Holiday gaming
Jan and I have just returned from a week’s holiday in Tenerife where we had brilliant weather, a nice hotel offering plenty of activities - Archery, French Boules and others. Two wins at the French Boules - archery is clearly a game of millimetres and I was millimetres the wrong side of the line every time.
Managed to smuggle several games over to the Canaries and back again thankfully, as I got stopped at Customs on the way out as their scanner was showing a large amount of organic matter. Not sure why as I’d only taken LOTR: TCG, Ra: The Dice Game, Cafe International: TCG, Gloria Picktoria, Coloretto, MR: Jack the Ripper, Dominion, Mijnlieff, Archaeology:TCG, Stich Meister, Gold and Keltis: TCG.

Got to play five of them including two four-player games of Coloretto with my Dad and Jan’s stepdad. Even though it took them a while to grasp the rules, Geoffrey (stepdad-in-law) won the first and Rod (Dad) won the second. The good thing was that, after the first game, they both wanted to have another game straight away.

I decided that now was the time to ignore they spread of the yellow disease and go all out for that final cure. We’d only suffered four outbreaks up to that time so it seemed like an easy ride to victory and sure enough, my Scientist collected the four blue cards necessary and the Operations Expert joined him in London and built a research station ready for the cure to be discovered on the next turn. However, disaster struck, an outbreak of the yellow disease in Lagos triggered a chain reaction of three further outbreaks and the world was doomed. So close and yet so far but an excellent tense finish. I really, really like Pandemic and have upped my rating to a 9. We need to get it played again on a club night.


The result of this year’s voting for the other German game award has just been announced. And 7 Wonders picks up another win after its Kennerspiel des Jahres victory. Here is the list of the top ten: