1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,960 Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the Podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step 2 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:11,040 out the door and deliver an episode to you while I walk the dog. 3 00:00:11,040 --> 00:00:15,400 I'm Brendan Riley. 4 00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:22,600 Well, good morning listeners. 5 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:24,600 It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago. 6 00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:29,280 And when I say lovely, I mean, it's a little brisk but very nice. 7 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:35,080 The weather normally on a day like this would be at this time of day would be mid to high 8 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:38,920 70s, even the 80s though that's more July. 9 00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:42,600 Instead, it's a brisk mid 60s with a nice breeze. 10 00:00:42,600 --> 00:00:46,080 So I'm actually wearing long sleeves, which is pretty nice. 11 00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:47,400 It's a beautiful day. 12 00:00:47,400 --> 00:00:51,120 So the kind of weather I would expect in late September or early October. 13 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:52,120 It's nice. 14 00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:57,840 Well, I thought I would do a, I felt like doing a board game espresso triple shot today, 15 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:00,200 just talking about some games, not having a big topic. 16 00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:04,680 And then I looked and I don't have a bunch of new games played that I haven't talked 17 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:06,000 about at all on the podcast. 18 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:10,320 But I looked back and I do have a couple games that I've played recently that I've never 19 00:01:10,320 --> 00:01:15,160 talked about on the podcast as in an episode where I sort of do a mini review. 20 00:01:15,160 --> 00:01:19,520 So I'm doing a sort of weird board game espresso and I'll try to frame it a slightly different 21 00:01:19,520 --> 00:01:21,280 way as I do it. 22 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:22,440 So here we go. 23 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:26,960 It's a board game espresso triple shot. 24 00:01:26,960 --> 00:01:34,240 A latte machine, or espresso machine, noise. Espresso machine noise. Espresso machine noise. 25 00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:37,560 For those of you who knew the podcast, the board game espresso is an episode where I talk 26 00:01:37,560 --> 00:01:42,880 about games I've played recently for the first time or in this case a couple times, but 27 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:46,520 not that deeply and haven't talked about them on the podcast before. 28 00:01:46,520 --> 00:01:50,840 The general idea of these episodes is that I'm not doing a full deep dive review. 29 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:56,320 Instead, I'm doing a light conversation about what the game is like to play and giving 30 00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:59,760 my initial impressions of it for deep dive reviews. 31 00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:02,080 Look for a message from the deep episodes. 32 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:06,080 The three games that I'm going to be talking about today, two of them I have played and 33 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:09,920 talked about a little bit on the podcast before, but not in depth. 34 00:02:09,920 --> 00:02:13,920 So let's get started and we'll see what you think of these games. 35 00:02:13,920 --> 00:02:17,320 So the first game I want to talk about today is Cairn. 36 00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:23,760 Cairn is a two-player abstract game set around the theme of being, I don't know, some sort 37 00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:25,600 of the game calls them shamans. 38 00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:31,080 I always feel a little weird about using that term because it is, I think, often used by 39 00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:38,920 colonists to describe priests from colonized civilizations, 40 00:02:38,920 --> 00:02:39,920 but that's the term the game uses. 41 00:02:39,920 --> 00:02:42,200 Think of it as wizards or whatever 42 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:49,960 in some sort of magical past and you are competing with one another to try and, 43 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:52,480 I don't know, set up rocks on the board. 44 00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:59,280 It is an extremely tactical game with a little bit of strategy, an aggressive amount of player 45 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:07,200 versus player conflict and really interesting, think a couple moves ahead kind of gameplay. 46 00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:13,240 If you like Onitama or on a larger scale, something like chess or Hive, these are the kinds 47 00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:18,040 of games Cairn sits comfortably in conversation with. 48 00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:25,200 The theme of Cairn, again, you have these sort of mystical-looking figures called shamans 49 00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:30,120 and your opponent has the same and you are moving them across a battlefield. 50 00:03:30,120 --> 00:03:34,720 In terms of look and feel of the game is very similar to Onitama. 