ChameleAnja

Please welcome Pete to blogging duties! This is last week's report, 25th November) 

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Tuesday approached as it usually does, and Steve enquired if anyone would be up for Fishponds games.

He emphasised games based *in* Fishponds, and not based *on* Fishponds, so I (Pete) was relieved to find that plenty of other gamers weren't put off by this, and eventually by confirmation  that wellies were not required.

Joe, Martin, Sam, Adam and Katy began by playing Mü, only briefly pausing to debate whether the title was a cat-noise or a cow-noise.

Joe advises Martin was leading, but they called it early after two rounds with Sam feeling increasingly exhausted/unwell and kindly dropped home by Joe. Perhaps there will be a rematch this week? (and it might even be reported more promptly! 😆)

At the other end Steve, Anja, Louis and I deliberated a little more. I was tempted by Broom Service but we decided it would probably be a bit long. Steve suggested Magic Maze, but expressed concern that Anja would not take to a silent co-op. Anja was speechless. Whether this was indignation, practice or demonstration, we elected to play Chameleon instead.

For a rulebook of two A6 pages Steve & I found this surprisingly unintuitive at first, though he had the excuse of being without glasses and well and truly blocked into a corner by the throng of gamers.

Once these were obtained we got into it quickly- all but one player (the titular Chameleon) are let in on a secret word from a list, then all have to give a clue to it, before voting on who the Chameleon is. The Chameleon has to either conceal their identity fully, or has an out if they are caught but can guess the secret word (hence those in the know can't be too precise).

Pretty tough on the Chameleon if they are going first and have no clue whatsoever, but it seems with a bit of luck, vagueness and sowing doubt the Chameleons did pretty well. When I say Chameleons, I mostly mean Anja! Even when caught once she escaped.

From being unsure if it would work, I enjoyed this, I think having that bit more structure makes it a bit less fragile than more freeform similar games like Spyfall and something else I've forgotten. I even escaped once, mainly because I could frame Steve as his chosen word turned out to be suspiciously similar to mine...

We elected to wrap up at the same time as the others, with Anja leading on 3, myself on 2 and Louie and Steve tied on 0.

Thinking about it, I don't believe we successfully captured a single Chameleon- interesting! Would be good to go a few more rounds and see how common that is, and how it would turn out with everyone getting a go.

While Joe was gone and with Sam and Louie departed for the evening the rest of us all played Martin's Bluffit.

This prompted Steve to enquire just how many games Martin owns that consist largely of decks of cards with numbers on them. It certainly seems to be a rich design space - I suspect it would take us quite some time to play through them all. Guesses in the comments? 😜

In this one we were starting with identical hands to bid for a row of cards in the middle, or perhaps to secretly compare with another player to try and steal their claim. And then repeating again to compete for the cards we'd just bid with.

I can't remember if Joe returned in time to witness a dramatic finale with Martin stealing a card to sneak ahead of Anja, only to discover that Steve was still slightly ahead.

We then split again to create a Doppelkniziatisch.

Martin, Joe and Anja made coloured glass in Mille Fiori, which I don't know and only caught a few glimpses of. It appeared Martin had the corner of the board nearest him tiled / glazed / whatevered pretty much entirely green. This appears to have been quite successful:

Martin 225

Anja 204

Joe 192

Meanwhile Adam, Katy, Steve and I launched cats into space by rolling dice in M:LEM, while Molly investigated the box for spaceship potential.

We didn't necessarily get that far into space- Katy definitely dominated the first planet; other cats did make it further, but none to deep space.

I think I got the ship closest, but then I was following a previously trodden path in a new game; take risks early on while figuring out how it works, then take more risks to try and catch up. I was relieved that cats lost to space return to your pool of possible recruits, though feeling thematically a little perplexed. I was glad Molly was much more interested in the box than the fate of spacefaring cats.

Adam's cats fared much better, and I think he surprised us (well, at least Katy and I) a little with how fast he had all his cats successfully disembarked to triggered the game end. However, Steve had again scored slightly higher.

Steve 26

Adam 22

Katy 21

Pete 12

Despite some muttering about heading home we elected to sneak one round of So Clover! We flew out of the blocks with Joe's clover solved correctly in about 30 seconds. The group did a good job with mine as well, but from a start of 12/12 we then came a bit unstuck, despite a willing feline helper.

Birdshit for pigeon/award was inspired, and I very much liked Rapunzel for hair/building. Boxing/landscape was indeed a tricky one though..

I don't think the overall score was that bad that we should have deliberately forgotten it, but it seems possible- can anyone dredge it up from their memory?

