PAX Unplugged 2024 was huge. This year adult tickets were totally sold out. Both for each individual day and the full 3-day weekend pass. There were lots of publishers to visit, new games to see, and fun to be had. The game library was vast and there was lots of area for open play. I had a great time, got to network, and see and play some fun new board games.

The day started out with a meeting in the media room with Flat River games. There I got to try out Zenith. This is a sci-fi themed, tug of war, 2 vs 2 board game. It has a tech tree and interesting interactions between your teammate and your opponents. There was definitely some high-fiving with the team and some “take that” for our opponents in this game. It was a prototype but looked great and was a lot of fun. It is slated for release in March 2025 and I would love to try out the final version.

Soon after that I got to sit down with Capstone Games and check out a couple of their titles. First up was Black Forest by Uwe Rosenberg. If you have played Glass Road, Black Forest will have some familiar concepts. The resource wheel is similar but the role selection is gone. New is a board where you visit villages and utilize the tradespeople there to gain resources or place items on your player board. This is a game for one to four players that came out last year. I also got to check out Tea Garden. This is a deck-building game with a board. You use your cards to build pagodas on the board and harvest tea of better quality. You can ferment your tea and over time it will increase in quality while your unfermented leaves will degrade over time. You must manage this and sell to caravans while gaining VPs. Both of these games looked great and I am hoping to try out full games of them.

Next I went to the Kosmos booth and heard about The Gang. It is kind of like cooperative Texas Hold’em. The trick is players guess their hand’s strength from weakest to strongest. You do get some limited knowledge of your team’s thoughts on their hand by voting after the flop and each subsequent card flip. I also got to look at the dice game Australis. You select different dice to get a power card, move your turtle, plant corral, or gain fish. You score based on area control for the corral, how far down the track your turtle is, and how many fish you can feed. Numbered dice are used in a roll off with the winner getting a prize tile. This continues until all the prize tiles are gone and the game ends. I got to try The Gang later in the game library and we had mixed feelings. It was definitely better with four than three players. But some people felt like they were just guessing their hand strength with not enough information. I did not try Australis but it is on my list to play.

When I met with CGE I got to see SETI. It is a game about discovering aliens. You compete with other players to gather research and once discovered the aliens will change the game. These aliens are chosen randomly and kept secret until discovered. I just got a basic explanation of the actions and flow of the game but I am excited to see how this board game plays.

Aside from meeting with board game publishers I got to play some fun games with my friends throughout the weekend. We played Heat, Ring of Chaos, Iron Dragon, Quacks of Quedlinburg, Thunder Road, Deus, The Gang, and 6 Nimmt.

PAX Unplugged was a great con and I think most board game enthusiasts would enjoy it. I had fun trying some new games and playing some that I have played with my friends for years. I enjoyed meeting publishers and putting faces to the names and people I email with too. It is pretty wild and encouraging that it sold out 100% of adult tickets too. If you like board games you should try to get to a PAX Unplugged sometime. Just buy your tikcets early!