Everyone meet in San Francisco

 The rain that had peppered Bristol’s streets faded away in the evening, allowing walkers and cyclists alike the chance to converge on Joe’s kitchen for another night of games.

Before I'd even arrived, I was informed of an early game between Joe and Sam of Crokinole which was won by Joe.

I had to take a detour to a pharmacy so my ETA went back to 8pm and when I finally arrived, they (Joe, Adam T, Sam, Martin and Ian) were just finishing a game of Money.

Martin won, top of a crazy spread of scores that left Joe bemused as to what exactly he did so wrong. 

Martin 840

Adam 510

Ian 280

Sam 210

Joe 40

We were currently a six and we were expecting Katy at 9, dashing over from her book club. What could we play in an hour? Around The World In 80 Days was mooted, but probably too long with six.

Instead, Ian,  Sam and Joe played Foundations of Metropolis. A game I still haven't played but looks like area-control mixed with tetris. 

Adam, Martin and I pretended to think about what to play but, with a copy of Impulse on the table, it was never in doubt. 

We set up with only the slimmest of rules refreshers needed. We began in quite a generous mood, I put a draw card on the “impulse” (the communal row of cards we can all use) that allowed us to all take more cards into our hands and this seemed to set a trend. Adam even checked the rules regarding whether a player can draw more cards if they're at the hand limit. 

Over on Foundation, Ian made some disparaging remark about Joe not having any money. Sam, meanwhile, cried out “tear down those schools!” with delight. In the end, Joe upends Ian’s dismissive attitude towards the poor with a win.

Joe 105

Sam 101

Ian 86

As for Impulse, we were pretty close together until Martin attacked Adam and landed on 12 points - the level from which he usually pushes on to the game-winning 20-point mark. I had to do something so, after Adam sadly defended himself against further attacks from me, I used up most of my cards and all of my plan in one big push for victory. I got as far as 16 before I stalled. Still, I told myself, if Martin doesn’t reach 20 points, I’m a certain winner!

What a delusional fool I was.

Martin 20

Andrew 16

Adam 7

Now Katy was here. I don’t remember if there was a slight staggering in the end of games or if fate just kept us in the same groups, but Katy joined Sam, Joe and Ian for a delightful romp of Around The World In 80 Days. Martin, Adam and I decided on another old familiar, San Francisco.

This meant that one group was playing a game in a location that appearing in the other group’s game. I don’t think that’s happened since Wallenstein and Castles of Burgundy were played on the same night.

In fact, we noticed that 80 Days contained a lot of locations with games named after them (London, Yokohama etc…). We considered a variant whereby landing in a location meant you had to all actually play that game. The longest board game in the world!

We started at about the same time, with Katy promising us that she’d let us know when they arrive in San Francisco.

As for the games, Joe spent 12 days going from Bombay to Calcutta on an express elephant. Ian, for the record, was first to get to San Francisco and the first to return to London. [spoilers for the original novel] And he didn’t even need the International Date Line quirk to succeed [/spoilers]

Ian 72

Katy 73

Joe 90

Sam stuck in New York

As for the real San Francisco, it was all about Martin. Whatever I tried, nothing seemed to stop him from picking up massively beneficial cards. He built skyscrapers, completed rows, got architect tokens. Adam and I were reduced to fighting over majority points for most workers in a row. My two skyscrapers at least stopped it looking like I hadn’t even tried.

Martin 16½

Adam 8

Andrew 7

At this point, not quite ten o'clock, I chose the sensible option and left. I missed the rousing finale of 80 Days but got the scores from Sam in a late night message.

Then I learnt about their two attempts at So Clover. The first ended 31/36 but was notable for Joe’s clue of Dildo for double/end as “it was the only thing I could think of with two ends.”

Then they tried again with 34/36! Oh, So Closver!

Thanks all. Special as always.

Decocon!

GNN's annual tinsel-adorned day of games began at the early hour of 1.15pm, when Joe (Berg) rocked up at my (Sam's) house with a huge IKEA bag stuffed with games. After some festive chat, we kicked things off with a swift bash at Sea Salt & Paper (my notes say Joe thrashes Sam), before we got the Crokinole board down off the wall for a blast at Canada's hardwood export. My notes say Joe thrashes Sam. Let us not dwell on these events further: a knock at the door heralded the arrival of Adam, Hannah and Arthur. While Hannah and I chatted and Arthur read his book, Adam and Joe wasted no time in blasting through a couple of games of race-to-solve-the-puzzle polyomino game, Genius Square. 

Adam won the first. I think they tied the second. Checking various timetables we reckoned we had about an hour before Katy arrived, so Joe set up Reiner Knizia's multi-game plastic diamond festival, Mille Fiori. Although it's been seen a lot on various Tuesdays (and Novocon) I'd never actually played before, and it was new to Hannah and Adam too. But although it feels like five different tasks with subtly overlapping ramifications, each task (except the docks, which I never got the hang of) is pretty straightforward, and before long we were away.

I decided early on to focus on my boat, propelling it along the water to high-point-scoring (or bonus turn) places, and this gave me some early success on the scoretrack. But Joe was worryingly unfazed by my lead, and sure enough, I was soon overhauled by Hannah, who established a huge mid-game lead. Still, the Berge was untroubled, and as our tile-placements began scoring whopping hauls towards the end he sailed past everyone. 

