Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Dream Home, Medieval Academy, Forest Shuffle, Potion Explosion (revisited)

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Dream Home, Medieval Academy, Forest Shuffle, Potion Explosion (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where you pick up my audio recorder
• 0:07
  as I leave the library and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
• 0:11
  I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good morning, listeners. It's a lovely
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  day here in suburban Chicago. I just got done with a trip to the
• 0:26
  dentist for the first half of getting a crown. I'll have to go back
• 0:31
  in a couple of weeks to get the actual crown fitted on there. Until
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  then, I'm riding around with half of tooth. I complain, but my
• 0:40
  dentist is amazing, so I'm really glad to have somebody who cares a lot
• 0:44
  about comfort as part of their treatment plans. So no complaints from me regarding
• 0:50
  my dental experience today. What I do want to do is complain. No,
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  I'm not going to complain. What I do want to do is share
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  a little bit about the games I've been recently. That's right, that's right,
• 1:00
  It's time for another board game Espresso Triple Shot. The board game Espresso
• 1:08
  Triple Shot is a light review segment in which I talk about games I've played
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  for the first time recently and what I think of them. This is not
• 1:18
  a formal These are not formal reviews. The main issue being that I haven't
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  played these games enough to give them a formal review, but it is enough
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  to give them a give you a little taste, a little of enjoyment based
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  on my experience playing the game, and that's what I'm gonna do. So
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  let's jump right into it. The first game that I wanted to talk about
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  today is dream House, Our Dream Home. Dream Home is a game that
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  I picked up on I picked up at a goodwill for three dollars, so
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  pretty simple gambled, and the idea is that you are building a house.
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  It is a drafting game where you have these different cards that will go on
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  to these player maths that look like houses, and then you use those player
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  mats to build your house, and then you enjoy the house that you've built.
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  You get points for the different kinds of rooms that you acquire and where
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  you put them in the house. There are some rules that prevent you from
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  putting things in different places and some bonuses that you get if you get the
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  right combination of different elements. So it's a pretty simple game as far as
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  these things go. It's definitely meant for families. The art is very cute,
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  see but thoughtful. It does look maybe computer generated. It's in the
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  sort of in the style of up the sort of rounded edges and nice warm
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  lighting. It's it's cute, it's fine, it's not particularly compelling. Imagine
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  if you had little kids who really liked the theme, they would enjoy that.
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  But for us it just was. It fell a bit flat. It
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  falls into the category I'm happy to have played it once. I don't feel
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  like I need to play it again. The designer is Clemens Kaliki and the
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  publisher is Rebel. I guess i'd say worth a try if you have a
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  friend who really likes it and wants to try it with, play it with
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  you. But pretty pedestrian as far as all things go. That's dream Home
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  from twenty sixteen. The next game I want to talk about is called Medieval
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  Academy. Medieval Academy was published in twenty fourteen. The designer is Nicolas Ponc
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  and it's published by Blue Cocker Games, which is a game design company that
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  I have enjoyed their things. In particular, they publish Welcome to which is
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  a favorite of ours. In Medieval Academy, which actually I think yellow is
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  on the box that I have, so I don't know if Blue Cocker had
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  to deal with them or what. In this game, you play squires and
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  you're trying to acquire skills to become better Medieval Nights. The theme is relatively
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  right, but basically it is a card drafting game, so you're drafting cards
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  and then once you've got all your cards drafted, then you're going to play
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  them in order to move your marker up on these various tracks on the board.
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  There's maybe like five or six different cards that you score on, and
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  three of them are going to score two or three times during the game,
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  and two or three of them are going to score once during the game.
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  So part of what you're doing is sort of moderating where do you want to
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  put your energy to try to score, And each one has a slightly different
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  set of scoring conditions and slightly different kinds of things that it does to give
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  you sort of room to score, So it's about managing expectations and balancing effort.
