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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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I'm not sure I recall there ever being an NEC-based UK Games Expo that isn't always bathed in glorious, hot sunshine and - as we parked up in East 1 and wandered the leafy path and underpasses to the Viking encampment/main entrance - so it was: already working up a sweat before the day had begun proper.
The coffee franchises in the public areas were an avalanche of first cup of the day-ers, so it was good to find one of the restaurants inside Hall 1 open for business; I had intended to have that large steak and stilton pasty for breakfast but, instead, it would end up being my supper! From the brief moment I had to set up the first demo of the day until the last one closed at 5.30PM, I had two brief loo breaks away from the Stand./pic7549854.jpg)
Whodunnit?!
Saturday was mainly about the Florida Overseas Railway scenario with a tense, extended hiatus over lunch for some murder mystery investigations (see above) with the Caroline Black party; the latter was extremely pleasing to observe as the tension began to bite and the train edged closer-and-closer to Instanbul.
Pals were the order of the day (and the show), though, and made the uninterrupted demoing more bearable: Matt Green (I) bought me a well-needed beverage:/pic7549853.jpg)
Matt seems to have picked up someone else's cup?!
My oldest gaming pal Mark kept me company through the deduction session and dear friend Neil made sure my spirits were up by giving me a massive hug as the afternoon saw me flagging!
Disappointingly, the fully pre-booked Snowdonia: Grand Tour demo schedule fell foul of a number of no-shows this weekend: a couple of singletons here-and-there where I could stand in an play instead but particularly galling was one lad who chose to queue up for a limited copy of Earth instead* and the entire Who Dares Rolls crew (three of them) seemingly having disappeared off the planet when their session had come. No-shows are, of course, par for the course BUT the number of people who had wanted to try out but couldn't made the latter void particularly frustrating.
Reflecting on the Event, it was a pleasingly bustling affair - despite the rail strikes - and many non-English speaking voices warmed my heart and made it feel rather Spiel-ish. I didn't meet most of the folks I'd hoped to bump into and seeing other reports makes me feel rather melancholy that I wasn't around longer to make that happen.
From all accounts, the Bring and Buy was simultaneously magnificent and a total shitshow: nothing exemplifies the crass excesses of modern boardgaming more than folk with trolleys you could transport cattle on delivering their 'for sale' items to the admin staff!
I had 30 minutes before the Halls closed for a quick wander, so stopped by Moaideas Game Design to gawp at the Mini Express Map Pack 1: Taiwan & United Kingdom, did a quick elbow dance with a very exhausted-looking Bez and the Ragnar Brothers. I even tried to influence the outcome of this year's Spiel des Jahres by remonstrating/cajoling two of the official Judges, who were manning a tiny SdJ booth in the corner!/pic7549855.jpg)
Bidding a fond farewell to James, Vic and Millie at Naylor Games (Jaya was off somewhere else
), I sore-shoulder shuffled to my searingly-hot car and drove home.
No 'new' games were bought and, to be frank, absolutely nothing stood out to be of even passing interest - I remain entirely numb to the frantic FOMO. Everything I did acquire was delivered to me at the Stand while busy teaching:/pic7550468.jpg)
Games and puzzles!/pic7550469.jpg)
Books!
It was quite the experience being back in full Exhibitor Mode after nearly four years.
*the wonderful** exercise of hyping your games by limiting the quantity for sale each day to keep the stand forever busy; we all knew there were plenty of copies palleted in a nearby van...
**as in 'despicable', 'cynical' etc
Life and Games (but mostly games) from Tony Boydell: Father, Grandfather, Husband and Independent UK Game Designer.
Archive for UK Games Expo
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Sun Jun 4, 2023 9:58 am
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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'Tis June and time for the UK Games Expo! Huzzah! From 2007 until 2019, my presence for the whole thing was guaranteed but since the parting of (SSG) ways and the Pandemic, spending time away from chez Boydell - even to serve my obsession for games & gaming - is an anxious experience. As this post appears, I shall be beetling up the M50-M5-M42 to the NEC with tummy butterflies and an iPhone full of distracting podcasts.
It helps, of course, to find something to occupy one's trepidatious mind and, this year, I am languishing amid a stack of prototypes in the splendid company of James, Jaya et al on the Naylor Games stand in Hall 1 (1-683:/pic7543297.jpg)
Just some of the goodies.../pic7543298.jpg)
/pic7543300.jpg)
Something else, too.
