Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Slide 5; Dream Crush; Capital Lux; High Society (revisited)

Transcript

Slide 5; Dream Crush; Capital Lux; High Society (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I continue my walk
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Brennan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's a lovely
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: day here in suburban Chicago.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I'm continuing my.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Walk that I started with the last episode in which
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I talked about underwater cities and Praga Caput, Regny. The
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: sun is shining and I'm walking home, so I thought
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that's time for another board Game Espresso Triple Shot.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Order up for those of.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: You who do the podcast, Board Game Espresso Triple Shot
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: is a short review segment in which I talk about
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: three games I've played recently for the first time, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: one game I've revisited or played a new expansion, or
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: some other significant play that makes it worth talking to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: you today. A reminders that these are not thorough reviews.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: These are not games I've played enough to do a
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: thorough review on. Instead, it's the sort of first impression,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: so let's just jump into it. What are these first impressions?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: First game I want to talk about.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Is called Slide five.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Now, heads up, there are multiple games called Slide five
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: in the board game Geek database. I am talking about
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Slide five, by that well known and thoroughly beloved designer
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Milton Bradley. Slide five is a I would put this
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: in the novelty game category because it's a game I
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: played because it looked amusing, not because I thought it
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: was going to.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Be particularly good.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Rob found it at a thrift store and brought it
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to our game night, Toggle Gaming, and we tried it out,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and better than expected, is my answer. If you look
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: at Slide five at first appearance, it seems to be
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Connect four.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: It's got a vertical playspace.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: It's got these discs that you put into the vertical
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: play space, and your goal is to get five discs
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in a row and then you win. Wait, Brendan, that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: sounds like Connect four, but with five is that's just
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Connect No, No, it's not. Here are the differences in
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Slide five. The board is a diamond rather than a square,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: meaning that you're coming in on the diagonal, and the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: bottom of the board is open, so when a disc
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: gets to the bottom, it pops out the bottom. And
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: most importantly, the board is full of these ridges, so
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: that when you put a disc into a row or
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: column it doesn't slide down to the bottom. It just
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: goes in one step, one space and that roller column
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and it stops. And then if you put another disk
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: in that roller column and you push it in, every
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: disk in that roller column moves forward one space. So
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: once you've got five in there, if you put a
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: sixth one in, the one at the bottom of that
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: roller column pops out and rolls into this tray, and
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: it's a five x five grid of these discs.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It's a two player game. You take turns putting discs
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: into this grid along the side, one side or the other,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and your goal is to get five in a row.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Easy idea, complex in play, and much better than Connect four. Honestly,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more to think about, a lot more interplay,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and of course I lost, which is fine.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Slide five. It's an interesting game.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: If it were at the store next to a copy
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of Connect four, I would say, by slide five, it's
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: better in every way.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I guess. The one thing that is not better about it.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Is that it's not as ubiquitous, So if you found
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: it knew at a store, it would probably cost more
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: money than Connect four does. But it is a better
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: game that's Slide five from Milton Bradley. As an aside,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: there is some sort of skiing themed card game designed
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: by Wolfgang Kramer of Kramer and Keesling Fame, also called
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Slide five. So just in case you felt like looking
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: at another game called Slide five.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Here you go. You could do that, all right.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Dream Crush is the next game I played. Dream Crush
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: is a relatively recent game from Mondo Games, designed by
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Nick Pruer, with art by Sunny Day and Biddy Maroney.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Dream Crush is a kind of modern take on an
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: old style of game. Mystery Date is a version of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: this game, or dream Phone I think is one, although
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: that one involves some sort of electronic gizmo.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I have not played that.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Dream Crush is this kind of game, but it's also
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: got a social element to it. The way the game
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: works a you have three different crushes on the board,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and these are I think they're all dudes. Although there
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: might be ladies in the deck, I think they're all dudes.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: The premise is that we are all attracted to dudes,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: although the game doesn't go a long way on that regard.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: And then there are five categories of activity and essentially
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: there are these cards that are dealt out under each
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: romantic partner or potential romantic partner for each category, and
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the way it works is on one player it's their turn,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: they pick one of the categories, reveal the cards under
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: each character. And so you might have a character who's
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: a sort of Fonds type guy with a leather jacket
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and slicked back hair, and then it'll say first date,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and in the under that person in the cat in
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the row, so that says first date. There would be
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: something it would say like ice cream parlor, and then
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: one of the other ones would have a different look
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: to them, and that one would say choose with their
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: choose food with their mouth open, And basically you get
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: this set of choices about this person on a first
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: date would do this or is like this, And then
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: every player on their little whiteboard picks one of the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: characters that they would have a crush on, and they
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: take into account only the I guess the card showing
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the person and the choices for this particular activity, in
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: this case first date. Then after you've chosen yours, you
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: guess what would each other player at the table which
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: person would they have the crush on?
