An Acquired Taste

I’ll be honest, I almost didn’t make it tonight. I was tired and I wasn’t giving anyone a lift, so I was tempted to bow out. However, I wanted to see Martin’s new place, because it was his first time hosting. I got there a bit late though, so I suppose I missed the opening ceremonies, the cutting of the ribbon and the Reiner Knizia shaped cake.

Anyway, I was thrown headlong into a game of Pairs. I missed the first two rounds, but that was a mere technicality to Martin who dealt me in just as I was sitting down.

Around the table were: Sam, Katy, Martin, Hannah, Andy, Joe, Matt, Ian and myself. Pairs was its usual self, handing out the cruelest of defeats to the most undeserving of people. Joe was singled out for some particularly bad luck, as he was dealt two peaches in one round to send him out without dignity or honour.

Matt 24
Hannah 22
Ian 21
Sam 16
Katy 16
Martin 12
Andy 9
Joe 8
Andrew 6

I did think about leaving myself off the results since it’d damage my points ratio on the division, but then I thought differently. After all, if we let the division rule our gaming, then we just reduce ourselves to the levels of animals.

Not sure what animal plays board games and cares about spreadsheets, though. Possibly an okapi.

Then we discussed which games we should play. During this, we were treated to a display of Andy’s magical game sack, where Joe mentions a desire to play a really obscure game that no one had heard of, and then Andy says “I just happen to have it here!” and pulls it out of his bag of games. The game in question was Midnight Party. It looks rather good. Why didn’t we play it?

Unfortunately, Andy's Magical Game Sack only worked once.

Eventually, we split into two groups. Hannah was enticed down to our end of the table with Atlantis, and it’s fairly short playing time. Her plan for the evening was to swap halfway through and let Adam join in while she took over baby duties.

So Ian, Hannah, Sam and I set up Atlantis. Katy wanted to join in too, until the saw the game, remembered that she didn’t like it and joined the rest of the group for a game of Acquire (Joe had brought Caverna, but Martin insisted it wouldn’t fit on the table).

I don’t know what kind of game Acquire is. There was a sort of plastic bingo card where players put black tiles with letters on. Then they’d buy shares, or curse at each other for buying shares. And then Andy won.

Andy 47,000
Matt 43,000
Joe 31,900
Katy 29,000
Martin 22,500

Meanwhile on Atlantis, any initial similarity to That’s Life goes pretty quickly, replaced by a slow thinky game of trying to maximise limited resources. Guide you meeples from the sinking land of Atlantis to the mainland, picking up points as you go, and leaving water behind if you do.

Ian 21
Andrew 17
Sam 11
Hannah 6

I’m not sure what to make of it. I went from thinking it was quite exciting to thinking the game was far longer than it needed to be. There seemed to be a lot of down time. Perhaps that was just us, I don’t know. I’d need to play it again.

Hannah set off home, with Adam replacing her after a short time. While he walked the short distance from his house to Martin’s, we set up a game of Metropolys. This game if bidding and (a bit of) bluffing is fairly new to me, but I was the one who’d played it most recently so I had to explain the rules to Adam. I think I did okay. Adam did ask to see the rules halfway through, but he always does that: he knows it scares us.

Towards the end of the game, Adam had just one building left to place and therefore end the game. Although it was a fairly good one, he hung onto it, perhaps hoping for a better bet next turn. He waited too long, though, as Ian got all his buildings down and notched up his second win of the evening.

Ian 37
Adam 35
Andrew 29
Sam 27

In the meanwhile, the other half of the table had played a couple of rounds of Go Stop. I haven’t had a chance to look at the Japanese rules yet, but it looks like Martin’s got a firm grip of what to do. He asked Sarah to join them to make it a six-player game, and she and Martin both won one round each before they decided to try something else: Deep Sea Adventure.

This game of comedy drowning (or not) has been a big hit since its introduction on the NSPCC day, and so it was again. And Katy didn’t come last this time.

