The Mine Shaft Gap

Venue: Jeff’s place.
Present: Jeff, Alex, Pat, Brian, Richard, Paul.
Played: Contraband, Micro Mutants, Kingdom Builder, Trendy, Poseidon, Ad Astra, Kingdom Builder (again).

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Contraband: Another from my antique collection. In this 1950s bluffing game, the theme is sneaking declared/undeclared goods past the customs officer (each player has a turn at this to even things out), and telling them what you’re carrying and therefore how much duty you will pay them. If they think you’re trying to sneak through more valuable goods, they can look at your cards. If they catch you out, you pay them more money in fines. If you were truthful, they pay you a bonus for slurring your good character.
There is certainly a luck factor, and it would never be in the running for Spiel des Jahres, but actually worked quite nicely (for fun value) given the vintage.
13 mins rules and setup (incl. money counting!); 38 mins game time.
Results: Jeff: 1955. Paul: 1935. Alex: 1890. Brian: 1400. Pat: 1265. Richard: 1135.

Micro Mutants: Was this one of Richard’s new games? Critters attacking each other tiddly-winks style, I think.
12 mins rules and setup; 38 mins game time.
Results: Richard (green): 6. Alex (yellow): 0 (but 2nd). Pat (blue): 0.

Kingdom Builder: Ya - nice game! 6 mins rules review and setup; 30 mins game time.
Results: Paul (black): 53. Brian (timber): 49. Jeff (blue): 40.

Trendy: 6 mins filler time.
Brian: 51. Paul: 46. Jeff: 37.

Poseidon: Nice big game of investing and building trade routes, apparently using the 18xx railway expansion system but themed on ancient Mediterranean triremes.
It wasn’t until about the last turn that I grasped a key concept in trashing one shipping nation to benefit another, and by then it was too late because Pat had finessed it nicely. Jeff’s strategy had me bewildered, but he obviously knew way more about what he was doing than I did!
Will certainly require another play before I forget everything about this…
39 mins rules and setup; 173 mins game time.
Results: Pat: 6328. Jeff: 5730. Paul: 4421.

Ad Astra: Space exploration on the other table to Poseidon.
26 mins rules and setup. Game time not recorded, but way less than our 3 hrs!
Results: Richard (red): 57. Alex (blue): 55. Brian (brown): 50.

Kingdom Builder: For the Ad Astrans, while the Poseidon adventure continued.
Results: Alex (black): 48. Brian (timber): 44. Richard (orange): 41.

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Venue: Richard’s place.
Present: Andrew, Brian, Jeff, Alex, Pat, Richard, Paul.
Played: Kingdom Builder, Rune Age, Middle Earth Quest, Factory Fun, Robber Knights, The Crime Club, Ave Caesar.

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Kingdom Builder: 2nd playing for me; not so much success on the score chart this time.
21 mins.
Results: Pat (blue): 55. Alex (orange): 53. Jeff (black): 47. Paul (timber): 35.

Rune Age: Funky cards. Dragon kill scenario.
55 mins incl rules and setup.
Results: Brian: Winner (vengeance for 13 damage from Richard). Richard: First dead: Killed by Andrew. Andrew: Killed by event dragon.

Middle Earth Quest: A big game of the Tolkien period between The Hobbit and LotR. Plays quite nicely and immersively.
40 mins rules and setup; 90 mins game time.
Pat: Eleanor. Jeff: Argalad. Paul: Eometh. Alex: Sauron
Game called before completion because 5 of our 6 quests were completed and we were advancing faster than Sauron - hence the good guys’ victory agreed inevitable, even if we were to suffer some bad losses before time…

Factory Fun:
35 mins incl rules and setup. Played the “classic boards” rules version.
Results: Richard: 70. Brian: 24. Andrew: 21.

Robber Knights:
40 mins incl rules and setup.
Results (with labels added by Richard): Richard: 31 - the marathoner. Andrew: 30 - the sprinter. Brian: 26 - the nice guy.

