I’m going to split this into three parts: Best light game, best medium-weight game, and best complex game, as I don’t think it’s fair to compare apples to oranges. There’s something for everyone, and I want to give my opinion which is the best of each bunch. I’m not including games that I previewed that aren’t available yet, and there may be games which are from late 2023, but I’m not being too fussy about release dates. This is about the games that I’ve reviewed this year.

Note that although this list is in no way sponsored or influenced by anything other than my own opinions, my retail partner kienda.co.uk happens to sell most of these games. If you haven’t already ordered through Kienda (who are great, for what it’s worth) make sure to sign up at kienda.co.uk/punchboard to get 5% off your first order of £60 or more.

Without further ado…

Best Light Game 2024

Winner – Looot

Looot came out of nowhere for me and it was a real hit. The gameplay is really easy to explain and there’s so much emergent strategy once you get the hang of it. Just the right amount of player interaction on the main board with any real take-that, a clever puzzle on your own board to maximise scoring, and the challenge of trying to tie that all together to come up with a win.

French publishers are on fire at the moment, and Looot is just another example of that. Gigamic have a hit on their hands, and when you consider the fact you can pick this up for less than £20, it’s a genuine no-brainer to have in your collection as far as I’m concerned.

You can read my full review here – Looot Review – and pick up a copy from Kienda right here.

Honourable mentions

Faraway – It was a close-run thing for me as to whether Faraway or Looot won best light game, but I just prefer Looot, and strictly speaking Faraway came out in 2023. The unique mechanism of building your simple tableau backwards works brilliantly, and messes with your brain in a way that most light games have no right to. It’s clever, quick and fun. You can read my full review here, and pick up a copy from Kienda here.

Molehill Meadows – Designer Chris Priscott is in a real purple patch. Not content with getting Zuuli snapped-up by Oink Games to become Moving Wild, he also released my favourite new flip-and-write of the year. Molehill Meadows is charming, easy to explain, and has a lot of variety and ways to explore. If you like roll-and-writes as much as I do, you’ll really enjoy Molehill Meadows. Read my review here, and pick up a copy from Kienda here.

Best Medium-weight Game 2024

Winner – Cascadero

This was by far the hardest category for me to choose this year. There are so many great games around now that won’t melt your brain but give you plenty to think about, but in the end, Cascadero from Bitewing Games and the seemingly eternal Reiner Knizia won out.

Cascadero is very easy to explain, plays out in less than an hour, but delivers a plethora of choices to make with every plonking of a horse. There’s a perfect level of interaction, it gives me cube rail feels, and ultimately turns into some kind of race game by the end of it. It’s a gorgeous, wonderfully enjoyable game which I keep teaching to new people just to share the love.

You can read my full review here – Cascadero Review – and pick up a copy from Kienda right here.

Honourable mentions

River of Gold – Described by many, including me, as feeling ‘a bit like Lords of Waterdeep’, River of Gold is great. It’s a clever mix of roll-and-move (trust me, it works), tableau building, contract fulfilment, and shared building spaces. Another game that’s simple enough to introduce to relative newcomers to the hobby, but with enough depth to keep hardcore nerds enjoying themselves, and with a beautiful board with inlaid metallic gold. Read my review here and pick up a copy for yourself from Kienda here.

Ironwood – It’s on the heavier side of medium-weight, but very deserving of its spot here. Ironwood is a two-player asymmetric game mixing area control with multi-use cards, and it’s a lot of fun. Mindclash games have delivered a game which feels like you’re getting the deluxe edition when you buy the base game. Less than £50 and including fancy wooden and metal pieces with a custom insert is great value, but on top of that the game is excellent. Check out the full review here, and treat yourself to a copy from Kienda here.

Best Complex Game 2024

Winner – Shackleton Base

This was another category I agonised over. Heavy games are my favourites, and I was spoiled for choice, but in the end, Shackleton Base won. I love the competition over the shared building space on the main board, combined with competition for achievements in each of the corporations on offer with each play. The game is pretty easy to play once you get the hang of it, but there are so many options open to you. It’s not just a case of choosing what to do, but also when to do it.

The individual boxes for everything in the game seems like a pointless extravagance at first, but it genuinely helps with set-up and teardown. There’s huge scope for variety by combining the included corporations in different combinations, and I’ve just had a huge amount of fun with the game every time I’ve played it. Bravo Fabio Lopiano and Nestore Mangone, and it’s yet another French publisher on the list!

You can read my full review here – Shackleton Base Review – and buy a copy of the game from Kienda here.

Honourable mentions

Arcs – Sacrilege to some, I know, but Arcs just missed out. It’s had a Marmite reception with most people either loving or hating the game., and I fell firmly into the former category. Cole Wehrle has some incredible designs to his name, and this is yet another. This isn’t the grand strategy 4X game you’re looking for, but it is the chaotic, ever-changing, space opera in a couple of hours nonsense you never knew you needed. If you like Cole’s other games like Root or Pax Pamir, I think you’ll get a kick out of Arcs. Read my full review here, and grab your own copy from Kienda here.

Sankoré – What’s the matter? Did you forget Sankoré came out in 2024? I’ll seem like a Fabio Lopiano fanboy including two of his games in my top three for the year, but Sankoré deserves it. It’s a vast, table-hogging game of yet more Ian O’Toole muted colours, but it’s excellent. Combining each of the mini-games on the main board (which is what they feel like) to score well requires some clever planning and often a lot of pivoting, but the end result is a satisfying, well-made heavy Euro, which you ought to try if you haven’t yet. Read my full review here and pick up a copy from Kienda here.

Summary

I’m fortunate enough to have played a lot of great games this year. Some old, some new, and it’s nice to be able to highlight the newer ones that really left their mark on me. Let me be clear by saying that on another day, any of the games in each category could have won it, and there is a whole heap of fantastic games that I just didn’t have the space to include.

What do you think? Do you agree with my choices, or have some others you’d put in their place? Am I on the money or a lunatic who has no idea what he’s doing? Let me know in the comments, or head over to find me on the various social channels and let me know.

Thank you for reading Punchboard this year and over any previous years. This is a hobby for me, but one that I love, so I’m going to keep going. Here’s to a game-filled, happy, healthy 2025 for you and your loved ones.

Adam.

The post Game of the Year 2024 appeared first on Punchboard.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert. This guide is written based on my personal experiences and opinions. Your mileage may vary.

Table of Contents

• Background
• Decide what kind of content you want, and know why you want it
• How should you approach creators?
• Paid content
• Free content
  • Previews
  • Reviews
• How do you choose a content creator? What should you look for?
  • Numbers
  • Personality
  • Demographics
• Support from your peers
• Over to you

Background

I’ve been running Punchboard for four years now. It’s a hobby for me, something I do because I enjoy doing it in my spare time when I’m not working full-time or being the dad in my family. During that time I’ve seen plenty of controversies, and more keep happening. As recently as this week there’s been another example of a content creator being deeply unethical, to say the very least. I wish I could say it’s the first time, but it isn’t, and it won’t be the last time either.

As someone trying to put your game out there in the world you’d be forgiven for not knowing how to get your game seen, or who to trust when you decide how. This guide won’t be recommending or warning off anyone in particular. Instead, I want to give you some basic tools to help you make an informed decision, so that people can find your game, find out if it would be a fit for them, and avoid any pitfalls along the way. Other content creators might disagree with me, but this is my guide, so it’s tough.

Decide what kind of content you want, and know why you want it

I’m not a marketing guru. I write reviews and previews, and I do a little bit of social media posting. I’m not going to tell you what you should be targeting and when, but I can at least point you in the right direction.

Speak to people who do this professionally: consultants. There are some great crowdfunding and marketing consultants out there. Invest in this part and you can take the guesswork out of the realms of “what should I be doing?” and focus on the “who do I want to do this with me?”.

You’ll probably find that you end up looking at a mixture of media and formats based on the stage of your game’s lifecycle that you’re in at any given time. In the build-up you might try to get some interviews on podcasts, then get some short-form (Tiktok, Reels etc.) content to raise awareness before launching your campaign. Once it’s out there in the wild, you’ll probably want to get reviews published so that others can tell the world how awesome your game is.

At this stage, it’s definitely worth thinking about what platforms you want your game on, and why. Let’s take reviews for example, as that’s a part of the puzzle I feel confident in talking about. There are plenty of different ways to get a review out there, but each has its pros and cons. Let’s look at some quick examples.

Where do you want reviews posted?

Tricky, isn’t it? There’s no perfect all-in-one solution, so it’s common for people to use multiple platforms. And this is just for reviews. This is all on top of paid advertising considerations like Facebook ads, promotion on Google etc.

Once you choose the platforms you want to use, that’s where the most confusing part starts.

How should you approach creators?

You’ll notice I said approach instead of ‘choose’ because even if you want someone to cover your game, there’s no guarantee you’ll get them. There are a lot of reasons why, but I’ll come to those shortly. You’ve got two approaches for this – direct and prospective.

Direct involves just reaching out to people and getting in touch. Most of the ‘bigger’ outlets will have information available about how to contact them, what they expect, lead times, what they cover, and what they explicitly don’t cover. If you reach out to the really big channels, don’t take it personally if they tell you no, and don’t be surprised if their backlog is too big to work for you.

