Last week the last spielbox issue of the noughties arrived. As usual, the main feature at this time of the year is the report on the games fair in Essen. But not as usual, the game in the magazine is neither an expansion nor just a board to which you ...

Gosh, two issues arriving within weeks! I barely finished reading the previous issue, when I got the new one yesterday. This time, there is a special section of short reviews of game expansions; most don't fare too well in the reviewers' opinions. Also, Friedemann Friese's game Die 3 ...

Yesterday I had to miss the games club night due to work-related travel to Lancaster. It was nice to see familiar names on the way there, like Stockport, Manchester, Wigan, Bolton, and Preston, and remembering laying tracks ...

Last Friday issue 5/2009 arrived, with a reader survey. Respondents enter a draw of free tickets and accommodation for Spiel 2010! Fingers crossed... The online web form allows to add our own comments, so I took the opportunity to tell the publishers that what I like most about the ...

No, we didn't move our games venue to a sauna last week — we played Martin Wallace's simplified version of his Age of Steam. Keith brought his copy and explained the rules to Damen, Graham, Sam and myself. It was again one of those evenings where I did some ...

After two months of waiting, I got yesterday a letter from the Open University saying that I passed the computer games course (Digital worlds: designing games, creating alternative realities) with score 80%. Not bad. I'm sure I got marks deducted for going over the word count limit in the ...

I spent the past 4 days in Cambridge, for professional reasons. I looked in advance for shops in the city and came across MNG-AJM Games and Collectibles, Andy Merritt's business. He has a mind-boggling variety of games in stock, mostly used and little known, but also several in shrink ...

Yesterday was double tournament session: Manuela, Ester and Keith played Caylus (in the absence of Paul B.), while Nick Baldyworthy, Dan and I played Stone Age. Interestingly, it was Dan's first face-to-face game: so far, he only played on BrettSpielWelt. With Nick and Dan having each several games under ...

If video games existed at the time historical figures lived, who would you like to have designed one? And which kind of game would they design? Some curious suggestions at the Guardian's game blog. I especially like the proposal for a one-level platform game by Escher. Something along the ...

Last night five of us were due to play Princes of Florence for our Eurogames tournament. Before the holidays, Richard couldn't come in the last minute; this time it was Paul B. So we decided it was only fair to postpone again. Will we be third time lucky?

Fortunately ...