It was party time so everyone was arrived early for the Un-Christmas Dinner—everyone that is, but Blue and Pink who eventually arrived armed with piles of Christmas crackers, party poppers, tree decorations, Christmas cards, raffle prizes, GOAT Award ballot papers, mince pies and festive cake. Opening the crackers was a necessity before food arrived to avoid the bits landing in people’s supper, so when food arrived, it nestled amongst all sorts of gaming detritus. As the staff at The Jockey served pizzas, pies, baguettes, cheese with crudités, burgers and chips, gamers called out the awful GOATy jokes from the crackers.
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During the interval between main courses and dessert, GOAT Award voting forms and Christmas cards were handed out and people began thinking about the games we’ve played over the year. Ivory collected Christmas Cards and Green collated the ballots before he announced the winners. The GOAT Poo prize, for the worst game of the year went Dice Hospital when 7 Wonders was relegated as a previous winner. The Golden GOAT went to Tapestry, while the epic three-way tie in Tapestry won “Moment of the Year”. With the formalities and food finally complete, there was just the raffle, a copy of Carcassonne: Winter Edition and the Ukraine Map, which were won by Sapphire, then everyone abandoned the carnage (and Purple who helped clean up), to play something festive.
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There was a bit of the usual indecisiveness, but eventually Blue, Ivory, Pink, Green and Pine settled down to play the “Feature Game” which was Jokkmokk: The Winter Market while Black, Cobalt, Jade, Sapphire and Lime set up Snow Tails. Jokkmokk is a very simple game that makes use of the time-track mechanism seen in Tokaido and Namiji (played last time)—that is to say, it is an extended game of leap-frog where the player at the back jumps into an empty space of their choice and then carries out the action associated with it. Like those games, the compromise is between moving to a preferred space which may be further forward and will ultimately will give fewer turns. It is much simpler than both Tokaido and Namiji, however.
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Jokkmokk is a card-driven set collecting game and is made more interesting by a large number of mini-decks, five or six of which are combined for each game. For the first game, the group chose to use the “First Game” selection of decks (Dalecarlian Horse, Antique, Hot Dog, Patchwork, Present). Blue went for the Patchwork cards while everyone else fought over kettles (Antiques) and Hot Dogs). Blue’s strategy nearly paid off giving her ninety-nine points and second place, but Ivory was more efficient than everyone else with his mixture of Horses, Hot Dogs and Kettles, which gave him a hundred and one points and victory. The game was bright and breezy and, although simple, really didn’t outstay its welcome, so the group decided to “do a Lime” and play it again.
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This time, this time the group played with the “Gift of Giving” selection of decks (Donation, Bell, Sparkler, Snowflake, Mystery Box, Presents). Pink went for Sparklers, knowing he would lose half his points if he had the most, but hoping to have so many that it wouldn’t matter. Green started collecting Bells, as did Blue and Ivory, going for different colours. Lots of Gifts were given and a good time was had visiting the fair. Pink’s ninety points were just three more than Ivory’s total, but Blue’s hundred and seven points gave her victory at the second attempt. Meanwhile, on the next table, the others had finally started playing Snow Tails, spectated by Purple, who had finished helping clear the table after dinner.
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Snow Tails is a very popular game in the group, but somehow, one that is a little tricky to get to grips with. The games is a card-driven sled-race with the winner the first to navigate the course. Unfortunately, the course they chose was the one depicted in the main rules, which isn’t really intended to be a course design as it is quite long and features a Chasm right at the start, a couple of hairpins and some Saplings as well. Each player starts with their own personal deck of cards, with five in hand. On their turn, players can play up to three cards as they can so long as they are all the same value: one for each sled dog, and one on the break.
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The speed, the number of spaces the sled moves forward, is the total for the dogs minus the value for the Break. Sleds will additionally drift sideways the difference between the dog speeds, and if the sled is balanced (i.e. the dogs are pulling equally), the player gets a bonus speed equal to the players position in the race. Each time a sled exceeds the Speed Limit on a corner, hits the side of the track or a Sapling, the player takes a Dent card—a useless card that just blocks the player’s hand making things difficult. The more Dent cards a player has, the more difficult the game gets, as Black soon demonstrated. The first game of Jokkmokk had already finished and the sleds were only just off the Start line and through the first Chasm.
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Lime claimed the “Big Paws” token for the player with the most “Analysis Paralysis”, though to be fair, everyone suffered a bit. Jade commented that he’d been planning to play it with his nieces, but was now rethinking the idea. As a result, the group shortened the track (to give them a chance to finish before midnight), and from there, the game went a bit more smoothly. Jade was first to cross the Finish line, chased by Cobalt and then Sapphire in what had been a quite epic game. And with that, the party was over for another year, though people lingered and chatted for quite a while before everyone left the pub staff to lock up.
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Learning Outcome: Always plan your Christmas shopping early.
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