Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Bonsai; Crystallo; Rise of Augustus; Take 5 (revisited)

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Bonsai; Crystallo; Rise of Augustus; Take 5 (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you pick up and deliver the podcast where
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I pick up my audio recorder as I step off
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the train and deliver an episode to you while I
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: walk home. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a moomy day here in suburban Chicago. We are in
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the yo yo weather time of the mid spring, between
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: mid February and mid April in the Midwest. That's a
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: lot of mids. The weather goes up and down like
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: a yo yo. You'll have some days where it's cresting
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: sixty degrees into the seventies and other days where it's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: tickling the thirties. This morning, it was mid fifties when
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I left the house, and I would say, if I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: had to guess, it's probably low forties, high thirties. Right
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: now it's chili chili. But that just gives you an
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: idea of what the weather's like. It's also very cloudy.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: It looks like it's gonna rain. I think I'll get
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: home before the rain, but I don't know if I'll
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: get home a lot before the rain. We'll see how
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: it goes. But that is what's going on today here
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: in suburban Chicago. What pray, tell should we do to
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: talk about games? I think it's time to do another
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: board game Espresso Triple Shot. The board game Espresso Triple
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Shot is an episode in which I talk about three
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: games I've tried recently for the first time, and one
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: game I've dusted off. Today, I'll be talking about one
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: game from January, and then I'm moving into February. There
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: are a couple more that I played in January, which
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I may go back and talk about at some point,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: but they just looking at them. I didn't have a
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: lot to say, so I thought I would jump right
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: into some February games. We'll probably make our way back
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to January at some point if nothing else. Is doing
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: one of those clean up episodes where I kind of
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: hit all the games I haven't talked about yet. But
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the game from January I want to talk about is Bonzai.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Bonzi is a twenty twenty three game from Rosaria Batatio,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Massimo Bora and Martino Chika Chierra, with art from Davud Madami.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It is a what would you call it tableau builder
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: sort of. In this game, you are taking cards from
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: a market, and the cards it's entwined drafting, so each
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: card has with it some tokens, and those tokens represent
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: different parts of a Bonzai tree. They are either branches
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: or green part or flowers. And then there are cards,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and each card has a different thing on it. On
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: your turn, you're going to pick one of the market
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: of things that you could draft and you're going to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: take it and add it to your tableau. The plant
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: parts that you add are going to be attached to
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: your Bonzai tree. The idea is that you're slowly taking
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: these tiles, which are kind of like hex tiles, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: you're building out a Bonzi tree. You have as your
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: player board the starting point, like a cardboard depiction of
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the basin that the Bonzi tree sits in, and then
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the pieces you're putting on top of it are the
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: bonzai that are growing up from it. The cards represent
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a couple different kinds of things. There are some cards
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: that give you ongoing benefits, there are some cards that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: give you one time benefits, and then there are some
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: cards that give you scoring possibilities. Those are kind of
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the three options. There are also shared goals that are
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: worth a lot of points, and you're trying to achieve
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: those in a timely manner as well. I think if
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I recall the first person to achieve, each one gets
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a bonus, and then other people can get a smaller
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: bonus I think, or it might just be one only
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: one person gets them. Bonzai is a relatively simple game.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: It plays relatively click quickly. We played four players in
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: about in under an hour at Toggle Gaming, and it's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: delightful and relatively chill. So when people talk about games
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: being cozy, Bonzai really fits that pretty well. It's easy
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: to play, it's lovely looking, it's relatively low stress, although
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you are racing with other players to accomplish things, but
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: ultimately you're just trying to make a nice look in
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Bonzi Tree, and as long as you manage to make
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a nice look in Bonzi Tree, it's not as important
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: if you outpace your opponents. I enjoyed Bonzi quite a
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: bit as a lightweight strategy game. I would happily play
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: it a number of times. I don't think that I
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: would buy it at full price, but I certainly would
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: buy it at steep discount, and absolutely would be a
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: treat to snap up at a goodwill or maybe even
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: in trade. So that is bonzais from twenty twenty three.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Next up, we have another game that I got from
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  Speaker 1: the warehouse sale at the end of January. This is Cristalo.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Cristalo is a twenty eighteen game designed and art from
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Liberty Kiefer. I remember in encountering this game on Board
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  Speaker 1: Game Geek and on Kickstarter. I believe that I play tested.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: It is a print and play, and I think that
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I did a round of rules consultation with Liberty Kiefer.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: They were interacting a lot on Board game Geek as
