Jackpot: Set the Reel ►►► hidden depth in this fast playing gateway deckbuilder!
Transcript
Hey everybody. Today on Ro, we're preving a prototype of Jackpot Set the Real. But before I get going, please turn your subtitles on to the Cling on channel so that when I make rules goose, you'll know what they are. And if you've done that, well then welcome to the casino, everybody, where our preferred uh gambling uh opportunity is all about slot machines. And we are going to be deck building a deck that represents the one-armed bandit that we are sitting in front of trying to make our fortune. But we're no ordinary gamblers. We've got some magnets in our pocket or something like that so that we can manipulate the slot machine by doing some deck building to score as many points as possible. I'm going to show you how this works today in a two-player run through. Here is my starter deck. Here is Jensen's. It requires a fair bit of shuffling before we get going. Let me go on ahead and shuffle Jensen's just a little bit more and then the game will be a foot. Okay, I am the first player, which means I don't start with any money on hand, while Jen does have one coin to get her going. So, here's what happens. On your turn, you spllay out your entire hand.
And this is one of those card games where you cannot manipulate the cards. Wherever they are, that's where they've got to be played from. And what I've got to do, looking at all these, I've got to pick a group of three um adjacent cards. So, I could pick these three or these three or I think right now, right off the bat, I'm probably going to pick these three. And um I play them. This thematically represents me um pulling the arm on the slot machine and seeing what comes up. And what comes up in my first go? It is watermelon. Watermelon. And so, this isn't bad. Um I've got a pair. What you do is you pick the three cards from your hand. Uh you play them from left to right and then you resolve them from left to right.
And in this case, I started with a watermelon and then I got a second watermelon and then I got a cherry. So if you get two of a kind, um you know, from left to right, you get to grab a bonus token you can use on a future turn. Let's say I grab three and they came out this way, though. What would happen? I would only have one of a kind because I've got a watermelon and then uh oh, the second one did not match. So, if you only have a single, what you get is a coin that you can use to upgrade your deck later on. But I'm actually starting out pretty well. I've got two. Now, if I had three watermelons right out of the gate, then that means bing bing bing bing bing bing bing, I would have won big and gotten five points for having a full set of those. I did not, however. So, um, because I've got that, I get to pick one of these bonuses. And, um, I think I'm going to go for the quick and easy three bucks. That means on the start of my next turn, I can turn this in for three coins so I can do some more upgrading sooner than later. And that was my turn. At the end of my turn, if I had money, I could upgrade the cards that are still in my hand, but I don't have any money yet. This does not get resolved till the start of the next turn. So, it is now Jen's turn. Gone ahead and shuffle her up just a little bit more. And I'm doing it with my eyes closed. I'm not trying to stack this deck. At least not yet. So, let's see what Jen has. Now, by the way, you may notice some of the cards are in black
and white like this cherry. That means they're effectively dead. They have no value at all. In fact, if my three had come out like this, if your first one is dead, you can't match anything to it. So, you get nothing. So, upgrading these um dud cards as soon as possible is something that is well worth looking at. So, anyway, let's see what Jen has got. So, Jen, well, first of all, it's impossible to have three of a kind at the beginning of the game because we just don't have that many. Uh, every deck is a little bit different in that there's one that, you know, you're a bit stronger in. For Jen, it's the blackberries cuz she's got one, two good blackberries and a dud blackberry. For me, it's the watermelons. So, Jen would like to get this other blackberry um upgraded to turn it into a live one because then if she could get these three blackberries next to each other, she could score big. But, um that requires spending coins and she can't do that till after she plays. So, right now, she's got to pick a group of cards.
