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Spooky Games, part 3 · 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
0:07
Speaker 1: a walk and deliver an episode two while I stroll around.
0:10
Speaker 2: I'm Brendan Riley. Good morning listener.
0:22
Speaker 3: It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.
0:24
Speaker 1: The clouds are out, the rain has come and gone
0:27
Speaker 1: a little bit. It's Halloween morning, and I'm re recording
0:31
Speaker 1: a podcast that I thought I recorded before. So, as
0:34
Speaker 1: you know, last week or late late last week, I
0:36
Speaker 1: started recording a series, a four part series about spooky games,
0:40
Speaker 1: with the intention of releasing them in the week before
0:42
Speaker 1: Halloween and having the last one come out today.
0:45
Speaker 3: Well, I'm still releasing the last one today.
0:47
Speaker 1: I recorded part four yesterday for the second time, and
0:51
Speaker 1: I guess it's a little spooky because I have experienced
0:57
Speaker 1: more recording problems in this series of four episodes then
1:01
Speaker 1: I have in quite a while. So first, the first
1:06
Speaker 1: two episodes that I recorded, I recorded on one walk
1:09
Speaker 1: to and from the library, and I saved those and
1:12
Speaker 1: I cut the recording up into two parts and I
1:15
Speaker 1: put them in the right folders so that when it's
1:16
Speaker 1: time to edit the episodes I could do so. In
1:18
Speaker 1: the first one went fine, and then I had recorded
1:22
Speaker 1: a I think a board game Espresso episode to go
1:26
Speaker 1: in between the two. That was the one where I
1:27
Speaker 1: talked about in Genius. And then I went to get
1:31
Speaker 1: the other one and I couldn't find it, and it
1:33
Speaker 1: took me like way too long, given that I had
1:36
Speaker 1: put it in the right spot to find the recording.
1:38
Speaker 1: I don't know what I did with the first one
1:39
Speaker 1: where I accidentally put it, but it took me a
1:41
Speaker 1: while to find it and get it in the right spot.
1:43
Speaker 3: Okay, great. Then the day after I.
1:46
Speaker 1: Did the board Game Espresso episode with Ingenius in those games,
1:51
Speaker 1: then I recorded part three with the Cuthulhu one and
1:55
Speaker 1: I set that aside. Then I edited the board Game
1:59
Speaker 1: Espresso episode. Then I recorded another board Game Espresso episode
2:03
Speaker 1: to go after part three or after part two, and
2:06
Speaker 1: the idea was going to go it was going to
2:08
Speaker 1: part one, Board Game Expresso, Part two, Part three, Board
2:10
Speaker 1: Game Espresso Part four, But then I didn't have time
2:14
Speaker 1: to get three recorded before it was time to put
2:16
Speaker 1: two into or put the next board games the next
2:20
Speaker 1: episode out, so I put out the board Game Expresso episode.
2:22
Speaker 3: In the meantime.
2:23
Speaker 1: I recorded three, and then the next day I hadn't
2:26
Speaker 1: released three yet, but I went.
2:27
Speaker 3: And recorded four.
2:29
Speaker 1: When I got home, I found that I had even
2:32
Speaker 1: though I remember hitting start and I remember seeing it
2:34
Speaker 1: saying now recording. I got home and it wasn't recording,
2:37
Speaker 1: so I lost the spooky episode four. So then I
2:40
Speaker 1: had to re record episode four, which was fine.
2:43
Speaker 3: I did that, it was fun.
2:45
Speaker 1: And then now when I went to edit them this
2:49
Speaker 1: morning with the idea of releasing both three and four
2:51
Speaker 1: this morning, three was nowhere to be found. So I
2:54
Speaker 1: don't know if I recorded three and three is the
2:56
Speaker 1: one that did not record, and I never recorded four,
2:59
Speaker 1: but I know I did because.
3:00
Speaker 3: I remember doing both three and four.
3:03
Speaker 1: So all I can say is it's spooky season here
3:06
Speaker 1: on pick Up and Deliver, not just for the games.
3:09
Speaker 3: But also for the recording mishaps.
3:14
Speaker 1: So let's hope that this last try at part three
3:17
Speaker 1: goes well because then I can edit and release Part
3:19
Speaker 1: three and Part four today and Bob's your Uncle were set,
3:25
Speaker 1: so without further ado board.
