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Bug Games (themestorm) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder
• 0:07
  as I step out of the door and deliver an upshot to you while I
• 0:10
  walk around. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good evening listener. It's a
• 0:22
  lovely day here in suburban Chicago. I'm going out for a walk in the
• 0:26
  evening to enjoy a nice stroll. And uh ooh, so many cicadas.
• 0:34
  Fascinating and gross. I'm glad we don't have a huge oak tree in our
• 0:38
  yard. It seems like those deciduous trees are the ones that seem to have
• 0:41
  the most cicadas on them. We have a pine tree and it seems to
• 0:45
  have fewer of them. Holy cow, so many trees have so many Well,
• 0:50
  this is been on my mind. If you've been listening last couple episodes,
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  it is just a bug pockelypse here right now, and that tells me
• 0:58
  it's a good time to do a theme episode. So I found a new
• 1:00
  an episode about games that have bug, games that feature bugs. What I
• 1:06
  did is I went on board game Geek and I searched for geek lists of
• 1:11
  games featuring or focused on bugs, and I looked at them by rank,
• 1:14
  and I looked through the top ten thousand and picked out games I played,
• 1:17
  games I have, and some games I've heard of, And then I did
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  think of a couple others that just didn't seem to be listed in those lists,
• 1:25
  but I thought seemed relevant. So I have a list of a few
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  different games, and I'm going to share them in order, I guess reverse
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  order top five top my top five bug games, and then I'll do some
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  honorable mentions. I'm gonna start with one honor two honorable mentions. The first
• 1:42
  one is frost Haven. You could also put gloom Haven in this category.
• 1:47
  Both frost Haven and gloom Haven feature some bugs. They have some creatures that
• 1:52
  are sort of bug like, and they have a race of intelligent beings that
• 1:56
  you can be in both gloom Haven and frost Haven. The Harrowers and Harrowers
• 2:00
  are swarms of sentient bugs. Super gross. Now, the way that the
• 2:06
  miniatures look, they don't look like bugs. They look like sort of weird
• 2:09
  people with all premises. They are bugs that are sentient, So it's a
• 2:15
  little weird. It's a cool idea, and it results in really interesting gameplay.
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  I'm playing a hero or character, right now in frost Haven. But
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  I'm using it as an honorable mention because it's a small piece of a game
• 2:27
  that's much larger, and the game isn't really about bugs, so I'm not
• 2:30
  going to include it in my list, but I did want to bring that
• 2:32
  one up. The other one I'm going to mention is one that probably everybody
• 2:36
  thinks is the number one, and this is Hive. Hive is a famous
• 2:39
  game. It's in the abstract game genre. The game is played with different
• 2:46
  bakelight tiles that have images of different bugs on them, and the whole point
• 2:50
  is that you have these different bugs that are protecting your head bug, your
• 2:53
  best bug, whatever, your queen. It's a chess like game in the
• 2:57
  neighborhood of that game. Anyway, I haven't played that either, and so
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  I can't really include it in my list. I'm sure if I had played
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  it, it probably would be in my list. So setting that aside,
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  that means we have a number of other games to consider, and I have
• 3:13
  to figure out where I'm going to put each one, all right. Number
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  five is Kabuto Sumo. Kabudo Sumo is a dexterity game in which you have
• 3:21
  one of two competing groups of bugs, and your goal is to push another
• 3:25
  group of bugs off of the table. There's this little table and you have
• 3:31
  a sort of sliding stool that goes on your side of the table, and
• 3:34
  you can add one of your bugs, which are these wooden discs, to
• 3:38
  the table, and your goal is to push your opponent to get all of
• 3:43
  your opponents discs off the table while you get yours on, or maybe just
• 3:49
  to get their big one off. It's been a while since I've played it.
• 3:51
  I don't specifically recall all the details of which bugs you are, how
• 3:55
  you're supposed to include the bugs are not I remember it's it's a pretty game,
• 4:00
  and it's one I'd enjoy playing occasionally, but it's not one that's gonna
• 4:03
  be like become an all time favorite, you know. Dex Sterity games are
• 4:06
  usually kind of just interesting novelties instead of being a wider having a wider array
• 4:14
  or a wider depth of interest. So for me, that's gonna be my
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  number five. That's Kabuto Sumo. I believe that was published by Boardgametables dot
• 4:23
  com, which is now all Play, and the designer is Tony Miller.
