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New to Me Games Roundup, part 2 · Pick Up and Deliver

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver it the podcast where
0:06
Speaker 1: I pick up my audio recorder as I step out
0:08
Speaker 1: for a walk and deliver an episode two while I
0:10
Speaker 1: stroll around. I'm Brendan Riley. Welcome back listener to my
0:23
Speaker 1: second half of the year Unplayed Game Unplayed Game Roundup.
0:27
Speaker 1: We now rejoined my recording in progress. Next up we
0:30
Speaker 1: have Sea Salt and Paper. I did like this game
0:33
Speaker 1: quite a bit. This is an engine builder. If I
0:36
Speaker 1: recall again, I played in August. I don't remember the
0:39
Speaker 1: details very much, but I do remember liking it quite
0:41
Speaker 1: a bit. The art is fantastic. It's all this sort
0:44
Speaker 1: of uh it's either computer like digitally created Oregon me
0:49
Speaker 1: art or it's photographs of Oregon ME art that looks
0:52
Speaker 1: really lovely. So the art, art and design of the
0:55
Speaker 1: game is nice. But the gameplay itself is also really
0:58
Speaker 1: tight as well. Place quickly but thoughtfully, I would say
1:01
Speaker 1: it's not I don't recall it being quite as good
1:04
Speaker 1: as something like Oh My Goods in terms of depth
1:07
Speaker 1: of complexity compared to size of the game. But it
1:12
Speaker 1: is a small box card game and it's pretty good.
1:15
Speaker 1: So I don't have a copy. I bought it actually
1:17
Speaker 1: for my daughter when she went to college, and I
1:19
Speaker 1: do like it. I certainly would pick it up if
1:21
Speaker 1: I found it at a reasonable price. Again, but again
1:24
Speaker 1: it goes in that category of I'd enjoy playing it,
1:26
Speaker 1: but I don't know how much I'd enjoy getting it
1:28
Speaker 1: out week after week. That is Sea Salt and Paper. Finally,
1:31
Speaker 1: the last new game I tried in August, I tried
1:33
Speaker 1: at my college board game club when of my students
1:35
Speaker 1: brought it. It's called Masquerade second Edition. I believe that
1:39
Speaker 1: I have in fact played this one time a long
1:41
Speaker 1: time ago, but I think I played the first edition
1:44
Speaker 1: and it was so long ago, and I think that
1:46
Speaker 1: we didn't really know what was going on, or I
1:48
Speaker 1: didn't really know what was going on when I played it,
1:49
Speaker 1: because this felt very new, even though I think I
1:52
Speaker 1: had logged Masquerade first edition, so I'm calling this a
1:55
Speaker 1: new play. This is a social deduction game, very in
1:59
Speaker 1: line with COO and in the idea that each player
2:03
Speaker 1: has their own identity that they are using in the game.
2:07
Speaker 1: They have their goals that they're trying to solve, and
2:10
Speaker 1: they are trying to get to the point where they
2:12
Speaker 1: have won the game by outsmarting the other players like Coo,
2:16
Speaker 1: you have an identity card and you're trying to read
2:19
Speaker 1: what the other person is taking liberties with the role
2:23
Speaker 1: that they're saying they have, so I like that. That
2:25
Speaker 1: is Masquerade second Edition. Next up we have games I
2:29
Speaker 1: tried in September. I only have two that I tried
2:31
Speaker 1: that I have not talked about here on the pod.
2:34
Speaker 1: The first of these is Nice Buns. Nice Buns is
2:37
Speaker 1: a very very light set collection game themed around Boo Buns.
2:44
Speaker 1: It's got a really nice production value. It's very welcoming.
2:47
Speaker 1: This is an excellent game. If you have people who
2:49
Speaker 1: just have not played any hobby games at all and
2:52
Speaker 1: you wanted to get them started on it, you could
2:54
Speaker 1: show them this. It would be in the same category
2:56
Speaker 1: as something like love Letter or something like Sushi Go.
3:01
Speaker 1: Very very accessible, easy to get out, easy to play. Frankly,
3:05
Speaker 1: not that unlike love Letter and Sushigo, which I think
3:08
Speaker 1: are pretty fun even if you've played a lot of games.
3:11
Speaker 1: I thought Nice Buns was just okay. The production design
3:15
Speaker 1: was great, though. Next up we have Tree Society. This
3:17
Speaker 1: is a fun little set collection and contract fulfillment game
3:21
Speaker 1: from Matt Dunson and Brett Gilbert. It has beautiful art.
3:25
Speaker 1: At least the cover art is beautiful. The game itself
3:27
Speaker 1: is nicely graphic designed, with strong images of the fruit
3:32
Speaker 1: and vegetables that you're collecting. This is a game where
3:36
Speaker 1: you are trying to complete contracts. The gimmick is you
3:39
Speaker 1: have a tableau with powers, but it's very limited in size.
