BGC RETREAT 2013 – ESSEN IN GREEN?

EXCERPT
Missing the BGC Retreat? Would like to get to Essen? Enjoys the green nature? Why not do it ALL in the upcoming BGC RETREAT 2013. Bonus: Play AGRICOLA in a real stone house? Read on… and grab the limited seats early. This is an EXPERIENCE you do not want to miss!

One of our signature events, the BGC Retreat – the last one which we hosted back in 2011 – is due for it’s next appearance. Instead of repeating ourselves and hosting the event at one of the usual suspect places (Genting or PD) at the usual timeframe (June/July), we decided to make some changes this time.

THE GREAT ZIMBABWE from Splotter Games

SPIEL Essen this year ends on 27 Oct, and what typically happens after Essen is that we’ll have a series of new Essen releases we bring to the OTK tables to playtest. Last Essen (2012), some of the notable playtests we did were THE GREAT ZIMBABWE, CO2, TZOLKIN, VILLAGES, SUBURBIA, BRIEFCASE, CRUDE THE OIL GAME, SAMURAI SWORDS, etc

CO2 by Vital Lacerda

We’ll likely have another batch of new Essen releases for Playtest this year but instead of hosting that at our OTK meetups, we are thinking … why not get those playtests done at our BGC Retreat?

Above: Andreas and Zara playtesting SUBURBIA @ OTK

Last two retreats we hosted were at Genting and Port Dickson. One of the key factors we chose these two locations is they are no longer than an hour plus drive from KL. We thought of reverting to Genting for this year, until waiyan suggested we go green.

This looks green enough. LOL.

Located somewhere near Bentong, it’s distance is within our drive-zone of 1.5 hrs. Only question is whether the location is suitable to host a boardgame retreat.

We decided to pay a site visit to check out the drive, their amenities and also confirm suitability for hosting the retreat.

O..kay. Access security well taken care of!

Haha. This was what confronted us when we reached the Orchard Village. A stream stopping us from getting across to the resort’s main area. It doesn’t look deep but not sure I want to risk driving across it.

Will need to wait for their 4WD to come and pick us up. LOL.

The reception area of Kin Tick Orchard Village….

The main recep looks out to a fantastic view of greenery!

We are likely going to host our Retreat game sessions here… a change from the stuffy function room style though they do have a nice function room we can use.

Pool table for the times in-between boardgames?

These are real STONE Houses where we’ll certainly do a round or two of AGRICOLA. Oh.. You’ll be sleeping in them btw. J

Apparently the owner is in the solid wood furniture business as well, so you’ll see lots of wood complementing the greenery here. I asked but no, he’s not interested to trade his wood for your sheeps. 😛

For more pics from our site visit, pls check out our Facebook album.

WHAT

An offsite retreat over the weekend devoted primarily for like-minded boardgamers like yourself to gather and enjoy each other’s company over one and half days of intense boardgaming!

We usually start early on Sat 9ish and play till 6 pm. There’ll be two tea breaks and one lunch break in-between for Sat. After 6 pm, we refresh and have dinner. It’s free time after dinner but most of us would gather for the much anticipated After-8 session (see below). On Sunday, we resume at 9 am and close the event around 12:30 pm.

Note: The After-8 session back in 2006 was when 1856 was historically played for the first time in M’sia!

The historic Five (from left): Rob, Ryan, Janvier and Hengy. Where’s rhyen? Tsk tsk.

WHEN

We are planning this to happen after we are back from Essen. There’ll be lots of Essen new games to be playtested in this Retreat. We’ve marked the weekend of 30th November (Sat) for this event.

WHERE

The Retreat has always been hosted at someplace close by – or at least no longer than 1.5 hrs away by car – to minimize travel time and maximize playing time! We’ve done this at Genting (2010) and Port Dickson (2011) so this year we are switching gear to a natural orchard village to enjoy it’s lush greenery and fresh air. The venue is near Bentong / Bukit Tinggi and is known as Kin Tick Orchard Village.

HOW MUCH?

Standard fees per person (quad sharing in a real Stone House) is RM250 which includes meals, accommodation and our special BGC Retreat t-shirt! Getting yourself to/from the venue would be at your own cost and we suggest you to car-pool if possible.

