Games evening

[jack]

Being before term, tuesday was another games evening, to see Susan and Pete, and do something with my mind.

N-tropy: I think I got the awful pun right. Rather like Jenga with millions of massive toothpicks, you place a rod on a growing construction, losing when it falls over, or taking any few that fall off, and winning when you run out. Much fun making impossibly precarious situations.

A cross between plasticine modelling and 20 questionsI'm not good at this sort of thing, though guessed a couple. I do very much like the concept of designing a model to be guessed neither early nor late, but somewhere in the middle.

Arc of the Covenant: A modified Carcosonne. I didn't play, but I think it was enjoyed, if mainly for exclaiming woefully "That's not how it happened in the book of Samuel!"

I don't know what a perfect Carcosonne would be. I think I remember a Simon version?

Spit Racing demon is in its own post, but in place, I give you spit, another reaction-relevent card game. (Though our rules were slightly different). Does anyone else remember this? We had quite a craze at school; quick-reflex and bright people both liked it.

It was nice that most of the time it was quick, but occasionally the other player would stall, and you'd suddenly play as cautiously as you ever do to continue without letting them in.

Octiles and Quoridor Both pleasant some strategy games that I somehow managed to win. Well worth a look.

Comments

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

A perfect Carcassonne would be one where Arnaud-Amaury didn't win.

(Was that obscure enough?)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Did I ask for obscure? Um, about right. I couldn't have told you *who* said "kill them all", but from context, the beseigers, who were persecuting... enough to get the joke anyway, and to have wiki'd for the rest.

[lnr]

Yeah, I used to play "spit" at home, though it was sometimes called "split", and we left the stock piles next to the spit piles rather than holding them, we just knew whose was whose, and we only yelled "spit" when slapping the stack we were going to have next.

We have a version of N-tropy called Chairs, where the pieces are all small plastic chairs, about 3 inches tall, in several different designs so they interlock in interesting ways. If it all falls over you haven't lost, you just add *all* the chairs to your pile the same way you would if just one or two fell off and carry on playing until someone runs out and wins.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Another name listed was 'speed', which also actually makes sense. But 'spit' seemed to cover the sleasy play very well :)

I think our rules were different in that:

Your deck in the middle, next to the spit pile.
But we didn't have names for any of the piles, nor shout spit.
You normally played onto the pile you turned up.
When you won a round (cleared the stock) you chose the smaller pile. (There was a custom that you couldnt' count, but you could press down and look from the side.)
The end is the same, but we described it a bit differently. It could take *ages*

[mair_in_grenderich]

we played spit! I used to beat people even when they were cheating!

it was called 'rush' by the people who first introduced us to it though.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Rush, ooh, haven't heard that one.

I used to beat people even when they were cheating!

Go flurble. I never understood cheating. I didn't notice it at spit, and was probably right. But I remember being little and playing "spot the most cars of X colour", and feeling sure my friend was just making them up, and other people saying "hang on, you went up by 10 there, didn't you" but if he denies it not knowing how to not accept that.

[mair_in_grenderich]

Rush -> our friends who taught it to us were just back from some months in Hawaii (and were evangelical Christians and wouldn't possibly have used such ugly words as "spit"?). But it was the same game we called spit at school, and no doubt had a slight variation on the rules you know too.

Cheating -> did you ever play cheat?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Got gave us spit for a reason...

Cheating -> did you ever play cheat?

Oh yes, I was *awful*. I didn't like bluffing. And I was always unreasonably excited when people cheated in other ways but wouldn't incorporate that into the rules in any manner.

[mair_in_grenderich]

:)

[mair_in_grenderich]

That jenga one reminds me of - Mikado? Where you throw down a pile of cocktail sticks and take it in turns to pull one out without moving the rest ...

[mair_in_grenderich]

ooh, and kerplunk! A tube with toothpicks stuck in the middle and marbles on top of them, and when the marbles fall down...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was nice, and my first thought also. But I think this is better, because you don't have to go "that moved" "no it didn't", because they're all balanced on this thing a foot from the table, so it's obvious if it's collapsed or not, and because you get an achievement because it grows over time, rather than reducing.

[mair_in_grenderich]

sounds kind of like making a bird's nest.

strange

[mair_in_grenderich]

why didn't anyone pedant your apostrophe yet?

Re: strange

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Doh. Fixed. Thank you.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Spit?

The competative speed solitaire patience thing? or something different?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

See the link for a good approximation to the rules. That?

What you said sounds like racing demon, but I guess could describe spit. But solitaire patiece -- as in one player? No. As in, increasing hight piles of cards which are steadily unveiled as cards are moved onto a pile with a similar card on? Yes.