Let's Talk Board Games #26 - 5 Quick Board Game Reviews

0:00 hi everyone my name is Monique and I'm navine from before you play and welcome to another episode of let's talk board games where we pretty much just talk about a few games that we've been playing and how we feel about them yes uh we have five games that we're going to be talking about today and uh the theme or the order as to how we're going to be talking about them is from biggest box down to the smallest right and uh you know in general I think the games we're going be we're going to be talking about are more on the lighter side or family a weight because lately honestly we haven't had much time to review anything the heavier ones yeah yeah we've uh we had sort of a lot going on uh busy wise in our personal lives but we do hope to get uh going with reviews again soon so let's just go ahead and get straight into the games now we do want to mention that all of the titles that we're going to be featuring today were sent to us as review copies from the Publishers all right biggest box biggest box well I only brought the lid for this because the box would be clunky this is the castles of burgundy special edition yes now Monique and I have actually reviewed uh the castles of B we did a playthrough and review of the regular castles of burgundy before this special edition came out right we also gave our thoughts on the Prototype of this particular one when it was on game found uh from awaken Realms and then now we actually have a copy of this yes and so we're going to kind of give you our thoughts on that right we're not going to be talking too much about how we feel about the gamepl because this is a game that we both have spoken about a lot um like n was mentioning we've already done a full playthrough of it and uh we're basically just going to be focusing on the special edition that awaken Realms released I believe last year we figured now would be a good time to to talk

1:30 about it because there's actually a reprint on game found going on right now so for anybody who missed the last campaign and were really interested in the special edition then it is available on game found so we have played every edition of castles of burgundy um the one that we have in our collection as some of you know is the oldest version that's all brown and uh We've also played with the anniversary edition that came out after that we played with the prototype for this and now this version which actually we were able to play uh in its full Glory so we have the version with the castle minis the upgraded terrain tiles the upgraded acrylic hexes and basically everything that came with the game found campaign now the things that I really really like about this version besides the fact that is big it's big and glorious is the fact that it came with um pretty much all the expansions I don't I don't quite remember now if it's missing any but it definitely came with the team game and some of the expansions that we did not own in our collection and I think it also comes with a solo mode which none of us have played but we have heard that it is good from other people yeah and the vineyard expansion which was a new uh expansion that was for the special edition so if anybody out there is really looking into getting into castles of burgundy and you don't mind sort of the bigger setup uh and the higher price point of course then this is sort of like the all-in experience you know it is beautiful um they they did a really really good job with the component quality even without the upgraded acrylic hex's these standard punch board uh tiles that come with the game are great MH they're much better than any of the additions of Castle of burgundy that

3:01 we have played with in the past yeah it would have to be uh with something like this this is really really big um now for me I do appreciate something like this but I am an old timely homely kind of guy like I I I actually prefer condensed boxes small boxes and easier utility cuz it actually gets it to the table a lot faster for me sometimes when I get a huge box like this it's almost like a uh it's it's a it's a bear just to get it set up and be like okay we're going to get started on the game so for me it's a fine Edition it's very very nice but I think I'm going to be sticking to pulling that one off the shelf the other one yeah and I think that is the interesting uh sort of debate here right there are different uh communities or populations of people that are sort of at odds in terms of this sort of uh game grandios Grand yeah gr grandiosity is that a word I know there are people who are are hardcore Euro Gamers and you know Euro Gamers to you just need chits and cubes like a lot of times Euro gamers are okay with cubes uh versus people who really enjoy playing games with Miniatures or even any of the other games that awaken Realms as an example uh puts out because they create really really really nice Miniatures and uh this one is actually with no exception the Miniatures that come in cast of burgundy are beautiful even the ones that just come with I believe the regular box has the the tokens for like the shipping track and your the score tracker but you can also get the upgraded Castle tiles which you know just hearing from what naine said right now uh we definitely did not play with too much we basically played with it once and then we were like it's it's

