Duel in the Light

I'm trying to catch up on session reports for the Gathering of Friendless. Unlike many gamers who shall remain nameless, I do have a fetish for writing, but I'm still quite slack at heart and once something is a responsibility (even if it's only a commitment I've made for my self) I become slack. Anyway, the Gathering of Friendless Episode 5 was subtitle "DUEL IN THE LIGHT". This followed a drama earlier in the week where we dismantled the light above the game table to get all of the dead moths out of it, and I couldn't get it back together. The kid and I had been playing Duel in the Dark, and it looked like we might be acting that out come games night. Luckily we had to get some other electrical work done and the electrician fixed the light for us. But if it comes apart again I still won't know how to fix it.

Anyway, Scrabblette was busy studying and the kid was visiting, so it ended up being a boys' night of gaming. At the kid's suggestion, and with very little coercion, we started with a game of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. I'm always amazed by the cleverness and quality of this game, and it's a joy to play. I don't like long games, but 3 hours was fine for this one. Some people seem to have that level of engagement with Caylus. I don't, but Consulting Detective works for me. We traipsed around London interrogating people trying to solve the Case of the Confused Murderess (is that right? Case 2) until we finally decided we'd figured it out. We were wrong. However, Holmes' solution wasn't supported by the evidence that Holmes had gathered, and we weren't disappointed that we didn't jump to the same conclusion. Our score was 25 points, which was about as badly as we did last time.

It was already getting late by then, so we just went on to a quick game of Tsuro. Aaron finally noticed that the sides of the board had different numbers of squares on them (one's 6x6 and the other is 7x7) so we'll be able to make an informed decision on choice of side next time. The kid won. Yes, the game can have some luck but it's at least quick.

I then suggested Jungle Smart because I was determined to play until I won. This was my lucky play, as I was usually a millisecond ahead of CyberKev. Each time I've played this game there has been a dominant player, and it has always been a different player. I don't understand how that works.

It was getting late and Aaron left, so the rest of us decided to do something silly and play one of my unplayed games - in this case a Chinese rip-off of Hungry Hungry Hippos called Hungry Crocodile Game. The hungry crocodiles looked more like frogs. In addition, the game had quite a few broken bits and you had to play with one hand and hold it together with the other. For some reason I was very good at it, winning 5 of the 6 games we played. Nevertheless when we were finished I dumped it in the bin. We'd had
it since the kid was a baby, and that game was well past its use-by date.

And that was all that happened at Duel in the Light.