Games in the key of life

If late is the new on-time then I'd be as punctual as a Japanese train. Unfortunately, it's not and so when I finally arrived well after 8, i found Sam (host), Joe and Katy deep in a game of New York Zoo. 

It's from Uwe Rosenberg and it involves filling a grid of squares with various shaped areas which you can fill with animals. It caused a lot of anguish as players bemoaned their non-breeding stock, imagining the animals either looking at each other from afar or just wanking. Joe was first to fill his area which gave him an instawin.

Joe first

Sam and Katy joint last

Next the four of us played Take The A Chord, a Japanese trick taking game which has a vague theme of playing Jazz music. All of it seemed confusing and opaque, such as who won the trick, who started an improvisation, who got the spotlight and what happens if we change keys. Even working out who started the next round in the event of a tie for least points in the previous round required us to read the rules slowly at least twice.

Meanwhile, Katy's request to have jazz on the stereo was largely left unfulfilled as the playlist kept veering off into other genres. Mind you, we filled in by humming the note we’d just played in a perfectly tone-deaf manner. I think I had fun playing it but that was mostly due to the company, not the game. I'm not sure it's the kind of thing you understand first time. Just like real jazz, then.

Katy 80

Sam 60

Joe 45

Andrew 20

Then we tried Rumble Nation as a four player. It’s pretty feisty, at least it was for Katy who snatched Joe’s phone from his hand as he was searching for Sri Lankan restaurants so that he could concentrate on taking his move, and then she criticised me for folding up a crisp packet really loudly. Nevertheless, her dedication was rewarded by a comfortable win.Maybe we should all play like that.

Katy 39

Sam 28

Andrew 20

Joe 19

By now it was after 10.00, which is usually finishing up time online, but not here. Instead we leapt feet first into our best Victorian story-telling pants with a rousing game of The Secret Adventures of the Old Hellfire Club. It’s a very basic trick-taker dressed up with a lot of nonsense about storytelling.

This evening’s nonsense was based around our attempts to find the Elephant’s Graveyard and we made a fairly good start, getting on a ship with a foul-mouthed Karl Marx and sailing past the Cape of Good Hope, but then I was arrested and we all went to Newgate Prison. Joe won, but let’s be honest it’s the kind of game that doesn’t need winners. 

Joe 15

Katy 14

Sam 12

Andrew 6

So, congrats to Joe and Katy for winning everything. See you all next week.

Don't let the sun tile go down on me

Today, Joe's new (unfinished) games room held three gamers: Joe, Sam and I. This new room is right next to the front door and so is much more amenable to gamers entering and leaving surreptiously. Now Joe's house just needs a peephole in the front door and a secret knock and the speakeasy will be complete!

I got to Joe's at about 7.45 and Sam let me in while Joe was downstairs finishing supper. He came up after a while drinking champagne. "What's the occasion?" I asked. "It's my 25th wedding anniversary," said Joe, airily. Surprised, Sam and I asked if we should go, so he could celebrate it, but Joe reassured us that they'd only just remembered yesterday.

And what better way to celebrate marital bliss than a game of Luzon Rails, the Philippines based game of stocks and railway building.

Only Sam had played it before, coming last against the two Adams, and he explained the rules which were pretty clear and straightforward. We did the usual vague dalliance with cheap double entendres (extending my pink, get cracking on the brown track) and we were slightly distracted by the cries of delight from elsewhere in the house when England scored. Simply put, it was standard eurogaming fare.

Sam 94

Andrew 79

Joe 55

Joe said he wished he was better at train based share games while Sam admitted he had little Idea what he did right.

Next up was an old favourite: Ra. Only this time it was a super deluxe version with large shiny tiles, a huge cloth bag to hold them all and Joe’s very own green baize playing area. It took a while for me and Sam to remember the rules, especially Sam who said he hadn’t played in years.

Round one was notable for lots of disaster tiles threatening to ruin civilizations and monuments. At the end of round two, Joe pushed his luck and failed as the Ra track filled up. “It wasn’t worth that much,” he rationalised. The round three ended with me bailing out early and Sam and Joe still unfinished when that last Ra tile was pulled from the bag. This turned out to be very lucky indeed. For me, that is

Andrew 37

Joe 36

Sam 35

Then we played Fae, which involves tiny pastel-coloured wizards who like to congregate, moving from one area to the neighbouring one until they are in an area with no one in any adjacent area. Once they’re sure they’re alone, they perform a ritual and score points. It’s an abstract puzzle game and pleasant enough.

Joe 59

Sam 55

Andrew 54

Thanks for the evening, gentlemen, and sorry for the late posting. See everyone in a few days.

Wonderful rumbles

This week saw a rare sojourn to Katy's house, squeezing in a table-testing six players (Katy, Joe, Sam, Adam H, Adam T, and myself). Katy had worked out who was sitting where based on ease of getting up for the toilet and amount of discomfort her husband might feel in squeezing past them. Adam, apparently, would cause the least. We were also surprised to learn that it was Sam's first visit to Katy's place. "Welcome," she said, half an hour after he'd arrived.

But as for the games, I arrived at 8, at the same time as Adam H and found people in the dining area, chatting. Apparently they hadn't played anything. Amazing. But with a full attendance, we soon leapt into a rousing game of Team Play. I was matched up with Adam H, which is always a bit of a mixed blessing. A greater chance that you'll win, but only if he wins as well. Adam T teamed up Sam and finally Joe and Katy were the third team.

I started slow and was last to finish a trick, while Sam whipped off two tricks in one turn for an early lead. Katy got stuck with a target of Three pairs, all even or all odd and she wasn't encouraged when Joe admitted he hadn't been paying attention to what she'd been picking up for the past few rounds.

