... of course

 Downstairs at Joe's place could be the name of an exclusive speakeasy in prohibition era Chicago but is, in fact, the location to which eight ardent gamers gathered. I arrived at the same time as Martin and remarked on Joe’s new dining table to which he replied it wasn’t that new at all. We put it down to the fact I hadn’t been to his house for a while, but then more people arrived and commented on Joe’s new table. He tried to explain this Mandela Effect by saying maybe there’d previously been a table cloth on it, or perhaps the new curtains were contributing to the sense of newness in the room. Either way, the mystery of Joe’s “new” table remains unsolved.

Anyway,we began with six of us (Martin , Adam H, Sam, Joe, Ian and myself) playing Continuous Pairs. Adam changed seats just after the game began, causing a little confusion in the dealing and Sam misremembered the rules for when to deal people in, but nevertheless we muddled through..

Adam played an amazing game, having a run of five consecutive values. I tried to get a photo of it but Sam had folded and he decided to take the lowest card in the run just before the photo was taken. 

Martin lost and Joe declared himself winner until someone pointed out that I had fewer points at which point Joe reverted to the official rules of there being no winner.

We played again, Katy arrived, and Sam lost.

Now we split into two groups. Martin, Adam and Katy played Gazebo, despite Katy’s reservations about the amount of plastic. Joe, Sam, Ian and I played “Fives” a trick taking game where the sum total of the winning cards in your tricks can’t exceed 25. What makes the game unique (and, some might say, unintuitive) is the fact that every card can be a purple 5, allowing you to get rid of some unwanted high value cards in your hand. 

We spent some time trying to understand when it is permissible to play a purple 5 and then we began the game. Then, after round one, Joe looked at the rules book again and noticed something in tiny writing, explaining that players can’t play more than one purple 5 cards in a trick “of course.” And it was the “of course” thing that really bothered us, as we tried to work out what part of the game set-up would suggest that particular rule. “I’m being gaslit by a rule book,” complained Joe.

So we started again and Ian impressed us all by finishing the final round with exactly 25 points in front of him, getting him a 3-point bonus.

Ian 13

Andrew 10

Sam 9

Joe 8

Gazebo had finished 

Martin - no gazebos left

Katy 4

Adam 6

And they went on to play Soda Jerk with Katy apparently unaware that this was a real thing and not just a phrase made up for a board game.

Adam 23

Katy -2 

Martin -45

Around this time Andy M arrives and he joins Martin, Ian and Katy for a game of Jungo which Martin wins, exclaiming “Soda Jerk is erased!”

Then there was a reshuffle in personnel and I was introduced to the joys of Big Wave, along with Martin, Katy and Sam. This trick-taker is “a very mental game” according to Martin although he only said this halfway through. It’s a trick taker where you have to not follow suit to any card that’s been played before in a trick. 

There are a bunch of rules that tweak the typical trick-taking procedures for those who don’t win a trick. I usually “caught a wave” allowing me to boost a future card by 2 or more points. Martin often took a point and nominated the next person to begin a hand, and invariably chose Katy. It didn’t seem to help.

Sam 58

Andrew 46

Katy 43

Martin 38

Then I left. I think Katy left too, since I later heard from Sam that he and Martin played So Clover twice, scoring 10 and then 9. Sheepy time ended with a victory for Ian with Adam in second and Joe and Andy “nowhere”.

Thanks all, it was special.

Feline Gravity’s Pull

 I was only a few minutes late this week but I was still the last to arrive. Joe (the host), Adam H, Martin, Katy, Sam (wearing Adam’s glasses because he’d forgotten his) and Ian had already started a game of 6nimmt and had dealt me in, allowing Dirk (our imaginary random player) to choose my cards until I arrived. Dirk had done me proud and, as I sat down, I only had one bullet counting against me. Alas, I couldn’t keep up Dirk’s work and I clocked up scores of over twenty for the first three rounds, ensuring a swift end to the game.

