A night on the tiles

This week we (Sam, Joe, Martin, newcomer Steve, Katy, Ian, latecomer Adam H and me) converged around Sam’s kitchen table for more board game shenanigans. With a new gamer joining us, we explained that we usually start with a communal game and then promptly split into two groups (using the logic that we can all play together when Adam gets here).

Katy, Martin, Joe and Steve played QE. As Steve’s introduction to modern board gaming, it’s a bit of a curve ball. It’s just as easy to be bamboozled by it’s charms as entertained. It began with Martin and Katy taking all the early spoils before Joe and Steve came into it a little more. In the last round, Joe was screwed by everyone else bidding low, giving him a share that he really didn’t want, and pushing his cash expenditure high enough that it meant he automatically came last.

Martin 44
Katy 29
Steve 28
Joe 0

Ian, Sam and I played new Azul, where the famous square tiles have been replaced by diamond shapes that fit into flower-shaped areas for points and prestige. The method is the same, with players collecting one colour at a time from a set of seven “factories” in the centre. Except that this time, to place a tile, you have to pay for it: a tile the yellow space “6” costs six yellow tiles: the one you actually put down and five more you discard. Add to this the fact that each round one of the colours can be used as a Wild Tile, and you can use them to pay for any colour.

It was okay. Not an instant classic but maybe, with familiarity, certain strategies will become obvious. This time, with three relative newbies, it was like three single-player games with little attempt as spoiling other people’s plans. I completed three of the flower shape things, and was rewarded handsomely.

Andrew 124
Sam 104
Ian 78

At this point we gave Joe a present, cake and card for his 50th birthday (which, as he pointed out, isn’t just yet) and sang “Happy Birthday” to him. Hopefully we were making a great impression on our debutante.

Next we chose again: Sam, Martin, Ian and I went for Babylonia and Katy, keen to impress the newbie, wanted to play Biblios and asked “What’s that game where you have to eat shit?” (referencing our by-now legendary variant: Extreme Biblios) but instead the Katy, Steve and Joe played L.A.M.A. until Adam arrived.

Steve 18
Joe 34
Katy 38


After that Joe, Katy, Steve and Adam chose Down Force, the exciting racing and betting game. Joe picked up his card for a single pound, and then bet on no one but himself. And he then came first. With these circumstances, a distant win is assured.

Joe 29
Adam 9
Katy 8
Steve 3

In Babylonia, we had an odd map, with a swathe of agricultural land splitting two groups of cities apart. I grabbed an early ziggurat and went from five available tiles to seven. Sam went big on cities, swooping in with his “two turns” power to pick up three in one go and, hence, and therefore was raking it in whenever someone triggered the city scoring.

Sam 133
Martin 122
Andrew 110
Ian 107

And as Down Force ended, we broke out Hurlyburly and spent a few happy minutes twanging small wooden cubes at each other's tower of cards. Ian and Sam went super defensive, with Sam's sandbag defences slightly taller than his one-storey tower.

But it was I who sprang up to four floors on my turn and avoided any hits from Sam (had no blocks), Martin (too far away) and Ian (blocks didn't bounce straight). Victory!

Finally we finished with Wavelength. After explaining it to Steve, Sam then went off piste with an audacious clue. For "Fantasy / Sci Fi" he said "High Fidelity by Nick Hornby."Ii scoffed that it was neither fantasy nor science fiction but, you see, that was the whole point. He was aiming for the middle. How smart.

I misunderstood my spectrum of "Good / Bad superpower." I thought it meant political superpower and not, as everyone else thought when they saw it, a special ability. As such my clue of "The British Empire" caused some surprise. We still got close enough to score, though. And a quick nod towards Ian’s clue of “vacuum cleaners” for the spectrum “un/reasonable phobia” in that the more we discussed it,the more reasonable it seemed.

It was a close game. We'd agreed to play until everyone had a go. The score was 10 - 7 as we entered our final turn. We needed a direct hit to win. It was all down to clue-giver Adam. The spectrum was “Has a bad/good reputation” and he chose Barack Obama. Amazingly, we got it spot on for the full four points.

Adam, Joe, Ian, Andrew 11
Steve, Martin, Sam, Katy 10

And so we ended. We were getting ready to go when Sam shushed everyone quiet while he recorded the farty sound of the lid being slid onto the Wavelength box. "Not in front of the new guy," said Katy despairingly. What an evening.

Emo's War

Captain Nemo! One of the great nautical adventurers, driven by who knows what real motive? The fate of his family clearly played a part (- I checked Wikipedia) but other things seem to be on his mind too, such as war, adventure, anti-imperialism, or - in the case of the motive I chose for Nemo last night - science!

Nemo's War is a slightly sand-boxy affair, where your choices are actions, and actions are numerous: move, adventure, attack, incite uprisings, search for treasure. The four motives above give you some sense of direction, as they dictate what you score points for at the end of the game. It's no use being a war-like Nemo and spending your time fascinated by algae. People will be disappointed in you.

The game itself takes place over three acts, on a busy-looking board. But despite the Victorian info-graphic appearance, it's not as complicated as it looks - most of the rules are actually on the board itself, and they go like this:

Turn over an Adventure card. They may give you an Event where something happens, an event where if you go somewhere, you can make something happen, or a Test. When you test - and indeed, when you fight, search or incite, you can leverage elements of the Nautilus in your favour - hull, crew, or Nemo himself. The progress you make is all about dice-rolling, and leveraging means add +1, 2 or 3 to your roll. The catch is that if you fail, the health of the hull/crew/Nemo deteriorates, and as it does so, leveraging gets both less effective, and more risky.

Having dealt with the card, dice are then rolled that do two things; adding more ships to the seas of the world, and giving a number of actions (high die - low die = available actions. If both die are the same it is a lull turn - more on that later)

In the novel characters such as Prof Arannax, Conseil and Ned Land are captured, but the game assumes they are already aboard - the former two, in a clear case of Stockholm Syndrome, are itching for adventire. Ned Land on the other hand is understandably furious. It's the first hint - for those who haven't read the novel - that Nemo is not all sweetness and light.

