My mud is dry

Unfortunately Steve's plans to host came a cropper thanks to a migraine - hope you're ok today Steve - and after a flurry of emailing, we relocated to my (Sam's) house. Adam T was first to arrive, just in time to witness an argument about putting shoes away. "Am I... early?" he said, backing toward the door. If our arguments about screen time ever clash with games night, nobody will ever look at me the same way again. 

Adam had brought Terracotta Army, his 40th birthday present from us. I was intrigued to try it, but the game length of two hours had others - not unreasonably - havering. Adam H and Ian had materialised out of the fog, and Martin and Gareth shortly after. There was an unusual amount of chat over what games we should play, but when Laura arrived we settled into a four for Terracotta Army - Adam T, Martin, Laura and I - whilst Ian, Adam H and Gareth played Azul. 

Azul needs no introduction - well, except to Gareth, who'd not played before - but Terracotta Army does, and it's not a simple one. Adam took a very patient half an hour to lay everything out before us, surfing a philosophical wave over Martin's exclamations and Laura at one point announcing "That's it. No more rules." Hats off to him. At 8.30, we dived in and started getting our hands muddy: to build the terracotta army - as we were - you need clay, or mud as Laura preferred to call it. But at the end of each round your clay dries out, so you need to strike while the oven is hot. 

This rotating wheel is the nub of it: on a turn, you place one of your tiny workers (or big dudes, if you've upgraded like Martin did) on one segment of the wheel and take the three actions it offers, from inside to out. Gather wet clay (-wet as an adjective), wet clay that's dried out (-wet as a verb), make terracotta warriors, make specialist warriors, or get the battle/mud-based insights of experts who'll help you both now and every time you activate them before the end of the game. 

And here is where the battle itself plays out - not of bloodshed, but of spatial area control. Over five rounds five different criteria are scored, for example one quadrant, or one type of warrior (there are four) as well as the row and column the inspectors (those red dudes in the corner) are currently inspecting. The inspectors move at the end of the round, but quite possibly during it as well, so a well-placed warrior can suddenly be worth jack-shit if the inspectors don't witness their resplendent stylings. Laura - yellow - was first in there, building an archer. But it swiftly built up.    

You'll notice a distinct lack of mauve. For whatever reason - let's not delve too deeply - I didn't build at all in the first round, leaving me with a 20 point deficit early on I was never to recover from. Laura even asked me where my score marker was, and I was forced to point out it wasn't on the board yet. The shame!

Meanwhile, in the glass world

As well as the round-by-round scoring, the four warrior groups will also score at the end of the game for each grouping (two or more) multiplied by the number of players in it, with bonuses for having majorities. You can force tied groups into your control by having a specialist facing your warrior (other specialists do other things, like score points for the warriors around them, or score points for their row/column, or even just take up a lot of room, which is what the horses do). 

I think we were on round two when Katy arrived and Azul crossed the finish line. By golly, it was a close thing:

Adam H 56
Ian 54
Gareth 50

They debated what to play next before settling on First Rat, the rodent space race game of constructing unlikely rockets from piles of shite. I tried to chip in with the rules explanation, particularly when I heard the classic "What is cheese for?" which could be a generic kitchen query, or a philosophical poser. Or in this case, neither. 

Meantime familiarity was speeding things up on the Terracotta Army board - for the others, anyway. I discovered that the more I understood, the slower I went, and I had to take two do-overs after engineering myself into positions I couldn't actually afford, because I'd spent my money getting there. "Sam!" Martin harrumphed. But look at this thing!

Laura was occasionally stumped too, at one point lamenting that she needed to wet her mud. Her early lead had evaporated now, and Adam and Martin were jostling about alongside her. At the other end of the table, First Rat was approaching an end. 

I think I'm right in saying this was a debut win for Gareth, was it? Even if not, it was an impressive showing, especially against Ian, who I believe has won every time he's played this game?

Gareth 92
Ian 65
Adam H 63
Katy 42

Katy said she didn't know what the hell was going on. I was relieved not to be the only one in this state of mind, as we polished off the final round whilst the others shucked on their coats and headed for the hills. Adam, who was impressively unruffled throughout, felt confident of the win. He was correct! But it was a close-run thing...

The end-game scoring takes a wee while, and with the most warriors in the biggest group, I was hopeful of just maybe catching the peloton up. I should have known better...

