Games in their natural habitat

It was a dark and stormy night.

So began Snoopy's famous fictional novel and, by chance, so began this year's GNN games weekend for myself, Sam, Stanley and Ian. We left Bristol in a faint drizzle and the further we got from our homes, the angrier the skies became until it was a relentless, pounding rain when we arrived at the cabin.

We found Adam, Joe, Anja and Jon playing Azul. They paused long enough to welcome us in and show us our rooms: Ian and I shared a room swiftly dubbed The Infirmary due to the medical equipment in the corner.

But back at the game, Adam was ruling the roost. In one round, he'd made a choice so that both Joe and Anja had to pick up tiles that scored negative points and when they tried to retaliate by overloading the middle with far too many of a colour he wanted, he simply picked something else and let Jon end up with seven yellow tiles and nowhere to put them. Jon scored -5 for that round.

Adam 101
Anja 63
Joe 61
Jon 51

There had already been a game before this, Endeavour, which had ended something like...

Jon 72
Joe 66
Adam 65
Anja 59

But now it we were all together, with just one late arrival expected from Swindon. Once we'd settled in we started new games on the long and accommodating dining table(s) we started gaming, while Joe made supper.

Sam, Jon, Steve and Anja went for Luxor, a set-collecting game whose mechanic is that, in your hand of five cards, you can only use the ones at either side with new cards being added into the middle. It ended...

Sam 74
Steve 71
Joe 68
Anja 62

Maybe Anja was put off by her attempts to use the quaint, money-eating payphone in the room.

Ian, Adam and I went for an old favourite, Tinners' Trail. With no rules refreshing to hold us down, we were mining the tin out of Cornwall with no problems (apart from forgetting the bit at the end of  round one when you buy points. You know, the whole point of the game). Ian went for a round of no mining in round two while he built up his infrastructure and I did the same in round three because I'd run out of options. Adam scored consistently through the game and squeaked a win.

Adam 134
Ian 131
Andrew 96

Around this point, Steve arrived from the inky black storm outside, looking a little bedraggled.

With food still a little way off, there was a reshuffling of groups. Ian, Adam, Anja and I started a game of Deep Sea Adventure, complete with the rare sight of Ian doing a rules explanation.

The excitement of this game was supplemented by the occasional token flying in from the neighbouring game of Flipships. Stanley, Jon, Steve and Sam had joined forces to save the world. And, thanks mostly to Stanley, they succeeded.

We had little idea of this impending alien invasion and preferred to dive for treasure. Adam was always first to pick up treasure, much to everyone's annoyance as he used more than his fair share of oxygen. In round three I ignored treasure on the way down, hoping to get something nice on the way back, but succeeded in only landing on empty spaces.

Ian 27
Adam 24
Anja 13
Andrew 4

Next up was the lovely food made by Joe. Everyone won. Stanley got changed out of his school stuff, only to find that the only pair of trousers he'd brought with him were his mum's.

At this point, we decided on a big group game: Word Slam.

What manner of thought processes lead Ian to instantly guess "Undertaker" when presented with the clue "job"? Well, whatever it was, he was right.

The last, hardest, clue was "lactose intolerant" and it was up to Jon and me to communicate it. We briefly considered choosing another, but then thought about the glory if we succeeded. Eventually, we did, but not until our team mates had guessed almost every other nutritionally-linked condition. Jon's team was successful in that round, but we'd won the game overall.

My clues for Lactose Intolerant

Sam, Steve, Joe, Ian, Andrew 4
Stanley, Sam, Adam, Jon, Anja 3

Then we split into two groups. Anja, Jon, Joe and Ian began a late night game of Lords Of Vegas. Adam, Steve and I played a short game of NMBR9 while we waited for Sam to get Stanley into bed.

It was Steve's first game and Adam's first in a while. For the first few moves, they seemed to be in perfect sync, but this example of the hive-mind couldn't beat my clean efficiency. No explainer's curse here!

Andrew 86
Adam 58
Steve 55

Then Sam joined us for a second attempt, and he snuck a win, despite being initially disappointed with his low score.

Sam 72
Andrew 71
Adam 64
Steve 59

Next, perhaps jealous of our neighbours' extravagant wheeler-dealing, we got out Vegas to add to the already copious amounts of dice on the table.

