That was the end of the weekend, that was

After a game-heavy Friday and Saturday, I spent Sunday pottering around with the boys. We left the house just after ten and after a trundle around north Bristol, returned in the early afternoon. The boys watched Inspector Gadget and I wondered what kind of film I could make with that kind of budget and if it could possibly be worse.

After idly speculating what I could do with a free night (Sally is still away) - it hit me: Games! Usually the feeling arrives after my first coffee, but this time it was quite unexpected and late in the day after the previous indulgences. I didn't really expect any takers, but Ian bit, and we rounded off Novocon with an evening of two-player games tonight.

First out of the cupboard was Arkadia, which has never really hit the main drag of GNN but remains a firm favourite with myself and Andrew. Ian was new to it so there was a brief and possibly muddied rules exploration before we were off.

Those of you who've missed out on this, it's one of those games where a drab board (and little plastic men that could very easily be wooden discs) hides some neat and easy-to-learn mechanics. There's precious few options on your turn - either place a building or place workers, and then if you have a mind to, cash in a pennant in order to get more workers and cash in your seals, which you get by surrounding buildings on the board with other buildings. That admittedly idiotic sentence does contain the essence of the game - the key to it is maximising when you surround buildings (and of what colour) and what colour stones you add to the castle, as the colours in the castle dictate the value of your seals. Simple eh?

yeah, simple

I have made it sound very complicated I know but it's a game of very few rules and deceptive depth, like a well that's been made into a pond.

Sam 165
Ian 126

It was only just gone nine when we wound up Arkadia so we brought  out Quantum. I left Ian to set up whilst I went to put Joe on the potty. When I returned he'd gone for a very confrontational layout - though let's face it, the whole game is confrontational.

Space.

We began as is tradition by concentrating on our own shit, but before long Ian was blowing up my ships (and getting +2 dominance as reward) and I was combining some movement cards (1 free peaceful move, 1 free and possibly aggressive move of one space only) in order to go back at him. Aligned to my ability to knock a point off defence and attack rolls and after a series of skirmishes I claimed the win:

Sam 7 cubes
Ian 5 cubes

It wasn't even ten yet, so we broke out the whisky and what we thought was a quick game to finish off. We pondered a few options but I remembered how much I enjoyed Hive with Andrew on our sortie to York recently. The rules are simple - very chess like, with each piece having it's own movement abilities - and each player is trying to surround their opponents' bee in the hive of the title.

Early game

Ian entered the fray tentatively but whereas mine and Andrew's games tended to be the football equivalent of end-to-end cup ties (won by Andrew) this game took on the tense tactical air of a crucial golden-goal situation. Ian manoeuvred himself into a strong position and it was all I could do to keep blocking him, so he couldn't place the final piece to claim the win.

My bee is nearly surrounded, but my two ants 

and grasshopper (all on the left) are stopping 

Ian from completing the job.

But despite three or four desperate defences on my part, I eventually succumbed, having rather optimistically moved an Ant hoping to mount a counter-attack. Ian one-two-ed his way to a victory that was something of an epic, if a long time coming in his favour.

Ian: wins
Sam: loses

My bee is dead.

Whisky drunk and bees surrounded, we finally called time on Novocon 2014. Thanks everyone for making it a cracker!

The 13th, 14th and 15th Games of Christmas

Saturday night. Andrew was on his way over, and Railways was set up and ready to go. My new game Olympos didn't play two and neither did Canal Mania, which Andrew and I are both keen to revisit, so Railways it was.

 mmmm railways

Having set the board up, I took longer than usual studying it. I didn't think it was fair also knowing my Baron or the Railroad Operation cards, but I did peruse the board for a while and work out what my first move what be. Then Andrew arrived, we turned over the Railroad Operation cards and my plans completely changed.

Andrew didn't contest the obvious opening move too much; clearly he was thinking long term. I had the benefit of scoring 5 points in the opening round and getting myself in a reasonable position on the scoretrack, whilst Andrew mirrored my last game and took bonds to the extent he had to pay back money to the bank.

