A night on the tiles

This week we (Sam, Joe, Martin, newcomer Steve, Katy, Ian, latecomer Adam H and me) converged around Sam’s kitchen table for more board game shenanigans. With a new gamer joining us, we explained that we usually start with a communal game and then promptly split into two groups (using the logic that we can all play together when Adam gets here).

Katy, Martin, Joe and Steve played QE. As Steve’s introduction to modern board gaming, it’s a bit of a curve ball. It’s just as easy to be bamboozled by it’s charms as entertained. It began with Martin and Katy taking all the early spoils before Joe and Steve came into it a little more. In the last round, Joe was screwed by everyone else bidding low, giving him a share that he really didn’t want, and pushing his cash expenditure high enough that it meant he automatically came last.

Martin 44
Katy 29
Steve 28
Joe 0

Ian, Sam and I played new Azul, where the famous square tiles have been replaced by diamond shapes that fit into flower-shaped areas for points and prestige. The method is the same, with players collecting one colour at a time from a set of seven “factories” in the centre. Except that this time, to place a tile, you have to pay for it: a tile the yellow space “6” costs six yellow tiles: the one you actually put down and five more you discard. Add to this the fact that each round one of the colours can be used as a Wild Tile, and you can use them to pay for any colour.

It was okay. Not an instant classic but maybe, with familiarity, certain strategies will become obvious. This time, with three relative newbies, it was like three single-player games with little attempt as spoiling other people’s plans. I completed three of the flower shape things, and was rewarded handsomely.

Andrew 124
Sam 104
Ian 78

At this point we gave Joe a present, cake and card for his 50th birthday (which, as he pointed out, isn’t just yet) and sang “Happy Birthday” to him. Hopefully we were making a great impression on our debutante.

Next we chose again: Sam, Martin, Ian and I went for Babylonia and Katy, keen to impress the newbie, wanted to play Biblios and asked “What’s that game where you have to eat shit?” (referencing our by-now legendary variant: Extreme Biblios) but instead the Katy, Steve and Joe played L.A.M.A. until Adam arrived.

Steve 18
Joe 34
Katy 38


After that Joe, Katy, Steve and Adam chose Down Force, the exciting racing and betting game. Joe picked up his card for a single pound, and then bet on no one but himself. And he then came first. With these circumstances, a distant win is assured.

Joe 29
Adam 9
Katy 8
Steve 3

In Babylonia, we had an odd map, with a swathe of agricultural land splitting two groups of cities apart. I grabbed an early ziggurat and went from five available tiles to seven. Sam went big on cities, swooping in with his “two turns” power to pick up three in one go and, hence, and therefore was raking it in whenever someone triggered the city scoring.

Sam 133
Martin 122
Andrew 110
Ian 107

And as Down Force ended, we broke out Hurlyburly and spent a few happy minutes twanging small wooden cubes at each other's tower of cards. Ian and Sam went super defensive, with Sam's sandbag defences slightly taller than his one-storey tower.

But it was I who sprang up to four floors on my turn and avoided any hits from Sam (had no blocks), Martin (too far away) and Ian (blocks didn't bounce straight). Victory!

Finally we finished with Wavelength. After explaining it to Steve, Sam then went off piste with an audacious clue. For "Fantasy / Sci Fi" he said "High Fidelity by Nick Hornby."Ii scoffed that it was neither fantasy nor science fiction but, you see, that was the whole point. He was aiming for the middle. How smart.

I misunderstood my spectrum of "Good / Bad superpower." I thought it meant political superpower and not, as everyone else thought when they saw it, a special ability. As such my clue of "The British Empire" caused some surprise. We still got close enough to score, though. And a quick nod towards Ian’s clue of “vacuum cleaners” for the spectrum “un/reasonable phobia” in that the more we discussed it,the more reasonable it seemed.

It was a close game. We'd agreed to play until everyone had a go. The score was 10 - 7 as we entered our final turn. We needed a direct hit to win. It was all down to clue-giver Adam. The spectrum was “Has a bad/good reputation” and he chose Barack Obama. Amazingly, we got it spot on for the full four points.

Adam, Joe, Ian, Andrew 11
Steve, Martin, Sam, Katy 10

And so we ended. We were getting ready to go when Sam shushed everyone quiet while he recorded the farty sound of the lid being slid onto the Wavelength box. "Not in front of the new guy," said Katy despairingly. What an evening.

