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Reiner Knizia (Great Designers) · 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 off the
0:07
Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
0:10
Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's a lovely
0:23
Speaker 1: day here in suburban Chicago. At least it's lovely for
0:25
Speaker 1: the plants. It's not ideal for the pedestrian because it's raining.
0:28
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can hear the drip drops
0:30
Speaker 1: on my umbrella, but I'm gonna try recording an episode anyway,
0:34
Speaker 1: So if you're hearing some background noise that's rain, we'll see.
0:37
Speaker 2: If I listen to this and it's too annoying.
0:39
Speaker 1: I won't publish it, in which case you won't hear
0:41
Speaker 1: me saying I'm not gonna publish it.
0:42
Speaker 2: If it's too annoying. Okay, let's try it.
0:46
Speaker 1: So over the weekend, I played for the first time
0:49
Speaker 1: in a couple of years, Through the Desert, which is
0:52
Speaker 1: a Rainier Kinizsia game that I really enjoy and I thought, oh,
0:57
Speaker 1: I haven't talked about Rainer Kanisia game. Are Reiner Kanizia
1:01
Speaker 1: games very much in the pod lately? So why don't
1:05
Speaker 1: I do a follow up episode two. Whenever it was
1:07
Speaker 1: that I did a Great Designers Reiner Kanitzia episode, and
1:12
Speaker 1: I searched the podcast, and I can't find an episode
1:16
Speaker 1: in which I just talked about Ryner Kanizia games. Now,
1:18
Speaker 1: that seems very unlikely. It seems like I would have
1:22
Speaker 1: done that at some point, but I can't find one.
1:25
Speaker 1: So either the search function on the blog where I
1:30
Speaker 1: keep all the episodes about the podcast is bad, or
1:33
Speaker 1: somewhere along line, I have screwed up something. Because I
1:35
Speaker 1: cannot find any record in which I did an episode
1:39
Speaker 1: about Ryner Kinitzia. That seems like a shame. So today
1:43
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do an episode about Rhyner Kanitzia.
1:45
Speaker 3: Now.
1:45
Speaker 1: I thought about a couple different ways to approach this.
1:48
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I've done Great Designer episodes in the past,
1:51
Speaker 1: I just talked about my favorite games that they've done,
1:53
Speaker 1: or a few notable games that they've done, and.
1:55
Speaker 2: I could have done that. I could have not a
1:57
Speaker 2: top five.
1:57
Speaker 1: But I actually found it really hard to do because
1:59
Speaker 1: while I have played many Rhiner Kats games I think
2:02
Speaker 1: twenty three was my total, about half of them are
2:05
Speaker 1: so good I really don't want to put them into
2:08
Speaker 1: a top five. So like, there are probably ten to
2:10
Speaker 1: fifteen ryner Katsee games that I think are really good,
2:13
Speaker 1: and I like them a lot, and I don't really
2:15
Speaker 1: want to have to rate them one to five, so
2:17
Speaker 1: I thought instead I would rate them against one another.
2:21
Speaker 1: So what we're going to do is a few little
2:22
Speaker 1: battles here between rhyiner KNTSIA games. I'll talk about two
2:26
Speaker 1: games that I think have some overlap of some sort,
2:29
Speaker 1: and then I'll talk about which.
2:30
Speaker 2: One I like better and why. Now I've not predecided
2:33
Speaker 2: any of these.
2:34
Speaker 1: I just paired them up, so we'll see when I
2:36
Speaker 1: actually start talking about them whether or not I can decide.
2:40
Speaker 2: All right, so let's jump into it.
2:42
Speaker 1: Our first matchup Raw versus High Society. Now, Raw is
2:46
Speaker 1: a really interesting auction game in which you are sort
2:49
Speaker 1: of pushing your luck. On your turn. You can either
2:52
Speaker 1: add a tile to the auction, or you can bid
2:56
Speaker 1: on the auction or no, no, you can add a
2:59
Speaker 1: tile to the auction or bid on it.
3:01
Speaker 2: If you add a tile.