3:27
Speaker 3: Spooky Games Part three Cthulhu themed games.
3:31
Speaker 1: So I always anytime I talk about HP Lovecraft pretty
3:34
Speaker 1: much in any context, I'm always I always make a
3:37
Speaker 1: verbal note And remember he was a terrible racist.
3:40
Speaker 3: I don't mean he was bad at being racist. I
3:41
Speaker 3: mean he was a racist who was particularly terrible given
3:45
Speaker 3: the level of sort of baseline racism that was endemic
3:48
Speaker 3: in society when he was alive. He was particularly victriolic,
3:53
Speaker 3: and you can see that in his writing.
3:54
Speaker 1: There are some stories more than others, where he is
3:57
Speaker 1: particularly xenophobic and racist about anything that is not white European,
4:04
Speaker 1: probably white Anglo Saxon people or aliens or whatever. He
4:10
Speaker 1: was afraid of miscegenation. He was pretty terrible. So why
4:14
Speaker 1: talk about him at all? Well, we don't have to,
4:17
Speaker 1: and you're certainly welcome not to, and I won't judge
4:19
Speaker 1: you if you don't. But he also wrote some incredible
4:22
Speaker 1: stories that had a huge influence on the way that
4:25
Speaker 1: horror emerged thereafter, really interesting stuff, compelling stuff, and things
4:32
Speaker 1: that live on far beyond the awful elements that he
4:36
Speaker 1: put into them. And I will say some of the
4:38
Speaker 1: stories do read particularly racist, and they're less pleasant to read.
4:42
Speaker 1: But a lot of them don't have that clear tinge
4:45
Speaker 1: although it's not hard to find it if you look
4:48
Speaker 1: real hard, or you at least want to be aware
4:51
Speaker 1: of it while you're reading So all that is to
4:53
Speaker 1: say HP Lovecraft is was a terrible person, or at
4:57
Speaker 1: least had terrible views in big runks of his life.
5:01
Speaker 3: But he was also a.
5:01
Speaker 1: Compelling writer, and his imagination lives on in a lot
5:05
Speaker 1: of things, particularly the elder god Mythos that he created,
5:09
Speaker 1: and in that regard, I'm interested in talking about the
5:12
Speaker 1: cuth themed games that I have, of which there are
5:15
Speaker 1: a surprising number. Now, Cuthulhu is, of course, as with
5:19
Speaker 1: most ASP Lovecraft stories, were written and have fallen out
5:22
Speaker 1: of copyright, which means that it's legal to make a
5:25
Speaker 1: game using his characters without paying anyone for the rights
5:28
Speaker 1: to do so, which is nice because then you can
5:30
Speaker 1: have familiar monsters but also have them be free for
5:34
Speaker 1: the development. It's the purpose of public domain and why
5:37
Speaker 1: it's great. So I'm going to talk a little bit
5:39
Speaker 1: about Cuthulhu themed games that I have, of which there
5:42
Speaker 1: are quite a few, not quite as many as I
5:44
Speaker 1: have Zombies, which you'll hear about tomorrow, but close. All right,
5:48
Speaker 1: let's start with sort of small box games, real simple stuff.
5:51
Speaker 3: I've got Cuthulhu.
5:52
Speaker 1: Gloom, which is just like Gloom, which I talked about
5:56
Speaker 1: in the Halloween adjacent games section, but Cuthulu themed, We've
6:00
Speaker 1: got Cuthulhu Dice, which is from Steve Jackson Games. It's
6:05
Speaker 1: not all that dissimilar from Zombie Dice, but honestly I
6:07
Speaker 1: like it better. The mechanisms are a little more interesting
6:11
Speaker 1: in there's player interaction instead of being just you versus
6:14
Speaker 1: the dice. And can you get to the end before
6:16
Speaker 1: other people do? Those two are both fun little games.
6:20
Speaker 1: The third one I'll talk about a little bit more
6:22
Speaker 1: is Tides of Madness.
6:23
Speaker 3: Now, this game is a little bit older.
