Tea o'clock

Technically speaking, I was bang on time this week. At least, I had logged into Discord on my phone and was present as Katy, Joe, Martin, Adam T, Ian and Sam arrived. Alas, I was distracted by other things (making a salad, for example) and once I got to a PC, a game of Codenames was already underway.

This meant that my team mate Joe had to decipher spymaster Sam's first clue of ONLINE, 2 and he did it perfectly, picking out Amazon and Web.

Martin was not so lucky with his clues to Ian, Adam and Katy and his clue of WEIGHT lead to them picking one of our clues and then in the second round Martin chose TREASURE as his clue which prompted his colleagues to choose Temple. Alas this turned out to be the assassin and the game ended before I'd really got comfy.

By now Andy B had turned up and so we split into two groups of four. Martin, Joe, Katy and Sam played American Bookshop. Sam described it as a “devilish trick taker” and it was the word “devilish” that swung it for Katy.

They set off to a new Google Hangout so I have no idea what happened there, except that Sam won.

Photos courtesy of Sam

Meanwhile Ian, Adam, Andy and I went for Palaces of Carrera. It was Ian's first go and so Adam gave a rules explanation. Andy took the opportunity to go and get food but later admitted he'd overestimated his familiarity with the game as he had to reference the pdf of the rules. Ian was so quiet and still that I asked him if his avatar on Hangouts was a photo of himself. Adam discovered that you can’t say “bugger” on BGA.

It ended in a rare double victory for Adam. Firstly, for the game of Palaces of Carrara and secondly for the game of Race For The Galaxy that he was finishing off as we were playing.

Adam 78
Andrew 60
Andy 50
Ian 20

We learnt that the other four were playing King Domino, so we sped through 7 Wonders. Andy went into a lengthy debate about whether the left and right arrows on markets meant clockwise or anticlockwise. He must have been very frustrated about this, because he suddenly went big on military in round three. It was a futile gesture, though/

Adam 53
Ian 48
Andrew 44
Andy 39

Kingdomino was still going on so we, in our over excited state, figured we could squeeze one more game of 7 Wonders in. We couldn’t, and they finished halfway through our game. Ian went big on military and yellow commerce buildings on his way to a win.

Ian 56
Andy 51
Adam 48
Andrew 36

Kingdomino ended

Sam 53
Martin 53
Joe 49
Katy 41

Sam won again, this time on a tie-breaker so absurd that Martin scoffed at its very existence.

At this point Ian, Sam and Joe left and the remaining five of us played For Sale. Katy picked up 2, 3 and 4 and wanted the 1 as well except someone beat her to it. It was the most audacious tactic in For Sale since Katy decided to just pass on each round of bidding and pick up whatever. Today’s game ended that same way as that did. With Katy in last.

Andy 57
Martin 53
Adam 49
Andrew 45
Katy 40

Then Adam left which left us as a quartet. We ended the night trying out a simple yet tricky game called Tea Time. It's a set collecting game where each set has a mirror image. Collect two opposing cards and they cancel out. But this may be good because having no cards in a set gets you five points. This makes it better than having one or two.

Martin 41
Andy 33
Katy 27
Andrew 25

Katy 39
Martin 34
Andy 29
Andrew 24

And with that we were done for another week. Thanks all.

Stone me

The country remains in lockdown so we do our bit by not leaving the house and looking at heavily pixelated versions of ourselves via the internet.

I arrived at 8 at about the same time as Steve and Anja. We three joined Sam, Martin, Katy, Ian and Adam T who had already played 7 Wonders. Don't know the score.

We started a game of 6nimmt, and although Sam went clear in round one, it was Katy who won. She pointed out, in the face of our general disapproval, that it was her turn to win since Martin had won last time.

Katy 64
Martin 61
Sam 54
Andrew 43
Steve 32
Ian 22
Adam 7
Anja -3

Next up was Incan Gold, which Katy struggled with because she couldn’t see on her screen how many of us were still in the temple. Not that it made much difference since her determination to stay on until the rich pickings that were surely only a card turn away was to be her undoing. And Martin’s too, as they played out an identical game, both only clicking on the “keep exploring” option until they were dead. Sam, however, was far more light on his feet. Has his need for early nights in real life seeped into his Incan Gold strategy? Wasn’t enough to beat Ian in game one and then, in game two, Martin tried the “swift exit” tactics with less success.

