A great day to age

Yesterday was a very good day. Remembered to get to swimming early to avoid the children and was finishing my 64th length as the cacophony began. Then late morning met up with two lovely people I met on a writing course in Richmond. We wandered down to the Tide Tables Cafe by the river and yapped on for  a good couple of hours. They both write really well in my eyes and yet aren't the most prolific of writers which is such a shame. Hopefully we will encourage each other and become more productive!

In the afternoon it was the final 'intro to apple mac' course, must sign up for the intermediate one after half term. I've great at turning this one on now after all the practice I've had recently. From there it was the H37 from Richmond station to South Street, Isleworth and a short walk to the London Apprentice for games night. Miraculously I won two of the three games I played - coming a distant last in the other although I scored my highest score by miles. Each week we write a blog about the evening. Here's my submission for the game 'Stone Age', slightly adapted for the non-gamers amongst you.

'Our ancestors worked with their legs and backs straining... in Stone Age, players live in this time, just as our ancestors did. They collect wood, break stone and wash their gold from the river. They trade freely, expand their village, and so achieve new levels of civilisation. This is exciting and interesting.'

Now, as part of my recent teaching to some creative writing undergrads I asked them to become more away of literal and figurative speech. To be careful around the use of cliches, to try and consider each and every word they chose to use. So let's have a closer look at the game of Stone Age through the marketing spiel as Philip, Andy and I played it last night...

First off, I have to admit that we hardly 'lived in the time as our ancestors did'. Philip and I had our glasses on for starters. What would those ancestors have made of them? With Philip on hol at the mo' only Andy had done some hard work during the day and yet, it is fair to say, he looked pretty refreshed upon his arrival. Our ancestors would have been proud of Philip's venison and black pudding dinner, maybe less so about my house salad and pint of 4% lager.

Secondly, 'collect wood'. Now this is something we did do. In abundance. We collect timber shaped pieces of wood, meeple shaped pieces of wood, brick shaped pieces of wood... you get the picture. Each one weighs 5 grams as a guess. Was it 'just like our ancestors did'? Mm, not exactly. You know. Andy and I collected a lot of wood early on, indeed I also hoarded brick shaped wood and meeple shaped wood too, but the energy expended was, frankly, embarrassing when compared to the stone age days.

'Break stone'. Can't say we did any of that. Me dropping a couple of pieces on the floor was the nearest we came to that. But they both wooden bits. It might have been whilst the others were scrabbling around trying to find those bits that I rearranged the huts and cards but I couldn't possibly admit to such a thing!

'Washing gold from the river'. Nope, the Thames wasn't laden last night and never has been as far as I know, so, we didn't do that either. One of the dropped bits undoubtedly resurfaced covered in a mashed chip but we just wiped it on the green blaze, sorted.

'Free trade'. If only. Every trade costs you know. Bits of wood, precious bits of wood that we'd been working hard to collect. And competitive it was too. The huts were in demand from early doors and although I picked up six of them it was tough let me tell you. The cards trade was even more intense. Those other boys were there collecting cardboard like it was the precious gold mentioned above. And then there was the 'free' element of the dice rolls. Always a gamble. Philip didn't get the rolls that Andy and I did it's true. His technique undoubtedly accounting for this, the determined use of the stone-age-dead-animal-smell dice cup turned swiftly upside down and planted firmly on the table. That was the most energy any of us consumed throughout this hard time; legs and backs decidedly unstrained.Expanding our village. The player boards are difficult to expand. On occasion they got a little lumpy with bits of wood and cardboard on them. And my sixth hut had to be crammed in with my nine workers struggling for space amongst the food. Greenbelt expansion? Not exactly.

'Achieve new levels of civilisation'. Now, this is where we did meet the job description. We were magnanimous in our skill sets, impressive in our competency range and unyielding in our capacities to collect all that wood and cardboard. 'Exciting and interesting', we flooded the whole room with our infectious, life-affirming qualities; did you feel it Isleworth??

I love box descriptions. I was recently asked to write one for a Spanish designer. I carefully selected every word, thought through every phrase and sentence. He liked it... wonder if any potential publishers will? 

Some say this character looks familiar...

Whilst Philip and Andy moved further up the food track, and collected all of the green civi cards between them, they didn't quite match my number of huts and points scored from those, as well as my great hoard of workers scoring at 5 points each. A close contest, all could have won or lost with one more item. But they didn't. I did, yippeeeeeee!!