6:25
Speaker 1: It's from twenty sixteen, but it really stands out as
6:27
Speaker 1: a great two player drafting game. So the way Tides
6:30
Speaker 1: of Madness works, each player starts with a hand of cards,
6:33
Speaker 1: and on the cards there are a series of icons
6:35
Speaker 1: in the upper.
6:36
Speaker 3: Right corner and a power in the lower part.
6:40
Speaker 1: Most of the powers are scoring conditions, but there are
6:43
Speaker 1: a couple other things that change things in some ways.
6:46
Speaker 1: Some of the cards also have tentacles drawn around the edge,
6:50
Speaker 1: and they have this sort of beautiful, wispy ethereal art
6:53
Speaker 1: that depicts various places from the Cthulhu mythos or from
6:57
Speaker 1: the HP Love Mythos. Now the tricky or the interesting part,
7:01
Speaker 1: so The Tides of Madness is a sort of second
7:04
Speaker 1: iteration on a game of called Time Tides of Time,
7:07
Speaker 1: and I think it is an upgrade in every way.
7:09
Speaker 1: This premise of the game is you start with the
7:11
Speaker 1: hand of cards that's got had these icons and these
7:13
Speaker 1: scoring conditions, and the other player has a hand of
7:16
Speaker 1: cards with icons and scoring conditions, and you are going
7:19
Speaker 1: to take one of draft one of them and hand
7:24
Speaker 1: the cards to the other player. It's a close draft
7:26
Speaker 1: like Seven Wonders, only it's only two player, and then
7:29
Speaker 1: you reveal the card you have and then you draft
7:32
Speaker 1: a card and hand it back. It's a hand of
7:34
Speaker 1: five or seven cards. I want to say five cards,
7:37
Speaker 1: and you're handing them back and forth. Then after you've
7:39
Speaker 1: done the five, then you score the scoring conditions on
7:41
Speaker 1: your cards, and you take Madness tokens for each card
7:43
Speaker 1: with a tentacle that you took or that's in your tableau.
7:46
Speaker 1: Then each of you pick one card secretly to keep permanently,
7:51
Speaker 1: and then you each draw I think two more cards
7:54
Speaker 1: sent out. It's a hand of six, and then you
7:56
Speaker 1: start drafting again, or you hand them across and start
7:59
Speaker 1: drafting again. And the idea is that now you're going
8:02
Speaker 1: to have seven cards, including one that's permanently yours.
8:05
Speaker 3: Then I think in the third round you do eight.
8:07
Speaker 1: I don't remember specifically or exactly, but it's something like that.
8:10
Speaker 3: The idea is that.
8:11
Speaker 1: You are drafting each time. You are trying to get
8:13
Speaker 1: as many points as you can by getting cards with
8:16
Speaker 1: certain icons on them and scoring conditions that pay off
8:19
Speaker 1: for those cards. But then there's a secondary condition, which
8:22
Speaker 1: is I think seven or nine of the tentacle cards.
8:26
Speaker 3: If you end the.
8:27
Speaker 1: Game with a certain number of those, you just lose,
8:31
Speaker 1: which is an interesting twist as well.
8:33
Speaker 3: I think I think maybe you keep a card and
8:35
Speaker 3: discard a card.
8:37
Speaker 1: When you're doing there's a way to get the tentacle
8:39
Speaker 1: cards out of the game, so it is possible for
8:40
Speaker 1: both players to finish the game because you use all
8:44
Speaker 1: the cards in the game, but you also discard some.
8:46
Speaker 1: So there's an interesting back and forth there because of
8:48
Speaker 1: course the tentacle cards.
8:49
Speaker 3: Score more, but they start to drive you. Matt. It's
8:52
Speaker 3: a really great two player game.
8:53
Speaker 1: I don't know how widely available it is anymore, if
8:55
Speaker 1: it's even in print, but you definitely should check it
8:58
Speaker 1: out if you.
8:58
Speaker 3: Get a chance.
