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Board Game Experiments · 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 leave the library
0:09
Speaker 1: and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
0:11
Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Welcome listeners to another episode. On a
0:24
Speaker 1: lovely day here in suburban Chicago. The weather is still beautiful,
0:27
Speaker 1: but it's starting to cloud.
0:28
Speaker 2: Over a little.
0:29
Speaker 1: I wonder if I stay outside for another hour, if
0:31
Speaker 1: I might get rained on. I won't be outside for
0:33
Speaker 1: another hour, because that's not the deal we have. It'll
0:36
Speaker 1: be fifteen to twenty minutes. That's the plan. Anyhow well,
0:39
Speaker 1: I wanted.
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Speaker 2: To talk to you today.
0:40
Speaker 1: I had a fun post over on the Pickup and
0:43
Speaker 1: Deliver forum, So I would like to thank Gabriel Edge
0:47
Speaker 1: for posting this request or this suggestion, question comment and
0:52
Speaker 1: now it's gonna be an episode. Gabriel wrote that he
0:55
Speaker 1: was originally miss it was originally confused or surprised by
1:02
Speaker 1: the episode. Things I like about the number six hundred
1:05
Speaker 1: and forty, which I wrote obviously struggling for a topic.
1:09
Speaker 1: And Gabriel said that when he first saw the episode
1:12
Speaker 1: title in his head, he connected it to five oh four,
1:15
Speaker 1: which makes sense because that's like the only board game
1:17
Speaker 1: where it's just three digits, and started to ask questions
1:23
Speaker 1: about that. Then, when he listened to the episode, realized
1:26
Speaker 1: it wasn't about five oh four, but it did get
1:29
Speaker 1: him to thinking and asked this question, which I thought
1:32
Speaker 1: i'd answer today. He said, he wrote, what are some
1:35
Speaker 1: experiments in board games you really liked? What are some
1:38
Speaker 1: experiments in board games you really appreciated or admired even
1:42
Speaker 1: if you didn't like them?
1:43
Speaker 2: When does artistry? When does?
1:46
Speaker 1: When does gaming push the boundaries of artistry in the medium?
1:50
Speaker 1: And when should people push it further? I handwrote that,
1:53
Speaker 1: and it looks like I left some words out, so apologies.
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Speaker 2: If the language is awkward, that's my fault.
1:58
Speaker 1: I was reading a handwritten note, So thank you for
2:01
Speaker 1: the question and suggestion, Gabriel. If you'd like to offer
2:05
Speaker 1: a suggestion for an episode theme, head over to board
2:08
Speaker 1: game Geek Guild three six nine and post it in
2:10
Speaker 1: the forum the pick Up and Deliver forum.
2:13
Speaker 2: You could also send me a message.
2:14
Speaker 1: Wombat nineteen nine is my username on Board Game Geek,
2:17
Speaker 1: or email me Brendan at.
2:18
Speaker 2: Rattoboxgames dot com.
2:20
Speaker 1: So I thought I would start a little bit with
2:22
Speaker 1: think games that have experiments that I liked and why
2:26
Speaker 1: I thought they were experiments. And then games that have
2:29
Speaker 1: experiments that I admire even if I didn't like it
2:32
Speaker 1: or some cases haven't played them. And then we can
2:34
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about why why artists game design
2:37
Speaker 1: artists should push the boundaries and what I think it
2:39
Speaker 1: means when they do that. So start with I have
2:42
Speaker 1: four games I want to talk to that I think
2:44
Speaker 1: we're interesting experiments in game design and I like them.
2:48
Speaker 1: The first of these is Arkham Horror the Card Game.
2:51
Speaker 1: Now I will fully grant Arkham Horror the Card Game
2:54
Speaker 1: is not entirely experimental in a number of ways. One,
2:57
Speaker 1: a lot of people talked about how it borrowed from
3:01
Speaker 1: the Lord of the Rings card game, and I absolutely
3:04
Speaker 1: can see that.
3:04
Speaker 2: Having played the Lord of the Rings card game a
3:06
Speaker 2: couple times, I.
3:07
Speaker 1: Can absolutely see how the Arkham Horror card Game borrowed
3:11
Speaker 1: from that. That said, there's a lot of things in
3:13
Speaker 1: the Arkham Horror Card Game that are different and weird
3:16
Speaker 1: and interesting. The choice to use a token bag as
3:20
Speaker 1: the randomizer is really interesting because it allows them to
3:23
Speaker 1: create a modifiable, randomized scenario, and that's not something I've
3:27
Speaker 1: seen in a ton of games.
