This was a triumph
GameCamp 4 has come and gone. Thanks to everyone who made it a totally awesome day. This was our biggest GameCamp yet, with over 225 people attending. Good thing the venue at LSBU was big, because it was packed to the rafters.
GameCamp’s strength is that it can be a total grab-bag of discussions and activities you wouldn’t get anywhere else. The morning and afternoon boards show you the huge variety of sessions:
We had sessions on topics ranging from teaching game design, sex in video games, Little Big Planet and colonialism (!), lemon jousting, and even a zombie-themed live-action LARP with NERF guns that took over the 3rd floor:
The day also resulted in a GameCamp group on Steam, for those of you PC gamers out there.
And of course, our board game library kept people well busy on the ground floor.
There’s simply too much to cover in a single blog post. Jetsetnick and Nia Wearn have posted their overviews of the day. If you ran a session please do blog about it, and link to this post – then you’ll end up in the comments, and we can collate some sort of a record of the awesomeness.
Thanks to Princi for doing a stellar job with lunch, even though it was their first catering job ever. Thanks also to our sponsors Vertical Slice for helping fund this awesome day, and to LSBU for letting us take over their enormous Keyworth building.
Most of all, thanks to all of you who came and made the day excellent. GameCamp is a platform for you to share your interest and knowledge of games with others. It wouldn’t be anything without you.
We’re already working on ideas for GameCamp 5, so if you have any feedback we’d love to hear it! Let us know in the comments.
Boardgame Library at GameCamp 4
You’ll notice that this time round, it’s called GameCamp, rather than BoardGameCamp. The focus on Saturday will be on the talks, just like the first few GameCamps.
If you were at BoardGameCamp last year, you might also remember the absurd amount of boardgames we had there (63.6207 kilograms of them, to be precise). Myself, Ross, Jo and anyone else who volunteers will once more be running a boardgame library, but we expect it to be smaller and less busy than last time. We’re using the games kindly provided to us by Esdevium, as well as a few of our own, but if you *really* want to lug boardgames here and lend them for the day we’ll take them. We just want you to know that you really don’t need to and can travel light.
What we’ll have there will include *at least*:
- Puerto Rico
- Jungle Speed
- Citadels
- Lost Cities
- Munchkin
- Wings of War
- Carcassonne
- Bang!
- Race for the Galaxy
- Dixit
- Settlers of Catan
- Thurn and Taxis
- The Village (Werewolves)
- Puerto Rico
- Articulate
- Robo Rally
- Last Night on Earth
- Agricola
- Saboteur
- Back to the Future: The Card Game
- Infinite City
There are multiple copies of some of those, and there will probably be a few more games too. We’ll be in the cafe with them throughout the day, so if you’re taking a break from the talks feel free to check out a boardgame and bring it back later.
In future, rest assured there will be more BoardGameCamps, but after the last one we felt that it’d be useful to have one event centred on making and playing stuff, and another centred on talking about stuff. This Saturday is the talky one.
‘I liked you better before you sold out’
Like it says right above this (assuming this is still the top post on the page, which it won’t be for long, so ah well) tickets for GameCamp 4 are now officially completely sold out.
However we’ve heard from a few people who won’t be able to make it now, so if you have tickets to buy or sell we suggest you get onto Twitter and use the hashtag #gc4 to hawk your extras or beg for spares.
Everything is looking EXTREMELY VERY GOOD for Saturday. Some people have been tweeting about the talks they want to give or hear, which sound great. And we’ve got a give-away that might be even cooler than the customised dice we were handing out at BoardGameCamp.
Doors open 9.30, and the board goes live at 10.00. One thing to note: though there’s a shop selling snacks and hot drinks on site, it won’t be open from the very start so you may want to get your teas and coffees on the way in.
See you on Saturday!
68
We put the second tranche of GameCamp 4 tickets on sale and those went, so we put the third tranche up and those are going fast. As I write this, with six weeks to go till the day, we have just 68 tickets left.
If you’ve not bought yours yet then don’t wait in the hope we might have a fire-sale later on, is what I’m saying.
METAL!
The first tranche of tickets for GameCamp 4 went on sale at noon today. Within six hours we had to make a call on whether to put the second tranche on sale as well. By 8PM you lot had bought more tickets for GC4 than all the tickets we sold for GC2 put together… and GC2 sold out. We’re a bit stunned and breathless. Thank you!