3:42
Speaker 1: You can amplify the effect of the powers by upgrading them,
3:45
Speaker 1: but you can't just keep building forever. So interesting experience.
3:50
Speaker 1: I thought it was fun. We haven't gone back to
3:52
Speaker 1: it yet, though, so I'm not sure. I'm not sure
3:54
Speaker 1: how long it'll stay just because it hasn't it didn't compel,
3:57
Speaker 1: but I definitely want to play it at least once
3:58
Speaker 1: more before we toss it or trade it. That's Tree Society.
4:02
Speaker 1: Next up, we have the games that I played in
4:04
Speaker 1: October that I've not yet talked about on the pod.
4:07
Speaker 1: There are a number of games from October interesting one
4:11
Speaker 1: and all. First up is tinder Blocks. This is a tiny, little,
4:15
Speaker 1: like a mint tin size game that a friend brought
4:18
Speaker 1: to a gathering. It's a dexterity game. You are building
4:22
Speaker 1: a campfire with these tiny little pieces using these tweezers.
4:27
Speaker 1: I thought it was amusing, certainly a good we've got
4:31
Speaker 1: ten minutes with something we can play kind of game.
4:34
Speaker 1: And the components are really nice. They are kind of
4:37
Speaker 1: standard board game components. The wood from the game are
4:41
Speaker 1: basically the roads from Catan and similar pieces. They all
4:45
Speaker 1: fit in this little mint tin. It's cute. The graphic
4:48
Speaker 1: design is good, the rules are easy to learn. I
4:51
Speaker 1: would happily play it again, probably not seeking out to
4:53
Speaker 1: buy it, but fun. Next up is Cuthulhu Realms. Cthulhu
4:57
Speaker 1: Realms is a variant on the Realms engine that was
5:02
Speaker 1: published like when Star Realms was in its ascendency, when
5:05
Speaker 1: the company was still called White Wizard Games, which they've
5:08
Speaker 1: moved away from thankfully. Essentially, the idea is that it's
5:12
Speaker 1: a engine builder where you have locations. It's a deck
5:15
Speaker 1: builder where you have locations and you're trying to take
5:18
Speaker 1: out the other players, but the things that you put
5:20
Speaker 1: in front of you provide additional blocking. The Star Wars
5:23
Speaker 1: the deck building game, is very similar to the Star
5:26
Speaker 1: Realms and Cuthula Realms engine. They also made a Hero
5:30
Speaker 1: Realms game, which I have not played and I believe
5:33
Speaker 1: is a little more different, but Cuthulia Realms it was fine.
5:36
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I'd happily played again if someone suggested,
5:39
Speaker 1: next up, we have Beast. This is the game I
5:41
Speaker 1: bought used when I was in Denver. It was my
5:43
Speaker 1: souvenir from Colorado or one of them. It's kind of
5:47
Speaker 1: a beast to get to the table, walk Walk. It
5:50
Speaker 1: is a hidden movement game in which you play hunters
5:53
Speaker 1: in a sort of fantasy world hunting a beast. The
5:56
Speaker 1: game comes with three different beasts in the box. The
5:58
Speaker 1: first one we played was called Hogbad as a giant
6:02
Speaker 1: malevolent hog like wild Hog. And it's a hidden moving game.
6:06
Speaker 1: So the beast is moving around, striking at the heroes,
6:10
Speaker 1: causing trouble to the villages. The heroes are hunting it,
6:12
Speaker 1: trying to catch it before it gets in their way.
6:15
Speaker 1: It's got a really neat action selection system. There's a
6:19
Speaker 1: series of cards that you get to draw, and the
6:22
Speaker 1: cards on the top have the hero actions and on
6:24
Speaker 1: the bottom they have the beast actions, and so everyone's
6:27
Speaker 1: working from the same deck on there's an element of
6:30
Speaker 1: if you discard a card, then the beast can grab
6:33
Speaker 1: that card, so you want to be careful which cards
6:34
Speaker 1: you discard. It's a little bit similar to something like
6:38
Speaker 1: Twilight's Struggle, not exactly, but kind of in the neighborhood
6:41
Speaker 1: of like, do I want to use this card to
6:43
Speaker 1: keep the Beast from getting it rather than because I
6:45
Speaker 1: want to do it myself. There's an element of that there,
6:48
Speaker 1: and it works pretty well. The art in the game
6:50
Speaker 1: is really nice. It's kind of this mystical look in
6:54
Speaker 1: fantasy game. There's another game called Gloom of Kill fourth
6:57
Speaker 1: that came out recently that has similar art and I
7:00
Speaker 1: think is similarly interesting, or the art looks similarly interesting,
7:04
Speaker 1: and Beast has a kind of there's a haziness to it,
7:08
Speaker 1: like all the characters are kind of in the fog,
7:10
Speaker 1: and I think it looks beautiful. So that's Beast. Next
7:14
Speaker 1: up we have Klondike. Klondike is a Hobba game that
7:18
Speaker 1: my design partner Rob Hey. Rob found at Goodwill, I think,
7:21
Speaker 1: or picked up in some other way. He and I
7:24
Speaker 1: tried it. It's like literally a game for children, but
7:27
Speaker 1: it has an excellent dexterity element. Reminds me a little
7:30
Speaker 1: bit of Drouholter, because you are trying to manage these
7:35
Speaker 1: physical objects and do so without screwing them up. You
7:39
Speaker 1: basically the theme. As you are you are panning for gold.
