Dicht Diggers

Tonight saw a continuation of the recent whittling away of regulars as just four of us set up in Sam's kitchen. Joe, Ian and I joined the host for the week's festivities, trying hard not to read too much into our new found exclusivity.

We began with Pairs, with Sam's son Joe telling his father what to do. With four players, it's quite a different game to what we're used to. Very cagey, with people preferring to stick in second rather than risk one more card.

Joe got hit by a lot of low pairs while Sam & Joe were in pole position midgame, just four points off the target of fifteen. But, they couldn't score again and Ian took first place.

Ian 15
Andrew 12
Sam & Joe 11
Joe 6

And then came decision time. Since we didn't have to share the table with another game, our choices were limitless. We struggled to make a choice. Joe said he'd almost brought Brass, and I wished he had. Great Western Trail? Feast For Odin? But after Viticulture had been mentioned several times, it was brought to the table.

Joe had recently been introduced to the game by Sam, but had found his first attempt rather frustrating.

Round one:everyone training new workers

For the rest of us, the rolling hills of Tuscany were as familiar as the garden path to Sam's door. We set up with Ian having a rare luxury of an extra worker thanks to his Papa card.

Interestingly, the extra worker option at the end of the Player Order Option Track was barely used. With four players, spaces were likely to be filled so an extra ordinary worker wouldn't be much use.

Halfway through, I asked Joe if he was enjoying it more and he said no, it was still frustrating. Which is true, but that's part of the joy of the game. This was especially true for me in the last round, when my plans of a double-order fulfilment were scuppered. I'd been holding on to my Grandee, hoping for a stroke of luck to allow me to fill an order, and I was sorely chagrined (© 18th century England) when Sam played a card allowing you to take back your Grandee and use it again.

Then again, so was Sam when he saw Ian take his back and then use it to fill another order and make sure of his victory in this close game of Viticulture.

Ian 26
Sam 21
Joe 18
Andrew 18

After this, we wound down with lighter fare: Dicht Dran. The 6nimmt-ish game is high on frustration but not so much that you feel completely in the lap of fate. For the first time at GNN, Sam handed over the rules explanation to a YouTube video.

The idea is to get your hand size down to zero, while also picking up the cards dealt in the middle. However, increasing your hand size means you're more likely to have a card that'll win one of those cards in the future. It's a fine balance.

We played two one-round games. In the first, Sam was never in danger of not winning while Ian stayed true to his stereotype of being bad at 6nimmt style games.

Sam 9
Joe 1
Andrew 0
Ian -5

In the next game, I got off to a flier picking up one card after another. And while I ran dry later on, and didn't discard all my cards, I still had enough to win.

Andrew 6
Sam 4
Joe 4
Ian -2

Finally we ended with good old High Society. My early tactic was to pick up a bad card for cheap while everyone else got stung. However, no one else seemed terribly annoyed at their lack of funds and I ended up off-setting my 1/2 card with a x2 card, bought for top price. Along with my basketball team, complete with woman lying down.

Joe had a wide selection of scoring cards, but only one money card in his hand. In the end, he went out with least money, despite his potentially winning 16 points.

Sam 15
Andrew 8
Ian 6
Joe OUT!!

And so we were done. Another week ticked off the calendar, another grey hair sprouting from all of our bonces. As for the Division, I decided that this week, I'd replace all our numbers with a sentence invented by my phone whenever you start with someone's name and keep choosing the middle option that it suggests. Since I write GNN reports on my phone, it seems to have learnt a bit of my style.

Well done to Sam for reaching top spot. Oh, and, Laura, a "Knizia" is a games designer: Reiner Knizia. I've obviously written "It's a Knizia!" so often that my phone thinks it's a noun.

See you next week (he said, optimistically...)

Survival of the Most Resourceful

Sunday night, and our grand plans for a weekend four-player had crumbled with Chris and Ian both unable to make it. Instead, it was a head-to-head between Andrew and I. Just like the old days, when we used to play chess every night in 1993...

But before we could start gaming there was the small matter of the wine bottle whose cork refused to budge. I'd been struggling with this when Andrew arrived. He too, found himself unable to coax it out. So we called on the internet for instruction, and discovered there are many ways to remove a cork with no corkscrew, but most of them involve a highly probable trip to A+E.

