The Meeple Guild: A PnP offering ideal for the season

YORKTON - Board games can be relatively expensive, at least some have higher initial prices which some budgets might struggle to work in.

Now when you do some number crunching, hours to play times number of players, the recreational cost per hour per person soon plunges to far lower levels than say fishing, golf or hockey, but that doesn’t mean everyone can buy one for the season.

So why not give a print ‘n play a try.

Many PnP games are downloadable free, and have limited pages to print, and require limited added materials to play, and are available for solo, or group play, so they can be an option for fun on a tight budget.

With the holiday season upon us it seems a good time to look at the 2021 release from designer Radoslaw Ignatow called Giftbringer.

This is one of those really easy to produce offerings. Once printed – only five pages – “all you need to play the game is a pen, four dice, printed maps and some willingness to share the Christmas spirit,” notes www.awakenrealmslite.com

The game takes you back to the time when Odin was seen as a sort of Santa and in Giftbringer you play as a Viking pretending to be Father Christmas. You must get your crew to deliver as many presents as possible, get all the cupcakes, biscuits and thank you's in return and of course earn enough points to win.

The game can be played by virtually any number of players, (two or more), all they need is their own player’s map page, so it’s great for a Yule party.

Four dice are rolled and each player uses the numbers to perform a bunch of different actions, and you do that over 10 rounds. It’s simple enough, but with enough decisions to make it challenging too.

Helping the experience is really nice ‘cartoony’ Viking art, that really fits with the light-hearted feel of the game.

Thanks to the database at www.boardgamegeek.com I was able to arrange a quick email interview with the designer to learn a bit more about Giftbringer and its creation.

Not surprisingly Ignatow comes as a gamer himself listing Mage Knight, Aeons End and Ubongo as favourite games.

But I was more interested in Giftbringer.

“This is a commissioned project done for Awaken Realms Lite, they are the owners of this game - I am only the author,” related Ignatow. “They asked for a roll and write game in a Christmas climate. I already had a game developed about Vikings attacking a town, it was changed very interestingly to deliver presents.”

The game is not a first effort for Ignatow.

“I have been creating games for 20 years for my own pleasure, commercially for three. I have created quite a few,” he offered.

So with Giftbringer what was he trying to achieve? 

“In that case, complete the given command and create a game fit for Christmas that can be printed on a single sheet of paper,” he said, reiterating it was a job in this case.

But, it still offers fun.

“In my games I always focus on making them force you to think and plan with the simplest possible rules, this can also be found here,” said Ignatow.  

“I think the combination of the great simplicity of the rules with a large dose of combination and a short game time. This is what I myself like in games.”

In that regard Ignatow said Giftbringer offers “quick gameplay, simple rules and a lot of thinking combined with a Christmas atmosphere. I think few games meet all these conditions.

More will no doubt be coming from Ignatow.

“I work on new games all the time, I do it professionally,” he said. “My last project was a very successful Kickstarter game about a castaway 'Island Alone' and in February 2023 I am launching on KS with a game about cat burglars in a fantasy world.

“I don't plan anything related to Giftbringer for the time being.”

But if you are looking for some low cost gaming fun with a seasonal flavour, you can download the files at awakenrealmslite.com