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Based on these situations.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Then everyone reveals their crushes and you get points based
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: on who you guessed correctly. Then in the next round,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: we reveal a new activity and a new set of cards,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and the idea is you're not supposed to take into
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: account the previous set of cards, it's just the new ones,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and you take guesses again. You do that for five rounds.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: The person who earned the most points wins. It is
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: a silly game, but it was a lot of fun.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: It's amusing to try to predict what romantically inclinations the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: other players have. Obviously, it's the sort of game that
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: with a group of friends would be more fun because
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the predictability would go up if you were strangers. It's
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: pretty hard to predict, but pretty fun.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, really dumb, but pretty fun.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: The art this game is from Mondo Games, which means
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that it has really crisp, very clever design. Mondo has
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a very strong graphic design presence, and the art in
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the game is sort of eighties retro feel to it.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: If you think about like Valley Girl at Night of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the Comet and tron As movies from the theme board
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: or movies from the mood board. For the design of
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: this game, then you have the design of dream Crush.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: All in all, like I said, it was amusing as
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: a novelty game. It was fun to play once or twice.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: It's not a game I would want to play very
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: often or with strangers, but we had a good time
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: So that is Dream Crush all right.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Next up is High Society. This is in out of
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the dust game for me. High Society is a Reiner
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Knitsia auction game which has a clever mechanism in which
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: you have a set of bidding cards and everyone has
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the same bidding cards, so we all have the same
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: numbers and we are bidding on different bits of art
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: or culture stuff that's worth points. And especially the way
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: it works is a card comes out it's worth a
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: certain points. Everybody the first person gets to make a
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: bid on it, and then everyone else can either bid
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: higher or pass.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: If you pass, you're out of the bidding. If you
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: bid higher, then it goes back around.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Whenever you want to raise your bid, you just have
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: to add one of your cards to the bid.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: There's no change.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: So early on you do have some low value cards
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: ones and twos and such, so if someone else bids
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: a six. You could bid seven by playing your six
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: and your one, but then if you win that bid,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you've spent your one and you never have it to
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: bid with again. So there's an interesting element of keeping
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: track of which cards you've bid with and keeping those
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: low value ones for crucial bidding moments. The gimmick with
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: high Society. The thing that makes it interesting is each
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: thing that you get is worth points. There are some
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: things that are worth extra points. There's some things that
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: double your points, there's some things that hell of your points.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: There's positives and negatives, and there's benefits to having different
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: kinds of set. It's available to you. But the crucial thing,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: or the thing that's most interesting, is the end of
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the game. So at the end of the game, you're
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: going to add up all your points, and right before
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: you figure out who the winner is, you're going to
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: compare how much money you have left. If you have
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: spent the most money or tied for the most, you're
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: out of the game and you can't win. So having
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: lots of extravagant goods is great, but if you're the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: poorest person, then you're not welcome in high Society and
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: you lose. So first the person who spent the most
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: money is eliminated, and then the person with the most
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: points who's left wins. If that sounds familiar, you'll recognize
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: that they use that same scoring mechanism in QE much later,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: the difference being in QE there is no limit on
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: how much you can spend, and in both High Society
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and QE you don't really know how much the other
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: people have spent. Although High Society is a game with
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: perfect information, so you could keep track of it's hidden
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: trackable information. You could keep track of how much other
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: people have spent, but it is difficult to do. High
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Society is not a game I would want to play
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: every day. It's pretty cutthroat. But it's a really good
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: auction game. I mean, there's a reason people talk about
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Rhyter Kanitzia as the master of auction games. This is
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: one of a couple that are just incredible, ra being
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the other one, of course, and it's very good. If
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you get a chance to play a High Society, you
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: shouldn't pass it up because it is a great game
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: that's High Society.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: This was very dusty for me.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: It was five years, eight months, and seven days Dusty
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Finally I got a chance to play Capital lux This
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: is a card game from Christian amen Ostby and i
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Lift Senson, a couple designers whose stuff I tend to
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: really like. They've Christian amen Osby designed Escape Curse of
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the Temple, and Osby and a Ospy and Svenson work
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: together on games like The Magnificent and Riverside, and in
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the last year they they did Saltfjord, which I haven't