Furious, I picked up the bottle again, and with one heave, yanked it out. All it took was a bit of male frustration! Look out for my YouTube channel soon.

zombies edge closer to the Hula Hoops

Having resolved the booze situation, we got down to the nitty gritty, which in this case was barrelling across the states avoiding zombies in Hit Z Road. I've only played this four times, but each time it seems to reveal a little more potential for strategy - terrible strategy, in my case. I decided to avoid spending money on bidding, and let Andrew (usually) take first choice of route. But with first choice of route, he was picking up the most resources, which meant he could keep bidding the most comfortably... aligned with my crappy dice rolls, the game looked to be swinging his way already, but then I was caught by zombies and died anyway.

Andrew: wins
Sam: dessert

It was 8.40 by the time I was eaten by zombies, and we thought that was early enough to crank out a game of Viticulture. The game was notable, though, for its speed: the whole thing took less than an hour. Andrew was first to get an order filled, but my tasting room, selling a field (and a grape) and buying it back again all contributed in chiseller-style to keep me in touch, whilst I gathered enough grapes to fill some high-return orders.

Grande admires tasting room

Sam 21
Andrew 15

We followed this with Quoridor, the abstract race/block game Ben picked up in a charity shop. You're trying to get your pawn to the other side of the board, and on your turn you can either move it, or place a wall instead, hampering your opponent.

pawns eye each other up

But you only have ten walls to place, so the strategy is to try and manufacture a short route for yourself, and a long one for your opponent. Andrew began well but ended up with a bit of a trek for himself - too much of one, in fact.

Sam wins
Andrew doesn't

Finally we broke out the GNN classic: Take it Easy. Rolling back the years again, Andrew called Pink Floyd songs and I did Genesis albums. We ended up playing Who Dunnit? over the speakers, still in disbelief that it was considered worth recording, let alone playing to people.

decent, but no cigar

Anyway in this case it was Andrew who dunnit - despite my pretty decent score, he outplayed me in both rounds!

Andrew 397
Sam 372

Christmascon!

Yes, it's the GNN celebration that sounds vaguely punitive.

The day began at my (Sam's house) relatively early: 10am to be precise, when Stanley's friend and Stanley's friend's dad arrived to play Scythe. This is not exactly a gateway game for 9-year-olds, but Stan was keen and everyone else was amenable. All the bits and pieces make it look pretty exciting too - mechs! eagles! planks of wood! We went on slightly longer than planned, but did finish the game. Stan looked like he had things sewn up when he went for a sod-popularity route, ignoring public opinion to bash down his stars as quickly as possible. But two fights went against him when he guessed that opponents would play low, and they didn't. Instead, competitive dad (me) beat him into second place.

As the newbies departed still looking reasonably sane, we chucked some egg sandwiches down our throats and prepared for the arrival of the GNN masses. Just like Field of Dreams, if you clear the table, they will come. First in was Big Joe, who had brought Captain Sonar! Then there was a flurry of gamers; Ben, Matt, and Hannah. Talk began of playing Captain Sonar, but the first game out of the box was Tumbling' Dice. Joe allowed Ben, Matt and Stanley a warm-up, which they all took with impressive unity:

While they then embarked on a tumbling' tussle, Hannah and I had a couple of games of Hounded. This was a birthday present to Stan and I really enjoy it: it's a two-player where one side simply has to avoid capture (the fox) and the other has to somehow surround the very manoeuvrable fox and trap it. I caught Hannah as the hunter then we swapped sides. Hannah discovered that the hunter's side requires a bit more thought, as opposed to the fox who simply gambols about, giving two fingers to the various dogs unable to catch him. The second game went on for a while, but eventually I had to gamble on flipping the final time tile (all three flipped wins the fox the game)  and I gambled wrong. Hannah had me cornered and closed in for the kill.