3:02
Speaker 1: Then goes to the next person, and we keep going
3:04
Speaker 1: around till someone triggers the auction. Now, the game itself
3:07
Speaker 1: con triggered it as well, and there's this whole push
3:09
Speaker 1: your luck think I'm not gonna talk about right now,
3:11
Speaker 1: But the auction itself is really clever. Each player has
3:14
Speaker 1: three bidding tiles that they get and those are prescribed
3:19
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the game based on whose first player,
3:22
Speaker 1: and then all the bidding tiles that is your bid,
3:25
Speaker 1: so you can either bid your small one, your medium one,
3:28
Speaker 1: or your big one. And after you win the auction,
3:31
Speaker 1: you get the tiles that are in the auction, plus
3:34
Speaker 1: the bidding tile that was place that was used to
3:38
Speaker 1: win the previous auction, and the new bidding tile you
3:40
Speaker 1: get will go face down on your player matt and
3:43
Speaker 1: then in the next round that's the bidding tile you're
3:46
Speaker 1: going to use to bid for the next tile the
3:49
Speaker 1: next auctions, so part of what you're bidding on is
3:51
Speaker 1: your ability to bid in the next auction. Very clever,
3:54
Speaker 1: really interesting stuff. There's a whole bunch of a variety
3:57
Speaker 1: of different scoring conditions that are all pretty interesting and
4:00
Speaker 1: make for a fun set of ways to think about scoring.
4:05
Speaker 1: So that's raw paired up in the combo. Is a
4:09
Speaker 1: lighter game, and this is High Society. High Society is
4:12
Speaker 1: another auction game. In this game, everybody gets a certain
4:15
Speaker 1: amount of money, and your goal is to have the
4:18
Speaker 1: most points at the end of the game by having
4:19
Speaker 1: the most stuff. So the game there's a whole bunch
4:22
Speaker 1: of stuff that comes with different point values that are
4:25
Speaker 1: related to how awesome your stuff is. And it's an auction,
4:28
Speaker 1: so you are competing with other people to buy the stuff. Now,
4:32
Speaker 1: two things that make the auction interesting are you can't
4:35
Speaker 1: make change, so you have different bills that have different
4:38
Speaker 1: amount of money on them. When you bid, you use
4:41
Speaker 1: that bill. I don't it's been a little while since
4:43
Speaker 1: I've played. I don't think you can combine bills, so
4:46
Speaker 1: you're just picking kind of like in Raw, you're picking
4:48
Speaker 1: one of your bidding things to bid with.
4:50
Speaker 2: But the crucial thing.
4:52
Speaker 1: Is at the end of the game, the person who
4:54
Speaker 1: has the least amount of money left is out of
4:58
Speaker 1: the game. So you want to have the most points,
5:00
Speaker 1: but we also don't want to spend the most money.
5:03
Speaker 1: That tension is really clever and feels very similar to.
5:07
Speaker 2: The tension in RAW.
5:09
Speaker 1: I like both games quite a bit, but I think
5:11
Speaker 1: in choosing the two, I'm choosing between the two, I'm.
5:13
Speaker 2: Gonna pick RAW.
5:15
Speaker 1: I think the interaction and the variability of the bidding
5:20
Speaker 1: from round to round. As you win your bidding tiles,
5:23
Speaker 1: it's just more interesting. I also think the table presence
5:25
Speaker 1: is better, so Raw is my winner in Raw versus
5:28
Speaker 1: High Society. Next up, we have a couple of classic
5:31
Speaker 1: rener Cantia card games. We have battle Line or Shot
5:33
Speaker 1: in Totten. I've only played Shott and Totten, so for
5:36
Speaker 1: those of you who've played battle Line, I don't know
5:38
Speaker 1: the difference. I know they're very very similar shot and
5:41
Speaker 1: Shot in Totten is listed as having re implemented battle Line,
5:45
Speaker 1: but I don't know the difference versus Lost Cities.
5:49
Speaker 2: Now, both of these games.
5:51
Speaker 1: Are sort of lame battlers, and Lost Cities is not.
5:55
Speaker 1: Never Mind and Lost Cities. You are making runs of cards.
5:58
Speaker 1: You could start as many runs as you want, but
6:02
Speaker 1: each run starts with negative twenty points, and then the
6:05
Speaker 1: value of the run goes up as you play cards
6:07
Speaker 1: to it. The cool and cruel thing is that you
6:10
Speaker 1: have to play the cards in numerical order from low
6:12
Speaker 1: to high. So like once you play the six, you
6:15
Speaker 1: can't play the five, and the cards only go up
6:17
Speaker 1: to ten, So if you don't get over twenty points
6:20
Speaker 1: by the end, of the round. You lose points on
6:22
Speaker 1: that run. Additionally, there are these multiplier cards that you
6:25
Speaker 1: can get the double or triple or even quadruple if
6:28
Speaker 1: you had three of them the value of the run.
