Twice Upon A Time In The West

1875 in the Wild West was not a time for faint hearts or sophisticated tastes. In those days, your reputation stuck to you like the thick clay mud of Red Falls and was just as hard to shift. One man managed it, though. One man turned his back on his outlaw ways and became a legendary sheriff. We began with the unlikely ballad of Billy The Kid.

In our first game of the day, Ian took on the role of outlaw Billy The Kid, Joe was sharp-shooter Annie Oakley, I was lawman Bass Reeves and Matt (Joe’s friend, not regular Matt) was the Native American scout Bloody Knife.

Ian started by attacking a bandit and mining for gold. My early attempt at arresting him went badly awry, allowing him to get to the bank (that Joe had just robbed) for money and Legendary Points. Just after that, I managed to arrest him and then won at poker in a celebratory game.

Ian was already a long way in the lead, though. Joe was the only wanted man on the board with both Matt and I acting as marshals, Joe had difficulty finding anywhere safe so he hid out in Red Falls. His situation went from bad to worse when Ian killed a bandit and chose to become another marshal instead of an outlaw. It was three against one. It couldn’t last. While “lawman” Ian was at the “theatre” (a lot of subtext in this game) he sent the sheriff to arrest Joe. This move got him past the 15 point end-game trigger.

Once Joe had been let out of Darkrock Sheriff’s Office, he strolled across the road to try and rob the bank. The rehabilitation programs in this day and age left a lot to be desired. But he failed and ended the game hiding in an old mine. Matt, after a slow start, spent most of his later game going from gold mine to bank to brothel, while I just squeezed into third with a last round spending spree at the general store, upgrading all my goods for LPs.

Ian 22
Joe 19
Andrew 15
Matt 14

The game took two and a half hours and, after a slow start, it was a lot of fun. We felt ready to tackle it again that evening. In the meantime, Joe made food and Matt felt the need to take a break from games (?!) so Ian and I played Let’s Make A Bus Route and Las Vegas. I won one, Ian won the other and if you aggregate the scores together, Ian came out on top

Ian 350,032
Andrew 240,044

Then, after some delicious food from Joe we set off again into the dusty mesa-strewn landscape of Western Legends, but with the extra rules of cattle wrangling/rustling and personal goals. This time I was the outlaw Jesse James, Matt was the gambling lawman Wyatt Earp, Ian was the Native American scout Y.B. Rowdy and Joe was the “folk hero” Wild Bill Hicock.

The only year that these four could reasonably be in the same place at the same time was 1876 (with the proviso that Y.B. Rowdy was only fourteen years old, but people grew up fast in those days) so I guess that’s when this all happened.

This time I took an early lead. Despite starting near Darkwood and it’s lawmen, I manage to get some gold to the bank in time to profit from it. Joe went cattle rustling, while Matt started off by playing lots of poker. Everyone except me bought a hat early on, allowing them to get extra LPs for winning at poker, and Matt milked it for all it was worth. Pity you don’t get extra points for an impressive hand, since Matt won with a full house and Joe won with a flush.

Ian’s Native American senses must have deserted him, however, as he went to the “theatre” (possibly the same “theatre” opened by Wyatt Earp’s wife in 1874, thanks Wikipedia) in Red Falls where Joe was already waiting. Joe’s next turn consisted of him spending $120 on “entertainment”, robbing the conveniently-placed Ian, and then spending that money ($60) on more “entertainment”.

In Ian’s next turn, he attempted to get revenge by arresting Joe three times. Ian twice used a special card that anulls the results of a fight and instigates a new one. This attempt to drain Joe of his poker cards didn’t work and so, no doubt to cheer himself up, Ian spent his remaining cash on enjoying some “showbusiness”.

Matt’s biggest problem was not being robbed – he pretty much had half the board to himself while the rest of us were holed up in Red Falls. He was trying to work out how to maximise his full wallet and three gold nuggets. Go straight to the bank for Legendary Points only, or try and pick a way through to the “theatre” and risk losing that gold in a town as lawless as Red Falls? In the end, he avoided Red Falls entirely and went for the safer option of buying/upgrading at the general store.

