Put up your Dukes

What supernatural force dragged three gamers out of their warm homes and into the biting Siberian winds this Tuesday night? What tempted us towards Joe's house where he waited for us, not so much a host, more a Siren, calling gamers to dash their dreams of victory against his jagged rocky shoreline of defeat.

We were a group of just four: Joe, Ian Katy and me. Joe was angling for a game of The Ruhr (I think), a new "old school" eurogame that involves the shipping of coal. Neither the theme nor the playing length attracted me - it would have taken up almost all of the evening - so Katy's suggestion of Lords Of Vegas won me over, then it swayed Ian and eventually persuaded Joe, too.

But not before a quick game of Tichu. We split into pairs, Ian & me versus Joe & Katy. The I&A team sped off into an early lead, thanks to Ian completing a Tichu and then a 1-2. But with the score at 405 to - 5, the K&J team leaped into action. Joe completed a Grand Tichu and they did a 1-2 in the same round to make it 405-395. Then, in a further display of his mastery of the game, Joe completed another Tichu and another 1-2! Seven hundred points in two rounds. Astonishing.

Joe and Katy 695
Ian and Andrew 405

So, next up was Lords of Vegas. I secretly harboured thoughts of revenge over Joe, but instead we all got a thorough lesson in how to play the game. Joe began exceptionally. His first three dice soon each controlled two-tile casinos, which then proceeded to pay out.

The secret of his success was, when he built his first casino, he briefly mistook gold for brown. He had originally wanted brown, and was about to put the gold tile down when he decided that this was destiny, and he built a gold casino instead. It was only one of his many good decisions.

Meanwhile, the rest of us made do with 'pocket casinos', as we called little one-tile casinos dotted around the board. Ian tried a bit of psychological tactics. When Joe offered a good location to him, Ian said he'd buy it for $10 million but only if he bet $5 million in Joe's casino and won. Joe was stumped as he tried to work out how much he'd actually be paid for it.

As we played, Joe's kitchen oozed capitalism. During the game we made sure to always mention that we were dealing in millions, to heighten the sense of decadence and even our resident social conscious, Katy, found herself empathising with the mega-rich when she sighed "it's almost not good to have so much money."

This was because, as the game wore on, Katy's fortunes had turned from distant last to potential first and she'd been raking in the proceeds ever since. Taking over my three-tile casino by turning it into a four-tile casino when she drew a neighbouring location with a six on it was hard for me to take. I never got it back.

Joe played like a master throughout. His lead was never in doubt, despite Katy's plucky last minute attack. Joe's best move, in my opinion, was when he remodelled two of his neighbouring casinos into one big seven-tile casino. And he did this after he realised he didn't have enough money to do what he really wanted. God knows what that move would have been. Mind you, he then rerolled a six-tile casino hoping to get it from Katy but in the end Ian, with his single die, ended up as the boss, so it didn't all go Joe's way.

I struggled with getting control of anything until near the end when I remodelled my two-tile casino (with a six and a five) to the same colour as Ian's six-tile casino, netting myself a choice eight-tile casino on the strip. Alas it didn't pay out until game over. It couldn't get me out of last. Only enough to save me from total humiliation.

Joe 44
Katy 36
Ian 20
Andrew 18

Then we played Coup, a game that's been absent from GNN for far too long. We played three times and we won one each. Most people's strategy was to calmly insist they had a Duke while they picked up three coins. The games ended (in order of elimination)...

Andrew, tried to assassinate Joe who had a Contessa.
Katy, tried to assassinate Joe who had another Contessa.
Joe, tried to assassinate Ian who had the third Contessa!
Ian wins!

Andrew, wrongly challenged Ian's Duke.
Ian, wrongly challenged Katy's Ambassador.
Joe, tried to assassinate Katy who had the Contessa.
Katy wins!

Katy, tried to avoid assassination by saying she had a Contessa but she didn't.
Ian, killed by my coup.
Joe, killed by my coup.
Andrew wins!

We finished with No Thanks, which saw Joe return to his previous heights of skill after the random silliness of Coup.

