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Things I Like About Real-Time Games · Pick Up and Deliver

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Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the Podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step
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off the train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
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I'm Brendan Riley.
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Well, this is an experiment episode based on the theme of the episode.
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Greetings friends.
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It is a lovely afternoon here in suburban Chicago.
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The sun is out.
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It's chilly.
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It's cold enough I'm wearing a toque but warm enough that I don't need gloves.
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I probably could get away without the toque but I'd be a little chilly and I don't want
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to be chilly.
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This week in my board game club I am going to be hosting a real-time extravaganza.
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I'm bringing a number of games to the board game club that are played in real time.
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And so with this podcast I'm out walking on a wire because I'm not going to edit it at
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all. [Transcription note: I have edited the transcription for clarity, but not length or repeated words]
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What you're going to hear is the exact amount of time between when I say "Welcome to Pick
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Up and Deliver" and when I say whatever it is that I say at the end of the podcast.
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So that means that all the uncomfortable pauses and anytime when I go "Ugh" -- which is more
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than I like to admit -- will be in the podcast.
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I don't do this to you very often--in fact rarely--but I thought it would be interesting for
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you to see what is this podcast like in real time without the editing.
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I'm also not going to run the "truncate silence" function on Audacity which I use to cut
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down the amount of silence in the episode.
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So if this one feels a little bit drawn out, my apologies. But now you'll know what it's
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like to actually walk with me rather than walking with me slightly massaged.
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So this will be interesting.
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Like I said for my board game club in my college I am doing a real-time extravaganza so I thought
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I would talk about what I like about real-time games which real-time games I like and what
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I like about them.
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I'm going to start with quick reactions.
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So what I've done is I've picked out a number of different kinds of real-time games and
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made a list of games that I have played or enjoyed or both played and enjoyed that
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fit that category.
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So I'm going to start with favorite real-time games.
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Oh so quick reactions.
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These are games where a big part of playing them is reacting quickly to what's going on
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on the table and hopefully winning because you react faster than the other players.
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The height of this game for me is Anomia.
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Anomia is a real-time quick reaction game where you are facing off against other players.
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I've talked about a number of times here on the podcast.
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It is weird and delightful because it's paralyzing in its speed because you can react quickly
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and put yourself in the position of okay I need to react.
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You have to react twice.
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You have to react once by saying okay I have to react and then you have to come up with
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a word with which to react.
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You have to do both of those things faster than your opponent does those same two things.
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It's a really interesting game and very frustrating.
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It can be kind of almost debilitating to play and it's a delightful kind of stress.
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That's Anomia.
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Another game that I put in the quick reactions category is Heist.
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This is a cooperative game in which you are working together to try to react quickly
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to voice commands.
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Each player has a variety of things around and you're going to work together to try
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to react to the voice commands in the game quickly.
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So it will say each person has a name so you're the money man or you're the safe cracker or
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demolitions expert and it will say demolitions expert give the goggles to the safe cracker
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and it sort of gives you these commands and there's always a little tokens around the
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table.
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he's passing around, you have to hit buttons,
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you have to move stuff around.
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And, when you've done all of those things, then,
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if you do them correctly, then the game rewards you
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by leveling up.
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And you win after a certain amount of time.
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You're earning money as you go along.
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That's Heist.
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Designed by Rob Davieau, I played it at Gen Con one year.
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And I ended up finding a copy.
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We got a copy for our game club,
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but then ended up buying a copy myself at,
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I think, Goodwill.
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And it's a fun game to play occasionally.
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A couple more fast reaction games that I'm generally
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not good at.
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SET is another one.
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This one, you are trying to solve a problem as quickly
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as you can.
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And then when you see it, you say set,
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and you grab the collection that you see.
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So there's an element of making your brain work quickly,
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which I'm really bad at.
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Dutch Blitz is a game where you're sort of playing
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a simplified version of solitaire,
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but you're building your cards into the middle of the table
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and trying to do that as quickly as you can.
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The person who gets the most cards into the middle of the table
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is going to get the most points,
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but you also need to
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whittle down this one pile that's on the side of the table
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because that is how you end the round.
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And if you end the round with nothing left in that pile,
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then you don't lose any points.
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Everybody else will lose points
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because they have things in that pile.
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If you haven't played Dutch Blitz, it's really good.
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It's very intense, really fun, pretty fast.
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Two more games that I put in this category are
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Dropolter and Taco cat goat cheese pizza.
