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.

When the going gets turf

 This week GNN returned to Joe’s studio as a venue. When Joe let me in, we tried to remember the last time there’d been a games night here. Something to do with a birthday and going for pizza, maybe just after the lockdown.

But enough reminiscing - in Joe’s studio were Pete, Adam H, Ian and Martin mid-way through a game of Abluxxen. Joe ate while he played and I sat down to watch. I discovered,as I did, that I couldn’t remember the rules. Everyone seemed to have a lot of cards in their hands, but as the game neared its end, everyone started shedding. Martin played eight 3s and then seven 6s in two rounds. This was pivotal as the game ended soon after.

Martin 12

Adam9

Joe 4

Ian -1

Pete -2

Then we split into two groups. Joe, Ian and Adam played Azul while Martin, Pete and I played Samurai. This Knizia game appeared on GNN some years back (quick check, oh my god, 11 years ago) and it’s simple strategy found some favour. Now Martin has a copy, it’s back on the table.

The two games, side by side, meant the room was pervaded by thoughtful silences and frustrated sighing. Samurai, in particular, saw some hefty pauses for thoughts. My best move involved me putting down two tiles and clearing out the Edo area, picking up a rice bale and the other two removed from the board because of tied results. 

Before long, the struggle was to try to place your pieces without leaving an opportunity for another player to finish surrounding a piece and pick it up.

1= Pete

1= Andrew 

2. Martin 

I enjoyed it and Martin seemed happy with his acquisition, although he blamed his last place on the fact that his best tiles didn't come out until the end. 

Across the table, Azul went into a rare sixth round. After Martin commented he'd never seen that before, he was assured that this was Azul “on another level”. They didn't specify if this level was higher or lower.

Adam 91

Joe 80

Ian 78

Next was talk of another couple of 3 player games before Winner's Circle/Royal Turf but I was keen for a big 6-player finale before I left so Winner's Circle (the tiny Japanese edition) was brought out. In this game a die is rolled and that tells us which category we can use when moving a horse of our choice.

In order to best appreciate the die-rolling aspect, the dice arena or, if you will, dice stadium Das Exclusive was brought to the table and so we were given the rare treat of playing with a dice arena larger than the game itself. 

We played by the original Royal Turf rules, in which the horses are drawn randomly but each colour has certain characteristics. White, for example, starts in pole position and has one side that's  got one category that's over powered while the others are dismal, while Orange (starts at the back) was balanced on all categories. 

It didn't work quite as well as Winner's Circle style random horses since the horses at the back couldn’t move until the horses at the front did, giving those horses are distinct advantage.

After round one, I was in the lead with £550 from what I thought were some shrewd decisions. Then, after the discussion about how slanted the game seemed to be in favour of those at the head of the pack, the contrarian in me wanted to win by choosing a different path. In the third and final round, I chose horses further back and foud myself struggling to keep them out of last, while the usual suspects sped off to a quick win.

Pete won in the kind of rags-to-riches story that Hollywood would love. After round one, he’d done so badly that he was, technically, $100 pounds in debt.

In the final round, though, he demonstrated almost psychic form-reading abilities. He bet on the top three and pushed himself into first.

Pete $2000

Martin $1800

Joe $1450

Ian $1200

Adam $1150

Andrew $1150

He even magnanimously agreed to pay off the $100 he owed after round one - after he’d worked out he would still be in first.

At this point, I set off, happy and satisfied for another week.

Thanks all.

For Goodness' Saké

Like a rare planetary alignment, every year or so four increasingly aging board gamers meet to catch up and share news, ancient in-jokes and some dubious double-entendres.

I arrived at about 1.30, and Sam told me that Chris and Paul were running late, still picking their way through Bristol’s bank holiday traffic. We drank coffee and chatted while I idly looked at the packaging for Tokkuri Taking, a game that would be our first once we were all here.

The packaging promises a bacchanial party of sake with dinosaurs. In practice, we were playing cards to either represent a clay bottle full of sake (the tokkuri) or the amount of sake each player will drink.

