Bugged out

Another week of games online, albeit one with an end to the isolation in sight. The promise of a six household get together is only a couple of weeks away, but with the addition of some online activities for those unwilling to come out just yet.

But that is all conjecture for the future. This week, six of us rolled onto BGA. I was too late for Raj, which ended in a cruel tie for Ian and Andy.

Martin 11
Katy 5
Ian -99
Andy -99

Soon after I arrived, Joe logged on and the six of us played That's Life (or Verflixt, or Fucksticks as it has alternatively been called). It worked well online although twice I clicked on the tile I wanted to go to instead of the piece I wanted to move, thus moving a guard by mistake.

We all admired the new die rolling animation. All except Joe who insisted it was broken and that you could see the final number during the animation. We disagreed and there then followed a lengthy demonstration of possibly the worst psychic in the world. Joe guessed correctly but always said the number just after the die finished rolling. "Well, you have to expect some lag," he explained.

He continued a few more times, looking like someone just reading a die and expecting people to be impressed. Eventually, he switched from Safari to Chrome and the bug no longer occurred - his ability to see into the future was over. I wonder if the story of Samson and Delilah would have been so popular if, instead of cutting off his hair to remove his strength, Delilah had just changed his default browser.

"Two!"

As for the game, I did terribly while Katy attributed her success to her laid back nature while she branded Martin a "Skippy wotsit" who never stayed still long enough to pick up a tile.

Katy 27
Ian 11
Andy 9
Martin 2
Joe -7
Andrew -8

Then another old favourite had made a recent debut online, Hugo. Despite technically being banned in a couple of houses we were playing in, we carried on regardless. It was the familiar mix of chants and cheers as Hugo chased our hapless party guests (although we were slightly disappointed to see the same dice animation as we'd seen in That's Life.)

"We all self-Hugo," said Katy, "nothing to be ashamed of." "And anyone who says they don't self-Hugo is lying," added Joe.

Andy -17
Ian -18
Joe -24
Andrew -24
Katy -25
Martin -31

Then we squeezed in one last game before Joe left. He can't resist For Sale. It was a typical game. Andy picked up a zero dispite bidding 17 and Martin got $15 with only a 22. But it was slow, steady me that finished in first place.

Andrew 53
Katy 52
Martin 45
Ian 38 plus tie breaker
Joe 38
Andy 34

So Joe left and Katy and Ian were teetering on the brink. They both agreed to stay on for one last game of No Thanks, but things quickly became unstuck when Katy lost her connection on her first turn. Or was it something more serious than that? She kept getting a lengthy error message from BGA, something about some module not working.
She tried refreshing, and refreshing again and then refreshing in another language before finally deciding that the problem was beyond help. Then we had the difficulty of working out how to cancel the game if Katy couldn't access it to say she was fine to abandon it.

In the end, we left it, since there wasn't a time limit on it. And, as far as I know, it's still there. I hope we have the chance to finish it next week. I'd love to see what Katy's thinking time is.

And so that was that. A bit of a damp squib to end on but still a fun evening. See you all next week.