Wednesday 15 February 2017

Just Divine

Whoever decided to schedule Valentine’s Day on a Tuesday this year needs, in my opinion, a good talking to. Due to this special day, there were only three of us this week. Me (the host), Ian and Katy. Katy brought as many games as she could, plus we all brought snacks, meaning the snack/player ratio was an impressive 1:1.

Our first game was Isle of Skye, which Katy tried her best to convince us she was bad at. She mentioned how much she struggled with money last time, and Ian had to remind her that she’d actually won that game.

"It's very zone-y."

I haven’t played in a while and, boy, did it show. Once again I ended with lots of money, but any tiles I wanted either vanished or were bought before I could get them. Luckily Ian and Katy set up a close finish to add a bit of excitement.

Ian 57
Katy 55
Andrew 17

Next up was Divinare. As I explained the rules to Katy, she kept asking if there was another game like Divinare that she thinks she played ages ago. I said I didn’t think so, but she insisted there was. Then I remembered I’d brought it to Roll For The Soul once and the mystery was solved: Divinare is the game that’s like Divinare.


It’s a fun game: a bit luck based and there’s a bit of screwage in there too. I should bring it to games nights more often. Katy proved herself to be best psychic.

Katy 17
Andrew 11
Ian 11

This was followed by Verflixxt (or That's Life), which now comes in its own bespoke carrying pouch since Katy was appalled at the oversized box that originally housed it.


As for the game, we all got two of those clover tiles (complete with illustration of a dog in a parcel) to turn negatives into positives, but Ian also got an armload of positives too. I was doing okay until right at the end when I rolled a bunch of ones, stealing last place from Katy who – up until then – had been the unluckiest roller.


Ian 27
Katy 11
Andrew 9

Next up was more dice! This time, Roll Through The Ages. This was new to Ian and Katy but it didn’t take long for them to get the hang of it. Katy loves a scoresheet and wrote “Dr Katy” at the top of hers, causing Ian and I to add “BA (Hons)” to our names, keen to show our higher education credentials too.

Ian soon had four developments and it looked like he was about to end the game, but he couldn't get enough money together to buy that last development. My joy was short lived, however, as he used the people he got instead to finish off monuments that I had already started.


At the end of the game, when adding up our scores for developments and monuments, we all scored nineteen points! As such, it was down to who had least disasters.

Andrew 19
Katy 15
Ian 14

Then finally, with Ian keeping an eye on the clock for his train home, we played Push It. Or Speed Push It as it might have been called. Only up to seven and, on my small table, we got it over and done with in double quick time with Ian scoring two-pointers three times. Ever the gracious host, I decided not make the game last any longer by staging a dramatic comeback. And that’s the story I’m sticking with.

Ian 7
Katy 3
Andrew 0

And so the evening ended at a sensible 10.25pm. Thanks guys. Hopefully we’re a bit more populated next week.

On the Division we have points along the x-axis, points ratio up the y-axis and the size of the bubble indicates the average complexity of the games played by each player, according to Board Game Geek. Ian is now second, while only a few weeks ago he was back in sixth!


5 comments:

  1. I'd be up for some Divinare, it's been too long. I wrote a review of it on BGG once that had the same title as this blog post.

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  2. Sounds like a fun night. The leaderboard is beginning to have a narrative outside of its population as well!

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  3. Thanks Andrew for hosting and Katy for being there(and the gin). Good night. Quite pleased with my Isle of Skye performance in particular, after a middling performance so far this season it's good to get some wins!

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  4. You deserved all you got win-wise Ian, you made mine and Andrew's performance on the night look some what lacking, but there's always next week... Rest assured, as you rightly did last night, I shall be calling you on any game grumblings next week! Despite my current form, I really enjoyed all the games and on the way to the station Ian even convinced me to try Feast of Odin if I get the chance.

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