[img]http://www.deadlyfredly.com/gencon07/indiepassport-thumb.jpg[/img]  So, this year I'm going to be working on doing the Forge Booth Menu, to help the Forge Booth better tell people who's games are there to be demo'd, and who's games are there to be bought.

But I want to go beyond that.  This marks the first GenCon following the "Forge Booth diaspora" -- lots of indie designers are striking out this year and starting up booths of their own.  The Forge booth, however, has been a focal point in the past, a way to draw the GenCon crowd in to one place so that they can get maximum indie exposure.  With the diaspora happening, I have a real concern that the focusing value of the booth needs to be replaced with something else.

That's where the Indie Games Passport comes in.  The concept's simple:

• There's a passport -- a single sheet of paper folded in half, this logo on the front, a place for someone to put their contact information on the back.

• It acts as a map, telling people what other Forge diasporites can be found around the dealers' hall, and more importantly, where to find them.

• It provides incentive for people to visit all of the booths by being part of a prize drawing -- turn in your passport, stamped by all of the booths listed on it, by (say) Sunday morning, and you get entered in a prize-pool drawing.  Prize drawing would occur at some point on Sunday, and if you're not there, we use your contact info to send you the prize.

To make this work, each booth would get a stack of the passports to hand out to people who don't have them already, and a self-inking rubber stamp from something like <a href="http://www.iprint.com/">IPrint.Com.  When someone drops by with a passport, use it as an opportunity to tell them about your stuff; then stamp it and send 'em on their way.

If you're part of a booth that's interested in being a part of this, participation is easy:

• Mandatory: Let me know BEFORE July 1st that your booth wants to be a part of it, by emailing me at evilhat AT gmail DOT com, with the subject line Indie Games Passport.

• Mandatory: Let me know what you want on your rubber stamp, and what color of ink you want it to use (black, red, purple, green, blue, I believe are the options).

• Mandatory: Let me know what your booth's booth number is, so I can provide that info in the passport and (if I can work out an easy way to do it) try to show where you are on a micro dealer hall map for the back cover.

• Optional: Donate something as one of the prizes for the prize pool.  Creativity here is a plus, but please make sure it's something a gamer would find of value, and one that won't cause huge headaches if it turns out I need to ship it to the recipient.

• Optional: Toss me some cash to cover the expenses of the rubber stamp and many photocopies of the passport.

That's it!  I'm hoping to hear from the Ashcan Front, Play Collective, Collective Endeavor, and others I'm not even aware of.  I'm also hoping to make this a "Divided, We Stand" opportunity to build a strong presence that permeates the hall this year, where everyone helps everyone else get the traffic they need to get off the ground.

If you're not sure if you're "indie", please don't let that hold you back -- my use of the term here is very, very flexible.  So if you're feeling like you're a questionable entrant, drop me a line, explain why you think it's iffy, and we'll reach a conclusion!

Who's with me?

Cool! This is way better than the xerox of the floor map with highlighted spots that we tried for a couple of years.

Best, Ron

Depending on how scattered the booths are, maybe the dealer hall map could be on the inside full size and the circles where they get stamped actually located where the booths are...stamp right on the map.

Turns out they're all pretty close together.

I'm still looking for sign-ups!

<a href="http://www.deadlyfredly.com/gencon07/passportparticipants.htm">Here's the too-short list of booths that are in on the gig.  Come join us!

Gotta sign up before the end of June.  Clock's ticking. :)

(Reload and check out the new non-anvilwerks-reminiscent logo that Jonathan Walton did, up top!)

The list of participants has grown, modestly (see the link in the previous post).  Just uploaded an update.

If you know of others who could be a part, please encourage them to contact me!