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Railroad Ink – an instant connection! by Favourite Foe In readiness for getting my eager paws on the new Railroad Ink Challenge Editions (Lush Green and Shining Yellow) by Horrid Games next month, I thought it would be fun to reflect on where my love affair with the Railroad Ink series started. And when I say love, I mean it. My heart beats faster, my palms sweat, and my eyes sparkle when I see that little red box sitting coquettishly on my shelf. It calls to me. It teases me. It whispers sweet somethings in my ear. Indeed, over the weekend, with feelings as fired up as its Blazing Red cover, I was seriously considering sending my own copy a Valentine’s Day card. A heart shaped, hand-written token of my unadulterated adoration. I didn’t (well, that’s my story and I am sticking to it!) but I think I will always be smitten with this little game. I am almost too ashamed to admit this, but it was nearly the greatest love story never told. Early into my hobby gaming obsession (was that really only less than a year ago?!), I tasked myself with buying our first game. And, as still happens to this day, I poured over Boardgamegeek forums and rankings, scoured Youtube for top ten lists, and drove myself crazy comparing, contrasting, and cogitating. By chance, during this initial shallow-dive down the rabbit hole, I came across a video by Efka Bladukas of No Pun Included fame about a small crunchy puzzle called Railroad Ink. In his inimitable style, he mentioned that there was not just one Railroad Ink. But two Railroad Inks. Blazing Red and Deep Blue. Two colours. Two editions. Same game. As the video played out, I laughed, I cried, and the butterflies of excitement started fluttering at the thought of owning a copy. Given than blue is my favourite colour, I tentatively steered towards the supposedly calmer lakes and rivers version, trusting Efka but not quite accepting that they were in fact the same core game. Repeated scouring of stores online proved fruitless, however, and for fear of missing out and having to start the whole nerve-wracking process again, I secured a Blazing Red copy on Zatu’s online store. A few days later, my first (of now many) brown boxes bedecked with orange and white sticky tape appeared. It sat on the worktop for a day, nerves too jangled to unveil its contents. When Bearded Moon could no longer stand moving it every time he wanted to use the toaster, the seal was broken and the diminutive little box was released from its paper cocoon. Naked. Vulnerable. Untouched. And, like a Jilly Cooper romp-a-lot, there was an instant spark. I stroked the lid and listened with my eyes closed as the magnetic catch released and the folded dry wipe boards rose slightly. They could finally breathe now I had freed them from their paper prison. Removing the contents was a voyage of discovery – not bad for a small roll and write! – and I was lost in a heady sea of pens, die, and dry-wipe. I wanted to read. I wanted to play. I wanted to understand. Bearded Moon was excited for me but knew better than to pick up a pen before I had poured over every rule and found at least two separate how-to-play videos to crosscheck and verify the game’s gospel truths. Excitement was there but anxiety was its counterpoint, poised and ready to fill me with doubt. Announcing the first game was like presenting a new partner to your family. I was simultaneously exhilarated and terrified. The expectation had built up to a climax which would surely lead to disappointment, leaving my judgment bruised and my confidence in tatters. I therefore placed the box on the table and waited. Wanting to touch but afraid. Bearded Moon grabbed the box, spun it round and pulled out two boards, two pens, and all the die. White, orange, and red cubes of plastic pleasure. As though merely pondering the washing instructions on his favourite hoodie, Bearded Moon glanced unceremoniously at the rules, uncapped his pen, and he was off. Just like that. No soft caress. Not even any heavy petting. Straight in. My brain swirled whilst I awaited his reaction. Would he approve or would he consider it a cardboard pariah, to be consigned to a place where it could be easily guillotined from any shelfie for fear of upsetting the smarter, prettier, richer game inevitably taking its place down the line. I needn’t have worried. With its simple concept based entirely around making road and rail connections, this spatial puzzle was a hit. But, as this isn’t a review piece, I won’t go into the mechanics in detail. Safe to say, however, that this little game was and continues to be one of our shared passion plays. Feisty, fiery, and frustrating, Railroad Ink has dominated me and I have no intention of begging for mercy. Its ability to trigger my analysis paralysis on the first roll but then soothe me on the next round before biting down harder again is a sensory rollercoaster. Connected highs and open ended lows. And, whether we play vanilla games with just the four base die or a spicy six rounder with fiery meteors or hot, bubbling lava, the tension between brain, board, and pen is palpable. Interestingly, for a game which has zero player interaction affecting the end result, the top-tier level blame levied on the person responsible for rolling the die you.did.not.want. is visceral. My love affair works on all levels too. Whether I am challenging myself on solo-mode or participating in a game with an infinite number of fellow connectors, this game satisfies me. It gives me what I need. It might be good for me. It might not. There may be better alternatives out there. I don’t care. It’s mine, all mine. My Precious. And from the looks of it, I am not alone. My incredibly talented and kind friend, Nathan Coombs of NJC Games, is a true Railroad Ink veteran, having been bitten by the bug when it was first released back in 2018. So much so that he has created his own brilliant custom die collection and set up a global online league where I, Bearded Moon, and others sweat and flex over roads, rails, and stations in direct competition with each other as another way to combat Coronavirus confinement. Some are in it for the glory, some for national pride. I for one am just using Nathan’s initiative as another excuse to spend time with my fiery red blooded cardboard beau. With my heart beating for Blazing Red, however, where does that leave the new beguiling Lush Green and Shining Yellow Challenge Editions? Will my monogamous infatuation slowly fade away like ageing tattooed reminders of partners past or will I get caught up in a messy but mind blowing menage-a-trois with these interactive inamoratos? At this point in our relationship I cannot say for sure but it is going to be exhilarating to find out!

In 2015, Keith Matejka published his first game, Bull Frogs. An abstract-strategy area-control game about placing frogs onto Lilly pads. Fast forward six years, and he has quit his previous day job in the video game industry and has his own board game business built around one of the biggest games on the market Roll Player, and is about to finish production on his biggest game yet, Roll Player Adventures. I was very keen to find out more from the man himself. Roll Player is one of my favourite games and Monsters & Minions is one of the best expansions to any game ever! So, this was quite exciting for me! On A Roll! Roll Player is one of the most successful games of the modern board game era, selling bucket loads of copies and currently ranked within the BGG top 200. I was only recently introduced to the game during lockdown so have not played above a two-player yet, so I was keen to get the perspective of someone who had enjoyed the game in higher player counts. Kay from Kay Plays Games, has a fantastic Instagram account that I really enjoy, and Kay happens to be someone who has played Roll Player in higher numbers many times! So, I reached out to seek her expert opinion. “Roll Player scales well to any player count. Through a simple increase in the number of dice and market cards available each round, the game accommodates four players without any changes to the difficulty. The downside to playing with four is the increase in downtime, which can drag on if any player is prone to the dreaded analysis paralysis. As this is essentially a multiplayer-solitaire game with little direct player interaction, there isn’t much to keep you occupied on other players’ turns beyond planning your next move. To counteract this, if all players agree, I like to carry out the “place dice” phase simultaneously (i.e. each player selects a dice in turn order as per the rulebook, but then all players place their dice, take attribute actions, and gain gold at the same time). This speeds up the game significantly but does require a level of trust that everyone is playing correctly. With new players, you may want to play by the rules for a while, perhaps switching to simultaneous play halfway through the game.” Roll Player OK, let’s talk about Thunderworks most successful game in more detail. Roll Player is a beautifully simple game. You are creating a character. Utilising the core mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons to forge your characters traits, weapons, and characteristics. Anyone familiar with the RPG world will instantly recognise many of the mechanics and terminology. But let me clear. You absolutely don’t need to have an understanding of D&D or RPG’s to play and enjoy this game. At its core, Roll Player is instantly appealing to many for so many reasons. The massive bag of dice! The brilliantly designed player mats with perfectly punched out holes for said dice to nestle neatly in. The variety of gameplay with the multiple boards, backstory, and alignment cards. There is so much to like! And this is probably in part, why it has sold so many copies. Roll Player also appeals to me as someone who has recently got into the world of Dungeons & Dragons. WBG reviewer and all round good guy, Tom from Bury Board Games has taught me how to play, and we have been playing our own little adventure during lockdown. I am also now running a game for my family which is hilarious fun! It has been a wonderful experience and opened my eyes to the huge world I was previously missing. This made me enjoy the Roll Player game even more. But I must stress again, this is not necessary to play the game. Roll Player works by rolling dice and placing them in a communal area. Players then in turn, chose which one they want to take and add to their player mat. Both number and colour are relevant to your potential scoring options. Later powers can enable you to move or change the die face, but most of the time, what you place, you keep for the game. You are looking to achieve certain number, colour and pattern-based targets in a seemingly abstract manner, but of course all dripping with the immersive theme of D&D and the overall arching idea of character creation. Each turn, you simply make one choice. Which dice to take and where to place it, but the options this presents often feel infinite. Not in a way that hurts or is frustrating. But in the way that makes games like this so fun to play. You are thinking about the row it is going in and the potential accumulative total this can now reach. Each row represents one personality characteristic and you will have a target to aim for. How strong is your character? How intellegant can they become? Your Backstory will also offer more juicy end game points if you can place the right colour dice in the right places on each row. And your traits and skills you acquire along the way will also offer rewards based upon certain row scores and dice placement. It’s a beautifully balanced puzzle, that offers high levels of reward win or lose. Yes, you want to outscore your opponents, but regardless of your relative score, every player ends the game with a fully formed character. One you made. From your choices. Fully formed with a unique set of characteristics, traits and skills. It’s a very rewarding experience. Monsters & Minions And yet some people were left wanting more! With this new awesome character created, players then wanted to do something with it! Namely, fight something! Preferably some type of monster! Keith always had plans for something like this being in the game but wanted it to be an expansion rather than the core game. You can hear more about this in the interview above. It was fascinating to hear his thoughts on how he wanted to create something the fans wanted, but also remain true to what the game was. And so Monsters & Minions was born, and with it, one of the greatest board game expansions ever was created! It can be added into the game with minimal extra rule explanations or game length. Seamlessly fitting into an already brilliant game but bringing fresh new twists on your decisions. No longer does your character sit just within your own world, conceptually forming turn by turn. They now exist in the Roll Player world from round one, ready to fight their way to victory. This may sound rather detached and perhaps irrelevant, but it helped me immerse myself into the game even more. It made me become more invested in what I was doing earlier in the game and sucked me into the world the game creates. Not only are you preparing to do battle with the end game boss monster, but smaller minions appear each round, offering you the chance to go and fight and seek the rewards they hold. But the best bit of the expansion is how the final end game monster’s characteristics are revealed. At the start of the game, three random cards will be drawn showing you the location, obstacle