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