Chris suggested Great Western Trail or Clank! and as it was a school night, we plumped for the latter.
As previously explained, in Clank! you are dungeoneers, grabbing loot as you creep around underground. But you are also clumsy dungeoneers, and as you pilfer, you also stumble and drop stuff, making the clank of the title - which wakes the dragon, who comes out and attacks!
As soon as one player makes it back to the surface, there's a mad scramble to escape as suddenly the dragon goes absolutely batshit, attacking again and again. Chris was first to return, propping up his paltry 15-point artefact with a bag of swag. Andrew made it next, and I was left with just three turns to get safe. Well actually, I was safe already, but the reward for seeing daylight again was a very handy 20 points - enough for a massive swing into first place!
If I'd made it. As it turned out though, I didn't, and the game ended with me staring up at the hatch in the roof, as Chris and Andrew pointed down at me, laughing:
Chris 78
Andrew 70
Sam 69
The Mind was still out on the table and Chris was curious to try it, so we dealt out the cards and went for it. And my word, what a game it was. The opening round left Chris bemused, but as the card count ramped up so did the tension, and I think we pulled off some pretty impressive manoeuvres with many cards in close succession, reaching level 6 with a loss of no lives at all. We fell apart spectacularly in level 7, but boy, what a journey. Great game!
After that tension though we needed something light, preferably about loading animals onto semi-biblical boats. So Animals on Board it was; the set-collection game where Noah - the Noah - steals any pairs of matching animals on your boat. I won the first game:
Sam 43
Andrew 39
Chris 31
Before Andrew went for a cheap-as-chips method of loading his boat with any old crap in the second game, in defiance of my "shitty chiselling ways" (© Andrew) tactic of picking up the odd, I like to say bespoke, animal as I put together something of an exclusive vessel. Exclusive, but crap, as I was caught unawares by the game end:
Andrew 36
Chris 28
Sam 25
Lots of fun, thanks chaps!
Sounds like a Nice evening!
ReplyDeleteI introduced The Mind to my Bridge gang, it went down well. But we didn’t do brilliantly.
I like Animals on Board.
And Clank.
It was nice to revisit Clank. It's not genius but it's usually very fast moving and replete with wails of despair - mine - that everyone else finds amusing,
ReplyDeleteCashing out early on Animals On Board felt a bit cheap, but when I saw the opportunity I couldn't resist it.
ReplyDeleteThe Mind was nuts. So many near misses even the Red Arrows would've been impressed.
Liked all the games last night. Your observation that I might not be fairing as badly as I feared in Clank! was true. Because I'd wandered down a cul-de-sac my only option appeared to race back out and hopefully trap you guys...
ReplyDeleteAnimals on board seemed difficult to be in charge of your destiny but it played quick so that wasn't a major concern.
The Mind is a bonkers game that just works when it shouldn't. The first hand was just a bizarre first time experience. OK everyone set? Go... Cue 30 seconds of everyone smiling at each other in silence until someone suddenly breaks. Then everyone is in fits of giggles.... Quality.