Saturday 31 August 2013

Meeples Cafe Merdeka Sales

Meeples Cafe is having a Merdeka Clearance Sales from today till 16 Sep 2013. If you live around Kuala Lumpur, check it out.

When I first went through the sales items list, I thought there were quite a few good titles, but didn't plan to buy anything. The only game that tempted me a little was Conflict of Heroes. It was 60% off! Then Allen sent me a message, asking whether I was going. I said no. He said if I were he'd probably ask me to help buy some for him. He didn't have transportation. Then I thought, what the heck, I'd drive him there myself. He was originally thinking of getting Reef Encounter. He ended up getting 5 or 6 other games as well. Oops. It was probably at least partly my fault. I kept picking up boxes and saying to him: hey this one is not bad, or, hey this is a reputable title (e.g. La Citta). Surprisingly the Martin Wallace name didn't work its magic this time. He didn't buy Steel Driver, Aeroplanes or Toledo.

I shouldn't be poking fun at him. I ended up buying Conflict of Heroes afterall. At RM115.60 (~USD35), it was quite hard to resist. And I bought two Android: Netrunner expansions too (which were not on sale) - What Lies Ahead and Future Proof. I'm planning to get Humanity's Shadow when it is restocked. These three are the expansions that many people recommend.

Part of the loot today, three mine and three Allen's (they came straight to my place for storage and rules reading).

My number of games acquired has been kept very low so far this year. I've only added Qwirkle and Android: Netrunner to my collection up till yesterday. But this month and next there will be many new games arriving - 2nd edition of Sekigahara, which I pre-ordered under GMT's P500 program, Axis and Allies 1914, Robinson Crusoe, and of course since I've broken down and bought the two Netrunner expansions, I might as well buy Humanity's Shadow too. There are a few wait-and-see games that I am thinking of buying if I'm well under my annual game acquisition quota - Cavum and Clash of Cultures. I wonder whether there will be any new and shiny games that will distract me from them. Afterall Essen is not far away.

6 comments:

blownfreaks said...

Hey the three games are not mine, I bought it for a 'friend'... :P

Hiew Chok Sien 邱卓成 said...

Allen, I've finished punching the pieces and bagging them this morning. Next step - rules reading and rules summary. Doing the organising of the pieces for these games made me rediscover how classy these German games are - precise and excellent quality components and custom-made box inserts perfect for them.

I'm your good friend right? Right?!!

blownfreaks said...

Thanks man. I really appreciate the older games, rules are simple and the gameplay are more streamlined, production of the games are really good as well. Nowadays the newer games really fall short in comparison, games tend to be complex for complexity sake....

Hiew Chok Sien 邱卓成 said...

Probably one challenge is if a designer were to try to design something of a complexity similar to German games from late 90's or early 00's, that game will have a hard time trying to stand out or attract gamers. I can think of some recent games which are similar to those classics from that period, but are getting less attention, e.g. Palaces of Carrara.

Damien said...

Too bad we didn't bumped into each other. I was there in the morning (to call dibs on 'hot' titles) and got out 20mins later.

I got La Citta as well and got it played last Monday. It was ok but I think I need to play it again to form an opinion. I think it's a good candidate for a light gaming.

I can't believe that Snowdonia was on sale. If it's not because of the kickstarter campaign, I would have got it in first place.

My haul:
- Reef Encounter
- La Citta
- Torres
- Vasco da Gama
- Space Alert

Hiew Chok Sien 邱卓成 said...

I had expected a big crowd, but it wasn't so, at least not around 2-3pm on Merdeka Day when I was there. Maybe it's because this sale has a longer period of 2 weeks plus.

20 minutes! That's amazing. Allen and I probably intended to spend 20 minutes - quick in quick out sort of thing, but once we got there, we ended up spending around double that.