51 00:03:34,720 --> 00:03:39,040 You have, there are a limited number of moves that you can make. 52 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:42,800 Whenever you make a move, they're depicted on these tiles. 53 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:47,000 Whenever you make a move on a tile, you then flip the tile over and there's a different 54 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:48,960 move on the back. 55 00:03:48,960 --> 00:03:53,240 If you make a move, your opponent can't make that same move on their next turn because 56 00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:54,760 you have made that move. 57 00:03:54,760 --> 00:03:58,480 It's a grid of spaces, maybe five or six spaces wide. 58 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:02,800 That's maybe five wide and six deep, something like that. 59 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:09,360 In the middle, there are these two stones called monoliths that are megaliths that have special 60 00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:11,040 powers on them. 61 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:15,480 On your turn, you're going to use one of the action tiles to move one of your pieces 62 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:18,800 on the board and there's a couple different ways you could do that. 63 00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:25,160 Then if you end up with a shaman on one of the megaliths, then you can activate that megalith. 64 00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:30,280 Actually, I think you have to activate it and no, you can usually skip it. 65 00:04:30,280 --> 00:04:31,960 I don't remember. 66 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:37,080 But you activate the megalith and then it alters the board in some additional way. 67 00:04:37,080 --> 00:04:39,920 There are always a couple megaliths off to the side. 68 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:42,880 Those are available to be brought onto the board. 69 00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:46,080 There are two ways to win the game. 70 00:04:46,080 --> 00:04:49,240 The first way, actually, there's one way to win the game. 71 00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:50,480 There's two ways to score points. 72 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:53,760 The first person to, I think, three points wins the game. 73 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:58,480 One way to score points is to get your figure into your opponent's camp. 74 00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:03,280 The thing is, the only way to score when you move into your opponent's camp is by using 75 00:05:03,280 --> 00:05:04,600 the jump tile. 76 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:07,640 There are one of the movement tiles as a jump tile. 77 00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:10,800 That's you jump over your piece or jump over an opponent's piece. 78 00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:16,320 When you do that, if you jump off of the play space into your opponent's village, then 79 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:17,560 you score a point. 80 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:22,400 If you just move into your opponent's village using the move tile, you don't score the 81 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:23,400 point. 82 00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:25,000 In fact, you just go back to the start. 83 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:29,440 Basically, lose your piece off the board, which sometimes would be preferable to having 84 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:31,600 your opponent capture your piece. 85 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:32,840 That's another story. 86 00:05:32,840 --> 00:05:38,080 The second way you can score a point is if you have an opponent on an empty space and 87 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:43,280 you're able to capture them or banish is the word, then you get to create a megalith in 88 00:05:43,280 --> 00:05:44,920 the spot that they were standing. 89 00:05:44,920 --> 00:05:48,640 When you create that megalith, you pick one of the two that are off to the side that aren't 90 00:05:48,640 --> 00:05:53,400 being used presently, although there's a whole bunch, so there's just two in play. 91 00:05:53,400 --> 00:05:55,760 And then you get a point. 92 00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:57,800 So first three points wins. 93 00:05:57,800 --> 00:05:59,760 Cairn is a really interesting game. 94 00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:02,320 I find it very compelling. 95 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:07,520 It puts me in the same mindset as something like Tash-Kalar on the more complex end, or 96 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:11,600 like I said, on the top on the less complex end. 97 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:13,240 You know something complex and not deep. 98 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:14,240 These are very deep games. 99 00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:19,400 There's a lot going on and you could be very good at planning way ahead, I suspect. 100 00:06:19,400 --> 00:06:21,120 So Cairn is an interesting game. 101 00:06:21,120 --> 00:06:22,840 It looks beautiful. 102 00:06:22,840 --> 00:06:29,480 It's got a really lovely art design and color palette, orange and blue interacting nicely. 