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: played yet but has got everybody in a tizzy.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I like their designs a lot. Oh.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: They also collaborate with one other person whose name I
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: forget on Revive, which is an excellent euro game that
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I have been enjoying lately.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: So.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Capital Lucks is a very simple card game along the
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: lines of something in the neighborhood of Lost Cities, in
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood of battle Line, in the neighborhood of Arboretum perhaps.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: In this game, there are four different color of cards,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: and you are building up your home city.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: And you're building up the capital.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: The gimmick of the game is the cards in your
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: home city can score you points.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: The cards in the capitol get you powers.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Each color of card has a different kind of power,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: but you only get to use the power when you
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: play that card into the capitol. The game has played
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: over three rounds, and in each round the game goes
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: until someone has played a certain number of cards out
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of cards I think is the end of the round thing.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: And then if you have if you have any cards
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: left in hand, you immediately add them to your city.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Then the gimmick is you examine the city and for
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: each color of card where the points in your town
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: outnumber the points in the city, you discard all those
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: cards from your town. So if there's seven points in
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the green zone in the city and you have eight
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: points in your city, you discard all your green cards.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I might be getting some element of that backwards, but
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: it definitely has to do with like you have to play.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: You're trying to balance how many points are in the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: capitol versus how many points are.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: In your city.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Then once everyone has discarded, then you compare and you
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: get points based on if you have the most of
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a particular color in your city. Those points go up
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: over the three rounds as I recall, and at the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: end of the third round, the person has the most
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: points wins.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It's a relatively simple.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Game, and I honestly thought it was going to be
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: more interesting or complex than it was. I've heard very
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: good reviews of Capital Ux too, so I don't know
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: if the additional things added by that addition make it
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: much better As it was. I thought it was fine,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: not really anything all that special, although I can see
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: how this game would be really fun to play occasionally,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: especially with people who have played a lot over time,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: there would be there would get to be a meta
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: and a competition that could make it pretty fierce, similar
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to something like battle Line or Drones Versus Seagulls or
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Lost Cities. That said, I'm not sure how often this
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: one's getting get played around our house. I might keep
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: it a little bit longer and play it at a
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: time or two more, or I might hold onto it
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: to see if it lands with another group, or it
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: might go on the cell pile.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: Hard to say. The art is really nice.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: It's sort of futuristic retro futuristic art of like a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: sci fi city done by Quan Chai Moria reminds me
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a little bit of his art from flip Chips or
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: it also reminds me of the poster that board game
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Geek commissioned of Galaxy Trucker, which I don't know if
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: that's Quanschai Moria or not, but the style is very
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: similar to that. It's an amusing little game, definitely interesting.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: It's just not a game that particularly wowed me. So
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that was Capital Lux from Christian ahma Aspi and I
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Liftsvenson with art by Quantschai Moria. Well that's it for
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: my Board Game Espresso episode here relatively short and sweet, one,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: easy to talk about games. Hopefully you've enjoyed that. What
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: have you been playing lately?
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: I would love to.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Hear from you. You can share that with me over
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: on board game Geek and Guild three two six nine.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You can also send me a message on email. Brendan
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: at radoboxgames dot com is the email address for the show,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: or you can send me a direct message on board
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: game Geek. Wombat nine two nine is my username there.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: If you would like to play some games with me,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: we could play some games on board game Arina wanmbat
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen nine is my user name there. We do have
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: a pick up and deliver community thing there. You're welcome
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to join that and interface with some of the other
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: people on their proof pad Gabriel as somebody who plays
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: a lot. Jason Keggs ja Eggs also plays a lot
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: or JKZ I believe is his board game arena user
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: name also plays a lot of games. Or you could,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: like I said, message me Wandbat nineteen nine, invite me
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: to a game. If it's a game I haven't played,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I'll still probably try it.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: I'll just be real bad at it, so there.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: You can have an easy victory as well. That's just
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: about it for me. Hopefully you have enjoyed this. I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: would love to hear from you about what you've been playing.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Head over to board games geguil through two six nine
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and post those thoughts.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks for joining me. I'm gonna walk today. I
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: hope your next walk is as pleasant as mine was.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Bye bye.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Brought to you by rattle Box