UK Games Expo 2018 - Gaming Highlights

It goes without saying that seeing friends is always a huge Expo highlight, even though with more and more people getting into the hobby it's getting harder to see everyone enough over the weekend! We're all there to see the games, too, and below is a selection of games that I played or talked about over the weekend. For an overview of the rest of the show, you can see my first Expo post (yes, I've gone on about it enough to fill up two whole posts!)

Review: UK Games Expo 2018

Not only is the UK Games Expo over for another year, but it's been almost two weeks, and it's flown by! With more lovely people, more fun things to see and more games than you could shake an oversized meeple at, this year's Expo was bigger and better than ever (21,700 attendees, up 30% on last year!).

If you've not been along to UKGE before, you can find my original post here for some background information. It's a fun, friendly convention held every year at the NEC in Birmingham, rambling (in a very organised fashion) across multiple convention halls, function rooms and surrounding hotels. There's something there for every analogue gaming enthusiast, whether you're looking for the latest heavy Euro game, the coolest wargame miniatures, the cutest kids game or the dice-rolliest (yes, we're making up our own superlative adjectives now) pen-and-paper RPG.

UK Games Expo 2018 - Exciting Things!

With just a few days left until this year's UK Games Expo, I've made a little list below of some of the games I'm looking forward to seeing more of. The draft of this post has been kicking around in my Evernote for a while now, as there's so much to see that I keep adding and removing things each time a new press release arrives. Time to make some choices, though, as it's ALMOST TIME FOR UKGE, WOO! There might be a recurring theme of 'this is on the list because it looks shiny', so prepare for in-depth game coverage at its finest, people...

UK Games Expo: 1-3 June 2018

Time to get (even more) excited about the UK Games Expo, everyone! Only a month to go until thousands of happy board gamers descend upon the Birmingham NEC and its surrounding hotels to paint the town cardboard.

1-3 June 2018 will be the 12th annual UKGE and the fourth one that I've attended, and each year the event has gone from strength to strength. It's the largest hobby gaming convention in the UK, and with unique attendance topping 16,300 last year it's now one of the largest in the world (fighting it out with Origins for third place). This year they've added an extra hall in the NEC to accommodate everything, so growth doesn't show any signs of slowing down!

There's a lot to cram in to those halls, as the huge map on the UKGE website can illustrate, and you're in no danger of running out of things to see and do.

Shopping

As you'll see on the map, with over 300 companies in attendance there are plenty of opportunities available to buy shiny new games (or shiny old games, with a fab Bring and Buy section). But UKGE is so much more than a shopping trip, giving you the chance to talk to publishers and designers about their new or upcoming releases, or to try out demos of their latest prototypes. Getting to meet the people behind the games you love or having the chance to influence the design process of a new game in the Playtest Zone really makes the convention fun.

I'm planning on making a bit more use of the Family Zone this year, with my little one getting a bit less little and a bit more into his first games. It's sponsored by HABA who make some of his current favourites - so this year I'll be shopping for two!

Seminars and guests

UKGE attracts plenty of well known faces from around the gaming world, this year including Ian Livingstone, author of the Fighting Fantasy series and founder of Games Workshop and game designer Martin Wallace. Tom Vasel of The Dice Tower will be back for another year and will be recording shows at the Expo, as will plenty of other board gaming media types including folks from Gaming Rules!, Shut Up & Sit Down, No Pun Included and Who Dares Rolls.

As well as live podcast and video recordings there are a whole raft of other talks to attend, covering everything from how to GM an RPG to how to run a board game company.

Tournaments

You'll see a big section of the NEC map dedicated to tournaments for people much better at games than me: the Catan, Agricola and Carcassonne UK Championships, the Fantasy Flight European championships including huge X-wing Miniatures and Android Netrunner European Championships and a Legend of the Five Rings Grand Kotei event are all on the slate for this year's UKGE.

