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My Top 50 … by Art (part 1) · 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 of
0:07
Speaker 1: the hardware store and deliver an episode to you while
0:10
Speaker 1: I walk home. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good morning, listeners.
0:22
Speaker 1: It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago. The sun
0:25
Speaker 1: is shining, the air is warmer than usual, it's like
0:29
Speaker 1: high twenties, the snow is melting, and.
0:32
Speaker 2: I'm out for a walk.
0:33
Speaker 1: This episode represents the first of ten episodes in which
0:37
Speaker 1: I will tell you about my new and updated Top
0:40
Speaker 1: fifty list, as I have done many times in the past.
0:44
Speaker 1: I did a list in twenty fifteen, twenty seventeen, twenty nineteen,
0:49
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and now twenty twenty five. I look
0:53
Speaker 1: through all the games I've played. Some years I limit
0:56
Speaker 1: it to games I own, but I decided not to
0:58
Speaker 1: do that this year. I look through all the games
0:59
Speaker 1: I played, and I pick out as I go through
1:01
Speaker 1: that list, the top like games that I think for
1:05
Speaker 1: sure would land in my top one hundred and fifty
1:07
Speaker 1: or two hundred.
1:08
Speaker 2: Actually I don't even I'm not even that.
1:10
Speaker 1: Picky, Like if I think, yeah, the game's probably in
1:12
Speaker 1: my top two hundred, then I add it to the list.
1:15
Speaker 1: Once I've done that pass through, then I load those
1:19
Speaker 1: into the pub MEPAL Board Game List Generator ranking engine
1:24
Speaker 1: and I run it. This time, I had to do
1:27
Speaker 1: hundreds of comparisons in order to get the list down
1:30
Speaker 1: to my finished state. It took me, I think, four
1:33
Speaker 1: different movies. Like I would watch a movie and then
1:36
Speaker 1: have the board game ranking thing on my phone and
1:39
Speaker 1: I would just rank movies rank thing games while I
1:42
Speaker 1: watched movies, and eventually I finished. Then I looked over
1:48
Speaker 1: the list by hand and I rearranged it a little
1:51
Speaker 1: bit because there's a few quirks. Usually when I do that,
1:54
Speaker 1: there's a few quirks where like, clearly a game ends
1:56
Speaker 1: up lower than it should be and I don't really
1:59
Speaker 1: know anyway except to just manually move it. So I
2:02
Speaker 1: use the ranking engine to give me a general idea,
2:04
Speaker 1: and then I look and see if there's any egregious
2:06
Speaker 1: errors places where like, oh, that game definitely shouldn't be
2:09
Speaker 1: below that out of their game. Then once I arranged
2:13
Speaker 1: the list into the top fifty, I updated the top
2:16
Speaker 1: my top.
2:17
Speaker 2: Fifty on board game Geek.
2:18
Speaker 1: So beware if you don't want to spoil it for yourself.
2:20
Speaker 1: Do not visit my top fifty list now. And I
2:26
Speaker 1: update the list. I mark a variety of games in
2:28
Speaker 1: a variety of ways, and then I prepare to do
2:32
Speaker 1: the list here. And one of the things I discovered
2:34
Speaker 1: is that while there are a bunch of games on
2:36
Speaker 1: my list that are brand new, there are also a
2:38
Speaker 1: lot of games on there that have been on there before.
2:40
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of games on there that I
2:42
Speaker 1: talk about on this podcast a fair amount. So I
2:44
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out how do I make telling
2:46
Speaker 1: you my top fifty interesting if you're somebody who's been
2:49
Speaker 1: along on the ride with me this whole time, because
2:52
Speaker 1: I'm not just gonna talk about the games again, because
2:55
Speaker 1: well I already did that, and with a lot of
2:57
Speaker 1: the games, you've heard about them many times. My designed
3:00
Speaker 1: partner and pal suggested hi Rop suggested, well, what if
3:04
Speaker 1: I took my top fifty and then I present it
3:07
Speaker 1: in the order of top fifty art And I'm like,
3:11
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting idea, and.
3:12
Speaker 2: So I did that.
3:13
Speaker 1: I took the top fifty list that I had accumulated
3:16
Speaker 1: in order of ranking, and I ran it through the
3:19
Speaker 1: Board Game ranking Engine again, only this time, I judged
3:24
Speaker 1: by which game has better art, and I used art broadly.
