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My Most-Played Games of 2024 · Pick Up and Deliver

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
0:06
Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step off the
0:08
Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
0:10
Speaker 2: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners.
0:22
Speaker 1: It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago. I'm having
0:25
Speaker 1: a nice time walking home in the pleasant weather of
0:29
Speaker 1: a Monday afternoon. It is an unseasonably warm day here
0:33
Speaker 1: in suburban Chicago, although you know that there is often
0:36
Speaker 1: a secret spring that happens, a deceptive spring that shows
0:41
Speaker 1: up here in suburban Chicago, and that is what I've
0:45
Speaker 1: just encountered.
0:47
Speaker 2: It is very warm now, and it's a nice walk home.
0:50
Speaker 1: I've got my stocking cap on but no gloves, and
0:53
Speaker 1: I might indeed have to take my stocking cap off
0:56
Speaker 1: at some point if I get too warm. I saw
1:00
Speaker 1: a little Cooper's hawk, or maybe a sharp shin. I
1:03
Speaker 1: think it was a Cooper's they're the smallest of the
1:05
Speaker 1: sort of suburban raptors and the ones we tend to
1:07
Speaker 1: see here.
1:08
Speaker 2: But it could have been something else. Okay, into away
1:11
Speaker 2: from birding, into gaming, So I was trying to decide
1:13
Speaker 2: what to talk about today.
1:15
Speaker 1: I generally try not to do multiple board game Espresso
1:19
Speaker 1: episodes in a row, although I am still pretty far behind,
1:22
Speaker 1: which I don't like to get too far behind, because
1:25
Speaker 1: then I started forgetting the games.
1:26
Speaker 2: Especially if they weren't particularly great.
1:28
Speaker 1: But I also don't want to bore you with the
1:31
Speaker 1: same kind of content over and over again. And I
1:33
Speaker 1: was thinking I would take a look at my board
1:38
Speaker 1: game stats and see if there was anything interesting to
1:40
Speaker 1: talk about there, And I thought maybe what I would
1:42
Speaker 1: do is reflecting back on twenty twenty four a little bit.
1:45
Speaker 2: I would talk.
1:45
Speaker 1: About some of the games I played the most often
1:48
Speaker 1: and the memorable moments from them if I can't if
1:51
Speaker 1: I have any, So in that regard, here are some
1:56
Speaker 1: like kind of the top fifteen games I played the
1:59
Speaker 1: most in twenty twenty four, and some memories of them.
2:03
Speaker 1: To start with, most of the games I played the
2:06
Speaker 1: very most. Let's see, of the top six games I
2:10
Speaker 1: played the most five of them. Well, the game I
2:14
Speaker 1: recorded the most plays of was unpublished prototype, but that's
2:17
Speaker 1: any prototype I play that's unpublished, I mark as unpublished prototype,
2:21
Speaker 1: And then in board game stats you can mark like
2:23
Speaker 1: the board you're playing on or the level like it
2:26
Speaker 1: gives you a chance to sort of mark the scenario,
2:28
Speaker 1: and I use that to mark the name of the
2:30
Speaker 1: unpublished prototype that I played, but all of those get
2:32
Speaker 1: lump so that doesn't come. So of the next six
2:35
Speaker 1: games on that list, five of them are games that
2:38
Speaker 1: I played entirely online. So these are games I played
2:41
Speaker 1: on board Game Arena or on Yukata dot de and
2:44
Speaker 1: so I'll start with those. The most played game was
2:48
Speaker 1: Packs Renaissance. I had a string there for several months
2:52
Speaker 1: where I was just playing churning the game, playing it
2:55
Speaker 1: over and over again with Chris, Hey, Chris, and one
2:58
Speaker 1: other guy, Jeffrey.
3:00
Speaker 2: I don't know who that is, Eric G played a
3:02
Speaker 2: little bit too, Hey, Eric.