Adam 165

Martin 160

Laura 145

Sam 135

Martin felt that the scores had a wide margin for error, considering the various ways the game generated them, but Adam demurred. I was still cursing my lack of action in the first round as we packed away, and then convinced Adam to stay by thrusting flapjacks upon him. We had a mini-panic over what the four of us might play before our time ran out, and eventually settled on Spicy. 

I took no photos - it's hard to pause in this game - but got away with a number of challenges, most of them on Martin, by lucking out - questioning the suit when the number was correct, and vice versa. And in doing so, I had a microcosm of revenge for my earlier humbling:

Sam 34

Martin and Laura 24

Adam 6

And that was that! 

Challenge Accepted

Knowing that Adam T finishes work well before 7.30, I (Sam) told him he was welcome to arrive early, and after consuming his own tea at the Lazy Dog, he was treated to my family eating the last of theirs. Adam's presence may have played a part in the boys not arguing over who wipes the table too: good work, Mr T. 

Martin joined us a little after seven, just as we were setting up the first game of the night: Akropolis!

It's a super-simple game, although not so simple that I couldn't get a rule wrong, as we discovered this morning. Martin may thus contest the results, but basically your cities score in different ways: residences like to be together, markets apart, temples surrounded etc. But each district only scores if you have matching plazas, who don't care where they go. Martin was indifferent to its charms; I rather like it myself for it's breezy play and weight of decisions. But liking it and being any good at it are two different things. 

Adam: 131

Martin: 129

Sam: never mind

By the time we were totting up, Joe had joined us and, with Ian and Adam H hot on his heels - sadly we lost Andrew and Laura to 'fatigue' and 'pyjamas' - it was time for a six-player crack at Challengers, the fun deck-builder and possibly-less-fun card-flipper du jour. 

Unbeknownst to me, Ian had been burnt on Sunday when his cards serially came out in non-combo-ing order, and having suffered a similar fate last Tuesday, he had my sympathy when history repeated and he took a battering over the first four rounds. I did better this time; enough in fact to cockily assume I was in the final, only to crestfallenly discover Joe had outscored me, at which point I hated Challengers again. Ian won his last two rounds, like Lazarus rising from a hardback chair, but Adam T was the man to beat, and he and Joe faced off over the final. With almost no power on my phone, I was like a disorganised journo intern, racing back and forth from charger to the table to try and record momentous events. 

Adam wins!

Joe runner-up

Sam third on points, if that means anything

Adam H

Ian

Martin

Then we broke into threes. There was talk of Pan Am again, but with four of us keen to play, it somehow never reached the table. Martin was pushing for Longboards, or Bonerz as it has been somewhat immaturely renamed (see pics). Having coaxed Joe and Ian into Reiner's phallic surfing bonanza, the Adams and I were left to peruse the alcove and settled on Ahoy. 

Last seen at the GNN Christmas shindig, Ahoy's mechanically-specific charms are how it interweaves two types of game into one: as Adam T and I battled (well, I hid) across the water for dominance, the Creeping Custard played a game of pick up and deliver: the aforementioned weaving is his deliveries increase the value of the territories we were fighting over, and he gets to wager each delivery on which of us he thinks will score that territory at the end of the game - getting bonus points if he's right. 

Adam T immediately loaded cannons and, not long after that, recruited crew who made coming anywhere near him a high-risk manoeuvre. I basically kept my distance, using my deck of Plans to run interference when I could. For a couple of rounds we scored equally, but Adam's visible strength and bonus half-turn each round was swinging things his way. Between us, that is. We were so busy circling each other, like boxers in a pond, that we neglected to stop Adam H running away with the game. Meantime Bonerz had subsided, to coin a phrase, and Martin had triumphed. I'll leave it at that. 

Martin 43
Ian 39
Joe 27

They were now playing Spots, but ten minutes in, still hadn't managed to claim a single dog. I think they tried a variant where the action cards keep changing, but found it made the pace a bit stodgy. I didn't actually see who won, in the end, but someone must have done because when Ahoy finished they were playing Sea Salt & Paper.

