Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / La Pâtisserie Rococo; Endurance; The Hobbit; Strike (revisited)

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La Pâtisserie Rococo; Endurance; The Hobbit; Strike (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and Deliver the podcast where I
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step out for
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: a walk and deliver an episode to you. I stroll around.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, greetings, listeners. It's a lovely day
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: here in suburban Chicago, and by lovely I mean the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: sky is slate gray with a smooth overcast clouds, but
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: it's not expected to rain, and the temperatures in the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: mid forties, which means.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I've got a jacket hat on but no gloves.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Live in the dream. It is March, and I'm talking
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: to you about games. Starting to get caught up on
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: games I've played in the recent past but haven't talked
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: about yet. I am beginning with January games, and so
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we're doing a board game.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Espresso Triple Shot. Order up.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: The board game Espresso Triple Shot is a segment in
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: which I talk about three games I've played recently for
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the first time and one game I dusted off. I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: tell you about what I thought of the games and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: whether I'm planning to play them again. These are generally
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: not reviews. I usually think of a review as requiring
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a few plays and a bit more robust thinking about
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the game instead. This is a general conversation about the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: game and my first impression, so let's jump into it.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: First off, we have La Patisserie Rococo from twenty twenty six.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: This is from designer Stefan Maltz and Louis Maltz with
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: art from Fabris Weiss and published by Eagle Griffin Games.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: It is I believe that the graphic design is Ian O'Toole. No,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: it's the art is Fabrise Weiss. It doesn't say you o'tools,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: so let's assume it's not. La Patisseri Rococo is part
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of a set of games we've seen Ego Riffin do
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: do this a number of times now, where they take
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a complex game and they make a slightly lighter version
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of it for people to try. It's supposed to play
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: faster and be a bit easier to play. So this
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: game is a re implementation of the core mechanisms of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the game Rococo, which is a game about making dresses
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: in the Rococo period for fancy people. I played that
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: game one time and I thought it was pretty good,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: although pretty complicated, and then I saw that this was
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: coming out, and I thought maybe given the LAPATISSERII thing
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: making baking foods and chocolate and stuff is something my
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: family and Joyce I thought maybe this would be a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: good theme, and I thought maybe the Rococo mechanisms would work.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: This game came in and we got it to the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: table in January. Broadly speaking, the game is very similar
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to Rococo in play style. You are a baker and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: you're managing a number of assistant bakers, and you are
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: making your getting ingredients, making pastries, decorating them and then
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: either selling them to the public or bringing them to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the big dinner that the royals are hosting. And of
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: course that that choice is complicated because if you sell
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: them to the public, you get money. You definitely need money,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: but then you don't get very many points or any point.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: The game is built around. The core mechanism is a
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: drafting market in which you are getting cards each round.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: You get two new employees each round, and you can
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: use those employees in that round. You also have to
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: get rid of one card from the ones you draft
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the game, So the games it's a little bit deck building,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit hand management. It's kind of right on
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the border between those two. And it turns on this
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: idea of all of the employees you hire are better
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: than the starter employees that you have. Most of them
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: have a bonus thing. And the employees come in two forms.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: They come as chefs or assistant chefs. The chefs are
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: able to do some things and they refuse to do
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: other things, and the assistant chefs vice versa. Have some
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: things that they do the chefs won't do, and they
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: have some things that they can't do. But each card
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: you hire also has a secondary bonus power that it does,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and so this is an action efficiency game. It's about
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: playing your employees in the most efficient way. I enjoyed
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: this game. I would want to play it a couple
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: more times before I figure out whether it's.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: A keeper or not.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Honestly, from first impressions, it's probably not a keep. My
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: guesses will play it a handful of times, and then
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I'll be happy to pass it along. I need to
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: check in with my wife she liked it enough to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: play it again if she didn't. Maybe it goes into
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the math trade. Here in April feels very fast, but
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: it's a brand new game, which means that it'll bring
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a high trade price in the math trades. So maybe
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I can get something really goox Change, so we'll see.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I thought it was fine. I wasn't super captivated by it,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: which maybe I should have seen coming because I wasn't