But then Joe ended the game sooner than anyone was expecting, including him. He won big at the poker (beating me) and then, like an addicted fool, returned to the “theatre”where he earned enough Legendary Points to hit the twenty point mark, thus ending the game. There was some discussion about whether the rules say there should be one more round, but we decided to end it there. It had been a long day.

Joe 29
Andrew 22
Ian 19
Martin 16

Thanks all. A great evening, and a fun game. I think the cattle aspect certainly helps the game, while the personal goals bit seemed a bit unnecessary. But the game is full of nice comedy moments and well done to Joe for winning the second game more or less in the style of the character he was representing.

Let's Make a Games Night

Tonight's games night was my first time in a month, having been away in Japan for the previous three weeks. But that time wasn't just spent eating, hiking and thinking to myself "I wonder what that is," oh no. I brought back games for Sam, Martin and Joe, three of which got their debut today.

Anja and Steve were hosting and Sam, Ian, Matt, Martin, Joe and myself were the guests. But Martin and Matt were late comers and Anja was putting little Luther to bed, so Steve was introduced to a little light game of Fool's Gold to start us off.

Sam sped into an early lead and became a bit of a gravel magnet as a result. Steve quickly joined him on three gold nuggets and when I pulled out two golds in a row, I thought maybe I'd have a chance, too. Joe was generously demonstrating to Steve just how funny Fool's Gold can be by repeatedly going bust. Suddenly, Steve pulled his fourth nugget out of the bag and it was all over.

Steve 4
Sam 3
Andrew 3
Ian 1
Joe 0

Towards the end of this game, we somehow got talking about a song called "Dancing in the moonlight," which I had assumed was the Toploader "classic" from the olden days until Steve insisted that Smashing Pumpkins did a cover of it, at which point I realised that it couldn't possibly be.

We were also treated to a brief visit from Luther. Anja later told us that, back in bed, he'd asked "When I'm six can I stay up and play games?" How adorable.

Now Matt had arrived, we were six in number, so we split into two groups of three. Joe, Matt, and me got to enjoy using pens (as per the slogan on the box) with Let's Make A Bus Route, new from Japan.

It's like a very genteel version of the video game Crazy Taxi, where you have to take passengers to their destinations. You draw a route around a shared map of Kyoto trying to connect students to universities, commuters to train stations, and tourists to temples. You get bonus points for completing a secret journey or fulfilling certain criteria randomly chosen at the start of the game (ie, visit three temples, pick up five pensioners). It was a very jolly experience although after my initial tactic of scoring maximum for a temple (fourteen points!) I kind of ran out of ideas. The other two didn't.

Matt 49
Joe 44
Andrew 24

Meanwhile, the other three tried Maskmen and, by all accounts, it was a bit of an ordeal. After struggling with the rules, Steve decided to check for unofficial rules on the Board Game Geek. It didn't help and despite all three of them reading the rules, they gave up, baffled. After this, Martin arrived and Anja came downstairs.

Martin wanted to try Maskmen, assuring everyone he had some idea about what was going on. Sam, Joe and Matt join him."It's just like quantum physics," he said at the end of his rules explanation which didn't strike me as particularly encouraging. Later he insisted "someone had a really good flow chart." They played on an improvised coffee table made of two occasional tables with a "Road Ahead Closed" sign balanced on top.

I saw Oregon in the family games cupboard and, despite Anja and Steve having only just played it recently with their son, it was brought to the table if only to avoid more thoughtful procrastination while we decide what we were all in the mood for.

We battled for prime pieces of real estate, mostly settling around churches for points. It was Ian's first go but he seemed to get the jist of things pretty quickly.

Despite Steve making a great deal out of explaining the end-game criteria to Ian we all missed Anja's steadily decreasing meeple stash until, before you knew it, the game was over. Luckily, I had the cards for one more high scoring move and my gold and coal pushed me into the front of it very tight pack.

