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My Top 50 … by Art (part 7) · Pick Up and Deliver

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to you pick up and deliver the podcast where
0:06
Speaker 1: I pick up my audio recorder as I step out
0:07
Speaker 1: of the shop and deliver an episode to you while
0:09
Speaker 1: I walk home. I'm Brendan Riley. Welcome afternoon, listeners. It's
0:23
Speaker 1: a chilly day here in suburban Chicago, but quite lovely.
0:26
Speaker 1: I have done one walk and I took a little break,
0:29
Speaker 1: and now I'm on my walk home and I'm going
0:32
Speaker 1: to talk to you again about some more games. It's
0:34
Speaker 1: time for the next episode in my Top fifty games
0:38
Speaker 1: by art. For those of you who are somehow stumbling
0:41
Speaker 1: in now, welcome, glad to have you here. We are
0:45
Speaker 1: in episode I believe this is episode seven of our
0:50
Speaker 1: ten part series in which I reveal my top fifty
0:52
Speaker 1: games of all time. But I do so by revealing
0:55
Speaker 1: me I'm in the order in which I appreciate the
0:57
Speaker 1: art in the game. So I figured out my top
1:00
Speaker 1: and then I updated it, and then I put those
1:03
Speaker 1: top fifty into a ranking engine, ranked them by art,
1:06
Speaker 1: and we got where we got. And that's how I'm
1:08
Speaker 1: revealing them. So let's just jump right in number twenty,
1:12
Speaker 1: my twenty favorite game of art. This one. If I'm
1:16
Speaker 1: going to get complaints. I think it's gonna be over
1:18
Speaker 1: this one. Maybe this is Last Night on Earth. Last
1:21
Speaker 1: Night on Earth, the zombie game is from Flying Frog Productions.
1:26
Speaker 1: Art I think it's art by Jason Hill. Also designed
1:30
Speaker 1: by Jason Hill. This is a game that spawned a company.
1:34
Speaker 1: They have a bunch of other games that they publish now,
1:36
Speaker 1: including one that's a big favorite of mine, also called
1:39
Speaker 1: A Touch of Evil. I think Last Night on Earth
1:42
Speaker 1: is a bit smoother as a game. I like the
1:44
Speaker 1: theme of A Touch of Evil. It's amusing in a way.
1:50
Speaker 1: The zombie theme has been done by a lot of
1:52
Speaker 1: different games, but I think Last Night on Earth that's
1:55
Speaker 1: something special with it. But the art and design of
1:57
Speaker 1: these games actually all three Last Time on Earth, A
2:01
Speaker 1: Touch of Evil, and Fortune and Glory. They all have
2:04
Speaker 1: what you could call b movie aesthetic. So the idea
2:08
Speaker 1: of Last Time on Earth is that it is representing
2:11
Speaker 1: playing a corn a cheesy zombie movie. You play as
2:15
Speaker 1: like the high school quarterback or the town priest or
2:18
Speaker 1: the farm girl, and you're running around trying to kill zombies,
2:22
Speaker 1: and the zombies are doing crazy stuff. They're turning off
2:24
Speaker 1: the lights, they're bursting through walls. But somehow you just
2:28
Speaker 1: make it or you don't whatever. It is really goofy
2:31
Speaker 1: fun and it's very much like being in a cheesy
2:34
Speaker 1: zombie movie. And so the art in the game gives
2:38
Speaker 1: you that feeling, perhaps more closely than any other game
2:41
Speaker 1: I've played does the art give you the feeling of
2:44
Speaker 1: the game. It is sort of costumed photographs with a
2:50
Speaker 1: very slight bit of photoshop manipulation to make them look eerie,
2:55
Speaker 1: but the people are in costumes, in makeup photographed in
2:59
Speaker 1: the game. The only way to describe it is cheesy.
