Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Top of the Stack, October 2024
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Welcome to pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I
- 0:06Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step off the
- 0:08Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
- 0:11Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good evening, listeners. It's late on
- 0:23Speaker 1: Thursday night here in suburban Chicago, and I'm walking home
- 0:26Speaker 1: from the train. The next couple of weeks are going
- 0:29Speaker 1: to be incredibly busy, so this might be the only
- 0:31Speaker 1: episode of pick Up and Delivery you get for two weeks.
- 0:34Speaker 1: I am attending an academic conference for the next three days,
- 0:37Speaker 1: then I have one day off, then I have a
- 0:39Speaker 1: full day of classes, and I'm flying out to another
- 0:41Speaker 1: academic conference, which I'll attend for the next three days
- 0:44Speaker 1: or before I return the week from today. So at
- 0:48Speaker 1: least the next week is incredibly busy, and after that
- 0:51Speaker 1: I'll be catching up with all the work that I
- 0:52Speaker 1: missed going to the conferences, which is going to be
- 0:54Speaker 1: very fun. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to
- 0:56Speaker 1: be a great time. But it probably means I'm not
- 0:58Speaker 1: going to be recording podcasts as much as I normally would,
- 1:02Speaker 1: so it might be a little while before you get
- 1:04Speaker 1: another episode from me. Apologies, but it is October third
- 1:09Speaker 1: or past the first of the month, and so as
- 1:11Speaker 1: I like to do once we hit a new month,
- 1:13Speaker 1: so I'm sharing with you the Top of the Stack
- 1:15Speaker 1: if somehow you've stumbled upon this podcast and it's your
- 1:18Speaker 1: first episode. Top of the Sack is a monthly episode
- 1:21Speaker 1: that I do, usually the first episode of any calendar month,
- 1:24Speaker 1: in which I talk about games I played in the
- 1:26Speaker 1: last month, games I planned to play in the next month,
- 1:29Speaker 1: just kind of generally do a what have you been playing? Episode?
- 1:32Speaker 1: Join me, won't you? All right? So I always start
- 1:35Speaker 1: Top of the Stack with a bit of a statistics rundown.
- 1:39Speaker 1: So in September of twenty twenty four, my final monthly stats,
- 1:43Speaker 1: I had fifty two plays of thirty seven different games,
- 1:46Speaker 1: for a total of six hundred and fifty seven plays
- 1:49Speaker 1: of two hundred and forty one different games. Now, as
- 1:52Speaker 1: a reminder, that does include online plays on platforms like
- 1:56Speaker 1: board Game Arena and Ukata dot De, which is where
- 2:01Speaker 1: I play well over half of my game So of
- 2:04Speaker 1: those six hundred, well over three hundred of them have
- 2:06Speaker 1: been online. There are still plenty in person, but I
- 2:09Speaker 1: do always want to make sure that's clear my shelf
- 2:13Speaker 1: of Opportunity started them with that seventy games, and I
- 2:17Speaker 1: reduced it to sixty eight, so I played two more
- 2:20Speaker 1: games off my shelf than I added, so that's good.
- 2:24Speaker 1: My collection size also dropped from six hundred and five
- 2:26Speaker 1: to six hundred and three games, so I did reduce
- 2:29Speaker 1: that a little bit. My most played game in September
- 2:31Speaker 1: was frost An with three plays in person and online
- 2:35Speaker 1: packs Premiere with four plays. So the top of the stack,
- 2:39Speaker 1: the idea of the top of the stack, of the
- 2:40Speaker 1: metaphor is the notion that I have a kind of
- 2:43Speaker 1: magical accounting in my head of games I want to play,
- 2:46Speaker 1: and the idea is there are three or four games
- 2:48Speaker 1: I pick four that are at the top of that
- 2:50Speaker 1: stack of games I want to play, and if I
- 2:52Speaker 1: play three of them in the month, I consider it
- 2:54Speaker 1: as success. So last month I did pick El Grande,
- 2:58Speaker 1: five Points, the game Gangs of New York, Antiquity Quest,
- 3:01Speaker 1: and Switching Signal as the games I would play, and
- 3:04Speaker 1: I managed to play three of those four. I did
- 3:06Speaker 1: not play five Points, but I did play the others,
- 3:09Speaker 1: so it was a good month in terms of getting
- 3:10Speaker 1: games played. I haven't talked about those games on the
- 3:12Speaker 1: podcast yet, and I probably won't for a while, but
- 3:15Speaker 1: when I get to them, it'll be during a Board
- 3:16Speaker 1: Game Espresso episode. So I fice to say El Grande
- 3:20Speaker 1: and Antiquity Quests were great, or El Grande was great,
- 3:23Speaker 1: Antiquity Quest was good, Searching Signal was fine. I probably
- 3:27Speaker 1: won't keep it first plays this month I did. I
- 3:30Speaker 1: always like to track which games I've tried it new.
