Great Balls of Squidge

I arrived at Laura and Lucy's house to find Lucy and Ryker upstairs creating a huge den from magnetic boards. Down the the kitchen, Laura, Maddie, Martin, Sarah and Effie were competing in the first game of the first GNN festive get-togethers: 5 Alive, which is a card game of shedding without taking the collective total over 21. Everyone begins with five lives and a life is lost when you bust (I think). 

Martin and Laura were joint winners with 2 lives left, and Maddie and Effie had one apiece when Sarah bit the dust and lost her last one. Christmas games were officially underway and next up was one of Martin's newbies, Hold Your Ground! Here we are trying to be last-ones standing as the ground literally explodes in camera-defying ways beneath your feet. 

As this only plays up to four, Effie and Maddie teamed up and so did Martin and Sarah. Laura and I both flew solo: each turn you play two cards from a hand of four that define number of your people to move and how far they can go, after which there's a die roll to determine whether the explody-stick will move (one space; your choice) or explode the tile it currently resides beneath, ejecting the plastic people from the game: and if anyone is cut off from the central helipad tile, they are automatically lost as well. The helipad is semi-safe in that it cannot explode - but as each tile has a max limit of six, a seventh entering will push someone off. The die may also trigger a round of area-control too, where dominant factions kick off the outnumbered. It's all pretty arbitrary-feeling, but fun. Especially the explosions. 

Effie was merciless when the opportunity to screw over her parents came - the apple falls not far from the tree, Martin - and having been in a strong position they were forced out of the helipad; and out of the game. Then the girls were ejected and it came down to a straight fight between Laura and I: she just needed to roll an explosion to win: and did!  A triumph, but at what cost? Look at the desolation. 

We moved on to HIT, the lesser-seen (recently) Knizia card-flipper. Sarah and Adam shared a win in game one, then Lucy joined us for game two, which I won. Nice to revisit this one. 

After all the subversion and theft though we needed something healing and went with Cross Clues. It was a triumph: 25/25 with zero cheating. 

There's only so much healing we can take though, so we reverted to type with Prey Another Day. Sarah made short work of us here, correctly reading the table and devouring opponents to take a victory in two short rounds. I struggled into second.

We moved on to Wandering Towers. I got off to a good start with two potions filled and one wizard home within a couple of turns, but after that stagnated a bit as everyone lost track of where their wizards might be in the vast apartment complex we managed to build.

There were shenanigans. Twice I was close to ending it only to be harpooned by the architecture moving around me. Martin plaintively cried "Where the fuck am I" at least twice. Sarah shared his existential despair. Eventually I claimed a win, with Adam second and Martin beating Laura to third on the tiebreaker. We all agreed the game is bonkers and whilst Laura took herself off on pizza duty, the four of us played something much more sensible: Agent Avenue. Adam and I dug a little hole for ourselves early on - getting two daredevils whilst Martin and Sarah claimed two Codebreakers meant we had to be extremely careful about taking any face-down cards. We briefly threatened to catch them on the track, but ended up daredevilled or codebroken (I now don't recall which) into defeat. Fun though! 

Next up was Stomp the Plank, the game of pirate elephants hating on each other. There wasn't a huge amount of busting and in fact my red elephant did no plank-walking at all. That lack of adventurousness was enough to bring me a solid win. 

Then, after a wonderful foodie interlude of pizza and salads, the entire house gathered together for Midnight Party!

Martin and I had disastrous first rounds as we both encouraged Hugo out and had him subsequently eat us. The Laura-Ryker team began well by picking up +3 points, but massive kudos to Maddie who pooh-poohed open doors in favour of running around the board to the plus-three rooms. It didn't get her the win, but she looked like an action hero compared the rest of us scrambling in a sweaty-palmed panic. Mid-game Sarah and Effie had to leave, and as Katy was arriving at the same time she took over control of their team.