3:03
Speaker 1: I love it. It looks so fun, so goofy. You
3:06
Speaker 1: can't go to play the game and not be like, oh,
3:09
Speaker 1: I know exactly what kind of game I'm playing. When
3:11
Speaker 1: I look at this box cover, when I look at
3:14
Speaker 1: these photographs that are in on the cards. The design
3:18
Speaker 1: in the game has a kind of slightly cartoony esthetic
3:21
Speaker 1: to it. The buildings are all drawn with a very
3:24
Speaker 1: light hand, almost architecturally, but they have a cartoon aesthetic
3:29
Speaker 1: to them. The different resources that you can get, the
3:32
Speaker 1: different cards you can get, all the different stuff that happens,
3:35
Speaker 1: it all has this really goofy feel to it. I
3:39
Speaker 1: keep saying goofy, but it's the best adjective to describe
3:43
Speaker 1: what's going on in the art in the Last Night
3:45
Speaker 1: on Earth. But it is just perfect for what the
3:48
Speaker 1: game is. So while I might not if somebody said,
3:52
Speaker 1: show me the best piece of board game art ever created,
3:56
Speaker 1: Last Night on Earth is not going to be considered
3:58
Speaker 1: for that list. But if somebody said, what game fits
4:04
Speaker 1: it's art to its setting and makes up an excellent
4:08
Speaker 1: game experience, Number twenty on my list is going to
4:11
Speaker 1: be Last Night on Earth. Now, Last Night on Earth
4:13
Speaker 1: is number thirty nine in my top fifty games of
4:15
Speaker 1: all time. That's up three positions from forty two, which
4:18
Speaker 1: is where it was in twenty twenty two. Its highest
4:21
Speaker 1: was number twenty in twenty fifteen. Now I don't have
4:25
Speaker 1: I have a couple of the small expansions for Last
4:27
Speaker 1: Night on Earth, but I do not have the full collection,
4:29
Speaker 1: in part because Rob does Hey Rob, And it's funny.
4:34
Speaker 1: It's silly for two people who play games together all
4:37
Speaker 1: the time to both have the full collection. That feels
4:40
Speaker 1: when I have so many other games I want. It
4:42
Speaker 1: feels funny to squirrels are having a party. It feels
4:46
Speaker 1: funny to spend a lot of money, duplicating the collection
4:49
Speaker 1: he has. So that is Last Night on Earth my
4:52
Speaker 1: thirty ninth favorite game of all time, number twenty in
4:56
Speaker 1: terms of my top fifty of art. Next up we
4:59
Speaker 1: have my nineteenth favorite game for art of all time,
5:03
Speaker 1: almost the opposite of Last Night on Earth. This is
5:06
Speaker 1: London Second Edition. London Second Edition, published by Osprey Games,
5:11
Speaker 1: is kind of the epitome of classy minimalism and graphic
5:17
Speaker 1: design as art. Like. It's got this like thin filigree
5:21
Speaker 1: line drawing of some fancy building in London on the
5:24
Speaker 1: cover of the box. The graphic design on the cards,
5:27
Speaker 1: it's all sort of muted tones and precise circles and
5:32
Speaker 1: whirls and frames. The art itself is very nice, but
5:36
Speaker 1: just like muted and representative of the space like it
5:39
Speaker 1: has a kind of genteel or aristocratic feel in the
5:43
Speaker 1: graphic design. The art itself, like I said, is representative.
5:47
Speaker 1: It works really well for what it is. But again
5:52
Speaker 1: I think London second Edition lands at my nineteenth spot
5:57
Speaker 1: art wise because it so perfectly fits how the game
6:00
Speaker 1: is supposed to feel. Even the poverty card or the
6:02
Speaker 1: cards with the poppers, it shows like people down on
6:06
Speaker 1: their luck on these sort of gray cards, very muted colors,
6:11
Speaker 1: like it just represents itself so well of what you're
6:14
Speaker 1: supposed to be seeing to what you're doing. I think
6:18
Speaker 1: it perfectly matches what you're trying to do. It's an
6:21
Speaker 1: esthetically beautiful package and that's why it is My number
6:25
Speaker 1: nineteen London second Edition designed by Martin Wallace. In terms
6:30
Speaker 1: of my top fifty games, London is number seventeen. That's
6:33
Speaker 1: down one spot from number eighteen in twenty twenty two.
