The Snacks Etiquette

New Player, new host: Mel and Ben were entertaining last night as GNN made its' way to Easton. Despite some absences, we still began the evening a seven, including Ian, Katy, Gareth, Martin and myself - and kicked things off with the lesser-spotted Just One. Katy was first to guess her word (pipe) and despite some duplicate clues and a rubbish clue (mine) overcame her doubts and got us off to a good start. We then proceeded to obliterate the Just One challenge, and the longer our good form improved the more pressure was on to not fail, a tension broken only by Martin tipping Ian's beer all over him. 

Katy's turn arrived again and once more she was the victim of duplication. However Martin and I felt with the clues bollock and naked, she might get stark. It wasn't to be, but a sterling effort from all concerned. 

We broke into two groups, with Martin Ian and Ben playing Whale Riders and the rest of us the Ticket to Ride-esque and delightfully named Lisbon Tram 28. We were unsurprisingly in Lisbon, driving trams. Instead of Ticket to Ride's secret objectives, however, the goals are all open and it's a race to complete them. Turns are simple: take two actions from moving, picking up passengers, dropping off passengers, or (occasionally, at certain spots in the city) upgrading your tram. 

As well as the problem of other players delivering to the tourist destinations before you do, there's also the fact the trams can (and will) shunt each other out of the way, leading to occasional cries of indignance or despair. You do get a free card when shunted (and when you shunt) but that's sometimes a hollow reward when your tramming plans are in tatters. Despite the simple rules we all had our moments. Katy professed confusion, Mel forgot to pick up cards, Gareth shuffled his cards into the deck. They finished Whale Riders:

kitchen towel expansion

Martin 27 / Ian 20 / Ben 16

...And we were still going. I thought it might be half an hour to go. Katy whispered "A bit longer" so they began playing Hit Z Road, despite protestations. Meantime our trundling trams were suddenly ramping up the pressure, and we rattled through the destinations at high velocity. 

Tram 28 has a neat little twist on scoring. As well as the points on the card when you deliver passengers, you also build a tableau out of your claimed destination cards, which have little half-tickets down the sides. If you create a 'whole' ticket in doing so, you score an extra point. I managed four of these, which (I think) was more than anyone, but it wasn't enough to beat Katy:

Katy 12 / Sam 10 / Mel 9 / Gareth 8

The other end of the table were still fighting off zombie attacks:

So we broke out Medium, the game of one of the games of word connections. Gareth and I got off to a flier when we connected these words on a second guess:

Initially Gareth said camping and I said healthy (I think) before we both landed on 'outdoors' (I think) and nabbed some points. After that, Medium fell apart, as we perpetually managed to all dance around the lines of communication without quite matching them up. Various people played their psychic links, mostly to catastrophic failure. 

But there were exceptions: Mel and Katy, despite the peer pressure and scorn of the table (particularly after Katy connected chips and bottle with the word mustard) managed to pick up points, and I think Gareth and Katy did too. I floundered. 

Katy and Mel: 13 each / Gareth 6 / Sam 5

Hit Z Road had finished by now too, with only Martin making it safely to the west coast. Ben survived a six zombie attack only to subsequently expire in sight of the ocean. Ian was first to die. 

Gareth had an early start, so now departed. With an empty table before us, we split again into groups of three. While Martin taught Trick-Taking in Black and White to Katy and Ian, Mel, Ben and I played the roll-and-write of Dizzle. 

It's a roll-and-write so there's no onerous rules confusion here: a chunk of dice are rolled and players draft them to their sheets: when all dice are placed (or everyone has passed) the squares are crossed off. You score for completing rows and columns, covering gems and linking jigsaw pieces. If you cross off a bomb it's -2pts for everyone else, and the bomb square becomes non-navigable for them. 

Catch number one is the dice must match the pip value on the sheet. Catch number two is you must place dice orthogonally adjacent to previously-placed dice, and if you can't legally do so, you can either drop out of the round or reroll the undrafted dice. But if you reroll and still don't get a die you can place, you have to return a die from your sheet to the pool - a wrinkle with teeth that bit all of us on the arse at one stage or another. We played twice, me winning the first game and Mel the second. 

Meanwhile Trick-Taking in Black and White was raising much mirth. 

The cards are numbered from 1 to 30-something, with numbers in both black and white on both cards and ascending one way (eg black) while descending the other (eg white). I think I'm right in saying the player who leads announces which colour they're leading. Beyond that I didn't catch enough of what was going on, but it seemed to go down well. Martin won yet again!

Martin 10 / Katy -5 / Ian -8

Then there was just enough to time to wrap things up with a blast through Cross Clues, and blast through we did, swaggering our way to 23 out of 25. 

nearly there

An excellent night. Ian's trousers were even dry by the time we left. The evening's opening conversation about games night snacks etiquette was also answered by the time we were done: it's eat too much and then ask someone to take the bowl away.