8:59
Speaker 1: It's called Tides of Madness, designed by Christian Koula, published
9:04
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Well, that was a longer talk about
9:06
Speaker 1: that game than I intended it to be, but that's
9:09
Speaker 1: how this goes sex. I want to talk about a
9:11
Speaker 1: family of games that have gotten a fair amount of
9:13
Speaker 1: coverage on the pod, so I won't spend a ton
9:15
Speaker 1: of time on them. But this is Arkham Horror, Arkham
9:18
Speaker 1: Horror the Card Game, and Eldritch Horror. All three of
9:21
Speaker 1: these games, along with Elder Sign, which I'll talk about
9:23
Speaker 1: in more detail in a moment, are all part of
9:25
Speaker 1: the Arkham Files game system. This is the Fantasy Flight
9:30
Speaker 1: iteration of the Cthulhu misso mythos I think tied into
9:35
Speaker 1: the idea of Call of Cthulhu. For a while, there
9:38
Speaker 1: was the Call of Cthulhu Expandable card game or a
9:41
Speaker 1: collectible card game and living card game excuse me, call
9:44
Speaker 1: of Cthulhu Living card game, and that one was also
9:49
Speaker 1: used these same Arkham investigators. Arkham Horror the Card Game
9:52
Speaker 1: is the best version of this. I think it's really fun,
9:55
Speaker 1: very interesting as a product, and something I I really
10:00
Speaker 1: enjoyed Arkham Horror. I never played Arkahrror first Edition, and
10:04
Speaker 1: I haven't played Arkhamhrror third Edition yet. Arkham Horror second
10:08
Speaker 1: Edition is the one that I had for a while.
10:09
Speaker 1: We played a few times. It was always kind of
10:11
Speaker 1: big and bloated, and you know, very much of its
10:14
Speaker 1: time two thousand and eight. It was an interesting game,
10:17
Speaker 1: but involved a lot of dice rolling and was very
10:19
Speaker 1: hard as it's meant to be. But I prefer Arkhamhorror
10:21
Speaker 1: the card game from that perspective. Elders Horror is a
10:25
Speaker 1: better version of Arkhamhoorror second Edition, but instead you're going
10:28
Speaker 1: around the world instead of just going around the town
10:30
Speaker 1: of Arkham, so it's also very good, I think, again,
10:34
Speaker 1: not as good as Arkhamhorror the card game. I've heard
10:36
Speaker 1: very good things about Arkhamhrror third Edition, but I can't
10:39
Speaker 1: see myself buying that unless I found it cheap somewhere else,
10:42
Speaker 1: a used copy that allowed me to play it without
10:45
Speaker 1: having a plunk down sixty bucks or eighty bucks or
10:47
Speaker 1: they're charging for it. All of these games are built
10:49
Speaker 1: around the same set of investigators, which is fun because
10:51
Speaker 1: you have these kind of recurring roles. They have developed characteristics,
10:55
Speaker 1: and it makes for the feeling of a lived in
10:58
Speaker 1: World as they have it, So I really like the
11:01
Speaker 1: Arkham Horror, the Arkham Files games from Fantasy Flight and
11:05
Speaker 1: Arkham Horror of the Card game.
11:07
Speaker 3: Is the best of the bunch.
11:08
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about that, there are
11:10
Speaker 1: several episodes of this podcast specifically focused on that game,
11:13
Speaker 1: so feel free to explore. Elder Sign is the other
11:17
Speaker 1: game from the Arkham Files which I thought I would mention.
11:19
Speaker 3: This is a game we've played a lot.
11:20
Speaker 1: It's been out of favor with us lately, but we
11:23
Speaker 1: still have it and we still play it once every
11:25
Speaker 1: couple of years.
11:26
Speaker 3: It's an interesting dice roller.
11:28
Speaker 1: It uses the Yatzi style dice rolling and you're trying
11:31
Speaker 1: to complete tasks. It has a snowball effect that I
11:34
Speaker 1: think is a really interesting game design choice. Essentially, when
11:37
Speaker 1: you're doing well, you're probably going to keep doing well
11:40
Speaker 1: because you have a knife dice mitigation that you're going
11:43
Speaker 1: to keep succeeding at tasks. And basically the way the
11:46
Speaker 1: game works is you have to succeed at tasks to
11:48
Speaker 1: get more bonuses, and the bonuses are almost always one use,
11:51
Speaker 1: and so you get bonuses, you spend them to succeed
11:54
Speaker 1: at the next task and you slowly accumulate more and
11:57
Speaker 1: more stuff that helps you do well in the later tasks,
12:01
Speaker 1: and some tasks also give you Elder signs, these sort
12:05
Speaker 1: of blue stars that are the crucial element in defeating
12:10
Speaker 1: the bad guy. They released a number of different scenarios
12:12
Speaker 1: for the game. It comes in the original game, you
12:15
Speaker 1: are exploring the museum in Arkham itself and in the
12:20
Speaker 1: Streets of Arkham Blessed and Cursed expansion.
