East of Adam

It was raining so hard when we arrived at Adam and Hannah's house all Joe, Katy and I (Sam) had to do was cross the road from Joe's car to arrive drenched. Already present and surprisingly dry were our hosts (plus Arthur!) along with Adam T, Martin, Gareth, and Mel, whom I last saw something like 15 years ago playing football on the Downs. After some catching-up time, Hannah took Arthur off to bed and we decided games should be played, foregoing an 8-player opener in favour of the same Knizia one-two we saw recently: Joe, Adam and Katy began teaching Mel Tajuto in the kitchen whilst the rest of us migrated to the front room to set up on the other table. I realised I'd probably be on blogging duties and went back to take a photo, but Katy said to come back when something had actually happened. 

My phone died halfway through writing this up so I'll update with the correct scores later

In Babylonia it was happening fast. Like last week, Martin snaffled up the first ziggurat and grabbed the free extra turn. Gareth and Adam occupied either end of the board as I tried to weave a path between them, stymied by both the river and, inevitably, Martin. Adam made the early running, but Babylonia moves so fast we all took turns ahead of the pack, with one turn Gareth made sending him from fourth into a clear lead. 

I ignored ziggurats, feeling I had enough to think about already with Babylonia's cascade of options on every turn. I was pleased when Martin said my farmers had fucked everything up though - always a good sign. In the other room, meanwhile, Tajuto had moved on.

I was impressed with their discipline around the Monster Munch; we'd devoured ours already along with Gareth's Pringles, a fact I'm regretting at my leisure this morning. "It's only me eating them" admitted Adam. Not sure what was happening in the game, as I was mainly focused on crisps at this point. Meanwhile in the other room we'd moved on too, both in the snack department (honey and mustard pretzels) and the games also: I'd managed to stumble onto a win in Babylonia, jumping into the lead with my last big-ish move but without realising I'd also triggered the end of the game. Yes me! 

Sam 138 / Adam T 135 / Gareth 130 / Martin 120

Thanks to Adam too, who realised to everyone's chagrin (apart from me, of course). We were now playing Whale Riders, where a clear split in strategy came early: Gareth and Martin raced ahead whilst Adam and I lingered behind. 

I was first to complete a contract but after that my whale seemed to stagnate somewhat. Both and Adam and I were concerned we'd made the wrong choice in our lingerings, as the better tiles all seemed to lay ahead of us, with the others hoovering - other more whale-applicable verbs may be available - them up willy-nilly, and completing several contracts at a time. I made a late-game mini-surge, but it wasn't enough, and the surprise ending this time didn't help me:

Martin 26 / Gareth 21 / Sam 19 / Adam T 14 

Tajuto finished around the same time, it being Katy's turn to beam happily at the Knizia-fuelled shenanigizing, having beaten Adam off to claim the win:

Katy / Adam / Mel / Joe

There was surprisingly little debate about what came next: Martin, Adam T, Joe and Gareth swiftly teamed up for The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, and hosting Adam was keen to revisit the cube-rail auctions and manipulation craziness of Luzon Rails. When Katy saw the bits she wanted to try it too. It is a lovingly-presented game.

It was a cagey start as the opening sale of shares all went for around the same price, with yellow the only one - restricted to three shares total as opposed to four or five - a little more expensive. Mel grabbed it and began building in the south of Luzon, so I went for a second share in yellow and before long Adam joined us too. There was a great community spirit in this little corner of the board. On the other side, Katy was very reluctant to share the spoils of her investments, outbidding me me on both red (which made sense) and pink (which probably didn't) before apologising for her latent capitalist leanings. As the game headed for yet another abrupt climax, Adam's incremental nudges forward on yellow and green pushed me - as the co-owner of both - past Katy even as she triggered the scoring on an extremely close game:

Sam 50 / Katy 45 / Adam 42 / Mel 40

My win, but also Adam's, in a way. 

In the other room, the four astronauts divers had sailed through no less than seven missions first-time, and only took three to complete mission number 8. They looked pleased with their night's work. 

The hour was getting late and so Gareth and Adam T headed home, leaving us as a six. It was the perfect number for Cross Clues, which immediately looked like it was going to be tricky with the words 'bag' and 'suitcase' both appearing. From early on it didn't look like it would be our finest Cross Clues hour as several guesses hit the wrong mark. I wrinkled my nose at Martin's conviction that my clue 'leather' definitely went with 'hat', and everyone wrinkled their noses at Katy's interpretation of Adam's 'helmet' clue. But we rallied somewhat and finished with a respectable-ish fifteen.

