Our new life starts here + 8 new games ranked and rated!! ►►► Rahdo Rounds Up March '25

0:01 Hey everybody. Today on Roto Runs Through, we are rounding up the month of March 2025, which means I'm going to be telling you all about the games that my wife Jen and I played over the month of March 2025 in countdown format. Starting with our least favorite game, ending with a new game of the month, like I always do. And this is going to be a shorter roundup than you may have become used to because we only played eight games in the month of March. Why so few? Because we were on the road. You may notice I'm in a new local, folks. The Welcome to our sun room here in beautiful Ireland. Um, oh my gosh. Uh, it's wonderful just for your view, but look at what I'm looking at. This is the view we have from every window in this house and we love it. Although this sun room, oh my goodness, just surrounded by it. It's my new favorite place in the world. And so I thought what better place to do my first monthly roundup than here in the sun room. Um although before we get to that folks, a quick sponsored segment. This roundup sponsored by me. Uh because in case you didn't know, you can help keep Roto running and help support me and my wife because we've pretty much gone almost bankrupt moving all the way from the United States to Ireland and we got to start rebuilding our savings. Um, and so if you would like to know how you can help out, well, you can join here on YouTube as a member or you can go over to patreon.com/roto and join there. And folks, if you do that every month, you

1:31 get all kinds of benefits. You get uh exclusive voting privileges to determine what games I'm going to film in a given month. You get early access to videos add free, you know, days, weeks, sometimes months before they go public. Plus, you get a whole bunch of exclusive videos, uh, depending on what level you're back at. So, I'm just going to let everybody know what new videos appeared on the channel as exclusives in the month of March in the middle of all of our moving stuff. If you don't care, you already know about all this, or maybe you're already back the show and you've already seen them, well, there's a link down in the show notes that'll let you jump right to the game countdown. So, uh, let's get going with the sponsored segment. I'm just going to let you know about the exclusives starting with that's the wrong button.

2:18 Oh, things are going well here. That's the correct button. Um, every month there is a new Roto release. This time it was me um and Jen playing a full game of Marrakesh the essential edition. Um, this is available no matter what level you back at. Even just for $1 a month, you get a new Roto release every month. And this was I mean this is one of Jen's favorite games in recent years. and I was showing off the essential edition which is very different than the regular edition and talking about its strengths and weaknesses and that's available for anybody who backs at any level right now. Uh but continuing on if you go to the next level, the um ramble, you get a guided tour of our home. We will walk you through every single room in this house and tell you what our plans are and uh all the rest of it. This is the entryway. Um, but I mean there's our uh beagle daisy or our half beagle, half beagle, half terrier Daisy. But uh this was a very very fun tour and um yeah uh that's at the was it $2 a month level if you back on Patreon. What other exclusives are there folks? I'm glad you asked. Moving on to the uh $3 a month the resident level. Every month I do a Q&A. Well, this one was a long one. This was 2 hours and 13 minutes of me in this room and out uh on the patio too answering all the questions that people have sent in answering tons of game questions, industry questions, roto runthrough questions, and personal questions. And Jen joins me for this Q&A

3:50 as well and answers a whole bunch of questions as well. And people can submit questions to questions.com and I dive deep and try to give very very thorough and very unedited, uncensored answers. Sometimes, you know, I uh go a little harder than you expect me to because, you know, this is an exclusive for backers. Anyway, uh that's the latest Q&A. Over two hours of questions answered. Uh then at the next level, there is the monthly Roto Recklist. This is one of the last videos I ever filmed uh back home in Lent, Washington. That's not our home. Ireland is my home now. I'm an immigrant, a proud immigrant. But anyway, one of the last games I played before we left was Explorers of Neoria, the Forgotten Lands. This is me doing a full playthrough showing off the solo mode that is available for the Wonders of Explorers of Neoria. If you get the Forgotten Lands expansion, so I'm demoing how it works, and it is excellent and a lot of fun. At the next backer level, you get the monthly Jen jog where I sit down with Jen and it's kind of a sister video to this one. This is me telling you all the games we played and what I thought about them.

4:55 The gen jog is Jen telling you what she thought of all the games and often she disagrees with me and has different perspectives and points of view. She ranks them all on a one to five star scale and it's always a good time. We actually just filmed that this morning right before I filmed this and uh as always she surprised me. And then at the highest level of backing, you can see a new rest and relax video. And this month it is me and Jen playing through a full game of Race to Mars, which you may recall from last month's roundup. This is just one of the um best games. uh you know, one of the most hidden the best hidden gem of 2024 that nobody knows about. Uh it's only got a very small print run. It's only available in a few countries right now.

5:43 Fingers crossed it goes wider um you know to but you know to you know some other publisher picks it up so it's available around the world. But in the meantime if you want to know if it's worth seeking out and um you know paying whatever you got to pay to get it I think it's published in Sweden if I recall correctly. So, you have to find a Swedish um game store that will mail it to you, unless you happen to be uh in Sweden. If you want to know if it's worth it, you can watch me and Jen have a great time. And I got to say, this was a very, very dramatic uh episode full of exciting twists and turns watching me and Jen play Race to Mars. Okay, sponsored segment over. Thank you for your patience, everybody. And um now I am going to be getting into the countdown proper. Like I said, I've got eight new games to talk about with starting with the previous my number eight of the month, ending with a new game of the month. And um there ain't nothing to it but to do it. So let's uh get back to it. Although I'm thirsty.