12:23
Speaker 3: They make that more robust, but you're still in the museum.
12:26
Speaker 1: Then they have the Streets of Arkham, which makes the
12:28
Speaker 1: Kham Elder Sign much closer to the second edition Arkham
12:32
Speaker 1: or game, where there's all sorts of different locations and
12:34
Speaker 1: Arkham and these gates open up and you have to
12:37
Speaker 1: close the gates, and that one's really fun. Then there's
12:40
Speaker 1: also Omens of Ice, which is a whole different location
12:43
Speaker 1: that you can play in, and there's also an Egypt
12:45
Speaker 1: one which I do not have. All in all, it's
12:47
Speaker 1: a really interesting game system that I enjoy quite a bit.
12:51
Speaker 1: We always have fun when we play it, but we
12:53
Speaker 1: don't play it all that often. So that's Elder Sign
12:55
Speaker 1: definitely something I should get back out. Twenty eleven is
12:58
Speaker 1: that one?
12:58
Speaker 3: All right?
12:58
Speaker 1: Next, I'll talk about a couple of games that again
13:01
Speaker 1: are in a sort of shared universe. This is a
13:03
Speaker 1: Study in Emerald and All Australia. I say All Australia
13:07
Speaker 1: like that because it's spelled a u ztr Aila.
13:11
Speaker 3: Both of these are games from Martin Wallace.
13:13
Speaker 1: They take place in the Victorian Age, and the idea
13:16
Speaker 1: is or the Victorian Age and then.
13:18
Speaker 3: The nineteen teens and twenties.
13:20
Speaker 1: The idea is that long ago, the elder gods took
13:23
Speaker 1: over the Earth and are reigning in the royal houses
13:27
Speaker 1: of Europe instead of the human monarchs. But as a result,
13:33
Speaker 1: humankind has been suppressed by the elder gods as.
13:37
Speaker 3: They dominate the world.
13:39
Speaker 1: And in a study in Emerald, humankind has risen up
13:44
Speaker 1: and is fighting against the elder gods.
13:46
Speaker 3: Now.
13:46
Speaker 1: The way they're doing this is through traditional anarchists maneuvers.
13:51
Speaker 1: And so it's this weird blending of literature and nonfiction
13:55
Speaker 1: in which real historical anarchists who are attempting to use
13:59
Speaker 1: often violent means to overthrow royalty are mixed in with
14:04
Speaker 1: fictional characters good and bad, who are also trying to
14:09
Speaker 1: conspire or attack the Elder Gods, and I've talked about
14:13
Speaker 1: a Study in Emerald quite a bit on this podcast,
14:15
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to spend a ton of time
14:16
Speaker 1: on it today, and sufficed to say that it's.
14:19
Speaker 3: A weird and wild game that I really enjoy.
14:21
Speaker 1: A few years later, Martin Wallace released a second game
14:24
Speaker 1: called All Australia, which is a sequel to a Studying Emerald,
14:28
Speaker 1: only this time you are the human beings, have vanquished
14:31
Speaker 1: the Elder Gods from Europe and have set out to
14:33
Speaker 1: explore the rest.
14:34
Speaker 3: Of the world.
14:35
Speaker 1: Now, in the narrative of the game, the rest of
14:37
Speaker 1: the world was basically the playground of the Elder Gods
14:40
Speaker 1: and there aren't people there that The people were basically
14:43
Speaker 1: confined to Europe and America and most of the rest
14:45
Speaker 1: of the world was kept for the Elder Gods and
14:48
Speaker 1: people were not there.
14:49
Speaker 3: Now.
14:49
Speaker 1: The result of this is that Australia is then a pristine,
14:52
Speaker 1: unoccupied land that human beings start to build farms on
14:57
Speaker 1: and colonize. Of course these are European Indian human beings
15:01
Speaker 1: because they are British colonizers.
