Derek Cox
Appearances
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
We're at GridServe in Gatwick, Gatwick South.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
I do. So every Wednesday, because we always want to get more people up here. We want more people to know about GridServe, more people to use the space, more people to use the lounge. So luckily, board games are my thing. I've been playing board games for 12, 13 years. So I was like, I know board game people. I am a board game person.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
So I've taken it upon myself to sort of bring people together, to get people into the space, and it's just been growing and growing and growing every week. Every single Wednesday, at least 20 people turn up and just play games.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
Not at all. So some of the things you say, raptor, you've arrived on an island. And it's been inhabited by these dinosaurs. And one player plays a group of scientists who want to capture the dinosaurs. And the other player plays a dinosaur who basically wants to eat the scientists. And it's a sort of a two-player only affair. Cities, that's more not fantasy at all. It's actually quite realistic.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
It's where you're just building cities down by a waterfront. by placing pieces on your board to build a nice little atmosphere. Agricola, again, sort of medieval farming setting. So you're basically creating a farm in medieval England or medieval America, raising animals and growing crops. They've all got a different theme. Tiny Towns, for example.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
That's a puzzle-type game where you're building a little tiny town using little blocks. and then put on the blocks together to create buildings. But it's created in an environment where everyone's these little tiny teeny little animals. So it's a normal town, but microscopic. The whole idea about games and the creativity has really kind of grown, hasn't it, over recent years? So many.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
I've been playing games, well, all my life, but only in the last 12 years I've really delved into it. When I went to my first board game meet-up in Croydon all those years ago, it opened my eyes massively. And now here we are doing this. And I'm looking around. This board game behind us, what's happening here? This is Lords of Hellas. I've never actually played it myself.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
So from what I can gather, it's a fighting game in mythical Greece, but of a sort of cyberpunk robotic twist.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
So these cards, they're just going to show the attributes of each model effectively. So it'll tell you what it does in the game. For what you can do, what your character can do when you're playing. So at least you know what that does because it's there written for you.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
intriguing nonetheless so let's go oh now over here seems to be a bit more of a straightforward game so dice veggies is again you're basically slicing off vegetables from a block of dice each dice represents a different vegetable so you have the greener jalapenos the browns and mushrooms the reds and tomatoes and you have a little cardboard cleaver to make clean cuts from each one you can't just take whatever dice you want you have to add up to at least 10 or less
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
So you've got to be strategic in what you're taking. And then you'll use those dice to basically create recipes. So a recipe might require two jalapenos and the tomatoes. You've got to have those dice in your pool. So you sort of pick your dice, cook a recipe if you can, and those recipes will have points at the end of the game.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
Once you've got six recipes, then the game ends and the most points wins. So much, much, much lighter than the one you just saw, but it's still a lot of fun. And you seem to know a little bit about all of these games. Not all of them. I mean, this is one of mine, so I know it quite well. Wanderous Creatures, that's quite a new game, I think, so I know nothing about that at the moment.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
It turns out to be a dart. And unfortunately, I've got so many games over the years which look really amazing. It doesn't click with you, it doesn't click with your friend group, and ultimately you've got to sell it on. But most games I get normally have a bit of staying power. What makes a game with staying power?
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
What is it that when you play, you go, actually, this has got something, this is going to be long-lasting? So for me, replayability is a big factor. It's got to be able to stand the test of time. If I play it 20, 30 times... it's still got to feel a little bit fresh. It's got to have lots that you can do and involve in.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
So if I have a game that is the same every single time, after 100 plays, I'm probably going to get a little bit bored.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
So you want the overall strategy of the game to be the same. You want to be able to pick up the game and go, I know what I'm doing. But you want it to feel fresh. You want, like it might have different cards that it has. It might have different pieces you can put in. It might have different winning conditions you can select.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
But you want the actual main part of the game to be something you can improve on. And also, you don't want a game, do you, where the rules are so complicated you've got to stop every five minutes and go, hold on, it says here on page 43, subsection A, that in this particular set of circumstances... So some of these games, you do run that risk, because some of them are very, very big.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
I want to be able to come back to a game two months later and remember how to play it. OK, and we've got another one over here. This is Arkham to the West Kingdom. Again, it's a game that I've seen a lot. Have I ever played it? No. No? Because again, there's hundreds and hundreds of games. I physically can't play them all.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
All these people are board gamers. They have their own collections of games. This is a good opportunity for them to get the games out that they want to play. And people of a similar mindset, people that do want to deep dive into perhaps a bit more complicated game. So you've got people like Rob who likes his big complicated stuff, as you can see over there. You know, I'm a bit of a mixture.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
I like the complicated games. I also like the really simple laid-back stuff as well. So it's the sort of mood I'm in, to be fair.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
You must be quite pleased that just after a few weeks, people are coming and taking part. Absolutely. You know, because I never knew how this was going to go. Because, like I said, I did the first one back in July and seven people turned up. And it was like, all right, this is fine. And then from there, it's just gone up and up and up and up and up and up.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
And now I don't get less than 20 people an evening. I've got people here tonight that haven't been before, who haven't really been to board game meetups at all before. And so we're giving it a go. And, you know, they're either going to love it or they're not. Hopefully they do, but if they don't, that's okay, because you don't have to like everything. But at least they've tried.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
How can people get more information, Derek? So I have my Facebook page, which is Gatwick Gaming. You can just search that, no worries. Or just come down and have a chat with me. I'm here every single, well, I'm here every day, really, but every Wednesday I'm here doing this at six o'clock. And what kind of age people? We have had teenagers and young teenagers here before as well.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
It's at the parent's discretion, really, because some of the games, as you know, can get a bit complicated, some are not. So you could have an eight-year-old here, no problems, if it can handle the games that are being played, or if it's got games that he or she wants to play. People say to me all the time, can I bring my kids?
The Planet Reigate Podcast
71: The local board-gamers group, your ‘wants’ for Reigate High Street… and more
You absolutely can, but it's at your discretion if they're going to have fun or not.