The Night of Obscure References

I arrived at Sam's only a little late but still late enough for Sam to beat Joe at a game of Aspen and for the two of them to start a game of Cross Clues with Ian, Katy and Martin. I got there just in time to be given the last free card.

We clued each other adequately enough, with Martin having to explain an absurdly optimistic clue referencing Kim Joy who is a celebrity chef who’s made a board game. General blank looks all round.

20 out of 25

Then we set up Triangulation, a team game based around giving clues to certain things: pop culture, places, people etc. You have to give three clues but the opposing team gets to guess first, using two of those clues. Pete was expected to join us soon but, since it was a team game, he could just join in once he arrived. And when he did, he made quite the entrance, dropping his metal water bottle loudly onto the floor.

Not to be outdone in the attention-seeking game, Sam then went outside, across his floorboard-free decking, balancing on joists several feet above the ground, just to pick up a couple of cans of gin and tonic.

Sam wondered aloud what kind of thing might be allowed - does the moon count as a proper noun? My favourite clue was Ian’s “Washington” “Compass” “Flight” which should have made us think of West Wing, but didn’t. Seemed so obvious after the reveal.

Then we split into two. Martin and I were early recruits for President Maker, but seemed to have enormous trouble getting extra candidates as everyone hedged their bets, waiting to see what else was on offer.

In the end, Dewan was the other game, with Ian, Katy and Joe. Sam, Pete, Martin and I chose President Maker, but Sam had to do Explaining duties on Dewan.

Once Ian, Joe and Katy were happy to continue, Martin talked us through the intricacies of the Korean electoral system as represented by five bits of cardboard and some cubes. In this game players can “rally” which means they can increase their popularity in an area, especially if no one else goes there.

Then you can play a card which allows you to move cubes, with the proviso that you may collect bombs - too many of those will damage your popularity with the voters.

Finally, all these cubes translate into tiles that go into a black cloth bag. And, once for each area, we draw tiles to see who gets the most votes. It was Sam by a country mile, and he couldn’t help but laugh as he pulled out yellow tile after yellow tile, somehow avoiding all of the many purple tiles in the bag. 

As we began the fifth and final area, Sam’s lead was so great that Martin observed his only way of winning was if all his tiles came out, and none of Sam’s. But Sam then drew two of his own and any sense of excitement was done. Except for Sam, who kept getting votes and very nearly broke the scoreboard.

1st Sam (Progressive)

2nd Andrew (Centrist)

3rd Pete (Independent)

4th Martin (Conservative)

Dewan finished without me paying it much attention, except for Joe’s disdain for the dividers in the game’s box as he tried to put it away.

Joe 43

Katy 40

Ian 16

Katy left and the six of us played Triangulation again. I can’t honestly say we were any better than the first time.

We saw some painfully obscure references where no one got the answer despite seeing all three clues (Pete’s “rise” “Of” “Pandemic” was a cryptic allusion to Cthulu, and my “Calvin” “Chuck” “Eighty Eight” did not lead anyone to Back To The Future although Ian mentioned it in passing while they deliberated) but equally we experienced some almost telepathic correct guesses after one word. Martin was aghast when “Material” lead almost everyone to agree on Madonna.

Pete, Sam, Andrew win

Ian, Joe, Martin don’t

Then Joe gave me a lift home. Only 10:10pm. Days of near-midnight finishes seem so long ago…

But the evening continued, as Sam reports.

 *                *                *

After Andrew left we had time for a couple more games. 

First up was Catan: On The Road, which dumps the original's spatial element whilst keeping the resources, trading, and first-to-x-win condition, which in this case is 7 points. We'd all played before but that didn't stop me getting confused about the harvest phase. Ian briefly flirted with winning, but then Martin stole his big road and I took the biggest army. Then Martin built a metropolis and won. Something like that, anyway. Martin and I have conferred today and found our memories somewhat erratic. 