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Taco cat goat cheese pizza is a real time card game
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kind of like slap jack.
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And you are putting it on cards in order.
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And if you play a card and it doesn't match
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the word that you're saying, then you have to slap it
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or someone else might slap it and they win the card.
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So it's a race game or a response game
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that has to do with what you're seeing come up.
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Or maybe it's the other way around if you,
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you're saying "Taco cat goat cheese pizza"
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or "Taco cat goat cheese and pizza."
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And if the thing that you say comes up with the word,
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maybe that's when you slap it, I don't remember.
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It's been a while, but it is a real time game
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where you're slapping stuff.
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And then Dropolter, I have talked about not that long ago,
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but it's one of the oink games where you are using
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hand-dexterity to try to grab things off the table
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or drop things so that you have the right things in your hand.
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You're trying to move quickly, but you have to be accurate as well.
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The last game I'll put in this quick reactions.
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Category is Stay Cool.
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This is a game published by Iello,
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I don't remember who designed it,
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but it is a brutal brain melter.
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The way the game works is that on your turn,
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you have to answer two kinds of questions at the same time.
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You have questions that you're answering out loud
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and questions that you're answering with these letter dice.
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And you're being asked the questions
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both at the same time, you have to get through all of them.
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And there are two people asking it,
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and they're both asking you over and over again,
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sort of loud and annoying.
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It's really quite masterful.
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And then on the second level, you have to do the same thing,
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but there's a timer.
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Oh, on the first level, I think there's a timer,
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and you have to tell someone to flip the timer,
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and you can see the timer.
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On the second one, there's a timer behind a shield,
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and you can't see the timer.
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And you have to tell someone to flip the timer.
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So it gets more difficult as the game goes along.
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That's stay cool.
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So those are all games that involve quick reactions,
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sort of really being on your toes.
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The next couple are games that I would call
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"Shouty Games."
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Games where a big part of the real-time element
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is how quickly and how loud you can shout.
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The preeminent version of this is pit.
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Pit is a classic card game, literally like 100 years old.
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And in it, you are trying to corner the market
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by trading with people, and you're doing that by shouting,
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like in the old-timey stock market.
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Then when you corner the market, you yell "Pit,"
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and you get to ring a bell to stop trading.
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That's pretty cool.
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Another game that involves sort of shouting
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and trading is "Happy Salmon."
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"Happy Salmon" is an excellent little game
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where you are trying to match with people,
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and trade with them as you do the same thing.
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So you fist bump, you do a high five.
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There is a thing called a "Happy Salmon,"
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which is a sort of weird hand shake.
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It feels like you're joining the Monty Python Illuminati
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when you do a "Happy Salmon," or you run around the table.
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Those are really interesting to do
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because you're trying to do them quickly,
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you're trying to match with other people,
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but you are shouting to do it.
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On a related note, the call of the wild
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and dude are both games that involve saying things
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and matching in real-time, but they aren't "shouty" per se.
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So those I would sort of say are kind of honorable mentions.
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Next up, the next kind of real-time game I would talk about
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are "Fast Action Games."
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There are two categories, two subcategories here.
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I'll say "Fast Action, Co-op Games" and "Fast Action Competitive Games."
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In both cases, these are games where there's a fairly complicated
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amount of stuff to do.
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The Co-op ones, you're all kind of working together as you do them.
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And I guess I point to these as different from the quick reaction
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games because there's more like you're doing a thing
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against a timer, whereas the quick reaction games
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you're following after somebody says something
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in particular to you or something happens,
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you're reacting to it.
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In the "Fast Action Games," there's a timer
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and you're trying to work against it.
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So my favorite version of "Fast Action,"
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Co-op would be "Escape Curse of the Temple."
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This is a "Fast Dice Rolling Game"
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where you're trying to get your characters out of the temple.
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You're reacting.
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There's a music soundtrack that's playing that's very ominous
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and you have to roll dice to move your character through.
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If you get stuck, you have to ask for help.
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And as you go through, you are trying to find these gems
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and get yourself out of the temple.
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Three times during the game, there's this gong.
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And then everybody has to get back to the safe room.
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If you don't get back to the safe room,
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you lose one of your dice, which is really brutal.
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The third time, if you don't get back,
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if you, the first two times, you have to get back to the safe room.
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The third time, hopefully your group will have found the exit.
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And when you find the exit, then everybody has to get out.
