Ribbon Factory

After struggling through a hot humid day, I almost backed out of this week's games night due to fatigue, but couldn't face another missed opportunity to match wits with some of the greatest gamers the world has ever seen.

We began as a five (Joe, Martin, Ian, Matt and me), and had every reason to assume we'd stay that way, with an outside chance of a late arrival in the shape of Andy M.

So we began with High Society, a simple card game that perfectly captures the anguish of the massively wealthy. Joe began by bidding high, picking up a 5 for $12m. Terrible business, we thought, but then Matt got a 3 for $8m, so maybe not. Ian got the 10 for top dollar, but then he used that advantage to soak up the effects of two bad cards while we all spent a fortune to avoid them. It was nearly the end of the game and Martin had spent a great deal of money with only a lonely x2 card to show for it. His tactic seemed to have worked when a six came out and he picked it up. It put him in first, points wise, but it proved to be the last straw for his bank balance.

Matt 11
Joe 10
Andrew 9
Ian 7
Martin out (but had 12)

As an interesting aside, Matt spent less than any of us. A moral in there somewhere, I think.

Martin made the sage observation that you have no chance of winning High Society unless you were in the top two. We looked a bit blank and kind of agreed with him. He elaborated that he meant you only felt you had a chance of winning. This is fair enough. He continued to sigh about High Society for the rest of the evening.

Then we played Powerships, the racing game in space. Martin set it out, flipped bits of the board over, rotated them and eventually got a play area without any gaps in the middle.

It was my first game, but it's not exactly drowning in rules so I felt quietly comfortable as I rounded the first buoy in hot pursuit of Ian and Martin.

Then Matt stormed back into contention with a move that saw him use four dice to move nine spaces for two turns in a row. Similarly, Joe went from distant last to a fairly local last with a similar move.

It was all looking very close around buoy three, but then Ian got trapped behind some space dust allowing Martin and Matt to steal past him in the home straight.

1. Martin
2. Matt
3. Ian
4. Andrew
5 (DNF) Joe

Martin then struggled to put the game away again, with it requiring a few aborted attempts at fitting the modular board back into its box.

Now we began the game we'd been promising ourselves all evening: Texas Showdown. Perhaps at its imperious best with five, we cracked through two rounds. Ian had a clear first round and a cagey second one to take first place.

I, meanwhile, experienced a weird aural illusion during the game. I was pouring my drink into my shot glass at the same time that Joe was pouring his drink into a wine glass. The sound of liquid in a barely empty glass somehow convinced me to keep pouring and it wasn't until my glass was overflowing that I came to my senses and I stopped. How odd.

Ian (0) 2
Andrew (3) 3
Martin (3) 5
Joe (3) 7
Matt (3) 7

During this game, Andy M arrived, keen to dispel the lingering aftereffects of a day of meetings with the medicinal qualities of board games. He was introduced to the world of Texas Showdown for a one round special since Sam had texted and was expected to be here in ten minutes. The second game of Texas Showdown ended

Andrew 0
Ian 1
Martin 1
Matt 2
Andy M 2
Joe 4

Sam arrived and, in stark contrast to our initial expectations, we were now a group of seven. We split into two groups. Joe, Matt, Ian and Andy went outside for a dusky game of Movable Type. Martin, Sam and I stayed inside to give Pikoko another try.

Pikoko was much the same as before. I found myself bamboozled by a couple of calls by my opponents and, in round two, I was confused enough to play the No Confidence card, much to Martin's disgust.

I enjoyed it, but I fear that Martin may already be too much of an expert by now.

Martin (8) (17) 26
Andrew (2) (7) 15
Sam (3) (11) 14

As Movable Type was still continuing under the light from someone's mobile phone, the three of us tried The Mind. "Speed Mind" we called it, given the strict time limit we assumed we were under.

And, indeed, we did play quicker than usual. We made some audacious decisions about when to play what and, mostly, it worked fine. We got past 45-50-100 in round one and 38-41-42 during round three. We cleverly shurikened 50-51-73 in round four but then lost three lives in round six. We cleared round seven, despite it ending 95-96 and shurikened 13-14-15 in round eight. Surely luck was on our side! Nope. We followed that up by losing our final lives before the round was over.

Amazing fun, though.

