Some time in Edinburgh
Just last week I returned to Milan from Scotland. The trip to Scotland turned out to be quite enjoyable, despite the main reason for the trip.
After family things in Inverness, I made my way down to Edinburgh to couchsurf for a few nights. My original plan was to arrive on Monday, but I saw an announcement on the Edinburgh Couchsurfing group for a board games night on Sunday. Plans therefore were quickly changed. The train ride down to Edinburgh was, as usual, quite pleasant, helped by wonderful scenery and free wi-fi internet.
Once in Edinburgh I explored a little bit, then met up with my very nice host, chatted a bit, and headed out to the venue for the board games night. The venue was a rather odd indie almost-pub/ performance venue. It is a bit too spread out for a pub, and features numerous little doors, hanging drapes, and the like. It also can't serve alcohol.
When we arrived there were a handful of people already there, and the main game in progress was called 'sets' (I think). Sets is a card game where the cards have symbols on them, with varying shapes, numbers, shading, and colour. The object of the game is to spot sets of cards before anyone else, and, at the end of the game, have the highest number of sets. Until you get your eye in, the game is almost impossible, once you do it is quite easy (so I think anyway, since I won the first full game I played).
The next game I played was called Pandemic, and, unusually for a board game, it is cooperative. The premise of the game is that a Pandemic is sweeping the Earth, and your team has to stop it. It is actually quite cleverly designed, with the disease outbreaks coming more rapidly with more players, each player getting special abilities, and so on. Our group managed to win... just. One of the 'you lose' conditions is when a certain deck of cards runs out, and we found all the cures on the last card.
After that it was time for some lighter gaming, so a card game called Guillotine was played. The idea of this one is to collect the heads' of nobles and gain the highest point score (since some people are worth more than others) by playing cards to rearrange the nobles.
The next few days were spent exploring Edinburgh, spending quite a bit of money in a rather awesome gaming store, stocking up in a fantastic 2nd hand bookstore, and browsing through a very atmospheric vintage clothing store (featuring leather coats for as little as £30, and I think they were real).
On my last night in Edinburgh there was another games night (Edinburgh is awesome, and there's something like that going on pretty much every night, I only went to two because I'm not interested in trading card games), this time at a real pub.
The first game I played was Robo Rally. This game is awesome, but it has serious head hurty potential. The idea is to guide your robot through a factory to various checkpoints. This is complicated by several things. Firstly, you are dealt 9 cards (fewer if your robot is damaged), and have to set 5 down, in order, to program your robot. Your robot will then mindlessly carry out these instructions. The other complication is terrain, in the form of lasers, crushers, spinny gears, conveyer belts, pits, teleporters, and any number of fun and irritating things that move/blast/kill/spin your robot. By far the worst obstacle, however, is the other robots. You may have your robot perfectly programmed to breeze past some obstacles and to the flag, but someone else's robot will push you one square to the side, with usually hilariously bad consequences.
Watching everyone wave their hands about as they try to work out where their robot will go, and what the spinny gears/conveyer belts/whatnot will do to it is a highlight of this game.
After that, it was time to fly back to Milan, on another late flight.
After family things in Inverness, I made my way down to Edinburgh to couchsurf for a few nights. My original plan was to arrive on Monday, but I saw an announcement on the Edinburgh Couchsurfing group for a board games night on Sunday. Plans therefore were quickly changed. The train ride down to Edinburgh was, as usual, quite pleasant, helped by wonderful scenery and free wi-fi internet.
Once in Edinburgh I explored a little bit, then met up with my very nice host, chatted a bit, and headed out to the venue for the board games night. The venue was a rather odd indie almost-pub/ performance venue. It is a bit too spread out for a pub, and features numerous little doors, hanging drapes, and the like. It also can't serve alcohol.
When we arrived there were a handful of people already there, and the main game in progress was called 'sets' (I think). Sets is a card game where the cards have symbols on them, with varying shapes, numbers, shading, and colour. The object of the game is to spot sets of cards before anyone else, and, at the end of the game, have the highest number of sets. Until you get your eye in, the game is almost impossible, once you do it is quite easy (so I think anyway, since I won the first full game I played).
The next game I played was called Pandemic, and, unusually for a board game, it is cooperative. The premise of the game is that a Pandemic is sweeping the Earth, and your team has to stop it. It is actually quite cleverly designed, with the disease outbreaks coming more rapidly with more players, each player getting special abilities, and so on. Our group managed to win... just. One of the 'you lose' conditions is when a certain deck of cards runs out, and we found all the cures on the last card.
After that it was time for some lighter gaming, so a card game called Guillotine was played. The idea of this one is to collect the heads' of nobles and gain the highest point score (since some people are worth more than others) by playing cards to rearrange the nobles.
The next few days were spent exploring Edinburgh, spending quite a bit of money in a rather awesome gaming store, stocking up in a fantastic 2nd hand bookstore, and browsing through a very atmospheric vintage clothing store (featuring leather coats for as little as £30, and I think they were real).
On my last night in Edinburgh there was another games night (Edinburgh is awesome, and there's something like that going on pretty much every night, I only went to two because I'm not interested in trading card games), this time at a real pub.
The first game I played was Robo Rally. This game is awesome, but it has serious head hurty potential. The idea is to guide your robot through a factory to various checkpoints. This is complicated by several things. Firstly, you are dealt 9 cards (fewer if your robot is damaged), and have to set 5 down, in order, to program your robot. Your robot will then mindlessly carry out these instructions. The other complication is terrain, in the form of lasers, crushers, spinny gears, conveyer belts, pits, teleporters, and any number of fun and irritating things that move/blast/kill/spin your robot. By far the worst obstacle, however, is the other robots. You may have your robot perfectly programmed to breeze past some obstacles and to the flag, but someone else's robot will push you one square to the side, with usually hilariously bad consequences.
Watching everyone wave their hands about as they try to work out where their robot will go, and what the spinny gears/conveyer belts/whatnot will do to it is a highlight of this game.
After that, it was time to fly back to Milan, on another late flight.