Pic-takers with a fist

This Thursday Joe welcomed three of us initially; Ian, Martin and myself (Pete), with Katy to join after a Christmas party.

We started with Light Speed: Arena, a curious game where both the explanation and the app-driven scoring took longer than playing it.

I believe that took exactly one minute; every 10 seconds we all simultaneouslyish plonked our spaceships down on the table trying to point their lasers in sensible directions

Then Joe took a picture and we watched an app work through the timing sequence (lower power weapons fire first, high power ones that can punch through our partial shields go last).

There seemed to be quite a lot of friendly fire. I don't think we confirmed if it was disabled or not, but lots of things exploded.

Joe did some mining (shooting asteroids, seems realistic), Martin sneakily skimmed a shot just past an asteroid to hit somebody, Ian was the only person to keep his base intact, and I ... well, I'm not entirely sure what I did. Not enough, it seemed.

Martin 24

Ian and Joe something 16-20ish

Pete 8

I think it will go down as a mixed reception, from 'that was quite fun for a 1 minute game' to 'that was a discombobulating experience, possibly not a game at all', roughly in inverse proportion to final score!

There is definitely a lot you could analyse in weapon strength, timing etc, but there really isn't time! 

Perhaps this is what the offspring of Dice Pool Party and X-Wing would look like?

We then opted for Trickarus, a trick taker in which I explained we would fly upwards by winning tricks, aiming to be highest in the sky, but only after someone had triggered the end game by flying too high and melting their wingtips off in the sun. As you skip over any occupied spaces this can come upon you quite suddenly once everyone is high enough..

We also had to deal with cards flipping all played cards and our hand upside down (from 'day' to 'night') and changing the trump suit accordingly from sun to moon.. At this point we welcomed Katy, Martin demonstrated impressive recall by teaching it to Katy, and we were off!

Most of us... Martin did not win any of the first 16 or 17 tricks (not that he was counting). Katy was probably not actually counting, but was definitely amused by this announcement.

That said, the rest of us were still flapping around in a somewhat haphazard fashion, perhaps under the influence of the Rusty Nails Joe had generously proffered, and you can rise quite quickly when sequences of spaces are occupied.

Martin caught up to the extent that he soared past us and was first into the sun, meaning the game would end as soon as our current hands were played out.

I was hovering around the brink myself, having deliberately taken one trick to go up adjacent to it when I thought it was that or win the following and leapfrog someone else straight into it... I did have a zero and a lightning card so I thought I might be ok, but then things suddenly got very hot.

On the last turn a gap had opened up in the field so only Joe or Katy could win, with Katy finishing triumphant (see power pose at the bottom of the picture).

The progression seems a little odd so far - from a lot of seemingly inconsequential early rounds (which I guess at least help people learn in a first game), to suddenly reaching a point when it seems like every one of your cards could potentially land you in the sun depending on what others choose.

Fun though, and I do appreciate the way it fits the setting. After playing it with 5 twice I think I'm keenest to play with slightly fewer next and see how it changes. 

We then nearly played Condottiere, but Martin's plea that Joe needed to address a poor historic impression of it was trumped by Joe's preference for another trick-taker; Mü, at its perfect player count of 5. Rumours that Mü had made Sam ill are hopefully greatly exaggerated.

This is definitely thinkier, though mostly a more straightforward trick-taker.. However, that's preceded by a very intriguing first phase where you reveal a number of cards in your hand to both bid for the role of the 'Crown', and commit to the number of pips on cards that you and your partner will capture. It's ideally played 2 against 3, hence ideally needing 5 players.

The second place 'Shield' would lead the defence against them and choose a secondary trump from their revealed cards, after which the Crown chose both the primary trump and their partner.

So the bids were also auditioning for the partner role and a share in the points, or as Joe put it, waggling our bottoms at them. I think he must have had baboons on the brain.

I did this successfully in a first round of string bidding and benefitted from Martin winning nearly every trick, though not as much as him as the pips also give individual points.

The second round was much more balanced, and also showed that and the rounds feel very different depending on the trumps chosen, which can be number or suit.

