As I prepared to go to Sam's this evening, I pulled on my waterproof trousers to guard against the driving rain falling outside. But once I'd reached my front door and stepped outside, the rain had finished. I decided against going back inside and changing, and instead spent the entire evening playing games while securely protected from the elements.
With Sam, me and my waterproof trousers were Martin, Joe, Andy B, Adam H and Pete.
We started with a group game of Wriggle Roulette, which we'd played last week, except this time with a difference. Previously, pulling eels from the bag was a thoughtful deliberate process in which each player counted out the number of eels/snakes they wanted. But this time, thee was a careful rereading of the rules and it's descriptors of “grab” and “plunge” when talking about pulling things from the bag. And so we adopted a more carefree and random approach.
This meant that several of us went bust after pulling out 5 items at once, and it wasn’t unusual to end up with nothing at all. This happened consecutively to Sam, Pete and Andy in one round.
Another new problem was what to do about the eels poking out between fingers when you pulled your hand from the bag. But despite this, the new rules turned it into a different game. Less of a thoughtful push -your-luck and into something more devil-may-care. Martin, who got no points at all the last time we played, seemed to prefer this new version.
Martin 21
SAm 20
Andrew 11
Andy 11
Pete 8
Adam 8
Then we split into two groups. Sam, Adam and Martin played Farm Hand. I know little about this apart from the mysterious chanting of “E - I - E - I O” and then Sam's dismay as he apparently showed the wrong number of fingers when making his bid.
Martin 17
Sam 6
Adam -7
Pete, Andy and I played Shallow Regrets, a fishing card game which, at 20 minutes long, certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome. There’s a tableau of six piles of cards, you can turn over two and hope that you can catch at least one using the strength of the fish cards you’ve caught in the past. It was okay. I don’t think I really explored the interactive nature of the game until the very end, when I swapped one of my fish with Andy’s and came joint first.
Initially, I wasn’t interested in a tie-breaker but then I found out that I’d actually won by that criteria so I’m happy to let the records show
Andrew 10 (plus fewest foul fish)
Andy 10
Pete 9
With Andy’s eye on the clock, we played Magical Athlete. This was chosen because, if Andy was clever with his pick of athletes, he could leave and let his game play on without him. I started appallingly, with my athlete almost immediately eaten my Martin’s mouth. In round four, Andy left us with his athlete, Sysiphus, being one that needed no choices - just don’t roll a six. I can’t remember how well the absent Andy did since I was too excited by my second place - my only points of the game - and by Pete’s win, which was enough to secure a comfortable overall win.
Pete 13
Andy 9
Martin 5
Andrew 3
Adam 2
Sam 0
Without Andy, and now with my eye on the clock, we played a five-player game of River Dragon. We rechecked the Dragon Card rule and discovered that it doesn’t follow turn order and thus can stop a player that turn regardless of whether they were before you or not.
Martin got himself into a winning position as so, of course, we were all expecting a flurry of dragon cards to stop him. Amazingly, no one played a green dragon in the first turn of the round and Martin, thinking we would, played a non-commital card that would be fine if it was blocked. But then in the next turn, three of us played a green dragon. The only one who didn’t was Adam who smartly used his move to guide his piece home for the win!
With that, I was on my way, leaving the blog duties in Sam’s hands.
*
After Andrew left we debated what to play next, and ended up on Zenith, Martin's new birthday lane-battler about controlling the galactic senate. It's a two-player or two teams, so he and Pete paired off against myself and Adam.
Ostensibly it's a lane-battler where you play cards to the lanes of the planets to sway them - politically - towards your side of things. If the planet comes so far that it falls off the board, you've won it - three planets of the same kind, four of four colours of five of whatever colour is enough to win the game.
However there's shenanigans galore with a diplomacy action available (get the Leader token, plus a bonus) and tech tracks to move up for powerful actions on the planet board. There are three currencies of a sort - credits, zenithium and planet movement - plus a semi-fourth in the cards themselves which can be passed between team-mates using diplomacy. As you can only play cards to your own quarter of the board - something I inevitably forgot last night - this can be key.
