What's APPening - Gem Rush
Transcript
Hello everybody. Welcome back to What's happening. My name is Zee Garcia. Coming at you from a different space because um because I am working in the other room where I normally do this in the other recording space where I normally do this. So today we get to do it from here. How's everybody doing today? I I thought I saw a comment about down with meetings where where Are we trying to abolish meetings? Say it ain't so. Meetings are one of the best inventions of modernity that have ever been dreamt up. Hello David. Hello Mr. Heller.
Jennifer, Monica. Oh my goodness me. egregious egregious the egregious Yes, yes. All right folks, today I'm going to be playing a little bit of Gem Rush. um Do I think the game has changed much in the last in the five years since you last played it? I don't know. I I probably not honestly. This is a very small indie game from Victory Point Games and it is uh a tile-laying kind of game with cards. You you know, the This is all done with cards, but they they make a grid, and it is uh either a competitive or a cooperative game. If you play competitively, you are discovering paths, you are trying to get to a certain number of victory points first, so it is a race.
If you play cooperatively, you are kind of doing the same thing, discovering, trying to get as many victory points as possible, but the game burns cards off of the deck against you as a team, and you have until the deck is gone of cards to get as many victory points as possible. So, it's one of those threshold kind of um threshold kind of uh cooperative games. Um How am I doing today? I'm all right. I'm all right. I'm very busy. I've been pulled in a lot of different directions. Like I said, I've been working in the other space, doing a lot of stuff in there, so just kind of bouncing all over the place. So, this is uh uh both a distraction in the good and the bad sense of that word. It's a nice distraction. I can come over here and play a game and talk with you guys, and also kind of need to go do things. So, it's the way it is. But, you know what?
Still better than meetings. How about that? All right, we are going to play We are going to play offline. I am going to play with myself and an apprentice bot and another apprentice bot. And I am going to be yellow. I like yellow. We are going to play rush mode, which is the versus mode. It also has been a long time since I played this, so you got to go easy on me.
Okay. Let's see. My options are Mhm. This one every card I have in front of me has two parts. And each one I can play a card and actually count both parts, but if I only need one of the two, that's okay also and I just waste the other half of the card. So uh Permafrost here is the blue and then the the Echo Glass is the one I need to remember. It copies any standard gem. Okay. Right. Right. Right. So red All right. So if I go this way um the to the to the left here, I need red red. I need blue and I need yellow yellow. And all these things have names, but whatever.
This one right here takes care of red and yellow. Oh, but I won't have enough. This is only going to I need I need a yellow as well. Mhm. No. Can't do that. Can't afford that. And I can't afford going this way either.
Yeah. Okay. So instead then I could use a room uh the Echo Chamber here has an ability that says I can discard an Echo Glass and then draw the top four cards. Sorry, the top four discards. Are there four discards? Probably not. I'm just going to draw one card and end my turn. It's not a great uh layout right now. That's all I'm doing. And so you get victory points as you discover things. As you put out as you go through these openings, we're mining and finding our way around this maze. Uh when you traverse from one place to another, say I go down here, I have to discard you. I would uh get the number of victory points as listed on that exit, you know, entrance, however you want to think of it.
All right, I have to discard one card. Before I do that, I want to see what I'm able to get through here. Hmm. One, two, if I go that way, it's I still don't have that. Red, red, yellow, yellow. All right, I will discard this one. And now I'm going to go in here, the mine cart, and then I'm going to go through here for red and yellow. This one and this one takes care of that yellow.
Or I could do the other one. I could do this instead and it just moves that the echo glass over to the other side. So, same idea. I'm actually going to I'll keep the yellow and orange, why not? Yeah. I want to do that. I'm going to confirm that. I'm going to get five victory points. And I just flip over a new thing. Okay, that's what it was. That is fine. I will keep it just like that. Oh, there's another one. The paths, these empty hallways, you just flip again till you get to an actual room. There we go. Okay, I can rotate this if I want to. I will rotate it uh like so. I'm done.
