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Best Games of 2022 · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast, where I pick up my audio
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  recorder as I head out for a walk and deliver an episode two while I
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  stroll around. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good morning, listeners. It's
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  a lovely day here in suburban Chicago. I'm out for a midday walk in
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  between a couple Zoom meetings and some interesting work. So for those of you
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  who are regular to the podcast, you know that each year, with the
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  beginning of a new calendar year, I like to do a best of the
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  previous year. However, I tend to not play as many new games or
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  not have access to all the new games, where a lot of podcasters do
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  or other content creators. I've noticed people will do like a best of twenty
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  twenty three. Like I've encountered a number of best of twenty twenty three lists,
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  and I just feel like, how do you have time to have played
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  all the twenty twenty three games by the end of twenty twenty three? Like
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  some of them I don't even have access to yet. So what I do
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  instead is I like to do a best of the year before the year we're
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  on. So since we just finished twenty twenty three, we're doing our best
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  of twenty twenty two episode. So today I'll be talking about my five favorite
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  games from twenty twenty that I've played that were published in twenty twenty two,
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  and five more runners up that almost made the cut but didn't. I'll talk
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  a little bit about each one, and then if you want to know more
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  about what I think, you can go to the show notes and you'll find
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  my links to the episodes where I talked about them in previous podcasts, so
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  you can hear about them a little more. Some of them I've talked about
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  more than others, but you'll be able to see that list on our show
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  notes. And then I will produce another episode the next episode, which will
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  be my Superlatives. Episode. In the Superlatives is one I pick out other
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  games that didn't make the Top five or the top five runner ups or honorable
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  mentions, and I'll call them out for being interesting or fun in some other
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  way. So that's the plan for the day. Let's jump into it.
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  My top game that was published in twenty twenty two. I don't think this
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  is going to be a surprise is frost Haven. My family has thoroughly enjoyed
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  frost Haven. So far, we're probably I don't know how many plays,
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  at least thirty plays in maybe more. I got frost Haven relatively late in
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  the delivery cycle of these sorts of games, but we started playing it relatively
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  quick. My son really liked gloom Haven and was ready for us to jump
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  into frost Haven when it came, and so we got it going pretty fast.
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  I don't know that I like it better than gloom Haven. I like
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  it about the same. It's to me it's the same game, or so
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  similar as to be almost a sequel rather than a new game, but or
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  an expansion rather a new game. But it's more like a sequel. The
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  village management stuff is kind of interesting, but not different enough for me to
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  really be wowed by it. Like I don't find myself really thrilling over the
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  village management stuff. But I'm enjoying the plots, and I like the monsters,
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  and we're having a lot of fun with the game. I'm loving the
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  characters, the nuance and differences in what the characters can do and how they
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  work. It's pretty fascinating and we're just having a good time with that.
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  I am on my second character. Everybody in the family has retired at least
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  one. I don't think anyone's retired to yet, although I guess my son
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  did technically retire two because he played like five missions with one or ten messages
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  with one and decided he didn't like it, so he switched without retiring.
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  But other than that, it's been pretty great, so I guess all the
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  for me, all thee the hype stands. Check out frost Haven if you
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  can. If you've never played any of the Haven games, I recommend Jaws
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  of the Lion first. It teaches you how to play gloom Haven in the
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  first couple of missions, like a video game tutorial, and it's twenty five
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  missions, so for a lot of people that's enough. You can play the
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  whole thing, feel like you completed the story and be done. Then if
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  you like that, you could get it into gloom Haven. Gloomhon two version
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  two point zero is on it's way. I don't know when they're going to
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  deliver it, but I might wait for that. Or if you can find
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  a used copy or a copy of gloom Haven one, they're probably on discount
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  now well worth it, and then you can do frost Haven or I mean,
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  you could just jump into frost Haven, but I probably wouldn't, so
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  my top game of twenty twenty two frost Haven second place is Revive. For
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  the last few years, I've really been enjoying the work of the Swedish designers
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  who did Revive. I'm having trouble with their names right now. I'm sure
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  they'll come to me. Am And sends one of them. Anyway, I've
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  been really enjoying their work. Riverboat is great. I love them magnificent.
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  I really like Escape, Curse of the Temple, and now Revive. Revive
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  is a deep, crunchy combo building game where you're sort of layering one action
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  on pod on another and getting these sort of chain reaction combos that give you
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  just a lot of room to benefit and grow. It's got slightly asymmetric powers
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  which can be leveraged into real bonanzas of efficiency and scoring. I like the
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  theme of it. We're emerging from an apocalyptic era into a new era and
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  we're trying to thaw the world and grow things. We're reviving the world.
