Giving up the ghost

I write these blog posts on my phone and I like it when the predictive text on my phone suggests words for this report. I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of another reality: in this case, a reality where Simon and Mary joined us for games night this week.

Tonight we were at Joe's and we were six in number: Joe, Martin, Ian, Sam, Adam and me. Sam was running a little late, and Martin made a pitch for Tigris and Euphrates The Card Game but the mood around the table wasn't amenable. Joe brought in a stack of options, with Welcome To Centerville hiding at the bottom. It caught Adam's eye and Martin's description of it as Yahtzee crossed with Sim City didn't put him off so we had to clarify that it had most of the Sim City bits taken out.

When Sam arrived, we still hadn't made a decision. He remarked on Centreville's presence on the table in a tone of voice that suggested he wouldn't be choosing it. Instead we went for a completely different style of game. Mysterium.

In this game of clue giving and deduction, Martin was the ghost. He couldn’t talk to us directly, but his mutterings about how shit his hand was told us that death hadn't changed him.

It's a hard game to describe but, as I recall, Martin The Ghost liked giving clues based on dominant colour, Sam was usually one step behind us in solving his clues and in the final round when we had to choose one scenario out of five, we got it completely wrong, despite spreading our choices across three of them. In fact we hadn't even discussed the correct option at all, much to Martin's annoyance. And, once he'd explained it, his clues did make perfect sense.

In the post-game wind down he also told us that we'd usually start off on the right track with our clues until Adam suggested something wrong.

Martin made another attempt at persuading some of us to play Tigris and Euphrates The Card Game, but with little success. Next up was another six player game: Team Play. Despite their lack of bonding over Mysterium, Adam and Martin paired up. The other teams were Joe & Sam and Ian & me.

It was a close game, and Sam played the eighth trick to trigger the final round. We were all very impressed when, after Joe had handed Sam two cards, Sam was able to complete his last trick (two pairs) with the last play of the game.

Sam & Joe 26
Ian & Andrew 23
Adam & Martin 22

It was still only 9.30 and we wondered what to do next. Sam asked if it was time for another discussion about Tigris and Euphrates The Card Game. Martin, Adam and I went for Azul. Joe went to get some roll and write games and discovered his dog had done plops on the floor again. Oh, Sybil.

They chose Kribbeln for their entertainment, and brought out the Das Exclusive dice arena to host it.

We played out a slow, thinky game of Azul. When tiles were pulled from the bag, there were almost no triples of the same colour on a tile for the whole game. Instead, we had to slowly put together our rows of four and five from the doubles and singles that were available. When Adam went to the toilet, I took the chance to watch some Kribbeln but I noticed Martin, deep in thought, scanning Azul and trying to find the optimum move. And it worked too, as he edged ahead in a close game.

Martin 63
Andrew 57
Adam 54

Kribbeln ended with Joe throwing caution to the wind, trying to catch the runaway leader Sam.

Sam 20
Joe 15
Ian 10

And they also squeezed in a game of Kriss Kross. This roll and write game has an air of Take It Easy about it, as point scoring opportunities are ruined by bad luck. Sam looked to have won it until he remembered a rule and demanded a recount. Such sportsmanship.

Joe 38
Sam 32
Ian 32

Now we were a sextet again, and there was some discussion about the next game. Vegas had been perched on top of a stack of games for the whole evening and I was keen, but instead we chose For Sale. Such a great game and it always throws up a surprise or two. As shuffled decks of cards so often do.

In this game, we had a round of all low cards, a round of all middling cards and a round of all high except one low card. Oh, and Joe picked up the 1 card. No surprises there. Sam’s win was all the more impressive since he picked up a $0 cheque in the second round. All his others were well into double figures.

Sam 51
Adam 50
Martin 45
Joe 38
Ian 36
Andrew 35

After this, Sam and Ian set off home and the remaining four of us pondered how to end the evening. Someone suggested Tichu and since we all knew the rules, we all agreed. The thought of starting a game Tichu at 10.30 was almost too exciting and GNN hasn't seen such decadence since that time we started Lords Of Vegas after nine o'clock.

