Gaming

a day exploring the games cafes in norwich

By holly jackson

As some of you may know, there are several gaming cafes in Norwich, which are a fun trip out whether you’re looking to play board games or video games. I spent a day exploring these cafes and seeing what they’re all about.

1. The Games Table - Located in Lower Goat Lane This board game cafe was the first place we went. For a more casual experience, which we opted for, you simply pay £1 for the table and buy yourself a drink. This gives you an hour to play some classic board games, such as Guess Who, Connect 4, and Jenga. We played these three games and had a great time. If you’re after a more intense gaming session, for £6 per person, you can rent out a table for four hours, which gives you access to an extensive library of games (and believe me there was a lot to choose from!). There is also a wide range of board games available to buy if you wish. I found The Games Table to have a very fun and friendly atmosphere, and is a great place to go with friends.

2. One Life Left - Located in St Benedicts St Next, we went to One Life Left, which is a video games cafe offering plenty of choice. You can rent a screen for half an hour for just £2.50, or an hour for £5, which is what we did, giving you access to the screen and two controllers. Their menu offers some classic cakes and hot or cold drinks, as well as snacks. There were so many consoles and games to choose from we didn’t know where to start! After browsing the long list of games available, we decided to begin on the Nintendo Switch, and played Super Mario Kart Deluxe 8, followed by Super Smash Bros, accompanied by some cake. We then switched over to PlayStation 4 Pro, and played Sonic Racing to finish off. Again, this cafe had a great atmosphere and very helpful staff, and I would recommend it. It was also interesting to see the range of older consoles there, which I’d definitely suggest checking out, especially if you fancy taking a trip down memory lane. Moreover, One Life Left holds gaming events on different days of the week. If you’re interested there is plenty of information on their website and FaceBook.

3. Slice and Dice - Located in St Benedicts St Lastly, we went to Slice and Dice, which is another board games cafe. It costs £5 per person which gives you four hours to play, and a large selection of games to pick from. Slice and Dice offers a 100% plant based menu, serving sandwiches and hot food, as well as snacks. They also have a wide range of drinks, from milkshakes to cocktails. Here, we had a pot of tea and tried out some games that we hadn’t heard of before. We started off with Pentago, which is a strategy game in which you must line up five marbles in a row. However, after placing each marble, you must turn a quarter of the board 90 degrees, making it challenging. I soon found out strategy games are not my strong point!

Next, we played another game which we hadn’t seen before, called Thrive. This is another strategy game, with some more complex rules that took us a while to wrap our heads around. The aim of the game is to outsmart your opponent and take control of the ‘pond’ (the board). Lastly, we played the classic game of Uno. Again, the atmosphere was lovely, and very relaxed, with soothing music playing in the background. This would be a great place to go if you prefer quieter spaces.

Overall, we had a lovely day out. Our visit to all three cafes totalled at about £25, which is not bad at all considering we didn’t manage to make full use of the time given in every cafe (and bought plenty of refreshments). Each cafe is certainly a bargain, especially the 4 hour slots provided by The Games Table, and Slice and Dice, which is ideal if you’re meeting up in a larger group for some intense game playing. An hour in One Life Left between two players works out at just £2.50 each, which is absolutely a sufficient amount of time to explore several games. Although it is very hard to pick, I think my personal favourite cafe would be Slice and Dice, as they had a lot of obscure board games to pick from and a broad menu, making it a great place to visit at any time of day.

If you’re looking for something new to try out with friends, I would highly recommend visiting these places.

Photo: Holly Jackson

gaming

21 Exploring the highly anticipated update of Animal Crossing: New Horizons By becca patchett

If I’m honest, I haven’t been on Animal Crossing New Horizons for two months. My islanders were not pleased to say the least, especially Agnes. After ruffling my hair back into place and ridding my house of cockroaches, I set off to beg my villagers for forgiveness.

The reason for my return to the game was the highly anticipated 2.0 update. After a year of owning the game I had become complacent with my island. The update was scheduled for release on the 5th of November but was released a day early, so I went to explore it.

Isabelle greeted me by announcing that as resident representative, I will oversee ordinances and that I can now go to uninhabited islands via boat trips from the island pier. To find out what an ordinance is I went to see her, where she explained that, as resident representative, I can pass or dismiss ordinances to make life easier on my island. Whenever I want to do this, I can talk to her to ‘review island features.’ To be able to enact an ordinance you have to pay 20,000 bells for ‘paperwork.’ There are four different ordinances: The Beautiful Island ordinance, The Early Bird ordinance, The Night Owl ordinance and The Bell Boom ordinance.

