*Time Traveller update: for reasons explained in a previous episode, this blog entry was actually written about a month ago. Seems like a shame to let it go un-posted though! :D
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Good times at Newcastle Gamers this week. Initially, there were rumblings that we might be playing Lisboa again … I quite enjoyed my first game of Lisboa, but it’s one of those games where there’s an awful lot of fiddly stuff to remember, and -- after a bit of a long week -- I wasn't entirely sure I was up to the cognitive challenge. As it happened, Olly (potential Lisboa-player) cried off sick, so none of this was a concern and the evening took an entirely different course ('phew!).
Upon my arrival, Owain, Amo, and Ray (a first-time attendee) were hovering around looking for a game, so I proposed my latest acquisition: a copy of Railroad Revolution that I’d picked up for half price in the Travelling Man sale a few days earlier. The game was new to three of us, though Ray had played before. It was a fun game; probably warrants its own post … so look out for a “first impressions” post shortly. Spoiler: everybody enjoyed it :)
Next to hit the table was Yokohama, which Ray had brought along. I’ve had an unplayed copy of this sitting on my shelf-of-shame for a few weeks (another cut-price impulse purchase which I hadn’t quite got around to playing yet), so it was good to get a chance to play it — especially since I wouldn’t be the one who had to teach it. Again, much fun was had by all, and it was interesting to compare my own edition (the regular, mostly-cardboard chits version) to Ray’s super-pimped Kickstarter edition. I found the pimped-up version to be a little bit awkward; the mini-meeple workers were quite fiddly/unstable, compared to the wooden cubes of the basic version, and I suspect the cardboard "goods" chits of the basic edition are easier to arrange and audit than the inevitable "heaps" of deluxified wooden resources are (though I'm basing this mostly on my experiences playing Le Havre, where the goods chits are, to my mind, perfect for what they need to do). The wooden buildings were nice though... and turned my mind to thinking about upgrading the buildings in my own copy. Good game. Keen to play it again!
We ended the night with a session of Pandemic: Rising Tide. It’s the third time I’ve played this. We stuck with the basic version (6 storms, none of the fancy objectives / population rules), and — although it looked like things were about to get pretty nasty for the people of the Netherlands at one point (only 2 water cubes left in the supply, and a storm due to break) — we were ultimately successful in our mission to avert watery doom. My success rate on Rising Tide is now 2 out of 3 games (with 2 different groups)… though the novelty of the basic game has now waned a bit, so I think it’s time to switch up to the advanced version; it’ll be interesting to see if that helps the longevity for me — I get the impression that it might see the same fate as Pandemic Iberia; a few plays while it’s a novelty for us, then left on the shelf in favour of other Pandemic variants.
It was a good night for the club; we hit 47 attendees, with around half a dozen “first timers”. (The numbers were a bit of a shock for Ray, who has just moved into the area … his mentioned that his old gaming club used to peak at around 15). It’s great to get so many gamers under one roof, but does start causing problems when we have busy nights (we often start to run short of chairs and tables at around the 50 mark… it depends what the other church hall users have been doing, and whether they’ve remembered to bring furniture back!).
I really like our current venue — it’s close to the city centre, has free parking, and charges us a really good rate — and I fear the complexities we’ll face if we outgrow it. Still, for now, it’s all good :)
Good times at Newcastle Gamers this week. Initially, there were rumblings that we might be playing Lisboa again … I quite enjoyed my first game of Lisboa, but it’s one of those games where there’s an awful lot of fiddly stuff to remember, and -- after a bit of a long week -- I wasn't entirely sure I was up to the cognitive challenge. As it happened, Olly (potential Lisboa-player) cried off sick, so none of this was a concern and the evening took an entirely different course ('phew!).
Upon my arrival, Owain, Amo, and Ray (a first-time attendee) were hovering around looking for a game, so I proposed my latest acquisition: a copy of Railroad Revolution that I’d picked up for half price in the Travelling Man sale a few days earlier. The game was new to three of us, though Ray had played before. It was a fun game; probably warrants its own post … so look out for a “first impressions” post shortly. Spoiler: everybody enjoyed it :)
Next to hit the table was Yokohama, which Ray had brought along. I’ve had an unplayed copy of this sitting on my shelf-of-shame for a few weeks (another cut-price impulse purchase which I hadn’t quite got around to playing yet), so it was good to get a chance to play it — especially since I wouldn’t be the one who had to teach it. Again, much fun was had by all, and it was interesting to compare my own edition (the regular, mostly-cardboard chits version) to Ray’s super-pimped Kickstarter edition. I found the pimped-up version to be a little bit awkward; the mini-meeple workers were quite fiddly/unstable, compared to the wooden cubes of the basic version, and I suspect the cardboard "goods" chits of the basic edition are easier to arrange and audit than the inevitable "heaps" of deluxified wooden resources are (though I'm basing this mostly on my experiences playing Le Havre, where the goods chits are, to my mind, perfect for what they need to do). The wooden buildings were nice though... and turned my mind to thinking about upgrading the buildings in my own copy. Good game. Keen to play it again!
We ended the night with a session of Pandemic: Rising Tide. It’s the third time I’ve played this. We stuck with the basic version (6 storms, none of the fancy objectives / population rules), and — although it looked like things were about to get pretty nasty for the people of the Netherlands at one point (only 2 water cubes left in the supply, and a storm due to break) — we were ultimately successful in our mission to avert watery doom. My success rate on Rising Tide is now 2 out of 3 games (with 2 different groups)… though the novelty of the basic game has now waned a bit, so I think it’s time to switch up to the advanced version; it’ll be interesting to see if that helps the longevity for me — I get the impression that it might see the same fate as Pandemic Iberia; a few plays while it’s a novelty for us, then left on the shelf in favour of other Pandemic variants.
It was a good night for the club; we hit 47 attendees, with around half a dozen “first timers”. (The numbers were a bit of a shock for Ray, who has just moved into the area … his mentioned that his old gaming club used to peak at around 15). It’s great to get so many gamers under one roof, but does start causing problems when we have busy nights (we often start to run short of chairs and tables at around the 50 mark… it depends what the other church hall users have been doing, and whether they’ve remembered to bring furniture back!).
I really like our current venue — it’s close to the city centre, has free parking, and charges us a really good rate — and I fear the complexities we’ll face if we outgrow it. Still, for now, it’s all good :)