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Brain Melters · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick Up and Deliver the podcast where I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step out for
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a walk and deliver an episode to you while I
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: stroll around. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a lovely day here in suburban Chicago. In fact, it's
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: just over eighty degrees toward the end of September, too
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: warm for this time of month, but hopefully we'll blast
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: past the last couple of days of warm summer and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: we'll be into cool autumn.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: So I got to.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Play Coimbra the other night, and it got me thinking
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: about what makes me really like brain burning games. This
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: is certainly a subject I've talked about before on the podcast,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: so apologies if it's repetitive, but I think I've got
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a different angle on it this time. It feels different. Anyway,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: it might turn out I did this one hundred episodes ago,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and y'all could go on the forums and scold me,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. Walked up on this line with
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: me anyway and see if it's interesting. So I was
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: thinking about, is what is it? What are the different
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: ways that a brain will melt? A game will melt
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: my brain? And I will love.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It for having done. So that's my question.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So to begin with Coinbra, the game I was just
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: talking about. Combra is a release. It's not super new.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: It's maybe five years old now, probably could be a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: little newer than that. Combra is six years old. Was
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: designed by Flaminia Brossini and Virginio Gigli and Chris Williams
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: is the artist. There's another game that followed up called
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Alma Mater, which I still I think we almost played
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: it once, but it had a similar feel to it
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and a similar look. The game is about Renaissance era Portugal,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and in the game you are trying to you are
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: trying to win influence with important people and build up
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: your influence in Portugal.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: It is your standard sort of eurogame theme.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: What makes Combra really clever, and the thing that makes
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: me like it so much, is that it has four currencies.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: You have shields, which are sort of defense I guess coins, You.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Have travel, and you have points, and.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Each of those different currencies benefits you in different ways
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and you have to sort of manipulate all four to
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: do well in the game.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: But the mechanism by which you.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Draft your cards and the cards like I said, are
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: influential Portuguese people. These cards represent the significant element of
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the game. Getting these cards gives you does everything else.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: And you get these cards by drafting dice, and this
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: is the part that blows my mind. So there's a
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: bunch of dice in three different colors, and on your
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: turn or at the beginning of the.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Round with the dice are rolled, and then you draft
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: a die.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: And you play it into the tableau or you put
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: it into one of the bidding rows, and you're bidding
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: to get one of these different benefit things when you take.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: When you're bidding, the value of the die, the number
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of pips on the die is the important part of it.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: You're going to pay, You're going to pay that much for.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Whatever you get, but you also get to go first
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: in what you choose. So there's four cards available. You
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: put a die out there with a six, you're going
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: to pay six of the currency required to buy that card,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: but then you get to get the card. So that's
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: what the value of the dye is for. But then
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: also in the income round, you get income based on
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: the color of the dye that you took, and that
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: is the brain burning part that I find incredible in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: this game, along with the fact that there are two
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: different currencies you might pay with and four different currencies
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you could be rewarded with, or four different rewards, two
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of them are being currency. But the fact that you
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: have to manage two currencies in each card. Some of
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the cards use one currency, some of the cards.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Use the other. That part's really compelling.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: But then on top of it, the fact that you
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: have to think about both the color and the value
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: of the.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Die when you draft it. That just it's amazing.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: It makes the game really crunchy. It makes your brain hurt. Also,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: every card does something different, so you're constantly having to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: figure out what they are. So I love that kind
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of thing, and I'm thinking of that as sort of
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: when one resource has multiple meanings, it's kind of like
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: a many like a multi use card, except you get
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: to do all the things with it. That's really compelling
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  Speaker 1: to me and makes for a really great game.
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  Speaker 2: So that's Coinbro.
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  Speaker 1: That's the first kind of brain melting, is this many
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  Speaker 1: meanings when you're making a choice that has multiple ramifications
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  Speaker 1: in the choice. I find that really compelling. I'm trying
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to think of other games that I have that have
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: a similar kind of multi layered choice. When you're picking
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: one and I'm having trouble thinking of one, honestly, you
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: might be able to point to the tile selection in
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: maybe Okay, yeah, actually I think of two more. In Cascadia,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: you're picking both the land tile and the animal and
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: each of those are scoring in different ways, and you
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: also could then switch which animal tile on which land
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  Speaker 1: tile you're picking using some of your bonuses. So I
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: guess Kescadia is.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: A more narrow version of that, less brain burning. And
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: then on the other side of it, you have something like.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: What was the proger could put Regni, which also has
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the multi layered selection. It's got that wheel with the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: different tiles on it, and when you pick it, you're
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: choosing one half of the tile to play, but you
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  Speaker 1: also get the bonus for the spot that it's on.
