The Hottest Games from Spiel Essen

0:00 Roughly 2 weeks ago, 220,000 people descended onto a averagesized industrial city in Germany. And all of them wanted to play board games at a convention known as Essen Spiel. Me, Efa,

0:16 and Main

0:17 were some of those people where we have played 16 of the new releases published in this convention. And we're going to tell you all about them right now. And we're also going to rank them from worst to best. This is a little bit unusual because what we're doing is we're effectively doing a joint episode that is both video and audio. So if you want to watch the no pun included version of this podcast episode, well, you're probably watching it right now. And if you want to listen to the talk cardboard version of this episode, which is our podcast, you're probably listening to it right now cuz they're both the same thing. They just exist on two different platforms

1:00 like like the multi-universe thing. Is that right?

1:03 Exactly. Yeah. So, see the video viewers did not hear the cold open so they will not know about the the multiverse winning every game thing, you know, that I rambled on for no reason whatsoever. Um, I also imagine for those of you who watch us normally on video, this is a little bit rambly in comparison to our normal videos. That's because this is entirely unscripted and it's going to be long. So, you know, sit down, pour yourself a glass of whatever, and just

1:31 brew

1:32 if you want to mess.

1:35 Mezo mix.

1:36 That's lift rod. Any German drink that you prefer. Uh, but basically, we're going to talk about 16 board games that were released at Essen Spiel. Couple of caveats. Caveat number one, these are games we have all all of them we have acquired ourselves. These are not review copies. We went to the convention floor. We paid cold hard cash for all of them and also

2:02 or sometimes by card as well.

2:04 Yeah.

2:04 Not always.

2:05 Sometimes pre-order on the website, but like don't don't ruin the the romance of this, you know. Um but yeah, we paid money for these. And also, we have played all of these games. This is not just like us rambling about like opinions of the rule books we've read or the promotional material we saw. We have not at the demo booth, not at a publisher. We have gone to our hotel or we got back home after Spiel. We have played all of these games with the exception of Juan and that one why we haven't played a full game. That will become apparent very very soon.

2:40 So we're not going to be talking about marshmallow.

2:42 Marshmallows the the most advertised game insiel.

2:47 How what size was that poster? like not a z like triple a z whatever.

2:53 Yeah, it was huge. So, if you're not familiar with marshmallows, this is a game we have not played. It is a game about uh marshmallows with butts.

3:02 They've got little cracks. Talking of bottoms. [snorts]

3:07 This is a game called nice soil and it is exactly what you think it is about. Um, so I think that Essen Spiel has a longl lasting tradition of always having at least one game that is

3:23 poo themed.

3:24 What was it last year?

3:25 I don't marshmallows.

3:27 Oh, right. Oh, okay.

3:28 Yeah. Um, but you know, I I do you remember who Soiled the toilet? The board game that was actually Yeah. That it was shaped like a toilet, you know. So, this is kind of like that, but the sophisticated version of that. This is taking Pooh seriously and and also not simultaneously because it's like very tongue and cheek. This is a game about Pooh, but this is like the Eurogame version of of the game about Pooh where you are trying to manage London's sanitation system as

4:01 I mean lack of

4:02 well yeah basically uh but the idea is that uh you basically work as competing sanitation companies. It's just people.

4:15 It was just people with carts and shovels.

4:18 Yeah. Well, no, like you have because you exert political influence like you can have alliances with the brewery or City Watch, right? So, I guess it is it is like a little bit company based. It's it's it's effectively a sort of an area control but also worker placement game that happens in two phases. In phase one, you will send your workers to go to various action slots and do the actions that are there. You're not quite blocking the space for the people for other people for other players, but your workers do leave poop and each area has a limit of poop that it can have. So if there the area has leached reached its poop limit, then you can't send the worker into that area anymore. Big problem. Um but then after all of that is done, you go into this night phase where you play these cards which are really lovingly illustrated. I think actually the artwork in this game is fantastic.

5:14 Um, in the night phase, you're going to go and um sort of move these poop cubes about the map uh in the hopes of cleaning up certain areas or even getting poop out uh into the temps, which counts as you having cleaned it up. And then you get to keep the poop cubes for yourself. I'm being very serious. Uh and those poop cubes are victory points. they convert into victory points at a different ratio based on what round it is. This is effectively the game. Uh I am not going to say much more about this, but why is it at the bottom of our list?

5:50 Because we didn't manage to finish the game. Uh not it was not the game's fault. Uh we had had a long day and it's not a very difficult game, but at that point in the evening, it was too much for our our tiny brains to handle.

6:06 We just didn't cope. This is the casualty of Essenfield is Night Soil. Uh it looks very interesting.

6:13 Uh I'm very compelled to play more of it, but so far this is a DNF as in we did not finish. So it's not really ranked. It's it's not within our list. We just were intrigued and compelled by it because it looks good, but whether it is good or isn't, we can't really comment because we haven't uh played a full game of it. Sorry.

6:32 The game at the bottom of our list. Can you make I was going to say can you make like a sad trombone sound for me but yeah like that. Thank you. Uh

6:40 is Bakiki.

6:42 What a shame.

6:43 We both played.

6:45 Um and EA are you aware of the concept of what Booiki is? Not the game but in the real world.

6:52 So I have a a two-pronged answer. Go on.

6:55 I am aware because you have already explained it to me personally. But for the benefit of the viewers and the listeners,

7:03 I know that you will have to explain it again. And I can't even pretend like I don't know what it is. Like for example,

7:11 no, Elaine, I've never heard of Boo Kiki. What is it?

7:15 Wow. And you studied linguistics.

7:18 What a shock. Uh so Bubakiki, uh you know the cloud shape, like a little shape of a cloud shape of a cloud, right? Yeah. The sort of cartoon shape of a cloud. And you know the kind of pow or spiky type

7:31 read a comic book in my life. Yeah.

7:33 So the concept of ba kiki in the real world is that anyone with a b or a c sound in their language will identify the cloud shape as ba and the spiky shape as kiki because that's how our brains work. We we assign like onmata type sounds. That's words are easier to remember if they're sort of onatopic. Ela, I have some uh abstract artwork on these cards that the viewers can't see and I'm not going to show it to them, right? But I'm going to show it to you. And I can tell you for certain that I also associate this shape with ba and and you know why

8:13 it's inappropriate to show more

8:15 naughty.

8:16 It is a little naughty, isn't it?

8:18 Is why. Yes.

8:20 Also, I am a child so you know there is that. Um, yeah, I I understand why you would say that. And in fact, when we played this, there was one word that every it was like mumu, right? And everyone knew what that word was.

8:35 Everyone knew what mumu was.

8:36 We knew what the shape and the word mumu went together was, right? Because it it just made sense. So, you have uh four words in front of you. It's a cooperative game. You have four words in front of you. One person picks one of their cards with a picture on like you just did with the naughty shape on it. Uh and you choose one of the words that you think it goes with best

8:59 and you put one of your little tokens one two three four token uh on that but it's secret and then everyone else around the table has to try and work out what you have decided is that word and that picture.

9:13 Let's see whether this works. So I I associate it with this word, right? I'm not going to say which one it is. Which one do you think it is?

9:21 What? That sun shape.

9:22 That sun shape.

9:23 Okay. I think you are saying this is nana.

9:29 No, I thought it was Taki ecat.

9:31 Okay.

9:32 And I have no reason as to why.

9:35 So

9:36 I just I just think that

9:38 I think that may be why this game didn't work as well as we'd hope.

9:42 It sounds like a great concept, right? I was really looking forward to this because I was hoping it was going to be another kind of not exactly like gibberas or whatever, but one of those kind of language building where you're connecting with other people figuring out things together. And I think just some of the pictures, they're like paper clips or pitchforks or some of them are a bit more random. This one looks a bit like a game controller.

10:05 Yeah, like a Nintendo game controller specifically.

10:08 Yeah. Right. M

10:09 and it kind of became a little bit more what you thought the word looked sorry what you thought the picture looked like not not what you

10:18 but there's never a good reason it's like you can't explain Ba key everyone thinks this is Ba everything that thinks everyone thinks this is Kiki right we don't have to have a reason for why it just makes sense so the game clicks when everyone gets it when it's like this one word like mumu and everyone's oh yes it's it's that Right. It's definitely that.

10:40 But any other time, this game is not fun because you can never really explain why you chose the number you chose. It just felt right.

10:52 And that's every answer to every conundrum. So there are games like just one that are working on a very similar framework. This is like, oh, why did you choose that? It's obviously this. And it's like in those moments you can discuss them because they're games that are based on actual language, right? Like and like clues that you sort of give and don't give and and here it's just like

11:17 or even picture association games.

11:19 Exactly. Right. Yeah. Here it's just like ah it's that

11:24 okay

11:25 because I think it is. So it didn't work quite as well uh as I'd hoped. So that is why it's on the bottom of our list. All I know is that next on this list we have Nocturnis. But I've not actually played this game. You are the only person who's played this game. Maybe in the world.

11:43 Wow. EA, do you know about night butterflies?

11:47 Is that what Nocturnis means? A night butterfly?

11:50 Well, no, but like moths are like night butterflies.

11:53 All right. Okay. Cuz when you said night butterflies, I thought this was going into a direction that's going to demonetize us on YouTube or something like that. Well, I mean, maybe it's a a word for something else. I don't know. I don't know. Uh but no, like moths that come out. We're talking about moths.

12:08 So, this is a flip and right game. This is this is the next game uh on our list. Um because it's a a smart game. I liked it. Right.

12:18 But, uh it is a flip and right. And but you have to look at your board.

12:24 Sorry. when you say but it is a flip and right that sounded like a you know ah but it's that genre so no good

12:32 that's not what I meant uh I'm I'm going somewhere with this you have to

12:36 look at your board to cross bits out uh and you're looking for shapes on your board uh and that you can cross out and that will get you the points and the thing is because it's a flip and right everyone is waiting for everyone else to have their turn right everyone is simultaneous ously coloring bits in and and trying to find things and you're going to be waiting for people to

13:00 until they finish because it's a thinky game.

13:02 I Well, I mean, it's not massively thinky, but so it works in two stages. So, uh you you flip over shapes uh [clears throat] on the cards, right? And then you have to draw those on your little board.

13:14 Um and when you uh all the butterflies have uh a series of shapes on them, different symbols on them. And when you have those symbols in a shape al together, you can have other symbols in it too. That's fine. But when you have those symbols in a particular shape, you can cross it out again. And that's what gets you the points. So, but so you don't have to do that simultaneously. It's not like you draw the shape and then cross it out. You can do that further down the line. So, you're continually looking at your board to see or your sheet of paper to see if you've made any of those symbol shapes. So, it's a flip and right, but it's slow is what you're saying.

13:53 I think it would be quite slow. So, I played it solo, right? I just played it on my own and I had a nice time. It was in the morning before we went uh for breakfast, I think, uh during spiel.

14:05 Uh and I thought it was lovely. It It was It's very very charming. The art is is beautiful. And I think they are all real moths. Uh which, you know, is very pleasing. Uh

14:17 maybe not that purple because the purple and teal is dominating here.

14:21 Probably not, but I think they are all types of Yeah. Well, I mean that's just the the art direction. I think they're all types of uh of real moth. Uh so I thought that was really really neat. But and and all the cards give you little extra powers, you know.

14:36 So you had a nice time. You just wouldn't bring this out.

14:38 I think this would be really slow, especially if you were playing it with a higher player count. Um, I think you'd be waiting for people to be searching for the right, you know, shapes to cross out and get their points. And I think there is a potential to miss the shapes, too. Uh, and to be confused when you color them in because you have to sort of draw the shape and then color it.

15:00 Yeah, I get it. It's it's it's messy, isn't it?

15:02 I think so. But but I had a nice time playing it. So like, but it's at the bottom towards the bottom of the list because I think it would be very slow if you played it at a higher player count.

15:12 I'd say this is the first game on this list where I feel like somewhat positive about it.

15:18 Okay,

15:18 so this is from Freedom and Freeze, your friend and ours. He's not really our friend. We don't really I've spoken to him twice

15:27 for like a sentence. I don't know. It just felt like a nice thing to say cuz Freedom and Freeze seems like a nice person. That that's where that came from. And look at this. lovingly charming artwork

15:38 on Formidable.

15:39 Yeah. So, Formidable or Formidable Farm as is its English title. So, Freedom and Freeze is known for games that sometimes go a little bit uh you know in in an unexpected direction. They do something different. They do something new. I was very surprised.

15:56 Oh, I know what it is. It's the giant tomatoes.

16:00 What?

16:00 The giant tomatoes or the tiny pigs?

16:03 What are we talking about? You said it goes in a a weird direction,

16:06 right? No, no, this is I you didn't let me finish.

16:10 Oh, I'm sorry.

16:11 The thing about this [sighs and gasps] is that this is a Freedom and Freeze game that doesn't really go in a different direction. It's just very standard.

16:20 That's the twist.

16:20 That's the twist. It's just very mundane, average, middle of the road kind of thing. So, uh, you have a deck of cards in front of you, Elaine. You draw three of these cards, right? And your objective is to play all of these cards. If you're the first person to play all of these cards, you win. Right. Right. Um on these cards, you have a thing that you need to pay and a thing that you get. So, for example, I pay free wheat, I get one card. Or I pay one pig, I get two cucumbers.

16:50 Whoa.

16:51 Right. So, and the other thing that you also get to you get to play three up to three of these cards.

16:56 Yeah.

