Some kind of Bala

A summer games weekend. On Friday night Ian and Katy were first to arrive, and after some uncertain naming hesitation on my part - Gambala? Gambola? - loosely inspired by Shambala, which was the reason my house was empty in the first place, Katy insisted it would be Sambala, in honour of me - or at least my email pushiness. I overcame my initial reluctance to use it as excuse for my excesses as the evening progressed - an evening that began with 5 Towers. 

This was new to both Katy and Ian but it's a simple game: we're all building the titular towers and each round we bid on how many cards we'll take to do so, adding them in descending numerical order. You can 'tear down' a previous card, but doing so costs points. Katy kept her powder dry here as Ian and I built, and cleaned up thanks to Ian's shortage of tower tops that increase your score. 

Katy 31
Sam 23
Ian 21

Adam arrived in time to watch the count-up and was intrigued to try it, but we realised with an hour until Anja got here we could do something chunkier, and settled on The Quest for El Dorado, mixing in some of the expansion options I picked up on a recent jaunt to Norway. We added Dangers (though this morning I realise I forgot one of the boards for it) - which are the same as normal spots except you can't end your turn on them - and some crocodiles, which can only be navigated with an exact-number card (the suit doesn't matter) and the Muisca, a local tribe who'll help you, but potentially opponents as well, for reasons I won't explain here as it never happened in the game. 

Adam warned everyone that in the last game I blocked him from card-shedding spots and I began with a similar strategy, trapping Katy behind a mountain as everyone was slightly appalled at me. "It's Sambala" I said. She and I lagged behind and constructed decks as Ian and Adam journeyed forward and Adam went back and forth between a dangerous valley so much that he got his deck down to just four cards. "But three of them are shit" he said. We didn't believe him but it turned out to be true: he was caught and overhauled. I sailed off into a healthy lead with a streamlined seven cards, and felt optimistic that El Dorado was calling my name. But then I stalled at a watery barrier and was caught by everyone. 

It was suddenly tense. Adam removed the barrier but blocked one way. I went the other but for two turns running didn't draw the cards I needed. Katy and Ian were blocked by the pair of us - but not for long, because suddenly Adam - now with some powerful cards - sped off to the end and won. Katy wanted to play for second place until she realised she couldn't get to El Dorado, but I could.

Adam wins
Sam sort of second

Anja still hadn't arrived so we set about playing Poison, still with its Joe-infused Dwarves of the Twilight Galaxy box cover. Katy didn't remember (or know?) the rules, but insisted on not learning them and that she'd get it as we went. This made for a slightly staccato game as apparently brewing poison is not as simple as it sounds. 

Unless you're Adam. We only played one round but he squeaked a narrow win over Quiet Ian, who had gone about his business attracting less opprobrium. 

Adam 2

Ian 3

Katy 8

Sam 17

We stopped after the single round because Anja was now here! After a brief catch-up we returned to business with co-operative Wavelength, with my first spectrum being good superpower/bad superpower. I felt my clue of being able to nap at a moment's notice was not a bad guide, but Katy had to be talked down by the others from seeing it on a par with flying, invisibility and time-travel. We hauled in a three points, but then went off the rails somewhat with our next few clues - we undervalued Ian's A4 writing pad and Anja's perception of country music - only to stage a late-game recovery and come oh-so-close with 13 points - two shy of the official victory condition. 

Not that it matters, as Katy rightly pointed out. Next up was Fun Facts, new to Anja but an easy teach and not a million miles from Wavelength. It transpired that desires to go to space was split along gender lines, with Anja and Katy willing to spend zero pounds on getting there and the boys more sympathetic, although Ian thought he'd get bored and Adam thought he'd get sick. I was more keen: I liked the idea of zero gravity and peeing in my pants.

We didn't do too badly, although the rulebook was hardly effusive about our score of 26. Next up was the little-recently-seen Perudo! What a cracker this game is. 

Adam and Anja took the early hits as Anja kept calling dudo, with mixed results. She was first out, followed by her neighbourly nemesis, as Katy insisted everyone target me as I still had my full complement of dice. It sort of worked: Ian fell next leaving Katy and I on a single die each. Despite her insistence that I had a huge advantage, I've been here before: like poker, my game is only solid until a showdown and then it disintegrates. 

