After the failed attempt to play The Thing the boardgame with Nathan during my recent visit. I was wondering when or even if I’d get it to the table.
But after creating an event on the Fenland Gamers discord server, and limiting the player count (because it would be a learning game) I had a date and time set to get it to the table.
Last night saw that plan to get The Thing the boardgame to the table come to fruition.
Luckily our player count for the game (four) was enough to learn the main game rules. For player counts less than four The Thing becomes a co-op boardgame.
Like Scythe and any other game I’ve organised a session for I’m there early to get things set up. We were using the neoprene playmat for the game, plus the plastic character and alien minis. No cardboard standees in this game.
Setup seems fiddly. But it’s not really. It’s just parts of it are dependent on knowing the player count. I initially setup for a four player count. Although it was potentially possible that we’d have six! It stayed at four.
Once everyone had arrived and selected the character they wanted we started playing.
Characters played
I was the starting leader.
After drawing an infection token to see what our secret role was. We got down to the task of surviving long enough to escape the alien. Or in my case remain undetected long enough to infect the others. Oh yes I was the alien.
There was a definite Battlestar Galactica/Dead of Winter vibe to The Thing! Which isn’t a surprise considering they are all hidden traitor games. The Thing is closer to BSG than DoW. DoW has a story element that the other two don’t.
Once you have had a couple of rounds the turn sequence becomes familiar. They aren’t actually overly complicated turns. We actually skipped the third turn the whole game because no alien was revealed until the very end.
Although we did have fun. I think the game like the other two needs the higher player counts.
In our game no testing of players took place because we didn’t get to the laboratory more than once, nor did we have both parts required to perform a flame test.
We spent our time trying to keep the boiler and generator repaired, finding keys and getting the odd weapon. Initially I did try repairing the radio, and take food from the pantry. But between the four of us we really didn’t have enough actions to do everything except try and keep on top of things and maybe escape via one of the bases broken vehicles.
With the higher player count more actions could be done around the base.
In the end it turned out everyone had been infected as an alien. Which under the rules meant the last human infected lost the game, and the aliens win! Although the aliens won twice as they were on the escape vehicle too! Which is when we discovered everyone was infected. Then it became a question of who was the last person to be infected.
We did enjoy The Thing enough that we want to play it again. Especially with a higher player count. A Saturday session for sure.
To celebrate that fact I organised a Saturday gaming session with some of my favourite people to game with, members of Fenland Gamers. Some of the finest people on this planet of ours. Although one or two of them have dubious opinions on roll and writes, and A Game of Thrones. Heck a couple are so deluded they think Barenpark is a game! But they are salt of the Earth folks that will exploit any weakness to get that all important victory.
We split into two groups of three to play games.
I taught and played Dune Imperium (plus Rise of Ix expansion) with Anthony and Shane.
You can see who played which character below.
Characters played in Dune Imperium
The scores below say it all really. With two rounds to spare Anthony claimed his inevitable victory. Which the seeds for were sown a turn earlier.
Until this point we were all roughly around the same point total. No one pulling away from the pack. It was looking like it would be a ten round game with no one getting ten points.
Then a level three combat card came out that gave the winner a victory point. Then the winner had the option to buy two more victory points using spice and solari.
Anthony won that combat and bought an extra victory point with solari. Which he also followed up by gaining a third victory point using an intrigue card. That was some power play!
The following round the prize for winning the combat was two more victory points. Which Shane and myself could do nothing to prevent Anthony from also winning.
Wow what an incredible play.
Dune Imperium Final Scores
Afterwards Shane, Anthony and Colin had to leave for other commitments. Leaving Jonathan, Julie and myself to play a new game Jonathan had just got, Long Shot the Dice Game.
Yes you read that right. Jonathan bought a roll and write. Well two actually. Whilst we were finishing off Dune Imperium. Jonathan and co were playing a London Underground themed one that he had bought at the same time as Long Shot.
