AAAAIIIIGH!!!
The bellow of a big beardy man reaches me, as I enter the door in Bastard Café’s new home at the ground floor in Huset Kbh. Presumably he has just lost his game.
At the same time he has reassured me that enthusiasm is intact at Bastard Café as it moves from the free pop up teens into settling down adullthood with a firm adress in Copenhagen.
Settling down means rent to pay. That is why Bastard Café is now selling memberships to a minor fee to get all access to their more than impressing amount of games.
However, it will still be possible to pop into the café without a membership and play a few selected games for free. Just to try it out (but be careful; you might be addicted to the friendly atmosphere and curious games … N-E-E-D T-O T-R-Y M-O-R-E).
Of all days Bastard Café has chosen to open at J-Day – one of the biggest events for beer in Denmark, as the Christmas Brew is released for sale. Somehow, it does not make fewer guests drop by for a game. When I visited shortly before the official time for beer release, it was hard to spot a vacant seat anywhere. Even if it does not reaches the heights of the several stores event at Østerbro earlier this year, about 200 people were playing all over the place. A member of the staff told me that 250-280 entered the door, when the crowd reached its height a few hours earlier. Some of them even had to leave again, because there was no space for playing.
No Grand Opening without champagne 🙂 Among all their new members Bastard Café drew out one winner, who can look forward to a free trip to “Spiel Messe Essen” in Germany in 2015 … the place to go for 150.000 international gaming fans to be the first to try out new boardgames.
The night’s lucky winner was Ioana Marin. She is from Romania, and she actually turned out to be a gamingprofessional in spe. She studies game design, and she has already designed her own board game Wanted Igor with 4 other gamingfans at Nordic Game Jam 2013.
Wanted Igor is about creating creatures under the lead of Dr. Frankenstein. Who knows what kind of new monsters Ioana and her friends can think of under influence of the content in this giant bottle? As the founder of Bastard Café, Bo Thomasen, told her:
– I don’t know if it’s good, but it’s golden!
Build your train across country with the first American railways in “Ticket to Ride”.
With 500 different games to choose from there is no excuse for not having fun with your boardgame. I came across titles like “The Fat Penguin” and covers with “Madeira” (and other exotic places to go) all over it, leading my thoughts more to a traveller’s magazine than a board game. But somehow, I always end up with something connected to my profession in Journalism or English. This time it was the latter, which was activated by “Ticket to Ride”. This is all about building the first railroad in the USA from 1810-1870’s – across the country.
– I’ve have always been fascinated by trains, one of the players admits.
It turns out he is not the only one. Back in 2004 “Ticket to Ride” won the prestigious price “Game of the Year” at Spiel Messe Essen. And last year it rounded the nice sum of 10.000.000 sold copies.
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Put a pin on a board. Even the pins are like pieces from classical games like “Ludo”.