Ian 28
Sam 24
Anja 18
Andrew 15
Adam 15
Steve 7
Martin 0
Katy 0

Sam 23
Steve 17
Adam 15
Andrew 13
Anja 9
Martin 8
Ian 7
Katy 5

Katy may have come last twice, but at least she cheered us all up by singing “Zombie Lady” to the tune of “La Cucaracha”.

Then Joe arrived to we split into two groups. Katy was keen to see people's faces so she and her merry band of Anja, Steve, Ian and Joe set off for Google Hangouts and two games of Coloretto.

Anja wins game one
Ian wins game two.

Martin, Adam, Sam and I played Palaces of Carrara for the first time in years for most of us. Sam got a rules refresher/explanation but I’ve noticed that online is not a great place to learn a game. He, by the end, admitted he had no idea what he was doing. Adam complained if people bought without moving the wheel and Martin sighed heavily at how badly he was doing before choosing a move that got him lots of points. It ended as you might imagine, and thanks to Martin for charitably describing the score as “close”.

Martin 95
Andrew 50
Sam 47
Adam 44

Keen to play again, though.

Finally, with all of us on Google Hangouts (except for Sam and Steve who left at this point) we played Just One. Our brilliant showing in this game is becoming more and more of a distant memory as we struggled.

Even with our “Guess the duplicate” rule, we did badly. Ian looked sleepier with each guess and at one point he logged out and didn’t come back in so we thought he’d finally nodded off. But it was his battery that had died, not him.

GNN super charitable scoring method: 10 points
Official rules scoring method: 4 points

And so we were done for another evening. Thanks all! Must do it again some time.

Losing Our Marbles

Nestling between Wednesday and Friday is Thursday - the ideal time if you missed Tuesday, or, like me, feel twice a week isn't quite enough for your socially questionable habit.

Martin felt the same so he and Andy arrived at my (Sam's) house for a bit of extra-hot GNN action.

We began with The Palaces of Carrara, the game that Martin kind of arrived at GNN towers clutching in his hand, until he won so many games of it that everybody refused to play him again. I had somehow missed this whole lose-to-Martin sequence (with Palaces, anyway) which I think had mostly taken place at Roll for the Soul, and I remained curious about the game. I had lost to Martin in plenty of games, but not this one yet.

However it only took about 45 minutes for Martin to rectify that, as he took myself and Andy to the cleaners in this crazy game of marble-production, marble-selling and building-stuff-from-marble:

Martin: clean 38
Andy: shabby 28
Me: dirty 17

The wheel of Martin's imminent success

I could go into the detail of this game but frankly I had no idea what I was doing, except to say that feeling your way into a game is a non-productive quality when it's actually a race to meet the variable winning-requirements. Martin blitzed us, but despite my near-total confusion I enjoyed it. I'd like to play it again.

Next up was Quantum - new to Andy and unfamiliar to Martin, who hadn't played in a while. I had indulged recently, and shot into an early lead. But only having one cube left to place meant Martin and Andy came after me, and I looked like I was going to be at least caught, if not overhauled, until a fortuitous card came up. I completed my Dominance and got my last cube down:

Sam: 0 cubes left
Martin: 1 cube left
Andy: 2 cubes left

Andy didn't like it, but he was thrown in at the deep end with two semi-experts and to be fair, some really shitty dice. At one stage it seemed like the only thing he could roll was a five.

Quantum of Solace

By this time it was half-ten and Andy decided to hit the road. Martin elected to take the bus - his commitment to gaming is something else - and we played Haggis. Both of us were rusty and drunk at this point, but my rustiness and drunkeness aligned itself to a decent set of cards, and in this canny trick-taking game I surged into an early lead that fate decreed me not to surrender:

Sam 100 points
Martin 48 points

Then Martin scarpered for the bus and I marvelled at winning two games in a row against Martin 'The Machine" Griffiths.... not only that, I have to thank him for the game-themed beer...

drink up!

