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My Top 50 … by Art (part 6) · 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 out for
0:08
Speaker 1: a walk and deliver an episode do while I stroll around.
0:10
Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's a chilly
0:24
Speaker 1: day here in suburban Chicago. The sun is out again,
0:27
Speaker 1: it's partly cloudy, and my temperature GIDS tells me it's
0:30
Speaker 1: twenty degrees fahrenheit without wind chill. There is a little
0:33
Speaker 1: bit of a breeze, but it's not too bad, so
0:35
Speaker 1: it's warm enough that I can take a walk. It's
0:37
Speaker 1: my last day of winter break. Starting Monday, I'm back
0:40
Speaker 1: in class, so you'll start getting episodes where I step
0:43
Speaker 1: off the train and walk home again. I don't think
0:46
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quite get this season done before semester starts.
0:50
Speaker 1: I've got I guess five more episodes to do, well,
0:53
Speaker 1: six if you include the episode seven hundred, so I
0:56
Speaker 1: imagine then i'll finish those. I'm going to view those
1:00
Speaker 1: sort of jammed up so that we can get them
1:01
Speaker 1: done by the end of next week, and we'll start
1:04
Speaker 1: season eight in February. So along those lines, let's get going.
1:09
Speaker 1: This is another episode of My Top fifty by art
1:12
Speaker 1: in which I figured out my top fifty games of
1:13
Speaker 1: all time. I updated that list and then I ranked
1:16
Speaker 1: them in order of the art in those games, and
1:19
Speaker 1: I'm presenting them in that order, so not in order
1:21
Speaker 1: of my top fifty games, but instead in order of
1:23
Speaker 1: the art in my top fifty games. It's an amusing premise,
1:26
Speaker 1: I think, and that's what I'm going with. So let's
1:29
Speaker 1: jump right in today's episode. Episode six is going to
1:34
Speaker 1: be numbers twenty five through twenty one in order of art.
1:38
Speaker 1: So the next game is Revive. Revive is number twenty five.
1:43
Speaker 1: This is a relatively new game. It's only about two
1:46
Speaker 1: years old. It's from Christian I'm an Osby and ILF
1:49
Speaker 1: Svenson and one other person whose name I can't recall
1:52
Speaker 1: right now, apologies to them. Revive is an engined building
1:57
Speaker 1: game about creating a civilization and expand onto the board
2:01
Speaker 1: and involves manipulating a series of cards that give you
2:06
Speaker 1: resources which you then use to expand onto the board,
2:09
Speaker 1: and you build a sort of point generating or resource
2:13
Speaker 1: generating engine that you use to get more and more
2:15
Speaker 1: of those points as you go along. It's tactical in
2:18
Speaker 1: terms of responding to what other players doing. It's strategic
2:21
Speaker 1: in terms of developing long term goals. I really like it. It's
2:25
Speaker 1: very good. It ended up being my number sixteen game
2:29
Speaker 1: of all time. I really really like it. I haven't
2:32
Speaker 1: really played with the expansion material yet, but I did
2:34
Speaker 1: acquire the expansion and I'm excited to try it. So
2:37
Speaker 1: having done all that or set all that, let's talk
2:39
Speaker 1: about the art a little bit. For one, I think
2:41
Speaker 1: the cover art on this game is really interesting. It's
2:45
Speaker 1: very pretty. It's got this flower in the center and
2:47
Speaker 1: a sort of ice scape in the background with a
2:50
Speaker 1: little bit of buildings or whatever, and the idea is
2:53
Speaker 1: this is post ice age, human beings are emerging from
2:57
Speaker 1: caves and repopulating theme. I really like the art. For
3:03
Speaker 1: the few places where you have representative imagery of the landscape,
3:07
Speaker 1: I think shows this kind of hope that's built into
3:10
Speaker 1: the narrative. You have the characters themselves, which I'll have
3:14
Speaker 1: a little bit of flavor. It'd be nice if there
3:16
Speaker 1: were more of them, but the ones that are there
3:19
Speaker 1: are really cool, and they developed this idea of different
3:24
Speaker 1: societies emerging from these spaces. I think that the different
3:31
Speaker 1: pieces of technology, the different icons. All are reasonably cool
3:37
Speaker 1: looking and easy to distinguish from one another, and overall
3:41
Speaker 1: like the design of the game I really enjoy as well.