I also plan to stop by and see my pals at Chaos Cards, Lookout Games, (the SdJ recommended!) Cubiko Games, Osprey Games, Paul et al on the CGE stand, Bez, Surprised Stare and many others (time permitting).
Fri Jun 2, 2023 6:15 am
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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The short-list of nominations for the United Kingdom Games Expo (UKGE) Awards 2023 are in! Yes, good folk; hold on to your trousers as the Best of the Best are pitted - gladiator-like - against each other in the hot, musty stadium that is the N.E.C Halls 1 & 2!
I'm just gonna jump right in and pick my own winners - how about you?!/pic7491123.jpg)
Best Abstract: Um...I don't know any of these. Best Accessory: Er...a playing mat?! Best Board Game (American Style): Eh?/pic7491124.jpg)
Best Board Game (Euro style): Earth, probably; because everyone has wet their pants for it - R.I.P. Terraforming Mars and Ark Nova, apparently. Best Board Game (Strategic): Who? Whither John Company 2nd Ed? Votes for Women et al? Best Card Game (General): Has to be Village Rails any - and every day - of the week; it should be on the SdJ list too, you know. Best Card Game (Strategic): Even though I moaned all the way through my one play, it's sure to be War of the Ring: The Card Game. No competition, if one's honest. Best Children's Game: I'm not a child so I have no idea; never heard of any of them. Best Dice Game: They're just words printed on a web page - totally blanking./pic7491125.jpg)
Best Expansion: None of the above. Best Family Game: I'm voting for Matthew Dunstan! Best Gaming Novelty: Has to be James's book - it's utterly riveting and brilliant and far outshines an Advent Calendar that should've been in the Best Accessory category instead! Best Miniatures (Something): Pffft. Best Miniatures (Yadda-yadda): Meh. Best Party Game: (wakes up) Oh? (drifts off again)/pic7491126.jpg)
Best RPG (Thing 1): Not my current bag. Best RPG (Thing 2): Not, for this year at least, for me. Best RPG (Thing 3): Off my RADAR. Best Variant: Variant? Of what?! Colour me bewildered.
So, all-in-all, a hot mess of brand placement with a dash of myopia and only a (tiny) sprinkle of very fine things indeed; I fear the nomination process - send the Judges copies of your stuff rather than an objective assessment of how the whole industry has meandered in the prior 12 months - has severely limited the choice to small-but-keen independents and whatever the major sponsors are pushing this week.
Disappointing.
Oh, that hair...
Mon May 8, 2023 6:20 am
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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The last time I was at the NEC was in 2019: the year we'd snaffled sixty advance copies of Foothills and it was going to be a big year for both Tony Boydell and Surprised Stare Games! Jump cut three years and it's 7.30AM on quiet Friday; I find myself seated alone on a Ledbury platform, waiting for a Midlands train, with a rolling suitcase packed with 'pitch' prototypes (Attention All Shipping & Polygonia), copies of Corgi Dash and an emergency bag of Wine Gums.
With hotel prices (£200+ per night), NEC parking fees (£17 per day) and fuel costs (£40 for a round trip over 130 miles) being somewhat outrageous everywhere and all at once, it seemed entirely sensible that my return to one of the big conventions should be via the far cheaper daily commute model: slower, perhaps, and at the whim of train crew shortages certainly, BUT a £15 fare and £3 all day car parking is just too obvious a decision./pic6900817.jpg)
It also helped that Alan and Charlie (SSG, of course) had arranged to get me an exhibitor pass, so I waited at the entrance to Hall 2 as the gates opened at 0900HRS exactly and the UK Games Expo was officially happening. Ten minutes - and a short walk to the CORRECT rendezvous point - later, I was in. Lordy, oh Lordy but it was busy:/pic6900586.png)
10 mins after opening...