						Points
Martin	2	1	2	2	1	8
Katy	1	3	2	2	1	9
Andrew	2	1	4	1	1	9
Jon	2	2	2	2	1	9
Sam	1	3	2	2	2	10
Matt	4	1	2	1	2	10
Ian	1	3	3	3	2	12
Andy	3	2	2	4	1	12
Hannah	3	3	2	2	2	12
Joe	2	1	3	3	4	13
Chris	2	5	1	1	4	13
Anja	2	1	1	5	5	14
Adam	3	2	2	4	4	15
Steve	3	3	5	1	3	15
Stanley	3	2	4	1	5	15

Carrara’s Advice Service

This Tuesday saw yours truly at the helm of GNN Towers, experiencing that exhilarating anxiety just before everyone is due to arrive and you’re unsure if there’s time to go to the toilet or not.

There were three of us tonight: myself, Ian and Martin. Martin arrived with a requested selection of games, cheekily slipping Palaces of Carrara into the line-up, hoping to bring it out of retirement.

First, I asked for Port Royal. This card game, quick but deep, is a great way to start a games evening. I went for +1 gold ship bonuses early on, but they never paid back their investment, and I watched as Ian and Martin fought for supremacy. And I ended up watching for longer than I thought, as both players found themselves becalmed on eleven points, unable to make the winning move due to going bust with ships. I was even able to raise my pitiful score from five up to something more respectable.

But Ian was able to close the game, having slowly built up cash reserves every time someone went bust, when he was able to grab a 2-point victory card, he did, leaving Martin with no response.

Ian 13
Martin 11
Andrew 8

After this, Palace of Carrara made a glorious return to the table (complete with Italian soundtrack). Martin explained the rules to Ian, but there would be no Explainer’s Curse tonight. No beginner’s luck, either. Just a slow, steady progress until you suddenly realise that Martin was about to end the game. He actually kept the game going two more rounds than he needed to, just so he could accumulate more points.

Martin 80
Andrew 49
Ian 42

Ian said he hadn’t played with much of a plan, so I suppose I should be disappointed that he came so close to me, with all my experience. But oh wells.

After this, it was still only nine o’clock. I considered something meaty to take up the rest of the evening, like Castles of Burgundy, but in the end we chose Abluxxen, a short trick taking game. Since it had foxes in it, we listened to Fox Confessor brings The Flood.

It was mostly between me and Martin, as Ian had a nightmare first round (no points at all) and couldn’t catch up. Highlight was Martin’s seven sevens which no doubt helped him win the round, but it wasn’t enough to win the game.

Andrew 44
Martin 42
Ian 13

So, with everyone having won one game, we considered a decider match. And then we thought about Hanabi. Wouldn’t that be lovely: everyone wins, and we end with a lovely co-op game about fireworks.

Ian was a newcomer, but Hanabi doesn’t need much explaining. I put on some Japanese music (mostly music from different film soundtracks) and we set off, our logical minds loosened by some soju (a Korean wine) which, despite being described as “mild” on the bottle, was 16.8%.

Things were going smoothly, but we were running out of time. As we got desperate, mistakes were made. Plus, we had some poor luck with the cards, starting with mostly fours, and having to patiently wait for the ones to come out. In the end we scored 17 out of 25. As firework displays go, it was no Bristol Harbour Festival closing ceremony, but it would do as a finale for us.

						Points
Andrew	1	2	3	2	2	10
Sam	1	3	1	3	2	10
Martin	2	1	2	4	1	10
Ian	3	3	1	3	1	11
Matt	1	4	1	1	5	12
Joe	3	3	3	3	2	14

Artifacts and Everything After

This was a special day. The day that after three years of waiting, the Race for the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts expansion finally arrived! I immediately texted Joe to see if he was up for a game and he responded enthusiastically. It turned out he'd just bought a copy too. So I headed round to his studio (aka the Afternoon Den of Fun) for a quickie before Roll for the Soul. We decided not to explore the Orb part of the expansion just yet and simply throw in the new cards and get going. In the first game I went the tried and tested production and consumption route, while Joe assembled a monstrous horde of aliens. In the final reckoning I had pipped him by a tantalising point!

