Too much fun

You would think that, as seasoned board gamers, we would be familiar with the concept of Fun. After years pursuing this hobby, we may even be a little jaded with it. But apparently not, as we squeezed eleven lightweight games of varying silliness into one evening.

We started as a five: Sam (the host), Ian, Martin, Katy and me. Steve was expected so we banged out a five-player game of L.A.M.A. until he arrived. Sam’s started very well, not picking up a single card until round three. He was so focused that when his phone rang, he picked it up, said “It’s only Greenpeace,” and put it back down. Saving the world can wait, Sam’s got games to play.

Sam 12
Ian 26
Katy 34
Andrew 35
Martin 44

After this, with Steve finally arrived, we played Fool! (or Fou!, since we had the French version) which is a trick taking game where whoever played the worst card in trick is the Fool (or Fou) and has to sit out the next round which is a problem since you’re trying to play all of your cards first.

I got off to a perfect start with two clear rounds giving me ten bonus points each time, while the rest of them had to each negative scores. Ha! At the start of round three, I was thirty points ahead of my nearest rival. But I needed that head start as my score began to be whittled away. Martin was looking very dangerous and in the last round, he managed to play all of his cards. Luckily, his last card was the weakest card in that trick, making him the fool and meaning he couldn’t pick up the ten point bonus. Phew!

Andrew -8
Martin -9
Sam -18
Ian -41
Steve -44
Katy -68

Around this time, Ian informed us that he’d drunk a lot of whisky over the bank holiday because it was his dad’s birthday next weekend. There was a pause afterwards while everyone tried to process that statement, before Ian explained he’d been taste-testing his dad’s birthday present.

Then Sam got out the four-player Rollet, just to show us and then, since it was out, we had a quick game. Sam & Katy beat Ian & Martin 5-4 and then Ian & Martin beat Steve & Andrew 5-4. It was silly, high tension fun, and it looked great. Martin said it looked expensive and Sam mumbled something in agreement.

Then we split into two groups of three. Normally, this indicates a change towards the more thinky, strategic game but not today. It was full steam ahead for more fun. Sam, Ian and Steve chose Men At Work, a stacking game where you have to place girders and builders on each other in order to satisfy certain orders on cards.

Ian wins
Steve 2nd
Sam 3rd

Katy, Martin and I played Maskmen, which is actually quite thinky but still fun. At least it was for Martin and Katy.

Martin 7
Katy 5
Andrew -4

The two groups were out of sync so Sam et al played a few games of Kartel which is notable for being a Reiner Knizia game that Martin hasn’t played.

Sam 11
Steve 9
Ian 7

Steve 7
Ian 7
Sam 6

Ian 15
Steve 12
Sam was upstairs sorting out some kind of dad thing.

And we played Heul Doch Mau Mau, which I thought I was doing okay at and lost only eight points in the final count, but I guess I gave away too many points to my opponents.

Martin 112
Katy 93
Andrew 91

Then Ian went home, but the fun just kept coming as we broke out QE. After all, with the two QE champions (Katy and Sam) around the same table, it would be madness not to. And talking of madness, after Katy’s initial starting price of 5,000 the bids would not go below six figures for most of the rest of the game. I finally got my first purchase for the handsome sum of 250,000 and picked up a second for 200,100 which looks insane but I was sure I wasn’t the one who’d spent most. Actually, I thought it would be Steve, and was surprised when I found out who it was. Sam, though, deliberately came in just below me having spent 249,995. However, his last-round purchase (for eight points) meant he lost the lowest spender 7 point bonus, and it went to Martin instead who finally won a game.

Martin 51
Sam 39
Andrew 26
Steve 23
Katy OUT! (but had 30 points)

It was after eleven, so obviously there was time for one more game. Flotsam Fight: the game of saving treasures by putting them in lifeboats that share the same factors as the number on your cards. While Martin explained the rules, some people had the audacity to laugh at my dealing technique, which I was not impressed with. Mocking a gamer’s dealing method is like telling a boxer he has a glass jaw. Suitably insulted, I gave as good as I got and called Katy “a fucking cunt”. Possibly overdid it, in hindsight. Martin, meanwhile, was still trying to explain the rules.

After that controversy, we played and I came out on top.

Andrew 4
Sam 3
Martin 1
Steve -1
Katy -1

After this we were done and Steve kindly offered us a lift back so that we might get to bed before midnight. Thanks all for the fun.

Yoko splits the band

Tuesday! You know what that means. But with no Andrew and no Martin, who would provide the acerbic commentary and euro-related disdain? As it happens, Katy stepped up to do both.

