Tag Archives: Dobble

1st October 2013

As our first birthday is on October 2nd, we decided to make the evening a little bit of a celebration of the year. The first game we played was our “Feature Game”, which this week was the most popular game that hasn’t been a “Feature Game” and that is Dobble. So we started out with a couple of quick rounds while we waited for people to arrive.

Next up we decided to play another relatively light and quick game, Indigo. This is a really pretty abstract game, that is extremely easy to teach. Basically, you have a hand of a single hexagonal tile, and on your turn you play it anywhere on the board that does not already have a tile. If your tile has a extends the route of one of the coloured glass stones, you move that stone along the path. The aim of the game is to navigate as many of the stones to your gates. The clever part is that gates can be owned by one or two people depending on the number of players, so there is a nice interplay between helping yourself and teamwork. The stones are also worth different numbers of points, so you need to balance the compromise between value and quantity. The game was quite tight, however, Red managed to extend her unbeaten run with a draw with White.

We couldn’t wait any longer and, decided it was time for Cake! After a quick rendition of “Happy Birthday to Us”, we attacked the really rather excellent chocolate cake and Meeple Biscuits (kindly provided by Tessa Edwards). Then it was time for the next game…

…And that was Stimmt So! This is a game that we’ve been on the brink of playing many times, but with the same basic mechanism as Alhambra, we’ve always ended up playing that instead. Basically, on their turn, players can do one of two things: buy shares, or collect money. Shares can only be bought in the correct currency, however, and if players pay for them with exactly the right amount of money they get another turn otherwise they don’t get any change. There are two scoring opportunities during the game, and one at the end, and players score for having the most shares in each market. Blue was too busy shuffling to pay much attention to the rules, so started out just buying everything she could. Meanwhile, Red and Green tried to carve out a strong position in the most lucrative companies. At the first scoring round, Green lost out to Red and Blue (who had by now realised what she was supposed to be doing) held her own with a large number of holdings in the less valuable stocks. By the second scoring Green was still struggling and the situation only got worse in the final round. Points are given for the lowest value companies first where Blue had the majority and she romped ahead with Green picking up some of the second place points. As the more lucrative shares were counted Red galloped round the board, but somehow Blue just maintained her lead.

The final game of the evening was an old favourite that we’ve played a few times before: Die Speicherstadt. This is a really fun auction game, that somehow doesn’t really feel like an auction game. A number of cards are placed on the board and players have three meeples to bid with. They take it in turns to choose which cards they would like to buy, by placing their meeples in rows above the cards they want. The person who who placed their meeple above a card first gets the first refusal, however, it costs the same number of coins as there are meeples above the card. Thus, placing first can be a good thing if you have enough money to back it up, but money is very scarce. The cards could be contracts (that give points at the end if fulfilled), ships containing goods (that enable players to fulfil contracts), firemen (which help score points if there is a fire in the warehouse), merchants (which can sell goods for a better price), or buildings (which give points or occasionally money by some other means). Blue made a pretty poor fist of it right from the word go paying far too much for the warehouse despite the fact that she had picked up a load of merchant cards in the first round. White was very late getting contracts, but lost out in a scrap with Purple for firemen cards. Purple ran out the clear winner with four fulfilled contracts to add to his fire points giving a total of 39 points – almost falling off the end of the scoring track! White and Blue tied for second, but some way behind.

We ended the evening with a little chat about the Spiel at Essen which some of us are thinking of going to this year, oh, and of course, some more of the really rather tasty cake!

Learning Outcome: There is only one thing as bad as not going for firemen, and that’s going for firemen and losing.

Stanford-in-the-Vale Summer Festival

This year, in order to raise our profile in the village, we will have a stall at the Summer Festival on Sunday (weather permitting). We are planning to have a “Dobble Against the Clock” competition, Turf Horse Racing and a small table with people playing Army of Frogs.

We will be starting at 2pm on Sunday afternoon, hopefully on the village green in front of the church, as long as it’s not raining…

Stanford-in-the-Vale

2nd April 2013

This week we had two new gamers, so we started out gently with the “Feature Game” which was Coloretto. This is a simple card game where players have to collect sets of coloured chameleons. However, while the three largest sets contribute positively to the final score, any others are subtracted. The game was really quite tight with only three points between first and second place.

Next up was Carcassonne which had its second outing in as many games nights. In contrast to the last game, this was played very “nicely”. We started out with a selection of tiles from the two river sets and then played with just the base game, without farmers. The youngest player managed to draw city after city tile and built a massive, uncontested city. Meanwhile, the other new player got meeples stuck in a city and on a road that required two tiles to infill a hole, one of which was quite specific. In a masterpiece of courage, she waited it out and drew the last required tile in the penultimate round. Despite these heroics, however, his seemingly never-ending stream of cloisters meant nobody was quite able to catch red, who ran out eventual winner.

Given that the new players have an interest in horses, we then moved on to Turf Horse Racing. This time, the new players ganged up, backing Roamin’ Emperor who had a one in six chance of moving 20 lengths. It started really well too, launching into the lead, only for Silver Blaze, Red Baron, and Desert Prince to eventually move ahead. Mosstown Boy and Lagoon Lady hung on to the back of the pack while the old nag Raven Beauty seemed to be going backwards. Lagoon Lady started to loose contact when, with a sudden burst of pace Roamin’ Emperor made a dash for the line winning by 15-20 lengths from Silver Blaze and Red Baron.

Finally, we finished with a few quick rounds of one of our old favourites, Dobble. We managed three different riotous variations and honours were pretty much even.

Learning Outcome: When it comes to boardgames, playing on a tablecloth is a BAD idea as it moves and causes “earthquakes”.

