Four Abstract Games - with Tom and Zee

Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassel. >> I'm Z Garcia. >> And today we're taking a look at four abstract games from Cosmoludo. And that's pretty much kind of what they do. >> Uh these are abstract games with weird names. Oxono, Hokido, Kimone. Come on, man. Yoshi >> Yaks II or Yakai, I'm not sure. Um, all their games come in a magnetic box, which as a side note is hard to remember which side to open because they look the same front and back.

So, I've tried to open it the wrong way several times. >> I know. >> And all these boxes, oddly enough, have a >> the the way that the ink is, >> they get the thumb prints and the the little oil from your hand quite a bit >> so much all over them. So, that's unfortunate, but the stuff inside is good, and we're going to take a look at all four of them and tell you what we think about it.

Here we go. All right. First, we have Yakai, which I think is a name because all the pieces have these letters on them. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to come up with names for abstracts is always sort of a weird thing anyway. And so, you know, this is as good as anything else. >> I think you're like required to make it sound a little pretentious.

Sort of. >> You have to. Otherwise, it's not really an abstract. >> Yeah. Well, anyway, this one is about area control surrounding pieces. Let me show you. In Yakai, players have pieces here that are valued from one, two, three, and four. I guess it's the number of lines is how you remember that. You have a totem here, and a totem can move one piece in any direction.

So, let's say it's my turn. I move it there. Then, next to it, I can put a piece on again any of the spaces in any direction. The next player might do the same thing. And when you move, you can go to any space that's next to it. You may also jump over your own color. So if I'm the red player here, I could jump over to this spot and then put another piece again like that.

Now, white cannot jump over mine. So white has can only move here, here, or here. So they might move here and put a piece like this. And you're going to keep doing that. At some point, it's going to be, let's say it's it is uh pink's turn, and the board looks like this. Pink cannot move the piece now because they can't jump.

There's no sp space to go there. They can jump over their own color, but not the opponent's color. So, they can't go anywhere else. So, this would end the game. As soon as the game is over, you'll count the the values next to the totem. So, 2 4 + 3 is five. Uh plus three is seven, sorry. 2 3 + 3 is six.

So, white would win. If there's a tie, whoever has more pieces wins. There's also a thing that if you move, let's say I'm here and I move to this spot where I was the white player, then I can place a piece anywhere on the board, uh, then the pink player would actually lose in this situation because they have nowhere to go.

And that's how you play this game, man. I I don't love the they I know that they want to make letters so they can make this name Yakai, right? The fact that a circle is one >> is a little confusing to me. I know it's a single line and then the two lines is two and the Y is three and then the X is also two lines you said but it's four.

>> Sorry, it's not four. Like if the Yeah, I don't know. This is um Yeah, the graphic design in this one's a little bit weaker than in the other ones. I would say >> this is also a game in which I am not sure the whole time. I'm not sure even now that I have a grasp of the strategy of this game. I felt the same way.

>> I like when are you supposed to put out your ones? Most games, at least as far as I've played, have not gotten to the point where the whole board is filled or whatever. Usually half the board is filled and then you you have things and I I'm usually left with seven or eight pieces. So I'm like, well then why did I put out the ones at all?

>> Yes. Right. I mean, I'm sure there's some sort of strategy of put a one in a spot where I know it will never be used to force a piece to move, but >> I'm I'm certain that you can become a good player at this. I'm not a good player. We we you know, we didn't play 40 times to approach that. But what I wrote down was that it was two things.

It was hard to visualize this game in my opinion. Part of that is the graphic design with the lines and the what have you, but also just the diagonal movements on what on the board is like a funky shape. It's not great to visualize that. And then also that idea that you said which is it's hard for me.

It's harder to recognize a good move from a bad move even after some experience. And I feel like I want a good balance between I'm getting better. I can start to recognize things. I don't want to become an expert in three games because then that game doesn't have the legs, right? But I got to start being able to see some sort of improvement.

I can't I can't tell what's a good or what's a bad move. So I agree with you. It had the sort of nebulous feel of, well, I'll move here and this time I'll try to put out the the garbage ones or, you know, my first thing was, oh, I'm going to put the big numbers in the middle. You're more likely to end up in the middle.

