The Seven Commandments

There was at one stage nine of us last night at Anja and Steve's house, although the ongoing pipe-based escapades of their particular street meant we were never actually all at the table at the same time. Such is life when, like Steve, you plumb in the moonlight. 

But we began as an eight. Whilst Anja was getting Lennon settled, the assembled ranks of gamers placed their wagers on Hot Streak. With the full complement we elected to eschew the drafting and play the 'secret betting' variant, where you simply choose a racer to back based on the cards, and most also go with your hunch on a side-bet. There's a little less control in a game with minimal control already, but it plays nice and rapid. 

As is the way with Hot Streak, there is no official winner - the rulebook foretells your future instead - but unofficially this was Pete's game: he ended with $38 ahead of Joe's $28, with the rest of us dismally arrayed between 8 and 15. 

We split into two groups with Martin and Joe introducing 2 Win to Louie and Ian whilst the rest of us played the simple-yet-inscrutable dnup. 

Having already played 2 Win I can give a brief précis. Each round players choose two cards to play as a number, with the significant caveat that it must be higher than their last one (-your first number can be anything, but you want it to be reasonably low). If you play the highest number, you get a card from the deck. If you play the most stars - these pop up on some numbers - you also get a card. And you get a card in another way I can't be bothered to explain here. However you get 'em, cards are good because the winner of 2 Win is the last one standing: as your cards run out you either don't have enough or, more likely, your numbers are too low. 

from earlier

Joe won this, with Louie second and Martin and Ian first out. Meantime Steve was unscrambling dnup's inscrutability with some success, picking up a win in just three rounds despite asking what the rules were during the second one. 

The 2 Win gang had now subbed Louie out for Anja and set up Martin's new trick-taker Master Makatsu, so we moved on to Mykerinos, my new second-hand classic of the Beige Games Era. However at this point - I missed how it happened - Steve was called away to plumb. Being unsure how long he'd be, Adam suggested we play dnup again, and won just in time for Steve's return. We'd fleetingly seen him covered in water as he passed through the house like Super Mario, but now he was back and dry and ready to dig for artifacts. 

In Mykerinos then we send archeologists out to dig in order to claim cards at the end of the round via area majority: first place gets first choice, second gets whatever's left over. The cards you harvest will score points at the end of the game: exactly how much depends on what rooms you're able to reserve in the museum back home: you can sacrifice a card to take the reserve action instead. 

dig

the museum

The catch with the digs is that there's limited space and players get in each other's way. Mykerinos also does not like you branching off from your digs, so you can only extend them from either end, with up to two cubes. Or you can start a new dig anywhere with one cube. Or you can pass and keep cubes back, or you can call on a Patron. 

from earlier

Claimed cards, as well as being your points, also flip over and become special-move-endowing patrons, something Adam put to good use as he used Lady Violet to continuously claim extra cubes from the supply in a limited economy. Despite my earlier reservations and ousting of Pete for shared card objectives, it was enough to give him a victory on a tiebreaker: cubes left over. Steve's strategy of asking what the rules are halfway through served him less well here than in dnup.

Adam 51 + two cubes

Sam 51 + no cubes

Pete 40

Steve 27

Whilst all that was happening, Ian had won Master Makatsu (points are bad) 

Ian 14

Martin 15

Anja 16

Joe 18

And I know little of it despite Martin explaining the rules to me in the car on the way home. That was almost twelve hours ago now and things have changed. I do know that Ian followed this with another win in Mille Fiori, staging some kind of epic comeback from the mid-game doldrums. 

Ian 203

Anja 184

Martin 182

Joe 161

And now, as the room vibrated to the sound of Molly's snoring...

Adam left for home. Anja suggested So Clover, but we realised nobody had So Clover with them. Then Pete said it might be in his car - in case of breakdowns I suppose - but with demurring voices Adam and Katy not present we realised we could play Triangulation, and broke into teams. And what a game it was. 

I kicked things off in moronic style with The Ten Commandments. Not only did I confuse the commandments with the deadly sins but I wrote 'ten' as one of my clues, thinking Ha ha, there are ten of them to myself. Dumb as a bag of spanners, leaving teammates Joe Ian and Steve at a loss.

Because we failed in round one, I cost us a point. But then I redemptively suggested Big Bird from Martin's large and yellow and it proved correct! We just about got Disneyland after Pete's gracious giveaway that we were close, and Joe twigged that Steve's clues were about Zoolander. 

Anja's team successfully got IKEA and then we failed to grasp Ian's clues for Tim Burton (though Joe's idea of Beetlejuice got us very close!). Down to the final round and we flipped over Martin's DC and five, initially making us think of comic superheroes before I wonder if the Pentagon was in Washington. Ian thought it was, and we intercepted for the win! 

In a quirk of fate Martin realised that - having intercepted Joe's launderette and blue for Levis - their team would have won if he'd written his clues a little slower and they'd have gotten to guess first. Crazy. 

But now the hour was past 11pm and so we wrapped up another week.