6:32
Speaker 1: But it also doubles the negative as well. So if
6:34
Speaker 1: you put down three of the multiplier cards and then
6:38
Speaker 1: you don't clear twenty points, you actually lose three four times.
6:42
Speaker 2: The amount that you have left. It's pretty great.
6:45
Speaker 1: The actual gameplay, you draw a card and play a card,
6:47
Speaker 1: kind of like gin rummy, and sometimes you're playing cards
6:50
Speaker 1: into the lines. Other times you're playing cards onto stacks
6:52
Speaker 1: of cards of that color. So sometimes you have the
6:55
Speaker 1: real cruel decision of do I add to one of
6:59
Speaker 1: my stacks, skipping numbers and potentially not getting enough to
7:04
Speaker 1: really get the bonus. There's also a thing where if
7:06
Speaker 1: you get a certain number of cards in the stack
7:08
Speaker 1: I think it's seven, then you get an extra bonus
7:10
Speaker 1: as well. Or do I not play to one of
7:14
Speaker 1: my stacks that's round and stead I discarded card, and
7:17
Speaker 1: it's possible that I discard a card that my opponent
7:19
Speaker 1: is waiting for. It's a delicious problem, all right. The
7:23
Speaker 1: other game I want to talk about is battle Line
7:25
Speaker 1: or Shot in Totten. This is a lane battler. There
7:28
Speaker 1: are nine stones. I'm talking about Shot and Totten here.
7:31
Speaker 1: There are nine stones, and your goal is to get
7:34
Speaker 1: four or five of them into your control, or three
7:38
Speaker 1: that are next to each other into your control. And
7:40
Speaker 1: the way you get them into your control is by
7:42
Speaker 1: playing cards to them to assemble poker hands. The cool
7:46
Speaker 1: gimmick of the game is that, so it's always going
7:49
Speaker 1: to be three cards to the lane, so it's not
7:53
Speaker 1: real poker hands, it's sort of poker light. So you're
7:55
Speaker 1: gonna put three cards in the lane, and once the
7:58
Speaker 1: third card is there, you can't put in more there.
8:00
Speaker 1: And once your opponent has put three there, then you
8:02
Speaker 1: evaluate and see who wins the lane. But if you
8:07
Speaker 1: put three cards down and your opponent has one or
8:09
Speaker 1: two and you can mathematically demonstrate based on the other
8:13
Speaker 1: cards on the table that they can't beat you, then
8:16
Speaker 1: you win the stone even if they haven't put three
8:18
Speaker 1: cards down.
8:19
Speaker 2: I really like that gimmick. I think it's a.
8:21
Speaker 1: Neat way to keep the game moving, and it also
8:25
Speaker 1: really challenges you to.
8:26
Speaker 2: Think about what's available on the table.
8:28
Speaker 1: Like I said, it sort of uses poker like mechanisms,
8:31
Speaker 1: or at least sort of rummy like, sort of a
8:33
Speaker 1: mix of the two, and it's great. It's very hard
8:36
Speaker 1: for me to pick between these two games. I'm gonna
8:39
Speaker 1: say I like Lost Cities a little bit better, but
8:42
Speaker 1: they are both top notch.
8:44
Speaker 2: All right.
8:44
Speaker 1: Our next battle is Through the Desert versus Tigris and Euphrates.
8:48
Speaker 1: This is not a good matchup, I think, because I
8:51
Speaker 1: haven't played enough Tigris and Euphrates to fairly score it.
8:53
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say Through the Desert.
8:55
Speaker 1: In Tigris and Euphrates, you're building these collections of cities
8:59
Speaker 1: and you go to battle with other cities, and you're
9:02
Speaker 1: trying to get points based on a variety of different
9:04
Speaker 1: scoring mechanisms. But I think it has to do with
9:07
Speaker 1: whatever color you have, the least of is what you
9:09
Speaker 1: score By contrast, through the Desert, you have five chains
9:14
Speaker 1: of camels going in the desert and you are trying
9:18
Speaker 1: to block off areas of the board that're surrounded just
9:21
Speaker 1: by your camels. When you block that off, you get
9:25
Speaker 1: the points for every space that you blocked off, Plus
9:28
Speaker 1: if there are any of the bonus tiles in that area, you.
