TooFatLardies Games Day in Vienna

It’s no secret that TooFatLardies are my favourite rules publisher. Fortunately, there are a couple of like-minded individuals around. Last Friday, a bunch of us got together to play and present TFL games. The idea was to showcase the rules and induce people who have never before played a Lardy game to give it a try.

We had four games prepared: Dux Britanniarum, Sharp Practice 2, Kiss me Hardy! and Chain of Command.

As we’ve written a short report for Lard Island News (which will be published shortly), I’m not going to repeat myself but refer the reader to this blog. Sigur has also written a very fine report on the Battle Brush Studios blog – head over there for more information!

I just want to thank everyone involved: Those who prepared and presented games, those who played and those who watched and contributed to the friendly and welcoming atmosphere. I’m especially happy that I had the opportunity to meet up with old friends and make new ones.

Certainly an event to be repeated!

Here are some impressions from the games:

Sharp Practice (hosted by me)

Dux Britanniarum (hosted by Sigur and Virago)

Kiss me Hardy! (hosted by Annatar)

Chain of Command (hosted by Sigur and Shlominus, with a scenario by Slowik)

Vienna Nerd Institute

Together with an artist friend of mine, Johannes Grenzfurthner from monochrom, I have started a new project: The Vienna Nerd Institute.

This is intended to be a sort of adult education center for nerd-related stuff. We want to provide low-threshold access to skills such as miniatures painting, running RPGs, drawing comics or designing games. We have secured an attractive location in the heart of Vienna’s Museumsquartier, a lively area full of museums, cultural institutions and cafés. We have also managed to rope in people who are really good at what they are doing.

The kick-off event will be a miniatures painting workshop with my regular gaming partner Sigur Skwarl, who, as you will know, is also the master painter behind Battle Brush Studios. People can come along and either bring their own figure or paint one provided by Sigur – so if someone just wants to try out miniatures painting without investing in figures and paint, this is the place to start! While the workshop is geared towards beginners, Sigur is a very talented guy and I’m sure old hands will also profit from his skills.

So, if you are in or around Vienna on 18 October, why not register for the painting workshop?

You can also find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/viennanerdinstitute

For those of you who are somewhere else, I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening and how the project is doing.

ZAMspielen Gaming Event in Vienna

The Museumsquartier is a large area of museums, cafés and cultural institutions in the center of Vienna. Three years ago, the group ZAMspielen together with the art communication agency esel.at started to host a semi-regular board and video gaming event there. ‘Zamspielen’ is Austrian dialect and means ‘playing together’, so the idea behind the event is to host a low-threshold opportunity for people to drop by and play games.

Last week, I finally had the opportunity to visit and join the fun.

The available board games were mainly family games, some older titles and some new ones. I started with Suleika, a rather nicely made tile placement game – I especially liked the small carpets made from real fibre.

We then had a go at Ice Cool, which recently won the Children’s Game of the Year award. I’m not normally a fan of dexterity games, but this one is quite fun – you have to snip the penguins with your finger, one player taking on the role of the hunter trying to catch the others. It’s quick and simple and I can understand why kids like it.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Anita Landgraf of White Castle, a Viennese company that examines and brokers game ideas – so if you invent a game, you can come to them, they check it and then try to sell it to a publisher. I had the opportunity to test the prototype of a strategy game with an interesting movement mechanics. We also played a round of Elk Fest, another dexterity game that is being re-published by White Castle.

There were also a couple of video games from Viennese publishers on display, one of them a very nice looking adventure game called Old Man’s Journey.

The event was small, but had a very welcoming and friendly atmosphere. It was a bit too much geared towards family games for my taste, but I guess this is easily remedied as everyone can bring what he or she wants to play. Let’s see, perhaps next time, I’ll bring one of my favorites.

Another ADA Gaming Salon

Last Saturday, we hosted another gaming salon at the ADA gallery in Vienna. Under the headline ‘Hunting Humans’, the evening was dedicated to monsters. We had two games for the visitors to play. The first was a pen-and-paper RPG ran by Alex. He used D&D and had prepared a couple of characters to choose from. The twist was that this time, the players were the bad guys: As a small band of Orcs, they had to help their tribe to raid a human settlement.

I had set up Zombicide, the cooperative Zombie game we have played a couple of times lately.

Unfortunately, we made a scheduling mistake, as we completely missed  that there were two other events on that day which drew off potential visitors. We only had a handful of attendants, but at least we got in a couple of games ourselves. And those people who came were quite enthusiastic to play. Zombicide was a smash. We played three missions, each one with different players, but only succeeded in winning one of them.

 

The RPG also sounded like a lot of fun. K. joined in and told me she had enjoyed herself playing a tough female Orc, the leader of the raiding party consisting of another Orc, a goblin and an Ogre called Einstein (armed with a stone in a sack).

The RPG in full swing.

Even though it was quieter than last time, it was a fun and inspiring evening. Hopefully, we’ll have another one soon!