and attack metrics specific for this games chosen monster. For each minion you successfully battle that has the trophy symbol on the card, you can secretly look at one of the cards. Crucially revealing ways that fighting the monster at the end can reward you with points. This information is revealed in scret, just to you. But you can now plan accoridngly. It’s a brilliantly tantalising mechanic, that encourages players to fight the minions rather than just shop for new items, weapons and traits each round. And doing so in a way that adds real excitement to the game. Knowing things other players don’t is always fun. But other players second guessing what you may have learnt by analysing your choices after reading them is even better! Fiends and Familiars With the success of this first expansion, Thunderworks Games then released the second, Fiends and Familiars. This time, affecting the set up and bringing negative affects into the game for the first meaningful time. Now we have little critters nagging away at our attempts to develop our character. As a player, you have the choice to avoid these affects and reduce your options when picking dice, deal with the affects head on by using resources to rid yourself of them, or ride the affects in the hope your positive actions will out way their impact. Initially, I was unsure about this. I felt uneasy having something bad to deal with, after two boxes of pure “good stuff!” But after a few games, I realised it just makes the choices throughout the game more interesting. Which makes the game better. It also really improves the two player and solo game by making the choices tighter, which for me in my current restrictions, team mate wise, is a welcome addition. Overall, the Roll Player games have rocketed straight into my top 20 games of all time, and I am astounded it took me this long to bring them into my collection. Roll Player offers such a fun, challenging, rewarding and social experience. I don’t see myself ever tiring of the game. With the addition of two, quite simply brilliant expansions too, you have so much replayability in these three beautiful boxes. I can see why they have been such a huge success, and would wager, will be for many more years to come. As Keith says himself, Roll player is an “evergreen.” I cannot wait to see how Roll Player Adventures expands on this, and brings a narrative arc to the proceedings. It will be joyous to bring the characters I create in one world and see how they fair in another. But for now, all this talk of Roll Player has made me hungry for some dice rolling. I’m off for another game!

By - The Board Critic. The request to select your top 3 board games is actually very different from selecting your top 10. If you are selecting your top 10 you can likely pick your top games in several different categories: drafting, deck building, strategy, party, etc. When you only have 3 picks it gets a little more complicated. You are forced to make decisions within that and select the 3 that not only have gotten to the table often and you expect will still get to the table for years to come, but also have good value for the money, and fantastic production value. When it came down to my top 3 I chose from some of these categories and tried to craft a selection of games that not only could appeal to a lot of different players (since we teach a LOT of people) but also offer an immense amount of play both in their replayability and versatility. And for me, quality can never be sacrificed. Number 3: Clank! - here I have pictured Clank Legacy because it is what I had on hand but really any of the Clanks will do. Clank in Space may be an upgrade but it is hard to tell as I love the fantasy angle and some of the new mechanics introduced in Clank Legacy. Clank is an aggressive game of deck building, time management, a dash of luck, and a LOT of crossing your fingers. Deck building is likely one of my favorite game categories and although I do love a very classic and straight-forward deck builder, I love that Clank gives a little bit of a Dungeon Crawl feel along with some elements of random bag building. The Legacy game lasted us almost 7 months of regular game nights with some friends and that in and of itself means that there is so much value packed into this rather large box. Number 2: Quacks of Quedlinburg - Quacks was one of the more recent games to REALLY impress and surprise me. The bag building elements are sound and very satisfying. You could say that the push your luck mechanic in this comes down to a simple numbers game of whether you should continue to push your luck but there is so much more. Knowing when to stop to trigger your optimal position to get rubies or activate your last green chip in your pot is a real art. I don’t love randomness and I don’t love push your luck games that often because I feel like I have horrible luck, but I absolutely adore Quacks of Quedlinburg and I expect it to become a long-time game staple for years to come. I am glad i can still be surprised by board games. Quacks is also quick and easy to teach which makes it one of my new favorites to introduce to light gamers. Number 1: Five Tribes - Now I know this game is likely not for everyone. If you suffer from analysis paralysis and there being too many ways to get points and too many paths to victory, you may want to steer clear. Five Tribes is a standing reminder to me that a game doesn’t have to get old. I have been playing Five Tribes regularly for over 10 years and it remains as satisfying as the first time I played it. The mancala style movement is unique yet familiar. As I design games I am constantly reminded about how elegantly and authentically that mechanic was woven into Five Tribes. The thrill of finding a move and combination of points and hearing the rest of the table sigh that they didn’t see it first is immensely satisfying. Five tribes is just good repeatable fun and I can’t think of another game I would want as my number one.

I remember, many years ago, my mum buying a copy of Ticket to Ride. My family had always liked things we could do together, and had played some of the staples of childhood. But we had never seen anything like Ticket to Ride before. As a young teenager at the time, part of me couldn’t believe my mum wanted me to play a game about trains, but the other part of me was intrigued by the bright colours and tiny plastic trains. And, just like that, Sunday afternoon gaming was born. My family love a routine. So every Sunday, whatever other madness was going on in our worlds, after Sunday lunch, we would sit down and play board games. My family are also scrupulously fair. We would each have a turn to choose what we wanted to play. In the early days our options were more limited and involved my brother choosing the Pokemon Master board game far too often for my tastes! My personal favourite was (ironically given my initial statement about trains), the London Underground Game. I can’t tell you what appealed so much, but trying to reach all your destinations and return to your starting station first was a lot of fun to a younger me. Even then, without my being able to explain, it was the feeling of being together that I loved about board games. As every older sister can attest to, younger brothers can be pain! But for those few hours on a Sunday afternoon, he was a bearable, sometimes bordering on loveable pain. Until he moved my pawn to Wembley Central behind a closed station, dashing my hopes of a win… As I grew up so did our gaming collection. Some of our tastes changed. Although you could always rely on my mum to choose Ticket to Ride on her turn, or my dad to turn to more traditional card games and pick Contract Whist. I moved on to Lost Cities; The Board Game as my most frequent pick. But what remained was the wonderful sense of togetherness of these sessions. I used to really look forward to and cherish those Sunday afternoons. Those Sunday afternoon sessions continued through university. Whenever I was home there was a wonderful roast, an afternoon of board games, and the treat of my mum’s millionaire’s shortbread. I moved back home after university and the game sessions continued. Strange as it may be to others, it was our routine and I loved it. So, what does that have to do with remote gaming? Well quite a lot actually. Eventually, I moved out of home and in with my now husband (introducing him to the hobby, which he now loves too, along the way). I am lucky as I don't live too far from my parents. About once a month we would go to see them on a Saturday for a day. This would always involve board games in the afternoon, from our old favourite Ticket to Ride (which is chaos with five people!) to the Sherlock Holmes Card Game. For those who haven’t played the Sherlock Holmes card game a quick aside - players are trying to find the murderer card hidden in someone’s hand, through playing a card to “arrest” someone (whilst the game is far more nuanced those are the basics). Well, they might be the rules for everyone else, but our rules must have had an added line saying “at every opportunity accuse Kirsty!” which leads to much laughing, hilarity, and some very big hands of cards! Now five people may not be the ideal number for many games. We found lots of games to make it work. We were all particularly partial to a game of Chameleon. This suited us well as the rounds were quick, and the attempts to find a word which was obscure enough to fool the player who was the Chameleon, but with clear enough links not to get you accused of being the Chameleon led to a lot of laughs. I’m sure there are some rules about how long you play the game for, but we just played for as long as we wanted, or until our sides hurt from laughing so much! Then Covid 19 struck. Suddenly I couldn't go and see my family for our gaming sessions. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly lucky to live with a huge board game fan who will happily play games almost as much as me. But sometimes, I would miss the madness of a five player game of Ticket to Ride. Or the occasions when my brother would come and stay overnight for a lengthy board game session. I began to try and think of ways we could still game together. The problem being that most of the games we had either couldn’t work remotely, needed two copies, or just didn’t accommodate five players. That being said, in the early months of lockdown 1.0 there were some very enjoyable games of Kingdomino and Quadropolis. Both of which worked well remotely with a copy each end, and with a very patient mother sorting tiles into stacks to make things easier. These games couldn’t match the feeling of us all gaming in person but they did help. I naively thought that things would improve in a few months, and it wouldn’t be long before I would be teaching them Wingspan, and getting trounced at 7 Wonders. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. Periodical sessions of remote Quadropolis and Kingdomino did take place. We even added Herbaceous into the mix which was good fun, but not a game which could accommodate five players. Before I knew it, Christmas was almost upon us. The Christmas party is a very important tradition in my family (somewhat boringly to some not the one where you all get sloshed). Our Christmas party involves a music quiz, party food and plenty of board games. With the regulations changing and Covid-19 on the up, we couldn’t have the face to face Christmas party we wanted. However, by this time we had added Railroad Ink as a game we could rotate in, mum and dad had the main game, my husband and I just had some boards. Whilst it might not have been the Christmas party of tradition, we had an afternoon of board games which was a lot of fun. It was the first time in a long time where a spark of the joy of our five player board gaming sessions could be felt. My parents both have birthdays shortly after Christmas. Following on from the success of Railroad Ink, Patchwork Doodle and even Pointless over video call for the Christmas party, we planned board game afternoons on both of their birthdays. Whilst they might not have scratched the same itch as a face to face board game session, I think it is safe to say it was what we all needed. A sense of togetherness; that no matter what was going on in the world we could still all come together and share a good time. As well as a sense of fun; one game of Just One had me laughing until my sides hurt! It might not have made everything all better, but, just for a while, these gaming sessions let me be transported back to happier times. I found myself stopping worrying about all of the uncertainty Covid had created. I could focus on what I was doing in the present, having a great time with all of my favourite people in the world. I wish for things to go back to how they were before as much as the next person. I look forward to sitting round a table with my family, playing board games, passing cards round without a care. One day I will teach them Wingspan (and then shortly after regret teaching them Wingspan as I get trounced!) But for now, I want to make the most of what I do have. Whether it’s a special occasion or a random Thursday night, I am grateful that I do still have the ability to play board games with my family, my favourite adversaries. That we can still have that feeling of fun or togetherness. Because tonight, when we sit down to play games, I'm not playing to win. In fact I couldn't care less if I come last. Tonight I get to do something I love with the people I love. In these sometimes dark and uncertain times, that is something to be thankful for, and something to hold on to.