And um I don't think she has any good options here because you know the important thing to bear in mind is if you can um pull three cards out and play them. Let's say the remaining cards, they're going to collapse together. And that's a way that you can get cards next to each other that you want to be part of a set. But as you can see in this case, um Jen's um Blackberries are too far away from each other. Are there any pairs that she could make for clever play here? I don't think so. Right, because she's got the blackberries. Um, but you know, well, yeah, I mean, there's four things between her two bells, so she couldn't get them together because she'd have to take out three and then there'd be one still separating them. Um, her two watermelons have 1, two, three, four, five between them. So, she can't I mean, if there were six between them, she could take out three and then take out three more. they'd be together and then she could upgrade the watermelon as an example. But there's something else you can do. A lot of these cards, if you pay attention, like there's this cherry here. If I if Jen were to pay two bucks, she could turn this cherry into another bell. Uh so there's those kinds of tricks you can do also. But again, Jen is going to have to do upgrades later. Right now, she just needs to think about, well, she's probably just going to make a coin. And then once she's got two coins, at the end of her turn, she can spend those coins to do any upgrades to any of these cards. So, what is Jen thinking? She's
going to play, right? I think for starters, she's just going to make that coin. She'll go ahead and take these three. Bing, bing, bing. And what does she get? This stuff collapses down here. And um we'll see what she's got in mind for later. But for now, going from left to right, she's got a blackberry and then a watermelon and another blackberry. So, all she gets is one coin. But now that she's done that, she can spend those two coins to flip any of these cards in her hand. And what she was thinking is she could turn this cherry into a bell. Then if she played these three, she would get those two cherries next to each other or I'm sorry, those two bells next to each other. But then the problem is this bell is still a dud. So she would not be able to get a pair anyway. So that's not necessarily going to work out that well for her. So at this point I'm wondering well there's another thing she could do as well. This um Blackberry is a particularly valuable card because it is going to pay her potentially two bucks at the end of this round. Which is to say after we've gone through our entire deck of cards. This can get upgraded though to be turned into a wild. And if this were a wild, then Jen's got a bell and a wild next to each other. So, that's starting to look pretty good. How about she does that? She is going to spend her two bucks. She could upgrade any of these, you know, turn this watermelon into a valuable one or that
bell, but instead she is going to take um she's going to lower her income potential to increase her jackpot potential. All righty. So, that was that. She um did her first one. She got a coin and then she used her two coins to get an upgrade. Now, it is my second turn. And once again, well, first of all, I'm going to use this at the start of my turn. So, now it's back for anybody to grab. And that gives me three coins. So, I'm getting to where I could do some bigger, better upgrades quicker. But now, I've got to decide I can't upgrade now. Although, it's interesting. I've talked to the developers and they've uh suggested that they're thinking about changing it up a little bit. So you have a bit more flexibility that you can use these tokens whenever you want and you can upgrade whenever you want. But I'm playing with the rules as they exist right now. First you use your tokens, then you play a set, you know, three cards, then you do upgrades at the end of your turn. So what can I do? Not too much. Um, you can see I've got these two things could both be turned to bells. Then I'd have three bells.
And oh, you know what? Actually, actually, that's not too bad. How about I go like a like this? I'm going to go bing bing bing. And what did I get? Well, I got a seven followed by something that doesn't match. So, all I'm getting is one coin. But now with my upgrades, I can upgrade as much as I can afford. With four, I've got a choice. I could flip two of these cards to make them better. Or I could buy that card, that card, that card, or that card and replace any of the cards in my deck with one of those better ones. So, I got to ask myself, what do I want to do? Um, again, if I flip both of these, these will both become bells, but they're bells that only make one coin income for me. Whereas, this one is a bell. Oops.
If I buy this, it's a bell that can become a two coin income. And then it can switch uh to a seven if I want. So that's interesting. Um or I don't have to do upgrades at all. I could just let it sit for a bit and um just keep on building up more money so I could upgrade in different ways. But I think I'm going to have fun. I'm going to spend all four of mine and I'm going to upgrade. I'm going to turn this cherry into a bell and I'm going to turn this cherry or this uh dud bell into a good bell. All righty. And so for my third turn, I'm going to hit a jackpot, folks. I have set the reel. All right, so it is Jen's second turn. And what is she going to do? Well, right out of the gate now, Jen is going to be able because she's got a wild in her hand, she can combine that with cards to be able to get a bonus. She could take these three and it's going to be seven cherry. And so that's a wild. So that's two. She could take one, but I think it makes a little more sense to take these three. So she's rolling, rolling, rolling. And then um bing bing bing. What did she get? She's got a bell and then another bell. And so that means she can grab any of these. So the obvious choice like what you saw me do is um grab the three bucks so she can start making some cash again. But there are other ones. This one lets you take a card and re move it anywhere else in your hand. That can be pretty handy.
This one isn't quite as good. It's better to get three bucks than this. this. Get this because this just lets you flip something which saves you two bucks. But if this has already been taken by somebody else, that one's not bad to take either. This one just gives you straight up three points and we are racing to get 35 points. And this one doubles the strength of any other tile you have. So there's kind of can be a little bit of tile hoarding. But anyway, so Jen's done that. She's just going to get the quick influx of cash on her next turn like you saw me do. And now folks, at the end of the first round, I'm going to score big. Bing bing bing bomb. The money starts flying everywhere. I've hit jackpot. And that means I've scored five points. Now, the next time somebody uh gets a jackpot with bells, they're only going to score three points. So, bells aren't as exciting anymore. Uh the next time uh there's only two and you get a token.