3:44
Speaker 1: The one major flaw for me, I've complained about this
3:47
Speaker 1: in the past. I would love to see them fix
3:49
Speaker 1: it in a future edition if they do a reprint,
3:52
Speaker 1: is that the symbol on the back of the place
3:55
Speaker 1: tiles that says spend these resources is the exact same
4:00
Speaker 1: same symbol that's used to say gain these resources. So
4:03
Speaker 1: if you have a card and it's got a little
4:04
Speaker 1: food icon, you get a food when you play the card,
4:07
Speaker 1: but when you go to the tile you're supposed to
4:10
Speaker 1: spend the food. There's no difference in the two icons
4:13
Speaker 1: between spend and gain, and I think there should be.
4:16
Speaker 1: If nothing else, just put like a red border around
4:18
Speaker 1: it that would just indicate like, oh, this is to
4:20
Speaker 1: be spent rather than gained. But aside from that, I
4:23
Speaker 1: think the game is really interesting. It's very compelling to play,
4:28
Speaker 1: it's really fun. I enjoy it quite a bit and
4:30
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to playing it more. And I think
4:32
Speaker 1: that the art is really engrossing and engaging and looks lovely.
4:37
Speaker 1: So if you get a chance to check it out.
4:38
Speaker 1: That's Revive, my number twenty five game in terms of art,
4:42
Speaker 1: my number sixteen game of all time. Next number twenty four,
4:46
Speaker 1: we have Orleans. I remember last episode or two episodes ago,
4:51
Speaker 1: I was talking about Altaplano and I couldn't remember if
4:55
Speaker 1: I'd mentioned Orleans yet or not. It turns out I hadn't.
4:58
Speaker 1: The Orleans art is a very distinctive style. It looks
5:03
Speaker 1: like it was drawn in the medieval time, and I
5:05
Speaker 1: love the theming and the shape of the art. The
5:09
Speaker 1: map looks like an old timey map. The characters are
5:12
Speaker 1: all drawn kind of like you would see in a
5:14
Speaker 1: medieval tapestry or a medieval painting. The cover art has
5:18
Speaker 1: that same feel. While it isn't like my favorite way
5:22
Speaker 1: to draw something, it fits the theme so so very well.
5:26
Speaker 1: Like it just it feels like you're playing in a
5:29
Speaker 1: medieval era, and I think that works really well. I
5:33
Speaker 1: think that the aesthetic of the game, rather than necessarily
5:36
Speaker 1: the quality of art, The aesthetic of the game is incredible.
5:39
Speaker 1: If you haven't played orly all and this is a
5:41
Speaker 1: bag builder similar to Altaplano, although Orleo also was first.
5:46
Speaker 1: You have a bunch of villagers in your bag. In
5:49
Speaker 1: each round, you get to pull villagers out of your
5:51
Speaker 1: bag and then use them to do actions on your board.
5:54
Speaker 1: The actions correspond to different things you can do to
5:57
Speaker 1: get points, and if you get the most points over
5:59
Speaker 1: the course of the game, win. There's a whole bunch
6:01
Speaker 1: of stuff that allows you to build engines and get
6:03
Speaker 1: more workers. The whole thing about getting more workers and
6:07
Speaker 1: keeping your bag lean and all of that is really
6:09
Speaker 1: useful and important. All in all, I think Orleans is
6:13
Speaker 1: a very good game. I think base game versus base game,
6:16
Speaker 1: I like Altiplano a little bit better, but Orleans has
6:20
Speaker 1: a lot of expansion content. They've got the Trade and
6:22
Speaker 1: Intrigue expansion. They've got the Invasion expansion, they have the
6:25
Speaker 1: Plague expansion. All three of those add different kinds of content,
6:29
Speaker 1: and I will say I've only played stuff from the
6:32
Speaker 1: Invasion one. I haven't played the other two yet, but
6:35
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to doing so. Also have the Orleans Stories,
6:40
Speaker 1: which is a standalone version of the game that develops
6:43
Speaker 1: as a kind of campaign. I don't think it's a
6:45
Speaker 1: legacy game per se, but it looks pretty interesting. All
6:49
Speaker 1: these things together mean that there's just a lot of interesting,
6:52
Speaker 1: different stuff to do with Orleans. It changes as you
6:55
Speaker 1: play it over time. You can introduce new things in
6:58
Speaker 1: and out, you can vary things, and that variability gives
7:02
Speaker 1: the game more flexibility and ultimately gives it to me
7:05
Speaker 1: a bit more value and something I can explore more deeply.