Andrew 51
Steve 49
Ian 48
Anja 47

As for Maskmen, thanks to Martin's clarifications, it turned out to be an enjoyable, if counter intuitive game. I was relieved, glad that I hadn't just brought a shit game halfway across the world.

Sam 4
Martin 3
Matt 1
Joe 0

After this, they played another game from Japan, Nakanuki Paradise. I know little about this game except for the comparisons people drew after playing, saying it had shades of Eggs Of Ostrich and a hint of Polterfass.

Martin 25
Sam 23
Matt 23
Joe 14 ("too greedy, Joe," said Martin)

On the big table (the one not made out of traffic signs) we played a bit of Gold Fever while the others finished their game. This time, Steve provided the comic relief with a remarkable routine in which he'd pull one gravel of each kind, pause, and then pull out another gravel and instantly go bust. It was a joke that just got funnier the more we saw it. He finally got a gold nugget just before I got my fourth to win the game.

Andrew 4
Anja 3
Ian 3
Steve 1

After this, the groups were rearranged and Sam, Anja, Steve and myself played Menara, the tower building dexterity co-op game. The others sat down with Let's Make A Bus Route (on a sign warning of a closed road. How ironic!)

Menara started hesitantly, as you might expect with three newbies. But once we were accustomed to the notion of swapping your pillars beforehand things ran pretty smoothly. Our initial target of four floors increased to six due to a couple of impossible requests from the decks of cards. But we overcame this and were not far from success when Sam said "I can do this!" just before brushing his knuckle gently against our edifice and sending it to the ground.

Meanwhile, Let's Make A Bus Route ended...

Matt 54
Joe 52
Ian 45
Martin 44

And with this, we were done. With the hour hand creeping towards 11, Martin made it clear he had another game in him, but the consensus was for an end to the evening. Thanks to the hosts with their spicy sour peanuts and thanks to the guests too. It was very nice to be back.

Self-Raising Flowers

What once threatened to be eight players (Paul and Anja dropped out, Andrew turned out to be Not in the UK After All) settled into the classic GNN conundrum that is five - what to play, when so many games out there only go up to four? As it was the enthusiasm from myself, Joe and Martin, persuaded/bamboozled Ian and Adam into giving Tulip Bubble a go.

businessmen

This is based on the first ever speculative bubble brought about by over-enthused tulip-investors back in 1637, when the craze for tulips bottomed out and the market crashed (I'm probably getting all these terms wrong, but tulips are definitely involved). Martin shrugged off his unfamiliarity with the rules and bashed through them in about 20 minutes - something that would take me an hour at least. His ability to process information at speed would come in handy - but so would luck, as we shall see.

Like Hab & Gut (other stock-manipulation games are available) the gist of the game is buy low, sell high. There are three colours of tulip (red, white, yellow) and each colour has a type (A, B, C) with the ABCs also having subsections of B1, B2, and so on. It sounds like the ingredients list on a jar of Marmite, but it makes sense after the first couple of rounds.

the market

There are three rows of flowers, the Next Shipment (not available to buy yet, but en route) the New Arrivals and the Just-Sold. Players can bid for up to three flowers in each round from the latter rows, using bidding chips. In the subsequent rounds, they can sell the flowers, either back to the market or to a collector: collectors want specific groups of flowers, but pay more in return. In essence you're trying to get rich, or wither trying.

rich enough to buy the Queen of the Night? Do it and instantly win the game!

The catch is between the buying and the selling the values of the flowers will change: the flower colour with most cards left behind after the buying's done will decrease in value. Conversely, the colour with the fewest cards will increase. And after that, an event card will trigger a rise or fall for at least one colour as well, meaning you are speculating on tantalisingly incomplete knowledge. This went badly for Ian, who splashed out on a gorgeous red tulip only to see it bottom out instantly, and well for Martin, whose three yellow flowers shot up in value just before he sold them to a collector.