But Adam and I turned it around and triggered the game end with our eighth trick and had already scored enough to win.

Andrew and Adam H 25

Sam and Adam T 24

Katy and Joe 19

Next we split into two groups. Adam, Adam and Joe played It's A Wonderful Life, which is nothing to do with the classic film starring James Stewart. It's set in a"non specific near future," according to rules explainer Adam T. And it seemed a bit 7Wonders-ish, judging from what little I understood of it.

Sam, Katy and I played Rumble Nation. This, according to Sam, consists of rolling dice, placing cubes accordingly and then resolving fights. "It's like a three act game with the middle act taken out," Sam added.

Players are not completely at the mercy of luck, and there is a little strategy involved in that a victory in one area has a knock-on effect in the neighboring provinces. I used this to good effect when my initial win set off further victories across the board like toppling dominoes.

Andrew 42

Sam 34

Katy 32

Midway through this, Rob came down and pottered about a bit, before making sure we were playing two different games, so confusing was our banter.

When Rumble Nation ended, It's A Wonderful Life was still midway through so we played Hit Z Road. It's a fun game of zombie apocalypse mayhem that always seems to go on too long. 

My band of survivors was wiped out in the penultimate round which at least allowed me to go to the toilet. Katy died in the final round, killed by the last zombie, while Sam made it to the coast with load's of resources and fourteen points. An impressive performance.

Sam, Gulf Coast Highway

Katy and Andrew, Road To Hell

It’s A Wonderful Life had ended before Hit Z Road, and they patiently waited for us to finish. Except that Adam T left, and I went soon after. The Wonderful Life scores were…

Adam T 61

Adam H 57

Joe 29

I later learnt by text that Sam and Katy won Durian and then Sam won Push It. Thanks all, and special thanks to Rob for putting up with six gamers blocking the way into the back garden. See you all soon.

Twitch Gaming

This week, four gamers congregated in Easton where Adam hosted in a house that I barely recognised from last time. Kitchen, stairs, sofa, it all seemed so new. Katy and Joe weren’t so new, I’d seen them only a couple of weeks before, but still a welcome sight.

We began with Marrakech, a favourite on BGA, but my first time playing with real materials. But since we’re accustomed to BGA setting everything up for us, we had to read the rule book (like a bunch of Luddites) to make sure we were doing things correctly.

We played the nice version, where a player can turn Assam before rolling and moving. Joe built a huge 12-tile carpet in the centre of the board which we then circled around cautiously, never daring to set foot on it. It didn’t pay out until the very end of the game (maybe twice) but it looked impressive.

Adam 50

Joe 46

Andrew 38

Katy 33

Then we had to put the thing away! And Marrakech The Real Board Game is a bit tricky with all these fuzzy-felt rectangles refusing to go back into the white paper band they came from.

After this was a new game, Wingspan. It is, as it says on the box, an engine building game: a get stuff to get stuff kind of thing. Albeit a game with lovely illustrations and pastel coloured eggs that look good enough to eat.

In the game you get food (from dice that are rolled using a pretty but unnecessary dice tower. Then use the food to build birds (we didn't bother with accurate terminology), use the birds to get eggs and then score points. These birds can also be activated for extra actions, as described with lots of text on cards. The cards also tell you the wingspan of each bird. This has no purpose during the game but it is a tie-breaker at the end. Is this the only board game named after a tie-breaker?

Once underway, the rules are pretty straightforward and it was all quite familiar. There was end of round scoring and hidden end of game bonuses. There was a moment when Katy challenged a move I'd made except I'd been copying Adam so instead of trying to undo the game untill then, Katy and Joe got an egg to even out our advantage. Of course, a computer would never let us make that move in the first place.

I was also chastised for asking Adam about his half-carpeted stairs when it was his turn, threatening to make an already slow game even slower.

And that was its main failing. It was a little too sedate with only limited interaction. Joe was frustrated by Katy picking up the only worm (or snake, as I insisted) from the dice tower but then he realised that the game allows you to exchange any two food for one anyway.

It ended at about eleven o'clock, which surprised us all. Still, it was very mellow.

Andrew 83
Joe 78
Adam 77
Katy 75

Adam blamed his third place on a bird that gave away seeds whenever he activated it. Generosity was never Adam’s style. Apart from when it comes to hosting, of course! Thanks, Adam and thanks Joe and Katy too. See you all/some soon.

Lucky Luxor

 

With the country facing two different routes of either ending the lockdown or going into a second wave of the virus (possibly both at the same time), our potential host Sam erred on the side of caution and so GNN moved back online for another week. I'll be honest, having sampled the joys of real life games, it felt like a real step backwards. But even so, three of us pitched up on Discord for an evening's entertainment.

Me, Ian and Andy arrived and waited for Sam until a text told us he couldn't make it. We fired up Lucky Numbers as a starter. It's a simple blend of draw tile, use or discard tile, until your four by four grid is full. I got lucky with a decent spread of opening numbers, unlike Ian who began with 10, 11, 13 among his tiles.

Andrew 16

Andy 15

Ian 11

After that we played Luxor, which has been seen a couple of times in GNN in cardboard format and was now available in a pixelated version. I got a quick run through of the rules, but it’s pretty straightforward once you understand the card drafting method of only picking from either side of your hand, and replenishing in the middle.

It was fun and enjoyable. It was my first go (and Ian’s too, I think) so we both played pretty similar games, picking up jewelry as we went like we were playing Incan Gold. Andy sent one adventurer off ahead on his own into the central room and then later on he got his second man into the centre to end the game before Ian or I could do it instead.

Andy 63

Andrew 44

Ian 43

Then I had to head off and Ian and Andy finished off with Can’t Stop.

Ian 4

Andy 1

Thanks for the evening. Who knows what kind of world we’ll be in next week?