I was very lucky this year at LeiriaCon 2025 to meet so many great designers and test some games in various stages of development.It is one of the best conventions out there.I will try to post separately some photos and a little bit of info on each game that I played.First up is Nippon: Zaibatsu which reimplements the 2015 game Nippon.This is the same design team as before, which is Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro and Paulo Soledade.I was lucky enough to have played a copy of this, kindly lent to me by Paulo at the con this year.Note that the version we have played is subject to change and is a pre-production copy.What a great game though. I am coming at this from not having played the original so I guess by view is from a new player.The game itself at heart is an area control gam,e but instead of "dudes on a Map" it is about producing goods in your factories and shipping those goods to the various region,s which will score. The goods can vary in value based on the type and the amount.For example cotton can be worth (I think) 1, 2, 3 depending on if you ship 1, 2 or 3 crates of it whilst clocks are 5, 6 or 7 if you ship 1 to 3. Each region has a variable setup as well so some areas might not need fabric whist others might need two lots.You get the different goods by building factories, which require various resources for. Some resources are obtained by actions (Coal) whilst others (steel) is obtained either via placing a good on a map or by a reset phase.Your actions are determined by various coloured workers that are across the top of the board. Each "action" has 3 workers, and when they are empt,y they get refilled. When the refill area is empty that is one round gone. This essentially is the game timer.So your actions are:Build a factory - These will give you either a one-time bonus or an in-game change. This is how you also build more lucrative goods.Build 1, 2 or 3 Trains - These are used to give you a +2 for area control in each region.Increase knowledge - You need this to build better factories.Produce Goods - Uses coal, and then you produce what your factory can.Get Coal - See above.Ship Goods - Take goods from your warehouse and put them on the board (and get area bonus)Buy Boats - This helps with boosting your income bonus and adding another worker.Add Automations - Allows you to produce more goods in factories.There are a couple of mid game scoring rounds which check for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each region. You get influence in those regions by shipping goods of a certain value.Finally there is a reset action where you get income. This is quite clever as you get up to 2 bonuses based on the colour of meeple you took and where they are on your order on the board. However, you have to pay income based on the total different colours you have. Ideally, you just want two colours but that might not be possible based on what choices you have.The game itself looks amazing and feels very good to play. Initially, I thought we would have too much time and end up doing everything, but the game speeds up towards the end and its clear you can not.This is one I will back on Kickstarter when it comes out later.

LeiriaCon 2025 - Game Review - Nippon

I am posting some games for sale in different sites, if anyone in the club has interest in any of these, give me a shout and you will get a discount!Game:									Price/StatusStar Wars Galaxy Rebellion					10	Good	Kakuro									5	Acceptable	De Vulgari Eloquentia						15	Good	Century Eastern Wonders					15	Very good	Warriors Knights(1985)					10	Acceptable	Hengist									5	Very good	Da Vinci Code (Coda)						5	Very good	Castles of Burgundy (Card Game)			6	Very good	Honshu (Dutch with English rules)			10	Like new	UnpunchedCathedral of Orleans						20	New		SealedThe World Cup							150	New		+ Expansions 1,2 and 3 - All sealedDetective : A Modern Crime Boardgame S1 	10	New		Sealed

I’m interested in De Vulgari Eloquentia and Honshu if still available.

More Games on Sale!!!

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

Please reply to this post to let us know which of the above games you own (if any); this is to help people find copies when arranging <a href="/tournament/2024" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">tournament games next year</a>. Thank you!Merry Christmas from NPBGC admin 🙂.

And Age of Steam. Which map where you thinking of playing?


Thanks David. We normally play base game configs for tournament games so it would be the Rust Belt map.

Barrage - Ian, David E, David K
Mosaic - Ian and Karen
Carnegie - David K
Age of Steam - David E

I have Age of Steam - original USA central map

Update:

Barrage - Ian, David E, David K
Mosaic - Paul T, Ian and Karen
Carnegie - David K
Age of Steam - DavidM, David E

Let us know if you own a copy of Barrage, Age Of Steam, Mosaic or Carnegie

Been clearing out stuff at home and came across a load of old Spielbox magazines.There’s the last issue of 2010 and all issues from 2011, 2012 and 2013, so 21 issues in all. They’re in mint condition and one of them even has a pullout train Game by Martin Wallace and the punchboard with all the chits for it is still in shrink.I’ll stick a message out the what’s app group too. If anyone’s interested it’s just first to claim and I’ll bring them along next Thursday.