And this sticks around forever. So, you can keep on scoring points off of bells. All righty. So now I've got all the bells in my deck to be able to score them, but they've gotten less valuable. But anyway, so this is the card I did not play. We'll come back to this in a little bit, but I am now winning. At the end of any player's turn, we have to stop and check. Has the game been won? H or has the game ended? Has that player scored 35 or more points? I haven't yet. Right now, my score is five, six, seven. So, I'm a long ways away, but anyway, it is Jen's last turn. And what is Jen going to do? She's not too excited. Well, first of all, at the start of her turn, she's going to turn that into money. And then she's going to go bing bing bing boom. And she got one coin because she had some duds. All right.
And so now, again, at the end of Jen's turn, she could spend that money or she could save it. I don't think she wants to spend that money, though, because this is the only card left. She could spend that money to upgrade it. But here's the deal, folks. At the end of a round, everybody's going to have one card left over. Guess what happens to that card? You've got to move them around the table and give them to your neighbor. So, Jen does not want to upgrade this to make it good and then give it to me. So, while I made out like a bandit, I actually hit a jackpot on the first round. Yay me. On the other hand, I've given Jen that which she values most, more Blackberry cards. And it's live. It's ready to go. I've given Jen a useful card. She's given me a dud that I now have to add. And here's the thing. This card we take, I have to put this in one of my three columns. And then after we're done with that, at the end of the round, I will pick one of my three columns and um use it as a source of cash. So, I think Jen, for her, it's easy. She's going to put it right Well, she could put it right here because that means she picks this column and she gets 1, two, three coins. So, that's tempting, but there are other ways to go as well.
Let's come back to Jen in a second. I need to think about what she wants to do. Me, I've got to put this here, here, or here, and it's not going to help me make any money. I'm going to pick this column ultimately because it's going to give me three coins. And then after I've done that, I have to collapse these columns into a new deck for the second round. And that's a huge part of the strategy. Let's say I put this here like this. Now, what I have to do is I have to take each of these and uh stack them together. So, like if I take say this and then put this like this, you'll notice what I'm starting to do. I'm starting to put watermelons together in my hand of cards so that I could maybe score watermelons. Although unfortunately I'm starting with a dud and my other watermelon has two things between it. But here's the deal. I could pull these three out as a losing hand to get these two together as a stronger um group. So anyway, so I've got to take those two and then I've got to grab this group and either put it at the one end or the other. And I think I'll put it at the other end because I already made a terrible mistake. I gave Jen a good card. I want to make sure that next round after I played my other nine cards, my one left over hasn't been upgraded. So, if I put it over here, that's going to be easy to keep that off to the side. So, that was it for me.
Jen, meanwhile, like I said, she'll put this right here so she can get one, two, three bucks. And then she's got to rebuild hers. Oh, let's not forget to give her that money. Boom. Jen is starting the next round, not only as the first player because that changes, you know, it goes around the table in a standard way. And I should say, folks, everything you're seeing today is a placeholder prototype, including this. This is a piece from another game. My prototype didn't come with first player marker, so I'm just using that. Jen's becoming first player. She's going to start with seven bucks, and she has to rebuild this. And look at this. She goes like that. She's putting blackberries together. And then is she going to put this on the bottom or the top? She'll go ahead and do this. So again, she's got a loose hanging off the end. Although, man, maybe she should think about that a little bit more because where does she want to put that wild? She has a wild and that is incredibly powerful. If she puts them like this, then that wild well I mean it could combine with that watermelon and you know she doesn't have any other watermelon. She'd have anything to turn into a watermelon. Yeah, that grape could turn into a watermelon. But then there's one, two, three, four things between them. So she can't quite get them together. If she went the other way, um could she Right. Uh and she were to turn this into a watermelon again.
And then there's 1 2 3 four between them. Ah, okay. She'll just go without the end. But that is a huge part of the strategy of this game is how do you reconfigure your deck for the next round? Speaking of which, we are here now. Jen is the first player. And what is she going to do knowing she cannot upgrade her cards or change them until later, so she's got to make do with this deck that she pretty much created for herself. So, right off the bat, we could just do this. And that would get her another bonus token because she'd have watermelon plus wild. Um, or does she and and what does that do for her? Well, one thing that does is it means she probably wants to play these three and these three and she leaves that. Although this could be another cherry. If she flips this, then she's got two cherries next to each other. And she could get this watermelon out of the way because remember there's one of these that lets you move cards around and put them in different places.
