I think we're not in Canvas any more

I rolled into Sam's place a little before 8 just as the already-full kitchen of gamers were finishing up Cross Clues. Andy, Martin, Ian, Katy, Adam H and Laura had joined our host. Adding me and an en route Joe, we would number nine in total. 

As we packed away Cross Clues (the score was 17) Martin suggested Biss 20 as a reasonable filler until Joe arrived. Adam had never played but since this is a game where you literally explain the rules as you go along, that wasn't a problem.

The game involves repeatedly counting from one to twenty with numbers slowly being replaced by gestures. Two of those gestures were folding your arms and shaking your head and since Andy was usually doing those things anyway, he did quite well. The game was fun, but there was a genuine cheer of relief when Joe's arrival meant we could play something else.

Katy, Ian, Joe, Martin and Laura played 49. A very interesting looking game that everyone wanted to try but it only plays up to five. It's basically four-in-a-row but you bid on the square available for auction. Katy seemed to be enjoying it even before the lid was off the box. Then she bamboozled everyone by taking green as her colour, giving us the rare sight of watching Martin playing in yellow. Curiously, Katy insisted her counters weren't green at all, more blue. Or teal.

The game was pretty raucous. Everyone except Martin had chances to win, while Martin seemed to spend too many moves stopping other people from winning. Laura was first to reach match point but got locked into a bidding war with Martin until they eventually decided to see how much money Laura had and if Martin could beat it. He could. Finally Katy won by buying a square for 177. And to think the first square only cost 8. Mind you, at when I heard someone mention 177, I had assumed they meant decibels.

At the sophisticated end of the table we played Canvas. In this simple game, you buy half finished paintings and then layer them up in order to achieve certain criteria, such as one of each colour or two triangles. Just like real art appreciation. 

I thought I was doing well, while Adam professed that he wasn't sure what he was doing. A bad sign if ever there was one. The game was sweet (with tiny wooden easles) and had certain role playing opportunities as we revealed our works complete with pompous name. 

Adam 44

Andy 37

Andrew 34

Sam 25

The night was still young but by now we’d already demolished four big bags of crisps as well as a number of tiny cup cakes.

My glass of sake, tiny easel and mini cup cake all made me feel like a giant.

The four of us had a quick game of Spicy to tide us over until 49 ended. I won thanks to clearing my cards at the end of the game to pick up a 10 point bonus.

Andrew 20

Sam 18

Adam 11

Andy 10

Then we all reorganised. Martin, Andy, Joe and Sam played Die Crew. Not sure which version and I’m not sure how far they got. Great blogging.

Katy was in need of some relaxation, so Tsuro was brought out again. Can’t say it was too relaxing, watching Adam win twice.

Adam

Katy

Ian 

Laura

Andrew

Adam

Andrew & Ian

Katy

Laura

Then came a quick game of Avenue before I left. Sam had to be parachuted in from Die Crew for rules explaining purposes, but we were mostly okay after that. Apart from Ian who had cut himself off by the end of round three. I, meanwhile, came tantalizingly close to glory.

Adam 52

Andrew 44

Katy 41

Ian 23

And so I dashed off at this point, with Adam heading out too. The rest, I am told, played Colt Express which Sam won narrowly…

And then another game of Cross Clues, with a (new high?) score of 23 points.

Thanks all. See you next tuesday.

 

Commanding presence

Tuesday evening rolled around with a diminished attendance this week. And a later start time. And an earlier finish time. But it still contained enough intrigue and strategies to send us off to bed happier.

We (Andy, Ian, Martin and me) began at 8 with a new game, Mapmaker. It seemed very appropriate that, with the election looming, we should be playing a game of area control with a first-past-the-post criteria for winning. The game is simple enough. Each player puts down four dividers such that they have the highest value within a particular area once it is completely surrounded and below a certain size. 

It was tricky to understand at first. Andy was in last (3, 3, 3, 1) in the closing stages, but had the vast majority of tiles in the remaining part of the board. Then he put down his four dividers to create three new regions, winning each one and finishing the game. Martin called it a "sneaky bastard of a move," with admiration in his voice.

Andy 4

Andrew, Martin, Ian 3

Next we passed over a couple of suggestions until we decided on The Crew. It was a bit daunting to return to Mission 38 (in the heliosphere, looking for planet X), and I flinched a bit when I saw the eight tasks we had to do, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose.

