A lot of board games

We were at another board game night yesterday. This time we travelled to Haw Par Villa, which is five stations from ours, and took a bus for a few minutes. After only three stops we went off.

This couple we met at the barbecue two weeks ago. We arrived at their apartment around four with chips and beer in our backpack. The apartment was large in every aspect and cold from the AC. They had so many board games - a whole cabinet filled to the brim and a large stack on top with "new and unsorted". It was heaven for board game lovers! While they talked in the background I rummaged through them all to see which I recognised and which were completely new and maybe something I wanted.

They had put some snacks on the table and since I only had brunch previously I was really eager to eat some. Also they had chosen some of the best snacks in the world! Small dried french fries which were German, some incredibly good and unhealthy dried mango, peanuts, dried cranberries and small packages of Malaysian gummy mango candy. It smelled a lot but had a nice taste. I could not stop eating the fries!

We started with Mysterium, a guessing game where the players cooperate until the last phase. The host was the ghost - a character that is not allowed to communicate with words. Instead he used knocks on the table to say yes or no. Each player, apart from the ghost, has their own person, scene and murder weapon hidden amongst a bunch of cards in front of them. Together with the ghost all players have to find out their individual set of cards. It is an open discussion so we all started talking about who it might be. John and the hostess were sure my person was an explorer or old lady. Although I disagreed with them I followed their tips, which turned out to be a bad idea, since I had been right from the start; it was the barber looking like Sweeney Todd. The scenes were beautiful and we managed to get them right pretty quickly. The weapon was a bit more difficult. I was right about the hostess weapon, but both John and I were having trouble getting it right. We made it just in time and the last phase happened. All players now had a person, scene and weapon in front of them in a set. The ghost now needed to pick one of these complete sets and then put out three clues/cards that would represent one players collected cards. We all guessed right. This was my favourite game of the evening!

Next we played Risk (Metal Gear Solid, even though we did not use all the extra content). It was my first time playing Risk and I think it was okay. Too much strategic thinking for me. I listened to the others advise and almost let them play my colour completely. The host won easily. The game ends when a player completes three missions, which he did extremely fast. It was a swift game and apparently Risk can go on for hours, so I have no idea what happened there.

Then we ordered food from an nearby Indian restaurant. While talking about Risk Legacy the hostess went to pick up the food. She returned after a few minutes and we set the table for dinner. We had biryani rice, butter chicken, tandoori chicken, feta cheese in spinach and cheese naan bread. It was a while since we last had Indian, but this was good and filling.

The last game of the night was Dead of Winter. We have looked at this game and been thinking about buying it so it was a good idea to play it before we decide. This is another game where you play as a team but also have your own individual secret objectives. There could also be a traitor amongst you (chosen randomly) that will try to kill everyone else but stay alive at the same time. We had a very difficult main objective and were pretty much screwed from the beginning. But we soldiered on and tried to make the best out of it. I had two characters that did not get to do much. The Ninja stayed at the colony killing zombies - which meant I rolled dice and spent all three on picking off three zombies from the board. These zombies came back when the round ended and so I continued this way throughout the game. My other character did not get to do much else. Once he left the colony only to stay at two places, take two cards and then go back. John had seven characters in the end and was doing a lot of things all over the place. It looked a lot more fun.

No we did not win that game. It lasted for a few hours and ended close to half past eleven. We helped them pack it all together and had a post-game discussion. We might buy it, it is possible to play with only two players. They offered us to take the Indian food with us and so we did because John can not say no to free food (well, we paid for half of it). The hostess talked about another board game called Pandemic Legacy which sounded like a game I could join and commit to more than Risk Legacy. John ordered an Uber and we thanked for the evening. Outside it was humid after some rain and our car was waiting. The road was snaky (of course) and made it all the worse to get home by cab. I made it though. Everything was fine.