Active Pile On

 Just like that, we're back in the room. After what seems like at least a decade, the Olde London mob of GNN assembled at Chris' house last night - along with the host there was Paul and myself (Sam) with Andrew coming later. There was a slight hesitancy as one might expect, particularly as I had brought the boys along. Suddenly we were all in a situation we weren't used to - a crowd. 

Luckily Chris' house is enormous and the children scampered off to do God knows what after we'd all hugged and kissed and eaten pizza. 

Chris and Paul had already been gaming with Ashton, trying out Paul's charity shop find of the day before, Space Lines. I think they played twice and Ashton won both times. But now with three of us, we had the luxury of starting an epic six-hour gaming session, and we did so with Project L. 

The rules have already been explained but suffice to say that Chris won it convincingly, and then Paul won our second game convincingly (I was third both times), and if there's a gigantic void of theme and the merest smidgen of Hey I Wanted That interaction, it's also enormously satisfying just putting all these bits into place. Especially when you do one of those delicious Master Actions and pull off a zinger of a move. Or you can just build a tetronomic totem like Chris did. 

We then played 7 Wonders. Without the computer to move cards around for you and tell you what everything does, it wasn't quite the super-breezy ten minutes the online implementation is, but it was still pretty speedy and nice to be in the room. Paul suggested we could slide the tablecloth back and forth if we wanted to relive the BGA version, but we ended up focusing our energies on the game in the end, and I picked up a rare win.

Then Andrew arrived! We were now pushing the legal limits and feeling marginally bandity about it all, and felt like something silly, plumping for Cubitos, with it's seemingly simple dice-rolling system that still tied us all in knots - me especially, as I'd explained the rules wrong previously, had a correction from Joe, reread the rules, but still got confused, and ended with the worse case of rules sweats I've had in a while as I fretted over draw piles, active piles, discard piles and roll piles. I mean, that's at least one pile too many isn't it? 

Basically you roll shitloads of dice though: it's a deckbuilder in cube form. We all played cautiously except Paul, who kept going bust and was miles behind the rest of us, only to suddenly spring forward like a geometric hunting dog. As before, the sedate opening changes and before you know it everyone suddenly speeds up - my previous experiences and the fact I got a Rollosaurus meant I was first over the line.

Sam wins.

Others: DNF

Chris was keen to try out The Secret Adventures of the Old Hellfire Club and I was certainly amenable, although it meant a brief rules-read, we were off!

This is a Very Silly game. Mechanically-speaking, all you're doing is playing cards of suits on your turn and hoping nobody plays a lower card of the same suit - pushing your luck or banking them after a minimum of two. You get coins for high cards and coins for having the most of a suit at the end. But heaped on top of this basic-math, risk-reward thing is the story you're telling. Players are drunken patrons of the titular Victorian-age club and are retelling the great adventure they undertook to (for example, as we did) save the world from a scourge of invading aliens. The cards represent story elements, such as Person, Place, Weapon, Insult, Motive, and as you play the cards you integrate them into your retelling. But the higher cards are more fabulously boastful, exaggerating things, and the lower ones rather more run of the mill. At one point I recalled how we set our man o' war with all hands against the invaders, only for Paul to play a lower card, reminding me it was actually an Amazonian blowpipe. In that instance, my turn's over and Paul banks his card instead, and the turn moves on. 

I can imagine sitting next to us as we played this could be very irritating if you were, say, reading a book, or engaged in everyday conversation. Particularly with Chris and I releasing long-dormant acting aspirations, but I found it enormous fun and probably the highlight of the evening. It's perhaps the most group-dependent game I've ever encountered but there were some golden moments in it, like when we encountered Karl Marx outside Whitechapel and charged the aliens with art fraud. Discovering Andrew  was a Fart-catcher (5 Insult) will always stay with me. 

Although as he pointed out, isn't Disillusionment with Life (8 Peril) more of an everyday occurrence than an 8?

Andrew had time for one more game and it was High Society. This is still my (second) favourite Knizia, a miniature work of genius. Everyone was in with a shout right up until the end - except for Chris, who wasn't. My skin was saved though when Andrew took the last card...

Sam 15

Paul/Andrew 13 each

Chris - BUST

We tried to tempt Andrew to stay by setting up Raj, but he was resolute and returned to whence he had came (the A350) while Chris took us to the fackin' cleaners in Raj world: with no Martin to bid high against me on the mid-range stuff, I kept overpaying for everything and my last-round recovery wasn't enough to catch him. 

Chris 64

Sam 54

Paul 20

The witching hour was approaching so we blasted through Mountain Goats: a dice-chucking, point-collecting, goat-removing evening-ender!

