Malaya Madness - February 2014 - The Attendees

The Attendees

From the time George first mooted the idea publicly, I’d tried to be involved in promoting Malaya Madness, hoping to get some Aussie ASLers to come along (no joy, unfortunately), and when I saw John Knowles was actively considering attending despite his reservations and disdain for competition-oriented events, well that was even more reason to make damn sure I made it to Singapore.

There were going to be a fair few Gamesquad residents attending, including Mark Humphries and Ian Percy, plus some relative newcomers to ASL like Vlad See and Jackson Kwan. The enthusiasm was definitely there and I felt like my attendance would mean I was actually putting something back in to the ASL community in some small return for the years of enjoyment the game has given me.

So in the end we had a group of 14 attendees in total, some of whom were only able to drop in for one day. Never mind, it’s better to attend at all than spend time after the event wondering why you didn’t.

Of the attendees, I would say there were four or five who had been playing for five years or more, notably Alan Smee, George Bates, John Knowles, Ian Percy and myself.  Then there were the experienced boardgamers who were finding their feet in ASL: Mark Humphries, Zeke Crater. These are people with life and gaming experience.

The newer players had the enthusiasm of the neophyte ASL player, but a willingness to learn, socialise and participate in an ASL event for the first time. Malaya Madness turned out to be their event as George had always intended it to be and his work in organizing this cannot be overstated.

So for Jackson, Vlad, Stanley, David plus Jaime and the others who attended, Malaya Madness was an eye-opener into the all-consuming passion that ASL can become. I mean, what kind of lunatic flies 6000 kilometres to play 3 games of ASL over a long weekend?*

 

 

* I had intended to play 6 games, but there were external issues back home that affected my health  to the point where I had to can playing after the Saturday.

Malaya Madness - February 2014 - Travel & Accommodation

Planes, Trains and Hotels

If I was going to make attending Malaya Madness a reality, I needed to minimise costs as much as possible, so it was off to a budget carrier for my flights and some research into cheap lodgings while in Singapore.

As far as flying goes, there is no way I wanted to use Ryan Air or Jetstar (Qantas’ budget carrier offshoot). I’d much rather fly with a regional carrier who was based out of Singapore and thus had planes returning there constantly.

I briefly dallied with Singapore Airlines and Cathay-Pacific but couldn’t find a reasonable priced ticket to fit my austere budget. However Scoot Air is Singapore Airlines’ budget flagged carrier and they were offering a return ticket for AUD $450! A win for the ASL junkie!

Scoot had to be better than the only alternative Jetstar, who were getting a lot of very negative press online and in the domestic media at the time. As it turned out I made the right choice as the not only was the outbound light with Scoot more comfortable than many of my Qantas flights across the Tasman, but also it left the ancient United/Qantas 747-400 I’d flown to ASLOK XXV well behind.

Now that the flight was booked and paid for, it was just a matter of finding a place to stay. This could have been a bit of mission, but after viewing a few places on Trip Advisor and reading some reviews, the choice was very simple. I’d budgeted for around $100AUD per night at most, and I was having no problem finding places. When I first pondered attending, I’d done a cursory search online and one place stood out as very new, very distinctive and looked to be great value for money.

 

Many years ago I first heard of “Coffin” style accommodation in FASA’s Shadowrun RPG, and as I only needed a secure place to crash at night, all the expensive extras a standard Hotel would offer just weren’t needed. So I booked my 4 nights at The Pod. For less than SGD$50 per night, I ended up being very pleasantly surprised at the value I received. 

The kicker was that the beds were good quality, security was excellent given the dorm style accommodation and the location was central enough to the interesting parts of Singapore and access to the MRT system was within a short stroll.

So flights and accommodation were all sorted and in the event were great value for money.