RogerBW's Blog

Since the group is apparently now on Meetup, we got a much bigger meeting than we've sometimes had in the past, around twenty people altogether.

We began with four-player Cosmic Encounter, which has gone right to the top of my games-to-purchase list. Yes, it's simplistic. Yes, it's random. But the game you play is not the game that's in the box; it's the game of getting your fellow players to do the thing that will help you, without their realising it.

(And just before the end three of us were on four points, with another player on two, suggesting it was fairly close. Sorry Matt.)

Then on to Guillotine, which remains an enjoyable light filler. Not the sort of game you can take terribly seriously, but it's not meant to be.

Quantum next, with new dice (note, if you have the original slimy and paint-chipped dice, contact the manufacturer for a replacement set). I made a strong start, often a mistake in this sort of game, and then didn't turn aggressive soon enough. (This game is very much set up to reward being aggressive.)

Finally, a couple of rounds of Bang! The Dice Game. I confess I wasn't looking forward to this, having found it very random during a previous three-player session. But actually with five it was very much more fun, with the hidden roles and bluffing becoming more important. In fact, it was when the second game got down to three that it started to get slow; I wonder whether it might be worth adding an end condition that can trigger at that point. (Or indeed whether having even more players to start with would allow the survivors to have enough information about each other that they could end this phase relatively fast.)