The Library Pot

It is no secret that I am a boardgames cafe addict. Launching a Kickstarter and going on a mini tour has allowed me to indulge in many a cafe and gaming event. On our many travels to promote the campaign, Glori Eternia, we booked a Demo event at The Library Pot - Richmond's first board games cafe. I had wanted to visit this place as soon as I had heard about it on twitter, and the Kickstarter was a great excuse to take the trip!

We arrived totally drenched from the relentless downpour of rain, but were warmly welcomed by Rob, the owner of the cafe, and promptly seated in a comfortable booth. The Library Pot is a beautiful place, the booths and seating areas are adorned with greenery and glittering little lights. In the corner that houses the boardgames, an impressive shelving unit towers over the customers with a diverse range of games. The friendliness and hands-on attitude from the staff and owners was great, they got involved and actively encouraged people to play, allowing their customer's to enjoy themselves and get stuck into the games. There is a real sense of homeliness and comfort in The Library Pot, it is plain to see that the owners are genuine advocates of tabletop gaming and the aspects of social interaction that come with it.

Before demoing Glori Eternia we played some brief filler games with diners who were new to gaming, and had ventured in The Library Pot after hearing about it's unique appeal. We played Dobble, Pairs and Funny Farm - all very interactive games that really break the ice and let the healthy competition mount up, whilst having a laugh in the process. When it came to demoing Glori Eternia we had a lot of fun with the cafe's regulars, and even got out a funny dice game we made last year called Clench that was a rousing success with the crowd. 

The delicious menu with delectable cooked meals sets The Library Pot apart from a lot of other cafes, with the fusion of contemporary pub classics and some Japanese cuisine, it is almost like a restaurant as well as a boardgames cafe. There are lighter bites to keep hunger sated, as well as the larger and wholly satisfying meals, and most importantly - desserts! Cinnamon rolls with ice cream? Hell yes! I know I am supposed to be talking about the games, but, I cannot help myself. 

In case anyone needed further reason to visit this cafe, did I mention that there is a ball pit downstairs? Yes, you can relive those days of carefree ball pit action, just as I did! We ended up staying there very late, despite it being a weeknight and a long drive back, but it was worth it.

To sum it up, Rob and Emily were perfect hosts; both entertaining and mindful of their guest's needs. The collection of games included the classics and some hidden gems, the food was divine, the ball pit was a riot and the whole evening was unforgettable. If you want a good time in Richmond and fancy trying out some games whilst munching on some fine food then go and visit The Library Pot. I know I will be going back there very soon!

Marisa xx                 

Hail to the JunKing, baby!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you can find some really great games on Kickstarter if you browse through now and again. Last year I backed lots of games, and one of the favourites of the bunch is JunKing. Now, as much as I love finding gems and other precious artefacts in a game, I find hoarding the tatty junk in this game just as rewarding! Playing as one of the scavenger imps that roam around the junk yard means you get to rummage through the piles of interesting and unsavoury trash to deck yourselves up in the finest of rubbish. The object of the game is to raise your social standing, and to find the precious crown to be the crowned The JunKing!

The game itself is fairly simple, players take it in turns to draw cards from the 'junkpile', place a card from their hand in play and then choose one action - either activating an ability on a card in use or activating their character's ability; whichever will help them get the edge over their opponent. After triggering your character's ability, you turn it face down so it is sleeping. All that rummaging and hoarding is tiring work! You can re-activate them again using an action in a future turn. The game ends when the crown is drawn, and the winner is the one with the most points. 

All of the junk cards are worth points. There are three different varieties of junkcards; Mounts, Helms and Devices. Mount cards are placed underneath the character, Helm cards are placed on top like an insane hat, and devices are placed either side of the character. Some of the Mounts and Helms are deemed 'Stackable', which allows you to lay multiple items in play. If the card is not stackable, then you can only have one out at a time, but can discard it to your hoard in exchange for a new card. Your hoard is important, because it is where you build up your points. Each card in your hoard is worth one point at the end of the game. Each junk card on your imp is worth points, and the sought-after crown is worth 10 points! There are some devices that give you five points if the crown has been drawn by another player, which makes the game more exciting and unpredictable. 

To rock the game up a bit more there are event cards slipped in amongst the junkpile. If one is drawn then the unlucky player who drew it must take a card from the Event Deck and suffer the consequences. Don't panic, as they are not too harsh. It is usually the case of losing a card in play or everyone gets to take an additional card except the person who drew the event, that kind of thing.