Some errands needed to be completed first (including package deliveries, confirming pitch times with Matthew Dunstan and so on) and there was plenty of bumping in to old pals along the way as a zig-zagged through Halls 1 and 2:/pic6900585.png)
(clockwise from top left: Hanno Girke (Mr Lookout Games), Tim Clare (Author & Gamer*), Smoox Chen (Taiwan Boardgame Design),
Bez (Stuff By Bez), Andrew Harman (YAY Games) and, of course, Michael Fox (II) (Wayfinder Games)
The first pass of the main spaces took about an hour after I'd spent a short while catching up with the Paulls at their big, centrally-located, shared Stand: copies of the Deluxe Master Set bowed the point-of-sale counter while a smart preview of the new Kingmaker glowed proudly in a cosy nook./pic6900591.jpg)
Echoes of designer Tony popped up in other places too: Scandaroon apparently making its annual appearance in the Bring 'n Buy and a mock-up of the UK Mini Express expansion map on the Moaideas Game Design booth:/pic6900021.jpg)
While the initially-emptied suitcase filled up with goodies during the day, this return to 'normal gaming life' was more about the people than the cardboard; aside from those pictured above, it was glorious and marvellous to share chattering time with Brett J. Gilbert, Rob Harris, Ricardo from Devir, Amy at Chaos Cards (museum patrons!), the Alley Cat Games crew - Caezar, David Digby and Mike Nudd (who also signed my museum-donation copy of Waggle Dance from Bright Eye Games) and Iraklis from LudiCreations! The latter - Alley Cat and Ludicreations - were in receipt of the aforementioned design pitches and discussions about a new edition of Paperclip Railways respectively!/pic6900592.jpg)
And a good morning to you! Tuffley gamer, Jeric, helps out Smoox on the TBD stand.
It was all rather overwhelming and, come 4PM, I'd reached my nervous limit and scurried back to the station to come back home. Indeed, anxiety has played no small part in my personal return to a gaming scene that was entirely within my comfort zone three years ago; both Bastion and Leiriacon saw me take to one side with a powerful home-sickness. I expect the same will be true of Essen Spiel also - which may affect my travelling channel/"duration of stay" decisions. What a silly, old sausage I am.
Saturday was cold and damp on the provincial railway but brightened, no end, by a chat with a French Digital Artist as we waited for the 0700HRS; there was a conference - Electromagnetic Field (https://www.emfcamp.org/about/travel) - at nearby Eastnor Castle, where she was speaking and networking. I learned about vintage computer system art/graphic recovery projects and 3D printing with actual clay...and was happy to recommend XX by Rian Hughes in return.
Arriving just before the barriers dropped, I was able to perform a quick wander through the Bring 'n Buy: a totally over-the-top warehouse of too much stuff and no chance of reviewing it all. I did spot a couple of must-buys for the Museum, though: Schoko & Co. (£5) - the first Euro Game I ever played. I played it on the same evening that Alan and Charlie Paull came over to discuss the official foundation of (and document signing for) Surprised Stare Games! We played S&Co by way of a celebration...and my life changed from that point! DropMix - introduced to this daft nonsense at last year's Gathering of Chums by the amazing Mr Matt Green (I), this was an insta-grab at £20.
A couple of hours saw me returning to demo duties on the SSG stand by way of a thank you; it was also, I guess, a chance to formally (and physically) close off that chapter of my gaming life. I was joined by Nick O'Neill, John Shepherd and Neil (one of my oldest pals) in advance of our scheduled sit-down-and-play of a much-anticipated Atiwa:/pic6900587.jpg)
Hanno delighted in berating me for not remembering the rules but, to be honest, it all came back to me in the first 20 mins; we stuck a little on the 'Maintenance Phase' - where a rigorous sequence of river pollution, bat management, income and 'breeding' occurs - but everything sped up and ran smoothly by the mid-game./pic6900588.jpg)
Worker placement gets you resources - which you take from your personal supply in most cases - and more space on which to place those resources (landscapes and settlements); the key is to get a good flow of those resources back-and-forth because you'll be spending the stuff you've grown and nurtured on your terrain in order to grow your family (the villager - pink - pieces in this prototype) and attract as many fruit bats as possible (those beyond your first 10 are a VP each)./pic6900589.jpg)
While you're focused on your own tableaus, you do need to snipe some of the plumber WP spaces before the others. It's another winner from Mr Rosenberg, you mark my words!/pic6900590.jpg)
(from left) Neil, Nick, John and me.
Caroline (The Dyslexic Gamer) joined us as an observer - and sometime 'Advisor to Tony' - during our Ghanaian exploits; we also teased out the story of how Lookout Games was started from Hanno, when he stopped by to see how much of a hash we were making of the new jewel in their crown!