In fact I surged into such a healthy lead I started to feel confident and even said "Maybe this is the night!" - having never won Railways before. But of course Andrew came back at me - and we commenced a game of cat and mouse, as I would surge up the track only to find him breathing down my neck again. The difference this time was the bonds - for once I'd managed them with some restraint - and Andrew cursed Martins name, as the last time we saw him he said he regularly took 15 or so bonds. Andrew ended the game with ten, and it was too many:

Sam 107
Andrew 92

I was overjoyed to finally win a game of RotW, even if it was a 2-player. I first played it nearly two years ago! However games are a fickle mistress and we swiftly moved on. Andrew was in the mood for Arkadia, something he and I have played a few times as a 2-player and always enjoyed (it plays up to 4). The theme is gossamer light; basically it's a game of puzzles and patterns.

mmmm arkadia

Having not played in a good while we started slowly, but both of us built up a head of steam in what will go down in Arkadia Lore (admittedly a niche interest) as a classic. I thought I'd done enough to win, but when Andrew revealed his final cache of seals he had heaps - enough to catch me up and force a spectacular draw:

Andrew/Sam 110

We didn't check for a tie-breaker rule actually. Oh well.

By now we were fairly drunk and there was just enough time for Biblios. Both of us fretted our way through the game as the dice values skittered up and down and nobody seemed 100% sure of what they had. But when the cards were revealed I managed to hang on to the Mr Biblios title - for now.

Sam 10
Andrew 3

Very nice night, thanks Andrew. Happy New Year everyone!

Extreme Biblios

Us gamers - us real gamers, who prioritise games above the things most sentient humans do - are a little like hurricane chasers. We get a sniff of a vacant couple of hours and we immediately converge upon them, eager to test our wits against each other or, as was the case with 7 Wonders tonight, surf a wave of jam to victory.

I'm talking about myself and Andrew of course, who meet on an almost weekly basis to battle it out. So while Adam wasn't checking his texts, Dan was turning in early and Joe was rolling around in his swimming-pool-sized dice arena (see prev. post), we sat at the kitchen table and discussed our options. I had a mild hankering to try out Campaign but Andrew mooted Arkadia and I readily agreed. No-one else has really bitten with this yet but it's a firm favourite with Andrew and I.

With a brief glance at the rules on a couple of finer points we were away, building buildings and placing workers to the manner born. Last time we played it it was a full-on Tuesday night session and I was obliterated as I held back from placing workers (by Andrew in fact, I seem to recall). But I was sure there was a value in that strategy and pursued the same path again, hedging my bets until an opportune scoring moment came up. I don't know if it's a failsafe approach - it certainly wouldn't be with more players - but it paid dividends a couple of times, and it was enough to secure me a win:

Sam 144
Andrew 91

Andrew chose the second game, and it was another perennial: 7 Wonders, which in a two-player has an additional level of strategy. Like Alhambra the game itself supplies a third player (we also call him Dirk) and each (real) player takes turns deciding what Dirk will do: a chance to prevent your opponent getting their hands on a productive card, dispose of a potential danger or just get Dirk to buy things form you. It was exceedingly close, and despite my plethora of blue buildings (38 points!) I wasn't certain of victory until I very luckily picked up (from Dirk's hand) a cost-effective military card in the very last round to get me ten points:

Dirk, in the baby chair. Forgot to build his monument.

Sam 62
Andrew 57
Dirk 23

We packed in one final game - Biblios. By this point we were both slightly tired and a little drunk so I can't remember how the extreme Biblios gag came about. Rest assured it was hilarious.

Sam 8
Andrew 6

Our gaming yen sated - until Tuesday.

Farewell Stabcon

Three years ago, Sam had the idea of going to Stabcon as a means of doing some research for a sitcom we were working on. This year, on Saturday evening, as we drove down dark country lanes following the tail lights of a famous games designer on our way to the pub, we realised we'd become that sitcom.

