The Top 20 GNN Games (7 years on)

Seven years! It seems like just yesterday I last was doing this pointless blogpost nonsense. Oh, it was this morning. Anyway here are the most-played games of the GNN blog, as of today. 

1st So Clover 166  new entry!

So Clover's numbers are crazy. It appeared at the end of August 2021 and has featured, on average, .66 times every week since then, introducing the word ustensil into the GNN lexicon.

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2. 7 Wonders 121 🔻

The longevity of this game can't be argued with, although its numbers were significantly bumped by a lockdown year where we were spared all the shuffling. 

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3. 6 nimmt ⏩⏪ 91 

Lesser-seen these days, but still seen enough to hold onto third. 

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4. Biblios  🔻 88

Down from second place, Biblios has only hit the table 8 times since 2019. Sad face. 

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5. For Sale  🔼 78

Whereas For Sale has literally doubled its numbers and jumps up from 11th. 

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6. Love Letter  🔻 73

At one stage it looked like Love Letter would unseat 7 Wonders, but alas the passion has faded. Only seven plays since 2019. 

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7. No Thanks 🔻/ Push it  🔻 59

Dropping from 6th and 5th respectively.

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8. Ra  🔼 55

Ra continues to steadily climb, like an album by Meatloaf that just stays in the charts year after year because there are just enough old duffers to keep buying/playing it. Up from 13th. 

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9. Pairs  🔻 53

Down from 7th, possibly in part to Flip 7 being the greatest card game in the world. 

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10. Fuji Flush  🔻 51

Poor Fuji Flush. It was once our default evening-opener, hosting as it does up to eight dick-moving players. However it's now faded from view, like a polaroid pinned to a wall that gets the afternoon sun. 

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11. Lords of Waterdeep  🔻 50

But Fuji Flush has more colour than this game, which has been played only thrice at GNN since it occupied the giddy heights of 8th. I can still enjoy it at 2 or 3, but more than that makes it a grind. 

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12. Quantum 49 🔼

Like Ra, Quantum is in it for the long haul. It can't hold a candle to For Sale (or the newbies So Clover and Cross Clues), but elsewise has claimed the most plays on this list since 2019, pushing it up from 14th. 

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13. Take it Easy 🔻 48 

Take It Easy's couplets aren't the regular feature they once were: previously edging into the top ten, the lists of people Chris would like revenge on aren't enough to sustain it.

14. Tinners' Trail 🔻 / Tsuro 🔻 44

Tinner's Trail is nearly flatlining, with just a single play in seven years (apparently). Even Tsuro managed six. 

 

15. Raj 🔻 43

Raj racks up seven plays, which means it only drops one place from 14th.   

16. Lords of Vegas ⏩⏪/ Railways of the World 🔻 42

Steady Eddie Lords of Vegas holds onto 16th; Railways surprisingly drops three positions to join it there. I'm sure it's been played more than the four times the blog suggests in seven years - maybe they were all at games weekends though. Blogger gets funny about too many tags. And I recently played it with Adam on a non-tagged evening of delights.

17. Azul 40 🔼

Twelve plays for Azul gets it up from 20th

18. Cross Clues 39  new entry!

The little sibling of So Clover has had a similar impact: not on quite the same scale but 39 plays in five years is some going when you plough through the newbs like we do. 

19. Alhambra 🔻/Las Vegas new entry! 38 

Alhambra drops, Las Vegas rises. It's a surprise to see it here though - I thought it mostly got played years ago. So either it's been seen enough to belatedly appear now, or I erroneously missed it out last time. It's not an exact science, as much as I like to pretend I'm spending this time wisely.

20. Kingdom Builder 🔻 37 

Kingdom Builder's seven plays are enough for it to cling on with grasping fingers. 

GONE FROM THE LIST: 

Incan Gold and Timeline - nestling at 21st 

Stone Age - once seventh, now no more

The Mind - 33 plays puts it on a par with Stone Age, and it's not enough

Trans-Europa/Trans America - even cheating and combining their numbers, they fail

Ticket to Ride  - astonishing really. In 2015 it was fourteenth, but hasn't troubled the list since.

That's How You Make Your Wife

The evening began with card tricks. Joe started things by showing Louie how he could predict a jack coming out of some dice rolls and a clutch of calculus. 'The secret's in the maths' he confirmed later, although he never elucidated on why he got the suit wrong. "I was distracted" was the most he'd let on. 

Louie returned the favour. He broke the deck into several piles, shuffled them about, and predicted a nine, which duly appeared. There was an impressed moment and I wondered if maybe Anja would produce a rabbit from somewhere, but it transpired instead that it was time for Hot Streak. 

We were at the full eight by this time: as well as our hosts and Joe, Martin, Adam, Pete and myself (Sam) were also perched around the table. Anja - who hadn't played before - had a concern she didn't really understand what was happening. "It doesn't matter" Martin said. Hot Streak is that kind of game. 