There was time for one more game, so we segued into So Clover. Though my memory at this point is somewhat foggy, I do recall was a comparative triumph. I think we scored 30 points from a possible 36, which is the best we've done, possibly? It doesn't quite have Cross Clues' hilarity, but it's immensely satisfying for both cluer and clue-ees when things come off.

It was not that far off midnight so we wrapped things up, happy with a salvo of games played and memories, if at this point slightly out of focus, acquired. There was a tinge of sadness that Hannah is still an avowed non-gamer. Maybe next time we should start with Cross Clues and do some gentle cajoling?

Once, twice, three times a Knizia

I arrived at 8 in time to watch the final stages of Cross Clues.  The six gamers already there were Joe (hosting), Katy, Sam, Martin, Ian and debutante Gareth, brought into the fold by Martin. Expectation of an impending Adam T was dashed when he texted that he couldn't find a parking space and had returned home.

As for Cross Clues, I think I heard someone say that it was the highest they'd scored, and in the post game discussion there seemed to be a lot of mistaken clues related to "bus". A deceptively tricky world.

Then we split into two groups, both choosing Reiner Knizia games. Martin, Gareth, Sam and I chose Babylonia while Ian, Katy and Joe played Ra, with its lovely big tiles and shiny bag. In keeping with the Egyptian theme, Katy asked for The Bangles to be played. "What about The Go-Go's?" suggested Joe, "they're a little more sophisticated." But Katy wouldn't be swayed. We had to sit through Eternal Flame and Manic Monday before we got to Walk Like An Egyptian, with Katy insisting that this was the best music they'd ever had at a games night.

As for the game, Ian monopolised the pharaohs and Joe went big on buildings in the last round. Katy was clearly too distracted by the music.

Ian pushes his luck at the end of the second epoch

Ian 55

Joe 54

Katy 37

In Babylonia, it was almost as close. Gareth got a rules explanation (and I got a much needed rules refresher) before we set off and for most of the game, it was very tight, with the lead changing places constantly. But Gareth faded in the end game, while Martin left it very late. He was in last (77 points) and I was in first (100) when he put down a five-farmer move sped into first place (114 points). We only had one turn each to respond after that and I did just enough to stay ahead of Sam’s 24-point final move.

Martin 141

Andrew 135

Sam 133

Gareth 114

Next we re-assembled ourselves into two new groups. Joe, Gareth and Martin played Whale Riders, another game from the prolific Knizia. I know nothing about this game but it must have left some kind of impression on me since that night I dreamt that I met Joe in my friend’s flat. I asked what he was doing there so early and he said “I want to grab a shark, you know. Be a big hitter.” And then he mimed swinging a baseball bat while making the noise of hitting a ball.

Gareth 26

Martin 25

Joe 24

Meanwhile the rest of us played Kabuto Sumo. Sam and Katy took on Ian and me, and they made best use of super powers and items to take an easy but very silly 2-0, mostly due to having a massive poo to push around in the second round.

Next up was a quick game of Spicy, which is like Cheat (in that you have to spot when someone has put down a card different to what they said it was) but with more leeway (the challenger has to say if the number or suit is wrong, and if not then they get two cards). It was fun. And Ian was there. Honest.

Sam 30

Katy 24

Andrew 19

Ian 0

Joe's Spicy statue

Then I had to dash (after only two hours, shocking) but Sam told me about great success in So Clover (33 points!)

And then a victory at Master Word.

Well done chaps. Thanks for the evening. Will see you all soon.

Cross correspondences

At eight o'clock I squeezed past the bicycles in the path to Sam's front door and arrived for another games night. Inside I found Sam, Martin, Ian, Joe, Adam H and Steve just about to launch into a game of Cross Clues.

This game involves a 5x5 grid with words along the X and y axes. The idea is that you're dealt a card with a set of coordinates on it and you have to give a single word clue that'll allow the other players to deduce what coordinates you have.

They'd already played once, before Steve had arrived, and got 18 out of 25 and were keen to do better. It's a fun game, but if you get the wrong combination of clues, you can find yourself beached on the sands of bemusement. Joe managed to get one clue done, while Steve's combo of Goat and Shovel defeated him and he was stuck with that clue for the whole game.

It was surprisingly difficult. I think we all had moments when our logic that made so much sense was undermined by a hitherto overlooked meaning behind a word. I said "Jaws" thinking it'd be an easy clue for Shark and Angry, only for Sam to initially focus on the word Holiday which was kind of an important plot point in the film.

In the end we scored 17 out of 25.