Martin 50

Joe 49

An immediate rematch was necessary. Once again I favoured consumption while Joe liked military. This time he had an interlocking set of bonus cards for Rebel, Imperium and Uplift cards and we were both drawing a huge seven cards each time production happened. And again I scored a narrow victory, thanks to 14 points of consumption on the final turn. 

Martin 58

Joe 49

It was time to head off to Roll for the Soul, where we found Adam, Tom, Katie and new (I think) Andy taking their penguins fishing. While they finished off, Joe and I had a quick game of Romans Go Home! I'm not sure of the exact score in Hey, That's My Fish! but Katie came running over excitedly to tell us she'd scored her first win at 'games club'. Meanwhile, Joe dominated Hadrian's Wall with some neat tricks:

Joe 34

Martin 17

The six of us now teamed up for the terrifyingly thematic The Walking Dead Card Game.... wait a minute, this is just 6 Nimmt with pictures of zombies and bullets on it! The new artwork doesn't really get in the way of the same old great game. Joe, Adam and I showed that experience does count by alternating the lead between us while Andy raced to the finish line. We weren't entirely sure he was joking when he said he was going for most points. Thanks to a zero in the third and final round, I just sneaked past Joe for the win. I'm afraid I don't have the full scores as I didn't know I would be thrust into the role of narrator for the evening!

As the zombies lumbered off into the distance, Gonz arrived decked out in a voluminous cagoule that put Adam in mind of a World War One soldier. He had games with him but couldn't resist the lure of Agricola with Adam and Andy. They'll have to fill in the details in the comments, but I have been reliably informed that the final score was:

Adam 39

Andy 35

Gonz 35

I suggested Kingdom Builder to the others. Katie and Tom had played it at RFTS just before Christmas, but they seemed to be in that gaming honeymoon phase where they want to learn something new every time. So, what could I do but propose the other game I'd brought with me, The Palaces of Carrara? It wasn't my fault!

Joe and I agreed that with two new players we should stick to the basic game and off we went. It was a bit of a strange one with all the cheap buildings snapped up early, Katie having a fetish for flags and a few rules misunderstandings along the way. I finally managed to achieve the game-ending goals, but only with the very last building, which would have ended the game anyway. Again, I don't have the full scores, but I won, followed by Katie, one point ahead of Tom, and poor Joe trailing in last. "I'm done with this game!" he pronounced furiously. I hope he doesn't really mean it...

The others were on the final round of Agricola and closing time was drawing nigh. Just time for the four of us to have a quick bout of Love Letter. I took a 2-point lead, but couldn't close it out and when we had to stop the scores were poised at:

Katie 2

Martin 2

Joe 1

Tom 1

Into the night we made our way, our heads full of games and our bellies full of the delicious Everything Wrap (or maybe that was just me). 

Rolling back again

After last fortnight’s hiatus, games night at Roll For The Soul was back in full swing, with chips and wraps and beer. In fact, the City of Bristol was so excited about the return of GNN to its streets, that it set up some searchlights outside Colston Hall for no apparent reason!

I arrived last, with Joe, Adam, Katy, Martin and newcomer Tom about to plunge in Magical Athlete. Gonz and I started on Hanabi, a game which we had both only played once, and only had instructions in German to guide us. It was tricky, but we managed it. It feels different with two players. There are fewer distractions, and less opportunities for comedic acting as you try to influence the other players.

No idea what happened with Magical Athlete, but Adam said he hated it.

Then we split into a group of four playing Kingdom Builder and a group of three playing Palaces of Carrara in the gloom of candles and subdued lighting.

Guess who was playing Palaces... yep, me, Martin and Joe. We set forth once more to cover Italy with marbles buildings. We played twice and, amazingly, Martin was chosen as starting player both times by our clever random method. At the end of the first game, Joe trailed in last, with me in middling second and Martin off into the stratosphere in first.

Joe seemed to reach the end of his marble tether with that result. He was just about to admit that he and this game didn’t get on. But with the game set up, we were able to persuade him to try one more game.

As we did, we were slightly distracted by a man watching us from outside, drinking from a 1.5 litre bottle of water. He gave us a thumbs-up when he caught our eye. Probably a big Eurogamer.