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  It's great overall. I really like it. Well worth of play if you
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  get a chance. Beautiful components at least in terms of this really nice double
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  layered board, the double layered player boards, lots of cool little bits of
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  wood. It's fiddley and long, but I love it. So that's revived
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  my number two. The third game is a game I honestly wouldn't have tried
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  without someone else saying, hey, we're playing this, you want to give
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  a try. I was like, okay, sure, this is Mosaic.
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  I'm Mosaic was designed by Glenn Drover and published by Forbidden Games. I first
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  played it with a friend at their house and I really liked it. I
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  was like, Oh, that's fun. And then just by chance, another
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  friend gave it to me as a gift, and so I've played it once
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  since then and I really enjoyed it again, and it stuck in my mind,
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  as you know. Maybe my second second favorite civilization builder, my first
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  being Through the Ages. Mosak is really interesting. It's a tableau builder,
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  not too dissimilar from terraforming Mars. You have a lot of different cards that
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  you can build, and as you play the cards you get different things.
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  There is a map component that I really like, some area, a little
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  light area control. There's a little bit of fighting, but nothing too outrageous.
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  There is some great jockeying for a position and trying to read what other
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  people are doing. Yeah. Overall, Mosaic is really fun and I'm enjoying
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  I've enjoyed it a lot, looking forward to playing again, and this really
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  makes me want to get it out again. Now that I look through this,
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  I was like, oh, yeah, Mosaic, man, that's a
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  good game, So keep that in mind. Mosaic A Story of Civilization my
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  number three from twenty twenty two now number my number four might be the most
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  contentious choice. And this is my father's work. My father's worked from TC
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  Petty the third published by Renegade Games. This is a bespoke, boutique game.
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  You had to get it on Kickstarter or buy it from them in a
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  con because it's too expensive to sell through distribution. It is a fascinating game
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  in which you're you are one of the children of Victor Frankenstein and you are
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  continuing the mad scientist work that they started. There's a really interesting component and
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  an app element to the game. The map tiles are fascinating and the gameplay
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  is really good. So, I mean, it is a weird, wild,
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  bonkers, huge game. It takes a long time to play. It's
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  very involved, but I really like it when I played it. This is
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  another one I really want to play some more. I've only played at the
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  one time and we had a great time, but you know, we haven't
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  played it once, so I really would like to get it out again kick
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  the tires some more. But so far, barring really bad plays, I
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  guess I've really enjoyed that and it makes my number four in twenty two that's
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  my father's work. And finally, my number five choice for games from twenty
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  twenty two is one that probably the one I've played the most other than frost
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  Haven, and that is Libertalia the Winds of gael Crest. Now, the
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  original Libertalia I thought was fine, but it didn't do a lot for me.
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  However, when Libertalia Winds of gael Crest came out, something about the
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  refinement in the way the tokens work, the leaderboard, the altered art where
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  it's still pirate theme, but now it's like air pirates and they're all anthropomorphized
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  animals. All of these things combined together to me to make a really fascinating
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  and fun game that I am just thoroughly enjoying playing I like it every time
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  I play it. I'm happy to play it again when people want to.
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  The variety of cards means that it's different every time you play. I just
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  it's great. Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot more to say,
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  oh, if you haven't played it. The way the game works is
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  everybody gets the same deck of forty cards. One person randomly picks a certain
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  number of them. I think it's five and then six and then seven or
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  six, seven and eight, something like that, and everybody else gets the
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  same cards that the first person picked randomly. Then you all take turns playing
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  four. I think you start, you go six, seven, eight,
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  and you play four, five, and six cards in a round. And
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  when you play the card then there's this whole jockeying for position and the order
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  that the cards activate in, and the fun comes from trying to anticipate what
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  other players are going to play and how your cards are going to interact with
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  their cards. There's a lot of really interesting positioning and screwage, really stabbing
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  each other in the back. It's good. It's lighthearted fun. I love
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  the way the game comes with a meaner variant and a nicer variant. That's
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  a good compromise for players who tend to prefer less direct conflict. The art
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  is beautiful, the tokens are good. Game component quality is great. All
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  in all, an excellent game that I really enjoy. That's Libertalia the Wins
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  of Gail Crest. Check it out if you get a chance. And then
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  we do have a five more games that I consider my runners up. These
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  are games that I really enjoy. Any one of these could have been in
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  my top five had something had one of the other games gone missing, I'd
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  have been happy to have these in my top five. I'm not at all
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  embarrassed. I'm braggy about liking these two. And these are Woodcraft, the
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  twenty twenty two Vladimir Suhi game. This one, you are building wood things
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  and doing efficiencies. There's a really interesting circular choice mechanism and neat dice play
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  that involves having dice be exactly what you need them to be and using tokens
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  to raise or lower them. It's a fascinating idea. The next one,
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  so these five alter these five honorable mentions are not in any particular order,
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  so take them as you will. The next one is return to Dark Tower.