There's a lot of iconography and it took us a good hour - but including teach I think - to wrap up. Adam and I obliterated the opposition with a 5-1 win, although my inadvertent cheating (above) took the gloss off somewhat. But this was fun.
We then lost Adam to the night but finished off with So Clover, picking up a crappy red herring on Pete's clover to prevent ourselves hauling in an 18. I was blessed with some pretty easy combos, but there were some nice clues elsewhere.
The evening began early with a quick game of Chu Han between Ian and Sam.
Shortly they were joined by Joe, Ian, Katy and Martin before I and then finally Pete arrived. We began with a game of Dice Pool Party. 12 dice of different colours and sizes are shaken in a dice arena shaped like a swimming pool. These dice are revealed for three seconds before being hidden again each player has to use whatever memory they have of those dice. Did the Purples score highly? Or the 1s, 2s and 3s combined?
In order to keep track on our scoresheets, we needed 7 pens. Cue such scrabbling around in the back of Sam's chair where the struts are little wooden troughs capable of holding all manner of things. Pens, you would hope, but Katy initially found a toothbrush, a candle and some nail clippers. “It's not looking good,” she sighed.
As for the game, I played pretty poorly, scoring below average in most categories I chose. Initially, Katy and Martin chose identical categories to score. But Martin displayed the better observational skills in the end.
Martin 207
Katy 196
Joe 170
Sam 167
Ian 166
Pete 165
Andrew 151
Then we split into two. Katy was keen to play River Dragons again after having tried it on Sunday with me and Sam. He, Katy and Ian set it up. Meanwhile, Pete, Martin, Joe and I set up Bomb Busters - the first mission of a new box! Who knew what excitement lay before us once we’d opened up the box containing the game’s next levels.
Well, some stickers, allowing us the chance to award each other “most hot-headed” or suchlike. As it turned out, none of us were in the running for that particular category since we spent a lot of time thinking over our choices. There were four bad wires out there and this round’s special rule is that one random safe wire is placed out of order on the far right on your rack. Pete was our captain and he kept us motivated with phrases like “I’m reasonably confident we’re not about to die” as we eventually succeeded in our mission!
Over on the other end of the table, River Dragon ended with a victory for Katy. This happened only a few minutes after Katy let fly with a high-decible expletive after Sam blocked her move. She declared that she won “quite convincingly" and wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise even when Sam pointed out he was just one card away from finishing too.
Then they played Farm Hand, that I know little about except for Ian saying “perfectly judged… I get 2 points” which seems like a fairly meagre return on a perfectly judged move.
Ian 17
Katy 8
Sam 7
Next we tried Trick & Snipers as a big group, which we played with a Skull Queen deck of cards. Very simple trick taker which involves winning tricks with a 7 in them or cleverly playing off-suit so that values add up to 13. These will get you a point and 2 points are enough to win.
Andrew 2
Pete 1
Everyone else 0
Katy expressed a concern that it was getting late, so for her finale we played Wriggle Roulette. This push-your-luck game is very dramatic and exciting - two qualities that I entirely failed to capture with my only photo of the game.
It involves pulling black eels from a bag, and everything is fine until the fifteenth red snake is pulled out. Then, the greediest player(s) lose everything and the round ends. Joe amazed us with his singular life as he told us three stories about eels. Surely an autobiography is required. As for the game, Martin pushed his luck a little too far and went bust in every round. I started so badly that people reminded me to collect my points from round two and I grimly admitted that I already had. Katy looked like a certain win, only to be pushed into fourth in the final round.
Joe 22
Andrew 22
Pete 21
Katy 20
Sam 11
It was fun and we will have to play again, if only because we only just remembered to play Eels on the stereo in the final stages of the game.
Katy left and the remaining six gamers got out Magical Athlete for a rousing end (for me, anyway) of the evening.
Magical Athlete is fun but it does feel a lot like watching a game rather than participating in it. The trick is to chose your athletes well and hope that their powers can exploit their opponents’s moves. It’s a fine line, though. For example, round two saw Joe win with Scoocher, an athlete that moved forward whenever someone else used their power. It was a commanding victory so, in round four when I had an athlete that could copy a previously used power, I chose Scoocher. But this time I was undone by Sam’s magical power of swapping places with another player so any lead I built up quickly evaporated.
