It’s good news for me, as it means I’ll have more board game reviews to bring you, and it’s good news for you, as I’ll be able to offer things like discounts and giveaways. Straight away you can get 5% off your first order over £60 if you sign-up at kienda.co.uk/punchboard.

If you’re not familiar with Kienda, they’ve been around for a couple of years now, offer very competitive prices, and get some hard-to-find stuff in stock. I don’t know of many places with Splotter games, or Brazil: Imperial (which I bought a couple of months back) at the moment, for example.

There are probably a few of you with a raised eyebrow or two now, wondering what it means in terms of my integrity, standards, and everything else that goes along with writing reviews. Here’s my pre-emptive FAQ.

The details

Q. Go on, how much money are you making out of this?
A. Not one penny. Seriously, no money. What I get is store credit to buy review copies, but that’s it. I might also get sent some other games to review from time to time. The new speedboat will have to wait.

Q. Ah, so you have to write nice things about the games they send you, so they sell more games?
A. Nope. I choose which games I use my credit on, and I write my own reviews. Not advertising, not fluff pieces – reviews. I made this clear very early on in my conversations with Kienda, and they happily agreed. I won’t recommend a game I don’t think is good.

Q. It still sounds like you’re a big sell-out. Why should I still trust what you write?
A. I’ve had review copies of games sent to me by loads of different publishers for years now. This is no different. It’s just another place being good enough to provide me with games I might not otherwise afford so that I can tell you what I think about them.

True, you might see lots of favourable reviews from me, but that’s because I can choose which games I cover, not just those that a publisher chooses to send me. Just like you, I’m not likely to buy games I think I’ll dislike.

Q. What’s in it for Kienda?
A. I’ll be adding links to the games in their store when I review games they stock. You might see me tag them in social media posts. That’s about it. I have a link which will give you 5% off your first £60 purchase with them, which benefits you, and they get to sell more games, which benefits them.

I’m very excited about teaming up with them. It means more games for me to cover, and it means I can give something back to you, my readers, when I get the chance. What I especially like is that it’s a proper board game retailer, not an international mega-corporation.

If you still have any questions or concerns, please just come and find me on Twitter, Facebook, Discord, or email me.

The post Punchboard has a partner – Kienda! appeared first on Punchboard.

If you’ve never used Discord before, it’s a website/app where anyone can create a space and have some channels to chat. I’ve created a server for Punchboard, and for the time being I’m limiting it to just three channels. If it grows, and there’s a need, I’ll create more, but for now, here’s what we’ve got.

# general – Feel free to just chat here. Games, life, hobbies, whatever. Just be nice to one another, and if a discussion is taking over, turn it into a thread. I can help out with that.

# online-games – I play a lot of board games online, mostly at BoardGameArena. We play asynchronously, so you can just make a turn a day if that’s what suits you. Let’s organise some games here and play.

# creator-things – One of the things I especially enjoy is sharing ideas and knowledge with other board game reviewers, previewers, podcasters – anyone creating media involving tabletop games. If you’re one of these people, let me know once you join, and I’ve got a channel lined-up where we can benefit from each others wisdom.

That’s it for now. Please, feel free to join, and invite your friends if you think they’d like to hang out and chat. All I ask is you avoid any kind of harassment, abuse, or generally being a dick. Anyone doing that will be out on their ear pretty sharpish.

Come along and say hello.

The post Discord server now live! appeared first on Punchboard.

Running the numbers

Everyone loves a few stats, so let’s have a look at some of my first-year numbers.

65 – Reviews published
7,000 – Unique visitors
15,000 – Page views
1,260 – Instagram followers
760 – Twitter followers
2 – Website facelifts
151 – Games currently in my collection

Small numbers compared to many of my fellow review writers, but I’m really happy. A lot of that growth came in the last six months, and I’m recording it here for posterity, clarity, and to look back on this time, next year.

Some thank yous

While this has been a pet project of mine, I’ve had a lot of help, motivation, and inspiration from other people in this wonderful hobby. I’d like to name-check a few of them, and link to them, so you can go and see what they do.

