Where I keep the stuff I do
I’ve wanted to make computer games since I was titchy, so being chosen as one of Develop magazine’s 30 under 30 for the coming year is a Big Deal. I feel very fortunate that I get to make games as a job.
So cheers Develop, and SE; you’ve made 7-year-old-me super mega happy. (Adult me is pretty chuffed, too.)
Big congrats to everyone else on the list – a ruddy talented bunch: Develop’s 30 under 30, 2012
Decided to do something a bit more permanent after the last round of pixel mosaic-ing, so Super Mario 3 (modelling the vair fashionable raccoon suit) has ended up on canvas.
Quite pleased with how he turned out, although I did get sent this link to PETA’s rather horrible MARIO WEARS FUR SO IT MAKES WEARING FUR OK game, so along with the pride there is now the Guilt.
I also had a few requests: @hemmysphere wanted a portrait, @dogwinters wanted Michael Jackson, and @wesayso was after a big pixel (with instructions).
THEIR WISH WAS MY COMMAND.
Killing two mosaic-birds with one mosaic-stone, the portrait of thriller-era MJ came out ok, apart from looking a bit jaundiced.
Spent hours doing that flipping big pixel, though.
I finally found a fun use for the mosaic tiles I impulse-bought a few years ago – pixel art!
Definitely going to do some more – feel free to make requests. I might start sticking them to canvas frames so they’re a bit more display-able. The slightly palette-swapped Sonic (yellow!!) was just laid out on our coffee table, so I had to dismantle him, but ‘Get A Life’ is stuck to some card with glue dots. Given a sturdier backing underneath I’m pretty confident he’ll hold up to a new life as an ORNAMENT.
Victory chiptune beeping noise.
Very pleased to be chosen as one of Broadcast Magazine’s Hot Shots in the ‘Digital’ category for 2011. Thanks Broadcast Magazine! Thanks my boss for nominating me!
You can read the whole supplement here. Big congrats to everyone who was featured.
Hurrah! My favourite wizard (Duncan the Allergic) has been featured in Wizard Week 2011 on People I Know. LOOK. Thanks, Timothy Winchester!
LOOK AGAIN. Duncan is the kind of wizard I wish existed in my books when I was a child. I also like a lot of the other wizards in wizarding week, especially Dan’s Merlin.
Finally, you should read People I Know if you don’t already, as it’s very funny.
Last Monday I had the incredible, unprecedented and rather special honour to be the first ever guest on the Off The Wall Post podcast. Presented by my pals Baz, Kat and Dan the recording was a lot more anarchic than I’d expected from listening to the polished brilliance of past episodes.
After several hours of recording, laughing and talking a lot about our mums, I didn’t envy Dan the task of editing it down to 45 minutes. Somehow he managed it (the mums bit got cut, though) and it’s turned out very, very funny.
We chatted about apps, memes, twitters and bus maps, and at the very end reveal insulting nicknames from our childhoods (ooh). They are lovely for letting me come and play. Thanks guys!
Listen to it here: Binaural curious… ?, then subscribe and listen to them ALL.
A 30 second film I made last weekend. It’s the re-enactment of a childhood conversation about DARES as performed by two ornamental cows. You should definitely watch it.
Go on.
I dare you.
In November last year I decided to enter the get-your-joke-on-the-back-of-a-Penguin competition. After a good few hours brainstorming, I eventually settled on these two:
Q: Why did the penguin go on a seafood diet?
A: To get fin
Q: Why do penguins always look like they’re wearing tuxedos?
A: Because dinner’s always a-fish-shoal.
A few days ago I got THIS email:
The funniest jokes of the year!
You entered the McVitie’s Penguin jokes competition and told us your best penguin joke. We were sent so many hilarious jokes that we have decided to reward some of the best ones with a prize. You’ll be pleased to know that we thought your joke was so funny we would like to award you with your very own WWF Penguin Adoption Pack!
So I didn’t get my joke on a biscuit (boo), but I did get a lovely stuffed penguin (yay). It arrived today, and I’ve already thought of a name.
Pengwin.
Happy New Year!
Some people are doctors, farmers, human rights activists, etc - contributing usefully to the sum of human knowledge and existence in thousands of ways. Instead, I wrote a pun every day in 2010, and here’s #punliners 334 to 365:
1st – 31st December
“I wish I could draw a set of four aces… wow thanks!” – Djinn Rummy
Apparently eating a load of condiments before battle makes soldiers braver. Hence the expression, “he mustard up his courage”.