Still plenty of tickets left, though. Tell your friends.
There’s now a list of everyone who’s attending at the Eventbrite site, but we also recommend that you sign up for the splendid Lanyrd.com which tracks conferences and who’s attending them, so you can find out what’s happening and which of your mates will be there. It’s one of those sites that simply works, and we’d really like it if you added your name to the GameCamp 4 page. Cheers.
GameCamp Returns!
GameCamp 4 is GO! Like Thunderbirds! The date for your diary is Saturday 14 May 2011.
New Digs, New Party
And like Thunderbird 4, the underwater one, we’ve moved down the Thames to a new location,1 the Keyworth Centre at the heart of London South Bank University. Not only is it in Zone 1 and walking distance from Waterloo and London Bridge, but it’s twice the size of our last location. Gamecamp 4 will be as big as GameCamps 2 and 3 put together. Tell your friends… mostly tell them they might be able to get a ticket this time.
F A B!
Same Awesome Format
Games continue to grow in importance and effect on our society. Every year a new record in sales or reach is broken. Today’s young adults have never known a time when games weren’t as mass-media as TV or books. For good or for ill, we are a world of gamers. It’s time we thought about what this means.
GameCamp 4 brings us back to the dynamic and stimulating unconference format, like GameCamps 1 and 2. No prearranged talks, no guests, no keynote speakers, just a massive crowd of movers, shakers, thinkers and creators from all areas of the world of games and ready to discuss them.
Once again we’ll have break-out spaces, a library of modern and classic board-games for people to play, food and drink, and loads of other stuff going on.
The first tranche of tickets is now on sale via Eventbrite. If you don’t get one this time, don’t despair: there are two more tranches still be be released. We’re also holding some heavily discounted tickets for staff and students at LSBU, so if you qualify then drop us a line.
And we’re looking for sponsors, so if you have a promo budget that you need to spend before the end of the tax year (hint hint) then get in touch.
Twitter hashtag: #GC4
We are looking forward to welcoming you to the UK’s biggest gaming unconference ever.
(1 Like that bit in the Thunderbirds live-action movie where they… oh, you didn’t…? nor did anyone else.)
Board Game Camp Stats
As part of the library system at Board Game Camp, we entered every game into a spreadsheet as well as cataloguing them on index cards. That gave us a lot of stats we otherwise wouldn’t have had, and here they are mixed with a few others.
133 people came to Board Game Camp, and among them were 13 teams competing in the GameHack, who submitted 12 games for the final judging.
Games and Lending:
Games lent to library: 96
Distributor Esdevium lent just over a quarter of the total games in the library, but the lions share came from visitors who were willing to entrust their games to our system of precision scales and index boxes.
Total times games were borrowed: 59
You kind of want every game to be borrowed at least once when you’re running a library, but I think if it were any smaller, it really wouldn’t have had such a good selection. Not everything will always be taken out, and some will be very popular, but such a selection means that probably anyone can find something they’ll like or want to try.
Weights:
- Heaviest game: War on Terror, 2.2Kg
- 2nd heaviest: Agricola, 2.148Kg
- 3rd heaviest: Last Night on Earth, 1.975Kg
- Lightest game: Game Seeds, by Wormella, at 86.2 grams
- Lightest published game: Fluxx, 136.6 grams
- Total weight of board game library: 63.6207kg
That’s the weight of a small person!
Most popular games:
Dixit was the most popular game of the day, with the two library copies being borrowed a total of seven times, as well as being played in the pub later.
Tied for second place are Dominion and Zombie Fluxx at 4 uses each, and also tied for third are Last Night On Earth and Weinhandler, each being borrowed 3 times.
Some other things:
People tweeted with the hashtags #boardgamecamp and #bgcamp 297 times, and consumed 150 pizzas, 100 danishes, and an indeterminate number of cans of Dr. Pepper.
I think this is where I’m supposed to post that it will be back, bigger and better next year, but actually, it was a very good size this year. All the rooms felt busy, and we learned a fair bit from how the day ran. It might only be a little bigger, but we want to do it again and it’s sure to be even better. Thanks again for coming, and for trusting us with your games.
Thanks to:
I failed to thank some important people in my final speech, so here’s another stab at a complete list of everyone who made Saturday happen so smoothly.