First up, Iain McAllister of The Giant Brain. I was paired with Iain when I joined the Tabletop Mentorship Scheme, with him as my mentor. I learned lots during the few months we were meeting and talking, and my writing has definitely improved since, so I’m very grateful. Check out the link above and listen to his excellent Brainwaves board game news podcast.

I’d like to thank Mike and Grace and everyone involved in the Tabletop Mentorship Scheme I mentioned above too. They match mentors and mentees from all around the world, whatever their area of tabletop games, and it’s all free. They’re amazing people and it’s a wonderful thing to be a part of.

There are some fantastic UK-based writers and content creators, and some of them have been very supportive, and always ready to talk. Especially Oliver of Tabletop Games Blog, Richard from We’re Not Wizards, Paul from Gaming Rules!, Gavin from Keep Up With The Jones Family, and Bez of Stuff By Bez.

I’d really like to thank Shellie and everyone involved with There Will Be Games. I submitted a few of my reviews there, and after a while I was invited to be an Associate Writer, which I’m proud of. Some of my favourite writers submit their work there, I’m in great company.

Gratitude where it’s due

The board game community is pretty tight-knit, and people work together right across the spectrum. I’m very fortunate that some designers and publishers think my thoughts and opinions have some merit, and sometimes send me their games to review and preview.

So, in no particular order, thanks to the folks who have supported me: Stonemaier Games, Braincrack Games, AEG, Capstone Games, Garphill Games, Lucky Duck Games, SDR Games Studio, Leder Games, Renegade Game Studio, Van Ryder Games, TGG, Board&Dice, The Dark Imp, Devir, Tettix Games, Ravensburger, Crab Studio, Twogether Studio, Wren Games, Savania Games, Maniple Games, Reversal Games, Szacha Games, Atikin Games, Paverson Games, and probably others I’ve forgotten.

I’d also like to thank my mystery friends. By that, I mean friends who deal in mystery. It’s no secret I love mysteries, and I’ve been invited along to some fantastic online murder mysteries by Play Dead London and Sharp Teeth Theatre. I also took a look at a great little card game by another mystery-turned-entrepreneur group, After Dark Murder.

To all of you, your faith in someone as small and new on the scene as me, means loads to me. I appreciate it so much.

What next?

So what next? Well, part of me wants to say ‘more of the same’. The problem with that though, is that if you try to rest on your laurels and stay at Status Quo, you can’t improve. So yes, I want to carry on writing regularly, but I want to improve. I want to make my writing better. I want to make it feel more personal, and do a better job of conveying what I like and don’t like about games.

I intend to write more articles that aren’t just reviews. I recently wrote a piece about what makes solo board games great, and I want to write more things like that. I’ve made some good friends over the last year, and I’d love to add to that over the next year too.

Basically, bigger and better. Whatever that looks like.

And finally

I’d have to be an absolute moron if I didn’t thank the most important person of all.

You, whoever you are. The person reading this. Despite this being a project for my own benefit, I’m so grateful to each and every one of you for reading the stuff that spills out of my brain and into my keyboard. Especially if you come back for more, you poor people. If there’s anything you’d like more of, or less of, please let me know.

See you in year two.

The post First Anniversary! appeared first on Punchboard.

The changes

Colour

The main thing I’ve changed in the redesign is the look of the site. Gone is the black and bold yellow, with the sharp, angular logo. Now I’ve got a fresh, white theme with mellow green and magenta colours. I’ve also made a new logo, which will serve for the time being until I hire someone with actual artistic talent.

Access to content

The review and blog pages have had an overhaul, and there’s a heading up there for Interviews now too, as there will be lots more coming in the future.

In the left sidebar (on anything other than a phone) you’ll see links to lots of the most-recent posts, as well as tabs for the most-commented, and a tag cloud if that’s how you want to search. The search at the top of the page still shows live search results, just as it did before.

Subscription

In the right sidebar, there’s a space to drop your email address to subscribe. If you do that, you’ll get email updates whenever I post anything new here.

Feedback

I appreciate everyone who takes the time to visit and read my stuff here. I’ve tested the new site, but if you find something that doesn’t work, or looks a bit janky, drop me a line and let me know. Or if you just want to tell me how much you like or hate the redesign, feel free to email me and say hello.

Thanks for everything folks,

Adam

The post Site Redesign appeared first on Punchboard.