Alibi checks out

Another warm evening began with one of those things GNN doesn't have a tag for - conversation. But this didn't last long and soon we were trying to impress Meister Makatsu with our ninja moves, a theme so far-fetched for this game of card-shedding that Martin's inward sigh could be heard as he began explaining it to us. 

We were six: as well as Martin and myself (Sam) Pete, Ian, Adam and Joe clustered around the table. Meister Makatsu is a demanding meister: our goal is to try to not win tricks - of a sort - as each round we play two cards of four, from three potential suits, with the highest in each suit claiming a point - points are bad - unless it's the orange suit, in which case it's two points. Unless it's round two in which case tricks win 2 points (orange 4) or round three in which case 3 (6). Getting rid of high cards early is ideal and there's definitely some luck. You don't want all your high cards at the bottom of your deck. 

But there are also two cards you'll never play, so the last hand gives you something of a get-out clause. I hoovered up more early tricks than felt ideal, but things worked out for me in the final round, when I got nothing at all. It was a game notable for how much it made Martin swear at us. 

Sam 7

Joe 9

Pete 10

Ian 13

Martin 16

Adam 19

Next up was Qork. This an extremely silly real-time reactions game where one player - the Cupper - rolls and reveals two big chunky dice. All the other players have corks on strings on a Qork mat and if the dice are doubles or add up to seven, must whip the corks away before the cupper slams the big rubber cup down on them. If you're caught, you get a point and as with Meister Makatsu, points are bad. If you yank your cork unnecessarily, that's a point. If you're the cupper and you don't catch anyone, that's a point for you. 

It's very stupid. Most of us at some point yanked our corks in a panic and Adam gamely gamed the system by lifting the cup off the dice to hold it immediately over the corks. Perhaps that helped him. Pete's reactions seemed like they could use some work, but on the other hand I'm not sure when this skill has real-world applications. He triggered the endgame by hitting ten unwanted points.

Adam 3
Martin 4
Everyone else: miles behind.

We did a third game with six of us: 2 Win. I think this has been explained elsewhere but it was a first time playing with so many players, and it seemed to go down pretty well. Martin chose to start fairly high and kept b[icking up cards for being the highest until Adam stormed past him into the early nineties. 

Despite his proximity to a century, Adam survived a couple more rounds whilst first Pete Joe and Ian and then myself fell by the wayside. But Martin clung on for the win. 

We split into threes now, with Martin and Joe introducing Pete to an old and fairly brutal Knizia tile-layer called Genesis and myself Ian and Adam opting for Rebuilding Chicago. 

Genesis is pretty simple. Players 'collaborate' on creating terrain types, but fight over majorities with only first and second place scoring. Each area must be at least three tiles, but there's also bonuses to be had for the largest of each terrain type (x2), and the largest of overall x3. There's also obstructions on the board to factor in, meaning you want to avoid the geographic cul-de-sacs that inevitably emerge. 

Final board (face-down tiles are just denoting scoring)

Pete took a debut victory here as Martin fell victim to Explainer's Curse. 

Pete 45

Joe 39

Martin 36

In Rebuilding Chicago we don't have that shared space, but the timing and claiming of events was the most critical in this play that I've yet encountered. 

Ian and I could probably have done more to hamper Adam though: not exactly a whitewash but a solid win thanks to his late-game placing of Landmarks. Thank God Ian ended things before he could build a third. 

Adam 154

Sam 143

Ian 129

In the short time Chicago overran Genesis, they'd played Chocolates, also known as Martin's Revenge.

Martin 25

Pete 17

Joe 11

I missed every chocolate-based photo opportunity as I was so focused on polyominoing in Illinois, but I did manage to snap Martin packing it away, apparently in a fine late-evening mist. 

It was late enough that Adam felt he could clover before bedtime, so that's what we did. Some really good stuff here and oh-so-close to a Record of Legends score of 36/36. We fell just short on Pete's clover which had a slightly unfortunate red herring of rifle, which we thought went with repartee. We should have listened to Adam, who correctly thought it was comedy/tennis. A solid clue, but 34/36 ain't half bad, and a memorable play as well for Martin's workplace tale of an abandoned Zoom call after someone shared their screen in a highly unsuitable manner. Not him, I should make clear.  

 

So we then lost Adam to the night but felt it was early enough that we could play on, and stayed in cloveresque territory with newbie Alibis. 

Like So Clover, it's a word-association co-op, with a theme that floats away in the breeze, although the deduction element is intact: we're collectively trying to work out who the 'criminal' is and we all dealt two of the line-up ourselves. First off we must convey which two we have by looking at the random words on them and attempting to link them in a clue: just like one side of a clover, basically. Then we announce our clues one at a time and everyone ticks off which pair we think that player has on our own little elimination boards.

After that we all announce who we are and hope that at least one other player deduced correctly: if so we can reduce the 'heat' on us by one. Then we'll remove three heat for every player who successfully figured out who the criminal was; the goal being to remove all the heat over three rounds. 

And we succeeded! It was a close-run thing but we swept the board win round three with everyone figuring out that Japan was the rogue word (I forget which superhero it was though). A great success, and a fine way to wrap up the evening. 

