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Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the Podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I head

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out for a walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.

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I'm Brendan Riley.

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It's a lovely day and that feels like a lovely time to talk about some games I've tried

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for the first time recently.

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Time for another board game espresso triple shot.

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For those of you new to the podcast, the board game espresso triple shot is an episode

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where I do three mini reviews of three games I've tried for the first time recently.

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So it's not full reviews.

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I haven't played these games enough to confidently tell you anything about them, but they are

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a good place to start for understanding what I think of them and getting a sense of how

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the games play.

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So in that regard, today I'm going to talk about three games I've tried recently and

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I often will pick one that I dusted off to talk about as well and I'll be doing that too.

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So to start with, this is the game that was on the top of my stack last month and I did

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not get it played, but I am happy to report that I got to play it today.

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That is Porta Nigra.

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Porta Nigra is a game from Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer.

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I talked about it a little bit in the Kramer and Kiesling full episode that I did

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the other week, but I'm going to talk about it a little more now in more detail.

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This game was published by Stronghold Games in 2015, which I don't understand how it was

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published in 2015 because I didn't feel like I was all that deep in the hobby yet, but I

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remember being just bombarded with discussions of this game.

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So confusing.

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Oh, the cicadas are loud today.

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Anyhow, in Porta Nigra, you play some sort of Roman organizer who's helping to build a

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famous Roman city and set it up for success, I guess, in the Roman Empire.

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The game has a relatively simple mechanism.

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Essentially, it is a game where you're helping to build the city and you do that by buying

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bricks, spending those bricks to build towers and then scoring based on where you built

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those towers.

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The game has a variety of different features that score.

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Part of what makes the game interesting is it's an area control game, so you're trying

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to gain majorities in different areas, but each area score is a little bit different way.

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So paying attention to how to score in those different areas is a crucial part of making

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the game work.

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The gameplay mechanism is really interesting.

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You, everybody gets an identical deck of cards.

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If you're playing in a two player game, you're going to go through that deck of cards

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twice in a three player in a... Sorry. In a three or four player game, you're going to go through

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the deck of cards twice. In a two player game, you'll go through it three times.

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And the cards have three or four actions on them, so they have

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like three or four different actions depicted on the card of like five or six different

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actions that are available in the game.

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Then at the bottom of the card is a little picture of a torch and generally the way it

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works is if the card has three actions on the card, there are two torches at the bottom

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of the card.

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If there are four actions available on the card, there are three torches.

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So you get to do most of the card, but not all of it.

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And then what you do is you set the card down in front of you and then you have these little

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action discs and you play them onto the card and when you cover up an action, then you

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do that action.

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And the actions are things like buying bricks, spending bricks to build things and giving

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money.

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Those are three main actions.

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There's a couple of others as well.

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The couple of things that make the game really have interesting choices

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are deciding which areas you want to fight for control of.

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It is an area control game.

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So scrambling for that control is interesting.

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Deciding how much money you want to spend moving around trying to get efficiency and movement

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because the one of the challenging parts of the game is you can only do stuff in the

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quadrant of the board that you're in.

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And if you want to move, you have to move clockwise around the board and you have to pay

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one coin for each step you take in that movement.

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So there's a really frustrating and fascinating thing where you're trying to figure out how

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you're going to move and where to maximize efficiency, particularly given the limited number

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of terms.

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The movement isn't one of those actions.

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You can always move right before you take an action, but you still have to pay.

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And then the third thing that is equally interesting about the movement and the different

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choices is that the bricks you're buying, the game has a really clever way of managing

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its supplies, its components.

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The bricks that you're buying are each designated as part of a color.

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And the way it works is that the bricks themselves are all gray.

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And when you buy them, they are sitting in one of five color depots.

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They've got red, blue, black, yellow, and white.

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And when you buy the brick, it is the color that it is in the depot.

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And then you take the brick and you put it in your tableau in your storage space for that

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color brick.

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You only have one, the only had to manufacture one color of brick.

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The bricks themselves just maintain their color by where you put them.

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So that's a really clever bit of game mechanism.

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When you're building your little towers to gain your area of majorities, each majority

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works in a different way.

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And I'm not going to talk about all of those.

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But you also get this thing whenever you build, if you build matching a certain pattern,

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then you can take these bonus cards.

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And that's probably where the true efficiency and true skill lies is acquiring these

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bonus cards while you're also winning out on majorities.

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It was really good.

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I liked it a lot.

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I'm looking forward to playing it some more.

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It's definitely staying in the collection.

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There's a reason it's highly rated.

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So that's Porta Nigra from Kramer and Kiesling from Stronghold Games.

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The next game I want to talk about was just published last year.

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It's called Faraway.

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The designers are Johannes Goupy and Corentin Lebrat.

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And it's published by Catch Up Games.

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This is not a problem.

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It's not a publisher and those aren't, are not designers that I know at all.

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Both designers have games to their credit, but I, oh, I have played.

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Okay.

