Playtest "Down Below"

I also like to play boardgames - so it's not all miniature wargaming all the time.

My boardgame gang gathered again at my house for the first time in 18 months (Covid19 has something to do with that ...), and on the menu was a playtest of "Down Below", a game my longtime buddy Dirk had designed during the lockdown. It's not a miniature game, but a simple dungeon exploration game. The idea is to make it available online once it's thoroughly playtested, along with some original fantasy artwork by our resident fantasy artist Foob.

Some images of yesterday's gathering:

Boomers eager to start a game after 18 months of inactivity ...

Prototype of the gaming board. Dungeons are generated based on the name of the dungeon, and the same name always produces the same dungeon.

Another close-up. There's only one token for the entire party.

The game desinger frantically trying to adjust some stats.

Cards for the game. Some of the art is already final, but a number of images are still placeholders found on the web.

Final state of the game after our playtest.

A non-wargaming paint job

Something non-wargaming related (but still about games!).

I painted up the riders for the excellent Flamme Rouge racing game. Colours were inspired by vintage cycling jerseys, and the dominant jersey colour is also the team colour (players play with a team of 2 riders in this game).

Advanced Civilization: An Olden Goldie

During the 90s I was a heavy Advanced Civilization player. "Heavy" meaning we didn't hesitate to pull all-nighters to complete this beast, look up variants on the proto-internet etc. Our gaming group still fondly remembers those games. And yes, Crete was my favourite nation to play.

When I was recently thinning out the collection and bringing a couple of games to the local shop (which offers a nice 2nd hand selling service in exchange for store credit), I was pondering whether I should sell my copy of Advanced Civilization as well. But I just couldn't do it, mainly for nostalgic reasons, but also because apparantly it has become quite a collector's item fetching high prices. A gaming buddy of mine offered his copy (without doing some research first) for 20 euro. It was gone within minutes.

So, instead I decided to set up the game again after having been untouched in the box for nearly 20 years, and play solo. The result is shown in the pictures below. I quit when the first civilization started to collect a high number of trade cards. I considered continuing for a few more turns without trading (I even asked for opinions on BGG), but since trading is such an integral part of the game, I gave up and put everything in the box again. Perhaps 20 years from now I might take it out once more and repeat the exercise :-)

Escape from Colditz

I picked this up today in the 2nd hand store ("Kringwinkel") for the modest price of 4.50 euro. It is the Dutch version of the game.

I always wanted to play this game as a kid, but it never happened. The recent rerelease by Osprey was a bit too expensive, in my opinion (also because the game itself is perhaps not that good), but I still wanted to have it. Perhaps we might even play it - if the game is complete, of course.