And now I could use this room cuz I have an action point left, I believe. And this room is I can look at four cards, keep those with only standard gems. I will absolutely do that. I'm going to That's better than drawing a single card, probably. So, I use the room. There we go. I've got one only. The other three all have special things. And I'll explain what they are right now since they're here. The Orichalcum here on the first and the third card, if you use that to discover a room, you get victory points above and beyond the points you already get for traversing. And then the speed stone or whatever that one's called lets you just gives you two extra steps, I want to say, or jumps you somewhere or something like that.
That is mean. I did a review for this app is what you're saying, Mike. It's been so long. I I was pick I picked this thing yesterday cuz I knew I had to go live today with what's happening. So, I was like, you know, I was working in there, putting in the a grid. I'm putting in a grid in the other studio. Uh and I was like, okay, I need to pick something for tomorrow. I went through the apps real quick on my tablet here cuz I knew I couldn't record in that space. I couldn't be live in there. So, I settled on this. It's like, oh, it's been a while since I've played this. I'm going to go ahead and try that. It's been a It's been ages. I did not remember I have reviewed the app. It's actually been a while since I've reviewed any app. I guess I need coffee, too, like like Monica is getting.
All right, you guys. What am I going to do? I don't have a whole lot to do. I'm going to use the room, I think. That's it.
Okay, that's me. I'm going to go this way. I hate that being so wasteful, but what else do I have? Red, red. This one in the middle, red, red, orange, yellow. No.
Every possible color over here at the chaos vein. Yellow, green, do I do have all that? Boom, boom. Blue. Oh, I don't have that.
Yeah, okay, I see. This cost they're asking me for the that stone cost because I'm so far away. That's what it is. Discard a card, drink dick for three cards that don't match any gems on the discarded card. Okay.
I can't do that. I'm just going to draw one and be done. Yeah, I've played it once, but I know for sure I've played it before. I just don't remember when. It's I don't remember what I had for, you know, meals last week to be fair. All right, I have to discard one.
Red, green. I'm going to discard that one. And then I'm going to go this way with this guy and this guy and blue. Confirm that, I get four points. I can then rotate this whichever way I want to. Oh, let's do Yeah, that's okay, right? That's okay. And now I can keep going, though I'm not going to have the cards to do so. Let's take a look at the ability here. Reveal four cards, keep either all the wild, that's that uh something dust they call it, or the echo glass.
But basically keep all that have a special. Done, let's do that. I will use the room. There's only one. Okay. Oh, man, I was going that way. Next turn I was going that way. I had the two uh onyx there. Let's do it to a butt. Wait. In the iOS store, the app description has a quote from me in it?
They found a way to use a a back of the box quote with no box. Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay. Well, I'm I'm I'm happy, I guess, for for that. So strange. Okay, cool.
Oh my goodness. Okay, so I'm here. I'm right here in yellow, right there. That's me. I am going to not have enough to do anything. I I like that over there up here. I do want to find a good room. This room here, the Nexus. Like lets me keep specials. It lets me keep one special, I should say. The diamond spring's pretty good. Reveal nine and keep everything that has a wild. That seems really good. I want to do that. Are you kidding me?
[gasps]
That's nine cards I looked at. Nine. Oh, and I kept none. Oh, what a massacre. Look what they did to my boy.
Okay. I'm in trouble here. I feel I I kind of want to try again. I'm going to try again. One? I really thought there were more of these. That's That's on me. I'm going to stop doing that.
Oh, come on. That's one of the exits I could have gone through. These people are sniping me left and right. Okay, let's take a look at some of these special abilities near me. Use the ability of any room another player is standing in. Okay, cool. That's interesting. Now this one, the obsidian shaft. Here, discard that, reveal five, keep three. I like that. I'm going to come here one, two, and I'm going to use that rule. I will discard this one. And I draw. And I keep three of these. Let me minimize this. Look at how beautiful this is. I can minimize this. What was I playing the other day that wouldn't let me minimize witchcraft, right? I just I just played witchcraft on on iOS.
And it you know, I got a bunch of cards and it fills up my screen and I don't I don't know what I why I would keep one and not another. I got to be able to look around. Okay. Keeping three of these. If I go through the chaos vein there, I need two red, two black, two yellow. Red and black seems like a like a winner. That's two black, two red. I'll keep that and I'll keep that and I'll confirm that. Sweet. As long as nobody takes it away from me, I am golden.