By the time that had ended, Tumbling' Dice had too, with Stan claiming a convincing debut win:

Stan 132
Joe 78
Ben 60
Matt 50

And the same gang had also managed to bash out a game of Mamma Mia:

Ben 5
Matt 5
Joe 3
Adam 3
Stan 3

And Adam and Arthur had also arrived. They were followed by Katy, and then Jon, as the house began to fill up! With nine of us now present, but one person required to keep Arthur company, the time had finally arrived: Captain Sonar! I almost expected Joe to pull off his normal clothes and reveal a special CS vest underneath. But he didn't. He set up and went through the rules, then we had a few moments to digest them as Chris, Jacquie, Ashton and Ava-Rose paid us a flying visit, generously dropping off a birthday present for Stan en route home. We had a flying catch-up, then it was down to the business of trying to kill each other.

Katy and Hannah took the role of opposing captains whilst Jon and Joe the engineers. Ben and Matt were first mates and Stanley and I the radiographers. Or something. Our job was to record what the opposing captains said, whilst our own dictated the direction we took. The Engineer kept track of various systems and told the Captain when she could fire a torpedo or drop a mine. And the first mate did something else, which I never totally picked up on.

I enjoyed being the guy-who-listens; it seemed less stressful to me than what the others were going through, which was a lot of people talking at the same time. As long as I listened to Hannah I could ignore pretty much everything else. We located their sub and blew them up for the win.

Then we changed teams and Stanley was now captain along with myself, Joe and Jon. Hannah stepped out so Adam could play along with Ben, Katy and Matt. This time the game was short and sharp - they located us and scored two direct hits before we even knew where they were!

Their followed a break for pizza, during which time Andrew arrived from work. The world was now our oyster with everyone present...

(screen goes wobbly signifying change of narrator)

When I arrived, the table was groaning under the weight of co-op pizzas and chip shop chips. Anja and Steve and Luther were there are the table too. During the meal, Stanley tried to drum up support for a third game of Captain Sonar, but to little success. Instead we split into two groups. Joe persuaded four to join him in a game of Adrenalin, winning people over by calling it “super fun”.

The rest of us went for Jamaica, but just before we began, Steve was called away so the rest of us played a game of Micro Robots on top of the game of Jamaica that was already set up to play. Decadence!

Stanley 5
Sam 3
Andrew 1
Jon 1

Then when we were ready to play Stanley was distracted by the lure of Seinfeld, no, Star Wars, no, PS3, so he set up camp in the front room for the rest of the evening.

Jamaica was fun, although both Jon and Steve were undone by a misunderstanding of the rules. Steve repeatedly so. For the most part, Steve sailed around the starting line, picking up gold. Unfortunately he hen tried moving, couldn’t pay for his space and ended up visiting the same “pay 5 gold” space twice.

Jon’s mistake was to take me on in battle, not knowing that I could decide how many cannons to use after he’d attacked and then he was surprised to discover that defenders could take from attackers if they won. But, as we explained, “that’s piracy for you!”

Meanwhile, everyone was else seemed to be very good at landing on treasures while I had none. And no money. My only hope was to end the game before anyone had a chance to amass a fortune, so I sped off to the finishing line and ended the game.

Andrew 13
Sam 9
Steve 6
Jon –8

Meanwhile, Adrenalin was apparently a board game version of a first person shooter. Adam found himself picked on (I can’t imagine why) and Matt impressed everyone with a move near the end of the game: he dragged Joe from apparent safety into range and then leapt into a neighbouring room, grabbed a flamethrower and used it to deal damage to everyone else on the board. Katy won by killing Adam.

Adrenalin, just before Matt causes havoc

Katy 40
Joe 38
Matt 37
Ben 24
Adam 21

Adam takes out his frustration on a 

chocolate Santa

Ben said that he was bad at real (ie, videogame, not REAL real) first-person shooters and he wasn’t surprised to learn he was bad at board-game versions too. He also said that he should be getting back since his girlfriend had only just got back from abroad. We said he should invite her along. He explained he already had. We dropped the subject.

Since we had all ended at the same time, there was a quick reshuffling of groups and the new line-ups looked like: Jon, Steve, Hannah and Katy played Broom Service and me, Sam, Anja, Joe and Matt chose Fool’s Gold.

