Hello to everyone who joined our mailing list at UK Games Expo (and everyone else)! I’m Michael, bringing you the latest on what’s going on in the London tabletop scene.
After a fantastic weekend bringing the TIN stall to its first ever UK Games Expo, we’re straight into plans for Dragonmeet in December. Being London-based, Dragonmeet is very close to our heart, and we can’t wait to be back again.
Separately, I’ve now received the ceremonial crown of Facebook-group-adminhood (thank you Jane!), which means I can start setting up events for all future meetups. If you’re not part of the group, we’d love for you to join. Here a link to all our socials.
Meetups & Events
The next London Tabletop Industry Networking Meetup is this Thursday 6th July, at the Royal Albert pub in New Cross, from 7pm. It’s an 8 minute walk from Deptford station, itself an 8 minute train from London Bridge station.
The dates of future meetups are a little up in the air. I’ve had a couple of tips to check out Badger Badger, which seems like the hot place for London tabletoppers to be - they’re right by Deptford station, so I’ll see who I can chat to before the meetup on Thursday. It seems like they have quite a busy schedule though, so if that’s where we’re headed, we might have to adjust our rota to fit them? TBC.
Fun as our very slow pub crawl around London has been, I’m hoping we can actually settle on a home soon. That way, we can shift focus to bringing guest speakers back to meetups, which I know a lot of you are keen to return. Watch this space.
Friends of the network Holly and Blair are running a couple of Board Game Camps from the very end of July into August. Students aged 11-17 will be playing, learning about, and developing board games, hosted at Draughts: Hackney. Find out more, and buy tickets, at this link.
New & Recent Releases
Avatar of Gaia is the latest game in W.H. Arthur’s superhero cinematic universe. It’s the story of a transforming superhero and their fight for the environment and a better future. Is it too late to save Earth? Play to find out. If you’d like to transform into a 50 foot woman and step on capitalists, you can find this game and other connected superhero adventures at Arthur’s itch.io store.
The Rolistes podcast has been putting out some brilliant episodes recently, including a discussion recorded at UK Games Expo about the Past, Present, and Future of UK TTRPG Publishing (with Sasha Sienna, Zach Cox, and James Wallis); and an RPG Academy Film Studies episode about The Terminator (with Mark Rapson and Epidiah Ravachol). Check out their full back catalogue of interviews and other episodes at this link.
Bundles, Crowdfunding, & Subscriptions
On July 20th, a new generation must walk the path of the Omen. Coincidentally, it’s also the launch date for Kayla Dice’s first Kickstarter! Terminal is a game of digital pirates battling a Robot Authority within and without a simulated reality, inspired by the Matrix and Black Sails. Read more about the game at this Tumblr post, and sign on with a crew here, so you’re ready to plug in when the campaign goes live.
Whilst you’re over at Kickstarter, you should also click this link to be notified when the Kickstarter for Paris Gondo - The Life-Saving Magic of Inventorying goes live! This is the second edition of Kalum’s post-boss-fight encumbrance-’em-up, inspired by the organisational methods of Marie Kondo. For a taster of what to expect, you can pick up a copy of the first edition at this link.
Guest Review
This month’s guest review is by Supercircuit, a London-based visual novel creator and friend of the network. She picked up Managerie of the Void by Eran Aviram from the TIN stall at UK Games Expo:
I'd never tried a solo journaling game before but being a sci-fi nut, the concept of this one really grabbed me. I had free time at the convention that afternoon so I managed to gather the supplies I needed (playing cards, index cards and a pen) and set up in the open gaming space to play. The estimated playtime was much shorter than I ended up spending on it so I didn't manage to complete a full play-through that afternoon. When I had to stop I took a photo of the arrangement of index cards and set them up again at home. Now that I've spent a bit longer on it with long gaps between sessions I realise this might be the most fitting way to play this game. After all, the zookeeper does spend extended periods in hibernation between cycles.
I feel like I was incredibly lucky with my cards up until a serious problem arose that forced me to take 1 deviancy at the start of every subsequent cycle. Before this I had managed to build up 4 control, allowing me to take advantage of some of the extra zookeeper actions. After that, I realised I could keep trying to gain control but then lose it again every cycle. Should I give in to deviancy and let the zoo deteriorate? Or continue a futile effort to maintain control until another problem inevitably comes up and ruins everything? The game works extremely well in producing this feeling of futility. I enjoyed the fact that there were win conditions described in the rules but everything was so stacked against you actually achieving them that it just enhanced the frustration, really putting you in the shoes of your hapless zookeeper.
The design of the booklet is fantastic. The layout and font choice makes it easy to read and the colours are pleasant and easy on the eyes. I appreciated the icons and colour-coding of the card suits whenever they were mentioned as it made it very quick to find the text you needed to read. The illustrations are beautiful and evocative, really helping to set the tone and create a jumping off point for imagining your own creatures.
The sheer number of different problems that can pile up gives this game a lot of replay value. Before I played, I didn't read through all of them in detail because I wanted to keep that element of surprise. In my next game, will the zookeeper will finally be able to achieve full control? Or will the menagerie chew them up just like it always does? Is the fun of playing games only in the winning? Or is it delighting in the myriad ways in which we can fail? Menagerie of the Void certainly succeeds in the latter.
Thank you for the review Supercircuit! You can buy digital copies of Managerie of the Void at Eran’s itch.io store.