Yes I know this post is appearing Boxing Day. I had to write about this at some point. There wasn’t time on the day. Well technically there was but I was too tired. After all I had been to work that morning, and then more or less gone straight to the game session (ran in the house changed and left).

Then yesterday was Christmas Day with all that entails. I just about got the post out wishing everyone seasonal greetings. However I did cook our roast beef, and all that goes with it. Which meant the beef was cooked to medium and not the over cooked well done.

However I digress. The point of this post is to talk about the Fenland Gamers Christmas Eve gaming session.

Traditionally the Christmas Eve session has been the first of the club’s three Christmas holidays gaming sessions. However this year it was to be our only planned club event, and our last for the foreseeable future at our hosts The Luxe.

Due to the number attending this gaming session and the restriction on the number of tables we were allowed to have set up (just the one). Our planned Bohemian Villages game was postponed into the new year and our “new” venue. Which means I am still the current reigning Bohemian Villages Champion.

Luckily Jonathan had games with him that played on the larger player count side. I hadn’t had time to grab anything specific (remember I barely had time to change out of work clothes) I had just grabbed my bag from our last session that was of no use.

Our first game of the afternoon was Jewel Heist.

Jewel Heist falls into what I would call Resistance style games, or hidden role/social deduction games.

The theme of this game is in the name! Thieves are trying to steal jewels whilst the detectives are trying to workout who the thieves are and make an arrest before all the jewels are gone.

In Jewel Heist there are physical jewels the thieves have to take! And that is where we start to see how Jewel Heist differentiates itself from other games in the genre.

This game relies on sound! What did you hear while your eyes were closed? Did you hear a marble falling? Did you hear someone moving? Which direction did the sound come from? Any audible clue to help narrow down the suspects.

There is also a time pressure on the thieves whilst taking the jewels. They have 15 seconds to pull off the heist each round. So they don’t get all the time in the world to pull off the perfect crime. They are forced to quick and potentially noisy.

I didn’t think I’d like this reliance on sound and the time restriction but it worked really well, and I found myself enjoying it.

Although I would say a rectangular table probably isn’t the optimal table for this game, and that a circular one would have been much much better.

The game then borrows from Cash ‘n Guns for its voting system of who players think are thieves for each round by pointing fingers (not foam guns) simultaneously. Another clever way of differentiating itself.

Overall I think this is a nice addition to the genre. It’s different enough to make it standout. Although it seemed overly complicated/fiddly with the jewel tower, it wasn’t. It’s a fairly streamlined fun.

We played best of three games. It ended up the thieves winning two games to one. And I was never on the winning side.

Our final game of the afternoon was Saboteur. I think all we need to take away from this fun hidden role game was I didn’t win, and neither did Jonathan. Although he did get more points than me!

Although it’s been about two years since I played Saboteur, and I do enjoy playing it. Why haven’t I added it to my collection? I think I did look at getting it not long after first playing it. But why I never pulled the trigger I have no idea. Most likely won’t be adding it any time soon. I think there are three members now with copies.

I had a great afternoons gaming with some great people.

At the end of the session we collected my other table and they both left with us to go to their new home.

Oh I also had a delivery Christmas Eve. The Kickstarter stretch goal packs for Fields of Green and it’s expansion Grand Fair (which I don’t currently own) arrived from Artipia Games.

I love that Artipia sell these, and wish more publishers did this.