Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Linko; Terrors of London; Flip7; Vampire Queen (revisited)

Transcript

Linko; Terrors of London; Flip7; Vampire Queen (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step off the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome afternoon, listeners. It's a crummy day here in suburban Chicago.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The wind is blowing strongly. There is rain coming down,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: it's cloudy, it's cold. Yikes, November is here. This is
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: what November is supposed to feel like. But I wasn't
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: ready for it. I left the house in two light
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a jacket and with no gloves. So if I sound chilly,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: it's because I am. Actually I'm not sure it's raining.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: It might be snowing. It's like a sort of very
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: light snow that's turning into water as it hits things.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: So fun, But what better way to keep my mind
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: off being cold then talk with you about board games?
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: That's right, it's time for another review of games I've
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: been playing recently.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: An it's a board game Espresso Triple Shot.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: For those of you new to the podcast, The Board
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Game Espresso Triple Shot is a mini review segment in
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: which I talk about three games that I've played recently
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and one game i've returned to.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Given how chilly I am, I may end up talking fast.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: So we'll see. If this episode lasts the entire walk home,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: or if I run out of things to say, We'll see.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I also noticed that with a little bit of reordering
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: of things, I could do an entire episode focused on
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: card games.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: So that's what I'm doing. So it's a card game,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: board game.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Espresso triple Shot. So first game I want to talk
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to talk about is called Linko. It originally was called
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a Black Sis.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Where is that?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was originally called a Bluxen, which I believe
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: is probably German.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: It is a card.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Shedding game from Keisling and Kramer, who are a design
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: duo of much repute. They designed Porta Nigra for example,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: along with many other games games that have lots of fans.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: It is a pretty simple card game. The copy I
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: have is called Linko, as I said, and has a
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: fox on the cover. I'm not sure if the Bluxen
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: game has similar art or if it's different. It seems
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: like it's been re themed a couple times. I found
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: it at Goodwill and I picked it up because of
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the memes of the designers on it. I was like, oh,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: this is probably pretty good, and I'd say it's yeah,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it's pretty good.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: Like I said.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: As card shedding game, you deal out the cards to
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: everybody and it see all of a hand of cards,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and on your turn you can play a number of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: cards of equal value of your choice.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: If you're first, you.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Can either play you can play however many cards you want,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: but they all have to be the same value, so
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: you can play like one six or three six's if
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: you had three sixes. And what you're trying to do
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: is have the game go all the way around without
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: anyone else beating the play that you've made. The play
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: that you put out, someone else can beat it if
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: they can play the same number.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Of cards but of a higher value.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So if you play three sixes and someone else plays
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: three sevens, then you lose your three sixes, and then
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the person who played the three sevens can either take
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: your three sixes or force you to take them back
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: in hand. If they take them, then you have to
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: draw three more cards from the deck. So either way
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: you're getting cards back in your hand, but they might
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: get to take your matched up cards. That's sort of
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the flow of the game. If somebody beats your pair
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: beats your cards, they get to take them back in
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the hand, or they get to take them which allows
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: them to then play them later in front of them.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: If it gets all the way around, then that card
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: is scored. I believe this was a couple of weeks ago,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: so I may have lost a couple of the details
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of it. The cards in front of you then get scored,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: and the whole thing is you get points based on
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: how many cards are in front of you at the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: end of the round. The round ends when somebody gets
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: rid of all their cards, and then you add up
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the points of.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: The cards that remain in front of you, and you
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: get to and.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: You lose points for every card, every point you have
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: in hand. I don't remember if you lose the value
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of the cards in hand or if you just lose
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: one point for every card in hand. I can't quite remember.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: But basically, you're trying to get rid of all your cards. Sometimes,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: as a gambit, you might pick up cards instead of discard,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: like when you match cards.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: You might pick up.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Some because it allows you to get rid of more later,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: but ultimately you're trying to empty your hand.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: The game goes.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Until somebody has scored a certain number of points, and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: then it is over as a shedding game. It's pretty interesting.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Like many card games, it depends heavily on luck, and
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I've only played it a couple times now, so it's
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: hard to gauge the strategy that would go with it.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Takes a little bit more time to figure out what
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: strategy you would use, But I like it enough that
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to hang onto it and see if I
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: can get a played some more. That's Linko, originally designed
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen. Next up we have Vampire Queen. Vampire
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Queen was designed by Wolfgang Kramer, who might be the
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: same person as the Kramer from Kramer and Keesling, but
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I know there's another Kramer as well. There's and I'm
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: too cold to click the thing, so feel free to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: go research that on your own to see if Wolfgang
