A lighter, tighter experience! - Oil Rock Board Game Review
Transcript
Hello everyone. This is Sedan
and this is Johannes
and you're watching Board Gaming Ramblings
and today we are taking a look at Oil Rock. This is an upcoming Spiel game. This was a review copy sent to us from the publisher. Thank you so much for that. If you are going to Spiel and you want to see games like this, maybe you will even see us because we're going to be there. We're going to walk around. We're going to get games. We're going to play games. We're going to talk to people because we like talking to people. If you want to say hi, you can just come up and say hi say hi. But if you don't want to or if you want to do it anyways, you can show us the secret sign that looks like this, we will be very happy for that because it makes us happy and we will give you the secret sign back.
If you want to make sure where to find us, we will be at the Allian booth Saturday from 2 to 7 and Sunday from 10 to 2. If you want to come by, say hi, or maybe play time span or something like that. With that said, we're going to talk about this game, Oil Rock. In this game, we are oil people.
Mhm. Not made of oil, but like oil barons. Is that what you call it? Yeah. Like we are business people trying to drill oil on this map, moving around on it. We're not actually drilling oil on this map. We're drilling oil on this board, which is a player board. But this is a worker placement game. I'm going to try to do this overview in a timely manner. You'll be placing your workers to do different actions, like for example, move your locomotive, your train around to get bonuses. and also basically get new places where you can build your liquor factories. You can then build the factories. You can drill build the drills. So you can get more oil. You can get cards that gives you either instant abilities, ongoing abilities or final scorings. And you can also move on the progress track because when you move on the progress track, then your character will evolve, giving you better income and better bonus actions that you will be able to take throughout the game. After everybody has placed their workers, you will be doing some middle of round, not middle of round, end of round scoring. Each of the four rounds will have a different scoring condition that you will score.
And then you will also before that you will also get new oil which I have placed here already. You can then use the oil. For example, I can take a yellow and a green and I can refine that into being three tools. I think that's how it is in in the real life as well is that oh, I have this oil here. I'm going to put it into this machine and out comes the tools. And this is basically the resource conversion. And the more of these refineries you build, the better they will become. After you have built six of them, you will start flipping this around. They will get even better and score your victory points and other resources that you need. You'll be able to build these turbines to basically make it better. So it will get more stuff done when you use it. You can only use once one each uh one use one each. Use each one once each round. That was the tongue twister I was trying to say.
And at the end of this phase, you can only keep one of each barrel of oil for the next round. This one of the main ways of getting resources so you don't have to use other bad ways to get resources because you need all the resources all the time. Of the four rounds, there going to be some final scoring for the final scoring cards and if you have managed to build from seven up and not seven up the soda depending on if you have both turbins there or not. And there's some other final scoring as well. There's some bonus action you can do. We're not going to go into detail about everything because this isn't a rules video, but this was a rules overview and now you understand a little bit about the game hopefully before Sunwell starts talking about it. This going to be happen in three, two, one, go.
Let's start talking about the worker placement mechanism because we have two types of workers. I didn't know if you mentioned it.
I didn't. I thought you were doing
Yes. Let's talk about that now. Uh these small workers, I don't know.
I think you assistants.
Assistants and managers. I don't know.
It's bigger.
Um, yeah, it's bigger. Uh, better, stronger, faster
on the inside.
Yes. Uh, and these smaller ones you can place on these single action spaces. But the big cool worker dude, he's assigned between two actions. So, he can do both, which is super cool. And you get more of those when you upgrade your player person. when you get more progress basically thematic basically it's not a game where you get more workers but you get basically an action that can do basically a double action so you basically get more done in those basic three turns that you already have
and this is set up for a two-player game but it it's more more things going on in a for three and four player game and each round this is going to move and then it will be another combination of two actions available able you can try to plan after that or you can do as I do and take is just like it's it goes
because there's always good things you can do and this is a like the action spots that you can choose from like it might be in a position where I have to do a specific thing because as we're going to talk about soon it's a pretty tight game. You can also copy the other players. Does that feel good?
No. uh you lose progress doing that and also the person you're copying gains progress and progress especially early game is very important. Yes. And that might be the thing tipping you over the edge which is very valuable I feel like uh and and but but but it's really nice to have the option because sometimes that is absolutely worth it. So I like that it they've added that possibility. This is a lighter game. And I say lighter game, I don't mean light, but very well in the medium style of games. Yes. And when we play this new games that we don't really know a lot about. We don't know the weight before we go into them. And this was lighter than the like last year we had the big one from Crano was Ants
which felt like a heavier game that this was also because like there's a lot less things you can do. Not in a bad way, basically in a good way because you're like your it is a more like we love we love the ants but this is like more of a distilled shorter smaller game but with a lot of crunch. It is one of those Euro games where you want to do as much as possible with your few actions. If you don't upgrade your dude at all, you will get 12 actions. Yeah,
I don't think you're playing very well because you're starting here and when you move three spots, you will get I think you get one as soon as you level up to level two, which means if you don't do even do that, I don't think you're playing the game very well.
