A whole new world

Board games have always been the eminent domain of my partner, Calvin. You know that One Person in your gaming group who owns and buys all the board games, is constantly talking about new board games, and excitedly tries to corral people together on the weekends to try out new board games? That’s Calvin. Subsequently as the person who is always first in his firing range, as it were (“Deeeeee there’s a new Star Wars game I want itttttt”; “Deeee this Kickstarter game looks so gooood”; “Deeeee when will FFG print Twilight Imperium 4th Edition” [to be fair, I’m also on board with this one]), I get all the latest news and updates and happenings in the board games world through a Calvin filter. And, well, I don’t hate board games, but I just didn’t quite have that same burning love for them that he did.

And then we went to Essen.

One of the many, many play areas at Spiel

Internationale Spieltage SPIEL, commonly known as Essen Spiel, after the German city in which it is held, is the biggest board games trade show and convention in the world. From Kuala Lumpur, the trip to Essen, by way of Istanbul and Amsterdam, takes a total of 21 hours (10 hour flight, 4 hour layover, 4 hour flight, 4 hour bus). And we went. We went!

Obviously the best part of the flight

I kind of still can’t believe it. For someone who had never even travelled outside of Southeast Asia… it was an experience. We went partly due to Cal’s work, as he would be interviewing some people, collecting review copies, and generally covering the event. I was just tagging along, hoping to see Europe for the first time.

It was a lovely experience; my first time in Europe and my first time at a board games convention. It was honestly a really chill convention, despite the sometimes seething human masses, who seemed to be largely families with young children - a demographic I did not expect at all. I suppose this shows the sheer popularity of Eurogames in Europe (surprise). A stark contrast to Malaysia, where board games is an industry picking up among the younger urban demographic - probably a consequence of board games being expensive and in English.

Random Spiel ad

Walking into the hall the first day was almost overwhelming. Firstly, the hall is flipping huge (and blessedly warm - just autumn in Essen was enough to popsicle-ise me. Being from the tropics, I could write a whole other article just complaining about the cold weather). It’s very tall, so tall it almost seems like it would start developing an atmosphere at any moment. And it seems awfully narrow for the world’s most visited board games fair, until you realise this is only Hall 3, and Halls 1 through 8 are further along.

The tempation to buy everything is very strong.

Inside the halls, masses of people are walking around looking at board games, playing board games, talking about board games, asking about board games, and buying board games. Further masses of people are carrying board games in plastic bags, board games in eco bags, board games tucked lovingly away in luggage and rolling trolleys - it was obvious the latter people were seasoned Essen-goers, being so well prepared with modes of cardboard transport.

What really surprised me was the people buying a game immediately after having it explained to them, without having even tried it. That really brought home for me the fact that I was in board game nerd mecca. Where else would there be people with such a deep love for board games? There’s something about seeing games in the cardboard flesh that really pulls you to purchase. As someone whose experience of board game purchases were pretty much limited to pre-order or online purchase (due to Cal’s Carefully Researched List of Games He’s Going to Buy, as they can be very expensive to ship to KL), this was a whole new world.

Photo op with Colin and a friendly mammoth

Getting properly sucked in

I even experienced the Board Game Want firsthand. I was really really really pulled to buying Inis. I saw the Matagot logo hanging from the ceiling from afar, and when we got up close we saw a whole stack of carefully arranged Inis boxes.

Yes, please

We talked about it at length in the recap podcast, but that art, that box, really just wowed me. It was honestly the first time I had ever felt such a pull to a game, and while the art was about 90% of its appeal, the fact that it was part of Matagot’s line of mythology based games also really called to me, as I love Kemet and Cyclades (and mythology!), and the fact that it was a lighter game was also a plus as it could fill a gap in our games library. Sadly we didn’t end up getting it from Essen for a variety of reasons, mainly due to us not liking the actual gameplay very much after demoing it. Before I get crucified, I think it’s an excellent game! But a little too light for us, and sadly the gameplay didn’t grab us as much as I hoped it would. That art, though. The frenetically psychedelic, Celtic inspired theme of the box art is continued on the cards and map as well, and while my heart eye emoji was strong over the art, overall it couldn’t pass the “do we really wanna lug this a bajillion kilometers home” test.