Prospective is where it gets interesting. It’s essentially an open call for people to contact you to see if you want them to cover your game. You could do this via your mailing list, Facebook groups, or posts on social media. If you choose to post on Facebook it is very important to get in touch with the group admins first to make sure they’re happy for you to post your advert. The same is true of any Discord servers, and other community hubs. People want you to contribute to a community, not just leech from it. The last thing you want to do is immediately get a bad name for yourself before you even start.

The most popular route that I know of (and am in no way endorsing) is the Facebook group Board Game Reviewers & Media. Again, check the rules before you post anything.

Once you get this far you get to one of the most contentious issues of them all. Paid-for vs Free content.

Paid content

Be super, super careful when it comes to paying for content. Let me get the most important part out of the way first. It is not normal to pay for reviews. It doesn’t matter who tells you it is, it isn’t. Morally, ethically, and even legally in many parts of the world, a paid-for review isn’t a real thing. If you want someone’s opinion, money cannot change hands. Some creators will tell you it’s okay, they’ll tell you they can remain unbiased, and they’ll tell you whatever it takes for money to leave your account and make it to theirs. Make no mistake – any reviewer worth their salt will stand firm on the principle that a paid review is nothing more than an advert, and should never be called a review. 99% of the reviewers I’ve met, engaged with, or read opinions from online are vehemently opposed to paid reviews and the people who make them.

That said, there is still plenty you can pay a content creator for and keep your morals intact. Playthroughs can be a really good investment, highlighting your game in great detail and showing how it works. You might pay for someone to do a thorough how-to-play video, supplementing the rulebook with something players can use as an alternate reference.

You can even pay for a crowdfunding preview, just be aware that as with reviews, paying for an opinion is a no-no. If you watch the vast majority of preview videos you’ll notice that they’re strictly informational when it comes to the game itself. “This thing looks cool”. “I really like worker-placement in games”. “Look at the great artwork on the board”. The list goes on, but none of it tells you if the person thought the game was good, or fun. There’s nothing wrong with that as such, it’s just something you might not expect or even be aware of. Free previews can get the praise and adoration you’re looking for, as well as gaining exposure for lesser-known creators.

Free content

Most of the creators you will interact with are not professional. I’m not professional. This isn’t my job. I’m not a trained, qualified journalist. We do these things because we have a love of a hobby and the people and things in it, and we want to spread that love. Keep this at the forefront of your thoughts when you deal with creators, and use it to temper your expectations.

When you aren’t paying for a service, generally speaking, you aren’t entering into a contract with someone. You might have a conversation where someone promises to make a video within two weeks of getting the game, but don’t bank on it, especially if it’s your first interaction with someone. There is zero level of expectation on the part of the person writing or recording something about your game. Promises, platitudes, kind words and anything else are great in theory, but it might not always work out.

Previews

If you’re sending out a precious prototype copy of your game, set out any expectations upfront. Explain how many creators need the copy forwarded around to, offer to pay for postage and packing to send it on, and keep in touch with the person so it doesn’t slip through the cracks.

Whether you choose to send the person a final copy of the game is up to you. Don’t let anyone pressure you into it, and don’t believe them if they say you must send them a copy. You might choose to offer one, and it is very common to do so, but there’s nothing written in stone. Especially if you’re doing a small print run and are relying on the income from selling all of the copies to pay the bills.

Reviews

If we’re talking about a review of a finished product instead of a preview copy, understand that if you send the person a free copy of the game, it is essentially a gift. Treat it as nothing more. Don’t get me wrong, most creators are good and will deliver the review they offer, but understanding that you might not get anything in return is just being realistic and will save you a whole lot of heartache.

“That’s not very professional”, you might think, which is where I urge you to read the first sentence of this section again.

How do you choose a content creator? What should you look for?

We’ve got this far. We know what kinds of content we want for the game, and we know whether we want to pay for it or not. If you put out a prospective call for creators you might have had a ton of applicants you’ve now got to filter through them and decide who you want to make something for you. The problem you might face, especially if you’re relatively new to tabletop games, is that you don’t know these people. You might not be familiar with them or their sites, channels, or podcasts. So how on Earth do you decide who you talk to?

It’s not easy, but there are things you can do to help.

Numbers

Ultimately, what you want is to sell your game to people. You want them to enjoy the thing you’ve created, and maybe you want to make some money at the same time. With this in mind, you want to understand how much reach your potential creators have, and ideally, what that reach entails. Let’s look at a few examples.

YouTube – YouTube is nice and easy for the most part. You can easily check how frequently someone is publishing videos, you can check how many subscribers they have, and you can see how many views their videos get. This alone isn’t enough. Subscribers can be bought, and people can knock out poor-quality videos 10 times a day to boast how many they’ve made, but it doesn’t mean anything if nobody is watching them. Tools like Social Blade are great here. You can look at a channel and look for red flags. If their subscribers graph suddenly has a near-vertical ramp in it, there’s a good chance they paid for subscribers. This isn’t what you want. You want real people who really watch their videos.

Instagram / Tiktok – The same is true of Instagram & Tiktok really. You can quickly see how many followers an account has, you can see how often they post, and more importantly, how much engagement their posts are getting. The algorithms in services like these are very clever at putting the right content in front of the right people when their engagement is good. Are they getting lots of comments and likes? Are people sharing their posts and videos? Do their posts make you take notice, and do you enjoy them? If you’re still unsure, ask them. It’s easy to get analytics on their part.

Written / Blogs – As a writer I can say that we’re often forgotten about when it comes to quantifying how well we do. Most people want to know how many subscriptions a person has, which is great if you’re on YouTube, but not so great if you’re posting written pieces to websites. All is not lost though! Anyone using a platform like WordPress can get really useful analytics and demonstrate how many views their work is getting. If they post their reviews on BGG’s forums you can see how many thumbs and comments they get. If you use Google Analytics and Google Search Console you can get even better information. You can find out how many visitors per day they get, and what their SEO (search engine optimisation) is like.

Podcasts – Podcasts can be really tricky. Podcasting platforms have their own analytics tools, so you can speak to the hosts and ask them about their numbers of subscribers and listens per episode, and you can see where they rank in various podcast service charts, but it’s tricky. The best thing to do is have an open and honest conversation and ask questions.

One of the easiest tests you can do is to head to your favourite search engine and search for ‘<name of game> review‘ and look through the first couple of pages, to see if the review of the game you know they’ve reviewed appears there. Choose a game in the same sort of genre as yours. You want to be findable, right? Visible? Do you want your game’s review to appear on page 20 of Google because the creator has terrible SEO and fills their pages with ads or spam in an attempt to make a few quid, or makes low-quality videos?

If you’re in any doubt, ask. Any respectable content creator will be up-front with the information.

Personality

Do a little digging when you think you might have found someone. At least do the bare minimum in terms of due diligence. Read their About pages, watch/read/listen to some of their content and see what you think of it. Someone might have all the warmth and charisma of a robot, but have a dry sense of humour which really resonates with you and your game’s theme. Someone else might wear their political stance front-and-centre and it might be that even if you have the same leanings, you don’t want your game associated with someone so outwardly political.

The best thing to do is exchange some words with someone. People are just people, after all. Strike up a conversation by email, or invite them to talk in a Zoom or Teams meeting if there’s money changing hands. You can very quickly get a feeling for someone, so trust your instincts.

As I was taught in my first (and only) retail job – People buy people first.

Demographics

This is where we start to look at some of the less obvious things. What kind of person does the creator you’re considering interact with the most? Someone might not have the same raw numbers as a bigger, more established outlet, but what if their engagement comes from communities you want to target? Let’s imagine you’ve made a game about being a musician. A creator who’s also a musician may not only have a better understanding of the subject of your game, but they might also engage with musicians in their day-to-day lives, busting open the dam of a new pool of potential players.

Is your game an adults-only party game full of double-entendres and outright naughtiness? That massive YouTube channel that covers family games might not be a good match for you. Maybe you’ve made a game and you’re proud of how eco-friendly and sustainable it is. Look for people who value and feature that aspect of its production. Your game about fluffy bunnies isn’t going to do well on a channel that covers hardcore wargames, and vice versa.

What about just choosing to support a channel that’s run by people from marginalised or under-represented groups? You might just open your game up to an unexpected audience. Be open to avenues you hadn’t considered when you started out.

Raw numbers are a good place to start, but only a part of the whole picture.

Support from your peers

It’s all well and good for me to preach to you like I know everything, but I don’t know it all, I don’t understand it all, and I’m not pretending I do. The stuff I’ve written above is all based on my own personal experience, and from watching from the wings as yet another scandal comes to the surface. But I have my own biases, as we all do. For instance, I want people to consider written content more than they might, because – shocker – I write reviews.

So talk to people in your position. Speak to other designers and publishers. It’s a reassuringly tight-knit group of people for the most part. Those of you based in the UK should check out the Board Game Designers UK Facebook group, and there’s a bigger, international group here at the Board Game Design Lab. Even without that though, reach out to other people. Ask questions, talk to them. People have been through the same things you have, faced the same questions, and made the same mistakes, and many are happy to share the benefit of their experience.

