February 6, 2014 Session Report

Very strong turnout, total of 11 in attendance this week, which meant two (and occasionally three) games at once throughout the session.  We welcomed to the club for the first time Ben Rosset, who is a published game designer as well as designer of BrewCrafters, which is set for a formal release later this year.  Also back after a long hiatus was Stan Hilinski, who is also a game designer/developer.  Club regulars Ben A, Doug, Karl, Neville, Tim, Rembert, Helen, co-Host Mike and myself rounded out the list of attendees.  We managed to get in a total of six different games:  Love Letter, Mars Needs Mechanics, Cinque Terre, Building the British Royal Navy (one of Ben's prototypes), Agricola and Jamaica.  Some scores and details follow.

Love Letter was the quick filler game while waiting for people to show up.  So, we didn't complete a full game and we actually switched out a couple of players from one round to next.  Doug/Tim won 2 rounds, the rest of us (Mike, the Stan/Karl duo and myself) each won 1 round.

Then we split into two groups.  One group of five played Cinque Terre, which Stan had brought.  Close battle for the win which went to Neville, 137 to 135 for Stan.  Others:  Karl 124, Doug 107, Rembert 63.
Another group played Mars Needs Mechanics, which Mike had brought -- a game which it turned out was designed by Ben Rosset.  Ben showed up in the middle of the game to answer rules questions but strategy tips (which I desperately needed) were few and far between.  Ben A (perhaps because he shared the same first name as the game designer) figured the game out the best, and took the win with 55 while the rest of us were bunched together in a close race for second:  Tim 46 John  46 Mike 45, Tim second on tiebreaker which was fewest components remaining in hand.  The only tip I jotted down from Ben was to keep track of which of the components has already been sold, as those are removed from the game permanently.

For the second round of games, we had three groups.  Ben A and Tim played a two-player Agricola that finished in about an hour, final scores:  Tim 43 Ben 36.  Mike, Helen and I joined Ben R to try his latest prototype, Building the British Royal Navy, a game which Mike and I had tried out a Unpub 4 a few weeks back. Ben had made some revisions that definitely streamlined play.  Although the game didn't make it to the finish line (we only completed three of five rounds), I managed to pull ahead (31 to 21 for Helen, 20 for Mike, 8 for Ben who was obviously focused on getting some feedback on ways to improve the gameplay.  I believe we did come up with some suggestions, particularly with regard to how to apply the tiebreaker system on winning bids, that Ben may subsequently adopt in one form or another.

That leaves Jamaica, a game which Neville had brought.  Since Stan had brought and taught everyone a new game that Neville had won, I guess it was appropriate that Stan came out on top in this game that Neville had brought and taught.  What I don't understand is how the scores worked out to be:  Stan 36, Neville and Rembert 0, Doug -1.  I guess I will have to play the game to find out.

Hope everyone enjoyed the session.  Ben (the game designer) says he hopes to make some future club sessions, I thought it was great that he could come and show us his new creations.