Thanks again all and especially our hosts for another great evening of gaming 🙂

The First Flush of Spring

It was a momentous occasion at Hannah and Adam's house - perhaps Arthur sensed something in the air, as he was unable to get to sleep - with long-time absentee Katy returning from her year-long cycle across America and even-longer absentee Quentin returning from his enigmatic doings in the UK. Andrew was still away in Japan, but joining our hosts and regulars Joe, Martin, Ian and myself was also fellow Eastonite Steve, doubling down on last week's appearance.

We began with cake, courtesy of Katy. In classic Katy style she pulled the rug from under the confectionary by saying what she learned from her trip was that "all gaming groups are the same", leaving us emotionally on the ropes before the evening had even begun. She's back, ladies and gentlemen! Katy floundered to justify this seeming broadside at our interchangeability before Joe came gallantly to her rescue with some sanguine philosophical reflections, and then Martin proved the truth of the statement by lifting the lid on the first game of the night: The Chameleon. It'd not been seen for a good while either, but the fact there were eight of us (at this point Hannah was still trying to get Arthur settled) made it a good fit.

In the first round, the word was Soup and Quentin was the chameleon. I can't remember who was accused, but Quentin got away with the word "tray" despite Ian pointing out you can carry many things on a tray, not just soup. Quent also guessed the word, courtesy of Joe and Steve's clues "Kitchen" and "Pea".

In the second round the word was Risk, and Ian was the chameleon, covering his back by saying the word "Strategy". Many of us thought Katy was the chameleon, with the word 'gray' that I'm still not clear on the reasoning of. Then we had one more round where the word was Insects. Joe did his best to incriminate himself by clueing the word "Startled" in reference to a Bristol band no-one had heard of; even his reading of the entire wikipedia entry not convincing us that it was a non-suspicious clue. But Katy's clue of 'Black' didn't convince enough people for her to get away with being the chameleon; though to be fair she did have to go first.

Hannah now swapped bedtime roles with Adam and we split into two groups. On the big table Hannah, Martin, Katy and Joe took on the evil-doing that is Northern Pacific. On the coffee table in the front room Ian, Steve, Quentin and myself collaborated beautifically on reconstructing the ancient temple of Menara.

Or at least we did until I knocked it over. Then we started again, determined to succeed, as the room rang to the soundtrack of the other table. At first there was much mirth, delighted cackling and verdant swearing coming from the direction of Northern Pacific. Then: silence. I'm not sure when exactly it happened, but clearly the fun of track-laying and station-investing had been superseded by the fun of revenge fantasies conjured and in some cases realised.

They later blamed Adam, who had returned to restart the game and tie for a three-way win:

Adam/Martin/Katy 23 (tied on tie-breaker!)
Joe/Hannah 18 (tied on tie-breaker!!)

Whilst they blasted out a game of Gold Fever...

...we came to the end of Menara in the front room, with Steve and I putting together the last Temple Floor. Quentin, ever the strategist, didn't want us to place it at all, reasoning we didn't need to to secure the victory. But we decided a glorious failure was better than a clinical win. Fortunately, it was neither: a glorious victory instead. We all took photos.

Hannah now retired to bed and Steve too, with an early morning looming, hit the road. The rest of us settled around the big table for the returnee's debuts at Just One. It was a hilariously catastrophic attempt with a number of clues overlapping and cancelling each other out. Including clues for 'shower' which I won't reproduce here, and poor Joe being left trying to guess the word Buffy from Giles and resurrection and Quentin trying to glean the word Shower from 'psycho' and 'power'. We failed, failed, and failed again, just hitting the disappointing 'average' score.

We wrapped up the evening with the return of another absentee - Fuji Flush, which remains a slightly tricky game to explain despite the simple rules. Quentin was already looking marginally baffled when Ian mentioned dick points. "Don't confuse him with dick points" Martin said, adding another aphorism to the GNN canon. Katy threatened to go out first but kept getting busted. Martin picked up a whole bunch of rubbish throughout the game, giving up all confidentiality to show me his cards.

And I won, going out on a 17 when nobody had the cards to collaborate with - essentially, they were collectively dickless.

Sam 0
Katy 1
Adam 2
Ian and Joe 3
Quentin 4
Martin 5

A fun end to a fun night. Thanks to our hosts in particular, and welcome back strangers!

I don't need a lava

This Tuesday evening saw yours truly back from travels and keen to get back on the gaming horse. Joe was hosting and Sam, Katy, Martin, and Ian were also present.

We began with a six-hander, Auf Teufel Komm Raus, a recent new arrival and already making waves as the new luck-pushing game of choice.