6:36
Speaker 1: Its highest spot was fourteen and twenty nineteen, so this
6:39
Speaker 1: has always stayed in the teens for me since I
6:43
Speaker 1: started playing it. I really like what's going on in
6:45
Speaker 1: this game. It's pretty different than anything else that I've played.
6:49
Speaker 1: You're building a tableau, but then when you activate your tableau,
6:52
Speaker 1: a lot of the cards deactivate. They flip over, so
6:55
Speaker 1: they're still in your tableau, but you can't use them anymore.
6:57
Speaker 1: But the number of spaces that you create your tableau
7:01
Speaker 1: indicates kind of how much poverty is being being developed.
7:04
Speaker 1: You have to constantly work to minimize the poverty. And
7:07
Speaker 1: then at the end of the game, you have your
7:09
Speaker 1: score that you've earned and then you lose points based
7:12
Speaker 1: on poverty and a kind of Reiner Kinetsian maneuver. You
7:18
Speaker 1: lose more points if you have more poverty than other players.
7:22
Speaker 1: And in fact, the way it works is everybody adds
7:24
Speaker 1: up how much poverty they have. The person who has
7:26
Speaker 1: the least loses zero points, and everybody else loses some
7:31
Speaker 1: points based on how many more they had than the
7:33
Speaker 1: person who had the least. And if you just have
7:35
Speaker 1: a couple, it's not dramatic, but if you have a lot,
7:37
Speaker 1: it can just destroy your score. It makes for a
7:40
Speaker 1: really interesting and fun game. I like London second Edition
7:45
Speaker 1: a lot. I really enjoy playing it, and I like
7:49
Speaker 1: to play it anytime I get a chance, so I'm
7:51
Speaker 1: happy to have had the opportunity to put it on
7:53
Speaker 1: my list. Number seventeen out of my top fifty. Number
7:56
Speaker 1: nineteen in terms of art. Number eighteen in terms of
8:00
Speaker 1: art is res Arkana. Res Arkana. It's a Tom Lahman game.
8:05
Speaker 1: The art in this game has a kind of wispy,
8:09
Speaker 1: illustrated feel to it. Most of the art is depictions
8:13
Speaker 1: of artifacts that you can get and the mages themselves,
8:17
Speaker 1: the wizards themselves that you use. The artists in the
8:20
Speaker 1: artists in this game or artists have done an excellent
8:25
Speaker 1: job creating a environment where it kind of looks the
8:30
Speaker 1: way it should. The cards are easy to read with
8:33
Speaker 1: big icons. There's plenty of room for the graphic design
8:37
Speaker 1: that's needed to make the game play work, but the
8:39
Speaker 1: art is also very evocative, Like the dragons all look
8:42
Speaker 1: really cool. The demonic creatures of the demonic things have
8:47
Speaker 1: a terrifying aspect to them. The individual mages that you
8:53
Speaker 1: play each have their own look and feel, and you
8:55
Speaker 1: can kind of see the embodiment of their title in
8:58
Speaker 1: the way that the art works these games. They have
9:01
Speaker 1: an interesting thing where the title is matched to the
9:05
Speaker 1: thing the character can do. So if you're a necromancer,
9:07
Speaker 1: you turn life into death literally, you spend life tokens
9:11
Speaker 1: that you get death tokens, and overall, just the look
9:14
Speaker 1: and feel of the game really fits very nicely. I
9:18
Speaker 1: didn't intend it to be with the I guess the
9:21
Speaker 1: overall uvra of these five games, my number twenty through
9:25
Speaker 1: my sixteen in terms of art, has to do with
9:28
Speaker 1: this idea of fit. These are images or ideas that
9:31
Speaker 1: fit really well with what we're trying to do, and
9:35
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. If you haven't played res Arkhana.