This game was closer, thanks to some tricky end-game conditions. We all had to build expensive buildings this time. I went for a super luxurious 8-pointer in the exclusive neighbourhood of yellow marble. It got me a lot of money, but not many points.

In fact, this time it was a lot closer, with Martin scraping a win barely five points ahead of Joe and me close behind in third. This reassured Joe that perhaps there was a future for him and this game. It also made him suspect that going first may be an advantage.

Finally, the three of us set up a little light game to play while Kingdom Builder ended. It’s called Take It Easy! A title that tells you almost nothing about the game. It’s very simple. Everyone has a board of hexagonal spaces, and they all have their tiles laid out face up in front of them, except one who has their tiles face down. That person draws a tile a random, announces it, and then everyone else has to play the same tile from their collection, trying to match coloured lines together. In other words, everyone plays the same tiles onto their own board. You’d think that everyone would do the same thing, but no. And small differences soon become big differences.

We set up to play, and then Katy on the other table saw all our brightly coloured hexagons and abandoned the final points-calculating of Kingdom Builder (Tom won) and quickly switched allegiances to our game, with a “Screw you guys!” over her shoulder to her previous game-comrades as she left.

And so we four played. And it was fun, hoping for the right tile at the right moment was a bit bingo-ish. I even tried to come up with some bingo calls, but they didn’t catch on. Martin won that one, too, making him regret that Thursdays aren’t leaderboard.

After that, Joe and I set off into the rain and into the night. He forced me to go all the way up the Christmas steps. Like, from the bottom to the top! It was like being in boot camp but only if the commanding officer, instead of yelling insults at you as you struggled, asked if you thought maybe there’s an advantage in going first on Palaces of Carrara.

Everyone feels a little blue sometimes

Tonight was a bumper crop at GNN, with eight people in attendance! Eight! And with a roaring fire, Christmas tree and the option of Walnut Liquor, it really felt quite Christmassy.

Sam, myself and Gonz had arrived in one car, Joe and Martin had turned up into another, and Adam made his own way to Steve and Anja’s. We split into three groups. Gonz had brought Agricola and Adam, after a run of poor form, was keen to get back on the horse. With no other takers brave enough to challenge the two of them, they set up camp at the far end of the big table.

Martin brought Palaces of Carrera, as usual, and he and Joe persuaded Steve to give it a try. Meanwhile, the remaining three went for Africana, the jolly game of third world exploitation. Sam explained the rules, and before long we were all running up and down the length of Africa like it was going out of fashion. Sam was white, Anja was red and I was blue.

And that’s where the title of this blog post comes from as I found that, if my opponents began their turn in the same city as me, they would frequently move my counter instead of theirs. Sam did this more than Anja. In fact, on one go, he began with his counter, switched over to mine and then completed the last leg of his journey by moving Anja’s. And to think he chose white because it would stand out from the red and blue.

I got a big stroke of luck mid-game as twice new expeditions were unveiled that started from cities where I already was. Plus, the books were kind to me, giving me an assistant and two matching artifacts without turning any extra pages. This was enough to give me a win. Anja’s lack of experience with the dusty African roads was evident, while Sam may be regretting hiring that extra assistant that took five points of his total.

Andrew 38
Sam 33
Anja 20

On the big table, Palaces of Carrera ended at about the same time as us. I’ll leave it to one of them to fill us in with the details, but Joe was heard to wail “I don’t understand this game!”

Martin 103
Joe 68
Steve 65

This marks Martin’s first appearance on the leaderboard. He asked me why the Roll For The Soul wasn’t leaderboard, and I explained that I felt awkward about writing down scores in the presence of non-gamers.

And before long, Agricola also came to an end. I watched them count up and was surprised by Gonz’s rather minimalist farm, but a lovely four-room stone house. Meanwhile, Adam’s farm was full of animals in lovely fenced stables, but his family of five was still living in a hovel.

I learnt later that the two had spent most of the game trying to ruin the other player’s plans. This does at least explain the relatively low scores. I guess this was as close to boxing that Agricola gets.

