Spiel: Boardgaming in the UK

Ten years ago, an enterprising European decided to register the domain name trickylight.com as their own. Fair enough. My site was registered in 1999 but I had no intention of picking up the dotcom version but I was interested to see what would become of the young upstart. The answer, of course, was nothing and ten years on, having registered it for a ten year period, the enterprising European has let it lapse.

Although I knew when it was going to lapse, another enterprising organisation felt the need to bring it to my attention and suggested I contact them so that, together, we could ensure it didn’t fall into anyone else’s hands. While I didn’t believe the interest in trickylight would be strong, the enterprising organisation had other ideas and reminded me on at least half a dozen occasions in the run-up to the lapse date. That said, I resisted and now, a couple of days after trickylight.com was let into the wild, it has now found a new home. Big question is, what should the new owner do with it?

Having put this on my Trickylight site, I thought I ought to post it here as well.

I’ve just noticed that the Settlers of Catan novel, written by Rebecca Gable, is the Kindle Daily Deal on Amazon. Pick it up before midnight for 99p. Here is the link to the book’s Amazon page (if you’re reading this after Saturday, the price will have reverted to normal, of course).

This nearly passed me by but the 23rd Beer & Pretzels Games Weekend is being held on 12-13th May 2012 at the Town Hall, Burton on Trent.

With its usual mix of board, card, roleplaying and miniatures games with good food & beer, in a splendid venue.

Open 10.00 – 10.00 on Saturday

10.00 – 7.00 on Sunday

Tickets £5 per day or £9 for both

Further details can be found here.

I spotted a copy of Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt for sale on Amazon for £32 the other day so decided to snap it up. Hopefully, it’ll be here by Friday so we might be able to give it a try… provided Nige doesn’t complain too much about yet another co-operative game. This one takes up to 5 players and plays in around an hour.

Telford Mini-Con will be held on Saturday 28th April 2012 at Shifnal Village Hall. Start time is 10.00am and will run until 10.00pm. There will be a small library of Board and Card Games which may be borrowed during the event but attendees tend to bring games so there’s loads to choose from..

Attending

Shifnal Village Hall will accommodate up to 120 people, and cost of entry will be £5. You will get a free ticket for a prize draw.

Refreshments

There are limited kitchen facilities at the venue, however tea and coffee will be available. There won’t be food on the premises, but there is plenty of choice within 200 yards of the venue. (Restaurants, Cafe’s, Pub’s, Take-aways and Shops)

There will be a bar at the event, so you will only need the local pubs for the pub grub.

Traders

Games Lore Ltd will run a small stall with a limited selection of games at the event. If you want a particular game then it will be safer to let them know in advance.

Either contact Gameslore by email telfordminicon@gameslore.com or phone  on 0800 970 2731.

Location

Shifnal Village Hall, Aston Street, Shifnal, Telford, Shropshire TF11 8DW.

The latest issue of Spielbox arrived yesterday. Within its 56 pages were reviews of Rapa Nui, Coney Island, Ora et Labora and Villlage among others. There was also a recap of what was on show at Nurnberg and a look back at the career of David Parlett with numerous pictures of Hare & Tortoise. This issue also enclosed a mini expansion of six cards for Navegador.

I’ve been in London the last couple of days and popped into Orc’s Nest yesterday. To my surprise, they had a shelf of half price games on this visit (never seen a sale before) and one of those games was Jerusalem which has been on my wishlist for a while. At £19 I had to grab it, although when I broke open the shrinkwrap tonight, there were no rules in the box. Very odd but the rules are online and I’m not too unhappy given the nice price I paid. I also picked up Lords of Scotland while I was there.

And we’re back! If you’ve tried to get on the site in the last week or so, you haven’t been able to as someone forgot to put money in the meter. Basically, I hadn’t noticed that the domain name fee hadn’t been paid and I didn’t get a reminder from the registrar, so Nominet went and suspended it. Thankfully, it’s all rectified now. That’s all for now. Might be back later testing the capabilities of the new 3rd gen iPad which I’m picking up today (or I might be too busy playing).

Karl Bunyan has had the very good idea (although I’m sure many have thought about it before – me included – but he’s actually gone and done it) of creating a map of game groups with relevant contact and timing details. I’ve added our group to the blossoming list. It’s interesting: Who ever knew there was a group as far north  as York (…or Beyond)?

The map is accessed via the Royal Society of Gamers website (Hmm. Haven’t publicised that before).

Mark Jackson, aka Fluff Daddy or akapastorguy, has started to run through his 2012 version of his top 100 games. The 2005 and 2010 versions of this were really enjoyable as he tends to highlight those lighter (fluffy) games that really stand the test of time.

I’m looking forward to seeing which games have catapulted themselves onto the list this time around. And how Tumblin’ Dice and Schnappchen Jagd are not in there, I’ll never know. There is a geeklist at Boardgamegeek but greater details is on Mark’s blog.