As I was already in the town hall, I checked the Nook Stop to explore its new services! Island life 101 gives you daily advice and information on living on the island. Be a chef! DIY Recipes+ allows you to make a kitchen at a workbench and the kitchen allows you to make food with crops you’ve grown (seeds can be purchased from Leif) or ingredients you’ve collected! The Pro Camera app updates the camera on your phone by using the – button, allowing you to see from your character’s perspective. There are also three new updates to the custom designs app. The Custom Design Pro Editor+ gives you the ability to design face cut out standees, hand held flags, umbrellas and uchiwa fans as well as adding 50 design slots. The Custom Designs Portal means that you can press on the X button whilst on the Custom Designs app to access the online design portal. Custom Designs Patterns+ gives you a wide new range of patterns that you can wear, and put on the floor or the wall by pressing + on the custom design app.

After running around trying out the new features I found Norma in my house which means that islanders can finally invade your personal space like you do to them! How exciting!

The most highly anticipated part of this update is the return of Brewster. After running around the island trying to find the café, I finally found Blathers with a thought bubble over his head. Blathers ponders over opening a café in their museum to attract more visitors, but mentions that Brewster hasn’t been seen for a long time. He hints that Brewster may be in search of Gyroids and could be on an uninhabited island.

I ran as fast as my ‘B’ button would take me to my island pier to find Kapp’n sitting happily on a boat. Trips on the boat cost 1,000 miles which is fully worth it just to listen to Kapp’n to sing you songs on the journey, which you can clap along to. When you arrive at the island, Kapp’n explains that the same rules apply on the boat tours as with the plane tours with acquiring tools and if you leave anything on the island, you can’t get it back. On these islands, there is a chance you may discover rare plants such as glowing moss, and vines growing up the cliffs which you can take back and install on your own island.

Eventually, I found Brewster wandering around an island, so I spoke to him and he gave me a Gyroid fragment. You can bury these in a hole and water them. When you see the buried fragment puff with steam, the Gyroid is ready to be dug up the next day! When you return to Blathers after your boat adventure, he is stressed because Brewster is a bird that likes to act quickly and therefore will arrive soon, meaning the museum will be closed for a day for construction before his arrival.

I think that is all for the update so if you need me, I’ll be hiding under my duvet for a month or so, running around my island.

22

gaming Gaming Giant SEGA to Join Forces With Microsoft

By molly phillips

ere has been debate in the online gaming community about whether the gaming giant was being bought out by Microso Corporation, since SEGA published a tweet where they visited Microso ’s o ces.

It has been announced that the Japanese video game company is ‘in principle’ joining forces with Microso . It is an alliance aimed at allowing SEGA to produce games on a global scale, which is accessible via Microso Azure’s cloud platform.

For the uninitiated, Microso Azure is a cloud computing so ware. SEGA is not the rst gaming company to join Microso Azure’s network - Bungie (Destiny) and Kra on (PUBG), have, for example, but SEGA is the latest. Microso ’s companionship will allow them to customize their future games. And it seems to have been a successful endeavour already: Reuters says that the news of the collaboration caused SEGA’s stocks to increase by 6% on the day of its announcement. Meanwhile, Microso ’s Sarah Bond complimented SEGA, commenting on the ‘iconic role’ that the company have played in the gaming industry over the years.

SEGA, which was founded in 1960, became part of the mainstream of successful video game companies in the 90s with Sonic the Hedgehog, which was a huge hit with players. eir collaboration with Microso is saturated with the words ‘future’ and ‘global’, as it marks a new era for the company. SEGA is evidently working with current trends in gaming and communication, as well as anticipating future ones and preparing itself to best suit what gaming might become.

With an increase in 5G and cloud services, video games have never been so easily and readily accessible, and SEGA are using this change to their advantage and adapting to a changing climate of technological advances that ultimately make us more connected.

Yukio Sugino, the president and Chief Executive O cer of SEGA, stated “We are very pleased to announce today that we are considering a strategic alliance with Microso to help develop SEGA’s new “Super Game” initiative as well as build a next-generation game development environment.” Sarah Bond, Corporate Vice President of Microso , commented “We look forward to working together as they [SEGA] explore new ways to create unique gaming experiences for the future using Microso cloud technologies”. is forward-focused initiative, dubbed as SEGA’s “Super Game” is an exciting initiative for the gaming world. It is all part of a plan to make this world a more globally connected entity, and the mysterious ‘super game’ will be a large-scale, online title that hopefully lives up to its name.

Photo: Unsplash