It’s that time of year again, and I sincerely hope you all have a chance to take some time off, and unwind. Whether you do that alone or with a group, with festivities or some quiet time, here’s hoping you get what you want.
It gets much more difficult for me to take time out to write reviews at this time of year, as it’s one of the few occasions each year where my family is all away from school and work at the same time. I’m still tapping away whenever I get a chance, but it’s time I should be spending making a few memories, so you’ll just have to forgive the lack of output from me at the moment.
That said, there are still a few pieces in draft, and I hope to get them out over the next few weeks. Including reviews of The Guild of Merchant Explorers, Eleven, and the long-overdue wargame piece.
Read the room
If you are gathering with family over the next week or so, it feels like the perfect opportunity to break out a few games and get people involved. If I had one top tip for doing that, it’s this.
Don’t try to teach anything more complex than a light game.
Instead, get the party games out. Get some fun things going on which get everyone involved, and games with a teach of less than a couple of minutes. Dust off Pictionary, play Balderdash, and if you’ve got anything more modern in the same vein, get those too. You can’t go wrong with classics like Telestrations and Cockroach Poker. For bigger groups consider something like Wavelength, or some of the Big Potato games like Herd Mentality, Sounds Fishy, or Shoot For The Stars. I can promise you one thing - none of those people in the room with you is going to give a hoot about your nerd cred, so swallow it down and play the games that make people smile.
Thankfulness
I’m not going to bore you stupid this week, I’m sure you’ve all got better things to be doing. I just want to take this opportunity to thank you all.
When I started Punchboard, it was a fun little side-project I was doing just for me. While it still is, there seems to be people out there - you included - who like what I do. That’s as crazy as it is wonderful to me, and while the community as such is small, it’s really important to me. I feel very lucky, and thankful to you all.
So thank you. I’ll try to make next year better than this, with more giveaways, more involvement from you, and to give back as much as I can.
Have a wonderful break, and if I don’t talk to you before, see you in 2023!
Adam