....but it didn't actually end the evening because Paul was eager to play Project L again, so we did! This time I fared a bit better. You gotta take those Master Actions!

Marvellous stuff, well worth the trip while the place is open!

Smug Too Soon

Another Tuesday, and yet rather than gathered around screens, six of the GNN brethren came together at my (Sam's) house for the still-slightly-surreal act of gaming face to face, around a shared table, touching wooden pieces, testing our wits and numeracy and - in this case - fondling Adam Hillmann's nuts. Thanks Adam. 

Also present was Adam T, Katy, myself and a slightly bewildered-looking Martin, appearing as though stumbling in from the mountains halfway through a Beckett play. It was kind of strange, but not so strange that we couldn't squeeze in a quick (new) game before Joe rocked up - as he rocked up, in fact, but he charitably let us continue - which was Whale Riders: The card game. 

This was a slightly Fuji Flush-esque undertaking of collecting cards in sets, and whenever a set was claimed (four 4's, six 6's and so on) by the collective owners, any other active sets imploded. There were a couple of other wrinkles, but it was very simple, and only took ten minutes to bash through:

Martin 42

Katy 35

Sam 31

Adam T 25

Adam H 16

Then with Joe present and happily amenable, we moved directly to another new game: Scape Goat, in which everyone is told (by the game) who the scape goat is, but it's lying to someone and nobody knows who. The air is thick with paranoia and the sound of pistachio shells cracking already, then Joe began talking about Steve Coogan's balls, which feature in a film he'd recently watched. We spent a good few minutes integrated the relevant testicles into the ongoing game, then I walked outside and realised the neighbour's doors were wide open. When I came back inside I decided I should warn everyone about the possible audience before the current goat impersonations really took hold. 

Scape Goat is simple on the rules, but trickier on working out what you should actually do. Definitely working out the scape goat isn't you is a good idea, but I failed miserably in game one, panicking and running to the cops when I suspected I was about to be framed. 

As it turned out, I wasn't:

Adam T (the scapegoat) wins!

Then we played again and Adam H worked out he was the scape goat before we could frame him. He - correctly - ran to the cops as well, and saved himself. 

Adam H (the scape goat) wins!

We then played Whale Riders: Not the card game, which comes with a board and little wooden whales.

 

It bore very little relation to the card game, with the only cards being contracts to fulfill as we - riding whales, naturally - swim around grabbing what we could to do so, in most Knizian fashion; all decisions tantalising and options designed to recede from sight like the tide going out before a tsunami. 

The big wave in this case was Adam H, who halfway through the game completed fifteen thousand contracts and scored a million pearls. That's what it felt like anyway, although it was much closer than we realised. 

Adam 18

Joe / Adam T 16 each

Sam 15

Martin 13

Katy 10

We split into two groups, with Joe, Katy and Martin playing new game #4 Renature, and myself and the Adams breaking out new game #5, Luzon Rails. I didn't pick up much of what was happening in Renature apart from some talk about neutral bushes and Katy's early-game confidence giving way to late-game doubt.

I was experiencing a similar narrative arc in Luzon Rails, in part because with both Adams assuring me I was winning, I let my iron grip on the isle of Luzon loosen like a railroad builder who got lucky with a first swing of the hammer and then spent the rest of the day admiring a single sleeper. 

As we build track we also control companies by owning shares in them. At the end of each round every company pays dividends so you're all trying to push their dividend value up by building track to prosperous places on the board. But companies can only build track with monies paid from auctioning shares, and there is the considerable rub, because you win the game by having the most personal cash. I shoulda bid for that last yellow share...

Adam H 109

Adam T 103

Sam 99

With Renature still puzzling the other end of the table, Adam T took his leave and vanished into the night. I tempted Adam H to stay by flinging all the luscious pieces of Project L (not a new game; we played it last week) onto the table. 

It's very easy to pick up and play, but you still want to win, right? And I thought I'd triumphed, but I may have been just a bit innumerate by this point.

Adam 22

Sam 17

As we packed that away, Katy reminded me that we should never invite Adam for this very reason. Renature concluded with Katy saying "I might have been smug too soon".

 Going by the scores, she was right.

Martin 78

Katy 72

Joe 50-something

The jury seemed to be out - but enjoying the debate, with all of them surprised how thinky it was for an alleged 'family' game, but perhaps impressed all the same. "It was long" Katy pointed out. Martin said he wouldn't even attempt it with four. Joe looked slightly rueful, whether at his performance or the purchase itself, he'll have to explain. I tried to get them to stay longer, but with 11 o'clock now past, it was time to wrap up another delightful evening. Lovely to be back!

