UK Games Expo 2018 – The Previewing Begins
Please come in. Sit. Let me tell you the tale of a man who once looked upon all the exhibitors of the UK Games Expo and embarked upon a great undertaking. It was his first year as press at the con and he wanted to show that the organisers had not misplace their faith in him. In order to do this he read up on every single exhibitor and wrote about what he would see and what he would not and the articles stretched on and on and on. On the 14th article he rested.
I tell you this not to seek praise for his accomplishments or to tell you to follow his example, but to infrom you that he learnt from the experience and decided to change his tactics, and that now he is ready to emerge from his slumber to once more gaze upon the exhibitor list and ask ‘What looks good?’.
This is his duty and his burden.
To begin at the beginning
Last year I set about going through every single line of the exhibitors list and writing a little bit about them. As I think the exhibitor number is going to be a good bit larger than last year I have been contemplating new ways to go about doing a decent job of providing a good preview to you. To this end I am going to do fewer articles but focus more intently on companies I think are worth your time.
Here is how things are going to go this year. Starting this month I am going to do a pass over the exhibitor list each month, picking up on new companies that get added as the list grows towards the event itself. Each article will pick out a few companies I think might be worth your attention and what in particular drew my eye to them.
Closer to the Expo I’ll put up my hitlist of things I definitely want to see, which will be a good bit shorter than my list from last year, which I barely got through half of. The reason for this reduction in the size of my list is twofold:
1) I need to take some time for myself to hang out with buddies and play games.
2) I enjoyed wandering last year and sitting down with companies I missed or maybe passed over during my preview. Having less companies on the hitlist will help me be a lot more flexible in what I can bring to your eyeholes for preview and review.
Let’s begin.
This one has drawn my eye mostly due to the fact that I really, really want to try Photosynthesis. I know a couple of people who have it so this may fall away if I get a chance to play it before the con. Oh, they also do Kingdomino another one I really want to get a shot of.
My brother in law, hi Dave, is a big lover of puns so Rampunctious by this small outfit might get a play.
I played ‘Lazer Ryderz’ at last year’s convention and although it didn’t make it to the hallowed shelves of my collection it was good fun and the graphic design was top notch. I would be keen to try out Exoplanets.
Spoke to these folks at last year’s cons and they were doing some pretty cool stuff with little generic plastic minis you could carry around, basically a whole dungeon in a box. Check them out for cool wooden accessories and laser cut goodness.
These folks are always worth casting an eye over as they have some really cool RPG accessories and I am always looking for new ways to run my games better.
Local boys, who should be Meeting my Mind fairly soon, who have done great with their first Kickstarter which I previewed early last year. Looking forward to seeing the finished product and trying out their new game, Lorde of the Horde, as well.
I didn’t try out these folks first game Band Manager last year so would like to try and get in on a demo. The board is a T-shirt! I think ‘Original Content London’ is some kind of top level name for a bunch of small companies.
I am still hugely sceptical about the Dized App, the idea behind it being to teach you games as you setup and play and effectively do away with rulebooks. They did get a lot more companies on board than I thought they would so maybe I am wrong about it. Definitely an interesting one to check in on.
I am really keen to give Great Scott a try and Villagers looks pretty interesting as well.
By now my love for Escape the Dark Castle should be clear to you all and I am excited to see what this outfit is going to do next!
I know nothing about either of the games from this company but the unusual art style drew my eye. Too many games look the same so anything out of the ordinary definitely makes me look twice.
This company stormed a recent Kickstarter for Legacy: Life Among the Ruins so I would really like to check it out in the flesh. A new RPG OSRish playground to run about it sounds intriguing.
Month 1 completed. I’ll be casting my eye over the exhibitors once more next month, probably round the same time to try and bring you some delicious gaming morsels!
