Ribbon Factory

After struggling through a hot humid day, I almost backed out of this week's games night due to fatigue, but couldn't face another missed opportunity to match wits with some of the greatest gamers the world has ever seen.

We began as a five (Joe, Martin, Ian, Matt and me), and had every reason to assume we'd stay that way, with an outside chance of a late arrival in the shape of Andy M.

So we began with High Society, a simple card game that perfectly captures the anguish of the massively wealthy. Joe began by bidding high, picking up a 5 for $12m. Terrible business, we thought, but then Matt got a 3 for $8m, so maybe not. Ian got the 10 for top dollar, but then he used that advantage to soak up the effects of two bad cards while we all spent a fortune to avoid them. It was nearly the end of the game and Martin had spent a great deal of money with only a lonely x2 card to show for it. His tactic seemed to have worked when a six came out and he picked it up. It put him in first, points wise, but it proved to be the last straw for his bank balance.

Matt 11
Joe 10
Andrew 9
Ian 7
Martin out (but had 12)

As an interesting aside, Matt spent less than any of us. A moral in there somewhere, I think.

Martin made the sage observation that you have no chance of winning High Society unless you were in the top two. We looked a bit blank and kind of agreed with him. He elaborated that he meant you only felt you had a chance of winning. This is fair enough. He continued to sigh about High Society for the rest of the evening.

Then we played Powerships, the racing game in space. Martin set it out, flipped bits of the board over, rotated them and eventually got a play area without any gaps in the middle.

It was my first game, but it's not exactly drowning in rules so I felt quietly comfortable as I rounded the first buoy in hot pursuit of Ian and Martin.

Then Matt stormed back into contention with a move that saw him use four dice to move nine spaces for two turns in a row. Similarly, Joe went from distant last to a fairly local last with a similar move.

It was all looking very close around buoy three, but then Ian got trapped behind some space dust allowing Martin and Matt to steal past him in the home straight.

1. Martin
2. Matt
3. Ian
4. Andrew
5 (DNF) Joe

Martin then struggled to put the game away again, with it requiring a few aborted attempts at fitting the modular board back into its box.

Now we began the game we'd been promising ourselves all evening: Texas Showdown. Perhaps at its imperious best with five, we cracked through two rounds. Ian had a clear first round and a cagey second one to take first place.

I, meanwhile, experienced a weird aural illusion during the game. I was pouring my drink into my shot glass at the same time that Joe was pouring his drink into a wine glass. The sound of liquid in a barely empty glass somehow convinced me to keep pouring and it wasn't until my glass was overflowing that I came to my senses and I stopped. How odd.

Ian (0) 2
Andrew (3) 3
Martin (3) 5
Joe (3) 7
Matt (3) 7

During this game, Andy M arrived, keen to dispel the lingering aftereffects of a day of meetings with the medicinal qualities of board games. He was introduced to the world of Texas Showdown for a one round special since Sam had texted and was expected to be here in ten minutes. The second game of Texas Showdown ended

Andrew 0
Ian 1
Martin 1
Matt 2
Andy M 2
Joe 4

Sam arrived and, in stark contrast to our initial expectations, we were now a group of seven. We split into two groups. Joe, Matt, Ian and Andy went outside for a dusky game of Movable Type. Martin, Sam and I stayed inside to give Pikoko another try.

Pikoko was much the same as before. I found myself bamboozled by a couple of calls by my opponents and, in round two, I was confused enough to play the No Confidence card, much to Martin's disgust.

I enjoyed it, but I fear that Martin may already be too much of an expert by now.

Martin (8) (17) 26
Andrew (2) (7) 15
Sam (3) (11) 14

As Movable Type was still continuing under the light from someone's mobile phone, the three of us tried The Mind. "Speed Mind" we called it, given the strict time limit we assumed we were under.

And, indeed, we did play quicker than usual. We made some audacious decisions about when to play what and, mostly, it worked fine. We got past 45-50-100 in round one and 38-41-42 during round three. We cleverly shurikened 50-51-73 in round four but then lost three lives in round six. We cleared round seven, despite it ending 95-96 and shurikened 13-14-15 in round eight. Surely luck was on our side! Nope. We followed that up by losing our final lives before the round was over.

Amazing fun, though.

Movable Type had by now ended and well done to the four of them for ending with final words which all had slightly inappropriate connotations.

Joe 17 (final word: Sleazy)
Matt 16 (Petting)
Ian 14 (Knobs)
Andy 10 (Pillars)

Good work, chaps.

Now, as a group of seven, we chose Word Slam as our last game. It was me, Ian, Matt and Sam against Andy, Martin and Joe. The game was a ding dong battle, with the Joe team streaking into an early lead.

The clues were as clever as they were absurd. Joe got "board game" once he saw the word "play". "Grey Historic Big Old Long" was the Great Wall Of China. I got "Marilyn Monroe" from the clues of "Dead" and "woman". Obvious, really. And "prison" was drawn from the clues of "do" and "time".

Then things started getting really obtuse. The clue "object material woman two" somehow lead someone to "Bra". "Soft material left right up down on many" was Sam's successful attempt at defining the word "wallpaper". Meanwhile, was Joe's guess of "ribbon factory" a genuine attempt or a way to throw his opponents off the track?

Sam's team came back into it. By guessing "Batman" (man night movie) we drew level. The decider was drawn from the black deck, the hardest deck of all. But as it happened, I got lucky. The clue was "poodle" and when Joe guessed "Dog" I pointed at my previous clue of "white animal" and we got it. An amazing comeback. A glorious win. An ideal finale.

A lovely evening. I'm very glad I made the effort to spend time with you all. Same time next week!