3:04
Speaker 1: And this is a game I am really interested in.
3:07
Speaker 1: It's very complicated, and I feel like I got about
3:12
Speaker 1: eighty percent in terms of understanding how it worked. There's
3:15
Speaker 1: still a lot of mystery to it, and I think
3:18
Speaker 1: the fact that I've never played it on the table
3:20
Speaker 1: probably gets in the way because when you played it
3:23
Speaker 1: on the table, then you have to enforce all the
3:24
Speaker 1: rules and you learn them better, whereas when you play
3:27
Speaker 1: it online it doesn't quite work out as well. So
3:31
Speaker 1: that's kind of that's kind of what's happened with that,
3:36
Speaker 1: But I did have a string of a couple games
3:39
Speaker 1: where I did really well and I won in a row.
3:42
Speaker 1: In particular, I was enjoying winning through the exploration or
3:46
Speaker 1: religious winning conditions. The imperial one is sort of least
3:50
Speaker 1: interesting to me, although it seems to be the most
3:52
Speaker 1: accessible one, so I probably should learn how to do
3:55
Speaker 1: it better. But yeah, So that's packs Renaissance, a game
3:59
Speaker 1: I played three three times last year, all online. Next
4:03
Speaker 1: up is Daybreak. Daybreak is a new cooperative game from
4:06
Speaker 1: Matt Leecock. I think there's one other designer there, but honestly,
4:09
Speaker 1: I don't remember who it is. And it is a
4:13
Speaker 1: game about trying to fight climate change. Like pandemic, there's
4:18
Speaker 1: an escalating set of bad things happening, and if you're
4:21
Speaker 1: not careful and you don't control them, they get worse
4:23
Speaker 1: and worse and worse, and then you lose.
4:25
Speaker 2: But you also can.
4:26
Speaker 1: Work together to try and fight those problems but also
4:30
Speaker 1: accomplish big scenarios that will let you win the game.
4:33
Speaker 1: And your goal is to get to a point where
4:35
Speaker 1: where the whole world is carbon neutral or actually carbon progressive,
4:39
Speaker 1: and we are stabilizing the environment.
4:41
Speaker 2: It's a really interesting game.
4:43
Speaker 1: I played it a whole bunch of times in a row,
4:46
Speaker 1: usually with Ray and Rich. Hey, guys, I know Ray
4:50
Speaker 1: listens sometimes, at least or used to.
4:52
Speaker 2: I don't know.
4:53
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know if Ray's listening anymore. Hey, Ray,
4:55
Speaker 1: if you're listening, let me know. I don't think Rich does.
4:57
Speaker 1: But lots of fun opportunities there for gameplay. That game
5:04
Speaker 1: really is satisfying. When you come up with a good
5:07
Speaker 1: combo that you can help someone else with and really
5:10
Speaker 1: just make a big move or get a good engine going,
5:13
Speaker 1: that game's really satisfying. It's also kind of despairing when
5:17
Speaker 1: something when it goes really badly because you're like, oh,
5:20
Speaker 1: I'm failing to save the world next times. Through the
5:23
Speaker 1: Ages this is a game I played twenty three times
5:27
Speaker 1: last year and probably is my second most played game
5:31
Speaker 1: ever after Netrunner. It's still a good hundred plays shy
5:34
Speaker 1: of Netrunner, but it's creeping up, and since I haven't
5:37
Speaker 1: been playing Netrunner consistently, it wouldn't be surprising if eventually
5:40
Speaker 1: it passes it. But I would like to get some
5:42
Speaker 1: more Netrunner played anyway. Yeah, so Through the Ages still
5:47
Speaker 1: remains excellent I've really been enjoying my plays lately with Gabriel,
5:51
Speaker 1: who is accelerating in skill much faster than I am.
