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.