I think that is an essential deal with playing this game. And especially because of the different play styles come from upgrading those dudes, you don't get like an edge like a direction completely before like level three. Uh even though like the that direction might be like just like easier to build things or easier to drill or so it's just just like oh I'm doing something completely different now but it's like um yeah as you said like getting those double actions and getting higher income getting that ability that feels like sometime something you need to prioritize.
What did you feel about the different player powers? There are six in the game. We played with all of them. Like we didn't each play with all of them, but like all in all we play with all we didn't play co-op, but like all together put them together. We played with all of them. How did you feel about them?
I like them. Uh but they are not like widely different. [clears throat] So I feel like
I feel like they are pretty different. Like they give you they give you one part of the game that you will get like a bonus action that also then lets you not do that action maybe as much otherwise in the games. opens up other but it's not it doesn't what you may I think what you meant and I didn't was that it doesn't like feel like oh no I'm playing this completely different game
but what I do like is that when you're upgrading when you're when you're prioritizing this you feel like this is worth it I feel like this is now I can do this thing and it's a cool thing this helps me out a lot as you said this is a tight game like all the help you can get from your like upgrading this feels huge and also So I sometimes in games I'm just like okay I'm going to ignore this aspect of the game. Oh no I got the player power that says I'm supposed to do just this. I don't feel like it's a huge like you you now you have to do only this thing in this kind of game because you're doing so much of like everything.
This is one of those games where it doesn't feel like there is strategy A B C D E F G. It doesn't feel like oh this game I'm doing this completely different thing. It feels more nuanced, but it does feel different enough I would say also because you have like these special powers that gives you like ongoing abilities where you do this specific thing. So maybe if I'm going with that kind of strategy because like for example building 12 of this is hard.
Yeah.
I don't you have to be very good at that and do like some mixing and tricking I think to be able to be able to do that. But I think that it's one of those where like you're doing it. You're doing this and then like, "Oh, this time I'm doing this instead. This time I'm doing this instead." Just to say that the variability isn't super duper high.
I I wouldn't say like, well, I think I agree with you like it didn't feel like, oh, this time I'm playing this ability, I'm playing a completely different game. It's more like this strategy feels a bit different than the other strategy, but not there. This is a oil drilling game. you're going I don't think you will win if you build no refineries.
No, but I think you can manage with like tree.
Oh yeah,
if you like think I I'm because like it's it's Yeah, you you will fill up those tree usually, but then you're kind of when you're starting to fill up these more expensive ones, you're not filling up these top ones. I that was my my impression. Um but you can also be like I'm building everything and then I'm upgrading everything. So, and I think both are viable options. I think um you should go for some kind of scorings.
Points are good. Points are good in this game. Very good. So, I feel like those um mid game like end of round scorings change up where your what your focus is a little bit and also
a more more the ones at the end of the game. Yeah.
And the ones at the beginning of the game because the beginning of the game is more like I can squeeze out five points here if I do this thing. Okay, I'm going to do it. This is more like, okay, this might be like a good thing to focus on throughout the whole game. [snorts]
There's also these final scoring cards that always uh cost three coal. And they also you can see what's like available in the beginning of the game and be like, okay, I'm going to do that. Or you can see like, oh, this came up. That's what I'm going for. This is good for me. Uh, but I feel like you don't have to do these. You can can win without, but if you have an opponent that scores five of these cards and you score zero, it's you're going to have a hard time.
Yes, we only play this two players, which we have to choose with some of these games before spiel because we don't have we only two people living here. So even though we do play with many other gamers, is not we don't have time to play with everything. So we only play this two player. So tell me about how you felt it was with two players and maybe how you feel like it might be with more players like guessing or looking into the future.
Yes, I like guess work. I do that a lot. Yes. Um I really liked it with two players. I think that worked really well. I think it will work really well with three players too. Um also four. How many does this game go up to?
250.
Oh, nice. I don't think it will work.
I would not recommend it with 250. Too too much. 249 maybe.
Uh, but it was pretty snappy with two players. So, I would not mind adding a third or maybe also fourth player to the mix, but I don't like it didn't feel like anything was lacking from the two-player experience.
No, you're saying snappy. How much time is that?
