Have a Good Weekend, Yawl

Friday

Novocon is finally here. As is our habit, we set off ludicrously early, with Ian Adam and Martin in Joe's car at the hour of 10.30 and me following a little later. Owing to the vagaries of travel traffic and supermarket stops, I arrived at Yawl House first and after being initially thrown by me rocking up at 2pm, host Richard - who lives next door - let me in, explaining the ropes - thermostat, recycling, 160-year-old grapevines - and I ambled around the palatial hall pretending to be Toad of Toad Hall until the others arrived with bags of shopping. They'd played Sosig on the way:

Ian - Cumberland
Others - Chipolatas

So the games had already commenced, but as Laura, Adam T and Katy -courtesy of a lift from Joe- turned up, we spent a long time chatting before the next game hit the table. What was said?  My notes - I took a leaf from Andrew's playbook and brought a notepad - only say 'We debate rooms'. I'm sure it was more interesting than that, but whatever. We finally broke out the self-professed 'best card game in the world' - Flip 7. 

This is, as Joe described, Pairs with special cards. Mixed in with the numbers are the Freeze, Second Chance and Flip Three cards, which you can play on yourself or someone else. As we debated how to distinguish between the two Adams, moniker-wise (semi-settling on Big T for Adam Taylor), Martin got off to a rough start when Katy froze him on a 2. But Ian had a far worse time - after his initial round haul of fifteen, he didn't pick up another point for the entire game.

Adam T 209
Adam H 196
Laura 161
Joe 160
Katy 157
Sam 121
Martin 35
Ian 15

Suddenly energised, we had a flurry of seat-moving and Ian and Katy took on Adam T and I at Rollet, the balls and ball game of high anxiety. This is far too frantic to get pictures of, but here are the winners, after about six minutes. 

Martin pulled out Discworld and Joe pulled out Tower Up. Novocon was officially underway. Laura, Katy and Ian went off to Pratchett world while the rest of us pondered the abstracted leanings of Tower Up. I was so engaged with the latter I didn't catch much of the former, although I did hear Laura offering a deal/veiled threat to Katy."Or what?" Katy said.

"Or I'll scare you in the night-time" Laura said. It was genuinely terrifying. 

I came off best in Tower Up copying Joe's strategy from the last time I played - looking for places to cap buildings where they couldn't be subsequently raised. If you haven't played Tower Up, this is obviously meaningless. But it worked, just, as Joe suffered explainer's curse:

Sam 51

Adam H 50

Adam T 47

Joe 37

While Discworld continued ("I should have killed Laura!" Katy cried out) we played a few rounds of The Crew, where I began the tense dramatic undersea mission by poking myself in the eye with a card. 

We undertook two missions, succeeding the first one at the third attempt and the second one first-time, courtesy of Big T's sterling captaincy. Discworld, which my computer aptly likes to correct to discord, ended with Martin triumphant. They began playing Tower Up whilst Joe went off on kitchen business, and Adam H and I introduced the other Adam to Looot. 

We were no match for Adam H's connecting-spider mind here - I thought I was doing reasonably well until late-game, when my viking productivity started to feel a little pedestrian. As Tower Up continued, we heard Katy shriek "Fucking Martin!" and Ian ponder aloud that it only took an hour of Novocon for this to happen. "I haven't called him a cunt yet" Katy pointed out. Adam cleaned up in Looot - I didn't actually jot down the scores and right now can't be bothered to go looking for them, but it was something like 

Adam H 116
Sam 88
Adam T 76

Adam H and I raced off to collect Steve and Louie from the station, as Tower Up ended with another victory for 'Town C**t'. 

Martin 60
Ian 48
Laura 47
Katy 43

Outside it was bracing. Nice to see the countryside with its terrifying pitch black lanes, but after getting out to check the arrivals board in the station, we hid in the car again. Moments later Louie was bouncing down the steps, and the final attendees were here. We returned to the house to find them knee deep in Courtisans...

Martin deigned to share his latest victory with Laura (7 apiece), with Adam T second (6), then Ian on 3 and a forlorn Katy in the negative points. Joe's dinner was imminent but Laura felt we had time for Creationary. This is like Block Party - construct images out of blocks - but with Lego. It began as a three-player but grew and grew as everyone joined in... And we did quite well, guessing pretty much everything - although Steve's comet also contained a significant degree of performance to help us.

