Take it from the top

 I arrived at Joe's at eight o'clock and watched the tail end of a game called Regicide. It must have been co-operative since when Joe died at the hands of a Queen, the game ended.

Now, with my arrival, we were a fivesome: Joe, Sam, Adam H, Ian and myself. And we cracked open the 15th anniversary edition of Ticket To Ride. And it was huge. A great big map that was 1:1000 scale or something absurd like that, and separate tins for our new super sized plastic trains.

This old favourite had been absent for so long that we needed a rules refresher. Adam's technique of taking two cards from the top of the deck until he had about one third of all cards in play was very familiar, though. Sam starts off in bold fashion with an early tunnel which, unfortunately, takes two attempts to complete. Is it a coincidence that people mostly stuck to their half of the board? Any attempt at building in Russia for me (sat next to Spain) would’ve meant practically walking across the room.

Halfway through the game, Adam started building tracks and then people started to panic, convinced that his masterplan was swinging into action. Then Joe’s cat did a stinky poo in the litter tray. I don't know if that put Adam off, but he was siting nearest. 

In the end, we were all very close apart from me, because I’d forgotten I needed to get to Sevastopol. That cost me eight points, but I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the leading pack anyway. Sam overcame his initial tunnel trouble to take the win.

Sam 121

Adam 115

Ian 110

Joe 103

Andrew 63

After this we played Colorful, which is like Wavelength except far simpler and all the answers have to be colours. Joe began in typically cryptic mode when his clue for “Long” was “Whale’s penis,” trying to prompt us to chose Blue. But I was trying to remember what colour a whale’s penis actually was. That round ended in failure.

In round two, Sam used his extensive knowledge of Marvel characters to say “Vision” was a clue for “red,” except I had no idea what Vision is, let alone what they wear. Another failure. Finally, in round three we got it right. Well done us.

Finally, with the time just after ten, we started a game of Ra. Joe’s deluxe edition, which he is inordinately proud of even if he is considering exchanging the tile bag for a fez. He also brought out some snacks that he called “bread squirts” which did not endear us, even if it was accurate.

Round two was extremely short while the third epoch went on for a long time. Ian had a great final epoch, picking up civilisations and pharaohs in a bumper final round.

Ian 47

Joe 42

Sam 28

Adam 22

Andrew 20

A great evening. Thanks all. See you soon.

Agents of Change

Last night Andrew and I played Lords of Waterdeep for the first time in four years. With just the two of us, it was a quite speedy affair even with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion included. We shook off a little rules rustiness on set-up and leapt in to the titular city, gathering adventurers for our quests. 

I felt I was off to a good start and this confidence only increased as Andrew's agents seemed often a source of frustration to him rather than good news. "Why the fuck did I do that?" he sighed at one point. He also had a huge pile of the punitive skulls, whereas I was stockpiling quests and buildings that my Lord - whose name I now cannot recall, but he looks like a blue squid - would reward me for handsomely. I was so confident of victory that I relaxed somewhat, taking somewhat lackadaisical moves on the last two rounds. I don't know if being more concentrated would have helped or not, but Andrew's margin of victory was something like 30 points in the end. A fool and his dreams are soon parted...

Andrew followed this with another triumph. Cube Quest first appeared on GNN eight years ago, and is as much fun now as it was then. True, we didn't play with any tactical savoir faire at all, mainly just taking turns to aim for the kings, but the fun in this game is mainly about things going wrong, which they often did. More often for me:

Andrew wins 2-1

Andrew was now making going-home mumblings, but agreed to stay for his first crack at the haptic joy that is Project L. I would stop short of saying I 'love' Project L in the way I do some games, but it's always enjoyable and doesn't outstay it's welcome. Plus it gives me an opportunity for revenge, in what was a fairly low-scoring game:

Sam 19

Andrew 17

And that was that! Nice to get a trio of fast-moving games in on the night the heatwave finally broke. Hope to see you all on Tuesday.

A Doggy Dog World

 Late again for games, I was about to knock on Joe’s front door when I heard laughter coming from nearby. Checking my surroundings, I noticed that the set of stone steps leading down to a little below-pavement quadrant was no longer blocked and that the quadrant now hosted some welcoming doors that lead  inside. I followed the sound of happiness into Joe’s new open-plan kitchen/lounge area. An impressive new gaming arena with a surprising lack of games which were still in Joe’s studio.

