Come on, Eilan

When I arrived at Sam’s house, Joe, Jo, Ian, Adam T and Sam were all knee-deep in a game of Inkling. In this game, players are dealt some cards with some markings on them which resemble parts of letters. Place these cards anyway you want, and hopefully you’ll be able to spell out one (or more) of the six words on your card.

It was interesting to watch, but are there hidden strategies still to be uncovered? It seemed to reward literally writing the word, while any attempt at cryptical clueing fell flat. Ian tried to clue two of his words with one, admitting he’d “tried to So Clover it.” While Sam went all Rebus on the group. One of his clues looked like “OIST” which I noted may be the noise you make when you pick up something heavy. But it was actually a clue for “FLOOR” - it was the word “1st” with a button next to it, ie. first floor.

Joe 17

Adam 14

Jo 11

Ian 11

Sam 9

Adam tried to encapsulate it’s qualities by saying “It’s like a cross between a word game and…” “a break down.” Sam helpfully suggested.

By now Martin was here, and then a ghost from the past breezed in. Mark, who once appeared in this blog on a semi-regular basis, was visiting from Devon. How nice to see him again. With eight of us, we split into two. Sam, Mark, Ian and myself played Rebirth while Jo, Joe, Adam and Martin played Eternals Deck.

I didn’t notice much of Eternals Deck except for its lovely cloth board and the look of disappointment when, halfway through the game, Jo explained to their colleagues that they were playing the easy version of the beginners stage. But, they all won!

As for Rebirth, after a rules explanation to Mark (that I needed too, frankly) we set off rebuilding a post apocalyptic Scotland with our farms, castles and zeppelins. Mid-game, Sam and Mark started chaining together farms for big returns. Ian and I tussled in the housing market and I also focused on castles. 

Mark expressed surprise at the score, saying he'd only really got the hang of it 70% of the way through the game and that before then he'd been copying us.

I guess that makes it a shared victory?

Mark 141

Sam 132

Andrew 113

Ian 109

After this we rearranged. Both Adam and I were in the market for something shortish and Martin suggested Greed. We agreed (no pun intended) and were joined by Jo. The remaining four brought out The Gang, a clever cross between Texas Hold ‘Em and The Mind. I’ve played this before with six players and little success, but this time the sounds of cheers wafted across the table as they succeeded round after round in an atmosphere of co-operative bon homie.

Greed, as you can gather, is far less communal. There was a lot of PvP action as we took out each others thugs and holdings, but at the start both Jo and Adam complained about the opening hand they’d created for themselves, which were far too forward thinking so left them with few options in the short term.

I, on the other hand, barely looked more than two turns ahead such that apart from an early flourish where I picked up some cash, I was reacting to what other players were doing. Adam had abandoned whatever plan he’d started with and gone aggressive, playing a lot of spoiling cards. Jo, though, smartly got themselves into a winning position, playing a double-your-money card and then another card netting $45,000 which turned into $90,000. 

Jo 170,000

Martin 120,000

Andrew 85,000

Adam 10,000

With that, I was gone. Handing over to Sam for part two. Thanks all.

* * *

Adam also left now, and we were down to six. Martin promptly brought out Things in Rings and attempted

to explain it whilst the rest of us attempted to understand it. At least I did anyway - having slightly indulged things by now I mostly spent my time proclaiming my bafflement. 

As far as I could comprehend it's kind of like a wordy version of Zendo, where instead of figuring out the spatial rule to a bunch of pyramids, we're trying to deduce the conceptual rules for each circle in a Venn diagram, and there are three qualities: the context (eg can be dangerous) an attribute (eg larger than a person) and the text of the word itself (eg it starts with a vowel, which happened to be the one we figured out first). 

Turns are taken by placing a Word card into the puzzle somewhere (or indeed, outside of it) and hoping you're right: first person to successfully shed all cards wins. The person making these decisions was the "knower' - Martin, who didn't get to guess - and there's definitely a subjective element to where things end up - is a zipper dangerous? -  it's possible. Jo sussed out the attribute, but we were all thrown by the context and things ended up there on speculative punts more than Holmesian genius. 