Babble on

This week's GNN was a relatively sparse affair, with just three of us joining Martin at his kitchen table - Katy, Adam T, and myself (Sam). Adam was last to arrive, and we realised if we started playing Gold Fever he would undoubtedly show up. This proved to be the case, but we simply dealt him in a bag, and he instantly drew two grey gravel. On his next go he drew two white gravel. "It's one of those luck-pushing games" he realised, while Martin complained that I gave him my gravel when he didn't have any gold. Katy gave him gravel too; but he just didn't know, as he was answering the door...

Sam - 4 gold!
Everyone else - Can't remember. Think Katy had one.

Forgot to take photos

Then we started on the first 'proper' game of the night with Babylonia. Katy wasn't keen, but Martin said she'd enjoy it now she knew what was going on, and this was at least partly true. It reminded me most of Samurai, with certain things being scored when surrounded, although the placement was also a bit Blue Lagoony, and the various nobles also put me in mind of Tigris and Euphrates.

it's so simple

That's not a bad ancestry, and although the game is very abstract, the turns were surprisingly quick. Adam emerged triumphant from whatever it was, thematically speaking, we were actually doing (I was never entirely clear) causing much gnashing of teeth from Martin. Katy lost, but wanted it noted that she led for most of the game. Another solid entry in the good doctor's ever-lengthening list of games that make you wail with despair.

Adam 118
Martin 113
Sam 111
Katy 109

me, and the the farmers

Then it was Die Crew again, so we all suited up and launched ourselves into trick-taking, google-translated space, where the trickiness of the missions is foreshadowed in the confusing commentary. Despite my failings - I was usually culpable - we completed Missions 19-22 with only a few dead cosmonauts along the way. We were so submerged in the narrative that I entirely forgot to take photos again!

Imagine the Crew here

Next to the table was either Montage, or Maskmen. Katy said she didn't want to play a word game, so Maskmen it was. Despite several plays, we - or Katy and I anyway - still needed to check with Martin what cards could be played when. I think it was new to Adam, and as last person to play he was surprised to find he couldn't legally play cards after we three had. He checked if it worked with four, and Martin - who'd just dumped three cards - assured him it worked perfectly well. Adam recovered from this indignity happening again moments later to recover, but not enough: Martin won both the opening rounds and, even though I could have drawn level in round three, we awarded him the win in favour of moving on...

Martin 4
Sam 2
Katy and Adam: 0

Forgot to take photos again. Come back, Andrew!

Adam was keen to try Hurlyburly and everyone else was more than amenable. After Martin explained the rules to Adam...

I made up for lost time by embarking on a spree of slow-motion movies that failed to capture any of the pivotal moments...

...the most satisfying being when my one and only block knocked down Martin's tower as he stood on the verge of victory. Adam won the first game, and although I thought there was a second this morning both my notes and Martin insist there wasn't. This is slightly alarming considering I was drinking alcohol-free beer.

confused again

Adam then started making going home noises, but we cajoled one final game out of him, which was Karambolage. I sped into an early 4-point lead but then got the Considerable Yips, and remained stuck there for the duration. Martin scored big but when bust when he sent pucks flying off the table. Adam managed to miss a shot from about 4 centimetres away; as he walked into the kitchen in disgust Katy rolled the same dice and missed an even easier shot...

Before Martin surged up to a resplendent finish to claim the win:

Martin 10
Sam 4
Katy 3
Adam 0

Adam's walk of disgust then turned into a slightly longer drive home, and it was Katy's turn to be cajoled: this time into playing The Mind Extreme. She reasoned that she was terrible at The Mind and would be even worse at this, which actually proved to be not the case right up until it was on level 5 - when she sat pat on the 46 and pooh-poohed the idea of re-syncing until she realised what re-syncing was.

 I think we crashed out on level 6, but it was a decent effort considering these were all played face-down...

dastardly fifteen

And with the time nearing 11, it was pumpkin o'clock for us - we headed home with another little chapter of GNN history allotted it's parcel of time, drama, comedy, and too many smutty innuendoes to begin listing here involving almost every aspect of Hurlyburly you could mention. 

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.

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.