Gamey Weekend

Agricola bits with Bohnanza on the table

The second weekend of the month is the gamiest. This month was no exception.
Owl House Game day, hosted by James (who is now a contributor on The Gaming Gang site), was on Saturday, and our own SSG@B&S (Second Sunday Gaming at Bryan and Shells') was Sunday.
Saturday, we had six players, and among other games, we learned Bohnanza, and  taught one of our newest games, Forbidden Island.
I've been interested in learning Bohnanza for a while, especially since the farmers in Agricola enjoy playing it. The uniqueness in this game is not being able to rearrange your cards, which was a very interesting thing to have to try to think through. I need a few more games under my belt to get the strategy down. A more thorough review can be found on The Game of The Day blog, I didn't mind the beans as much as he did. They were cute, and not everything can be zombies or robutts.

Forbidden Island was my suggestion to play, both Saturday and Sunday. After playing it with three and with two, I was interested to see how it played with more, and both times we had six, the max players...or so I thought.
I will readily admit, that I was the rules reader on this game, and I taught it the first time we played, and on Saturday (with help from The BFF), just checking a few specifics in the rule book. Saturday, we lost twice, and in a big way, but it was a fun experience.

Sunday, with my children and parents all present, that makes six again, so we sat down to play. That's when my dad actually read on the tin that it says 2-4 players!!

Since there are six pawn/roles, I just assumed up to six could play. No wonder we got creamed so hard on Saturday!
As we already had it out, and I was mostly done explaining the rules to the newbies when the mistake was noticed, we decided to go ahead and try it, not expecting a less watery death than any previous game.
We did allow one small cheat, starting the water marker at a make-believe level 1, just below the Novice level 2, but other than that, we really just got lucky with the cards we drew, and as you can see, we all six got to Fool's Landing just in the nick of time!

My kids went off to game in another part of the house, and The BFF and my parents and I got out Gemlok. I was a bit surprised by a couple things Sunday. One: that my folks actually read this blog (hi folks!), and B) that my mom really picked up the gauntlet that I unknowingly threw down when I said I didn't think she'd like the game, and she played her heart out!
She was ahead most of the game, but had an unfortunate roll of two Gemloks at once, when she didn't have anything good to 'lock', otherwise, I'm sure she would have won.
As it ended up, the perceived strongest player was rather picked on by the rest, allowing ME to win by one point!
Hah! It's good to not be a threat sometimes!