The weariness of long distance gamers

This week I arrived later than usual, at around 8pm to find Sam, Joe, Andy, Martin and Ian already online. I have no idea if they'd played a game or had spent the past half hour chatting, but before long Katy joined us and, as is traditional for a septet, we played 7 Wonders.

It was the usual affair, notable for being very red, with military cards built by everyone except Joe, who preferred science. But it was the quiet one who got back into winning ways, and with the least thinking time, too.

Ian 61

Joe 55

Katy 53

Martin 50

Andrew 49

Andy 47

Sam 43

Then we split into two groups. Joe, Martin and Katy chose Ninety Nine, which seems appropriate since Joe had been eating an ice cream earlier.

Ian, Sam, Andy and myself procrastinated at length over what to play. Without an admin account we couldn't do anything with playingcards.io and so in the end we chose Red7. 

Sam needed a rule refresher and we had to start twice after Ian had set up the game with an unwanted option still turned on.

The game certainly didn't outstay it's welcome, with Andy being the first to win two rounds in a healthy 2-0-0-0 win. He was nice enough to mumble something about playing Red7 a lot on yukata lately. 

After this Sam left for bed and we chose Downforce as our next game. It was the track with all those ramps again and the three of us sped round in more or less silence. It ended in Andy's favour again, although none of us actually bet on the winning car.

Andy $19m

Ian $13m

Andrew $8m

By now Ninety Nine had ended at almost the same time. Katy had, I believe, lead for most of the game, only to see a late revival from Joe.

Joe 177

Katy 169

Martin 155

And here marked the end of Ian's gaming since he was flaking and we couldn't tempt him with a game of For Sale (which BGA seemed to think was Joe's first ever go. How odd). 

Odder still, in the buying round, both zeros came out in round one, followed by some very generous rounds where players dumped their low cards knowing they'd get a good return. Martin won, despite having forgotten earlier that with only five players there's an extra round of bidding.

Martin 55

Andy 54

Andrew 49

Joe 44

Katy 41

And now Joe left so we remaining four played Hanabi. Peculiarly, while Downforce was played in silence, we played Hanabi with a steady stream of chatter. Or "cheating" as it could be called. Clues were applauded or given the Martin "that's what I would've done" seal of approval, indicating how prescient it was.

And we didn't discard any cards that would ruin our chances but, alas, time caught up with us. The draw deck was exhausted with little chance of a successful completion.

Andy, Martin, Katy, Andrew 20

And so we were off into the night. Or back into our kitchens with our empties. Thanks guys. See you next week.

Double Baron Shotgun

This week, with numbers depleted to the usual mid summer level, four gamers gradually logged on. Ian first then, about ten minutes late, I arrived. Followed by Martin and then finally Andy,who entered with his signature method of logging on and off repeatedly until he properly arrived.

While waiting for him, the three of us had decided on Turn The Tide as our first game, previously seen some years ago as Land Unter.  It was so long ago that Andy couldn't remember if he'd played it or not. So he looked it up: he had, and had given it four out of ten. Clearly not his type of game. Meanwhile, Martin was initially upset by the slurping noise the game made when he lost a life, but I had to admit that it’d been me eating.

Martin 16

Andrwe 12

Ian 2

Andy 1

Next up was Downforce with a track chosen especially by Andy, with ramps. This made it a lot more swingy. My red car managed to get from a distant last to a fourth place finish and, more importantly, Andy’s blue car was in third when the first bidding round happened, but finished first. As such, he was the only one to bet on it three times and thus came out the winner. 

Andy $27m

Andrew $15m

Martin $7m

Ian $6m

Next, for a change of pace, some co-operative play with Hanabi. Except that BGA now has a “hand of the day” option where you can try a particular deck and see how well you do against other teams. Finally, Hanabi has gone competitive.

The game was going well, except the blue one didn’t come out. At on point Andy confidently said “I know I haven’t got the red 5” while the red 5 was in his hand, and then I ruined everything by throwing away the second yellow 4, making a perfect finish impossible.