I need to sit down. No. I need to stand up. In truth, I have absolutely no idea what just happened. It started off like any other board gaming session. Bearded moon settled down opposite me, drink on one side, snacks on the other. I put down my phones (three at the last count; work, life, spam), and looked up. A glint flashed across his eyes, and his hands drummed the top of a box still sealed in its wrapper. That in itself is not unusual. I will admit to at least ten current inhabitants on our shelf of shame (obviously not counting those on pre-order and recently dispatched!). But, normally, prior to cracking the seal on a factory fresh friend, there is a discussion. Our usual routine is thus. First, we deliberate internally; factoring in time availability, degree of brain-ache, and mini meeple’s immediate requirements. Looks pass between us, our Kallax, and back again as we prepare to quick draw suggestions in the preliminary cardboard gunfight portion of the evening’s gaming entertainment. Shots fired; the horse-trading then begins. Abstract as my go-to, spatial for him. Eventually we settle on a mutually agreeable choice (or two if we each need a win) and then it is down to serious board gaming business. But not tonight. No, tonight, Bearded Moon had a plan and took the reins. No questions. One answer. Like a cat sensing an impending bath, all of my senses were on overdrive. The air was electric as he wiggled his eyebrows and invited me to look down at the box shaped elephant in the room. He casually sipped his drink. I bedded in, staring him out. Not wanting to acquiesce to this new situation, my regard somehow implying approval. But, Bearded Moon is an artist when it comes to minimal expression causing maximum effect. He held firm. I faltered, crumbling like a dunked digestive biscuit. Defeated, I exhaled, and cast my eyes downwards, lids screwed shut in a last ditch effort to snatch victory from the strong, whiskered jaw of defeat. After what seemed like an eternity (but was probably more like a minute), I slowly, slyly looked. Fuse. Now, you were thinking I was going to use another F word there, weren’t you!? If it makes you feel any better, I was thinking it in my head. On a loop. You see, given the omnipresence of mini-meeple in mummy-daddy-home-school-office hell, my perhaps surprising ability to out-swear the swarthiest sailor has been temporarily stymied. My words modulated to match target said audience and avoid being branded a potty-mouth Penny by the boy in charge. I am no saint, however, and my efforts to PG my language often forks up spectacularly. This time though, I let my forehead do the talking; lines forming into waves of worry as my fists balled up on the table. I felt the presence of strong, fleece covered calves clamp around my own pyjama coddled legs as he ran one thumbnail along the opening. The seal broke with a sharp click and there was no going back. Real-time. Right now. You might be aware that Part 1 of my little tale explains the backstory to this personal challenge and so I won’t bore you (again!) with context (or if you are sitting here thinking “what the fork is she going on about?” then I invite you to look back here to reassure your mind that you haven’t missed days as one Lockdown day melds seamlessly into the next)). I’ll just presume you know that, at that precise moment, I was feeling as comfortable as a lynx lying on hot doorknobs. As the accompanying Renegade Games timer was downloaded and readied, I was the unequivocal definition of a flight-risk. “But why?”, you tentatively ask (risking either a terrifying or tedious retelling). Well, for anybody unfamiliar with Fuse, it is a real -time, fast paced, co-operative game where players assume the role of an elite Bomb Defusal Team who have only 10 minutes to work together to (yep, you guessed it) diffuse as many bombs as they can. 65 cards with varying combinations of numbers and colours. 25 die depicting said colours and numbers. Oh and let’s not forget the timer. How could we, quite frankly? The sound is still echoing inside my skull as I lie curled up, foetal stye, in my pillow palace, still trying to process what happened in just 10 minutes. 600 seconds. Anyway, Bearded Moon shuffled, shook, and set up. I sweated, shifted, and bargained. No dice, mamma. He looked at me and nodded, features fixed, finger hovering over the play button. I swallowed hard and braced myself. This was going to hurt. And It did. And then it didn’t. And then it did again. I won’t reveal our final score because quite frankly I don’t know it and I didn’t care. 10 minutes of the cruellest analysis paralysis immersion therapy I have ever endured had just happened and I didn’t know whether I was on my arse or my elbow (oh, there see? Apologies, dear readers, for that slipped out under stress!). As the final, shrill beep of the claxon coursed through me, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even really remember what had happened. But, with chest heaving, and hands trembling, we had finished it. I had done it. Whatever it was. And then something even more unexpected happened. I smiled. Well, sort of. It was crooked, it was confused, but the edges of my lips were definitely in an upward arc. In all honesty, I am still trying to properly process why. Anxiety thrives on deadlines. On pressure. On the need to succeed. Over and over again. You can’t slip. You can’t fail. It will expose you for the disappointment and imposter you feel you are. It is the fuel upon which it sustains it suffocating grip. But, in a situation which would otherwise make my disorder slam on every single synaptic brake in my body and shut me down faster than a 2020 rave, there were moments where I made snap decisions. Brief, yes. Correct, not even close. But they were there. Forced to choose. Analysis, consequences, and overthinking prohibited. “Do or do not. There is no try.” I should mention that throughout this experience, Bearded Moon was my cool, calm, and collected anchor. Rolling dice, picking card, and maintaining a dialogue whilst I clearly could not sacrifice concentration torn away from the all-important skill of breathing. He was, as always, my centre of gravity. In the glow of the red illuminated smart screen timer, however, my smile wavered. Not because of the game; Fuse does exactly what it says on the (cardboard) tin. It is fast, it is furious, and it is fantastic. My smile slipped because I had a feeling which I didn’t understand. Not indigestion, not palpitations (although anxiety does love slamming me in the chest with an anvil). Something new. I think the feeling was (and is) the desire to try again. Knowing that such a conscious choice would open me up to a Pandora’s box of negative and destructive emotions was a daunting prospect. Regret at even thinking it possible hit me like a brick and I got up from the table ready to place Fuse on a less visible shelf. One where the mocking sight of the box couldn’t taunt me so easily. But, rather surprisingly, the box is not concealed behind other games. Fuse is currently centre stage on the top row between Kingdomino and Rummikub. I cannot say when I will be ready to play it again, but I will. Steely determination and gritted teeth have replaced the post-game wonky semi-smile, and I know for a fact that they represent serious power. Power over fear. Power over doubt. Power over myself.