The third round seemed like it might be slightly anticlimactic, with only quite low bids, and with the points on offer lower Martin was pretty secure in first place.

However low bids do create different challenges as less cards were revealed in the bidding phase. Martin, Katy and I managed to run Ian and Joe fairly close.

Martin was confirmed a clear winner. With hindsight, I could have done with being on a different team to him at some point in later rounds to have a chance of the significant differential needed, which is another thing to think about when bidding.. definitely keen to play again.

We brought it to a successful conclusion in good time for me to head off for my train, so Ian will lead on the following round of games.

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Thanks Pete! Just to run through the final scores of Mu:

Martin 214
Pete 185
Ian 97
Joe 96
Katy 78

After Pete's departure we played another trick-taking game, but a rather silly one at that: My Favourite things.

My strategy, such as it was, was to ask for the person next to me to rank things where I might have a chance of being able to ascertain what their highcard and what their heartbreak card would be. I asked Joe to rate his favourite Switch games, so I was fairly confident that Slay the Spire would be number 5 (the best) (ed: isn't number 1 the best? If not, I played it wrong). When it came to ask the Martin for his last I asked for Discworld characters, which proved less useful as there are a lot and they're all rather good.

Other topics being ranked included  favourite street food, venues, boardgames (I think this time it was specifically Wallace boardgames), beers, and rather weather, and trying to compare these disparate topics against each other proved to be amusing nonsense.

I have to admit after a couple of beers and the aforementioned Rusty Nail I didn't really pay attention to the final score in My Favourite Things. I appear to have scribbled down:

Katy 3
Joe 3
Martin 2
Ian 2

But I'm not entirely sure if that was the score or an arbitrary collection of numbers. 

After that it was time, of course, for So Clover. Which I also failed to make any notes about, which is terrible form by me, but I think we did reasonably well. We played a couple of games, and I think both times we scored mostly 6s with a single 4 creeping in both times?

It was a lot of fun regardless, that much I do recall. And really, isn't having a good time the most important thing?*

*some will say no; points are the main thing. But that feels less festive.

My favourite things and my favourite people

 I arrived at Sam’s late and walked into the kitchen, my eyes fixed on the table that was already hosting a four-player game between Sam, Ian, Andy B and Martin. So focused was I on the games that I didn’t notice Sam’s new fitted kitchen until Katy pointed it out when she arrived about fifteen minutes later.

The main reason I seemed unable to take in my surroundings was a game of Jumbo. Despite having played before, I certainly struggled to remember anything resembling a strategy. Andy B won as he put down four of a kind that couldn’t be beaten and then his last two cards was a pair.

Katy arrived during the game and my eyes were opened to the existence of new cupboards. Katy also tried to remember a game with stones that I owned that was really relaxing. I couldn’t think of what it might be except Fishy Pete or Go and Katy seemed sure it wasn’t either of those. The mystery continues.

But putting mis or half remembered games to one side,  our next game was Baranoxx which is like 6nimmt but different. In this game, it is the colour of a cow head that determines where a card can be placed. If there are six cards in a row or six cow heads of a particular colour, then you have to pick up. 

It feels a lot like 6nimmt in that you find your carefully considered plans torn to shreds by grim luck. Martin, however, found himself on the wrong end of some events and complained that it wasn’t as strategic as 6nimmt. I, having picked up only one row, disagreed. I won my first attempt whereas Andy got hit by a nasty case of Explainer’s Curse.

Andrew 8

Sam 13

Ian 33

Martin 36

Katy 37

Andy 50

Next up was another six-player. It seems like there was no mood to split into smaller groups this evening. The next game was Bluffit, a game in which everyone has a deck of cards valued 1-10 and they use those to pick up cards on display in the middle. Play a card from your hand face down and then take the card from the middle. Couldn’t be simpler. But someone may suspect that the card they’ve put face down in front of them and they can challenge. The two players secretly compare and whoever wins takes the card. But the hidden cards are never revealed. At the end of the round, though, the hidden cards are shuffled and revealed as the next round’s cards to obtain.