Joe 16
Sam 10
Andrew 8
Pete 5
Martin 2
Ian 1
That was it for me, but the guys banged out a quick game of So Clover.
We opened the year 2020 with a New Year shindig at my house where various orbiting moons of the GNN planet were seen - Celena for one, and a clutch of young children, including Andy's boy Finn. Come the night, many of them returned to various homes and the remaining party went 'full nerd'.
A few days later, normal Tuesday service was resumed.
Wavelength arrived and was an immediate hit. Someone called Mark attended games night at my house and it's only now, five years later, that I realise this is the same Mark who runs the board game days in Bath. And even more oddly - or perhaps not - writing that gave me a sense of deja vu. Somewhere around now, Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina is first mentioned - by us - in Wavelength, as we discover it seems to fit in to a variety of spectrums.
Speaking of deja vu, the dark horse Matt Walker returned after a long absence, manifesting in Joe's studio and winning the now-forgotten Rurik. I unashamedly copy Andrew's Robinson Crusoe posts with an indulgent retelling of Nemo's War. And we played Hurly Burly.
Someone called Steve (not Dale) joined us for all of two weeks. Who was that guy??? Babylonia is getting played a whole lot, although it's usually Martin winning it. Andy Bate also returns from a good while away, but just a few short weeks later, we're all on an enforced hiatus as Covid 19 - it used to have a number - strikes around the world, and Boris Johnson proves that his perpetual air of ineffective fuckwit is not just an affectation. We go online!
I found online gaming hard at the time and would regularly drop out after an hour, and with apologies I could not bring myself to go through the weeks of reportage that took us from late February up to July, when there's a fleeting bit of socially-distanced gaming - two player only - and by August it looks like lockdown has gone to Adam's head.
December arrives and the main GNN takeaway of the year is that Andy Bate's home internet is terrible. 2020, bar a couple of months at start, feels best left in the past. Which fortunately is where it is.
2021
January kicks off the way December ended: with a confection of isolated screens. Some games - Marrakech, Codenames, Quantum - suit this more than others. Certainly without Covid I think the number-of-plays next to 7 Wonders would be significantly lower. But Martin spends some time discovering interesting trick-takers - American Bookshop, for example - and implementing them online.
As winter turned to spring turned to summer, the Tuesday nights continued unabated. Or occasionally abated, as Andy still hadn't gotten around to his wifi issues. I'm here all week.
I do remember it mentioned that Andy worked for BT. Maybe not any more. Anyway, May 19th was a super-auspicious day, and also a super day because we were finally, at long long last, back in the room. At first it was a tentative four of us, but before long things were back to something approaching normal.
After over a year there were a lot of new games waiting to be played, and one of them was The Secret Adventures of the Old Hellfire Club. Any game that turns Andrew into an official Fart Catcher really should make it to the table more often.
But when June arrived, so did another lockdown. At least this one was very brief, even if the uncertain opening and closing of doors has confused the spambots, who leave increasingly random commentary on our blogposts.
Wingspan arrived, confusingly described (for some, although who can blame them) as an engine-builder. It got played by four people and possibly didn't take flight.
Katy hosted a games night where Joe got so drunk he invented some rules and thought I'd taught him them (the game was Durian) and only a week later he was on the champagne, in honour of his 25th wedding anniversary.
We also played Fae and discovered that the multicoloured plastic pieces are meant to be wizards.
Ian arrived back in the fold in July and we played a game of Wavelength where Joe insisted 'moisture is always water' - a statement that makes my mind reel to this day, because I'm still not sure if it's dramatically wrong or scientifically right. I also alienated Katy by moving her ants in Fast Sloths. Sorry!
We also asked Martin via text for a rules clarification and he responded with a screen grab of the relevant rule in seconds. Katy decided Martin is a robot, and Ian and I failed to correctly place a certain candle-baiting celebrity on the spectrum of looks like a person/doesn't look like a person.
