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.