No such stodginess at our end of the table, however, as Ahoy wrapped up with Adam's smuggler easing to a win of non-sneaky margins:

Adam H 37
Adam T 25
Sam 20

The others graciously packed up Sea Salt & Paper (Joe was winning/won/delete as appropriate) so we could play So Clover as a six. Even for a game as marvellously bamboozling as So Clover, this felt like a high watermark of despair as almost everyone around the table complained that their combos were impossible (full transparency: my 'terrible' pairing was OCEAN/RAY and manta never occurred to me). Despite our misgivings, however, we did rather well. Martin's heehaw clue was nice, and I was quite pleased with Ahoy for ROOT/GATE. Joe's random card stumped us, as shirt/tail went rather well his office and surveillance clues, but despite these red herrings, it was overall a very respectable 30/36. 

I would have been up for a nightcap of the meeple variety, but with the hour approaching eleven and the night air chilly, we called it there. 

Happy Ian Day

 Yes, it’s that one day of the year when Ian is happy. At least for the duration of our group visit to the History of Video Games in Bristol’s very exclusive Galleries shopping centre (so exclusive that they’re tearing it down soon to keep out the hoi polloi). A very exciting occasion. So exciting that I actually arrived for the thing a full 24 hours early. I had somehow convinced myself that Saturday was the 15th (despite almost everyone saying to me “It’s Friday the 13th” the day before) and I went to the History of Video Games somewhat late for the 2pm meeting time. I couldn’t see anyone outside so I assumed they’d already gone in. I asked at the reception if they had a ticket for me since my friends had already gone in. They didn’t know what I was talking about but they kindly allowed me to go in and look for Ian et al. Of course, they weren’t there.

Back outside I, confused, called Katy. “Where are you?” I asked. “At home,” she replied.

Then the penny dropped. Oh how we laughed. At me.

Anyway, I then did some window shopping, got indecisive about some rucksacks on sale and went home.

Next day, I was there nice and early and Katy was waiting at the door. We relived yesterday’s confusion while we waited. Ian and Adam H arrived together and we decided to go in because Sam, Adam T, Laura and Martin had all said they’d be late (alas Sam and Adam T never made it at all) and there was no one else.

“I can see Joe!” cried Adam, just in time.

How could we forget Joe? We went in and began our exciting journey back in time.

First Adam and I played Mario Kart 64. Adam won by miles after I (in 2nd) managed to catch up my own green turtle shell which wiped me out and I ended in 8th. Then Adam, I, Ian and Katy played a four-player game which left us squinting at the screen trying to work out what we were seeing. I won this time.

Joe, Martin and Katy play Mario Kart 64

I should point out that I made no notes today and wasn’t going to blog at all but I have a little time and want to share my reminiscing. So from now on, I’ll discuss things game by game.

Defender

This came out in 1981 so I would’ve been about ten when I first saw it. It was in a laundromat near Letchworth train station. The growl it makes when you add a credit scared me when I was a child and I was shockingly bad at it. I was slightly better this time and, after a few attempts, I scraped onto the high score table. Joe got into the 7000s thanks to his experience on a “pixel perfect” version on the BBC model B.

Ridge Racer

What a game. A launch title on the PlayStation, I played it to death on my machine so I guess I should’ve done better but replacing X and O buttons with two foot pedals caused me problems. I think Adam said it was his favourite game of the afternoon, though.

Time Crisis

I didn’t play it. What was I thinking?

Dance Dance Revolution

What a workout. I last played this in the foyer of the Barbican in London with a friend and, despite not being good at it, we got a crowd. No such level of attention for me this time, but Adam said I was much better than Katy.

Pinball

I loved playing these again, while they worked. My previous knowledge of pinball consisted of the Star Wars one which was in the Hogshead pub in Maidstone when I was a student. I liked the Mario one until I saw Adam clock up over 9 million on it.

Tetris

Didn’t play it. Martin tried it, but stopped when he saw it told him where his pieces would fall.

PES 2008

Ian showed his prowess by beating first Adam then Martin, 2-0 then 3-0 I think. They both had players sent off. I guess Ian knows the button combo for “leave trailing leg to be clipped by defender then go down”.

Crazy Taxi

Amazing! I couldn’t stop playing it after I tried it. My best score was $1,200 and a D grade but what fun I had. Joe and Katy played it and I’m pretty sure they loved it too. I have to dig my Dreamcast out and play it at home. Good job I’ve still got Sam’s colour portable, because it won’t work on my normal TV.