Just a note that I have the German 2011 issues  w/ the 3 Wallace games photocopied and chits punched, so if anyone wants to play them w/o spoiling their mint English issue, I can bring them.

Old Spielbox giveaway 

Richard can’t make it tonight but hasn’t removed himself from the game.Unless I’m missing it there doesn’t appear to be any way for me to remove him ?

You can only remove yourself or get an admin to do it (for future reference) 

Can’t remove a player

Hi all - I have created a new game that I'd like to bring to the club for playtesting, if I can find some volunteers. A few of you may remember I did this a couple of years ago: that game worked reasonably well, but with a few clunky bits. This one has been thoroughly balanced online so I don't envisage any issues with it running too long or being "breakable" (famous last words). During online testing, I've really enjoyed the strategic challenge of this one - but mostly playing against myself, as my online group isn't cut from quite the same heavy-Euro cloth as you guys 🙂. So hoping to put it properly through its paces at the club.It's a train game... no no, don't stop reading: it has the odd flashback to train games of old, but the mechanics are all new. This one is for train companies of the 21st century: it's about providing the illusion of good service to your passengers while cramming as many of them in as possible! There's still the network-building, fill-up-the-map bit, but it's the area control element that is unlike any other train game I've known, and makes this game into a strategic killer. I'll put in a link to the rulebook here and share some images - it's come out looking really great!I'll list it on Looking To Play, provisionally for 25th July. Ideally I'd like to see if people can read the rules beforehand and play it without an intro from me - but failing that, just getting a group to play it would be good. Please reply here if interested either way. Of course, the one thing that I have absolutely no idea on from my online playtesting is how long it will take. Online we normally do it in 90min, but I'm guessing the physical copy will take longer.Rulebook here: <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iYsrDrsAx1-bqXIoaJjzUoZLuIeEsh3W/view?usp=sharing" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iYsrDrsAx1-bqXIoaJjzUoZLuIeEsh3W/view?usp=sharing</a>Looks like I can't upload images here yet, so for images please see the BGG thread: <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3083374/steam-legacy-wip-prototype-printed" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3083374/steam-legacy-wip-prototype-printed</a>

Playtesting a new game

Hi folks, The Game Crafter has just launched it's latest challenge (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/contests/table-presence-challenge).The premise is you get 90 days to design a game given a particular restriction. This time it seems a bit tricky, needing to create a game with table presence which will probably require a bit of print and play engineering but should be interesting.I've done one of these in the past and it was a lot of fun and if others were interested it would be cool to get a playtest group going.

Will talk to you about this next time we're at the club. I'll be looking for some playtesting myself soon on an unrelated project.

Game crafter challenge

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

Any chance we can get the list up of who is who. I don’t have a PC or laptop so can’t do the hover mouse over thing.There a quite a few I can work out but some seem to be changing. For example I thought the only other J was Jon without an h who if I recall from last week when I played with him the icon was yellow. But this week there appears to be another J but this time in blue. So I’ve no idea if that’s someone new or Jon without an h has just changed his colour.Overall the new look and interaction is good, but I do miss that on the old site you knew who was posting as their names were shown with the post.

For now this is going to look really clunky, but here's a list to start with...

A (blue) - Anthony
AH (yellow) - Andrew H
AO (purple) - Andy O
AM (purple) - Andrew Mason
AM (grey) - Andrew Meachem
AT (blue) - Andrew T
DA (green) - David A
DB (orange) - Dan Bate
DB (purple) - Dan Brownshill
DE (blue) - David E
DH (black) - David H
DK (orange) - David K
DM (purple) - Dan M
DM (red) - David M
E (blue) - Ed
E (green) - Elsa
GD (black) - Graham
I (black) - Ian
J (blue) - James
J (green) - John
JD (yellow) - Jon D
K (red) - Keith
KC (green) - Karen
M (red) - Michel
P (green) - Pedro
PD (purple) - Paul D
PT (yellow) - Paul T
R (yellow) - Robin
RL (purple) - Richard L
RR (green) - Richard RG
S (green) - Sam
S (blue) - Steve
SC (purple) Simon C
T (blue) - Tonksey

Looks like Dan has now added the names to show beneath the initials on the game detail windows too.

Who is who ?

For last night’s game I thought I had a full table but it turned out that Pedro’s name had obviously been added in error by someone, so there were only 3 of us and we’d waited 20 minutes just in case.So my suggestion is that if you sign up for a game you also leave a confirmation message.

