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Pick Up & Deliver 802: Take Time; Moa; 1902 Méliès; Space Base (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 off the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode to you, well I walk home,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well friends, I have tried to record
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: this episode several times. I am still not in the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: good spot with the quality of the recording on my
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: new audio recorder. It's just for some reason, it is
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: just too hot, and I can't find a lab mic
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: that can both withstand the wind without getting too overwhelmed
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and can also record at a volume that works. The
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: mic I'm currently using. I've plugged into my old phone,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: which is it works okay, but like I might lose
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: this recording, so we'll see. Nonetheless, I wanted to do
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a quick episode here before the month ends, so that
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: it's not just top of the stack top of the
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: But that's what's going on. That's why you haven't heard
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: from me much. It's been basically a month, which is
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: really a bummer. I miss recording, but every time I
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: record it it sounds terrible. So I'm still struggling to
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: get this working right. So that's what's going on.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I probably need to anyway, enough of that, So what I.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Thought I would talk about is a couple of games
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: from December, the last games that I'm going to talk
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: about for December. Once we hit March, then I'm gonna
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: start talking about games from January, assuming I can record.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the first one is called Take Time.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Take Time is a Take Time as a cooperative game
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: in which you are working together to put cards out
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: in order, and it's in the same kind of neighborhood
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: as the Mind is, sort of like the Mind meets Bombbusters,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: or the mind meets the game, or the mind meets.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Up or Down.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: That's kind of where it is in terms of the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: elements that you're experiencing as you play.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: In the game.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: You are taking turns putting down these cards around this
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: circular board that looks kind of like an elaborate clock.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I believe that narratively.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: There's some sort of time travel element to it is
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: what it's supposed to be representing. Broadly speaking, it's like
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the mind. You're trying to read what other people have
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: come up with and put your card down in a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: way that anticipates what other people put down. If you
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: do well, then the game provides you with a different
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: setup that slightly changes the rules, and if you do poorly,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: you redo the one that you are on. There's this
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: whole kind of deduction game now that's popular, where there's
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: some level of kind of reading the vibe of the
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: other people at the table that is part of the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: process of playing the game. The example that I am
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: thinking of most directly is The Mind.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Of course.
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  Speaker 1: Then there's also The Gang, which is another game that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: is a deduction game, and there are elements of real
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: deduction there, but there's also elements of vibe.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: So the sort of combination of.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Those two things is what leads you toward the interesting
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: outcome for the game.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Take Time as.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Designed by Alexei Povisian Julien Prothierre with art from maldshaw Mel,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and was published by Libealood in twenty twenty five. I
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: thought this game was fine. If I had never played
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: The Mind, I probably would really like it. Having played
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: The Mind, I was like, that's fine, I'm certainly happy
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: to play it if other people get it out. If
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I had an array of interesting deduction games that people
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: can play together, I probably wouldn't put The Mind at
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the top of the list. I would probably put I mean,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't put Take Time at the top of the list.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I would probably put Bombusters on there, or The Gang
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: or The Mind has three similar games that I'd rather
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: play before.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I played Take Time again.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But I enjoyed it, and I certainly would pick it
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: up at a steep discount or at a thrift store.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I would buy it new. So
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: that is Take Time.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Next up, we have Moa Moa is Martin Wallace game
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  Speaker 1: released in nineteen ninety eight I believe, oh sorry, two
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: thousand and eighteen.
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  Speaker 2: It is a.
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  Speaker 1: Semi cooperative area control game in which players are competing
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  Speaker 1: clans of birds anthropomorphic birds in a sort of fantastical
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  Speaker 1: adaptation of New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: The promise of the game.