Ian went for big cards, but not because he wanted to. Katy had a wide collection of disparate cards. I did okay with a couple of runs, but very little money at the end. Joe finished with one long run in front of him, as if he'd just played it in another successful game of Tichu.

Joe 5
Andrew 33
Katy 62
Ian 79

After this, it was a case of last visits to the toilet and then back out into the sub-zero night air with an extra layer of bonhomie to warm us on our way home. Big thanks to Joe for hosting and for showing us how winning should be done.

A Night of Legacy

Last night Joe and Charlotte joined Sally and I to crack open the box of Game of Legacy, the farewell game of Bernie De Koven, whose background (and the nature of this project) is actually best described by Martin on this BGG page.

+++++MASSIVE SPOILERS ALERT+++++++

Martin has this game, and should stop reading right now (assuming it's still unplayed).

As should anyone who finds the idea of an exploratory, one-play-only game intriguing enough to order it themselves, which you can do here. Or if you don't mind a slightly less-mysterious version, you can have mine. If so - stop reading now too!

*

For others, read on to hear all about What's In The Box and What We Did.

The reason Charlotte was coaxed out into a chilly evening with the promise of a game at its heart was that it was also my birthday, and I shamelessly used this leverage to get her there. Once through the door that was irrelevant though. Sally cooked a lovely meal and then I ceremoniously plonked the unopened Game of Legacy on the table, and we ripped into it.

The first thing we found was packaging - scrunched up newspapers to be precise. Although we realised they weren't any old newspaper. Each sheet was identical and appeared to be a mix of bona fide ancient journalism (all centred around Battersea) and newly-created content, with intriguing, not to say tantalising words about say, how it gets on one's nerves that they have spent their lifetime irritating people.

Beneath this curious beginning were three envelopes, labelled numerically. The first contained postcards that contained the rules of a simple game: split into teams and each member of each team write down a three word phrase on (supplied) black cardboard that described a time they remembered as fun, by whatever definition. Then the teams had to identify whose definition came from whom.

Sally and I went into the front room and came up with remembrances from our recent holiday in Devon - Tiptoe Over Rocks (Sally) and Cream on Face from me, recalling the crazed idiocy of Pie Face. I didn't realise its smutty undertones until Joe's expression alerted me back in the kitchen.

Joe and Charlotte had come up with Venetian Insider and Dorset Team Play, which I knew related to their recent holiday. Everyone successfully nailed the creators though, and we moved on to envelope number 2.

I was expecting it to be a development of Game 1, but everything was new. We were told to delve into the box and get out all the contents - bar the Surprise Envelope - and create a play-space for the (supplied) marbles in the box. These contents came in the form of card with 90º angled edges, lengths of piping, wire, blue-tac, drawing pins, straws, balloons... The instructions also made mention of a Hummingbird, with no explanation or apparent logic as to why.

We set about this task with a mix of enthusiasm and baffled curiosity, not sure where the game was taking us. Told to leave a space in the middle, we ended up with a kind of fruit arena with marbles rolling in either side, and a vague idea of scoring for which fruit they rolled into. Looking back, it seems an oddly formal thing to impose on the play, but we were searching for some kind of order to things. And it was fun.

After messing about for twenty minutes and proving that, architecturally-speaking, we were still in the novice phase, we moved on to the final envelope. Again, a new game with no direct relation to what has gone before, beyond the mysterious mention of hummingbirds. 

This time we had to give each other blessings until the recipient felt 'sufficiently blessed'. From the little I know of Bernie De Koven, this felt the most De Koven-esque of everything thus far. The English are terrible at receiving compliments and with blessings it's even worse, as it implies the blesser is somehow validated to bless others - making both blesser and blessee uncomfortable at the same time. Everyone felt sufficiently blessed very quickly!

We finally opened the Surprise Envelope, unsure if it was too late and/or it would have made sense of everything that had gone before. Inside was a tea-light candle, a crisp brown leaf and a few tiny bits of wood. Although we were relived that it wasn't a body part or a dead hummingbird, it shed no light on the three phases of Bernie's legacy for us. 