Joe impressed us all with a high-quality dice-cup. Tall and lithe, it was a million miles away from Stone Age’s stinky receptacle. But, being so tall, it’s distribution of dice was too wide across the table and Joe put it away saying it needed a dice tray.

Joe's new dice cup

In the game, people kept getting in my way, especially Joe who ruined the mountain twice for me (and him, too) by drawing a Foul Weather card when we only had two cards to draw in the first place.

The other feature of the game was how often our player shields fell down. Whenever they did, I found it very entertaining to say “hellooo!”

Sam 30
Joe 23
Matt 21
Andrew 19
Anja 18

Once we’d finished, there was another reshuffle. Broom Service showed no sign of ending so we played a quick game of For Sale.

Doesn't look like a winning hand to me.

I was right.

Adam 59
Joe 51
Matt 49
Anja 49
Andrew 43

Finally Broom Service ended...

Jon 80
Katy 71
Hannah 65
Steve 58

... and we divided up again. Anja was keen on a big game, and so she, I and Adam got out Viticulture. Since I was now in the front room, away from the bustle of the kitchen, my notes get a bit confusing here, but I think there was a game of Junk Art at this time.

Matt 12
Sam 12
Joe 4

Then, just before we got going on Viticulture, we all got together for the GNN Quiz of the Year, hosted by Sam. There were categories like “games designers” and “player performances” (I think) which tested our knowledge of games in general and also events of 2016 at GNN towers.

With the most regular attendees me, Katy and Joe, nominated as captains, we split into three teams and it ended very close.

Katy, Steve, Adam 20
Andrew, Jon, Hannah 20
Joe, Anja, Matt 19

After this, it was 10.15 and we had to get cracking on Viticulture. In the main room, Katy took up photography duties so we have evidence of a game of Super Vampires...

Sam 9
Steve 7
Hannah 3

And Karuba...

Jon 23
Katy 20
Matt 19
Joe 19

As well as this mid-game shot of Viticulture.

Later, I went to check on progress in the kitchen and found a game of World’s Fair

Sam 76
Steve 70
Hannah 58

And a non-used half of the table, while people stood around talking!

Like... wut?

Sanity was restored in a short while with a game of Igloo Pop on one half of the table, and Escape From Aliens In Outer Space on the other half.

Igloo Pop

Sam 22
Hannah 10
Steve 10

The results of Escape From Aliens In Outer Space were, according to my notes:

Katy wins!!
Joe came second and went to get a Coke.
Matt died (by Katy)

Finally, Viticulture ended, thanks to Adam’s efficiency. I doubt it was on purpose, but he played a game using tactics that were the opposite of what we suggested to Anja. Adam said selling a field was a good idea, because you don’t need three fields. Then he used all three fields. I said it was a waste to sell grapes straight from the crush pads, and later Adam did just that. He’s so contrary, that boy.

The margin of victory was pretty immense and I only did as well as I did by using up all my point-scoring visitor cards once I saw that Adam was about to win. If the game had continued, I’d have been hard pushed to score any more points for ages. Anja came last, but said she enjoyed it. Adam really seemed to like it, though. Of course he did.

Adam 22
Andrew 13
Anja 9

And with that, the year was over. There’s no division for this evening and there won’t be the usual big end-of-year statistics run-down that I've done in the past, but there is the little matter of the division for 2016.

Well done Katy and Adam. Well done everyone. Big thanks to Sam for hosting and feeding us all. A marvelous end to a splendid year (GNN-wise, that is.) See you in 2017!

At a table for one

This week, while several GNNers are off having a games festival in Ilfracombe, I was cat-sitting for Sam. This gave me a chance to try some of the single player versions of recent favourites.

I began on Friday evening with Viticulture. This game has been a big hit recently, but how would the game stand up away from the thrust and parry of real opponents?

Unfortunately, not too well. The method used to place your opponents workers is to draw a card at the start of summer or winter and place workers accordingly. Since the game uses a two-player set up this means certain spaces will be unavailable, unless you use your grande.

With these obstacles in the way, the game gives you seven rounds to beat twenty points. I managed it (got to twenty-five) but it didn’t feel that satisfying. It lacked a certain something.

