6 Small Box Game Reviews - Warp 99, Digital Detox, One Piece Nakama & More!

0:00 when you don't have 20 minutes to watch a full review. When you're not looking for a how to play or an hourong playrough and let's be honest, when the interest is a little smaller, too. That's why we have six small box games for you. I think I usually say when the interest is a little lower, too, and I said smaller, and it sounded wrong, but I'm going to go ahead and stick with it. Hello, I'm Alex Radcliffe from Board Gameco. This is a six small Yeah, this is a six small box game review roundup. Gen Con edition. I'm back from Gen Con. I have been charging through a lot of games over the next few weeks and uh days and weeks, days and weeks on the channel. You'll see a lot of postgen coverage, including small box roundups. This is the lower interest smallbox roundup one. Meaning, I guess honestly in general, if a game is in a six small box game review, it usually means it's not likely to get above a 3.5 out of five. Sometimes a four sneaks in, but usually when I like a game enough, small box or not, I want to showcase it and talk all about it and give you a dedicated video for it, which means usually my six smallbox game review roundups range and and score from like 1.5 to 3.5 more often than not.

1:11 Although, today we have a one. We have a one here. Although it does come with an asterisk and a caveat. With that said, let's go ahead and dive into it. Let's start off with the one. Let's go ahead and get into this. Oh, before we do, I should note this channel is sponsored by Allplay. If you go to allplay.com, you can find a ton of smallbox games. Allplay is known for their smallbox games, their tiny box games, their mediumsiz box games, and now with their new announcement, they'll also have large size box games. But because this is a six smallbox game review, check out a variety of their small box games, and you can get any games from them and their partner publishers for flat rate shipping. regardless of where you are, different amounts. So, Mookie Island, this is a one out of five with the caveat that the target audience for this is kids. The age range is 4 to 10. Perfect for 4 to 10. Not four plus, four to 10 because I think for me, I don't like this at all. I thought it was terrible. But again, caveat, I'm not the intended audience. Now, there are always two ways to look at a kids game. How well does that play that does that game play when it's kid versus kid? And how well does it play when adults are in the mix? And as an adult who was in the mix for this one, I I I don't love it at all. And my kids didn't seem particularly intrigued in playing it with themselves. So like I guess their own rating is not super positive, but who knows? Maybe it would be more than a one. One out of five. Uh for me, Mookie Island is basically a game. You create two stacks of cards. I'm not going to pull it out over here. You create a bunch of cards over here. You create two stacks and you're drawing a card. Then you're looking at both sides of the card and choosing whether to take the card for yourself or if it's a spider, giving it to somebody else at the table. I guess there's a variety of other things you could you could technically play games where you try to be mindful of

2:42 what other players are going for and try to tilt basically kingmate. You can kingmake or play spiders. Spiders are bad. Players with the most spiders will lose a trophy. Other than that, you're trying to create sets of cards. It's basically draw a card, put in a collection, and just choose which side looks more optimal. There's zero interesting decisions I made throughout this entire game. I could not wait for this game to be over. As an adult playing with kids, I did not enjoy this. And again, like I said already, my kids did not seem interested in playing game amongst themselves. But again, their rating is probably higher than a one for me. I I I I didn't like it and don't recommend it. That's Muki Island. From there, let's go to One Piece Nakama over here. This is an interesting one. It actually is better than I expected it to be. It's a One Piece theme game, which you're basically going to be creating a line. Let me show you over here. You're going to create a line of three enemies. And then you're going to have your heroes in the game. You always have to have Luffy. You can have a variety of other heroes. And then you're going to have your friends. Your friends are the core line of cards you're playing to because each enemy has a criteria. Oh, I need to have three cards of the same color next to each other. I need to have uh two cards that are the same value. I need to have a total value of 25 amongst all your friends. Basically, looking at your friends, for example, you can see over here, this person has four eights in play. Likely, one of these enemies wants to have four cards of the same value. There's going to be regular enemies, and there's going to be bosses.

3:57 You can mix in bosses for a variety of degree of how difficult you want the game to be. They are more challenging, and they are going to slowly burn through your your your track over here, and that's going to result in you losing friends. If you lose enough friends, you lose the game. Overall, it's a game of looking at the current enemies and/or bosses, trying to figure out what card you can play to the table to help meet the criteria without communicating with others. There's a solo mode as well if you have a larger hand size, or you're just trying to play a table game of how can I help uh move it along and defeat the variety of enemies. The actual puzzle, both solo and cooperative, is pretty fun. One of the areas this game is held back back back on is there are some like kind of weirdly punishing cards like bosses that come out that will instantly cause you to like defeat a friend which can cause you to just lose the game when you're otherwise playing this delicate balance. I also think the game does last a little too long for what it is at first. It's very fun and engaging to go ahead and try to figure out how to outpace the enemies.