7:43
Speaker 1: You draw marbles out of a bag and drop them
7:45
Speaker 1: onto this metal pan, and then you swirl the pan
7:48
Speaker 1: around to try to get the good marbles out while
7:50
Speaker 1: leaving the bad marbles in. It's pretty fun. It would
7:53
Speaker 1: be a nice little starter ender to the night and
7:55
Speaker 1: definitely good with kids. It's easy to explain and it's
7:58
Speaker 1: got big, clonky pieces. If you get a chance to
8:00
Speaker 1: play Klondike, you should. I don't know if it's still
8:02
Speaker 1: in print. The copy we were playing looked older, but
8:05
Speaker 1: then again, Hobba's box design makes it really hard to
8:09
Speaker 1: date the games to tell how new they are not
8:11
Speaker 1: because they all look the same. So that's Hobba's Klondike.
8:14
Speaker 1: Next time we have Box Top Pinball Haunted House. This
8:17
Speaker 1: was published by Pandasaurus Games. We got a copy for
8:21
Speaker 1: Toggle Gaming at gen Con from Pandasaurus. This is a
8:24
Speaker 1: really fun dexterity game where you are taking the box
8:28
Speaker 1: that the game came in, and inside there's a bunch
8:30
Speaker 1: more boxes, sort of like Ice Cool, except the boxes
8:33
Speaker 1: get progressively smaller and you make the sort of ramp
8:36
Speaker 1: or three tier space, kind of like Tumblin dice if smaller,
8:40
Speaker 1: and then you're flicking dice trying to hit obstacles and
8:43
Speaker 1: have your dice or tokens. I don't know if their
8:46
Speaker 1: dice or I think their dice because I think the
8:47
Speaker 1: value they land on also matters. And you're flicking them
8:51
Speaker 1: down this ramp and you're scoring points based on where
8:53
Speaker 1: they end up. It's a pretty simple game. Definitely a
8:57
Speaker 1: beer and pretzels game, like you put the die on,
9:00
Speaker 1: you flick it, and in the other hand, maybe you
9:03
Speaker 1: have a beer. I guess is the idea or pretzels.
9:06
Speaker 1: It was a good time, fun to play. I would
9:09
Speaker 1: play again. I don't know what the price point is
9:11
Speaker 1: because we got it for free. I'm not sure how
9:13
Speaker 1: much I'd be willing to pay for it, and I'm
9:15
Speaker 1: certainly not going to go buy it to add it
9:16
Speaker 1: to my collection because we have a copy of Toggle
9:18
Speaker 1: the Phone and Play It. But an interesting game and
9:21
Speaker 1: worth trying if you get a chance. Also, the way
9:23
Speaker 1: they've titled it Box Top Pinball Haunted House makes me
9:26
Speaker 1: think that it is part of a series, or it
9:28
Speaker 1: is going to be part of a series of other
9:30
Speaker 1: box top pinball games, in which case I would try
9:32
Speaker 1: those two. Next up we have cat Flux. If you've
9:35
Speaker 1: played Flux, you know what this game is. If you haven't,
9:38
Speaker 1: Flux is a game where you are trying to achieve
9:41
Speaker 1: a winning condition by drawing a card and playing a
9:44
Speaker 1: card and getting the right combination of cards in front
9:46
Speaker 1: of you. But there are all sorts of cards that
9:49
Speaker 1: change the rules of the game. All Flux games work
9:52
Speaker 1: this way. Cat Flux is the newest version. It's all
9:54
Speaker 1: themed around cats. It's fine. Next up, we have The
9:57
Speaker 1: Mirroring of Mary King. This is a game designed by
9:59
Speaker 1: Jen Felly from Devious Weasel Games. I picked it up
10:03
Speaker 1: at gen Con. This is a really interesting two player
10:05
Speaker 1: game with a great theme. The theme is what drew
10:08
Speaker 1: me in, honestly. In the game, you play either Mary King,
10:13
Speaker 1: a contemporary Scottish woman who is the descendant of a
10:17