Joe 194

Sam 182

Adam 178

Hannah 149

Then Steve and Anja arrived with Louie and Lennon, and Katy around the same time. As the children gathered with Little Joe - who now seemed comparatively huge - in the front room, we bunched into groups in the kitchen. Hannah, Katy and I played Living Forest whilst Joe, Steve, Anja and Adam set up Quacks of Quedlingburg.

I'm not sure what happened in Quacks, except Steve cried out in what sounded like existential grief near the end. In Living Forest, we were doing the classic nature triumverate: collaborating to put out the fire of a restless spirit (Onibi) growing trees, and deckbuilding.

You can win in three ways: putting out the fire a lot (12 fire tokens) growing a bundle of trees (12) or having a turn where your deckbuilt deck reveals a bunch of sacred flowers (12). I was pursuing the fire route, with Hannah close behind. Katy was growing lots of trees, pausing only to spray water on the fire before we could. I gathered my twelfth fire token, but then Hannah stole it off me, and Katy stole into win with her twelfth tree! Quacks was still continuing, but I hastened to Lidl, having remembered that I had promised pizza. When I returned to heat them up, Steve's mournful cries echoed across the kitchen as Quacks came to dramatic conclusion.

Anja wins!

Joe second

Adam third

Steve fourth/last

Pizzas were now devoured by everyone and post-tea, Steve was keen to play Clank, and began setting up with Joe and Adam. Laura arrived and was promptly sat in the catacombs with them (sorry Laura!) as, with Andrew and Gareth expected soon, Hannah, Katy, Anja and I played Spots.

Spots was notable for how fixated Katy became on getting treats - I guess we shouldn't be too surprised - and Anja's incredible ability to go bust, which happened (I think) four turns in a row. I briefly led the running with four banked dogs, but Katy's mountain of treats and their re-rolling power saw her swoop in for her second win of the night, insta-banking a trio of dogs. She insisted on a winner's photo:

Anja and Hannah made for home, taking the children with them - bar Louie, who was Minecrafting in the front room with Little Joe. But what was happening in the catacombs of Clank? Here, Adam takes up the story...

*                *                *

The game is a deck-building exploration game with points scored for discovering or buying treasure, freeing prisoners, defeating monsters and picking up certain cards. You need to do all this stuff quietly though or a grumpy dragon will attack.

Joe and Laura specialized in warrior cards (Joe kept muttering something about being a dangerous guy), Steve seemed to waltz around the board teleporting from treasure to treasure, while I released large numbers of prisoners.

The dragon didn't seem to attack much and didn't do much damage when it did ("clank" cubes get put in the dragon bag when you do noisy stuff like stumbling or rioting, then there's a chance the dragon attacks whenever a new adventure card is turned over - cubes are drawn from the bag and if it's yours you take one damage), and we all had loads of health, so we pushed deep into the dungeon...

All of a sudden we all had excellent engines built for buying lots of new cards which meant the dragon started attacking multiple times every turn and we began panicking. Joe's band of fighters couldn't muster the movement cards and were first to die, deep in the caverns, Laura made it to the chamber by the exit before the dragon got her, I charged out of the dungeon with one health to spare while Steve got stuck in the chamber where Laura died with one health left and had to face 16 cubes from the dragon bag (due to one dragon attack, and the three of us having already exited). The tension built until the 15th cube finally got him and with the 20-point getting-out-alive bonus I pipped him to the win:

Adam 89

Steve 74

Laura 39 

Joe 0 (his body could not be recovered from the deep caverns)

It was a lot of fun!

*                *                *

(Sam again...) By the time Catacombs ended, Laura had left and Gareth and Andrew had arrived, to find themselves drifting in the seas of Ahoy with myself and Katy. This is not one game, but two: whilst Katy and I contested areas of the sea (tiles) for points, Gareth and Andrew played a pick-up-and-deliver game of smuggling at the same time. The catch for the smugglers is that each item they deliver is then played as a wager on who, from Katy and I, would control the island they delivered to at the end of the game. 

This was a salutary lesson in not giving Katy a free hand, as she loaded cannons and sailed around bullying everybody. Like it's asymmetrical cousin Root, Ahoy isn't designed to be played less than aggressively, but I was struck by explainer's curse and my lack of sea-battling prowess gave not just me, but Andrew and Gareth an uphill battle in staying relevant on the score-track. She nearly ended the game on round three, but Andrew stymied her. Not for long though: my belated flurry of dickishness was too little, too late:

Katy 40
Gareth 29
Andrew 25
Sam 21 

Then Clank ended too - see above - and we discovered that Laura beat Joe into third place despite having left half an hour earlier. "We dragged her corpse to safety" he explained. After some interesting puddings courtesy of Katy (thanks Katy!) Steve and Louie left, bound for home, and Little Joe went to bed. The house now comparatively quiet, the remainder of us went for a series of co-ops to round off the evening, starting with So Clover. 

We began well, with three sixes, but then stalled slightly, perhaps as alcohol and fatigue began to tell. Gareth's clue of hotdog prompted a lot of discussion, as we pondered sand sausage (you get them at the beach) king sausage (are they the best sausages?) or perhaps elastic sausage (they do wobble about). It proved to be elastic, but we'd not gotten there first time and having stumbled once, we did so again with Katy's clues as well. "I hate this game!" she cried. But 30/36 was a decent score. Then Andrew departed for home, and we settled on Wavelength!

