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Sunlight glaring through the windshield. Your favorite songs blasting through the speakers. Candy bar wrappers piled next to a warm drink in the cheap plastic cupholder. Your companion riding in the passenger seat, snapping pictures of landmarks as you settle into the hypnotic rhythm of the road. But be careful as this fun road trip could get dangerous as you drive through Death Valley.
Death Valley is a pocket-sized, push-your-luck, tableau-building game for 1-2 players, with each traveler striving to assemble the best mix of cards in their journey and scrapbook in order to win the game.
Each turn, players choose whether to assign a card to their journey, or move cards from their journey to their scrapbook. Cards feature stars (points), special abilities (which affect the value and position of cards), and some interesting facts about Death Valley. Each card also lists a hazard: heat, terrain, flood or animals. Having three of the same hazard visible in their tableau causes the player to bust and lose all the progress in their journey.
At the end of the game, players sum the stars in their journey and any additional points from card abilities to determine who wins.
Death Valley was a top-three finalist in Button Shy's 18-Card Challenge: Design a game about a real life location.
- Stunning visuals; quick 15-minute play
- Solo experience may be limited compared to 2-player play
- desert terrain and scoring objectives
- Death Valley landscape; scoring through landscape cards
- abstract landscape-building
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- tile/landscape drafting — place landscape cards to meet scoring objectives and create vistas
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I'm super into button shy
- these two bags are full so I'm going to show you all of the button shy games that I currently own
- I freaking love it
- If you haven't tried button shy I highly highly recommend that you give it a go
- there's so many options for travel and storage; wallet games are perfect for on-the-go
References (from this video)
- Still enjoy a lot
- Most favorite button shy games
- Love it
- Great at two-player
- Great solo
- Really really cool push your luck
- Survival adventure
- Death Valley
- Push your luck game
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Push Your Luck — Push luck in desert survival
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
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- I like vegetable themed games it sounds very specific but that's the way it is
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- i really love to death
- i've discovered bga for myself which is pretty cool
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is highly subjective in general I award this to games that I find especially entertaining designed especially well or elegantly or view as a great overall package.
- I don't rate games on this channel with a number I don't really like doing that; rating a game is more complex than slapping a number in front of it.
- The definitive rating is how much I would recommend a game, and all games that award the Ace of Games too I would definitely 100% recommend.
- these three seconds is games award if a game is exceptionally good in my opinion and that concludes today's video.
- Wingspan is my most favorite game of all time... it gets the golden Ace of Games Award.