Adam 36
Gonz 26

When he heard those scores, Joe was heard to mutter “My daughters have scored higher than that.” However, Adam wasn’t concerned. After a run of three last places, he’d broken his Agricola curse. A pity that, since it’s only two-player, it’s not leaderboard, but Adam was fighting for his pride tonight. And he finally got it back.

After this, the eight of us joined together (nine if you include baby Lu, who was brought down mid-game) for a game of Kakerlakenpoker. But this time, the Royal version. With Royal cards and a few extra rules. It’s still enjoyable, but the extra rules don’t seem to add to the game. Perhaps because we haven’t played the basic version enough. Anyway, we dived in guessing or passing on our cards. I was glad to see someone challenge Adam and his tactic of passing on whatever he’s given. Thanks, Martin.

But it was Gonz who made everyone think he’d be good at poker, as he called every guess right. He finished with no cards, which sort of makes him the winner. But there are no winners in Kakerlakenpoker, so it’s not leaderboard. Which is good news for me, since I ended in last. Everyone else was in the middle.

After that, Sam, Gonz and I headed home even though the others were considering a final game. I hope they let us know what it was. In the meantime, the form table looks like this:

						Points
Andrew	1	1	3	1	3	9
Sam	2	2	1	3	1	9
Adam	2	2	2	1	3	10
Gonz	1	1	3	5	2	12
Chris	1	1	3	4	5	14
Joe	2	4	2	3	3	14
Quentin	4	1	1	5	3	14
Matt	3	2	5	5	5	20
Steve	3	2	5	5	5	20
Martin	1	5	5	5	5	21
Anja	3	3	5	5	5	21
Hannah	2	5	5	5	5	22

Soul Through The Ages

I arrived late at the fortnightly Roll For The Soul games meet, and I found four gamers (Hannah, Martin, Adam and Ryan) knee-deep in a game of Carcassone, and Joe watching while he ate. It was Adam’s homegrown version, where the fimo farmers tower over their fields and cities like a B-movie version of Carcassone. Except that the usual B-movie trope of the woman falling over at important moments and needing to be rescued by the hero did not take place. In fact, Hannah won, with the others not winning.

While they finished their game, Joe and I played Roll Through The Ages. Joe was a bit rusty on the rules but not on strategy as he went for the quick win, filling himself up with cheap developments, while I got more cities nice and early and went for more exclusive developments. Joe’s spoiler tactic won, and he got to five developments, ending the game, when I had only got three.

I got a beer from the counter, and I guess I must be a regular now since the owner handed me my order before I’d even said anything.

Hannah left and more people arrived, and we decided to split into two groups. The friendly, mixed-gender group playing a game on a recognisable map with trains that passers-by can instantly understand. And the other, less friendly group of three old men in the corner, playing a game with cubes and tiles and no clear objective unless you’ve already played it twice.

Adam cleverly sold Ticket To Ride to the newcomers by describing as being like Inter-Railing. That seemed to swing it, but one of them was intrigued by Tinners’ Trail, amazed that there was a board game set in Cornwall.

I didn’t take many pictures today, so instead here’s one I took earlier:

Happy Adam

Joe, Martin and I decided to give The Palaces of Carrara another go. This game has tantalised us with its sense of almost understanding it, but not quite. Maybe next go it’ll click. Not since Biblios has a game hidden its winning strategy so effectively.

Except that maybe Martin has cracked it. He won the first game, although it was close between himself and Joe. Martin’s strategy was to end the game soon as possible and rely on after-game bonuses, even though he’d barely scored a point during the game itself. Joe got second and I was third.

During this game, a drunken man wobbled over to us, pointed out of the window at a passing bus and stammered “Look! A train! In London!” After a few seconds, he changed London to Bristol, but was still shocked at seeing a train in the street. And then the cafe owner gave him some food in a brown paper bag, and that distracted him long enough for him to forget that he’d been talking to us at all and he wobbled away again.

Then we begun on a second attempt at Palaces... and found it was a closer affair. Possibly because Martin misread one of the end-game criteria (which change every game) and far from being about to finish he was, in fact, in a terrible position.