This is just one of several photos where I managed to make Joe look like a lost simpleton, courtesy of the wide-angle lens, and bad timing. Joe barred me from taking any more pictures after seeing them, but mostly we were focused on a near-miss (14 points! You need 15 to win) and a second crack where suddenly we seemed to hit the mark multiple times. True, we had some extremes. But we also had some corking clues and deduction work, triggering many extra rounds and finishing with a near-record of 32 points! There was a lot of laughter too, but unfortunately at this point I was a bit pissed and I don't remember much of the details. "I've been playing games for twelve hours!" Joe cried. I'm not sure if it was a celebration or a complaint. But either way, with midnight now gone, everyone staggered off home to await the first GNN of 2023. See you then!

Studio Line

Games at Joe’s studio has been the GNN way of welcoming in the New Year for at least twelve months now, and this year was no different (to last year). Joe hosted Katy (who arrived first) then myself (fresh from Monmouthshire) and Martin (came after he’d had supper).

When I got there, after limping through Bristol’s streets with a dodgy knee, I found Katy and Joe deep in Lost Cities. These cities must have been cold, since Katy was wearing a scarf and a blanket while Joe looked like he’d just come to the studio straight from his trawler. I found the completely bemusing, as I watched them place cards, pick them up and say that they’re completely screwed on the blues or some such fatalistic sentiments.

Katy insisted on splitting up the scoring to enhance the tension, only to find Joe rendering the whole process tense-less as he strolled to a win using exactly those blue cards that Katy had been throwing away.

Joe 101
Katy 77

Katy then informed me that she had soundly beat Joe at Innovation 6-1, with Joe pointing out that there’s no scoring in Innovation, you either win or you don’t.

At this point the two of them set off to buy pizza while I rest my knee. I take the opportunity to look at the games that Joe currently houses in his studio. Martin, arriving shortly afterwards, referred to them as “the dregs” but it included Lords of Vegas and Oregon. Joe later told us that more games would be transferred here as he is having work done on his kitchen. He’s not going to get any work done at all this year. While we waited for the pizza people to return, Martin and I played one round of Air, Land & Sea.

Next up, with Babylonia being nixed by Katy and Hit Z Road getting the thumbs down from me, we went for the co-op hit of the year Die crew. We started on Mission 23, somewhere near Callisto (one of Jupiter’s 69 moons, according to the thoroughly-researched narrative text) and had five tasks to complete between us. It took several attempts, but we finally nailed it (with me as commanding officer, by the way).

After this Mission 24 proved to be tricky too (six tasks, but in any order), and when we realised we had failed by the slimmest of margins, we put the game to one side and chose a new game: 5211.

This Japanese game sees every player playing two cards from their hand onto the table, revealing them simultaneously. Then, every player plays another one, then a final one in the same manner. The idea is that if the cards in front of you belong to the most common suit, then those will score. But if there are too many cards of the most common suit (seven or more) or if two suits are tied, then they don’t count for anything.

There are a couple of other rules thrown in, but that’s the jist of it. Katy began by asking if the cards had been shuffled, before playing nothing but green cards for all of round one. She continued to profess a lack of understanding of the game.

Some slightly over-designed cards from 5211

Joe 29
Martin 15
Andrew 15
Katy 12

Next was a couple of rousing games of Crokinole. Joe and I were in a team against Martin and Katy and despite a few good shots from Katy (which belied her insistence she was bad at the game) it was Joe and I that won two games, without Katy and Martin scoring a single point. Actually, it was mostly Joe who demonstrated an almost pro level of skill, perhaps putting to rest his reputation for being bad at flicking games.

Next, seeing as how it was too late for Lords of Vegas or Babylonia, we saw the evening out with some lighter fare. First was Mamma Mia, complete with faux Italian accents and Katy’s over-excitement at getting the Mamma Mia card and, therefore, being in charge of dealing out the deck of cards announcing each ingredient in turn.

Katy got off to an excellent start, completing three recipes in round one while I did none at all. I didn’t recover but Martin did and managed to match her at the end of the final round. Martin looked up the tie breaker while Katy dutifully put away the game. Alas, the tiebreaker was “the player with most ingredient cards left in their hand” and Katy couldn’t remember at all. They decided to rejoice in their shared victory.

Katy 5
Martin 5
Joe 3
Andrew 2

And now, with time ticking on (almost eleven o’clock) we played our final game as a quartet: The Mind Extreme. We battled through the first five rounds until we arrived at round six with three shurikens and two lives. Incredibly, round six began with a flurry of cards played to red and we had to stop ourselves and play a shuriken to try and find out where we were in the grand scheme of things. A few cards later we played a second shuriken and then, finally, we ended after a tense stand off between Katy and Martin who eventually played their final cards to differing piles.

We revealed the white pile to show just one mistake: a transposed seven and eight. So close. We needed a perfect run through red, though. It wasn’t looking hopeful.

Imagine our surprise when we succeeded! The crazed opening to the round had, in fact, been us perfectly in sync. We were amazed.

And perhaps too complacent as we quickly came unstuck on the “easier” round seven. A bit of an anti-climax but at least I am now a member of the “I’ve managed to get past round six in The Mind Extreme” gang and I can wear its badge (with its very small text) with pride.

Once Katy had gone, Martin, Joe and I finished off with Kribbeln: the game of complete luck unless you’re winning, in which case it’s all skill. We all had our moments of failure but while Martin and I had two blank rounds, Joe had four.

