Creating a Stinker

I arrived late to Joe's for this week's games night and found that the decision as to what game I wanted to play had already been made for me. I was to join Adam T and Martin in a game of Impulse while Katy, Joe and Ian broke out Quest for El Dorado.

It had been a while since I played Impulse but no rules refresher was needed. I did refer to the player aid a couple of times, though. Katy, on the other hand, needed a full rules explanation prompting a couple of us to ask if it was her first game. (She said it wasn't but the last time had been about two years ago.)

Impulse was cagey at first and rather benign, apart from Martin sending a cruiser through Adam's Space Quadrant (possibly not officially terminology) and knocking out a couple of transporters on the way. But Martin's trading strategy started to generate points so when he hit 18, just two from a win, my full compliment of ships leapt into battle, knocking out three of his ships and removing him from the sector core. Then Adam sprang into action, with an extensive move plus plan that got him to 19 points but no further. Martin had the Impulse equivalent of a tap in to take the win.

Martin 20
Adam 19
Andrew 14

In El Dorado, Ian began very slowly but, once he’d scratched his foot (he even needed to take his shoe off) he was back in contention. Joe ploughed through the barriers while Katy sneaked along behind him. In the end, Joe got stuck on the last tile, allowing both Katy and Ian to reach the goal. Katy won the tie-breaker with a single barrier to Ian’s none.

Katy, first!
Ian, second
Joe, last

We ended more or less at the same time, so we dug out Decrypto as our next game. To avoid moving chairs and having to make up a team name, we decided on Team Impusle versus Team Dorado. Team Impulse had a tricky selection of words, all seemed to be thematically linked to food: leg, game, pizza and restaurant. Those last two, especially, looked difficult. I thought about asking if we could swap one out but Martin said he thought we’d be fine and I didn’t push the matter in case I looked like a sissy.

I usually take a photo of the clue sheets to remind me of how clever we were but I forgot. Martin and I misunderstood Adam’s clue of “face” thinking it went with Game when it should have gone with Pizza (or vice versa). Luckily Team Dorado got their second miscommunication in round six and my clues-as-a-story technique got us through that round safely.

Team Impulse, MI5 secret service
Team Dorado, M5 motorway

Next we introduced Ian and Adam to the unique thrills of Stinker. This time, it seemed to take a while for us to get going, so we went around twice. And we kept score, just to see if it was a pointless as it first appeared. I came up with this for “What do humans think most about.”

It was supposed to be “Darleen from Roseanne”, but Neighbours just seemed easier to spell, given my meagre resources. And then, after a whole six rounds of trying to be clever, Katy finally won something with “ooh a oo ah ah” which was something about what you should say to Sigmund Freud.

Andrew 50
Martin 32
Ian 16
Joe 13
Adam 13
Katy 11

What a shame it’s too fast moving for extensive notes because the second round saw a return to the heights of hilarity. I wrote “It is veri wonki” for something that a Pyramid-building slave might say and that's about it.

But with that, we were done.

EDIT: Except for a game of Heul Doch Mau Mau, after Ian and Adam had gone. I don't remember it at all and if it weren't for Martin reminding me in the comments, it may have gone unnoticed by history.

Martin 77
Katy 72
Andrew 69
Joe 44

After more fun than is recommended by the World Health Organisation, we tottered back home and to bed. Next week, though, summer hols finally take their toll. With Sam still away and Joe absent too, who knows where the determined vacation-less few with find themselves?