103 00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:32,640 If you get a chance to try Cairn, I highly recommend it. 104 00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:35,880 You can play it over in board game arena, which is where I've been playing it. 105 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,320 So the thing that makes it different than other games I review on a board game is press 106 00:06:39,320 --> 00:06:40,320 up. 107 00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:43,120 So is that I've actually played this several times now, but I've played it on board game 108 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:44,120 arena. 109 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:47,120 So it takes me a lot of time to a lot longer time to grasp the game. 110 00:06:47,120 --> 00:06:50,240 Now that might not be true if I play it live, but I very rarely play board game arena 111 00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:51,240 games live. 112 00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:55,440 I usually play them not real time. 113 00:06:55,440 --> 00:06:57,040 So it's taking me a little bit longer. 114 00:06:57,040 --> 00:06:59,080 So you may have heard me discuss Cairn before. 115 00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:04,080 I've played it, but I only recently felt like I know it's strong enough to talk about 116 00:07:04,080 --> 00:07:05,080 it here. 117 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:12,440 Cairn is designed by Christian Martinez and with art by Vincent Gilbert or Joubert. 118 00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:14,560 It's J-O-U-B-E-R-T. 119 00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:17,720 And it's published by Matagot. 120 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:20,160 The next game I'm going to talk about fits in the same category. 121 00:07:20,160 --> 00:07:24,160 It's a game I played a couple times on board game arena, but didn't really understand it. 122 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:29,520 I tried to play it once in person and I kind of learned enough to start, but I didn't 123 00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:33,280 really read the whole rulebook thoroughly and it turns out Heyrian's Wall is the game 124 00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:34,280 I'm talking about. 125 00:07:34,280 --> 00:07:40,080 Where you really need to understand the rulebook thoroughly in order to grasp everything that's 126 00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:41,080 happening. 127 00:07:41,080 --> 00:07:46,740 The systems are relatively uniform and so once you understand the way that the information 128 00:07:46,740 --> 00:07:51,520 flows in Hadrian's Wall is relatively easy to understand how section 2 works versus how 129 00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:53,400 section 1 works and so on. 130 00:07:53,400 --> 00:07:56,640 But overall, it is a game you have to understand before you can play well. 131 00:07:56,640 --> 00:07:58,960 So the first couple times I played it, I was kind of just clicking stuff. 132 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:00,800 I didn't really understand what was going on. 133 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:06,060 I finally did get it to the table, I sat down and played it on the table on paper and it 134 00:08:06,060 --> 00:08:07,060 worked a lot better. 135 00:08:07,060 --> 00:08:11,920 Like I understood why everything worked the way it did and it just went much more smoothly 136 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:16,040 for me and thus I felt pretty good about it. 137 00:08:16,040 --> 00:08:18,520 And thus I feel like I can talk about it with you now. 138 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:23,120 So Hadrian's Wall is a complicated roll and write. 139 00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:25,120 I can't remember the term. 140 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:32,440 The people at Motor City Gameworks, Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback and Adam... somebody, are 141 00:08:32,440 --> 00:08:37,480 using, they have a term, complex role and right or big roll and write or something like 142 00:08:37,480 --> 00:08:46,560 that to describe games where there's a lot of overlapping and amplifying sort of sets 143 00:08:46,560 --> 00:08:50,000 of bonuses that you get as you check things off. 144 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:51,000 And those games are really interesting. 145 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,680 If you're looking for, if you're trying to figure out what I mean, I'm talking about something 146 00:08:53,680 --> 00:08:59,360 like Fleet: the Dice Game or Three Sisters are the two that I've played. 147 00:08:59,360 --> 00:09:03,440 I know they also have Motor City and recently French Quarter. 148 00:09:03,440 --> 00:09:07,320 I think after three sisters I was sort of like, I've got, I like this a lot but 149 00:09:07,320 --> 00:09:08,320 it's enough of it. 150 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:11,120 I don't need another one or another two loaded roll and writes. 151 00:09:11,120 --> 00:09:13,920 That's what they call them, like loaded big potato I think. 152 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:18,320 But Hadrian's Wall is in the same genre of the loaded roll and write. 153 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:21,800 It does have a little bit of player interaction but just a tiny bit. 154 00:09:21,800 --> 00:09:24,160 Obviously you're just competing for how many points did you get? 155 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:26,920 How many points did the other players get? 156 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:30,960 In Hadrian's Wall you represent, I guess Hadrian? 157 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:42,640 One of Hadrian's people: you represent a prominent Roman person who is trying to help defend 158 00:09:42,640 --> 00:09:51,240 the British Isles for Rome against the Picts and you do so by building up 159 00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:52,640 the Roman stuff in your thing. 