The clergyman wants three B tulips of the same colour

There's some nice little mechanisms around that central idea: players can get the bank to pay for a card and hope to resell it at a higher value, claiming the difference for themselves. The catch with that is doing so occupies one of your bidding chips, so you're now you're short one (or more) bids in the buying. If multiple players bid on a flower, the losing bidders will usually get a small pay-off, and that encourages a bit of brinkmanship on bidding for flowers you might be happier without in order to force some pennies your way. And the game ends in extremely unnerving fashion: somewhere in the bottom three event cards is the Bubble Burst - the game ends instantly if this is flipped, leaving everyone on a knife edge as to when exactly they should stop bidding at all; as the flowers themselves obviously are worth nothing when the bubble bursts.

Ian, in hock

Joe spent most of the game borrowing from the bank and not selling anything. Ian decided from the first round he was fucked, and when Martin later said he was fucked, Ian reminded him that that was Ian's catchphrase. Adam made use of my lack of attention to detail by encouraging me to bid for yellows, meaning his yellows would then be worth more. But this trickery backfired when there was a crash and yellows market value dropped dramatically. Joe recovered from his lack of commerce to finish strongly. But in the end, Martin's oranges made the difference...

Martin 102
Joe / Sam 74
Adam 64
Ian 49

Tulip Bubble had taken us a while but the verdict seemed broadly positive. I'd certainly like to play it again. And Joe and I tying for second began a feature of the evening - every game featured a tie somewhere in the placings.

about to go zero!

Joe suggested Zero Down next, so we blasted through that. I began the first round with a zero, but fell apart after that. Martin cursed his cards. Adam scrutinised silently. Ian scored the worst in the first round but then zeroed the second and scored minimal points in the third to grab a win:

Ian 21
Joe 35
Sam 38
Adam/Martin 40

Next up was Mamma Mia, the game where I always refer to pineapple as cheese.

spot the difference

Sorry everyone. It does look like cheese, to be fair. Martin told Adam it was Rosenberg's best game, and Adam gave him what can only be described as a look. Joe completed a single pizza the whole game - surely there were walk-outs in his trattoria?  Ian repeated his Zero Down trick of starting innocuously only to super-charge his way over the line, or in this case, out-pizza us with his ingredient-manipulation and reserves of memory.

Ian 5
Martin/Sam 4
Adam 3
Joe 1

With the clock ticking on what was left of the day, Adam now departed and left us as a quartet. We finished the night with Kribbeln, as Martin challenged us to work out his Decrypto word from the weekend from the clues Mountains, George, and Ska. Answers in the comments below!

Back on Das Exclusive though,  Ian began poorly again, but this time didn't recover. Everyone went bust at some point, but in the end it was yet another tie - this time for first place!

Joe/Sam 23
Martin 20
Ian 17

And with the time now well past eleven, another mini-classic came to a conclusion.

The First Flush of Spring

It was a momentous occasion at Hannah and Adam's house - perhaps Arthur sensed something in the air, as he was unable to get to sleep - with long-time absentee Katy returning from her year-long cycle across America and even-longer absentee Quentin returning from his enigmatic doings in the UK. Andrew was still away in Japan, but joining our hosts and regulars Joe, Martin, Ian and myself was also fellow Eastonite Steve, doubling down on last week's appearance.

We began with cake, courtesy of Katy. In classic Katy style she pulled the rug from under the confectionary by saying what she learned from her trip was that "all gaming groups are the same", leaving us emotionally on the ropes before the evening had even begun. She's back, ladies and gentlemen! Katy floundered to justify this seeming broadside at our interchangeability before Joe came gallantly to her rescue with some sanguine philosophical reflections, and then Martin proved the truth of the statement by lifting the lid on the first game of the night: The Chameleon. It'd not been seen for a good while either, but the fact there were eight of us (at this point Hannah was still trying to get Arthur settled) made it a good fit.

