Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Gravwell 2nd edition, Kingsburg, SET (revisited), Hunt-A-Killer

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Gravwell 2nd edition, Kingsburg, SET (revisited), Hunt-A-Killer · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:05
  Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder
• 0:08
  as I step off the train and deliver an episode to you while I walk
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  home. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good evening, friends. It is
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  a cool, dark evening here in suburban Chicago. I'm walking home at about
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  five point thirty from the train, having had another glorious day of teaching in
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  academia. So today I am going to talk to you about a few games
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  that I tried recently. That's right, it's a board game Espresso Triple Shot
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  BLO blog. I don't know what that conversation was about, but did you
• 0:45
  hear the young people past me? And one of them said, I felt
• 0:48
  like the lady was going to be sad if I left, so I didn't
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  leave. I'm really kind of intrigued to know what that was about, anyhow.
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  So for those of you new to the podcast, the Boord Game Espresso
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  is a episode format where I review three games in quick succession that I have
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  played like once or twice each. So these are games that I've just scratched
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  the surface of. I can't review them in depth. It may not even
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  be reasonable to call them reviews. But I am exploring what the games are
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  about and giving you kind of first impressions. And then I have one game
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  that I've recently gotten out of the dust, meaning it's been more than a
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  year since I played it, and I talk about the experience of playing that
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  as well. So those are my starting points and let's go from there.
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  So the first game I want to talk about this one. Actually, all
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  of these games, there's a unifying connection of game, of the unifying theme
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  about these games that I haven't hadn't really thought about until just now, but
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  they're all true. All of these games are sort of different versions of games
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  I've played before, not entirely, and you'll see it varies from game to
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  game, but they all have pretty strong connections to other games I've played,
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  so that makes for interesting experience. So let's start out. The first one
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  is grave Well second Edition. The thing that makes this connected is I've played
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  grave Well first Edition actually a couple times. This is the first time i've
• 2:09
  played the second edition one. So grave Well is a classic. I don't
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  know what you'd call it, a game where you have to read what other
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  people are doing. You can look up at the podcast. I'll put a
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  link in the show notes to my first play of this. Now this is
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  a new version of the game. It's a second edition, and so I'm
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  calling it a new play. It's got a different entry in board game Geek.
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  It is significantly similar. There may have been some rebalancing done, and
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  the big thing is that now they have these special role cards, so when
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  you're playing, you have special specializations that you didn't have before. The basic
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  premise of Gravewell is that you have this spiral on the board and your goal
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  is to get from the inside of the board to the outside, or vice
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  versa. If you're playing with multiple players, you have some people starting near
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  the outside and they're trying to get in, and some people start at the
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  inside and they're trying to get out. And the idea is that you are
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  sort of doing a shared drafting thing where there's a market of cards and you're
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  taking turns grabbing these groups of cards, which usually you can see one of
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  them and the two are hidden, or vice versa, you can see two
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  of them and one are hidden. The ideas you're grabbing these marketed cards and
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  then when everybody's grabbed I think two bunches of them, then you take turns
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  playing. You play your cards in a series of rounds. You choose the
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  card, you all reveal it once, and then you resolve them in alphabetical
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  order. There's twenty six cards in the deck, so A through Z,
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  so you're resolving them in alphabetical order, and each card is one of several
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  different types. The big thing is either it pulls you toward the nearest objects
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  or it pushes you away from the nearest object, and then there's a couple
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  other cards that do other things, but for the most part, it's pull
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  or push, and so the idea is that you are trying to anticipate when
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  your card is going to resolve in the round such that if you do pull
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  toward the nearest object, you do it in such a way that you sling
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  past that object and go in the direction you want to, or vice versa.
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  If you're pushing away from the object, you want to push away from
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  it with the goal of going the direction you want to. The big gimmick
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  of the game is that you always have to that you're always affected by the
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  object that's closest to you, and so it often happens if you misread the
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  situation or don't play something in the right order. What will happen is you'll
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  get your card that lets you move toward the nearest object, will get resolved
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  right after another opponent stops just behind you, and then you get yanked backwards
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  instead of forwards. So there's an element of push me, pull you,
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  an element of reading your opponents and trying to figure out what they're gonna do.
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  The second edition changes a couple of things. One, the ship models
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  are unique, so there's five different sculpts or whatever, rather than just being
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  all the seamship and different colors. Secondly, the obstacles that you put on
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  the board are unique. I think the original game they were just tokens.
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  And then the main thing is that you have these faction cards that you can
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  take that give you a special power you can use, and you get a
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  couple different powers and you can charge them up, and there's a couple just
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  a couple extra rules that make the game more interesting. This could this difference
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  could very well have been an expansion, but the original game had gone out
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  of print and so Renegade Games brought it back. It's designed by Corey Young,
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  beautiful new art from Kwanchai Moria and Renegade Game Studios is your producer of
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  Grave Well second edition. Well worth taking a look at if you get a
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  chance. Definitely fun to play. Next up is a game, again like
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  grave Well, that I've played in a different form. This is Kingsburg.