No, that was not a thing, I think. >> Yeah, maybe. Like, again, I think this is one that someone who's really good at the game will say, "Well, obviously you do this." Yes, >> I played this several times and I'm not 100% sure. But I don't dislike it either. I find it to be interesting. After a while, you kind of get into a feel like, okay, I'm trying to force it into a spot.

You >> you get to that tactical thing. Okay, >> if I can put it here, I I I can see two or three moves. If I move it there, you can move it there. >> Okay. So, that's a good spot to move it, >> right? >> And that's where I'm at with it. So, and I also want to give it props because I feel like it's doing something slightly different than a lot of abstracts.

>> That's true. Yeah. A lot of abstracts do fall into the same two or three categories. This is a little funky, a little bit different. Yeah. I I don't love it, but I um I enjoyed it. Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. For me, it's a six. A six out of 10. I enjoy it. Um I I wouldn't want to play it all the time, but I think it's it it sets out to what it does, and it's also it meets my requirements of most abstract where there's like three rules.

Yes. So, that's very simple and easy to play. >> I'm also giving it a six. Uh I agree with everything you said. I I think it could be cleaned up a little bit, but it'll never be a game I'll it'll never be a favorite. >> That's Yakai. Come on. Come on. This is a game that has probably one of the most famous designers in this series, and that's Bruno Catala.

>> Mhm. Yeah. And this has been published before by Hakalea, a different company that put this out before in a very different edition. But now the Cosmolud here has picked it up and they put it in their line. >> All right, let's take a look at it. In Kimone, you're going to have the board is actually has these all the board has holes in it and you'll be randomly putting in these discs at the beginning of the game.

Each player will have these hex pieces of their color. So the first person will put their hex somewhere on the outside of the board. So let's say black puts their hex there. They put the gold hex on top of that to show that's the last one. That means and you'll see that that's a pink butterfly. That white must go on top of a pink or on top of a butterfly.

So let's say they go there. The gold hex moves there. Now green must go on green or a butterfly. So perhaps uh black goes here. And now white has to go on green or a bird. And this will continue. What you are trying to do in this game is make it so that you have a bunch of your hex's that form an unbroken line from one color side to the other color.

That's the same. So from green to green, yellow to yellow, or blue to blue. Or the other way to win is to make it so that your player cannot uh play at all, in which case you win. And finally, you can win if you build a loop of your color like this. So you see there's like a little loop here which has at least one free space or a hex of the other color.

If you do one of those things, you win. Oddly enough, I like Cosmolud's production, but the one thing I don't like about this one is that there's those holes in the board. And because of that and you so when you fold the board, you have to leave three out in the box. >> It just seems like it's a little bit of extra work to punch all those out and then push them back in.

>> I'm I'm being a little bit semantical on us. I mean I mean I mean I'm picky. I guess not semantic. I'm being picky on that. And then the hex's around them. It's okay. But you're constantly moving that gold hex >> on top of the piece you just moved. You're stacking these two thin hex's. I just didn't love the the pieces of this.

>> Well, the pieces in this one, even after a piece has been uh committed to it, like even after you put a piece around one, you still see the the symbol, right? I mean, it shines. >> No, that's good. You do need to see the symbol. >> Not after you've not after you've taken that place. >> Well, I need to know where the next player is going to go.

You need to see the last one you've been to, >> right? But I think Well, I like the componentry here better than the previous edition. In the previous edition of this, you would randomly put out discs everywhere. They sat on top of the board, not punched into it like in this one. But then when you took a place, you would replace that disc with your own fully solid piece.

And just this one is, you know, hey opponent, this is the one you need to cover. >> Oh, that might be easier. >> And it's I no longer have to think of a piece if it no longer is relevant. the board shrunk like visibly shrunk in this one. >> That's true. It doesn't cover them up so you still see them.

>> Right. And this one you still see them. Like I don't I'm getting a lot of information I no longer need to see. So this is similar to a a game I love called Kamiado where in that game you have pieces that move kind of like queens and you move to a color and whatever color you move to the opponent that's what they move.

