Hello Friends,
Well it’s been a hot minute no? A hot minute since I’ve written and there are all sorts of viable excuses for that but really it all just boils down to I (and the collective Dicey Review Crew) have been very busy for many reasons. I’ve been very active on the YouTube side due to our awesome agreement with Stronghold that we mentioned in the show (Stephen has lived up to his promise to keep us very busy) and that commitment among other real life commitments has taken away my time to write articles.
What I will say however is that a brand new year is approaching and we as a channel and site and podcast have many plans and directions that we are wanting to explore. One of the many plans is to post more actual reviews. We’ve done a few this year yes but it’s been mostly games that we are making explanations for to keep up with some publisher requests. The crazy thing is that there are gobs, yes actual quantitative gobs of games we want to discuss because our BGG trip delivered with many of the games we were excited to try out. You would have heard about our upcoming excitement on a podcast that we tried to record and had to scrap due to audio issues.
This Essen and BGG con season have produced wonderful games that lived up to my expectations like Clans of Caledonia and Altiplano, and many surprises that came out of nowhere for me like Rajas of the Ganges and Ex Libris. Some of the games that I really wanted to try and didn’t get to may still excite me and live up to the lofty goals that I have given them. Games such as Charterstone, Nusfjord, Santa Maria, Gloomhaven and Fallout have yet to hit my table. I’m actively learning Fallout and Gloomhaven so hopefully that will change soon.
We’re also working on an idea for a completely new format of podcast in addition to the episodes that we don’t release now. Something that to our minds sounds wonderful and different and new and hopefully doable by three middle aged men that have little spare time between diaper changes and commutes to our relative means of employ. We are exploring a completely new way to look at board game podcasts where we look at a game and dig into why it is, what it is, the experience it creates and most importantly the stories it tells. I’m very excited by this and what it could mean for tabletop media but also for us as a podcast because it’s kind of what we’ve all wanted to create without realizing it fully.
On top of all these new changes I’m working my very darndest at becoming a more holistic video producer, editor, creator and media person. I feel like I can do better than I’ve been doing and finally have the computer and software to do quality work. So hopefully what you will see from all of this is number one us actually following through with it, because our lives are crazy but we all just really love board games and want to do something awesome in gaming. Number two we hope that you see a reason to engage with us, to grow with us and a reason to care about what we say and do.
We want to be relevant in the space and we want to provide a service to gamers that is useful, that isn’t about making money and that hopefully generates a creative new way to engage and think about tabletop gaming.
So all of this to really say…we want to do a give away. Why? Well because why not? Answer me that! Also, while we’ve been not putting out podcasts and not writing articles for our website we did something that I’m personally very stoked about and humbled by; we got 1,000 subscribers on YouTube. Now I know that this is probably something that’s not a big deal to many people and really probably shouldn’t be a big deal to me but darn it I’m proud of our little channel and what we’re doing. I really enjoy making content, learning and teaching games and talking about them for hours when we can on a podcast.
Apparently 1,000 other people on this planet like what we’re doing enough on YouTube to hit a button that says “yes I want to know when you do new things” and for me that’s exciting and kind of scary. What it also says is that 1,000 other people on this planet took the time out of their day to watch something that we produce. I know more than anyone that time is by far the most precious resource we have so the fact that 1,000 other humans (and maybe some hyper-intelligent pets…who knows I mean it’s practically 2018) gave their most precious resource to spend some time with us makes me very happy. I hope that we earned those clicks with hard work and have become a resource that you can trust to learn games and hear what’s good about them or not (in our humble opinion).
So thank you so much if you’re reading this, if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you listen to our podcast if you’ve ever interacted with us on our BGG guild (here’s to you Douglas) we are so happy that you’re here. We love to bring new people into the hobby and hopefully create more experiences where people can make friends and strengthen relationships. That’s what tabletop gaming has really done for us and we want as many people to be a part of it as possible. So in the spirit of bringing new folks into the hobby we will be doing a Gateway Giveaway.
We talked a bit about this on the podcast but I’ve finally had the time to purchase three games that I consider to be excellent games for newer gamers and experienced gamers alike. Games that if you don’t have them yet you will enjoy learning and playing I think. If you do already have them (becasue they are fairly popular) then we would be so pleased if you gave them to friends, family, people at work that you’ve gotten to play Trivial Pursuit with, strangers that you meet on the bus (you get the idea). Whatever you decide to do with these games, it’s up to you but we want to give you the chance to get them for no money (In the U.S. we call that free). So which three games can you win?
The games I’ve purchased are Codenames, Kingdomino, and Patchwork. These games will fit any size group even if it’s just two of you playing all the way up to twenty. The three titles that we’re giving away also should be fairly approachable to any age and gender and that is exciting to me as well. So what do you have to do to win? Simple: email us at thediceyreview@gmail.com with “gateway giveaway” in the title and tell us what your favorite gateway game is. I do hate to have to do this because I love all of our viewers and listeners outside of the U.S. but I have to keep this contest inside the continental U.S. because shipping a large box to another continent is a bit more than I can afford. So if you live in the U.S. I’m so excited to bring you this contest and if you aren’t in the U.S. I’m so terribly sorry and I will try to think of something cool to do for you all. When is the contest running? Well throughout the month of January. So if you send us an email entry anytime between January 1st and 31st 2018 (and let’s be honest if you send me one in December I’ll still count it) we will put you in the running. I will also be making a video and talking about this contest on a solo podcast I plan to do very soon because good grief it’s been too long. If you’re still reading thanks so much, you mean very much to us and we’re glad you’re still around to read, listen and watch what we have to say.
Thanks,
Paul
The Dicey Review 