The Festival of Lights

The most recent Gathering of Friendless coincided with Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. This festival commemorates the legendary time when Rama returned to Ayodhya after helping Vishwamitra destroy the demons of the Dandaka-van and demolishing Ravana's army at Mithila using the power of the Brahm-astra. You must remember that. Anyway, it's something like a Hindu Christmas, and with our household being as Hindu as it is Christian (i.e. not at all), we lit some candles and got some Indian sweets and celebrated Diwali. That makes sense, doesn't it?

So the subtitle of the Gathering of Friendless episode was "The Festival of Lights". As the only "light" games I could think of were Nacht der Magier, which only takes 4 players and is played in the dark anyway; and Khet which is a 2 player game; we completely ignored the light theme.

We started with a two-team game of Bamboleo while waiting to see who might arrive. CyberKev made a mathematical mistake and took his team down very efficiently, leaving the team of Aaron, Hubertus and John to win 21 points to -1.

We'd all played Trans(Europa|America) but only a few of us had played the Vexation expansion, so we then played Vexation with TransEuropa. When I read the rules of Vexation I was sure I'd hate it - why take a great game and make it malicious? - but it's not malicious at all, it just has blocking. That I can cope with. Most of us didn't get the hang of the expansion at all, with the game only lasting two rounds, with Aaron on 12, me on 10, and nobody else above 1. Even Scrabblette, who is very good at the Trans games, did very badly.

We progressed to one of CyberKev's favourites, Frank's Zoo, which apparently takes up to seven players. There were six of us, and it seemed to me that the game was significantly weaker with six than with four. It wasn't likely that there was a pair of anything in someone's hand, and I found it hard to judge what might be a good play. Scores were very even for the whole game, with Scrabblette eventually winning on 24 and last place being up to 15.

We then played something we'd been hoping to play for months - Mystery of the Abbey. This is one of the four games I rate a 10 (Scrabble, Trias and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation), and I don't often play it. CyberKev argues that it's too chaotic and the card-passing takes away from the deductive aspect; but I say that if the card-passing has much of an effect you're not very good at the deduction. Last time we played this at Critical Mass I stole the win from Scrabblette so there was some tension at our end of the table - she determined not to let it happen again, me determined to be even more cunning this time.

Very early in the game we discovered that all of the Fathers were in people's hands, so they didn't do it. There weren't many clear clues for a while then until the second round when the event at Mass was that novices were confined to their chambers. For this event each player places a novice in front of their cellula. Scrabblette didn't have one, so there were 5 novices on the board. A few people asked questions about the other novices and I realised that with 5 on the board, one in my hand, one in Aaron's hand, and none with anybody else, that there were two missing. There was one card in the Parlatorium, so the killer must be a novice. A good deduction I thought, but way too obvious and I was sure everybody saw it.

CyberKev immediately went to the Capitulum and revealed that the killer was a novice. I was trying to figure out how I could figure out which novice. I tried to get around to see as many of the face-down cards as I could in the round, but only managed to get to two of them, one of which I knew about already. That left 4 novices I hadn't seen. Then Scrabblette went to the Capitulum and revealed that the killer was a brother. HUH?

Scrabblette had figured out that there were 8 novices in play, so therefore the killer couldn't be a novice. Except that there are 9 novices. One of those completely stupid screw-ups that happen from time to time. But the best part was, at the second mass she was protecting her brother cards and so passed me a novice - the one from the Parlatorium. That narrowed it down to three! I was first player in the third round and hot-footed it to the Capitulum! I wasn't really clear who the killer was, but I had a suspicion that Hubertus had novice Guy, and I knew which of the other two novices Aaron didn't have... so I guessed that was the guy. Further questions between other players while I was on my way only served to confirm my guess, and when I arrived at the Capitulum I accused the correct killer.

In the post-game analysis, I think it was the novice in my hand that saved me. Nobody knew who he was, and Scrabblette, who was definitely smart enough to Figure These Things Out, was off on the wild goose chase with the brothers. Nobody else quite cottoned on that my novice was the last one who wasn't the killer, and maybe they hadn't seen the novice cards outside the cellula in the second round either. In the end, it was an honest victory to me, which is satisfying but not as much fun as stealing a win from somebody else.