You have to play cards which will empty a (or many) tokkuri(s) exactly. If you achieve this, you flip the tokkuri card, action any text that you may see and keep it as a point. Unless it is a Dummy card, in which case the card is removed from the game and everyone else chuckles at your bad luck.

In fact, the revelation of a dummy card remained funny until the end of the game. It was a nice little game but, as Chris pointed out, where were the dinosaurs?

Sam 20

Chris 13

Paul 4

Andrew 0

After this game, to commemorate the day, Chris took a selfie of the four of us and unfortunately demonstrated how age turns technology into a mystery. We all posed and smiled and, instead of taking a photo, Chris promptly turned his phone off.

Never mind, we got there in the end.

Then we chose our next game. At least, me, Sam and Paul did. Chris stayed at the kitchen table, declaring himself too tired to make a decision. And so we played Tower Up, in which we were rampant civil engineers/town planners, intent on placing our roofs across city skyscrapers. Each of us had a player board with four scoring tracks in white, black, brown and grey which gave us the first childish sniggers as we spoke about “one up the brown” or a lack of “brown movement.”

Sam did impress mid-game with one move that got him three bonuses at once, but Chris’ slew of prominent yellow domes across the city pushed him into first place.

Chris 53

Andrew 50

Sam 46

Paul 40

Next up was Azul. I explained the rules to Paul and we were off. Sam kept picking up the first player token for minus points, insisting that he liked going first. Paul started slowly, with disparate tiles on his board, but managed to weave them all together with a final round that scored over 20 points by itself.

Paul 76

Sam 72

Andrew 70

Chris 66

We discussed food and, since Sam’s son Joe was going to get pizza for him and his friends, it made sense for him to get some pizza for us at the same time. That plan didn’t go down well and not even the promise of a side salad could persuade Joe.

Then we played Scout. A sort of trick taking game with a really light Circus theme. Not as tenuous as dinosaurs drinking sake, but still very tangential. I tried to bring the circus motif into play: when I put down a pair of tens I introduced it as “Lisa and Rebecca with their two cannons” but it didn’t really catch on.

Chris 38

Paul 34

Andrew 27

Sam 18

Next up was Misfits. Chris started with a cylinder placed upright. Then he sat back and smirked. We carefully placed piece after impossible piece until the entire edifice collapsed, leading Sam to declare “every c*nting piece!” as he ruefully swept the debris into his reserve.

We played twice and Chris won both times. After Chris’ second win, we kept playing Speed Misfits for second place, with Chris counting down the time limit in a vague German accent. I placed second.

After this we played Ito - the pocket version of Wavelength where everyone gets to make a guess. We didn’t do too well, with some pretty close calls. 

“Places to have a secret lair” did okay, with some nice distance between our guesses but in the category Imaginary Worlds to Visit we failed to differentiate the two-point gap between The Planet of Stale Farts and Pubic Hair World.

Following this we gave up on pizza and decide to get curry delivered. After that was ordered, we played Pina Coladice. Yahtzee mixed with Noughts And Crosses. Each square of a 4x4 grid has a target to achieve with five dice rolled three times. Place your meeple (if there’s still room) and four in a row will instantly win the game.

It was okay. I felt a bit like I was watching myself play, but there’s a certain amount of strategy as first Paul then Sam found their paths to glory blocked by other players taking the spaces they needed. But in the end, Chris won with four in a row.

With the curry imminent we played a couple of quick games of Toy Battle. A very simple war game with basic mechanics but a nicely balanced range of soldiers at your disposal. Sam beat Paul on a tie-breaker and Chris beat me outright, having successfully stormed my HQ.

Next we broke for food and then I chose the next game - my last of the day.

It was Quest for El Dorado. Paul’s first game, and he got a rules explanation from, as I recall, most of us at one point or another. It was pretty close throughout, apart from the usual early stages of one playing hanging back for tokens (Sam) while another sped off into the jungle (Chris). But Chris was no amatuer just pegging it and hoping for the best. He neatly balanced his deck and picked up tokens as he went. An purchase of the Captain just as he reached the watery fifth hex was probably pivotal.