But if I was a constant presence at the bottom of the leaderboard, the same can’t be said for Katy. She picked up only two bullets in the first two rounds and was 16 points clear going into the third round. Unfortunately, she was hit by multiple death spirals, meaning she dramatically dropped from first to sixth.

 

Joe 22

Sam 29

Ian 32

Adam 35

Martin39

Katy 41

Andrew 83

 

So we split into two groups. Sam had brought Mlem with him – basically Cats In Space, which is nothing like Bees in Space, Sam assured us – and Katy, Martin and Ian were easily persuaded to join in. I was intrigued by the artwork, but was otherwise engaged with a game of Sheepy Time with Joe and Adam.

 

In round one of Sheepy Time, Adam and I played almost identical games, as we circled the board almost hand in hand. Joe was the odd man out, marking out his own path and risking an extra circuit after Adam and I had both gone to sleep. In round two, Adam mixed up “winks” and “zeds” and instead said he was going to pickup some zinc, which was funny enough at the time for me to write it down.

In round three, I slept early, leaving Adam and Joe bouncing around the track, avoiding the nightmare. Adam was next to sleep leaving Joe with the choice to finish too and add a fourth round, or to try and pass his pillow and win the game. He chose to continue even though the nightmare was right next to the fence. And he succeeded!

 

Joe wins!

Adam 2nd

Andrew 3rd

 

On Mlem, the game began sensibly enough, with Katy declaring that she’d landed on a moon and then that she’d gone to deep space. Eventually, however, the more usual GNN vocabulary crept in as I distinctly heard that Ian had “taken the dick” and that the game ended suddenly when Katy “rolled like shit.”

Martin 27

Sam 26

Ian 25

Katy 23

 

Then they played Inside Job, which Sam won. I don’t know anything about that game, except for Martin saying that someone should have warned him that Sam was about to win.

 

While they enjoyed Inside Job, we played Las Vegas. I began by picking out a pair of sixes from my dice and placing them because “sixes are the most difficult to roll”. Meanwhile, Joe scored nothing at all in round three.

 

Andrew 52

Adam 45

Joe 35

 

Vegas was longer than I expected and the group of four squeezed two more games in before we finished. First was Gang of Dice. Sam amazed everyone with his rolling – at one point, scoring 10 with 7 dice when 11 or more would have you bust.

 

Sam 78

Martin 35

Katy 32

Ian 23

 

After two wins and two second places, maybe Adam’s glasses were having a good influence on Sam. Alas, it wasn’t to last as the quartet chose Misfits with Katy in feisty mood, determined to win a game. She began with a circle on its side. Impossible to build on. And them she followed that up with a triangle pointing upwards. Almost impossible, but Ian, Martin and Sam all tried valiantly to build.

Before long, Sam had half the contents of the board in front of him, after having triggered the biggest collapse since… well, since Katy played 6nimmt a couple of hours before.

Finally we were all together. Unfortunately So Clover doesn't play seven so instead we played Fun Facts. The game began with an inauspicious omen as Joe grabbed a handful of crisps from the bowl and left a trail of crumbs along the table as he brought them back towards him. As for the game, we did okay. Some questions needed clarification, such as “Value of the most expensive thing you’ve ever broken.” I wanted to know if we were allowing for inflation and Adam asked in part broken counted. Ian won that round, having tanked a £1,000 PC.

Both Ian and Joe were very choosy about which question they went with. Ian eventually asked “how shy are you?” Perhaps because he knew he’d be top on that one.

We scored 38 points: “Nice score, you’re hitting your stride.”

I left, as did Ian and maybe Adam. I got confused because there was a lot of movement. People even said goodbye to Katy, and she was only going to the toilet.

Without me, the remainers played So Clover twice, scoring fifteen and nineteen.

And we’re done for another week. See you next Tuesday!

The Balance Of Trade

I arrived at Joe’s at the tail end of a game of Zero Down. It’s been a while since I’d seen it. So long, in fact, that I didn’t recognise it. I recognised everyone sitting around the table, though. Sam, Martin, Ian, Adam T, and Joe.

