Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Really Loud Librarians, That’s Not a Hat, Wild: Serengeti, Strike (revisited)

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Really Loud Librarians, That’s Not a Hat, Wild: Serengeti, Strike (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:00
  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step
• 0:06
  out the door and deliver an episode to you while I walk around.
• 0:11
  I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:15
  Good afternoon.
• 0:22
  Good morning listeners.
• 0:23
  It's a lovely warm day here in suburban Chicago and boy oh boy is it full of cicadas.
• 0:29
  I'm walking carefully to avoid stepping on them but oh man there are so so so many.
• 0:36
  It's going to be a gross day.
• 0:38
  The birds are sure enjoying it though.
• 0:40
  Very tasty.
• 0:41
  Well it's been a little bit since I talked to you.
• 0:42
  I had a week of finals and graduation and I officiated a wedding.
• 0:47
  Now I'm back.
• 0:48
  I'm going to get as many episodes...
• 0:49
  I'm going to try to do five episodes this week one every day and the goal of that is
• 0:55
  to get to the point where I've stacked myself up to be able to broadcast through next week.
• 0:59
  Next week is going to be very busy for my family as well.
• 1:02
  My daughter is graduating high school and we have a whole slew of family activities planned.
• 1:06
  They're going to mean I don't get a lot of work done and I do get a lot of fun done
• 1:11
  but I don't get a lot of podcasting time.
• 1:14
  So we'll see if I can come up with five topics to record over the next five days so that
• 1:19
  the episodes can be racked and stacked and ready for broadcast.
• 1:25
  Well I'm taking the easy way out today.
• 1:27
  Today our first episode of the week is going to be a board game espresso episode.
• 1:34
  That's right it's a board game espresso triple shot.
• 1:38
  So in the board game espresso episode I pick out three games that I played recently for
• 1:44
  the first time and one game that I've dusted off and I talk about them a little bit here
• 1:48
  on the show.
• 1:49
  I'll give you a little bit of insight to what the games are like and I'll share with you
• 1:54
  what I think of them.
• 1:55
  Once again these are a quick review segment so I generally don't have deep thoughts on
• 2:01
  the games but I can give you an idea of what they are and whether they're worth playing.
• 2:07
  As always I'd love to hear from you your thoughts about these games or any other games you've
• 2:10
  been playing recently.
• 2:11
  You can always share those thoughts with me over on boardgamegeek guild 3269.
• 2:18
  So why don't we jump right in?
• 2:21
  Our first game of the podcast is a simple party game from the exploding kittens
• 2:27
  group and that is REALLY LOUD LIBRARIANS.
• 2:31
  I picked this up at a goodwill.
• 2:34
  It is the kind of game that's pretty fun once in a while.
• 2:36
  I wouldn't want to play it a lot and I could see why if you had it as your main game in
• 2:41
  your collection you probably wouldn't play it all that often either.
• 2:46
  It was designed by Ian Claimen, Ken Grool and Quentin Weir and published by
• 2:50
  Exploding Kittens.
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  It has the signature Oatmeal style artwork so when you look at the game you really know
• 2:55
  oh yeah that's an Exploding Kittens game.
• 2:58
  So how's it work?
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  The game comes with some pretty nice components, a dual layered board with a sort of track that
• 3:04
  runs around in a circle and on that track are a series of letters.
• 3:11
  They're not random and it's not every letter in the alphabet or they are random in order
• 3:15
  and it's not every letter on the alphabet but more the common letters.
• 3:21
  There's also a couple spots where it's like more than one letter and you can pick
• 3:24
  one to use.
• 3:25
  And then you have this cutout piece which shows a sort of hilarious librarian and you have
• 3:32
  this weird set of two plastic rings on a swivel and so the way the game work are three
• 3:38
  plastic rings on a swivel.
• 3:40
  So you put the librarian into the plastic rings into the first of the plastic rings and
• 3:44
  then you set the whole contraption into the track and now it happens is when you slide the
• 3:49
  contraption along the track the rings, the two rings the librarian isn't in are covering
• 3:55
  maybe three rings are covering letters on the track circling them and then that tells
• 4:01
  you which letters are active for this round.
• 4:05
  And then it is essentially a brainstorming or listing style game in the spirit of something
• 4:11
  like TAPPLE except it's a team game where you're trying to get as many answers as
• 4:14
  you can.
• 4:15
  So I guess it's more like Mr. Lister's Quiz Shootout is probably the closest game I can
• 4:19
  think of in terms of play time or play style.
• 4:23
  Anyway so what you do in the game is you draw a category and then your team oh my gosh
• 4:29
  there's so many cicadas.
• 4:31
  So you draw a category and then your team is trying to name as many things that fit into
• 4:35
  that category as they can as quickly as they can.
