Frightful Fingers

 We were a motley crew of five last night, with a few regulars otherwise engaged in family birthdays and visits to the Peak District, etc. 

Jo, Adam H, Martin and Ian joined me (Joe) at mine, and after a modicum of pleasantries we launched into Furchtlos, or Fearless, Friedemann Friese's latest card game.

It's a TWAST (trick-taker with a spooky theme - we're all ghosts), in which you don't want to stray too far into the forest in either direction (positive or negative points). Except that even if you end up in the mansion in the middle (by taking no tricks), you score 15 points. And points are bad. So I guess the ghosts really want to hang out just outside the house. I think that's all the rules...

You play a round per player, and we were playing at the full 5p. It felt, to me, a little long for a game where you have seemingly not much agency, but admittedly I did nearly twice as badly as everyone else, and noted a couple of times where I played a card and immediately realised what a bad idea it was. Interesting, and I'd happily play again but 3 or 4 player might be the sweet spot.

Jo 33

Ad 33

Martin 36

Ian 42

Joe 66

We'd begun Fearless thinking we were waiting for Andrew to join us, but he texted to say he wasn't going to make it, so we decided to stick with 5 player options. Jo produced a VHS case containing Wendybuxxx - the very nearly finished version of their newest game design, and offered to talk us through the rules. In the game we were all influencers competing in a reality TV show, and using our necro-currency to influence our popularity (apologies to Jo if I've just made all that up). The rules aren't complicated, but I'm not sure I could explain them here, and the game completely flummoxed me (I think I was still sitting in the mansion with a sheet over my head). By the end we'd all found it intriguing, and Jo assured us that it makes more sense the second time you play; I'd be up for a return visit.

I didn't make a note of the scores, but I think Martin won, and I disappeared backwards off the score track after a disastrous third round.

We moved on to Yubibo, the palette-cleansing, RSI inducing game of sticks and balls. We did slightly better than on past attempts, but still failed with half the balls still to wedge. At the moment things fell apart, Martin was complaining that his hand was rising up to the ceiling without his input - it does feel there's a sort of Ouija board aspect to the group dynamics.

We cast about for more 5 player fun, and decided on Prey Another Day. Martin's had this for ages, but I seem to recall it hasn't got much traction on Tuesday nights. I p[icked up a copy just before Christmas and have enjoyed it with family and friends quite a bit. Here I continued my losing streak, getting eaten in both the opening rounds. My luck took an upturn after that, but not enough to outscore Jo or Martin (one of whom won, I now can't quite remember).

With the hour gone 10pm, our thoughts turned to So Clover, and we managed a score of 25 out of 30. Notable were Jo's clue of Thatcher for Genius Roofer (we briefly considered Mark as a possibility), and Ian's Fingers for Glove Noodle - we got a bit sidetracked wondering whether Mummy Fingers were a thing there. 

After that Adam bid us adieu, and we four played again - not really faring much better. I can't remember much about the second round and didn't take a pic, but I struggled with a clue for Cheese/Swing, settling on Party. Unfortunately, the gang felt Cheese Field was more partyish under the circumstances (circumstances which were fair enough, me having not noticed how well Leaf went with Salad). I'm not sure So Clover really benefits from this sort of narrative re-telling, so I'll stop now.

A fine evening, and my last for a week or two - happy gaming!

You are Dewan for me

 I arrived at Joe’s house to find Martin knocking at the door as I approached. Martin looked at me quizzically and asked “did I just walk past you?” I was dimly aware of someone having strode past me a minute or so ago so maybe he had.

We began the evening as a quintet, with three others expected along the way. I was introduced to Link City “the Martin Variant”.In this game, a player draws three (or four) city sectors into their hand and decides their location on an already existing city in such a way that we’re able to guess where they would go.

The Variant is in the fact that the person who knows the city sectors also choses where the coloured cones go as opposed to the official rule where someone else places the cones. It was fun trying to work out if Ian would put a 5-star hotel next to an Intelligence Headquarters or a Leisure Centre. The only issue with the Martin Variant is making sure you’ve properly hidden your choices before revealing the options, as Martin himself forgot to do.

