The Sponge and Nestle

Anja and Steve were our hosts last night, so we kicked off the evening with an update on the latter's fly-by-night plumbing activities. What does Anja do when Steve is hurdling rooftops with a tap spanner in his belt? Maybe she mixes cement. But in this instance she was getting Lennon to bed, so we began without her, kicking off with Meister Makatsu, new to Steve, but familiar to the rest of us: Pete, Martin, Joe, Ian and myself. 

 

We'd only just kicked off when Anja and Louie materialised, happy to watch and wait as we played out Knizia's tricks-are-bad semi-trick-taker. If I knew the tie-breaker rule before I'd forgotten it, so was interested to hear that if points leaders are tied, whoever holds the Meister Makatsu token wins instead. I decided early on to try and engineer this position for myself, but though I had the card I needed in the last round, I didn't have the circumstances.

Ian 7 wins on tie-break
Steve 7
Martin and Sam 11 each
Pete 13
Joe 'a horrible amount' 

We split into two groups: Pete, Steve and Ian joined me for Medina as the other four played 2 Win. 

On our end of the table I talked newbies Steve and Ian through Medina's thankfully-simple rules and refreshed Pete, who hadn't - I belatedly remembered - played it with me on Saturday after all (at OGFest). Collectively, we're building the city of Medina, which consists entirely of palaces, stables, and a single street along which citizens march in an erratic procession. 

But it's not a co-operative game: you're trying to maximise the size of your palaces (one of each colour) and position them by the walls and street for extra points. The catch is that as soon as you take ownership of a palace, you can no longer make it any bigger (exception: add a stable). There's some structural ordinance in Medina too: no abutting of buildings, and the walls each side must leave room for a gate (even if, as we subsequently discovered, it's blocked by a building.) We were a short way into our adventure when 2Win finished with a victory for Joe. 

1 Joe

2 Martin

3 Louie

4 Anja

Louie retired to bed, and Joe, Martin and Anja set up Renature, with Joe's new board that changes the mechanics slightly (in ways I unfortunately missed). 

Back in Medina, Steve was constantly foiled by the rest of us grabbing palaces before he could, as I held onto the largest orange palace and Pete held a big brown palace he managed to nuzzle up against the point-giving citizens. 

I forgot to take a picture of the finished thing, possibly because I was focused on sabotaging Steve's late-game attempts to build anything that might push him into the lead. I thought I was harmlessly littering the perimeter with walls but it transpired I was helping Pete nick a wall bonus off Ian. He and I were first out of pieces as Steve and Pete entered a tit-for-tat finale, hedge-betting on who could be the Last Dick. It was Steve, but it wasn't quite enough:

Sam 36

Pete and Steve 34 each

Ian (stolen wall by Pete) 31

Very close! Renature still had a short time to go, so we filled it with the magnetic fun of Kluster. 

Actually not all of the fun is magnetic. Some is in the bizarre rules translation, which tells you to set up the string to make a play area as above, and then instructs players to place their magnets in 'any groove of the sponge'. There were also references to a Nestle which left us none the wiser. The game was fun though, especially after we made the play area smaller. I think we all won once, except possibly Steve. And then Renature finished. 

 

Anja enjoyed her debut, but suffered a little at the hands of non-debutants Joe and Martin. We didn't have precise scores but it was something like

Martin 60ish

Joe 50ish

Anja 40ish

We rejigged, with Martin keen to play Better Letters and me unable to coax Steve into it so I could play Robo Rally instead. He splintered with Anja Pete and Ian into a game of Hey That's My Fish, whilst I sat down with Martin and Joe to make words. 

With no Jo here to maximise the personal scoring I wondered if I might be in with a shout. But my 'shortest word' wasn't as short as Martin's - who had en - and I misread the board, leaving me lagging early on. You can't lag against this pair: Joe was putting in words like liminal and Martin transubstantiation (or similar). Whilst this wordy drama played out, Pete was savaging the other penguins in HTMF.

I'm not sure how he did it, but look at that face. Clearly a self-hating sphenisciphobic. 

Pete 39

Ian 21

Anja 17

Steve 15

They grabbed Misfits off the shelf and went into the front room to play, possibly anticipating me bashing my fists on the table in a fit of pique. 

Better Letters finished just after 11, with Martin narrowly taking the laurels from Joe. 

