Ballroom Blitz

More games at work today. Bryan said he wasn't going to be able to make it because he didn't want to be eating while playing. Then he looked at the games I brought. He was back in. We had to wait for him to get back from the getting food so Sarah suggested we play a quick game of Hong Kong or as some may know it...

Stress 2, 3, 4, 6, or 12 players
From her explanation, I knew this would be a game I was bad at and/or hate. You each start with 3 hands of four cards. You can look at one hand at a time. You can swap one of the cards in a hand with any of the four cards that are in the center of the table. The first player to get all their hands to be 4-of-a-kind and call "Hong Kong" is the winner. This sounded a lot like Speed (aka Blink) and Pit mixed together. I've never won a game of Speed. I've also never one a game of Pit, but I did ruin a game by forcing it into a standstill.

I didn't take any pictures during the game because it's obviously fast paced. I was only able to get one hand completed. Adam and Sax got two done. Sarah won the game. Yeah, not my game.

We were kicked out of our room because another meeting couldn't get their room's phone to work. We moved to a tinier room, but Bryan was back in time to start...

Mascarade 2-13 players
After getting Avalon to work and having hope for Coup, I decided to crack and get this game. I had seen it played and really liked it, but didn't see it ever hitting my table if I couldn't make the two similar games I had work. Since I had OK'ed the game for purchase in my mind, it was just a question of when. One day as I was headed to Liz's parents, I was texted that I didn't need to be there for another hour. Given a free hour to burn while driving, I went to Rainy Day Games. They also threw in some promos for it.

In this game you all start with one character card and 6 coins. Each character has a different ability (usually involving gaining coins). You all start knowing your character. Then all cards are flipped face down. During your turn, you can do one thing: look at your card, swap (or pretend to swap) your card with another players card, or use "your card's" ability. The first 4 turns must be the swap/not swap action. This is to cause a little confusion. The reason "your card's" is in quotes is because you don't need to actually use the ability of the card you have. You can bluff. Hell, since the swapping causes confusion, you could think you are telling the truth, but really you're lying. People can call you on your character announcement by claiming that they are really the character you claim to be. All players in contention reveal their cards and the honest player gets the ability. The liars each pay a coin to the bank. The first player to 13 coins (there is a character exception to this) wins. It is an easy game to understand, but takes a while to play well. You can't just be concerned with what card you think you have. You also need to worry about the card you know the other players have.

For our game, there were a number of times that we let characters keep their knowledge of their character, giving them an easy play on their turn. By the end, we started to be a bit more aware and staved off some wins by swapping cards. I was in contention to win and Bryan pointed it out to Sarah who "swapped" cards with me. She really shuffled the two meaning I had a 50-50 shot at the win. I called Bishop and was right.  Win for me. It was an okay first game and I'm sure it will only get better.

Tally: 31/152  Bonus: 7/50