Insane variant of Yahtzee?

[frosty-pelican809]

What is the sense of having a Yahtzee variant when you have a matter of seconds to make your move. Like the Countdown clock starting to tick after four seconds. How am I supposed to avoid a default with a variant like that?

This is the second time I’ve come across something totally bizarre. Can’t remember what the game was, being of a certain age. In the many months I played on this site previously I’ve never seen this sort of thing.

I can tolerate a lot of things that are frustrating, but if something like this happens again you are going to lose another paying customer.

The other player had the nerve to send a couple of question marks, so I guess everyone is supposed to have an encyclopaedia knowledge of game variants!

Angry of London!!!

[frosty-pelican809]

Game number is https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=670061783

[nik592]

The speed of that game is 21 seconds per turn, with a starting buffer of 2 minutes and 3 seconds. It's considered normal speed and if I'm remembering correctly, the various speeds are determined by some kind of average of how long players take to play.

Your first move took you around 43 seconds, as you were left with 1 min 20 at the end of it. You got back your 21 seconds on your second turn, and then took 1 min 44 seconds to take your next turn, putting you 3s into the red. You then went into the red twice more, and on the second time, your opponent chose to expel you (as is their right).

There doesn't seem to be anything too radical in the options for that game, it looks like pretty standard Yahtzee, though I will note it plays simultaneously. Having not played simultaneously, I don't know exactly how that goes, but I assume you both get to roll your dice together and when both players are done, you get to choose a scoring row? But I'm guessing you were either waiting for them to roll before starting, or not maintaining your attention on the game - otherwise I'm not sure why it took you almost a minute or more on both your first two turns. I can't imagine most Yahtzee turns taking more than about 30 seconds at most, 20 seconds per turn seems quite reasonable, with a couple of turns through the game where you might need some extra thinking time (which is what your buffer is for).

In any case, I'd suggest you may want to switch to slow speed Yahtzee, or make sure you're prepared to play promptly. But I can't see anything "insane" about this game of Yahtzee, it just looks like it was a bit too quick for you.

[frosty-pelican809]

I was confused, thought I was waiting for the other player to move. As I didn't know anything about the variant, I got pretty freaked out when the clock started ticking.

Lesson earned, but I would like to know how I can avoid this situation happening again as my mental health is not the best. One of the reasons I like playing these games.

All advice gratefully received!