Ian found he had very little luck to push. He tried his best to throw caution to the wind, only for it to blow back in his face. "No reason for me to stop now," he said, hoping for a run of luck. He immediately turned over a devil tile.

After a disaster of a second round, he had to go all-in on round three. Luckily it paid off, and the Deal With The Devil rule (those solely in last place get money every time someone goes bust) he was pushed back into contention.

Less lucky in his dealings with the devil was Joe. On those rounds where he was last, the rest of us played safe and few went bust.

Sam successfully guesses what he's going to pull from the cauldron

Martin successfully campaigned against any tactic that would benefit Katy, convinced that she was about to win. "I promise you I'm not going to win." When Sam asked if that was a genuine promise, she clarified "this round."

The final result found that Martin had not lost his touch in hedging his bets.

Martin 1600
Katy 1420
Andrew 1370
Sam 1290
Ian 750
Joe 450

After this was, we split into two groups. Martin, Joe and Katy chose Capital Lux, a card game about which I know nothing. They set themselves up on the green baize card table and got down to work. Katy looked pleased with herself when Martin responded to her tactics by saying "that was the only card that could have fucked me." Katy's delight was to be short lived as Martin stole the win by the narrowest of margins.

Martin 68
Katy 67
Joe 63

Meanwhile, we on the big table decided on Downfall of Pompeii as a fun way to pass the time, despite its unpleasant theme.

The only thing we needed to be reminded of was how to set up the deck of cards. But with that fiddly bit of detail done, we were off, populating the doomed city with carefree abandon.

It was a close game but, then again, most games of Downfall of Pompeii are. It was all down to the tie breaker, based on the number of Romans in the volcano.

I drew the majority of the omen cards and Ian, it seems drew the rest. While we both tried to be very fair in alternating between attacking our opponents, it looks like we would invariably lean towards the more populous Sam. With no further tie breaker, Ian and I shared the victory.

Ian 9 (7 in the volcano)
Andrew 9 (7)
Sam 9 (12)

When we'd finished, we found Capital Lux only five minutes from completion so we cooled our heels and waited. I recognised the singer on the stereo and I asked Joe "Is this Jonathon Coulton?"

"Yes," Joe replied.

"He's being more serious than usual," I remarked, referring to the poignant lyrics.

"Not really," said Joe, "it's about a giant squid."

So now we were six. Games were suggested until we agreed on the plan to end with three short games.

The first was For Sale, the game that Sam always agrees to, thinking they mean No Thanks.

The cards 30 and 29 came out in the first round, meaning the tense stand off began early. Luckily for me, Martin cracked first and picked up the lowest card for free. This set off a series of people grabbing cards which ended with me getting the 29 for half price while my neighbour Katy paid for the 30 in full.

Having a 29 and most of your money left is a good way to start For Sale, and played it out with little to worry me.

Andrew 55
Ian 47
Joe 41
Katy 39
Sam 37
Martin 35

Next in our late evening trilogy was Bemused. It intrigues us with its opacity. What are the best tactics? Nobody knows.

Maybe Ian does. He was a deserved winner, dismissing Poet Sam with the words "No matter how hard you try, orange does not rhyme with fromage." A devastating barb, that no one could match.

Ian 7
Katy 6
Sam 5
Andrew 4
Martin 3
Joe 2

Finally we played Chameleon. A guessing game that involves spotting which player knows nothing. Kind of the opposite of Insider.

We played three rounds. In the first, Joe was successfully unmasked as the chameleon. Although afterwards, Katy said she had known nothing about the subject (Stuart Little) and was kind of bluffing.

The second round was geography. Ian was the chameleon, but he was able to correctly identify the target word: Mountain.

In the third round, Wedding Anniversaries, I worried that my word was too obvious. The target word was Paper and my clue was First (ie, the first wedding anniversary is paper). But most of our attention was taken by Joe, whose clue made no sense, but he insisted he wasn't the chameleon.

He also couldn't understand our clues and, as suspicion against him grew, he realised he'd misread the dice, thinking the 7 was a 1. But we checked our cards telling us which dice rolls indicated which word only to find that, either with a 1 or a 7, Joe should've got the same word. Joe then said he'd looked at the wrong word on the card. Yes, that's what had happened.

But just as Joe was doing a riveting performance of a man hell-bent on incriminating himself, Sam quietly opined that Ian's clue was pretty vague.

Ian had said "leaf" which I had thought perfectly reasonable and not given it a second thought. But Sam had noticed that "leaf" could apply to a number of words on the card. This sparked a revision of our suspicion and it was enough to sway people. I think I still voted for Joe, but Ian was the majority choice and he was indeed the chameleon. He couldn't even identify the word - he'd guessed Gold. So, a win for most of us to end the evening, thanks to Sam's keen eye.