6:47 Hold on a second. Ah, our tap water here is excellent as well. something we did not. Our our tap water in Washington tasted kind of like bleach and whatnot. We had to use filters. Oh, just straight wonderful out of the tap as is now. One of many great things we appreciate about our new home. And if you have any questions about life here, well, you can ask down in the comments, folks. I always answer every question asked of me. Um, or you can send uh questions to questions roto.com and I'll do a deep dive answer in the next Q&A uh as a as a uh exclusive for backers of the show who helped keep Ro. Anyway though, that is enough of that. Let's get to it. Starting with number eight of the month. It is um The Lord of the Rings Adventure to Mount Doom. And um I'm sorry, Lord of the Rings Adventures to Mount Doom, it's not you, it's me. This uh comes in at the bottom of our list this month um because this is an incredibly charming, incredibly fast playing gateway style game where players cooperatively uh try to direct the Fellowship of the Ring successfully from Rivendell all the way to Mount Doom to save the world. And every step of the way, uh they're dealing with balrogs and orcs and ring wraiths and all kinds of problems. And um first of all, let me tell you folks, let me warn you. This is an incredibly incredibly challenging

8:18 game. Uh and it's weird. Uh you know, for something that is so lightweight and so very clearly directed um for parents to play with their kids who love Lord of the Rings, this game will beat you up and spit you out mercilessly. This is a great game if you as a parent want to teach your kids about how to lose with grace because you are going to lose more often than you win. Um, but how does the game play work? Um, it's very, very simple. When it is your turn, you are there's a big collection of dice every round. On your turn, you're going to roll two black dice that represent all the terrible calamities that can befall the fellowship. and you're going to pick two colored dice that represent the different members of the fellowship like Aragorn or Legalist or Gimy or you know Mary and Pippen or what have you or Sam and Froto. You're going to roll these four dice, the two black evil um you know Sauron dice and the two dice and then you are going to make the biggest most important choice you make on your turn. Which black dye are you going to choose to suffer an event for? And which color dye are you going to choose that says, "Hey, that member of this fellowship moves forward getting closer to the end of the road to Minus Morgle and Mount Doom and all the rest of it."

9:35 Um, and then after you've chosen that and you've locked those two dice in, you are going to add one more color dice. So, you pick another member of the fellowship. So, now you got three dice. The black dye you didn't roll, the one color dye you didn't roll, and another new color dye. And you're going to roll those. And then you're stuck with the second black dye and um you have to choose right which other member of the fellowship is gonna move down the trunk. That's it. Uh you do two rolls and two decisions. This game is super elegant and clean and simple and fast playing and those decisions are everything. It may not sound like much, but you have to bear a fair amount when you're thinking about which dice to take because uh if you say, "Hey, I want Legalis or Aragorn." One of those two to move. So, I pick the green and the blue die and then you roll. And Legololis is going to go on a four and Aragorn is only going to go two steps. Well, I got to pick one of them to move. And here's the deal.

10:35 You have to be very careful. You don't want your u main character of the fellowship to get too far ahead of Sam and Froto because if so they won't be able to protect Sam and Frodo when it comes to a fight. You also can't let them fall too far behind. So you always try to try to keep them in the safe in the sweet spot. But there are specific spa spots on the path that um will hit you with dangers or that will give you benefits if your character lands exactly on those spots. is effectively a roll and move game. And by the way, I should have said right up front, I have not done a run through for this, so I am relying on another channel uh Dave uh Nik Nikowski um which oh, what is it? It's uh you know, game games rule doctor is the channel. There's a link uh for Dave's video if you want to watch him and his wife run through the game and see it in action. Link is down in the show notes. Thank you, Dave, for doing an excellent run through that shows off what the game looks like. Anyway, back to the description. So, you've got a tough choice because you Legos could move a four or Aragorn can move a two.

11:43 Um, Aragorn isn't you need to get him farther forward, but if you choose So, you might not choose him. You might say, "I'll roll him and maybe I can get him into a better spot." But if you have Legalis move force, that's your other option. then he's going to overshoot um you know Loth Lauren and he's going to miss out on the bonus and he's going to leave Froto and Sam behind so now they're in more danger. So which do you choose? Uh and the game is full of having to make those tough choices between two less than ideal options. So it's a great opportunity to teach your kids one about tough choices where there are no good answers and you have to you know pick the uh lesser of two evils. two, um, you know, uh, teach about probabilities because all right, you know, I the reason I want to roll Aragorn is because if he rolls a three or a five, then he'll land in one of the two hot spots I want him to land on. So, there's a 33% chance that Aragorn will give me what I need. That's why I want to roll him. That's why I chose him. So, you can um that that's like the level of probability planning and management you do in this game. It's a great opportunity to teach decisions like that. And then like I said, here's the other thing, folks. This game is brutal.

12:55 Jen and I tried it several times and we could not win. Um, the game is very luxy, no matter how good your decisions are. Um, but it's also very fast, less than an hour. And oh, it is so incredibly thematic. It does a great great job of capturing the feel of Tolken's work. Oh, and you know what? I totally forgot. I've been talking about, you know, picking the fellowship dice, but remember there were those black dice in every area of the world you're traveling through. There are six cards drawn, two of them are face down in the one and the six spot. And cards 2, three, four, and five are all face up. Whichever black dot you choose, that's going to be you're going to activate one of those cards. Some of them you don't know what they are. They could be good or bad, but there's also plenty of them that are bad that will destroy you. Some of them will hit you one time and then they become good spots where, you know, if um if we roll a black three, that's where the Balrog is. And the Balrog will, you know, temporarily um take care of Gandalf and G we lose the ability to use Gandalf's special power cards and we won't get him back until later in the game when we get to Helm's Deep again.