But let's not dwell on the idiosyncrasies of our hero (me) just because they involve kidnap and slavery. Away I/Nemo went (a distinction of identity I struggled with throughout the trip, as I first found myself taking on his identity, before trying to later psychologically remove myself from his more extreme behaviour) on a great solo adventure, headed for the sea in a quest for scientific discovery, possibly to end in death, or at least insanity. What awaits all of us, ultimately, but this? (Obviously death, but maybe insanity first. Bear in mind we are perpetually in a submarine shaped like a giant narwal)

It all began rather ominously when having prepped both a glass of wine and a pack of crisps, the first card I flipped was...

ACT I

From the diaries of Captain Nemo, Scientist

Magnetic Mines

A TEST! Pass, and in the future it may occur to me to upgrade my great machine with these powerful weapons. All I need to do is roll a ten or higher with 2d6. But it was test I failed, despite leveraging both crew and hull in my favour, giving me +4. I just need to roll a six. I roll a five. Even Nemo knows - at this point; later things may change - that five and four don't make ten.

Unwilling to fall at the first hurdle, I reluctantly sacrifice Conseil, assistant to Professor Aronnax, in order to give me a re-roll. I roll a five again. We have barely left shore and I sense the rivets of the Nautilus rattling. It is not how I foresaw the day this morning over my breakfast. Already furious, I sacrifice Aronnax himself (+3 to die roll) in order to pass the test - hooray! and kill off two of my crew before we have left sight of land. Ned Land looks wary.

Vanikero 

No idea what that means (editor: I did try reading 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea but gave up) but if I get to the Pacific, I have a feeling there is treasure there. Maybe I'll just nurture this feeling for now.  I have actions, and decide to incite an uprising in the South Atlantic, and sail to Cape Horn, which is on the way to the Pacific. Peering through the porthole of my great ship, I look out for science.

As Master Wishes

If Conseil was still alive, I could have harvested some treasure. But he's dead. I tell Ned to stop muttering under his breath. Sail to the Pacific and spent an action finding two treasures. Examining them I find myself underwhelmed. I remember I am more interested in Liberation and Wonders - along with Science of course. I better look for some science, which means having adventures. Which are expensive. (two actions!)

An Underwater Coalfield! 

I could sail back to the Atlantic and cash it in for some hull repairs, but if I don't then this counts as science. I keep it. Feeling invigorating (four actions!) I go adventuring. I find that Prussia has declared war! Fortunately for me, Prussia has no ships. At all. Emboldened, I attack Themis, a French armoured frigate. I don't really want to do this, but if the oceans fill up with ships, I will eventually get crowded out (and lose the game).

So I am somewhat beholden let go batshit now and again on unsuspecting sailors. A Bold attack means I lose the advantage of stealth (+1 for Stalk attack) , but on the other hand, if successful, I can keep attacking all the ships in Eastern Pacific - either for a points haul later or - far more exciting l- tonnage, which I can convert into upgrades on the Nautilus. I started the game with Monstrous Design, but I have my eye on Strengthened Prow. Bloody Themis hits me, doing damage to both the crew and Nemo himself. I/Nemo retorts with a mouth-foaming sally, sinking not only the Themis, but also - in a flurry of spectacular dice rolls - civilian ship Thermopylae, another French warship in the Belliqueuse, and the unsuspecting British Clyde. By the time Nemo has calmed down, his notoriety has shot up the track:

Whatever Nemo's Motive, one way to lose the game is to have your notoriety hit a critical point on the track and become a Pariah. As a scientist, mine is the lowest of the four possible...

I still have one action left but I save it for the next lull turn (where certain actions are cheaper to do) pour myself a glass of wine and decant some wasabi crisps out for the crew.

Shortage of Air

It's another test. But with the help of the crew, I, Nemo, pass it and harvest some science as a result. I spend my two actions Refitting the Nautilus, adding Magnetic Mines to the various levers I imagine at my disposal. Conseil and Aronnnax did not die in vain!

Sunken Treasure

It is randomly assigned to the Eastern Pacific, where I happily happen to be. Yet again I roll 4+2, and I scientifically note that the South Atlantic is full of ships: if more arrive they will spill out onto neighbouring seas, then reveal what type of ships they are, then flip to their warmongering side, and if there is no more room after that, the game ends with the Nautilus being simply crowded out of the water. I'll have to go and sink some of them. That's just maths. Meantime I search for treasure and find not only two treasures, but the aforementioned sunken treasure too. It's all going rather too well for my/Nemo's paranoid mind. I sail back to Cape Horn, intent on, not revenge exactly, but whatever revenge is when nothing is actually being avenged. Mindless violence I guess.

ACT II

Another die is added to the ship-placement roll. This means more ships... despite Nemo's mostly-peaceable intentions, he will have to take care of some business.

The Whales

It's another test. I pass it and gain two treasures. Two actions - I sail to the south Atlantic and make a bold attack. Thanks to my Magnetic Mines, I can attack the Royal Sovereign before it sees me coming. Astonishing rolling sees not only the ironclad battleship scuttled, but the Chance passenger ship and the Japanese Kotetsu. I am loving these mines! cries Nemo, as he accidentally ploughs his hand into a bowl of cardboard chits instead of the wasabi crisps. The crew look anywhere but at his face. Maybe some blood is visible through a porthole.

The Arabian Tunnel

If I make it to the Indian Ocean, I can find a tunnel. Don't ask me how, it's just a feeling. Yet again I roll 4+2 (curses!) and spend both actions sailing to the Indian Ocean. Here's that tunnel! I told you so. Science.

