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Best Games of 2023 · Pick Up and Deliver

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I
0:04
Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorders. I step out on a
0:06
Speaker 1: walk and delivered episode to you while I stroll around
0:09
Speaker 1: in the blizzard of the month. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, greetings, listeners.
0:22
Speaker 1: It's a blustery day here in suburban Chicago. It's not
0:25
Speaker 1: actually that blustery or even that windy, but it is
0:29
Speaker 1: a snowy day. We were expecting a huge snow here
0:33
Speaker 1: in suburban Chicago, and we are getting a not unreasonable
0:36
Speaker 1: amount of snow. I'm not sure it demanded the kind
0:40
Speaker 1: of school closers and such that we saw, but that's fine. Yeah,
0:47
Speaker 1: so we've got some snow land in here. I was
0:50
Speaker 1: working from home today and so I thought I should
0:52
Speaker 1: get out and have a little bit of exercise. So
0:55
Speaker 1: I'm taking a walk and you're joining me for a
0:57
Speaker 1: couple episodes that pick Up and Deliver. This is the
1:00
Speaker 1: second episode of the season. I always like to do
1:03
Speaker 1: something at the beginning in which I talk about some
1:06
Speaker 1: favorite games of recent years. Those of you who've been
1:09
Speaker 1: listening for a while will know that this is that
1:11
Speaker 1: this is not a new choice. But what I like
1:13
Speaker 1: to do is a lot of podcasts or video shows
1:16
Speaker 1: or whatever will do their top games of X year,
1:20
Speaker 1: and they'll do the previous year. So like I've seen
1:22
Speaker 1: a number of TikTok folks and podcasters and video channels
1:26
Speaker 1: do top games of twenty twenty four, I myself am
1:29
Speaker 1: not hooked into the brand new to the cult of
1:33
Speaker 1: the new with enough aggression that I've played anywhere near
1:37
Speaker 1: enough twenty twenty four games for me to consider it
1:39
Speaker 1: reasonable to do a top ten or even a top five. Generally,
1:44
Speaker 1: my goal if I'm going to do a top five
1:46
Speaker 1: is I want to have like fifty or so games
1:49
Speaker 1: available for.
1:50
Speaker 2: Me to choose from.
1:52
Speaker 1: So what I tend to do is, instead of doing
1:54
Speaker 1: the top games of twenty twenty four right now, I
1:57
Speaker 1: wait a year. So my episode today are the top
2:00
Speaker 1: five games of twenty twenty three that I've played that
2:04
Speaker 1: I've played. Because I don't purport to put games in
2:09
Speaker 1: here that I haven't played, I'm actually going to start
2:11
Speaker 1: here with the games I haven't played. So as I
2:14
Speaker 1: the way I do my top games of a year,
2:17
Speaker 1: and the way I did this on as I went
2:18
Speaker 1: on board game Geek, I did an advanced search for
2:21
Speaker 1: every game marked twenty twenty three, and I looked through
2:24
Speaker 1: the top ten thousand rated games or games within the
2:28
Speaker 1: top ten thousand of all time on board game Geek,
2:30
Speaker 1: and I looked at every title from twenty twenty three,
2:33
Speaker 1: and I wrote down.
2:34
Speaker 2: Every title that I had played.
2:35
Speaker 1: But while I was doing that, I was also looking
2:37
Speaker 1: at titles that I had not played that I thought, Eh,
2:39
Speaker 1: that's a game I'd like to play, and I suspect
2:41
Speaker 1: could be pretty good. So I'm going to quickly read
2:44
Speaker 1: for you the list of games that I think it
2:46
Speaker 1: would be fun to play from twenty twenty three that
2:49
Speaker 1: I think, you know, could be in contention if I
2:53
Speaker 1: had played them at this point.
2:54
Speaker 2: So here we go.
