Have you ever thought about creating your own convention? Maybe you want to see Joss Whedon run around cleaning the toilets. Or watch someone push the button on a fish vending machine and watch a trout get stuck and just hang there while he bangs on the glass. Or maybe you just want to watch your fellow con goers be attacked by rats, roaches, and pubic lice from thongs.
Well, now you can! Welcome to Con Man: The Game. Con Man stars Alan Tudyk and Nolan North, along with executive producer PJ Haarsma, joined reporters for a press conference on Friday morning to talk about the release of their new game app, Con Man the television show, and their favorite part of fan culture—but it was still too soon for Tudyk to talk Firefly.
Con Man: The Game, based on Con Man, is now out, and Dragon Con has been challenged to get 100,000 downloads by the end of the weekend. When we succeed, North will show up to your house in his motion capture suit, and you can tell him to walk to the right and into a wall.
In the game, players can build their own con in a Sims-type environment, earn money at the booths, and be attacked by the aliens from Spectrum, the show-within-a-show in Con Man. Here’s a quick list of what you can spot in the game: fans of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil will notice a certain cabin in the woods; a deceased water play thing *cough Deadpool cough*; various con attendees who have superpowers, fight the Spectrum aliens, and were part of the crowd-sourced funding; Jerry Lansing giving out stolen hats that look suspiciously like a certain space-cowboy-mercenary’s hat; and tons of odd humor, such as the aftermath of bad fish in the fish vending machine.
One reporter asked early on how Con Man was conceptualized and started. Tudyk, whose brain the idea sprouted from, attended a now defunct Florida convention where he walked in and saw “a bunch of women who were of advanced years all with baby dolls.” The attendees were treating them like babies, and the dolls came in various sizes, including small and dressed like a person. After thinking that’s totally weird, Tudyk walks into the sci-fi convention, saw people with action figures, and thought, “What is the difference?” Instances like that are the backdrops for the show, and the writers and producers use actual convention interactions as inspiration for storylines.
The next time you see Tudyk, North, or Haarsma at a convention, you just might become their next extreme character. Tudyk says that he hopes the fans continue to be themselves because they’re the ones that provide the love.
When asked to discuss the positive side of fan culture, Haarsma answered that it’s the charity work that the fans do and how much fans give back. North said that he’s met parents with disabled children who tell him that their child goes on adventures with his character but will never be able to do those things in real life. He also stated that fans are always such positive people.
As far as how you can contract thong lice, North claims that you can catch themt from toilets. We’re not convinced.