It was quite tense,as you’d expect. No one was really sure what was going on, but in a good way. Interestingly, while big value cards were the source of a lot of challenges, Andy B was quietly building up a stack of cards by always picking middle value cards.

Andy 56

Ian 53

Katy 49

Andrew 48

Sam 47

Martin 36

At this point Andy left us and so, as a quintet, it made sense to continue with some communal gaming.

Next up was My Favourite Things. A trick-taker in the loosest sense of the word, it mixes Fun Facts with whist to curious effect. Each player gets six blank cards (1-5 and a dud) and a topic from the person next to them. They then fill in those blank cards with their top five of that topic plus one example that they can’t abide. Then, those cards go back to the person who suggested the topic.

The twist is, you can’t see what value each card has. Only the person who wrote on the cards knows which is which. So you might choose trees as a topic and think your friend would definitely put Oak as the strongest, only to discover after you’ve played it that actually oaks are just sort of middling to fine.

How well do we know each other? It varied. Ian and I stuck with Martin’s stereotype and over two rounds we gave him “Boardgames” and “Physicists” as topics, leading him to insist that there’s more to him than that. I gave Sam “Everton players since 1990” and he gave me “friends from Maidstone” leaning heavily on our lengthy friendship.

Part of the fun, though, is seeing disparate entities facing off in a trick-taking arena. Want to see Marie Curie battle against the colour green and Stevenage Railway Station? Now’s your chance.

Also worth noting is the entirely unnecessary starter player token which was real metal and heavier than my phone.

Katy 3

Sam 3

Martin 2

Andrew 1

Ian 1

It was a lot of fun and very silly. But after that, I set off home. I rely on Sam’s late night messages to let me know what I missed, including the fact that Ian won two games of 13 Leaves before I arrived.

Afterwards they played Llama Llama in which either Sam or Martin won - recollection is cloudy at this point. Then the by no traditional night cap of So Clover was brought out for two games, resulting in 20/24 and a collapse of England at the Ashes proportions: 13/24.

Thanks all. Hope to see you soon.

Space Corp blimey - it's Decacon!

Thanks to the brains and logistical skills of Joe, our autumnal getaway happened right here in Bristol this year, in the 'Chocolate Factory' of Centrespace studios. It was about 9.30am as I sailed down the Gloucester Road and spotted Katy ahead of me at the lights, similarly insulated against the weather. We rode the last section together, being honked at by an asshat in a van for the crime of existing, before arriving at the venue to find Joe and Pete already setting up. I'm slightly ashamed to say the first thing I did was go and have a coffee, though - pre-caffeine I am useless. 

When I returned there were as yet, no games happening, but an impressive library of them were gathering in the North wing. After another coffee run, more people had arrived: Martin from Easton, and from Bath, game reviewer Matt Thrower, and Kniziaphile Mark with his pal Andrew (2), and Decocon was kicking in. There was a game of Tower Up, and Joe and Katy's prearranged Fields of Arle was in progress. 

Martin waved Cascadero at me and we sat down with Matt to play it. We'd all played before, but Matt not very much and not recently. I started by monopolising a herald, and I knew this was a good start by the levels of profanity directed at me by Martin. Meantime, Jo and then Andrew arrived and they began playing a game I didn't recognise. 

In Cascadero I was doing quite well. I wouldn't normally dwell quite so much on my performance, but it was Cascadero, and it was Martin. His yelps of dismay were a balm to an oft-crushed gaming soul. 

I triggered the end by connecting cities of all colours and going past 50 points. It was something like 52-38-24 I think. We changed gears with a quick game of Wanted Wombats, which Martin won by correctly predicting a $10k card. 

Jo and Andrew had now finished their mystery game's best-of-five (I believe Andrew won 3-2) and they joined us for a bash at Magical Athlete. 