3:28
Speaker 1: It can reflect the cover of the game, it can
3:31
Speaker 1: reflect the art on the pieces in the game, it
3:34
Speaker 1: can reflect graphic design. It is driven a lot by
3:37
Speaker 1: my taste, but a little bit by general consensus. But
3:40
Speaker 1: if my taste doesn't agree with general consensus, I let
3:43
Speaker 1: my taste decide. So what I'll be presenting for you
3:47
Speaker 1: in these next ten episodes are the ranks that I've
3:51
Speaker 1: assigned to these games by how good their art is.
3:55
Speaker 1: And then when I present the game, I'll tell you
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Speaker 1: where it is in my top fifty and give you
3:59
Speaker 1: some info about it.
4:00
Speaker 2: So I'll talk a.
4:01
Speaker 1: Little bit about the art in the game in a
4:03
Speaker 1: little bit about the game. So let's get started with
4:05
Speaker 1: the number fifty art ranked game in my top fifty
4:09
Speaker 1: games is Concordia from mac Gertz. It is in position
4:13
Speaker 1: forty seven of my overall top fifty games, and it
4:16
Speaker 1: is new to the list. I've never had it on
4:18
Speaker 1: the list before. Concordia is a really interesting game with
4:23
Speaker 1: terrible art. There aren't a ton of art assets for it. Generally,
4:27
Speaker 1: the board is about as boring as a board can be.
4:30
Speaker 1: It's very functional, absolutely, but function in this case has
4:35
Speaker 1: trump form and the art is not good. Also, the cover,
4:40
Speaker 1: particularly the original cover. The Concordia Salsa looks better, but
4:44
Speaker 1: the original Concordia. The lady in the art on the
4:46
Speaker 1: cover just does not look good. She looks kind of
4:49
Speaker 1: mad and kind of weird. It's just it's not good
4:53
Speaker 1: capital N capital G not good, really unpleasant art. That said,
4:57
Speaker 1: the game itself is great. In this you have a
5:00
Speaker 1: hand of cards that you're managing, and when you play them,
5:04
Speaker 1: you play a card and you do a thing that's
5:05
Speaker 1: on the card, and then that card sits in your
5:08
Speaker 1: sits in front of you on the table, and then
5:10
Speaker 1: at one point you can play a card that lets
5:11
Speaker 1: you pick up all the other cards. There's this whole
5:13
Speaker 1: escalating mechanism where you're trying to build trading ports. It
5:16
Speaker 1: is like the definition of trading in the Mediterranean. I
5:19
Speaker 1: think the theme is boring, as I'll get out. Like
5:22
Speaker 1: I said, it's very functional, but it's a boring looking
5:24
Speaker 1: game with not great art. But if you get a chance,
5:28
Speaker 1: you should play Concordia when you can. It is my
5:30
Speaker 1: forty seventh ranked game. Now I haven't played it on
5:32
Speaker 1: the table very much. I don't own a copy, but
5:34
Speaker 1: I have played a lot of it online, not recently though,
5:37
Speaker 1: because Boiazou, the website where I used to play it,
5:40
Speaker 1: has gone out of business, and as far as I know,
5:42
Speaker 1: Concordia is not available to play on any other online platforms.
5:45
Speaker 1: So I mean, you need to pick up a copy
5:47
Speaker 1: so that I can play it. But boy, it's it's
5:49
Speaker 1: not a good looking game, which has led me to
5:51
Speaker 1: not want to. So that's Concordia from Mac Gertz. My
5:55
Speaker 1: number forty nine game for art is Terraforming Mars. Terraforming
6:00
Speaker 1: Mars widely. First off, I'll say I think the cover
6:04
Speaker 1: design is nice. It's interesting, it looks fine, But the
6:09
Speaker 1: art on the cards it really does look like they
6:11
Speaker 1: just went and got clip art sometimes or stock photos
6:15
Speaker 1: and they did very little work to make it pretty.
6:18
Speaker 1: It also has such information density that I think the
6:21
Speaker 1: graphic design is not very attractive either. It's functional, and
6:25
Speaker 1: I don't know, honestly, I don't know how you would
6:26
Speaker 1: make it more attractive. I'm not a graphic designer, but
6:29
Speaker 1: I think that it.
6:30
Speaker 2: Just looks so utilitarian.
6:32
Speaker 1: It's a marvel how much people like it given that,
6:35
Speaker 1: I think it's just not a good looking game. I
6:38
Speaker 1: will say my copy looks good because I three D
6:40
Speaker 1: printed all the tiles, so when you're putting stuff out
6:42
Speaker 1: on the board, that makes it looks pretty nice. And frankly,
6:45
Speaker 1: the board itself looks pretty cool towards the end of.
