Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Top of the Stack, November 2024

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Top of the Stack, November 2024 · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Time. Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I pick up my audio as a quarter because I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: step off the train and deliver an episode to you
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: while I walk home. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good evening.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It is Monday night, November fourth, and I am talking
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to you while I'm walking home from the train. This
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: is the first chance I've had to record an episode
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: since the calendar rolled over to November, and that means
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: it's time for Top of the Stack. For those of
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you new to the podcast, Top of the Stack is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a monthly segment or a monthly episode theme that I
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: do that involves talking about the games I've played in
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the last month in various different categories, talking about how
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: many games I've played, sort of reporting some gaming statistics,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and most importantly, reporting on whether or not I achieved
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: my top of this goal. The top of the Stack
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: goal is a concept I swiped from the podcast of
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Nonsensical Gamers, so nods to them. The place you'd find
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: them in board game media. As far as I know
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: is that one of them has become a game designer.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: His name is Dan, and I can't remember his last name,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: but he is the designer of Aqua and before that
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Bees and Stormchasers. So I believe his son designed Aqua
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: with him. I think that's a they're a duo, so
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: nod to them for the idea of the top of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the stack. The top of the stack. I didn't tell
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: you what it was. It's a group of games that
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I've picked that I are sort of given priority for
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that month to try to get played, and if I
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: play three of the four in the month, I consider
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: it a success. So that's what that is, all right.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Let's get into some stats. So in October I played
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: forty plays of thirty one different games. For a year
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: total of six hundred and ninety seven plays of two
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: hundred fifet four games. So with two months to go,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I'm just under seven hundred games played and just under
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: three hundred different ERA two hundred and fifty just over
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty different games played, so playing quite
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: a bit. My goal of reducing my shelf of opportunity
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: has not gone very well. At the beginning of October
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I had sixty eight games on my shelf of opportunity,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: and at the end of October I had sixty eight
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: games on my shelf of opportunity. This doesn't mean there
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't any movement. It just means I can't stop acquiring games.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: My game collection size did balloon from six oh three
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: to six oh seven, so it's really gotten out of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: control since the five hundred and seventy six that I
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: had at the beginning of the year. My most played
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: game in October was Flip seven, a card game I
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: found to be quite delightful with four plays in real life.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: My most plays online there were a bunch of games,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: but I picked packs Renaissance at two plays. There are
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a couple other games that I also played twice in October,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: so the top of the Stack report over the course
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: of the year. Oh so my top of the stack
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: last month I picked four games. I had Bora Bora,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Circadians First Light that's its third or fourth time on
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the top of the stack list. I picked Linko, which
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: is a new game I picked up toward the end
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: of September, and Android Infiltration, another game I've had on
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the top of the stack a number of times. These
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: are ambitions, aspirational plays, and unfortunately failed ones. I've played
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: two of the four Bora Bora and Linko. To be fair,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Bora Bora I think has made two or three appearances
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: on the top of the Sack list, and I finally
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: did get it played. I will talk about that in
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: an upcoming Shooting from the Hip episode, but I will
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: say I thought it was pretty good For the year.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I have now played twenty two out of thirty potential
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: games on the top of the sack. I am now
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: mathematically eliminated from getting to thirty six out of thirty six,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: which is the final one, because at most I can
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: log eight more plays in November and December, and with
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: twenty two plays that would put me at thirty. So
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I guess I was probably mathematicmatically eliminated last year from
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: getting a perfect score, but so be it. So that
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: is the top of the stack list, so on to
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: first place. First Plays is the list of games that
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I played for the first time. I generally don't talk
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: about these too much because I will talk about them
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: in a Top of the Stack episode in the future.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: But that said, I played Rats of with Star, the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Hunger thirteen, thirteen, Dead End Drive, Bullet Heart, Linko, Flip seven,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Bora Bora, and Terrors of London, bringing my total for
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the year to eighty two new games. I like one
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: hundred is a nice round number. I like to play
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: one hundred new games in a year. That would mean
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I need to play eighteen more in November December. I
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: think that's doable. We'll see, but I think it's doable.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: I did try a couple expansions this month, not a
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: ton of them, but a couple. I tried the Branch
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and Claw and Jagged Earth expansions for Spirit Island. I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: tried those both in the same game, and they were delightful,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: so I'm happy to have played those and gotten them
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: off my expansion list. Actually, they weren't on my expansion
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: list because I didn't own them, so their expansions. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: tried it for the first time, but not for a
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: game I own. That said, in my collection, it does
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: mark that I own Spirit Island and all the expansions
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to it, because my son owns them, and for ease
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: of cataloging, I mark games that he buys in my collection,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: although he and I both know which ones belong to him.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: So I'm up to sixteen expansions tried out this year,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: a pretty healthy number. I don't tend to make a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: ton of effort to get expansions played, but it is
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: fun to have those out of the way. On out