Sally thought that as mentions of balloons were made in the newspaper, we were supposed to make a hot air balloon. Which we actually tried to do, even though we knew it was doomed to failure.

Or perhaps we were meant to make a hummingbird? She used the elastic bands and bits of wood to construct a rudimentary engine, that then pinged itself across the room. Whether down to my day-job or societal conditioning, I couldn't help looking for a link or a story, an explanation of some kind. I thought perhaps we'd missed something, somewhere. 

But Charlotte became convinced that the point of it all was that life didn't have an over-arching sense to it, and the experience was like the play we had just had - changing direction and apparent meaning,  illogical, unstructured. This did seem convincing, albeit the hummingbird still niggled at me.

Joe, meanwhile, was just having fun with all the bits.

It wasn't what I expected. I mean, I don't know what I expected really, but I guess the idea that we would go on some kind of journey together, maybe learn some shit, come out the other end. It was far more open than that, and in retrospect as Bernie's thing is play, my expectations were bound to be off in that regard.

It was baffling, at times bordering on odd, but throughout there was a sense of exploration to it - even though we ended with a sense of head-scratching rather than overt satisfaction, it was the kind of playful experience that will stay with you long after the latest Euro has faded from your brain. And in that sense, a legacy - of fun!

Thank you Cha and Joe!

The Boogie Woogie Burgle Boys

As I approached Joe's house, I wondered what we might play tonight. Judging by the responses in the emails yesterday, there would be five of us. Hmm. Five. A tricky number.

However, when I arrived I found Joe's kitchen table already bedecked by a wide choice of games for five. Railways of the World was tempting. So was Santiago which is perhaps best with five. Joe also brought in Colosseum and I reminded him that the last time five played it, it was so long that someone left halfway through.

Instead we began with a game that Sam brought with him, Burglar Brothers. This simple but evil co-op game is proving to be a hit in recent times. We adopted our safe cracking personae and leapt into action.

Alas, our early endeavours were slowed down drastically by the high number of alarm tiles on the first floor. In fact, none of us could move until Sam used his special power to blow up a wall. As you can imagine, with all these alarms and explosions, the guard on the first floor soon sped up to six moves at a time. It became imperative that we get onto the next floor. Luckily, Ian's raven successfully slowed the guard down enough that we got out of a few tight spots.

When the first of us started exploring the first floor we were delighted to find the next safe right at the top of the stairs. Joe observed that this would explain why there was so much security on the ground floor.

Katy had to crack a key code by rolling a six. After one failure, she asked for a dice arena, thinking that would assure success this time. So Joe went to get one so she could roll in confidence. She got her six with her first try. Amazing scenes.

After about an hour, despite having thieves on every floor, we still couldn't find any safe except the one on the ground floor. And we were running out of stealth tokens. Sam was even reduced to hiding in the toilet for one turn.

Meanwhile, Joe managed to crack open the one safe we did find and inside he found... a cursed goblet. He instantly lost a stealth token and now none of us had any left.

In the end, soon after we decided to give up on the other safes and make our escape with this cursed goblet, I get caught. I had to duck into an unrevealed tile to avoid an oncoming guard and the tile turned out to be another alarm.

Failure.

Despite the baptism by fire that this game offered up, we all enjoyed it. Next time is bound to be kinder, right?

After this, we decided to have a night of short games. My suggestion of For Sale was accepted and we watched as Ian showed us what professional For Sale might look like. He picked up high cards for free or half price through phase one. Meanwhile, in phase two, I somewhat waste my 30 card by placing it too confidently, causing everyone else to reassess their choices. Katy did badly again and Sam had to swiftly mop up a minor spillage.

Ian 62
Andrew 54
Joe 52
Sam 46
Katy 42

Next up was Polterfass. How odd to play this game without Martin. Sam shot into an early lead and then played a canny game for a win.

To be honest, the battle for second was more interesting. Katy was in hot pursuit of Sam, ("I benefited from a shafting," she said after a round when she picked up points despite her expectations) until Joe edged past her into second. Katy fought back, only to be pushed back into third by Ian on the final round.

