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

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Top of the Stack, December 2024 · 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
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode two while I walk home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good evening, listeners. It's a lovely
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: day here in suburban Chicago, and I'm on my way
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: home from the train.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: It's evening.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: It is now about six thirty pm on December second.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It's dark and cold, but I am excited to be
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: talking to you about board games. Because it's the beginning
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of the month. It's time for an episode of Top
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: of the Stack. Top of the Stack is a board game,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: is a sequence ide. Top of the Stack is a
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: episode segment I do at the beginning of each month
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: in which I talk about the previous months gameplays. It's
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a sort of chance to review what I've been playing
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: and talk about.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Game plays with you.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: It also gives me a chance to make some goals
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: for the next month and see how I've done in
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: pursuing goals from the previous month. It's been a fun month,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and so let's start off with some stats. I'd like
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: to start with monthly statistics, just a way to get
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: us a feel for what I've been playing. So in
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the month of November I had fifty nine plays of
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: forty four different games. That's a pretty good rack up.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: That means in the year so far, I've had seven
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five plays of two hundred and seventy
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: four different games. My most played games in November were
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: frost Haven with four plays, through the Ages with four plays,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: so frost Haven was on the table, through the Ages
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: was on board Game Arena. So it's been a good
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: month all around from gameplays. Now, of course, the big
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: mystery is how did I do on the top of
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the stack. The idea of the top of the stack,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of course, is that I've picked four games that I
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: want to try to play in the month, and if
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I play three of them, I consider it a success.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: The first of these that I signed up to do,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: or I said I would do as Funny Friends, I
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: did not get that played. The second was Spirits of
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the Rice Patty. I did get that one played, third
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: one was Hand to Hand Wombat Nope, and the fourth
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: one was Badass Zombie Killers. So one for three, I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: mean really one for four, but I only count three
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of them, so one for three not a successful month.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: From the perspective of getting games played that I haven't
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: played before, or getting games played that I said I
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: was going to play. That said, it was a good
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: month in terms of trying new games. Coming into the month,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I had played eighty two different games this year.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Tried out eighty two.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Games this year that were new to me, and generally
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: my goal is to try to get about one hundred
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: new games a year, so I had a fair amount
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: to do that said, it was a good month. I
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: tried nine new games and here they are auraflom Set,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: cubed O, Wahree, Spirits of the Rice Patty Federation, which
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I tried on Board Game Arena. That was pretty fun.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Serro of the C's Word War game from nineteen seventy
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: eight that I got at Goodwill. It's kind of a
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: novelty game, Clue Junior Marvel Adventures obviously played that with
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: my young niece. And Hitster. It's like Hipster with a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: t Hitster. It is a sound based game, which I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: will talk about at some point. That was pretty fun.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: I did get to try out one expansion this month.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: This was the Adele and Neville expansion to the game
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Suspects As it's kind of a tricky thing. I when
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I play a game that is a new edition of
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a one play game system, I categorize that as an expansion.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: So Suspects is a system gameplay system that has several
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: different games in it. I've only played one of them.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: It was the first one starring the first protagonist. But
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: they've now released a series with a second set of protagonists,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and I played the first one of that set. We've
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: played one of the three mysteries, so I haven't played
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the whole game, but I count that as trying the expansion,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: so I count that as an expansion.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: I did have a pretty good.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Time getting games out of the dust, coming in as
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: a reminder. Out of the dust means that a game
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: has been sitting on the shelf for gone it's been
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: more than a year since I played it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: A year is.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Generally the line that we draw, and coming into the month,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I had played forty eight games dusted off, meaning there
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: were forty eight of the seven hundred and fifty plays
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that I've done were games that I had played before
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: but had not played for a year or more. I
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: am up to fifty seven now, so I've played I
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: played nine I dusted off nine games this month.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It's pretty good. We've got Donner Dinner Party.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Had been five years, four months, and twenty five days
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: since I had played that one social deduction game with
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: an amusing ghost element and a funny theme. We have
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Libertalia Winds of Gail Crest one year, nine months and
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: change for that one. That one is a good time.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I like it and it's a fun one. I have
