Shortest evening of the year

Today I was stretching modern technology to its limits. NASA may boast about being able to put a rover down on the surface of Mars, but that's peanuts trying to juggle an old smart phone, my current phone and a kindle fire while trying to play games online/cook supper/get drunk.

Joining me on this evening was Ian, Martin and Andy. We were expecting Adam T but early on we got an email from him saying he'd just woken up and he had to eat. 

We began with Marrakech, and we initially stayed strictly to the three right hand columns, sending poor Assam round in circles. Martin was so taken with this new "variant" that he was disappointed when I broke out from this area and set off across the rest of the board. 

This evening's notable moment was when Andy made a carpet several squares upwards, with two squares either side at the bottom. This prompted Martin to remark that he didn't want to land on Andy's giant cock.

In the end it was between me and Martin. The final player was Andy who tried to cover up bits of carpet so as to end the game in a draw, but didn't take into account the tie breaker, so I took the win by a single coin.

Andrew 50
Martin 50
Ian 28
Andy 24

Next up we played Kingdom Builder. Something for my kindle fire to really get its teeth into and it did okay, unless I tried full screen mode, when it wouldn't render the whole board properly.  Martin built a sprawling spider of a village whose spindly legs connected castles to villages for points. Ian, though, ended up mostly stuck in one corner, unable to make any connections at all.

Martin 60
Andy 57
Andrew 53
Ian 30

Finally, we chose Buttons as our nightcap. It's a fun game, I think. I'm still to crack the winning strategy, though. Martin opted out in a winning position meaning Ian had to push his luck, just as he'd had to do last time. He couldn't manage it and Martin took a slender win by just 98 points.

Martin 106
Andy 8
Ian 6
Andrew 5

And so we were done. One of the shortest games nights on records, not even reaching ten o’clock, but still a lot of fun.

Our autoplay has been updated

Tuesday games this week kicked off at 8 with six gamers in attendance, Katy, Martin, Sam, Ian, Andy and myself. Our first game was For Sale, and what an odd game it was. Sam picked up the 1 since"you know where you are with a one," and then he picked up an 8, which had an igloo on it. After all, he quipped, "you know where you are with an igloo… the north pole." He also got the 2, making him the most locationally certain player that For Sale has ever seen.

In the buying round, Martin made happy noises about how well everything was going. His confidence was entirely justified, and there was a three-way tie for third.

Martin 51
Ian 47
Sam 44 + cash
Katy 44 + less cash
Andy 44 + much less cash
Andrew 39

Then we split into two groups. Katy, Martin and Sam went off to play something whose name escapes me, but looked like this.

After that, I’m told they played Masked Men and it ended:

Katy 5
Martin 5
Sam -2

Meanwhile, Ian, Andy and I played Buttons. Ian got a rules explanation from Andy, even though it had been me that suggested it. Thanks Andy. I then went bust in round one, you know, just to show Ian what it looked like. 

Ian looked like he was going for two rows of six when I got lucky with a dice roll and was able to Opt Out in a winning position. The other two had to push their luck or admit defeat. Ian failed in his attempt but Andy was more fortunate. As we saw the result, I was remind of this game’s comedic lop-sided scoring system,

Andrew 108
Andy 108
Ian 8

After this Ian said he was in the mood for something light, and Andy suggested Sapiens. It may be light to him, but I found there were enough rules for them to blur together in a sticky mash.  There were lots of icons and something about food. The situation wasn’t helped by me having to quickly dash downstairs mid-game and open a tin of sardines for my girlfriend. 

Andy 31
Ian 24
Andrew 20

After this, Katy and Martin had joined our Google Hangout after Sam had left for the night and we ended with No Thanks, this time exploring the possibilities of the automatic pass system. This little option allows you to keep adding coins until a certain value is reached, and when it does this, it does it extremely quickly. This makes the player look very impatient and petulant. Martin also liked the message “your autoplay has been updated” that appears onscreen when you use it. As for the game, I was winning until the last card, which was 32 and Martin milked it for as much as he dared.

Martin 11
Andrew 24
Katy 25
Andy 39
Ian 49

And so that was it. Thanks everyone. See you next Tuesday.

Pizza the action

This week's games night consisted of five hardy gamers. The four hardiest arrived on time for a five player game of Marrakech. Except this time they played the variant where you rotate Assam at the end of your turn in an attempt to screw your opponent. 

Andy defied luck a couple of times to fall neatly land on a bare square surrounded by enemy carpets. When he won the game, he made sure to remind everyone that it was a game of skill.

Andy 49

Ian 41

Katy 32

Martin 29

I had arrived mid game and now we were five we decided on a game of Voodoo Prince on playingcards.io. This game of winning three tricks at just the right moment was one of Martin's earliest creations on the site and he had to quickly add a deal button to save us from pawing at the deck of cards at the start of every round like a bunch of hungry hippos.

In rounds one and two both Katy and I won a trick while playing the seemingly perfectly safe Green 6. In round three we were all on two tricks. Andy, the leader, went out first, confident that his advantage was safe. And he was right.

Andy 28

Katy 26

Andrew 24

Ian 21

Martin 16

Then we stayed on playingcards for a rousing game of Mamma Mia. Andy went through the first round having forgot about being able to use cards from your hand in the pizza cooking round. Despite this, he staged a remarkable comeback, ending in what we thought was a joint first until Martin remembered the tie breaker. 

Martin 5 recipes and more cards in hand

Andy 5

Ian 3

Andrew 3

Katy 3

Next we returned to BGA for a game of For Sale. It was a close game and although I came last, I didn't think I'd done that badly, but I still came last.

Martin 55

Ian 52

Katy 50

Andy 48

Andrew 47

Ian set off to bed and the remaining four of us played Buttons, a brand new game to me and one that I didn't really understand until the second round. The idea is to place five stars in a row and you get these stars by placing your buttons on other buttons of the same colour and you place your buttons according to the roll of a diminishing number of dice. It's an abstract puzzle game, basically. Anyone hoping for a Eurogame based on the button industry will be sorely disappointed. 

I approve of the game giving a one hundred point bonus to the first player to place their fifth star, giving the final scores a comedic lopsided look to them.

Andy 108

Martin 10

Katy 6

Andrew 4

I think I'd like to try it again. It seemed like a good game once I was pointing in the right direction.

And then we all peeled our faces off the internet and set off to bed. Thanks all.