The evening started with a round of “Swap Shop” as Lime tried to get rid of a couple of aquarium snails that were surplus to requirements (the other occupants of the tank having recently expired), and Purple offering a size ten frock.  Once the snails had been re-homed with Magenta in Wantage, we’d discussed the reopening of the Horse and Jockey, and everyone had compared their colouring tools, Blue explained the rules for the “Feature Game“, the cross between communal colouring and Tetris that is Second Chance.

– Image by boardGOATS

This is a really, really, simple “Roll and Write” type game, similar in style and feel to  Noch Mal! which we played a few weeks back over Microsoft Teams and really enjoyed.  In that game, players were rolling dice, whereas Second Chance is card driven.  Each player starts with piece of paper with a nine-by-nine array of squares which they colour in depending on what is revealed on the cards.  Two cards are turned over at a time, each displaying a shape; players choose one to add to their player area.

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The shape can go anywhere in the array as long as it doesn’t overlap anything else or extend out of the area.  More than one player can choose each shape and once drawn, its position is final.  If a player is unable to use either shape they get another card specially for them—their second chance.  If they are still unable to go, they are out, otherwise, they live to fight another day.  The game ends when one player fills their grid, everyone is out or the deck of cards is depleted.  The player with the fewest uncovered spaces at the end is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Players start with their own individual first tile which they must place over the central square.  Although the game only officially plays six, fortunately there are enough of these in the box for everyone to have a different start, even though there were ten of us playing.  It wasn’t long before there was a contented silence as everyone got on with their colouring projects.

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As Pink turned over the cards, there were grunts of disgust and sighs of delight in almost equal measure.  Little Lime seemed greatly entertained by the whole thing and Pine commented that he could just imagine her telling all her chums that “My Daddy does colouring in with his friends online…”  The general consensus was that the game felt a lot like being back at primary school, though Pine commented that it was also like watching landscape architects.  He explained that he worked with some and they spent a lot of time colouring in and have amazing boxes of pencils but only ever use green and brown.

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As the game continued, people enjoyed their colouring, but variously struggled with artistic impression.  Pine commented that his looked like a work of Jackson Pollock’s, and Green felt would make rhyming slang for his…  Despite Little Lime’s assistance Lime was the first to need a second chance and when he was unlucky in his draw, he was the first out.  Little Lime explained that he could do better next time if he bought an effective rubber.  Purple also needed a second chance, but grabbed hers with both hands and managed to stay in for the rest of the game.

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More people gradually dropped out, a couple every round, and it wasn’t long before we got to the last two cards.  At the end, Lilac, Green and Purple were all still in, and remarkably, so was Burgundy despite having struggled for the last six or seven rounds.  It’s not lasting the longest that is key in this game though, it is most efficiently packed grid.  Of course, staying in longer usually means more and possibly better opportunities, however.  This time, two of the podium places went to the group of survivors, and Purple finished with nine empty spaces, just pipped by Burgundy with eight.

– Image by Burgundy

Second Chance had been a lot of fun, but with remote gaming likely to continue for a while and a lot of “Roll and Write” games on the horizon, after some discussion, we decided to give Saboteur a go.  This is a fun hidden traitor game that we’ve played quite a bit and works really well on Board Game Arena.  The idea is really simple:  players are divided into two teams (Dwarves and Saboteurs), and take it in turns to place tunnel cards with the aim of either tunneling to the gold (Dwarves) or preventing the tunnel reaching the treasure (Saboteurs).  The catch is that nobody knows who else is on their team.

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In addition to tunnel cards, players can also play action cards, breaking other players’ tools (and thus preventing them from extending the tunnel network), fixing other players’ broken tools, causing a tunnel collapse and using a map to look at one of the three target cards to see whether it is gold or coal.  Players start with four cards in hand, and draw a replacement each time they play, or discard a card.  Since the game ends when the deck is depleted and everyone has played their last card, it is critical that every player gets as much as possible from their cards.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Blue went first, but claimed she had a hand with three broken tool cards and one tunnel dead-end card , so said she had no option but to discarded a card—A Very Saboteury Move.  Burgundy and Pink played map cards and checked the middle and top target cards respectively, and both said they saw coal.  Pine was suspicious and double checked Pink and concurred.  When Black checked the bottom card and confirmed it was gold, things were looking promising, but very little progress had been made on the tunnel and strangely a lot of cards had been discarded with everyone claiming that they didn’t have useful tunnel cards.

