Another club night.

I took Splendor Pokémon and Tonga Bonga with me.

We split into a group of four (playing Power Grid), and a group of three (Dave, Colin, and myself).

We started off playing Splendor Pokémon on our table.

Whilst we set up a man came over asking what we were playing, and made a derogatory comment about being too old for Pokémon. And when we were asked if we played Monopoly I didn’t reply but Dave and Colin pointed out what a poor game it was. Shooting this man down. His partner came over and said their son collected Pokémon cards. The implication clear. It was obvious they thought grown men shouldn’t be playing “kids games”. I didn’t really interact with them. I thought it best not to. If they wanted to be ignorant and try and make us feel bad about playing games. They didn’t deserve my time.

A little known fact about the Splendor family of games (classic, Marvel, and now Pokémon) I’ve never won a game! If I include the two player Splendor Duel I have won a single game.

Despite having such a bad run with the game I really enjoy playing it.

Yes I no longer own the classic version. I didn’t see much point keeping it after getting the Marvel edition. I preferred what the Marvel edition added.

Splendor Pokémon is an import from Korea with no official english version of the rules. I had to rely on translated rules from the bgg website.

If you know how to play Splendor then you know a good 90% of the games rules.

You can only purchase the rare and legendary cards (which also can’t be reserved) if you have a master ball. So at some point you have to reserve a card on your turn to get the master ball to enable you to buy one of the face up or legendary cards.

You can also on your turn evolve your captured Pokémon (if the evolution is available). I like this a lot. The old card is replaced with the new evolved Pokémon. With the old card going face down under your trainer.

I like this version of Splendor and the little tweaks it added.

Dave won.

We followed up with a game of Tonga Bonga.

I do like this game. It’s very clever and deeper than you initially think.

But this time we never got to complete the game. We were in the closing round or two, when Colin had an emergency call that required him to leave immediately.

Dave and I called it an evening at this point leaving the other table playing Power Grid. The decision had been made easier with the fact I had no two player games with me.

Another fun club night despite the interaction with the “public”.