4:48 Uh but on the other hand, as you get towards the tail end, you're almost waiting for it to be done. And I do think it's very very very dependent on luck of the draw. All that said, I still enjoyed the puzzle. I thought it was very well done. It was more than I expected out of it cuz it is very thinky. Particularly playing it solo. I think I enjoyed it solo more than playing a multiplayer. Multiplayer, you're kind of playing this hidden communication where you just don't talk to each other, which is fine. I can prefer the control I had solo, but that means you do have less cards in play. So, it is more luck dependent to a degree. Pros and cons, the different ways you play. Lots of abilities. As you play friends, you can utilize their abilities. Overall, enjoyed it. A few small things holding it back for me. A 3.5 out of five. Oh, also the other thing, two things, two major things hold it back for me. One is the luck of the draw of both your own cards as well as the enemies and particularly the bosses that can cause you to instantly lose.

5:34 The other is the rule book in my opinion is terrible. It aimed at being brevity. It aimed at shortness at at the expense of actually including everything you need. There's still aspects of the game that I'm pretty sure that I understood the terminology, but there's no list of terminology. You just have to assume certain things. So, rule book definitely needs a lot of work. Actually, if I recall last if I recall correctly last year, I came back with Stitch 8, which was another rule book from Ravensburgger that was terrible. And I'm not used to Ravensburgger having terrible rule books, but this is like the second time where it didn't it felt like a indie publisher rulebook, not like an established company rule book. That's the kind of vibe I got from both Stitch 8 as well as Ravensburgger as well as one Piece.com over here. Just a note. Anyways, a 3.5 out of five. There are some bad things, but the puzzle is actually pretty satisfying. Let's go from there to Digital Detox. Digital Detox is from Greater the Games. Uh, unfortunately, I think the theme really pulls me out of this one and the gameplay isn't enough to power past that. Digital detox is a game of reverse go fish. That's the game. You're trying to basically get rid of your cards. So, you have various activities. So, you might have posts or games or social. I can't remember all the various themes.

6:34 There's games, there's posts, there's memes, there's cat videos, all these different categories. And you say things like, "Oh, uh, do you have any cat videos?" And if they do, you give them your cards, hence the reverse go fish. But you're also playing with events. Events are going to have different things. So, one of the fun little things you everyone starts with a live stream. You can gather more of them. But eventually, us players feed all their cards to a person. You can play a live stream and get rid of all of your cards of a single type. If no one else has them, if they do have them, they give you a card. So, live stream is a great card to play, but you really want to play it when it's going to help you get rid of all your cards. You do not want to waste your live stream and accidentally be handed cards instead. But there are a bunch of events and the main goal is to get rid of your cards through the combination of events or the core actions. I believe there's four main actions you take. different actions in in terms of trying to again give people cards to share alternatively to a draw cards and cycle. Whole bunch of things you can do in that capacity.

7:22 Overall, like I said already, theme does not pull me in unfortunately and the gameplay doesn't really elevate it. It is mostly reverse goofish. I'd give this a 2.5 out of five. A not for me unfortunately. Then we have over here we have Mind Sweeper. Mind Sweeper is from uh Floodgate Games. It's basically a game. This one I think is actually kind of worth showing you a little bit uh just because of how crazy and chaotic this one can be. Let's go ahead and just throw a bunch. So, not going to throw everything on the table. We're just going to throw a bunch of objects on the table. We're going to grab a card. And there are normally a stack of tokens, but I'm just going to pick a number. I'm going to pick number five. Okay. We're going to draw a card from the deck. And we're doing five. Five is okay. I'll see you. Now, basically, you have 60 seconds at this point to try to showcase what you are giving people. Now, again, I'm playing. I'm going to use this. I'm going to brush this. You're using this little tool to kind of paint a picture of things that you want people to guess. Now, as you're watching this, you can shut out whatever you want as far as like trying to uh figure out different things you can say. You can say any number of words. You're not limited that you're not going to run out of guesses.

