June 6, 2006 |
I didn't want to clean the house today, so I asked someone to host us. Amanda said she wanted to be inspired to clean the house, so she begged me to let her and Rakesh host tonight. I willfully consented.
There were rumors of countless people showing up tonight. Peter said he wanted to bring a friend, as did Scott. Mark called himself a "maybe a maybe," and Karla actually came. Dan also said he wanted to show up "late-ish." With all these people, I thought perhaps we'd have to split up into groups - after all, how many games of Werewolf can you really play?
Well, attendance maxed out at 8, so we stretched a couple games to their limits before playing Tsuro.
It was kind of a shame we couldn't break up, as Lee wanted to play El Grande, the greatest game ever, and one I haven't played in a long time.
| The Big Idea |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Rakesh | 35 | 1 | * |
| Lee | 29 | 2 | * |
| Mike/Karla | 25 | 3 (Tie) | * |
| Peter | 25 | 3 (Tie) | |
| Scott | 24 | 5 (Tie) | * |
| Jim | 24 | 5 (Tie) | * |
| Amanda | 6 | 7 | * |
Notes: First was The Big Idea, which is a Cheapass game that combines Apples to Apples with stock trading. Given six cards (three with adjectives, three with nouns), each player combines any number of them to sell a product and get people to invest in them. Those with the most investments tend to sell out for an IPO, and the winner is the one with the most money. It's lucky and light.
Amanda made the best pitches early on, pitching several things that people really enjoyed. Karla and I tried to sell "Sport Sauce Shades" that re-fortified lost minerals in the sun. Peter pitched "Coal-burning Airlines" and Amanda's bonus-winning pitch was the "Limited Edition Mailbox" that instantly shredded and disposed of junk mail.
The game just got silly from there. Rakesh pitched a "Sweet Angel" that Karla made us invest in, and Jim pitched an "Auto-Car" that drove itself home when you got too drunk. Scott made a "Disposable S.U.V." and "The Flaming Cow Game." Karla and my best effort was the "Self-Improvement Comic Book" for those readers too dumb to read normal self-improvement books. We also pitched "Celtic Battle Cleaner" for those hard to wash out Druidic sacrifices. Lee pitched the "Secretary Deluxe" and an "Alien Monkey Slugger" for your baseball team.
We cut the game after 4 rounds, and then Karla took off.
| No Thanks! |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 10 | 1 | * |
| Amanda | 15 | 2 | * |
| Peter | 17 | 3 | |
| Lee | 20 | 4 | * |
| Rakesh | 26 | 5 | * |
| Jim | 36 | 6 | * |
| Scott | 37 | 7 | * |
Notes: Next up we played No Thanks! (or Geschenkt! on Board Game Geek), a filler of trying to avoid points. 24 cards are flipped one by one, and you pay to avoid it or you claim it and take the number on the card as a penalty (with the cards going from 3 to 35, with 9 randomly removed). If your cards are in sequence, you're penalty is only equal to the lowest number in the string, so there's some strategy to it besides avoiding the big numbers.
Anyway, I kind of got the game the first time through, and Peter and I seemed to be ahead the whole way. Amanda also caught on, but Rakesh and Jim didn't. In fact, Jim complained when I helped Rakesh (or Lee - I forget) and hadn't helped him. The reason (which I didn't admit at the time) was that I was still in the process of figuring the game out.
Obviously, I'm a genious and figured it out, winning rather easily.
| No Thanks! |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Amanda | 9 | 1 | |
| Lee | 18 | 2 (Tie) | |
| Scott | 18 | 2 (Tie) | |
| Peter | 21 | 4 | |
| Rakesh | 29 | 5 | |
| Jim | 31 | 6 | |
| Mike | 63 | 7 | |
Notes: Or maybe not... (I still think everyone cheated in this second game. How else can that terrible score of mine be justified?)
I should also mention that the game is designed for 3 to 5 players, but it worked passably well with 7.
| Tsuro |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Rakesh | Last remaining | 1 | |
| Peter | 6th out | 2 | * |
| Amanda | 5th out | 3 | |
| Lee | Smacked into Scott | 4 (Tie) | |
| Scott | Smacked into Lee | 4 (Tie) | |
| Mike | 2nd Out | 6 | |
| Jim | 1st Out | 7 | * |
Notes: After that ridiculous second game of No Thanks! we played Tsuro, Scott's game of the path.
| Tsuro |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Peter | Last remaining | 1 | |
| Mike | 6th out | 2 | |
| Jim | 5th out | 3 | |
| Rakesh | 4th out | 4 | |
| Scott | 2nd out | 5 (Tie) | |
| Amanda | 2nd out | 5 (Tie) | |
| Lee | 1st Out | 7 | |
Notes: Twice. We had to tell Peter that he could only play tiles in front of his own little guy, but he still beat us - though it was really close. In fact, both games were very close. Even though Jim and I were out 1st and 2nd in the first game, we both lasted until probably 24 pieces or so were on the board.
| TransAmerica |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Scott | 13 | 1 | |
| Rakesh | 4 | 2 | |
| Mike | OUT | 3 | |
Notes: After the second game of Tsuro, Scott, Rakesh and I were still up for some lighter stuff after figuring out one of Scott's matchstick math puzzles. I wasn't paying good attention by this point and the game ended after two rounds. After the first round, Scott had a 4 point lead on Rakesh and 5 on me, and then I took an 8 point hit in the second round to lose badly.
| Nobody But Us Chickens |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Mike | 38 | 1 | |
| Scott | 22 | 2 | * |
| Rakesh | 15 | 3 | * |
Notes: I soon had my vengeance, however, manipulating my use of chickens, foxes, dogs, and rats to dust Scott and Rakesh in Nobody But Us Chickens, a simulaneous card selection game that goes pretty quickly.
After that one, I heaped up all my games and Scott and I ducked out. It was about 11:20.