Steve's comet

Sam 9

Adam T 8

Steve 6

Ian and Adam H 5 each

Laura 4

Katy 2

Although Katy wanted it noted that she joined the game 'very late'. So late that she actually argued she didn't play at all, which in these post-truth times, I found myself moved to overrule. The stewards enquiry was interrupted by Joe's always-delicious chickpea stew!

Perhaps still smarting from Legogate, Katy said she was spoiling for trouble and she and Laura were heard discussing where they might go to 'fight a local'. Possibly food calmed them down, or maybe it was the appearance, post-meal, of more games. Ian set up his new copy of Lords of Vegas (with Laura, Katy and I) whilst everyone else played Challengers. 

New Vegas is very similar to old Vegas, with some minor exceptions. You can sprawl into alleyways but your dice there are only ever at a pip value of one. If you're dominant in a particular colour of casino, sprawling in that colour is cheaper. The very long board also features a lot of jostling, and it's not actually Vegas at all, it's Atlantic City. For whatever reason I kept forgetting whose turn it was, but I definitely had the rub of the green, at one point controlling three huge casinos all on the strip. It was over before it was over:

Sam 54

Ian 26

Laura 20

Katy 16

Meantime Challengers had seen a steward's enquiry of its own, as Steve has misunderstood a rule and drafted multiple maximum power cards into his team. I'm not sure what the upshot of that, my notes just say MARTIN WINS! Katy upset - even though she wasn't playing. Louie went to bed and Martin and Adam T beat Joe and Adam H at Agent Avenue. 

Some of us migrated into the adjoining lounge where Laura temporarily retired to her phone while the rest of us played Hammer Time. 

I picked up another win, proving that I was not only lucky, but good at knocking bits of plastic off a box with a miniature mallet.  

Sam 4 wagons filled

Ian 3 wagons

Steve 2 wagons

Katy 1 wagon

The Agents now joined us and we debated what to play, as the evening briefly changed from games-focused to chat-focused, and inevitably, with midnight looming, there was talk of Hugo, which pivoted to talk of 'live action Hugo' utilising actual rooms and real people. I'm still unclear how that would have worked, but Adam T wasn't even keen on the tiny version, and someone described it as 'briefly awful'. 

"Except it's not that brief" Katy clarified.

"But it is that awful" Steve added. 

We played anyway. 

Joe had an insane game, rolling multiple ones and forever limping vainly in search of a doorway. Katy and Laura policed the movement of Hugo, making sure that when someone was caught they got 'munched'. We accidentally skipped Joe's turn while he was out of the room, making him even more inert, and he got eaten. So the scores come with an asterisk:

Sam -6

Ian -13

Adam H -22

Steve -23

Martin -27

Laura -28

Joe -29

Katy (and in theory, Adam T) -30. 

Adam T celebrated his spectacular defeat by going to bed, and so did Laura and Steve. That left six of us to round off the night with two games of So Clover. I forgot to make notes of one score, but the other was a solid 30/36. The highlight was undoubtedly Ian's clue of 'Bobsleigh" for sponge and snow. 

Saturday

Most of us gathered in the kitchen for a bit, and the aroma of coffee lingered along with the foggy heads of late nights. Then before we knew it, a game of Tower Up broke out, with Ian, Joe and Martin setting themselves up in the morning sun. 

At the other end of the table, Laura, Katy, Adam T and myself played Sea Salt and Paper. In the background Adam H told a story about dog poo which he prefixed with  "You'll have to tell me if I'm a psychopath". And he definitely is. Martin, yet again, won Tower Up, and Adam T won Sea Salt & Paper. 

Then we went to the beach! Everybody came, although only Joe and Katy were mental enough to go into the freezing water. We pottered about on the front, ate bagels, heard sand-hoppers headbutting stones, marvelled at Joe and Katy's fortitude, and then went back to the house again after an hour or so and carried on gaming. 

Laura, Martin and Ian played Up or Down and Martin notched up another win. Louie beat Steve at Cube Quest before Steve exacted revenge of sorts with a mutual-destruction draw. Martin snatched another tediously predictable win over Laura in Marabunta, and while all this was happening Adam T, Ian and I introduced Katy to the alleged delights of Root. 

Katy was the Woodland Alliance, Adam the Duchy, Ian the Vagabond and I the Eyrie. The game was notable mostly for Adam's mid-game surge up the track, Katy's late-game push for a surprise victory, Ian's vagabondal sabotaging and my ineptitude, as I went into Turmoil twice - the second time only two turns after the first - and did a few other stupid things too. It was the punch-up it always is, but though we did our best, Adam held on for a win:

Adam 31

Katy 29

Ian 27

Sam 17

At the other end of the table Blue Lagoon finished around here too.

