The freight is rolling into the yard and it's up to you, the Yardmaster, to organize and manage it making sure everything is where it's supposed to be and readying the trains for departure.
In Yardmaster, 2-5 players compete to build trains comprised of railcars of different goods and values. However, players are restricted in connecting railcars of only the same value or good type, so if you grab a railcar you can't use, it needs to wait in your sorting yard until it can legitimately hook up to your train.
Players start with five cargo cards in hand, and four railcar cards are laid out into the Arrival Yard. Each player has one exchange token, representing one of the five cargo types, and whoever is to the right of the start player has the Yardmaster Token. On a turn, a player takes two actions, repeating an action if desired; whoever holds the Yardmaster Token takes a third action on his or her turn, then passes this token to the right. Players can:
Draw a cargo card from the deck or from the top of the discard pile.
Buy a railcar by discarding 1-4 cargo cards of the same color as the railcar, with the number determined by that railcar's value.
Swap your exchange token for another one; you can discard two cargo cards matching the color of your token to represent one cargo card of the proper color when buying a railcar.
Five cargo cards provide bonus actions during play, such as paying less for new railcars or drawing free cargo cards. The first player to reach 16 points in a 2-3 player game or 18 points in a 4-5 player game wins.
- 2014 ion award winner in the light games category
- performing exceptionally well
- almost out of print, get it soon or it's going to be gone
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Hand Management — Shares this core mechanic with Yardmaster Express.
- Set Collection — Shares this core mechanic with Yardmaster Express.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- My name is Rodney Smith and one of the best things about coming to these kind of events is I get to talk to fun publishers and friends like Patrick, very good friend.
- So our our newest uh game is Dead Drop by uh Jason Petarski. Uh he's a very talented designer. And Deadrop is a memory deduction game.
- Yardmaster was uh the 2014 ion award winner uh in the light games category and Yardmaster has been uh performing exceptionally well.
- Yardmaster is almost out of print. So Yardmaster, if you have it, great. If not, get it soon or it's going to be gone.
- So, David Short, who's an phenomenally talented designer, ground floor, skyline, uh, planes by AEG, uh, was one of my developers on yard master.
- So Yardmaster Express is a very quick game part of my pub series like Council of Verona. It's a 5 to 7 minute drafting game.
- Tory Neman is the famed designer of Alien Frontiers. And Peter um is performing very well in distribution.
- You know why I came back? It's because this game is familiar to me.
- So, we broke ground. We did break ground.
- Patrick, thanks again for taking the time to show me all this stuff and showing all you guys.
References (from this video)
- Patrick Nicoll is a super nice guy
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Love letter she loves love letter
- The first game doesn't mean anything don't worry about it you might mess up a couple of rules worse comes to worse next time you play the game you fix it
- I think the most complex game I've ever played is Empires and Arms
- but munchkin is a game that I've played where it's it's going on on like and on and on and it's because of the luck factor and it's also because of the beat up on the leader
- I think the most played app would be suer Wars I've played like over 300 games of that
- cheaters or jerks that's what we always say
- I don't underestimate the number of people who might be interested in attending don't underestimate the amount of work it's going to be
- I want to win too believe me like I want to win the game that that's fun but um I don't get wanting to win that much that to me seems dangerous or scary
References (from this video)
- recognizes the shared core of the series while introducing its own twists
- not much elaborated beyond being a variant
- AO Original
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Pattern Building — roof tiling and pattern creation as part of scoring
- pattern lines / roof tiling — roof tiling and pattern creation as part of scoring
- tile drafting — similar drafting mechanism to the original with its own twists
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- what could make original AO very cutthroat and brutal was your ability to try to force your other player to get a huge chunk of tiles they don't want
- AO original is best at two players
- it's slower down game you'll have more turns it's a little more thinky
- twice per round across the first four rounds you're going to be collecting these pieces for your roof
- there's a sixth patent row and it makes a big difference
- the bottom row it's so hard to fill
References (from this video)
- Stark, effective graphic design
- Set collection focus
- Two-player suitable
- Artwork replaced in newer edition
- railroads
- trains
- Lost Cities
- Jaipur
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- board games are diverse but card games really could feature anything
- players are all doing this simultaneously and so you want to be the player that stays in the longest
- if you turn over to many matching cards then you end up with nothing
- auction games are are well served by the sort of card game mechanisms
- play very quickly for three to six players
- an excellent excellent game
- take that card games or I think the most combative sort of card games
- totally silly extremely random but essentially we're playing cards to attack other players
- still one of my favorite games
- each card is a floor on a building
- there's a whole genre of what we call take that card games
- you could place bombs or or murderers into these buildings or the police can then take away a murderer
- Seven Wonders was the sort of figurehead for the cloud drafting games
- sushi go has been an enormous hit
- now the figurehead for the genre is probably sushi go
- deck building was created really by the game of Dominion
- there's something delightful about the simplicity of a game like Dominion
- you can teach to people really easily and play very very quickly
- a form of set collection again
- classic tableau builder would be something like San Juan
- this is a fantastic card game
- buying cards laying them out in front of us and they're going to keep generating us money
- this really is one of my favorite genres
- anybody can play these games and not everybody can play them well
- I love speed games I think it's a fantastic category of card games
- trick-taking games very very straightforward in their basic format
- the basic mechanism can be turned into all these different games
- all tweak it slightly in different ways
- my top ten card game mechanisms
- hopefully I've given you a broad picture of the world of card games