City of Games!

This weekend is the City of Games convention here in Bristol which Stan and I attended, ostensibly to promote gamesnightguru, but in the main, it transpired, to play games ourselves.

I spent Friday night exploring Quebec, which is an interesting tactical game where every decision affects another decision. The theme is about the building of the city over four centuries, but the interesting decisions are slightly compromised by fiddly iconography and a fairly messy board. All the same, I'd be interested to try it with other human beings.

On Saturday Stan and I arrived the Futures Inn for City of Games about midday and, having nervously dropped some leaflets on a couple of tables, set about playing our first game - Raiders of the North Sea. This is twist on worker placement where having placed a worker, you also remove one from the board and activate that as well. There are also a hierarchy of viking types which come into play too. I was looking strong mid-game, but needless to say, Stan overhauled me.

We blasted through some games of Crokinole and Klask - a crazed two-player mash-up of hockey and magnets...

and then sat down with Wibbell designer Bez for a quick game of Grabbell, followed by another quick game of a prototype called Kitty Cataclysm. I'm not sure how much one should share about prototypes online but suffice to say it was a very Bez-ish fun, fast-moving filler. With puns.

I was eager to try out Quadropolis and Stan indulged me. The look of the game has never really appealed to me - pastelly tiles with comic-style drawings - but always seeing it in the shops made me think it'd be good to get it on the Guru website, at least. It's a fast-moving game too, where over four turns in four rounds you grab tiles from a central board and use them to build on your own. How the tiles interact and activate scores points, not massively unlike some other games, but the catch here is your four architects dictate both what you can have, and where they can go.

I enjoyed well enough - more than Stanley in fact - but although the puzzle element is fun, the look and slightly abstracted-Machi-Koro feel of it all didn't blow our minds. Maybe playing it knowing the scoring system would have helped though, but by the time I reached end-game scoring in the rule-book we were both reaching glazing point.

A few more games of Crokinole and Klask and we called it a day at the City of Games... although as it was a Saturday night, there were more games to be had at home. Andrew now takes up the baton of narrator...

At eight o’clock, Sam, me, Chris and Katy converged on Sam’s kitchen for a weekend dose of games. At first, it was the three boys, with Katy expected in fifteen minutes. For a few seconds we considered having a “conversation” until she arrived. And then, once the laughter had died down, we played Wibbel.

The game veered from unnecessarily long words to short, sharp terms of abuse as we swiftly sped through the deck. Luckily we were done and dusted by the time Katy got here so she didn’t have to see our reliance of body-parts vocabulary to get us across the finish line.

Sam 19

Chris 18

Andrew 11

After this, the four of us stared at the wall of games in Sam’s living room, eventually choosing Queendomino. This reworked version of Kingdomino comes with a few extra choices which, apparently, means it needs a much bigger box.

The core of the game is the same: make a 5x5 grid of tiles, trying to score for contiguous landscapes. Yes, I said contiguous. In Queendomino, you also get to build towers and end-of-game-scoring tiles or do a bit of taxing too, using the teeny tiny knights.

It was okay. A nice diversion. At the end I jokingly said “I reckon I’ve won that,” and it turned out I had.

After that we chose Rajas of the Ganges. While Sam set it up, Katy and I stood outside for a bit, enjoying the night air and being appalled by the student neighbours who played that “Dancin’ in the Moonlight”* song by Toploader twice in a row. Shocking behaviour.

As for the Rajas of the Ganges, I found that my previous game when I played as blue had completely rewired my brain. Or maybe it was the night air. Either way, I kept moving Katy’s blue pieces instead of my own red ones.

My initial feelings of sympathy towards Katy and Chris for going up against two old hands were quickly replaced by a sinking feeling as my dice-rich approach got very few points on the board early on. Chris got his markets going early on and sped off up the river, with the rest of us close behind. Katy went for fame points in a big way, getting her fame point marker halfway along the third side of the scoretrack. Sam went for money and by the end, his money marker was almost on the home straight. 

It was an unconventional game, which is good since it shows there are still avenues to be explored here. I actually finished the river, which was a first for me. I kind of regretted doing it so soon, since that now meant I had one less option. It felt very different with four players. In a good way.

Katy won!

Chris second, but only just

Sam third, but only just

Andrew fourth, by miles

After that, we ended with Push It. I sent the jack off the table early on (caught by Katy before it hit the floor) putting me into negative points, and I never recovered. 

Sam 7

Chris 6

Katy 6

Andrew 0

Chris and I reached for our coats with indecent haste after this, leaving a bemused Katy plaintively suggesting Hit Z Road to a reply of arms through sleeves and scarves round necks.

