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Entry 3 Can we even do this? So the gravitas of the size of this challenge hit at the beginning of this weekend. On average 3 games a day, but so far we had only played 7 games in the first 7 days. So that means we are already 14 games behind. Not the perfect start! We sat on the floor of the games room and stared up at the huge towering shelves. Bulging with games to be played in the next 3 weeks, some of them we had never played, quite a few of them we had played once or twice a while ago. Some of them were meaty long heavy games like Spirit Island, many can be played in 45 mins. But 80 lots of 45 mins is a lot of time! So that was the first wobble. Getting stuck in Not one to be defeated though, we pulled our socks up and knocked a few party games off the list on Friday night over zoom. A few weeks ago I ran Mysterium Park as a team-building different exercise with my wider team, and it was so well received that a games night was asked for. So we played Cranium and also Herd Mentality. Herd Mentality is the type of quiz game I can get behind, because you don’t need to be right, just not be the odd one out. It’s like reverse-pointless. With a group of 18 people over zoom all drinking, getting the games done took a while and a bit of perseverance. But everyone enjoyed themselves and it was well received. This weekend provided us with the first opportunity to have a good run at getting stuck into the collection though. We played 9 games on Saturday, and a further 6 on the sunday. We were starting to claw back some time finally. Two of them were brand new so involved reading the instructions as well, pats on the back required for both of us for bashing out a couple of heavy sessions. Saturday; NMBR9, Abyss, Exploding Kittens, Fluxx, Talisman Legendary Tales, The Bloody Inn, Kanagawa, Sub Terra, and The Dwarves. I will start with the absolute rotters, if I had my way Exploding Kittens would have left my shelves a while ago. Alas our house is a democracy and I am outvoted. Fluxx is unbelievably popular, and there are a gazillion different variants. And yet, it just does not click with me. I don’t mind so much the constant rule changes, although it hurts my head for things to change that frequently and that quickly. But also there is a card that if you draw it says look you won. For doing nothing, for just picking up this card. What a hollow victory. So if anyone wants to rehome a copy of Fluxx 5.0, you know where a neglected one is residing. And now onto everything else, which was top drawer. I am going to cherry pick a few of the games from each group that I don’t normally talk about, to give you a flavour of how the day went. NMBR9 is the easiest quick game that never gets boring. You just flip over the deck and place the numbered tiles numbered 0 through 9 down according to the card. The tiles fit together in a tetris style, and you can lay tiles on top of one another as long as there is no overhang or blank space underneath. Tiles on the level 0 will score no points, but level one tiles score 1 value of the tile. On level two the tile score twice their value, and so on. There is no set up time, and it plays in ten mins. I love this game. If you don’t have this in your collection, then it really should be. NMBR9 is published by Z-Man Games, and is for 1-4 players. The Dwarves takes the spot for the biggest surprise of the challenge so far. This has sat on our shelf of shame for about six months now, having arrived in a mystery box and not really having inspired us from the box. You play as dwarf characters who each have unique player powers, and are trying to complete the adventure cards in the deck before time runs out. It is a dice rolling extravaganza, and we are not good at dice rolling. There is some dice mitigation that can be done as the game progresses, which was welcomed. This is a co-operative game which is almost a hybrid of Risk and Pandemic in the way that the armies cascade out causing perished land to appear and time to march onward to the impending doom. Although not the highest scored game of the day, it is the one that has really stuck in my mind. The Dwarves which felt like it was on its way out having never been played has earned its place on our shelves. Shouldn’t judge a game by its box art and blurb I guess. The Dwarves plays 1-5 players and is published by Pegasus Spiele. Sub Terra if you haven’t already played it is a great tile exploration co-op. You are cave explorers trying to get out without being caught by the horrors that lurk just around the corner or getting killed by earthquakes and floods. It is not an easy game to win, because it is so very easy to die. Anyone who has followed me for a bit will know that my track record with this game is patchy, and almost all of this can be laid at my partner’s door. No matter what character he plays, he keeps needing to be rescued. He insists on flying too close to the sun and always ends up dying. So I have yet to achieve the Gold status win. Maybe I should play it solo… Sub