| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Karla | 16 | 1 | |
| Mike | 14 | 2 | |
Notes: As it was just Karla and I, I asked her if she'd play anything, and she really wanted to play Igloo Pop, which seems to be her game of the moment. I agreed and got off to a great start. About midway through, Jim showed up and cheered Karla on. I hit a huge dry spell where I couldn't get anything right and Karla recovered nicely (taking about half my thalers) to win the game.
| Coloretto |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Dan | 113 | 1 | |
| Mike | 110 | 2 | |
| Jim | 90 | 3 | * |
| Karla | 80 | 4 | |
Notes: Next up was another of Karla's favorites, Coloretto. We had just gone through a very quick walkthrough of the rules with Jim when Dan showed up, so we included him before he had time to complain about it. Fact was, he got off to an incredible start, mostly because Karla gave him the most perfect row of cards he could have asked for. I usually don't get upset in this game (my play gets a little, um, cavalier, at times), but when Karla helped Dan out so explicitly (when he was already kicking butt) I had to whine a little bit. Karla blamed me for not taking the row myself (when it would have given my about 5 or 6 negative points). After the first round the score was Dan 47, Mike 36, Jim 35, Karla 29.
In the second round, Dan started off great again, but then everyone was more careful. Jim kept getting stuck in the middle, though and never really had a chance to catch up. My second round started off poorly, with 4 different-colored cards to start, thanks to a severe hosing by Jim. But then I shut up, and people stopped paying attention to me while Karla and Dan freaked out over the idea of buying Bio-Sphere. Karla laughed about how much pot she could grow there, and Dan waxed poetic about walking around naked all the time. They both wondered where the inhabitants used to go to the bathroom. Anyway...with focus directed from the game to Bio-Sphere, I made a nice run, and easily had the best round of the game... until Dan greeded it near the end and lucked out with the perfect card, adding 6 points to what he had (probably every other card left would have given him negative points). With Dan's 6 point bonus, I figured the game was his. 2nd round scores: Dan 84, Mike 75, Jim 64, Karla 60. (The Bio-Sphere talk really distracted Karla.)
In the last round I again had the best round, and I figured that I was all set up to steal the win, as Dan's play had tailed off. But Jim, the only other player paying attention, took what was probably his only option on the last turn and when Karla hosed my other row option (Dan had already bailed), I knew my great comeback had all been for naught. Instead of gaining 10 points with the "Jim" row, I only netted 4 with the "Karla" row. Victory would have been sweet, especially after Dan's enormous lead, but I fell 3 points short.
| Traumfabrik |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Jamie | 57 | 1 | |
| Dan | 54 | 2 | |
| Jim | 50 | 3 | * |
| Karla | 44 | 4 | |
| Mike | 41 | 5 | |
Notes: Oliver and Jamie showed up just as we set this game up, and Jamie wanted in, but Oliver (who insisted he was drunk) just wanted to watch. I went through the rules for Jim and then assigned Karla to go first.
My strategy was to make a movie - crappy, good, whatever - as soon as possible, then try to gather up actors and actresses (for an advantage in parties), and finally build some great movies. I did the first two, just not the third. After the first round I had squeezed about as many points as possible out of my crappy, 6 point Casablanca, staring Deborah Kerr. I managed to get both best film of the round and first Drama.
I then turned my sights on making good movies, but it took me too long. Dan decided to spring into action early in the 2nd round, picking up a bunch of worthwhile investments. Jamie just sort of plugged along, not really getting any actors or actresses, but picking up good 2 or 3 star Agencies, Camera, Effects, and Music. Jim was also slowly plugging along, developing some odd films himself, including a pretty bad version of The Three Musketeers, starring the swashbuckling antics of...Jane Russell. Karla finished two in quick succession, including Vertigo starring Olivia DeHavilland.
Jamie and Dan eventually finished two movies and took new ones to make. Dan seemingly made a masterpiece of Harvey featuring Humphrey Bogart, but we later found out he had cheated, as he had put a camera crew in the director's slot. Jamie, thinking that Dan really did have a 17 point movie, then took our advice in manipulating his movie to get to 18 points. I believe he added Vivien Leigh to The Grapes of Wrath and added an agent in the starring role.