After shitting fruit seeds over the Savannah, the Blogger Quartet (me, Caroline, Nick, John) and Neil grabbed a coffee and some rare tablespace to relax, chat and prepare for our 15.30 seminar: "Blogging on BGG":/pic6900594.jpg)
Tucked away in the business suites, thirty or so folks turned up to hear us talk about the Whys, Whens, How Longs and Oopsies of Blogging:/pic6900937.jpg)
As MC, it was absolutely bloody marvellous to hear other people speaking about the process, the benefits and the pitfalls of pushing the written word in a cosy, largely-unrecognised corner of the biggest board game resource on the Internet. The audience listened patiently to our musings, asked insightful questions and we filled a happy hour together; we even got a lovely round of applause at the end!/pic6900595.jpg)
If I have one complaint at all, it's that the Seminars - in general - seemed to have been given the most cursory of glances: the printed catalogue containing no detailed list (referring one to the Web, instead), no recording facilities** and very small signage. I'm not sure if I could suggest any better ways of tearing folks away from the lure of boxes-for-sale beyond:
a) holding the seminars in the evening, when the trading halls are closed and provide no distraction; and/or,
b) asking Shut Up & Sit Down to sit in on everyones' session!
Pausing, briefly, to meet and chat with Lisonix (Superfluous Somethings) and her cheerful family***, I was once again carried off to the trains by a cold, hard knot of flight response in my stomach.
It was 100% worth the time and effort to come back to the show: familiar, friendly and fun. Of course, as my first ever time experiencing it from "the other side of the demo table", the show was tinged with melancholy. However, long-awaited fist-bumps, handshakes and hugs with friends - old and new - washed all of that away in an instant.The Obligatory Haul Picture:/pic6900596.jpg)
*check out Coward: Why We Get Anxious & What We Can Do About It at your local, independent bookshop
**Don't worry: John did get something on his iPhone!
***pop a pair of glasses on Mr Lisonix and he's the spitting image of Matt Leacock!
- Schoko & Co.
- Kingmaker
- Scandaroon
- Paperclip Railways
- DropMix
- Foothills
- Mini Express
- Waggle Dance
- Atiwa
- Uwe Rosenberg
- Matt Leacock
- Hanno Girke
- Mike Nudd
- Andrew Harman
- Brett J. Gilbert
- Michael Fox (II)
- Matt Green (I)
- Matthew Dunstan
- Smoox Chen
- Bez Shahriari
- David Digby
- Lookout Games
- Surprised Stare Games Ltd
- Devir
- Moaideas Game Design
- LudiCreations
- YAY Games
- Taiwan Boardgame Design
- Stuff By Bez
- Alley Cat Games
- Bright Eye Games
- Wayfinder Games
Tue Jun 7, 2022 6:20 am
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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It has been confirmed! There shall be a 'Blogging about Life, Games and Gaming' seminar at the UK Games Expo on the Saturday 4th June at 1530HRS in the Piazza Suites.
The last time I checked with my fellows, we were lining up the resplendent MrShep, the cameratastic Caroline Black and musical genius Nicholas O'Neill (as well as Yours Truly).
It is to be a serious, if good-humoured, discussion about the Boons and Banes of regular blogging, tricks and tips and traps and anything else anyone wants to ask about: I plan to have an actual 'plan'!
Mark it in your diaries, bring your comfy cushions and a sheaf of questions you've always wanted to ask...
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Yesterday, then, the news that HABA have pulled out of 'live' conventions for the rest of the Year; hot on the heels of last week's Essen no-shows for 2F-Spiele / the Spring 'n'attendons pas' from Asmodee (and all of the brands that we love so much). This is, simultaneously, a Bad Thing(TM) - because it means no decent massive convention for a second year - and a Good Thing(TM) - because it further justifies my own own apprehensions about travelling to Germany.
Conversely, the small Events seem to be quite happy to pick things up again; despite a small number of 'Ooh, I've been pinged!' Track & Trace scares, it seems the UK Games Expo managed to beetle through with relative success: albeit as a shadow of it's usual self. I had a long conversation with pal Richard about his couple of days there and he was rather glowing about folks' adherence to masks, social distancing and general conscientious behaviour; this is great to hear - especially after the UKGE's original position of 'Do as thou wilt' in Q1, which firmly kiboshed a number of firms' attendance plans.
