Tout toot

I arrived at 8.05, after several aborted attempts at parallel parking in a hurry and eventually leaving my car with its rear wheels on double yellow lines, keen to get to Sam's for this week's games night.

I walked in to witness the curious situation of seven gamers around a table making toot toot noises. On closer inspection I saw they were passing little trains to each other, carrying little coloured cubes. The game was called Rail Pass and I had no idea what was going on so I just poured myself a drink and waited for them to finish. Luckily, it didn't take long. It seems that there's a timer involved and a strict five minute limit to do whatever it was that they were trying to do.

And they did! They all looked pleased with themselves and a little bit tired as well. All that tooting, I suppose.

Martin, Joe, Ian, Katy & Laura (a team) Sam and Gareth: smashed it.

Next we split into two groups. Brian Boru continues to fascinate, despite the twenty minute rules explanation. Martin felt he could probably get that down to fifteen, while Laura expressed surprise that her experience of the rules explanation hadn't actually lasted forty-five minutes. Joe, Gareth, Katy and Martin chose this game.

At my end of the table was The Game of 49, as requested by Laura. It was my first game but there are very few rules so we were up and running before too long. It's very simple. Probably invented by someone who had been playing noughts and crosses one day and suddenly wished there was more gambling involved.

It was fun in a cruel kind of way. Ian played strategically, passing whenever it looked like some kind of bidding war was about to break out. Therefore he was always cash rich and as the three of us ran out of money, he was able to buy three tiles for the minimum bid, unopposed. When a winning tile was revealed neither Sam, Laura nor me had enough money to outbid him.

Ian: wins

Brian Boru was still underway with Joe married twice and Katy giving all the high cards to Gareth, much to Martin's dismay. So we considered what we could play and it was while I was looking for Texas Showdown that I noticed Wibbell, the tiny word game compendium. I remember enjoying a game called Phrasell so I suggested this instead. In this game one player is a judge and they draw one card from the deck. Then they come up with a topic based on the two letters on that card. Then two more cards are drawn and everyone else has to invent a four word sentence using those four letters based on that theme.

Everyone had a moment of genius. Laura was poetic on “Iberian”: Easterly winds yowl in. I went crude on “Sad”: A wasted inky condom. I liked Sam’s neat encapsulation of “Nick Frost”: Portly oddball eats cornettos. Biggest laugh perhaps went for Ian’s topical response to “Kings and Queens”: His Majesty’s a nonce. In the end, I was a surprise (to me, at least) winner.

Andrew 16

Laura 12

Ian 11

Sam 10

And Brian Boru was winding up too.

Martin 40

Joe 38

Gareth 35

Katy 24

Martin was pleased to remain unbeaten, while Katy decided she didn’t like it anymore.

Laura and Gareth left at this point and so the six of us played Full Throttle. This simple game on betting on a race you can only marginally influence is fun in its own way. In this race, orange barely moved for the first two-thirds, then leapt into action only to be stymied by a road block up ahead when all they could draw were orange one cards. 

Black looked like a contender after almost completing a lap in on turn, but it was mostly green blue or yellow who were battling for first and blue won. And so did Martin.

Martin 21

Andrew 18

Ian 16

Katy 16

Joe 12

Sam 11

Sam pointed out that, after winning his first game of Full Throttle by miles, he’s come last every time since then. I get the feeling we’re going to keep playing until that jinx is broken. Fine by me, though. It might be random, but it’s fun random.

And then I left, while the rest saw out the evening with a couple of games of Cross Clues. Thanks all. See you next week.

Bishop!

An unusual Wednesday night games occurrence occurred as Andrew, Ian and I all found ourselves free, and chomping at the bit for some more Christmas gaming - Andrew and I especially, having been unable to attend the official GNN last night.

So it was we converged at my table with the pre-agreed Rajas of the Ganges set up. Initially, it must be said it looks like someone ate a Hawaiian pizza and threw up on some Christmas lights, but as previously touched on, the game at heart is quite simple - it's a race to push your cash income one way and your glory another, until the twain meet.