Scenes from the birthday gaming
Long Shot is an enjoyable roll and write. It’s not the heaviest. I’d say it’s almost an entry level roll and write. The theme and lightness make it a great introduction to the genre. In fact I prefer this to Camel Cup (not a roll and write). Which has a similar theme.
Final score for Long Shot: The Dice Game
I had a great afternoon gaming, and a big thank you to those that made it so.
Yesterday started off in a more somber, reflective mood as I said good bye to a friend of the family. Jean was more than that. Growing up she was a second mum really. Certainly her youngest daughter and my oldest friend Ginette was like a sister. With my brother we were always getting into trouble together. Mainly (and Ginette remembers it this way too) caused by my brother. It’s a miracle we never ended up with any broken bones. I certainly learnt a lot more about Jean and what an amazing and interesting life she had before we were born. Plus I finally found out how old Ginette’s older sister Kay was. I knew she was older. Heck she used to babysit us. But not that much older. It’s older than I thought.
OMG!
Wow!
Last nights Friday evening gaming blew away our previous record attendance of 12 with the amazing number of 16 people turning up to play games.
It’s just simply astonishing.
It’s amazing to see so many people turn up to play board games.
There is one drawback of this new found success. I hardly get to game with Jonathan.
Whilst Jonathan was doing a teaching game of Railways of the World (Mexico map I believe). I was introducing three newish members to the world of Roll and Writes. and Flip and Writes.
Our first game was new to me and a learning game of Cartographers. Which falls into the flip and write genre.
I really liked playing this game (and yes Gavin these are games, unlike that jigsaw puzzle Barenpark).
The ambush card is genius. Each season (rounds really) you shuffle one ambush card into the explore deck. So if you don’t draw an ambush card in a season it’s possible to have multiple ambush cards in the explore deck and naturally at that point draw multiple ambush cards in a season.
When you draw an ambush card you pass your sheet to the player next to you (direction indicated on the card). This is where you get to throw a spanner in the works for the other player. But they also get to do the same to you. If the drawn ambush creature is not surrounded then each empty space is a negative point at the end of the round. So obviously you are going to try and draw the ambush creature shape in the most inconvenient place on their map.
Relic cards forcing you to draw the next shape drawn over a relic space on your map can be annoying.
I do like the changing end of season scoring, and that it’s a combo of two of the four cards, not all of them. The fact these are drawn randomly at the start adds a nice bit of variability and replay ability.
Ok I like this so much I will be getting the expansions for it. Which are map packs, more ambush cards, skills card and whatever the Heroes expansion adds.
Cartographers Final Scores
My second and final game of the evening was teaching the amazing combotastic roll and write Three Sisters.
Compared to Cartographers and many others Three Sisters can be considered on the heavier side of things. Especially when things start comboing off. But it’s still such a fun game.
Three Sisters Final Scores
The preference from the new to this genre was they preferred Cartographers. But they really enjoyed them both. But plans were loosely put in place to play/try the even heavier Rome and Roll.
I think everyone had a fun evening game. I left with a game of Lords of Waterdeep on the go, and Liars Dice/Perudo starting up.
Last night was another really well attended club night. Despite that thing that shall not be named hitting a couple of members and thus couldn’t attend. We even saw a couple of new members attend for the first time.
This will be a brief post as not much to say about the evening game wise. I played three games I’d played before. Enjoy the brevity. But don’t get used to it.
After splitting into three gaming tables, my first game of the evening was the amazing Libertalia Winds of Galecrest.
In our game of Libertalia there was a differing interruption of the hook ability on the calm side of the board. I’m surprised it hadn’t come up before in previous plays, and for the life of me couldn’t remember how we played it.
I wasn’t able to Google an answer at the table. However this morning I did find one on the Libertalia Facebook page. Shane you were right and I was wrong. It doesn’t return to hand. There that wasn’t easy to admit, but I can admit when I am wrong.
I still haven’t played this game at the higher player counts. Which is something I do want to do. I feel that reputation track position becomes even more important for making sure you get loot.