I like Vegas, it has just enough control to make you feel like you're making intelligent choices at the start but by the end of a round, you're blowing on dice and wishing for numbers like a hopeless gambler. I even tried to convince people that higher numbers are harder to roll - that's why they're worth more.

Sam 550,000
Steve 360,000
Adam 340,000
Andrew 210,000

Adam went to bed and Sam, Steve and I defied sleep deprivation for a final game of The Mind.
We packed up a set off to bed with Lords Of Vegas still on the table. It had been an odd game, with the Strip paying out twice before anyone had built on it. But eventually it settled down to the familiar pattern of take overs and cruel fate. Anja remodelled her two-tile casino with double sixes to take over Joe's five-tile casino leaving Joe with the unenviable task of winning a $26m re-organisation.

He succeeded and managed to hang on to the seven-tile casino for the rest of the game, but it wasn't as good as Ian's chain of smaller casinos along the strip that helped him to victory.

Joe seemed pretty happy when the last Strip card came out...

Ian 36
Anja 32
Jon 32
Joe 29


With the time now at midnight, the first day of the weekend came to an end.

The next morning, Stanley and I were up at seven, followed by Sam, Ian and Joe. Apparently, Joe, Adam and Jon were all up at four due to their hot room. Joe tried to persuade them to play a game, but they wouldn't bite.

I played Sam at Patchwork and neither of us did brilliantly.

Sam 6
Andrew -6

Then Jon introduced Joe to Tao Long, a game of two dragons chasing each others' tails. It seemed to be progressing well until Jon knocked his cup of coffee across it. It was a shocking sight to see Tao Long's rather nice board and pieces swimming in milky coffee. I couldn't even bring myself to photograph it but, in the spirit of those clickbait adverts promising heartbreaking photos taken just before tragedy struck, here's a picture of the game with the offending cup in a precarious position.

Tao Long was abandoned while the pieces were left out to dry. Instead they played a game of Circle The Wagons.

Jon 30
Joe 26

Meanwhile, we'd been playing Timeline: General Interest, with its range of noteworthy events. On the cards, that is. Not during the game. Still, a fun diversion.

Sam 0 cards left
Andrew 2 cards left
Stanley 3 cards left
Ian 3 cards left

Then there was some thunder and lightning to enliven proceedings while Joe beat me at Circle The Wagons, 30-25. I really liked it, and it became the go-to game for a quick two player fix during the weekend.

Adam awoke and some people went to and then returned from nearby shops with a Guardian crossword and some beer for Ian, who had already ploughed through his collection last night. Then Adam beat Joe at Circle The Wagons, 28-26.

Now there were enough fully-awake gamers to begin the first big game of the day. It was Martin Wallace’s Auztralia, a game that cleverly mixes a Steam/Railways Of The World mechanism with a zombie apocalypse scenario. The four of us: Sam, Ian, Joe and me, had arrived in Australia to start a new life after mass destruction across the world, only to find that the same creatures live here too.

Thanks to picking up some cards whose special abilities worked together well, I quickly decided on my strategy of just spamming any enemies with my Airship. “You have your gold, I’ve got my bloodlust,” I declared, ignoring a life of mining in favour of war.

Ian made us all laugh by attacking a kangaroo, and then Joe made us momentarily feel bad about our hobby when he said “You can open the curtains now the sun has gone in.”

In the closing stages it was Sam who awoke Cthulu (“What a foolish move,” he remarked) and then watched it trample over his farms, probably costing him the win. Instead it went for the far more peaceful Joe.

Joe 32
Sam 31
Andrew31
Ian 29
Cthulu 18

While this was all going on, Adam played Stanley at Patchwork. I don’t remember the scores exactly (33-17?) but do remember feeling a little bit put out at how well they’d done compared to me and Sam earlier.

Another thing that happened around about now was a game of Flamme Rogue with Anja, Steve, Adam and Jon. My notes inform me that Jon was delayed because he had his finger stuck in a colander, but I don’t remember this myself. I’m sure it’s true, though.

That race ended…

Adam
Anja
Steve
Jon

And they immediately set up to play again, this time swapping in Stanley for Anja and adding a few different types of track, such as cobblestones. And Steve sang in French. I remember looking at the final corner and think Jon had it all sewn up, but it wasn’t to be.