3:28
Speaker 2: I know, it's not entirely new.
3:30
Speaker 1: Arkham Horror Card Game actually really represents very nicely one
3:34
Speaker 1: of my favorite things about board game design, which is
3:37
Speaker 1: iterative experimentation, where they borrow stuff from a lot of
3:42
Speaker 1: different places and use that to come up with something
3:45
Speaker 1: interesting and new. In the case of Arkham Horror, the
3:48
Speaker 1: interesting and new thing they came up with was so
3:50
Speaker 1: they borrowed the randomized token bag from the card game.
3:55
Speaker 1: They also came up with this location system where they
4:00
Speaker 1: had different locations that were on the cards, and then
4:03
Speaker 1: you had to go from.
4:04
Speaker 2: Location to location.
4:05
Speaker 1: As I recall, that was not in the Lord of
4:08
Speaker 1: the Rings game, although I only played a couple scenarios
4:11
Speaker 1: from that game, but they did, and Lord of the
4:13
Speaker 1: Rings game have competing agendas. As I recall that the
4:16
Speaker 1: good guys have a thing they're trying to do to advance,
4:18
Speaker 1: and the bad guys have a thing they're doing that
4:20
Speaker 1: will advance, and you're trying to get yours advance before theirs.
4:23
Speaker 2: Is they borrow that they brought it over.
4:25
Speaker 1: The third thing they borrowed from Lord of the Rings,
4:26
Speaker 1: which I guess they borrowed from other things too, But
4:28
Speaker 1: because that was a cooperative game.
4:30
Speaker 2: It's the tightest analog.
4:32
Speaker 1: They borrowed the living card game model, where you get
4:35
Speaker 1: a bunch of cards from faction and then you build
4:39
Speaker 1: a character deck, and your character can take cards from
4:42
Speaker 1: specific factions and different factions are good at things, and
4:45
Speaker 1: you build your deck to bring it into play. But
4:48
Speaker 1: starting from that base, they then innovated a bunch of
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Speaker 1: things new, Like I said, the token bag, the locations,
4:53
Speaker 1: the way the locations work, the intense variety of scenarios
4:58
Speaker 1: that they've created, and the connected long form scenario that emerges.
5:03
Speaker 2: Now, this is a thing that I believe Lord of.
5:04
Speaker 1: The Rings did as well, but I didn't like I said,
5:07
Speaker 1: I didn't play that that much, So for me, it
5:09
Speaker 1: felt like an experiment. The big thing is it was
5:12
Speaker 1: very hard. If you played it, you often would lose,
5:15
Speaker 1: and of course they had fail forward as one of
5:17
Speaker 1: the elements of the game.
5:18
Speaker 2: And so bringing all these things together.
5:20
Speaker 1: Into a new format was a delightful experiment and I
5:25
Speaker 1: think it really paid off. People took to it right away,
5:28
Speaker 1: and it's still they're still bringing out new scenarios. The
5:30
Speaker 1: last one was about a year ago, so we can
5:33
Speaker 1: expect the new scenario to come out any day now,
5:36
Speaker 1: but they are reprinting and maintaining these in print, so
5:39
Speaker 1: it definitely is a successful game model and a really
5:42
Speaker 1: interesting game to play. So first experiment, I like Arkham
5:45
Speaker 1: horror hard game. Next up, I will point to one
5:48
Speaker 1: that I liked but my gaming group didn't really like,
5:50
Speaker 1: and this is The King's Dilemma. The King's Dilemma is
5:53
Speaker 1: a sort of role playing game where you play a
5:57
Speaker 1: family who has the ear of the King. You are
6:00
Speaker 1: an hereditary royal family. You have a position on the
6:04
Speaker 1: King's Council, and you offer the king advice. Your family
6:10
Speaker 1: has specific motivations, things that you're interested in doing or
6:13
Speaker 1: interested in, and those things are a big part of
6:18
Speaker 1: what you're trying to do at any given moment. You're
6:20
Speaker 1: trying to influence the king such that your personal motivations
6:24
Speaker 1: end up being where the game ends, and so a
6:27
Speaker 1: lot of it is manipulating the other players and voting
6:29
Speaker 1: for what you want, but then you're also listening to
6:31
Speaker 1: what's happening in the kingdom, and sometimes your motivations make
6:34
Speaker 1: you vote for things that you don't really like, which
6:36
Speaker 1: is an interesting division to be at or contrast to
6:39
Speaker 1: be at. The game also has this developing storyline that
6:42
Speaker 1: I really like, and interesting methods for maintaining your family's
6:49
Speaker 1: influence over that time. I really like the way that
6:53
Speaker 1: the King's Dilemma works, and I wish that my group
6:56
Speaker 1: had liked it better so we'd played more than five games.