Libertalia Final Score
Our second game was the ever classic, and still my favourite version of Love Letter, Love Letter Batman.
Love Letter Batman Final Scores
My final game of the evening was the totally mean, but such such fun Survive Escape from Atlantis.
We even remembered the giant squids this time too! They were fun having out on the board, and look totally awesome.
Somehow I managed to get my three highest valued meeples to safety. I had no idea what meeple I had where during setup as I didn’t look at their values! The six I did get to safety could just as easily have been all the low values. This was a pure luck victory.
Survive Escape from Atlantis Final Scores
Let’s see what that “young” Jonathan took photos off last night.
Yesterday morning I tweeted how I was looking forward to playing my favourite game of all time (do I really have to say it? You all know what it is by now. Oh ok) Scythe, that evening. That’d I’d also be teaching it to two new players.
Indeed that was the plan made on Saturday at the end of D&D so that Mark and Lizzy could learn the game before joining the Rise of Fenris campaign this coming Saturday.
Reality, life, call it what you want had other ideas.
I arrived early to get Scythe setup. As usual I wanted to maximise play time for everyone by having it so that once everyone had arrived we could dive straight in.
There were no tables so I set up the ones I needed, plus the one I thought Jonathan and his Railways of the World players would need.
Brief aside before carrying on with the retelling of the events of last night.
As the photo below shows I now have the realistic tokens for Scythe. I know that’s a major shock. After all I have been vocal in my preference for the wooden tokens that come with the game. However these were the final upgrade I needed to make my copy of Scythe the equivalent of the Kickstarter Art Connoisseur Collector’s Edition.
What surprised me last night was how they grew on me last night as I was setting up, and taking the photos (below). I actually quite like them!
I just need to save up and get the metal mechs (I need four sets, which ain’t cheap) to have everything you can officially buy for it.
Right back to my ramblings.
Scythe Realistic Tokens
As I was setting up Scythe Jonathan arrived and not long after so did Shane.
With Scythe setup we just needed Mark and Lizzy to arrive.
However Shane asked if I had heard from them. Which I hadn’t. Apparently Lizzy was ill and wouldn’t be coming.
Bugger.
I asked Jonathan if he wanted another two players for Railways of the World.
After Jonathan started setting up for a five player game, and I had packed away Scythe, it transpired Mark was on his way.
“John got room for one more?”
While we waited for Mark to arrive there was banter and a brief discussion between Jeff and Jonathan about how best to setup the game so it didn’t go on all night.
Some cubes were removed from the board.
Once Mark arrived Jonathan explained the rules. For three of us this was our first time playing the game. Luckily there was no “it’s just like Agricola” moment.
I have to say despite nearly coming last, I really liked Railways of the World.
With three copies in the club now (Gav just bought a copy) I don’t feel a need to get my own. But if I want to play a railway themed game this is the one I’d play. It’s so much more fun than Ticket to Ride.
Railways of the World
I like the bidding for first player at the start of each turn.
Another thing I like a lot is the almost sandbox like approach it has to building tracks. You can literally build a track anywhere on the board. Ok it might cost you a fortune to do so depending on the terrain crossing.
The having to upgrade your trains to be able to move goods further along the built tracks is cool.
But there is the whole making connections and delivery engine you are building to push you up the income track, whilst trying to get as few bonds as possible. Obviously the two most experienced players had this off to a tee. Eventually I managed to break even and then make a small profit. But this whole core to the game is so much fun and can be very cut throat.
As the results show the three more experienced players finished top three, with Shane almost breaking into third place.
Final Scores
Still a great evening of gaming with great gamers!
Here they are Jonathan’s photos of the evening to end the post with.
Last night was the fortnightly Fenland Gamers club night, and what was to turn out to be a record breaking one.
Since the reintroduction of in person gatherings last year our club numbers have grown to what I thought was the lofty heights of between 8 and 10 regulars on a club night.
