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About

Contact

If you need to contact me about

content on this blog

review opportunties

anything else

you can either make a comment on this page, or email me at lorelorn AT gmail DOT com.

My gamer’s journey

It all began with Battlecars, a very old board game by Games Workshop. I’d played other games before of course, the usual chess, draughts, Monopoly. I was already a gamer, but Battlecars was the first game I played that resonated this simple fact.

Everything I do today in terms of gaming stems from my first game of Battlecars. This was the first stop on my gamer’s journey.

For those who may not have played this 1983 classic, Battlecars puts you in charge of a vehicle driving around a futuristic wasteland – about as close as you can get to Mad Max 2 without being sued.

You get to choose your car’s layout before the game, and you then drive around the board trying to be the last car driving.

I wasn’t very good. I missed most of my shots misjudged my speed, and my car was soon a bullet-riddled wreck.

My driver was still alive though and this is where the game became memorable for my. The game allowed for this and my driver hoped out and began running across the board. His objective was no longer to win, but to leave the arena alive.

Emergent narrative

This sudden flip in the game, and the new challenge I faced stayed with me, even all these years later. He made it, by the way. This way my first major step on a journey that involves not only an enjoyment of games, but of the stories that can emerge organically from playing them.

I enjoy grand, sweeping stories and so games, whether tabletop or computer, needed to meet this dual requirement to really resonate with me. One computer game that succeeded with a similar vintage to Battlecars was the game Doomdark’s Revenge. Recently re-released, this game gives you a task, but leaves the completion method open to you in a game world where local lords raise armies and fight for their liege lord. On some play throughs the casualty list makes Game of Thrones look like Captain America.

Small models, big stories

The next tabletop game to catch my eye was Games Workshop’s Epic Space Marine. This game featured small scale (6mm I believe) models to achieve games which represented grand sweeping battles involving entire companies of space marines, and assorted titans battle tanks and more.

For me this proved to be short-lived, as Games Workshop in their wisdom decided to change the grand scale of the game and instead make it about squad combat that just happened to use tiny models. I’m still not sure why they thought this was a good idea. I passed, as did most other players, and the game sank with barely a trace.

Pixels or plastic

After the demise of Epic I turned back to the computer and was rewarded with the launch of the Total War series of computer games. These took over for me in terms of grand scale and mighty armies, with space aplenty for stories of the rise and fall of empires. Medieval II remains the high water mark of that series for me.

On the tabletop I turned to Warhammer at army end and Necromunda at the skirmish end for story-based games. I was more successful with Warhammer, but learned slowly that whatever game you play, you will ultimately feel let down. By the early 2000s I was ready to walk away from the tabletop.

Branded play

The Lord of the Rings game kept me around, as the scale and storytelling worked so well together. Eventually, as with all GW games, it changed into something I no longer wanted to play.

At this point I was at the age of being interested in the historical titles I had always snubbed in the past. Along came SAGA, a game of battles set in the Viking times.

Now here was a great game in terms of gameplay and storytelling potential. With an army based around a single Warlord, with his bodyguard and closest warriors and allies, the scenarios made for some intense games and great story opportunities.

I still enjoy painting miniatures, and so you’ll see plenty of updates as I slowly get through my collection – sometimes faster than I add to it!

Playing today

These days I still play a little SAGA, but have migrated back to the computer and board games for most of my gaming. I will follow the stories though, wherever they are.

This blog is for all my gaming projects, thoughts and more besides. You’ll find:

Painting Projects. These are stored under their own page, The Projects. Miniatures tend to be provided unassembled and unpainted. Which means muggins here as a lot of assembly and painting to do! I always have more than I can handle on my plate.

Board Games. I’ve been playing board games for over 30 years. I only truly began to enjoy them in the past 10 years. This last decade or so has seen the release of some great games. Board games have been one way of sharing my love of gaming with my daughters.

Card Games. I tend to lump these in with board games when I think about gaming, but many people see them as entirely separate. I play these too, often, and so they will feature here.

Miniatures Games. From epic scale battles to skirmishes with half a dozen miniatures per side, there is a lot of variety in the miniatures space. To me it seems that each year oft he last five has been more of a golden year for miniatures than the one before it.

Computer Games. From the Commodore 64 to the gaming PC I’ve done it all, well, quite a lot anyway. I still play computer games and strategy titles are my favourite. Any articles will tend to be in that area.

Retro. The things I label as retro will be games of any of the above types that I want to talk about that happen to be no longer available.

For the curious, this blog is based in Brisbane, Australia.

27 comments on “About”

Roslyn Petelin
September 18, 2015

David, Your site is phenomenal!!!

LikeLiked by 1 person

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- davekay
  September 18, 2015
  
  Thanks Ros, I appreciate that!
  
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Roslyn Petelin
March 13, 2016

If you’re a gamer, an amazing site is David Kay’s Scent of a Gamer. He has a note on his site to say that he updates it each weekend. How reliable is that? HI, DAVID
I HAVE A CHAPTER IN MY NEW BOOK, HOW WRITING WORKS, IN WHICH I TALK ABOUT ONLINE WRITING. I HAVE MENTIONED YOUR BLOG.
BEST,
ROS

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- davekay
  March 13, 2016
  
  Thanks Ros!
  
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924COLLECTIVE
October 13, 2016

Just discovered your site from the Reader, really enjoying the content,
really a one stop shop for so many of our overlapping interests!