I didn't start well and my mistake led to mission failure on the very first hand. Then we suffered a similarly swift fate in attempt two before finally sailing to victory in our third attempt!

Mission 39 began well, as we all chose two tricks each of the same colour. This should be easy, observed Martin, optimistically. Unfortunately Ian was too eager to give a card before it was supposed to be taken. None of us noticed so we were all surprised when the “Fail” message appeared on screen. After a couple more turns, we got another perfect colour spilt, and this time we succeeded. By now, though, Ian was sick of always being the commander.

I don’t recall how many attempts we had at Mission 40, but I do remember Ian, when asked why he’d taken a Green 8 as a task when he told us his highest green was a six, admitted “Yeah, I panicked.” But we scraped past, with a little help from Martin who’d pretty much worked out where each card was by the closing stages. Ian chucked his green 6 and then in the penultimate hand, won the green 8 with a trump. Nicely done, and it’s onwards to mission 41, and I think Martin’s the only one to have been there for each one. There’s only 50 in the game. Is Martin’s trick-taking epic nearing its end?

Well, it was nearing the end for us this evening. We went our separate ways at about ten to ten. See you next week.

Crews Control

Arriving, as is usual by now, late I was able to listen to Adam, Andy, Ian, Martin, Joe and Katy curse their way through a jolly game of For Sale while I made myself supper. Bidding was a feisty affair with Katy observing halfway through the that surely no one had any money left. Except somehow they did.

Adam 49

Ian 44

Joe 43

Katy 41

Martin 37

Andy 36

With me joining the throng there was talk of the traditional blast through 7wonders but the shiny newness of Die Crew on Board Game Arena was too much temptation. All seven of us wanted to play so we set up two games. It was Adam's first experience of the game so Joe offered to host the three player game to ease him in. I, having experienced a bit of a meltdown last time I played was happy to join them "in the kiddie pool," as I called it, which Joe stoutly refuted as a fair description.

So while Joe, Adam and I still sat on the launch pad in mission one, Andy, Ian, Katy and Martin were already heading towards the heliosphere in mission 36. 

The earliest missions were, as you'd expect, pretty easy and Adam had no difficulty, notwithstanding a brief hitch with the launch needing two attempts. We got to mission 8 before deciding to play Ninety Nine for a change, assuming the other four would still be deep in space.

But they popped into our Hangout after only a couple of hands saying that space had outstayed its welcome after they struggled only as far as mission 38. This left us with a choice to curtail our game and join them or carry on. 

We decided to keep going, just for a few more hands, giving Joe the chance to come back after his poor opening left him 54-64-4 behind to two novices.

The others went to playing cards dot io and played Merchants of Dunhuang. I know nothing about this apart from Joe pronouncing the name as rudely as possible (Dung Wang).

Meanwhile, in 99 Joe won big on a hand and sped off into the lead. Meanwhile, Adam fell behind and tried to catch up by playing an open hand. While you might think showing everyone your cards makes for a hopeless situation, Joe and I struggled with the extra cognitive load of all that information. Adam didn't succeed in his plan, though.

We stopped after a prearranged six hands and decided on a quiet game of 7 Wonders because you don't have to play it with seven. Adam went big on war and blue buildings and strolled to a win.

Adam 56

Joe 46

Andrew 42

We decided that we didn't have the energy to rejoin our Dung Wanging friends, so bade them goodbye on Discord. We got similar messages in reply, so perhaps they were finishing off too. You might think that two games, one of which was unfinished, but I enjoyed the laid back nature of the evening. Cheers everyone.

Some games

With the worldwide insanity right now being crystallised in the most heinous ways in the US and UK, maybe it wasn't a huge surprise that only four of us were in the mood for gaming. Maybe other GNNers were morbidly fixated on the news, as I (Sam) had been for what seemed like the last two or three weeks. Even more than before. Anyway with the absentees too numerous to list already, we also lost Joe to a late drop-out and began as a four: Ian, Martin, Andy, and myself.

