Three time’s a charm

Tonight, three gentlemen of fine standing and educated background met together to discuss art, science, history and culture. In other words, three gamers with nothing else to do on a Saturday evening played Timeline and Fresco.

Gonz, Sam and I were in attendance in this impromptu games night, and we had some important matters to deal with before we started the games: the choice of the inaugural Game Of The Month. We put all six contenders in a small bowl, shuffled them around, and drew one out. The game chosen was

Russian Railroads

Congrats Joe! Your choice came out. So that game will be an option for the next four weeks. (Video evidence of the draw is available on request. I won’t put it on YouTube due to my regrettable decision to try and imitate Graham Kelly, former FA boss who would commentate on FA Cup draws.)

But what about the games? Well, we began with a little warm up of Timeline, since it was sitting on Sam’s kitchen table. We guessed about what came first, the catapult or the crossbow, and whether Karl Marx could have written Das Kapital in denim jeans.

1. Andrew
2= Gonz
2= Sam

After this, we continued the cultured theme with Fresco. A new game for Gonz, but one that he’d expressed an interest in. This game of painting cathedral ceilings is a pleasant stroll at first, climbing to tense frustration in the final round. Gonz drew our attention to one particular part of the painting which he didn’t remember from the bible:

Obviously, it’s the fable of the practical-joke playing woman. Is that in Corinthians? I’d have to check.

Anyway, Gonz got the hang of it pretty quickly, and later said he found it quite straightforward. Interestingly, he held on to his extra worker for most of the game, while Sam had the sixth worker sometimes, whereas I never did and was even down to four workers on occasion. But this level of manpower wasn’t necessarily reflected in the scores.

Gonz 82
Andrew 78
Sam 73

I enjoy Fresco, and Gonz said he liked it too, even if he was disappointed at the lack of opportunities to block your opponents. But I appreciate Fresca’s clear target. It’s less of a point salad than Caverna or Village and all the better for it. Plus the simple rules means it might be something of a second gateway game to anyone tired of Ticket To Ride or Settlers.

Then we discussed what light game to finish with. We were seconds away from starting Love Letter when we decided to have another go at Timeline. Once again we were plunged into discussions about ceramics were invented before writing and if the wheel was invented before fire.

1. Sam
2. Andrew
3. Gonz

1. Sam
2= Andrew
2= Gonz

All of which puts Sam on top of the form table, and sends me up to third, having lost that annoying “6”.

						Points
Sam	1	1	3	2	1	8
Martin	1	1	1	2	4	9
Andrew	2	2	2	1	3	10
Steve	1	4	1	3	3	12
Hannah	2	2	1	3	4	12
Gonz	2	3	1	2	4	12
Joe	3	4	3	3	2	15
Anja	2	3	2	4	5	16
Matt	2	2	4	4	5	17
Adam	3	3	3	3	5	17
Will	3	2	5	5	5	20

Twin Kingdom Valley

After some last minute rearrangement based on Sam’s car being broken, we congregated at Sam’s place for this week’s regular GNN fix. Getting there was no picnic, though, as rain turned briefly to hail in the half hour before we were due to begin.

Some hail, today

Six of us were there: Sam, me, Adam, Hannah, Gonz and Martin. We chose an old favourite to begin with. One we could all play together as a sextet. It was Poison. It’s been a long time since I played. I’d like to think that was why I did so badly, but it’d been a long time since anyone had played. And Gonz had never played at all.

Gonz 5
Martin 12
Hannah 15
Sam 15
Adam 17
Andrew 27

Afterwards Gonz didn’t seem impressed. He said the game just played itself: it was always obvious what the next go should be. I wish it had been obvious to me.

After this, we split into two groups of three. Adam, Gonz and Martin went for Kingdom Builder. Hannah, Sam and I chose Fresco, but it was a last minute change of heart from Hannah, since we were seconds away from breaking out Tinners’ Trail. But the new flavour of the month won a second appearance on the table in two days.