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  Now, this is one where it's grown on me. The first time
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  we played it, I thought it was just fine, But each time we've
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  played it, I've liked it a little bit more. This is a cooperative
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  game in which we're working together to fight a great evil that is trying to
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  destroy I don't know the world. It's got this big electronic gizmo in the
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  middle of the table and you have to play with a tablet. But it's
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  a really interesting game that is all about, you know, threat management and
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  deciding how much to gamble to get your benefits. There's a little bit of
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  push your luck in it, and I really like it, so definitely worth
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  checking out if you have a chance that's returned to Dark Tower. The one
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  downside of that one is the price tag is very steep, so I'm kind
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  of glad a friend of mine bought it instead of me buying it. Aha.
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  Next up we have the Guild of Merchant Explorers. This is a game
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  that I was super hyped about when I heard about it because it's Dunston and
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  Gilbert, two of my favorite designers, especially when they're working together, and
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  the mechanisms are just really neat in this game. It's a sort of bingo
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  style game where you're drawing a card and everybody reacts to the card that's been
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  drawn. Over time, you're sort of laying out this map and earning points.
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  The part comes from when you each round you get one bonus card,
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  and this boning card gives you a game breaking power that you get to use
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  once or twice per round. The game is only like four rounds, but
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  these bonus powers give you such wild diversity in what you can do that it
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  really makes for an exciting time. I think the main thing that kept this
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  off of my top five is the art design. The whole game is in
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  CPA tone for some reason, it's too small on the board. It's a
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  little bit fiddly. So while I really like it, there are some significant
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  flaws in the design that I think push it out of the top five for
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  me. But definitely enjoy it, happy to play anytime someone suggests that,
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  although I do not own a copy. That's the Guild of Merchant Explorers.
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  The next one from twenty twenty two that I really like is Tenpenny Parks.
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  This is a polyameno game with some really interesting twists on the mechanics and fantastic
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  theme. The theme in this game sells it for me. The art from
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  Vincent Dutre has this lovely, sort of early nineteen hundred's amusement park vibe,
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  and I just it's a delightful game, fun to play, nicely competitive.
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  It's not amazing, but it's really good and fun. So yeah, if
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  you haven't gotten to play ten penny Parks yet, I recommend it, you
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  should give it a try. Finally, the last game that I want to
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  mention is The Bureau of Investigation. The Bureau of Investigation is a new game
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  from Space Cowboys, from the people who made Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. I
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  think it's produced by that company. I don't think any of the original Sherlock
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  Holmes designers are involved, but it's the same general idea, but instead of
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  investigating murder mysteries like you would in Sherlock Holmes, you're investigating cosmic horror mysteries
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  like you would in mythic mythos tales, except these mysteries are better put together.
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  Really liked The Bureau of Investigation, Arkham Files and other mysteries. I
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  hope that it sold well so that they're considering putting out more because we had
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  a good time with it and I'm happy to have played it. So if
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  you haven't had a chance to check that one out, please do well.
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  Like I said, this is the first half of my twenty twenty two Game
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  Awards episodes. The second and half will be the next episode that I publish,
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  and it will be the Superlatives episode, where I list a bunch of
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  games that I've played that are fun and weird, and I'm giving them unique
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  awards. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, go ahead look
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  up the Superlative Awards from previous years. You'll see what I mean. I
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  guess that leads me to ask what are your favorite games for twenty twenty two?
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  Head over to board game geek guiltre et sixty nine and share your thoughts
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  on this important subject. You can email me Brendan at rattoboxgames dot com or
• 14:48
  send me a message on board game geek Wombat nine two nine is my user
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  name there. Thanks for joining mema Wax today. I hope that your next
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  walk is closing as mind was. Bye bye. Brought to you by rattle Box