Game Night - Heck! It's the Fearsome Time Travelling See-Saw

🕑 8 min read

Zoinks! It's Game Night! For the purposes of this post, all player's names have been changed to protect the pillaged and hen-pecked worms. 

On this eventful Tuesday evening in August, almost 30 NOBOGlins turned up and played on 6 tables! After the usual introductions, several of us broke away and managed to pull out and play 4 medium/light-weight games. Our 1st game was with 3 players; 2nd game with 4; then our final 2 games were with 5 whole NOBOGlin players! Like I said, it was eventful.

Let's GO!!

IT'S ALIVE!!

First up was Fearsome Floors, with Shaggy, Fred and I. Now, this game only usually takes 30-45minutes however we found the slow-lane and finished our session after a gentleman's 90 minutes of play (including a 10 minute intermission - more about that later). Our mission was to escape a dungeon with as many of our party members as we could (beginning with 4 each) before a monster caught up with us. Shaggy was the 'monster standee' builder this game, and what a handsome businessman monster 'Mr Conjunctivitis' was. The race started out pretty standard, an orderly wave of kidnap victims emerged from their cells slightly dazed and confused. Then quickly followed by a forced 'skedaddle' when Mr Conjunctivitis unexpectedly ploughed into Fred's escaping party, ultimately sending 2 victims back to the beginning. Good start. 

3.2.1. SKEDADDLE!!

From then on, Shaggy and I slowly but surely sneaked towards the exit, however, my 'Old Fonzie' stumbled and was captured; back to the start with you old man! Shaggy was now the one to beat. I tried my best to divert the attention of Mr Conjunctivitis towards Shaggy's party members, but the all I could do was claim yet another one of Fred's characters and bring the monster toe to toe with one of Shaggy's escapees. Rats!!

It was at that point we had our intermission. A fire alarm went off and all of us NOBOGlins vacated the bar and onto the street, leaving behind one metric tonne of cardboard and wood to feed a potential fire. Luckily the alarm turned out to be false, thus saving our games from either burning to ash, or becoming water damaged. 

It's Behind You!!

Returning to the game with a renewed vigor, we had to confront the fact that our pal Shaggy was on a cakewalk to victory, but not on my watch! I immediately went into action sacrificing my 'Zombie Fonzie', who went to the big 'garage apartment' in the sky along with one of Fred's party; before lining up yet another 2 kills, my 'Fonzie Fonzie' and at last, one of Shaggy's. I was playing for a draw! Unlucky for me, Fred was having none of it, and saw a way where they could win the whole game by sacrificing their puppy (who exactly IS the monster in this game Fred?). My 'Old Fonzie' bit the dust permanently and the pressure was now on! I was excited because from here on in, the game was Fred's to win or lose. C'mon Fred!!

Fred lost. Shaggy won.

HOORAY!?! All my machinations came to nought. It was at that time Velma joined us, and we went into our 2nd game of the evening with 4 players.

The Viking See-Saw. 

Our winner from the first game, Shaggy, brought along a BEEEEeeutiful stacking dexterity game by the one and only Dr Knizia. This game is very simple. Each player starts with identical piles of cargo, then in turn, places one of their pieces onto the tipped up (high) end of a pink viking boat. Yes, after a busy campaign of dating and pillaging, nothing says gender neutrality better than sailing away on a powder pink boat of peace and love. #NotAllVikings

Japaneses Viking Boat

IF, you manage to place your piece of cargo safely onto the boat, NOT tipping it over, then congratulations - your stolen (sorry, re-distributed) items may actually make it back...to... I wanna say Sweden(?), but it could easily be Norway. Nope wait, apparently these are Japanese vikings, all the way from Japan. That's kinda terrifying actually. 

Next player then tries to balance their loot on the boat too. This continues until a player tips it over and/or unsettles the boat, thus dropping some cargo into the sea. Now they have to pick up a mystery box (brown crate), and/or any items that fell into the drink, adding it back to their pile again. I think you get the idea. First player to stow-away all of their loot (or 'luggage' if you want to gas-light the entire UK - thanks BGG) wins the game.

This game was a lovely and exciting puzzle, especially since the pieces of cargo (luggage - lolz) are a variety of sizes, shapes and weights. Unfortunately I think our new player Velma ended up with more cargo than they started with, obviously due to the choppy waters of the North Sea... and our current champion Shaggy, managed to get another win under their belt. The scores so far: Fred 0, Shaggy 2, Velma 0 and Me 0. Next game please! 

