Crisis of Time

Thursday, and Little Joe insisted on foregoing his bedtime story for a game with Andrew, so no sooner had he arrived than we played The Mind.

The first game was fairly disastrous, as we lurched from flippant to studious play and couldn't find a rhythm. We busted out on something like Level 4, before concentrating our brains and pulling off some high-five-worthy placements on our second attempt. We still didn't win, but Joe went to bed suitably sated, as the game of the moment shows no immediate sign of getting old.

I introduced Andrew to Space Base, which is a dice-chucking, luck-pushing, theme-pasted-on game somewhat reminiscent of Machi Koro. Each player begins with a base populated by twelve ships in bays 1-12, and on your turn you chuck dice and activate bays equal either to both die rolls individually, or the sum of them.

Then you can buy more ships, and 'deploy' the old ship from the bay. Deployed ships get you nothing on your turn, but get you stuff when any opponent rolls their number - so as the game continues and everyone deploys more and more ships, your inactive turns get increasingly rewarding. You can also buy some colony ships that clog up your bays, but score you points - first to 40 wins.

It's extremely fast-moving and I enjoyed it a lot, despite the fact I made a crucial error in passing up the chance to win - Andrew took full advantage:

Andrew 40
Sam 36

We hemmed and hawed over what to play next before deciding to finish off T.I.M.E Stories...

SPOILER ALERT

Sent back in time to solve a mystery and prevent a rupture in the fabric of continuity, we take on the host bodies of some lunatics at a mental asylum. Having made the journey thrice before, we were familiar with the majority of locations, but weren't quite sure how to piece the puzzle together. Not wanting to having to go through this all again, we afforded ourselves twice as much time units as the game officially gives you, and blasted through the place at a rate of knots, discovering all manner of unworldly creatures and a dark, macabre plot, that we eventually foiled by virtue of cheating. 

As I said to Andrew, I've never known a game to be so gripping on a first play and then drop so rapidly to unengaging. I'm still surprised by it's high rating on BGG considering how the game is structured - you fail, and start again, going to the same locations and having the same experiences... then fail, and start again. And again, and again, until you finally complete the game without running out of time units. It's beautifully made, but God, four plays was enough.

Andrew and Sam save the world.

We finished off with Avenue, the roll-and-write game of grape gathering and gathering frustration. This outdoes NMBR9 and Take It Easy in terms of getting ones' hopes up only to torpedo them in spectacular style. I still can't get over the fact Joe created one single avenue on his very first play... I tried that again tonight, and failed miserably!

Andrew 41
Sam 36

Thanks Andrew! Looking forward to The Mind, Space Base and Avenue again. Looking forward to selling or trading TIME Stories...