6 reviews in 20 minutes!
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Transcript
Hello everyone, this is Cinema. And this is Johannes.
And you're watching Board Gaming Ramblings.
And today we are taking a look at six games in one video. These are games that are mostly review copies, mostly games coming out at Spiel, and 100% games we have played. We're going to talk to you about them, about the experience that we had while we played them. For example, while I played this one game, I also uh managed to mash my toe into the table and it really hurt. Those are the kind of things you won't be hearing in this video because we will be talking about what we felt while we played the game. Like for example, sadness. Uh no, we're going to talk about the games.
Pride, joy. And we're going to Spiel.
Yes. If you're going to Spiel, uh you we are like a Where's Waldo thing. If you want to find us, we will be walking around and you if you see us Yes, there's like a bit we'll let you know where we are. We'll be standing there waiting. No, you can come and find us and say hello. You can also show us the secret sign which makes us happy, and you can do both. You can show the secret sign and say hello. If you don't want to say hello, that's also fine. And if you don't want to say or show the secret sign, that's not allowed. You do have to show the secret sign. It's actually in the Board Gaming Ramblings rules of conduct that you have to show us the secret sign. If you want to make sure where to find us, we will be at the Alliance booth uh Saturday evening or from afternoon to evening and Sunday from the morning on at Spiel for some hours.
yes, till midday.
Yes, and then we'll [clears throat] be not midday, that's like 2:00. No, 2:00 or 12:00. Midday is 12:00. I think we'll be there till 2:00.
Okay.
And we will be teaching games. You can come and uh learn to play something and have fun. With that said, let's review some board games.
Yep.
Da da da da. Six board games, this one is the first one, Triangulation.
Triangulation.
the only non-review copy, so that's why I'm going to say it. The rest of the games are review copies, this is not a review copy. Triangulation.
Yeah, I love Triangulation. I didn't think it will work, but it does. It is a word game where you're playing in teams. Uh, one team is getting like a word that you're going to trying to guess.
One player on the team.
Yes, one player. Yeah. And they're going to write three hints to your teammate. But that when you have all three hints, you will get the right word. But before you show them to your teammate, you're showing like one and one to your opponent team. And if they can guess it, then they will get the point instead. And this is totally language independent, but you need to know
You need to know the same language, I would say.
Yes.
It makes the game easier.
And also all the words that you're trying to guess are like names for places,
Proper nouns, I think it's called.
persons, games, things. Yeah. Things like that.
things like table. That's not one of them.
Yeah, but but they're proper nouns. Like, so you need to
George Washington.
Yeah, you need to read something.
Yes, that's one of the better
It's a word game about words. It's really good.
Yes.
I think it's a great game. I think that it is We have talked about this in game of the month as well. I think that you need to have a group that is kind of on the same level and also on the same kind of wavelength because I I just spoke to Martin and he had played this with a group
Yeah.
where the one team had like a lot of references that the other team didn't have. So, they used all of that and made it impossible for the other team. Ask me if it was fun for the other team.
fun.
It wasn't. So,
you need to mix it up. Yeah, mix it up so the persons with the very same references don't be on team so they can, yeah.
100%. Next up, we have Abraca-who? This is a game where you are It's a game. Where you are going to have a card in your hands going to be facing outwards. So, you don't know what card you have. That card is going to have a character on it with a number. And on your turn, you can basically guess who you are. Because like the higher number has a lot more cards in it. So, it's a higher probability of guessing correct. If you guess like I am the two, for example. And if you guess I am like the eight, you will lose because there are no eights in the game. But you can, if you really want to. And you can also try to fight the other players. Because I see that oh, you have a two. Maybe I have a higher card. And I will try to fight you. And if you say no, because you maybe see I have the five and you're thinking, oh, I'm probably have a low card now. Then you have to guess which card you have. So, I can also come to try to trick you. Like say let's say you have the five and I have I don't know what I have. I can say, I'm going to attack you. And you're going to be like, oh, I think I have a low number now. And you're going to say, I won. And like, no, it was the five, which was bad. And if you guess correctly, you will get some bonuses and actions depending on the character that you guessed.
The whole goal is to get as many or seven of these pieces of a circle. And if you get the whole circle, you will win. But every time you lose something like a battle or you guess wrong, you will lose life. And you will try to be the best at getting the circle.
Yeah, this reminds me of Love Letter because you're like you have one card in your hand and you're just
But they flipped it around.
Yeah. In other like in Love Letter, you want to try to deduce what the other players have. In this game, it's the opposite. It also reminded me a little about the like the Mongoose game, the the guessing
Okay. Yeah. Then you also want to guess what who you are. I thought it was a neat game.
I think it's a neat game. I think that it is also very short.
Yeah.
I think it is when I read the rules, it sounded silly. It is silly, but it is there is there is a little bit there. Like there is a little bit of All that was said, like, trying to trick the other people, but also thinking, "Oh, what can I have?" and doing the probabilities. And later in game, all the cards have been like played, because if you if you duel or if you guess your card will be and you will face up on the table and you get a new card. Okay, I can see it all. Oh, now all the twos are out, so I'm not going to guess that anymore. And but they're still They're only four cards left. And the six hasn't gone. Maybe I was going to guess the six, because then I instantly win a round and stuff like that. Yeah, I actually like this one quite a bit.