Head to conventions, even if your game is nowhere near being ready to show. Meet other designers and talk to them about their experiences. Find out what they have and haven’t tried, and what worked for them. The digital content landscape is constantly changing, so dedicate a little time to keeping up with what’s going on. As an example of what I mean, during the course of my writing the draft for this piece, X (Twitter) has been banned in Brazil. Not great news for the Portuguese language game you were hoping to promote on X.

Over to you

As I said at the outset, this whole article is written from my perspective from the other side of the looking glass. It’s a small lens to be looking at it through, I admit, and my knowledge of the likes of TikTok and Instagram is far behind those who actively use it, and do well from it.

That’s why I’d like to turn it over to you. Especially if you’re a publisher or designer who has recently been through this whole process, or interacts with it on a regular basis. I’d love to know about your top tips, potential pitfalls, and recommended communities. Please, reach out to me either in the comments here, my social channels (linked at the top and bottom of this page), or good old-fashioned email via adam at punchboard dot co dot uk.

If there’s enough feedback I’ll post another article written from the POV of the people actually in the trenches, dealing with it regularly. Thanks for reading.

The post How to find a content creator for your game appeared first on Punchboard.

If you’ve no idea what the UKGE is, you can read about past events in my write-ups for 2021, 2022, and 2023 respectively. It’s the biggest games convention in the UK and the third biggest in the world I’m reliably informed that actually there other shows across France and other countries that are plenty bigger too. I need to do some more research! It means that despite the show taking place in three massive halls, it gets busy. Really busy. But that’s a part of the charm.

I’ve said it a lot of times before but it bears repeating. There’s something special about being surrounded by thousands of like-minded people. It gives you a buzz that stays with you for days. If ever you feel your love for the hobby getting stale, head to a convention. It’s like drinking an elixir of gaming rejuvenation.

Ringing the changes

For the most part, every UKGE is the same, but when you’ve been a few times you start to notice small changes. The Shop and Drop, for example, is usually my first port of call. It’s a stand where you can rent a storage box for the day to pick up and drop off anything you’re carrying so you don’t have to lug it around all day. However, when I went to the point in Hall 3 first thing but it wasn’t even setup ready to go. Not a great start, but later while I was wandering the halls I realised that there was another Shop and Drop in Hall 1 too. This was great to see and helped keep the crowds more manageable.

There were some notable absentees from the exhibitors this year. Publishers such as Queen Games and Games Workshop had big stands in the past, but neither was there. Instead, though, there seemed to be more independent publishers than I remember in the past. More gaming-adjacent stalls selling dice, 3D-printed dragons, journals, clothing, bags, and even replica weapons. I spoke to two vendors who were selling cosplay masks and weapons who had never been to the UKGE before but saw enough business to want to come back again.

Ticketing and the Bring and Buy were different too. Collecting tickets seemed quicker and easier than in the past. Especially as a member of the press, I got ushered straight to the front which felt cheeky, but welcome after five hours in the car. I heard stories from some people who had to queue for the best part of an hour on Saturday morning, but if you turn up on the busiest day of the show, you’ve got to expect to queue.

The Bring and Buy saw a big change which limited the number of items any one person could list, fix minimum prices, and prevent price changes during the show. Some people said there seemed to be fewer games in there, but those who added games to the sale experienced a much smaller queue thanks to people not being able to abuse the system by bringing literally hundreds of games in to sell.

On the whole things are improving little-by-little, year-on-year, and it’s a good thing too, because it’s only getting bigger. 39,306 individual people attended, making for 65,281 total visitors over the weekend. That’s incredible.

My time at the show

After picking Paul from Gaming Rules! up on the way, I got to my hotel in time for a quick shower before heading over to the halls. A quick curry at Wetherspoons and a pint of Leffe later and it was off to the press preview. It seemed like there were more stalls than usual and it was a great chance to say hello to people I didn’t know and to catch up with those I do. From there it was over to open gaming to meet up with my extended board game family and play some games.

Friday was another whirlwind of people, stands, and meetings. The buzz around the halls was electric all day and all night. Even though there was barely space to sit and play in Open Gaming until later in the evening, it was great. I was especially pleased as Stefan from Feuerland Spiele came across from Germany for the show and brought a prototype of the new Uwe Rosenberg game, Black Forest, with him. Part Glass Road, part Nusfjord, part something new, it’s a great game with a ton of things to think about. I’m already looking forward to playing it again, and very grateful to Stefan and Paul for the chance to play.

Over the course of the day, I racked up 18,000 steps, and didn’t my feet just know it! It was worth it though. Despite feeling exhausted I couldn’t get to sleep for love nor money that night as my brain tried to process the sensory overload from the previous 14 hours.

Saturday is usually my final day at the expo, and this year was the same. There’s only so much I can take when it’s busy, and Saturday was even busier than Friday, which was already crazy. In some parts of the halls, you could barely move at times, which leads to some frustration for some visitors. People grow tired and impatient, and a few people I know who were demonstrating for various publishers told me about some rude visitors they had. Those people are greatly in the minority, thankfully, and on the whole, the atmosphere is brilliant. There were lots of people with various mobility problems, or pushing prams, and people were considerate enough to help them get from point A to point B.

By mid-afternoon, I was done. Another 17,000 steps on the soles of my feet, a dehydration headache (despite constantly drinking water) and arms and shoulders complaining due to carrying far too many boxes, I made my way back to my car. Four-and-a-half hours later with another 260 miles on my poor car’s odometer, I was home and unwinding. Happy, enthused, and desperate to play more games already.

Thank you

Adding a quick edit here: I can’t believe I forgot to mention Flavien and the crew from Hachette Boardgames UK. He’s the most unmissable person at these shows. Je suis désolé Flav.

I won’t come close to thanking everyone who made my weekend what it was, but I’ll try. Thanks to Paul for the company in the car and the invite to play Black Forest. To Mark, Jill, Clare, Hilmar, Mak, John, Peter, Ben and the rest of the Gaming Rules! crew who chatted and played games with me. To JP, Davey, Tambo, Becky, Kerley, Adrian, Rob (seriously, how many of you are there…?) and whoever else I’ve forgotten from the Whose Turn is it Anyway podcast team for laughs and the invite to a dirty hot dog. To Iain and Oliver of Brainwaves and Rich from their Discord server for the company at breakfast and on the walk to and from the halls. To Tim Clare, whose writing exercises I was doing earlier this year, for playing games with me, introducing me to new ones, and being great company. To Chris, Chris, Jess, Gavin, Devon, Dorka, Ola, Dave, Mark, Sophie, and the countless other publishers and designers who talked to me about everything from their games to the state of American politics. The games are cool, but the people make UKGE what it is.

And of course, a massive thank you to everyone who helped organise and run the expo, the volunteers on the stalls, and the NEC staff for keeping things running.

See you all next year!

The post UK Games Expo 2024 Convention Report appeared first on Punchboard.

If you want to read about my experiences, you can do that right here:

• 2021 UKGE convention report
• 2022 UKGE convention report
• 2023 UKGE convention report

Is it really busy?

The first thing you need to know about is the crowds. The UKGE is busy. Crazy busy. In 2022 there were approximately 23,000 people there for the three days. In 2023 that grew to 31,000. What does that look like in real life?

That photo was taken at lunchtime on Saturday last year and is a view down from the top of the stairs into one of the three halls that the convention occupies. While you can get outside whenever you want, or spend time in the quieter Hall 3 where the open gaming area is, if you want to get around and see the stalls, demo some games, and do some shopping, you’ll have to contend with a lot of people around you.

For some people that’s a deal-breaker, and I absolutely understand. There are times when I’m desperate for a bit of peace and quiet, and I love the hustle and bustle, so if it’s outside your comfort zone, it can definitely feel like too much.

If you’re apprehensive about the crowds but still want to experience it, my best advice is to turn up at least an hour after the doors open, so from 10am onwards. Before that there will be literally thousands of people queueing outside the main doors for each hall. It’s also quieter towards the end of the day, after 3pm.

What can I actually do there?

Buying games

UKGE is definitely tailored towards people who want to go and spend some money. There’s generally nothing there that you couldn’t buy online any other time, but there’s something special about doing it in person. Staring at the shelves of games, picking them up, looking for bargains or something a bit different.

Some people go with the bring-and-buy in mind, an area where you can check your used games in to sell them and to browse and buy the games that other people have brought to sell. You can get some real bargains in there, for sure, but I wouldn’t recommend going just for the bring-and-buy. There’s so much more to do.

Playing games

We go to the UKGE because we love playing games, so it makes sense that you can actually play games while you’re there. There’s a huge open gaming area which takes up most of Hall 3. It’s made up of rows upon rows of tables and chairs where you can just sit down and start playing something. Maybe a game you brought with, maybe something you’ve bought at the show, or maybe a game you borrowed from the well-stocked library that’s there.

For people like me who don’t get to go to too many conventions each year, it’s a great chance to catch up with old friends, many of whom I only know because I met them at previous conventions. Being able to sit down and play something together is great, and the seating and relative quiet of open gaming is a blessing at times.