1 Katy wins

2 Sam

3 Ian

4 Adam 

5 Anja

There are no pictures of So Clover, because Katy was so appalled at the outcome of her clover that she flipped it face down. We hadn't figured out what she'd meant with the clue shit, and it's now lost to memory. Mine anyway. Comments are available. 

So Clover: 22/30

There were some good clues, but I've forgotten them too. I was slightly drunk and reading Adam's clue of enrobed as enro-bed for some reason set me off, so while everyone else solved his clover - 6 points! - I had my head on the table. Possibly informed by this, but hopefully the late hour, Ian and Adam took their leave and the remaining trio played Misfits. 

Several collapses later, I took the win and Friday was done. 

On Saturday the games began a little before midday, as Katy and I had a Clans of Caledonia rematch. She had extra order-fulfilment options, I knew how to sail. The last time we played this Katy obliterated me, but on this occasion she struggled to get going and told me that she hated the game in rounds 2 through 5. It was closer than we thought though, and whilst I won my score did not eclipse Katy's in the last game.  

We moved on to another medium-euro: Rajas of the Ganges. 

Here there were very divergent tactics: I built markets and Katy buildings. Buildings race you around the track faster than markets - but they're a score-once-and-done option. Without any trade in her province Katy had no incentive to score markets, and so I took another win here - again, a close one though. 

Katy's province: lacks cornershops

By this time we'd eaten lunch and other gamers were looming. We bashed out a year of Cozy Stickerville as we waited: a game you famously cannot lose, as it mostly consists of putting stickers on the board and regretting your decisions. 

As we ended a mostly-fallow year of having not enough wood to do anything, Anja, Steve, Lennon and Louie all arrived, and hot on their heels Pete, Laura and Ryker. 

We split into two groups. I joined the Dalton-Dales for Forbidden Desert and the remaining quartet began playing The Mind, with hilarious results. I think in the time we set up and reminded me of the rules they'd failed on level 1 three times, then triumphed and called it a win.

Meanwhile in the desert I was being reminded of how much sand there was. 

So much in fact that I took it upon myself to spend most of my turns removing it, as it bothered me. Lennon did lots of excavating to find things, Steve employed his magical powers of movement and Anja had a knack of finding tonnes of equipment. Louie generously sacrificed a lot of actions to stop Storm cards being drawn and basically save our asses. Despite this, it didn't help: we ran out of sand and lost. 

Meantime the others had played Magical Athlete, which was won by Ryker on his GNN debut...

And they'd also played Misfits, the winner of which I totally missed as I was buried in a dune at the time. I heard a big crash at one stage though, and there were the usual alarms about elbows on the table.

We now lost Katy to Weekend Plans and shuffled ourselves into a big group for a revisit to Louie's Game Off, last seen when Martin harrowingly sang Happy Birthday to Steve on a games weekend. 

In this game you go around the table and roll dice to see who you challenge on your turn, then choose what sort of challenge it'll be. Louie and I had to moonwalk, and Lennon saw me off easily in the slowest-press-up face-off. Anja and Lennon both had to sing their highest pitch, and she lost to Louie in the rhyme-off of words that sound like 'right'. The kids dominated here: Louie won with the 5 cards needed to end the game, Lennon runner-up with 4. Whilst Pete and Steve also scored, Anja and I were left with nothing but a vestige of our Game Off worthlessness. SAD. 

Lennon and Louie had a game of Crokinole but decided one round was enough. I'm not sure who won.

Then Lennon, Pete and I began a game of Ticket to Ride: Berlin but there was now an interval for fish and chips, of which there are no pictures. Thanks to Steve for making the run to the chippy (and let me know what I owe!). After the meal Anja thrashed Steve at Trickarious whilst Pete took a narrow win in Berlin. 

There was time for one last family game before the curtain fell, so we played In Vino Morte. Twice actually. Anja ousted Steve in the final round in game one, but in game two Lennon poisoned everyone but himself! I've never seen that before. Extra points for the face of an arch poisoner too. 

Steve now ran the family back to the house whilst Pete and I fretted about what he might like to play, going around the houses circa games night 2012 until we realised we all liked Root. So we set it up and happily his eyes lit up on seeing it. 