5:54
Speaker 1: I think, if I understand it correctly, the Gabriel is
5:58
Speaker 1: relatively new to the game and is learning it as
5:59
Speaker 1: we play, which is a similar arc to the one
6:02
Speaker 1: I went through. But I lost ninety games before I
6:04
Speaker 1: won and that certainly hasn't been the case with Gabriel.
6:08
Speaker 2: So well done there, sir.
6:10
Speaker 1: I can't think of any particularly great plays. I did
6:13
Speaker 1: have a pretty terrible play with a couple friends with
6:16
Speaker 1: Jason and Dave and Kevin, where I got kind of
6:20
Speaker 1: stuck in a position where I didn't have enough military
6:23
Speaker 1: to defend myself, and then they basically just took turns
6:26
Speaker 1: of declaring war on me and taking my stuff, and
6:28
Speaker 1: it was pretty brutal. It was the only time playing
6:31
Speaker 1: that that I've really strongly considered resigning. I didn't because
6:34
Speaker 1: it's interesting to play out the game no matter what.
6:36
Speaker 1: But it was a rough game.
6:38
Speaker 2: So that was through the ages.
6:41
Speaker 1: I've also played Guy a Project twenty two times last
6:44
Speaker 1: year online and Pax Premiere twenty times last year. Both
6:49
Speaker 1: of those I'm less excited about. Mostly I was playing
6:52
Speaker 1: them because other friends wanted to play and invited me,
6:54
Speaker 1: and I am interested in figuring out the systems, but
6:58
Speaker 1: they're less exciting to me than some of these other games.
7:02
Speaker 1: Pax Premiere in particular, I never really got a handle on,
7:05
Speaker 1: and so I don't think I was a very good,
7:07
Speaker 1: very good opponent. But those are my top five games
7:10
Speaker 1: that I played entirely online. Next up, I have my
7:13
Speaker 1: top five games that I played entirely on the table,
7:17
Speaker 1: and the top one is frost Haven, which is my
7:19
Speaker 1: second most played game. Last year we had twenty seven
7:22
Speaker 1: plays of frost Haven, which comes out to you one
7:26
Speaker 1: every other week, just pretty good for a whole year.
7:30
Speaker 1: We tried to get a little more often than that,
7:32
Speaker 1: but sometimes we go like a month without playing, but
7:34
Speaker 1: then we play every week for a while. It was
7:36
Speaker 1: a really fun time, and we're still working our way through.
7:39
Speaker 1: We have ways to go before we're done, but frost
7:42
Speaker 1: Haven continues to be a delight particularly wondrous moment. Of course,
7:48
Speaker 1: because it's a game that has randomized attacks, there are
7:51
Speaker 1: always moments.
7:51
Speaker 2: Where like we're on the verge of.
7:53
Speaker 1: Defeat or something, and somebody has a particularly great card
7:57
Speaker 1: draw and we.
7:58
Speaker 2: Win the battle a number of those.
8:01
Speaker 1: It was really fun seeing everybody get very good with
8:04
Speaker 1: their first characters. We weren't a really long time without
8:07
Speaker 1: retiring just because we had bad or difficult life goals
8:10
Speaker 1: that made it hard to complete. And then one by
8:13
Speaker 1: one we all retired those characters pretty close together, so
8:16
Speaker 1: we're all now on new characters that are making for
8:20
Speaker 1: interesting new play. All in all, frost Haven is really fun.
8:23
Speaker 1: I think I don't know that I like it dramatically
8:25
Speaker 1: more than gloom Haven. The stuff that they added with
8:28
Speaker 1: the town is fine, but I don't find it particularly compelling.
8:33
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have minded just more gloom Haven, So from
8:36
Speaker 1: that perspective, it's fine. In terms of the gameplay, I
8:40
Speaker 1: love it. I love the new characters. I love the
8:42
Speaker 1: way that they play the top notch game. That's why
8:45
Speaker 1: it was so high on my top fifty list. They
8:47
Speaker 1: don't remember it was, but definitely in the top five,
8:50
Speaker 1: might have been three. But I think of that as
8:52
Speaker 1: the Haven games, so it's not just gloom Haven or
8:55
Speaker 1: frost Haven, but rather any of the Haven's I think
8:58
Speaker 1: of them all as one game.
