Without a wordle

 When I arrived at Joe’s kitchen, a group of gamers (Joe, Ian, Martin, Gareth, Sam, Adam H) were in the final stages of a very tricky Cross Clues. The 5x5 grid was full of gaps and a look at the words along the edges explained why: Box and Chest were next to each other and, just for good measure, Wood was on the other axis.

16/25 with a regret that they hadn’t changed one of box or chest before they'd started.

Laura was expected in ten minutes so we simply re-dealt ourselves a new game and started again. We did much better this time with only a couple of mistakes. Ian clued “crown” which we immediately selected King and Hat, but it should’ve been King and Cauliflower. And Laura came in mid-game, was given a card and she clued “spur” before she’d even sat down and we got it wrong. But Ian made amends with a nice clue of Italy for Ma and Ankle.

23 out of 25

Next the eight of us split into two groups. Sam swiftly attracted three gamers when he casually asked if anyone fancied an apocalyptic death race. Sam, almost as swiftly, had to explain that wasn't the actual name of the game but it might as well be. Him, Laura, Ian and Adam set up for Thunder Road.

Meanwhile, Hooky got back onto the table with Me and Martin joined by newbies Gareth and Joe. Martin explained the rules while Joe provided the pens, although Martin asked for his brown crayon to be replaced. “It’s not a precision tool,” he maintained.

Hooky was played mostly in silence. The pauses were so long that when Gareth didn’t realise it was his turn, no one noticed for a good few minutes.

By means of contrast, the other end of the table was alive with action, as they spoke about shrapnel, mud, slams and airstrikes. Sam was eliminated before the game ended and Adam asked where the finish line was. In the end, Laura yelled “What is wrong with these dice?!” and Sam declared “we’re all equal losers.” It must’ve been carnage.

On the other hand, Hooky trundled towards a conclusion. Martin started thinking about how he’d redesign the player pads, since it is quite faffy to track each discovery in several different places.

Sam, Laura, Ian and Adam embarked on another race, this time the Quest for El Dorado. Adam got a rules refresher and then they set off across the jungle. I don’t remember much except for it being very close mid-game. Finally I heard whoops of victory and learnt that Laura had won, with Adam then Sam following. Only Ian couldn’t end, despite being closest to the finish in the last turn.

“Joint second?” Sam suggested to Adam. “Take it up with the judge,” he retorted.

1. Laura

2. Adam

3. Sam

4. Ian

By now we’d finished Hooky, with another lengthy bout of concentration for our final guesses, the only noise coming from Joe who complained that he'd run out of letters. But we got to the end, dazed and confused.

Martin 48

Andrew 25

Joe 25

Gareth 19

Next we played High Score, since it was a dice roller with little cognitive load. It was new to Gareth and we rolled them bones with the usual crazy examples of luck (or lack of) that you’d expect. In the end Martin won by the “most golds” tie-breaker.

Martin 12 (2 golds)

Joe 12 (1 gold)

Andrew 10

Gareth 9

Then, just to fill time while El Dorado ended, we dug out The Mind. Such hilarity as we stumbled through one round after another. Round 5, at least, was us back to our brilliant best and we got through that in fine style. Lost in round 6, though.

With that, Adam, me and Laura went and the remainers played So Clover and, according to Sam’s late night message, got 28 out of 30.

After this, Sam and Gareth left with the hardy final gamers about to commence a game of Sea Salt and Paper. No news of any results, though.

Thanks all. Next week, yeah?

I want it noted

Last night I beat Adam at Caverna. I had played it more recently than him, and he was distracted by children demanding crisps/first aid as well as more grown-up conversations with eye-witnesses, but let's face it this will never happen again and it should be noted.

Mwah ha ha ha etc

Playing hooky

 I arrived at 8pm, having received pics and news of the already attending players playing Fuji Flush (Martin won) and then Pairs (Martin lost then Ian lost). A nice retro start to the evening – remember when we always played these games? Happy days.

 

Two games were already in preparation when I walked into Sam’s kitchen. Sam, Adam T, Adam H and Gareth were at the beardy end of the table, setting up a game called The Staufer Dynasty.

 
Adam T gave the other three a lengthy rules explanation, during which Sam wilted visibly. Adam admitted he hadn’t played in about seven years. “Two more final things...” I heard him say as he checked something in the rule book.
 
At the other end of the table, Martin, Ian, Laura and I chose The Quest For El Dorado. It was new to Laura, so Martin gave a quick run down of the rules before we set off on our campaign of competitive exploration. Ian, Martin and I all buy a Captain, thinking its three-water value would help in what was a pretty blue map but all of us cursed its complete uselessness as we either got stuck in a desert (me and Ian) or circumnavigated it completely (Martin). Laura also got stuck in the desert and she mostly stayed there after Ian and then myself extricated ourselves from the sandy tar pit.