The Transatlantic Cable

If I go back to the North Atlantic... ah, I can't be bothered. Even Nemo, in his embryonic madness, finds going backwards and forwards a bit tedious. Instead... 1+1. A lull turn. If you have saved an action, repairing or refitting the ship only costs one action instead of two. But having not saved any actions, I do nothing but check for uprisings. There aren't any.

Some Days Ashore

I could grant the crew a bit of me-time if I went back to the Pacific, but balls to that. I'm inciting again, now my sunken treasure helps me, for some reason. Doesn't sound like science, but it works. It is not for me to question the ways, etc.

The Coral Realm

...another test. Another high roll,  and I pass. the crew seem to have put their doubts about me to one side and are now in high spirits. Maybe I'll celebrate with an adventure. But I roll 4+4 so it's another lull turn. No uprisings, yet.

The Gulf Stream

I have discovered it - happily whilst idling in the South Atlantic I noticed I was drifting north, and found I have arrived in the Western Pacific. Annoyingly I roll another lull turn, and watch in dismay as the Abraham Lincoln sails into view, its occupants with high reedy voices and bad teeth.

The Torres Straights

If I travel between the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific I get 2 bonus actions. As I'm in the Western Pacific already, I roll 4+6 and after sinking Abraham, City of Adelaide and Lord Clyde (both Britain) I sail back to the Indian Ocean, triggering the extra actions. The oceans are starting to fill at an alarming rate now, but I really want to refit so I spend the last two actions getting a strengthened prow. I cannot believe the rolls I'm getting. I'm like the guy who put everything on red and it came up red.

The Indian Ocean

More good fortune - I'm there already! I gain one Nemo (he's back to almost-sane) and roll a juicy three actions. I spend two adventuring - picking up the Wonder of the Red Sea, along with a treasure - then go on the warpath against the Japanese Ryujo. This place needs a tidy.

I roll a clunker: 1 + 2. There's no way out of this - or is there? With my leveraged crew at +3 and my strengthened prow giving me +1, I'm actually at 7. I need 10.  I could sacrifice my first officer for another +3, but then again she can be let go for three bonus actions so... I notice her eyes on me as I mull things over, and decide to take the hit from the Ryujo instread.

It's not too bad: Nemo's eye starts winking a bit, but otherwise the ship stays steady. But that's the turn over.

An Underwater Forest

It's another test, and another rubbish roll. I say goodbye to Ned Land in order to bump it up just high enough, and claim two treasures. Two actions, so I attack the Ryujo again. I fail again. We get hit with a counter attack, reducing Nemo from Strong to Determined. The crew look Peeved. I order a second attack, and Ryujo is sunk - along with Jylland (Swiss) and Alfred, the British passenger ship! Sorry Alfred. I needed the tonnage.

As a result of all this nefarious activity, my notoriety has got to the point where the Brits are preparing a task force to police the seas...

Aegri Somnia

The Nautilus floats through some phosphorescent algae, and I/Nemo have/has a bad trip. But he makes a note in his diary, because Science. I have two actions. I boldly/psychopathically sacrifice the Chief Engineer for two more and sail back to the South Atlantic, where I go to town with a bold attack, wiping out everything in a frenzy. Somewhere north of me, sailors are boarding battleships in Blighty... I keep my last action, hoping to refit during a lull turn.

ACT III

I can either change Nemo's motive (from Science to one of the other three, mentioned what seems like eons ago now) or get an upgrade for the Nautilus. I go for the latter, choosing the Arcane Library. An extra white die is added to the placement roll, giving me options on how many actions I get, or whether to have a lull turn...

A Capital Encounter

A ship comes searching for me, and I sink the bugger. Three actions, so I incite, sail to the North Atlantic, then incite twice more. I'm not so much the inquisitive Darwin Nemo as the Fidel Castro Nemo.

Lost Time

Lose an Upgrade Card. Seems a bit arbitrary, but that's the ocean. I dump Fog Machine (reduces notoriety) as I'm in no imminent danger of losing because of that.. or at least, that's my thinking at this stage. It's risky leaving the Eastern Pacific as it is - filling up with ships - but I sail to the European Seas and incite some more revolts - Ireland this time. I get around.

Jaws Wide Open!

A test. I fight off a shark whilst clearing some blood off the windscreen, and come back aboard strutting about. I don't know. Deep inside, I'm starting feel Nemo, for all his worldly comrade-inciting dandiness, is a bit of a fucking psycho. Five actions! LET'S KILL! But first, start the Spanish Revolution. I then return to the Indian Ocean and attack the Fujiyama, who gets a shot in first. Nemo catches it in his teeth and goes  back from determined to steady. Then he counters: Wiping out both the Fujiyama and the America. Then - breaking the fourth wall - I remember in horror I'm supposed to up notoriety every time I continue a bold attack, and have to do a quick calculation - I haven't lost, but I'm far, far closer to the Pariah defeat than I thought I was. Embarrassed, I stop attacking and incite the Selangor Civil War instead. I then look for treasure and find two bits of it.

Ned Land's Tempers

Despite being dead, Ned is attacking someone and needs calming down in a test. Thank the lord I talked him down - there's only room for one lunatic on the ship. I spend all my actions travelling to the south pacific, which is about to jump the shark, population-wise.

Vigo Bay 

...something about the North Atlantic. I barely read it, and attack the fleets of the Pacific, seeing off the Italians and Dutch before prancing off to Hawaii to start a revolution. They will shout my name from the rooftops of Honolulu!

A Hollow Explosion

...more ships, including the Omaha, which I bat away like a gnat. Two actions, though, and I am in dire trouble - game-ending-in-ignominous-defeat trouble - if any more ships rock up in the South Atlantic. I sacrifice my First Officer for +3 actions (making Nemo mentally Erratic in the process)  and speed there post-haste, using my final two actions to attack. I'd love to be doing some bloody science, but there's too many fucking sailors around.

