Wednesday 17 December 2014

39. 'Playing more game with Bored? Game! The Cardboard Cartographer issue 13.




 

Welcome to issue 13 of The Cardboard Cartographer here on The science of selling yourself short.

I can only Apologies for the gap between issues. I have, unfortunately, not been able to play many games until recently.
 Therefore this issue is going to be dedicated to act of playing games, or rather, the vehicle that has allowed me to play more games.

 My gaming group has not been very active for a couple of months (for various reasons), and while it starting to ramp up again, I have had to fill a void in my board gaming life.

 Luckily for me one of my gamer friends often hosts games nights for us. His gaming group has gotten quite large, so recently he decided to open a webstore to help supply games to his friends and make a little extra cash too.

You can find the website here - http://www.boredgame.net/
And find them on twitter here - @Bored_Game

To help advertise this business, and to accommodate more people playing more games, Bored? Game! decided to host Gaming nights in conjunction with The Swan Inn. These tend to be on the 1st and 3rd Monday of each month.

 I'd like to take some time to talk about how my experiences of these nights in the hope that more people get out and play more games; either with us, or with other local games nights. 

So the first night was on Monday the 3rd of November.
Honestly, I was fairly sceptical to start with. I'd only heard bad things about public gaming meet ups; they tend to be quite 'clicky;' people who know each other only playing within their own little groups.

I went along anyway.

 I couldn't have been more wrong.

Around 9 people turned up; a few people only to watch and hang out with other like minded gamers, and 6 of which wanted to play games.

Most of the attendees had a few games with them so there was a good variety to choose from.

Initially we settled on a game which I had taken with me (and previously reviewed here - ) 'Betrayal at house on the Hill,' as it was easy to teach and play, relatively quick and not too 'heavy.'

  Due to the nature of this game it was quick to set up, teach and get into playing. Everyone had a laugh doing so.
I was the bad guy and obviously I lost :P (a running theme, as you will see!).

We then moved on a game  called 'Lords of Waterdeep,' (Thanks to 'Badger' for bringing it along, check out his custom box inserts here - https://www.facebook.com/ThatBadgerMan).

I plan on getting this at some point, but in the meantime you can read about it on Board Game Geek - http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/110327/lords-waterdeep
Or
Watch it be watched by Wil Wheaton on TableTop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7DvEIfrP84
 After watching this video on TableTop I've always wanted to play it, so this was an awesome opportunity to have a go before purchasing it for myself. Try before you buy, if you will.

I thoroughly enjoyed this game. When compared to Betrayal it is a much more heavy, strategy based game, but open and simple enough (once explained) for anyone to come in and play on a similar footing to the experienced players.
 One of the lesser experienced players ended up storming into a last minute lead. It was a very tense and dramatic experience .

 Each Monday since the variety of games has grown, as has the number of people.
The group thus far has managed to avoid the 'clicky-ness' that other groups apparently suffer from.

Personally, I think these nights have been a huge success.
Nights like these allow you to meet new players who live in the local area, in a friendly, clean, safe and non-invasive environment.
 As all people have different tastes, the variety games to play is pretty decent.

In short, I 100% recommend trying out a Bored game meet up in your local area.
There is potentially a great environment for gamers to meet new people and play more gamers almost on your doorstep. If it doesn't work out, at least you tried!


So there you have it. Have you had any good/bad experiences with gaming group meet ups?
Feel free to let me know in the comments. 

Also if you want to chat about boardgame sin general hit me up @DarKHaZZl3 on twitter.

Until next time, thanks for reading.
 
-DH-


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