Our score: 21

Finally, with Ian flaking, we decided to finish on Love Letter. Except with four players and first-to-four winning condition, it wasn’t quite as quick as we’d expected. Martin sped into a 2-0-0-0 lead but Ian was first to reach match point on 3-2-2-0. That was me on zero.  But then the tide turned and I started picking up points.

I think a couple of times people got stuck with two Barons in their hand, which is almost certain doom, especially if the guards and a priest have already been played. And at the start of one round, Ian played a King to swap his hand with Martin. I knew that there was only one reason to play your King right at the start so I immediately used my Guard to accuse Martin of being the Princess. Which he was.

By now I was back in the swing of things and in that very round I closed out an unlikely win.

Andrew 4

Ian 3

Andy 3

Martin 3

And, forty minutes after that game had started, we were done. Thanks all. See you soon.

Let the bean fight commence

Logging on at half past seven, I found a game of Quantum in full swing. Judging by the banter between Ian l, Martin and Sam I guessed that Martin's victory had just been avoided after some aggressive play by Ian.

I took the opportunity to put my supper on the plate and eat it while watching the game and seeing Joe and Adam H dawdle in. The three non-players decamped to Google Hangouts so we could chat without distracting the others. After a short while, they joined us reporting that Ian had won after some more aggressive play on his part.

Ian wins
Martin and Sam don’t

Next the six of us played Texas Showdown thanks to Martin’s very own handmade version on the internet. It worked well, and Martin seemed to be pleased with it, declaring “let the bean fight commence!” before a round before remembering it was “bun fight”. As for the game, I went clear in round one and then in round four I had four of the highest valued cards in their suit. Ian won again.

Ian 2
Sam 5
Martin 6
Andrew 8
Adam 9
Joe 10

It worked so well, we played again. In the first round Sam won with a black two which seems almost impossible. He never recovered and the game ended after only three rounds.

Martin 2
Andrew 4
Ian 4
Adam 5
Joe 5
Sam 10

These games were accompanied by a series of curious sounds as if one of us was underwater or making an ASMR video or some such. But anyway, at this point we left playingcards.io for boardgamearena and set up a game of 7 Wonders. Martin went for blue buildings while Sam overloaded on military cards. Adam and Ian went for science and Joe and I went for a bit of everything, but with me hoarding cash.

And it was the cash which got me the win, as I snuck past Sam in a very close game.

Andrew 55 + cash
Sam 55
Ian 53
Martin 52 + cash
Joe 52
Adam 51

At this point Sam leaves and Andy B is briefly seen on Discord and as a spectator on BGA. The remaining five of us play For Sale. I picked up the 1, since you know where you are with a 1, and then got the 2, since I would know where I’d be with that too. It did the trick somehow as I squeezed past on my second cash tie-breaker in a row.

Andrew 56 + cash
Martin 56
Adam 48
Joe 46
Ian 37

Then Joe left and the remaining four returned to playingcards to try Fight, Martin’s version of a new game that currency only existed as a print and play. Katy joined us, too, which meant we needed two rules explanations which was probably for the best. It was a little clumsy online, since the deck needed sorting, and the game itself wasn’t great: a co-op where everyone’s card had to add up to the value of a monster card in the middle of the table.

We wound it up after a while and Ian and Adam both left. Katy, Martin and I revisited Hanabi. Katy wasn’t keen, but she agreed. There was a moment of madness for her when, after fretting about me running out of time on my go, accidentally discarded a red three instead of playing it. A little frustrating, but never mind. We still got to our highest score.

22 out of 25

And so we were done. Thanks all.

Kingdamnino

I "arrived" at this week's games night a little late, but had earlier popped into the group chat long enough to learn that Martin, Ian, Katy and Sam were playing a game of Love Letter. I even watched a hand or two which was pretty entertaining. Once I'd returned, the game was over and I saw that Martin had gone from joint last on 2-2-0-0 to outright winner.