9:30
Speaker 2: Get those as well.
9:32
Speaker 1: There's also points for having the longest group of any
9:35
Speaker 1: particular color, and there's points at the end for being
9:40
Speaker 1: the person who ended the game. I think is one
9:41
Speaker 1: of them. All in all, I think Through the Desert
9:44
Speaker 1: is really really good. I'm sure TIGERSI Eufrates is also
9:47
Speaker 1: very very good. It's probably not reasonable to put them
9:50
Speaker 1: together because they seem like pretty different games, but I'm
9:52
Speaker 1: doing it, and I'm giving it to Through the Desert
9:55
Speaker 1: because I only played Tigers and Euphrates once and I
9:57
Speaker 1: didn't have a great time because the other players are
9:59
Speaker 1: very experienced, basically just helping one or the other of
10:01
Speaker 1: them with every move I made. All right, Next up,
10:03
Speaker 1: we've got tile playsment games. We have My City versus
10:06
Speaker 1: carcasson the Castle. Again, not super fair because I've only
10:09
Speaker 1: played Carcaton in the Castle once. That game is renowned
10:13
Speaker 1: for its really interesting development on the Klaus Jurgen word design.
10:19
Speaker 1: It has this wall around the outside that's pretty awesome.
10:22
Speaker 1: So if you have a chance to play Carcazon in
10:24
Speaker 1: the Castle, you should. I have played it once and
10:27
Speaker 1: I thought it was really good. That said, my city
10:30
Speaker 1: campaign I thought was very delightful. In this game, you
10:33
Speaker 1: are building a city and you're placing polyamenotiles to do it.
10:38
Speaker 2: It uses a Bingo style mechanism.
10:40
Speaker 1: Where we draw a card and that card tells us
10:42
Speaker 1: which tile to put down, and then we put that
10:44
Speaker 1: tile down and score points. It plays out over twenty
10:47
Speaker 1: four games, and every three games you get a new
10:50
Speaker 1: rule that changes the game a little bit. The original
10:54
Speaker 1: game is a legacy game where you're putting stickers on
10:56
Speaker 1: the board, and we had a lot of fun with that.
10:58
Speaker 1: I do still have the finished legacy game, which I
11:02
Speaker 1: don't really there's not really a lot to do with it.
11:04
Speaker 1: You can keep playing the game without the legacy part,
11:07
Speaker 1: but we never have so I'm not sure why I'm
11:09
Speaker 1: holding on the game. I should probably just throw it away.
11:11
Speaker 1: That is my city.
11:14
Speaker 2: And in contrast, we have Carkstone Castle.
11:16
Speaker 1: Which, like I said, I only played the once, so
11:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to give it to my city, but again
11:20
Speaker 1: probably through lack.
11:21
Speaker 2: Of knowledge rather than anything else. All right.
11:24
Speaker 1: Next up we have the last one is Samurai Versus Ingenius.
11:29
Speaker 1: Samurai and Genius are both tile placement games where you
11:31
Speaker 1: are playing little hexes onto the board and your goal
11:34
Speaker 1: is to get good associations of the tiles.
11:37
Speaker 2: Together and score points that way.
11:39
Speaker 1: I think Samurai also shares some DNA with Tigers and euphrates,
11:43
Speaker 1: so this, again is maybe not the ideal comparison.
11:45
Speaker 2: I liked both games a lot.
11:47
Speaker 1: Samurai clearly has some really interesting depth of play that
11:51
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten to yet, but I think would be
11:53
Speaker 1: interesting to try. In Genius, I feel like, you know,
11:56
Speaker 1: I played it twice. I feel like I've seen what
11:58
Speaker 1: it has to do. It's interesting, but it's very tactical,
12:02
Speaker 1: and I feel like over time, I'm not sure I
12:05
Speaker 1: would see a ton of strategy emerge. It feels more
12:08
Speaker 1: like something like Quirkle, but I like Corkle better. So
12:11
Speaker 1: of those two, I would say Samurai is the more
12:13
Speaker 1: interesting design and one that you should try, all right.
