Board Game Blogger, Reviewer, Playtester, Demonstrator, Con Junkie

Gates of Delirium is a 2-4 player game with multi-use cards that has area control elements and set collection, all wrapped up in a Cthulhu setting with beautifully illustrated Great Old Ones.

OK, so we’re a sucker for a game with an animal theme (yes, especially cats) and this has big cats so we’re in! In Ecos players are creating the planet together, but quite often with different ideals! Simultaneous play means no downtime, just a lot of fun to be had!

When you say card game, you generally think of a small box, cheap, cheerful, with quick play. This is not that sort of game! In fact, I think Cranio Creations have done it a disservice by calling it so! There’s a fair bit to this game and I think it actually has less cards than the Lorenzo board game!

So, last year I played just over 200 games total. (BGG says just under 200 but I know I forget to log sometimes!) At least 82 of them were ‘new to me’ games, either games from our shelf of opportunity or new releases. I don’t want to do a ‘top ten of 2019’ or even of the decade as I haven’t played ALL the games and know there will be stuff I’m missing out that deserve to be on there

At this time of year, I used to sit and work out a gaming challenge for the following year. Usually a ten by ten challenge, sometimes something crazy - one year we attempted a hundred train games in the year. The ten by ten is a great thing, it allows you to deep dive strategies for games and sometimes it determines that you really don’t need to play that one game anymore and it can make room on the shelf for something else!

A recent post in a boardgame group on Facebook got me thinking: Is there a market for a value range of boardgames? Boardgaming is a luxury hobby, with even the cheapest games costing £12 - £15. Big box games have recently bumped up in price from around £40 - £45 to £50 - £60 a go. A while back I mused on the ‘cost per play’ aspect of gaming and the fact that some of our smaller, cheaper games gave bigger bangs per buck

We took a quick look at Catapult Kingdoms at Spiel '19, whether you played Crossbows and Catapults in the 80s or if you just like dexterity games of building and destroying things this looks like a lot of fun. The table was constantly busy every time we walked past. Looking forward to playing it when it hits Kickstarter. Checkout I Play Red on... Website / https://iplayred.co.uk YouTube / https://www.youtube.com/IPlayRed Twitter / https://twitter.com/IPlayRedGaming Instagram / https://www.instagram.com/IPlayRed Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/IPlayRedGaming Patreon / https://www.patreon.com/iplayred

In a recent visit to Hamburg, Germany we had the pleasure of discovering the wonderful Würfel & Zucker which is now riding very high on the list our my favourite board game cafes. https://iplayred.co.uk/cafes/205 Checkout I Play Red on... Website / https://iplayred.co.uk YouTube / https://www.youtube.com/IPlayRed Twitter / https://twitter.com/IPlayRedGaming Instagram / https://www.instagram.com/IPlayRed Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/IPlayRedGaming Patreon / https://www.patreon.com/iplayred