Martin 19
Andrew 17
Joe 13

And now we were finally done at quarter past eleven. My knee had rested enough, so I was confident about my return and I was pleased to get a little more gaming in before the end of the year. Looking forward to 2020! Cheers, all!

Toad in the crokinole

On those rare occasions when GNN allows itself outside the confines of a single evening, it’s usually a cornucopia of different games. But this time, despite starting at eleven in the morning and ending after midnight, only six games were played in total.

I arrived at Sam’s in the morning, while he was strapping a bike to the roof of his car, sending his family off to a skate park while, inside, Coimbra was already set up on the kitchen table. This is a recent acquisition and seemed interesting enough that I asked to try it when Sam texted me at 10.10am to ask what I fancied playing.

Despite the board being the usual Euro smorgasbord of tracks, maps and icons, it’s pretty simple fare once you get into it. The storyline apparently concerns us being powerful families in the Portuguese town of Coimbra. Sam, determined to make the Pilgrim tactic work for once, sent his meeple off around various cities picking up bonuses while I dabbled in end-of-game scoring cards.

It was fun. The two-player version has spoiler dice placed in various sections, recreating the feeling of another player taking stuff you want, which makes for a tenser experience. I didn’t stand much of a chance but found it very enjoyable and suggested that it be put in Sam’s bag of games to take to Joe’s studio.

Clearly, this guy has just thought of a funny but entirely inappropriate joke

Sam 130
Andrew 101

Then, after poached eggs on toast, we had enough time for a game of NMBR9 before leaving the house. Sam shocked the gaming world by going up on only the third tile so I, foolishly, followed suit with the fourth.

He then had issues with keeping his tiles flat on the table. With all these distractions, it was a low scoring game.

3D NMBR9, anyone?

Sam 67
Andrew 32

Then we had a walk into town to Joe’s spacious studio, complete with shelf of daunting two-player strategy games at one end. One of the boxes wasn’t even a game – it was the rule book to a game you had to buy separately.

The three of us had a little time before Adam, the fourth and final gamer for today, arrived so we played a game of Ticket To Ride: Switzerland. This three-player version of the old familiar has a smaller map and much greater emphasis on getting tickets to score bonus points. In the end, I only had six tickets while Sam had fourteen tickets and managed to complete each one. But even this wasn’t enough to beat Joe.

Joe 145
Sam 131
Andrew 105

Then Adam arrived and here we all were: the core four, as we used to be. I couldn’t tell you how long it had been since the four of us crossed swords, but it seemed like a historical moment. So why not reflect that in our game choice: Time Of Crisis since now seemed like the only chance to introduce Adam to the joys of Roman upheaval.

Complete with dice terminus at the end of the table

I was the only one to not begin in Europe and from the start tried to defend myself with support rather than armies. This was mostly fine against the other players (apart from Egypt which Sam and I ruled on some kind of time-share basis) but the Nomads, Sassanids and even Goths didn’t seem impressed. In fact, it was a very barbarian-y game, with at least three of all types massed on our boards at one point.

Adam started well and was first Emperor after Joe couldn’t take advantage of the neutral emperor’s low support: he had five blue points, but no spare governor.

We paused for Sam, Adam and I to go out to get pizza and pop into Tesco (where I found someone at the back asking people if there was still a group of boys hanging around outside) to get more crisps. By the time we got back, Joe must have been studying the map since he soon pulled off an impressive move where he knocked Adam out of Thracia, beat Sam’s army in Italia and became Emperor despite forgetting that he had two basilicas.

Sam became emperor for the first time ever, when he unseated Joe using a Pretorian Guard, getting eight votes with nine dice. I pootled about in North Africa and the Middle East, far from any real action, constantly worried by the ever-increasing sassanid horde on my border. When the game ended there were five of them and a barbarian leader.

Joe was reinstated as emperor on the turn he passed sixty points and, at 8.00pm the game ended. I think it might have been a bit too long for Adam but I found that those four and a half hours flew past.

Joe 78
Sam 62
Adam 58
Andrew 45

Next up was Team Crokinole, Joe & Sam versus Adam & Andrew. J&S won the first round and A&A won the second, perhaps because Sam was distracted by trying to find evidence online of his belief that the hole in the centre was called the toad. He found it.

It looked like A&A were going to win the whole thing when we sped to 80 points in round three, but J&S are nothing if not persistent and they whittled our lead away. The score went from 95-55 at one point to 95-65, 95-85, 95-100. They’d stolen the win right at the end!

Joe and Sam 2 rounds
Adam and Andrew 1 round

At this point it was half past nine and Sam left for home, mindful of a drive to Devon tomorrow morning. The remaining three broke out Railways of the World: Mexico.

An early delivery bonus to Culican pushes up the opening player bid, and Joe finally got it for $9,000. He then built somewhere else, allowing Adam to take the delivery bonus and get an early lead. I went bond heavy which had the unintended effect of convincing Joe it was okay for him to take bonds too. I think my income only very briefly got into double figures.

But a railway executive and a delivery bounty to a city I was already connected to saved my bacon, and mid-game, I was the one to beat. Joe and Adam upgraded their engines in an unseemly display of funnel flaunting. My end of game strategy was to get the last route and complete my baron bonus, but Adam kept getting in my way. I spent a little more money than I’d anticipated but it turned out to be worth it.

