Summer, sunshine, scouting for board games!

Our Belgian Dice & Mystics member had invited us to come along to the Brussels Games Festival 2018. We had never been to the Brussels Games Festival before, nor – to tell you the truth – had we ever even heard of it. We had no inkling of an idea what we had been missing out on! On arrival early in the morning, our anticipation reached a climax when we saw how large an event we were looking forward to.  No entrance fees. Does that mean…? Yay! You can keep all your money for the games. And: Location is not everything –  but a setting  like that certainly takes some beating!     

Located in the “Parc du Cinquantenaire” (Park of the Fiftieth Anniversary) on 40,000 square metres there were rows and rows of mostly white tents, booths of so many publishers with games of all colours and for all tastes, speciality shops, clubs and associations… The park is the site of a former military parade ground. In the course of the 50^th anniversary of Belgium’s independence in 1880 it was used to stage a World Exhibition. So, the annual games fair takes place in a very prominent and also beautiful part of Brussels.

During the last weekend of August, the Brussels Game Festival had a bit – or rather a lot – of everything: three days of board games, party games, miniature games, educational games, wooden games for inside and outside, role play and LARP, international games, casual and hard core games, children’s games, game prototypes, tournaments and a game night, and also the people who design, make, and sell the games for our wonderful hobby.

Right at the foot of the imposing Triumphal Arch at the entrance to the grounds- 50 metres high and illustrating the history of the city – there was a huge sales area for second hand games with a sizeable queue forming. (The sky abuve was dramatic.Early in the morning the air was still a bit nippy, but soon it was turning into a lovely day altogether, with just a few clouds every now and then.)

If you expect to find some musty worn around the edges thrift store quality when you hear the term ”second hand“, you will have to re-think your ideas.

For any French speaking gamer the second hand area must be like a big toy shop at Christmas to a little child because, not surprisingly, about 80 % of the offers are in French. (Don’t sue us if we don’t get the percentage right but that is how it felt.)

Quite a large number of games were language independent or copies in many other languages and it would have been easy to come out the other end of the second hand area with a pile of excellent games in excellent next to new condition, and in German, too. There were choice titles from recent years, from all the old and new classics to the multitude of Star Wars and other IP games and a whole kaleidoscope of enticing games we had never seen or heard about before. We very nearly bought “Yggdrasil”, even though it had a French rule book, but it looked all new and shiny and the price was hugely tempting; I personally felt my resolution to just look around and not buy anything at our firs visit slowly but constantly dwindling…

Just behind this wonderland of budget  board games there was another most attractive feature of the Brussels Games Fair: the Protozone. No – not “protozoon” like one of the early organisms that preceded the later more developed species; the prototypes of still unpublished games proudly presented by their designers and artists were all of them well advanced, looked good on the table and, judging by the fun everybody appeared to be having, will eventually find a publisher and an eager international audience that will buy these many creative products.

Everything is fresh, and the sheer variety of game ideas and mechanisms just swoops you off your feet and makes you sit down and play, play, play…The empty space is deceptive; the tent was huge, and there were dozens of rows where games could be sampled. On entering you could collect a list of the games present, and when you played a round of a game, you received a stamp on the space of the game you participated in. On leaving, you could circle up to three games that you liked best and put your vote in a box as a feedback.

I got a chance to play Canyon Cup, a fun and exciting racing game with a tongue- in- cheek twist, by the brothers Pirson, again. It was a surprise visit. I remembered an early version of Canyon Cup from when it had just been finished and was presented and tried out on “real, live gamers” for the very first time at the Dice & Mystics Fringe 2016.

The refined and polished game with its modular board proved to be really popular with the visitors who were already queueing up behind me and our Belgian friend while we were racing our cars along the parcours through the desert canyon, outmanoeuvring and shooting at each other, exploding barrels and collecting popularity with our fictitious audience of the ranks. There are any numbers of racing games about, but apart from all the good things that can be said about Canyon Cup there are the original winning conditions and different ways of fulfilling them by which Canyon Cup elegantly avoids a problem that is frequent in other games: You do not have any runaway victors, the race remains fairly open and unpredictable to its very end. There are people I know who cannot wait to lay their hands on Canyon Cup when it finally comes out, me being one of them. (If it comes to choosing the driver – I play crazy eyes Walter! So hands off him!)

Have you ever navigated a Zeppelin in an air fight? Ever been engaged in a deadly ball game? Here are “Zeppelin Crasher” (left) and “Mortal Basket” (right).

The Protozone was easily the most fun part of any games fair we had ever been to. It was like an excellent “game night” with friends old and new. The languages used at the table were French and just as frequently English as a lingua franca to communicate with numerous visitors from abroad. The time spent at the Protozone was surely one of the best gaming experiences you can have, take our word for it.