Martin 4
Ian 3
Sam 3
Katy 2

For my first game, Martin introduced us to a website that allowed you to recreate your favourite card games (or even your own creation) online. He had put together a game of Voodoo Prince. It lacked the artwork of the original but the game itself remained intact. Having everyone's cursor visible on screen as a smallish coloured circle was odd since it felt like I was playing against four little Tinkerbells, all drifting around mischievously. Also dealing cards was impossible, so instead it was necessary for everyone to take the required number of cards from the stack in a flurry of Hungry Hippos type activity.

We played a three round game, and Joe joined us midway through the game as a spectator.

Katy had a commanding lead after two rounds but that didn't stop her complaining when she went out third in round three. She cheered herself up by picking up the token we were using to signify the trump suit and waving it around, much to Martin's annoyance.

Katy 29
Martin 21
Sam 18
Andrew 17
Ian 17

After this, Joe joined us for a game of Fuji Flush, again devised by Martin on this new website. The only drawback was how difficult it was to keep track of how many cards people had left. I was first to get down to my last card, but Martin was soon after me and he was able to seal the deal. Don't know how anyone else did.

Martin 0 cards left
Andrew 1
Everyone else… more than that, I suppose

After the game ended the table descended into anarchy with people moving cards around willy nilly and everyone getting a new rude name. I for one will be very disappointed if this behaviour doesn't continue once we're back in the real world.

After this, we all decamped to another site to play Fake Artist Goes To New York. This has the advantage of no one being the clue-giver, so we were all involved all the time. Joe was the first fake but couldn’t guess “bike”, then Katy was next and was able to guess “hunting” (while disputing that it should be in the ‘recreation’ category) then I was last fake and unable to guess “dish rack”.

Katy struggled with the site on her tablet, saying she had difficulty getting to things in corners. Thus her tablet was dubbed the Samsung Round, a rare circular tablet that couldn’t even scroll, apparently.

Then Katy went to see a gig online for half an hour or so while the rest of us played Just One. Not the old fashioned version with webcams and pen and paper, but a slick web-based version. It worked well, except for not eliminating a duplicate due to a spelling error. We got a few amazing correct guesses with only two clues by Ian and Martin and we finished with 10 out of 13 and the traditional snide remark: “huh, colour me impressed. Was it a fluke?”

Then Sam left and the four of us played the world’s most controversial game of Kingdomino. It was all going smoothly until the last move when Martin had first choice and a prize 3-crown tile which would fit nicely onto his board but instead when he chose it, the website selected a different and completely useless tile which probably cost him the win. He was furious, as you can imagine.

Martin (green) had chosen the lowest tile, but been given the second one

Andrew 52
Ian 47
Joe 41
Martin 37 and fuming

Katy had come back by now, but Ian and Joe left so the three of us played two games of Hanabi to finish off. It works well online, although we were able to do our usual trick of giving clues in a happy or sad tone of voice. Both times, I was the first to ruin the game by discarding a pair of values. In game two poor old Martin only got one clue for most of the game, since his hand was all threes and fours - either couldn’t be used or weren’t worth protecting.

Game one: 20 out of 25
Game two 19 out of 25

Well, it looked like we were getting worse, so we finished up there and left the internet to look after itself. Thanks all!

Troika's Company

Saturday, and Andrew and Ian were hardy enough to make the trip to my house for a bit of gaming. Not only that, they were hardy enough to learn no less than three new games!

Before they arrived, Sally, Stan, Joe and I all performed an impressive feat of fireworks in Hanabi, scoring 20 points with minimal (and inadvertent) cheating. I say minimal: we did give our clues in a very dramatic play/don't play manner, which might be against the rules I guess? 

Anyway the Eastern theme continued as Sally and the boys went off to watch Thor: Rangnorak and we set up Dragon Castle. 

This is a tile-taking-and-placing game that is slightly reminiscent of Azul, in that what tile(s) you take dictates what tiles are available for others. Score points for sets (bigger the better) during play, and points for shrines (higher the better!) at the end of the game - play is something of a trade-off between these two options. I've played this a lot in January, and my prep fortunately held up:

Sam 45

Ian 41

Andrew 36

Although hats off to Andrew for refusing no less than two proposed do-overs, instead preferring a philosophical sanguinity. Starting something of an evening meme, we agreed that Martin would 'probably' quite like it. BUWMLI (But would Martin like it) score: 3/5

Next we set up Beta Colony: in Earth's distant future, humanity escapes into the cosmos in order to play a massive Stefan Feld game.