Terra is published by ITB Games and plays 1-6 players. Sunday; Tiny Towns, The Crew, Jaipur, Hey, That’s My Fish, Five Tribes, Codenames Duet The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine won the Kennerspiel des Jahres award for 2020, so people much more knowledgeable than me see that this game is great. This is a co-operative trick taking game where you are playing through all different missions which each have unique objectives. These start off pretty easy, but they ramp up in difficulty the more proficient you are in the game. I like trick-taking, my partner loves trick-taking. This is one of his all-time favourite games. It is sleek and it has turned trick-taking from take-that to a group experience which I find absolutely enthralling. The Crew is published by Kosmos and plays 2-5 players. Five Tribes is a Bruno Cathala masterstroke, and I shall not hear otherwise. It uses a mancala style meeple movement mechanism in the sleekest way imaginable. The game is actually quite an in-depth strategic experience, you need to bid for turn order, there is a lot of power to be had by playing two turns in a row, but are you willing to pay for that privilege? There are djiinns who unlock powerful in-game benefits and end-game scoring bonuses, then there is also the struggle to control tiles on the board too. There is, especially in the two-player version, a satisfying and yet frustrating tug of war. And this makes the end game scoring a nail-biting experience. We certainly never seem to know who has won until the final tally. Just for the record though, the winner was me. Five Tribes plays 2-4, although I love this at 2 the most, and is published by Days of Wonder. After a heavy weekend of gaming, we are almost caught up to where we should already be. So it will be no rest for the wicked this week when we will be juggling playing 3 games each evening after work and food and workouts! Wish us luck!

Herein lies the musings of a woman who is juggling a full time job, running her business, life, the run-up to the first Christmas she has ever hosted and trying to play her entire board game collection in a month. Strap in guys! Entry 1 Winter Challenge 2020 Inspired by The Brothers Murph who played their collection in a week, we decided to try and play our whole collection in a month. Now this is 4.5 times longer than a week, but unlike Nick and Mike, we both have full time jobs and haven’t got people making food and setting up games for us! So the challenge was to play all 87 of our games within a month. Some of these were on the shelf of shame unplayed, so we would have to learn how to play these games too. Many were pretty new too, so we had only played them once or twice, so this made it HARD. We had to play the games properly, we couldn’t skip through and deliberately cut the game short. If there was an option to play a short version though we were allowed to play that. Some of the games needed more than two players, initially we were going to exclude these. But then decided if these were able to be played over zoom then we still had to play them. So the total list was 87 different base games! So any of you who are quick at maths will realise that we had to play on average 3 games a day to manage this. And we are working full time, I work two jobs, he works one, and we workout 5 times a week. Also sleeping and eating needs to still occur. It was a challenge! I mean everyone I spoke to about it thought we had had a bump on the head to decide to do something this mad. Our reasons for the challenge Why are we doing this? Well we thought about it a few times and then started planning to see if we could actually manage it. It will be hard but we reckon if we tried that we could just about squeak over the line. And I love a challenge. We have bought a lot of games this year since lockdown. We have a games room in our house, and the shelves aren’t full, but we are getting there. So this seemed like a great way to decide on which games make the cut and which needed to be moved on to more loving homes. I mean if I’m honest, the main reason to do a slightly mad challenge, is always to see if you can! And with the current local restrictions there is not a lot else I can do. Entry 2 The first week December so far has been mad for us both workwise. I feel like I have barely had time to turn around each day trying to keep all my plates spinning. So we were not off to the best start. In the first week of the challenge, we managed to only play 7 games. A far cry from the required 21 games to stay on track. To make matters worse, all the games we managed to play were firm favourites too that we didn’t need to read the rules for and could play through quickly. The 7 games played this week were; Fort, Welcome To, Doppelt Do Clever, Captain Sonar, My City, Star Wars Unlock, 7 Wonders Duel. Top Three: Fort We love deck-builders and this is probably my second favourite (after Hero Realms). This has such a different theme where you are kids in the playground trying to build the best fort and collect pizza and