Pete got off to a flyer with two big payouts in race one. But he was less effective thereafter, with Adam and Martin looking like the racers to beat. I played my usual ineffective strategies in races one and two before pulling off a surprise payout in the third race. Adam scored highest overall, and when Martin said no-one was interested in the scores, he chimed in "I am". So the positions below are 'the positions' although perhaps more intriguing for the combination of Martin reading the stories from the results book and my phone trying and failing to make sense of them. 

Adam 61 - your legal defence fund for having shaved ass into the horn of the mare poodle
Sam 57 - to an old woman who cracked them into a fine cloak of good fortune at all Will and Don’t you look handsome in it 
Pete 49 - you book studio time I saw what I’m pretty sure it was a hot runaround
Louie 40 - do you use your winnings to buy a copy of the streak by John Perry and CMYK? You enjoy playing it for years with friends and family.
Anja 32 your winnings goes straight into gobbler College fund
Joe 28 - Mart corner you in the parking lot and that’s how you make your wife
Steve 22, -you mail your winnings to your niece who uses them to buy a sweet butterfly knife to do tricks with
Martin 23 - you finally have enough money to fulfil your dream of buying a used copy of Tony Hawks downhill jam for the Xbox 360 so you do it

Hot Streak's always fun - especially with Joe's bespoke playlist - but with 8 of us it does feel like the races are only about a third of the actual game. We moved on. With Louie's bedtime looming, how much longer could he spend with us? Steve announced "Twenty minutes. Fifteen minutes. Ten minutes" and it wasn't clear if he was indecisive or just living life at a faster speed than the rest of us. Regardless, we set up Cobra Paw, the game of rolling two dice and trying to be first to snatch the matching tile off the table - or each other. 

"How does it end?" I asked Steve.

"I don't know" he admitted. Then he looked up the rules and said first to have seven tiles instantly wins. We began rolling and snatching and it only took about four minutes for Anja to get six tiles, at which point Steve said she had won. We all insisted he'd said first to seven, Steve was sure he had said six, but either way it made no difference: Anja was Queen Cobra and Louie was Prince of the Duvet. On the other side of the table, they were playing Big Shot. 

I know nothing of this except it's by Alex Randolph (of Xe Queo and Raj) and consists of auctions. I like the look of that board too; the picture makes me want to play Sardegna again. When Cobra Paw finished they were deep into <whatever it was> and will hopefully illuminate us as to what happened in the comments. Meantime we played Bella Vista. 

Bella Vista has a randomised set-up to create the board and then over 8 rounds we all place our 8 buildings  on it (in the three-player game, the last-to-go also places a building of the unoccupied fourth colour). There's two end-game objectives: in our play last night, it was buildings at the border of the city and buildings in clusters - and some in-game objectives in the form of contracts: have two buildings next to the river, or one building in each blue neighbourhood - that kind of thing. If you qualify for a contract at the end of your turn, you can take it for the cash/points value at the end of the game. 

Turn order is critical: often two or more of us are in pole position for a contract. But going earlier in turn order means paying for the privilege, and in a game where cash and points are the same thing you can end up paying 6 coins to complete a contract worth 8 coins. I made a critical error late-on, thinking I had the four-buildings-on-borders contract sewn up and not spotting Steve could swoop in and grab it - which is what he did. 

Steve 110

Sam 106

Anja 105

We wrapped up at exactly the same time as Big Shot, with Martin happiest about the scores. 

Martin 38

Joe 33

Adam 12

Pete 5

Pete seemed sanguine about Martin pointing out he started the game with twice as much cash as he ended it with. They all seemed broadly approving, in fact. But now we rejigged, with Adam, Anja and Joe playing Spots... 

And the rest of us choosing between dnup and Gang of Dice. I said as I'd chosen Bella Vista I'd stay out of the debate and went off to the bathroom. I returned through the kitchen, where Anja was treated to me saying 'so they make these bottles with extra large labels' repeatedly to my phone, as it refused to understand the text I was trying to send to my niece. I have basically become reliant on technology that terminally misconstrues me. Meantime they'd chosen dnup.

This game's mental gymnastics exist within a simple framework, but they are still mental. However on a second play things felt a little more malleable to me - marginally less chaotic. And Steve won the first round despite being bamboozled anyway. We were briefly distracted by Joe being sad, but otherwise mesmerised by dnup's weirdness: I won the second and third round to take the game...

Sam 5

Steve 2

Martin/Pete 1 each

And Spots ended at the same time. Joe had rallied from his serial busting enough to claim second, but clearly Adam had run away with it like a dog with a bone. 

Adam 6

Joe 3

Anja 2

And with 11 o'clock nearing us, we wrapped things up for the night, with So Clover making a rare non-appearance. Despite that bombshell, a very fun evening. Thanks all!

Who’s on Third?

