No(kosu) Dice

I logged on at eight o'clock to find five gamers already deep into the third era in 7 Wonders. I soon learnt that this era had lasted longer than most were expecting, with Katy's internet once again proving unreliable. The other four were Martin, Sam, Ian and Adam H.

Adam, who was last with only 17 points, was perfectly happy to abandon the game. But Katy’s efforts bore fruit and the game finally ended:

Sam 64

Martin 53

Katy 50

Adam 41

Ian 40

During this game Joe and Andy also arrived, making us an eight-gamer group. Sam only had another twenty or so minutes so we split into two groups for a couple of quick games before regrouping again. Both of those games were Marrakech. I played against Ian, Adam and Katy and Adam won thanks to his not inconsiderable patch of carpet in the middle of the board. Katy made a few peculiar tactical choices: at one point putting her carpet behind Assam therefore missing out on a guaranteed four points. 

Adam 46

Ian 44

Andrew 39

Katy 31

The other game ended

Sam 48

Joe 37

Martin 31

Andy 30

And so with two convincing wins under his belt, Sam set off to prepare things for his son’s birthday while the rest of us formed two new groups. Martin suggested they try a new crazy Japanese trick-taking game, to which Katy agreed with superhuman speed. So those two and Joe and Ian set off for playingcards.io to play Nokosu Dice while Andy, Adam and I went for Alhambra.

Early on, Andy remarked that I kept leaving 4-1 money cards for Adam to pick up. But, as they say, lucky in money, unlucky in Discord and Adam dropped in and out of our chatroom. Mind you, there was precious little chatting going on. I was concentrating pretty hard and, although leading after round two, I was not sure of my position. I was decidedly unnerved by Adam and Andy’s larger collection of money cards, expecting them to unleash an unstoppable combo of building acquisitions. 

As I later found out, so did Andy, but his plans were always foiled by either Adam or I taking just what he was after. He wouldn’t buy unless it was for exact money and he ended the game with 27 green, 26 red, 24 blue and 14 yellow!

Andrew 153

Adam 129

Andy 116

After this Adam left and we asked the other group how close they were to finishing. Martin said pretty far and that they’d probably finish for the evening after that. So Andy and I said our goodbyes and logged off. 

Actually, we didn’t. Andy stayed online for a game of Abyss against random BGA people and I watched the end of Nokosu Dice while eating my crisps as loudly as I liked, trying to work out the rules. It was a trick taking game, but one where you could use dice as well. Other than that, even simple things defied explanation. Still, it must have been complicated for them too, judging by the pauses between moves.

Katy 66

Joe 50

Martin 40

Ian 35

And that was that for the night. Everyone left playingcards.io one by one until there was nothing left but the sound of the wind in the trees. A quietly poignant moment.

Thanks all, see you next week.

Shortest evening of the year

Today I was stretching modern technology to its limits. NASA may boast about being able to put a rover down on the surface of Mars, but that's peanuts trying to juggle an old smart phone, my current phone and a kindle fire while trying to play games online/cook supper/get drunk.

Joining me on this evening was Ian, Martin and Andy. We were expecting Adam T but early on we got an email from him saying he'd just woken up and he had to eat. 

We began with Marrakech, and we initially stayed strictly to the three right hand columns, sending poor Assam round in circles. Martin was so taken with this new "variant" that he was disappointed when I broke out from this area and set off across the rest of the board. 

This evening's notable moment was when Andy made a carpet several squares upwards, with two squares either side at the bottom. This prompted Martin to remark that he didn't want to land on Andy's giant cock.

In the end it was between me and Martin. The final player was Andy who tried to cover up bits of carpet so as to end the game in a draw, but didn't take into account the tie breaker, so I took the win by a single coin.

Andrew 50
Martin 50
Ian 28
Andy 24

Next up we played Kingdom Builder. Something for my kindle fire to really get its teeth into and it did okay, unless I tried full screen mode, when it wouldn't render the whole board properly.  Martin built a sprawling spider of a village whose spindly legs connected castles to villages for points. Ian, though, ended up mostly stuck in one corner, unable to make any connections at all.

Martin 60
Andy 57
Andrew 53
Ian 30

Finally, we chose Buttons as our nightcap. It's a fun game, I think. I'm still to crack the winning strategy, though. Martin opted out in a winning position meaning Ian had to push his luck, just as he'd had to do last time. He couldn't manage it and Martin took a slender win by just 98 points.