After a 40 minutes or so of bewilderment Jo won (I think) and we all professed our admiration for something so bonkers. Tough being the 'Knower' though. 

It was time for So Clover. I don't recall a huge amount about at this point but it was a reasonable success. 

Post-script: At the start of the night, Adam T thrashed me 3-0 at Toy Battle and he also beat Ian and I at Rainbow!

For Goodness' Saké

Like a rare planetary alignment, every year or so four increasingly aging board gamers meet to catch up and share news, ancient in-jokes and some dubious double-entendres.

I arrived at about 1.30, and Sam told me that Chris and Paul were running late, still picking their way through Bristol’s bank holiday traffic. We drank coffee and chatted while I idly looked at the packaging for Tokkuri Taking, a game that would be our first once we were all here.

The packaging promises a bacchanial party of sake with dinosaurs. In practice, we were playing cards to either represent a clay bottle full of sake (the tokkuri) or the amount of sake each player will drink.

You have to play cards which will empty a (or many) tokkuri(s) exactly. If you achieve this, you flip the tokkuri card, action any text that you may see and keep it as a point. Unless it is a Dummy card, in which case the card is removed from the game and everyone else chuckles at your bad luck.

In fact, the revelation of a dummy card remained funny until the end of the game. It was a nice little game but, as Chris pointed out, where were the dinosaurs?

Sam 20

Chris 13

Paul 4

Andrew 0

After this game, to commemorate the day, Chris took a selfie of the four of us and unfortunately demonstrated how age turns technology into a mystery. We all posed and smiled and, instead of taking a photo, Chris promptly turned his phone off.

Never mind, we got there in the end.

Then we chose our next game. At least, me, Sam and Paul did. Chris stayed at the kitchen table, declaring himself too tired to make a decision. And so we played Tower Up, in which we were rampant civil engineers/town planners, intent on placing our roofs across city skyscrapers. Each of us had a player board with four scoring tracks in white, black, brown and grey which gave us the first childish sniggers as we spoke about “one up the brown” or a lack of “brown movement.”

Sam did impress mid-game with one move that got him three bonuses at once, but Chris’ slew of prominent yellow domes across the city pushed him into first place.

Chris 53

Andrew 50

Sam 46

Paul 40

Next up was Azul. I explained the rules to Paul and we were off. Sam kept picking up the first player token for minus points, insisting that he liked going first. Paul started slowly, with disparate tiles on his board, but managed to weave them all together with a final round that scored over 20 points by itself.

Paul 76

Sam 72

Andrew 70

Chris 66

We discussed food and, since Sam’s son Joe was going to get pizza for him and his friends, it made sense for him to get some pizza for us at the same time. That plan didn’t go down well and not even the promise of a side salad could persuade Joe.

Then we played Scout. A sort of trick taking game with a really light Circus theme. Not as tenuous as dinosaurs drinking sake, but still very tangential. I tried to bring the circus motif into play: when I put down a pair of tens I introduced it as “Lisa and Rebecca with their two cannons” but it didn’t really catch on.

Chris 38

Paul 34

Andrew 27

Sam 18

Next up was Misfits. Chris started with a cylinder placed upright. Then he sat back and smirked. We carefully placed piece after impossible piece until the entire edifice collapsed, leading Sam to declare “every c*nting piece!” as he ruefully swept the debris into his reserve.

We played twice and Chris won both times. After Chris’ second win, we kept playing Speed Misfits for second place, with Chris counting down the time limit in a vague German accent. I placed second.

After this we played Ito - the pocket version of Wavelength where everyone gets to make a guess. We didn’t do too well, with some pretty close calls. 

“Places to have a secret lair” did okay, with some nice distance between our guesses but in the category Imaginary Worlds to Visit we failed to differentiate the two-point gap between The Planet of Stale Farts and Pubic Hair World.

Following this we gave up on pizza and decide to get curry delivered. After that was ordered, we played Pina Coladice. Yahtzee mixed with Noughts And Crosses. Each square of a 4x4 grid has a target to achieve with five dice rolled three times. Place your meeple (if there’s still room) and four in a row will instantly win the game.

