Stone me

The country remains in lockdown so we do our bit by not leaving the house and looking at heavily pixelated versions of ourselves via the internet.

I arrived at 8 at about the same time as Steve and Anja. We three joined Sam, Martin, Katy, Ian and Adam T who had already played 7 Wonders. Don't know the score.

We started a game of 6nimmt, and although Sam went clear in round one, it was Katy who won. She pointed out, in the face of our general disapproval, that it was her turn to win since Martin had won last time.

Katy 64
Martin 61
Sam 54
Andrew 43
Steve 32
Ian 22
Adam 7
Anja -3

Next up was Incan Gold, which Katy struggled with because she couldn’t see on her screen how many of us were still in the temple. Not that it made much difference since her determination to stay on until the rich pickings that were surely only a card turn away was to be her undoing. And Martin’s too, as they played out an identical game, both only clicking on the “keep exploring” option until they were dead. Sam, however, was far more light on his feet. Has his need for early nights in real life seeped into his Incan Gold strategy? Wasn’t enough to beat Ian in game one and then, in game two, Martin tried the “swift exit” tactics with less success.

Ian 28
Sam 24
Anja 18
Andrew 15
Adam 15
Steve 7
Martin 0
Katy 0

Sam 23
Steve 17
Adam 15
Andrew 13
Anja 9
Martin 8
Ian 7
Katy 5

Katy may have come last twice, but at least she cheered us all up by singing “Zombie Lady” to the tune of “La Cucaracha”.

Then Joe arrived to we split into two groups. Katy was keen to see people's faces so she and her merry band of Anja, Steve, Ian and Joe set off for Google Hangouts and two games of Coloretto.

Anja wins game one
Ian wins game two.

Martin, Adam, Sam and I played Palaces of Carrara for the first time in years for most of us. Sam got a rules refresher/explanation but I’ve noticed that online is not a great place to learn a game. He, by the end, admitted he had no idea what he was doing. Adam complained if people bought without moving the wheel and Martin sighed heavily at how badly he was doing before choosing a move that got him lots of points. It ended as you might imagine, and thanks to Martin for charitably describing the score as “close”.

Martin 95
Andrew 50
Sam 47
Adam 44

Keen to play again, though.

Finally, with all of us on Google Hangouts (except for Sam and Steve who left at this point) we played Just One. Our brilliant showing in this game is becoming more and more of a distant memory as we struggled.

Even with our “Guess the duplicate” rule, we did badly. Ian looked sleepier with each guess and at one point he logged out and didn’t come back in so we thought he’d finally nodded off. But it was his battery that had died, not him.

GNN super charitable scoring method: 10 points
Official rules scoring method: 4 points

And so we were done for another evening. Thanks all! Must do it again some time.