Martin 50

Joe 44

Sam 32

And I left for home with Misfits still continuing! I heard later from Ian that he caused a huge collapse and Steve jumped in for the win. Whilst that was happening in the front room, Joe was beating Martin at Le Chocolat next door. I don't know much about this other than you're having to split a bar of chocolate and try not to eat - as Martin put it this morning - 'too much shitty orange'. Don't know if there's a score?

Apparently they even considered more gaming with So Clover available, before common sense took hold and everyone went home. 

How to win 2 Win

 My first games night in over a month and I strode towards Joe's with such purpose that I walked straight past it and had to turn back.
In Joe's kitchen were the six friendly faces of Joe, Jo, Martin, Ian, Adam H and Sam. They had done that old familiar trick of starting a game, safe in the knowledge that this would magically cause another gamer to arrive at the door. And it worked, but they kept playing while I sorted myself out. 

The game was Win 2. A card game where you play two cards from your hand to make a two digit number. The player who plays the highest gets a new card to add to their hand. The trouble is, in each round you have to play a higher number than before. The winner is the player who lasts longest.

Sam started cagey, keeping his numbers low such that by round three he was still only on 19.while Joe had 66. But by round 7, his cards had forced him to advance to 98, meaning he really needed to draw two nines to avoid defeat. He didn't, but equally Joe, Martin and Adam also couldn't progress. That left Jo and Ian and Jo found they couldn't play again. Ian, last man standing had won and did a little showboating by putting down 99 as a final hand.

Ian wins

Next we split into two. Jo, Martin, Sam and I played Better Letters while Adam, Joe and Ian chose Renature.

Better Letters is a word game which is played on a grid of cards which describe a rule that a word has to obey, such as “Must start with a P” or “must have two syllables”. The players have one minute to come up with a word that meets as many rules as they can, tracing a path across the grid. Each square gives points, especially if you're the only player who uses it.

I got lucky in my first round as the very ordinary word FLOATS landed on some unused tiles and picked up 5 points while other longer and more inventive words didn't score as high. And that's kind of the interesting part: the notion that long words would score highest isn't always true. For example, my FIREFIGHTING was outscored by Sam's MUNCH.

It was fun, although the games one minute time limit seemed punishing, but at least it kept things moving. And it was fun. I know Adam won't believe it, since he seemed to physically recoil when the game was described to him, but the agony of trying to come up with a word that maybe fits just one more rule is quite a challenge. 

Jo 45
Martin 31
Sam 29
Andrew 27

After this, Renature was still half and hour from completion so we left them to their curious incantations of “badger, badger, badger” and we played The Crew: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth. 

This new member of The Crew family had a twist. Each round had a score allocated to it, either according to difficulty or by how well you do. And overall success is measured on a little track which we make our way down, trying to reach the destination before another meeple does.


We thought this new format worked well, and it meant that there was no risk of getting stuck on one hand, getting frustrated at playing the same rules over and over.

There was one round in which each player secretly wrote down how many tricks they would win. In that round, at least, the camaraderie among us was replaced by something more dickish.

But we achieved our goals and got to the destination before the automatic meeple did.

Success!!

Also at this point Renature ended,  with Joe sadly adding up what his points might have been if things had turned out differently:

Adam 82

Ian 53

Joe 40

At this point I left. Nice to be back after all these weeks. I'll let Sam take over…

Post-Andrew, we were still at six and as Martin said to the room, the night was young. There was some low-level debate before we all realised we were happy to play Phantom Ink. At least initially. Joe and Martin became the spirits (ie clue-givers) and the rest of us the Media (ie idiots). Martin was paired with Jo and I whilst Joe teamed up with Ian and Adam. 

Jo and I asked Martin if the word was (associated with) a Greek or Roman figure of mythology, who would it be. Martin wrote DEM and I honestly didn't have a clue, but Jo figured out it was Demeter. Then Joe's first clue was AG before he was silencioed, leading us to think of agriculture. Jo suggested Bread, and we went for an early guess. Wrong! Martin gave us the first of many meaningful looks. 

Fortunately the other team were struggling too, and we were all - even Martin - baffled by Joe's DISS, even after he added an O to the end. Jo and I were still on a wheat theory but more guesses proved wayward, conjuring only an air of jadedness from our spirit, like he'd done a long week at the clueing office and didn't need this shit on a Friday. Ian and Adam went wrong again too and Jo and I were left with our two theories: the long-mooted wheat, or Jo's recent theory of jam. I was allowed to choose and guessed wheat - it was jam! The other team won. My biggest contribution was selecting defeat from victory. Or maybe just being generally baffled. 