Sam 75
Ian 64
Katy 60
Joe 52
Andrew 27

After this was Perudo. We used mats from Skull and Roses to deaden the sound of dice against Joe's wooden kitchen table. We are nothing if not resourceful. Katy, with three dice while others floundered with one, won with a bit of luck, rolling lots of aces or the number that the other player bid. As Ian discovered, there was no point trying to bluff her when she already had all the dice.

Katy wins!
Ian second
Sam third
Joe fourth
Andrew fifth

Then Sam left and, for some reason (sleep, perhaps), we collectively decided that half past ten wasn't that late and launched into a game of Exploding Kittens. This piece of potential Kickstarter crap turned out to be a rather fun if slightly random card game of survival. I'm afraid I can't remember much about it, except for the sense of potential betrayal every time a bomb card is returned to the pack. This is the game's defining feature for me: being able to put the card back in the deck in such a way that it targets a player (in secret) with a bomb was the main source of tension. Unless someone had a shuffle card.

Katy wins
Ian second
Joe third
Andrew last

And then back out into the streets of Bristol. Thanks for hosting, Joe, and thanks to the guests for entertaining. See you next week!

Pie Faces

This week me and the boys spent a few days with Mark and Katie and their girls in Devon, with Sal joining us at the weekend. We arrived on Peppa's birthday!

eleven!

This meant that as well as the fresh sea air and salty breeze, there was also the occasional whiff of cardboard and margaritas, with Animals on Board hitting the table a few times, as well as Avenue, Heck Meck, Fuji Flush, and numerous plays of Insider, with Stan effortlessly deflecting attention when he was the insider. I was the insider twice and although I was collared in my first attempt, I successfully implicated a nearby infant in my second.

waves were great

Mark and I played Flamme Rouge with Peppa as well, which we both enjoy a lot - and Formula D also hit the table. Burgle Bros got played three times - a co-op where you attempt to pull off the heist of three safes on three floors of a building. Twice we failed, but on our third attempt Peppa, Stan and I made off with the loot - which happened to be a cat, if I recall. We had some gold bars too, but dropped them.

cheery burglars

At the end of the week everyone sat down to play Pie Face, the brilliantly-titled game of getting hit in the face with whipped cream. The cream goes onto a lever, you place your face in the target - there'c a chin rest - and then spin a wheel which denotes how many times you crank the lever.

pie....

At some point the lever will crank too far and spring up, depositing its load into your mush. But it's not a case of cranking too far, as sometimes it will spring up first time (as it did with me).

...face!

Katie actually wore swimming goggles to play, and I have photographic evidence. But I promised I wouldn't post it.

Lucky

I think everyone bar Joe and Lula took a hit. Joe, in fact, decided early on that Pie Face was an activity best observed rather than indulged. He might be right, but all the same - a lovely end to a lovely week. The view from the cabin was amazing.

complete with tiny man walking along balcony

Monarch for nothing

I'm writing this in a pub (where I write all my blog posts) and two women are sitting nearby, working out how to play Monopoly (Bristol edition). Alas, I am unequipped to leap over and show them the folly of their ways. If only I was more like Martin who turned up to this Tuesday's meeting with a bag full of Reiner Knizia games. I'm sure those would have made Hasbro's often mis-played and misunderstood critique of capitalism pale by comparison.

Or would it? More on that later.

At first, there were four of us: host Adam, Katy, Martin, and me. Ian was expected at 8.45, give or take five minutes, so we decided now was our only chance to play Azul. Katy hesitated for a moment, but when she realised she wasn't sitting to Martin's left, she agreed. It was Adam who had that particular honour.

I did my best to stop Katy and her early low scoring rounds suggested I was doing well, but before long we saw that she'd finished two whole colours for a whopping twenty points. But by the end of the game I had two columns, one completed colour. I'd spent the whole game building out slowly from the centre in a very satisfying way. It finished...

Andrew 90
Katy 72
Martin 65
Adam 65

(The women have put Monopoly back and have chosen Scrabble instead.)

Next, we needed a short game that could end instantly when Ian arrived, so we went with Push It. With this vaguely-defined end-game criteria, it made the game a tense affair, knowing that a slender lead could be lost forever in an instant. Well, exciting for everyone except me.