Then on Saturday morning, I broke out Caverna. Recently, this has been the go-to game for Agricola-style worker placement since it avoids the most stressful part of Agricola, trying to feed your family.

Well, in the single player game, that part is back: every round after round five is a harvest! This can cause some serious issues with AP.

Also, and this is the clever bit, when a space has six resources on it, it will reset at the start of the next round. When I read that rule I thought, fair enough, I’ll just wait until it is full and then take it. The trouble is, by that time, I had other plans in motion and the idea of using a go just to pick up lots of stuff seemed like a waste.

The cards for the later rounds are always in the same order, so the game can play out the same way each time, if you do the same things. I got to 59, but the rules suggest that 100 is possible. I’d love to know how. Anyway, this is an excellent version of Caverna and one that really captures what’s so good about the main game.

My board at the end of the game

Finally, on Saturday evening, I went the full Matt Damon and played Terraforming Mars. Now, this must be mankind’s second attempt at colonising the red planet, because the game begins with two cities and two bits of greenery already on the board. After that, you have 14 rounds to achieve all three game-ending criteria.

Blimey. 45 credits and +/-2 on criteria

I enjoyed it, but found my progress rather slow. When round fourteen was over, I’d barely got halfway to each of the end-game targets. Perhaps I haven’t played it enough to know how the cards work together, but it seems like a tough assignment to beat.

Let's science the shit out of this!

It's all getting a bit I'm The Boss

Plenty of production power

But not enough time to make it pay.

So, anyway, that was my weekend. Disappointed by Viticulture, delighted by Caverna and still undecided on Terraforming Mars.

And that's how you play Viticulture

Thursday evening at my house is a pretty regular thing, and normally it's just myself, Andrew and Ian. We stopped bothering everyone else as they all appear to have other things going on. But as Adam had recently contacted me about his gaming yearnings, I let him know it was on, just in case - and he turned up! How we warmly embraced him upon arrival! How we wished he'd stayed home just an hour or so later!

Adam hadn't seen the games cupboard/wall in a good while and was suitably impressed/unnerved. There were many games there he hadn't played, but with Andrew and I hankering mildly for Viticulture (Ian was absent), Adam was more than amenable.

And he was all yellow

"Nothing happens for the first hour" I pontificated sagely. "And then it all speeds up at the end"

Forty-five minutes later, Adam had established a ten point lead, and was surging toward the finish line. Andrew and I were having Cheltenham Road flashbacks, to the time when GNN was nearly renamed Adam Wins News, so regularly did he trounce us at everything we played. The two of us had started in a kind of knuckle-cracking, couple-of-press-ups fashion as we shook off the cobwebs of the day: not so much putting our ducks in a row, as noticing that we had ducks and going "Ooooh! ducks!". We'd forgotten that Adam is not a man to stand around idly admiring poultry, and by the end of the first year he had planted grapes, harvested them, and was eyeing up a growing stack of orders in his hand. I'd sown a single field, sold another, and Andrew was preparing to show round a bunch of visitors.

Hillmannnnnnn!!!

I would like to add here for the record that we did help Adam in the early stages: suggesting what cards to begin with, to take that extra worker, and so on. We were marking out our own graves! The creeping custard had slid into the house at half eight - by the time we'd warmly embraced, opened our brews, explained Viticulture, played Viticulture and packed Viticulture away in a stunned daze, it was a night-is-young ten past ten.

How does he do it?

"How do you do it?" Andrew asked him. Adam said he tried to only ever take an option on the board if he got the bonus with it. Can it really be that simple? I hope not. I'd be disappointed in both the game, and Adam. 

Adam 21
Andrew  15
Sam 12

So we played Cosmic Run. This is mine and Andrew's new favorite filler: a race for points as meteors barrel their way past you and you befriend and exploit mathematically-minded aliens. Andrew went the card route; regularly picking up little helpers. I ignored them until the end, trying to force the pace by racing up the planet tracks. Adam did a little of both... it was tight in the end, so tight that Andrew realized if he'd played his last turn differently he would have won by at least 4 points. But he didn't!

Sam 59
Andrew 58
Adam 48

Adam still had half a glass of wine, so I suggested the ten-minute game of predation: Om Nom Nom. But by the time I'd explained the rules - which took about 30 seconds - I realized I was too tired to play. We called it a night. Great to have the slinking tapioca back at the table!

