Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Ink & Clues; Skyjo; Discworld: Ankh-Morpork; Obsession: Characters Expansion

Transcript

Ink & Clues; Skyjo; Discworld: Ankh-Morpork; Obsession: Characters Expansion · 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 two while I walk home.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon friends. It's a lovely
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: day here in suburban Chicago. The sun is out. It's crisp,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: but not too cold. I would put it in the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: high twenties if I had to guess. And I'm walking
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: home from the train, I thought it would be an
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: excellent time to do another shooting from the hip. No,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and that's a flashback another board.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Game Espresso Triple Shot.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Order up a board game Espresso Triple Shot is a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: short review episode in which I pick out three games
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I've played for the first time recently and talk about
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: them a little bit, and then usually one expansion or
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: game I've dusted off, or some other significant play that's
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: worth talking about. The key part here is I've played
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the games once or twice, so this can't be a
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: thorough review. Instead, it's just a glimpse into my thinking
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: about the game, and I'm happy to share.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: That with you today. So to start off with, we
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: have a series.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: This is the first our first play of a series
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of mystery games called Ink and Clues. This is a
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: game made by a single designer and a single web
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: or graphic designer web designer who are working as a pair,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: and I believe they are in Sweden. The website is
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: in English, but it is also available in Sweden, in
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Swedish or perhaps Dutch. It's definitely one of the Nordic countries.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: These are mystery games sort of in the line of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: something like Sherlock Holm's Consulting Detective, or more closely something
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: like Hunt a Killer, because it's basically just a whole
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: bunch of clues and then you're working to solve it
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: in order to figure out what happened. The way that
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you play these you can buy them one at a time,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: or they have a discount if you buy all four
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: at the same time, and you get a PDF that
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: has a bunch of the information in it. We printed
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: them out to play them, but you don't have to.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: You could just play them digitally. So you read the introduction,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: you read through the different materials, and then you get
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to the solution page and you have to say what
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the solution is, and then you read to see whether
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: you're correct or not. It's a relatively simple mystery game.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: The first one that we played was Secrets of the
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Holloway Manner. We've played two more since then. These are
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I would say they're fine. They are not quite as
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: compelling as something like Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, nor quite
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: as well crafted as like an Exit or an Unlock.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Although those are puzzle games. This is not a puzzle game.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It is definitely closer to something like Hunt to Killer,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: so that's a much closer thing to look at.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: The game are fun.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: The mysteries are generally pretty well crafted, although there were
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: some elements where we just we balked a little bit
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: at some.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Element of it.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: For example, one of the ones we think it might
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: have been I think it is Secrets of Holloway Manner.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: There's a photograph where there's a character that appears to
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: be two brothers and their mother, and then in corresponding
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: with the designers, I learned that the older brothers in
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: fact the father of the family, and so like. That
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: part was a little weird for us, But generally these
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: are fine if you like mystery stuff. They're pretty inexpensive,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: so they're worth trying out. Maybe I would probably I
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: As I say, I would.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Buy one to see, but if you buy one then
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the package deal doesn't work anymore. To buy all four,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're really a mystery game addict, these
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: will be interesting enough.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: But I think they are.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: In terms of the level of mystery, they're much closer
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: to something like Hunter Killer then Sherlock comes Consulting Detective.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: So if you like the Hunter Killer games, this would
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: be right up your alley.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: All right. That's Ink and Clues.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: The designer is Alexander Warsi.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Next up we have sky Joe.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Sky Joe is a card game designed by Alexander Barnart
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: published by Ludilo. This is a straight up card game.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: There's no theme to it as an abstract game, but
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: it's actually pretty interesting. I was kind of doubtful of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: it just looking at it. I was sort of, I guess,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: because Sky Joe and skip Bow feel very similar in
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: language construction. I was sort of thinking it was going
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to be like skip Bow, and that is not a
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: game I'm particularly excited to play. Same with Phase ten
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: or something. This feels like it belongs in that realm. However,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I would put it a notch above those. This is
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a mass market friendly card game, so you could definitely
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: play this with people who are new to games or
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: relatively inexperienced gamers. The way it works is you have
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: a deck of cards that has a bunch of numbers
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: in it. It's also got some positive and negative numbers,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and the numbers go up to what do they go
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: up to ten? I think maybe I can't remember if
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: there's anything higher than ten.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Maybe up to twelve. There's a bunch of different numbers.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: The way the game works is you shuffle up the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: cards and you make a grid in front of you