Tuesday at Joe’s. I arrived at the same time as Adam T and Joe lead us downstairs to his kitchen, we were greeted by a group of five more eager gamers, Ian, Martin, Adam H, Katy and Sam. The scent of peanuts filled the air as two nut-based snacks sat in bowls in the middle of the table. As an octet we decided to play a game together and Triangulation was brought to the table.

In this game a clue-giver writes three clues to try and make his team guess a word (always a Proper Noun) but in such a way that the opposing team can’t guess the word when given two of those clues, chosen at random. Joe, Adam H, Katy and Sam lined up on one side of the table and Ian, Martin, Adam T and myself were on the other.

Joe started the game and the first clue to be revealed was “Rusty.” Blank looks all round. I suggested Mad Max, so we went with that. This caused a certain amount of deliberation from Joe before he said no. This made us think that this might be somehow related to Mad Max - an assumption not entirely disproven by the next clue “Dusty.”

In fact the answer was Springfield. Joe had misremembered the name Krusty the Clown as Rusty, hence the confusion. I had a similar experience on my turn. I chose Stan Lee but then couldn’t remember if he was Marvel or DC. I felt fairly sure it wasn’t DC so my clues were Marvel, Origin and Pauper - the third clue based on Stan Lee being screwed over by Marvel.

Another source of confusion was when Martin’s first clue was “Third” and Sam wondered if it was an allusion to the famous “Who’s on third” comedy routine by the Three Stooges, until he realised he meant “Who’s on first” by Abbot and Costello.

Martin, Ian, Adam T and Andrew 4

Sam, Katy, Joe and Adam H 1

After this, we split into two. At one end was Spyrium, a game that harked back to a time when every board game had a cyber punk aesthetic and was all about building engines, and me, Ian, AdamsT and H set up to play. 

The other players chose Bella Vista, a game with an appropriate name as they all build up their delightful multistory somewhat Parisian apartment blocks across a city according to a varying set of rules. 

Katy ended up a clear winner, reflecting her desire to make a better world. In this case, one full of parks.

Katy 104

Martin 90

Joe 78

Sam 70

Spyrium played out as you may expect. Ian and I went for points while the two Adams seemed content to sit on zero points for most of the first two rounds. Of course, the two Adams had just been toying with us. While my final round involved no building at all and a desperate attempt at converting anything in my reserve into points, both Adams still seemed to have a plan and the money to complete it. Adam T’s experience gave him the edge over H’s innate sense of how to win a game.

Adam T 62

Adam H 55

Andrew 51

Ian 46

And then I left. Only two games, but still a full evening. As I left, Sam, Katy, Joe and Martin were playing Dnup. It was a card game where you have the opportunity to turn your hand of cards upside down, which would give you a whole new set of numbers to play with. I know little else about it, including the scores.

But thanks all, it was special.

99% Perspiration

It was a hot and sweaty night. Although thunder distantly rumbled, the vice-like warmth didn't break, and five of us sat in the kitchen grateful for the occasional blessings of an oscillating fan. With the darkness came a slight relief - but not much. It was like an African evening in a sweltering, conspiratorial Graham Greene novel - only with less espionage and more German post. 

But I get ahead of myself. Joe was early and so with 20 minutes at our disposal, we disposed of them with a crack at Letterpress. I'd recently had a harrowing game against Adam, scoring only 8 points (-bad for round one, let alone the deciding round five finale) and the early showings weren't good as Joe won rounds one and two and picked up a couple of challenge cards: he had six letters to my two at this point. But I rallied somewhat, and though Joe's final word was more stylish - VARSITIES - I picked up a redemptive (narrow) win with SCRAGGING. 

As we compared hands, Pete and Adam arrived, followed shortly by Ian. I suggested we start the evening proper with a frippery, and everyone was amenable to 1AM Jailbreak. This is a Saashi card-shedder where we are allegedly trying to escape all our prisoners (our hand of cards) out of jail and into the tunnel (the table). Despite playing it as recently as last week I was hazy on a couple of rules - I blame the heat - but fortunately Pete and Joe were on hand to help me out.

 

Over the three rounds Joe proved to be best escape artist, as he loosed all his prisoners from chokey every time. His only competition was Adam, as the rest of us appeared incapable of using a spade. I'm blaming going to get the fan on this one. 

1 Joe 
2 Adam
3 Pete
4 Ian
5 Sam

We looked at the stack of 5-player games I'd brought in and wondered if it was too hot for Hansa Teutonica. Or if it would be too long. Or if we'd be done by 9pm (this last one was a gamer's joke, unfit for any other scenario). But there was a general swing towards it so we set up and clarified a couple of fuzzy edge-cases, remembering everything else apart from the fact if you get extra actions you get them straight away - you really had to be there, it was dramatic. 