16:57 On your turn. And also you don't have to play the cards you have in your hand. There's also like a tableau of cards that you can just oh I'll play one of these and do whatever it says.

17:08 What's the um shamrock mean?

17:10 So any any two different resources in this case cuz it's it's two shamrocks and not equal. Right.

17:16 I see. Okay.

17:16 So and then you'll get a reward. Right.

17:20 But but the point of this is right is that all all you're doing is you're just converting resources. You also can move your disc and get that thing where you move your disc. So, for example, I can move it onto tomatoes. I'll get two tomatoes. Right. I can now spend these two tomatoes. Oh, actually, I didn't want the two tomatoes. I'm going to move it on the pig. I'm going to get the pig and I'm going to play the card that converts my pig into two cucumbers.

17:48 What? I really I really like the knobblininess of the cucumbers. By the way,

17:52 can I do anything else? No, cuz my other card needs sheep and free wheat.

17:57 You don't have any sheep?

17:58 I don't have any of them, right? So, I'm going to have to wait till next round till I can get something done. Um, there's a few other mechanisms like the cards that you do actually complete. They become a currency that lets you break the rules. Like, for example, go on a spot where someone else is and get the same resource they did. And it's neat. It's nice. There's nothing about this game that is wrong or like bad design. It's It's quick. It's easy to explain. It's cute. It's elegant.

18:28 It's also nothing special, right? If you enjoy resource conversion, you you're probably going to have a nice time just playing some cards and converting resources and mostly not interacting with other players. You're just all doing your thing.

18:41 I I enjoy not interacting with other players.

18:44 Yeah. Great.

18:44 You're just all doing your thing, playing your cards, getting your things, converting your things, playing your cards again, and so on. Mhm.

18:52 None of it blew me away.

18:54 None of it made me think, "Wow, this is terrible." It was just fine. It was nice. I liked it. I expected something a bit more chewy from Freedom and Freeze. Not in necessarily in terms of complexity, but in terms of, ooh, this is doing something unexpected, and this just wasn't. One of the highest games on the post esscent hotness list is tax the rich, but it is only number 12 on no pun included list. This is a trick taking game. If you're not familiar trick with trick- taking games, I will not explain trick- taking games in this video, but I will redirect you to our video of the crew, which I think explains trick taking pretty well. There's a whole segment in at the beginning where we go over what a trick- taking game is. It's basically a card game. It's basically bridge. If you played bridge, it's basically hearts. If you played hearts, so on, etc. Uh, tax the rich is one of them. It's one of the four trick taking games on this entire list. And in our opinion, it's it's it's not bad. It's not bad, right? It's all right. It's good, actually, even. But it's just

20:00 You liked it more than me, though.

20:01 I did. I did like it a little bit more than you, but it's still I didn't I I played three of the four trick taking games on this list,

20:09 and I liked it the least out of all of them. Um, so this is this is nice. I like the idea. Obviously, the title is compelling, you know, tax the rich. I don't think it executes its idea that well, and it's mostly mechanically compelling rather than it is physically compelling.

20:29 Yeah. The the twist is that you uh end up teaming up kind of with with someone.

20:35 For those watching at home on YouTube, we actually have like

20:39 You could be on the bus.

20:40 Well, you could be at the bus. We have a little visual aid because the box comes off and it becomes a board where you are bidding. So you're bidding for who's going to be supreme leader and you all like at the beginning of every round before you play tricks, you have to either move this crown token to the left or you have to move it up and uh whatever uh if you're the last person to basically make a bid, you're saying you're going to win that many tricks. So, if my crown is I move the crown to seven blue, then it's going to be like I'm I'm going to bid that I'm going to win seven tricks. And

21:14 but you don't have to include blue in those tricks.

21:16 No, but blue is then Trump.

21:18 Blue is then Trump.

21:19 It determines what suit is Trump. A and then after I win the bid, I get to call out any one card in the game and the owner of that card pipes up.

21:30 Say 10 blue.

21:32 10 blue.

21:32 That's me. I've got that card.

21:34 Right. And then we're in a team. Hooray. And the other people are sort of also in a team. The reason we're in a team is that if we win seven tricks communally, we'll then get six points in this particular instance. But if we don't, then the other players will get six points. So it's it's kind of like our goal to meet that target together. I think nothing in the rules prevents also to call out a card that you have in your own hand, thus saying

22:02 sure

22:02 to everyone, screw you. I will do this by myself and I will win all the points.

22:06 But but part of this game is that you are in a team.

22:09 Well, it can be. You can you can absolve yourself of a team. I don't

22:12 unless you are not playing at four. I think if you're playing at three, then you don't call anyone out. You're just trying to do it by yourself. Um so the after that proceeds a very bog standard trick taking game with the exception that 12 being the highest card in any suit you can't lead with.

22:31 Mhm. And also if all you have in your hand are ones, twos, and threes once per game, you can say it's the revolution of the classes or whatever it's called. Uh and and then all the ones are highest and all the twelves are lowest from then on. And you can do it whenever you can do it in the middle of the trick. So, for example, if I had an 11, a one and a three, and I played the 11 to the trick, and then all I have is a one and a three, I can say it's a class revolution, and then suddenly that

23:03 now I've played a one now. That's not

23:05 Why did I do that? That was the worst move. But it's fine

23:09 because we're in a team.

23:11 Yay.

23:14 It doesn't matter.

23:15 It it that's that's the game, right? So, I thought it was cute. Can I just say I'm having more fun doing it now than I did when we played it though, so

23:24 Well, that says something. Yeah,

23:25 I know. Well, I told you I didn't enjoy it that much.

23:27 Uh this uh also there are variants that we haven't played with. I we played with the feminist variant where it also makes if you have only fours, fives, and sixes, I think. Then you also like reveal them and then but they're all worth like plus all the women in the game or female presenting characters in the game. No, the feminist uh characters because there are some female presenting characters that don't have the feminist symbol.

23:54 No, and that's fine.

23:55 Yeah,

23:55 that's fine. They don't have to have the feminist. It's just if you have the cards with the feminist symbol, that's when you can call the feminist revolution. But then any female presenting character

24:05 can uh will get plus 10 to their value, right? That's

24:10 that's the trick. And you can only have one type of revolution per game. So there are some variants. There are like extra rules that you can tack on in this game.

24:18 I felt like this was broadly fun and good, but I'm just The simple answer is I've played better trick taking games this essential.

24:27 Yeah, me too. Uh I want to say if you are watching at home and you're worried that there is red and green uh in this uh they are double coded too. So the all the green cards have like a rectangle on them and the red cards have a like money bags symbol on them. So you can differentiate them that way too.

24:46 And they're it's also not entirely red. It's like orange. I don't know if that makes a difference.

24:51 Um so yeah, it was fine. It was okay.

24:55 Yeah.

24:55 Would you look at this cool bird fella?

24:58 I want to I I want to be friends with this bird. He has an hourglass and he's made out of night.

25:06 He is made out of night. How many the moon for his eye?

25:09 How many friends do you have that are made out of night?

25:12 One. Oh, you're you're right. I don't think you're cool enough, Elaine.

25:16 Oh, why? Well,

25:19 I want I want to be friends with the Echoes of Time Bird, too. He looks He looks nice. He looks like he will take you into sweet dreams.

25:26 Do you think the bird is as nice as this game?

25:30 I think the bird is nicer than this game,

25:32 which is why the game is at number 11.

25:34 Yeah.

25:35 Look. Okay, so I think this is pretty low actually for Echoes of Time. I broadly like this game, right? [clears throat] M but it it does skirt into very familiar territory once again which you know for us we're looking for something new and interesting and exciting and this was this was maybe not that having said that it felt pretty solid and and interesting as a game I think it it has suffered in our one play of it um of wrong player count and wrong environment

26:08 yeah possibly

26:09 I think this is broadly a two-player game. We played it as a four-player game.

26:14 Mhm.

26:14 So, the turns took a very long time to come back to us. Uh, and also we've played Resolana, which this is so incredibly similar to. So, this is from uh Roberto Pelle and Simona Luchani. I think many people will recognize definitely Simon Luchani uh as as a designer who's worked on many different games and some of them quite popular. Um, this broadly didn't feel like a Simon Luchiani game

26:42 necessarily.

26:43 Um, because those are more like crunchier euros. And this is sort of a card game where you're playing cards to create combos from various effects and then those combos will create more combos and combos, combos, combos, combos.

26:55 You're moving through time.

26:57 Well, that's the kind of gimmick of this game is that when you play these cards, they have a time slot that they go into. So, for example, if I was to play this beaver called Big Shot, um the beaver called Big Shot is going to cost me three cards beaver

27:10 from my hand. So, the resources cards in your hand

27:13 that I liked about this.

27:15 Uh yeah,

27:16 many games do this, but it felt familiar like Race to the Galaxy kind of situation, but it also goes in the time slot. So, it goes into slot number four, which means for four turns, this ain't doing anything, right? Uh but there are different actions you can do in this game. So one of the things that you can do is you can play a card to a time slot paying its cost. Another one is you can move cards on these time slots further along in the time. Right? But then eventually uh during the start of your next turn, you will actually slot this into your player board. Uh there we go. And so it will move further along in time as your turns progress. And when it eventually does come off your playerboard, then it's voila. It resolves and does things. Voila.

28:05 Exactly. Yes. The other cool thing about this game is that there's this mechanism of which of these cardboard slabs that move around your time board is off the time board because they all have different symbols and different cards that you play refer sometimes to these symbols. So in the round where this symbol is off your time board. Yeah. That's that's when those effects are active. So you kind of want to time them in such a way where they come out at just the right time so they can do something cool. Um it's a nifty little mechanism and I enjoyed mcking around with it.

28:41 It's just it was just so very long at four players.

28:44 It was it was a long game. Um I didn't quite get the sense of I like I understood the game. I knew exactly what I was doing, but I didn't quite understand how it related to the theme of the game. Like why some time fell off and then those powers activated or why when the card fell off with the time then you got that card. Like it was quite weird. Um I don't like animals and clothes. It's full of animals and clothes. But I do like the custodian of secrets which is like a little squirrel wearing some spectacles.

29:16 Is that a squirrel or a ger

29:18 or a um what's that thing called? like a groundhog.

29:20 Yeah, it looks maybe like a groundhog a little bit.

29:23 Something like that. Anyway, it's very cute. Or maybe a guinea pig. I don't know.

29:26 I mean, it's nice. I think I I think you're right in that this game is incredibly abstract. You know, the setting

29:33 really does not inform the game in any way, apart from the fact that the setting itself is quite abstract and big picture. There's not a cohesive sense to what any of this is. It just is.

29:46 It just is. Yeah. there's things that you are doing because you are doing them because the game tells you to do that and and I didn't mind that really. Uh there were lots of bits of it that I did like that uh on your turn you have different options like whether you're going to play a card, whether you're going to move time along, uh whether you're going to try and I don't remember what these were called, but there are big cards that you try and sort of build up to get points from. Uh and they also have special abilities on them. So, uh I quite like that. There were lots of things I did like. Uh, but it felt very disjointed because everyone's playing their own little boards and doing all different things.

30:25 Um, but you can also the big cards you can kind of steal them from other players. So,

30:30 yeah. So, you need to invest a certain number of strength of your own cards and lose them from your tableau to actually tuck them under these. And these are not only big points, prizes, big effects, but also one of the game ending conditions.

30:43 So, you kind of want to work towards them. And but yes, you can then outshine another player by committing more to that card in terms of strength than others did and therefore steal it from them.

30:54 Mhm.

30:54 That [clears throat] is the only point of interaction, right?

30:57 I think so. Yeah.

30:58 I mean, some cards No. Well, it's not true. There are some cards that do kind of

31:03 like negative things for other players.

31:04 Yeah. But they felt very like abstract in that sense where they didn't feel like as cohesive as they did in Race for the Galaxy or something like that where it's like, "Oh, okay. I understand that these cards exist, so that's something I need to work around. Some of them did where it's like, oh,

31:21 uh, you have effects that make us discard cards. We need to be aware of that, right?

31:25 And some of them just felt kind of like, oh, and I also do this to you. And it's like, oh, okay.

31:32 You know, right, sure. So some of it was good and and some of it like at the same time made me for made me want for more interaction between players

31:43 and at other times maybe want for less interaction between players.

31:47 Yeah. Do you mean like um you want more discussion interaction rather than just things happening to you or things happening to the other players because of something you've done?

31:59 I think because this board is so involved

32:01 Yeah. and and there's a lot of things happening on this board. You have to account for a lot of different effects and and and like managing this whole time situation. You do not have the brain space to watch what another player is doing. And so when they do do something that affects you, you're suddenly like, "Oh

32:18 yeah, I should have probably been paying attention to that, but not in a way that made me like actually want to pay attention because I was already overloaded with what was happening here. I just wanted to kind of like for the game to not be like that if that makes sense.

32:31 Yeah. Yeah. I think uh definitely I want to give this another try because the cards there are quite a lot of cards in this and they all do different things and they all interact with each other in different ways. They've got like symbols on them. Uh like each card has different symbols on it that uh act differently depending on what other cards you've played. Um the uh abilities when your slat falls off are all different on different cards. So I think I didn't play this particularly well. Like neither did I keep up with what was happening.

