Tag Archives: PitchCar

31st December 2022

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.

30th December 2021

It was a quiet night, but nonetheless very enjoyable. Blue and Pink were just finishing their dinner when Lime arrived, and after some chit-chat, they were joined by Pine. In previous years, we’ve held a New Year Party where we play the gorgeous puck-flicking, racing game, PitchCar, so in the absence of this, the “Feature Game” was another classic car racing game, Downforce.

– Adapted from image by BGG contributor kalchio

We played this at New Year last year, but that was remotely (through Board Game Arena). The online rendering of the game is really very good with lots of brilliant sweary graphics when a driver finds their way blocked and we all enjoyed playing it. Although playing online is infinitely better than not playing at all, it is a poor substitute for the real thing. So, Pink in particular, was really looking forward to giving an outing to his brand-spanking new Christmas copy, courtesy of the Board Game Geek Secret Santa (great choice Santa—thanks!).

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Game play is quite simple, but also very clever. Players have a hand of cards and on their turn play one and move the cars shown. The game begins with a car auction, so the card may show their own car, but more than likely shows several and may or may not include their own. Starting with the fastest card (the one at the top) players then move the cars one at a time. The player with the winning car wins money, but players also have three opportunities to bet during the race. The player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are a lot of variants and “House Rules” for Downforce, including substituting the auction for random (secret) draw, changing or omitting the betting, and including special power cards (either drawn at random or included in the car auction). There are also several maps available, two in the base game and two in each of the Danger Circuit and Wild Ride expansions (which also have special rules). This time we played essentially with the “Rules as Written”, and included the special power cards (auctioned with the cars at the start) and began with the River Station track from the base game.

– Image by boardGOATS

The first hurdle was everyone trying to think up a name for their team—there was a strong feline element with Nikki Meowda, David Cat-tard and Stirling Meowss all being suggested. Dick Dastardly, Penelope Pitstop and Pat Pending came up as people reminisced about Wacky Races and Pine-erton Fittipaldi, the Green Cross Code Man and Staying Alive all raced too during the evening. Blue and Pine put their paws in their respective pockets and bought themselves two cars with a choice of special powers, and hoped to dominate the race.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue had the Cunning power and made good use of it during the game, though in truth it was rare that she really had a meaningful decision to make. Pink made better use of his Tricky power which enabled him to move cars in reverse order on his turn—he only used it a couple of times, but made them count. Lime’s Determined power was also really helpful enabling him to move an extra couple of spaces when he finished on a straight. Pine, however, was less fortunate and despite winning two auctions was left with an uninspiring special power.

– Image by boardGOATS

Crossing the first betting line in front encourages people to bet on your car and then, invested in its outcome, they tend to help it along for the rest of the race. This is a game where a little help goes a long way so a good start is really important. Lime’s single car and one of Blue’s two cars got away well and competed for that all important early lead. Blue led across the first betting line, but Lime was only just behind leaving it all to race for. And they continued to battle for the lead, leaving the others to fight it out in their wake. Lime was the first to the all important finish line, but Blue took both the remaining podium places with her two cars, which meant it was all down to the betting and initial expenditure.

– Image by boardGOATS

Despite professing to have failed to understand the betting rules, Lime took the magnum of champagne and twenty million, just two million more than Blue. Pink played a blinder to take the final place on the podium with seventeen million despite his car coming in last, a total helped by his minimal initial outlay and betting on the eventual winner at every opportunity. It had been fun, and when Lime suggested playing again, everyone was quite happy to oblige, so the map was flipped over to give the Marina Bay track a go.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine again picked up two cars in the auction, but this time Lime joined him with Pink again taking the last car and getting the Determined special power. Lime once again took an early lead and used his Tricky special power to great effect at key moments. It was clear in spite of the hidden betting that Lime was likely to be the one to beat. There was some discussion about whether he should be helped or hindered, but eventually he crossed the line first. Pink’s solitary, but very Determined car made it home in second and with him betting on himself that left them both of them with a final purse of twenty million and a tie for first place.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine’s second car was still cruising round the final corner while a steward’s inquiry established that Lime was the winner by virtue of his higher placing in the race. It had been a lot of fun, but undoubtedly, a car that takes an early lead has a big advantage. There are lots of “House Rules” available to try to mitigate this effect (modifying the betting, blind dealing of cars, and restrictions on when players can play their super-speed card for example), so we might try some of those next time to mix things up. That said, the expansion maps will change things as well, so we will see. It is certainly a game that will come out again and again for some time to come.

– Image by boardGOATS

Time was marching on and Lime was concerned that the drawbridge over the Thames might be raised if he left too late, but there was just time for a quick game of Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam. Everyone in the group loves Ticket to Ride and the little city versions are great in that they capture all the flavour of the full versions, but in a smaller, quicker package. As in every other edition, on their turn, players can take cards, play cards to place pieces (in this case carts), or take new tickets. Players score points for placing carts and for completing the routes depicted on their tickets (with any unfulfilled tickets giving negative points).

– Image by boardGOATS

Each map has its own special little feature and in the Amsterdam version has extra goods cards awarded for completing specific sections of track; these give bonus points for players with more of these at the end of the game. Pink, Lime and Pine started hard, but Blue soon caught up making for a tight game. Blue skirted round the north leaving the others to fight over the city centre and particularly Lime and Pine to curse when Pink grabbed a singleton and obstructed their plans from the very first turn.

– Image by boardGOATS

Towards the end of the game, Pink started picking up tickets and was quickly followed by everyone else except Lime who stuck with his starting hand and concentrated on completing them. Pine debated whether or not to pick up tickets and in the end went for it only for Blue to promptly trigger the end of the game. Blue had a significant lead, but as always, tickets would be critical and everyone was in with a shout. Sadly it was not to be: Blue had completed all hers and also finished with the most goods cards giving her the bonus for that too and with it a total of forty-five points, eight more than Pink in second place.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Santa is Awesome.

Boardgames in the News: Harshad Gothankar’s Flicking Amazing Feet

Harshad Gothankar from Mumbai was born without arms, so he does everything with his feet—including playing Carrom. Carom is a flicking game played in south Asia that is similar to the north American/Canadian game Crokinole and more modern descendents like Flick ’em Up!, ICECOOL, Subbuteo and PitchCar (or Carabande).

– Image by Mumbai Games on facebook.com

Harshad Gothankar has always been a remarkable young man with a passion for playing the national sport of cricket and is now also a state Carrom champion. He recently became an internet phenomenon, however, when cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar highlighted his determination in a post on his social media feed.

The difference between impossible & POSSIBLE lies in one’s determination.
Here's Harshad Gothankar who chose i-m-POSSIBLE as his motto.