The final game for the evening was Unspeakable Words which is becoming a comfortable favourite, even though we do keep discovering new rules. It's a quick and easy word game, and despite the die hating me I always enjoy it. As often happens, Scrabblette thrashed us.

My stats program tells me that this day was my best day of gaming ever. Here's hoping we can continue in that vein!

Why Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper is Not So Good With 4

Our regular Tichu game with the CyberKev family has turned into a regular card game. Tichu is a fine game, but CyberKev and I have many other fine games that we'd like to play some time, so Tichu is having a rest. This week I chose to try Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper. The buzz on the 'geek is that it's not good with 4, but the geek has lots of buzz I don't agree with so we went ahead anyway.

In the first hand we saw some of the reason for the negative buzz. With 4 players a lot of cards get drawn and all of the Victims will end up in someone's hand by the end of the first run through the deck (except... see below). That means that either all of the Victims will be played, in which case The Ripper Escapes and someone gets 35 points; or a Commissioner Resigns card will cause all victims to come out and the ripper will escape giving someone 35 points. Here's the except - the only hope for the other players is that the person with The Ripper Escapes never gets a Commissioner Resigns, nor a Scene to retrieve one from the discard pile; or else the other players are able to get a victim into the discard pile and keep her there.

Overall, with 4 players it's just difficult to prevent the ripper from escaping and giving lots of points to one person and hardly any to anyone else. People end up holding onto Victims and Commissioner Resigns cards to prevent the person with The Ripper Escapes from getting them, and the game becomes distorted from what you'd expect rummy to be. I'm not sure it's meant to be like that. I've played the game with 3 and it was fine, and maybe with 2 it would be better again.

While I'm here, I'll talk about Mike Fitzgerald's other games:

• Mystery Rummy: Murders in the Rue Morgue - We played this quite a bit in 2005 and I still like it. It doesn't seem to have as many twists and turns as the other Mystery Rummy games, and the art is in being able to get the bonus points.
• Mystery Rummy: Jekyll and Hyde - I've only played this a couple of times but I liked the challenge of trying to engineer a shut-out.
• Wyatt Earp - This is a very good game where you're trying to balance going out with getting the biggest share of the reward. It needs more thought than I care to give it, but I don't mind losing anyway.

I haven't got Mystery Rummy: Al Capone yet but it's waiting for me to order from the FIGS.

Anyway, back to the session report. CyberKev scored two Ripper Escapes in the first two hands and went out to a huge lead. Our best strategies couldn't hold him back and he won easily. We then went on to play Frank's Zoo with partnership rules, which is also a good game, and Mrs CyberKev won easily there.

Dimes for 2006, Except You Know I Wouldn't Do it the Normal Way

My nickel and dime list is on boardgamegeek. You can go look at it there if you want. What I'd like to talk about today is the designers for whom I scored at least 10 plays in 2006. There are actually 29 of them, so I won't even mention all of them, just the ones who made an impression on me.

Reiner Knizia (20 games, 68 plays) - Reiner is the king of designers, and it's almost impossible to avoid playinghis games. He was my #1 designer last year and probably will be this year as well. Having said that though, I'm becoming less enchanted with many of his games. Ingenious, Poison and Ra saw a lot of play this year, but I need a rest from them. Some of his other games such as E&T, Through the Desert, Battle Line and Rheinlander need to be played more this year. I'd like to play Amun-Re, but I don't mind if I miss out on Medici and Modern Art. In any case, RK has designed such a variety of games that there'll always be something for me to play.

Richard Borg (8 games, 32 plays) - I'm not sure it's fair that Borg gets credit for Bluff - did he really invent it? I heard it was a game played by pirates in the 17th century! Nevertheless, the Command & Colors system will keep him in my list of top designers and I still like playing Wyatt Earp.

Bruno Faidutti (10 games, 32 plays) - There are many of Bruno's games that I like a lot and would like to play more - Castle, Citadels, Mystery of the Abbey, China Moon for a start. There are also a few others I don't mind. With luck, he'll see more play this year.

Kris Burm (6 games, 32 plays) - I missed out on my ambition to get the whole GIPF Project onto my nickel list last year, but if I liked YINSH a bit more I might have tried harder. However I expect ZERTZ, GIPF, DVONN and PUNCT to be played quite a few times this year. Last year I bought ZERTZ on the exact day my wife told me she was leaving me (in March) and as a result didn't get to play it until about July or August. I expect I won't have that problem again this year!

