Boardgame Session (9 Sept 2018)

We visited my sister, Gill, for the weekend and naturally played a few games. Firstly we got Erin to play her copy of Pandemic, which Val and Chris kindly gave her earlier this year. This is a newer edition compared to the one I own; the tokens are plastic rather than the wood and cardboard of the earlier edition. I like the new cure markers etc. compared to the cardboard versions, but I much prefer the early wooden markers, and the lack of petri dishes is disappointing.

  

We played a standard 4-player game and won fairly easily. We cured the black and blue diseases quickly, and only suffered 3 outbreaks in the game. We secured victory on the last possible player turn, so it was still close run, and the final player card was the last infection card (flukey!). Both Erin and Gill quickly remembered the rules and were fully engaged in discussing strategy etc., so the game was a success and hopefully Erin will feel confident enough to try it with her non-gamer friends.

Next we played a number of 5-player games of Mind the Gap; a fast, simple card game based on the London tube system. There is not much thought required and the luck of the cards dominates, but if you are familiar with the London tube then the theme works very well. As we all travel in London a lot, the game worked very well with this group of players.

We then introduced Gill and Erin to the joys of NMBR9. The mechanism is so simple, but the spacial awareness skills required make this an enjoyable (and frustrating) puzzle game. Elaine normally beats me regularly, but this weekend I was on a roll and won every game!

  

Finally, I received my belated Birthday prezzies! Gill et al. Got me Dark Alleys, the expansion for one of my favourite games; Dungeon Petz. I look forward to trying this out, and I’m especially pleased to have more cute monsters to include in the game. Elaine got me Ambition, the first expansion for Roll for the Galaxy. I think the new starting tiles will be assimilated into the base game, as will the black and orange dice. I’m not so sure about the in-game objectives and reward tokens, but we will see.