Got fired from making appetisers that walk straight into your mouth. They’ve given me my marching hors d’œuvres.
Q: If you have two chickens, and I take one chicken away, what do you have? A: A poultry sum.
I test the Queen’s food for poison in exchange for exemption from tax. It’s dangerous, but there’s no accounting for taste.
I’m a vintage red, she’s a sparkling white – can we ever be together?! I guess the corks of true love never did run smooth…
One moment – I just need to find someone to look after my pet panda. Bear with me.
At first I thought he was wearing a pheasant-shaped shoe, but it’s actually part of his body! Watson, the game’s afoot!
Disapproving elephants. Tusk tusk tusk.
Just heard a long speech about endangered mammals. It did tapir off a bit at the end.
Remember when they offered to let us go camping on their field again and we said no? They’re really having re-tent shun issues.
Lions eat things roar.
Do your bit for the environment – leave your wine bottles outside, sit back and let nature take its corks.
Never judge a calculator by its casing – it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Ever used a putter on a sheet of silica glass? Nothing compares to a quality golf quartz.
I had severe back pain until an Egyptian farmer ran me over. If you’re also suffering, I can recommend a good Cairo tractor.
PRINCES: when you suddenly become King, don’t worry – it’s normal to feel a bit throne.
My skin tone is a very vivid sort of reddish-orange. My mum says I’m one in vermilion.
Can’t think of a way to describe people who, after some thought, talk rubbish. Give me a minute, it’s on the tip of my tongue.
“Just got bitten by an insect.” “Flea?” “No use running, it’s already happened.”
“Captain! Land ho!” “Shore?!” “Pretty positive…”
I ate a binary pony and now my throat’s feeling a bit horse.
As I leaned in to kiss my date she dropped a block of dense, soft metal on my foot. I think I was being lead on.
My ambition to create a softer tartan for Scottish clans sometimes seems futile. Ah well, no use sighing over kilt silk.
I refuse to modernise my music collection, and that’s vinyl.
My party trick is singing a pop song while lifting a heavy bit of wooden furniture – carry-oaky.
“Wotcha Zeus!” – ancient greets
HIP HOP FANS: Want to separate out the sample from the rest of a track? You need a centrifugee.
Tadpoles find TV absolutely ribbeting. It can seem like they have an idea what’s going on, but really they haven’t the froggiest.
Scottish girls on the pull are always tartan about.
I’ve got a dangerous addiction to writing puns. When I think of one, I gag. (It’s beyond a choke)
—
Pun. Done.
My presenter friend Aiss asked me to film another interview for her blog, this time with singer/songwriter Alex Mills, who is really rather good.
See also: Ed Sheeran
334 down, only 31 to go. Presenting November’s #punliners, with very little gunpowder, treason or plot:
1st – 30th November
With only my chauffeur for company I went on a quest to meet Suggs. I failed and at times was almost driven to Madness.
“Mr. Pimp, sir, is it true that you have the quickest girl in the business?” “Well, I hate to slow my own strumpet…”
When rowing, try using a flexible paddle bent into a bow. It might give you some extra speed. Oar knot.
Retraining as a tree surgeon? Your days are lumbered.
“Along with a bomb plot, in 1605 someone also tried to assassinate MPs by stabbing them with cutlery.” “Fawkes?” “Knives, too!”
I’ve seen a lot in my time as a professional dancer, often while spinning on the spot. I’m a man of the whirled.
Cheer up Thor, you’ve got a face like thunder.
My campaign to stop dogs showing their happiness was ignored until I got some press. Now everyone’s jumped on the banned-wagging.
My scarecrow has decided to go on a crash diet. It really is the last straw.
Gilet: the vest a man can get
Chris Hoy gave me a lift in his car made from Olympic gold and flowers. I was running late so he put the petal to the medal.
When two fans of classic computer games need to discuss an important issue it’s known as a tête-à-têtris.
Jewish ski professionals wish each other Shabbat Slalom
“To sculpt chocolate you need special tools and a simple idea.” “An aeroplane?” “Yes, plus a Yorkie hammer and a Kit Kat lathe.”
I saw someone drive a Bravo off a cliff and survive (the car still worked, too). A real death-defying Fiat.
“Cruella! Why, when I wanted a lemonade, did you insist on me getting a liqueur?” “De Vil’s advocaat, of course!”
My mate got high off a roast chicken. He free-baste the juice.
I think volcanoes are misunderstood – they’re lavas, not fighters.
Penguins look like they’re in tuxedos because dinner is always a fish shoal.