Guitar Hero

Martin, Katy, Laura and someone else (Ian? Adam? Don’t recall) played it. Most memorable was Laura, on her first game, clocking up a 76 combo “and then you stopped playing!” said an astonished Martin. 

Japanese rhythm game

I don’t remember its name. At first it didn’t work and I could only take solace that my Japanese was good enough that I could read the error message enough to know it was trying to connect to the router. Anyway, then a member of staff turned it off and on again and I could try it. I was a pretty typical rhythm game - hit buttons in time to music - but it was insanely loud. I felt a little self-conscious playing it, convinced I was ruining things for other people.

But after an afternoon of D grades, I was quite pleased with my B. Nice to get a dose of helium-voiced hyper-pop.

Donkey Kong

On the NES! I cleared three screens and lost interest when it put me back on the first screen again. Nice game, though.

PacMan

Dodgy joystick kind of ruined it for me. Plus, I used to have a How To Win At Pac Man game and all I could remember was (a) the four ghost have four characters: hunter ghost (red), random (hmm, yellow?), coward (pink, maybe) and the other one. But it didn't help. Also there's a spot to the bottom left of the ghost's home where, if you leave PacMan there, the ghosts can't find you. I tried it and it worked for about thirty seconds but then I got bored and kept playing.

There were other games, of course. I remember Katy trying to get a four player game of Ninja Mutant Teenage Turtles and there was indeed a multi-player game at one point. 

Katy v Joe in Turtle mode

Adam v Laura in Virtua Fighter 2

A most determined gamer

It was a bit full-on. I had a headache for quite a lot of the time (eased by Crazy Taxi, oddly enough) and Joe and Martin retreated to the board game section for a spell (to play a game Martin had brought with him!). I noticed they had the board game version of PacMan.

Finally, we were escorted out because the Galleries closes at 5pm but the museum closes at 6pm! Like I said - exclusive. We were able to walk through a deserted shopping mall like it was Dawn of the Dead.

At this point I left for home while the others went for pizza. Thanks all, it was a blast. Literally. A ha ha.

Challengers Accepted

 7.50 on a rainy Tuesday evening and six gamers were grouped around a kitchen table: Joe (host), Sam, Martin, Gareth, Ian and myself. “I have to play San Francisco,” insisted Martin, sounding like some cardboard junkie desperate for a fix. But it was because he’d written a review of the game and needed some photos of it mid-play.

Since there were an even number of us Joe suggested we begin with Challengers. In this game everyone plays two-player games against each other in a tournament format and the idea of each game is to “capture the flag” and you do that by playing cards from your deck. If you have a number of equal or higher value then you take the flag, and any defeated cards go onto your “bench”. The trouble is, if you run out of cards or fill up your bench, then you lose.

There are more rules than that, but it’s basically a simple game which, at first, I thought was too simple. You have no control over what card to play (just take it off the top of your deck) so I felt like I was just watching us play rather than playing. Then I realised that as your deck built up then your choices about what to take and what to discard between rounds is kind of pivotal.

So anyway, we had three playing areas that we rotated around according to our “fixture list” except for Joe who found that all of his games were played at the same end of the same pitch. Sam started well, but then discovered he’d picked up two “C” cards which had got mixed into the “A” deck and so his deck was pretty over powered. After this had been rectified, he fell into a run of defeats. Ian took a long time between changing seats, prompting Sam to suggest he was engaging in psychological games. I actually thought there should be more ritual between games. Maybe slamming our decks of cards on the table before we start in a Sumo-esque display of strength.

Anyway, after the tournament ended the scores were Gareth 32, Joe 31, Martin 18, Ian 17, Andrew 16, Sam 3 so Joe and Gareth went head-to-head in a final. It was pretty thematic at first: the Heroin card beat the Villain and then a werewolf beat another werewolf. Then a horse and dog teamed up to beat a werwolf and I stopped making notes after that. 

Gareth won! After Joe over-filled his bench

Then we split into two groups of three. Martin got his wish to play San Fran, with Gareth and I in tow, while Sam, Ian and Joe played Pan Am - a very nice looking game with a map of the world that has the north pole in the middle.

And Sam hated his beer so Joe took it and replaced it with a gin and tonic. Clearly getting into the whole air hostess thing.