The artwork is brilliant, the cards radiate a mixture of cuteness, humour and a little bit of ick. I do love them, but I would deeply sanitise myself if I came into contact with any of the devices in real life!

The little subtle (and not so subtle) references to pop culture hidden on the cards are great. The Junk Spirit Finder and the Assorted Hat are probably my favourites. Oh, and the puns! The flavour text on the Assorted Hat reads 'I just saw something Slitherin' out of there' and it did have me giggling. There is also a set of expansion cards that I have not yet tried, but they look fun.

JunKing is for 2-6 players, and it suggests from ages 14+, but I think children younger than 14 could grasp it. Plus, I have not come across anything censored yet in all the seven games I've played. This is a thoroughly enjoyable and light gaming experience, there are loads of cards so there is more re-playability and lots of laughs involved.              

    

Thanks for reading, have a good weekend :)
Marisa xx

Shinies!

This weekend I got creative and made some fun little dice trophies. We are always having mini tournaments amongst ourselves and friends, so I thought making trophies would be a nice way to celebrate the winner and excite the others. Plus, they look pretty snazzy!

Armed with some old dice, some super glue, bottle caps and a gold spray can I knocked these up in the communal garden of my flat. From afar, it probably looked like I was hastily tagging a particular patch of grass, but I was very careful and not a blade of grass was tainted with gold - just my fingertips. 

It was really easy to do, and I think it has inspired a few others on instagram to make some too. So far, two of my little trophies have been claimed, and I am already making more. As it is quite dark outside, I may have to reserve the spraying until tomorrow. Does anyone else make extra little incentives for tournaments or friendly competitions?

Have a great night!

Marisa xx 

Relic Hunters

Sometimes I get the urge to plan themed boardgame sessions, which is usually influenced by watching a certain film or by significant factors in my surroundings. Last month, watching California Man and hearing the background noise of Farcry Primal on the X-Box inspired me to get out a few (loosely) prehistoric themed games such as Stone Age and Dino Hunt Dice. This week I was reading about a new exhibit at the British Museum and it spurred me to set up an evening of treasure and relic hunting games; Temple Run: Danger Chase, Lost Cities and Forbidden Desert.

An evening of hunting for and procuring precious artefacts ensued. We would be risking our lives ransacking temples, and still be home in time for dinner. The very frantic Temple Run: Danger Chase was first on the table. The game starts after you have already entered the sacred temple and ransacked it, probably making a mess and a lot of noise. You have taken the Golden Idol and are now being pursued by the freaky demon monkey creature! The object of the game is to outlast your opponent through a series of dice rolls against the clock, the dice dictate how far you will move and how far the demon monkey will move after you. The board lengthens to allow continuous play, and the game will go on for as long as you can stay ahead of the freaky creature chasing you. Oh, relentless demon monkey, just let me take this idol - it belongs in a museum!

Lost Cities is a two player card game where hand management and set collecting come into play. Both players are launching expeditions to discover the lost and forgotten cities of the past. So, we are not just searching for treasure or relics here, we are searching for entire cities! Cities that will, undoubtedly, contain treasure and relics. The locations are represented by different coloured cards, each with number values 2 -10, and with special investment cards that can increase your success or penalise you if the expedition does not go as planned! Players take it in turns to either lay an expedition card in ascending order or discard one, then take one from the draw pile. When the draw pile runs out the game ends and the maths confusion begins for me. Being terrible at maths, I rely on calculators or my opponent's brain to do the scoring. The creator of the game, Reiner Knizia, is a doctor of Mathematics, and he uses this skill well to create amazing balanced games. 

Forbidden Desert was one of my birthday presents that I have already mentioned here. The cooperative game for adventurers searching the sun-scorched desert for a legendary flying machine, rumoured to be buried under the ruins of a forgotten city. Working against the clock and events such as sandstorms, an ever-changing board and lack of water you must move and flip over the tiles to uncover the lost machine parts, and do so before you are buried in the sand or die of thirst. This game is fast-paced and fun, it really set the theme of the treasure hunting evening and was a good one to end on, especially as we were victorious! We found that legendary flying machine and flew it the heck out of there. 