9:38
Speaker 1: It is a tableau builder. It's all about quick engine building.
9:41
Speaker 1: You get a very limited number of cards. You get
9:44
Speaker 1: eight cards, and you use those cards to generate resources
9:47
Speaker 1: and to put them on in your tableau and generate
9:49
Speaker 1: more resources. Your goal is to build a combo that
9:52
Speaker 1: will get you to a certain number of points faster
9:54
Speaker 1: than the other players. In the base game, it's ten points.
9:57
Speaker 1: It goes up to thirteen if you're using pearls, and
10:00
Speaker 1: then there's another expansion as well. Actually just got the
10:03
Speaker 1: res Arkana Duo expansion as well, not because I want
10:06
Speaker 1: to play the two player game, but because I just
10:08
Speaker 1: wanted more cards and I'm excited to have those in
10:11
Speaker 1: my collection as well. So lots of options if you're
10:13
Speaker 1: playing with a fully kitted out game, but a lot
10:17
Speaker 1: of fun. It is definitely a game with a skill tree, though,
10:20
Speaker 1: so new players often have a lot of trouble against
10:23
Speaker 1: experienced players just because experience players will recognize some combos
10:27
Speaker 1: sometimes faster and I have a sense of how to
10:30
Speaker 1: get those. Nonetheless, there's a lot of really interesting stuff
10:33
Speaker 1: going on, and if you get a chance to try it,
10:35
Speaker 1: you definitely should. That's res Arkana, definitely played over on
10:38
Speaker 1: Board Game Geek with me. Oh, I realized I've been
10:41
Speaker 1: burying the lead here. Res Arkana is my number six
10:44
Speaker 1: game of all time. This one reached right up to
10:48
Speaker 1: the top, bumped in right above Orleans, and it's a
10:52
Speaker 1: game I really really enjoy. It doesn't hurt that it's
10:55
Speaker 1: on Board Game Arena, so I'm able to play it
10:56
Speaker 1: a lot. But I do have the face to face
10:59
Speaker 1: version and I am really liking it when I get
11:02
Speaker 1: a chance to play it. That's res Arkana, my number
11:05
Speaker 1: six game that's up thirteen spots. In twenty twenty two,
11:07
Speaker 1: it was my number nineteen. So next up, my number
11:12
Speaker 1: seventeen game in terms of my top fifty by art
11:15
Speaker 1: is gloom Haven. And I'm including gloom Haven here, but
11:19
Speaker 1: I really I think of gloom Haven, gloom Haven, Forgotten Circles,
11:24
Speaker 1: gloom Haven, Jaws of the Lion, and frost Haven as
11:27
Speaker 1: one big game. I know they're not, but for me,
11:31
Speaker 1: it is a constellation of games that are all the
11:33
Speaker 1: same thing. They just function in different boxes. The biggest
11:37
Speaker 1: way you know that they're similar is that you can
11:40
Speaker 1: play gloom Haven characters in frost Haven and they are
11:44
Speaker 1: redoing the second edition of gloom Haven using the upgrades
11:47
Speaker 1: to the rule set that they put into frost Haven,
11:49
Speaker 1: so it is a single rule set applied to different structures.
11:52
Speaker 1: I really like the art in this game. I think
11:54
Speaker 1: it does a fantastic job of setting up the experience
11:58
Speaker 1: that you're playing with The aracter design and the character
12:01
Speaker 1: looks give you a feel for what you're going to
12:04
Speaker 1: be doing, who you're going to be. For example, right now,
12:06
Speaker 1: my character is one of the locked characters in frost Havens.