13:58 So thematic this game. Um, but after the m the and that's a terrible setback to lose Gandalf. But then as long as we stay in that area, every time we roll a three on the black dice, it becomes a good bonus action we can do until we eventually leave that area and then six new cards come out full of good and bad options. So, choosing which black dye, if I rolled a one and a three, which one do I want? What bad thing do we want to hit? Do we want to choose the one and maybe get lucky and find a good thing hidden beneath the uh the card etc etc. So these fun decisions every single turn you take you are going to have some tough decisions about right none of these are what I want it to be will be exactly what you wanted but when it's not well what's going to be the best one to choose and it's a sharp fun little game uh I liked it Jen liked it um we appreciate that it's incredibly challenging it's weird the game has almost no way to make it easier so that's the thing you got to know know going in this will teach your children how to become good losers cuz you will lose a lot in this game. Even play it on the easiest difficulty level, which is so strange since this is clearly designed for families. But um it it is fun, it is fast, in spite of everything I just said with there are interesting decisions to make and you know big swingy dramatic moments and you know desperate. I mean it should feel desperate trying to climb the steps of Mount Doom. I mean, it should feel like all hope is lost, but

15:31 um the decisions are still on the light side. And for me and Jen, experienced gamers, they were generally pretty easy to game outright. Okay, well, this is clearly the one we should take because the other one, you know, doesn't feed anything at all or it sets us up in a worse situation. So, Jen and I found for us it was a little bit too lightweight and that's why it comes in at the bottom of uh of the list this month. But man, I would totally play this with younger kids. Can't even imagine playing it with like total novice noobs uh who are, you know, who have never seen a modern designer board game and who love Lord of the Rings. Cuz again, this game does such a stellar job of capturing the atmosphere, the mood, and the near omnipotent sense of danger and doom as you try uh to win the adventure to Mount Doom. And that folks comes in at number eight of the month, Lord of Kings Adventure to Mount Doom. Okay, now let's move on to number seven of the month. It is Skyrise. Now, this is a very interesting game with really phenomenal production value. It's from publisher Roxy, who are known for doing really sky-high level production values, and this is no exception. We are um architects trying to build up a beautiful city in the floating in the clouds called Skyrise. I think that's the name of the city. And um we are each player has at the beginning of the game a big collection

17:02 of these beautiful gorgeous sculpted minis uh that represent the different buildings. And um we're trying to get these built in the different districts in different types of areas like parks or industrial areas or residential areas because everybody has their own secret goal of where where they want to build their buildings. But then there are also every time you play a collection of three different public goals that everybody is competing to try to be the best at building next to the windmills or whatever it might be. Um but here's how we do it. This is an auction game disguised as an area control game or an area majority game because if I'm the lead player in a given round, I've got to pick one of my buildings. Each one of my buildings on the bottom has a bid value ranging from I think it was like 1 to 30. I I don't remember the exact number. Uh but you know, at the beginning of the game I my buildings are a five, a 12, a 19, a 22, and you know, a 33. Maybe they go up to 50. Maybe that's the range of them. And so I'm going to make the opening bid and I have to pick a district out in the city and I've got to take one of my buildings and put it upside down so it shows the number on the building and that's my bid to build the building in that region.

18:16 And if if it's a high enough bid, everybody else could say, you know, I pass too rich for my blood. You can win this. And that means boom, I successfully built the building in that region. And maybe I take majority in that region. Or maybe I had a secret goal that I wanted to build there. Or maybe I didn't want to build there at all. Cuz here's the thing. I might have put out my bid hoping somebody out bids me because when it's your turn to bid, when it's your turn to bid, what you do is you take one of your buildings that has a higher value than what I bid, uh, think raw, where everybody can see everybody else's bid chips. So if I go right in with my 32, I can look around the table and see, oh, you know what? only John can out me because everybody else has used up their highv value dice. So I could win unless I think John might value this more than me. So there's a lot of those kinds of auction mind games. Very similar, you know, reminiscent of you know the classic auction game raw. But anyway, I might be hoping you because I don't want to win this thing. I want to win the the uh you know the the residential district that's uh you know over to the west. And so what happens is it's your turn to bid.

19:22 And so what you do is you take a higher value building than me and you put it down on the map in a region adjacent to what I just did. And that means now you have the high bid. You didn't bid on what I bid, but you bid on the space to the west. And then you know it's Betty's turn and she might pass. And then maybe it comes around to me because we're playing a three-player game and I'm like, "Yes, now I've gotten over to the region I really wanted to build on." And so boom, I go in high. Maybe I choose my biggest one. Or maybe I started low because I had to travel a long way from one side of the city to the other to get where I really wanted to win. Or you know what? Maybe this round um oh I was supposed to go west, but the the players who bid after me, they went east and like I want to build anything in this area to help with this. I'm going to pass and save for a future round. So that's the crux of the game because basically as we keep raising the bid to see who will actually build a building this round, we basically kind of snake our way around the city and it is a clever clever system. This is actually a remake of a game that came out jeez like 15 years ago. Um, you know, so it's a classic old school mechanism that has been cleaned up and given an insanely beautiful production, uh, you know, for our more modern gaming tastes. So, it's got that classic feel, but new, um, you know, top of class production value. And it is a sharp game. Make no mistake. I think everybody that Jen and I played it with definitely admired the design,

20:54 thought this was very, very clever. And if we really really loved cutthroat uh because this game can be a very very cutthroat auction, I think we would have enjoyed it more. But the reason it comes in near the bottom of my list this month is because it is too cutthroat for me and Jen. You spend so much of your time, you know, inventorying what everybody else has. Can you outbid me? Okay, you could, but I don't think you're going to want it, so I'll bid lower. It is it is such a mechanical thinky crunchy game, but so much of it is trying to make sure that you recognize what somebody else values and um oh man, sure. Okay, if you go in that direction, I'm going to make you pay for it. I'm going to bid up so high that I'm happy to win this, but I know you want that. And so, I mean, it it is I mean, it's it's aggressive in the way that any auction game can be because you can make aggressive out bidding moves. It's just unlike a regular auction game where it's just the number. That's it. Who bids the highest?