How can a name be added in error by someone else? When we click on an empty circle is only our name that appears because that's how we're logged in.

Forget my previous post. I now see the interface has changed and that a drop-down menu appears that allows me to add other people to any game. Very bad idea. I guess this has to do with my user permissions being upgraded so that I can create new posts. I think the permissions system needs to be simplified: normal users can create posts and add themselves to a game, admins can add others to games (not sure why, for tournament games? even there it would probably better for each person to sign up as a confirmation they will show up to the tournament) 

Possibly it would make sense for some sort of confirmation prompt to pop up after you add someone, which would hopefully catch such errors most of the time?

In fact it happens quite often that people agree to play a particular game before anything is posted on the site - in that case, it makes sense for whoever eventually lists the game to be able to add all those who have already agreed to play.

Or only the person suggesting the game can add other players and only at the point of suggesting the game, not later.

Sure, but even then there are exceptions. If Pedro and Elsa want to join a game that someone else posted, they would have to sign up individually in that case.

Also another suggestion: why not trigger an email notification once you are signed up for a game? 
This way the person would be advised his name was there and could amend any error. 

Dan is planning to add a notification system for any comments or other inputs on the website relating to the subject user. I don't think it was going to do emails, just something to pop up when they next check the website. Hopefully that will do to begin with.

Game sign up suggestion

Just a suggestion that the games listed under “In the queue” should be sorted by the play date so that those for next week are at the top etc.

In the queue

I’ve had no interest in Paris and David E in the same boat for Tramways. I can’t seem to de-list Paris and join Tramways but would be happy to do that. Suspect we need one more at least though. Anyone else attending without a game? David E are you intending to attend tonight?

I can move across if no-one else signs up in the meantime. Hopefully I'll get another chance to play Vinhos in the next couple of weeks...

Looks like David E is planning to be there based on his comments in Sabika.

I had assumed the Paris game would drop off if you removed yourself from it - or does that not work?

So it is not possible to delete a game as that runs the risk of deleting others.  We can request a feature to allow this for only your own games which may take some planning.

Robins suggestion maybe better where when there are no attendees it auto deletes.

Games tonight 

Robin has created a great FAQ page on <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.newportpagnell-boardgames.org.uk/faq">https://www.newportpagnell-boardgames.org.uk/faq</a> however if you still have any questions please feel free to post here and we will try and answer them.Note we are aware of a possible bug where when clicking on the email sign-in link you may get blocked on a work network. This is because the link goes through a 3rd party system which changes the URL and some systems may see it as malicious. It is not. However, if this becomes a major problem we can look at a workaround.Remember you must be signed in to sign up to games..etc

Please note a couple of things we are looking at in addition to the above.

We are looking at having the post "author" show up and not just comments.    (Like this one).
Noticeboard like the previous site.
A way of marking a game up for the tournament.

Another suggestion would be some way of highlighting a post when a comment (ie. a reply) is added to it. I see you've responded about my Vinhos post, but I only found that by clicking into the post itself.

Adding John's suggestion to have a lookup list of symbols to names to work out who the people are who have joined your game

No 'View my last posts' in my profile page...

Also, auto formatting needed: Robin's post above requires scrolling to the right. 

Ah. Possibly because you haven't made any posts yet...

Michel, please could you send a screenshot of the profile page that you see to npbgclub@gmail.com?

Ah, yes, makes sense, because I haven't made any posts, there's no button to create my first one :-) Have sent you the screenshot. 

Re: John's suggestion: if we hover the mouse over the letter we see the name, so no list necessary. 


Michel that’s fine if you’re using a PC. For those of us that don’t have those and use phones or tablets we need a list. Although it might just be me in that position 🤣.

Personal experience: 
- I can access the club's site in my work computer but not my personal email. This results never to be able to post anything in the club's site through my work computer since I only can access through the link provided by email. 
- If I try to use the club's site through my mobile (where I can also access my email) there are some features which won't work as good as in my computer - which is normal because the site was not developed for mobile.  
Possibly this is only an issue to me and it's not relevant to no one else but would suggest to revise the login process in the future. Instead of generating a link via email, provide a PIN or One Time Password to access the site, always using your user/email to logon.  

Thanks for sharing this Elsa. I had a related (but different) problem, where my company's phishing checks block the email link from reaching my work email altogether. It's not a problem for me as I can use personal email, but it is another example of issues with the "sign in via a link" process. We'll feed this back to Dan to see what can be done.