8:14 You can keep guessing until you get what the card is. So, I'm going to keep rushing. Let's put that over there. Let's put that. Okay, so we got all these over here. You can keep saying words. I'll do this for another like 20 seconds. I guess let's throw that in the mix. Why not? And I'll throw this. Okay, great. And we'll we'll even toss this over here. Okay, we got that. And I guess we'll do that. Okay. Oh, we're going to throw that into Okay, that should be enough. Let's pretend our 60 seconds ran out. At this point, if at any point you have said the keyword, we've won. Amazing. It's cooperative, by the way. If not, you're going to then reveal this and people will have 60 seconds to figure out which of these, which of these words, cabin, log, fireplace, hearth, uh, home, or woods, do you think this refers to? They all are going to have some degree of similarity. So, it's not easy to be like, you're not going to have things like fire and then, I don't know, cookie, cuz those are two totally different categories. But from these, which of these things do you think this refers to? You have 60 seconds. And if you guessed home, you're correct. Home was the number I was going for. We got pyramids, which is like kind of a home, so to speak. We have a castle. We have a variety of objects you'd find in a home.

9:13 That's what I was going for. Hopefully, you got it. That's the basic idea of the game. Uh, overall, Minder is a decently fun time, but not being a game that wows me. I think this is a great icebreaker, a great gateway game, uh, good for kids and families as well, but I don't think um, like it's that kind of hidden communication. You're trying to put together a puzzle of information from just abstract tons of pieces of information. I think there are a lot of games that go for this um, gateway icebreaker vibe. and Mind Sweeper, while being entertaining enough, isn't one I would pull out. I wouldn't say no to it, but I also wouldn't pull it out and play it myself. I'm going to give it a three out of five. Then from there, we get to Assemble. Assemble from AEG was a game I was looking forward to. This is basically a game of trying to assemble your perfect hand of cards. Uh, in the game, you're going to have some cards, and you're going to have I need to find the main card because you have I put him at the top of the bottom. He's neither.

10:01 He's neither at the top of the bottom. Why would I not have him at the top or the bottom of the deck? We need to find our I guess they'll be the other side. It'll be uh I think it'll be two-sided. I'm pretty sure. Where is my card? Oh, is it down in here? It's stuck on the bottom. That would make sense. Let me get pull this out. It got stuck. I guess I could pull this out like that. Sorry for the uh distraction. Here we go. Here we go. We have El Numero Uno. That's the card you need. And El Numero El Numero Uno is always going to be in play. And then you're going to put another card in play next to them. That's part of the card line. Then players have a card in their hand. So I might have these two cards. And then you're going to draw a card. So each player will draw a card having two cards. And then from there, you look at these cards and you choose which one you want to put down. So looking at my hand over here, I'm going to put this card down into the pool. The other player will put a card face down and then we'll flip. Whoever has the current first player token is going to choose which card to go ahead and add to their hand from either the two cards that were put down, the card that was in the card line or El Numero Uno himself, which will give you first player and it will allow you to draw a random card from the deck. So you're getting first player and a random card as opposed to a choice. Looking at my cards, I'll take a look and I'll say, "Oh, I really want this card." The other player doesn't like any other cards. They'll take El Nuo. They'll get first player and a random card from the deck. Now they have two cards in the hand. In the next round, you're going to go ahead and draw another card. So you now have three. And then again, you put a card down. So every round, you're basically drawing a card and then cycling another card into play and then trying to figure out how to build the perfect seven card hand because at the very end of the game, you'll have seven cards and you'll combine all the various values of the cards and the various things. If you have a set of this card, you're going to get that score. If you have these cards, you'll get that. Whoever has the most of that will get that. You're basically

11:32 trying to build a perfect team. you're assembling a team of heroes. Uh, the concept of the game is totally fine. The actual execution I found to be less satisfying. I didn't find the abilities to be super interesting or engaging. It's the kind of game that was good for two or three plays. And by the time I was playing it the fourth time, I was already I I felt I had done everything I wanted to from the game. I still enjoyed myself. I just not a game that I'm super excited about. I'd give it a three out of five. And then we have Warp 99. Warp 99 from Bezier Games is a game of trying to basically get to I think it's 99 points or is it 100? I can't remember if it's a 100 or 99. Let me see. It's one of those two things. I don't know if it matters semantically. Game end. Game end. Game end. When a player gets 99 points. When a player gets 99 points, the game ends. In the game, you're going to basically put out some rules. So, for example, let's put this rule out in play. Uh let's put this rule out. I don't know. Let's put um let's put this rule into play. And then we'll put this rule into play. Okay, there we go.