We set off into the chill of the night. Next stop, the games weekend on Friday!

Calmer chameleon

Tuesdays at Joe's. Six gamers: Joe, Katy, Martin, Sam, Steve and myself. We began with The Chameleon, a new Spyfall-esque game of pretending to know more than you really do. Perhaps I should be concerned that I seem to be quite good at it.

We played three rounds. In the first round Sam was the chameleon and the clue was Rom-Com. Halfway through this round Steve finally worked out that all the non-chameleons knew the same word. This probably made things clearer.

Our words for rom-com mostly seemed based around vague references to Four Weddings and a Funeral, but it wasn't clear enough to Sam. He was outed as the chameleon and incorrectly guessed Comedy as the mystery word. We'd won.

At the start of the next round, Joe remarked that it'd be almost impossible to not be identified as the chameleon. I checked my card and discovered that it was me this time. I found it surprisingly stressful. Suddenly the game turned into Codenames as I frantically (but calmly) tried to think of words that would cover as many potential answers as possible. I chose Grey and, boy, did I get lucky. The mystery word/thing was Game of Thrones, which involves a family name that contains the word Grey. All the suspicion fell on Joe who was last to think of a word, and it did not impress. I won!

For the third round I was appalled to find myself as the chameleon again. The subject was historical people, and I worked out that about a third of them had connections to islands, so that's what I said, realising that if the secret was Anne Frank that I'd be caught out pretty quickly. And I got lucky again, since it was Charles Darwin. But not lucky enough. The vote to identify the chameleon was split three ways and Martin had the deciding vote, and he voted for me. I was exposed. I successfully identified the secret so technically I won, but I was still disappointed.

After all that stress, we split into two groups of three. Sam, Katy and Martin chose a number of short games. The first of which, I think, was Spires.

Sam took a risk on the last turn and, apparently, got royally screwed for his bravery. This lumbered him with a pile of negative points right at the end.

Martin 97
Katy 61
Sam 28

Joe, Steve and me brought Manila to the table. It was new to Steve but it's not hugely complicated. At heart, it's a betting game, appealing to the compulsive gambler in all of us. My early game went well, with a couple of choice pirating expeditions bringing in a heap of money. But the dice were being generous anyway, with one round ending with all of us earning over 30 in cash.

Meanwhile, the other three moved on to Steam Park. A massively complicated looking game whose main mechanic seems to revolve around cleaning up dirt. At the beginning, Katy and Martin kept protesting that they didn't know what they were doing.

But before long, those teething troubles were over and they were well into the swing of things. It ended:

Martin 88
Sam 79
Katy 76

In Manila, Joe was in money troubles and had to encumber some shares. He had to pull of an audacious tactic of getting money and also betting on none of the three ships coming in. And it worked.

Steve also struggled with cash but had no encumbered shares to worry about.

The other three played Lords of Scotland. I barely remember it, but the scores were:

Katy 41
Martin 31
Sam 16

Then they played Eggs of Ostrich, which Katy won despite bursting all but one of her bags, but having two lovely chunks of amber.

Katy 13
Sam 9
Martin 2

Finally, Manila was coming to a close. Once I was far in the lead in money mid-game, I'd played cautiously. Steve made a late conversion to piracy but it didn't pay out as much as mine. Joe managed to unencumber his shares to fight his way back to a healthy second place.

Andrew 157
Joe 125
Steve 98

Then we played a quick game about dirty pigs. If I hadn’t taken a photo I would have completely forgotten about it. I think I won.

Now we were all back together, and ready for a game of Fuji Flush. I started to flag during this game, and helped Martin to a quick win causing howls of dismay from the other players (although, in my defence, it also stopped me coming dead last).

Martin 0 cards left
Steve 1
Joe 1
Sam 2
Katy 2
Andrew 2

But then as some of us got ready to go, a hardcore splinter group of Sam, Joe and Martin stayed seated, contemplating another game. I was briefly tempted to sit back down and join them but was quickly reminded that I ended the last game on purpose. And so, banished from the games room, I snuck off into the night.

Nicht noch einmal!

This week's GNN was looking to be reasonably populated, only for work and weather to cull us back to five: Ian was first in out of the heavy rain at my (Sam's) house, followed by equally sodden Martin and Katy, before Joe strolled in looking catalogue dry. The evening began in most un-GNN-like fashion as we sat with Sally and the boys chatting and eating apple pie, almost as if there were no games to be played.

But there were, and our plans of Clanking or Rocketing (Stephenson-wise) were abandoned for some five player options: we started with The Chameleon, the cross between Spyfall and Codenames.