- 3:33Speaker 1: I do count a game played on Board Game Arena
- 3:35Speaker 1: as new, but I often won't think of it as
- 3:37Speaker 1: a game I've really tried with much vigor until I've
- 3:39Speaker 1: tried it a few times on Board Game Arena. It
- 3:41Speaker 1: takes me a little while to grasp the game if
- 3:44Speaker 1: I'm playing it there. That said, I have sixty five
- 3:47Speaker 1: new to me games that I played this month as
- 3:50Speaker 1: of the beginning of the month, and by the end
- 3:53Speaker 1: of the month, I'd played seventy four games. So I
- 3:55Speaker 1: tried nine games this month. Those include Bark, Avenue, Bloke,
- 4:00Speaker 1: Try Goone, Casino, Yachtzi, Rhino Hero, Super Battle, Switching, Signal, Suburbia,
- 4:06Speaker 1: Antiquity Quest, El Grande, and Tortuga sixteen sixty seven. I
- 4:11Speaker 1: will say to Tortuga sixteen sixty seven I played on
- 4:13Speaker 1: Board Game Arena, and I had a lot of trouble
- 4:16Speaker 1: figuring out how it was supposed to work. I think
- 4:18Speaker 1: it's meant to be a relatively fast playing kind of
- 4:20Speaker 1: social reduction style game, and I playing in asynchronous I
- 4:24Speaker 1: was not able to grasp what was going on very clearly,
- 4:27Speaker 1: so that one was not too intense. I had no
- 4:31Speaker 1: first expansion plays this month. I like to keep track
- 4:34Speaker 1: of when I try a new expansion for something. I
- 4:36Speaker 1: did not try any new expansions this month, So fourteen
- 4:39Speaker 1: going in fourteen coming out out of the dust and
- 4:42Speaker 1: out of the dust play. A dusty game is one
- 4:46Speaker 1: that has that it's been a year or more since
- 4:50Speaker 1: you've played the metaphor there is the game has been
- 4:53Speaker 1: sitting on your shelf getting dusty, So if you brought
- 4:57Speaker 1: it out of the dust, then that game would fit
- 5:00Speaker 1: in there in that criteria. I did manage to play
- 5:03Speaker 1: a couple game bring a couple games out of the
- 5:05Speaker 1: dust streets. I played on board game Marina. This is
- 5:07Speaker 1: a game that I used to have in person but
- 5:10Speaker 1: I got rid of. But I have played it a
- 5:12Speaker 1: few times on board Game Arena. It was fine to
- 5:14Speaker 1: return to it. I can't say that I really liked
- 5:18Speaker 1: it a lot. It isn't my favorite obviously since I
- 5:20Speaker 1: got rid of it, but it is fine. There's an
- 5:24Speaker 1: interesting element of kind of anticipating what your opponents are
- 5:26Speaker 1: trying to do, and so I was doing that as
- 5:30Speaker 1: I went along. I had a good time with it,
- 5:33Speaker 1: and at least in so far as I would play
- 5:35Speaker 1: it again if somebody asked me to, but probably not
- 5:38Speaker 1: one I'll pick to play. So that's streets. It was
- 5:42Speaker 1: one year, one month, and twenty four days Dusty. Next
- 5:45Speaker 1: up we have as Azul Stained Glass of Cintra that