12:25 There's our starting rules. Then from there, you're going to get a hand of 15 cards. Well, not a hand, a deck of 15 cards. You have your 15 cards. and you're going to go ahead and draw six cards. And six cards is your hand. Now, again, remember the goal is to get 99 points. That's all you're trying to do. And you're constantly going to be trying to empty your deck because whenever you empty your deck of 15 cards, you will get 15 points. And then take a new deck from the main deck. Oh, I need to put uh two discards in play because that's going to be our starting discards over here. Your turn sequence is going to be the following. Let's move this up a little bit so you can see how this plays. On your turn, you're going to Let's just move these like this. There we go. There's our three rules. There's our discard piles. And there is going to be me playing a card from my hand. Oo, a one. I'll start with a one. The only thing better would have been a zero. We're going to place a one into play. This my own personal row. Okay, great. I placed it. That's the first step. You do three things in your turn. Play a card, discard any number of cards, draw back up to six. So now I can go ahead and discard cards. Now, when I discard, I have to follow the rules. The rules are going to be these piles can equal 10. So I could place a seven or a nine. You'll notice I don't have a seven or nine. I could play a card that is two higher than a previous card. So, I could play this card over here, which is two higher, which is amazing. So, I'll do that. But one second. Now, I can't play a five here because I don't have a five.

13:32 Or you can play a card with the same number. That's another option. Uh, so sorry, same color in this case. In this case, I have a three that is two higher than the one and the same color. When you meet two rules at once, you get to draw a card from your deck right away and have a chance of playing that. That could help me. Unfortunately, it doesn't. In this case, I I still can't play any other cards. I don't have any matching colors. So now last thing I do on my turn is I go ahead and I draw a card and add it to my hand and then I continue playing again. Next turn it comes back to me. Let's pretend some other players have played some cards. So to put new cards in the decks over here, we'll pretend they played those somehow. And then it comes back to my turn looking at my hand again. I will play a two. Your next card in your row has to be higher as well as a different color than anything else currently in your row. So now I have a second card in my row. Then I can go back to the cycle of here. Can I play any cards? Do I have a 10? I don't have a 10. Do I have the same color? I don't have the same color.

14:18 Do I have anything that's too higher? I don't because I don't have anything I can play. I get to go ahead and change the rules. So in this case, I'll go ahead. Let's see if I change this rule. I can double this to a six. That's not bad. Or I can do minus two. That's not great. I'll change this rule. So this rule is going to get changed. Now I can play any card that would half or double a pile. So for example, I can play a six on top of this cuz that's doubling it. And I can play a three on top of that cuz that's halfing it. There you go. Plain and simple. You can't double a zero, unfortunately. So nothing I can do there. And then I draw back up to six. Now, in general, the way you get points is two ways. When you empty your deck, you get 15 points. Additionally, whenever you go ahead, so let's say it's my next turn. My next turn, I'll play a seven over here. At any point, when you cycle this row, you can only play one card to your row. You'll get this square value of your row. So, if I if I get rid of three cards, I'll get nine points.

15:05 But if I get rid of seven cards, I'll get 49 points. So, building up a long row and planning your discards around that, choosing when to play a card that's going to be helpful versus hold on to it cuz you're building up a sequence is a big part of the game. And then of course just changing the rules so you can discard as many cards as possible and cycle your deck as frequently as possible. That's the core idea of Warp 99 over here. I believe it's a reprint of an existing game or something, I don't know, or an older game. Don't know exactly. Overall, I find this game pretty fun. It's not amazing, mind you, but it is pretty fun. The biggest critique I have is it does feel very luck dependent. It doesn't feel like there's a ton of strategy. The main strategy is going to be a seeing the patterns of how you could discard and then b choosing when it's not worth discarding because it's better to hold onto a card to build your row. If I have a three, if I have a one, two, and a three, and the three would be great to discard and will actually allow me to cycle into three discards, is that better than getting a three in play because I want to try to build up if you can build like a 10 row, a 10 card row, that's 100 points right there. You don't even need to worry about those other 15 points you get here and there. So, there's lots of decision space around that that aspect of the push and pull of when is the right place or time to utilize a card and how you're going to utilize it. Overall, I'd give it a 3.5 out of five. I've definitely had fun with it. Uh, and I look forward to playing it again with more wacky zany rules. That is basically going to be your six smallbox games, Gen Con version, uh, video one. There's probably going to be multiple smallbox games.

16:25 Although, I have to again, it depends on how good the games are. There's other smallbox games that will be reviewed that I did enjoy a lot that'll be getting their own dedicated review. That is neither here nor there. As a quick recap at the end, we have Digital Detox over here. It's a two out of five. Not for me, unfortunately. One Piece Nakama, 3.5 out of five. Something's holding it back, but pretty clever cardplay. Mookie Island, a one out of five with the asterisk that I'm not the target audience for it. Assemble, which is a three out of five. Fun, but not a lot of longevity to it. Warp 99.5 out of five. Definitely enjoyed it, but limited on the decision space. And then Mind Sweeper, a three out of five. A good gateway game, but not one that sparks joy for me personally. In any case, and 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.