Brae day
A mere 770 mile drive from my last post... (gulp!)
Friday found us on the Scottish island of Orkney, to visit a very specific 5,000-year-old village.
Yep, THAT Skara Brae.
And, of course I took a tiny friend or two, to add some insider knowledge to our visit:
Skara Brae — The board game — involves building a successful settlement in neolithic Orkney. Notably, the historic remains at real-life Skara Brae include a number of stone-built items of furniture: stone beds, stone storage boxes, and even stone “dressers” (upon which it’s assumed that the Skara Brae occupants displayed their valuables). One of the wooden markers in the game is a small grey “dresser” meeple that you push up a “furnish” track (by exchanging suitable resources) to boost your victory point multipliers:
Thanks guys. Good insight. And, of course, after a day exploring the settlement of Skara Brae. the evening’s entertainment choice was obvious…
This play ultimately turned into a win for Mrs Shep … her tribe was a little smaller (and much messier) than mine… but heavy use of her tribe’s “innovation” specialisation gave her maximum points for crafting and lots of timely benefits. My own tribe was all about batering … and collecting Skaill knives. Perhaps I’d had my head turned by the Skaill knife display earlier that day, just like little yellow worker meeple did? Frankly, I was up to my eyeballs in Skaill knives by the end of the game. Which was all well and good for the final bonus points that they gave me … but I can’t help feeling that I could’ve used the knives to do something a little bit more points-rinsingly clever in the final round.
No matter. As board-game-themed holiday excursions go… I think we pretty much nailed this one 😆
Previously on The Tyranny of Small Decisions:
Skara Play
I’ve been playing a fair bit of Skara Brae over the last week or so. Mostly solo. This is a very odd turn of events.