2:55
Speaker 1: We've got Earthborn Rangers, The Fox Experiment, Sale My Island,
3:01
Speaker 1: First in Flight, Wild Tiled West, City of the Great Machine, Hollywood,
3:06
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, Hegemony, Lead Your Class to Victory, Darwin's Journey,
3:12
Speaker 1: The White Castle, Ticket to Ride, Legacy, Legends of the West,
3:16
Speaker 1: The Veil of Eternity, Nar which is called Knarr Station, Fall,
3:22
Speaker 1: kut Nahora, The City of Silver, and Unmatched Adventures Tales
3:26
Speaker 1: to a Maze. All of those are games that I
3:28
Speaker 1: think could be interesting, could eventually make it onto my
3:31
Speaker 1: top five games of twenty twenty three, but I just
3:33
Speaker 1: haven't had the opportunity to play them yet. So with
3:35
Speaker 1: those aside, there is one more caveat before I share
3:38
Speaker 1: my list. I also have a standing habit of if
3:42
Speaker 1: a game is in my top fifty, I don't include
3:45
Speaker 1: it in my top games of that year because that
3:48
Speaker 1: wouldn't be interesting narratively. It sort of gets a bye,
3:53
Speaker 1: just becomes a top game without me qualifying it. So
3:56
Speaker 1: there's one game from twenty twenty three that was on
3:59
Speaker 1: my top fifty games of all time, which, as you know,
4:01
Speaker 1: I just released the updated list, and that is Evacuation,
4:05
Speaker 1: the Vladimir Suci game from twenty twenty three, all right,
4:09
Speaker 1: which was I believe my forty ninth game of all time.
4:12
Speaker 1: So having made those caveats, I will now share my
4:16
Speaker 1: top five games of twenty twenty three, along with some
4:20
Speaker 1: superlative games.
4:21
Speaker 2: Of twenty twenty three. So to start with, my.
4:24
Speaker 1: Number five game of twenty twenty three is Forest Shuffle.
4:27
Speaker 1: Forest Shuffle is a card game in which you are
4:32
Speaker 1: building a tableau of cards, each of which has scoring
4:38
Speaker 1: conditions on them, or could have scoring conditions on them
4:41
Speaker 1: and scores off of the other cards in your tableau.
4:45
Speaker 1: There are two kinds of cards. There are tree cards
4:47
Speaker 1: and then there are animal cards. I guess there are
4:49
Speaker 1: other plant cards as well. There's flowers and mushrooms. But
4:54
Speaker 1: the tree cards are kind of the bases that you're
4:58
Speaker 1: putting through putting in your tableau, and then the animals
5:01
Speaker 1: get placed around, and the animals and the mushrooms get
5:04
Speaker 1: placed around the trees. Generally, on your turn, you're accumulating
5:07
Speaker 1: cards into your hand or you're playing cards. You have
5:11
Speaker 1: to pay cards in order to play them, so it's
5:13
Speaker 1: sort of got a race for the galaxy element to it,
5:16
Speaker 1: but the scoring mechanism feels much more like something like
5:19
Speaker 1: Fantasy Realms or Red Rising.
5:22
Speaker 2: These are games in which you are tableau at the end.
5:24
Speaker 1: Score is based on the other cards in your tableau,
5:26
Speaker 1: and each card itself is going to score. This is
5:28
Speaker 1: also in Faraway, but that one is scoring, and that's
5:31
Speaker 1: more specific.
5:32
Speaker 2: Four Shovels a really good game.
5:34
Speaker 1: It's got really neat overlapping scoring conditions. It has the
5:39
Speaker 1: opportunity to build an interesting engine. Really like the theme
5:42
Speaker 1: and look of it.
5:42
Speaker 2: The animals on it are pretty cool. It's easy to
5:45
Speaker 2: teach and easy to play.