Adam in my way part one

Adam in my way part two

Andrew 50
Adam 49
Joe 42

Although I think my best move was an early depot card, meaning I shared in the points from Joe’s network. That move must have got me ten points by itself.

And now it was almost midnight, it was time to pack up and go home. Thanks for a lovely day, and thanks to all for a lovely year!

Games in their natural habitat

It was a dark and stormy night.

So began Snoopy's famous fictional novel and, by chance, so began this year's GNN games weekend for myself, Sam, Stanley and Ian. We left Bristol in a faint drizzle and the further we got from our homes, the angrier the skies became until it was a relentless, pounding rain when we arrived at the cabin.

We found Adam, Joe, Anja and Jon playing Azul. They paused long enough to welcome us in and show us our rooms: Ian and I shared a room swiftly dubbed The Infirmary due to the medical equipment in the corner.

But back at the game, Adam was ruling the roost. In one round, he'd made a choice so that both Joe and Anja had to pick up tiles that scored negative points and when they tried to retaliate by overloading the middle with far too many of a colour he wanted, he simply picked something else and let Jon end up with seven yellow tiles and nowhere to put them. Jon scored -5 for that round.

Adam 101
Anja 63
Joe 61
Jon 51

There had already been a game before this, Endeavour, which had ended something like...

Jon 72
Joe 66
Adam 65
Anja 59

But now it we were all together, with just one late arrival expected from Swindon. Once we'd settled in we started new games on the long and accommodating dining table(s) we started gaming, while Joe made supper.

Sam, Jon, Steve and Anja went for Luxor, a set-collecting game whose mechanic is that, in your hand of five cards, you can only use the ones at either side with new cards being added into the middle. It ended...

Sam 74
Steve 71
Joe 68
Anja 62

Maybe Anja was put off by her attempts to use the quaint, money-eating payphone in the room.

Ian, Adam and I went for an old favourite, Tinners' Trail. With no rules refreshing to hold us down, we were mining the tin out of Cornwall with no problems (apart from forgetting the bit at the end of  round one when you buy points. You know, the whole point of the game). Ian went for a round of no mining in round two while he built up his infrastructure and I did the same in round three because I'd run out of options. Adam scored consistently through the game and squeaked a win.

Adam 134
Ian 131
Andrew 96

Around this point, Steve arrived from the inky black storm outside, looking a little bedraggled.

With food still a little way off, there was a reshuffling of groups. Ian, Adam, Anja and I started a game of Deep Sea Adventure, complete with the rare sight of Ian doing a rules explanation.

The excitement of this game was supplemented by the occasional token flying in from the neighbouring game of Flipships. Stanley, Jon, Steve and Sam had joined forces to save the world. And, thanks mostly to Stanley, they succeeded.

We had little idea of this impending alien invasion and preferred to dive for treasure. Adam was always first to pick up treasure, much to everyone's annoyance as he used more than his fair share of oxygen. In round three I ignored treasure on the way down, hoping to get something nice on the way back, but succeeded in only landing on empty spaces.

Ian 27
Adam 24
Anja 13
Andrew 4

Next up was the lovely food made by Joe. Everyone won. Stanley got changed out of his school stuff, only to find that the only pair of trousers he'd brought with him were his mum's.

At this point, we decided on a big group game: Word Slam.

What manner of thought processes lead Ian to instantly guess "Undertaker" when presented with the clue "job"? Well, whatever it was, he was right.

The last, hardest, clue was "lactose intolerant" and it was up to Jon and me to communicate it. We briefly considered choosing another, but then thought about the glory if we succeeded. Eventually, we did, but not until our team mates had guessed almost every other nutritionally-linked condition. Jon's team was successful in that round, but we'd won the game overall.

My clues for Lactose Intolerant

Sam, Steve, Joe, Ian, Andrew 4
Stanley, Sam, Adam, Jon, Anja 3

Then we split into two groups. Anja, Jon, Joe and Ian began a late night game of Lords Of Vegas. Adam, Steve and I played a short game of NMBR9 while we waited for Sam to get Stanley into bed.

It was Steve's first game and Adam's first in a while. For the first few moves, they seemed to be in perfect sync, but this example of the hive-mind couldn't beat my clean efficiency. No explainer's curse here!

Andrew 86
Adam 58
Steve 55

Then Sam joined us for a second attempt, and he snuck a win, despite being initially disappointed with his low score.

Sam 72
Andrew 71
Adam 64
Steve 59

Next, perhaps jealous of our neighbours' extravagant wheeler-dealing, we got out Vegas to add to the already copious amounts of dice on the table.

I like Vegas, it has just enough control to make you feel like you're making intelligent choices at the start but by the end of a round, you're blowing on dice and wishing for numbers like a hopeless gambler. I even tried to convince people that higher numbers are harder to roll - that's why they're worth more.

Sam 550,000
Steve 360,000
Adam 340,000
Andrew 210,000

Adam went to bed and Sam, Steve and I defied sleep deprivation for a final game of The Mind.
We packed up a set off to bed with Lords Of Vegas still on the table. It had been an odd game, with the Strip paying out twice before anyone had built on it. But eventually it settled down to the familiar pattern of take overs and cruel fate. Anja remodelled her two-tile casino with double sixes to take over Joe's five-tile casino leaving Joe with the unenviable task of winning a $26m re-organisation.

