Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Wyrmspan, Charty Party, Herd Mentality, SMARTish, Century (revisited)

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Wyrmspan, Charty Party, Herd Mentality, SMARTish, Century (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
• 0:07
  out the door and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
• 0:11
  I'm Brendan Riley.
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  [music]
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  Oh, good afternoon listeners.
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  It's a deceptively cool day here in suburban Chicago.
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  Now, I don't know whether this deceptively cool means it's hot.
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  It's cooler than it appears to be because that's what I mean to say.
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  It is.
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  The last couple days have been very warm.
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  When you look outside, it looks like it should be very warm.
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  Then when you get outside, it's deceptively cool.
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  Not cold.
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  Just, you know, light hoodie weather because it's April.
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  Anyway, welcome to Pick Up and Deliver.
• 0:47
  Glad to have you here.
• 0:48
  Well, I'm on my way to pick up my car.
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  My daughter was running late today so she had to drive herself to school and we don't have
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  a parking permit for her to park at school so she parks on one of the streets nearby.
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  But those streets have parking that's limited for a couple hours so if you park there all
• 1:03
  day, you can get a ticket.
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  So we've done this a couple times now where she's got, I have some time in my day to take
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  a little walk and she's running behind so she takes the car, parks at school, texts me
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  a picture of where it is on Google Maps and then I walk and pick it up and drive it home.
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  Gets me a little exercise in the middle of the day gives me a chance to record my podcast
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  with my favorite friends and works out just fine for everybody.
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  So there we are.
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  Well, I've fallen away from or I've moved a little bit away from doing a review episode every
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  other episode because I have caught up so that's good.
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  But it has been a couple episodes and since I talked about some new games I played so that
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  means it's time for a board game espresso triple shot.
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  Ready for some tasty board game lattes and actually this is a highly caffeinated addition
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  because it's a quadruple shot.
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  That's right, I'm not doing three board game espresso reviews I'm doing four in part
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  because three of the games that I'm going to be talking about today are all pretty light
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  party games and so they're reviewable a little faster.
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  It's not quite the five game party, five party games survey that I did while back but it's
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  in the same ballpark.
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  I also have one dusty game that I thought I would talk about because it's been a little
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  while since I've discussed that one and I thought I'd bring it up to you again.
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  So to start with the first game which is neither a dusty nor one of the three party games
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  is the big busy boy of the current and that's Wyrmspan.
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  Wyrmspan is a sort of sequel or remix of the game Wingspan but it is different in a
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  couple of key ways. One thematically it's about giant dragons instead of birds.
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  It's called W Y R M, Wyrmspan and then it is sort of the more gamerly version of the
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  Wingspan model so instead of building a habitat for birds you are building a habitat for
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  dragons.
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  More importantly the habitat for dragons that you're building is more complicated and perhaps
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  more strategic.
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  So if you haven't gotten a chance this is this mini review assumes that you have played
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  Wingspan.
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  If you've never played Wingspan it's hard to tell you what the differences are with Wyrmspan
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  but I'll give you a I'll give it a go.
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  So in Wyrmspan you are digging out caves and building habitats for dragons.
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  There are hatchling dragons and there are adult dragons.
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  There are dragons of different types that do different things.
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  If you've played Wingspan you're going to recognize a lot of stuff about this game.
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  You have a board with three horizontal tracks where you're placing different flying beasts
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  that you have acquired for your menezery.
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  You have a couple different resources to manage and there's little eggs.
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  There's also a huge deck of colorful individual cards with art on each one and different design
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  sensibility for each one.
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  The gameplay is roughly similar in that you take turns and you have a limited number
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  of turns per round and on those turns you're doing something in one of the three different
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  rows.
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  Those three different rows let you do different things.
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  You can also acquire new dragons.
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  So that's kind of where the similarities end.
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  Wyrmspan has a number of additional wrinkles before you can put a dragon in a cave for instance
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  you have to dig out that cave and when you use a cave you do it by going for a walk in
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  the cave and often the things that you can do are a bit more complicated in that regard.
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  The game has a variable number of action markers.
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  In Wingspan you always start with I think eight and then you lose one each round as you score
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  the scoring round so that in the last round you'll have five actions which makes sense
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  because the game is getting longer because you're building these big chains of actions
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  that you do when you take your action.
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  By contrast in Wyrmspan you have a set number of actions you can do which are represented
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  by coins and then you actually can do things to get more coins.
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  So when we played we had some people were taking a whole bunch of extra actions each round
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  because they had more coins.
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  However you can also end up spending multiple coins on one action if you keep taking the
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  same action.
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  So the game has a compounding expense feature where you can take the same action more
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  than once but you have to pay extra action coins to do so.
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  So that difference is interesting.
