Space Arseholes

A very sparse Tuesday met with just three attendees last night: Ian, Martin and myself (Sam). Martin was first and complimented the new look kitchen, which will look even better once the huge radiator dominating the floor has gone. It's so big it feels like its presence is an extra person lying on the floor, in a cardboard coffin. While we waited for Ian we played a couple of rounds of Odin. 

Ian arrived with the score at 3-2 in his favour but I declined to award him victory, with plenty of time to recover had we kept playing. Instead we set up one of Martin's newbies, Up or Down. This is a game of building columns of cards that, like Lost Cities, may veer numerically up or down, but once you start in a direction you're committed to it. You can only ever have three columns, so if you're forced to take a card that won't fit into a set, you have to sacrifice a set of your choice and start over (although these discarded cards are worth a point each)

You have a hand of three cards and add to your set by playing into this central display, slotting your card into the place it would go in number order (above, for example, you could only play 66-68 between the 65 and 69) and then claiming one of the cards it's adjacent to. Then you replenish your hand with the top card from either deck: face-up or face-down. When the cards run out your columns score number of cards in them x most cards of a single colour. 

Because the numbers keep changing and you're watching both that wheel of possibilities and the sacrifices you're making in your columns, it's quite a thinky undertaking, albeit also ripe with dickishness, particularly at the end-game where everyone must play the cards from their hand too. Ian came out top, despite announcing his impending doom:

Ian 103

Martin 91

Sam 62

Then we moved on to a game deserving of its own curtain flourish and red carpet: Knizia's new space racer, Orbit. This only just launched on Kickstarter yesterday (along with two others by the doctor) but Martin had been gifted a preview copy. It's a bit like Powerships with more control over your own movement, but less of the environs, as the other players keep moving things just as you're about to reach them. 

The goal is to visit all the planets before returning to your own: first home is the winner. You have a hand of cards and on your turn you play one card and activate all the actions on it, in whatever order you choose. There's a number that moves your ship around the intersections of the grid, usually a planet to move along it's orbital path (the one card that doesn't move any planets changes the flips the direction of travel instead) and possibly extras like improving your hand size, improving your energy capacity (energy can be spent on additional movement) or replenishing up to your energy limit. 

As you barrel around space visiting planets, you keep progress on your player board. Knizia has also thrown in space stations that are dotted around the galaxy: ending your movement here grants you a bonus: the aforementioned upgrades/energy, hyperjump portal (jump to another hyperjump space) or hyper accelerator cannon (move as far as you want in any straight line). Additionally, if you're on a planet when it moves, you move with it.

Everyone can see everyone else's progress and play cards accordingly to push planets away from them, something we all fell foul of. Martin got off to a thrilling start but his seemingly unassailable lead turned out to be assailable as first I, then Ian, caught him up while he dawdled in deep space. All of us gave ourselves one planet remaining to visit, but despite having precious few upgrades, luck favoured me as hopped onto the purple planet on the way home to my own. A galaxy of space arseholes, this is Knizia at his most dickish.

Sam wins

Martin and Ian - lose

We moved back to Earth for Landmarks - a third new set of rules for Ian, although probably the easiest of the night. Despite the theme of exploring an island for treasure before seeking the exit, this is a word association game that plays a bit like So Clover on a map. One player knows the landscape of the island, which is made up of treasure, traps, curses (lose the game) an amulet (heals a curse) and water (replenish tiles) and must guide the others to treasure and then safety by writing words on tiles and hoping they'll place them where the clue-giver/navigator intended. 

Two curses or running out of tiles before finding the exit is a loss. In our first game I was the navigator and tried my best to guide Martin and Ian to first the treasure - success! - and then the exit - fail!

Navigator's secret map

Martin took over the navigator role for game 2 and was immediately frustrated by the game's occasional woolliness: oftentimes steering your team can feel like a lottery because a clue may clearly go with word x, but if word x has three open hexes next to it, the team has no idea which one you want them to go to. That had us all slightly baffled, although having played successfully with Sally the night before, I was more forgiving of the rough edges. Martin spent much of his navigator time with this expression:

But despite his chagrin, his stint as a navigator was a success - we only picked up two treasures but got off the island alive! And having escaped, we perused the shelves and Ian suggested Mille Fiori. 

