"In dealing with a disgruntled popsy the wise man waits till she has simmered down a bit."
- P.G. Wodehouse
I have been asked why my game of Kelp: Shark vs Octopus was fraught. The game, which is quite highly rated and with the design of which I was mostly very impressed, is asymmetric. The two players do completely different things on their turns: the shark player is bag-building and placing dice out on the board, the octopus player is deck-building and manipulating tiles in an effort to bluff her opponent. The shark wins by finding and eating the octopus; the octopus wins by hiding and not being eaten.
It subsequently transpired that my companion had interpreted the term 'asymmetric game' to mean one in which the same side always wins. I am not clear how she reconciled that with the concept of it being a game in the first place, but by the time I was in a position to raise that question I decided that it was probably safer to change the subject. Before we started playing I had attempted to explain the details of how each side operated, but was silenced with a peremptory gesture. She was, she told me sternly, an experiential learner; we should just get stuck in. By the end the main learning experience for me was that Kelp is not a game that one should play with stroppy women who refuse to learn the rules. That also was something which I chose not to share with her.
For the record, she won as the octopus. A fuller review may follow should I find someone more amenable to play with.
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