toys. The interesting thing is that any cards you don’t play that turn go out in your yard, where they can be stolen by other players. This greatly affected my play style. I refused to give up my carefully chosen deck to my opponent! Fort is kooky, bright and colourful with great art. Definitely keeping it’s spot in my collection. Published by Leder Games and plays 2-4 in about 30-50 mins. Welcome To This flip and write is in my top 10 games, I love it, so of course this one keeps its spot. During the game you are trying to fill up your neighbourhood with houses that run in ascending or descending order across the three streets. There is added complexity where each number you write in will have some neighbourhood feature associated with it that you may also play. These could be fences, parks, pools, temp agencies and estate agencies trying to fulfill the contracts. Published by Blue Cocker Games, plays in 20-30 mins and 1-100 players. 7 Wonders Duel This game gets all the love, and rightly so. This drafting game is sleeker, and by all accounts, a better version of 7 wonders that is optimised for two players. You buy cards to build your engine across 3 ages, to try to win through either militarising your opponent into submission on a tug of war track. Or you can out-science them to win, or else if it comes to the end then the winner is the one with the most victory points. This game is quick enough that you can play a few rounds in a row, and if you lose by a whisker, you will want to play again until you win. Published by Repos Games, plays in 20-40 mins for 2 players. More to come soon!

About Me and Gaming I love two things most in life during lockdown; food and board games. I wanted to combine the two, and during these topsy-turvy times I’ve scrabbling around for anything that brings me joy. Like much of the UK, I am under pretty strict restrictions still, so we are still only able to play two-player games or things that are zoom-able. At the moment, I have more time than ever before, it’s “spare-time”. In the PC (pre-covid) times I was one of those people who was mad busy every day. I used to go to the gym before work sometimes, I’d work a second job after my usual 9-5, I was involved in team sports and triathlons too, so I was always training or dashing about. Enter March 2020, and I can now do none of those things, and my hour long commute has been exchanged for six steps to the home office. Lockdown is when we fell hard into gaming. We both liked playing games, we would often take a game of Hive or something with us to bars and restaurants whilst we were on holiday, but it wasn’t a thing we did much whilst at home. We had friends who played loads of games, but most of the time when we saw them we would be training on the bike or out running and then just chilling out, so we didn’t really play much. Initially when lockdown hit we set about trying to “complete” Netflix, like most of the country. But after a month or so, TV became boring and with the weather being so nice and only being allowed to exercise once a day, we started sitting out in the garden more and more. Initially reading, and then playing games. Fast forward 9 months, and here I am, proud owner of a games room, and a collection of around 100 games. We play games probably 4 times a week, sometimes just a quick hand of Monopoly Deal (this is an excellent quick game even if it does have Monopoly in the title), sometimes five or six games in a go on the weekend. Pairing Food and Games So now, in an effort to spice up game night, we have started doing themed games and meals. We pair a meal with one of our favourite games. Much like wine and food pairings, but with added games. Pairing food and games has been a benefit for me in two ways. A) it takes time to think about, plan and cook the meal. In lockdown I have nothing more abundant than time. And B) it gives a more immersive experience, so I get a touch more escapism. Now, this does call for a bit of imagination in some cases. I mean for games set in space, the themed food is either just a ready meal or a snack of freeze-dried raspberries. So I moved all space themed games off the potential list for these. In times of crisis I want good food. In this article I’ll give you a few of my top pairings of games and food. Arabian Nights So first up, an Arabian game night. This theme is quite generalised. The games that I chose to play are kind of set in a made-up version of an average of a whole load of geographical areas. Having looked it up quickly, the Arab World is a collection of 22 countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East. So I based my food on Morocco, and went for a firm favourite; tagine. Game: Five Tribes Food: A warming and fruity tagine served with unleavened bread and couscous. I went veggie with aubergine carrot and onion, but chicken is also great. The spice baharat is your friend with a tagine. Five Tribes is a meeple moving game where you are trying to gain control of cards on the board to gain the most victory points. The movement is a bit