12:10
Speaker 1: I can't really talk about him too much, but he
12:12
Speaker 1: has this sort of look on his face of anguish
12:15
Speaker 1: and his character is all about negative effects. It works
12:19
Speaker 1: really well, and I think the game genuinely feels that
12:23
Speaker 1: way in every bit of art that's represented throughout the
12:26
Speaker 1: whole series. Over time, I think the Isaac Childress and
12:30
Speaker 1: his whole team have gotten better at making those designs
12:32
Speaker 1: look even better. I love that about the way the
12:35
Speaker 1: game looks, looks, and feels. I think the monster design
12:40
Speaker 1: is really cool. It's all pretty unique and weird but enjoyable,
12:45
Speaker 1: and you can really sort of get into it by
12:48
Speaker 1: looking at what the characters look like. And overall, I
12:51
Speaker 1: think that the graphic design as well, feels sort of Heraldric,
12:58
Speaker 1: herald of the age of Heraldry. The little icons for
13:02
Speaker 1: the different effects and the way the cards are laid
13:04
Speaker 1: out all feel really effective to me. I love the
13:08
Speaker 1: interplay of the different pieces and the way that you read.
13:11
Speaker 1: You can read a lot of what's going on once
13:13
Speaker 1: you understand how the iconography is laid out. All in all,
13:16
Speaker 1: given the massive thing that gloom Haven is and was,
13:20
Speaker 1: I'm really pleased to have gotten to play it, and
13:23
Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying playing our way through frost Haven now.
13:27
Speaker 1: I think it's top notch and I'm really excited to
13:30
Speaker 1: continue playing with So three cheers to the gloom Haven
13:35
Speaker 1: crew or the sephal Fare Games crew for an incredible
13:40
Speaker 1: game design with incredible art. Along those lines, gloom Haven
13:45
Speaker 1: is my number eleven game of all time. That's down
13:48
Speaker 1: nine spots. In twenty ninety two, I had gloom Haven
13:50
Speaker 1: at number two, which sounds like a big drop. You'll
13:52
Speaker 1: remember I've played. I don't know if I've got a
13:55
Speaker 1: thousand games logged, but I definitely have a hundreds, and
13:58
Speaker 1: so moving from two to eleven is a matter of millimeters,
14:03
Speaker 1: not inches or feet. Nonetheless, I think the main reason
14:07
Speaker 1: that other games have squeezed up there is that Gloomy
14:10
Speaker 1: Haven and the frost Haven series, as much as I
14:13
Speaker 1: love them, they do feel a little seey like. I
14:16
Speaker 1: enjoy playing them each time, and I enjoy discovering what
14:18
Speaker 1: the different cards do when I get to open things,
14:21
Speaker 1: but it is a return to a thing each time
14:25
Speaker 1: that feels very similar to what we've done last time.
14:27
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's little variance, and I like that, but it's
14:31
Speaker 1: a little of the shine is off because there's so
14:34
Speaker 1: much of it, I guess, and we've done so much
14:37
Speaker 1: of it. I love that, but it doesn't feel different
14:40
Speaker 1: enough from adventure to adventure, which isn't a problem. It's
14:43
Speaker 1: still in my top fifty right. It's still a game
14:45
Speaker 1: I'm playing at least three times a month, but which
14:49
Speaker 1: maybe makes it the game that's on the table more
14:51
Speaker 1: than anything else for me, but just a little bit
14:54
Speaker 1: less than it used to be. So that's number eleven
14:57
Speaker 1: gloom Haven designed by Isaac Childress. There's a whole team
15:00
Speaker 1: of people working on it now. My number seventeen game.
15:02
Speaker 1: In terms of art, my number sixteen game goes back
15:06
Speaker 1: to that original question I had about fit for design.
15:11
Speaker 1: The look of a thing embodying what it is. This
15:14
Speaker 1: is Matainai. Matainai is a game from Karl Chuttick and
15:19
Speaker 1: Asmadi Games. Basic idea of the game is that you
15:22
Speaker 1: are putting out these multi use cards to try to
15:26
Speaker 1: develop them in ways that will get you points. Thematically,
15:30
Speaker 1: you're working at a Buddhist monastery in the gift shop,
15:33
Speaker 1: and it's the gift shop part that's so fascinating to me.
