Two noes for triangulation

 This Tuesday i walked to Sam's place past a set of.chalk drawings on the pavement, where someone had scribbled messages to any passerby. One seemed particularly apt, so i arrived ar Sam's with the sense that today's games had an air of destiny about them.

There were seven of us, The host, Sam and Joe, Adam H, Katy, Martin, Pete and myself. We consider a big communal game to kick us off and Triangulation was suggested, only to receive two swift vetoes from wordgamephobics Adam and Katy - giving us the blog's title.

Instead, we split into two factions. Joe, Sam and Adam played Rebuilding Chicago. This looks like the sensible half of the table, as it looks like a mass of complexity with each player’s area looking like a cardboard spreadsheet. 

Pete, Katy, Martin and me play Maya. This, too, is a thoughtful eurogame like Rebuilding Chicago but as we play, we dub various moves as "sacrificial  peppers” and “spunking our potatoes,” doing our best to make it sound silly.

We had little idea about how to approach this game. Early on, Martin grumbles about how bad he's doing. “How can you tell?” asked Katy as she grooved along to T Rex. Katy’s early good mood could be down to how well she was doing, picking up 75 points in the first few rounds. Martin tried to keep up while Pete and I kept each other company with less that 20 points.

Katy promises “the move of the century” before she admits it actually isn't that great at all. I am mocked for how long I'm taking over my turns, especially when I fall into a distant last. We never get to see Katy’s move of the century since it is ruined by Martin. “What am I going to do with all these fucking gourds?” she cries.

As The Blue Nile drifts from the Bluetooth speakers for a few songs, Pete takes the lead! He’s timed it perfectly since the game is almost done and there’s no time to react.

Pete 140

Katy 128

Martin 123

Andrew 90

Since Rebuilding Chicago is still half an hour from completion, we play Gang Of Dice. This dice rolling game was a burst of fun, as we react with amazement at how our rolls failed/succeeded.

Pete 77

Martin 47

Andrew 21

Katy 17

We then have a quick one round game of Jungo, that Pete wins comfortably. Martin remarks that he finished with more cards than he started with.

At this point, Rebuilding Chicago finishes. 

Adam 174

Sam 154

Joe 138

With everyone all together, I felt that this is the best time to bow out and have an early night, so I do. Thanks all.

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The door had barely shut on Andrew when Martin was coaxing the remaining six into a game of Mongoose Poker, a title so gleaming new that it's not even made its way onto the BGG database yet. Seemingly inspired by The Gang, this game sees everyone trying to predict the strength of their own (unseen) poker hand. Unlike The Gang, it's competitive. And unlike The Gang, you can't see your own cards, only everyone else's. 

There's the deal, the flop, the turn and the river, like a standard game of Texas Hold'em. But between each phase players get to play and information-gathering card from their hand that the other players will answer for you. These are all about maths and logic and appear to be simple. But they didn't account for our collective capacity for bewilderment. 

If the answer's yes, orient the card towards yourself. 

If it's no, have it face everyone else. 

Katy was first to confess her confusion, not helped by her desire to decode the infographics instead of just reading the text. Then Adam admitted that he didn't have a clue about anything, and Joe, now on his fourth pint of beer, began serenading Martin with damning comparisons to The Gang. "Jesus Christ" Martin said to the room at one stage, before clarifying he wasn't directing it at Joe, whose turn it was. 

At the end of each round (-there are three) you can both guess at your cards (a point per correct guess) and guess your overall position, which scores - assuming you guess correctly -  according to the points on the cards you used to glean information, which also establish an initiative order. IT was all too much for Joe, who said he had some feedback for the designer. "What's that?" Martin said. 
"Has he played The Gang?" said Joe.

But Joe rallied from his mid-game slough to claim joint third with myself and Katy. Martin was a clear winner, with Adam back in 'fourth' as he happily called it. 

Martin 13
Pete 11
Katy/Joe/Sam 8
Adam 3

After the highs and lows of Chicago and Mongeese, Adam left for home and as a quintet we inevitably set up So Clover. Joe and I were on the whisky at this point and memories are a little fuzzy, but I do recall my disappointment that the answer to cows wasn't the one we wanted. 

I think was also around here that Joe began his soliloquy about being victim of co-ops 4-for-3 beer promotion; only because he'd now drunk them all he insisted on called it the 3-for-4 promotion instead. I should really have stopped giving him whisky at this point. 