As August looms, Joe throws open his door to the most palatial gaming space we've ever seen, taking in as it does his entire basement - if we include accoutrements such as fridge and tap - a view of Bristol, and a harrumphing dog. Dan O and Mikey P join us, but are never seen again (at time of writing) so maybe I'm not the only one who finds Team Play a bit vanilla. Adam (I think?) buys an anniversary edition of Ticket to Ride that's so big we can barely fit it on Joe's enormous table.
We discover Big T knows what a Truel is, and he wins Snakesss. I try to teach Cosmic Frog and get the rules sweats so badly I give up and trade the game away. On September 1st So Clover makes a tentative bow, and picks up momentum quite quickly, with several serial plays (well, two) on the same evenings. On a similar vibe, Cross Clues and Fiesta de la Muertos are both getting table time. As is Wavelength:
In September, Martin brings in furry newbie Gareth and Mel arrives just a few short weeks afterwards. Adam T finds parking near my house so difficult he gives up and goes home.
Matt is briefly glimpsed again, playing political-shenaniganeering game SHASN, and in answer to Martin's morally bankrupt Profiteers, Joe introduces us all to Sheepy Time. Although in fairness it should be added this cosy-sounding game includes being chased by a nightmare. Perhaps this looming menace inspires Joe to start using the all-new e-scooters from the council. Back to the future though, were Mel and Ben host for the first time on what proves a Dark and Stormy Night, in November.
The following week we plant seeds of nightmarish doubt in Andrew's mind by chanting "Bridge or Tram" at him for longer than necessary (he chose tram). Laura plays Quirky Circuits so well she is briefly named 'Maestro'. And then a covid-adjacent Novocon arrives with everyone testing before leaving home so we can isolate in a meeple-shaped bubble for two and a half days.
Louie indulged me in my lost gaming love, FlickFleet. I didn't even play, but I just loved watching the game happen before my eyes.
But I mainly remember this weekend for Katy playing Evolution Climate while mashed, and freaking out when she had to start eating me Adam and Steve. Great times. We return to Bristol and our usual smutty ways, spending the 80 minutes it takes to play Cryo saying "I'm pulling a guy off" over and over, like a bunch of schoolchildren. The Chippencon team do their mini-novocon too, although mini does not describe some of the beasts that hit the table, Dominant Species and Spheres of Influence amongst them.
Steve, Ian, Andrew and I play a couple of games of Vikings 878, which is a lot of fun but hard to get to the table as it's so specifically 4-player minded. And long. Suddenly - not immediately after the vikings - the dwarves arrived too, as we played an epic Siege of Runedar at Christmas. It took so long Laura left in the middle to do an errand and came back for the heroic yet tragic finale, which was when everything caved in on us. We also discovered a (real) mouse in the front room, which I managed to heroically catch. Some more games were played and then that was it for another year.
2022
It was seen in 2021 as well but early January plays of Brian Boru were notable for how much games now seemed to permeate every aspect of our lives. Or maybe it was just a particularly long session.
Speaking of long, we played the long-titled Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition and it was Unfortunately Shit, prioritising card synergies over any other potential metric of what makes games fun. At the other end of the spectrum was the banker Doppelkopf and its infinite variations, of which four of us played a few one wintry Saturday night. Sheepy Time was hitting the table a lot as well, as is Spicy.
unrelated
Xia returns as well. In fact, the early year sees several epics: Chris' Twilight Struggle fetish is picking up steam, 878 Vikings returns and Nemesis arrives: the very-obviously-inspired-by-Alien semi-co-op horrorfest with dollops of noir comedy. And Railways returns!
So does Tigris and Euphrates, which is obviously won by Martin, despite the big brains of Big T and Gareth at the same table (and me). Several years since her GNN baptism, Sybil still doesn't seem to have truly gotten on board:
Tin Goose was a minor hit - would like to play again - and Long Shot wasn't. Stinker returned!
Dominant Species: Marine gets played, and it's a bloodbath.
sorry, this is actually wine
As the first summer breeze sashays through Bristol, Charlotte introduces us to the concept of cake rubble and Mille Fiori makes its bow. Other games still get played though, including long-time slow-burn best-with-two word maker Letterpress, which I serially lose to Joe or Martin.