The Crime Club: Last week we played I Commit from my vintage Pepys collection. This week this trick-taking (or rather, trick-losing) game with a very similar theme.
In this game, the cards have suits like any other trick-taking game, but instead of numbers, they contain a sequence of events that tells a story about a crime being committed, or one being solved. In play, try to avoid winning tricks that contain any of the “criminal” suits (that’s three of the six), because these count against you. Before playing out the cards, there is first a round of deck building to set up your hand for play.
I thought this game actually worked ok, despite losing horribly - thanks to disastrous hand-building choices in the first round.
10 mins rules and setup; 25 mins game time. Game over after a round in which a player busts over 50 points.
Results (lower is better): Alex: 6. Jeff: 10. Pat: 40. Richard: 50. Paul: 52.

Ave Caesar: We played two games of this tonight. The first included our standard whipping rule, with counter-whipping and cumulative speed repeats (this is when you play a duplicate of the last card you played and get to move +1 space, and if your 3rd and later cards are also identical, you get +1 +1, etc.). Also the Ben Hur running rule - if you run out of cards before the end, you can “run” on foot, horseless to the finish line at a speed of one space per turn. BUT, you can get mown down and killed by any other player still in their chariot!
5 mins rules and setup; 25 mins game time.
Results: Pat (blue): wins. Paul (grey): 2nd. Alex (yellow): 3rd. Richard (red): 4th. Jeff (green): 5th.

2nd Game: We played a flat +1 speed for repeats (no accumulating), as well as Richard’s rule that if you can’t go, you can choose to put a card on the bottom of your deck and draw another. Also Alex’s rule, that if you get lapped, you die (executed by Caesar, I think).
20 mins game time, and less forgiving.
Results: Jeff (green): Wins! Richard (red): Successfully runs in 2nd last. Pat (blue): Successfully runs in last. Paul (grey): Crashes out first (with 3 x 6s)! Alex (yellow): Crashes out 2nd.

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Venue: Jeff’s place.
Present: Jeff, Alex, Pat, Paul.
Played: I Commit, Doom (x2).

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I Commit: This is from my collection of vintage card and board games. This one was first published in 1948. I have two copies, actually - the two are different editions and the sets have identical card artwork except for one card (Police Constable).
But anyway, this game is a simple rummy/melding game, in which you have to lay down a set of three cards for a crime (criminal + motive + opportunity), or a set of three to solve a crime (police + clues).
Nothing special, but charming from a historical point of view.
4 hands played only. 10 mins rules and setup; 50 mins game time.
Results: Jeff: 527 (yep). Paul: 83. Pat: 81. Alex: 29.

Doom: Utter change of pace with this Team-vs-Doom-Master bug hunt, based on the PC game from days of yore (I think I played the original on x386…).
We played twice. First game: Jeff vs. human team of Alex+Pat+Paul. Scenario 2: “The Shores of Hell”.
It was horrible. We were well slaughtered before we could get anywhere near our goal.
18 mins rules and setup; 142 mins game time.
Although we were all inexperienced with the game (first time only for me), it seemed to us that the monster side was just too damn powerful. So we played again, this time scenario 1, thinking that now with a little more experience under our belts we might have more success with what should be an easier scenario.
100 mins later for game two, and the answer was still no - massacred again. It had me questioning whether we were playing by the right rules, because the monster powers (and sheer weight of numbers) just seemed impossible to beat!
For the record, here are the bug hunt counts for that second game (Scenario 1):
Alex: 5 zombies, 2 demons. Pat: 4 zombies, 3 imps, 2 spiders. Paul: 3 zombies, 4 imps, 1 demon.

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Venue: Paul’s place.
Present: Steve, Matt, Pete, Brian, Richard, Jeff, Alex, Pat, Paul.
Played: Dungeon Raiders, Ankh-Morpork, Cartagena II, Troyes, The Hobbit, N-Tropy, Yspahan, Panic Station.

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Dungeon Raiders: Not much intelligence on this one.
About 30 mins. Pat won with 13 gold, against Alex, Matt, Pete and Jeff.