Despite that, he still grabbed a couple of powerful upgrade tiles and shot himself off around the scoretrack. As for me and Joe, our tussle for second relied on one decision: whether or not Joe would build a new building, or score what he already had. If he built, he risked a cheap building being drawn from the pile which I’d be able to build and end the game immediately leaving him without a chance to score.

He chose to build. A cheap building came out, and his fate was sealed. Martin hit triple figures, I got seventy-something and Joe lay in a distant third in the 30s, cursing his luck.

On the other table, Ticket To Ride ended. Adam didn’t win, despite his usual tactic of hoarding masses of cards in his huge spade-like hands. I can’t remember who did win, but they got 114 points. More or less the only number I remember from that evening.

But before they finished, we were able to squeeze in a quick game of Sticheln. This cunning trick-taking game is beautifully designed, even if it did take us a couple of attempts at getting the dealing right. Joe won, despite picking up the highest number of bad cards. I got no cards at all and came in second.

And then it was time to wend our ways away, into Bristol’s darkened, drunk-lined streets. See you in two weeks!

Carrera Hearts Poker

That’s what played this evening at Roll For The Soul, more or less, and not in that order. There were four of us at the start: me, Adam, Joe and Martin (Gonz couldn't make it. Something about a "birthday". Not sure what that's all about). Tonight we were banished upstairs because there was a gig downstairs and I suppose the owner of the cafe thought that a group of people yelling “Here goes his funny bone!” at sensitive moments of the set wouldn’t go down well with the artist.

Of course, we didn’t play Operation. Instead we played Black Spy. A rather feeble makeover of Hearts, the famous card game. The difference here is that the cards have illustrations of spies on them, they only go up to eleven (with a lot of sevens), and there are five suits instead of four. I have little to no patience with games that are just new versions of old favourites and this is no exception.

We played the first round with a fundamental rule wrong: we thought the player with most points won. I won. Then we looked at the rules and saw that we should be aiming for the lowest points. We played a second round, and I came in last by miles with 70+ points, while everyone else scored in single figures more or less.

After this, Katy arrived and we all played Kakerlakenpoker. This is a pure bluffing game. In a pack of 64 cards of eight types of animal (rat, cockroach, bat, fly etc) the rule is simple: pass a card to an opponent face down and tell them what it is. They can either say they believe you or not (if they’re wrong they keep the card, face up, in front of them. If they’re right, you keep it) or pass it on, having looked at it, to someone else and the bluffing begins again. The first person to have four cards of the same type loses.

So simple, yet so cunning. And, luckily for me, not an “improved” version of poker (although I did inwardly wince when I heard the name). It’s all about the bluff, the nerve, about having the chutzpah to look your opponent in the eye and say, without laughing, “That’s a frog.”

There is only one loser in this game, and it was me, hoisted on my own petard of confidence: five rats were out (three in front of me) and I thought I knew where the others were but Martin blind-sided me, and I confidently said “That’s not a rat!” to his card, but it was. My second last-place of the evening. Suddenly, everyone’s eagerness to have a RFTS leaderboard was looking like a trap!

Finally, it was a second appearance for The Palaces Of Carrera. This game had been a cautious hit the last time we played. Katy bowed out, and the four of us set up and Adam got an introduction to the rules. I played with half an eye on the time. I remembered how quickly the game can end, with little warning.

I bought up expensive white and yellow marble, so I could build in the highly desirable residences. Martin bought dirty dirty black marble, keeping his buildings at the lower end of the market. Joe and Adam went for cities in the middle.

During the game, Martin admitted that he still didn’t know the right strategy for this game even though he’d played it six times. Certainly, I was feeling the pinch from spending so much early on, and I thought I'd made a terrible mistake. But then, we all seemed a bit skint. We’d begun with a spate of buying marble. So much so that we ended up with no blocks left in the bag! An event so startling that Martin reeled back and accidentally knocked his pint glass off the table in such a way that most of the glass went under the table. Physically impossible, you might think, but anything’s possible at Roll For The Soul!

