Board game reviewer site, Dicebreaker closing down.

One of the many sites which I use to provide news information for BoardGameNews, DiceBreaker is closing down operations.

DiceBreaker covered not only board games, but all sorts of role-playing and other tabletop related stuff. It has been running for years as a steady supplier of information and reviews, as well as having a pretty decent Youtube Channel.

To quote from Board Game Wire's news article...

Board game news website Dicebreaker has made its editor-in-chief Matt Jarvis and senior staff writer Alex Meehan redundant, following three weeks of silence on the website in the wake of its parent company’s takeover by IGN.

Jarvis, who has been EIC almost since the site’s inception in 2019, emailed contributors today to announce that his last day will be Friday, and apologised for his unavailability during his redundancy process – saying he has been “as frustrated as you with the silence”.

Meehan took to Twitter today in the wake of Jarvis’ announcement to confirm she had also been made redundant after almost five years at Dicebreaker.

Dicebreaker has posted just a single sponsored article to the site since its parent company Gamer Network was bought by video games website giant IGN on May 21.

The site’s YouTube channel, which has 108,000 subscribers, has also received no new uploads in the past three weeks.

It would seem that the big players are intent on consolidating their positions as games manufacturers try to come to terms with the changing landscape of how games are created and played. Small independent companies are trying to make their own way in the world. The ability to get games to market has vastly changed over the past few years as they now have newer ways to market, such as KickStarter, without the backing of the old incumbents who used to take a cut of their income.

Obviously there are challenges as some small manufacturers now need to take on more tasks and some even find this increased workload too much of a challenge and have closed down operations.

What this effect has on the Gaming world still needs to be figured out. But people need to support their local small independent games makers. Either buy their games, or go to game meetups to play them.

Game Brewer closing down

Today I received an email from Game Brewer informing me that they will be closing down their operations. It would seem that, like most small game companies, they have decided that they cannot compete with the "big boys" and are bowing out gracefully with their heads held high. As such they are holding a "closing down" sale with about 25% off a lot of their stock.

I am lucky to own five of their creations. Why? Because they are in fact damn good games that haven't really seen a lot of press. On the whole, their games are not for the fainthearted. They often come in on the heavier side with longer play times more suited to the tactical/strategy gamer rather than the social gamer. As such they often don't appear at small gaming events.

Gugong

China, 1570. China is under the reign of the Longqing Emperor, of the Ming Dynasty. He inherited a country in disarray after years of mismanagement and corruption. He resided in the Forbidden city, which was the seat of many emperors under the Ming Dynasty. Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 72 ha (over 180 acres). It is also under the Ming Dynasty that the Great Wall of China was rebuilt, fortified, and expanded. Around this period, China was under heavy attack from the Mongols, so maintaining the Great Wall was essential. Most of what we now have left of the Great Wall, we owe to the Ming dynasty.

The country was already famous for its very intricate bureaucracy, but this also led to a lot of corruption. Even though the penalties for corruption were very high, the highest Officials of the Forbidden City would pretend to uphold the ban on corruption, by accepting gifts of petitioners, and returning one of seemingly lower value.

Fuji Koro

Japan Hōsei 4 (1707).

Mount Fuji is on the verge of erupting. Red hot lava will soon consume the three secret Seien-ji (聖煙寺), sacred temples hidden deep in the bowels of the volcano. The Shōgun is determined to preserve the precious heritage and sends his most noble and gifted samurai warriors on a quest inside the volcano to retrieve the valuable goods.

After a grueling climb through snowstorms and treacherous rocky terrain the samurai find the entrance that leads down into the cavern.

The volcano rumbles and the walls start shaking! The floor underneath their feet crumbles and our brave samurai fall into the huge cavern that contains the three temples, which are slowly sinking into the smoldering lava.

It is now up to our heroes to explore the cavern and find as many of the relics, sacred scrolls, and monks as possible, to bring back safely to the Shogun before the volcano erupts and all is lost forever.

Rulebenders

Embark on a fascinating adventure through multiple themes like pirates, sci-fi, fantasy, prehistoric, zombies and more in Rulebenders, a time-traveling game that twists the rules of the game (literally and figuratively) and will create a unique game experience every time you play!

In the game, players choose a number of themes out of the available six, changing the character of each round as the game progresses. Players fight for control over the different rules aspects of the game, bending the rules of the game to their advantage. You have to use your wits in this unique game where the rules change as you play.

Stroganov

In the 16th century, Russia began to expand eastwards to develop the vast expanses of Siberia. This phase in history is closely associated with the name "Stroganov".

In the game Stroganov, players try to collect the best furs to gain wealth and fame as they move across the vastness that is Siberia. They will journey through Siberia in spring, summer, and autumn before returning home each winter. After four years (rounds), the player who has best utilized their actions and collected the most victory points wins.