Initially we mostly split by geography. Outside of the classic fighting over Gottingden Joe focused on the north and me the south, with the others running interference on both. I scored the first point, but if I had ideas that this meant I was in the running - and it didn't - I was swiftly caught and overtaken by Joe. Despite Ian's best efforts to get in his way, he managed to get a little scoring route together in the north-west and starting eking out points. 

Joe (red) takes the lead. Ian (fingers) is just about to move 

him further up the track as well

I was last to get myself up to three actions and paid the price, spending much of the mid-game feeling underpowered as Adam spent his four - and then five! - across the table from me. Although he scored precious little from the route-building he seemed to have timed things well, and spent the last act powering his way across the board. 

But it wasn't enough to catch Joe, who'd juggled the various challenges of HT with aplomb, building a big lead through his routes and developing the joint-largest network. Pete's plans to connect the east-west postal route fell apart - "I've gone wrong" he said, like an early AI postman - and Ian realised that he had no network at all. 

Joe 42
Adam 33
Sam 32
Pete 29
Ian 25

A stone-cold classic - great to play again and it definitely suits five. 

It did take a wee while though - it was past nine now - and it was still hot. We collectively determined we had one more game in us and it would be So Clover. We opened with three sixes - Ian, Pete and myself - but were foxed by Joe's clue of rummers. Joe suggested we could google it but we weren't sure that was in the rules. We were also too hot and lazy. And so we missed glasses/pirate, not knowing a rummer is a glass and being sidetracked by my fixation on the Rummer pub in town, which I thought might be green. Or possibly grey. Sorry Joe. We ended on a 4 with Adam's clover, thrown by the fact he'd written Hoodlum for hood. "I only realised when you said it" said Adam. What with the heat, it was that kind of night. 

25/30 - not terrible by any means. A very fun night - two years and a day since my last play of Hansa Teutonica! Let's not leave it that long again... Thanks all 

This game's got Seoul

 Joe’s place is barely a hop skip and a jump from mine, yet I still manage to misjudge how long it’ll take me to walk there and thus I was the last of tonight’s quartet to arrive.

Joe, Martin, Adam H and I started with Collect. It’s a simple game in which you collect animal cards.  The winning conditions depend on which animals you have in front of you, so there’s a certain amount of dick moves as a particular animal allows you to remove or swap cards in another player’s tableau thus ruining anyone’s chances of a win.

We played as two teams of two, although the players score individually: the first player to win a crown means that team wins. In rounds 1, 2 and 3 the winner gets half a crown and in the fourth round, the winner gets a whole crown.

We played while we made a start on Martin’s Thai Sweet Chili crisps, bought for his daughter but he found out they were the wrong Thai Sweet Chili and now he was stuck with two multi-packs of the wrong crisps.

The game was fun if a little lightweight. Martin won round one and then I won the next two, meaning our team won the game.

Martin & I - Surfin’ Safari

Joe & Adam - Strange Taxidermy

Next up was President Maker, a little table-top general election in South Korea. This time Adam started as the ruling Progressive Party against Martin (independent), Joe (Centrist) and myself (conservative).

Satire

I went for the extra candidate which did so well with Sam last time. It cost me two votes though and in the final count, came out three times so only a net gain of one vote for me.

The general election was much closer this time on paper, although as it played out Adam sped off into a huge lead with Martin’s meeples seemingly reluctant to emerge from the cloth bag in the final count. Martin did stage a late rally, but couldn’t close the gap.

Adam

Martin

Andrew

Joe

Next up we played Fives, the game that famously insulted us by putting a pivotal rule at the end of the rule book with the word “obviously” attached to it, effectively calling us morons for ever thinking otherwise.

Halfway through the game, a piece of Joe’s table fell off with a loud clunk, with very little concern from Joe. “What was that?” asked Martin. “Er… nothing,” Joe replied.

I admit I have no idea how to approach this game. In the four rounds that we play, I go bust three times and I only stay solvent in round four by sheer luck. I keep finding myself in a position where I have to win a trick in order to lead and dispose of a high card, but if I win a trick I’ll go bust.

The silver suit - hard to decipher 

Adam 17

Joe 14

Martin 10

Andrew 4

I left at this point, with the remaining three already setting up the next game. Thanks all for another special evening. See you all soon.

Winning Streak

 As I walked through Bristol, I was enjoying the blue skies and fresh breeze, feeling like summer was finally here. As if to confirm this, Adam H rode past me on his bike, waving at me in a t-shirt and reflective sunglasses looking for all the world like he's headed to the beach. But he wasn’t. He was heading to Sam's house for this week's gaming interlude. 

When I arrived I also met Sam, Laura, Ian and Joe, with Pete joining us soon after I sat down. We played Hot Streak - a Magical Athlete type of game with a retractable track that extends from the game box across the table. But while Magical Athlete has a cast of dozens, Hot Streak consists of four runners who have a distinct lack of super powers. As such, it should be easier to predict the winner, right? Runners move according to cards drawn from a deck that everyone has seen, but then has had a card added to it from each player and then, as the race progresses, cards are removed from the deck. This means, whatever information we all had at the start, gets more and more inaccurate.