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  There's also these guilds that can score you points and there's a bunch of different
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  stuff that scores points in different ways but the long and short bit is I think the
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  best summary is just it's like Wingspan but charged up a couple matches to appeal to more
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  the gamers who like a bit more elaborate work.
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  The game is designed by Connie Vogelman who I think is also came out with Apiary this
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  year from Stonemeier Games and Elizabeth Hargrave consulted on it I believe I don't think
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  she has a co-design credit.
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  So I'm playing Wyrmspan the one time and I played it with a couple of people who played
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  a bunch of times before and one person who had not played it all before.
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  In that context I thought it was fun I can see why people like it.
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  I probably wouldn't turn down a game of it again but ultimately for me it wasn't different
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  enough from Wingspan to make me want to have both and I already really like Wingspan.
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  I like the theme better.
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  I honestly I like the simpler play the extra wrinkles did add a bit more planning to do
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  but I have plenty of games where you do complicated planning.
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  So the question is is this a better one than those because it isn't a better game than
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  Wingspan for me in terms of the kind of things Wingspan is doing.
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  So ultimately the answer was no.
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  Like I think there's interesting stuff in Wyrmspan if I didn't have Wingspan at all and
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  I weren't interested in birds Wyrmspan would probably be the better game for me and I
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  certainly will enjoy playing it without people get it but barring some other thing like
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  my wife saying you know what I really like to that dragon game let's go try that again
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  or can you pick that one up.
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  I don't see myself getting Wyrmspan as part of my collection but I still thought it was
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  pretty enjoyable and I encourage you to try it if you get a chance especially if you
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  are like a lot of people you like Wingspan but you thought it was a little too random or
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  you thought it was not game really enough because this game solves both of those problems
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  for sure that's Wyrmspan.
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  Alright next up I have three light party games that I played recently now all three of them
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  I played once one of them I only played for about 10 minutes and then we wanted something
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  else I got just the latest taste of it but you'll hear from my discussion and it is what
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  it is.
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  So let's talk about that first that's Charty Party this is a game I picked up mostly on the
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  strength of its name and the fact that it was two dollars at Goodwill so even if it turns
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  out to be terrible I can use the cards as backing for sleeving or something but the way
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  Charty Party works is you have a bunch of decks of tarot size cards the whole bunch of
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  tarot size cards which are unit which are charts when you look at them they are they have
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  a horizontal axis and a vertical axis the horizontal axis is labeled with some unit and you
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  have a line going up and down and measurements and then the vertical axis is not labeled or
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  vice versa the vertical axis might be labeled the horizontal one might not and the players
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  all have a hand of cards that provide the label for the other axis and the idea is that
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  the judge presents the chart to the group and everybody chooses and turns in one of their
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  answers for what is this a chart of and everybody looks at the results and then the judge picks
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  the one they think is funniest so it's a Apples to Apples style judge game which is generally
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  not my favorite it's a little bit cute because the charts are different but ultimately this
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  is pretty forgettable in terms of this kind of party game not a whole lot to it and we
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  played it for ten minutes and I don't know that I ever need to play it again I kept it
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  around but it's fine that's Charty Party.
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  The second game is another one I played at my board game club this one was a student brought
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  it and it's called Herd Mentality Herd Mentality comes from the same design space as games like
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  say anything or blank slate or green team wins in which these are games where there is
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  a relatively generic prompt and as players you're trying to find similarities or avoid
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  similarities or differences with other players I mean all this goes back actually to the game
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  Scattergories which does the same thing in a sort of different rhythm but a similar mode
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  in Herd Mentality your goal is to say the same thing as the most people who said it so like
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  if the question is super here you'd least likely to get on the wrong least likely want
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  to be on the wrong side of then people write down whatever they're going to write down and
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  all reveal and if more people say one answer than any other answer they'll get a point
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  if there's multiple groups that say the thing but they're all tied nobody gets a point
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  if you went out by yourself and you're the only person who said an answer and you're the
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  only person who's the only person who said an answer then you get a point but you don't
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  get a point if two people said so low answers you know it's the it is a very similar mechanism
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  to Green Team Wins where the answer the team that answers the most of a series of choices
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  is the green team and everybody's on the green team gets a point again these are fine party
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  games I don't find them particularly compelling it's an amusing way to spend the half an hour
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  but I don't generally think that it's not a generally I think I would advocate to spend
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  a lot of time playing but you know let's find that's Herd Mentality and then finally
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  we played a trivia game called SMARTish and the way SMARTish works is that you have you
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  draw a series of tiles that give you categories and then you put those tiles into categories
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  and rate them one to five you get points based on what category you put the question in
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  you know so answer a question of difficulty based on the category I think so like the