Part of Calvin’s work at Essen involved interviewing people, and I helped as photographer and general aide and dogsbody (plenty of, “Mr Calvin, would you like your venti soy latte now?” jokes were made). It’s such a cliche, but I saw firsthand real passion and excitement for board games, just listening in to his interviews. We spoke not only to designers but project managers and public relations people as well and it was clear that they came from a place of love and care for board games. There was also clear desire to not only create and produce great games, but also to see the community progress, particularly from their position as games producers. I won’t forget Ignacy Trzewiczek of Portal Games on how it was a no brainer for them to include male and female art on either side of the player boards in 51st State, and how he would look to insist upon it even though the art may cost more, because “of course women might like to play as women as well”.

Talking to Ignacy

Or Rob Daviau musing on how he would like to explore non Western civilisations in future games (aside: Calvin literally told Rob that I hate legacy games. “She hates legacy games” to Rob Daviau, designer of Risk Legacy, Pandemic Legacy, and Seafall. Why, Calvin??? Rob however was very lovely about it and just wanted to know why I didn’t like them, and told me to just play the games I liked).

Lightening up

I mentioned it briefly in my Inis rant, but we also encountered lots of not-so-heavy games, which was a personal revelation! Due to the Calvin filter, I have only played and thus like a lot of heavier games (my Top Two games are Netrunner and Twilight Imperium), so coming across so many lighter games (among games we tried and/or obtained: Dale of Merchants, Capital Lux, Crisis, Adrenaline, Nefarious, Evolution, Pick a Polar Bear, Ice Cool, and so on and so on) was a great experience.

Colin the Board Game Bear also thoroughly enjoyed Ice Cool

Possibly every game we got is lighter than something we already own (I say “we” but it’s actually just Cal), which I don’t think is a hard feat when you own Twilight Imperium. And my goodness, the sheer quality of games. It’s amazing how so many games get produced and are just so good! One of the games we and our gaming group have really loved from Essen is Crisis, a Euro worker placement about managing the economy of a fictional city in a financial crisis. What makes it even more meaningful is it was designed by a pair of Greek designers, so clearly not at all pulling inspiration from real life. I love that this game was made. Art and social commentary, in board games? And a great game, to boot? Sign me the heck up.

The Crisis display table at Essen

Another game that I really loved from Essen for vastly different reasons was They Who Were 8 by Todd Sanders, which comes in a minimalist and beautiful art style, and is haunting and dreamy and wonderful. I mean, we suck at it, but I love that this was a one man labour of love, beautifully designed and produced. I love that it exists, and can exist, and will be experienced by so many people. I guess what I’m trying to say is: I’m getting it. I get board games, and the love and passion and desire to create fun and meaningful gaming experiences.

Psychographics

On a more personal note, another highlight of my year in boardgaming was coming in 6th (out of 23) at my Android: Netrunner regionals.

In Netrunner, you can win as the corporation in two ways: scoring agenda points, or flatlining, or killing, the runner (bringing their hand size below zero through various kinds of damage). I have stubbornly persisted, through 2 or 3 sets of nerfs against the NBN Fast Advance style of deck, through the printing of silver bullet cards against the style (*shakes fist at Clot forever*) in playing FA. Fast Advance is a style of play where you try and win the game as quickly as possible by Advancing agendas… er, Fastly, before the runner can do anything about it.

Astroscript Pilot Program, which has been nerfed into the ground. No, I’m not bitter, why do you ask? Also I have a custom printed phone case of this art, it’s beautiful.