Next was So Clover. I bashed out my clues feeling reasonably okay about three of them, but the fourth hit the rocks and we kicked off with a 4. We followed that with three sixes, however, before we reached Joe's, who had - with some ambition, it seemed, clued apple and scrumpers next to each other. Amongst his cards were the words fruit and orchard. We were initially flummoxed, but when we looked closer and tried some things out, we were still flummoxed as well. "Joe!" Martin castigated him. Joe chortled. In fairness though it did make sense in the end - we'd maybe just ported a little spirit confusion over from the previous game. 

Both Ian and started making moves to go, and Adam did go, but Martin suggested Slow Co-ver, his invention of last week where there's a single clover and you're all trying to come up with the same clues. We did very well! The scoring is still under discussion but Ian and I combined, and then there was a trio of hits, and a couple more and we were so enamoured we played again. At this point Jo stopped, reaching peak clue for the evening, and merely watched as the scene played out before them. It was another minor triumph. Tweak the scoring, pdf the rules, stick it on BGG and before you can say 'solo mode' it'll have it's very own just an activity thread. 

Until next week!

Psychic Failures

I was a little uneasy at arriving early at Joe’s this Tuesday, so I was glad when Ian cycled up at about the same time. And I needn’t have worried at all since Joe had already started the evening with a little Martini to keep him company. The bigger Martin(i) would be along soon, after Katy and Sam arrived, each with their own comments about the fine weather. Finally Adam H got here and, with no word from a potential Anja, we started gaming.

Since Katy wanted something gentle, we began with Take It Easy. Joe’s and Sam’s copies were used to allow all seven of us to compete, and Joe was caller. Today’s theme was Steely Dan songs, with Steely Dan on the stereo. For the atmos, you know. There was the usual agony and elation (mostly agony) and it ended with Adam winning a pretty close game.

Adam 209

Martin 190

Joe 184

Andrew 182

Katy 178

Sam 158

Ian 150

Then we split into two. Katy was still in the market for gentle games and was tempted to join Martin and Joe in a game of Renature. Because she likes animals.

Ian, Sam, Adam and I chose Ra over Hansa Teutonica (on the toss of a coin) and set out Joe’s luxurious version, complete with underwhelming round counter, which is about the size of a scrabble tile and really could have been omitted.

In round one, Ian was last player standing but lost out when the Ra track ended before he could sweep up everything available. Adam was in the same position in round two but he had four chances to pull Ra tiles, so he was fine. In round three, Adam was out first saying he thought he’d be last. I said he was crazy, thanks to this buildings, but turns out he was right. I had a good round two and pretty much had the same tiles in front of me at the end of the game, too.

Andrew 44

Sam 26

Ian 25

Adam 19

I went to the toilet and came back to find Misfit already out of its box. It was a typically crazy game. Adam began with a vertical column and it got worse from that. Ian had the first collapse, clearing the structure from the table entirely.

Sam got a text just as he was placing a piece and almost ruined his turn. Then Ian got the yips just as he was adding to an already impossible structure and then Adam had a tap-in to win the game. Sam, too, finished that round. Still not sure if that’s a tie.

Adam wins!

Renature also ended at this point, with Katy ruefully pondering if sitting "cuntside" of Martin was actually a benefit.

Joe 93

Martin 79

Katy 59

And with that, I was done. Still tired from my new job, I bailed early at only 9.30. Still had a great time though.

I’ll hand over to Sam to continue the blog…

*

We were still going strong when Andrew left and at Martin's insistence, played Cabanga. Luckily for all of us - especially Martin - Cabanga was good fun, a Nimmt-esque game of shedding cards as quickly as you can without getting 'Cabanga-ed' when others dump cards on you. I'd explain the rules but I'd forgotten I was meant to be finishing the blog (sorry Andrew/everyone) but it was fun and funny.

Ian won on the first round with zero points, followed by me, Joe, Adam and Katy. Martin was last with a whopping 22 - points are bad. Then Adam left and we played Psychic Pizza Deliverers Go To The Ghost Town. The rules are short and sweet but I forgot them anyway. Martin delivered a pizza and won!

