Draughts Board Game Cafe in London

I think you should know that this game is way complicated

We've been meaning to go to Draughts for a while. the first Board Game Cafe in London. In case you're not sure what a "board game cafe" is. It's a cafe. With board games. And it's awesome.

You pay a fiver each for a session and then have literally hundreds of games, all neatly categorised, for you to grab off the shelf and have a go with. I wonder if they'd charge 'game corkage' if you brought your own games? Anyhoo,  they also have great coffee and amazing brownies (and I'm a connoisseur) 

I've always fancied having a go at the Thunderbirds board game, and they had a copy there. The box says the game takes around 40 minutes to play. That might be true. But it also took us around 40 minutes just to set the game up.

Each player takes on the role of a character from the show and pilots Thunderbird craft around the globe performing rescues and defeating the Hood's evil schemes. Or in our case losing. In around 40 minutes. The loyalty to the show is pretty slavish. The nicely printed cards are all dotted with stills from the episodes. There are FAB cards you can play, pods you can load with equipment and even the automatic camera detector gets a look in.

And yet, I'm not completely sure it's fun just yet. I think a lot of the problem was lack of familiarity, and numbers - there were only two of us playing - but I'd love to have another go. 

As for the venue, as we left around Sunday lunchtime it was filling up nicely. If I lived in London I don't think I'd want to go anywhere else on Sunday morning. 

Hull has a boardroom cafe too, the Boardroom. I really must check it out.