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Haunted Mansion; Nestlings; Velonimo; Camel (C)up (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast story. 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. For greetings, listeners. It's a
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: lovely day here in suburban Chicago. The sun is rising.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It is around six o'clock right now. I took a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: walk early in the morning so that.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I could avoid the midday heat.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a pretty warm one today, although
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: it looks like that the heat wave has broken a
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: little bit. The temperature is in the sixties, which is
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: low for what has been over the last few days.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I was going to do an episode about games about
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the heat, but I discovered I did one two seasons ago,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So if you wanted to listen to that. If you've
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: been in the heat wave also and you want to
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: hear an episode about heat, pop over to the homepage
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: for the podcast and check it out. I'll try to
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: put a link in the show notes to the heat
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: game themed games episode and you can go from there. Instead,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I thought I would talk about three games I've played recently.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: That's right time for a board game. Espresso Triple Shot
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: order up the board game of Espresso. Triple Shot is
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: an episode segment in which I talk about three games
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I've tried for the first time and one game I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: recently dusted off. So to start with, I thought I
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: would talk about Disney Haunted Mansion, the Call of the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Spirits game from twenty twenty. A friend brought this over
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: on a game day and we thought we'd give it
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: a try. I had decent hopes for it, at least
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: for being pretty playable and interesting, because it is from
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Prospero Hall. Prospero Hall is, of course the design group
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that has made many of the best i PE translations
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: in the biz. Perhaps with the exception of Restoration Games
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: has made some pretty great ones as well, but Prospero
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Hall was kind of the high point, especially when they
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: were partnered with Funco Games and Mondo Games, so those
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: three kind of together really sing. Now, these are games
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: that are designed to be new, be friendly or not.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Hobby games soldn't it's not surprising that these aren't like
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the best games ever. They're not going to make my
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: top fifty list, but they're generally well designed and entertained
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to play, and that's what we get with the Haunted
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Mansion call of the Spirits game. The game is themed
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: around the Disney Haunted Mansion ride or the Disney Hunted
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Mansion idea. Namely, you're going into a sort of funny, spooky,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: haunted mansion and you're being menaced by ghosts. So the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: game comes with cool little ghosts and you have your
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: player figures, and the idea is you're going into the mansion,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you're walking around, you're seeing stuff, you're interacting with ghosts,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: you're trying to collect sets of ghost cards. The downside
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: is there are these haunt cards as well, and you
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: can have them, but if you have the most then
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: there's a significant penalty or out of the game or something.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly, but it's bad to have the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: haunt cards, but not game breaking to have a couple,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and then it's good to have sets of cards of
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the different ghosts. The board is sort of lavishly illustrated.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: It's got this cool rotator thing in the middle that
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: looks neat. It's got fun little ghost figures. So if
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: you are somebody who's really a Disney headed and you've
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: gone to the Haunted Mansion a number of times, the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: ghosts will be familiar to you. All in all, it's
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: a really nicely made piece of kit and I think
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: an amusing game for people who might want to play
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: a Disney Haunted Mansion themed game. If you have family
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: members or friends who aren't gamers who like the Disney
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Haunted Mansion theme, this would be an excellent way to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: sort of show them, oh, hey, games don't have to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: be just roll a die and do what it says.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I don't have anything specific negative to say about the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Haunted Mansion College Spirits game except that it is pretty simple,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: so I would imagine after a few plays it would
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: lose some of its luster. But I think the lack
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: of pleasure from the simplicity is just from somebody who
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: wants a more complicated game. The set collection element has
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: to do with how the cards are dealt out, and
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: there's a little bit of negotiation among You don't negotiate
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: with the other players, but you start to decide which
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: piece to take, and you can kind of see what
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: sets other players are going for. So as an element
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: of modulating what are you trying to do versus what
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: are they trying to do? Works pretty well. So on all,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I'd say worth giving it a try. I would I
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: buy it if I found it at a thrift story.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I will say I have had the opportunity to buy
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: it at a thrift story and I passed it up.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I think I would not, in part because while it's good,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I don't, off the top of my head know anybody
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: who's like really into Disney stuff. If I did, I would,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and I found it at thrift star, I would probably
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: get it to give to them as a gift, because
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: it really would fit if that's your jam. But I
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: think if you're just regular person looking for an interesting
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: game to play, there are much better options, and so
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't spend my money on it. I'm really
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: glad they've gotten to play it, though. So that's Disney
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: The Haunted Mansion all the games from twenty twenty. Next
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: up we have Nestlings from twenty twenty four from designer