Speaker 1: noble who lived in a castle in Scotland and you're
10:20
Speaker 1: visiting that castle, or you play the ghost of that
10:23
Speaker 1: noble trying to come back and be manifest in the
10:26
Speaker 1: world by possessing Mary King, your long lost relative or
10:30
Speaker 1: your descendant. So in the game you are either the
10:33
Speaker 1: descendant or the ghost. The game itself is a tableau
10:37
Speaker 1: of twelve tiles in a rectangle and you are trying
10:40
Speaker 1: to flip them. They are double sided. On one side
10:43
Speaker 1: they have a picture of the person in color, and
10:46
Speaker 1: on the other side they have a picture of the
10:47
Speaker 1: ghost version of the person in this sort of ghostly
10:50
Speaker 1: it looks like an invert like if you take a
10:52
Speaker 1: regular photo and click invert on Photoshop. That's kind of
10:55
Speaker 1: what it looks like, although the hair is a bit
10:57
Speaker 1: more wild. And what you're doing is you're playing these
10:59
Speaker 1: cards that allow you to flip the tiles one way
11:01
Speaker 1: or the other, and your goal is to get them
11:03
Speaker 1: all flipped to your side, or to have the most
11:06
Speaker 1: cards remaining in your memory, which is like your draw
11:10
Speaker 1: deck when the game ends. That was pretty fun. I
11:12
Speaker 1: played it a couple of times. I won one and
11:14
Speaker 1: lost one. All right, sorry, I played four times. I
11:17
Speaker 1: think I lost one. Then I won one and lost two,
11:20
Speaker 1: so I'm half and half on that. Although the three
11:23
Speaker 1: that I played there were with the same person, so
11:25
Speaker 1: you could say I lost two out of three on
11:27
Speaker 1: that one. It's pretty fun, really interesting design does make
11:31
Speaker 1: me want to go check out more of the devious
11:33
Speaker 1: weasel designs. I have to admit I've been eyeing Cosmic
11:36
Speaker 1: Frog for a couple of years. But it's supposed to
11:39
Speaker 1: be very mean, and I don't have room in my
11:41
Speaker 1: collection for very many mean games. But it also looks
11:44
Speaker 1: just weird, and so I kind of want to get
11:46
Speaker 1: it because it looks weird. That is Cosmic. That is
11:49
Speaker 1: the mirroring of Mary King by Jenna f Felly. Next
11:52
Speaker 1: up is Madam Ching. I got to play this at
11:54
Speaker 1: a game day at Rob's game day. Actually, I believe
11:57
Speaker 1: in the game you are trying to become the most
12:01
Speaker 1: favored pirate in Madam Ching's armada. Madame Ching is a
12:05
Speaker 1: famous Chinese pirate who was the partner of a male
12:10
Speaker 1: pirate who was sort of the leader of this armada.
12:12
Speaker 1: And then when he died, she just told everyone I'm
12:14
Speaker 1: in charge now, and she was so fierce and they
12:16
Speaker 1: all agreed. And this is of course in like the
12:18
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds or early eighteen hundreds, and so you play
12:22
Speaker 1: a pirate trying to get stuff. There's this interesting mechanism
12:25
Speaker 1: where you're moving your You're trying to move your ship
12:29
Speaker 1: down the board to collect the best loot by playing
12:33
Speaker 1: these cards, and you are and there's a limited number
12:36
Speaker 1: of cards so you're trying to get them away from
12:38
Speaker 1: the other person that's Madame Ching. Next up, we have
12:42
Speaker 1: Cuthulhu Wars. Cthulhu Wars is a big, stompy board game
12:47
Speaker 1: in which you are fighting for area control with your
12:51
Speaker 1: troops and your monsters and your elder gods. You're fighting
12:55
Speaker 1: with other people who are this who are similarly armed.