- 5:48Speaker 1: was four years, six month and sixteen days Dusty. I
- 5:52Speaker 1: tried that game several years ago at a local game
- 5:55Speaker 1: convention one day game convention, and we had a good
- 5:57Speaker 1: time with it. It was a nice mix of different
- 6:02Speaker 1: elements of the Azul formula. You still have the drafting
- 6:06Speaker 1: method that's in the original Azul, but the way that
- 6:09Speaker 1: you put tiles into your board differs dramatically. The points
- 6:13Speaker 1: score in different ways, and you're trying to do things
- 6:16Speaker 1: in different ways. It's got a different just a different
- 6:18Speaker 1: set of conventions to consider. When I played it before,
- 6:21Speaker 1: I really didn't like it. This time, I thought it
- 6:24Speaker 1: was fine, definitely not bad, and better than I remember
- 6:28Speaker 1: it being. Mostly, I was interested in having it because
- 6:32Speaker 1: it's a nice game, and I thought probably if I
- 6:35Speaker 1: played it again, I would like it better than I
- 6:36Speaker 1: did before, which turned out to be true. But I
- 6:38Speaker 1: also have Azul and a Zul Summer Pavilion, so having
- 6:42Speaker 1: a third Azul game for our collection works out nicely.
- 6:46Speaker 1: We don't have Azul Queen's Garden yet, but we may
- 6:51Speaker 1: get that at some point. All the stuff I listened to, though,
- 6:53Speaker 1: made it sound like an awful lot like Calico, and
- 6:56Speaker 1: since we already have and enjoy Calico, I'm not sure
- 6:59Speaker 1: why I need to get Azul Queen's Garden, but having
- 7:03Speaker 1: all four Azul's has a kind of completeness to it
- 7:06Speaker 1: that I do like. Next up on the dusty shelf
- 7:08Speaker 1: was Dungeon Pets. This is another board game Arena play,
- 7:11Speaker 1: but it had been one year, eight months, and twelve
- 7:14Speaker 1: days since I played it last. This is a game
- 7:17Speaker 1: I really enjoy. You have these little monsters that you're
- 7:20Speaker 1: trying to raise, and you are trying to keep them
- 7:23Speaker 1: from being sad or going hungry or getting sick in
- 7:29Speaker 1: their cave. You can allow them to poop as much
- 7:30Speaker 1: as you want, and that's okay as long as they
- 7:33Speaker 1: don't get sick. So that's kind of funny. I think
- 7:36Speaker 1: that's dungeon pets. I enjoyed that one. I will say
- 7:38Speaker 1: I was playing with two people who'd never played before,
- 7:40Speaker 1: so I kind of clabbered them, which is fine. The
- 7:44Speaker 1: people I played with clobber me regularly almost every game
- 7:47Speaker 1: we played, so I didn't mind winning one. And then
- 7:49Speaker 1: finally I dusted off Favor of the Pharaoh. This was
- 7:51Speaker 1: also four years, six months, and twenty nine days dusty,
- 7:55Speaker 1: slightly more dusty than a zul stained glass. Not dramatically so,
- 7:59Speaker 1: but close enough. This is a really nice little dice game.