The Hercules attacks first, and misses! And the Nautilus returns fire and sinks the bastard! I am just about to open fire on every other bugger in sight when I realise my notoriety is topped out. All my inciting uprisings has sustained me thus far, but even the recently-downtrodden know a madman when they see one. I have to back away, using my final action to sail to the Cape of Good Hope in preparation for my next bit of political engineering...

Required Repairs

Just a pain in the arse. I ignore it - it's all about survival now. A single action! I hurl pamphlets into the diamond mines of Southern Africa and reduce notoriety. The populace of the world find me confusing; smashing the yoke of oppression one moment, killing hundreds of innocents the next. But fame is a fickle thing, and at least my most recent bit of news is shedding the right kind of blood.

Captain Nemo's Thunderbolt 

A test! - passed by a whisker. But there is barely time to make note of its narrative weight - it's desperate times on the board now, with ships out the wazoo, as Nemo probably said, and no political will to support any more scattergun killing, like I did in the good old days. All I can do is sail to the Indian Ocean and hope I don't roll any fives...

Aronnax's Determination 

From beyond the grave he haunts me, like Banquo's ghost eating my crisps. It's a test: if I pass, I can bring my First Officer back to life! Fail, and the gloomy sky will darken further. I leverage all I can and roll the destiny dice:

My rolling finally gives way. I/we fail by a single pip to reanimate the First Officer, and my attempts at such witchery somehow spread, despite my being all alone on the Nautilus with no Instagram. I have to roll 1d3 and need to roll a 2 to avoid failure - I roll a six! All is lost! I cheat and roll again, rolling a 5. All is really lost!! Then I cheat and roll again. This time I roll a life-saving 1, but a crack in the fabric of reality lets the light in - I know I am merely escaping to insanity, like Johnathan Pryce at the end of Brazil. All is definitely lost! If Davy Jone's locker isn't  calling my name, someone is - and not in a very nice tone of voice. I am a Pariah. No longer can I sail the seas freeing the plebs from the bourgeoisie and randomly icing holidaymakers. No longer will I clutch treasure in my hands, or ponder the wisdom of adventuring when it does after all cost two actions. All my emotional inner turmoil has come to a bad end, like a goth teenager told to stop sulking and knuckle down, after all kids in Africa, etc etc...  The game is Nemo's War, and the war is over.

The End

In one way it's really disappointing - I've never rolled anything like this well before, but when I was turning so bloodthirsty I should have taken the opportunity to change Nemo's motive from Science to something else at the start of Act III... but by that time I had invested so much in the pursuit of science and rebel uprisings, I didn't even consider it. A decision I would come to regret.

From a narrative point of view, it was all fantastic fun though; I had very fond memories of playing Nemo's War last year but I had forgotten how much of a silly dice-chucker it is as well as a narrative - I must say, it tells a brilliantly surreal and dramatic story. It does feel slightly odd that whatever motive you choose, you are forced to engage in violence to a greater and greater degree because if there is nowhere to place or flip a ship, the game is a defeat - and the oceans do fill up rapidly when Act III arrives. But it's a lot of fun, and from what I can glean from my readings*, very close to the source material in that respect also.

* I did buy the book last year, but I haven't read it.

Rhino Knizia

Joe's studio, now fitted out with a full games collection and a heater under the table, began its life as a regular venue with eight gamers in attendance: Joe, Martin, Ian, Katy, Adam T, Sam, myself and the long-lost Matt, making a return to GNN for the first time in oooh ages.

I arrived shortly before seven, only to find the games had long since began. Ian, Adam, Sam and Joe had already played No Thanks and Pickomino. I was immediately dealt into a game of Botswana, a simple betting game where animals are shares and their final value is based on the number of the last card (0-5) played to that pile. In the first game, an early zero card had everyone picking up leopards since they were bound to score. Everyone except me.

Adam 16
Sam 13
Joe 12
Ian 11
Andrew 9

We played again and this time I ended with a far better range of animals. During the scoring, Sam appeared pleased with his improved score of 16 until everyone else announced their scores.

Andrew 22
Adam 18
Joe 18
Ian 17
Sam 16

After this, Martin, Matt and Katy arrived. We discussed our options. I had never played Babylonia, so that seemed likely to be chosen. Sam had brought Rurik: Dawn of Kiev. Martin seemed unimpressed, despite everyone always referring to it by its full name (instead of just calling it Rurik). Sam tried the soft sell on Katy by telling her she probably wouldn't like it but Matt might. But since she didn't want to play Babylonia, she was happy to join in.

Being so involved in my game, I couldn't tell you much about Rurik: Dawn of Kiev except that one of the figures looked like it was moonlighting from Scythe. Matt built a stronghold in the North and that seemed to help him on his way to a win.

Matt 21
Adam 14
Sam 14
Katy 13

In Babylonia, I quickly fell behind and stayed there. Any solace I might have got from having scored about the same as Joe was swept aside in the closing stages of the game when he clocked up some pretty major scores, almost edging an unlikely win.

Martin 167
Joe 161
Ian 151
Andrew 104

Martin would've scored more were it not for a patch of bad luck: he picked up a special tile that allowed him to trigger a certain bonus without having the regulation tiles. Little did he know that the rest of us just so happened to have the correct tiles and we all triggered them and removed them off the board for twenty points each. Finally, he admitted he may as well join in and got the final bonuses available for twenty points too.

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev was still mid game so we filled the time with a rousing game of Die Crew. It was Ian's first go so we eased him into with a nice training mission. One which we almost failed were it not for Joe (cruelly referred to as 'irrelevant' due to his lack of suitable cards) who worked out a method of success.

With this victory behind us, we carried on the space epic. This time we got hit by a couple of rocks from Saturn's rings and damaged the flux capacitor or something. We did it and before long the gamers at the other end of the table were trying to work out the best way to put Rurik: Dawn of Kiev back in its box, so we put space exploration on hold and waited until we were an octet once more.