Martin was keen to play American Bookstore, and with an introduction that the game was so named as a revenge on a haughty bookstore paymaster, I was intrigued. Plus - it's a trick-taker, so there was that. However neither of these things rubbed Andy the right way, as he announced early on he wasn't keen, even with the smut-inviting sabotagey delights of playingcards.io as a sideline in entertainment. The game itself was interesting: four suits 0-15 11, standard trick-taking rules apply, and there's no trump suit. Like Poison, having the most cards won in a suit is good, and having any less than the most is bad. The extra twist here is that if you play a card that takes the collective value of all-played-cards to 15 or higher, you take all the cards, no matter the value or suit of what you played. This can be helpful, or sometimes a big pain in the ass. It also means players sometimes don't get to play in a trick! And it gets harder to predict what will happen as the cards run out...

Andy may have warmed to it. One thing that was easy to predict from early on was that he was going to rinse us - and he did.



Andy 40
Martin -2
Sam -3
Ian -19

From there, we headed into space for around four or five missions of The Crew. Even though it's only 24 hours later, I now can't remember very much about them at all! Except I think we took three turns to complete the first mission and did the second mission first time of asking? Second time? I'm not sure. Sorry.



I was doing my Classic Boris and bowing out of any responsibility at this point, barring some wafflingly vague recollection a bit later, but the others headed off into the night to play Red7, which Martin won by some distance apparently! If you don't remember Red7 it's the one where the rules keep changing all the time depending on what card you play.

Maybe next week the world will be different.

Info static

Another Tuesday in lockdown, another bandwidth or seven taken up with the various GNN members logging on to Discord for another night's digital fun.

First up was 7 Wonders, with Ian, Martin, Adam T, Andy B and myself (Sam) managing to pass cards around at a rate of knots. Online gaming does have some benefits, and the speed of shuffling and dealing is a definite boon on this game. I confess I didn't really watch what anyone was doing apart from my immediate neighbours, who were Andy and Martin. Andy didn't bother with military, and Martin did but only to the point of scolding me for my aggression. I didn't take a screenshot of the placings, but I claimed a win off a tie-breaker with Andy, courtesy of my love of fist-waving and culture.

As we hit the 8pm mark, there was a flurry of new arrivals in the form of Joe, Andrew, Steve and Anja. Joe and Andrew immediately decamped to play The Crew with Adam and Martin, leaving the rest of us to bemoan the current shitshow that is the UK government for a little bit, before we spent almost as long choosing a game. After some debate we ended up playing Coloretto, the best chameleon set-collection game I know. Andy reappraised us of the rules and before long everyone was cursing their luck in classic GNN fashion.

Over the The Crew, Andrew was doing the same as he had to bow out due to illness. After Coloretto wrapped up...




I hopped over to take his place, playing 2 or 3 abortive missions and - I think - three successful ones. Then I retired to bed, drinking tea and swearing at the news. I'm aware Martin went on to thrash Adam and Joe at Race for the Galaxy before they played Love Letter, but I've no idea about scores or what anyone else ended up playing, making this a fairly erratic entry into the GNN logbook. Sorry about that.

Five Get Over-tired

Originally, there were going to be ten hardy GNNers around the table last night, but something happened in the firmament and one by one, people dropped out. It were Ian who begun it, followed swiftly by Andrew, then Andy Bate, on whose hot heels came Steve, and finally Laura. Looking at each other in shock and dismay were Joe, Katy, Adam T, Martin and myself. Still expecting Laura to arrive as the curtains rose, we'd begun with Gold Fever. Martin said it was a terrible game. I said what made it so great is that when people turn up at the door halfway through, nobody minds packing it away.

Joe began badly, twice pulling out matching gravel. Adam did the same and said "this is why I hate this game". Martin was tickled no end, and reversed his opinion on it based solely on Adam's discomfort. However he was less enamoured of Katy's decision to repeatedly throw her gravel in his bag. I made my way to three gold as the pair engaged in a battle of grits, but surprisingly the winner was actually Adam, who reversed his opinion of the game just as Martin decided it was shit after all. Either way, it packed a lot of drama into ten minutes.

Adam: Gold!

At this point we discovered we'd lost Laura, and all Joe and Martin's carefully packed bags for six people went up in metaphorical smoke. Instead we debated what to play from the Alcove, with Katy pooh-poohing Tulip Bubble and Martin ignoring my suggestion of Orbit, even as Adam murmured approvingly at the idea. We finally settled on Taj Mahal, the classic Knizia of yore!

