Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Homeworlds; Mistborn: the deck-building game; Alien: Fate of the Nostromo; Revive: Call of the Abyss

Transcript

Homeworlds; Mistborn: the deck-building game; Alien: Fate of the Nostromo; Revive: Call of the Abyss · 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 to you while I walk home.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's a lovely day here in
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: suburban Chicago. The temperature is in the I would say,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: high forties, low fifties. It feels very nice out in
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: that way that spring in the Midwest tricks you into
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: thinking it's nicer than it is. I smell barbecue on
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the air. I don't know if one of the local
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: restaurants is doing a tasty dish that I would like
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to have, but it's a lovely smell for a lovely
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: walk home. Well, I thought I would take some time
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: to talk with you about some new games I tried.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: That's right, it's time for another episode of Bored Game
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Espresso Triple Shot.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Order rope.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: All right, Bored Game The Triple Shot is a short
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: review segment or episode in which I talk about three
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: games I've tried for the first time recently, and one
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: expansion or game I've dusted off or something like that.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Once again, these are not meant to be full reviews.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: There are games I've played maybe once or twice, sometimes
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a little bit more than that, but generally not long
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: enough to really have a firm assessment of the game
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: in a.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Review worthy way.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But often that's what you get from this podcast, which
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: is low prep.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: And recorded on the go. So let's jump right in. Huh.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: The first game I want to talk about is one
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I actually have played several times, but I played it
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: online so often I have to play a lot more
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: times to really get the feel for it than I
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: would if it were a table game. This is Homeworlds.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Homeworlds was released in twenty twenty, designed by John Cooper
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and Andrew Looney, with art by Eileen Tujen and Andrew Looney,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: and published by Looney Labs. This game, I believe was
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: published as part of the Looney Labs Peerramid Arcade, or
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: at least it's related to that, because it uses the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Looming Labs Pyramids as its main component.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: It reminds me a little bit of a Carl.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Chuttuck game in that way, where you have these components
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: that mean different things depending on where they are and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: how they're positioned. But unlike a Carl Chutta game, there's
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: no cards to give you crazy powers. There's just a
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: limited set of powers that the game uses. This is
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: pretty close to an abstract game. The idea is you
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: have this planet and you get to pick these ships
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to start, and the colors of the planets and the
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: colors of the ships determine what.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Actions you can take.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And basically the actions are build ships, move ships, trade ships,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and capture ships. And basically you're trying to get to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the point where you are able to capture your opponent's homeworld.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: By manipulating the arrangement and combination of ships that you have,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: you can explore other planets, which give you access to
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: different sets of actions. There's a really interesting economy in
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the game because there's a limited number of each size
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: of ship. So like if between the players you've used
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: all the small ships of a specific color, and then
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you build another ship of that color, then you get
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: to build a mediumship, and the same thing. Once the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: medium ships start out, you get to build a large
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: There is one rule that makes the game I think
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: particularly challenging, and that's the catastrophe rule or apocalypse or
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what the name for it is, but essentially,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: if you have four things of the same color in
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: a given star system. That can trigger an apocalypse, and
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: all of the things of that color except planets go away,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and this can be devastating if you're not paying attention
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: to it, and often swings the game. So far, I've
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: enjoyed my plays of Homeworlds, but it hasn't really grabbed me.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: It's probably the sort of game that would be really
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: fun to play a bunch of times in person, like
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: over a couple of weeks, Like if you saw somebody
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: and you played Homeworlds every day for lunch or something.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I think it would be the kind of game that
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: would probably be really intriguing. But the nuances of it
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: are just complicated enough that it's kind of hard to
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: hold in my head playing asynchronously one turn at a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: time because the turns are very short, but you have
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: to remember what everything.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Does for the whole turn. I suspect if I played
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: More of Homeworlds, I would come to understand it pretty well.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: But I'm not sure I enjoy it enough to do that.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I have enjoyed my plays of it so far, most
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: of which most of which were with Gabriel. Hey Gabriel
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: proof Pad. If those of you for those of you
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: who are joining us in online plays. So that's Home
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Worlds from twenty twenty and Looney Labs. Next up is
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the game I tried recently for the first time.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: This is miss Borne, the.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Deck building game released in twenty twenty four, designed by
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: John D. Clair, with art by David Alvarez, Ostruga, Valerie
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Castle and like ten other people.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: So those are the first two alphabetically who are the artists.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: It was published in twenty twenty four by Brotherwise Games
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: in partnership with Lucky Duck Games. So the Misborn game
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: is b based on the Brandon Sanderson Misborn novels, which
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: are a big set of novels in a sort of
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: interconnected universe. And the magic at the heart of the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: novels is this idea that magicians have metal and they