And Jen is going to get a bonus right out of the gate if she plays these three. No, but and then she's using that wild h. Where was her other watermelon? It's this or this. Either of those could change to a watermelon. And then Oh boy. I mean, this game folks is deceptively deep. There is a lot going on. Well, I mean, you could just go for quick easy moves, but you got to be thinking two or three turns ahead for what are you setting yourself up for the next rounds. not only for how they combine, but also so you can make you're trying to make rows that will get you jackpot. So, you're trying to make columns that will get you a lot of money. And you can see, you know, well, Jen gave up her double money card. However, there are double money cards out there. And Jen's got enough to buy one, so that's a possibility, too. What to do?
What to do? Oh, wait, folks. I think I maybe spotted something. I think so. I think so. All right. Let's start out with these three. Bing, bing, bing. What do we get? She gets one coin. Um because she did not I mean she didn't follow her first bell with a second bell. All right, so she just gets one coin. Now here's what she's thinking about, folks. Um she can spend two bucks, which she will now do to turn that um dud blackberry. I think this is the one I gave her. Or no, no. Um I gave her I gave her that one. I gave her that good one, but she's turning this one into a blackberry. And now look what else she could do. She could play these next turn and then that wild will collapse down there and Jen's gonna have her first jackpot. So in the meantime, she's still got six bucks. Is she going to spend them on anything else? Um yeah.
You know what? Let's going ahead and spend two of them. Spending three to upgrade this cherry so that when she plays these three, she'll get another. Okay. And then she'll save her other four bucks for later. All right, this is looking like her second round is going to be much better than her first. And meanwhile, me, what have I wrought? What have I built for myself? Um, knowing I've just got to play these as they are. You know, see, that's the tricky thing. You do really well. You get a jackpot. You've got three of a kind. The problem is those three of a kind get scattered evenly through your hand. And so, you're going to have to work hard to get them all back together to score them again. I mean, I've got to get this bell out of the way so I can get these watermelons.
But if I take these three, then that watermelon can come down here. If I can move that bell, I could get a watermelon. I could go for it. But it is going to require a little bit of a sacrifice cuz um right to get this watermelon down to that watermelon, I've got to play these three, right? And that means I'm starting with a gray, which means I get nothing. Nothing. Is there anything I could change into a watermelon instead? No. Oh, but there is something else I've got in mind, too. I don't like doing it. Um, right. Oh, man. Yeah, let's do it anyway. It's It's going to be ugly, but it's to set myself up for something better later. Bing bing bing or bong bing bong. I get nothing. I started with a gray. I got nothing good there. But now I've got my money. I could spend it.
Um, and what was I going to spend it on? I totally forgotten now what I was I was going to do. Right. Right. Right. Um. Oh. Okay. Okay. I know what I need to do, but it's going to have to No. No. Oh my goodness. I need to think. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I would think basically I had to sacrifice that just so I could get the two watermelons together. So, I go bing bing bong. And that means I've got a pair. So, I can take a bonus again. And am I going to take the one that lets me move things around or am I going to take the money, honey? I think it's going to be all about that money because here's the deal. I turn this in. Next turn, I could upgrade. Now, you've seen one type of upgrade so far where you just flip a thing, but instead of upgrading, I could buy a card and replace. So, I could replace this watermelon with that bell, and then I'll have a jackpot. Okay, so let's go with that. All righty. So, um Oh, wait a minute. Oh, hold on a second.
I Jen was first player. I have I've taken two turns for myself. I'm a big cheater. Um totally cheating. Yikes. So, let's just rewind a little bit. Silly me. Oh my goodness. Uh there's there's a lot going on here. Uh this is what I've got. That's for next turn because Oh, shoot. What did I just accidentally return? I think it was that. Yeah, there we go. That's where I was. I I was just getting ready for something later. Jen was up next. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get those three bucks because Jen might get it because I totally forgotten what her hand was, but it's better than mine, right? So, Jen, um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. She's got a pair. She's got another pair. She's got another pair. So, she's definitely going to be able to pull this off. Which pair is she going to avail herself of? Bearing in mind that she's also trying to put money into the same column so she can score more points or more money that way. So, if she just goes like this, bing bing bing.