Two noes for triangulation

 This Tuesday i walked to Sam's place past a set of.chalk drawings on the pavement, where someone had scribbled messages to any passerby. One seemed particularly apt, so i arrived ar Sam's with the sense that today's games had an air of destiny about them.

There were seven of us, The host, Sam and Joe, Adam H, Katy, Martin, Pete and myself. We consider a big communal game to kick us off and Triangulation was suggested, only to receive two swift vetoes from wordgamephobics Adam and Katy - giving us the blog's title.

Instead, we split into two factions. Joe, Sam and Adam played Rebuilding Chicago. This looks like the sensible half of the table, as it looks like a mass of complexity with each player’s area looking like a cardboard spreadsheet. 

Pete, Katy, Martin and me play Maya. This, too, is a thoughtful eurogame like Rebuilding Chicago but as we play, we dub various moves as "sacrificial  peppers” and “spunking our potatoes,” doing our best to make it sound silly.

We had little idea about how to approach this game. Early on, Martin grumbles about how bad he's doing. “How can you tell?” asked Katy as she grooved along to T Rex. Katy’s early good mood could be down to how well she was doing, picking up 75 points in the first few rounds. Martin tried to keep up while Pete and I kept each other company with less that 20 points.

Katy promises “the move of the century” before she admits it actually isn't that great at all. I am mocked for how long I'm taking over my turns, especially when I fall into a distant last. We never get to see Katy’s move of the century since it is ruined by Martin. “What am I going to do with all these fucking gourds?” she cries.

As The Blue Nile drifts from the Bluetooth speakers for a few songs, Pete takes the lead! He’s timed it perfectly since the game is almost done and there’s no time to react.

Pete 140

Katy 128

Martin 123

Andrew 90

Since Rebuilding Chicago is still half an hour from completion, we play Gang Of Dice. This dice rolling game was a burst of fun, as we react with amazement at how our rolls failed/succeeded.

Pete 77

Martin 47

Andrew 21

Katy 17

We then have a quick one round game of Jungo, that Pete wins comfortably. Martin remarks that he finished with more cards than he started with.

At this point, Rebuilding Chicago finishes. 

Adam 174

Sam 154

Joe 138

With everyone all together, I felt that this is the best time to bow out and have an early night, so I do. Thanks all.

*                    *                    *

The door had barely shut on Andrew when Martin was coaxing the remaining six into a game of Mongoose Poker, a title so gleaming new that it's not even made its way onto the BGG database yet. Seemingly inspired by The Gang, this game sees everyone trying to predict the strength of their own (unseen) poker hand. Unlike The Gang, it's competitive. And unlike The Gang, you can't see your own cards, only everyone else's. 

There's the deal, the flop, the turn and the river, like a standard game of Texas Hold'em. But between each phase players get to play and information-gathering card from their hand that the other players will answer for you. These are all about maths and logic and appear to be simple. But they didn't account for our collective capacity for bewilderment. 

If the answer's yes, orient the card towards yourself. 

If it's no, have it face everyone else. 

Katy was first to confess her confusion, not helped by her desire to decode the infographics instead of just reading the text. Then Adam admitted that he didn't have a clue about anything, and Joe, now on his fourth pint of beer, began serenading Martin with damning comparisons to The Gang. "Jesus Christ" Martin said to the room at one stage, before clarifying he wasn't directing it at Joe, whose turn it was. 

At the end of each round (-there are three) you can both guess at your cards (a point per correct guess) and guess your overall position, which scores - assuming you guess correctly -  according to the points on the cards you used to glean information, which also establish an initiative order. IT was all too much for Joe, who said he had some feedback for the designer. "What's that?" Martin said. 
"Has he played The Gang?" said Joe.

But Joe rallied from his mid-game slough to claim joint third with myself and Katy. Martin was a clear winner, with Adam back in 'fourth' as he happily called it. 

Martin 13
Pete 11
Katy/Joe/Sam 8
Adam 3

After the highs and lows of Chicago and Mongeese, Adam left for home and as a quintet we inevitably set up So Clover. Joe and I were on the whisky at this point and memories are a little fuzzy, but I do recall my disappointment that the answer to cows wasn't the one we wanted. 

I think was also around here that Joe began his soliloquy about being victim of co-ops 4-for-3 beer promotion; only because he'd now drunk them all he insisted on called it the 3-for-4 promotion instead. I should really have stopped giving him whisky at this point. 

Joe and I were both also victims of some mild portobello nonsense and Martin struggled with his combo of jelly/temple, eventually plumping for ruined as a clue. As we speculated in silence, Joe murmured 'ruined octopus' happily to himself, like a psychopath perusing the menu at a dark-web restaurant. 

22/30, with Pete's ass for horse/clown a nice clue.

Katy now had to go and Pete and Martin also made for the door. But when they saw Joe and I setting up our clovers again they found themselves sitting back down and uncapping the pens of destiny. Again I went first and again I fell short of a six, with a self-portobello of sorts, having not spotted that cross went with my clue of stitching. But after that it was sixes all around, with Martin's Minecraft for cube/place and Joe's Martini for evening/lemon being amongst the highlights. 

It was now around 11.30pm and for us old crumblies, even whisky-infused ones, that meant bed was calling.