Months of hard work, years of dreaming, hours of “resource limit reached”… it all came to fruition when MegaCon took place last month.
It was a fantastic weekend that, for me, really embodied the fantastic vibe of the megagaming community. I could say an awful lot about the experience, but I’ll try to keep this (relatively) short.
It started in 2018
Or maybe before that? Way back then, a few crazy fools (myself included) tried to get a Con together in Manchester. We scoped out a few venues, but we ran out of time to get it going.
Then in 2019, we tried again to run a live MegaCon, this time in Birmingham. We booked a venue and everything!
Sadly ticket sales were low and we ended up pulling the plug. We had planned to try again in 2020, but we knew we’d need a different approach. But then Covid happened, and it all just fell of the radar until…
Megagame Assembly got involved
Honestly, Chris Brown was a bit of a force of nature to get this thing off the drawing board. Mr Megagame was still involved from before, bringing some star power, and we also got the thoughtful input of Ed Silverstone to round out our team.
We set up a WhatsApp chat following OMG Con in September 2020, to see if we were actually going to make this thing happen. The original plan was to run it in May 2021, but I was supposed to be having my rearranged wedding then and was worried I’d be too busy for the month or so before that. So that’s how we decided on March.
We owe a lot to OMG Con and True North
Not only did OMG Con prove the concept that an online megagaming convention could work, they met with us when we were in the early stages of planning and gave us lots of tips and ideas. Huge hat-tip to the Megagame Coalition – there’s definitely space in the megagaming community for two online Cons, we reckon!
And of course before that, True North ran their Design Symposium back in May 2020, barely two months into the pandemic. They really got the ball rolling on online megagame talk-spaces (and they’ve got their second one coming up this weekend, if you didn’t know).
We ran FOUR megagames and FOUR playtests
Is that the most megagames that took place over a single weekend ever? No, maybe not, but it was a huge achievement. We had classic Saturday with the hit megagames Watch The Skies and Den of Wolves, and then Sunday featured the less well-known but still fantastic Red Planet Rising and City of Yendor.
There were a couple of hitches here and there (as there usually are with megagames), but overall they ran very smoothly. Huge thanks to the four designers who took a chance on our little Con.
On top of that, we had four designers showcase their up-and-coming games at MegaCon, one of which already has its first full run scheduled!
We ran SO MANY seminars
I spent much of my weekend keeping an eye on our seminars and making sure they ran smoothly. And wow, did we cover a lot of topics! My highlights would have to be these:
- The hilarious Design a Megagame with Ed panel which saw four people try to design a megagame in an hour
- Patrick Rose’s very practical Any Port in a Storm, which goes into the nitty-gritty of how to convert a megagame to online
- Alex Beck’s history of megagames talk, From Memphis Mangler to Watch The Skies – and not just because I got a name drop!
There were also, of course, the four events that I took part in personally. Firstly, the podcasts Launching the Con and Memories of the Con, which honestly are hour-long megagame-themed bantz with the Megagame Assembly gang.
And then there are the two panels I was involve with. Firstly, my own “Habits of Highly Effective Megagamers” panel (inspired by this blog post), where four awesome megagames joined me to talk through what makes a good megagamer. And then Mr Megagame’s “Accessibility in Megagames: Unseen Disabilities“, where I was one of the panellists, talking about how my own chronic illnesses affect my participation in megagames, as well as how I as a designer tackled these issues.
There’s so many great seminars, seriously.
We took safety seriously
Inspired by OMG Con, we had trained Safety Marshalls on shift throughout the Con, and we also had a comprehensive Code of Conduct which every single person had to agree to before even entering our Discord.
And it worked! While there were some issues that arose, we were able to respond to them quickly and decisively, ensuring a positive experience for our attendees.
It was exhausting, but so worth it
The MegaCon weekend was one of the best parts of lockdown for me (excluding the obvious). I got to spend the entire weekend, from late Friday afternoon to late on Sunday, talking to a bunch of amazing people about one of my favourite things in the world.
That’s not to say there weren’t challenges! Staying perky until 11pm so I could record and introduce the final seminar of Saturday night… well, let’s just say I definitely needed that coffee!
But I’m an extrovert by nature, so I really got so much out of so much human interaction – especially since I was shielding at the time!
We want to do it again
We’ve got the bug for organising events in the megagaming space (that aren’t necessarily megagames). So we’re not going to wait for a full year, when online megagames and events may or may not still be popular. Instead, we’re planning bi-monthly (at least to start with) “Mini” events that focus on a particular aspect of megagames.
The first one is scheduled for Sunday 9th May at 8pm BST, and it’s all about play-by-email games, which tbh is something I know virtually nothing about! But that’s something that’s so exciting about being involved with this – I’ll learn things that I don’t know, while being able to give back to the community in a big way.
So if you’re at all interested in megagames, go join our Discord, like our Facebook page and subscribe for our emails – we’re sure we’ll have something that gets you buzzing in the coming months.