Pine was the first to arrive and, as a result, was landed with the task of setting up the “Feature Game”, the gorgeous, dexterity car-racing game, PitchCar.  Black, Purple and Lemon arrived soon after to give him a hand, while Pink got drinks and Blue carried on messing about in the kitchen.  Once an annual event, there has been a bit of a hiatus in the New Year PitchCar game over the last couple of years, and it turned out the lack of practice meant everyone had forgotten how to set up the bridge from the first extension.  Blue was summoned from the kitchen to explain, and then the track-builders continued their construction work.

– Image by boardGOATS

Aside from the bridge and a few chicanes, the track was kept to a simple figure-of-eight, eschewing the multi-level tracks, jumps, potholes, crossroads and loop of the more recent extensions.  Before long, the track was complete, and then Lime arrived.  Starting order was decided by arrival time, so the first to flick-off was Pine. The game is very simple:  starting with the car at the front of the pack, players take it in turns to flick (not push) their puck along the track.  Cars can jump as long as they don’t cut corners, land on the track “rubber-side down”, and don’t knock anyone else off the track in the process.

– Image by boardGOATS

There were the usual ooos, ahhhhs, howls of delight, and cheers, as there were near misses, total misses, bumps and amazing somersaults. First to cross the line was Lime after some amazingly spectacular long distance flicks, followed by Pink and then Lemon taking a podium spot on her debut.  Before we started, Pine had commented that he wondered how his skills would have deteriorated over the three years since we’d last played, so he was initially surprised to find that he’d improved.  That feeling didn’t last however, as he eventually followed everyone else over the line.

– Image by boardGOATS

Supper wasn’t quite ready, so Pink suggested a shortened course running the length of the table, replacing one of the straights with a second finishing line and ignoring the return under the bridge.  This time, pole was decided as the reverse order that players crossed the line in the first race, so Pine went first.  Unfortunately, he repeatedly rolled his car going over the bridge and it took some dozen or more attempts to cross it.  With the shortened course, he didn’t have time to make his way back up the field (indeed the race was over before he crossed the bridge), though he did improve his final position slightly compared to the first race.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the short course, it was always likely to come down to who got a good start and made it over the bridge first.  Black got a storming start and led the field down the track before running out of gas as he approached the chequered flag.  That was OK though, as Lemon rear-ended him at speed and shot him across the line.  Lemon followed him onto the podium with Pink taking bronze.  With that, supper was pretty much ready, so it was all hands to the deck to dismantle the track in time for the arrival of home-made pie with veg.

– Image by boardGOATS

There was much chatter over supper, then, while everyone else pondered what game to play, Lime gave Pink a hand with the washing-up.  Eventually, Pine went upstairs and returned with Las Vegas and a panda, and with only snacks remaining on the table, he began setting up while Blue and Black explained the game to Lemon.  This is an old favourite that we’ve not played for a long time.  It truth, it is a simple enough game, albeit one that is quite clever.  The idea is that each player bets in the six numbered casinos using their dice.

– Image by boardGOATS

On their turn, each player rolls all their dice and must choose a number and place all the dice with that face value in the casino of that number.  The player with the most dice in that casino at the end of the round wins the money.  There are a couple of catches, however.  Firstly, all the dice of the chosen number must be placed, even if this is not to the player’s advantage.  Secondly, and this is why the first catch is so critical, if two players tie, neither gets any money and the winner is the next inline (who is not involved in a tie).

– Image by boardGOATS

Finally, at the start of each round, money cards are dealt at random to each casino giving them a set value; the winner only takes one of these with the others going to the players in the lower placings.  This means that some casinos might have several small denomination cards up for grabs, while others might have only one high value card to fight over.  The combination of these features make this a great little game.  We also tend to add some components from the Boulevard expansion.  There are lots of modules, but we usually only use “The Bigun”, the extra high value money cards, The Slot Machine, and extra dice for additional players.

– Image by boardGOATS

“The Biggun” replaces one die for each player with a bigger one that is worth two smaller dice.  The Slot Machine is a bit different though.  Like the casinos, players can add dice on several turns, however, unlike the casinos, each number can only be added to the Slot Machine once.  Then, although the winner is still the player with the most dice, ties are broken by the number of pips on all the dice placed.  The game is played over three rounds and the wealthiest player at the end of the game is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

Black went first and started the dice rolling fest.  Everyone took some money in the first round, but the beginnings of the rivalries began, between Purple and Pine, between Pine and Lime and between Lime and Purple.  The second round was filled with high-value cards which entrenched the rivalries and ensured a few new ones were started with Pink, Black and Blue encouraging everyone else’s misbehaviour leaving Lime coming out of the second round without any winnings.

– Image by boardGOATS

After a brief sojourn to view the midnight fireworks in the village and to toast absent friends and the New Year, we started the final round.  This was very cut-throat:  Blue and Pine got into a very silly battle for the Four casino which Blue was winning with seven dice until the final roll by Pine which gave a tie knocking them both out leaving $100,000 to Lime with his lone die.  If Pine had won, that would have given him victory, but as it was, it was close between Black and Pink, with Pink taking victory by $10,000 with his total of $340,000.

– Image by boardGOATS

By this time it was 1am, and although everyone was tired, people lingered, first to talk about the robustness of Ikea furniture and then the status of the Jockey.  With Monday being the last day for the current Managers/Chefs it is unclear what the situation will be in ten days time when we are next due to meet.  We talked over other options, but all that really did was highlight how lucky we have been with The Jockey.  And with that, everyone drifted home leaving Blue and Pink to find their beds.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome:  Parties are great fun.