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  Now. Kingsburg is a classic. It came out in two thousand and seven,
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  designed by Andrea Chiariso and Luca Iyaneko, published by a bunch of different
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  companies. I'm not sure who publishes it or who did. And the idea
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  is that you have this display of different nobles that you can try to curry
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  favor with, and those nobles will give you benefits, and each person can
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  only curry favor with one noble per round, and those benefits then allow you
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  to build up resources in your player area, which gives you more efficiency in
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  the next round, and so on. It is a sort of efficiency puzzle,
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  a tactical efficiency puzzle where you're trying to get the most efficient engine,
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  going to give yourself points and money and resources, but also responding to the
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  dice that you roll. So the game because you start rolling three dice I
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  think just two dice actually, and you're choosing whether to put them on a
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  single space that adds up to the dice that are added up, or actually
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  you're rolling three dice, or are you putting them on two different spots or
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  three different spots. But the thing is, once someone has put a die
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  on spot, you can't put one there, So there is a push your
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  luck element to it as well. When I say this is a game like
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  another game I've played. After they made Kingsburg, the same company released an
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  alternative version of it called Kingsport Festival, which functioned like Kingsburg, except now
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  you're playing in Arkham, Massachusetts, and it is HP Lovecraft themed. The
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  resources become different kinds of negative Cuthulhu type energy, and otherwise the game is
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  very similar, but a bit more thematic. So I will say if this
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  gives you a prelude to what I'm gonna say about Kingsburg. I played Kingsport
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  Festival twice and then I sold it, and I would do the same with
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  Kingsburg. I thought Kingsburg was fine. I know there are some people who
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  really like it, and I don't understand why, particularly because the game doesn't
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  seem to have any variety in how it's set up, so every time you
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  play, it's going to be the same buildings, which means it's identical play
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  and it's just about the tactics of the dice. It just doesn't do a
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  lot for me. I mean, I can understand. I think I can
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  see what people like in it, and if you get a chance to play,
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  it's definitely worthwhile. It's in the certainly in top half of games.
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  I wouldn't put it in the don't play this category, but it really didn't
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  do a lot for me, and I don't see myself wanting to seek it
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  out to play again. Now, if I were somewhere and somebody brought out
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  Kingsburg and said, hey, I really want to play this, Do you
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  want to play with me? I probably would say sure. Although if there
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  were two games being loaded up and Kingsburg was one of them and something Else
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  was one of the others, I would probably want to play that something Else
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  unless it were something I actively disliked. So Kingsburg right on that bubble of
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  almost not almost, not intriguing enough for me to want to play. Nonetheless,
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  I do encourage you to check it out if you get a chance.
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  Maybe it'll appeal to you more than it appeals to me. Or if you
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  want a Cuthulhu version, you could check out Kingsport Festival. If you want
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  to hear my thoughts on that, you can check out the link in the
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  show notes to the episode where I talk about Kingsport Festival. All right,
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  next up is my game that I got out of the dust. This is
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  the game I haven't played for a long time. In fact, this might
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  be the longest out of the dust play that I've recorded now, arguably anything
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  before twenty fifteen. I really just have to say I played it sometime before
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  twenty fifteen. It's reasonable for me to say, yes, I know I
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  played it, but it might not be reasonable for me to know how long
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  ago I played it, since if it's before twenty fifteen, I wasn't recording
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  it. That said, I know that I played Set when I was in
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  graduate school. I do not recall playing Set since graduate school, so I
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  think twenty years is a reasonable estimation of the last time I played it.
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  So that's right I'm talking about the game set. Set is kind of a
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  nerdy party game. It's got a pretty simple premise. You put out I
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  think sixteen cards, and then if people go too long without engaging with them,
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  you put out another four. And the idea is what you're looking at
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  the cards and you're trying to find a set of things among the cards.
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  They have three different shapes, to different numbers of shapes, and three different
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  textures, so like they could be round or triangular or square. They could
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  be filled in or dash line or hollow, and they can be red or
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  blue or green. I don't remember exactly, but that gives you an idea.
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  And the idea is when you on there be one, two, or
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  three of them on any given card, So you have all these different sort
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  of axes by which you can identify a set. And what you need to
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  do is find a set of three cards that are either all the same or
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  all different for each characteristic. So they could be the same color, the
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  same shape, the same number, but different filled inness. So there could
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  be hollow, stripe and solid but the same number, same color, same
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  shape. Similarly, you could have different number, same color, same shape,
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  different hollowness and that would count. So basically you have to say they're
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  all the same or they're all different for each these four stats. And if
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  you find a set that includes that combination, then you get to take this
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  at you say, set and you grab those three cards and then that goes
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  in front of you, and that's points. The game goes until the deck
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  runs out, and it's a speed game, so everybodys staying around y'all are
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  watching. You say set, and you grab the set, then the next
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  cards come out. Not surprisingly, the player who did best at this is
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  the one who'd played it a lot, but other players did very well also.