Martin was the first to reach the last part of the board, but then spent a turn dawdling such that Ian caught him up. One turn later, I was also on the final stretch and in a good position to win with my next go, when Ian crossed the finish line. Since he was the last player to start, the game ended immediately. Martin said he couldn’t get to El Dorado with his next cards anyway, despite being closer than me to the end so I suggested that meant that I’d actually finished 2nd because I could. Martin disagreed.

 
1. Ian
2. Martin
3. Andrew
4. Laura
 
Despite her last place, Laura seemed to like it a lot.
 
The Staufer Dynasty was still in full swing, so we dug out a game that looked for all the world like a light piece of fun. Hooky is a letter deduction game and the basic premise is that out of 26 cards with the alphabet on, three cards are removed from the game and eventually we have to deduce which letters they are. The players are dealt five cards (with letters on) each. By giving a player a five-letter word, they have to tell you how many times that their letters appear. Make notes and draw conclusions and make noises of despair while you think about what word to ask.

It was fun, although I did terribly. Another way of scoring is to guess what five letters the other players have and I was reduced to guessing letters based on personality, for example, Martin is just the kind of person to have a Q in his hand. And he did. One of the few correct guesses I made. Laura did slightly better than I did while Ian, who’d declared that he’d be surprised if he got any points at all, came second. Martin won, which is fair since he seemed to be most tortured over his choices by the end.

 
Martin 46
Ian 32
Laura 16
Andrew 15
 
Then the Staufer Dynasty ended.

 

Gareth 73
Adam T 62
Adam 61
Sam 58
 
Despite the early hour, barely past 10, I set off early having been woken by a car alarm that morning at 5.30. Laura and maybe Adam T (?) left too. The evening ended with a game of Insider Inside Job.
 

The agent won.

 
And then, of course, So Clover
 

22/24

 
Thanks all. See you again soon.

All Run Down by the Hillmann Express

The heat bore down like a big hot thing, so much so that Andrew was lost to us and Laura forgot to come and have fun, because she was having too much fun elsewhere. Keeping up slightly sweaty appearances at Martin's house were Adam H, Joe, Katy, Anja and myself. Anja was last to arrive so the rest of us played The Number, which despite the early hour conjured a number of insults, most notable of which was Adam getting called Dick Brain, who we decided sounded like a CIA operative. To be honest, with Adam it does feel like anything is possible. 

Despite ruminating on alleged mistakes he'd made, he still beat us all in a game that I find foggy to the point of breeze blocks. 

Adam 62

Katy 59

Martin 56

Sam 54

Joe 40

Then it was time for A game of selecting seven cards, speedily searching for synergies. I think this one genuinely takes longer to explain than it does to play, but that's not really a criticism as it was over in 90 seconds. I owe Martin apologies for more than once clinging on to cards as he attempted to take them. 

My dirty ways saw me victorious. 

Sam 18

Joe 15

Adam 10

Martin and Katy: 8 each

As I pondered inwardly how low I might stoop in gaming - especially against Martin (or Adam) - Anja arrived and we broke into two groups. Adam was gently cajoled into Mille Fiori by Joe and Anja as I inadvertently, but happily, signed up for Aristocracy thinking it was a six-player game. 

Andrew has explained the game on here before I think, but it bears repeating that the presentation slightly lets down an otherwise simple undertaking. On your turn you flip three tiles over, then choose one tile of any kind and harvest all matching kinds: this might be a literal harvest of resources, or trigger the placing of buildings, or evoke a kind of huffy harrumphing noise that all of us took turns at when we didn't flip what we wanted. "I'm swimming in fish!" Martin complained at one point. "I need to turn over two queens" I grumbled. 

Katy's pink buildings

Scoring is a bunch of overlapping objectives: sets of resources, sets of buildings both bunched together or widely dispersed, and connections made across the board. It reminded me of Sumatra, only the tile-flipping made it more fun. Martin was one tile away from winning when it ended - I was a little further back:

Katy 50

Martin 46

Sam 40

At the other end of the table it was Adam's turn to do a bit of harrumphing as things didn't go his way in Mille Fiori, and he expressed again his lack of enthusiasm for the game. Joe suggested he keep playing until he likes it.

Adam frowning

Joe's considerable record at Mille Fiori remains a thing, as the final count-up was agonising for Adam:

Joe 180
Anja 163
Adam 162

There was a quick bit of seat-shuffling and then Martin and Katy embarked on Mille Fiori with Anja, who was keen to play again. Adam, Joe and I did a pleasurable bit of game-discussing before Joe made the fatal error of suggesting Ticket to Ride and I the catastrophic mistake of agreeing. A strange, distant gleam came into Adam's eye...

We chose the Switzerland map which is best for three. The rules are the same except the usually-wild locomotives are no longer wild but only used for the (plentiful) tunnels; and as such you can pick up two of them instead of the standard one. I got off to a pitiful start when twice I tried to build a single section tunnel and found the roof caved in on me. 