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Kramer is the same person as helped design Linko, or
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: if it's a different Kramer. Either way, Vampire Queen is
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the game that originally came out in twenty sixteen. I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: have a copy from that era, so the art is
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: a little bit older. It was just republished this year
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: with fancy new art that reminds me a little bit
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: of like the character design from Legend of Zelda, if
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: drawn in a sort of sketchy way rather than the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: cartoony way that we see in the actual game. Vampire
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Queen is another shedding game where you're trying to get
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: rid of cards, and in fact, in Vampire Queen you're
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: trying to not have points the game until somebody gets
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: rid of all their cards, and then everyone scores the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: points that are in their hands. Like Linco, it involves
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: playing cards and other people getting to play if they
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: have a higher value.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Unlike Linco, you're not picking.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Your cards back up, but rather it's a ladder climbing game,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: so you oh, it's a trick taking game.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Actually trick taking built.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Around the same kind of ladder climbing or shedding elements
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that we see in other games. So you have up
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: to I think there's thirteen different values of Vampire card
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: in the deck, as well as some Vampire Queens, which
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: are worth fourteen points. Each Vampire is a sort of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: suit on its own, and the fourteen's are wild, so
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you can use the fourteen to match up.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: With one of the others.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: When someone leads, they will pick a value of card
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and a number, and then everyone else, if they can follow,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: will follow with the same number of cards but.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: A higher value.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: So if I put down three twos, the next player
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: can put down anything higher than twos, but they have
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to have three.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Of them to put anything down.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So having cards them of the same number is really
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: nice because the more of them that you have, the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: harder it is for anyone.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: To follow you.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And then you get the lead back again because you
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: win the trick now thrown into the mix. There there
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: are two vampire Hunters. A Vampire Hunter can only be
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: played when there is a single card being led because
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: they are single cards. There is a fifteen point Vampire
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Hunter and a twenty point Vampire Hunter. Oh no, they
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: can only be played by being led, now that I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: think of it. So if you are if you have
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a vampire Hunter and it's your lead, you can then
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: lead that vampire Hunter, and then the rules for that
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: particular trick change in that case. If you lead a
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: vampire Hunter, then everyone else has to play one card
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: of whatever type they like, and then the person who
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: played the highest value card wins the trick and takes
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: all of those cards in front of them as points
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: or takes them back in the hand, takes them back
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: in the hand. Do they take all the cards or
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: maybe they just take the Vampire Hunter. I think they
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: take all the cards again. It's been a couple of weeks,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: but you get the idea. The main thing is the
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Vampire Hunter stays in play, and so if you take
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the Vampire Hunter back. When you take that, you're not
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: allowed to immediately play it. You have to have at
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: least one trick in between before you play it again.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And the Vampire Hunters are always staying in somebody's hand,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: so they're.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Never going away.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: You can't ever get rid of them, which means that
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: when you have one, you have to decide on when
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: to play it so that you can get rid of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: it and not pick it back up before the hand
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: runs out. The hand runs out when someone gets rid
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of all their cards, and then you're going to add
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: up the points in your hand, and that's.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: How many points you take. Think the game is over
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: when somebody gets.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: A certain number of points, and then the person with
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the fewest points wins. So the Vampire Hunters are worth
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: fifteen and twenty, so they're bad news to have in
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: your hand. And there's no way for someone not to
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: collect them. I don't feel like I did a great
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: job explaining that, but it gives you the general gist.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I would say both Linco and Vampire Hunter have an
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: interesting feel of trying to manipulate the sets of cards.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: As they go around the table.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: They're in the same neighborhood as something like Scout, but
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I think Scout is a little cleaner.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I do enjoy that one as.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Well, But I think of the two, I think I
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: like Vampire Queen better than I like Linco, though they're
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: very similar, so both are.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Enjoyable and good for large groups.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I think vamp Queen plays up to eight or maybe ten,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and Linko plays four or six. I think so an
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: enjoyable time was had with those two games. That's Vampire
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Queen from twenty sixteen. Oh, Vampire Queen was my revisited game.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Who did that out of ordered? Normally I do two
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: new games and then I revisit one, then I do
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: one more game. Well, Vampire Queen was my revisited game,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: so I played it. I got it in twenty sixteen,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and I played it several times in the in doing
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: year or two, and then we didn't play it again
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: for a long time, so it was very dusty when
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I finally got it played, but nonetheless that's what that was.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: The next game is Towers of London. Towers of London
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: is designed by Brad Pie with the artist Ryan Pie
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: that's Pye, and was published by Colossal Games. I believe