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Blue said she had a Saboteur’s Hand, which was a shame since she wasn’t one.  Pink asked whether that was a medical condition and wondered whether there was treatment available for it on the NHS.  The bickering stopped abruptly when Purple suddenly “lamped” Team Greeny-Lilac smashing their lantern and leaving them unable to dig.  Blue then got in on the act and pulled the wheels of Ivory’s trolley.  Purple really had it in for Green and smashed his trolly before Pine joined in and broke shaft of Team Greeny-Lilac’s axe—it seemed they really had it in for them.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

With everyone apparently having no tunnel cards, people were asking for help in how to spend their actions cards:  whose tools should they break or repair?  When Ivory repeatedly pleaded with Lime to repair his ruin of a trolley, Pink said he’d seen more convincing arguments written on the side of a bus!  At this point, the Dwarves were in complete disarray and in serious trouble.  It is quite unusual for the Saboteurs to win, but half way through the deck, the Dwarves had made very little progress on the tunnel and were still confused about who the Saboteurs were.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

In the end, it turned out to be a win for the Evil Saboteurs, Black, Burgundy and Purple; despite appearances, Pine, Pink and Green were all actually innocent—this time.  It had been a very bruising round though, and everyone took a minute to calm down while the Saboteurs savoured their victory.  Board Game Arena had other ideas, however, and the second round was underway before we could blink.

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This was much quicker—the tunnel quickly stretched forward towards the middle target even though Greeny-Lilac said it was coal.  Purple double-checked and agreed that it was coal and when Blue peeked at the bottom card and said that was coal, everyone knew where they were going.  That was until Lime said the top card was also coal…

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This gave the Dwarves a dilemma:  logic dictated that either both Greeny-Lilac and Purple were Saboteurs (the second time in a row for Purple), or one of Blue or Lime were telling porkies.  The Valiant Dwarves hedged their bets with two tunnels one headed north and one headed south.  All doubts were abruptly put to bed when Lime revealed his true colours by playing a rock-fall card, earning a broken pick-axe from Pine in return.

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It was too little too late though, and with just two Saboteurs they were always going to struggle.  It wasn’t long before the Dwarves, in this case Team Greeny-Lilac, found the gold and put the round to bed.  The final round was possibly even shorter, certainly the path was more direct.  Blue once again played a map card and called the bottom card coal while Black played a map on the middle and called that gold.

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In the absence of any other information, Ivory, Burgundy and Greeny-Lilac headed towards the middle and it was all looking very easy when Purple dropped her bomb-shell, playing a dead-end card leaving the Dwarves with a diversion.  Pink then lent his support to Purple (a Saboteur for the third time!), blocking the alternative route.  Much to her disgust, Pine accused Blue of “Boris Johnson Logic” and then exacerbated his bad behaviour by breaking Blue’s pick-axe.  Blue retaliated by breaking Pink’s pick and Ivory joined in by breaking Purple’s.

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With a maximum of three Saboteurs possible all three were revealed and when Burgundy smashed Pine’s lantern they were all disabled too.  At least they were unable to dig, but they could still cause mischief.  Fortunately for the Dwarves, they didn’t have the cards to cause too much trouble.  Every time someone repaired a tool, a Dwarf stepped in and broke another one, keeping the evil Saboteurs pinned down.

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Greeny-Lilac played a rockfall on the dead-end and Lime, Black and Ivory finished the job off.  That only left the scores.  These are bit strange and depend on treasure cards that are shared out amongst the winners, so luck is a big factor.  This time is was a tie for first place though, with honours shared between Black and Ivory.

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With that, Ivory and Team Greeny-Lilac called it an night and everyone else decided to close the evening with a game of our old favourite, 6 Nimmt!.  There was some discussion about playing with one of the variants.  Normally, players choose a card and then starting with the lowest, they are added one at a time to one of the four rows with the player who places the sixth card picking up.  One of the options is that cards can go at either end, being added to whichever row is closest.

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Blue was keen to give the variant a go, but Pine had played it before and said he didn’t really understand what it did, but it felt very random.  With such a large number of people it seemed wise to leave it for another day, so we stuck to the usual game.  This time, Blue picked up six Nimmts on her first turn and had a terrible first round.  Purple didn’t do much better either picking up fifteen in one turn, and it all looked like it was going to be over quite quickly.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

With Blue and Purple leading the way to the bottom, the only real question was which of the others would be left behind at the end.  It was very tight, and since Blue and Purple fought a valiant rear-guard action the game went on longer than initially expected; Purple in particular hung on for ages with just one point.  In fact, she managed to hold on to that single point until the end of the game as it was Blue who went into the red and brought it to a stop.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

The game finished with tie for first place between Lime and Pink on forty-four with Burgundy a little way behind in third with thirty-six.  With that, Lime and Pink bade everyone else good night leaving five to carry on.  There were several options, but the group went for one of the easiest and picked Coloretto.  This is a game that everyone is familiar with and has very simple “point decisions” to make:  turn over a coloured card and add it to a truck, or take the cards on one truck and bow out for the rest of the round.

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Although the decision is very simple, there is a surprising amount of depth, because even though trucks only hold three cards, the colours are critical.  Players are collecting different coloured cards and the more cards the more points they deliver, with points awarded according to the Triangular Number Series.  This means that up to the maximum of six, adding just one more card, increases the number of points by around fifty percent.  The key part is that the largest three sets score positively, while the rest are negative, so players want three large sets and everything else to be as small as possible.