Movable Type had by now ended and well done to the four of them for ending with final words which all had slightly inappropriate connotations.

Joe 17 (final word: Sleazy)
Matt 16 (Petting)
Ian 14 (Knobs)
Andy 10 (Pillars)

Good work, chaps.

Now, as a group of seven, we chose Word Slam as our last game. It was me, Ian, Matt and Sam against Andy, Martin and Joe. The game was a ding dong battle, with the Joe team streaking into an early lead.

The clues were as clever as they were absurd. Joe got "board game" once he saw the word "play". "Grey Historic Big Old Long" was the Great Wall Of China. I got "Marilyn Monroe" from the clues of "Dead" and "woman". Obvious, really. And "prison" was drawn from the clues of "do" and "time".

Then things started getting really obtuse. The clue "object material woman two" somehow lead someone to "Bra". "Soft material left right up down on many" was Sam's successful attempt at defining the word "wallpaper". Meanwhile, was Joe's guess of "ribbon factory" a genuine attempt or a way to throw his opponents off the track?

Sam's team came back into it. By guessing "Batman" (man night movie) we drew level. The decider was drawn from the black deck, the hardest deck of all. But as it happened, I got lucky. The clue was "poodle" and when Joe guessed "Dog" I pointed at my previous clue of "white animal" and we got it. An amazing comeback. A glorious win. An ideal finale.

A lovely evening. I'm very glad I made the effort to spend time with you all. Same time next week!

Defecto!

A balmy evening at Joe's house, with the back doors flung wide and Sybil visible on the table, watching the horizon for who knows what. Cats? Birds? Or gamers. Surely she knows Tuesdays by now. We began as a four - the host, Ian, Martin and myself (Sam) with Andy Mosse due to join shortly.

First onto the table was Pikoko, Martin's trick-taking game with three-dimensional peacocks®. Like Hanabi, everyone is unable to see their own cards, but can see everyone else's. Like contract whist, you try to predict how many tricks you'll win - but unlike contract whist, you also predict how many tricks everyone else will win too, and play the cards of the player on your left.

It was an interesting juggle of limited knowledge, speculation, and prediction - what other cards will get played and when. As Andy noted, the peacock theme was probably stumbled on when they were figuring out a card display for the players. We played one round, which was enough for Martin  to display his inherent mastery of trick-takers:

Martin 11
Sam 10
Ian 9
Joe 8

By now Andy was here, so Martin proposed a five-player race around the galaxy in the form of Powerships, another game that reminded me of others: specifically Formula D (speed control) and Robo Rally (damage impeding your control). Each player sets off to pass three buoys and then get to the finish line, avoiding obstacles (planets, dust, moving comets, the edge of the board) and utilising moving elements along the way.

Your speed is controlled by three-sided dice: on your turn you can first rotate the single side of a hex and then move: in moving, you may add a die to what you have in order to speed up, discard a die to slow down, and either keep the numbers you have or roll for new ones. If you hit an obstacle, your ship takes damage and movement is compromised!

Around the first buoy and I surged ahead, stretching towards the second one whilst the others negotiated stage one. But in surging ahead, I failed to plan ahead, and bumped catastrophically into a planet, sending me off course. Meanwhile, Joe was taking the long way around the edge of the board, followed by Martin, whilst Ian and Andy negotiated the shorter but busier centre.

The drama ramped up as they made their way to buoy number three, with Martin first around it, but taking a wide berth again. He got a shock to see Joe, in some kind of galactic Nissan Micra, turning gently around the buoy before shooting off toward the finish, which happened to be Earth. It was a close-run thing, with Martin nabbing the win seconds before Joe rolled over the line.

Martin leads the charge, with Joe and Andy in pursuit

Ian and Andy fought it out for third, and Andy took it. I was still way way behind, but did at least get around the third buoy and nearly pulled off a dramatic finish when I almost sailed through the sun. But it would still have left me fifth...

1. Martin
2. Joe
3. Andy
4. Ian
5. Sam

Great game, and considerably preferable to the two it reminded me of.

Now back on Earth we broke out Decrypto and separated into teams, with myself and Martin versus the other three. Last time I'd played Decrypto I'd felt my clues were too obvious, but in this first game things went too far the other way, with both Martin and I bamboozling each other with our clues for detective. I suggested 'panther' (pink panther!) and Martin 'baker' (Baker Street!). We shot ourselves in the foot, with Martin at one point wailing "We're going to lose!"
"Welcome to my world" I replied.