Katy arrived during this game and even took part in a round, scoring only one point. I wonder if there’s a thing whereby new arrivals joining games always do badly. But actually, overall we did pretty well.

43 points

Adam H and Pete join us around this point and we split into two groups. Martin, Sam, Joe and myself play Dewan. Katy looked at her co-gamers and sighed “we’ll never agree on what to play”. She made an early bid for Lords of Vegas but instead Mlem was chosen. 

And what a game it was. Ian seemed hopelessly optimistic as he immediately loaded his Deep Space Double cat onto the ship, but he made it all the way there. In fact it was a very high scoring game, with the top half of the board heavily populated while the lower reaches were largely ignored. Ian got the Deep Space Twice token and towards the end of the game Pete noted that they’d been to deep space more often than they’d exploded. Amazing scenes.

Ian 47

Pete 42

Adam 37

Katy 33

As for Dewan, this was my first game but the rules are quite straightforward. Place settlements on the map and score according to criteria on your story tiles. As we played, bits of Joe’s table fell off and I asked if we were safe as we jammed them back on again.

Joe said “it’s quite stressful” (referring to the game, not his table which he didn't seem worried about) and it ended very close. Martin scored 22 points from his story tiles while I got points for separate groups of settlements. Only an unfair and totally arbitrary tie-breaker could separate us.

Martin 38 and more cards left in hand

Andrew 38

Joe 37

Sam 34

Next up for the four of us while we waited for Mlem to finish was Jungo. My second variant of the day: this was called Hachi Train, and the deck was made up of the cards from 1 to 8 and the “two value” cards to one side as a draw pile. When putting down a stronger hand, you have to pick up the cards you just beat. 

We didn’t finish the game, playing only two rounds, so we never found out the overall loser but, for the record, I lost round one and Sam lost the second.

Now everyone was together, I decided to take a bow and leave. Without me Ian, Adam, Joe and Sam played a tiny version of Azul which Ian won with an almost indecent margin of victory.

Ian 103

Adam 56

Joe 66

Sam 45

After this they failed five times at Yubibo.

Meanwhile Pete beat Martin and Katy at Mongoose before they played 1am Jailbreak.

Katy 8

Pete 5

Martin 4

Then they played So Clover twice. Some people must have left because Sam sent photos of five then four clovers.

Another special evening. Thanks all.

Bridge of Sighs

Anja and Steve's was the venue last night, as the rain returned to Bristol once more and I picked up Ian and Martin en route. We arrived to find Anja and Louie and also Ross, who I briefly thought was a newbie only to discover he was there to plumb, as our hosts had been without water for two days already. Fortunately, Ross was to prove successful at plumbing in short order - I was getting nervous about the possibility of bathroom trips being eliminated - though he chose not to join us for the evening's entertainment, but instead go home. By this time, we'd already failed twice at YUBIBO.

It's very much a game that requires a certain type of investment. As Pete pointed out, it's as much about endurance as dexterity, as keeping your hand in a certain position for x amount of time whilst various sticks lean on it isn't a Tuesday night staple. But it was fun. 

By now Steve and Lennon had returned from rugby and Anja set about household duties as Steve joined us for a crack at Link City. We began well with Ian as mayor, getting everything right. Then our successes were rather more mixed around the table, until final mayor Joe got 4 out of 4 to right some wrongs and transform our fortunes from workaday into a high score: 40 points and officially Wow City. 

Martin remained a little indifferent to the game, but I really like it. Although I also like his suggestion that the mayor choose the locations as well. Let's try that next time. 

We now split into groups with Joe leading Ian and Martin off to Sunrise Lane, and Pete talking Anja and I through the rules of 1am Jailbreak, the somewhat niche-themed card-shedder where we are funnelling escaped prisoners through a tunnel. 

Pete found Anja and I a slightly befuddled audience, as we both failed to understand what are fairly simple rules, I think because they are a little unexpected: there are no rounds, you simply keep playing on and on until all your prisoners (ie cards in your hand) have escaped. Also unexpected: Steve, who turned up as we were about to start, but then left again, unable to make it to freedom. 