As for the game, Adam picked his way through the rules gingerly, like a cat unsure of the surface it’s about to jump on. I went for money, mostly. Joe had started building up resources in readiness for a big push when once again Martin closed the game suddenly. The thing about this game is: after that happens, you only get one more go, maximum. And there’s not a lot you can do in one go. If you don’t have some nice buildings ready to score at a moment’s notice, you can be left scratching your head.

However, I had used up all my bad luck earlier that evening, and my investing in the two highest echelons of Carreran property was just enough to get me bonus points for both (I tied with Adam in one, and with Joe in the other). This sped me off around the score-track and I ended comfortably in first, with Martin second, cursing my luck.

I left after this, but I guess they others stayed for one more. I await more news...

By the way, what about this leaderboard? Any ideas? Something serious like The Division or something a bit random and silly?

Guilding the Lily

Today saw an Adam-less Roll For The Soul evening. Joe arrived first, sitting by the window, a suspicious bulging bag by his side. It wasn’t until I arrived that he felt secure enough to put the games out on the table. Although, if he had done that while he was alone, people might have thought he was selling them.

We began with Zooloretto: The Dice Game. Joe explained the rules to me and then new boy Martin arrived. He knew Joe because he’d once bought a bespoke Pax Porfiriana baize playing area from Joe, which is enough to make him best mates for life, so Joe invited him along to a games night. He seemed nice enough, and Joe explained the rules to him too and we began.

Zooloretto with dice is a shorter and sharper version of its big brother. I enjoyed it a lot more, and it seemed easier to set up trucks that would annoy other people. Maybe that’s because there were three of us instead of four. I got the lions bonus, and no negatives so I won. Hurrah.

During this game, a Spanish guy, Gonzales Gonzalo (or Gonz, with the z pronounced as “th”) arrived and asked us if we were a group of board gamers. A very small group, yes, but still a group, said Joe. He joined us, even though he’d only been passing by chance. He was pretty clued up on games, though, and he said he knew Guildhall well, so that was the next one the four of us played.

Well, he said he knew it well, but he didn’t know about the “two actions per turn rule,” and he thought that each player only had one. However, he adapted quickly and soon became the person to attack. Despite all that, he still ended as a clear winner.

It was much more fun this time. I knew what the signs meant and what the cards did. It all seemed to make more sense this time, even though I came last by a mile. I was also a little put out by how quickly Martin learnt to read the symbols on each card, suggesting that my initial bemusement was more my failing than the designers.

Then we set up a new game. A brand new game that Martin had brought, that needed the cardboard pieces popped out of their boards before use. This is usually one of the best bits of any game, but I felt a bit self-conscious doing it in public. Unfortunately, there are no curtains on the windows at Roll For The Soul.

The game was The Palaces of Carrara, and Martin (who’d played before) suggested we dive in with the advanced version of the game, even though the advanced rules come in an envelope with a sticker that says not to play this version until you’ve played the basic game at least twice. It's not often you see rules with a health warning. But Martin thought we were up to it. He set the game out, explained the rules and we were off. On the table, it’s a bit of a beast, and has all the appearance of a lengthy strategic battle. So I began with buildings that would score money, which I could use later to build buildings that would score points.

Except, I never got the chance. Just as I was getting going, Martin ended the game. Each game has a different set of criteria that needed to be filled by one player for the game to end. It just so happened that in this game, they were all quite easy to achieve. We all had one turn left before the game ended, so the best we could do was to score what buildings we had available. And then in the end of game scoring, Martin sped off further around the score track, seriously threatening to lap us.

After this, we chose Las Vegas as a nice antidote. Random, silly and confrontational in a way that Guildhall isn’t: You can always blame the dice. Two remarkable rolls will live on in the memory. Joe’s final neutral dice that, if it were a four, would ruin Martin’s $90,000 haul. It was a four. And also my roll of three dice (two mine, one neutral) that came up all ones, and somehow knocked out Joe while giving me a quite undeserved win in his place.

But Vegas is like that. Every roll of the dice tells a dozen stories. Martin came first again, with me in second. I left after this, but the three of them carried on, with some card game about storming Hadrian’s Wall. I’m sure Joe will fill us in.

A good evening, with some exciting new people arriving at the GNN Mansion. We must welcome them and make sure they never leave.

I mean, that they stay here happily. Not that we kill them.