Cosmic Man

Tonight's blog title is named for Andrew, who so nearly pulled off a hat-trick off impressive wins.

We began with Cosmic Run, designed by Biblios Man Steve Finn. Unlike the GNN favourite filler, there's no hidden knowledge here, and - as yet- no shit-eating. But there's a fair bit of luck-pushing, as everyone tries to push their ships up 5 planet tracks before the planets themselves get blown apart by meteors.

Mix in some tech and alien abilities and it might sound like it's getting complicated, but it was actually super-simple. It was also fast, furious, and fun, and Andrew claimed his first victory of the evening, managing to twice get himself up the track on the hard-to-please number 5 planet by rolling five of a kind:

Andrew 61
Sam 60
Ian 38

There was some crazy talk of playing Railways before we settled on the equally-crazy Viticulture, the crazy game of high-tension booze production. Everyone sold a field! We began playing to the manner born, but although Ian's winery attracted many visitors, they pissed on the presses and puked in the cellar. No engine-building for you, as the boardgame nazi might say.

Whilst I built a small but diligently productive winery, Andrew concentrated on filling some big orders. In the end, they took him to a superlative victory as he obliterated the scoreboard on a high-drama final round:

Andrew 26
Sam 25
Ian 6

We finished with Push It. Could Andrew make it a clean sweep? It was a close game, with the scores at 9-9-8 at one stage - but ultimately, no:

Sam 11
Ian 10
Andrew 8

That was that!

In Vino Veritas

This week’s GNN was another slimline affair. Just five regulars huddled around Sam’s kitchen table, eager for their fix of gaming crack. We were, in total, Sam, Andy, Ian, Ben and myself.

After a brief opener where we (Sam, Ben and me) entertained Sam’s kids (Joe and Stanley) with a rousing game of Paraoh Gulo Gulo. The kid’s had a clear advantage with their little fingers expertly plucking the spheres from the bowl, but it was Ben who timed his game to perfection. He burst into the mummy’s lair after Stanley had opened it and Sam had failed, and successfully overcame the mummy’s curse. It wasn’t leaderboard, though. I didn’t even note down the positions of the other players. Also, we learnt that we’d got some rules wrong on the mummy’s movement. Oh wells.

After this we thought about the next game of choice. Glen More was considered, since Andy had played it on an app and so he kind of knew the rules. But we were also drawn to Viticulture. Andy looked at the time needed on the side of the box and optimistically said “We can probably play both!” And so Viticulture was chosen.

The game was laid out and explained to newbies Andy and Ben. They seemed to get the gist of it pretty quickly.

The usual pattern of slow start rising to tense climax was repeated here. In fact, Sam was still on zero points after one hour of play. Ben had taken a hefty hit early on, sacrificing three victory points for a stash of money. He then played a series of cards, giving us the chance to take advantage of certain opportunities to do things for cheap, in an exchange for a victory point for Ben. Before we knew it, he was out in first.

Ian horded wine and looked like any second now he would unleash a series of orders. He also kept taking the bonus spaces for actions, and then not using the bonus taking great delight in ruining it for the other players.

The risk of cards being too powerful was counterbalanced by everyone using lots of cards. So we all raced down the score track (even Sam, eventually) pretty much neck and neck for most of the game. In the end, it looked like it was either me or Ian who’d hit 20 points, since I was only three points away and Ian had a cellar full of excellent wines to sell, but in the end Sam snuck through the pack to trigger the end of the game with him in first place.

Sam 20
Andrew 19
Andy 18
Ben 17
Ian 15

After this two and a bit hour epic, we decided to end on something a little less substantial. Any thought of trying Glen More was forgotten about and instead Dice Heist was chosen, with Ben saying his goodbyes and going for his bus.

This game of art theft is a lovely slice of push your luck. The poor old Hermitage was a favourite target. I suppose they can’t afford decent security because they keep having to buy new exhibits. Andy picked up the Mona Lisa early, and after that was in pole position for paintings. Ian and Sam managed to tie for last place in paintings and so were both hit by the –4 point punishment.

