Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Oh-Wah-Ree; Spirits of the Rice Paddy; Federation; Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest (revisited)

Transcript

Oh-Wah-Ree; Spirits of the Rice Paddy; Federation; Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step off the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: D while I walk home. I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Well, good evening, listeners.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It's a lovely evening here in suburban Chicago. The weather
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: is pretty warm. I would say we're in the high thirties.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: Or at worst low thirties.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: It's definitely warm compared to just a couple days ago
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: when it was like fifteen out or ten. This is
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the kind of weather I would expect for late November.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: It's a little warm for early December, but not outside
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the realm of normal. I just got off the train
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and I'm headed home. I've had my second to last
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: class day for the semester. I have one more day
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to do, which is nice because the last day of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: class is generally a low work day. I don't have
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: to do a lot of prep for it because mostly
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I just talk to the students about how the class went.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And that's the case for Wednesday, so looking forward to that.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Of course, I have tons of grating to do between
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: now and the end of.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Next week, but I will I'm going to endeavor to
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: get that done with the quickness walking home today from
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the train makes me want to share new ideas and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: insights with you about games, particularly games I've just recently
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: played for the first time. That's right, it's time for
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: a board game Espresso triple shot.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: The board game especial Triple.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Shot is a segment in which I talk about some
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: new games I've played recently. Are new to me games anyway,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: generally I've only played them once or twice, so I
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: don't have a deep understanding of them yet, but I
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: can give you the general idea. So today I am
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: going to be talking about three games that I played recently.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: The first one which I put in the Novelty game
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: category in my ten for ten because I sort of
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: played it with the assumption that I mean sort of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it's a novelty to play at because it's pretty old.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: This is a game called wah Re wah Re.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: It was a three m bookshelf game later published by
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the Avalon Hill Game Company. The designer is Alex Randolph
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and it was published in nineteen sixty two. It is
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a adaptation or variation on Moncala. The game comes in
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: this sort of bookshaped box and when you open it up.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: It makes a.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Circle of I believe twelve little bowls, and then you
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: distribute rocks in the bulls little pebbles, and you add
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: these little colored tokens to parts of the board to indicate.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Which parts of the board belong to you.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Like most moncola games, you play by picking up the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: contents of one bowl and moving them by dropping one
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: pebble in each of the successive bowls until you have
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: run out of pebbles, and then the place where you
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: drop them is the scoring zone.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: The way the game, the way Awari.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Works in particular, is if the spot that you drop
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the pebble in has I think two or three pebbles
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: in it, then you score that bowl. You pick those
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: pebbles up and put them in your scoring zone or
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: you're scoring tub and then you travel backwards along the path,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and if the next bowl backwards along the path also
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: has two or three pebbles in it, you get to
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: score that one also, and you keep going back. It's
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: like a chain reaction until one of the bowls has
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: one or zero or more than three pebbles in it.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: The game is played over a couple of rounds I
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: think three rounds and The round ends when two players
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: in a row.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Have to pass, and you pass.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I believe if there are no pebbles in your zone,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: you have three bowls that belong to you, and those
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: are the ones you get to pick up and move
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: when it's your turn. So that's kind of how the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: game flows. I might be getting it a little bit wrong,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: but if I am wrong, it's not wrong enough to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: change the basic idea of how the game works. So
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: what to say about Oware Like many classic abstract games,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: this game is fun.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: It's a decent game.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: It definitely falls in the category of would happily play
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: if someone else suggested, Do I feel like I need
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: a copy in my collection?
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Probably not. Would I buy it if I found it goodwill? Maybe?
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: The novelty of it certainly fits my collector's attitude, and
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a game from the nineteen sixties which is still fun
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to play is rare enough that yeah, I probably would.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: That said, if someone released a reprint of it today,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: would I be interested in buying it at retail costs?