Martin 7

Ian 9

Joe 19

Adam 34

Sam 45

After this, Martin and Adam were keen on Impulse and I happily joined in, which Martin was relieved about since Impulse is not an easy game to teach. Adam sped off into an early lead, trading cards for big points. But it was too big a lead and he made himself a target. I happened to have a cruiser in striking distance and so, goaded by Martin and with Adam within easy reach of a win, I set off to vanquish him. I’m not a big fan of player elimination, but I didn’t have a huge amount of choice.

We went into battle and our initial card from our hand totalled up to the same amount. It was all o
n the draw of a card each from the deck. Adam drew a 1, I drew a 2. I won, and Adam rued his decision to hold back a card that would’ve tipped the war in his favour.

But then Martin went from 9 to 18 points in a single move, just two away from victory. I needed ten points, and I was certain of six. I had to rely on lucky draws from the deck for a tradeable card for those extra few points but, unlike Joe, I am not known for my lucky draws and I came up short.

Martin 20

Andrew 16

Adam out

Sheepy Time was coming to an end so we quickly sped through a game of Whale Riders: The Card Game.

Andrew 61

Martin 61

Adam 59

As for Sheepy Time, Ian won. Not bad for someone who, early on, noted that he was twenty points behind everyone else. A check of the rules told us that, officially, there are no second or third places.

Ian won

Sam and Joe lost

Now Adam made sort of going home noises, but was tempted to stay on for a game of So Clover. Adam impressed by writing “Dragula”, leading us to match “Camp” and “Myth”. Joe lowered the tone when he matched Shower with Golden. We were going okay until we slipped up on Ian’s clover, thinking Spartacus clued the word “alliance,” but it was just meant to be “old”

Score 34 out of 36

With Adam still making moves to go home, we tempted him with a rousing finale of Stinker. We all gave ourselves a rule-stretching 23 letter tiles and got cracking. Sam began with six ‘A’s in his pile of letters. Highlights were:

Real reason for world war two – Goebbels stole a razor (Martin)

Substitute for under pants - toasted gonads (Adam)

First thing to do on Jupiter – Radiate Smugnity (ian)

Title of a new Bond Film – Time to Strangle (Joe)

How to avoid the draft into the army – Run, dig a hole, scream (Sam)

My answer to "The road to Hell is paved with..."

By the end, our misspelling was very creative with Sam using a B on its back as an M and I had an A pointing right as a D.

Ian and Martin won with three cards each.

Adam and I left at this point while the other played High Score (but surely every game could be called High Score) using a collapsible dice arena.

Martin 13

Joe 12

Sam 11

Ian 6

And finally they played Cross Clues and got 19 out of 25.

Thanks all. See you next week.

The Pits of Despair

Games night was at Hannah and Adam's last night, which proved a trial for a few of us; Hannah most of all, who had the unenviable task of settling an excited Arthur whilst rowdy gamers downstairs roared with various emotions. 

We began in the garden, where Adam encouraged us to wrestle Arthur on the trampoline. Arthur looked so full of beans we all demurred, and were then distracted by the cavernous pit of despair beneath the decking, which dropped a good fifteen feet or so to a dark and gloomy fate. After riffing on the pit of despair/slough of despond/wokingham of indifference etc, we stepped indoors for more cheery and colourful fare. Whilst Hannah began the uphill battle of Getting Arthur To Sleep, Adam H, Martin, Adam T, Katy, Gareth, Joe, and myself (Sam) sat around the table and tried to play Long Shot: The Dice Game. This is an allegedly simpler, shorter version of its predecessor Long Shot, but despite my boys and I previously blasting through it in a zippy 20 minutes, we found with seven of us the pace slowed considerably. 