Events

As if you hadn't filled your time three times over by now, there is a programme of ticketed entertainment events run across the weekend including:

• John Robertson's The Dark Room (I love this show... can I go for a third time? This year with additional kid-friendly showing on the Friday)
• Paul Flannery's Knightmare Live and MMORPG (both of which I saw last year, great fun and very nostalgic)
• Live Pandemic (always ridiculously funny)
• Jollyboat (musical comedy pirate brothers, what's not to love?)

I'm so excited, there's just so much to do! I didn't even get time to talk about everything, like:

• The food festival
• Viking and Orc encampments (if you're under 10 you can do Orc training, which sounds like the best thing EVER)
• RPG and LARP events
• Cosplayers

You can read about all of these things and more on the lovely UK Games Expo website, of course, or read more about my previous adventures in 2016 and 2017 where you'll find lots more pictures.

The best bit of any convention is always getting to see your friends and play some fun games. UKGE provides a wonderful environment to do this whilst giving you the opportunity to try new things and meet like-minded people from across the country (and the world!). There's lots of open gaming space available to try out your purchases or play something from the excellent board game library, but demand for the space is high so make sure you stake your claim early to avoid having to play on the grass!

Yep, that's a pizza box. From the awesome food fair!

So if you're new to the board game hobby and thinking about your first trip, do it! Or if you're worrying about coming to UKGE on your own, don't panic! You'll find so many lovely people willing to help you find a game, offer advice and recommendations or just point you in the direction when you're lost. It's a really welcoming environment and I can't wait to go.

Give me a wave if you see me wandering around!

When: 1 to 3 June 2018
Where: NEC and NEC Hilton Hotel
Cost: Ticketing website

www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk

If you enjoyed the post you could take a look at my Facebook page and leave a like or come and say hello on my Twitter or Instagram feeds!

AireCon 2018 - Convention Diary

I can't believe it's already been a week since I made the epic drive north to AireCon, an 'analog gaming festival' held in the Harrogate Convention Centre on Friday 9 - Sunday 11 March 2018. Having taken an age to decide whether or not it would be worth braving the 500 mile round trip, I'm so pleased I decided to go. I spent an amazing weekend meeting up with tons of lovely people and playing loads of great games, and wanted to share some of it here in case you've been in a similar dilemma.

AireCon Incoming!

Since I went to the UK Games Expo back in June I've been arguing a lot with myself over whether or not to go to AireCon, an analog gaming festival due to be held at the Harrogate Convention Centre on 9 - 11 March 2018. This month, after much deliberation, I finally caved; looks like I'm heading north next month!

It's a 500+ mile round trip for me, so the cost and the drive are big factors, but the huge list of events going on over the weekend helped to tip me over the edge. I'm definitely heading for the seminars on game design and teaching games, plus I need to try out giant Tsuro and NMBR9! The whole con also sounds super-friendly and relaxed, so I can be a bit braver about joining in with everything.

This year the con is sponsored by publisher Czech Games Edition, comic and games shop Travelling Man and the UK Games Expo, with a guest list featuring the lovely folks from:

• Gaming Rules!
• Watch It Played
• No Pun Included
• Polyhedron Collider
• Toucan Play That Game

With less than three weeks to go, I'm super excited to try out a new convention. Wish me luck, and let me know if you're going too!

AireCon

Friday 9 to Sunday 11 March 2018
Harrogate Convention Centre
Tickets!

Find me on my Twitter or Instagram feeds :)

UK Games Expo 2017 Highlights

It's official: the UK Games Expo is currently the world's third largest board gaming convention having welcomed over 16,500 unique visitors to the Birmingham NEC and Hilton Metropole over the last weekend, including a very excited and over-caffeinated me.

UK Games Expo 2017

I can't believe it's been a year since the last UK Games Expo. In just under a week it'll be time to make the trip up to the NEC Birmingham again for another weekend of games, friends, fun and food, and I can't wait!

A Guild Ball newb goes to SteamCon - November 2016

This weekend I headed up to Leeds with my Guild-Ball-obsessed husband to visit SteamCon, the three-day-long celebration of all things Steamforged Games. As well as tabletop fantasy football game Guild Ball, Steamforged are also famous for their hugely successful Kickstarter campaign for Dark Souls: The Board Game, due to ship in April 2017.

