Release The Geek

Tabletop and boardgaming is on the rise around the world, and South Africa is no exception. The retail side of this industry in South Africa does have its own challenges - an unsympathetic exchange rate means we're paying more for the product, and the distance from suppliers means more expense due to shipping costs. There are also issues like regional distribution models that, while beneficial for the manufacturers, may cause additional pain for local retailers. Earlier this year, three of the country's biggest tabletop and boardgame wholesalers, Blowfish Entertainment, Skycastle Games & Toys and Boardgames SA came together to start a brand new company - Solarpop. Eugene Vermuelen sat down with us to talk about his path to geekdom, his decision to start Skycastle and what the joining of forces of these three companies means for the gaming community and industry in South Africa.

It's November, which means progressively hairier men and NaNoWriMo: the writing initiative designed to help budding and existing authors create 50,000 words before 11.59 pm on November 30th. In honour of NaNoWriMo, we chatted to Kelan Gerriety, author of 'Crimson Skies' and founder of Sera Blue Publishing about her path to geekdom, what made her decide to start up her own publishing company and why she decided to run a competition that could help another author get published!

Paul "Redeye" Chaloner is one of the biggest names in professional esports, having hosted and broadcast from dozens of countries around the world including the US, Singapore, Australia, China and now South Africa. Paul was in SA in January this year to promote the launch of the Telkom DGL Masters, the biggest esports competition to date in this country. Paul was back in SA at rAge Johannesburg in October to host the Finals event, which was quite the spectacle. We managed to catch up with Paul just before he left to talk about a range of topics including his path to esports geekdom and fame, how SA esports compares to the world skill wise and who his dream broadcast team would be.

Guy Sclanders is a Johannesburg based roleplayer who has been a GM since the age of 12 - he was not forthcoming with how many years that makes. But he's not keeping his trove of skill to himself: Guy produces a large amount of YouTube content giving advice on how to not only be a great GM yourself, but how to be a great player. Starting October 1st, Guy and his YouTube roleplaying group the 'Bacon Battalion' launched their Patreon campaign and are already well on the way to hitting their second funding goal. Guy took time out to chat to us about his path to geekdom, which Starfleet captain he finds is the best and Bacon's journey to the magical YouTube subscription number. An aside - we really want to thank Guy for squeezing in time for this interview: it was actually recording the night before Bacon's Patreon launch, which was a pretty stressful time. Kudos to him for taking time out for us.

ScopeX is a public outreach initiative established by the Astronomical Society of South Africa to promote interest in astronomy, telescope making and astrophotography. Scope-X 2016 happens this weekend in Johannesburg, and we chatted with Allen Versfeld about the state of amateur astronomy in South Africa, the naming conventions of planetary objects (hello, George!), what you can expect to find at Scope-X and great names for supernovas.

#rAge2016 kicks off tomorrow, and "Tech Girl" Sam Wright is taking the Telkom DGL Masters stage as a roaming host for the event. We caught up with Sam recently to discuss her forays into the world of eSports and shoutcasting. We also discuss Sam's manifesty destiny: becoming the Ryan Seacrest of esports!

With #rAge2016, South Africa's biggest LAN and computer gaming event, starting this Friday in Johannesburg, we thought it time to review the state of esports in South Africa. SA's "Tech Girl", Sam Wright, has been named as one of the hosts for this year's Telkom DGL tournaments at #rAge2016. Back in June, 2016 Sam hosted a panel on the topic of esports in South Africa at ICON Comics & Games Convention. Joining Sam on stage were SA gaming legend and shoutcaster Barry "Anthrax" Louzada, gamer Stefan 'Nefan' Smit, and DeWet "RidditZ" Lombard from nAvTv. We humbly present a recording of this panel as a primer for this weekend's gaming fun.

The major crossover events for 2016 are DC's Rebirth and Marvel's Civil War 2, and The Variant Covers team is here to get you up to date with the origins of, and the latest happenings in, both series!

With rAge Expo just around the corner, GeekXP is going to look at a number of facets around gaming in South Africa, particularly around eSports. Our first topic underdiscussion is shoutcasting - the commentating of eSports games such as DOTA 2 and CS:GO. This week's interview is with Shaun Murrell, better known as Profeci, who shoutcasts DOTA 2 matches for nAvTv. Shaun was gracious enough to join us for this discussion and we talked about all manner of things including Shaun's path to geekdom, how he got into gaming and found his way to shoutcasting.

Jay Caboz is an award winning South African photojournalist and covert geek, although his side photography project will surely remove the 'covert' tag for good. While Jay's day job is working for Forbes Africa Magazine, a passion of Jay's is the Cos We Play Project - a photographic study of the growing trend of Cosplay in South Africa, and the stories of the cosplayers themselves. We sat down to chat with Jay about a range of topics including his path to geekdom, how he moved from photography into journalism and why he enjoys the stories of cosplayers so much.