Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Top of the Stack, June 2024

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Top of the Stack, June 2024 · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:00
  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I take
• 0:07
  the dog out for a walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
• 0:11
  I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:14
  Welcome, morning listeners.
• 0:23
  It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.
• 0:26
  The cicadas are still out in force and somebody is doing a little bit of housework and
• 0:30
  the power machines you can hear.
• 0:33
  The big difference on this walk over previous walks is that I have a dog with me.
• 0:38
  My in-laws are out of town for the next couple weeks.
• 0:42
  In fact, as a graduation present to my daughter who's just graduated high school, my in-laws
• 0:47
  have taken her on a trip to Scotland.
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  Very exciting and I'm super jealous.
• 0:52
  While they are away, we are keeping an eye on their dogs.
• 0:56
  So I haven't really walked a dog in about eight years, but here I am walking a dog.
• 1:03
  So if you're hearing extra noises, that's probably the dog's harness.
• 1:08
  And we'll see if I can concentrate on doing a podcast and walking a dog at the same time.
• 1:14
  So it is June 2nd, which means this time for the top of the stack.
• 1:18
  Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.
• 1:22
  The top of the stack is a monthly episode in which I talk about the games I played in the
• 1:27
  most recent month, most recent month being May of 2024.
• 1:32
  I stole the name "top of the stack" from the podcast of nonsensical gamers who used to do
• 1:37
  as a regular bit.
• 1:38
  What games they've been trying to play lately or are planning to play.
• 1:42
  It's the 'top of the stack,' so to speak.
• 1:45
  So I start with some stats this month in May.
• 1:48
  I played 69 games, or 69 plays of 49 different games.
• 1:54
  It was a robust month for playing different things.
• 1:57
  My year total is so far, it's 373 plays of 151 different games.
• 2:03
  My shelf of opportunity reduced by three.
• 2:06
  That's pretty good.
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  Went from 68 to 65.
• 2:10
  My collection size did not get smaller, which is the usual goal, but it stayed the same.
• 2:14
  I did not acquire any games last month.
• 2:17
  I did not get rid of any either, but that's okay.
• 2:20
  So that's the collection size stats onto the actual top of the stack.
• 2:26
  I had four games on my month, on my stack this month.
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  I wanted to play RYU, Colombo Detective Game, Hadrian's Wall, and Porta Nigra.
• 2:37
  And I'm pleased to announce that I've done three of those four games.
• 2:41
  We did play RYU, Colombo Detective Game, and Porta Nigra.
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  We did not play Hadrian's Wall.
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  I did actually get it played yesterday, which was June 1st, but that's one day too late
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  to count in the May stats.
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  So, but three out of four is the desired goal.
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  So, achievement!
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  In fact, I think that's the first time this year that I achieved the three out of three
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  goal.
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  Hazzah!
• 3:08
  So, continuing on.
• 3:09
  I had a bunch of new games this month that I tried.
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  Porta Nigra, Faraway, Dro Polter, Mandala, Colombo Detective Game, RYU,
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  and PAX Renaissance Second Edition.
• 3:24
  PAX Renaissance Second Edition and Mandala were both played electronically via Board Game
• 3:30
  Arena.
• 3:31
  So, I'm not as solid on the place of those as I would have been in other things, but still
• 3:37
  pretty good.
• 3:38
  That is, those are my new games.
• 3:40
  That brings me up to 34 new games played this year, feeling pretty good about that.
• 3:45
  It's good pacing.
• 3:46
  Not quite 10 a month, but that would be excessive.
• 3:49
  I did not try any expansions this month, which was fine.
• 3:53
  I did get to dust off quite a few games. If you aren't, if you've forgotten, a "dusty" game
• 3:59
  is one that I haven't played in a year or more.
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  So, when I dust off a game, that means it's been more than a year since I've played it,
• 4:06
  that I am trying it out, so I'm metaphorically getting the dust off of the game as I pull
• 4:10
  it off the shelf.
