Vanilla Cup Cakes with Butter Cream Frosting 30/07/08 Idle Monday afternoons are common for eccentuating the Monday blues however Soon Siang and I, being the very eccentrics we are, have decided not to allow the buds of melancholic to bloom. Therefore we planned for an early tea at a cafe......the Cafe International to be precise.
Incidently it's my new fancy that arrived in the collection recently and a picture of it was also published in a recent Sat. NST. pull out SIX in the article Organising a Gaming Meet-Up which tickled us much. I can't wait to amuse her with this fresh treat.
This Winner of Spiel des Jahres 1989 is about seating guests from 12 nations (tiles) at their tables. At the end of the game, whoever has the most points (represented by blue, red and black chips) wins. At each table, 2 ladies and 2 gentlemen may be seated. They must be of the same nationalities as the table indicates of which some chairs are shared by 2 tables. A guest of either nationality may sit there. Apart from nationality, guests must sit so as to maintain gender balance. A player do exactly only ONE of the following actions:
-Seat 1 or 2 guests at a table (thereafter replenish her tiles to a total of 5 again) or
-Seat a guest at the bar or
-Exchange a Joker ( there a 2 male and 2 female Jokers which can represent any Nationality. Once decided, the player must determine the Nationality of the Joker when seating him/her. Later on, other players may exchange the Joker with a tile of that Nationality )
( The area in the centre of the board represents the Bar. A guest who does not find a seat at a table must sit at the bar. At the bar, nationality and gender are irrelevent. )
Soon Siang fell in love with the board at first sight and I assured her it is equally fun to play with. The rules and mechanics were easily understood, scoring were noted and we were all set and determined to seat our guests.
We discussed how wonderful a teaching tool this can be to interest children in learning of countries and their flags. In fact, in between the game and sips of green tea with morsels of popiah, we were engaging in another different game. Guessing the names of the Prime Ministers or Presidents and their latest gossips. Imagine my surprise to learn of her ignorance of Carla Bruni , that First Lady too picture perfect ( bodily perfect, to be precise) for even the French to comprehend. Well, our intuition can just predict whether her beau will stay in office in the next election.
As our guests began to grace their tables, we were finally introduced to a hiatus of higgledy-piggledy doubting with the correct scoring calculations. Of course, thanks to the later insight by the Jedi on BGC's forum, I now have fully comprehended the unnecessary confusion.
We ended the tea party when Soon Siang "goes out" - she successfully created 5 single nation tables thus reducing her tiles in hand size to zero. I must say, my first encounter to such an end as my past 3 plays wrapped up after guests filled up the seats at the bar. ( The game also ends as soon as one of the other 3 posibilities occurs : All 20 bar seats are occupied or All chairs around the table are occupied or Only four guest tiles are left in the bag )
All said, the best moment was not her victory but the afternoon of chatting and gossips and more chatting which brought a strategy of 45min to 2 1/2 hours. 'Sigh', the male gamers would have plenty of frustrations in a 'session' like ours nevertheless you can't deny we're best at dispelling the Monday blues. So girls, if retail therapy has got enough of you, it's time to use that boardgame for therapeutic properties.
More about the game here -
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/214