The treasure and relic hunting evening was a success, even though we did not leave the room we felt as frazzled and elated as two adventurers who had escaped nasty booby traps or some freaky demons. This weekend I have been watching a string of Arnold Schwarzenegger films, so perhaps they will inspire me to theme another evening. What games would you associate Arnie with?

Thanks for reading, have a good week!

Marisa xx                   

International Tabletop Day

I hope you all had a fantastic time celebrating International Tabletop Day! It is pretty good that we have a day dedicated to the fun of games and spreading the love of tabletop games, and hopefully it has attracted more people over to the crusade of tabletop gaming. 

This year I was unable to go to any events celebrating tabletop games, so we crafted our own marathon of games at home! It was quite a feat; sixteen different games, with some meaty games on the list too and a few that I had never played before. Here is the list of tabletop abundance: 

1. Boggle 

2. Blood Bowl Team Manager 

3. Shogun

4. Tokaido

5. Letters To Santa

6. Mit 3 Dabei

7. Brawl

8. Lost Cities

9. Eight Minute Empire

10. 7 Wonders Duel

11. Raptor

12. Bling Bling Gemstone

13. Zombie Dice

14. Pairs

15. Ticket To Ride: The Emerald City     

16, Noir

Most of the games played were old favourites or ones that had not been played in a while, but Blood Bowl Team Manager and Shogun were new games to me. They had been on my playlist for a while and International Tabletop Day seemed like the perfect occasion to give them a go. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these games, they looked daunting at first but the mechanics were fairly easy to grasp and, like most games, a deeper understanding of the strategy comes through with longer plays. Shogun really did remind me of a lengthier and more strategic Eight Minute Empire, which is one of my favourite games, so that went down very well. I do enjoy a bit of area control and resource management. Blood Bowl Team Manager is a great hand management and dice rolling game with a fun theme, I look forward to playing this a lot more and writing about it in the future. 

Officially, in the United Kingdom, International Tabletop Day is over. But in my home, it will never be over - bring on more games!

Have a great day

Marisa xx  

Dark Souls at Salute

Last weekend I attended Salute 2016 with Marquee Models, as part of their boardgames demo team. I helped demo Zombicide Black Plague all day, but I did manage to sneak away from the table to make a few small purchases and try out Dark Souls.

The boardgame has been created by Steamforged Games Ltd, who have been working with Bandai Namco Entertainment to emulate the experience of the popular video game. I have not played the video game before, I am more of a Cake Mania or Katamari kind of a girl. The people around me playing the demo had played before, though, and they agreed that the boardgame captured the essence of the video game well, especially in the form of combat and the brutally hard nature of the game.

We played a quick demo of the game, jumping in at the deep end and confronting an end of level boss character; the dancer. It is a cooperative game (which is good as you need the back-up!) where you embark upon a perilous a dungeon exploration. Players take it in turn to move and attack. Each action you make depletes your stamina, which is shown on a nifty character card. You use a dry wipe pen to mark off the actions taken and to mark off your health when you are attacked. The stamina is on the left side of the card, and the health is on the right, but if they are all crossed off then you die! Luckily you can replenish health by drinking from your limited Estus Flask or replenish stamina by resting, so timing is a key element for survival.

The boss character we fought was controlled by a small deck of cards, all showing the boss's attack, movement, damage and where she will be vulnerable to attacks. These cards are reset once used up, and recycled, remaining in the same sequence so it is easier to predict the boss's actions. When the health was down to halfway on the boss things got crazy, an extra powerful card was added to the deck and it was shuffled to mess things up! I died fairly soon after that, and had to run back to my demo table before they sent out a search party. 

The kickstarter campaign for Dark Souls is launching today, you can check it out here.

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

Paradice Found

Last week I finally got the chance to visit Paradice; the new board games cafe in Bromley. After bowing out of work early, my partner in crime and I jumped in the car and drove through perilous traffic to reach the cafe in time for a few games and to check the place out. As we had limited time at Paradice we only managed to squeeze in a couple of games, but we also got to meet the Managing Director, Jason Grimwood, chat to other staff members and munch on some snacks before closing.

Paradice is large, plenty of room for gaming! Downstairs is the board games cafe and shop, upstairs has a nice set up of tables and scenery for war gaming and miniatures gaming. The cafe offers a good selection of hot and cold snacks, and scrumptious cake, of course. The board games library is quite large already, even though the establishment has only been open a few months. There is a lot of choice, with many different genres of games, and I wanted to play so many games! The ground area is spacious, and it soon filled up with people of playing and laughing.  