It involves dice (move/do actions!) fuel (manipulate dice) resources (pay for actions!) and artifacts (build stuff!) as we hurtled around a vast rondel in space like children on a spinning roundabout, making ourselves giddy with Euro excitement. We added in spacey music, starting off with Brian Eno - Andrew broke the mood by identifying the long, atmospheric ambience as 'Brian Eno's doorbell' -  and then Vangelis, as we hoovered up resources and spent them building futuristic space pods, or not so futuristic buildings like, weirdly, Big Ben or the Sydney Opera House. It was very Feldy in the mechanisms, with agonizing decisions and plenty of 'oh shit' moments. But not Feldy at all in the scoring, which was quite refreshing. Ian moonwalked his way to a fairly convincing victory - we lost the scores but agreed it was something along the lines of:

Ian 62

Sam 56

Andrew 52

Not so much a battle, or even a settle, as a puzzle. We liked it! BUWMLI score: 1/5

Although we'd established Ian as leader of Beta Colony only shortly after the kids retired (albeit past their usual bedtime) everyone felt like a silly luck-pusher to shake things up a bit. Andrew brought out Las Vegas, and as well as the silly luck-pushing there was a fair amount of screw-you placement as well, with at one point several casinos giving out nothing at all, so balanced were the dice in them. 

although not on this occasion

Ian was doing so poorly in the second round it looked like a straight fight between myself and Andrew, but he surged back in round three to claim an improbable and spectacular victory!

Ian $310k

Andrew/Sam $270k each

Fortified by both alcohol and reckless abandon, we broke out our third new game of the evening in Troika, one of those Oink publications that come in neat, tidy little packages. We went through the simple rules and were off!

In Troika there are tiles numbering 1 to 15, with three of every number bar the 7 - there are seven 7's. You shuffle the tiles face-down as an 'extraction zone' and imagine yourself spacepeople landed on a distant planet (so far, so Beta) gathering tiles either to make gems (a run of three tiles) or fuel (three of the same number). The value of the gems is the right-most number of the highest tile: so 1-2-3 is three points whereas 9-10-11 would only be worth one point. You need fuel to get off the planet - without it, you can't score your gems. 

On a turn you flip a tile over and then have a choice: take a face-up tile into your container, a face-down tile into your hand (maximum of three in your hand!) or return a tile from container or hand to the extraction zone. That's pretty much the game, although you can declare yourself out of the round by shouting Troika! and the first person to do so scores a bonus five points: which can be huge in this game, where the winner of a round (ie highest value gem total) only gets 2 points! Second gets a point - third gets minus a point!

This simple affair had us marvelling at how delightful it was - tactical, luck-pushing, and a little bit nasty in places. I emerged the victor in a tense third round as I called Troika before anyone else before the second time:

Sam 3

Ian 2

Andrew 1

BUWMLI score: 4/5!

And with that, Saturday night drew to a close: nice games, nice company! Cheers guys. 

Panickin' Skywalker

This week's regular gaming forum was held at Adam's place, minus Hannah who was away for work. But here for play were Katy, Sam , Joe, Ian, Martin, Andy and myself. There was apple crumble on offer once we had arrived and Adam looked quite relieved we he found out that we hadn't finished the lot before he'd got his son to bed.

But what to play? Andy had bought plenty of new options, including a still-shrinkwrapped Stefan Feld game. But Adam's eye was caught by Sam's copy of The Networks and Joe had bought the betting and racing game Down Force which got enough approval to be set up.

Sam, Adam and I played The Networks on the blue coffee table. It was new to me but the rules aren't complicated although it certainly looks baffling to the uninitiated. Before long, I was scheduling prime time entertainment for the masses along with the best of them.

I began the game, which meant Adam had last choice in the first round. This was considered a disadvantage when it was last played, so I thought it was a fair method of levelling the playing field against the might of Adam.