Joe was assiduous in his preparation for the game, supplying a music soundtrack to enhance the excitement of the game. One of the tunes was “Yakety Sax” which we observed, despite its fame, wasn’t the kind of tune you’d put on to listen to at home.

Ian was the best at predicting the results by quite a margin. Pete, though, in many ways played the perfect game: finishing with exactly the same amount of money that he started with.

In an example of Flavour Text gone mad, each possible result has its own i-ching-style life prediction. I didn’t note them down except that they all seemed quite long except mine which was a single sentence.

Ian 68

Adam 57

Laura 46

Andrew 39

Joe 34

Sam 14

Pete 10

Now we split into two groups. Ian, Adam, Sam and I go for the 3-D co-op puzzle that is La Boca while Laura, Joe and Pete went for Pandemic: Rising Tide. The rules explanation for this game were pretty lengthy, continuing long into our game of La Boca.

La Boca is a cleverly designed game. Like Hot Streak, the box itself is intrinsic to the game itself acting as a stage on which the two players build a wall according to two different (but compatible) designs. 

We all collaborated with each other in a random order and we soon discovered that the easiest level was far too easy, instead playing with the slightly harder designs and the, in our final turns, the hardest of all. 

I did very well, maybe I got lucky with card choices. The fastest time for a round to be completed was just 14 seconds.

Andrew 50

Adam 35

Ian 34

Sam 33

No idea what was happening in the Netherlands, but at our end of the table we played Survive The Island. In this game we have to rescue our meeples from a steadily vanishing island and increasing numbers of sea monsters. We also have to avoid each other, as the game allows plenty of dickish strategies to send opponents into the sea or even bounce them onto tiles containing monsters.

After a quick start, I was very slow to get my meeples off the island. Eventually I decided to stop waiting for another raft and swim for safety. Might have worked too, but then the third volcano on the island erupted and the game ended.

Adam 21

Ian 17

Sam 16

Andrew 7

And so I was done. But the rest continued long into the night as Sam will explain….

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After Andrew left they were still frantically putting fingers in dykes in Rising Tide, so Adam went to the front room and returned with a small selection of games for Ian and I to choose from. One of them was Steam Power, but at 9.45 we both felt - not realising how far away the end of the evening was - that it was a little late to start route-building. Instead, with Laura's encouragement from the sidelines/Holland, we set up Tipperary. All of us were pretty rusty on the rules but it's dead simple. Especially if you're Adam. 

In brief, Tipperary is a polyomino game with multiple overlapping ways to score. Finding ways to combine them is where it's at, and whilst myself and Ian sprawled our farms erratically over the table, Adam's homestead was much more rigorous in its structure and discipline. 

Whilst he was never in the running for 'largest flock' Adam shrugged off this minor oversight with a bagatelle of other point-scoring shenanigans. 

Adam 98
Sam 78
Ian 60

Despite our Dutch dammers insisting the game was nearly over, I suspected that we might have time to squeeze in a quick luck-pusher in Lure, the game of catching fish. But suddenly Rising Tide was over, and despite the fact it took considerably longer than the advertised 45 minutes (Pete and I anticipated an hour, so we were only 50% out) everyone seemed happy - especially as they won. The Netherlands was saved!

Pete, Laura and Joe - Amsterdam!
Pandemic - Rotterdam

doesn't really make sense, sorry

Surprisingly, nobody was making moves to go home, so we split into teams - Ian/Laura/Pete v Joe/Adam/Sam - and played Triangulation. 

We got off to a solid start when Adam and Joe figured out Red Bull from drinking/caffeine/races and then intercepted Ian's cocaine/horror/Maine as Stephen King. His 80's cocaine habit was new to us - Ian said that apparently he doesn't remember writing Cujo - but we were off to a flyer. 

Adam's first reveal was towel and Pete instantly suggested - correctly - The HItchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Laura revealed Joey and we guessed Friends. But her second clue gave away that it was Australia, and then Joe's wood/Helena/Mars for Tim Burton wrapped up a win for our team. We did Pete's clues anyway and Ian and Laura correctly guessed Subway from High Street/Underpass/foot. 

Adam now left for home leaving five of us to finish the night with the traditional So Clover. We opened with a 6 - I was rather pleased with my white lie for elastic/fable - but ran into problems with Pete's clue of Wogan, which seemed to loosely connect with lots of things. Surprisingly the answer was radio/stud, which Pete appeared to be tinged with regret about. Laura's clue of Mr. Y Bear for light/magician was another baffler, prompting thoughts of Yogi Bear and Logie Baird before Laura revealed it was intended as 'mystery bear'. Beyond that, she volunteered no further information, happy to cackle gleefully into her beer. I think we finished with Joe's, which was another 6: spicy for demon/noodle was nice. 

