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.