5:46
Speaker 1: It takes like half hour to forty five minutes, so
5:48
Speaker 1: it's a good sort of mid level game in terms
5:51
Speaker 1: of time. It's a little long to be a filler
5:53
Speaker 1: or a long to be out. Let's play something quick
5:55
Speaker 1: before everyone else comes. But it is a great sort
5:58
Speaker 1: of middle of the road game. Because it is so
6:01
Speaker 1: snowy and messy, I am not I don't have my
6:05
Speaker 1: phone out while I'm walking, so I'm unable to look
6:07
Speaker 1: up the designers or publishers. If I remember them off
6:10
Speaker 1: the top of my head, I'll say them. But if
6:12
Speaker 1: I don't, please do follow the show note the links
6:16
Speaker 1: and the show notes to the board game geek pages
6:18
Speaker 1: where you can find the names of the designers and
6:21
Speaker 1: the artists and the publishers. So my apologies for not
6:24
Speaker 1: having those out, but just the environment.
6:27
Speaker 2: I'm walking in right now.
6:28
Speaker 1: It's very snowy, and I have to pay attention to
6:31
Speaker 1: my balance, so I don't want to be carrying a
6:32
Speaker 1: phone while I'm doing this. So that's what's that's what
6:36
Speaker 1: I'm doing with that. So my number five game for
6:38
Speaker 1: a shuffle. My number four game is a cooperative game
6:41
Speaker 1: from Matt Leecock. This is Daybreak. Daybreak is Matt Leecock's
6:46
Speaker 1: newest Let's save the World game. It is another tableau builder.
6:51
Speaker 1: You have a series of these project cards and then
6:54
Speaker 1: you can play new cards to the projects. You can
6:57
Speaker 1: activate the projects, often by spending cards. You have various
7:02
Speaker 1: symbols that are on the projects that trigger bonuses when
7:06
Speaker 1: you activate them. Each player represents one of four different
7:10
Speaker 1: sort of large scale conglomerates of polluting entities I guess
7:14
Speaker 1: as a way to put it, so like you can
7:16
Speaker 1: be the United States, or you could be China, or
7:18
Speaker 1: you could be Europe, or you could be the rest
7:21
Speaker 1: of the world. Is kind of the four I think.
7:24
Speaker 1: And the goal is the goal of the game is
7:27
Speaker 1: to reverse climate change or to stop arrest climate change
7:30
Speaker 1: and then start solving it. And what's really neat about
7:34
Speaker 1: the game. It's cooperative, of course, but what's really neat
7:37
Speaker 1: about it is all of the technologies and strategies that
7:40
Speaker 1: are on these cards are real world things that people
7:42
Speaker 1: are trying to figure out how to do. And you
7:44
Speaker 1: can use a QR code to go look at the
7:46
Speaker 1: card look at information about these different things. So there
7:49
Speaker 1: is in a time when they're when you have just
7:52
Speaker 1: apocalyptic views of everything.
7:54
Speaker 2: There is some hope in this game. That's really neat.
7:56
Speaker 1: It's a very hard game and it's easy to lose,
7:59
Speaker 1: and that's bummer, but I guess that's kind of the point.
8:02
Speaker 1: So I have not ever played this physically on the table.
8:06
Speaker 1: I imagine it would be a much different experience because
8:08
Speaker 1: when you're playing digitally, you can kind of see where
8:10
Speaker 1: you can put everything, so you can let board game
8:13
Speaker 1: arena carry some of the rules for you in your head.
8:15
Speaker 1: I would need to learn the game differently to play
8:17
Speaker 1: it on the table. But it is really neat. It's
8:19
Speaker 1: an excellent cooperative experience. I love the graphic design in it.
8:23
Speaker 1: I like the shared experience of the gameplay. It's a
8:27
Speaker 1: really fun game. That's Daybreak from Matt Leecock. Next up,
8:30
Speaker 1: we have another game from one of my favorite publishing
8:34
Speaker 1: companies in board games. This is from Mindclash Games came
8:37
Speaker 1: out this year in twenty twenty three. This is Septima
8:40
Speaker 1: or Septima I'm not sure how you say it. In
8:43
Speaker 1: this game, you play the head of a coven of
8:45
Speaker 1: which is in a sort of pseudo Salem era or
8:49
Speaker 1: Reformation era Europe. Town of some sort, and you and
8:53
Speaker 1: your coven are helping the villagers by curing their various ailments.