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  higher point value the harder the question no that's not how it works it's just you get more
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  points so you put the question you think you're more likely to get in a higher value if
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  you get it wrong your opponents steal and then they get the points that you assigned it
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  instead yeah it's okay it's a trivia game and I'm sort of spoiled now because I played
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  Wits and Wagers and Wits and Wagers is an amazing trivia game because you don't actually
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  have to know the answers to the trivia and it's just more fun I mean I really like a
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  trivia game where I'm doing my best to get the get the right answer and say the answer
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  first but compared to Wits and Wagers where there's a whole element of trying to bet I just
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  find that much more I'm using so SMARTish is a fine trivia game better than Trivial
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  Pursuit or something but not good I don't like I don't think I like to as much as a
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  Bezzerwizzer either although it's be frank I don't really remember Bezzerwizzer
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  except that I thought it was pretty good so that's SMARTish and then finally I did dust
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  off one game this month or last month that I want to talk about and this is Century now
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  Century was the game that came out quite a while ago I want to say 2016 and it made a huge
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  splash at GenCon everybody wanted this game everybody was fighting over it there were
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  playmats and everything but the game also had a little bit of notoriety because there was
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  a rumor that they were going to release addition an addition of it with fantasy art instead
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  of boring trading in the Sahara trading in the Sahara art and sure enough they did they
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  released this thing called Century Golem Edition and they said that they even though the other
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  games are going to be released eventually they were not going to do that for Century but I
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  only want to play Century if it's golems so I got Century Golem Edition has the crystals
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  it was great and then I emailed the company and I said hey I would buy these other sequels
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  to spice road if you release them in the Golem Edition but I'm not going to go buy
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  the dumb spice trading Edition and they did and I followed through in that I actually have
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  all three of the Century games in the Golem Edition I do like the other two the neither of them
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  is as good as Century spice or Century Golem Edition the original century is just so
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  good it is a engine building game that has a series of cards that are conversion engines
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  they convert crystals from one color to another and then there's a series of golems that
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  you can recruit that you pay the crystals to get the idea is that each golem cost gets
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  you a certain number of points and so by playing the crystals you can get the golems that
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  are in the list and get the points that are for them as the game goes along a river of golems
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  comes up the first person to take five of them ends the game and then you add up your points
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  it's a pretty simple resource conversion game it is very similar in feel and look to
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  something like Splendor in fact when this game out when this game came out people often
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  talked about it as a Splendor killer I mean I think that's probably not true because Splendor
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  is still there and selling more than Century does in fact Splendor is new dual version
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  might be the Splendor killer that everyone keeps talking about but nonetheless it's a really
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  interesting game and I think really fulfilling like I like it better than Splendor even
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  though both of them involve there's a certain amount of input randomness a certain amount
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  of luck in terms of what comes out when you're the person who gets to buy stuff next but
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  there is a rhythm to Century that I find immensely satisfying and the race that you can
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  get into and I really love the rhythm where one person could be going flat out just trying
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  to get five cards as quickly as they can and they could win against somebody who is going
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  a little bit fat a little bit slower but trying to really get an engine going where they're
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  going to be a little rack up those big cards the last game we played I ended up with I
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  think three cards claimed and the person who won had claimed claim to their fifth card
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  I was one round away from claiming my fourth card and had I gotten my fourth card I would
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  have won they won because they closed the game one round before I could claim it which
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  is great that was a very tight game because even though they had five and I had three I
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  had taken three high point ones and they took five the first five they could get really
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  cheap ones and like I said they edged me out by one round it was really intense so I love
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  the way that it works it's relatively simple to explain fun to play takes like 20 minutes
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  to half an hour I think the other two Century games are good but not as good as Century
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  Spice Road so our Century Golem Edition it's weird because in the original one Century
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  Spice Road is the name of the game so there is no analog for the spice road part it's
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  called Century Golem Edition but then the next one is like century colon something something
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  something golem edition so there's no something something equivalent to spice road so I keep
• 16:28
  something over that but it's great if you haven't played it definitely we're trying it's
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  probably fun in the spice mode too but look who cares about that theme not me so that's
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  a game dusted off and I'm happy to play that's by Emerson Matsuchi originally published
• 16:42
  by plan b games I think still so but I'm not sure who is who is the publisher there well
• 16:47
  thank you for joining me on my walk today I hope that you enjoyed it let me know what
• 16:53
  you've been playing over on boardgamegeek and post a message in our guild with
• 16:57
  just number 3269 or just google "pick up and deliver guild boardgamegeek"
• 17:02
  that'll get you there you could also send a message to me wombat929 is my
• 17:06
  username there brendan@rattleboxgames.com is my email that you can use to contact me I don't
• 17:13
  know or look me up on board game arena wombat929 is my username there I'd love to play a game
• 17:18
  with you invite me I'll play so thanks for joining me on the walk today I hope your next
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  walk is pleasant to mine was bye bye
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  [Music]
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  brought to you by Rattlebox Games
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  [MUSIC]