When sheep need a transplant they get a doner kebab.
While scuba diving I heard some polyps singing about informing, educating & entertaining – a beautiful example of a choral Reith.
Apparently rabbit costumes and painted eggs are on trend now?? I can’t keep up with you fashioneasters.
Don’t you hate those lawyers who hustle for business around fancy restaurants and dimly lit jazz clubs? Bloody ambience chasers.
My mate’s decided he wants to start shipping eagles, falcons and hawks between Dover and Calais – yet another aerie-ferry scheme.
Giant Peaches, as with all fruit-based homes, come with problems. For James, it was the radiators not being plummed in.
After a hard day of organised crime Japanese mobsters like to unwind with a dip in the yakuzi.
Why do tile games do sit-ups? To work on their abdominoes.
This Russian B&B is very good at putin clean bed lenin on. Full marx from me!
However much you may want to, you must never hit someone with a Stradivarius – violins is never the answer.
Ahh, manual typewriters. So frustrating and yet so sort-of-satisfying. When I was 9 my school taught me how to touch type on one and I whiled away many a rage-filled hour hammering with tiny fingers at unyielding keys, mentally chanting the dirge of the trainee-typist: “A. Ess. Dee. Eff. Space. Jay. Kay. Ell. Semi colon. Space. A. Ess. Dee. Eff…” etc, etc, repeat until your fingers bleed.
That said, by the time I was 10 I was making basically no typing mistakes – a sort of Pavlovian conditioning where I knew every mistake meant a) getting the Tipp-ex out and b) more typing, so better GET IT RIGHT FIRST TIME.
When I used my first computer keyboard, my typing almost immediately became lazy and imprecise, my fingers gliding with improbable ease. Mistakes were easy to correct, so I made more (I even made one just then – mae instead of made). So yes, bittersweet.
It had been a LOT of years since I last saw a manual typewriter, but recently I’ve been coming across a lot of really interesting uses, hacks and modifications.
Here are my top five, in order of you’ve-probably-seen-this-already to get-ready-to-have-your-mind-blown:
Upcycling old typewriter components (and more) to create beautiful Steampunk keyboards.
He also makes whole computers and monitors and other incredible gubbins, but the keyboards are my fave. (Are you listening, friends? Chanukah’s coming up. Just sayin’.)
They combine what I love about manual typewriters – the tactile feel and aesthetics, with the harsh reality that I sadly can’t use one to write a blog, go online, or kill zombies. With this, I could!
An iPad dock/usb keyboard combo. Anachronistc? More like amacchronistic, right guys?! Yeah. Wordplay.
For those keeping track of my wishlist, you’ll need to get me an iPad first, so I’ve got something to plug into the usbtypewriter. Thanks.
A misanthropic possessed typewriter that comes to life as you approach it? OK!
It was made as part of the recent Unleashed Devices exhibition which I wish I’d been able to visit. There’s something rather creepy about seeing a typewriter move of its own accord.
Fingers crossed it’ll get a permanent home somewhere or, at the very least, there’ll be another chance to see it in the flesh (in the metal?).
More on the haunted typewriter here.
(Disclosure: Neil‘s my cousin)
Following on nicely, Jonathan Guberman has also made a typewriter that can type by itself. What’s even more interesting is that you can also type messages the other way. It’s an output AND an input device.
And what’s more he’s rigged it to play classic text adventure/interactive fiction game Zork.
Can’t wait to see more of this – I know he’s working on some games written especially for the platform of talky-typewriter. I’d love to see a real life / interactive fiction crossover game.
You’re in a room with me, a possessed typewriter. There are no exits, but I’ll respond to your questions.
>>>Why am I here?
That’s a big question, why not look around the room. Can you see anything?
>>>Painting.
Where is the painting?
>>>On the wall.
Ahh! That’s a print of the Mona Lisa. Notice anything strange?
>>>No.
Lift it off the wall. Anything happen?
>>>A key dropped out.
Interesting!
Something like that, only less rubbish. You get the idea.
(originally came across this at Boing Boing)
Kiera Rathbone is a little bit (read: a lot) mind-blowing. I’ll let her explain:
“I create drawings using my vintage typewriter as my pen. I use letters, numbers and symbols to build up a picture rather than words.”
This is her drawing (typing) Bournemouth pier:
So yeah – creative, incredible, clever. I was particularly impressed by her Obama.
(tip off from my mate Sarah Jane)
So, admittedly, this has mostly turned into a glorified Amazon wishlist for Things I Want. Sorry.