Joe and I were both also victims of some mild portobello nonsense and Martin struggled with his combo of jelly/temple, eventually plumping for ruined as a clue. As we speculated in silence, Joe murmured 'ruined octopus' happily to himself, like a psychopath perusing the menu at a dark-web restaurant. 

22/30, with Pete's ass for horse/clown a nice clue.

Katy now had to go and Pete and Martin also made for the door. But when they saw Joe and I setting up our clovers again they found themselves sitting back down and uncapping the pens of destiny. Again I went first and again I fell short of a six, with a self-portobello of sorts, having not spotted that cross went with my clue of stitching. But after that it was sixes all around, with Martin's Minecraft for cube/place and Joe's Martini for evening/lemon being amongst the highlights. 

It was now around 11.30pm and for us old crumblies, even whisky-infused ones, that meant bed was calling. 

The Top 20 GNN Games (7 years on)

Seven years! It seems like just yesterday I last was doing this pointless blogpost nonsense. Oh, it was this morning. Anyway here are the most-played games of the GNN blog, as of today. 

1st So Clover 166  new entry!

So Clover's numbers are crazy. It appeared at the end of August 2021 and has featured, on average, .66 times every week since then, introducing the word ustensil into the GNN lexicon.

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2. 7 Wonders 121 🔻

The longevity of this game can't be argued with, although its numbers were significantly bumped by a lockdown year where we were spared all the shuffling. 

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3. 6 nimmt ⏩⏪ 91 

Lesser-seen these days, but still seen enough to hold onto third. 

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4. Biblios  🔻 88

Down from second place, Biblios has only hit the table 8 times since 2019. Sad face. 

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5. For Sale  🔼 78

Whereas For Sale has literally doubled its numbers and jumps up from 11th. 

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6. Love Letter  🔻 73

At one stage it looked like Love Letter would unseat 7 Wonders, but alas the passion has faded. Only seven plays since 2019. 

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7. No Thanks 🔻/ Push it  🔻 59

Dropping from 6th and 5th respectively.

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8. Ra  🔼 55

Ra continues to steadily climb, like an album by Meatloaf that just stays in the charts year after year because there are just enough old duffers to keep buying/playing it. Up from 13th. 

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9. Pairs  🔻 53

Down from 7th, possibly in part to Flip 7 being the greatest card game in the world. 

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10. Fuji Flush  🔻 51

Poor Fuji Flush. It was once our default evening-opener, hosting as it does up to eight dick-moving players. However it's now faded from view, like a polaroid pinned to a wall that gets the afternoon sun. 

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11. Lords of Waterdeep  🔻 50

But Fuji Flush has more colour than this game, which has been played only thrice at GNN since it occupied the giddy heights of 8th. I can still enjoy it at 2 or 3, but more than that makes it a grind. 

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12. Quantum 49 🔼

Like Ra, Quantum is in it for the long haul. It can't hold a candle to For Sale (or the newbies So Clover and Cross Clues), but elsewise has claimed the most plays on this list since 2019, pushing it up from 14th. 

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13. Take it Easy 🔻 48 

Take It Easy's couplets aren't the regular feature they once were: previously edging into the top ten, the lists of people Chris would like revenge on aren't enough to sustain it.

14. Tinners' Trail 🔻 / Tsuro 🔻 44

Tinner's Trail is nearly flatlining, with just a single play in seven years (apparently). Even Tsuro managed six. 

 

15. Raj 🔻 43

Raj racks up seven plays, which means it only drops one place from 14th.   

16. Lords of Vegas ⏩⏪/ Railways of the World 🔻 42

Steady Eddie Lords of Vegas holds onto 16th; Railways surprisingly drops three positions to join it there. I'm sure it's been played more than the four times the blog suggests in seven years - maybe they were all at games weekends though. Blogger gets funny about too many tags. And I recently played it with Adam on a non-tagged evening of delights.

17. Azul 40 🔼

Twelve plays for Azul gets it up from 20th

18. Cross Clues 39  new entry!

The little sibling of So Clover has had a similar impact: not on quite the same scale but 39 plays in five years is some going when you plough through the newbs like we do. 

19. Alhambra 🔻/Las Vegas new entry! 38 

Alhambra drops, Las Vegas rises. It's a surprise to see it here though - I thought it mostly got played years ago. So either it's been seen enough to belatedly appear now, or I erroneously missed it out last time. It's not an exact science, as much as I like to pretend I'm spending this time wisely.