He was the industrious Marquis, Pete the expansionist Eyrie and I the sneaky Woodland Alliance. We all forgot some minor elements: Steve the hand limit and I a faction specific thing. Pete managed to forget he was charismatic, which Steve pointed out takes some special kind of charisma. But Steve's eyes, so bright before, were increasingly dark as I dicked everyone over with my sneaky ways. 

As is the way with Root, knowing someone is an asshole and stopping them are two different things. Probably my more recent experiences told - Steve hadn't played in years. 

Sam 30

Pete 16

Steve 12

Steve took revenge in The Quest for El Dorado, which we were surprised to learn he had never played before. No expansions then, just a lot of card shedding: early for me, later for the others. I felt I'd put myself into a good position and reached El Dorado first - but Steve's collection of cave tokens saw him sashay in behind me, and his collection of barriers trounced my one.

1 Steve - Indiana Jones

2 Sam - Small Round

3 Pete - Rene Belloq

After all the excitement of the day I was fading a bit but we squeezed in one last dice-chucker in Pickomino. 

I had just finished telling them about my brother-in-law taking a worm and then rolling seven ones when Steve did something remarkably similar. There's more to it than that but I'm not sure the anecdote will survive the transition to print. He won this too: my huge early lead collapsed into nothing and Pete couldn't get what he needed to deprive Steve of another victory. 

Steve 6

Pete 3

Sam 0

Sunday arrived, bright but not particularly early. Pete was still asleep in the front room when I went out for food supplies, but joined me shortly after my return. We had coffee and a chat and then thought what the hell, we'd play a game. This was Babylonia. 

It's not a game that tells much of a story but my two-player training versus Martin possibly helped here as I took a decent victory. 

Sam 125

Pete 85

We pottered a bit and ate lunch before gamers arrived: Jo was first, and we swiftly set up a trick-taking game called Power Vacuum, where we are trying to be top appliance. 

It was bananas: each trick the winner can take a point or reserve a card for the next round. More alluring is playing the lowest value card, where you can manipulate the energy supply to the appliance of your choice, or away from an appliance of your choice, or maybe both: each player has an area they score because it's themselves, but also bids you can make about which appliances will be most/least energetic. Despite the appliance theme, you also build statues of yourselves. I'm never going to look at the Nutribullet the same way again. 

We didn't manage a whole game but Pete was leading Jo 28-20 and I was back on 17 when Katy arrived, and we switched to another tricktaker Jo had brought with them: Daytime Minutes. 

Back in the world of sentient beings, we're now avid phone users in the early 2000s struggling to manage our minutes. I found this easier to parse than Power Vacuum but I'm not sure I can explain it coherently: each card has a time value and the winner takes all the cards of the led suit. Each round has a maximum time anyone can have and you want to not go bust, and also have not spent the least time: in either case, you lose one of your precious SIM cards. 

Also, there's potentially (in fact, always in our game) two suits in each trick, so with it two winners. Although you don't always want to win, obviously, because Minutes.

Adam H arrived in time for the finale, as Jo and Pete both went bust and Katy, who still had two SIMs, took a win. It's a great game, allowing room for lots of jokes about phone calls to your mum. Katy did one of these and then realised she had to call her mum later. 

Now a five, we introduced Jo to dnup, the spiritual sister of Scout. 

It was a funny game, with a lot of enforced busts and the odd reluctant rotation. I'd like to say my convincing win was because I know what I'm doing, but I think we all know better.

Sam 4

Adam 1

Everyone else 0

Katy demanded Misfits next. We mentioned to Jo that we didn't play the official rule of 'if half the pieces fall, you must take the entire tower' and inevitably bumped into two situations where it suddenly made sense.

By Misfits standards it was a bit of an epic: probably well over half an hour, and Katy ran out of time and had to leave, graciously taking the shitty base for herself before she did so. She wanted to claim a win - she had fewest blocks - but we wanted to keep playing.