There were Games of The World.

There was an outdoor game going on that reminded me of Kubb. People in the park were playing Cricket. And there were strange things…

Talking about meeting friends and acquaintances – we had last seen video reviewer Barry Doublet at Spiel Essen. It was his first time at the Brussels Games Festival, too, he admitted, and he was just doing his first round along all the booths.  He was a good sport with getting Eric-Lang’ed (ever had your picture taken together with Mr. Lang? Then you will know) and told us he would also be at the Spiel Essen fair in in Germany, October 2018. We will make sure to drop by at the Bombyx booth where he will be demoing Imaginarium, Abyss and Catch The Moon and say hello.

There were so many activities and animations going on, we simply could not take our time to really appreciate them at our first visit. We decided to leave that for the next time and concentrated on board games and their makers only. In the vast expanses of the park, we counted 74 publishers. One look at the poster shows you how long a list it is and how spacious an event, too.

Outside in the different parts of the park you could find all kinds of publishers great and small.

We were expecting to see Mythic with their upcoming “Solomon Cane”, and there they were.

We expected to see ”Perdition’s Mouth”  by Dragon Dawn Productions from Finland again, and there they were.

Matagot – yep! Just to think how hard it often is for us to get one of their fascinating games in Germany.

Iello? Why, sure!

Some Quidditch? Apparently yes. (Although we did not see anyone flying around on a broomstick.)

And someone somewhere would surely be playing “Azul”, and – yes, found them at it!

“A” as in “A-smodee”? Have a guess. Nearly an entire row, tent after tent, red and white and mostly larger than those of other publishers, sported the Asmodee flag.

After several rounds and discovering something new at every twist and turn, we needed some rest. Time for a break. The drink of the day – unless you preferred soft drinks altogether which is fine – was “Cave Troll”.

You have a choice of a variety of food trucks: Belgian fries, roast and fried cheeses, sweets… Have a pick.

When we had just grabbed our lunches a sudden but brief shower (and the only one the entire day) drove us to seek shelter under one of those large chestnut trees and we ate, well protected from the rain, until with the last bite the sun came out again. Excellent timing!

The afternoon was a time of new discoveries. We totally fell in love with “Bourpif”, which we understood (or misunderstood) means as much as “getting one on the nose” (in all friendship, of course) or maybe “Nasenstüber” in German, and …

… were also enamoured on first sight with some very special trolls that looked fun and came with a set of luxury  limited art prints (in the game the lovely young lady does wear a brassiere!). Of course, “Trôl” had to come along!

There went the last shred of our original resolution not to – oh, bother!

So much for “not buying any games”… The best was yet to come. We ran into graphic artist Naiade/Xavier Gueniffey Durin who was on his way to the Lui-même  booth where he and the game designer of “Snow Time” were to meet for signing copies, because this was the very first day the game was sold to the public. He was surprised because normally people recognize his name, but not necessarily his face, especially not people from abroad.  It so happened that we were the first to buy and got a brand new copy, stamped and marked as as # 1 and signed by Frank Meyer  and “doodled” by Naiade, if “doodle” is appropriate a term for an original full drawing by the artist while we waited.

On the whole we were impressed by the colours and beautiful designs of all the French language games and often enquired whether there were also rules in English or German available. Sometimes there were, sometimes there were not, and sometimes there was no imminent answer to the question and both the people at the booth and we needed to check together on the internet. A whole new gaming universe was spreading out before us, if only we knew the magic words to unlock its secrets…!

What was best about the Festival? The games you could buy, old and new, of course. Playing games and having such fun, of course. Spending time with our friend. The people we met. The location. The fact that, unlike at other – meaning indoor –  fairs, you also enjoy the sun and fresh air and lots of space and nice views and all the things you see around the Brussels Games Festival. The fact that you get to see games and prototypes you do not that likely to see anywhere else. The fact that it is for free. What was best? Why, everything was!

And then there is Brussels itself, with its sights, parks, beautiful architecture, and that lovely Pâtisserie just round the corner. So then was it worth it, visiting the Brussels Games Festival 2018? Well, we have been thinking back on it every day and enthusiastically telling everybody who did not make it up a tree fast enough about it, and we are firmly set on going again and again and again!

So: YES. We strongly recommend the Brussels Games Festival. Definitely.

If you can, do go!

We are very proud to present a fresh and brand new game that is on KS right now. And the best thing is that you will be able to play the game at our Fringe Event!