20. Kingdom Builder 🔻 37 

Kingdom Builder's seven plays are enough for it to cling on with grasping fingers. 

GONE FROM THE LIST: 

Incan Gold and Timeline - nestling at 21st 

Stone Age - once seventh, now no more

The Mind - 33 plays puts it on a par with Stone Age, and it's not enough

Trans-Europa/Trans America - even cheating and combining their numbers, they fail

Ticket to Ride  - astonishing really. In 2015 it was fourteenth, but hasn't troubled the list since.

That's How You Make Your Wife

The evening began with card tricks. Joe started things by showing Louie how he could predict a jack coming out of some dice rolls and a clutch of calculus. 'The secret's in the maths' he confirmed later, although he never elucidated on why he got the suit wrong. "I was distracted" was the most he'd let on. 

Louie returned the favour. He broke the deck into several piles, shuffled them about, and predicted a nine, which duly appeared. There was an impressed moment and I wondered if maybe Anja would produce a rabbit from somewhere, but it transpired instead that it was time for Hot Streak. 

We were at the full eight by this time: as well as our hosts and Joe, Martin, Adam, Pete and myself (Sam) were also perched around the table. Anja - who hadn't played before - had a concern she didn't really understand what was happening. "It doesn't matter" Martin said. Hot Streak is that kind of game. 

Pete got off to a flyer with two big payouts in race one. But he was less effective thereafter, with Adam and Martin looking like the racers to beat. I played my usual ineffective strategies in races one and two before pulling off a surprise payout in the third race. Adam scored highest overall, and when Martin said no-one was interested in the scores, he chimed in "I am". So the positions below are 'the positions' although perhaps more intriguing for the combination of Martin reading the stories from the results book and my phone trying and failing to make sense of them. 

Adam 61 - your legal defence fund for having shaved ass into the horn of the mare poodle
Sam 57 - to an old woman who cracked them into a fine cloak of good fortune at all Will and Don’t you look handsome in it 
Pete 49 - you book studio time I saw what I’m pretty sure it was a hot runaround
Louie 40 - do you use your winnings to buy a copy of the streak by John Perry and CMYK? You enjoy playing it for years with friends and family.
Anja 32 your winnings goes straight into gobbler College fund
Joe 28 - Mart corner you in the parking lot and that’s how you make your wife
Steve 22, -you mail your winnings to your niece who uses them to buy a sweet butterfly knife to do tricks with
Martin 23 - you finally have enough money to fulfil your dream of buying a used copy of Tony Hawks downhill jam for the Xbox 360 so you do it

Hot Streak's always fun - especially with Joe's bespoke playlist - but with 8 of us it does feel like the races are only about a third of the actual game. We moved on. With Louie's bedtime looming, how much longer could he spend with us? Steve announced "Twenty minutes. Fifteen minutes. Ten minutes" and it wasn't clear if he was indecisive or just living life at a faster speed than the rest of us. Regardless, we set up Cobra Paw, the game of rolling two dice and trying to be first to snatch the matching tile off the table - or each other. 

"How does it end?" I asked Steve.

"I don't know" he admitted. Then he looked up the rules and said first to have seven tiles instantly wins. We began rolling and snatching and it only took about four minutes for Anja to get six tiles, at which point Steve said she had won. We all insisted he'd said first to seven, Steve was sure he had said six, but either way it made no difference: Anja was Queen Cobra and Louie was Prince of the Duvet. On the other side of the table, they were playing Big Shot. 

I know nothing of this except it's by Alex Randolph (of Xe Queo and Raj) and consists of auctions. I like the look of that board too; the picture makes me want to play Sardegna again. When Cobra Paw finished they were deep into <whatever it was> and will hopefully illuminate us as to what happened in the comments. Meantime we played Bella Vista. 

Bella Vista has a randomised set-up to create the board and then over 8 rounds we all place our 8 buildings  on it (in the three-player game, the last-to-go also places a building of the unoccupied fourth colour). There's two end-game objectives: in our play last night, it was buildings at the border of the city and buildings in clusters - and some in-game objectives in the form of contracts: have two buildings next to the river, or one building in each blue neighbourhood - that kind of thing. If you qualify for a contract at the end of your turn, you can take it for the cash/points value at the end of the game. 

Turn order is critical: often two or more of us are in pole position for a contract. But going earlier in turn order means paying for the privilege, and in a game where cash and points are the same thing you can end up paying 6 coins to complete a contract worth 8 coins. I made a critical error late-on, thinking I had the four-buildings-on-borders contract sewn up and not spotting Steve could swoop in and grab it - which is what he did. 

