13th July
Eight today, with no children, but including a chap who I didn't know and I only
managed to get Mike as his first name. When I arrived, the others were playing Flower Power from Oli Igelhaut - part of a series of games that
comes in a small wooden box. This one involved moving round a small track based on
choosing an opponent and playing one of two cards simultaneously. If both play the
same card, both move forward and, if they play different cards, only one moves forward.
The requirement is not necessarily to come first, however, but to finish in the
position you secretly predicted before the start. This continues for a few races
until someone gets a certain number of points. It didn't look too thrilling and
didn't seem to get rave reviews afterwards. Result: KB, SG, GC, M?, SO+GL.
Splitting into two, my group started with Cloud
Nine. I'd obtained this recently when a friend brought it over from the
US - it doesn't seem to be available here. Each player is 'in a balloon' and each
turn, one of the players still in the balloon must roll between two and four dice and play
matching cards in order for the balloon to move up a level. Between rolling and
playing the cards, though, each of the other players may decide to jump out of the balloon
and get points for its current level. If the current player doesn't have the cards
to move up a level, it descends to the ground again and any players who haven't yet jumped
get no points for this flight. Good simple fun of the Can't Stop variety.
Result: GL, SG, GC, TC.
Meanwhile, the others were trying out Metro, a new
production of Dirk Henn's Iron Horse. Players lay tiles to the board showing metro
tracks and attempt to connect up various stations. I have to say that it didn't
really appeal as it seemed to be a version of Linie 1 / Streetcar but without the race at
the end or the requirement to have stops along the way. Result: SO, SK, KB, M?.
After they finished that, they continued with Hornochsen,
a game I haven't played for a while. Must correct that.
Result: SO, KB, M?, SK.
We finished off with my first try at Njet! by Stefan
Dorra. This is a trick taking game with a few twists. Players take turns to
select start player, trumps, super-trump and points-per-trick. The tricks are then
played out with two pairs of partners, chosen by the start player. This continues
for as many hands as there are players. A good variation on trick taking games.
Result: SG, GC, GL, TC.
20th July
Seven adults and three children. Geoff, Steve and the kids spent most of the
evening playing Smuggle - which always takes a long time with
that many players. Each player takes a turn at being the customs officer, while the
rest attempt to pass cards depicting valuables to each other without paying duty or
getting detected. A good game for bluffers. Result: SC, SG, GC, NC, BH.
Meantime the rest of us tried out Castle, one of a bunch
of new games from Bruno Faidutti. Each player tries to get rid of their hand of
square cards by playing to spaces in a castle layout. Each card has certain
abilities when played, many of which cause cards to be sent back to the player who laid
them. It's a simple enough game - as demonstrated by Mick pointing out that he was
pleasantly surprised to have understood a game after Chris had explained it - he was even
more surprised to understand an extra comment on the rules that I made. The only
real downside is that it is one of those games where everyone ends up near the finishing
line trying to prevent the others from winning - eventually someone does win, but it could
be any of the players. This time it was Chris (some might say that this proves the
point - but not me of course!) Result: CD, TC+GL+SO+MH.
Next up we had two tries at Alan Moon's Knights of the Rainbow.
Players build up to five sets of cards in front of them and the largest holding in
each set gives certain powers for the holder. These powers have to do with
manipulating the cards or strength or money counters that players have. There seems
to be a little spice missing from the rules - mainly why anyone would turn over less than
three cards on their turn. Result 1: MH, CD, SO, GL, TC. Result 2: TC+GL+SO,
CD, MH.
Geoff left with his kids at this point and the rest of us continued with another of
Bruno Faidutti's new games, Democrazy. This is another
of those silly rules-changing games of the nature of Fluxx, but this time there is a more
definite game length (short) and the rules changes require agreement from a majority of
the players. Good harmless fun, probably best for breaking the ice at the beginning
of a session, but OK for the end too. Result: GL+MH, SO, BH+TC, CD, SG.
27th July
The school holidays have well and truly started - there were thirteen
tonight including children. When I arrived, a number
of the were playing Heimlich
& Co. Nicki Challinger won apparently.
You may notice that the results of games are going to be a
bit patchy from now on because I have decided it is too much
effort to maintain the stats and no-one is really interested
in them! If you check the links on this page, you will
see that there is one to 'Charts' instead of 'Stats' reflecting
the fact that I'm now planning to keep stats on how popular
the actual games are rather than who wins them. I've
gone back over the records to construct the current state
of the charts and will develop from there - let me know if
you have suggestions, etc. As for the results, I'll
list them here if the players of the games come over and tell
me what they are - or if I have played in them - otherwise,
I'll just let you know what the games were.
We split into three groups at this stage, mine deciding to give Port
Royal a try as Garry had recently obtained it. Apart from being one of this
year's Spiel des Jahres nominees, I knew nothing of this game and was keen to give it a
try. I have found the awarding of Tikal the prize last year followed by Torres (or
Tikal-lite) this year seems a bit strange and I am looking for the game I would have given
the prize to this year (Chinatown was my last year's choice). I have still to find
anything that has gripped me in the same way as my choices for recent years.
Anyway, back to the game. It is a trick-taking card game with one or two extra
twists. There are a number of rounds in which a hand of cards is dealt to each
player and a set of booty cards is set out to be fought for. Once all the cards are
dealt, players bid for the right to set trumps, exchange two cards with two that didn't
get dealt and to choose the first start player. The start player then chooses one of
the booty cards to be played for and leads to the first trick, which is standard except
that you do not have to follow suit. As per normal, though, you are not allowed to
play a trump if you can follow suit - and a nice element of the game is that you must mark
the suits against which you played trumps on your mini-board so that the others can check
you do not lay one of that suit later on. There are also some cards that, when laid,
render all suits irrelevant and the highest valued card wins that trick. A player
who wins a trick takes the booty card being played for and adds it to their mini-board,
before choosing the start-player for the next trick - another departure from standard
trick-taking games.
Adding the booty card to your mini-board creates its own problems. There are four
types of booty card and your board shows a ship for carrying each type - whenever you win
a booty card you add it to the appropriate ship. However, the points value of the
card also represents its weight and the ships can only carry a limited amount before
sinking. A ship carrying too much weight scores nothing so you have to be careful
not to go all out to get every high-scoring card out there and, later in the game, you are
often playing with the hope of avoiding winning tricks and so sinking ships. There
are also some special booty cards that increase your ships' capacity or remove
weight/points from a particular ship, etc.
All in all it turned out to be a very close game with only three points separating the
first three places - and eighteen points separating third and fourth! Guess who was
in fourth (as opposed to last)! To be fair to Chris, though, he did get a ship sunk
by being unfortunate enough to win the last trick. A reasonable game that I'd try
again, but I think I need to keep looking for that game of the year... Result: GL,
LN, TC, CD.
Other games played during the evening, with results where provided, were:
 | Basari. Winner: GC. |
| Rheinländer. |
| Shark. Result: MH, BH, GC, NC. |
|
Ave
Caesar. |
| Zum Kuckuck. Result: MH, GC, NC, BH. |
| Can't Stop. |
|
|