You can play sets or runs, the only caveat being it must be the same amount of cards or one more or one less as whatever amount the previous player laid. And you can also make a run for it by adding a card to the previous player's cards in order to both hike up the possibility of a big set/run - and of course, ridding yourself of a card in the process. In what I like to think are my Eastwood-in-Alcatraz qualities, I proved best at breaking out of prison in the night. Points are bad:

Sam 0

Pete 6

Anja 17

Sunrise Lane was a slightly closer thing. In fact a much closer thing, for Martin and Ian at least, although Joe wasn't a million miles away.

Martin 101

Ian 100

Joe 88

We were still escaping the penitentiary at this point, so they began playing Martin's trick-taker that is also - I was later told - a melder of Rummikub-type proportions: Doctor Science. Ian said he struggled with it, but seemed to pick up speed as they went. Unable to synchronise groups, we finished 1am Jailbreak and debated what to play next. Steve had now joined us for the duration as well, so we wanted something good for four but not too long. When I suggested Old London Bridge, to my surprise about 2/3rds of the whole room spontaneously intoned "Old London Bridge" in a deep, singsong voice. I was both alarmed and intrigued, so we jettisoned all other ideas and Steve set it up. 

I think Andrew has previously explained the rules so I won't regurgitate them here, but I really enjoyed this. Thematically it's entirely nonsensical - everyone builds their own bridge and bids for buildings - but it's speedy and interactive and different strategic approaches are available. Anja began her bridge with a bucolic park, and focused early energies on the chapel track, which determines the very common tie-breakers. All of us - except Pete I think, who was less wasteful - pushed previously-built buildings into the Thames to replace them with others, and Steve was most effective on the pink track, the name of which now escapes me. 

Anja pulled a fast one on Steve in the final round, giving the post its title. But it was Pete - the only player to complete their bridge - who was to triumph, as his sprint up the chapel track, highest-bidding cards and collection of cash saw him dwarf our efforts. 

Pete 50

Sam 42

Steve 35

Anja 26

They finished a crazy Ra around now as well. When I looked over in the first round, there was a solitary Ra tile out on Joe's bespoke mat, and yet Martin had a collection of tiles in front of him that suggested the entire game was nearly over. Fifteen of them!

I also heard Joe bemoaning his filthy luck, as various Disaster tiles emerged, turning his potential haul into a bag of Egyptian dog turds before his very eyes. Ian grabbed a snap of this horrifying ordeal for posterity.

Joe's anguish not pictured

Neither he nor Ian could catch Martin after that spectacular first round. 

Martin 48

Ian 29

Joe 28

And that was it for the night - it was already 11pm somehow so the social commuters made their way back to their cars and home again. Thanks all, it was constructive. 

No balls on balls

There were six of us at my (Sam's) house last night, and we played a medley of new and (somewhat) old, with chief purchase culprits Martin, Joe and myself all introducing new titles. I sinned first, as Martin was first to arrive and I proposed we play Link City whilst we were waiting, as the others could chip in as they joined us. 

This is a co-operative venture not a million miles from So Clover, but rather than looking for word connections on a leaf, we're building a city from tiles. One player takes a turn being the mayor, who secretly assigns the three new tiles to the three locations chosen by the deputy mayor (ie player on the mayor's left), which are represented by the road cones. Then all the non-mayor players try to figure out what the mayor would have chosen. Public toilets next to the train station or the park? Consulate next to the bank? As the others arrived - Joe, Katy, Ian and Adam H - everyone took a turn. 

But despite triggering the bonus cone with our all-answers-correct early on, we serially failed to agree on the best-laid town plans. Correct guesses are placed where 'planned' whereas wrongly-guessed tiles still get placed, but in non-scoring locations: those with no orthogonal adjacency. In theory you can rescue the situation with subsequent turns, but we never looked in danger of doing so. After Adam pronounced the town population 'idiots' - we got all his wrong - Link City ended with us on 14 points, 6 below the cut-off for 'funky town' and well into the zone of disdain. 