Silly starts today

 I arrived at Sam's at 7.50, excited for a return to normality, eager to have a break from online gaming (although I felt a little sad that there wasn't a concurrent online GNN happening that we could watch). You can imagine my slight disappointment, then, when I found Sam, Joe and Katy deep in a board game based on Tetris! 

Oh well, at least it wasn't actual Tetris. I watched in faint puzzlement until they added up some numbers and Sam had won.

Sam 24

Joe 21

Katy 19

But what to play next? The possibilities seemed endless, and it was during this debate that Sam uttered the words that are this blog's title. It all seemed very fresh and new.

In the end we chose Cubitos, a dice rolling, push-your-luck, deck-building race game. You start with a set of pretty tedious dice that allow you to move forward or buy better dice, if they allow you to do anything at all. You can roll as often as you want with the risk of going bust if you roll all blanks. 

The powered-up dice had nicely silly names which allowed Sam to say things like "that's one step from Smelly Cat and Mr Dog goes back for two cash," without anyone thinking it strange. Joe hoarded money until he could afford a Rollersaurus. I stayed firmly in last throughout but the battle for first was very close. 

Sam's Reckless Cheese got him into a winning position, but Katy crossed the line first. Sam also finished on the same turn and the tie breaker couldn't separate them so we had to play another round. Katy edged ahead and it was down to Sam's final roll to see if he could outpace her. Luckily his Smelly Cat saved the day, allowing him to move twice and take the win.

1st Sam
2nd Katy
3rd Joe
4th Andrew

Next up, we played Master Word, a kind of 20 Questions crossed with Mastermind. One of us looks at a word, and the rest of have to write yes/no questions to guess it, knowing only the category. But the word-knower can't answer each individually, only say how many yeses there are in a particular round of questions.

In round one, category: Animals, we became fixated on the idea that the answer was Peacock. Colourful, feathered, not flying. In the last round Sam wrote Peacock on his card and I almost wrote "seriously, though, is it a peacock?" on mine, so convinced was I. But at the last minute I decided to be sensible and wrote Cockerel since that fitted the description too and you never know… Turns out I was right! I also did well in round two, when the category was weapons and I was the first to mention crossbows. 

But the real highlight was after we'd finished and were putting it away when Joe remembered there is a ranking system. "If you get it in seven rounds, that's Master Fox and if you get it in four then you have very soft palms." I dutifully wrote this down, thinking how nice it was to have a game that recognised the arbitrary nature of rankings by filling it with non sequiturs, when Joe clarified that the last bit wasn't the ranking but a comment about Katy's hands after she'd passed him some game tokens to put in the box. How we laughed at the misunderstanding. The genuine (and, by now, very ordinary) ranking was "bloodhound." But I prefer ours

.
Joe, Katy, Sam and Andrew: very soft palms

Then we played Telestration Upside Drawn. This is a guessing game played in pairs. One person holds a pen vertically, nib down, perfectly still, above the table and the other has to move the pad beneath it and draw something that allows the first person to guess a word. It was fun for a brief burst of silliness,  although it became a bit gruelling when the clue was "sinkhole." Katy tried to draw buttons because they have holes in them, but all I saw were tortured faces of the dammed.

We still won, though.

Katy and Andrew 6
Joe and Sam 4

I was ready to leave at this point but then discovered Joe had driven and was offering lifts. So I stayed for one more and it was my choice, too. I wanted to play Push It, since it's the kind of physical game that you can't play online. But Sam found that he'd lent his copy to someone so we played Karambolage instead. Sam sped into an early 3-1-0-0 lead but didn't score again for ages, allowing Katy to storm gradually into a 5-3-3-0 lead. I was last to score anything, my aim being wayward throughout. 

Joe showed his usual form of having the Yips. At one point, when trying to push the puck with the string he somehow missed such that the string went over the puck, caught it on the opposite side and then he pulled the string taught again, pushing the puck backwards towards him. 

And so that was us finished for the evening. No one froze or had to restart their phone. Three of us set off into the rain, happy with our life choices. At least for today.

The Waiting Game

Eight o’clock (and a few minutes) and I log into Discord. From what I can hear, Martin, Sam, Ian, Katy and Andy are playing Raj. Sam was shocked by Martin picking up a 4 with a bid of 14. Andy, meanwhile, vanished with almost clockwork regularity, showing up just long enough to make a bid and then disappearing again. In the end, Ian won - he just beat Andy which is especially impressive since Andy’s thinking time was almost eight minutes more than anyone else’s.