• 4:12
  I did nine dusty games this month, started with Tiny Towns, which is fun as always, but I
• 4:18
  was again reminded how much I like that game far more than a lot of my family does.
• 4:23
  So, you'll probably get dusty again.
• 4:26
  We played Things..., the classic party game where everybody writes something on a piece of paper,
• 4:30
  and then everyone tries to guess who wrote that thing.
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  I like it game a lot.
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  It's a good time.
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  Photosynthesis.
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  Photosynthesis is a fun one.
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  No, it's not.
• 4:42
  What?
• 4:43
  I just instinctively say that.
• 4:44
  No, I don't like Photosynthesis.
• 4:46
  If you listen to the episode recently in which I reminded you that I don't like Photosynthesis,
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  now I need to ruin myself.
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  I don't like that game.
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  That's not played again.
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  One year, one month, five days on that.
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  Roll for the Galaxy.
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  Somebody got that out at toggle.
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  I really enjoyed it.
• 5:01
  It reminded me how much I like it and makes me want to get it out again sometime soon so
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  we can play with more expansions because that one's really fun and I have a bunch of expansions
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  for it that I haven't played.
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  I've always enjoyed Roll for the Galaxy quite a bit and now having played it again recently,
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  this would be a great opportunity to get it out and place some of the rest of the modules
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  in the expansion that I already had and the modules in the other expansion which I've
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  never tried.
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  So, that's Roll for the Galaxy.
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  Beyond Baker Street.
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  The game was four years, seven months, and fifteen days dusty.
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  Beyond Baker Street is sort of like somebody played Hanabi and said, "You know, that game
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  would be more fun if it were a little more thematic: boom! More thematic."
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  That's the idea of Beyond Baker Street.
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  It was good.
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  We lost both games.
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  We played it twice, but we had a lot of fun playing it again, four years, seven months,
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  fifteen days dusty.
• 5:53
  We just played a Big Book of Madness.
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  This is one of my favorite cooperative games that's not hard enough.
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  I can't remember the last time we lost big book of madness.
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  We usually win it handily and even with playing it on, we played it on hard and they have extra
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  things you can do to put it on like nightmare mode and it's still like nothing on nightmare
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  mode.
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  I mean, it takes some coordination, but it's really good.
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  It's a great theme and I love the mechanics.
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  They've got this cool thing where you have your player board.
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  You have an area in your player board called the reserve and when you play a card into
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  the reserve, it counts as though it's in everyone's hand, which is just a really neat mechanism
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  for getting the, for sharing your resources, which is, you know, co-op games are often not
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  great at that, so that works really well.
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  I like Big Book of Madness a lot.
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  I wish it were harder.
• 6:47
  I played Unstable Unicorns, which I haven't played for one year, one month, and four days.
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  This game's fine.
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  It's very Munchkin-y in terms of: you're acquiring a bunch of stuff and if you have
• 6:58
  the most stuff you win, another people are, it's a take that game and from that regard, it's
• 7:04
  not my favorite.
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  Those were my dusty games of the month.
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  Next up, we have Notable Plays this month.
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  Now, this is a feature I added to just comment a little bit more on.
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  Sometimes we'll play a game and I sort of want to share a bit more about it after having
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  played it.
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  I'm going to play The Gardens from Brett Gilbert and Matt Dunston.
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  It is a game in which you are building gardens in the nature preserve in Sydney, Australia.
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  It's a set collection game with a little bit of tile-length card laying in terms of arranging
• 7:46
  the tiles you have.
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  It's very tactical though.
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  Each round, there are a number of cards laid out equal to the number of players.
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  So if there's four players, there are 12 cards and because there are one card, there are
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  three rows of cards that you're building and you lay out one card in each row for each
• 8:08
  player.
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  Then you take turns drafting them and you have to draft one from each row.
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  There isn't a ton of choice.