I like being centre of attention

So the next game started and ended pretty fast as it was Timeline, the game made infamous (not a thing) for making some of us look incredibly well read and studious... and others (me), look stupid and ignorant. Our resident cargo kleptomaniac Velma brought in this game, and explained it very well to us all....including our new player Scooby!! Now we were 5. 

The idea of this game was to empty our hand of 4 cards into the timeline in front of us. Each card depicts an event of historical significance, all we had to do is place it in chronological order, without knowing the year shown on the back. As the timeline gets longer, the chances of getting rid of a card becomes tougher. If you fail to guess the right place in the timeline for your card, it gets discarded and you draw a new card into your hand. I enjoyed this game, and it was educational for about 30 seconds (my memory span). Velma won, closely followed by - I wanna say Fred. However in this game, being second is just the first loser, Fred. Look haven't you got an adorable puppy to kerb-stomp somewhere?! I didn't manage to take a photo of our game, however I did an artist's impression of how the game looked and went. Enjoy. NEXT!!

Past game photo

Lastly, but by no means least we played Pickomino (or Heck Meck if you're cool like the Fonz). Another Reiner Knizia classic; this game is a push your luck, dice rolling, take-that extravaganza of groans, hubris and victory dances. I will cover the rules better in a WHADIYOB post at a later date. It's a game not to be dissed or missed. I brought this game in, so was quietly confident that I could get a win in, to save some face...

All you need to know are these rules: 1. Roll some dice (Yahtzee style) but you can roll as many times as you like - or until you bust. 2. Bank only dice of the same number (or worms). 3. When adding up your banked dice and taking a tile, a worm counts as 5 points, and you MUST have at least 1 worm to have a legal total or go bust 4. Collect the numbered 'worm tiles' by rolling the their exact number and create a single 'stack' of them in front of you. 5. Rolling higher numbers is great, as it earns higher value worm tiles and protects your 'stack'. 6. You can steal tiles from other players by rolling the exact number of their uppermost tile on their stack. 7. If at anytime you 'bust', then you lose your uppermost tile to the table again and the highest numbered tile on the table gets flipped.

Shaggy rolls dice fine.

Let's Roll. The game started out pretty well for both Shaggy and I. We immediately captured tiles in the low thirties! Amazing start. Fred, Velma and Scooby were not quite so lucky though, and Shaggy and I proceeded to steal tiles from them, quite profusely I might add. Shaggy finally moved into the lead after a particularly vicious onslaught of Velma's vulnerable stack. Velma impressively kept their cool though. Good on them. 

Eventually, as always, someone flew too close to the Sun and just as Icarus famously did, they had their worms stolen and/or busted. That 'someone' was Shaggy. Their screams were not of anguish at all, they were of course, screams of delight. Delight for an exciting rollercoaster ride of both victimisation and hubris.

The next Icarus in the line of fire was me. Yes, I had slowly been building up my stack, diligently protecting it from foreign hens, coming over here and stealing my worms, blah blah blah...then I lost. I stumbled at one of the last few hurdles of the game, but not only did I lose, I came LAST. I had no worms and was hen-pecked to oblivion... not even dust remained! I think my opponents would have pecked out my soul if the game allowed them to. To be honest, I think they did - they stole a part of me that evening. Especially Fred. 

Against all the odds, our very own Velma won, by a healthy margin. 

The final scores were as follows:

1st (Joint with 2 wins each) - Velma and Shaggy!

Last - The rest of us losers.

Well I had a great night, and I'm pretty sure all the rest of the gang did too. Plus it is worth mentioning that no-one was made fun of or belittled at all. Just in case my jokes fell flat. 

..and they celebrated.  

So there we have it; my preference has usually been for getting several light weight games on to the table and then finish with a filler, but that's not for everyone. Fred remarked that they regularly chased 'gaming nirvana' via the route of heavy, crunchy euro-style games.

"..one game to rule the entire evening!"

However, they did confess that they really enjoyed the bloody, salty, aged and wormy 'palate cleansing sorbets' which were served up this fine evening. Hooray for everyone, we did good!

See you all at NoBoG* another night!