15:03
Speaker 3: And then it turns out that the Elder Gods had
15:05
Speaker 3: settled in the middle of Australia.
15:06
Speaker 1: That's where they went when they were defeated, and so
15:08
Speaker 1: they start rising up, start causing all kinds of trouble,
15:11
Speaker 1: and you have to fight them off in order to win.
15:14
Speaker 3: Now, in reading some.
15:15
Speaker 1: Stuff about the discussion of setting of this game, Martin
15:19
Speaker 1: Wallace talked about wanting to not wanting to have a
15:23
Speaker 1: game where colonial where the traditional or historical British settling
15:29
Speaker 1: of Australia involved murder and displacement of Aboriginal peoples, and
15:34
Speaker 1: he didn't want to make a game about that, and
15:37
Speaker 1: so his solution narratively was that there weren't any people there,
15:41
Speaker 1: which is of course its own kind of problematic, Like
15:43
Speaker 1: it's good that he was trying to think about how
15:46
Speaker 1: to make a game that didn't do that, but it's
15:49
Speaker 1: bad that his solution to that was, well, let's just
15:51
Speaker 1: pretend they're not there. That has its own fraud and
15:55
Speaker 1: unpleasant consequences, including one potential misread of the game or
15:59
Speaker 1: read of game, depending how you read it, which is
16:01
Speaker 1: that the Cuthu the monsters represent the Aboriginal people who
16:06
Speaker 1: are an inconvenience to be fought off. As I said,
16:09
Speaker 1: this certainly wasn't Martin Wallace's intent, and I don't think
16:12
Speaker 1: he would agree that that was how it should be read.
16:14
Speaker 1: But I think that if you play the game, you
16:17
Speaker 1: can read it that way, and that's a bummer. That said,
16:20
Speaker 1: it's a pretty interesting game from a mechanical standpoint. It's
16:24
Speaker 1: a cooperative game in which you are trying to fight
16:28
Speaker 1: off these monsters while you're building up your farms trying
16:31
Speaker 1: to start the settling of a new continent. There is
16:34
Speaker 1: an expansion which I purchased, but I have not played yet,
16:37
Speaker 1: so at some point I would like to try that.
16:39
Speaker 3: But I really like the world.
16:40
Speaker 1: Of a Studying Emerald in Australia, particularly the first one,
16:45
Speaker 1: as a premise for thinking about.
16:48
Speaker 3: Different kinds of stories.
16:49
Speaker 1: So those are the Martin Wallace Studying Emerald games, the
16:53
Speaker 1: most recent of the games released by Space Cowboys. In
16:57
Speaker 1: the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective line is not actually called
17:00
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes called Consulting Detective. It's called Bureau Investigation Investigations
17:06
Speaker 1: in Arkham and elsewhere. Now, what this is basically takes
17:09
Speaker 1: the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective format and makes a new
17:14
Speaker 1: game in which you're studying cases of things that happen
17:18
Speaker 1: in Miskatonic University or in Arkham. It's a fun premise,
17:22
Speaker 1: but I think it suffers from the same problem that
17:24
Speaker 1: Mythos Tales did, although it's a little better because it
17:26
Speaker 1: is sort of unique takes on the story, So knowing
17:29
Speaker 1: the story doesn't help you solve the mystery in these,
17:32
Speaker 1: whereas in Mythos Tales you literally could solve the mystery
17:36
Speaker 1: if you'd read the HP Lovecraft stories on which they're based,
17:38
Speaker 1: which was not great. But the idea is fun being
17:44
Speaker 1: an investigator having these Cuthulhu type or Mythos type events happening.
17:50
Speaker 1: The problem is that a lot of these are about
17:52
Speaker 1: suspense and horror, and it's hard to have suspense and
17:54
Speaker 1: horror when you're investigating the state of things afterward. There's
17:57
Speaker 1: some dread, perhaps, but it's minimal. The cases are well
18:02
Speaker 1: enough made and interesting in the different ways that they work.
18:05
Speaker 1: There's one that's almost entirely about like sorting.
18:07
Speaker 3: Paperwork and learning from the paperwork.