Hey, she's got the doubler. Um, and that means she'll take the money. And um, she can't use that right now, but she can use this to sell Oops. to sell that cherry. Bye-bye. And replace it. Boom. And she's still going to have some cash starting her next turn. And I'm like, "No, I needed that cash so much." Oh, shoot. Because if I could get that cash, then I could do the same. I'd have enough money to be able to convert a thing. Let's see. So, if I go ahead and play this, I could get the um the thing to move. So, I could move this bell. But, I mean, just getting rid of these three is going to put the bells next to each other. Um, but
right, but the problem is I'm not going to get in money. I I would I would need one more buck to be able to buy a bell to get that one like Jen and Jen just took the cash. I could do this, but this just lets me upgrade an existing thing. I could um, you know, activate this cherry. I could turn this watermelon into a wild like Jen did in the first round, but then I'm giving up on my big money maker. I could um turn this bell into a cherry. I could turn this watermelon into a uh whatchamacallit a blackberry. Or I could turn this um bell into a cherry. So strictly speaking, I've got three cherries. If I were to play these three um and then commit to flip both of those, both of those become cherries, but then I've still got the other cherry. That's bad. Oh, shoot the boot.
Well, I I guess I'll just go I I'll get a pair. Boom. Boom. Boom. Um and unfortunately, I'm not really lining up much cash for myself, too. Uh but hey, at least if I go for this one, then I'll have three bucks income again. So, but that's for the future. I get a bonus now. I can't get the money I wanted to be able to afford to turn that watermelon into a bell because it's gone. Drat. Drat. But next best thing, I'll take that. Okay. So, I can at least turn this into the wild since I'm not going to be able to put it in a good money-making position anyway. We'll we'll see about that. All right. Jen's third turn. And she says ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. And boom. She just scored five points and nothing else. And while it's great she scored five points, she's made a problem for herself cuz her her set of cards is now spread all over the place.
And she's going to be giving me a cherry with her leftover card. Meanwhile, over to me, I will use this to flip one card and turn this into a wild. And I will go bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing. And I got that bell after all. Although it was the second one. So I'm at eight points. It's really 8 9 10 11 12 points right now to Jen's five 67 8 points. So I'm still winning overall, but uh we'll see how things go. So anyway, I'm down to one and at the end of the round, hey, once again, I give Jenna a dud, she gives me something beautiful. So where or no, was it the other way around last time? I don't remember. Anyway, so I've got a cherry. And by the way, this cherry has already been upgraded, so it can't go any further. It's always going to be a cherry. I could put it next to this because this can be converted into a cherry.
Um, right. Or I could put it next to this. And then how could I put another cherry next to these as I collapse them all? Wherever I put it, it's not going to give me any money. So, this round I'm only going to make a buck or a buck or a buck because I did not set myself up for that. But I need to be thinking if I put it next to this, but here's the deal. I think I'm going to collapse this to this and then swap that watermelon. So, I've got three watermelons. So, I don't want to mess with that. Let's go on ahead and put it next to the bell. That could become a cherry. And then let's put these together. Oh, and let's not forget get our money. I get one buck. And then I will combine these. And then um I've got to put this on this side or that side as we go into the third round where I will be the first player. What is going to be the way I'm going to do that? I know this is going to be a jackpot after I upgrade you. This is going to be the leftover I want to give up. So, there's these three.
Um, let's go with that. Just trying to keep the bells together. I don't know how that's going to work. We'll see. Okay. So, and Jen, meanwhile, she's got to decide where to put this dud cherry. And can she do anything with it? This cherry can be upgraded to become a real cherry. Although Jen has no other cherries. uh although this bell can become a cherry and uh that's it. So this cherry is not much use to her. She might want to just uh you know spend four bucks cuz she's already got three to upgrade it. But still she's got to put it someplace and she's also got All right. And she's got to think about Oh um wow. Either way, Jen's going to make three bucks from that column or that column. So she's doing much better in that. Although I'm doing better in points. Don't forget that. Or am I going to put this cherry? I have to put in one of these three and then collapse stuff for Jen. She does not care about that cherry, but what the heck? She'll put it there and she'll put this over here. So, she could have a potential of two cherries next to each other. We'll see.