We (Sam, Joe, Adam and I) set off on Friday, keen and eager. We arrived after a pleasant drive, stopping off for food at a service station famous for its ducks. We didn't see any, though. However, once at the Britannia, early signs weren't good. Behind us in the queue to check in was a man who smelt quite strongly of piss. He made idle chat with us during a hold up at reception, and I held my breath and nodded non-committally.

We then set up in the hall, and started to play. Downfall of Pompeii was first, as it encourages back-stabbing and betrayal in a light-hearted and amusing way. We followed that up with a new game, Singapore, which is a lot of worker placement and resource conversion. Nice, but not earth-moving. Joe did manage to miss his mouth with a crisp twice in succession, though.

Downfall of Pompeii
Joe 9
Sam 8
Adam 7
Andrew 5

Early days, empty tables...

Singapore
Adam 79
Sam 74
Andrew 60
Joe 42

Then we thought perhaps we should mingle a bit, but time was getting on and we'd be going to eat soon. Adam played on the internet, because he was in the middle of a game and it's rude to keep people waiting.

Not ostracised, just playing Civ.

Joe taught Sam Elk Fest, a flicking game where your have to get your tiny wooden elk across the table on stepping stones. And then we played Biblios. We spiced it up by rolling the dice before we began, meaning each dice started with a random value. We play hard and fast in Stabcon.

Beer, butter and elks

Following that, we went to the carvery, and a very nice man found us a table while we stood at the bar and drank the beer made by (?) the band Elbow. During the meal, we discussed what we wanted to play next so when we got back to the Hotel, we were all geared up to play Africana. It was Adam's first attempt at this game which involves doing laps up and down Africa while picking up adventures and treasures along the way.

Africana
Andrew 41
Adam 38
Joe 36
Sam 34

Then we took another break and wandered around for a while. After that, Sam and Adam played Elk Fest while Joe taught me Traders of Carthage.

Then eleven o'clock rolled around and we thought it was too late to mingle, so we broke out the Tinners' Trail – a game we knew and loved. Halfway through, Cuz from Area 51 came over to see if we wanted to join in a game of The Resistance. We were too far in to stop, so we declined, and he seemed disappointed that we were only playing amongst ourselves.

Tin-mining in Joe's forehead? Anyone? It's quite dry . . .

Tinners' Trail
Sam 96
Adam 92
Andrew 75
Joe 66

That was the end of Friday. On Saturday, after breakfast, a shower and a shave I was walking towards the games hall when I met Sam who told me we were about to play test a new Martin Wallace game! This is what Stabcon is all about! I was very excited that we four humble gamers would be in on the ground floor of designing a game. The game, Northern Empires, is set in a mythical Britain where the humans battle each other, calling for help from elves, goblins, giants, etc and even help from other players.

Martin planned it as mostly a bidding game, but I like to think we added something with our plotting and bluffing. We certainly added to the running time, since Martin thought the first round was too long, and in the second round he removed a lot of the bidding and negotiation. It wasn't as much fun, and also there wasn't much reason to help each other unless you had nothing better to do with your troops. Some nice ideas, though, and Martin seemed happy that he'd learnt how to improve it.

Northern Empires
Joe 58
Adam 52
Martin 51
Sam 47
Andrew 41

After a quick bout of Elk Fest, Sam went off to do some paperwork from his job, and Adam, Joe and I proudly rolled out Joe's green felt Pax Porfiriana playing area and sat down to revolutionise Mexico! We got a few admiring glances, but we were mostly too busy trying to plough through Pax's dense forest of rules and text dressed up as a card game.

Sam came back, and we didn't seem to be anywhere near finishing. Adam tried to topple the government and I almost let him, but I couldn't just let him win because we were tired so I played a card to see off his revolt. Joe happily said "I think I can end this game!" The fact he said "end" instead of "win" gives a good idea of our priorities at that point. Shortly afterwards, Adam did win and we couldn't do anything to stop him even if we wanted to. And we didn't really.

