With various stalwarts of the Tuesday night gang absent and/or unable to host, Martin, Jo and I (Joe) rolled up to Anja and Steve's at just shy of 8pm, each of us armed with several high player count games. Louie was on a trampoline somewhere else, but joined us just as Puerto Banana hit the table, and seemed to grasp the inherent idiocy quite quickly. "Can I bid ten million bananas?", he asked. "Of course!", we replied.
I don't think anyone bid ten million bananas, but I might have missed it - after a few rounds, Martin accidentally handed what he described as a pyrrhic victory to Jo, winning the round with 1234 bananas but owing Jo so many bananas they ultimately won the game. As pointed out by Steve, it's game that probably teaches us more than we'd really like to know about how financial systems work. Bananas!
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| A photo of Puerto Banana that really captures the fun... |
Louie had about half an hour before bedtime, so he, Steve and I played Ticket to Ride Berlin, whilst Martin and Anja introduced Jo to Mille Fiore. Louie schooled me and Steve at TTR, springing the end game on us before we could complete our extra routes. Steve and I played Sea, Salt and Paper while Mille Fiore wrapped up; my win was convincing enough to make Steve peer at me from over his glasses in a withering way.
Joe 40
Steve 18
Mille Fiore finished with a squeaker, Martin edging past Anja by two points, with Jo only 30 points behind her:
Martin 205
Anja 203
Jo 173
Together at last, we five embarked on a pun-laden trick-taker that's not a trick-taker except it sort of is a trick-taker in the form of Jo's UKGE purchase, Power Vacuum. Jo had explained it to me in the car on the way over; "It's based on the death of Stalin, but with household appliances". Of course! The game was notable for the fine art and lavish production values, players demonstrating their points by building multi-part statues to themselves (in the event of a tie, the best statue wins). The reason it's not really a trick taker is that it's far more beneficial really to lose the trick, and get to manipulate the power each player is going to win at the end of the round (along with your bid on who's going to win and lose) than to win it. That part was the crux, and lead to some agonising moments. Anja, Jo and Steve I think all managed to score their bids at some point - I only managed a half bid a couple of times. It was a lot of fun, though quite befuddling at first, and according to Martin, perhaps having one or two too many good ideas crammed into it.
Despite the game's exceptional table-presence I didn't take any photos because I'm a twit, so here's a couple of really quite odd Berger & Wyse cartoons we managed to get the Guardian to publish a few years ago...
Anja 37
Jo 31
Martin 25
Steve 23
Joe 20
It was a fun night - I really should have taken some photos.
Nice write up Joe!
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