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: not played it again yet, but I always like that one.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: It's fun to show.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I played that one at my college Board Game club.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Next up, we have Snakes. That was one year, seven months,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and one day again college Board Game Club.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: I like that one.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: It's if you haven't played it. It's a trivia game
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: where like you have.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: We played with a group of five people.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: So in the group of five, you have two snakes,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you have two regular people, and you have the mongoose
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of truth. So the way it works is there's a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: trivia question that's something weird and unlikely that anyone actually knows.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Then the two people who are snakes get to look
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: at the answer and their goal is to get people
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to say the wrong answer. The two humans don't get
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: to look at the answer, but they're going to talk
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: with each other and try to find the right answer.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And the mongoose of truth is also trying to find
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the right answer. And the whole point of that card
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: is that you have one person you know for certain
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: is being truthful. The mongoose of truth isn't a snake.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And then the points come from getting the right answer
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and or if you're a snake, getting people to say
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the wrong answers.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: It's fun.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: It's from Big Potato Games, the same people who make Chameleon,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: which should be fair. Chameleon is a better game, but
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I think Snakes is pretty good. I also think Snakes
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: does have the advantage of not being of not presenting
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: a thing people don't understand or no. One of the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: downsides of Chameleon is sometimes there's a bunch of stuff
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in the category that somebody just doesn't know. It's more
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: likely that you'll have a category come up that someone
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: just can't play. That doesn't really happen with Snakes. Next
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: up is Dixit Journey. That was two years, twenty five
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: days Dusty and again another game we played at my
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: board game club. Now I have adjudicated several games of
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Dixit since then. Within those two years. But when I
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: have students play a game, if I'm not playing with them,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I don't count it as a game i've played. So
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: next up we have Kahuna. Kahuna is a really interesting
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: two player game from Cosmos. It's in their two player
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Cosmos line. The very first time I played this it
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: was in person with rob Hi Rob but mostly now
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I play it on Yukata dot e. It's good, but
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I haven't played it in a while, and I had
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: a friend, Jason Keglovitz, Hey Jason, who He and I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: play a lot of games together online, and we were
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: looking for something new to try, so we played Kahuna.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: He gave me a real drubbing in it, so even
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: though he hadn't played it before, he really picked up
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the game and taught me how to play, by which
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I mean it kicked my butt. Next up Settlers of Katan.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: That was one year, nine months in eighteen days.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Dusty.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: If you've been keeping up with the podcast, you'll know
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: that this play of it was unpleasant enough that I've
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: now put Catan on my nah I'm good list meeting.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I probably won't play that game again unless I'm really
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: in dire straight like if I were at my college
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: board game club and there were four of them or
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: three of them and me, and they all wanted to
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: play Catan, I'd probably play it with them, but mostly
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: for the company. I don't really want to play it anymore.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So that's Settlers of Catan, Grand Austria Hotel, one year,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: nine months, twenty eight days. This is another one I
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: played on Yukata and another one I am terrible at.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Or maybe we played on board game Arena. Honestly, I
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: think it was a board game arena. This is a
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: game I'm terrible at. It falls into the category of
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I just can't wrap my head around how to do
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: well at it. I've read guides, I understand the mechanisms,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: but for some reason I can't get the logic of
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: it into my brain. So I have fun trying, but
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I consistently do much worse than my competitors. Nonetheless, Grand
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Austria Hotel, there it is. Concept is a game I
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: played at toggle. This is a very simple game in
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: which you are trying to give clues to people, and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: your goal is to solve to solve the clues. They're
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: kind of abstracted clues based around well concepts. It's a
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: game I have played once and I thought it was fine.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Played it a couple more times. I thought it was fine,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: but couldn't see myself enjoying it. No one else my
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: family really liked it, so it went onto the trade pile.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Since then, I've played it every now and again at toggle.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: The last time was well, I guess I don't play
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it every now and again. The last time I logged
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a game of it was seven years, ten months, and
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: twenty seven days, so I guess I see it played
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: at Togo, but I don't play it myself. Finally, Gingerbread House.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: This is a Phil Walker harding game in which you're
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: building little stacks of pieces and you're trying to score
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: points by collecting different fairy tale creatures who come to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: try to eat your house. I think it's a really
