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Get in a queue with your family in front of a store and experience a rush of genuine emotions!
The board game Kolejka (a.k.a. Queue) tells a story of everyday life in Poland at the tail-end of the Communist era. The players' task appears to be simple: They have to send their family members out to various stores on the game board to buy all the items on their shopping list. The problem is, however, that the shelves in the five neighborhood stores are empty.
The players line up their pawns in front of the shops without knowing which shop will have a delivery. Tension mounts as the product delivery cards are uncovered and it turns out that there will be enough product cards only for the lucky few standing closest to the door of a store. Since everyone wants to be first, the queue starts to push up against the door. To get ahead, the people in the queue use a range of queuing cards, such as "Mother carrying small child", "This is not your place, sir", or "Under-the-counter goods". But they have to watch out for "Closed for stocktaking", "Delivery error", and for the black pawns – the speculators – standing in the queue. Only those players who make the best use of the queuing cards in their hand will come home with full shopping bags.
On the product cards are photos of sixty original objects from the Communist era. The merchandise includes Relaks shoes, Przemysławka eau de cologne, and Popularna tea, as well as other commodities that were once in scarce supply. The neighborhood also has an outdoor market but the prices there are steep – unless, of course, you manage to strike a deal with the market trader. In this realistic game you really have to be savvy to get the goods.
Are you brave enough to confront the everyday life of the 1980s?
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I've been trying to walk with the boot. Well, I not walk, but I I I have a boot that I put on, but I keep it off most of the time because I'll be honest with you, it is bigger and bulkier than the cast.
- The lots that we do have, okay, everybody's waiting to find out what what's been bid on and and you know, it's been not that bad, but
- This may be probably the best baseball game I've ever played and I can't believe I didn't know about it.
- It is the most realistic, fast-paced, easy to learn baseball game I've I've ever played.
- This is a game that has everything except cold beer and hot dogs.
- I'm really on the fence with keeping Chronicles of Drungore.
- I think I'm going to more talk about the expansion than show it because the quality of the prototype isn't good.
- This game feels like you're playing Sidmer Pirate and nothing better than finding treasure, going through life, taking people down, you know, sinking ships, taking them.
References (from this video)
- maximum desperation feeling at 5 players
- darkly humorous elements shine with high player count
- doesn't add significant play time with extra players
- more table talk and banter
- Cold War Poland
- queuing
- desperation
- social satire
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
References (from this video)
- darkly comedic
- hilarious and fun
- authentic to cold war poland
- appealing to those who lived through era
- hard to get these days
- queuing in late cold war era
- cold war poland
- darkly_comedic
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- petty moves — petty petty petty moves
- queuing — queuing mechanics
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this is my list the video says the top 100 board games of all time but it really is just my top 100 board games of all time
- three minute board games is an independent channel we dont take money from publishers and we do not do any form of paid content
- Mosaic has the ambitious goal of being a civilization game that can be played in two to three hours and it very much succeeds at this goal
- a game that does not need to be played with a traitor because the inherent selfish goals in this game created enough internal conflict
- I love space racing games and space corp is the game that is most racy as far as space racers go
- the term I use instead of gateway game is foundation game
- Sentinels could easily be a forever game the kind of game you just play over and over and over and over again endlessly
- Modern Art is a simple and brilliant and beautiful game and easily the best pure auction game Ive ever played
- Black Orchestra models some very clever things about how conspiracy is run
- when I asked the question hey what game should I play with my non-gamer friend who's interested in gaming but hasn't done much gaming I almost always answer Sentient Golem Edition
- Arkham Horror is the game that really made board gaming my number one hobby
- there are a few things more fun and rewarding in board gaming than organizing a fight in the arena
- Twilight Struggle is one of the best head-to-head games out there
- Santorini is the definition of an elegant design
- Arkham Horror the card game absolutely should be for you it's a hundred percent for me and it is my number one game of 2023
References (from this video)
- fun social tension and line-cutting mechanic
- clever theme-to-mechanics coupling
- theme/setting may feel niche or dated to some players
- explaining the line interactions can be a hurdle
- supply chain scarcity, line formation, queue politics
- Poland in the 1980s
- satirical social commentary
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action_cards — cards move lines, manipulate front-of-line positioning, and react to daily events
- market/black_market dynamics — competition for items; some players can steal or reroute goods
- queue/line management — players position meeples in lines to fulfill shopping lists
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's basically it's an auction tiling game
- it's a classic Euro but with fresh mechanics that you don't really see in newer games
- the best scoring that you can get is one building amongst all these things is is four points
- I really liked it I think the very first uh work that I scored I took it all as money and I thought like this is great I'm gonna have so much money for the rest of the game but I think that hurt me in the end
- it's mean that it was comical
- it's a very silly game
- it's a strong mix of chaos and strategy
- it's better with higher player counts
- it's one of those games where there's very limited communication; it's fully cooperative