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My Top 50 … by Art (part 9) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver it the podcast where
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I pick up my audio recorder as I step off
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the train and deliver an episode do you while I
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: walk home. I'm Brendan Riley Afternoon Listener. It's a lovely
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: day here in suburban Chicago. It's cool, but not cold.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I am adequately dressed for the chill. I am not
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: shaking with cold, but I am chili. The temperature I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: would say, I would put in the high thirties. Probably.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I do have a hat and mitten's on, and I'm
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: glad to have them, but mittens are probably a little
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: more than I needed. I'll bet I'll be warm by
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the time I get home. Well, this is the second
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: to last episode in my Top fifty by Art, in
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: which I talk with you about the fifty games that
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: are my favorite games of all time, and I reveal
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: those fifty games favorite fifty games of all time in
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the order of the art in those games. So the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: last game I reveal will be my favorite game, my
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: favorite game by art, not my favorite game by game.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This is episode. This is the second to last episode,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: so I'll be really revealing numbers ten through six, And
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I had commented a couple of times that it was
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a shame I wasn't mentioning artists. I decide for the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: last ten the ten best games art wise, I would
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: look up the names of the artists. So that's going
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to be part of the conversation here. I probably should
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: have done it the whole time, but I did not.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: If you would like to see the names of the artists,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I have links to every game on Board Game Gig
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: from the show notes, So you can always go to
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: rattoboxgames dot com and check out the show notes for
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: this episode or for any episode, and you will see
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the top fifty games linked there, and with those links
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you will be able to find the name of the
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: artists for the games. Boy, it's windy. Hopefully that's not
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: picking up on the microphone, but all right, So my
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: number ten game for art is Nanty Narking. Nancy Narking
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is a re theme of Martin Wallace's game Discworld on
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: onk Moore Pork. It was rethmed because Terry Patchett's family
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: pulled all the licenses back in so they were not
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: able to publish Discworld on More Pork anymore. So Terry
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Pratchett or Martin Wallace reconfigured the game to be about
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Victorian London and had it include a variety of real
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: persons and fictional persons, and it's basically the same game.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: It's just poured it over. I got the original kickstarter
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of the game, which came with a set of miniatures,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: as opposed to if you were to buy the retail
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: edition of the game, you just get little pawns, I believe,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and the miniatures came in different colors in the buildings,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and the idea is that you put these out on
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the map to indicate your power. They also have an
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: element where they include a series of cards that give
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you action is based on one or more of your
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: miniatures as well, so there's like a module that you
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: can use. But at the core, the game is essentially
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the same game as Discworld on ankh Morpork. They did
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: add a variant which makes the endgame conditions a little
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: more flexible, and I do prefer that variant. But mostly
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the art is what I'm talking about here. The board
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: is fine, it's not anything special, but I love the miniatures.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I think they're really evocative of the era. They've got
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of character to them, and I love the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: card art. Each card has this sort of gritty, dark
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: look to it, with sort of sooty faces and growy,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: grumbly looking people from the Victorian age. I like the cover,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: which has the sort of lady looks like a lady
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of ill repute cause planning trouble. Of course, Nanty Narking
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: means getting up to mischief. So I love the way
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: that the cards look in this game and the fil
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: agreed design. I will say the rule book yields to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the design in a way that actually makes it harder
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to use. It's got a kind of newspaper quality to
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the rule book, which is counter to clear reading. But
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: other than that, it's a very compelling production, compelling visual design,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and a lot of fun. So in terms of the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: game itself, Nancy Narking is down eighteen spots. It was
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: number thirty in twenty twenty two, and it is down
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: down to number forty eight, so it's right down near
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the bottom of my collection. I still think it's a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: really good game. It's very swingy, and it has to
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: be the right audience. You have to be in the
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: mood to go after each other, and it's interesting to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: try to figure out who's going to win and what
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  Speaker 1: they're going to do makes for a fun time. I
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: really like this game. I'm happy to have it stay
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  Speaker 1: in my top fifty. But I love the art. I
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: think it's great. The artists there have a variety of
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I believe holish names, so I'm apologizing in advance. Bartek Jiujuski,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Gregor Rizgo, Jacob scop and Metage void Check. Perhaps number nine.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: My number nine game for art is Cerebria The Inside
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: World art by Pedro A Alberto, Toby Allen, Vio Farcas,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and Jamie Sichelle. It's it's my number twenty eight game
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  Speaker 1: of all time, down thirteen spots from fifteen in twenty
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: twenty two. Cerebra The Inside World has a very distinct
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: look it had. The characters have this kind of cartoonish
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: shape to them. They look effervescent and dream like. The
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: characters from the Joy side of the board or the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Hope side of the board Happiness side of the board