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  I think who's somebody whose games I've played a bit. I ordered a couple
• 4:30
  of the games that he produced as part of his independent company, and those
• 4:36
  who are pretty interesting. So yeah, that's Tony Miller's Kabudo Sumo. I
• 4:42
  did not look that up, so go go check the show notes to see
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  if I'm right. All right, So that was my number five. My
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  number four is gonna be bes. This is be e e z. This
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  is another sort of abstract puzzler. It's got really cute little plastic bee containers
• 5:01
  that are b figures that you use. You're flying the bees around this hive,
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  collecting different kinds of nectar and adding them to your to your hive,
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  and you're flying You're flying around a fleet of flower garden collecting neckltar nectar and
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  adding it to your hive. The trick is your bee has to move in
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  a certain direction based on where it was previous, and that is the that
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  is the difficult choices where you're going to move it in order to collect the
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  the different nectar in the right order so that you can match these patterns and
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  score points based on the UH points scoring cricket UH criteria. It's an interesting
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  game. Like I said, the pieces are these really cute little plastic bees,
• 5:45
  and some of these trees are just covered insticatas, So it's these little
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  they're very cute, little plastic be pieces that you are going to put onto
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  your board and fly around. Those look really cute. The nectars are just
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  little circle cylinders, sort of standard board game pieces. The gameplay is really
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  interesting because you have to think like two or three moves ahead, and you
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  have to kind of try to anticipate what your opponent is doing in order to
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  set up their points that they are working on a combination of things as well,
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  and it never overlaps quite as well as you'd think it's going to,
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  so there's some interesting challenges in terms of trying to get those pieces to work
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  together. That makes for a really interesting gameplay. That is Bees designer Dan
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  Halstead, published by Plan B Games, I believe excellent production, design,
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  fun game. That's my number four insect game, all right. My number
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  three insect game is the aeg Butterfly game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave, and that
• 6:51
  is Mariposa's. Mariposa's is a really interesting set collection game with some fascinating time
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  elements. When you're playing Mary Posts is what you do is you have a
• 7:03
  butterfly, and you start in Mexico, and the game follows the one year
• 7:08
  migration of the butter of the monarch butterfly across North America. So you start
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  in Mexico, you migrate all the way up into the northern United States.
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  You could even get as far as Canada. Then you turn around and you
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  go back, and the game has life cycles built into it, so it's
• 7:28
  not one butterfly who goes all the way up and back. It's like four
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  butterflies, and so as you go you can spawn other butterflies, but you
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  only get so many of them, and your goal is to get up and
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  back. The further up you get, the more points you get. But
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  you're also getting sets of different things on scoring points based on how you fulfill
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  those patterns. It's a lovely game, and we had a fun time playing
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  it three or four times, but by the time we got to the third
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  or fourth play, we're sort of like, eh, this game kind of
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  it's the same every time. We've kind of done what it's going to do,
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  and it wasn't. It wasn't opening new doors for us, and it
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  didn't feel like we were getting significantly better or we were discovering hidden depths.
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  It's felt like a relatively shallow game. It was very well made and there
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  was interesting stuff going on, but it was very tactical, and I just
• 8:15
  didn't didn't have the longevity for us, so we did pass it along.
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  But it's beautifully made and really pretty fun for those first few plays, so
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  that's why it lands at my number three spot. That's mariposas my number two
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  insect related game is another game about bees, and this is Honey Buzz.
• 8:37
  Honey Buzz is a neat little economic game in which you play a group of
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  bees trying to just get by by making and selling honey to the other animals
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  in the forest. Is a really weird theme because you're bees, but you're
• 8:54
  the honey you're making. You're like packaging up in jars and selling, but
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  the people who are buying it are anthropomorphic animals who are coming to the forest
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  in order to make and in order to buy your honey. Now, Honeybuzz
• 9:07
  does have one of the highest PEI factor of any game I've ever played.
• 9:13
  Pi's potential edibility index. This is games with pieces that look like you should
• 9:18
  be able to eat them and honey Buzz comes with these cute little squishy honey
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  I mean, in the game, they represent different kinds of honey. There's
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  four different kinds of honey which are created by mixing the basic honey ingredients with
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  the kind of nectar that you use to get them. So nectar from one
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  plant will result in a different kind of honey than nectar from another plant,
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  and so the game articulates those different flavor profiles with these different shapes of honey.
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  But all the honey things are this sort of translucent rubbery material that looks
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  like you should just be able to eat it right up. It looks like
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  a drop of honey. It's really cool, really neat looking, and kind
• 10:01
  of ridiculous. So I'm gonna go on a tangent here for a minute and
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  talk about other games with high Pei. The game that often gets mentioned most
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  often, I think is a Zool. The Azuol pieces look like they're starbursts,
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  so you get them, you want to unwrap them and eat the starbursts.