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: they designed the game the final product. I did not
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: like it enough to back it on Kickstarter, but when
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I saw it available to get for five dollars, I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: think from this warehouse sale, I snapped it up. Crysalo
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: is a lovely little package that comes with this nice
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: velvet team bag that says Cristalo on it, and inside
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  Speaker 1: you have a bunch of crystals and you have a
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: deck of cards. It is a tableau or a card
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: matching game in which you have a series of cards
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  Speaker 1: with patterns on them of gems and little check mark tokens,
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  Speaker 1: and on your turn, you are playing down cards adding
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: them to this grid of gems, sort of as though
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: you're building a cave, and the cards represent your exploring
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the cave. If you manage to get a certain number
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: of check marks around the gem, then you take one
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  Speaker 1: of the physical gems the game comes with. These are
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: similar to the gems in Century Gollum edition, for example,
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  Speaker 1: and you're gonna put those gems on the matching color
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: on the map. Once you get a certain number of those,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you can then spend those to defeat a dragon of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that color. You win the game by defeating all six dragons,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and then you release the final boss dragon and defeat
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: that as well, and you win. This is an interesting
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: little puzzle game. I've only played the one time, but
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: it's certainly a good solo game. It's not probably airplane
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: appropriate because the card tableau as you build it gets
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a little big, but there certainly is enough there to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: make it worth playing a few times. It probably it
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: does feel like a game that you'd get better at
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: as you go. You start to recognize patterns and when
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: it would be worthwhile to wait, and when you should
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: pursue achieving a particular gem, But ultimately feel sort of
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: like Spraulopolis and that you're reacting to what comes out
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of the deck and just doing the best with what
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you have. The art is really nice. Miss Kiefer did
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: a great job with the dragons on the cards, and
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the caves are adequate. I mean, they're fine overall. I
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: think Cristalo is a fine little solo game. I'm happy
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: to have gotten it for three dollars or five dollars
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: whatever I paid for it from the warehouse sale. I
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: don't know that i'd suggest paying fifteen or twenty, which
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: is probably the retail but it's certainly a nice experience
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  Speaker 1: if you get a chance to try it. That's Crystalo
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: or Crystallo. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Crystal
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: l is how you spell it. I recently did get
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: a chance at Toggo Gaming to dust off six Nimpts,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: or otherwise known as Take five, although when I looked
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: on board game gig, it looks like Take five is
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: actually a different game than six nimped but most of
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: what I can find suggest they're the same game, so
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: it's a little confusing. Designed by Wolfgang Kramer with art
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: from Franz Volwinkle. The version we have we got from
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Amigo at gen Con last year, just under the wire
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: because apparently they're not going to be distributing games in
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: North America anytime soon, so this year they won't be
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: at gen Con, I presume, so we got out under
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the wire. So six Nimpt is a really clever little
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: card game with a very simple premise. Each person gets
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a hand of cards, and on your turn, you're going
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to play one of those cards. Everybody's going to play
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: a card at the same time, So during a round,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: we all pick a card and then we reveal them
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: at the same time, and then you add those cards
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to the grid of cards on the table. The grid
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: of cards is where the game is played. So on
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the table at the beginning, you have a certain number
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: of rows of cards. I think five. It may depend
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: on how many players there are. I'm not sure we
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: played with four players there were I think there were
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: five rows. Maybe maybe that is part of it. When
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: you first seal out the row of cards, the number
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: on the card in each row, you put them in
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  Speaker 1: order from lowest to highest, and that number represents the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: upper end of that card's domain, and then the next
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: card down represents the next one. So let's say that
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: your top card is a five and your next card
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  Speaker 1: down is a fifteen. The cards go from like one
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: to one and thirty or something. On your turn. When
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: you play a card, you're gonna add it to the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: row in between the last card in the row and
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the lowest card in the next row. So if the
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  Speaker 1: top row is a five and the bottom row is
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  Speaker 1: a fifteen, and you have a seven, you're gonna add
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  Speaker 1: the seven on the end of the five. Where the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: game gets tricky is when you don't have a place
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: that you can add your card because of the combination
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: of cards that are available. So for example, if the
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  Speaker 1: bottom row is seven and you play a four, you
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: don't or the top rows of seven and you play
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: a four, you don't have anywhere you can add that row.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Now you have to kill the row that's there. Alternately,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: if you get to the point where you're adding a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: sixth card to the row, you and said collect the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: five that are there, and then you add your sixth