160 00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:57,840 The game comes with two score pads and you're going to put each score pad, you're going to take 161 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:01,680 one sheet from each, score pad and put them next to each other so you have two score pads that 162 00:10:01,680 --> 00:10:03,000 you're working on. 163 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:07,560 Unlike a lot of games Hadrian's Wall does not have any dice at all. 164 00:10:07,560 --> 00:10:11,040 There are two random, there's two randomized elements. 165 00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:16,200 You have a series of 12 building cards or diplomatic cards, I don't remember what it calls them, 166 00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:19,000 12 cards that are yours alone. 167 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:22,800 And then there's a deck called the Fate Deck and this is the only randomized element for the 168 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:23,800 game. 169 00:10:23,800 --> 00:10:30,640 So for the cards that you own, each round you're going to draw two and you pick one to be 170 00:10:30,640 --> 00:10:34,760 the resources you're going, extra resources you're going to get and you pick the other to 171 00:10:34,760 --> 00:10:39,200 be the scoring condition that you are going to have available to you at the end of the game. 172 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:40,200 Each round you do that. 173 00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:43,800 At the end of the game you have six scoring cards that you can get points from. 174 00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:49,680 Once the points is varies from like one to six points maybe, I don't think there are 175 00:10:49,680 --> 00:10:53,160 very many cards where you can get more than six points. 176 00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:59,000 And the resource you can get are usually just one or two of a couple different resources 177 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:00,400 that the game uses. 178 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:07,360 The game uses four different colors of workers and it uses these stone blocks. 179 00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:14,040 And so basically what you do is you get your resources further round and then you spend 180 00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:18,960 those resources in order to check boxes on your different sheets and the boxes will then 181 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:20,280 create. 182 00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:26,600 Sometimes they'll give you bonuses that allow you to check other boxes and over time you 183 00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:29,080 build up a system and a score. 184 00:11:29,080 --> 00:11:31,120 The game works really well. 185 00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:36,040 It's a really fun solo game, an interesting puzzle and challenge. 186 00:11:36,040 --> 00:11:40,120 I like it as a multiplayer game on Board Game Arena as well because you play it like a solo 187 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:43,640 game but there's a little bit of watching what other people are doing and you feed off 188 00:11:43,640 --> 00:11:45,160 of them a little bit. 189 00:11:45,160 --> 00:11:47,280 But it works really well as a solo game. 190 00:11:47,280 --> 00:11:51,080 I've actually kept it out with a plan to play it again when I have a half an hour here 191 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:54,160 or there because it is just so fun. 192 00:11:54,160 --> 00:11:56,000 It's really an interesting puzzle. 193 00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:00,400 Now I imagine once you've played it half a dozen times or something it'll lose some of 194 00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:04,440 that luster because the sheet is the same every time. 195 00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:07,840 So there's a bit of exploration where you sort of like well what if I lean this way instead 196 00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:08,840 of that way? 197 00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:10,960 What if I explore this route instead of that route? 198 00:12:10,960 --> 00:12:14,600 But there's always a temptation once you get a really good score to just replicate that 199 00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:18,520 score or get it's close, you know, follow the same path again. 200 00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:22,640 And this is actually the problem I had with other loaded roll and writes like Three Sisters 201 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:28,160 or Fleet: The Dice Game is that while there are some tactics involved in what you roll, 202 00:12:28,160 --> 00:12:33,080 generally it seems like there's a strategy like it's all kind of the same. 203 00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:35,280 The Hadrian's Wall is published by Garphill Games. 204 00:12:35,280 --> 00:12:36,280 Garphill Games. 205 00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:39,640 Bobby Hill is the designer, the artist is Sam Phillips. 206 00:12:39,640 --> 00:12:44,440 I really enjoyed playing Hadrian's Wall and I'm looking forward to playing it again. 207 00:12:44,440 --> 00:12:48,840 All right, the third game I'm going to talk, oh, now I'm going to do a dusty game. 208 00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:52,560 As you know, I usually pick one game that I played recently that I hadn't played in a 209 00:12:52,560 --> 00:12:56,840 long time and I dust that game off or talk about dusting that game off. 210 00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:58,520 This time it was A Handful of Stars. 