A lovely evening. Thanks all. Cheers!

* I don’t actually know if the song title drops the “g” off the end of “dancing” but it’s so bad, that I expect it does.

*

It wasn't quite the end of the evening for me (Sam) though, as the rowdy neighbours were only getting louder and after the abortive texting I went around and hammered on the door like the proverbial suburban Meldrew, telling them it was nearly midnight and they had to bloody well pipe down. ...I'm not sure that's exactly how the conversation went, but certainly my many previous polite texts had used up my patience. They gave up singing some kind of demented barbershop chorus as a result, and went out. 

As a result of the booze and the games and the slightly gritted-teeth exchange, I was a bit fuzzy on Sunday morning when Stan and I made our way into town by bike. We began with breakfast and then decided, with similar reasoning to Quadropolis for me, and more enthusiasm from Stan, to try out Dice Forge.

This was actually rather fun: a simple dice-roller where your round by round choice is to upgrade your dice, or 'perform heroic quests' - buy cards. Cards can be helpful in-game and/or bring you victory points. We ended up playing three times during the day, and enjoyed them all; with the caveat of slightly fiddly pack-away and the potential for luck to undo your whole game: both Stan and I had times where all our upgraded dice were still rolling the un-upgraded sides, which was a bit frustrating. But the game is so brief it wasn't too upsetting. 

We bashed out another few games with Bez as well - another prototype that crossed Wibbell with Dobble to good effect, albeit I'm terrible at those games and Bez' mate Jake wiped the floor with us. 

After lunch we tried out Kitchen Rush, a real-time co-operative game of running a restaurant. In each of four rounds you place workers to carry out tasks, with the catch being each worker is a timer, and the task is not complete until 30 seconds are up. You can plan as much as you like, but once the round begins you have exactly four minutes - to bring in customers, take orders, prep food and cook it and add spice and buy more food and even wash the dishes. At the end of each round all your workers must be paid as well. 

It was... interesting. I can imagine it being fun at the right time - maybe after everyone's just had their third coffee. There was genuine stress in trying to manage everything and several times we - or I - got recipes wrong. We did win, but only by cheating both inadvertently and slightly-on-purpose. That was the easy version! Quite a mad one and despite the unique feel I'm not sure anyone at GNN would be keen on playing it more than once - it's like playing 8 overlapping games of FUSE. 

After playing EXIT last week (thanks Martin!) Stan was keen to try another Unlock escapade, so we blasted through the Haunted House adventure, where you have to rescue some lost kids.  If you can call me feeling increasingly tired and exasperated 'blasting'. The final puzzle we had to completely give up on. Oh well, it was probably bloody students again*

We hung around for a while hoping to win a basket of games, but didn't get our number come up in the raffle. I was hoping having the very first ticket might be rewarded, but there are no early bird rewards in probability. After some Looping Chewie, another game of Crokinole, and our third and final visit to the Dice Forge, we called it a weekend.

A very fun weekend too. It seemed like City of Games was a big success too, which is a credit to Frank West who not only organised the whole shebang but supplied his not-inconsiderable games library for people to use. Some of it was on the floor at the end! But then, so was I...

* swore about 25 years I would never say this except ironically 

Bishop!

An unusual Wednesday night games occurrence occurred as Andrew, Ian and I all found ourselves free, and chomping at the bit for some more Christmas gaming - Andrew and I especially, having been unable to attend the official GNN last night.

So it was we converged at my table with the pre-agreed Rajas of the Ganges set up. Initially, it must be said it looks like someone ate a Hawaiian pizza and threw up on some Christmas lights, but as previously touched on, the game at heart is quite simple - it's a race to push your cash income one way and your glory another, until the twain meet.

Everything else is about maximising that engine: keeping the dice rolling in, so you can roll 'em back out again, getting money for markets, glory for buildings, and lots of other glorious shit inbetween. Ian rinsed us, having chained together a bunch of spice markets and scored a whole load of buildings. Despite my late-game surge of ten - ten! - points along the glory track, when Ian ended it neither Andrew nor I had managed to get our markers in kissing distance.

That most Euro-y of Euros packed away, we played another new game: The Godfather: A New Don, which we couldn't work out was meant to be a pun on a new dawn or not, but for some reason Andrew insisted we all use Australian accents.