Love his motivation to find ways to make things possible, something that we can all learn from him. #MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/Cw6kPP4uUz

— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) July 26, 2021

– From twitter.com

25th May 2021 (Online)

As the “Feature Game” was to be the “Roar and Write” game, Welcome to Dino World the evening began with a competition to see who could do the best T-Rex impersonation. Voting was carried out using the Vevox utility and the winner with 83% of the vote, thanks to his truly remarkable rendition of “Bang a Gong (Get it on)”, was Beige. It was only fitting really, given his obvious disappointment a month ago when the game was postponed. The reason for the competition was to choose who would roll the dice, because this is a game which is all about the dice and planning what to do with them.

– Image by boardGOATS

Welcome to Dino World is completely unrelated to the Welcome to… games we have played previously, except for the similarity in the names of course. There are two levels, but as we hadn’t played it before, we played the “Lite Mode” and saved “Danger Mode” for another day, thus reducing the risk of there being another Isla Nublar type incident in Oxfordshire. The basic idea of both modes though, is that a player (in this case Beige) rolls three dice and everyone spends these to take a maximum of three actions (one per die). The unusual aspect of the game is that dice can be combined together to increase their value, so, for example a roll of one, three and four could be used separately to carry out relatively low value actions, or combined together for one larger move.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are three possible actions: Build a Facility, Build Path and build a Dinosaur Pen. There are two types of Facility, Recreation and Welfare. Recreation requires a die of value one, two or three while Welfare requires a four, five or six. Thus, with the example roll above, a player could choose to build two Recreation Facilities and one Welfare Facility, or the might choose to combine the one and three do build two Welfare facilities. Similarly, building Paths has a pip cost, so a die with value four, for example, could be used to build four straight or corner sections, two T-junctions or convert one straight into a crossroads.

– Image by boardGOATS

The guts of the game is building dinosaur pens, however. There are six different types from the small herbivorous protoceratops to the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex. Each has a different die requirement and takes up a different amount of space in the player park, and some also need power to maintain their security. Power comes from generators, which will supply up to four orthogonally adjacent pens. They are free to build, but players can only build a maximum of twelve over all eight rounds, and unused generators are worth two points, so efficiency is the name of the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

The driving force of the game are the Visitors though, which are goal cards that vary from game to game. In the conventional version of the game, these are dealt out between players, such that people who are sitting next to each other share them: the first player to achieve the goal gets the points and the other player loses out. This clearly makes the game much more interactive and competitive, but this simply wasn’t possible while playing online. So, we used the “10+ Players Variant” where the Visitors are drawn from a deck and treated as end-game communal objectives.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, the Visitor cards gave points for:

≥3 Power Generators touching;
Connecting both entrances with a path;
≥1 Tyrannosaurus Rex pen and ≥1 brachiosaurus pen
≥3 Pens that are all containing herbivore or carnivore including two different types;
≥5 Pens containing a mixture of protoceratops and composognathus;
Completely surrounding the Lake with Pens, Facilities and a maximum of two paths.

– Image by boardGOATS

There is additional variety introduced into the game with the Facility cards. This time we played with the Picnic Area and the Hatchery. The Picnic Area gave points when next to the lake and the Hatchery gave points for each pen it was next to. The game is played over eight rounds with the players scoring points for the dinosaurs they have in their park, the Facilities they have built, the number of visitors they have claimed and economy in building Electricity generators.

– Image by boardGOATS

The first thing that everyone discovered was how bad they were at drawing dinosaurs. We had lots of woodlice, a few tadpoles, a chicken, and some fortune cookies with legs. The next thing everyone found out was that Blue was right when she said the first few rounds were very slow as people needed to spend a lot of time planning, but the later rounds were quicker as players just had to decide how to execute those plans. There were a lot of high value rolls in the first few rounds, in fact, there was at least one five in each of the first five rounds.

– Image by boardGOATS

The high values were very useful as players could build a lot of path or some big dinosaur pens, but Beige decided he didn’t trust the dice and swapped them for a different set. Although the game was without the blood and guts of Jurassic Park, everyone enjoyed it and found it offered something a little different to some of the other “Roll and Write” games we’ve played. The scores were fairly well spread, but both Pink and Green thought their scores which were over a hundred were enough until Ivory gave his score of a hundred and seventeen. He thought he’d got it too until Blue’s score of a hundred and twenty had been double checked and confirmed.

– Image by boardGOATS

As people double-checked their scores and compared notes, we also discussed how different the “Danger Mode” was and how this more advanced version sounded a lot like a “Roar and Write” version of Dinosaur Island, a game we played over two years ago. As the evening was roaring on, we decided to move on to Board Game Arena, and with relatively few people, we were able to play Downforce, the game we played in December at our online New Year Party (as the closest we could come up with to replace our annual game of PitchCar).

– Image by boardGOATS

The track was picked at random on both occasions, but by chance we used the River Station track both times. It was when everything was set up that we realised we couldn’t really remember how to play, so had to muddle through. In practice, the game is quite straight-forward, but it is a lot easier when you know the rules. The idea is that players are dealt movement cards and then bid for a car. Each player gets one car, and the idea is that players try to win a car they have movement cards for. Players then take it in turns to play cards and move cars.

– Adapted by boardGOATS
from image by BGG contributor The Innocent

There are two key things. Firstly, the movement cards mostly move multiple cars, which means it is not as simple as choosing a card to move one’s own car. Secondly, as well as winning prize money for their card finishing the race, players can also bet on other cars to win. As cards move more than one car per turn, it means players have an element of agency in other cars’ movement and can influence how cars do, albeit only to a small degree. The fact players can only own one car caught some people out as did the betting when the first betting line was crossed. But otherwise, everyone got the hang of what they were doing quite quickly.

