Social Evenings with Games

Following discussions with the pub landlord at the Blue Anchor in Crowborough I have taken on the task of organizing four Social Gaming events running from 6pm on the following Sundays:

• 27th February
• 13th March
• 27th March 
• 10th April  

Modern games are a great tool for bringing people together and by their nature offer a focal point for creating a light hearted fun social evening. With many people nervous of playing games we will provide a wide selection of games suited to the occasion and act as guides so that nobody needs to be put off by the rules. We believe there will be a game to suit everyone’s taste with the proviso that there will be no quiz style games and that dice are few and far between.

All the games are family games, although not necessarily party games, and so are suited to young and old, male and female. The games are sourced from all over the world, designed around a variety of themes with beautiful artwork and playing pieces. They seek to avoid conflict and emphasise social interplay, a touch of strategy, more skill than luck, short playing times and no player elimination. They are quick to learn and quick to play and great FUN.

If attendees have already experienced the delights of modern games then they might like to bring along their favourite games / partner / older teenage children / friends. The hope is to have a lively evening where people have the opportunity to play new games and have a lot of fun.

If things go well then maybe it will become a gaming group in its own right.

Dates:         27th February, 13th and 27th March, 10th April
Venue:        Blue Anchor, Beacon Road, Crowborough, East Sussex, TN6 1BB
Time:          Drop in anytime from 6pm onwards, and stay as long as you like

Charge:      £1

More Info:  Facebook - Social Gamers - Crowborough

Match Report 5th July

With the continued renovation work going on at our place the group was kindly invited to meet at Pauline’s with the added benefits that this is the home of possibly the best munchies in the UK and a unique and very cute beastie.

Apologies had been received from no less than 5 people on this occasion, Malcolm visiting his sister, Alex in Marseille, Julia working hard with American clients who seem to think it unreasonable to work in line with our time zone, Joe having finished exams is already hard at work on the coursework for next year’s exams and Josh travelling back south. Attendees were Ian (now the Black Knight), Helene, Crispin (Now Brother Crispin member of a new order of monks, the Crisponians - more on this and the Black Knight later).

Sushizock im Gockelwok (Age 8+, 2-5 players, 20 min playing time)

We managed three games on this particular outing. Starting with Sushizock im Gockelwok as Natalie and Daniella had not yet arrived. This simple game explained in previous posts saw the big plus numbers captured early and in my case a balancing pile of low negative numbers, things were set fair and then it all went wrong.

Ian - launched three (others may have been involved but in the session with my counsellor I could only remember his dubious activities) unprovoked chopstick raids, not only on my pile of plus tiles leaving me with none and then to add insult to injury he took one of my minus one tiles leaving me with no alternative but to take the remaining minus four tile. The net result of this

Match Report 21st June 2010

Well in the midst of chaos (to call Ian’s efforts decorating, given the that he is knocking down walls, boarding lofts, putting in loft ladders, covering our artex ceilings with plaster board, wallpapering and painting would be to significantly undersell his talents and the level of work he is putting in, more like house renovation - see inset photo of our bedroom) somehow we found time to play a few games and had a bumper turnout to boot, with many comings and goings but 8 yes that was 8 people at the high water mark of the evening.

Our team for the evening were our old favourites Pauline, Daniela, Natalie, joined once again by Ian and Helene joining us for her first evening, plus obviously myself. Malcolm sent his apologies being called away to a committee meeting. Again for the mathematically minded you will spot that makes only six. To find out who the remaining two were you will have to read till the end (ish).

As an aside Daniela commented on her arrival on the reason for the two very large white containers at the foot of our drive. My initial answer of we wanted something different from the standard lions and griffins met with a very sceptical response. Thankfully this was asked outside the hearing of Gwen who has been asking me to move them for a few weeks now. So having a guest commenting on these eyesores would have vindicated her frustration at the slow rate of progress I am making on this particular element of the renovation project.

Bohnanza (Age 12+, 2-7 players, 45+ min playing time)
Our initial game of the evening was Bohnanza played at a very sedate pace and with a much more open trading system than normal (i.e. most of us had our hands face up so we could explain to Helene how the game worked and how we played the various options presented to us). This game was notable for my

London Board Games Group – 16/06/2010

On Wednesday evening following a reception hosted by the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI) at the beautiful Drapers Hall I headed to the Red Herring Pub (also in the City) where the board game group, “London On Board” meet regularly.