And we did.

Ian, Joe, Andy - don't screw up
Martin and Sam - do

We changed teams with Andy and I now making a pair, and Martin taking the opportunity to be scathing about his former teammate. This time my clues were more flippant, as I search for elusive, delicate balance of what works in this game. As a result, we were twice decrypted and lost - not helped either when Andy and I guessed correctly but had written the wrong numbers in.

Ian, Joe, Martin - Detectives
Andy and Sam - Defective

Like Montage, I am terrible at this game! But it's great fun. If I could clue myself, I might be onto something.

Next up with Mamma Mia, accompanied by the traditional argument over whether - as Martin asserts - it's Uwe Rosenberg's best game or not. Arle-lover Joe wasn't having it, but Martin was unsurprisingly immovable. Meantime Andy was trying to get the game after a brief explanation and reassurances from all of us that, once he'd played a round, he'd understand it. "Or once you've lost a round" I clarified. But we should have taken Andy's pizza-making abilities more seriously, as he concocted a - for Mamma Mia - huge score, mixing recipes with aplomb in every single round.

Conversely, I made a terrible error of not making my fifteen-ingredient Bombastic pizza when I had the chance. Everyone gasped at my audacity/stupidity, but to be honest it would have used up all my cards, and I just wanted to stay involved. As it was, though, all I did was facilitate Martin's pizza-making with a plethora of toppings to choose from. On the other side of the table to me, Ian kept dropping all his ingredients, possibly distracted by his Mamma Mia duties...

Andy 6
Joe 4
Martin 3
Sam 2
Ian 1

Andy's pizzas, after round two

Last game of the night was Kakerlaken Poker, long appreciated but little-seen in recent times. The game had two mini-death spirals, when Andy tried to get out of the spotlight by passing to everyone in turn, and when Joe repeatedly passed his cards to Martin, only for Martin to flip them over with open disdain to reveal the host's fabrications. Best bluff went to Andy, who passed Joe a card saying it's one of those "green aphid things" - looking for all the world like he was passing a card he didn't know the name of. Joe flipped it over, and it wasn't a green aphid thing after all. We nearly applauded.

The game played out like a Sergio Leone western, with the tension mounting as all of us had pairs and Andy hit a triplet of cockroaches. Joe tried to bluff him into a defeat, but Andy flipped the card revealing more fibbery - and as Joe had no more cards to pass, he lost!

Joe - Kakerlaked
Everyone else - wins!

Lots of fun, thanks everybody. Looking forward to doing better on Powerships next time...

Sumo like it hot

This week's games night was held at a new venue, since Laura had offered to host with the proviso that space issues limited the numbers to seven. Once we established that we were indeed seven, we all ventured down the grassy alleyway to her back door: me, Ian, Martin, Matt, Joe and Sam. Laura didn't have many games of her own (although Duplo Lego caught our eye) so we relied on Sam, Joe and Martin to bring a selection.

We began as a big group around the kitchen table with Fuji Flush, and what a frustrating game it was with many occasions of promising runs of small cards being crushed by one big card just as it looked like it was about to make it around. Eventually, with four people on one card left, it was pretty tense for a while, until Matt revealed he'd been holding on to the 20 all along.

Matt 0 cards left
Ian 1
Joe 1
Laura 1
Martin 2
Sam 3
Andrew 3

Then we split into two dice based groups. Laura, Matt and Joe played Kribbeln and Martin, Ian, Sam and I chose JamSumo, a compendium of two dice-flicking games, one where you have to get your own dice off the board through a hole in the middle and another where you have to get your opponents' dice off the board, either through the hole or off the sides. It's the current hit of the Sam family, to the extent that his son called him to ask if he'd taken it with him.

The games take place on a rather handsome wooden board, raised up on legs, and I thought to myself that it's a rare board game that’s going to look better the older it gets.

First we played two rounds of Jam, the golf-esque game. In the first round, I think I managed to sink only one die and picked up 14 bad points for my troubles. (First round scores in brackets)

Sam (4) 4
Martin (0) 7
Ian (3) 12
Andrew (14) 18

Then we played three rounds of Sumo, which reminded me of Monkey Boxing in the Gamecube classic, Super Monkey Ball, except we took turns rather than the free-for-all bun-fight of the video game.