• 4:38
  So and then the things they have to name have to start with the letter that is circled
• 4:44
  by the librarian and then you move the librarian apparatus up to the letter you used.
• 4:49
  So for example if you have the library the librarian sitting in the track and the letters
• 4:53
  that are available are N, D, and, A and it says name a city somebody says Albuquerque then
• 5:00
  you move the librarian up so it's covering the A and now the circles are surrounding three
• 5:04
  different letters.
• 5:05
  You continue that way until the time runs out and then you see how far around the track
• 5:10
  did you get.
• 5:11
  Actually the game comes with a once around the track or twice around the track meter so
• 5:15
  that because if you're going really well you could get pretty far around the track even
• 5:18
  more than once.
• 5:20
  You mark where you got to and that's the other team's turn.
• 5:22
  Generally I think you take two turns and whichever team got farther wins.
• 5:27
  It's a pretty simple game.
• 5:29
  Takes about 10 minutes to play.
• 5:30
  It's the kind of game you would want to play a bunch of times I think.
• 5:33
  And it's a fun silly thing.
• 5:35
  It doesn't feel that much different than any other kind of speed listing game.
• 5:39
  The team element is neat and the components are amusing.
• 5:43
  The theme, yeah take it or leave it who cares what they're really loud librarians I don't
• 5:47
  even understand that.
• 5:48
  I guess it's a memorable title so that's really loud librarians published by
• 5:53
  the exploding kittens company.
• 5:54
  Next up we have the party game of the moment.
• 5:59
  I've heard numerous podcasts and other luminaries bring this game up and with good reason
• 6:05
  it's pretty fun.
• 6:06
  This is the very simple deck of cards party game THAT'S NOT A HAT.
• 6:12
  That's not a hat.
• 6:13
  Like I said it's a simple deck of cards with little sort of iconographic shapes on them.
• 6:18
  The drawings are pretty simple.
• 6:20
  They look like they're kind of done by hand.
• 6:22
  They're not super elaborate.
• 6:24
  And the idea is that you are, everybody can count it's how what they are.
• 6:29
  This game is designed by the way by Casper Lap and published in the US by Ravensberger.
• 6:34
  In the game everybody gets a card and that card is face up in front of them showing the
• 6:39
  object that they have in front of them.
• 6:41
  Then one person draws another card shows everybody what it is, flips it face down and gives
• 6:47
  it away to somebody else.
• 6:49
  That person says thank you for the card the thing they just got and then gives away the
• 6:55
  other, flips the other card that they had which was previously face up, face down and
• 6:59
  gives that away to somebody else.
• 7:00
  Now who you give it to it's one of your neighbors.
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  You'll have an arrow on the card that tells you that and when you give the card away you
• 7:07
  say what it is.
• 7:08
  So if you show everyone a toaster then you flip the card over and you say this is a toaster
• 7:12
  and you give it to somebody they say thank you.
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  The trick of the game is as it goes along it gets harder and harder to remember what each
• 7:18
  card is.
• 7:19
  Sometimes you forget what the card in front of you is.
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  Sometimes you forget what cards other people have and so what happens is over time you're
• 7:26
  saying you know this is a toaster, this is a hammer, this is a tool belt, this is a sandwich.
• 7:32
  And at some point you'll forget what the card is or you might forget what the card is.
• 7:37
  At which point then you say at which point then you tell the person what the thing is and
• 7:42
  they might not believe you either they know that you're wrong or they think maybe you're
• 7:47
  wrong.
• 7:48
  Either way now they have a decision to make.
• 7:50
  Do they accept the thing that you've offered or do they refuse it?
• 7:55
  If they accept it then they just say thank you and now they're stuck with this thing and
• 8:00
  they're not 100% sure what it is.
• 8:02
  They might remember from before you got it what it was so even though you told them one thing
• 8:06
  they were wrong and they know they're wrong but you would take it anyway.
• 8:09
  You shouldn't do that but you could or more likely you don't know what it is either but
• 8:14
  you're not willing to challenge and challenge them on it so you take it too.
• 8:18
  Then you give away your thing and the game keeps going.
• 8:20
  Eventually someone will think that the card they're getting is not what's on the card
• 8:24
  and they'll say that's not a hat or that's not a hot dog or whatever the person just says
• 8:28
  it was then you flip it over whoever was wrong takes the card as a penalty and it goes
• 8:35
  into their display.
• 8:36
  Then after that the person who got took the penalty draws a new card and starts the next
• 8:42
  round.
• 8:43
  That's how it goes the game goes until somebody has three penalties in front of them and
• 8:46
  then the person with the fewest person or persons with the fewest penalty cards in front
• 8:50
  of them wins the game.
• 8:51
  Like I said it takes about 10 minutes maybe 15 if you have a big group and it's pretty
• 8:56
  fun.