– Adapted by boardGOATS
from image by BGG contributor kalcio

The auction proceeded with players getting only one opportunity to bid for each car (that caught some people out too), and with several players failing to get the cars they wanted to match their movement cards. And then, Emmerson Purpaldi started the race. Pink’s and Blue’s cars were quickest off the grid and blocked the first corner, before Blue took a narrow lead thanks to Pine shifting her car to clear a path. Burgundy increased Blue’s lead and her car was the first across the first betting line. Blue’s lead was briefly threatened by Black, but she led into the first hairpin and then squatted in the narrow lane causing chaos for everyone behind and lots of cursing.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

With it in everyone else’s interest to move Blue’s stalled vehicle round the corner, Blue was able then able to use her supercharge card to accelerate into the second hairpin bend and block that instead. As the first car to cross all three betting lines, almost everyone else had a vested interest interest in seeing Blue get to the chequered flag first, with some having bet on her from the start. Inevitably then, Blue’s car was first round the final bend, but it was much closer at the end than it had looked for most of the race. Black’s car put a massive spirt on and caught up with Blue just short of the line only for Blue to cross the line on the next turn.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Black therefore took second and Pine just pipped Pink to take third. The prize money for the first four places is only one part of the game though, and betting on Blue from the start together with third in the race gave Pine a very creditable second place. Thanks to betting on Blue from the start, Burgundy took third despite his car failing to cross the line. There was no beating Blue though, as she had decided to put all her eggs in one basket and had bid on her own car. On top of that, she had paid the least for her car in the auction, giving her an unassailable lead and a winning margin of $11,000,000.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

The game is great fun, and, despite the large amount of luck in the game, there is more to it than that—it is all about surfing your luck and making the best of what you have. Burgundy for example had excellent cards that matched his car well, but got stuck at the back of the pack and couldn’t use them effectively. It hadn’t been a short game, and with people being tired and ready for an early night, there was just time for a quick game of 6 Nimmt! before bed.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although we have reduced our consumption a bit since New Year, it is still one of our favourite end-of-night games. There was just time for a quick game of 6 Nimmt! before bed. Although we have reduced our consumption a bit since New Year, it is still one of our favourite end-of-night games. The game is so simple, yet so much fun: the simultaneous card selection keeps everyone involved and the tension as Board Game Arena adds cards to the four rows keeps everyone entertained even once they are out of contention.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

When Blue was the first to pick up cards, and then picked up more cards, it looked like there was no chance of her making it a clean sweep for the night. She had lost nearly half her starting points and was engaged in a race to the bottom with Purple before Pine and Black had even picked up a card. But from there, it was a remarkable recovery. First she was passed by Burgundy and then Black.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

By this time, Burgundy was picking up cards so fast that he’d gone from leading challenging Purple to end the game. And then Pine (who always does well in this) started picking up cards as well—the only questions that remained where whether it would be Burgundy or Purple who would end the game and whether Pine or Blue would pick up points before they did. In the end, Purple ended the game, and Pine just managed to hold on to win by two points.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Beige likes dinosaurs.

31st December 2020

Following the success of all the previous New Year parties, everyone wanted to have one this year too especially given how difficult it has been. So, the evening began with Pink showing off his new Christmas panda games which were admired as people arrived. Much to Blue’s horror, Pine then showed off his lack of trousers which he was not wearing in Pink’s honour. There was much messing about with the new version of Teams and the settings, because Green seemed to be muted in the chat and couldn’t work out how to fix it.

– Image by boardGOATS

After a lot of messing about, eventually we settled down to the “Feature Game”. In the absence of our usual New Year game of PitchCar, we opted for the nearest online alternative: Downforce played online using Board Game Arena. Downforce is a card-driven, bidding, racing, and betting game, based on the older games, Top Race and Daytona 500. There are lots of different options, but basically, the game comes in two parts. Firstly there is an auction for the cars, then there is the race when players try to manipulate the race so their cars win, and bet on which car will triumph.

– Image by BGG contributor The Innocent

The clever part of the game is the cards which are used for bidding in the first part of the game and then later to move the cars. These are marked with one to six of the colours corresponding to the six cars in the race. Each colour has a number which represents the car’s speed, i.e. how far it will travel in a forward direction. These cards are activated from the top to the bottom, moving the fastest car first, then the next and so on. The cards show different combinations of colours and numbers, but players know what they have at the start of the game. This therefore gives the players much more control over what they are doing, compared to games like Formula D for example, where the movement is dependent on rolling dice.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Three times during the game, players have to bet on a car to win or place—this doesn’t have to be a car they own, in fact, betting against a car they own is a good way to limit losses. The cars are auctioned off at the start of the game and the amount players spend is off-set against their winnings (money for placing in the race, but also for any successful bets). The winner is the player who finishes with the most money (net). So the game started with an auction of cars, and as it was our first game, we decided not to include the special powers and chose the River Station track, as it was the simplest (though there are still a couple of pinch points).

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

With six players, six cars and no special powers, the auction was really for pole position. That was taken by Team Greeny-Lilac, who played their “Superspeed Eight” card first and moved straight into the lead which they held, crossing the first betting line at the front of the pack. With lots of players the hands are very small, so it is essential that players have at least some cards that match the colour of their car if they are to have any control at all. That was not something that Pine succeeded in having at all. Despite that, somehow Pine managed to cross the second betting line first and parked up in the narrow, single car section between the second and third betting lines, blocking it completely.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

By the time he left the narrow section, Burgundy and Team Greeny-Lilac had replaced him, effectively obstructing everyone else and amid much hilarity, producing a lot of expletives on screen. Pine and Burgundy’s cars got in Team Greeny-Lilac’s way and Pine then put on a spurt to cross the third betting line in the lead. That was a master-stroke, as it gave him space to accelerate round the final corner to the finish line, leaving Burgundy and Team Greeny-Lilac some way behind. Although he crossed the line first, Pine had started with such an appalling hand of cards that he didn’t back himself to win, even when he was ahead at the final betting line.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Just like the one, true, car racing game PitchCar, everyone else stalled on the line in the race for second place. Eventually, Team Kitty (piloted by Pink), crossed the line in second place while Pine was still struggling to come up with cat-car-racing puns (Niki Meowda was the best he could come up with). The winner of the game was actually Purple, despite the fact that her car came in third. This was thanks to her astute early betting and the fact she spent much less on her car than everyone else. The first game had been a lot of fun, so we decided to give it another go with some of the other options.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

This time, we added the basic special powers to the auction phase and picked a track at random, which turned out to be Switchback Pass (from the Danger Circuit expansion). This turned out to be an interesting track with no single track sections, but instead featured small, dangerous spaces, with cracked tarmac and rubble from frequent rockfalls. Players cannot end their movement on these spaces as they are too dangerous; they can only be used for overtaking and players are forced to move back to a regular space as soon as one is available.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

This makes it harder for players to actually block others as they have options, though these are can be expensive since the dangerous spaces are smaller and it takes twice as much energy to use them. Team Kitty bid high and won the first car as they only really had one colour on their cards—as a result, they had a power (Strategic) they could only use once. The other powers were arguably better, though none really felt like a game changer or breaker. This time it was Black (who was “Cunning”) who stormed to an early lead and crossed the first betting line way ahead of everyone else. As a result, everyone except Black, bet on Black to win. Aside from a brief spell when “Determined Pine” took the lead, “Cunning Black” stayed at the front until he was well past the third betting line.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Then, largely without warning, Black found himself blocked in by the combination of some dangerous track and a load of other cars. And suddenly, we were in “Echidna Shuffle” territory where everyone was trying to avoid giving victory to anyone else. This was made worse by the fact that everyone had betted that Black would win, so wanted Black to come in first to maximise their takings. However, everyone also knew that everyone else had bet on Black, so everyone knew that whether he won or lost it would probably make little difference to the scores. As a result, it became every car for itself and “Cunning Black” was left to languish on the side of the track like an Alfa Romeo waiting for a recovery vehicle.