In the cellar bar I found approximately 40+ people sitting mainly in threes and fours playing a host of different games, most of which I didn’t recognise. It seems that people bring along games they are interested in for the evening and  leave the spare ones in a central location thereby creating a sort of impromptu library of games available to anybody there for the evening. The people seemed as welcoming as being engrossed in their respective games allowed (I arrived well into the evening). Seeing that one table was about to finish I asked if I could join them for the next game. I think creating a little bit of a problem in that that took the group to five and there seemed less games available for that number. However they were gracious enough not to tell me to try another table.

Match Report 16th June 2010

Following unprecedented demand (well Alex indicated that he was around, up for a game and would be away for the next couple of games evenings) we held an impromptu Tuesday event with Alex and myself being joined by Malcolm and Ian.

It looked at one point that Joe might joins us as well however the allure of Brazil vs North Korea I suspect kept this footy mad chap away.

Patrician
With an array of games before them to choose from Alex liked the sound of Patrician (one of the games picked up at the recent UK Games Expo).

Patrician comes with a slightly abstract board showing the major renaissance cities of Italy each with building sites for two towers. The towers can be of varying heights, the smaller cities allowing towers of no more than 5 levels in total, between the two sites, whilst other cities allow towers of up to 9 levels. With the simple rules and the opportunity to score points either from being the player with the most layers in a tower  or collecting sets of three portraits (found on some of the cards that allow you to build your towers  (see the attached photos) there are a number of ways of gaining the points necessary to win the game. These alternatives gave the Patrician sufficient interest that we would all want to play it again yet left it quick to play (about half an hour) and quick to learn - a useful addition to the growing collection.

Match Report 7th June 2010

Sorry no photos this week.

We had so many people turn up this time that we had standing room only. However this might be to slightly misrepresent the facts. The house is still like a tip as we move more and more out of the areas being decorated into the dinning room  and so with 6 players (and one in reserve, more on this later) we were snugly gathered around the table. This week saw the return of Daniela, plus Pauline, Natalie, Crispin and Malcolm.

We need to watch Malcolm, he is showing signs of competing with Daniela for being the bandit of the group, this was only his second evening with us and he showed a grasp of the game from the very beginning that would ensure he would finish well placed when the points were counted in this weeks game, in spite of the fact that he was the only person not to have played it before. Hmmm very worrying!

Match Report 24th May 2010

Well let me start with a huge thank you to everybody who came last night for another really fun evening and in particular to Natalie and Crispin for bringing along some delicious munchies - THANK YOU.

Apologies were received from Joe (facing a mountain of exams this week , for which Good Luck) and Daniela (fighting the absurdities of the current education system). The latest news from Ben was that he was weathering a Force 9 storm through the night following a day in Force 8’s! His job certainly swings from the sublime to the ridiculous; hopefully this note will find him in calmer and sunnier waters. Alex is starting his Scottish placement this week. If I have missed other members of the group then apologies.


This week saw the arrival of two new faces. Gwen’s brother, Ian, who will be staying with us while he trains to be a Dive Master, after which he hopes to be heading off to much sunnier climes and Malcolm who having battled with renovating a bathroom all day found time to put down his tools and join us for something a little different. Along with these two newbie’s we had our old favourite Crispin and the slightly younger members Pauline and Natalie.

1st Game - Bohnanza

So with the newbies bringing our number to six (in a dinning room that felt like a furniture store/depot (Ian is also decorating for us between his studies) we thought to start with Bohnanza and duly set about planting our bean fields. With the normal heavy amount of trading between players resulting in such bizarre phrases as I will swap you a ‘stinky’ for a ‘black eye’ (hopefully the attached images give a sense of how this might arise). At the half way point our newbie’s were showing clear signs of having grasped the game with Malcolm profiting from holding off trading with the active player to then benefit from donations (at no cost to himself) of unwanted cards!!

Match Report 10th May 2010

Well as with last time I need to start with a correction - sorry. Ben mentioned that I hadn’t quite got the scale of his task to do with the ‘heads’ (toilets) right I suggested a mere 20 boats were having their pipe work re-done when in fact it was a 111 – double and triple urgh! However, his job does have some attractions as you can see from the attached photo.

A slightly smaller turnout than last time saw the welcome return of Alex together with Daniela and our stalwart Crispin. The list of possible attendees grows every larger with two new names being added to the list.

