Chalamet vibes

 I arrived at Sam's with the sound of cheers and laughter ringing from his kitchen. Wanted Wombat was the cause of all this jollity and Sam, Martin, Adam T, Adam H, Andy M and Ian were enrapt by this game which, as far as I could tell, involved saying “one thousand” then revealing a card and laughing at it.

I was told who won that game - possibly Ian - but I didn’t write it down. Hope I remembered right.

I'd already received messages from Sam about the early results. He'd beaten Adam T twice at Tic Tac Trek.

And then in two games of Wanted Wombat, Adam T beat Sam and Martin beat Adam T, Sam and Ian.

But flashback over, we then played a nice communal seven-player. 7 Wonders was suggested but instead Ito was brought to the table. This cross between Wavelength and The Mind involves everyone having a number (1-100) and a topic to think about. Each player has to come up with an example which they think reflects the number they’ve been dealt.

It was interesting. The first topic was Best Compliment (1 - neutral, 100 - best) and we ended up discussing if “stylish” was a better compliment that “lovely” and Adam H’s example of “giving Chalamet vibes” caused a discussion about how much we liked Timothee Chalamet. In round one only one card was out of step with the others (mine) and we went again. 

This time the topic was Weird Things For 5-years To Say. I think “I’m just taking the bins out” and “this message has bad optics” were the highest scoring in a round full of high numbers. But, again, we were one wrong guess away from perfection.

Now we split into two. Again 7 Wonders was suggested. A few people expressed an interest until Sam said “Great… but I don’t have it.” swiftly curtailing any further consideration of the matter.

Instead we chose Moonrollers (Sam, Ian, Adam H) and Wiener Walzer (Martin, Adam T, me) while Andy had to step out to make a phone call.

I know nothing about Moonrollers except the results.

Ian 25

Adam H 23

Sam 19

Meanwhile, Wiener Walzer (“Sausage Dance” in German) saw the three of us putting our guests into a dance in such a way that they pick up food and perhaps got to dance with another guest. Dancing scored points immediately while food scored at the end of the game. It was nice and, surprisingly, towards the end of the game it felt distinctly like turning up too late at a party. All the food and champagne had gone and there was barely anyone worth dancing with.

Martin 71

Andrew 67

Adam T 61

Now Andy returned from his call and the seven of us reshuffled. 

Ian, Adam H and I played Quest for El Dorado while Adam T, Andy, Sam and Martin played Fellowship of the Ring. This was Andy’s introduction to the game and he was thrown in at Chapter 9. Plus, he had to deal with the Sam (player)/Sam (hobbit) confusion.

They struggled through a few failures and managed to clear chapters 9 and 10.

Meanwhile, the race to the city of gold started in typical fashion, with Ian and Adam dawdling around volcanoes/caves picking up tokens while I pegged it like an idiot off into the distance. Ian kept dealing “3 gold, 1 river” to himself, which was of little use in the grassy plains of the first hex. 

Adam, though, always the most efficient traveller, managed to hone his hand down to three cards mid-game. 

He said he might have overdone it as he spent a couple of turns cycling through the same cards, but his tiles were put to good use and on the fifth hex he took the lead and finished at least two turns before Ian could finish and three before me.

Adam T 1st

Ian 2nd

Andrew 3rd

We finished our game and then set up a game of Biblios. Extreme Biblios, of course, a variant born of not reading the rules properly, mixed with a childish glee in the misfortunes of others.

It had been a while but I seem to remember more church cards. The rest must've been discarded at the start. But after several rounds of telling each other to eat shit, it all came down to the final dice: the brown. I had no cards left, guaranteed 2nd, but both Ian and Adam had skin in the game. It went narrowly in Ian’s favour. 

Ian 6

Andrew 5

Adam H 3

Fellowship of the Ring had ended and they'd even rattled through a quick Wanted Wombat before we finished. But I was pulling on my rucksack and heading to the door before I could let myself be persuaded to play So Clover (“We can make a seventh clover,” Martin said and, in Sam's kitchen, I figured that you probably could.)

It finished 34 out of 36.

After that, everyone left except Sam (obviously) and Martin so they finished with Chu Han, a two-player card shedder. Sam narrowly beat Martin to the 30-point winning target. 

Sam 33

Martin 28

Thanks all. See you soon!