And then this has got to combine with this. And here's what she'd like to do. She'd like to get that seven out of the way so that these could collapse to that. She could, if she could get the power to move stuff around, she could move that seven out of the way and then her blackberries are together. Yeah, sure. Let's go with that. Alrighty. It is my turn. It's start my turn. I don't have any bonuses, so I can't do anything. And now I look at the terrible hand I've made for myself. There was no luck here. Every only at the beginning of the game was there any luck on that very first. You build the deck every round for the rest of the game. This is the deck I've made for myself. What am I going to do with it? Oh my goodness.
I'm telling you, I I think I know these could both for four bucks, these could both come Blackberries, plus my wild, then I've got another jackpot. Although, it's a weaker jackpot because Jen already got those. But if I if I if I'm going to go for that, then it's really a question. What am I going to do with all this other stuff? Maybe I'm just going to make some money. I'll just keep it simple. Bing bing bing. What do I get? I get one coin because I only have a set of one because those don't match. Fine. But now I can spend at the end of my turn four coins to upgrade or sidegrade both of these. So I'm going to have another jackpot. Cool, cool, cool. Not the greatest. Like I said, folks, there's there's a surprising amount going on here. And now what has Jen got for herself? Um, two blackberries next to each other.
Why are these three not over here? So I've got three blackberries next to each other. I did not think this through very smartly. I could have had a set of three blackberries if this had gone with that group over there. What happened? What happened? Because of that wild oi oy oi oi. Silly me. Silly goose. So, well, too bad. So sad. I made my bed. I've got to lie in it now. And what am I going to do? You know what? If I can't do that, I could do something else. Let's just do something really simple. Just Jen just wants to make $1. Bing, bing, bing. All righty. So, Jen makes one buck. And with that, oh, I'm sorry. At the beginning return, she used that to get three. Then she made one more. And now at the end of that with seven, Jen's going to buy the most expensive card in the game, another seven. She's going to convert one of these things into a seven. And uh it's either going to be that blackberry or that blackberry. So Jen will have a three of a kind with sevens, which is the most valuable thing in the game.
That scores her seven points. So which of these blackberries goes away? H, this one generates points. This one generates money. Right now, we need money more than points. So Jen will make that one, I'm sorry, this one go away. And next turn, she's got another jackpot. And meanwhile, oh man, I do not remember what it was I was just gonna do. Um, oh, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go jackpot. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. Although it's only a threepointer. And so from now on, if anybody gets a jackpot with um blackberries, you get a you get a bonus, and you get two coins or I'm sorry, two points because remember, we're racing for 35. So that was it for me. I've got one buck. That is not enough for anything. So, I'm just going to live with what I've got. As is Jen. Binging bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bong. Seven points. So now Jen's sitting on 12. I am sitting on 11. How the mighty have fallen. Ooh. And for my last action, bing bing bing. One measly coin. And I'm not even going to make I'm only going to make two bucks. But at least I'm giving Jen a dud. And for Jen's last action, she will Oh, she's going to have to She's going to have to give me a blackberry. Either this blackberry or this blackberry. They're both exactly the same. So, it kind of doesn't matter.
Um, but better. If she goes like this, she gets nothing. This way, at least she gets a coin. Bing, bing, bing. She gets one coin. But that means she's also going to get three income. So, we're swapping hands again. And um Jen's got to put this you she'll put this over here or useless with a potentially good one. Maybe there's a potential for that. And then she's got to rebuild her hand. I would like to put this I'm going to put this right here. So I'm getting three bucks income. Thanks, honey. And now I've got to rebuild my hand for the next round. And I've got my one wild and my wild is going to be next to a bell and next to a cherry. Um, so if I put these together like this, then I've got uh I can got another jackpot which is going to start getting me bonuses over there. And then saying what am I going to do with this seven uh blackberry? I know. All right. Do I want to get it down here? We're close to the other blackberries.
Um, right. So I think so. Yeah. Yeah. All right. There we go. That's it for me. And Jen, um, she makes her three bucks. So, she's going to be able to start doing some upgrades. And how's she going to rebuild this? She's got two watermelons. Does she have any more watermelons to put next to these two? I mean, are any things that can be upgraded? Yes, she does. But it's unfortunate she cannot get that next to that drat. Um, oh, but all she's got to do is pay two because Oh, no. That's not a wild. If Jen pays two to upgrade this seven she bought um into a sevenpoint card. This only generates one point towards her score. If she upgrades it, it generates seven points towards her score whenever she plays it. So that's interesting. That's something to think about later. But for right now, how is she going to combine these to put that wild she's got to best use? And she's got these sevens. They're all spread apart. She doesn't have any more watermelon. She could always buy a watermelon and um you know replace something with that watermelon and uh Oh yeah, cherries. Blackberries are not as valuable now. Cherries are valuable because nobody scored a cherry yet. And Jen could make that a viable cherry.