Adam 4
Katy 3
Martin 3
Andrew 0

Sound, with Ian among us, we tried one of the Reiner Knizia games that Martin had brought: King's Road.

"It's a simple area majority game," explained Martin. "Simple" was perhaps an understatement. Nothing about the game engaged me. The rules were almost too straightforward (although Katy still managed to misunderstand the role of the nobles until it was too late) and the board design was a banal fantasy map with areas called The Dark Tower or The Temple Ruins. It reminded me of the map in Bored Of The Rings, with its Intermittent Mountains.

The gameplay was shockingly one dimensional. I can imagine that, after several plays, new and cunning strategies emerge, but as I played I couldn't help thinking I was just doing the same thing over and over again.

Ian got a grip better than anyone else and concentrated all his resources in the North with its two high scoring areas (the evocatively named King's Castle and Dragon's Lair). It did the trick and, as he later summarised, he won by ignoring half the game.

Ian 51
Martin 48
Andrew 46
Adam 44
Katy 41

With that over, we indulged Adam's request and played Take It Easy. We played two rounds. Ian was first caller and, perhaps spurred on by King's Road and its flaccid nomenclature, chose fantasy locations. He was doing very well until we worked out, just after The Floating City Of Dave, that he was probably making them up.

I was also slightly unnerved by Adam and I making exactly the same moves and Martin making mirror image moves for the first six or seven tiles. Usually, doing the same thing that Adam and Martin are doing is a good thing but, of course, the moment I diverged I knew I was sunk.

Meanwhile Ian suffered from Caller's Curse, and ended that round in last while Katy had a 39-point lead on her nearest rival. In the second round Martin was caller and dazzled us all by calling Reiner Knizia games. He didn't get Caller's Curse, ending second for the round but Katy could not be caught.

Katy 334
Adam 314
Martin 290
Andrew 242
Ian 197

Finally, Knizia got a chance to redeem himself with a rousing game of Voodoo Prince. We played three rounds (Black was the trump suit each time) and I did shockingly. Out first in round one and then out last in rounds two and three.

The real battle was between Katy and Adam. It was Katy's first game, and she found it stressful. But in a good way. They were tied on 18 points at the end of round two with Martin lurking dangerously on 14. However, Katy went out first in the last round and, once Adam was confident there were enough points on the table to win, he went out too. It's a great game and the perfect way to erase the memory of King's Road.

Adam 25
Katy 23
Martin 23
Ian 22
Andrew 9

And so we were done. Big thanks to Adam for hosting when it looked like half-term had removed all our hosting options. Hope to see you all next week.

City of Games!

This weekend is the City of Games convention here in Bristol which Stan and I attended, ostensibly to promote gamesnightguru, but in the main, it transpired, to play games ourselves.

I spent Friday night exploring Quebec, which is an interesting tactical game where every decision affects another decision. The theme is about the building of the city over four centuries, but the interesting decisions are slightly compromised by fiddly iconography and a fairly messy board. All the same, I'd be interested to try it with other human beings.

On Saturday Stan and I arrived the Futures Inn for City of Games about midday and, having nervously dropped some leaflets on a couple of tables, set about playing our first game - Raiders of the North Sea. This is twist on worker placement where having placed a worker, you also remove one from the board and activate that as well. There are also a hierarchy of viking types which come into play too. I was looking strong mid-game, but needless to say, Stan overhauled me.

We blasted through some games of Crokinole and Klask - a crazed two-player mash-up of hockey and magnets...

and then sat down with Wibbell designer Bez for a quick game of Grabbell, followed by another quick game of a prototype called Kitty Cataclysm. I'm not sure how much one should share about prototypes online but suffice to say it was a very Bez-ish fun, fast-moving filler. With puns.

I was eager to try out Quadropolis and Stan indulged me. The look of the game has never really appealed to me - pastelly tiles with comic-style drawings - but always seeing it in the shops made me think it'd be good to get it on the Guru website, at least. It's a fast-moving game too, where over four turns in four rounds you grab tiles from a central board and use them to build on your own. How the tiles interact and activate scores points, not massively unlike some other games, but the catch here is your four architects dictate both what you can have, and where they can go.