As I write now I can't actually remember who won though, although my sources tell me it was definitely Pete (sorry Katy). Mel was now imminent and Adam suggested she would love Steam Power, so we set up and talked both she and Jo - and me, to some extent - through Wallace's Light Railways. (at this point Blogger's labelling runs out of space)

My recollection of the game is one of mild bamboozlement: I do find it - as I repeatedly told everyone (sorry) a very hard game to read, and forgetting a key connections rule meant I inadvertently cheated as well. Thankfully I wasn't in contention though. It looked very much like it might be Pete, who seemed to be scoring contracts almost every turn from about 20 minutes into the game. 

But one should never write off Adam in these scenarios, and when Pete triggered the end game the one turn the Creeping Custard still had in him was enough to hoist him to victory! At least that's what I thought. As it turned out I was simply innumerate (and used to Adam winning). 

Pete 39

Adam and Jo 33 each

Mel 26

Sam 22

Pete had one more game in him and after a surprisingly short debate we settled on The Shipwreck Arcana, something I last played probably nine years ago and had mixed up with Bemused I think. Fortunately it's Jo's favourite game and they knew it inside out, nursing us through the baffling confection of possibilities, often as much about choices you don't make as ones you do. 

We are collectively trying to get seven right answers, the question being a slightly Bilbosque what have I got in my pockets. Although we work together, the active player must keep schtum as everyone tries to figure out as much as they can about a numbered tile in their hand, by examining what tile they aren't hiding - and where it is. The discarded tile goes next to a clue, which hopefully leads everyone to identify what you're hiding.

That's a very loose description anyway. Guessing wrong - or having the card 'fade away' by having too many tiles beside it - causes Despair: reach seven despair and you instantly lose. 

This was fun: we won but not without help: we did a relatively easy setting and had some considerable luck when my first hand was the same as Adam's, so I just copied what he did. It's very clever. 

We now lost Pete and Mel and were down to the last game of the night - and the weekend. I mentioned Hanami and Adam and Jo were both amenable, so we started out on the game that should surely be called Picnics for Dicks, as we serially shenaniganed and caused even the usually-zen Jo to cry out in despair several times.

I thought if Adam had only won lamps, I might have an outside shout of beating him on the tie-breaker. But he didn't and I wouldn't have. A convincing victory for Mr H, vanquishing the ghost of Steam Power. 

Adam 2

Jo 1

Sam 0

And finally, after around twenty-three weekend hours of gaming, your insert-festival-name-of-choice-bala was over. What a lovely weekend, thank you everyone!

Gregory Peck's Bicycle

We had the tricky number of five gamers assembled last night: Joe, Ian, Katy and Martin joined myself at the spotty tablecloth. After pursuing the alcove of joy Martin and I brought in a small stack of games that suited a quintet, and - just as Joe arrived - we kicked off with Cross Clues. 

It was the usual blend of connection and confusion, and though we did pretty well - 22/25 on both attempts - there were still minor goofs, not least my clue of blue for heavy/dragon, neglecting to notice that blue went rather well, flag-wise, with red and white. With five of us, there were several moments where a grid location was proposed and someone would heavily demur, betraying the fact that that was the card in their hand. We speculated on solutions to this. Silence? A soft moan whilst touching your nose? Everything seemed to be like a flashing red light to highly-tuned Cross Cluers such as ourselves. 

Regardless, with that double warm-up under our belts, we moved on to the evening's main course. It's sat on my shelf for about two years since getting it in a trade, so from that perspective it was nice to break out Hoity Toity, which Martin felt he recalled well enough that we could tackle it. 

Designed by Klaus Teuber of Catan fame, this actually predates the wood-for-sheep innuendo generator by five years, and retrospectively we did decide that it showed its age a little. In Hoity Toity we are upper class twits trying to outdo each other by means of just Having Stuff, the more valuable the better. Ancient Chinese face masks, 1920's Belgium adverts for cheese, ornate ceramic smoking pipes - you name it. We get this stuff and then exhibit it for points, and points push us up the track around the outside of the board. But whilst that makes Hoity Toity a race, from a distance, close up it's a series of bids and bluffs and table-reads. 

Each round players first decide - secretly - whether they'll go to the Auction House to (in theory) try and get more valuables and grow their collection, or to the Castle to (in theory) Exhibit their collection, for points. The destination cards are all revealed first, and then everyone secretly chooses what they'll get up to at the locations in question. 