Blue player, red player, green player; same shape, same weight, same value. But is that really true? Board gaming is a hobby that is quickly realising it cannot and should not exist in a vacuum. Despite its reputation for being all things technical, tactile, and gentle, on some hive-mind level, it is developing a social conscience. From contemporary politics to deep rooted historical injustices, board game designers, publishers, and players are making choices about what games say about them as corporations and as individuals. Social responsibility is by no means a new thing; PR departments across myriad for-profit sectors of industry have been shoehorning ethical, environmental, and political awareness into their branding for years. The cynical amongst us might take renewable energy initiates funded by oil companies with the same pinch of salt as big-pharma giants who extol the virtues of natural remedies alongside their mountains of high-priced, patent protected medications. Indeed, it is difficult to take global efforts to reduce reliance upon fossil fuels seriously when the technology for fuel cells and hydrogen power is held under lock and key by the very same companies that keep us drinking from the petrol pumps. And whilst enormously important, high level movements like the #BlackLivesMatter are causing a shift towards greater diversity in board gaming from end-users all the way up to designers (great examples being Richard “Rahdo” Ham and Mik, Starla and Grant of @ourfamilyplaysgames who are trailblazing content which celebrates inclusivity in boardgaming as well as positive initiatives from the likes of Backerkit shining a spotlight on black creators), there seems to be less of a drive to acknowledge and address accessibility issues in our beloved hobby. Now, as alluded to at the beginning of this piece, whilst we each have our own skills and experience when it comes to playing board games, we usually begin with the same components, the same resources, and the same chances to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. But that is a presumption which is incorrect at best and grossly unfair to a great many gamers. For those with disabilities, the playing field is more moguled than millpond. Of course, for many reasons, some gamers simply do not like and therefore do not play certain games. Personal tastes, preferences, theme, player counts…….Like any good romance, a LOT of factors meld together to make a particular game attractive to a specific player. I do it every day. Looking at my own collection and the almost overwhelming choice of new games out there, I make sometimes snap decisions, other times balanced judgments based on box art, set up time, theme, mechanics, my game buddies’ predilections (let’s face it, nobody wants to be the person who recommended the game that utterly tanked game night!), really whatever is on my mind that day. I know I won’t like or want to play every game all the time and that’s ok. Furthermore, just like the greatest love stories of old, a once infatuated player can suddenly fall out of love with a game or gradually grow out of that special thang they had going on together. If you have ever had the “it’s not you, it’s me” conversation with your once favourite board game, you’ll know the pain; it somehow feels like a betrayal; sadness on a spiritual level. But, in the modern world of gaming with a community making strides into greater representation and progression, where players have direct access to designers and publishers online and do not shy away from recognising where we fall short as a group, should somebody still be prevented from playing a game which they could and would otherwise play but for a simple lack of accessibility considerations in its fundamental design? Perhaps I am sensitive to the issue because I have a minor physical disability and therefore the injustice becomes wonderfully dramatic in my own mind. In the interests of transparency, I admit to an occasional audible sigh or a headshake dripping in disappointment when discussing games in my very limited sphere of influence (it sometimes gains me a generous concession, other times just a chocolate – all depends upon who I’m playing!). I won’t bore you with the gory details (mainly for being at serious risk of overpromising and underdelivering) but I will say that an accident left me with limited function in my dominant hand. This means that I cannot play some types of games (dexterity, concealed information etc.) without either DIY adaptations or enduring an unavoidable disadvantage/discomfort compared to other players. Do I do it? Of course I do; I am very lucky to have a husband who is both very understanding and great at woodwork and so is now au fait with making all sorts of game add-ons and assists. However, there is a fundamental difference between a game which has a core mechanic that cannot “fit” with my own brand of physical challenge and one which, because of a basic design choice, is just made less suitable or appealing to me. Now, I promise, I am not turning this into a personal injury ad, but my story gives my feelings context. Furthermore, there are other gamers out there facing much more challenging circumstances than me. For that reason, I would not presume to opine on situations outside of my personal sphere as patronising players on any subject, let alone something as individual as this, is a definite no-go. But as a gamer, a writer, and a member of our wonderful community, I do feel a duty to highlight the accessibility issue if I am granted the platform space to do so because, ultimately, if we don’t talk about it, nothing changes. Chatting with the wonderful writer, educator and gamer, Ruel Gaviola, on Twitter a few months back, he mentioned that he has colour vision deficiency (CVD) and it is something he discusses when streaming and making videos online. For those who are not aware, CVD means that Ruel struggles to differentiate between certain colours (in his case, red and green) and, given the visual predominance of our hobby, makes it difficult and sometimes even impossible for him to play certain games. By sheer coincidence, I had recently bought a lovely little two player polyomino gams and had played it several times, thoroughly enjoying the puzzle and strategic challenge. With its chunky components and perfect information format, it was and remains a game which I found easy to play from a practical perspective. There is no need to hold anything for extended periods of time (hugely helpful given that my right hand cramps after around 30 seconds leading me to drop decks, reveal my hand and lose…..well, that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it!), and for that reason, it got an extra tick from me. But then, reflecting on Ruel’s experience with CVD, I realised that, if someone with CVD were to play the same game, they would be disadvantaged by the designer’s choice of predominantly blue and purple colouring in a way that I would not. Now, I understand the game is set at night leading the colours to be both thematic and appropriate to the scene. However, given that player-specific icons are used in other components within the game, it left me wondering why the designer chose not to include symbols to enable CVD players to tell the difference between their particular spaces and the communal spaces. A simple best-practice solution that would include players otherwise excluded. Not that it is particularly within my remit, but with my business-minded hat on, it also does not make a great deal of sense for designers and publishers to exclude or disincentivise an important and influential section of a target audience; more players equals more games sold equals more profit. Right? But perhaps I am being over-simplistic. The economics of successful board game production is fraught with complexity beyond my math-deficient mind and based upon a matrix to which I am not privy. As an end-user, however, I appreciate and value all efforts to raise our game when it comes to accessibility within our hobby. By highlighting this example and discussing the issue generally, please understand that it not my intention to disgrace any part of our wonderful community. As any good parent knows, the shame game gets us nowhere. Rather, through greater awareness of accessibility issues, it is simply my hope that, where possible, we can raise standards across the board (pun intended!) and enable all players who choose to play a particular game to start from the same position. No more, no less.

A Busy Gamer.... Work. Kids. Life! llike Spiderman or Elastigirl, if we aren’t multitasking like a superhero, we are slipping, right? But with everything we mere mortals juggle every day, it’s a wonder we have time to breathe, let alone participate and enjoy our amazing hobby. However, for that very reason, no matter how busy we get, there should always be time for games. In fact, my own primary coping mechanism for managing today’s relentless sensory overload (not even counting the homeworking-home schooling-emotional explosion that has been 2020) is the soothing, familiar, and reliable activity that is board gaming. Blessed with an amazing 5 and a half year old (I lose count of the times I have been chastised recently for forgetting that all important 6 month maturity boost!), career, husband, home, and a family that is as engaging as it is diverse, life is busy, like, what-day-is-it-when-did-I-last-shower-can’t-remember-my-own-name level eventful. And so, whilst I may covet the sprawling, heavy hitting immersive games dominating Boardgamegeek’s top 100 spots, that halcyon time-generous space is not where I am at right now; not even close. Currently, I am on survival mode; fruitlessly trying to stop my son cameoing on work Zoom calls whilst scheduling like a general preparing for battle and ceaselessly online shopping delivery slot hunting on my smartphone. Indeed, my son now builds Ocado vans out of construction blocks and his go-to greeting when the doorbell chimes is “hello again Mr Amazon Man”. (Passive-aggressive judgment from a 5 year old is harsh!). Truly, I feel more Wile E Coyote than Wonder Woman. When I can shoehorn 15 minutes (dare I shoot for a whole half hour) into the liminal zone between the day’s human hamster wheel spinning down and me falling unconscious in front of a book only to drag myself out of bed 5 hours later, I need a hit and I need it fast; get in, game, get out. Now, I know I could rely on an app to get my fix; Sagrada, Castles of Burgundy, Jaipur... the number of tempting little icons waiting patiently on my tablet have multiplied faster in the past six months than drunken bunnies at a barn dance. Plus the rapid advancement of digital and online playing formats preserving social interaction and enabling game groups to endure has been one small high point in this otherwise dark and devastating pandemic-age. But, as a board gamer, when I do find myself app-ing, I can’t help but miss the tactility of a physical game; that special calming effect which touching components and parsing turn information in a multidimensional way that only tabletop gaming can provide. On that basis, in case you too find yourself with a gaming itch that an app can’t scratch, I am sharing with you three of my favourite little-big hitters. I would highlight that this selection box of rapid-fire tabletop games are not just quick because they dispense with complexity in the same way that apps eliminate set up and tear down time. Despite their swiftness, their boxes runneth over with depth, strategy, and the much sought-after “crunch". They are the snatch and grab petrol station, deep-fill, all