Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Emptying the Dust Bin (Jan & Feb 2025)

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Emptying the Dust Bin (Jan & Feb 2025) · Pick Up and Deliver

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  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the Podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as
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  I step out for a walk, and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
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  I'm Brendan Riley.
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  Well, good afternoon listeners.
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  It's a gloomy day here in suburban Chicago.
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  There's a cloud cover out.
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  It's not aggressive, but it is gray and it is a little drizzly.
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  So we're looking at a low, a slow wet walk.
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  But it seems pleasant enough.
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  The weather seems nice.
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  Hopefully it won't rain too aggressively.
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  You get my glasses all wet.
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  That would be my main concern.
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  But we'll give it a try.
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  It's possible this is the dumb idea to go for a walk in this weather.
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  Oh well, I'm in it now.
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  All right.
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  I still thought I would talk about some stuff with you while I'm walking.
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  And yeah, let's do it.
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  I started a new thing when I noticed that I had a lot of plays of games that I had done
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  going uncommented upon in my dusty plays.
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  So as a reminder, each month I keep track of how many games I've played that are dusted
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  off, meaning it's been a year or more since I played them and I played them again.
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  And I often will talk a little more detail like reviewing the games when I play them as part
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  of my board game espresso episodes.
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  Well I noticed that I had quite a few recent plays of games that weren't getting commented
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  on at all because I didn't have enough episodes, board game espresso episodes, where I was
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  commenting on them.
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  And so a couple of months ago I started a new format, a new episode shape that I'm calling
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  emptying the dustbin.
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  The idea of this is, I'll do this once a quarter and emptying the dustbin means I will
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  look back at the previous quarter of the year and talk about all of the games I dusted
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  off but didn't get to talk about during board game espresso episodes.
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  Okay, show along those lines to start us off.
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  So this is emptying the dustbin quarter one of 2025.
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  So quarter one of course is January, February and March.
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  These are all the games that I dusted off in January, February or March but didn't get
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  to talk to talk about on the board game espresso episodes.
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  So start with, right in January, the first game I dusted off is my favorite game of all
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  time.
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  This is Android NetRunner.
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  Now, I got the system gateway cards for Android NetRunner and I played those both with
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  my neighbor and my son.
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  My son said he liked the game but he wasn't sure he wanted to play again which is a bummer.
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  I was hoping he would really get into it and we could have a lot of fun with it but it
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  didn't capture the tension.
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  I'll try again but that was a bummer.
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  Yeah, but it did remind me just how good this game is.
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  System gateway is the null signal set that they recommend if you want to start playing
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  NetRunner and it comes with all the stuff you need for two good starter decks and a starter
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  deck of runners and a starter deck of corp.
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  It also comes with a couple different runners, a couple different corps.
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  So once you've tried the starter deck then you can fiddle with it a little bit and try
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  some different basic strategies before you jump into full card selection.
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  It was just like riding a bicycle.
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  I got out the game.
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  I started playing and immediately I was having fun.
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  It reminded me of all the old things that are good about it.
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  Of course playing with starter decks you don't have a ton of depth in terms of the strategy
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  that you're building.
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  You can't build a weird deck switch.
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  End up being a lot of fun once you're deep in the game.
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  But the basic gameplay is there and I like the, I still like the ongoing bluffing element
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  of trying to figure out where the corp might be hiding things, where the runner is planning
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  to go trying to outpace the runner early on if you're the corp to try to get stuff scored
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  before they have their whole system built.
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  As the runner trying to get in quick and get a couple scores before the corp is able to
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  build up some defenses, it's just such a good game.
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  Really interesting.
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  Even just talking about now gets me excited.
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  So hopefully this year will involve a little bit more net runner for me because I missed
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  the game.
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  It's a lot of fun and it was fun to return to it.
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  So it's Android net runner.
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  It had been six years, ten months and fourteen days since I played it but it still holds
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  the spot.
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  Number one.
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  Next is QE. QE is a bidding game.
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  It stands for quantitative easement.
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  It's a very clever game.
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  The whole premise is bids are always secret.
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  The only people who know how much you bid are the auctioneer and the bidder.
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  And everybody else knows you bid more than them because they didn't win the bid.