211 00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:04,800 I mentioned A Handful of Stars a couple episodes ago when I talked about betrayal in games that 212 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:11,680 I thought the challenge of a game where there's some negotiation and you might end up betraying 213 00:13:11,680 --> 00:13:20,520 somebody was an interesting challenge and made gameplay complex for me. 214 00:13:20,520 --> 00:13:23,680 So A Handful of Stars is an area of control game. 215 00:13:23,680 --> 00:13:27,800 I can't, it's not, never mind, it's not area of control game. 216 00:13:27,800 --> 00:13:37,240 And so I guess it is just a, huh. 217 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:42,040 I walked around, I walked one way around the house to avoid the dog barking at us and 218 00:13:42,040 --> 00:13:45,600 turns out that dog has a fence on either side of the block so they were able to come around 219 00:13:45,600 --> 00:13:48,880 the corner and bark at us anyway. 220 00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:50,840 So A Handful of Stars is not an area control game. 221 00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:57,760 I think of area control as contested spaces where you put different resources in and 222 00:13:57,760 --> 00:14:03,600 the person who comes out on top gets points but often their secondary points for being 223 00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:07,000 the person who control, the second most control, that sort of thing. 224 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:10,560 Porta Nigra I talked about is an area control game. 225 00:14:10,560 --> 00:14:15,880 In A Handful of Stars each point on the board can only be held by one person at a time. 226 00:14:15,880 --> 00:14:22,120 So you just struggle for control of areas but there is no blended control either you control 227 00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:23,120 it or you don't. 228 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:25,440 I guess it still might be an area control game. 229 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:32,000 I've heard people talk about it as a 4x game, explore, exploit, expand and exterminate. 230 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,040 I guess there's some of that there. 231 00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:35,560 That might be the best thing. 232 00:14:35,560 --> 00:14:40,680 It's built into a deck building game and in the tradition of the Martin Wallace deck building 233 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:42,320 games of the 2010s. 234 00:14:42,320 --> 00:14:49,000 So Martin Wallace created A Few Acres of Snow, A Study in Emerald, Mythotopia, 235 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,200 and A Handful of Stars as four games. 236 00:14:51,200 --> 00:14:56,440 I guess to a degree Lincoln though that one is a little different but to a degree all three 237 00:14:56,440 --> 00:15:00,520 of these are deck building games where you're acquiring areas and when you acquire the area 238 00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:04,800 you get the card that goes to the area and then you use the resources on those cards to 239 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:07,000 do other things in the game. 240 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:11,520 And Wallace has a couple things that he does in his area control games that don't tend to 241 00:15:11,520 --> 00:15:13,520 get done in other ones. 242 00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:18,760 Particularly he only lets you use one resource on each card instead of using all of them 243 00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:21,160 and you generally can't discard your, you don't discard your game. 244 00:15:21,160 --> 00:15:24,360 Your hand at the end of the turn the way other deck builders have you do. 245 00:15:24,360 --> 00:15:28,920 So there's a bit more deliberation in when you use your cards and how you use your cards. 246 00:15:28,920 --> 00:15:32,080 So A Handful of Stars is really fun. 247 00:15:32,080 --> 00:15:35,760 I like A Study in Emerald better theme wise but I really like A Handful of Stars. 248 00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:38,400 I haven't gone back and played Mythotopia again for a while. 249 00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:42,160 I probably ought to before declaring that I like A Handful of Stars second best out of 250 00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:46,080 the four but I like A Handful of Stars second best out of the four. 251 00:15:46,080 --> 00:15:48,920 The faction play is really fun. 252 00:15:48,920 --> 00:15:51,880 There's a lot of different stuff you can do with the cards. 253 00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:54,560 I like the way that the board control stuff works. 254 00:15:54,560 --> 00:16:01,240 The biggest challenge for me was that as I maybe described in the last play, the feeling 255 00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:06,960 of fun at the table did not match the correct strategic point for me. 256 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:12,000 That in order for me to play to win, I had to really go after the person who was in first 257 00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:16,880 place but they were sort of on tilt when I started going after them and I didn't go 258 00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:18,800 after them in the way I probably should have. 259 00:16:18,800 --> 00:16:22,440 If I were playing really strategically. 260 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:27,360 But in the end it was a really fun and memorable game with the exception of that part of it. 261 00:16:27,360 --> 00:16:31,520 So I don't know where the expectation setting would work better. 