7:08
Speaker 1: So Orleans lands slightly ahead of Altaplano at number seven.
7:13
Speaker 1: It's up ten spots from seventeen in twenty twenty two,
7:17
Speaker 1: so Orleans much higher on my list, and it's one
7:21
Speaker 1: of my favorites. It's in my top ten. So that's
7:24
Speaker 1: Orleans by Reiner Stockhaus. Next up, My twenty third favorite
7:28
Speaker 1: game in terms of art is Trick Carryon, And specifically
7:31
Speaker 1: I'm thinking here of the later editions of Tri Carrion
7:34
Speaker 1: or the Trick Carrion Collector's Edition, which is the one
7:37
Speaker 1: I have. Although the special or the second edition, the
7:40
Speaker 1: revised edition is just as good. The player character art
7:45
Speaker 1: in the original Trick Carrion was a little wonky. It
7:48
Speaker 1: needed a little bit more refinement. It could have been
7:51
Speaker 1: a little better. But the player character art in the
7:54
Speaker 1: revised edition is very nice. It's really thematic. I love
7:58
Speaker 1: the design of the character posters, the graphic design of
8:02
Speaker 1: the board is a tour de force. It is not
8:05
Speaker 1: hard to read. Although it looks a little busy at first,
8:08
Speaker 1: it gives you the theme of the game really well.
8:10
Speaker 1: You have this sort of Victorian age theater, you have
8:14
Speaker 1: the town where you can go buy stuff, You have
8:16
Speaker 1: all this stuff, you have your workshop where you're developing
8:19
Speaker 1: your tricks. The graphic design of the iconography in Trick
8:21
Speaker 1: Carryon is really interesting. It's bold, relatively easy to understand.
8:26
Speaker 1: There's a lot of it, but once you've played once
8:29
Speaker 1: or twice, it all makes sense. It clicks together, so
8:31
Speaker 1: you can understand the icons pretty well. Sometimes you have
8:34
Speaker 1: to look stuff up, but overall it holds together really
8:37
Speaker 1: well and represents what is otherwise a very complicated game
8:42
Speaker 1: in ways that I think are really fun. As a
8:44
Speaker 1: game itself. Trick Carryon is, of course, one of the
8:47
Speaker 1: highlights of my just a little bit more philosophy, just
8:52
Speaker 1: not quite enough. One of the things I love about
8:54
Speaker 1: something like Trick Carryon or Games of its Ilk is
8:58
Speaker 1: the idea that you have this really tidy economy, and
9:00
Speaker 1: so you're constantly trying to figure out how to wheedle
9:03
Speaker 1: one more of an one more of a resource, or
9:05
Speaker 1: one more of an icon so that you can perform,
9:09
Speaker 1: so you can do the thing and tri carryon rewards
9:11
Speaker 1: that really well. It also has a brutal economy and
9:14
Speaker 1: really tight mechanisms for like acquiring the ingredients for your
9:20
Speaker 1: games and that sort of thing. It works really well.
9:24
Speaker 1: It is very compelling. I am not good at it.
9:27
Speaker 1: Every time I play, I lose, and it's a game
9:30
Speaker 1: I definitely would like to play more. The biggest thing
9:33
Speaker 1: keeping it off the table for me is that it
9:34
Speaker 1: is so long. It is a game. They have the
9:37
Speaker 1: Dark Alley quote unquote expansion, which I don't think you
9:40
Speaker 1: should play without, even if you're new to the game.
9:43
Speaker 1: It just adds so much and I don't think it
9:45
Speaker 1: takes away a lot. So I definitely think if you
9:48
Speaker 1: get to play it, you should play with the Dark
9:50
Speaker 1: Alley expansion and the Level three tricks. But then there's
9:54
Speaker 1: also a bunch of other expansions. There's the Doll Guards
9:57
Speaker 1: Academy and a couple other things that really push to
10:00
Speaker 1: the next level in ways that I enjoyed the one
10:04
Speaker 1: time I played it. I haven't played that much again.