We discover Reiner is not infallible, as everyone finds his new release Sumatra a little underwhelming, even to Kniziaphile Martin. Joining the long and distinguished ranks of GNN cats is Laura and Lucy's Chai, who loves watching us play Llamaland whilst their sentient fridge makes a more brooding, possibly judgemental presence.
Hansa Teutonica returned, but although I think it's fabulous enough to keep bringing for weeks on end, it mostly stays nestled in my pannier bags, like a German version of Root. Autumn arrives, and with it Strike! which everyone seems to like. Perhaps more interestingly, we discover that Steve and Anja's games collection is divided into two specific groups.
Joe unveils the madness that is Schrille Stille and follows it with a little madness of his own by announcing - after a few glasses of wine - that he would take the Station Master in Thurn and Taxis (there is no station master). He Adam and Katy played Yokohama whilst the rest of us rattled through no less than 8 games and still had time to watch the finale. Ready Set Bet was played and banned on the same night. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed Oltre Mare, so naturally it's never been seen since. Except once, at Novoconl which not only has the biggest table yet (although disappointingly narrow) but also a hidden pit of death, right beneath where Ian has been sleeping.
Come December, come Christmas, come Hannah! After a long time in the desert she is happily amongst the throng again for the hurriedly-named Decocon. She comes last in Mille Fiori but doesn't mind because after all, it's not a five hour game of Root.
And this joyous epic day concludes 2022.
2023
One of the first big happenings of 2023 was Challengers, where the main challenge was figuring out which chair you should sit in. It's a big hit, although perhaps not as memorable as Joe's teenage dream about Clint Eastwood doing the hoovering.
Less hallucinatory, but still a bit, is the trip to the 1980's video arcade. It's 80's themed anyway - I don't think you actually go back in time. Or maybe you do, I can't keep up with technology these days.
In February, Andy B makes one of his mystery returns, perhaps intent on replicating his wifi form in person. After Laura's Quantum debut, it is renamed Yorkshire in Space. And after The Great Zimbabwe's debut, it is rarely seen again, being slightly opaque, dense and abstract, all qualities you could theoretically accuse of Quantum. And also Joe's musical references in our ongoing So Clover games, although hats off to him for clueing harvest for this combo:
unfortunately we got it wrong
Ian told his "sleeping in a ditch" (it wasn't a ditch) story that I thought was much longer ago than 2023. But whatever, we like to bring it up now and then as evidence of Ian sleeping in ditches, even though it wasn't actually a ditch (it was mulch, which is a funnier word but a less funny image). We have a debate about whether conking out drunk is the same as 'going to sleep' and come to no firm conclusion, despite the presence of a doctor and several drunks. The very same night, Joe confesses to kissing Kylie Minogue.
In April, Adam forgets there are games. And not for the first time. Block Party arrives, which is the only game where you can mistake poo for a volcano.
Although Not That Movie provides a linguistical approach to similar levels of silliness (Dead Poets in Venice). And So Clover is of course, hitting the high notes as well, especially when a perfect score is achieved.
Inside Job appears, the double-crossing trick-taker. One night at Martin's Adam laps Joe at Ticket to Ride, which I'm still so disgusted by I need another cheery photo to lift my mood.
Fun Facts arrives, and with it more interesting details about the smaller crevices of our lives.
...and learning that Joe can hold his breath for a long time. Big T, Ian, Andrew and I have a rather expensive games night at Chance n Counters. The couple on the next table are learning Root for their fun night out. We shake our heads at their crazy naivety and play Quantum.
In fairness, they do end up playing Root, and now we feel like idiotic snobs. Andrew Chris and I head to the Isle of Wight for weekend games with Paul Jefferies, and we manage to get every card wrong in So Clover. An unwanted first.
History is made not just with the all-female GNN game, but the scores: Mel absolutely obliterates the record books in Mille Fiori, scoring 323. Katy says they helped her too much.
Meantime the males were sticking to hallowed GNN conventions of alleged hilarity.
In November, Time of Crisis returned from an extended hiatus, and I finally got to be emperor. Didn't win though (that was Martin again). Bigger migratory drama was also happening in the real world too, as we lose Gareth to a far-flung destination.