Our awesome sponsors: eBay/Paypal/Gumtree for the loan of the venue and the free drinks; Cadbury who sponsored the GameHack competition, providing not only a fantastic brief but a jaw-dropping prize; Esdevium Games who loaned us the core of the games library and who wanted us to mention http://www.findyourgamestore.co.uk/; and the London Games Festival for letting us say that BoardGameCamp was part of the London Games Festival.
Our terrific GameHack competition judges: Simon Crowther from Cadbury, Chris Price from PHD, Graham Linehan of Delightful Industries and Andrew Sheerin of Terrorbull Games. (And me, James, but I was more of an organiser.)
The amazing GameHack entrants: too many to name. And the equally amazing GameHack playtesters: equally too many to name. Really impressive work from everyone.
The game-library organisers Ross Fowkes and Jo Summers, who got through the day without a single card or dobber going missing.
People we paid but who still did a fantastic job: Dice & Games for the dice; Eventbrite who didn’t screw up this time; Pizza Al Rollo who provided lunch. The breakfast pastries came from a little patisserie called Tesco; the GameHack supplies from Viking Direct.
The BGC committee in alphabetical order: Desigan Chinniah; Steve Green; David Hayward; Jeff Sheen; Philip Trippenbach; and James Wallis.
Really, an exceptional day. Thank you all for coming.
Games Library
We’re going to be running a games library next week at Board Game Camp, and have already got quite a large collection of board games pledged for you all to play. You can feel free to both come along and take games out for a while, and if you like also contribute games for the day, confident that they’ll be safe. There are just a few things you’ll need to know first.
Taking a game out
Lending your games to complete strangers is a little scary, and because we want to look after everyone’s games and make sure nothing goes missing, we will ask that you trade in a form of photo ID for the time you take the game out.
That’ll be kept safely in an index, clipped to a card showing which game was taken out. We promise that noone will do anything naughty with your data: no copies made, no passing it on, no access for anyone else, and you’ll get it straight back on returning the game.
Donating a game for the day
Not only will we be asking borrowers to deposit ID for game, but we’ll also be recording their weights with a set of absurdly accurate scales. Any games you’d like to put in will have a low tack label stuck on them designating you as the owner, and we’ll take down any details so we can contact you as well. Again, your contact details won’t be kept or passed on to anyone.
We promise to do our absolute best in looking after your games, and all we ask is that you take them back at the end of the day; we’re going to be carrying loads as it is!
Programme of the Day
The day is almost upon us! Here’s a quick description of everything that’ll be happening at BoardGameCamp.
Talks
Talks are organised on the usual BarCamp system. There’s a big wall with a grid marked on it: the names of the different rooms down the side and the time-slots along the top. If you want to give a talk or have a discussion, write a brief description of it on one of the handy Post-It notes and stick it in a free slot. If you want to attend a talk, just pitch up at the allotted time. If you’re not enjoying a talk or you want to see what else is happening, then go ahead and leave—BarCamps are informal and nobody will mind.
Games
Next to the Talks grid will be a second grid for games that people want to play. If you’re looking for players for a game (one you’ve brought along, perhaps, or one from the games library) then stick a Post-It in that time-slot saying what the game is, how many players it’s for, how long it’ll take, and where people should meet. If you see a Post-It for a game you’d like to play, write your name on the note, then turn up at that time and place.
We have to be out of the building by 18.30 so please don’t start an epic game of Diplomacy or Civilization at 17.45.
We’ve got a games-library for everyone to use, though we’ll need some proof of ID as a ‘library card’ while you’re borrowing an item. Drivers’ licenses or passports, please.
GameHack
Anyone can register a team for the GameHack game-design competition, and you can even sign up for it on the day. But physical space is limited so we recommend you register your team in advance by emailing James .
GameHack starts at 10.00 with a briefing session, and the design phase stops at 16.00. We’ll need volunteers to playtest the new games from 16.00 to 17.00, then the jury will deliberate and the winner will be announced at the closing ceremony. You don’t have to spend all six hours working on your game.
Even if you’re not planning to enter, at least come along to the briefing session. It may change your mind.
Food
Breakfast pastries will be provided for early-comers. Lunch will be arriving at 12:30. Coffee and a selection of drinks will be available all day.