Stanley
Steve
Jon
Adam

In Australia, our travails had ended so Sam began to make lunch. So Anja joined me, Joe and Ian for a game of Kribbeln featuring Das Exclusive, the dice arena so exclusive you can’t even find it on the internet.

During this game we sorely missed Martin and his mathematical mind. On a round where a player mustn’t roll two of a colour, Joe rolled four dice of four colours and two dice of one colour (ie, pink, yellow, black, blue, green, green). We were stumped as to what to roll next to maximise his chances of a win. Rolling the last green seemed obvious, but was only a one in six chance.

The dice amazed us, as dice often do, with Anja getting a last minute successful 4th Kribbeln with the last roll of her dice scoring 33 (five sixes and a three). It would’ve been a miracle, except it only got her into third.

Ian 21
Andrew 20
Anja 18
Joe 17

Then we had lunch and spent some time concentrating on the crossword.

Back on the games, I taught Rajas of the Ganges to Anja and Steve, while Adam played Sam at Akropiri. Meanwhile, at the hardcore end of the table, Ian, Joe and Jon revisited that old classic Lost Valley.

Akropiri ended Adam 30 Sam 33. I wrote it in that order but I didn’t note down whether or not points were good or bad, so I’m not sure who won. They followed this with some Cube Quest: Adam beat Sam, Adam beat Stanley, then Sam beat Stanley.

Lost Valley began slowly as they all learnt or re-learnt the rules. But after a while, they were knocking back the whiskey and waving to each other across rivers with their rat-fur gloves as if they were born in 1880s America.

Jon 36
Joe 33
Ian 22

In Rajas of the Ganges, once I’d gone through the rules governing the myriad ways to score, it all seemed to be running smoothly. Steve did his best Derren Brown tricks on us by repeatedly saying he was “spending” money, while pushing his token up the money track. Very clever.

Anja
Andrew
Steve

Towards the end, they both felt they had some idea of how to win, and were keen to play again and convinced Adam to give it a go. That game ended:

Steve
Adam
Anja

And Stanley, Jon, Ian and I played Clank! In this game, Jon went for money, I got cards that allowed me to draw new cards, Ian went deepest and Stanley hung around the market. I played fast and loose with my hit points, and got out just before a dragon attack that would’ve killed me. Although I wasn’t anywhere near first, I did enjoy my close run with fate.

Stanley 101
Ian 90
Andrew 82
Jon 65

While this was all happening, Joe beat Sam at Crokinole, 2 games to love (I just think Crokinole is a game where you say “love”, not “nil” or “zero”) and then they played Circle The Wagons:

Joe 34
Sam 32

At this point, Steve and Anja were still making food, so the rest of us teamed up to play Decrypto. This tense and nervous affair was disrupted mid-game by a lengthy pause while people searched for a tin-opener and Sam made gin & tonics. In the end, Jon opened the tin with a massive knife.

By round five, both teams were a mis-step away from failure. I went for long clues and took advantage of me quietly pointing out to team-mate Joe that a song on the radio prominently included one of our key words. Thus I was able to use “The song we just heard” as a clue and the other team were bamboozled! The song in question was “The Revolution will not be televised,” by Gil Scott-Heron and “Revolution” was the key word.

Other key events were Stanley getting all his clues through correctly, including one (“Axis”) which had us baffled. It referred to “satellite”. Meanwhile, on our team Ian’s clue of “Join” seemed initially to refer to “wedding” but then Joe cottoned onto the idea it could mean “Join the revolution” and that Ian was being very clever in giving out a clue to distract the opposition. Except, he wasn’t being clever. We still won, though.

Joe, Andrew, Ian, a tap on the wire
Stanley, Sam, Jon, Adam, birds on a wire

After some delicious food, it was the turn of the big boys to hit the table. With Stanley off in bed, two dirty great leviathans came out to play: Root and Railways Of The World: Europe. Sam patiently talked three newbies (Jon, Anja, Steve) through the dense asymmetric rules of Root while Adam, Joe, Ian and I wrestled with the familiar challenge of RotW.