6:47
Speaker 2: The game when you got all the tiles on stuff.
6:49
Speaker 1: But the cards, the graphic design on the cards, the
6:52
Speaker 1: art on the cards really not good. And when you're
6:55
Speaker 1: looking at top fifty game, you say to yourself, I'm
6:58
Speaker 1: not sure where this game's be if the art is
7:00
Speaker 1: so crummy. That said, Terriforing Mars is my number eight
7:04
Speaker 1: game in my top fifty. This is right up near
7:06
Speaker 1: the top. This is three steps up from where I
7:08
Speaker 1: was in twenty twenty two, which was eleventh place, which
7:12
Speaker 1: so number eight is now the highest it's been in
7:14
Speaker 1: my top fifty, and it's really high.
7:16
Speaker 2: I love this game. I think it's amazing.
7:18
Speaker 1: The card play is really interesting, the interaction with players
7:22
Speaker 1: is good. I like all the expansions. I know some
7:24
Speaker 1: people didn't like the Turmoil expansion. I think it adds
7:27
Speaker 1: some much needed player interaction to an otherwise very solitary
7:31
Speaker 1: game and I like it because it actually creates a
7:34
Speaker 1: situation where I don't mind interacting, the place that regular
7:38
Speaker 1: terraforming Mars does have interaction I don't like. I don't
7:41
Speaker 1: like the thing where I have to burn two of
7:42
Speaker 1: your plants. But if we're fighting for control of the
7:44
Speaker 1: Senate and that gives me a boost, that great. I
7:47
Speaker 1: do like that, So I really like it. One of
7:49
Speaker 1: my favorite game plays this year was a five hour
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Speaker 1: game of Terraforming Mars using all the expansions.
7:54
Speaker 2: This is a obviously a top ten game for me.
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Speaker 1: It's number eight Terraforming Mars, number forty nine in art.
8:00
Speaker 1: My number forty eight game is a game that is
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Speaker 1: new to my top fifty.
8:04
Speaker 2: This is innovation.
8:05
Speaker 1: Innovation is a game I had played definitely by twenty
8:08
Speaker 1: twenty two, maybe even by twenty twenty, but I just
8:11
Speaker 1: played it a couple times. I hadn't really yet grasped
8:14
Speaker 1: the genius of this Carl Chattak game.
8:17
Speaker 2: Now I can.
8:18
Speaker 1: Objectively say there are other Carl Chatta games that maybe
8:21
Speaker 1: are better, but Innovation makes it up very high in
8:25
Speaker 1: my list.
8:26
Speaker 2: But the art is not good.
8:28
Speaker 1: Like again, function over form innovation, the art is very practical.
8:33
Speaker 1: It's very functional. It is also very simple and clean,
8:40
Speaker 1: so it looks like the art is trying to have
8:42
Speaker 1: some of that sort of Swedish or Norwegian design aesthetic
8:47
Speaker 1: or Scandinavian design aesthetic. It's meant to be crisp and clean.
8:50
Speaker 1: But unlike the fan made and then officially produced re
8:57
Speaker 1: new graphic design of Glory to Rome, or even what
9:00
Speaker 1: I think is very pretty sort of triangles and squares
9:03
Speaker 1: and geometric patterns on Matina, I think the art and
9:07
Speaker 1: innovation is pretty lackluster.
9:08
Speaker 2: In fact, makes the game look ugly.
9:11
Speaker 1: Now Again, the challenge with this game is there's a
9:13
Speaker 1: lot going on and it needs to be very functional,
9:15
Speaker 1: and it is very functional, and that's part of what
9:17
Speaker 1: makes it amazing. This is a game that's different almost
9:20
Speaker 1: every time you play it.
9:21
Speaker 2: It is very.
9:22
Speaker 1: Swingy, but people who are good at it will generally
9:24
Speaker 1: win over people who aren't. Case in point, Gabriel and
9:26
Speaker 1: I play this all the time. He wins like two
9:28
Speaker 1: thirds of the games. Clearly he's better than me. It's
9:30
Speaker 1: not just like over eighty games that he wins forty
9:35
Speaker 1: five or fifty of them or fifty five of them
9:37
Speaker 1: because he gets better card drive every time.
9:39
Speaker 2: No, thank you.