– Image by boardGOATS
from boardgamearena.com

“Determined Pine” was the beneficiary Black’s misfortune and was first to cross the line, eventually followed by “Team Strategic Kitty” in second (by now Pine and Pink had come up with Purrrrling Moss and David Cat-ard…). “Aggressive Burgundy” and “Team Tricky Greeny-Lilac” came in third and fourth, leaving Black to limp home fifth. “Cunning Black” was the only one to take anything from the betting, having not learnt from Pine in the first game, and instead bet on Team Kitty at the first betting line. It wasn’t enough this time though, and in a low scoring game, the winner was Pine, thanks to him winning the race and buying his car cheaply. Burgundy was second with Team Puss in third.

– Adapted by boardGOATS from image
by BGG contributor kalchio

Although we’d all enjoyed it, two games of Downforce were definitely enough for one evening. So we decided to move on to something else. For a bit of variety we had planned to play a round of Just One. As a cooperative, social deduction, word game, Just One ticks all the unpopular boxes for our group, making it the sort of game we very rarely play. With more than superficial similarities to Codenames (which went down like a lead balloon when we played it a few years ago), Just One is a game we would never have tried had it not been for the current situation.

– Adapted by boardGOATS from image
by BGG contributor kalchio

The idea is that one player from the group is nominated to be the Guesser and everyone else gives them clues. The clues have to be words, or characters and must not be derivatives or homonyms of the target. The clever part is that any words that are the same are removed before they are shown to the guesser. So for example, if the target word is “Berry”, clues could include “Straw”, “Black” and “Nick”. If two people suggest “Straw”, however, this clue is removed which makes the job significantly more difficult for the Guesser.

– Image by boardGOATS

Thus, much like Dixit, in Just One, players are skating a thin line, trying to give an obvious clue, but one that is not so obvious that someone else will give it too and have it removed. The game is a cooperative game usually played over thirteen rounds, but this time we decided to “house rule” it to play eight rounds, with everyone taking one turn as the Guesser. Pink started, as he was already in the kitchen doing the washing up. His word was “Venus”, and people scratched their heads as they tried to think of good clues. These included “Milo”, “Woman”, “Tennis”, “Planet”, “Williams” and “Love”, but the one that clinched it for Pink was Pine’s clue of “Bananarama“.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the first one out of the way, everyone understood what they had to do, and Green took his turn to guess. Even when the clue “Love” appeared twice and was therefore eliminated, “Caddy”, “Surf”, “Derelict”, “Shed” and “Outhouse” were enough for him to correctly guess, “Shack”. So, it was all going swimmingly and people were just beginning to think it was easy, but then it was Black’s turn. His clues included “Kylie”, “Area” and “Community”. He correctly picked up on the “Australia” connection, but even with “Location” or “Locality” (which were ruled out as being too similar), the connection to “Neighbourhood” was just too tenuous.

– Image by boardGOATS

Next it was Pine’s turn and his clues included “Warning” and “Coast”. Pine being Pine, the clues that most strongly suggested “Lighthouse” were “Family” and “Lifted”. Although he was pleased to get it right, he is not a fan of the duo, and was very unimpressed when Pink found the track online and shared it with everyone.Burgundy was next and even when “Poll” was eliminated, “Vote” and “Boris” were enough to help him to correctly guess “Election”.

– Image by boardGOATS

Then it was Blue’s turn, but with clues of “Sand”, “Desert”, “Movie”, “Film”, all she could think of was “Ice Cold in Alex“, which was clearly not right. “Shoes” might not have been the most helpful clue for someone who hates shoe-shopping, but “Herbert” and “Spice” should really have led her to “Dune”. As she had not read the book or seen the film, she passed instead. That left just Purple and Lilac, as it was five to midnight though, we took a break to get drinks to toast the passing of 2020 and sadly bid farewell to the UK membership of the EU.

– Image by boardGOATS

After admiring Squeeze‘s jazzy rendition of “Cool for Cats” on Jools Holland‘s “Hootenanny“, singing “Auld Lang Syne“, a couple of phone calls, and looking for fireworks, we started again. Purple was given clues including “Gucci”, “Vogue”, “Catwalk”, “Bowie”, “Outfits” and “Clothes” which she quickly correctly guessed as “Fashion”. Lilac was last up and got clues of “Green”, “Earth”, “Love” (again), “Armistice”, “Nobel”, “Quiet”. Seeing “Earth” and “Green” together, she excitedly said, “Greenpeace“, but of course that could not be correct as clues could not be contained in the answer.

– Image by boardGOATS

After what seemed like an age she guessed correctly giving us a team effort of six out of eight. Like Hanabi, the collective score at the end corresponds to a comment in a table, so scaling this to thirteen, it corresponded to “Wow, not bad at all!”. One of the things we really hated about Codenames was the pressure it puts on the clue-giver; worse, if the clue-giver is not naturally good at making those sort of connections, they feel they are failing their team and the whole thing can tank spectacularly. This is very different in Just One.

– Image by boardGOATS

In Just One, the stress is shared evenly amongst the clue-givers and although there is a little more pressure on the Guesser, as each person only guesses once or twice and the game is cooperative, no one person takes responsibility for failure and everyone shares in success. That said, although it is much, much, better in that regard than Codenames, Just One still isn’t really a game for our group. So there was only really one way to properly welcome in the New Year, and that was with a game of 2020’s Golden GOAT, our old favourite, 6 Nimmt!.

– Image by boardGOATS

In this game, players simultaneously choose cards to play and then add them, in order to the four rows. When a player adds the sixth card to a row, they take the other five and their card becomes the new starting card. The “nimmts” they pickup are subtracted from their starting total of sixty-six and the game ends when one player reaches zero. We now play with the “Professional Variant” where cards can be added to both ends of the row adding a new level of madness, and fun.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, unusually, we were about a third of the way through the game when someone pointed out that Purple had not yet picked up a card. This was particularly remarkable because more often than not she is the player to trigger the end of the game. At the time we thought perhaps this signalled that 2021 was going to be better than, or at least different to, 2020. On count-back however, it turned out that Purple won the first game of 2020 as well, so maybe that’s not such a good omen after all. Meanwhile, everyone else was picking up the cards that Purple would normally take. At one point everyone had around forty-five or forty-six, except Team Greeny-Lilac who had fifty-four, and Purple who had yet to pick up a card so still had sixty-six.