I tried to think like Adam by buying a Travel Log (or Travelodge, as Paul called it) to whittle away the flab from my hand, but when I appeared I really didn’t know what to do with it. Nevertheless I actually thought I had a chance until quite late on. False hope.

Chris 1st to arrive, wins tie breaker

Sam, arrived same turn

Paul, only a few spaces short

Andrew, at least I reached the final hex.

*                *                *

mysterious change of narrator

*                *                *

Sam here. The hour was around 9pm, I think, when Andrew left us, and we had a couple more hours of ludological frolics ahead of us. We began them with Rebirth, the game of cathedral and castle construction in post-apocalyptic Scotland. I can't help thinking that if all the efforts going into these rebuilding games went into avoiding an apocalypse in the first place, maybe these great designer minds could come up with something. But anyway. This was new to the ever-patient Paul, so I went through the fortuitously-simple rules and away we went, brick by brick. 

Whilst I set about cathedralling like some kind of Ken Follet enthusiast and Paul remarked that he kept pulling the same type of tile, Chris sped off into a chunky lead, passing 100 points way before we did and enjoying saying the word 'dirigible' in celebration. But his momentum slowed in the final act, and my haul of highland castles and completed objectives got me a vanishingly rare win - by a single point! Chris threw his cards on the table in disgust. 

Sam - can't remember

Chris - can't remember -1

Paul - a few points further back

We celebrated/drowned our sorrows in the Milk Tray chocolates Chris had brought with him. There was no flavour reference so I tried one at random, which turned out to be a hazelnut whirl. I enjoyed it so much I had another, before discovering they were everyone's favourite, including Jacquie, who wasn't even here, but added to the chocolatey shame. Apologies all. 

We played Fantasy Realms next, and any crowing I might have been tempted to do in my Rebirth triumph stuck in my throat as I proved abysmally bad at realming fantasies. 

The game is super-simple: you have a hand of cards that score in different ways, and on your turn you pick up a new card and discard one to the table. You can pick up either from the table, or the top of the deck, but the catch is top-decking hastens the end of the game, which happens when a tenth card is added to the communal cards. Chris more than doubled my score, I think it was something like

Chris 190?

Paul 140?

Sam 80

I poured myself another gin as Paul asked me if I was getting tired. "He's got to wait up for his kids!" Chris pointed out, as if we needed an excuse to keep gaming. Little Tavern was next. 

Chris started and immediately parked an elf at his table. I advised him this was maybe not the best move, because elves in this game are racists and only like sitting with other elves. Chris nodded that he understood and immediately picked up three more elves to score 16 points in the first round. In the second I gave him a face-down romantic and he paired it with another face-up to win! Stupid game. 

We finished off with So Clover, of course, but whether it was the marathon games, the gin, the chocolate, the red herrings or the late hour, did appallingly badly with a 3-2-4 haul giving us 9 points from a possible 18! 

By this time, Joe and his pals were home and Stan was on his way back too. It had been ten hours of gaming and with midnight not too far off, we elected to end it there. Thanks all! Sorry about my foul-mouthed breakdown in Misfits. 

Dominoes in excelsis

 I arrived at Laura’s house in the rain to find an even wetter Adam H locking up his bike. We were let into the house by one of Laura’s children and went down to the kitchen where we found Katy already excited about reliving her childhood with a game of Ghost Castle, currently being constructed by Laura. Sam, Ian, Joe and Martin watched from the other end of the table, clearly not convinced of the joys of MB Games.

While Katy, Laura and the two smaller gamers began playing Ghost Castle, Joe, Sam and Martin set up Azul and Ian, Adam and I squeezed a game of Kingdomino in the space between them. The cries of excitement from Ghost Castle were mirrored by our cries of disappointment, as we drew tile after tile of crownless-countryside. But Adam didn’t mind, as his forest expanded to absurd proportions. 

