Tout toot

I arrived at 8.05, after several aborted attempts at parallel parking in a hurry and eventually leaving my car with its rear wheels on double yellow lines, keen to get to Sam's for this week's games night.

I walked in to witness the curious situation of seven gamers around a table making toot toot noises. On closer inspection I saw they were passing little trains to each other, carrying little coloured cubes. The game was called Rail Pass and I had no idea what was going on so I just poured myself a drink and waited for them to finish. Luckily, it didn't take long. It seems that there's a timer involved and a strict five minute limit to do whatever it was that they were trying to do.

And they did! They all looked pleased with themselves and a little bit tired as well. All that tooting, I suppose.

Martin, Joe, Ian, Katy & Laura (a team) Sam and Gareth: smashed it.

Next we split into two groups. Brian Boru continues to fascinate, despite the twenty minute rules explanation. Martin felt he could probably get that down to fifteen, while Laura expressed surprise that her experience of the rules explanation hadn't actually lasted forty-five minutes. Joe, Gareth, Katy and Martin chose this game.

At my end of the table was The Game of 49, as requested by Laura. It was my first game but there are very few rules so we were up and running before too long. It's very simple. Probably invented by someone who had been playing noughts and crosses one day and suddenly wished there was more gambling involved.

It was fun in a cruel kind of way. Ian played strategically, passing whenever it looked like some kind of bidding war was about to break out. Therefore he was always cash rich and as the three of us ran out of money, he was able to buy three tiles for the minimum bid, unopposed. When a winning tile was revealed neither Sam, Laura nor me had enough money to outbid him.

Ian: wins

Brian Boru was still underway with Joe married twice and Katy giving all the high cards to Gareth, much to Martin's dismay. So we considered what we could play and it was while I was looking for Texas Showdown that I noticed Wibbell, the tiny word game compendium. I remember enjoying a game called Phrasell so I suggested this instead. In this game one player is a judge and they draw one card from the deck. Then they come up with a topic based on the two letters on that card. Then two more cards are drawn and everyone else has to invent a four word sentence using those four letters based on that theme.

Everyone had a moment of genius. Laura was poetic on “Iberian”: Easterly winds yowl in. I went crude on “Sad”: A wasted inky condom. I liked Sam’s neat encapsulation of “Nick Frost”: Portly oddball eats cornettos. Biggest laugh perhaps went for Ian’s topical response to “Kings and Queens”: His Majesty’s a nonce. In the end, I was a surprise (to me, at least) winner.

Andrew 16

Laura 12

Ian 11

Sam 10

And Brian Boru was winding up too.

Martin 40

Joe 38

Gareth 35

Katy 24

Martin was pleased to remain unbeaten, while Katy decided she didn’t like it anymore.

Laura and Gareth left at this point and so the six of us played Full Throttle. This simple game on betting on a race you can only marginally influence is fun in its own way. In this race, orange barely moved for the first two-thirds, then leapt into action only to be stymied by a road block up ahead when all they could draw were orange one cards. 

Black looked like a contender after almost completing a lap in on turn, but it was mostly green blue or yellow who were battling for first and blue won. And so did Martin.

Martin 21

Andrew 18

Ian 16

Katy 16

Joe 12

Sam 11

Sam pointed out that, after winning his first game of Full Throttle by miles, he’s come last every time since then. I get the feeling we’re going to keep playing until that jinx is broken. Fine by me, though. It might be random, but it’s fun random.

And then I left, while the rest saw out the evening with a couple of games of Cross Clues. Thanks all. See you next week.