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  Particularly as the round goes on, you get to the point where like on your last turn,
• 8:20
  you're definitely taking one from row C because you already took A and B.
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  What makes it interesting is when you play your card, then you move your little person to
• 8:29
  that spot and you score points based on what you went past.
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  It's a pretty good system for allowing for a variety of different tactics, but a huge part
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  of it is just -- which cards come out when there's a huge amount of luck, in terms of
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  trying to get the cards to be where you need them to be because you're not allowed to rearrange
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  them.
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  You have to play them out in the order that you play them.
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  So if you just didn't get the card you wanted at the time you wanted, you're stuck.
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  But we played with the Monuments expansion, which I did like quite a bit.
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  The Monuments expansion is a module, it's not an expansion.
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  It's a different set of boards that came with the game and then on your turn, you're going
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  to put the plate, you're going to play just like you normally would, except that as you play,
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  you might cover up one of the four Monuments on the board.
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  Everybody's got the same Monument on their board.
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  When you cover up that Monument, if you're the first person to do so, then you take the
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  Monument card, which gives you either immediate points or more often, it gives you a point
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  scoring matrix that will score at the end of the game.
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  So I liked the variety, the extra thing to think about in the gardens.
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  It's a little simple for my case and if it weren't a gift from my in-laws, I'm not sure
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  I would keep it, but it was a gift and they do enjoy it, so we play it regularly.
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  And I'm happy to play it.
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  It's definitely one of those games that I'm happy to play if someone suggests it, but it's
• 9:59
  not in my favorite list or anything.
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  Nonetheless, it's an enjoyable game and it's very pretty.
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  That's The Gardens.
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  That was my notable play that I wrote down for the month.
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  Next up, we've got my Gameplay Challenge, my 10-for-10 challenge.
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  You'll remember that this year for my 10-for-10 challenge, I set out 10 categories and
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  I'm trying to play 10 games that fit each category.
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  We've made good progress, but I'll review the whole thing.
• 10:27
  As a reminder, the Legacy/Campaign category, we've already got 10 plays in that category,
• 10:33
  boom, done.
• 10:35
  And sometimes one game might end up fulfilling roles in multiple categories, but this is
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  a reminder I never count the same play for more than one instance of the category.
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  So for example, several of the plays in the 3-hour plus category are for Frosthaven,
• 10:55
  and several of the plays in the Legacy/Campaign game category are for Frosthaven, but no
• 11:01
  individual play of either of those games is counted for both categories.
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  Hopefully, that's clear enough.
• 11:09
  Anyway, our Legacy/Campaign, we're at 10, we finished that before this month.
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  This month, we got one play for the Nature/Animal category, and that was Photosynthesis.
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  So up to 6.
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  We got one play in the 3-hour game, 3+ hour game category, and that was Frosthaven,
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  up to 9 of those, so one more 3-hour game, and we'll be done.
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  I'm sure I'm going to finish that in June.
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  Then we have cute animals.
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  Characters or other themes have you playing either anthropomorphized animals or just something
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  with cute animals.
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  If the game is just straight nature, like Cascadia would not count for cute animals, but I think
• 11:51
  Calico would count for cute animals.
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  So it's a judgement call.
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  Thus far, we've only played 3 games in that category.
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  I've not played any more.
• 12:00
  Escape Room.
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  I don't mean going to public or professional escape rooms.
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  That 10 of those in a year would be a pretty expensive proposition given that it usually
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  cost about 25 to 35 to 45 dollars a person.
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  So we generally don't do more than a couple a year of that, and we go when we have coupons.
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  That said, I do like escape room games like unlock or exit, and so this year I'm trying to
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  count plays of those and get 10 of them in.
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  We did have one this month, unlock extraordinary adventures, so we've gone from 3 to 4 of those.
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  Next up we have the novelty category, novelty games.
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  Our games that I have in my collection, not because I think they're probably good, necessarily,
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  although they could be good, but more I own them because it's a novelty to own them.