– Image by boardGOATS

Purple lasted thirty-five minutes into 2021 before she picked up any nimmts. It couldn’t continue forever though, and although everyone else continued the inexorable creep towards zero, Purple finally picked up enough cards to move her into second place, leaving Team Greeny-Lilac in the lead. Inevitably, that made Team Greeny-Lilac a target although nobody has anywhere near enough control in 6 Nimmt! to effect any significant change. Perhaps it was a matter of collective wishful thinking, but slowly, Team Greeny-Lilac started picking up cards, and at a slightly higher rate than everyone else.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the rate everyone was going, we were in serious danger of ending the game with everyone on negative scores. Black, correctly predicted that there wouldn’t be the extra necessary round to make that happen though, as he picked up once more and brought the game to an end. Only Team Greeny-Lilac joined him in the red, after so long in the lead. The winner was really just the player who had managed to hang on the longest, and with one of the lowest winning scores in recent games, it was Pink who won the first game of 2021 with twenty-one points and Purple was just behind with sixteen. With that, and a little more chatter, it was time for bed.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Online racing is much like the real thing: lots of queuing.

Boardgames in the News: Withdrawal of Customer Service by Asmodee

One of the characteristics of modern boardgames is the number of pieces in the box: generally the more complex the game, the more pieces there are, and the more it costs. For many, part of the fun of acquiring a new game is checking, sorting and otherwise caressing these, often bespoke, pieces. It is very easy to lose or break a piece and an estimated 1-2% of new purchases arrive damaged or with something missing. One of the truly special things about the boardgame industry has been the general understanding of the sadness caused by a missing piece, and the support the manufacturers give when a game has become incomplete, even if it is not the manufacturers fault.

– Image by boardGOATS

For example, just over a year ago, one of the boardGOATS dropped a counter for No Thanks!. After an extended session of “Hunt the Game Piece”, we eventually found it nestling in a cushion of dust, just out of reach, exactly where it fell, having cleanly dropped through the gap between the pub floorboards. The game is inexpensive and readily available, but our copy is much played and much loved, and replacing it for the sake of one token seemed wasteful. Of course the missing token could be substituted with something else, a penny say, but that would have made us sad every time we played it. So, a quick email to AMIGO Spiele offering to purchase a couple of spares, and one week later a small handful of red counters arrived in the post—exceptional Customer Service from a superb company.

– Image by boardGOATS

The remarkable thing is that this is not the only example: similar service has been received from Zoch Verlag (Auf Teufel komm raus), NSKN Games (Snowdonia: Deluxe Master Set), Queen Games (Kingdom Builder), Ferti Games (PitchCar), Tactic (Nollkoll), Z-man (Le Havre), Rio Grande Games (Torres) & Splotter (The Great Zimbabwe), to name but a few, sometimes their fixing a problem of their making, sometimes just helping out. This superb service (sometimes with a fee, but often without charge) builds a good relationship with the customer and encourages more sales—so not so much “No Thanks”, as “Yes Please”!

– Image by boardGOATS

Last week, however, Asmodee USA closed its Customer Services Department to the public, and announced that all games with missing pieces should be returned to the vendor (as yet there is no comment on who should pay for returns of online purchases, or what happens with gifts that arrive with a piece missing). Worse, the FAQ adds that when buying a second-hand copy, they “encourage you to make sure that all components of a game are present and intact before purchasing” as they “cannot offer replacements for products that were not purchased directly from our USA retail partners or webstores”. Their justification for this is:

“With the number of quality titles in Asmodee USA’s growing library, maintaining an independent stock of elements of each game becomes more difficult. We believe offering the customer service through the store they have purchased the game from will be a better experience.”

It was initially thought that this would only affect USA customers, however, it seems that is not the case. Asmodee UK have passed the buck: according to their website, for replacement pieces for Asmodee, Fantasy Flight Games, Days of Wonder, Catan, Plaid Hat Games or Z-Man Games, “please visit http://parts.asmodeena.com/”, which in turn simply says:

“As of February 18, 2020, if a game is purchased in the US that has damaged or missing components, please return to where you originally bought the game for assistance.”

This change in policy may or may not make business sense in the short term, but for the gamer it is a very sad loss of what always felt like friendly support, and something that made boardgaming special.

– Image by boardGOATS

31st December 2019

Burgundy was the first to arrive and he was quickly joined by Purple, Black and Lime. As the first to arrive, together, they began to set up the “Feature Game“, the now traditional, car-racing game, PitchCar. When Pine joined the party, discussion turned to the “Monster Games” session which featured Bus, Ecos: First Continent and the very silly Happy Salmon, all of which had been very enjoyable in their own way and most of which will come out again soon. Before long, an exciting-looking racing track was set up around an obstacle course of snacks and drinks.

– Image by boardGOATS

As we’ve done a few times recently, instead of a circuit, we set up a single section track with separate start and finish lines. This year we included the new Loop (which got it’s first outing at Pink’s sPecial Party in October) and Upsilon expansions as well as the bridge from the first expansion. As usual, much fun was had by all concerned, especially with the new challenge that the Loop added. There is clearly a knack with this: it is essential to hit the puck hard and in the middle, but some have the skill naturally, while others apparently just don’t. Lime is one who clearly does, and as a result, his car traveled the furthest in the “flick-off”, so started at the front of the grid and finished way out in front too.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine, Pink and Purple, clearly don’t have the knack, and we never really found out about Burgundy either, as someone helped him largely avoid it, resulting in him to taking second place. Elsewhere, having successfully escaped from the Loop, Black shot round the chicane and made the bridge look easy, inspiring Pink to comment that we always used to get stuck at the bridge, but now we have the Loop, the bridge is easy! That said, stopping over the line without falling off the end of the track proved to be quite challenging. So much so, that after half a dozen mini-flicks, Black was in danger of getting caught by Pine, who eventually made it round in fourth place.

– Image by boardGOATS

That just left Pink and Purple, taking it in turns to try to get round the Loop. Eventually, Purple hit the sweet spot and started off towards the finish. Unfortunately, after a superb single shot that took her round the ring, she ended up pointing in the wrong direction and tried to go round the Loop backwards. Pink meanwhile was still stuck and thanks to the way the track looped back on itself creating an intersection, managed to very effectively obstruct Purple in her quest to get to the end.

– Image by boardGOATS

As Purple’s and Pine’s antics entertained, everyone else consumed crudites, Devils on horsebacks, stuffed mini peppers, and large quantities of pigs in blankets (Lime commented that he now knew why JD Wetherspoon had a shortage). When Purple and Pink finally crossed the line, it was time for supper – spicy vegetable chili, beef chili, rice and corn on the cob. As people finished dinner we realised we’d forgotten the crackers and Christmas pressies. Unusually, this year there was desert too, so Black was given a special rolling-pin shaped knife to “cut” it, leaving everyone to wonder, before Pink delivered a Christmas pudding-shaped chocolate piñata.