Laura + Ryker -14
Martin -23
Sam -27
Maddie -28
Sarah + Effie / Katy -29
Adam -32

Ryker and Maddie were fully invested now and played Block Party with us. Really lovely to have them at the table as we continuously discovered our 'obvious' creations just looked like a bunch of cubes to everyone else.

Adam surged into an early lead here, and Ryker had a handicap of only actually starting in round two. Adam built a wonderful slice of watermelon and I successfully had my orange cube identified as 'an orange' by Maddie. I knew Martin's blocks were meant to be a slide but I wasted my steal on Katy's swirl-of-colours construct, which was "obviously" a donut. Meanwhile Katy insisted Martin's slide looked 'more like Chewbacca'. You be the judge:

Everyone had a little late-game rally and for me it was enough to catch Adam and share the win. Unfortunately that was Adam's last involvement for the day as he had to head off home, so he missed out on the hilarity of what was next: Misfits. We began as a quintet: Katy, Laura, Maddie, Martin and myself. But after Ryker won Pizza Party at the end of the table he joined my team and supplied both advice and some next-level heckling, trilling "Boooooring!" if he felt the placement wasn't ambitious enough. Around here was also Ryker's amazing 'Squidge my balls' routine, which gave all the supposed adults an even harder challenge than Misfits: keeping a straight face. Or trying to.

Somewhere in all this craziness - there were multiple collapses - Katy picked up a win despite her last two pieces being cylinders. There was time for one last game before kids' bedtime and so everyone was dealt into UNO - which today I discover in fifteen years of the blog, has never been tagged here before. Ryker and I stayed as a team, Maddie and Lucy paired up, and Katy, Laura and Martin all went it alone. 

I think it's been about fifteen years since I've played it at least, but if it doesn't scream hall-of-fame it is at least a fast-moving bit of silly good fun. Despite our best efforts to harpoon them, Maddie and Lucy took the win here and the kids were shuffled off to bed as we debated what to play next, settling eventually on Rebirth. 

During our cathedral-centric rebuilding of post-apocalyptic Scotland, the children reappeared and there was a bout of snacks and swinging. Ryker was at the table when I told Martin I hated him, which I had to quickly clarify was only in the context of the game. Laura admonished me for setting a terrible example, and I realised it really was. 

Katy broke out a colossal box of Maltesers and Laura added a bowl of Celebrations. On the board it looked a two-horse race between Katy and her proliferating energy farms and Martin and his spawny card draws: the first two missions he'd picked up rewarded his initial placements. That's my excuse anyway. I tried to balance the needs of farms and missions and castles and just ended up a kind of bland fourth place. Katy looked poised to sneak the win from her arch enemy, but she'd only picked up 4 missions - and only completed three of them. 

Martin 124

Katy 119

Laura 117

Sam 111

While Laura did some further bedtime shenanigans Martin set up his other Christmas present: Bomb Busters! This is a co-op undertaking with the theme of FUSE - we're defusing bombs - and a similar shared-information system to Hanabi.

Each round we successfully 'cut wires' by matching a numbered wire from our (hidden) hand of them with one from another player. At the start we can all share information about a single wire, but because wires are laid out numerically left-to-right, you can also transmit limited info about the tiles around it as well. There's four of each number (on the first mission, the numbers are only 1-6) and if two of a number are already revealed and you have the remaining pair in your own hand, you're allowed to pair 'with yourself' and reveal them. 

After the very easy first mission, the game makes things a bit harder with extra numbers (1-8) and now coloured wires as well (see 3.1 in pic above) that need to be 'cut' in  similar fashion. It gets trickier fast, and if you're not a naturally logical puzzle-solver (ie me) it can start to feel like the only thing you can grok is the fact you know nothing. But it's more intuitive than Wordy or Message From the Stars, and I enjoyed it. Each mission ramps up the difficulty, and gives you more to navigate. To help, you also get single-use tool cards that can get you out of a pickle - I used these more than anyone!