The two games we got to play were Ghostbusters and Click Clack Lumberjack. Being a Ghostbusters fan, I had been eager to play this and was happy to finally get the opportunity. I had heard of it being compared to Zombicide, so that made me rather excited too. Ghostbusters, by Cryptozoic Entertainment, has the same levelling up system as Zombicide, they are both cooperative games, they share the same movement and point system but Ghostbusters is much lighter and more predictable than Zombicide. The set up was easy, and the rules were simple to grasp, which was a bonus. I did enjoy the nods to the movie, my favourite being the symbols on the dice and gates mirroring the cards Peter Venkman uses to test his subject's psychic abilities. 

Click Clack Lumberjack by Justin Oh was an unexpected gem of a game! A fun dexterity experience where you get to swing an axe at a log. No, you should really gently tap the log! Players take it in turns to GENTLY tap the log with the plastic axe to allow bark segments to fall out, but not enough to knock the tree core out. Knocking out the bark segments will give you one point, knocking out a bark segment with a hidden grub inside gives you an extra point, and knocking out a tree core gives you minus five points. In one clumsily fuelled swing I managed to knock down the entire thing; an instant failure in the game but maybe good Lumberjacking in the real world? This game was easy to assemble, very easy to learn and extremely fun to play. I was surprised that we played it so many times, it is addictive and perfect for a very light session. I felt quite sad packing it up, as it meant the end of our boardgames cafe excursion and a long drive home.  

Bromley is where I grew up; I had lived there my entire life up until last year. The addition of Paradice is a fantastic thing for Bromley, it needs a place like that for people to gather and enjoy quality time with friends and family. Like all boardgames cafes, it reinforces friendly socialising and using your brain to have fun. 

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

       

Hey, you guys!

I am rather late jumping in on this, but I just had to give a shout out about The Goonies: Adventure Card Game, from Albino Dragon, that is currently on Kickstarter. The Goonies is one of my favourite childhood movies, that I still enjoy today. Combine the adventure and excitement of The Goonies with the thrill of a card game and you are onto a winner. The Kickstarter has smashed it's goal, raising over $49,201.00 so far, with just 52 hours remaining on the clock. 

The game is cooperative, you play as a lovable yet troublesome bunch of kids from the Goon Docks, just like in the movie, and you are in possession of the map that leads to the fabled One Eyed Willie's treasure. You and your team mates will be going on a treasure hunt, and will be hotly pursued by some really disgusting people; The Fratellis! Find One Eyed Willie's rich stuff, avoid the booby traps, survive the underground cavern and escape The Fratellis!

It sounds like a whole lot of fun, and it is greatly appealing with the nostalgia aspect. Check out the Kickstarter campaign here.

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx       

Massive Darkness

Good news for folks who enjoy a good old dungeon crawl; there has been a new Kickstarter announced, coming out next year from the team that brought us Zombicide!  

The game, Massive Darkness, will encompass the experiences of a dungeon crawl RPG and include beautifully sculpted miniatures, like the ones created for the Zombicide games. 

In the tradition of a true RPG campaign, there will be an array of heroes to choose from, a class to decide upon and skills or traits to spend XP on. Then your heroes will be unleashed in the dark foreboding dungeon, to seek out their fortune and kill the monsters that lurk inside.

Massive Darkness uses the Zombicide system of gameplay, giving your designated DM or game master the chance to become a player rather than controlling the enemies and making the decisions. I doubt the game will be as sympathetic as my DM when I make bad choices, perhaps this is my time to stop with the bad decisions?

You can read more about it here. It is a while until it is released, but that is probably a good thing for our bank accounts! In the meantime, there is always Massmorra to look forward to this year, a dungeon crawling game published by Cool Minis Or Not and it looks fantastic. Being a huge Arcadia Quest fan, that game had to be backed on Kickstarter or there would have been trouble in my household.       

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx      

Dinner With The Dark!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to dine in a darkened room, surrounded by glowing decorations, whilst playing a strategic party game with a group of strangers? Well, the option is now available!