Guess who won. 

Martin 190
Steve 123
Louie 123
Laura 122

I asked Martin what he really gets from coming to these weekends, and Ian reminisced about Radio 1 ignoring the Sex Pistols as we discussed the idea of having a winner in games whose name can't begin with M. But let's go back in time, to before Blue Lagoon, before Root, Marabunta and back through the fossil strata to the start of Joe playing Adam at Fields of Arle. 

That had begun several hours before, and still continued whilst Steve beat everyone at Captain Flip, and then the Flip gang had a rematch where Louie took the laurels. Martin, Katy, Adam T and I played On The Underground, where I made a series of bad choices, the most critical of which was sitting down to play On The Underground in the first place. 

Competitive tunnel-building was actually a tie, however, between you-know-who and Adam, on 49 points. Katy was nestled behind on 45 and I was way back on 36. It took about an hour, and as we finished so did Joe and Adam H. 

Joe 104 and a half points
Adam H 89 points

One for the history books. How were we to know there'd be another one for the history books later as well, as Adam would go on to beat Katy 98.5 to 91. But! Before then, Martin beat Laura at a head to head of Tower Up, Joe wrapped an epic MLEM ("It dragged" he admitted) as I snuck off to watch another dreary Everton performance, and Martin continued being the most predictable person at Novocon by beating Laura at Agent Avenue. Then there was a flurry of shortish games with American Bookshop (a draw between Martin and Adam T, with Laura and I behind), Ra, and Marrakesh, which were both won by Louie. 

Adam T went off to make a vegetable curry and myself, Ian and Steve set up Clockwork Wars. The gist of this game is the Diplomacy-style deployment of units, that we all do simultaneously and deal with the ramifications afterwards. We all agreed that that was fun, but the huge box, multiple phases and proliferating stuff around it made it feel like a development victim of Kickstarter preferences for maximum cruft. 

Also we got a fairly significant rule wrong, so my victory comes with an asterisk. I'll still take it though - enjoyable despite the shortcomings.

Sam 17

Ian and Steve 14 each. 

The second Fields of Arle finished. Louie won Cabanga...

And then Louie and I successfully made our way off the island in Landmarks, with just a modicum of cheating. Ian won a game of Marrakesh...

...and Martin took another victory as Joe daredevilled himself to death in Agent Avenue. However, with the Not Martin rule invoked, Joe actually wins. It was now time for Adam T's delicious curry...

...another Novocon triumph - and then two new-to-the-weekend games were set up - Nokosu Dice, and Expeditions. 

I don't want to think too hard about Nokosu Dice, where I became obsessed with bidding zero and never succeeded. Martin - who else - ended up with 74 points, followed by Adam and Katy in the 40s and me in the 30s. The other winner was Adam H, who saw off all the competition in Expeditions by a seven point margin (Ian was second). Then there was another interlude of chat, where Martin appeared to be bamboozled by the fact he wasn't winning something. Eventually he, Laura and Steve splintered off to play Tower Up (-Laura didn't win) and the rest of us played Wavelength. I won't list the categories exhaustively here, even though for some reason I wrote them all down. But we discovered Adam doesn't like Flip 7 (or Pairs) in a misfiring opening, before hitting the target somewhere on every subsequent round, and twice - courtesy of Liz Truss and a long story about a handmade umbrella from Malaysia - scored a bullseye and pulled an extra card. Co-operatively 15 points is a win, and we hauled in 22! 

Laura went to bed, apparently agreeing with Martin that "We've still got another day of this bullshit" and keeping her powder dry. The rest of us pooled two copies of So Clover and went at it as an 8-player game. Extraordinarily, we scored seven sixes, and only came a cropper courtesy, as Katy repeatedly reminded us, of our smutty minds, when we assumed Steve was using the word 'hammer' in an unsuitably fruity way. We all saw him smile, we just didn't realise it was at us instead of with us. 

There was now a huge outbreak of going-to-bed noises, but Katy was having none of it, cajoling Adam T, Steve, Martin and myself into a hilarious five-player game of Misfits. Joe alternated between watching us, doing the crossword, and trying to knock the tower over with a skittle ball (missing both times) 

Joe's ball incoming

And that was Saturday. 

