FED PHRASE GAME (Early Edition)
Wednesday 21 March
by Gwaptiva
This week, I was joined in the Sierpinsky Lounge on Silk by Cloudbase, Supermayman, debutante Sunyiol, and Sephorin to play the Phrase Game on the road. The portable wheel Hazed made for me is awesome and I love being able to take the game to the people.
After a quick run-down of the rules for Sunyiol, and having a giggle at Cloudbase for wearing a silly crown, he got the game underway. He went in search for a three-word object, added two letters but then came unstuck. Sephorin added the L, then asked for the non-present N. Sunyiol's first turn was rather inauspicious: she did spin up 450 points but could not cash in on them because there was no H in the phrase. She did rob Mayman of his usual choice of letter, so some good came of it after all. His alternative choice of C, however, did score him some points, but then he had to ask for the N again, so Cloudbase got a second chance, and he appeared not to waste it. He had obviously spotted the solution and was cashing in. He then guessed a letter that had already been revealed, and in his haste to cash in his points blurted out the answer. Losing his turn to Sephorin after a consultation with the jury, she had no problems repeating the "premium ticker logo" solution and scoring 750 points.
With this early lead, Sephorin started the second puzzle, trying to find a four-word place. Mentallyhayzed showed up to watch the game at this point, and he saw her start revealing letter after letter. With only six out of nineteen letters still to be found, she asked for the B, then, after spending the Free Spin she picked up in the first round, for the L, neither of which were in the phrase. Sunyiol, who had earlier been building up reservations about her skill at the Phrase Game due to only recently having arrived in Fed Space, used her common sense and managed to use educated guesses to get to the solution: Residence de St Honore.
Sunyiol, now tied with Sephorin for the lead, started round three, in which the phrase was a five-word institution. Once again, smart and sensible guessing built her up a nice score, until she requested an absent P. Mayman's first choice of consonant already lost him his turn, Cloudbase added one letter, then lost his turn to Sephorin, who had just returned from some otherworldly duties. Her choice of letter wasn't in the phrase either, so, to her great surprise, control of the game returned to Sunyiol. She added a consonant, then bought a vowel, and then offered a solution. The first few notes of the victory music started playing until your host noticed a terrible misspelling, which meant no dice for Sunyiol.
This opened the door for Mayman... who tripped over the doorstep, slammed the door in his face, and got his tongue stuck in the letterbox. He decided to have a try for some extra points, and promptly spun Lose a Turn. Cloudbase made no such mistake; he did spin the wheel, but added a 1000 points then solved correctly "The Order of the Halibut", a company sadly not as active these days as it once was.
The final phrase of the evening was probably the most obscure and dastardly ever dreamed up by the host, and what can only be described as an evil cackle accompanied his announcement that the players would be looking for a four-word Object. Mayman got the round underway, finally scoring points with his beloved H, then adding a whole array more. Scoring had been relatively low thus far, so he had built up a commanding points lead over the current leader, Cloudbase. The host and audience cheered Mayman on, hoping he would break his run of no scores. Mayman appears to have known which way the wind was blowing, because after remarking that he'd spin up a bankrupt, the promptly did. Maybe he should predict spinning 1000s in the future.
Cloudbase added letters to reveal the first, second and third words, but the fourth word, to the host's continued glee, continued to be a mystery. Cloudbase lost his turn in the end, then Sephorin, knowing that whoever solved the puzzle would likely win the game, managed to get the board to look like this:
"A B L A C K A R A C H N I D ' S _ N E _ M O T H O R A _"
Her choice of G lost her the turn to Sunyiol, and she, without blinking, solved A Black Arachnid's Pneumothorax. She must have paid more attention than the rest of us in biology lessons.
Under loud boos from the crowd, and sighs of relief from the players, the final table looked like this:
Sunyiol: 1500
Cloudbase: 1350
Sephorin: 750
Mayman 0
and this meant that, for the second week running, a player making their debut won the phrase game. And because this was such a great game, Sunyiol took home not just the Phrase Game Roadshow Champion's Crown [surely a Phrase of the future - ed.] but also a cute and very valuable Slithy Tove.
|