But we went into the stratosphere last night with 14 turning up!
Jonathan had already prearranged a game of Railways of the World. So as they got setup to play it, the rest of us decided what we were going to play. We had one table playing Dinosaur Island. Whilst on my table we played Libertalia.
Out of four plays now this is only my second win.
For this game we used the stormy side of the board with its “meaner” loot abilities.
There were certainly days on the voyages where I had no loot tokens or even a crew on my ship.
My opening hand at the start of each voyage.
At the start of the last voyage I was on 33 points, Jeff was on 28, and Ben was leading on 36. It was anybodies game to win really.
But when your opponents both take out each other’s Wind Nymph leaving it open for you to have yours out and collecting coins, you have to chuckle.
The game is fastly becoming a favourite. It’s quick to teach. Plus it’s a relatively quick game.
As the scores show I did narrowly win this game.
Libertalia Scores
Next we played a new game to me from Oink Games called Scout. Which is a trick taking game.
After a very confusing rules explanation things became clearer once we started playing.
It’s actually a nice little game. So nice I’ve added it to my wish list.
On the last round I should have let the game end when I had a chance. But I took one for the team and it cost me dearly. I wouldn’t have won. But the others would have had much much lower scores.
Last night saw the return of my favourite boardgame of all time to the table.
As usual the bgstat app reminded me when I had last played Scythe. Which was just over two years ago, in December 2019. Obviously not much gaming took place in that intervening time.
But damn it was a bloody good idea of Diego’s to play Scythe over Tapestry (although I do love playing it).
To maximise play time I arrived early (which is an achievement in itself these days with the bridge works at Sutton Bridge) and set up everything before hand. The only thing I did as soon as some-one turned up was the shuffling of cards etc. Just so it was above board, and accusations of rigging decks etc could not be made.
This game of Scythe was basically all in on the expansion front (excluding Rise of Fenris). We did not use the Resolution tile module in this game. I thought that would be a step too far for our new players.
The two airship tiles for the game were:
Airship tiles for our game
Our structure bonus tile for the game was 3 – Number of encounters adjacent to your structures. Only count each encounter once. These count whether or not the encounter tokens are still there. Rivers do not break adjacency.
Using the selection method described in the modular board rules, I dealt out player mats randomly to each of us. The highest numbered player mat (me it turned out) then got to choose a faction. Obviously avoiding the “banned” board combos.
This is how the faction choices ended up.
Crimean Khanate/Engineering – Colin
Nordic Kingdoms/Industrial – Marcin
Clan Albion/Militant – Diego
Rusviet Union/Patriotic – Me
Given a choice I was only ever going to choose Rusviet Union (despite what is going on in the real world at the moment, is that wrong of me?). I really love this faction ability. In fact who wouldn’t love being able to repeat the same action again?
I stumbled upon this bit of analysis from 2017 of the synergy between player mats and faction boards. Obviously this doesn’t take into account anything in the Rise of Fenris expansion.
It turns out my board combo was pretty neutral, as was Diego’s combo. However there was a really poor synergy for Colin. Which I now feel bad about. After all this was a first game for him. It was also a first game for Marcin I believe, but he had a very good synergy between player mat and faction mat.
Diego didn’t like his starting map position much. He was the only one without easy access to a tunnel. Which didn’t work well with the mech river walk ability. Before play started we did offer him the chance to switch factions. But it was declined.
After a brief explanation of play to Colin, Marcin had watched the Watched It Played video before hand, and leaving combat out until later, play began.
Mind you considering the amount of time that had passed since our last game, Diego and myself were a little rusty on the rules also. So some rules clarifications were made through out the game.
My first turns I dashed to the nearest encounter tile to make use of the negotiate ability. I’m glad I did because I got to use another players faction ability for the rest of the game, all for the princely sum of $5. After some pondering I chose the Crimean COERCION: Once per turn, you may spend 1 combat card as if it were any 1 resource token. That would become a crucial piece to enabling me to trigger the end of the game and winning later on.
