Flowers in your hair

A bumper night of gamers was in the air, so many that Stan and I dragged the kitchen table out from the wall. But unfortunate late drop-outs (Andrew and Andy M) bumped us back down to six: Ian was first to arrive, followed by Martin, Gareth and Laura. With Joe running late we played Hit as a warm-up, Knizia's hot toddy of temptation and being shat on, as Ian regularly was when he pushed his luck. "I've got nothing to lose" he said, before going bust again. "Except that"

At this point we still didn't know about Andrew and Andy's participation, and so blasted through a quick game of Strike - Ian won - before Martin set up San Francisco (a new Reiner!) at one end of the table and I First Rat at the other. 

Andrew texted to say he couldn't make it, so we wondered whether to shanghai Andy into San Francisco or space, but then he dropped out too and rules explanations commenced apace. At this point, I had no idea what happened in San Francisco, but apparently Martin didn't either, ending the game flummoxed by it and demanding to play again immediately!

Laura 11and a half

Joe 11

Martin 4

We finished First Rat just after. Gareth had summoned a huge amount of resources at the death to construct a shitload of rocket components, and it was enough to push him past me. But Ian's focus on building+racing that triggered the game-end saw him finish his First Rat debut safely in first:

Ian 73

Gareth 61

Sam 60

We shuffled chairs as Gareth and I joined Martin for his San Fran kinda-rematch, and he explained the rules. I was slightly concerned about learning a game after 9pm, especially one that seemed as bananas as this, but it was fine. Everyone is building their own San Francisco, and each has overlapping scoring criteria: improve one, and you're no doubt hampering another. Cards are placed from left to right across a tableau of five different landscape types, with points for being first to fill a row, points for having most workers in a row, bonuses for having two architects in a row and additional points for the biggest/best tram network.

On your turn you can either add a card to a column (there are three) or take all cards from a column and add them to your city where applicable. This being a Knizia, there's a catch: when you take cards, you also take a contract, and you can never pick up a column if there are less (or the same) number of cards in it as your number of contracts. But the moment everyone has at least one contract, everyone gets to return one too, meaning what is available when fluctuates according to how invested players have become. 

At the other end of the table, Joe was also teaching rules to Laura and Ian with his new card game Gift of Tulips. 

I didn't hear anything about it though (other than it being a bit like Biblios) apart from the scores:

Ian 67

Joe 47

Laura 42

Laura then headed on home and Joe and Ian played Break the Cube, which I didn't take any photos of. I'm aware Joe won the game though, and around this time we were wrapping up on San Francisco as well, with Martin, now he knew the lay of the hilly land, much more competitive. But my builder-heavy combo combined with tram network and single skyscraper was just enough...

Sam 12and a half

Martin 12

Gareth 9

I put the kettle on as Ian suggested Wavelength as a gaming nightcap: new to Gareth but well-known to the rest of us, with the famous front bottom of Gwyneth making it's appearance once more. Will we ever play Wavelength without it? 

Also featured was Ian's in-depth knowledge of bees, Martin's affected indifference to a bee conversation at a dinner party, me wondering if his affected indifference would bleed into his own bee-related clueing and discovering, to Martin's palpable disdain, that it wouldn't. We did very well overall though, triggering two extra rounds and sailing past the 15 needed to officially win the co-op version. I think we ended with 21. Fun to revisit, we should try the team version again at Novocon perhaps?

The hour was chiming eleven though so that was it for this evening. Hope our absentees are convalescing and we'll see them soon...

Mille Fruit Flies

 I arrived at Joe’s a little after eight, having already been told by WhatsApp about two games of Strike! (Ian won the first, Sam won the second) and then a score of 20 in Cross Clues.

There were six of us around the table once I’d sat down (Martin, Joe, Sam, Adam T, Ian and myself) with Katy expected at some vaguely defined time in the next forty minutes or so. We split into two groups: I had my first game of Mille Fiori with Joe and Martin. Adam, despite having brought a load of games, declared that he was in the mood for something new and so Sam and Ian introduced him to Gold West.

Gold West happened at the far end of the table so, apart from Sam killing three fruit flies (many of which danced around our drinks all night), I have little idea about the game. It was very close though.

Adam 97 + tie breaker

Sam 97

Ian 95

As for Mille Fiori, it was a smorgasbord of potential. Not so much a point salad, more a point kaleidoscope, and I had little idea about what to focus on. I was a permanent distant last and while I enjoyed it, I had little chance of challenging for first place against these experienced players.

Martin 204

Joe 198

Andrew 157

During this time Katy arrived and watched us finish off our respective games. Then the seven of us played Doodle Dash, a simple game of speed drawing according to a single-word clue randomly chosen from a card. Adam asked, just for clarification, exactly how many people here had an art background. But as it was, it was the non-artists who made the running in terms of grabbing the “first to finish” stick. Katy stated that, since she can’t draw, then it was the only option she had. Some of the “doodles” where hilarious, with Martin warning that one of his was “a little bit conceptual.”

One of Katy's offerings. Can't remember what it was meant to be

and, frankly, I have no way of guessing

Sam had the best drawings, but was only once quickest to finish (and then I couldn’t guess his drawing). Ian amazed us all by correctly guessing Martin’s “sandal” which looked more like a croissant to me. I just picked up points by waiting for the first two doodlers to fail, after which the guesser gets to see everyone’s drawings.

My rendition of "skipping". A success!

In the final round, Joe and Martin physically tussled for the “first to finish” stick, with Joe remarking afterwards that he’d actually been scratched. Joe’s nice white tabletop also didn’t do well, with ink smudges wherever we’d put our doodle-boards face down. Joe didn’t seem to bothered about it, while Sam went into full parent mode, wiping up as much of it as he could.

Two drawings, same word.

"Monorail"

Joe 10

Adam 7

Andrew 7

Sam 5

Martin 4

Katy 4

Ian 4

Then we split up again. Martin, Sam and Adam played Tiger and Dragon and, apparently, broke it. They played three rounds and the same strategy won each time. Then Adam left and Sam and Martin played Sea Salt and Paper.

Joe, Ian, Katy and myself played Break The Cube, a puzzle game in which you ask simple questions and try to guess what formation each player has secretly stacked their blocks in. We went around a few times, made a few guesses but began to forget what our initial clues had been.

“I suppose we should’ve used the pads,” said Joe, revealing the existence of some bespoke sheets of paper that we could’ve used to note down our information. We finish the game with no one guessing correctly.

At this point Ian and I left, while the remainers finished off with American Bookshop. Katy used to be so good at this…

Sam 21

Joe 20

Martin 17

Katy -20

Thanks all, it was a blast.