Wow. We are exhausted. Up at 5.30am to make our way down to the Expo. Thankfully we are staying the night at one of the on-site hotels tonight. It’s been such a busy day that we’ve forgotten to take pictures and are now writing this sat in a Cornish Pasty shop at the NEC grounds.

Anyway, enough rambling. Here’s a breakdown of the day with a few highlights.

Our day began in a bit of a weird rush. We started off, after panic buying a couple of new Keyforge starter sets for friends who needed tokens in a tournament, by purchasing Team 3. It was great fun playtesting it last night and we’re glad to have picked up a copy before they run out. Team 3 is a team dexterity party game that is the epitome of see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil and we can imagine it being a fantastic laugh with a group of players.

After that we decided to have a fairly relaxed morning walking around and talking to people. This included playing a full game of D6 Dungeon, a dice drafting game in which you work your way through a dungeon whilst messing with your opponent. The guys who created it are absolutely lovely and we ended up parting with some hard earned cash for a copy of the game. I’m actually wondering, whilst typing this, if we can get in a game before having to meet up with the rest of our gaming group…now there’s a thought…

D6 Dungeon

Wandering through the halls we found a grand total of one copy of Root and have managed to buy it. Score!

Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr

One of the highlights for me today was actually meeting Rory O’Connor. Rory is well known in gaming circles for having created Rory’s Story Dice, amongst other things. We got talking to him about his game Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr and it is absolutely clear that Rory poured his heart into that game. It is amazing, in so many ways, and we happily bought a copy. Holding On is a game that proves gaming is as much about having a collective experience as it is about having fun, and we can’t wait to give it a proper play through.

Rory is from Hub Games, who are the guys releasing Megacity Oceania. They have a collection of really impressive games in their portfolio and we ended up demo-ing a fair few this afternoon. Rory spent around an hour with us for which we are thankful.

Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr

Demos and Purchases

At the UK Games Expo there are huge playtest and demo areas for all sorts of games, and so Beth and I went to one such area this afternoon to play a game of Azul. Since it came out, Azul has had a lot of hype around it and it has won more awards in the board game industry than we can list in a single article. That being said, we weren’t engaged enough with the game in order to want to buy it. It is a pretty game, there is no doubt about that, and the gameplay was good – but it just didn’t grasp us as a game we want to have in our collection.

Following that, myself and Beth have been walking around the Expo speaking to people. One thing that really stands out about the Expo is how everyone is incredibly friendly. It is a fantastic environment and we are really looking forward to this evening when we can relax and play some of the games we have played.

So, what have we bought so far?

Well – today we managed to get a few things we have been looking at for a while –

• Root
• Team 3
• Treasure Island
• Yamatai
• D6 Dungeon
• Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr
• Micro Brew

Today has been a day getting used to the Expo and all the wonders it has to offer. Hopefully we’ll be able to share more later, although the 5.30am start is now starting to catch up with me a bit. Tomorrow we will definitely take more photos.

Hall 1 of 2

If you are at the Expo, I really hope you are having a great time. If you are not then don’t worry – it’s on for two more days – there is still plenty of time left.

Published by Luke

Board game nerd, comic book geek, Rubik's Cube solver, Splendor player, and Blogger. View all posts by Luke