After this we split into two groups. Sam, Ian and Adam chose Brew, which is a very busy looking game. Martin, Joe, Steve and I went for Tajuto, a Knizia game of building pagodas out of pieces pulled from a cloth bag while making jokes about leaving brown offerings. We got a rules explanation of the many varied ways to score one or two points here and there. 

Like most Knizia games, the winning strategy wasn't at all clear but, as time went on, Martin bought points while I made a list ditch attempt at gambling on which pagodas would be completed. In the end, only one of my three bets came to fruition while Martin’s points in the bag were a far safer investment.

Martin 18

Steve 13

Joe 10

Andrew 4

It was fine. I was a bit bamboozled about the strategy and, as Joe pointed out, it relies a lot on timing. Nice, though.

As for Brew, I didn’t try to understand it from all the way across the table. Steve asked why it was called “Brew” and Sam explained that you were brewing potions, but that was only about a third of the game. Unless you’re Adam, he added, as the aforementioned gamer held up a healthy hand of cards.

Adam 78

Ian 74

Sam 57

Around this time we got an email from Katy (or "GNN Wales" as she called herself) reporting on her brief gaming experience while on holiday. She beat her other half Rob at Fake Yahtzee, and then lost at whist. Not games that we often see at GNN but getting Rob to play anything is worth noting.

After this, we split again. Sam, Joe, Martin and Steve tried Kabuto Sumo while Adam, Ian and I brought out good old Tsuro. 

It was so nice to see this again and we weaved in and out as if we’d never been away. Adam proved to have to next-level tactics, trying to block me into one corner. We played twice and both times it finished… 

Adam

Andrew

Ian

As for Kabuto Sumo, after a very short first round when Sam used his special powers for a quick win, Joe and Steve beat Sam and Martin 2-1. I'd gone home by now, but apparently it had a mixed reception.

Then whoever was left (did Steve go too?) played Wavelength. Sam texted me a brief recap and he said that it was "Very silly including Angela Merkel's index finger and cock-flavoured sand plus a debate about Keir Starmer. We won though!"

Thanks all for the evening. See you next Tuesday.

Games in a Vacuum

With Andrew an eventual no-show last night, blogging duties fell to me (Sam) but I actually missed the first hour of games, as I was getting Joe (my Joe) ready for first day of secondary school this morning. Whilst we were knocking around the house doing various schooly things (eg bath) and non-schooly things (watching The Office) those present - Martin, Ian, Joe, Adam, Katy and Andy - played some games in the kitchen. I think they began with Joe's bonkers Nachtschwarmer game of erratic moth movement (-not sure who won) before Adam won Colt Super Express (the card version of Colt Express, where everyone runs around on a train shooting each other), with Joe/Katy/Ian and Andy bringing up the rear and Martin first off the train. 

I joined just in time to watch them spectacularly implode at Biss 20. It seemed a bit like Arlington Road at first, with numbers being said in scattergun order and people standing up to bow. Despite watching for a good few minutes, the number twenty was a distant dream and they packed up when Andy seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown. By this point we knew Andrew wasn't coming, so began our seven-player stuff splitting into two groups: whilst Martin introduced Joe, Katy and Andy to Daring Dustbunnies, Adam and I coaxed Ian into trying Luzon Rails. 

Daring Dustbunnies involves some hidden identities and trying to keep your dustbunny out of the vacuum. Even though it was short and silly, we'd started playing longer and not-silly Luzon Rails whilst they were still going through the rules.

Luzon Rails was the classic simple rules/tough decisions, with players owning shares in (up to) five companies, and trying to improve their worth for dividend payouts at the end of each round. Ian's early high bid for the yellow company (which has only three shares) looked like a strong early move until Adam and I got one apiece slightly cheaper. In fact as I was comparatively cash-rich in round one, I scooped up several shares cheaply, but outside of that clearly made a poor early-20th-century industrialist, as Ian and I sensed Adam pulling away mid-game like a Formula 1 car passing a couple of mid-range saloon drivers scrutinising a map. Ian did a lot of head-scratching as the classic cube-rail dilemmas weighed heavy. 

Meantime Daring Dustbunnies was over with Katy getting a debut win over Andy in a tie-breaker (-most static), with Martin behind them and Joe apparently "lost". The rules to DD are slightly beyond my recall now so perhaps he triggered the end of the game. They began playing another new title, Silencio. I've no idea what any of it was about, except that they finished, according to the rulebook, so near and yet so far. Clarifications in the comments please!

