SaltCON, which hosts six board and role-playing game events throughout the year, will host the Intermountain West’s largest board game and RPG convention at the Davis Convention Center in Layton from March 12–15. There, thousands of enthusiasts can sample games, meet their creators and duke it out in live game tournaments.
Sensing a growing demand for an in-person gamer assembly, members of the Board Game Designers Guild of Utah came together to launch SaltCON in 2009. The spring convention, their biggest event, gives attendees a chance to “learn games, see what they like and what they want to buy,” said Dale Gifford, managing organizer.
Game teachers will show you how to play the year’s most popular games, and hundreds of role-playing sessions will be held with pre-made characters for guests to join in. Designed for seasoned strategists and newbies alike, SaltCON’s on-site guides will “teach you the rules on the fly,” Gifford said.
If you’re a first-timer at the convention, you can join a meet-up with other newbies to tour the con and have all of your questions answered. And when you’re ready to join the action, check for flags at active tables that indicate the game is seeking players. There are also marked flags that tell you a group is looking for a teacher—finally, a chance to share your knowledge on the games you’ve already mastered.
Additionally, more than 2,500 games will be available to check out via SaltCON’s game library, which, like that one epic round of The Settlers of Catan a few years back, will be in operation all day. The library runs from 9 a.m. to midnight most days. Gifford said a section of the library is reserved for family and kid-friendly games from Hasbro and German game maker HABA.
Gifford’s top advice for new gamers: “Don’t be afraid to approach people.”
Highlights during the convention will include sessions of Blood on the Clocktower, a social deduction game where you team up with your fellow players to root out the evil plaguing your village, and Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator, where players take on starship crewmember roles, and game masters behind the scenes present them with challenges and enemies.
Gifford said game creators often rely on feedback from family and friends, which, unfortunately, isn’t always given through an objective lens. If you’ve been working on a game, you can bring a prototype for feedback and attend workshops and panels on design, storytelling and more. You can also gain inspiration from the winners of the Ion Award Competition, an international game design competition that connects game designers with publishers.
By the end of the four days, you should have more than enough options for your next game night.
And, if you didn’t have any friends to play with in the first place, you’ll likely meet some there. Afterall, the overall goal of SaltCON is to “get across the table from people, interact, think, communicate, work together and just have fun.”
Read more stories like this and all of our Community coverage. And while you’re here, subscribe and get six issues of Salt Lake magazine, your curated guide to the best of life in Utah.