There are also plenty of games being demonstrated on the show floor. At any given moment you shouldn’t have to walk more than 30ft to find someone wanting to show you their new game. I really encourage you to do it too, you’ll meet some wonderful people and discover games you otherwise never would.

Events

You can sign up for a ton of different events at the show. From tournaments for games like Lorcana and Catan, through to workshops on how to create and run an RPG. There are live podcast recordings, megagames, nerdy music performances, celebrities, and talks. You can sign up to take part in RPGs, paint a miniature and take it home with you, or even learn how to fight with a light saber. There is a plethora of different things to organise and have on your schedule before you even go. Take a look at the UKGE Events page and see if something grabs your fancy.

Things I wish I’d known before I went for the first time

Forewarned is forearemed, so here are my top tips for your first visit to UKGE.

• Take good shoes! If you aren’t in a wheelchair or small enough to be carried by someone else, you will spend a lot of time on your feet. The halls of the NEC are huge, as is the walk in from the car park. Most days I struggle to do the recommended 10,000 steps per day. My average steps on a day at the UKGE is +22,000. Make sure you have comfy, supportive footwear. Your feet will thank you.
• Food and drink. You’re spoiled for choice when it comes to finding something to eat and drink in the NEC, but it’s not cheap, and around mealtimes the stalls and shops can get very busy. My advice is to go armed with a decent size water bottle, which you can refill from the free water stations around the building. It’s a hot, busy, air-conditioned building, and it’s easy to get dehydrated if you’re too caught up in games. If you don’t want to spend a small fortune on lunch, take some sandwiches or a packed lunch.
• Shop and drop. My first stop every year when the show opens is the Shop and drop booth. For £3 you get a ticket and a cardboard box in the back of the booth. As you shop during the day, you can drop off any purchases in your allocated box, and take them whenever you want. They have to be collected before the end of the day, but as long as you remember that then there’s no reason for you to be lugging boxes around all day. Buy your games, drop them off at your box, and then go and get them at the end of the day.
• Be conscientious and kind. This is a huge one for me. There are a lot of people at the show, and in some areas things are really cramped. If you take a huge backpack and you’re wearing it, remember when you turn 90 degrees to look at a stall, you’re spinning a battering ram. I’ve seen kids and wheelchair users hit in the face by careless bags. Everyone is excited, everyone wants to see everything, just remember the other humans around you so that they can enjoy it too.

Over to you

Are you a frequent convention visitor? Do you go to UKGE. What are your top tips to make your visit a great one?

If you’ve got any questions at all, please drop a comment and I’ll answer.

The post So you’re going to the UK Games Expo and don’t know what to expect? appeared first on Punchboard.

Is it morally reprehensible? Does it make me a bad person?

Or is it actually okay?

A bit of background

When we talk about war games in the modern context, I’m not talking about abstract games like Chess, Go, or Shogi. I’m talking about tabletop games which simulate conflict in some way. Although we think of wargames as a relatively recent invention, this sort of game has been around since the late 18th Century. Most of the early examples came from Prussia, and in the early 20th Century a certain H G Wells (yes, the same H G Wells who wrote The War of the Worlds) even published wargame rules in a book titled Little Wars.

A lot of the early examples were made as educational simulations for the military, but games weren’t mass-produced until the 1950s. That’s when Charles S Roberts founded Avalon Hill and started producing board game wargames. Boxes which contain everything you need to play games like the one which started it all, Gettysburg. Even if you haven’t played an Avalon Hill game, if you’ve been in the board game scene for any length of time, it’s likely you’ve heard of them. The ripples that Avalon Hill games made can still be felt today, thanks to perennial titles like Diplomacy and Advanced Squad Leader.

Ordinary people like me and you have been simulating war on our tables for the last seventy years. Are we monsters?

The voice of experience

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert in this field. I know what I enjoy, but I’ve never studied game design, I haven’t studied history formally for the best part of 30 years, and I’m not a student of philosophy. With my level of ignorance already established, I reached out to a couple of wargame designers, people who have both a vested interest in wargames, and a lot of experience in the area.

Volko Ruhnke had a hand in many of the COIN games that GMT Games published, including two of my favourite games of all time – Cuba Libre (review here) and Fire in the Lake.

David Thompson can list games like War Chest, Pavlov’s House, and the Undaunted series on his CV.

I asked each of them the same questions, and here’s the short version of their answers.

Q&A

Me: Do you think it’s morally wrong to enjoy a wargame based on real events?

Volko: No, no more so than enjoying a book, article, movie, play, or any other medium of examination of real events, war included. But I would be interested to hear why someone would separate games from those media in regard to morality.

David: My answer to the question is “no,” but with a caveat. It’s all about the word “enjoy” and what aspect of the game you’re enjoying. For me, I play historical wargames to help explore the situation. I study the maps, the units involved, the reason for the conflict, and use the game as a way to help that exploration. The study is what I enjoy, and playing the game (either solitaire or multiplayer) helps that exploration, and thus provides that enjoyment by extension.

However, each person has different limits to that enjoyment. For me, I don’t like designing (or playing!) games that put the player in the role of performing immoral or unethical actions. For example, in my game “Soldiers in Postmen’s Uniforms,” I don’t allow a player to take on the role of the Danzig city police and German attackers because of the atrocities they commit during the game itself.

Me: Do you have a personal cut-off period for when soon is too soon? So for example, wars in the middle-east, Ukraine, etc. Is there a length of time you feel it’s okay to tackle them, after the end of the conflict?

Volko: No, I don’t. I designed the boardgame Labyrinth in 2009, when its setting, the “global war on terror”, was still very much on, and with an uncertain end. The design remains highly popular today, so apparently it is bringing enjoyment to people. And it has spawned to expansions that examine where things went in the real world from the time of the original game’s printing.

I would return to my comparison above to ask, should there be a cut-off period for writing or film-making to tackle wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, etc.? And, if not, why should game designers uniquely muzzle themselves?

Imagine a cut-off period in topics examined by professional wargaming for the US Department of Defense or the British MoD. Would that not be absurd?

David: Yes, absolutely. For me, I don’t work on games about conflicts where there are living combatants. So WW2 is my cut-off (there are still some WW2 survivors of course, but not for any of the games I’ve designed). I’ve been approached about designing games set in more modern periods, and it’s not something I’m comfortable with. But if I did consider it, I wouldn’t feel comfortable working on the game without the consent of the living combatants.

Me: Is there anything you outright do or do not put into your games, because you have strong personal feelings about them?

Volko: I try (with uncertain success) to include the perspectives and intentions of all the major actors in the affair. That is easier said than done, and we could talk about the importance, challenges, and strategies for doing so at some length.

David: I would just point back to my answer for the initial question. It’s not so much something I do, as something I don’t do. I don’t allow players to take on the role of directly committing immoral or unethical actions in the context of the game itself. This can be a bit of tightrope act – the critical element for me is the context of the game itself.

Me: What would you say to anyone telling me, you, or anyone else that they’re a bad person for enjoying a wargame?

Volko: I would ask them to say more about why they think so, and with regard to what games. Individual player motivations, representations in individual game designs, and individual life situations of those who may level ethical critique of wargaming are all decisive to this issue.

David: I think it’s fine for a person to have that opinion. I don’t necessarily agree with it (see above), but I do understand why someone might feel that way. And to be honest, there have been instances of gamers (not just wargamers) who enjoy elements of games that make me feel uncomfortable (fascination with Nazi Germany, colonization, slavery, etc). And for that reason, I can see why people, in general, might think it’s odd to enjoy a wargame. My only request would be that the person tries to expand their viewpoint and perspective, to try to better understand why gamers might enjoy wargames.

The takeaway

David and Volko are both very successful designers, but even they don’t agree on all aspects. In saying that, it’s important to realise that these are very concise answers, and there’s a huge amount of nuance at play. I’ll be speaking to each of them in more detail soon to go into it all more, as I find it fascinating.

The one thing they absolutely agree on is that it’s perfectly acceptable to play a wargame and have fun with it. So let’s have a look at the things which turn them from the glorification of bloodshed to something we can enjoy in good conscience.

Games as an educational tool

When I was at school, history didn’t do anything for me. I liked science and geography. As I’ve grown older, my interest in what came before me has grown, and modern wargames have been a fantastic teacher.

When I started playing these games, I was surprised by the level of depth in the history and background of each of them. Most board games, even those based on a very specific setting, might only have a couple of paragraphs of background. Open a wargame, and you’re in for a very different experience.

The COIN games take an approach of only very lightly covering the scenario in the rulebook, but the playbooks have some great examples and expansions on those themes. I love the way the game delivers the history piecemeal, with each card representing a real-world event from the time. When I first drew the ‘Sinatra’ card in Cuba Libre, it led me to Google, and in turn a rabbit hole of reading about his meeting with the heads of the crime syndicate in Cuba in 1946.

While I was playing Salerno ’43 I spent a lot of time reading the rulebook. Mostly to learn how to play, but also because I found the level of depth that Mark Simonitch had gone into absolutely insane. In the design notes towards the end of the book he has an explanation for why one particular road isn’t on the map of Northern Italy he used:

Why no Amalfi Coast Road?
I left out the coastal road that runs between the towns of Amalfi and Sorrento because some playertesters were using it to supply a multi-division force along the road to rush up the west coast. This famous scenic road which runs along cliffs and through tunnels would never have been used to supply even a single regiment—it was far too vulnerable to sabotage and demolition.