It's a little like Las Vegas and a little like something more directly interactive. Players are one of the families in the 1950's hoping to become the dominant force in New York. You place soldiers in the various New York districts to score points at the end of the game for controlling/nearly controlling/nearly nearly controlling a district, but in order to get a soldier in there you need to spend dice. So dice are handy, but in each round one player is the current Godfather, and they take dice (or offers) off the other players. If you want to be Godfather yourself, you need to work your way up the muscle track, which takes... dice. There are also dice to be won at Las Vegas if you feel lucky.

It all made for a feisty, spicy affair, as being ahead on the muscle track also allows you to eject other players from districts you fancy having yourself. The game end is triggered when either a district is full or a player runs out of soldiers, then it's all about majorities.

As it turned out, Ian was the new don, as his points scored for soldiers left-in-hand pushed him ahead of me on the score track - a crushing twist, as I'd deliberately spent soldiers in order to trigger the end of the game!

We moved on to Phrasell, one of the games from the Wibbell++ deck which I have long wanted to play, and Andrew rated as one of his games of the year.

It's all about coming with an appropriate phrase for a randomly-chosen subject, which officially plays 5 players or more but we thought we'd have a crack at anyway. And it was funny, not least in part due to the difficulty of coming up with a phrase that made any kind of sense. Andrew's Someone Call Nurse Fatima had no relevance to the subject, but he won the round anyway. It's that kind of game.

Overall though, it was yet another win for Ian, who was on a roll. Maybe because Andrew and I were clearly drunk at this point; I'm not sure. I can't remember if Ian was.

Sticking with the Wibbell++ deck, we bashed out the game Andrew and I created with Scrabble tiles some 25 years ago - Hypothetickell. In this game you add a letter to an ever-extending chain of letters, but you must (unless you're bluffing) have a word in mind that has the current letters in it, in the current order (though there can be any number of letters before/after/between them). I don't know who won but we played a couple of rounds before Andrew remarked that if we add it to Games Night Guru we'll have to say there is a shitload of AP. Good fun though.

My word was locksmithing. Andrew added the S as a bluff

And we rounded off the evening with Love Letter - a GNN mainstay and classic. Countless times we've played it and countless times Ian has won. But not tonight. Tonight was Andrew's turn; a win richly deserved if only for the fact he was drunk enough to ask me if I had a Bishop, and I was drunk enough to reply "No". While Ian merely blinked, before we collectively recalled there are no Bishops in Love Letter.

Andrew 3
Sam 2
Ian 1

Thanks guys, a great bunch of games and a lot of fun!

Played in Wales

A week in Wales with Mark, Katie, and the four sprogs meant that as well as the beach, chips and ice cream, we got plenty of gaming time as well. I took a couple of bags worth and all but three got played at some stage. Daytimes were often taken up with surfing...

Joe gets a push from Mark

...whereas the night - or the odd patch of rain - was about gaming. The hit of the week with Stanley and Peppa was Ninjato. I touched on this previously, but have since delved further into its depths with another four plays this week. I remain utterly terrible at it, whilst Stan won every time, to mine and Peppa's growing despair. It's fun calling Banzai, though the more I play the less 'lucky' the game feels - it's a tactical battle to keep control of Envoys and start rumours, which are as pertinent here as the cards in Stone Age.

Four skills, but I got nowhere

The early evenings were dominated by Insider, which everyone could and did get involved with. We played too many of these to count, but I was the Insider only once and every other player accused me! The successful Insiders, I noticed, didn't get too vociferous about accusing anyone. Sally was a terrible Insider too, but that was only because as soon as anyone accused her she hid her face in her hands. Mark, Katie and Peppa had the most success, whilst I offset my serial defeats with the joy to be found in the natural world outside:

that black thing is a bottle-nosed dolphin!

The other game that all the kids played was In a Bind - this was the Junior version, where there is marginally less physical challenge but the addition of making animal noises/waving/talking in a deep voice etc when you pick up a card. This is more fun than it might sound after a couple of glasses of the good stuff, but obviously the kids played it sober and seemed to like it too.

Peppa and Joe drew

Peppa, Stan and I also had a few goes at Cobras, which is another one I enjoy without ever getting close to winning. The closest I got was second place with game abandoned due to the late hour and surfing fatigue. I have never been so reluctant to bail on a game!

We managed one game of Near and Far, which my win at made some amends for continual thrashings on the Ninjato board. Mine and Stan's campaign game continues with me holding a slender lead overall...

Peppa and Stanley, both Near

...often the evenings had some kind of dance focus though, with Just Dance 2017 on the Nintendo galvanising all ages - with the exception of Joe - onto the floor. I have promised not to add any photos or videos of this, though, and considering some of them involve a balding tubster with no sense of rhythm, I'm happy to stick to that.