The basics are simple, with 8 horses racing once around the track and the game ending when three of them cross the finish line. In each turn, two dice are rolled that determine which horse moves and how far. Each horse will also trigger another horse to move ('secondary movement') a single space, and players can manipulate these secondary movements as the game progresses. Then everyone takes a single action - betting on a horse (potential winnings), buying a horse (potential prize money) ticking off a helmet (additional betting opportunities) or jersey (additional secondary movements) or one of their numbers on a grid of concessions: when a row or column is filled on the concession grid you can grab a reward of cash, free bets, horse movements; even a horse. 

For a luck-pushing racing game, there was a lot of options, and the slightly fiddly nature of how one thing affected another caused much brow-furrowing puzzlement (everyone) and appalled harrumphing (Martin) especially as I inevitably got a rule wrong that deprived him of a horse. This was pit of despair #2, the befuddled atmosphere punctured only occasionally by Joe hopefully yelling "Come on, Scattershot!" and eventually ground to a relieved halt as Adam H claimed a win:

Adam H $106

Gareth $103
Katy $87
Joe $80
Sam $54
Adam T $40

Martin wouldn't even tell me what he scored, he was so disgusted (EDIT: he scored $95!). Whilst we'd been playing, Steve had arrived and listened to the slow-motion finish, and was now busting to play. I went off to cry in the bathroom while the next games were chosen: Joe, Katy, Martin and Adam T busted out the nightmare-avoidance fun of Sheepy Time whilst Adam H set up the more wakeful Railways of the World for the rest of us in the front room. 

This was new to Gareth, but he quickly picked up the simple-ish rules and the tactical nuances of controlling what parts of the board you can, snaffling up the areas around Florida and getting in Steve's way, as Adam and I contested things further up the coast. From early on Steve was finding himself cash-short and taking bonds, and suffering on the income track as result, going in sleeper-based circles into the Pit of Despair #3 as he seemed to build track more often than he delivered anything along it.

In the other room, it was a little more boisterous as the somnabulently-themed Sheepy Time was causing unthematic uproar.

uproar not pictured

Unbeknownst to us, this was also getting Arthur excited upstairs to find out what the hoo-ha was all about, possibly plunging Hannah into Pit of Despair #4 (-she was too polite to say) but whatever they were uproaring about, it ended with Adam T victorious. I didn't make a note of the scores so I'm not sure where anyone else landed, but they next broke out Scout:

...which Adam apparently won as well. Martin came into the front room asking "Has anyone not called Adam won a game tonight?" just as Front Room Adam was wrapping up victory on Railways of the World:

Adam 71

Sam 66

Gareth 59

Steve 39

Apparently not, although Gareth did briefly tie with one of them in Long Shot until a recount. 

Steve wondered what he was doing wrong in the Railways, and we debated how he could improve. Mainly I'd suggest he doesn't play any Adams, one of whom (Taylor) now headed off home, followed by Gareth and Steve, as the remaining five of us finished the evening with So Clover. Katy said she hated it because she always got things wrong, but in fairness she was the only person to get my (excellent, in my opinion) clue for MATCH THIEF (Cheater). Martin blamed her anyway, for not speaking up. Apart from that dent in our laterally wordy armour, it was an excellent effort: 28 out of 30. After an evening of highs and lows and many miniature dramas, it was time to end another chapter in the rich and varied tapestry of GNN. Until next time...

Do you know what's Swat?

 I arrived at a little before 8 and found four gamers around Sam's kitchen table: Sam, Martin, Ian and Katy. They'd just finished a game of Spicy in which Katy didn't score until the final round and Ian didn't score at all.

Sam 35

Martin 33

Katy 13

Ian 0

Then we set up Cross Clues as the ideal game to play while waiting for Joe to arrive since he could just join in once he was here. He arrived mid game and initially misread Airport as Apricot but luckily that didn't hinder his clue giving.

We didn't do very well. I'm not sure but I think we got six wrong. 

Then we played Formula Motor Racing, an old Knizia game that showed it's age in the instructions that referred to the players as "gentlemen (and ladies)". It might be a Knizia game, but there’s player elimination, even though each player has two cars so if one spins out, you can be more cautious with the other.