9:00
Speaker 2: Donny Woodpecker today, I know you hear it. That's a
9:04
Speaker 2: Donny woodpecker.
9:05
Speaker 1: See if I can get a little closer, it's probably
9:06
Speaker 1: get a fly away if I get too close.
9:08
Speaker 2: But I'm just walking on the sidewalk. It's full of
9:10
Speaker 2: beans today. It's moving really fast. Look it all over
9:13
Speaker 2: the place. Next up is a big drop. We're down
9:15
Speaker 2: to fifteen plays on the table. This is Door for Romantic.
9:19
Speaker 1: Door Romantic is a cooperative game based on the or
9:23
Speaker 1: inspired by Anyway, the computer game that functions the same way.
9:27
Speaker 1: You have a series of tiles with different landscapes on them,
9:30
Speaker 1: and you're playing them to try to complete groups of
9:33
Speaker 1: matching tiles and earn points in a variety of ways.
9:37
Speaker 2: The tabletop game is really interesting.
9:39
Speaker 1: It starts with a relatively tight set of things that
9:43
Speaker 1: you can do, and then as you play, you unlock
9:46
Speaker 1: more and more stuff, and the game becomes more and
9:48
Speaker 1: more complex and more and more interesting, and you have
9:51
Speaker 1: these achievements that you're trying to get. It makes for
9:54
Speaker 1: a really fun campaign game. But it's a very kind
9:57
Speaker 1: of casual, relaxing game to play, and we are really
10:03
Speaker 1: really enjoying it. We've only been playing it with my
10:05
Speaker 1: in laws, but when they visit we often play two
10:08
Speaker 1: or three games in a sitting, and we often play
10:10
Speaker 1: like two sittings per visit, so we're often playing four
10:13
Speaker 1: to six games of Door Romantic in a weekend or
10:18
Speaker 1: in a three day visit, and that has made.
10:21
Speaker 2: For really fun play. I like that a lot.
10:24
Speaker 1: The last three games that I have on the table
10:26
Speaker 1: are all games I've played at game days or game
10:28
Speaker 1: nights where we have a bunch of people and we're
10:30
Speaker 1: trying to figure out something to play.
10:32
Speaker 2: And these are Wits and Wagers, Ink and Gold and Coup.
10:35
Speaker 1: Now, all three of these games they play pretty quick,
10:38
Speaker 1: so you can get multiple plays in one sitting. I
10:40
Speaker 1: mean with Coup especially, it's pretty rare to play less
10:43
Speaker 1: than twice. So I bet if I looked at my
10:46
Speaker 1: plays in detail, I would find two or three plays
10:48
Speaker 1: in a sitting there. But Wits and Wagers, Ink and
10:51
Speaker 1: Gold and Coop, each of them I played eight times
10:54
Speaker 1: on the table last year. Wits and Wagers is probably
10:57
Speaker 1: the biggest swing there because that one is it takes
11:00
Speaker 1: like forty five minutes to an hour. It's pretty rare
11:02
Speaker 1: to play like two plays of it in a row.
11:05
Speaker 1: Part of where I'm getting those plays is my college
11:07
Speaker 1: board Game club often it's the last game of the
11:09
Speaker 1: night or the first game of the night, where where
11:11
Speaker 1: we've got a few people more than one table worth,
11:14
Speaker 1: but not enough to divide into like three tables, and
11:17
Speaker 1: so we'll play a bigger game.
11:18
Speaker 2: Like Wits and Wagers. I also have a mega set
11:20
Speaker 2: of Wits.