8:58
Speaker 1: And you're going around gathering stuff from the forest and
9:02
Speaker 1: are going to make these potions and then using the
9:04
Speaker 1: potions to do good. But there are witch hunters running around,
9:08
Speaker 1: and if they catch you, they put you on trial,
9:10
Speaker 1: and then you hope that the villagers don't vote to
9:13
Speaker 1: exal you from the community. Now, the fun part is
9:16
Speaker 1: that you can put your villagers into You can sneak
9:20
Speaker 1: villagers who are loyal to you into the trial, so
9:23
Speaker 1: that when the jury comes to vote, you've got loyal
9:26
Speaker 1: villagers in there voting for you, and the villagers introduced
9:29
Speaker 1: by the other players will also vote innocent for the
9:32
Speaker 1: witches as well. Like many mind clash games, this is
9:36
Speaker 1: a complex system of interlocking interdependencies. Like tri Carrion, it's
9:42
Speaker 1: a game of delicate balances and carefully managing your resources.
9:47
Speaker 1: I really like the sideboard if you're going to play
9:52
Speaker 1: this game. I think the rules load isn't that much
9:55
Speaker 1: worse to have the sideboard there. I think you can
9:57
Speaker 1: just do the whole thing. But I suppose if you
9:59
Speaker 1: have people who are relatively new to heavy games that
10:01
Speaker 1: are intrigued by the theory.
10:02
Speaker 2: You might not want to use that.
10:04
Speaker 1: But sort of like I would say, you're not really
10:06
Speaker 1: playing Trick carry on until you're playing with the Dark
10:08
Speaker 1: Alley and the full level three tricks, I would say Septima,
10:13
Speaker 1: you're not playing if you're not using the sideboard. Now,
10:15
Speaker 1: the game does come with a built in expansion or
10:18
Speaker 1: an expansion in the box. I have not tried that yet,
10:21
Speaker 1: so it is a game. It is something I would
10:23
Speaker 1: like to try more. I also forgot to check if
10:25
Speaker 1: Septima made it onto my Top fifty list. I don't
10:28
Speaker 1: think it did, but it is pretty good and probably
10:30
Speaker 1: on a different day, in a different mood, it might
10:33
Speaker 1: have made my list. Boy, I really don't remember if
10:35
Speaker 1: it did or not. Now I do have to check
10:37
Speaker 1: my phone. It did not, but it is very good
10:40
Speaker 1: and I could see if it's a game that I
10:42
Speaker 1: end up playing a few more times in the next
10:45
Speaker 1: year or two that when I do my next Top
10:48
Speaker 1: fifty and twenty twenty seven or twenty twenty eight, it absolutely.
10:51
Speaker 2: Could end up on there. It's really good.
10:53
Speaker 1: So that's Septima. My number three game from twenty twenty three.
10:57
Speaker 1: The last two are games I do not own. Actually,
10:59
Speaker 1: Septima Forest Shuffle are the only two games I own,
11:02
Speaker 1: So last two are games I don't own, but I've
11:03
Speaker 1: played with other people and they're both really good. So
11:07
Speaker 1: the next one is Voidfall. Voidfall is a large, meaty
11:13
Speaker 1: civilization or sort of four x space game in which
11:18
Speaker 1: you are managing a spacefaring civilization in an era where
11:23
Speaker 1: there's a terrifying and creepy sort of creeping plague of
11:27
Speaker 1: demons that are invading the galaxy and you need to.
11:30
Speaker 2: Try to defeat them.
11:32
Speaker 1: It is very complicated, probably one of the heaviest games
11:35
Speaker 1: I've played last year, in the last couple of years,
11:38
Speaker 1: and there's a ton of depth to it.
11:41
Speaker 2: But I really like it.
11:42
Speaker 1: It's really well made, it's very interesting. It is fun
11:46
Speaker 1: to play and very rewarding when you manage to get
11:50
Speaker 1: all the systems to interlock in a way that give
11:53
Speaker 1: you sort of cascading points and interlocking elements.