33:04 Um and so I do want to give this another try, but I I wasn't overwhelmed by it. Like I wasn't enamored by it. I I I feel like there are games like this already, like Race of the Galaxy and Resarchana that that maybe aren't like as involved as this. And when I say it's not that it's more involved, it's just that there's way more effects, but they get to the core of this idea quicker and in a more satisfying way. Uh whereas this felt more like not only have I seen this already, but I'm not sure that this is the best version of this that is out there. Have no fear. Elaine is here to tell us about Fuklos or its English title,

33:49 Fearless.

33:50 Well done, EFA. You've pronounced that German word entirely correctly.

33:55 I'm sure you did. Efa, have you ever heard of a trick taker?

34:03 No. What is that?

34:05 It's a type of card game. Uh, this particular trick taker card game is a spooky one.

34:14 Wow, Elaine, I will drop the coiners and tell you that not only have I heard of trick taking games, not only have I heard of spooky trickt taking games, but this isn't I know that this isn't even the only ghost themed tricktaking game in this episode of no pun included/art.

34:36 What? That's bonkers, EFA. Uh, this is the only one by Freedom and Free, though.

34:42 That's true. That's true.

34:44 It's not the only game by Freedom and Free on this list, but it is the only spooky one

34:48 talked about for I know. But there's like a, you know, ven diagram thing going on here.

34:53 Something happening here. Yeah, definitely.

34:55 This is a a small very small box trick taker, which I can see that immediately pleased me. um about uh sending your ghost from the spooky house. Okay. Um onto the safe path and you are doing that by uh playing tricks and winning when you win a trick you add. So there are some cards that are plus

35:16 you can see whatever.

35:18 Yeah. So I've not played this game Ela and I can already see there's like suits and but also plus values and then you look further. [gasps]

35:25 A negative value. Wow.

35:27 There is a negative value. Yes. What does that do? It's what the negative value it minuses out. So it's a normal uh must follow trick taker, right? But uh when you win a trick, you add up everything that was in that trick. So uh in this example, I've got a plus4, a minus four, and a plus two. So that's just plus two.

35:45 And then you will move your little ghosty from the spooky house at that number up or down depending on, you know, how many how many it is. Uh, the idea is that you want to stay as close to zero as possible because for some reason the little ghosties do not want to go too far either way into the spooky woods into the town.

36:10 They want to be in the spooky No, they don't want to be

36:12 They don't want to be in the spooky house.

36:13 I know this cuz the spooky house, I saw this. It has a 15 on it and that's like being on space 15

36:20 effectively. Yeah, I'm smart. I know games.

36:24 Yeah, you which incentivizes you to win at least one trick so that you're not staying on this 15,

36:30 but you don't want to win too many tricks because you don't want to steer too far away from the thing or you want to win tricks with such a value. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't really matter how many you win. You just don't want to go too far one way or the other. I don't understand why ghosts

36:47 don't want to go into a spooky wood. Naturally, that's the

36:50 Does the person with the highest value win the trick?

36:53 Yes.

36:54 So, that naturally makes it hard because like if I want to win the trick like and there's a plus three in it and I only have a plus five, that's like plus eight already.

37:04 Is this trick actually good for me or not?

37:06 Yes, exactly. So, sorry, it took my brain a second to understand what you meant then when you said the highest value in the trick. Yeah.

37:14 You know, like the standard trick taking rules. Yeah. Uh, so this game I enjoyed it. We had fun. Uh, I I'm not sure we played it in the ideal environment. Uh, we played it as a three player.

37:27 Uh, I think we all had fun doing it, but it was it was very late towards the end of the evening. It was, you know, we'd had a busy day.

37:35 Mhm.

37:36 Uh, and and I think it was pretty good for that. Um, but there were a lot of distractions going on. People were interrupting other people to like, oh, you know, can I just talk to you for a second? type things. Um, so I'm not sure it was the ideal environment, but I had fun. The reason that it's this far down on the list is just because I don't think it did anything particularly special.

37:59 That's twice in a row for Freedom and Freeze. [snorts] The guy who's known for doing something special. And this just it feels like I I get what you mean. Like there's a twist. Yeah. You know, you some tricks are good for you, some tricks are bad for you, but it doesn't veer too far away from the trick taking formula.

38:18 No.

38:18 Uh, and it feels pretty run-of-the-mill. Would that be a fair assessment?

38:23 I think so. But, but it would be easy to teach, you know, I think more than the other uh ghost trick taker that we have on on this list, but it it's not as different as the other one.

38:36 And the ghosties are cute.

38:37 The ghosties are very cute. I noticed there's a whole pile of debt cards in front of me. I don't know why we've set them this game up with them in front of me.

38:46 I just felt like you would have an affinity towards them based on what happened in our last game of

38:53 Why? Why on earth would you think that?

38:55 Dest title ever, National Economy.

38:58 Umhu.

38:59 Uh well, you know, cuz you took the entire deck

39:02 and then dead cards. I had to get my notepad and pen out and make more because they're not supposed to be limited and I needed more than 15 minus three cards.

39:13 Yeah,

39:14 I had a bad start.

39:15 Good game you played there, Ela. Good game for sure. So, this is national economy which on the surface a tableau builder, right? Like as in very much like an echoes of time. You have cards in your hand and you can play them in front of you. How much does a card cost? It it costs in other cards. So that was not words but you know what I mean. So for example if this cast card costs four cards that means if I want to play it I have to discard four cards from my hand. Simple as right. But then what happens? This curious interesting thing happens. This is also a worker placement game and you can place these workers on the cards here or on the cards you played in front of you and then you'll be able to do the thing that the card says. Cards here. No one else but you can play your workers here. However, here if I place this worker here, which lets me draw a building card and then be the start player for the next round. That's important. That's very important, right?

40:13 So, I would be, oh, hey, new card. And then, hey, I'm going to be first player and no one else can go there. That's it. That space is blocked for other people. But then a fun thing happens at the end of the round. What is that thing, Elaine?

40:25 We have to pay our workers. Zfa,

40:27 that doesn't sound that unusual

40:28 because you start with two. But what is normally a good thing to do when there are extra workers that are available to acquire in a game, what is generally a good thing to do in a game is to get those workers fairly early because then you've got them for the rest of the game to use and get extra actions.

40:46 And they only cost two bucks, right, to pay for.

40:49 Oh, initially. Yeah.

40:50 Yeah. Initially, right? What's What's $2? How much is a banana?

40:53 How much? $10. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Uh, however, however, for every dollar that you cannot pay your worker,

41:02 ah,

41:02 you have to take a minus3 card.

41:05 Well, there's a little little caveat there as well that like if you have a card in front of you that you've played and it has it has a monetary value and you need to pay your workers and you can't first, you get to sell that card. So, you will get like this card will get me 18 money. That's that's a lot of work as paid for. And I will get that 18 money, but I will lose the card and lose the 18 points that it's worth at the end of the game. But then that card goes into the center tableau

41:32 and now anyone can use that action.

41:35 So you haven't really lost it if you think about it. You just lost a whole bunch of points.

41:39 But do you know what else I did? My other downfall was that um so the cards that I had uh you know also in a in a game when there's kind of a set collectiony type mechanism uh where it says like for every this type of card you have you get extra points. I was like oh sweet. So I I tried to gather up

42:00 I never saw anything like that in this game.

42:02 That's cuz I had them all. Uh I tried to gather up these types of cards, right? But all of those cards you could not sell, which meant I could not sell them to pay my workers.

42:14 Right.

42:15 Right. So thatus three - 3 - 3 - but I ended the game with three points. Plus points despite having 15 minus three cards and then minus a bunch of other points. So

42:28 we we're forgetting to mention one pretty key mechanism. It's the money. Right. So, we just put all the money for display here in in this trough. But but actually that's not how it works in the game. There's a very limited amount of money in the trough and the first piggy to snuffle it all up basically just gets it and everyone else goes

42:50 oh what do I pay my workers with? The thing is it's like if there's 10 left and you need, you know, you action says take 12,

43:00 right? You can't take anything

43:02 because you have to fulfill the action. Yeah.

43:05 It's it's so painful.

43:06 You get nothing. Th

43:08 this this game feels like walking into a bear trap on purpose, right? And then you have to chew your own leg off. That's that that is effectively how national economy feels. And

43:19 but in a fun way.

43:21 In a in a fun way. This is only number nine because I got the sense at the table that people were like, you know, like this is conceptually this is, you know, fun, but there within this there isn't anything that feels like particularly super exciting to do. It's just kind of watching everyone sink

43:43 um in quicksand.

43:44 Yeah, it's a little wrote like what can you do? You can build a building, hire a worker. Uh build a building, hire a worker. That's kind of It's like an economy.

43:54 Yeah. And some buildings synergize. Yeah.

43:56 Yeah. Well, that's what I was trying to do. You see, synergize the buildings.

44:00 Did it work out?

44:01 Yeah. Obviously, it didn't. No, I've already said this. Uh what I did like about this was you have this um like little card in front of you that tells you uh which So, a new card will come out each round. A new action card will come out each round, and you have the card in front of you that tells you what they're going to be. So, it's not a secret. It's not random. So you can kind of plan for like, oh well, okay, this is going to come out in a couple of rounds. Maybe I can do something with this. I like that. Um, and but most of those are kind of getting more stuff, getting more uh money.

44:31 I will say that this game has a lot of potential going up in our rankings as we play more of it because so this is a repackaging of three different games that are called

44:43 National Economy. And so this is the we played the first version which is progress. Then you have meanat uh whatever that means and then you have glory

44:55 whatever that means.

44:56 I don't know what are these words even right?

44:59 So so there's kind of like three different versions of uh national economy all packaged into one bundle that's meant to have cleaned up the rules and stuff. I still say the rule book is

45:12 not very good. No, it's it's not good at all. Uh but cleaner apparently than it used to be. So, hooray.

45:20 Um but conceptually, I think it's exciting. I think I just want to see more of it and and maybe it will go up in our estimation. All right, here come the Eurogame. This is big. Um Elaine.

45:36 Yeah.

45:37 Why do I recognize recognize the name Cedric Mle?

45:41 I don't know. Why do you recognize the name Cedric Mille?

45:45 Well, a long time ago, dear viewers and listeners, we have covered a game that is very dear to our hearts.

45:52 Yeah.

45:52 Uh called Meeple Circus, and it is maybe to this day still one of the stupidest games I have ever played. Uh there's even we even did a playthrough of this with Shut Up and Sit Down and Antrolol, which you can find on Shut Up and Sit Down's channel. Unless they've taken it down through embarrassment.

46:12 I think it's still there. I think it still exists out there in the ether. This is by the same designer and it is nothing like Mele Circus. It took me forever to read this rule book and internalize the many, many, many, many, many, many rules within this game. In essence, this is a game where you are treasure hunters. your companies that go and dive in the sea to uncover treasure and maybe sharks.

46:40 Yeah.

46:40 Uh sorry.

46:42 And maybe unal alive sharks.

46:44 Uhhuh.

46:45 Because let's you know YouTube. Um so it's it's big. It's complex. I don't know how to succinctly explain this. I will say that this is a worker placement game. And so you have workers that you will basically line up in priority. you will place, but you're not blocking the space for everyone. You're just blocking the priority space for everyone. So, the closer you like the earlier you place it, the sooner you're going to go and take the desirable actions within like there's 10 different action slots where you can send workers and they all have their own individual subsystems.

47:22 Some of these also cost money. So, the sooner you send yours, the less money you're going to pay. Um, but also uh there's just there's just so many subsystems. So, for example, you can put your little worker in a boat and then send that boat out into the lagoon and then if you have the requisite treasure map, you can actually go here and start fishing for treasure, which you can then take to a museum and submit it for points and sell it for money as well. Yeah, it's its own little economy where you're uh getting maps to go out look for treasure. You're getting the equipment to try and dive uh deeper and deeper for treasure and kill sharks.

48:05 You have to like physically put on your boat. So, for example, I have a metal detector. So, if I want to take my boat out into the lagoon where there's like an island where I can just get some random treasures, I have to have a metal detector equipped on my boat. If this is physically not here,

48:23 you can't do it.

48:24 I cannot do it.

48:25 A metal detector. So, how are you going to find anything on the

48:28 Exactly. And then the treasure spots in the sea themselves, they For some of them, you need sonar. For some of them, you need a drill.

48:35 Thing. Uh there's workers that let you get bonuses,

48:41 right? And why do some of the workers have funny shaped heads? Efa,

48:45 well, if I send one of my This is This is called my boss, right? And the boss knows everything. Basically, the boss like just literally knows the job better than anyone else. But if you send another worker to the same space,

48:59 when the boss is there,

49:00 when the boss is there, there is a hat available. You will get to put the hat physically onto the little guy. And this actually comes on pretty nicely. I don't know why I'm failing it. But the hat has a number. So this number says this this this acts like a boss, but only in this particular action space

49:21 where they're wearing the hat cuz they've been trained, they're smart, they're wearing a mortar board, they're clearly, you know, graduated uh from that whatever it is.

49:31 This is very involved. This is evolved to the point where like so you know how in a game you get money and then that money is a resource and you can spend the money on things that you want to do

49:42 and not so here that would be way too simple for thesaurus. So here you have five different bank accounts. So this is HR and this is like I don't know what this is called like your technology area and this is like general stuff and this is the mission expenses. So they're all responsible for paying for the different action slots. So you have to estimate, oh, I need to pay my workers. So I need at least that much money in HR. Also, just like in national economy, you can hire more workers that you will then also need to pay for at the end of the round. And that is

50:17 But it's not quite so punishing.

50:18 It's not quite that punishing economy.

50:21 It just makes you kind of pre-calculate.

