Emerge: Discussion

0:09 some viewers may find the following video disturbing viewer discretion is advised hey everyone welcome back to board games unlocked and Brad and I are doing a discussion over emerge one of the newest games by pandasaurus uh I knew absolutely nothing about this game uh you brought it over I bought it because my wife lik the looks of it and that was the reason fa that's fair uh I like the art um pandasaurus is an interesting company because I feel like they got put on the map with Dinosaur Island and their dinosaur games and I'm trying to think of any of their non dinosaur games after us we kind of liked that was okay but it was easy yeah it was quick but like if it was just the right length and fox experiment that we we haven't played yet I haven't played Fox that's true I've heard Fox experiment is good um they're kickstarters not all of them I guess I shouldn't say that that wouldn't be a best Kickstarter seem to be better yeah I know a lot of people like skate summer I thought it was okay um and that's kind of where they sit for me like I think emerge is okay I don't dislike it I just kind of felt like it was a what whatever game and the thing it's like they just this game kind of like wants to be

1:40 more complicated but also not at the same time cuz you're literally your entire game is rolling dice hoping that you can get sets of numbers to place meeples on it and I know that sounds reductive and I don't usually like doing that for games where it's like all you're doing is moving on a on a map that's it but it's like whenever your entire turn is dictated by well I didn't get a single three really needed that because uh threes were my turtles I can't get Turtles now therefore I can't get seals that all my dice happen to roll and the goals are about placing seals on different Islands which I can't do um and there are ways to mitigate your D results but they're limited like you have to have the uh Discovery tile um or perhaps if you're lucky and got a research tile that let you do that but even then I mean how many times have did you roll to still never get a result that you need same stuff yeah that it's like okay I guess that's that and we've played a couple games specifically today that kind of have some mitigation but they're also short this game wasn't really all that short enough to Warrant having this dice system I wasn't a fan uh I think it's just I think it's just kind of an okay

3:11 game what do you think of emerge I I think it's very forgettable you're right like I don't I saying okay is even too too high I really I like if I didn't play it anymore it would be perfectly fine it didn't and it's just not there's nothing to it yeah there's so many so many more games of the same length and stuff I I think the gimmick that they took with this was like oh we're going 3D with our Islands you know it's like I think that was the whole thing you know and it's not you know it's like it's literally the stacking of these tiles is just to be a multiplier yeah and you know I don't know the idea of Discovery is not there like literally it's like there's no theme here either cuz it's it's whenever you have the tiles that are stacked and then you're like I got two twos I discovered a crab yeah next turn maybe I'll get three threes to get a turtle uh I mean and every now and then those games come out that they're just so what like diece settler you remember when that game came out that's kind of like what is this uh and it was immediately forgotten mhm um I just don't know who this is for like I don't and another thing like to

4:42 make this game a little bit more interesting if you could actually spend two dice to get a research tile from the market and use it on that same turn yeah that would have made it a little bit more interesting that was kind of a play I was going to make at one point and you beat me because I couldn't do that right I cuz I was going to buy that one that let me build a large and then I had I had the seals right and then but you you got the seal thing ahead of me because I couldn't do all of them at once yeah and and I find that to be just a really dumb decision because if cuz that would make you want to like try and combo and be like oh man I really want to roll let me spend I'll spend these two dice to go and out and grab that reroll research tile but once you do that you can no longer discover stuff for whatever reason it's so stupid because the the modifier phase where you're just taking that it's like yeah okay you can now if you're really wanting to go crabs you can now take a crab tile and place that into your tooth so now twos and threes work for crabs but eventually that just feels this game kind of feels very deterministic M you have to place crabs on an island before you can place um seals yeah or before you can place Turtles you have to place Turtles before you can place seals um and trees you can place up to four they