I got off to a good start here, completing early bonuses to establish something like a thirty point lead. But as we all know, 30 points in Mille Fiori is nothing, and though I held them off as long as I could, both Ian and Martin overtook me. For a while we were bunched close together in most un-Fiori-like fashion, but when we hit the final round Martin pulled off some kind of bonus-triggering spell and moved just out of reach. With his final turn he built on that lead, with Ian taking the collateral as the side-points I scored from his turn pushed me into second by a wafer-thin margin:

Martin 199

Sam 180

Ian 179

It was getting late but there's always time for So Clover. Our first attempt was a triumph, with a rock-solid 18/18 just as Martin had predicted - and this was despite neither Ian nor I being sure who Boadicea was. I felt she was heroic, and Ian rightly felt the Romans were involved somehow. We nearly went wrong in multiple ways before we went right:

Thrilled with our eighteen, we played again. Instantly everyone was complaining about their words and Martin decried our decision "Never play again after an eighteen!" he wailed. We kicked off with a four, got another four, and decided we'd go for all fours. We got them! A triumph of sorts. 

That was it. Ian and Martin navigated their way past the sentient radiator and vanished into the night. 

Everyone meet in San Francisco

 The rain that had peppered Bristol’s streets faded away in the evening, allowing walkers and cyclists alike the chance to converge on Joe’s kitchen for another night of games.

Before I'd even arrived, I was informed of an early game between Joe and Sam of Crokinole which was won by Joe.

I had to take a detour to a pharmacy so my ETA went back to 8pm and when I finally arrived, they (Joe, Adam T, Sam, Martin and Ian) were just finishing a game of Money.

Martin won, top of a crazy spread of scores that left Joe bemused as to what exactly he did so wrong. 

Martin 840

Adam 510

Ian 280

Sam 210

Joe 40

We were currently a six and we were expecting Katy at 9, dashing over from her book club. What could we play in an hour? Around The World In 80 Days was mooted, but probably too long with six.

Instead, Ian,  Sam and Joe played Foundations of Metropolis. A game I still haven't played but looks like area-control mixed with tetris. 

Adam, Martin and I pretended to think about what to play but, with a copy of Impulse on the table, it was never in doubt. 

We set up with only the slimmest of rules refreshers needed. We began in quite a generous mood, I put a draw card on the “impulse” (the communal row of cards we can all use) that allowed us to all take more cards into our hands and this seemed to set a trend. Adam even checked the rules regarding whether a player can draw more cards if they're at the hand limit. 

Over on Foundation, Ian made some disparaging remark about Joe not having any money. Sam, meanwhile, cried out “tear down those schools!” with delight. In the end, Joe upends Ian’s dismissive attitude towards the poor with a win.

Joe 105

Sam 101

Ian 86

As for Impulse, we were pretty close together until Martin attacked Adam and landed on 12 points - the level from which he usually pushes on to the game-winning 20-point mark. I had to do something so, after Adam sadly defended himself against further attacks from me, I used up most of my cards and all of my plan in one big push for victory. I got as far as 16 before I stalled. Still, I told myself, if Martin doesn’t reach 20 points, I’m a certain winner!

What a delusional fool I was.

Martin 20

Andrew 16

Adam 7

Now Katy was here. I don’t remember if there was a slight staggering in the end of games or if fate just kept us in the same groups, but Katy joined Sam, Joe and Ian for a delightful romp of Around The World In 80 Days. Martin, Adam and I decided on another old familiar, San Francisco.

This meant that one group was playing a game in a location that appearing in the other group’s game. I don’t think that’s happened since Wallenstein and Castles of Burgundy were played on the same night.

In fact, we noticed that 80 Days contained a lot of locations with games named after them (London, Yokohama etc…). We considered a variant whereby landing in a location meant you had to all actually play that game. The longest board game in the world!

We started at about the same time, with Katy promising us that she’d let us know when they arrive in San Francisco.