day breakfast stars of the board game sandwich buffet. And so, without further ado, here are three of my favourite speedy yet satisfying games you can squeeze in between the daily working, washing, and worrying: Tora’s Top 3 Games For Busy Gamers Hanamikoji (EmperorS4 (2013) 2 Player) In Hanamikoji, designer Kota Nakayama has sharpened the “I cut you choose" mechanic to such a degree that it makes Kill Bill‘s sword feel like a melted marshmallow. In a game comprising just four prescribed actions, you will experience something sounding remarkably like your own brain squeaking under the strain of objection as you seek to earn the favour of seven skilled Geishas. Staying true to the theme of this piece, set up time is minimal; 7 large numbered Geisha cards are lined up along a central space with a circular marker placed on top of each one. Players then receive 4 small square tiles apiece (each depicting one of the permitted four actions) and a hand of 6 smaller, numbered cards. The remaining smaller cards, having discarded one at random, are shuffled and form the draw pile. Each player then takes it in turns to draw another card and carry out one of the available one-time only folks moves. Whoever secures 11 victory points or 4 of the seven Geishas is declared the winner. Kaia! Now, underestimate this small-box, big think game at your peril; the other--worldly sensation as the magnitude of your decision making crawls over you like Japanese knotweed is on a sand-in-your-knickers level of discomfort. In four small but exquisitely unbearable turns, you will either become the calculating victor or the architect of your own failure; whatever the result, it is going to be directly attributable to your actions; in Hanamikoji, there is nowhere to hide! As an out-and-proud analysis paralysis sufferer, I have an overwhelming love-hate-love relationship with this game as it forces me down a strategic path from which there is no return. In the space of just 15 minutes, I routinely blast through a mental and physical marathon, repeatedly hitting the metaphorical wall like a bag full of warm custard. Having to make such profoundly game altering decisions without any buffer, break, or filler is a lot of crunch in very little time…..and I.love.it. I would note that timings may stretch a little longer depending on the degree of choice-induced paralysis taking place. Ultimately, however, simmering beneath its graceful artwork and stylish theme lies something as cold as steel and, in Hanamikoji, everybody can hear you scream! Battle Line(GMT Games, CMON (2000) 2 player) Reiner Knizia’s flag-grabber may appear to be another surprising choice for a badge-wearing analysis paralysis sufferer but the Dr. was definitely on to something when he pulled Battle Line from his bag of gaming tricks. In another simple but incredibly strategic card game (incidentally re-implementing the Scottish themed Schotten Totten), two opposing armies are fighting to secure 3 consecutive or 5 random flags out of a total of 9, captured by achieving formations scored similarly to poker with certain combinations trumping others. Players may also employ additional Tactics Cards which can instantly flip-reverse your own strategy or that of your opponent in a single action. It is fast and it is furious, ancient Greek style. Once again hitting the spot at around 15 minutes, the heady mixture of deduction, skill, and luck of the draw makes Battle Line an incredibly tense game in a very short space of time. The duelling mechanic forces players to lay down cards each turn in a way that makes being dipped in BBQ sauce and dangled naked in front of a salivating hell-hound a far more appealing prospect. Somehow, knowing that you could be giving your opponent an undeniable advantage at the expense of your own formations every single time is as exciting as it is distressing; the pain that flashes through your jaw when you pick up a card that WOULD have been perfect on the previous round but is now completely USELESS is teeth-grindingly intense. Ultimately, if you like pulling no punches when it comes to duelling with your opponent and you don’t have the time to wage war, Reconquista style, Battle Line could be your quick-hit Demolition Man moment. Kingdomino (Blue Orange Games (2016) 2-4 players) Territory building in the blink of an eye, Kingdomino is a masterpiece at fitting a big game tactical tussle into a much shorter time frame. Based upon that old-timer classic, dominoes, players here take on the role of Lords expanding their empires by laying tiles around their own castles. Each chunky, colourful tile shows two different terrain types and a player can only place a new tile where at least one of the two sides of that tile matches an existing tile in their kingdom. With some tiles depicting a number of crowns that, when connected to matching terrain types, multiply the points for each of those regions at the end of the game, victory is secured by constructing the most profitable kingdom when the tiles run out. Set up is a synch; pile up the tiles, shake out the meeples to determine player order, and bestow a little castle upon each Lord. Sounds simple but, in a tense twist, kingdoms can only be designed in a 5 x 5 grid (or 7 x 7 for two player games). At all times, players must predict what tiles they will be able to lay down in future turns, but the tiles available to them on the next round will depend on which tiles they chose in the previous one because less lucrative tiles are always higher up in the turn order. This need to balance coveting crowns against first player advantage whilst simultaneously ensuring the spatial rules are not broken is intense. What’s more, for those who cannot work out how to construct a 5 x 5 square in an ever changing landscape, Winter is coming. Like a good Disney film, however, this game works on multiple levels and, if younger children want to muscle in on your “me time”, they will enjoy seeing their colourful kingdoms grow whilst you sweat and strain under the pressure to conquer your opponents under the weight of your bountiful realm. I hope these three particular games have reassured you that fulfilment can come in a fun-size package and, if Jim will let me [Editors note - I sure will!], I hope to be back to share more ideas for time-starved gamers with you in 2021! Merry Christmas and a happier, healthier, and brighter new year to you all. Tora

Although far less romantic than “Love in the time of Cholera”, playing board games during the Coronavirus outbreak has been no less harrowing for some of us. But, unlike the metaphorically rich sickness in Marquez’ literary tale, COVID19 has been the real-deal. Without doubt, our world has been changed by the immediate impact and lasting effects of this global pandemic; surgical masks which were the exclusive uniform of the medical profession and exotic nail bars are now as essential as underwear; firm handshakes have transformed into street-cool elbow bumps, and if you’re not singing “Happy Birthday” in your head whilst washing your hands, well then, you’re officially dooming us all, my friend. Note: this piece does not attempt to discuss or describe the horrors and devastation that people have experienced since the Spring, as I would be doing a disservice to everybody. Rather, this work focusses on some of the impacts Coronavirus has had on our hobby and me as a member of our rich and wonderful gaming community. Get comfy, kids, for I begin with a story. Locked and Loaded? I remember the first time I queued up at 4am to get into a supermarket back in March of this year. I was confused, terrified, but determined. Walking in single file, masked and gloved like I was about to commit armed robbery rather than buy bananas, It became very clear that the previously bloated shelves had taken on a sudden svelteness. Gone were the usual mountains of bread, pasta, toilet paper, paracetamol, and tin foil. I know, I too thought the foil thing bizarre until I heard some of my fellow trolley truckers at the checkout enthusiastically conspiring about the virus trying to read our thoughts and/or spread some form of organic electromagnetic field. After that, I scoured, sourced, and fabricated three fetching aluminium beanies; hot to sleep in but no bugs are gonna use me and my family as their personal streaming service! Anyhoo, besides the natty NASA inspired fedora I am sporting today (just in case, you understand), I am ashamed to admit that I initially and loudly condemned panic buying by the public at large whilst simultaneously stockpiling my own bunker level store of 3 ply puppy printed loo rolls; my anxiety disorder and guilt complex make for riotous bedfellows. I remember one particular early morning grocery guerrilla attack where I felt almost giddy with relief having secured 4 bags of flour by placing them on different parts of the conveyor belt by virtue of the terrified checkout lady wearing fogged up glasses not remembering how many she had already scanned. In comparison, the rest of my basket was a car crash of hastily grabbed consumables; tinned peaches, microwave chips, cola, and shoe polish. In that single defining self-reflective moment in the supermarket car park, I quickly realised that I had not evolved the skills necessary to survive a disaster of any kind, let alone one requiring alpha-parent abilities to pressure-purchase foodstuffs capable of sustaining my family for weeks without access to 24/7 convenience stores. As I made my way home, uneasily victorious, I also slowly realised that I had no idea what to do with flour, 4 bags or otherwise. My early hunter-gatherer jubilation crumbled as quickly as fast-acting yeast (another short-lived win!) when I realised how little I knew about baking. Bread was something that came bleached, soft, and thick sliced; plastic wrapped and preservatives aplenty, just as nature intended. Turning powder into a sandwich was witchcraft; a tasty but no less mysterious practice of the dark arts. As well as my domestic shortcomings, I also failed repeatedly to trump the in-house iParent during our own personal lockdown working-from-home-schooling-hell; Mr. EyesPad as he is now known became the only reliable source of social interaction for our son as my husband (who, to add a cherry on top of his misery cake, was shielding for health reasons) and I found ourselves unable to switch our eyes and ears off from the relentless news headlines, government briefings, tweets, emails, and radio broadcasts. Sensory overload on steroids; anxiety’s lifeblood. Boom or Bust? Fast forward eight terrifying, devastating, and exhausting months and, for me, the digital pandemic chatter has settled into a familiar, constant, household hum. The bags of flour still languish in my cupboard untouched (thank the Lord for online shopping!), but our wonderful shared board gaming hobby has been rapidly evolving and adapting at a pace that puts Boris Johnson’s ever decreasing waist size and popularity to shame. And just as well, frankly, given that we awoke today to another set of new Tier 4 lockdown restrictions. And so, this new layer of can we/can’t we got me thinking. In the omnipresent shadow of Coronavirus, what has changed for us as board gamers? What challenges do we now face in sustaining our hobby with no definitive pandemic effects-end date and, perhaps more surprisingly, what new opportunities, if any, has this new-normal dropped into our dice towers? Not that I nor anybody would ever wish a global disaster as the agent of transformation, but I ask the latter because, whilst it is easy to focus on change as a negative force, the chance to evolve brings with it novel