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of I believe, twelve cards, and on your turn, you
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: draw a card from the deck or you take a
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: card from the disccard pile, and then you look at
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that card and you decide do I want to put
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that card into my tableau of twelve cards or do
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I want to refuse that card. That's basically the choice.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Do you want to put it in my tableaux or
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: refuse it? If you put it in your tableau, you
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: pick a card that's already in your tableau and you
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: get rid of that card. That could be a face
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: up card or a face down card. I don't know
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: if I said, all the cards in your tableau start
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: face down. Then you randomly pick one of them to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: put face out or two of them. So then the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: card you draw, you look at it side, Do I
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: want to add it to my tableau or do I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: want to discard it? If you discard it, you then
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: turn one of the cards that's face down in your
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: tableau face up. If you keep it, you put it
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: in your tableau, and you discard the card that you're replacing.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: It could be a face up or face down card,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: but basically every turn you are adding another you're adding
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a face up card to your tableau. You could slow
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: down how many you're flipping by replacing cards that are
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: already face up with new cards you draw from the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: deck or car or the card you take from the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: top of the discard, but that's kind of the flow.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Then what you're trying to do is you're trying to
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: have as few points as possible, so you want low numbers,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: or there are even cards that are negative.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: And then if you make in each you like.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: It's a three by four grid or three three by
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: four grid. If one of your horizon or your vertical
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: columns is all the same number, then you actually discard
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: all three of those cards from your grid, and your
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: grid gets smaller, which is of course what you want
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: to do because you want to have as few points
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: in your grid as possible. Game goes until somebody has
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: revealed all of their cards. Once somebody has revealed all
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: of their cards, then everybody else gets one more turn
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: than any remaining cards that are faced down get turned
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: face up, and everybody adds up their score, and your
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: score is bically just all the cards you have in
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: front of you and your tableau added together, and that's
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: how many points you get.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: And you're trying to go for low points.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: The fun gimmick of the game is that if you're
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the person who triggered the end of the round by
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: revealing the last card, you have to have the lowest
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: score around the table. If you don't, your point's double.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: So there's an element of breksmanship where you're trying to
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: make sure you have fewer points than somebody else or
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: else you're maybe even replacing good points with worse points
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in order to keep from being the one who triggered
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the end of the round. If you know you're not
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: gonna win, it's a fun little game surprisingly enjoyable, given
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't think there was gonna be much there, but
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: it was actually pretty fun. It's definitely mass market, very light,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: very luck dependent. Of course, you could just get a
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: bad draw and then you're not going to do well,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: but overall pretty entertaining and better than I thought it
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: was going to be. So that is Skyjoe designed by
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Alexander Bernhardt. Next tip, I want to talk about a
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: new expansion that we got recently. This is the Obsessions
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Characters expansion. Obsession is, of course a favorite game of ours.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: It is my eighteenth most It is my eighteenth favorite
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: game of all time as per my top fifty, and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Characters is the newest expansion that has come out.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Now when we play, we play with.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: All the expansions in because each one has just added
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: more good stuff to the game. It is probably a
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: rough thing to sit down at our table and play,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: just because there's so many things. We could certainly take
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: out the Upstairs Downstairs expansion if we wanted to, but
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: one of the things is the game is full of randomness.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: The cards that you draw, the tiles that come out,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: these are all things that make it harder to do
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: well because.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: It's totally random.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: The expansions generally add things that give you more flexibility
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and more control, and the character's expansion is part of that.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: The Characters expansion has four sort of special characters that
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: you can invite to your home, and each one does
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: something a little bit different. There's a reverend, and when
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the reverend comes to your home, you can change out
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: your objectives for some of the discarded ones, which is
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: great because sometimes you get an objective and you're just like,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: there's no way I'm going to be able to finish this.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: As the game goes along, everybody's discarding objectives, so there's
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a big pile of them. You might be able to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: take one that you can achieve. That's pretty great. There's
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: a police officer who can come and in the round.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: While he's visiting none of the negative attributes that any guests,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: any guests you invite will get to will will affect you,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: and then you can use him to dismiss a certain
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: number of those negative guests, which is great because if
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you have people who are dragging down your score, it's
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: excellent to be able to you're rid of him. There