Wolfgang Kramer (10 games, 22 plays) - As the numbers might suggest, Kramer has designed a lot of games but I don't come back to play them regularly. Of those that I've played I really only like Tikal, Torres and Celtica, so I'd struggle to call him one of my favourite designers. However I like Tikal and Torres A LOT, so I'd like to try Mexica and Java this year.

Doris & Frank (6 games, 17 plays) - Doris and Frank produce consistently good games, and although it took me a while to warm to Frank's Zoo I'm finally getting used to shedding games. This pair is almost on my automatic must-have list, if only to see what the hedgehogs are up to this time.

Klaus Teuber (7 games, 10 plays) - What this says to me is that I don't play Settlers of Catan enough. I'd also like to get Hoity Toity to the table more often, but I seem to be the only person who thinks that it's a game of skill.

The question that strikes me at the end of this list is: Where's Friedemann? I like Funny Friends and Fearsome Floors, so where is he? Fearsome Floors - 4 plays; Funny Friends - 3 plays; Fische Fluppen Frikadellen - 1 play. I don't much like Power Grid, and he's not a hugely prolific designer, so he misses out. This year I hope to acquire Fiji and Formidable Foes, so maybe they will pump his numbers up. And I really should play FFF some more, after I bought 3 copies of it.

That's all for now. I wonder what gems these guys will produce for me this year?

It's Here! It's Here! (Part 6 of 6) (and why that makes me sad)

Finally, AT LAST, after 13 or 14 weeks, my BIG parcel has arrived. Here's the contents: Settlers of Catan Anniversary Edition, Polarity, 7 Runebound Expansions, and The Adventures of Harley. The Settlers game is thankfully undamaged, and I have hardly even looked at the Runebound expansions yet. We played Polarity several times tonight at Book Realm, and it is a WILD game. To see all of the magnets on the board quiver as you take one past to make your move just blows me away. I showed an 8yo kid how it worked this evening, and his jaw just dropped when he saw the magnets standing up. It really is stunning. One flaw is that the linen game board is crumpled, so I'll need to iron it in the morning to improve the quality of play. The Adventures of Harley is a game aimed at 4yos, and it really is pretty much at that level - not much for Dad in there. However I had to buy it because my kid's name is Harley, and I thought he'd be impressed. Also it is about a dog, so the game will see at least some play with the cousins. And one day there might be actual 4yos to play against.

The Settlers game though, makes me sad. Back in February when I ordered it, my life was very different. I was (as far as I knew) living in a happy 3 person household, and would continue to do so until the kid finally found a wife and got out of our hair. So I had a good 10 years planned of playing 3 person Settlers with this magnificent set. Regular readers of the blog will see the flaw in this plan - the kid's mum had been thinking about leaving me all year, and told me so the same day I bought Carcassonne (mentioned in an earlier post). So now I live in a 1.5 person household, which is pretty sad if you have the nicest 3-4 player game in the world. Cyberkev, Ozvortex, assorted other Arnold Horshacks: you're welcome to come play with us, but you'll never replace her.

While I'm maudlin, I'll continue with that theme. It's not *just* losing a wife, it's the breakup of my family game group. See, now you're all crying! I had been carefully teaching and nurturing this game group for a year and a half, and although Mum didn't much like games, there were some she would play with us. Mystery of the Abbey, Wyatt Earp, Mystery Rummy Rue Morgue, Mystery Rummy Jack the Ripper, Gang of Four, were all games that we three played together and that I will associate with her for a long time yet. Lost Cities and Mystery Rummy Jekyll & Hyde were games that she and I played together - games which I bought in an attempt to spend more time with her and so come closer to her. I bought Frank's Zoo because I thought she'd love it, but it seems even a thoughtful idea like that isn't enough to bring someone back when they want to go.

Ah, life goes on. I have been quite happy for the last few days, revelling in the thought that I could meet my next love at any moment, and occupying myself with assorted projects such as interior decoration, getting a decent car that won't try to steal Cyberkev's games, and learning how to feed the kid; but this reminder of how content yet ignorant I was in the recent past has been an unexpected hiccup. Praise the Lord for juniper berries...