Harry Potter (spoiler free) and some new games

If you are a fan of Wimbledon Tennis or Test Match cricket and live in Australia, the timezone difference between the UK and Australia can work against you unless you are an insomniac, as these events are usually on in the middle of the night Australian time. One of the few times that events in the UK work for us is with the release of the Harry Potter books. One minute past midnight on Friday night in the UK is a quite pleasant one minute past nine o'clock in the morning here (on the East Coast) of Australia. Melissa got up and went out in the fog to get it, came home and read it. By early afternoon she had finished so then it was my turn. I am not quite as quick a reader as Melissa, but with interruptions for things like dinner and children I had finished it by a little after midnight. Now it is safe to look at the internet again, we cannot be spoiled! For the record, I liked it and will say no more as I am sure there are plenty of people who haven't read it.

This has nothing to do with gaming of course, other than that all of Saturday suddenly vanished due to Harry Potter, so no games got played and nothing got written. Oh and also I don't think there are any decent games based on Harry Potter.

On Friday I picked up three surplus games from a friend. O Zoo le Mio and Quo Vadis? were played and for some reason he had managed to end up with two copies of Funny Friends so it was still in shrink. Melissa and I had played Funny Friends once before and though it was worth it and the discounted price.

We had three friends over that night for games, so broke Funny Friends out of its shrink and punched it out. Melissa went through the rules. Most of it was reasonably straightforward based on the rules and our one previous play, although relationships and "friends" and the mobile phone (cell phone) markers had us a little confused and required a revisit of the rules on a few occasions. We think we have it all sorted except for the mobile phone markers and we will revisit the rules and BGG before playing it again.

One of my memories from our first game that if you have a life goal that includes smoking as a prerequisite, then it is a good idea to take up smoking during puberty because it can be somewhat more difficult to pick it up later in life. It certainly was in that game, smoking result cards were few and far between and other players always wanted them with the result that I didn't pick up at all and thus couldn't complete one of my goals. I didn't make that mistake this time.

This can be a fun game to play with old friends, trying to encourage them to marry you or have babies with you. The chit chat and cajoling between players is definitely more boisterous when you are playing with people you know well.

Before puberty was over I was already a cult leader and my cult consisted of short haired women. As life progressed there were more short haired women, quite a few of whom I married and then divorced. One of them was determined to have babies with me, although this was not in my plans. It was then time to cash in and write my memoirs and become an Elvis imitator. Ah a cult leading Elvis impersonator with the cash rolling in from my memoirs. At this stage I already had two ex-wives, but to become a relationship cripple I needed one more broken relationship and to put out a revised edition of my memoirs where it didn't mention drinking because I had to finally start drinking. I also needed to be single again which meant breaking off my current relationship and thus I could start drinking and become a relationship cripple at the same time, or at the very least on consecutive turns. I picked up the card I needed which stopped me drinking, and then another that ended the current relationship, I was now set to Finally Start Drinking and become a Relationship Cripple. Unfortunately for me, the person who wanted my babies played her fifth goal before I could do so. In retrospect I probably should have tried to play the Finally Start Drinking earlier, but people just didn't want to seem to break it off with a young vibrant cult leader :-)

We will probably try O Zoo le Mio out with Daughter the Elder in the near future. Quo Vadis? may have to stay on the unplayed games list for a while, but I am certain that when it does come out there will be an I Clavdivs mention or three.

Mmm meeples taste like...