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  Speaker 2: On the wheel.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a multi valent choice that you're making there.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So multi valent choices is step one. The second kind
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  Speaker 1: of brain burning is managing multiple fast wind conditions.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: You know that.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Lately, I've been playing a lot of packs Mirror second
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Edition and Packs Renaissance second Edition and then always Innovation.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: All three of those games have multiple wind conditions that
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: you can pursue the first two more than innovation, But
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: innovation has multiple paths you could do toward the single
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: wind condition or the wind conditions.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: But I love.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Games where you have to keep an eye on these
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: multiple things. Maybe that's what I like about Pax Renaissance,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Nanty Narking, which is a game I've mentioned number of times.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: It's also related to Discworld More Pork. Both of these
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: are games where the condition of winning is variable and
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: difficult to track, and you have to kind of watch
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: keep lots of different balls in the air and keep
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: an eye on lots of different things because people might
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: win in a variety of different ways. I love the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: way that burns my brain as well. You can see
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a little of that also in the Dune. The original
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Dune board game or the one I've played more is
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: also Rex, but they both have the same condition, which
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: is this idea of people could be winning in a
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: couple of different ways, and you've got to keep an
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: eye on those different things. Probably the height of that
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: for me is Pax Renaissance, because Pax Premiere, there's like
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: two different ways that you can win when the dominance
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: card comes out, but they're kind of related. In Packs Renaissance,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: there's literally four different ways to win the game, and
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: they're all different, so it's very complicated. I've played it
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: online a bunch of times. I can't imagine playing in person.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: It must be very difficult to track everything because I
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: bet in person you don't get that auto tracker like
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: you have in Packs of Renaissance Online you can see
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: how many bishops does this person have and how many whatever.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: That's all not tracked, I doubt in the face to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: face version of Packs Renaissance. So having many choices, many
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: paths to take toward victory is really compelling. You also
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: see this, and you know, other than nanty narky, I
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: would say I Studying Emerald is another game where there's
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: just so many different ways you could go to earn points,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: but you know you're all converging on the same thing,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: which is triggering.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: The end game. Right. Third, the third way that my.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Brain melts that I love is hard decisions, often overlapping
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: with multi use cards. So you know, the pre eminent
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: version of this is Race for the Galaxy. If you
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: want just to distilled down to the perfection of multi
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: use cards and hard decisions. But the height of that
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: achievement for me is glory to Rome, and it's glory
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: to Rome and Matina. Both of these games involve really
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: intense multi use cards that when you use them for
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: one thing, then you lose the option to use them
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  Speaker 1: for another. And it's that really difficult choice of like, oh,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I have this thing, I don't want to give it up,
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  Speaker 1: but I have to pay for it and giving it
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: up or if I use it in this way, I
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: can't use it in that way.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Those irrevocable choices.
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  Speaker 1: Particularly in the game with a relatively complex set of options,
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  Speaker 1: is fascinating and very entertaining as a game mechanism. I
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: love when I have to make a difficult choice sort
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: of working between those different options. Race for the Galaxy
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  Speaker 1: is sort of, like I said, the distilled version of
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: that that works really well because just you get a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: bunch of cards and each card does something awesome, but
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: you can't use them.
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  Speaker 2: You have to pay with the cards.
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  Speaker 1: A more contemporary, a more recent version of that same
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: thing is Fantasy Realms does this right?
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  Speaker 2: The struggle of like which combo do I want to
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: lean into?
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  Speaker 1: Or more recently than that, Forest Shuffle is an excellent
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: example of a game where you get points by building
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: up these combos, and you're constantly sort of trying to
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  Speaker 1: decide to it because you have to pay for cards
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: with other cards. So you draw a card and it's great,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and you draw another card and it's great, and you
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: draw another card and it's great, and you can blay
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  Speaker 1: up one of the three.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: And the other two get discarded and it's delightful. So
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: that's hard decisions.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It's the third way that I love melting my brain
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: with board games. The fourth one, I'm just going to
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: call it big systems, and this would be like what
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you would call the heaviest, crunchiest euro right, like the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Vitalis games like on Mars or Liz Boa or Inventions,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: or the mind Clash. The really good mind clash game
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: like tri carry On is a great example of this.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Games where scoring points is about manipulating an elaborate set
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: of systems, finding efficiencies in the nick niches and corners
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of those systems, keeping the whole system in your head,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and manipulating your pieces and the other players pieces so
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: they kind of get resolved in the right order so
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: that you can execute the difficult things that that system represents.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Now it sounds like it was confusing to explain what
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: it is. It's melting my brain. Yeah, that's because it's confusing.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, take for example, the Vitala Aserta games, something
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: like invention. Invention is the when I played recently, who
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I see a turkey buzzard or Turkey vulture? Take inventions
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: for example, or on Mars. On Mars is maybe even
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: even better one because in on Mars, whenever you want
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to do something, you have to pay resources, and those
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: resources are often generated by cards that you get by
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: paying other or buildings you make or things you do
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: by generating other resources. And it's kind of this cycle,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the cyclical it's kind of the cyclical cycle that you're
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: part of and you can't there's no clear spot that
