Getting It Over With

More Saba time today. We brought him over to Liz's parents later in the day. Once there she got to roam around while we played games. First on the docket?

No Thanks! 3-5 players
I've never had anyone say "no thanks" to No Thanks! Well, maybe they chose a different game, but they would have played it if I didn't have such a plethora of options. It's pretty luck driven, but it isn't always. If it was, I'd hate this game. But you have a choice in the game, and depending how risky you play it can either make it an easy choice or a hard choice.

Each player starts with 11 chips that they keep secretly in their hand. A deck of 33 cards (3-35) is shuffled and 9 random cards are removed from play and put back in the box never to be heard from again. The top card of the deck is flipped and the player has a choice, take the card or pass it. If they take it, they add it to their collection of cards (open so people know what everyone has). They then flip the next card and determine if they want that one. If they pass, they place one of their chips on the card and the next player has the same option. If you don't have any chips left, you take the card. Eventually someone will take the card, but they also get to add all the chips on top to their hand. In the end you add up the value of the cards in your collection and subtract the number of chips you have and the lowest score wins. There is one thing I left out. You don't count the points if the cards are later in a consecutive series. This means if you have cards 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24 you only score 20 since the other cards are consecutive.
This makes the game interesting. It means you could take a high card and still win if all your other cards fit the series. But remember that 9 cards have been removed. You might never see that 28. Of course, if it does show up, maybe you don't take it right away. Maybe you let it go around the table once to get some extra chips. Maybe you let it go around twice. I mean no one wants to add 28 points to there... oh, crap someone took it.

We played two games of this. Carl won the first. I might have had a chance, but Carol kept taking all the cards near the end. This meant Carl didn't pick up any other points. If only she would have let that 35 go around once more. Sarah subbed in for Carol in the next go. I happened to get all the right cards and finished with a score of 9. They didn't stand a chance.

We move on to the new game Bohnanza after that, It took a while to get the rules clear, but it sped up fast. I was doing well, but Sarah had way more deals going and she took the crown.
After a lovely dinner we moved on to Carol's favorite card game and my least.

Golf 2-8 players
There are a number of variants to this game, so this might not sound like your golf, but ours goes like this. Two decks are shuffled together. Everyone starts with 6 cards in front of them (3 rows and 2 columns). The top two cards are face up, the others face down. On you turn, you can take the face up card in the discard pile or the face down card in the draw pile. After you pick, you can swap the card with any card in your array or discard it. If you swap with a face down card in your array, you may not swap with the top two cards for the rest of the hole (round). Once someone has all face up cards and calls Golf, every other person gets one last turn and then every one flips their cards. Each card is the value on the card with the given exceptions: A = 1, 2 = -2, J = Q = 10, K = 0, Jokers = "Wild". The other part is that if two cards in a row match then the total value of the row is 0. After 9 holes (rounds) the lowest cumulative score wins.

I hate this game so much. You have very little thinking to do. Either you get good cards or you don't. Everything is pretty random. There are a few things you can do to maximize your chances, but even then the cards just might keep coming up wrong for you and right for everyone else. This was the first time I won the game, and I still don't care for it. I will say it was the most fun I've had while playing it, but it was two other reasons other than the gameplay. 1) I was also busy trying to get Carol's iPhone to work (It's alive, but it has amnesia). B) We had an interesting debate in the middle of the game about the meaning of "Wild". I took it to mean that it can act as any card you want. Sarah took it to mean that it matched the card across from it in the row. In most cases, this is one in the same, except one: if you have a 2 and a Joker. For me you can have the Joker be a K and you score it as -2. For Sarah, the Joker acts as a 2 and this would score as 0 since they match. Liz tried to look up an official ruling, but got lost in the variants. I decided to put it to a vote. 4-1 in favor of Sarah's system. Whatev's. On to a better game.

The Hare and the Tortosie 2-5 players

This is the third in a series called Tale & Game. I've looked into the previous two, but they seem more suited for kids. The recent fourth game looks like it could be good, but not as good as this one. I saw the playthrough on Gamenight! and was sold. The box, like all in the series, looks like a book and actually opens like one too. I made a new and better insert.

This is obviously based off of the old story of the tortoise and the hare, except in this game there are more animals in the race and...SPOILERS...the tortoise might not win. There is a race between the hare, tortoise, wolf, fox, and lamb. Each player is randomly and secretly given one of five cards that represents each runner. You want your runner to win the race or at least place. Everyone is then given a hand of 6 cards from the deck. Again the cards have the runners on them, but there are multiples of each. From the starting hand, you pick a second runner to bet on. You can double down if you want, or diversify. Once everyone is back to 6 cards, the race begins. Each player goes around and plays cards from their hand. After 8 cards get played or 4 cards of the same runner are played the round ends and the runners move based on what cards got played. Each runner moves a little differently, the rabbit move 2 or none, the tortoise always moves at least 1, the wolf never moves more than 3, the fox moves equal to the number of fox cards, and the lamb moves one more than the number of lamb cards but will stop at the river spaces. Only the first three runners to cross the line score: 1st = 5pts, 2nd = 3 pts, 3rd = 2 pts. We usually play at least 3 games to even things out and make it interesting. The movement rules and what cards are allowed to be played in a round can be a little confusing at first, but after about 3 rounds everyone seems to catch on.
This game might be a perfect game. Everyone I've played it with loves it. I often gets sighs of disappointment when I don't bring it to casual gatherings. You can even play it with kids using the simplified rules that come included. I haven't ever played it that way, but I like knowing it's flexible.

We finished up the night with this. It was all over the place. As soon as we thought an animal was out of the race, they'd jump ahead in the next two rounds. As soon as you thought you knew who people were betting on, it turned out they just had no good cards to play. It was anyone's game and I'm surprised I pulled off the win. Some how the fox just crossed the line after 4 fox cards got burned in the first two rounds due to wolf howls. Super fun.

All in all, an pretty casual night.

Tally: 15/148  Bonus: 4/50