Actualol Newsletter - November 2019 (Patreon)

Well, what a pledge drive! It's been quite a month. I'm incredibly grateful to every one of you that has decided that Actualol is worth having in this world.  It's always a scary time asking for money, and I'd been putting off this request until the "right time" since I left my job this time last year. I had little confidence before I ran the pledge drive that there would be more people willing to sign up to the Patreon, so I'm glad to be proven so expertly wrong.

We didn't quite meet the goal I had set, but that doesn't mean the end of Actualol. Thanks to the huge boost I can rely on the income from Patreon for now and look into other work to supplement my income, with the hope of growing the Patreon gradually over the coming months.

Actual Life

Earlier this month, Serena and I performed our first swing dance routine. We've been learning Lindy Hop and Charleston, two African-American dance styles from the 1920s and 30s, for over a year. It's been a transformative experience for us, and so great to do an active hobby together. I've fallen in love with dancing in the way I did with board games - it's changed my life and I wish I'd found it a long time ago.

The swing dance community in London is huge. Once a year, the 20 different classes of Swing Patrol come together at an old theatre in South London to performed their own routines. We were part of Old Street and Angel group. 

Here’s a video of our performance. We're in the third row, to the right of the middle, I’m wearing a black shirt: https://youtu.be/WmfK1yiRRGg 

It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, trying to learn all the steps in time for the ball, but it was totally worth it. The fun of being up on stage surrounded by our forty classmates was incredible and it whizzed past in a blur! We can't wait to do it again next year.

Jon’s Christmas Crackers

Today is an important day in the calendar - the first day of legally listening to Christmas music. Ten years ago I created the best Christmas playlist in the known world, called Jon’s Christmas Crackers, and I’ve updated it every year since. I want to share it with you so that you can know true beauty this Christmas: Spotify Playlist 

Lobstercon 2019 Part 2

This month I went to Lobstercon, a board game convention which acts as an excursion for my local board game group London on Board. We all descend on the seaside town of Eastbourne for the weekend, lock ourselves in a hotel, and play games. 

It's a convention dedicated to playing games, and it's the most relentless period of gaming I have all year. In two and a bit days I played 27 games. There's also a fun Dutch auction hosted by Ronan of The Game Pit podcast, where everyone brings the games they don't want and the auctioneer counts down until someone willing to pay the price shouts out. It's fun just to watch, because the bargains that people get are incredible. I've seen really good games sold for three quid. And even decent games for a pound!

My favourite games of Lobstercon

Wavelength is an upcoming party game from Wolfgang Warsch and the team behind Monikers. 

Playing on teams, one player is given a wavelength - an area on the scale, and a category. For example, on a scale of "round animal to pointy animal", you have to give your team a clue that will make them guess the wavelength that you've been assigned. The closer the better. They move the dial to where they think "Penguin" (which is confusingly round and pointy) would fit. 

It's a great game for getting everyone discussing and trying to interpret meanings from simple clues. I expect this to be one of my party games of the year, and you can expect to see more about it soon on the channel.

Age of Dirt: A Game of Uncivilization came about as an apt accident. I was just about to go back up to my room to have a shower after breakfast when I was invited to play it, and so I took on the role of filthy stone age tribesman with ease.

It's a light, family-weight game about building the best tribe. You send your meeples to locations in the hope of them coming back with what you need. What that means is you put them into a box, so that you can't see who else is in there. And on a later action someone will activate that box by throwing all the meeples in it into the meeple tower. The ones that come out of the tower will get you the resources you need - to improve your tribe and complete objectives.

What I loved about it was it's sense of humour - that you send your meeples into the love tent to create more meeples, but only if two of them come out do you actually get a baby. And it’s more exciting than your average game - if you go hunting you could get killed by the sabretooth tiger. And if you don’t get killed, he might end up getting in the way of someone’s lovemaking later on! I need to give it another try to see if the gameplay is still fun once the humour has lost its effect, but I’m very hopeful.

Montmartre is a card game in which you play as French painters, trying to win the favour of art dealers. 

You play cards into your studio to improve your repertoire. You can only sell to a dealer if you are the best at that style of painting - by having the most paintings in that style, or the highest points in that style - so you can try to block other players from being able to sell by becoming their rival. It has more interaction than you’d expect from a set collection card game and I’m looking forward to getting it back to the table.

Been Playing

Trails of Tucana is a flip and write game from the team behind Avenue, my favourite of the genre. And just like in that game, you’re creating paths on a map to score points.

Each turn two cards are flipped that show two terrain types. You must draw a line between those two terrains. Each hex can branch off in any direction, so you'll ideally create one big network.

You score points by connecting to villages to each other and there’s a race to complete them before other players. There are also artifacts to score, and if you get the second of a type you get an extra turn. There’s a few ways to score points, and plenty of options to decide between each turn.

It's a clever game with tough decisions. But for me, it's missing the exciting all-or-nothing gambles of Avenue, and its pleasantly infuriating spatial dilemmas. 

Trails of Tucana is great for players who want a thinky flip and write game that doesn’t feel punishing.

Adventure Games: The Dungeon is a choose your own adventure style cooperative game. You're trapped in a dungeon and you have to find your way out.

You take it in turns to choose an action, such as search an area or open a door, and each time you read a passage from the book telling you what happens. As you play you explore the map, coming across new rooms and picking up items. 

It has the feel of an escape room game but with barely any puzzles to solve. Instead the enjoyment is in advancing the story and learning the results of your decisions. We never felt especially challenged by it or close to defeat, but it was an enjoyable experience. Having said that, it wasn’t enough to make me want to spend another four hours on one of these games, and if I ever wanted to “play” a story in the future, I would turn to TIME Stories or Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective instead.

What’s Next

This week I will be making a video about the Christmas Gifts I would recommend this year. I’m afraid it won’t have Timmy and family in because I ran out of time. However, I do hope to film a smaller Christmas comedy video before the 25th. 

I also have my Top Games of November reviews ready to go, but that has been pushed back by the Top 50 and Christmas stuff. So many games to talk about, so  little time!

The Big Question

With the end of the year in sight, I’ve been thinking a lot about my favourite games of the year. I’ve been watching videos on other channels and searching around to make sure I haven’t missed anything I would like. My question for you is - are they any games you’ve played or heard about which I haven’t mentioned yet and that I should definitely play before I make my Best Games of 2019 video?

Games I’ve been enjoying lately

- Spirits of the Wild

- Whozit

- Rush M.D.

- Magic Maze on Mars

Games that have just arrived

- Catan: Starfarers

- Quirky Circuits

Song of the month - The 1975 - It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You 

Video of the month - Meet Your Second Wife - SNL 

Been Watching - Hannibal Season 1 and The Crown Season 3

As the year winds down, I’m excited to get through Christmas and onto new projects next year - the future is bright again for Actualol!

Actually yours,

Jon