11:57
Speaker 2: It is a really neat game.
12:00
Speaker 1: The art and graphic designer by Ian O'Toole, who is
12:03
Speaker 1: a well known and well respected graphic designer for games,
12:08
Speaker 1: and I think I feel like the designer is Luke
12:11
Speaker 1: Lurie but I don't remember for certain, so take that
12:14
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt. But you are managing these
12:17
Speaker 1: sort of huge interconnected systems. You've got ships flying around,
12:23
Speaker 1: You're building up your society, and you have the enemies
12:28
Speaker 1: that are coming in and stuff. It is a pretty
12:30
Speaker 1: unforgiving game. If you make a mistake, you could take
12:32
Speaker 1: devastating consequences. That actually happened to me in the second
12:35
Speaker 1: of the three rounds, I miscalculated by one cube. As
12:38
Speaker 1: a result, I lost a whole star system, which is
12:40
Speaker 1: very frustrating. It is deterministic combat, so you should always
12:45
Speaker 1: know the result of the combat when you go into it,
12:47
Speaker 1: which is useful and helpful. And it's got all of
12:50
Speaker 1: these different factions that you can play with different tech
12:53
Speaker 1: trees and different capabilities. It's a really neat game and
12:58
Speaker 1: definitely worth trying if you like very heavy, complex civibuilding games,
13:03
Speaker 1: because that's what it is. That's Voidfall, published by mind
13:07
Speaker 1: Clash Games, the first mind Clash game that came out
13:10
Speaker 1: of the Big of the Big group that I did
13:11
Speaker 1: not buy because I knew I had two friends buying it,
13:14
Speaker 1: and I could tell by looking at it it's not
13:15
Speaker 1: a game I'm gonna play on my own probably, and
13:17
Speaker 1: I would almost always play it with one of them,
13:19
Speaker 1: so I did not get it. Part of me is
13:23
Speaker 1: jealous that I don't have it because it's really neat,
13:26
Speaker 1: but I definitely don't need it, So that's voidfall for
13:31
Speaker 1: Mind Clash Games, my second favorite game of twenty twenty three,
13:33
Speaker 1: and finally my favorite game of twenty twenty three. I
13:36
Speaker 1: believe it's a Simone Lucciani game along with another designer
13:41
Speaker 1: or maybe two. This is Nucleum. Oh, David Turci is
13:45
Speaker 1: involved in this one as well. I believe this is Nucleum.
13:48
Speaker 1: Nucleum is a route planning economic management game very similar
13:54
Speaker 1: in nature to Brass.
13:56
Speaker 2: If you've played Brass and.
13:57
Speaker 1: You got to play Nucleum, like, oh yeah, why people
14:00
Speaker 1: compare this to Brass, It's very similar. It has really
14:04
Speaker 1: different mechanisms for how you choose what you're going to do.
14:08
Speaker 1: Instead of the deck of cards, you have these little
14:10
Speaker 1: action tiles that you can use, and there's a really
14:13
Speaker 1: neat trade off where you spend your action tiles to
14:17
Speaker 1: place your routes, so you can get into a situation
14:21
Speaker 1: where if you spend the wrong action tile at the
14:23
Speaker 1: wrong time, you can really hamper yourself from doing things
14:27
Speaker 1: in the same way that if you mismanage your cards
14:29
Speaker 1: in Brass, you might have a place you want to
14:31
Speaker 1: go and you just don't have the cards to do it.
14:33
Speaker 1: I would say Nucleum is a little bit more complicated
14:36
Speaker 1: than Brass because of the tiles and the way that
14:39
Speaker 1: the bonuses in them work, but the payoff on them
14:42
Speaker 1: is really neat. So this is a very satisfying game.
