Silent Witness

Well, almost silent. There was quite a lot of whispering.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Tonight we began as an eight piece band of gamers: Sam (the host), Joe and Stanley (his sons), Martin, Ian, Matt, Joe and me. We began with Bring Your Own Book, the fun game of appropriate sentence finding. The game suggests a topic (an email signature) and you have to find a witty example in your book (Ian had Fermat's Last Theorem and his email signature was pi to the thousandth digit). Martin had high hopes for his choice of book (Pests, Diseases and Disorders of Garden Plants), but somehow it never quite worked. Until, that is, it was passed to Ian at which point it became a hotbed of witty replies. Kudos to Matt for his Name For A Fantasy City. His choice of "Furthermore" was so good I can't believe it hasn't been used before.

Ian 3 points
Everyone else got one, I think.

Then Joe the younger went to bed and we split into two groups. Sam, Stanley, Joe and Martin played Witness in which you have to whisper clues to each other in a game that rewards memory and clear diction. I was too concerned with my game of Cosmic Run, so all I gleaned was sentences like "half a beetle" before they counted up their final score which was seven. Pretty good, according to Martin.

On Cosmic Run, the three of us were busy proving that a one in six chance was effectively impossible, as one hopeful roll after another ended in disappointment. I got lots of aliens and a fair view of those mining chits to take a comfortable win.

Andrew 49
Matt 36
Ian 33

While we were deep in Cosmic Run, Witness had ended, Stanley had gone upstairs, and the three of them had started on Menara. It's a tower building game where you have to obey the commands on cards that are split into piles of easy, medium and difficult. Their first attempt was over so quickly that they tried again. "Feels more positive already," said Sam at what I thought to be a very early stage, but he was right. They got to the fourth or fifth level when it collapsed. Joe said as they packed away, "it's one of those games where you either win or it's really disappointing."

Now we shuffled our places around the table and began fresh games in new groups. Joe, Martin and I played Mini Rails. This game was new to me, but Martin thought I'd played it before so I only got a rules refresher type introduction before we began. Although that was fine because there's not much to it in terms of rules. Quite a lot in terms of strategy, though, with Martin taking long enough on his turn for me to get up and sort out my drinks for the rest of the evening. At the end, Martin had to juggle some numbers as his final move would either help him and me or him and Joe. In the end he was annoyed that he'd miscalculated when it ended

Joe 11 (wins on tiebreaker)
Martin 11
Andrew 9

If he'd played it differently, he would have had fewer points but won, with me in second. He cursed his unMartinlike mathematical error for some minutes. Joe looked delighted.

Sam, Ian and Matt played The Quest For El Dorado, with it also ending on a tie breaker. Ian just pipped it, though. Matt ended up in a distant last with lots of money but no machetes.

Ian
Sam
Matt

By now, we had begun a game of Sticheln, the trick taking game that is anything but fast and furious. How we agonised over its counter intuitive strategy. As Martin so wisely noted, it is a game where "difficult things happen."

Martin 25
Joe 20
Andrew 13

On the other half of the table, they had knocked off a quick game of Gold Rush which Ian won. The general consensus was that it wasn't as good with just three.

Then they played the devilish but delightful Avene. During this game, after an evening of victories, Ian returned to form and uttered those immortal words "that's me fucked, then". The moment when he does so will, it seems, now be referred to as "Ian o'clock".

Sam 63
Ian 24
Matt 20

Then, after a brief cameo from The Table Is Lava, we all joined together for a game of Just One. In this game we all give one word clues to a word-guesser with the proviso that any duplicate clues are eliminated. We started well, and Martin got the first right despite Joe giving a clue to the wrong word. Before long we were in the zone, avoiding duplicate clues round after round. In the final round, I was the guesser. We were on the cusp of getting "awesome" on the score track, but two clues were eliminated and I had Dre, Drake and Grandmaster to guess from. It was 50-50 and I chose Hip-hop as the word. But it was Rap and that mistake meant our score dropped from "Awesome" to a clearly sarcastic "Wow. Not bad."

And then we were done. Thanks all for another evening of sparkling entertainment. I hope to meet you all the next time the clock strikes Ian o'clock.