As for the games, Joe spent 12 days going from Bombay to Calcutta on an express elephant. Ian, for the record, was first to get to San Francisco and the first to return to London. [spoilers for the original novel] And he didn’t even need the International Date Line quirk to succeed [/spoilers]

Ian 72

Katy 73

Joe 90

Sam stuck in New York

As for the real San Francisco, it was all about Martin. Whatever I tried, nothing seemed to stop him from picking up massively beneficial cards. He built skyscrapers, completed rows, got architect tokens. Adam and I were reduced to fighting over majority points for most workers in a row. My two skyscrapers at least stopped it looking like I hadn’t even tried.

Martin 16½

Adam 8

Andrew 7

At this point, not quite ten o'clock, I chose the sensible option and left. I missed the rousing finale of 80 Days but got the scores from Sam in a late night message.

Then I learnt about their two attempts at So Clover. The first ended 31/36 but was notable for Joe’s clue of Dildo for double/end as “it was the only thing I could think of with two ends.”

Then they tried again with 34/36! Oh, So Closver!

Thanks all. Special as always.

Key(s) to Victory

 A quartet of gamers congregated this evening at Joe’s. I was a little late and I found Joe, Sam and Martin deep in thought over a game of fiction. This plays the same as Wordle, except that one of the clues given is a lie. Therefore, the player(s) trying to guess the word also have to work out which of the clues in each guess isn’t true.

 

The game also comes with some nicely illustrated cards that contain sections from classic literature, such as Wizard of Oz, The Great Gatsby, etc. In these sections all the five letter words are highlighted, with those unique words picked out in yellow. I suppose knowing which novel a guess comes from might help the guessers?

Anyway, Sam and Joe eventually got the word, Swarm, having agonised over the ramifications of each clue being a potential lie.

As a foursome, we began with Agent Avenue or, as Joe called it, “A gent. A venue.” This takes the ancient mechanic of going in a circle, trying to catch your opponent, and adds some cunning double bluff as the distance that your “agents” move is decided which of two cards you pick up at the start of your turn. 

There are only two agents, so we played as teams. At the start of the round, the two players on a team chose a card from their hand. One is placed face up, the other face down. And then the other team chooses which card to take.

Do they take the safe option – the visible card? Or do they gamble on the hidden one that may send your agent many spaces forward or drag him back?

It was a lot of fun and it got pretty desperate towards the end when the draw pile ran out and we had to rely on those cards left in our hands.

But most fun was had from the unexpected innuendo as the two people on each party would ask each other if they wanted to go face up or face down. Oddly, it never stopped being funny, like extremely polite foreplay.

Andrew & Martin - Spycatchers!

Sam & Joe - face down in the gutter

Then we dug out Mille Fiori, an old familiar that we could set up and get going within seconds. I chose red instead of purple, somehow mistaking my usual favourite for blue. Not sure what happened.

By the end of round 1 Martin has chained together a bunch of keys for an extra go and a twenty point bonus such that the scores were Martin 57, Andrew 13, Sam 8, Joe 7. Surely it was done and dusted.

But then we whittled away his lead and I managed to chain together a 35 point move and squeezed a few points ahead of him! Maybe there was hope! 

Well, no. At least not for me. I was stuck with some dopey cards and I fell further and further back. Joe, meanwhile, shifted up a gear and in the fourth round - when Martin was starting player and theoretically had the biggest advantage - he was able to overtake us both. He was in the lead in round five, when he was starting player again. Could he make the advantage count?

Well, he didn’t have time to find out, as Martin got just the card he needed that scored big and put down his last two tiles for a win.

Martin 213

Joe 194

Sam 175

Andrew 158

Next up was Montage, the crossword game. Joe and I played against Martin and Sam. In this game allows a guess to stand if it fits in with the letters already on the board. For example, when Sam gave the clue “job” for a four letter space, I said “work” and Joe said “poop” and either would have been fine.

Joe and I started well and completed a “zone” (four zones for the win) but then Sam clued and Martin guessed their way through a storming run that saw them complete three zones in one turn and then, shortly after that, finish the fourth for the win.

Sam and Martin 4

Joe and Andrew 1

At this point I went home. The promise of So Clover couldn’t keep me - too many word games, even for me. But they played on without me, scoring 11/18 and then 18/18.