• 8:57
  It's a dumb goofy memory game but it's amusing and easy to play really easy to teach.
• 9:03
  It's a good starter or under for the night.
• 9:06
  The one caveat I have and I discovered this in one of my plays recently is that if you
• 9:10
  have a group of people especially in a line who are not inclined to challenge the card
• 9:14
  at all then you get this weird thing where they just pass the cards back and forth then
• 9:20
  nobody ever takes the penalty or challenges anything and that's not fun.
• 9:24
  And part because you win by the person who has the fewest penalties wins and there's no
• 9:29
  way to gain points by doing nothing you can stay tied for first or almost nothing.
• 9:35
  Especially some one person in between two people who are not inclined to take action that
• 9:40
  person in the middle can get a long way.
• 9:44
  That part is very frustrating but that part is frustrating because of that bad experience.
• 9:51
  So that's not a hat.
• 9:53
  Is that game?
• 9:54
  Pretty fun.
• 9:55
  I recommend trying it if you get a chance.
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  Well worth your time.
• 9:58
  I want to talk about a game I've revisited recently.
• 10:01
  This is Strike.
• 10:02
  Strike is a fun little dice rolling game.
• 10:05
  Some people call it a...
• 10:07
  In the theme of the game is it's a battle between...
• 10:10
  It's a battle.
• 10:11
  The dice are gladiators battling in an arena.
• 10:14
  The reality is you're rolling dice into a bowl and you're trying to have the dice come
• 10:18
  up as pairs.
• 10:20
  Whenever you roll a die into a bowl or dice into the bowl.
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  You get a pair.
• 10:25
  The way the game works is you roll a die into the bowl.
• 10:28
  If it comes up as the same result as one of the other dice in the bowl then you get to
• 10:33
  take both of those dice out and you score them.
• 10:37
  Then your turn is over.
• 10:39
  If you don't make a match you can then take another die and roll that into the bowl too.
• 10:44
  Try to make a match with one or more of the dice that are in there.
• 10:47
  If that doesn't work then you do it again.
• 10:50
  You keep doing it until either you choose to stop,
• 10:54
  you take some dice out of the bowl because you made a match, or you run out of dice.
• 10:58
  If you run out of dice you're out of the game.
• 11:00
  If you take some dice out of the bowl your turn is over.
• 11:04
  Next person's turn.
• 11:05
  If you have it to clear all the dice out of the bowl like you roll in there and you get
• 11:10
  a pair and you're only the two dice in there then you take all the dice out and the next
• 11:16
  player has to roll all their dice in.
• 11:19
  If they don't get any pairs when they roll all their dice in they lose.
• 11:23
  The game goes until there's only one winner left.
• 11:25
  Strike is a silly game.
• 11:26
  Oh, the last thing is the dice you're rolling have sides 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and X.
• 11:32
  No matter what if you roll an X that die is lost.
• 11:34
  I think we take that die out of that die leaves the game if you roll an X which is not
• 11:41
  fun when it's your die.
• 11:44
  That's strike.
• 11:51
  It's a silly game not very complicated, pretty easy to play, pretty fast to play if you play
• 11:51
  with a group of like 5 or 6 maybe it takes 15 minutes.
• 11:54
  But of course it does have the downside of people getting eliminated but that's okay.
• 11:59
  It's really short.
• 12:00
  15 is actually probably an exaggeration.
• 12:02
  Maybe with 6 people it would take that long but chance that it would take less.
• 12:05
  So that's strike.
• 12:06
  I did not look up the designer on that one.
• 12:09
  It's been published a number of times.
• 12:10
  I have an older copy with the dark purple color.
• 12:14
  They do make a new edition.
• 12:16
  They actually was just reprinted sometime in the last few months in the last year and so
• 12:22
  you certainly could get a more recent copy if you were so inclined.
• 12:26
  The designer is Dieter Nubli and it's published by Ravensberger.
• 12:31
  Finally the last game I have to talk about today is Wild: Serengeti.
• 12:36
  You know what I said?
• 12:37
  I didn't just say Wild Serengeti.
• 12:38
  I said Wild: Serengeti.
• 12:40
  I guess it's because without saying 'colon' I don't know how to pronounce a colon but that's
• 12:45
  what it is.
• 12:46
  Wild: Serengeti has a colon which I presume suggests there might be other games later that
• 12:50
  follow a similar pattern.
• 12:52
  As far as I know there weren't any published but that's okay.
• 12:55
  The game is published by the designer is Gung Ho Kim with artists Han Yihong and Sophia
• 13:01
  Kang published by Bad Comment and I believe it was a Kickstarter game.
• 13:06
  I picked it up at Goodwill.
• 13:08
  And you know it's a winner for my family.