We flirted with the idea of splitting into threes but then Joe coquettishly showed us YUBIBO, a co-op game that played six, and we felt why not, especially when we saw the sticks and balls in the box. 

In this game, each player has a colour and on your turn you flip a card which tells you which other player you're going to combine with to hold a stick - and using which finger. Players can only use one hand for the stick work, and the game swiftly escalates from curious to madcap. 

It's a tricky game to get action snaps of, but fortunately Little Joe (-now taller than me) was on hand to help out in the paparazzi department.

The goal is to get all the sticks airborne at the same time, a task to which we did not seem suited, collapsing at first six and then eight (I think) before we pivoted to the 'balls' version of the game, where instead of adding a stick, you can place a ball into the structure. Balls can't touch fingers or other balls!

Unfortunately we discovered this morning that each pair of sticks can only support a maximum of one ball, so our triumph evaporated overnight. Meantime though there were other triumphs to be claimed: Martin began teaching Joe and Katy his new game, the trick-taker Dr Science, and I ran through the rules of TwinStar Valley with Ian and Adam. 

Both took about an hour, but other than some audible scorn at the other end of the table I missed the empirical parameters of Dr Science as I was focused on the grave ramifications of fruit delivery in fictional future Norway. 

As with Railways of the World, we're building a shared network where players can use each other's routes at a cost. Unlike Railways, the destinations themselves - the markets - are also owned, but each one specialises in two kinds of fruit: deliver that kind there and you pay the owner a coin for each one. Deliver anything else and it costs you nothing, but the fruit must be sold instantly, rather than kept back for a later transaction - prices are constantly fluctuating depending on what is sold. 

The actions you take are on a separate board, bringing a slightly puzzly euro-flavour to it all, as players can and do get in each other's way on this board. We found it interesting and pretty fast-moving, with the caveat that as newbies we seemed to hit clutch points where someone was forced to grow (add fruit to the board) only for the next in line to instantly deliver it. Maybe it's all about those early routes. 

Ian 46
Sam 34
Adam 29

Martin had already won Dr Science:

Martin 30

Joe 27

Katy 24

And they were now playing Fives, so we started more town planning with Tower Up. 

I decided fairly early that I wasn't going to focus on bonuses but instead try and get lots of visible roofs. Then I noticed Adam was in contention for bonuses and had more roofs than me. Meantime Ian put his energies into the bonuses, and ended up with a whopping 19 points for them. It was enough for another victory:

Ian 53
Adam 49
Sam 45

Fives had now finished too. Once more, I missed everything at the end of the table, lacking Andrew's multi-tasking skills on this front. But I did make a note of the scores.

Joe 14

Katy 6

Martin 5

As Tower Up was concluding they played a couple of rounds of Jungo, with Martin and Joe taking one apiece as Katy called them names. She now said she would go home unless we played So Clover, so we did, twice. In the first attempt, we overcame our bafflement at one of Joe's clues (akubra) to gather a decent 31/36

Then in the second, we made an incremental improvement, scoring 32/36 instead. I liked Joe's bar for chocolate/weather, and Katy's initiative to invent a word (automusic) for violin/robot.

We now lost Adam and Katy to fatigue, sadly, but the remaining four felt with the hour not yet 10.30 there was time for another something or other. We settled on Take Time, another co-op, this time about playing a bunch of numbered cards around a sort of clock - largely face-down - and trying to make sure their values ascend around each segment. 

New to Ian, but it's not heavy on rules so we brought him in on Chapter 2 and kicked things off with a convincing win. The next clock - there are several - was rather more tricky, and took us several attempts. Then with clock number three we made surprisingly short work of it, ending the night with a collective victory. The rain from earlier was now thankfully gone, and shortly so too were the gamers. Fun night. 

... of course

 Downstairs at Joe's place could be the name of an exclusive speakeasy in prohibition era Chicago but is, in fact, the location to which eight ardent gamers gathered. I arrived at the same time as Martin and remarked on Joe’s new dining table to which he replied it wasn’t that new at all. We put it down to the fact I hadn’t been to his house for a while, but then more people arrived and commented on Joe’s new table. He tried to explain this Mandela Effect by saying maybe there’d previously been a table cloth on it, or perhaps the new curtains were contributing to the sense of newness in the room. Either way, the mystery of Joe’s “new” table remains unsolved.

