London’s Somerset House to hold gaming festival and exhibition in April

A weekend celebration and month-long exhibition of games is to take place at London’s historic Somerset House during April, as part of the city’s London Games Festival.

The celebrations will kick off with the return of the Now Play This weekend event from April 7th to 9th, which will include both tabletop games and video games alongside each other.

Among the attractions on show over the three days will be the Cabinet of Impossible Games, which will throw a spotlight on prototypes and titles that were never finished or released to the wider public, including designs for unproduced board games.

On the Saturday, April 8th, a day-long board games showcase will include visitor access to a library of tabletop titles, including some that are yet to be released – such as RainboDisko, a board game apparently played using a spinning record player. In the evening, designers and artists will give talks on encouraging more people to play together.

Also opening on April 7th and running for a month until May 7th is Game Changers: Another Way to Play, an exhibition delving into the process of game design for both digital and physical titles.

It sounds like the display will be skewed towards physical titles, looking at how traditional classics such as chess have influenced modern creators in both mediums, with hands-on demonstrations of the modified chess variant Orthogonal/Diagonal and the randomised mobile game Really Bad Chess.

Tickets for Now Play This are £8 (slightly cheaper for concessions), with Game Changers free to enter.