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: can use metal to do magic. And I think that
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: different kinds of magicians can use Wizards is probably a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: better word than magicians, but different kinds of wizards can
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: use different kind of metal.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: I only read.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: About half of the first Misborn book, so I don't
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: really know very much about.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: The system yet.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: One of the people I was playing with, Tom, Hey, Tom,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think Tom listens, but hey, Tom, just in
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: case you do. One of the people I was playing
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: with did have a comprehensive knowledge of the misborn world,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: and so he was really up on the nuances of
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the magic system. In terms of the deck building game,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. The deck building process and the way
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the cards move around is pretty standard. You have your
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: initial deck that's about half special cards and half purchasing cards,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: and the deck cycles as you would expect.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: You draw a certain number of cards. I believe it's five.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: You spend those cards to get card purchasing power and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: do other actions, and then you draw back up to five.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: The competitive part of the game comes from a number
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: of different win conditions.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: There are these track that.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: You can go up on that give you bonuses, and
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: if you get all the way up on all four
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: tracks you win. There is a sort of battle royale
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: condition where if you kill all the other players you
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: win that way, and then there was a third win
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: condition that I'm having trouble remembering right now, but it
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: had to do with sort of playing the cards or whatever.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: The gimmick of the game that actually works is pretty
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: neat is the using the metal or burning the metal
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to do. The way that works is each player has
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: a row of tokens that are I think they call
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: them coins maybe that have eight different magic symbols on them,
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  Speaker 1: and on your turn you can play a card and
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: then that card might let you use one of the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: magic symbols. You can also discard cards instead of playing
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: them to use magic symbols again if you have multiples,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and you can also use a magic symbol even if
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: you don't have a card, so you get to use
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: one magic for free.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Then you can discard cards.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: To invoke additional magic without using it. And then you can,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: if you want exert yourself to use magic beyond the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: number of magic that you get to do in a turn.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: But when you do that, the coin that you.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Use for that magic is then deactivated and you won't
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: be able to use that kind of magic again until
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: you take a turn to spend it to reset it.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's about as much detail as I
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: can get into. Suffice to say that a big part
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of the game is managing which cards you buy so
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: that you're going to be able to invoke as much
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: magic as you can as quickly as you can. As
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: with many deck builders or many games that have multiple
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: win conditions. My approach to the game was to really
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: lean into one of the wind conditions to see whether
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: or not I could push toward that. I got a
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: couple break lucky breaks in terms of the cards that
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I got, not really understanding what they were when I
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: bought them, but they turned out to synergize really well,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and I ended up winning the game by getting to
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the top of the four achievement tracks.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: But I think I was probably only a.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Couple turns ahead of other people who were accumulating a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: significant amount of damage doing ability, which could have wiped
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: me out, and I think there was somebody else that
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: was making progress toward that other result as well. Rob
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: was playing as well, Hi Rob and our friend Blake. Overall,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: as far as deck building games go, I felt like
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: this one was pretty standard in terms of the kinds
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of things that it could do, but that the metal
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: burning gimmick was a really eat addition to it. So,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: as often the case with a game centered around a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: commonly used mechanism, the one new thing is the thing
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that makes it exciting. Now, the reality is this is
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: not a game I would seek out to buy. It
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: was fun, but you know, I don't think it was
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: dramatically better than any of the other deck builders I've played,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: or many of them anyway. Like I said, the resource
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: management gimmick was fun, but as somebody who's not a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: big Brandon Sanderson fan, I didn't get a particular thrill
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: out of that necessarily, So from the perspective of should
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you buy it or not, I mean, I think that's
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: probably the determining factor. If you're somebody who likes Misborn,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: you can probably go a long way toward enjoying yourself
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: with this game. It is a very competently made and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: skillfully executed deck building game. If this is the kind
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of game you like, this one will certainly fall into
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the category of another entry in the kind of game
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I like. So from that perspective, certainly worth trying. If
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: you're somebody who likes miss Born and or likes deck builders,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: or if both.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Maybe you should check it out.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: That's miss Borne, the deck building game from twenty twenty
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: four by John de Claire.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Next up, I have an expansion that I got to try.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: This is the Revive Call of the Abyss expansion from
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, designed by Hig Meissner. Christian I'm an
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: aust by Elis Svenson and Anna Wormol or Wormhold something