I was keeping pace with the other two quite happily throughout and made sure I was always cash-rich so I was never short of choices. Adam, though, made no money from his TV network until halfway through the game, and he was living hand to mouth until the end.

This lack of money almost blew up in his face in the last round when he forgot that he couldn't pay for his programming. He sheepishly changed a recent decision from Get Viewers to Get Money to avoid the hit on victory points he'd receive.

He might have still won, though, as he proved the last-player disadvantage to be an illusion.

Adam 142
Sam 125, plus money tie breaker
Andrew 125

I enjoyed it a lot and am keen to play again. With just three players, we'd shaved a full hour off the playing time of the previous four player game.

On the big table Down Force had ended. I paid it little attention, apart from the times when I took a photo, but Andy came out a clear winner, which makes sense since I remember him being good at Winners' Circle, too. No idea what happened to Joe.

Andy 24
Martin 19
Katy 15
Ian 11
Joe 7

So while we on the coffee table were still haggling over fading stars and dodgy TV formats, they played Hanabi (after Andy didn’t seemed hugely excited by the offer of Bemused, with the enticing slogan “we’re pretty sure you’ll hate it”). I felt a bit jealous when I saw this. I think it was Katy's first game, but I could be wrong about that.

They set about putting on a fireworks display and, although they didn't complete it and Katy often complained that she knew nothing about her cards, they got 20 points (out of 25) which, according to the German rules, was "Gut" and only one point off "Sehr Gut." Well done!

However, the two tables were completely out of sync. While they played Hana-bi, we started on Finca. Sam persuaded Adam to play it by suggesting it was exactly the kind of game that he was good at.

The last time Sam and I played it, we hid the bonus tile at the bottom of the pile of delivery tiles. This time, we didn't, instead preferring the official rules. We also didn't use the Special Ability tiles. As we're all still newbies, there doesn't seem much point. The game is already plenty complicated enough.

It was a tough game. I think both Sam and I split our tactics between trying to stop Adam and trying to not be last. Sam did that better than me, as his original prediction regarding Adam's suitability proved bang on the money.

Adam 53
Sam 39
Andrew 35

Another game I'm keen to play again. On reflection, I think three players might be the sweet spot: two players and it's too predictable; four players and it's too random. Just my impression, though.

While Finca was reminding us of Adam's immense AlphaGo-style ability at reading a game, The five on the other table were starting on a game of Kribbeln. In this game, Martin went very high on his Kribbeln right from the start, and came to regret it. Joe, though, stormed back with almost a clean sweep of round three after a poor opening. Ian, meanwhile, lived up to his reputation as Le Coq Blocquer when he consistently tied with Katy, taking points from her whenever he did.

Kribbeln: not a very photogenic game

Joe 27
Andy 25
Ian 22
Katy 22
Martin 18

Now we had all, finally, ended at the same time. There was a brief reshuffling of tables, with Joe, Sam, Martin and Katy deciding to save the Earth with Flipships. Andy, Adam, Ian and I went for the more prosiac option of real estate gaming with For Sale. It was an odd game for most of us who are used to the Italian edition, with it’s different number spread. Adam, though, had no difficulties in that respect.

Adam 65
Andy 55
Andrew 50
Ian 49

The invasion of Earth was still underway, but we ignored the possible extinction of the human race and chose No Thanks.

Three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and the suspicion that someone hasn’t shuffled the No Thanks deck properly. In today’s game, we began with a glut of cards in the twenties. I went for high twenties and got lucky. Adam and Ian fought over mid-to-low twenties and got in each others’ way. Andy went for mostly low cards, but got stung by a lone 30+ card.

Andrew 24
Andy 31
Ian 54
Adam 57

We had finished just as Flipships was entering its final round. By now Katy’s unerring accuracy had earned her the nickname Red Leader One. But despite the four of them wiping out the horde of alien fighters, the Mothership was still on four hit points, just down from six at the start of the game. So it was just a case of each player hitting the mothership once in the final round, and they’d win the game.

Martin went first. He hit it once, sticking to the plan. Sam was up next, but didn’t get a hit. Then Katy, who struck twice. Back on track!