We empty all the game components onto the table for a look, then spend ages working out how the all fit back in the box. Great training for Gareth's next career step. Elsewhere in November, Steve reveals he is allergic to dill but eats dill flavoured crisps anyway. Is it worth mentioning at this point that Lords of Vegas hits the table far more than I ever recalled? I guess because I was mostly playing something else at the time. This includes the semi-trad Novocon getaway (Weymouth, this year) where Mel shows up, Jon has a moustache, Joe and I share a room with a macerator toilet and Martin gets portobelloed. He also serenades Steve, singing Happy Birthday to You in Monroe style and everyone is so unnerved we go for a walk.
Back in Bristol, a winter highlight is another 36/36 in So Clover.
In December, the Christmascon is at Steve and Anja's (with Louie and Lennon) and an epic Ticket to Ride is won, naturally, by Adam. Or maybe unnaturally. At Christmas itself, Misfits arrives and is a big hit. Laura is devastatingly good at Hitster, as she can identify the approximate year of each song based on its production values.
Laura clues Joe for old/turnip, and even looking at all the words we don't get it. And the curtain closes on 2023 with Hitster detrmining that Pele eats more donuts than the queen.
2024
The curtains open again January with Maddie marking her GNN bow with a victory at Skyjo. Misfits getting a lot of plays amongst other faves and newbies.
Joe's clover
MLEM arrives. Steve requests a player aid for Auf Teufel Comm Raus. In March, the last ever Stepney Walk games night takes place and if Anja and Steve ever buy a copy of Gang of Dice, we know whose side of the collection it will go in.
Steve's high is immediately followed by an existential low, however, as we give him minimal Just One clues and he spends so long trying to figure them out that his own teammates - supposedly there for support - turn on him.
Things got even worse when his next word was crepe, and Katy clued him poó. If that was a bad night for Steve though, the very next week we all discovered that Beyonce's Crazy in Love was 21 years old. Twenty one! It's getting older too.
crazy right then
In April Anja and Steve and brethren invite us to their new home, complete with a clock so enormous it has wall between the numbers. Molly is already at home enough to walk around on the table, so it feels just like old times. Adam is 'peacocked out' of contention in Zoo Vadis and Ian, Chris and I dip our toes into GMT waters with Vijayanagara. It's a resounding hit, but the night itself is more notable for Ian's clover, which is solvable with a single card:
Cascadero arrives and Ian takes an (unrelated) brutal score in Lords of Vegas (six points).
Turbo Kidz was really funny, why haven't we played it since? Don't answer that.
In September, Pete joins us for the first time, arriving at Anja and Steve's to find himself victorious at dice-rolling dog-satisfaction game Spots. He also writes the clue 'light' on two sides of his clover! What Bradford-Upon-Avon madness is this? We link one with pumpkin - my suggestion - and we're wrong.
Katy turns up at my house with a roll of toilet paper, asking to swap it for one of mine. On the same night. she invents the sausage (Anno 1800) and Andrew goes home having not seen a single game finish. Inevitably, Martin is not present for this particular night (the other game was Arcs) and on his return he brings a popular newbie: Agent Avenue (or a gent, a venue as Joe calls it). Impulse is seen again, and Andrew briefly thinks he might be able to beat Martin. But no.
We discover when Joe is asked to think of something with two ends, his mind comes up with the word dildo. We play Hitster and when the app refuses to work, sing the songs ourselves. Novocon takes place close enough to the sea that Joe and Katy go swimming. I mainly have a lot of conversations about prostates, and Ian walks into a door. Martin wins pretty much everything he plays, including the officially insane New Orleans version of Lords of Vegas.
As the end of the year comes into view, the game du jour is Rebirth, but others - So Clover among them, naturally - are still going strong. Or not strong, as the case may be.
Lucy and Laura host the now-traditional Christmas con, aided by Maddie, Ryker and Effie (plus grown-ups). We play a lot of games and it includes Midnight Party with nine people (although some were teams). Perhaps inspired by Jesus, Martin introduces us all to Bomb Busters, where we're all evaporated on mission four. And on that bombshell, 2024 evaporates too, bringing this chapter of GNN history to a close...