Maybe I got some sympathy after Jam, since I was rarely targeted in round one. But then I crashed out and round two ended with two points separating the top three, so round three was effectively the decider.

Andrew (17) (17) 31
Ian (9) (16) 28
Martin (12) (15) 15
Sam (0) (6) 12

It was short, sweet, unpretentious fun. I felt a bit bad for depriving Sam's son of his evening's entertainment, though.

In Kribbeln, Matt had a roll that met the criteria for that round and scored 35 points - just one off perfection. But Laura's three out of four Kribbelns put her in first. A classic case of Explainer's Curse for Joe, though.

Laura 20
Matt 14
Joe 8

Then, with all games over, we rearranged and split into new groups. And new places. With an last-minute eighth gamer expected, Andy M, the already cosy kitchen table was in danger of becoming claustrophobic. As such, Sam, Matt and Laura stepped out into the balmy evening sun to play more Jam Sumo on the garden table. Ian, Joe, Matt and I tried a new game called Pikoko, personally signed by the author, that Martin had brought. It was a trick taking game where you can't see your own cards, but you can see everyone else's. You don't play your cards and, instead, play the cards of the player to your left. Plus the aim of the game isn't to get the most tricks (or the least) but to guess how many tricks each player will win per round.

Your hand of cards is held in a plastic peacock ("Three-dimensional peacocks" declares the blurb on the box, clearly believing this to be a major selling point) which look nice but might have been surplus to requirements. Still, hats off to any game with rules in Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian.

At first it all seemed pointless and deliberately obtuse. Our first round ended with us on very level scores, which only added to the suspicion that this game was a dud.

But in rounds two and three, things changed. People began planning ahead, and getting a correct prediction on how many tricks would be won became more and more difficult as we worked out how best to frustrate the other players.

Each player has a Confidence Card that they play, face down at the start of the round, which would get you three bonus points if your prediction for a particular player was correct or minus one if you were wrong. But there is also a No Confidence Card, which just gets you one point, no matter what. In round three, I felt that I had no idea which of my predictions might be right, so I played the No Confidence Card. Imagine my delight as everyone else's Confidence Cards failed, knocking them back one point while my card guaranteed a precious point at no risk. Martin was disgusted at my cowardly play, but I call it strategic.

Andrew 20
Martin 18
Ian 17
Joe 16

As a cross between Hanabi, Divinare, and Contract Whist it worked quite well.

Out in the garden Andy M had arrived and, although I missed out on the details of each game, Sam later texted me the scores.

Jam
Andy 1
Matt 8
Sam 10
Laura 10

Sumo
Matt 25
Laura 14
Sam 10
Andy 0

After this, they embarked on a game of Ganz Schön Clever. Meanwhile, the four of us in the kitchen considered what to play while they finished.

Martin suggested The Mind but Joe wasn't keen. "You're not jaded with The Mind, are you?" asked Martin, aghast. Joe insisted that he wasn't, but just fancied something else instead. The something else was Krass Kariert. This game only has losers, not winners and after losing the first two rounds, Ian was out in quick style. His situation at the end of round two was so hopeless that there followed a not-entirely-appropriate conversation about whether Ian had been fucked three times over, or just two and a half.

Since Ganz Schön Clever hadn’t ended yet, we had one more round, where Martin was out first.

Ian lost and then Martin lost a bit.

Ganz Schön Clever was just finishing up, so we waited to all join up together in a big game of Word Slam. I, however, found that I was also finishing up and decided to bail out before it got too late. I paused at the table outside long enough to watch the scores being totted up and so see Matt waste his foxes on his lowest scoring category, which scored zero. But Andy couldn’t be reached, not by a long chalk.

Andy 180
Laura 136
Sam 133
Matt 100

Afterwards, Sam kindly let me know the highlights of Word Slam, namely Matt’s correct guessing of the word (“box”) right after Sam put up the first card (that read “object”). Higly impressive. Then again, I can’t actually think of a more object-y thing than a box. Odd that.

Sam went on to tell me they tried the hardest difficulty level, and couldn’t get a single word.

Huge thanks to Laura for hosting and to everyone for just being you.