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  For example, this month we played the Colombo Detective Game, which I bought because I like
• 12:57
  Colombo.
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  I don't think it was probably a very good game, and we were right.
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  I mean, it was fine.
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  There was a role-and-move component that was not as good as other things could have been
• 13:08
  about figuring out the game, or figuring out a game.
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  It didn't need to be roll-and-move.
• 13:13
  It would have worked just fine without it, but in the game you're trying to collect these
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  cards that make a picture, and the picture helps you establish what the crime was.
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  It works out well.
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  That's called Colombo Detective Game, and that is the third novelty game we've got.
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  We played this year, so I do need to up my novelty game quota if I want to make that goal.
• 13:34
  Next up we have the alphabet category, the first 10 letters of the alphabet are A through
• 13:39
  J, and I have in fact already completed that category.
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  That was before this month.
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  The next category is K through T, and I have eight of those played.
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  There are two missing.
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  I'm not sure I've taught my head which two are missing.
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  Look, we have alphabet U through Z and four numbers, and we did not get any plays
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  of either the alphabet K through T or U through Z and four numbers.
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  So the four numbers thing, the idea is, this idea is we play one game that starts with
• 14:05
  a single digit, and we did seven wonders already.
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  Then we need to play a game that starts with two digits, three digits, and four digits.
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  The larger digit numbers are going to be harder, so we'll have to see what we can find for
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  that.
• 14:23
  The current H index is eight, as a reminder in H index is number of games you've played
• 14:28
  times the number of times you've played them.
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  So an H index of three would say that you have three games you've played three times each.
• 14:38
  I'm up to eight for this year, meaning I have eight games I've played eight times each,
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  and those games are daybreak.
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  That time you killed me, Guya Project Obsession, Frost Haven, Reza Akana, Matinae, and
• 14:50
  three of the ages.
• 14:51
  I am chagrined to report the only one of those that fits in-person plays is Frosthaven,
• 14:57
  all the rest of those are on it, are at eight because I play them regularly online, but
• 15:02
  that's okay.
• 15:03
  My shelf of opportunity, I am slowly working on it.
• 15:07
  I did play in my new games this month, Porta Nigra, or Porta Nigra, Colombo Detective Game,
• 15:16
  and RYU are all games that I own.
• 15:19
  So that's three games off my shelf of opportunity this month, just pretty good.
• 15:24
  More importantly, my collection size update, the game of the month I was at 589 games, and
• 15:31
  at the end of the month I'm at 589 games.
• 15:33
  I did not purchase any new games this month, and I did not divest myself with any games this
• 15:40
  month.
• 15:41
  I intended to divest myself, but I didn't get around to it.
• 15:45
  But in June I'm definitely going to do an aggressive call to get rid of games that are
• 15:49
  in the category of fun, but do I really need to own that?
• 15:52
  Probably not.
• 15:53
  I'm going to have to take a serious look at my Martin Wallace collection because I have
• 15:56
  a bunch of Martin Wallace games that I never play, that I kind of am holding on to because
• 16:00
  they're Martin Wallace games more than because I want to play them a lot.
• 16:05
  Although most of them I like, so I don't know.
• 16:07
  We'll see about that.
• 16:10
  And then finally, I document my unplayed expansions as well, and I did not play any unplayed expansions
• 16:16
  this month.
• 16:18
  All right, the last thing I do each month is I pick the new games that I'm going to play
• 16:21
  in the coming month.
• 16:23
  For my new game, I picked Mythic Mischief.
• 16:26
  This was a Kickstarter game that looks pretty fun.
• 16:28
  It's kind of a dueling factions area, not area control game, light skirmish game with a sort
• 16:34
  of puzzle element.
• 16:35
  It looks pretty cool.
• 16:37
  I got it for $3 at Goodwill.
• 16:38
  I looked it up.