and, importantly, positive opportunities for growth. I think we can all agree that we love our gaming hobby and our overwhelmingly friendly community. But, as I have mentioned in other pieces and contexts, these cannot survive in a vacuum. Elements of what we do and how we do it and who we do it with have to develop so that we can thrive as players in this new normal. If we don’t, we risk dooming board gaming to pastime vestigiality; turning what was once great into a stubborn, unstable place; the grumbling appendix of the hobby body. Digital Development? The unprecedented surge in digital gaming is definitely one way in which I see many of us less, ahem, more tactility-minded gamers seeking to preserve the communal aspect of playing in these socially-distanced times. It’s not a new thing, far from it, but it is a way of playing that was previously a more perhaps “free” choice; to play on-line or to meet in person – you decide. At the moment, however, unless your household or support bubble contains a fellow gamer, it’s the digital-way or the highway, my friend. And many analogue gamers are realising this. Numerous shattered board game groups are now au fait with Zoom, Skype, Facetime, and other video-conferencing platforms as ways to carry on meeting, playing, and chatting. It’s not perfect; many games don’t work on this platform, internet connections can be frustratingly unreliable, and the virtual nature of the event seems to make human commitment harder to secure in the face of competing real-time events going on in players’ homes. But it is something and it is growing. Furthermore, dedicated online gaming platforms like Boardgame Arena, Tabletopia, and Steam have seen a massive uptake in membership as the ability to play games online with other human beings, even those you cannot physically high five after a cracking combo move, is becoming more appealing, perhaps vital for some where other ways to play (or even just interact with another human being) are currently impossible. Similarly, Discord and other virtual social spaces are doing their bit to preserve the camaraderie amongst gamers and to facilitate new connections between us globally. Plenty of gamers were of course familiar and enthusiastic users before Coronavirus, but for many who don’t play consoles or video-conference in other aspects of life, owning a headset with a mic and having a set-up to suit online gaming specifically is ground-breaking. And I think that has to be one undeniably positive effect to come out of these challenging times; the ability to play the board games we love with people all over the world; to experience a new game or a familiar game through a different sphere of reference. Not only that but the widening effect on accessibility cannot be ignored. For those of us who do not have the confidence to join an analogue game group, the money to buy new games regularly, or perhaps the ability to participate due to disabilities, having access to almost limitless choice on your own terms and at your own pace is really quite wondrous. I don’t know if you are dabbling, loving, or even shunning the digital wave right now, but I have personally met some lovely people through digital gaming and it is my hope that we will continue to meet in order to play and chat even when the world is allowed to come together again vis-a-vis. I have also done something I never thought I would; I have been watching, not playing you understand, but simply watching other people play board games online and, dum dum dummmmm… I really enjoy it! Despite the myriad tv and film streaming options on my home smart television, I find my one free eye and ear (the other in each case still keeping a watching brief over the news headlines and briefings of course!) drawn most nights to my favourite content creators playing games on Twitch. With the sound toggled off, it could be an almost meditative exercise, but the ability to jump into the live chats and socialise with a bunch of other game-crazy viewers and the hosts themselves is a fun and interactive experience which I would not achieve at home otherwise. And this direct online, real-time link between gamers, creators, publishers, and designers is a massive leap forwards which has been pushed up the timeline by the restrictions placed upon us since the pandemic locked down the world. Doubtless it would have happened at some point anyway, particularly as there are some great personalities out there who are fantastically entertaining (Brothers Murph, MoreGamesPls, Ruel Gaviola, Dave and Ilka Luza, OurFamilyPlaysGames, to name but a few) and seem genuinely happy to game with us mere mortals. But the need to find new ways to engage directly with players, who are also consumers after all, has taken on an almost unprecedented primacy. In the online world, it appears that we expect to receive a little more attention from the game Lords. And the industry knows it and is encouraging it. So much so that, this year, gamers, publishers, and creators are chattering daily on social media, online content is being integrated into traditional analogue games, apps are being released almost simultaneously with the physical board games, and many organisers have been hosting digital gaming conventions in lieu of their traditional, grandstand events. On the latter, some have done this very well. Having been faced with a “Do or do not. There is no try” dilemma, many faced the challenge head on and did exactly that. But, for me, those who have chosen to seek to emulate the traditional experience for fear of losing their core audience sadly missed the mark. And this was bound to happen. Right now, there is no mechanism by which the communal buzz and heady atmosphere of a physical convention hall can be reproduced digitally. These events are dripping in a special sauce, one as unique as the fantastic range of unfamiliar foods, events, and games on offer. Spiel Digital 2020 was one such experience which, despite the gravitas and industry experience of the hosts, didn’t capture my imagination and, from the post-event public dissection, I was not alone in my disappointment. By contrast, for me, UKGE made smart decisions in its design, content, and attendee interaction which worked well online because it didn’t try to be something it could never be. Similarly, the unassuming Awshux online 3 day convention was a delightfully fun and engaging mix of online gaming, live Twitch streaming, new release preview videos, interviews (“Quinns v Tom Vasel; Who is more wrong” being a particular highlight), and friendly banter. They were, for me, the little gaming engines that could. Done well, I see a real opportunity for the board gaming industry to embrace digital conventions as a further way to increase accessibility for those for whom attending a convention in person would be an uncomfortable or impossible task. If 2020 has shown our gaming community anything, it is our endless enthusiasm to encourage each other and new members to interact however that may be achieved and to play games no matter what the circumstances. Indeed, I see no reason why digital conventions cannot run alongside more traditional events as a way of drawing together an even larger global audience who share the same love for our hobby, each element capitalising upon the strengths of its respective platform rather than trying to be something they aren’t. Apps haven’t been forgotten either; the sheer number of board games which have and are being converted into apps on Android and Apple devices is overwhelming. And these are not just afterthoughts; the good ones (some tank, admittedly), very closely recreate the game play of the analogue originals and some, dare I say it, do it better? Woah, ok, ok, I take that back; they don’t. but what they can do is make some very expansive and expensive games available to us all. Not only that, they can strip away the set up and tear down which, if you are anything like me (poor things), means you often forgo a great game simply because the play to pack-up time ratio stinks. For these reasons, on numerous occasions, I have consciously chosen to buy certain apps which are the digital counterparts to the board games I already own and love simply because they are more convenient and no-less fun to play on my tablet or phone. Other times, I have bought apps knowing I could never afford (in money or table space) the real-deal. Now, time spent on our hobby should always feel justified rather than an indulgence to be earned. But in these busy times, as I have mused in Top 3 Games for Busy Gamers, sometimes we just need something to scratch that game itch; a lunchtime round or two to get us through the morning rush, afternoon slump or even a diversion in a long and winding queue. And for that reason, Apps, for me even as an analogue-enamoured gamer, now form a permanent part of my gaming purview. Simply Solo? Another unexpected effect of the pandemic on many of us as gamers has been the proliferation of solo gaming, both digital and analogue. Again, this change could be seen as a negative response to the times we are currently facing; the forced introversion of previously and otherwise social players who, for reasons all things Coronavirus, are being prevented from enjoying multiplayer sessions. And I am sure that is true for some; those who feel they falling back on their last resort but least favourite way to play. For me, however, as a new gamer, I have experienced a strange and surprising effect on my confidence. Playing apps on a me v AI basis is familiar ground; when my husband or my son (5 year olds don’t get special dispensation in my house!) are bored of me pestering them to play, my previous go-to solution would be to grab my tablet or smart phone and duel it out with an artificially (but usually far more) intelligent algorithm. Recently, however, I have been dipping a toe (ok, I admit it, I am up to my neck!) into the warm waters of analogue gaming on a solo basis; to the point that I am now heavily swayed when purchasing by a game that is engaging for one as well as at higher player count. I didn’t think I would be like this; why get all the bits out when it is only myself at the table? But, you know what? A reason I love board gaming is the tactile nature of it; holding the components, turning them over in my hand as I think about my next move, and again, for me, that cannot be replicated in digital form (yet!). On that basis, when time permits, I will happily play a tabletop game alone; not lonely, simply with my own thoughts and at my own pace. And once again the industry seems to be realising that solo gaming is a big deal; not just a Coronavirus created fallback but a conscious choice and one which players will continue to enjoy after the restrictions are lifted. Cynical to say that their enthusiasm to slap a 1+ sticker on their boxes probably springs in a large part from the big profits extra sales translate, but I genuinely believe the designers are at the forefront, developing solo modes which are not simply an afterthought or a beat-you-own-score add-on in the rule book. Sophisticated automas and single-player challenges are springing up in new releases across the board and the solo chatter on Boardgamegeek is growing minute by minute. They (someone, though I never have determined who) say that necessity is the mother of invention, and in this case it seems to be not only true but a force for good; once again not only sustaining but expanding the reach of our hobby to gamers through the joy of solo-play. I touched on pace briefly above and, as an anxious, analysis paralysis prone player, I often feel an overwhelming pressure to take my turn in a