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  Speaker 1: Is that you are the indigenous people of New Zealand
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  Speaker 1: trying to control different parts of the island, and it
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  Speaker 1: is being invaded by colonizers from outside there mice and
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: cats and dogs, and the mice and cats and dogs
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: are all sort of representative of different European powers that
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: were screwing around with New Zealand during the Colone era,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: like that has stopped, but whatever, So as representatives of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: these bird tribes, your job is to figure out how
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to control as much of the island as you can,
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  Speaker 1: giving up as little room to the colonizers as you can.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: But you can actually get points by selling land to
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the colonizers, So there's a give and take there that
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: makes it worse for everybody when you do that. Now,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: this game, when it came out, I was sort of
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  Speaker 1: reminded of The Arrival, which is another Martin Wallace game
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  Speaker 1: that came out in I think twenty seventeen or twenty sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: and Australia, which came out a little after this. All
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  Speaker 1: three of these are games where Wallace is experimenting with
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  Speaker 1: We're all together fighting for control of this map, and
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: there is an outside force, and we have to decide
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: how much of our energy we want to spend on
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the outside force, and if we do it badly, the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: outside force defeats us. All of the three, Moah is
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: my least favorite. I like Australia, I like The Arrival MOA.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I don't really like it was okay, but I think
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it was. I think his hope was that it would
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: be a more accessible version of this kind of game,
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  Speaker 1: in a similar way that the a Nebula is a
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: more accessible version of like a Sage of Steam or something.
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  Speaker 1: But I found this game is too simple and too rigid.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: So where you get to act is controlled by these
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: cards that come out, and sometimes you just don't want
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: to act in the places where the cards point, and
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: there are some amelioration effects. There are ways that you
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: can get tokens that allow you to ignore what it says,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: but those are relatively.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Limited and they end up not being that fun.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: So I love the art in this game, and I'm
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: gonna hold onto it for the time being, if for
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: no other reason.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: It is very rare.
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  Speaker 1: They did a small print run and it wasn't super popular,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: so I don't think they reprinted it, Meaning if you
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: don't have it, I don't think it's easy to get.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna hold onto it just for that. And
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: as a Martin Wallace collector, I don't like to get rid.
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  Speaker 2: Of his games.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Have done that a couple times, So that is MOA.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I believe Ape Games is the publisher. Next up, I
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: had a chance to dust off space Base. It was
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: three years dusty at this point. Space Base is a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: really interesting tableau builder. If you haven't played it, you should.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: In the game, you are building a fleet of ships
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: that are doing trade and commerce around the galaxy. Your
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: goal is to be the first person to have forty points.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Not's not true. Your goal is to have the most points.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: If you have forty points, you are the person who
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: triggers the end of the game. We finished the round,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: and then whoevers the most points wins.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: So getting over.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: The forty point mark can end the game, and often
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the person who triggers the end of the game does win,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: but not always. Sometimes people have saved up one last
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: big turn and they're able to scooch ahead.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: The way the game.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Works, it is in the genre of roll dice and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: activate stuff in your tableau, which is a genre I enjoy.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: And in that genre, there are three games I've played.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I've played my I have played Card Kingdoms of Valeria,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and I have played Space Base, and I have just
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: presented those to you in the order of least enjoyable
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: to most enjoyable. I like Space Based the best of
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: those three. I think Card Kingdoms of Valeria is pretty
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: dang good. I've only played it the once, maybe twice,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and I really liked it.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: It's in my collection. I'm keeping it. I would like
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: to play some more Machi Korro. I think it's fine.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: If someone wants to play it, I probably will play
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it with them, But I didn't really It exhausted itself
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: for me, and I think there's not a whole lot
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of interest there as the game goes along, Like I
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: think it's an engine that once you see how it runs,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot else to do. I think
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Space Base is a much more interesting version of that engine.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: If you've never played one of these games before.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: The way it works is you have an array of
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: cards and each one has a number on it, and
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: on your turn you're going to roll the dice and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: activate the cards that match the dice. In Space Based
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: in particular, you can choose do you activate, Like if
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you roll a one and a six, do you activate
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the one and the six ships or do you actually
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: activate the seven ship. You can do one or the other,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: and then when you activate them you get points, income,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and money. Money is stuff you can spend directly to
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: buy more ships. Income is obviously ongoing money you get
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: every round, and points are the way that you win
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the game. The one big downside to Space Base, I
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: feel is that usually the person who wins is the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: one who gets a drip economy of points going.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So they don't end up winning through.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Big flashy cards or big flashy moves. They end up
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: winning by getting an engine where they're going to get
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: a few points every round, and then they get one
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: or two of the big scores. But they're not flashy,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: They're just they saved up money and bought a big ship.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I think of this as kind of the big money strategy.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: And you know, if you could play Dominion a lot,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: you have to figure out if you're going to do
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a combo of cards is that better than big Money?
