UKGE the Third: 2025

Image from the UK Games Expo website

At the end of May or the beginning of June, UK Games Expo rolls around. 2025 was my third consecutive (and third total) year of attendance–and by far my most ambitious. Unlike the previous two years, where I attended just one day of the three-day event (the Saturday), this year I went all in and stayed for the full three-day span. Let’s talk about it.

I’ve done a lot since last UKGE. First among those things, I’ve published half a dozen more games, as well as got a print run of Summit. This meant that I had copies to sell through the UK Tabletop Industry Network stall! I sent 15 copies and was thrilled to hear that Summit completely sold out!

Stamp Quest was back once again, run, as last year, by UK TIN. I was asked to make a map for the second year running and think it came out very nicely. You can find that map here, if for some reason you want to get it now, after its main purpose is fulfilled. As with last year, I went around to every stall and got both my map and the official pamphlet stamped, though this year I also gave each stall a copy of my map, to allow them to direct people to other participants more easily. I was pleased to hear at various points over the weekend that people were finding it useful.

Left: the official Stamp Quest Map for UKGE 2025; Right: the same map, overlaid with the stamps of all particpants.

Another advantage of having been doing this a few years now is that I walk up to stalls and people recognise me. I had the pleasure of chatting with Steph and Fearne of CobblePath Games, for instance, at my very first UKGE, back in 2023, when I was running on 1 hour of sleep and a 5am start… Everything has been an improvement from there. Along the Stamp Quest route in particular there were many familiar faces. A few people I’d never chatted with before recognised me, too, which was a pleasant surprise.

It was great to chat to people about their games and their convention experience at their stalls, but it was even better to talk to them in the more relaxed environs of the unofficial TTRPG meetup on the Saturday night. I spent much of it talking with Dan and Tom of Biosphere Guardians 2050/PlayFrame, who were wonderful to chat with, as well as Mikhail Malkin, the absolute trooper who manned the UK TIN stall all weekend.

My main objective this UKGE was to talk to people about an initiative I helped found in the past few months: Chimera Hearts. Chimera Hearts aims to bring the hobby of TTRPGs to a wider audience outside of D&D, connect existing communities and help players find and learn the perfect games for them. Everyone I chatted with about the initiative was very enthusiastic, and I look forward to seeing what more can come of it. I’m currently working on a project within the initiative that I hope to reveal in the next month or so!

A banner for Chimera Hearts, created by Grace Gittel Lewis

I attended five talks over the weekend: one on Friday, three on Saturday and one on Sunday. Friday’s talk, “Playing in the Bomb’s Shadow”, was given by Malcolm Craig, a senior lecturer in US history and expert in Cold War TTRPGs. It was fascinating to hear about how trends in post-apocalyptic RPGs followed real-world events, as well as hear about a bunch of obscure games in the genre.

Saturday’s talks began with a snippet of “Mining British Folklore for TTRPGs”, which, while I couldn’t stay long, was full of interesting local legends. The second talk, “RPG GAME DESIGN, to make your players happy!” included the most audience participation of any talk I attended, with discussions of character deaths, combat duration and the perils of leaving things to chance.

Hosted by Big Table, an organisation for tabletop business founded by James Wallis among others, the final talk of Saturday, the “State of the industry panel”, brought experts from various areas of the UK and Ireland tabletop industry together to discuss the US tariffs, green manufacture, localisation, and potential for expansion. It was a very interesting discussion and I look forward to seeing how Big Table develops and what the coming year brings for the industry.

Sunday’s talk was on solo games, as wargames, TTRPGs and board games. While interesting, I didn’t feel like I learned as much as I might have. Asking at the end, however, I was pleased with the consensus that solo games could be a good entry to the TTRPG hobby, as an alternative to D&D, certainly for a particular demographic.

My general impressions of the convention were that it was busier than previous years but easier to get around – the Friday felt equivalent in attendance to the Saturday last year. The aisles had been widened this year, which helped–there was much less shoving and pushing through crowds, which was a nice change. I was very glad I planned what I wanted to see, and that I had my Stamp Quest map (and the TIN members variation) to navigate by, as the official map didn’t show how the halls joined.

14 of the 15 games I obtained at UKGE 2025

Of course, it wouldn’t be a tabletop convention without me buying some TTRPGs, and buy some TTRPGs I did. If you want to hear my deep dive into what I obtained and where I got them, check out my Bluesky thread. If not, here’s the list and a picture of the collection (though the picture doesn’t include Fabrication: A Game That Makes Games).

• WILD by David F. Chapman

• PSYCHODUNGEON by Kayla Dice (Rat Wave Game House)

• The Wretched by Chris Bissette (Loot the Room)

• Wreck This Deck by Becky Annison (Black Armada Games)

• Mothership: Warden’s Operation Manual (Tuesday Knight Games)

• Dead Letter Society by Rori Montford (Montford Tales)

• Chiron’s Doom by Nick Bate

• To Honour and Obey by Laurie O’Connel (12 Pin Press)

• Exclusion Zone Botanist (Exeunt Press)

• Mothership: Player’s Survival Guide (Tuesday Knight Games)

• Slayers by Spencer Campbell (Gila RPGs)

• Orbital Blues by Sam Sleney, Josh Clark & Zachary Cox (SoulMuppet Publishing)

• Mörk Borg by Pelle Nilsson (Stockholm Kartell & Ockult Örtmästare Games)

• Dialect by Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalıoğlu (Thorny Games)

• Fabrication: A Game That Makes Games by Joshua Kitz (Compose Dream Games)

I look forward to UKGE every year, not just for the games but for the people I get to interact with there–everyone is passionate about what they’re playing, what they’re making and what they love. I got to do more this year than I have ever before and came away exhausted and very happy. Here’s to next year!