So in a still somewhat surprising turn, we had a perfect game room last week-end and willing players.
I had brought a bunch of games and several friends had brought more. Lots of games were played that I didn‘t participate in Azul-Churchwindows, Set, Rage, more Azul, Ganz schön Clever, and probably more I didn‘t even notice. I got to play:
- Heat : Pedal to the Metal with 6 players which we enjoyed quite a lot (there was another game with more interested players the next day but I was busy at the time—with… the next one:) edit: everyone was being super careful until I miscalculated my speed at some point drew a bunch of random cards and sped with 15 through a 3 speed curve… from there it became somewhat more chaotic because people began to take risks at last… my partner won this one quite happily.
- Ark Nova: not my copy! There were 2 four-player games (which I both won) with 1 new player who after the teach played like you wouldn‘t believe because the kid is only turning 14 in 2 months.
- I won the first one with an incredible combination of primates and bonuses for rock symbols and an elephant… I have never before pulled off such a lovely zoo.
- I won the second one in tie-breaker after a being brought to a full-stop at the start by a poison attack—and my friends didn‘t know you could pass to gain an X and to remove the poison and I didn‘t realize they didn‘t know so didn‘t insist that it should be possible. I have never before done 6 conservation projects… or crossed my markers at the 25 attraction mark.
- The owners of the game have played this probably 50 times, so I really don‘t feel bad for winning twice and the 13 yo proudly scored points and 3rd place in both games!
- Wingspan: Asia I finally got to play the new 2 player iteration which I have owned for a while. But this wasn‘t even my copy and I had the luxury of being taught the game. I won this very narrowly.
- Stationfall we went through the tutorial game with 4 players—with me teaming up with the same 13 yo kid and one friend having studied the rules and stepping us through the rounds. It went well enough all things considered and I guess I could say that I grok the game enough to play a „real“ game of it. Rulebook is terrible. Player aid/reference thing is ok. My partner describes the game as Among Us the Boardgame and he‘s not wrong. If there had been another evening we might have given this a go with more players.
- Just One: this is simply the most hilarious game. We played my copy so much that I have to buy new markers now and probably the new cards expansion. The kids asked for So Clover before we began playing Just One. But I think they completely forgot about So Clover after the first round. We played 3 or 4 rounds with 7 players (with round I mean everyone getting to guess once each round). We took away some really terrible in-jokes and one hilarious story we won‘t soon forget. I only got to play the first time but the kids especially kept playing the rest of our stay all t he time.
And then I made the mistake of pulling out Distilled after dinner on the last evening. We had all 5 distilleries present, 1 being played by 2 players. A total of 4 new players at the table, with a couple of drinks each, too little sleep and a room full of other adults and kids being loud around us. My voice was still gone from laughing so much playing Just One, so my partner took over most of the teach—which is impressive considering he has only played the game once and never read the rulebook. I only had to jump in with a few details. (This shows btw that the game is not that complicated and has very good rules retention if the teacher gets a chance to do it right)
Sadly after the teach everything went downhill. We took a total of 4 hours to finish the game. One player didn‘t grok the basics of the gameplay throughout the game. The team of 2 talked constantly, not helping anyone else‘s concentration and I was so stressed that the scoring was all over the place because points were overlooked or counted twice. I coached the player sitting opposite me and that worked well, except he needs glasses, and couldn‘t read most of the text on the cards.
My take aways were this: when I teach a new game that is not family weight I will accept a total number of new players equal to experienced players at the table. Maybe if it is a 4 player game, I could live with teaching to 3 players. But the more complex the more important it is that each new player has someone to coach them. I am not terrible at teaching games but I get flustered and nervous when I have to essentially play a game 4 handed with 3 people watching me. I think I‘d rather just moderate in that case. Everyone recognized that it was a bit of a total disaster. If these weren‘t all close friends, it would have been worse though. edit: I want to note that despite the disastrous nature of the specific play I still think this is a very good game and at least 2 of the new players would agree. (I didn’t dare ask the other two)
Otherwise a really good week-end in all aspects. It made me realize once again how lucky I am 
