Feeling Gravity's Pull

What happened to tonight? Were the planets out of alignment? So many minor things went wrong. For example, Tuesday night was at Joe's this week but, in total auto pilot, I was halfway to Sam's before I remembered. Then there were the many occasions of people dropping bits of games (hence the blog title), and now I come to write this up, I cannot find the piece of paper I wrote the results on! It’s all down to my memory today. Sorry about the lack of numbers.

Luckily, despite my detour, I wasn't late and I arrived after Sam and Katy but before Martin and Ian. We began as a six, with a game of Stroop - a quick fire Dobble/Snap style game where the cards have words on them, possessing certain qualities like colour, size, solidity. The aim of the game is to get rid of all your cards by quickly putting them face up on a pile in the middle, but only if they obey certain rules such as the meaning of the word on the card must describe a characteristic of the previous card. Or not.

Six. Blue. Small. Hollow. Oh, and three letters.

So we played. Well, at first we watched Martin play as he put down one card after another. By round two some of us had roused ourselves enough to clear our draw piles too. I was quite pleased with my third place until I realised that Sam and Joe had stopped playing, and Ian hadn't started at all.

Martin
Katy
Andrew
Sam, Joe and Ian retired, unimpressed.

Next, Katy angled for a game of Yokohama, reasoning that if we left it much longer, we'd have to learn the rules from scratch again. And nobody wants that. Joe and I joined her, leaving the other half of the table to play something "more fun".

They played Sagrada, a game that Sam compared favourably to Roll Player in it's dice-based puzzling qualities. The dice, of which there are ninety, were new and shiny and - judging by the number of times they were dropped on the floor - apparently frictionless.

Meanwhile, we set up Yokohama as swiftly and efficiently as possible, with Joe scattering the game money across the table in his haste. We were underway before too long. But any fresh memory of the game had not helped Katy. In fact, maybe it hindered her, as the sharp pain of a recent defeat lead her into analysis paralysis in the opening few rounds. One of her turns was long enough that I was able to  get up and help in a search for scattered dice on Joe's kitchen floor.

As the game progressed, the moves quickened, and we were heading up the score track, quicksticks. We all took turns in last place, but found myself drifting further behind as the game went on.

The other three played Capital Lux, which I've seen played before, but it's a game that doesn't make much sense from a distance. Ian seemed to know what was going on, though.

Ian won, somewhere in the eighties I think.
Sam and Martin trailed in the sixties. Could be more. Could be less.

At this point, we told them we had another hour before we finished, so they played Flamme Rogue. I was absorbed in Yokohama by now, so I missed a lot of the race. In fact, I had to text Sam just now to find out who won.

Flamme Rogue in the background

Sam won
Martin a close second
Not sure if Ian crossed the line.

Suddenly, Joe ended the game by putting the fifth assistant in the Customs House. Both Katy and I had not expected that, and we suddenly had one turn to maximise whatever resources we had left.

Katy did not have a great final turn, but her lead at that time was enough to keep hold of first place.

Katy 120ish
Joe 110? Maybe?
I was stuck in the nineties. Story of my life.

Since Yokohama and Flamme Rogue had ended more or less simultaneously, we ended the evening as a six. Martin suggested another new game House of the Borgias, which we said in a broad New York accent because that meant “Borgia” sounded a bit like the surname of our genial host Joe. How funny we are.

The theme is that the Pope is dead, and we each have a cardinal that we’d like to succeed him. We have to sneakily get influence counters on our cardinal without anyone guessing who we’re supporting.

The game itself is Perudo, but instead of simply surviving if your guess is not challenged, you get to carry out an action. The action depends on the suit of dice that you chose. It was quite tense and I found it a lot of fun. Trying to judge a guess that sounded plausible that you’d get to do an action, but quickly became implausible as the bet ramped up, so almost no one else got an action, was pretty difficult.

I had a lot of fun, but I have no idea who won. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.

If any of you can help, pop it in the comments.

Update long after anyone has stopped caring...

I have found the piece of paper I wrote the scores on. And they were:

Sagrada
Martin 57
Sam 37
Ian 32

Capital Lux
Ian 82
Martin 70
Sam 65

Flamme Rogue
Sam 1st
Martin 2nd
Ian 3rd


Yokohama
Katy 128
Joe 116
Andrew 106

(so I did go past 100. I’d completely forgotten.)

House of Borgia

(or “Seven Bribes for Seven Brothers” as we quickly dubbed it)

Ian 19
Martin 16
Sam 15
Andrew 11
I think Katy and Joe were both found out.

I don't need a lava

This Tuesday evening saw yours truly back from travels and keen to get back on the gaming horse. Joe was hosting and Sam, Katy, Martin, and Ian were also present.

We began with a six-hander, Auf Teufel Komm Raus, a recent new arrival and already making waves as the new luck-pushing game of choice.