Sunday

Ian and I were first up and we pottered in the kitchen for a while. After breaking a bowl on Saturday, I ceremonially saw in the dawning of a new day by smashing a glass, and in looking for a dustpan and brush, we discovered a room we didn't know existed. Then Martin and Louie appeared and we played Fiction. 

This is basically Wordle, but the player operating as the computer is trying not to help by including one lie in every bit of feedback. That was my role, and my word was Godly. It felt quite apt as I watched my helpless subjects try to guess my mysterious motives - mostly Martin, as Ian said it was too early - and they figured it out in seven of their ten guesses. 

We helped Joe finish the crossword and then more games were played - Louie clued me to triumphant safety in Landmarks...

Martin picked up his latest win in Marabunta...

And Katy flipped Joe on the tiebreaker in Captain Flip.

There was then the classic GNN discussion of what to play, as the day opened up with the possibility of what Martin somewhat disturbingly referred to as 'chunkers' - epic games. We discussed for a while, then everyone gave up and played (mostly) Courtisans, as Adam H sleepily emerged. Louie and I splintered off to play the Lord of the Rings version of 7 wonders Duel. 

Lord of the Rings was a mini-epic, as I pushed hard on all three victory fronts (control the map, befriend the peoples, destroy the ring) only to have Frodo and Sam caught by the Black Riders just as I was about to claim a military victory. Courtisans finished around the same time, with Martin catastrophically finishing second-last ahead of lowly Joe. Incredible scenes, but was it a sea-change or merely a blip? Ian won, with Katy a distant second and Laura third. Then the chunkers arrived! 

There were three of them, turning the reality corner like colossal meeple-packed boats: Faiyum (Joe, Martin and Laura), Yokohama (Katy and the Adams) and Xia (Ian, Steve, Louie and myself). Xia can be long, so we implemented our single-mission house-rule and capped the playtime at 90 minutes plus finishing the current round. 

Things began badly for me - I died on my very first turn and then did the same about three turns later. Nonetheless I recovered to sail into what I hoped was an unassailable lead, only to find it was disappointingly assailable. Steve forgot to use his markers for the entirety of the game - except the last round, where he did so with a flourish - and we did a fair amount of rules referencing and tweakage. But despite all that it was great fun, with a dramatic finale!

Steve and Louie - 7 points each

Sam - 6 points

Ian - 4 points

The other games were still going, but Faiyum finished soon enough: it was, needless to say, ANOTHER VICTORY FOR MARTIN and Laura pipped Joe into second. A little while later Yokohama finished too, and Katy was so excited by her score she forgot who came second, except for the fact their name was Adam. 

Katy 153

The Adams - thirty-odd points behind (Adam T second)

Everyone had lunch, except Louie who ate some Pringles and a tomato. While he and Steve munched, I guided them to one treasure and the escape route: Steve, Louie and Sam: Win!

Then a reprieve: Laura offered to take Steve and Louie back, saving them a train trip and giving them a couple more hours of game fun. Ian set up Lords of Vegas (New Orleans map) again for himself, Laura, Martin and Katy, and at the other end of the table the lesser-spotted (8 years ago) Ascending Empires made an appearance. Incredible stuff - and all too much for me; as I went into Lyme for a stroll around the shops and to get some air. I did offer this opportunity around, but everyone looked at me like I was insane. 

New Orleans

Space

Lyme Regis

I returned after an hour to find them still at it. Martin said that New Orleans was nuts, and when Katy said she thought he liked chaos, Martin retorted 'Not this much!' as though after saying he liked hot chocolate, she had run him a bath of it. Shortly afterwards everyone shrieked "Ian!" in huge indignation. Everyone except Ian. "I hate this" Katy decided. Laura said she wasn't going to leave after all, I think meaning that she wasn't leaving until she won something. 

I did some kitchen pottering and Adam came in saying he was doing terribly at Ascending Empires. "It rewards aggression" he said, as if such a thing was bad. It was Sunday afternoon, to be fair. I returned to the table just as he cried out "For fuck's sake!" in tormented grief. I think he'd destroyed himself. 

Speaking of which: Drama! Martin came from way behind to do you-know-what in Lords of Vegas, on a tie-breaker versus Katy that he even admitted himself was 'richly undeserved'. Katy felt she'd shot herself in the foot, in some way I still don't fully understand: the New Orleans version has steamboats that move about and interfere with everything. Martin's verdict was that it's ludicrous, silly, insane, and other descriptors. "But fun" he added. 