After kids had been scrambled to bed, we struck upon a pattern of Barenpark and Bandu. I had far more success in these arenas than I did Ninja-ing, Cobra-ing or Dancing, although Mark picked up a couple of wins in Barenpark. Tessellating bear houses was Katie's game of the week; in fact, although we also bashed out Wibbell and Honshu as well, Barenpark and Bandu were the nightly staples. Bandu got typically tense, and everyone had to perfect their 'Bandu Breath' - breathing off to one side so as not to disturb the fragile structures on the table...

Katie, breathing east

Late in the week though I thought it was worth introducing Mark to Flamme Rouge, which he fell in love with. It was a drunken Thursday night with everyone else in bed when we played three games in a row, Mark winning 2-1 with a deathly finish on the final race to clinch it!

This tablecloth did my nut in all week

We tried to introduce Katie to this cycling classic on our last night, but she felt she had done enough rule-learning for one week. So we stuck with Barenpark and Bandu, and when the ladies retired to bed Mark and I set up Flamme Rouge for one last race/game of the week; which Mark won, again on the final stretch!

We returned - heavy legged from the beach and heavy headed from margaritas, but sated. A lot of fun - Can't wait for Novocon now!

When Ben Rode the Snail

Tuesday, and despite a flurry of last-minute drop outs, there were still seven of us gathered around my kitchen table - Ian, Martin, Laura, Chris, Andrew, myself and long-time absentee Ben, who hadn't been seen in these here parts for a good half a year. Welcome back Ben!

We began the evening with a rousing game of Fuji Flush. This game's potential for volume is now nearing Hugo-like proportions, as the table regularly erupted in joy or dismay - but most often dismay. Andrew and Martin were down to their final card first, only for Laura, Ian and I to join them. Laura had the misfortune to pick up cards valued no higher than 4 though, which meant she kept going bust. My cards weren't much better. And fate was sealed when the Endersby/Griffith pair combined to win the game together:

Andrew/Martin 0 cards left
Ian/Laura/Sam 1 card left
Ben/Chris 3 cards left

With that appetiser out of the way, we moved on to the main courses of the evening. Ian seemed curious enough about Near and Far that we thought it worth recruiting another player, and Ben joined us at one end of the table as the other four played the barrel-rolling game that is Polterfass. I didn't see much of this, but I did hear that at one point Martin drank 46 beers. Really, the game should be called something else. It wasn't enough to out-booze Laura, either:

Laura 77
Martin 62
Chris 38
Andrew 6

 Nefertiti

They then set about haggling over presents for Nefertiti, whilst we continued adventuring in Near and Far. As explained in the previous post, there's a strong story element to the game, but the gist of it is that you're gathering adventurers to go off together and adventure, with the not-totally-hidden agenda of getting your camps down before anyone else - competitive tent-pitching, in a way. We don't mind bumping into each other on the road but if it happens in town, we have a duel, as appearances must be kept up.

Near and Far

Certain spots on the board trigger story elements where one reads out a passage from a book and something happens - or, as occurred to us, nothing happens. At least that was how the early stages went. Then Ben rescued a lady from a cage, and rode a giant snail. But his rewards were a phobia of caves and sores on his backside.

As you travel about you're gathering coins and gems - how many depends on how attentive your crew is - and spending them to purchase artefacts. Your crew can also help you fight and negotiate hazards. But somewhat perversely the adventurers don't like sharing space with other adventurers from their own faction, so there's a bit of personnel juggling at play.

Ian at the saloon

Over in ancient Egypt, they came to the end of Nefertiti before we finished Near and Far, and Chris won the Pharaoh's favour, despite buying the titular character a bunch of chairs - much to Martin's disdain:

Chriss 113
Andrew 89
Martin 88
Laura 84

They moved onto the trick-taker of the moment, Cobras, whilst we surged toward the end of our adventuring. It was a close-run thing, but in the end Ian won on his debut, whilst Ben was left to rue his decision to ride the snail:

Ian 68
Sam 65
Ben 54

Cobras was still in full swing, so Ben called it a night and Ian and I bashed out a couple of quick games in NMBR9 - the nines came out right at the end!

Sam 93
Ian 90

And 303, the Battle of Britain-themed bunfight in the air. Ian's job as the Luftwaffe was to reach London with his bomber, while my fighters tried to stop him. The Luftwaffe has fighters as well, but they are trying to shepherd the bomber forward and keep it from being attacked.