He succeeded and managed to hang on to the seven-tile casino for the rest of the game, but it wasn't as good as Ian's chain of smaller casinos along the strip that helped him to victory.

Joe seemed pretty happy when the last Strip card came out...

Ian 36
Anja 32
Jon 32
Joe 29


With the time now at midnight, the first day of the weekend came to an end.

The next morning, Stanley and I were up at seven, followed by Sam, Ian and Joe. Apparently, Joe, Adam and Jon were all up at four due to their hot room. Joe tried to persuade them to play a game, but they wouldn't bite.

I played Sam at Patchwork and neither of us did brilliantly.

Sam 6
Andrew -6

Then Jon introduced Joe to Tao Long, a game of two dragons chasing each others' tails. It seemed to be progressing well until Jon knocked his cup of coffee across it. It was a shocking sight to see Tao Long's rather nice board and pieces swimming in milky coffee. I couldn't even bring myself to photograph it but, in the spirit of those clickbait adverts promising heartbreaking photos taken just before tragedy struck, here's a picture of the game with the offending cup in a precarious position.

Tao Long was abandoned while the pieces were left out to dry. Instead they played a game of Circle The Wagons.

Jon 30
Joe 26

Meanwhile, we'd been playing Timeline: General Interest, with its range of noteworthy events. On the cards, that is. Not during the game. Still, a fun diversion.

Sam 0 cards left
Andrew 2 cards left
Stanley 3 cards left
Ian 3 cards left

Then there was some thunder and lightning to enliven proceedings while Joe beat me at Circle The Wagons, 30-25. I really liked it, and it became the go-to game for a quick two player fix during the weekend.

Adam awoke and some people went to and then returned from nearby shops with a Guardian crossword and some beer for Ian, who had already ploughed through his collection last night. Then Adam beat Joe at Circle The Wagons, 28-26.

Now there were enough fully-awake gamers to begin the first big game of the day. It was Martin Wallace’s Auztralia, a game that cleverly mixes a Steam/Railways Of The World mechanism with a zombie apocalypse scenario. The four of us: Sam, Ian, Joe and me, had arrived in Australia to start a new life after mass destruction across the world, only to find that the same creatures live here too.

Thanks to picking up some cards whose special abilities worked together well, I quickly decided on my strategy of just spamming any enemies with my Airship. “You have your gold, I’ve got my bloodlust,” I declared, ignoring a life of mining in favour of war.

Ian made us all laugh by attacking a kangaroo, and then Joe made us momentarily feel bad about our hobby when he said “You can open the curtains now the sun has gone in.”

In the closing stages it was Sam who awoke Cthulu (“What a foolish move,” he remarked) and then watched it trample over his farms, probably costing him the win. Instead it went for the far more peaceful Joe.

Joe 32
Sam 31
Andrew31
Ian 29
Cthulu 18

While this was all going on, Adam played Stanley at Patchwork. I don’t remember the scores exactly (33-17?) but do remember feeling a little bit put out at how well they’d done compared to me and Sam earlier.

Another thing that happened around about now was a game of Flamme Rogue with Anja, Steve, Adam and Jon. My notes inform me that Jon was delayed because he had his finger stuck in a colander, but I don’t remember this myself. I’m sure it’s true, though.

That race ended…

Adam
Anja
Steve
Jon

And they immediately set up to play again, this time swapping in Stanley for Anja and adding a few different types of track, such as cobblestones. And Steve sang in French. I remember looking at the final corner and think Jon had it all sewn up, but it wasn’t to be.

Stanley
Steve
Jon
Adam

In Australia, our travails had ended so Sam began to make lunch. So Anja joined me, Joe and Ian for a game of Kribbeln featuring Das Exclusive, the dice arena so exclusive you can’t even find it on the internet.

During this game we sorely missed Martin and his mathematical mind. On a round where a player mustn’t roll two of a colour, Joe rolled four dice of four colours and two dice of one colour (ie, pink, yellow, black, blue, green, green). We were stumped as to what to roll next to maximise his chances of a win. Rolling the last green seemed obvious, but was only a one in six chance.

The dice amazed us, as dice often do, with Anja getting a last minute successful 4th Kribbeln with the last roll of her dice scoring 33 (five sixes and a three). It would’ve been a miracle, except it only got her into third.

Ian 21
Andrew 20
Anja 18
Joe 17

Then we had lunch and spent some time concentrating on the crossword.

Back on the games, I taught Rajas of the Ganges to Anja and Steve, while Adam played Sam at Akropiri. Meanwhile, at the hardcore end of the table, Ian, Joe and Jon revisited that old classic Lost Valley.

Akropiri ended Adam 30 Sam 33. I wrote it in that order but I didn’t note down whether or not points were good or bad, so I’m not sure who won. They followed this with some Cube Quest: Adam beat Sam, Adam beat Stanley, then Sam beat Stanley.

Lost Valley began slowly as they all learnt or re-learnt the rules. But after a while, they were knocking back the whiskey and waving to each other across rivers with their rat-fur gloves as if they were born in 1880s America.

Jon 36
Joe 33
Ian 22

In Rajas of the Ganges, once I’d gone through the rules governing the myriad ways to score, it all seemed to be running smoothly. Steve did his best Derren Brown tricks on us by repeatedly saying he was “spending” money, while pushing his token up the money track. Very clever.