>> Yeah. >> Fascinating idea. I like that idea here, but unfortunately for me in this game, you move and it's the color or the symbol. >> The symbol is not readily apparent. The color I can go boom boom boom the symbol. And it's also not a straightforward thing. I'm trying to make a line or a loop, which is weird.

>> Yeah. >> Or make it so you can't play. >> That's right. Two sides. >> Connect two sides. Make the loop or make it so you can't play. And honestly, making the opponent camp is the easiest one for me to visualize. I'm like, if I go here, you can only go to one of those two spots. And if you go to that spot, then I go here, and then you're done.

You can't go anywhere. And I >> the forming a lot. It just feels like they there's one concept too many here. >> Okay. >> Um and so it I I don't I don't love this one. >> Yeah. I to for me it's like one step forward, one step back. Like I said, the previous production was not great. Okay. And I'm sorry I'm bringing that to it.

Maybe I I I wish I didn't have to or I wish I could forget it. Um, but the previous production was this sort of very strange All the pieces were made of like this dense foam with printing that was real fuzzy cuz it was printed on foam. It didn't look great. But at least the pieces went away, you know, after you covered the thing.

I didn't have to keep thinking of it. This is a much nicer production. The the wooden hex's are nice. the whole thing is more vibrant. It's very much a better printing job, but then the pieces stick around and I I hate that. Um, I looked on BG for me. I rated the old one a six. I'm giving this one a six, too.

Uh, again, it's like one step forward, one step back for me. If I could combine both those ideas, and you could, I suppose, if you add pieces to this, you know, cover them up, then great. that visual clarity takes a, you know, jump up again. But as it is out of the box, I'd say it's a wash with the original one.

It's a six. And no, I don't love it either. I think it could be better. I don't have the problem sort of mechanically that you find it to to be a little clunky. You know, that that feeling. I like this game. I I I like that idea of where you go entails where I go and back and forth and the diminishing returns.

But it could be a little bit better in in delivery and execution. >> Yeah, this one just didn't hit for me. I'm giving it a five out of 10. There's some >> the concepts really interesting. I don't care about the theme. I wish the symbols were a little more >> the symbols in the first one was kind of a similar thing in that one.

Actually, it was because of the way they printed on foam. It was all red foam, I think. And it was the shape or the amount of shapes. So it was like a little feather or like one feather or two feathers or three feathers. >> So it was any So if it was a three feather piece I removed then you could take feathers or any three I guess.

Yeah. So h interesting concepts I suppose just didn't work for me. Oxo not sure again they're trying to this company likes to use the letters the pieces on the board which is all this is O's and X's. In fact this is a tic-tac-toe variant. Well, four in a row variant. >> Yeah. >> Um, and so let's take a look at how it plays.

>> Each of the players has a pile of O's and X's in this game, thus the name, Oxono. >> Uh, what you're going to be doing is there's these two pieces in the middle, these two totems. And on your turn, you must take one of these and you can move it as far as you want. You have to move it at least one space.

And then wherever you stop, you will put one of your pieces in the four adjacent spots to it. You can't move other other pieces. So, let's say the next person moves here and they put this O here. I can't move the O here, but I could move it here maybe and put an O there. And then maybe they'll move like this and put that piece there.

Now, if at any point your piece for whatever reason is surrounded, one of the totems is surrounded. Then you can move it and you can jump over to another spot. And if that spot you jump to is surrounded, then you can put a piece otherwhere other way anywhere you want on the board. But what you're trying to do is you can win in one of two ways.

If you put down a fourth piece of your color so that there are four in a row of your color, doesn't matter if they're X's and O's, you will win the game. Or if you put down the fourth, let's say that the the pink player has three X's here, but the black player moves this here and puts this down, then there's four X's in a row, and the black player will win.

So, if you get the fourth of one of the two types or the fourth of your color, you'll win the game. And that's how you play. Really like the the look of this one. The pink versus black >> has a real kind of look, right? It looks very sci-fi Tron kind of thing. >> Yeah. And I like the big I like those big uh pieces that you you know the the totems I guess they're called that they're blue so they're clearly not anyone's.

and just it has a very good feel to it and it's tricky because most people in the world have played tic-tac-toe or some sort of four in a row game whether it's connect four or what have you. >> Yeah. >> And this takes that >> and makes it so that you can also use your opponent's pieces for one of the things the X's or the O's >> and that makes it really tricky.