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Brandon Ohmi, artist Nilan John Malakar, and the publisher is
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Tangerine Games. This is a Kickstarter published, independently published game
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: that then we found in retail. We actually bought it
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: in Canada on our trip, and part of what got
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: us was the cover art. The cover art is very
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: strong it's a family of cedar waxwings and beautiful illustrated
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Nestlings is a set collection game with a competitive element
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: in which you are trying to gather different kinds of
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: foods for your characters. There's sort of a selection auction,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: but it works as you have dice that let you forage.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: The ideas you are a bird raising a group of nestlings,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: so you're trying to gather enough food for them, but
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: also food of different varieties and from different biomes, and
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: you get points for hitting those different biomes. It is,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: like I said, a set collection game. The action selection
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: slash auction part is pretty interesting. You get a bunch
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: of dice that have the different biome faces on them.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: You roll those dice and then you're going to put
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: the dice out as a bidding mechanism, and the bidding
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: is for turn order for going to that biome. There's
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: a secondary element where you're rerolling your dice every turn
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: and so well you can, so there is a little
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: bit of an element of something kind of like Las
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Vegas in the way the dice move around, although it
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: just feels like you have more control over that. You
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: can also spend something I don't remember what it is,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: but you can spend something to change the face of
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the die as well. Oh you can spend two dice
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: to change one die.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: So if you.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Really want one of the things that will get you
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of points, you can burn some of your
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: opportunity to get that thing. All in all, it works
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: pretty well. I think it's entertaining. The art, like I said,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: is beautiful. They really put a lot of effort into
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: creating very nice bird art. I really hope it's not AI.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't see anything that tells me it is, but
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I think with regard to visual art, I'm not very
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: good at spotting art that is or isn't generated unless
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that's egregious. But it looks pretty good to me. So
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: the gameplay is it really feels like an underdeveloped game.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: There are a number of things about how the game
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: works that feel I guess loosey goosey is sort of
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: one way to put it. So, for example, the part
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of what you're doing is you're, like I said, you're
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: trying to collect these sets of birds, but there's also
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: points for getting sets of things from other biomes, So
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: you get points for gathering food from the biome where
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: your birds are from, and your dice are optimized for
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: that gathering. When you have there are four different biomes,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: plus there's the sort of general biome in the middle,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and so your dice have two symbols for your biome,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: one blank and one for each of the other three. Now,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: your ideal situation is to visit the other three often
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: enough that you get that you collect different foods from
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: those places, and then when you feed your own birds,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: you get points based on how many different foods you've
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: collected from those other environments. You can get a lot
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of points from doubling down on which areas you're visiting,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: but you also get points for variety. It sort of
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: feels like they came up with one mechanism, which is
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: feed your birds, and there wasn't enough going on there,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: so they've added this other thing where you're supposed to
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: be getting bits and pieces from these other places as well,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and then they crafted points onto it so that you
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: get points for most of the different things you can do.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: But it's not entirely intuitive how those points come about,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: so it I guess because of those sort of clunky interactions,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: it feels a little underdeveloped to me.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I feel like it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Could have been streamlined a bit, or they could have
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: thought a little bit more about how they want to
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: have the scoring work off each other. It's a little
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: bit like another game that I feel has this problem
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: is The Gardens. It's a tile laying game about building
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: a botanical garden in Sydney, Australia, and it's a similar
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: thing where like there's so many different ways to score
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: points that it all feels a little niche Mashy I
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: would say the one other negative of this game is
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: because of those complexities I just mentioned, it's a little
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: difficult to teach, or more difficult than it should be
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: for the level of complexity in the game, that this
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: feels like a game that should teach in five minutes
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: and it probably takes you ten because there's just enough
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: going on and you really make sure people understand where
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the points come from. So from that perspective, it feels
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: a little underdeveloped. But on the other hand, the broad
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: interactions are pretty are Okay. I think it's a fine
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: game to play, like, It's one I'll be happy to play,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: but I'm probably not gonna pull it out that often.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: This game might get to stay in my collection longer
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: than it really deserves. Because we got it on vacation
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and because it's about birds, I've ended up keeping it
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: a bit longer. But we've only played the once. It
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: might be a game that opens itself up as you
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: play more. There was I think another deck of cards