12:15
Speaker 1: I just want to call out a couple more Ryder
12:17
Speaker 1: Kennincia games that I really liked that I didn't have
12:19
Speaker 1: a clear comparator for. Whale Riders is a pushy luck
12:24
Speaker 1: game with a time track, so you move your piece
12:28
Speaker 1: forward and then if your piece is furthest forward, then
12:32
Speaker 1: you don't get to go again until your pieces in
12:33
Speaker 1: the back. It's a set collection game, pretty straightforward, but
12:36
Speaker 1: really fun. Indigo or what's now sold as Butterfly Garden
12:40
Speaker 1: is a great little light game, excellent for playing with
12:44
Speaker 1: people who don't play a lot of games.
12:46
Speaker 2: Very tactical.
12:47
Speaker 1: In the game, you draw a tile and you place
12:48
Speaker 1: it on the board, and you're trying to come complete
12:51
Speaker 1: paths so that the gems that are moving around the
12:54
Speaker 1: board leave the board in the zones where you score them.
12:58
Speaker 1: There's an interesting element if you're playing at the higher
12:59
Speaker 1: pla counts, where every zone you score, another player also scores,
13:04
Speaker 1: So when you score a gem you get to leave
13:07
Speaker 1: the board. You want to think carefully about which other
13:09
Speaker 1: player are you giving points, because sometimes you are helping
13:13
Speaker 1: the other player who's winning as much as you're helping yourself.
13:16
Speaker 1: If you're really there's a really that's a fantastic mechanism,
13:19
Speaker 1: and I love that. That's a game I've always played
13:22
Speaker 1: as Indigo, but like I said, they've also released it.
13:24
Speaker 2: As Butterfly Garden more recently.
13:27
Speaker 1: And then finally I will call out bil Wolf. Bile
13:30
Speaker 1: Wolf is a really interesting auction game where you are
13:34
Speaker 1: trying to collect resources so that you can win at
13:38
Speaker 1: different challenges.
13:39
Speaker 2: Does that come up?
13:40
Speaker 1: There's an interesting mechanism where you're trying to gauge which
13:44
Speaker 1: mechanism or who has which resources so they can do
13:46
Speaker 1: well at which challenge as they come up while you're
13:49
Speaker 1: moving around the board.
13:51
Speaker 2: So there's a.
13:52
Speaker 1: Fascinating complexity at work in the game that I think
13:55
Speaker 1: is really something I want to explore some more.
13:57
Speaker 2: I've played it twice, I want to play it more.
14:00
Speaker 1: Well, nobody ever said Ryer Kinizia wasn't a great game designer.
14:03
Speaker 2: If they did, they don't know what they're talking about.
14:05
Speaker 2: I really like his work.
14:06
Speaker 1: Now. There's a lot of games he's played, he's made
14:08
Speaker 1: that I think aren't great. I've played a few, Like
14:11
Speaker 1: I said, I think I've played twenty two or twenty three,
14:14
Speaker 1: and I talked about ten or eleven games here. That
14:17
Speaker 1: means there's a bunch that I thought were fine or bad.
14:20
Speaker 1: But that's okay. The stuff he's made that's good is amazing,
14:23
Speaker 1: and I'm really happy to have played it and to
14:26
Speaker 1: talk about it with you. So, dear listener, which Ryner
14:29
Speaker 1: Kanizia games do you like best? Head over to board
14:31
Speaker 1: game Geek Guild three two six y nine and share
14:34
Speaker 1: your love of Ryner Kanitzia.
14:36
Speaker 2: There. Tell us which games you like to play and why.
14:40
Speaker 1: If you want to reach out to me directly, you
14:42
Speaker 1: can send me a message. Wombat nine two nine is
14:44
Speaker 1: my username on board game Geek. My email address is
14:46
Speaker 1: Brendan at Radobox Games. Well that's about it for me today,
14:50
Speaker 1: on this rainy day. Hopefully the sound of the rain
14:52
Speaker 1: pattering on the umbrella was not so unpleasant that you
14:54
Speaker 1: aren't going to be able to listen to the episode.
14:57
Speaker 1: And I want to say thanks for joining me. I'm
14:59
Speaker 1: milwalk today. I hope that your next walk is this pleasant.
15:02
Speaker 1: His mind on good.
15:03
Speaker 3: Bye, brought to you by rattle Box h