When I reviewed By Stealth and Sea, by DVG, I was honestly taken aback by the level of detail Nicola and David (the designers) had gone to. If you don’t know the game, you play as Italian submariners who ride torpedoes into bays, in an attempt to take down allied ships. Each of the crew members on the torpedoes has a name and a photograph. These aren’t just made-up names and faces, these are the actual human beings who took part in these terrifying missions. Once again, I learned so much about a portion of history I never knew existed, and I couldn’t help but feel a strong emotional connection to each of them, despite them being a part of the Axis. This leads us nicely to my next consideration.

Levels of abstraction

In my limited exposure to the genre of wargames I’ve noticed that the scale of the games can vary greatly. Using a similar size board on my table, I can be controlling huge numbers of soldiers across the entire country of India in Gandhi (review here), or individual, named soldiers in Lanzerath Ridge. I found the difference in scale interesting and found that the different levels of abstraction in wargames have well-known scales.

If you have a look at the BGG category for Wargame, the games tend to get split into one of three sub-categories:

• Tactical – these games are at the sort of scale I talked about before in Lanzerath Ridge, or the Undaunted series. Identifiable individual soldiers or units moving around a map that might only be a few miles across.
• Operational – moving the operational level is the equivalent of ‘zooming out’ on the battlefield. Our counters representing individual soldiers become battalions, brigades, or divisions. Those of you more experienced than me might disagree, but to my mind, this is the sort of scale we’re talking about with Simonitch’s ‘4x series of games.
• Strategic – at the strategic level we’re looking at entire continents at a time, or even the entire world. I don’t have much in the way of experience here unless you’re counting games like Twilight Struggle.

So the scale is a thing. But how does it tie back to the original topic of this article, and why it matters when it comes to enjoying wargames, or not

Some people can feel very uncomfortable when it comes to taking named people into a battle, knowing they may die, and knowing that that person may well have gone into combat and died. Even while writing that, there’s a small something inside me that’s flinching.

Taking a step back from the on-the-ground bloodshed isn’t a case of denying it, or negating the fact that it ever happened. It just makes it more comfortable for some people to enjoy when it’s in the form of entertainment. And it’s understandable. We play games to have fun, most of the time, and if someone adds something to your game which makes you feel uneasy, or straight-up upset, is that something you want? There is definitely a time and a place to bring those things to the fore, but we’re talking about an elective activity, a way to spend your free time.

This is all a round-the-houses way of me trying to say if you feel happier playing a game at the operational level, rather than the tactical, go for it. It doesn’t mean you’re denying the fact it ever happened.

In closing

I want to apologise for the way this article may feel like it’s leading you down a dead end sometimes. It’s been as much an opportunity for internal reflection and resolution as it has been for creating something for other people to read. Right off the bat, I asked ‘Is it okay to enjoy wargames?’, and the answer I’ve come up with is an ambiguous ‘it depends’.

Each of us has our own moral compass, with its North set by our upbringing, education and personal opinions. If the idea of war is so abhorrent to you that you wouldn’t even watch a film or TV series about it, then a wargame isn’t going to be for you. But that doesn’t mean the same applies to everybody else. Enjoying a wargame doesn’t mean you’re glorifying and making light of the sacrifice made by thousands of people, or the atrocities carried out in the name of genocidal maniacs. Quite the opposite.

When I play these games it provides me with entertainment, but also a sense of reverence, humility and appreciation. It’s keeping history alive, and making sure these things aren’t forgotten or twisted by works of fiction, or the minds of people who would seek to obscure them in the fog of time. Thanks to All Bridges Burning (review here) I know about the Finnish Civil War, and the power struggle between the Red and White, with Germany and Russia playing their parts. By Stealth and Sea (review here) taught me about the Italian men who set out on near-suicidal missions with unreliable equipment, all in the name of someone else’s fight. There’s even a free downloadable PDF companion book for the latter. Both are fantastic games, and eye-opening glimpses into a past I didn’t know existed.

Enjoy your wargames for the same reasons you enjoy a good book or film set during a war.

Feedback and disclaimer

Thanks for getting this far. Just a quick note to say that this entire article is based on my opinion, and in some places, the opinions of others. If you have any feedback, questions, or concerns, please just leave a comment, come and find me on Discord, or drop me an email using adam at punchboard dot co dot uk.

I also want to say a huge thank you to both Volko and David for their valuable input, and for taking the time to talk to me.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to read more like this, consider supporting the site by joining my monthly membership at Kofi. It starts from £1 per month, offers member benefits, and lets me know you’re enjoying what I’m doing.

The post Is it okay to enjoy wargames? appeared first on Punchboard.

GridCon is an annual board game convention held in the South-West of the UK. It just so happens that I a) live a couple of hours down the road from it, and b) am a Patreon supporter of the organiser, Paul Grogan, so there was no way I wasn’t going back this year.

When it comes to conventions there are two main types. Some of them have a very heavy commercial presence. There are sponsors wherever you look, and halls of vendors, designers, and publishers showing and selling their wares. Think of events like UK Games Expo (my report of this year’s is here), Essen Spiel, GenCon, PAXU.

On the flip side, you have the ‘play’ style conventions. These conventions are all about playing the games you already own. Most have a much higher proportion of open gaming spaces – tables where you can just rock-up with your games, and play to your heart’s content. These are usually smaller events, such as BayCon, KCon, and AireCon (here’s another write-up of this year’s event).

GridCon sits firmly in the latter. There’s only one retailer in attendance (Games Lore), and even then they only had one table in the corner of one of the rooms. If you want to spend money, your best bet is the bring-and-buy.

My time at GridCon 3

Thursday

I had been eagerly looking forward to GridCon all year. Paul runs Gaming Rules!, a YouTube channel which specialises in how-to-play tutorial videos for board games. As a Patreon supporter of his, I have access to the supporters’ Slack server, where I chat daily, and where I’ve made quite a few good friends. GridCon is a chance for lots of us to get together in person, so the excitement has been building there for months now.

After a detour on the way up to help Paul and Vicky (Paul’s partner) cart some boxes over to the venue, and after checking into my Airbnb home for the weekend, I headed to the hotel hosting the convention and caught up with old friends, including Mark and Andrew who’d travelled all the way over from Malta just for the event. It’s worth mentioning early, and I’ll almost certainly repeat myself, but the most pleasure I get from a convention is the time spent with good people. It’s incredibly good for my mental health, and I’m sure it does the same for others.

We shared a few beers, hugs and laughs, then settled in for a multiple-hour game of Food Chain Magnate. It was my first time playing one of Splotter’s games in person, but it certainly won’t be my last. What I remember of it was very good: cutthroat, tactical, and a surprisingly light ruleset for what is a heavy game. Tiredness (and maybe beer and cider) got the better of me, and I headed back to my room, ready for the start of GridCon proper.

Friday

On Friday morning I treated myself to that most extravagant of breakfasts – a Subway from the petrol station – and arrived to see a packed hotel bar, full of eager and excited board game fans. It doesn’t matter if it’s your first convention, or your fiftieth, the feeling of anticipation combined with excitement doesn’t fade. It’s a special feeling.

After the doors opened at 9am, the rest of the day was a bit of a blur. I got in a game of Scout before a scheduled teach + play of Unconscious Mind, which was excellent. Keep an eye out for that one, which is on Kickstarter at the time of writing. From there, straight over to a game of Pingyao: First Chinese Banks which I organised. By that point, it was late in the afternoon, and what I should have done is take a break for some food and rest. Instead, I agreed to a four-player game of Beyond The Sun, which was great.

Now, while it’s not exactly a hardship to be away from home, playing games for a few days, by the time the sun goes down, you can feel pretty spent. Your brain gets frazzled, and you’ll probably want to stretch your legs and move around. I just wanted something to eat, a cold beer, and an hour not thinking – which is exactly got. The food at the Holiday Inn which hosted the con was tasty and hot, even if it did take a long time to order sometimes.

From there I just milled around with friends, chatted, caught-up with people, and then had a game of Hadrian’s Wall (review here, the best flip-and-write game available). There’s a lovely feeling towards the end of the night at a convention like this, where the buzz of the day quietens and those with the stamina to keep going, retire to the bar and restaurant area to play quietly under lamps. It’s times like this where the sense of belonging really hits hard.

Saturday

First thing on Saturday morning, I’d booked out one of the ‘Hot games’ on offer, fresh from Essen. As soon as I saw Uwe Rosenberg had a new game out, I knew I had to try it, and Atiwa did not disappoint. I won’t go into too much detail, because I fully expect to be reviewing it before took long. Let’s just say that even after a single play, I think it might be my game of the year.

Thanks to a 6:30 am start to the day (I watched the England women’s Rugby Union team take on New Zealand in the world cup final – so close, girls!) I was already fading, so I headed off to the restaurant to grab some food and a coffee, and to watch the huge game of Dark Ages going on in there. They’d commandeered three or four tables to set it all up – a truly epic undertaking.