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: card as a new card in the row. So those
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: are kind of the two ways that you might get
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: stuck creating a row. And the goal is to score
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: as few points as possible. I don't know if I've
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: explained that very well, but the clever gimmick is that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: different cards have different number of little cow skulls on them,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: and the number of skulls is the number of points
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: you take. So taking a row of three or four
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: cards or five cards isn't always bad if they're all ones.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But sometimes there's a row with five a bunch of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: fives in it, and then you're taking twenty points or something.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So there's an interesting dynamic in which you're trying to
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: figure out what row you're going to try to play
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: with and where your card will go in the cascade
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: of cards that other people play. When you play your cards,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: you don't go in and you don't play them in order.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You play them in number order from lowest highest. So
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the higher the card you play, the more likely it
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: is that the board will change in some terrible way
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: before your card gets played. I feel like I've made
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a hash of explaining the game, except to say that
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: it's really fun. This is a great little competitive card game,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: one I enjoy a lot, and I would really like
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to find at discount. I'm not sure, just because I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: have so many games. I'm not sure I'm ever going
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: to buy it at retail, but I certainly will be
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: happy to find it at discount or at a thrift store,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and it will get a lot of play once I
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: have a copy that is six namped or the more
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: recent version it's called Take five played if you get
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: a chance. The last game I want to talk about
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: is another game from Toggle that I played at the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Out of the Toggle collection. It is a twenty thirteen
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: game designed by Paolo Moury, who has a very good
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: track record with me. Most of the games of his
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that I've played, I've at least inoed, if not really
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: really liked. A top one for me is Libertalia, but
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: also Ethnos. Both of those are very good, and this
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: is Rise of Augustus another one I really liked. In
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Rise of Augustus, you are trying to get points by
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: achieving different cards. The cards give you points themselves, but
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: they also give you scoring conditions which could give you
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: points based on other stuff that you have. The way
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the game works on your turn are I think you
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: take turns taking the tokens out of the bag, or
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: just one person is drawing from the bag. There's a
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: bag with a bunch of tokens on it. The tokens
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: have different symbols. The person who's drawing tokens is going
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to draw a token out of the bag, and then
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: everyone is going to put a cube on a card
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that has that symbol on it in front of them.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: You can have up to three cards in front of me.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: In fact, you start with three cards in front of you,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: and when you filled up a card by covering all
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the symbols on it, you score that card and you
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: take a new card from the market. The clever part
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: is the symbols from the bag come in a variety
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: of rarity, and the cards have points that related to
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: that rarity. So you can have a gamble where you
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: try to take a card that has some of the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: more rare symbols. But then you might get stuck and
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: other people pass you because they're completing cards that have
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: more common symbols and your card has rare symbols and
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you're just not able to complete it. It's a great
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: balance that is really tight. I enjoyed this game a lot.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: The theme I couldn't care less about its ancient rome
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: or something. I presume you're doing something in regarding the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Rise of Augustus because that's the title. The art is
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: nice enough. Vincent to trade art in his more realistic style,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: so more like what you see in Tenpenny Parks or
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: New York nineteen oh two rather than the cartoonish art
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: that you see on like Agricola. Is that sort of
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: cartoon style that he is also known for. The bingo
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: style play of the game is makes it really fast
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and the competition to complete cards quickly and finish off
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the game works really well for my money. I think
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Rise of Augustus is excellent and I'm looking forward to
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: playing it again at some point at toggle. So that's
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the twenty thirteen game Rise of Augustus. Well, that's about
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: it for me today. I hope that you have enjoyed
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: this conversation about board games this board game Espresso Triple Shot.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I would love to hear what you've been playing. You
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: can share that information with me by going to Board
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Game Geek and entering it in a conversation on Board
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Game Geek Guild three two sixty nine. You can also
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: send me a direct message Brendan at rattleboxgames dot com.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: That's an email where you can send me a Board
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Game Geek message. Wombat ninetywo nine is my user name there. Well,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I want to say thank you for joining me on
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the walk today, your next walk. This is puzzled as
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: mine was. Bye bye. Brought to you by rattle Box