50:23 There is budget management. Yeah.

50:25 Yeah. And then finally, there's even a slush fund. And the slush fund is like this secret space where if you put money in the slush fund

50:33 that that cannot be taken in or out anymore. You can transfer money between the different accounts, but each time you make a transfer. So, for example, I want to transfer free money from here into here. That's fine, but that costs me X equal to what year it is. There's three years in the game, right?

50:50 So, I just wasted a dollar basically because you didn't budget well.

50:54 I didn't budget well. didn't allocate the funds well.

50:57 No, I mean, okay, so I really wanted to like the Zoros. When I read the rule book, I was so jazzed for playing this. I was like, yeah, there's there's a lot of cool things going on. There's like you get technologies, you get to put them in your little boat and then maybe you get to buy more boats, etc., etc.

51:15 A sense of come in here.

51:17 Yeah. So, these are not puns that I make willingly, right? But this is a very shallow,

51:25 you know, wide pool where there is a lot going on, but each mechanism, it's not particularly deep. There is a lot of nuance

51:36 in terms of estimating who do you think is going to go where. So, this is a game that is asking you to watch what other players are doing. And I I like that a lot, but I think that's about where the depth and complexity actually ends. And it does make you do a lot of work. So, for example, this mechanism of of having five different bank accounts, I think it's as much as I kind of love that nittygrittiness in games where it is employing rules for simulationist reasons, this rule does nothing for me. Oh, really? Right. Yeah. Because I think that once you play this game three or four times, you will know exactly how much money to put in everywhere anymore.

52:15 No. And the only tension is like just how much money you actually putting into the slush fund because that's the tension of uh bidding for first place. Yeah.

52:25 And and this is also a bid, right? Where like at the end of uh you know the round you will all like take out an x amount of money from here secretly reveal maybe reveal it simultaneously and then whoever bid most you know gets to go first in turn order. Yeah,

52:44 that's that's kind of where this money management puzzle becomes interesting for me. The rest of

52:51 Just with the slush fund.

52:52 Just with the slush fund

52:53 because being first as well is good because it gives you extra points and it gives you more freedom of uh where you're going.

53:01 Exactly. Being first is always an advantage in this game. So uh so that was interesting. This this did not feel interesting. This felt like I will roughly know how much money I will need especially if I play this game at least once and then you know you kind of accounted poorly. Okay, it's going to cost you a buck, maybe two bucks to fix your mistake or maybe not and it's fine.

53:26 Do you think it'll be better with more players? Cuz we only played it at two.

53:30 I I think there's definitely Yeah, this game shines with more players. I will say that the as much as I was enjoying this sort of very big elaboration that Thesaurus offers for me where it really fell down was round three where it became like we have stuff we need to turn it into points.

53:51 How do we do that best

53:52 to take them to the museum or like find other avenues where we can just

53:57 ek out the most

53:58 chuck money away. Yeah. to convert it into points and it became very wrote, very uninteresting and long as well.

54:06 Yeah, we kind of did want it to end

54:09 but towards the end of the third round we both were like, "Oh, come on." You know, like

54:14 it was not exciting.

54:15 It Yeah, it wasn't making interesting decisions anymore. It was just doing things for things's sake to try and get extra points out of them.

54:23 Yeah. No, I agree with that. But I don't know if that was just our experiences of the game. So, it it could have been. I I don't know if I agree with you about um you'll know exactly how much money you need because it all depends on how much you've made on various different things like which hats you've taken, what you because because your um boss worker uh will give you discounts and your hat workers will give you discounts.

54:47 Yeah, I was factoring all of that in when I was doing my budgeting. Yeah. And that's why it took time. you were just sitting there going,

54:53 "Right, I need to sort of math as much out as I can. Take into account uh whether I'm first player or not, you know, where I am in turn order. Uh you know, how much are these things going to cost me? Which spots am I likely going to be able to inhabit?" And you go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It it was fine.

55:13 Like I I think maybe I'm doing this mechanism a disservice. I just didn't jazz me. It felt like this was an unnecessary complication that took up a lot of time that didn't add anything particularly crunchy to the gameplay. Um,

55:27 we did have quite a funny time with it though. I think it was quite amusing like the story that it was telling as we were playing it like because so like you said, you know, when you want to dive down, you need certain equipment. [clears throat]

55:39 But there was one of my boats had nothing on it, right? Except a spear gun. It had no equipment to dive any further down. And I was like, can I do I need anything for this? Can I do this in my pants? Because the pants, it's it's literally on the board. Like it's a symbol that is pants.

55:57 You can dive in your pants.

55:58 You can dive in your pants and you can kill sharks in your pants.

56:02 Um, which which you eat, by the way. That that kind of I didn't mind that as much because you're not just doing it gratuitously. the the board shows you sort of cutting them up to eat, which I think isn't as quite as bad. I don't know. I don't know. It's still bad, but I don't. Anyway, uh but maybe that's all the food that there is in this place. I don't know. Uh

56:24 wow. I feel sorry for them cuz shark is not delicious,

56:27 is it not? I don't think I've ever had shark.

56:29 I've never had shark, but I hear that it's not good.

56:32 It's like hippo. Apparently, that's really revolting.

56:35 Yeah. Well, I wouldn't know. [snorts] Anyway, but so it did kind of tell a a funny story uh as we were going through and what equipment we had uh going metal detecting, taking Oh, like, okay, I'm just going to have to take photos this time because I've got nothing on this boat. Um coming back, going out, you know, I don't know.

56:54 It was enjoyable.

56:55 Oh, I'm going to get the biplane. And the biplane does actually fit the little equipment tokens in it quite sweetly. So, you know, the biplane literally delivers

57:05 the equipment token to the boat, right? I don't know. It It was I had a nice time with it, but I don't know, like you said, you know, if there is a lot of depth to it.

57:18 I would recommend everyone a play of this. I wouldn't necessarily rush out and buy this, but I think that if you sit down and play this,

57:27 at least for parts of it, you're going to have a pretty good time because the game is amusing. Amusing in a lot of different ways, but mostly in its elaborate simulationism. [snorts]

57:41 What's that smell? Oh, yeah. I think it smells like trick taking games.

57:48 Oh. I see. Do you like why? Because

57:51 why does it smell?

57:52 Cuz it it's it's I don't know. Cuz it's a distinct shape. So obviously it smells different.

57:58 That makes sense, right?

57:59 If something's a distinct shape.

58:01 Yeah, of course. They have, you know, a particular smell.

58:03 Okay. Anyway.

58:04 Anyway, this is a trick digging game. It's called Bidcoin.

58:07 Is it about ghosts?

58:08 Not. No, it's not. No, that that that one's for later. So So this is

58:14 before.

58:16 What do you mean before?

58:17 Fearless was about ghosts,

58:18 right? or be. I see. I see. Of course. Yes.

58:22 Um, so no, this is at number seven, I want to say.

58:26 Sure.

58:27 Okay, good.

58:28 Uh, I'm glad we're correct on that. So, at number seven, we have Bitcoin, which is a little trick taking game that I quite like. This is the second highest ranked trick taking game on this list. So, there's only one that's better, right? And I think this is pretty good. I think actually the two trick taking games, they're quite different. Personally, I like this even a little bit more than the one where you're trying to hire,

58:51 but that's because I'm I'm a not trick taking games. And uh

58:57 you're a purist.

58:58 Yeah. It's No, it's not that I No, no, no. It's not. I I think the other one's even purer as a trick. Well, the other one's a climbing shedding game, actually.

59:06 Uh but I I I think this is more niche appeal, right? This this Yeah, this one. Yeah, this appeals to me. What? Because of the the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

59:16 Oh god. No. No. No. That the theme definitely knocks it down. Well, it's not explicitly themed as references to cryptocurrency because nothing about this is cryptocurrency.

59:30 No, not really.

59:32 But it is called Bidcoin and it does have like the coin looks a little bit like the Bitcoin symbol. I think

59:40 but you are trying to get rid of them. So

59:42 yeah. So there is that you're like get rid of this cryptocurrency. We don't want it. Okay. So this is a must follow trick taking game. It almost doesn't do anything special. There is one trick to it.

59:56 Uh it's that whenever you win a trick, so let's say like I'm going to There you go. You won this trick, right?

1:00:03 Congratulations, Elaine. You have a trick. What does that mean? It means you have to make a bid of at least one. You could bid higher. You could bid five instead of one. I'm not I'm not

1:00:13 You're not going to You're just going to stick with one. So that means that Elaine is saying that she will win exactly one trick at the end of this round. Let's see how that works out. Elaine, you lead the trick.

1:00:25 Look, you won another trick.

1:00:27 What happens next? Elaine has to increase her bid. But now the bid is free because you can't like just undo the card you've bid, right?

1:00:37 Once that's up there, that's it.

1:00:39 It's up there, right? But let's say that at the end of this entire round of playing tricks, right? Let's let's have you win another trick. Okay, fantastic.

1:00:47 Cool. I'm doing great,

1:00:48 right? And then you don't win any more tricks. You won exactly three tricks. This is great. What happens to these cards?

1:00:55 They go bye-bye.

1:00:56 You got rid of them. So now the only bidding cards you have left is three, five, and seven. And what? However many tricks you're going to win next round has to be some sort of an addition of those three numbers or two numbers.

1:01:12 I have to be brave in next round

1:01:13 or just one number.

1:01:14 Maybe I'll just bid seven straight off the bat next round.

1:01:17 And then what happens if you win eight tricks? That's bad, right? That means

1:01:20 well then then I will have to win 10 tricks,

1:01:23 right? This is where the conundrum begins happening. There's some neat mechanisms in this that add to that. So, for example, if you win a trick with a six or a four, that counts as you having won two tricks. And that messes with the numbers sometimes in great ways and sometimes in absolutely terrible ways. Uh, so there's like this element of unpredictability. And of course, you can bid that you were going to win. No tricks.

1:01:47 I know, which you did. And you did it. I couldn't believe it.

1:01:50 I know. It was amazing. Uh, but the cool part of it is that if you succeed, it's like great, you shut out cards just like you normally would, but if you fail, you have to take like these extra one cards that you then also have to get rid of, which is kind of like it sounds bad because it's like two extra cards you have to get rid of.

1:02:06 It makes it easier slightly for the rest of the rounds because you're like, "Oh, cuz I've bid seven and now I've won eight, so okay, I can just bid a one." Yeah, it it does clog your like objective effectively, but it's it isn't the worst. I I really like this. This feels like a trick taking game that doesn't have many extra rules.

1:02:28 Uh but the spin it puts on the sort of live bidding as it's going, it feels pretty novel and exciting. Like I had fun playing this. There was no round of this where I felt like bored or uninterested. It felt like I was playing a familiar, comfortable game, but with a twist that was appealing and made the proceedings lively. How did you feel about it?

1:02:51 Yeah, I like this game. Um, it it can be a bit swingy or wonky or whatever you call it because we we played a game and it went great and then I played a game and you you weren't playing that game where nobody

1:03:07 achieved their their goals like nobody. So, so when you don't achieve your goals, unless you've said that you're not going to win any tricks, in which case you take the extra ones, everything just comes back. So, you start again and you're like, "Oh, okay. We Okay." And and it wasn't progressing, you know? And it and for some reason that I don't know that took some fun away from it. I don't know if we were all just very tied. I don't think it was necessarily the game's fault.

1:03:33 Uh I don't know why we ended up not winning anything. Uh, but it was like, "Oh, well, should we play something else?" So, I had a lot of fun when the game flowed well.

1:03:44 But then when it kind of got stuck, you know, I don't know. It just didn't feel

1:03:50 as good.

1:03:51 Yeah, that's a shame. I I'm I'm sad to hear that cuz I played this like three times and each time it was

1:03:57 right. I don't think it would necessarily happen very often.

1:04:00 I think we probably were just tied and

1:04:02 Well, it was like the last day of spiel and it was quite late when you were playing this so Uh, not surprising, but I I do recommend this. I think it's quite good, aside from its dubious ties to the title being linked to cryptocurrency. That's weird, but whatever. I don't know. There's a lot going on here. Um, I need [clears throat] you to immediately contain all of these ideas presented on the table in a possible form that can be explained in video and or audio because I've not listen played this game.

1:04:37 You've not? No.

1:04:38 And you have

1:04:39 and I thought it was good.

1:04:41 Nice.

1:04:41 Uh, I hope it is. It looks big.

1:04:44 E, do you know what a Kikai is?

1:04:46 No.

1:04:47 The name of the game. It's one of these little boxes that you will uh that have pictures on them of junk art sculptures.

1:04:56 Okay.

1:04:57 Uh because what you are trying to do in

1:04:59 So wait, is is is Kikai the name of the box or the concept of junk art sculptures?

1:05:05 The junk art sculptures.

1:05:06 Okay. Because it'd be weird if they named the card if there was a word for a cardboard box depicting a very specific thing.

1:05:12 Sticky. Actually, they're not cardboard. I had to construct these. There's loads of them and I had to make them up. Uh, this game is a two-player only game. Look, we can we can for the people watching, we can barely fit ourselves and the box on the table.

1:05:26 It is huge. This does not look or feel like a two-player only.

1:05:29 It is a twoplayer only head to head. Uh, well, because you're building heads, you say head to body to feet.

1:05:37 Uh, of trying to build these kickai uh and encourage

1:05:44 I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to interrupt you already.

1:05:47 Yes, because it's you said head to head and then you said head to body to feet.