Hannah was our initial host, with Adam upstairs trying to lull Arthur to sleep. Joining her at the table were Adam T, Ian, Katy, Joe and myself. Before we knew what was happening we'd been talking for a full five minutes and realised we should probably play a game. Owing in part to Hannah's recent experience with five-player Root, Just One was chosen. I didn't take many pictures, but I recall three people clueing Girls for calendar, but Ian getting it anyway thanks to Gregorian and Advent. Everyone was thrown by Katy's clue for glasses (Hearing Aids) but again, no damage was done. In fact two turns later Joe clued "Hearing Aid (singular)" for glass. Strictly speaking that's three words, but we weren't counting. Except for our points - we ended on a shabby 8 ("average") when I encouraged Joe to guess on his final turn and he got it wrong. "I should be good at this game" he ruminated. "I like words"

With Arthur still circulating somewhere above us, Adam and Hannah swapped over and a debate broke out over Yokohama, which Katy asserted was her favourite game ever, but didn't want to play it because of the time it took. Joe and Adam T were keen, though, and eventually she was reluctantly persuaded, prophesising a late finish as she sat down. Joe said they'd be done by half ten and started explaining the rules to Adam T.

On the other table, our little band turned our faces to the stars. I talked Ian (NASA) through the rules to Orbit as we (I was Russia) prepared for our imminent defeat to Adam H (China). While I was concerned with the movement of the planets, Adam - perhaps inhabiting his China role a little seriously - became distracted by the feng shui of the room, eventually getting the denizens of Yokohama to rotate their table 180 degrees for the better to see Adam T's face with.

Back on our board, I made an error right at the start, calculating that I couldn't realise my Pioneer card (flyby of Mercury) as both Adam and Ian had already set off toward it. However my calculations were incorrect, as when Mercury came around I was the starting player and could have grabbed an early three points and an upgrade. That would come back to haunt me - much as failures at basic maths would haunt a real rocket scientist, I like to think.

Adam completely ignored point-scoring early on, focusing on getting his fuel, speed and build capacities up while Ian and I pottered around getting single points here and there and establishing a lead that looked, to us, disturbingly surmountable. I picked up Missions. So did Adam. So, eventually, did Ian. He looked at the cards like they had just shat in his astronaut suit.

On the other table, things had started moving around the city about a quarter-way through our game, but they were now picking up speed. Katy moved pieces around with the confidence of someone who was playing their favourite game, and expected to win it. At this point, everyone seemed happy.

Except back on the Orbit board Adam was, as we anticipated, moving up through the gears. He was even picking up more missions and not making any annoyed noises about them, which was doubly concerning. Ian said he was losing anyway, so picking up more missions couldn't hurt. But it did. When I took the same risk, the only plausible (I thought) mission was landing on the inner planets, but as it turned out I needed one more round to get to Venus, and when we counted up the 3 point failure was critical:

Adam 44
Sam 42
Ian 27

Yokohama was still going strong, so we had a quick game of Flotsam Fight. It's a very Oinky Oink game: a numbers-propelled mechanic enabling plenty of oh shit moments and paltry scoring of 2pts, 1pt,  and -1pt for first, second and third. The story is you are entitled rich folk loading your trinkets onto a series of lifeboats as the ship sinks - seems kinda topical - and the person who loads all of their goods first wins the round. In a bizarrely surreal twist, however, each lifeboat - there are eight - can only carry certain goods, and may brusquely refuse your Persian rug to keep space for someone else's Ming vase.

It's weird. We couldn't figure out exactly how much control there was, reminding me of my first couple of plays of Maskmen. "But Maskmen is better" Ian pointed out. I don't know; I do think Flotsam Fight is less random than it first appears, and that suspicion is backed up by the fact Adam came back from second place to win on the final round...

Adam 4
Sam 3
Ian -1

As we packed that away to mutterings of various moods, Yokohama finished only a little way past Joe's predicted end time with Katy upset that she hadn't won. "They cock-blocked me - twice!" she cried, and rejected suggestions she might have enjoyed playing anyway with a firm "No." Are her euro-playing days done? Joe seemed happy, and I think Adam was enamoured enough to try it again... but when? Yokohama has a habit of disappearing for a year at a time, so who knows. We didn't note down the scores, but it was a triumph for Joe, who later added happily "I didn't even get the rules sweats". That's some Yokohama-ing.

Joe
Adam
Katy

Ian and I were getting drowsy and Adam has a five-year-old, so with 11pm looming we called it a night. There was just enough time for Joe's smutty riff on Caylus - the game your wife won't play with you - on the way home to endanger our lives as I nearly lost control of the car. Fortunately, we live to play again!