Anyway,we began with six of us (Martin , Adam H, Sam, Joe, Ian and myself) playing Continuous Pairs. Adam changed seats just after the game began, causing a little confusion in the dealing and Sam misremembered the rules for when to deal people in, but nevertheless we muddled through..

Adam played an amazing game, having a run of five consecutive values. I tried to get a photo of it but Sam had folded and he decided to take the lowest card in the run just before the photo was taken. 

Martin lost and Joe declared himself winner until someone pointed out that I had fewer points at which point Joe reverted to the official rules of there being no winner.

We played again, Katy arrived, and Sam lost.

Now we split into two groups. Martin, Adam and Katy played Gazebo, despite Katy’s reservations about the amount of plastic. Joe, Sam, Ian and I played “Fives” a trick taking game where the sum total of the winning cards in your tricks can’t exceed 25. What makes the game unique (and, some might say, unintuitive) is the fact that every card can be a purple 5, allowing you to get rid of some unwanted high value cards in your hand. 

We spent some time trying to understand when it is permissible to play a purple 5 and then we began the game. Then, after round one, Joe looked at the rules book again and noticed something in tiny writing, explaining that players can’t play more than one purple 5 cards in a trick “of course.” And it was the “of course” thing that really bothered us, as we tried to work out what part of the game set-up would suggest that particular rule. “I’m being gaslit by a rule book,” complained Joe.

So we started again and Ian impressed us all by finishing the final round with exactly 25 points in front of him, getting him a 3-point bonus.

Ian 13

Andrew 10

Sam 9

Joe 8

Gazebo had finished 

Martin - no gazebos left

Katy 4

Adam 6

And they went on to play Soda Jerk with Katy apparently unaware that this was a real thing and not just a phrase made up for a board game.

Adam 23

Katy -2 

Martin -45

Around this time Andy M arrives and he joins Martin, Ian and Katy for a game of Jungo which Martin wins, exclaiming “Soda Jerk is erased!”

Then there was a reshuffle in personnel and I was introduced to the joys of Big Wave, along with Martin, Katy and Sam. This trick-taker is “a very mental game” according to Martin although he only said this halfway through. It’s a trick taker where you have to not follow suit to any card that’s been played before in a trick. 

There are a bunch of rules that tweak the typical trick-taking procedures for those who don’t win a trick. I usually “caught a wave” allowing me to boost a future card by 2 or more points. Martin often took a point and nominated the next person to begin a hand, and invariably chose Katy. It didn’t seem to help.

Sam 58

Andrew 46

Katy 43

Martin 38

Then I left. I think Katy left too, since I later heard from Sam that he and Martin played So Clover twice, scoring 10 and then 9. Sheepy time ended with a victory for Ian with Adam in second and Joe and Andy “nowhere”.

Thanks all, it was special.

Nutritious Scarecrow

Anja and Steve were our hosts last night, and Joe was on driving duty: picking me up a little after 7 and then Ian and Martin en route. Joe insisted he knew where he was going and he mostly did, only losing the thread at the final corner, questioning "Where am I?" in a way that suggested maybe he was reflecting on bigger things than the geography of Barton Fields. But moments later we were relieved of any further existential concerns and in the house, where Arthur and Louie formed semi-adjacent participants for the first game of the night: Perfect Mismatch. 

This is a weird party game where playing co-operatively (there's also a competitive variant) one player is trying to successfully clue the others to one of six possible words on a card. The catch is that the clueing is bizarrely restrained to a series of spectrums - sort of - where the extremes are completely unrelated attributes. Is a scarecrow more unbreakable than it is nutritious? Is a career more legal than it is daytime? Ian, Joe and Martin all took turns clueing as Anja joined us for the finale. We had mixed success, succeeding with maximum points only once but avoiding the ignominy of placing the right guess in the worst place. 