Gareth and I got a rules refresher for San Francisco and off we sped. I apparently, kept taking the pile that Gareth needed (not a bad strategy) but I think we all had moments like that. I resented them leaving two grey foundations in play until I was in a position to take one but Gareth and then Martin took them.

Still, it was nice to play again and Martin got his photos done.

Martin 13

Gareth 8

Andrew 8

Pan Am was still in full flow so we played Spots. I played safe, taking turns to bank cards when I completed them. Gareth had terrible luck, constantly rolling fours when they were no use to him and then when he needed one - just one - he burnt through his entire stack of treats but never rolled a four. Cruel.

Martin 6

Andrew 4

Gareth 0

I had to head off now, and as I left the Pan Am game was just entering its final stage and Sam and Joe were feeling threatened by Ian's enormous stack. But it ended…

Sam 16

Ian 14

Joe 12

Martin and Gareth played Strike while Pan Am ended and then the five of them ended with So Clover.

26/30

But perhaps most important, as relayed by Sam the following day, was that Joe read out a dream he’d written in an exercise book when he was 15 years old. Just as he was reading about Clint Eastwood doing the hovering and someone was taking their knickers off when his children and all their friends came into the kitchen.

Thanks everyone. Enormous fun as always.

King of the Arables

I got to Sam’s at 7.45, just as Katy arrived too. In Sam’s kitchen We found Ian, Martin, and Joe to make up today’s sextet.

We began with King Up, a very simple game in which each player has a card with six (of a possible thirteen) kings listed and all you have to do is try to push your kings up the board. If a king gets to the very top, then there is a vote, and if no one vetoes this king then all your kings score according to the level they reached. But players only have two vetoes, so be careful when you vote. In round one, almost everyone voted against the first king to get to the top.

All the kings have names, but to use those names gives away the fact that you have them on your card, so they were given whatever name occurred to us. King Ian, for example, became King Isobel the next time they moved.

In round two, King Beatrice was pushed to the top almost immediately and no one vetoed her so the round immediately scored. This was good for Katy who was the only one to have Beatrice on her card. And, despite Martin winning round one and Ian winning round three, it was pivotal in her victory.

Katy 69

Martin 68

Ian 60

Sam 59

Andrew 58

Joe 40

Then we split into two groups. Ian, Sam and I played Terra Nova. I’d played it recently but was a little rusty. This time we played with Side B characters with more powerful abilities, and Sam’s used his character’s ability to use less power to do a special action to its fullest extent.

Sam 73

Ian 52

Andrew 49

Katy, Joe and Martin played Mille Fiori. It was Katy’s first go and it must be her kind of game, since she did very well. Well enough that Martin was very worried about letting her have the finger” for fear of what she’d do with it.

Joe 207

Katy 206

Martin  158

Then we rearranged. Four people wanted to play Akropolis, and in the end Joe, Ian and Sam played while Katy had to make do with Spots, the dice rolling dog game. Martin used one action, “Dogpile” (roll two dice and a buried dice) a lot right at the start and it did well for him. I used it and went bust. Katy was slightly less obsessed with treats than in her last game. The further behind I fell, the more I had to push my luck, and that never works.

Martin 6

Katy 3

Andrew 0

And Akropolis ended …

Joe 137

Ian 123

Sam 120

Then we played So Clover. Katy wasn’t keen since she always struggles but it’s such a good game that we simply can’t resist. For some reason our clues were quite agricultural. Sam had “Coop” for “Chick/Cabin,” Ian had “Farm” for “Hen/Carrot,” Katy also had “Farm” for “Country/Melon” and I had “Arable” for “Right/Ground.”

We got a perfect score but it was close at times. Katy got a cruel decoy that had two words that were a decent match for her clues, especially “sewer/clean” for “Dredge” but Sam wasn’t keen on it and he noticed that “lake/clean” was a better fit. Also, hats off to Ian who clued “Brie” for “Lady/Cheese” because, apparently, Brie is also a woman’s name. 

36 out of 36.

Katy was so pleased, she took my humorous suggestion of a group photo seriously and instead had to be content with a solo shot of her and her clover.

I'm not sure if Joe and Ian knew quite how sinister they looked.

Then I left and they played a couple of rounds of Hit

Katy 134

Joe 55

Ian 29

Martin 9

Sam zero!

Ian 100

Martin 82

Joe 59

Sam 39

Katy 10

Thanks all. See you next week.