News & Week In Review - Camilla Moves from The Dice Tower to Gencon, ACOTAR Strategy Games & More!!

0:00 Hey, I'm Alex from Board Game Co, and this is news and week in review, where we going to dive into a variety of news pieces, the videos of the week, the games I've covered, the games I've played, all of that and more. Links and timestamps to everything down below. And we'll start off first with our new / sponsors segment. All Play is a channel sponsor. I mentioned this last week, but if you go to Board Game Wire, I'll link to it down below, they actually did a full fleshed out announcement, kind of covering a little bit of an interview with Joe Wiggins, talking about their plans, their what they have coming next, all of those things, some of the crowdfunding pages are already live if you want to follow those, but you can go ahead and check those out. Leaning more into news, into newer news, I guess, cuz that I talked about last week already, we have Camilla Cleghorn from The Dice Tower was hired to head a head cut to hired to be Gen Con's head of events.

0:45 So, Camilla, who you've seen a lot in The Dice Tower if you watch The Dice Tower, she's actually going to be leaving The Dice Tower to run Gen Con's events, which is a kind of a It sounds like a promotion. It's a cool upswing. She previously ran Dice Tower East as well as being on camera for The Dice Tower, and now she's leveling up, so to speak, to a Gen Con, which feels like a big step. From there, we also have A Court of Throne of Court of Court of Thorns and Roses from Goliath Games. They already had at Gen Con some lighter games that they were introing, showcasing, or whatnot. I think they had What did they have? They had They had one or two Court of Thorns and Roses games, but they were more on the lighter side. One was from Cosmos, and one was from Goliath. But, Goliath is leaning into a larger strategy game set in the world of A Court of Thorns and Roses.

1:30 That will be coming out at some point, going straight to retail, I believe a Target exclusive. Again, links to the news article if you want to check that out. And then we have Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride is introducing legendary characters. So, it's a small little mini expansion pack, something new for Ticket to Ride, which there's always something new for Ticket to Ride, but there's not always something new that's meant for the original Ticket to Ride content. And so, if you're interested in legendary characters for your Ticket to Ride game, you can go ahead and get those as well. That is That's our news roundup, which brings us to the videos of the week. The videos we had this week, we had a Gen Con full hall tour. I did a kind of a showcase hall tour while I was at Gen Con, but when I came back of this past Tuesday, I believe, Monday, maybe Monday, I did a full Gen Con hall tour, kind of showcasing everything that you could see at Gen Con. Oh, I forgot, did we do a No, the Gen Con hall was last week. I think I forgot which week we did the Gen Con hall. The Gen Con hall hall, there's the hall tour and then the hall of games, different things. Either way, I did a full hall tour this week of Gen Con if you want to see that. It's me going up and down the aisles. It's possibly a little camera sick kind of situation, but it's basically 40 minutes of me going up and down every single Gen Con all aisle trying to show you all the exhibitors at Gen Con. I also had a deluxe game upgrades video. Again, this is a series that shows up infrequently on the channel, but effectively, it's a bunch of deluxeified games. That's what it is. What do we have? We had a cat's running around past me back there. Uh we had a bunch of deluxeified games. There is Pirates of My Acrylo, there's some Blood Rage, there are a bunch of 3D printed inserts. My 3D printer is back to running in near full as I continuously print out the next insert or gizmo or trinket. I did this beautiful four-color print dragon. Had a

3:01 lot of wastage. That is neither here nor there. Maybe I'll show you that in a future video. Uh but basically, I did a video showcasing a bunch of inserts, Ghost Gallore. I had What did I have? I had Ghost Gallore. I had Dudes of Adora. I had Did I do Recall? I think Recall was in the video. And then there was Pirates of My Acrylo and Blood Rage for a very deluxeified components. As far as the games we covered this past week, there were a bunch. There was an Ascension game play that went off this past Saturday. If you want to see Ascension Lord of the Rings, which by the way, as of the time of me filming this, the end game for Ascension Lord of the Rings is still going. I have no idea if it will be still going when you watch this video. In theory, I think that plan They're doing a thing where they're doing an art print every 4 hours, which means actually I think I can't remember if there's going to be 3 days with the art prints or a day and a half because every 4 hours means it would be six in a day, and I I they had 12. So, I think they planned for two full days of end game potentially. We'll see what happens. Uh which means by the time you see this tomorrow, it will be I think a little bit past that. We'll see. We'll see. But either way, check out if the end game for Essential Lords of the Rings is still going. I'm curious if it is. We've had end games last over a week, although that's infrequent. A few days is already a very strong end game situation. Past that, we had a Kingdom Crossing review from Pandasaurus going up this past Saturday. I gave it a 3.5 out of 5. I liked it in a lot of ways.