It's been so long since we last played it (it seems to appear once every 30 months) we needed a refresher from Martin. The essence is simple - play cards containing various suits; if when your turn arrives you are leading in any particular suit you can choose to drop out (-you can also drop out in misery as well) and gain the rewards. Four suits allow you to place palaces on the board (points) potentially scoring more (points!) if you link to previously-placed palaces in other regions. One suit allows a 'Ghost' palace that can share foundations with an otherwise solitary palace of another player. And one suit (elephants) allows you to collect the goods from that region - more goods of the same previously-collected type will score collectively, and repeatedly, and it was this route that Adam took...

But the early leader was Joe, with such dizzying speed and economical frugality that everyone was reeling with alarm, Martin in particular. Katy started badly, getting into a 'pissing contest' that she lost. "Beowulf is more fun than this" she pointed out.
"Yes, this is more cerebral" Martin conceded.

I tried to play a kind of guerrilla tactic, picking up what I could when I could whilst building a reasonably strong hand... the problem with that approach is that dropping out early hands easy picking to the other players - oh Reiner! Joe meanwhile was claiming palaces all over the shop and chaining them together like a bunch of point-scoring brick-built daisies. Adam was shrewdly building his goods collection, whilst me, Katy and Martin were mostly complaining about Joe, who in turn was complaining about having a card that scored him 2 points every time he played it, which invited even more scathing from the other side of the table. Joe defended his observations by reminding us how cerebral the game was, and in his position we might understand.

Suddenly Adam surged past him and into a six-point lead. Katy and I got into an expensive pissing match that I lost, and it cost me seven points. "Katy!" I wailed. "What about me?!" Katy shrieked back, pointing at her score marker. At this point my sympathy wasn't overwhelming, though. We were like the kids playing with the adults, who were now clearly going to finish way ahead of us.

Another pissing contest between Adam and Martin went the latter's way and Adam suffered a devastating fate - not only did Joe surge past him again, but Martin had kept an enormous chain of cards of the same colour (points!) for the end game scoring, and barrelled by him as well for a sneaky second!

Joe 46
Martin 39
Adam 38
Sam 33
Katy 28

Adam had time for just one more game, so we let him choose, and the choice was the thematically appropriate Just One. We've played this so much now we're getting a little bit familiar with the words, and sailed to an impressive score even despite our final word not providing a single clue for Katy: Joe and I wrote 'fiddle' Martin and Adam wrote 'Stradavarius'. With nothing to go on at all, Katy guessed water, completely ignoring my charades-style violin-playing on the other side of the table. Maybe she thought I was being sarcastic.

Martin then started canvassing for The Crew before Adam had even got his coat on, and by the time he reached the front door we were already laughing about the rulebook's "gazing at Uranus". We started with a new mission - it didn't matter who won what cards, as long as no player had two tricks more than another player at any one time. It proved very tough, taking us four attempts to pass. In between the tense space-ship repair and anus-related laughs, there was also time for Martin and Katy to continue calling each other c**ts in inventive new ways.

We played two more missions after that, before ending the game with co-operative Wavelength, where Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina still proves to be a surprisingly apt clue for so many cards, as Katy pointed out. Maybe a bit embarrassed about our Uranus behaviour though, we resisted. It was as fun as it always is, but we did very badly, gaining zero bonus cards and finishing on nine points. Lowlights were Joe's "late afternoon" being dramatically light, and Martin's "Michael Gove" being unexpectedly acceptable. "I'd forgotten how reactionary you all are!" Martin complained, when we practically aligned Govey with the Nazis by twisting the dial all the way to Least likeable living person. "I mean, I don't like him" he quickly added.

I also clued Doctors as a fairly bad TV show, only to have the others decide it was pretty much the worst TV show ever even though they'd just been discussing Naked Attraction! Where everyone picks partners based on the appearance of their shaved nobs.

Everyone: 9 - dismal failure!

And that was that. Thanks all, a miniature classic. Hopefully everyone else got a good night's kip and we'll see you soon!

