Room Escape Artist

Another year, another excellent weekend spent at PAX Unplugged. PAX Unplugged (PAXU) is an annual convention that showcases new and upcoming games in the analog gaming sphere: board games, tabletop roleplaying games, card games, and related accessories. I previously visited and wrote about my experiences in 2021 and 2022.

I am most happy to say that it felt like PAXU was back to its pre-covid normal. I first attended in 2018, and the expo hall finally felt as though it was taking up as much space as it had been prior to 2020. I don’t have the data to back this up, and there’s always room for expansion, but this year definitely felt big.

The Expo Hall

The main attraction of PAX Unplugged was the Expo Hall. Hundreds of vendors were present, as usual, selling the usual unusual wares. Board games vendors took up most of the real estate, as expected. But like usual there was a large presence of related items: card games, gaming furniture, collectibles, apparel, pins, and so on.

Puzzle-Forward Games

The increased size of the expo hall was happily paired with more puzzle-forward content compared to previous years. The usual puzzle booths were there with some new additions.

• PostCurious (reviews) brought the usual level of excitement headlined by a display board highlighting the incredible art of Adrift and Emerald Flame.
• Thames and Kosmos had a full display of their Exit series of tabletop escape games (reviews) as well as a selection of the Advent calendars (including our favorite, The Silent Storm). This was in addition to their catalog of non-escape games.
• Lockbox Adventures was showing off their play at home puzzle boxes.
• Escapely (review) had a table with many of their location-specific puzzle boxes on display. The Philadelphia box was front and center, but they had a selection of all of their city boxes.
• Infinite Rabbit Holes was another new entrant, showing off their complex and interesting AR game, The Arkham Asylum Files.

Eye-catching Board Games

The rest of the expo hall was a dizzying display of board games and everything tangentially related to the hobby. There were a few standout games that caught my attention.

Unboxed was the surprise hit of PAX 2023. Published by Wizkids, this cooperative game put the players into the role of archaeologists attempting to puzzle out how a series of ten recently unearthed games were played. While not being labeled as an escape room, each scenario felt like solving a short escape room puzzle; we had to make connections between pieces of information to reason out the rules of the interaction. This was a great find and an intriguing addition to my collection.

Cat in a Box was a trick-taking game published by Bézier Games. This isn’t normally a mechanic I gravitate towards, but I was pulled in by the large display of stuffed black cats. In this game, the card you play isn’t fully determined until you call it into existence by playing. After playing a demo game, I grabbed a copy… and one of the stuffed cats to take home for my real black cat.

Horror on the Orient Express was a murder mystery game that took place on a 1920s train. Oh, and there was also a murderous cult and eldritch monsters. This one was in pre-production and had not made it to Kickstarter yet, though it will be there in the near future. I was drawn in by the prototype of the train and the entire tableau laid out on the table. I look forward to getting a closer look at this in the future.

MacroMicro: Crime City – Showdown, the fourth and final iteration of the MacroMicro: Crime City board game I wrote about following PAXU 2022, was on display. In this mystery game, players solve crimes by following the evidence throughout an intentionally visually distracting line drawing of a busy city. In this series, there is always some new detail to find and it makes for a nice break from more traditional tabletop gaming.

Tips for Visiting

• Get your tickets early and get them mailed to you. The line to pick them up in-person is formidable.
• Download the PAX Nav app and get your days planned ahead of time.
• Schedule things as soon as they become available, usually the morning of. Events are limited and go quickly.
• Utilize the tabletop library. There are hundreds and hundreds of games there to rent out for free.
• Take a walk through the First Look section for interesting games that haven’t made the US market yet.
• Parking is somewhat limited and expensive. Utilize public transportation if you can.
• Reading Terminal Market is right across the street and a great place for a meal. Best practice is to go before or after the standard meal rush times.

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Disclosure: PAX Unplugged provided a media pass.