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: have jubilants and positive vibes coming from the character boards,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: from the miniatures, from the different cards for the different
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: emotions that you can get. It all feels really upbeat
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: and positive. And similarly, the gloom side of the board
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: feels dark and depressing and sad. The creatures all have
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: They're all kind of pointy and unpleasant looking some of them.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: The ones that aren't pointy look dour and sad. The
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: color schemes, of course, help a lot with that, but
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the overall effect of the game is to give this
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: sort of whimsical approach and this sort of ethereal landscape,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: surreal ethereal landscape to what is really just an abstract
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  Speaker 1: game with different kinds of units that have different power.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: The emotions that you are able to get, both the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: positive and negative ones, have a distinct hint of Tom Woodering,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: who is a cartoonist I think best well known for
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: his series called Frank, which is about a kind of
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse type character living in a surreal world where
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: there's sort of these puffy balloon type animals and weird
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: backgrounds and murderous pigmn. The emotions remind me of characters
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: from that style, and I think they fit really well.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: All in all, it's a beautiful production, a beautiful game.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I think it's really fun to look at, and I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: love the way that the theme works. I think I'm
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: one of the few people who really likes the game Cerebria.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: There's a lot. It got a lot of bad reviews,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: people who didn't like the complexity of the systems in it,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and we're really unhappy with the terminology. To be fair,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of terminology in the game that doesn't
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: mean a lot of a lot to you. Like, there
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: are these crystals that are your energy, and then there
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: are these tokens that are your essence, and those words
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: are basically synonyms, so it's hard to hard to know
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: between the two, which one to lean into, which one means.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: What that said, I really like Cerebria and I would
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: be happy to play it again sometime soon. So it
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: is something I'm very happy to have on my top
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: fifty list. Next up we have number eight, This says
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Brian Boureux. The artist is Deirdre Debara, who is best
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: known for doing comic work, particularly A History of the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Leaders of Ireland. This game is number twenty two. It's
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: new to my list, Brian Booru. It goes a long
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: way on the cover. I think the cover of this
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: game is amazing. I love the way it looks, I
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: love the feeling that it gives when you go to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: play it. We see a little bit of that on
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  Speaker 1: the cards. The characters have a kind of similar style
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: to them. It's kind of modern drawings. They're representative but
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: sleek and precise and at the same time kind of
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: art deco feeling. I don't know if that's true or not,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: but that's what it feels like to me. I love
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the graphical line work. It has this sort of Celtic
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: influence to it, which it should. It's about the High
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: King of Ireland, and the map itself is easy to
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: read and understand. It's sort of the height of simplicity
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: but also elegance. I don't have a lot more to say.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I really like Brian Borrew is a game. I think
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: it's super interesting, an area control game that is driven
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: by trick taking, which the sort of games that are
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: trick taking and something else kind of are a fad now,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: but it was new when it came out a few
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: years ago, and I just like, I really like it.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's a great game. I'm happy to have
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it be number twenty two on my list. I think
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that's about right. And the art is just beautiful, Like
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: it's just a game where I love looking at it
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: when I get it out on the table, and I
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: think it conveys its theme very well. So if you
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: haven't seen the cover, but you have seen the cover
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of Innish, it's similar to that in style. So that's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Brian Boru artist Deirdre Debara. I believe Peer Sylvester is
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the designer of Brian bor but I'm not one hundred
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: percent on that, so check the show notes. Next up,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: number seven on my top fifty games of my art
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: this is a game that lives and dies on its cuteness.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: This is Dungeon Pets. Now. Dungeon Pets is not a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: game that's been on my list before. It's number thirty
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: six now. It has not ever been on my list before,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: which is weird because it's a game I've had a
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: very long time. But I think that this definitely falls
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: in the category of games where I'm coming to appreciate
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: it over time, as opposed to a game that I
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that I got right away, like I've always liked it,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: but over time, I've just come to appreciate how interesting
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: it is, how weird it is, and I'm very happy
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to have it in my collection. It's a game that
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: is incredibly cute In it, you are raising monsters to
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: be You're raising creatures that are going to be monsters
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and dungeons. The creatures are all very cute. See they
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: have big eyes and sort of fun little shapes. They
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: look like monsters in different modes. Altogether, it's a fascinating
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and interesting look. The board also has a lot of
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: character to it. The environment that you're playing in comes
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: through from the board. When you're doing things, it feels
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: like you're participating in them. It's got kind of a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: overhead view of the town, and so when you're doing things,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you're participating right in the town. The creatures and the
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: board and the player boards and the little gnome figures
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: your imps that you play as, they all blend together
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: in a really compelling way. That makes for strong play
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and a really great design. So for me, Dungeon Pets
