Bloops in Hoops

Six of us assembled at Joe's house last night, or seven if you include Sybil, who stalked the table alternating between demanding Adam H's chips and barking at the cat in the garden/harrumphing at life. As well as Adam and the hosts there was myself (Sam), Ian, Katy and Martin. As we discussed Joe's baize-like tablecloth, I took a photo that made Martin look much smaller than usual. 

And then we began the night by extorting half of Adam's tea from him and playing Team Play. I apologised to Martin in advance as I have no knack for this game at all and spent most of it hoping a 1 would come out. Adam was similarly bereft - he didn't complete his own goal the entire game - and Katy and Joe made the early running, completing 3 goal cards before Martin and I had even done one. 

Martin did most of the work for our team and while Ian completed his own goals his partner went for the public ones. I finally grabbed a 1 and got involved, but it was too little too late: 

Katy and Joe 35
Ian and Adam 30

Martin and Sam 29

We split into two groups, with Joe Adam and Ian setting up Thurn and Taxis and Martin cajoling Katy and I into a game of Greed. 

Greed is a pretty simple and pretty feisty card-drafting game: everyone is dealt twelve cards and adds one to their hand, then adds one from the eleven they were passed and so on. From round three, everyone also plays a card from their hand: loosely speaking Holdings raise money, Actions do a thing and Thugs are a sort of combination of both. Holdings and Thugs also have symbols on them, which are way of generating revenue, something Martin seemed to be rather intent on, judging by the proliferating cash on all his holdings:

I only had two the entire game, but went heavy on a good Thug combination that showered me with cash every time I played an action. Katy found herself cash-bereft with a hand that demanded payment to play cards, and was also a little unfortunate with timing. It ended with a somewhat fortuitous debut win, as Martin slightly undid himself by misreading an action card in the penultimate round:

Sam $170k

Martin $150k

Katy $125k

Thurn was still taxi-ing (sorry) with Adam describing current events as 'subjectively shite' so we broke out Misfits. 

We ended up playing twice, as the Thurn trio eyed our structures nervously, aware that any collapse might have catastrophic consequences for the post offices of Bavaria. I cheekily began the first game, even though Misfits doesn't actually have one of those 'last person to x' starter rules. 

Martin tried some ambitious things and they didn't come off, and in short order I was down to my cubes - and a win. We reset and Martin started, quickly degenerating the idea of a tower into something less imposing...

Which we collapsed and built again, slightly more impressively at first before realising there was precious little to do with it. More collapses followed.

I was laughing so much I'm still not sure how I took this picture of Katy and Ian.

But I picked up another win and as they hit the closing stages of Thurn we bashed out a quick game of Panda Panda. This is a super-simple card-drafter where you win two rounds to win the game. To win a round you need to have any of the possible winning hands (there are ten, varying from two specific cards to seven) at the start of your turn, at which point you call out 'Panda Panda' and delight in Martin's disdain. 

On a turn you can either pick up - from the deck, or the top of another player's discard pile - or discard to your own discards. If anyone discards an A (the most common card) everyone passes a card to their left, a kind of sabotage/lottery combo you can use to screw over someone who looks like they're about to panda but also stumble on something useful.

Luck over judgement for sure, but I won again just as Thurn and Taxis wrapped up with some dramatic scores: 

Adam 32

Joe 10

Ian 7

Joe would have won had he played his last turn differently, it transpired, pulling Adam back a couple of points and catapulting himself forwards. But just like Martin in Greed, he came away with regret instead. "It wouldn't have made any difference to me" Ian piped cheerily as he raised his mug of beer "Because I was last either way".

As they packed away, Adam pointed out I was now on four wins - one away from the perfect five. I realised I also won Expeditions at the weekend - had I done it already? I didn't think so because I was a critical part of coming last in Team Play since then: a team game, but still a competitive one. No matter - I'd just have to win the next game too. Unfortunately the next game was Things in Rings. 

Joe was the Knower who knew the rules of the three Venn circles. Ian, Martin and Adam were the Keen Deductionists. Katy and I were the bewildered Starers in Bafflement. Only a few cards in, Martin murmured that he'd worked one of the rules out already and Ian and Adam mumbled assent. I could only see words and string, though in hindsight the yellow rule ('contains an o') was gettable. But that's the thing about hindsight... Adam won this one as Joe revealed the other rules were 'useful' (context) and 'flammable' (attribute). Flammable is quite a broad concept, we've found (it's appeared before) as so many things can burn if you put your mind to it. Or even if you don't, as my perfect five went up in smoke (sad face).

We played again, but this time trying the co-operative game. I demanded to be the Knower because I wasn't enjoying feeling stupid, and Martin said it can be even harder. I explained at least I would know why I was stupid, and Katy and I teamed up to respond to guesses as new cards appeared. Our rules were one syllable, often has spots or stripes, and you expect to find it at a school. 

The school was our flammable: there are a billion things at a school so we leant into the word 'expect' and tried to stick to that cognitive connection. The team worked out single syllable very quickly and Ian pointed out that underwear, skunk and kite (stripes/spots) all had a wind element. But shirt put paid to that theory - kind of a shame. However Joe spotted the reoccurring stripes and they figured out the last circle not by definition but by noticing a kind of logical pattern. It came down to the last card in the end - goggles - that Joe put in 'None' for no connection. It could have gone in 'expect to find at a school' - as Ian pointed out, there are goggles in a science lab - but Katy and I allowed it, reasoning that they looked more like pilots goggles: the rules do say if you're unsure you can use the images as a steer. So: a victory for everyone!