1:05:51 Yeah,

1:05:52 that's not correct. It would be head, body, feet to head, body, feet

1:05:56 or feet, body, head

1:05:58 or feet, body, head to feet, body, head.

1:06:00 That's true. Yeah.

1:06:00 Right. I I'm so sorry. It's important. It's important.

1:06:04 Um

1:06:04 I threw you, didn't I?

1:06:06 I feel like you did that on purpose.

1:06:09 Um yes, you are building these, right? Uh but why are you building these? Because there are fans, EFA, in this town. There are fans of the junk art, right? And and they want to come and see your uh junk art sculptures that you are making. But and the only re the only way that you get them to come to see your junk art sculptures that you will be building in car parks and casinos and schools uh is by creating roots of like advertising on the board, right? Yeah.

1:06:41 But you want to stop. But so you you will build these roots and either player can use those roots. It doesn't matter who built them.

1:06:49 Okay. So this is like a collaborative shared

1:06:52 effort on the board.

1:06:53 Someone else's route. You must pay them

1:06:55 in order to in order to do that. But they then they can also hoover up the uh the fans of the junk art to their kickai.

1:07:05 Right. So, do roots become progressively less good because there's less and less fans,

1:07:10 right? Because the fans Yes, but there are ways to kind of mitigate that because you can hoof fans from different areas uh rather than just off here because they they will go into these different uh like the casino or the parking area, but then you can kind of attract them

1:07:24 from one area to another to a different area.

1:07:27 Um

1:07:27 I'm so sorry. Can you pass me that that this one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that one. Yeah. Because look at it. It's like a rubber duck head, but it's got a toilet roll on top.

1:07:38 Yeah, because you're

1:07:39 What is going on here?

1:07:40 You're not only like rag and bone men, but you're also artist, Stepha. This is art.

1:07:45 It is incredible. I love these so much already. They look completely not functional because they don't look sturdy enough to stand on top of one another.

1:07:54 But they have to. They have to. When you're building them, they have to. This is not right. But do you know what? This is only in Japanese where it says head, body, and feet is only it's colorcoded fortunately. And you can kind of tell, but sometimes you can't. Uh, but yeah, they're not sturdy enough really to stand on top of each other.

1:08:14 You just put the feet on top, the body in the middle, and the head at the bottom.

1:08:17 Well, I'm not playing a legal game, am I? No. [snorts]

1:08:20 So, um, yeah, that's that's what you're doing. Uh, you're also trying to appease the master. Uh that's how you will get the points by attracting the fans and appeasing the master to get the points.

1:08:31 Who's the master?

1:08:32 He's the he's in control of the points board. I don't know. Uh you just that that's how you get the points.

1:08:39 I am bewildering.

1:08:40 It is bewildering. Yeah. Uh we had a lot of fun uh playing this game.

1:08:45 Okay. Two things I know cuz I was learning thesaurus as you were playing this with a friend and I was watching both of you and two things stood out. one, your scores were wildly different. As in like if you had 20, then the other person had 200 or something like that.

1:09:02 We scored it slightly wrongly, but even if we hadn't, I would have still lost horribly.

1:09:08 And and talking of the slightly wrongly, there was a lot of You told me there's a lot of there's a rattata for the Irata. Is that the situation?

1:09:16 There is a rata for the Arata. Uh, handily there is an Arata sheet in the box, but the Arata sheet is still wrong because the Arata sheet uh has both so English and French printed on one side when it should have, you know, one on one side.

1:09:32 So, wait, one sentence is English and then the next one is French kind of. Yeah. You love to see it.

1:09:37 Not Not very helpful. Uh, if you're trying to learn the game in English, I tell you what, the the rule book in English is very good is worse.

1:09:45 Oh, no. It's also bad. Okay.

1:09:47 Yeah. It's It made me want to cry a little bit. Um because so the French rule book is better. Uh it has more information in it.

1:09:54 Joy for all of us franophones, right?

1:09:57 Meu and uh but because the English rule book says like uh after you have done this and you're like but you haven't told me to do this and the French rule book does say do this and then after you have done this da da da da. Right.

1:10:12 Right.

1:10:13 So it it has some more information in it. Uh, but no, the rule book made me want to cry a little bit, honestly. Wow. But we did we did figure I did figure it out and we did figure out the game and we had a good time.

1:10:26 I look forward to playing this. This looks immense. I'm I'm still not sure I understand quite what it is, but it it is very eclectic and intriguing. I wish the podcast listeners could see the artwork that like I mentioned, rubber duck head with a toilet roll on top waving flags. There's a toilet brush. Uh there's and it's like on this weird wobbly pedestal. It just looks out there.

1:10:54 It is out there. Uh there's a lot going on on the board. And I think the I've forgotten what it actually says on the the what these cards are called, but it's something like really full city plan or something like that. It's Yeah, it's something like that.

1:11:11 It also looks very cartoonish. It reminds me of that ' 90s skateboard aesthetic.

1:11:15 Yeah. And it does take you a minute on or it took me a minute to figure out the different areas because the different areas are segmented, right? And it does have like a strong line around each area, but because there's so much color and because there's so much going on on the board, it's kind of easy to miss a little bit. And it took me a minute to go, okay, this this area here is, you know, the the cinema, this area here is the casino.

1:11:42 Um,

1:11:42 are the areas different? Do they have different rules or

1:11:45 No. No. the but they are important because you have cards and when you play a card uh say say I play the parking that's the area that I can do things in for this time right um and you don't the the tricky part is is that you don't just automatically get loads of cards back so you're really struggling with you know so I I really wanted to build things in the casino so I played the casino great I do things in the casino ah I'm not getting more casino you know, cards and you can play two cards for one. So, two then like a mitigation mechanism. Yeah.

1:12:23 For any area. Yeah.

1:12:24 But does that mean you're going to run out of cards because you're not automatically getting cards? And you know you because when you're building these uh things, they are quite tall. So, some of them if you're building feet, that's fine. You don't need a ladder to get to for the fans to get to the feet. But if you're building anything higher than that, you need a ladder. Uh, and getting ladder tokens is pretty hard, too. And yeah, I I didn't do very well at this because I didn't balance my resources well enough.

1:12:54 And I I kept not being able to do things.

1:12:57 All right.

1:12:58 Uh, it it was fun that there's a lot to balance. There's energy, there's the fans, there's the ladders, there's the cards. Um, there's also these that uh that are placed on the board. Um, these little tokens that are placed on the board. Is that like points each area? They are minus points values. So if you don't build in every place on this board in every every area, you will get some sort of minus points.

1:13:22 Wow. Okay. Novel.

1:13:24 Yeah. Uh

1:13:26 no, I meant it. Like it's like, you know, normally board games encourage you because you're going to get something. Here it's like the whip, right?

1:13:34 Yeah, it is a little bit like that.

1:13:36 Uh but you get lots of points for other things or you should do.

1:13:40 Okay. But yeah, we I think we had a good time. I am looking forward to playing this again with you and seeing what you think of it,

1:13:47 Elaine. At number five, this is Tag Team, which is from the makers of Sky Team. Obviously, a cooperative game about landing a tag safely.

1:13:59 A tag? Yes. Okay. Is that like a type of bus?

1:14:03 Yeah, sure. Yeah. Some sort of mode of transportation. I am of course joking. Tact has got Yeah, right. Hilarious. Has got nothing to do with airplanes, but it is by the same publisher. It is the same size box. It is not cooperative. It is a fighting game, but unlike many fighting games, two players, right, where you were like playing cards to battle each other and then having devious masterminds. Yeah. Machinations, right?

1:14:33 This isn't anything like that. This is called an auto battler. You have a deck of two cards. At the beginning of the game, you arrange them however you like and then you play every card in sequence. And like yours is an attack, mine is an attack. We each attack each other. Oh, okay. And then the next card, mine is a special ability and yours is a special ability. Okay. Well,

1:14:55 yeah. Okay. So, like we had no control over that, right? It was it was Well, we arranged the cards at the beginning,

1:15:01 right? So, we had some control over it.

1:15:04 Yeah. But really, we didn't know what I didn't know what you were going to do. You know what I was going to do, right? And then the next time we go through it, the deck is in the same sequence.

1:15:13 So now I know what you're going to do. But

1:15:16 we draw three cards.

1:15:18 Oh, I put my card

1:15:19 from our combined deck of two characters. Then we choose one card. I'm going to go, "Oh, this is an attack. I'm going to put it right on the top." And I can put this card anywhere. I can put it on top. I can put it on the bottom. I can put it in between the two. But let's say I put it on top. What happens next?

1:15:36 I play an attack.

1:15:38 Okay. So now I know Elaine's first card is an attack and Lane knows my first card is an attack. So next time we draw three cards and add one to the deck. How are we going to offset this sequence? So that's basically how this works, right? And what's fun about it is that there are two characters and each character tag team.

1:15:59 Yeah. Each character works in very different ways. So for example, this is Bodvar. Bodvar is a man and also a bear. And the way it works is

1:16:09 Bodvar Bearman.

1:16:10 Bodvar Bearman. Yeah. Yep.

1:16:12 So he looked at me like, "Oh, is that a real?" No, it's not a thing. I'm just being silly.

1:16:18 Bodvar has a bear track, a rage track where and then there are cards that give him rage and then when this rage fills up, he will flip and become bear mode. Right. So that's Bodvar's gimmick. Whereas

1:16:28 and he will never change back. That's so sad, isn't it?

1:16:32 Forever bear. [snorts]

1:16:33 Uh, this is Wongf Hung, who mostly uses like the other characters, the opponent's attack power against them and also feeds his own attack cubes into the tag team partner. So, there's like a cool gimmick for each character that keeps happening.

1:16:52 And I think part of the charm of tag team,

1:16:54 he has really cool eyebrows.

1:16:56 I wish I had eyebrows. That's cool,

1:16:57 right? Um, part of the charm of tag team for me is like finding these combinations of different characters because there are 12 in the box. So, that's already a lot, right? And and like figuring out how they work with each other and what the strengths and weaknesses are, right?

1:17:14 I I when we played uh so we played with these characters, which it recommends you start with, and that was fine. And then it was we had the freedom to pick our own characters and I just went on vibes and uh that was I I kind of wanted something that uh had a big attack and then something that was a support. I thought that's fine. That's a good combination. You big attacks and support. It did not work out at all for me.

1:17:39 No, cuz you had one character that had pretty low health, right? and another character who hurt their partner

1:17:46 to like buff themselves up and it's like this is a bad combination.

1:17:51 Um,

1:17:51 but I didn't know that.

1:17:54 And and but that's part of the charm of this game. It's like discovering what works well together, what doesn't, but also this kind of for board games unique novel mechanism of like, oh yeah, we actually like we have no control over what cards we play, but we have control over this sequence of cards where we can offset it.

1:18:13 Exactly. And I think it makes it more interesting that you are playing the two characters because uh the character, you know, when you reveal the cards, whichever characters you have revealed will be doing things with each other. the other the support character or the the other character won't be doing anything like unless you know they have an ability that affects both right so it's you're also balancing up okay which character do I put where like where do I insert the cards so I've got you know I've picked this new card ah that's my uh character that has a lot of votes uh where do I put this best in the deck that it will affect you and it and it won't like hurt my character do you know what I mean I do know what you mean

1:18:54 because they have different levels of health. They have different abilities, right? So, what what punishment can they take from, you know, what can they do back?

1:19:02 Exactly. Like Bonbar,

1:19:04 it's smart.

1:19:05 When he transforms, his health will become the number of like power cubes that he has, right? So you kind of don't mind hurting him at the beginning even especially because you get an extra power cube like somewhere down the health track and you're you're going like hey you know like it doesn't matter if he gets hit a couple of times

1:19:24 and just transform get a lot of his health back especially if he manages to get those power cubes. So pairing him with a character that like damages the partner actually could be a pretty good strategy if it works out right. But there is there is this like very tricky balancing mechanism with the programming aspect of the game where even if like you have two characters that complement each other very well, there's still that element of execution of like how are these cards going to fall together. Uh, and because you shuffle both uh the characters decks together into one deck and then draw three at the end of every round, you don't quite know whether you're going to get the right cards to complement each other as well. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's very clever. I really enjoyed it. It's not my favorite thing

1:20:13 mostly because

1:20:14 and just like the two player kind of beat him up experience. I I I there's so much already in this and this is different. This doesn't feel like other games in the genre. This doesn't feel like Magic the Gathering at all. Uh this doesn't feel like uh games like Exceed or Battle Con. Do you remember we played Battle Con ages ago?

1:20:34 Yeah. Yeah.

1:20:35 Yeah. It's not quite like those and it's a lot less finicky than those as well.

1:20:40 I don't know if this is intentional, but I think this is a game that you can't take too seriously. Mhm. Like, you know, you mentioned Magic the Gathering, which is is a game that you play quite seriously, build their decks, there's tournaments, D, right? And I think this is a game that you play for fun

1:21:00 and you just have a good time sort of trying to, you know, maybe trying to get the best characters together that you can, but also maybe going, "Well, let's see what happens. Let's put these two characters together and and trying to work out how best to to deal with that situation that you've put yourself in." M the see what happens aspect is like a really big appeal of this because because each time you play like it is almost like a revelation of like okay so I've pressed the button effectively I've chose a button to press

1:21:31 like what's going to happen let's see and then it kind of

1:21:34 fish or poo

1:21:35 yeah it keeps cycling and resolving itself and that's definitely like

1:21:40 an appealing part of this game for me at least. I I know you liked it a little less than I did. Yeah, because I'm not I'm not a big kind of two player head-to-head, you know. I I don't like the the battlers sometimes because I I never quite know where I am with them. But I I think I like this more uh than some others because of that programming element and I do like programming. But having said that,

1:22:05 there is a kind of memory element to it. If if you are able to remember what the the order of the cards are, you are going to do better because you when you get your new card, you're going to be able to slot it in better.

