Reuniting with other gamers

Anne wanted tots.  Tater tots.  Where was that place on Grand that had those yummy tots?  Of course all of Grand was under heavy construction so we had to park blocks away and walk.   It was Burger Bench.  Anne took Dory and sat down while I stood in line to order.   A guy came in and urgently started saying hello.

After about 20 seconds I realized it was Chris Legg, long time gamer friend (2nd generation in fact).  Really long time.  We first met him back in 1990 when their parents were playing D&D and other games at Doug's house. We had not seen him in about 2 years.  They were eating at the restaurant right next door when Carol had seen us walking by.  A truly random tot encounter.

Nice to see them again.  We got a bit caught up they said we could come over for some games after 4.  We were planning to go home and play some board games anyway, so that was perfect.

We ended up playing Modern Problems Require Fantasy Solutions, then Abducktion, then Bohnanza (something about beans).

The first one was just another "pick a funny card and be judged" game.   It wasn't as raunchy as most of those games get and Anne and I had an unusually high incidence of choosing each other's cards.   I suppose because we had similar humor.  They're good for passing time trying to make each other laugh or groan, nothing wrong with that.

I had seen a bit about Abducktion but had never actually played.   Each player gets a game board with only ten spaces,  so how much game play could there really be?

The trick, as it turns out,  is the ducks have to flow downstream,  so if you take out a duck the others move to close the gap.  There are a total of 12 pattern cards and each player gets a hand of three action cards that let you move or swap ducks in various ways,  sometimes messing with other players' ducks as well.

Like usual,  I take the easy cards and end upgetting beaten on points.  Having a 2 and a 3 and a 3 took to many moves when other players got the cards worth 9 and 10.

There are some very odd combinations of moves.   I managed to match a set of 5 ducks to grab a big card at the end by swapping ducks on top and bottom rows,  then arranging three in a row and doing one last swap of two adjacent ducks.   Surprised when it actually worked.

That's a keeper.  Weird sparky comments on the cards,  even a rubber UFO to grav yield ducks from.  It's a weird one,  but if you can visualize the way the ducks flow you bit it made.

The last game was a weird game about trading cartoon beans.  Bohnanza.  Some odd card handling here: you cannot rearrange the cards in your hand, can only play the top one or two cards, and there are rounds of trading with strange rules.

One thing Chris noted that turned out to be true: he says that he's never seen a game that didn't agonist come out dead even,  never more than 5 points between first as last place.  Our scores were 17, 18, 18 and 19.  Yes, that's a very narrow spread for something that feels so random.

More notes soon.

What an unexpected encounter leading to some super friendly time together with new games.