But we had enough games to be getting on with. When I arrived, Sam, Joe and Katy had already played Spicy, which Joe had won, with Sam in second. I also soon learn that we are to be welcoming a couple of newcomers from Sam’s work, Dan and Mikey.

Before they arrived, we played a game of Take The A Chord, since to leave it any longer meant we’d have to learn the game from scratch. We pretty much had to do so, anyway, as the finer details of key changes and improvising eluded us at first. Eventually we got into it, and I won by getting three tricks in each round. Mr Consistency, they call me. 

Andrew 90

Sam 75

Katy 65

Joe 30

Then Mikey arrived and, after introductions, we all played Troika. Joe tried to play mean (“It’s a doggy dog world,” he said, unless I heard wrong) while Katy insisted you had to think for yourself. Joe won this argument, but only after a tie-breaker.

Joe 3

Katy 2

Sam 1

Andrew 0

Mikey -1

Then while we waiting for Dan to arrive we grilled Mikey on his board gaming knowledge. I hope we didn’t seem too interrogatorial, but he acquitted himself well as he name checked a few GNN favourites. 

When Dan arrived the six of us split into teams for Team Play. It’s a pretty rule-light game so Dan and Mikey were up to speed before too long. In fact, Mikey was able to complete a task in his first turn and then so did Dan. As the game wore on, me and Dan were in a comfortable lead and I thought Mikey and Katy were in second with four-task lightweights Joe and Sam in last place. 

But we were in first because, after starting with some high-scoring tasks, I decided to dash to eight tasks by getting a few two-pointers out of the way. When we counted up, my hunch was right, but it was much closer than I’d imagined as Sam and Joe ended with only five tricks but each one was a peach.

Dan and Andrew 26

Joe and Sam 25

Katy and Mikey 19

And with that Katy and I dashed off home, leaving the others to… chat I suppose. Thanks all. See you next Tuesday!

Gwyneth Paltrow *is* a Person

On Saturday Katy, Ian and I (Sam) met at my place for some extra-curricular gaming. Katy was running slightly late so we set up Project L, but after a couple of turns she arrived, so after the briefest of chats we reset and started again as a trio. As touched on previously, this is the simplest of games to learn - bar perhaps Gold Fever - and all you're doing is gathering tetris-type shapes to complete puzzles, which equal points. The juice is really in the bits, which are gorgeous, and that tactility (along with the satisfaction of completing each puzzle) counters any shortcomings. Although I'd won very few of the previous 25 times I'd played it, 26th was a charm:

Sam 25

Katy/Ian 19 each

After a brief discussion we moved on to The Quest for El Dorado, Knizia's always pleasurable deck-building racing game. I couldn't recall if you were allowed to buy more than one card on your turn, and as my rules were in German I texted Martin, assuring Katy that this would probably be quicker than looking up the rules online. Sure enough it took only a few moments for Martin to reply with not only a clarifier, but in the form of a screengrab of the relevant rule. This astonished Katy, who became convinced Martin is a robot. Maybe that's why she didn't win. 

I know why I didn't - I loaded up with money to buy good cards, then kept finding I was just buying good cards with handfuls of money. Until I arrived at the place where I needed money, only to find I had a hand full of machetes. Ian meanwhile sashayed to an extremely convincing win:

Ian - El Dorado!

Katy/Sam - El Stupido

Then we played a new game called Cabo: each player is dealt four face-down cards from a deck numbered 0-13, and the goal is to have the four lowest-numbered cards collectively. Everyone looks at just two of their cards before play begins, then on a turn you can draw the top card from either the deck or the discards. 

If it's the discards, you simply exchange it with a card in your tableau. If it's the deck, you can either a. do the same b. simply discard it or c. discard it and take the action on the card (if there is one). There's only three actions: Peek at one of your own cards, Spy at one of someone else's and Swap with someone else. Or, if you think you're in a good position numerically-speaking, you can forego drawing at all and call 'Cabo'. Now everyone else has one final turn before cards are revealed and scored. Points are bad, so a successful cabo scores zero. Everyone else scores the number value of their cards. An unsuccessful cabo scores the number value plus ten, and as soon as someone goes over 100 points the player with the fewest points wins.