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: super captivated by Rococo. I did not like Rococo as
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: much as I thought I was going to when years
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: ago first impression it was okay. That is La Patisseri Rococo,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: a twenty twenty six release. Next up, we have Endurance.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: This is the game I got for Christmas. It is
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: designed by.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Amabel Holland, with art by Amabel Holland and published by
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Holland Spiel.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Amabel Holland is an idiosyncratic designer who has a lot
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of designs to her name, and they tend to be
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: wild and interesting. I haven't played very many of them.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I've heard about them a lot, mostly from the So
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Very Wrong About Games podcast Mark Designs. This one is
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite themes for a game I've been countered.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: It's about the Shackleton Endurance Expedition. Shackleton led an expedition
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to try to go to the South Pole and the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: ship got stuck in the ice, sort of famously. They
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: spent like a year and a half stranded in various
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: places and managed to reconnect with civilization and bring all
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of the men on the expedition back alive. It's an
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: astounding feat of survival and cooperation. And if you get
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: a chance to read Endurance, the book by Shackleton about
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the expedition, you should it's amazing. So this game is
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: simulating that experience. And there's a really interesting note at
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the beginning. Holland writes about how most simulation games that
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: are simulating historical events, one of the criteria people use
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to rate if they're good or not is when you're playing,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: do you end up with the result from history. If
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: you do, it's seen as a good outcome. If you don't,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: most of the time as a bad outcome or a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: bad simulation. Holland makes the argument in her setup for
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the game that the events of the Endurance Expedition and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: We're so wildly improbable that a simulation where you accomplished
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: that most of the time would be a bad simulate,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and it should be very hard to do. And that's
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the way the game. I played one round of it.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I didn't even get to stage three. I think there's
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: five stages. Stage three involves the whole camp moving. I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: did not quite get there before I had enough problems
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that we lost, so I certainly am no Shackleton.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to playing it again. I haven't gotten
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: around to it.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: It's a pure solo game, and so that limits the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: amount of times I'm gonna play it because I don't
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: generally play solo game very much. But I'm very excited
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: to keep trying it, and it's definitely going to stand
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: my collections. It's interesting in weird games. That's Endurance, the
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three game from a Bell Help. I had
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a chance to dust off a very silly game. This
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: was Strike. Strike as a game I've heard about in
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a variety of places, most strongly on the Rolling Dice
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: in Taking Names podcast and on the board game the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: one with Ambi and Crystal the podcast way in Crystal,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I can't what's called well anyway, both of them and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the Rolling Dice in Taking Names, guys really like Strike
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: as a game to play. It is a relatively simple game.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: You have a bowl, it's a special bowl with like
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a spongy material at the bottom, maybe new, and then
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of custom dice, which are basically one
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: two three four five or two three four five six
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: and an X one two, three, four, five in it.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: And the idea is you throw a die or dice
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: your choice into the bowl, and I think you can
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you can throw more than if you want. You throw
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: a die into the bowl, and after it's done rolling,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: if it matches any of the other dice in the bowl,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: you collect all the dice that matt If there are
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: multiple payers, like let's say there's three dice in the
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: bowl already and you roll a die in and it
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: ends up being two twos and two fours, you get
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: to collect all the dice. If after you roll you
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: haven't collected any dice, you can roll again and add
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: another die to the bowl. If the bowl if the
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: die bounces out when you roll it too bad, it's gone.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: If you roll any xs, all the x'es are removed
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: from the game.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: And like I said, if you have an roll any matches,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: you collect those matches and your turn is over.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: The goal of the game is to be the.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Last one with any dice left, and people go around
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and collect the dice as they roll well or lose
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: dice as they roll poorly. The big swing in the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: game is if you manage to collect all the dice
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: out of the bowl.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Then the next.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Player has to roll all their dice into the bowl,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: however many they have, and if they don't get any matches,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: they're out because they're out of dice. It's a very
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: silly game. There's a little bit of skill in terms
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of managing your odds, but it's very much luck. But
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. I enjoy it. It's not
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a game I've played for a while. In fact, it