262 00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:36,760 Like do I continue to play the way I have and try to get over myself in terms of feeling 263 00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:44,280 bad for attacking somebody in a game where you win by attacking somebody or do I set expectations 264 00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:47,840 more clearly at the beginning or during the game. 265 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:51,480 Make it more clear like yeah this is a really cutthroat game. 266 00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:57,680 Watch out or do I be more obvious in the way that I interact about alliances. 267 00:16:57,680 --> 00:17:01,160 One of the things you could if you watched our game carefully and I'm being honest with 268 00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:05,440 myself here, you could interpret it that I sort of allowed the other player to think we 269 00:17:05,440 --> 00:17:06,680 had an alliance. 270 00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:12,520 I didn't actively say I want to attack you but I didn't actively discourage that view 271 00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:17,480 either and then betrayed them or surprised them at least. 272 00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:20,800 And that is an interesting question for myself. 273 00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:25,480 Like which part of it would be fun and I don't know any of those strategies would be fun 274 00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:28,720 if the other person sort of gets really upset when I attack them. 275 00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:31,320 And the other question here is like just motives too. 276 00:17:31,320 --> 00:17:34,720 I was talking with another friend about this and I like well that other person clearly 277 00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:38,680 one of the main motivators one of the things that really drives them in the moment of the 278 00:17:38,680 --> 00:17:39,680 game is winning. 279 00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:44,840 And so when they have an upset they get upset for a bit that's not, that doesn't mean 280 00:17:44,840 --> 00:17:45,840 they didn't have fun. 281 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:49,480 And I would say by the end of the night this person was clearly having fun again but I also 282 00:17:49,480 --> 00:17:50,720 didn't keep attacking them. 283 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:56,080 I'm not sure how much fun they would have had had I gone after them, continued to go after 284 00:17:56,080 --> 00:18:00,400 them the way I strategically probably should have because they were still in the lead after 285 00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:06,800 my sort of significant play and the correct move I think strategically would have been 286 00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:11,440 to keep attacking their places because every time I took a planet away from them I was 287 00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:16,040 raising my score and lowering theirs whereas anything else I did like if I attacked any of 288 00:18:16,040 --> 00:18:21,000 the other players I'm lowering one of the players who's not beating me and not gaining on 289 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:25,120 the player who I mean I'm gaining a little bit but not as much as I would have had I gone 290 00:18:25,120 --> 00:18:26,280 after them more. 291 00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:31,000 So it's an interesting puzzle that maybe is a problem in my own head more than a problem 292 00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:34,840 in the game but something to think about as I continue to play because I really like 293 00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:36,680 a handful of stars and I would like to play again. 294 00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:43,000 So that's Martin Wallace the artist is Odysseas Stamoglou, publisher Treefrog games. 295 00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:46,240 I apologize for talking so much about that game it's pretty hard to get a hold of. 296 00:18:46,240 --> 00:18:51,040 There was a really small print run and I think most people who have it like it so I don't 297 00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:52,880 know how much it circulates. 298 00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:56,640 So last game I want to talk about here is Mythic Mischief this is published by IV Studio who 299 00:18:56,640 --> 00:19:01,600 have gone on to publish Moon Rakers and at least one other game that's gotten a fair amount 300 00:19:01,600 --> 00:19:05,800 of buzz designed by Max Anderson, Zach Dixon and Austin Harrison. 301 00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:12,160 I had a bit of a deja vu moment I had a friend in high school named Austin Harrison who 302 00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:21,000 has gone on to work in Hollywood as an animator and so it's weird to see someone named Austin 303 00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:24,440 Harrison they're not the same person I checked. 304 00:19:24,440 --> 00:19:29,120 Person I know doesn't live in Nashville in this Austin Harrison does so different Austin 305 00:19:29,120 --> 00:19:30,360 Harrison but it was weird. 306 00:19:30,360 --> 00:19:35,720 The art is by Amin Farah and Holo Kazemi. 