1:22:18 And and I know that the other player will also kind of change their order or has the ability to change their order slightly by slotting their card in somewhere else. But you're going to have an idea of what's going to be played out. And and I think I don't have a good memory, right? So, I think that I'm not very good at that, but I still had a nice time playing it.

1:22:39 There is this very uncomfortable sense within this game where you're like, "Wait, what's the sequence?" And and you try to remember,

1:22:48 but then you realize this sequence can be offset at like any stage of the sequence.

1:22:55 Yeah.

1:22:55 And you try to puzzle out, wait, so if they offset it there, how does this move the cards? And then your brain breaks at that moment and you go,

1:23:06 "Do you know what? It doesn't matter. Let's just try." Yeah.

1:23:09 And you see where they've put that card and you go, "Oh, okay. They've put that card there.

1:23:15 What can I do to make that better?"

1:23:17 And then you try to remember that sequence. And then you go, "Wait, what if they offset that sequence there?" And it keeps looping and looping and looping.

1:23:26 You know, the the granny went to market and bought an apple and granny went to market bought an apple and a banana. Granny went to market. It's like if Granny did the alphabet, but then you just chucked random things in in the middle of like letters.

1:23:39 Yeah.

1:23:39 Uh it it feels like that.

1:23:41 It's good. It's definitely unique and discomfort inducing in a very particular way,

1:23:48 but it's also fun because if if you do manage to just like let go and go, "Yeah, whatever. Okay." And then you're having a nice time. At number four, we have number one. as in number one on the global post esscent hotness is recall. It's only number four in our list cuz we we didn't think it was the best. We thought it was pretty good. So, this is a sequel to a popular Euro game called Revive, which is um mechanically compelling and thematically um a jumble. I want to say like like the whole

1:24:30 a jumble.

1:24:30 Yeah, thematically.

1:24:31 Well, sorry. Revive or recall?

1:24:33 Both of them.

1:24:34 Both. Okay. Both.

1:24:35 Yeah. You know, the the idea of revive is that you're like after 4,000 years or whatever, humanity has come back from the ground to rebuild civilization. Um, okay. And this is this is clearly like maybe 4,000 years after that where like they did not rebuild civilization and then there's just like,

1:24:56 yeah, let's let's remember what all of this was about, you know, that that's kind of the setting.

1:25:01 Let's get back to our roots.

1:25:03 And and that's that's a fine setting. I'm not criticizing it. I'm saying nothing about this gameplay evokes that idea in any way apart from that like you discover things. You you go to land and you explore the land.

1:25:17 You explore it, but you can turn it round uh to how you want to turn the land.

1:25:22 Yeah. The land can be what you want to do.

1:25:24 On tectonic plates that you could just like round about, you know, it's it's how it is in the real world, isn't it? Mellin was like, "And I'll put this ocean here and the world is around."

1:25:37 Exactly. And that's what the game is about. And robots.

1:25:41 Yes. Um, so this is this is kind of like an action selection uh game where you have this big player board and you slot these keys in into action slots. So these action slots are predetermined. They do like some specific things. Uh, but the keys are not predetermined. So the keys themselves you start with they don't do anything but then later the ones you get that are upgraded

1:26:08 they have like effects on them. So you can combine basically effects on keys with effects on action slots. But mostly what you're doing is you are uh going up on tracks. You're exploring new territories. Uh you're building three different types of buildings. And one of those uh types has three different types within one of the types. So there's technically five different types of buildings.

1:26:37 And uh you're getting bonuses for building those buildings. And you need people to build the buildings.

1:26:44 Uh so you you get more people, you spread them out, you build more buildings, you go up on tracks.

1:26:50 That's the game. H is it very involved? Yes. Is it very um bonusy and like you get one thing and then you spend it on another thing to get a third thing and fourth thing and so on.

1:27:03 Hopefully that's the idea. Yeah,

1:27:05 that's kind of the idea and we've seen a lot of games like that. I will say that this is broadly very enjoyable. I had a good time. Uh the puzzle was crunchy. I was in my own ADHD world where I was like, "Oh, boom boom boom boom boom boom boom bonuses, right?" Yeah,

1:27:23 it was fun. I wouldn't say this is better than Revive because I think that is just my estimation.

1:27:30 Uh Revive is a little lighter.

1:27:34 Mhm.

1:27:35 But also a bit more satisfying.

1:27:37 Do you think Why satisfying than [snorts]

1:27:40 um I think you'll get

1:27:41 just because you can combo those things easier. There's just there's just a little bit less mechanism in revive and that that kind of reduced load lets you just engage with the game more.

1:27:54 I think I agree with that. There were a lot of times so you know the board is big, right? And I think it depends on where you sit as to how well you can see different things on the board.

1:28:05 So there were a lot of things that um I was going, okay, what does that do again? Where what does that say on that card? Like what does that say on that tile? if I go here, can I do this? Like, you know, I think there was a lot of that because because this game is so involved, right? Uh I think it is the kind of game that rewards you for playing it more because you will get to know what these symbols mean. I I did struggle a bit with the iconography in this game.

1:28:31 A very um

1:28:35 a lot of it is very white.

1:28:37 Yeah.

1:28:37 And and very like aggressively white in such a way where it's like so in your face. Um, and even the tracks themselves, you have white, gray, black. That's the gradient of color, right?

1:28:50 Yeah. Yeah.

1:28:51 And actually, sorry, just just to pull you aside a little bit. Another thing, there's just some weird things in this game. Like, so for example, like the free tracks, you obviously if you're at the top of a track, you get a big point bonus. That's not new in Euro games, right? So there's free tracks. what they mean in the game is kind of like arbitrary because you'll randomize the bonuses during setup,

1:29:17 but the points values on them are different.

1:29:19 Yeah. [clears throat]

1:29:20 Right. And I guess that maybe includes variety, but it's something that we've noticed maybe about 34 of the of the way into the game that wait a minute, I was going up on the track that rewards me like 12 points. And and I just noticed that the other track gives you 18 points,

1:29:38 but it's not a secret. So, it starts off as a secret what the bonuses are, right? But but

1:29:44 no, no, it's not a secret at any point, right? Like like the bonus

1:29:48 because the cards don't turn over until someone reaches that point.

1:29:51 Oh, well, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, you do get like a special Yeah. like faction that's unique to that track that you can invest yourself with and get that special ability. You're right. [clears throat] Sorry. Yes. And then and then you go, "Oh, no. This isn't the one that I really want, but never mind." Uh, it's hard. I I don't know if it's hard to balance those three tracks, though, or if you're just going, "Okay, well, I'm just going to go up to the top of the one that I can." Yeah.

1:30:17 Or the one that's the most points. Is the difference of what is that? Six points between the highest and the lowest. So, it's quite significant. Although, it is quite a highscoring game, so maybe it's not that significant. I have encountered, but I wonder if the like there's less of these gray pips that let you go up on that specific track, making it harder to go up on it,

1:30:40 possibly.

1:30:41 It's It's hard to say. Uh we don't have that much experience with this game. We've only played it once. Correct.

1:30:46 It was one of our earliest plays at Spiel. And I will say that broadly everyone left the game satisfied, but also broadly everyone left the game tired. And those of us who have played Revive went,

1:30:59 I'm not sure that this is better,

1:31:01 right?

1:31:02 I I think whilst we were playing it, I was enjoying it more than I had revive, honestly. Uh be simply because there was so much to think about and do. And and I like, you know, I I do like it. I'm not very good at it, but I do like it when a game allows you to, you know, it's it's kind of sandboxy almost that you could do this or you could do this. You can explore. You can build buildings. You can, you know, go up the tracks. You can, uh, upgrade your robots. Like

1:31:29 the Eurogame thing,

1:31:30 the Eurogame thing. But when there are so many things to do, um, you know, you can collect these cubes, you can collect these pips, you know, and and it has big Eurogame energy. It does. It does.

1:31:42 And so I think because of that, uh, I did when we were playing, I was enjoying it more than Revive. But at the end of it, my brain just collapsed into a pile of mush and I didn't even do that well.

1:31:58 So, you know, and because again, I'm while I enjoy that, I'm not good at it because I tend to, you know, try and do a bit of everything. And of course, that doesn't really work

1:32:08 uh because I want to see what they all do.

1:32:11 Uh but I enjoyed the keys very much. I enjoyed being able to upgrade the robots. Um, and because you can choose what the new keys do and the way that they upgrade.

1:32:21 And there's like tiers for the keys as well. So, if you start off with a yellow key, which is the easiest to get, it has the smallest reward, but then you can upgrade it to a green one and then you can upgrade it to a black one.

1:32:34 Yeah.

1:32:34 So, that's fun. Yeah. Because you're like not locked into this choice permanently. You kind of get a sort of a like, hey, this could be something better down the line.

1:32:45 Right. I I didn't do particularly well, but um I don't think I came that far behind in

1:32:51 I think everyone was pretty close.

1:32:53 Um but I never felt that I didn't have something to do, you know? I was never taking the get a dollar action type action. I always felt like, okay, well, if I do this, then I can do this, then I can do this, and I can do this.

1:33:04 Um and and I found that fun, uh but also very brain melty. And finally, the final category of this video where the games aren't just good anymore. They are pretty good. And that is a substantial significant difference.

1:33:20 I I think it's you. Okay. So, I think this final category is like

1:33:25 games that can survive Essen Spiel.

1:33:27 Mhm.

1:33:27 Does that make sense? Like they have

1:33:30 people are going to be talking about them after Essen Spiel.

1:33:33 Hopefully, maybe. Like I'm not giving it a strong definitive yes. I'm giving it they they've got a chance, you know, because honestly like the way Essen Shiel works is that

1:33:43 uh every year there's like lots of hype for like 30 games or so and everyone's really excited about them and then Essen comes and everyone gets them and then two months later no one's talking about these games.

1:33:56 That's true. That's that's the curse of Essence,

1:33:59 right? Yeah. It's so weird. But but a few I think sometimes Yeah. survive and pull through. You think this is one of them?

1:34:07 I think it could be. It's got one significant thing going against it and that's that the publisher Ludonaut is basically Shut Shop. And this is one of the two last games. The other one looked very unmemorable. I can't even I can't even remember what it is.

1:34:24 But this one looked exciting.

1:34:26 This one looked exciting and I picked it up on a whim and I thought this could be something. And folks, this is something. It's called Limit. And if there's one thing the 80s have taught us is that we have to push it to the limit. I see.

1:34:40 Turns out, believe it or not, pushing to the limit is not good

1:34:46 because that's when things break.

1:34:48 What are we pushing to the limit here?

1:34:49 The world. You can see the world here

1:34:52 and you can see the word limit over the world.

1:34:56 I think it symbolizes something. So this is um economic simulation game where uh the idea that like infinite growth is impossible is being tested. Uh what I immediately liked about this was that unlike um there was a very similar game released a couple of years ago called Hedgeimmony where not similar mechanically but similar in scope and ideas that you know it was testing like the class struggle in a board game simulation right and and the way hedgeimonyy spoke about itself was basically well we're experts so you know we we know this stuff and this is this is exactly how it would work in the real world and And I'm like, is it you centrist weird simulation game? Is it? Or or is there, you know, maybe some flaws in this model considering it's a board game meant to be played, right? [clears throat]

1:35:53 Uh this does not do that at any point. The rule book is very clear throughout that like, hey, this idea fascinates me and I think people should explore it and talk about it. So, I wanted to make a game that that maybe, you know, has some chance at simulating scenarios that would play out in the real world, but if they if you don't think that that's how it works in the real world, then just, you know, like discuss that. That's also interesting, right?

1:36:19 And it did uh provoke discussion between us. Yes. Even though it's competitive, we were kind of we weren't discussing exactly what our plans were for the world, but you can see each other's boards, right? You can see what each other is doing. Uh, and you can see the sticky situations that each other is getting themselves into by trying to be good.

1:36:40 Yeah. Well, okay. So, that's only one of the options in the game. You can like go chose. That's what I mean. That's what we both chose until until I realized that being nice and trying to give people education, give people like freedoms wasn't working. And I introduced the military

1:36:59 and colonialism.

1:37:00 Colonialism. And then I won by one point.

1:37:04 I introduced recycling.

1:37:06 I know you did. That was very good.

1:37:08 And sustainable consumption.

1:37:10 Well, I tried and it it just didn't work. The people were revoling too much and I had to get the military to suppress them. Maybe someone wasn't trying hard enough. Um, hey, I'm going to go over a few kind of mechanisms uh very briefly. Very briefly. Right. So, uh, basically you have this, uh, kernel of of a of a, uh, system here in your player board where you have three types of production. So, you have basically I want to say like sustainable goods, but like it's like food and stuff like that, right? Then you have industrial goods and then you have military and economy goods. I think the top one is like agriculture.