Rhino Knizia

Joe's studio, now fitted out with a full games collection and a heater under the table, began its life as a regular venue with eight gamers in attendance: Joe, Martin, Ian, Katy, Adam T, Sam, myself and the long-lost Matt, making a return to GNN for the first time in oooh ages.

I arrived shortly before seven, only to find the games had long since began. Ian, Adam, Sam and Joe had already played No Thanks and Pickomino. I was immediately dealt into a game of Botswana, a simple betting game where animals are shares and their final value is based on the number of the last card (0-5) played to that pile. In the first game, an early zero card had everyone picking up leopards since they were bound to score. Everyone except me.

Adam 16
Sam 13
Joe 12
Ian 11
Andrew 9

We played again and this time I ended with a far better range of animals. During the scoring, Sam appeared pleased with his improved score of 16 until everyone else announced their scores.

Andrew 22
Adam 18
Joe 18
Ian 17
Sam 16

After this, Martin, Matt and Katy arrived. We discussed our options. I had never played Babylonia, so that seemed likely to be chosen. Sam had brought Rurik: Dawn of Kiev. Martin seemed unimpressed, despite everyone always referring to it by its full name (instead of just calling it Rurik). Sam tried the soft sell on Katy by telling her she probably wouldn't like it but Matt might. But since she didn't want to play Babylonia, she was happy to join in.

Being so involved in my game, I couldn't tell you much about Rurik: Dawn of Kiev except that one of the figures looked like it was moonlighting from Scythe. Matt built a stronghold in the North and that seemed to help him on his way to a win.

Matt 21
Adam 14
Sam 14
Katy 13

In Babylonia, I quickly fell behind and stayed there. Any solace I might have got from having scored about the same as Joe was swept aside in the closing stages of the game when he clocked up some pretty major scores, almost edging an unlikely win.

Martin 167
Joe 161
Ian 151
Andrew 104

Martin would've scored more were it not for a patch of bad luck: he picked up a special tile that allowed him to trigger a certain bonus without having the regulation tiles. Little did he know that the rest of us just so happened to have the correct tiles and we all triggered them and removed them off the board for twenty points each. Finally, he admitted he may as well join in and got the final bonuses available for twenty points too.

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev was still mid game so we filled the time with a rousing game of Die Crew. It was Ian's first go so we eased him into with a nice training mission. One which we almost failed were it not for Joe (cruelly referred to as 'irrelevant' due to his lack of suitable cards) who worked out a method of success.

With this victory behind us, we carried on the space epic. This time we got hit by a couple of rocks from Saturn's rings and damaged the flux capacitor or something. We did it and before long the gamers at the other end of the table were trying to work out the best way to put Rurik: Dawn of Kiev back in its box, so we put space exploration on hold and waited until we were an octet once more.

We decided on Wavelength, the new darling of the GNN-o-sphere. We split into two teams: Katy, Martin, Matt and Ian against Joe, Adam, Sam and Andrew and we seemed to have cracked it. Katy had “good music/bad music” as her categories and she said “hip hop” (actually, she said “hippity hop”, which required clarification) which they got perfectly. I forgot we were on opposing teams, and I made a few useful interjections.

Then Adam had “Powerful/Powerless” and chose “the next leader of the Labour party”. Somehow, after some prevarication, we got it spot on again. This was followed by the first team almost guessing Matt’s “Harmless/Harmful” clue of Hunting Knife for three points. We’d been so successful that we were considering introducing the “Calze” rule from Perudo for those occasions when you think the other team is spot on. Odd, really, since we never allow that rule when playing Perudo.

It was close at first but slowly Katy’s team started to build up a lead. Martin’s response to “Person you could/couldn’t beat up” clue was “Stephen Hawking” giving them an easy four points. Then Ian had “Dog name/cat name” and said “Kitty”. Well, you can guess the score there.

Katy et al 16
Joe etc 11

A remarkable game, but once over people began to talk about leaving, despite it not even being eleven o’clock (but some people had started at six). Ian and Adam were set to leave and then a sudden offer of a lift from Sam for those of us heading north convinced Katy and myself to abandon the games for an easy ride home. Thanks for hosting and thanks to all for another splendid evening.

One, two, three...

I was late to this week's games night, arriving just as Stanley stepped down from the table, allowing me to take his place in a game of Medium. Joe, Sam (hosting), Martin and Katy were also there and had already played three games of Hurlyburly, with Katy winning twice and Sam once.

