This week’s GNN started unusually early for two lucky gamers, with Ian joining Sam at around half six for a two player game of Quantum before Joe and Katy arrived and enjoyed a rousing game of Perudo.
When I finally did get there, the table was set up for a five player game of Free Ride, with Joe, Katy and Ian the newcomers on board.
Compared to the only other time I played it, we started much more centrally, which meant a lot more blocking and nationalising of routes. Ian barely moved at all, preferring to stay in Napoli and make lots of money with his sensibly placed routes.
Katy went through a smorgasbord of emotions, at one point saying she was pleased and angry at the same time. She also said she enjoyed it. Joe was the other moneybags, as he almost monopolised East Europe and the Urals. My track in the UK was totally ignored for the entire game.
Sam zipped around the map, only briefly distracted by a wine spillage which dampened an Oslo card and some coins but not his enthusiasm for the game. At the end, as we counted up our scores, he revealed he had no duplicate cities in his stack of cards. Professional level gaming.
Sam 100
Joe 92
Ian 86
Katy 82
Andrew 81
After this the next (and my last) game was a co-op game of Wavelength. In this variant you score points for being in the Segment of Correctitude (possibly not it's official name) but only a perfect hit will get you another card and the chance to increase the score further.
It was fun as always. Katy wanted to know how long a clue could be; could it be a sentence? And that's when Sam uttered the blog title by means of an example of how long a clue could reasonably be. Trying to ignore the image of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme arguing over peanuts or olives, we began.
There were a few duds. I can't remember if we thought Katy's example of "buying your mother imported flowers" was more or less ethical than she did, but we were definitely wide of the mark.
Sam's clue of "day old bread" for "smelly in a good way/smelly in a bad way" seemed very specific but a bullseye eluded us. My clue "beer" for "guilty pleasure/openly love" was the shortest of the evening and was close but still no cigar.
Ian's clue for "normal greeting/weird greeting" was to say "helloooo" in a high pitched slightly Irish accent. Our mistake was misjudging the frame of reference, thinking it only slightly weird especially compared to a punch in the face as a greeting, and we put the Indicator of Opinion in the normal half. But Ian thought that slightly weird meant it should go in the weird half.
I think we scored 11. And Katy discovered that you could run on custard.
By now it was 10.00 and my choice was a sensible early night or risk a late one, so I took the easy option and went home. Sam messaged me the late results.
The rest of them played For Sale twice.
Joe 62
Sam 61
Ian 51
Katy 40
And...
Sam 79
Ian 59
Katy 49
Joe 37
Then they ended with good old Tsuro.
Joe and Ian die in first
2 Sam
3 Katy
Thanks all. Special as always.
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