Tsukuyumi – Full Moon Down is a boardgame without any elements of luck or chance, that demands specific strategic skills of its 3-5 (6) players. The modular battlefield represents the dried out ground of the former Pacific Ocean: Up to 40 hexagonal area tiles circle the moon panels, providing score points, blockades and contaminations. The goal is to gather as many score points as possible, through conquering and occupying areas – thus becoming the most dominant species on the board. Tsukuyumi – Full Moon Down’s particular appeal lies in the clash of diverse, asymmetrical factions. At the beginning, each player picks a faction. Each faction comes with their own respective abilities, units and strategies. The game therefore changes depending on which factions meet on the battlefield. You may decide between wild boars, whales, marines, battle mechs, cybersamurai and many more.

STORYWOLD

The world has changed – and with it the creatures who are fighting for survival. Whether human survivors, mutated beasts or human-machine hybrids – every faction wants to seize power, in order to finally face their greatest enemy: The white dragon Tsukuyumi.

As the moon hit the earth, it had an effect which usually takes thousands of years: land masses were moved, pushed down and raised, water was displaced, and down appeared to be up. Creaking and groaning, the face of the planet was changed. The moon however came to a standstill amid massive earth walls in the muddy floor of the former Pacific Ocean.

The moon sliced up stretches of land, broke continental tectonic plates, splintered mountains and broke its own stone hull on the icy summits of the Himalaya. Wherever Tsukuyumi’s pheromones touch life, a rapid evolution takes place. But his original plan failed. While humans who get in his way fall victim to his influence and become highly intelligent and destructive Oni, the other creatures have resisted. Thus his own creations turn against him, and become his most powerful enemies. These include the insect swarms of the Dark Seed, the pig herds of the Boarlords, the beasts of the Children of the Lion and the massive land whales of the Lords of the Lost Sea.

Our board game guild, the Dice & Mystics, play every Wednesday night at the “Spieletreff” (which roughly translates as “Gamer’s Meeting Place”) at St. Engelbert’s Parish.
On occasions the question has been asked: Are you a church club, some Christian thing?
The answer is: No.
But…​
Actually, the whole D&M enterprise was set off by a Jewish engineer named Howard Wolowitz…
Three supposedly non-gamer friends were sitting on the sofa watching that Christmas episode of “Big Bang Theory” where Howard introduces Santa into a Dungeons & Dragons session. Suddenly one says, “That seems like a lot of fun to me. Couldn’t we play D&D, too?” The other one says, “Well, now you mention it, I’ve always wanted to try that out, you know.” Says number three: “Actually – I used to be a D&D dungeon master once, but no one has been wanting to play with me for ages!”
And so it began. The new 5th edition of D&D had just come out – back to the basics – and we found a fourth party willing to venture to the Sword Coast and into our first roleplaying campaign with us. We met regularly at a local board game café, where we alternatively played some D&D and Descent and board games with similar mechanisms to get used to the concept of character sheets, stats, campaigning etc. to better train us up for the “real thing”.
The question if we are a Christian organisation may have been prompted by the “Saint” in “Spieletreff St. Engelbert”.
We know very little about the religious beliefs or disbeliefs of our members. Three or maybe four Dice & Mystics are clearly Christians, one is known as a regular church goer. There may be more, there may be practitioners of other religions or atheists among us, we have no idea. That is all we know and more than we need to know.
What we all believe in, however, is openness, tolerance, kindness of the heart and having more fun through sharing it. We want to be together, play, laugh, have a good time and invite anybody to come along and join in. Our idea was the following: We own a large board game collection and give people the chance to play games they like, or a place they can take their own favourite games to and find others to play with. Thus we also give access to great games to those who maybe cannot afford to buy them for themselves or a place for gamers or role players who do not want to be forced to keep buying drinks in a pub in order to have a large enough gaming table. And we want to be open for everybody, no matter which gender, age, ethnicity or religion or whatever. Really everybody can come and indulge in the hobby regularly at least once a week without having to spend a single penny.
We were told this attitude goes very well with Christian beliefs and values, so when our board game café suddenly closed down next Christmas, it happened that it was a Christian parish that helped us out.
We were looking for a new friendly location to meet and play. As it was, there is no other board game café anywhere in these parts. Playing at pubs turned out to be fairly disastrous, and things were beginning to look dismal. But we did not think of giving up.
One day we simply went to the parish of St. Engelbert and asked them if maybe we could play board games and D&D at their parish center. Yeah, and why not – there were nice rooms with nice tables (and central heating in winter) and it was easily accessible for everyone. Most days of the week some of the rooms were empty, it seemed. Originally we had been hoping to rent a room for a few hours every week and share the costs if they were not too high.
To cut a short story even shorter: They listened to what we wanted, asked whether we were some official club (no), whether we were commercial in any way (no), and why we were playing together (see above). They liked what we did and why, and said this was something that went very well with their ideas of a peaceful community. We could provide a great creative, intelligent, communicative, socially interactive hobby in a safe environment for free for whoever was looking for pastime and good company! And they nonplussed us by this very generous offer: We could come and use any room we needed and all facilities for free from 5 to 11 p.m. once a week. As a “payment” they would take us by our word: Anybody can come and join in, and we do tidy up after ourselves. The room and date were made known as “Spieletreff” to tell the parishioners what we were doing at their place.
Everybody can bring their drinks and sandwiches from home along if they like, and we have glasses, plates, cutlery etc. at our disposal. We bring teas, coffee and biscuits along for everybody, and often our guests bring milk, sugar and other things – even a penguin shaped gateau for sustenance during a game of Ice Cool! Thus we have drinks and snacks just like our former board game café, and we also adopted their idea to have warm meals on the premises: We have a caterer just round the corner where we can place a collective order and have food delivered right to our tables, and everybody pays individually. If the order is large enough, we even get free drinks with our meals.
We have been the “Dice & Mystics” at the “Spieletreff St. Engelbert” for a few happy years now, and what had started with three friends dreaming of the Sword Coast has evolved into an international, fairly large but still completely informal and non-commercial game club with a growing number of members and events.
So, if you want to play board games or role play, or if you are looking for nice people to play with, get creative! Look around you. Don’t be too shy to approach people and tell them your ideas. Sometimes the solution lies closer than you think. Who would have thought we could run a board game café at a parish center, and for free, too? And all it took was the asking.
Every year at the parish festival we host game rounds and raffle off a fair number of quality games donated by the D&M to all participants, to say THANK YOU to the parish, loudly and from our hearts, and – sssh! – hopefully also further increase the number of enthusiastic gamers…