Ian found he had very little luck to push. He tried his best to throw caution to the wind, only for it to blow back in his face. "No reason for me to stop now," he said, hoping for a run of luck. He immediately turned over a devil tile.

After a disaster of a second round, he had to go all-in on round three. Luckily it paid off, and the Deal With The Devil rule (those solely in last place get money every time someone goes bust) he was pushed back into contention.

Less lucky in his dealings with the devil was Joe. On those rounds where he was last, the rest of us played safe and few went bust.

Sam successfully guesses what he's going to pull from the cauldron

Martin successfully campaigned against any tactic that would benefit Katy, convinced that she was about to win. "I promise you I'm not going to win." When Sam asked if that was a genuine promise, she clarified "this round."

The final result found that Martin had not lost his touch in hedging his bets.

Martin 1600
Katy 1420
Andrew 1370
Sam 1290
Ian 750
Joe 450

After this was, we split into two groups. Martin, Joe and Katy chose Capital Lux, a card game about which I know nothing. They set themselves up on the green baize card table and got down to work. Katy looked pleased with herself when Martin responded to her tactics by saying "that was the only card that could have fucked me." Katy's delight was to be short lived as Martin stole the win by the narrowest of margins.

Martin 68
Katy 67
Joe 63

Meanwhile, we on the big table decided on Downfall of Pompeii as a fun way to pass the time, despite its unpleasant theme.

The only thing we needed to be reminded of was how to set up the deck of cards. But with that fiddly bit of detail done, we were off, populating the doomed city with carefree abandon.

It was a close game but, then again, most games of Downfall of Pompeii are. It was all down to the tie breaker, based on the number of Romans in the volcano.

I drew the majority of the omen cards and Ian, it seems drew the rest. While we both tried to be very fair in alternating between attacking our opponents, it looks like we would invariably lean towards the more populous Sam. With no further tie breaker, Ian and I shared the victory.

Ian 9 (7 in the volcano)
Andrew 9 (7)
Sam 9 (12)

When we'd finished, we found Capital Lux only five minutes from completion so we cooled our heels and waited. I recognised the singer on the stereo and I asked Joe "Is this Jonathon Coulton?"

"Yes," Joe replied.

"He's being more serious than usual," I remarked, referring to the poignant lyrics.

"Not really," said Joe, "it's about a giant squid."

So now we were six. Games were suggested until we agreed on the plan to end with three short games.

The first was For Sale, the game that Sam always agrees to, thinking they mean No Thanks.

The cards 30 and 29 came out in the first round, meaning the tense stand off began early. Luckily for me, Martin cracked first and picked up the lowest card for free. This set off a series of people grabbing cards which ended with me getting the 29 for half price while my neighbour Katy paid for the 30 in full.

Having a 29 and most of your money left is a good way to start For Sale, and played it out with little to worry me.

Andrew 55
Ian 47
Joe 41
Katy 39
Sam 37
Martin 35

Next in our late evening trilogy was Bemused. It intrigues us with its opacity. What are the best tactics? Nobody knows.

Maybe Ian does. He was a deserved winner, dismissing Poet Sam with the words "No matter how hard you try, orange does not rhyme with fromage." A devastating barb, that no one could match.

Ian 7
Katy 6
Sam 5
Andrew 4
Martin 3
Joe 2

Finally we played Chameleon. A guessing game that involves spotting which player knows nothing. Kind of the opposite of Insider.

We played three rounds. In the first, Joe was successfully unmasked as the chameleon. Although afterwards, Katy said she had known nothing about the subject (Stuart Little) and was kind of bluffing.

The second round was geography. Ian was the chameleon, but he was able to correctly identify the target word: Mountain.

In the third round, Wedding Anniversaries, I worried that my word was too obvious. The target word was Paper and my clue was First (ie, the first wedding anniversary is paper). But most of our attention was taken by Joe, whose clue made no sense, but he insisted he wasn't the chameleon.

He also couldn't understand our clues and, as suspicion against him grew, he realised he'd misread the dice, thinking the 7 was a 1. But we checked our cards telling us which dice rolls indicated which word only to find that, either with a 1 or a 7, Joe should've got the same word. Joe then said he'd looked at the wrong word on the card. Yes, that's what had happened.

But just as Joe was doing a riveting performance of a man hell-bent on incriminating himself, Sam quietly opined that Ian's clue was pretty vague.

Ian had said "leaf" which I had thought perfectly reasonable and not given it a second thought. But Sam had noticed that "leaf" could apply to a number of words on the card. This sparked a revision of our suspicion and it was enough to sway people. I think I still voted for Joe, but Ian was the majority choice and he was indeed the chameleon. He couldn't even identify the word - he'd guessed Gold. So, a win for most of us to end the evening, thanks to Sam's keen eye.

We set off into the chill of the night. Next stop, the games weekend on Friday!