11:20
Speaker 1: And Wagers that I've made by buying two sets of
11:23
Speaker 1: Wits and Wagers and altering the components so we can
11:26
Speaker 1: play sixteen people in one game. It changes the balance
11:30
Speaker 1: a little bit, but no big deal. Inking Gold is
11:33
Speaker 1: reliably great. I don't know that I have a special
11:35
Speaker 1: memory from it this year, except to say that it.
11:39
Speaker 2: Continues to be a really good game. It's constantly enjoyable.
11:44
Speaker 1: There's a fun pushy luck element, although often by round
11:48
Speaker 1: four or five, if you're doing pretty badly, you can
11:51
Speaker 1: just tell, okay, I'm not going to win. So that
11:53
Speaker 1: is one of the downsides to inc and Gold. That
11:55
Speaker 1: is not necessarily true of the other games. All right,
11:58
Speaker 1: So those are my strictly on the table plays, and
12:02
Speaker 1: I thought I would also comment here for a minute
12:04
Speaker 1: on plays of games where I played it both on
12:07
Speaker 1: the table and wow, that guy did not even stop
12:13
Speaker 1: kind of stop for the stop sign games where I
12:16
Speaker 1: played on the table and online a mix of them.
12:20
Speaker 1: So the top play of that at seventeen plays is
12:23
Speaker 1: ark Nova. I played five times on the table and
12:26
Speaker 1: twelve times online. Arknova continues to be great. It's in
12:29
Speaker 1: my top five I don't remember where, or definitely my
12:32
Speaker 1: top ten. There is some luck driving the experience, so
12:36
Speaker 1: you can't always count on getting what you need, but
12:39
Speaker 1: the reliability or the ability to really find ways to
12:44
Speaker 1: put your point total forward continues to be really fun.
12:48
Speaker 1: I love the prospect of getting different animals in your zoo.
12:51
Speaker 1: I like the idea of the different kinds of conservation
12:54
Speaker 1: actions and such. All in all, it's great. That's ark
12:57
Speaker 1: Noova continues to be good.
13:00
Speaker 2: Team plays. I don't know that I have. I don't
13:01
Speaker 2: have a specific play. I will say I think it's in.
13:03
Speaker 1: The last year that I got the Marine expansion, and boy,
13:06
Speaker 1: that that's they must have. Like I don't play, I
13:09
Speaker 1: don't like to play the game without it anymore, at
13:12
Speaker 1: least on the table. The board game Marine I don't
13:14
Speaker 1: think has the Marine expansion yet, which is a bummer
13:17
Speaker 1: because I think it smooths out some of the rough
13:19
Speaker 1: edges from luck and just makes the game better. Oh
13:22
Speaker 1: there's another downy, different one than the one I saw before.
13:25
Speaker 1: This one has a big patch of red on its head.
13:28
Speaker 1: Next up, also at seventeen plays. This is two plays
13:31
Speaker 1: on the table and fifteen online is Obsession. I went
13:34
Speaker 1: through a stretch where we were playing a lot of
13:36
Speaker 1: Obsession on board game Marina, and I think it honed
13:38
Speaker 1: my skills significantly. But boy, that game is continues to
13:43
Speaker 1: be a lot of fun. I really like the variety
13:46
Speaker 1: of different servants you can get, the different wind conditions,
13:49
Speaker 1: the luck involved in drawing cards, and overall it just
13:54
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on in that game that makes
13:56
Speaker 1: it really fun. I don't think I have a good
13:58
Speaker 1: specific memory of the game to call up, except perhaps
14:03
Speaker 1: to say that we had gone a while. I had
14:06
Speaker 1: had several plays of the game where I won and
14:09
Speaker 1: my wife didn't and it was getting to be a problem.
14:11
Speaker 1: And then she had a game where she just absolutely
14:13
Speaker 1: shellocked me. So that was a good turnaround, and it
14:16
Speaker 1: was fully honest, just skillful play on her part, poor
14:21
Speaker 1: play online, But that continues to be a great game Obsession.
