Rants & Raves

The thing that reminds me most of Christmas is not a tree, nor hot chestnuts and mulled wine. It’s an open fire. When I was a teenager the holiday season would see family members emerge, blinking in the golden half-light of winter, from bedrooms, sheds and kitchens and assemble in the living room which was rarely otherwise used. Decoration would be put up, food cooked and a fire laid in the grate and kept burning for the hours of wakefulness for two whole weeks.And in front of that lovely blazing fire, gentle scenting the room with woodsmoke, we would...

Whenever I ask people to name their favourite columns from those I’ve written, there’s always a unifying thread amongst the responses. Everyone mentions pieces that skirt around that deliciously murky place where games and real life collide. Whether it’s the story of how gaming helped me reconcile pacifism with an interest in militaria or the tale of how my daughter learned to love gaming, the human interest stories that always float to the top.And why not? Human interest stories float to the top of journalism like the oil-slick rainbows of childhood puddles. We are human. Other humans interest us....

 It's not me.

Dungeoneering is stamped firmly into my subconscious, my brain imprinted with its labyrinthine corridors from obsessive childhood exposure to Dungeons and Dragons. Later those pathways got re-enforced by the consumption of countless gamebooks and video games. It’s a wonder I don’t see the whole world overlaid with a faint tracery of flickering torchlight.So it was inevitable that when I re-awakened my interest in board games a decade ago, I’d go seeking for dungeon delving adventure. It should after all be an eminently suitable subject for the genre. Rooms and corridors can easily be laid out on a board, whereas...

 Are games art, antiques, and collectibles? Why not!