Villa Paletti is a former Spiel des Jahres winner so it's a bit surprising we've never played it at the club before. Phil had, however, managed to get a copy very cheaply at a charity shop and was keen to play. As it only accommodates four players, I offered to sit out because I have played a few times with the family.

The idea behind the game is to construct a tower and ensure that your coloured columns are at the top of the tower by the end of the game and not left behind supporting the lower levels. On your turn, you remove a column from beneath the current level and place on top of that level, without causing the structure to fall. Columns come in three values and whoever has the highest value of columns on the top level is classed as the Master Builder. If you cannot remove a column without the structure being likely to fall, you can start a new level. The game ends when the tower falls and whoever is the master builder at that point wins, unless the master builder caused the demolition, in which case the previous master builder wins.

There were one or two nervous moments for Mark K when he thought he could remove a piece when it was clear that the structure would collapse if he proceeded. Eventually though, Mark G got his fingers and thumbs mixed up and the tower came crashing down. Surprisingly, this gave Nige, who cannot really be called Mr Dexterity, a welcome victory.