In Medium, each player forms two teams with the two people either side of them. Thus I was paired with Katy (on my left) and Sam (to my right). Each player has a hand of cards with words on them, and each couple takes turns to play cards to the table and on the count of three both say a word that links the two. If you both say the same word, you pick up a scoring jewel type thing. If not, then you get the chance to try again with the two new words.

Morse?

For example, Katy played "toaster" and Martin replied by playing "butter." On the count of three they simultaneously spoke, with Katy saying Crumpet and Martin saying Bread. Martin, appalled at this missed easy win, asked the rest of us if we all thought "bread." I said yes, but Sam said he'd thought of "knife" giving us all a glimpse of what Martin, Katy and Sam usually put in their toasters. Anyway, Katy and Martin went again to try to link Crumpet and Bread. Katy said Jam and Martin said Muffin. With an air of desperation, they tried again but still couldn't gel, saying Cake and Scone.

The highlight was Martin and Joe. The words were Hospital and Band. Martin said "wrist" and Joe said "aid." A fail but surely those two new words pointed to only one thing. Joe seemed reluctant to admit that he was thinking what everyone else was thinking but he came good when it mattered

"1, 2, 3, wank." they chorused. And a little bit of gaming history was written.

I struggled a bit. Sam and I were on different wavelengths and Katy confused me by pairing my Caribbean with the word Telescope and then saying Submarine. Was Caribbean Telescope slang for a submarine? It baffled me all evening until she and I were walking back home and she realised that she'd got telescope confused with periscope. She still did well, though.

Katy and Martin 6
Andrew and Katy 5
Sam and Andrew 4
Joe and Sam 3
Martin and Joe 3

After this was another new word game called Letter Jam. In this game each player is given a five letter word made up of five cards with letters on, that they do not know. Every player has one letter at a time on show such that everyone else can see it but them. Then people discuss what words they can make out of the visible cards, plus a wild card and a "public" card which everyone can see.

"I can make a three letter word that uses the wild card," someone may suggest. If no one can think of anything better (unlikely) then that word is spelt out by handing out numbered tokens. For example, Sam would get the 1 token since he had the D, the 2 token would go on the wild card since no one has an O and Martin gets the 3 token since he has a G.

After several rounds the idea is to work out each of your letters and, therefore, the word. Everyone except me succeeded, having been stymied by the W (I thought my word was Chats, turned out to be Watch). But it was fun. And I especially liked the entirely nonsensical scoring system. We ended with 66 points, which relates to three strawberries which, in turn, relates to "it's yummy."

So, having scored Yummy, we continued with the co operative theme with Die Crew. Finally, I got to try this exciting new trick taker. I was eased in with mission 2. We failed and after the second attempt we decided to skip the easy intro and go back to where they left off: mission 15. Now we started to succeed as we left Mars and set off towards Jupiter. We cleared 15, 16 and 17 before failing on 18 and Sam's ambivalence towards another try saw us finish up there, somewhere near the asteroid belt.

Next we played Karambolage. It's meant to be for four players max, but Sam insisted it could be played by one hundred players... although the last eighty might not get a turn.

Joe had a case of the Can't Stops as he racked up a six point move but kept going for one move too many and lost it all. I specialised in near misses - it looked like I knew what I was doing but I was actually clueless. Sam took an early lead but Martin hit 10 points to nab the win.

Martin 10
Sam 7
Joe 0
Katy 0
Andrew 0

Then Katy and I left at a sensible time, leaving the three remainers to play The Mind Extreme. It seems they beat the curse of round six and got to round nine, as Sam texted me later. Thanks all for a surprisingly team based evening.

Photo credit: Sam.

Just One Virgin

Six eager players sat around Joe's kitchen table this week. The host was joined by myself, Adam H, Ian, Martin and Katy with Adam T expected later. There was no Sam but he was still a part of tonight as we discussed the mystery of his three year old email that had suddenly dropped into all our inboxes. It was so old that it went to people who'd long since left the mailing list and a couple contacted Joe asking if it should have gone to him instead.

But talk about where this email had been for three years was put to one side and we played L.A.M.A. to fill the time until Adam T arrived. I went clear in the first two rounds but Joe, despite an apparent inability at remembering which number followed which ("I forgot there were sixes,") went clear in round three and got rid of a ten point token.

