While you may not be super familiar with a company called Rollacrit, chances are you may have seen some of their products. They dabble in quite a few different things in geekdom. They’ve published a pretty successful board game called Heroes of Barcadia. They sell all kinds of apparel, including Gen Con branded ones. And in 2023, they successfully funded a Kickstarter to the tune of 1.2 million for their Messenger Bag of Holding.
It’s that last product we are here to talk about today, fellow Level Up My Gamers. The Messenger Bag of Holding was a game night bag for you to head out to your RPG sessions with. Books, dice, laptop, beverage of choice—it was billed as a great carryall for your game nights. While I never got to try it, it looked pretty sweet.
That’s relevant because they are set to launch their follow-up to the Messenger Bag of Holding with their upcoming Kickstarter for their Convention Bag of Holding. This time, instead of a game night bag, it’s one for browsing the crowded aisle of convention floors.
When it comes to convention bags, we here at BGQ are on record for being strongly opposed to gamers wearing those giant, rectangular board game bags around convention dealer halls. More times than we can count, we’ve been inadvertently whacked by someone turning quickly with little sense of personal space. While they may be great for walking to and from a game night, they are pretty terrible for crowded spaces.
Rollacrit’s new bag doesn’t seek to replace those game haul bags, but instead is more of a quality-of-life accessory for convention browsing. We were curious about it, so they graciously offered to send up a production sample to check out. Note: they only sent us a bag to borrow, and we were not paid in any way.
The bag boasts 18 storage areas, watertight durable materials, expandable fabric, and a bit of customization. While normally we’d put something like this through stress tests to see how durable and waterproof it is, since it was just a loaner, I decided not to try and destroy a bag someone else may need to try out.
But I still put it to use for a bit to see how useful it was. The front pouch is probably one of the most unique parts of it, and great for conventions for those that like to show off their collections. The front panel has a reversible pouch that can either be used to show off your pin collection or badges, or flipped around for a keychain holder. While I don’t have much in the way of keychains, I do have more than my fair share of enameled pins. I tested it out, and while it took me a bit to figure out how the zippers worked to switch things, overall it was a pretty easy conversion.
Inside one of the front pockets is a charging cable grommet for you to pass a cable through for phone/tablet charging. I liked this feature a lot, as there is a small zipper pouch inside at the bottom for your battery, and a hole to run the cable through to the front. This leaves your phone more accessible, and you don’t have to worry about the battery getting in the way or falling all over the place.
On the sides are two mesh pouches that I found worked well for both my drink bottle and playmats. Inside the main pouch is enough room for a laptop or a board game or two. Also sewn in there are some smaller pouches that you can put in some filler games or other things of that size. And on the back is a luggage handle passthrough, which, as I’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately, I can attest to how useful that can be.
I tried a few different board games, and for the most part, you are going to be limited to medium-size ones. The Hobbit There and Back Again fit really well on the inside, which measures about 10″ x 12″. You probably don’t want to go much bigger than that. You could easily fit a stack of RPG books in there, though.
While I didn’t have the bag long enough to really test it in different situations, it feels really durable, has lots and lots of pouches, and I like how flexible the storage areas are. Honestly, I can see this being a great everyday bag to take to work, friends, or a game night. And it seems perfect for conventions or a large gathering of gamers.
I do want to note that this is a messenger-style bag and not a backpack, so there is only one strap. They do promise that the strap will be customizable with different print options. The one I was given had a simple grey strap.
If you are interested, you can sign up here to be notified of their Kickstarter launch, which is coming this fall.