Anyone else got a good typewriter story (possibly involving the horrors of ribbon ink)? Or come across something I should have included and didn’t? Let me know in the comments!
And remember: it’s typewriter, not typewronger. Yeah. More wordplay.
Back in October I helped out on the filming of this music vid for Avenge Vulture Attack, directed by Sam Shepherd and shot by Dave White. It turned out great!
Plus the band are all lovely, lovely people so you should go and buy their single. OK? OK.
If you’re thinking that the way the lights were turned on and off was PARTICULARLY impressive, you’d be right. And, yes, that was all me.
I don’t like to brag but I sure flick a mean switch.
Fun facts:
All in all, a very fun day in a very fun place. Thanks Sheps!
Well, unless something drastic goes wrong in the next two months, it looks like I might actually complete my first ever New Year’s resolution (yay!). I better start thinking about next year’s now… do I go for something equally as silly (more puns?), or for something that would genuinely make me a better person (join a gym?).
…I’m betting the former. Here’s October’s #punliners:
1st-31st October
Use quality wool and only knit items for people who will appreciate it – don’t cast your purls before twine.
Aren’t you worried you’ll get caught shoplifting those kitchen utensils? You’re taking an awfully big whisk.
Someone ate my cheesy crisps. Bit suspicious as when I asked my grandad he paused before answering in a quavery voice.
Aqua diem: seas the day
My friend runs a U2 fan site and is looking for some legal advice. Can anyone help? (Ideally pro Bono)
Primitive clowns used to hit each other with human arm bones. They thought it was humerus.
“Where’s Sarah Palin from?” “Alaska.” “Let me know what she says.”
Just saw a pic of Jeff Goldblum from 1986. He looks fly!
“Went to the theatre and one of the employees looks just like a US R&B superstar.” “Usher?” “No, he works behind the bar.”
A bald thug just unravelled my knitting, coiled up the yarn and left. I hate skeinheads.
In my script for Star Wars VII the characters battle their own clones. And the story’s not just for kids – it’s got many Leias.
“That girl’s tuxedo is covered in hair.” “Hirsute.” “No, I think it’s rented.”
I called my girlfriend a tart. She called me custard. It’s a stupid argument – we should just quiche and make up.
Druid police enforce the lore.
I always get funny looks when I show people my split-level tepee. I’m now completely comfortable with the in-tent’s stairs.
My conjoined twin experiment has definitely gone pair-shaped.
I can’t stop greeting people over and over again and I think it’s making me ill. Could be a hi fever.
For a countryside hike wear something practical rather than fashionable, as it’s hard to stay on top of all the different stiles.
I tried to explain my innocence – I was at home in a North London suburb at the time – but I couldn’t get averred in Edgware!
“Your pet stag’s been shot – don’t you have any sympathy?!” “Yeah, my hart bleeds.”
Life for Oompa-Loompas is hard if you’re not born into The Chocolate Factory, but I managed to pull myself out of the gateaux.
Listen up all you cowboy fonts! There’s a new serif in town. And it’s no use hiding behind a pseudonym – he’s anti-alias.
Arrested for treason after showing tourists the different platters used to serve the Queen – quite the notorious tray tour.
My lungs have overlapped and I’m having trouble breathing where they intersect. X-rays show I’m suffering from a Venn diaphragm.
The Royal Mint claim to have invented a coin that’s completely unflippable. Personally, I can’t make heads or tails of it.
I went in for a filling and ended up blind after being confused with another patient – a classic case of mistaken eye-dentistry.
A monk grabbed a fresh-baked roll straight out of the oven and it somehow sliced him in half. A real bap-schism of friar.
A man got taken to hospital today after hitting his head on Big Ben. I don’t know his name, but his face rang a bell.
I’ve invented a small, man-shaped device that hands out free newspapers at regular intervals: the Metrognome.
“Come to my Morris Dancing party.” “I’ll be there with bells on!”
Why won’t you listen to my plan to use decayed vegetation from wetlands as a source of energy? For peat’s sake!
Yesterday was the third GameCamp event, and the first ever BoardGameCamp. 150 people descended on Richmond to make, talk about and play board games. At most conferences I’ve been to, speakers are announced in advance, don’t change, and don’t allow audience involvement beyond a token, “Any questions?”
Oooh, branded.
This was not like that.
As soon as I arrived (a little after 9am) one of the organisers dashed over to me: “Have you got your dice yet?!”, thrust two in my hand and dashed away again.