WHAT: BGC Boardgame Retreat 2013 (FB Event Page)
WHERE: Kin Tick Orchard Village, Bentong
WHEN: Nov 30 (Sat) 9:00 am – Dec 1 (Sun) 1:00 pm
COST: RM250 per pax including retreat fee, accommodation, meals and t-shirt. Exclude transport.

AGENDA (all timings are tentative and will be finalized closer to event date)

Nov 30, Sat
9:00 am – Arrival of gamers & tea break
9:30 am – Game Zero starts
10:00 am – Retreat Day One starts
12:30 pm – Lunch break
3:30 pm – Tea break
6:00 pm – Retreat Day One ends
7:00 pm – Dinner
8:00 pm – Free-n-Easy or After-8 Gaming

Dec 1, Sun
7:00 am – Early morning jog (optional)
8:30 am – Breakfast
9:00 am – Retreat Day Two starts
10:30 am – Tea break
12:30 pm – Retreat Day Two ends (follows by prize giving)
1:00 pm – Check out

What do you get?

– 1.5 days of gaming (Sat: 10am-6pm, Sun: 9am-1pm)
– Breakfast (Sun only), three tea-breaks as scheduled
– Lunch and dinner on first day (Sat)
– One special edition BGC Retreat 2013 t-shirt
– Playtest Essen new releases and some OOP games
– Learn lots of new (and old) games and play with other friendly gamers!
– Get to play Agricola in a real stone house
– Opportunity to win exclusive hot prizes from Essen!

What’s not included in the package?

– Your travel to/from the location
– Lunch on Sunday. We’ll likely gather and go for lunch around the area but will leave it free-n-easy as some may want to have their own lunch arrangement
– Mosquito repellant (yes pls bring your own unless you are not a mosquito magnet)

BONUS – Generous Discount on Game Purchase

Finally to thank you for your support, all paying Retreat attendees will get to buy one game from our webstore at 40% discount (from retail price)! Click here to check the list of games we currently have in stock.

Note: This discount is valid for 3 months (after the event). To qualify for this discount, you need to be a paying participant for this event, and participated the event in full from Sat-Sun. No deserters!! LOL

SPECIAL BONUS – Hot Games & Prize from Essen

Beside getting the chance to have an early playest of Essen 2013 releases, we’ll also be picking up a special game from Essen to be given to the BGC Retreat Champion for 2013!

AFTER-8 GAMING

Our BGC Retreats are infamous for its After-8 Gaming, which is known to be the “real” deal after a full day of gaming! After-8 Gaming is an open gaming session held after dinner where we will bring to the table games that are of longer duration (epic games), out-of-print games and/or those with higher level of complexity (18xx).

After-8 gaming is self-organized and we’ll leave it to the attendees to decide among themselves what’s going to hit the tables. It’s also an optional event as some attendees may prefer to have an early night or spend the time on their own.

HOW DO I SIGN-UP?

To sign-up for this Retreat, please visit our Facebook Event page (link here). You’ll need to place a Rm100 non-refundable deposit to confirm your seat. Seats will be reserved on a first-come first-served basis subject to receipt of your deposit, and we’ll close the registration once we hit our numbers.

Read what our past Retreat gamers have to say about this event.
(note: the pictures are not directly related to the gamers providing the comments)

“The opportunity to try out many other games was good, however, I think, better was for the opportunity to meet other players, and enjoy playing with them while socializing! I think what really made the event fun, was the people. Everyone was out to have fun. And everyone was laughing, joking, enjoying the games very very much. It was really good.”

“Overall the retreat was great, I got great exposure to numerous games and got to know more people in the local boardgaming community.”

“Will bring more friends along hehe. At first few of my friends were interested but pulled out last minute because of financial issues. After Jacelyn and I came back from the Retreat and shared our stories, they all regretted not going! The post retreat 35% discount was really awesome by the way.”

“Another great thing from the retreat is that we get a shirt for attending the retreat that we wouldn’t otherwise =).”

