It’s been a busy few weeks for me over on my review website, Punchboard. For a start I wanted to bring Wordpress (the CMS I use for the site) up-to-date, but because I chose to use a preconfigured install called Bitnami, it meant I had to spin up a brand new server and migrate across to it. So far, so good.
Anyway, on to the games!
Big in Japan
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been running a Japanese Game Festival. I came back from UKGE super-enthused for all things Japanese and came up with a series of reviews and interviews to help you take your first steps down the rabbit hole. Follow the link above to see everything I covered and find out about some new games.
It was a real eye-opener for me, as there are some real fundamental differences between the way we think of tabletop games here in the west compared to out east. So few games come with a traditional four-fold board to play on. Even the bigger games I bought such as Eternal Decks and Come Sail Away use a cloth and modular tiles respectively. They often feel much lighter and much more accessible, and it seems to be a part of the culture with their games. Complexity is eschewed in favour of fun and emergent depth.
The whole experience tickled my brain enough to leave me wanting more, so I currently have two new games from this Spring’s Tokyo Game Market on the way to me, courtesy of Travel Games. I have Homalet and My Own Sunny Day on the way, and I have no idea what they’re like yet. I’m really excited to find out, though.
K-Games
It’s not just Japan that I find fascinating when it comes to East Asia. I’ve had a long love of Korea too. I even studied a Korean martial art - Tang Soo Do - for 14 years. There were some Korean games at UKGE which were being sold by a 3rd-party company called Revelation Games. While I appreciate their efforts to bring these games back from places like Essen with a view to getting them a wider audience, as a reviewer I like to deal with the source wherever possible, so I reached out to publisher Playte. It turns out they’re super nice people, and just as keen to get eyes on their games, so after a couple of weeks these games arrived on my doorstep!
I’m super grateful, and I look forward to getting stuck into them properly before writing some reviews to let you know what’s out there, if you look hard enough. We started off last night with Betty Botter Bought Some Butter, a tongue-twister game (which has actually been localised for languages around the world) and had a hilarious time.
Aside from tabletop games, there’s some excellent Korean entertainment out there, readily available. The world and his dog know about the Netflix hit Squid Game, but the next time you’re on there check out Agents of Mystery, Busted, and The Devil’s Plan. All game-focused entertainment shows which I’ve finished now, so if you know of anything similar, please let me know. I’m bereft!
The rest
Other than those, finding time to play has been limited to supporting a local geek store and cafe on their new weekly board game nights. If you find yourself in west Cornwall, head over to Happy Piranha. Great people with great stuff.
It’s been good though. I’ve been able to introduce people to new games and classics, too, like El Grande. We even played Dominion this week. I’ve always got time for Dominion.
Just yesterday I published a new review. It’s for Great Western Trail: El Paso, the new streamlined version of Alex Pfister’s modern classic. I like it. It still feels like GWT, but it’s smaller and faster. It’s got a couple of pretty notable rules omissions, but I’ve highlighted those so you can go into it prepared if you pick it up. You can read my review of Great Western Trail: El Paso by clicking here.
I should soon have some more reviews ready to go. I’m currently working through Galileo Galilei, Gwent, and some others.
What about you?
I love to know what other people are currently playing and excited about, so let me know. Leave a comment below and help me spend money on more games I didn’t know I needed.