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 🙂