Defecto!

A balmy evening at Joe's house, with the back doors flung wide and Sybil visible on the table, watching the horizon for who knows what. Cats? Birds? Or gamers. Surely she knows Tuesdays by now. We began as a four - the host, Ian, Martin and myself (Sam) with Andy Mosse due to join shortly.

First onto the table was Pikoko, Martin's trick-taking game with three-dimensional peacocks®. Like Hanabi, everyone is unable to see their own cards, but can see everyone else's. Like contract whist, you try to predict how many tricks you'll win - but unlike contract whist, you also predict how many tricks everyone else will win too, and play the cards of the player on your left.

It was an interesting juggle of limited knowledge, speculation, and prediction - what other cards will get played and when. As Andy noted, the peacock theme was probably stumbled on when they were figuring out a card display for the players. We played one round, which was enough for Martin  to display his inherent mastery of trick-takers:

Martin 11
Sam 10
Ian 9
Joe 8

By now Andy was here, so Martin proposed a five-player race around the galaxy in the form of Powerships, another game that reminded me of others: specifically Formula D (speed control) and Robo Rally (damage impeding your control). Each player sets off to pass three buoys and then get to the finish line, avoiding obstacles (planets, dust, moving comets, the edge of the board) and utilising moving elements along the way.

Your speed is controlled by three-sided dice: on your turn you can first rotate the single side of a hex and then move: in moving, you may add a die to what you have in order to speed up, discard a die to slow down, and either keep the numbers you have or roll for new ones. If you hit an obstacle, your ship takes damage and movement is compromised!

Around the first buoy and I surged ahead, stretching towards the second one whilst the others negotiated stage one. But in surging ahead, I failed to plan ahead, and bumped catastrophically into a planet, sending me off course. Meanwhile, Joe was taking the long way around the edge of the board, followed by Martin, whilst Ian and Andy negotiated the shorter but busier centre.

The drama ramped up as they made their way to buoy number three, with Martin first around it, but taking a wide berth again. He got a shock to see Joe, in some kind of galactic Nissan Micra, turning gently around the buoy before shooting off toward the finish, which happened to be Earth. It was a close-run thing, with Martin nabbing the win seconds before Joe rolled over the line.

Martin leads the charge, with Joe and Andy in pursuit

Ian and Andy fought it out for third, and Andy took it. I was still way way behind, but did at least get around the third buoy and nearly pulled off a dramatic finish when I almost sailed through the sun. But it would still have left me fifth...

1. Martin
2. Joe
3. Andy
4. Ian
5. Sam

Great game, and considerably preferable to the two it reminded me of.

Now back on Earth we broke out Decrypto and separated into teams, with myself and Martin versus the other three. Last time I'd played Decrypto I'd felt my clues were too obvious, but in this first game things went too far the other way, with both Martin and I bamboozling each other with our clues for detective. I suggested 'panther' (pink panther!) and Martin 'baker' (Baker Street!). We shot ourselves in the foot, with Martin at one point wailing "We're going to lose!"
"Welcome to my world" I replied.

And we did.

Ian, Joe, Andy - don't screw up
Martin and Sam - do

We changed teams with Andy and I now making a pair, and Martin taking the opportunity to be scathing about his former teammate. This time my clues were more flippant, as I search for elusive, delicate balance of what works in this game. As a result, we were twice decrypted and lost - not helped either when Andy and I guessed correctly but had written the wrong numbers in.

Ian, Joe, Martin - Detectives
Andy and Sam - Defective

Like Montage, I am terrible at this game! But it's great fun. If I could clue myself, I might be onto something.

Next up with Mamma Mia, accompanied by the traditional argument over whether - as Martin asserts - it's Uwe Rosenberg's best game or not. Arle-lover Joe wasn't having it, but Martin was unsurprisingly immovable. Meantime Andy was trying to get the game after a brief explanation and reassurances from all of us that, once he'd played a round, he'd understand it. "Or once you've lost a round" I clarified. But we should have taken Andy's pizza-making abilities more seriously, as he concocted a - for Mamma Mia - huge score, mixing recipes with aplomb in every single round.

Conversely, I made a terrible error of not making my fifteen-ingredient Bombastic pizza when I had the chance. Everyone gasped at my audacity/stupidity, but to be honest it would have used up all my cards, and I just wanted to stay involved. As it was, though, all I did was facilitate Martin's pizza-making with a plethora of toppings to choose from. On the other side of the table to me, Ian kept dropping all his ingredients, possibly distracted by his Mamma Mia duties...

Andy 6
Joe 4
Martin 3
Sam 2
Ian 1

Andy's pizzas, after round two

Last game of the night was Kakerlaken Poker, long appreciated but little-seen in recent times. The game had two mini-death spirals, when Andy tried to get out of the spotlight by passing to everyone in turn, and when Joe repeatedly passed his cards to Martin, only for Martin to flip them over with open disdain to reveal the host's fabrications. Best bluff went to Andy, who passed Joe a card saying it's one of those "green aphid things" - looking for all the world like he was passing a card he didn't know the name of. Joe flipped it over, and it wasn't a green aphid thing after all. We nearly applauded.

The game played out like a Sergio Leone western, with the tension mounting as all of us had pairs and Andy hit a triplet of cockroaches. Joe tried to bluff him into a defeat, but Andy flipped the card revealing more fibbery - and as Joe had no more cards to pass, he lost!

Joe - Kakerlaked
Everyone else - wins!

Lots of fun, thanks everybody. Looking forward to doing better on Powerships next time...