I keep going back to the UK Games Expo. With images;
cc-by-sa-nc on
everything.
I went back to the Arden, on the other side of the railway line
from the NEC. Alas, one of the two routes to the fray has now been
throughly fenced off, so the only practical way to get to the site is
through the station and the NEC: with wheels, that's up a lift,
through the "security" check, down another lift and through all the
crowds of the NEC, then another ten minutes if you're going to the
Hilton, and the same on the way back at the end of the night; it's
just over a mile altogether, which I wouldn't have minded outdoors or
in cooler weather.
(I've shown the route here in dark blue, from the back door of the
Arden at bottom centre round to the Hilton at upper right.)
The lifts were at least working this time, though the NEC didn't
bother to repair the one up escalator for getting to the station after
it failed on Saturday morning, or even to reverse the other one.
Wise men stay out of the halls during the Running of the Forklifts.
No sign of Purity at the Hilton this year, so all they had to drink
was their usual anything you like as long as it's gassy lager with a
foreign name, but the World Bar over at the casino at least had
something.
On the Thursday night I got together with some friends in the Arden
bar, for Project L,
Kluster,
and Flip 7.
On Friday morning I got set up on the Wotan stand, showing off
War of the Nine Realms,
Camelot: The Court and
Camelot: The Build.
With a bit of Pipes in between. (Yeah, no BGG entry yet, as it's
just finished crowdfunding and the publisher didn't want it on the
site until it was definitely going to be available. Should be on there
soon, because with his permission I have just added it.)
A late lunch of Indian fish and chips. Coriander, lime and curry sauce
on fish pakora and chaat masala chips, lovely.
Evening gaming was in the Hilton with the 1 Player Guild, starting
with DNUP (very like
Scout but I think I like it better at least on a first play; no photos
of this one) and new Oink game
Petiquette which I
almost liked. Given a random set of cards you have to guess what
fits the gap best, and if you match any other player exactly you each
get a point; but you only have a limited set of cards to make your
guess with, which feels like a very artificial constraint. I'd be
tempted to redesign this so that you can simply choose all the guess
elements (pet type, hat type, hat colour, and number) and perhaps
require a match to the table majority rather than any match.
Tinderblox Sunset while
we shuffled about.
Six player Deadly
Dowagers with a very
close finish (a tie break on available funds after two of us were able
to bag the Duke). I don't want to play this every week but I have a
good time every time I do play it.
Last game for the night, The
Vibe, a sort of
lightweight Mysterium: one player chooses one of the word cards and
arranges the pictures in the order they think best matches that
quality, and the others have to work out which word it was. (Which we
did.)
I did a lot of going to bed early; the weather was very hot, I was
tired, and my mood was poor.
The Arden has been an airport hotel for a while, and is looking a bit
old-fashioned now (no mains sockets near the bed, for example). My
room did have this odd structure on each side of the bed: the upper
and lower boxes didn't open, just framed the minimal bedside table (I
ended up using the chair) with its light switch and USB socket. (All
together now, how many ways to we know to compromise or destroy a
phone or other device by plugging it in to a strange socket?)
On Saturday morning I did a bit of wandering round the halls, having
got the key shopping out of the way on Friday (a copy of Gibberers
with the English cards, which in fact was the only game I bought for
myself). What I was missing was the traditional small booth where you
could chat about a game, play a few turns, and buy it on the spot.
Instead there were the huge demo zones where you can't chat about
anything because it's all about moving you through the demo
experience; there were small companies like this one, with an
interesting game but nothing actually to sell because it's still
crowdfunding; and there were the boxshifters, all with basically the
same stock at basically the same price (except Waterstone's, who
marked up their "20% off" shelf so that it came out to the same price
in the end).
Back to the booth in the afternoon.
And a play of a prototype set collection game.
The other game we were selling, Brexit: The Real
Deal. (Everyone stops and
laughs at the banner, and maybe takes a photograph of it. Then we rope
them in to play.)
I really didn't feel like hauling my trolley over to the Hilton again
(and it had been quite noisy too), so I got into some two-player games
in the Arden bar. First Sky
Team, a hotness from a
few years ago, probably quite good for many people but spoiled for me
because it does such a very poor job of its thematic model (the things
you do bear very little relation to the things the crew of an aircraft
have to do).
Another player turned up, so we went on to long-term favourite
Piepmatz (nature red in
beak and claw) which I haven't played often enough lately.
Sea Salt & Paper, in
which we all broke the winning point barrier on the same round (but
I broke it by most, har har).
PUSH, good luck-pushing
nonsense.
And finally for me
Rafter Five, in which
the theme makes no sense at all but you're gradually building out the
raft and adding weights to it.
At the booth on the last day. (Which, to be fair, was rather cooler
and less crowded; Saturday afternoon was the nadir of my enthusiasm
for the show, but by Sunday I was able to contemplate coming back next
year with some equanimity.)
One last game of War of the Nine
Realms.
And finally the travelling roadshow version of Bridge
Command, clearly inspired by the bridge
simulator I played a few years ago but very much improved. (Also I was
the captain, and I feel I captained well. Situational awareness and
communication!)
Will I go back? I don't know. Usually at the end of a big convention I
feel a solid enthusiasm for doing it again, which gradually ebbs
during the year. This time, not so much. But maybe if it's not
horribly hot…