We decided on Wavelength, the new darling of the GNN-o-sphere. We split into two teams: Katy, Martin, Matt and Ian against Joe, Adam, Sam and Andrew and we seemed to have cracked it. Katy had “good music/bad music” as her categories and she said “hip hop” (actually, she said “hippity hop”, which required clarification) which they got perfectly. I forgot we were on opposing teams, and I made a few useful interjections.

Then Adam had “Powerful/Powerless” and chose “the next leader of the Labour party”. Somehow, after some prevarication, we got it spot on again. This was followed by the first team almost guessing Matt’s “Harmless/Harmful” clue of Hunting Knife for three points. We’d been so successful that we were considering introducing the “Calze” rule from Perudo for those occasions when you think the other team is spot on. Odd, really, since we never allow that rule when playing Perudo.

It was close at first but slowly Katy’s team started to build up a lead. Martin’s response to “Person you could/couldn’t beat up” clue was “Stephen Hawking” giving them an easy four points. Then Ian had “Dog name/cat name” and said “Kitty”. Well, you can guess the score there.

Katy et al 16
Joe etc 11

A remarkable game, but once over people began to talk about leaving, despite it not even being eleven o’clock (but some people had started at six). Ian and Adam were set to leave and then a sudden offer of a lift from Sam for those of us heading north convinced Katy and myself to abandon the games for an easy ride home. Thanks for hosting and thanks to all for another splendid evening.

Candles in the Win

Saturday, and with Sally up north visiting her folks, the boys were given free rein on Amazon and elected to watch Spiderman: Far From Home. Meanwhile in the other room I was prepping the play area. With Steve, Katy and Ian on their way, I'd asked what kind of mood they were in. Although Steve suggested an epic (and I was very amenable) Ian preferred something moderate, and as he has an epic already in the form of the journey home, I forewent idle thoughts of SpaceCorp and was instead setting up Ecos: First Continent.

Here the players are kind of deities, building landscape and populating it with animals. The nice thing about it is the bingo-style mechanic, where a tile is drawn and everyone gets to place a cube on a matching symbol on their cards. If they don't have a matching card, they still get to turn their dial, which will eventually trigger more cards into your deck, or adding a card to your tableau from your deck, or gaining an extra cube for your limited economy.

When a card has all its cube spaces filled up, it activates: adding landscape tiles or animals, mountains or trees, possibly eating animals, and scoring points in all manner of incongruous ways. And you get to shout Ecos! like a bingo-mad old fart who has forgotten what words mean.

At the start it's pretty fast-moving. But even then, we were all figuring out how to best use our bespoke decks - you start with only three cards face-up and the deal is constructing an engine with the other cards in your deck, or the other cards available from the general supply. Steve was baffled. Katy was building mountains, reasoning they'd be helpful for her gorillas. Ian was turning his dial the wrong way and finding the arrows confusing.

I sped into the lead after about 20 minutes, and remained competitive for another 20. After that, I merely looked at my cards and wondered where on earth any more points were going to come from. On the other side of the table, Steve was having a Ganz Schon Clever-style activation party, with cards begetting cards begetting cards. Katy kept crying Gorilla! in a manner that reminded me of Kid Carpet. Ian pulled off his 'one big move' for a huge points haul, but then found himself in a stasis similar to mine.

In fact the longer Ecos went on, the less enamoured I was of it - there was so much waiting for activations to be resolved, sometimes of two or three people at a time, that I felt like we were merely minions computing a somewhat erratic program. And I worse Minion. The minor caveat of down-time I'd had in my game with Stan had exploded into a major one.

Katy however had no such qualms and sailed serenely past all of us to trigger the end-game.

Katy 81
Ian 55
Steve 50
Sam 37

Katy liked it. Ian didn't. "I'd play it again" Steve. But he won't, because it's going straight in the trade pile!

Next up was a game Steve brought with him - Welcome To... a flip and write game where players are seeking to score points in a variety of ways by building a housing estate; with every turn a decision between three available numbers and three attendant thingies such as a pool, tree, or more-points-for-certain-sized-estates. You get to name your own town, too, and Ian was furious to see I'd written Pootown on my sheet. "I was going to do that!" he exclaimed. He went for Pooville instead and Steve called his Weeville. Katy disappointingly called her town Katy, but she was to make up for her apparent lack of immaturity later.

Welcome To... has an inherent tension to it in there are planning objectives that score points, so it feels a bit like a race, assuming you're paying attention to what everyone else is doing, which I didn't. I grabbed one of the planning objectives, but in doing so had spent a lot of time erecting fences that otherwise wouldn't be bringing me many points. I neglected trees, didn't build pools at all and, come the end, had time to repent at leisure as my arid Pootown scored very little. At least it was better than Pooville though:

Steve 81
Katy 68
Sam 57
Ian 48

Next up was Wavelength. Ian suggested - in hindsight, an excellent call - that we play co-operatively rather than have the active team not be able to converse with anyone. The rules supply a co-op variant: Seven cards only, and the target scores 3 points, not 4. But if you hit the target exactly, you get to add an extra card. Much as I enjoyed coming to hate Ecos and building too many fences in Welcome To... this was the highlight of the evening for me, even though we all struggled to think of clues at times...

After giving Steve a brief overview, we kicked things off with a pretty impressive run of target-hitting before finding we fell just short of a win in the Just One-style scoring system. "We need to play again!" Katy cried, and nobody objected to that. I don't recall in which game all these things occurred, but we do now know that I don't rate Henry Cavill as an actor, nobody finds slugs sexy and Steve doesn't want to time-travel to the zombie apocalypse.