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: had been some amount of time that I did not
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: write down a couple of years since I had last
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: played Strike. But it's always a good time when you
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: get a chance. It's a nice little dexterity game that
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: everybody can endule. That is Strike, the Dice Game, designed
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: by Dieter Nubu with art from Friend's Volwinkle. I'm not
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: sure what the art, guess the cover and published by Ravensburg.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: That's Strike from twenty twelve.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Finally, the last game I want to talk about today
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: is The Hobbit There and Back Again. This is a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five release from designer Reiner Kinitzia. I'd reach out.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: He's an interesting guy. I'm joking, of course, He's designed
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: hundreds of Games. The art is done by Lorenzo Colin
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Jelly and it's published by Office Dog. The Hobbit There
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and Back Again is a roll and Right game set
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: in the set in the story of the Hobbit. Each
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: player gets a book of very thick cardboard roll and
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: right tablets that have like there's like eight different boards
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: in the book. So when you go to play, you
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: pick which part of the Hobbit adventure you're going to enact,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and then everybody turns to that page and then it's
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a roll and right game. It's a dice drafting game
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: where when it's your turn, you roll all the dice
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and you draft one of them, and it goes around
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and everybody takes a die and then I think the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: person who rolled the original one gets a second die.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You mark off stuff on the map or on your
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: map using the die you took, and then it's the
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: next players. This is a roll and right in the
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: spirit of the load and roll and Rights of MotorCity
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: game works, for example, where there are slots of boxes
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to fill up, and once you fill them up, then
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you get a bonus that allows you to mark other things.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: It's also focused on a map, so as you're filling
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: things out, you are making progress up a map, and
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: there are some timed bonuses where if you're the first
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: one to achieve it, you get it. Everyone else has
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to cross it up. The art in the Hobbit There
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and Back Again is really cartoony. It's contemporary looking, but
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: it has a feel a slight homage to the character
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: designed from Ralph Bakshi.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: I think it's not.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: The psychedelic, but that's what it reminds me of. It's
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: kind of cartoony, less than sort of fantastic monumental, the
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: way that Lord of the Rings art tends to be
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: more silly. We've played three of the different missions. I
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: think there's twelve. There's ten or twelve, maybe there's eight.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: We've played about a quarter of them, and it's fine.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed what we were playing. There's interesting things to do,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: but nothing too compelling terms of what's available there. In
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: term playing it, I didn't say like, oh, oh, here's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a mechanism I've never seen before. Oh this is a
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: thing I'll be really excited to tell people about.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: It was fine. It's a roll and right.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: If you like those kinds of games, that probably suits
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: not a whole lot to point to that's dramatically different
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: than what other rollin Rhiner are due the shared goals
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: part is probably the most interesting there. There are a
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: lot of rolling rights that don't do that, although there
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: are some and I think if you look at the
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Motor City game Works ones there's.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: A lot of that there.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Also reminded of like in Welcome to when you hit
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: certain goals, then everybody else can't get those goals. It's
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: most similar to that. The production design is really nice.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Like I said, the graphic design is cute, and the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: way that you're writing things. The things you're writing on
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: are these hard cardboard tablets booklets that have different pages
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: for each of the differ. It comes with whiteboard markers
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and so it is a whiteboard roll. And right, that's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the hobbit there and back again from Reiner Knittzia on five.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So those are some games I've tried recently. I would
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: love to hear from you what games you've been playing.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Head over to board game Geek guild three two six
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: y nine and share your thoughts in the comments there.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: If you get an opportunity, you could also send me
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: a direct message on board game Geek wombat nineteen nine
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: is my username. I'm happy to hear from you or
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: correspond with you. I as to play a lot of
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: games on Board Game Arena if you'd like to join
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: me there. Wombat nineteen nine is my user name there
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: as well. I play regular games with at least three
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: different listeners, Hello listeners, and it would be fun to
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: play more. Well, I'm just about to the library where
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna pick up some books in a couple of movies,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: so this is an excellent opportunity to say thanks for
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: joining me on my walk today.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I hope that your next walk is as.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Closed as mind was. Bye Bye, Brought to you by
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: Rattlebox