I enjoyed well enough - more than Stanley in fact - but although the puzzle element is fun, the look and slightly abstracted-Machi-Koro feel of it all didn't blow our minds. Maybe playing it knowing the scoring system would have helped though, but by the time I reached end-game scoring in the rule-book we were both reaching glazing point.

A few more games of Crokinole and Klask and we called it a day at the City of Games... although as it was a Saturday night, there were more games to be had at home. Andrew now takes up the baton of narrator...

At eight o’clock, Sam, me, Chris and Katy converged on Sam’s kitchen for a weekend dose of games. At first, it was the three boys, with Katy expected in fifteen minutes. For a few seconds we considered having a “conversation” until she arrived. And then, once the laughter had died down, we played Wibbel.

The game veered from unnecessarily long words to short, sharp terms of abuse as we swiftly sped through the deck. Luckily we were done and dusted by the time Katy got here so she didn’t have to see our reliance of body-parts vocabulary to get us across the finish line.

Sam 19

Chris 18

Andrew 11

After this, the four of us stared at the wall of games in Sam’s living room, eventually choosing Queendomino. This reworked version of Kingdomino comes with a few extra choices which, apparently, means it needs a much bigger box.

The core of the game is the same: make a 5x5 grid of tiles, trying to score for contiguous landscapes. Yes, I said contiguous. In Queendomino, you also get to build towers and end-of-game-scoring tiles or do a bit of taxing too, using the teeny tiny knights.

It was okay. A nice diversion. At the end I jokingly said “I reckon I’ve won that,” and it turned out I had.

After that we chose Rajas of the Ganges. While Sam set it up, Katy and I stood outside for a bit, enjoying the night air and being appalled by the student neighbours who played that “Dancin’ in the Moonlight”* song by Toploader twice in a row. Shocking behaviour.

As for the Rajas of the Ganges, I found that my previous game when I played as blue had completely rewired my brain. Or maybe it was the night air. Either way, I kept moving Katy’s blue pieces instead of my own red ones.

My initial feelings of sympathy towards Katy and Chris for going up against two old hands were quickly replaced by a sinking feeling as my dice-rich approach got very few points on the board early on. Chris got his markets going early on and sped off up the river, with the rest of us close behind. Katy went for fame points in a big way, getting her fame point marker halfway along the third side of the scoretrack. Sam went for money and by the end, his money marker was almost on the home straight. 

It was an unconventional game, which is good since it shows there are still avenues to be explored here. I actually finished the river, which was a first for me. I kind of regretted doing it so soon, since that now meant I had one less option. It felt very different with four players. In a good way.

Katy won!

Chris second, but only just

Sam third, but only just

Andrew fourth, by miles

After that, we ended with Push It. I sent the jack off the table early on (caught by Katy before it hit the floor) putting me into negative points, and I never recovered. 

Sam 7

Chris 6

Katy 6

Andrew 0

Chris and I reached for our coats with indecent haste after this, leaving a bemused Katy plaintively suggesting Hit Z Road to a reply of arms through sleeves and scarves round necks.

A lovely evening. Thanks all. Cheers!

* I don’t actually know if the song title drops the “g” off the end of “dancing” but it’s so bad, that I expect it does.

*

It wasn't quite the end of the evening for me (Sam) though, as the rowdy neighbours were only getting louder and after the abortive texting I went around and hammered on the door like the proverbial suburban Meldrew, telling them it was nearly midnight and they had to bloody well pipe down. ...I'm not sure that's exactly how the conversation went, but certainly my many previous polite texts had used up my patience. They gave up singing some kind of demented barbershop chorus as a result, and went out. 

As a result of the booze and the games and the slightly gritted-teeth exchange, I was a bit fuzzy on Sunday morning when Stan and I made our way into town by bike. We began with breakfast and then decided, with similar reasoning to Quadropolis for me, and more enthusiasm from Stan, to try out Dice Forge.

