There was excitement over the weekend as four members; Ben, Chris, Rich G and Rich H (me) paid a three-day visit to the UK Games Expo in the Birmingham NEC. This huge event is the UK’s largest tabletop games convention where games designers, manufacturers, artists and other creatives get together to showcase their products, give sneak peeks at upcoming games and celebrate the hobby. Over three blogs I will cover just a fraction of what was there to see and do. I really do recommend checking it out.
Arriving eager to play something new, Chris and I played a participation game of Lost Ruins of Arnak, produced by Czech Games Edition. Each player takes the role of the leader of an expedition to a newly discovered island around the start of the 1900s. You are seeking to research the island’s secrets, defend your expedition from the wild beasts of the island and plunder the island temple of its valuable idols. This is a worker placement game where you play with fedora-wearing tokens (which Chris called ‘Indiana Meeples’) to gain resources to advance through a research track towards discovering the temple. All the while you are attempting to have more victory points after five rounds. After a two-round taster, I had seen enough and bought the game. I am looking forward to our first expedition at the club!
Chris was even lucky enough to pick up a pre-release copy of Talisman 5th Edition by Avalon Hill. He was very excited to get this as he has collected all of the expansions for the 4th edition of the game and is eager to play the new version.
After lunch, another game caught our eye and we all decided to play. Magnificent Flying Machines by Medusa Games is a competitive racing game set in the world of early flight and air races. You rarely get to finish a game at the Expo, but this engrossed us so much we played it to the end. With easy-to-learn dice mechanics for flying and landing, the aim of the game is to race to the end, picking up cargo and passengers on the way to earn bonus victory points. With the weather to contend with as well as the villainous cad behaviour of your opponent pilots, this was a fun and exciting game. Chris could not resist it, so expect the sounds of propellers and hard landing in the club soon.
Later in the day Ben and I decided to try something new; a starship bridge experience. Facilitated by the good folks at UK Starship Bridge Simulator, this live-action role-play involved players assuming the roles of Captain, Chief Engineer, Science, Helm, Communications and Tactical and playing through a scenario as shown on their console. Each player had a different view and had responsibilities essential to progressing the story. This was a thoroughly enjoyable experience that resulted in some hilarious moments. These included Helm slowly approaching a space station to doc then accidentally hitting light speed to overshoot by several thousand meters, and Tactical having an ‘Oops’ targeting the station we were supposed to be defending with nukes (that was me). By the end of the scenario, we all had a great time, even if the ship was destroyed with all hands lost…
That was enough excitement for one day. Please check back next time to hear about Day 2, where we played two RPG scenarios organised by the UKGE events team.
Comments