14:45
Speaker 1: It's definitely one I would happily play again when other
14:47
Speaker 1: people have it once again. It's one I haven't picked
14:49
Speaker 1: up myself because it is so similar to Brass that
14:53
Speaker 1: either I'm going to be playing it with people who
14:55
Speaker 1: have Nucleum, with somebody who has Nucleum and say hey,
14:58
Speaker 1: let's play that, or if I've really want to got
15:00
Speaker 1: that itch, I can play Brass, and I don't play
15:02
Speaker 1: Brass so often that I'm tired of it. So that's
15:06
Speaker 1: kind of the balance there is that right now, at least,
15:09
Speaker 1: I don't need Nucleum and Brass, so I will hold
15:13
Speaker 1: onto Brass. I do still like Brass better. I think
15:15
Speaker 1: it's a little cleaner of a design. I like the
15:17
Speaker 1: thematic the theme better, and I much prefer the art.
15:20
Speaker 1: I think the art in Nucleum on the board looks
15:23
Speaker 1: a little corny, and I think.
15:25
Speaker 2: The cover art on Nucleum I don't like it at all.
15:27
Speaker 1: It's really goofy looking to me, whereas the art the
15:30
Speaker 1: Mister Cuttington art on brass is perfect. That is Nucleum
15:36
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty three, my favorite game from twenty twenty three.
15:39
Speaker 1: I now have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
15:43
Speaker 1: Superlative awards to offer for twenty twenty three. As a reminder,
15:47
Speaker 1: the superlative award is one where I have picked a
15:50
Speaker 1: game that didn't make my top five, but there's something
15:52
Speaker 1: really special about it, and so I'm giving it just
15:54
Speaker 1: a silly award to indicate that it's best in class
15:58
Speaker 1: in some way. So the first one is Segrata Artisans
16:02
Speaker 1: is the best legacy game I played from twenty twenty three.
16:05
Speaker 2: I know there are other ones out there.
16:06
Speaker 1: Take It to Ride probably comes to mind, but my
16:09
Speaker 1: wife and I had a really fun time with the
16:11
Speaker 1: coloring books and Sigata Artisans and we were happy to
16:14
Speaker 1: get that played. Next up, we have Far Away, Far Away,
16:17
Speaker 1: I have as the coolest gimmick. If you haven't had
16:20
Speaker 1: a chance to play far away. Yet it's this really
16:22
Speaker 1: neat game where you're drafting cards and you're putting them
16:24
Speaker 1: in a line, and you're drafting sort of eight mean
16:27
Speaker 1: cards and eight bonus cards and up to seven bonus cards,
16:31
Speaker 1: and after you've drafted all eight, you flip them face
16:34
Speaker 1: down and you score them backwards. So the last card
16:37
Speaker 1: you draft you have to score without being able to
16:39
Speaker 1: access the bonus icons and stuff on.
16:41
Speaker 2: Any of the other cards you drafted.
16:43
Speaker 1: Then as you flip them over you get more and
16:44
Speaker 1: more things, So like if you take a card that
16:47
Speaker 1: needs a bunch of stuff, you have to draft the
16:49
Speaker 1: stuff that fulfills it after that. So there's a little
16:52
Speaker 1: bit of push your luck there, and it works out
16:54
Speaker 1: really well. It's a fun game, easy to play, very
16:57
Speaker 1: thinky for the size of it. It works really well
17:00
Speaker 1: well and it's an exciting game to get to play
17:04
Speaker 1: when you get a chance that's far away. The next
17:06
Speaker 1: superlative I want to talk about is the most silly
17:09
Speaker 1: game from twenty twenty three, Drop Polter. I don't know
17:13
Speaker 1: if there's meant to be a pun with drop Alter
17:16
Speaker 1: or not, but Droe Polter is a very silly dexterity
17:20
Speaker 1: game in which you are trying a card comes out.
17:23
Speaker 1: Everybody's got a set of five I think five items
17:25
Speaker 1: in their hand, and a card comes out, and you
17:27
Speaker 1: have to drop items that are not on the card
17:32
Speaker 1: such that what you're holding in your hand are the
17:34
Speaker 1: items on the card.
17:36
Speaker 2: If you do that successfully, then you can take your.
