Last weekend was GameStorm 25*, a small local gaming con in Portland, Oregon. I’ve been attending for many years now (you can see some of my recaps from 2015 and 2017), bringing a selection of prototypes and favorite games to share with people, and it is always one of the highlights of my year.
GameStorm is primarily a gaming convention—most of the space is given to tables to sit and play games, with a small ballroom set up as as Dealer’s Hall for vendors. It’s mostly tabletop games, but there are also videogames and LARPS, and there are also some panels throughout the weekend. GameStorm provides a well-stocked game library that’s open throughout the weekend, and there are also some areas like Play-and-Win (PAW) where you can enter drawings to win a copy of a game, and the Game Lab where you can help designers by playtesting prototypes and giving feedback.
A big chunk of the tabletop gaming is volunteer-run events. Anyone can sign up ahead of the convention to run a game: if you’re a big fan of Clank! and are happy to teach that, you can run a few shifts of that and you’ll be assigned to a specific table at a certain time. Run at least 12 hours worth of scheduled games over the course of the weekend, and you’ll earn a free badge for the next year.
I always had a hard time myself deciding what games to sign up for ahead of time. I also had a hard time finalizing a list of games I’d have by the time GameStorm happened, because I’m always receiving new prototypes for Kickstarter or other games even up until the convention starts. Instead, I just brought a couple bags of games, and set up shop at a table in the open gaming area. 2017 may be the first year I made a menu so it was easier to show people what games I had available rather than just making a big pile of them. By 2019 I’d been doing it for long enough that some of the organizers suggested maybe we should just try to set up Gaming with GeekDad in its own dedicated area.
Of course, then 2020 happened. GameStorm, which runs at the end of March, was one of the first cons to be canceled. When we returned in 2022, we picked up the idea again. That year, I took an entire shelf with me and filled it with games, making a bigger menu. I was provided with a handful of tables. In 2023, Alex Hart had joined the GeekDad team, so I recruited him to help me manage the area, and he brought on a few more friends who have helped with things like signage and setting up a little table for people to return games, and also just help us teach games when there are a lot of folks around.
Since I try to pack as many games onto our shelf as possible, I always take a photo to help with shelving later—if any of the games is in the wrong section, then we may not be able to get everything to fit! Here’s our shelf from this year. We always try to include some favorites—you’ll see several of our Game of the Year finalists on the shelf—but we also try to focus on having a lot of games that aren’t officially released yet: prototypes for Kickstarter campaigns that are currently running, launching soon, or have already closed but haven’t fulfilled yet. It’s always a lot of fun to give people a chance to play games before they’re out, so they have more information about whether they might want to back the project themselves.
Some of the big hits this year were Fromage, a worker-placement game about making cheese that has a really clever rotating board, and Finspan, the latest in the Wingspan line but this time about fish. We also had a lot of requests for TEND, a massive flip-and-write game that includes scratch-off cards; Alex had gotten a prototype of this and since it’s not out yet people were eager to give it a shot.
I had a fun coincidence one evening: Michael O’Connell, one of the designers of Finspan, happened to walk by our area while I was teaching it! I’ve interacted with him on social media, but since his avatar has often been a logo or box cover, I didn’t really know what he looked like and didn’t recognize him—I just noticed he was wearing a Stonemaier Games T-shirt. He introduced himself, and I was able to introduce him briefly to the group. (The photo at the top of the post is actually one he took and posted to Bluesky when he shared the story from his perspective.)
What I’ve found after years of running games at GameStorm is that this is one of my favorite benefits of being a GeekDad writer. Being a game reviewer forced me to get better at learning games and teaching them, because I was always the one who had a new game that I needed everyone to play. I found that I really had a knack for reading rulebooks and conveying that information to people—something I try to do in my reviews, though it’s still always easier to do in person. What’s more, I enjoy it! I love getting to share games with people and help them find things they might enjoy playing.
Every year at GameStorm you’ll find me at my section pretty much the entire time, and chances are I’ll be teaching a game. I spend over 50 hours there, playing a handful of games and teaching a whole lot more. I’m still working on ways to improve things (including keeping my voice for all four days), but I’ve met a whole lot of people over the years who have become close friends, even if I only get to see them once a year.
Tickets for GameStorm 26 are already available. It’ll be held March 19–22, 2026, at the Jantzen Beach Holiday Inn, and tickets are currently $50 for adults and kids 11+, $20 for kids 6–10, $2 for kids 5 and under. (Ticket prices go up later in the year, so registering early gets you a discount.) If you go, be sure to look for the Gaming with GeekDad section: we’ll be there to help you learn some great games!
*The numbering for GameStorm is a little funny—the first one was held in 1999, so for a while the number of the convention didn’t line up with the year; e.g., GameStorm 17 took place in 2015. After the two missed years due to COVID-19, the years and the convention numbers line up, so this year was GameStorm 25.
