One, two, three...

I was late to this week's games night, arriving just as Stanley stepped down from the table, allowing me to take his place in a game of Medium. Joe, Sam (hosting), Martin and Katy were also there and had already played three games of Hurlyburly, with Katy winning twice and Sam once.

In Medium, each player forms two teams with the two people either side of them. Thus I was paired with Katy (on my left) and Sam (to my right). Each player has a hand of cards with words on them, and each couple takes turns to play cards to the table and on the count of three both say a word that links the two. If you both say the same word, you pick up a scoring jewel type thing. If not, then you get the chance to try again with the two new words.

Morse?

For example, Katy played "toaster" and Martin replied by playing "butter." On the count of three they simultaneously spoke, with Katy saying Crumpet and Martin saying Bread. Martin, appalled at this missed easy win, asked the rest of us if we all thought "bread." I said yes, but Sam said he'd thought of "knife" giving us all a glimpse of what Martin, Katy and Sam usually put in their toasters. Anyway, Katy and Martin went again to try to link Crumpet and Bread. Katy said Jam and Martin said Muffin. With an air of desperation, they tried again but still couldn't gel, saying Cake and Scone.

The highlight was Martin and Joe. The words were Hospital and Band. Martin said "wrist" and Joe said "aid." A fail but surely those two new words pointed to only one thing. Joe seemed reluctant to admit that he was thinking what everyone else was thinking but he came good when it mattered

"1, 2, 3, wank." they chorused. And a little bit of gaming history was written.

I struggled a bit. Sam and I were on different wavelengths and Katy confused me by pairing my Caribbean with the word Telescope and then saying Submarine. Was Caribbean Telescope slang for a submarine? It baffled me all evening until she and I were walking back home and she realised that she'd got telescope confused with periscope. She still did well, though.

Katy and Martin 6
Andrew and Katy 5
Sam and Andrew 4
Joe and Sam 3
Martin and Joe 3

After this was another new word game called Letter Jam. In this game each player is given a five letter word made up of five cards with letters on, that they do not know. Every player has one letter at a time on show such that everyone else can see it but them. Then people discuss what words they can make out of the visible cards, plus a wild card and a "public" card which everyone can see.

"I can make a three letter word that uses the wild card," someone may suggest. If no one can think of anything better (unlikely) then that word is spelt out by handing out numbered tokens. For example, Sam would get the 1 token since he had the D, the 2 token would go on the wild card since no one has an O and Martin gets the 3 token since he has a G.

After several rounds the idea is to work out each of your letters and, therefore, the word. Everyone except me succeeded, having been stymied by the W (I thought my word was Chats, turned out to be Watch). But it was fun. And I especially liked the entirely nonsensical scoring system. We ended with 66 points, which relates to three strawberries which, in turn, relates to "it's yummy."

So, having scored Yummy, we continued with the co operative theme with Die Crew. Finally, I got to try this exciting new trick taker. I was eased in with mission 2. We failed and after the second attempt we decided to skip the easy intro and go back to where they left off: mission 15. Now we started to succeed as we left Mars and set off towards Jupiter. We cleared 15, 16 and 17 before failing on 18 and Sam's ambivalence towards another try saw us finish up there, somewhere near the asteroid belt.

Next we played Karambolage. It's meant to be for four players max, but Sam insisted it could be played by one hundred players... although the last eighty might not get a turn.

Joe had a case of the Can't Stops as he racked up a six point move but kept going for one move too many and lost it all. I specialised in near misses - it looked like I knew what I was doing but I was actually clueless. Sam took an early lead but Martin hit 10 points to nab the win.

Martin 10
Sam 7
Joe 0
Katy 0
Andrew 0

Then Katy and I left at a sensible time, leaving the three remainers to play The Mind Extreme. It seems they beat the curse of round six and got to round nine, as Sam texted me later. Thanks all for a surprisingly team based evening.

Photo credit: Sam.