Steve 110

Sam 106

Anja 105

We wrapped up at exactly the same time as Big Shot, with Martin happiest about the scores. 

Martin 38

Joe 33

Adam 12

Pete 5

Pete seemed sanguine about Martin pointing out he started the game with twice as much cash as he ended it with. They all seemed broadly approving, in fact. But now we rejigged, with Adam, Anja and Joe playing Spots... 

And the rest of us choosing between dnup and Gang of Dice. I said as I'd chosen Bella Vista I'd stay out of the debate and went off to the bathroom. I returned through the kitchen, where Anja was treated to me saying 'so they make these bottles with extra large labels' repeatedly to my phone, as it refused to understand the text I was trying to send to my niece. I have basically become reliant on technology that terminally misconstrues me. Meantime they'd chosen dnup.

This game's mental gymnastics exist within a simple framework, but they are still mental. However on a second play things felt a little more malleable to me - marginally less chaotic. And Steve won the first round despite being bamboozled anyway. We were briefly distracted by Joe being sad, but otherwise mesmerised by dnup's weirdness: I won the second and third round to take the game...

Sam 5

Steve 2

Martin/Pete 1 each

And Spots ended at the same time. Joe had rallied from his serial busting enough to claim second, but clearly Adam had run away with it like a dog with a bone. 

Adam 6

Joe 3

Anja 2

And with 11 o'clock nearing us, we wrapped things up for the night, with So Clover making a rare non-appearance. Despite that bombshell, a very fun evening. Thanks all!

Who’s on Third?

Tuesday at Joe’s. I arrived at the same time as Adam T and Joe lead us downstairs to his kitchen, we were greeted by a group of five more eager gamers, Ian, Martin, Adam H, Katy and Sam. The scent of peanuts filled the air as two nut-based snacks sat in bowls in the middle of the table. As an octet we decided to play a game together and Triangulation was brought to the table.

In this game a clue-giver writes three clues to try and make his team guess a word (always a Proper Noun) but in such a way that the opposing team can’t guess the word when given two of those clues, chosen at random. Joe, Adam H, Katy and Sam lined up on one side of the table and Ian, Martin, Adam T and myself were on the other.

Joe started the game and the first clue to be revealed was “Rusty.” Blank looks all round. I suggested Mad Max, so we went with that. This caused a certain amount of deliberation from Joe before he said no. This made us think that this might be somehow related to Mad Max - an assumption not entirely disproven by the next clue “Dusty.”

In fact the answer was Springfield. Joe had misremembered the name Krusty the Clown as Rusty, hence the confusion. I had a similar experience on my turn. I chose Stan Lee but then couldn’t remember if he was Marvel or DC. I felt fairly sure it wasn’t DC so my clues were Marvel, Origin and Pauper - the third clue based on Stan Lee being screwed over by Marvel.

Another source of confusion was when Martin’s first clue was “Third” and Sam wondered if it was an allusion to the famous “Who’s on third” comedy routine by the Three Stooges, until he realised he meant “Who’s on first” by Abbot and Costello.

Martin, Ian, Adam T and Andrew 4

Sam, Katy, Joe and Adam H 1

After this, we split into two. At one end was Spyrium, a game that harked back to a time when every board game had a cyber punk aesthetic and was all about building engines, and me, Ian, AdamsT and H set up to play. 

The other players chose Bella Vista, a game with an appropriate name as they all build up their delightful multistory somewhat Parisian apartment blocks across a city according to a varying set of rules. 

Katy ended up a clear winner, reflecting her desire to make a better world. In this case, one full of parks.

Katy 104

Martin 90

Joe 78

Sam 70

Spyrium played out as you may expect. Ian and I went for points while the two Adams seemed content to sit on zero points for most of the first two rounds. Of course, the two Adams had just been toying with us. While my final round involved no building at all and a desperate attempt at converting anything in my reserve into points, both Adams still seemed to have a plan and the money to complete it. Adam T’s experience gave him the edge over H’s innate sense of how to win a game.

Adam T 62

Adam H 55

Andrew 51

Ian 46

And then I left. Only two games, but still a full evening. As I left, Sam, Katy, Joe and Martin were playing Dnup. It was a card game where you have the opportunity to turn your hand of cards upside down, which would give you a whole new set of numbers to play with. I know little else about it, including the scores.

But thanks all, it was special.