I have A Lot of Feelings about NBN. It’s my pet deck, the first deck I kind of half-assedly built myself. I had seen a reddit thread about the most ~overpowered form of NBN, and built a deck that was kind of a shitty half FA, half kill (those halcyon days before the MWL, 3x Astroscript, and no grey influence…). Something just clicked with me as I played yellow, and continued to play yellow, for about 3 years running now. I eventually morphed into playing a pure FA style, and it felt so good to sneakily place an agenda in a remote server, where woe betide the hapless runner who didn’t check it! Suddenly I triumphantly score 2 points the next turn, and I’m at match point now, sucker (except not really sucker because we’re all really nice and respectful in my local meta). I did some personalised tweaks to the deck as well, my favourite one being the addition of Trick of Light, a card from a different faction that allows you to move agenda tokens from one card to another. This deck was named The Shipping News (after the Annie Proulx novel), because I originally ran it out of the Making News identity and included 2 cards with the words “Shipment” on them. Yes, this is how I deckbuild. It definitely took a few of my opponents by surprise. I love janky, weird stuff like this, so NBN really became my true love. Plus, among the Corp factions, NBN was the one that really spoke to me thematically. White Jinteki specialised in cloning tech and Haas-Bioroid in being ruthlessly efficient, NBN was the media based Corp faction, seeking to slowly but steadily strengthen their grip as a global media conglomerate. More social commentary! You see the trend here.

Lily Lockwell, possibly the best dressed character on the cards (cards heh heh, geddit?).

Regionals

At the Malaysian 2016 regionals, I really just surprised myself (my decks were NBN: Controlling the Message - of course, and Andromeda). I lost the first round of games horribly, which is par for the course for me in Netrunner tournaments, honestly, and was resigned to coming firmly mid-low table, which is generally where I usually end up. My biggest flaw is panicking and going on tilt the moment a game starts even showing indications of not totally going in my favour. Basically, in an inverse of Scarra’s quote, up until I win the game, I’m losing. Which is what happened in the first round of Regionals where I made the decision to play the less optimum card.

The extremely cyberpunky art of Inside Job. Note that the Runner (Boris ‘Syfr’ Kovac) is literally on a toilet.

(If you play Netrunner - it was 5-5 Agenda points, and Blue Sun had Installed and double advanced a card behind two unknown ice. I only have Paperclip and no other breakers, so I decide to Same Old Thing an Account Siphon and hit R&D to try and topdeck the agenda. No dice. Afterwards my opponent told me he was terrified of my SoT-ing the Inside Job instead, as his inner ice was a Barrier. Much internal screaming was had).

However after that slightly disastrous first round I managed to sweep (or win) the next two rounds, and split (or draw) the final round of Swiss, to make it into the Top 6 cut. Me, in the top cut!!! For the first time in 3 years since I’ve started playing Netrunner competitively. What made it sweeter was that I had basically confirmed I would be winning a Maya playmat, which was what Cal was gunning for coming into the tournament. I had zero ambition honestly, I just wanted to play Netrunner.

I made it 3 rounds into the top cut before crashing out, the last two rounds of which were against Anarchs, my worst matchup, and the second last round was literally an NBN CTM hate deck, a Whizzard with Salsette Slums. Altogether I wasn’t very happy with the way I played, but it was still a great experience, and it just feels good to do well at something you love.

I totally rubbed this on my face. You would, too. Also included: alternate art cards and acrylic credit tokens.

“Confirming User Identity”

My feelings about Netrunner are complicated. I love love love the game due in large part to its progressive nature, and also the fact that I love scifi and its cyberpunk derivative.

My favourite thing about Netrunner in terms of social progression is the fact that it tries to address the universe in a truly global fashion. The Mumbad Cycle, set in India, was the first time I had ever seen future cyberpunk India that also retained an Indian-ness, (people still wear traditional clothing, the setting is still quite clearly India) and wasn’t just people in the same cyberpunk suits across all countries. I’m glad as well that I can take for granted that a lot of the female representation in the art won’t be just boobs and butt, and that women (and gender and sexual minorities) aren’t treated as mere props.

Indian cyberpunk.

Victoria Jenkins, NBN CEO. #goals.

So I love the lore and the universe and the mechanics, but game-wise, I’m just Not Very Good at games. Cal keeps telling me I’m Actually Good, but it’s probably a combination of impostor syndrome and a nervous self esteem.