10:06
Speaker 1: This is one of those ones where I'd love to
10:07
Speaker 1: have more opportunity to play it, but it just takes
10:09
Speaker 1: so long that it's not a game I get to
10:12
Speaker 1: the table that often. Nonetheless, Trick carry On is a
10:16
Speaker 1: real winner for me. I like it a lot, and
10:18
Speaker 1: that's why Trick Carryon is my number five game of
10:21
Speaker 1: all time. It was number six, and twenty twenty two,
10:24
Speaker 1: it has edged up one notch. As I played more
10:26
Speaker 1: and more heavy games, I realized just how good Trick
10:29
Speaker 1: carry On is. Makes me want to play it again
10:31
Speaker 1: and again and again. And I'm just talking about now.
10:35
Speaker 1: It makes me want to go play it right now.
10:36
Speaker 1: It's so good. So that's what I have to say
10:39
Speaker 1: about that. Trick carry On my number twenty three game
10:43
Speaker 1: in terms of art, my number five game of all time.
10:46
Speaker 1: Next up, my number twenty two game in terms of
10:49
Speaker 1: art is A Study in Emerald. Now, this game is
10:53
Speaker 1: not the nicest thing to put on my list because
10:55
Speaker 1: it's very hard to obtain. I have the original edition
10:58
Speaker 1: of a Study in Emerald that was kicked started by
11:01
Speaker 1: Martin Wallace and his tree Frog Games company. Later on
11:04
Speaker 1: they released a second edition which has some nice art
11:07
Speaker 1: in it too, But I'm not familiar with enough, and
11:10
Speaker 1: I wouldn't put it there a studying Emerald. The art
11:13
Speaker 1: is wild. First off, the cover is gorgeous. This is,
11:18
Speaker 1: to be fair, the cover of I believe the cover
11:20
Speaker 1: of the comic book that was just reused. But it's
11:23
Speaker 1: really really good rendition of the idea, which is a
11:28
Speaker 1: story that comes from a short story for you, a
11:30
Speaker 1: Neil game in which the elder gods have taken over
11:34
Speaker 1: the royal houses of Europe and things are toppy to
11:38
Speaker 1: topsy turvy, and Martin Wallace used this theme to make
11:42
Speaker 1: a game about anarchists, which is the theme that you know,
11:45
Speaker 1: blowing up kings and stuff isn't as popular he thought,
11:49
Speaker 1: but the idea of being an anarchist and trying to
11:51
Speaker 1: blow up elder gods, well that that's got some fun
11:54
Speaker 1: to it. So the art on the cover has this
11:57
Speaker 1: beautiful comic book cover art, and then and there's the
12:00
Speaker 1: art that's done with pencils, line drawings, and those pencil
12:06
Speaker 1: drawings that give you the idea of the game I
12:08
Speaker 1: think work really well. I like the look and feel
12:11
Speaker 1: of the different cards depicting all of the different events
12:13
Speaker 1: that are going on. And then you have the board,
12:15
Speaker 1: and the board is honestly one of the things that
12:17
Speaker 1: puts me up here. This board is bananas like. When
12:20
Speaker 1: you look at it, it just looks crazy. There's tentacles everywhere.
12:22
Speaker 1: It's bright blue or bright green and bright pink. There
12:26
Speaker 1: are really garish colors, but it gives you the sense
12:29
Speaker 1: of the sort of madness of the era, and I
12:33
Speaker 1: think it looks the part in a way that the
12:35
Speaker 1: second edition board just does not. So in terms of
12:39
Speaker 1: the game embodying the craziness of having a time when
12:44
Speaker 1: your brain is being affected by elder gods, I think
12:48
Speaker 1: a Studying Emerald really knocks it out of the park
12:50
Speaker 1: in terms of doing what it wants to do, doing
12:53
Speaker 1: what it thinks it needs to do. It is a
12:56
Speaker 1: mad genius of a design, and I've always appreciated it
12:59
Speaker 1: for that. I like, I like a game that hits
13:01
Speaker 1: for the stars, and a Studying Emerald is just that.
13:06
Speaker 1: In my overall rankings, it is number twelve. This is
13:09
Speaker 1: up two spots, up fourteen spots from number twenty eight,
13:12
Speaker 1: which is where it wasn't twenty two. It's high for
13:16
Speaker 1: me and maybe why I feel so positively about it.