“Throughout the whole 2 days, the adrenaline rush was crazy because there were so many new games to learn and I was hoping to win the prize =P. Before I knew it, the retreat was already over! It seemed so quick and I was sad that the trip was over but I had loads of fun just playing all the games that I played. I didn’t win most of the games but getting to play them was the best part of it all =D!”

“Well, i had an awesome experience! From the moment we got there before the organizers to having a little teaser round of Serendipity, meeting new people, teaching and playing games. Having a good laugh, not to mention prolly the worst shower experience ever. lol. It was sincerely awesome you guys.”

“we didn’t need to know how to play these games either. the peeps from BGC taught us, as well us some bg (boardgame) gurus. whoaa!!! 2 full days of gaming? awesomeness!”

“do we want to do this again? Is the Pope Catholic? OF COURSE we’ll do this again! with like minded geeks who wanna sabotage each other on the game board?definitely! hehehehe we all have that innate urge to outdo one another.”

“A great write-up on the whole event and great pictures taken! Some were really priceless, like Emils laugh, LChings stare, JCs funny faces lol etc XD!!! I can proudly claim to have participated in all the Board Gaming retreats so far since the 1st Euro Game Retreat back in 2006. I am glad that Boardgamecafe.net revived it again last year in 2010 @ Genting and is running it as an annual community event. I hope this event will continue to grow in the future and you can count on my support!

If you are reading this article and have yet to attend this event, make sure you mark your calendars next year when the date & location is announced! Pictures tell a thousand stories and im sure you can tell that all the attendees in this years event had a BLAST of a time there!!!”

HAVE QUESTIONS?

If you have any questions about this Retreat, do check out the FAQs below. If the FAQs did not answer your question, feel free to throw us your question(s) in the above event page. Or if you prefer to email us, send your questions to events@boardgamecafe.net

1. What’s the “real experience” like of going to this Retreat as opposed to attending a regular meetup?

Meetups usually comprised of the same set of people. In a Retreat – and in our World Cafe model – you’ll get to play with different groups of gamers in these two days, and across different types of games. It’s like a whirlwind tour and it can be “intensely exhausting” to some gamers.

Feel free to read-up our past BGC Retreat reports (2010, 2011) for a detail walk-thru of the gaming sessions.

2. Do I need to stay the full course?

Yes you do. We appreciate if you do since we plan the Retreat on the assumption all gamers stay the course – and not leave early. This is to ensure everyone gets the same set of experience till the end. If you have some engagement that requires you not to be able to participate in all the gaming sessions (except the After-8 session as that’s optional) or need to leave early on Sun, then we would suggest you reconsider this event until you are able to free up your time. Sorry if we sound “rude” here but we simply want to ensure a good overall experience for everyone. 🙂

3. I do not know many games. Is there someone who’ll teach us how to play?

Yes, that’s part of the attraction of the Retreat. You’ll get to learn a lot of new games in a compact 1.5 days! I’ve said before, it’s intensely exhausting but awesome!

4. I do not play “heavy euro games”. Will the games fit me?

Yes. The format of the Retreat only allows for short-medium length games to be played since we want to rotate thru as many games as possible in the 1-2 days of gaming. You won’t find heavies like Caylus, Age of Steam, TI3 or any of the 18xx.

However you are free to propose / suggest games to play during the After-8 session and in the past, we’ve done 1856 (a real heavy), Dune (the original Dune) and there’ve been talks of TI3 (ooooh).

5. Is there a discount to the Retreat Fee (RM250)?

Yes we practice a Loyalty bonus to our Retreat ie if you are a participating gamer from our past Retreats in 2010 (Genting) or 2011 (Port Dickson), you’ll get special rate of RM225. Other than that, no we do not offer any form of early bird or group discounts as the 24 limited seats are on first-come-first-served basis (with deposit paid).

6. Is the RM100 deposit refundable?

Unfortunately no. We are keeping the retreat gamer count to a low 24 so that we can ensure a fantastic experience for everyone. The deposit is to guarantee your seat. However if you can’t make it and you can find a replacement gamer to take your seat, the RM100 is transferable to your replacement.

