Games 'til You Puke at Last

There has been considerable delay in posting a report of the fun and mayhem at GtYP, a hopefully annual gaming event at The Lair. It was certainly a smaller crowd than attended the memorial Day GtYP event but that did nothing to diminish the fun. Carlo headed down from places north while Homer and the Crew and Josh ventured out of Newport.

It was an opportunity for the Creasers to break out some of their newly acquired games. All of the new games hit one table or the other at some point during the day. Despite being her own concave/convex copy, Beth did not fare well as the treacherous two headed snake in Betrayal at House on the Hill. The heroes, consisting of Josh, Homer and Carlo, were able to stop her reptilian rampage.

Meanwhile, Alexis, Zeke and I engaged in a few crazy hands of Cockroach Poker. For anyone not familiar with this card game, it is a simple game of lying and passing the bug. I'm sure that it likely plays differently with more than three people but, with three, the level of interaction is frequent and high keeping everyone engaged.

Also hitting the table was my new copy of Carson City. I had foolishly thought I had built up my gunfighting skills sufficient to run away with the game. Homer, having scored all of one point in the previous three rounds, won a pair of crucial duels leading up to the final 5 for 1 point payday and crept by me winning 39-38 for the win. For their first game Kim, Alexis and Zeke held their own. It is definitely a game that requires a few plays in order to develop a sense of what strategies exist and how to coordinate character role selection with the strategy of choice.

Alexis, Kim, Homer and I also played a few rounds of Forbidden Island. Our first foray was an unmitigated disaster. Among the six tile cards immediately drawn were both of the Sphinx treasure tiles as well as Fool's Landing. Though we had helicopter lifts and sandbags, there was simply too much to do in so short a time. Play started with Alexis and made it through Kim and then to Homer when the first "Waters Rise!" card appeared. By the time my turn came around both of the Sphinx tiles were again flooded and then I drew the second "Waters Rise!" to end the game. Our second game ended more favorably with the crew narrowly escaping the encroaching flood waters. While much of the board had sunk beneath the waves, Fool's Landing and a few other tiles remained afloat long enough to gather everyone for the flight home.

Josh, Carlo, Beth and Zeke engaged in a game of Goblin Wars. Beyond it being a card laying game, there isn't much I can say about how it plays or even who won. During a fly-through to secure some snacks I did notice that all four players had quite the collection of cards laid out before them.

Early in the day we had a rousing eight-man throw down game of Bang! incorporating the Wild West Show. Sheriff Beth had whittled down the enemies until it was merely a contest between her and the renegade Big Spence (Homer) when everyone came back to life again. The contest ended with the outlaws victorious.

In a second match using Wild West Show and High Noon I was the sheriff and, though the forces of evil were on the ropes, my deputy misplayed one final card and gave the victory to the outlaws. I was down to a single life point with no cards in hand, both deputies were alive and Outlaw Zeke looked to be headed for Boot Hill. Then Deputy Beth played Indians and killed the outlaw and the sheriff giving the win to the wrong side.

The long awaited colonial throw-down in Age of Empires III ended in a most peculiar fashion. All four players had very respectable point totals with even the lowest total, Zeke's 77 points, normally being enough for the win. I managed to pull away in the final rounds with several key first place finishes in the colonies. A respectable trade good income round of point scoring didn't hurt either. The early pick-up of the Age I merchant provided me with enough money to continue to develop a strong base of development tiles. Britain ran away with the lead scoring 125 points followed by Homer's Spanish at 95, Josh's Dutch at 85 and Zeke's French at 77. It was very strange in that everyone appeared to be flush with cash throughout the game. Zeke's economy was sluggish but he more than compensated by nailing some of the highest yielding soldier explorations. Indeed, in one round alone his conquest netted him more than 20 coins.

While some of us were busy rewriting history, Beth, Carlo, Kim and Alexis were finding out the problems inherent in occupying a Small World. The game was played using the limited edition Necromancer's island rules that Carlo brought along. It was a closely fought contest that ended in a tie between Beth and Kim. A quick trip through the rule book determined the way to break a tie and Beth won by the narrowest of margins.

We also worked in a game of A La Carte earlier in the day. I managed to get the win but only by ruining Homer's blue plate special and inadvertently burning a chocolate mousse. The Little Blonde Girl (Alexis) once again showed her cutthroat side in a contest of Palazzo. Admittedly we have not played many games of Palazzo but Alexis' feat remains, none the less, quite impressive. She managed to construct a perfect brick palace to score an untouchable 27 points with a single building. She had also started work on a more modest palace but the points from her first building alone prove3d sufficient to wipe the rest of us from the board. Indeed, Kim, Homer and I were lucky enough to get some two storey buildings up to avoid the negative five point loss when the last Emperor's Emissary tile came out.

This year's GtYP was put together rather quickly, given that we had a drive back from Nova Scotia to accomplish before we could even dream of hosting. In spite of that, it was a day filled with games, laughter, good-natured outrage and, much to our delight as hosts, no puking. We will certainly look forward to hosting another GtYP event, perhaps again looking at memorial Day weekend to do so. We will keep you posted.