Dinner With The Dark will take place on 25th March 2016 in Antwerp, and it will be quite an evening of surprises and fun! Guests will be invited into a dim room that will be lit up by various glow in the dark decorations, then throughout the meal they will be participating in the party game DEER LORD. Each guest will receive five glow sticks and five 'do something' cards that tell them what to perform during the meal. These things could be as subtle as scratching your head, making up a story or as blunt as banging your head on the table. The guests must act out what is on their cards without getting caught, if they do then they lose a glow stick to their accuser. But, if the accuser is wrong...then they lose a glow stick to the accused! The dinner guest with the most glow sticks at the end of the meal is the winner. The game is all about deceiving and being coy; a bluffer's dream come true.    

This unique and unforgettable event is being organised by Nebulous Dinners, a group of BBA students from KU Leuven in Brussels. Their combined passion for gaming and helping others brought them together for a school project that has led to Nebulous Dinners being formed, with the proceeds going to the charity Restos Du Couer. They have set up an impressive campaign on Indie gogo for funding and so far have received over 21% of the goal.

Board games can liven up any party and break the ice. Adding the extra elements of having the room eerily lit and playing a game that is all about outfoxing each other in subtle ways makes for a very interesting night.          

Dinner tickets are available here. If you can't make it to the meal, like myself, but fancy playing the game and helping out, then you can pledge for the PnP of Deer Lord and other merchandise. You could then host your own crazy dining experience with friends and family! 

Thanks for reading.

Marisa xx

Patchwork

Last week the popular game by Uwe Rosenberg, Patchwork, came to the IOS and Android and I have been playing it quite a lot. I know nothing beats an actual physical game, and the only things that hold me back from buying up all the games I enjoy are money and space! Seriously, some games are HUGE and I live in a teeny place where my walls are mostly stacked boardgames. But buying this game as an app was a great idea and totally justified as I see it as sampling a game before committing to buy. Also, sometimes it can be nice to curl up in bed with a game and play under the snuggly duvet. Shut The Box used to be a bed favourite as the rolling dice is contained in the box, but I'm not sure if the neighbours appreciated the constant dice rolling noise and the wooden slabs being flicked over.

Patchwork is a relatively simple game to play, and like many games it has a greater depth to it that emerges the more you play. The game had a few bugs on the initial download but these have been rectified and it plays smoothly now. The game emulates the tradition of patchwork quilting in the USA, where generations of families diligently work on creating beautiful patchwork quilts to pass on down. Now you can try your dab hand at it without the pain of stabbing your fingers with the needle. 

In this two player game, you compete to create the most attractive and high scoring quilt. The game fuses elements of puzzle-solving, time management, spatial control and strategy. At the start you are given a 9x9 grid to make your quilt on and are given five buttons. Buttons are the currency of the game, and the victory points. Buttons are worth one point and any leftover holes on your quilt are worth minus two points. To make a nice attractive quilt it must have minimal holes, I am still working on that part.

The score is kept by a time track on a separate board, which not only keeps track of the points but it gives you little perks to make the game even more interesting. Another interesting thing to note is the mechanism of the time track. After each turn the player who is behind or on top of their opponent's token goes first. So you could end up taking consecutive turns, if you play your *buttons* right!  

At the start of each turn players are given the option to choose from three of the available patches to buy and sew onto their board, or players can select the Pass option by sliding the button at the bottom of the screen. This allows you to move your time token one space in front of your opponent, then collect one button from the bank for each space moved. A good way to stock up on buttons when you are low. 

Each patch for sale is worth a certain amount of buttons and takes a certain amount of time to sew. Both of these are shown on the patch. Some of the more bizarre shaped patches display buttons too.

Once you have purchased a lovely patch, you can flip it diagonally and horizontally to make it fit nicely, but patches cannot overlap each other. Make sure you flip them using the buttons on the screen and not manually flipping them with your fingers, that did not go well! Once you are happy where you have placed your patch you sew it in and gain points for covering up holes. Sometimes life does not hand you buttons and you find you cannot afford any of the patches, if this happens then you select Pass and collect some buttons for your next turn.

Remember that time track and it's little perks? There are five 1x1 patches on the time track, whoever passes a patch first claims it and may place it on their board to fill a gap in the quilt. If you are anything like me, there will be a few holes on the quilt! Those awkward shaped patches that display buttons on them come in handy here too. On the time track there are buttons placed on the route, and when you move past a button on the track you receive as many buttons as you have on your quilt from the bank. It is raining buttons! Happy day. This button downpour happens to both players, regardless of whoever passes it first. 