Thanks guys, see you soon.

Synonyms from the Stars

Just the four of us last night at Joe's - as well as the host it was Ian, Martin and myself (Sam) just mobile enough after an ankle sprain to make up the quartet. An unusually sparse evening kicked off with A Message From the Stars, new to me and to be frank even more bamboozling than I found Hooky. I'd read Andrew's report on Message but for whatever reason neither that nor Joe's careful explanation or Martin's interjections stopped me spending the game feeling like a doofus, which I was. 

Martin was an alien trying to clue us a desperate message (although in fact, only three words) and we had our words we needed to convey to him. But it's kind of two-games in one because as well as supplying synonyms and/or related words to the secret ones, we also have to deduce some letters behind the alien's board which have - unless I'm still confused - zero relationship to the words he's trying to make us guess. I think. 

our three words

The 'message' thing is by the by - perhaps that's what threw me - although it does stitch in a seam of comedy. Both sides clued semi-synonyms for their words on the first three rounds then threw in a bonus clue that confused everybody. Martin's 'Trump' we discovered seemed to dovetail with anything remotely negative: tiny, weak, arrogant. But despite this we decoded everything triumphantly, and moved on to Foundations of Metropolis. 

New to Joe and Ian but simple to teach: take cash, buy deeds, or build. But both the deed-buying and the building have a snarky interactive element, as you can cockblock your way around the board with the deeds (©Martin) and leach other's constructions with the civic buildings, which score points depending what they're built next to. Retail buildings score points just for existing and residential buildings provide another parasitic quirk: you score the position of the person ahead of you on the population track. 

Ian's early lead after round one was pegged back as we jostled for position, and my final turn in round two nabbed the population bonus to give me a narrow lead. But in round three Martin's decision to stop giving a shit about citizens and focus on banks proved 'constructive':

Martin 101

Sam 92

Ian 82

Joe 69

Martin suggested Gang of Dice and we all swiftly agreed. I elected to roll all my dice on the very first turn which Martin was appalled at, citing my blithe disregard for probabilities. He was right and Ian won. In fact Ian seemed to win most of the rounds, although Joe popped up now and again to maintain the illusion Ian might possibly not be the victor. 

I kept rolling with an idiotic optimism that did at one point pay off, when I needed to not roll any odd numbers came up with 4-4-2-2 on my final attempt. A stopped clock and all that. 

However Martin's more scientific - or less moronic - approach wasn't serving him well either: he picked up a single win when the rest of us busted. And when he finally ignored his head and went with his gut, that let him down too. Ian picked us off like dice-rolling fish in a casino barrel.

Ian 101

Joe 55

Sam 6

Martin 0

My foot was telling me to go home but I stayed for a quick bash at So Clover, although all of us were stumped by our combos initially. I think Ian was first to finish and we deduced his words with relative ease before stumbling on my clover (Electric/Demon: I'm sure there's a better clue than Lightning but I couldn't think of it). 

I didn't take any photos, sadly, but we managed 22/24 with just my clover falling at the deduction hurdle. It was 10.40 though and pumpkin time for me - I hobbled off whilst they played another So Clover, with a not-dissimilar result after Joe's clue of sharpen for cactus/file a particular highlight. Martin's clover was apparently the shortfall this time, with a lot of possible solutions, but overall a solid 16/18 regardless.

And that was apparently that. 

Blue Steel

You would think, after over ten years of gaming and blogging, that I would have seen everything related to board games. Amazing comebacks, games where everyone was beaten by our resident dummy player Dirk, absurd dice roles that rewrite the laws of probability. But tonight saw something new: for the first time, I left a games night without seeing the end of a single game.

It started normally enough, once you adjust the definition of “normal” to allow for the presence of Katy. There were seven of us: Sam (host), Adam T, Adam H, Joe, Katy, Ian and me. Katy came in and sat down, pulled a roll of toilet paper out of her bag and asked if she could swap it for one of Sam’s. The air of general bemusement wasn’t really cleared by Katy’s explanation: something to do with making a zine (called Fecal Matter, I believe) and it’s better to photocopy from Sam’s brownish toilet paper than her own white toilet paper.