Martin was the first to spin out and he did so in spectacular fashion. He used the spin out card in which the active player rolls a 12D die and the car in the position indicated by the die is out of the race. If the roll isn’t favourable, the player can roll again.

Martin rolled a 1. No good for him, since he was leading at the time so he rolled again. Martin rolled another 1. How we laughed. 

Katy also crashed and took Sam out with her but she recovered from that to win the race and the game.

Katy 10

Ian 7

Sam 6

Joe 2

Andrew 1

Martin 0

The game’s instructions suggest running seventeen races to recreate an entire Grand Prix. Maybe not.

Then we split into two. Martin, Katy and Joe played Tajuto during which Joe boasted about how good he was at pulling the pink and that “I’m known for my lucky drawers.” In among this Carry On Tajuto type humour, Joe seemed to be looking good for the win until the final count which saw Martin and Joe rejoicing in their shared victory.

Joe 19

Martin 19

Katy 11

Ian, Sam and I dug out Tin Goose again. Just like our last game, I was frugal again and I even passed on a chance to buy a plane when I thought the price had got out of hand. And this happened a fair amount as the auction prices were much higher than before.

Andrew 324

Sam 303

Ian 210

The two games ended at the same time, so we finished with Swat, a sort of cross between Ra and Snap. The aim of the game is to collect scoring sets while avoiding negative cards. The cards are dealt from the top of the deck by one player while the others wait until they’re happy with what’s on offer at which point they slap the player board in the centre of the table. Often this would be accompanied by cries from the other players, annoyed at having missed out on a promising haul. Sometimes it was accompanied by the cries of the player who claimed the cards only to find a last minute -4 fly card added to the pile.

Sam once slapped so slowly that Martin was able to get his hand under Sam’s to claim the cards. Ian managed to underslap (is that a word?) Katy twice, much to her frustration. However, Katy scored 41 in the first round and no one else got close.

Katy 75

Sam 65

Martin 55

Joe 52

Ian 52

Andrew 45

Then Katy, Ian and I went home while Martin, Sam and Joe finished on Sheepy Time. According to Sam, “Martin won, Joe in second and I was miles back in third.”

Thanks for the evening, guys. See you all soon.

Shear Heart Attack

On a mild February evening, I rang on Sam’s doorbell a couple of times and then, seeing that his son Stan was sitting down to watch Netflix, I knocked on the door and he let me in.

I walked into the kitchen to find Sam, Joe, Ian and Laura finishing a game of So Clover. There then followed a discussion about what to play with five, when Laura decided she wanted to play Orbit. We were setting up when Adam H called, saying his prior appointment had been cancelled and could he join. We said yes and, deciding that six-player Orbit would be too long, split into two groups. Laura, Sam and Ian continued to recreate the space race while Joe and I set up Sheepy Time in expectation of Adam’s imminent arrival.

Both groups started perilously. Ian said he’d regretted his decision, even after his first turn. We in Sheepy land discovered that the last people to play the game hadn’t separated the nightmare cards from the pack. We spent almost a minute getting the cards in order. How upsetting.

The game itself was very tense. Joe decided his strategy was to get scared as soon as possible in order to exploit some scared-reliant tiles for points. In round two he placed his sheep firmly in front of the nightmare and waited impatiently for it to move and scare him. My strategy was to pile up Zees on one tile which, if I landed on it, I could cash in for two points each. I triggered this bonus and put myself in a winning position. All I had to do was pass the fence and I had exactly the card to do it. Alas, now was the time when the nightmare hitched up its skirts and sped around the track, jumping the fence and waking us all up. My point-scoring zees were all gone and I was not confident of a win.

In the next round Joe passed his pillow by a decent ten-point margin and ended his game. Adam and I had to keep going and I was pleased with my final score of thirteen points past my pillow, but Adam won decisively. Despite having a pillow furthest along, he used a series of tiles to spin him around the track several times, ending up as the eventual winner.