After that came the game I was looking forward to most all weekend, a four-player game of Cuba Libre. I’ve reviewed other COIN games here before (Gandhi and All Bridges Burning), and Cuba Libre is another example of how good they can be. Part of my excitement was for the game, the other part because I knew I was going to play with friends from Slack, including Peter, and George, who flew in from Greece for the weekend!

Sadly, my GridCon came to an end after four hours of trying to control Cuba. It was time for me to say my goodbyes, get in my car, and drive home. I get so exhausted at these gatherings that I need a full day to recharge before going back to work, and I had to work on Monday. I can get a bit emotional when good things end and I have to say goodbye to friends, not knowing the next time I’ll see them, so apologies to anyone I missed, or if I seemed like I was rushing off.

In review

I sit here writing this on Sunday, the day after my GridCon came to an end. There’s a really funny feeling that lingers for a day or two after a good convention – and this was a great convention. Your brain feels fuzzy, your heart feels full, and it’s an all-around life-affirming thing. A good convention is incredibly good for your mental health, as long as you can mitigate any triggers for you before going. If you suffer from social anxiety for example, then it’s handy to get there ahead of time and watch the place slowly fill up around you, instead of opening the door and walking in on a couple of hundred attendees.

I had a truly wonderful time. Not because of the games I played, the place I played in, or even the people there. It sounds trite, but it truly is an example of something being greater than the sum of its parts. I mean, I’ve not even touched on things like the ridiculous pile of games donated to the charity raffle, which itself raised thousands of pounds. Nor did I talk about world-famous designer Vital Lacerda coming along to teach his new game to a select group of people, and he was only one of many designers in attendance. I didn’t mention the well-stocked games library, all available to play for free, or the chances to play huge new games, months before others will get a chance to.

Even without including all of that, it was still an outstanding time. It was (for me) three days of good people having good times. If you have never been to a games convention before, and you’re on the fence about it, please go, and go to one like GridCon. Go to something local, focused on the games. Every single person was made to feel as welcome as if they were family, regardless of their skin colour, age, ability, nationality, beliefs, gender or orientation. It’s a big, incredibly diverse group of people, stepping outside of the demands of real life for a few days, for a break they all deserve.

Long may it continue.

Special thanks

I just want to name-check some people who helped make it as special as it was for me. First and foremost I want to thank Paul & Vicky, who organised and ran the event. There’s a crazy amount of time and energy that goes into it, and it really showed. Without them, there’d be no GridCon to go to. The staff at the Holiday Inn were amazing too, very patient, friendly, and accommodating. They still managed a smile even when there was a big queue at the bar, and when they ran out of glasses and drinks! What can I say – we know how to have a good time.

I want to thank my friends, new and old, who spent some time with me. These include, but are not limited to: Andrew and Mark, who made the trip from Malta, along with George who flew in from Greece, and had to miss a game to work from his hotel room. Mark P, Jill, Peter, John(s), Mark L, Lee, Alex, Natalie, Leanne, Ian, Emma, Scott, Paul R, Paul M, JP, Ian, Monique, Tom, Matt, Márton, Jonathan, Tim, Luke, Rick, Bob, Becky, Vic, Carl, Joe, Maddie, and anyone else whose name I’ve forgotten. Also to Lyndsey and Piran the Beagle, my hosts for my stay.

It was nourishment for the heart, mind, and soul. For now, I feel sated, but already I can’t wait to see my chosen extended family again.

The post GridCon 3 (2022) Convention Report appeared first on Punchboard.

Don’t worry, I’m not suddenly a masochist, it’s just the fallout after a wonderful trip away to the UK Games Expo. If you’re wondering what the UKGE is, it’s a huge show at the NEC in Birmingham, UK, devoted to tabletop games of all kinds. Set over three days and three huge halls, it’s something you have to experience for yourself, but I’ll do my best to let you know how it was from my point of view.

Thursday – travel and the Press Preview

Armed with too many games, I set off on the 4.5 hour drive on Thursday morning, making a small detour in Devon to pick up my friend, and the man behind Gaming Rules!, Paul Grogan. As good as Spotify and Audible are, there’s no substitute for games conversation, so the remaining hours flew by, and I found myself at my base of operations, the Premier Inn on-site.

Forewarned is forearmed, so this year I made sure I have comfy shoes, plenty of spare clothes, and painkillers! If you’re like me and want to see and do everything, be prepared to put in a lot of miles on your feet. My phone reckons I clocked up over 38,000 steps over the two days total I spent on the show floor. My feet think it was twice that, and the hotel shower got used a lot. The NEC is huge.

On the Thursday evening before each UKGE, they put on a Press Preview event, where media folks like yours truly can meet the exhibitors and get a sneak peek at what’s going to be on show. It was much busier than last year’s, understandably, and it was great to catch up with old friends, and meet some I’ve never met before. I chatted to Ayden on the Dranda Games table and had a look at their two new games – Isle of Trains and Pioneer Rails. Both look great, and I’ll have a preview written for the former, soon.

It was great to meet Tom of Trolls ‘n’ Rerolls, the folks behind Amulet of Thrayax, Andy of Savania Games, who made a storming success of his game Cosmic Voyage, Chris from Unfringed who created Zuuli, and the guys behind The Old King’s Crown, which I look forward to covering later in the year. I saw so many interesting new games, talked to loads of people, and then sat down to play some games with my friends from the Gaming Rules! community, including the excellent Gutenberg (review coming soon).

Friday – many meetings, many miles

Friday is the first day that the UKGE is open to the public, so after making the most of the Premier Inn buffet breakfast (one of my favourite things) I took a wander down to the halls and was greeted by a sea of fellow games enthusiasts. The whole of the concourse around halls 1, 2, and 3 were absolutely heaving with people. It’s safe to say people were ready for a proper convention.

Friday consisted of a lot of meetings. Many of the publishers exhibiting at the show send out emails to the registered Press, inviting them to book meetings. I did exactly that, and spent the majority of the day pinging around the halls like a ball bearing in a Pachinko machine, meeting people from different publishers. The highlights for me were:

• Floodgate Games. I had a great chat with Ian, and we talked a lot about their recent hit, Decorum, which looks great. Co-op, hidden information house decorating.
• Asmodee. I was lucky enough to grab some time with Asmodee’s PR company, where we chatted about all things board game in the UK, and got introduced to a series of family games from a new designer. More on that in the not-too-distant future.
• Portal Games. I took the monorail out to a hotel near the airport to meet with Joanna from Portal, who, on seeing how hot and tired I was, bought me a pint! Thanks Joanna! We spent an hour playing Eleven, their new mixture of football manager and mid-heavy euro. I really liked this one, I hope I get a chance to share a review soon.
• Board&Dice. Board&Dice are one of my favourite publishers, so it was so lovely to finally meet Ola in person, after talking by email for so long. I took a look at two new games, Terracotta Army, and Power Core: Call of Cthulhu. I’ve not got too much to say about them yet, other than Terracotta Army looks very at home in the same stable as the T-series of games like Tawantinsuyu, and that Power Core will almost certainly be a hit with duelling card game fans,
• Lucky Duck Games. I’ve chatted to Bree from Lucky Duck plenty in the past, so meeting face-to-face was great. We had a look at their upcoming Sherlock game, which ties in with the BBC series. I was really pleased to see that they’re also now selling the X-Trayz board game organisers, from GameTrayz. GameTrayz make seriously good inserts for games like PARKS and Euphoria, and these little holders are just as good.

Finally, I sat down and played a demo game of Old London Bridge, from Queen Games. I hope to be able to review this one before too long, because it fills a nice niche. It’s fast enough and easy enough to learn to be considered ‘filler’, but it’s got so much more game in it than most fillers. I really enjoyed it.

I was really pleased to bump into another Andy too, this time from Cloudrunner Games, the studio behind Book Of Skulls – Slayers Of Eragoth, a game I recently previewed. We had a good chat and he bought me another beer! You might be noticing a trend here…

After that, the evening was mine. I found some friends and sat down with games like Long Shot: The Dice Game, Yogi, Moonrakers, and then a really good game of Iki too. The siren’s call of sleep was too strong though, so I sloped off back to the hotel to let my aching feet rest, and have a hot shower to wash the day’s grime away.

Saturday – catching-up, spending money, heading home

I wanted to get home by Saturday night, so as to have a day of normality at home before getting back to work on Monday. On Saturday morning I headed for my last two meetings of the show. The first was with Simon at Dranda Games. We talked more about the design of their two new train games (mentioned above), and both are honestly looking great. Both Kickstarters will launch before the year is out.

After that, I headed over to the CGE stand to meet with Eleni. As well as content creation for CGE, she’s also the face of Cardboard Rhino, a great YouTube channel that you ought to check out. We talked about lots of things, and she showed me Starship Captains, a tongue-in-cheek sci-fi game that owes a lot to Star Trek. I think it’s going to be a big hit. You heard it here first.

Then there was just time left to spend the rest of my spending money, and catch up with a few people I hadn’t been able to. It’s always great to see Ellie from The Dark Imp, and while I sat and chatted to her in the Playtest Zone, I was able to say hello to one of my favourite designers, Matt Dunstan. He has a hand in so many games at the moment, it’s impossible to ignore his contribution. If you want to see what I mean, head to the home of Postmark Games and spend a couple of quid on their game, Voyages. A cracking print-at-home, roll-and-write that he and Rory Muldoon created.