21:51 Who gets the the thing here, um, you know, what we're actually bidding on is constantly changing as we snake around the world. And I think that's really, really clever. But Jen and I both found we spend so much time in this game, not only worried about how much do I value the thing I'm bidding on, but how much do you value the next thing that I'm giving you access to? that for us it was a little too in yourrface, a little too aggressive and it wasn't as live and live. I mean I mean this is maybe one of the most aggressive auction games I've ever played because it's auction fused with area control and that's a brilliant system that unfortunately just isn't a very good fit for me and Jen. Now um a lot of people love this game. This game made a lot of top 10. think it made um you knowh Chris George you know one of the contributors on the RNR show I think he made it into his top 10 of the year if I recall correctly um and I don't blame him it's a beautiful production it's a smart elegant and excellent system that is just not for me and Jen which is why uh Skyrise comes in at number seven of the month okay now let's move on to number of the month. It is House of Fedo. Maybe it's FO. I had meant to actually look up how to pronounce that before I actually filmed and I totally forgot to. So, my apologies. My apologies, Paulo, if I'm getting it wrong. Um, but anyway, the

23:23 House of Fed FAD O comes in at number six. This is the latest codeesign from design superstar Vto Larda. And this is the latest in his line of lighterweight games. Vito Larda is known for a designer who is one of the most thematically grounded Euro designers and also designed some of the heaviest, crunchiest, most complex games out there. That's how he made his name. But recently, in recent years, he's been doing more lightweight and midweight fair. And this is very much a midweight game that borrows some ideas. It has passing resemblance, uh, some folks say, to his one of his masterpieces, the gallerist. I I guess I can kind of see that a little bit. Uh because it is a worker placement game that strongly features worker bumping where if um you've gone to a space I want to go to and I send my worker, then I bump you out. But unlike other worker placement bumping games, which has been one of the coolest methods for worker placement ever since Jaime Stagmire originally designed it with um Euphoria a million years ago, this game so elevates the bumping because it doesn't mean you just bump your worker uh your opponent's worker off the board and they get it back and they can place it again.

24:33 Instead, your worker stays on the board and um for every spot, there are three bonuses you could get. So, if I bump you, I'm giving you access to one of three bonuses you could get. Because the thing is, once your worker is on the board, they never come off the board. They're just constantly moving from one worker space to the next to the next. And it creates a really interesting flow and rhythm that's quite unlike any other worker placement game out there. Although, again, I understand why some people draw parallels to Vita Larda's um The Gallerist. Oh, I go any further. I should say I have not done a runthrough for it. I will be doing a run through for it um soon um you know in the month of April because backers of the show have voted for it and they want to see it in action. Um so in the meantime I'm using uh Trib Solo's uh run through.

25:20 They've got a very very nice looking one and um yeah. So why does it come in at number six? Because I think Vita Larda is phenomenal. I love worker bumping and I love the subject matter. I love the theme where we are restaurant tours who are less focused on actually trying to make brilliant meals. Although that is the way we make money. We attract customers, we sell them food, we make money, but we spend that money to hire performers, singers and guitarists um you know who will perform these beautiful fatos which is a particular style of song that's famous in Portugal. And we spend most of our time focusing on the performers trying to um you know ensure that they rise to the ranks, become more famous. Uh it there's a brilliant system that you'll get to see in my run through where the customers I brought in to make money. They then I get to choose who they applaud for and you know whether the you know how they make my musicians rise through the ranks until I eventually say, "Okay, musician, we're done with you. you're gonna leave and then I'm gonna score big off of you.

26:22 It's clever. It's fun. Why is it coming in at number six? Because there's so many things I like here. Well, again, I'll talk about this in the um run through, but there were a couple of things. One, there were some weird iconographic things which are are minor issues. You once you play this game, once you're not going to get stuck on them. The bigger issue is this is a tight game. Very, very tight, very, very fast. And I both Jen and I found it stretched a little too tight. Um, you know, there is no worse feeling in all the board games than playing House of Fedo, moving to a zone, um, and then getting I'm going to get I'm going to get a bonus and oh no, the bonuses that are available to me right now, I can't afford, so I get no bonus. There's a bunch of stuff like that that means this game requires razor sharp precise timing for your moves because you've really got to get into this rhythm and it can be tough to do and Jen and I found um yeah, we weren't having as much fun as we otherwise might like. Now um you know be because of that. Again, I will articulate this more when I do the run through. I do think it's brilliant. A lot of people are loving it. It seems like every other channel that's covered this has just raved about it. And I can certainly see that it is a very very sharp design. And I should also say it has a great twoplayer board tightening mode. Um because a worker placement game you need to um tighten up the board. And I thought they did a really nice job.