In our game, I went bond-heavy early on in order to build a little points-machine in Spain and Portugal. This propelled me from last into first by the mid-game and, as usual, my closing strategy was mostly concerned with ending the game as quickly as possible. Ian fell back into a distant last place before coming back into contention and then drifting back again at the end. Adam got his Paris-Instanbul link, despite our efforts to stop him.

Adam 67
Andrew 65
Joe 52
Ian 44

Soon after RotW:E ended, Root was coming to an end. Once again, just like Flamme Rogue, Jon saw a lead right at the end suddenly disappear as Anja managed to hit 30 points and instantly win the game.

Anja 30
Jon 28
Sam 26
Steve 21

Now it was 11.45, so we chatted, tidied up a bit and generally decided to play Midnight Party at midnight to see if it would, as Joe claimed, summon Hugo. Actually, we were five minutes late to start the game, but never mind. Sam was most ghost-phobic, leaping into rooms at the slightest sign of ectoplasm. Joe sniffs the little plastic ghost and tells us that Hugo is very smelly inside.

Sam -9
Adam -10
Jon -16
Andrew -18
Ian -19
Steve -22
Anja -31
Joe -34

Then, just to round off the evening, we played the Walking Dead-themed 6nimmt. Anja and Steve bowed out at this point, leaving the remaining six to defend the log cabin against the undead.

Ian 18
Adam 27
Sam 28
Joe 43
Andrew 45
Jon 63

We didn’t hit the game-ending 66-point mark, but at 1.05am we decided that the fun had gone on a little too long and we all retired to bed.

Sunday morning, I was up at six and watched as Stanley, Ian, Steve and Joe emerged in that order over the next two hours. Steve complained that he’d cut his finger while flushing the toilet. I played Joe at a couple of games of Circle The Wagons, with Joe winning both 45-29 and 42-38.

Jon corralled some players into a game of Mystic Vale. Stanley and Steve were willing volunteers, and Ian was roped in because he was already sitting there. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said as a new game was laid out before him. The scores were…

Stanley 35
Ian 33
Steve 24
Jon 15

… I think.

I lose to Adam at Circle The Wagons, 45-32 and then he, me and Anja try Azul. We used Adam’s variant of changing the direction of order of play (from clockwise to anti-clockwise) but it made little difference. I lead from early on, hogging the first-player token for the entire game.

Andrew85
Adam 57
Anja 52

Then we went for a walk! After days of wind and rain, we had some sun and our resident nature expert, Jon, took us out to somewhere that was hosting some wild beavers! But, being nocturnal animals, he warned us the chances of us seeing them were effectively nil. But it was nice to get out of the house, even if Adam needed some persuading to leave the football behind. Jon gave us a little talk about the beavers and pointed out signs of their activity. Sam, Stanley and Adam went back first while the rest of us took a detour into an abandoned and overgrown walled garden. It was nice. Very green.

A man alone with his thoughts... Oh, no, wait. That's Adam.

Something about beavers.

Outside

But once we were back at the cabin, the games recommenced. Ian, Stanley, Joe and others (not sure who) played Zendo, but just for fun! No scores or anything!

Sam and I introduced Anja and Steve to Calimala and watched them take us to the cleaners.

Anja 37
Steve 36
Sam 29
Andrew 21

Then Jon kindly served us all some soup and we finished off the last of Anja & Steve’s toffee pudding for afters. For me, there was perhaps time for one last game. I did have the option of one more evening, since I had no work the next day but I found my energy reserves at a low so I took the lift back with Sam this afternoon.

The final game for me was Skull King, a game notable for Sam winning a trick he didn’t want with a Blue 1 card against four escapes. Well done him.

Jon 280
Ian 250
Stanley 240
Sam 190
Andrew 160

And with that, I was done. There was a game of manoeuvre going on between Joe and Adam while we packed up and left, but I’ll leave Joe to pick up the rest of the narrative. Over to you, Joe...

Manoeuvre starts with the French Defence opening...

No sooner had the dust of everyone else leaving settled than Jon, Adam and my thoughts turned to what games we would play. Actually before that, Adam and I finished playing Manoeuvre while Jon watched and tried to evaluate whether he'd enjoy it.

We were both down to four units each, and with cards dwindling for both of us, I decided to wait no more and went in for the kill. Adam, for the second time that game, played a withdraw card, and I was forced into a claustrophobic position, flanked on three sides. Adam moved in to close the square, and attacked, scoring enough to decide whether to make me take a hit or retreat. Of course he chose the latter, and since I couldn't retreat I was undone.