9:40
Speaker 1: It has to do with knowing which cards to do,
9:42
Speaker 1: knowing where to put the pressure, knowing when to make moves,
9:45
Speaker 1: and I have not yet caught up with him in
9:47
Speaker 1: that regard. So this game is great. I love it
9:50
Speaker 1: and that makes it position ten. So going from not
9:53
Speaker 1: on my list at all to position ten should tell
9:56
Speaker 1: you Innovation is top notch and I hope that you
10:00
Speaker 1: you played if you.
10:01
Speaker 2: Get the chance.
10:02
Speaker 1: I currently don't have a copy because my daughter likes it.
10:04
Speaker 2: So when she moved to college.
10:06
Speaker 1: I gave her my copy of Innovation and I had
10:09
Speaker 1: back to the Innovation Ultimate, which is coming soon. So
10:11
Speaker 1: I will soon have my own new copy of Innovation
10:14
Speaker 1: from Osmodi Games. So that's Innovation. My number forty eight
10:18
Speaker 1: of my top fifty in terms of art. My number
10:21
Speaker 1: forty seven game is Carpe dim Carpidum is a Stephenfeld game,
10:26
Speaker 1: and to be fair, I have really only played.
10:29
Speaker 2: The first edition.
10:30
Speaker 1: The copy that I have is the first edition, and
10:32
Speaker 1: I think it's the best one because it has the
10:34
Speaker 1: bouncy star in the middle of the board. We've talked
10:37
Speaker 1: about this before, but when the game came out, some
10:39
Speaker 1: people thought the bouncy star was dumb and said that mathematically,
10:42
Speaker 1: if you're just going around in a circle, it's the
10:43
Speaker 1: same thing as the bouncy star. Yes, but it's less fun.
10:46
Speaker 1: It's more fun to bounce your figure around, and I
10:48
Speaker 1: think it's more interesting. They also did get rid of
10:51
Speaker 1: in changing the circle thing. That actually got rid of
10:54
Speaker 1: a rule which is that you could reverse course if
10:57
Speaker 1: you were next to an empty space, which actually gave
10:59
Speaker 1: you three choices from your open move. You could go
11:03
Speaker 1: to an empty space and bounce back to where you were.
11:05
Speaker 1: You could go in one direction, or you could go
11:07
Speaker 1: in the other direction. They got rid of that, and
11:09
Speaker 1: that's dumb. It's better the way it started. But I
11:12
Speaker 1: will say everything else about the art is either boring
11:14
Speaker 1: or counterproductive. The design includes two different shades of tiles,
11:19
Speaker 1: but the green is so close that you really have
11:22
Speaker 1: to pay attention to divide them up, which makes it.
11:25
Speaker 2: Annoying to put away.
11:26
Speaker 1: Annoying enough that I went in with a sharpie and
11:28
Speaker 1: marked all of the tiles of one type so they're
11:31
Speaker 1: easier to put away. You shouldn't have to do that.
11:33
Speaker 1: And then the buildings that are on the tiles are fine.
11:36
Speaker 1: If you look at the second edition, they released. They
11:38
Speaker 1: readed the art on the tiles makes.
11:40
Speaker 2: It easier to read. They read it the cover.
11:42
Speaker 1: The second edition, I don't know that would end up
11:44
Speaker 1: as number forty seven in my top fifty games by art,
11:48
Speaker 1: but the addition that I have the first edition does
11:51
Speaker 1: not look good. That said, the gameplay is excellent and
11:54
Speaker 1: crisp and puts Carbadium at number forty two, so it
11:58
Speaker 1: is a little higher in my top fifty than it
12:00
Speaker 1: is for art. This is, however, a significant drop. I
12:03
Speaker 1: have discovered a lot of games, and I think I've
12:05
Speaker 1: just cooled generally on Carbadm as a game, such that
12:10
Speaker 1: it used to be at number sixteen, and it dropped
12:13
Speaker 1: twenty six spots since twenty twenty two for me. So
12:18
Speaker 1: while I still really like it, it's still in my
12:20
Speaker 1: top fifty, there are a lot of games that I
12:22
Speaker 1: like better now. By the way, karpe DIM's highest position
12:26
Speaker 1: in my top fifty is twelve, and that was in
12:28
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. I really like you the interaction of the
12:32
Speaker 1: scoring cards, the scoring options on the edge of the board,
12:36
Speaker 1: the challenge of choosing good tiles, the managing of your
12:40
Speaker 1: resources so that you can do well in the scoring functions,
12:43
Speaker 1: and keeping an eye on other players as well. All
12:46
Speaker 1: those things together make Carbadum really good and I'm happy to.
12:49
Speaker 2: Play it anytime.
