Actualol Newsletter - August 2021 (Patreon)

Greetings gamers!

Last weekend, Serena and I went to a festival called Camp Wildfire, where we helped teach games in a board game tent there. It was an amazing experience, and it was so rewarding to see all my favourite games be so well enjoyed. In fact, it was so fun that we’re going back this weekend to do it all again!

I was invited by my friend Dr. Ed Hope, who has a very successful YouTube channel of his own “Dr Hope’s Sick Notes”. Ed is a big board game fan, and whilst we were there we filmed a Top 5 video together. The first “collab” for Actualol in six years! It needs editing, but I will share it as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, my next video is also filmed and in the process of editing. It’s the first in a new series I’m trialling where I look back at some classic games. I hope to share that one soon, but I want to get it right first!

Camp Wildfire

The festival we were part of is a revolutionary idea. It is basically a summer camp for adults. During the day, you take part in activities from the many available. From adrenaline things like the aerial trapeze or quad biking, sporty things like volleyball and archery,  from learning things like cocktail making or Japanese calligraphy. There are 50 or so things to try, and you can pick the ones you’re most interested in and craft a schedule.

We went from playing dodgeball to learning how to play the ukulele to swing dancing to creative writing to trampolining to singing in a choir and so on. It was so much fun getting to do so many different things in one weekend.

The festival really leans into the scout aesthetic, and it has four patrols (think houses in Harry Potter) which go head to head in the patrol games every day. 

You pick a patrol (we were in Badgers), and you can pick up points for your house during activities. It creates a sense of camaraderie amongst all the festival goers, and a perfect icebreaker for conversations. There’s only 2,000 attendees, so you will commonly meet someone doing an activity and then end up playing a game with them in our tent later.

In the evenings there is live music, comedy and DJs, just like most other festivals, and our board game tent, which was absolutely teeming from 6pm until midnight, with a queue out the door!

5 Things Our Board Game Tent Taught Me

1. House rules are okay

Ed has been running the tent for six years and has learnt from experience the importance of making a game as simple as possible to teach. Festival goers are often drunk, and he can’t spend too long at each table.

He simplifies The Mind by removing the throwing stars from the game. People still LOVED the game, it was the most played game of the festival. He simplifies Rhino Hero by not dealing cards, ignoring the card powers and just having them draw a roof from a stack each turn. No-one is playing Rhino Hero for the “player agency”, and it fixes players missing their turn, which is bad in any game.

I wouldn’t teach the games like this at home, but in this setting it was perfect. People still got the intended flavour of the game, and still had fun, and that’s what matters.

2. Games are for everyone

It’s been a long time since I was reminded of how wide the appeal of board games really is. Board game meetups and conventions portray a certain type of “gamer”, and it can be easy to assume that they’re the only type of people that play games. But this tent showed that everyone likes board games. The gender balance was equal, and I met all different ages and personalities.

3. Some games are magical

I taught The Mind and Just One over and over again. And every time I reached the end of the practice turn, their eyes would light up at what had just happened. We taught those games over and over again because the gap between the players sitting down and having fun is so small. And they’re so addictive that they would still be playing it hours later.

4. Put the effort in to be rewarded long term

Recommending a table to play Rhino Hero is a quick win, because it is so easy to teach. But you cost yourself in the long run, because it doesn’t have longevity. Once they’ve played it, they will want a new game, and you’ll have to teach something else. If you set them up with The Mind, or Codenames, it will take you longer to teach, but it will keep them occupied for much longer!

5. Big group games are special

I haven’t had a chance to play proper big group party games since before Covid, and the festival was a nice reminder of how great they are. Codenames, Just One and Wavelength kept groups of any size entertained for hours. They are great for meeting new people, and people would dip in and out of these games all night. And what’s so great is that once you’ve set a table up with Codenames, the incoming players will be taught the rules by the old stalwarts who you taught earlier that evening!

Games I’ve been enjoying lately

• Tobago: Volcano

• Roll Camera! The Filmmaking Board Game
• Mysterium Park

Song of the Month: He Said She Said by Chvrches

See you next month!

Jon