*Please feel free to drop by the Google listing for NoBoG and review it :)

WhaDiYoB? - Fearsome Floors (2003)

🕑 8 min read

Welcome once again, to our 'What Did You Bring?' segment!

For the purposes of this post, player names have been changed to protect the innocent and the murdered.

In Fearsome Floors we have been kidnapped by a wicked scientist and fed to their monsters! Our entire party has been dumped at the entrance to dingy dungeon hallway filled with stone blocks and slippery pools of blood (fresh from the last party of guests?). The only hope of escape is a thin slither of day-light in the distance and the fact that we have protection in numbers. So, I don't need to run faster than the monster... just faster than that weakened old man or the defenceless child. HA-hahahaha! 

As we all enter the hallways and apprehensively advance towards the exit, we hear a horrifying howl in the darkness... and just like in the Squid Games, the race is on to survive!!

This game was designed by Friedemann Friese, and was originally meant to incorporate his 'friends' escaping from him on a dance floor. I have 2 problems with this. 1. Why were they running away from a green/blue haired games designer on a darkened dance floor? And 2. Where has all this congealed blood come from!!?

Joking aside, apparently Friedemann landed upon the revised theme of escaping a horrific basement monster, more than 5 years after his original idea had landed on the play-test table. I for one am glad he did; because the new theme is so enjoyable and engaging. Let's talk about the game play and why you might want to try this game should you get the opportunity. 

Firstly the game screams family fun, even if the theme is horror, it's not really gruesome. It's more like Scooby-doo and the Mystery Inc. gang being chased through a haunted house, full of teleporting portals that only the vile villain can use. Before I speak more directly about movement and mechanics, please take a moment with me to bask in the glory of the wonderful monster token in this game. Rio Grande Games has given to us a multitude of printed card-board arms, legs, bodies and heads to assemble as we see fit. Slotting them together to create the strange standee is really easy and satisfying. 

At the start, we are all given several counters of our chosen colour. Depending on how many players there are you will either have 4 coloured counters (1-4 players) or 3 counters (5-7 players). Turn order is very simple, each player gets to move one of their escaping 'party member' counters in turn until all players have moved their entire party. The maximum number of spaces a counter (party member) may move is shown on the top of each one. This number ranges from 1-6. Once a counter has been moved, you flip it over to the opposite side, which does 2 things. It shows us which player counters have been moved this turn, and it reveals a new number for the next turn. Because in a brilliant turn of events, each party member has 2 different speeds! Remember that, as it will haunt you and possibly trip you up when you least expect it later.

Once we have moved all our party members, then the fun can truly begin when the monster activates and starts shambling towards us all. To move the monster, all you do is shuffle the monster's 'tombstone tokens' and randomly pick one off of the top. This will tell you how far it will move, usually between 5 and 10 spaces. The cruel creature will continue to proceed forwards until it finishes all of it's move, capturing victims as it proceeds. HOWEVER, as it callously creeps towards us, it will also take a look down intersecting corridors, and as soon as it perceives a prey, it will immediately change direction and head towards them for the remainder of it's moves. The monster cannot see behind itself, around corners, or past stone walls. It will keep moving, only changing direction as it catches a glimpse of a party member. 

From a safe distance you may want to run one of your party into the line of sight of the gruesome giant, just so that it changes direction and eventually captures one of your opponents! A risky move... as they can hide around corners just as the monster reaches their corridor, leaving the murderous monster to eat one of your very own family instead. 

This game does not overstay it's welcome, and is full of extra little details which make the game worth your time. For example, if the monster is forced to simply walk into a side wall, it teleports to another area of the basement and continues it's ravenous rampage. Plus this sadistic savage can push stone blocks into players pieces and even crush them against walls! Perhaps that's where all the blood came from? If one of your party members is captured (eaten), then it is sent back to the start, where it's race begins again. The game ends when a player manages to escape 3 of their counters (1-4 players), or 2 of their counters (5-7 players). 

Why do I like this game? Maybe I should have started with this, so here goes. 

Even though Fearsome Floors is 23 years old, and the mechanics come from a different board gaming era all together, they are still incredibly engaging. As players you have the option to simply run your party members as far away as you like, hoping to escape the gaze of the monster, or perhaps goad it into doing your dirty work for you. It's hilarious. Sorry, did I not say that enough already?