UKGE had approximately 10,000 unique visitors - about a third of the usual number - which, if extrapolated to Origins and GenCon (in terms of a 'drop off') would mean about 10,000 and 25,000 respectively; the latter sounds like it's pushing the boundary, though. Now...take 2019's Essen attendance of 208,000 (!) and we're talking 70,000: a truly monstrous - just over a Euro 2020 Wembley Stadium Final - number! So where is the physical and psychological cut-off point? For smaller conventions in the UK - Handycon (500), GridCon (300), Bastion (100) and my own Gathering of Chums (60-ish) - the prognosis would seem more positive; borne of word-of-mouth/friends attendance, there's better assurance that attendees will be sensible and considerate.
The barometer, I feel, will be Spring 2022 and - fingers crossed - the return of Leiriacon (500): it was the first Con to be Covid-cancelled (I had actually packed my suitcase for it when it was initially-postponed) and, should it go ahead, it would be a welcome marker of confidence and optimism: here's hoping, eh?:strip_icc()/pic6329274.png)
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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This year I shall not be going to the UK Games Expo for the first time since it's incarnation in 2007. There was a thought that I might scoot up on the train tomorrow (Saturday) and meet up with a few peeps - Gibsons Games, Geeknson (to talk gaming tables), pals Richard and Jimmy, Alan & Charlie - but I can't shake the memory of recent 'large Freedom events' that have resulted in Covid super spreads.
/pic6306767.png)
Quote:One of the local Newent pubs went balls out to hold a Euro 2020 final spectator evening, last month, and their Duty Manager ended up infecting 10s of people ie. most of the customersIt's been 18 months since my last Con attendance - the excellent Bastion in North Wales - and, since then, I've missed two Leiriacons, a Gridcon, (now) two UKGEs and an Essen Spiel: that's the totality of my regular, board game industry interaction right there!
So, today - as the hordes descend upon Birmingham's NEC for Day 1 - when I would've already constructed a Stand, beer-ed it with some Euro pals at the Ibis/Hilton and wandered the aisles for cheery 'Halloo's and early doors promos, I shall be feeling that tremble in the tummy: the churning thoughts that bounce between "great things are happening and I am missing out" and "It's going to make everyone sick!" - anxiety, eh?!
If anything, it further highlights my unwitting and unwilling separation from the inner circles of board gaming in the UK: a space now almost entirely populated by a few highly-focused publishers and a cacophony of content creators; the role of a designer, alone, seems to be rather an irrelevance. See? That FOMO is seriously messing with my self-esteem!
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Well, I managed dip in to the UKGE this weekend but ONLY via the Discord environment. Every time I wandered to the UKGE's 'Main Stages' page, there was either nothing on (with nothing showing in the schedule) OR it was some tedious marketing wank in which I had no interest. Or I got an Error 500.
No, indeed; it was a bizarre experience using 'Find' in Chrome to locate the virtual stands of peeps in whom I was interested rather than scrolling up and down the randomly-shifting presentation. Unless, of course, you were a major sponsor in which case your 'feed' was anchored to the top of the page.
With Essen Spiel coming up (so) fast, it was apparent by mid-Saturday that UKGE weren't doing anything new or - indeed - interesting; as Chris B (Cardboard Edison) remarked during a fascinating Sunday PM chat, they've just added company website links to a version of their Hall maps, pointed everyone to Discord and told us to get on with it. And then asked for payment at the end (one of those "Pay what you like" things: I 'like' zero, thanks).
I've no real idea how Essen will be different but with 1000+ exhibitors and however many thousand new games, this 'special friends get all the perks' shite just won't wash for a worldwide audience. UKGE had 'three' stage feeds but the real action was on the Twitches and the Discords the companies set up themselves: by-passing the imaginary NEC altogether!
Several things became apparent: Sitting around 'live' and waiting for folks to ask for a demo is a massive waste of time - smaller Co.s would be better served pre-recording run-thrus and just making them available for ad hoc viewing. With no way to see if anyone is 'waiting' online - unless they make themselves known - the inactivity on a page will just move people along. Sales - if you expected to get the same throughput as a real Con then you won't have been running a company for long; oh, I am SURE plenty of folks will swear blind that 'It was really good for us!" and "We sold loads!" but they're lying. Watching someone struggle through a 15 minute filler on Tabletopia for over an hour will NOT result in a ker-ching moment...which leads me to: Online gaming at a virtual con is shit: Tabletopia and TS are utterly-terrible windows for demoing and should be stopped immediately. Prototypes? Yes! Actual demos? No - fuck off with the cumbersome shite: folks absolutely MUST see real limbs doing real things with real components. Trying to digitize the physical geography of a Con is so wrong it's wrongetty-wrong.
