Matt showed up first, so we broke out Metamemes. I met the designer at Protospiel last year, and the game is an "early adoption" release, so we're sort of doing playtesting, but not really. It always takes a while to get started, cranking up the brain with creative ideas, since the best ideas are ones that bounce of other ideas. Our second game, when Burr showed up, went more smoothly. The best ideas for the evening were the Rosetta Stone Super Heroes, defending the world from an outbreak of Babel; no one can understand other languages unless the three super heroes combine, and the Pavlovian Dog Jeopardy, where contestants answer questions, but unfortunately salivate whenever they hear the buzzer. All of which are new upcoming shows on the All-Kids All-The-Time network we imagined up and was the running joke of the evening.
With four of us, we broke out the main course for the evening, Alhambra. It was much less chaotic than the last time we played, fewer players means more planning and a better chance of getting what you want. It was also a closer game, with good competition for high-scoring Gemachers and Turms (we have the german version, mostly language independent...). I keep liking this game for the tough choices you need to make, similar to Ticket to Ride, but a little less stressful.
We ended with two rounds of Geschenckt, a quick game about giving other players negative points. Very simple, but the choices can be hard, should I take the card now or let it go around again? I'm sure we'll bring this one out again, and maybe even replace our home-made card with the actual game someday.