Steve was briefly glimpsed but still focused on settling Lennon, so whilst Louie and Arthur began building a den we split into groups of three and four. Adam wanted a Cascadero rematch and so Ian, Martin and I joined him for that. At the other end of the table, Joe talked Anja and Pete through Sunrise Lane, and the mini-Kniziathon was underway. 

Cascadero had a cagey start - nobody wanted to be the first to offer up points to someone else, so the envoys were largely eyeing the towns from a safe distance. Then when things kicked into gear it transpired we were talking different strategic approaches. Adam was harvesting seals as much as he could, working towards not only that three-point bonus but a late-game salvo that would catapult him up the track. Ian and I were probably more tactically-minded, trying to nab opportunities as they arose. Martin didn't pick up a single seal all game, but we naively let him generate a lot of farming income, and he built a huge early lead. 

Sunrise Lane ended around the same moment as Lennon's bedtime, with Joe taking the win:

Joe 108
Anja 94
Pete 90

And with bedtime also, which Steve appeared. As we were still mulling, occasionally to excess, in Cascadero, they began playing Indigo, a game I've never played but thought it looked a bit like Tsuro. "It's Knizia does Tsuro" Steve confirmed later. 

Or in this case, Anja does Tsuro:

Anja 10
Steve 8
Pete 7
Joe 3

In Cascadero we were now coming to a grand finale - grand for Martin anyway. I briefly caught him only for our resident Kniziaphile to surge away once more, reaching the top of his track just in time before the game ended as we ran out of envoys. Adam's seal-powered surge was impressive, but there was no victory this time. 

Martin 47

Sam 41

Adam 36

Ian 28

Adam and Arthur now said goodbye and made their way home. Louie delayed for as long as possible but the Dalton-Dale hammer came down and he was packed off to bed. The Indigo quartet played Indigo again! 

As Ian and I went from taking a pasting by Martin in one game to taking a pasting by Martin in another: this time, Gazebo. We tried a new board, with 'raised patios', the specifics of which are interesting when you play but too boring to list here. 

As with Cascadero, Martin had a strongish lead mid-game, we caught him near the end before he surged again. I had an outside chance of pipping him to the post with my last turn, if by some wild chance he had no blue on his dominoes. But he did, and instead of a triumphant victory I shunted myself from second to third. Fucking gazebos. 

Martin all gazebos erected!

Ian - two gazebos still in their packaging

Sam - three gazebos thrown across the lawn in a tantrum

At the other end of the table, Indigo had already finished:

Joe 10

Pete 8

Anja and Steve 7 each

And they were blowing each other up in Light Speed: Arena.

Joe won this by Griffithesque margins, with Steve baffled by what just happened. 

Joe - 25

Anja and Pete - 15 each

Steve 12

"It's a silly game, but I like it" said Joe, reholstering his space blaster. I tend to agree, even if you spend longer scoring than you do playing. 

Now what? We shuffled seats with Martin Joe and Pete teaching Anja Gang of Dice and Ian, Steve and I playing Misfits. Here are the three hand positions of the former, illustrated by Anja (whut) Martin (er) and Joe (hah).  

There was to be much drama in both games. At our end of the table both Steve and I made it to our last piece more than once, only to have things collapse on us. Ian at one stage seemed to have All The Pieces, and we confected something so top-heavy that the Gang paused their Dice to watch in wonder. 

Meantime in Gang of Dice Anja found herself on the receiving end of fate's indifferent attitude to plucky against-the-odds dice-rolling, almost entirely bereft of dice halfway through the game. But though I missed the finer details, she staged an incredible recovery - just not quite enough to catch Joe. 

Joe 48

Anja 46

Pete 39

Martin 29

Misfits finished at the same time, after an epic of wild swings and roundabouts. In the end it was Steve who took the win, after Ian and I both knocked things over one too many times. 

There was loose talk of getting Perfect Mismatch out again, but was no time for an all-person closer with the hour now gone eleven. After a brief consultation about Steve's facial hair/lack of, it was time to go home. Thanks all.