Yeah. >> Because you're trying to force your opponent >> to to let you move to the spot that that you win. This is a game that constricts itself very quickly. >> You don't want to be careful. And the game has that rule that if you're in a spot where you can't move, then you can jump. The only time you can jump and then if you jump to another spot you can't move, then you can put a piece anywhere, which is almost a victory.

>> Yes. Yeah. It has this like incredibly good rising tension, right? is that idea of oh, I feel like I feel like I'm about to put you in that position where you can jump jump boom win it. And so there's this great rising tension back and forth trying to be careful. It kind of becomes about not giving you that spot more than necessarily helping me.

And it has those great moments where you go, okay, if I jump that, no, that's a win for you. If I go here, nope. I love that. I love games that quickly develop into that feeling of >> I'm I feel like I might make a mistake. This does that. >> Yes. And it's not a very long game either because of that.

There's only so many moves you can have and I'm sure because of that the game is solvable. >> Yeah. >> You know the whole oh a computer could figure this out. Well, I mean that can happen most most abstract games, but for me I feel like maybe I could see it if I was smart enough. But where I'm at with the game, I find it to be a nice variant on the get four in a row, which is one of my favorite tropes in a abstract game anyway.

>> Yeah, four in a row, five in a row, whatever. I think yeah, I like this one quite a bit. I I do find it a little bit uh with repeat plays becoming a little simplistic, uh becoming a little sy, but I enjoy it. I'm going to give this one a 7.5. I think it's a good uh abstract game and it looks really cool.

That helps it. Well, >> oddly enough, that is also my score, 7.5. But I think it's very solid. A cool game. Feels different, but also again very simple rules. Yeah. So that's Oxeno. I don't know how to pronounce it. Hido. This is a game in uh which is uh about capturing your opponent's pieces in stacks.

Let's take a look. In this game, you're going to have pieces that are marked one, two, and three that are randomly put on your side of the board. On your turn, you move a piece or a stack of pieces. When you move a single piece, it must land on another piece. So, this one could go here. Uh, and the number of moves it has is equal to the number on it.

So, for example, this three piece could go one, two, and then it could even turn at right angle, skipping this empty spot to go three there. And, uh, what you're going to do is you're trying to cover up stack. So, this two-piece, he can't go here because he can't land on that, but he could go one, two, and land on that one.

And then this piece here could go one and land on top of the three. Now, this two-piece here maybe wants to land on top of this stack, but he's going to have a hard time doing that. But he could go one. No, he couldn't move there. So, you're going to be kind of trapped as time goes by. You're going to have to move your stacks.

This one could can't go here, but it could go and land on top of that one because a stack can land on top of another stack. And you can move again one, two, or three. But when you move, you bounce around. At some point, there's going to be no more legal moves left for one of the player. And that point, the game is over.

And you'll take all the discs under each stack and they're all going to be worth the points equal to the number on the top. So these would all be worth three. All these discs would be worth one and two, etc. And whoever has more points is the winner. There's also an alternate way you can play where you just put out the disc randomly on the board to start anywhere.

Hoko is very similar at first blush to a very popular game, a game that won the games magazine game of the year 20 years ago called um Devon. >> That's right. >> Which is a very similar game where you're making stacks of pieces. That one had some very different rules. You could move a piece equal to the number of pieces in the stack.

You had to connect to three red pieces which were life points. And if you didn't, your piece died. Things like that. But this reminded me of that because you're again moving stacks around. This has some really Other than that though, I don't know. This feels like almost anything else. >> It has a very elegant rule set and it does feel like it takes some ideas from other things we've seen.

If you've played a lot of abstracts, I don't think necessarily you'll find anything in here where you go, well, I've never heard of, you know, when the game ends, you take all the stacks of the same kind and stack them and the tallest wins. Sure, we've seen that. We've seen restricting boards that the board shrinks in this game.