6:59
Speaker 2: Hello. It is resettable, though, so I've been meaning to
7:02
Speaker 2: reset it. I think I have to do.
7:04
Speaker 1: A little bit of work to reset the player boards,
7:07
Speaker 1: but for the most part, you can set it back
7:09
Speaker 1: up and try again. That is the King's Dilemma. Next
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Speaker 1: up Sidereal Confluence Sadira. Confluence is a really interesting experiment.
7:16
Speaker 1: When you listen to the designer talk. His goal was
7:19
Speaker 1: to make a game where trading in negotiation, where you
7:23
Speaker 1: succeed by being the best at sharing rather than at hoarding.
7:27
Speaker 1: You win by having the most, but the way that
7:29
Speaker 1: you get that is by sharing the best. And I
7:32
Speaker 1: think that's a really fascinating premise for a game, and
7:35
Speaker 1: I think the game is a really interesting design that
7:38
Speaker 1: leads toward that premise.
7:40
Speaker 2: It's also just really bold and everything it does.
7:43
Speaker 1: The idea that there's this huge mass of cards you
7:45
Speaker 1: put on on the table. There are nine different factions
7:48
Speaker 1: in the base game, and I have the expansion as well.
7:50
Speaker 1: Jeans there's eighteen factions to choose from. There's something like
7:54
Speaker 1: nine different resources that are moving around the board. The
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Speaker 1: gameplay is very complicated. I love a game that's an
8:00
Speaker 1: experiment in that way that just pushes the edge of
8:04
Speaker 1: what people can do in a game, and I think
8:07
Speaker 1: it succeeds. It's fascinating and interesting, and just talking about
8:10
Speaker 1: here makes me want to play it again. That's Sibeerial Confluence,
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Speaker 1: trading and negotiation in the Elysium quadrant. I believe it
8:17
Speaker 1: is the subtitle and finally, the last game out of
8:21
Speaker 1: point two as an interesting experiment is A Studying Emerald.
8:24
Speaker 1: A Studying Emerald is from twenty thirteen, and I've played
8:29
Speaker 1: both the original and the revision. I know that Coman
8:32
Speaker 1: Games is doing a new reprint that imagines the game
8:36
Speaker 1: again in a new way. I'm not that interested in it.
8:39
Speaker 1: I like the one I have. I don't know that
8:41
Speaker 1: I need a new one, though, I guess I can
8:42
Speaker 1: look when it comes out.
8:44
Speaker 2: I already have missed it.
8:45
Speaker 1: I'm not tracking that very closely because I'm trying to
8:47
Speaker 1: be more thrifty and tracking kickstarters is a.
8:50
Speaker 2: Good way to not be thrifty.
8:52
Speaker 1: That said, a studying Emerald just had a really interesting
8:57
Speaker 1: gameplay end condition that I that drove the whole game
9:00
Speaker 1: and is fascinating. And the idea was you are secretly
9:03
Speaker 1: on either the Restorationist or the Loyalist team. During the game,
9:08
Speaker 1: everyone's score reflects that they could be on either team
9:12
Speaker 1: reflects the highest possible score they could have, and if
9:15
Speaker 1: you get found out, then your score would reflect what
9:18
Speaker 1: was found out. The big thing is you don't know
9:20
Speaker 1: who's on your team, and nobody else does either, and
9:24
Speaker 1: at the end of the game, whichever team has the
9:26
Speaker 1: lowest scoring player that whole team loses, and then the
9:30
Speaker 1: person who's highest scoring of the team that didn't lose wins.
9:33
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating and really volatile way for a game
9:37
Speaker 1: to work. When it came out, the deck building parts
9:41
Speaker 1: and a lot of the gameplay was kind of confusing,
9:44
Speaker 1: and I think borderline difficult to play.