It was okay. I felt a bit like I was watching myself play, but there’s a certain amount of strategy as first Paul then Sam found their paths to glory blocked by other players taking the spaces they needed. But in the end, Chris won with four in a row.

With the curry imminent we played a couple of quick games of Toy Battle. A very simple war game with basic mechanics but a nicely balanced range of soldiers at your disposal. Sam beat Paul on a tie-breaker and Chris beat me outright, having successfully stormed my HQ.

Next we broke for food and then I chose the next game - my last of the day.

It was Quest for El Dorado. Paul’s first game, and he got a rules explanation from, as I recall, most of us at one point or another. It was pretty close throughout, apart from the usual early stages of one playing hanging back for tokens (Sam) while another sped off into the jungle (Chris). But Chris was no amatuer just pegging it and hoping for the best. He neatly balanced his deck and picked up tokens as he went. An purchase of the Captain just as he reached the watery fifth hex was probably pivotal.

I tried to think like Adam by buying a Travel Log (or Travelodge, as Paul called it) to whittle away the flab from my hand, but when I appeared I really didn’t know what to do with it. Nevertheless I actually thought I had a chance until quite late on. False hope.

Chris 1st to arrive, wins tie breaker

Sam, arrived same turn

Paul, only a few spaces short

Andrew, at least I reached the final hex.

*                *                *

mysterious change of narrator

*                *                *

Sam here. The hour was around 9pm, I think, when Andrew left us, and we had a couple more hours of ludological frolics ahead of us. We began them with Rebirth, the game of cathedral and castle construction in post-apocalyptic Scotland. I can't help thinking that if all the efforts going into these rebuilding games went into avoiding an apocalypse in the first place, maybe these great designer minds could come up with something. But anyway. This was new to the ever-patient Paul, so I went through the fortuitously-simple rules and away we went, brick by brick. 

Whilst I set about cathedralling like some kind of Ken Follet enthusiast and Paul remarked that he kept pulling the same type of tile, Chris sped off into a chunky lead, passing 100 points way before we did and enjoying saying the word 'dirigible' in celebration. But his momentum slowed in the final act, and my haul of highland castles and completed objectives got me a vanishingly rare win - by a single point! Chris threw his cards on the table in disgust. 

Sam - can't remember

Chris - can't remember -1

Paul - a few points further back

We celebrated/drowned our sorrows in the Milk Tray chocolates Chris had brought with him. There was no flavour reference so I tried one at random, which turned out to be a hazelnut whirl. I enjoyed it so much I had another, before discovering they were everyone's favourite, including Jacquie, who wasn't even here, but added to the chocolatey shame. Apologies all. 

We played Fantasy Realms next, and any crowing I might have been tempted to do in my Rebirth triumph stuck in my throat as I proved abysmally bad at realming fantasies. 

The game is super-simple: you have a hand of cards that score in different ways, and on your turn you pick up a new card and discard one to the table. You can pick up either from the table, or the top of the deck, but the catch is top-decking hastens the end of the game, which happens when a tenth card is added to the communal cards. Chris more than doubled my score, I think it was something like

Chris 190?

Paul 140?

Sam 80

I poured myself another gin as Paul asked me if I was getting tired. "He's got to wait up for his kids!" Chris pointed out, as if we needed an excuse to keep gaming. Little Tavern was next. 

Chris started and immediately parked an elf at his table. I advised him this was maybe not the best move, because elves in this game are racists and only like sitting with other elves. Chris nodded that he understood and immediately picked up three more elves to score 16 points in the first round. In the second I gave him a face-down romantic and he paired it with another face-up to win! Stupid game. 

We finished off with So Clover, of course, but whether it was the marathon games, the gin, the chocolate, the red herrings or the late hour, did appallingly badly with a 3-2-4 haul giving us 9 points from a possible 18! 

By this time, Joe and his pals were home and Stan was on his way back too. It had been ten hours of gaming and with midnight not too far off, we elected to end it there. Thanks all! Sorry about my foul-mouthed breakdown in Misfits.