What a Week!

This week, I've had three nights of gaming. Three!

Newcastle Playtest

Tuesday was the latest Newcastle Playtest session. I'd missed the last one, due to my trip to Germany last month for work, so I was especially keen to make it along this time. Also, Dan the organiser couldn't make it this month, so as his understudy it was important I was there. There were going to be three of us: Alex, Paul and I. Alex wasn't due until after 7:30, but Paul was coming along early so I went over at 6:30 with Codename: Vacuum and Zombology. It turns out that Paul had a work emergency so he didn't get there until gone 7:30, so I spent the first hour on my own. It was fine though since my replacement phone - after the Great Spontaneously Combusting Nokia Lumia Event of 2014 - had just arrived so I spent the hour installing apps and setting it up just how I wanted. Once Paul and Alex arrived the three of us played five (5!) games of Zombology. I was keen to show it to them since they hadn't seen it since I made the sweeping changes, which were largely done in response to their feedback. They both enjoyed it I think, and Paul commented that it was nice to spend the evening concentrating on a single game. I've got loads more ideas now for the next version, once I've finished with the NaGa DeMon copies. As time goes on I'm finding Newcastle Playtest to be more and more useful in the development of my games.

Unfortunately, we found out after the event another designer had tried to attend. He'd hung around for an hour, but because I was sat there on my own playing with my new phone he'd not found us :-(

Games Night

Thursday was Games Night, and with enough attendees for two tables and a new phone to run my Firefly: The Board Game app, I was finally able to try it out. As with any live demo, it crashed once, but apart from that and the slightly wrong information about the number of cards in each deck, it worked.

I can't tell you how much time it saved, as we played with three instead of four, all who had played it before (unlike last time) and a different mission card. But it came in at 3 hours instead of 4 and it felt like it helped a bit.

TableTop Day

Finally, Saturday was TableTop Day, and with the father-in-law delaying his visit until next weekend, I was able to get along to Newcastle Gamers for their free all day session. I only went for a few hours in the evening after The Daughter had gone to bed, but was greeted with a cheer on arrival as I had broken the all time attendance record (I think I was the 52nd attendee that day!). I stayed for three and a bit hours, but managed to play six games including two games of AbluXXen, which was new to me. I took a bunch of games and ended up playing three of the ones I'd brought, including Sumeria, which I had a hankering for. I'd not played in ages and despite over a hundred more plays than my newbie opponents, I got my arse handed to me - the scores were 41, 33 and 21 (me).

All in all a great week's gaming, when you include the Zombology Playtest at lunch on Thursday and the game of Incan Gold after Firefly, I've played 15 games this week (and in fact in the first five days of April). That's going to help me meet my target for the year!