We had a brain-melting fourth race where the combination of Gunk (every roll is minus one) and Scoocher (moves whenever a power is used) and the Hypnotist (moves racers to their spot) and the Heckler (moves two whenever a racer ends their turn on the same spot or one away from it) combined to make every turn a kind of Rube Goldbergian experiment in x triggers y which does z which triggers x again type of thing. Demented fun. I don't recall who won now - Martin? - but Andrew and I were last. 

Tower Up had now finished and there was quite a bit of table rejigging whereupon I now entirely lost track of what got played for the rest of the day (with apologies, this report will be here on in even more Sam-centric than it has been thus far) but I do know that Joe talked Mark, Pete and I through the rules of Free Ride: USA...

And as we were playing, more people turned up, starting with Adam and Arthur, and Sarah and Effie, and the numbers swelled further with a bunch of people I didn't recognise who started playing Anomia. I regularly looked over to see Arthur with his arms in the air, though whether in triumph or agony wasn't totally clear. 

In Free Ride, Mark (south) Pete (north) and Joe (east) all began dominating different parts of the map and my plan to get nationalised a lot was compromised by people building around me. In fact my strategy could be best summarised as one of incoherence; a return to form from my heady Cascadero openings. 

Speaking of which, Cascadero was getting played again:

I've no idea on the scores for this but Andrew (2) was dominating the scoretrack when I took the picture. Did he make it to the top of his colour track though? Going by what I was to witness later on, I'm going to assume he did. He is Good At Games. 

I think Tumblin' Dice was seeing some action here and other tables were busy too, but during our late lunch, Mark mentioned to me he'd be keen to try SpaceCorp, and after a chicken sandwich my wariness at starting an afternoon chunker dissipated and we set up a 3p game along with Andrew (2).

This was new to both of them but, outside of what all the bases do, the teach is pretty straightforward and the actions are limited: move, explore, build. After the first (Mariners) board was completed, we were all hovering around the same place on the cash track (which doubles as score track) and fully engaged, even if Arthur would drop by occasionally - perhaps sent by Martin - to yawn loudly and announce he was bored. 

Elsewhere, Tumblin' Dice was seeing more action...

And at around 3pm (I think) Steve and Anja arrived with Louie and Lennon! There was an outbreak of Just One, and one table was occupied by digital gamers. 

In SpaceCorp I had a fairly disastrous second board (Planeteers) where Andrew (2) and Mark surged up the track whilst I dallied inconsequentially. Despite a mini recovery in Starfarers, I was never to catch them again: Mark had a production engine going that bought him about 20+ points and Andrew eschewed producing entirely but managed to build a SpaceCorp engine of the like never before seen (by me) as he almost lapped me and broke 100 points to take a convincing win. I now forget what Mark and I managed, I think Mark was on about 80 and I was back in the 60s, numerically and thematically. 

After this fun-yet-chastening experience, I looked blindingly around at reality again to discover Mel was now here. Mark, Anja and Adam joined her in a game of Trans Europa:

As the kids, possibly leery of the types who hang about in the lane, set up a customs office at the doorway, with Arthur happily finding this more fun than SpaceCorp. 

The day had flown by and I soon needed to leave, but ended on the memory game of Memoarr, with Joe, Steve and a wounded Lennon, who creatively used a packet of crisps to protect his bruised elbow. This was fun to revisit, with all of us at some point cursing our lack of retention. I think if I play this in ten years time I'll be even worse, but on this particular evening Joe was the man to beat - and we failed. 

As I approached my eleventh hour of Decocon, I also had to sign out and leave for football, missing the last couple of hours as the hardier gamers continued into the night. Which is where Joe, mastermind of the day, will now take over...

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Thanks Sam! My intention to arrive bang on 9am was hampered by the dog deciding today was a good day to shit all over the kitchen, and I didn't feel I could disappear for a day of indulgence without first clearing that up, whilst the rest of the house slept. In the event I wasn't much later, but Pete, having stayed over at Anja and Steve's, was there waiting when I arrived. Despite having to rest his leg, he gamely helped me set up, and Sam and Katy arrived shortly after, with Martin not far behind. 

