All the Spies!

Another two weeks since the last blog but this time I have an excuse, I couldn't make it last week :(. So this update is probably going to be pretty short and sweet.

There were a couple of exciting new games this week. One was Codenames Pictures, the new version of Codenames that uses pictures instead of words. And proving that it can still hold it's own the original Codenames was being played on another table at the same time.

Alex had brought along My Village, another title in the Village line of games. But this one has dice! That's all I really know about it. Mathew also brought along Dragon's Gold which, although not a new game, made it's IpBoG debut.

I played Mai-Star. Justine won with something like 30 points and most people scoring negative points. Afterwards I played Gold West. I came last. I never seem to do well at that game. A bunch of other games were also played including Pandemic, Splendor and a bunch that I didn't see.

Biweekly Update

Welcome back to what seems to be changing from a weekly update into a biweekly update, And by biweekly I mean every two weeks and not twice a week regardless of what the Oxford English dictionary says (it actually has both definitions, it's a very ambiguous term). I'll try and get back to weekly soon!

In a miraculous tern of events I think I've forgotten almost everything about what went on last week. I'm pretty sure I played Gold West with Alex finishing way ahead of everyone else. We almost defiantly also played Archaeology: The New Expedition and No Thanks! too.

Well, after that monumental failure of memory, on to this week. Hopefully I'll be able to name a couple of games that other people played too. Arctic Scavengers, Choson, Spyfall and Sheriff of Nottingham. Well, there's four, at least. Also Mansion of Madness made its IpBoG debut, some sort of game that looks like Betrayal at House on the Hill but comes with an app. It's probably nothing like Betrayal but going by the name it must be at least a little creepy.

This week I played a bunch of Codenames. My team won every time but we did have an extra person on our team. Is that an advantage in Codenames? I wouldn't think so but the numbers don't lie. Afterwards Gemma beat me a bunch of times at Push Fight, a fun little two player abstract game.

Michael had brought along Islebound, a Kickstart from Ryan Laukat that had arrived that very morning. In this game you sail your boat from port to port, recruiting crew members, conquering island, building cities and ultimately failing to score any points. Or at least that was my experience. Michael's was probably a little different, he won the game easily, scoring pretty much twice as many points as me.

Off Again, On Again

After a brief kerfuffle about whether we would be able to do board games a Cult this week it turned out we could. There was something going on but it turns out it started at 6 and wouldn't but eating into board game time.

It was a terrible week of board gaming for me. I lost both the games I played. And by lost I mean I came last. By a lot. The shame! The first game I played was Gold West which Dan won.

Afterwards we played Caylus Magna Carta which made it's IpBoG debut. It looked like Dan was going to win this game too but Alex manged to take the first place spot. It's a card game version of the Caylus, the classic worker placement game. It plays very much like the original Caylus but a bit of a cut down version. But like the original it still has the provost, the little token that lets you screw over other people.

Johnny ran a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill and Danny ran a game of Chinatown. These seem to be pretty much Johnny's and Danny's go to games and, of the non-filler game, are probably played the most played at IpBoG.

A couple of five minute bursts of shouting can only mean one thing. People were playing the noisy bidding game Pit. There was also some Codenames, Skull & Roses and Spyfall along with some other games that I've no doubt missed. But we'll be in Cult for sure next week so I'll see you all there for more board gaming goodness!

There's Cardboard in Them Thar Hills

Back up to 22 people again this week. So close to breaking our attendance record! Maybe February is the month it'll happen. Only time will tell.

Everyone loves a bargain, right? And everyone loves a board game. So everyone must love a board game bargain. I managed to pick up a game with a tenner off because of a dented box. I'm living the actual dream! As hinted at by the title of this blog post the game was Gold West, a lovely little euro game. It's as if Stefan Feld made Kingdom Builder. It was touch and go towards the end of the game and I thought Johnny was going to come first but I managed to take pole position.

It seem like, although we had a lot of people, only a few of them brought games this week. One group played pretty much entirely fillers. Rattus Cartus though which I would say it almost out of filler territory. They started with Timeline and went on to play Patronize, Sushi Go and Eight Minute Empire. Afterwards I joined them for Biblios (Dan won, I was the only player to get no points at all) and Flip City (Matt won).

Danny recently acquired Mafia de Cuba which made its IpBoG debut this week. I also saw him playing Chinatown which is no surprise, he plays it almost every week. It must be close to hitting the top spot of most played game at IpBoG. Although the top two are currently Coup and Skull, both of which Phillip played today.

I saw a group playing Dixit followed by the Dixit-like Mysterium and another group playing Spy Fall. I'm sure I must have missed a couple of games but there were so many it was extra hard to keep track this week.