27:52 Maybe I mean it that does create it does make it heavier and crunchier as a two-player game than it would be at higher player count. I'm not sure. I'm definitely going to play it some more before I film it. Um, I'm going to try the solo mode, too, because I'm very excited about that. But for now, House of Fedo comes in at number six for the month, okay? And expect more on the channel. Be sure to subscribe to the channel if you want to see this in action, and I'll try to get a bit more articulate about what worked and what didn't. Right now, I'm just kind of going on fields. Okay, now let's go on to number five of the month. It is planted. Now, this is a very very lightweight uh familyfriendly gateway style card uh what's it called? Closed hand drafting, which is to say it's card drafting along the same lines as Seven Wonders or Sushi Go. You know, hey, at the beginning of a round, I've got a handful of cards. I'm going to keep one for myself and then hand the rest to my neighbor to the left or to the right, you know, as the game goes on. Then everybody reveals at the same time what they played. And then, okay, now I've got a new hand of cards from my neighbor. And you do that again. Uh in this game, we're doing that to actually um you know, grow and nurture plants, uh house plants all around the house. And so the cards represent, they're multi-use cards. They are either resources like sunlight and water and fertilizer and whatnot that we need to get make our plants grow. Or they could be I forget. There there are there's tools and there's another type of item.

29:20 There's one type of card that gives you in-game scoring if you take it, but it doesn't help you in the short term. And there's another type of card. those are the tools that give you um oh what do you call it? Uh special power you can use for the rest of the game. So you want those cards very badly. But if that's what you focus on, you'll never get any cards that actually give you the resources to make your plants grow, which is where all the points are. Um but the interesting thing is uh you might get, you know, handed you a hand of four cards like I don't want to play any of these cards. These are all garbage cards. None of them help me with what I need right now. They don't let me harvest the resources I need. They don't give me tools or furniture. Is that what the other thing is that I need? Well, there's nothing you can do with the cards. You can basically discard the card you choose for yourself to go to the nursery. And that means you're going to grab a new plant from the public display because you can ultimately by the end of the game have up to five plants you're trying to grow. Um, so that's always a smart idea to make these multi-use cards, but the trick is um there will come times when the perfect plant comes out and more than one player wants it. And so if I choose to discard a card to go to the nursery at the same time you do, then the card we discarded, every card has a number. And the lower the number, the faster you get to go to the nursery. So sometimes the card you play, you don't care about what it is.

30:34 You're not hatedrafting. You're not trying to do it for yourself. You're just picking the lowest value because I got to get to that nursery because that card that just came out, that plant is perfect for me. I need more indoor plants or hanging plants or whatever it might be. Um and so sometimes you go to the nursery. That's pretty much it, folks. This game is really simple, very sharp. Uh, Phil Walker Harden, you know, he does it again. Makes a nearly flawless design. And here's the deal, folks. A lot of people consider Sushi Go to be one of the premier intros uh in all of board gamedom to, you know, this kind of closed hand drafting. I disagree. I think this game is 10,000 times better, probably better than any other closed hand drafting game I've seen as a gateway style game because it's so easy to teach. Um, you know, a lot of times these games are hard to use as gateways because everybody has a closed hand and you can't help them make decisions. But the core um functions of these cards are so clear that anybody I think could pick it up and be playing um to uh you know, very very high level very quickly. And I got to say, Jen and I both enjoyed this quite a bit. My wife really appreciated it because we played this while we were in the middle of moving and um she did not have the mental bandwidth for our normal mediumweight Euro style game. So, it was perfect. It just came along at the perfect time for her. And you know what?

31:52 I enjoyed it too. I would happily play this anytime. That said, if I'm going to play a game like this, I'd probably rather play um Seven Wonders or um Cosmic Colonies or any of a number of other games because it is still very, very lightweight. This is, like I said, just about the epitome, the perfect specimen for a gateway introductory closehand card drafting game. And for that, it does it very, very well. And I'm very impressed by number five of the month, Planted. Okay, now let's go on to number four of the month, Forest Shuffle. Although it's not just Forest Shuffle, it's the latest expansion for Forest Shuffle. And shoot, I have totally forgotten which one it is because right now I'm showing on screen just regular forest shuffle because I do not have a run through for this new Forest Shuffle. Oh, now I got to pause and um look it up. Oh my goodness. Where are you? Oh, folks. You'd think I've been doing this for over a decade now.

33:01 You'd think I'd be a little bit more prepared, wouldn't you? And yet, I am not. Um, all righty. It is forest. All right. Okay. There it is. Yeah. Fine. Let's let's let's start over. Uh folks, number four of the month is Forest Shuffle Woodlands Edge. And here's the deal, folks. Everybody loves Forest Shuffle except for me. Um when it originally came out and Jen I first played it, that was her game of the month, one of her top 10 games of the year. And so many people love this game. I believe you can play it on Board Game Arena online. And there are people who have played it hundreds of times, thousands of times now. And I totally understand why. It is at its heart such a brilliant simple card drafting game where you've got a group of cards in your hand and you've got every turn you're wanting to play one but you have to sacrifice other cards to play the ones you want. The cards you get rid of race for the galaxy style end up going to a public display which means other players could start grabbing those cards. So it's got that you know um uh Rhiner Kenitia uh Lost Cities vibe where you're careful about everything that you are discarding to play what you want to play. But what are you playing? You're playing uh beautiful trees that become the epicenter of uh flora and fauna that grows out from that tree, animals that use it for shelter, other um you know uh plants that grow at the foot of it for shade and all that kind of stuff. And every card you play gives you a new way to score points at the end of the game because they all combo in all kinds of