14:26
Speaker 1: I have three more games that I played on the
14:30
Speaker 1: table and online that I want to talk about the
14:33
Speaker 1: next one at nine plays or outside the next one
14:36
Speaker 1: at twelve plays is innovation. I had five plays of
14:39
Speaker 1: this on the table and seven plays online. Boy, Innovation
14:42
Speaker 1: is great continues to be excellent. I've learned that Innovation
14:46
Speaker 1: Ultimate is on its way to me via the magic
14:49
Speaker 1: of World Delivery Services. I'm not sure when I'll get it,
14:52
Speaker 1: but it should be sometime soon. I'm excited to have
14:55
Speaker 1: that and bust it out on the table now. I
14:58
Speaker 1: haven't really played innovation with with expansions very much, but
15:02
Speaker 1: this seems like the opportune opportunity, So watch out people
15:07
Speaker 1: at tables with me. I had a really good game
15:10
Speaker 1: of this at toggle with a couple friends. It was
15:13
Speaker 1: really fun at three player, lots of back and forth,
15:17
Speaker 1: lots of negotiating of who's going to win, and a
15:21
Speaker 1: big finish from Grace I believe. So that was great innovation.
15:25
Speaker 1: Seven Wonders is the only game of this group where
15:29
Speaker 1: I played on the table more than I played online.
15:30
Speaker 1: I have six plays on the table and five plays online.
15:33
Speaker 1: Seven Wonders a reliable hit.
15:35
Speaker 2: Boy, Do I like it?
15:36
Speaker 1: The last couple of times I've played where I've won,
15:39
Speaker 1: I've won with blue so Blue seems to be a
15:42
Speaker 1: reliable winner for me. If I can get a good
15:43
Speaker 1: engine going and just start stacking up those blue cards,
15:46
Speaker 1: sometimes I can get over the edge, especially if I
15:48
Speaker 1: can do Blue and then supplement it with a couple
15:52
Speaker 1: third round military wins to get that extra ten points.
15:55
Speaker 1: That's that's been reliable and delightful for me. I haven't
15:59
Speaker 1: had much luck going science. Every time I try to
16:02
Speaker 1: go Science, somebody else does it, or they block me.
16:04
Speaker 1: But Blue has been productive. That's seven Wonders and finally,
16:08
Speaker 1: Terraforming Mars with nine plays barely squeaks in because I
16:12
Speaker 1: had one play on the table and eight plays online.
16:16
Speaker 1: The one play on the table, though, was a real
16:17
Speaker 1: delight because we played a full five hour game with
16:20
Speaker 1: three people and every expansion, just the whole kit and
16:24
Speaker 1: kaboodle piled in there. It was awesome, really fun game,
16:28
Speaker 1: really fun time. Glad to have had, Glad to have
16:30
Speaker 1: had the opportunity, and.
16:32
Speaker 2: Boy, I like that game.
16:33
Speaker 1: That's Twilight and Period or that's Terraforming Mars base game
16:37
Speaker 1: and many expansions.
16:38
Speaker 2: Well that's about it for me. That a little bit
16:41
Speaker 2: about what I played last year. Sart of the most played.
16:43
Speaker 1: Games and what I remember and enjoyed about them. If
16:47
Speaker 1: you would like to share with me the games you
16:49
Speaker 1: played last year, I'd love to hear it. Head over
16:51
Speaker 1: to board game Geek Guild three two six nine and
16:54
Speaker 1: share those.
16:55
Speaker 2: I'd also just love to hear what you're playing.
16:57
Speaker 1: Generally, I'm always happy happy to know that as well.
17:00
Speaker 1: So thanks for joining me on my walk today. I
17:03
Speaker 1: hope your next walk is as most.
17:04
Speaker 2: As mine was. Good Bye, brought to you by rattle
17:28
Speaker 2: Box