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  I did not do the worst. I did have a couple of students
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  who played this at my board game society at my college who literally got no
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  set. But I was not much better. I'd get like in a game.
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  I think we played a couple games of it. I only logged one,
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  but we played a couple games of it, and in those couple games
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  of it, I got one or two per round. The winners would get
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  you ten or fifteen each. So I was very, very bad at this
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  game. I don't know if it's a combination of not being used to creating
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  the sets, or also being old so my mind is slowing down, or
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  I don't know what. Maybe it just wasn't the kind of thinking I can
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  do quickly. But regardless of how you assess it, boy, I did
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  not do well at set. That said, I enjoyed it quite a bit.
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  I think it's a really interesting game. I like real time games generally,
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  and I'd be happy to play it again anytime soon. So that's my
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  dusty game set, which I think I played last in Boy I don't know,
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  a really long time ago, twenty years or so, and it came
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  out in nineteen eighty eight. Was designed by Marcia J. Falco and published
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  by Sech Enterprises, so it does its own game. Finally. The third
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  new game that I tried this time around is hunter Killer Murder at a Dive
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  Bar. Now, I have not played any other hunter Killer games, but
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  I have played lots of other detective games, particularly Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective,
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  which feels to me like the closest to the hunter Killer mode. In Sherlock
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  Holmes, you get a newspaper, you get a map, you have people
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  you can question, you have to find out the answer, and you don't
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  get a lot of narrative guidance. When Hunter Killer you get a big pile
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  of artifacts and not a lot of narrative guidance, and you have to from
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  the different artifacts you have to solve the mystery. Now the game does not
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  restrict any of them. At the beginning, they all come sort of just
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  jumbled in, but over time you come to figure out which ones are valuable
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  and what they mean. There'll be references to one piece of evidence in another
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  piece of evidence. There's witness statements. That's on the premise, feels very
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  much like you've gotten a police case report and now you're going to try to
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  solve the mystery of the murder documented by that case. That's kind of the
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  general gist of it. Now, my daughter had done a bunch of these.
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  She got actually one year for Christmas. She got a subscription to them,
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  and she got one every other month for a year, and that's pretty
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  neat. But we didn't do those with her. She did them by herself,
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  and I think it was one long case over the course of the year.
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  By contrast, this was a single, self contained thing. It is
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  something you can buy at targe. In fact, I've seen it there a
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  number of times. I got it at Goodwill for two bucks, which is
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  great because it's a one play thing and then once you're done with it,
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  you give it away. There's not much point in keeping it, I guess
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  for collection. But you can't play it again, you remember the solution.
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  It's pretty neat. The artifacts are a little bit more interesting than say the
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  stuff you get in an unlock or an exit or Sherlock Holmes, and there's
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  more variety, and so from that perspective it is kind of immersive. It's
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  not clear why you're being asked to do it. I think the game gives
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  us a narrative hook we are detectives or something, but ultimately that part was
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  not as strong, and frankly, the mystery was not very difficult. As
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  you walk through the evidence, each piece of evidence really very clearly pointed somewhere.
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  So you got to the end and there's no ambiguity. There's not a
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  lot of leaps to make in terms of deduction, but it was still fun.
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  So if you get a chance to play Death of the Dive Bar or
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  any of the other Hunt to Killer mysteries, I would recommend trying them.
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  I know I will try more if I get the opportunity. I'm not sure
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  I'm going to go out and buy them at full price, though maybe that
• 14:58
  gives you a little bit of a sense of what I thought of it.
• 15:01
  Well, that brings me to the end of my board game Espresso episode,
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  What have you been playing lately? I would love to hear that from you.
• 15:09
  You can let me know over on board game Geek and Kild three two
• 15:11
  sixty nine, where you can share that information. I'd love to hear it.
• 15:15
  I'd also love to know what you're going to play soon, and if
• 15:18
  you've gotten any games out of the dust. Oh, that reminds me.
• 15:22
  The Hunter Killer game was designed by Casey Cheney and Carlea hold Jensen. Head
• 15:28
  over to board game Geek Guild three two six nine and let me know what
• 15:31
  you've been playing. I'd love to hear from you. You could also email
• 15:35
  me Brendan at rattoboxgames dot com or send me a message through board game Geek.
• 15:39
  Wombat ninety two nine is my user name there. Let's love to play
• 15:41
  games on board game Arina, so send me a message there and we can
• 15:45
  play a game there too. Thanks for joining me today. So that's about
• 15:48
  it for my journey today. I hope that your next walk business pleasant as
• 15:52
  mine was brought to you by rattle Box. Bye bye