We wrapped up Luzon Rails around the same time with Ian grimly satisfied he had more cash than the 25 he started with. No much though:

Adam 87

Sam 68

Ian 28

We all came together again for not one, but two games of Fiesta de los Muertos, notable for how badly we did, failing to appease more than two of the dead in either attempt. I'm not sure this game of clue-chaining and deduction is an entirely unqualified success - it's fun, but much of the time seems to be spent wondering what happened, and why. Plus I kept forgetting to fill in my teeth. 

Adam and Andy then bade us goodnight, and as with last week, one word-connection game beget another, with So Clover hitting the table twice in a row as well. I can't speak for everyone but at this point I was drunk enough to laugh about Joe's suggestion being rejected for a reason, it transpired, I had completely imagined. Considering the state of us - or me, anyway - we did rather well, only struggling with Katy's clues, who after all Martin reminded us, once used 'the' as a clue in Just One. Even so, a reasonably coherent display, I think, though I didn't write down any scores...

With 11 now in the past, we wrapped up another delightful GNN - until the same time next week!

Too clover by half

 This Tuesday I arrived at Sam's at eight o'clock to find five gamers already into their second game. They (Martin, Joe, Sam, Andy and Adam H) had played Regicide. "It felt like we'd just got started and then we lost," Martin summarised.

Then they began a new game So Clover. This game involves putting four square cards into a two by two grid and then write a word on each side that thematically link the two words on the grid. Hopefully this will make more sense if you look at the photos.

Katy joined a little after me and we watched the game play out. Sam’s and Martin’s clovers were both deduced first time, Andy remarked that he first needed to remember which words matched with his clues before he showed us his clover, Adam bamboozled us with Marriotski, which we were supposed to work out was a Russian Hotel. But Joe went out of the box, with a couple of punning clues: “Goldbrum” was a clue for “Human” and “Fry” and “Walrus” was a clue for “whip”. As in “walrus whip”. Of course. We still got all four of his clues right, though.

Then we played another co-op game: Fiesta de los Muertos. In this everyone gets the name of a dead person, and on their player board they write the name of the person (which is then hidden) and a one-word clue. Pass this to the next and they have to change the word to something with the same meaning. Each player board is passed four times, so the final word showing is four times removed from the initial word. Then all names are revealed (with an extra random one thrown in) and it’s up to everyone to guess which clue fits which person.

Joe, again, did well. He guessed six out of seven in round one and then seven out of seven in round two which would have made him a winner if it weren’t co-op. One clue in the second round baffled Martin: Minotaur was represented by “heifer” which everyone else was fine with, but Martin started Minotaur by writing “labyrinth” and he couldn’t see how it got from one word to the next. It turns out it was good old Joe. Martin wrote “labyrinth” then Adam wrote “maze” and then Joe, staying firmly outside the box, thought the clue must refer to Minotaur (a guess, but a correct one) so he wrote “bull” with Sam finally writing “heifer”. Joe’s remarkable leap of logic was fine, but Martin was expecting something a little more labyrinthine.

No we split into two groups, with Sam, Adam and Katy playing Mariposas which looked like a proper eurogame. I don’t know anything about it but I did jot down the following exclamations from Sam during the game:

You don’t pick up butterflied you haven’t moved.”

“I’ve got a shitload of flowers.”

“I’m still at zero points by the way.”

In the end, Adam won. Because it was a proper eurogame, after all.

Adam 27

Katy 24

Sam 21

We played Scout! A trick taking game where cards have two values, one at each end, and once you are dealt a card, you can’t rearrange anything, only decide which way up it should go. After that, you have to play sequences (runs or x-of-a-kind) to clear your hand. If you can’t play, you have to pick up a card from whatever is showing on the table, giving that player a point and then you can add it to your hand (anywhere, either way up).

Joe suspected it was all luck, but Martin was not convinced at all. 

Martin 37

Andy 26

Andrew 17

Joe 2

Then we played Anansi, a sort of contract whist, except you pick up followers during each round by playing a card not for its value but for the number of heads (sero, one or two). At the end of the round, you have to have the same number of followers as tricks that you’ve won. After two rounds, Martin went for winning no tricks and getting no followers, just for the bonus points. It almost worked too,

Andrew 21

Martin 20

Joe 12

Andy 8

At the other end of the table, Sam continued in his role as the unlucky host as he picked up “two more empty eggs!” and Katy insisted I photograph Sam’s sad board.

Adam 9 + tie breaker

Katy 9

Sam 5

Then I dashed out, hoping to be home by eleven, at least. No idea what went on without me but I’m sure it was fun.