But the clue of the night was perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow's Vagina which Katy invoked for Bad Smell/Good Smell. Obviously the vagina in question has been in the news recently as Gwyneth has been selling dubiously-themed candles from her otherwise totally-sane website, but still, this had the three men present stumped. Good enough to be made into a candle didn't necessarily mean good at all in Paltrow's case. Steve imagined that Gwyneth was very hygienic and maybe therefore would smell good. Ian wondered whether hygiene came into it at all and simply the fact it was Gwyneth Paltrow meant the smell would be bad. Were we comparing it to all vaginas? Or all parts of Gwyneth Paltrow's anatomy? It was so subjective. I can't even remember what we or Katy surmised in the end, but at least our second game was a win, so along with the Power of Doctor Manhattan, the Age of a Horse and the Harmfulness of Bleach, maybe we have Gwyneth to thank after all, even if the final clue of the night was a miss, as the saddest song I could think of at the time was Candle in the Wind, and perhaps all the previous candle-talk meant nobody found it particularly sad at all.

Wavelength is just brilliant. But Ecos made me want to play SpaceCorp again. Anyone up for that?

We're all on the spectrum

Games at Sam's was the order of the day and seven of us gathered around his kitchen table for our weekly fix. Sam, Joe, Martin, Adam T, Ian, debutante Mark and myself.

I began with a slight faux pas, asking with disappointment who brought Karate Tomate with them, only to be told that Martin had brought it to sell to Mark. Luckily, my air of derision wasn't enough to ruin the deal.

We began with the exciting new game of Wavelength. So exciting, indeed, that I forgot to take a photo of it. The premise is basic. It is a team game and one player chooses a card with two opposing categories on it (ie, healthy/unhealthy) . They then spin a wheel that randomises where the "target" is in a semi circular area. Only they can see it, then they cover this semi circle and have to think of a word that will cause their team-mates to correctly guess where the target is, assuming that healthy and unhealthy represent the two extremes at either end of the spectrum.

Sam began with an excellent example of how the game can pan out. His categories were Ordinary / Extraordinary and he chose to say "radish". A fascinating clue and one that had Adam and Joe discussing how ordinary a radish may or may not be. As I recall the slight spiciness of radishes prompted them to conclude that it was somewhat extraordinary. But Sam had been trying to push them towards Ordinary.

It went on thusly with Joe's choice of "burger" for the categories "sandwich / not a sandwich" caused possibly more controversy than me saying "the Royal family" for "replaceable / irreplaceable."

Martin, Mark, Andrew, Ian 10
Adam, Sam, Joe 4 or something

Then we split into two groups, desiring something more substantial. Babylonia made another appearance, this time with Martin, Mark, Adam and Joe participating.

I know almost nothing about it apart from Martin's little home improvement job on the racks meant to hold up the tokens. He'd added little plastic feet so they were now high enough and the tokens didn't just flop out uselessly. His care and attention to the game was reflected in the result, with Mark posting a strong score for his first game.

Martin 185
Mark 163
Joe 134
Adam 132

Ian, Sam and I fell back on an old faithful: Quantum. We chose a small map and began with remarkably similar fleets of dice; 5-4-3, 5-4-3, 5-4-2.

It was a feisty game, with Sam's fleet whittled away to a single die at one point. I was able to engineer two turns where I got two advance cards at once, but even that wasn't enough to stop a stirling comeback from Sam, who put his last cube down by attacking us and getting his Dominance up to six.

Somehow red won this battle!

Sam no cubes left
Andrew and Ian, one cube left

While Quantum was finishing, the Babylonians whipped off a quick truncated game of L.A.M.A. which culminated in an astonishing final round that saw Joe and Adam pick up card after card after Martin and Mark had folded, only to play them and Joe ended up with exactly the same cards as he’d started with.

Martin 1
Joe 6
Adam 15
Mark 18

At this point was a brief reshuffle. Martin, Sam, Ian and Mark played Senators which kind of passed me by apart from Mark’s late surge up the scoretrack with a move that got him four senators just before the final war ended the game.

Martin 12
Sam 10
Mark 7
Ian 7

Joe, Adam and myself played 99, a trick taking game where you nominate how many tricks you’re going to win. However, to signify your bid, you have to use cards from your hand which, of course, changes how strong your hand is. Cunning.

It was a cakewalk for Joe who, despite his familiarity with the game, started the game only making a note of his scores and forgetting about ours. I came second only because of Adam’s bravado and optimistic bids flying back in his face and gifting points to his opponents.

Joe 160
Andrew 89
Adam 67

By now it was 10.30 and we were graced with perhaps the latest arrival at a games night as Katy came from a pub round the corner to join us in our closing stages. Adama and Mark went home at this point since neither live in Bristol and had a bit of a trek home. So the six of us played Wavelength again. The five who’d played before should perhaps have taken the time to explain the rules to Katy instead of just starting and assuming she’d pick it up as she went along. She did fine until it was her turn to give a clue. She saw the category (Stationary/Mobile) and then chose the word, before randomising the target. Meaning it was kind of a hopeless task. There was also a moment where things could’ve taken a bad turn when Sam’s category was “Rough / smooth” and Martin advised him not to say “my balls.” Instead, he said “my chin” which lead to a little touching to try and gauge it’s roughness. Very glad he didn’t say “my balls.”

Katy, Andrew, Sam 10
Ian, Martin, Joe not 10

Now that Katy knew what to do we allowed her another try with all of us guessing and, all credit to her, she got it bang on. Between “traditionally feminine” and “traditionally masculine” she said “football” and we got it spot on: perhaps the only four-pointer of the evening. And I remembered just in time to take a photo as it was being put away.

Then we set off into the unsettled evening weather. Thanks all for a great evening.

2020 Visions

In case anyone has missed us comparing notes, Martin and I have agreed to end 2020 with a net spend of zero on games: trades are allowed, and even purchases, as long as the money spent is raised by selling games.

Self-control is,  just perhaps, easier for Martin than I, but the handy thing about having no self-control up to this point is that I have several unplayed games to work through in the cupboard - a welcome distraction any time I see an alluring picture on Twitter.

