Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Top of the Stack, Feb 2025

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Top of the Stack, Feb 2025 · 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 off the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's a chilly
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: day here in suburban Chicago. The sun is nowhere to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: be found. It is a slate, gray, overcast, gloom fest.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: But I'm excited to be talking to you anyway, because
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: it's the beginning of season eight. That's right. This is
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: episode seven hundred and one, and this means roughly I
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: have been making this show. This is my eighth year
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: making this show. Wow, time flies. Hopefully you're still enjoying it.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Glad to have you here. This is a great time
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: to suggest, like, Hey, is there somebody else you think
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: would enjoy chatting with me a couple times a week
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: about games. I would love to have them join us.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Why don't you point I'm out a favorite episode and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: say like, hey, what do you think of this? You
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: want another cool person to chat about with games? Well,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: too bad, but you could have Brendan anyway. This would
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: be a great time beginning of the season to suggest
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: some new people take a listen. They also could go
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: back the last ten episodes and find out what kind
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of games I like, in case it turns out they
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: hate all the games I like, and they can hate listen.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Apparently that's Howard Stern got all his That's how Howard
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Stern got all his listeners. Anyway, Well, it's the Top
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of the Stack episode. As you know from last episode
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: when I talked about my favorite stuff. I love the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Top of the Stack episodes. This is a chance to
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: look back over the previous month, to see what I
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: played and what I didn't play, and to think about
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the upcoming month with excitement and verb. So in that regard,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: let's jump right in. January of twenty twenty five was
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a pretty fun gaming month. I played eighty five plays
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of fifty one different games, for a total of eighty
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: five games of fifty one or eighty five plays of
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: fifty one different games so far in the year. The
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: January total is always really easy to do. My shelf
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: of opportunity started at sixty four, and despite my efforts
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: to make it go down, it actually went up by two.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Part of that is just taking the opportunity to acquire
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: games when they were cheap. Part of that is that
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I arranged to sell some games and haven't sold them yet,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and so they're on the cell pile, but I count
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: them as part of my collection until I physically get
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: rid of them. So while they're still there, they're still there.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: So that is the current state of the shelf of opportunity,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: or that is sorry, that's the state of the shelf
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of opportunity. Oh, backing up, So my shelf of opportunity
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: went from sixty four to sixty six, so I went
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: up by two. I did play a couple games, but
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I acquired more than I played. My collection size went
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: up by four. That's even worse, especially because I'm trying
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: to get rid of games. I have a bunch of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: games on the cell pile, even have some arrange to sell,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: but I haven't physically sold them yet and so they
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: aren't sold. My most played game on the table was
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: frost Haven with three plays. My most played game online
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: was Through the Ages with four I had a couple
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: other games that had four plays as well, but I
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: just picked one to count in my top of the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: stack goal. I picked out four games I wanted to
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: try to play this month. That was Earth, Space Freaks,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Sky Joe, and Badass Zombie Killers. I managed to play
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: two of them. Earth and Sky Joe both checked off,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So I have played two of the four. Yeah, we'll
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: see those other two I did not play, but two
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: out of three, as you remember I planned for, I
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: put four on the top of the sack, and I
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: try to play three of them. Is how I do that.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: So that was a two out of three success. I
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: consider the month a full success if I play three
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: out of three, but that happens relatively rarely these days.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: All right, So first plays this month, I did play
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a number of games. For the first time, I tried
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the Ink and Clues mystery game system. We played Secret
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of Holloway manor sort of like exit the game or unlock.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: The way that I categorize games that are in part
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: of a game system is the first time I played
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the game in that game system, I counted as a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: new game. After that, I count those as expansions. So
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the first one, Secrets of Holloway the Secret of Holloway
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: manner is a new inc and inc and Cluse mystery system,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and so I counted that as a new game. Any
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: future ones I play will count as expansion. Discworld on
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: more Pork, which, to be honest, i've played because it's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: basically Nanty Narking. Our Nanty Narking is discworld, but it
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: was fun to play it in the original format. Survive
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: the Island, which is a remake of Escape Survive Escape
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: from Alcatraz but a little bit different, very very similar though,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: drones versus seagulls. I played this on board game Arina
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a couple times with Gabriel. Hey, Gabriel, Happy new season.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: This is a really interesting one. We'll talk about a