6:13 you need more dice to do that unless you have research tokens that say otherwise or Hey whenever you steal a bird place two trees on the island and lands on okay well that cost me three dice to steal a bird off your Island and now I could get two trees so that it's kind of a couple Point swing yippe yeah like and then whenever you're setting up the game it's it's mindboggling cuz it's like you're setting up all these pieces and giving everyone their stuff and you think it's going to be complex and then it's like not at all that's what I was saying at the beginning when you were sitting there looking in the rule book and we were getting a setup I was like this game looks like it it's going to be super simple but a lot of just extra crap that right and then when we started playing it's like well yeah you just rolling dice them do that that's that's the game that's that's literally it and what's also weird is like in a two-player game you have these research tokens that are face down um and they eventually become revealed as the game goes on where you're limited on where your Islands can be uh cuz you have to obviously build them up so you have the small Islands so once you place them down there's like no real reason to wait especially because it's not like o like the research tiles don't get better and you can just build them wherever so you can just pop them early on but you're not sure what you're going to get so you're not going to wait till the

7:43 end till they're mostly revealed and then go out and start building because you're just not going to have yeah you get more dice to place but you're still riant on them being rolled and so you're not going to be able to do anything on the last minute Island so yeah you're going to pop them early uh and then you're G to just stack them on that so it's wherever everyone starts on the on the board that's what they're going to focus on because you're going to level those up you're going to be able to get more of those mles on it to then make it a multiplier yeah that's it this game has a lot of components just to have a lot of components yes that that and the long board like if they would have made it just a normal square board and then just had the boat go in a circle yeah you know I mean cuz if you're four players it doesn't matter if two start you know like it's not you know how like movies get made sometimes and it's like this movie wanted to be way more artsy and deep than it actually ends up being like it almost comes off as pompous that's what I feel like with like this design is like this board is long just for it to be like look how artistic we are well that's what I was meaning if you in the back of the box and that's one of the reasons my wife wanted the game you look at the back of the box oh 3D elements you know deals you know it looks but then that's that's it I mean the highlight of this game is the 3D element and that's not even a

9:13 highlight that's just it's just a visual you know like if you if this half of the board was covered up somebody walked past it be like maybe give it a second glance to look at that but then they're going to see all this oh the game's finished right and it's like what's what happened on side of the well nothing that's that's the nothing I discovered everything on these islands and uh well hey there's a whale on the don't wrong I like the art um I I I like the the I don't even know what kind of art that would be uh now this isn't an art that would make me go oh o but it's like oh yeah that's nice uh I don't think the 3D elements I don't think it's cool like it's you're it's flat wider pieces of the same art style right but for the people this is geared towards I think it's the catch them like my wife who's not who isn't a big into buying games and stuff that she looks at the back of the box and she's like oh this looks cool yeah you know if it was just all flat like if it was just every island was L like this and you're putting stuff on there then you know but it's it's it was it's a probably a stylized marketing thing and or pandasaurus was like hey we have an intern who wants to design games let's uh this is his only game right um and obviously I'm not like I don't think this like I've played worse games yeah it's not a bad design it's just it's just you know like if we're we're currently in the in the throws of

10:45 do in our top 10 games of the year and top 10 worst or disappointing it's not hitting worst or it's not hitting disappointing because it's nothing of a game because we went into this with zero expectations we I almost kind of went into it expecting it to to be the greatest thing in the world right and you know so that way and that's what says something about it because it was like if you go in with low expectations and it still doesn't meet your expectations then then you're like well then yeah that's sometimes you go in like oh this game's going to suck and it's oh I'm pleasantly surprised but this one just was what I thought it was going to be yeah I'm like that's yep games like like you score it uh at the very least they could have given a scor pad uh but not even that so it's like okay here's my multiplier and and that's the final score okay that was that moving moving right along to the very next thing and it is unfortunate because I've always had the argument of what's worse a really bad game or a painfully mediocre game and I am proven time and time again that a painfully mediocre game is worse than an inherently bad game um just because you can have fun with like you can have fun with d fun bad movies oh yeah if they're like such nothing movies that you're like I'm now mad this game didn't make make me mad but I feel nothing yeah like uh and I'm and I'm trying to like think of positive things to say but at the end of the day you're right it's completely forgettable um and I'm going to have to play it again because my wife's going to