17:38
Speaker 1: Other hand and grab the little ghost figure off the table,
17:44
Speaker 1: and then you win the round. When you're doing the
17:47
Speaker 1: drop dropping items out of your hand, you have to
17:48
Speaker 1: do it one hand. It so you have all these
17:50
Speaker 1: items in your hand. You have to like manipulate your
17:51
Speaker 1: hand so these items drop out when you grab the ghost.
17:54
Speaker 1: You then get a point. And the way that you
17:57
Speaker 1: keep tacking your points is you take a tiny little
17:59
Speaker 1: bell and you put that bell in your hand with
18:01
Speaker 1: all the other stuff that you're holding. And one of
18:03
Speaker 1: the rules is if you ever drop a bell, you
18:07
Speaker 1: lose that bell.
18:08
Speaker 2: You lose the point.
18:08
Speaker 1: So as you get more and more points, it gets
18:11
Speaker 1: harder and harder to score additional points because you have
18:13
Speaker 1: to be careful not to drop your bells or you
18:15
Speaker 1: lose the points you score. It's very silly, very fun.
18:18
Speaker 1: Obviously only works for people who are able handed, but
18:22
Speaker 1: pretty silly and pretty fun. That's from oinc Games Droe Polter.
18:27
Speaker 1: Next up that was the most silly, the funniest game
18:30
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty three is Freelancers, a crossroads game. Now,
18:34
Speaker 1: we played the heck out of Forgotten Waters. That was
18:38
Speaker 1: a really fun game, but we sort of ran out
18:40
Speaker 1: of steam on it we finished it. Freelancers is the
18:43
Speaker 1: next game in that series, and it is equally funny,
18:45
Speaker 1: if not more funny.
18:47
Speaker 2: There's tons of.
18:48
Speaker 1: Really great audio tracks in the game, lots of good jokes.
18:53
Speaker 1: It is a very funny game and really enjoyable to
18:56
Speaker 1: play if you don't know it at all. It's a
18:58
Speaker 1: pirate game. You are going out and having adventures. You
19:01
Speaker 1: have these characters that you're trying to level up, and
19:03
Speaker 1: you're working together to solve mysteries, but you also or
19:06
Speaker 1: solve adventures, but you also want your character to level
19:08
Speaker 1: up and complete your story. It's a really fun game
19:12
Speaker 1: with a series of different adventures. Once you've played all
19:16
Speaker 1: the adventures, you could wait a little bit and go
19:18
Speaker 1: back and play them again. They are sufficiently different that
19:22
Speaker 1: they are fun to play even if you've played them before.
19:24
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't want to play the same scenario two
19:26
Speaker 1: days in a row on Freelancers, but playing your way
19:30
Speaker 1: through the scenarios. Putting the game away for six months
19:32
Speaker 1: and then playing again would probably be fine. That's Freelancers
19:35
Speaker 1: Across Roads game published by plaid Hat Games. As I
19:38
Speaker 1: recall next up, I have most meditative I like every
19:42
Speaker 1: now and again.
19:42
Speaker 2: I like a game that's.
19:43
Speaker 1: Just sort of easy to play, not too hard, not
19:47
Speaker 1: too intense, and I found one of those games in
19:50
Speaker 1: a series from Lookout sort of. Lookout has sold a
19:53
Speaker 1: number of different interesting polyomeno games, and the game Tipperary
19:59
Speaker 1: fits that at bill pretty well.
20:01
Speaker 2: I really like the meditative nature.
20:04
Speaker 1: Of putting out the tiles and building up your Irish countryside.
20:10
Speaker 1: The game has a number of different scoring elements, and
20:13
Speaker 1: it certainly does get.
20:14
Speaker 2: Competitive, but it doesn't feel cutthroat to me.
