First Time Playing: Suburbia

This is a game where each player work to build a city. You construct buildings of different types trying to balance out population growth and income in order to stay afloat. Suburbia was described to me as the board game version of Sim City, which I found to be a very fitting description. The main goal is to construct the city which ends up with the largest population, but in order to get population you need to stay on top of both population and income growth as they will decrease as your city expands.

First Time Playing: Dos Rios

This is another one of the games I bought off another member of my gaming group, this one I hadn't even heard of before, but I looked it up on the web to see what kind of mechanics it had, and since it was worker placement, I decided to get it. Thankfully, when this one came up at a game night, one of the other people already knew it, so it wasn't up to me to teach them. In Dos Rios you are manipulating two rivers by building dams, so that the water will flow to areas occupied by your player pieces or houses in an attempt to get money and/or wood.

Settlers of Catan: My own big box solution

I love Settlers of Catan, and especially its many brilliant expansions. But with a game that you can mix and match bits and pieces, playing a ton of different scenarios, storage can become a bit of a hassle, especially if you want to keep your options open, but don't fancy having a major clean-up involving multiple boxes every time you play a game (or taking lots of time to set a game up). I've trialed and error'd my way, using utility boxes, labelled zip-lock bags, all of it to simplify setting up and clearing away the game, as well as making the game easier to bring along with me. And I can now proudly say that I've found a way to put the game and all its expansions into one single box (or, well... case).

First Time Playing: Witch of Salem

Not that long before Christmas, someone in my gaming group was selling off a bunch of games, so I ended up buying six of them, all of which I hadn't played before, and most of them I hadn't even heard of. Witch of Salem was one of the games I bought, and apart from hearing the title in passing, I really didn't know anything about it, except it sounded interesting. When I opened the box and looked through the components, I was convinced this had to be the first game I tried. The artwork was absolutely stunning, the theme was right up my alley, and I'm also a person who enjoys co-operative gameplay.

First Time Playing: Libertalia

I tend to have two specific modes when gaming. There's the strategy mode, where I'm choosing what actions to do and which players to target according to who is in the lead or have the potential to take it. Then there's vengeance mode. I'm not above admitting that I'm not fond of being the target of other players (but then again, who is?). If I'm in the lead or will potentially get ahead, fair enough, it's good strategy for them to do so and I cannot begrudge them that. But when I'm dead last and still get targeted, I'm not a happy camper and I will devote the rest of my game to destroying said player. The reason I mention this, is because that exact thing happened when I played Libertalia in my gaming group.

Minecraft creations: Serenity

Let me just say this right away; I've known about Minecraft for a good while now, so it's not that I wasn't aware it existed that kept me from getting into the craze. I've even come across the occasional youtuber showing off their geeky creations. But for a good while I was just under the impression that it really wasn't my kind of game. Not really because of the graphics, but because I have a thing against first person point of view in games. But seeing my two nieces playing it enthusiastically, I decided I might as well give it a proper shot, especially since it was easily available for my new ipad. So I bought it, tried it out and I actually got really into it. And now I'm ready to show off my first fandom-related creation (and hopefully there will be more to come, once I find some new inspiration).

The Actual Reason I'm Not Attending Starfury: Elementary

If my title caught your attention, you are likely to belong to one of two groups. Either you're a disgruntled Sherlock-fan looking more reasons to be outraged about this event. Maybe you read this article in the Birmingham mail, or maybe you helped fuel it, who knows? Or I caught your attention, because you're a Starfury regular, who cannot believe I'm about to throw more kindling into the fire. If you're in the first group, it's you I'm looking to address. If you're in the second, then guys, you really ought to know me better by now.

First Time Playing: Nexus Ops

My initial thought when seeing this game was that the set-up reminded me a bit of Eclipse. Of course it plays faster, is less complex and have far superior playing pieces (they glow - at least the version I played came with those pieces). And while I'm no Star Wars fan, one of the playing pieces was quickly nicknamed Jabba the Hut (guess which one). In Nexus Ops we play for dominance over space, mining resources, waging battles against one another, the whole time trying to fulfil secret missions in order to score bonus points.