I think we played Cabanga again - Joe won - before polishing off the night with the classic closer of So Clover, bringing in a reasonable but not amazing 16/24

Fun! Thanks all. And sorry for late reportage. 

Dominoes in excelsis

 I arrived at Laura’s house in the rain to find an even wetter Adam H locking up his bike. We were let into the house by one of Laura’s children and went down to the kitchen where we found Katy already excited about reliving her childhood with a game of Ghost Castle, currently being constructed by Laura. Sam, Ian, Joe and Martin watched from the other end of the table, clearly not convinced of the joys of MB Games.

While Katy, Laura and the two smaller gamers began playing Ghost Castle, Joe, Sam and Martin set up Azul and Ian, Adam and I squeezed a game of Kingdomino in the space between them. The cries of excitement from Ghost Castle were mirrored by our cries of disappointment, as we drew tile after tile of crownless-countryside. But Adam didn’t mind, as his forest expanded to absurd proportions. 

Adam 74 (50 for forests alone!)

Andrew 53

Ian 37

At this point, Azul was still in full flwo but Ghost Castle had been replaced by Dragonimo. During that game, Maddie kept calling out “cracked eggs!” and I thought she was saying “crackhead!” until I looked at the board, saw the egss and put two and two together.

So we played Kingdomino again. By chance, I made Adam pick up a tile that he couldn’t place thus ruining his 5x5 bonus. I wish I could say I did it on purpose, but I’m not that cunning. 

Ian 56

Andrew 49

Adam 46

The other games ended:

Dragonimo

Katy & Riker 15

Laura & Maddie 10

Azul

Martin 83

Joe 79

Sam 39

“That was pretty close,” said Martin. Sam begged to differ, although his board was only two tiles away from a big payout.

The two youngest gamers were sent up to bed and we turned our attention to more grown-up matters: cats in space! Martin, Laura, Ian, Sam and I buckled up for a trip to deep space. It was a first play for me and Laura, so we got a rules explanation, but it was all pretty clear. Roll certain dice values to move, and then land your cats (each with its own special ability such as x2 planet score, x2 moon score, Parachute to safety even if the rocket explodes, etc). Our first journey was the most successful for a long time and Laura reached the last planet before deep space.

Joe, Katy and Adam were more grounded. Literally – their game, Renature, seemed to be all about reintroducing wildlife onto a board that initially resembles a Pac-Man maze made of grass. It was the third game of the evening to use a domino-placing mechanic. I didn’t really follow this game, apart from the occasional cry of surprise like “Double tortoise!” and also a request by Katy to go over the rules a few minutes before they ended. But it was fine.

Katy 86

Adam 67

Joe 58

“I didn’t gloat, and I didn’t ask you to thank me,” she said after the game.

As for Mlem, our poor rolling was getting out of hand. Laura rolled five twos and a booster when we needed ones and fours. On Sam’s first turn as commander, he turned up with his parachute on while Ian went one better – when he was commander, he chose his Saboteur Cat to represent him. A lot of fun.

Laura 28

Ian 26

Sam 21

Andrew 20

Martin 19

There was also a game of Misfits at some point during the evening. I'm not sure when, though. Most likely while Renature was finishing up. Misfits doesn't really play five and, apart from the photos, my only note about the game was "Martin loses."

We reshuffled for the next games. Joe, Martin, Laura and I played Big Top. Ian, Adam, Sam and Katy played Robot Quest Arena.

Katy 21 or 22

Sam 20

Ian 17

Adam 15

While Big Top was a little odd in that we rinsed the bank of money, meaning me, Laura and Martin all ended the game with a lot of cash. Joe, alas, ended the game with no stars. I needed Martin to add up my scores for me, since he refused to believe I’d only come second. He was right. Of course.

Andrew 56

Laura 53

Martin 37

Joe out.

At this point I left, but not before the Robot people began playing Stomp The Plank. After carefully setting up the board, Katy ruined everything by winning in the least fun way possible: draw six different symbols on the first turn.

Katy wins!

Of course, they had to play again and, although Katy could’ve won in the same way again, she bottled it at the fifth card. Adam didn’t so much Stomp the Plank as Shuflle Forward Slowly. 

Sam won the rematch!

And, I’m told, they ended with So Clover.

Thanks all, see you next week!