Then it was time for the green plastic. We did very well, rolling 4 sixes straight out the gate in pretty short order. There were some nice clues in there, with Martins tip for waiter/garbage being perhaps the most lateral. We were so pleased, and Martin had so much beer left, that we played again. The second game was so bad nobody took any pictures, but here is the first:

And with that, the GNN Tuesday closed up shop for another week. Until then!

Games Knight Knews

I arrived at Sams’s in the turmoil of a game of Cross Clues. I ignored the usual gaming wisdom of never playing until you’ve taken your coat off and sat down and I looked at my card which prompted me to give a clue for “Kinght/Night.” I said “homophone” and got an easy point and an idea for the blog post title. Other attendees apart from me and Sam were Martin, Ian, Adam H and Pete. Martin was a clue machine but Adam was stymied by two clues involving Cauliflower.

21 out of 25

The six of us split into two groups. I joined Ian and Sam in a game of Torchlit, a trick taking game in which you have to guess how many tricks you’ll win. You’re guess is hidden in the form of a face down card and your progress is shown as a meeple on a track.

If your guess is correct, you get 3 points but you can get extra points if that space on the track has cards placed beneath it. Of course, if you miss your target, you can still pick up the points from any cards placed on that particular space.

It was fun. I played the first round in a fog of confusion, trying to work out what was a good hand and what wasn’t. In round two Sam did badly as he won a trick he didn’t want that pushed him onto a low scoring space: just two points for that round. He couldn’t recover and, after three rounds, the scores were

Andrew 18

Ian 16

Sam 13

On the other half of the table, Pete, Martin and Adam played Maya. It’s minimalist design, pastel coloured hexagons with a distinct lack of Mayan flair, gave it a 90s look. I know very little about the game, apart from a typically Martin-esque phrase mid-game, “I have to do that to you to screw you out of ten points,” he said to Pete. Not that it made a difference as it ended:

Pete 157

Martin 147

Adam 131

After this some limited edition (for Easter, I think) chocolate and chili crisps were shared. They got a mixed reaction, but people kept eating them in a sort of fugue state of disbelief at the taste.

After Maya finished, the players discussed it and we soon realised that a lot of our geographical knowledge comes from board games. Although a lot of that knowledge was focused in Germany.

We then split into two groups once more. I stayed in my chair for the third game in a row and watched people move around me. Me, Sam and Adam played Dewan - placing our camps across a map to satisfy various criteria drawn at random from a deck of tiles. 

Adam seemed pleased when he heard there was no hand limit and, indeed, as he played he always seemed to have cards to choose from. I was living hand to mouth, cards-wise, despite my plan of putting camps in the middle of the board, hoping to get cards from anyone wishing to pass.

It was a close one and, to be honest, I was surprised I came last.

Sam 46

Adam 46

Andrew 43

There is a tie-breaker: player with most cards left over wins, but Sam disdained that rule and announced it was a tie, even though he would have won by it. I wonder if we can backdate that decision to my game when I drew with Martin...

At the far end of the table Rebirth: Ireland was in full swing. Clearly, Martin and Pete had not had enough hexagon-based map games for that evening. 

And as I stepped out into the evening, Sam picked up the blogging duties

After Andrew left, Rebirth was still continuing, and it sounded like Ian's early lead was getting pegged back by Pete and Martin. We had time for a two-platyer, so Adam and I stared at the alcove in the front room before deciding on card-shedder Chu Han, which Adam may or may not have played before. Even after beating me, he still wasn't sure.

I won the first round before Adam took the second. In the third round I had huge clutches of 4s and 5s and if I could just get rid of a single six, Adam would be in trouble. But shedding the six gave him the lead *and* doubled points for the round, something I came to regret when I just couldn't get it back and he went out to leave him poised for a win at 29-10. As Rebirth was packing up by now, we decided to award him the victory, as my comeback looked improbable at best. 

Adam - wins!

In Rebirth, Ian had been scampered past by late-game business from the other two, and on realising he had a forgotten objective Pete also realised he'd just completed it with his last tile - enough to take a St Patrick's Day win on the Ireland side of the board!