This was actually rather fun: a simple dice-roller where your round by round choice is to upgrade your dice, or 'perform heroic quests' - buy cards. Cards can be helpful in-game and/or bring you victory points. We ended up playing three times during the day, and enjoyed them all; with the caveat of slightly fiddly pack-away and the potential for luck to undo your whole game: both Stan and I had times where all our upgraded dice were still rolling the un-upgraded sides, which was a bit frustrating. But the game is so brief it wasn't too upsetting. 

We bashed out another few games with Bez as well - another prototype that crossed Wibbell with Dobble to good effect, albeit I'm terrible at those games and Bez' mate Jake wiped the floor with us. 

After lunch we tried out Kitchen Rush, a real-time co-operative game of running a restaurant. In each of four rounds you place workers to carry out tasks, with the catch being each worker is a timer, and the task is not complete until 30 seconds are up. You can plan as much as you like, but once the round begins you have exactly four minutes - to bring in customers, take orders, prep food and cook it and add spice and buy more food and even wash the dishes. At the end of each round all your workers must be paid as well. 

It was... interesting. I can imagine it being fun at the right time - maybe after everyone's just had their third coffee. There was genuine stress in trying to manage everything and several times we - or I - got recipes wrong. We did win, but only by cheating both inadvertently and slightly-on-purpose. That was the easy version! Quite a mad one and despite the unique feel I'm not sure anyone at GNN would be keen on playing it more than once - it's like playing 8 overlapping games of FUSE. 

After playing EXIT last week (thanks Martin!) Stan was keen to try another Unlock escapade, so we blasted through the Haunted House adventure, where you have to rescue some lost kids.  If you can call me feeling increasingly tired and exasperated 'blasting'. The final puzzle we had to completely give up on. Oh well, it was probably bloody students again*

We hung around for a while hoping to win a basket of games, but didn't get our number come up in the raffle. I was hoping having the very first ticket might be rewarded, but there are no early bird rewards in probability. After some Looping Chewie, another game of Crokinole, and our third and final visit to the Dice Forge, we called it a weekend.

A very fun weekend too. It seemed like City of Games was a big success too, which is a credit to Frank West who not only organised the whole shebang but supplied his not-inconsiderable games library for people to use. Some of it was on the floor at the end! But then, so was I...

* swore about 25 years I would never say this except ironically 

Bungle Bros

With Ian still under the weather, the occasional Thursday Night Club was reduced to myself and Andrew, which gave us the opportunity to trot out Rajas of the Ganges again. This is the game Andrew currently requests, and I'm always more than happy to oblige. We're still discovering nuances to the play, such as Andrew's boat-crafted dice via the medium of karma. 

While he was doing that I was selling lots of spice at the markets, and the game moved at a brisk pace. Half an hour in, Stanley roamed down from his bed to watch a couple of rounds, and after he went back upstairs the game was pretty much done! I triggered the end of the game with my fame and money markers passing each other (they travel in opposite directions in order to do this) but Andrew still had one last turn... I spotted a way he could beat me, but to be fair the options in Rajas are so bountiful there were probably numerous ways to do it!

Andrew : top Raja

Sam: second-best Raja

My markers (yellow) and Andrew's (blue) in the background

With the hour still early, I introduced Andrew to the delights of Burgle Bros, a co-op game where you're trying to pull off a slightly farcical heist - cracking three safes on three floors of the same building - as three guards wander around and you try your best to avoid them: if you're in the same 'room' as them a fourth time, you're caught and immediately shop your accomplices. 

We began trapped in a corner as a guard wandered to and fro, unaware of what pain he was causing us. Then we broke free and cracked the first safe. Andrew made his way to the second floor whilst I moved on to the third - separating like this helps a lot, as it means the guards move about a bit less. 

Andrew did travel up through a duct to help me crack the third floor safe, but then returned to his task as I escaped through the roof. He needed to flip a tile to reveal a number to crack the safe, and flipping the tile involved rolling a single six. It was a pity Martin wasn't there to see how many times Andrew rolled one, two, three, and then four dice (using up his four actions) over and over before he finally rolled the needed six! It was bizarre. And all the time it ate up saw the guard stumble on him, franctially rolling dice and appealing to the Gods. He was caught - and so was I!