As I'm not very experienced at Guild Ball, this post might come off a bit like one of those news features where the BBC send a straight-laced, well spoken man in a suit to check out Minecraft or a new hipster cafe. Nevertheless, there's plenty to talk about even with my limited knowledge!

UK Games Expo 2016 - Day 3

[Catch up with Friday or Saturday]

Sunday arrived, bringing with it one last day of gaming awesomeness at the UK Games Expo and the jarring realisation that all the games I'd carried up to my hotel room over the weekend would have to be carried back down again for packing into the car. After multiple trips through the hotel (including one where I almost caused Tom Vasel to miss a lift by wittering at him) it was time to head back to the NEC and see what we could cram into the final few hours.

Having looked forlornly at full Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu demo tables for the last two days, this was our first destination when the doors opened. Our hope was to try and sneak in a play of this latest horror-themed offering in the Pandemic series before the hall got too packed. Katie and I had apparently timed it perfectly and were lucky enough to get seats for a game - only to be beaten on the second turn. Not second round, second *turn*... I didn't even get a go!

Well, that escalated quickly...

This game can be mean! Luckily because it was still quiet we were allowed to start again and have a proper go - I've written a separate post on my first thoughts of the game here.

Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu board game - first thoughts

At the UK Games Expo last week I was lucky enough to get a demonstration game of Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu from Z-Man Games and thought I'd share my first thoughts here.

Well, actually, my first thoughts were 'Gah, another Cthulhu themed game... Oh well, at least it's not zombies', but that's not very constructive or informative!

UK Games Expo 2016 - Day 2

[Start here if you missed my summary of Friday!]

Saturday at the UK Games Expo was notably busier from the outset, with lots of families making the trip now that the weekend had arrived.

The Pegasus Spiele stand seemed especially family-friendly, with lots of young families enjoying the many oversized demo games set out for them including Camel Up, Yeti and Reiner Knizia cat-and-mouse game Mmm! which was recently nominated for the Kinderspiel des Jahres. The rest of the show wasn't short on giant demo games either - I spotted Pandemic, Castle Panic, Celestia and Colt Express and I'm sure there are lots more that I've forgotten!

Family provision at the Expo was great all round, so I can't wait for my little one to be old enough to appreciate it. There was a large dedicated Family Zone in the hall where popular games were laid out for younger people to enjoy, including the Expo-launched penguin-flicking dexterity game Ice Cool from Brain Games.

UK Games Expo 2016 - Day 1

Wow, what a weekend that was! I'm not sure whether my feet or my wallet hurt most, but an amazing time was had by all at the UK Games Expo at the NEC in Birmingham this weekend. We packed in a lot over the three days; here's what happened on Friday.

Doctor Who Festival - ExCeL Centre, London - November 2015

I've been a bit slow putting this up, but a couple of weeks ago I kidnapped fellow Whovian RV and headed back to the ExCeL Centre in London for this year's UK Doctor Who Festival.  It's been just over two years since the Doctor Who Official 50th Celebration in 2013, also at the ExCeL, so we were well overdue for running around a convention hall brandishing sonic screwdrivers!

MCM Comic Con London - ExCeL Centre - October 2015

On Sunday we headed over to the ExCeL centre in London to take a look at the MCM Comic Con, billed as 'the UK's biggest modern popular culture show' and my first ever trip to an official comics convention!

No dressing up for me, but we did get a cute Ewok costume for the little man:

This event was *huge*, encompassing every fandom you can think of and covering the whole geek spectrum from anime to steampunk. As our priority tickets got us in early we headed straight for the ‘comic village’ section while everything was still (relatively) quiet.

My husband is a massive comic fan and he was super excited to meet his absolute favourite artist John McCrea, who drew DC’s Hitman series. Here he is signing a page of original artwork which I’m sure will be adorning one of our walls in the near future:

He was such a lovely, friendly man and took the time to talk to us about his art when he could easily have just signed the page and moved on.