Pete 244
Martin 241
Ian 232

A triumphant but tired Adam now departed, but Ian said he'd be up for a So Clover. So we did that. Despite some hesitancy and trepidation, it was another Record of Legends night with a cement-hard 24/24. This was despite my putting Queenie for Perfume/Chess. Ian's cradle for Life/Grave was nice. 

Now we lost Ian as well but the three of us still felt we had enough energy for a crack at Biblios, with Martin and I introducing Pete to the Extreme foul-mouthed variant. I suspect Martin ate his own shit at one point, but he didn't say, and who can blame him. I tried to stay out of the battle for brown and blue and focused all my efforts on red and green. If they could outscore any other pair of dice I would be King Biblios once more! 

But this went wrong when I outbid Martin for a +1 Church card late on, only to find the very next auction was a +2 Church card. Pete and I were broke, Martin picked it up dirt-cheap, and with it the crown. 

Martin 7

Sam 6

Pete 3

And that was that for another GNN. See you all soon...

Gregory Peck's Bicycle

We had the tricky number of five gamers assembled last night: Joe, Ian, Katy and Martin joined myself at the spotty tablecloth. After pursuing the alcove of joy Martin and I brought in a small stack of games that suited a quintet, and - just as Joe arrived - we kicked off with Cross Clues. 

It was the usual blend of connection and confusion, and though we did pretty well - 22/25 on both attempts - there were still minor goofs, not least my clue of blue for heavy/dragon, neglecting to notice that blue went rather well, flag-wise, with red and white. With five of us, there were several moments where a grid location was proposed and someone would heavily demur, betraying the fact that that was the card in their hand. We speculated on solutions to this. Silence? A soft moan whilst touching your nose? Everything seemed to be like a flashing red light to highly-tuned Cross Cluers such as ourselves. 

Regardless, with that double warm-up under our belts, we moved on to the evening's main course. It's sat on my shelf for about two years since getting it in a trade, so from that perspective it was nice to break out Hoity Toity, which Martin felt he recalled well enough that we could tackle it. 

Designed by Klaus Teuber of Catan fame, this actually predates the wood-for-sheep innuendo generator by five years, and retrospectively we did decide that it showed its age a little. In Hoity Toity we are upper class twits trying to outdo each other by means of just Having Stuff, the more valuable the better. Ancient Chinese face masks, 1920's Belgium adverts for cheese, ornate ceramic smoking pipes - you name it. We get this stuff and then exhibit it for points, and points push us up the track around the outside of the board. But whilst that makes Hoity Toity a race, from a distance, close up it's a series of bids and bluffs and table-reads. 

Each round players first decide - secretly - whether they'll go to the Auction House to (in theory) try and get more valuables and grow their collection, or to the Castle to (in theory) Exhibit their collection, for points. The destination cards are all revealed first, and then everyone secretly chooses what they'll get up to at the locations in question. 

The auction house gets resolved first, with everyone who went their revealing their second card to show their intent. If they're bidding, then the highest bidder gets a valuable of their choice from the two available. If they played their thief, then they are - potentially - stealing the highest bidding card (the bidder still gets their valuable). Or if they played their Detective, they catch any Thieves, whether they stole anything or not. <<CORRECTION: detectives can only be sent to castles, see below>> So bidders increase their collection size, thieves get money, and detectives get points for throwing thieves in prison, from where they will return to the owner later. 

The castle happens next. If players played an Exhibit card, they exhibit their collection, which must have a sequence - a mix of sets and runs, so ABBCDD would be legitimate - and the biggest collection, with ties broken by oldest item, scores points and moves up the track. Second-biggest also scores. But here too, exhibited items can be stolen by Thieves and Thieves can be caught by Detectives. In both locations, Thieves with nothing to steal (or more than one thief!) or Detectives with no-one to catch all do nothing. 