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: this game was on Kickstarter, and if you did the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Kickstarter you got several different factions, but I believe this
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: is the copy that I have as a commercial edition,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: which just a retail edition which just has four factions.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: The premise is pretty simple. It's Victorian London.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: There are monsters galore and they're causing trouble around London. Now,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: in other games I've played, such as Victoriana or a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Study in Emerald, we play various people, some of them
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: are trying to stop the monsters from causing all that trouble.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: In Terrors of London, we are the monsters. Each player
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: takes a faction. You have a faction board that represents
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the leader of that faction. You can be a vampire
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: or a werewolf for a zombie.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Or I think a ghost or a witch.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Demon it's a demon, and then you have a couple
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: of starter cards that are all identical.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: And then the game is a deck builder.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: It's got a river style deck building space, not unlike Ascension,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I believe, And on your turn you can wield attack
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: power against your opponent, or you can play, or you
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: can buy creatures from the market or both, and it's
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: a pretty standard deck builder. After that, there's some player
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: interaction powers. There are monsters that do various things. There
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: are cards that interact with other cards and let you
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: discard stuff and let you thin your deck. And I mean,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: it's not there's nothing particularly exciting in the game that
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: is out not something we've seen in other deck builders
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: in the contemporary era. It reminds me a lot of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Star Wars deck building game because you have a base
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: that you're trying to defend, and of course in Star
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Wars deck building game you have three bases. You're defending one,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: then when it gets blown up, you defend another, and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: so on. In Terrors of London, you have just yourself
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: that you're defending and you can attack the cards. In
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Star Wars deck Building you can't do that in this.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: But this game is much older, so it's fair to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: recognize it. Twenty nineteen is the publishing year on this one.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: The art is moderately fun and the cover of the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: box is not particularly compelling.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It looks like some sort of old metal box.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: You open it up and you got these cool creepy
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: art cards inside. It was reasonably fun when I played
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: it two player. I'm interested in keeping it around to
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: see if my son, who does kind of like two
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: player card battlers, would be interested in playing with me
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit more. I got it from Paul, Hey, Paul,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: who was getting rid of it and said you want this,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and I said yes please. I'm not sure it's going
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: to stay in the collection super long time, but I'll
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: keep it around for a while.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Yet moderately fun.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: But if you have access to other deck builders, I
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: would go out of your way to get Terrors of London.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I think like the Star Wars deck building game is
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: much better if you're looking for a light deck builder,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and if you're looking for something with a little more
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: meat on the bones, I would go for a Valley
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: of the Kings or Arctic Scavengers. That is Terrors of London. Boy,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: it's windy and my hands are freezing. This is the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: kind of top notch narrative that you get when you
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: take a walk.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: With Brendan and pick up and deliver.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: So the last game is probably my favorite of the ones.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I played here and I'm giving it almost no time.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I'm almost home and I'm not walking an extra lap today.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: This is Flip seven. Flip seven is new from the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: op It was published by Eric Olsen in twenty twenty four.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Flip seven is a pushyr luck game, not entirely dissimilar
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: from something like dead Man's Draw. In Flip seven, you
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: are exposing cards, trying to get points, and you're trying
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: not to repeat the cards that you've been given. The
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: deck has cards from a value one to twelve, and
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: in the deck there is that in many cards equal
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to the value, so there are twelve twelves in the
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: deck eleven eleven's it's on.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: On your turn, you get a card in front of.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You, and then on your next turn you can hit
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and take another card, and as long as you don't
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: repeat any cards that you already have, you get to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: keep taking hits until you have until you stop, or
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: you have seven cards seven number cards in front of you.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: There are also a few special power.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Cards that change the game a little bit I agree
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: with the people from So Very Wrong about Games that
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the freeze card is dumb, but everything else is pretty great.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: It's very smooth. It's a really good beginning of the
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: night or end of the night. Game.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: You go until you get a double and then you
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: bust and you get no points, or if you stop,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: then you get points equal to the value of the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: number cards in front of you at the end of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the game, or the game goes until someone breaks two
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: hundred points, at which point you finish out that particular
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: round and the game is over. So like Ink and Gold,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: if somebody gets way ahead, it really gives you a
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: reason to push for a higher value round later.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: And pushing your luck games push your luck.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Games that encourage you to push your luck are always
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: welcoming in my book, Flip seven is really good. I
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: don't think it deserves the title the greatest card game
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: of all time, which is what they have on the box,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: but it is certainly great and well worth checking out
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: if you can.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: That's Flip seven from the op. Well, thanks for joining
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: me on my walk today. I hope your next walk
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: was as pleasant as Mind lost. Bye bye. Brought to
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: you by Rattle Box Game