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  And the whole point of the game is you want to get points by winning a certain number of
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  things.
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  But if at the end of the game you have spent the most money you lose.
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  So the idea is to spend the second most money or even the third most.
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  It doesn't really matter how much you spend as long as you win enough things to get the
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  points you need to win the game.
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  But the core element of it is that you don't know how much the other players have spent.
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  So you get this really wild thing where when you're running the auction, because the way
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  the auction works is when you're running the auction, you make the first bid.
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  And everybody else could bid zero and then you win the auction.
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  Or other people might bid more than you.
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  So the only thing people know is how much the original bid was and how much they bid.
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  And often what happens is you set an original bid, let's say a thousand dollars and somebody
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  bids twenty thousand dollars and they lose the bid.
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  Now they might have lost because someone else bid twenty one thousand dollars or maybe they
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  might have lost because someone bid twenty million dollars and they don't know.
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  So there's this fascinating thing where like you as a player, you know if you're the one
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  who ran the auction, you can see who won.
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  So it's a really good bidding game, very simple to play, complex to understand and anticipate
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  what the other players are doing.
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  It works really well.
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  There are few pure bidding games.
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  This is one of them and I think it is among the best.
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  QE quantitative easement.
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  Next up we have unspe...oh that was five years, two months and sixteen days dusty.
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  We've played New York Slice. New York slice was one year, four months, five days dusty.
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  Jeffrey Allers is the designer of this one I believe.
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  I don't really like this game.
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  I think it's fine.
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  It is a I split you choose game so when it's your turn you are dividing up this pizza into
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  a number of pieces equal to the number of players.
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  Everybody else takes one of the divisions and you get what's left and you're trying to
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  get collections of different kinds of meat in order to score the most points in these
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  different categories.
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  It's relatively simple and not interesting enough to be worth like it's fine.
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  It's a kind of game.
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  If somebody is putting out in a game right in the game you want to play is sure but I'm
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  not going to pick it myself.
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  If someone said "hey Brendan I really want to play an 'I split you choose' game."
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  I would put Mammut which I think is a better version of this kind of game.
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  So that's New York slice.
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  Next up we have unspeakable words, three years, one, one, seven days dusty.
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  Unspeakable words is a word making game.
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  You have these cards and really clever.
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  It's based around the Cthulhu mythos and the often used idea in Cthulhu stories that there
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  is sort of strange geometry at work in the architecture and magic of the elder gods.
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  So part of the idea is that you often see these like non-uclidean geometries that break
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  your mind when you're encountering cosmic horror.
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  So the way that unspeakable words works is that you have a handful of letter cards.
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  Non-unit turn you're going to make a word and then you get points based on how many right
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  angles were in the word.
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  You don't have to keep track of that.
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  It's just each card is a certain number of points.
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  So the letter T is worth two points I think because there's two corners.
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  How many corners are in the letter?
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  The letter T is worth two points.
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  The letter E is worth four.
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  This is like inside corners in the letter.
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  And then you make a word you add up the number and you get them any points and then you roll
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  a twenty-sided die and if you roll over the number that you, the number of corners that
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  the word has or the number of points that it's worth, then you don't lose any sanity.
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  So obviously the more points the word is worth the harder it is to achieve that.
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  But if you roll over the number of points the word is worth then you don't lose any sanity.
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  Otherwise you take one insanity marker thing.
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  If you take five insanity marker things you are insane and I think the game is over.
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  I don't recall if everyone else gets one more turn or if as soon as someone goes mad maybe
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  you finish the round so everybody got an even number of turns.
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  If you go mad you lose you're out of the game otherwise you win if you have the most
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  points.
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  So the game encourages you to push push your luck on when you're losing because if you
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  don't have the most points you might as well take another turn because you're not going
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  to win.
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  My favorite thing about it and the thing that makes it most clever is that once you have
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  four madness points and you're on the verge of going crazy then you're able to use the
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  Elder God's language and you can make words out of whatever letters you want.
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  So you can make words that have very high numbers of points and then hope that you roll
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  well.
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  I think I don't recall for sure but I think that if you roll a twenty you always succeed
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  on your word even if your word is more than twenty points.
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  I don't remember if that's for sure true but I feel like it should be.