What with some quirky scoring systems, it made for a funny but occasionally frustrating game, where playing the 'wrong' card is essentially a wasted turn, and you can very easily run out of money because successful bids in the auction that aren't stolen get removed from the game, shrinking the already haphazard economy. We all enjoyed it in parts, but felt too that it should have lasted half an hour rather than the hour+ it took. Despite my having no cash at all for the second part of the game, my strong collection was enough to get me the Poshest Twit status where, despite Martin's enormous last exhibit, I had enough to push myself past him for the second-largest confection of riches. 

1 Sam 

2 Martin

3 Ian

4 Joe

5 Katy

A special mention must go to Johnny Weissmuller's loincloth, which seemed a somewhat incongruous addition to Joe's exhibit. But Ian was impressed enough to steal it, and Joe stole it back. Posh people, eh. 

I was pushing for my new trick-taker, Torchlit, but despite having the Trick-takeriest player in the room, I couldn't get a bite. Instead we broke out Magical Athlete, and were stunned to find Katy hadn't played it before, even Joe's old version. The second race was the most interesting/annoying, as Martin pairing Scoocher (-activates whenever a special power activates) with Katy's Gunk (-all other players movement -1) on the wacky side of the board meaning most of the race was taken up with Martin's chortling as he shoved his stupid dog along yet another space. I announced that the Scoocher/Gunk combo should be outlawed. 

The finale however saw him caught and overtaken. Joe's Banana wanted to trip people up when they passed him, but he was too far behind to ever threaten as much. Katy's Slowcoach was at the back pretty much every time her turn arrived, and hauled her in enough points to overtake Martin and take the laurels overall. I had the satisfaction of winning the last race, at least, whilst Ian was left lagging, let down by Sisyphus' die-rolling. 

Katy 14

Martin 10

Joe 9

Sam 7

Ian 4

It was only tennish, so we decided to revisit The Mind, stopping only briefly for a round of crumpets courtesy of Stan.  I forgot to take photos of this occasion, though I did get one of The Mind. This may have been our first game, where we crashed and burned at level 4. 

So we reset and went again, and with doughy snacks to fuel us, did far better. As The Mind only officially plays 4, Martin announced that with five of us we needed to complete Level 7 to win, and because he told us this once we'd completed Level 7, we'd won! But of course, where there's a mind there's a Dark Mind, and that was our next challenge. We failed one level one. It was Clover time!

There was no record of legends last night, with a 6-6-4-4-3 on both attempts. We missed Pyramid/Wizard on Ian's clover (he clued Ra) in game one, and I was gnashing my teeth as nobody put Alliance with Countryside on my clover in game two. But there were some nice clues, as always, with Joe's low sperm count (-my italics) clueing us in to Lazy/Nut and Spa giving us vacation/hole. 

Having missed last Tuesday, and now slightly whisky-infused, I could have gone again, but it was now past 11 and bedtimes were calling. Thanks all, glad we gave Hoity Toity a run-out, it's not perfect by any means but I've played far worse. And probably will again. 

Ego-friendly

 This week, once I'd knocked on Sam's front door, Adam H ushered me in to a game of Cross Clues already featuring Joe, Ian, Pete, Martin and, of course,  Adam and Sam. Pete handed me a card before I'd even put my rucksack down.

A whirl of an introduction and, with hindsight, I perhaps shouldn't have been so keen to guess Martin's clue of Firefighter since I noticed that “cat” was one of the words and firefighters save cats, don't they?

Well, this one didn't. 

Best clue/guess went to Martin and Pete. Martin clued “Jenkins” to which Pete said “war and ear,” getting Martin's reference to the war of Jenkin's ear which is a real thing, apparently. 

23 out of 25

Then we paused about what to play until Laura arrived. We decided to set up two games which she could join once she was here. Me, Martin, Pete and Sam played Ego (a bit like Beowulf) while Adam, Joe, Ian and eventually Laura played Silos (a bit Municipium). Nothing in common, except for a large spaceship piece as the centrepiece of the game.

Pete had never played Beowulf so Sam explained the rules from the ground up. The risks, the betting, the scoring and the disapproval of the aliens - shiny red tokens swiftly named “angry babies.”

