Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

What? Afternoon Play: boardgame larks in a lovely coffee shop
When? Sunday 7th November
Yes but when? 2-5:30pm
Where? Urban Coffee Company, 30 Church Street, Birmingham, B3 2NP

Inspired by our Midland neighbours over at Gambling Lambs we’ve decided it was high time to host a boardgame event of our own in the West Midlands so are pleased to announce our upcoming lazy afternoon of play on  Sunday 7th of November ‘Afternoon Play‘ (see what we did there ….. sigh* yes I know its not the best name, but we can work on that alright?)

We’ll be bringing along some German classics such as Catan & Carcassonne but you’re welcome to bring along your game of choice. Although we’re selling this as a boardgame afternoon if there is anything else you’re keen to play (safely) within the confines of a coffee shop then let us know.

You don’t need to sign up anywhere but as this is the first one (please note mild insinuation that if all goes well we might repeat said event) it’d be good to get an idea of rsvp numbers on this here facebook event page. So pack up your zocchihedron, bring your friends, meet some new ones and come join us on Sunday the 7th.

This event is brought to you in association with BARG http://barg.org.uk/

Secret Library Card. You have been summoned!

Yesterday I joyfully headed down to the first of the new BARG Meets at the MAC with a bulging pocket full of old train tickets. Why, well I was keen to to get some help in testing out a game based around those orange and yellow cards we all cram our wallets full of.

The idea for a game based around train tickets came after realising I, like others, spend approx 3% of my life passively collecting, then discarding them and am never without at least 5 or so on my person. So instead of just tossing them into the bin I wanted to take on the challenge of turning these disposable bits of rubbish into a competitive collectable.

So what sort of game is capable with train tickets? Lots of course, but I’m keen to develop something easy to pick up without requiring other tech or props. I’d started to think around other traditional card games and see what derivatives might be possible and of course top trumps was a natural first direction.

But where to start? As I’m still new to ‘officially’ developing games I foolishly started with a quite admin heavy approach that consisted of compiling a list of all the potential variables and the formats each ticket offers up, and there are a lot….an awful lot…..

- Return or single
- No of travellers
- Cost
- Date valid from
- Date valid till
- Date printed
- To & from
- Validity
- Various random nonsensical combinations of 5/ 10 letter numbers and letters
- Ticket validation, (stamp…hole punch….squiggle)

and this still isn’t all of them and doesn’t include seat reservations, void tickets, receipts, foreign tickets and others. After listing most of these I must admit I wasn’t a great deal further along actually coming up with a game and was just boring myself to tears. What I needed was to sit down with a group of people willing to just start playing some half baked games to see and discuss what worked and what didn’t.

And thankfully this is where the BARG meet came in. I was slightly worried when I was heading down that I wasn’t doing so with a perfect game, or even a playable one. Instead I just had a pocket full of tickets a few ideas and an extensively dull list of variables. But it turns out that’s all I needed.

I explained my semi logic and thinking so far to the group which lead to us playing through a few rounds of a trump based game with a variation of rules, discussing and deciding on these as we went along.

A personal favourite was the development of how to deal with the ‘to and from’ variable which moved from ‘distance from current location’, ‘longest distance travelled’ to the more qualitative measurement of ‘travelling up or down in the world’ (e.g. a journey from Coventry to London= good, but from Coventry to London = bad). Granted this can lead to debating (read: arguing) among players, but  this complimented the more defined numerical wins (e.g. £42 ticket trumping a £2.70 ticket).

By the end some things worked, some things didn’t, but I’m a lot further along in developing at least 1 game. I still feel that a trump based game is too much the ‘easy option’ but given the number of variables then there’s always room for a whole wiki of games (I’ve also been working around something in a domino format).

By the next meet on the 18th I’m hoping to have some further developed variations of the game we played to inflict on new willing victims. But in the meantime if you have any thoughts on games to develop with tickets then please get in touch!

(p.s. apologies for the awful picture quality, my lovely lumix camera is currently on holiday after I foolishly left it somewhere a week ago, no offence iphone camera)