4:32 even more of a step to bring out those Castle minis it is if you are a gamer who really really enjoys that type of experience you know Miniatures and just deluxified components really add to your experience then this is absolutely something that you should look into Gamers such as naen who are Euro Gamers through and through or maybe even people who are have been gaming for a long time and are used to sort of the older style of games where Bare Bones I guess yeah Bare Bones we we almost didn't have much color you know in the older games this might be a little bit too much now if you caught our video where we were discussing a lot of the issues that we had with the Prototype they did make a lot of changes that a lot of people were concerned about the dice that we discussed are way easier to read I didn't I don't have a problem with them uh in this version they also changed the coloring for the uh I forgot what they're called they're the public goal tiles that everybody sort of races for um in the Prototype they had sort of like inverted colors that was very confusing and they all made it more consistent so it's a lot easier to read so anyway that is the castle of burgundy special edition it is absolutely gorgeous uh but definitely deluxified and again if you're interested in something like this it is currently oname found for their reprint campaign there you go all right next up we have a game from the king of Tokio Universe it is another game from Richard Garfield and it is called King of Monster Island published by aello so if you're familiar with King of Tokyo this game features a lot of the same mechanics except instead of a sort of of a competitive battler game you have a fully Cooperative game

6:03 where players are working together in order to defeat a boss that's on an island mhm so the game comes with three different bosses and each boss has two different levels of difficulty and their goal is to try to construct three pylons on this island uh with their minions in order to form a multi- dimensional no portal they're trying they're trying to build a portal to to destroy Earth or or wherever maybe New York who knows Tokyo um so this one like mon said is fully Cooperative uh and it kind of borrows a mechanism very similar to uh the loop where you drop dice into uh the volcano and it's going to uh kind of refract them into different zones and then the monster is going to take actions depending on how the dice kind of disperse and how the minions disperse in the game yeah so the way the game works is each player's turn is divided into two phases now you have the boss phase and then your player turn and the boss phase is very procedural um you're going to do things such as the boss May attack depending and how strong they are and then like deine said you'll toss those dice into the volcano because they will decide where the boss moves around the island and what sort of Havoc uh will occur I suppose yeah what kind of fires you're going to have to recognize oh we have to put that out that's a problem for us right and then the boss will move they'll potentially activate their minions depending on which zone they walk into and then you'll resolve the boss Dice and all of these things are going to do things such as attacking uh any monsters that are in the same zone or sometimes they'll build crystals and if you have three crystals in one zone of the island that builds a pylon and there are three pylons that they need to

7:34 build in order for the boss to win then once the boss's phase is done you have the players turn phase which operates very similarly to King of Tokyo you're going to roll the dice that also look like the dice from King of Tokyo but have some different faces you'll roll them up to three times and depending on which die faces you keep you get to resolve them and hopefully you'll be able to deal enough damage to the boss in order for you to fully defeat them by bringing their health to zero yes because uh if the the way you lose the game is either the boss constructs all three of the pylons uh the minion bag runs out or if one of the heroes gets defeated right and so just like in King of Tokyo there are also cards that you can acquire that help you do certain things and there are also allies that you can utilize but that is pretty much the uh the whole concept of the game and like I said there are three different bosses to play against and they have different levels of difficulty so if you enjoy this sort of gameplay uh there is a lot of replayability here but what are your thoughts I have mixed feelings about this one uh King of Tokyo in general is a game that I do enjoy uh it is one that I definitely don't gravitate towards anymore uh over the past couple years um I do like co-op games so there that's kind of a plus for me on this particular one uh I what I do like about this game is we didn't mention this uh earlier but the boss can actually level up uh over the course of the game so you know how the players can purchase upgrades and with those cards the boss also has a mechanism that gets them stronger and stronger as the game progresses so you're constantly trying to see figure out a way to kind of keep them uh under control so you can actually do the damage that you need to do um but also uh the procedural aspect