Dice & Mystics are an international board game guild, in other words, we are a group of people who enjoy playing board games together.

We meet regularly on Wednesdays (except during school holidays) at our „Spieletreff“ in the parish center of St. Engelbert, Bochum, in rooms with large, well-lit tables generously made available to us by the parish. In the holidays we also gather for game nights at various locations if possible. Our members find us via information on the Dice & Mystics Board Game Geek guild, Meetup and Facebook or are invited along by those who already enjoy gaming with us.

We are not a club but an informal group of board game and RPG lovers without membership fees, officials or obligations, and no rules except those of respect, common courtesy, tolerance and careful handling of the facility and individual property. There is no flow of money whatsoever involved.

We think that board gaming is an intelligent, creative, cooperative and highly communicative hobby which allows many and very different people of all ages and backgrounds to socially meet and have a good time together. Our aims are good games, good company, and lots of fun. Our games can be hilariously simple and funny or really thinky, heavy theme-based games and – depending on their length and complexity – they are for adults and kids. We save the galaxy, swat orcs, raise monsters or kingdoms – or simply watch the bamboo grow. The game rounds are truly international; the Dice & Mystics speak English and German (and often enough simultaneously, too).

We cherish the idea that really anybody can simply come to us and play and share our great hobby.
We bring anything from old classics to modern thematic board games, e. g. of the SciFi, Fantysy and Hoorror genres, and RPGs on the table.

Monopoly, Tokaido, Lords of Waterdeep, Mysterium, Descent 2nd, Battle of Five Armies, Star Trek Panic, Dungeons and Dragons, Codenames, Zombicide Black Plague, Arcadia Quest, Blood Rage, Time Stories, Twilight Imperium 3rd, Arkham Horror, The Others: Seven Sins, Massive Darkness, Takenoko, Space Hulk, Silver Tower, Gorechosen, Lost Patrol, Abenteuer in Mittelerde, Shadows over Hammerhal, This War of Mine, Heldentaufe, Perditions Mouth: Abyssal Rift, First Martian, Adrenaline, Cry Havoc, Gloomhaven, … … …? Why, sure!

Eurogame oder Amerithrash – there are endless varieties!
All our games are privately owned. Many hundreds of different games are at our disposal.

We operate exclusively by our Game Host System (nicknamed the GHoSt) which means:

You can bring your own game and play. You are expected to allow anybody to join you and you are very welcome to join in at any other game, provided there is still room for one more player. If you do not have a game to bring along, you can simply come and join in anyway. Thus we give you the opportunity to regularly share a great hobby without any payments or costs involved.
Our Dice & Mystics group will always be present with different games from their own collections.

We are listed as “Dice & Mystics Board Game Guild” on “BoardGameGeek” (internationally) and on “NRW Spielt” (a German internet platform on gaming in North Rhine Westphalia).

Have fun gaming!