No doubt the others will tell their tales, but the UK Games Expo 2018 was held over the weekend.
Danisfourthy, Squiffything, Rich the Fish, Mrs Decar and I had arranged to all meet up during the event.
For those who don't know it's the largest gaming event held in the UK during the calendar year. This year was about 40% bigger than last year (and last year was about 50% bigger than the year before). It's now about 10 times bigger than the first one I went to back in '15 where it was still held at the Hilton Hotel rather than the NEC.
I have to say I'm starting to get concerns that if the event gets any bigger than 3-days will be a necessity for most people. Last year I managed to see what I wanted over the course of one day; this year I was grateful for the extra time. But let's not worry about that until it happens!
DAY ONE - FRIDAYWe were up at the crack of dawn to get in the car and start the 2 hours drive to the Birmingham on Friday morning.
On the way from the carpark into the NEC, I recognised SquiffyThing! The chances of recognising someone in the crowd of hundreds of people was quite surprising. We had to queue for ticket collection, which took a lot longer than last year, but there was plenty of time to waste before the main halls opened at 9.30am.
We started in hall 2 - which is mostly small exhibitors - Squiffy and I stopped off to look at "Towers of the Sun" - a very well presented abstract game about building and climbing towers to collect the last sunlight. I have to say the artwork is wonderful and the abstract game looks similar to Santorini, except you use cards to 'battle' each other when sharing a pillar. I can't remember when it's coming to kickstarter, but I rather liked the look of it:
Squiffy and I then stumbled into a demo of an abstract, balance game - where you move spheres across the board trying to tempt your opponent to tilt the board so they break the spheres. A win to squiffy and though it was a nice game, I don't think the production quality would match the abstract nature, as it seemed a bit temperamental. I'm pretty sure first of last player could force a victory too given the same starting conditions.
My wife bought a million T-shirts and then played a prototype word game - Squiffy and I sat down to play Thieves:
The idea is to roll 2 dice, which have coloured edges allowing your blocks to move through 'doors' of the same colour. You have to grab the coin in the middle and escape via the other side of the board. You can steal/move a coin from a neighbouring thief by rolling the correct door. You escape the dungeon by rolling black while in the corner, with having a friendly thief in a nearby square. You also HAVE to move if you can. Squiffy and I had fun - for the first 10 minutes anyway. He took the coin easily at the start but couldn't get our of the maze. I was able to snatch the coin, run the diagonal length of the board uncontested and then.... couldn't escape the maze, then we had some back and fourth and eventually, neither of us wanted to play any more. The production quality was excellent and the chaps on the stand were very kind, but I told the designer that I thought the victory condition was too random and though the middle part of the game was fluid enough, it meant you had no way of mitigating or apply a tactic in-order to push the odds in your favour. He told me that that's the way of all dice games (he's obviously never played a Stefan Feld game). He also said that 4/5 games take 20 minutes and 1/5 games either take 5-minutes or 90-minutes. Will be giving this one a miss.
We started to head towards Hall 2 and got a demo of 5-Minute Chase. Which I think was the only new game premiered at the Expo! Unfortunately I didn't grab any photos (
Edit: Thanks for Rich The Fish grabbing us a photo)! It's a real-time tile laying game. One person tries to lay a path of tiles, but avoiding cops and following matching rules; while the other person is quickly assessing which direction the path is going in and looking at all the pedestrian-faces are looking in that direction determine what symbol needs to be placed there. The robber needs to find their sack of loot, the keys to their hideout and the map to their hide out before they can escape; while the cops are trying to catch up with the robber. It's a silly 5-minute game that's frantic to play and we both loved it. It supports 1v1 and 2v2 and no reason for 1v2 to not work. We grabbed a copy immediately - it was great!
Next up we went to Osprey games - I was a tad annoyed last year because I didn't go to their stall because I'd already bought all their games, but it turned out they had a promo for 'The Lost Expedition' - this year they had 2, so bought 2 games:
Zoo Ball - which is a hilarious tabletop flicking game where 3 defenders and 1 attack attempt to score goals against each other.