Like Spyfall, cards are dealt during each round that denote who the chameleon is, whose task to A. not reveal themselves and/or B. work out what the word of the round is. The other cards and a set of dice decide on the word, which is one of about 16 visible on a face-up card - and the visible words are of a theme: animals, music genres and so on. Everyone but the chameleon knows which word is the chosen one, and after a short period of "thinking time" everyone says a single, ostensibly related, word. Then everyone discusses and guesses who the chameleon is. If they choose wrong, the chameleon wins. If they choose correctly, the chameleon can still win by identifying the word.

 chameleon not pictured

The latter was the case for us half the time - in all but one round we nailed the chameleon, but half the time they guessed the word anyway - like Spyfall, you're trying to give the impression you know the word without actually giving it away to the chameleon, and we were being rather obvious. In the final round I was the chameleon, and I decided to go fairly random and just say the word "Orange", hoping to bluff my way out of it. But as luck would have it, I was last to speak and the other words revealed to me that the correct word was Christmas. I stuck with orange, happily remembering that oranges - or satsumas, as Joe correctly pointed out - appear in stockings. Thanks to kismet and some vague words from Ian and Katy, I pulled off the only outright chameleon win of the night!

We moved on to the meat of the evening, which was Beowulf. I rarely request this but I always enjoy it, and last night was no exception. The very first bid turned into an epic battle where everyone felt too committed to drop out, and as a result cards were a scarce commodity from early on. Joe and I both took scratches and wounds, but I managed to pick up a couple of scrolls as well, whereas Joe was bereft of them.

Oh, Beowulf

Ian and Katy both managed to build themselves enormous hands of cards at some stage, whereas Martin and I seemed short of them. Halfway through I sensed it was a battle between Katy and Martin, as Joe looked to be struggling still and Ian seemed too forlorn - but I had forgotten that is merely Ian's natural demeanour.

But spare a thought for Martin, who gallantly reminded Ian in the final, epic battle - where both of them successfully risked into existence numerous cards - that when Ian's risk finally failed him he had a special card to play that negated the risk and allowed him to go again. He did, and it proved a crucial moment in determining the victor, as Martin's risk response did not fare as well:

Ian 28
Katy/Sam 26
Martin 23
Joe 14

Martin's successful risks weren't quite enough...

After the tension of bidding in Beowulf we went for a different kind of tension: bidding in Perudo. This perennial classic showed all its qualities - apart from the Calza rule - as we bluffed and brinkmanshipped our way through another twenty minutes of GNN history. Despite Joe's death spiral, it was Martin first out as the others shed dice down to palafico status and I somehow held on to all five of mine. Ian and Joe soon exited too, although my dice were depleted by the time I faced Katy thanks to two moments where I wanted to call Calza (and would have been successful) but had to raise, and was successfully dudo-ed.

It was now a face to face between Katy (one die) and myself (two). I rolled a 4 and 6 but bid one 5, hoping Katy wouldn't bid a single six. It was risky, but it paid off as she went one ace and I dudo-ed her out of the game.

Despite Joe, Ian and I agreeing we were collectively 'pooped' Martin corralled us into one more game, which was Noch Mal ("Again" in German), one of Joe's roll-and-write purchases that have been making their way to the table recently. I was curious, since I really like Rolling America and Qwixx, but was less impressed than everyone else by Kribbeln. It was new to everyone but Joe and Katy, but the game is pretty simple: six dice are rolled - three numbered, three coloured - and then the active player chooses a combo of colour and number to cross off boxes on their Noch Mal pad. All the other players then choose one of the remaining combos for themselves, with the caveat that if they can't cross off adjacent boxes exactly (i.e. they can't access those boxes from previously filled ones, or they don't have enough space) then they can't cross off anything. Players completing a column or all the boxes of a particular colour score points, and certain boxes are minus points if they end the game un-crossed.

Pre-game-boxes

I thought it was a decent game, but compared to Qwixx or Rolling America it did seem to go on for a while; long enough for some to feel it out-stayed its welcome somewhat. Everyone eventually ran out of the helpful 'joker' spaces on their pads, meaning there were turns were you could do nothing but stare balefully at the table. I think a second play would change a number of tactics and alleviate this, but I didn't get the impression it would get played again soon... Ian hated it so much he lost all his powers of arithmetic and thought 12 + 2 was twenty.

Sam 22
Joe/Katy 18
Martin 16
Ian 14

Early-game boxes. Note that columns further from the centre 

(where you must start your box-crossing) score more points. 

And everyone - bar me - stepped into the windy night. Despite the underwhelm of Noch Mal, a very fun evening. Thanks all!