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  Then later they made a zul chocolate, the Chocolate Tear edition, where
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  the pieces you're making just look like little chocolates. The game Chocolate Factory ironically
• 10:28
  does not have a very high PEI because the chocolate pieces, while they resemble
• 10:31
  chocolates in their shape, they don't look like they're edible, although I guess
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  now that I think about it, the in Chocolate Factory you have you start
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  with a piece of a cocoa bean. Then you turned into raw chocolate,
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  and then you turn it into chocolate bars or chocolate squares, and then you
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  turn that into wrapped candy, and then into box candy. Well, in
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  the chocolate form, the second of those five forms, it does look like
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  a little piece of chocolate like you could eat it, So I'll put it
• 11:00
  on the index, but it's not super high. The one other game that
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  I can think of that has some really edible looking pieces is the are the
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  Berries from Everdell. There again, they're kind of squishy, they look like
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  they're little candies and you want to eat them right up. Future Brendan here
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  to offer an expansion on the Pei games. There are two more that I
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  thought of that must be mentioned. The first is Mint Works, which is
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  a little worker placement game, and there's a sequel called Mint Delivery, which
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  as they pick up and delivery game. Both of these games come in a
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  small tin the size of an Altoids container, and in fact use round discs
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  that look like Altoids, so you got to be careful with that. And
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  then there's the classic Grinder Canisia game Through the Desert, which in many editions,
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  including the Fantasy Flight edition that I have, the little camels look like
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  they are chalky pastel colored old person hard candy, like the kind of candy
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  that your grandma like, sort of chalky mints that your grandma would have had
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  in a b and then when you visit her house, even though you don't
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  like them, you eat a few. That's what the things in Through the
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  Desert look like. They look like little weird candies. I'm told the new
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  ones aren't going to look like that, and I think it's a shame.
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  All right. Back to the episode. So there's the warning to game designers
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  out there and game players out there, be careful of buying games with a
• 12:18
  high pei lest you have children who like eat your game pieces. So not
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  only would that be unhealthy for them, it's very expensive to replace them.
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  I didn't even explain how you play Honeybuzs and Honeybuzz like I said, you're
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  making this Honey and the way you do that is you send the earbes out
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  to collect and build different parts of the hive, and the different shapes that
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  you're adding to the hive then give you different kinds of nectar that you can
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  then use to complete contracts and score points. It works really well. It's
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  a fun game. It is a little on the difficult side, but it's
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  not outrageous and it's a good time. Makes me want to get it back
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  out. I haven't gotten it out in a while. That's Honeybuzz. There
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  is a expansion on the way. It's been languishing for a while. Makes
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  me think I should go double check my Kickstarter. I think it's in production,
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  so eventually i'll get it, I'm sure. Anyway, So that is
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  Honeybuzz and my number one. So that was my number two. So we
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  had number five, Kabudosumo, number four, Bees, number three, Mariposas
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  number two Honey Buzz. And the number one game featuring bugs is Nexus Ops.
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  What are you talking about running Nexus Ops? That is a sci fi
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  battler that doesn't have bugs in it. I guess it does if you look
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  at the creatures that you are using to fight one another. They are bugs.
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  You are buy engine bioengineered superbugs that you're using to kill each other.
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  Do you think Starship Ceubers doesn't have bugs in it? Sure it does.
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  Do you think Aliens doesn't have bugs in it? Well? Those are less
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  bug like, honestly, they're more like Sharp Enemy Aliens. But you know
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  there are bugs and lots of games that don't. There aren't just about bugs,
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  and I think nexis Ops is a game that's very much about bugs.
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  So I'm putting that as my number one next. Op is a really interesting
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  game. It's fun to play, It is difficult to do well at.
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  It is incredibly tactical and incredibly vicious. It is one of the first games
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  I heard people someone use the phrase like a knife fight in a phone booth
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  about and I think that fits. It's a really apt description of that.
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  So yeah, Nexus Ops is a nexis Ops is an area control game in
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  which you are trying to get as much land as you can on this planet
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  and take control of these resource points. I'll be honest, I haven't played
• 14:43
  it in a long time, but I remember it being really fun and it's
• 14:46
  survived. Even though I haven't played it in a long time it can.
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  It regularly and continually survives culls. As I look at games and I'm like,
• 14:56
  well, what games should say? What games should go? Every time
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  I'm trying to decide, Nexus Ops ends up saying because it looks it's a
• 15:01
  cool game, it's really fun, it's easy to play, it's fast.
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  I really ought to get it out again because it's interesting and fun to play.
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  So that's Nexus Ops my number one game about bugs. I've got a
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  couple minutes left, so I thought I would mention the other games in my
• 15:18
  collection that I have that are about or games that I've played they're about bugs
• 15:24
  that I did not mention. Cockroach Poker is a game that's very much like
• 15:28
  recently I talked about That's Not a Hat, which is a memory game.