Smug Too Soon

Another Tuesday, and yet rather than gathered around screens, six of the GNN brethren came together at my (Sam's) house for the still-slightly-surreal act of gaming face to face, around a shared table, touching wooden pieces, testing our wits and numeracy and - in this case - fondling Adam Hillmann's nuts. Thanks Adam. 

Also present was Adam T, Katy, myself and a slightly bewildered-looking Martin, appearing as though stumbling in from the mountains halfway through a Beckett play. It was kind of strange, but not so strange that we couldn't squeeze in a quick (new) game before Joe rocked up - as he rocked up, in fact, but he charitably let us continue - which was Whale Riders: The card game. 

This was a slightly Fuji Flush-esque undertaking of collecting cards in sets, and whenever a set was claimed (four 4's, six 6's and so on) by the collective owners, any other active sets imploded. There were a couple of other wrinkles, but it was very simple, and only took ten minutes to bash through:

Martin 42

Katy 35

Sam 31

Adam T 25

Adam H 16

Then with Joe present and happily amenable, we moved directly to another new game: Scape Goat, in which everyone is told (by the game) who the scape goat is, but it's lying to someone and nobody knows who. The air is thick with paranoia and the sound of pistachio shells cracking already, then Joe began talking about Steve Coogan's balls, which feature in a film he'd recently watched. We spent a good few minutes integrated the relevant testicles into the ongoing game, then I walked outside and realised the neighbour's doors were wide open. When I came back inside I decided I should warn everyone about the possible audience before the current goat impersonations really took hold. 

Scape Goat is simple on the rules, but trickier on working out what you should actually do. Definitely working out the scape goat isn't you is a good idea, but I failed miserably in game one, panicking and running to the cops when I suspected I was about to be framed. 

As it turned out, I wasn't:

Adam T (the scapegoat) wins!

Then we played again and Adam H worked out he was the scape goat before we could frame him. He - correctly - ran to the cops as well, and saved himself. 

Adam H (the scape goat) wins!

We then played Whale Riders: Not the card game, which comes with a board and little wooden whales.

 

It bore very little relation to the card game, with the only cards being contracts to fulfill as we - riding whales, naturally - swim around grabbing what we could to do so, in most Knizian fashion; all decisions tantalising and options designed to recede from sight like the tide going out before a tsunami. 

The big wave in this case was Adam H, who halfway through the game completed fifteen thousand contracts and scored a million pearls. That's what it felt like anyway, although it was much closer than we realised. 

Adam 18

Joe / Adam T 16 each

Sam 15

Martin 13

Katy 10

We split into two groups, with Joe, Katy and Martin playing new game #4 Renature, and myself and the Adams breaking out new game #5, Luzon Rails. I didn't pick up much of what was happening in Renature apart from some talk about neutral bushes and Katy's early-game confidence giving way to late-game doubt.

I was experiencing a similar narrative arc in Luzon Rails, in part because with both Adams assuring me I was winning, I let my iron grip on the isle of Luzon loosen like a railroad builder who got lucky with a first swing of the hammer and then spent the rest of the day admiring a single sleeper. 

As we build track we also control companies by owning shares in them. At the end of each round every company pays dividends so you're all trying to push their dividend value up by building track to prosperous places on the board. But companies can only build track with monies paid from auctioning shares, and there is the considerable rub, because you win the game by having the most personal cash. I shoulda bid for that last yellow share...

Adam H 109

Adam T 103

Sam 99

With Renature still puzzling the other end of the table, Adam T took his leave and vanished into the night. I tempted Adam H to stay by flinging all the luscious pieces of Project L (not a new game; we played it last week) onto the table. 

It's very easy to pick up and play, but you still want to win, right? And I thought I'd triumphed, but I may have been just a bit innumerate by this point.

Adam 22

Sam 17

As we packed that away, Katy reminded me that we should never invite Adam for this very reason. Renature concluded with Katy saying "I might have been smug too soon".

 Going by the scores, she was right.

Martin 78

Katy 72

Joe 50-something

The jury seemed to be out - but enjoying the debate, with all of them surprised how thinky it was for an alleged 'family' game, but perhaps impressed all the same. "It was long" Katy pointed out. Martin said he wouldn't even attempt it with four. Joe looked slightly rueful, whether at his performance or the purchase itself, he'll have to explain. I tried to get them to stay longer, but with 11 o'clock now past, it was time to wrap up another delightful evening. Lovely to be back!