In the first round, the word was Soup and Quentin was the chameleon. I can't remember who was accused, but Quentin got away with the word "tray" despite Ian pointing out you can carry many things on a tray, not just soup. Quent also guessed the word, courtesy of Joe and Steve's clues "Kitchen" and "Pea".

In the second round the word was Risk, and Ian was the chameleon, covering his back by saying the word "Strategy". Many of us thought Katy was the chameleon, with the word 'gray' that I'm still not clear on the reasoning of. Then we had one more round where the word was Insects. Joe did his best to incriminate himself by clueing the word "Startled" in reference to a Bristol band no-one had heard of; even his reading of the entire wikipedia entry not convincing us that it was a non-suspicious clue. But Katy's clue of 'Black' didn't convince enough people for her to get away with being the chameleon; though to be fair she did have to go first.

Hannah now swapped bedtime roles with Adam and we split into two groups. On the big table Hannah, Martin, Katy and Joe took on the evil-doing that is Northern Pacific. On the coffee table in the front room Ian, Steve, Quentin and myself collaborated beautifically on reconstructing the ancient temple of Menara.

Or at least we did until I knocked it over. Then we started again, determined to succeed, as the room rang to the soundtrack of the other table. At first there was much mirth, delighted cackling and verdant swearing coming from the direction of Northern Pacific. Then: silence. I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but clearly the fun of track-laying and station-investing had been superseded by the fun of revenge fantasies conjured and in some cases realised.

They later blamed Adam, who had returned to restart the game and tie for a three-way win:

Adam/Martin/Katy 23 (tied on tie-breaker!)
Joe/Hannah 18 (tied on tie-breaker!!)

Whilst they blasted out a game of Gold Fever...

...we came to the end of Menara in the front room, with Steve and I putting together the last Temple Floor. Quentin, ever the strategist, didn't want us to place it at all, reasoning we didn't need to to secure the victory. But we decided a glorious failure was better than a clinical win. Fortunately, it was neither: a glorious victory instead. We all took photos.

Hannah now retired to bed and Steve too, with an early morning looming, hit the road. The rest of us settled around the big table for the returnee's debuts at Just One. It was a hilariously catastrophic attempt with a number of clues overlapping and cancelling each other out. Including clues for 'shower' which I won't reproduce here, and poor Joe being left trying to guess the word Buffy from Giles and resurrection and Quentin trying to glean the word Shower from 'psycho' and 'power'. We failed, failed, and failed again, just hitting the disappointing 'average' score.

We wrapped up the evening with the return of another absentee - Fuji Flush, which remains a slightly tricky game to explain despite the simple rules. Quentin was already looking marginally baffled when Ian mentioned dick points. "Don't confuse him with dick points" Martin said, adding another aphorism to the GNN canon. Katy threatened to go out first but kept getting busted. Martin picked up a whole bunch of rubbish throughout the game, giving up all confidentiality to show me his cards.

And I won, going out on a 17 when nobody had the cards to collaborate with - essentially, they were collectively dickless.

Sam 0
Katy 1
Adam 2
Ian and Joe 3
Quentin 4
Martin 5

A fun end to a fun night. Thanks to our hosts in particular, and welcome back strangers!

Beta Testing

Thursday: after early-evening Timeline and The Mind (we crashed and burned on level 8) with the boys, Adam and Ian and I (Sam) regarded the alcove of joy deciding what to play. Adam suggested Caverna, which made Ian and I both nervous. Even his pointing to the box playtime (half an hour per player) didn't entirely convince us that this was 8.30 start-time fare. Plus of course we'd be fighting for second place from the get-go: far better to make Adam play a new game in the hope he wouldn't instantly master it and comprehensively beat us.

You can probably guess where this is going...

We settled on Beta Colony, the curiously-produced (looks very 1980s) puzzle in space. Round and round the central rondel we circled, choosing which pods to build where and when, as we collectively constructed the game's three colonies. We discovered that blue pods were water and pink pods were habitations. Adam asked why they had an apple on them. I said that's what they eat in space.