1:37:47 Yeah, it's like agriculture. So, you're trying to constantly push these up because you you know you need these resources. Why do you need them? Because you also have population

1:37:56 and the population,

1:37:58 right? They want they need stuff like food to survive, right? So, they keep they they keep eating. You need to keep keep making stuff for them. Then they need industrial goods. So, you also need to keep making those. And then they start revoling because there's this track of like ah people are happy, people are not happy, right? So if they're not happy, you need to introduce the military. And even if you don't introduce the military, like you still gain military resources as things go on. And like if you have too much, you basically start a cold war. So you need to start spending them somewhere, right? And there's also like

1:38:31 you can't like beef up your military too much without uh worrying everyone else.

1:38:35 Right. Exactly. And there's also uh like these five tracks here, which is like uh five different social classes from A to E. and uh their well-being. And basically, the more they go up, the more it changes the rules of the game. Yeah. And the key thing being that A can never be lower than B. B can never be lower than C.

1:38:56 Yeah. You can't have A being at the top and A being at the bottom. That's just not how life works.

1:39:01 It is. And there's also like this uh track here in the center of the table where there's a kind of like a public market where you can buy, sell, and adjust prices of various goods and resources.

1:39:14 But the the way the game is designed is that there are various pressure points like at at the beginning of every round in the seven rounds, you're going to pick a deck and it's like this the social cards and the industrial cards and the military and economy cards. So let's say I want to introduce some social policies. I would draw at the beginning of the game you would draw five cards and you would be like uh I can only have one of them. So you're going to start introducing let's say like let's say I drew vegetarianism right? So this is going to reduce how much uh people consume of your agricultural goods but it's also going to temporarily increase in happiness just a little bit which you can fix with the military. It's fine. Um and so this card uh is a permanent effect. There are also effects that are instantaneous effects as in like you play it for example education you know like uh you'll pay some money equal to your population and then you will uh increase one of your social classes by one right like so like that's an instant effect but the thing is this effect you can play every round when you play it the card isn't discarded it just goes back to your hand because it's like hey you can keep maintaining these policies through every epoch and and this is the sort of like system where like you are trying to manage your resources and you're trying to make things go go go up. But the way the system is designed is that there are various pressure points on this board. So for example, if I suddenly start producing too many industrial goods which I will need because my like population demands it,

1:40:46 I start using pollution like gaining pollution and using up oil which is a very limited resource and

1:40:53 just like in the real world.

1:40:54 Yeah. Right. Like what Once this production is at this level, it's not like you can just stop and go down. No, no. This is something you have to deal with every round. And then what's scary about it is that it's not just that like, oh, I've reached this threshold where things are bad. It's that I need to push this threshold further because the population keeps growing

1:41:16 and it is

1:41:16 so you're you're growing the population and thereby making more pollution, more using up more oil.

1:41:23 Uh yeah. And so these cards are like this sort of they're they're sort of like get out of jail free cards in a way for one of your problems, right? They will fix one of your problems maybe a little bit, but also they will introduce like their own problems.

1:41:41 And so it's it's problems the game. And I I think this is very broadly exciting. where I'm going to temper people's like excitement down is that a lot of this game is basically using this

1:41:54 reference sheet and then you have this little like tab and then you check your like uh uh classes level and then you basically go step step step and a lot of these are just like automatic steps as in you have to do these and there's like almost sometimes no choices there just like feed your people and so on, Right. So, there's a lot of upkeep,

1:42:19 right? It was very procedural, but I didn't mind that because it you never were surprised by what you had to do next. Although I was I say that you [clears throat] never are because you can literally see on the sheet what is going to happen next. And even so, I was going, "Oh, no. I don't have I thought I was fine and I suddenly don't have enough resources to do this thing." Um, so I I didn't mind that at all. And I think you know when you look at it it looks a bit intimidating but actually it's just like you know having an index

1:42:51 of things that you know you need to follow. So I I didn't mind that at all but you're right it it is a bit too maybe too procedural for some people.

1:43:00 But it is also a game that's broadly very funny. So, for example, one of the cards is tourism, as in like you if you play the tourism card, you're first of all going to trash some money from the World Bank, right? Like a little bit. It's not a big deal. It doesn't matter, right? Like, it's fine. But then you get to steal some money from your opponent and it's like, oh, that makes sense. I'm sending my tourists to their country or the other. No, I'm I'm taking their tourists into my country. You know, I'm making some money. This is great. Uh, so I play the tourism card [snorts] and uh then Ela blends the tourism card. So basically we took money from each other in the same amount. It all evened out to zero, but then we trashed the World Bank

1:43:46 of its supply of money.

1:43:48 It looks like it has a lot of money in it and you think, "Oh, it's going to be fine." And then it's not fine.

1:43:52 Yeah. It's that like that that joke about like you know if if if if you give me a hundred bucks and then I give you a hundred bucks nothing happens. What do you mean nothing happens? We changed GDP. you know, like

1:44:05 it's that right like um and and so it's pretty cool because then things start happening like

1:44:12 oh we ran out of money in the world bank bank and suddenly there's a financial crisis that starts happening and then more financial crisis might start happening and we we we felt a thing

1:44:26 that we were barely scratching the surface of this game in this two-player game where we both played the game in a way where it's like I'm just trying to make a nice nation that like survives and you know like maybe does a little bit colonialism on the side, maybe does a little bit of pollutant extract, some some minor fracking between friends, you know what does that even mean?

1:44:47 I mean there's a weird kind of mechanism too where because it almost feels semi-ooperative in some ways like you're trying to keep money in the World Bank. you're trying not to tank that figure, but I mean, you're still playing competitively, but there are cards as well like humanitarian aid

1:45:03 where any player can uh donate into that amount. I think it was $50

1:45:10 and any player can donate into that and then the the player that has played that card gets an extra bonus, but everyone gets a bonus whether they've paid into it or not. There's an element of negotiation there, right? That where you can all be like, "Hey, we can we can fix this situation a little bit." And and it kind of does matter because, you know, like with the humanitarian aid card, it removes like those uh what are they called? Conflict tokens or something like that, you know, uh and uh you know, they're negative points at the end of the game. So, you do want to get rid of them, right? So, it behooves you to do that. And I it's strange and interesting how like I felt like we we have barely scratched the surface because the dynamic of this game would be very different if there were say not two but four players playing and one of them was going completely rogue you know and like how do you deal with that you know they are they are dictator a military dictator you know they are harassing everyone I think those games would introduce a lot of dynamism and unpredict predictability that could be interesting and or frustrating to scratch.

1:46:17 I think you're right. I think it could be incredibly frustrating if someone is just hoofing money out of the World Bank all the time or, you know, I don't know, taking all the oil because the oil is a limited uh resource. Yes.

1:46:31 So, you know, if you don't if if someone is like, well, I'm just going to, you know, bump up my military to really high and they need 10 oil every round. and they're taking it from various different places. Uh you're going to run out quickly and I think that is quite frustrating but um I think it is representative of what you know some nations do.

1:46:55 Just a few minor notes in the production of of this game like broadly I'm very excited by it. A few things that I didn't love was that there are edge cases in the rule book where it feels a little bit woolly about how it should work and you know like the response of the designer is basically well you know how do you think it should work you know that kind of thing and because I I do respect the approach that the designer is not treating this game as a as a kind of a you know like uh you know final stop where like this is how this works. Is that what you mean?

1:47:29 Yes. Exactly right. Uh but but at the same time it it does make for for it being a sort of a loosey goosey experience.

1:47:38 The world is a loosey goosey experience. After life is a loosey goosey experience.

1:47:42 Uh the second thing that I don't love is [clears throat] the uh the the stock image artwork on these cards like they they just don't they just don't scream excitement for me. And like the the production is broadly fine,

1:47:57 but like there's this there's a lot of little bits that all have to be kept in these uh cardboard tug boxes. And the way these tug boxes, one second, I'm going to fish one out. YouTube magic. The way these tug boxes work is basically you're meant to store a bunch of loose components in here, but like they're not secure.

1:48:18 So [clears throat] you Yeah. you end up having to get a baggie anyway and put the baggie in the tug box because otherwise the components will be all over the box. So, not like the best production in the world and and there is that element of this being like the last game before the publisher shutters its doors which sad incredibly incredibly sad but also what does that mean for the game's future? Is this going to be broadly available? Will will people be able to pick it up? And I if it does become an exciting hit, like what happens to the game next?

1:48:52 I'm I'm not sure that it's exciting enough to need to worry about that.

1:48:58 I think it's good. I think it is a good game.

1:49:01 Um but I don't think it's going to be a runaway success. I think it is offering something that like is an experience that I just broadly not encountered before apart maybe from hedgeimonyy but but that felt also different that felt more like a chunky euro game this feels more like a loosey goosey economic simulator do you know what I mean like this isn't this isn't as meaty and it's actually really easy to teach because there's in the rule book it suggests to do a rolling teach as in just like say this is what we're doing and start playing and go through round one and people will pick it up and that's exactly what we did and it worked.

1:49:44 I just wonder if it's if the like thematically I think it's incredibly clever. I think like what you're doing is you're a nation and you're trying to succeed,

1:49:57 but the the struggles that you encounter doing it, you know, you're trying to do good things and you get to a point where you you literally can't just, you know, deal with vegetarianism and humanitarian aid and you need to get, you know, the military in or colonialism or something. No,

1:50:15 you did.

1:50:16 Well, I did. Yeah. Uh, well, you had to get the military in at one point as well. Anyway, but I wonder if the the game play

1:50:24 it was just some very light military. Elaine,

1:50:26 the how you feel when you're playing this game is a bit too sad. Uh, because the world that we live in is is very sad.

1:50:37 Sure. And and it's a bit like, you know, pandemic was not played a lot during the pandmic

1:50:44 because no one needed extra pandemic on top of their pandemic. And I just wonder if this might not do as well as it should as a game because it's it is sad.

1:50:55 I get that. I felt a broad joy of of uh tank tinkering with these systems, tankering. Um don't know where that came from. Uh

1:51:05 tanks in the military.

1:51:06 The military. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I I I had fun and I I did have fun discussing what happened and why. I don't think

1:51:15 I don't think it is broadly an education tool and more kind of a just um you know tinker around with it and hopefully it it produces something fun and resonant at the same time. So it's I don't think it's like deeply profound in any way or anything like that. Uh but but I I think there is a joy in it.

1:51:35 I think so too. Uh and I there were a lot of clever mechanisms in it. I thought I really liked how uh you gradually as your um society got progressively you know better off

1:51:50 uh they had more welfare. You got more cards to choose from. You had more choices. I thought that was kind of really thematic, like the the better you're doing, the more choices you have,

1:51:59 like the more privilege you have as to what you decide to do and and in game and in the real world, you know, I thought that was quite a smart choice. Uh but then you're still choosing between the military or um society or uh economics or whatever whatever it's called. uh and and you're trying to make those decisions and balance them and and you know you're taking a deck and you're looking through and you're going okay this card this time and then okay what am I going to take next time I need to balance this out with something else and like you said you know you get an answer right now but it causes a problem somewhere down the line and and I thought that was that was pretty smart and I enjoyed that kind of to and fro

1:52:41 I am looking forward to more plays of this definitely something that uh we're going to keep exp- especially like an allies vary like you can make alliances and stuff like that. So, we're looking forward to playing more of this and high [clears throat] count.

1:53:01 Yeah. Seeing how it shakes out. I like this game a lot and maybe that's why it's at number two. But this is this is really good. This is just charming and good. And you know what? Uh when we played it first, I I I think people were like and as soon as we finished playing, everyone at the table went, I want to play that again. Uh and I think that's kind of like the staying power of Ghost Lift. So Ghost Lift is a card game where you have a lot of creepy artwork on the cards.

1:53:29 It's good artwork.

1:53:30 It's very good. It's artwork by Sa Beepu knocked it out of the park. Uh but uh basically this is a climbing shedding game like Scout or Tu or whatever. Uh but there is only one suit, the green suit, right? And the rules of it are pretty simple. Let's say I play a card into the trick, right? So currently because of setup, we have this elevator tile and this elevator tile is pointing up. That at the moment doesn't mean anything because because I can play any card. The trick has

1:54:03 the lift is going up.

1:54:04 Yeah, it means the lift is going up. But it doesn't matter. The trick hasn't been started. But let's say I start the trick and I always have to start with one card with a 10, right? And that 10 has an arrow pointing down which means we immediately start going down. So Elaine can then follow this trick with

1:54:22 a seven

1:54:23 because it's lower than 10,

1:54:26 right? Uh but also the seven has an arrow pointing up which means we are going up. Right now, when I play the next card into the trick, I can play basically the same amount of cards as Elaine has played one or one card more. So, I could play two cards as long as they are the same. So, I would, for example, play two eights and that's fine because it's higher than seven. There's two cards and uh there is an arrow going down. So, that means the lift is going down. Some eights will not have an arrow on them. And where I have this situation in my hand, so for example, here's two eights. The lift is going up. I play these two eights. And then Elaine has to play two cards higher than eight.

1:55:16 Yes.

1:55:17 Good luck.

1:55:18 I don't have that.

1:55:19 Uhhuh. I win the trick.

1:55:21 You win the trick.

1:55:22 And that's basically the game. The objective as in any climbing shedding game is to shed out your hand.

1:55:27 We haven't spoken about these little ghosties and what happened. That's what happened when you

1:55:32 I still have uh but I have all sevens because we didn't shuffle this deck. Well, but I have sevens in my hand. So, I must take little seven ghosty and put him in front of me.

1:55:42 Yeah. And next time you also end up with sevens in your hand,

1:55:46 he gets worse.

1:55:48 And next time you end up with sevens in your hand,

1:55:51 it's very sad.

1:55:52 It's very sad.