Discard pile of shattered dreams

I distracted myself by taking photos and getting told by everyone that I always make them look terrible. I've no idea what they're talking about.

Just to show I can also take it, here's me as a chinny potato-head. See Adam scheming in the background? 

Adam didn't have time for such trifles as looking at a camera, as he was plotting a Ticket to Ride coup of such preposterous scale that, for Joe and I, it'll probably be our valedictory game, leaving us with not so much memories as PTSD. Things were looking ominous when he needed both hands to hold his cards, and then, like a carnivorous snake unravelling across a children's campsite, he built an enormous yellow train track from one side of the board to the other as Joe and I looked on in concern. 

moments earlier

The game didn't so much end as explode. Adam placed his last trains with a preternatural calm as Joe whitened. We had one last turn, and Adam already had a considerable lead thanks to his dastardly card-hoarding and thinking about things. I picked up routes, and it was a mistake, knocking back my score by a hefty chunk. I can't remember what Joe did. But he counted up all his routes and announced they were collectively worth minus one point. Adam lapped him.

Adam 146

Sam 93

Joe 43

Mille Fiori finished around the same time, I think, with Martin's incessant rewarding himself extra turns making the difference in the long run:

Martin 218

Katy 181

Anja 175

There was just time for So Clover to finish. We were surprised to find Anja had never actually played it and it was her debut game. As always, the act of playing opens with The Grumbling, wherein we all complain that our words are terrible.

Then we go off in wildly lateral directions before hopefully coming to a productive conceptual compromise. And after an uncertain start where the rest of us weren't quite in tune with Anja's clues, it was a more than decent attempt, scoring 30/36. Mainly though we got to tease Adam about taking ages over his clues. Does it make up for Ticket to Ride? 

Probably not. 

Steppin' Out

Anja, Steve and Louie were our genial hosts at Stepney Walk this week (-Lennon was tucked up in bed) and we assembled at the slightly later time of 8pm - or just after, in my case. I walked in to find everyone perusing Louie's Star Wars cross-section book. As fascinating as the inside of a AT-AT is though, there were games to be played. Louie's pumpkin clock was ticking so Joe gathered the hosts along with Adam H and Gareth to play Kakerlaken Poker, whilst Martin introduced Ian and I to Wibbell creator Bez's A Game about selecting seven cards, speedily searching for synergies. Once you know the title, you kind of know the game, except how you get them: each of us begin with a stack of seven cards and one in our hand. Simultaneously, we can take (one at a time) cards from a shared tableau of nine, but must replace the cards we take from the top one of our stack. As soon as anyone's stack runs out, they count down from seven and that's the end of the game: the cards score as it says in the title, synergising - or not - with each other to harvest points. 

My card-in-hand I started with rewarded me for having creatures with eyes, so that was my main focus, and fortunately there was always a card with at least one eye on out there. I raced to the end and Ian and Martin ran out of time: which means they were forced to take what was left of their unknown stack as their hand. 

Sam 23
Ian 15
Martin 13

The whole game took about two minutes, so we cracked into one of my UKGE purchases from last week, Alpha Beasts Attack. This is a co-op word game where you must attempt to use as many letters as you can each round, with limited communication. If you can't, each unused letter becomes a scar, and if you receive x number of scars you lose. Winning involves cashing in your defeated monsters (ie used letters) in sets to reveal scavenge cards, which might be helpful tools, or brains. X number of brains wins you the game. I forgot to take photos, but this was me learning the game at the weekend...

We finished triumphantly - after a very tricky penultimate round, and an injection of beerspill from excited poker players - around the same time as Kakerlaken ended, with Steve, to Louie's delight, the unfortunate loser. I think there were some insults exchanged, although I can't now recall them specifically. With a quick reshuffle, Gareth and Joe joined Martin and I to investigate Inside Job, whilst everyone else played 7 Wonders.

Inside Job is a trick-taker where, not unlike The Crew, players have missions to complete. They're easier here than in the The Crew, but unlike the space/sea co-operative fundertaking, here one player is the Insider, on a secret mission to undermine the actual missions of the other agents. 

Suspicious

Standard trick-taking rules apply - except to the Insider, who can lie and pretend that they "can't" follow suit and were forced to do something terribly unhelpful instead. Whomever wins a trick gets an Intel token. If the Insider gets five intel tokens, they instantly win. If the agents complete x number of missions, they win. If neither happen, there's some ill feeling and accusations to decide things. 

Poor Gareth had to play his debut game as the Insider, retaining rules, forging strategy and feigning innocence all at the same time, and we figured it out when he not unreasonably just tried to win as many tricks as he could as quickly as possible. We played a second game and eventually realised it was Gareth again. Then on a third attempt it was a little more hazy, but I think we all suspected Joe to the point of near-certainty. Suspicion, however, doesn't guarantee victory: Joe grabbed his fifth intel to take an Insider win. 