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And the same thing is true of Dominion or of
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Space Base. So I like Space Base a lot. I
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: also don't get to play it much. My wife does
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: not like space games. So that is Space Base from
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: John Declare and publisher AEG. Finally I got a chance
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to try nineteen oh two Meliaise. This is a worker
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: placement game themed around the idea of the early filmmaker
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: George Melias. George Meliers is a famous filmmaker who was
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: a magician, a stage magician, and used early cinema to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: create fantastical films that we're groundbreaking in a lot of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: ways regarding special effects. Most well known he created a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: movie called The Journey to the Moon. There's an iconic
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: image of our rocket ship sticking out of the moon's face.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: That's from this movie in nineteen oh two. Miliais We
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: each are assistant directors who have a cruise of workers,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and the crews of workers are helping us film different
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: sequences from the movie. So you're sending your workers to
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: set up sets, to arrange the camera, to recruit actors,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to film sequences, to develop the film and put it
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: into the strip at the end of the game. Then
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: you get points based on doing most of those things.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: A couple of the unique things are one it has
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: worker bumping, so if you can send your worker anywhere
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you want, but if you send your worker to a
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: spot where someone else's worker already is, that gives them
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: an extra round before they have to waste a turn
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: not using workers at all, which is.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: A nice little twist. It also does have.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Some interesting interplayer mechanisms, or like whenever the camera is
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: pointing somewhere, it's actually pointing at two of the sets.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: There are five sets that you might use to film,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and so your opponent might point the camera at one
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: thing and it's next to the other thing that you
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: want to film, so there's a give and take there
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: that works really well. It's also a very small form factor,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: which is nice. The boxes maybe three by six, pretty small.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Reminds me of the old Fantasy flight small box games
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: like Citadels or Space Health Death Angel, which are pretty small.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I liked nineteen oh three Milias it was a really
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: interesting game in terms of gameplay, but it wasn't unusual,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: so as you play, you're doing essentially the kinds of
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: things you would expect in a work replacement game. The
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: theming works really well, the work replacement spots are really tight,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: so if you haven't played a lot of work replacement games,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: it probably feels pretty special. Or if you're really into
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the theme of old timing movies, it probably feels pretty special.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: If you aren't in either of those things, then it
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: feels it's like a lot of other work replacement games.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Its main features are the theme, the bumping, and the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: small box that's designed from Eloi pu Us or puu
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: das ferren Ronalias and with art from Pedro Soto, the publisher.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: It's distributed in the US by de Vere. It was
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: published by Looping Games and it's part of a series
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: of games where they have a four a four digit
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: title that's a year and then a theme. They have
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: one about Alminsen versus Scott as well, for example. Well
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that's about it for me today. I'm hoping this worked.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: If I did, you'll know because you're hearing it. I'm
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: getting frustrated. I hope I be able to publish some
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: more episodes for you soon. Well, I want to say
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining me today. I'm sorry about the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: delayed publication schedule. I'm hoping you get back to it soon.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks for leaving me in your feed. Well that's about
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: it for me today. I'll say thanks for joining me,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and I hope your next walk is as pleasant as
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: mine was.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Bye bye.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Brought to you by rattle Bagster