Bristol Board Game Cafe

I didn't take this picture at the cafe. But I'm still very pleased with it. 

A while back we went to the board game cafe in London.  We had a great time there and so today we went out to the one in Bristol. Just as much fun. In fact it was even better because we had more time to play, with no train to catch this time.

We had a proper go at the Thunderbirds board game. And by proper I mean that we played it long enough to lose. Oh well. As with the one in London, the service and knowledge of games was first rate and the food was excellent.

By the time we left the place was filling up nicely and what sounded like an uproarious session of Cash and Guns was going on in the back. Next stop, the cafe in Hull..... 

Draughts Board Game Cafe in London

I think you should know that this game is way complicated

We've been meaning to go to Draughts for a while. the first Board Game Cafe in London. In case you're not sure what a "board game cafe" is. It's a cafe. With board games. And it's awesome.

You pay a fiver each for a session and then have literally hundreds of games, all neatly categorised, for you to grab off the shelf and have a go with. I wonder if they'd charge 'game corkage' if you brought your own games? Anyhoo,  they also have great coffee and amazing brownies (and I'm a connoisseur) 

I've always fancied having a go at the Thunderbirds board game, and they had a copy there. The box says the game takes around 40 minutes to play. That might be true. But it also took us around 40 minutes just to set the game up.

Each player takes on the role of a character from the show and pilots Thunderbird craft around the globe performing rescues and defeating the Hood's evil schemes. Or in our case losing. In around 40 minutes. The loyalty to the show is pretty slavish. The nicely printed cards are all dotted with stills from the episodes. There are FAB cards you can play, pods you can load with equipment and even the automatic camera detector gets a look in.

And yet, I'm not completely sure it's fun just yet. I think a lot of the problem was lack of familiarity, and numbers - there were only two of us playing - but I'd love to have another go. 

As for the venue, as we left around Sunday lunchtime it was filling up nicely. If I lived in London I don't think I'd want to go anywhere else on Sunday morning. 

Hull has a boardroom cafe too, the Boardroom. I really must check it out. 

Elder Sign Winners. Yay!

Elder Sign Board Game

By Ffg

Tonight we managed something that I didn't think we'd ever do. We won a game of Elder Sign. We defeated the Black Goat of something-or-other by a cunning combination of skill, timing, luck and more luck. It was great fun. Owing to reasons of chance I was "Sister Mary", a woman with strong will, an ability to use locked dice and who is, sadly, not much good in a fight. But I was playing with a gangster and someone with second sight, so it all worked out well enough.

It took us two evenings to complete the game, but it was worth the effort.

Ruined by Alvin and Dexter

Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride Alvin and Dexter Board Game

Days of Wonder

Alvin and Dexter are an add on for the wonderful Ticket to Ride board game.  

You can use them with any version of the game. They are a thwarty type thing you can use to stop your opponents from building train lines to particular cities. 

I was kind of excited to see how they work so we had a go with them today.  And they were promptly used by everyone else to stop me from building anything and making sure that I came a really poor last place. (at least, that's what I'm telling myself)

Oh well. There's always next time...

Marrying Mr. Darcy Card Game

What with Winchester and Salisbury just down the road, this would seem an ideal place to have a go at Marrying Mr. Darcy.  It's a card game where each player takes the role of a character in the story, all trying to find married bliss. And perhaps a fortune.  

You navigate events, trying to build up your character and beauty in a way most appealing to your chosen beau. And then there's a flurry of proposals and counter-proposals, after which you find out who won. You don't have to end up with Darcy to win. I ended up marrying the Colonel, and my added charm and beauty points got me onto the winners podium. 

The game has some nice period touches and is great fun to play. I think I could have used a few more chances to scupper my opponents though, but if you like the story I think you'll enjoy the game.

Colt Express Board Game

Maybe I should just give up my day job and turn into a board game reviewer. Might be nice. 

Anyhoo, today I was given a copy of Colt Express as part of the Father's Day thing. I also got an amazing book. But that's for another day, and another blog post. 

The box says that each game takes around 40 minutes to play. Our first game took a bit longer than this because the first thing we had to do was assemble a little cardboard train that is the playfield. The pieces are beautifully drawn and fit together very well. And the box cleverly turns into a set of compartments so that you don't have to dismantle the pieces, you can just pop them straight in the box when you have finished playing.

