UK Games Expo 2025 Convention Diary – Sunday & Top Five Non-Gaming Expo Things
The final day dawned and I’d not paid for breakfast this time. given it was pretty mid compared to some hotels I’d stayed at, I didn’t mind heading to a cafe at the NEC for a coffee and a muffin while waiting to meet up with a friend.
Big Table
I’d bumped into James Wallis in the press preview and attended his Big Table talk on Saturday. As I was looking around for a sticker of Astarion from Baldur’s Gate III to get for my partner, I found the Big Table at a surprisingly small table.
We had a chat, but I’ll get into this in a future article. Personally, as someone who’s been thinking a lot about legacy and helping improve ways of working both in my day job and in gaming, it’s been interesting seeing someone trying to help this along. Big Table’s definitely something to keep your eye on if you’re in the industry.
The British and Irish Games Trade Assembly “Big Table” can be found here.
Folded Space
I love the Folded Space board game inserts. My partner likens them to three-dimensional puzzles and while I like putting them together, she’s far better than me at doing them.
Folded Space were showing off their colour inserts and it feels incredibly petty to say, but I really love the colour versions. The inserts work well both in the box and on the table when playing games, so making them look prettier than grey foam is a good touch.
Chatting with them about what they’re doing next is always an interesting experience. So often it’s a case of asking, “What are you doing next?” And it’s pretty much more of the same. In addition to the colour inserts, they’re looking to update their packaging so they fit better on game store shelves alongside their board games, but that wounded like it as far as innovations in the space.
Folded Space can be found here.
Anomalia Games
I was in a rush to get to my coach and to get a last minute chat with Rowan, Rook & Decard when I got distracted by RPGs in tin cans. It looked like an interesting gimmick, but I rolled my eyes, figuring these “Emergency Roleplaying Games” would end up being some kind of 5E clone. Then I got clobbered by someone asking if I wanted a quick demo of the rules.
Fine, I bit. We were interrupted by a Dalek who’d been pestering them by trying to knock over the cans throughout the convention. When they’d passed, the designer of the games came to speak to me.
Anomalia aren’t normally in the market for making their own RPGs, but after finding a source for tins, came up with the idea of an ‘emergency RPG’ which people could have around and pop open if they needed a game. The rules are extremely basic and in large print to encourage players of all ages.
The GM book has the rules and a set of mad lib style entries about the setting at the back. These can be filled in by the GM ahead of time or by the group as a whole. Then there are ‘skeletons’ which are adventures each contained in their small booklets and referencing the answers in the mad lib section of the rulebook.
The system is nice and simple, with the tin containing the relevant dice, pencils and tiny character sheets. There are two versions at the moment, “The Start” is adventuring-based while “To Arms!” Is a war story. The skeletons can be used independently or together to make a connected story, but they’re also genre-agnostic. This means that To Arms’ skeleton had to be vague enough to make connected war stories which could be fantasy, science fiction, apocalypse and so on. It’s a neat idea, and there are plans to make horror and superhero versions if these first ones sell.
You can sign up to be notified when this project launches on BackerKit here.
After a brief chat with Grant Hewitt (I’ll cover that in a future article), I hoofed it over to the coach and rode home watching episodes of Star Trek for Casual Trek, all based around weird space pregnancies. This made for an awkward journey of trying to tilt my iPad so the group of youths near me couldn’t see the extreme close-ups of Troi giving birth to a cosmic entity.
Top Five Non-Game Things At UK Games Expo
And now, here are some non-game-based things of note from the convention.
Fans
The hot new fashion accessory of UK Games Expo! Next year I definitely need to remember to bring either my hand fan or my USB fan which plugs into my Anker power battery.
On my way to the press preview I saw someone with a massive fan they were carrying and I didn’t realise how jealous I would be for the whole event. There were people with hat-fans, small fans, fans on their wheelchairs. Even dressing in shorts and a light floral shirt wasn’t enough to keep me cool in the halls. By Sunday, there were stalls selling fans for people and I’m sure they made a killing.
Corners
UK Games Expo’s halls are normally One and Two, separated by a set of stairs, and Hall Three, separate from both of those entirely. This year it was Hall Two, Three and Four, which were all connected by large open corners. The layout of the stalls meant that it was possible to keep going and not realise that you’d changed the angle you were at in a hall. There were multiple times I’d lost track of which hall I was in, and in trying to leave found my way at the back of the a different hall entirely.
By Sunday I was a bit more used to it, but this made for a very disorientating convention.
The Starbucks Workers
First of all, I must apologise to my Casual Trek cohost Miles who used to be a Starbucks worker. I generally don’t go there out of solidarity, but they have the best hidey hole for relaxing and being away from crowds in the NEC. I went there a bunch during the con and they were swift, patient and one of them made an art out of dramatically bellowing people’s names.
I feel in return for mentioning Starbucks here, I should link to Starbucks Workers United.
Staying Near, But Not Too Near the NEC
The Crowne Plaza was a short walk away from the main hall. I wasn’t in a rush and I was out of view of the convention itself. During breakfast I could watch the procession of nerds on their way to the con, then join them. At night I could walk back from the Hilton, past the trees and alongside the water. It made for great decompression on the way to and from the con.
Sitting Down
On Saturday afternoon I walked past a person who was sitting down at a demo and they let out a sigh of relief. I was so jealous. I couldn’t wait to sit down, too. Unlike the fans, I can’t really do much about that next year, just remember to take some breaks or participate in some well-planned demos in order to rest up periodically.
A runner up is the time that someone sat on their walkie-talkie meaning that none of the staff could communicate. This was announced mainly through shouting.
With that, my daily coverage is finally over! I’ve got a couple more articles to share with you soon. Hopefully when I cover Essen later this year, I won’t be overcome with con crud.
