Look Back - 5-13-26

0:17 Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vasel and welcome to look back, a series where I go through and take a look at the reviews that I did last year this time and 5 years ago and 10 years and 20 years ago and tell you what I think about them now. If I think about them at all. So let's take a look. First we will start 20 years ago. I reviewed a game called Smear which I didn't particularly like this game, but I remember it went over like gangbusters amongst the kids I was teaching at the time. Basically it's speed dominoes. You're playing cards you know, a game where you're trying to get rid of cards as fast as you can, but next to each other in rows. Man, the kids loved it. It's fine. 6 out of 10. Gavitt's Stock Exchange. It's like classic reprinted games. Ooh, what is this old game? Well, it's Pit.

1:04 Um so this is a version of Pit that I played. Out of the Box Publishing was making some of these at the time. And it's fine. It's a 6.5. I like I like Pit a lot in the right circumstances. The shouting, it's you know, another form of Happy Salmon, the OG Happy Salmon if you will. All right, 10 years ago I reviewed Kings of Mithril which is awful. Just a terrible game in every sort of way. 2 out of 10. Blood & Fortune which is awful. Not quite as bad as Kings of Mithril. Man, that Kings of Mithril board I thought it looked cool. Anyway. Blood & Fortune, not a fantastic game. 3 out of 10. West of Africa. This is an interesting game, a Euro-style game of getting goods, and but it's not quite there.

1:49 It's that kind of game that feels like it's it's developed but not quite enough. 6.5. Formula D. So that I had played Formula D 20-plus years ago. What a fun game it is. It has some flaws. If someone gets in the lead, it's hard to catch up to them. And there's randomness with the dice. But Formula D streamlined it a bit and added street racing to it. So, I enjoy it. Not my favorite racing game, but a very good one. Seven out of 10. And Carson City: The Big Box. Carson City is a great worker placement game. Very western-themed, one of my favorite western-themed games. Uh just and the big box is just a really good version of that with a lot of extra stuff in it. Nine out of 10. Five years ago, I reviewed Cloud Control. Draw pictures with cards that have pictures of clouds in them. And you make pictures. Okay. Uh six out of 10.

2:39 Space Race. Space Race is one of those games that for some reason I'm looking it up right now because it just slipped my mind what this game is even about. That's right. There's so many games about space. Now that I'm looking at it, I do remember. Space Race is a game that's an actual about the actual space race. Here I'm thinking it's a space race. It There's some really cool things. Good rocket ships. A lot of cool things. It just wasn't a great game. It was fine. Such potential. I love the actual space race. Six out of 10. Nutty Noodles. Some food matching. Make your own ramen noodles. Meh. 6.5. Herbaceous Pocket. This is a nice little quiet game. Herbaceous Pocket is a smaller version of Herbaceous. They're essentially the same game. Um but one you never guess where you can store it.

3:24 Herbaceous, though, a fine little game where you have these two cards. You keep one, not the other. Uh in this series, I think it works well. Seven out of 10. Destinies. Um Some people mentioned that this is a game we should have just put in our three-player list that we just did. Destinies is good at three players. I also two. Uh sort of a a game where you're going through and exploring the stories. Just have some really neat ideas from Lucky Duck. They never took it to the level that I thought it could be at. It's But it still is really cool. 8.5. All right. And then last year I reviewed Tabletop Ink, a board game about making board games. Man, I wanted to like this one more, but it just It has bad iconography. It really uh doesn't even look good either and just emphasize it. Meeples are making games. I don't know. Um hopefully the one coming out this year is better. This one was fine. Six out of 10. Vegas Strip, a nice little push your luck style game as games about Vegas tend to be.

4:24 7.5. And Core of Discovery, what a good deduction cooperative deduction style game based on another comic Manifest Destiny that I'd never heard of. Really enjoy that. There's any If anything, these games from Off the Page uh Games keep making me find good graphic novels. But this is a very excellent game, Core Discovery. 8.5. So those are the reviews I did 1, 5, 10, and 20 years ago. Thanks for watching. I'm Tom Vasel. We'll see you next time.

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