Thus did the chat with Chris B continue and one thing I noted made the most sense: it's about the LIVE ACTION, people. Demos are time-consuming and procedural so can be pre-built for those who want a taste; where things really begin to shine is with the conversations, the arguments, the teasers and prototypes, the jokes and the friendships (old and newly-forged) - this is where an online Con needs to focus: the LIVE content. Where UKGE had three 'special', pre-populated ('pre-sold') stages, Essen Spiel needs one virtual stage per exhibitor. Exhibitors should be encouraged to provide regular - possibly constant for some - content, streamed from their 'Stand' with a previously-published (and indexed) central itinerary for the entire show - a fantastic example of how this might look can be found here:
. We've all got phones, so what we need is a means of linking them to a dedicated company stream and letting us all get on with it!
The tabletop events site does it all beautifully: searchable, linked to ticketing where needed and maintains a personal calendar on your behalf!
Of course, who would spend the money needed to set this up just for 2020? No-one in their right mind BUT...isn't this the perfect way to make Essen Spiel permanently available to the non-200,000 who make it to the actual Halls in future? Imagine we're on our stands with cameras and phones streaming our 'face-to-face's to anyone who wants to drop-by from home?
Imagine being able to add a company's game to your cart - from Oz or Brazil or Iceland - knowing that a shopper will be circling the Halls all-day and picking stuff up as they pass, drops it off at a parcel despatch Hall and come the Sunday the whole lot is taped and posted?! Payments could be handled as electronic payments-back to us at an end-of-show reconciliation. Jesus, this all sounds do-able and up-to-date.
We, at SSG, could stream interviews, play-thrus of prototypes, offer a Big Brother-style snoop option (rolling all the time), dances, us showing off our hauls and so on and so forth. All of it accessible from a Netflix/Amazon Prime-style wall of scrolling rows for 'Wargames...', 'Miniatures...', 'Small but perfectly formed Independents...' and so.
While we may never have to do the wholly-remote thing again (fingers-crossed), there's no reason to take the lessons learned forward and just raise the whole Convention concept to the next level!
(c) Tony Boydell and Chris B, 2020.
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Me and one of my favourite ever Germans, Mr Ulrich Blennemann, chew the fat:
(Uli is very quiet - uncharacteristically - in this one)
Here's fun: how many times do I side-eye my live 'room next door' stream from Dominic Cummings?
I do miss my European friends so very much.
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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So, the UK Games Expo 2020 has (finally) been cancelled. Of course, with one of the founders being a General Practitioner, you'd think the 'board' knows best...the second time of asking, at least.
Many things shall be missed and the eager public must wait 12 further months before they can sample the game-y delights of:
1. The bring-and-buy may be missed by some; I mean where else can go to find
a) second-hand games at retail prices;
b) Kickstarter 'bundles' for double the pledge level because "I changed my mind during the fulfillment period / I want someone else to have a chance of getting a copy / I need to make pure profit out of some FOMO twat" (delete as applicable) - please note that hire of the fork lift trolley is extra to cart the crap out of the Halls;
c) something that a child called 'Robin' scribbled in biro on, and scuffed the corners of, in 1972 and is now - apparently - worthy of a 'Vintage/Antique' mark-up; and,
d) enough copies of The Works discounted material to build a life-size replica of Leeds Castle out of.
2. The obscene prices for an 'artisan deli sandwich' (seagrass and mud falafel, Broiled Essex Ham on Wheated Crack, "Vegan Cheese" ie. packing cardboard from the Hall 4 skip etc) and a thimbleful of fizzy 'spring' water.
3. The cannot-be-found-elsewhere 'Mother and Son' companies and their mortgaged brainpan outporings: "My Auntie Likes This: The Card Game", "Everyone Still Loves Monopoly Spin-Offs, Right?!" and "Trivia Games Deserve A Re-Evaluation". If you're really lucky, you might bump into an old guy who used to work for Waddingtons in the 1980s and has a loft-emptied pallet of two player abstracts to hawk - mainly Nine Mens' Morris knock-offs, though.
4. Bumping in to famous media types as they amble - ve-ery slowly up-and-down all of the aisles looking for something in particular (Shangri-La, probably) but 'happy to stop for a chat and a selfie' every three yards; and,
5. Watching the receipt for three nights in a bland air-conditioned box spool off the printer with something four-figured at the bottom.
Ah, well.
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