How we felt after playing Pax Porfiriana

After two pretty full-on gaming experiences, my brain was frazzled. Certainly too tired to do any socialising. Instead we dug out Manila, the jolly game of betting and piracy, and followed that up with Arkadia. Joe thought that the theme was a bit tacked on, and it was really just an abstract game with a historical lick of paint.

Manila
Sam 142
Joe 138
Adam 108
Andrew 104

Arkadia
Adam 79
Andrew 73
Sam 72
Joe 56

After this was a series of quick two-player games, mostly against each other, with one other passer-by playing against Sam at Elk Fest. Joe taught me Battle for Hill 218, and Adam taught Sam Mr Jack in New York.

We also played what was, for me, the best new game of the Con (not that I played many), Hana-bi. In this game, each player had four cards held out so the others can see them. You are then allowed to give your fellow players information about what cards they have in their hands (either colour, or number, both not both at the same time). The idea is to lay down the hands in numerical order. It's quite a test of memory.

Joe successfully traded a green jelly baby for a Nurofen.

The reason for this sudden run of short games is because we were waiting to leave the hotel to have dinner with Martin Wallace. He really wanted to speak to Joe about some work he may have, but the rest of us managed to be invited too. He said he knew a nice gastro-pub near here, and that's why the four of us were heading down unfamiliar roads following a man in his car just because he designed games.

The pub he had in mind was too full, but the pub across the road wasn't, and luckily the food there was pretty good. We discussed games and no one said anything crass or embarrassing, so all in all a very nice evening. Martin then went home, so we relied on Adam's GPS to get us back to the hotel.

At the hotel, we played Railways of Mexico, where I eschewed the more sensible tactic of short tracks bringing in quick profit and instead went up to my eyeballs in debt building a cross-mountain railway because it looked nice. Meanwhile, the tense rivalry between Joe and Adam concerning this game continued unabated.

Railways of Mexico
Adam 47
Joe 46
Sam 27
Andrew 22

We ended the day with Hana-bi, using the tone of our voices to indicate if a card was good or bad and, my, what acting skills we have! Didn't complete it, though. Then we played Biblios and No Thanks and went to bed.

Sunday morning rolled around and Joe and I were up nice and early. While we had breakfast, Joe dropped a bombshell. He and Adam hadn't gone to bed at 12.30 like Sam and I. Instead they tried the two-player version of Le Harve, thinking it was a quickish half-hour simplified version of the 3+ player version. But it took them up until two o'clock to finish and Joe didn't seem keen on repeating the experience.

After breakfast we found ourselves in a deserted games hall. We played some Traders of Carthage, and Sam and Adam, when they arrived, battled again over Elk Fest. Then Joe got invited to play Pax Porfiriana with Martin Wallace and a couple of others. Adam, Sam and I rather cruelly chose a game to try and make Joe jealous, so we broke out Brass. With departure time in a couple of hours, this would be our last game of the Con.

Adam gave Sam a quick refresher of the rules which extended quite a long way into the game, and I think everyone consulted the rule book a couple of times during the game. I decided this was to be my last try on the Shipyard tactic, and I really went for it, building three and selling a fair amount of cotton to ports, too. Did no good.

Brass
Adam 205
Sam 164
Andrew 161


After we finished, and Joe came back from playing Pax, we packed up since we were already behind our schedule. Once back in the car, we mused thoughtfully about our lack of socialising. While it was nice to play so many games, if we weren't going to mingle, there really was no point in driving all the way to a hotel in Stockport to do it. Perhaps it was simply too close to the festive season this year. After festivities with families and friends, did we really need more festivities? And the level of nerdiness seemed a little higher than usual. Joe told me how twice he'd said "hello" to people and they'd just stared back at him.

While games conventions are great, we may have to reconsider next year's trip. If we're being honest, the timing's wrong, the location's wrong and I don't like the carpet. Perhaps we will feel different next year. We shall see.

