After All That

Yesterday I had the meeting with the reviewer from BBC MindGames, and I introduced Border Reivers, then we played a game. I thought the meeting went well, she seemed to enjoy the game and with a few pointers got into it well. In the end she won, after I had some terrible luck in combat. I managed to wrest the mine from her and push back her other flank, but she came back at me, and waded through my armies like they were decrepid old folk, unsure of which ends of their weapons to stick in their enemies (it's the pointy end). I spent a lot of the game short on armies as a result of the slaughter of my ineffectual troops, though my choice of the Training Camp did help me out a little there.

As I left she said it should appear in the January edition (out on 5th December), and gave me a copy of this month's magazine for the train. I enjoyed the magazine (their Ten Best Games For Christmas beat the pants off The Independent's, and featured three Euros - Settlers, Lost Cities and Carcassonne). The puzzles had a nice range of different types and difficulties. All in all, it was an ideal magazine for me on the train. I also spent an hour or two working on the game idea Dad had sparked by giving me a single work. It's now Codename: Artist. It'll be an abstract tesselation game, for 2 or 5 or 6 players. I think it has some potential, but I need to get a prototype together and start playing it to really find out.

When I got home last night there was more disappointment though. Unfortunately the reviewer's editor had already 'locked' her earlier version, so the review is not going to come out until after Christmas after all. D'oh. After going all the way down there I still don't get the pre-Christmas review. Still, it can't be helped.