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: of the dust list, A game gets dusty if it
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: has gone a year or more without being played. That's
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: what I mean when I say a game has gotten dusty.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So a game that spread brought out of the dust
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: is a game that I have played if it's been
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: sitting for a year or more. I have three games
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that I dusted off this year, Race for the Galaxy.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: It had been two years, six months, and seven days
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: since I played it. Race for the Galaxy is a
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: classic multi use card game from Tom Layman. Very very good.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I like it a lot. I played with a group
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: of people, all of whom had played before, one of
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: whom is a Shark. I got second place, which felt
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: pretty good. The shark got first place unsurprisingly, So yeah,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that was a fun one. I like Race for the Galaxy.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I don't like it as much as Role for the Galaxy, though,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: so let that be what it will. Next up was Rummy.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: One of the students in my board game club we
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: had about a half hour, said hey, let's play Rummy.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: We played Rummy. I have not played Rummy for a
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: long time, definitely, not since I started recording games which
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: means at least ten years. The first games I recorded
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: on Board Game Geek were roughly twenty fourteen, so we're
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: at the ten year mark now for that. Although I
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: wasn't probably recording every play until sometime mid twenty fifteen,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I was being ambitious about actually recording plays, and then
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I think shortly after that I got the BEG stats app,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and I started actually recording who was playing each game
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: and what the score were. If you look at some
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of my early plays, there's no recording of scores or people.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: But Rummy I have not played since at least before
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. If I had to guess, I would say sometime.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I think I did play Rummy sometime after I got
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: my job in Chicago, so definitely post two thousand and four,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: but that's a wild guess. I definitely had played it before,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: but it's been a long time. Turns out I do
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: remember how to play. I won handily over my two students,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: who one of whom had played a lot but hadn't
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: played in a while, and the other one who had
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: never played before. So not a ton of bragging rights
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and defeating those two opponents, but it was still a
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: good time. Next up was Vampire Queen. This is another
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: card game which when I acquired it, I guess I
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: thought it was old. I don't remember where I got it,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: maybe from a friend or something. I got it in
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen or twenty I think twenty seventeen, and it
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: actually came out in twenty sixteen, so it's not actually
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: that old. This is a ladder climbing or there's a
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: card shedding game from Wolfgang Kramer. They just released a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: new edition of it with new art that I think
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: is fine, but I think the old art was fine.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I can see why you'd want to release a new
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: art though it makes it look like a new game.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: But it is a pretty simple card shedding game. It's
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of fun. It's definitely more fun at more players.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: When we played it before, we played it at higher
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: player accounts. When we played it this time, we played
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: it at three players, and I think it was not great.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I had a good time, don't get me wrong. I
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: think it was not great. So that is Vampire Queen.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: It had been seven years, two months, and twenty days
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: since we had played that, And finally I gave an
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: honorable mention to betrayal a House on the Hill as
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: having been dusted off because it had been three hundred
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and sixty four days since I played three hundred and
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: sixty three days excuse me, since I played it previously.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: In other words, last year we played it just around Halloween,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and this year we played it just around Halloween, and
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: it was like this Saturday or Sunday before Halloween that
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: we played it both times. It just happened to be
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: two days earlier. This time one day, I don't know whatever,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: it was almost a year. So I put it in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the honorable mentions. I do also like to note plays
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: of note these are games that I played that don't
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: fit any other particular category, but I want to point
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: out anyway. I played a number of rounds of doorf Romantic.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: This is the Spields Spieleddsar Winner game Spieled Jasharis Winner
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: from a couple of years ago, based on a really
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: interesting Steam game. We have been playing at co op
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: with my in laws and having a great time, So
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: if you get a chance to play it, I recommend.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I was a little doubtful, but I heard enough good
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: things about it and I thought it would fit my
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: family's appetite for a co op that had a little
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: bit of puzzliness into it, and it turned out it's
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: surely dead. So doorf Romantic good one. We're making good
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: progress on my ten for ten. We played The Rats
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of Wistar, which is a cute animal game, or I
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: call it one. So I'm up to six of those
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: thirteen thirteen. Dead End Drive was certainly a novelty game,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I think, and puts me up to four of those,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and I did not progress progress on the alphabet U
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: through Z and four numbers one which is still at four.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So I have about four six, six, so fourteen games
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: to play left on my ten for ten, which is
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: a lot but not outside the realm of possibility. So
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna really put some effort into completing those so
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: that I can achieve my ten for ten. I haven't
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: done that very often. Maybe one or two other years
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that I've tried have I achieved it, and so I
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: really want to do so. Yeah, so that's where we
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: are there. No painting got done this month, which the bummer,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: but that's okay. On my shelf of opportunity. I played
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Bora Bora Tears of London Quarto, which I did not
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: mention as a new game because it's a game I
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: used to own. I gave away to my board game
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: club or to a friend or something. I gave away
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: my copy, and then I found another copy of Goodwill,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: so I acquired again, and having acquired it again, it