The three of us were too involved in our fresco painting (or “frescing”, as I called it) to pay much attention to the Kingdom Builders at the far end of the table, but they did end halfway through our game, and the scores were pretty tight.

Martin 70
Gonz 64
Adam 60

As they began another game of Kingdom Builder, we kept on with our depiction of various biblical scenes. At first there was some leapfrogging over each other on the score track, but before long, I started to fall behind. I put everything into a last minute push of three sections of the fresco completed in the final round (probably done with crayons, such was my rush) but it wasn’t even enough to get into second. Hannah took first place with a measured performance. I was especially impressed with her demonstration that a heavily pregnant woman can still pick up a small yellow cube from the kitchen floor when she’s dropped it. A true gamer.

Hannah 87
Sam 81
Andrew 78

After this, the second game of Kingdom Builder was drawing to a close. This time, it wasn’t so close.

Gonz 78
Adam 62
Martin 43

Then Adam and Hannah set off home, and the four remaining gamers played Love Letter (with After Eights and whiskey – how sophisticated) to round the evening off. Sam played his courtly cards better than the rest of us.

Sam 3
Gonz 2
Martin 2
Andrew 0

On the form table, Gonz remains top, Hannah leaps up a few places, and Steve continues to bob up and down between third and fifth. This week, he's fourth.

						Points
Gonz	2	1	2	1	1	7
Sam	1	2	3	3	1	9
Martin	2	3	1	2	4	12
Steve	1	3	3	1	5	13
Hannah	1	3	4	3	4	15
Adam	2	3	4	5	1	15
Andrew	3	3	5	2	4	17
Anja	3	2	4	5	5	19
Joe	3	3	6	1	6	19
Will	3	2	5	5	5	20
Matt	5	5	5	5	5	25

The Da Vinci Mode

Yesterday was Andrew's birthday, and would you believe, he initially refused my offer of a game. But one doesn't turn 43 having a quiet night in, and when I waved Fresco under his nose, Andrew's gaming gene kicked in and he succumbed.

Hopefully he feels it was worth it. I really liked the game. Each player assumes the part of a painter, collaborating on a fresco in some cathedral or other. As you paint, you send your assistants off to market to buy paints, to the workshop to mix them, or occasionally sell a painting for a bit of cash. And there's a Bishop wandering around in the cathedral - if he witnesses you doing a particularly handy bit of the fresco it's worth a little extra on the victory point track.

Fairly straightforward then. Only there are a couple of teeny twists. One is that each player chooses what time to get out of bed - get up early and you get first dibs on everything, but the market is more expensive and your assistants can get in a bad mood - potentially bad enough for one of them to abandon you. Get up later and everything's rosy - but that green paint you wanted from the market may have gone.

The other twist is that everyone chooses where to send their assistants secretly before revealing. I think this would be more nail-bitey in a 3 or 4 player game; in a two player (as it was our first game we ignored a dummy player rule) it didn't affect us too much - until the last round when suddenly it was really tense! I loved the ramping up - not too brain-burny at the start, but not a stroll through the end.

Great game. I'll bring it tonight.

Sam ?
Andrew ?

As it was still early and we were flushed from our experience, we decided to try out our long-mooted idea of the 2-player variant of Tinner's Trail (Wheal of Fortune) from the geek. Unfortunately it wasn't a great success on this occasion - there's a dummy player who is basically a spoiler for your best-laid plans; dice are rolled for him, and usually he sinks a ship or throws a miner into the sea. He spoiled Andrew's game more than mine, and I nabbed a win.

I felt we couldn't end Andrew's night on such an underwhelming experience, so we chose our cars and played Monza. This little game comes in a little box - you rolled coloured dice and move little cars as far as they'll go. But about a year ago we (me and the kids) played it so much we made our own Monza track, with room for Matchbox cars to career around it.

Andrew rolled well and despite rattling around the track in a camper van he took the win from my sportier car. Nice way to end the evening... Andrew left for home with three more games in his belt for his 43rd year.