12:59
Speaker 1: The couple things that make this game compelling one everybody
13:03
Speaker 1: has drastically different powers and different goals, so there's an
13:06
Speaker 1: element of trying to figure out how to counter what
13:09
Speaker 1: your opponents are doing when they have these powers that
13:12
Speaker 1: you just don't have, so they're doing things that you
13:14
Speaker 1: can't do that are very complicated. The second second thing
13:18
Speaker 1: is the game has remarkable table presence. It comes with
13:21
Speaker 1: these huge elder gods that you can put under the table,
13:24
Speaker 1: comes to a whole bunch of smaller minions, and it
13:27
Speaker 1: looks really cool. It's also very expensive. The copy we
13:32
Speaker 1: were playing with was decked out with beautiful paint job
13:35
Speaker 1: and just was really fun to play on. My understanding
13:39
Speaker 1: is it is very similar to something like blood Rage,
13:41
Speaker 1: So if you like blood Rage, Cuthulhu Wars is probably
13:46
Speaker 1: up your alley. I think it was really fun. I
13:49
Speaker 1: had a good time with it. I would be happy
13:51
Speaker 1: to play it again. It is a big commitment. It's
13:53
Speaker 1: a long game, and it takes a lot of effort
13:55
Speaker 1: to get it out because it's so big. But it's
13:57
Speaker 1: really neat and I certainly did enjoy it. That's Cthulhu Wars,
14:02
Speaker 1: all right. Next up we have probably the worst mini
14:04
Speaker 1: review I'm going to provide. This is for Glasgow. I
14:07
Speaker 1: don't mean worse because the game was bad. I mean
14:10
Speaker 1: worse because I don't remember this game hardly at all.
14:13
Speaker 1: Glasgow is a two player game. It's got the sort
14:16
Speaker 1: of traditional clements Fronds art. It looks a lot like
14:19
Speaker 1: Baron Park or early Agricola in terms of the people
14:22
Speaker 1: versus the Madame Ching has the sort of newer vincent
14:26
Speaker 1: to trade art, more like tenpenny Parks or that game
14:31
Speaker 1: where you're all spies. I can't remember what it's called,
14:34
Speaker 1: but in Glasgow. It's a two player games from the
14:36
Speaker 1: Lookout Games two player line, and in it you are
14:40
Speaker 1: taking tiles and building a tableau. I remember that the
14:44
Speaker 1: tiles were in a circle, and I remember thinking the
14:46
Speaker 1: game was fun and clever, not particularly complex, and I
14:52
Speaker 1: am interested in keeping it, but I can't imagine it's
14:55
Speaker 1: going to make a ton of appearances on the table,
14:57
Speaker 1: so it might not survive a later cull, but I'm
14:59
Speaker 1: gonna keep it for a while. I don't remember much
15:01
Speaker 1: else about it except that I'm fond of it. That
15:04
Speaker 1: is Glasgow. Good podcasting, Brendan. All Right, finally, this brings
15:08
Speaker 1: me to November again. Once again, I am talking about
15:12
Speaker 1: all the games I played for the first time or
15:15
Speaker 1: for the first couple of times in July through November,
15:19
Speaker 1: but I did not yet talk about on the podcast.
15:22
Speaker 1: This is because I'm not gonna have time to get
15:24
Speaker 1: to them before the end of the year and when
15:25
Speaker 1: the new year comes around. If I'm having trouble remembering
15:27
Speaker 1: games from August now, imagine what it's gonna be the
15:29
Speaker 1: end of January. Jeez. That's why I were speed running
15:32
Speaker 1: these in November. I got to try nocturn Nocturne is
15:36
Speaker 1: a game from Lookout Games, the same design team that
15:39
Speaker 1: made Cascadia and Calico was sort of I think meant
15:44
Speaker 1: to be the next the next game from that series.
15:47
Speaker 1: It's not Lookout Games, is that what I said? Ali Kat? No,
15:49
Speaker 1: not Ali Kat? Who is it the team. Well anyway,
15:52
Speaker 1: it's the team behind flat Out. It's flat Out Games.
15:56
Speaker 1: It was fine. I liked it quite a bit. The
15:59
Speaker 1: art the theme feels absent entirely, which is kind of
16:02
Speaker 1: true of Cascadia and Calico as well. These are puzzle
16:05
Speaker 1: games that have a theme on them. Nock Turn. The
16:09
Speaker 1: theme just doesn't do anything at all, not helpful to
16:12
Speaker 1: learn the game. It doesn't do anything. The art is cute.
16:15
Speaker 1: You have these sort of forest creatures with a kind
16:17
Speaker 1: of magical feel to them. Who are you have these
16:20
Speaker 1: forest creatures with a kind of magical feel to them,
16:22
Speaker 1: who are casting spells and setting up tiles? Like I said,
16:27
Speaker 1: it's a puzzle game, so you are trying to score
16:29
Speaker 1: points by getting an arrangement of tiles on your board.
16:32
Speaker 1: There's a series of changing goals. I thought it was
16:35
Speaker 1: really interesting and really puzzlly. I liked it. My wife
16:38
Speaker 1: did not like it at all. She's like, I don't
16:40
Speaker 1: need to play that again. So lovely art and design
16:42
Speaker 1: on Nocturn, but probably doesn't need another play with my family.