The game has an interesting mechanic. Each round a player builds up a sequence of moves from a random selection of cards their character gets. Some moves are open, others are secret. The good news is that if your moves go well you get to pick up the valuables in the carriages or, better yet, punch someone and pick up the loot that they drop. The bad news is that if they do the same to you first, your move sequence gets thrown out of whack and you end up punching thin air and shooting at shadows. 

This is our little train. Players can gather inside the train and punch each other or go onto the roof and shoot at each other. And you get free bits of cactus to help build the atmosphere.

Each player has a special skill (although for the one I played it didn't seem that special to be honest) and the little train works marvellously as a fighting arena. I didn't win. But I really want to have another go to see if I can have more success next time. 

Skull, Mascarade, Coup and Snake Oil

Adam is leaving us. End of the month. Heading to Canada. We wish him luck and thank him for all his efforts making the systems work and helping to organise lots of lovely student events. We are really going to miss him around the place.

The only good thing about him leaving is that in celebration (?) we had a games evening tonight. I was quite keen to have a go at Snake Oil, as I'd not played it before, and other folks had brought along games that they thought would be fun too.

Snake Oil is an OK game. Pitch ideas for dodgy products, and take it in turns to be the discerning (or not) customer. Not bad as a party ice breaker but limited, as observed by David, in that there is restricted potential for deceiving the other players.

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Mascarade is an awesome game, especially if you can get 13 players playing at the same time, which we did.

Lots of bluff, counter bluff, and bluffing when you don't even know who you actually are. Strongly recommended if you are expecting  a large number, but I'm not sure how it would go with four.

I'm going to have a go though. 

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We've played Coup before. Always fun, always infuriating. Especially when you are playing it with this bunch of reprobates.

Bluffing is not encouraged, it is pretty much mandatory. 

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The final game of the evening was Skull. Which pretty much did me in for the night.

Rather like poker, but distilled down into the bluffing and deception bit.

A really, really good game with the right people. And these were definitely the right people. I didn't win, but by golly I was very close. 

Qwirkle is Fun

If you like dominos you'll like Qwirkle. And if you've not played much dominos I still reckon you'll enjoy it. Players take it in turns to lay down blocks and make lines of matching colours and shapes. We spent a happy hour or so playing the game today.

Ticket to Ride Board Game

Ticket to Ride is a track laying train game that I've always wanted to play. And tonight I got to have a go. Up to 5 people get to plan and execute rail journeys against each other. It's great fun. And you get to learn a bit of American geography as well.

Christmas Camel Racing

Hope you had a great Christmas. Ours was lovely. And we spent some time playing Camel Up, the best camel racing game I've ever played. (and I've played one or two).

You get to place bets on the leader at each stage and also on the the ultimate race result. The balance is very finely wrought and leaders can switch position in the blink of an eye, so you have to be somewhat strategic in where you put your money. 

My opinion of the game is in no way influenced by the fact that by some inspired bets I managed to win the first time we played (I came last in the second game).

Great fun for up to five players.

Cash and Guns is Great Fun

While I was in London I bought a board game called Cash and Guns. Tonight we got to play it. The game is set in the aftermath of a successful heist. The gang is gathered to share out the loot, but it seems there is no honour amongst thieves. So everybody gets to try and stick each other up to get the richest pickings. It's a fast moving game of risk taking and score settling. Each player gets a foam gun to point at the other players and you can shout "Banzai" at crucial points in the gameplay. 

It is a riot. We played it with 7 players (the maximum is 8) and it worked really well. I think it would be less fun with four though. 

Rampage Board Game

Rampage is a deeply silly game. Each player is a monster intent on wreaking havoc on a carefully set up gameboard full of  buildings ripe for destruction and citizens ripe for eating. The game moves are great (one of them involves dropping your monster from a great height onto the population underneath), but things are  balanced so that you have to carefully manage the mayhem that you make. 

We had a go tonight and it was great fun. I really like playing board games, and this is one like nothing I've seen before. 

Loving Love Letter

A trip away wouldn’t be a trip away without a silly game or two to play. So I got hold of a copy of Love Letter. The game is beautifully presented in a red carrying pouch, which is just as well as you only get 16 cards for your money. But the game is still super.