On my way to the Factory I grabbed a second encounter. It gave me a nice boost. But the factory card I grabbed allowed me to spend two different resources to get either a mech or building. I was soon building mechs and buildings. Although I only built two buildings to capitalise on the bonus tile.
Marcin was the first to complete an objective and thus was the first to put a star out on the objective track. Not many turns later joined by Diego.
I didn’t initiate my first two combats, that was Colin and Diego being aggressive towards me. I could have won them. But I deliberately lost them to burn up their combat cards and bolster points. Which meant when I hit back I could do so using the minimum of cards and bolster points, as I certainly didn’t have enough of either to win two combats otherwise. It wasn’t until the later stages of the game that Marcin decided to be aggressive.
One thing I didn’t expect to get away with near the end was planting a mech with three farmers on the Factory to take control of it. Naturally the farmers were there to act as a deterrent to being attacked, because any victor would get hit heavily on their popularity. But unchallenged I was.
Mid game I did get an encounter card that allowed me to use another players faction ability for a turn. I already had Colin’s for the game. But I did use Marcin’s faction SWIM:Your workers may move across rivers, to move a couple of workers into Colin’s quarter of the board. It was a territory grab basically.
A late surge of complete objectives by Marcin meant it would be close for who triggered the end of the game. However Colin’s faction ability meant I only needed one trade action to allow me get both my final two enlist recruits out. Plus a second trade action to give me the resources to get my final mech out using my factory card. Which triggered the end of the game.
Now I knew that triggering the end of the game did not mean I had won. However we were all in the same zone on the popularity track, so no points advantage there for anyone. It would all be down to who had the most of each scoring item. With no resources left I knew I’d have zero points on that one. But all six stars out, control of the factory (worth three tiles), plus the structures bonus. I might have edged a victory.
Once the dust settled, and coins counted. I had indeed won. My third victory in thirteen plays!
Final Scores
A big thank you to Diego for suggesting getting this back to the table. Plus to Colin and Marcin. I had a blast playing this with you all.
I have to say I love the Scythe Complete Rulebook. So glad I finally got the ring bound version.
Scythe the Complete Rulebook
It just makes life at the table so much easier not having to search through several rulebooks to find that one rule. I also appreciate through out the spoiler warnings for the Rise of Fenris expansion. I haven’t played it yet (my copy is still in shrink!). I want my experience of the campaign to be as fresh, exciting, surprising, and amazed as it is for whoever else is playing it with me.
Oh the post title? A line from The Times They Are A-Changin’ by Bob Dylan. I thought considering one of the first things on the normal board you are trying to do is get across that river penning you in, it seemed appropriate.
Last night was one of the “every other Friday” nights for Fenland Gamers.
It was looking to be a very well attended evening. If the advanced maths were correct it was looking like twelve would be attending.
However reality, life and whatever else you can think of reduced that number down to six.
Although as the evening got underway we were not to know that. We thought it would be down to eight.
With Gavin drooling over the resin bloodbowl figures Colin had printed for him. Diego, Chris, Nino and myself started playing Libertalia.
For this game we used the stormy side of the game board.
I’d like to say I did a good job of explaining the rules but at best it was adequate. And that would be very generous describing it as so.
During the first voyage there were too many misplays that were my fault. An example of a major one being triggering the anchor abilities at the end of each day instead of at the end of the voyage. I don’t know why that was in my head that they did trigger them. But it was for whatever reason.
I won because of the tie break condition. But in reality it was a tainted win. The victory really should have been Diego’s by a country mile. He has the moral victory!
Libertalia Scores
The next game we played was a six player game of Survive Escape from Atlantis.
Which meant reading very quickly the expansion rules.
I did a really shit job explaining the basic rules. No other way to describe it.
We forgot to put the squid out when a whale was added to the board. Not a big misplay. Just meant we never used the squid mini expansion.