• 15:35
  Cockroach Poker is a bluffing game in a very similar vein, so That's not
• 15:39
  a Hat. In fact, many reviewers that I've heard of That's Not a
• 15:43
  Hat have specifically called out that Cockroach Poker. It's very much like a sort
• 15:48
  of another take on the cockroach poker mechanism. In cockroach Poker, you have
• 15:52
  a hand of cards and your goal is to get trick someone into misunderstanding what
• 16:00
  a card is, either accepting a card that is not what it's supposed to
• 16:04
  be, or passing a card catching getting caught passing a card that is not
• 16:08
  what they say it is. Like, and that's not a hat. You
• 16:11
  can accept a card and then pass that on later, but you never get
• 16:15
  to look at it, so you don't know what it is. I think
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  I can't recall. Maybe you do get to look at it, and then
• 16:19
  you have to try to remember what someone said it was when they gave it
• 16:22
  to you. But like, you know, like the classic game bullshit,
• 16:26
  you can call someone on their bluff and if you're right, then they lose
• 16:30
  a point. If they're right, you lose a point. Like, that's
• 16:34
  not a hat. The game is over when someone loses, not when someone
• 16:37
  wins. Unlike that's not a hat. You don't find a winner, but
• 16:41
  instead it's just one person is a loser. In cockroach poker, there are
• 16:47
  no all but one person at the table wins. In fact, you don't
• 16:52
  even name a winner, you just name a loser, which I think is
• 16:55
  kind of funny. There's another game called cockroach salad, which I believe we
• 16:57
  either have in our collection or add in our collection. It's a similar type
• 17:02
  of game, but honestly, I don't remember how to play it. I
• 17:04
  know the art is disgusting though it's drawings, but they're drawings of cockroaches,
• 17:08
  and you know, I don't. I don't need anything with cockroaches on it
• 17:11
  in my life any more than I have to. The other bug theme game
• 17:15
  that I have on my list that I've played that I have is Bees.
• 17:19
  Now. I did mention Bees, the Dan Hallstead game about bees trying to
• 17:26
  collect nectar. That one is spelled b e Z. But there's also Bees,
• 17:32
  which is b E E E e E s apostrophe, exclamation point.
• 17:37
  This is a I think it's five ees. This is a speed dice rolling
• 17:42
  game in which you are bees trying to collect nectar from different flowers out in
• 17:48
  the field. And like I said, it's a speed game, so you're
• 17:52
  rolling dice collecting that nectar, trying to do as quick as you can before
• 17:56
  other people get the nectar that you are trying to get. It's a fun
• 18:00
  game, interesting to play, not too hard, worth your time if you
• 18:06
  get a chance. That's Bees. There are a couple of games that I
• 18:11
  found that looked interesting that I haven't played, but I'm aware of. There's
• 18:15
  one called Waggle Dance, which is about bees trying to communicate to other bees
• 18:18
  where there's a good supply of food. That is, you know famously that
• 18:22
  the bees will do a little dance to communicate that. I don't know anything
• 18:26
  more about. I have nothing, no idea about the gameplay of that game,
• 18:29
  but I know that is one. There is also March of the Ants,
• 18:32
  which is a well reviewed but older game, long out of print and
• 18:34
  hard to get a hold of, I understand, but that is also a
• 18:37
  game featuring bugs that I wouldn't mind trying. Other than that, I don't
• 18:42
  have a lot of bug themed games i'd like to try. Oh I've thought
• 18:47
  of one more, Zeno Shift, which is a classic duck building game with
• 18:52
  a tower defense element, and the Zeno's that you're defending yourself against are the
• 18:56
  classic space bugs style out of like Starship Troopers or Warhammer forty thousand or any
• 19:03
  of the other genres that say like, hey, if we encounter an enemy
• 19:07
  in space, good chance it's going to be a gross bug. So those
• 19:10
  are my thoughts on bug games. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Have
• 19:12
  you do you have other bug games I should try or should know about.
• 19:15
  What bug Bug games do you like to play? What do you think of
• 19:18
  my top five list? How would you change it? You can share those
• 19:22
  ideas over on board game Geek and guild three two six nine. You can
• 19:26
  send me a direct message on board game Geek. Wombat nine two nine is
• 19:29
  my user name there. I have gotten some correspondents recently, so greeting's correspondent
• 19:33
  are credit correspondents. Thanks for messaging me, and I appreciate the chance to
• 19:40
  chat with you about games if you have. If you have another message for
• 19:45
  me, you can email me brunnanobotodoxgames dot com. Otherwise, I will say
• 19:48
  thank you for joining me on my walk today. I hope your next walk
• 19:51
  this pusant as mindless. Bye bye. Hold on, okay, I think
• 20:17
  that's a I think that's a video warbling video. Well, it's a robin.
• 20:36
  That's disappointing for me. You can email me. She's another cicada.
• 20:45
  Uh damn it uh. Brought to you by rattle Box