It was now shockingly 11.30pm though which for us five clarity bears meant bedtime. A cracking Tuesday night, thanks all!

Mille Fury

With a multitude of people unable to make Tuesday games for various reasons, including being elsewhere in the country or watching the football, it was a relatively small attendance. With Anja and Steve volunteering to host, Martin and I (Ian) headed up the short distance up the Bristol-Bath Railway path - there was a moment where it looked like we might have a fifth attendee as Adam cycled past, but he was on his way to watch the aforementioned football. Still, 4 is a fine number for games.

When we arrived though, Anja was settling Lennon to bed, and Louis, having recently turned into an actual teenager, was too busy with email admin relating to his VR headset to play stuffy old boardgames, so we were temporarily a three. Martin, Steve and I played Jungo first – classic Jungo rules, not the Hachi Train variant. Fate smiled on me as I had some very lucky cards and after picking up some played cards was able to play 7 ones in a single turn. My luck meant I reached the winning condition of 2 fairly swiftly.

Ian – 2

Martin – 0

Steve – 0

We then played an edition of Timeline – I can’t recall the exact theme, but it just seemed to be “events”, but again fate smiled on me as one of my cards was “The Extinction of Dinosaurs” which seemed such an outlier compared to anything else it felt like cheating. Steve and I both got rid of our cards in the same round. We decided to guess at the remaining card “First Superhero” in a homebrew tiebreaker, whoever guessed the closest would win. I guessed 1936, only slightly earlier than the actual year of 1938.

Ian – no cards left

Steve – no cards left

Martin – 1 card left (I think)

Having settled Lennon Anja was finally free to play games. If it had been Christmas, Anja’s red-and-white arm cast (following a nasty fall down the stairs) would have been very festive, but alas we’re in May. After some brief gaming debate we settled on an old favourite, Mille Fiori.

It was a strange game in some ways, lasting maybe a tad longer than expected but full of twists, and the Townspeople areas relatively untouched for most of the game. Martin had an early lead, but after a slow start I was the first to reach 100 points. Martin scored big in one round and rocketed back ahead. Anja played a steady game throughout though and was able to pull into a comfortable lead when her early placements started allowed to start scoring bonuses. 

There was a lot of swearing with numerous utterances of “bollocks” and Steve, seemingly stuck languishing at the back, could only say “fuck you all” after finding the spaces he wanted to play in repeatedly blocked.

Anja’s consistent approach proved victorious, and Steve regained a lot of ground towards the end for a close finish.

Anja – 205

Martin – 188
Ian – 188
Steve – 178

Next up was Catan – On the Road. This card-based twist on Catan has seen a few plays recently, and it’s good fun. At one point during his trade Steve asked, “Does anyone have a sheep?”, and when Anja offered the said sheep Steve responded, contemplatively “So, you’re offering a sheep?” as if the offer wasn’t the exact request resource. It amused me, anyway.

It became very clear that Martin was going to win on his next turn, unless we could stop him. We tried, and Steve agonized over his final choice but couldn’t catch up to Martin, who ended the game as expected.

Martin – 7
Steve – 6
Ian – 5
Anja – 3

Steve retired at this point, leaving Anja, Martin and I to play a final game of Misfits. I do wonder if playing an arm in a cast would hinder Anja slightly, and a couple of tower collapses on her go seemed to suggest this could be case, but I also experienced a collapse leaving Martin to dispose of his pieces with relative ease. As usual, Misfits gave rise to wonderfully pleasant constructions best represented with pictures.

And with that Martin and I headed back to Greenbank, another lovely games night. Thanks all.

The Night of Obscure References

I arrived at Sam's only a little late but still late enough for Sam to beat Joe at a game of Aspen and for the two of them to start a game of Cross Clues with Ian, Katy and Martin. I got there just in time to be given the last free card.

We clued each other adequately enough, with Martin having to explain an absurdly optimistic clue referencing Kim Joy who is a celebrity chef who’s made a board game. General blank looks all round.

20 out of 25

Then we set up Triangulation, a team game based around giving clues to certain things: pop culture, places, people etc. You have to give three clues but the opposing team gets to guess first, using two of those clues. Pete was expected to join us soon but, since it was a team game, he could just join in once he arrived. And when he did, he made quite the entrance, dropping his metal water bottle loudly onto the floor.

Not to be outdone in the attention-seeking game, Sam then went outside, across his floorboard-free decking, balancing on joists several feet above the ground, just to pick up a couple of cans of gin and tonic.

Sam wondered aloud what kind of thing might be allowed - does the moon count as a proper noun? My favourite clue was Ian’s “Washington” “Compass” “Flight” which should have made us think of West Wing, but didn’t. Seemed so obvious after the reveal.

Then we split into two. Martin and I were early recruits for President Maker, but seemed to have enormous trouble getting extra candidates as everyone hedged their bets, waiting to see what else was on offer.