Adam 15 spaces past his pillow

Andrew 13

Joe 10

At this moment, with uncanny synchronicity, Orbit was also finishing. Whatever Ian’s initial doubts were, they must have been overcome as he won a close game.

Ian 26 + tiebreaker

Laura 26

Sam 23

There was then a pretty extensive conversation about being sick while Ian and Sam perused the games wall. Since Laura had decided to go home, they were looking for a five-player option, and they selected Texas Showdown.

And what game it is. Each hand rich with betrayal and self-destruction, almost in equal measure. Adam was faced with a choice of making Sam take the trick or Joe and both of them had played the highest card in the hand, meaning they'd chose who would lead next. Adam said that since Sam would probably chose him to lead, then he’d make Joe pick up the trick. Unimpressed, Joe immediately nominated Adam to lead the next hand anyway.

Sam and Ian started with clear rounds and Ian was last to pick up any trick at all, and he did so with a bemused “what’s going on?” It was close and we entered round four with Joe leading 6, 7, 7, 8, 8. It’s a shame that you don’t get points for accurately evaluating your hand, because Sam perfectly predicted his own downfall. Joe, meanwhile, went clear just when it mattered.

Joe 6

Ian 7

Andrew 10

Adam 11

Sam 13

And with that, I left. The others stayed for a round or two of So Clover, scoring 12 and 14.

Thanks all, see you next Tuesday.

What will a zen do if a shin can sen?

I arrived at after eight at Mel’s to find eight gamers already squeezed into one room. I had already missed a game of Just One which ended with 7 right out of 7. "We bossed it," Martin informed me.

Meanwhile, as I arrived, Joe, Ben and Gareth had already started a game of Zendo and the rest were waiting for me before deciding on their next choice. In the event, Sam, Katy and Mel played Shinkansen which is, I guess, about building trains across Japan while Martin, Ian and I played Sheepy Time.

Our game was an odd one. The first two rounds were over quickly as the nightmare tore around the track like a demon possessed. Martin and I were able to pick up points while Ian languished in third. Then I provoked the ire of my opponents by using a dream tile’s special power to push both of them on to the same square as the nightmare, waking them up and taking all the points in that round for myself. 

In round four, both Martin and I pass our pillows but daren't stop for fear of losing to the other. Then the nightmare suddenly shifted and ended the round before we could do anything. 

In round five, I got past my pillow and, seeing the nightmare in the second half of the track, I finished. Then Martin also passed his pillow, went further than I did and finished too. This left Ian, who'd had no luck all game with a mountain to climb. And climb it he did. An astonishing feat of brinkmanship sent him round twice, maybe three times more, and he sped past his pillow by miles and clocked up an improbable win.

Ian 7 spaces past his pillow

Martin 3

Andrew 1

The group playing Zendo ("the facial hair table", according my notes) finished with each of them winning a simple rules round and then Ben suggested attempting a medium rules round, prompting an anguished wail of tortured indecision from Gareth. Ben won the medium rules round and I think Gareth enjoyed it. "Our brains are fried," summarised Joe.

Ben 2

Joe 1

Gareth 1

And Shinkansen ended shortly afterwards.

Sam 82

Katy 76

Mel 51

Then Mel made Katy a cherry coke float which I thought was the most 1950s thing I'd seen in years. 

We rearranged ourselves into two new groups. Sam, Ian, Mel, Ben, Katy and Gareth played Texas Showdown while Joe, Martin and myself sat around the garden table and played The Crew Mission Deep Sea. We veered from hopeless incompetence to supreme capability, failing the first two attempts and then sailing past two rounds without even using the communication option. We ended on mission 21 which was a bit of an anti climax as we completed it in just three tricks.

Clearly impossible

I was too engrossed in our deep sea missions to follow much of Texas Showdown except for Katy musing "I'm sure I used to be good at this game."