We succeeded our first three missions but lost our last life on Mission 4. Not a bad return for four slightly inebriated cadets, I'd say, even if our alcohol-infused body parts were now scattered around the academy. It's a bit Quirky Circuits too, in the mission-focused escalation - I look forward to playing this again. Laura and I were fading a bit now though - possibly the wire-cutting tension; maybe the post-chocolate sugar-crash - and we elected to make the last game the final one of the night, so it was of course So Clover. Katy got a bastard of a red herring tile, but we managed to call it out and ended the evening on a masterful 24/24! What a great way to sign off 2024. Thank you Laura, Lucy, and all for a cracking session...

Happy new year all. Here's to some great games in 2025 - starting on Saturday!

Chippencon!

Friday

With Paul J the quiet instigator of the idea, the old London branch of GNN coalesced this weekend at Chris's house in Chippenham: as well as the host, Paul J and myself there was Paul H for the duration, Stuart on Friday night and then Andrew on Saturday. 

But all this was ahead of us as I arrived at midday on Friday and after catching up with Jacquie and the kids, Chris and I shot off to collect Paul J from the station. Then after a second-wave newsbeat, we started gaming! We kicked things off with Babylonia, new to both Paul and Chris but a relatively easy teach. 

We played slightly too open, having the full board instead of the slightly condensed one for three, but that made it an easier learning game:

Sam 149

Chris 147

Paul 99

And now familiar with it, both were enthusiastic for another crack.

My long and arduous master-and-apprentice defeats at the hands of Martin stood me in good stead once more:

Sam 123

Paul 99

Chris 96

Lovely to find two more converts! We moved on to Sushi Go, the game of card-drafting Japanese foodstuffs. Owing to a misunderstanding over chopsticks, I ruled myself out of contention after round one, but it's not exactly a grind.

Paul 72

Chris 59

Sam 46

 Paul began a four-game winning run here, following his Sushi Go triumph with victories in Alhambra:

Kingdomino...

And Kingdom Builder.

Chris was appalled to finish third in every instance, voicing aloud his regret at the very idea of Chippencon. Things didn't improve immediately for him when Paul H arrived, as we kicked off with Tournament Raj and despite a huge last-round haul, he still finished last. Paul J and I slugged it out for first place, but he shrugged me off to claim a fifth victory in a row!

Paul J 60

Sam 51

Paul 45

Chris 33

With tea consumed - thank you Chris and Jacquie - and Stuart freshly arrived, we fancied something a bit feistier now, and so I talked them through the rules of Hansa Teutonica. 

Despite my encouragements to get sabotaging. everyone was very polite at the start and the first couple of rounds were slightly after-you-sir. But soon enough we were getting in each other's way and the cussing ramped up slightly. The initial sense of being hobbled by two actions fell away as we proliferated across the board and engines kicked into gear. 

After an hour of cross-postal interference, Stuart leapt from an innocuous fourth place into joint first with Chris, and I couldn't quite catch them. We checked the rules for a tie-breaker and Chris' fewer actions-per-turn won him the game!

Chris 38 wins tiebreaker 

Stuart 38

Sam 37

Paul H 29

Paul J 25

Now into the meat of the evening, we debated our five-player options. Paul J was understandably reluctant to learn another set of rules at this point, so we alighted on Istanbul, needing a mostly-fringe-area refreshment on rules. I forgot to take any photos at this point, but suffice to say Paul H was now warmed-up and moved through the gears to wrap up a relatively straightforward win, grabbing his fifth gem with the rest of us at least two turns away from doing likewise:

Paul H five gems!!!!

Sam  4 gems 31 cash 

Paul J 4 gems 6 cash

Stuart 4 gems 1 cash 

Chris 3 gems 13 cash 

The hour was getting late so with the request for something 'silly' I suggested Block Party.