15:36
Speaker 1: It's such a weird mix of commerce and philosophy. But
15:40
Speaker 1: the art design that they went with for the cards
15:43
Speaker 1: is sort of minimalist, stark white, which is really important
15:47
Speaker 1: because there's a ton of information on the cards. But
15:49
Speaker 1: the illustration style they chose is sort of evocative of
15:55
Speaker 1: or agami. It's these ten grams kind of look to them,
15:59
Speaker 1: these geometric, like simple geometric shapes arranged to resemble the
16:04
Speaker 1: thing that they are meant to depict. They're very iconic,
16:07
Speaker 1: very easy to recognize once you've played the game a
16:09
Speaker 1: lot and you recognize what the different things do. Like
16:12
Speaker 1: in a collectible card game or a Trader or a
16:14
Speaker 1: LCG or something a game with a ton of different cards,
16:17
Speaker 1: recognizing the art, you know what the card is. The
16:19
Speaker 1: art is very distinctive for each card, but it also
16:22
Speaker 1: has a very specific style for itself. The game develops
16:26
Speaker 1: a feel for itself that sustains and works well within
16:30
Speaker 1: the theme of the game and makes it easy to play.
16:32
Speaker 1: The graphic design is crucial for a game like this,
16:34
Speaker 1: and I think it works really well. I think it's
16:36
Speaker 1: easy to understand once you understand the game. The game
16:39
Speaker 1: itself is very complicated. It's one of those games. It
16:41
Speaker 1: takes forty five minutes to teach and a half an
16:43
Speaker 1: hour to play, or sometimes twenty minutes to play or
16:45
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes to play. But once you've played a few
16:49
Speaker 1: times then you don't need to teach anymore and it's
16:51
Speaker 1: just a twenty minute game. It's a it's knocked out
16:54
Speaker 1: of the park for me, fascinating and really interesting and
16:58
Speaker 1: a game that I love to play. Have played lots
17:00
Speaker 1: and lots and lots of times. It is a bit swingy,
17:03
Speaker 1: and I seem to I think I've kind of hit
17:05
Speaker 1: a skill cap. I'm trying to get better at doing
17:08
Speaker 1: it and better at playing it so that I'll do
17:10
Speaker 1: better with different plays, but I feel like I maybe
17:14
Speaker 1: need to I'm at the point maybew I need to
17:15
Speaker 1: read a little bit about how to play better or something,
17:18
Speaker 1: because there are limits. That said, fascinating game, really interesting,
17:23
Speaker 1: really fun to play, and I'm glad to have the
17:25
Speaker 1: opportunity when I get it. That's Motainai. It is my
17:29
Speaker 1: number twenty seven game in my top fifty, which is
17:31
Speaker 1: exactly where it was in twenty twenty two. Its high
17:34
Speaker 1: spot was twelve in twenty seventeen. I just I really
17:39
Speaker 1: like this game. It's right in the middle of my
17:41
Speaker 1: top fifty, which is probably about right. But it's great
17:46
Speaker 1: and if you get a chance to play it, you
17:47
Speaker 1: definitely should because it's really excellent. So that is Motina Well,
17:54
Speaker 1: that's about it for me today. I want to say
17:56
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me on my walk. I hope
17:59
Speaker 1: that you are able to tell me what you think
18:01
Speaker 1: of these games, how do they fit the games that
18:04
Speaker 1: you enjoy and can you come tell me about those.
18:08
Speaker 1: You can do that over on board game geek and
18:09
Speaker 1: Guild three two six nine, or you can send me
18:12
Speaker 1: a message on board game geek. Wombat nine two nine
18:15
Speaker 1: is my user name there. I'd love to hear from you. Otherwise,
18:18
Speaker 1: I want to say thank you for joining me today,
18:20
Speaker 1: and I hope that your next walk is as pleasant
18:22
Speaker 1: as mine was. Bye Bye, brought to you by rattle
18:46
Speaker 1: box