Match Report 2nd August 2010

Having had a fun afternoon leading the first of the St Marys Social Afternoons with games. Daniella, Crispin and Ian (now a qualified a Dive Master – well done
) met for an evenings gaming and relaxation. With relaxation being the order of the day we quickly dismissed the opportunity to learn San Jaun which Crispin had been reading up, in favour of RoboRally.

Apologies were received from Natalie and Pauline desperate from some sleep given the exertions of playing with the dangerous beastie Darcy, Josh only just back from Durham, Joe of on holiday, Malcolm otherwise committed, Liza baby sitting, Ben back in Nidri and Alex in Edinburgh mystified as to how his rostering has managed to mean that every games Monday he is flying whilst the alternate Mondays he is back in Crowborough.

RoboRally

RoboRally is essentially a race between some pretty dumb robots controlled by a bored super computer around a dangerous factory floor with many lasers, obstacles, conveyer belts and more beside. The race is to be the first robot to touch three flags scattered around the factory floor. Ian and I had already had a trial game of this with Danny (not reported in the blog) where Ian won whilst I found it virtually impossible to get off a conveyer belt.

With Crispin and Daniella having not played RoboRally before Ian quickly explained the fairly simple rules and so we were off. I took an early lead before it all went
horribly wrong, caught in the crossfire robot (each robot has a forward firing laser that shoots at anything in front of it) and factory lasers I soon lost my first life and so had to go back to the start. Ian was already approaching his first flag when I set off again. Crispin was doing OK whilst Daniella was suffering the synging effects of repeated lasers as well as having her robot repeatedly pushed of course by other robot racers. This eventually resulted in her also having to return to the start line having lost one of her lives.

As I made my way around the conveyer belt trying to avoid the lasers I managed to move my robot into a pit thereby losing another life, but undeterred I set off from the beginning, AGAIN, rushing forward confident that I had worked out how to navigate safely past the lasers. Sadly whilst I succeeded in this aim Daniella (if I remember correctly) then pushed me back into the laser field and my programming went to pot and I started turning in circles receiving repeated hits from the laser. Bang went another life and so to start again- arghh!

I did finally manage to get to one flag and felt like doing a lap of honour, however moments later Ian touched his third lag and so won the race very closely followed by Daniella. Crispin meanwhile had touched his second and was heading to the third. He had become embroiled in the conveyer belt trap which had caught me in the first game but managed to largely avoid the unwanted laser fire that had so crippled both Daniella and myself.

When it came to rating the game using the method described in previous posts it got 26.5 out of 36. However it did score 6 out of 6 for fun and enjoyment with everybody keen to play this one again soon.