Sam's documented what happened next for the most part, but my first games of the dyay were Fields of Arles with Katy, followed by Free Ride USA. Both were delightful, and I was pleased to play Free Ride again, as it hasn't made much headway on Tuesday nights, after a first flurry.

After those two substantial numbers, I was hailed by Matt and Andrew (2) for a go at Take Time. After an abortive first attempt, Andrew was out and Jo replaced him. We lost again, and Martin replaced Matt, and we were joined by Pete, the four of us endeavouring to give it a proper go. It's a cooperative venture which I've heard compared to The Game and The Mind, though it reminded us most strongly of Bomb Busters, though with a far swifter set-up and ease of explanation. Like that game it has many unlockable levels, and we all enjoyed it enough to want to revisit. 

Martin disappeared at that point, and Pete and I tried one of Jo's prototypes, an excellent crossword game that I can easily imagine will see print in the not too distant future - I'll be after a copy!

Adam's friends, after playing Anomia, broke out Coup, and raucous cheers and cries of dismay ensued. Arthur bested them all, apparently by having a combo which allowed him to tell the truth - I think the Captain was involved - making his dad very proud. 

Refreshed after some light lunch, and Just One, Martin, Katy, Pete and I broke out Pete's Surfosaurus MAX! A game of dinosaurs, surfboards and building poker hands. It was fun, and then Martin won.

Katy disappeared for her second meal rendezvous, and when she returned with her friend Becky in tow, we, along with Adam and Arthur, played Trans Europa. Great fun, and Arthur trounced us all, though he did step in after the first round had finished (that said, even if we'd given him a middle of the pack score from the first round he'd still have won). While we were doing that, Martin and Mark played Andrew (2) and Pete at team Zenith.

Martin and I then stepped out to grab a burger, whilst Steve, Katy and Becky had another game of TransEuropa (I think); and when we returned, there were ten of us remaining. We decided on a 4-4-2 split, as Mark fancied Oranienburger Kanal, and I was keen to give it an outing after quite a hiatus. Steve, Andrew (2) and Pete played Downfall of Pompeii, while Martin, Katy and Becky played Farm Hand and Sea, Salt and Paper.

Oranienburger was great to revisit - it's a stripped-back Uwe two-player number, with a resource system akin to Glass Road and Black Forest, and a puzzly 4x4 grid to fill for each player. It was close, in as much as Mark thought I was winning for much of the game and then he beat me handily. Great to revisit after far too long. 

Martin was flushed with a classic four octopus win in SS&P, and I felt that whilst I could have played on, I needed to attend to some clearing up, and wanted to do that while there were some stragglers to help. We bade farewell to the Bath contingent, and Steve, Katy, Martin and Becky helped me shift games back to my studio and try to remember where tables went.  With their excellent help we were done and out just after 10pm, after a marathon 13 hours of great fun. Thanks everyone!

Chieftain o' the Pudding Race

Games was back at Joe's house this week, with a fresh tablecloth ready for the hot breath of avid gamers, intent on fun. I confess I was super-tired before the fun could commence, but having missed last week I forced myself to attend - for a bit, anyway. 

When I descended the stairs, Martin and Adam T were already at the table, and Ian just removing his coat. With only Adam H now in the offing, we discussed what we could play, Someone mentioned we could just wait instead, but Joe pointed out that if we did that, Adam wouldn't arrive. And sure enough one round of Sushi Go was all it took to make him materialise, like Marley's meeple-loving ghost, out of the cool night air. 

Martin was already happily reminiscing about how shit the game is at this point, but Adam H was happy to be dealt in with seven random cards to score. There were quite a few jokes about how it was basically 7 Wonders without all the icons, but I don't remember them now. I dodged the competitive rolls of rice and concentrated on Nigiri, and an excess of puddings. It seemed to work. 

Sam 41
Joe 35
Adam T 33

Ian 31
Martin 27
Adam H 23

I was pleasantly surprised by my victory, but I have to concur that the game is pretty bland. "I could name a thousand better games for non-gamers!" Martin harrumphed. Then he thought for a moment and changed the number to a hundred, before anyone could challenge him. 