There's two twists: if you manage to hit 100 points exactly, your score gets halved to 50. And if when cards are revealed you have the 'kamikaze' hand - two 12s and two 13s - you score zero and everyone else scores 50!

(There's a rule I missed as well: you're allowed to swap a card you pick up for multiple cards, but the catch is they must be the same number. If you flip them over and they don't match, you have to keep them and the card you drew - I'm not sure any of us were ever quite aware enough of what we had to attempt this though!)

Ian sailed through this game as he had through El Dorado: calmly, drinking strong beer. Katy and I regularly imploded, both of us calling cabo more often than was sensible and suffering as a result. Poised on 97 points Katy needed either a 3 point hand or a kamikaze to save her, but I called cabo before she could engineer either of those things. Inevitably, Ian won. 

Ian 57

Sam 112

Katy 121

Next up was Fae, or the Land of Old Men's Penises as we fondly christened it. 

Turns couldn't be simpler: move a penis, or a group of penises, from one region to another. They will refuse to go into an empty region, and instantly throw a party if the region they gather in is (somewhat topically) isolated: if there's no penises in adjacent regions, they score points. The catch in this game is all colours score and nobody is can be totally sure what colour anyone else is until the end of the game, when identities are revealed. My gray penises - don't say anything - triumphed, though I didn't write down the scores:

Sam 

Ian

Katy

"We need something fun after that" said Katy, who had found arranging all the plastic pieces into a socially-isolating party on her side of the table more entertaining than the actual game, although I like Fae quite a lot myself. And so we played the most abysmal game of Wavelength ever: very fun, and funny, but a point-scoring catastrophe: we finished with two points. Ian's clues were probably the most logical, but at this point I was a little drunk and forgot, for instance, that there are many thousand tv programmes that are inarguably lower-brow than You've Been Framed. Not able to take that result lying down, we tried again, appalling Katy with our guess that Gwyneth Paltrow looks 'somewhat' like a person. "Gwyneth Paltrow is a person!" she cried in despair, revealing that the target was very much in the person zone and accusing us of guessing a place that would be occupied by a potato. Another mostly-inarguable truth, but Ian and I were factoring in Katy's recent candle-related disdain, that had threatened to turn into a late night rant about "the system". 

I didn't take photos, we were having too much fun/scorn. 

Then we played Push It, which Ian won. My memory of this is mostly about Katy trying to cheat. I think it was before or after this game that we had a long cereal-based tangent that took in kitchen size, milk type, relationship status and the joys of living alone. Katy also insisted she knew "nothing" about us, as we all conceded games nights were mostly "business". I told Katy I have one kidney. Ian stayed enigmatically silent. Who knows how many internal organs he possesses?

And finally we midnight looming we broke out Gold Fever, the simplest bag-builder/deconstructor there is, where you're trying to be first to draw four gold out a bag made of mostly rubble. With Ian having won El Dorado, Cabo and Push It and my name on the Project L and Fae cups, Katy finally picked up the win she craved, with Ian poised on three gold and myself a pitiful one. 

A fantastic night of games and silly fun, thanks guys!

Fear and Slothing

 When one of us becomes prime minister and historians comb through this blog looking for signs of future greatness, will this be one of the entries that they dwell upon? One of us made a decision that had ramifications far in excess of what they expected. One that may echo down the ages until it is pinpointed as the moment when Something Important began to happen. Or maybe it’ll be forgotten by next week.

But first, the games. I arrived at Sam's at 8, to find Joe, Ian (his first games night of the year), Sam and Katy playing Photograph, a game from the same designer as Take The A Chord. I watched the closing stages of the game in bemusement. Sam anguished over the fact he forgot that he has reds. Ian languished in last while Katy vanquished them all. Joe played well too, except I can't think of a fourth rhyme.

Katy 36

Sam 30

Joe 18

Ian 17

Next, as a fivesome, we played Fast Sloths, a racing game in which the sloths can't move in unless carried by one of a number of obliging animas. It was confusing at first with some of the rules regarding movement being a little unintuitive. Why eagles could only fly over rivers if there was a bridge made no sense until Joe pointed out that eagles are constantly worried about dropping out of the sky. 