9:47
Speaker 2: It was a hard teach. Last time I played it,
9:49
Speaker 2: I didn't find it to be that hard to teach.
9:51
Speaker 1: So games have gotten more complex or I've become a
9:53
Speaker 1: more complex gamer. Both of those might be true, but
9:56
Speaker 1: In that time, a Studying Emerald has become easier to play,
9:59
Speaker 1: not harder. It's a fascinating game. I love playing it
10:02
Speaker 1: whenever I get a chance. Just talking about here makes
10:04
Speaker 1: me want to get it out and play it again.
10:06
Speaker 1: So that is a studying Emerald. I'm talking about the
10:09
Speaker 1: first edition from twenty thirteen. The second edition they muted
10:13
Speaker 1: that end game condition some and I think, I don't
10:16
Speaker 1: know why you would.
10:17
Speaker 2: I guess to make it a little more palatable, but whatever.
10:20
Speaker 2: So those are.
10:20
Speaker 1: Games where there's an interesting experiment and I admire it.
10:24
Speaker 1: So now let's talk about games where there's an interesting
10:26
Speaker 1: experiment and either I haven't played it or I didn't
10:29
Speaker 1: like it. The first thing these is Chronicles of Crime.
10:32
Speaker 1: Chronicles of Crime was an early entrance into the using
10:35
Speaker 1: an app to play a game market, and there's a
10:38
Speaker 1: lot of potential in the model they came up with.
10:40
Speaker 1: It's just fascinating. So the game is a mystery game
10:43
Speaker 1: where you have a bunch of different locations you can
10:46
Speaker 1: go to. You have a bunch of different things that
10:48
Speaker 1: would be involved in a mystery. These could be objects.
10:52
Speaker 1: They're objects, right, and then you have a whole bunch
10:55
Speaker 1: of different people cards, everything is numbered, and everything has
10:58
Speaker 1: QR codes on it. The way the game works is
11:00
Speaker 1: at the beginning you get from the app, you get
11:03
Speaker 1: a case introduction. Then you have characters that go to
11:06
Speaker 1: a specific place, and then you investigate by like you
11:10
Speaker 1: go to the crime scene and then there's like a
11:12
Speaker 1: three D rendering of the crime scene that you look
11:15
Speaker 1: at in your phone, and ideally it's designed to be
11:18
Speaker 1: like a three D glasses, like you put them on
11:21
Speaker 1: your face and you turn around and look around and
11:23
Speaker 1: then you call out stuff you see. So if you
11:24
Speaker 1: see a bloody knife, you'd say, hey, I see a
11:26
Speaker 1: bloody knife, and the people who are playing would then
11:29
Speaker 1: from the object deck they would say, you know, bladed weapon,
11:33
Speaker 1: And so as you call it things you see, they
11:36
Speaker 1: would add to the evidence display different objects that you've
11:40
Speaker 1: seen in the crime scene. Then when you go talk
11:42
Speaker 1: to people, you can ask them about those items. So
11:45
Speaker 1: when you find a witness, you scan the witness and
11:48
Speaker 1: then that tells the app you're interrogating them, and then
11:51
Speaker 1: you scan the object and it tells Then the witness
11:54
Speaker 1: tells you something about that object or tells you nothing.
11:56
Speaker 1: Either way, it eats up your time every time you
11:58
Speaker 1: scan an object for question.
12:00
Speaker 2: So the game is built.
12:01
Speaker 1: Around this idea of using up time trying to decide
12:03
Speaker 1: how to best manage your time. It's similar in feel
12:06
Speaker 1: to Sherlock Holm's Consulting Detective in terms of what you're
12:08
Speaker 1: trying to do.
12:09
Speaker 2: There's a mystery.
12:09
Speaker 1: You're trying to figure out who done it and why
12:11
Speaker 1: and where. But it's eminently malleable, right. They can always
12:16
Speaker 1: release new cases as downloadable content, which when we were
12:20
Speaker 1: playing it, we did download a couple of those. They
12:22
Speaker 1: were pretty interesting, and then they can also release more
12:26
Speaker 1: locations and people and cards. They've released a number of
12:29
Speaker 1: expansions that are different eras, so they changed the game
12:32
Speaker 1: slightly with different groups of places, people, and things. They've
12:35
Speaker 1: also released theme packs, so you can play basically as
12:39
Speaker 1: Scooby Doo or you can play as like Supernatural Investor or.