In the end, Dewan was the other game, with Ian, Katy and Joe. Sam, Pete, Martin and I chose President Maker, but Sam had to do Explaining duties on Dewan.

Once Ian, Joe and Katy were happy to continue, Martin talked us through the intricacies of the Korean electoral system as represented by five bits of cardboard and some cubes. In this game players can “rally” which means they can increase their popularity in an area, especially if no one else goes there.

Then you can play a card which allows you to move cubes, with the proviso that you may collect bombs - too many of those will damage your popularity with the voters.

Finally, all these cubes translate into tiles that go into a black cloth bag. And, once for each area, we draw tiles to see who gets the most votes. It was Sam by a country mile, and he couldn’t help but laugh as he pulled out yellow tile after yellow tile, somehow avoiding all of the many purple tiles in the bag. 

As we began the fifth and final area, Sam’s lead was so great that Martin observed his only way of winning was if all his tiles came out, and none of Sam’s. But Sam then drew two of his own and any sense of excitement was done. Except for Sam, who kept getting votes and very nearly broke the scoreboard.

1st Sam (Progressive)

2nd Andrew (Centrist)

3rd Pete (Independent)

4th Martin (Conservative)

Dewan finished without me paying it much attention, except for Joe’s disdain for the dividers in the game’s box as he tried to put it away.

Joe 43

Katy 40

Ian 16

Katy left and the six of us played Triangulation again. I can’t honestly say we were any better than the first time.

We saw some painfully obscure references where no one got the answer despite seeing all three clues (Pete’s “rise” “Of” “Pandemic” was a cryptic allusion to Cthulu, and my “Calvin” “Chuck” “Eighty Eight” did not lead anyone to Back To The Future although Ian mentioned it in passing while they deliberated) but equally we experienced some almost telepathic correct guesses after one word. Martin was aghast when “Material” lead almost everyone to agree on Madonna.

Pete, Sam, Andrew win

Ian, Joe, Martin don’t

Then Joe gave me a lift home. Only 10:10pm. Days of near-midnight finishes seem so long ago…

But the evening continued, as Sam reports.

 *                *                *

After Andrew left we had time for a couple more games. 

First up was Catan: On The Road, which dumps the original's spatial element whilst keeping the resources, trading, and first-to-x-win condition, which in this case is 7 points. We'd all played before but that didn't stop me getting confused about the harvest phase. Ian briefly flirted with winning, but then Martin stole his big road and I took the biggest army. Then Martin built a metropolis and won. Something like that, anyway. Martin and I have conferred today and found our memories somewhat erratic. 

Then it was time for the green plastic. We did very well, rolling 4 sixes straight out the gate in pretty short order. There were some nice clues in there, with Martins tip for waiter/garbage being perhaps the most lateral. We were so pleased, and Martin had so much beer left, that we played again. The second game was so bad nobody took any pictures, but here is the first:

And with that, the GNN Tuesday closed up shop for another week. Until then!

Crossover Crops

 This week's Tuesday night games was preceded by a sort of musical chairs of hosts and attendees popping up and dropping out; and just as four of us (Martin, Jo, Ian and me (Joe)) prepared to depart for the genteel climes of Anja and Steve's, Steve called to say their hosting was off due to an emergency. Given that they've hosted their way through several urgent plumbing situations recently, we were concerned that it must be something very serious; a small nuclear reactor meltdown, perhaps, or the discovery of a portal to Hell? Actually Anja had fallen on the stairs and hurt her arm - we hope you're on the mend Anja. 

The four of us abandoned the car and decamped to the Greenbank pub, and while awaiting the arrival of Pete, we played Llama Llama; from the designer of Panda Panda, played with the same deck make up, and just as agonising. I didn't record the scores. Martin won. 

Pete arrived in time to mention he'd played it when it was called Dog Poker. And Panda Panda was Cat Poker. We neatly segued into one of Jo's prototypes, Untrustwordy, which they pitched to us as poker but with words.  After the first round, I was lowest on the score track, having struggled to assimilate the relatively few rules of the game, and I suggested we play again, so I could regain some dignity. I did so badly in the second round (falling for Jo's bait that they were holding an X) that I dropped off the bottom of the scoreboard! Meanwhile Martin did so well he shot off the top. It's an interesting design, and Jo's planning to pitch it at the Games Expo this year, so fingers crossed we'll play it again in published form.

Though I'd brought Mü, we felt it might be a little late in th evening to be enjoying it's head-scratchy delights, and Martin had brought Reif für die Insel, which at least also has an umlaut. It translates, we think, to 'ripe for the island' which sounds like it might mean something slightly dubious to German ears, and involves an awful lot of bananas. Pete pointed out that this week, bananas were the crossover crop, as they appear in Santiago, which we played last week. As do potatoes, which feature in Maya, which we played the week before. The problem, we discovered, is that bananas are a bit of a crossover crop cul-de-sac, as they appear in loads of games but mostly on their own. 