I did get frustrated with a couple of the others during the game who insisted on reading what the red bordered tile did that they had just drawn, instead of rolling the dive dice and finishing their turn. And then reading the tile description. I didn’t hide that very well at all.
Despite the above everyone seemed to enjoy playing it.
Survive Escape from Atlantis Scores
I have to say I didn’t get much enjoyment out of last nights gaming session. Afterwards I felt down about it. Even this morning as I type this post I don’t feel any more positive about it.
It’s a combination of things about the evening I think.
The misplays during Libertalia upset me a little thinking about them.
Moving the wrong coloured counters, not seeing a word when reading card text. It’s easy to dismiss them at the time as mistakes. Let alone the anchor error.
I’m pretty sure others think I’m trying to pull a fast one during the game. But I’m not they are genuine errors made by whatever brain fart causes them to happen.
I’d like to say it’s just old age. But I’ve been doing that sort of thing all my life.
Last night there were too many happening early on in the game.
The poor attendance also got to me. Particularly the two that just didn’t say anything. Although one apparently did post rather late it turns out that they’d not be attending. That message wasn’t picked up until I got home.
It meant Gavin and Colin were kinda left out when we could have included them in the game of Libertalia, split into two groups, or played a different six player game.
Then there was the guilt trip I felt after Diego pointed out in a conversation with Gavin that we didn’t play any of the games he, Gavin and Colin had bought along. We just played my two games.
I know if everyone had turned up we would have had multiple games going on and they would have got games to the table.
But still there is no excuse for me “forcing” my games on them. I need to change and be more thoughtful of others and not so selfish.
I wasn’t on my A game last night. And it was bloody obvious to all and sundry.
At the moment I might step back from the fortnightly gaming, and have a little break from it. I’ll still organise adhoc sessions to play some of my bigger games. That’s if I can find others prepared to game with me.
As I said not feeling very positive about last night. That all might change between now and the next one.
But still all I can say about last night is the title of this blog post.
Last night was an adhoc gaming session to play Fields of Green that I had organised earlier in the week.
I like our new hosts, especially on the Friday evenings. I have tea with Mum before hand then have dessert (usually sticky toffee pudding with custard) at our hosts before the others turn up. Although others do also turn up and have food before hand as well.
Over at Sutton Bridge they have started three months of works (what exactly they are doing I have no idea) on the bridge, reducing it to a single lane.
The reason I’m mentioning this is despite being miles from Wisbech and Wisbech St Mary it did have a big impact on our gaming session!
Basically it meant lots more traffic going through Wisbech, so long queues. Plus the obvious long queues at the bridge itself, and rat runs. This meant that one or two attending were delayed by being caught up in this traffic chaos.
Three months of this.
Whilst waiting for those fighting their way through the traffic chaos Jonathan and I set up our respective games ready to start upon arrival.
In the meantime with Julie there as well we played a couple of games of Batman Love Letter.
I don’t know what weird alternative universe we went to. But Jonathan won both games. The first without Julie and myself taking a point. Jonathan never does this well at Love Letter.
Once Jeff and Mandy arrived, and had eaten. Julie, Jeff, Mandy and myself played a four player game of Fields of Green. Whilst Jonathan and Colin played a two player game of Railways of the World using the Mexico map.
Playing Fields of Green at the full player count meant we were drafting cards the regular way of choosing a card, and passing the remaining cards to our left or right depending on the round direction. I like this mechanic. It’s used well here. It has that 7 Wonders feel, but with farming!
It was close whether the table we were using was going to be big enough. It barely was. This game takes up lots of space.
One change I made from the rules was instead of a pile of equipment tiles on the table to draw from I used a spare Spirits of the Forest tile bag I had instead. I think this works better. Especially with limited table space.
We also for this game used the rulebooks suggestions on which piles and number of cards to draw each round. A nice touch for players new to the game. Although I had played once before, the other three hadn’t. So it made sense to do this.