The auction house gets resolved first, with everyone who went their revealing their second card to show their intent. If they're bidding, then the highest bidder gets a valuable of their choice from the two available. If they played their thief, then they are - potentially - stealing the highest bidding card (the bidder still gets their valuable). Or if they played their Detective, they catch any Thieves, whether they stole anything or not. <<CORRECTION: detectives can only be sent to castles, see below>> So bidders increase their collection size, thieves get money, and detectives get points for throwing thieves in prison, from where they will return to the owner later. 

The castle happens next. If players played an Exhibit card, they exhibit their collection, which must have a sequence - a mix of sets and runs, so ABBCDD would be legitimate - and the biggest collection, with ties broken by oldest item, scores points and moves up the track. Second-biggest also scores. But here too, exhibited items can be stolen by Thieves and Thieves can be caught by Detectives. In both locations, Thieves with nothing to steal (or more than one thief!) or Detectives with no-one to catch all do nothing. 

What with some quirky scoring systems, it made for a funny but occasionally frustrating game, where playing the 'wrong' card is essentially a wasted turn, and you can very easily run out of money because successful bids in the auction that aren't stolen get removed from the game, shrinking the already haphazard economy. We all enjoyed it in parts, but felt too that it should have lasted half an hour rather than the hour+ it took. Despite my having no cash at all for the second part of the game, my strong collection was enough to get me the Poshest Twit status where, despite Martin's enormous last exhibit, I had enough to push myself past him for the second-largest confection of riches. 

1 Sam 

2 Martin

3 Ian

4 Joe

5 Katy

A special mention must go to Johnny Weissmuller's loincloth, which seemed a somewhat incongruous addition to Joe's exhibit. But Ian was impressed enough to steal it, and Joe stole it back. Posh people, eh. 

I was pushing for my new trick-taker, Torchlit, but despite having the Trick-takeriest player in the room, I couldn't get a bite. Instead we broke out Magical Athlete, and were stunned to find Katy hadn't played it before, even Joe's old version. The second race was the most interesting/annoying, as Martin pairing Scoocher (-activates whenever a special power activates) with Katy's Gunk (-all other players movement -1) on the wacky side of the board meaning most of the race was taken up with Martin's chortling as he shoved his stupid dog along yet another space. I announced that the Scoocher/Gunk combo should be outlawed. 

The finale however saw him caught and overtaken. Joe's Banana wanted to trip people up when they passed him, but he was too far behind to ever threaten as much. Katy's Slowcoach was at the back pretty much every time her turn arrived, and hauled her in enough points to overtake Martin and take the laurels overall. I had the satisfaction of winning the last race, at least, whilst Ian was left lagging, let down by Sisyphus' die-rolling. 

Katy 14

Martin 10

Joe 9

Sam 7

Ian 4

It was only tennish, so we decided to revisit The Mind, stopping only briefly for a round of crumpets courtesy of Stan.  I forgot to take photos of this occasion, though I did get one of The Mind. This may have been our first game, where we crashed and burned at level 4. 

So we reset and went again, and with doughy snacks to fuel us, did far better. As The Mind only officially plays 4, Martin announced that with five of us we needed to complete Level 7 to win, and because he told us this once we'd completed Level 7, we'd won! But of course, where there's a mind there's a Dark Mind, and that was our next challenge. We failed one level one. It was Clover time!

There was no record of legends last night, with a 6-6-4-4-3 on both attempts. We missed Pyramid/Wizard on Ian's clover (he clued Ra) in game one, and I was gnashing my teeth as nobody put Alliance with Countryside on my clover in game two. But there were some nice clues, as always, with Joe's low sperm count (-my italics) clueing us in to Lazy/Nut and Spa giving us vacation/hole. 

Having missed last Tuesday, and now slightly whisky-infused, I could have gone again, but it was now past 11 and bedtimes were calling. Thanks all, glad we gave Hoity Toity a run-out, it's not perfect by any means but I've played far worse. And probably will again. 

Fishing and Farming

 As I prepared to go to Sam's this evening, I pulled on my waterproof trousers to guard against the driving rain falling outside. But once I'd reached my front door and stepped outside, the rain had finished. I decided against going back inside and changing, and instead spent the entire evening playing games while securely protected from the elements. 

With Sam, me and my waterproof trousers were Martin, Joe, Andy B, Adam H and Pete.