9:07 of kind of the aspect of okay the boss is going to do this they're going to move and then you're going to check how many dice and then what does the Minion do and now you're going to resolve their attack and stuff like that so uh after turn after turn after turn it got it felt a little exhausting uh doing that over and over again but I still enjoyed the puzzle of trying to keep this monster at Bay yeah I completely understand what you mean about the procedural aspect you know this game is definitely a bump up or two in complexity as compared to King of Tokyo and the thing that I enjoyed about King of Tokyo is the fact that it's very simple and it's just a battling game like you you do your dice you buy stuff and then the next player goes and it just kind of goes around and around like this and it's very silly this one is a little bit more serious you know you are working together um and you're trying to be more strategic in terms of your turns but like naine was mentioning the boss's turn is this procedure that you're constantly like okay where does the move to how many dice are in that zone it's just not as simple as King of Tokyo which you know I enjoyed that world for its simplicity so it sort of goes in the opposite direction and for that reason this one is probably not for me I do enjoy co-op games as well and just you know your brain juice is going in terms of well if you can handle that then I'll handle this and and trying to fight off the fires and for that reason it's probably pretty good for families now we've only played it just the two of us so uh we can't really confirm that but the fact that you can sort of work together uh instead of against each other especially in families with kids where it can be uh kind of difficult to accept defeat getting attacked by one of your siblings yeah yeah so with this you

10:38 know game you can work together and the complexity can be handled by the older people around the table Yeah the box says 10 plus uh I could see this being fine for uh eight and up you know I think they just have to put a number on the box it really depends right on the the person so so anyway that's it if you enjoy this sort of gameplay uh like I said there is a lot to explore in the box but it does increase complexity and it is a very different game from King of Tokyo but there you go that is king of Monster Island okay the next game we want to talk about this is one that we first learned at Dice Tower West earlier this year it is coming to us from pandasaurus games and it is called farway yeah now uh in farway this is a quick playing 20 to 25 minute game where you are basically going to be drafting different cards playing cards into a tableau so you can set up your endgame scoring but there's kind of a twist with this one where uh the cards you play early on are what you're going to score late and the cards you play late are what you're going to potentially score early on right thematically you exploring a far away fictional continent and so that is why it is called far away but it's technically a uh drafting Tableau building game where the game is played over the course of eight rounds and each round you're playing one card to your Tableau but you're playing them basically left to right because like nine was mentioning you don't actually resolve your cards until the very end of the game cards will have a number on them at the top leftand Corner they'll also have potentially a scoring criteria at the bottom right hand corner if you are able to turn in a certain combination of resource uh prerequisites and some cards will give you those resources that you'll need in order to

12:10 score the other cards I believe the lower the value of the card the more resources it gives you and the higher the value the more of the scoring criteria um and the reason why is because when you play a card if your the value of the card you played is higher than the value of the card right before it then you also get to draw these addition cards which I believe are called sanctuaries and these will do things such as giving you additional scoring criteria as well and resources but the difference between these cards and the ones that you play in front of you is there is no time limit at the end of the game you'll gain those resources pretty much immediately right away and you can use those resources in order to score some of the stuff on your uh your actual Tableau at the end of each round players will draft a new card into their hand from the display but you'll draft them in numerical order starting with the player who played the lowest valued card value y so it does uh benefit you to play a lower valued card when the time is right but going back to kind of how you taught earlier if you play a lower card than the than the next value before that you played then you're not going to get that token that you're talking about that cards so so there's kind of this like delicate balance of like I see that Mo'Nique has a 40 out there is she going to play a card that's 41 so that can I risk it and and play a lesser card here but then you're also trying to set up your end game scoring there's a lot of kind when you're just thatle decision as whichard you're going to be right and then once all eight rounds are done everybody goes into final scoring you technically you you can flip your all of your cards face