There’s also another thing. I’m very often the sole woman in our meta (there are only one or two other women who participate semi-regularly), and I feel this weird pressure to be Not Shit because I am the Only Woman. I think it’s very much largely self inflicted, but it’s still there. Some kind of misguided not letting the side down attitude. I put a lot of pressure on myself and I suppose the pressure doesn’t help in games. And it’s also because… well, I’m more of a “””casual””” Netrunner player, I think. I can’t really theorycraft, of talk about card combos, or come up with a deck whole cloth (I find it easier to riff off of existing decks or playstyles), I’m more of a jock who just likes playing actual games. I like reading card spoilers as they come out, and looking at the art and theme of each pack, but I just get really overwhelmed and can’t grasp the card pool as a whole.There’s also a vocabulary used in games that I’m unfamiliar with, be it Netrunner or board games. I don’t read or watch much board games stuff, so I’m often lost when trying to explain or write about them (I’m still baffled as to how people writeup their deck on NetrunnerDB…).

With Cal as well, I also don’t want to… well, to let him down, and to be The Girlfriend. You know The Girlfriend stereotype, where a woman is “only” into something nerdy because her boyfriend’s into it? ...yeah. Which is silly, because couples very often share interests, or introduce their interests to their SOs. But this stereotype is particularly pervasive, I think, in male dominated hobbies. I hate to say it, but coming in 6th at the tournament, higher than Cal (sorry Cal), and 16 other people, made me feel kind of validated in playing Netrunner, even though of course my interest would be valid no matter if I sucked, or just had the core set, or even if I was more interested in the lore of the game than the game itself. It’s a pretty horrible thing to admit, and probably comes from a place within me that’s always being too hard on myself. I mean, I would never tell another woman that she would have to be better than her partner, or her entire field of competitors, in order to gain some kind of mistaken legitimacy…!

Game Day!

I also felt somewhat like my run into the top 6 was dampened by me having swept Cal (which to my mind ‘doesn’t count’ even though he never actively tries to sandbag or let me win) and a friend of ours who was playing self admitted jank (‘non-competitive’ decks). I mean, what an alarmingly fickle thing the brain is. Neither of these people were giving me an advantage at all, and here’s me minimising my successes. It’s something I have to work on, and something I see improving as I get better at the game, which may or may not be the healthiest thing in the world. But I’m still going to play Netrunner, even if I come in last at the next tournament, because it’s a fantastic game, and I’m lucky to be able to play it with fantastic people.

The Regionals cast.

Year in Review

When starting this article, I genuinely wanted to talk about my actual year of playing board games, but it turns out the two biggest events that happened for me only happened towards the end of the year. We played many other board games throughout the year as well, including finally being able to get together a semi-regular Twilight Imperium group - no small feat for a game that averages 4-5 hours, but our sessions really picked up after we returned from Essen with literally 40 kilos of board games (thank goodness for the half empty flight which meant the counter attendant barely glanced at our luggage weight, so we didn’t have to pay extra).

One day of loot at Essen. Just one day!

I wanted to talk mostly about Essen, but it turns out the heart wants to dwell more on Netrunner. I suppose that’s fitting, as Netrunner is my first lifestyle game (as I like to call it - being something that really becomes a part of your life as you continue to buy new cards and build a rapport with the local community). Really it’s just about me coming to terms with the fact that I’m slowly building my own relationship with board games, as opposed to just one at a distance via Calvin. What a lovely and strange thing to be able to do, and to continue doing.

Love & Insecurity: My Year in Board Games, 2016

Dee

Raf Reviews - Cthulhu Wars

Calvin's Corner - Putting the Cape in Caper: Age of Thieves

Calvin's Corner - Fog of War: the Twilight Struggle Killer

Episode 47 - Other People's Fun

Charlie's Take - Gloom of Kilforth

Episode 46 - Wasteland Express Delivery Service Review

Raf Reviews - Spoils of War

Raf Reviews - Oaxaca

Bonus Episode - Warhammer 40k Dark Imperium