Easily the nicest, best quality dice I have ever owned. And that is not a sentence I ever expected to type.
After some breakfast, coffee and general milling around in bewilderment that so many of us were awake so early on a Saturday, @greenburger kicked the day off with a welcome to Whittaker House (eBay, Paypal and Gumtree’s HQ). @Trippenbach followed on with a cracking speech on why we play, before @JamesWallis explained the day in more detail.
There were three options, and we could spend as much or as little time as we liked on each:
Despite immediately realising that there wouldn’t be enough time to do everything justice, here’s what happened when I tried.
The brief: Design a boardgame to fit on one side of the Cadbury’s Christmas medium sized selection box lid. No additional playing pieces or paper can be included. It has to be competitive, suitable for ages 5-12 and playable by 2-5 players.
The prize: Subject to Cadbury’s approval, your game is printed on the Christmas medium sized selection box, and you’re credited by name. The box has an approx. circulation of NINE MILLION (yes, really). You also win a load of chocolate.
Needless to say, there was a LOT of interest. Here’s our team, getting stuck in:
Photo by http://www.flickr.com/trippenbach/
From L-R: @peterjlaw, @kimonsatan, Anna (sorry only know your first name), me (hello!) and @mink_ette.
We didn’t enter anything in the end, partly because we had too many people in our team, partly because it was really hard, but mostly because it was difficult to resist the siren call of 91 boardgames saying, “Play us… play us…”
Though maybe that last bit was just in my head.
What with all the time spent sort-of-but-not-really designing a game, and my desperate hunger to play as many unusual games as possible, I only managed to make it to one of the talks on offer: an introduction to ancient Egyptian boardgames (particularly Senet) from Egyptologist Margaret Maitland (@eloquentpeasant).
It was great!
Turns out boardgames are over 8000 years old and even predate writing. Games and gaming are at the heart of our civilisation and what it is to be human.
Photo by Deror_avi (http://is.gd/fUQCa)
Senet itself managed to survive relatively unchanged from around 3100 BC to the first century AD (difficult to imagine Cluedo having the same staying power), and Margaret attributes this in large part to the cultural attitude of the ancient Egyptians towards any sort of change (namely, it’s bad).
The game is played over 30 squares and is similar in some ways to backgammon in that moves can be divided up between your pieces, you want to try and block your opponent’s pieces, etc.
What I found most interesting was how the game was originally created purely as a mechanic – pieces and squares were only minimally descriptive (if you land on the ‘good’ square you get a point; if you land on the ‘bad’ square you’re set back). Over time though, a narrative was developed on top of the mechanic in order to give it more meaning, based on around the Egyptians’ biggest fear: death.
Now the game had a story. You were the sun god Ra, journeying through the underworld and battling dangers in order that you could be reborn at dawn and the sun would rise again. The squares on the board were re-labelled to reflect different deities and dangers. No longer was it simply the glyph for ‘bad’, now the square had the glyph for ‘water’ on it and if you landed on it you ‘drowned’!
As yet more time passed, the game’s story even began moving back the other way: from being inspired by religion to actively influencing it. Senet became an analogy for what the gods themselves were doing. It wasn’t alone – an older game Mehen (where the board was shaped like a snake), despite having died out as a game centuries before, somehow endured in the collective consciousness to the point where a new snake god eventually entered the Egyptian pantheon. His name? Mehen. His role? Protecting Ra as he journeyed through the underworld, linking right back up to Senet!
The other interesting takeaway that sparked a great discussion afterwards was all about ancient games and rules. Once you unearth the board and playing pieces from a 5000 year old game, how do you figure out what the rules were? In the case of Senet, apparently Egytologists have managed to roughly piece together how to play it based on carvings in tombs and all manner of snippets from secondary sources. But for Mehen, there’s almost no idea how the game was played, apart from that it probably involved ‘capturing’ pieces.
Made me wonder what kind of alternative rule-sets might be developed if you gave someone only the board and pieces to a modern game they’d never seen before. Can you reverse engineer Monopoly from just seeing the playing pieces (doubtful)? Could it lead to an even better game (probably)? What rules would someone come up with if you combined bits and pieces from different games and told them it was all from one game? How will THE FUTURE look back on today’s board games?
Lots of food for thought and big thanks to Margaret for such an excellent talk.
As soon as I saw the massive stash of games in the lending library (91!) I realised that my board game education had been sorely lacking. All my life I’d been eating the equivalent of steak and chips with salad (Risk and Chess with Scrabble) which, though very tasty, is far from a varied diet.
