St Mary's Social Afternoon - Week 4

Well it was a riotous and fun filled afternoon of board games, the numbers were slightly down over previous weeks with only 13 people; a couple of people were unfortunately kept away by health issues.

Games played this time round included:

Incan Gold – A very good new addition to the games collection that is ideal for large groups (up to 8 players) and wide age ranges. It reminds you a little of the Indiana Jones films where the treasure hunters explore deeper and deeper into a lost Incan temple. The further you go the more treasure you find but you only get to keep it if the monsters in the temple don’t scare you and send you fleeing from the temple dropping all your loot as you seek to escape. This was played by two different groups, during the afternoon and one was a very noisy affair, in part because all the adventurers except Jennie had fled the temple. This left Jennie to continue exploring on her own with the potential of gaining lots of treasure all for herself. As she pushed on she found a vast wealth of precious gems that would have ensured she won the whole game. However sadly for Jennie she
pushed her luck once to often and found a monster so scary that she dropped all the riches she had found in her headlong dash from the temple, screaming in horror; or was that laughing her head off?!

Cartagena – A board game where each player has to get their team of 6 pirates (who have escaped from prison) home to the Pirates Nest, before the other players’ teams. This involves a race across two islands and the channel in between and is especially interesting because you only earn new movement cards by expending some of your actions assisting the pirates of the opposing players, something that goes very much against the grain with most of us.

With Crispin involved in this game stirring up the other players there was much joshing and banter as the players sought to get their pirates along the trail as quickly as possible, whilst helping the other players in the slowest way possible!

Saboteur – The very popular card game of mining for gold and trying to not let the Saboteurs wreck the gold miner’s plans. I think this and Straw are the two card game certainties for any of these gaming afternoon.

Straw – There were at least three games of this played – the poor camel! Notably in our game Daniella only managed to get 6 points at the end of five rounds, leaving her firmly in last place.

Sushizock im Gockelwok – A game where a bunch of chickens try to eat a balanced meal of sushi and bones – sounds strange but has proven very popular with young and old.

Zeus on the Loose – Led by Crispin on this occasion (maybe he saw himself as Zeus) there was a lot of laughter and leg pulling going on during this game.

Kleine Fische – A card game where you seek to have the largest collection of big fish. I failed at this finishing so far behind the others I might have been in another game altogether.

Jungle Speed (similar to snap but a much better game)– A game where when your card matches the card of any other players you try to snatch a wooden totem (placed in the centre of the table) before any of the other players can. Again there was great hilarity on this table as the game played out. I am not sure who won but I saw Marcia snatch the totem from under the noses of the other players, on one occasion, in a way that would have impressed the fastest gunslingers of the Old West.

Everybody, by the noise and looks on their faces, had a great time.