Although this meant another set of rules, the fact they only take about 45 seconds to explain meant we were off and running quickly. And Chris made a banana. 

"I tried to bend it" he cried, but it mattered not: Stuart identified it. I guessed Paul H's spider and he saw the fire engine in my creation. We all ran the highs and lows of emotions - my milk bottle was alleged to be a snowman, a mountain, and an igloo - but ultimately the last game of the night saw Chris triumph:

Chris 11

Sam 10

Paul and Paul 8

Stuart 7

Saturday

I surfaced at around 8.15 to an extremely muggy day. We threw opens doors and windows to try and get some air into the house. Chester enjoyed having all these access points to the house. 

As well as the visiting articles to investigate. 

After breakfast, Jacquie liked the idea of trying out Block Party, so we did. Despite some creative performance anxiety, her debut creation was this beautiful pineapple:

However despite a frankly shambolic attempt at a door (in dubious colour choices of grey and pink) Chris triumphed again. I lost track of where Jacquie, Paul J and I finished.

Apart from that intense Block Party workout it was a fairly lazy morning. Paul H returned at 11am and while Chris prepped the chilli for later, he talked Paul J and I through the workings of Imhotep.

I think I played this about eight years ago, and I found it's piece-of-string machinations just as opaque this time, as players choose whether to add cubes to boats, or sail a full-enough boat to one of several possible destinations. It's fun, but I am really awful at judging anything being a good decision, and my focus on building a massive Burial Chamber didn't match up to the canny shenanigans of the Pauls, with Paul J claiming a debut victory!

Paul J 49

Paul H 41

Sam 39

Then with Chris back at the table, we returned to Babylonia. 

This was a corker, as leads between the Pauls and Chris ebbed and flowed whilst I languished back on a measly five points, hoping to draw enough farmers to use my ziggurat power. They didn't arrive and I had to focus my efforts building a central network that Chris spotted was going to haul me in some juicy points when they started paying out. I agreed, but I didn't think I'd close the now huge gap between Paul J (at this point) on something like 110 while I was back in the 30's somewhere. But as it turned out, it was damn close!

Chris 138

Sam 136

Paul J 130

Paul H 107

A baptism of fire for Paul H, then, but the next game - after our classic Lunch of Beige - was one he knew intimately: Eclipse! 

This was Chris's second-edition version, with some minor rules modifications (and one less round) and some faction asymmetry, but largely the same narrative: early rounds are developing tech and kitting out ships, building towards a massive bunfight at the end. Except here the bunfight never really materialised: Paul H and I established an alliance, and Chris and Paul J did the same.  Chris considered attacking Paul H, but decided against it because it looked like a death wish.

My dreams of peaceful expansion were undone by poor planning and ill fortune and I spent a few rounds only doing two actions and then passing early. The others expanded more successfully and built monstrously-violent death machines of the cosmos in a sort of cardboard cold war.

Then at the death Chris attacked the central hex and quickly reenforced his dominance there. He tried to take some hexes off me but didn't roll what he needed and we all eyed him warily. Oddly, his aggression went unrewarded in the sense of point-scoring, with Paul H's 'In Bed With the Ancients' faction grabbing victory:

Paul H 33

Paul J and Sam 32 each

Chris 30

Though it was certainly not a damp squib, I didn't enjoy Eclipse as much as I used to. It's a long haul to get to the more-exciting finale (caveat: my adjacency to that was more my fault than the games') and at times it feels a bit like a slightly protracted drum-roll. There's a lot to consider as well, and if it's a more elegant construction than Xia's everything-by-dice, it doesn't feel as stupidly fun. 

Speaking of dice, though, next up - after the very delicious chilli, and a quick sortie to the shops - was Las Vegas. It's not a game that supplies quite the epic narrative Eclipse does, but it was a nice pallet-cleanser:

Sam $510k

Paul J $470

Chris $380

Paul H $280

We knew Andrew was imminent, but just had enough time for another four-hander in the little-seen (by me at least) Timeline! I couldn't help but notice a seam of dark comedy in the images, with a number of characters looking vaguely psychotic.