– Image by boardGOATS

The “Pud” resisted all Black’s initial blows, until he decided a side-swipe might have more effect. Eventually a dent became a crack and the crack became a hole revealing the sweets inside. As everyone picked at the chocolate, we decided to start another game, Ca$h ‘n Guns, because there’s nothing better at Christmas than pointing foam guns at each other. This is a very simple, but very fun party game where players are gangsters dividing up their loot by a sort of controlled Russian Roulette.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each player starts the round by loading their gun with one bullet from their deck of eight bullet cards, or “clip”. Each bullet can be used only once during the game, and three are live, while the other five are blanks. Once everyone has chosen their bullet card, the Godfather counts to three and everyone points their weapon at someone. The Godfather can then use his privilege to ask one player to point their gun away from him (there was some discussion as to whether a real gangster would use “please”), then there is a second count of three. This time, players can back out, which means they won’t get shot, but they also won’t get any loot.

– Image by boardGOATS

All the remaining players then reveal their bullet cards and anyone who is shot picks up a plaster and also won’t get any loot at the end of the round. This leaves a hard-core of gangsters to take it in turns to collect cards from the loot pool that was revealed at the start of the round. In each round, all the loot cards are taken, so when it is a particularly brutal round, players can take several cards. The loot includes diamonds, artworks and cash, as well as the occasional medipack or additional bullet and the opportunity to become the Godfather. Unusually, this final option was taken several times so the Godfather changed hands quite frequently, with Burgundy, Pink, Lime, Blue, and Pine all taking the role at some point.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue was Boris, so Pink suggested that she should be the target. This is fairly usual in this game, so Blue rarely wins. However, it seems people didn’t like being told what to do by Pink, even if he was the Godfather, so remarkably, she survived the first round. After a couple more rounds she’d still only picked up one plaster, while Pine, had acquired two so a third would put him out of the game. As he had pointed out at the start, an injury tends to make you a target, but somehow, Pine managed to get himself a medipack. Burgundy and Purple, however, were not so lucky and bought it in round six.

– Image by boardGOATS

Going into the final round, Black commented on how many painting cards Blue had picked up—the first is worth $4,000, but these score an ever increasing amount so a player with ten scores $500,000. At that point, Blue didn’t feel she had enough, but as Pine’s final bullet proved to be a blank, she was able to stay in for the final round and pick up a couple more. It surprised even her when she counted up and found she had seven paintings giving a total of $250,000 when her cash was added in. Black took the $60,000 bonus for the most diamonds and with it, second place with $133,000, and not a scratch, just ahead of Pink ($110,000) who was also unharmed.

– Image by boardGOATS

With midnight fast approaching, we replaced the guns with glasses to toast the New Year and watch the fireworks (in both London and the village). And then we had the very important decision to make: what to play for the first game of 2020. In the end, we decided to go for our old favourite, 6 Nimmt!. Everyone knows how to play this by now: players simultaneously choose a card from their hand and then, starting with the player that revealed the lowest value card, players add their cards to one of the four rows. The player who adds the sixth card to a row, instead takes the first five into his scoring pile, where the number of bulls’ heads indicates the score. The winner is the player with the fewest “nimmts”.

– Image by boardGOATS

We played with our usual variant where a game takes two rounds, each played with one half of the deck. In the first round, Pine top-scored with twenty-two closely followed by Lime with eighteen, while Pink kept a clean sheet and Purple remarkably (especially for her), had only the one card with just a single “nimmt”. So, going into the second half, it was all to play for. As is usually the case, those that do well in the first round typically do badly in the second. That was exactly the way it panned out for Pink who picked up the most “nimmts” in the second round with twenty-five, almost catching up with Pine and Lime. Purple, however, managed to buck the trend, and pulled out a clear round giving her a final total of just one and with it, clear victory—the first of the new year.

– Image by boardGOATS

Lime suggested a second game, and as the only other game being suggested was Bohnanza, apathy from everyone else meant we played 6 Nimmt! again. Again, Pink ended the first round with “zip”, followed by Black and Burgundy with five; again Pine had the highest score of twenty-four. Also again, Pink failed in the second round, taking more than anyone else and finishing with a total of twenty. Blue managed a zero in the second round, but had picked up too many points in the first to do better than second place. It was consistency that won the game though, and Burgundy, the only one to say in single figures for both rounds, finished with thirteen and took first place.

– Image by boardGOATS

By this time was well gone 1am, and there was some chatter before Lime decided that it was past his bedtime and left everyone else to it. With six, there were slightly more options, and when Pink appeared with For Sale, nobody objected. This is an older game, that we haven’t played in the group since it was the “Feature Game” nearly seven years ago, but it is a bit of an “ever-green” game that still pops up on recommendation lists from time to time.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is very simple: players buy properties in the first part of the game and then sell them in the second half, and the player who has the most money at the end wins. Buying properties is through auction. Players start with $14,000 to last the whole game and take it in turns to bid for one of the property cards available on the table. These have a nominal rating of one to thirty with fantastic pictures that reflect their value. In each round, the bidding is continuous with players either increasing the bid by at least $1,000 or passing. When a player passes, they take the lowest value property card and pay half their bid. Thus, the winning player gets the highest value card, but has to pay the full amount bid.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the second part of the game, cheque cards with a value of $2,000 to $15,000 (or void) are revealed and players simultaneously select a card to play and then reveal. The property card with the lowest numerical value takes the cheque with the smallest value. This time, the property cards came out in bunches so it was mostly a case of players trying to avoid getting the real rubbish, and some inevitably failing. It was such a long time since we had played the game, that it took a couple of rounds for players to really get the feel of valuing the properties and the best way to bid, by which time, in some cases, the damage had already been done.

– Image by boardGOATS

It also took a round or two to get the hang of selling properties as we weren’t sure exactly how the money on the cheques was distributed. In addition, the cheques came out with low values first, then high values and finally, both voids in the last round. This meant that although Blue took the maximum return for her Space Station, she didn’t take out any of the other high value buildings. It also meant that Burgundy and Pink got saddled with the voids in the final round.

– Image by boardGOATS

Despite this, it was a very close game. In the final accounting, Black won with a total of $50,000, just ahead of Burgundy in second with $47,000, the void possibly making all the difference. By this time, it was gone 2am and although nobody was keen to leave, it was definitely pumpkin-o’clock. So everyone headed home to bed for the first time in 2020.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Thick chocolate is surprisingly hard to break.