We split into two threes, with Joe, Ian and Adam H capering off around the globe in Expeditions and Martin, Adam T and I capering with marginally less frivolity towards Mordor in the Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking game.

What happened in Expeditions I am unsure, as I was busy being confounded by the sneaky chapter 14 in LotR: tFotR, where we make our way through Moria, confront the Balrog and curse Boromir's feeble heart once more (discarding the Mithril shirt to make up for his shortcomings). It was a 'Long' chapter, meaning there are multiple characters that need completing, across multiple rounds, and officially the ruling is that any mis-step means you restart the entire round. But the game also does allow you to just restart from where you had got to previously, and that's what we did. The rounds are interesting, but not for the first time I felt that the long chapters feel attritional and the 'doing characters twice' option detracts from an-already flimsy sense of narrative. But at least we completed it - sort of. Our initial triumph did involve leaving Pippin behind. "I don't give a shit about him" Martin confessed. Adam and I were more of a mind to bring him along though, so we played one last round, failed, and then announced we'd won anyway. Almost as though Gandalf has his own Truth Social feed. 

Expeditions finished now too: 

Adam H 22
Ian 20
Joe 15

With apologies I missed any late drama, as I was now wrapped up in the shenanigans of Martin's latest addition, Pumafiosi, a mini-Reiner with quite nice production and a lot of dickishness. The rhythm of it is sort-of trick-taking, but instead of the winner it's the second-strongest card that gets added to a hierarchy of points cards in the middle of the table. During around, these can get bumped down the ladder (minus points for being bumped) and you've some one-use special abilities to take advantage of. 

After ten tricks are played the rungs on the ladder score, and Adam T gets lots of points. My catastrophic middle round and Martin's feeble third round meant there was only ever one winner. 

Adam T 45
Martin 31
Sam 30

They'd now finished Expeditions and were playing Ra. 

And I was feeling the pace of all this fun and threatened to leave, so Martin coaxed a game of Jungo out of me. Adam took to this very quickly as well, winning the first round in no time before Martin took the second. Then Adam added the third and hit the two-rounds-wins victory objective! I do like Jungo. Any game where you get to say the word 'invoke' can't be all bad. 

Martin and Adam began setting up Agent Avenue as I headed for home, which is where Joe takes over the story...

Joe here, thanks Sam. Ra weaved its relentless way towards the end of the ancient Egyptian era, and it was, as it always is, gloriously tense. Ian was on course for the win, but a generous final epoch plus winning sun tiles gave me the late running. "I'm rubbish at Ra", sighed Adam H, in a similar intonation with which he'd announced "I love this game" after beating us at Expeditions earlier. 

Joe 60

Ian 44

Adam 27

By now Sam had gone, and both Adams made noises about leaving. In the end only AH did;  AT stayed, coaxed by the promise of So Clover. Martin threw a cardboard spanner into the works, brandishing Llama Llama, but as he began the rules, Adam wrinkled his nose and said "Shall we just play So Clover?" And so we did. 

We acquitted ourselves decently, with a score of 22/24, only undone by Ian's perfectly reasonable paring of coil with wind, which we all read to rhyme with binned, not bind. Doh! 

I was pleased with my clue of magazine to go with ammo and life. And with that, the bell tolled, and the lights faded on another Tuesday night. Earlier than is perhaps usual, but with a full Sunday of gaming in the offing, in the form of Decacon, we all needed to get some rest.

 

ChameleAnja

Please welcome Pete to blogging duties! This is last week's report, 25th November) 

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Tuesday approached as it usually does, and Steve enquired if anyone would be up for Fishponds games.

He emphasised games based *in* Fishponds, and not based *on* Fishponds, so I (Pete) was relieved to find that plenty of other gamers weren't put off by this, and eventually by confirmation  that wellies were not required.

Joe, Martin, Sam, Adam and Katy began by playing Mü, only briefly pausing to debate whether the title was a cat-noise or a cow-noise.

