Once, twice, three times a Knizia

I arrived at 8 in time to watch the final stages of Cross Clues.  The six gamers already there were Joe (hosting), Katy, Sam, Martin, Ian and debutante Gareth, brought into the fold by Martin. Expectation of an impending Adam T was dashed when he texted that he couldn't find a parking space and had returned home.

As for Cross Clues, I think I heard someone say that it was the highest they'd scored, and in the post game discussion there seemed to be a lot of mistaken clues related to "bus". A deceptively tricky world.

Then we split into two groups, both choosing Reiner Knizia games. Martin, Gareth, Sam and I chose Babylonia while Ian, Katy and Joe played Ra, with its lovely big tiles and shiny bag. In keeping with the Egyptian theme, Katy asked for The Bangles to be played. "What about The Go-Go's?" suggested Joe, "they're a little more sophisticated." But Katy wouldn't be swayed. We had to sit through Eternal Flame and Manic Monday before we got to Walk Like An Egyptian, with Katy insisting that this was the best music they'd ever had at a games night.

As for the game, Ian monopolised the pharaohs and Joe went big on buildings in the last round. Katy was clearly too distracted by the music.

Ian pushes his luck at the end of the second epoch

Ian 55

Joe 54

Katy 37

In Babylonia, it was almost as close. Gareth got a rules explanation (and I got a much needed rules refresher) before we set off and for most of the game, it was very tight, with the lead changing places constantly. But Gareth faded in the end game, while Martin left it very late. He was in last (77 points) and I was in first (100) when he put down a five-farmer move sped into first place (114 points). We only had one turn each to respond after that and I did just enough to stay ahead of Sam’s 24-point final move.

Martin 141

Andrew 135

Sam 133

Gareth 114

Next we re-assembled ourselves into two new groups. Joe, Gareth and Martin played Whale Riders, another game from the prolific Knizia. I know nothing about this game but it must have left some kind of impression on me since that night I dreamt that I met Joe in my friend’s flat. I asked what he was doing there so early and he said “I want to grab a shark, you know. Be a big hitter.” And then he mimed swinging a baseball bat while making the noise of hitting a ball.

Gareth 26

Martin 25

Joe 24

Meanwhile the rest of us played Kabuto Sumo. Sam and Katy took on Ian and me, and they made best use of super powers and items to take an easy but very silly 2-0, mostly due to having a massive poo to push around in the second round.

Next up was a quick game of Spicy, which is like Cheat (in that you have to spot when someone has put down a card different to what they said it was) but with more leeway (the challenger has to say if the number or suit is wrong, and if not then they get two cards). It was fun. And Ian was there. Honest.

Sam 30

Katy 24

Andrew 19

Ian 0

Joe's Spicy statue

Then I had to dash (after only two hours, shocking) but Sam told me about great success in So Clover (33 points!)

And then a victory at Master Word.

Well done chaps. Thanks for the evening. Will see you all soon.

Silly starts today

 I arrived at Sam's at 7.50, excited for a return to normality, eager to have a break from online gaming (although I felt a little sad that there wasn't a concurrent online GNN happening that we could watch). You can imagine my slight disappointment, then, when I found Sam, Joe and Katy deep in a board game based on Tetris! 

Oh well, at least it wasn't actual Tetris. I watched in faint puzzlement until they added up some numbers and Sam had won.

Sam 24

Joe 21

Katy 19

But what to play next? The possibilities seemed endless, and it was during this debate that Sam uttered the words that are this blog's title. It all seemed very fresh and new.

In the end we chose Cubitos, a dice rolling, push-your-luck, deck-building race game. You start with a set of pretty tedious dice that allow you to move forward or buy better dice, if they allow you to do anything at all. You can roll as often as you want with the risk of going bust if you roll all blanks. 

The powered-up dice had nicely silly names which allowed Sam to say things like "that's one step from Smelly Cat and Mr Dog goes back for two cash," without anyone thinking it strange. Joe hoarded money until he could afford a Rollersaurus. I stayed firmly in last throughout but the battle for first was very close. 

Sam's Reckless Cheese got him into a winning position, but Katy crossed the line first. Sam also finished on the same turn and the tie breaker couldn't separate them so we had to play another round. Katy edged ahead and it was down to Sam's final roll to see if he could outpace her. Luckily his Smelly Cat saved the day, allowing him to move twice and take the win.

1st Sam
2nd Katy
3rd Joe
4th Andrew

Next up, we played Master Word, a kind of 20 Questions crossed with Mastermind. One of us looks at a word, and the rest of have to write yes/no questions to guess it, knowing only the category. But the word-knower can't answer each individually, only say how many yeses there are in a particular round of questions.

In round one, category: Animals, we became fixated on the idea that the answer was Peacock. Colourful, feathered, not flying. In the last round Sam wrote Peacock on his card and I almost wrote "seriously, though, is it a peacock?" on mine, so convinced was I. But at the last minute I decided to be sensible and wrote Cockerel since that fitted the description too and you never know… Turns out I was right! I also did well in round two, when the category was weapons and I was the first to mention crossbows. 

But the real highlight was after we'd finished and were putting it away when Joe remembered there is a ranking system. "If you get it in seven rounds, that's Master Fox and if you get it in four then you have very soft palms." I dutifully wrote this down, thinking how nice it was to have a game that recognised the arbitrary nature of rankings by filling it with non sequiturs, when Joe clarified that the last bit wasn't the ranking but a comment about Katy's hands after she'd passed him some game tokens to put in the box. How we laughed at the misunderstanding. The genuine (and, by now, very ordinary) ranking was "bloodhound." But I prefer ours

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Joe, Katy, Sam and Andrew: very soft palms

Then we played Telestration Upside Drawn. This is a guessing game played in pairs. One person holds a pen vertically, nib down, perfectly still, above the table and the other has to move the pad beneath it and draw something that allows the first person to guess a word. It was fun for a brief burst of silliness,  although it became a bit gruelling when the clue was "sinkhole." Katy tried to draw buttons because they have holes in them, but all I saw were tortured faces of the dammed.

We still won, though.

Katy and Andrew 6
Joe and Sam 4

I was ready to leave at this point but then discovered Joe had driven and was offering lifts. So I stayed for one more and it was my choice, too. I wanted to play Push It, since it's the kind of physical game that you can't play online. But Sam found that he'd lent his copy to someone so we played Karambolage instead. Sam sped into an early 3-1-0-0 lead but didn't score again for ages, allowing Katy to storm gradually into a 5-3-3-0 lead. I was last to score anything, my aim being wayward throughout. 

Joe showed his usual form of having the Yips. At one point, when trying to push the puck with the string he somehow missed such that the string went over the puck, caught it on the opposite side and then he pulled the string taught again, pushing the puck backwards towards him. 

And so that was us finished for the evening. No one froze or had to restart their phone. Three of us set off into the rain, happy with our life choices. At least for today.