Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Fromage; Cities; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Machi Koro revisited

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Fromage; Cities; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Machi Koro revisited · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step out for
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a walk and deliver an episode to you while I
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: stroll around. I'm Brendan Riley, Well greeting's friends. It's a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: lovely day here in suburban Chicago. The sky is blue,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the sun is out. It's a balmy thirty seven degrees
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: right now, shakes it feel practically like summertime. I am
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: going for a little walk in between grading sessions. Who
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: with the grating is intense this year tons to do,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: but that's okay. So I thought that I would talk
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: with you a little bit about some games I played recently.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Feels like it's been a minute, so it's time for
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: us to talk about a board game. Espresso Triple Shot Up.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: The board game Espresso Triple Shot is a episode format
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: in which I talk about three games I've played recently
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: for the first time and one game I dusted off now.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Because of my slowed down production schedule over the past
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: couple weeks, I've gotten pretty behind on the board game
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Espresso Triple Shot. In fact, as I was looking, there
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: are a bunch of games from October that I have
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: not talked about yet, and rather than go back and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: do all the games from October, I just I put
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: October aside, and I'm talking about some games from November.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: If I have time, I'll go back and talk about
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: those the other ones, the ones from October later or
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: some of the highlights maybe, but for now, I'm just
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: doing interesting games recently. I don't have that many episodes
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: left this year, so I just want to make sure
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that I talk about stuff I'm interested in talking about.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: So with that, I'm going to talk about a couple
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: of games I tried in October. The first one is
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: was All of the Hotness maybe six maybe a year ago.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: It came out in twenty twenty four, so it would
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: have been a year ago. There was a game that
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: ran on Kickstarter first, and they did a follow up
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to which I don't know. I don't know if that
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: delivered yet or so. Fromage Fromage was All the Hotness
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: for a minute, and still should be, because boy it's good.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: This is a medium weight, sort of puzzly Euro game
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: from R two I Games. This is Road to Infamy games.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: They I'm particularly fond of them because they used to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: live in the Chicago area and would regularly come to
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: our game club to do play testing, so it's really
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: fun when they visit us again. It's designed by Matthew
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: O'Malley and Ben Rossett, with art by Paveloba. In this game,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: you are a cheese maker. You are creating cheese of
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: various types. You are farming the cheese using farm animals.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: You are raising your efficiencies and trying to score points
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: in a variety of different points scoring setups. The game
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: comes with a bunch of different tiles that change the
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: point scoring set so no two games are ever alike.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Once you know how to play and the way that
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the points score change by each category. The gimmick of
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: the game, which is very clever, is that you have
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: these three little workers that look like cheeses, and when
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: you put them in the board, you can put them
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in either facing to the right, facing forward, or facing
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to the left. And then after everyone takes their turns
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: at the same time, and then once everyone's taking their turn,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: then the board rotates ninety degrees. It's sort of a
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: quarter turn. And then you look out over the board
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and in ey cheese pieces that are pointing at you
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that are yours. You return, you take back. So when
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you put out a worker, if you put it out
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: facing to the right, then when the board rotates, it
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: will now be facing you and you get to take
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: it back. If you put it facing forward, it's going
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to take it two turns to be facing you, and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: if you put it facing to the left, it'll take
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: three turns. So you're investing that worker in one, two,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: or three rounds of work to get the thing that
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: they are getting for you. Very clever system that works
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: really smoothly and is pretty easy to understand. That also
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: put little numbers in them, so one, two, or three,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: so you just know how long you're having to wait.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Like I said, it's a there's a variety of different
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: scoring options, and usually each core tile of the board
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: has a different scoring system, and so at the beginning
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: of the game, it's a lot of like, here's how
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: this works, here's how this works, and it seems like
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: you have to kind of pick and choose which ones
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: you're gonna spend energy investing in. But there's a big
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: thing about just managing how much time you want to
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: invest your workers in, because the better actions take more time.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: But if you invest your workers too long, then you
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: don't have anybody to do the work. It's a very
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: clever system. I've played it once or twice on the table,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: just once, I think, and I've played it two or
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: three times digitally. It plays really well on board game
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: arena because again you get to do your whole round
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: in one go, and then you hit submit and the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: board rotates and then you get to take another turn.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: If you're telling two players, it works really well that way.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: The board rotates, then you get to take another turn,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: and then you go away, and when your opponent gets there,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: they'll finish up their half of the round you just finished,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and then the board rotates and they do their turn
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: on the next round, and it goes back and forth.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: But if you were playing together, you can all be
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: playing your turns at the same time. I would say
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: one of the downsides of the physical game is that
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: you don't really see what anyone else is doing because