Except Sam doesn’t have brownish toilet paper, he uses the same brand as Katy. She wailed in despair. Sam’s offer to put out a request on the local chat group didn’t seem to cheer her up.

But what about the games? We decided on a bold mission. Two epic games, both expected to last 2 hours. Sam, Adam T and Adam H played Arcs - a sweeping space epic that I somehow failed to photograph properly. Ian, Katy, Joe and I played Anno 1800, a new Martin Wallace based in the Industrial Revolution.

Anno 1800 is an engine builder of sorts, where you build things that help you build better things. The idea of the game is to play all the cards from your hand, the problem being that in order to do that you will inevitably need to pick up more cards.

The two rules explanations ended and the seven of us set out together on our very different routes. I was enjoying it, happy with my ability at reusing my men without having to waste a turn holding a “festival,” where you get all your men and trade/exploration tokens back. And then I noticed the time. It was already 9.30. I only had five cards left in my hand but they all needed me to have some pretty rare resources to get rid of them.

Katy invented the sausage (“Come and use my sausage!”) and then she explored the New World. Ian had cheap steel on sale - the tile was coloured blue and this became known as Ian’s Blue Steel - a Zoolander reference. I invented dynamite with a combination of pig, bricks and goods. But cards weren’t really being played by anyone. We needed fur coats, gramophones and something that looked like a mounted cannon. There was clearly a long road ahead of us.

In Arcs, Adam H was mostly attacking Adam T, but then found that he had outraged the population and now couldn’t repair anything. Something like that. “The more I understand, the slower I get,” mused Sam.

Finally, Joe realised we’d been playing a rule wrong. We were supposed to flip a tile over when we bought it and that would have doubled its output. Well, at least it was the same for all of us. Nevertheless, as the time hit 10.15 and no one was even close to finishing the game. My heart sank. I had to make a decision, and told everyone that I was bailing. Maybe once I could go on as long as it took, but not these days.

They promised to keep my board in the game for trading purposes and would count up my score at the end.

I left both games still in full swing. A whole three-hour session without a single result. Amazing.

I leave it to Sam to finish the story...

*            *            *

The story ends with a victory for Katy! Beyond that I cannot enlighten Andrew (or anyone) further, as my mind was being blown by Arcs, which is a trick-taker in the sense that an articulated lorry shedding it's load of playing cards as it crashes in slow-motion is a trick-taker. I got a couple of snaps.

The geographic nub of Arcs is the 'Reach' - the board - where we take actions getting in each other's way. The card system uses a trick-taking mechanic in a similar way to Brian Boru: everyone gets actions, even if they play off-suit, but leading is best as you get (usually) more actions, and you also get to declare an ambition. 

Ambitions are a way - the only way - of scoring points, by leading their conditions come the end of the round. But 'understand what's happening' isn't an ambition that rewards you on the score track, unfortunately, so even as things began to swim slowly into focus, I was finding it harder to click the metaphorical cogs together, and being left behind in every sense apart from owning a bunch of relics. I used my relics to get cards, but they may as well have been sat on a mantelpiece. Arcs is tough. Arcs is nasty. Arcs is bonkers. The Adams did some kind of passive aggressive ownership exchange of goods and ended it shortly after Andrew had left.

Adam T 37

Adam H 30

Sam 20

Then the Adams both left too, and we played So Clover!

It wasn't a bad effort at all - we only came a cropper on Joe's clover courtesy of an unlucky red herring. Some fun clues but after a night of epics, one round was all everyone could manage. 

22/24

And that was that!

Are We Young?

Steve, Anja, Louie and Lennon were our hosts last night so after a day of more rain Martin and I (car) and Adam (bicycle) made our way to Mayfield Park to join them, along with new arrival Pete, whom Martin and Joe had met at the Bath Kniziathon. After some crumble, Anja escorted Lennon off to bed and we debated how to start the evening, eventually settling on Courtisans (Martin, Adam and Pete) and Spots (myself, Steve and Louie). 