The game does offer a classic push/pull between points now or points later. Points now was the route Ian took, as he forewent the majority scoring in the colonies and focused on objectives at the end of the three cycles. He even (more than once!) sacrificed artefacts in order to use them as resources: this is like burning down the Acropolis to keep the chill off.

I started out trying to go big on colony majorities but kept getting distracted. Partly by Adam's ruthless efficiency, as he steered a clinical line between my route and Ian's: scoring enough points to keep him on Ian's tail, whilst also building a presence in one colony (the one I'd neglected) that bordered on over-population.

We all stood at various times: it was one of those games. Ian even put his foot on the chair like he was on the verge of dashing off on some great adventure.

I thought I had a devastating (or effective, at least) last couple of rounds planned out, when I'd get the statue that rewarded resources and then do some decent harbouring of said resources - but I hadn't realised we were actually on the final round already; and even a do-over suggested by Ian and Adam couldn't save my score. This is why they don't give astronauts Merlot:

Adam 86
Ian 71
Sam 64

The victor cycled off into the night whilst Ian and I nursed our wounds over a quick game of Railroad Ink. Turns out drunkenness isn't a route-planner thing either, as we both scored pretty low. I pipped Ian by the narrowest of margins!

Sam 41
Ian 40

A very nice night of puzzles. Thanks chaps!

A Trick of the Rail

With Andrew off in Japan and Katy not yet returned to the fold, stalwarts Martin, Ian and myself (Sam) were joined at Joe's house by Steve, who made the trek from Easton through the skirts of Storm Freya. Because Ian wasn't arriving until later, the quartet began without him with a game of Byzanz. But before that happened Joe, Martin and I bashed out a quick game of Good Little Tricks, the trick-taker where winning a trick can be harmless, or can be terrible if said trick contains the final card of a suit - the trick winner collects all the cards of that suit and turns them into points.

Points are bad.

Joe 13
Sam 18
Martin 23

Steve rocked up as we wrapped up the second round, so it was Byzanz time. Martin ran Steve through the rules (see Andrew's previous post) and we were off!

Steve seemed perplexed but also seemed to be scoring a lot of fours. Martin scored a bunch of threes, but also traders. Joe tried the tactic that failed me last week and made it work. I bid high and failed again. I didn't even fail better.

Martin 26
Joe 24
Steve 23
Sam 21

Ian watched the last two rounds play out as he sank his first beer so fast he surprised everyone, including himself. Maybe it was Steve's exceedingly hot bombay mix, which had everyone sweating except Joe, who remained curiously unperturbed.

Then it was time for Martin's new game, Northern Pacific. This takes Mini-Rails' simplicity and aligns it with the brinkmanship of Medina: everyone collaborates on building a railroad across America, but can only take one of two options on their turn - build track, or invest in a station. The stations pay out when - if - the track reaches them, and up to three investments can be made in a single station, leading to agonising decisions as to when and where you lead the track, because taking it to Glasgow, say, will eliminate the possibility the train ever arrives in Butte. So if you've invested in Butte - bad luck.

When the train reaches the west coast the whole thing starts over, and after the route is built a third time the game ends with the richest player the winner. Despite some leader-targeting in the mid and late stages, the leader was Martin. I pipped Joe for second on the tie-breaker.

Martin 24
Sam 21
Joe 21
Steve 19
Ian 18

After a quick conflab we moved onto Las Vegas, with one of Joe's expansions mixed in: the big die that represents two dice when placed in a casino. This simple rule was slightly complicated by the spoiler dice (white) also having a big die that didn't represent two, and my big die for purple actually being blue. Echoes of the hostility from Northern Pacific were felt in the game, particularly when Steve disparaged statisticians.

But Joe mellowed the mood by getting us to imagine a beach where "all the pebbles are dice". To really picture the moment you also need to imagine Joe dreamily smiling, with both hands holding lots of dice. He was so immersed in the moment he didn't realise he'd won, until Martin pointed it out.