4. When do I have to pay the balance?

We’ll advise you shortly but we reckon we’ll ask for the balance around September.

5. Will you extend the number to more than 24 gamers?

Not likely. Last year we had 20 gamers and since we fit 4 gamers to a table, that’s five tables we need to manage (and teach). This year we wanted to extend the opportunity to have 4 more gamers join us but we really think 6 tables is the max we can manage without dropping the gaming experience. What’s more important for us is to ensure the attendees leave the Retreat with a Feel-Good experience and not pack more ppl into the event as if that makes us more money.

6. Can I give the 40% game discount to a friend? Is there any games I cannot use the rebate on? Is there a time limit to this offer?

We don’t really mind who “owns” the discounted game but you’ll need to make the purchase yourself since we validate the purchase by your name/attendance at the retreat. We won’t accept an order from someone who call us up and say, “Hi, my fren Joe went for your retreat and I’m calling to buy this game at 40%”. Joe will need to come and buy from us.

So yes, you can buy the game and give it to someone (doesn’t matter to us) as long as you make the purchase personally.

As for blocked games, I would say you can use the 40% rebate on ALMOST all the in-stock games in our webstore even new Essen releases (provided we are able to bring them in within the timeframe). At the moment there’s no game that you can’t use the rebate on. If this changes, we’ll post the blocked game list here.

The 40% game discount offer lasts for 3 months from Retreat date (ie for 2013, the discount lapses on 1 Mar 2014).

7. If I do not wish to take dinner at the Orchard Village on Sat evening, can I get a rebate?

Unfortunately no. One of the reasons we are including dinner in this year’s Retreat was to improve from last year’s experience of the infamous Mexican PD dinner which literally cost us the tempo to do a good After-8 session. Given the location this time is not near any food place, we set for dinner to be taken at the Retreat to allow us more time for either After-8 session or your own free-n-easy within the Orchard.

We are however not arranging lunch for Sunday. That’s when the attendees can self-organize how – and where – they wish to have lunch. We’ll have recommendations (there are some nice restaurants with fresh fish) but you are free to follow your stomach’s instinct. 😛

8. Are the food halal? Vegetarian?

Yes the food is halal. If you have requirements for special diet eg vegetarian, pls let us know when you sign up.

9. Can I buy some of the Essen new games played in the Retreat?

You might be able to. We haven’t decided on this yet but we’ll certainly come back with some special offers for games played in the Retreat (including Essen new releases). We actually have a hot promo we are thinking of.. But it’s so hot we want to think about it before announcing. 🙂

10. What type of accommodation are we staying in?

You’ll be staying in their Stone House (quad sharing) which has two double beds that can fit four people. If you wish for more privacy, we can provide options to upgrade. Beside Stone House, they have the Bali House (also quad sharing but with rooms instead of dormitory style in Stone House) and one Hill House (VIP). Do ask us for the upgrade cost.

11. Can I bring my non-gaming family members?

Yes you can – and are welcome to do so! Kin Tick Orchard Village is really a great place for a weekend family outing. If you are bringing family members, you would definitely want to review your accommodation options. Feel free to discuss your plans with us.

12. Alrite! Where do I sign up?

You can sign up by RSVPing as “Yes” to this Facebook event page. We’ll contact you with details for paying your deposit. 🙂

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If the above Q&A did not answer your questions, feel free to post them as comments here or in our Facebook Retreat Event page. We’ll get back to you promptly on your questions.

See you in Kin Tick this Nov/Dec!

RELATED READS

BGC Retreat 2010 – BGC Report
BGC Retreat 2010 – Ayheng’s Report
BGC Retreat 2010 Albums – Game Zero, Game One, Game Two, Game Three, After8

Over 500 pics of 40+ different games played over 2 days
BGC Retreat 2011 – Game One (Day One) Game Zero Photo Album
BGC Retreat 2011 – Game Two (Day One) Photo Album
BGC Retreat 2011 –Game Three (Day One) Photo Album
BGC Retreat 2011 – Game Four (Day Two) Photo Album
BGC Retreat 2011 – Game Five (Day Two) Photo Album
BGC Retreat 2011 – The Finale (Day Two) Photo Album