Okay. I'm going up here. Oh, I got to discard. Crap. Two black. Two red and the two yellow. That's okay. I will discard that. I'm going to go there and I'm going to go through here, which is everything. That and that and yellow and yellow. I got seven points for that. Confirm. I got a new card.
Um Like that is good. I don't have The chaos vein is no good. I need to have a card to discard. I could go through the mine card here to another mine card. No. No. I'm good. I'm going to stay there. I'm going to draw a card. Hey, I got an achievement. Impressive turn.
Okay. Purple and orange. Let's take a look here. Volcanic well, reveal three, keep everything red or black plus one of your choice. Seems good. I will do that. I will use that room.
I will keep that one as well. Confirm that. Okay. Apprentice bot in red over here got to 20. I don't remember if 20 is the trigger, but it's you know, something like that. So, there you go. That is how to play the game competitively and you're just trying to get to a certain victory point total. Now, if I play offline and I play with a couple more bots. Let's try it now. Let me change myself to green. We're going to try crisis mode, which is cooperative. And you just It's the same idea. We're just pooling all of our victory points and trying to hit a threshold. And the clock in the game is burning cards off the the deck of cards. Which this obviously will handle on its own.
So, here we go. Hmm. Let's see. I can go purple, orange, black, and I have the Orichalcum there means that I'm getting I'll show you it says four points. I'm getting extra victory points because I'm using that. So, nor So, normally it's two points as you see there, but when I add this in it goes up to four points. Let's do it. And then I will place this in some orientation. Um I'll put it like that.
I do not have the ability to do this. I do not have an Echo Glass. So, I will instead walk back and use this ability, which is reveal six, keep all of that. Yes. That is a good pull. And now I have to burn three cards. So, this is the the difference in it being co-op. You burn usually from the deck as it says, but you can also burn from players' hands. I do not remember if I am going to have to discard down from my hand total anyway, so because I don't remember, I'm going to just burn from the deck and see if it penalizes me anyway, because we're learning.
We're just learning. I guess so. I guess you discard down to four. Yep.
Hmm. Black and yellow right there. And then I'll get rid of that one. I can go here with a single card, which is lovely. Confirm that. Uh sure. Okay. Let's see.
Hmm. I'm going to do that. I'm going to need one of each if I want to go this way. Red, black, blue, green, and purple I'm missing, but I'm really only missing one of those cuz I have a wild. Pretty good. I'm going to just draw one card and hope I get either green or purple. I got a wild. That counts. I will burn from the deck of cards.
Did my guy just ruin everything I was working on? Guess cooperative doesn't mean anything. Doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this dwarf-filled world.
Oh, no, wait. I can go over here. Right? Boop. Boop. That and that and no, I'm one short. Crap. What is this ability? Discard a blue, reveal five, keep three. Sure.
Hm. Okay, if I want to go through here, it's going to be The echo glass is is terrible if I want to go through that. So, I could come back over here and go through that one.
[clears throat]
That would be two green, two black, two purple. That's not great. And none of the echo glass is paired up with that. So, instead four, five. This is bad. I'm going to take those three. And then I have to discard anyway. So, I'm going to do that. I'll discard this one and that one.
It's gnomes, right? That are mining. They're not dwarves, they're gnomes, right? What am I going to do?
I could do this one, the rich deposits down here.
I don't have enough movement. Okay, so how much movement do I get? I never remember that. One. Two. Sorry, two. Three movement.
Yeah. And then I'll use that room. Or I could just go up here to the echo chamber and just go through this. It's not ideal. It's not pretty, but I can do it. Sure, five points. Blammo. Give me them points. I will do exactly that. And then I get to use the room where I can discard a thing and draw four. I don't have anything to discard, so I just draw one card. If I have nothing else to do, give me a card. I have to burn three, I'll burn them from the deck.
Hmm. This sucks. Three. I'm going to go here, and I'm going to use that ability. Reveal six, keep everything with black or wild. Yes. Burn from deck, please.