The game progressed, and Jim and I each had only one film finished (a 4 for Jim and a 6 for me), but we were close with all three of our other films. Karla had finished four of them, and Dan was at 2, Jamie at 2. Then came some furious bidding down the stretch. I had two of the 4-star directors, and I only needed some effects to complete both of them. If I completed one I knew I'd get best Adventure (for The Sea Hawk), and if I finished both I'd also get Best Direction. As it came down to the last two bidding rounds, I chickened out of the first one, which Jamie eventually won for about 10 or 11 contracts. In fact, most of Jamie's bids were "bid up" by the others. It seemed like every time Jamie tried to do something, someone else messed with his plans and rose the bid too high.
Anyway, Jamie won the 2nd to last auction and managed to get two more films completed. Then, on the last auction, which I needed to win in order to finish two of my movies, Dan outbid me, 14 to 13, as I ran out of contracts. Dammit! That did me in. Despite my second pick at the party (a nice 3 star Effects), I only finished my Adventure movie for 15 points. Had I been able to finish both movies, I not only would have had an extra 10 or so points for the other film, I would have netted Best Direction by a nose.
Jim and I pretty much dominated the party scene, as we tended to stay in the lead with our number of actors. The parties were helpful, but not too helpful, as Jamie picked last in every single one and yet managed to win the game anyway, much to everyone's shock. I thought Dan had won when he beat me out on that last auction, but the last auction didn't help him much, in truth. It only finished one movie for him. Here was how the awards turned out:
First Drama: Mike
First Adventure: Jim
First Entertainment: Karla
Best Movie (round 1): Mike (6 points)
Best Movie (round 2): Jim (14 points) - awarded ex post facto when we discovered Dan had cheated
Best Movie (round 3): Jamie (18 points)
Best Adventure: Mike (15 points)
Best Entertainment: Jamie (18 points)
Best Drama: Dan (17 points)
Worst Movie: Jim (4 points)
Best Direction: No one - tie for 8 stars between Jamie and Dan
The funniest actor/movie combo was when Jamie won an auction and had nowhere to put Boris Karloff except in his production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
| Igloo Pop |
| Results | |||
| Player | Score | Place | First Time? |
| Jamie | 26 | 1 | |
| Dan | 11 | 2 | |
| Oliver | 9 | 3 | * |
| Jim | 8 | 4 | |
| Karla | 7 | 5 | |
| Mike | 2 | 6 | |
Notes: To end the night we played Igloo Pop, which was light and frustrating (for me). I almost got skunked again, but managed to scoop up 1 card and 1 thaler. Jim, who told us that thaler was pronounced in a way that rhymed with "dollar", also started out pretty poorly, and didn't get a card until rather late, but managed to hang on to more of his thalers. Jamie, aside from harrassing me for telling him it was THAY-ler, not THOLL-er, blew us the hell out of the water.
Karla and Oliver did only okay, and Dan started off as hot as Jamie, but he completely cooled off by the third or fourth round. When I pointed out that all of Jamie's cards were low cards (none of them was won with an igloo of higher number than 5), Dan got drunkenly vociferous in his defense of Jamie. For some reason, Dan thought I was saying that Jamie had low numbers of points, but what I was saying was that Jamie was winning by getting the low numbered igloos and placing them first - this has some element of luck to it, especially in a 6 player game, where the chance of getting a low-numbered igloo (which is much easier to place) is much lower.
In defense of my poor performance, I was much closer in my guesswork this time, usually within 1 of the real answer. (By the end, I was also only going for the high-point cards, too, and just missing.) For some reason, the igloo with number 6 totally messes with me. I shake it and always think it has 10 or 11 or something. That's the only igloo I'm always way off with on my guessing. Not sure what to make of that...
The night ended with everyone slowly trickling out, while talking about our upcoming ski trip. Jamie kept asking me to bring Talisman, and refused to take no for an answer. He just doesn't believe that there are better ways to spend 4 hours of one's life.