It was high time to expand my palate with the sushi, fajitas and stir fry of the boardgame world! (This food analogy is getting a bit laboured, move on – ED.)
Dixit
Easily the breakout hit of BoardGameCamp. By the end, everyone was talking about it. And with good reason – it’s ace.
Photo by http://flickr.com/yashima/
I won’t go into too much detail on the rules, but in essence it’s a game of descriptive bluff where you need to be cryptic, but not too cryptic, in describing the image on a card. (More detail on the rules at boardgamegeek.)
What I personally loved about it was that the deck of cards you play with are so beautifully designed. In order for the game to work, each image has had to be drawn in such a way that it has a superficial description as well as the potential to be described in a more abstract way: as an emotion, pop culture reference, song, idea, colour, whatever!
Just as with lego you can build what’s on the box, and then go on to combine the blocks in a loads of different ways, so too while playing Dixit I was thinking of what else I’d want to do with the cards. Maybe a story game, where each player is dealt a hand and has to come up with a narrative linking them up? Or using them in brainstorms to come up with plots or characters? Or as inspiration for the colour palette of a website? Lots and lots of possibilities.
Not only did Dixit fire up my imagination, it was also a blast to play (even though I came last). Can’t recommend it highly enough and it was the perfect game to start with.
Infinite City
Photo by http://flickr.com/julietteculver/
There were five of us playing this tile-and-peg based game, and we began cavalierly placing tiles with little regard for strategy (the game was new to us all).
However, Infinite City has a deceptively shallow learning curve and it wasn’t long before it all become rather competitive.
It took about an hour to finish and, if there hadn’t been other games we wanted to try, a re-match would have been inevitable.
More info on Infinite City at boardgamegeek.
Snorta
“We’re about to play an animal noises game, want to join us?”
Photo by http://flickr.com/iamthebestartist/
How could I refuse an invitation like that? I sat down, and was promptly given a small plastic barn and a cute plastic animal to put inside it.
Essentially it’s a glorified game of Snap, played with pictures of animals, rather than a standard deck of cards.
The twist is that rather than shouting ‘Snap’, you have to make the noise of the animal of your opponent which, given that their animal is hidden in a barn, means you need to remember what everyone’s animal is, and their corresponding animal noise.
Quite a simple idea, but surprisingly difficult and very hilarious.
“Hisssssss, no wait, moooooooo! Moo? Erm, hoot hoot… ribbit? IT’S RIBBIT RIBBIT!!!”
More info on Snorta at boardgamegeek.
Playtesting
No sooner had we finished Snorta when we were kindly asked if we’d mind playtesting the new games that had been put together for GameHack.
My game involved players performing challenges (tell a joke, recite your name backwards) in order to win the right to ask yes/no questions to locate a missing mince pie.
While we played, the official judges (including Graham Linehan and Andrew from @TerrorBullGames) came to each table to find out more about the games, and then went off to confer and pick the winner.
Sadly, the mince pie game didn’t win, but big congratulations to team Chocolate Drop, who walked away with the glory (and several kilograms of Cadbury’s finest).
Catacombs
I had just enough time to play one more quick game before the end.
Catacombs is a very recent game (from 2010!) that uses a classic fantasy setting with dungeons and monsters and heroes. The twist is that rather than using dice to decide combat, you have to use your finger to flick your heroes into the monsters to kill them. Archers flick slightly smaller circles at enemies and wizards can flick fireballs and the like. It’s very addictive, very fast paced (at least the way we played) and very, very fun.
Along with Dixit, Catacombs is definitely straight onto my to-buy list.
I didn’t catch the name of the chap who brought it along, but whoever you are – thanks! One of my highlights of the day.
More detail on Catacombs at boardgamegeek.
Afterwards most of us decamped to the pub where conversations (and some games!) continued apace. I ended up with several additional tips for games to look up next:
I know I’ve missed loads of stuff, so if you were there and played anything else particularly amazing, please let me know!
Massive thanks again to everyone who was involved in the smooth running and organisation of such a brilliant day (Steve Green, David Hayward , Jeffrey Sheen , Philip Trippenbach, James Wallis + others).
I’ll definitely be first in line at the next one, branded dice in hand, ready to roll.
What? I couldn’t go the whole article without at least *one* pun.
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More BoardGameCamp photos from Trippenbach and Weefz.
Write ups from Boardgames in Blighty, Jonny Nexus and Sarbjit Bakhshi.
More on Egyptian boardgames from Eloquent Peasant herself.