Sakura - which we demoed - you play cards in order to move the Emperor or the characters. You need to stay close behind the Emperor to stay in his favour, but not bump into him and lose points. It's a Knizia classic:
Over lunch we caught up with Dan and Rich the Fish (and LukeyDukey) - I have to say that the choice of food at the UKGE is rubbish. Over at the Hilton are some wonderful food stalls but that's a good 15 minute walk from the venue and no one has time to give up 90-minutes for lunch!
We all visited Alley-Cat-Games to try out a prototype for 'Chocolate Factory' , which is a essentially a programming game. You get to draft enhancements and fuel to use on your engine to make and improve chocolate bars. A note for any budding designers - if you have a prototype - at least make sure the iconography is correct. We had the added bonus of a guy being kind enough to explain the rules - but it wasn't his allocated demo game, so though he was doing us a favour it made it pretty hard to follow. I'm going to say it now: If you want to play a game like this - play Otys - Play Otys, PLAY OTYS!
The prototype games upstairs had more time spent on them than this demo:
We had a quick round of Ice-cool because the table was free - I appeared to be the chief pengiun flicker!
Over to One Free Elephant - that fine company that produced Carcosa, the game I reviewed last year. They were kind enough to give me a pre-production copy of Microbrew.
If there's one thing I like as much as tile-laying games, it's mint-tin micro-games! This one is about brewing beer and winning patrons favour.
This is hitting kickstarter in September, and I'll likely have a review up before then -
We also got to play Ore-some, which is a light family game about stacking ore-cubes in your mine-cart and completing contracts. Ore must stay in the cart while you move it around, it's a light dexterity game and has a bit of strategy with action cards to make it harder for your opponents:
Rich, Luke, my wife and I went to an Event, a reading of DeathTrap dungeon by Ian Livingstone (which was an early choose-your-own adventure game series). Ian was joined by a 'comedian' who had prepared most of his insults. Though it had a few funny moments, the event was quite slow and the adventurer had a habit of not choosing where the audience wanted to go - that was funny the first time, but the audience wasn't smart enough to either not participate or lie during the meta-game. After the event it was time to play games!
We visited the thirsty-meeple games library, which was essentially barren by the time we got there. Before we started we popped over to see Dan during the Carcassonne Tournament - he was so focused on the game he didn't notice is band of supporters all standing around his table
I'll let Dan fill in the details on the event!
First up, Kings of New York - I know this is quite popular, I managed to die pretty quickly and Luke took the victory. It seemed quite complicated flipping over all the buildings and military tokens; I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to play this again tbh!
Next up was Arboretum - I've played this before (I wrote about it in fact), but it did me no good - I still can't balance the cards right!
Mrs_Decar completed a wonderful garden however. During the game Tom Vassal came over and in usual star stuck fashion, I couldn't think of anything to say - it seemed like he didn't either so I wished him well. That's the second time that's happened!
Next up - was Citadels - everyone loves citadels!
A quick game of exploding kittens - first time I'd played it - have to say it was pretty good.
Red-7 - Wasn't really a fan of this - I liked the idea but it basically seemed to come down to whether you had decent cards of not at the start.
It was late o'clock - so it was time for Bed. The hotel was about 15minutes away, but Squiffy and I managed to have a night-cap
DAY TWO - SATURDAYUp nice and early the next day and the wildest route to the 'nearest' McDonalds we couldn't find. Well done for Squiffy saying so close behind!