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: Probably not. Mancala is a classic game for a reason.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: It is an excellent game, and it's definitely enjoyable if
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you get a chance to play, but I would put
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: it in the category of fun but not.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Necessary for the collection.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: That said, the three M bookshelf edition is pretty cool
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: as far as old games go. Like I have a
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Choir Acquires, probably not a game I feel like I
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: have to have, but I have the three M bookshelf
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: edition of it, and I love having that older one. Correction,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I may have the very first Avalon Hill bookshelf edition
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: of it, which looks very similar to the three M edition.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I don't recall which one I have, but anyway, that's Owari,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: designed by Alan Randolph. Next up is a game that
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I had on the top of the Stack in November,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and this is Spirits of the Rice Patty. Spirits to
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the Rice Patty was published in twenty fifteen. Philip Duberry
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: is the designer Jim Maxwell and Daniel Sallas art and
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: graphic design published by eight Ape Games. Philip Duberry is
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a designer who has published a number of games, probably
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: best known for Black Orchestra. He's got a game called
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Revolution with an exclamation point, and he did some stuff
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: on Eminent domain games his name. He's credited as a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: designer on forty two games, so he's certainly no slouch.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Spirits of the Rice Patty is a sort of euro
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: in the classic style in which players are trying to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: create a farm. Is definitely in the sort of middle
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: management euro sphere.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: You are a farmer.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: You're trying to raise crops, use those crops to buy
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: things that make you more efficient at raising crops, then
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: raise more crops, and somewhere along line, you're selling crops
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: to try to get currency, which ends up being points
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: at the end. Now, the two things that make Spirits
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: of the Rice Patty really interesting. One the crop management
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: is very precise. I mentioned this game in a previous
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: episode where I was talking about the ways that patterns
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and flows of different movements require sort of precision thinking,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of what this game is. You have
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: these fields and you have to go rice, but in
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: order to plant them, they have to be dry, but
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: then you flood them, then they grow, and then you
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: have to drain them again before you can harvest them,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and there's this whole back and forth thing with that.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: There are bugs, there are rocks to move, and then
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: so you have this fairly complicated crop raising system. And
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: then on top of it, or in addition, the thing
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: that makes the game really interesting are the spirits. So
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the spirits are essentially power cards that are very strong.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I mean not all of them are very strong, but
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: some of them are. And the way the game works
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: you do a draft, a seven Wonder style draft, pick
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and pass, and once everyone has four of the spirits,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: you're going to play three of them in the game.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: You'll play that do two rounds of three spirits each,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and then the game is over. And the spirits you
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: take have this interesting dynamic where in the first half
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the spirits are numbered one through twenty, in the second
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: half they're numbered twenty one through forty. The lower the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: number of.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Your spirit, the higher priority you have in turn order.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: So if you have Spirit number one, you get to
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: go first. But the thing is your priority number is
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the highest number spirit you've played. So if on your
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: first turnout you play Spirit number twenty, it doesn't matter
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: if in the second round you speak Spirit one, your
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: number is still twenty. So there's a balance to thinking
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: about when you want to play a specific numbered spirit
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and where it puts you in the turn order. And
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: then the second part is, as you can predict, the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: higher number spirits are more powerful, so you get a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: better deal, but you go later in turn order, and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: turn order is pretty important if the water is not plentiful,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: which sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: Of course, I've only played.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Once, so knowing the ebb and flow of the water
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: pun intended and no understanding how to make the most
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of being early in turn order is something none of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: us really new. But the spirits that you get you get.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Like I said, you draft four and you're going to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: play three. Then you draft four more and you play
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: three of those, so you get six altogether. Each one
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: does something different. They'll give you powers, they'll give you
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: special exception rules exceptions, they'll give you points, and in
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: the end, the person as the most Rice wins. The
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: game uses a single currency Rice for both points and
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: when you have to buy stuff, and so that works
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: really well.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: I can see why this game didn't.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Get more love in its era. It is pretty finicky.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: There's a bunch of different stuff going on. You kind
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: of have to keep track of a lot of things.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: And while the precise process that you have to take
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: that I talked about in that previous episode is interesting,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: it's not quite as interesting as some of those other
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: games that make that kind of precision really feel great.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: It's a fun game, and I'm certainly gonna keep it
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: for a while, but I think probably in the long
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: term it will move along at some point. Nonetheless, it
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: was fun to play, and it is a game I
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: would happily play again, or even a couple more times
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: so that I can.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Get the feel for it.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: That is Spirits of the Rice Patty by Philip Doberry.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Next up we have Dusty game. The dusty game I'd
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: like to mention is Libertalia Wins of Gael Crest. This
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: is a game that is one year, nine months and
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: changed Dusty for Libertalia is Libertalia Wins of Gail Crest
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: is of course, sort of a second edition of a
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: classic game by Paulo Moriy that was originally published as Libertalia.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: The original theme was sort of Caribbean Pirates, and the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: new game keeps most.