12:44
Speaker 1: I think it's film noir investigation kind of as one
12:47
Speaker 1: of the theme packs.
12:49
Speaker 2: So it's an interesting game. I think it is.
12:53
Speaker 1: The mysteries are compelling, but ultimately I came down on
12:58
Speaker 1: the side of it's not my favorite. I don't really
13:02
Speaker 1: need to play it a lot more because it's sort
13:05
Speaker 1: of like playing a video game. When you play it,
13:08
Speaker 1: you spend so much time on your phone that it
13:11
Speaker 1: feels like I mean, it is a good integration of
13:14
Speaker 1: board game in phone, but it feels a little too
13:16
Speaker 1: phone focused for me, and from that perspective, it fails.
13:21
Speaker 1: But it was an interesting experiment, and we've seen a
13:24
Speaker 1: bunch of things follow from that that I think are
13:27
Speaker 1: very compelling, including I think the return from Return to
13:30
Speaker 1: Dark Tower learned from that experiment. I can't say for
13:34
Speaker 1: certain that they did, but I think so. That's Chronicles
13:37
Speaker 1: of Crime. The next experiment that I want to point
13:39
Speaker 1: to that I admire greatly is the Pandemic Legacy series. Now,
13:43
Speaker 1: if I was just picking one, Pandemically Legacy Season one
13:46
Speaker 1: knocks it out.
13:47
Speaker 2: Of the park. That is a thing I love. It
13:50
Speaker 2: is incredible, really really good.
13:52
Speaker 1: The other Pandemic Legacy games Season two, which takes place
13:55
Speaker 1: in the future, and season zero, which takes into place
13:58
Speaker 1: in the past, We're both good, but not amazing.
14:01
Speaker 2: For me.
14:02
Speaker 1: They were sequels to a really great movie, generally going
14:07
Speaker 1: to be good, not as good as the movie would
14:10
Speaker 1: be by itself. I love what Legacy games do, the
14:13
Speaker 1: ambition that they create, the interaction that they create, where
14:17
Speaker 1: you are changing the game permanently. I stand strongly by
14:23
Speaker 1: the idea that the term legacy is useful as a
14:27
Speaker 1: line in the sand for a game where if you're
14:31
Speaker 1: playing by the way the.
14:32
Speaker 2: Game is written, you change it permanently.
14:34
Speaker 1: And I recognize there are some people who do workarounds
14:37
Speaker 1: for that pandemically legacy. Maybe instead of destroying cards, people
14:41
Speaker 1: hide them when they're supposed to sticker cards. Maybe they
14:44
Speaker 1: make a photocopy of their player thing, and when they're
14:47
Speaker 1: sticking it, they write in the photocopy so they keep
14:50
Speaker 1: the game pristine.
14:51
Speaker 2: Sure, you can do that.
14:52
Speaker 1: You can usually find a workaround to not physically alter
14:55
Speaker 1: the game. But it is really compelling when you physically
14:57
Speaker 1: alter the game because because it's permanent and makes the
15:01
Speaker 1: decisions feel meaningful in a way that I have yet
15:04
Speaker 1: to find in another game when it's less permanent, although
15:08
Speaker 1: Arkham Horror gets pretty close in the way that you
15:11
Speaker 1: add things to your deck or take things out of
15:13
Speaker 1: your deck when you make decisions, those feel relatively permanent,
15:16
Speaker 1: even if you aren't actually damaging any cards. Nonetheless, so
15:21
Speaker 1: I do really love Pandemic Legacy season one. I thought
15:24
Speaker 1: seasons two and zero were really interesting and fun. I
15:27
Speaker 1: don't know that I love them the way that I
15:29
Speaker 1: love Season one, but I definitely admire the whole legacy system.
15:33
Speaker 1: Another innovation that I admire the ambition, but I did
15:37
Speaker 1: not love.
15:37
Speaker 2: The output is key Forge.
