But first, the games. I arrived at Sam's at 8, to find Joe, Ian (his first games night of the year), Sam and Katy playing Photograph, a game from the same designer as Take The A Chord. I watched the closing stages of the game in bemusement. Sam anguished over the fact he forgot that he has reds. Ian languished in last while Katy vanquished them all. Joe played well too, except I can't think of a fourth rhyme.
Sam 30
Joe 18
Ian 17
Next, as a fivesome, we played Fast Sloths, a racing game in which the sloths can't move in unless carried by one of a number of obliging animas. It was confusing at first with some of the rules regarding movement being a little unintuitive. Why eagles could only fly over rivers if there was a bridge made no sense until Joe pointed out that eagles are constantly worried about dropping out of the sky.
It began well for Katy once she’d got her head around the rules, and before long she’d pulled of a “two leaves in one move” turn (the target is first to pick up eight leaves) to put herself in first and before long was looking in a strong place to win. But then a misunderstanding of the rules left her becalmed in the corner of the map while she slowly edged towards some ants who would carry her to victory. By the time she was in position, Joe, was on his seventh leaf also closing in on those ants while Sam was in stoney last with four. But he had a plan. An epic history-changing plan.
He put down twelve movement points for ants, used only a couple to get another leaf and then spent the rest of his movement points sending Katy's ants off in a totally useless direction. Katy, exasperated, couldn’t move and considered forfeiting while Sam apologised, saying it was his only sensible move. Katy made a token effort at enticing an animal back in her direction but then Joe swooped: he didn’t need the ants at all, and he got to the eighth leaf using a donkey or something.
Katy was annoyed, and also blamed me for writing “Katy 8” in my notebook since I was so convinced of her imminent win. But thinking about it, even if Sam hadn’t done that, I think Joe would have won anyway since he and Katy would both have eight leaves but Joe had more cards in his hand and so probably would’ve won on a tie breaker. Does that make Katy feel any better?
Joe 8
Katy 7
Ian 7
Andrew 6
Sam 5
After this bruising encounter, we went for something like a group-hug: co-op Wavelength. We all worked together to score fifteen points and did it easily. No help from me, since I believe we scored nothing when I gave clues. BUt it was a lot of fun, with frequent references to "moving ants" as a potential clue. On the category “Wet food/Dry food” Sam said (I think but maybe Ian, though) "Bread". This gave rise to a lot of discussion which continued until after the answer was revealed (we scored 3 points, iirc) regarding whether something "oily" could be described as "wet" or did "wet" imply the presence of just water. Only Wikipedia ended the debate.
We scored 21 points and won!
Then Katy and I leave while Joe and Ian stayed on for a game of Love Letter. Thanks for the evening and for the excellent range of crisps. See you all soon.