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is the dowager who has all these Eccentric Friends. These
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: are special cards that are particularly effective, so you can
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: invite the dowager to come and then she'll loan you
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: one of her special friends into your deck and that
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: those are really good. And then what's the fourth person? Oh,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the fourth thing is the second chance Servants. These are
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: servants who are not as good as the other servants,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and they're really funny. They're the same colors. The meeples
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: or the little Tokens are the same colors as the
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: other characters or the other ones, but they're all like
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: a little different, Like the housemaid has a rumpled dress
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and the footman has messy hair, and so like they're
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: just a little worse than the main version of the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: character or the employee. So you can get those, but
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: they hurt your reputation when you use them, but it
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: is one of the nice things about allowing you to
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: just get more people quickly and you don't have to
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: use a turn.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: To get them.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Overall, we really liked the new features added by the
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Obsession Characters expansion. This is definitely a seasoned player expansion.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't put this in if it's your first time playing,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: or even your fifth time playing. We've played many games
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: of Obsession, and having that depth of experience means that
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the cognitive load of adding these new features wasn't too bad.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: It is definitely an advanced option, but we really enjoyed.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It the box.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Also, the Character's Box also comes with a whole bunch
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: of fan variants, which we haven't tried yet, but it'll
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: be interesting to see what those are. So that's the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Obsession Characters expansion. Dan Halligan is the main designer of Obsession. Finally,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the last game I want to talk about is kind
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of a cheat. This is Discworld onk More Pork. Discworld
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: on More Pork is Martin Wallace game based on the
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Terry Pratchett ip in which you play various power brokers
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: in the famed city of ank Moore Pork, trying to
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: gain authority over the city each but part of the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: idea is that you're using your shadowy minions to do
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: work and nobody knows who each other are. So there
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: are I think seven different power brokers and on and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: you have one of seven different win conditions, and you
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: are trying to win the game. At the beginning of
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: your turn. There are a couple of them that win instantly,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: but most of them win at the beginning of their turn.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: They if the condition that they put into play is
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: still in effect when their turn comes around, or like
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: the player before them, does something that puts their condition
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: into play, then they win at the beginning of their turn.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: If that sounds.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Familiar, it's because it is the game. Discworld on more
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Pork was taken by Martin Wallace and re skinned into
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: Nanti Narking, which is a version I.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Actually like better.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: This is apocryphal or appalling to fans of Terry Pratchett,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and I get it, but they're actually I think there
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: just aren't that many fans of Terry Pratchett as opposed
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: to people who are sort of aware of a variety
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of different bits of Victoriana and pop culture. So I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: like the Nanty Narking theme. I think it's more accessible
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: than Discorld onkmore Pork. I also like the advanced wind
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: conditions in Nanty Narking, which make it a little bit
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: harder to figure out who's doing what and a little
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: bit more likely that somebody will win before they get
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to the end. That said, somebody did win before they
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: got to the end in ankhmore Pork. So when I
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: say a little more likely, what do I know?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Not a lot.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Nonetheless, this is a great game. It is every bit
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: as fun as Nanty Narking. And I think whether you
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: play this or whether you play Nanty Narking just comes
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: down to flavor. Which flavor do you like better? Which
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: theme do you like better? And for fans of Cherry Pratchett,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of course Ankhmore Pork is the better game from that perspective.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So really it was happy to get to the table.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know how often I'm going to pick this
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: over in Nanty Narking. If I'm bringing one out to play,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: it'll probably be in NNTI Narking. But they're both a
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: delight and I'm gonna keep both in my collection because.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I'm a Martin Wallace fiend. Yeah, excited to play that,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: excited to share that news with you. Well that is
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: about it for this episode.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I've covered three games and one expansion, so I would
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: love to hear what you've been playing lately. You can
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: share that information with me over on board game Geek
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and guild three two six nine. I'd love to know
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: what you think of the games I mentioned today, and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: also what new games you have been playing. You can
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: reach out to me on board game Geek user name
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Wombat nine two nine. You could also send me a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: direct email Brendan at rattleboxgames dot com, and I'm happy
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to correspond with you that way if you'd like to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: play games with me, I am on board game Arina
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and Yukata dot de. In both places, I am Wombat
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: nine two nine, So send me a message we'll play
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a game. But that's about it for my walk today.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I want to say thank you for joining me. I
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: hope your next walk is the pleasantest mine.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Wiss goodbye, m
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Brought to you by rattle Box