34:32 interesting ways with the other types of plants. Like is playing here's the runrough we did for the channel. He's he's obviously going heavy for rabbits. You can see on his um one, he hasn't even gotten a second tree planted yet, although you might ultimately have three or four. You might have a tree heavy strategy, not get much um you know, stuff other than the trees themselves because trees have different ways to score points. Anyway, it's a brilliant game. Um and the thing that always bugged me about it, and having played it again, it still bugs me is each card has two halves. You could play it for the left half or the right half, as Guerilla is showing here. um you know or you know either the door mouse or the bat or you sometimes they're split on the horizontal so you can play it for the top or the bottom and that's brilliant but that means if you've got a hand of seven cards you really got 14 cards to choose from and that's already a lot to juggle but the problem is you know you can look I mean Ru can't see all what has he got he's got six cards he can't see all 12 cards because you honestly you can only see half of a given card as you shuffle them out this is like the ultimate example of a game that I think is better played online on Board Game Arena than it is in real life because of this. And so that's why, you know, I I think the game design is brilliant. And I know there's a lot of people who swear up and down that it's all kinds of broken with different balance issues. I give the developers a little bit more credit than just random folks who are playing it online. I believe they've run the math and they've figured out how to balance things out. I know there's a common complaint. That doesn't

36:02 bother me. Plus, it's such a fast game, even if there's a little bit of bounce. The thing is, they're multi-use cards. If you think if you get a card that you don't think is very powerful, great. Discard it to play another card that you think is powerful. I mean, on some level, the cards can't be underpowered because the most valuable use of any card is a resource. Play something else. Anyway, though, that's just talking about Forest Shuffle, which I've done before in the roundup. I should really be talking about um the Woodlands Edge expansion. So, what does it add? The most important thing is it adds an alternative to trees. Uh they are called um shrubs. So you can build a shrub that becomes the epicenter uh in the same way a tree would where you know you can have birds on the top of it and you can have fungus grow below it and they they function the same but the difference is the trees generally just give you ways to score points, right? So you get a tree in play and then right I want to score points off that tree for the rest of the game. If instead you play a shrub, it gives you a new special power that you try to leverage. And that's phenomenal. The sooner you can play a shrub in this game, the sooner that gives you a new objective that you're going to try and pursue. Now, of course, trees do that as well. Oh, I played this tree. It means I really got to do a lot of this particular type of thing, but a cool special power instead of a is much more fun than just a new way to um score points. And so, I love the shrubs. I I think they're great. I think they're a wonderful addition to the game. The other main thing, it adds, I don't know, like a dozen new cards. And from what I understand from people who are much more

37:32 in the know about the balance levels of forest shuffle, these cards go a long way towards addressing the perceived imbalance or the weakness of bats and boores. People say that those are the two weakest cards in the game. Well, a lot of those shrubs reward you for bats. And there are other ways you can score points off the bores. Now, so if you are somebody who believes that there was a an, you know, an imbalance there, well, then you want to get this expansion solely to help address that. Me personally, I don't see the need there. For me, it is much more valuable to have a new way to get special powers. I love special powers. Heck, I would love for the game to say, you know what, everybody starts with a shrub. Hey, get all, you know, you know, there were a bunch of starter shrubs and everybody gets one right from the get-go. That'd be phenomenal. They don't do that. You might play a whole game and never get a shrub to play for yourself. That's too bad. Um, they are cool, the ones I have seen. So, as far as I'm concerned, if you love force shuffle, this is a must-have for multiple different reasons. It doesn't resolve my issue with force shuffle, which is just the fundamental issue of prea digitation, the holding these things in your hand and not being able to see and keep track of all this stuff for me has always been a barrier to entry. But my wife still loves this game to pieces and I've got to try the other expansion. So, I'm going to be seeking them out in the future. But for now, I am going to I'm putting in the middle of the pack this month, folks. Forest Shuffle with the Woodlands Edge expansion. I'd say it's a mustave expansion if you love it. Okay, let's go on now

39:05 to Excuse me. Needs more water. Oh my goodness. All righty. Phew. Brew. Number three of the month is The Great Harbor. Now, I should say this was a game I did a sponsored preview for as crowdfunding. And this is a dice worker placement game about um building ships and building up the the ancient city of Carthage and building ships in that ancient city um to send those merkantile ships out into the Mediterranean to engage in um not battles but um you know uh you know acts of mercantileism you know sailing far and wide to bring all kinds of stuff back to the city and score lots of points. Now, the heart of the game is it is a dice worker placement game, which by the way, you can watch me play this.

39:53 I've already done a full run through of it. Link down in the show notes, uh, like everything else I'm talking about in today's roundup. Uh, links for everything down in the show notes. But, um, uh, what makes this special is the workplacement board is randomly generated. You take a bunch of tiles, slot them all together, and it creates a bunch of different areas you can go to after you're done drafting your dice where high value dice are important. This is a game where higher value dice are better, but color of the dye is even more important because the color of a die determines where you can use that die in the city because as part of setting up the board, let me see if I can if there's ever a moment where I zoomed in on the board. There we go. Zoomed in on the board. You can see um like this space right here, you could put a yellow or a blue dye. This space, you could only put a red die. This space, you could put a yellow or a red dye. And so if I have a yellow six, I could put it in this space. And then I could take those six pips of power and split them between this action and this action. That's the crux of the worker placement in this game. And it's fantastic. Both Jen and I adore it. Love it to pieces. It is great. Um, and uh there's some other tricks too. If you put dice on the outskirts of the city, well, you don't get a choice of how to split the pips. And it's interesting once you put like let's see, do I have any dice on the outskirts? Like this two over here um on the outskirts, which let me um only access that. That means if I come to this Irving, but it comes to this spot later on, this um two that I

