After the fiesta of the xmas blowout, the first GNN of the new year was a sparsely attended evening, with just Katy and Martin stepping in out of the perpetual rain to see what the night would bring.
It started with revisiting Big Top, the circus-themed bidding game.
In our debut play the other night, I'd won courtesy of nabbing early auctions before the prices rose. This time I was given no such licence as bids went up earlier. But it was also a game of over-expenditure, as we all found ourselves cash-poor at times, something Katy was concerned by as she had a card that gave her a great exchange rate for coins. Martin twice bought his own cards, and fretted about that. It was a game of ruminations.
Sam 61
Katy 49
Martin 41
Next up was Accuse!, where we are trying, Cluedo-like, to ascertain the location, weapon and personnel of a murder. There are two locations (three cards of each) three weapons (two cards of each) and six suspects (one card of each). A little information is shared but most is hidden; some in your hand. Turns pass with someone playing a card to the table face-down and announcing what it is. Airport, gun, person, etc. But the catch is you can lie and you can be challenged, which prompts a switching of cards from player to player or a card on the table being revealed.
When you're ready, you can grab a pawn and make your guesses, revealing the crime cards only to yourself. If you're correct, you win! If not, the other players make bids as to how many cards they'll flip over before they make a correct guess, with the lowest bidder going first.
Katy and Martin won a game apiece here, the second after we'd collectively suggested there were eight airport cards (there are three) and challenged just two of them. I might have won the second but I accused Bo, who I'd forgotten was in my hand just minutes earlier.
Katy and Martin: Detectives!
Sam: Demoted
Next up was Misfits, the game of collaborative tower-building where you're actually trying to make the other players cause the tower to fall.
For a game of even simpler rules than Bandu, it's surprisingly brutal, and together we concocted the kind of constructions that architects would shake their heads at. Or possibly admire, I'm not sure. Either way, I won both games, although apparently the first one didn't count, for obscure reasons.
Next up was Romi Rami, or Rome Rams as my computer likes to call it.
Katy got off to a strong start and was definitely points leader as Martin and I bemoaned our fates of heart contracts with only diamonds and clovers available on the table. But we came back into contention, and I even snuck ahead of Katy by the slenderest of margins, surviving Martin's abrupt ending of the game.
Sam 34
Katy33
Martin 28
I think at this point we had the first round of Katy's hot cross buns with Katy's homemade jam. Thanks Katy! Delicious. But more importantly there were games to be played. I was introduced to Bag of Chips, which I'd seen at Novocon but not actually played. It's a dumb but fun betting game that min-maxers would no doubt despise, as you discard/play cards as bets on what chips will come out of a bag. Naturally, I liked it! I won after two rounds and when Katy insisted we play a third, I won that too. MORE CHIPS PLEASE.
We then played So Clover - I got no pics - and scored 13 out of 18 when Katy and I struggled with Martin's clover.We finished up and had another round of hot cross buns and jam to keep us going. We played So Clover again. This time one of Katy's clues was the letter 'O' which bamboozled us. We initially put it with limbo and Katy hissed 'look at all the words' which frankly is breaking the laws of So Clover, Martin what have you started here, before we tried putting it with boot and full (bootofull!) before finally spotting Cup and Soap (cup o soap) which was correct!
So we did marginally better, 14 out of 18 and although I'm sure we'd all have loved to play again, it was time to wrap things up.
Outside the rain continued to fall, so it was hoods up and off into the dark night. Until next Tuesday... happy new year all.
No comments:
Post a Comment