• 16:39
  The edition that I have was $95 on Gamefound, so that was a good buy.
• 16:44
  I do have a copy of the Office Downsizing game, which is a game where you are, I don't
• 16:52
  know, honestly, I haven't really looked at it much.
• 16:54
  It is, I have it for the novelty category because I like the TV show The Office, and so I
• 16:59
  have a bunch of novelty games about The Office.
• 17:02
  So I would like to play that at some point.
• 17:04
  Maybe I'll bring it to toggle when we can try it out.
• 17:06
  I thought for one play, we might try Scooby Doo in the Haunted Mansion.
• 17:09
  I don't know when I'll try that, but I thought it would be fun to get that played.
• 17:13
  And finally, my try again choice again, I'd like to play that I keep trying to play and
• 17:18
  haven't gotten played yet is Forum Trajanum.
• 17:21
  So those are my Top of the Stack for the next month.
• 17:25
  Well, that leads me to my big question, what are you planning to play this month?
• 17:30
  I, one of my favorite things about the Pick Up and Deliver community is the way that we chat
• 17:36
  about things, and usually we do that on boardgamegeek.
• 17:39
  If you haven't been over to boardgamegeek and joined Guild 3269, which is the pick up
• 17:44
  and deliver guild, please do that.
• 17:46
  That would be really fun to get a hold of you.
• 17:48
  Drop a line in there, say hello.
• 17:50
  And I would say the most common thing that we post about is the top of the stack.
• 17:54
  Usually when I put out this episode, then somebody goes in and starts the top of the
• 17:58
  stack thread.
• 17:59
  If no one does, I will do that, but I often forget to do it before someone else does, and
• 18:03
  I appreciate that among you.
• 18:05
  So yeah, I'd love to hear what you're playing.
• 18:07
  Are you playing, what are you playing this month that you weren't going to play last, that
• 18:11
  you were wanting to play last month, did you get to play it?
• 18:13
  Are you rolling things over?
• 18:14
  You're trying new things?
• 18:15
  What's the plan?
• 18:16
  I'd love to know, and I'd love for us to chat about it on the on board game geek.
• 18:21
  There are other ways to reach out to me as well.
• 18:23
  You can send me a direct message on boardgamegeek, wombat929, is my username there.
• 18:28
  My email address for the podcast is brendan@rattleboxgames.com.
• 18:32
  You can send me a message there.
• 18:34
  I guess you could shout into the aether, that probably wouldn't do anything.
• 18:38
  If you haven't ever reviewed the podcast, it would be great to have some reviews in
• 18:43
  the place is where you listen so that other people can find the podcast.
• 18:47
  We are occasionally getting new listeners.
• 18:49
  Welcome to anybody who has stumbled upon this little corner of the internet.
• 18:53
  Thanks for joining me.
• 18:54
  But most of all, let us know what you're playing to play in June.
• 18:59
  What games are coming up for you?
• 19:01
  All right, well, I've just reached the end of the walk.
• 19:04
  The walk with the dog went fine.
• 19:05
  It didn't seem like I had just run a lot of time talking about the dog, so hopefully that
• 19:10
  went okay.
• 19:11
  Thanks for joining me and my dog
• 19:13
  going on a walk today.
• 19:14
  I hope your next walk this as pleasant as mine was.
• 19:17
  Bye bye.
• 19:17
  [out-take beep] What are you doing?
• 19:39
  Can you, I would like you to stay on this side, please?
• 19:41
  Thank you.
• 19:42
  [out-take beep] We played the gardens, which is from Matt Dunston and Brett Gilbert.
• 19:49
  No, yeah, Brett Gilbert and Matt Dunston.
• 19:53
  Brett Gilbert and Matt.
• 19:54
  [out-take beep] We played one game that has a ... what?
• 19:58
  Cicada's landed on me again.
• 20:01
  Come on!
• 20:02
  Get off me. [final out-take beep]
• 20:04
  [MUSIC]