Hippocrates

Travel back to Greece in 370 BCE on the island of Kos. Hippocrates has just passed away and that leads to a lot of doubt regarding the durability of his medical activities. As one of his successors, you lead a team of doctors with the goal of perpetuating the treatment of patients in the temple of Asclepios, later known as the first hospital in history. Be the right successor of Hippocrates and increase your reputation, so that patients from all around the Mediterranean will come with the hope of receiving the best treatment ever.

They all play really well, although I must admit that Fuji Koro is my favourite. But they are on the heavier side usually lasting a good couple of hours or more.

Needless to say, I took them up on their discount offer to purchase the expansion to Stroganov - Turukhan, Oak and Delta. Here's to the small guys. Sad to see you go, but you're going out strong.

UK Games Expo roundup

Once again, UKGE is over for another year. I always intend to do a write up after each day, but to tell the truth, I was exhausted each night.

Starting on the Thursday we (my friends and I) went up early. Ostensibly so that they could drop stuff off at the Bring & Buy and avoid the huge queues on the Friday. Needless to say that worked out way better than expected. Yes it cost us an additional nights stay, but really it meant that we didn't have to rush and we could relax into some of the Open Gaming on the Thursday night. There were quite a few other people there, and I even managed to bump into another member of the local gaming group.  Shame that they kicked us out of Hall 3 at 6pm.

Anyway, after a quick stop at 5 Guys for sustenance we adjourned to the Hilton for more open gaming. With the extra day we could get some decent gaming in so we did a mini-league of Heat Pedal to the Metal with the expansion Heavy Rain.

Friday was definitely a shopping day. Manged to pick up some goodies in the form of T-Shirts, a hoodie, more tea, and a few games. Although I cut back on the number of games I bought at this years expo because last year there were a number of issues. Firstly carry the damn things around, and secondly the eye rolls and "tuts" that I got from The Wife on my return. So, although I did buy a couple, the wasn't an overwhelming number. I did get the Prelude expansion for Terraforming Mars which gives a huge kick at the start of the game and can cut down on the game play time.

Steve and Dave had booked to see No Rolls Barred. So Tom and I played a game of Vale of Eternity. Interesting theme, but I don't think it would enter my regular game rotation.

Saturday was a mess. There was a huge influx of the weekender brigade and it got real crowded, real quick. So much so that we decided to abandon any pretence of shopping and go to the gaming areas in the Hilton... except they were packed. Fortunately we found one table who were just packing up and we managed to grab it before other vultures got in. We spent the rest of the day playing.

Although we tried to get a big enough table for Firefly (Dave had brought his anniversary edition which was freaking huge!) we had to abandon that thought and we carried on with various other games.

Sunday was better. We grabbed a large table first thing in the morning and  got to play Firefly then. There were quite a few people wandering past who were looking on and taking photos. It's an impressive game when laid out like this.

Last year, the game of the show was Scout. This year, I think the most impressive for me was Moving Wild, another Oink game. However it was only after playing it that I decided to get a copy of my own. But on returning to the stand, I found that they were only selling them at signing sessions which clashed with other things going on so I wasn't able to get hold of a copy. Needless to say, it got added to my Wishlist.

All in all, we got through a number of games, we didn't manage most of the things we intended. But there are a number of things that worked out well, and things we need to remember for the future.

1. Going up on the Thursday was a good idea. It made travel a lot less stressful and made things easier overall.
2. One highlight on Friday morning was meeting Peter Vaughan of Cardboard Alchemy.
   
   
3. Avoid shopping on Saturday. No point in those kinds of crowds. Grab a big table early and camp there throughout the day with excursions to the Hilton car park for the food trucks etc.
4. Sunday morning for shopping for any last minute bargains and then back to the gaming tables.
5. Bringing a waterbottle was a definite plus. As you can imagine drinks and food in a captive market such as the NEC is horrendously expensive. Bringing your own drink is a good idea. Better yet, get some of those fizzy Vitamin-C tablets and drop a couple of those in your bottle. You'll be glad of the extra boost during the day.
6. Make a plan. The Expo website lists all the events and goings on. If you're one of the kind of people who enjoys these live action events then you really need to plan everything out. Do so at least a week in advance, and make sure everything is pre-paid.
7. Book a better hotel. I was in the Ibis Styles. Not a bad hotel as such, but there were a couple of issues.
1. Firstly it's quite a jaunt to the rear of the whole NEC area and it's really not fun walking there. Carrying havy backpacks and bags.
2. Secondly they use a magnetic card doorlock system. Which is all well and good, but the electronic/explosive/contraband scanners used by the NEC wipes the cards each time you go through one of those arches. It's a pain to get your room card re-made every time you return to the hotel.
8. Get a trolley. Backpacks are fine (I have a BoardGameTables one) but it can get tiring carrying everything around. A trolley is a much more sensible idea. But don't bring it into the NEC halls when it's crowded.

Once the hotels let me, I'll be booking for next year as well.