I didn't take any photos of the last evening, but here are a few from the previous days

Manoeuvre is always a pleasure, and nice that it ended decisively, rather than dragging on til nightfall. We three then discussed the gaming parameters for the evening - we felt a slot before supper and another after would allow us to tackle a couple of bigger games. We all assembled some candidates on the table, which is when we discovered that Sam had left Auztralia behind (we later found a few more).
Adam and Jon were willing to try Welcome to Centerville as the slightly lighter pre-dinner game - which I was pleased about. However, as with other sessions, it slightly outstayed its welcome and felt too luck-based for the commitment involved.

I don't remember the scores but I won by a big margin, which is a bit unseemly when teaching the game, and is the first time I've won at the game I think. I appreciated both of them giving it a go, and promised to go with whatever game they two decided on for the post-dinner amusement. To my relief (Power Grid was mentioned), they decided that since Auztralia had received such positive vibes when played on Saturday, they'd both like to try it. I was only too happy to have another go, and so while Adam turned his attention to creating a lovely lasagne, I re-read the rules and Jon and I set it up.

The board set-up is quite elaborate, so as to seed the hexes with a random but controlled distribution of resources and sleeping old ones. Once we'd done it, however, it didn't look very even - most of the resources were at one end of the map, with a wall of old ones blocking access to most of the other port spaces.

In any case, Jon and I turned our attention to a game of Bananagrams, and then another with Adam, and then we had lasagne. Followed by mince pies and clotted cream. We then begin our quest to the dark red continent of Oz. But Jon still felt the board looked lop-sided, so we ran the set-up again. Hmmm, it was better but not much better. Adam put on the soundtrack to 28 Days Later. I told him to turn it off. We placed our ports and began.

Our first forays were odd - we began to tool up and head in to the interior to bag some tentacled points, but every Old One we flipped turned out to be a kangaroo. I was hoping we'd meet a roo, since it was an amusing moment when the first one appeared in the previous game. But after the fifth in succession in this game, the joke had worn thin.

Jon, as starting player, placed his port last, and felt he'd missed out on the easy pickings of resources. I felt he'd find the lack of competition for farming made up for that; but there was another problem. Although the Old Ones don't wake up until halfway through the game, I hadn't fully explained what happens when they do, because I'd forgotten. They begin waking up from the lowest numbered hexes - which were all next to Jon's farms.

Just as we let that revelation sink in, the Old Ones began waking up and rampaging through Jon's sheep and corn. I tried to atone by sending an armoured car to help, but it got destroyed. A ravenous Mi-go was heading straight for his port. I checked the rules - if your port is destroyed the game ends immediately. Oh dear. Jon fended off the attack by the skin of his teeth, but more monsters had awoken and were heading his way.

He came up with a great defence, taking a personality card which meant that when an Old One landed on your port it suffered an immediate two damage. All he had to do was soften them up as they approached, and they'd explode on arrival. It worked, and was quite satisfying.

Meanwhile Adam was finding his encounters with the Old One's went rather better (although they laid waste to almost all our combined farms eventually). Much to Jon's chagrin, Adam's firepower hit home with far more frequency, and he was raking in the VPs.

At the end, we were all a little non-plussed. It hadn't been the fun frolic I'd experienced on Saturday - our hopes of settling the newly discovered continent and living lives of happy farming and squid-bashing were in tatters. But that felt fairly thematic, at least. In the final reckoning, Adam raced away with the win at 40 points, with me on 19 and Jon on 14. He was faintly appalled. Then Adam added up the Old One's score, and they beat both Jon and I, with 30 points. We packed away in near silence.

In the fresh light of today, I still enjoyed it, and would like to play again - but we all agreed it would have been great to finish Novocon with a real banger. What that might have been I don't know - probably something we all knew and loved, ideally.

On Monday morning, we ruminated over the chronology of previous Novo, Octo and Septo-cons. It would be great to see a definitive timeline, perhaps when I have a mo I'll try to collate one. In the meantime it was a hugely enjoyable festival of great food, plentiful snacks, drink and games, and great company to boot. Thanks to all who participated, and let's ensure it all happens again, 12 months from now.