18:09
Speaker 1: It's almost more like one of those murder in a
18:12
Speaker 1: box games that you can order. Those ones are pretty interesting.
18:16
Speaker 1: It's sort of like those almost, but whereas the other
18:19
Speaker 1: ones do follow the more traditional pick a location, go there,
18:23
Speaker 1: talk to somebody, or see what's their model of Sherlock Holmes.
18:26
Speaker 3: I thought it was fun, it's worth playing.
18:28
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's worth a sticker price because there's
18:29
Speaker 1: only five cases in the box. Two all the Sherlock
18:32
Speaker 1: Holmes games had ten, so that felt like a bit
18:34
Speaker 1: of a downgrade. But we did have fun with it,
18:37
Speaker 1: and I'm glad to have played it, So for what
18:40
Speaker 1: it's worth, maybe I think they were worth eight to
18:42
Speaker 1: ten dollars a case, because that's how much I ended
18:45
Speaker 1: up paying it. I guess that is Bureau of Investigation
18:48
Speaker 1: investigations in Arkham and elsewhere. All Right, So I've got
18:51
Speaker 1: four Cuthrough Lou themed games left to talk about, two
18:54
Speaker 1: of which I've played, so I'll start with the two
18:56
Speaker 1: that I haven't played, just to make sure I don't
18:58
Speaker 1: forget them. One of them is a game I found
19:00
Speaker 1: at a thrift star Penny Arcade. Rumble in Relay or
19:04
Speaker 1: Rely or Relia really is one of the locations in
19:08
Speaker 1: the HP Lovecraft stories. I believe it is the mythical
19:11
Speaker 1: place to which the cave in Mountains of Madness connects.
19:15
Speaker 1: Perhaps so it is a terrifying, non Euclidean space out
19:21
Speaker 1: of time or whatever, so that one is scary.
19:25
Speaker 3: The Penny Arcade one.
19:26
Speaker 1: It is themed around the guys from Penny Arcade and
19:28
Speaker 1: they're I don't know, fighting there. It's a deck builder
19:30
Speaker 1: of some sort. I haven't taken the time to try it.
19:33
Speaker 1: It's just one of those ones where it'd probably be fun.
19:35
Speaker 1: It's probably a pretty standard deck builder. I haven't really
19:38
Speaker 1: looked at the rules to see whether it's actually good,
19:40
Speaker 1: but one of these days I will. The other one
19:42
Speaker 1: that I have that I haven't played is Miskatonic School
19:44
Speaker 1: for Boys. This is a sort of spiritual sequel but
19:48
Speaker 1: different genre game, following up from Miskatonic School for Girls,
19:53
Speaker 1: which was from Fun to eleven Games, which is the
19:55
Speaker 1: I think they said they were pausing, not dissolving, but
19:59
Speaker 1: as far as I know, we haven't seen anything from
20:01
Speaker 1: them in quite a while, so we're probably reaching the
20:04
Speaker 1: end of the lifespan of those products. I do have
20:08
Speaker 1: a couple of their games still kicking around, and I
20:10
Speaker 1: think they're fun, including Miskatonic School for Girls.
20:13
Speaker 3: But Misscatonic School.
20:14
Speaker 1: For Boys was a social deduction game in which there's
20:17
Speaker 1: I think one human and a bunch of monsters. I
20:19
Speaker 1: think that's kind of the premise. I haven't tried it yet,
20:21
Speaker 1: but it looks amusing. At some point I will, And then.
20:24
Speaker 3: Like I said, the last two that I have played.
20:27
Speaker 1: Miskatonic School for Girls is a deck builder in which
20:31
Speaker 1: you build both your own decks and your opponent's decks.
20:34
Speaker 1: In that game, you play one of you play one
20:38
Speaker 1: of the houses of girls at a girls' school. The
20:41
Speaker 1: houses are sort of like in Hogwarts. They have their
20:45
Speaker 1: own name.
20:46
Speaker 3: If you get the Winter Break expansion, which you should
20:48
Speaker 3: do if you're going to get both these games, although
20:50
Speaker 3: these are long out of print.
20:52
Speaker 1: The Winter Break Expansion also adds a bit more differentiation
20:55
Speaker 1: in the houses, so you get a little bit more
20:58
Speaker 1: variety there. But the idea is there are two rows
21:00
Speaker 1: of cards you can buy from. There are girls that
21:03
Speaker 1: go into your house, and then there are teachers that
21:05
Speaker 1: go into your opponent's decks.