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: you're not part of it, and so it's consistently difficult
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: to find where you would leap into that exchange in
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: order to in order to start that process working. It Also,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: usually the economies in these systems are really tight. Tri
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Carryon is the best example of this for me, although
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: an acrony does it as well, where the economy is
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: really tight, and so then in order to do something,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: you have to kind of think about like, Okay, if
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I do that, then I'm going to have this many
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: of that left. Trick Carryon in particular is really good
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: because you have to have the money to pay your
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: crew at the end of the round. You have to
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: pay money to buy supply. You have to have the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: right supplies to construct the tricks and to put the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: You have to have the right people to put the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: tricks into the display. You have to get everything organized
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: so that when you perform, the tricks are all connected.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: You want to be ready to perform if one of
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: your opponents goes. You want to look forward to the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: expensive tricks, and so you've got to think about the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: order of the tricks you're going to build when you
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: are getting the lighter tricks. It's an excellent just cascade
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: of different effects that makes for a fantastic game.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I really like it.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Trick Carrion is one of the best that does exactly
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: what I'm talking about here. So and that's big systems
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that I don't know if that's my favorite. That might
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: be my favorite brain melting thing or second favorite. At
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: least probably second favorite, because my favorite brain melting thing
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: is related and often part of the big systems issue.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: But what melts my brain in a game, like a
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: vital asserted game sometimes is this last effect, but often
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: is just keeping in mind all the things I want
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: to do. Like often in a vital asserta game, when
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: you make a mistake is that you did things out
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of order, or you did things in a way that
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: you didn't get that bonus that you could have gotten
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: had you done things in a different order. By contrast,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: this last effect, which I maybe talked about in the
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: first episode of this podcast, this is definitely the most
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: repeated idea on Pickum and Deliver is the idea of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: not quite enough.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: This is my favorite feeling in board games, even though it.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Is a feeling of frustration. Is the feeling of like
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: having a thing you want to do, having just the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: right amount of stuff to do it, but then like
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: you're like one dollar short or two dollars short. And
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: what's really compelling then is if you are able to
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: manipulate the situation so that you can find that one dollar,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Like finding exactly the right amount of money to do
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the thing you want to do, that is such a
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: huge payoff really makes a game fantastic.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Hello, And of course.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: The designer who hits that note most solidly for me
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: most of the time is Vladimir Succi.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: VLADIMIRS.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Succi in Last Will, Vladimir Succi in Underwater Cities, Vladimir
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Succi in Progert could put Regni in evacuation, although I've
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: only played that the once, so I'm not as familiar.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: In Messina thirteen forty two or thirteen forty seven, Woodcraft
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: also felt that way, although again I haven't played that
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: as much. In each of the Shipyard does it too.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: In each of these games, he builds this intricate system,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: but it's not quite as elaborate as the systems in
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the Vital Asserta games.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: There's not quite as much to keep track of there.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: It's a little smaller, and they are point salad games,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: so there's tons of different stuff to do.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: But in order to do it, you got to have just.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Just the right amount of things, and you never have
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: quite enough. And I love it because you're constantly just
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: how can I wheedle out one more of this or
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: one more of that? How can I find one, you know,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: use this benefit to just the right amount, And the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: payoff on that is phenomenal. It's what makes his games
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: really sing, and the thing I like about his games
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the most. I'm sort of reminded also as I think
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: of this of Stefan feld games, I would say the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: big difference is, like Stephen Feld, the systems aren't as
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: complex as of a tall Aserta, and the economies generally
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: aren't as tight as of Vladimir Succi game.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Like usually in.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: A Stephen Ffeld game, it's more about like picking the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: most efficient way to get to lots of points and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: still maintain your economy or however you pay for the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: things you're doing and finding the efficiencies. But it's often
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have the same crushing I almost have enough
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to do it feeling that those other games do. You know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: if Stephen Feld made the economies in his games just
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: a little tighter, they would probably have that feel, But
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know that they would be as fun, because
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: part of what's fun about his games is, you know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: building up the elaborate store of things you might do
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: with them, and that is super.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Compelling to me. So that is the idea of not
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: quite enough. So those are the different ways that.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Having a game melt my brain is fun for me,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, having shared that, what are the kinds of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: games that make your brain melt? Do you have games
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: in these categories? The many meanings of options, the many
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: choices for paths to victory, the hard decisions about choosing
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and excluding things, the huge systems you have to try
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: to carry in your head, or the feeling of not
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: quite enough that comes when the economy is just cranked
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: just just to the right amount.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Any of those systems that work for you.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I want to hear about it. The place I want
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: to hear about it is over on board game Geek
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: in guild three two sixty nine.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I'd love to hear your thoughts on these issues and
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: what you have to say about them. So that's about
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: it for me today. Thanks for joining me. I'm a walk.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I hope that your next walk is as pleasant as
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: mine was. Bobye brought to you by rattle Box