Ego played like a sci-fi themed Beowulf: you take risks, prepare for expeditions, bid on things and so on. From very early on, Martin complained that he had too many cards and as the game drew to a close, his collection of cards swung into action. Sam, meanwhile, was doing fine until the last two rounds where his luck ran out and the angry babies began moving in his direction. Pete ended with no angry babies at all for a 20 point bonus which meant that Martin wasn’t completely alone at the top of the scoreboard.

Martin 62

Pete 42

Andrew 16

Sam 15

Martin said he missed the storyline of Beowulf and also the sense of risk. Looking though the game box, we looked at some extra optional bits of the board which can add to the game and bring in new challenges. Maybe the game would be better if we used those.

Silos was still underway. I hadn’t paid much attention to the game apart from noting the repeated use of the phrase “pull a human from the bag” and the fact that some of the meeples wore hats.

Laura won and Ian “a distant last”

Meanwhile, Martin, Pete, Sam and I had played two other games. The first was Bomb Buster. It was Pete’s first go, and so Martin talked him through the rules. He then looked at the special conditions for Chapter 18 (out of 66, still a ways to go) and found they removed a lot of what he’d just explained.

Never mind, we had use of a “general radar” for our piece of equipment, allowing us to search of wires according to the turn of a card. Slowly we picked off one value after another until we had succeeded.

Hoorah!

We also played Chocolate. A grid of 4 x 4 face down tiles and five discarded (also face down) tiles depicting chocolates of various shape/flavour are revealed one by one and players have the opportunity, on their turn, of picking up a card with a potential end result (ie, three dark chocolate next to each other or more green than pink in one half of the grid) and a value which will count towards you if that card proves to be correct.

It’s rather enjoyable. Slightly luck-pushy but not overly so. We did ponder a variant in which a card with an end result that is already apparent should be removed and a new one revealed. Maybe next time, then.

Andrew22

Martin 20

Pete 15

Sam 15

And with that, I was gone. Thanks al and I leave Sam to fill in the rest of the evening’s doings...

*

After Andrew left someone suggested 6 Nimmt and without further ado the cards were dealt out and people began cursing in earnest. The cursiest were Ian and I, who did appallingly. Whilst Martin was chortling insufferably on the other side of the table - enough for me to call him the C word as I picked up another haul of cards - we just kept on picking up bullheads, and even Pete's diabolical last round of 40 points didn't get him anywhere near us. 

Martin 15
Adam 27
Laura 37

Pete 51
Joe 53
Ian  63
Sam 70

Now Laura and Adam left too and the five remaining decided it was So Clover time. We opened with a bit of a damp squib - I forgot to take pictures but there were some fours and even a three witnessed. Mostly it was notable for Ian's weekend combo (throne/explosion) popping up in exactly the same formation for Pete. Ian had clued 'regicide' - Pete went for diarrhoea. "I prefer diarrhoea" Ian admitted graciously. 

So - although we lost Joe before it happened - the four of us went again. This was an improved effort, although we did start with a 3: Martin's combos of jelly/cavalry and skin/revolver throwing us for/from a six. But everyone appreciated Darcy as a clue for moist/master. 

We followed it with three sixes and ended the night with a decent 21/24. Thanks all!

TRNDing

 

I arrived at Sam’s house at the same time as Ian (bike) and Katy (walking) and, technically, also Andy M but he stayed sitting in his car for now.

Inside, the three of us found the host and Joe and, shortly, Jo in attendance. We thought of a game we could play that would allow any latecomers to join in, and so Cross Clues was brought to the table.

It was clearly going to be tricky with “Air” and “Airport” next to each other on the y-axis. But it turned out that “hat” proved more difficult. Joe had to repeatedly warn us “I still don't think it's Doctor/Hat.” Sam clued “Fedora” which baffled us as to which hat it should be. It turned out to be “lentil/hat” because both are kind of brown. 