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So, Corentin Lebrat is credited with, uh, helping design Draftasaurus and Trek 12 Himalayas,

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both games I have played.

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And so, I will say I'm familiar with their work.

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Faraway is a really interesting, I don't know you call it,

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path-making game, involving drafting cards.

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It's a drafting game first.

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There's a market of cards on each round.

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You're going to play a card.

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All the cards have numbers between like one and 70 on them.

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You're going to play the card and then you're going to draft in the order of lowest to highest

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number that you played.

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So, if you played a low numbered card, you get to draft first from the market.

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If you played a high number card, you draft the last.

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And what you do when you draft is you take one of five cards from the market.

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I don't know if it's always five or if it's just, or I think it was four cards from the market

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when we played.

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I don't know if you're playing with a three-player game, or like a two-player game.

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If there would be three cards in the market, I don't know exactly how that works.

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But you're, you're taking a card from the market and you have a hand of like two or three

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cards, I think three.

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Uh, then if the card you just played was a higher number than the card you played in

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the last round, then you also get to take a shrine, which is like a smaller card that gives

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you something as well.

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Okay, so Brendan, why are you taking these cards and what are you trying to do?

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You're planning a journey with these cards and the bonus cards that you take will

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help with the journey.

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So, here's the cool part.

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Each card has some resources on it, sometimes, a scoring condition on it, sometimes,

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and that number value.

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The number value is not anything at the end of the game.

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The cards themselves, the resources they give you are useful once they're revealed, and

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the scoring condition happens when the card is revealed.

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So here's the tricky part, the gimmick, and I'll see if I can explain this without searching.

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So you're gonna play eight cards.

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You're laying them out in a row, one through eight.

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As you go, you're playing them from one to eight, and each time you play a number that's

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higher than the previous number, you get a bonus card.

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So, you know, if you go 1, 25, 45, 60, and then the next card you play is 10,

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then you don't get a bonus between 60 and 10, but you did get a bonus card between

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the others.

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So, everybody plays until you have eight cards in the display.

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Once everyone has eight, you turn them all face down.

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Then, starting with the last card you played, you reveal and score the cards one at a time.

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And what's interesting is, the cards require that you have resources in play, and the resources

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are on the cards and on the bonus cards.

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So, like, for example, let's say you have a card that will score the number one, and

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one point for every bull's head icon that you have in play.

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Great, but in order to score that card, you have to have two pineapples in play.

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The game doesn't call them pineapples, but they look like pineapples.

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So, if your card, with the bull's head scoring on it, is your eighth card, when you flip it

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up, it's only going to score for itself and the cards in your bonus tableau.

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Then, and it'll only score if you have those pineapples showing.

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Then, you flip a card seven, and you assess the tableau again for card seven to figure out

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whether it scores.

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Card six, card five, and so on.

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So, there's this interesting thing where, when you put a card down, you're planning that

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the display that you take after the card you put down will be able to support the win

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condition or the scoring condition of the card that you're playing.

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Because you don't score it if it isn't showing when the card is flipped face up, and the

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card is flipped face up in backwards drafting order.

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I hope that that explained it because if it didn't, I can't explain it better.

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That's the best I'm going to do, so hopefully that did it.

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So, the way that's going to work is you draw all eight cards in your score.

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We had a lot of fun.

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The game was actually relatively close, but a really interesting game.

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Now, I thought it was fun. It definitely would go on the category of,

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"I will happily play at any time somebody brings it out."

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I don't think I liked it enough to seek it out myself, but I definitely would go on the

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"I'd buy it if I found it cheap" category.

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And cheap even like 'five to ten dollar range,' rather than the 'only at goodwill' kind of

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purchase.

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It's really interesting.

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It's probably the kind of game that you get much better at once.

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You've played a few times.

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And if I didn't have a big collection, I definitely would be considered getting this, but just

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with the number of games I have, I can't see this making a huge splash in the games that

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we choose to play.

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But I had a good time with it.

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That's far away.

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So, I did get a chance to dust off one game recently, and that game was, Photosynthesis.

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released in 2017, designed by Sabrina Miramon, and published by, oh, sorry, designed by Hjalmar Hach

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with art by Sabrina Miramon, published by Blue Orange in the United States, along

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with other companies elsewhere.

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Photosynthesis is a beautiful looking game.

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It's really nice to look at, to manipulate the pieces.

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You get these really cool-looking cardboard trees that represent your share of the forest.

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Each person is a different species of tree, and it's a lot of fun to look at the game.

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It is a very mean game, and it's a game that sort of forces you to be mean, which isn't my

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favorite model.

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The idea that if you are playing well, you end up definitely being mean to other players,

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whether you want to or not.

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And I find that a little frustrating, because I don't generally like to be mean.

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But also that this is one of those games where a simple mistake can really just wreck you

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in terms of gameplay.

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I have played Photosynthesis...

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this is my fourth time now.

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I'm mentioning it on the pod, because I dusted it off.

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It had been a year and a month or so.