Andy 43
Katy 40
Sarah 37
Joe 35
Martin 33
Matt 25

I left during this game, after we’d finished Metropolys, even more tired after two quite thinky games. The last three of our half of the table stuck around for one final game of No Thanks!

Adam 36
Ian 73
Sam 83

A lovely evening, and it’s great to have a new venue on the map. Katy was so pleased with the way the evening went, she even sent an email out to everyone thanking us. This lead to a veritable e-group hug amongst the GNN regulars. Bless us, one and all!

Ian, meanwhile, stays top of the Division on points, but he loses points ratio to Andy. Martin keeps control of the medal table.

Form is Temporary

Tuesday. Andrew was away in Japan, and Joe had been enticed to play Bridge. Matt, Steve and Anja were also absent. But there were still seven of us gathered around Hannah and Adam's kitchen table - briefly, whilst we discussed this Friday's NSPCC day. Then we split into two groups - Katy and Adam were keen to try Atlantis and I was keen to play it again. The others - Hannah, Ian, Andy and Martin - eschewed Martin's overtures to play Witness, and plumped for Ra. I hope to hear the high spots in the comments, as due to the vagaries of gaming fate I never saw what they got up to in the kitchen...

After a quick conflab with BGG on the set-up, the Atlantis group were off. It's not a heavy game, but occasionally it can take a little while to work out your best move. Or what appears to be your best move. Adam's ingrained habit of keeping the rules handy was not negated by the fact they were in German. Worryingly, he took a long time over his early moves. Then equally worryingly, he sped up.

Save yourselves!

Adam's tactic was to race off for the mainland (see previous post for more on this) - Katy's was to lag and pick up points. Mine was somewhere in-between. But somehow Adam raced off with a phenomenal amount of points - even my ending the game and giving them both a 7pt water gap to cross didn't dent his score - it was a trouncing:

Adam 35
Sam 14
Katy 8

Katy announced she didn't like the game, and added that she didn't like losing. Especially to Adam.

In the other room Ra had already finished with Andy the victor:

Andy 39
Ian 33
Martin 30
Hannah 29

Tidy gamers

They had finished just before us, in fact, and never a group to stand on ceremony, they were out of the blocks on another game already: Basari. So we played Pickonimo. I've been playing this a fair bit recently - it was a hit with my brother and sister-in-law at the weekend - but I'm not sure that experience was truly brought to bear. It feels like a game of luck.

Sam 13
Adam 6
Katy 2

Katy clarified that she didn't like losing to me, either.

In the other room they were still playing Basari (I think; it's all a bit hazy now) so we started on
Red7.  For anyone unfamiliar with Red7, it's a card game where you can either play a card to the table in front of you or play a card to the centre, which changes the game's rules. Or you can do both - although I get the impression you want to avoid playing two cards if possible. Either way, at the end of your turn you need to be in the lead, according to the current rules. Katy scored a whopping 25 points in the first round, and though none of us reached the official 35 points to 'officially' win, it was enough for our agreed three-round game.

Katy 25
Adam 23
Sam 16

Basari had finished by now. I have no idea what this game does other than accrue a large amount of numbers on the score sheet. Looking at the bottom, it seems (unless points are bad) that Hannah won:

Hannah 65
Ian 64
Andy 40
Martin 39

...and they were now playing Love Letter. We just couldn't get our tables to co-align. I missed all of this and kept forgetting to take photos, but Ian's good form in the game was brought to bear on the final standings:

Ian 2 cubes
Martin/Hannah 1 cube
Andy 0 cubes

Hannah came into the front room and said she didn't like Love Letter. Adam said he didn't either. Eastonites eh? Don't let them turn you, Martin. We hoped to finally play a game with all of us, but before that could happen the kitchen group needed to finish their game of Dobble. Martin took the honours:

Martin 20
Andy 14
Hannah 13
Ian 8

Despite the relatively early hour, Hannah was threatening to go to bed and I was threatening to leave; my foot had started playing up and I was keen to lie down. However, who can resist Martin at his most bonhomie-ish? Like a cross between Oliver Reed and someone who plays a lot of board games, he cajoled us into our seats for a game of Pairs. His reward from the gaming gods -possibly tired also - was serial punishment, as he took hit after hit and ended on zero points. Adam took a miserable score on the last round just to ensure he didn't finish last.