I'm not sure what happened in 7 Wonders except Adam was slightly forlorn at the end, and Ian quietly triumphant. Louie went to bed, possibly in disgust. 

Ian 58

Steve 53

Anja /Team Adam and Louie 50 each

The time was pushing toward ten and I had to leave relatively early to get Stan to school for a madcap overnight dash to France. So whilst Gareth departed - also bound for bed - and the others set up Mille Fiori, Ian, Adam and I played a slightly protracted game of So Clover, all of us pondering at length and muttering resentful aspersions at our word combos. At the other end of the table, it was slightly more boisterous...

But So Clover was fun in it's own thinky, uncompromising way. Adam suggested Ian and I play a two-hander whilst he struggled on with his clues, but we were happy doodling on our clovers.  

"Is that a dog?" Adam said, peering over at Ian's drawings.

"It's batman" said Ian.

As it turned out, Adam's time spent proved worthwhile when it was the only six we got (mine and Ian's clovers were 4s). I didn't take any pics here but I do remember his clue of Sensed for Silence/Bouquet. Not a high-fiving score, but a reasonable one. 

I had to rush off at this point, but I'm told Mille Fiori ended with some colossal scores!

Steve 265

Martin 229

Joe 215

Anja 196

Incredible stuff. Sorry I wasn't there to see the glassblown madness. Thanks all, especially our hosts, and see you next week!

Because he saw the salad dressing

 Joe answered to door at Sam’s place at 7.47 and let me in. At the kitchen table he, Sam, Katy, Adam H and Ian were all playing Zombie Kidz Evolution. Ian rolled a die and it was blank, which was good, but then Katy rolled a red side and that was bad and the game ended. Then they spent about five minutes opening envelopes and sticking stickers because the game had been played often enough that a new zombie card and rule had been unlocked.

Then we were six. Should we split into two? Adam was keen on six-player Railways of the World, while Ian mentioned Heat. But we chose Decrypto since it hadn’t been seen in literally years (since 2022, according to the blog). Joe, Ian and Katy teamed up against Sam, Adam H and me. Round one and two were clear, but it all started going wobbly on round three. 

Katy’s clue was intercepted by us (more by luck than judgement: we were pondering our options when we noticed that we could just make the same guess as last round, so we did. And we were right) and then Joe and Ian got it wrong! But then Sam and I misunderstood Adam’s clue.

In round four, Katy, Joe and Ian intercepted my clue. It was getting harder to think of a reference for “Cyclops” which had appeared in every round. Telescope, Forehead, Hades and Blinks were clues to date and then it came up again in round five. Sam clued all cinematic references: Speilberg for ET, Scorsese for Money and Harryhausen for Cyclops, which was better than any film reference that I could come up with: I’d been trying to remember who’d played the one-eyed giant in Krull since we’d started. But anyway, Sam’s clues were intercepted, and the game was done.

Joe, Katy, Ian: superspies

Adam, Sam, Andrew: superfluous

Then we split into two groups. Adam, Ian and Sam went off to conquer Planet Unknown while Katy, Joe and I played Luxury Ra. With these two games, there wasn’t a huge amount of table space left so it’s lucky we’d already eaten all the crisps.

This was my first time playing this copy of Ra and I was rightfully impressed by the tactile experience although my tactics didn’t improve. At least it was close, with Joe’s grip on the game continuing. All thanks to his sudden switch in round two to collecting pharaohs despite telling us earlier that he really wasn’t interested in them.

Joe 43

Katy 41

Andrew 36

Remarkably, Planet Unknown ended at the same time and they totted up the scores as Sam told us that he loved the solo version so much that he’d played it fifteen times.

Sam 44

Ian 43

Adam 40

Then it was all back together for a game of So Clover. Any dreams of 36 out of 36 were dashed early on. We cleared Sam’s clover fine but then stumbled on Katy’s clue for fire which I think was “lighter” and “traditional.” Then an unlucky mix up saw us fail with Ian’s even though I was pretty confident we were right.

I was so convinced we were right I took a photo

I’m relieved that my clover scored the maximum 6 points as they pretty quickly realised I’d misread “envelop” as “envelope.” But I feel genuine regret that we didn’t get Adam’s clever clue of “seawee’d” which is a punchline to the joke “Why did the sea blush?” and we guessed accordingly. Unfortunately he’d wanted to do “why did the tomato blush?” but he couldn’t remember it.

I think we got 29 out of 36. Sounds about right.

Then Katy, Adam and I went home. On the way back, Sam sent me this gem from their game of Not That Movie...

And Katy found a wall with a few odds and ends that she had to peruse.

Thanks all. See you soon.