15:39
Speaker 1: For those of you who don't remember key Forge as
15:42
Speaker 1: a system, this is a Richard Garfield designed game, and
15:46
Speaker 1: the idea was that there's a pool of cards and
15:49
Speaker 1: instead of building decks, what you get is a set
15:52
Speaker 1: deck that has a mix of cards that is sort
15:55
Speaker 1: of randomly determined by computer. There's an algorithm that determines
15:59
Speaker 1: what you get. The specifics are determined by computer, and
16:03
Speaker 1: then when you play your deck over time you learn
16:05
Speaker 1: to pilot it to get the most out of it,
16:07
Speaker 1: and it gains the sort of rating. So when you're
16:10
Speaker 1: playing competitively, the more effective a deck is, the more
16:14
Speaker 1: Harrison Harrison bergeron waits it takes on to keep it
16:18
Speaker 1: from winning, and once you've won a certain amount, then
16:20
Speaker 1: that deck is retired from competitive play. It's a really
16:23
Speaker 1: fascinating idea. Each deck has a name that's computer generated,
16:27
Speaker 1: which caused a little bit of chaos early on because
16:31
Speaker 1: the generator had some flaws in it, so it made
16:33
Speaker 1: a couple deck names that were not acceptable. I remember
16:37
Speaker 1: one of them that got a publication. There was a
16:39
Speaker 1: deck name. One of the decks was called the Farmer
16:41
Speaker 1: of Racism. That's not good, but generally really interesting idea
16:47
Speaker 1: and fascinating from all sorts of perspective, the idea of
16:51
Speaker 1: a machine generated, computer generated game. Because also the pattern
16:57
Speaker 1: on the back of the cards was procedurally generated. Each
17:00
Speaker 1: deck had its own pattern on the back of the cards,
17:03
Speaker 1: I believe, and then each deck was entirely unique. No
17:07
Speaker 1: other deck had those same cards. And because the decks
17:10
Speaker 1: are all registered through a central system, when you would
17:12
Speaker 1: go play, you have to use the cards that are
17:14
Speaker 1: in the deck, And the decks were relatively cheap, something
17:16
Speaker 1: like ten bucks each, so you could just get a
17:20
Speaker 1: couple decks and start playing, and then when you were
17:22
Speaker 1: kind of getting tired of those, you go buy another deck.
17:24
Speaker 2: So that was key Forge.
17:26
Speaker 1: They also made a game called discover Lands Unknown that
17:28
Speaker 1: tried to use a similar system. It was a game
17:30
Speaker 1: that came with a whole bunch of different stuff, and
17:32
Speaker 1: there was a huge pool of things that could be
17:34
Speaker 1: in it.
17:35
Speaker 2: And your game came with some of those.
17:37
Speaker 1: That game was much less popular, in fact, pretty disliked
17:40
Speaker 1: for the idea that someone might get a better copy
17:43
Speaker 1: than the one I have.
17:43
Speaker 2: Why can't I have all the stuff?
17:45
Speaker 1: It was kind of the thing people seem to understand
17:47
Speaker 1: KeyForge in a system of in a world of collectible
17:50
Speaker 1: card games, Keyfarge seemed to take better than discover Lands Unknown,
17:55
Speaker 1: So I've heard from people that discovers interesting as a game.
17:59
Speaker 1: Either way, I admire the ambition of trying to figure out,
18:02
Speaker 1: what is this thing we could do that would be
18:04
Speaker 1: so totally different. Finally, the last one I want to
18:07
Speaker 1: point too is actually itself. I admire it as in
18:11
Speaker 1: its ambition, and I have a copy, and I think
18:12
Speaker 1: it's fun, but also a thing that over time would
18:19
Speaker 1: it comes to represent for me a category of things.
18:21
Speaker 1: And this is trying to blend mechanisms in a new way.
18:25
Speaker 2: In particular Terror.
18:26
Speaker 1: In Mepal City or the copy I have is actually
18:28
Speaker 1: called Rampage. In it, you play a giant lizard trying
18:32
Speaker 1: to destroy a city, and it's got Euro scoring, so
18:35
Speaker 1: you are trying to gain points and score things based
18:38
Speaker 1: on kind of traditional Euro setups. But the game itself
18:44
Speaker 1: is a flicking and dexterity game where you are doing
18:48
Speaker 1: different things to interact with the board and win points
18:51
Speaker 1: through dexterity. Now, the mix of these two things is
18:54
Speaker 1: unusual and pretty interesting, and this is something that they
18:57
Speaker 1: tried again. I haven't played the Sonoma, but I leave
19:00
Speaker 1: I believe Sonoma was a worker was a flicking eurogame,
19:04
Speaker 1: and then a Dungeon Fighter is a game where you
19:08
Speaker 1: where you're throwing your dice and the way you throw
19:11
Speaker 1: your dice matters. So there are other games that have
19:13
Speaker 1: tried this, and I think it's an interesting mix of
19:16
Speaker 1: things and I admire it. Ter In Mepal City is
19:20
Speaker 1: a good time occasionally. I haven't busted out in a while,
19:23
Speaker 1: not since COVID. Actually, I was thinking about it. I
19:25
Speaker 1: may need to buy a thing to put in the
19:27
Speaker 1: box because one of the things you can do in
19:29
Speaker 1: the game is you can put your chin on your figure.