Pete was new to Courtisans and Louie hadn't played Spots before, so there was a bit of rules explaining going on before we tucked into our openers. I didn't keep up with the drama in court, although Louie pithily remarking that just sitting next to it gave him a headache was commentary enough. It does a look more mad than it actually is though. 

In Spots Louie and Steve were first to 'bank' dogs as I trailed behind, before lurching to an unexpected and frankly jammy win just as Louie looked poised to wrap up a debut victory. In contrast Pete was emerging the winner on his first play of Courtisans.

Pete 8
Martin 7
Adam 6

Both games ended at the exact same moment and Anja reappeared to take bed-bound Louie's place. We shuffled seats, with Anja and Adam intro-ing Pete to Cascadero whilst I talked Steve and Martin through the rules of Foundations of Metropolis.  

Here, we're building a city on a shared board in a game where you take one of three actions on each turn. You can purchase a deed in the city, take income from the bank, or build on areas where you own the deeds. The building's the thing, as certain buildings up your income, others push up your population (points) and civic buildings will score points depending on what other buildings they're next to. 

The population of each player has a quirky methodology - on a separate track to the points track everyone scores the position of the next player ahead of them. Whoever's in first place scores their own position plus a bonus, which escalates over each round of the game. This meant that as Steve and Martin fought it out over the population majority, I sat back on a single population point knowing that I'd score (kind of) second place - and focused my energies on getting as many civic buildings out as I could. 

Steve is appalled. Can't remember why

It's got a nice brisk pace to it and both the parasitic leaching of the civic buildings and the more aggro claiming of deeds, especially if you know someone else wants them. Having played a few times already my experience helped me out, but both Martin and I were confident he'd beat me next time.

Sam 118
Martin 93
Steve 82

On the Cascadero board meantime Anja was having the kind of experience that I have serially undergone at the hands of Martin, as Adam chained all manner of bonus bonanzas together and he and Pete pulled away up the track. We played Klink, which Steve announced he would be terrible at, but it transpired that the fates had it in for Martin on this occasion. At the climax of the game he listed the numerous numbers he could flip that would all help him in some way. None was a ten, which is what he turned over.

The player with the least points wins when someone reaches 77...

Sam 33
Steve 44
Martin 101

And Cascadero finished with Adam taking the insta-win by sailing past 50 points. Debutant Pete was back on 37 and Anja laughing in deranged disbelief on 22. I felt her agony. Brilliant game. Painful game. Martin was flabbergasted at the envoys having zero decorum, with most of the horses on their noses. 

The clock was ticking so we quickly bashed out So Clover - yet another new set of rules for Pete, who showed remarkable equanimity to be taking on instructions at 10.30 with a return drive to Bradford on Avon looming. During the mulling period he pondered aloud about using the same clue twice, and we all chortled at the very idea. But then he did it, putting 'Light' on two sides of his clover. Whatever the collective noun for synonym spotters/confirmation-bias victims is, we became it as we found 'Light' seemed to go with everything - even, at one stage, Pumpkin (my suggestion). To be fair though we only got one card wrong and that was because of Pumpkin. "Who suggested that?" Adam cried, not unreasonably. It did now seem rather ludicrous, although was it as silly as Cinderella taking an Uber to the ball?

Other highlights were Anja's slaw for salad/religion and Martin's overactive for coffee/rabbit. We only came a real cropper on Steve's clue of Licken, where we missed his sound logic in favour of combos such as 'Tunnel Hen'. Overall though, a solid enough 31/36 to round off the night, after Anja explained her clue of 'bass' related to drum and bass - what young people listen to. 
"Young people in the 90s" Steve added, before Adam mournfully voiced the blog title aloud, almost to himself.

A fun night, thanks everyone. Sorry about the pumpkin. 

Ten More Years!

 This week’s games night was in celebration of Laura’s birthday and when I arrived, she (hosting), Katy, Sam and Martin were in Laura's newly remodelled kitchen playing a card game. Martin suggested I try to work out the rules of the game, which I failed to do except you had to get rid of your cards by putting them on the table and reading out the number they made, but didn't understand it apart from that. I also failed to make a note of the name. But Sam won.

