed on this blog are my own and not a reflection of CDT, CGL, etc., etc.)

Shadowrun, or the awesome dystopian game that got me interested in the CDT, is great, but currently isn’t the best game for a drop in/leave at whim format. There’s ways to make it a 2 minute/20 minute/2 hour demo, but that’s mostly geared towards a crowd that already has experience and interest in RPGs. Plus, last demo day I demoed Shadowrun, so it is time for a change.

Currently I’ve gotten it narrowed down to two options – Aces: Scouring Sands, or a Battletech Missions game with some pre-generated characters that people can take with them. I’m leaning more towards Aces since I’ve been hearing good things about it. I have the box myself, but haven’t tried it out due to commission work at the moment.

My game plan is to finish my current commission (interestingly enough, also Battletech!) and then paint up the Scouring Sands miniatures before moving on to the next commission in the queue.

Now, onto the location, the Rubicon! It’s my local game store and my favorite one. (Even without the perk that I can make it there in 20 minutes from home, whereas my second favorite one is ~40 minutes from home). I haven’t been able to go to the store as much as I would have hoped to, but the staff still remember my name and have set aside product for me on occasion when they knew I’d want to snag it, and those small gestures add up.

I’ve made an event on XPNetwork, though of course walk-ins are more than welcome. Should there be more interest than store hours allow, feel free to chat with me and I will happily work on scheduling time for another demo/another game at either Rubicon or Palladium.

Looking forward to seeing some familiar faces!