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AQUA; The A.R.T. Project; Ziggurat; Power Grid (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: where I pick up my audio recorder as I step
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: off the train and deliver an episode to you while
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I walk home. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago. I've stepped
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: off the train and I'm walking home. It feels like
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: it should be late August and not late September. Well,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: maybe it's a little cooler than you'd expect in late August,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: but it could be late May or early June. Afternoon,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: it's got to be in the mid seventies, if not warmer,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: which is a little warm for late September. Not unheard of,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: but a little surprising. Still, it's a very nice weather
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad to be out in it. Well, like
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I said, I've been a bit behind in recording my episodes,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: so that means I have plenty to talk to you about.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: So I thought I would talk talk to you about
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: some games I played recently. That's right, it's time for
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: a board Game Espresso triple Shot. For those of you
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: new to the podcast, board Game Espresso Triple Shot is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: an episode style where I talk about games that I've
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: played recently for the first time. It's not a review
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: segment because I haven't played these games long enough to
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: give them a reasonable review. Instead, I consider it kind
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of a first look. So I wasn't really intending to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: do a themed episode, but it seems like just by happenstance.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: The next three games on my list are all games
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: that I played for the first time at gen Con.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So this is kind of the gen Con twenty twenty
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: four board game Espresso Triple Shot. Now. I did talk
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: about Burn the Fort in the last episode, and Burn
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the Fort is a game I played for the first
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: time at gen Con, So this is an exclusively or
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: conclusively all the games I played at gen Con. It's
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: just a smattering of nonetheless. So, the first game I
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: want to talk about is Aqua Biodiversity in the Oceans.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: This is designed by Dan and Tristan Halstead. Dan Halstead
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: was one of the hosts of the podcasts of Nonsensical Gamers,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: from whom I got the phrase top of the Stack
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and the general idea of it. I got to meet Dan,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: as I've mentioned before, at Origins twenty seventeen, where he
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: showed me Baron Park and that was really fun. So
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: while congratulations Dan on another publication previously, I've played Dan's
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: game Bees, and it seems like Dan's focus or his
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: BALLI wick are sort of light abstract games games with
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: where you're trying to sort of maximize your score within
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: a relatively simple rule set, and in that regard, I
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: think he does a pretty good job. I can't say
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: what Tristan added to this, but I believe that Dan
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and Tristan are a design duo now, Tristan being Dan's son.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: As I understand it, a biodiversity in the Oceans is
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: an abstract tile layer in which you are trying to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: complete different patterns in order to score points. Think about
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: like the patterns in Calico, where you get a certain
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: pattern on the quilt and then you get to put
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a cat on it, and then in a related way,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: then there are bigger patterns that you can achieve once
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: you've achieved the smaller patterns. The game does has a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: variety of different patterns that you're trying to get, and
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: those change game to games. So if you think about
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the way that Cascadia has changing scoring options, or frankly Calico,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I think Aqua fits into those Realms. Aqua has a
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: really interesting art style. It uses these hexagons that are
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: divided up into three pieces, and each piece has a
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: sort of different pattern on it, and so when you're
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: putting the hexagons together, they are connecting with other hexagons
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to make these little diamonds of particular color, and you're
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: trying to connect those different diamonds across a variety of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: different color sets. Sort of stringing those together will give
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: you your scoring condition. It's an interesting mechanism. It feels
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: very much abstract Tile Layer in the neighborhood of those
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: other games I've mentioned. We did find some elements of
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: it a little confusing. There was one rule that basically
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: you're not allowed to play tiles in a certain way
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: because it creates like an unscorable area, and that part
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: felt a little clunky to us in the one play
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: we had. Overall, it was a fine game, and I
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: certainly would enjoy playing it again. From other folks, I
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say it was a home run for me. I
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: didn't buy it. I think, you know, just the shortcomings
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: in terms of the theme felt really abstracted. I mean,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: there is excellent art. It's vincent to trade art. The
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: drawings of the CEA animals were really great, but they
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: didn't feel necessarily. It could easily have been about some
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: completely different theme or setting and it would have worked
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: just as well. So from that perspective, it didn't really
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: grab my attention, and then it just wasn't different enough
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: from the other games in that genre. Nonetheless, if you
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: like pattern matching Tile Layer, it's definitely worth taking a
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: look at. And I seem to be in the minority here.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: This has a seven point four on Board Game Geek,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: so it's certainly getting a fair amount of accolades from
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the BGG users. So check out Aqua Biodiversity in the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Oceans if you get a chance. Next up, we have
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the Art Project. The Art Project from designers Florian Ciriu
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and ben Wa Turpin. Ben Wan Turpin being the designer
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of Welcome to Your Perfect Home or Welcome to Las
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Vegas Welcome to the Moon art by Vincent Dutre and
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: published by Lumberjacks Studio and the op Games in the US,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: which is also who published Aqua. This game. I got
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to learn from Sam Healey, formerly of the Dice Tower,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: so it was sort of fun to see him in person.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I will say he was. I wish he had let
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: us figure the game out a little bit more. He
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: was a little bit he was offering more advice than
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I necessarily needed or wanted. I generally think if you're
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: teaching somebody a game, we can kind of wait and
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: see how much advice they want, so whatever. Minor Gripe
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: The Arts Project, as it's called, is a sort of
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: sixties themed spy game in which you are It's a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: co op game in which you are a group of
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: sort of mod era spies trying to protect the world's
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: art from being stolen. There are a series of sort
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: of criminals in stylish look who are seating the board,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and you're trying to tackle them using a variety of
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: different resources. The gameplay feel is certainly in the pandemic
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: neighborhood in terms of the game has these escalating problems
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that emerge, and the players need to work together to
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: spend their limited resources both to stop the escalating problems
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: but also to embark on the wind condition, and those
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: things are kind of mutually exclusive. Stopping the problems keeps
