The Border - Michael Kieslings Awesome Roll and Write!

[Music] hi it's Taryn and Stella from Maple University today we have the Border by NS fee this game plays two to four players and this is by one of the designers anyway Michael kisling which designed lots of well-known games such as Azul Soul stained glass of sintra it's all Queen's Garden a little summer pavilionic expansion it's all chocolate anyways Miyabi and so on anymore many more so this is a raw and Ride game and you might say rolling right do we need moral and right maybe you do maybe you don't this has got quite a unique thing to it as well you might be interested so we're gonna take you to the overview quickly and then what we think of it but first this is also die straight I think this is a felt there this is quite nice small box with the uh with the filter in there yeah so this is a [Music] um the border is all about you've got this map and you're trying to encircle these landmarks there's nine nine landmarks there first person to encircle a landmark gets the higher number of points anyone else who does say gets the lower number and once somebody has completed six the game is over um as simple as that it is a lead and leftover sort of game so there will be one lead player on any given turn who gets to Yahtzee roll these dice let me uh let you guys who rule it there we go that's a good result not a very illustrative result actually let's just yeah okay so we do do a yahtzee roll and then the lead player gets to cross off anywhere on their map based on the colors rolled as long as they completely finish a colored segment anyway on the board yeah yeah so here three blue that means I could cross off these three blue here or these two blue here and leave one left over usually good to them also I would cross off three like so now because I because there's no single green section or single orange section those are left over and so all of the inactive players now get to use the leftover dice but they don't have to completely fill in a region they can just start slowly filling a region but they're restricted to going adjacent to crosses they already have so with this green and orange left over all I could do would be cross green and orange because those the only ones Jason you can see that this is slightly asymmetrical yes same shape different colors yeah then play would go to the next play out and the next play would be the lead would start to do a yahtzee roll in the same way let's let's do this like so all right so now if we look at this I've got the same restrictions I've got two Reds which I could use to cross off these two Reds my orange this is now I would now only need two oranges to fill in this but I don't have two oranges I only have one and I've got two greens this is an interesting situation I only need one green to fill this one in so I would only use one of the greens and I don't have a two green anywhere else so now I've used these I've left these ones for the opponent the opponent would go and uh do likewise so cross in this grin or you know whatever there's actually no greens or oranges adjacent to those but there's a green there and an orange there yeah and so on so that is that is fundamentally the game you keep playing until the turn in which someone completes a sixth uh a sixth drawing and you can possibly do a seventh or even an eighth if you really time it perfectly and whoever gets the most points wins this is the game that you're trying to reach for the Sun as some famous or inFAMOUS YouTuber seed but then ended up in the Dead yeah yeah it's interesting in that way because it has this um yeah I you don't really see it in the in the Roland right genre that often but yeah you've got you've got your Yahtzee roll and once you've only got these big chunks left you know you can get in a situation where you're really trying to make that last roll work and if it doesn't your opponents could get five dice to play with yeah if it works then yeah you it looks great and if you use all five of your advice the opponents do still get one but yeah it can all go horribly wrong and it means there's a surprise for what sounds really simple there's a surprising amount of strategy in using the leftover dice to create situations where you've always got things you can close off on top of that there is also a race to complete the border to get the higher Point not the lower point so that's part of the strategy and part of the reasons why you want to reach for the sun because you want to be the first one that completes it if no one else has especially look 12 points is the biggest one or four is the lowest one as the first player that completes it yeah it has it has a different feel to most rolling rights out there I would say it's most similar probably to Copenhagen um that one right with the rolling right because that one you don't get a yahtzee roll in that one you just get a single roll plus any bonuses but it has that same thing of whatever you don't use your opponents can I think they can only pick up one but it still has that feel and it's it's exceedingly simple like it's realistic that was basically a how to play there's nothing else you would need to know yeah I mean the first time you have to really think okay so you can do as an active layer you have to close an area and non-active player you have to be adjacent to the next one and then trying to make your area kind of like smaller so when you are the active players you can close it and then you have to look it's it's interactive and it's if even if it's not in a way even though it's if it's not your and you'll be like oh what do I get this thing that space-based feeling you know where oh what do I get this active player you'll get something at least one if the active player used all the five dice but you were kind of hoping that oh hopefully they can't use anything it's kind of like I feel like being mean like that like hopefully they don't use anything we get all five and that actually does and it also makes for an interesting decision Point as the lead player towards the end when if a lot of green has been coming out early in the game yeah you know that it might be better to just not re-roll the greens and give everyone dice they can't use yes uh re-roll trying to get that one extra die that you can use yes yes when things get tight it actually does introduce another little element to it so strategy and yeah towards the end you fill up your green color or something like okay just lift the green for either please um yeah so I quite like it it is a very dry game um and it is it might be a tad long as well you do get most of your board filled in it kind of it's timing on those very last turns that's actually likely to decide the game yeah and given that maybe it's a tad long but it's different and it's different in a way that I I found refreshing yeah yeah so the Border this is recommended for a simple game that place two to four players to be honest when I saw oh Michael kisling but they're like that looks a bit dry and the mechanic a bit dry but not until we play it like oh that's actually interesting some interesting decisions and that is the Border hopefully you enjoy that uh look it up if you have played it let us know what you think of it as well if you can please hit the like button we'll be really grateful and please subscribe if you haven't already done so hit the middle and hit the Bell so you get that notification when we have review like this how to play martial and Suites live later on the weekend and so on I'm also on Instagram hopefully we can find each other there and we'll hopefully see you next time thanks so much for watching bye