Oh Captain My Captain

The football was on tonight, but that doesn't stop IpBoG. And there seems to be some sort of correlation between people that like board games and people that like football. Attendance didn't seem to be effected much. Cult was pretty busy with avoid football watchers but we managed to find ourselves four or five tables to spread across.

We had seven people round a table so we started off with Telestrations, a party game that's a sort of like Chinese whispers with drawing. And probably like a multiplayer version of the mobile game Draw Something that was huge a few years back, although I never played it so I can't say for sure. Although there is scoring in the game we didn't bother with it, the game is fun without worrying about scoring.

Afterwards we played Celestia, a game where everyone takes turn being the captain of an airship going further and further until either, it crashes, or it gets to the furthest land. We must have all been terrible captains because we never made it much more than half way. At any point you can chose to jump out and grab some points but if you're still in the ship when it crashes then you don't get any ships. And of course the captain has to go down with the ship. I like it but then I won so I would say that.

Steven was had brought along his new purchase, the excitingly titled DC Comics Deck-Building Game. I also caught him playing Splendor and a small card game called Steam Donkey.

Another table was playing another game with an exciting title, The Walking Dead Board Game: The Best Defense. They followed this up with the classic Coup. The usual Secret Hitler looked like it had been replaced by Good Cop Bad Cop this week.

I finished off the night with a game of For Sale which Joe won. I left a little early this week so there were not doubt a bunch of other games played that I didn't get to see.

Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Rum

I turned up a bit late to Cult this week to find everyone mid-game. People were playing Seasons, Magic: The gathering, Splendor and, of course, Secret Hitler.

After a bit of a wait I managed to join the group that was finishing up Slendor. I played Sea Of Clouds and Paperback, both making their IpBoG debut.

Sea Of Clouds is a flying pirate themed game. It makes use of the Winston Drafting mechanism created by Richard Garfield for Magic: The Gathering combined with a  bit of set collection and a bit of push your luck. It has a kind of a 7 Wonder feel about it. It's pretty light but pretty fun and plays in under and hour.

Paperback is a deck builder where the cards have letters on them. The aim of the game is to spell words with the cards in your hand. generally more letters will give you more money to spend however some of the cards give you points for positioning or allow you to draw extra cards. There are also a couple end game goals and I managed to score both of them, just seeking into the lead. It's a pretty interesting take on deck building but with four people it seemed to drag, taking a couple of hours. Not the quick half an hour games I'm often used to with Dominion.

A bunch of other games were being played that I didn't get a chance to see but I'm pretty sure I spotted Mexica at some point.

UK Games Expo 2015

This weeks IpBoG took place the day after the 2016 UK Games Expo and a few people from the group attended.

One of those people was Mathew and he came back with a copy of the Spiel Des Jahres nominee Imhotep. I didn't play this at the club but I did manage to get a demo at the expo. Although it look similar to Container from last week it plays quite differently. It's a simple little game where your choices are to restock your quarry, put a brick on a boat, or send a boat to a harbor. Your bricks go on a the board and you get points for different patters in different harbors. The catch is that other people send might send your bricks somewhere where it doesn't help you at all. It's a pretty simple little game but pretty fun.

Alex brought along Season, a game I played once a long time ago but have since pretty much forgotten all about. It's a kind of drafting game but, as it was (mostly) our first time we played with preset cards. I remember the first time I played this I won. This time I came last.

As well as this we played Love Letter. But not just any Love letter, my super limited edition Love Letter with artwork by Ken Niimura. I hear this has just got a non-limited edition release so naturally I'm super disappointed by this. Nevertheless it's a fun game. Well, it usually is, this time Alex won every single round.

We finished off the night with some No Thanks! Other people were of course playing Secret Hitler and Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, the two most popular titles right now in the group. There was also some Choson, Codenames and Dominion. Some people were even playing Magic: The Gathering!