Why did the pterodactyl have to like cake?

A solid six gamers last night, as Ian and Martin arrived earlyish and we kicked off with a three-player Vivo whilst waiting. It's a trick-taker where winning the trick is worth 2 points but playing the lowest card gets you the number value of that card in points, a twist that as Martin remarked makes the game fairly chaotic, but quite funny. We played again with Joe on his arrival, with Martin and I winning a game each. 

Adam and Katy arrived at the same time and as a sextet we kicked off the evening proper with Jibber Jabble, the Just One of limited clues and zero communication. 

This was as funny as previous games, as from the get-go I had no idea what Katy's T might have meant for Martin's word of jungle. Thinking back now there are numerous Ts in the jungle. We recovered from this, and Katy's reluctance to add an S to trunk (the word was swimsuit) and even Katy's horror at the romance/happy combo we supplied her for her word of Love. Could Adam steer us over the line for a perfect 6/6? Yes he could. A very funny 20 minutes, albeit I think the difficult words make the game better. 

We now split into to two threes, with Adam Katy and Martin setting up Hanami as Ian and I signed up for Joe's suggestion of Codenames: Critical Role Adventures. This is very like Codenames, as one might expect, only with a Crew-esque adventure saddled onto it. One player is the cluer and the others control three adventurers, as you make your way through a fantasy fictional world, improving your character abilities for when things no doubt get tougher later. 

The core of clue/number of words wanted remains intact, and we played two missions, first seeing off bandits as hired protectors of a chatty merchant, and then finagling our way into a warehouse. Does Codenames need this additional fiction? No, but it's still silly fun and improving a thing always has a little satisfaction to it. We were all happy to play and eager to return to it in the near future. Meantime, Adam had won Hanami. 

Hanami doesn't do wild scoring variations - the biggest deficit would be 3 points - but multiple ties left two celebration tokens unclaimed and Adam's single point enough to be Most Vicious Picnicker. 

Adam - 1

Martin and Katy - both zero

Whilst waiting for us to escape the warehouse, they'd also played Misfits. I don't actually have a record of who won, but I think it was Adam again. 

Around this point Katy prevented Sally from throwing some processed cheese slices in the bin and began eating her way through what she referred to as burger cheese. Slightly concerned she wasn't looking after herself, I made everyone toast. I don't remember why there are scissors here too. 

 It wasn't even 10 yet but Katy asked for So Clover before she went home, so we did that, seriously threatening the record of legends before coming a cropper on our last clover: Adam's. One of his clues was Gaff-Rig and nobody knew what it was, my guess of a scaffold in an open air concert being so far off I must commend him on his straight face. We struggled for so long that Joe and I were told off for clueing words that weren't actually there, and a fatigued Katy suggested the sun was the centre of the universe. Poor Adam had to watch us score a paltry one, distracted from 'basement' for foundation by my gaff-rig gaucheness. Inevitably as I write I had to google gaff-rig, but maybe you should have a guess. 

Katy wanted to play again, claiming she was now revived, but there wasn't enough momentum in the room and she and Adam - also tired - made their way home leaving us as a four. Martin thought it might be funny to play So Clover and send them a picture, but what we eventually settled on was Roaring 20s, a game about dinosaurs who like kebabs. 

Each round we bid for the dinosaurs (blue card) in question, who have an individual points value but - as they are numbered - will also score points for sets and runs. If you drop out of the bidding, you can claim a bidding card (white), with the extra wrinkle that certain dinosaurs eaten certain foodstuffs: one, two or three of kebabs, cocktails or cake. Or possibly gems. No wonder they died out. 

Everyone liked this. It takes about 20 minutes and you definitely need to keep an eye on what dinosaurs are being collected by others, and can be screwed over by a particular dino not wanting what you have to offer. Or possibly even having too broad a palate, leading to Joe's lament about pterodactyls and confectionary. 

Ian 35

Sam 30

Joe 25

Martin 21

Joe now left as well but as Ian had a beer to finish so we squeezed one more game in: the lesser-seen Love Letter, last glimpsed on these pages three years ago. Martin eliminated Ian in round one but then I eliminated Martin. I was just recalling to myself how Ian has something of a knack for this game though when he won the next two rounds to take the win.

Ian 2

Sam 1

Martin 0

And then, like the dinosaurs, they were gone.