307 00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:41,960 Mythic Mischief is a really it's a first off if you are going to try to define the idea 308 00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:47,720 of overproduced which I think is a problematic idea because if you buy a product and you 309 00:19:47,720 --> 00:19:52,160 enjoy it to have a certain form factor then I don't know how you can say it's overproduced 310 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:56,200 but if you're going to argue that games could be overproduced Mythic Mischief and I think 311 00:19:56,200 --> 00:20:00,000 a lot of the games from IV Studios maybe fit that profile. 312 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:04,120 I got Mythic Mischief at Goodwill someone had given it away and boy was it a lucky find 313 00:20:04,120 --> 00:20:09,040 for us I paid three dollars for it and I believed if I'm reading the kickstarter right it was 314 00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:13,640 a ninety five dollar game and I'm not sure I would pay ninety five dollars for it but boy 315 00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:14,640 it was fun. 316 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:21,840 Mythic Mischief is a squad based tactical skirmish game in which you have a group of kids 317 00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:27,600 magical kids there's like Frankensteins and Draculas and ghosts and whatnot and zombies 318 00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:31,600 and you're hiding out in the midst of a library at your school. Think sort of Hogwarts but 319 00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:36,540 for monsters and you aren't supposed to be in there and so there's a librarian that the 320 00:20:36,540 --> 00:20:41,680 kids call the tome keeper who's wandering around in the library and if it catches you in there 321 00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:46,600 he sends you back to your dorm and your team loot the other team the team who basically 322 00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:52,280 tricked you into getting caught by the tome keeper gets a point first team to ten point wins. 323 00:20:52,280 --> 00:20:57,880 What makes Mythic Mischief interesting is that each team each squad has a set of four 324 00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:02,840 actions that are all very similar but not identical two of them are identical the move action 325 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:07,480 that everyone can take is identical and that there's another action that everyone can take 326 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:12,800 I don't recall right now but then everyone else has two unique actions that are slightly 327 00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,680 different there's one action allows you to move and opponent and there's one action that 328 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:23,720 does something else oh rearrange the bookshelves in the library and then each team also has 329 00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:31,280 an epic maneuver that you can do once and then you can recharge to do again later so during 330 00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:35,800 the game you take turns manipulating the setup of the board with the goal of getting as many 331 00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:42,440 of your opponents figures into the way of the tome keeper as you can and then the team does 332 00:21:42,440 --> 00:21:46,960 that the best is going to win because the tome keeper will you'll get ten points and the 333 00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:50,840 tome keeper has a set path that they're going to walk in the library although you can change 334 00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:56,200 that by moving the bookshelves around. This game is pretty fun; I think if you get a chance to play it 335 00:21:56,200 --> 00:22:01,400 you definitely should--it's a really interesting tactical game. It's maybe a little bit more complex 336 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:08,120 than it needs to be for the level of game it is in terms of how long it's going to take how deep 337 00:22:08,120 --> 00:22:15,400 the strategy is, but it is pretty cool and I really enjoyed playing it the couple times in my son and 338 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:22,440 I and his cousins played the game. He definitely really liked it and asked me to definitely keep it, 339 00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:27,400 so it's I'm sure it'll come up again. You'll see me talking about having played it or whatever 340 00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:34,360 in future but it's really fun. We also did end up with the "headmaster box" which is the sort of deluxe 341 00:22:34,360 --> 00:22:39,160 edition meaning that we got three more factions than you would get if you just have the base set 342 00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:45,240 which is nice because I think the game lives in its variety. I think if you get stuck with one 343 00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:52,040 set of factions it's probably not as good as you were hoping it would be, and so that is probably the 344 00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:59,240 challenge of the game Mythic Mischief. Like I said, a fun game; I'm happy to have it, going to keep it, 345 00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:03,320 going to play it some more, and that's what I have to say about that. Well thanks for joining me 346 00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:09,160 on my walk today I hope the year next walk is this pleasant is mine Was. Bye-bye 347 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:27,080 [Music] 348 00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:34,440 [out take beep] where is the paper? okay I definitely put it in my pocket what the heck what here is[out-take beep] 349 00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:43,240 brought to you by Rattlebox Games