Joe advises Martin was leading, but they called it early after two rounds with Sam feeling increasingly exhausted/unwell and kindly dropped home by Joe. Perhaps there will be a rematch this week? (and it might even be reported more promptly! 😆)

At the other end Steve, Anja, Louis and I deliberated a little more. I was tempted by Broom Service but we decided it would probably be a bit long. Steve suggested Magic Maze, but expressed concern that Anja would not take to a silent co-op. Anja was speechless. Whether this was indignation, practice or demonstration, we elected to play Chameleon instead.

For a rulebook of two A6 pages Steve & I found this surprisingly unintuitive at first, though he had the excuse of being without glasses and well and truly blocked into a corner by the throng of gamers.

Once these were obtained we got into it quickly- all but one player (the titular Chameleon) are let in on a secret word from a list, then all have to give a clue to it, before voting on who the Chameleon is. The Chameleon has to either conceal their identity fully, or has an out if they are caught but can guess the secret word (hence those in the know can't be too precise).

Pretty tough on the Chameleon if they are going first and have no clue whatsoever, but it seems with a bit of luck, vagueness and sowing doubt the Chameleons did pretty well. When I say Chameleons, I mostly mean Anja! Even when caught once she escaped.

From being unsure if it would work, I enjoyed this, I think having that bit more structure makes it a bit less fragile than more freeform similar games like Spyfall and something else I've forgotten. I even escaped once, mainly because I could frame Steve as his chosen word turned out to be suspiciously similar to mine...

We elected to wrap up at the same time as the others, with Anja leading on 3, myself on 2 and Louie and Steve tied on 0.

Thinking about it, I don't believe we successfully captured a single Chameleon- interesting! Would be good to go a few more rounds and see how common that is, and how it would turn out with everyone getting a go.

While Joe was gone and with Sam and Louie departed for the evening the rest of us all played Martin's Bluffit.

This prompted Steve to enquire just how many games Martin owns that consist largely of decks of cards with numbers on them. It certainly seems to be a rich design space - I suspect it would take us quite some time to play through them all. Guesses in the comments? 😜

In this one we were starting with identical hands to bid for a row of cards in the middle, or perhaps to secretly compare with another player to try and steal their claim. And then repeating again to compete for the cards we'd just bid with.

I can't remember if Joe returned in time to witness a dramatic finale with Martin stealing a card to sneak ahead of Anja, only to discover that Steve was still slightly ahead.

We then split again to create a Doppelkniziatisch.

Martin, Joe and Anja made coloured glass in Mille Fiori, which I don't know and only caught a few glimpses of. It appeared Martin had the corner of the board nearest him tiled / glazed / whatevered pretty much entirely green. This appears to have been quite successful:

Martin 225

Anja 204

Joe 192

Meanwhile Adam, Katy, Steve and I launched cats into space by rolling dice in M:LEM, while Molly investigated the box for spaceship potential.

We didn't necessarily get that far into space- Katy definitely dominated the first planet; other cats did make it further, but none to deep space.

I think I got the ship closest, but then I was following a previously trodden path in a new game; take risks early on while figuring out how it works, then take more risks to try and catch up. I was relieved that cats lost to space return to your pool of possible recruits, though feeling thematically a little perplexed. I was glad Molly was much more interested in the box than the fate of spacefaring cats.

Adam's cats fared much better, and I think he surprised us (well, at least Katy and I) a little with how fast he had all his cats successfully disembarked to triggered the game end. However, Steve had again scored slightly higher.

Steve 26

Adam 22

Katy 21

Pete 12

Despite some muttering about heading home we elected to sneak one round of So Clover! We flew out of the blocks with Joe's clover solved correctly in about 30 seconds. The group did a good job with mine as well, but from a start of 12/12 we then came a bit unstuck, despite a willing feline helper.

Birdshit for pigeon/award was inspired, and I very much liked Rapunzel for hair/building. Boxing/landscape was indeed a tricky one though..

I don't think the overall score was that bad that we should have deliberately forgotten it, but it seems possible- can anyone dredge it up from their memory?

Thanks again all and especially our hosts for another great evening of gaming 🙂