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: bit later, a jest of Robinhood. I'm on my second
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: or third game of that now with Chris. Hey, Chris
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the Listener, who has recently been broadcasting episodes again of
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: his podcast Shuffle Buddies. If you aren't listening that you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: should clever and interesting conversation about gaming and partners and fun,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: So get over there and listen to that. New episodes
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: are coming out semi regularly. I played Risk and Roll
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: two thousand, Castle Combo, Slide five, and Dream Crush, giving
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: me a total of ten new to me games tried
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: so far this year. I will be exploring those in
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: upcoming board game Espresso episodes. I also tried a number
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: of expansions this month. I tried Cascadia Landmarks, Obsession Characters,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the Android Netrunner, System Gateway Pack Inc. And Clues Crimson
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Sky Ranch Inc. And Clues the Ferrymen. So that's one, three, four,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: five new expansions tried so far this year. Good start
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: for the year. Fun To get those tried out, I
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: did dust off a number of games as well. Among
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the games I dusted off Android Netrunner. It had been
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: six years, ten months, and fourteen days since I played it.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I played four games of Android Netrunner, two with my
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: son and two with my neighbor, all four using the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: new cards in the System Gateway expansion from Null Signal Games.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Looking forward to playing this some more. It was just
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: as fun as I remembered, and I can't wait to
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: get back into it. I played QE. That's an excellent
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: little bidding game where you can bid as much money
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: as you want, but if you spent the most money
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: at the end of the game, you lose. It has
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: been five years, two months, and sixteen days since I
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: played that, which is too long because that's a really
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: fun game. It's weird and interesting and you should play
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: it if you get a chance. A neat little game.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I played Flashpoint Fire Rescue, which is a fine it's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a reasonably fine co op, but it's not my favorite.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: It had been eight years, eighteen days since I played that,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: so a very long time, but it was amusing. I
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: played New York Slice, which is a I E. Split
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: you choose game. The last time I played that was
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: one year, four months and five days ago. Played Unspeakable Words,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: which is a dice rolling word game where you are
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: trying or you play cards to make words, and then
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: you roll dice to see whether or not you slowly
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: go mad. Once you're down to one madness point left,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: then you can make whatever words you want, but it's
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: more likely you go mad if you make really crazy words.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Three years, one month, and seven days since I played
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: that one, I got an opportunity to play Bigfoot roll
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: In Smash, which of course is the game that I
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: co designed with Rob Huber as lead designer on that one.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: That was a publication from XYZ Game Labs in partnership
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: with the Bigfoot Company. If you haven't played that, it's
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a delightful little co op or it's a competitive game,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: but you're started taking turns, you build the arena together
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and then you drive your truck around and smash stuff.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: It's really fun. I will admit that the turns are
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit long. This hasn't generally been an issue
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: for our plays, but some people find it to be
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: a concern. It had been a year and two months
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and fifteen days since I played that High Society. We
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: played the ryiner kinisia auction game that's really interesting and
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: very brutal. Five years, eight months and seven days since
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I played that one. We have Automobiles. This is a
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: bag builder with little cubes. I've never played it on
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the table. I've only played it on Yukata, but I
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: do enjoy it. I'm not good at it, but I'm
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: having fun. Gabriel and I are playing around of it
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: on Yukata. It would be interesting to play more than
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: two people. So if you're listening and you think, hey,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that sounds fun, pop over to the guild and say
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I'd like to join the next game of Automobiles and
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: we'll start up a grand prix with more than two
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: of us. It'd be a hoot. About three years, four months,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and six days since I played that one. And finally,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Hughes and Cubes it had been two years, one month
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: and six days, a glorious two years, one month of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: six days. Turns out I don't really like Hughes and Qes,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: but my students wanted to play it, so I joined
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: in and it was fine. Nine games dusted off this year,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: so a good start. I did mention that we played Earth,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: that was one of our top of the stack games. Now,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Earth was interesting because it was on my shelf of Opportunity,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: because my rule is the shelf of opportunity is a
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: game I've purchased and not played since I purchased. I
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: had played Earth a few times before that, but once
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: we got it, then I played it and now it
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: count has played. I've started tracking my Top fifty on
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the table. This is something I did last time I
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: did my Top fifty as well. I said within the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: next two years, I would like to try to play
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: every game on my top fifty at least once. In
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: January I did manage to play on the table, and
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: on the table digital plays do not count, so I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: did manage to play five of my top fifty games