Finally, it was time for a last coffee with friends, before hitting the road for the four-and-a-half hour drive home.

The wrap-up

I’m home now, and already missing being at the convention. Spending three days on a constant high of being surrounded by board game love, leads to a serious comedown. Is it busy? Yes. Is it tiring? Very. Is it expensive? Probably, depending on where you stay and how much you buy. The most important question, however, should be “Is it worth it?”, and the answer is a resounding yes.

People from every demographic you can imagine are everywhere. It doesn’t matter what your gender, ability, age, race, religion is – everyone is welcome and included. Everywhere you looked, people were smiling and laughing, and just enjoying being back around people with the same interests. I saw older people catching up after years apart, families with very young children playing together, and everything in-between. It was wonderful.

It is busy, it is noisy, and it is overwhelming if you’ve never been to anything like it. But for those willing to step outside of their comfort zone, the rewards can be enormous. I’ve read loads of posts from people who attended for one day as a test, who are adamant they want to go back for the full three days. Universally it seems, people felt happy, welcomed, supported where needed, and safe.

The next UK Games Expo is from Friday 2nd June until Sunday 4th June 2023. I hope I’ll see you there.

Thanks

I want to thank everyone who took the time to meet me and talk to me. I want to thank the designers and publishers I’ve worked with over the last couple of years, for their support, friendship, and kind words. It’s been a pleasure watching people come from prototype to successful final game, and having them tell you that you helped that happen, is very moving.

I especially want to thank Paul for his company on the drive, and the friends I was able to play and talk with. In no particular order, thank you Mark P, Bob, Jill, Peter, Leanne, Neil, Gavin, Hilmar, Mark C, and all the people I’ve undoubtedly forgotten (I’m really tired!).

This hobby, and the people in it, are fricking awesome.

The post UK Games Expo 2022 – Show Report appeared first on Punchboard.

Reiner? I hardly knew ‘er

I’m not going to re-invent the wheel here, and write out a huge biography. You can see his designer page on BGG for that level of detail. He’s a game designer who started out with a PhD in mathematics, worked in banking, and then started designing games. The reason he’s so important to the hobby is how influential he was during the first modern board game boom, in the ’90s.

When I called him prolific in the opening paragraph, I wasn’t exaggerating. In the ’90s alone he had at least 115 games published. Let that sink in. That’s nearly a game a month, every month, for ten years straight! Were they all great? No, there’s some instantly forgettable stuff in there, some extra-light roll-and-move games, kids games – all kinds of things.

The good games he made during that time – the really good ones – are very important to modern board games. To illustrate the point, let me tell you that nine of the top 1,000 games on BGG are ones that Knizia had published in the ’90s.

If that doesn’t sound impressive, let me put it another way. Just about 1% of the top 1,000 games on BGG today, are ones that he created before the PlayStation 2 was released.

Slapping on some context

Let’s apply some context to all those facts. Firstly, and most importantly, the board game scene in the ’90s was a wildly different place. Even though Knizia was pumping out games in his sleep, the actual number of new games released every year was much smaller than today. Each year in that decade saw around 1,000 games published per year. In 2021 alone, 5,000 new games were released, and that number looks set to grow in the near future.

Every game released back then had a much smaller market to compete against, so real stand-out games were able to lodge themselves at the top of the BGG charts, once the site launched in 2000. The big unknown in all of what I’m talking about in this article is the BGG ranking algorithm. The numbers and formulae that determine a board game’s rank on BGG is a secret, but it’s generally understood that a big part of it is users individual users’ ratings, averaged when a certain threshold of ratings are submitted for each game.

I believe there must be some level of ranking decay applied too, otherwise older games with very high ratings would almost never get toppled. If that’s true, then it’s not surprising that older games slip. If an older game is out-of-print, and hundreds of new games are riding a wave of social media hype, who is buying and ranking older games any more?

Knizia’s still big, right?

See, that’s what I thought. But then I started to think – which of his games have I bought, or played, lately? Lost Cities has been in my collection forever, and I recently picked up the roll and write version (which is great). The same goes for Heckmeck, it’s evergreen for me. But what about other people? Do they buy and play his games? There was only one way to find out – to Facebook!

I’m a member of a great UK-based board game group on Facebook called Board Game Trading and Chat UK (BGT&C UK), so I asked the folks there. In particular, I wanted to know how long people have been in the hobby, and how many Reiner Knizia games they own. Over 200 people responded, and the results confirmed what I’d already guessed. Here are the headlines.

• Over a third (35%) of respondents who took up the hobby since early 2019 have never bought a Reiner Knizia game.

• Nearly a quarter (22%) of respondents who have been into board games for longer than 3 years, own six or more Reiner Knizia games.

The replies on the poll told the same sort of story. Recent gamers had games like My City or The Quest for El Dorado. None of them are buying the classics such as Tigris and Euphrates, Samurai, or Ra. There’s a very good reason which explains some of that – they’re out-of-print and very hard to get. Even if they weren’t though, would they stand a chance against the Gloomhavens and Ark Novas of the world?

Are the games that good, or is it nostalgia?

I asked myself more questions at this point. Am I just looking at his games with rose-tinted glasses, in the same way some people convince themselves VHS and audio cassettes were best? Have games just moved on in recent years, leaving everyone’s favourite bowtie-wearing German irrelevant? This is a tricky one, because it’s always going to be subjective. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and all that jazz. Personally though, I have to say yes – yes they’re still great games worth your time. I carry Lost Cities in my work bag, just in case an opportunity presents itself, and at GridCon last year I played Heckmeck. His games are still in my regular rotation.

Ra, Medici, Battle Line, Keltis, Modern Art, Amun-Re – they’re all great games, and would fit in at most modern games nights. They just don’t get the exposure they deserve any more, and that lack of popularity perpetuates a vicious circle, which sees the games not getting reprinted. Just last year, both Z-Man and Grail Games dropped their plans to print new and old Knizia games, because they just weren’t selling as well as they’d hoped.

Sad times for old farts like me. Sad times also for anyone new to the hobby, hoping to catch up on some classics.

Hype has so much to do with which games people play now. We get bombarded on all fronts of social media with new games. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are full of people getting onboard with the latest hotness, and it’s changed the way people choose and buy games. Reiner’s games don’t normally go near Kickstarter, which means making a dent in a potential buyer’s consciousness is harder than ever.

Playing Knizia games in 2022 and beyond

So what does this year, and indeed the future, have in store for Knizia fans like me? Well, it’s a mixture of good and bad news really. The bad is the issues I mentioned above, with the difficulty of getting his out-of-print gems. People who got into board games during the pandemic are going to struggle to get hold of a copy of Tigris & Euphrates without paying through the nose for a second-hand copy, and the same goes for most of his other big box games.

He will, inevitably, keep producing new games, the majority of which will come through traditional channels. My Island for example, the follow-up to 2020’s My City, is due later this year, and is sure to do well. The small box classics like Lost Cities, High Society and Schotten Totten are seemingly always available, and thoroughly recommended as ways to sample some of his design, if he’s new to you.

The most exciting news, as far as I’m concerned, is that Alley Cat Games have picked up the reprint of Amun-Re. Alley Cat make really nice productions, and have already proven they can handle reprints of older titles, with last years revamp of Tinners’ Trail. Now that the rights for the older games have been handed back to the original owners, I hope we see other publishers picking them up, and refreshing them for a new audience.

To wrap-up then – yes, Reiner Knizia doesn’t have the same prominence as he did 20 years ago, nor does his name have the same clout when it’s printed on a box. Writing him off would be a mistake though, and there is still a vast trove of his games to play, to get acquainted with his work. In fact, you can do it for free, right now. Follow this link to his free print-and-play of a great dice game – Decathlon.

I’m glad our hobby has Dr Knizia in it, it’s a brighter, better place for it. Long may it continue.

Author’s notes

Hey folks, I just wanted to take a few lines to cover a few things. Firstly, yes, this entire article was spawned by – and makes constant reference to – the BGG rankings. I know that not everyone agrees with their rankings, or finds them important, but they’re undeniably a strong marker for popular opinion.

Secondly, this post isn’t meant to knock the good doctor in any way, or suggest he’s not designing good games. The man’s a genius as far as I’m concerned, and there are games of his that will stay in my collection forever.

Finally, I’m particularly pleased with the heading “Reiner? I hardly knew ‘er”. The bonus wordplay in there is ‘er’ being the German pronoun for ‘him’. I amuse myself, if no-one else.

The post Reiner Knizia – Staying Relevant appeared first on Punchboard.

In the last year I’ve been lucky enough to attend three different board game conventions: The UK Games Expo (read my report here), GridCon, and most recently, AireCon (read my report here). Each was a very different experience, from the commercial craziness of UKGE, through to the play-focused intimacy of GridCon. What they all have in common though, is being surrounded by like-minded people.