41:26 placed previously becomes a drag on trying to activate this. Putting stuff on the outskirts makes things less powerful later on. And so turn order is everything in this game. And that's uh goes back to every gamer game. You're going to draft dice and you want to draft low value dice because whoever has the lowest value collection of dice gets to go first. And turn order is everything here. But then that means you're stuck with lower value dice and you can't do as much. So you want to grab the highest value dice you could. But then it means you're going to go last. all the really great spots you wanted to take have been taken by other players because again, you know, I mean, this die could go there because a yellow or a blue could go there. And if um I wanted to go there with my highv value die, but then somebody else went there with a yellow one, now I've got to take my yellow six someplace else and try to, you know, make a lemonade out of those lemons. The worker placement of this game is phenomenal. next level brilliant between the modular board and um so it you know it changes up you know in this game you know collecting steel and building ships they were right next to each other so those two actions are really intertwined and in a different game they might be on the opposite side so it changes the feel that's only half the game we're getting these resources so we can build up our section of Carthage build more housing to bring in more population we can use those population for various things to get discounts or harvest resources or make our merkantile ships more powerful But at the end of the day, the number one thing we're trying to do is build

42:57 ships. Um because at the end of a round after all the worker placement is done, if you have a ship, you can begin to play a push your luck miniame where um your ships will set sail and go further and further and further into the um the you know down the ANC to engage in mercantile trade. The problem is every step your ship takes further and further from port, you're going to run a foul of more and more pirates. And the pirates, if you do not have enough defenses to take them out, they will damage your ship and send you home early with nothing. You will. And that can be painful. Uh it can be hugely painful, hugely punitive, especially like if you push your luck really hard. Uh you you made a super powerful ship. It's almost entirely unlikely that any pirate could take it out. You decide to sail to the far ends of, you know, the Aian. And then at the last second, a one in six chance that a highle pirate comes along comes along and smacks you down. And now you have to spend the next three rounds sailing all the way home and you get nothing for it.

44:03 Honestly, this is my single biggest issue with the game. The the swinginess of that push your luck game is so huge and so debilitating. This been my game of the month quite frankly cuz I love the worker placement here. And you know, even with this incredibly swingy push your luck, I still rate this game very, very highly. I would happily play it right now cuz it is full of I didn't even touch the I mean there's color matching and all kinds of secret bonuses you're trying to pursue. all kinds of special powers for the buildings you build and you know the the the the royal the the the famous personages and there's so many things that go into this game, but the worker placement is fantastic. And so this worker placement fused with a very very let's say dramatic push your luck game makes something really special. Now, if you want to see more, you can check out my run through links down in the show notes, but uh those are the highs and why uh it didn't come in higher. But even still, my number three of the month is a very, very high recommendation for The Great Harbor. Okay, now let's move on to number two of the month, Monster Rock.

45:14 Now, there is no video out there anywhere. This game, I don't think it's going to be crowdfunding, and I'm going to be doing a sponsored playthrough in the coming months. I don't think it's going to crowdfund till sometime in summer. But this is the latest game from Martin Wallace and uh although he's really the co-designer I believe the lead designer on it is Amanda Mil who has worked with him on like Australia and some other designs in the past. But anyway, anytime you put Martin Wallace's name on the box, I'm going to be there. I'm going to want to check it out. And Jen and I have played this game now. Um and we think it's fantastic. Um, I like said I'm going to be covering it in the future, so I probably don't want to spend too much time on it right now, but let me go on ahead and find a good picture. I think there's a good Yeah, there's here's a picture that shows it set up. Um, what is this game? We are um, you know, the leaders of a oop, I need to resize this window a little bit so you can see the whole picture. There we go. Okay. We are a a fantasy high fantasy rock and roll band. Um, you know, and I should say first of all, some people might have a problem with this game solely because it is choa block full of classic 60s and 70s and some 80s rock and roll puns. You know, the names of your bands, the cards that reference different songs and all that. You love it or you hate it. Um, both Jen and I loved it. In fact, when we were playing it, we had our, you know, our um our voice assistant every time we played a new card that was Oh, I

46:46 recognize that song. Hey, Alex, play that song. And we would play through that song just, you know, kind of upbeat the ambiance. We really love that. We got into the theme. Um, but even if you don't care about that or you don't care about classic rock and roll, this is a really sharp game where on your turn, okay, I'm going to be doing I'm just going to go through it really quick. You can move your touring band one, two, or zero, one or two spaces on a uh board that is full is randomly generated full of cards that represent different opportunities. Um concert venues you can play um for different fantasy races. The elves value different things in the undead in the music you play or new opportunities to get inspiration and sing songs or to collect resources or to get new equipment for your band or training for your band. So, um, but, um, you know, it's all about building up your band and getting more and more of these different skill tokens on your band's board because these represent whether you can play more bass, you can take it to an 11. Um, I mean, the the Spinal Tap uh, vibe is strong in this game. Um, but as you customize your band and get more and more skills on your board, you have a collection of cubes that represent your stamina. How exhausted? Because to use these skills, you have to put stamina tokens on them.

48:03 And eventually, you're going to get so exhausted, you can't do anything more. Which means every once in a while, you will take a break from traveling around the board and seeking out opportunities that are constantly shifting and changing because every time somebody visits a location, gets that card, suddenly it's a new action that people can do. And so, you're constantly zipping around. Oh my gosh, that's not the perfect concert venue for me. I got to get over there fast. I don't have enough time. But hey, I have a tour van. I'm going to use some of my stamina to get over there really quick before somebody else does and put on a concert for the uh for the dwarves because um you know their headbanging metal is exactly the type of stuff I can play or whatever it might be. Um and that core gameplay of traveling around harvesting the resources you need to be to make a stronger band. It's almost kind of an engine building game to then go and use those skills is satisfying in of itself.