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: in the first month. I played Android Netrunner ark Nova
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Android Netrunner, which is my number one game of all time,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: ark Nova my number four game, frost Haven my number eleven, well,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the Whole Haven Family Obsession my number eighteen. We played
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: that twice, and Wingspan my number thirty one. We played
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that at least twice. So so far, I've played five
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: of the fifty games on my top fifty. At this rate,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I'll be done by ex Childer. Seems unlikely but possible.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: As you know, I've also been doing it ten for ten,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: where I come up with ten categories and I try
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to resolve categories. This year, I'll remind you of the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: categories and tell you how I'm doing so far. First off,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: we have colors roy gbiv BW so royd gbiv BBW
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: so we have red and yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, brown, black, white.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And the idea is playing a game where the majority
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: color on the box. The is that color counts toward
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: this category. In January I marked two games fitting that mandate.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: We've played Harmonies, which is a primarily yellow box, and Flipology,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: which is a primarily green box. So those two check.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I did not play any games I associated with the
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: five continents other than North America and Europe. We've played
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: one game in which the characters in which you do
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: magic of some sort you use magic. That's frost Haven.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: We played several mystery games. We played one to three
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: different Ink and Clues mystery games, and we've played one
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: round of Awkward Guests, So we've got four mystery game
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: plays under our belt. That's probably going to be the
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: first one we complete, as my guess, although there's a
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: strong contender later. I did not accomplish any of the
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: five times on the table category. Although this one is
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: probably going to be something where the first seven or
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: eight that I do will be kind of natural, like
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: just games that we end up playing a lot will
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: fulfill this. My guess is it's only going to be
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: two or three or maybe four where I'm gonna have
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to be like, oh, we need to play this twice
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: more so that we get at five on the table
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: kind of deal. I did not play any games that
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: had been on my Shelf of Opportunity as of twenty
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: twenty or earlier. We did play one that had been
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: on my shelf of Opportunity in twenty twenty three or earlier,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and this was Discworld on onk More Pork, So one
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: out of ten there The alphabet A through J were
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Crushing It, Android, Netrunner, Cascadia, Dream Crush, Earth, Flashpoint and Harmonies.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: So seven of that first alphabet block are done. K
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: through T. We've got New York Slice in Sky Joe
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and QE. Yeah, New York Slice, QE and sky Joe.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: So three of the ten in the last part and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: numbers unspeakable words and wingspan. As a reminder for the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: alphabet ones, I'm not allowed to reuse ones that I
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: did last year. So for example, I did not fill
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: in the O for Obsession because oh was the Obsession
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: game last year. I did pick up four games in
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: January that were added to my shelf of opportunity lists.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: This is Last Train to Wensleydale, Capital Lux, The Pursuit
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of Happiness, and Top Gun Strategy Game. I'll talk about
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: those all in later episodes. So four next month I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: have put four new games on the shelf, Capital Lux, Alien,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Fate of the Nostromo, Miskatonic School for Boys, and Dungeon Pets.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: This will be an interesting mix of things. I'm hoping
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: that when I play Dungeon Pets, I can also play
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: with the Dark Galley expansion and be able to mark
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: that off as well. I don't think I've ever played
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: with that, but it should be a good time when
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: we get to. So that makes for a really interesting
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and exciting February coming in to play. I would love
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: to learn what you have in store for us in
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the February gameplay Arena. You can let me know in
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the usual places. For those of you new to the podcast,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I keep. We have a guild on board game Geek
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Guild three two sixty nine, which you can get to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: by going to boardgame geek dot com slash Guild Slash
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: three two sixty nine, or you can go to radoboxgames
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: dot com and look at the show notes for this
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: episode and it will take you right there. We also
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you can also email me Brendan at radobox games dot com,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: or you can send me more reliably a geek message.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Wanmbat nine two nine is my username on board game Geek.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I tend to see that more than the email for
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Rattlebox Games, So do with that what you will. Well,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I'm really glad to be talking to you again. It's
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: going to be a fun year. I think starting in
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: February means I don't have to keep quite a break
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: neck pace in order to accomplish the one hundred episodes
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that I like to do by mid December. So I'm
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: looking forward to that, and i'm looking forward to talking
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to you more. So reach out, say hello, tell somebody
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: new about the podcast, and I hope your next box
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: is as pleasant as mine.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Oh bye.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by Rattle
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Box, Yeah Yeah,