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: that did something. Oh, this game also has a bought
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: player for the two player game, which is not my favorite.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Maybe that was the other thing that felt a little strange. So,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: because it is a action selection game and you're kind
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: of auctioning off the actions, that gets diluted a little
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: bit in a two player game because there's only two
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: of you. The multiplayer bot amplifies that effect a little
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: bit by adding in a third player who's just sort
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: of doing stuff, taking things that you might want. Also,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: if you are the person who puts the most dice
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: into a biome, you're gonna get to go first in
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: choosing what you get there. But you also get to
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: throw something away, and in fact you must, and that's
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: a really interesting dynamic as well, because there's enough that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: everybody's going to get something. But if you then go
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: go and throw something away, which you have to do,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: you can throw away the thing the other person wanted,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: So the game really motivates you to try to be
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the first person to go because you actually have to
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: actively make it harder on the other players, which I
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: think is a little unnecessary, but probably was needed to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: keep the competition level of the game up. It also
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: feels like the sort of thing where maybe they were
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: looking for a solution to a problem and so they
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: added an extra rule to solve that problem rather than
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: refining so they could take rules away. So again feels
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a little underdeveloped. So that's I guess all I have
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to say about Nestling's twenty twenty four by Brendan Ohmi
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: with art from Nilan John Malakar and published by Tangerine Games.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I did get to dust off a game. It had
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: been six years, four months, and thirteen days since I played.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Camel Up designed by Stefan Bogan with art from Dennis Lohausen,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: published by Egert Spiel. Camel Up is an excellent betting
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: racing game. When you look at something like Hot Streak
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: or something like Ready Set Bet, these are games that, oh, oh,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: some of what they've got to camel Up and camel
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Up it is a camel race. You have a bunch
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of camels that are going to be running around a track,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and the first camel to make it around the track wins.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Sounds pretty simple. The camel's move by dice, which is
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: not surprising. But the interesting part is these are camels.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: They look kind of like they were crafted out of
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: pieces from animal upon animal, the children's game where you're
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: stacking up animals like they're in the arc. And this
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: is the thing that really makes the game work well
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: is this fact that the camels stack. So the way
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the game works there's one track, there's no lanes, and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the camels can't share a space. Instead they get on
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: top of one another. So whenever you're moving a camel
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and it moves forward, if it goes into a space
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: with another camel, it goes on top of that camel
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: instead of going past it. And if it just passes it,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that's not a big deal. It goes on top, then
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: it leaves, But if it stops on the space where
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: that camel is, it's now riding that other camel. And
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: if that other camera moves forward, so does the camel
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: on top. And I believe the way the game works
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: is the camel on top is leading the camel underneath.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: So if a camel lands on top of another camel
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: and then both of those camels crossed the line because
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the camel on the bottom moved, the camera on top wins.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Added to that, there are two backward camels. The backward
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: camels start at the beginning the line and run the
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: other direction. And so if a forward movie camel lands
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: on the backward camel and then the backward camel moves,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it moves the forward moving camel backward, which is hilarious.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: So and then finally, when the camels move, there is
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: this little pyramid with a button on it, and whether
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: game works, you shake up the pyramid, push the button
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: and a can and a dye falls out, and that
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: rolls one of the colored dice and it moves the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: camels forward. Now you play until you've rolled a certain
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: number of number of the dice. I think it's like
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: there's six, seven, eight, there's maybe eight camels on the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: track total, and you're gonna roll six dice, so two
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: of the camels you won't get their die that round.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: So all of this means that it's very unpredictable which
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: animal is going to move and how far they're going
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: to move, meaning that this is the perfect opportunity to bet.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So in the game, you can bet on cam which
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: camel is going to be ahead, which camels going to
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: pass a certain spot. You can put these little bonus
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: things onto the board, and if a camel lands on
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the bonus thing, you get some points. You also can
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: make alliances with other players, so if they score points,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: you score points, and vice versa. And this is not
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: a choice, it is a or. This is not a agreement,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: it's a player action. So if I want to make
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: an alliance with you and we both still have our
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: alliance cards, I can use my turn to make an
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: alliance with you, and after that we are allied for
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the rest of the round, and the game is played
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: over a series of rounds. That was a pretty complicated explanation,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: but I think it's worth knowing if you haven't played
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Camel Up. It's really good. I had a lot of
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: fun playing this again. This definitely goes on the category
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: of I'd be happy to play this anytime someone brings