Adam 74 (50 for forests alone!)

Andrew 53

Ian 37

At this point, Azul was still in full flwo but Ghost Castle had been replaced by Dragonimo. During that game, Maddie kept calling out “cracked eggs!” and I thought she was saying “crackhead!” until I looked at the board, saw the egss and put two and two together.

So we played Kingdomino again. By chance, I made Adam pick up a tile that he couldn’t place thus ruining his 5x5 bonus. I wish I could say I did it on purpose, but I’m not that cunning. 

Ian 56

Andrew 49

Adam 46

The other games ended:

Dragonimo

Katy & Riker 15

Laura & Maddie 10

Azul

Martin 83

Joe 79

Sam 39

“That was pretty close,” said Martin. Sam begged to differ, although his board was only two tiles away from a big payout.

The two youngest gamers were sent up to bed and we turned our attention to more grown-up matters: cats in space! Martin, Laura, Ian, Sam and I buckled up for a trip to deep space. It was a first play for me and Laura, so we got a rules explanation, but it was all pretty clear. Roll certain dice values to move, and then land your cats (each with its own special ability such as x2 planet score, x2 moon score, Parachute to safety even if the rocket explodes, etc). Our first journey was the most successful for a long time and Laura reached the last planet before deep space.

Joe, Katy and Adam were more grounded. Literally – their game, Renature, seemed to be all about reintroducing wildlife onto a board that initially resembles a Pac-Man maze made of grass. It was the third game of the evening to use a domino-placing mechanic. I didn’t really follow this game, apart from the occasional cry of surprise like “Double tortoise!” and also a request by Katy to go over the rules a few minutes before they ended. But it was fine.

Katy 86

Adam 67

Joe 58

“I didn’t gloat, and I didn’t ask you to thank me,” she said after the game.

As for Mlem, our poor rolling was getting out of hand. Laura rolled five twos and a booster when we needed ones and fours. On Sam’s first turn as commander, he turned up with his parachute on while Ian went one better – when he was commander, he chose his Saboteur Cat to represent him. A lot of fun.

Laura 28

Ian 26

Sam 21

Andrew 20

Martin 19

There was also a game of Misfits at some point during the evening. I'm not sure when, though. Most likely while Renature was finishing up. Misfits doesn't really play five and, apart from the photos, my only note about the game was "Martin loses."

We reshuffled for the next games. Joe, Martin, Laura and I played Big Top. Ian, Adam, Sam and Katy played Robot Quest Arena.

Katy 21 or 22

Sam 20

Ian 17

Adam 15

While Big Top was a little odd in that we rinsed the bank of money, meaning me, Laura and Martin all ended the game with a lot of cash. Joe, alas, ended the game with no stars. I needed Martin to add up my scores for me, since he refused to believe I’d only come second. He was right. Of course.

Andrew 56

Laura 53

Martin 37

Joe out.

At this point I left, but not before the Robot people began playing Stomp The Plank. After carefully setting up the board, Katy ruined everything by winning in the least fun way possible: draw six different symbols on the first turn.

Katy wins!

Of course, they had to play again and, although Katy could’ve won in the same way again, she bottled it at the fifth card. Adam didn’t so much Stomp the Plank as Shuflle Forward Slowly. 

Sam won the rematch!

And, I’m told, they ended with So Clover.

Thanks all, see you next week!

Enjoy your temporary wetness

I rolled up to Laura's front door at eight and rang the doorbell. Then I texted Joe but he couldn't work out how to open the front door from the inside, and finally I went down the overgrown footpath to the gate at the end of Laura's back garden where I was let in and I startled a cat.

I sat down to discover that the other gamers there (Joe, Martin, Gareth, Katy and Laura) had already played The Numbers and Laura had won again. Katy didn’t seem impressed by the game.