All our hopes were with Joe. This genial guy, famous for his flicking issues with Ascending Empires, now had to save the planet. He felt the pressure acutely, all the more so since now we had to whisper since Adam was upstairs putting his son on the toilet. (It was now that Ian said the words which are now the blog article’s title.)

He flicked high and long. He flicked high and short. He veered far off course. He came so close. But not one ship found its target. The end of the world. A disaster.

We're all dead

The end of the evening, too. Luckily this evening was anything but a disaster. Thanks for hosting, Adam. And thanks for playing, everyone else.

A hundred kingdoms under the stairs

Martin offered to host games night this week, with the tantalising opportunity on offer to view his new games cupboard, under the stairs, barely six feet from the games table (or "dining table", as I suppose some people might call it).

We admired the perfect proportions and clean lines of the Ikea shelving used to house such a collection. Then we decided to use some of this collection.

But first, while we waited for Chris caught in traffic, the six of us (Martin, Sam, Ben, Andy, Ian and myself) played Celestia, a game of pushing your luck and hoping that your captain has the right cards to see off any dangers as your slightly over-designed airship sails towards ever more exciting rewards.

If you suspected the captain wasn’t up to the job, you could jump ship and take whatever rewards were there.

It was a fun game and hats off to Ian who had few cards in his hand, but usually seemed to have enough to see off any hazards, much to our disbelief. Oh, how we laughed as he sailed off without us on more than one occasion.

Andrew 53
Andy 50
Ian 48
Martin 47
Sam 47
Ben 43

Then Chris arrived and we split into two groups. Sam, Andy, Ben and Ian chose Broom Service. Chris mentioned that he’d like to try Impulse. Well, Martin and I needed no prompting and this tiny space epic was brought out.

Chris was given a quick run through of the rules, and we were off! I set off in an early lead after a move where I traded a red card and shot down one of Martin’s ships. This left me high up the score track, but low on cards. Chris, despite being a newbie, kept up well against the two experienced hands and Martin, perhaps slighted by my early success at his expense, spread out expansively across the board.

I was down to one ship at one point, and I could’ve been obliterated but Martin held back. A rare act of kindness, but he finished the game in the next round with a series of moves that got him eleven points, pushing him past the target score of twenty.

Martin 22
Chris 10
Andrew 10

Broom Service still had some way to got, so we began a game of Hanabi, using Martin’s deluxe set.

It was Chris’ first go on this one, too, although he’d often seen other people playing it at the Reading meet. Perhaps not in as much style as us, though, as the Mah Jong-esque tiles felt nice and weighty.

We did well, not picking up a single storm counter, and we were only stymied at the very end by Martin have the green four and five, meaning he couldn’t put both down. Still, with me correctly guessing at the end which of my tiles was a blue five, we were able to complete four of the five tracks for a creditable score of 24 out of 25.

By now Broom Service was over:

Sam 85
Andy 84
Ben 72
Ian 65

But since we were knee-deep in Hanabi, Andy suggested Koryo. Sam recoiled like Andy had just sprayed the room with Mace, and kindly declined the offer. Ben and Ian were up for it, though, and it ended in Ben’s first win of his GNN career!

Ben 17
Andy 14
Ian 7

Meanwhile, in the gap between Hana-bi ending and Koryo ending, Sam introduced the rest of us to Matcha, the very quick two-player bidding game for tea-making utensils (either one each of the five different items, or a set of four). The design was nice, and it kept the Japanese vibe going after Hanabi.

Chris and Sam played first, with Sam quickly winning with his four tea leaves. Then Sam and I played and, in a longer game where we cancelled each other out most of the time, we finished with a draw.

And now we were all together again, keen for a final game before we headed home. Pairs was chosen. Ben never got going, crashing out early one. Usually after the second card. In one round, Andy dealt out onions like they were going out of fashion. Then, next round, he was sent out by a pair of lowly cherries. But Martin kept his cool to claim the win.

Martin 22
Chris 20
Sam 15
Ian 11
Andrew 10
Andy 7
Ben 0

So that’s it, until the weekend gaming fest that is Novocon. And then next Tuesday again, of course.