Anja
Andrew
Steve

Towards the end, they both felt they had some idea of how to win, and were keen to play again and convinced Adam to give it a go. That game ended:

Steve
Adam
Anja

And Stanley, Jon, Ian and I played Clank! In this game, Jon went for money, I got cards that allowed me to draw new cards, Ian went deepest and Stanley hung around the market. I played fast and loose with my hit points, and got out just before a dragon attack that would’ve killed me. Although I wasn’t anywhere near first, I did enjoy my close run with fate.

Stanley 101
Ian 90
Andrew 82
Jon 65

While this was all happening, Joe beat Sam at Crokinole, 2 games to love (I just think Crokinole is a game where you say “love”, not “nil” or “zero”) and then they played Circle The Wagons:

Joe 34
Sam 32

At this point, Steve and Anja were still making food, so the rest of us teamed up to play Decrypto. This tense and nervous affair was disrupted mid-game by a lengthy pause while people searched for a tin-opener and Sam made gin & tonics. In the end, Jon opened the tin with a massive knife.

By round five, both teams were a mis-step away from failure. I went for long clues and took advantage of me quietly pointing out to team-mate Joe that a song on the radio prominently included one of our key words. Thus I was able to use “The song we just heard” as a clue and the other team were bamboozled! The song in question was “The Revolution will not be televised,” by Gil Scott-Heron and “Revolution” was the key word.

Other key events were Stanley getting all his clues through correctly, including one (“Axis”) which had us baffled. It referred to “satellite”. Meanwhile, on our team Ian’s clue of “Join” seemed initially to refer to “wedding” but then Joe cottoned onto the idea it could mean “Join the revolution” and that Ian was being very clever in giving out a clue to distract the opposition. Except, he wasn’t being clever. We still won, though.

Joe, Andrew, Ian, a tap on the wire
Stanley, Sam, Jon, Adam, birds on a wire

After some delicious food, it was the turn of the big boys to hit the table. With Stanley off in bed, two dirty great leviathans came out to play: Root and Railways Of The World: Europe. Sam patiently talked three newbies (Jon, Anja, Steve) through the dense asymmetric rules of Root while Adam, Joe, Ian and I wrestled with the familiar challenge of RotW.

In our game, I went bond-heavy early on in order to build a little points-machine in Spain and Portugal. This propelled me from last into first by the mid-game and, as usual, my closing strategy was mostly concerned with ending the game as quickly as possible. Ian fell back into a distant last place before coming back into contention and then drifting back again at the end. Adam got his Paris-Instanbul link, despite our efforts to stop him.

Adam 67
Andrew 65
Joe 52
Ian 44

Soon after RotW:E ended, Root was coming to an end. Once again, just like Flamme Rogue, Jon saw a lead right at the end suddenly disappear as Anja managed to hit 30 points and instantly win the game.

Anja 30
Jon 28
Sam 26
Steve 21

Now it was 11.45, so we chatted, tidied up a bit and generally decided to play Midnight Party at midnight to see if it would, as Joe claimed, summon Hugo. Actually, we were five minutes late to start the game, but never mind. Sam was most ghost-phobic, leaping into rooms at the slightest sign of ectoplasm. Joe sniffs the little plastic ghost and tells us that Hugo is very smelly inside.

Sam -9
Adam -10
Jon -16
Andrew -18
Ian -19
Steve -22
Anja -31
Joe -34

Then, just to round off the evening, we played the Walking Dead-themed 6nimmt. Anja and Steve bowed out at this point, leaving the remaining six to defend the log cabin against the undead.

Ian 18
Adam 27
Sam 28
Joe 43
Andrew 45
Jon 63

We didn’t hit the game-ending 66-point mark, but at 1.05am we decided that the fun had gone on a little too long and we all retired to bed.

Sunday morning, I was up at six and watched as Stanley, Ian, Steve and Joe emerged in that order over the next two hours. Steve complained that he’d cut his finger while flushing the toilet. I played Joe at a couple of games of Circle The Wagons, with Joe winning both 45-29 and 42-38.

Jon corralled some players into a game of Mystic Vale. Stanley and Steve were willing volunteers, and Ian was roped in because he was already sitting there. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said as a new game was laid out before him. The scores were…

Stanley 35
Ian 33
Steve 24
Jon 15

… I think.

I lose to Adam at Circle The Wagons, 45-32 and then he, me and Anja try Azul. We used Adam’s variant of changing the direction of order of play (from clockwise to anti-clockwise) but it made little difference. I lead from early on, hogging the first-player token for the entire game.

Andrew85
Adam 57
Anja 52

Then we went for a walk! After days of wind and rain, we had some sun and our resident nature expert, Jon, took us out to somewhere that was hosting some wild beavers! But, being nocturnal animals, he warned us the chances of us seeing them were effectively nil. But it was nice to get out of the house, even if Adam needed some persuading to leave the football behind. Jon gave us a little talk about the beavers and pointed out signs of their activity. Sam, Stanley and Adam went back first while the rest of us took a detour into an abandoned and overgrown walled garden. It was nice. Very green.

A man alone with his thoughts... Oh, no, wait. That's Adam.

Something about beavers.

Outside

But once we were back at the cabin, the games recommenced. Ian, Stanley, Joe and others (not sure who) played Zendo, but just for fun! No scores or anything!

Sam and I introduced Anja and Steve to Calimala and watched them take us to the cleaners.