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the game from being over, but you don't get close
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: to the wind condition, and then you're closer to losing
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: because you run out of time. This was a fine game.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: If I weren't already ensconced in plenty of co op games,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I think the art project would be a nice start
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: to that journey. Vincentu Trade's art is really fun, but again,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: like the Aqua, just not a lot there for me
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: in terms of something special or unique, something that would
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: make me want to get this for just getting out
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: one of the co ops that I already have, particularly
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the more difficult or interesting ones you know, ghost Stories
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: still stands near the top. I still really like Atlanta's
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Rising Spirit Island and Aon's End are all sort of
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: more compelling to me than the Art Project Pandemic two,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to be honest, So again a pass for me in
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: terms of purchasing. Probably worth trying, especially if you like
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: if you really likes control the chaos cooperative games, and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the sixties mod theme is pretty neat the art. The
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Vincent to Trade art is excellent. It sort of reminded
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: me it's in the vein more of his stuff like
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Tenpenny Parks, rather than the older art he used to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: do for Lookout Games, stuff like Kavernah. It's that sort
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: of new, rugged look really good stuff, but the game
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: was just okay. So that's the art project. The third
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: game that I got to try at gen Con was Ziggurat.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Ziggurat is a family friendly legacy game by Rob Davio
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and Matt Leecock, the pair who made Pandemic Legacy and
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Rob Davio obviously the king of legacy games and designer
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: of a lot of different things. Matt Leecock the probably
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: best known for Pandemic as well as the Forbidden series
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, Forbidden Sky, and Forbidden Jungle. So
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: those two teamed up again to make a legacy game,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and this one is called Ziggurat. It's got a really
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: nice looking three D component. It is a ziggurat, I
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: know you're surprised about that, that you build on the table,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and it's got little spots for stickers and little doors
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: you can open, and like I said, it's a family
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: friendly game. So the gameplay mechanisms are relatively accessible at
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: first in terms of level I'm reminded of like Harry
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Potter Hogwarts Battle. The first the first chapter of that game,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: which is not a legacy game but was a campaign,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: was very very accessible for gamers of any kind of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: moderate stripe, Like if you have kids who've played any
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: sorts of games, they can handle the first chapter of
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle once they're seven or eight probably,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: and Ziggarot I would put in the same category. Probably
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: a seven or eight year old would be able to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: handle the mechanisms pretty well, could collaborate as a team
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: on winning. We did win the first chapter, and then
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: there are story elements and thing boxes you get to
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: open up, and stickers you get to apply. One of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the things I really like about the way they've packaged
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: this game is that it comes with a reset pack
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: in the game, so you can play all the way through,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: finish it up, and then there's a reset pack in
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the box that allows you to reset
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it all the way back to the beginning, so you
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: could do another run through the campaign, or you could
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: give it to a friend or whatever. In terms of
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: gameplay itself, you know, there's an interesting issue when you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: are looking at something being family friendly, because often there
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: is a trade off. Right if you're making a game
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: that is accessible and easily understood by say a seven
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: year old, the level at which it can still be
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: really satisfying for an adult has to drop. It's a
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: concession you have to make, and so it feels a
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: little unfair to judge this game as a game I
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: might play as an adult with other adults when it's
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: meant to be a family game. So putting on my
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: memory cap or thinking about when my kids were say
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: seven or eight, I think ziggur Out would have been
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a really fun game to play with them over the
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: course of six months, you know, playing I think there's
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: eight or twelve games in the campaign, so playing that
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: over a couple months, once a week or something would
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: have been pretty fun. Now, the game played pretty fast,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: so I feel like if your kids have any kind
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: of attention span at all, you're maybe playing two sessions
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: in one sitting, two games in one sitting, and then
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you've still got six weeks maybe two months of play.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: And you know, from that perspective it the game is
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: pretty neat. The mechanisms are interesting, not incomprehensible, but also
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: somewhat novel, and the table presence is a real winner.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: The game is very beige, however, so that is one
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: thing to worry about, but overall an interesting game. I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: definitely would be in the market for it if I
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: had a middle grade elementary schooler, so look a second
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: third grade or something like that feels like it would
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: be a good fit. So finally, I always like to
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: talk about one game that I dusted off as well.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: It's been five years, one month, and twenty seven days
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: since I played Power Grid, or when I dusted it off,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: it had been that long. Power Grid is a classic
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: game from Freedom and Freese published by Rio Grand in
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the United States, and it is a game is a
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: sort of classic economic game about building a network, trying
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: to be as efficient as you can and using your
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: money and trying to power the most cities. It is
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the sort of game that appeals to me. I certainly
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: enjoy playing it, but it is not a favorite, and
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: my wife really dislikes it. Of the last time we played,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: she won. She didn't really want to play, but some
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of the other people were playing with said we should,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: so she's like, yeah, okay, fine, we can play it.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And then she won, which I thought was really funny
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: in a tiebreaker by two dollars. So especially spiteful win,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: which is always the best kind power good. You know,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: it's always satisfying. It's an interesting game. Often when I'm
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: playing it. I just wish I was playing Brass instead,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: but overall a really solid game and worth checking out.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I was surprised it had been five years since I played,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but there it was, so probably back in the Probably
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: won't play it again for another five years, but when
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I do, I'm sure i'll say the same thing. Well
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that's about it for me today. Thanks for joining me
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: on my walk. Head over to board game get Guild
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: three two sixty nine and post about what you've been playing.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see it or send me a message
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: there one at nineteen nine is my username. Thanks for
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: joining me. I'm an walk today and I hope your
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: next walk is Bosn's is mine work Goodbye. Brought to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: you by rattle Box