Mancala-esque (another firm favourite in my house). You pick up all the meeples from a tile and move, dropping one off at each card until you drop your last meeple. At the last card you get to collect all the meeples matching the colour of the one you dropped. Each coloured tribe has a different action associated with it, all of which help you to amass victory points. Each in totally different ways, so you want to choose the tribe you collect each turn carefully. You also want to choose your card carefully as you get to do the action of the card; claiming djinns, placing palaces and oases, or buying from the market. And if you collect the last meeple from the card you also get to claim the card as your own by placing one of your camels on it. This means you get the victory points from the card at the end. We absolutely love Bruno Cathala’s Five Tribes. It is quite thinky, but we didn’t feel the game was slow or crunchy. It was so good, we had to play a second round. Picnic in the Forest Now I did warn you that you had to be imaginative with this. So I was trying to come up with something that could be in some way linked to Everdell. I did think about rabbit or squirrel stew, but I don’t eat much meat, and the idea of eating your workers did not sit well with me. I had to go meta. The berries in Everdell really remind me of pomegranate jewels. So I ran with that. Game: Everdell Food: Zahtar Roasted Chicken (or Ficken) and pomegranate seed couscous salad. Zahtar is one of my favourite new spices to use, it has such a warming feel to it. Ras-el-hanout is also an excellent shout, and it goes with any protein. I’m not veggie but we have reduced our meat intake significantly, purely for environmental reasons. So we often add protein to our meals through pulses and the Quorn Pieces (Ficken). An added benefit is that you can cook this straight from frozen in the pan which makes it that perfect meal to knock up with cupboard staples. For an extra bit of variety add some mixed seeds into the couscous along with the pomegranate jewels, and veggies (diced carrots, celery, cucumber, tomato and pepper). Everdell is the most beautiful game in my collection. There is no game that even knocks on its door. The evertree gives it such table presence. It may well be unnecessary and a bit of a faff, but for me it is an essential part of playing the game. Everdell is a woodland themed worker-placement engine-builder. On your turn you either place workers out in the wood to collect resources or you buy cards for your tableau. The cards are either critters (cute little animals) or constructions . These cards have either an immediate effect or a recurrent effect that happens at the beginning of each season. Most of them are also worth victory points. The hardest thing about Everdell is making sure you don’t fill your tableau up too early, I always do this! Each card is worth points, and there are a number of public objectives which are also worth points. Everdell will stay in my collection forever more. I think the next purchase for me might be the Spirecrest expansion which I hear adds some great new stuff to an already quite frankly spiffing game. Happy playing, and wash your hands (before handling games after eating).

Stop. Buy nothing!! Buy nothing day is a movement that was started to try and stop the over commercialisation, aggressive price cutting and consumer addiction sales days like Black Friday has created. The movement encourages everyone to simply do one thing every Black Friday, spend nothing. This year, Black Friday falls on November 27th. Usually this is a day for finding deals by rushing to the shops, cueing outside at 5am to see what amazing discounts you can bag. This year, it will be more about online purchases, as most have turned to anyway. At a time of financial hardship for many, I am sure Black Friday will still be a massive thing for the online giants, who will draw huge crowds to their virtual storefronts. Enticing people with one time only deals. People will buy stuff they don’t need, or maybe don’t even really want. But the adrenaline rush of the purchase will keep people happy for a fleeting moment. The endorphins released that encourage us to buy more when purchasing new things is a scientifically proven fact. What is less documented is the physical and mental reaction after this wears away a minute later, an bills need to be paid. Shopping has become an addiction for many. Searching sites endlessly for products you don’t need. Sometimes even without an item in mind. Just seeing what’s there. Let’s replace that with the physical equivalent for a moment Walking around hundreds of shops looking at product after product, asking a salesperson what a thousand strangers thought of it, all at midnight for hours in your pyjamas. You’d lock that person up! An addiction or pastime? But this is what we have all become. Myself included. It’s so easy. Quite relaxing. And let’s face it, when you do find that bargain, it’s a good feeling. And I did need that air purifier anyway. Shut up! So, I get the movement