We played Challengers. This game of deck-building is like a football manager game inasmuch as you put together a team as best you can and then watch the game unfurl. In round one there was a bit of controversy when it was discovered Gareth had beaten Laura with a B card when only A cards are in play. But a few minutes later we found out Laura also had a B card, so it was okay after all.

Joe started as a clear leader, going through the first six rounds unbeaten. He looked like he was definitely going through to the final. And Gareth, with his trophies and fans looked like he’d be the other finalist. But then Martin won the last three rounds (after losing each of the previous three by a single point) including a win against Joe and when we added up our points, the tally was

Joe 29

Martin27

Gareth 20

Katy 18

Laura 14

Andrew 12

The nail-biting final

So Martin and Joe faced off for the final and, thanks to Martin’s ability to keep his bench clear for more cards, he was able to win! What a comeback story. And his winning strategy? “I had lots of animals and a stable boy and then I got loads of vacuum cleaners.”

Then we stayed as a group of six for a co-operative game of Not That Movie. It’s a simple game of groupthink. First, two columns of cards are laid so. These have the names of real films, except they’re flipped so that once they’re laid out they make titles of new films.

I think a photo can explain it better than I can.

Then, once we have eight new film titles to look at, two “reviews” are drawn from a deck, one bad, one good, and we all had to secretly chose which of the titles these reviews refer to.

It proved tricky, even on those occasions when it seemed obvious. In one round the reviews referred to “ultraviolence” and “too complicated” so I thought The Dark List seemed like the only candidate, but Laura and Gareth disagreed. And why Katy didn’t think that The Silence Of The Dog wasn’t an introspective three-hour movie all shot in the same room, I’ve no idea. Mind you, I think everybody had “The Lady In The Shell” as the perfect film for those two reviews except that Laura’s other half was listening in and when she heard the reviews she said “Well, it’s obviously The Lady In The Shell” and there were scenes not dissimilar to LaLa Land getting the wrong Oscar as we had to replace it with a different film.

There was a scoring system and I think our rating was “good”. Laura didn’t seem to rate it, wondering where the cooperation was and Martin didn’t see the point of keeping score.

Then we split into two groups. Laura, Martin and Joe played Ra: The Pharaoh's Edition and Katy, Gareth and I played Azul. Despite not being a fan of Ra, Katy admitted she’d be happy to play that version. Halfway through that game, Joe must have won some floods at Martin’s expense because I distinctly heard Martin say “enjoy your temporary wetness” and not in a good way.

Joe 63

Martin 39

Laura 16

We gave ourselves a rules refresher on Azul, which seems amazing considering how often we used to play it. It was quite a nice game, with little attempt at ruining each others game although Katy did declare that “I’ve cock blocked myself on the bottom”

Andrew 59

Katy 49

Gareth 36

Now it was 10.30 but this would be my last chance to stay up late for weeks so I stayed for a six-player game of So Clover. Martin was first and his clues were pretty straightforward, even if “multigenerational” (for full/heritage) didn’t quite fit on the clover. Katy, too, had some simple definitions (snail/room = “shell”) and I started to have a sinking feeling. Laura went a little bit surreal with “octopus” as her clue for plastic/medusa but we still got it. Three down, three to go.

Gareth clued nicely, with human/rooster = cock. Then Joe’s caused a bit of difficulty. I was sure “gameboy” was the clue for vacation/console but that didn't fit with the rest of the clover. In the end we tried bucket/console out of desperation and it was right! He explained that it meant it in the sense of Bargain Bucket, since it’s the cheapest console.

Finally there was me, with my dissatisfyingly vague clues. “Silver”? “Yellow”? I didn’t have much hope. But then they got chalk=limb/marker and after that paper/beer=mats. Then it was just a case of which words fitted the last two clues best and they got it right! Pandemonium! Delirium! A chance to immortalize ourselves in the book of perfect results!

We were so excited I tried to take a group selfie

Or two..

And then five of us crammed into Joe’s car for a journey around Bristol as he gave lifts home for everyone! Thanks for hosting Laura. See you all next week.