Gears of chore

Tuesday. Games.

Joe, Adam, Andrew, Sam.

After last week's Castles of Burgundy marathon, we were in the mood for something lighter. Since Sam had brought Tzolk'in, we decided that would be a nice alternative. Sam, me and Adam had all played it before as a two-player, so beginner Joe got a run through of the rules.

It was to be a baptism of fire. And ice. And rocks being thrown at Joe's head. The three of us had at least some idea of what to go after while Joe gently pootled around, trying to collect food for his workers.

Adam was astute and calculating. At least, that how it looked to me (although he did keep forgetting to take starting player). Sam quickly made sure all his men never needed food, and with the distraction out of the way, he could focus on buildings and monuments. I started out determined to start exploiting those knowledge things but didn't get far before I, too, was distracted by trying to get the best seat at the various local temples.

The bright sun shines down on the temples

Towards the end, Joe fell into the trap of not being able to activate workers on the last round, effectively giving him one less turn than anyone else. This, I think, was the last nail in the coffin regarding his opinion of the game, and he started to tidy up pots and pans while we finished.

Sam 61
Adam 57
Andrew 54
Joe 31

I felt bad that Joe had spent the evening playing a complicated game against three people who'd played it before, so I was happy to agree to another game to finish the evening. It was an old favourite: Poison. It had been a long time since it was brought to the table, and we got stuck right in with no need to refer to the rules. Except to see if you removed any cards beforehand. And to remind Joe that each cauldron had to be a different colour.

The typical opening gambit. All sevens.

Apart from that, it was almost as if we'd never been away. Joe, however, could not make his familiarity with the rules count. Perhaps he was fatigued by Tzolk'in or perhaps he couldn't concentrate after his dog did a poo in the other room, but he collected more than his fair share of the poison. I, meanwhile, had nice cards throughout and I played them well. It gave me my first win of the season.

Andrew 12
Sam 21
Adam 23
Joe 33

On the Form table, Sam sneaks up to first while I rise to third.

						Points
Sam	2	1	2	3	1	9
Adam	3	2	1	1	2	9
Andrew	1	3	4	3	3	14
Joe	4	4	3	2	3	16
Steve	2	1	5	5	5	18
Anja	1	3	5	5	5	19
Hannah	4	2	5	5	5	21

Finally, due to circumstances beyond the ken of mankind, the Bracknell reports are being suspended for now. But the results are still being emailed in to me. Since they'll end up in The Division, I should report them so I thought I'd end with a brief fictionalised version of events.

Chris and James swapped foppish insults over two games of Agricola while Paul goaded them on, and then Chris and Paul tried to suffocate each other with pillows during a game of Alhambra. James' tactic of sawing a leg off the table proved to be futile.

06/04 - Agricola - Chris 32 James 27 Paul 25
20/04 - Agricola - James 28 Chris 27 Paul 22
20/04 - Alhambra - Chris 134 Paul 133 James 116

More Incan Gold?

The events of last night's games were still fresh in my mind when I got an email from Sam. There was no time for rest and relaxation in Unit GNN. Oh, no. A new game had arrived and it needed play-testing: Tzolk'in. The game of resource management based around the gears of the Mayan calendar. There's a bit of worker placement and some of the turning mechanic of Macao. In other words, if you want to do something, you may have to plan several moves ahead. Each section of a cog gives you one action, assuming you have a man standing there that you can remove, and of course, each day moves the cogs round one section.

We went through the rules, with Sam having to go up and see his recalcitrant (hmm, good word. I should use it more often) child, Joe, who didn't want to go to bed. But he battled through the repetitive rule book and his equally repetitive offspring, and we began the game.

It was a troubled start, and we soon found it difficult to build up resources or food. There was quite a lot of living hand to mouth, as we both battled to have enough food for each of the four feeding days that happen during the year.

Jaffa cakes not included

In the rules, it describes bonuses for those players who got to the top of temples or maxed out their technology but, frankly, we were at a loss as to how to progress that far. Halfway through the game, a bunch of scoring systems came into play that Sam hadn't read the rules for, and suddenly he found himself quite a long way behind. I had managed to progress one whole step up each of the temples, which got me lots of bonus points, since Sam hadn't moved at all.

And this is why the title of this blog has a question mark. We suspect there's a good game in there, but we just don't know how to find it. It is not very intuitive, and resources seem a bit hard to find. It's also quite short, given the amount of setting up it needs. I assume it's longer with four players.

Andrew 47
Sam 34

There's something in there, though. Perhaps it needs a bit of research online before we find out where we're going wrong. With resources so hard to get, options seemed a bit limited. And the score track goes all the way up to one hundred. That's not possible, surely. You know, like how the speedometer on a 2CV goes up to ninety.