We had booked a slot to see
Tales of the Northlands at 9.45. I'm a big fan of Noggin the Nog and Nick Case is actually a Carcassonne fan - we were able to sit down, have the rules explained after an hour got through the first 2-seasons. This is a classic Euro-game. Collect resources, build enhancements, score points, it also includes the objective that everyone is trying to get Noggin The King of the Nogs to collect more prestige than his Evil Uncle: Nog-bad. I was really impressed with the run-through and it was well explained by Nick. There's a few more days to back it! We played the game with a nice gentleman called John Sharp who blogs about his adventures in board-games - "It's more than Just Gaming"
Just before Noggin The Nog, we stopped off at a stall from 'The Nobel Artist' who had produced a card game called 'The Epic Game of Epic Fails' which is about a useless band of adventurers who are left after all the decent heroes have been killed by a dragon. He explained the premise and gave us a poster. Which was jolly decent of him. I'll be sure to look for more information on this when it hits Kickstarter. In the mean time:
Hero MasterNext Mrs_Decar and I visited City of Games stand. I've been interested in City of Kings for a while, but it's a big layout for something that may or may not get played. We did get a demo of Vadoran Gardens though, which is a simple game of following rules, to lay cards so terrain types can score you points. There are limits to how the tiles can be overlayed; the art work is lovely. I'll be increasing my KS pledge to include this game:
Next up was Villagers. This is a drafting game where you encourage workers to join your city so you can build the best town. It's light but follows some similar mechanics to 7-Wonders because you can purchase the use of tradesmen in other villages. Most cards follow a 3/4-tiered economic structure. So do you build horizontal or vertical money producing engines. It's on KS so happily backing this one!
Rich the Fish wanted to play Abeone (?) which was a popular deck builder. I found the game fun, but the iconography unecessarily complex. I doubt it would work at 2p either:
Next up was a game about GuineaPigs, which is on kickstarter right now - (Floofs) - Jen and I thought this looked great, the artwork was wonderful. But the designer said he wanted to create a game to: 'solve some of Catan's problems' - the game is nothing like Catan. Secondly, the early birds on KS are paying £17, while the default pledge is nearer £30. I don't think this crew have much idea about the industry, or the economic factors involved - I have a feeling they won't fund. It's a shame the game looked pretty cool.
Next up was Deck Building Game of the show - 'Ruthless' - Thanks to Rich The Fish for identifying this - I'd already written it off, because I thought it was Just Another Deck Builder. We were given a great run-through by the Designer and Artist (Roland) who happened to also be the guy who did the self-published deluxe edition of Battle-Line.
You have money and crew which perform commands. Each card played and bought are used to produce tricks (poker hands) to score points. The game is broken into 6-rounds and at the end of each round, the player with the most strength win Victor Points for end game scoring. It played really really fast, but we sunk about 45-minutes into the game, all the different actions produced some really interesting choices and ways to enhance your deck. We also played with a nice gentleman called 'Matt Thrower' who produced the Haynes manual of boardgames.
The last surprise was playing the prototype "The Dungeon Dice". Quite simply you pull a die from a bag, roll it and placing the die into the dungeon waffle. You can play the rolled face facing you or your opponent. You're trying to make a path from one side to the other. You can also roll magic spells you can hold for later, such as magical swords so you can combat monsters.
It's on
Kickstarter right now and if one game needs some support it's this one!
ConclusionWell here's the photograph of all my stash:
A very special thanks goes to SquiffyThing, who having heard about my rather expensive birthday present (a new A/V receiver and front speakers), knew I needed to venture into the world of vinyl records; or as we all know 'the world of real music'! I'm somewhat daunted at the prospect of setting this thing up, mainly because I need to find a suitable home for it within range of the amp, but I was blown away by Squiffy's generosity!
You'll see some other bits and bobs I've collected at the Expo. I picked up a 7WD insert from Basically Wooden; yard master (+ express), Okanagan a tile laying game somewhat similar to Walnut Grove and some other bits and bobs!
I do have my concerns that the UKGE is now getting to the size that it's difficult to a) see it all, b) find the smaller indie developers, c) find games premiering at the venue. I would also say that there were probably 3 times more games on kickstarter now compared to previous years and though that's good, I think smaller developers are struggling to compete on cost when minimum orders at factories are now set to 1500 copies. I was also quite worried to meet 2 people who had never heard of Carcassonne!
It was wonderful finally meeting Squiffything and it was fantastic being able to sit down on Friday night and play some games. Thanks to Rich the fish for all his tip-offs and to Luke for showing us so many new games. It was a long weekend but I've already booked by hotel for next year's event
Hopefully, we'll find some more time for gaming next year!
Now I need some sleep.