I didn't take any pictures, but that's really no bad thing, as this game has about as much table presence as half a packet of banana flavour Chewits. It's an auction game, one of Reiner Knitzia's dodecorilogy (at the very least) of auction games. And it's quite neat, but fairly one note. Having played it a couple of times I can say I prefer something like High Society, which it reminds me of slightly. But it's fine. It's no Santiago!

Jo 89

Martin 75

Pete 67

Joe 63

Ian 59

After that we played Hot Streak - which has tons of table presence - but I still didn't take any pictures. Silly me. It was a fun game - in one race Dangler and Gobbler responded to the start whistle by turning around and running off the end of the board together. Very funny, and I pipped Jo to the win. Or do none of us win, we just enjoy a different life outcome. 

Joe 62

Jo 60

Pete 55

Ian 35

Martin 24

Before disappearing into the night, we gave it some So Clover. Of course we did. Martin saw my clue of toothed, and spotted tiger. "As in saber-toothed tiger!". I waited for him to spot Saber on another card, which he did eventually. What a gift. We scored 26, which is exactly the score I thought we got last week with three players, so clearly I was just thinking ahead.

With that we wandered into the night - it's fun to play in a pub every once in a while, and The Greenbank is very well-appointed in that regard; we were accompanied by lovely live music all evening too. Let's do it again some time! 

Baby Catan, Baby Ra

There were five of us last night; Pete, Jo, Martin and Sam and I (Joe) congregated in my kitchen for the regular GNN Tuesday amusements. Jo's game Molly House had won the American Tabletop Award for complex game earlier the very same day, and after congratulations on this amazing achievement, we set up Hot Streak, coincidentally the ATA's 2026 pick for casual game.

Hot Streak works best with 5 or 6, though for higher numbers there's a variant we're keen to try, which dispenses with the betting cards, and sounds like a lot of fun for a lot of people. 

Last night's game was the usual hilarious mix of volte face's and stumblebums, and only Pete seemed to have a true bookie's eye for what was coming down the pike. It's impressive how varied the three races can be, the order the cards come out in having a huge effect, naturally enough. Raucous fun, and our life outcomes were equally daft, as recorded by Sam with cryptic economy against the scores:

Pete 69 jumps house

Jo 52 zoo koala

Sam 37 toupee

Martin 25 book

Joe 24 nickels

We moved on to a game that the words 'raucous fun' don't have much to do with, although Martin's early entreaty to Sam to come on his bananas did cause some amusement. Santiago used to be our go-to for five players, many many moons ago. 

It last saw play at GNN in 2019, and I'm surprised to see that prior to that I'd won it in September 2013, as my recollection is of being terrible at its particular mix of bribery and potato planting. Digging a little deeper into the archive, I find the game earlier in 2013 in which I scored a paltry 29 points - it's funny how the losses stay with you. 29 was a particularly ignominious score, as you start the game with 10 money, and receive 27 during the game, so I'd have done better to sit on my hands the whole game.

Last night I won again, much to my surprise - I like to think that my early game of not being completely horrible lead to some karmic fortune at the end, but who knows. It's an OG gem, and we should probably play it more often, even though my next game will be another sub 37-er, you can be sure. This time the scores were admirably close, with 13 separating first from last:

Joe 70

Jo 65

Martin 64

Sam 59

Pete 57

Sam clearly found it as tense as I did; "Let's play coops for the rest of the night" he said afterwards, and then left.

The remaining four of us opted for Catan - On The Road, the new 15 minute card game version of Catan. We were all keen to try it, and we all felt similarly afterwards - it was fine. Just, fine. I don't know what we were expecting, it does exactly what it sets out to do; but I couldn't help wondering if it wouldn't seem completely incoherent to someone who hadn't played the original game. Martin was the first to 7 points and thus the winner.

We moved onto another (sort of) pocket version of an esteemed classic, Swat! This Knizia game was described by Martin as 'real time Ra' and you can see the lineage, though the gameplay and mozzy-swatting theme are very different. One player deals cards face up in a stack, as the others hover, ready to swat the mat as soon as the offer gets tempting enough. It took us a few rounds to get the measure of when to 'buzz in' (they should have called it that), but it's a clever and very silly at the same time, and I'm going to say if not raucous then at least rumbunctious fun.

Jo 71 

Joe 58

Martin 47

Pete 31

Earlier when Pete checked the train times they had all disappeared; but luckily they'd appeared again by now, so he left to get the last Montpelier to Temple Meads and beyond. Jo, Martin and I opted for a final So Clover. I sadly forgot to take a picture of our first effort, but maybe that's ok because we didn't do brilliantly. We went again, doing marginally better - not quite as well as the 26 I announced, Martin pointing out that 6, 6 and 4 add up to 16, the brainiac. I did get a picture of our second efforts.

   With that we were done and dusted, having had more than enough rauc for one night.