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And as I look, that's about the time between each of my plays.

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And I feel like maybe that's about the time that it takes me to forget how much I dislike

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this game.

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I can see that it is a game of tactics and strategy that really rewards thoughtful play.

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Something about the thoughtful play that it demands does not click with the kind of

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thoughtful play that I can... does not fit with the kind of thoughtful play that

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I can achieve.

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So there's a really strong disconnect there that makes it not fun.

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And then on top of that, I do really badly at it.

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So I don't have fun and I do badly.

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And the game forces me to be mean.

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I don't know why I keep playing it.

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Maybe this will be my lesson learned.

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Next time I see someone setting up, I'll be like, "Hmm, that game is not for me."

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But until then, it's probably on a year and a month or a little more than that.

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You'll hear me talking about Photosynthesis again and I'll say,

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"Why haven't I learned yet?"

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Well, it's a pretty looking game.

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So I'm like, "Ooh, that game looks pretty.

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I want to play it."

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And instead I should say, "Hmm, maybe I won't play it.

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It's not for me."

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So that's Photosynthesis from Blue Orange games.

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I didn't even explain how you play.

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In the game, you're putting trees into the forest and you gain basically currency, which is

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energy harvested by the sun in order to, by sort of, grow more trees, plant more trees,

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increase the size of the trees you've planted.

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But the thing is, the trees block each other's light.

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So if your tree is next to a tree of equal or smaller or larger size, your tree doesn't

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get any light when the sun is pointing out.

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Now the sun rotates around the board, so different trees get light in different stages.

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But ultimately, I find it really frustrating.

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So, all right, that's enough of photosynthesis.

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I'm, lots of people like it.

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It's not for me.

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All right, the last game I want to talk about today is another new game I tried and

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this is Dro Polter.

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Dro Polter was designed by Paul Schultz, published by Oink Games

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with Art by Rie Komatsuzaki and Jun Sasaki in 2023.

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It is, it fits in the standard Oink Games line, meaning it's one of those very small

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box games, which look really amazing, are cute and usually are fun to play.

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Now I find that Oink Games tend to be relatively simple affairs, particularly because they

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come in a small box and they're relatively easy to play, but they also usually turn on a

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really interesting gimmick.

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In Dro Polter, the idea is everybody gets five weird shapes, all relatively small, and

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the game comes with a little bag full of bells, these tiny metal bells.

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So you get these five weird shapes, like one is a ring, one is a little yellow square, one

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is a red cube, like they're all slightly different, they're all really small, though, think

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about the size of a meatball.

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And you put them all in one hand and then somebody flips a card at the beginning, it's

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random after that, it's whoever won the last turn, you're going to flip over a card and

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you reveal on the card, there are pictures of some of the five components, not all of

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them, some of them, between two...  no, there were some cards that had one...

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up to four.

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And what you have to do is, using only the hand that the components are in, you have to

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drop the components depicted on the card.

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So if it's a ring and a red cube, you have to drop the ring and the red cube, but you have

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to hold on to the other components.

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Once you have dropped those, then with your other hand, or with the hand holding stuff,

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you grab this white ghost, which is the polter part, I guess, to claim the round.

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So you could have multiple people who successfully dropped the things, kind of simultaneously.

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Then it's the first person to grab the ghost that ends up being the winner.

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So you grab the ghost, you're the first person to grab the ghost, you win the round.

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When you win the round, then you take one of the little metal bells and you add that metal

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bell to your hand full of items.

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Then you're going to shake, put both hands together and shake up the items,

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and then kind of put them all into one hand and close it.

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Then remember your bell, if you won the bell, it's included in there.

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Then whoever it is that won the bell is going to flip over the next card and then everybody

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goes again.

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But now, if you have a bell in your hand, you have to try not only to drop the right things,

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but you'll stop to hold on to the bell.

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The bells are small and round, really easy to drop.

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If you drop the bell, you lose it.

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You don't get to pick it back up.

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All the other items that you drop, you get to pick up.

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If you drop the wrong thing, you pick up everything you've dropped and start over.

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But if you drop a bell, the bell is gone back to the score thing no matter what.

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If you're playing, we did have a rule like if you're going to shake your hand up and the

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bell falls out and we're in between rounds, that's okay, it doesn't count.

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It's only during the round that you have to worry about dropping the bell.

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So, Dro Polter is fun and really really easy to play, an interesting dexterity game

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if that's your sort of thing.

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Now, the challenge, of course, is that it is also a dexterity game that you play with

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one hand.

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So, it's very limited for people with mobility or dexterity issues, but that's going

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to be true of any dexterity game.

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So, what games have you tried recently?

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I'd love to hear over on Boardgamegeek in Guild 3269 or you can send me a message,

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wombat929 on boardGameGeek is my username.

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You can send me an email, brendan@rattleboxgames.com.

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I thank you for joining me today and I hope your next walk

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is as pleasant as mine was.

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Bye-bye.

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[MUSIC]

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Brought to you by Rattlebox Days.

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