13:41 down and then flip them up every time you score them but you'll basically go from the last card played flip it over it'll give you resources or maybe your your scoring criteria but whenever you get to a card that requires you to spend resources in order to score it if you don't have the resources by then you can't score it so it's almost a bit of programming because you're trying to make sure that you're able to score your scoring criteria when by the time you get to those the card but you're making the decision in reverse order right so the first card you ever play down you now you have seven more rounds to try to make that a truth to make that happen but as you get to maybe round five or six now you only have two more rounds to get what you played in round six right to actually score so it becomes like a like a a crunch of like do I just want to get a lot of points like in the first three rounds that I that I played out or can I actually make something work out where I can just perfectly get everything uh in synergies but of course there's that draft aspect of it so if you're playing high value cards you get less dibs so then you're not really going to get the cards that you so desire that are in the in the public display so I actually really enjoyed this game um get getting my head around it it took me about a couple rounds yeah I think we played the max Play account this we play I think five it plays two to six okay I think we played it at five and it definitely it was tough for a few of the people around the table to to grasp the idea of you're playing it to resolve in reverse order yes it took the entire game and then the scoring portion for them to realize like ah I

15:13 see you resolve it in reverse order so uh for you know for a game like this it is very simple but it's really neat I haven't played a game that has required me to think this way or plann this way yet in a 20-minute package in a 20-minute package and it plays well at High accounts um I think there is a board game arena implementation of it that people were really really fond of so that is something you may want to consider if you'd like to try it but I definitely enjoy this one yeah I think we're going to be keeping this one for a while that is far away all right next up we have a Riner Kenia game in a small box this is called longboard it comes to us from 25th Century and like I said it is designed by Riner Kia this is a card game where players are building surfboards surf theme game and it is sort of similar to games such as Lost Cities I guess r k has a few titles that are very like card driven uh where you're trying to build a tableau of numerical cards card math dependent games yeah but not nearly as punishing in this game uh you basically have to take two actions on your turn and there are three options for actions that you can take at the start of the game each player will have a uh display of sorts a supply of two surfboard cards in their supply and basically in order to build a surfboard you have to play a card from your supply into your play area starting face up Supply a face up Supply yeah starting a surfboard these surfboards are going to be numbered they're also colored and they have stickers on them because at the end of the game the stickers are the points that you'll be

16:43 scoring for them now the thing is whenever you add to a surfboard the cards have to be the same color and of equal or higher value than the card that's already there there are also wild cards that you can play um but basically you're trying to get your surfboard to at least a height of four cards because once you hit four cards then you your board is considered to be shaped you put you put a beach card underneath it and it basically just represents the fact that this surfboard will be scoring you positive points at the end of the game you are safe from any penalties you are able to score this this is now you can still add to it Beyond four cards which would be great because you can score more points right but at least now you have something locked in mhm and the points again are just how many stickers are on all the cards in that surfboard now if at the end of the game your surfboard only has two or three cards you'll lose one point instead of scoring positive points and if you started a surfboard with one card and never added to it it's minus two points now as for the other two actions that you can take on your turn you can simply choose to add to your supply by drawing a card from the top of the deck and adding it to your supply or you can take from another player's Supply by trading so uh you basically take one card from them and in return you give them one or more cards that are at least a higher value than the card that you're taking yeah so if mon is going to take my four she has to give me a total value of five or greater in order for that trade to happen I cannot deny this trade I must allow it to go um but what the benefit is is uh Monique gets to bypass that whole step of having the card go to her