Joe 5
Andrew 9
Martin 15
Ian 25
Katy 28
Adam 45

When Adam T arrived we split into two. Joe, Martin, Adam T and Katy played Babylonia - the table-hogging area control game from Knizia. That meant Ian, Adam H and me adjourned to the card table for slightly smaller scale fun.

We started with Can't Stop, discovering that if you can stop, the game passes by pretty serenely. Ian and I were sensible while Adam pushed his luck and failed regularly. Even though he went for sevens. Out of the four rounds we played, he succeeded only once. I, on the other hand, got lucky and closed out the 2 and 12 columns quickly before wrapping up the 8 column for a swift victory.

Andrew 3
Ian 1
Adam H 0

Then we chose Hab and Gut, which just about fitted on the table. Ian manipulated Yellows to good effect in round one but then joined me on a doomed speculation that Brown would improve dramatically in round two. It didn't.

Adam was the wisest investor but, in the final count, we discovered he didn't have to be since Ian and I both donated exactly the same amount to charity ensuring that we were both disqualified as joint least generous.

Adam H 720
Andrew 695 but OUT
Ian 520 but OUT

Midway through this game Babylonia ended…

Martin 133
Adam T 127
Joe 120
Katy 106

And they embarked on a few missions of Die Crew. I was a bit miffed that I was going to miss this game again but Martin assured me that there'd be plenty of time to catch up.

They began where they left off, on mission 9 and continued until mission 14 . Martin would read the scenario and criteria before each mission. They pondered over their co operative trick taking (notwithstanding Katy's outburst of "I won" after one successful mission) and indulged in the kind of dialogue that more science fiction should have.

"I've done it again," said Adam, sighing.

"What do you mean 'Done it again'?" asked Martin.

"You'll see," replied Adam.

Now imagine that in a block-buster CG-laden sci-fi film and you can see the appeal of the game.

Anyway, after Hab and Gut, we on the card table played Take It Easy. Categories were: Things I taped off the TV onto VHS (me), Terry Pratchett books (Ian, revisiting an old favourite) and computer games I've played (Adam). Whoever called the categories scored worse for that round, interestingly enough.

Adam 439
Ian 385
Andrew 358

This was followed by a discussion prompted by my disbelief that Sim City ever came out on the ZX Spectrum.

Then Die Crew finished and we were all together again. We needed a rousing party game to finish off. I was keen on Stinker but Cybil the dog had pissed on the floor and it was difficult to reach the game without standing on damp yellowing tissues. So Just One was chosen instead.

We were amazed and delighted to discover that it was a brand new copy brought by Joe to entertain so visitors for the forthcoming weekend. Katy revelled in the feel of a virgin pack of cards and she marvelled at the new dry wipe pens.

"Looking forward to using my rubber. Look how firm it is!" she exclaimed happily.

"It doesn't stay firm for long," said Joe, dolefully.

But double entendres aside, we whipped through the first four rounds when Joe mentioned that they've never achieved a clean sweep. Katy was not impressed because he'd mentioned this right before her turn, putting the pressure on.

But she succeeded and the correct answers kept coming (although no one managed to guess a duplicated word) until it came back to Katy at which point Joe reminded her what was at stake, causing more despair as all hopes came to rest on her shoulders.

But she rose to the occasion, got it right and all that was left was for Adam T to correctly guess the last word "pool" which he did. And by the way, kudos to whoever (Ian, I think) wrote "swimming" because this most obvious of clues wasn't duplicated. A perfect run of Just One was completed.

With history made, Ian, Katy and the two Adams left. Martin, Joe and I took on the mighty challenge of The Mind Extreme. The rules are the same except there are two suits, red and white, of 1-50 and the white cards should go up in value while the red cards should go down. And sometimes one of the piles is placed face down.

We played twice and both times got finished off by round six, a devilish level that requires both piles to be placed face down. Evil. The second time we perhaps should have used more shurikens but instead lost both our remaining lives to mere single--digit mistakes. Very cruel.

But fun. Thanks all for a lovely evening. See you next Tuesday.