19:33
Speaker 1: Then you can blow on the board. And we live
19:35
Speaker 1: in the post COVID era. Nobody wants people blowing on
19:38
Speaker 1: their board game. But I was thinking a little hand
19:40
Speaker 1: wind pump thing might be able to simulate that. It's
19:45
Speaker 1: tern Mepal City from Anton Basa originally published as a Rampage,
19:50
Speaker 1: but then they got sued because they didn't have the
19:52
Speaker 1: license for that IP. So those are games that I
19:56
Speaker 1: both enjoy, like I really enjoy and admire what they've
19:59
Speaker 1: done to be EXPERI mental end games where I admire
20:02
Speaker 1: what they've done, but I don't enjoy them or don't
20:04
Speaker 1: enjoy them a ton. So what does this say about games?
20:08
Speaker 1: I think most games follow the traditions of most novels.
20:12
Speaker 1: And I remember reading this somewhere and I did a
20:14
Speaker 1: little I did a five minute search and I could
20:16
Speaker 1: not find who said it. But I remember reading somewhere
20:19
Speaker 1: that there was a publisher or some people thinking about
20:23
Speaker 1: I feel like romance novels. Maybe this was part of it.
20:25
Speaker 1: That a new text has to fit the genre that's
20:28
Speaker 1: expected in about eighty five percent of what it does,
20:32
Speaker 1: and that it can do about fifteen percent new stuff.
20:36
Speaker 1: And a text a thing that people are buying or
20:39
Speaker 1: engaging with that does fifteen percent new eighty five familiar.
20:42
Speaker 1: That is the sweet spot for people taking in a
20:44
Speaker 1: new thing. And if you think about when board games
20:47
Speaker 1: come out, often this is what they're doing right, Like
20:51
Speaker 1: it is a such and such game. We can explain
20:54
Speaker 1: games by a particular mechanism or set of mechanisms, and
20:58
Speaker 1: then we often add, but here's the twist, here the
21:00
Speaker 1: new thing it does. And I think that that is
21:02
Speaker 1: often what makes games really work in terms of capturing
21:07
Speaker 1: the public imagination and doing a lot of good sales
21:09
Speaker 1: is that they don't challenge us too much in terms
21:12
Speaker 1: of figuring out what They don't challenge challenge us too
21:21
Speaker 1: much in terms of figuring out what we're doing in
21:24
Speaker 1: the game, but instead they they offer us a little
21:29
Speaker 1: bit new and a little bit familiar. The games that
21:32
Speaker 1: are really interesting are the ones that offer us a
21:34
Speaker 1: lot new.
21:35
Speaker 2: These are a much harder.
21:36
Speaker 1: Sell because how do we know people will like them?
21:38
Speaker 1: And this is often when we see games that really flop.
21:41
Speaker 1: Part of why they really flopped is they tried a
21:43
Speaker 1: thing new that people didn't like. An example is Nicktophobia.
21:47
Speaker 1: This is a game I saw that came out. People
21:48
Speaker 1: were really excited about it and interested in it because
21:51
Speaker 1: it's a game designed to be played where the players
21:56
Speaker 1: are blindfolded and the villain is not game has taxile
22:00
Speaker 1: pieces you're supposed to.
22:01
Speaker 2: Figure out where you are, et cetera, et cetera.
22:03
Speaker 1: I heard a lot of people talking about as they
22:05
Speaker 1: thought it was really interesting, and then it did not
22:07
Speaker 1: sell well, or it sold well initially and then people
22:10
Speaker 1: don't play it much because it turns out people don't
22:12
Speaker 1: like being blindfolded, particularly at like a public game day.