Looking forward to diving in. Keep up the great work!

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- davekay
  October 13, 2016
  
  Thanks, hope you are enjoying all the art!
  
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Editions Caurette
January 15, 2019

Hello!
We are a small publishing house based in France, and we publish comic books and illustration books. Our latest publication – scheduled for the end of January – is a collection of about 400 pages of illustrations by Danish artist Jesper Ejsing, who is mostly known for his work for the card game Magic: the Gathering and for the roleplay game Dungeons & Dragons. The book, which is called Elsewhere: The Fantastic Art of Jesper Ejsing, is full of images of dragons and other magical creatures – such as the famous Demogorgon from Stranger Things! It also contains some explanations by the author himself (the text is both in French and in English).
I noticed that you have already reviewed some art by Jesper on your blog. If you’re interested in receiving a review copy of his new book, please let me know at clemence.a@caurette.com !

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- davekay
  January 15, 2019
  
  I’ve emailed you a reply!
  
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Desiree Myers
May 20, 2020

i love your graphic for the commander deck do you have something like that for the standard deck?

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- davekay
  May 20, 2020
  
  I haven’t seen one for Standard decks, but if you check out the list of commonly played Standard decks at MtG Goldfish that should be helpful.
  
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Will Bailey
May 30, 2020

Came here during quarantine to play through The Bard’s Tale trilogy with your posts at my side when needed. Thanks for the time you’ve put into this I appreciate it and enjoy reading along as I play through it. Much better and more folksy than a lot of the guides out there imho. Thanks!

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- davekay
  May 30, 2020
  
  Thanks Will, I really appreciate those comments and I’m glad you enjoyed the guide!
  
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Henry Chamberlain
December 3, 2020

I’m just wondering what you might know about Critical Role. Is that something that you’re interested in at all? It seems that this RPG phenomena is pretty popular. I’m trying to figure out why it’s so popular.

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- davekay
  December 3, 2020
  
  I think there’s been a number of factors driving the resurgence of RPGs including the social aspect of the games and that you can reasonably get a group together online. Critical Role and other videos in my mind are both promoting RPGs and benefiting from the resurgence.
  
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  - Henry Chamberlain
    December 8, 2020
    
    Thank you!
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
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Karlo Leenhouts
February 5, 2021

correction to bardtale III, Gelidia, Black tower, reveal stairs -> MAFL, SHSP, FEAR, SUEL and SPBI. In the original walkthrough SPBI was not mentioned.

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- davekay
  February 5, 2021
  
  thanks for picking that up and letting me know, Karlo! Fixed now, cheers.
  
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Claire McDonald
October 7, 2021

Hi David,
Claire from MyMiniFactory here. I’ve just come across your blog, you seem to have had an exciting journey from Battlecars and Lord of the Rings to where you are today 🙂
I’m not sure if you’ve heard of MyMiniFactory before, we’re a community-driven platform that hosts creators from all walks of life.
What is the driver for you to maintain a blog? I’d love to learn more and help connect you with more like-minded people.
Feel free to email me, I’d love to chat!
All the best,
Claire
claire.mcdonald@myminifactory.com

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- davekay
  October 7, 2021
  
  Thanks Claire, I will send you an email soon, regards, David
  
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James Burton Dawson
March 8, 2023

Hi David,

Love your Bard’s Tale III Malefia walkthrough.

I have been creating maps for the entire remastered Bard’s Tale Trilogy in GameFaqs under the pseudonym of DarthInsipidus. Already did the first two games and am ready to upload what I created for the third.

Thing is, I am creating a Malefia walkthrough .png to upload to GameFaqs, and since I am basing the walkthrough on what you posted here, it would feel wrong for me to upload it on GameFaqs without giving you any acknowledgment.

Would you like me to put in a plug-in to your site, the BTIII walkthrough link, and a special thanks to you in my document before I upload it? Is it even okay with you if I upload the .png file at all since I am using what you posted?

Please get back to me as soon as you can. Thanks.

Regards,
James, a.k.a. DarthInsipidus
dwnsjms@yahoo.com
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/community/DarthInsipidus

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- davekay
  March 8, 2023
  
  Hi James, thanks so much for reaching out. The short answer is that I’m agreeable to what you have suggested including using my .png files. I will email you in the next 3-4 hours with the specifics. Regards, David Kay
  
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  - James Burton Dawson
    March 8, 2023
    
    Hi David.
    
    I don’t need your .png files. I already created a .png file of my own. The reason I reached out is because since I used your walkthrough to figure out the quickest route through Malefia instead of figuring it out by myself, I wanted to give you some sort of credit/acknowledgment/special thanks. That’s all.
    
    James
    
    LikeLiked by 1 person
  - davekay
    March 8, 2023
    
    I see now, no worries and an acknowledgment and link to part 1 of the BTIII walkthrough would be perfect, cheers
    
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cam
January 9, 2025

Hi. I just created a WordPress account to try to contact you about a post of yours in which my work was featured (and I’m flattered, your blog seems really nice!), but that I’d like taken down as I’m reducing my digital footprint.

Can you get back to me? I’d rather discuss it in private, but you blog has no means to contact you to sort out this kind of issue besides public comment boxes.

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- davekay
  January 10, 2025
  
  My email is lorelorn AT gmail DOT com. Let me know which post as I would be happy to remove it
  
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