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: like that. These are the four designers who are credited
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: with Revive as well, so it's the same design team
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: published by a port of games art from Germond Bone
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and Martin Motett. There was a Revive call of the
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Abyss expansion is a more and expansion. It does introduce
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: one additional track, which is like I don't we called
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: it the jellyfish track. It's a deep sea these additional creatures.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: It changes a couple of the tiles that might appear
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: on the board, and it basically adds another way that
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: you can score points. Now, you could play it and
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: really not do much on the sideboard, but I think
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: it's probably worth doing some at least because there are
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: points and things that stack up on the sideboard.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: That you wouldn't get in another way.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: But again, you know, Revive is very much an efficiency puzzle,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: So if you have a combination of things that gets
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: you move in really quick, then trying to change the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: set of things that you got in order to capitalize
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: on that sideboard maybe isn't the best move.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Most importantly, the expansion also comes with two more factions,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: or maybe I don't think it's four.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: I think it's two more.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Factions and a bunch of additional characters and such, and
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: all of these things add to the experience.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Of the game.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It is one of those things where I think if
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I was playing with a new person who hadn't played
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Revived before, I would not add in the stuff from
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the expansion. It is a bit much as opposed to
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: like Our Nova, where the Marine expansion is just part
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of play for me. That said, I really liked the
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Revive expansion. I appreciated what it did. I like the
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: additional elements that add to the game, and I certainly
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: am pleased to have it. So it was nice to
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: get Revived to the table again. That was an actual
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: game on the table rather than a game online, although
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying that it's on board game Marina. It's
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: a chance to sort of feel out the system and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: get a bit more play in. But generally very pleased
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: with Revive Call of the Abyss expansion. Finally, I did
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: get to try finally Alien Fate of the Nostromo, a
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one game designed by Scott Rodgers with art
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: from Stephan Codele and Vladimir Rodriguez and published by Ravensburger.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Alien Faded the.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Nostromo is a cooperative game kind of in the vein
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: of Pandemic or Horrified. It feels very similar to Horrified
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: if that's a game you've played. You have one enemy,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the alien, and you have a team morale score. Whenever
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the alien and or somebody, it doesn't kill them, but
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it does scare them and they run away, and depending
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: on the level of aggression on the card, you lose
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: morale equal to that. It is a tough game if
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you're not really thinking carefully about how to manage the alien,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: which we weren't when we played. That said, we did accomplish.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: The way the game works, there are fives in a
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: four player game. There are five sort of mini objectives
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that you have to accomplish as a group, and then
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: there's one big objective that you don't get to know
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: what it is until after you've accomplished the mini objectives.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Then you reveal the big objective and you have to
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: complete that in.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Order to win the game.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: There are I think six to eight different big objectives,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: so you never know which one.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: You're going to get. When you play.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Basically, it is a game that operates along the beats
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: of the film Alien in really strong ways. So if
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: you've seen the movie Alien, if you enjoy that movie,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: this game hits those beats really well.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of Jaws in that way.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: I think you get a lot more out of this
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: game if you've seen the movie that it's based on,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: which is the same thing I felt about Jaws.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Overall, it's pretty fun. We had a good time with it.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I played it at my college Board Game Club and
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the students I was playing with none of them had
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: seen Alien, but they all really enjoyed it, and two
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of the four said I'm going to go watch Alien
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: now because they were so interested in the game.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: After the play.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: All in all, I thought it was pretty fun as
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: a cooperative cooperative game, but not something I'm probably going
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to play all that often. In fact, I donated it
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: after we played it. I donated it to the college
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Board Game Club, which really just means it became part
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of the games that I keep at school rather than
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the games that I keep at home. But it also
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: means I removed it from my collection list, so that's fun. Yeah,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Alien faded the Nostromo. It's a fun one if you
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: get a chance. Well, that brings me to the end
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: of my discussion here today. I want to say thank
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you for joining me.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: On my walk.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I hope that you had a good time. I would
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: love for you to go over to board game Geek
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Guild three two sixty nine and let me know what
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you've done been playing. Have you played any of the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: games I mentioned today, Maybe you've played some new ones you.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Want to share.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: That's the place for the conversation until next time. I
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: want to say thanks for walking with me, and I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: hope that your next walk is pleasant.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Does mind loss?
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: Oh bye?
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Brought to you by rattle Box