And that bell can become a cherry, too. So, okay, let's go like let's go like can we get those? Yeah, let's go like that. Okay. Boom. And we are on to the next round. So, let's see. I I probably should have thought about that a bit more. I'm feeling I'm feeling a lot of pressure. This is hard playing two players at once. Like I said, for such a simple game, there is a surprising amount of crunch. And what was it I was thinking I was going to do with Jen's situation here. How was I going to make use of that wild? I do not remember now. But oh, one thing I could do is if I just play these just to get a coin. We got two sevens next to each. Although that seven's already a wild. That seven combines with anything. Why did I surround that seven with grays?
What was I thinking? The heck was I thinking? I don't know. My head was exploding. That is what um yikes. Yikes. Yikes. All right. I remember now. I remember now. Okay. Jen's going to play. All right. She's going to play this group right here. One, two, three. And it's not going to be much. Bing, bing, bing. All righty. She just makes one coin, which she almost doesn't care about because she's going to spend four coins to uh convert this into a cherry and to upgrade this into a valid cherry. And now, that's what I was thinking. Cherries are the most valuable thing. Jen's going to have a cherry jackpot. Nice. Okay. And all righty. Okay. And right off the gate, bing bing bing. A wild plus two bells. That scores me two points plus I get a bonus. And now choosing this bonus is everything. Do I just take the money so I've got a lot of cash or do I take the one that lets me swap stuff around? Or do I take the one that just sits here and is giving me three more points? Although if I get that plus this, then it's six more points.
Remember, we're just racing to 35 points at the end of the day. But I'm thinking if I take the one that's remove then um what could I get another jackpot? It would be a blackberry jack. I got those three. What else have I got? I've got both of these can be watermelons, but then I don't have any watermelons. I think I'm gonna have to buy something. So, I think with that in mind, I'm just going to take the cash money. And now it's at the end of my turn that I can um with four bucks, I could turn any of these into something else. Or I could I could rotate them. I could turn both these into Oh, yeah. I'm gonna spend four bucks. I was thinking straight. I will turn this into a watermelon and I will turn that into a watermelon. Oh, isn't that lovely? Sometimes. Sometimes I know what I'm doing, but in the me so does Jen.
Bing bing bing. Five more points. So, um, that is looking good for Jen. And then not to be outdone. Bing bing bing. Five more points for me. Oh, the game is speeding up, folks. Things are getting more exciting. Um, right. And now for that la. We both built for a nice hand. And now do we end with a whimper. Jen has one buck. She has nothing. So I think she's just going to go bing bong bong and make a coin. But give me a dud. Um, which you know this bell can be turned into a live bell. And my last action. I'm going to have to give Jeff something good. I'm either going to have to give her a seven or I'm going to have to give her this cherry. And I'm worried about that. Here's the deal. I know she's got a bunch of sevens. I don't think I want to give her that seven. Well, first of all, it's start my turn. I do want to give myself three more bucks, though.
I don't want to give her that seven, but I want to keep it for myself. I mean, because I haven't started building towards sevens and otherwise. Although, it's always something I could upgrade, right? I've got enough money to be able to do an upgrade later. So, but I also I need to be thinking about, okay, these are all money, so it's not like I can get put any into more money. So, I don't want to give Jen that seven, though, cuz she's already so strong on sevens. And sevens are the strongest thing. They never get weaker. So, I'll go with that. And I just get one coin. And now I could do an upgrade, but I'm not. We're going to swap things. We've got to decide where to go. I'm thinking, "Hey, thanks for the bell, honey pie. I've been saved by it." Um, so all I got to do is just do get the swap power and get that out of the way. And I could potentially get another bell. And Jen says, "Cherries." E. Jen's got a couple of cherries.