That's why I finally played Gugong last week (Andrew and I were schooled by Adam and Katy) after it sat on a shelf for a year. (To be fair Andrew and I did get as far as setting it up one night but then Steve knocked on the door and we changed plans) But Adam and I enjoyed Gugong so much we played it again the very next night, and although I improved my score considerably... so did Adam.

Adam 53
Sam 35

I did at least have the satisfaction of beating him at Blitzkrieg! and Ankh'or afterwards. Blitzkrieg is a nifty chit-pull game where Axis and Allies fight over five theatres of war in WWII. Ankh'or is a set-collecting game where the sets can overlap. In each case however I'd had several previous plays to hone my skills. "This is what it's like playing Odin with you" I told Adam, when he frowned at my second victory.

On Friday, my last purchase of 2019 had arrived in the form of Rurik: Dawn of Kiev, and Ian and Adam rocked up to give it a whirl. On the board players fight for control of regions, tax regions, construct churches (flip opponents soldiers to your cause!) forts (defend better!) or markets (tax more!) in order to move up four point-scoring tracks: control of regions, buildings built, goods acquired and battles undertaken.

It's all surprisingly simple on the rules front, but implementation is something else: what the publisher calls auction programming. It does sound a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but I haven't encountered it before: players assign numbered workers to auction tracks that give you actions on the board (muster, move, attack, build, tax, or scheme: cards that give you extra actions) and higher-numbered workers will push lower-numbered workers down the track... But: lower numbered workers will activate first. This is a real puzzle and makes the auction almost as interactive as the board, as you can guess (or try to) opponent's plans and react accordingly. In fact there's a real sneakiness to proceedings that reminded me a little of Battle for Rokugan, albeit the mechanics are entirely different.

I was pleasantly surprised to win too: Adam and Ian probably gave me too much freedom in the north to build, and although I scored nothing for combat I was highest on two other tracks and it ended something like:

Sam 18
Adam 13
Ian 9

We finished the night with Push It - what can be said about this classic that hasn't already escaped our lips? Well, I could mention that I won.

Sam 11
Adam 10
Ian 9

And then, on Saturday, Wavelength arrived! This is has been long-anticipated; a party game co-designed by Wolfgang Warsch (The Mind) that I suspect we may play tomorrow night. Teams are trying to clue the location of a target on a spectrum between two extremes: the target's position is assigned randomly, and the spectrum changes with every turn: from simple concepts such as good/bad or hot/cold to more random things - there's even an advanced deck with things like Dictatorship/Democracy.

It seems like it could be a GNN favourite, and we put it through its paces yesterday when Sally and I played with some friends - all of us were enamoured of it. The spectrum categories can sometimes seem easy, sometimes hard, and it illuminates the differences in perceptions around the table. Both teams are involved in both rounds (the non-active team can win points off the potential inaccuracy of the active team's guess) and the whole thing is probably quicker than Just One. A winner!

I've been through the desert in a house with no games

The first "normal" games night of 2020 was hosted by Joe even though, in preparation for some house renovations, almost all of his collection is currently kept elsewhere. He was joined by Ian, Adam T, Adam H (who both arrived together raising worries of an alliance of Adams), Sam, Martin, Katy and myself. Martin had an aptly named beer: Game Theory and then broke the (already fragile) fridge handle.

After a shocking fifteen minutes of chat, we split into two groups. Adam T, Katy, Sam and me played Gugong, while the other four played Babylonia. The size of the two games was such that the kitchen table couldn't hold both, so Babylonia was built on the card table instead. This means that I have little idea of what went on except that Ian won after the other three players left him alone. The scores weren’t recorded, but Martin said he lost “really badly”.

After this they played Was Sticht, which ended

Martin 3
Ian 2
Adam 2
Joe 1

As for Gugong, Sam explained the rules and (barring one that he remembered soon after we began) it looks like he got them all. The game is worker-placement with a difference: they’re cards, not workers. And the value of the card you play has to be higher than the one that’s already in the space for a particular action (1s beat 9s, though). If you want to place a lower card, then you have to pay two worker cubes and since this’ll often be your only option, then you need to be careful to always have a healthy stock of workers available.

With all this talk over actions and workers, you’d expect Adam H to be good at it and so it proved to be. He swiftly got into the jade business before it got too expensive. I dd the same, but far too late. In the closing stages it was Katy versus Adam, with Adam’s jade bonus pushing him into a comfortable win. Sam and I must’ve been distracted by something. Possibly Sam's bottle of red wine that kept getting kicked over as people walked by.

Adam 47
Katy 40
Sam 24
Andrew 23

At this point Ian and Adam T left and the remaining six played Letter Jam. I'm afraid, just like last time, I was the one to let the team down. I thought my word was CHIPS but instead it was CHIRP. So my grand finale where I use two of the communal letters to make SAPPHIC was ruined when I revealed what should have been an S only for it to be an R. Every one else got their word, though, which meant we got 79 points and 3 strawberries.

Finally, with Katy and Adam departing, we ended on The Mind Extreme. We started well but then lost three lives in round four. Then we got through round five clear, leaving us with the task of facing round six with only one life left.

Somehow we made it. With a little creative interpretation of the rules: we lost a life, but also at the end of the round you gain a life, so we called it evens.

We then failed in round seven but since we’d already broken the rules once, we tried round eight anyway. Twice. The first time was probably the worst round of The Mind ever: the last card on one of the piles was a 20.Then in our second attempt we expertly cleared the white pile, ending in an unlikely 44, 45, 46, 47, 48. The red pile, however, failed immediately.

Having filled ourselves with all the gaming goodness we could hold, it was time to retire to bed. Thanks for the evening everyone. A good start to the year.