It began well for Katy once she’d got her head around the rules, and before long she’d pulled of a “two leaves in one move” turn (the target is first to pick up eight leaves) to put herself in first and before long was looking in a strong place to win. But then a misunderstanding of the rules left her becalmed in the corner of the map while she slowly edged towards some ants who would carry her to victory. By the time she was in position, Joe, was on his seventh leaf also closing in on those ants while Sam was in stoney last with four. But he had a plan. An epic history-changing plan.

He put down twelve movement points for ants, used only a couple to get another leaf and then spent the rest of his movement points sending Katy's ants off in a totally useless direction. Katy, exasperated, couldn’t move and considered forfeiting while Sam apologised, saying it was his only sensible move. Katy made a token effort at enticing an animal back in her direction but then Joe swooped: he didn’t need the ants at all, and he got to the eighth leaf using a donkey or something.

Katy was annoyed, and also blamed me for writing “Katy 8” in my notebook since I was so convinced of her imminent win. But thinking about it, even if Sam hadn’t done that, I think Joe would have won anyway since he and Katy would both have eight leaves but Joe had more cards in his hand and so probably would’ve won on a tie breaker. Does that make Katy feel any better?

Joe 8

Katy 7

Ian 7

Andrew 6

Sam 5

After this bruising encounter, we went for something like a group-hug: co-op Wavelength. We all worked together to score fifteen points and did it easily. No help from me, since I believe we scored nothing when I gave clues. BUt it was a lot of fun, with frequent references to "moving ants" as a potential clue. On the category “Wet food/Dry food” Sam said (I think but maybe Ian, though) "Bread". This gave rise to a lot of discussion which continued until after the answer was revealed (we scored 3 points, iirc) regarding whether something "oily" could be described as "wet" or did "wet" imply the presence of just water. Only Wikipedia ended the  debate.

We scored 21 points and won!

Then Katy and I leave while Joe and Ian stayed on for a game of Love Letter. Thanks for the evening and for the excellent range of crisps. See you all soon.

Flippedy Doo Dah

 The regular GNN meet continued in its perambulations around Bristol, this time landing in my flat. There were only three of us, since others seemed more keen on the Euro 2020 semi final, but my table cannot comfortably accommodate lots of people so it was probably for the best.

First, with Katy en route, Sam and I dusted off vague memories and played The Pyramid's Deadline, a roll and build game which sees the players racing to build the biggest mausoleum before the pharaoh snuffs it. I'm sure we forgot a few rules, despite reading through them. Not to worry, Sam won easily.

Sam scored lots

Andrew scored not lots

Katy turned up and we played another Japanese game Remember Our Trip. This curious game involves players tiles onto their player board, trying to match the shape and colour of various buildings. Once they have achieved that, the shape scores PLUS that building is added to a communal player board that represents the "real" memories (assuming that those squares haven't already been claimed by someone else's recollection).

It was interesting. I did keep wanting to slip into Hellfire Club mode and reminisce at length about our trip to Kyoto, but that's not what the game is about. It’s fun and a little mean as players try to remember things about the same part of the board first.

Sam 46

Andrew 44

Katy 30

Next up we broke out good old Divinare, the game of psychic ability. After a very brief rules refresher, we got down to business for a truncated three round game (because I wanted to play Troika). Sam sped off into an early lead, crediting his success to a lack of understanding of any strategy. Meanwhile Katy found her earlier optimism to be completely misplaced and as we began the final round, she had a grand total of minus one points. She did better in that final round, going from dismal last to respectable last.

Andrew 14

Sam 12

Katy 7

Finally, we played Troika, a token flipping set collecting game of space exploration. Katy quickly got into the swing of things and ended round one with 19 points. You can imagine her disappointment when she discovered that winning a round only gets you two points. Katy did need regular prompting to flip a tile first. These prompts became increasingly long and absurd (ie, "flippiddy dippidy!") as she . That didn't stop her though and Katy finally won a game, much to her relief since that meant her evening wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Katy 4

Sam 3

Andrew 2

And so that was that for another week. Next week will have less football to distract people, but maybe more virus to put people off. We shall see.