Everything else is about maximising that engine: keeping the dice rolling in, so you can roll 'em back out again, getting money for markets, glory for buildings, and lots of other glorious shit inbetween. Ian rinsed us, having chained together a bunch of spice markets and scored a whole load of buildings. Despite my late-game surge of ten - ten! - points along the glory track, when Ian ended it neither Andrew nor I had managed to get our markers in kissing distance.

That most Euro-y of Euros packed away, we played another new game: The Godfather: A New Don, which we couldn't work out was meant to be a pun on a new dawn or not, but for some reason Andrew insisted we all use Australian accents.

It's a little like Las Vegas and a little like something more directly interactive. Players are one of the families in the 1950's hoping to become the dominant force in New York. You place soldiers in the various New York districts to score points at the end of the game for controlling/nearly controlling/nearly nearly controlling a district, but in order to get a soldier in there you need to spend dice. So dice are handy, but in each round one player is the current Godfather, and they take dice (or offers) off the other players. If you want to be Godfather yourself, you need to work your way up the muscle track, which takes... dice. There are also dice to be won at Las Vegas if you feel lucky.

It all made for a feisty, spicy affair, as being ahead on the muscle track also allows you to eject other players from districts you fancy having yourself. The game end is triggered when either a district is full or a player runs out of soldiers, then it's all about majorities.

As it turned out, Ian was the new don, as his points scored for soldiers left-in-hand pushed him ahead of me on the score track - a crushing twist, as I'd deliberately spent soldiers in order to trigger the end of the game!

We moved on to Phrasell, one of the games from the Wibbell++ deck which I have long wanted to play, and Andrew rated as one of his games of the year.

It's all about coming with an appropriate phrase for a randomly-chosen subject, which officially plays 5 players or more but we thought we'd have a crack at anyway. And it was funny, not least in part due to the difficulty of coming up with a phrase that made any kind of sense. Andrew's Someone Call Nurse Fatima had no relevance to the subject, but he won the round anyway. It's that kind of game.

Overall though, it was yet another win for Ian, who was on a roll. Maybe because Andrew and I were clearly drunk at this point; I'm not sure. I can't remember if Ian was.

Sticking with the Wibbell++ deck, we bashed out the game Andrew and I created with Scrabble tiles some 25 years ago - Hypothetickell. In this game you add a letter to an ever-extending chain of letters, but you must (unless you're bluffing) have a word in mind that has the current letters in it, in the current order (though there can be any number of letters before/after/between them). I don't know who won but we played a couple of rounds before Andrew remarked that if we add it to Games Night Guru we'll have to say there is a shitload of AP. Good fun though.

My word was locksmithing. Andrew added the S as a bluff

And we rounded off the evening with Love Letter - a GNN mainstay and classic. Countless times we've played it and countless times Ian has won. But not tonight. Tonight was Andrew's turn; a win richly deserved if only for the fact he was drunk enough to ask me if I had a Bishop, and I was drunk enough to reply "No". While Ian merely blinked, before we collectively recalled there are no Bishops in Love Letter.

Andrew 3
Sam 2
Ian 1

Thanks guys, a great bunch of games and a lot of fun!

Phrasell jolly good fellow

I arrived ten minutes late this week (missing a game of Happy Salmon, won by Katy) , knocking on Joe's door just as they'd decided to play Fuji Flush. Clearly this game has mystical powers to make tardy gamers suddenly arrive, simply by thinking about playing it.

But once I'd sat down, the Flush was passed over in favour of something a little more involved. We chose Condottiere, since Joe had just come back from Italy. Martin had brought his Maxi-sized (but with fewer rules than Sam’s pocket version) copy of the game. It was new to Ben and Katy, but Martin explained the rules to them and we were off.

We started by fighting over the regions in the corners and Katy showed little interest, passing early or not playing at all. But then a more central region was chosen, and Katy leapt into action. After she won that, she then won the battle for a neighbouring region so she had two adjacent areas, with the choice of next region and only she and Martin had cards left: her two against his one. Could she win the game in the first round?