Joe $380k
Martin $370k
Sam $260k
Ian $210k
Steve $110k

At this point Steve bowed out, so now a quartet again we played a game of partnership trick-taker Yokai Septet, with Joe and Ian taking on me and Martin. This is a neat trick-taker where players are trying to win the '7' cards from seven suits which each have a 7 in, but in the lowest numbered suit the 7 is the highest card and in the highest numbered suit it's the lowest. Win four '7's to win the round, or win seven tricks (without winning four 7s) to lose it.

We didn't play more than a couple of rounds, but won one each, with mine and Martin's tricks proving slightly more valuable:

Martin and Sam 4
Joe and Ian 3

With the storm blowing lustily outside and the hour now past 11pm the curtains drew on another marvellous GNN night.

Pyramid Schemer

Thursday. Andrew and Adam joined me (Sam) at the table for Teotihuacan, the collaborative/not-collaborative game of MesoAmerican pyramid-construction. This has shot into the BGG top 100 and having tried it out with Stan, I was curious to see how our resident Euro-ists would perceive it.

The game looks nuts. Adam almost turned around and went home but we quickly opened his beer and he sat down. But underneath the dressing is the classic mechanic of resource-gathering and exploitation. The board is effectively a giant rondel, and dice are your workers (you begin with three) that move around it. The nub is get stone/wood/gold to contribute to the building of the pyramid: a nice part of the game in that the thing actually gets constructed in the middle of the board. But, this coming from the designer of Tzolk'in, there's some intricate aspects in both how that happens, and some smaller wheels spinning around the outside of it.

For a start, your workers begin as lowly ones and twos, and only by using them to complete actions can you improve their knowledge (ie make them into threes/fours/fives) and improve their functionality. Secondly workers in a group - as Adam realised before Andrew and I did - work far more effectively than nomadic labourers. Thirdly, if you arrive at a crowded action space, you need to pay (in cocoa) for the privilege of using it, creating a vital chocolate-based economy on a board where empty spaces prove to be rare. Instead of taking an action, you can collect cocoa instead, but this has the feeling of watching your workers on an extended tea break, whilst your fellow barons of pyramidy industry are getting on with the business of moving massive bricks and making names for themselves.

As well as the basic premise of construction, there are some Temple tracks to shuffle yourself along, not to mention the Avenue of the Dead: this latter cul-de-sac can score you as many points as your contributions to the pyramid itself. Some actions ping you along the track as a kind of holy by-product, and dotted all over Mesopotamia are discovery tiles that act as a kind of Mayan can of Red Bull to your jaded workers.

When a worker die upgrades to a six, it 'ascends' - into heaven, I guess, as you've given it so much experience it's now dead - and not only does this reward you with another step along the Avenue of the Dead and a bonus of points/cocoa/other, it also moves the Eclipse marker.

...so the Eclipse marker is nothing to do with spaceships and all about time; which is always running out. After everyone has taken a turn, the sun moves toward the eclipse and when the twain meet, crazy shit happens like feeding workers and scoring points. This happens three times before the game finishes entirely, so ascending a worker (and pushing the sun along faster) is loaded with potential drama, as it can trigger the end of the round or indeed, the end of the game.

Aztec delicacy

This was exactly what happened to me, as I sat poised with my stone and wood to move two massive rocks onto the pyramid and score a shedload of points - not enough to catch Adam, but a shedload. Adam ascended a worker, and the sun met its eclipse, and my final turn went up in a puff of Euro-scheming. Andrew as last player could at least complete the round, and he made sure he was good for second...

Adam 171
Andrew 116
Sam 106

An absolute pasting at the hands of Hillmann! Is his secret the tiny index finger?

Despite the chaotic look and, at times, feel of the game, we were done in under two hours. There was still time to play Railroad Ink!

Adam 55
Sam 46
Andrew 42

Then we sent Adam home.