game for fear of boring my opponents senseless. Sometimes this can have a surprisingly confidence building gut-instinct effect. Other times, depending on which TORCON anxiety disordered threat level settles upon that particular day, can cause me to rush and miss something I could have done better and then spend hours post-morteming and berating myself. At the moment, however, as well as solo-gaming which is enabling me to indulge each gloriously tangible turn with as much time as other commitments are graciously bestowing, I have been playing games in an asynchronous manner; not just via Boardgame Arena or on an app, but also tabletop games with no formal digital counterpart. Many digitally based games have this feature included already but, through the wonders of photographs, videos and social media, I have been playing analogue games with friends where a notification that it is my next turn is like a small present nestling in my inbox; a bit like prison with slightly better company ha ha! Not only that but I have played games where the host has carried out a series of rounds in their own game and then invited friends to join in on each turn in their own time. Admittedly this works better with some formats than others (roll and writes/bingo style games being good examples) but I see no reason why any group which has members who own the same game could not try this with more games where one player can take control of the shared components. Would I have done this before lockdown? Probably not but now it is yet another facet of our hobby which has thrown its doors open wide and invited me inside. Now, I could easily go on (“No! For the love of all things meeple!” I hear you cry) but I won’t. Instead, I will pause here to allow you to make a hasty virtual retreat. I will, however, leave you with this final thought; gaming in the time of Coronavirus has shown me that, through expanding our horizons and sphere of reference as to what an enjoyable and fulfilling board game experience is, our community is not only able to counter some of the negative effects the pandemic has cast over our hobby, but is giving us the skills, confidence, and desire to go forwards into a more accessible, diverse, colourful, and flexible gaming future. Tora Leslie

Eyes locked, fingers clicked, breathing settled…….it’s go time, baby! Fear not friends; your sofa cushions have not just spontaneously ripped a hole in space-time, swallowing you up and spitting you out at the O.K Corral! I promise, it’s ok, you can settle back down (although good effort on the speed at which you jumped up and put your hands in the air like you just don’t care!). Having said that, however, facing a worm-hole in your jammies with only an IKEA scatter cushion for protection will seem like a cakewalk in comparison to what is about to go down. For there is something far more serious developing. This is grown-up game time in my house. With our littlest meeple tucked up all snuggly warm in bed, the next 60 minutes are going to be INTENSE! Man v Woman. Husband v Wife. Red v Blue. Now, I should give this situation a little context. 23 hours per day, my husband and I are the sickening epitome of eternal love. Sam and Molly? Ed and Bella? Morticia and Gomez? Pfffft…… mere amateurs when it comes to heart pumping devotion. Without thinking, I would take a bullet to protect him (although, having said that, I would also just as instinctively use him as a human shield to protect our son but that primal lioness moment can be our little secret!). Indeed, most of my daily decisions have my husband at the centre. Like my own personal bearded moon, he creates the gravitational force that keeps me from spinning out of control. My husband is my rock, literally. However, even love has its limits. And when we play games, for one solitary hour, the transformation into something darker and more brutal is as surprising as it is instantaneous. Goodbye Romeo and Juliet, hello Mr & Mrs. Smith. Like a bargain bucket, woefully resource poor and skill devoid version of Brangelina, we are out for each other’s blood. Whilst my husband loves me unconditionally, he will happily hate-draft me into oblivion in Azul Summer Pavillion and Battle Line to secure victory at our kitchen table. The favour is repaid in spades as I place meeples precisely where he wants to go in Five Tribes and Ticket to Ride, smashing his ten-moves ahead strategy to smithereens. As you may be able to deduce, care-bear gamers we are not. Anybody watching the drama unfold would be wise to duck back behind their (now slightly untrustworthy) sofa. Fists shake, eyes narrow, and entire decks are thrown in frustration. And that is just when determining turn order! The actual game play is an extremely icy affair. Schadenfreude, an emotion completely lacking in all other aspects of our married and own lives, swirls around the room like an ethereal presence, tempting each of us into savouring the discomfort and frustration befalling the other. The victor is Smuggy-McSmug-Pants and the loser, well, let’s just say they make Prince Joffrey from Game of Thrones look like a good sport……. Targi from Kosmos’ 2 player range is a fantastic example of just how crushingly competitive we can get. Set up is an ardently affectionate affair; the love is palpable as our eyes meet and hands accidentally touch arranging the cards forming the play board and various decks. Drinks are kindly proffered and favourite snacks prepared and arranged in mutually easy-to-reach spots. But then, as our elbows hit the table, our kitchen suddenly makes “Cambodia look like Kansas”. After 60 minutes of tears and tantrums (him) and (hair pulling and pleading (me), we sit, exhausted. Spent; staring at the scores, watching, waiting for the first person to react to the numbers. And then it happens……. Thumb and first finger start rising on the victor’s right hand. Slowly but steadily they creep up to the smooth, frustration free forehead of the winner until forming an L shape that leaves no doubt as to who has come second in this two player battle for tribal superiority! The glory badge is quickly followed by a serpentine hiss as “yessssssssss” escapes bitten, tight lips, and the demonstration of an altogether rhythm-be-damned dance to which no other person (save the unworthy loser!) should ever be exposed. When I am the subject of my husband’s shimmy-shimmy-snake-hipped-take-that-Tor-tango, I won’t lie; I can’t look at him, let alone speak to him for at least five minutes (and not just because the dancing irritates like a pair of woolly knickers!). I storm from the table, throwing pepper, salt, and date tokens back into the box as I huffily accuse foul play or curse Lady Luck’s influence upon the game. Cards are returned to the safety of their insert staccato style, and the box goes back on the shelf in the dining room, cocooned between equally competitively dangerous options. But then, just as quickly as the tension descended upon the table, a huge grin appears on each of our faces as we hug and race to be the first to say thank you for a fantastic game! Ahhh, see? Normal service has resumed! And that underlying, unconditional love is at the core of even our fiercest of cardboard duels. The knowledge that gaming is our personal shared safe space; a place where we can let off a little steam and rib each other without judgment or it ever lasting longer than what has been played. Our dressing gowns (yup, not going to lie, we are winceyette warriors after 5:30pm) become our alter-egos’ uniforms; belted for battle then hang loose in the detailed and mutually admiring and celebratory post-mortem stage. As well as being a massive part of my management strategy (and precisely because of its indiscriminate presence), my anxiety disorder manifests in lots of ways when gaming; analysis paralysis being a doozie. But I know unequivocally that my husband would never resort to rushing me as a way of gaining a player advantage during our (honestly!) good natured duelling. Likewise, I am conscious of his need to settle into a game before he feels that he is playing right and so to thrust a first-time-loser fist pump his way would be dispiriting and unfair. I should probably mention at this stage (before you seek to ex-communicate us from the community forthwith!) that we are benevolence-business-as-usual when gaming a trois or more! This year, more than ever, has demonstrated just how much playing games with other people is a privilege, and experiencing play through a different perspective is a joy that we would never diminish through uber-competitiveness – in fact, the desire doesn’t even materialise. In truth, life is a mad-cap, ten-car-pile-up, sensory roller-coaster right now and being able to release some of the tension through playing a game together gives us both a little more headspace to buckle up and get our game-faces on, ready to face the next day; hand in hand, stronger together. It also gives us opportunities to try different things; different approaches, tactics, and strategies in an environment that has no real-time third party consequences (although the everlasting memory of those dance moves is a heavy burden to bear!). Don’t tell my husband I told you this (no, seriously, my carefully crafted two player-persona will be shattered!) but, do you know what? Although my initial reaction upon losing to him puts a teething toddler to shame, I am inwardly very proud of every single one of his victories (in gaming as in life) and, of course, I have nobody to blame but my inadequacies and his gaming greatness. But, and not to dilute or diminish his triumphs and superior skills in any way, this punishment is more than simply because I am outmatched and outplayed by him most days. For better or worse, I have grasped the nettle that is taking control of our gaming purchases; my anxiety would have it no other way. I research, compare, obsess, dither, add-to-basket, remove-from-basket, agonise, and ponder every time I hear about a game I think might suit us as a couple. Above everything else, however, the most important branch in my personal consumer decision tree is whether my husband will enjoy it. After all, on a selfish level, without him, my core gaming group is a solitary affair, and, playing (as with life generally) is the most fun when I get to share it with him. And so, peeling back layers of theme, components, colours, and playing time, I am conscious that his enjoyment centres upon the base mechanic(s). Engineer by trade and accomplished Do-It-Yourselfer at the weekend, my husband thinks in systems and both his planning skills and spatial awareness are off the charts compared to my own woefully hopeless attempts to tessellate and project shapes into spaces not helpfully indicated by enormous neon signs! Hence, because there is no other person (besides our son but he is under 3ft right now and so, like any decent fairground ride, doesn’t qualify for this particular scenario!) I would rather keep happy than him, I gravitate towards games I know he will love, self-inflicted player pain notwithstanding. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of duplication in terms of our respective favourite games. However, like a crossed purpose worthy of star-crossed Shakespearean lovers, his opinion is based scientifically upon his own performance (men, eh?! haha) whereas my true judgment centres on the joy I feel as he makes a beeline for something on our shelves which I have carefully matched to his skills and capabilities. Regardless of the cause, the effect is the same, and I would want it no other way; to be bested at our game table by my soulmate is a strangely satisfying affair!