Tricked into Space

Tuesday, and chez Joe's alongside the host sat Katy, Martin and myself (Sam) with Steve on the way. Unusually both Andrew and Ian were missing! Instead I took blogging duties and Steve provided the fatalism.

Martin's return from Eastbourne signified an influx of Essen-smuggled games in his bag, and first onto the table was Hurlyburly. This is something like a cross between Rhino Hero and Castle Crush - everyone is building their own tower a la the former, but trying to knock each other's constructions down like the latter - only with catapults!

The home-spun components smacked of an enthusiast's labour of love, and apparently the designers are father and daughter. Very sweet! The game itself - not so sweet. But a lot of fun. On your turn you can add sandbags, take blocks, construct more levels (fast for height or strong for sturdy) - or attack. As the winner is the player who has a four-level tower at the start of their turn, it's beholden on everyone to attack each other when that threat becomes imminent. Like Joe did to Martin here:

You can also improve your catapult. This is rather key, as the starting catapult is pretty flimsy and reaching the other side of the table with it is a bit of an ask. But when you slide in extra layers of card for rigidity, suddenly your blocks can go that much further.

We liked it so much we played twice - Katy won the first game, and Joe the second.

By that time Steve had arrived, so without a great amount of further ado - one day, Tulip Bubble! - we settled on Decrypto. Katy was markedly suspicious of this choice as she remembered being too far away from the pad the last time she played. Martin suggested moving nearer. Katy narrowed her eyes, and joined Steve and I as we faced off against Martin and Joe.

It's definitely an advantage having two guessers on a team instead of one - spotting links (as Steve did) that someone else (me) might have missed entirely. But you wouldn't have known it at the start of the game as for three rounds we were completely foxed trying to find any meaning at all. Worse, it seemed like they were onto us. 

But then we had an inkling of one word (Picnic) and made a somewhat fortunate interception. We cashed in our laser tokens, identified picnic and won! What's more we were very close on two other words as well - we'd actually written Garden and Breakfast on our pad. Joe and Martin had worked out word 2 (Dance) but were otherwise stumped.

Katy, Steve, Sam - Decrypto!

Martin and Joe - Decrepto

The most notable part of Decrypto wasn't actually the guessing though, but Joe insisting that the word crap was onomatopoeic. We wondered what he'd been eating.

Next up was Die Crew, the trick-taking game of co-operative space exploration. We played the first Mission again to introduce the mechanics to Katy and Steve. Katy picked things up quickly, but Steve was bewildered. He told us we should continue the mission because that was his default state anyway. We liked that do-or-die attitude, and played several more rounds, taking three attempts at Mission 8 before we succeeded. "There's over fifty missions!" Martin exclaimed, perhaps marvelling at our ineptitude. Mission 8 is hard though.

Steve and I were keen for a different flavour of game so we played LAMA. For whatever reason whenever a Llama was played the active player would pipe "Llama" as though we were playing reverse bingo. Steve started rather badly, and things got worse when Martin and I dropped out of round two and he, Joe and Katy just kept picking up cards...

Then I had a hand of high cards and kept picking up more, pushing me into last place. But Joe played like a pro and wrapped things up when Katy fell apart in successive rounds to trigger the end:

Joe 6
Martin 12
Steve 30
Sam 35
Katy 46

After we packed LAMA away Joe told a story about being in the sauna which I now don't recollect the details of, and Katy called a leftover card a 'wanker', leading to a discussion about when cards should or shouldn't be sleeved. The details are probably all best lost though.

Despite the encroaching late hour, For Sale was quickly voted as the next game. It was a game of strange displays, with opening bidding cards tableaus having all high cards and then the final one all low except for the 30. Everyone picked things up cheaply, and there was a surprising lack of teeth-gnashing. In a tight game, Martin ran out the winner:

Martin 60
Katy 55
Joe 50
Steve 49
Sam 46

Before we wrapped things up with Just One, playing our house rule of guessing eliminated (duplicate) clues if the guesser guesses correctly. We ran into trouble with Katy's word being Muse (I only understood my own clue for that one) but did rather well overall, with our variant rule making up for any failures - we scored a 'perfect' 13, but the house rule does need its own separate scoring system really as theoretically you could score 26 points with it.

In the meantime, that was that! I didn't take photos of Just One, but here's a plastic bull.