Martin 106
Andy 8
Ian 6
Andrew 5

And so we were done. One of the shortest games nights on records, not even reaching ten o’clock, but still a lot of fun.

Our autoplay has been updated

Tuesday games this week kicked off at 8 with six gamers in attendance, Katy, Martin, Sam, Ian, Andy and myself. Our first game was For Sale, and what an odd game it was. Sam picked up the 1 since"you know where you are with a one," and then he picked up an 8, which had an igloo on it. After all, he quipped, "you know where you are with an igloo… the north pole." He also got the 2, making him the most locationally certain player that For Sale has ever seen.

In the buying round, Martin made happy noises about how well everything was going. His confidence was entirely justified, and there was a three-way tie for third.

Martin 51
Ian 47
Sam 44 + cash
Katy 44 + less cash
Andy 44 + much less cash
Andrew 39

Then we split into two groups. Katy, Martin and Sam went off to play something whose name escapes me, but looked like this.

After that, I’m told they played Masked Men and it ended:

Katy 5
Martin 5
Sam -2

Meanwhile, Ian, Andy and I played Buttons. Ian got a rules explanation from Andy, even though it had been me that suggested it. Thanks Andy. I then went bust in round one, you know, just to show Ian what it looked like. 

Ian looked like he was going for two rows of six when I got lucky with a dice roll and was able to Opt Out in a winning position. The other two had to push their luck or admit defeat. Ian failed in his attempt but Andy was more fortunate. As we saw the result, I was remind of this game’s comedic lop-sided scoring system,

Andrew 108
Andy 108
Ian 8

After this Ian said he was in the mood for something light, and Andy suggested Sapiens. It may be light to him, but I found there were enough rules for them to blur together in a sticky mash.  There were lots of icons and something about food. The situation wasn’t helped by me having to quickly dash downstairs mid-game and open a tin of sardines for my girlfriend. 

Andy 31
Ian 24
Andrew 20

After this, Katy and Martin had joined our Google Hangout after Sam had left for the night and we ended with No Thanks, this time exploring the possibilities of the automatic pass system. This little option allows you to keep adding coins until a certain value is reached, and when it does this, it does it extremely quickly. This makes the player look very impatient and petulant. Martin also liked the message “your autoplay has been updated” that appears onscreen when you use it. As for the game, I was winning until the last card, which was 32 and Martin milked it for as much as he dared.

Martin 11
Andrew 24
Katy 25
Andy 39
Ian 49

And so that was it. Thanks everyone. See you next Tuesday.

Keys are good! Keys are good!

 I arrived online and found Martin, Andy and Ian patiently waiting for me, having completed a game of No Thanks. When I checked the result, I couldn’t stop myself from pointing out how shit those scores were.

Ian 63

Martin 64

Andy 76

Then the four of us decided on a new game: Abyss. Nothing to do with James Cameron externalising a failed marriage into a CGI-laden blockbuster. No, instead this is a get-stuff-to-get-stuff kind of game. The basic mechanism seems to be (to me at least) that the more choice you ask for, the greater the options for your opponents to pick up something out of the stuff you leave behind. Cards you don’t buy end up in a pile that someone can take for free, if you ask to see three “locations” (end of game bonuses which you can get when you have three keys, hence the blog title) and those other two you don’t chose will become available for everyone. That kind of thing.

Martin talked us through the rules, which was made a lot easier when Andy worked out how to allow Martin to make his cursor visible, and his tinkerbell-esque green cursor darting around brought back memories of playingcards.io.

Halfway through the game Katy arrived, commented on how quiet we were and then left. And it was. Ian opined that the game would be better in real life to general agreement. Not to say it wasn’t bad, but a little pedestrian. Part of the problem is having to click “pass” on something you obviously don’t want and the game does allow you to set up automatic passing for cards of a certain colour/value but none of us felt confident enough to do that.

In the end, Martin bought up the seventh lord and triggered the end game.

Martin 76

Andy 75

Andrew 65

Ian 63

After this pretty substantial experience, we ended with Marrakech, with the “dick” variant where you leave the meeple pointing in the direction you want your opponent to go. This worked badly for Ian who found that Andy was repeatedly able to set him up so that he had no chance of escape. I felt a bit bad because I seemed to let Andy get into those positions, but didn’t admit to that at the time. I’m admitting to it now, though. Sorry Ian.

Andy 68

Martin 52

Andrew 30

Ian 12

And then we were done. Thanks all, it was fun.