The final Olympic style leaderboard includes all the little games we played, and it's hat's off to Adam, who came top of the pile!

	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Adam	9	5	2
Sam	5	9	3
Joe	5	7	2
Andrew	4	3	4

It was Tuesday. It was Easton.

… Two ingredients for our weekly games night. Or perhaps the opening lines of one of the less popular books in the Shades of Grey series. Adam was a late arrival, having only woken up an hour earlier, since he'd spent the weekend at some festival. We (myself, Sam, Joe, and the hosts: Steve and Anja) had already decided what game he wanted to play, and had set up a three-player game of Arkadia with me, Steve and an empty chair with his name on it.

Joe, Anja and Sam went for the hexagons and dice of Castles of Burgundy. Joe admitted as they set up that he'd played it a few times as a solo game "just to get the hang of the rules." Would his experience help?

Anja points an accusing finger at Joe's cluster of castles.
It looks as though Sam has ignored his moats completely - he'd begun to tidy them away

We described the rules of Arkadia to Adam once he'd arrived, and we seemed to do quite well as he used his pennants to score early. But Arkadia is a game where knowing the rules isn't enough, and he later admitted to being a bit baffled by what to do next. Steve, too, found that he was unable to plan any smart moves since either Adam or I would do them before it was his turn again. Arkadia is definitely a game where you wait for your opponent to make a mistake rather than forge any long-term strategies of your own.

In the end, the game was won on the last go, as I was able to place a building that completed itself and another building. This allowed me to change the values of the colours in my advantage, and I snuck in front of Adam right at the death.

Andrew 110
Adam 106
Steve 89

At the start of a very long road to St Petersburg...

Castles of Burgundy carried on, so we began a game of St Petersburg, apparently under the illusion that it was quite short. From the other table we heard Sam talking to himself, and Anja cry out in despair at Joe's last minute dash to into first place. I'm sure more happened than that, but in the meantime, the scores were...

Joe 82
Anja 81
Sam 78

Joe's finished estate. Only 2 pastures and 3 boats away from the full complement.

We were still playing St Petersburg, so they had a game of Biblios...

Sam 8
Joe 5
Anja 4

And as we were finishing off St Petersburg, they played 6nimmt.

Sam 26
Joe 31
Anja 62

Finally, as eleven o'clock threatened to turn into twelve, we finished our game. It had been a while since we all played, and there was a certain amount of rule checking at first, but before long we were back in the swing of things.

Steve started with an aggressive tactic of picking up a library early. Expensive but high-scoring. But this left him permanently behind in terms of cash. As Adam pointed out, the fact that Steve couldn't buy so much meant more choices for me, which explains how I was able to keep up with Adam, despite his two Observatories getting him cards as and when he pleased.

Adam 129
Andrew 125
Steve 83

The form table shows that Steve suffered heavily from the curse of the host: whereby looking after everyone detracts from the cold, calculating mind-set you need for Tuesday nights. He drops down the table faster than that bowl of popcorn fell off the couch when he was playing with his cat. Joe makes a charge into third.

						Points
Sam	1	1	3	1	1	7
Adam	1	2	1	3	1	8
Joe	2	2	1	2	3	10
Andrew	2	1	3	2	3	11
Anja	3	3	2	1	4	13
Hannah	4	3	4	1	2	14
Steve	3	3	2	5	4	17
Dan	1	5	5	5	5	21

Ain't nothing wrong… with a little Hab 'n' Gut

Another tuesday, another games night: and the first meeting at the Berger house for a while. Andrew and Sam arrived promptly at 7.30 - Sam had brought a cornucopia of games, mostly playing a maximum of four people. I had dug out a few four-player options, plus Hab & Gut in case we were five. However, we didn't yet have a clear idea of who else to expect; Anja certainly, but Steve had been unwell. Hannah was definitely out, but Adam was shilly-shallying. So while we waited for news, the three of us played Rattlesnake. In my experience the start player often wins this unique and quite silly game. However, we each had a go at starting, and Sam won all three games! Pity it wasn't leaderboard, but he wins the 'Snake-charmer' achievement this week.