4:17 It didn't necessarily wow me, but I did definitely enjoy it. We had a 20 Strong Tainted Grail solo game play. I filmed this back when the campaign was live, but then scheduling and all that stuff, it didn't get to go up. So, I finally put it up now. I believe you can still late pledge for the game. So, if you want to check that out. But if you're interested in the newest 20 Strong content, I did a solo game play of Tainted Grail. There's also a review for Pop Art that went up on the channel. I gave it a 4.5 out of 5. I love Pop Art. It is currently my favorite game from my Gen Con. Actually, that's not true necessarily. Drillers might be my favorite game. We'll see. But Drillers granted I only have one play in. Pop Art I've played it like six, seven times by now. Six, seven. Sorry about that. Uh but Pop Art Pop Art I've played a bunch. I really enjoy it. I gave it a 4.5 out of 5. I think it has all the charm and accessibility of Canvas, but in a different format. It very much is its own beast and worth checking out even if you do have Canvas. Then I did a Phantom Ink review. This is an All Play review.

5:06 So, all the All Play caveats come into play because they are a channel sponsor. But overall, I enjoyed Phantom Ink. I think the biggest problem is there are so many amazing, incredible games out there. I think Phantom Ink was good, but it doesn't stand out amongst those so many amazing games that are doing similar kind of vibes. Like I'd rather play Triangulation from All Play or more what's it called or what's the other intercepting? Decrypto. If you're looking for intercepting clues, I think Decrypto and Triangulation are better and Phantom Ink is just a good game in those lines. There was a review for that Excalibur that went up on Thursday, I believe. Excalibur is a solid game from Roxley Games. It is a weird one. I had my review, I am very conflicted cuz I'm like, I think this game is objectively bad, but I also objectively have fun playing it. I said that like five times in the review, and it's true. The game to me the biggest flaw of Excalibur is I don't think the first four-fifths of the game matter. I think the only thing that matters is the last two to three turns in the game. And again, if you play this, there are a lot of comments of people who like agreed with that take.

6:00 In fact, I actually found it almost refreshing the amount of people cuz my take on the game of War of Excalibur was I think it's mechanically flawed, and yet I have fun playing it. And there were a lot of people that shared that sentiment in the comments, which is a nice thing to to feel when when the thing you're saying feels weird. Like if I like a game, I like a game. If I don't like a game, I don't like a game. But if I like a game while critiquing it, it's a it's mechanical substance, it's nice that other people felt the same way. But again, if you like the game, if you check check it out. Try try try Excalibur. If you've played it, I think a lot of people will feel what I feel, although some might just not like it, or some might just love it and have no issues. But either way, I give it a 3.5 out of 5, definitely worth checking out. I did a six small box game review round-up. This is a bunch of games from Gen Con, Minesweeper, what did I do? What did I I had Minesweeper, I had Oh My Word, I had No, Oh My Word is a different one. I'm trying to remember what I put in the small box review round-up. I'd have to go look at my pile of games. There are a bunch. There was Minesweeper, I know that. And then there were a bunch of other small box games from Gen Con. Go ahead and check out that video. I actually just filmed another one, which is why I'm confused.

6:59 I just filmed another that I'll go next week. So at this point I have like 12 small box games with two different videos. Then there was a Ascension gameplay that went up. No, no, the Ascension gameplay was earlier in the week. The Ascension review, Ascension review went up on Friday. This is a video that was originally planned to go up today actually, but as like with Endgame still going, I wanted to get the video up early in case Endgame ended. So a review for Ascension Lord of the Rings, if you want to check that out, that went up on the channel on Friday. As far as games played this past week, as usual, this is a smattering of a few games I've played, not all of them by any means, but a bunch of games I've played that are some of the reviews will be coming, but not right away. Either way, games I played this past week, I played Druids of Adora, which I still owe you a review for. Oh my gosh, Druids of Adora and and Recall, I feel so bad. I've owed you reviews on those games for so long and it's a little crazy, but you will get reviews on both. Uh maybe I'll pull out Jewels of Opar and review it tomorrow. Lord knows I'm overdue for it, but I got to play it again yesterday.

