Ben Kirman
United Kingdom
Lincoln
Lincolnshire
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This game is legendary amongst our game group at work. Like some sort of modern day excalibur its existance is shrouded in mystery and rumour. Many have tried to seek out and buy a copy of the game for themselves, but so far all have failed.
The only copy we have managed to find was in the following mysterious circumstances: The brother of one of the gamers boarded the no.161 bus ( http://www.merseytravel.gov.uk/) from West Derby to Bootle in Liverpool, at approximately 6.30am on a Sunday morning, on the way to a car boot sale. The bus being quiet at these times, the brother spoke to the bus driver in idle conversation. It turns out that the bus driver is actually a published board game designer with a number of titles to his name. Knowing his gamer sibling was interested in board games, the brother asked the driver for more details. As it happens, the bus driver has several copies of his games in his cab, each available for purchase for the princely sum of one English pound. So the brother buys a copy of "Numero Striker", half out of curiosity, and passes it on.
The thing is, Numero Striker is actually quite a decent game! Since playing it, we have tried to contact the bus driver somehow to buy more of his games, but so far we have failed.
The game itself is relatively simple. There are 36 thick plastic poker chips in the tube, along with 36 adhesive stickers (numbered 1-6 with 6 different "code names" (George, Barry, Chris, Jimmy, Dylan and Joe)).
There are also 6 pawns (one for each player), a 6 sided die and a dice cup.
Each player chooses a pawn and a "code name" from those available. All the disks/chips are then turned sticker-face down and shuffled on the table.
Play proceeds clockwise. On a player's turn, they first roll the die, and then pick a disk up from the table and secretly look at it.
If the number on the disk matches the number rolled on the die, the player takes the disk and puts it face up in front of them in their score pile.
If the number doesn't match, the disk is replaced face down in its original spot and that player's pawn is put on the back.
If a player chooses to pick up a disk with another player's pawn on it (there may be more than one), if that disk matches the die roll, they keep the disk for scoring as usual, but they also take all the disks with the matching number from the other player's score piles, thus "poaching" those strikers.
The game ends when the last disk is removed from the table. Each player totals the values of the disks they have collected, scoring double for any disk with their "code name" on it.
The game has pretty simple rules, and for the first 10-15 minutes you are left wondering what you have got yourself into as you simply collect various disks randomly and never really interact with other players.
Later on, however, things take a more interesting turn. When you start picking up disks with other player's pawns on, if you can remember what number they rolled you increase your probability of picking the correct number *and* poaching all the strikers of that number from your opponent. If you are unlucky though, you end up increasing the chances for everybody else, so it can be a dangerous tactic.
The only downside is the final few disks are quite powerful, since you are highly likely to poach a few strikers when you pick it up, but so far we have found that at that point only the lower scoring disks are left, and most people can remember their values anyway so pawns don't get placed too often.
Overall it is a surprisingly good game, and it's genuinely a shame we can't find the enigmatic designer to buy a few more copies (and try his other games). Perhaps he returned into the ether, "the Flying Busman", as it were. If anything it has taught us that there are more people out there into boardgames than we thought. Next time you are on a quiet bus or taxi, why not have a little chat with the driver? You never know what you will end up discovering.
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Melissa
Australia
Melbourne
Victoria
Best wishes to you all for 2011. xxx
Mostly offline, but trying.
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What an amazing story!
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Posted Tue May 16, 2006 10:49 pm