While we were playing, Adam texted to say he wasn't going to make it - shock-horror - but Anja and Steve were on their way, so we knew we were catering for a total of five. We three took the executive decision to set up Hab & Gut, and once the others arrived, we jumped straight in.

H&G is a delightfully simple game, and though Steve professed bafflement at first (always a worry - he tends to win shortly after uttering these words), within a couple of rounds it had clicked. It was also Anja's first game, but as usual, after asking a couple of astute questions, she was exhibiting all the signs of quiet confidence and keeping her own counsel.

At the mid-way point, church donations were revealed, and Andrew and Sam had both left offerings in the 400s, leaving the other three of us trailing. As Andrew pointed out, you want to have donated second from least to the church by the end of the game - just enough to keep you from getting kicked out, but having saved most of your money for your score. It was wise advice, and I decided to heed it.
The second round was a tricky affair; Andrew and I had a rack of almost all minus amounts, and the rack between me and Steve wasn't much better. In the final turn, Andrew sold two reds for a 500 note, and his win looked assured - we could only hope that he may have under-donated. But then Sam took his last turn, and cashed in 750 worth of shares! Since they couldn't both lose to the church, one of them was clearly the winner.

The moment when the church donations are revealed the second time is most exciting, and there was an interesting spread; Anja, despite her atheism, had been generous to a fault, offering 765. Sam, Andrew and I had donated 660, 645 and 605 respectively, but Steve had offered only 420, and was out of the running entirely.

Over- and under-donating are mistakes that had cost me my first two games of Hab & Gut, but it does seem to get easier to judge. Anja had asked if there was a figure to aim for, and I can't say for sure that there is - it's all down to the prevailing group-think, perhaps. That said it's interesting that the three of us who had played a couple of times before all offered similar amounts.

Sam's big haul in the last round, coupled with some canny wheeling-and-dealing earlier on saw him into first place with a comfortable lead of 250 over second-placing Andrew. I came third, Anja fourth and Steve didn't bother to count up, having incurred the wrath of the church - he didn't think that he would have been in the running though.

Sam 785
Andrew 535
Joe 465
Anja 385
Steve OUT

Hab & Gut remains a firm favourite with me, despite the fact that I haven't ever won - it's simple, clever and intriguing, and doesn't eat up a whole games-evening. Once we'd packed away It was 9.40pm, and we wondered what to tee-up next.

Sam was keen to play new trade Arkadia with three, leaving two others in search of a game. We briefly considered other five-player options, but most were deemed to light and fluffy, and it was a little late to start on another 'proper' five-player game.

Having recently acquired Castles of Burgundy, I was itching to try it out, and it seemed to fit the bill with Anja too, so we left the other three setting up Arkadia and distributed the myriad bits of Burgen von Burgund across our side of the table. There's lots of set-up, but the rules are relatively easy to grasp, and we were probably under way by 10pm.

It's the kind of Euro that I feel as though we haven't played much of lately, where you're building up a little empire, rather than knocking other people down (don't get me wrong, I love knocking other people down too, probably more than most GNN-ers, but I like to do it in open confrontation rather than under the guise of trading in the Mediterranean. Oh okay, I probably like that too).

Unusually for a Stefan Feld game, there are no punishments - even Macao has minus points for having cards un-played at the end - you're really just trying to maximise your little estate, with no plague-rats, mongol hordes or other calamities to worry about (they're probably in an expansion). Your dice give you 2 actions per turn, and you can use them to acquire tiles of six different colours from the communal board, in the hopes of later adding them to your burgeoning estate. Blue ship tiles allow you to trade goods and jump up in turn order, grey mine tiles give you money at the beginning of each phase, and dark green castles give you a single extra action. Light green add livestock to your pastures, scoring you instant points, beige buildings offer an immediate one-off benefit, whilst yellow knowledge tiles give lasting, rule-breaking enhancements.