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  So that's unspeakable words.
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  It's a pretty simple game but it's a good time.
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  Definitely fun.
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  That's unspeakable words.
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  Next up is a big-foot roll and smash that's one year, two months and fifteen days old.
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  This is a game I designed, a co-designed actually with Rob, my game design partner and I think
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  it's a good time.
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  And the main critique we've seen of it is that there's a lot of downtime in the game and
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  I think if you're playing in a four-player game and people aren't keeping it moving that
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  can be true.
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  I don't find that to be the case when I'm playing two-player.
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  I have a good time with it but there it is.
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  So big-foot roll and smash, driving trucks around, crushing stuff, jumping over things,
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  getting points.
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  It's an interesting, I think, an interesting little puzzle about how to get the most efficient
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  use of the resources that you've gathered.
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  Next up is automobiles.
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  This is three years, four months, and six days, dusty.
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  This game I played online on Yukata.de, I believe, or was it for Gamerina?
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  I think it was Yukata.
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  Either way, this was a fun bag builder in which you are accumulating these cubes and you
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  can use the cubes to drive your car around the track as well as alleviate wear and tear
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  on your engine.
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  Each round you're adding wear and tear to your bag so sometimes when you draw cubes you're
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  going to draw a bunch of wear and tear and then you just can't go as far because you're
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  hand is full of cubes that don't do anything.
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  Automobiles is a fun little game.
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  It's from AEG.
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  It released a game called Trains, a game called Automobiles, a game called Plains.
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  So I guess those are thematically linked although the games aren't related like the way
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  that great Western Trail games are related.
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  They don't work that way.
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  But anyhow, it's a good time.
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  So that's automobiles.
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  I've only played that digitally but I've always had a good time with it.
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  Next up I got a chance to play Hughes and Cues.
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  This is a party game that I haven't played for two years, one month and six days.
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  In this game you have a board that is a grid of different color squares and you have cards
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  that have a little color square on them.
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  On your turn you are going to put, give a one word clue of a color square and you're going
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  to, other players are going to try to put a pip on the board, upon on the board in the spot
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  where they think that color is.
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  So it's about sort of matching perception of colors and idea about colors and your ability
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  to describe them with one word references.
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  I don't really like this game, I'm not good at it.
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  I don't find it particularly exciting.
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  I mostly play it because I'm with a group of people and they want to play it and I'd rather
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  play a game than not play a game.
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  I don't powder anything my way through it.
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  I don't think I make it less fun but generally not my flavor.
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  So that's Hughes and Cues.
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  That's all my dusty plays from January.
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  Did I haven't covered already on the board game espresso?
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  Next up February, I have five dusty plays in February.
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  The first is Bloom.
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  This is one year, seven, one, two, twelve days dusty.
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  This is a game from Game Right and it's released in the same form factor as Quicks.
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  So it comes in a sort of small maybe five by seven box with a little, with about, that's
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  about one inch deep.
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  Comes with a little pad of paper and like five dice.
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  In Bloom you are trying to plant flowers in flower beds and your goal is to plant all
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  the flowers of certain colors and fill up the flower beds.
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  When you fill up flower beds you get one kind of bonus when you plant all the flowers of
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  a certain color you plant another bonus.
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  There are relatively few points to be had in the game.
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  Scores are relatively low but it is a role in right at its heart.
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  Bloom is fine.
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  It's not nearly as good as Quicks.
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  It feels much more limited in what you can do but we have fun every time we play it.
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  I just pretty much never want to play it over Quicks so we don't play it very often.
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  So if you get a chance to play Bloom it's worth your time but if somebody is like would
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  you like to try Bloom or Quicks go Quicks every time.
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  That's Bloom in February.
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  Next up is Fast Forward, Flea.
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  Fast Forward Flea is a game created by Freedom and Freeze part of his Fast Forward series.
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  These are games where the instructions for the game are on cards in the game and so you
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  learn to play them as the game goes along.
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  That's a really neat idea and Flea is a really compelling premise.
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  The premise of Flea is like you're an Alice in Wonderland kind of thing.
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  You are different characters from Alice in Wonderland and you're running away from a monster.
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  As the game goes along you're each turn, you're sitting in a square.