70 minutes with two players,
which is pretty nice. Which means you could probably play this in like 90 minutes with three if you have played it before. Half an hour per player, which I think is great. I don't feel like this is a game for me that needs the fourth player. Probably this is just guesswork because like I didn't feel a lot missing like there is not that much interaction but there's a little bit oh no you took that space before me but was like oh that's four points and then I got two three points instead
since we haven't played with four players. I'm just like saying something here that I no idea if like how how that affects it.
Four players it takes 15 hours to play. But I like then when we play two players because this is a game where just like okay I need to do that action and if that's if that's occupied I need this this is my plan B. So if in a four player game or in a three-player game but I'm I'm thinking it's more likely in a four player game that this this board the state will change too much then it will be harder to plan and I will for good and bad. Yes, I will maybe not like that as much, but that's like sometimes the games does that that it feels like a kind of a little different puzzle with another player counts.
This is one of those games. I think I said that four times already in this review. This is one of those games where you do things. No, this is a game where your experience of the game will show very quickly. Like every time you play this or scores went up quite a lot. So it like the first time you play it, you might be squeezing. Oh, how do I get stuff? I don't know what's going on. Next time you be like, okay, a little bit less overhead over the water and next time you're like swimming super fast in the oil. I think you should swim first in the oil and just get out of there because oil is not for swimming. It's for drinking. So I do think that this is one that you will feel like with many games in this category like a Euro game like a crunchy Euro game but this one is one I really felt it lately is that the first time I played I was feeling more helpless.
It wasn't that brain burning like it isn't that heavy of a game but then the next time you manage to do so much more. So, I think if you're playing this with two players or maybe three or maybe 250 and and one or two have played it before, I think there might be a chance that they're going to win the game, which is of course in many games, but this one felt like it was so much easier to get the puzzle done after one time. This is probably the most like obvious thing to say.
No, but it was I I was noting this the same thing and we wanted to notice because uh in this game that was like a bigger leap than we sometimes see in games and especially in these this game which is like a classic medium game. It's tight on resources, but I felt like I was doing pretty well the first time we played it. And just like when we played the second, third on game, we're just like, "Oh, we beat that score to like the ground." I was just like, "What? How?" And like where this did this extra resources even come from? Uh, but that was also really cool to see that like you can you can do pretty cool stuff in this game if you
are cool.
If you're cool.
With that said, do you want to do some final thoughts? Yeah.
Do you want to begin?
Yeah. Good. Start. You can start
now.
Yes.
Okay. I have fun with this game. I think it's a clever design. It's not like one of those game just like, "Oh, this is groundbreaking. This I've never seen this before." This is pretty cool, actually. I don't think I've seen this before.
No, it could have been a track, but No, it couldn't have been a track.
No. And also these these um double workers that do cooler things that also like it feels like an a rewarding game. That's what I enjoy about it. Sometimes you can be like, "Oh, you did just the stuff that I wanted to do right before I need to do like two separate actions to get the stuff done instead of one super cool action that I intended to do." Sometimes you're just like, I have all the money in the world, but I only need these like what do you call it? Screwdriver. No, tools.
Tools. I have too few of that. Yes.
Uh, and then you asked that question and I think it's a good question to ask. Where is the like I can trade the tree resources into something else action that I really need right now. Um, so it has, as you said, it has a lot of crunch, but it doesn't take too long to play, which is for me a great design, a great game. I have a lot of fun when I play this game. I don't mind it being like kind of the same thing every time I play it because [clears throat] I really like the puzzle the way I'm doing it and also the things you do when you're doing it well. It feels really cool.
Um I'm going to land this on an eight. I think it is a great game.
Honor is a great game. I enjoyed this design a lot. I agree with well many things that you're saying. It feels like a more classic Bureau in a good way. like there's not there's not that many systems. Like many people, not me included, feel like a lot of new euros have like one too many system, maybe even two too many systems. And here not that many systems. Like you are you are drilling to get more oil. You're building this river to transport the oil into other things and you're upgrading your ability and a little bit of movement on the map to get bonuses as well and to make room so that you can actually drill for more oil. I think that it's very clean. It's very elegant in what it's doing. I agree with you that this like worker uh placement is feeling like interesting and a bit fresh. And this one I agree is like it's a nice little gimmick. Like it is a gimmick with you flipping those over, but it is a very nice one. Looking good.
Adds to the h presentation of the game. I am having fun while I play it. Um this is one that I wouldn't mind playing again, which is a good thing. I would really like to play it again because I had fun with it. I would like to play it with three. Um maybe not 215, but maybe at least three. I am also going to give this an eight. And that is going to be the end of this great video. We hope you enjoyed it. If you did, you can
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