It was So Clover time. And what a clovering it was as we began with a couple of solid sixes and got excited about the prospect of a hall-of-famer. Then we hit Martin's clover and struggled with the amount of possibilities for Laughtrack, ultimately failing after two guesses to spot syrup/comedy and that glasses might go in a dresser. Martin was so disappointed he openly canvassed for more failures and had to be reminded that it's co-operative game. Maybe he was pleased when stumbled on the last clover - Joe's - as we were convinced that tea must go with his clue of 'scald', particularly as he has scalded his own hands numerous times. But it didn't. 

Still, 31/36 is not to be scoffed at. Some nice clues. We called it there and all - except Joe and Sybil - made our way out into the Bristol rain. Until next week!

Come on, Eilan

When I arrived at Sam’s house, Joe, Jo, Ian, Adam T and Sam were all knee-deep in a game of Inkling. In this game, players are dealt some cards with some markings on them which resemble parts of letters. Place these cards anyway you want, and hopefully you’ll be able to spell out one (or more) of the six words on your card.

It was interesting to watch, but are there hidden strategies still to be uncovered? It seemed to reward literally writing the word, while any attempt at cryptical clueing fell flat. Ian tried to clue two of his words with one, admitting he’d “tried to So Clover it.” While Sam went all Rebus on the group. One of his clues looked like “OIST” which I noted may be the noise you make when you pick up something heavy. But it was actually a clue for “FLOOR” - it was the word “1st” with a button next to it, ie. first floor.

Joe 17

Adam 14

Jo 11

Ian 11

Sam 9

Adam tried to encapsulate it’s qualities by saying “It’s like a cross between a word game and…” “a break down.” Sam helpfully suggested.

By now Martin was here, and then a ghost from the past breezed in. Mark, who once appeared in this blog on a semi-regular basis, was visiting from Devon. How nice to see him again. With eight of us, we split into two. Sam, Mark, Ian and myself played Rebirth while Jo, Joe, Adam and Martin played Eternals Deck.

I didn’t notice much of Eternals Deck except for its lovely cloth board and the look of disappointment when, halfway through the game, Jo explained to their colleagues that they were playing the easy version of the beginners stage. But, they all won!

As for Rebirth, after a rules explanation to Mark (that I needed too, frankly) we set off rebuilding a post apocalyptic Scotland with our farms, castles and zeppelins. Mid-game, Sam and Mark started chaining together farms for big returns. Ian and I tussled in the housing market and I also focused on castles. 

Mark expressed surprise at the score, saying he'd only really got the hang of it 70% of the way through the game and that before then he'd been copying us.

I guess that makes it a shared victory?

Mark 141

Sam 132

Andrew 113

Ian 109

After this we rearranged. Both Adam and I were in the market for something shortish and Martin suggested Greed. We agreed (no pun intended) and were joined by Jo. The remaining four brought out The Gang, a clever cross between Texas Hold ‘Em and The Mind. I’ve played this before with six players and little success, but this time the sounds of cheers wafted across the table as they succeeded round after round in an atmosphere of co-operative bon homie.

Greed, as you can gather, is far less communal. There was a lot of PvP action as we took out each others thugs and holdings, but at the start both Jo and Adam complained about the opening hand they’d created for themselves, which were far too forward thinking so left them with few options in the short term.

I, on the other hand, barely looked more than two turns ahead such that apart from an early flourish where I picked up some cash, I was reacting to what other players were doing. Adam had abandoned whatever plan he’d started with and gone aggressive, playing a lot of spoiling cards. Jo, though, smartly got themselves into a winning position, playing a double-your-money card and then another card netting $45,000 which turned into $90,000. 

Jo 170,000

Martin 120,000

Andrew 85,000

Adam 10,000

With that, I was gone. Handing over to Sam for part two. Thanks all.

* * *

Adam also left now, and we were down to six. Martin promptly brought out Things in Rings and attempted

to explain it whilst the rest of us attempted to understand it. At least I did anyway - having slightly indulged things by now I mostly spent my time proclaiming my bafflement. 

As far as I could comprehend it's kind of like a wordy version of Zendo, where instead of figuring out the spatial rule to a bunch of pyramids, we're trying to deduce the conceptual rules for each circle in a Venn diagram, and there are three qualities: the context (eg can be dangerous) an attribute (eg larger than a person) and the text of the word itself (eg it starts with a vowel, which happened to be the one we figured out first). 

Turns are taken by placing a Word card into the puzzle somewhere (or indeed, outside of it) and hoping you're right: first person to successfully shed all cards wins. The person making these decisions was the "knower' - Martin, who didn't get to guess - and there's definitely a subjective element to where things end up - is a zipper dangerous? -  it's possible. Jo sussed out the attribute, but we were all thrown by the context and things ended up there on speculative punts more than Holmesian genius. 

After a 40 minutes or so of bewilderment Jo won (I think) and we all professed our admiration for something so bonkers. Tough being the 'Knower' though. 

It was time for So Clover. I don't recall a huge amount about at this point but it was a reasonable success. 

Post-script: At the start of the night, Adam T thrashed me 3-0 at Toy Battle and he also beat Ian and I at Rainbow!