There is also a bonus incentive for the first player to create a 7x7 quilted area. I am yet to do this as I tend to pick up the more abstract patches with the buttons.

This is a really fun, light and engaging game for two players who enjoy a little strategy and buttons. I look forward to playing a physical copy and holding all of the buttons in my greedy paws. 

  

Panic Lab; Living up to it's name!

Sometimes I like to play lovely calm games like Tokaido and chill out, but sometimes I like to be toppled over and play games that get me all panicky and excited. Panic Lab definitely falls into the latter category. At the laboratory there has been an incident and all the amoebas have escaped, you must find them quickly before the other scientists (players). To do this, you shuffle the 25 square tiles and arrange them into a big circle. A randomly selected player rolls the four dice to determine which amoeba you must find first, then everyone plays simultaneously and the madness begins!

The dice represent the Shape of the amoeba, the Pattern of the amoeba, the Colour of the amoeba and the Labs. The Lab die shows which lab the amoeba escaped from and which direction it went, players start from there and have to identify the correct amoeba by touching it. If the correct one is found then that player gets a token. The winner is the first player to collect five tokens.

There are a few twists to the game, of course. These slippery little suckers can escape through air vents! If you come across a vent whilst tracking an amoeba then you must skip all squares until you reach the next vent. If you reach the third vent, you must ignore all tiles until you return to the first vent and then continue the search. That has not happened to us yet, they usually get caught after one vent or get mutated.

What is that, you ask? Mutated? Yes, that is exactly what you wanted to hear. What on earth are these scientists playing at, leaving hazardous mutation rooms open for anyone to waltz in? Amoebas can change colour, shape or pattern by passing through these squares. The delicate little amoebas will not survive four mutation rooms in a row, though, if that happens then they vanish. That does not mean the round is over, as the player who touches the last mutation room the little dude slithered through will win the token. This is when the game really kicks off and lives up to it's name of Panic, ensuing a frenzied hunt for the constantly changing amoebas against the greedy eyes of your opponents.     

For those of you with younger children or for the faint-hearted, there is the option of simplifying the game by removing the air vents and mutation rooms, making the game less frenetic. 

The amoebas are cute and colourful, even if they do put years on me. The components all fit neatly in an attractive little tin, so we tend to take it on holiday and end up playing it on the floor of the hotel room or a coffee table. Panic Lab is for 2 - 10 players, age 8+ and the gameplay can last for 10 -30 minutes depending on how many players you have. The set-up time is is short, and it is not a complicated game to learn. Throw in the bonus that it is an inexpensive game, and enjoyable too. A game of quick-thinking, good reflexes and very alert eyes!

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

      

Adventures in Dungeons & Dragons

This year I have broadened my horizons even further in the gaming world and have delved into the realms of role playing games and tabletop miniature wargames. So far, Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer 40k are the ones I play the most. I have even been trying to paint the miniatures for these games, as if I don't have enough things to do already!

I will be honest, prior to playing D&D I had very limited knowledge and little idea of what it actually entailed. I remember loving the 1980s cartoon Dungeons & Dragons, and wanting a short unicorn that sounded both squeaky and gruff, but that was probably the closest I got to any D&D action. One thing I knew for certain about this game was that there would be a lot of dice rolling, and rolling a natural one was bad! I am the expert when it comes to low rolls, so I knew from the start my characters would have a hard time.

When I asked about D&D I was told by many people that it is all about storytelling, that you and your companions are weaving a fantasy story together and none of you know what will happen in the unfolding chapters. Even the Dungeon Master (who controls and organises the game) will not know the outcome for definite, they have a plan but will keep that a closely guarded secret. In this sense, it feels like an incredibly unpredictable and compelling experience. Armed with a drawstring bag of colourful dice, slightly blunted pencils and some paper, I boldly marched into the scenario. I was introduced to the 5th edition D&D; a beautifully illustrated Player's Handbook and not as daunting as I thought it would be. I was also given a character sheet to fill out. Oh, the choices! I chose to go with a homebrew race; Merfolk Erectus. This could have been a very bad choice for my first character, but I went with it as I liked the idea of a Mer-person with legs who needs to consume gallons of water every day in order to stay alive. In a separate campaign at the local games shop I was given a pre-gen character sheet, so it has been fun playing in different ways.

