In my previous blog post I alluded to a 'hidden' gem of a place that my husband and I stumbled across in Cardiff - it was a boardgame café called Chance & Counters.
It was the final day of our stay in Cardiff, and having just come out of Cardiff Castle, been to all of the places that was on our list, we found ourselves once again strolling aimlessly down High Street (the street that leads from the front gate of the Castle down towards the train station) :
The street circled in green is High Street.
Note Cardiff Castle to the north of the street and the train station on the bottom of the map.
And it was purely coincidental when we glanced at this colourful chalkboard sign on the side of High Street:
The chalkboard sign of Chance & Counters not far from Cardiff Castle (you can see its walls in the distance.)
I had not considered the possibility of finding a boardgame café in this trip, so this came as a pleasant surprise - and what a good way to spent an afternoon!
The interior of the café had many tables, and a huge shelf of boardgames! I had not seen such a large collection of boardgames even in my local game store, and immediately I could see some boxes that I recognised, and couldn't wait to introduce them to my husband!
We were told that by paying £3 per person we could stay in the café for 2 hours, and have access to all of the games available. This was in my opinion, a very reasonable cost, because to buy any one of these games ourselves would already cost us around £15~£40 (board gaming really isn't a cheap hobby!)
One of the first games we decided to try was Azul: Summer Pavilion - a tile drafting strategy game. I had heard of Azul on BoardGameGeek as a very highly ranked family game. Its colourful box stood out to me form the shelf, and the game itself was also very beautifully crafted - I especially loved the smoothness and the weight of the tiles, they definitely added a tactile experience to the gameplay. I must admit, the reading of the rulebook was my least favourite part - there were just so many texts and I felt under a time-pressure to understand them quickly so that we can get to playing. Once we understood the basic rules it was actually quite intuitive, we never quite worked out the scoring system, but it was fun nevertheless.
A game of Azul: Summer Parvillion.
The next game we tried was Santorini. I had seen some people play back I was in a board game club in China, and it seemed like a game that a fan of Greek mythology like my husband would appreciate. The rules were simple enough to grasp: it is similar to tic-tac-toe, where the first player whose character arrives at a third-floor building wins. We started by playing without the God Cards, and it was quite easy to prevent the other player from winning by ruining their plans - it just felt too easy; and when we tried to play with the God Cards, we were quite confused by their abilities, as some of them simply seemed too powerful.
A game of Santorini. We also bought drinks and food as we were planning to stay for longer, and they were actually very good! Mulled cider is definitely my new favourite now.
The next game we tried was Hanamikoji - a light strategy card game. This game was definitely much easier to pick up, and we found ourselves constantly at a draw against each other. I think my husband liked this game the best out of the entire stay.
A game of Hanamikoji.
The last game we tried was One Key - a cooperative image guessing game - or it would have been cooperative if we had at least one more player. The game had stunning artwork, and it involved the Leader player (in this case, me) giving visual clues so that the Travellers (in this case, just my husband) can find the chosen image hidden amongst the pile of images. I had quite high hopes for this game, but I think we would have enjoyed it more with more players.
A game of One Key.
Finally, we decided to leave after playing for 4 hours. It was definitely an afternoon well spent - I introduced my husband to the world of board games (don't get me wrong, I'm still new to it myself) and we both agreed that if we had another opportunity like this in the future, we should try to ask our neighbouring 2-player tables if they wanted to join us for a 4-persons game.
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