Final Scores; Neil - 157, Andy - 149, Philip 145 (or thereabouts)

Key Games: Keyflower and Glass Road

Gaming this week started with a new experience, the Richmond Board Gamer's Club on Monday night. Set up as the sister club to the IBG I've often read about their 'game of the month' envious that I couldn't get along. With Uni taking up Tuesday and Thursday evenings, IBG on a Wednesday meant that going out on a Monday too would, quite frankly, taking the piddle.

Anyway, with Uni now over bar the assessment for the PGCert and my dissertation of course, Mondays become a possibility. And 'gotm' for April is Keyflower, one of my favourite ever games! Ok, so that decision was based on only one play but hey, it's good to be opinionated sometimes isn't it? Even a slight contretemps with the game's main designer, Richard Breese, at last year's Essen hadn't swayed that opinion. I'd been told that the Triple Crown wasn't the most salubrious establishment in Richmond, and whilst not far from the truth the upstair's room was fine, quite light in fact, with a balcony and views over London Scottish Rugby Club's ground. Maybe we're lucky at IBG to be overlooking the Thames but it certainly wasn't a view to shy away from.

I'd given IBG regular Andy a lift over and knew I'd meet a few chaps I'd played with in Isleworth. As it was, of the nine of us there for the evening, there was only chap I didn't know, and he was most pleasant. I just wish my amnesia hadn't taken his name away from me within seconds of being introduced to him, forgive me. So nine of us. Keyflower to be played, three copies, that's three threes, bizarre but there you go! I'd met Gary many, many times but apparently we'd never played a game together so it was good to put that right. And the three was made up by 'Victor' as I'll name him (foreshadowing that'll be).

The game has several key mechanics (!); auction, worker placement, modular board, network building, set collection, pick-up and deliver. That they all work together so well is a clever piece of design. There's also a lot of player interaction, and I've read that Breese feels this is very important. The theme is also consistent, good use of the seasons for the four rounds. I haven't even mentioned the artwork as yet. Breese's sister Julia has been his main artist for years, for the whole 'Key' game series, and the colours are always bright, restrained, clear. I love it.

So, the game proceeded pretty quickly until winter was upon us. I felt I was doing ok but thought that Gary had so many resources he must have some high scoring bonuses hidden behind his player screen. And Vic - yeah, we were getting on well by this time - looked like his collection of powerful green meeples would put him into contention too. I'd expected him to outbid me with the greens and when he met those expectations I was able to move my pieces across to another more useful tile but then sat there smug rather than realising I had a further six meeples that I could place. Oh well. Game over. Scoring, mm, not bad, sixty-one. Gary had fifty eight, and Vic, well, sixty-three. Later, I realised I had another point having taken the first-player meeple for winter. If only... I'd utilised those unleashed meeples. If only.

All that was forgotten however with a six-player For Sale. Another great game. Bid on thirty property cards numbered one to thirty, and then sell them for between $0 and $15,000. The bidding got ridiculous early on so I was forced to take a couple of low value properties but if you play these right later you can often get a good return on them. In the end I had $7,000 left of the initial $14,000 so that would be a help, as the others had used their capital completely with only one exception. At the sales things went well, my low value properties picked up brilliant returns and I managed to collect plenty of second highest value cheques too. Final scoring saw me reach forty-nine. Scott to my left - who normally wins every game he plays - had forty-six, and he turned out to be in second place, hurrah!! A good evening all told. I will be going back.

Glass Road, superb design

Then yesterday Josie played Glass Road with me for the first time and I then played three solo games of it too. My scores weren't great, 22 1/2, 23, 20 and 23. My highest to date is 27 1/2 but there's an American lady, Denise, on BGG who's played loads and has had two scores of twenty-eight recently so I was trying to reach that dizzy height. As it was I had another opportunity at IBG. Two newbies to the game and Philip, who picked up the Office building, as he always seems to do, and showed exactly how to use it. I completely blew this chance to score well and finished third with an 18, damn! Philip won with 24 1/2, Andy scored an excellent 19, and visiting policeman Anthony 12 1/2 although he'd learned a lot over the final two rounds.

Philip, Andy and I then played Santa Cruz. It's by the designer of the excellent Verrater and Attika games but I have to say we all felt it was a bit of a non-event. Philip, who'd played before, decided that once you understand it, it's boring. He'd hoped for more from his second game. Andy, who won, was also unimpressed. Still, it's rare not to have a good experience so when you do at least you know the rest of time it's been great. Context see, it's everything.