Boardgames in the News: GOATS on the Radio

Christmas is a very special time for families, and what could be better than spending time playing games together. To discuss some of the options, on Christmas Eve, representatives of boardGOATS and Didcot Games Club were invited to chat to James Watt at Radio Oxford’s Summertown Studio. The interview started shortly after 2pm and lasted around twenty minutes.

– Image by boardGOATS

Time was very limited, but PitchCar, Dobble and Ticket to Ride (specifically the festive Nordic version) were all discussed, and a game of Boom Boom Balloon was played live on air. These are all all great fun family-friendly games, but there are many more available: we listed ten of our favourite games to play with family a few years ago, and recently added another five.

– Image by boardGOATS

The interview can be found online for a few weeks, and starts at 2:10:50.

26th Movember 2019

There were lots of people feeding and with a bit of a queue, so the non-eaters, Ivory, Mulberry and Lime, decided to play something while they waited. There were lots of options, but it was a long time since we’d played The Game and it ticked all the boxes, so unusually, a decision was made really quickly. This is a simple cooperative card game (in our case, played with a copy of The Game: Extreme, but ignoring the special symbols), but new to Mulberry and Lime. The team have a deck of cards from two to ninety-nine and they must play each card on one of four piles, two where the card played must be higher than the top card, and two where it must be lower.

– Image by boardGOATS

There are just three rules: on their turn, the active player can play as many cards as they like (obeying the rules of the four piles), but must play at least two cards before replenishing their hand, and players can say anything they like but must not share “specific number information”. Finally, there is the so-called “Backwards Rule” where players can reverse a deck as long as the card they play is exactly ten above or below the previous card played on that pile. This time, it went a bit wrong early on, but the trio managed to pull it back. Lime got stuck with fifty-six and sixty-four that he couldn’t play, and eventually the game came to a halt with six cards still to play.

– Image by boardGOATS

By the time The Game was over, the eaters had just about finished as well and the group split into two, one five to play the “Feature Game”, Mississippi Queen. This is an older game that won the Spiel des Jahres award in 1997, but has recently been re-released in a new edition having been out of print for many years. In this game, players race their paddle steamers down the Mississippi, picking up passengers along the way. Onboard, coal supplies are limited, so each ship’s acceleration and manoeuvrers must be carefully planned. The key to the game are the cool little plastic paddle steamers which have two numbered paddle wheels – one to track coal and the other to record the speed.

– Image by boardGOATS

The five riverboats start at jetties and then set sail along the river, which is made up of a hexagonal grid. At the start of their turn, the active player can adjust their speed by one and then move that number of hexagonal spaces, turning a maximum of once before, during or after the move. The player can increase or decrease their speed by more or make extra turns by burning coal. Everyone starts with just six coal though and there is no source of coal during the game, so when it’s gone it’s gone.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game has a lot in common with Powerships, a mad spaceship racing game we played about six months ago, but there are a couple of key differences. Firstly, each player has to pick up two passengers from the islands during the race, which means they must arrive at a jetty at a speed of one. There is a more subtle difference which is nevertheless important to the way the game plays. In Powerships, the map is modular, but is set out before the start of the game, where it is built as play progresses in Mississippi Queen.

– Image by boardGOATS

In Mississippi Queen, after the first turn, play proceeds according to position in the race (like PitchCar). The advantage of this is that players at the front don’t obstruct players moving up from behind, however, it can lead to a run-away leader problem instead. In Mississippi Queen though, the river is “built” as the game progresses; when the leader moves onto the final space, they draw a new river tile and roll the die to determine placement (left, right or straight ahead). The fact that the player in the lead has less time to plan has the additional effect of off-setting the advantage of less obstruction, helping to prevent the leader running away with the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time, Lime stormed into the lead, but overshot the first island allowing Blue to sneak in behind him and grab a passenger. There are plenty of islands though, so Lime had plenty of other opportunities. Unfortunately, he overshot the second island as well as he was going too fast. By the third island, Lime was starting to get desperate, but hadn’t got his speed and position right and ended up burning almost all his coal and doing a full circuit of the island to rectify things. This, and almost sinking gave everyone else a chance to catch up and Blue managed to snatch another passenger putting her in a position to make a run for the finish.

– Image by boardGOATS

Although she was able to move into the lead, Blue was hampered by an inability to plan and was forced to burn some of her carefully hoarded pile of coal. Mulberry wasn’t far behind, and had the advantage of being able to see slightly further down the river so was better able to plan and could therefore carry more speed. Purple and Pine got into a tangle over picking up a beautiful lady, delaying them both as Blue and Mulberry puffed off into the distance. Lime bravely fought his way back, but it was between Blue and Mulberry with Mulberry rapidly eating into Blue’s lead. Blue just managed to make it to the jetty burning the last of her coal to drift in gently, just ahead of Mulberry. Lime limped in next, leading the others in. Meanwhile, on the next table, everyone else was playing one of the archetypal card-drafting games 7 Wonders.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Players start each round with a hand of cards, and everyone simultaneously chooses one and plays it. The remains of the hands are then passed on to the next player who chooses a card and plays it. Play continues like this until each player has two cards at which point one is discarded. The game is distinguished from simpler card-drafting games like Sushi Go! by the civilisation and engine building aspects. In 7 Wonders, the players are the leader of one of the seven great cities of the Ancient World. They use the cards to gather resources, develop commercial routes, and affirm their military supremacy. Some cards have immediate effects, while others provide bonuses or upgrades later in the game. Some cards provide discounts on future purchases, some provide military strength to overpower your neighbors and others give nothing but victory points.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

After three rounds (or Ages), the player with the most points has the most advanced city and is the winner. The player boards are chosen at random at the start of the game. In this case, Green got Halicarnassus, and chose Side B so would be looking to build extra cards from the discard deck in the second and third rounds. Black got Ephesus and also went with Side B and so was only going for victory points and extra money. Ivory got Babylon and again Side B was favoured, giving him the second tier bonus of being able to build both his final two cards. Red received Alexandria and was also going to use Side B which would provide her extra resources and victory points.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Green’s game was one of building resources in order to build the pyramid enabling him to build the extra cards. He started building up his military, and although he was joined at the same level by both his neighbours (Ivory and Black), he began to pull ahead of Ivory after the second round and by the end of the third round had amassed an unassailable army. In the process though, he had neglected green science cards and purple guilds. Building extra cards from the discard pile is perhaps not as helpful as it might seem as the cards in the discard pile are there because they are the least useful cards. Maybe with more players there would be more to choose from and this bonus would work more favourably, on thee other hand, it might just end up with more duplicates.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor punkin312