16:46
Speaker 1: I will bring it to the game club and try
16:48
Speaker 1: it there see if anyone else likes it. Next up,
16:51
Speaker 1: we have Clue Conspiracy I've actually gotten to play this twice.
16:54
Speaker 1: I played our copy once and then I played a
16:56
Speaker 1: copy of one of my students had. This is essentially
16:59
Speaker 1: somebody that has Bro said, hey, we should get on
17:01
Speaker 1: that social deduction thing. Let's make a game themed around Clue,
17:04
Speaker 1: but make it a social deduction game. So this is
17:07
Speaker 1: essentially The Resistance or Secret Hitler themed around Clue. So
17:11
Speaker 1: it's got this sort of double layer where they want
17:14
Speaker 1: you to find the location, the weapon, and the villain
17:20
Speaker 1: while also protecting the person. I think it would work
17:22
Speaker 1: better if you're just trying to identify the villain and
17:24
Speaker 1: protect people during the adventure. It's hard to explain much
17:29
Speaker 1: more than that, except to say that if you've played
17:32
Speaker 1: The Resistance or Secret Hitler, this game will feel very familiar,
17:35
Speaker 1: but it also has an element of trying to keep
17:38
Speaker 1: the Clue theme with the character names and the locations
17:42
Speaker 1: and the weapon. Bit. It was fine. I thought it
17:45
Speaker 1: was a little clunky and hard to explain because it
17:47
Speaker 1: really felt like those two systems trying to be bolted
17:50
Speaker 1: together in ways that I did not think worked particularly
17:53
Speaker 1: well if I were If it were me, I would
17:55
Speaker 1: just say let's play The Resistant or even let's play
17:57
Speaker 1: Secret Hitler, although I generally am less enamored of that game,
18:00
Speaker 1: just as the theme that was Clue Conspiracy. Next up,
18:03
Speaker 1: we have Nuts About Mutts. Nuts About Mutts is a
18:06
Speaker 1: speed game created by or published by Grandpa Backs Games.
18:12
Speaker 1: I picked this one up at goodwill. It's cute, good production,
18:15
Speaker 1: as always, uses a series of colorful cards. It feels
18:19
Speaker 1: a little bit like more complicated UNO. It's not quite that,
18:24
Speaker 1: but it's very similar in feel and play style. There
18:27
Speaker 1: is a speed element to it where when a certain
18:30
Speaker 1: kind of card comes up, you can play your card down,
18:32
Speaker 1: sort of like slapjack a little bit. It was fine,
18:35
Speaker 1: We'll probably play it a couple more times. I can't
18:37
Speaker 1: imagine it staying in the collection for a very long time,
18:40
Speaker 1: except that it's a pretty small box, so it's negligible
18:42
Speaker 1: in terms of space. So it might stay until I
18:45
Speaker 1: have another small box clear out, and then I sell
18:48
Speaker 1: it along with a bunch of other small games. I
18:49
Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want any that's Nuts About Mutts.
18:52
Speaker 1: Next up, we have Pandemic Hot Zone North America. This
18:55
Speaker 1: is a miniature version of Pandemic. I think that I
18:59
Speaker 1: thought I would getting Pandemic rapid response when I got
19:02
Speaker 1: this instead, it was mini Pandemic. So imagine playing Pandemic,
19:07
Speaker 1: but you're playing a shorter game and it only takes
19:09
Speaker 1: place in North America. Boom, that's Pandemic hot Zone. It
19:13
Speaker 1: was fine. I like the bigger Pandemic a little better.
19:16
Speaker 1: I think it's I don't think it's any harder or
19:19
Speaker 1: more complex. I don't think it's any harder to get
19:21
Speaker 1: to the table, but I think it's more interesting. Pandemic
19:24
Speaker 1: hot Zone was so short, I thought it was not
19:26
Speaker 1: particularly compelling. But interestingly, I was playing with a couple
19:29
Speaker 1: of people who are kind of burned out on Pandemic,
19:31
Speaker 1: and they thought Pandemic hot Zone was the right amount
19:33
Speaker 1: of Pandemics. So take that for what you will. It
19:35
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of the Ticket to Ride
19:38
Speaker 1: Cities games, where it's like playing a smaller version of
19:41
Speaker 1: Ticket to Ride. Pandemic hot Zone seems like the same thing.
19:44
Speaker 1: Next up we have Clue Treachery at Tudor Mountain. This
19:47
Speaker 1: feels like the people at Clue said, Hey, we need
19:50
Speaker 1: to have an escape room style game, and that's what
19:53
Speaker 1: this was. It was a series of escape room style
19:55
Speaker 1: puzzles in the style of the very simple. The simpler
19:59
Speaker 1: like It's Gave the Room Treachery Stargazer's Manner or Secret
20:04
Speaker 1: of Doctor Graveley's Retreat one of those ones. But this
20:07
Speaker 1: is clue themed and you're trying to solve the murder.