- 8:03Speaker 1: It is a accumulating powers game. Each time you roll, you're
- 8:08Speaker 1: gonna get a little tiled, and that tal gives you
- 8:10Speaker 1: a bonus, so the next time you're playing you have
- 8:12Speaker 1: a bit more bonus to use, and the goal is
- 8:14Speaker 1: to accelerate your scoring until you are scoring. I think
- 8:19Speaker 1: you have to get eight of a single die to
- 8:21Speaker 1: trigger the end, or seven of the single die to
- 8:23Speaker 1: trigger the end of the game, and then everybody gets
- 8:25Speaker 1: one more turn to try to get more than seven
- 8:28Speaker 1: so if you got seven, then they're going to try
- 8:30Speaker 1: to get eight or nine of a single phase. If
- 8:34Speaker 1: they succeed, then they're going to win. Or if they
- 8:37Speaker 1: get seven but a higher number than you got, So
- 8:39Speaker 1: if you got seven threes and they get seven fives,
- 8:42Speaker 1: the fives would win out. And it goes one more
- 8:44Speaker 1: time around the table. So the first person gets seven,
- 8:47Speaker 1: then everybody else is trying to get at least seven
- 8:49Speaker 1: or better yet or eight or nine, and then it
- 8:51Speaker 1: gets back to the person who triggered the end, and
- 8:53Speaker 1: they get one more try if they didn't, if they're
- 8:55Speaker 1: not in the lead anymore, and then the game's over,
- 8:58Speaker 1: and whoever got the best round at the end wins.
- 9:02Speaker 1: Us as Tom Lahman play, it's pretty simple, but really good.
- 9:05Speaker 1: I like Favor of the Pharaoh a lot. I should
- 9:08Speaker 1: play it more than once every four years. It's a
- 9:10Speaker 1: good one. I do have a entry type called notable plays. Basically,
- 9:16Speaker 1: what this is meant to be is it's a game
- 9:19Speaker 1: that I played that I wanted to make sure to
- 9:20Speaker 1: mention here on the podcast, But I don't have any
- 9:23Speaker 1: particular reason to mention it. It's not it's not Dusty,
- 9:27Speaker 1: it's not new it's not an expansion that sort of thing.
- 9:30Speaker 1: And the notable play is Costa Rica. This is a
- 9:32Speaker 1: game I play at least once a year. It hasn't
- 9:36Speaker 1: gotten dusty, I don't think since I've gotten it. It's
- 9:38Speaker 1: a really light game, plays in about twenty minutes to
- 9:41Speaker 1: half an hour. It's a little bit of push your
- 9:42Speaker 1: luck and a little bit of set collection. It plays
- 9:45Speaker 1: up to six and just generally it's a pretty solid game.
- 9:49Speaker 1: It's a Matt Dunstan Brett Gilbert design from Mayfair before
- 9:53Speaker 1: they went goodbye. It's got a little bit of Clemens
- 9:56Speaker 1: franz Art and just generally it's a nice game. It
- 10:00Speaker 1: also has I've also trimmed the box down Eric Martin's style,
- 10:05Speaker 1: so it's about half the size of what it used
- 10:07Speaker 1: to be and I kind of like that. So that
- 10:09Speaker 1: is Costa Rica. Well. I haven't made a lot of
- 10:12Speaker 1: progress on my ten for ten, but there's not a
- 10:13Speaker 1: lot of progress to be made. I played one game
- 10:16Speaker 1: with cute animals, that's Rhino Hero super Battle. That's it.
- 10:19Speaker 1: That's the only game I added to the tableau this time.
- 10:21Speaker 1: I do have a few more cute games to play
- 10:23Speaker 1: in the next three months and a couple others to resolve.
- 10:26Speaker 1: But I'm pretty close to getting the ten for ten done,
- 10:28Speaker 1: so if I make a little effort, I think I
- 10:30Speaker 1: can do it. Just pretty exciting, haven't I don't think
- 10:32Speaker 1: I've succeeded in one in a couple of years. I
- 10:34Speaker 1: don't recall if I succeeded last year or not. I
- 10:36Speaker 1: don't think so. I think I don't think I got
- 10:38Speaker 1: half last year. It's pretty bad. So that is the
- 10:42Speaker 1: ten for ten. I keep putting my painting goal on there.
- 10:45Speaker 1: It's sort of just in honor of Tofer Graves or
- 10:49Speaker 1: Chris Graves Voodoo Child. But I haven't painted in a while,
- 10:53Speaker 1: so I do want to get back to that. But
- 10:55Speaker 1: you know who's got the time on my sholve of Opportunity.