23 out of 25

Everyone had, by now, arrived. Adam H and Andy M rounded off the numbers. We had a rare treat of staying as a single group for the next game. Jo had brought in a few prototype games that they'd been working on. Exciting times. It had been a long time since GNN had hosted anything that could be described as a homegrown game and now there were three!

We chose Squirl, since it could comfortably include all of us playing together. It's a word game where everyone builds up words, letter by letter, left to right, using letters that appear on a card revealed at the start of the round. 

Jo talked us through the rules and, like consummate play-testers/clueless idiots, we kept asking for rules clarifications throughout the first few rounds. Each letter had a value and occasional bonuses would appear in order to tempt players to gamble on an unlikely letter. 

It was fun. I played a very pedestrian game, with words like “glitter” looking a bit ordinary next to Sam's “crypt” and Joe's “vexings”. Mid-game, Katy realised that her word “vertigo” wouldn’t fit into the six spaces on the sheet.

Andy poured Maltesers into the same bowl that had previously held Frazzles while he predicted that we’ll all be swearing soon. By the end, I’m dead last but there’s a moment of tension while the scores are added up - will the inventor be beaten at their own game?

No, it seems not.

Jo 143

Andy 129

Adam 124

Joe 120

Sam 115

Ian 115

Katy 87

Andrew 71

Despite my placing, I enjoyed it and was impressed to hear it’ll be published in a couple of years or so. You read about it here first!

Finally we split into two groups. Me, Joe, Andy M and Katy went lighter and shorter. Jo, Sam, Ian and Adam H played Foundations of Metropolis . I know little about that game except the end results.

Sam 82

Ian 72

Jo 69

Adam 62

At the lighter end of the table, the four of us began with TRND - a set collecting card game with chairs. It’s blindingly simple.Three colours, three types of chairs. You pick up and discard from the array of visible cards or just pick up (and don’t discard) from the deck. Once you have a hand of identical chairs you reveal your hand. Last one to reveal gets no points. First to 81 wins.

So simple, but with a push your luck aspect, especially when there are only two people left and the temptation to get out as soon as possible for fewer points is too great to resist.

Andy 86

Katy 72

Andrew 34

Joe 16

Then we played Xylator. The packaging of this game had earlier caught Katy’s eye with its polar bear playing a guitar-shaped xylophone. Joe explained that it was a trick-taking game with, admittedly, a lengthy back-story to explain the cover art. Andy had to go at 10.15 and I was thinking about bed too, so we only played one round.

If TRND is simple, Xylotar is anything but. The cards come in five colours and the highest value of each colour is different. All cards are dealt out and then we arrange our hands numerically, but trying to do so in such a way to disguise the real value of the card because once that’s done, the cards are placed face down so the only information available is the colour and the person next to you uses it as their hand when playing a round of, basically, whist.

After a single round, the scores were.

Andy 9

Joe 8

Andrew 5

Katy 2

It was interesting. Hard to tell what was going on after a single round, but I’m curious to see what strategies emerge after several plays.

With that, I was gone. Thanks all. See you all soon.

*

Sam here. Just to add that we played a couple of games of So Clover and another newbie of Jo's which was a Perudo-esque risk-taking, word-making game that was a lot of fun. I now don't remember who won though. 

Lucky (thirty) sevens

I walked into Joe’s place on a relatively mild day between peaks of British summer and found myself walking into a game of Cross Clues with Joe, Sam, Katy, Adam T, Ian and Adam H. Before long it became clear that everyone were on very different frequencies when it came to giving clues. One misunderstanding followed another. “Club” for “weird/foot” was missed and my one contribution was also hopelessly wide of the mark as I thought “Solstice” would go with “mean/night” since mean can also mean “average.” Katy tried to dissuade us that the Solstice wasn’t the average night but too late. 

We didn’t even count up the score, that’s how badly we did.

 

With Martin on his way, we decided to give Cross Clues another go. This time we did better but still not amazing. Hats off to Adam T for his clue “diarrhoea” for “brown/lightning.” Classy. His clue “bite” for “angry/horse” sparked off a discussion about what angry horses are best known for: biting or kicking. But that’s all horse feathers. We did well enough to count up the score this time. 