7:50 So, I enjoyed that. It's still a great game. I got to play Driller's as well. Driller's is phenomenal based off of one play. I have opinions and thoughts and more will go into that, but I ultimately first need to play it more before I give you a review. So, um depending on how this week goes, you might get a review of Driller's later this week. I think later this week is the earliest. Like Thursday this week is possibly the earliest I get a review for you, but that depends on me getting at least two more plays of it. We shall see. I I have one game planned for either tonight or tomorrow, and then if I can get another one, maybe you'll get a Thursday review. If not, it'll be the week after. I also have to play Seven Wonders Dice again. Seven Wonders Dice is a weird one. I played it on Board Game Arena right now. It left my collection cuz I I I liked it, but it was a little too samey. I have found that it is a fun Board Game Arena game. It's very light, simple, easy to dive into. It checks the boxes of what I look for from a Board Game Arena experience, which is something that is satisfying, but you know, doesn't need a ton of thought, but is rewarding enough when you play it. Also got to play Arnak and Revive. Speaking of games like Recall, I got to play Arnak and Revive this week. So, between Jewels of Opar, Driller's, Arnak and Revive, it's honestly been an excellent week for gaming. Arnak is always fantastic. I always have a great time with it. Revive isn't always fantastic.

8:54 I always have a great time with it. These are all absolutely peak games. They're the kinds of games like The problem with playing so many games is you always want to keep the good ones, but then you play the better ones and you want to keep the better ones and you realize you should probably shouldn't keep the good ones. But then you play the best ones and you realize you probably shouldn't keep the better ones or the good ones. You should only keep and play the best ones. I never learned this, don't get me wrong. I constantly want to keep the better ones. The good ones I'm fine letting go. The better ones I always want to keep. I'm like even this week. This week I played The Oracle of Delphi and I'm like I want to pick it up again. I played it on Board Game Arena. I was like I want to pick it up again cuz I've had it. I like it and I was like, "You know what? I should get it." And I might still get it, but like Lord knows. Like that's one of those games where I'd rather play Arnak over Jewels of Opar. Not Jewels of Opar, over Oracle of Delphi, but Oracle of Delphi is so much fun. So, like what do you do? What does one do when there are too many games and not enough time to play them all? Honestly, I don't have an answer for that. I'll let you know if I ever figure it out. That's basically some of the many games I've played this past week, which brings us to today. Today, there will be two things going up. There will be a a Snapships video. Snapships is a kind of a build your own ship and then go skirmish each other kind of game. It's a fun little uh Lego It's the Lego of skirmish space battles. I covered it when it was first on crowdfunding a while ago. It's launching again this Tuesday. So, I'll have not really a review. It's more just building stuff with Snapships, which honestly is my favorite part of the system. There'll also be a review of Aberration. This is another one that will be launching soon.

10:14 They're launching like the new stuff, but I have a review of the old stuff that I've been meaning to get have it go live before the review before the new campaign went up. And so, I will have that for you soon cuz I have a review for the the old stuff before I have content for you on the newest stuff as well. And that brings us to Where are we? That brings us Snapships today. Next week, next week I'll have a bunch of things. I will have a filmed setup of the All Play Shelves. This is like 6 months ago when I built this set 6 months ago. I did the whole thing. I finally have the video for that going up because I never actually like finalize and put it together. So, that should be going up maybe Sunday. We'll see. Maybe if not Sunday, later this week, but sometime this week expect an All Play Shelves video. There'll also be a When Do You Sell an Out of Print Game video? This is one I filmed while I was at UKGE. It's basically a question of when do you sell a game because it's worth so much that you're tempted by the money even though you want the game. You still want the game, but the money is is high enough that you should sell it. Like what do you do? Because I talked through this decision space I had around one of these games. And you know, I do that in a video. I think it's an interesting conversation. Which brings us to the games on the table. As usual, these are games I'm hoping to get to this week.

11:17 Like I said already, Drillers fantastic first play. Hope to be playing more of it tonight if things go well, but if not, tomorrow's my backup plan. We have Reef and Rune. I've already played this a few times. I need to play it a bit more though cuz the review coming soon. It's a roll three dice and then kind of, you know, assign it to various areas. We have Glimmering, which I I would love to play this one. I I'm debating between leaning into the solo mode or just playing the regular mode, but I really enjoyed this one when on crowdfunding and it's nice to have the final copy. And then we have Frosted Blooms. This is one of those times that Board Game Arena cost me money. This happens here in the the area where I try to play as many Board Game Arena games as possible. Whenever a new one shows up, I try it. Sometimes I really like them. I'm in the middle of like a one called like Reef something that I'm actually kind of digging, but I think that's in the good or better, not the best games. But I played Frosted Blooms and I thought Frosted Blooms, I played it twice and I went and bought a copy on Amazon the next day after my second play of it because I was like, this is kind of fun.

12:05 I think they did a great job with the polyomino, with the managing the scoring. Hope to be playing it for the first time in person this week. We will see how that goes. That is basically your news and week in review. Until next time, I'm Alex Radcliffe from Board Game Co. Hope you enjoyed this video and as always, I hope you have a good one.