Games in a Pub - 2nd October 2011

Frustration and chaos in a very funny racing game

With apologies from a number of regulars and Gwen at home following her second foot operation the previous day I knew the turnout might be small. But thankfully Oliver and I were quickly joined by Karen and Martin (the green team from the last Sunday meeting). At the last Sunday meeting we played Ticket To Ride and Oliver had requested that we have a crack at one of the other two classic gateway games Carcassonne or Settlers of Catan so this week we started off with Carcassonne. This is a game in which I had lost interest until playing it recently with my nephew on a camping trip reawakened my enthusiasm; I was confident that both Karen and Oliver would really enjoy it (which they did) and Martin knew what he was letting himself in for.

Carcassonne is a tile-laying game where players build up a landscape reminiscent of that around the southern French city of Carcassonne famous for its Roman and Medieval fortifications. As the players develop the area around Carcassonne they deploy their followers (Knights, Thieves, Monks and Farmers) on the roads, in the cities, in the cloisters and in the fields earning points as they complete various elements of the landscape. It is a gentle almost collaborative game but still has a competitive dimension as players seek to score as many point s as possible. With Martin and I having played this one many times before (although never together) there was always a good chance one of us would come out on top and so it proved in the end with Martin finishing significantly ahead of the rest of us.

Whilst we had been enjoying the delights of the French country side Nick, Andy Chris and Adam had arrived and played the ever popular Bausack.

With both games complete we rearranged the furniture (as there had been a request for a game that could accomodate all eight of the evenings attendees) and set up the chaotic but very funny

A Christmas Match Report for 2010

Here in brief is a summary of the gaming activities of the last two weeks, at our house, allowing for a combination of the appalling weather (some days Ian and I cleared our drive of snow 3 or 4 times), my wife’s broken leg (meaning increased duties around the home) and all the socialising over the Christmas / New Year period. 

The 20th December saw Crowborough deep in snow and ice with the sad result that only Crispin (who lives within walking distance) ventured out to join the regular Monday night session. In truth I am not sure whether it was the allure of games or the promise of seasonal munchies that encouraged him out but he is always a welcome guest. Food aside we had a good game of Dominion plus Hick Hack and Sushizock im Gockelwok (details of all the games played over the holiday season can be found here).

More games were inevitably played through Christmas and Boxing days, perhaps the most memorable ones being a game of RoboRally where not only did I not end up spending the whole game on a conveyer belt and but was actually winning when it was time to break for food. The other was a game of Dixit (which Gwen agreed to play despite her previous view that it was the game from hell) with Effie and her children on Boxing Day. This turned into a really

Games for Christmas 2010

What to do with guests over Christmas / Some Christmas Gift Ideas 

If you are thinking computers games and Wii, DON’T; Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble etc NO; the miriade of commercial games based on popular films or TV shows STOP !

There is whole world of great games out there waiting for you, just not in the high street stores. They are less well known because they are rarely sold by high street retailers (with the exception of specialist games shops) and so are largely unknown to the UK public. If you want to buy any games mentioned below (prices will range from under £6 to £40) then there is a list of internet retailers on the right hand side of my blog titled Where to get the games.

As we approach the festive season our minds turn inevitably to the various ideas for presents and there are a number of lists out there of games that would work for Christmas (as just a couple of examples Mark Rivera's list is here and the BoardGameGeek recommendations here), so I thought I would approach this blog from a slightly different angle and look at what games you might want in the house for others to enjoy over the festive season.

Modern board and card games come in many forms but the best ones are not designed around hackneyed old games or some cult TV program / film of the moment, but rather stand out from the aforementioned games because frankly they are better. You know the saying ‘a pet is for life not just Christmas’ well so it should be with modern games. The games talked about in this blog post and my blog generally are great fun and hopefully you will be tempted to play them at other times of the year, not just over Christmas.

To those who say 'they don't like games' or have had bad experiences in the past with games I would make the following points concerning these games:

• You don’t need to be good at spelling, general knowledge, computers or anything else to play them and have fun. I guess maths and a little logic will help but we all need a lot more of these elements to survive in the modern world than you will find required in the games listed below. 
• There is not a dice in sight, the games are about how you deal with the situations and cards you are dealt not about trying to roll a 6 or indeed any other number.. 
• The games are more about building than destruction, meaning that direct conflict between players should not be something to worry about, particularly if everybody remembers that when playing games it is more important to enjoy the journey and have fun than win at the expense of ruining the journey for the other players. 
• There are games listed below that are in all probability unlike any games you have played to date.

This blog post is divided into three elements, so you can just go to the part that interests you:

1. Quick Games for Christmas Morning
2. Fun Games for Christmas Afternoon
3. After the presents – Boxing Day
4. Conclusion

Quick Games for Christmas Morning 
With people coming and going and a focus on food preparation you may need ways of amusing and distracting people for 20/30 minutes at a time. The following are some simple games that are quick to teach and will amuse both young and old:

Match Report 27th September 2010

With continued distractions keeping some of our members away it was great to welcome a new face in the form of Matt. Having expressed interest in the evenings in the past he managed to squeeze a little time into his busy scholastic schedule to join us – great stuff. The rest of the line up for this weeks meeting consisted of Ian, Malcolm, Crispin, Daniella, Alex and of course, me. With apologies received from Liza and Joe, both deep in ‘A’ level course work and Pauline studying photography at the moment.

Straw (Age 6+, 2-6 players 30 minutes or less playing time)

With Alex indicating he would be a little late and me distracted with various other duties around the house Ian kicked the evening off leading a game of Straw, with Alex and I joining as it progressed. This is quite simply a brilliant card game that is

Match Report 16th August

With the summer hols in full swing and with all the many things going on in our busy lives the numbers attending Monday night fluctuated throughout the day. With two hours to go, the potential 11 came down to 6, before finally finishing with 7.

Apologies were received from Malcolm who has escaped to Northern Ireland, Helene and Josh with other commitments, and Pauline and Natalie needing to spend some playtime with Darcy (the wild beastie shown in previous photos) in order to ensure they got a peaceful nights sleep; sadly this meant they were not able to bring along the toffee and pecan cup cakes they had made!

We welcomed a new face to the evening session in the form of Liza, plus regulars Crispin, Ian, Daniella, and the less regular Joe and Alex.

RoboRally (Age 12+, 2-8 players, 120 min playing time)

Back by very popular demand this amazing Board Game was the requested game from at least three of the evening’s attendees. We started this game (it doesn’t seriously disadvantage late arrivals) without Alex and Joe, meaning we had 5 little robots all competing to get to the

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

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!!