Age of Steam con

There is now a <a href="/calendar" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Calendar page</a> on the site, which will list confirmed dates of future Saturday games days, as well as other events at the club (Vital Night, Christmas Games etc.).Saturday games days for 2025 are now up there. Christmas Games week this year will be on Thursday 19th December.<a href="https://www.newportpagnell-boardgames.org.uk/calendar" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://www.newportpagnell-boardgames.org.uk/calendar</a>

Nice addition, well done. Could we have the Calendar appear in the site top banner please, for quick access?

Dates For Your Diary

Hi allAs always we want your feedback on how the yearly tournament is run. We understand many people will have very different ideas and things they like and don't like.&nbsp; As a result it is impossible to cater for all.For 2025 however, we want to look at a very different option and want your feedback on if we should try this new option or stick with "as is" with a few tweaks. Regardless of if you participated this year or not, we would like your feedback on this please.New Format IdeaThe proposal for next year is to have a more open tournament (league), in which there are no set categories and thus no set games. We have successfully trialled a league concept whereby everyone simply plays the games they want to play, the outcome is logged, like many of us do, on BGG Stats and for each person you beat, you gain a point.&nbsp; So, the winner of a 4 player game gets 3 points, 3rd would score a point etc...&nbsp; Total points accumulated is then divided by the number of games played, to give an average.&nbsp;There would be quarterly prizes, and an overall end of year award to say the top 4 players, or perhaps a one off game between them,&nbsp;chosen by someone else (so that Ed might not win!) and possibly even be blind, so no one gets a practice.Why have we chosen to make such a radical change?Firstly, this addresses one of the biggest complaints that it's limiting in the games that are played,&nbsp;and takes away the controversy of the choices of theme, and the voting system for the games.&nbsp; Assuming two practices, plus the tournament round, just 4 games means 12 Thursdays taken up.&nbsp; Assuming a high level of attendance over the year of 48 Thursdays, it would mean 25% of them are spread across just these 4 games.&nbsp; Given you may also be playing games that you aren't fond&nbsp;of (Mr Hughes and Mr Dent really don't like Barrage!!), this league eliminates this, and means we can just play what we want, including the new stuff, old stuff, whatever.It will also be more inclusive, since everyone in theory will participate, and those who don't want their scores to be included, simply don't have them&nbsp;published.&nbsp; Slayer Dan will admin the league, and update the results periodically..Obviously there will be some rules to govern this, otherwise Mr Dent will just play Brass Birmingham every week. Games will need to be substantial, and the winner/placings determinable, so it probably rules out cooperative games; but we play very few of these, typically. A club member needs to be attending regularly, so we'll probably set a minimum&nbsp;number of games to be played over the year (20?), so that the average isn't skewed, and checks will be in place to make sure no one fudges things (eyes on you Mr Dent!). End of evening filler games won't count, and, in a somewhat 'big brother' diktat, Admin will make the call on whether a game qualifies, or not.Please cast your vote!This new approach aims to include everyone, even those who do not play in the current tournament - so by default everyone will be in, with the option to opt-out. So we want the views of everyone at the club, not just those who play in the tournament. The link below asks for you to vote on new format or old, and for any other thoughts or ideas you have on the subject. Please let us know! <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3H5vnOFfsJaUsZ7cbr4FxAMhKWPI4SQ0qJX2O2bniqFU8lg/viewform?usp=sf_link" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe3H5vnOFfsJaUsZ7cbr4FxAMhKWPI4SQ0qJX2O2bniqFU8lg/viewform?usp=sf_link</a>

Looks good. So would someone just put up a game and just declare that it would be a tournament game ?

I think the idea is that all games are “tournament games” by default. Not sure you can choose to opt individual games in or out. Paul correct me if I’m wrong.

Tournament Feedback and Proposed Changes

Just to bring to everyone attention that a friend of mine Derek Lovell is starting the launch of his game, Byline. I've seen this game evolve over the last 4 years and he's finally getting it to the point of publishing. It's a great worker(ish) placement game is very thematic. Anyway his sign up plage has just gone live and I'm sure it's something many of you would enjoy. Please have a look and sign up for notifications as he's a first time designer he will need all your support. To say again it's a great game lets help him get it though Kickstart and on to ours shelves! https://mailchi.mp/talonstrikes/dvat1qiyx5?fbclid=IwAR1Fal7JNFG-mz1ODKxNsCsS1MmW8lJrE0_xiudLfIoQTNAqcbyJlmZPyn0

Ask Derek to bring a prototype along to the club. Meanwhile we'll sign up to the game so that we have at least got access to the pledge manner in case the KS run expires before anyone gets chance to play it

Friend Game is about to be published-Byline

In case anybody missed it, the two games of PowerBoats and Flamme Rouge down for this week are actually markers for a proposed mini-tournament of racing games. We already have 5 players, which is enough for one table, if we get another 3 (or more) that'd could be two tables. In which case we'd swap some players between tables mid evening - also good way to play with some different peeps than usual.

Racing Mini Tournament this Thursday

I've just deployed the notifications system. When logged in you should now get a bell in the nav bar. When you have a notification this will have a red dot, clicking on the icon will show all of your pending notifications and clicking on one will take you to the relevant page.Currently you should see new notifications for:<ul><li>Someone suggesting a new game</li><li>Someone joining a game you signed up for</li><li>Someone commenting on a game you are signed up for</li><li>Someone comments on a post you created or have commented on</li></ul>Feel free to post if you think we need more.

Nice one.  Once again thanks for the work you are doing on this.

Thanks a lot Dan! This will be a huge improvement for the site!

Notifications

With the carpet now down in the upstairs room, the club will normally use the front bar (as before) and the upstairs room. We will be using our new tables, which are stored in the upstairs room. There are 4 "standard" size tables (6' x 3') and 2 "large" tables (6' x 4'), along with the fixed table in the front bar.Except for table 1, the tables can potentially be set up in either room. For the drop-down list, we have allocated the large tables to the upstairs room, as the standard tables will be easier to move. These are just the default locations - they can be rearranged if needed.We are also aware that some people have found the upstairs room to be too noisy. We are looking at ways to improve the acoustics. In the meantime, if you do not want to play in the upstairs room, please specify a downstairs table if available. If not, put a note in the comments and we will find another table for you to swap with.

Note on booking tables

A big thank you from me to whoever implemented the displaying of names under the icons for game sign ups. A big help 😊👍🏻.

Didn’t see the site improvements message when I was doing this. 

I now see it was Dan, so cheers for that Dan.

Thank you

<h1>Improvements</h1><ul><li>Added a flag for tournament games</li><li>Games without players are now hidden from the listing</li><li>Added player names below player icons in messages and on the game detail overlay to help mobile users know who they are talking to.</li><li>Added table name and scheduled date game cards in the "Looking to play listing"</li><li>Added "My posts" link to post pages for users with editor privileges</li></ul><h1>Fixes</h1><ul><li>Fixed table selection overlay not hiding after saving</li><li>Fixed creating and editing posts not returning to "My posts" listing</li></ul>