Andrew and Sam: in chokey.

And then we played Biblios! And what a Biblios it was, with Andrew convinced from early on that he'd lost, and me increasingly optimistic that I'd won, as Andrew ended the auction phase with bugger-all cash and I had the pick of the last few cards. Unfortunately though, it wasn't enough! If I'd just bid higher on the 2 Blue card, things could have been so different...

A classic trio of games. Thanks Andrew and see some of you Saturday...

Yokohama Tires

This weeks' Tuesday shenanigans were hit by late dropouts due to work and illness, with Andrew, Matt and Ian all belatedly unable to furnish us with their presence at Hannah and Adam's house. Nonetheless we were still a six, with Adam, Katy and Joe (who drove me there in his new car) setting up Yokohama on the big table, and Hannah, Martin and myself (Sam) set up Martin's new acquisition Medici the Card Game on the coffee table.

The card game is unsurprisingly reminiscent of the original Medici - players spend each of the three rounds filling their boats and scoring for boat value, plus the set collection. Unlike Medici there is no bidding - the push your luck comes from flipping cards, as you can take up to three from the communal area, but must always take the last card you flipped. There are also some rogue cards mixed in that help with either boat value or your sets, but take up no space in the boat.

It was a pleasant enough game - I kind of missed the bidding of Medici. But then I didn't miss Medici's terrible board. I'd play it again, and hopefully slightly better:

Martin 130
Hannah 120
Sam 105

Yokohama was still going strong...

...so we moved swiftly on to The Quest for Eldorado, Reiner Knizia's card-drafting game. This was new to Hannah but she took to it as one might expect - surging off into the lead - the caveat of course being a geographic lead can be overhauled with a couple of decent rounds with decent cards.

Early on I felt stranded next to a cave, taking three whole turns without being able to move even a single hex. But I twice dumped cards from my hand to finesse my deck a little, and this turned out to be my saving grace; in the latter part of the game I sped past both Hannah and Martin to claim the win. Though it must be said, if Martin had remembered to use one of his cave tiles at the optimum moment, it could have been very different...

Sam: wins!
Martin and Hannah - too close to call second

With Hannah tiring, and Yokohama still yet to finish, we blasted through a quick game of Eggs of Ostrich. I picked up the win thanks to a golden egg, and Martin's burst sack:

Sam 12
Hannah 10
Martin 7

Before Hannah said goodnight, with Yokohama still unfinished.

But much table-talk was breaking out over, among other things, Katy's insistence over scoring the whole game before she took her final turn. She pointed out that it might affect what she did with that turn. Joe and Adam got up and wandered around the house. Martin and I played two-player Azul, and I realised that the next time I play it, I really don't want to sit to Martin's left:

Martin 72
Sam 48

Which lasted long enough for Yokohama to finish! And what a finish it was, it literally could not have been any closer without resorting to tie-breakers.

Joe 107
Katy 106
Adam 105

I'm not sure what tie-breakers are in Yokohama. Last one up the stairs?

They also bashed out a rapid game of Eggs of Ostrich, ignoring Martin's cries of "It's finished! It's finished!" as he packed away Azul. There was still much debate over the relative value of Yokohama, with Katy swinging from declaring that she would never play it again to suggesting perhaps it was best with two. "Or none?" suggested Martin, before adding that Yokohama's relative value might be discovered in its combustive powers.

Our gaming nightcap was Avenue, which Adam didn't look massively enthused about playing. But it played five relatively quickly and would allow him to go to bed relatively quickly too, so he succumbed. He needn't have worried - while much teeth-gnashing was going on all around the table, Adam sailed to an absolute trouncing, racking up a score I think may stand as an Avenue record for a good while:

Adam 133
Sam 59
Martin 51
Katy 45
Joe 40

And with that, another GNN night drew to a close, with Martin weaving his way home happy with a Huddersfield victory and Katy and I treated to another lift from Joe. Amazing leg room in the back of that car.