Paul H won this. I discovered the refrigerator was invented much earlier than I'd anticipated, but now with crushing inevitability the exact year escapes me.

Paul H wins

Sam and Paul J 1 card

Chris 2 cards 

Andrew arrived just as we finished and after the briefest of catch-ups the discussion of what to play as a five began. Dominant Species? A bit long. Twilight Imperium? Very long. Istanbul? A bit short. We settled on Lords of Waterdeep. With no Martin or Ian present I elected to play green, so the colour/game combo made it feel a bit like 2010, as Prince used to sing.

Early on it was fairly even - I shot off on the scoretrack to 32 but had a bunch of skulls that made my actual score a current 14. Paul H pulled ahead and played some dastardly intrigue that balanced out revealing his Lord with the fact we couldn't target him all game. That was a bummer. Meanwhile I pulled ahead again, and Chris targeted me with one of those bastard mandatory quests that I'm definitely not still sore about. Andrew mostly chuckled at the names of the quests.

Incredible scenes at the end as Paul H pulled so far ahead it was almost embarrassing. My late game recovery wasn't enough to catch a resurgent Chris, and a briefly-dominant Paul J found Andrew had enough to sneak past him in the final count.

Paul H 166

Chris 148

Sam 144

Andrew 134

Paul J 131

After twelve hours of gaming I suddenly got hit by an ocular migraine, and had to play my final game (Incan Gold) with my eyes largely closed and Chris communicating events to me ("Zombie Lady!"). Paul J and Chris lacked our frugal conservatism and, falling behind, risked life and limb - and ultimately lost life and limbs - in wild attempts to recover.

In the end, however, it was Paul H who took yet another win!

PH 34

Andrew 32

Sam 26

Chris 20

PJ 0

And at this point, with my vision no better, I had to take myself to a dark room. It was a bit of a underwhelming way to end Chippencon and I was gutted to miss Chris and Andrew take on the Pauls in Decrypto! The Pauls won, though what the words and dramas were maybe we'll learn in the comments.

Thanks to Chris Jacquie and kids for putting up with us all, and everyone attending for making it fun.  

Glass is blue

 Joe’s kitchen was the happy venue for this week’s gamers and we began as a five: Joe, Ian, Laura, Adam H and myself. A bowl of unsalted peanuts sat in front of Adam until he asked them to be taken away.

The first game was a new one: The Numbers. It’s a very simple game where you have to write a three-digit number. Then they are arranged in order of value, highest at the top, and starting at the top numbers are eliminated if they use any digits that appear in the numbers below. Any remaining numbers score according to their leftmost digits. 

But then, those players who successfully score have to cross off the numbers they used on their player mat and those numbers can’t be used again.

The rules were simple, but the strategy wasn’t. Adam wrote numbers with all the same digits which seems sensible but rarely worked and Ian scored nothing at all in round two. It seemed like only Laura got a hang of this and she graciously shared her tactics with us after the game, which was something about ending with middling numbers to get the better bonuses in rounds four and five.

Laura 66

Joe 57

Andrew 49

Adam 22

Ian 21

We all voiced our appreciation of the indented player tiles which allowed us to place them face down without fear of the ink smearing off onto Joe’s clean white table top.

Next we dug out an old classic: No Thanks. Another new game for Laura so Adam and Joe shared the rules explanation. We played twice. Ian went for high cards and Adam went low. I ended the first game with no chips, which I thought deserved a bonus point or two. Laura did the same on the second game and then I thought maybe it shouldn’t.

Adam 5

Andrew 10

Joe 10

Ian 49

Laura 49

And then...