- 10:57Speaker 1: I did knock a few games off of there. I've
- 10:59Speaker 1: already read that. My shelf of Opportunity is currently at
- 11:02Speaker 1: sixty eight games. The collection changed a little bit beginning
- 11:06Speaker 1: of the month. It was six hundred and six total
- 11:09Speaker 1: games in the collection. I immediately got rid of four,
- 11:13Speaker 1: and this was kind of a cheat. I didn't really
- 11:15Speaker 1: do that much. I mean I did get rid of
- 11:19Speaker 1: ingenious challenges. I donated that to my Board Game Club
- 11:22Speaker 1: because it's fine, but it's really the kind of game
- 11:24Speaker 1: that would go well with Ryan or Canisia's Ingenius. So
- 11:27Speaker 1: I just donated it to the club. And then I
- 11:31Speaker 1: mentioned last month that I had gotten smash Up, and
- 11:34Speaker 1: I counted the two expansions that we got as separate
- 11:37Speaker 1: games because that's the way they listed in Board Game Geek,
- 11:40Speaker 1: and it's more trouble than it's worth to not count them.
- 11:43Speaker 1: But my son who had asked me to hold on
- 11:45Speaker 1: a smash Up I REALI I learned, had asked me
- 11:48Speaker 1: to hold on to it so he could donate it
- 11:49Speaker 1: to the High School Boarding Game Club. So a Smashup
- 11:51Speaker 1: is out of the house and it's part of the
- 11:52Speaker 1: High School Board Game Club now, and it is out
- 11:55Speaker 1: of my collection, which meant I got to remove those
- 11:57Speaker 1: three games from the collection. At the same time, I
- 12:00Speaker 1: had a good month at Goodwill, meaning that I picked
- 12:03Speaker 1: up Disney Villainous Suburbia or Pitt and Quarto. So I
- 12:06Speaker 1: got four games at Goodwill, which kind of offsets the
- 12:10Speaker 1: four games that I'd subtracted there. But then I did
- 12:14Speaker 1: get I did correct myself for three games. I had
- 12:18Speaker 1: Dutch Blitz, Dutch Blitz two and Mission Red Planet. These
- 12:21Speaker 1: are all games that I'd moved to my college to
- 12:23Speaker 1: have as part of the college Board Game club library,
- 12:26Speaker 1: but that means they're not in my home collection. They
- 12:29Speaker 1: should not be counted in the home club library. So
- 12:31Speaker 1: I took those out of the home club library, and
- 12:34Speaker 1: we're now down to six hundred and three, I think
- 12:38Speaker 1: is the total where we are now. So all in all,
- 12:41Speaker 1: a pretty good month. As I'm looking forward to next
- 12:43Speaker 1: month and thinking about what I might want to play again,
- 12:46Speaker 1: I's sort of looking at the collection saying which games
- 12:48Speaker 1: that I have do I think I can get to
- 12:50Speaker 1: the table this month? Which one is I makeing actively
- 12:52Speaker 1: work at. And I picked a couple that have both
- 12:54Speaker 1: appeared on this list before, but I really want to
- 12:56Speaker 1: try to get to them. That's Bora Bora, the Stevenfeld game,
- 13:00Speaker 1: Circadians First Light, a new game I picked up at
- 13:03Speaker 1: Goodwill on October first called Linko, and a sort of
- 13:07Speaker 1: one I've had for a long time and keep trying
- 13:09Speaker 1: to get played but haven't never managed it. And this
- 13:11Speaker 1: is Android Infiltration. So those are the four games I've
- 13:15Speaker 1: picked this month. It's going to be a challenge to
- 13:16Speaker 1: get three of those played, but I would like to
- 13:18Speaker 1: try because they all look interesting, and why not I
- 13:22Speaker 1: have them in my collection. If I'm not going to
- 13:23Speaker 1: play them, I get them out of there. So that's
- 13:26Speaker 1: the That's the top of the stack for September, which
- 13:31Speaker 1: leads me to ask to your friend, what have you
- 13:34Speaker 1: been playing? What new games did you try in September
- 13:37Speaker 1: that you would like to share with your friends that
- 13:39Speaker 1: pick Up and Deliver audience. The easiest way to do
- 13:41Speaker 1: that is to head over to Board Game Geek guild
- 13:44Speaker 1: three two six y nine and share in the forums there.