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  The scoring tiles are double sided, so and I think there's a couple
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  more than the six you use, so if the game comes with quite a
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  bit of variety in terms of how those scoring works. We did enjoy our
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  play of it. It seems like it's a good filler, something I would
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  enjoy getting out from time to time. It's not amazing, but I will
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  stay in the collection for a while. The art is fun, kind of
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  light, goofy art in the style of maybe grou if you know that comic
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  strip. Not quite as scratchy, more polished, but that kind of fun,
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  silly style. We had a good time with it, if you get
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  a chance to check it out, especially I got it for I think sixteen
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  at half priced books, and that felt I don't feel like I've overpaid for
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  that. If you get a chance to try it out or pick it up
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  for less than that, yeah, pretty good. You might as well give
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  it a try. That's Medieval Academy. Well. The next game I want
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  to talk about is one that already had earned its spot in my estimation,
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  because this is my dusted off game. For those of you new to the
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  podcast. In the Board Game Espresso episodes, I will often include something I
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  call a dusty game, which is a game I haven't played for a year
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  or more. The idea of being it has sat on the shelf so long
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  it's gotten dusty, so an out of the dust game is one that I
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  haven't played for a year or more and I'm now playing it again. This
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  one I brought with me to my college board Game Society, where people said
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  that they wanted to try some different fun games and this one was a perfect
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  one for that. It's called Potion Explosion. The designer, there's a couple
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  of them, Stefano Castelli, Andrea Crespy and Lorenzo Silva. These are at
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  the time it was published by Horrible Guild. I believe they called that's the
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  current publishication name for the game that used to be called Horrible Games, and
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  then they realized that was a dumb thing to name your game company. This
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  game is a sort of lightly inspired by those match three games like Bejeweled,
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  where you have a series of shiny things that you want to pair up.
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  The way Postion Explosion works, you have this tray of marbles, and on
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  your turn, you can take a marble out of the tray. If when
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  you take a marble out of the tray, the marbles that roll down from
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  the track that you took it from, the marble that rolls down touches another
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  marble of the same color. Then the two marbles that just collided, and
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  all of the rest of them that are adjacent to that marble of that color
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  you get to collect. Then, as the now empty space is filled by
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  marbles rolling down, if the lead marble that's rolling down touches another marble that
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  is its own color, you collect all those as well. So with a
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  thoughtful pull of a marble, you actually can get a whole bunch of marbles.
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  However, what you're doing with these marbles is you're putting them into these
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  cardboard tiles that look like potions, and each potion has sort of requirements for
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  a different amount of marbles of different colors. So what you're doing is collecting
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  these marbles and different colors so you can complete potions. The potions give you
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  two things. They give you points, but then each potion also has a
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  special power, and you can use the power immediately. And this is one
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  of my favorite parts of this game. I think a lot of designers would
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  be tempted to give the power a cost to make it so you can use
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  the power, but you lose it's worth more points if you don't. In
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  this game, that's not the case. You don't gain anything from holding on
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  to the power that you get from the potion, so you might as well
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  use it, which is great because it amplify and accelerates the game in really
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  delightful ways. Yeah, if you haven't played Potion Exposion, it's well worth
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  checking out. There are two other ways to score or there's one other way
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  to score points as well. Other than completing potions. There are also these
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  achievement ribbons, and you can earn an achievement ribbon by making three potions of
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  the same type or five potions of different types, and then if you make
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  three potions of another type, you can get another ribbon, so you could
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  get a bunch of different ribbons. The game generally has a number of ribbons
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  equal to maybe the number of players plus two or something. Then you put
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  those out and when all the ribbons are gone, then everybody gets one more
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  turn and the game's over. Finally, there is a thing that I think
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  a lot of inexpayers in experienced players don't use, but really they should,
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  which are the learning bonuses. So the idea is this is a school where
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  you're learning to make potions. So there's a professor. You can ask the
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  professor for help and what that does is it gives you a negative one point