18:14 Supply and then from Supply to build the longboard she can instantly use it to build her longboard yes it instantly goes into my longboard area and that's essentially it you basically continue playing like this with everybody taking two turns each until the endgame trigger has been met which is going to be a certain number of surfboards and a certain height depending on player count and then at the end of the game you score of everybody's points including four public objective cards that'll be in play yeah everybody knows what these are ahead of time so as you're kind of stealing and trading uh with other people you're like oh having the most Wilds is is something so maybe I'm going to want to take that away from you because I want to avoid you getting those points at the end of the game what are your thoughts on long board yeah I I liked it it was light um simple uh is it a long-term you know one that's going to be on the Shelf probably not U but it's definitely one that I could easily put in the bag and simply kind of teach at a con when it's like you're sitting around and you're like I know how to play this we can get into it real quick um while we figure out what the next game is so I like games that kind of fit right into that little window I thought it was just okay um I like Riner Kia games especially card games for their crunchiness like I love lost cities and it does sort of remind me of like a more casual version of L cities I wish it was a little bit more punishing like L cities can because that's what makes it crunchy it's not the fact that I want my opponent to suffer or myself to risk you know scoring so many negative points such as in Los cities it's just the fact that those rules are in place to make you think harder about your turn I guess and that's what I really like about Riner Kena games this one is a lot more

19:45 casual than I think I would have liked and I just felt like you know there's some luck some of the decisions are not as meaningful and the theme also didn't really grab me too much so for me I just thought it was okay that's fair but that's about it you know like naine was mentioning this is a very casual simple game so people who enjoy that sort of Carefree uh maybe that sort of weight will probably enjoy this one and that is longboard all right and the last game that we're going to be talking about today is a solo game it is the smallest one cuz like we said we're doing this in size order and it is called paper app dungeon so naen has not played this I don't know anything so you will be talking about this sharing my thoughts on it this is a Dungeon Crawler that's in like a a notebook uh situation here it's a very very small package and so it's a very interesting concept actually the way that the game works is it comes with this pencil and the pencil is your writing utensil but it is also the die that you're going to be using in order to move around this dungeon now all of these notebooks any any notebook that you come across uh is going to be completely different from all others that are on sale because also if we bought two of them they would not be the same they would not be the same in terms of the map layouts because I think there's some sort of way that the computer generates each map and basically it's a notebook that consists of 42 different dungeon style maps and you're basically just trying to score the most amount of money while decreasing the amount of times you die okay there's a smiley face on each dungeon that shows where you start and basically each round you're going to

21:16 roll the pencil it's going to tell you uh how many spaces you're going to move and in what direction even numbers require you to move in an orthogonal direction and you have to continuously move in that One Direction until you hit a wall and only in that case do you get to change direction and odd numbers require you to move diagonally and I know you're probably going to ask already uh these this goes from 1 to six so if you grind this down to a nub and you cannot see the numbers anymore you can just take a six-sided die and roll it yes it's not the end of the world um and basically on the dungeon floor you're going to see a lot of different symbols that you'll come across some of them will require you to lose HP uh of course you'll gain coins because that's the whole point of the game you want to get as much money as you can you'll come across treasure tests you may even come across shops in the book depending on how far you go and that's about it each each page is played the same and it's a it's a nice little light activity that you can do uh I feel like this is more of like a travel companion or people who just enjoy an activity on the bus or like at the airport because it's very very casual in fact for me specifically uh the way that I enjoy solo games it might be a little too casual to be honest because there's no real like benchmark Mark to know how well you're doing it's more of just like a casual activity like just go explore this dungeon and try to get as much money as you can I got you that's the premise of it so like if you're at of Starbucks waiting for somebody who's notoriously 10 minutes late this is the the thing that you want in your bag yes so you just do you just you play a few rounds see how far you can go without dying but like I said there is no

22:48 Benchmark of like oh if you get through the entire book you know with losing you know less than x amount of Health then you score this High I I don't really know how well I'm doing you know what I mean okay that's fair but other than that I really don't think it's trying to be anything else than what it already is you know a game like this is a very small package small price point and it has a very specific uh target audience and so I just wanted to kind of show it to you because I thought it was really neat that is paper app dungeon well there you have it those are some of the games that we have been playing recently if you've played any of these games please let us know your thoughts on them in the comments down below if you have any questions about any of the games we talked about also leave those in the comments and we'll try to get back to as soon as we can thank you all so much for watching the video we hope you enjoyed if you like to see more videos like this in the future please consider subscribing thank you thanks bye