20:10
Speaker 1: It was fun again. It's a really good one to
20:13
Speaker 1: get in trade or to get from a friend unless
20:16
Speaker 1: you have a real big clue addict in your family
20:19
Speaker 1: who really would want this and have you pay full price.
20:22
Speaker 1: I would think it's it's like an exit game. It's
20:24
Speaker 1: probably worth ten or fifteen bucks to play. I actually
20:27
Speaker 1: think exit games are much better than this was, but
20:29
Speaker 1: that's not surprising. This is made for people who don't
20:32
Speaker 1: play a lot of those games. Exit games are pretty
20:33
Speaker 1: hard by comparison. I thought this was fun, worth a
20:36
Speaker 1: try if you get a chance. That's Clue Treachery at
20:39
Speaker 1: Tudor Mansion. Except we have Go. My wife and I
20:42
Speaker 1: tried a couple games of Go. She was reading a
20:44
Speaker 1: short story with her students about the game Go and
20:47
Speaker 1: wanted to give a try. I've never played it before,
20:49
Speaker 1: so I have a set that I found a goodwill,
20:52
Speaker 1: so we busted it out and tried a few games.
20:54
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I could see how it could become a
20:57
Speaker 1: lifestyle game for somebody. There's clearly a lot of up there,
21:00
Speaker 1: and if a couple of people were to play it
21:02
Speaker 1: a lot, I could see how there would be strategies
21:04
Speaker 1: upon strategies upon strategies. I don't think it's it's not thematic,
21:08
Speaker 1: so I'm not super interested in diving deep into it
21:11
Speaker 1: in the same way that I'm not interested in pursuing chess,
21:13
Speaker 1: because I like a game with story, I like a
21:15
Speaker 1: game with cool components. Go is an abstract game and
21:19
Speaker 1: it's really neat. I could see why people get really
21:22
Speaker 1: into it. Not my jam in the long term. Next up,
21:25
Speaker 1: we have Undergrove. Undergrove is an AEG publication from designer
21:30
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Hargrave, who is best known for designing Wingspan, although
21:34
Speaker 1: I also have played her designs Tussy Mussy and Mariposa's.
21:39
Speaker 1: I thought Tussy Mussy is a fun little set collection game.
21:42
Speaker 1: I thought Mariposa's was a fun little set collection game
21:45
Speaker 1: with some board elements, but ultimately very same me from
21:48
Speaker 1: game to game, and so I didn't want to keep
21:51
Speaker 1: it Undergrove. I like it better than either of those
21:54
Speaker 1: two it's not as good as Wingspan. I mean, you know,
21:57
Speaker 1: that's a once in a lifetime game, I think. But
22:00
Speaker 1: there's some really interesting stuff going on. You play trees,
22:03
Speaker 1: you're establishing fungal networks with different mushrooms. The game has
22:07
Speaker 1: a really interesting economy where you are trying to generate
22:10
Speaker 1: tokens of different types and you build up these little engines.
22:13
Speaker 1: We played with my daughter and she was very good
22:15
Speaker 1: at sort of using two or three turns to generate
22:17
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of resources which you then use to
22:20
Speaker 1: plant saplings which allow you to score points. Having played
22:24
Speaker 1: it twice now it looks like the horizon on this
22:27
Speaker 1: game is fun every now and again. We played twice.
22:31
Speaker 1: We had different goals the second game. Even though the
22:33
Speaker 1: goals are different, it felt very tactically similar. You have tiles,
22:36
Speaker 1: you're putting them out, You're trying to accomplish the objectives,
22:39
Speaker 1: so it is an element of sort of maximizing your
22:41
Speaker 1: score within the tactical boundaries of what's available. I do
22:45
Speaker 1: like the system. I think finding the avenues to the
22:49
Speaker 1: most efficient play of it are pretty interesting. I love
22:52
Speaker 1: the theme. Not particularly like the mushroom idea, but I
22:55
Speaker 1: do like the idea of a game about being trees
22:58
Speaker 1: and building mushroom networks as opposed to so, you know,
23:01
Speaker 1: soldiers or colonists or something, which this game could have
23:04
Speaker 1: been that, and I'm glad it wasn't. It's a little
23:06
Speaker 1: complicated to explain. There's a lot of rules for what
23:09
Speaker 1: in the In the end, I think if we played
23:11
Speaker 1: it five times, by the time we're playing in the
23:13
Speaker 1: fifth time, it's taking half an hour, so that part
23:16
Speaker 1: or forty five minutes. Maybe that part it feels like
23:18
Speaker 1: it's got a little bit too much overhead. But I
23:21
Speaker 1: do like it quite a bit, and it's going to
23:23
Speaker 1: stay around for a while, unlike Mariposa's, which after two
23:25
Speaker 1: or three plays we were sort of like, I don't know,
23:28
Speaker 1: I don't know if we need another play of this,
23:30
Speaker 1: not one I sold on. That's what I think I'll
23:31
Speaker 1: hang on to for a while. That's undergrowth. And finally
23:34
Speaker 1: Door for Romantic Sakura or Sakura, I can't remember. I
23:38
Speaker 1: feel like I talked about this game, but maybe I
23:40
Speaker 1: talked about it because I talked about all these other games. Well,
23:42
Speaker 1: if I did, apologies, I'm talking about it again. Door
23:45
Speaker 1: Romantic Sakura is the second iteration of the Door Romantic
23:50
Speaker 1: System or third actually, because they do have Door Fromatic
23:52
Speaker 1: Duel as well, which we did not pick up because
23:54
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in that game as a competitive game.