12:16 want to play it maybe it'll be better maybe it'll be better on on a replay cuz that's the other thing it's like even um in terms of variety like your the way that the Go Cards come out is you can't have two of the same type so basically you can't have two with the same picture on it right there's only a couple of each picture so there's not that much Variety in the scorekeeping it's very simple place a turtle on a large island okay um the discoveries are going to be the same it's literally just going to be the trees topography meele so there's just nothing here that would warrant even a replay where it's like like I mean we just kind of talked about game that was that was know it was all right forever home it's like well that one has at least has replayability right uh this one like I think the research tiles are boring uh I think I spent 50 bucks on the game too you spent $45 paying for the artist and five bucks for the game design I'd rather have spent the 25 on forever home like I did it's I'd rather spend the 25 twice on forever home um yeah uh I'm just I'm I'm I'm not I'm I'm not impressed another pandasaurus swinging a Miss yeah yeah they're kind of one of those designers that Dinosaur Island is great dinosaur world is great dinosaur roar and wri is great I've been hearing great things about Fox experiment so fingers crossed

13:48 you know what's funny about Fox experiment though is it has like a six point something on BGG and I'm like but it was like in a lot of people's top 10 of the year and I've heard good things I I still need to give it a shot yeah um Elizabeth hardgrave so I'm excited for that but I think you might be on something with their kickstarters they have more time it's like they take longer to work them out instead of just plugging them out they're one of those companies that feel like they we got to put out four games this this year we're going to put them out Dead Man's cabal was a Kickstarter of theirs I think and that one was from what I remember yeah yeah that was uh but I think that was like a first-time designer or something but they I again I know a lot of people like skate summer had that one had some cool ideas so maybe they are just one of those companies that cast a wide net lets firsttime designers try and if that is their like publishing philosophy I think that's a good philosophy to have someone will like this game yeah like I I I'm not sitting here saying this game is for no one I don't know who it's for it got a 6 it has a 6.9 it has virtually the same rating as forever home on BG they're the same way yeah this but here's the thing you mentioned that and I was like there's but this game feels like it it should be more complicated but I feel like it's actually less strategic than forever home right uh so I don't know I don't know how this was made I'm just he's a first-time designer so that's just kind

15:19 of going to be what it is uh sometimes you have those designers who come in and it's like oh this is their first game I'm keeping an eye on you here it's like I don't even remember your name and I literally just looked to see who it was yeah that's not really a dig at him as a person but it's like cuz sometimes you get those again where you're like when you see like a bad actor and you're like was that writing was that direction why is are they a bad actor you don't really have that with board games you can't be like well was it the was it pandasaurus making him it's like no he's a designer it's all falls on him so I I I don't know cuz you mentioned after us which obviously wasn't Kickstarter that that had enough where you where you were kind of like thinking about us as you were doing more puzzly it was a lot more puzzly it's like oh yeah okay this is this is pretty neat um production quality is good yeah I'll give him that so but that's not really a designer thing I'm stretching I'm stretching for things to things to say good or bad uh scale of 1 to 10 what do you given emerge a zero nothing out of 10 because well no I meant just because like I remember when dice aters came out it's like I remember Z talking about I don't know what to score because this game is such a nothing game like I mean I guess I was trying to go between three and four okay like maybe four we'll go

16:50 four four cuz the Art's decent the meeples are kind of cool looking they are cool looking all the C4 yeah um I'm kind of in that same boat of dice settlers like when you said this game is forgettable it absolutely is five feels too high yeah I was going below that average so yeah cuz I'm thinking of like other games that I give fives to that would be the Benchmark but I don't give a lot of fives uh I'm I'll I'll put it out a five um usually five my Benchmark for five or like if someone were to ask me to play I'm probably saying no and if someone would be like you want to play a merge no like no not really I'm G to have to yeah you're you're going to have to uh you know what my ranking is an NA out of 10 like non-applicable because any number feels too high but it's not like I'm not giving it a one oh no but H whatever it's a five I'll give it a five I'm in a generous mood today h you're welcome anyway that's our thoughts on the merge let us know what you think of the game in the comments below other than that like comment share and subscribe and have a wonderful whatever time of day is for you hey everyone thank you for watching and I really hope that you enjoyed the video if you would like to see more of my content go ahead and click that subscribe button and the bell to be notified whenever I upload

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