At the other end of the scorecard it was close between myself, Hannah and Katy. As we entered what would prove to be the final round any one of us could have won it - but as Katy and I both went bust, Hannah did. Somebody (Andy?) went bust on a pair of peaches.

Hannah 23
Katy 17
Sam 16
Ian 13
Andy 10
Adam 5
Martin 0

It was only half ten but we'd played a lot of games, so we drew the curtains on yet another episode of GNN.

I don't have access to Andrew's underground spreadsheet vault, but as a blast from the past here is a one-off form table - for last night only!

						Points
Hannah	1	3	2	1	4	11
Ian	4	4	1	2	2	13
Andy	5	2	3	3	1	14
Katy	2	1	3	3	5	14
Sam	3	3	1	2	5	14
Adam	6	2	2	1	5	16
Martin	7	1	2	4	3	16

That sinking feeling

Atlantis! City under the sea! Or, as once supposed, above the sea, and imminently to sink. It's at this point that hardy gamers - myself (Sam), Ian and Andy - step into the breach, if for no other reason than to give Andrew something to read on that long flight to Japan.

Atlantis the game assumes the moments of the city's descent, where the population swiftly descend themselves - from neighbourly lawn-mower borrowing civilians (or whatever) to a manic screw-everyone-else fuckos engaged in a frenzied dash for safety.

Soggy, linear Atlantis

Set-up and play is not hugely dissimilar to That's Life, as players move their pawns from one end of a track (Atlantis) to the other (the mainland). But whereas in the former the track closes up when people take tiles, in this game the sinking city leaves water behind - which can only be negotiated by discarding your hard-earned points, or discarding your much-needed cards, or discarding your hastily-constructed but one-use-only bridge. And using your bridge means everyone coming up behind you can cross it for free as well.

The game strikes a nice balance between dashing headlong or lingering and picking up more points - the later you leave it to get to the mainland the more water you have to cross. Also, rather than dice-rolling you are playing cards to move, and there is a strategy to this as well, as your cards allow you to move to the next tile of a certain colour... I played the first couple of rounds not sure if was any kind of improvement on That's Life, but grew more enamoured as the game went on. Maybe that was because I was doing well, though...

Sam 25
Ian 24
Andy (explainer's curse) 12

Ian and were keen to try Bruges again after its debut on Tuesday, and Andy was amenable. It's a classic Feld points salad, where you can build canals, gain majorities, activate characters, boost your prestige... the stuff of Martin's nightmares basically. Unlike say Amerigo, however, you can explain it in ten minutes and play it in around an hour.

After digging enough canals to rival Birmingham on my previous play, I went for a more three-pronged approach of canals, cards, and getting cheesed off that I didn't have the workers to activate my cards. Andy got a good engine going early on and always seemed to have a couple of extra moves to play. Ian built a lot of character cards that scored him points - this time getting a King to go with his Queen and picking up big points at the final scoring.

Need Flanders

We were all bamboozled by the sheer amount of brown cards in the deck, which seemed to be never-ending. Despite my utilising all this brown to continually hit Ian and Andy with disasters - a latent, potentially screwage-led seam of destruction in the game - I floundered, continually finding myself without the right colour cards. The others had similar problems but managed them better, and my lack of majorities came back to bite me on the ass:

Andy 62
Ian 53
Sam 46

We all - I think - liked it. I certainly did, anyway.

With a couple of decent lightish games under our belts, we called it a night and Andy (in a T-shirt!) strolled out into the chilly night with a surprisingly mobile Ian, considering his recent encounter with a set of stairs. Until Tuesday, then...

Oh, and bon voyage to Andrew!