Naturelich Games

After a long while I was able to make another Saturday game night. The night was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. and we started with dinner. The hosts had prepared an excellent chili and I guess my plate was a little bit too full the second time. ;) But anyway, I totally enjoyed dinner and the jokes made during that time.

After dinner the table was split into two. One group decided to play Ticket to Ride. Naturelich joined the Carcassonne table. Surprised, are you?? We decided to play with both Inns & Cathedrals as well as Traders & Builders. I had not yet played Traders & Builders in quite a while. Since we had Carcassonne-newbies at the table we played
fair and not too aggressively. Despite this fact we still had quite a few steals and turn-overs in the game. For a long long time I was very well behind everyone else, but both the farmers and the traders saved me a second place in the end. I was joking about my strong endgame and had never hoped to tell anything but jokes. Paula, who played the game for the first time, won the game.

After finishing Carcassonne we started a couple of games of Jenga. Jenga is a tower buiding game featuring manual dexterity instead of mental dexterity. The tower consists of 54 wooden rectangular bricks, in layers of three, placed at right angles to each other. Each player in turn, removes one brick from anywhere below the highest complete storey and places it on the top of the tower, at right angles to the blocks immediately below it. A complete 3-block storey must be completed before starting another. Only one hand may be used at a time. The last player to stack a block without making the tower tumble over wins.

Normally, manual dexterity type of games are not my type of game as I am simply to clumsy. My parents probably where sleeping when God offered to enroll their child for the fine motor skills program. As a result, Naturelich received gross motor skills only. No wonder, that I lost the first game in my third turn (or was it the second?). I totally blew the second game on my first (!) turn as I was trying to remove a brick from the second to top layer. Apparently a very bad idea. Welcome to the learning curve!

After those two games I eventually got the hang of it and survived quite a few rounds. I did not count the exact number of turns but the resulting towers were certainly some interesting piece of art. An architectural wonder, maybe.

Later in the game Jenga gets quite interesting. The tower is wavering from left to right. If you finally find a brick that can be removed from the tower it might even be tricky to place it on the top. Once you are done with your turn everyonejust hopes there is no next turn. It also helps to bring the gamers character traits into the light. I found it interesting how everyone just hopes that the player right before him fails.

I enjoyed the four games of Jenga but it is probably not holding long-term playability for me. I will play it whenever anyone proposes it as a filler (or a closer) but I don't see myself playing Jenga all evening. Despite the learning curve, I am probably still too clumsy...