• 13:11
  It was long but really had a good time and we're definitely going to keep it and try it again.
• 13:15
  So in Wild: Serengeti you are a nature photographer.
• 13:18
  You're trying to develop a documentary about the Serengeti by filming lots of cool animals
• 13:25
  in the Serengeti and figuring out where they are and what they look like.
• 13:31
  You can take actions and those actions what you spend resources to put creatures out onto
• 13:35
  the board.
• 13:36
  Different animals.
• 13:38
  There are maybe 12 different animals in the game and each of those animal types comes
• 13:43
  with a different meatball or a little wooden cutout of the animal type.
• 13:49
  And you're arranging them on this habitat board that has four different types of habitat.
• 13:56
  There's meadow, there's forest, there's rocks, there's water.
• 14:03
  And the animals can all go on any of the parts.
• 14:05
  What we're trying to do is get them into an arrangement where you can complete a shot.
• 14:10
  So you have these cards or a scene.
• 14:12
  You have these cards.
• 14:13
  They represent scenes from your documentary that you're trying to get.
• 14:16
  And so when you find animals in a particular arrangement you can complete the scene and that
• 14:20
  will help you score points at the end.
• 14:22
  But the scenes also provide you bonuses and those bonuses become the engine of the game.
• 14:27
  So as you solve scenes you can need these bonuses and some of the bonuses are end game scoring.
• 14:34
  So completing those scenes doesn't help your in-game engine but it does help keep the points
• 14:40
  high.
• 14:41
  Other cards will give you more resources and there are a number of different resources that
• 14:45
  you can use.
• 14:47
  Or they'll let you draw more cards or sort of speed up other things in the game.
• 14:52
  So there's an element of doing things gives you the efficiency to do more things.
• 14:58
  And as such your momentum builds over the course of the game.
• 15:01
  The game ran a little bit long for us.
• 15:04
  It has to do with the number of times that you go through a particular thing as I recall.
• 15:10
  In a four player game you go through it twice.
• 15:12
  I think in a two player game you would go through it once or three times I mean.
• 15:16
  And the idea is that you are getting more and more of these scenes completed and thus
• 15:21
  gaining points.
• 15:22
  The art in Wild: Serengeti is pretty good.
• 15:25
  It's not amazing but it looks nice and makes you want to play the game more.
• 15:31
  The components, the wooden pieces for the animals look really nice.
• 15:35
  The rest of the components are fine.
• 15:37
  Nothing amazing but nothing that stands out as bad either.
• 15:40
  I think this game definitely feels like a kickstarter in that it probably needed a little
• 15:44
  more development.
• 15:45
  It's not as smooth as it could be.
• 15:48
  And that shows.
• 15:49
  But at the same time it's pretty well made.
• 15:52
  It's entertaining.
• 15:53
  The rulebook is pretty clear.
• 15:54
  I was able to understand the game from reading the rulebook and teach the game from reading
• 15:57
  the rulebook.
• 15:59
  And I only had to look up a few things online although I do recall that some of the things
• 16:03
  felt pretty significant in terms of gaps.
• 16:06
  All in all though, Wildsare and Getty is a pretty great experience as a game play.
• 16:10
  We had a fun time of it.
• 16:12
  In the long run I don't see us.
• 16:14
  It's not going to be a favorite game but it certainly will be one way to hang on for
• 16:19
  on to for a while and play occasionally because it's amazing and cute.
• 16:24
  And a fun game about animals in the wild without involving actually like killing the animals
• 16:30
  in the wild, which is nice.
• 16:32
  So that's Wild: Serengeti.
• 16:33
  Well those are three games I played recently and one game I dusted off.
• 16:37
  I'm keen to hear from you.
• 16:38
  What are some games you've played recently?
• 16:39
  Head over to Boardgamegeek Guild 3269 and let me know your thoughts about games that
• 16:44
  you've played.
• 16:45
  What games might you like to play in the future?
• 16:47
  Which of these games have you played?
• 16:48
  What are your opinions about these games that you've played?
• 16:51
  It gets very complicated very quick.
• 16:53
  But I'd love to hear from you.
• 16:54
  If you want to send me a message, the easiest way to do that is send a message to Wombat929
• 16:58
  on Board Game Geek.
• 17:00
  You can also send me an email, Brendan at Rattlebox Games, or you can post in our forum.
• 17:04
  Board Game Geek Guild 3269.
• 17:06
  Any of those things should get to me and I would love to hear from you your thoughts about
• 17:10
  the show and particularly about what effect we'll have on today.
• 17:13
  Well thanks for joining me in my walk today.
• 17:14
  I hope your next walk is as pleasant as mine will.
• 17:16
  Bye bye.
• 17:17
  Brought to you by Rattlebox Games.
• 17:41
  [Music]