We started with a group game of Wriggle Roulette,  which we'd played last week,  except this time with a difference. Previously, pulling eels from the bag was a thoughtful deliberate process in which each player counted out the number of eels/snakes they wanted. But this time, thee was a careful rereading of the rules and it's descriptors of “grab” and “plunge” when talking about pulling things from the bag. And so we adopted a more carefree and random approach. 

This meant that several of us went bust after pulling out 5 items at once, and it wasn’t unusual to end up with nothing at all. This happened consecutively to Sam, Pete and Andy in one round. 

Another new problem was what to do about the eels poking out between fingers when you pulled your hand from the bag. But despite this, the new rules turned it into a different game. Less of a thoughtful push -your-luck and into something more devil-may-care. Martin, who got no points at all the last time we played, seemed to prefer this new version.

Martin 21

SAm 20

Andrew 11

Andy 11

Pete 8

Adam 8

Then we split into two groups. Sam, Adam and Martin played Farm Hand. I know little about this apart from the mysterious chanting of “E - I - E - I O” and then Sam's dismay as he apparently showed the wrong number of fingers when making his bid.

Martin 17

Sam 6

Adam -7

Pete, Andy and I played Shallow Regrets, a fishing card game which, at 20 minutes long, certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome. There’s a tableau of six piles of cards, you can turn over two and hope that you can catch at least one using the strength of the fish cards you’ve caught in the past. It was okay. I don’t think I really explored the interactive nature of the game until the very end, when I swapped one of my fish with Andy’s and came joint first. 

Initially, I wasn’t interested in a tie-breaker but then I found out that I’d actually won by that criteria so I’m happy to let the records show

Andrew 10 (plus fewest foul fish)

Andy 10

Pete 9

With Andy’s eye on the clock, we played Magical Athlete. This was chosen because, if Andy was clever with his pick of athletes, he could leave and let his game play on without him. I started appallingly, with my athlete almost immediately eaten my Martin’s mouth. In round four, Andy left us with his athlete, Sysiphus, being one that needed no choices - just don’t roll a  six. I can’t remember how well the absent Andy did since I was too excited by my second place - my only points of the game - and by Pete’s win, which was enough to secure a comfortable overall win.

Pete 13

Andy 9

Martin 5

Andrew 3

Adam 2

Sam 0

Without Andy, and now with my eye on the clock, we played a five-player game of River Dragon. We rechecked the Dragon Card rule and discovered that it doesn’t follow turn order and thus can stop a player that turn regardless of whether they were before you or not. 

Martin got himself into a winning position as so, of course, we were all expecting a flurry of dragon cards to stop him. Amazingly, no one played a green dragon in the first turn of the round and Martin, thinking we would, played a non-commital card that would be fine if it was blocked. But then in the next turn, three of us played a green dragon. The only one who didn’t was Adam who smartly used his move to guide his piece home for the win! 

With that, I was on my way, leaving the blog duties in Sam’s hands.

* 

After Andrew left we debated what to play next, and ended up on Zenith, Martin's new birthday lane-battler about controlling the galactic senate. It's a two-player or two teams, so he and Pete paired off against myself and Adam. 

Ostensibly it's a lane-battler where you play cards to the lanes of the planets to sway them - politically - towards your side of things. If the planet comes so far that it falls off the board, you've won it - three planets of the same kind, four of four colours of five of whatever colour is enough to win the game. 

However there's shenanigans galore with a diplomacy action available (get the Leader token, plus a bonus) and tech tracks to move up for powerful actions on the planet board. There are three currencies of a sort - credits, zenithium and planet movement - plus a semi-fourth in the cards themselves which can be passed between team-mates using diplomacy. As you can only play cards to your own quarter of the board - something I inevitably forgot last night - this can be key. 

There's a lot of iconography and it took us a good hour - but including teach I think - to wrap up. Adam and I obliterated the opposition with a 5-1 win, although my inadvertent cheating (above) took the gloss off somewhat. But this was fun. 

We then lost Adam to the night but finished off with So Clover, picking up a crappy red herring on Pete's clover to prevent ourselves hauling in an 18. I was blessed with some pretty easy combos, but there were some nice clues elsewhere. 

And that was that.