Andy 22
Andrew 15
Ian 15
Sam 10

And with that, we were done. Thanks to Sam for hosting at the last minute and thanks to everyone for another great night.

I lead the division without having won a single game! Some form of history is being made here, surely. Points ratio and medal table stays the same.

Delicate Riffles

This Saturday, Sam said Chris would be in town so I agreed to meet up for an evening games session. During the day, however, the weather was terrible and I had started to regret my choice. Luckily, God loves games and just minutes before I was due to leave, the wind and driving rain were replaced by something more welcoming.

When I arrived, Ian was there too, setting up Riff Raff. Chris wasn’t there, so we decided to start playing and he would be bound to turn up. Seconds later, he arrived.

It was a longish game of Riff Raff, with all of us picking up fallen items at one point. Sam’s revolutionary tactic of hanging the sailor off a yardarm by his other arm worked a treat and he stayed there for the rest of the game, but it was Chris who got all his items aboard first.

Chris 0
Andrew 1
Ian 5
Sam 5

Then we discussed which game to play as our main event. We all stood in front of Sam’s games wall, slightly pulling out games that we were considering and then pushing them back when we decided against them. Viticulture won the debate, and so it was brought to the table.

Sam’s record on this game is not great. Apart from a second place, he’s suffered a couple of heavy last places. It seemed like this time he was determined not to let the same thing happen again.

The first time he’d played Viticulture, he’d tried selling a field for money, but found it held him back. He tried the same tactic again (even having two field sold at one point), but with far better results using the money to train more workers and build more buildings. In fact, so invested was he in the world of wine-making that he finished off a bottle of the stuff almost single handed.

Sam's early lead

The rest of us trailed Sam for most of the game. I simply never got going, with few workers and an empty field that I should have sold. A recurring theme was, whenever someone played a card, the other three would jokingly complain how unbalanced the cards were. This may be true, but I think all four of us relied on the cards a lot.

As the game reached its closing stages, Chris suddenly broke away from the trailing pack, completing a number of orders to put last minute pressure on Sam. He couldn’t quite manage it, though.

Sam 23
Chris 22
Ian 17
Andrew 13

By now it was 9.40, and we were in the mood for some lighter games. Poison was chosen first, as a welcome blast from the past. Chris explained how he was trying to perfect a new riffle shuffle technique. This “delicate riffle,” as he called it, didn’t put so much strain on the cards by bending them. Such commitment to gaming left Ian and I speechless.

During the game, Sam’s King Creosote playlist took a turn for the ambient. At first, I fell into a Celtic reverie, babbling about old fishermen with beards and calloused hands appearing through the mist. Then, as the ambiance became more electro, it felt like an episode of Wallander where the angst-ridden detective had taken a day off to play his favourite Reiner Knizia game.

The classic opening gambit

I can’t remember if Poison is supposed to be a raucous knock-about game or not, but we played one round in almost complete silence.

Sam 12
Andrew 24
Chris 31
Ian 36

Next up was Love Letter. “Ian always wins Love Letter,” Sam declared, trying to curse Ian into losing. It didn’t seem to work initially, as Ian won the first round with a shitty Baron.

The music was changed to prog rock bands. Sam, Sally (in the background, doing domestic things) and myself contributed some lovely three part harmonies on the first chorus of “More Than A Feeling.” I briefly regretted not wearing a jacket so I could roll the sleeves up, especially when the playlist (via Phil Collins) morphed into the soundtrack from Miami Vice.

As for the game, despite Ian being dubbed “the Tony Pulis of Love Letter,” he couldn’t replicate his usual form. It was another win for Sam.

Sam 3
Ian 2
Andrew 1
Chris 0

Finally, we knocked off a couple of games of Push It. First to seven, Chris lead from the start:

Chris 7
Sam 5
Ian 3
Andrew 3

And then first to five. I got to four points quickly and then suffered some yips as everyone closed the gap. I had just enough gaming gas left in the tank, though. It helped that the puck was knocked over in my direction on the last round.

Andrew 5
Sam 4
Chris 2
Ian 1

Games were played, drinks were drunk. Now all that was left was for the way home to be wended.