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The beauty of the exit is you have to have done well
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throughout the temple to get out the exit
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because the way you get out is to roll enough of the exit keys
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and the exit keys you have to roll as many as there are gems plus one.
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So if the group has not found and removed all the gems,
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then you won't be able to get out of the temple.
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It's really clever and very interesting.
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So that is Escape Curse of the Temple.
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A couple other fast action games that I would point to
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as really interesting are Fuse,
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which is a dice rolling game where you're trying to put
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combinations of dice on these cards.
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Again, you're playing for time, trying to complete the cards
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like you're just disarming bombs.
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London Dread is a really interesting planning game
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where during the real time phase you are talking to each other
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and making plans about what you're going to do.
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Then when the real time phase is over, you resolve it
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to see how well you did on those plans.
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Another version of that or another game like that is Space Alert.
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Space Alert is another game where you make plans
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and you go in real time and then you see what happens
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to see how well you resolve those plans.
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Finally, Illiterati is a real time spelling game
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where you are trying to spell words as quickly as you can
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that meet goals.
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And everybody is trying to meet their goals at the same time.
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But if you don't as a group use all the letters,
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then these penalties come in that get worse and worse
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and the game sort of ramps up to making you lose
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because you didn't account for all the penalties
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or didn't adequately resolve all the penalties.
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That's Illiterati.
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There's another category of fast action games.
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These are fast action competitive games.
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These ones are particularly fun, but I find very hard
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to find people who want to play them with
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because they are incredibly intense
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and often debilitatingly difficult
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because they demand that you make choices quickly.
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One that I think was a grand scheme
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but didn't ultimately succeed for a lot of people
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was pendulum.
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I thought pendulum was pretty fun, but nobody else liked it.
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So it didn't stay in my collection.
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But this one had the real time element of trying to take turns
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and do things while the timers are clicking
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or the sand timers are running
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and the difficulty of keeping track of the rules
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and doing that is pretty interesting, I thought.
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But a lot of people didn't like that.
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Galaxy Trucker is another one.
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This one, there isn't a timer at the beginning.
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You're just racing with other players to build your ship.
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And one person when they decide they're done building their ship
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can declare that they're done
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and then they start a timer.
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And I think timer is one or two minutes
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and everyone has to stop when the timer runs out.
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So I have never actually played this one properly
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because my children always wanted to take their time
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and build really robust ships.
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So there was never really a racing element.
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I would love to play this sometime
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with people who are actually racing
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because I imagine it would be hilarious.
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(sighs)
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Two other real-time competitive games
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that I enjoy bullet heart or bullet star
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or whatever, there's a bunch of different bullet games.
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This is a real-time puzzle solving game
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where it's kind of like Dr. Mario,
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the better you do on your board,
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the more penalties you give to your opponent
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that they after resolve in the next round.
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(laughs)
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Sidereal Confluence is a trading and negotiation game
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that also has a really interesting real-time element.
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It is not quite as rushed or dramatic
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as some of the other real-time games,
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but the trading element is in real time.
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So there's no taking turns making offers.
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It's just, hey, I'll trade this with you.
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You want to trade this with me?
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Hey, hey, hey, let's go, let's go.
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So there is an element of wanting to get your deal made
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before other people make trades and take away
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the resources you need to make your deal.
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That one works pretty well.
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Finally, the last form of real-time game I wanted to mention here
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would be real-time co-op games in which you're taking turns.
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Kites is the best example.
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You have these sand timers running
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and you have to take turns taking your turns.
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And so sometimes I can solve a problem,
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but it's your turn and I have to wait for you to solve it.
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There's a really interesting feeling of go-go-go,
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get it done, get it done.
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That I like.
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Magic Rabbit is another one of these.
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It is a card manipulation game that has a real-time element
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and we're all working together, but you also can't communicate.
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You have to, you're limited in how you communicate
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with one another for that one.
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And then finally, bomb busters is a puzzle solving game
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where you are trying to solve puzzles again in real-time.
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It's great.
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Well, I feel like I mostly just listed games.
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I didn't tell you a lot about what I liked about them,
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but it is the tension that's created when you are
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trying to do a thing quickly
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that I find make real-time games have that extra something.
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So what are your favorite real-time games?
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Share over in boardgamegeek guild #3269.
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And let me know.
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I'd love you to hear from you.
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Until next time, thanks for joining me on my walk today.
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I hope you next walk is as pleasant as my walk.
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Goodbye.
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