20:17
Speaker 1: It's a pretty low key experience, but really chill, really
20:22
Speaker 1: nice good pieces. I have it in the same it's
20:25
Speaker 1: sort of in the same ballpark as Lama Land and
20:28
Speaker 1: Gingerbread House. Although I don't believe it is a Phil
20:31
Speaker 1: Walker harding game. I think it's might be gunther Burnhart
20:35
Speaker 1: or Burkheart. That's Tipperary and then the best game no
20:40
Speaker 1: one wants to play with me. This is fiction. Fiction
20:43
Speaker 1: is essentially wordle. If the person who's answering the clues lies,
20:49
Speaker 1: sometimes that's essentially what it is. Wordle is, of course
20:53
Speaker 1: a word game version of Mastermind, So if you've played Mastermind,
20:56
Speaker 1: you've played Wordle. It's just done with letters instead of
21:00
Speaker 1: colored pegs. And fiction is just that only the person
21:05
Speaker 1: who's giving you answers lies, and the whole thing is there.
21:10
Speaker 1: I think they have to lie every time, or almost
21:13
Speaker 1: every time. Maybe they can choose not to lie one
21:15
Speaker 1: time or something, but generally they have to lie on
21:19
Speaker 1: one of the answers each round, so you can develop.
21:23
Speaker 1: You can figure out if they're lying by how they answer,
21:26
Speaker 1: in the combination of how they answer. I really liked
21:28
Speaker 1: it the two times I've played it, but I haven't
21:30
Speaker 1: had anyone else say they would like to play it
21:32
Speaker 1: since then, so it's sat on our shelf unplayed, but
21:35
Speaker 1: I would like to play it, so I'm keeping it.
21:36
Speaker 2: That's fiction.
21:37
Speaker 1: And finally, the game with the most awesome components. This
21:40
Speaker 1: goes to Globe Trotting, which is a game from R
21:43
Speaker 1: two I Games. They are best known for canvas although
21:46
Speaker 1: they've made a lot of waves lately with Fromage. Congratulations
21:50
Speaker 1: guys on that. Globe Trotting is a pretty simple route
21:57
Speaker 1: building game with really neat components. Have these plastic globes
22:02
Speaker 1: and you are drawing your routes that you're taking on
22:06
Speaker 1: the plastic globes.
22:08
Speaker 2: So there is an.
22:10
Speaker 1: Element of physicality to the game that's really neat, and
22:14
Speaker 1: it's not a game I would buy. It's pretty light,
22:17
Speaker 1: pretty light for what it is, but it's a pretty
22:19
Speaker 1: fun game and awesome components. Those globes are really neat,
22:26
Speaker 1: so they win Most Awesome Components of twenty twenty three. Well, finally,
22:30
Speaker 1: I do want to mention the other games that I
22:32
Speaker 1: played from twenty twenty three, so you know sort of
22:34
Speaker 1: what competition my top five had so very quickly I
22:38
Speaker 1: played Earth Star Wars, the deck building game, Sky Team
22:42
Speaker 1: Age of Innovation, Cosmoctopus, Distilled Apiary, Forbidden Jungle, The Art Project,
22:50
Speaker 1: thunder Road, Vendetta, after Us, Pneumalia Expeditions, Rats of Wistar
22:55
Speaker 1: Point City, That's Not a Hat, everydul Farshore, Amnray Anniversary Edition,
23:01
Speaker 1: Chicken Bark, Avenue, Dungeons and Dragons, Bedlomen, Never Winter, mother
23:06
Speaker 1: of Frankenstein, Smug Owls, Time Stories, Revolution, Cavendish Leaf, and Perspectives.
23:12
Speaker 1: Well that's about it for my top five games of
23:14
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. I want to say thank you for
23:16
Speaker 1: joining me on my walk today, and I hope your
23:18
Speaker 1: next walk is his funds is Mindless?
23:20
Speaker 3: Bye bye.
23:44
Speaker 1: Why do restaurants have to have speakers outside? Come on,
23:47
Speaker 1: I don't want that, jes louise Ooh, there's a guy
23:52
Speaker 1: with two big fluffy dogs. Look at those fluffy dogs.
23:54
Speaker 1: Kind I've had that dog. Okay, we'll try that again.
24:01
Speaker 2: Brought to you by rattle box
24:08
Speaker 3: I