As ever we started with a catch up on what we have all been up to and Alex shed some light on the workings of one of the well known Irish travel companies, that on the one hand surprised nobody and on the other left people saying ‘unbelievable’. The most amusing being his flight team being told to head off to an airport 100 miles away but with no contact point, leaving them having to search the airport for their plane and a way of getting to it. The passengers unaware of this farce like activity at least knew where the plane was and had ground crew willing to take them to it!

Well to the games. Our first game of the evening was Landlord (described as” …. a card game for 2 to 6 players. Build apartments, rent them to tenants, and collect rent. In Landlord every card you play gives you two options; one side of the card is an apartment the other side has tenants, roofs, renovations and special actions. Move wealthy tenants into your apartments and put the deadbeats into your opponents'. You can even bomb buildings, but don't get caught; jail awaits those who are careless, although not necessarily guilty!”).

Match Report 26th April 2010

Well what an evening, but let me start with an addendum to the last report. I omitted to mention a whole new feature to the evenings; musical accompaniment. As we were Racing for the Galaxy we were listening to David Bowie "Space Oddity" and the techno music of Jean Michel Jarre's. This feature was omitted from this weeks game as we were just too engrossed in the game but it might be amusing to have some suggestions for other games?

Well we had big turn out, with the welcome return of Beryl after her winter hibernation Natalie (having baked some really lovely ginger buns, again in those strange multicoloured silicone cases – thank you), Pauline, Daniela and Crispin.

Well to the games, we started with one of the groups favourites Carcassonne, which as a 5 player game could have caused some difficulty, the mathematicians amongst you you will have noticed that we had reached the heady number of 6 players. However Natalie and Pauline kindly agreed to work together and so we started building our French landscape of castles, monasteries and roads. A simple enough game but one which whilst on the face of it is collaborative provided significant opportunity for nearly everybody (even the most angelic members of the group) to provide guidance on how other players tiles should be placed, invariably to their own profit and not that of the person who was having their go. Beryl rose above such Machiavellian behaviour, however I don’t think that could be said of any one else. This turned out to be one of the funniest games we have played with the self interest always being blatant and so drawing the heckling attention of all the other players.

How Might We Describe The Games We Play?

Well the overriding word would be FUN!

Their appeal spans those at school to those well into their retirement, they have themes ranging from farming, building, economic, political, fantasy Sci-Fi Horror, railroad building, who-dun it, historical and a myriad of other to great to mention. They are played around a table with typically from 2-6 players and you can normally play 2 or 3 different games in an evening or afternoon.

Unlike the common or popular board games such as Monopoly, Risk or Trivial Pursuit they neither require a level of general knowledge or a desire to eliminate all the other players. In fact in many respects with their varied themes, strong social interaction they are ideal family / educational games. This makes it more than a little surprising that they haven’t found a wider audience in the UK.

Our group don’t see themselves as having board games as a hobby, rather they come together to socialise around the board game so it might be truer to describe it as an activity rather than a hobby.

I started by using the word fun and that is because of the degree of social interaction typically found in our games where players have to trade, collaborate or in other ways interact with each other and that this typical occurs even when it isn’t your go. So there is always something happening and unlike more commonly known games rarely are players eliminated from the game so everybody is in with a chance right to the end. Whilst there is always luck this dimension in downplayed. Probably the most well known game in this genre is Settlers of Catan. This having recently featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal when it was discovered there were lots of people playing it within Google and a number of other Web 2.0 companies.

Where the popular games typically require you to eliminate the other players or result in direct conflict this is also avoided with a number being openly collaborative where you are seeking to play together against the game e.g. Castle Panic.

In a world where Facebook and its numerous apps dominates such a large part of many people’s recreation time many of us have seen friends Farming and being updated on their progression in FarmVille yet how many people have heard of Agricola, an award winning game were you are faced with similar opportunities and choices, but you sit around a table with friends to laugh and relax.

Our games could be described as German, or European, or family or Light Strategy games. Some are played with cards others on a board but all have beautiful and often amusing artwork, and high quality playing pieces, often at a similar price to a computer game, with many much cheaper. However what you will not do is find them in your normal high street shops, they tend to be found in specialist Bard Games shops or via the internet. Hence in part at least they are less well known.

The rules make the games easy to pick up, yet typically with a light strategy dynamic they provide just enough of a challenge to stimulate the grey matter, providing an opportunity to escape the strains and stresses of normal live, playing a part, at time out of character leading to much amusement and leaving you refreshed. We have found that the games and the social opportunity have resulted in members joining aged from 17 to over 80 with a good spread in between.

There aren’t many activities that would provide an opportunity for such a wide demographic to come together and have a fun evening.