My next turn

During a bit of downtime at AireCon, I grabbed some food, and sat at the edge of the Open Gaming area. As I looked around the hall, it dawned on me. A room filled with hundreds of people playing games, all with one thing in common. Nobody there was worrying about ‘real life’ while they were playing. Almost universally, people of all kinds were laughing and talking to new friends, old friends, or planning their next turn.

Anyone who’s ever undertaken any kind of CBT for depression and anxiety knows the value of mindfulness. The idea of only concentrating on the here and now, not worrying or dwelling on the thoughts spiraling in your head. Focusing on your next turn in a board game does exactly that. I watched as scores of people, young and old, had their heads down, normal life forgotten. All that matters in that moment is ‘my next turn’, and that reprieve from your own mind can be priceless. Between planning your turn and talking to others, there’s simply very little time to continue your internal monologue.

We’re very lucky and very privileged to be able to play games, talk about them on the internet, and have the time, money, and possibility of going to a convention. And while I, and a lot of my readers, don’t have to worry about day-to-day survival, modern life is tough. The financial and social burdens we bring upon ourselves are exhausting. Having a few days to yourself at one of these events is a holiday, it’s like leaving the motorway of life for some respite in a service station, before rejoining the rat race.

Birds of a feather

That’s not to say that all of the people at a board game convention are the same – far from it. The people I’ve met and played games with are the most diverse bunch I’ve ever met. As it happens, that’s one of the first big mental health benefits to be taken from attending a convention. To take-in the sheer diversity in the building, and to realise that everyone – regardless of social background, race, belief, gender, or disability – belongs in that space.

I come from a very rural part of the UK. When I was growing up there weren’t many opportunities for people who’d label themselves as geeks, to come together to share a niche interest. It’s something which can feel very isolating. Although it’s easier to find a sense of community with the internet, there’s a lot to be said for actually meeting people in the flesh.

It’s very easy to carry anxiety and worry from your childhood and teenage years in later life. That little voice in your head that says “What if nobody likes me? What if I don’t fit in? What if I panic?” needs very little reinforcement at times. If you do have it within you to attend something, however small, the rewards can have such a huge impact on you. Despite being nervous each time I’ve gone away to a convention, every time I’ve left I’ve felt happy, energised, enthusiastic, and counting the days until the next time I get to see my new friends again.

Too much, too soon

What if this all sounds great, but you just don’t have it in you to attend something at the moment? We’ve just gone through two years of lockdowns, isolation, sickness and death, thanks to Covid-19. It’s no wonder that more and more people are suffering from anxiety and depression. People I’ve known my whole life have been affected for the first time, so its impact cannot be overstated.

Going to a convention for the first time can feel pretty intimidating, especially when you’ve no idea what to expect. I had an anxiety spike when I turned up at UKGE, despite having been to other conventions in the past for martial arts. For some people, that’s a bridge too far, and I’d recommend attending a small, local event first before heading to something like UKGE. That said, AireCon had a fantastic area called Roll Through It which was quiet, away from the crowds, and allowed people to deal with things at their pace.

If that still sounds too much, I understand. If you truly do wish to feel like a part of a community, and want to make those first steps towards meeting people and experiencing the buzz of a games convention, there are a few things you can do to work towards it. Joining an online community is a great idea. Find a content creator you enjoy, and see if they have any community options for you to join.

From personal experience, I can vouch for the people in the Board Game Trading & Chat UK Facebook group, but the place which has really helped me find a community is the Slack server that comes as part of my Patreon subscription for Paul Grogan and his Gaming Rules! channel. Everyone is different, and it’s important to say that my experience might not mirror yours, but it’s a good place to start if you ask me.

Last orders

So in summary, if you’ve taken up this hobby over the last couple of years, and are wondering why anyone would want to travel halfway across the country to sit and play games with strangers for a few days, just give it a chance. The pandemic has taken a lot out of a lot of people, and with the world on the cusp of returning to a new normal, if you feel up to trying, I heartily recommend attending a convention.

Please, feel free to add links to your favourite conventions in the comments, and I’ll edit this post to add them in. As well as the links above, I’d be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t recommend heading along to the Punchboard Discord Server, where you can hang out in a very relaxed environment, with some very wonderful people.

Also, please remember that I’m not a mental health professional. I’m just a nerdy chap who’s had a lifetime of on-off depression and anxiety, difficulty making friends, and this post is based on my personal experiences. If you’re in the UK and would like more help with your mental health, the NHS is a great place to start.

The post Conventional Medicine appeared first on Punchboard.

My convention experience so far (for board games at least) has been the behemoth that is the UK Games Expo, and the smaller, friendlier GridCon. People had told me that AireCon sits somewhere between the two, so I was keen to find out what it was like. I also knew plenty of designers, publishers, and online friends who were going to be attending, which helped swing the decision to go.

I loaded the car with games, more games, and some other things which are apparently necessary, like clothes and toiletries. After eight hours in the car, and a disastrous stop at Bridgwater service station (where I managed to fall, take the skin off my palms, crack a rib, and hurt my shoulder), I was ‘up North’. Before we get to the convention, I want to take a moment to mention how beautiful Harrogate is. Make sure you plan in some time to take a walk around the town.

“I suffer from anxiety. Is AireCon for me?”

Plenty of people were – understandably – anxious about attending, what would be for many, their first big convention. Lockdown drew a lot of new players into the hobby, and turning up to a strange show, with thousands of strangers in attendance, is a daunting prospect. I wasn’t too worried, but I had the benefit of previous experience, and knowing a few people who would be there.

I think the first thing that really struck me about AireCon, and this includes the build-up, as well as the event itself, is how welcoming it is. Emails before the big day outlined what was expected, where people can go, and what help and support was on-hand. It was all evident from the moment we walked in. Friendly staff and volunteers were at the door, welcoming attendees, disabled access was everywhere, including priority tables in the open gaming areas.

The long conservatory was flooded with natural light, and some quieter space to play games, while still being close enough to feel the buzz from the main hall. If all of that sounds like it’s still too much, AireCon did two especially nice things. Firstly, upstairs they have quiet gaming areas, which can be a welcome reprieve from the noise downstairs. Secondly, and best of all, is the Roll Through It area. There’s a friendly team of volunteers who take the time to make sure you feel welcome, and will even play some games with you if you don’t feel ready to face strangers yet.

Games, games, games

I went with the intention of playing lots of games, and I wasn’t disappointed. I met up with some people I know from the Gaming Rules! community, and we camped out on some tables for the entire weekend. I’ve had to go back through my photos to remember which games I played, and I think it was: Dinosaur Island: Rawr and Write, Watergate, A War of Whispers, Echidna Shuffle, Almadi, Libertalia x 2, Brian Boru, Snowdonia, and Anomia. There are some great titles in there, and reviews of at least two of them on the way.

Along with playing, I spent a lot of time walking and talking. Rodney and his crew from Watch It Played made the long trip across the Atlantic to come to the show, and I managed to grab both he and Paula from Things Get Dicey for a chat and photo ops. Both were very humble and only too happy to stay and talk. It was just another thing which helped make the event feel comfortable and inviting.

I also got to meet some people I’ve been interacting with over the last two years, which was fantastic. I bumped into Lawrie from SDR Studios (I previewed Earth Rising for them last year), Joe and Maddie of Cogito Ergo Meeple (Solar 175 preview here), the ever-present Bez, Flavien and Cyprien of Hachette UK and FunnyFox respectively (distributors and publishers of Almadi), Will from PSC Games, Ellie Dix of The Dark Imp, and the guys behind The Detective Society.

That’s before even mentioning the legends I played with all weekend. Scott, Mark, Jill, Peter, Bob and the rest of the Gaming Rules! crew, thank you. A big hello also to Craig of Meeples of the North Kingdom, who I first met up with last year at UKGE, and played games with again this time around.

Final thoughts

If your idea of a good convention is one where the emphasis is on playing games, AireCon is fantastic. Everyone, from staff to other attendees, was so friendly and welcoming. If you’re worried about coming along on your own, don’t be, there are always plenty of people happy to invite someone new to their table. The sales stands were good, and I love that the vast majority of the space in the halls is given to people, and the games they play, not just businesses looking to make a buck.

The catering – by way of a variety of food trucks – was great, and it was never too difficult to get a drink or a snack. The games library was well-stocked, and free! Okay, there’s a £10 deposit, but you get that back. Upstairs, the bring and buy was fantastic, and I’ll admit I grabbed a couple of bargains I hadn’t intended to. With so much of the weekend’s proceedings going towards charity, including a cut of the bring and buy sales, I can justify my new-to-me games to myself.

I’m equal parts surprised and delighted that the AireCon crew have managed to expand so much in such a short space of time, but without losing the feeling of friendliness that pervades the weekend. Everyone there is just happy to be with likeminded people who just want to take a day or two out from the stresses and worries of life, and enjoy something approaching normal, after a torrid couple of years.

I had an amazing time, and I’ll be back. If you’re on the fence about coming, or nervous of attending, I urge you have a look at their beginner’s guide, and to come along. If you live closer than I do, then definitely go and check it out. It’s a celebration of all that is wonderful about out hobby, and the people who share it.

See you next year, AireCon!

The post AireCon 2022 Convention Report appeared first on Punchboard.