23:58
Speaker 1: We played our way through the whole campaign of the
24:00
Speaker 1: first Door Fromatic over the course of a year. I
24:02
Speaker 1: think we played twenty seven times or something. We did
24:05
Speaker 1: not achieve the last There were like two or three
24:07
Speaker 1: levels of points that we did not get, but we
24:10
Speaker 1: unlocked every token and every challenge, so that was pretty fun.
24:15
Speaker 1: I really like the way that game flows. I think
24:17
Speaker 1: it's fun at multiple players. There's a good room for discussion,
24:20
Speaker 1: but it's very clear whose decision it is to do things.
24:23
Speaker 1: So I really like the original Door Fromatic a lot.
24:26
Speaker 1: I saw Dor Fromatic Sakura and I said, is that
24:29
Speaker 1: just a reskin? And like, no, no, different challenges, totally
24:31
Speaker 1: different game, and so I picked it up, and boy,
24:34
Speaker 1: I'm glad we did because it is different challenges, different game,
24:37
Speaker 1: same style game. Like if you've played Door Formatic, you
24:40
Speaker 1: know how to play this one, but you don't need to.
24:42
Speaker 1: You could just play this one. But the challenges are different.
24:45
Speaker 1: They're a little more complex, but I think not so
24:48
Speaker 1: much that you couldn't just play this one, although I
24:50
Speaker 1: would start with the original. I like the theming, the
24:53
Speaker 1: art is lovely, the quality of the components is nice.
24:56
Speaker 1: So it's very much along the lines of the last game.
25:00
Speaker 1: We're really enjoying it already. I think we played three
25:02
Speaker 1: times in November while we're at my in laws house
25:05
Speaker 1: for Thanksgiving. So I'm sure you will hear about that
25:08
Speaker 1: off and on throughout the year in twenty twenty six,
25:10
Speaker 1: because I'm sure we're gonna be playing our way through it.
25:12
Speaker 1: And if they release another one before Thanksgiving Christmas of
25:15
Speaker 1: next year, I imagine I'll be picking that one up too.
25:18
Speaker 1: So that is Door Fromantic Sakura. Well, that brings me
25:22
Speaker 1: to the end of my unplay Unreported Games from the
25:27
Speaker 1: second half of twenty twenty five episodes. Either I've done
25:31
Speaker 1: two or three episodes from this recording, we'll see how
25:33
Speaker 1: good it turned out, or I had to throw it
25:35
Speaker 1: all away, in which case you didn't get to hear
25:37
Speaker 1: this at all. Well, if you, I'd love to hear
25:40
Speaker 1: what you think of any of those games. The best
25:42
Speaker 1: place to have that conversation is over on board game
25:44
Speaker 1: Geek and Guild three two sixty nine, where we could
25:46
Speaker 1: chat about it. If you would like to talk to
25:49
Speaker 1: me directly, you can send me a message on board
25:50
Speaker 1: and board game geek Wombat nine two nine, or I
25:53
Speaker 1: have an email address Brendan at rattleboxgames dot com. Well
25:57
Speaker 1: that's about it for me today. I am not I
26:00
Speaker 1: going to get enough episodes out to finish the season
26:02
Speaker 1: before the end of the year, so I'll use this
26:03
Speaker 1: opportunity to say Happy New Year, and I hope that
26:06
Speaker 1: you and yours are staying warm and having fun and
26:09
Speaker 1: looking forward to a better twenty sixteen. With that, I'm
26:13
Speaker 1: going to sign off. I want to say thanks for
26:14
Speaker 1: joining me on my walk today up to your next box.
26:17
Speaker 1: This mine one, Bye bye, brought to you by rattle
26:41
Speaker 1: Box