As you can see I narrowly didn’t come last. Jeff and Mandy drew on points. So it was to the tie breakers to see if we could determine a winner. The first tie breaker was most locations in their farm. Which Mandy had. So was declared the victor. That’s back to back victories in the two games I’ve played with Mandy now.
Fields of Green final scores
Finally, one of these posts wouldn’t be one of these posts without the photographic talents of Jonathan closing it off. Here’s Johnny…
About two weeks ago Jonathan sought players to play Search for Planet X.
I was one of those that were interested in trying the game.
With enough people interested in playing a four player game a date and time was set, tutorials and apps linked to.
Last night was the agreed day for playing the game.
Jonathan and I met up about an hour earlier than the planned time to play the two player game Mr Jack.
I’d never played Mr Jack before.
We played the game twice. In the first game I was the detectives trying to identify and capture Mr Jack played by Jonathan. Then in the second game the roles were reversed and Jonathan was trying to capture my Mr Jack.
Mr Jack
I really liked this two player deduction game. And not just because I won both games.
Our first game was longer than the second. But I did manage to capture Mr Jack. Whilst I won the second game with a great bit of misdirection and had Jonathan arresting the wrong character.
I do like how which character is Mr Jack is selected randomly at the start of each game by drawing a character tile.
I like the way actions/characters are chosen each round, and how it flips each round. So the detectives may choose first at the start of a round, then Mr Jack chooses twice, leaving the detectives one tile to play. Then it gets reversed next round. This is so tactical, especially if you need a particular character and you don’t get a chance to chose it before the other player. This happened twice in our second game. Jonathan kept choosing the character I needed to get an even earlier win!
I like how the number of lamp posts gets reduced during the early rounds. It makes the deduction harder. As apart from the Sherlock character and Watson they are the only way to eliminate suspects.
Yeah a nice game. Could easily see it added to the collection. It’s gone on the wish list.
After a small delay to the agreed time for playing the Search for Planet X we started playing.
Another game I really liked.
Now we know where I stand on games that are only playable with an app. I’ve rant lots about it in the past. I’ll happily play them but I won’t own them! Unless there is a way to play without the app.
Search for Planet X currently doesn’t play without an app. It works really well with the app. The app is put to great use providing clues.
Search for Planet X
This is a logic game pure and simple. Using clues given to you in the app based on the type of action you performed you deduce which sector Planet X is. You can see the starting clues I had in the photo above.
During our game I knew the planet could be in one of two sectors. After Jonathan revealed where the dwarf planet was in a peer review I knew exactly where it was. I just wasn’t sure what was on one side of it.
For me this game was a game of misplays! Well two to be precise. The first was playing the correct tile in the wrong sector. I misread my sheet. That cost me 4 points.
The second was forgetting I had to say what was either side of the sector with Planet X in. Which meant I was guessing one sector. That got compounded by forgetting there were only two empty sectors, and I’d already identified them! So there couldn’t have been a third.
That gave Jonathan a window to guess himself. Well he was kinda forced to. He knew I’d guess it my next turn. Luck was on his side. He guessed right.
Despite having worked out where Planet X was FIRST I came last. My mistakes were my undoing.
Final scores for Search for Planet X
With the games played last night another two new to me games were added to the challenge.
I’m beginning to think I might have set the target for this challenge too low!
Current progress on the new to me challenge
It’s insane or so I thought to have already played 13 new to me games in two months. I might have to revisit this and set a new larger target number.
Previous years new to me games played
If my fading memory hasn’t let me down I think I might have just looked at the last two years numbers before deciding on the target for this challenge.
Maybe I should have looked further back. But I think my thought process at the time was “who knows what this year will be like? The pandemic is still on-going.” So I decided to look at just the numbers for during the previous two year of the pandemic as my guideline.
Raw numbers
I certainly think at the current rate of play the numbers I achieved in 2018/2019 are certainly achievable.
And here we are at the end of the post and the photos taken by Jonathan.
Playing Mr JackPlaying Search for Planet XPhotos taken by Jonathan