It was, of course, a shortened game of just four hands. Martin and Adam overturned their previous poor form and ran into a 500 - 0 lead by the end of round two. Thankfully, Joe flexed his Tichu muscles and put us back into more respectable territory. He called Grand Tichu in round four because "why not?" and he made it too. Martin's failed bid of Tichu in that same round dragged them back towards us making the score look even better.

Martin and Adam 510
Joe and Andrew 390

And finally we were done. What an evening, and what a finale. Thanks all.

Happy Talk

For the third week on a row, Joe hosted Games Night. There were six in attendance, which made me worry we might end up playing Quartermaster General again. But we didn't. We began with Kobayakawa, the simple betting game. I played a cunning game. At least I thought it was. Everyone else seemed to find it funny. I wouldn't look at a new card, because I didn't want to give other players information as to what cards had been discarded. As it was, it didn't work at all, as I lost every bet until the last round when I won! The winnings from that were enough to send me from last into first!

Andrew 9
Ian 5
Martin 5
Joe 5
Matt 4
Katy 4

So what next? Interestingly, I don't remember much talk about us splitting into two groups of three. Instead we (Joe, Martin, Matt, Ian, Katy and myself) decided that six players without Sam meant only one thing: I'm The Boss.

This game of luck-based negotiation is a rare sight at GNN due to Sam's lack of love for the game. It was new to Katy, Matt and Ian so they were easily swayed by us three experienced hands.

I hadn't played in a while, and I'd forgotten how emotionally exhausting it was. After successfully closing a deal, I couldn't bring myself to join in with the next, not because I had fewer cards, but because I needed a rest. In fact, at the end of the game Ian remarked that if that's what businessmen do all day, then fair play to them, they deserve their inflated wages and stupid bonuses.

Martin went through the whole game insisting he always comes last in I'm The Boss. He was right again! Katy won it by closing out a deal that got her $21m. This was enough to send her from last place into first! Another last minute dash for victory that paid off! (the scores below are in millions of dollars)

Katy 34
Ian 30
Matt 26
Joe 23
Andrew 22
Martin 19

After this, we all wanted something relaxing. Igloo Pop was suggested but even that was considered to fraught for our nerves. Joe suggested Mysterium, the co-op game of crime solving. Described by Joe as a cross between Dixit and Cluedo, it involved a ghost (Joe) giving out clues in the form of seven Dixit-esque cards. From these, we had to identify five suspects out of an initial eight, and five potential location and murder weapons. Once we'd done that, we then had to deduce the actual killer from three more cards. And we only had seven rounds in which to do it.

Some of the clues were hard to get. Joe kept giving Katy cards that had little in common, except for having a woman in them. But none of the locations had women in them. We got it eventually, and after the game ended and Joe could speak again, he pointed out a tiny painting in one room that had a woman in it.

Anyway, despite all that, we managed it. Victory for us all! It was the teacher in the cellar with a clock. A heinous crime. You have to really hate someone to kill them with a clock!

We followed this up with some more non-leaderboard shenanigans: Spyfall! Martin was initially skeptical, but we convinced him. Or rather we set up the game in front of him while we assured him of the lack of shouty arguing that he was expecting.

Instead it was all about cleverly worded questions, trying to disguise the nature of the location enough to confuse the spy. We played four rounds. Ian and I both won as spies, Joe was outed as a spy, and Ian failed to identify our secret location (a circus tent). Martin did enjoy it. We knew his conversion was complete when he began the game grumbling that he was bound to be the spy because he always is, and he ended the game saying that he’d wished he’d been a spy.

We ended the evening with Martin remarking on what a conversational bunch of games we'd played. A very convivial evening. On the division, I think Katy has this all wrapped up with one week until the end of the season.