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  Each turns you're going to take a turn and if the person who has the monster right behind
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  them or like each person one of the person has a monster in front of them.
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  If the person who has the monster by them has to take their turn everybody loses.
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  So the goal is just to keep the monster, keep ahead of the monster and as the cards come
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  out you get some choices and if you don't make the right choices you're going to lose.
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  I thought it was an interesting puzzle and I would be interested in trying it again but
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  the first time we played it I think my wife and I played two or three games and she's
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  like I don't need to play this again and I waited three years, seven months and sixteen
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  days to get it out again.
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  We tried it as three players as a group trying to decide what the fourth seat would do and
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  with a similar amount of fun.
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  We played about three rounds of it and then my wife and my mother-in-law both said I don't
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  need to play this again and we were done.
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  So that was Fast Forward Fleet.
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  Next up is Friday.
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  There's another Freedom of Freeze game, this is a solo game in which you play the helper
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  of Robinson Crusoe trying to help him not die on the island.
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  This is a really good solo game and there's a great element of push your luck to it, there's
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  a really good element of deck building, there's interesting choices but you can still lock
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  us still a big factor, it's hard but not impossible.
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  I really like Friday.
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  I haven't played it in a while, I played it this one time after five years, ten months
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  and one day not playing.
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  I was reminded how good it was but then I ran out of time to play it again at that venue
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  and I haven't gotten it back out.
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  It's a really good travel game and I have a good time with it, most times that I play.
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  So I would recommend trying it if you get a chance, that is Friday.
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  Next up is five tribes, I played this one digitally on board game arena, hadn't played it for
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  a while.
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  This game is interesting because I have always really liked it but the last few times
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  I've played it I've liked it less.
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  That is a Moncala style game you're picking up figures and you're dropping them around
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  the board and then you activate the place where you drop the last piece.
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  There's a review I heard of it that sort of talked about that they thought this was kind
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  of a non-game because most of the time there is an obvious play to make.
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  There's one or maybe two places where you might go where there's something interesting
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  and often there's less than that.
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  There's just the one choice and it's like this is clearly the best option.
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  And I kind of saw that last time I played.
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  I think there's an interesting game there and obviously it's been very popular for a
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  long time.
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  It's still in print.
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  People like it but this I was a little less enamored of it this last time I played it.
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  So that's five tribes.
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  And finally Calico, two years, six months and three days dusty.
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  Calico is really interesting because it again, it's like the opposite of Cascadia where
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  Cascadia you build and you have hopes about what you might get but ultimately from the hopes
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  about what you might get you have a mix of different options for what might come out.
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  However, in Calico you are more and more limited as the game comes out.
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  Your ability to score drops as the game goes along and often you just don't get the tiles
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  you need.
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  So there's an element of sort of cutting off your choices and there's a delicious tension
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  to that but often it feels random.
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  Like oh I can go for this goal or that goal and you pick one and then the tiles for the
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  other one come out and you really don't have a way to get around the problem of those
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  tiles coming out.
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  So those things together mean that Calico is tense but not particularly rewarding I
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  think.
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  So that is Calico.
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  Well that is both January and February of 2024 and I think I'm going to stop there.
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  I said quarterly but having looked at two months worth of games I have used up the normal
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  time for the podcast.
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  I think I'm just going to do two months and the next episode will be March and April
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  perhaps or maybe March April and May.
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  We won't do quarters I guess we'll do months as they need to do which is something I do
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  with the movie episodes sometimes too.
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  Sometimes I just don't need.
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  I don't have, I have too many movies to cover for one month or I don't have enough to just
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  do one month so we'll see where it is.
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  So that was Emptyg the Dustbin for January and February of 2024 or 2025.
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  Well thank you for joining me on my walk today.
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  I'd love to hear what you played or returned to what games did you dust off in the last few
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  months.
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  Head over to board game geek guild 3269 and share your thoughts there.
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  I'd also just love to hear from you.
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  Well thanks for joining me on my walk today.
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  I hope your next walk is as pleasant as mine was.
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  Bye bye.
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  Oh hello Goldfinch.
• 19:57
  Right away in Blackbird.
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  Brought to you by Rattlebox Days.
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  (music)