She couldn't, but it was mighty close as they drew 5-5. We sighed with relief (at least I did) and prepared for round two.

Martin annoyed Katy by playing his third Bishop of the game, but Joe provided the real drama when he had to chose a region (or risk being cut off completely) that would give either Katy or Ben the win. Katy passed early, hoping that Ian or Joe would beat Ben. When the battle was poised at Ian 22, Ben 27, Joe 28, a key was played (can't remember who by) and Joe saved both Katy's and his own campaign.

Joe's great escape

In round three, I found my southern stronghold in a good place to win the game, but Joe played a Bishop and rendered my efforts useless. But that meant Katy got the choice of region, and chose one that would give her the win. It was Ian versus Ben versus Katy, when Ben played a key to win, even if the region was no use to him.

Finally, the war was decided in the North, which was useless for me centred around Rome, despite my sentimental conquering of Torino in the North west. Martin won it, and took the game!

Martin 3 in a row plus another one
Katy 2 in a row plus another one
Andrew 2 in a row
Joe 2 in a row
Ben 3 separate regions
Ian no regions at all

Next up we decided to play Team Play. And we brought out the crisps! Ben's choice of wasabi and ginger crisps was especially appreciated.

Ian & I started slowly, while Ben & Martin and Katy & Joe sped off to a quick 4-4-2 lead. I say "Ben & Martin" but in truth it was all Ben picking off cards while Martin got stuck unable to clear the one sat in front of him.

Ian & I pick up steam, and Ian clears a 6 point ABCDE card. And also, while Joe was revealing a new central card we could all compete for, he revealed a "Blue + Blue = 7" and I involuntarily went "Ooooh" so of course he discarded it immediately.

In the later stages, Ian & I actually reached seven cards completed before the others. But then Martin finally completed his first card of the game and then got lucky drawing from the deck and finishes another to trigger the end of the game. That left us with once more around the table to try and finish any last cards. Then we counted up the final scores, which we did by revealing one card at a time simultaneously and adding as we went. Not at exciting as we thought it might be, since Ian & I sped into an early lead and stayed there.

Ian & Andrew 28
Martin & Ben 26
Katy & Joe 25

Hopefully this was a modicum of revenge for Ian after his drubbing at Condottiere.

At this point Ben said he had to go, but we all insisted he could stay for a quick game of Perudo. Maybe his heart wasn't in it since he was first to pallathiko (still don't know the correct spelling) and he bet 5 6's. But there were only two.

So, with Ben dashing for the bus, the rest of us played on. Ian is next to pallathiko and his bet of 3 1's fails. Then Joe fails with a bet of 4 6's. Katy survived her pallathiko , but went out soon after. This left me versus Martin and his greater number of dice proves pivotal.

1. Martin
2. Andrew
3. Katy
4. Joe
5. Ian
6. Ben

Despite the late hour, we decided to try “just one round” of Phrasell, one of the many games that comes in the Wibbell pack. In this game, one player turns over a card which has two letters. Those two letters should inspire a topic (ie, R and D could be Road or Research and Development or Red etc) and then two more cards are revealed. Then the other players have to use the four letters to come up with a four-word sentence about the topic. The best sentence gets all three cards to keep as points (the cards can be split as two-points for the best and one point for a noble second).

It was so much fun, that we forgot the “just one round” and played right through the deck. There were some great sentences. For the topic of Time and the letters ODOU, Ian came up with One Unit Of Dimension. SG became seagulls and the letters were EZLN. Think the Z put us off? No! Well, it did a bit. But two suggestions were Zealous Eagles Like Nibbles and No Litter Eating Zones.

TL was Tower of London and I’d love to know how Ian’s Where Beefeaters Enter Nightmares beat my William Erected Norman Battlements, but I’m not bitter or anything.

Ian 14
Joe 12
Andrew 8
Martin 7
Katy 7

Such fun. And then we set off into the night. Because by now it was most definitely night. Well past eleven, and time for bed.

Thanks all!