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  or a negative two point to and then you can draw one marble out of
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  the tray and put that marble in your potions, and then it does when
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  you draw that marble out, it doesn't cause the chain reaction. The advantage
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  to this is if you have a lot of times there's a great chain reaction
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  that's been set up, but it's interfered with by one marble, So using
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  the lesson can let you pull the one marble out of the way so that
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  you have a trend a great chain reaction to use. Basically, when I
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  am playing this game, I pretty much never hesitate to use one of those
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  lessons unless I'm sure that I'm getting enough potion enough marbles that I can complete
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  both potions that I have, because the other limitation on your progress during the
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  game is that you can only have two potions that you're working on at a
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  time, and you don't get to refill those until your turn is over,
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  So you can only complete two potions per turn, and if you're good at
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  this game, you really need to be completing at one at least one every
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  turn, and you should be completing two on many turns. That's Postion Explosion,
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  a really excellent game from twenty fifteen from Horrible Guild. Check it out
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  if you get a chance. The app is also very good. By the
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  way. All Right, the last game I want to discuss in my Board
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  Game Espresso episode today is Forrest Shuffle. Forest Shuffle is a card game designed
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  by kosh KOSDH published by Lookout Games, and it was very well received in
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  twenty twenty three when it was published. I have not played this one on
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  the table yet. I've in fact played it only twice digitally, but I
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  feel like I got enough of the hang of it that I kind of understand
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  what it's doing and I can talk about a little bit. I often don't
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  review games that I've only played on Board game Arena once or twice because unless
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  I'm playing them in real time, playing them asynchronously does not feel like the
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  same as playing them in person, and I just want to make sure that
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  I'm giving the game a fair shake. So a Forest Shuffle is a tableau
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  builder where you are gaining points by establishing cards. The idea is that you're
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  building a forest. I know you're surprised there from a series of cards that
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  you have, and over the course of your turns, you play trees,
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  and then you play different animals and plants around those trees, and then at
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  the end of the game you score points based on which annibals and plants you
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  played. The game uses the erase for the galaxy mechanism of giving you cards
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  that do lots of different things, or the racily mechanism of giving you cards
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  that I'll do something, but then also requiring that for you to play cards
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  you have to pay cards in case that was unclear. When you have a
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  card and you want to play it, you then have to pay cards by
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  discarding them in order to play the card you got. So you're constantly like
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  drawing more cards with the goal of being able to place one of the cards
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  in your hand. But then you discover that in fact, the card you've
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  drawn is now better than the one that was in your hand, and now
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  you're stuck trying to figure out, well, how do I play both or
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  do I pick one to play? And it's sort of a constant back and
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  forth struggle of how do I maximize the score or maximize the quality of my
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  tableau, especially given that I have to keep discarding cards in order to play
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  cards. It's a really delicious tension, and it does remind me of Race
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  for the Galaxy in that way. You're trying to build up your tempo and
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  your engine so that you can get things played without having to give out too
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  many cards that you want. The first couple rounds of it, I did
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  not do very well. I felt like the other people had a better grasp
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  on how to build those engines. But I can recognize something making it a
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  really high quality game, and I think it's definitely gonna be worth pursuing as
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  the discussion comes along, so I'm looking forward to trying that more. Well,
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  that's about it for my games for you to listen to today. These
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  are three games I tried recently and I enjoyed quite a bit, plus one
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  that I just sed off, and I hope that you enjoyed listening to me
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  talk about them and are looking forward to trying them yourself. If you'd like
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  to share your thoughts on these games, something I missed, something I should
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  know about them, or perhaps you have new games you've tried and you'd like
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  to share that information with me. You can do so by heading over to
• 13:22
  board gave me Killed three two sixty nine, where we'll be looking for your
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  comments, where I would love to hear what you have to say about those
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  games or any comments that you have for me. Well, thanks for joining
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  me on my walk today. I hope that your next walk this disposes his
• 13:35
  mine was held. Bye. Brought to you by rattle box Sterio