Mel 3

Ben 6

Katy 9

Sam 10

Ian 10

Gareth 12

And with that, we were done. At least, most of us. Martin was keen for one more so perhaps him and the hosts continued into the wee small hours. Sorry that the blog is so self centred and that I arrived so late. I drove to Easton on total auto pilot and found myself on Stapleton Road thinking "oh shit".

Big thanks to Mel and Ben for hosting. Hope to see you all soon.

From Deep Sea to Deep Sleep (and back again)

I (Sam) broke my recent lazy habit of Voi-ing to Joe's house and actually got on a bike again, arriving ruddy-faced from the cold to find Laura already there and Martin, presumably, en route. Along with Joe that was it! A surprisingly player-lite games night of just four. We began by plunging into the watery depths to play Crash Octopus. 

the sea, the sea

This is a fairly silly dexterity game where players each have a boat, and are trying to collect treasure by flicking it into said boat (you can also spend a turn moving your boat instead). In your way is the furious octopus - and the other players. Whenever someone 'finds' treasure, they stack it on their boat and then the octopus might attack: all players take a turn dropping a die off the octopus' head and sending it hurtling, if you can, into the other boats. If it knocks stuff off, that's just too bad! 

If the die didn't hit a ship you move the octopus instead: blank-side up is a tentacle, pink-side up is the head. The constantly shifting octo-parts mean your ship can go from comparative safety to immediate danger, as the head looms up beside you. But you can always try and move it with your own 'attack' by bouncing the die away from your boat...

Laura hides behind a tentacle

I wouldn't argue it's the most elegant design ever, but it was 20 minutes of chaotic fun, and supplied the surprise of the night when Joe's octopus attack saw the die spin around Martin's boat: without actually touching it at all, it nudged Martin's treasures into the sea!

The aftermath of the attack

Joe and I took the laurels here with three matching treasures each. I think Laura had one and Martin none. Next up was Sheepy Time, where one swapped one nightmare pursuer for another. 

nodding off

This was new to Martin and Laura, but is in essence a luck-pushing game of trying to get the most sleep: every time your sheep manages to complete a circuit of the course and jump the fence, you - potentially - score five points, but face the dilemma of 'waking up' 'calling it a night' -ie dropping out of the round and banking your score- or keeping going and risk getting nothing if the Nightmare completes a full circuit before you do. Appended to that are various powers around the edge of the board you can access by spending 'zees'.

final round tension

Additionally, each round sees your target of 'winks' - what you need to win - drop to more immediately-achievable levels depending on your level of success. Last time I played fairly conservatively and did really badly. This time I can vouch that ignoring zees and focusing entirely on movement is also a moribund strategy. In the final round I dropped out to propel myself from last place to a potential second, only to discover - as Joe won - that according to the rules there is no such thing as second. 

"You're a nothing" Martin clarified. It was karma for my making chicken noises at Joe, I guess. 

I didn't make note of the scores, but it was along the lines of

Joe something

Everyone else: nothings

Martin and Laura were keen to introduce Joe to Quirky Circuits, the game of navigating automated vacuum cleaners around tables and bees over anthills. Like The Mind, players play co-operatively but without knowing which movement cards they've played until all are revealed. The goal in each round is to navigate a thing (vacuum collects dust, bee picks up and delivers pollen) until it's tasks are complete. As well as the above catch, there's also the fact you have a hand of just four cards and - in some rounds - must play one, or even two of them, before the others. Everyone's also on limited time, as rounds are powered by a battery that's slowly running out...

the cat does nothing

We hoovered the lounge easily though, introducing Joe to the basic concepts, before stepping outside and taking control of the bee. Now our task was a little more difficult, as the teenage bee was still getting used to the concept of braking: if you went fast, it would drift another square. 

move one, move one, rotate 180º, move north (must be played first!)

On the other hand, cards that rotated the bee north could be very helpful. It was a close-run thing in our final game (of four) as the ants nearly carried off the pollen and the battery was in the red, but we completed the task with seconds to spare! On that note of triumph, Laura departed and the three of us settled on The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. 