Playing out these campaigns with a crowd of strangers is interesting, and it is funny how we know each other's character's names but perhaps not our real names! After a few sessions the true names are remembered a bit more. We all refer to the Dungeon Master as the DM, even though we've known his name for ages. I have been quite lucky with Dungeon Masters so far, they all possess a great depth of knowledge of the world, and they have played enough times to know what works and how to keep everyone stimulated. They have also been very versatile and patient with beginners, such as myself. No one in our campaigns has been stuck on a rigid quest or killed off for making a tiny mistake...yet. I must say, my characters have suffered many misfortunes for their poor life choices. The last campaign with my pre-gen character did not go too brilliantly. My bereaved halfling had just laid her husband to rest (he made a VERY poor life choice, bless him. Involving bandits, no useful weapons and no back-up) when she was attacked by a were-boar and started to show signs of changing. On that day, she ate a priest by accident, stole a lot of bread and copper coins, ate a goblin's face, conquered the thieve's guild and then got bitten by a vampire in the night. To their credit, her companions did not reject her or turn her in. They may have purchased some shackles and a muzzle, just in case.

My Merfolk Erectus guy, Merlot Von Whet, has had a bit more luck than my halfling. He was just a name and a few abilities in the beginning but now he is so familiar to me and has his own unique personality. He is rather flamboyant, as he is of royal blood, but was banished for inappropriate behaviour in the palace. He always seems to have a heavy purse, despite his banishment. He is a druid, and can use Wild Shape to shape shift into various animals. As he has levelled up, so has this spell, and it has gotten him and his companions into a few...situations. It is not entirely his fault, as I am still grasping when it is ideal to shift and when I should let him stay as he is. The occasion when Merlot was a mouse and shifted back to humanoid form whilst crawling in someone's trousers was a valuable lesson to learn. Rolling low for initiative meant that the man was wearing metal armour and Merlot was horribly wounded. Luckily he is a bit of a healer, and time heals all wounds, right?

The sheer amount of trouble my companions and I get into is insane, we are only trying to do good deeds and help local villages out but things do not always go to plan. I guess that is the beauty of the D&D experience, because things would never go smoothly in real life. The most recent 'mishap' in the campaign at the games shop involved the slaughter of what we thought were a group of bandits. It turned out they were not bandits at all, they were emissaries for the Royal Fleet, and we ended up feasting with one of their brothers! There was a lot of guilt at the table as we listened to him speak fondly of his noble brother and how eagerly he anticipated his arrival. Gulp! We still finished the banquet and stayed in their castle, though. it would be rude to decline such an invitation.    

My next campaign date is late April, which gives me plenty of time to paint up my halfling. I look forward to finding a cure for my vampirism and breaking the curse of the were-boar affliction, with the help of my D&D posse. As true in any quest, all you need are good companions and good (ish) ideals. But don't shape shift whilst messing about in someone's armour, it does not end well.           

Thanks for reading!

Marisa xx

I finally finished updating my game plays of 2015 the other day, it took a rather long time as I had to log plays from December 2014 to June 2015. Yes, I have been very bad at logging plays...but I promise I will keep on top of it this year. After logging them all meticulously onto Boardgamegeek I checked the final count and I was thrilled to learn that I played 1,992 games in 2015! That is not too shabby for a relatively new gamer. Those games were an eclectic mixture of brief filler games, medium card, dice and strategy games, more robust boardgames and larger meatier games.  

It is funny to think that I was totally oblivious to this expansive and wondrous world of gaming just over a year ago, and it is interesting to see how I dove head first into the throngs of tabletop games. I was seduced by the shiny dice, the beautifully crafted boards and components but, most especially, by the unity and interaction that comes when playing a game with another person. 

To immerse oneself in a game, for me, is much like getting lost in a good book or trying out a new move in your skates - the same kind of thrill is released. You are using brain power; strategy, dexterity or even just counting your lucky stars. It is strange to say it, but being introduced to tabletop games has affected my life in a positive way. It has made me gain more confidence, given me the inspiration and the platform to start writing again, it has taken me on some great road trips around the country in pursuit of new games and experiences and has led me to make new and welcoming friends. 

So, that was my mushy little ramble! I look forward to writing a lot more, and gaming a lot more. I have lots of gaming adventures planned this year already, including more trips to new board games cafes. Quite a few fresh ones need to be checked out, and their cakes need sampling too.

Thanks for reading

Marisa xx