On the opposite side of the table was Red. She, in contrast (and not under threat from the growing armies of Green) mostly ignore the fighting, but still managed to win one battle. With the extra resources available from her pyramid she did not need as many resource cards and decided to concentrate on the other cards. She invested heavily in the yellow bonus cards and also managed to get a full complete set of science cards. These she managed to combine with the purple guild which gave her an extra science symbol of her choice. She also managed to build a second purple guild, which gave her extra points for all brown, grey and purple cards. She also managed to acquire a very large pile of money which netted a fair few points too.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Ivory’s game was built around trying to get to the second pyramid level quickly, so initially he took a lot of resource cards. Unfortunately he didn’t get to the second level until the end of the second round, but having looked at the card he then decided the extra money would be more useful. He managed to build both his last cards in the final round, but like Green found, that extra card is not always that useful. He did manage to collect some high scoring blue cards, but although he tried, he failed to get a full set of science cards. He did get a couple of purple guilds though with one scoring the yellow cards belonging to neighbours, Red and Green who had both gone quite heavily into those. The other gave him points for every battle lost by his neighbours. He got nothing from Green for this, but scored quite nicely from Red. His resource heavy early game meant that he was left trying to catch up on the other later cards and abandoned his attempts to build a strong army and just took the beating.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Black’s game was concentrated on the blue victory point cards and his pyramid build. A smattering of yellow bonus cards aided his end game score because he scored for all the brown cards built by both himself and his neighbours (Green and Red). He collected some science, but not a complete set. Although beaten by Green in the final battle, he avoided defeat in the first two and took a clean sweep of victories over Red. So although everyone had had a strong game in one area, these were more than offset by less strong elements elsewhere. It turned out that the strongest games were had by Black and Ivory who finished level on fifty-one, some way ahead of Red in third. The tie break was won by Black who had the more money at the end of the game.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Mississippi Queen was still going, but coming to an end so something quick was needed and Ticket to Ride: London hit the spot. This is one of the new, smaller versions of the popular route-building game, Ticket to Ride. These are reduced in size and designed be quicker to play although the game play is very similar. Players take it turns to draw coloured cards or use them to place pieces, but in this version the Train pieces are replaced by Routemaster Buses. As usual, players also start with a selection of ticket cards and successfully fulfilling these give more points, but woe betide any player who fails to complete a ticket as the points become negative, which can be very costly indeed. In addition to these features, this new light version of the game also gives bonus points to players who manage to connect all the locations in an area.

– Image by boardGOATS

The action started around central London, (Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar square) as Red, then Black and Ivory laid buses around the area, all concerned that the other may block their paths. Green went further out to Kings Cross and Regents Park. As the game progressed, Ivory, Red and Black continued to challenge each other around central, East and Southern London. Green happily laid his buses round to the East unopposed.

– Image by boardGOATS

Black, who had only kept one ticket, was the first to complete his ticket and go for more. He was closely followed by Red (who had also only kept the one), and then Ivory (who had kept two). Green never took new tickets, concentrating on his two and connecting all the stations in the five point district. Black, Red and Ivory continued to take new tickets, but it looked like Green might end the game as he was soon down to only three buses. Ivory checked around the table to see who had buses and how many cards they had left and decided that he had time. Even though he had missed the fact that Green had only a single card in hand, he still managed to lay his last buses first; one turn too early for Green who had to settle for a two length route instead of the three he was aiming for (and close to getting).

– Image by boardGOATS

Black placed one last bus, but Red decided to gamble on new tickets as she had nothing she could claim. Ivory still had one final turn, but with no more buses to lay, he decided against the ticket gamble. In the final scoring, Ivory was way ahead of everyone else, due to claiming four “long” routes (threes and fours) and completing some high scoring tickets. Red, Black and Green were all within two points of each other. Red’s final ticket gamble failed and cost her a clear second place, and Green’s gamble on connecting all the stations in the five point district (and the stations in the two point district as well) did not pay off either.

– Image by boardGOATS

Some left for an early night and those that were left decided to play one last quick game. Pine was adamant that Bohnanza and Las Vegas weren’t “quick” so in the end, 6 Nimmt! got the nod. This is one of our most popular games, and frequently gets played in circumstances like this. It is very simple and there is something almost magical about playing well: simultaneously everyone chooses a card from their hand and places it face down in front of them. Once everyone has picked a card, they are all revealed and, starting with the lowest card, the cards are added to one of the four row, the row where the end card has the highest value that is lower than their card. The point is that the row a card is played on changes as players place cards.

– Image by boardGOATS

The player who places the sixth card, takes the five cards and scores the number of bulls’ heads shown. The winner is the player with the fewest bulls’ heads. We play the game in two rounds, and this time the first round was mostly pretty even with everyone taking twelve to fifteen Nimmts except Blue who somehow scraped a clear round. This meant it was all to play for in the second round, especially with the tendency for a good round to be followed by a bad one. Unusually, nobody had a terrible game: Pine top scored with forty, followed by Purple with thirty-one, and everyone else was quite closely grouped. Blue’s clear first round gave her a head-start and she finished with fourteen, just two ahead of Ivory and three ahead of Black in what was an unusually close game. And with that, it was home-time.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Neglect end game bonuses at your peril.

Pink’s sPecial Party

It being a very special day for Pink, he decided he wanted to spend it playing games with friends and family at the Jockey. The early arrivals set up PitchCar, including the new “Loop” expansion and others played Loopin’ Louis, Patchwork Express, Dobble and the surprise hit, Boom Boom Balloon. Little-Lime won PitchCar (perhaps flicking talent runs in the family as Lime himself managed to complete the loop at least three times), and almost everyone managed to lose Boom Boom Balloon at least once. Late in the afternoon, a game of Scotland Yard was started with Pink as the fugitive, and finished almost before it was begun when he was quickly captured. It was then restarted with Mrs. Lime as the fugitive and turned into an epic game that went on for a couple of hours with a brief break as people tucked into the buffet supper and amazing sticky-toffee pudding cake-desert provided by the Jockey Kitchen.

– Image by boardGOATS

The evening continued with more games including No Thanks!, Finstere Flure (a.k.a. Fearsome Floors), Saboteur, …Aber Bitte mit Sahne (a.k.a. Piece o’ Cake) and Ice Cool. The team of five eventually managed to corner Mrs. Lime, freeing up Pink to play his special request, Captain Sonar, which his team fittingly won, twice. This was followed by a game of Ca$h ‘n Guns (it is always fun entertaining the bar staff by waving foam pistols about and threatening to shoot each other), before finishing with 6 Nimmt!, a game to match Pink’s socks. It was a great day, and we all went home tired, but very happy, with Pink and Blue keen to thank everyone for sharing Pink’s sPecial day.

– Image by boardGOATS