Ian attacks

It's a quite luck-heavy game (dice-rolling decides hits) but very-fast moving. Fortunately for London - and the world - I managed to blow up the bomber on round five:

Allies win
Nazis are defeated

By now they were scoring Cobras, and although Andrew had emerged the victor, every single one them broke the hundred mark!

Andrew 132
Martin 127
Laura 103
Chris 100

We polished off the evening with a game of Wibbell, notable in the main for Martin's alacrity of thought and Chris' silence until the last few rounds, where he suddenly burst into life and shouted out "Zither!" Or maybe that was Andrew. I don't remember now. I do recall shouting out "Moustachioed!" only to be beaten to the punch. If only I'd gone for Pistachio instead.

Martin 14
Sam 12
Andrew 8
Laura 6
Chris/Ian 4 each

It's a great game, Wibbell, but surprisingly tense. Possibly better as an evening-starter rather than an evening-ender? I was energised by it, but with the clock approaching 11, it was time to say goodnight.

Times of Crises

Thursday, and with a ring of the bell there appeared three hearty gamers at the door - Andrew, Ian and Joe. Joe had already warned me he would be canvassing to play Time of Crisis, the involved game of a struggle for power in ancient Rome - and Europe - and I had warned Joe that on Thursday we usually avoid evening eaters.

However, whatever he said whilst I was wrangling the boys to bed clearly did the trick, as I returned to find the game in mid set-up, and it seemed churlish to try and veto it at this point. So on we went.

The idea is that all the players are Roman families, advancing their cause throughout Europe and at some point - though neither Ian nor I managed it - rising to become Emperor. How this is achieved is by card drafting in the manner of Dominion; accruing more valuable cards for bigger heft on the board. They key difference though is that rather than dealing yourself a hand, you choose from your available cards, so it's balance between cherry-picking what you need right now and not leaving yourself with a cack hand in the next turn.

Early doors

The cards come in three currencies that help with military might, political advancement, and populist buildings that stop the plebs/barbarians getting out of hand. At the start of each round there's a crisis roll that might see some barbarians invade, or may flip over an event card - which, much like events in life, might be good or bad.

It's a very clever game, but I didn't find it massively intuitive. It makes more sense than, say, Scythe, with it's picky mechs, but the systems at work are less friendly and there's more to juggle in your head. More than once I thought I'd covered what I needed in my hand only to realise I hadn't. But in fairness that's a purely subjective thing, as managing three streams of advancements seemed to be beyond me.

Andrew was first to deal with the barbarians, and Ian was first to attack - me, as it happens, as the game started to show its true colours. It pays to be aggressive here, and as Joe said later, outside of Quantum aggression is not a regular GNN theme.

Naughty Sassanids

Halfway through the game Andrew ascended to the throne - or whatever Emperors sit on - and reigned supreme for about three rounds until Joe voted him out. Meanwhile Ian sent his armies abroad to fight the barbarians and pick up points for doing so. I hummed and hawed around the edges, staring at my cards in the mystified way the cargo tribe once pointed at aeroplanes.

Andrew as emperor, before the dreaded vote

We decided to play to 40 points, rather than the regulation 60, but it still took nearly three and a half hours, by which time I have to say any inclination to ever play it again had pretty much evaporated for me. This sense of frustration was cemented in the final round when crappy dice rolls meant instead of picking up 4 points for battle, I collected none at all, and I was plenty churlish at this point.

But I was in the minority, with Andrew and Ian saying they'd play it again and Joe announcing that he really loved it.

Joe 43 (wins on tie-breaker)
Andrew 43
Ian 41
Sam 36

I'm glad I tried it though, if only to confirm my suspicion that I'm not a GMT player. They are long and involved and I think I'm basically too dim to wring any fun out of them. When everyone else was talking about a barbarian raid at one point, I felt like I was listening to a foreign language, I was so far behind on the cognisance of what was actually going on.

Fortunately for me, everyone agreed to bash out a quick game of Wibbell afterwards. This is a deck of cards that comes with three games, but Wibbell is the headliner, so to speak, and we had a four-player before Joe had to dash off, then a three-player afterwards.

Funtime!

Each card in a deck shows two letters, and when two cards are flipped, the first person to say a word that contains at least one letter on each card (order isn't important) gets one of the cards to themselves. A new card is flipped to make a pair again, and the challenge repeats - but, anyone who has a card (or cards) in front of them must include a letter (or letters) from each of their claimed cards as well. Which means whoever has the most cards has more of a challenge to get to a word, supplying an in-built catch-up mechanism.

It was fun! We all liked this one. I look forward to trying the other games in the deck as well.

Thanks everyone - it was educational!