- 13:47Speaker 1: It's not super active, but when people post there's often
- 13:50Speaker 1: response replies. That is the place I tend to post.
- 13:53Speaker 1: So do have a number of regular ongoing games with
- 13:56Speaker 1: folks who listen to the podcast on Board Game Arena.
- 14:00Speaker 1: If you would like to join, there is a pick
- 14:02Speaker 1: Up and Deliver group that you'd be welcome to join,
- 14:05Speaker 1: or you could just send me a message. While bat
- 14:06Speaker 1: nine two nine is my youth in in there, I'd
- 14:08Speaker 1: be happy to play a game and maybe get a
- 14:10Speaker 1: game going with several listeners. Would be fun to have
- 14:13Speaker 1: something like a game of Welcome to perhaps to enjoy
- 14:18Speaker 1: for ourselves there. Since I have an extra minute or
- 14:20Speaker 1: two here at the end of the podcast while I
- 14:23Speaker 1: walk the last block to my house. It doesn't make
- 14:25Speaker 1: me have a question for the listening audience, which just
- 14:29Speaker 1: sort of like I just had this with my students,
- 14:32Speaker 1: so it puts it in my head. How are things
- 14:34Speaker 1: going for you here on the podcast? Are you still
- 14:37Speaker 1: enjoying it? I guess if you're not, I won't know
- 14:40Speaker 1: because you're not listening and you won't answer this question,
- 14:45Speaker 1: But the sentiment still stands. Is the podcast still working
- 14:49Speaker 1: for you? Which episodes are you enjoying the most? Maybe
- 14:51Speaker 1: that's the question. I want to know. Which episodes are
- 14:54Speaker 1: you enjoying the most? Are there episodes they did in
- 14:56Speaker 1: the past that you wish I would return to? Do
- 14:58Speaker 1: you have ideas for themed episodes? Remember, anything I can
- 15:02Speaker 1: tackle in fifteen to twenty minutes is a fair game.
- 15:04Speaker 1: Anything it's longer, sometimes I'll break it into two or
- 15:06Speaker 1: three episodes. I've done that before. I'm always looking for
- 15:10Speaker 1: new topics to talk about because the board game Espresso,
- 15:15Speaker 1: I really don't want to have it be more than
- 15:17Speaker 1: every other or every even every third episode is my
- 15:20Speaker 1: preference for when that will happen because I think that
- 15:23Speaker 1: gives us enough time in between the different episodes to
- 15:26Speaker 1: kind of let things breathe think about what we've talked about.
- 15:29Speaker 1: And also I don't want the podcast to just be
- 15:31Speaker 1: short reviews of games I've played. I also don't play
- 15:34Speaker 1: enough new games to have that be the entire content.
- 15:36Speaker 1: So if you have games you think I should, if
- 15:39Speaker 1: you have things you think I should talk about or
- 15:41Speaker 1: you'd like to hear me talk about, I would love
- 15:43Speaker 1: to hear you talk about that over on Board Game
- 15:45Speaker 1: Geek in guild three two sixty seven three two six nine.
- 15:49Speaker 1: You could also send me a message well on BAT
- 15:50Speaker 1: ninety nine on Board Game Geek or Board Game Arena.
- 15:54Speaker 1: You could also email me Brendan at Rattlebox Games, but
- 15:57Speaker 1: frankly that is the least rely O lady get a
- 16:00Speaker 1: hold of me. I don't check that email as often
- 16:03Speaker 1: as I should. So well, thank you for joining me
- 16:05Speaker 1: on my walk this evening. I hope that you have
- 16:08Speaker 1: a pleasant day, and I hope that your next walk
- 16:10Speaker 1: this is pleasant mine one goodbye, brought to you by
- 16:35Speaker 1: rattle Box