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Anthony Boydell
United Kingdom
Unspecified
Unspecified
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The stars finally aligned and I was, for the first time in nearly a month, able to make it over to the Ross-on-Wye club to play some games.
The weather conspired to make feeding on to the M50 motorway a little tricksy - what with a torrential downpour, terrible visibility and a suite of drivers who obviously failed to hear about last weeks horrendous accident on the the M5 motorway. Why DO people continue to drive like twits when environmental conditions suggest prudence? Is this natural selection at work?
The ragingly-warm lounge of The White Lion provided the accommodation for tonight’s recreational antics (we’re normally relegated to the ‘overflow restaurant room’ – chilly and a good 10 yard walk to the bar!) and I was pleasantly surprised to see a solid turn-out of five other players!
Six for the RoW club is fecund to the point of Star Trek 2’s Genesis Project!
Ben, John, Peter and Julian had just started Too Many Cooks, leaving myself and Ian to make a little smalltalk and watch, enviously, as they got to play something for 20 minutes and we didn’t. The game is a Knizia trick-taking affair with an appealing theme, comedy art and marvelous opportunity for ‘take that!’ screwage: you’re all making soup (a card you reveal at the start of the round) and get points for cards gained in tricks that match that soup type; there are a couple of recipes that need a little more care in playing though: Chilli soup and ‘No Soup At All’. Fun to watch and, no doubt, more fun to play!
With six, it was suggested that we play something with everyone and then split into two ‘threes’ to finish; this suited ME very well, as I came laden with a new card game prototype (don’t I _EVER_ stop? Er, no) that needs a larger number, really. It’s (basically) Dixit meets Texas Hold’em set in the world of litigation and has been bubbling away in the stock-pot at the back of my mind for 18 months or so. My working name (‘So Sue Me!’) was quickly replaced by Ian’s excellent retort during round one of this test when he refused to accept Ben’s derisory settlement offer: ‘I’ll See You In Court!’ (tick in the box – that’s what it’ll be called from now on). It’s a bluffing game with the Texas Hold’Em/Omaha poker mechanic used to provide the basis for the bluffing and (ultimately) resolution if players refuse to back down ie. settle out of court. Each player takes a turn at being the defendant offering compensation in individual cases against each of the other players – a bit like Doolittle & Waite. My take on this uses Dixit-like picture cards (with normal card deck numbers and suits) to provide a clearer story-telling aspect (and the poker bit too). As first play-tests go, this one went down very well indeed – there was much heated debate about ‘losing the suits’, ‘odds of this and that’ and ‘hand rankings’ etc – all VERY useful information to mull over.
John, Ian and myself broke away to give the beautiful Drum Roll a go leaving Ben, Peter and Julian to ‘do other stuff’ (read Ben’s version of these events to get his perspective). Drum Roll is a pleasingly-presented, medium-level cube-pushing worker placement affair with some nice twists. We ended up running out of time and so only managed two out of the three shows but all agreed they would be happy to play it again. Hire performers, equip them with coloured cubes and ‘run them’ to produce benefits after a show. Pay them, rinse and repeat. At some point, you will ‘flip’ the best performers to gain VPs as well. Colourful, thematically-cohesive fun.
The rain had (thankfully) stopped and I made it home in time to grab a camomile tea and welcome in my 44th November the Twelfth.
A cosy and Winter-warming evening.
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