Luxory Goods

On Thursday I took the kids to Chris' house for a sleepover and screen-based tomfoolery whilst Chris' Chippenham gang and I took advantage of a big empty table.

Before Paul and Stuart arrived, the two of us had a couple of head to head plays. First up was Luxor, the 'third' game to be nominated for this year's Spiel Des Jahres after the favourites Azul and The Mind. Luxor seemed to have a question mark following it around as to the validity of the nomination, and having played it three times now I'd agree it's not in the class of the others.

But - it's a decent family game with an interesting twist on movement. Each player moves adventurers through the tunnel to the centre of a pyramid, collecting artifact tiles as they go. But some tiles need more than one adventurer to be collected, and some have a special ability associated with them. As you move you trigger further adventurers to do more stuff, and the final scoring is a slightly Euro-y five categories, including a set collection bonus that informs your planning during play. However the movement itself is managed by cards in your hand - you always have five, but can only use a card from the edge of your hand (either end) before adding a new card to the middle. This gives an otherwise basic move-and-collect game a nice twist, as you can plan some nice moves and - with more players especially - have someone else get there first.

I planned very badly though, and only my late game rallying made the scores respectable:

Chris 95
Sam 92

Then we played Boomerang, a card-drafting game about visiting Australia and crossing off destinations, animals, plants and tourist spots on a sheet.

As each card contains most elements of each set, there's a sense of juggling what you keep v what you give away. The cards look nice and I guess the overlapping sets give you lots of decisions. But for me it was like a bland 7 Wonders. Chris found it reminded him most of Sushi Go (I found that bland as well!)

Chris - won handsomely
Sam - didn't

Then Paul and Stuart walked through the door at the same time and after a brief catch-up, we were straight into the main event, which was Rajas of the Ganges. (Big thanks to Jacquie at this point for taking point on the ongoing Kids To Bed project which finally wrapped up an hour and a half later)

Chris went through the rules and we were up and running, with the rounds clicking by pretty rapidly. I stumbled on a huge advantage when I spotted that moving my boat up the river was going to trigger me two extra workers, and for 3 or 4 rounds I had more options than the others. Paul swiftly caught up followed by Chris and then Stuart, but that mid-game salvo had given me enough momentum for a convincing win.

Chris was rampaging his way around the fame track, but was cash-poor throughout the game, meaning he never triggered his various bonuses for a more balanced approach.

Sam
Paul
Chris
Stuart

With hour still reasonably early we had time for some short silly stuff, beginning with Face Cards. Chris seemed to be least-chosen when it came to matches and suffered as a result. I thought I might be up for a win, but Paul's canny ability to spot almost everyone's choices ensured that was not the case!

Paul 22
Stuart/Sam 17
Chris 11

After which we played the always-classic Raj. Over four rounds there was some brutal ties and much appalled hilarity as everyone, I think, took at least one unexpected hit. I don't recall the final scores but Paul certainly won, taking the first and final rounds with aplomb.

Then it was Chris and I v Paul and Stuart at team Push It, which we won. Much more to do with Chris than me, though. I couldn't get the hang of the tablecloth's time-bending properties as the discs would suddenly grind to a halt, as if remembering something they'd left at home.

And we finished the night with Rhino Hero - new to Stuart and Paul but not a heavy rule-set, obviously. Paul got himself down to a single card so we all started picking on him by swinging the turn order away or handing him extra cards.

But when the end came it was via a spectacular collapse at the unfortunate hands of Stuart.

Eleven-thirty had been reached, and with all of us the wrong side of forty (I think, apologies if not) our hedonism batteries had now run dry. But lots of fun, thanks all! Hope to see you again soon for that game of Twilight Imperium...

- Oh, and Chris and I played gaming bete noir Kingdom Builder the next morning and I won. Now I never have to play it again!