Gaming Weekend

Last weekend I was in Newcastle visiting a bunch of friends I see far too infrequently. Mal had raised some concerns about Jorvik, which he'd played a version of at New Year. So I said I'd go up an play Jorvik & Network with the boys up there, to see if Mal preferred the latest version.

Friday night was spent at the pub with a surprisingly high turn out. As well as the usual suspects a few more of my old colleagues turned up. I finished working in Newcastle nearly two and a half years ago, so it was really good to see people again.

Saturday morning Mal fancied some Border Reivers. I'd not really played since I finished selling it last spring, as I don't suggest it any more (I don't want people to end up playing because they don't want to hurt my feelings by saying no), but I'm very happy to play it when someone else suggests it. Except for me, Mal is the person who has played it the most, we have a long running series, we must have played about thirty games together. In the beginning Mal couldn't win a game if his life depended on it, I must have won the first sixteen or seventeen games we played. But more recently, Mal had started to win as many as he lost.

This time he wiped the floor with me. We played five games on Saturday morning, and Mal won four of them! Properly owned. Still, it was fun to play, nonetheless. I couldn't help thinking of ways the game could be improved while we played, I had a few ideas that were interesting, but I don't know when I'll have the chance to try them out.

In the afternoon Chief & Linz came round and we tried out Network and Jorvik. We played a few three player games of Network (Chief and Linz weren't around at the same time), plus Chief & I had a couple of games of Jorvik. Network was the best received of the two games, I'll post the feedback questionnaire results in a couple of days.

That evening Mal and I headed into Newcastle to play some pool. I used to be quite good at pool, but I've not really played in years. I was expecting to be hopeless, but was pleasantly surprised when I wasn't too bad. Mal creamed me again though (13-4!). Need more practice.

Sunday morning, before I went home, Mal and I played a couple of games of Jorvik. He agreed that it had improved since he played it at New Year, but still wasn't a fan. The card placement options were just too confusing.

To round off a great weekend, The Wife and I played a few games of Race for the Galaxy on my return, then we went for a curry with Dave and Pip. Great stuff. I need more weekends like that!