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: now goes back on the shelf opportunity. But I played
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it so that one's out Linko is resolved. Flip seven
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and the Hunger are all games played, which leads me
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: with sixty nine unplayed games as of last update, or
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: maybe sixty eight. I think it's sixty eight. My expansion
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: shelf has adjusted a little bit. I got rid of
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: the Catan five to six player expansion, which I had
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: purchased but I did not play. I decided to donate
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it to my college board game club. I figure, if
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: someone's going to play Catan with five or six players,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: it's going to be someone at that club. I put
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: on here that I acquired Terraforming Mars Prelude too. I'm
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: gonna have to adjust that. This is very sad. I
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: was at a game store. They had Prelude too. I
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: bought Prelude too. When I got home, I realized that
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I had picked up Prelude, not Prelude too, and purchased Prelude,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And so I purchased a copy of an expansion I
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: already have and don't have prelude too. Now, the upside
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: of it is that the copy of Terraforing Mars that
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: we have at toggle not have Prelude in it. So
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to add Prelude to our Terraforming Mars toggle
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: set so that we have it in future, because that's
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: something we should have if nothing else. Terraforming Mars takes
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: too long anyway, and it's tough to play it at
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: toggle because we only have five hours, so putting Prelude
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: in there is a must. I acquired the High Stakes
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: expansion to The Hunger because I really like The Hunger.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I know it's going to stay in my collection a
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: while because I think it's a lot of fun, and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: at some point I'm going to want more content for it.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: So I got the expansion. I just put the stuff
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: right in the box but left it shrink wrapped, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: then I also purchased another of the chapters of the game, Suspects.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Now this is a quirk of my how I manage
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: my collection. When I get a game like an unlock
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: or an exit or Suspects, where it's part of a
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: series of puzzle of one play games. The first one
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I get I consider as like a new game, and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: after that I consider them expansion. I know their standalone,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: but whatever, I don't think of them that way. That
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: means my collection side gets a little wonky because I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: mark it as owned and I think of it as
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: an expansion, but board game Geek does not, So whatever,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: there it is. But that means that I started at
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: seventy two expansions and I am still at seventy two,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: or I've gone up to seventy three. Excuse me, should
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: be seventy four. Actually, unless I've no, it's seventy three
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: because Prelude was not actually new in my collection itself.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I got Linko in Hand to Hand Wombat, I got
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Suspects and Funny Friends. I figured out that I had
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: a game called Badass Zombie Killers that I had never
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: marked as owned, so I added that I got Flip
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: seven and The Hunger. I gave away Scooby Doo and
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: The Haunted Mansion and two other games that I cannot
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: remember what they were. But I gave away two other
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: games as well, and I know I marked them removed
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: from my collection, but I don't remember which ones those are.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: So that is the end of my discussion about my collection.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: So the last thing I always talk about in the
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Top of the Stack episode are the games that I
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: am planning to play in November. I've picked out four
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: games to try to play in November. Funny Friends is
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the new one. I acquired this at the same game
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: store where I accidentally bought Prelude again and where I
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: picked up Suspects. This is the Dungeon Citadel or something
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: like that in the basement Citadel in Rhode Island or Connecticut,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: where I joined Derek Kay from the Bluepeg pink Peg
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: community to play some games. While I was in Rhode Island,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I hopped the train down to Connecticut. That was a
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: lot of fun. That's where I played Rats of Wistar
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and The Hunger for the first time. After that, I
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: acquired The Hunger and played it again because I like
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: it so much. My shelf Clearer, this is a game
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: that's been on the list before. I'm going to try
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to get it played this time. It's called The Spirits
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: of the Rice Patty. It is a euro game that
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: involves managing water so thinking of it as barrage Light
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: perhaps looks pretty interesting. I think it's gonna be fun.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Excited to play that. My second new game I put
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: on here is Hand to Hand Wombat. This would be
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a fun game to play with the family. I think
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for over to try and it. I haven't
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: tried it yet. I actually have acquired two copies of
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: this game. The one copy I acquired and I had
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: in my collection, and I noticed it was missing a piece,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: So I asked my son if he could use his
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: digital tools to create recreate the piece in his three
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: D printer, and he did so pretty amazing if you
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: ask me. And then I found another complete copy at Goodwill,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: so I donated one copy to my board game my
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: college Board Game Club, and the other copy is in
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: our home collection. And then I would like to try
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: out Badass Zombie Killers. This is a game I spend
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: in my collection a long time, but I only recently
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: realized it was so it's been added to the shelf
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of opportunity even though it was not it should have
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: been there for a long time. So that's the top
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of the stack for November. What games did you play
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: in October? I would love to know, and you can
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: tell me by heading over to board game Geek and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: going to guild three two six y nine and joining
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the conversation there. You could also email me Brendan at
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: rattleboxgames dot com, or you can send me a message
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: on Board game Geek Wombat nine to nine. Well, I
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining me on my walk today, and
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: I hope that you have a lovely November and that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: your next walk is as pleasant as my walk. Well bye,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Brought to you by rattle Box