She's my cherry pie. Um, looks so good. Makes a tear to your eye. Sweet cherry pie. Alrighty. So, Jen's got to pick one of these. It's not giving her any cash. It's giving her another point. And what is she at? She's at 17 um 18 19 20 21 22. So, we're we're past the halfway mark, folks. We're starting to really make some cash. And what are we going to do next? I'm not quite sure, but I think I'm going to stop right there because that should give you a pretty good idea of the overall flow of Jackpot Set the Reel. And now, if you'd like to hear some final thoughts, first of all, please remember folks, this was a sponsored preview. And with that out of the way, well, let me tell you, I was definitely interested in checking this out. Uh, first of all, because publisher Danda Games has really been making a name for themselves over the last few years. Both the stuff they developed themselves has been really, really good. Like I love the worker placement solar sphere game and Pioneer Rails was a very very sharp one as well. Both covered on the channel but they've also been partnering really smartly with other developers for like was it was it Noria right? Was it yeah explorers of Norea and uh this year uh Galaxy Cruise. So again they have been making all the right moves. So they contact me and say hey we've got a slot machine deck building game. Well I'm interested. But when I saw who was the designer of it, or I should say the co-designer of it, uh, Christian Carlberg, I remembered I that name sounds familiar to me, and I had to go
look it up. And I remembered over half a decade ago, back in 2019, I covered a game that Christian self-published called Gisha, uh, Nine Kings of Solomon or something like that. And at the time I said, "Oh my gosh, this is this is a brilliant worker placement game from a brilliant designing mind." And it just broke my heart that I knew that game would never be successful because it had such a dark gothic subject matter of trying to worship demons in the time of King Solomon. I'm like, whoa, no one's going to want to play this game. And it's such a shame because it's so good. Please, Christian, if you do more stuff, try to pick more um, you know, mass market friendly titles and subject matter. And I'm glad to see he has because um you know jackpot at the reel.
This is bright and colorful and so so clever. And it this is not a you know an overwhelming game. This is a you know very much a gateway style you know level game but it gives you so many opportunities to feel clever. Um because you know not only are you playing you know your three cards in a hand from your fixed hand you know I've always loved that you know idea of oh these are the cards in my hand I can't move them around I've got to make do and you know when some cards come out the other ones can combine. I mean I've always thought that was great and it's done really really well here um because it allows you to make for nice combos. Okay well this time I'll just get the doubler and then next turn I'll get that three of a kind and oh no that one's not particularly valuable anymore. Maybe I should try to pivot to go this other way. Or maybe I should just take the cards in my hand and pay to upgrade them or convert them from one thing to another so I can keep scoring big with the deck building element of the game.
But not only am I trying to get my hand under control so I can get those three kinds and score points as fast as I can, but I'm also thinking about how are they going to get laid out because not only do I care about making the best rows, I want to make the best columns too early on so I can get more income, but later on so I can get more points and that's going to be the thing that pushes me to victory. Well, everybody's going to be, you know, going along pretty well. Um, you know, kind of keeping neck and neck as they score points. It's the player who's going to be able to build their deck the most to generate those transitory points from round to round that's going to eek out that extra little bit of speed and win. And then on top of that, I love too the idea that, oh, this is so amazing. I' I've I've got three of a kind. And um that's great. But now at the end of my round, I have to take those and I have to rebuild my deck. And all the cards that I want for that three to be able to do that three of a kind again have now been scattered throughout my hand by the very nature of what allowed me to score them. Now, how am I going to rescore them? How am I going to be able to manipulate stuff?
Well, the money I made will let me or you maybe I'm going to grab that thing that lets me all I want is just to move this one card over here because then I can upgrade that one card to be the thing I need and I can do another one. Those kinds of combos are really sharp. And so this game on the surface looks so simple, but there is definitely hidden depth. Not too much depth. This is still, you know, a fairly, you know, simple, straightforward, gateway familyfriendly game that's bright and cheery and colorful and is quick enough that after it's over and somebody, whoa, surprise, where'd that come from? Where'd you pull out that surprise win? Well, set it up. All you got to do is just reset those decks, shuffle, and go again. And the other thing I love about it is the physicality of it. You know, I love I mean, picking those three cards, I can't help myself, but put them out and go ding ding ding, you know, as if, you know, it was the slot machine in front of me. And just doing that over and over again has a really nice tactile feel to it, too. Christian uh and your uh your co-her Oh, who is the co-designer? It I did not recognize. Uh Kenny Zetterberg. Good job, guys. This is a lovely fast little game. just a bunch of cards and some tokens. And again, I think that what really makes it so satisfying is it gives you those opportunities to be clever, which is a if I if I play a bad move now, it's going to set me up for a great move next round after I rebuild that deck. I'm
really impressed. It's a lovely little thing. And Christian, uh, again, you I said it before, I'll say it again. You are a designer to walk. And good job to you, too, Kenny. And that's it, folks. That is the preview for Jackpot Set the Reel. And I want to say thanks uh very much for watching. Have a very nice day. Talk to you later. So long. Bye bye.