We've seen that. But it's a really good mixture of well-known, well-implemented rules that gives you a very clean, very tense and wonderful evolution through a single game session. And the game begins with that sort of, you know, just some quick eating up of the board and then shifts to that feeling of things becoming isolated, which you want to be careful about because then it has it has it's powerful, but it has no motion.

Um, you also want to be careful that that thing doesn't get taken over because then you lose that entire stack you've worked on. There's some great moments here where you can definitely feel clever. Whether that's you or the game is incredibly well put together and helps you feel clever. Doesn't matter if you feel clever, you feel clever.

And this game has that. Um, the one strength pieces versus the three strength pieces. In your mind, you'll do this whole like, well, the ones are better. They're they got that you jump on things and whatever. No, but the threes are better because they're more they're stronger at the end of the game.

But they got stuck much more easily. It's so good. >> Yeah. Yeah, when me and my son first played this the the first game, we just said, "I'm going to kill every opponent three I can see." Cuz I don't want you scoring a stack of three pieces. But that doesn't matter because if you're doing the same to me, then it goes down to twos and ones.

But you find very quickly I want your ones gone >> because it's sitting right there and it can take if I put that stack next to you, you're taking it. The three you have to be able to bounce a few times >> and it's not that hard to visualize. I thought it would be, >> right? >> But it while it's not hard to visualize, you can miss that perfect move.

>> Yeah. >> And and because of that, I like it. I like the idea of This is one game I would not want to play online >> because I would worry that it would you click a piece and it would show you the seven spots it can go to and I'd be like, "Wow." The part of the fun is going, "Oh, wow. I can bounce and go here." I like that a lot.

I think the only weird rule in this one and weird as in it's hard you have to remember you have to have it ever present is the idea that a single piece can jump on a single piece no matter what the number is on top and a stack no matter how tall at least two can jump on any stack no matter how tall >> and and you can't mix those >> you cannot mix those two things you cannot have a stack jump on a single piece which you're going to want to do and you can't have a piece jump on a stack that one's a little easier to remember be like well the little guy can't take over the big guy but the opposite is also not possible Yeah.

>> So, those are that's tricky. You got to like get that in your head, but once you do, the game almost becomes halfway through it'll feel like two games being played on the same board. >> Mhm. >> I love that. That's very interesting. And you can convert a piece to play on the other game, >> right? Like there's a one sitting next to your big stack of two or three and you're like, "Well, that's single.

You can't get it." And then I jump on top of my own one. I've now made it a deadly piece that you weren't expecting to be present in the game. >> Yes. Yes. Yes. Very, very good. Um, this is one of the better abstract games I've played in a while, I got to say. I'm going to give this one a nine out of 10.

I think it's a fantastic game. >> I should do my score first. Also, nine. But really, Z's right. We play a lot of games. We're always glad to find a good one. We're like, "Oh, this is good." But I think this is a great one. >> I agree. This is of the ones I played from this company, this is easily the best.

It, like Z said, it makes you feel like you're doing cool move because you are. It also doesn't take too long. Yeah, >> it doesn't overstay its welcome. And it's one where when I'm done, I'll go, let's do that again. I like also the alternate where you can just scatter the pieces all over the board and start from there because every game's going to feel different with that starting setup.

There's no set opening moves. >> It's pretty solid. And like there's only one rule you need to remember and that's the stacks on stacks and one-on-one and then the piece moves the number that's on it. That's it. >> Yep. Yep. >> So, yep. That's Hoko. Well, there you go, folks. Four abstract games. I think this is a company.

They've been out for many years now, this company, but they're definitely one that's on my radar now. I'm Each year, I think they release a new game, so I'm going to be eager to see what they come out with this year. Um, even though didn't love all the games in the series, it's just that there's not enough companies making these.

>> Absolutely. Abstract games are hard to come by. They there's not that many published. They don't look, you know, they don't sell super well, but if you are into abstracts, here's some good stuff to check out. >> Well, there you go, folks. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Tom Vasel. >> I'm Z Garcia.

>> We'll see you next time. >> Hey everybody, thanks for watching another video from the Dice Tower. Hey, you want to learn more about us, communicate with us? We have a Facebook group. We have a Discord channel. Lots of different ways to get involved with the Dice Tower. You can find that in our linkree link below.

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