against this. Lets just all have one day when we don’t spend. We put down the phones and tablets and enjoy all the other crap we have already got. Can you even remember what you bought in the last sales splurge anyway? How many times have you actually used that cheese toasty maker? And do your feet feel any better for that one use in the £99 foot spa you bought for a bargain £19.99?! For the board games industry, it is much the same. Online retailers across the globe will tout their Black Friday deals. I am sure there will be some good offers out there. Probably for games that they have surplus stock of after poor reviews as they are not actually that good, but there you go, a deal is a deal! I will probably have a look too and see what I can find. But let’s just take a moment to see it from the Buy Nothing Day campaigns point of view. They want us to stop. Why? Well a few reasons. 1. Its killing local businesses. Smaller shops cannot discount as aggressively and so people turn to the big corporates to find the best prices. Do we want our local community shops to go? They have been there for us when we need them. Providing us with the products and produce we need. For some of us, even gainful employment in our teens and beyond. I see the benefit to protecting this. Especially this year when shopping local has become more vital for other wider reasons. My local shop carried out some amazing initiatives to support the local elderly and vulnerable community during the last few months. It would be a shame if this sort of activity died away. I didn’t see Amazon delivering fresh vegetables for free in lockdown. 2. Direct from the buying nothing website. “The anarchy that ensues on Black Friday has now become an absurd dystopian phenomenon.” Yeah, agreed! We have all seen the scenes on the news. People being trampled on as they try to get into a major department store or retailer first. It makes me sad to watch these scenes. I think it is because it shows the desperation and greed that we all, as humans have. I don’t like it about myself or others. It’s a primal thing that comes from the need to provide. If you don’t win that fight and bring home the meat, your family dies. But this isn’t an essential Mammoth we are bringing home. It’s a new 4K TV. Let’s all try and put into perspective what we actually need. Maybe instead of buying a new electrical device or plastic child’s toy monstrosity, we can all try and focus on what matters. Our friends. Our family. Our health. 3. Ok, and let’s face it. Another huge reason this even exists is for everything, there is a counter thing. “I love this!” “I hate this!” “You must support this thing!” “This thing is evil and corrupt!” We live in a world of polarised and extreme opinions. Some love Black Friday, others hate it. Again, this is the gaming world all over. Just look at the release of Pendulum this year! I campaign for calm during these moments. There are loads of ok games. Solid 6 out of 10’s. They are not the best thing ever, nor are they the worst. This movement seems to exist simply because it can. They want us to stop as someone, somewhere wants us to stop everything we do. Maybe even trivial blogs for online board game rental sites. So, what does this all mean to you? Well nothing. You can carry on with your lives as you were before. Neither this movement, nor this piece, can dictate your life more than any other website or thing. It all feels a bit preachy to me. We are constantly being told what we can and can’t do. I get this issue and the support of local business’ is crucial. And I suppose this day and way is as good as any to highlight this important issue. But for me, I am not sure. People make their own choices. Just because they have a bit of fun on Black Friday doesn’t mean they wont then go to their local store the next day to buy something they actually need! A world of extremes! But this is the world we live in now. Everything is great or bad. For me, Black Friday is ok. I will have a look online and probably buy something I don’t really like or need, but I will feel excited when I buy it and a few days later when it turns up. And again, a few years later when I finally recycle it. That’s three moments of happiness during a year of pain for so many. I say, live and let live. Let people waste their time and money on Black Friday. Maybe the movement should be flipped. I say, everyone go online on Black Friday and buy all the useless junk you don’t need. This is the purge. Get it out your system and go nuts. Then for the rest of the year, ok sorry, let’s be realistic, the rest of the week, try and shop local. Support your local businesses. And put your phone down and be present in the moment. Actually watch that show you have on rather than see what Twitter thinks of it. Look the person you are talking to in the eye rather than scrolling through Instagram. Breathe in that smell of the coffee. Not every activity needs to be accompanied by the casual scrolling of a phone. Take care y’all and happy shopping. Or not, do whatever makes you happy!