Ian 15

Andy 14

Martin 10

Sam 2

Katy -1

Joe had also arrived and then as a septet we dove into Hugo. Or did Hugo dive into us? Well, for a lot of time, Hugo didn’t do much of anything. After a fairly uneventful first round, Andy’s internet deserted him just as he was about to place his first meeple on the board. This left us with nothing to do except chat. Joe’s making renovations in his kitchen. We spoke at length about Sam’s son’s taste in music (mostly guesswork, it has to be said). Martin’s image froze with his face a true picture of boredom which amused us, and Joe tried to get a similar amount of attention by pretending to have frozen but nobody noticed. In our defence, Joe was in dark mode and we could barely see him at all. Eventually, Andy returned and the game could end. “Was that the longest game of Hugo ever?” wondered Katy. “I hope so,” replied Martin.

Ian -6

Katy -10

Sam -19

Martin -19

Andy -22

Joe -28

Andrew -32

Finally we ended on 6nimmt. I went on mute for pretty much the whole game since I was cooking and I have to admit, I wouldn’t have had much to say except the usual groans of despair at cruel fate. I listened in, though, and it was all jolly interesting. Andy was hit twice by people putting down consecutive cards that filled up a row and left him eating cows. But in the end, I somehow got a joint win, along with King Of The Evening Ian. Three wins in a row. Meanwhile, Katy ended every game this evening with a negative point score. Well done to both of them

Ian 21

Andrew 21

Joe 16

Andy 5

Martin 2

Sam -1

Katy -8

I left Discord mid game, leaving a note to say that would be my last game of the evening and when I finally logged back on to see what else they played without me, I saw that they hadn’t. So, thanks everyone. Next week, maybe see you all in the flesh? How exciting. 

Bugged out

Another week of games online, albeit one with an end to the isolation in sight. The promise of a six household get together is only a couple of weeks away, but with the addition of some online activities for those unwilling to come out just yet.

But that is all conjecture for the future. This week, six of us rolled onto BGA. I was too late for Raj, which ended in a cruel tie for Ian and Andy.

Martin 11
Katy 5
Ian -99
Andy -99

Soon after I arrived, Joe logged on and the six of us played That's Life (or Verflixt, or Fucksticks as it has alternatively been called). It worked well online although twice I clicked on the tile I wanted to go to instead of the piece I wanted to move, thus moving a guard by mistake.

We all admired the new die rolling animation. All except Joe who insisted it was broken and that you could see the final number during the animation. We disagreed and there then followed a lengthy demonstration of possibly the worst psychic in the world. Joe guessed correctly but always said the number just after the die finished rolling. "Well, you have to expect some lag," he explained.

He continued a few more times, looking like someone just reading a die and expecting people to be impressed. Eventually, he switched from Safari to Chrome and the bug no longer occurred - his ability to see into the future was over. I wonder if the story of Samson and Delilah would have been so popular if, instead of cutting off his hair to remove his strength, Delilah had just changed his default browser.

"Two!"

As for the game, I did terribly while Katy attributed her success to her laid back nature while she branded Martin a "Skippy wotsit" who never stayed still long enough to pick up a tile.

Katy 27
Ian 11
Andy 9
Martin 2
Joe -7
Andrew -8

Then another old favourite had made a recent debut online, Hugo. Despite technically being banned in a couple of houses we were playing in, we carried on regardless. It was the familiar mix of chants and cheers as Hugo chased our hapless party guests (although we were slightly disappointed to see the same dice animation as we'd seen in That's Life.)

"We all self-Hugo," said Katy, "nothing to be ashamed of." "And anyone who says they don't self-Hugo is lying," added Joe.

Andy -17
Ian -18
Joe -24
Andrew -24
Katy -25
Martin -31

Then we squeezed in one last game before Joe left. He can't resist For Sale. It was a typical game. Andy picked up a zero dispite bidding 17 and Martin got $15 with only a 22. But it was slow, steady me that finished in first place.

Andrew 53
Katy 52
Martin 45
Ian 38 plus tie breaker
Joe 38
Andy 34

So Joe left and Katy and Ian were teetering on the brink. They both agreed to stay on for one last game of No Thanks, but things quickly became unstuck when Katy lost her connection on her first turn. Or was it something more serious than that? She kept getting a lengthy error message from BGA, something about some module not working.
She tried refreshing, and refreshing again and then refreshing in another language before finally deciding that the problem was beyond help. Then we had the difficulty of working out how to cancel the game if Katy couldn't access it to say she was fine to abandon it.

In the end, we left it, since there wasn't a time limit on it. And, as far as I know, it's still there. I hope we have the chance to finish it next week. I'd love to see what Katy's thinking time is.

And so that was that. A bit of a damp squib to end on but still a fun evening. See you all next week.