Anja 37
Steve 36
Sam 29
Andrew 21

Then Jon kindly served us all some soup and we finished off the last of Anja & Steve’s toffee pudding for afters. For me, there was perhaps time for one last game. I did have the option of one more evening, since I had no work the next day but I found my energy reserves at a low so I took the lift back with Sam this afternoon.

The final game for me was Skull King, a game notable for Sam winning a trick he didn’t want with a Blue 1 card against four escapes. Well done him.

Jon 280
Ian 250
Stanley 240
Sam 190
Andrew 160

And with that, I was done. There was a game of manoeuvre going on between Joe and Adam while we packed up and left, but I’ll leave Joe to pick up the rest of the narrative. Over to you, Joe...

Manoeuvre starts with the French Defence opening...

No sooner had the dust of everyone else leaving settled than Jon, Adam and my thoughts turned to what games we would play. Actually before that, Adam and I finished playing Manoeuvre while Jon watched and tried to evaluate whether he'd enjoy it.

We were both down to four units each, and with cards dwindling for both of us, I decided to wait no more and went in for the kill. Adam, for the second time that game, played a withdraw card, and I was forced into a claustrophobic position, flanked on three sides. Adam moved in to close the square, and attacked, scoring enough to decide whether to make me take a hit or retreat. Of course he chose the latter, and since I couldn't retreat I was undone.

I didn't take any photos of the last evening, but here are a few from the previous days

Manoeuvre is always a pleasure, and nice that it ended decisively, rather than dragging on til nightfall. We three then discussed the gaming parameters for the evening - we felt a slot before supper and another after would allow us to tackle a couple of bigger games. We all assembled some candidates on the table, which is when we discovered that Sam had left Auztralia behind (we later found a few more).
Adam and Jon were willing to try Welcome to Centerville as the slightly lighter pre-dinner game - which I was pleased about. However, as with other sessions, it slightly outstayed its welcome and felt too luck-based for the commitment involved.

I don't remember the scores but I won by a big margin, which is a bit unseemly when teaching the game, and is the first time I've won at the game I think. I appreciated both of them giving it a go, and promised to go with whatever game they two decided on for the post-dinner amusement. To my relief (Power Grid was mentioned), they decided that since Auztralia had received such positive vibes when played on Saturday, they'd both like to try it. I was only too happy to have another go, and so while Adam turned his attention to creating a lovely lasagne, I re-read the rules and Jon and I set it up.

The board set-up is quite elaborate, so as to seed the hexes with a random but controlled distribution of resources and sleeping old ones. Once we'd done it, however, it didn't look very even - most of the resources were at one end of the map, with a wall of old ones blocking access to most of the other port spaces.

In any case, Jon and I turned our attention to a game of Bananagrams, and then another with Adam, and then we had lasagne. Followed by mince pies and clotted cream. We then begin our quest to the dark red continent of Oz. But Jon still felt the board looked lop-sided, so we ran the set-up again. Hmmm, it was better but not much better. Adam put on the soundtrack to 28 Days Later. I told him to turn it off. We placed our ports and began.

Our first forays were odd - we began to tool up and head in to the interior to bag some tentacled points, but every Old One we flipped turned out to be a kangaroo. I was hoping we'd meet a roo, since it was an amusing moment when the first one appeared in the previous game. But after the fifth in succession in this game, the joke had worn thin.

Jon, as starting player, placed his port last, and felt he'd missed out on the easy pickings of resources. I felt he'd find the lack of competition for farming made up for that; but there was another problem. Although the Old Ones don't wake up until halfway through the game, I hadn't fully explained what happens when they do, because I'd forgotten. They begin waking up from the lowest numbered hexes - which were all next to Jon's farms.

Just as we let that revelation sink in, the Old Ones began waking up and rampaging through Jon's sheep and corn. I tried to atone by sending an armoured car to help, but it got destroyed. A ravenous Mi-go was heading straight for his port. I checked the rules - if your port is destroyed the game ends immediately. Oh dear. Jon fended off the attack by the skin of his teeth, but more monsters had awoken and were heading his way.

He came up with a great defence, taking a personality card which meant that when an Old One landed on your port it suffered an immediate two damage. All he had to do was soften them up as they approached, and they'd explode on arrival. It worked, and was quite satisfying.

Meanwhile Adam was finding his encounters with the Old One's went rather better (although they laid waste to almost all our combined farms eventually). Much to Jon's chagrin, Adam's firepower hit home with far more frequency, and he was raking in the VPs.

At the end, we were all a little non-plussed. It hadn't been the fun frolic I'd experienced on Saturday - our hopes of settling the newly discovered continent and living lives of happy farming and squid-bashing were in tatters. But that felt fairly thematic, at least. In the final reckoning, Adam raced away with the win at 40 points, with me on 19 and Jon on 14. He was faintly appalled. Then Adam added up the Old One's score, and they beat both Jon and I, with 30 points. We packed away in near silence.

In the fresh light of today, I still enjoyed it, and would like to play again - but we all agreed it would have been great to finish Novocon with a real banger. What that might have been I don't know - probably something we all knew and loved, ideally.

On Monday morning, we ruminated over the chronology of previous Novo, Octo and Septo-cons. It would be great to see a definitive timeline, perhaps when I have a mo I'll try to collate one. In the meantime it was a hugely enjoyable festival of great food, plentiful snacks, drink and games, and great company to boot. Thanks to all who participated, and let's ensure it all happens again, 12 months from now.