I went back to this year's Airecon – my fourth visit to the show. With images; cc-by-sa on everything.

This was before any formal restrictions in the UK, but quite a few people were sensibly staying away to avoid risk of infection, including many of the people I usually meet there. This meant the gaming tables didn't get quite as full as usual, though the Airecon ambience was still there and I had no trouble finding games or players.

I started off by setting up Rallyman: GT and got into a three-player race on the Belgium track (from the World Tour expansion, more or less Spa-Francorchamps).

Then a couple of unpublished prototypes from some friends who run a game publishing business, involving a dormouse thinking of all the things he can do before he falls asleep, and a Mancala-style game of pirate treasure.

Finally for the night, FUSE – which is coming out quite a bit at the end of the evening as it's a game that is guaranteed to be over in ten minutes. I also find the stress level is about right for me: some real-time games are too hectic (I like Magic Maze but I don't play it often). OK, we didn't win…

(All right, that was only about 8pm, and I didn't get to bed until 11 or so. Mostly I was chatting with friends. This was a bit of a theme, in fact; usually at these things I try to get in with a group of people I know and we play games all day, but because many of the people I know had cancelled I ended up getting in with more ephemeral groups and chatting with other friends in between games.)

Saturday

I started with Rallyman: GT again: this was going to be on track 1 since most of the players were new to the game, but with a couple more players I wanted to expand it so we flipped the tiles for a 3-lane version.

Then the same group went on to Crisis, in which I surprised myself by working out that this was the turn when everything was going to fall apart, so if I could get both to the top of the scoring track and above the threshold number I'd win… and I did, by three points. File this as another "not my usual style of game, but I enjoyed it".

People were playing Crokinole; there was always a long queue for a game.

The street food vans were back, doing a decent job (especially on the Korean Sloppy Joe, which I ate too quickly to take a photograph of).

I know people who need to know about this vendor. So now I've told you. The d20 purse is made of leather triangles, held together by springy coils.

I tried my usual trick of setting up Flamme Rouge with the automated team, and sure enough a player turned up. We left the automa in place to keep things interesting.

Then on to three-player Coldwater Crown, which I picked up in a maths trade earlier this year. I have basically no interest in fishing, but I like the game… and so did the other players, enough that we immediately played again.

Then Flamme Rouge again because the third player had missed it.

I was thinking about going to bed, when I was invited to help invade Canada, so I did, in 1812: The Invasion of Canada. I can see the appeal, I suppose, and my fellow players were great, but my dice luck was terrible and the outcome was never in much doubt.

The bathroom in the bed and breakfast has this odd decorative tile. I thought it might represent seasons (summer sun, spring rain, winter frost, autumn wind), but then the "rain" icon is repeated…

Sunday

I started off with solo FUSE, at which I did better than I usually do in multi-player but not well enough to win.

Then two of my Rallyman: GT players from Saturday came by, and we tried a longer track, the "US" circuit (Sebring International). To keep things interesting, we also threw in three driverless cars – on their lowest level of competence. We all pulled away from them easily enough, until we started messing up, at which point they blocked us surprisingly effectively. I took some big chances to catch up, and finished in a reasonably tight second.

And so home again. At the time of posting, this has been my last in-person games event. Join me on Tabletop Simulator!