Saturday was the first Sheffield Day of Games as i’m calling it. It was more of an afternoon of games for a few reasons but hopefully it will expand for the Next Edition.
What is Sheffield Day of Games?
Sheffield Day of Games is an amalgamation of a few different groups of gamers i am part of and i thought it would be good to bring those groups together to play more games together. The original plan was to find a quiet pub somewhere and just sit and play games all day.
Finding the right venue was more difficult than I envisonged as the venue I had in mind seemed to not be interested. It was a quiet pub out of the way with nothing going on that day i thought they’d jump at the chance of 10 plus people visiting and buying drinks but alas not.
Other pubs were not suitable as they needed to be easy to ge to on public transport but not likely to be super busy later on. Finding a free function room also prooved difficult. Thankfully Patriot Games on Mary Street, Sheffield, came to the rescue and 2 large tables were hired suitable for up to 16 players.
The one downside was they closed at 5:30pm where the original plan was to play much later.
Who were the groups involved in Sheffield Day of Games?
There were 3 primary groups of people who made up the initial round of invites. The first was my regular games group and collection of friends who are interested in table top games. Afetrall it would have been a bit weird to not invite the people I play games with most reguarly.
The second group is whats known as the “Hockey Does Board Games” group. A group which was formed summer last year by primarily Ice Hockey fans who like Table top games as an opportunity to meet up duriong the off season.
The third group is the Solo Board Gamers group. This group was set up by Dan Fullard AKA Board Game Addict on social media. He set up the group for solo or small groupos of travellers to meet up at Airecon and at UK Games Expo to play games together. This group made Game Expo great for me last year and i met some really cool people.
After Games expo we talked about having a meet up away from the cons but sadly schedules just didn’t allow for it to happen.
This gave the invite list a diverse amount of gaming experience and a great mix of people. The week before the event i was a little worried whether anyone other than me and my partner would actually turn up. but we ended up with 10 people from accross the 3 groups plus friends of people turning up from 4 differnet counties.
What did we play?
My second concern after whether anyone would turn up was what games to take. I settled on a mix of games but mostly on the lighter end of the spectrum. Patriot Games does have a library but i wasn’t sure what they had so stuck to games i knew well so i could teach them to new players.
We started with Poetry for Neanderthals which went down really well. followed up with the Hit of the day, Flip 7. Flip 7 went down so well i’m aware of at least 3 planned purchases from the 9 other people in the group since saturday.
After flip 7 we split into 2 tables and played Flamecraft and Ticket to Ride on our table while the other played a longer game and then moved onto Deep Regrets.
Will the event be repeated?
Yes, infact the next Sheffield Day of Games, or SheffDOG has already been planned. you can find more information on the facebook event. The plan is to run these events every quarter or so and if possible go back to the original plan of meeting in a pub.
The next event is sheduled for the 2nd of August and will be held in the function room at the Northern Monkey bar in Hillsbrough, Sheffield from 12pm. The venuew is open until midnight which gives much more scope for playing longer. It’s located on the Yellow route tram service between the Hillsbrouhg and Hillsbrough park tram stops. There is also a bus stop just across the road from the bar.
Everyone is welcome to come al,ong and polay some games. we had 10 people last time and the room holds 25 so should be able to have multiple games running at once. The venue sells drinks but no food but they are more than happy for anyone to bring in their own food and there are lots of food options cloise by including a cafe next door and a subway the other side.