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Of the gameplay of that other game.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: It keeps it intact, but it changes a couple things. One,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: it adds this reputation system that makes turn order much
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: more interesting. It adds some new pirates. The original game
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I think had thirty some pirates. Topic from this game
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: has forty The basic gameplay is that everyone has a
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: deck of the identical cards. At the beginning the game,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: one player shuffles up that deck and draws six cards
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: from that deck. Everyone else draws those same six cards
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: from their decks. Then you play over four rounds. You're
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: going to play four of those six pirates, and each
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: pirate has different skills on it, different ways of scoring points,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and they often interact with other pirates such that the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: order they get played is really important.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: But you choose which.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Ones you're gonna play each round without knowing what the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: other players are going to play. So it's an issue
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: of trying to figure out, trying to psycho psychologically understand
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: what your opponents are going to do and outthink them,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: along with reading the board. The place I mean that
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: itself is really interesting, and if it were just that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: three times in the game, it would be great. But
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: it gets even better because remember I said, you get
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: six cards, you use four of them.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: That means you have two left.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Well, in the next round you get six more cards,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: so now you have eight, and you're gonna play five rounds,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: so you'll have three left.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: So now you have this escalating thing.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Where you have these cards that you have kept, and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: if you play different cards than one of your colleagues,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: which is quite possible, then you and they both kept
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: different cards, and so you'll have different cards available to you.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: This mix of cards that come out then becomes really
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: fascinating and makes for a very interactive, interesting game with
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: quick gameplay because everyone's playing at the same time, great
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: scoring mechanisms, fun theme, animal like airship animals or anthropomorphized
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: animals living on pirate airships. It's it's just a bucket
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of delight and I'm happy. I'm really happy to have
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: gotten to play it once again. That's Libertalia Wins of
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Gaelcrest from Paolo Moury published by stone Meyer Games. All right,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: that was my dusted off game, and finally the last
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: game of my play is Federation. Federation is a twenty
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: twenty three twenty twenty two game designed by Dmitri Perier
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and Mathemataiu Verdier, art by Miguel Coimbra. Federation is a
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: space themed politics game or a space themed eurogame in
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: which you're competing. It's got a sort of track mechanism.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: There's a theory of different boards on which you can
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: progress and each board, you progress on functions a slightly
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: different way, and you get bonuses and other elements for
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: your civilization from these different boards. Basically the premise of
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the game as there's a galactic Senate and your senators
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: are interacting with the Senate in ways that are meant
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to help your civilization do better. You move yourself up
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: on a variety of different tracks, which are in kind
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: of in the game, unlike a Simil Nucciani game or
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: something where they would just be vertical tracks all kind
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of out. These are hidden, but there's a number of
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: different places where you're gaining benefits but also gaining influence
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: with the planet, and then you try to get the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: planet funded and you get bonuses based on how much
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: influence you have with the planet. There's a whole bunch
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: of sort of overlapping magisteria that result in different kinds
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: of scoring, and I will confess it's still a little
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: bit opaque to me the scoring I've read about it.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I've played two games of it now or maybe three
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: on board game Arena with Gabriel. Hello, Gabriel, if you'd
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: like to try it, you're welcome to join us. I
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: haven't played it more than two players yet, but I
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: suspect it's pretty good. And in the game you are
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: trying to get majorities in a variety of different ways,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: so there's, like I said, a bunch of overlapping nuance
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: to try to grapple with in order to score the points.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And the idea is then there are a couple scoring rounds.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I think there's three or four scoring rounds, and when
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: those happen, your majority based on a couple different things
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: triggers and you get points or not. Thus far, I've
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: done pretty poorly, but yeah, I've played twice. In my
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: second game, I did much better than my first game,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: but still way behind in my scoring over somebody who'd
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: played before. I don't know how many times Gabriel has played,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: so we'll have to see. The art and design is
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: pretty cute on this game. I'm not sure how good
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: it is. I'm not sure how it feels on the table.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I haven't played it in person. It looks like it
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: would be pretty finicky. There's an awful lot of stuff
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: going on, which does give me pause a little bit.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: As the game you might play on the table top,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: but as a digital game, it's pretty interesting. That said,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: it's complex enough. I'm going to have to play it
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: several times before I really feel like I start to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: get a hang of it, because I'm not playing it
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: in one sitting, and you know, that's a trade off
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to make for an online game. It's pretty fun,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: but a little challenging that way. That said, I do
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: enjoy it quite a bit so far, and I'm looking
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: forward to playing more games of it. That's Federation on
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: board Game Arena. So what games have you been playing recently.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: We're into the second week of December, so hopefully you've
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: been playing some wintery games. I'd love to hear how
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the winter is working out for you and what games
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: you're enjoying in the blustery cold of the end of
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the year.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: You can share that.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: With me over on the board game Geek forum for
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: this podcast Up and Deliver forum. That's board game geek
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: dot com slash Guild Slash three two sixty nine, where
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you can follow the link from the show page at
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: radoboxgames dot com. If you have a message for me,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: you can send it to me on board game Geek.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Wanbat nineteen nine is my user name there, or you
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: could send me an email Brendan at radoboxgames dot com.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear what you're playing and what
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: you've been playing. Well, that's about it for my walk today.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me for this board Game Espresso episode.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Help your next walk. This pleasant is my most
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: So bye, brought to you by Rattlebox Game