Each player takes the role of a potential suitor finding confidantes who will deliver their messages of love to a beautiful princess. During a round you have to find the best person to deliver your message of undying devotion. But you can also knock out other players and swap cards with each other in a way which is great fun. Even if, as for me, most of your cunning moves misfire in a spectacular fashion.

Number one son observes that at the end of the day it is really only about chance and at some points you are really only choosing from one of a number of possible options which all have a similar probability of success. He’s right, but the setting and the way you can knobble people if you get lucky carry the game along to the right side of fun for me. Well worth a look I reckon.

A Japanese Walk

Tokaido is a game where players seek rest and good experiences while travelling the “East Sea Road” in Japan. It is a nice twist on the board game format and has beautiful artwork on the cards and the board. I didn’t manage to win, but hey, it’s all about the journey, right?

Zombie Dice for Brain Eating Fun

Another day, another game review. I’m taking quite an aggressive stance on the holiday this week I’m afraid, so that means that if you don’t receive a response to a work related email it is because I’m, quite literally, too busy doing nothing. Normal servicer (or what passes for it) will be resumed on Monday next week.

And so on to Zombie Dice. It is a nice, simple, dice game with you playing the role of a zombie, hungry for brains and rather less keen on shotgun blasts. The mechanic is simple enough to get your head (or at least skull) round and great fun.  For me the best bit though was looking up the product on Amazon for a link and finding that game was linked with the following special promotion:

Just what your average Zombie needs….

Braggart–a great game of boasting

Spent some time today playing Braggart. This is a splendid little card game. Each player takes the role of a hero in a bar, boasting of their great deeds and daring dos. You assemble your boasts and present them to your opponents to gain points and win the game. But they can call you a liar and change your story to one which is considerably less impressive. The artwork on the cards is great and the tales you can spin are hilarious. Great fun and well worth tracking down.

Gloom is all about Fun

Another game we spent some time playing over the holidays was Gloom. This is a card game where you make bad things happen to bad people and get points for it. You take control of a thoroughly disreputable bunch and inflict pain, torment and ultimately death on them for fun and profit. You can also make nice things happen to your opponents, should you feel that way disposed.

The winner is the one who manages to make the most unhappy bunch of corpses in the cemetery. It probably doesn’t sound very nice, but it is great fun to play. Then after this we all got together to wish each other a Happy New Year.

And a very Happy New Year to all my readers.

Complicated Games

We played another complicated game today. Great fun, although at one point my brain did begin to run out of my ears.

Anyone of you clever folks out there able to tell me what the game is?

The Most Complicated Game I’ve Ever Played

Tonight we had a go at “The Most Complicated Game I’ve Ever Played”. It’s called “High Frontier” and boy is there a lot going on. The aim of the game is to colonise space, build up your fleet, explore planets and asteroids and boldly….. Well, you know the rest.

The board is full of incredibly detailed descriptions of places to try and reach using rockets which you need to carefully provision and fuel if you are going to get anywhere. I think it would take a day to play it properly, we only really managed to scratch the surface of the gameplay. But I did manage to colonise Mars, which I’m rather pleased about. The game is packed with proper science about space exploration, and much of the gameplay is really a simulation of the things you’d need to do if you really wanted to explore space. Great fun.

King of Tokyo

Number one son doesn’t like board games with lots of dice. He reckons that they remove the skill, and doesn’t like being beaten by blind chance. I, on the other hand, love lots of dice. I like to be able to point to an unlucky throw as the reason for my failure to win, rather than any lack of skill/intelligence on my part. I reckon that chess would be vastly improved by a bunch of dice and a spinner.

Having said all that, number one son rather likes the “King of Tokyo” game, even though it has lots of dice. I like it too. Each player is a monster trying to take over Tokyo, or be the last one standing. A turn is a bit like the Yahtzee game, where you repeatedly throw a bunch of dice to get a good set, and then decide what to do with it. You have to balance attacking, healing and buying power ups as you go along.

The games are fast and furious and fortunes can wax and wane on the throw of the dice. We got through a couple of games in an hour and they were great fun. Even though I didn’t win.

Pesky Dice.