Murder most hurried

Tuesday night games was thrown into upheaval when a late cancellation due to illness was announced by potential hosts Adam and Hannah. Suddenly the full force of modern communications technology shifted into hyperdrive as a new venue was arranged. Or rather, Joe said he could host and everyone else seemed okay with that. We were six in total: Joe, Sam, Ian, Matt, Martin and myself.

We began with Kobayakawa and, while we all enjoy this slimmed down betting game, the last round does seem overly powerful. Once again, the player who won the final round won the whole game.

Joe 15
Andrew 5
Sam 4
Ian 4
Martin 4
Matt 0

Next we split, not into the more usual 3 and 3, but into 4 and 2. Martin was keen to play Witness, a game for four players only in which each game has a new brief scenario and each player is given a piece of evidence. We then whisper this evidence to the person beside us, who then has to whisper what you said AND their own piece of evidence to the person next to them. Very simple and very confusing as we try to remember what everyone said.

As me, Martin, Joe and Matt were setting this up, Ian and Sam went for a game of Letters from Whitechapel. Ian managed the best performance yet as Jack, lasting into the third round before being caught, leaving four dead bodies in his wake. Well done, Ian! But, technically, it’s a victory to Sam.

Board games! Such fun!

As for Witness, each case is solved by each player successfully answering three questions. The team needs to get 9 out of 12 or more to succeed. We played three times, solving a murder (9 out of 12) despite one piece of information getting lost somewhere, then we failed in our attempt at helping some people out of a maze of tunnels (6 out of 12, but Joe got all three of his right) and finally we opened up a combination lock with a five-letter word. 12 out of 12! Excellent. Although Joe took a surprisingly long time to work out the word from the letters C, E, H, I, N. (answer below the Division, if you want to work it out yourself)

Mortimer seems appalled at our deduction skills

After Witness, Jack the Ripper was still at large on the other table, so we played Potato Man. This superb trick taking game starring Evil Potato Man, Super Potato Man and Sexy Potato Lady is always a favourite. Especially with Martin. I can’t imagine why.

Martin 17
Andrew 15
Joe 13
Matt 10

By now Letters from Whitehall was over and Ian and Sam had begun on another two-player game, Lost Cities. I kind of recognised it, but didn’t pay much attention to it, I’m afraid.

Ian 71
Sam 56

Then just to fill in the time for Sam and Ian to finish off Lost Cities, we played Rattlesnake, the clever game of placing powerful magnets on a board on a rickety table. More challenging than usual. Martin was first to put down all of his egg magnets.

Martin first to have 0 eggs left
Matt second to have 0 eggs left
Andrew 1 egg left
Joe had lots left

Finally, we were all as one again, so we chose a couple of six-player games to round off the evening. First was Skull and Roses, the simple bluffing game that I’m really quite bad at. Boldest move was Joe who correctly guessed that there were 8 roses out of a possible 9 cards placed face down. Equally impressive, especially since it was for the win, was Sam’s guess of five roses out of six. It was correct, got him first place, and Joe revealed that his card (the one Sam hadn’t chosen) was a skull. It’s a game of fine margins, is Skull and Roses.

Sam 2 correct
Joe 1 correct
Matt 1 wrong
Martin 1 wrong
Ian 1 wrong
Andrew 2 wrong

Finally, Pairs was put to the table as a nightcap. On my way to the toilet, I heard someone suggest Timeline, but Martin firmly demanded Pairs. A decision he may regret. By the way, I recently picked up a handylittle cheat sheet for Timeline.

Pairs remains full of queer coincidence and strange self-defeating predictions as each player tries to avoid picking up a pair of any fruit/vegetable. Martin is an expert at this: his first was expertly aimed at Sam. Martin boldly said “There’s no way a lemon can kill anyone in this round” seconds before Sam was dealt a lemon to go with his other lemon, sending him out of the round.

But Martin didn’t learn his lesson, and his powers flew back in his face in the next round. Buoyed up by a first place in the last round, he optimistically said “I could get back in this!” just before being dealt his second cherry. Poor old Martin went bust four times out of five. I, on the other hand, didn’t go bust at all.

Andrew 21
Sam 20
Joe 17
Matt 9
Ian 8
Martin 6

And with that, the emergency games evening was over. It was just left for me to negotiate a tricky hill start crossed with a three point turn to take Sam home, and the tension and excitement was done for another week.

The five letter word was niche.