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you're all taking your turns at the same time. You're
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: not paying attention to other people's turns, which isn't always
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a problem heads. I like a head's down euro where
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I don't have to pay attention to what other people
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: are doing just fine, But there is always the possibility
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: of someone's not playing correctly and you wouldn't know. It
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: also doesn't feel it's not super interactive at all. The
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: only interactivity is oh, I put my piece on the
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: spot you were gonna go. So generally Fromage is pretty good.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I would recommend trying it if you get a chance.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: It's on board game where you know, so that's where
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you could give it a try. There that's Fromage. Next
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: up we have another like game, even lighter than Fromage.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: This is Cities. Oh I forgot say. Fromage plays in
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: like forty five minutes. It's really fast, which is nice
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: if you want something quick. Next up we have Cities,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: which maybe even plays faster than Fromage. I think a
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: slow game of Cities is forty five minutes, but I
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: bet once everyone knows how to play, if it takes
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: more than half an hour, you've got a real slow
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: poke in your group. Cities is a drafting game, sort
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: of in the neighborhood of king Domino. It's like complicated
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: king Domino. What you have is this board with four
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: markets of different kinds of things. You can draft. You
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: can draft city tiles, you can draft scoring cards, you
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: can draft these little tokens that go on the city
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: tiles that get you points in various ways, and you
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: can draft little houses that go on the city tiles
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and get you points in various ways. Each round you're
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: going to make a market of all of those things.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: That's exactly the size of the player group. So if
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: you have four players, you're putting out four things in
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the market. Then on your turn, you're going to draft
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: from one of the four markets, and here's the gimmick,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: you can't draft from that again in that round. So
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: every round you're gonna be drafting from each of the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: four markets, which means that when it's your turn to draft,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: if you draft from Market A, you'll never draft from
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Market A again until the next round, which means that
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: if you're the only person who hasn't drafted from Market A,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: there's no pressure. You don't have to get that thing.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: You can wait till your last turn to get it
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: because you know you're gonna get it. The game is
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: played over eight rounds. You all start with one city tile.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: At the end, you have a three by three grade
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: of nine city tiles, and then you score your cards.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: There are a couple shared goals as well that you
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: score as you achieve them, so there is a little
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: bit of a race element, but generally it's you know,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the race part is in that drafting, and sometimes you
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: can see what somebody's going for and you try to
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: limit them. One of the things is there are multiple
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: copies of the same drafting cards, and so if you
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: get one of those, you can lean into that and
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: then try to get the other ones that have that
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: are that same card, because you'll score each of them,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: so it ends up being a multiplier. The game comes
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: with several different city tiles, like three or four of
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: them that are double sided, and the shared goals that
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: everybody's going for are different with each city tile, so
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: you can and those are then vaguely themed around places.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's very carefully themed. All in all,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: this is a great twenty minute, half hour, forty five
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: minutes probably half hour to forty five minute game, definitely
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes to an hour with a teach. But
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: it's really easy to approach, really satisfying in terms of
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the different kinds of scoring that there are. There's lots
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to do and lots to think about. It's fun trying
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: to satisfy several different goals with the single tile. I
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: like that a lot. Not surprisingly, this is from Phil
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Walker Harding of Baron Park fame. He also made im Hotep,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: which I don't like, but Sushi Go I like. And
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Steve Finn, who did Biblios as well as a bunch
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of other games. I think the only game of his
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: that I have at present since I got rid of
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Biblios is Nanga Parbat, which I really like, published by
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: Devere in twenty twenty four. I got to play this
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: copy because it was donated to my game club by
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: de Vere. Thank you, Davier for donating Totago games. We
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: appreciate you. So that is Cities with art by George
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Tabanera Ridundo. I did get to dust off someome games
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: in November, but the one that stood out the most
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: is Machi Coro. If you're listening the podcast, you're saying, wait, Brean,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, Brendan, I haven't heard you talk about Machikorro.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Maybe you've mentioned it in the context of Space Base,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: but never Machi Koro. Yeah, that's because I haven't played
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Machikorro since before this podcast was created. The last time
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I played Machikorro was nine years, nine months, and twenty
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: five days ago. It's been a long time. Machikorro is
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a really interesting tableau building game in which you are
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: buying buildings and putting them in front of you, and
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: then every time someone rolls the dice. There are certain
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: certain buildings that activate if they roll that value. So
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you want to put plenty of green buildings out because
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the green buildings activate when someone else rolls those dice.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: They're also blue building or I don't remember exactly, there's red,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: there's a buildings that only activate when you roll them.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: There's buildings that attack each other. It's a pretty straightforward
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: tableaux building game with high luck variants. Sometimes, like the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: game we were playing, I leaned into one of the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: bonus types, and I just the dice never came up
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: on the bonus type that I had nearly as often