At higher player counts, the game play becomes intensely chaotic, and conveys the same sense of dread you get when driving to an airport, and you convince yourself that you left the oven on. Maybe that doesn't sound so fun after all... THEN an opponent does something even more moronic, letting you off the hook. Let's all laugh at them now. Forget about me, I intended to leave my oven on all along!! 

Since this game only lasts between 30-45mins (player number dependant) you can easily play through it twice, or drag out another board game to quench your appetite for crunchiness. Your choice. 

If you'd like to know more about this game then you can find the Board Game Geek link here!

See you all at NoBoG later!

King Charles III and I walked into a pub...

🕑 4 min read

For the purposes of this post, peoples names have been changed to protect the innocent and treasures of both national and local importance.

So, every now and again (couple of times a month) I get
drinking and discussing board games, designers and gaming groups with King Charles III. What will probably surprise you more than the fact that our monarch enjoys a board game or 10, is that he wears his crown at the pub! He says it gets him a greater number of drink offers, but more importantly, way more interesting chats with random strangers. It works for me; so I buy him whiskey and we chat about his heritage, and of course board games. Lots and lots of board games.

I don't know about you, but random jibber-jabber of this ilk, both inside and outside my regular gaming groups are where I learn the most about new games I've never heard of, or have yet to play. The wealth of board gaming knowledge out there - especially in our very own Norfolk, is kind of exciting right now. 

So I'd like to dedicate this post to a small slice of the conversations and serendipitous ramblings I've had with the King down the boozer. Enjoy.

I've not long come back to gaming after a 15 year hiatus and struggle to recognise or remember prominent designers and publishers. Charles doesn't make me feel silly when I'm caught blathering though. He simply glosses over it and waxes lyrical about his own favourites instead. With that in mind, let's chat about one designer in particular - the good doctor, Reiner Knizia. 

This prolific designer has managed to publish over 700 games, spanning a 25 year career. If you haven't already played any of his games, you will probably have played a game inspired by one of them. Both High Society and The Quest for El Dorado (published by Ravensburger) regularly make an appearance at NoBoG gaming nights each week. I personally have added 2 highly acclaimed titles, Ra and Babylonia, to my board game collections on the personal recommendation of our reigning monarch.

What's all the fuss about though? Why is it that one person can be this talented and so successful at board game design? Well, apart from the sheer amount of time he has spent working on and receiving earnest feedback for his great ideas - Dr Knizia appears to have developed a very particular set of design skills focussed on the human condition. Charles and I discussed this at great length and drew some conclusions. 

As a designer myself, my focus is mostly on fun. Obviously this can be highly subjective and genre specific, but our man Knizia has found ways to mine it, or to be more accurate, allow players to 'unearth' the fun themselves. Most of this 'fun' comes from clever player interactions and well-balanced multi-layered strategies. For example, in Babylonia, placing your tiles and surrounding locations of interest earn victory points and will deny them from your opponents. Basic. However, if you are imaginative, you can simply instead; rock up to those areas, let other players go to war over them and claim the spoils after the dust settles. Thus, collecting small rewards at regular intervals, which multiply up as your network grows and snakes its way into everyone's territory. Reiner's scoring mechanisms can sometimes be complicated, but boy are they rewarding for those players who just wanna explore, and spend some quality time with like minded folk. King Charles agreed with me, that there's something quite amazing about uniting players in a shared scoring mechanism. Dr Reiner Knizia signs off several of his most precious works with this approach, for example Tigris & Euphrates and Samurai. He does this so well, that I'm convinced he understands us better than we understand ourselves. 

Whilst I sit here and write this post I am hopeful that we ALL may eventually find a love for certain genres, mechanics, publishers and/or designers, as I think this matures us as aficionados for our chosen pastime. If you are anything like King Charles and I, then please raise a mug of ale or wee dram of whiskey to that thought. Just like the whiskey, it warms the heart. 

Do you have any favourites? Tell us about them. Even better, bring them along to a game night and entice us all with their majesty. 

Watch out for Ra and Babylonia on NoBoG nights - both games only last for about an hour. Plenty of time for chewing the fat, and playing other games. 

If you wish to learn some more about Dr Reiner Knizia's best to worst board games, then please click HERE for a more extensive look at his works of art.

See you soon!