Ian 8

Adam 19

Joe 21

Andrew 27

Laura 28

With Sam expected shortly, we banged out a quick Art Robbery. A third new game for Laura this evening! And the unsalted peanuts were poured back into their packet with Laura promising to do something with them: mix in szechuan sauce and roast them a bit. And add salt.

As for the game, Adam seemed curiously attached to the guard dog. Is he hankering after a pet? When Ian had a 5 token and the guard dog, Adam tried to steal from him. To his surprise Ian handed over the 5 token, not the dog. Ian then immediately stole the 5 token back with his next turn. A smooth move.

Joe 24

Adam 21

Andrew 18

Laura 13

Ian – fewest alibis (but had 18 points)

Then we discussed the guard dog token, with Joe assuming it was a severed head and Laura saying it was a complete dog with a disproportionately huge head sitting down. Joe decided that if we ever meet Reiner Knizia, we’d have to ask.

Sam arrived mid game and we split into two groups of three. Joe, Laura and Ian went for the lush opulence of the Pharaoh Edition of Ra. While he unpacked its enormous pieces, including metal money tokens which looked like they might actually be worth something, he gave Laura her fourth rules explanation of the evening.

The game was a sight to behold. They’d certainly overcome the old criticism that the bag for the tiles was too small: this edition had a bag large enough to carry groceries.

Joe 49

Ian 39

Laura 30

Adam, Sam and I played Cat In A Box, the quantum trick-taker. Adam was taught the rules and seemed so confused that he actually asked if it was a good idea to screw over other players. Who was this impostor? I thought.

Sam 13

Andrew 12

Adam 11

Since Ra was still in its second epoch, we played a quick Block Party. I sped off into a quick lead while Sam and Adam provided comedy moments such as:

Adam: Is it an elf?

Sam (sighing): yeah, it does look like an elf, doesn’t it?

(It was Robin Hood)

Sam: Is it France?

Adam: It’s a bottle of hot sauce.

This last one attracted Joe’s attention who asked why the bottle was blue instead of red and I had to remind him that, as every child knows, glass is blue.

Andrew 9

Sam 7

Adam 5

Then Ra ended and the Block Party expanded across the table. Laura got her fifth rules explanation (a probably unique perfect five) of the evening and we began. Adam managed to finish his guessing round getting none at all and Sam forgot to give us a countdown so that a few of us hadn’t finished. My “moustache” was just two rows of cubes. 

Joe tried to do “bottle” but he used green cubes and no one got it. We reminded him that glass is blue. Ian’s “peacock,” in retrospect, was very good but if I hadn’t already used up my guess I was going to say “quad bike.” Sam had a last-second structural collapse in one round, meaning no one could guess his “dice”.

Ian 11

Laura 10

Joe 8

Andrew 7

Sam 6

Adam 6

Then Adam and Laura left but I had no work the next day so I stuck around and the four of us played Stinker. Joe’s answer to “worst thing to say at a job interview” was “I am not a doctor” while Sam invented a new insult when he answered “eat me tits, airbone.” Possibly better in an Australian accent, we decided.

The most interesting aspect was how prophetic Stinker had become. Sam vetoed a number of cards which were once amusing asides but now referred to very real dangers facing us: Putin, climate change and Kim Jong Un were all topics that were swiftly replaced by lighter fare.

Joe 39

Ian 29

Sam 28

Andrew 20

Finally, Joe tempted us to one last game The Fuzzies. Very simple. Draw a card and remove a fuzzy ball of that colour from the tower and place it somewhere higher. Ian, already dressed in high-vis jacket and cycle helmet, looked as if he were taking the risk of the tower collapsing far too seriously.

Joe made the tower fall down.

Was there a scoring system? I’ve no idea.

Then, way past my bedtime I went home and found that my phone was on 3% battery but would no longer change. I transferred tonight’s pictures at a smaller size to make sure they uploaded before it finally died hence the lack of 4K HD style widescreen imagery. 

Thanks all. See you next week.