13:19
Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen, this was my favorite game. It has
13:22
Speaker 1: drifted a little bit since then, I think it's too
13:24
Speaker 1: swingy to remain right top top top tier. But still
13:28
Speaker 1: number twelve is nothing to sneeze at. So that's a
13:32
Speaker 1: studying emerald designed by Martin Wallace. And finally, my number
13:37
Speaker 1: twenty one game in terms of art is ark Nova.
13:41
Speaker 1: Ark Nova blasted onto the scene a couple of years
13:43
Speaker 1: ago as a new game about building a zoo. It
13:48
Speaker 1: has a very straightforward design in terms of the look
13:53
Speaker 1: of its cards. The cards are present information, but it
13:56
Speaker 1: it'd be interesting in contrast to the cards in Arknova,
13:59
Speaker 1: with something like Earth, which feels very similar, and with
14:03
Speaker 1: terraforming Mars. I think ark Nova wins in the aesthetics
14:07
Speaker 1: category there like I feel like ark Nova presents the
14:10
Speaker 1: information in a design aesthetic that is at least somewhat
14:13
Speaker 1: more pleasing than the other two games. I also really
14:17
Speaker 1: like the way that the zoo diagram the zoo map looks.
14:21
Speaker 1: It's very functional. It's functional first but still has the
14:25
Speaker 1: feeling of a place. And when you're putting out the tiles,
14:28
Speaker 1: they're sort of a damp yellow or a dim yellow
14:31
Speaker 1: until you use them, and then they have a bright
14:32
Speaker 1: color once you've used them. And the art chosen for
14:36
Speaker 1: all of the animal cards as photographs, and I think
14:38
Speaker 1: that is a good choice. I'm glad they didn't go
14:40
Speaker 1: with a mixed media approach like terraforming Mars, at least
14:44
Speaker 1: I don't think they did. I don't think there's any drawings.
14:46
Speaker 1: I think it's all actual photographs. I can't remember if
14:49
Speaker 1: the people are drawings. Oh boy. Well, either way, I
14:54
Speaker 1: really like the look and feel of ark Nova. I
14:56
Speaker 1: think the cover is a little weird but really pretty
15:00
Speaker 1: and helps you see what you're doing. You're making a zoo. Look,
15:04
Speaker 1: there's animals and a zoo. Just overall, I think the
15:07
Speaker 1: overall esthetic of Arknova is great. I love the gameplay
15:11
Speaker 1: of it, so it is my number twenty one in
15:14
Speaker 1: terms of art. In terms of the actual gameplay, I
15:18
Speaker 1: like it even more. Ark Noova is number four on
15:21
Speaker 1: my list, So in twenty twenty two it was not
15:25
Speaker 1: on my list at all, and now it is my
15:27
Speaker 1: number four game. I love this game. I think it's
15:29
Speaker 1: incredible to play. It's really fun. My wife and I
15:32
Speaker 1: both enjoy it a lot. I love the dance of
15:36
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to get super close to
15:39
Speaker 1: maximum scoring before you trigger the end. But also if
15:42
Speaker 1: you wait too long, then someone else might catch up
15:44
Speaker 1: with you. I love the interplay of the different kinds
15:47
Speaker 1: of cards, the way that you upgrade and then you're
15:49
Speaker 1: able to do more stuff.
15:50
Speaker 2: I like the.
15:51
Speaker 1: Huge deck of cards. You never quite know what you're
15:53
Speaker 1: going to get, and you sort of discover things as
15:55
Speaker 1: you go along. I love everything about ark Nova, and
15:59
Speaker 1: it is a top two game for me. So that's
16:01
Speaker 1: my number four, but it is my number twenty one
16:04
Speaker 1: in terms of art, which brings me to the end
16:07
Speaker 1: of my twenty five through twenty one here on pick
16:13
Speaker 1: Up and Deliver. Those are That's episode six of my
16:18
Speaker 1: top fifty by art. Hopefully you enjoyed it. I'd love
16:20
Speaker 1: to hear what you think of those games, and you
16:23
Speaker 1: can do that over on Board Game Geek and Guild
16:25
Speaker 1: three two sixty nine. Well, thanks for joining me. We'll
16:28
Speaker 1: walk today. I hope your next walk is as pleasant
16:30
Speaker 1: as mine wants.
16:31
Speaker 2: Bye bye.
16:52
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