Points come in various ways; trading goods, adding animals and some buildings - but the big points are scored by completing sections of your estate. The earlier in the game you achieve this the better, and the points also rise exponentially depending on the number of tiles in the region you complete, from 1VP for a single hex region, to 36 VP for an eight hex region.

The box says 30-90 mins, but there is a very clear in-game indicator, and we were not quite half way through the game at 11pm. Arkadia was wrapping up, so Anja and I agreed to play to the end of the third of five phases. Going in to the last round of that third phase I had a comfortable lead, but Anja managed to complete a five hex region of her estate and swept past me for the win. This achievement was slightly mitigated by the discovery, several phases in, that she had been playing one of her knowledge tiles as far more powerful than it actually was. But that's fine with me - you know me and the leaderboard; there's little love lost between us.

Anja 70
Joe 64

If a goldfish had to play Castles of Burgundy...

Castles of Burgundy was a hit with both of us, and judging by the chat from across the table, Arkadia went down well too - Sam will doubtless fill us in on the details, but the final scores were:

Sam 120
Steve 95
Andrew 88

A good night; shame to leave that last game unfinished, but very chuffed to have given it a spin, and to play Hab & Gut again. Until next time - roll high!
(unless rolling low is, you know, better in the particular game you're playing . . .)

JB

Ersby, here. A little late, but here is the form table. Sam strides to the top, leaving Adam cursing his decision to make a bird costume instead of defending his lead. It's all to play for behind the two front runners, though. Also, it's worth noting that if our games of Rattle Snakes had been Leaderboard, then Sam would have a perfect five points, and also that Anja also has a perfect score of sorts: each of the five places (1st to 5th) are represented in the five spaces in the form table. Hoorah and Haroo!

						Points
Sam	1	1	2	1	2	7
Adam	1	3	1	1	1	7
Steve	2	5	4	1	1	13
Andrew	3	2	3	2	3	13
Joe	2	3	2	4	3	14
Hannah	4	3	4	1	2	14
Anja	1	4	3	2	5	15
Dan	1	5	5	5	5	21

Arkadia Fire

Andrew and I often meet for extra curricular games and this week we examined Arkadia, my BGG trade. We did extend the invite around but no-one else could make it - perhaps they were all critically ill. I can't imagine anything else keeping them from the table.

When we broke out the contents of the box it reminded us of two less popular games - the overtly abstract Torres and Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas, whose palindromic nature extends from the arse-about-face name to the actual gameplay.

But though the play of Arkadia also had slender reminiscences of both, the combination of the two proved to be a winner. Yes, it wears it's theme lightly, but not so lightly that it flies away upon removing the lid (Torres). And it is about pattern-making and puzzle-solving, but in a hugely more engaging way than Sator...

Early doors

As builders of the castle of Arkadia the players are trying to generate the prestige that goes with it, and they do this by building their influence in the areas around the castle, adding workers and buildings to put them in. When those buildings are swallowed up by the encroaching conurbation around them, the workers adjacent get you seals (of approval, not fur) and the seals get you, you guessed it, prestige points.

What makes the game extra canny though, is every time a building is surrounded you add another piece of the castle. All the pieces have a seal on them (of four different colours) so the seals in your hand are worth different amounts of prestige at different times, depending on the state of the castle...

Late doors

There's more to it but basically it made a very diverting two player (it can play up to four). I don't know if it's abstract-y-ness will keep it out of the limelight at GNN but we were enamoured enough to immediately play a second game - very differently, as we went from gung-ho newbies to over-cautious novices in the blink of a scorecard.

I won both, but this was more the randomness of the new game than any cunning on my part.

Then we played Biblios! It was the tightest finish ever as I won the red category with just 2pts to Andrew's none.

Sam 8
Andrew 7

That's just how we roll at GNN.