Joe's task

We were hit with some devilishly difficult tasks, but managed to navigate them pretty well on the whole. I think we failed once, allowed me a do-over once, but broadly speaking sailed through a few rounds with comparative ease. 

Another mission

As the clock ticked past eleven we wrapped things up on a quiet, but satisfying GNN night. Hope to see a few more faces next week!

Can't say pharaoh than that

I got to this week's GNN at the remarkably prompt time of 7.35, which was early enough to see Joe whizzing past me on one of those e-scooters that the local council borrowed from the future as I walked to Sam's. 

Sadly, though, I was not able to join in with a clever word game that I usually see in its final stages because they'd either been lent out or not brought. Instead we (Katy, Martin, Ian, Adam T, Joe, Sam and me) played  A game called: about Wee Whimsical Creatures and trying to identify them after someone makes noises. This is a very simple game with a very long name which involves five monsters being dealt out and one player is given a numbered card drawn randomly. That player then makes the noise that they think the corresponding monster would make. Then everyone has to guess which one it was. Points are awarded for being right or being in the majority.

It was interesting. Katy started very badly, not scoring at all for the first few rounds. Adam H and Mel arrived midway through the game and joined in with the guessing but somehow could not be persuaded to try making some noises themselves.

Joe 7

Andrew 7

Martin 6

Adam T 5

Ian 4

Katy 2

Adam H and Mel scored points too.

Then the nine of us split into two groups. For the second week in a row the table hummed to the sound of simultaneous Profiteer/Sheepy Time rules explanation. Mel, Adam T, Ian, Martin and I played Profiteer, a cynical game of black marketeering during wartime. The American Civil War, in this case. Adam T went big on the Union early on while Mel did the opposite. After two early ties in the game I went for the long-shot result of a tie (so my British factories would score big at the end of the game) while Martin and Ian both went for a Saloon/Undertaker combo so they wanted the game to last as long as possible. Despite their near identical possibilities, Ian squeaked a win after Martin bought up some Union Victory bonds, only to see the Confederate side win the Civil War.

Ian 37

Martin 33

Mel 24

Andrew 16

Adam T 0

Sheepy Time, which I hadn’t been following, was coming to an end, and what an end it was. Joe managed to land on his pillow and so did Adam H with his last turn. But a rule-check told us that Joe would win the tie-breaker as it stood, so Adam risked another lap before the Nightmare caught him and successfully too.

Adam H: past his pillow

Joe: on his pillow

Sam: within sight of his pillow

Katy: pillow still some distance off

Then we reshuffled our chairs. Joe, Ian, Mel, Adam H and I played Ra. I was Mel’s first go and as she got a rules explanation, we admired Joe’s newest addition to his increasingly pimped out Ra set: a tile cube, to replace the cloth bag of the standard deluxe version. It looked nice but I’m not sure it worked in practice. 

For a moment Joe thought he’d forgotten the rule book and so we didn’t know how to distribute the sun tiles at the start of the game. Luckily Martin told us how to do it (lay out two to six, then seven to twelve in a row beneath and finally thirteen to sixteen the other way) but Joe thought it looked wrong. Then he found the rules and was able to check for sure. Martin had it spot on. “Of course Martin was right,” Joe seethed good naturedly.

As for the game, I went big on Niles and Pharoahs, which is where the blog title came from even if it was an old joke. Adam did well on civilizations as I recall and Mel, despite dipping down to 0 points mid-game, rallied at the end thanks to having four “Beatles” monuments among her wide array of buildings.

Adam 34 + highest sun tile

Andrew 34

Joe 32

Ian 28

Mel 20

Martin, Adam T, Katy and Sam played Nokosu Dice. I tried to catch a flavour of the game, and scribbled down a few phrases like “this is mad,” (Martin) “I’m sure I was going to go home early,” (Katy) and “we have to fuck Sam,” (Martin again). But I had to leave before the game ended. 

Thanks all for the games and the memories. See you next week.