We also found some volumes in the Twisted Dark series that my husband hadn’t been able to get hold of at the T Pub stand (we’re about 20 minutes in at this point and the purchases are already racking up!) Whilst there we met the writer, Neil Gibson, who was kind enough to sign them all and say how much he really appreciated the support of readers.

There was a lot of amazing artwork on show in the comic village, but my favourite stall belonged to the Island of Doctor Geof where there were displays of brilliant, funny steampunk artwork.

Everyone on the stall was very friendly, including Geof himself, who was intent on trying to get us to take away their sandwiches. This lead to a conversation on how many times you can offer someone a sandwich before it moves from kindly to creepy. Sooner than you’d think, we decided!

They were selling artwork and these cute patches (pictured along with a cute bag that I picked up from the Tofu Cute stand - I hope the Japanese doesn't say anything offensive!!):

Most of the panels we’d have wanted to see were on the Friday or Saturday (like Sherlock or Doctor Who), so we spent the rest of our convention time wandering around the many, many shops. Having a pushchair with us made it a bit awkward in the increasingly packed hall, but that’s to be expected really!

There were some great board games stalls amongst the shops - Pandemic: Legacy was everywhere and at one point I did have T.I.M.E Stories in my hand - but I was a brave, sensible person and held back for the time being!

We did buy a lot of art prints (mostly Star Wars based) so there's lots of framing in our future at the moment. I'll have to put some pictures up when we find somewhere to hang it all - although I think we're going to be short of wall space!

Loads of people had dressed up for the occasion (putting us to shame!) and their costumes were really amazing. The work that goes into some of these is staggering, and in a lot of cases they looked like a lot of effort to wear, too! Here are some obligatory convention-blog-post-cosplay-shots of the people I accosted for photos:

Lego Batman and Robin... and their backpack?

Vault Boy bobbleheads!

Katamari cousins - Ichigo is my favourite!

We are not prepared!

Pretty Warcraft-ness (I think!)

Amazing Bioshock: Infinite motorised patriot

Also one of the stalls had this amazing Catbus from Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro:

We had an amazing day seeing friends and exploring the convention, so we'll definitely be back for the next one - although next time we really need to plan ahead better and make sure we look at what panels are on, as we missed out a bit on this part of the experience.

We'll have to wait until 27th-29th May 2016 for the next MCM Comic Con in London, but in the meantime I’ll be back at the ExCeL in November for the Doctor Who Festival 2015 – happy times!

Upcoming Nerdery - August 2015

Since it's rainy and rubbish outside, I thought I'd cheer myself up by making a list of some of the geek-based things I'm looking forward to over the coming months:

Portal board game (Q3 2015)
Portal is one of my favourite computer games, so I was super excited to find out that it was being turned into a board game!

Loving the 70s box! (from the Cryptozoic website)

Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game by Valve and Cryptozoic has been delayed for ages since the original first look in 2014. It's now due in Q3 2015, and seeing as it's Q3 already I'm starting to wonder where my cake is. (Oh yes, it does come with little plastic cake! And companion cubes... Squee!)

Handmade Fair (Hampton Court Palace, 18th-20th September 2015)
Hopefully there'll be lots of inspiration here for new things to make, with craft demonstrations on stage and plenty of stalls to shop at. We have some workshops booked throughout the day where you get to make something to take away, so I shall post up the (potentially disastrous) results here!

MCM London Comic Con (London ExCeL, 23-25th October 2015)
I've never actually been to a Comic convention before, and it'll be baby's first convention. I'm not sure who will be there yet, but doubtless there will be many merchandise stalls to browse and lots of cool costumes to see. Can't wait!  More details here if you want to come along too.

Doctor Who Festival (London ExCeL, 13-15th November 2015)
I went to this convention in 2013 when it was held for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary celebration. The panels and exhibits were all brilliant, so I'm looking forward to more of the same this time (although perhaps not quite on the same scale!)

Eep!