Tick….tock….tick….tock…. the sound drills down into my brain and quickens my breathing. Tick….tock….tick….tock…. I try to block out the noise and focus but the harsh, unforgiving, mental metronome is winning. Tick….tock….tick….tock…. hard.fail. I screw my eyes shut, ball my fists, and let rip a low, guttural growl which makes my hair vibrate. Bearded Moon circles like a hunter stalking its quarry, ready to draw me in to a gravity defying embrace; catching me as I uncurl from the tense contortion into which both mind and body are now interlocked. You see, with my anxiety disorder, time is not just a concept or even a physical thing, it is a despotic master. Omnipresent thanks to a heady mix of ubiquitous technology and woeful sleep, I always know what the time is and I always obey. I want to know. I need to know. What the time is. All. The. Time. And for some things that’s great; nobody wants an egg that has been on the hob for an hour – that baby will bounce! Likewise, making sure our son goes to bed at an hour that won’t make us look like we are taking parenting tips from Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood is definitely preferable to him descending into something that not even Golding’s boys in Lord of the Flies would have condoned. Moreover, Alexa has now brought time consciousness and scheduling into a whole new level of ready-meal level convenience to my life. No longer do I have to hunt out a digital or analogue timepiece to ensure that I am ending a task or beginning a new one on the precise arrival of a fresh, new minute; her reminders and alarms, synchronising and weaving together in a seductive dance of beeps, bells, and sirens. And no longer do I need to make lists of tasks on scraps of paper which are so heavily edited on an quarter-hourly basis that Spiderman would be forgiven for thinking I have just designed him the mother of all web upgrades. The measurement of intervals between my activities is now governed by Bezos’s matriarch. Although, who am I really kidding? Even with her digital assist, even now with just one turn of my head, I can (and always ensure that I do) still see at least three phones, two laptops, a tablet, a Fitbit, and a wall clock all blinking their co-ordinated, illuminated displays. But my fail safes are not entirely illogical; what if she goes offline? What if she refuses to answer or alert me because she has had a better offer in the virtual world? Anxiety may be a cruel overlord but, with Plan B through Z locked in, at least I’ll know precisely when Alexa deserted me to the eternal wasteland of relativity. Trust issues aside, now, I can simply ask Alexa and (when she chooses to listen to my Orvil worthy pitch) her dulcet tool enabled tones calmly remind me of the hour, minute, and second just passed; activating my internal panic station sequence that initiates knowing just how much there is left to do in so little time. Mocked mercilessly and silently by my own virtual PA. On a professional level, I also swim in a sea of deadlines everywhere. In some cases, the dates have passed before they have even been set; “I need it done yesterday” is my corporate normal. I wake up at 5am to get ahead of the onslaught but that just means an extra four and a half hours where more cases can be assigned and more timetables moved up depending on clients’ whims and desires. Not waving but drowning, as Stevie Smith would say. Perhaps ironic, or maybe just as well then, that my anxiety disorder and personality type pre-dispose me to a career choice which feeds off and fuels the fire inside like a sealed central heating system; pressure rising and absorbing, never venting, never escaping. Warms my eyeballs if not my heart. Since Lockdown began in 2020, with restrictions endlessly changing, my focus on time has never been more laser pointed. Briefings happening, headlines publishing, vaccine approval dates coming and going; R ratings rising and falling; the need-to-know-now is never off. As somebody who just about holds it together using a combination of sticky-tape routines and super-glue strength organisation, the disruptions to timings has been skin-crawlingly uncomfortable. Full out panic attacks only just about quelled (and sometimes not even then) by the urgent implementation of new procedures, habits, and customs. But, aside from me revealing more about the complexities that combine to make me who I am, what on earth does this have to do with board gaming? Well, quite a lot actually……..but, in a true test of your own ability to manage the expectations of time, you are going to have to wait for Part 2 to find out! I promise, however, that you won’t be waiting very long; that would be a challenge too far for my overthinking brain. Plus, it just means that I get to entice you back for the second instalment! 😊

On the back of having just played every single game in the month of December, we decided that now would be the ideal time to try and get our heads around ranking the games. We are two people, and have different ideas about what games are best, so we have decided to complete our own rankings in separate rooms without conferring. We then had to swap our lists to try and find the repeated games and missed out games. Turns out making a list of 87 games when we have tidied them all away nicely with all our brand new Christmas games is super tricky. So these are our 85-1 rankings of the games, split up into nice easy chunks. Only 85 as we are counting the triple century as a single game. They are three separate base games, but as we played them combined they all sit together in this list. The Rotters The Playable for a Nice Changes Getting into the Goodies Top 50! Top 40! Top 30! Top 20! Top 10! Our Top 3!

The Final Entry And here we have reached the end of our journey together. I have had a chance to recharge and recover from the brain burning challenge. And so this is the reflective round-up. In the 28 days of this challenge we played 98 games, and 87 different base games were played as part of the challenge. Bonuses were Santa Banter and Metro X which we also played but weren’t part of the challenge. We have been keeping track of our win rates, how long games took and also the colours we chose each time there was a colour choice available. I am a yellow player. Yellow is my favourite colour, all my coats are mustard yellow, in fact actually so is the comfy jumper I am wearing to write this entry. The thing is, when I knew that I was tracking it and always picking yellow, I felt this need to not be predictable. So I found myself choosing rogue colours rather than faithful yellow who has served me so well. Then I told MJ about the fact that I thought I might be doing this, and me expressing that meant that he also now started to pick odd colours too. So what I am saying is that colour choice is influenced by knowing that you are being watched. Anyway, despite my best unintentional efforts to skew the colour stats, yellow was still the most selected colour. In total, 43 colours were chosen throughout and yellow was selected 9 times. Below is a summary of the colour choices we made. As a scientist, I rarely find a pie chart a useful representation of data, but here it works perfectly with the colours. Next onto win rate. I gave you a bit of a taste of how we were doing against each other previously, I was leading the win charge quite heroically. But before I update you on the competitive game win rate, let’s first look at the co-op games. We played 14 co-op games throughout the challenge, and we won 12 of them (86%). I would say that was pretty good playing. MJ and I have had almost a whole year of being cooped up just the two of us, so I guess we have learnt to be more in tune with each other. It clearly has improved our ability to work well as a team though as our win stats evidence. Most of our games are competitive though, and of all the games we played, I won 56% of the games played, MJ won 24% of those played, and the rest were co-ops. Blacknell reigns victorious, although since the challenge ended I have been absolutely smashed into submission on Doppelt So Clever and Metro X which I have won precisely twice out of the 15 games played. And finally, how long did we spend gaming during the challenge? The tallied total stands at 2920 minutes or 48 hours and 40 mins. Well quite frankly, given the state of the world, I cannot think of a better thing to spend my time on! The Award Ceremony Stand-Out Game: Absolute stand out game, the game that we thought about afterwards. HB: This was hard for me to decide, but turns out MJ picked one of the two so I plumped for the other one. So I will pick Lost Ruins of Arnak. This is a new game for 2020 that is an absolute diamond. It is brilliant. A combination of deck-building and worker placement and lets you perform “dumb combos”. I mean they make you feel clever even if you don’t win! MJ: I pick The Triple Century, has to be. We finished the challenge on this game. I loved Spice Road but wasn’t that fussed about the second one (Eastern Wonders), so I didn’t know what to expect at all. I certainly was not expecting such a smooth and great game. Also I liked that there seemed to be loads of ways to score, and it didn’t seem to pay off to hate-draft. (Hannah: I will confirm that MJ has an irritating tendency to hate draft, so anything that negates that is an absolute winner by me.) Biggest Surprise: HB: For me it is the ultimate gateway game; Carcassonne. I thought that I didn’t rate this game, and I am happy to have been proven to be a fool. Carcassonne in its absolute base game is a really good game, it does not out-stay its welcome. MJ: The Dwarves surprised me as we have had it six months and I have never felt the desire to play this game. The rulebook was confusing, but luckily a video runthrough really helped us to get going quickly. Go To Game: This is a game that you will never say no to playing. HB: I always have room in my brain for some Hero Realms. I love this game at 2, it is a competitive game, although I think I usually have the edge which may contribute to the enjoyment factor. I like that the game itself is cheap, there are loads of different expansions that you can use to switch it up. But vanilla Hero Realms is absolutely top notch. MJ: Nmbr9 is my go-to game. It plays really quickly in 5-20 minutes, and all you do is create the perfect tetris stack of number tiles to try and score max points. I spend all the time saying “oh if only I could flip this over!” Spoiler alert; you cannot flip the tiles over. It is a puzzle that hurts my brain but not for so long that I don’t immediately want to play another round. Round-Up This challenge really was just that, a challenge. I know that not only because I found it hard, but also because everyone else was surprised and shocked that we decided to do it. I think we initially decided to do the challenge without understanding the full undertaking that it would be. We ended up learning and then playing 10 brand new games. We also thought we knew some games a lot better than we did, so there was a lot of rulebook checking over the past month. This made it take longer and ensured that some games felt a bit more gruelling than perhaps they needed to be. My piece of advice for anyone attempting this kind of challenge is to play smart, make sure you play those big games early on so you don’t have it looming over you. Also, please learn the rules first, and practice the games to save your brain. Also, taking a day off to recover is sometimes a good idea.