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: good lightweight sort of entry level, or I mean like
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: entry level or lightweight or light plus, not quite medium weight,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: but there's enough going on. It's pretty interesting unto play.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: The theme is cute. You get points by accumulating different
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: categories of cards, and you score points for doing well
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: on the bonus cards that you get. There's a race
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: element because if you get a bonus card first, then
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you get it, no one else gets it, and you're
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: trying to be efficient with how you gain things, so
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: there is a randomized element to it. That doesn't work great.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: If somebody gets a bunch of tiles that have have
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: steps ser steps on them and other people don't get many,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: that can be counterproductive, But overall it's pretty fun. That's
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Gingerbread House. It has been two years, eleven months, and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: twenty nine days since I played that very nearly three years,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: and that is fifty seven games that I dusted off
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: this year. What a treat in terms of my top
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: in terms of my ten for ten or yeah, my
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: ten for ten, I haven't made a lot of progress yet.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I still did not play any cute animal games. I
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: only played. I played two novelty games. I played oh
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Wa Ree and I played word War.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So that's up to six.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I have four more to go there, and then I
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: have four more in the Alphabet series to play as well,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: So I have for eight twelve games to play. If
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I want to finish my ten for ten, boy, that's tempting.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: It is doable, but it will take some effort, particularly
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: since the novelty games are not something I'm going to
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: be able to get played at home, So we'll see.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I may make it or I may get close. But
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: that's my ten for ten.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: My shelf of opportunity is staying consistent. It's at sixty
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: eight games, and the picked up one game this month.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: That was word War, and I did play it.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: As you know, I checked off a couple spirits of
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the Rice Patty. I guess is the only one I
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: checked off, So I guess I should be at sixty
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: seven instead of sixty eight because I don't think I
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: acquired any games. Overall, my shelf of opportunity is basically
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the same. The expansion list is also very similar, and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I did reduce my collection size a little bit. I
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: gave away Switch and Signal Champions of Mid Guard on
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: suspects at Toggle Gaming.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: But I so my.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Collection went down by three and up by one when
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I purchased word War. Well that's about it for my
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: November game plays. It was a fun month, not a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: not a ton of progress on my ten for ten,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: but certainly significant progress overall. Looking forward to trying for
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: my ten for ten, it's close enough that I think
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I've got a chance, so I think I will probably.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Give it a go. Well.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It leads me to the top of the stack for December.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I have not thought this out of head, so I'm
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: just going to think of things on the fly. First,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I'm going to suggest Mystery Date. A Mystery Date would
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: be an amusing game to play. It would count as
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a novelty game, and it's one I've had on the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: shelf for a while since I picked it up and
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: haven't tried it. So I'm gonna put Mystery Date on there.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I guess I could put Funny Friends on there. Again,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: it seems like something it's potential for me to play.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: It should be playable. It's a goofy game. I would
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: enjoy it, So yeah, I'm going to roll over Funny
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Friends to December. So that's two games. A simple one
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: to play would be pig Mania otherwise known as Past
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the Pigs. This is a game I played a long
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: time ago, but I haven't played the copy I picked up.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: It is easy to play and pretty quick, so I
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: think I'm going to try to bring it to my
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: college board Game club and we'll play it there as
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a starter game, and that will get that collected. So
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I said funny friends. I said pig Mania, I said,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: mystery Date. What's one more that I could try for
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: something a little more challenging. I'm just looking at what
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I have and sort of trying to decide what I
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: might like to try to get played. Let's say Hunted
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: wold Ridge. That's a game I can play by myself,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: so I imagine I'll have a little bit of time while
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I'm in between grading where I want to get a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: game played, and I could play Hunted wold Ridge as
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: my last game. So there are my top of the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: stack for the next month. We'll see if I get
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: any of those played.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: There.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: It's a challenging bunch, but I think I could do
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: it a great December. If you want to share what
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: you've been playing, head over to board game Get Killed
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: three two sixty nine and share in the forum there.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see what games you tried out, what
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: games you have planned for December.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Well that's about it for me. Thanks for joining me
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: on my walk today. I hope your next walk is
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: a pleasant as mine. One bye bye, brought to you
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: by rattle Box