When I walked into Sam's kitchen at about 7.10, the games were already underway. Sam, Ian and Adam T were deep into a game of Dice Miner. This game involves a nicely designed dice stand in the shape of a mountain and players take turns to pick dice from it. Players are aiming to pick up runs of numbers, point scoring dice, or beer dice which they can then sell to opponents, allowing them to take two dice from the mountain.
In the final round I watched, Ian sold a lot of beer to Adam which made him mine more efficiently but also gave Adam an extra dice each time, which he rolled with great skill/luck.
Adam T 69
Ian 58
Sam 57
Next up, with Katy, Martin and Adam H expected soon we decided to play Cross Clues, a game that people can just jump into halfway through. In fact, Sam was on domestic duty elsewhere when Adam T, Ian and I began. Sam joined in and then Martin and Katy joined in too. We were going well until we became unstuck on Adam T’s clue of “Robin” which we did not guess was “Detective/motorcycle.” Perhaps we should have been more aware after his early clue of “Batman” for “Detective/car.”
24 out of 25
Interestingly, we had five chances to clue “helicopter” but no one said “Airwolf”. Tragic.
Next the six of us dug out Wilmot’s Warehouse, a curious memory game in which tiles with vague images are drawn at random, one by one, and everyone decides what it is and where to put it in the “warehouse”. It is placed face down, but we invent a story to help us to remember where it is. Then we all search through cards and place them on top of the matching tiles.
Thanks to our memorable tale of an elephant with, trunk, ears, poop, who was standing on a flower and there was an information booth with someone who had cake, and there was weather overhead. Sometimes new rules are brought into play. Some are odd and pointless, but a highlight was the round in which we could only talk in single syllable words, making us all sound remarkably like cavemen.
Adam H came in halfway through and he kindly operated the stopwatch, timing us in the final stage of the game where we all race to match cards to tiles. We did it perfectly, no mistakes, in only 2 minutes and 38 seconds. Eagerly we checked the rule book to see what brilliant rating we’d achieved.
“Congratulations. You’ve met the operational requirement.”
A strangely discouraging result. Like a team leader at an Amazon distribution hub grudgingly accepting that you’d hit your daily target.
Now we were all together, we split into two. Ian, Adam T and Adam H wanted to play Quest for Eldorado and I agreed, purely on the basis that I didn’t want to change seat. Martin, Katy and Sam played Klink.
I didn’t follow Klink at all, but I couldn’t miss the end of the game, with Martin announcing “And Katy loses!” sounding like a game show host revealing that night’s big prize.
Martin 46
Sam 71
Katy 84
In Quest for Eldorado, Ian and the two Adams took their time early on, picking up tiles and trashing weak cards, while I sped off into the distance. I had a healthy lead - at one point a full tile ahead of my nearest rival - but it was an illusion. My opponents’ better cards meant that all passed me by. But Adam T also seemed to struggle with his hand, deciding twice to simply discard a hand when it was his turn.
Adam H 1st
Ian 2nd, one tile away
Andrew 3rd, two tiles away
Adam T 4th, six tiles away
But Adam T felt that the win was tainted by the three of us all picking up barriers between tiles without passing through them, strictly speaking against the rules of the game.
Sam and Martin had, by now, introduced Katy into the world of Cascadero, with Sam promising her “at least second place” emphasising how bad he was.
They were still half way through the game when I decided to call it a day. Ian and the Adams were considering Mlem as I left, but I later found out they’d chosen Quantum, with Adam H just sneaking a win over Adam T.
Cascadero ended with Martin scoring 50+ with Katy and Sam tied on 44 and as the games that went on into the night, Katy won Spicy and then two attempts at So Clover scored 18/24 and then 19/24.
Finally, a quick recap of the scores from last week’s unblogged games night:
Spots
Adam 6
Martin 3
Ian 0
Cascadero
Adam 53
Ian 49
Martin 43
(and Martin came last after being in the lead right up until the final round)
Havalandi
Adam 79
Martin 69
Ian 64
Klink
Martin 73
Adam 82
Ian 82
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