22:16
Speaker 1: Sitting in a space surrounded by strangers blindfolded is weird
22:21
Speaker 1: and not everybody's favorite. On the other hand, sometimes a
22:25
Speaker 1: game will just come out of nowhere and really do
22:26
Speaker 1: a thing, an interesting thing new. The first time I
22:28
Speaker 1: heard about Dixit and I played it, I was like, Wow,
22:30
Speaker 1: this is amazing. And then when Mysterium came out, that
22:33
Speaker 1: was a good example of like a new thing to
22:35
Speaker 1: use an old thing.
22:36
Speaker 2: Right it is a mystery solving game that's old.
22:39
Speaker 1: You use Dixit cards that's old, but you combine them
22:41
Speaker 1: it feels really new and make it a cooperative game
22:44
Speaker 1: whoa really new And so I feel like the games
22:47
Speaker 1: that are most successful in terms of being experimental are
22:49
Speaker 1: the ones that push the boundary a bit but hold
22:52
Speaker 1: back from really going crazy. But going crazy is the
22:56
Speaker 1: ones that I think are really admirable. Sometimes they were great,
23:00
Speaker 1: sometimes they fail, but the ones where they're like I
23:03
Speaker 1: have this road I'm driving down and I don't want
23:05
Speaker 1: to stop along the way I want to go to
23:08
Speaker 1: where I get to where I'm going. I think it's
23:10
Speaker 1: interesting to look at uve Rosenberg's output in this context
23:14
Speaker 1: because Uviy Rosenberg was really famous for worker placement games
23:18
Speaker 1: for a long time, right, and then he made these
23:20
Speaker 1: sort of small puzzly games.
23:22
Speaker 2: Then he started making polyomeno games. He made Patchwork.
23:25
Speaker 1: He made a series of three games I believe, Summer Garden,
23:29
Speaker 1: Indian Summer, and there was a Spring one, Spring Thaw
23:34
Speaker 1: or something like that.
23:35
Speaker 2: All three of these.
23:36
Speaker 1: Games involved different ways of using polyamenos to do stuff.
23:39
Speaker 1: He's come up with a couple more since then. But
23:41
Speaker 1: then out of the blue he comes out with a
23:43
Speaker 1: Feast for Odin, which feels like this, I mean nothing
23:47
Speaker 1: in it was entirely new, but it felt so different
23:50
Speaker 1: than everything else that was out in scope and the
23:53
Speaker 1: kinds of mechanisms you were using. It felt experimental and
23:56
Speaker 1: succeeded dramatically. Now somebody like uve Rosenberg, he's gonna win
24:00
Speaker 1: when he's like, yeah, it's a worker placement game, but
24:02
Speaker 1: there's sixty worker slots, and the placement you're doing involves
24:07
Speaker 1: arranging polyamenos, or the resources you're getting involved polyamenals, those
24:11
Speaker 1: things mixed together really work. But he can experiment a
24:14
Speaker 1: little bit like that because he's Uber Rosenberg. He's got
24:17
Speaker 1: a lot of credit, so he gets a benefit. I
24:19
Speaker 1: think if you keep an eye on Kickstarter or backer
24:22
Speaker 1: kit and look at the people who are indie.
24:25
Speaker 2: Players, sometimes you'll see somebody come out with a thing
24:27
Speaker 2: that's just wild. It's just out there.
24:29
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's great, Sometimes it's a total disaster, but it's
24:32
Speaker 1: often very interesting.
24:33
Speaker 2: I don't know that I said anything there.
24:35
Speaker 1: They get more articulated what I like about experimental games
24:38
Speaker 1: rather than how do we know when someone should be?
24:40
Speaker 1: But I embrace it and I'm looking forward to seeing
24:43
Speaker 1: more as the hobby continues to grow. So what games
24:49
Speaker 1: that made some board game experimentation do you like? Head
24:53
Speaker 1: over to board game gee Kield three two sixty nine
24:55
Speaker 1: and let me know, share your thoughts, tell me which
24:58
Speaker 1: games succeeded, Which games do you admire but didn't succeed.
25:02
Speaker 1: What experiments would you like to see people do?
25:05
Speaker 2: You can also.
25:06
Speaker 1: Email me Brendan at rattleboxgames dot com, or you can
25:10
Speaker 1: send me a message on board game geek.
25:12
Speaker 2: Wombat nineteen ninety is my user name there.
25:15
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me. On my walk today. I
25:16
Speaker 1: hope your next walk is Bussins and fine w Goodbye
25:40
Speaker 2: Brought to you by Rattlebox Game