27th December 2012

With Christmas day and New Years day both falling on a Tuesday (and players valuing playing games with their family more than with other GOATS – can’t imagine why!) we decided to have an extraordinary meeting on the Thursday.

This week there were six of us, including two new people. However, although we didn’t start until 8pm (as burgers and chips had to be dealt with), we still managed to squeeze in four games.

With Christmas so recent, everyone had new games to play, and the first one up was a Santa Special – Mundus Novus. This is a card game where players are seventeenth century Spanish ship owners, travelling to the New World and making their fortune. It took us a while to get started, but once we got the hang of it, everyone started to rack up dubloons at a steady rate. We were pretty much neck-a-neck when the game came to a bit of a shuddering halt because one of us played the equivalent of a Royal Flush, which wins the game outright.

Next we played the “Feature Game” which was PitchCar, a gorgeous, dexterity car-racing game. This game was also a Christmas Special and included the first expansion which has shicanes and jumps/bridges. For this game we used one of the standard layouts making full use of the special features.

Once everyone had completed their qualifying lap, we were off. Yellow, who won the qualifying, stalled on the grid, so Pink led into the first corner and got in everyone else’s way. Meanwhile, Black went for a pitstop and came out Orange. After about half a lap, Green had got his nose in front and despite the best efforts of Blue and White (who came from the back of the grid to finish second), this proved an unassailable lead.

Next up was The Resistance: Avalon. This game is a little different with players dividing into two teams, the Loyal Servants of Arthur and the Minions of Mordred, to go on a series of quests. Arthur’s team want the quests to be successful, whereas Mordred’s team want them to fail. The catch is, the Loyal Servants of Arthur don’t know who Mordred’s men are and players vote for teams to go on each quest. The first two quests were successful, before the Minions managed to sneak in a failure. After winning the fourth quest, the Loyal servants snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when Merlin was named correctly and assassinated.

The last game of the evening was an old favourite, Dobble and we played several chaotic rounds in different styles before we went home.

Learning Outcome: A little research before preparing your Christmas list goes a long way!

billyGOAT’s Birthday Boardgame Bash

It was billyGOAT’s birthday and he decided that what he really fancied was a day playing games with his mates. So, on a slightly damp afternoon in December, friends from far & wide converged on Challow Village Hall.

The first game up was a six player game of Pillars of the Earth. This turned out to be a rather long game and took most of the afternoon. However, since it was one of billyGOAT’s choice games, it was fitting that he ran out the worthy winner. Meanwhile, games of Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, Riff Raff, Apples to Apples Kids, Dixit, Hamsterrolle, The Great Balloon Race, Ramses Pyramid, Bohnanza, Incan Gold and Shopping List all went on as the masons slowly built their cathedral and the children played with the Scalextric and decorated biscuits.

Shortly after 6pm, everyone sat down together for a meal of Chinese takeaway (including dumplings) which was followed by a marvellous Jamaica Cake for those who had any space left. Then, the games recommenced with parallel games of Lord of the Rings and Formula D while games of Billy Biber (aka Log Jam), Dobble (aka Spot It!) and Loupin’ Louie kept the children occupied until it was time for them to go home to bed. Unfortunately, Lord of the Rings had to be terminated prematurely and the Fellowship failed to make it to Mordor.

Despite its apparently poor reputation to the contrary, the six player game of Formula D on the other hand finished in timely fashion and players moved on to a quick nine player game of The Resistance: Avalon. With a lot of new players everyone was a little quiet and Mordred’s Minions won easily.

By this time, the numbers were beginning to dwindle a little, but there was still time for a quick six player game of Roman chariot racing with Ave Caesar where everyone competed to show due respect to the Emperor. billyGOAT’s horse, “Dobbin”, made a very slow start, however, it managed a late charge for the line eventually coming second behind “Glue-pot Boy”, who had led from the off.

The last game of the night was another game of Avalon, this time with only seven players and victory went to Merlin and the Loyal Servants of Arthur. Then we had to tidy up the kitchen, sweep the hall and hand the keys back. A good time was had by all and everyone went home tired, but happy.

Finally, many thanks to everyone who helped out in the kitchen during the event, and kept food and drink flowing, while others played; it would not have been possible without them.

27th Movember 2012

This week, some of the group turned up early to sample the food the pub offers (which was really rather good), and two people managed to squeeze in a very quick “learning game” of Mr. Jack Pocket before it arrived. Mr. Jack is an asymmetric two player game, that is to say, the protagonists have different goals. One plays “Mr. Jack” who is trying to escape, the other plays “The Investigator” who is trying to deduce who Mr. Jack is masquerading as. This version was the travel version, but is still just as much a brain burner as its big brother despite the diminutive size of the box.

Just as the diners finished, the others arrived giving us a total of five people who had braved the flood water. After a quick game sale, we started the “Feature Game”, Eketorp. This is a game where players attempt to gather resources to build their Viking stronghold on the Swedish island of Öland. In this game players try to second guess which resources the others don’t choose, with a battle and a potential extended stay in the hospital as the reward for failure.

Next, after some discussion we decided to play Citadels. Citadels is a role selection and city building game. Each round, players choose a role to aid them building their city, and each is called in turn to perform their turn. The first of these is the Assassin, then the Thief, then Magician, then the King etc. You have to be particularly careful of the first three, as (for example) the thief seemed to think royalty was a good target.

The last game was a very quick game called Dobble (aka “Spot It”), so we had several goes. There are lots of different ways to play this, but basically it is Snap, except that each card has more than one symbol. The idea is to call a correct match more often and faster than everyone else. Apparently every card has exactly one matching symbol, though a number of disbelievers amongst us felt the need to check…

Learning Outcome: Beware the magician who steals all your cards (though perhaps you deserve it if you set the example).

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boardGames On Alternate Tuesdays in Stanford