48:52 But that's only half the game because in this um it's it's a modern day world but a high fantasy world as well. There is an evil king who rules the land with an iron fist. And not only are we trying to be the best rock and roll band we can and get huge record sales because that translates to points and it's a way to level up. We're also trying to spark a rebellion. We are the ultimate rock and roll mavericks trying to, you know, speak truth to power and fight the power and all of that. So, the right half of the board is full of bigger venues and bigger rewards we can get if we um head over there. But every time we interact with one of those cards, we then have to draw an event card blind and deal with it. And the thing is these event cards, this kind of hearkens back to a Martin Wallace design like a study in Emerald or um the uh oh, what was it? Um, I can't think of the other one. Oh, that's going to drive me nuts. Now I need to look it up because that's going to drive me bonkers.

50:02 Okay, I again, why don't I just spend five seconds making sure I've got all my notes ready? Martin Wallace, what is the game? I'm thinking Discworld. Discworld Enk Morpark. This is Discworld Enk Morpark. Um, you know, studying Emerald. uh style game from Martin Wallace because these event cards that come up are so it is such an incredibly wide varied deck of all kinds of effects. You know, good things that can happen to you, bad things that can happen to you, changing things, you know, new cards will come out that fundamentally change the rules of the game for you and everybody else until they eventually go away. um the events that start feeding in and every time you play, you never know what you're going to get, but everybody's racing to get to that side because that's where the fun factor comes in. You will never play two games of Monster Rock in a row that come out the same because that event deck is so far out with so many fun swingy things.

51:03 Now, this is as part of competitive game. So, some people might say, "Oh, well, that's not fair because I might get a really debilitating thing and you might get a really good one. Who knows?" It's a quick game though and honestly in any other game design I might be bothered by the swinginess of these events. I'm generally not a fan of blind events but these ones are so fun and so thematic. They just feel great and so I love it in spite of that. Now there's one more thing I haven't mentioned about this game that I'm also very excited about. Jen and I, we have only played the um what do you call it? The competitive mode. It has a co-op mode as well. And I am definitely going to be playing that before I do my run through because I think that would go a long ways towards um ensuring that hey if anybody is bothered by swingy events that could pen you know punish somebody else and um you know while they benefit you well play it cooperatively because then everybody revels or despairs depending on what events you're going to pick up along the way. This game watch for it. Like I said it's going to be crowdfunding later in the year. I'll have a sponsored playthrough when it does. And um I I will have played it more because this is one of the few games that Jenna that I was so excited about that I actually carried with me in my carry-on baggage to bring over to Ireland because anytime you get a new Martin Wallace and I think this might be one of my favorite Martin Wallace games.

52:28 Now again I have to give some credit to Amanda Milis co-designer. I think she was actually the lead designer and Martin Wallace was working with. But regardless, Amanda and Martin have produced something that I think a lot of people are going to fall in love with. Um, you you know, in spite of its cheesy, punny nature, uh, this game is phenomenal. It is the number two best game that Jen and I played this month. Watch for it in the future, folks. Monster Rock. But now, let's uh go to my number one game of the month from one of my favorite designer/arts out there. It is Six Sojourns. Now, I've already done a sponsored preview for it, so you can go check that out right now. Link down in the show notes. And this is Ryan Lockett revisiting one of his earliest published games, 8minute Empires. This is actually the first Ryan Lockett game I ever played. And to this day, even it has survived so many calls from my shelf because it's such an incredible design.

53:29 I've always been so impressed by 8minute Empire and its expansion content that year after year when so many other games fell by the wayside, it stayed on my shelf year after year after year. In spite of the fact that 8-minute empire before it and now six solds is a fairly aggressive in-your-face dudes on a map area majority game where every round we are moving our troops around on this fantasy map trying to uh stake claims over all the different regions to score big points. And so there's a little bit of you know rough and tumble in this game. That's generally not something that Care Bear players like me and Jen are attracted to. But 8-minute empire before it and now six solds has always been such a brilliant fast playing design that it's one of those rarest things an airy majority conflict heavy game that Jen and I love to pieces which is why I have kept it so long. But I should say I date Minute Empire is now gone from my shelves. I sent off to the Dice Star West Convention Library because six sojourns is better in every way for gens and my tastes. Now, if you want to know more about why, you can check out my preview that's already been posted. Um, but there are a bunch of small little tweaks and big epic changes that just I mean to me it just reflects Ryan Lockett's growth and evolution as a designer. Like I said, this was one of his first ever games he put out. He has done so many amazing industry changing

55:00 games since then. Um, so for me it was very exciting to get to revisit one of those old ones and see what would he change, what would he tweak, what would he modify to make a new experience. And like I said, folks, u you can go check out my run through to see it in action. Suffice to say, it's brilliant and I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of it. So this is my go-to um, you know, area battle game. If anybody ever comes to my house and wants to play it, they're going to be playing Six Sjuns with me because it's brilliant and it is our game of the month. Okay, and that's it, folks. Oh my gosh. All right, I'm under an hour. Under an hour and I think I am out of here. I think Jen is just about done out there. She's been doing some gardening. Uh she's been very much loving that. Uh our dogs love it here, too. There's Daisy. She is just plum tuckered out. cannot go uh another hour, but the sun hasn't set yet. One last look at the beautiful um you know, spiritlifting view we have every moment of our lives. I am so happy and so excited uh to start this new chapter and um I'm happy you are here with me, folks. And uh if you have any questions, like I said, down in the comments, if you have any recommendations for folks who are in the know about uh recent immigrants to Ireland, please let me know. We are learning a lot of stuff the hard way on this move. And um that's it, folks. Another monthly roundup done and

56:32 dusted. And I will be back again next month uh to tell you about what Jen and I play in the month of April. So, I'm going to end it right there. and say thanks so much for watching. And hey, there's a bunch of other stuff you can click. So many things on this channel. Anyway, I'll see you again next month, everybody. Talk to you later. So long. Bye-bye.