21:07
Speaker 3: And the girls that go in your house help you.
21:09
Speaker 1: The teachers that come into your house also help you,
21:12
Speaker 1: but they help you buy teachers for other players houses,
21:16
Speaker 1: and they tend to be bad. Right Like, The way
21:18
Speaker 1: it works is someone else puts a card in your deck.
21:21
Speaker 1: When you're playing your cards, every teacher you draw in
21:25
Speaker 1: your hand goes into the classroom. Then you have to
21:28
Speaker 1: fight all the teachers with the other cards that you drew.
21:30
Speaker 1: So if you're getting if you get a hand where
21:32
Speaker 1: you have two or three teachers and not very many students,
21:35
Speaker 1: it can be a rough round.
21:37
Speaker 3: The teachers do damage to you or insanity points.
21:40
Speaker 1: I guess at the of the game you have twenty
21:42
Speaker 1: sanity and if you get to zero you lose out,
21:46
Speaker 1: and it's the last house standing that wins. One of
21:48
Speaker 1: the things I really like about the expansion is that
21:50
Speaker 1: each house gets a power card where you get these
21:54
Speaker 1: powers that you can use that get stronger as you
21:56
Speaker 1: go more crazy.
21:58
Speaker 3: So there's like a four part power for if.
22:00
Speaker 1: You're in twenty to sixteen, fifteen to eleven, ten to six,
22:05
Speaker 1: or five to one, you have different powers available to you,
22:09
Speaker 1: and those are really interesting and make the game just
22:11
Speaker 1: a little bit more fun.
22:12
Speaker 3: It's not a great.
22:13
Speaker 1: Deck builder, honestly, it's fine. It's a little slow, but
22:17
Speaker 1: if you're playing with people who can make decisions quickly,
22:19
Speaker 1: and you've played a little bit so you're kind of
22:21
Speaker 1: familiar with what the cards do.
22:22
Speaker 3: It's pretty fun. That's miss School for Girls.
22:25
Speaker 1: Then I'll say the honor will mention the game that
22:27
Speaker 1: I haven't played that much, but I would mention here
22:29
Speaker 1: would be Cuthulhu Death May Die. This is from I
22:33
Speaker 1: believe Rob Davio and Eric Laying.
22:35
Speaker 3: It is a.
22:36
Speaker 1: Dungeon call game themed around Cuthulhu, with weird and wacky
22:40
Speaker 1: high jinks and lots of funny characters. The one time
22:42
Speaker 1: I played, someone brought it to Toggle Gaming and I played
22:45
Speaker 1: with Albert Einstein as my character.
22:48
Speaker 3: That was kind of fun.
22:49
Speaker 1: It's in the neighborhood of Mansions of Badness in terms
22:52
Speaker 1: of you get just a couple actions on your turn.
22:54
Speaker 1: There's big monsters, You're rolling dice to fight them. It's
22:57
Speaker 1: very silly, very mombastic, sort of in the neighborhood of
23:01
Speaker 1: Flying Frog production games, although I would say the rule
23:03
Speaker 1: sets a bit more refined and thoughtful, but otherwise really
23:07
Speaker 1: fun game. If you like just some sort of beer
23:10
Speaker 1: and pretzels, dice chuck and silly game. Cthulhu Death May
23:13
Speaker 1: Die It's pretty fun.
23:15
Speaker 3: I don't have that one though. Well.
23:16
Speaker 1: That brings me to the end of my third part
23:19
Speaker 1: of Spooky Wock. Hopefully it recorded properly, in which case
23:22
Speaker 1: I will be releasing it in about half an hour,
23:25
Speaker 1: and then you'll hear from part four later in the day.
23:28
Speaker 1: And I hope that you have a lovely Halloween, and
23:31
Speaker 1: I will look forward to next time that you take
23:33
Speaker 1: a walk from me, and I hope that your next
23:34
Speaker 1: walk is as pleasant as mine was.
23:37
Speaker 3: Bye bye, brought to you by rattle box ing a
24:00
Speaker 3: million ye