12:50
Speaker 1: It is available on Yukata dot e or in my
12:53
Speaker 1: game bag if you tell me to bring it. So
12:56
Speaker 1: that's Karpe DM from Stefenfeld, published by Aliya and Robinsberger,
13:00
Speaker 1: I believe, definitely Oliah. I think Robinsburger is the US publisher,
13:06
Speaker 1: although it could.
13:07
Speaker 2: Be Real Grand I don't remember.
13:09
Speaker 1: Finally, my forty sixth game for art is Obsession. Obsession
13:13
Speaker 1: is an excellent game, but I think the art looks
13:16
Speaker 1: like it was made by one person for whom art
13:19
Speaker 1: is not their top priority or skill, and turns out
13:22
Speaker 1: that's true. Now, I will say at Kayanta Games they
13:26
Speaker 1: do have graphic designers that they work with, I believe,
13:28
Speaker 1: so it is not just being made by the designer
13:32
Speaker 1: who is not a graphic designer. But I think that
13:35
Speaker 1: the presentation of the game looks amateurish. As much as
13:38
Speaker 1: I like it the box design it all, it doesn't
13:42
Speaker 1: seem to have the polish that I would expect a
13:44
Speaker 1: professional graphic designer to put on it. The player boards
13:48
Speaker 1: are a little clunky look in, the tiles are a
13:50
Speaker 1: little clunky look in.
13:52
Speaker 2: It all just looks a little clunky, but.
13:54
Speaker 1: That belies a great game with excellent gameplay that has
13:58
Speaker 1: enough randomness that I think I think if you're new
14:00
Speaker 1: at it you could still do well, but enough choice
14:03
Speaker 1: and skill that skilled players will do better random than
14:07
Speaker 1: players who haven't played before, which I don't like a
14:09
Speaker 1: game that just randomly rewards you for playing the game. Thematically,
14:13
Speaker 1: it is a really compelling game with a fun theme.
14:17
Speaker 1: You are a family trying to raise your prospects in
14:21
Speaker 1: a classic society. It's clever and fun and great theme.
14:28
Speaker 1: The thing I like best about it art wise are
14:30
Speaker 1: the photographs that they've either created or found lots of
14:33
Speaker 1: old timey photographs of people to use as the images
14:37
Speaker 1: of the gentry who are coming to visit you.
14:40
Speaker 2: I like that effect.
14:40
Speaker 1: It looks neat, neat, and again the game functions really well.
14:44
Speaker 1: The graphic design works. It's just not polished, and I
14:49
Speaker 1: think if you're into the theme, the idea of the
14:52
Speaker 1: game will draw you in. But I don't think anybody's
14:54
Speaker 1: gonna play Obsession because they think it looks cool. That said,
14:57
Speaker 1: I will give extra props for the player pieces. The
15:02
Speaker 1: Butler's and the housemaids and such. They each have a
15:05
Speaker 1: unique design and color, and they're very cute and fun
15:08
Speaker 1: to have as your weight staff. So that's excellent. So Obsession,
15:13
Speaker 1: which is number forty six on my Top fifty art,
15:17
Speaker 1: is actually number eighteen in my overall list. So Obsession
15:21
Speaker 1: is my number eighteen game. That's up two spots from
15:24
Speaker 1: number twenty, which is where it was in twenty twenty two.
15:26
Speaker 2: With each expansion, I just like it more.
15:28
Speaker 1: I've played it a lot, I'm really enjoying it, and
15:30
Speaker 1: I think it's excellent. I'm looking forward to playing the
15:32
Speaker 1: co op mode which came out recently, and I've been
15:35
Speaker 1: enjoying the Character's expansion, which came out recently. So thanks
15:38
Speaker 1: to Dan Cayanta and Kayanta Games, Obsession my number eighteen game,
15:43
Speaker 1: number forty six in terms of art. Well that's about
15:46
Speaker 1: it for this first of my ten Top fifty episodes.
15:49
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed it.
15:51
Speaker 1: Head over to board game Geek Guild three two sixty
15:52
Speaker 1: nine and start talking about what are your games forty
15:56
Speaker 1: six through fifty. I know I haven't revealed mine yet,
15:58
Speaker 1: but you could also talk about yours in terms of art.
16:01
Speaker 2: As well, and I'd love to hear it. Thanks for
16:03
Speaker 2: joining me on my walk today. I hope your next
16:05
Speaker 2: walk is pleasant.
16:06
Speaker 3: Mind us, Bye bye.
16:27
Speaker 2: Brought to you by rattle Box