"It is, actually, a stupid game" Ian decided. Laura packed her bags, she was so disgusted. Ascending Empires finished just after them:

Steve 24

Adam H 23

Joe and Adam T 19 each

A rough return to space for Joe, though he blamed 'fumblers finger' over explainer's curse. Everyone seemed to be happy about it, though we reflected on the new version's exorbitant price and the possibility of added unneeded stuff such as minis, neoprene mats and books of lore etc. 

Laura, Steve and Louie said their goodbyes and hit the road. And then there was a game of Mamma Mia happening. I won't even say who won it, but while Martin was winning, Joe and I were facing off over the game of three names, 7 wonders Duel Lord of the Rings. 

This was a mini-classic, as it came down to the very last card, and an unfortunate end for the Shire and all who ride in her. Joe was delighted, as he was Sauron. Meantime the pizza gang had finished a game of Cross Clues (21/25) and dealt me in for the second, which was a heartily respectable 24/25.

Martin then won Love Letter and Joe picked up a win in Life in Reterra versus Adam T and Ian.

While that was happening, Martin beat me at Agent Avenue and then, in a stunning turn of events, I beat Martin at Agent Avenue. I half expected fireworks around me, like when you tell someone congratulations on an iPhone, but sadly these didn't materialise. However it managed to disprove a seemingly unbreakable law about Martin winning everything apart from Courtisans and Flip 7. Katy and Adam then dished up their fantastic meal, a sweet potato and spinach combo with rice and highly sought-after garlic bread. Mine and Joe's growing deafness became apparent when a conversation about food confused Joe, who thought Katy had said 'poisoned' instead of 'mince pies'. When she repeated mince pies, Joe said "By Italians?'. And my deafness manifest with me missing the whole thing, although maybe it was more mental absenteeism. Having had several conversations about prostates and cholesterol and seen Ian walk into a door, the old folks' home vibe has never been stronger at a Novocon. 

Perkiness was beginning to wane just a little, but nonetheless Adam T and I perhaps foolishly agreed to take on Joe and Martin at Montage. This was as brutal as a gentle game about crossword-clueing can get, as we won about 2 challenges the entire duration and lost 4-0. Always fun to play, but in hindsight maybe it's one for Friday or Saturday (for me). My clues vacillated from too obvious to too opaque, and I was mentally slow off the mark in finding my team-mate's meaning.

At the other end of the table, Ian seemed as surprised as anyone when about ten minutes after Adam telling us they'd need another hour to finish, he picked up a win in Castles of Mad King Ludwig. 

In the dying flames of Ludwig's insanity, we'd said goodbye to Adam T and had a conversation about how men pat during a hug. "If we don't pat, it's basically a cuddle" I pointed out. Joe said the ideal hug was seven seconds, but we tried it out and it seemed too long - even counting aloud didn't help. "Hugging is broken" Joe surmised. We played Orbit. 

Joe built what my brain now refers to as the fuckrocket, meaning after maximising his energy levels he could suddenly propel himself as far as he liked across the galaxy (in a straight line) whenever he found energy. He put this to excellent use when, with both of us lagging far behind Martin in terms of planets-visited, he overhauled him to prove that the Griffiths victory parade was well and truly broken. 

Joe - all planets 

Martin - all planets but not home

Sam - two planets left

And as far as Adam H and I were concerned, that was Novocon! We all ate Colin the Caterpillar cake and when I questioned the quality Katy tartly pointed out it was from Waitrose. I should really have got a photo of this classic GNN moment - the ingestion of cake, not the middle-class consumer exchange - but I was trying to gird my loins and slap my face into road-ready capacity. After another round of hugs-not-cuddles, we were gone. 

*                    *                    *

But Novocon wasn't! With four people left they were free to exploit the many available rooms and the abundant gaming options. They settled on Tichu, where Martin's losing streak continued as Joe and Katy accrued 490 points to his and Ian's 75. Then, serving as ludological bookends to the weekend, Flip 7 returned. It sounded like a banger, as Joe, nestled on 75 points, scored exactly the 125 he needed to hit 200 and claim a triumphant victory!

Although a bookend isn't really a bookend, of course, unless it's So Clover. So they played that too. Some great clues here, really, but I particularly like Seabed for shark/patio, Rubbery for old/octopus and Landing for plane/kiss. Combotastic!

It seems a weird thing to write now, but that was the end of Novocon 2024. This morning, the reports are that there was no further gaming, just - I assume - coffee and drive-home reflections. Until next year! Or next Tuesday, or something. Thank you everyone.