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the art on it is perfect. There are very few
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: games that I would say have such a perfect match
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: of theme to look as Dungeon Pets does. So as
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: a game itself, it's really good. It is very swingy.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: It feels its age like. It doesn't feel like a
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: contemporary game. I've noticed that some older eurogames have a
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: kind of process model, where like there's a bunch of
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: stages you do each round, and so you have to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: follow through the stages. It's really hard to play. If
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you're not actually looking at the stages, you'll forget stuff.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Dungeon Pets does suffer from that a little bit. It
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: also is not a euro game in the sense of
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: there are cards you have to get, and you don't
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: always have the cards you need, so sometimes you'll have
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: monsters die or teleport out of existence if they mutate
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: too much, or you might just not you know, you
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: might get a bunch of sadness on them and not
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: be able to sell them. There's a bunch of stuff
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: that can happen to your monsters that sometimes you can
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: plan for and sometimes you can't, and so part of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the fun of the game is just seeing what happens.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: But it's definitely again that rewards replay and at rewards skill,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: if you've played a bunch of times, you'll do better
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: than if you've never played before. So for the most part,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: so Dungeon Pets from We're non designer Vlada Schwatl of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: code names Fame, as well as Mage Night and Dungeon
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Lords and a bunch of other games, but Dungeon Pets
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: is perhaps my favorite of his game. At least it's
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: number thirty six on my Top fifty Games of all Time.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: And the artist for Dungeon Pets I forgot to mention
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: is David Kochhard has a very distinct style. I'm sure
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: he's the artist for Dungeon Lords as well. Right. Finally,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the last game on my Top fifty games of all
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: time organized by art is Brass Birmingham. Brass Birmingham is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: an interesting game from an art standpoint. The artists are
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Lina Cosette, David Forrest, Guy Landroff, Damien Mamuliti, Matt Tolman,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: and Gavin Brown. Those last two are designers, so I'm
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: not sure at what level they contributed art. But it's
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: a really compelling new approach to a classic game. Right.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: It's obviously a revisioning of the original game. They add
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: some new rules, but they made both a very readable map.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Once you understand how the game works, it's really easy
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: to understand what's going on on the map. You can
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: see everything really well, but also just beautiful. It looks amazing,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: like the nighttime map that looks a lot like turn
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of the century or mid eighteen hundreds. I guess British
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: industry town it has. The cards are very evocative of
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: these different industries in these different places. The cover art
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: is really good, although I will say part of me
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: considering this is thinking about both Brass games because I
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: think the cover of Brass Birmingham or Brass Lancashire is
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: among the best covers ever designed for a board game.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I love the way that game looks. I think the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Brass Birmingham cover is good, but it doesn't meet the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Brass Lancashire cover. But for me, both of these games
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: kind of are in this category the same way Gloom
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Haven I was actually talking about all the different Haven
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: games for Brass, I'm talking about all the different Brass
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: games are both of them, not the old one, of course,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: But I love the look and feel of the game.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I love the graphic design of the player boards. There's
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: an incredibly complex system of things to look at there,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and I think they do a great job of being it.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: All in all, Brass Birmingham is I think, a fantastic
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: looking game and one I'm really excited to look at
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: every time I get the chance as to play. I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: even like that better. It was my number six game
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: in art. It's my number two game of all time.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Brass Birmingham was number three in twenty twenty two, which
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: was the highest, which means its position as number two
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: makes it its highest position ever on my list. I
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: think Brass Birmingham is an amazing game. I find it
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: compelling and fun every time I play. There's tons of
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: stuff to explore. It's very strategic in terms of planning
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the broad goals you're going to take. It's also very tactical,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: responding to things that your opponents have done in time
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: when they do them, so that you're ready to do
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the next thing. And I think it's just an incredible,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: incredible achievement as a board game, and I wish I
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: could play it more often. Yeah, if you haven't played
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Brass Birmingham, what are you doing? Get out there and
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: play it. It's so good. At least that's my thinking,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: because I love Brass Birmingham. It's my number two game
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of all time. Well, that brings me to the end
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: of my second to last episode of the Top fifty Reveal.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Next time we will have my final five games. I'll
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: reveal my five favorite games. By art and fill in
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the last slots in my top fifty, four of which
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: or two of which are in my top ten. So
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that's pretty exciting. Well, if i'd love to hear what
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you think about these picks or what your picks are
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: in a similar way, the best way to share those
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: with me is to head over to Board Game Gee
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: can go to guild three two six nine, where I'd
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: love to see some commentary about what you have found,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: and go from there. So thank you for joining me
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: on my walk today. I hope your next walk is
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: as buzz as as mind lofe. Wellbye, brought to you
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: by rattle Box