Sam 2

Katy 4

Laura 5

Martin 7

Then Adam H arrived and since everyone was here, we got out the cake: a caterpillar cake, which was sliced up and served with ice cream! Katy also asked if there was any coke available, apparently thinking this was a children’s party.

When we raised out glasses and made a toast, Katy happily cried out “Ten more years!” which I said was a bit bleak. Katy said she didn’t mean it like that: she meant ten more years of gaming with us, at least. But the joke stuck that Katy had wished Laura ten years of life, maximum, and it was referenced throughout the evening.

But what about the games? We split into two groups. Laura, Martin and Katy played Captain Flip which was GNN’s present to Laura. Adam, Sam and I played Guild of Merchant Explorers, a very short eurogame in which you have to explore a map within the turn of a few cards. In fact, I don’t think Adam or I really appreciated how quick the first round would be and after five cards had been played, Sam told us to take our cubes from the map and start again.

With this regular reset in mind, it’s important to build villages, which allow you to start exploring fro a point other than the centre of the map. Also, there are things like treasures and towers and trade routes to discover. Before long Adam was muttering to himself and trying to max out his moves. In fairness, it worked.

Adam 149

Sam 144

Andrew 127

The first game of Captain Flip ended in the most amicable way possible, with a tie for first.

Laura 45

Martin 45

Katy 35

Katy mused that she used her lookouts too early (don’t know what that meant, but I made a note anyway). They played again.

Katy 46

Laura 43

Martin 33

Then we drank some “pink fizz” and gazed at Laura’s games cupboard. Then Martin, Laura and Sam played Via Nebula. Adam, Katy and I played Cascadero. Martin and Sam had actually brought one copy each, meaning for a time we considered everyone playing Cascadero at the same time. But then sanity prevailed.

Katy wasn’t sure about playing, and throughout the game she complained that she didn’t really know what she was doing, even when she was about twenty points ahead of Adam and I. Then she completed all of the bonuses for linking cities together and admitted that that was her strategy.

Now she was in a fix - in the lead but way behind on the track that you have to complete before the game is over. I was in last in terms of points, but my track was all but complete. I had to use up all my meeples before either Adam or Katy finished their tracks. Adam was in the middle - behind me on the track and behind Katy on points.

Of course, he won, hitting the game ending 50 point mark at the same time as, or the turn after,  completing his track. I came second and Katy seemed to think she’d never play the game again.

Adam 50

Andrew 34

Katy 47 (DNF)

I missed most of Via Nebula apart from Sam saying “I’m going to finish the game,” in the kind of excited voice you used to hear on adverts for MB Games.

Sam 27

Martin 23

Laura 13

And while we struggled through the end of Cascadero, they played a quick Captain Flip.

Martin 44

Sam 37

Laura 25

Then, because it was Laura’s birthday, I didn’t leave early but stayed on for a game of So Clover. With six of us, there was a chance of a golden 36! 

But it didn’t last beyond my clover. Sam’s was first and we got a bit of luck - one of his words was “Tiny” and “tiny” also appeared on a card so we were fairly safe in assuming that was the decoy. 

Then we finished Adam’s with no bother before we got to mine. Two of my words were LOOP and KISS and I couldn’t link them apart from the fact that they’re both rock bands, so I wrote “bands”.

Alas, a word on the decoy card was “DREAM” which everyone linked with D-ream. The other word seemed to match too, so they were happy to offer up their guess. Katy was so confident that she'd picked up the fifth card and stuck it back in the box. I sadly told them they were wrong and Katy had to start looking through all the cards in the box to try and get the fifth card out again. 

Katy searching for a card

On their next attempt, they got it - although Sam and Adam thought it was a reference to Looper. Only Martin mumbled something about Loop being a noise band.

Then the remaining clovers were all completed successfully, although there was a lot of anguish over Martin’s clover. “Lemon” either related to “RECIPE/SHARP” or “RECIPE/YELLOW” and in the end we got it right (Sharp was the correct word).

34 out of 36. Close but no clover.

Then I did go home and found out that they’d played So Clover again.

17 out of 30. Never mind.

See you all next week and happy birthday Laura!