22 out of 25

With Martin still en route, we broke out Flip 7 and took out the freeze cards. In fact, it was quite dick-move-free. Whenever someone got a “Flip Three” card, they almost always used it on themselves. And, in fact, it almost always worked. Especially if you were Ian who seemed to be blessed with a surfeit of bonus point cards.

Katy only scored in four rounds but on three of them, she clocked up 37 points. She also found herself concerned when Adam H shuffled the deck of cards just as she was about to draw another card. Convinced that the deck was now stacked against her, she asked the dealer (Adam T) to cut the deck before handing her a card. He did so. She went bust all the same.

Adam H managed to flip seven cards in one round and he’d run Ian a close second throughout until the last round. Ian decided to stick first and Adam just pushed his luck long enough for him to squeak a close win.

Adam H 209

Ian 203

Katy 144

Joe 128

Adam T 105

Andrew 95

Sam 0

By now Martin was here and we split into two groups at two separate tables. Sam, Martin, Adam T and Ian set off for the Shires in The Fellowship Of The Ring. I think I heard mention of starting on Chapter 10. Impressive but I've no idea how far through the game that is.

Katy, Adam H, Joe and myself indulged in the luxury of Ra - Pharaoh edition, with its chunky tiles and metal money. Katy got a brief overview of the rules, just to refresh her memory and then we began. 

Round one saw a lot of disasters and floods pulled from the bag. Adam and Katy were the last two players and they let tiles fill up and clear themselves out twice, due to the grim nature of what was on offer. 

Round two ended in a similar fashion,  with Katy the last active player insisting that it was more fun to play with yourself. 

By round three,  the Nile had pretty much dried up and I was regretting buying quite so many pharaohs. Also, I had very few buildings unlike Adam who had so many that Joe had to explain about stacking the same buildings on top of each other, you know, like they did in Ancient Egypt. 

At the end, Katy was delighted by her score and I was pleasantly surprised by mine. Joe said he usually did better than his and Adam admitted that he didn't really like Ra.

Katy 43

Andrew 41

Joe 33

Adam H 32

And so, I gathered up my belongings and set off at a sensibly early hour, leaving the rest of the evening in safe gaming hands.

Over to you, Sam.

*             *             *

In Tolkien-world things started out well, as I recall - not that I recall that much now. But I believe we cleared chapter 10 and Adam T read out the narrative intro for the next chapter. I don't remember that either, but it was either 11 or 12 where we ran into trouble, as it's a 'long' one: meaning there are multiple characters to complete and two of them were rather tricky: Boromir needed to win the last trick but couldn't be trusted with the ring, and someone else needed something crazy like a card of each rank. We - or Adam - pulled the latter off, but went wrong somewhere else and needed the Vest of Mithril or something to save us. But then we went wrong again anyway. Fellowships are work.

After Andrew left Martin tempted Adam T and and Katy into a game of Greed. I don't know what the mechanics are, but the name does a pretty good job on the theme.

...whilst Ian, Adam H and I showed Joe the ropes - ho ho - to Monkey Palace. For a reason that I missed, the rules weren't in the box and so we did a little hazarding around the finer points. The basic ones are easy: build a monkey palace, build your engine, get bananas. The result on the table was as impressive as ever.

Not sure if our slightly fudged rules favoured me, but I picked up a win as debutant Joe found himself up against three experienced simians. 

Sam 42

Adam 38

Ian 36

Joe 29

I don't know what happened in Greed, other than Martin was greediest:

Martin 160

Adam and Katy 155 each

Katy and the Adams now left for home, leaving just four of us to clover out the evening, which we attempted twice. Our first effort was a very solid 22/24, with only my clover muddying the waters.

We went again, which as everyone knows is always a terrible mistake. And so it proved here, with a shabby 18/24 thanks to a couple of dodgy red herrings and maybe some heat/game fatigue creeping in. Did like (Joe's?) essential for friend/oil though.