Hmm. Orange orange, purple purple, no. How about this guy here? That's black blue green No yellow, okay. Red red wine yellow, no. Orange orange, blue and black, yes. Blue black, orange orange. Then
I'm going to do that. Yeah. And then I'm going to Can I move again? Look at three cards, keep two of them.
That one and that one, confirm. Burn cards from the deck. Now, you'll notice we have gone through the deck a few times, but burned and discarded are different. We keep reshuffling the discard pile. The burned cards are removed from the game, and once there's nothing left there's no discard to reshuffle, then the game's over. It's like this atrophy of the um the discard pile draw pile.
Green red red red, yellow, no. There's no blue. Yeah, I just hate wasting so many cards. I could do this one. Cuz it's red, red, green, and then this guy becomes purple. Sure. Three black. I'll do it like that. And then this room sucks. So, I'll just draw a card. And I will burn three cards.
Yeah, the discard and the deck combined which are at the bottom there is almost out, so. Hmm. I will go here and I will use this ability. Discard a card, reveal five, keep two. Discard that, reveal five, keep two. Those are kind of trash.
Those are pretty bad for me right now. Woof. Keep two, huh? I'll keep those two. Oh boy, we're almost done.
Okay. Can I do anything? I don't have a red for this spot right here. Not enough yellows, purple, orange. I drew no purple that time. Three blacks, no. I am done-zo. Draw card. Burn.
I can't pick enough. Oh, other players' hands. I got to burn this guy's card then. How do I do that?
How do I select somebody else's cards? There we go. That's three. We're done. All right, so let's see how I did. Oh, this is cute. It counts up. Okay, I got 46 points.
And I did okay. I got 16 points. Red got 11 and and green got 19. Not bad. I will say this, I will say I like in person. I I own this game. This version of the game especially is the the one I have now, which I think is lovely. I used to own the kind of first edition. It was a good game. It's a very good game, but it didn't look as cool. Didn't it wasn't as nice of a production. When I played this game in person, I prefer the competitive mode. I think there is less upkeep. I think it's a cleaner game. I just I like it better. I think it's a It's a nice race game, you know, that whole push to get 20 points or whatever it is works really well. Nice tension.
But I have to say I think in the app I prefer the cooperative mode. And maybe that's because I don't really play the cooperative mode in person, so doing it in the app is refreshing. But it managing the discards, the reshuffling the discard into the deck when that runs out. This cute little do do do do do do do at the end to see what score you got. Trying to beat your own score in here is a little more exciting than in person. I don't know. I I think if you play the app, this is the way to go. And if you play the physical game, they're both good, but I like competitive mode better. Pretty good stuff. Well, there we go, folks. Um that's going to do it for us today.
Slightly shorter what's happening, but still got a couple of games in there. I agree with you, Mike, that I like the art direction for this second edition. The first one I thought was good, but the second one has a nicer box, nicer component quality, more content actually, also. But if you come across either one, Gem Rush, either printing, they're they're good. They're good game. Okay. Folks, thank you for tuning in and checking this out with me. I appreciate you uh hanging out with me for a little bit here. Letting me know that apparently I'm being quoted by the app developer in the iOS store. That's cool. I I like that. Um I hope you're having a great week, everybody. Make sure you come on back. We got a lot of stuff coming at you this week. We have RPG tomorrow morning.
We're going to be going mano a mano with a kraken, maybe. And And we've got of course videos the rest of the week, reviews, all sorts of things. So thank you folks for tuning in. My name is Zee Garcia. I'm going to see you on the next one. Take care, folks.
Hey, thanks for watching another video here on The Dice Tower. We really appreciate you stopping by and checking our things out. Thanks so much for joining us today. And hey, if you really like what we're doing here at The Dice Tower, then there are different ways to support The Dice Tower. One of those ways is through Patreon. We have links in the description of this video. We have links to lots of other things we do down there, so definitely check it out. But either way, we're glad you watched this. Tell your friends about The Dice Tower. Until next time though, I'm Tom Vasel and I hope you enjoyed this video.