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it out. I would be happy to have a copy
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: of this, but I'm probably not going to go out
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: of my way to buy one just because we have
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: plenty of games, so it goes in the category of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I'd definitely buy it at a thrift store or even
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: gently used copy, or if it was on deep discount,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: like if I found it for ten bucks somewhere, I
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: probably would buy it because it's pretty good. I don't
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: know that i'd pay fifteen, so maybe that's my line.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: We'll see.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I also do regularly try to get it in trade,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: so camel Yeah, Camel up is great. I will say
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: there's a bit of controversy about the title. In the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: current iteration of it, you can't read the cover of
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the box and think that it's called anything other than
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Camel Up. But when they made the original game, I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: think they intentionally put a pun on the cover of
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the box that had the side effect of making the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: title of the game ambiguous, which they ultimately decide was
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: bad for business in a world where you have to
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: search up games on the internet. So the way the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: game was crafted, or the way the title is crafted
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: on the original game is the word camel and below
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that the word up, and the the A and camel
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: and the U and up were vertically aligned, so it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: says camel camel up and the C on camel was
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: twice as large, and it was vertically aligned with the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: top of the A so that it stuck down, meaning
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that when you looked at it, it was two lines
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of text and the C was in front of both,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and it was very easy to believe that what the
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: title of the game was was Camel Cup. This was
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: amplified by the fact that this is a game about
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: camel's racing, which means that it's not unreasonable to think
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: you're trying to win the Camel Cup. But of course
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: it's also about a game about camel's stacking on top
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: of one another, so Camel Up is a good title.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: So it's the combination of those two that really makes
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: for a fun pun and also added some controversy about
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: what is the game actually called. Is it Camel Cup
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: or Camel Up. I like to call it camel Cup.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I think that pun is funny, but that is not
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the official name of the game anymore. So if you
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: haven't had a chance to play Camel Cup slash Camel Up,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: definitely do so. And finally, I did get to play Volanimo,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: which is a trick taking game from Bruno Cathala with
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: arc from with art from Dominique Martinz published by Studio Stratospheres.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Valanimo is themed around a bicycle rake race, hence the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: velo part. I'm not sure about the anamo because it's
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: not well, it's a bis rake. It's themed after a
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: long bike race like the Tour de France. In the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: game you play that you're playing cards collecting Getting the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: art is themed around animals on bicycles. Broadly speaking, it's
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a ladder climbing game. You have a series of cards
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: with numbers on them, and your in typical ladder game fashion,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: your turning them in and playing them in changing combinations
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of numbers and colors such that you can get rid
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: of cards at ever greater amounts. But then if you
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: get stuck with say a low card, it can be
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: very hard to get rid of unless you get the lead,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and it's hard to get the lead if you don't
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: have some hot cards.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So there is this.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Element of trying to figure out how to get rid
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of your low cards is really the thing, and each
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: hand you are trying to get rid of your cards first,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: because then you win that leg of the race. When
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: you win that leg of the race, you get a
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: reward card and there's also a jersey that's going around,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and you get the jersey by winning the trick in
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: which that jersey is played. After the fifth round, then
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: you see who has won the most legs and who
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: has the jersey is the tiebreaker, and that's the game.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Vlaimo falls in this category of amusing ladder climbing games.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: To me, it is our trick taking. It's ladder climbing.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: They called it a trick taking there, but I think
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: trick taking and ladder climbing are different, and this is
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: definitely the ladder. It falls in the category of amusing
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: ladder climbing games. I'm definitely of the mind that you
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: don't have to have a ton of these. If you
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: have a couple of them, they're not sufficiently different enough
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that it's worth like getting really excited. If there's one
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you like, better go for that one. If you feel
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: like playing a ladder climbing game, this one's just as
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: it's fine in compared to like Linko, and I like
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Fuji Flush a little better. None of them are as
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: good as Scout, I would say, although I don't like
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Scout enough to have gone and bought it beyond like again,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I'd buy it if I found it on a strong discount,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: or if I founded at a thrift store. For sure,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: but I don't like it enough to have gone out
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and gotten it myself. That is Volaimo twenty twenty. Well
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: that's about it for me today. I'd love to know
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: what you've been playing. Head over to board game Geek
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Guild three two six nine and share your thoughts there
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: and let me know how your July is going. Thanks
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: for joining me in my walk today.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: I hope your next walk is as pleasant as mind
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: with Bye Bye, brought to you by rattle Box Today