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: as the bonus types of other people, even though statistically
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: they should have. It's just part of the game. Manchi
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Gooro is a really nice race game. It takes about
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: a half an hour. We played the Bass game. I remember.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I originally had a couple of the expansions, which added
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: lots of different kinds of buildings in I thought that
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: made it more interesting, but ultimately less fun. Mostly the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: main thing for me is Machi Caro. If you have
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: somebody who leans hard into the red buildings can be
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: really unfun because you just lose all your stuff, and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I wish that it didn't work that way. Ultimately, I
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: got rid of Machikorro once I played Space Base, because
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to me, Space Base is everything Machi Korro was, but
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: also more fun in a variety of ways. So anytime
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I would want to play Manchi Korro, I would play
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Space Base. That said, somebody got out Machi Korro and said, hey,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: let's play this, and I said, I haven't played that
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: in a while. Sure, I'll give it a go. And
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I had a good time. Sure, but I don't know
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: that I ever need to play again or I mean,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: it's not I'm not putting it on my now I'm
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: good list. I had a fine time with it, and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: if someone else gets it out and says they really
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: want to play, I will play it. I may even
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: show it to people at some point because it is
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: pretty pretty satisfying, but ultimately it's not a game I'm
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: going to seek out. That's Machi Korro from twenty twelve
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: designed my Masao Sugar Numa with art from Noburo Hotel,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Ian Parovel and Mirko Suzuki. Next up, and lastly we
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: have The Scarlet Pimpernell. So the Scarlet Pimpernel. I got
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: a chance to play because a friend had a copy
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: of it that he picked up on deep discount at
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: a game store. It was like fifteen bucks, I think,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: he said. And looking at it it has it looks beautiful.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: It is an Ego Griffin game, the big old Ego
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Griffin games box with art by Ean o'tool. It looks
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: very pretty. The box reminds me somewhere in the neighborhood
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: of between Liz Boa and Escape Plan if you're thinking
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: about different eno'tool boxes. It is seemed, of course, around
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the nineteenth century literary figure the Scarlet Pimpernel, who is
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: a British nobleman who would sneak over to France and
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: rescue French people who are being unfairly hounded for there
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: by the uprising rabble. It is a pro royalist story
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: which is full of the adventure and daring do and fine.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't know how much I want to
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: be playing a pro royalist story at this point. Guillotine
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: is more fun, I think, But it's an interesting competition
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: in the game. None of you are actually the Scarlet Pimpernel,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: so we don't have the optimist prime problem. If you
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: don't know what I mean by that, check the show notes.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I'll have a link to an episode of Flip the Table.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: So we play nobles who are trying to help the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Scarlet Pimpernel in his work rescuing nobles. So what we
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: do is we build networks of support for the pimpernel
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: by putting out by taking actions to put out different
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: kinds of resources for the pimpernel to use, to map
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: out a path for him to take, and to then
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: help him actually run his daring missions. With each of
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: these choices that we make, we gain influence with the
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: royal community, which is the points. Especially you get points
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: for helping the Scarlet Pimpernel accomplish as daring deeds. The
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: interesting part is if he doesn't use the if he
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't go, like if you've set up places in the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: city for him to live and he doesn't go to
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the place in the city that you've the city that
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: you've set up for well too bad. So there's an
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: interesting jockeying that happens to do the work that gets points,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: but also to control the way that the events happen
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: on the board so that the work you've put out
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: mixed the most point. We had a good time with it.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: It was interesting. Ultimately, I wouldn't say it was dramatically exciting.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: If someone brought it and said, hey, I really want
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to play this, I don't think I'd say no, but
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I don't. I'm glad I didn't seek it out. That said,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: at fifteen dollars, I think it's a decent price if
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that sounds exciting to you, or if you like the theme,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: or you just want to try out an E and
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: o'tool graphic design from Ego Griffin Games. They tend to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: be pretty dang good, and this one is not bad.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It's just wasn't great or to my taste. So that
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: was the Scarlet Pimpernel from twenty nineteen designer Brian Kelly.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Graphic design E and O tool from Ego Griffin Games.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Well that's about it for me today. What games have
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you been playing recently? Head over to board game Geek
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Guild three two sixty nine and share your gameplays there.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear which games have made it to
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the table, which games you're excited about, and how you're
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: wrapping up your If you'd like to reach out to
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: me directly, my email is Brendan at rattleboxgames dot com.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from me there, or even better,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: post in the board game Geek forums. You could also
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: direct message me on board game Geek. Wombat nine to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: nine is my user name there if you'd like to
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: play a game with me. I am on both Board
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Game Arena and Yukata dot de as Wombat nine two nine.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I'd love to play some asynchronous games with you there.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I've recently been playing games with a listener Michiana board
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: is the username. I'm entirely sure about that. Uh so
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: glad to meet them and play some games over on
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: board game Arena. All right with that, I'm gonna call
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: it a day. I want to say thank you for
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: joining MEMA walk today may have be your next walk
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: is as pleasant as mine was. Goodbye. Brought to you
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: by rattle Box