You might not have noticed until I just drew attention to it, but I’ve not posted much here lately. It’s because of a couple of different things, so I guess this update is my “sorry, I’ll do better” update.
Firstly, despite outward appearances here in the UK, it’s been summer. I mean, we’ve barely seen the sun since June, but it’s summer nonetheless. Why does that matter? Well for one I’m dad to a very busy ten-year-old who has six weeks off of school. That leaves me with two choices. I either let him go feral and spend the whole of summer watching Youtube and playing Fortnite, or I take some time off to make sure he gets out of the house and sees the real world.
Between my wife and I we save up paid annual leave time from work and make sure he isn’t left to go full goblin for the summer.
I also work full-time for a university. People think of summer as dead time for anything involving academia, but the truth is very different. I work in the implementation and maintenance of various business-critical systems which means my summer is absolute chaos, trying to get ready for the new academic year which begins in September.
What about the games?!
Fair comment. I run a website about board games, apparently. The reviews have been ticking along. Over the last six weeks or so I’ve posted reviews and previews of The Gallerist, Rogue Angels, Crumbs, Oros, The Search for Planet X, Aurum, Cadaver, Midhalla, and Barcelona.
Aside from those, I’ve been working on some other things. The most notable other thing is that I’m writing for Tabletop Gaming Magazine! If you don’t live in the UK or just aren’t aware of it, it’s the only monthly, print magazine devoted to board and card games available here. Senet is another tabletop magazine, but it prints far fewer issues and takes more of an adjacent view to games.
So far I’ve had two reviews printed; 1815: Scum of the Earth in issue 81, and Casting Shadows in issue 82. I’ve got another three in the queue so far, with more to come. It’s a challenge for me as I have to limit myself to 600 words, which is around half of my self-imposed limit for Punchboard, but I’m enjoying it all the same.
I’m proud to have gotten this far with it, and I’ll be doing my best to make sure it doesn’t impact my reviews for Punchboard, but I thought it was worth mentioning all the same.
Back to Earth with a bump
Summer is definitely over now, Autumn is here, and with it, a welcome return to routine and normality. My local game group sessions were on hiatus for the last couple of months, so with the return to regular sessions and some darker evenings, things are looking up for more games played, more excitement shared, and more fun to come.
Thanks, as ever, to my loyal bunch of supporters. I’m very grateful, and I hope I manage to keep writing the sort of things you like to read. I’ll try to get more updates out on Substack too, let’s see how we go.
Cheers for now,
Adam