A festival this weekend for board-game lovers

Good morning, DMV! It’s Tuesday, March 10.

There’s another pretty cool event this weekend — a festival where board-game creators bring their new creations for the public to come for free and playtest them.

From Friday to Sunday, designers attending the Unpublished Games Festival — at the BWI Airport Marriott in Linthicum Heights, Maryland — will show their games, and the public is invited to play and give feedback.

Gene Koo, a Takoma Park-based game designer who is on the Unpub board of advisors, told me more about the event and what people who want to attend can expect.

Me: Tell me about Unpub Festival.

Gene: The Unpublished Games Festival celebrates the creativity of tabletop (board) games. It’s a venue where fans can play the games of tomorrow, today … “Unpub” is one of North America’s biggest events devoted solely to what we call “playtesting” — playing games with others to learn what makes them fun and whether they fall apart when players do unexpected things.

Me: Who will be there?

Gene: Several hundred people who design tabletop (analog) games, from world-renowned to up-and-coming, are bringing hundreds of board games you won’t find on the shelves. Some are flying in, such as Randy Flynn, designer of the award-winning Cascadia, but here in the DMV we happen to be home to some of the world’s top talent. For example, the Unpub 2026 keynote speaker is Connie Vogelmann, designer of Apiary and Wyrmspan; other local designers include Elizabeth Hargrave (Wingspan, Sanibel, Undergrove, and many others!) and Dom Crapuchettes (Nature, Wits and Wagers, etc.). For me it’s always really exciting to meet the creator of something you admire and find out more about where their ideas come from, and maybe even provide feedback that could influence their final product. You don't get to do that with books or film or music!

Me: What happens there?

Gene: It’s basically a hotel ballroom with tables laid out with game after game after game. You can walk around and browse for a game you'd like to join, or you can search online for a specific kind of game. Then you sit down and play! Sometimes the designer has a near-complete product and wants you to try to figure out how to play from the rules, sometimes they have something really early-stage and are working off scrap paper, but most are in the middle. You play the game, then give feedback on your experience … like participation in a creative process.

Me: Can the public go? What should first-timers know?

Gene: The convention is absolutely open to the public, and in fact it's totally free for players! Designers are very eager for “regular people” to give honest feedback, so the group has worked hard to make it easy for people to just show up … I suggest to newcomers (a) be ready for ambient noise; (b) be open to trying something new, because everything at Unpub is new; (c) expect people to be friendly … Unpub is made up of leaders and members who took a strong stand for an inclusive and welcoming culture, so you won't find a lot of that kind of gatekeeping there.

Gifting: A free puzzle! (Two pieces missing, but I still enjoyed it.)

Level: Difficult — took me more than a month to complete it.

Pros: It’s pretty. For birders and nature-lovers, this painting by Charley Harper has the same images used by Cornell Lab of Ornithology on their BirdCast migration-tracking website and their Merlin Bird ID app.

Backstory: My husband found it on the street in our neighborhood. I started it in late January and delved into it to relieve stress before and after I was laid off from the Washington Post. I imbued it with zen.

How to claim it: Email me if you’re interested. If many people raise their hand, I’ll put names in a hat and pick one.

How I’ll deliver it: Depending on where you live, I’ll hand it to you in person or figure out a plan B. (If you live so far that postage becomes pricey, I may disqualify you.)

After I wrote about the geese that I heard (but sadly couldn’t see because it was cloudy) Friday evening, Shelby McGowan, 32, a resident of Riverdale Park, sent in this photo of geese she spotted Friday afternoon.

“I took this photo at 1:12pm walking along the Rhode Island Trolley Trail in Riverdale Park. Heard the honking and looked to the sky — largest ‘V’ I’ve ever seen!” Shelby wrote in her submission.

🪿