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UK Games Expo

jonnyalpha

By jonnyalpha,
in Gaming Unplugged

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Yewone

Yewone

Posted
Posted

Gutted I couldn't make it to this (family commitments got in the way this weekend)

I'm particularly upset at missing the chance to meet and get stuff signed by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, playing Ace of Spies, and meeting some of you guys*

Mental note to self.. next year, plan ahead and keep the bloody weekend FREE!

* those 3 are in no particualr order btw ;)

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filecore

filecore

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The final haul then:

http://twitpic.com/9pk0qh

Nice goodies!! :)

Pathfinder beginner box is how you do RPG beginner boxes. I was talking to someone at the Leisure games stand who was umming and arring about it - wasn't you was it?!

Fancy a DKH for that price meself as well.

Have decided I am heading back today - so will get a demo of Ace of Spies :)

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Asura

Asura

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OK, now I'm not posting on my phone I can give some proper impressions.

Firstly, we arrived at about 11:30, and there was no queue. The venue was easy to find, walking from Five Ways Station (it was on a major road and the sign was pretty big), so that was a good start.

Upon arriving, we quickly bought tickets, and I set about finding the queue for the bring & buy. After 10 minutes or so we found it, so my friends went to look at some stuff whilst I waited. 15 minutes later, the line I was in had not moved an inch, so I decided that I would come back later.

So I caught up with my friends and we looked around. First I went to the Bring & Buy, but they shouted that they were closing for 20 minutes to try and get some organisation on the stall. We had a look at the ground floor dealer room instead. Almost immediately I set about trying to find the Resident Evil Card Game, which thanks to the help of a random person who overheard me asking about it, I was able to find. It was a bit pricey though, so I moved on to maybe come back later.

A bit of time had passed, so I tried to get into the B&B again. This time I waited about 40 minutes, and finally checked in my stuff. Had a quick hunt too and managed to get the first thing I was looking specifically for - RISK: Balance of Power (that's the 2-player Cold War Europe themed version of RISK). However, I started to get irritated with the B&B at this point (people were really rude - I had to dress someone down who tried to shove me at one point - it was like the worst nightclub bar you've ever seen). It really needed twice the room that they had.

Anyway, I went down to the dealer room again for a proper look around. The stand with the Legend of Five Rings stuff was touting this new Ninja game, which looked really cool, so I watched a demo of that. It looked fun so I decided to snap it up later.

I would have liked to have played something, but it was really stuffy in there (that's the problem of hiring out a Masonic Lodge I guess - no windows). My mate spent some time looking at WarMachine whilst I ran over to the stall that had Resident Evil, and got the bloke to knock a few quid off, so I bought that.

We spent quite a lot of time looking at stuff, and we had to head back at 3, so I had to go up to the B&B to see if anything had been sold. One thing had, but they didn't know about the other two; they said I'd need to dig them out if I wanted to take them home. I took one look at the stall and decided against actually looking (as I knew it'd be a nightmare) - they told me anything left over would be given to Oxfam or something so I was OK with that.

However, on the way out I saw a copy of that Nina game on the B&B, so I quickly bought it, saving £20 on the price downstairs! Result.

Overall it was really fun, but cramped, hot and busy with a venue like a warren - though I'll definitely go next year as one of the reps said they're getting a convention room at a hotel near the NEC, which is much larger, a single room and has good A/C, so that'll fix the only real problems I had. I might actually sit down and play something given that being the case.

So,

Positives - got to see a lot of games I didn't know about, some bargains and generally quite a good atmosphere.

Negatives - A bit cramped and hot, plus whilst generally people were nice and helpful, the bring and buy was a different story (not the staff, mind - they were disorganised, but I won't hold that against them given how few of them there were and how incredibly busy the stall was).

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filecore

filecore

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Glad I went back for another day.

Was busier than I thought it was going to be today, but definitely more relaxed and bring and buy reachable :)

Played Ace of Spies - great! Have posted in the thread.

Got a demo of Malifaux - interesting Wargame using no dice. Pretty cool, but I can't afford to get into ANOTHER game. :)

Watched some of the 40K and Warmachine matches.

Got a free Ork sprue off Mantic games,

Bought a Goblin King metal mini off Mantic also. Asked how much, guy said £7. I thought that was a good price - he checked it on the Mantic site - priced up at £11-something. Said I could have it for 7. Lovely mini for RPG purposes.

Finally, played a Zombie survival RPG - Outbreak, in the 3-7 RPG slot. Cool fun, but thought the system could do with some more balancing. We all spent ages looking for a shotgun in the house to find it wasn't much better than a meat cleaver. :)

Anyway, brilliant show, roll on next year with loads more space and air con - those Lodge rooms got WARM! (Props to the venue for the free ice water though!)

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LaParka

LaParka

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Posted

So had a mooch at the Expo today, again the place is bloomin hot and cramped. Hopefully next year with a change of venue it will be improved. Had a couple of games on the demo tables. One which I really liked was in the playtesting section called 'Gloom of Kilforth'. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/98527/gloom-of-kilforth-a-fantasy-quest-game.

Location cards made up the board which you travelled to where you had to meet certain conditions to win cards etc. Your character can level up through the game and it felt a bit like the D&D boardgames for its rpg-liteness. Which I thought was a good thing.