Ankh-Morpork: A city of characters from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Players play various character and other cards from their hands to occupy city blocks and place buildings for cumulative victory points or other, secret victory conditions. Straightforward to play and aesthetically pleasing, but as a warning, don’t get “emotionally attached” to your occupied spaces and buildings, because fate can be cruel and its consequences swift…
Cool game. 18 mins rules and setup; 62 mins game time.
Results: Paul (green): Wins with the secret victory condition as Dragon King of Arms, by witnessing 8 trouble markers on the board. Steve (blue), Brian (red) and Richard (yellow) all various Lords, but none succeeded in getting 4 areas controlled.

Cartagena II: Same players as Dungeon Raiders above. Alex won.

Troyes: New-ish Euro game brought in by Jeff, reminiscent (to me, at least) a little bit of Caylus - maybe only by theme, but I can’t help thinking this was partly inspired by that.
Latter half of game, and especially the last turn, gets real tense as there is much “stealing” (actually, buying) of opponents’ dice rolls for use in collecting game objectives. This is offset only somewhat by the gain of money, provided this is one of the secret victory conditions.
Important: Each of the hidden victory conditions applies to all players! An easy oversight to make in the rules, but it could have a profound impact on the results. Also: better to play this more than once, and for all players to have a good awareness of what all the possible ’secret’ victory conditions actually are. Coincidentally, this also applies to Ankh Morpork above, although in that case they are visible on your player aid card.
37 mins rules and setup; 132 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (green): 53. Paul (white): 52. Brian (orange): 32. Pete (blue): 27.

The Hobbit: An adventure to make you late for your dinner.
Results: Pat: 37. Mat: 33. Steve: 20-something. Richard: 20-something too, but lower. Alex: 16.

N-Tropy: Stacking sticks.
Results: Richard won. Pat lost, twice, apparently. Steve and Alex: Present.

Yspahan: Tasty, camelly goodness.
Results: Pat: 96. Alex: 92. Richard: 80-something. Steve: less.

Panic Station: Paranoid space folks to end the night with.
78 mins, incl. rules and setup.
Results: Pat (blue), Paul (white), Jeff (green), Steve (red): The true and pure humans win. Pat ignites the hive. Alex (orange): Infected loser. Ha ha.

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Venue: Richard’s place.
Present: Andrew, Brian, Tommy, Neil F., Richard, Jeff, Alex, Pat, Paul.
Played: Panic Station, Steam Barons, The Resistance, Kingdom Builder, Rune Age, Arcana, Brawl.

Picture gallery below.

Panic Station: This is the game that triggered a dream about moon zombies and fluorescent green syringes of moon-zombie-antidote that night.
11 mins rules and setup; 56 mins game time.
Results: Jeff (green): Initial infected. Paul (red): 2nd infected. Alex (yellow), Pat (blue), Neil F. (purple): All uninfected. Pat successfully ignites the hive, and the normal humans win (sadly).

Steam Barons: About 80 mins incl rules and setup.
Results: Richard and Brian: Both on 104. Andrew: 69.

The Resistance: Two fought and fraught games tonight.
Game 1: 8 mins rules and setup; 31 mins game time.
Jeff and Tommy: Successful spies against the paranoid Alex, Pat, Neil F. and Paul.
Game 2: 25 mins game time.
Neil and Pat successful spies against Jeff, Tommy, Alex and Paul.

Kingdom Builder: Nice area placement on a map of lands for variable victory point conditions.
13 mins rules and setup; 28 mins game time.
Results: Paul (timber): 41. Pat (blue): 38. Brian (orange): 31. Jeff (black): 19.

Rune Age: Richard: Won. Neil, Tommy and Alex: All died.

Arcana: From the same mythical universe as Cadwallon (played last week), in this you play cards to win cards and improve your deck of points. Works nicely.
17 mins rules and setup; 55 mins game time.
Results: Jeff: Guild of Usures: 43. Pat: Guild of Ferrymen: 36. Paul: Guild of Blades: 31.

Brawl: The old real-time card game:
1st game: Tied between Alex and Richard, over Tommy.
2nd game: Alex won against Tommy and Richard.

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