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The game started with Blue getting lucky with a couple of early yellow chameleons while Purple and picked up a couple of wild cards.  These are really useful because they are added to a set at the end of the game to give the maximum number of points possible.  Black, Burgundy and Pine all started collecting the 1970s sets (orange and brown cards), with the competition making it more difficult for all of them.

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Meanwhile, Blue, finding competition for the yellow cards moved to collecting grey and soon had a full set of six.  With this, a large set of yellows and almost no negative points, it looked like she had an unassailable lead.  And so it proved:  when the end of the game was triggered there was nothing anyone could do.  While it was quite tight for second place with Burgundy’s twenty-four points sneaking ahead of Black, Blue was some way clear with thirty-five points.

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Clearly that was unsatisfactory, and Black and Burgundy were keen to rectify matters, so they twisted Pine’s arm and persuaded him to join in a re-match.  Things didn’t go quite according to plan, however.  Purple’s starting colour of green proved challenging when five of the first ten cards drawn were green and everyone else contrived to ensure they all went into different carts making sure everyone ended with at least one.

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The next round didn’t look as if it was going to be much better for poor Purple when the first card drawn was also green, but she grabbed it early.  Blue made an early error enabling Burgundy to pick up a nice pair of blue cards.  It was really tight though, with most players matching each other blow for blow and everyone finishing rounds dead level, first with five points then nine points, then fourteen.

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It was only at the end of the fourth round that the gaps started to show with Burgundy and Purple edging ahead by a couple of points.  Going into the final round it was close, but although it was tight, Burgundy had control of the situation and finished three points clear of the field with twenty seven points.  It was a tie for second between Blue and Purple, who had somehow managed to collect five green cards and a wild with no negative points.

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The numbers were dwindling, but there was still a hard-core of hardened gamers who were reluctant to retire to bed, though nobody wanted to start something difficult or long.  The options were limited so it wasn’t long before someone suggested the simle tile-laying game Kingdomino and everyone else quickly agreed.

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Although the pieces are all the same size and shape (two by one rectangles), Kingdomino has a lot of the Tetris-like aspects of Second Chance, in that the aim is to fit everything together as efficiently as possible.  The really clever aspect of the game is the market.  This consists of two columns of four tiles drawn at random, but placed in ranking order from low to high.  Each player begins with a marker on one tile in the left column and starting with the lowest value tile, the player takes the tile adds it to their Kingdom and then places their marker on the tile of their choice in the second column.  In this way, the player with the least valuable tiles gets to choose first in the next round.

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Points are scored for the number of crowns in an area multiplied by the number of tiles in that area.  Thus an area of five squares with three crowns in it would score fifteen points.  In this case though, we also included two scoring bonus:  five points if there were no discarded tiles and ten points for finishing with their castle in the centre of their kingdom.  At the start of the game, four tiles are revealed and players choose which they take in turn without knowing what will turn up in the next round.

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Purple went first and took went for two crowns on pasture. Black went next and made the same choice, but ended up with the fourth tile, meaning he would get Hobson’s choice in the next round.  Burgundy went third and took the second tile leaving Blue began with a tile that gave her sea and cornfield with a crown.  As this was the lowest value, Blue went first, so had first choice from the next selection and was able to choose another tile giving her more sea and cornfield.  This was also a low value tiles so also gave her first choice and in turn, this meant she was able to choose more corn and go first then and then more sea.

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Meanwhile, Black was building his pasture, Burgundy was starting trying to focus on the valuable tiles (with more crowns) and Purple was hedging her bets with a bit of everything.  Blue continued with her ever-growing cornfield adding crowns whenever she had the chance, while Black and Burgundy got into a bit of a tussle for marshland and mountain terrain.

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The marshland and mountain tiles being high rated were often last to be played, which meant that these players were often last to play giving them the left-overs from the next selection.  Blue, on the other hand, continued to play a “low rent” game, always taking the cheap tiles, as a result, she ended up with a very large cornfield of eleven spaces and four out of the five available crown giving her forty-four points for that alone.  Purple scored well for her forests and lakes, while Black focussed on grasslands and swamps, but even their two terrains didn’t match the total for Blue’s massive cornfield.

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Everyone got their both bonuses and with that and a substantial lake, Blue finished with a winning score over seventy.  It was second place that was more interesting, however, which was a tie between Purple and Black with sixty-one points each.  What nobody hitherto knew, was that there was a tie-breaker:  the size of the biggest territory multiplied by a hundred added to the total number of crowns in the kingdom.  With that, Purple took great delight in second place.  And then it was time for bed for even the most dedicated of board gamers.

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Learning Outcome:  Once in a while, everyone really enjoys releasing their inner toddler.