No laughing matter

After our recent foray into comedy gaming with Robo Rally, I started to think about games with a deliberately funny aspect and how little I enjoy them in the long run. It’s like a joke may be funny the first time you hear it, but after a while it starts to grate.

Robo Rally is supposed to be comedy slapstick, as cruel fate forces your robot into ever more dangerous situations, but instead it just comes across as awkward and needlessly unhelpful. I do remember once finding it funny when I got a hand of useless cards and had to spend a go merely rotating on the spot, but now instead of chuckling at my dizzy robot, I grimly tolerate my lack of progress for another turn.

Smallworld, too, is a game that I can happily never play again. Far from being a cross between Lord of the Rings and The Ramones, the entertainment relies solely on the funny names of the races involved. And while I have happy memories of Kill Dr Lucky, I strongly suspect that playing it again would be a painful experience.

This makes me worry about games that I find funny now. I wonder if in a couple of years, I’m going to look at Galaxy Trucker in the same way. Although you can look at the cards in advance, there’s still an element of the unknown to be faced. So far, it’s still funny when half my ship falls off, and it is satisfying to limp across the finish line, whatever shape your ship is in, but one day I may not be so tolerant of the game’s random elements.

And what of The Adventurers? This game relies on the player pushing his luck in order to get more treasure. But that’s slightly different, since there’s always the option to play safe so if you do fall down a pit or get crushed by a boulder, you always know you had the chance to get out. I don’t find the odds against the player too unreasonable.

As for Colosseum, I doubt this will fall to the same problem because the game itself is played completely straight: the mechanics are good and a poor round isn’t the end of the game for a player. The jokes come from trading gladiators for flowerpots, having the best horse or describing failed attempts at putting on shows rather than anything the game does to you.

As Colosseum demonstrates, it should be the situation that’s silly, but the game’s mechanics should be as solid as any other game. In my opinion, using random elements to create amusing situations is not really workable. Luck makes a terrible dungeon master.

It's a marathon, not a Rally.

Later start time of 8.30 but that did not dissuade 6 hard-core gamers from clustering around the table last night - Adam, Hannah, Andrew, Quentin, Joe, and Sam (me). Having played Tsuro last week four of us were keen to induct Quentin and Joe, so we started with a couple of games of that. It's so simple there isn't much strategy to go into - other than trying to give yourself 'outs' from any route you choose - but that didn't stop Adam from doing very well. He IS strategy, and he won the first game before Quent and I tied for the second game.

Game One:
1 Adam
2 Hannah
3 Quentin
4 Sam
5 Andrew
6 Joe

Game Two:
1 Sam/Quentin
3 Adam
4 Hannah
5 Joe
6 Andrew

(note: these have been collated from the comments section)

With six players present quite a few games were ruled out, but with Andrew keen, Adam curious, and everyone else amenable we finally got Robo Rally out of the box - a game that puts the emphasis on fun rather than strategy - if your idea of fun is being stuck in bank holiday traffic, negotiating an automated answering service, or cutting a particularly tricky bit of lino.

It was, I found, an exercise in frustration. My memories of Robo Rally painted something more fun than this, and I guess that's because when I used to play it with any regularity it was a change from Settlers or the Playstation. Since then, if I may put my pompous hat on, we have embraced games of more depth and subtlety. Of course the game is meant to conspire against you, but I found this manifested itself as a petty annoyance rather than fun. Everyone found it a bit of a pain - and the death knell for this game is not so much that it can frustrate when you're losing, it's that it can bore when you're winning - there's no middle ground. In fact the most nearly-fun section of the game was entirely down to Quent's suggestion that we move each other's robots - exciting and silly, but ultimately too long-winded as we tied ourselves in knots working out what was going on.

Anyway - cool-headed Quentin took first place, with the rest of us in his dust:

Quentin
Adam
Joe
Andrew
Sam
Hannah

- Hannah having been stymied by a 'special ability' that was more like a disability, instructing her robot to power down whether she liked it or not.

Everyone was slightly deflated by the experience so we decided on something quick and non-leaderboard to finish off the night on an upbeat note. Nobody did the maths on Perudo having 30 dice with six people though, so 40 minutes later I (having been knocked out along with Joe) vetoed the 'calza' rule in order to get to bed before midnight. Apologies to Quentin, Adam and Hannah who were then short of options as Andrew giggled his way to first place and took the £6 at stake.

All in all, not a classic games night with Quent and Joe underwhelmed by Tsuro and nobody liking Robo Rally at all. Next week: Sherlock Holmes!


The leaderboard...

	Played	Points	Ratio
Sam	15	67	4.46
Adam	13	66	5.07
Andrew	15	56	3.73
Joe	10	40	4
Hannah	7	34.5	4.9
Quentin	5	21.5	4.3
Steve	2	8	4

A poor evening for Andrew, Joe and Hannah as their points ratios all took a hit. Meanwhile, Adam steams towards taking top spot from Sam, while Quentin's position on the board looks somewhat more presentable.