Party to Something

GNN started 2020 in celebratory mode, with an open-door policy at mine and Sally's house, and as well as the usual massively-unhealthy snacks there was also the marginally-safer ones of crostini and tapenade, courtesy of Sally. There was also mackerel pate, a variety of cheeses, cloudy lemonade, and a bowl of salad that - as Martin noted nine hours later, slowly turned into a bowl of wilted leaves.

still lurking this morning

But before that could happen, Adam T and Celena were first to arrive, promptly joined by Martin, Sarah and Effie. After summing up the options, Effie left the adults to it and went to chill with Stan and Joe. Arthur joined her when he rocked up with Hannah (who came by bus), and then shortly after that Adam H arrived on two wheels. Then Joe walked in too.

But for a long time - literally, hours! - people talked. It almost reached the point where the blog would need to be renamed, but fortunately Andy Mosse arrived with his boy Finn, and brought Team 3 with him. After it sat glowing radioactively for long enough on the table, the collective curiosity of myself, Martin, the Adams and Joe couldn't be resisted any more and with Andy's help we cracked out a quick couple of plays.

The game takes the concept of see/hear/speak no evil and parcels out those communicative restrictions on three team-mates, one of whom must describe the structure they have to build (from tetris-type blocks) whilst not speaking. The second must communicate the message verbally to the third, who can't see anything. It can be played co-operatively or competitively, and our second game was the latter, with Andy, Joe and Adam H beating Martin, Adam T and myself. Maybe it was the combination of hosting, or too much cloudy lemonade, but I found it very stressful.

Later - I think it was later - Ian arrived, and as the daylight began to fail, so did Steve and Anja with Louie and Lennon. Whilst the older kids disappeared to the loft to watch Pixels, the younger crew stayed in the front room with more suitable viewing, as we were all charmed by Lennon distributing snacks, often directly into our mouths. By this point there were two rooms full of potential gamers. In the front room, Sally and I joined Adam, Hannah, Steve, Anja for what turned out to be a triumphant crack at Just One - not only scoring the maximum 13 but 2 bonus points as well. which is even more impressive considering the game probably took about an hour all told.

Meanwhile in the kitchen there was an epic game of Facecards playing out. It took even longer than Just One, so God knows what took place. Everyone seemed very happy with it though.

As the day faded away, so did the 'non-gamers' with various children and relieved parents making their way home so the regular GNNers could go full-nerd. Sally had nowhere to go, but seemed happy to stay. To be frank the order of events gets extremely hazy here, I think due to all the cheese I was eating, but I think this was when a huge game of 7 Wonders got played.

Andy Mosse had only played 7 Wonders Duel, but was otherwise new to things, and initially had Joe beside him as his trusty assistant. But then I stole Joe away to play two games of Blitzkrieg! which we won one apiece and celebrated in our joint mutual destruction. I think Martin won 7 Wonders, after which Adam and Celena departed... in the front room, Sally taught Steve and Anja Yokai. I'm not sure how they got on, but after the first game Sally was ashen-faced in the kitchen, muttering something about rules.

Somewhere around here Res Arcana got played.

I think it was while Adam, Katy - freshly arrived - Ian and I played Flamme Rouge. As we were setting it up, Chris walked in the door - passing Steve and Anja en famille on the way out - and happily sat down to join us. A while ago Flamme Rouge was a regular at the GNN tables, and it was nice to play it again even if the card system initially seems slightly counter-intuitive. I've personally found that the backs of all cards are the same colour a little bewildering, even if it's necessary to hide those exhaustion cards...

While we were pedalling through the Alps, a boisterous Medium was played out at the other end of the table, with much roaring of disbelief and approbation. I've no idea which team won, but they wrapped things up the same time as Adam H sailed over the line in Flamme Rouge.

I'm now exceedingly hazy on things but I think it was towards the end of these games that Andrew and Anna arrived to find a scene of game-related debauchery in full swing. Stan and Joe were so screened out they were taken for a walk by Sally, Andy and Finn departed, and a game of PUSH was initiated by Joe that Anna was shanghai-ed into, whilst at the other end of the table something else occurred. I'm not sure what. It may have just been wild consumption of cheese. EDIT: looking at photos I see we played Tiny Towns. This was after Adam and I tried to play Ecos: First Continent, only to have Martin rule it out by repeatedly barking "no!" even though he wasn't playing.

I think I blanked it out because of my awful building-site finale - Adam won this, followed by Chris and Ian.

However around mid-evening seat-changing occurred with Just One back on the table in the kitchen while Ian, Adam and Chris suffered the indignity of finding out a crucial rule I'd missed in Word Domination: the game of allegedly taking over the world but actually just spelling things.

It's a neat little system of claiming cards by using the letters on them, the catch being you need to claim them in subsequent turns, and may be bumped off in the meantime by other players. I'd not realised the board actually grows during play, however, and we hurriedly implemented the rule when I found it in round 5. Despite Chris' vocabulary and my alleged (by Adam) always-winning at word games, it was Adam's shrewd strategic brain and claimed another win.

In Just One, meanwhile, four people clued gatherer, leaving poor Katy to try and guess Hunter from Joe's clue Orion. There was a substantial bout of cheating here, none of which sadly helped.

Sally couldn't be persuaded to stay up for another game, and so we were reduced to eight - Joe, Martin, Katy, Adam, Anna, Andrew, Ian and myself - for what would turn out to be the last game of an epic session - Pairs. Although I was barely drinking, my cheese and sugar intake had reached gargantuan proportions and I don't know what happened here at all, although I do recall Martin serially going bust on his first card flip and Katy doing well. I think she won - I went to the toilet, and when I returned, it was all over.

And so was the night!

Although our incongruous - for GNN - start of prolonged chat was rather sweetly mirrored at the end, as we sat around the table almost like normal people before we realised the time was 11pm and Ian and I were starting to yawn.

I'm pretty sure I've missed out some games as well as plenty of high points. A big bundle of fun and lovely to have so many of us under one roof at the same time! Thanks to everyone for coming and look forward to seeing some/all of you very soon... Tuesday?