Managed to pick up a copy of Thunderstone for £15. Also snagged Friday and Rory's Story Cubes. Odd thing with the Story Cubes was that I thought it best to buy it from the publishers instead of one of the sellers. Publisher had it for sale at £10, shop exactly opposite had it for £7.50....Also bought a Galacticus Oversize Vs boxset thingy, purely because it was £2. Never going to play, never going to play it.

By this time i'd gotten a bit fed up with the space and the heat so buggered off home for a bbq. :coffee:

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michael

michael

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Will do a proper write up in the morning, but for now: that was a great weekend. So nice to meet so many of you, and so happy that people enjoyed playing Ace of Spies. I'm always worried when anyone checks out something I've had a hand in creating, but we had a lot of positive feedback (plus lots of suggestions for tweaks, especially clearing up a few rules).

Also, here's what I picked up:

Warriors and Traders

Agricola (complete with pimped out animeeples, veggiemeeples and resourceeples, and the Czech Deck)

Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small

Thunderstone Advance

Divinare

Geistes Blitz

Also got a hardback Warlock of Firetop Mountain that my younger self would go mental over. Even more so when it was signed by Ian and Steve :)

And now: BED. For I am FUCKED.

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Rev

Rev

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Posted

Sounds like I missed a good 'un. Just couldn't afford it. Did anyone play All Creatures Big and Small? I think that's on the want list, probably.

Asura - I missed your heroclix question entirely. If you didn't take them, post a pic and I'm happy to let you know if there is anything of real note.

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jonnyalpha

jonnyalpha

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That was a good weekend wasn't it. :)

I sold lots of games after spending nearly 1.5 hours in a queue to check in my games at the Bring and Buy, it was extra busy this year and their system was struggling to cope. Still I had too many games to get rid of so had to stick it out. It was worth it in the end though as I shifted nearly everything.

I picked up a few games. Two bargains were Rook City Expansion for Sentinels of the Multiverse and Those Pesky Humans for a fiver each from the Heron Games stall. I managed to grab a copy of the new 2 player Agricola and Zoom Zoom Kaboom which is a great racing game with lots of dice and explosions. My daughter has been begging for a copy of Flipout so we got that as well.

The game we played the most was The Resistance. We taught this to my mate and his 2 kids on friday night and played it multiple times over the weekend to the distress of my friend who has now realised his 2 kids are accomplished liars. It's an amazing game especially played several times in a row and with people you know well. We popped back in on the Sunday before heading for the train, I'd have liked longer as Sunday was much quieter and it was easier to play demos and move around so maybe next year we'll arrange our trains better.

Nice to bump into lots of people even just briefly and my daughter got a load of you on streetpass as well.

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therearerules

therearerules

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Posted

Sounds like I missed a good 'un. Just couldn't afford it. Did anyone play All Creatures Big and Small? I think that's on the want list, probably.

Asura - I missed your heroclix question entirely. If you didn't take them, post a pic and I'm happy to let you know if there is anything of real note.

Me, jonny and a stranger got 3 for £50. For which I still owe him money. I played it with my wife yesterday in the sun, and it was fun. Will undoubtably be more fun when we remember the breeding rules and score it properly, but the little wooden animals make it an instant hit.

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therearerules

therearerules

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Actually, I do feel as though I did perfect buying at the expo. I thought I'd have buyers remorse, and would have done had I got the weird chess thing, but Agricola ACBAS is a really nioce little thing we can take on holiday, and San Juan for a fiver has had me singing San Juan Pour Moi until since.

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Rev

Rev

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Posted

Me, jonny and a stranger got 3 for £50. For which I still owe him money. I played it with my wife yesterday in the sun, and it was fun. Will undoubtably be more fun when we remember the breeding rules and score it properly, but the little wooden animals make it an instant hit.

Temptation ++.

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xibxang

xibxang

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Posted

Actually, I do feel as though I did perfect buying at the expo. I thought I'd have buyers remorse, and would have done had I got the weird chess thing, but Agricola ACBAS is a really nioce little thing we can take on holiday, and San Juan for a fiver has had me singing San Juan Pour Moi until since.

What's the play time on ACBAS, TAR?

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  • 9 months later...
Padlocked

Padlocked

Posted
Posted

I'm wondering the same, but because its my 10 year anniversary with my wife on the Friday and there seems to be an expectation of it being a 2-3 day event.

I think I've managed to drop the Sunday from it, but there seems little chance of we accompanying me on the Saturday as a day of celebration.

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michael

michael

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I'm arriving on the Friday morning, leaving on Sunday evening and staying in the Hilton. Thankfully I'm not actually working that much this year - presenting a couple of seminars and a doing a few interviews, so this year I'll actually be able to play a lot more! If anyone's about, I'd be well up for playing anything :D

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therearerules

therearerules

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Right I'm buying my train tickets soon for this. Going to arrive at 9:30ish and leave at 8:30 (so the convention at around 8:00). If I read the site correctly then we'll be able to stay in the trade area playing stuff, which would be excellent.

My must dos/sees for this year: Not spending the morning queuing up for the bring and buy and entering the game redesign competition. Also, play lots of games.

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michael

michael

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Looks like I'm doing three (three!) seminars on the Saturday now - obviously it'd be lovely if any of you attended any of them, but seriously I really recommend coming along to the inaugural UK Games Hall Of Fame one. It'll be most lovely.

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