You are Dewan for me

 I arrived at Joe’s house to find Martin knocking at the door as I approached. Martin looked at me quizzically and asked “did I just walk past you?” I was dimly aware of someone having strode past me a minute or so ago so maybe he had.

We began the evening as a quintet, with three others expected along the way. I was introduced to Link City “the Martin Variant”.In this game, a player draws three (or four) city sectors into their hand and decides their location on an already existing city in such a way that we’re able to guess where they would go.

The Variant is in the fact that the person who knows the city sectors also choses where the coloured cones go as opposed to the official rule where someone else places the cones. It was fun trying to work out if Ian would put a 5-star hotel next to an Intelligence Headquarters or a Leisure Centre. The only issue with the Martin Variant is making sure you’ve properly hidden your choices before revealing the options, as Martin himself forgot to do.

Katy arrived during this game and even took part in a round, scoring only one point. I wonder if there’s a thing whereby new arrivals joining games always do badly. But actually, overall we did pretty well.

43 points

Adam H and Pete join us around this point and we split into two groups. Martin, Sam, Joe and myself play Dewan. Katy looked at her co-gamers and sighed “we’ll never agree on what to play”. She made an early bid for Lords of Vegas but instead Mlem was chosen. 

And what a game it was. Ian seemed hopelessly optimistic as he immediately loaded his Deep Space Double cat onto the ship, but he made it all the way there. In fact it was a very high scoring game, with the top half of the board heavily populated while the lower reaches were largely ignored. Ian got the Deep Space Twice token and towards the end of the game Pete noted that they’d been to deep space more often than they’d exploded. Amazing scenes.

Ian 47

Pete 42

Adam 37

Katy 33

As for Dewan, this was my first game but the rules are quite straightforward. Place settlements on the map and score according to criteria on your story tiles. As we played, bits of Joe’s table fell off and I asked if we were safe as we jammed them back on again.

Joe said “it’s quite stressful” (referring to the game, not his table which he didn't seem worried about) and it ended very close. Martin scored 22 points from his story tiles while I got points for separate groups of settlements. Only an unfair and totally arbitrary tie-breaker could separate us.

Martin 38 and more cards left in hand

Andrew 38

Joe 37

Sam 34

Next up for the four of us while we waited for Mlem to finish was Jungo. My second variant of the day: this was called Hachi Train, and the deck was made up of the cards from 1 to 8 and the “two value” cards to one side as a draw pile. When putting down a stronger hand, you have to pick up the cards you just beat. 

We didn’t finish the game, playing only two rounds, so we never found out the overall loser but, for the record, I lost round one and Sam lost the second.

Now everyone was together, I decided to take a bow and leave. Without me Ian, Adam, Joe and Sam played a tiny version of Azul which Ian won with an almost indecent margin of victory.

Ian 103

Adam 56

Joe 66

Sam 45

After this they failed five times at Yubibo.

Meanwhile Pete beat Martin and Katy at Mongoose before they played 1am Jailbreak.

Katy 8

Pete 5

Martin 4

Then they played So Clover twice. Some people must have left because Sam sent photos of five then four clovers.

Another special evening. Thanks all.