1:55:53 You lose the game. And in fact, you are the only person to lose the game.

1:55:58 [clears throat]

1:55:58 game. One person loses, everyone else wins.

1:56:00 I get haunted, you see. It's very sad apparently. So, the the thematically this game, right, we are meddling kids and we've gone into this haunted house

1:56:12 uh where the there are ghosts going up and down in the lift trying to find their way home. And we're like, what if we muck about with this? And we press some buttons.

1:56:22 We muck about and find out is what happens. Okay. So, uh, one rule I haven't explained, anytime you play cards into the trick or pass, you can take cards from the center. Like any card that's there in the center is, you know, available. But if you take a card, you must refill it. And if you refill it with something

1:56:41 by chance that

1:56:42 is the same number is the same number.

1:56:44 Let's pretend it's this, you put over a seven and then you put over a seven again, it goes it goes on top of the seven.

1:56:52 Yeah. So someone could take two sevens for example uh which could help fix their hand or whatever even though or

1:56:58 ruin their hand

1:56:58 or ruin their hand. Even though you don't want technically more cards, you have the options of taking more cards to make the cards that you have maybe stronger because you can play like a higher tier set.

1:57:10 Um that's broadly it. I think the genius of this game is its simplicity and uh and just sheer amount of fun you have whilst playing it because it takes those elements of scout where like scout you know it's just like you have all these numbers but you can't change the order right this is here it's it's much less restrictive but that up or down mechanism is ingenious there are elements that you notice as you start playing for example there are no twos that point upwards

1:57:39 right

1:57:40 twos if they have an arrow they always point downward wards, which means a two is an incredibly powerful card because you can be like, "Here's three twos. Do you have free ones?

1:57:52 If you don't, then

1:57:53 suck it. Sorry." Right. Yeah. So,

1:57:56 yeah, it's it's a difficult game. It is a difficult game. And it was we had a lot of fun, I think, when we played this. Um, and I think you're right that

1:58:06 I mean, sorry, I have to pick you up on this. It's not a difficult game. It's

1:58:11 no, it's difficult to make those decisions because because whether you take Yeah. Whether you take cards or not is your choice. You don't have to. [clears throat] So, you might be like, well, oh, there's good there's a nine there. That's that will be really helpful to me because I have another nine in my hand. So, I take, you know, the nine. And then someone plays a down arrow and you're like, "Oh, oh, okay. What can I do with this?" Because, you know, I want to play a higher card and I can't. So, that is what I was talking about.

1:58:42 No, I I get what you're saying. The rules are simple, but the decisions are crunchy is what you're saying. Yeah, I I can get behind that. I I broadly recommend this. I think this is great. I think this is one of the best trick takers I've played in a long while. Yeah, really. I just really enjoyed it. It's It's very satisfying to play. It's moorish, but it's also one of those trick- taking games that's good for, you know, chewing the fat when you're not actually looking for a game. you're just kind of winding down and you want to play something that's just fun and satisfying and you get to chat. It's very social. It's great. Would 10 out of 10 recommended.

1:59:19 One problem. So, this is published by publisher Endgame, which I believe is the same publisher that did Noosa Dice.

1:59:26 Correct. Yeah.

1:59:27 Uh, and if there's one thing that people who are into trick- taking games know is that Noosu Dice is notoriously unavailable. This is a very small publisher and Ghostlift sold out pretty quick as a spiel which means this will be notoriously unavailable. I know there are some shops dedicated shops that import games from Japan like so for example in uh UK it's travel-games.co.uk and

1:59:54 out there uh what are you going to do? Uh it's not like these games are easy to find, right? I know US has their own like website. I don't remember what it is. So, I don't know. Like, if you can find it, great.

2:00:10 Or if someone has it, it's worth a play.

2:00:13 Yeah. Uh otherwise, this might be a little bit hard

2:00:16 and it might come back at Essen next year cuz they had Nikosi Dice at Essen this year, right? So, maybe next year they'll bring back more if there's demand for them.

2:00:24 It is extremely on brand for us to put uh Ian Oo tool game who's a convention buddy of ours. Uh I mean he's an artist. He's not a designer, but you know that's that's half the game, right?

2:00:37 Yeah.

2:00:38 Uh at number one, uh so there's the disclaimer of bias here. Uh but also this this is the best game I played at the convention. For me, it was the most satisfying one.

2:00:49 Um and it's so weird to define that because how do you compare limit to

2:00:56 ghost lift to railway boom? And one of the things that we've been talking about as we were kind of like

2:01:02 it is yeah trying to figure out this list.

2:01:04 Yeah. How how to rank these games. And the the ultimate gist of it is that none of these rankings matter. Like you can take the top five games and interchange them and like they'd be fine. You know, they're all pretty satisfying in their own different ways uh and represent the broad range that are the hobby has to cover. Uh but but I had the most fun playing this and it's because it's extremely NPI in the things that I like. Um you know it's trains, auctions, and uh Eurogame like combine these three elements together and you have Hashi Hayashi's Railway Boom. So you might be familiar with this designer. Uh he recently won with Bomb Busters, a very different game. Um,

2:01:54 and a game that we kind of bounced off of a bit.

2:01:56 Yeah, we didn't we didn't dig it. But he's also he's designed uh Trick of the Rails, which is a trick taking 18xx sort ofish game. Not really, but you know, riffing on those motifs. And he's also designed a Yokohama, which is a Euro game that introduced welcome movement uh to the world. So, um, this this is sort of taking the idea of cube rails. Yeah.

2:02:23 And again, sort of making a game that that works within the scope of Cube Rails, but also isn't quite Cube Rails. So, if you played games like Irish Gage, you know, or Chicago Express, this might feel familiar, but also not quite like that.

2:02:40 It has some of the same sort of patterns. Yeah.

2:02:42 Yeah. In terms that you will be, you know, dotting trains across the landscape trying to make routes and connect places on the map, right? And there are auctions, but also extremely euro game, right? There there are things that will combine with other things that will score you points. And there are so many auctions. This like everything in this game is constantly being auctioned off.

2:03:06 Yes. I mean, that's the whole game. It's just it's auction after auction after auction. Uh yeah, sorry. I was just going to say it takes away the shares part of like any train games or any like 18X or Cube Rails type games. There are no shares in this. No,

2:03:20 you're not buying and selling, but what you are doing is collecting resources like in a euro game.

2:03:25 Uhhuh.

2:03:26 So, yeah, it kind of combines the two elements together very well.

2:03:29 Yes.

2:03:30 I thought um

2:03:31 it feels seamless. It feels smooth in a way where it's like, oh, it was always meant to be like this, right? M

2:03:37 um and so I just I just had fun with it in a way that like I don't have any good words to articulate apart from

2:03:48 I I'm every moment of this game I am just enjoying myself

2:03:51 good I don't generally like auctions that much I struggle with we know this we all know this [clears throat]

2:03:58 um and for a game that is essentially just auction after auction I didn't have a problem with that at all because I think because there are so well maybe it's like you you just get used to it you know you just get used to it happening over and over and over again okay well uh something like that but no I think it was because you're using different resources every time uh you're not trying you know it's like generally or quite often in an auction you have one resource that you have to spend for the auction money or whatever but whereas this you're using wood then you're using money then you're using purple, whatever purple is,

2:04:38 whatever purple is.

2:04:40 Gears.

2:04:40 Gears. You're using gears to auction those off for very different things. So, you have a choice of of okay, well, I don't want to spend too much on this auction because I don't need this thing that it gives me that much

2:04:54 and I I you know, because of that, I think um I didn't have a I didn't struggle with knowing how much to bid.

2:05:02 Yeah. Uh I'm going to give people a little bit of an overview what it is actually you're auctioning off and and uh first up there's a playerboard on it. You have resources on the right and you have income of those resources on the left. So whilst you might be getting resources from one thing or another and spending them, you'll move these pips down or up but you also have income which will broadly just go up and at one point during the round it will just give you a chunk of those resources based on how high your income is. So there's a lot of levers here already, but then each of these resources as you mentioned is used for a different auction. What kind of auctions are there? First up, you will be getting new locomotives and new carriages for those locomotives. Uh these carriages have ways to get various things like for example make different kinds of resources and they have different properties like how much coal you need to operate these locomotives and or carriages and then also like there's various conditions for example uh this one will give you two points but will also give you one money for each carriage that already produces money. So, like there are lots of finicky ways you can build these trains. And what's fun is that you can rebuild them,

2:06:18 right? That you can take the carriage off the the engine and stick it on another engine

2:06:23 because that's fine because that's the one you're going to power this time.

2:06:26 It's a different year. We're reconfiguring Yeah. everything. Then you're going to auction for actually where you're going to be building your roots and then connecting these roots. Uh there's reasons to connect roots for like ticket to ride style scoring. uh you know like hey I've built a route from here to there right but there's also like points

2:06:44 yeah you you score points at the end of the game for your longest route but also in addition to that

2:06:50 uh building into different cities lets you uh get more income in your different resources and also uh you can modify your actual locomotives and carriages with the types of resources they produce. So again, carriages, locomotives, important, building on the map important. Next up, is this important? You decide. But generally, yes. Like there are various bonus cards. You have another auction for bonus cards. So that's important. And then you start operating all your trains and all of that. And after that, there's another auction for endgame scoring and how much you're going to be scoring for each of the four random endame conditions.

2:07:30 I think what I liked about that, sorry to interrupt. No, I've I'm done. I'm done with the broad overview. That was a lot and very quickly.

2:07:37 That was very good. That was a very good overview. Thank you. What I liked about that was that you always do get something.

2:07:43 Uh whereas, you know, sometimes in an auction, if you don't bid enough, you don't get anything at all and you're falling further and further behind. Whereas in this, like I said, you know, you can choose uh which auctions you want to go in hard or depending on the resources that you have available to spend. Uh you can go in hard or you can go actually you know whatever is laid out here is fine. Like if if someone else chooses this and this and I get this that's okay. I can work with that. Or you can go no I really really really want this location because it's really good for me. I'm going to try and get this a lot. You know I I thought that was very nice that that you're not really punished for not build you know bidding out bidding your opponents. You just but you will get something. The fun part for me is that the game knows when to not over complicate itself. So the auction is the same mechanism for all four auctions in the game. And what's fun about it is that it's a pretty simple auction. So every time you are lowest on the auction track, you have to either bid higher and pass. And if you like, let's say I am on four, Elaine is currently on one. So she can either go to five or actually you don't even have to go higher. You can you go to any higher available space. So, for example, uh Elaine doesn't want to be on one because someone else might go higher, but she also doesn't want to out bid me, right? So, she doesn't want want to go to the five space. She could go to the free space. Yeah.

2:09:08 Lock herself in a comfortable second for now, right? And the reason all of that is happening is because whoever's highest on the track,

2:09:16 full price.

2:09:16 Yeah.

2:09:17 Second highest.

2:09:18 Full price.

2:09:18 Full price. Third highest. Half price. If you lost, you paid nothing. It's whatever. Right? So,

2:09:29 which again again is a good thing because if you're really struggling with that type of resource and you go, "Ah, you know, I'm not going to get anything for you do get something. You just don't get the the the quality of choice. You don't get the freedom of choice,

2:09:41 but you get something and you don't have to pay for it. So then if you've got some of that resource, you can put that into the actual action, you know, like the buying of the cards or whatever. It's very good. It's very smart.

2:09:53 It is very smart. So, the two publishers listed on this box are Okazu Brand and Arlite Games. There is a secret third publisher which is Cranio Creations, which is where I picked this box up from at Essen Spiel. Um, worth. So, this will be broadly available, right? This is not like Ghost Lift where it's just like, oh no, we're stuffed, right? Uh, a couple of notes on this production. The artwork is I think, you know, again, biased because it's Ian, but I I like it. I think it explains the game really well. You had issues with one of the scoring cards where like what is this spider? But like I got it immediately. So,

2:10:30 no, I I didn't I wasn't worried about that either. I wasn't one of those people that were worried about that. I think once you It's like anything, you know, once you figure out what one thing means, you figure out what that means for it for the, you know, when it repeats. Yes. Is what I mean. Yeah.

2:10:45 Yeah. Um, there are some first printing issues. There's like an income dot missing where to place your thing. And then I got like an extra one of these houses which I you know. So there's maybe I don't know maybe that's just my copy where I have a bonus house. Maybe maybe everyone's copy will have a bonus house and then you can put that house on your desk and be like that's my little

2:11:09 but importantly there was not a house of another color missing. It was just a bonus house. Yeah,

2:11:14 it didn't matter.

2:11:15 Yeah. So, you know that that's that's it on the production. Otherwise, I think it's produced quite well and I love this game. I can't wait to play it. I am really looking forward to trying it at two because it does play at two and this might be the first sort of cube rails adjacent game that actually plays pretty great at two because it's so Eurogamey, right? Ah, what a good game. This might have been the longest no pun included video we've ever made, but it's also probably the least representative no pun included video ever made. So, if you're still here for some reason, if you enjoyed it, check out our other videos because they're much more structured, much more scripted, much more wellought out and prepared. This is just a little thing to enjoy the celebration that is Essen Spiel every year. Uh, a couple of notes about us. We are an entirely independent board game reviewing channel. We don't have deals with publishers. We don't accept review copies. And we also have a Patreon, which is how we make our money.

2:12:22 So, if you value independent board game critique, uh, please consider supporting us. And finally, uh, this will be the video that takes us over a 100,000 subscribers. Uh, what a time to become one of them.