Yeah, the coolest thing about this game was when No, yeah. When you're guessing correctly, because you're just like that's that's so cool. Even though uh it's Yeah, you can do the probability, but still have to guess. Oh, yeah, that's cool also. I really like that.
The little way you lose your life Your life is the light.
Mhm.
And that's that game. It's really nice. Next up, we have
Terraforming
Terraforming
This is a game.
It's a roll and write game.
It is.
Yes, and it is a game. That's also correct. Like, it was 100% completely correct. This is a game.
Yeah, it is. In this game, you're rolling two dice and those represent the areas that you can draw a line between those two areas. And the goal of the game is to connect fruits and also olives.
Fruits to market or this
Yeah, to market.
market.
And also market to market. And when you do that, you move up on some tracks and it's basically like a race with your horses over those tracks, because when you reach the track like all with all your horses, the the game is over.
100% over.
Yeah. You can play in two modes.
Three.
Uh three modes. Okay, tell us about the modes, because I only knew two.
The race mode.
The race mode.
Which is the one you spoke about. And then you have the points mode, where you will get points depending on where you go.
It still ends the same way, though.
ends the same way, and there is a lot more points towards the end, so those are kind of similar. But, I really enjoy also that there is a what's called like a tournament mode or like I don't remember exactly the name of it, where you play X amount of of games in a row. So, if you're four players, you'll play four games, you will play with a player board because the player boards have different uh
maps
maps on them, and you will send it to the left player to the left and play again.
Got it.
Uh the reason I like this mode the best, I think, is because then if I see that I'm not going to end this round, I'm not going to win this round, either points I get and I manage to get before the game ends still carry over to the next round, and because the game is so short, like playing a three-player game uh three times is going to take you like 45 minutes. So, then the points I feel like matter more.
Yeah, I agree.
Because it's a very light game.
It is.
Like the the the racing thing is it is very light, but it is uh still like you you have you can do uh about bad or good choices on your routes,
Mhm.
but also you're rolling the dice, the different probabilities on the dice, but still like you can be in a position where one terrain never shows up, but then you you will know which terrain are lower chance.
Yes.
So, if you plan like all your routes need to go through this one terrain, you set yourself up for not a positive thing.
Yeah, this has a lot of similarities with another game, Trails of Tucana. One of the same designers has made that with like but there you have courage, you're drawing to show the terrains, but you're you're making the routes in kind of the same way.
Yeah.
Um but here the the end of the game is player-driven. That means when you have bad luck, chances are somebody else has bad luck, too, and the game will not have like a premature uh the end.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, depending on the answer, like if if one player has all of their routes going through the worst terrain,
Yeah, that's that's not a good idea.
have to plan your routes as well in an a good way to be able to to play to the probabilities I would say.
I don't know which one I like more because we haven't played Trails Trails of Tucana in a long while. I didn't get like that tension because you have like an intermediate scoring in Trails of Tucana and end game scoring and I felt like this was maybe lacking a little tension in that way but but the race feeling in the end you can see who's nearing on the finish line and then it gets kind of tense.
And it's shorter so you get like it's a it's kind of like an lighter version of that I would say.
Yeah.
Next up we have Snowy Tricks which is a trick taking game about being animals on the slope like there is a shark with hands in this game. I don't I don't think I've seen a shark with hands before I played this game but there is in this game. So if you are very interested in like sharks with hands
Check out Snowy Tricks. Yeah.
Okay, it's a trick taking game. It is it I the thing in many trick taking games so all trick taking games I feel like need some kind of twists because that's what made them interesting. Some they do it in different ways. I would say some games make the core concept of trick taking change. It made it they made it weird. They make it different like we have so many trick taking games. I think we're nearing on I've played 100 trick taking games. So this game takes it in another direction which for example also I would say a mustache kind of took it but that's a team based one where the actual trick taking phase like the trick taking rules are very simple.
Yeah. Classic.
a which is good because then it's easier to play with people who haven't played a bunch of trick taking games because many of the great trick taking games are weird and you not want you don't want to put them in front of people who haven't played a lot of trick takers. So in this game instead of having the the thing that you're doing like the real trick taking very different. They have different goals. So, each time you play, you're going to have different goals. There's categories, so you're going to have like one of this, one of this, one of this. So, at the beginning of the round, you will be bidding on the amount of tricks that you will win. That is one way to score points if you manage to get to that, but you're also going to have, for example, you want to win the not the least amount, but the next to least amount of tricks. Or you want to win fewer tricks than the player to your left. Or on all of these kind of categories. Or you want to win a five cards in the same color in a row. And placing those out, that's going to change how the whole game feels. So, the variability in this is very high, and it does the thing I think is important in a trick taking game, a good trick taking game, which isn't just, "Oh, I got high cards, I'm going to win."
Mhm. Yeah, because I I when we played it last time, uh I was like, "Oh, I have a bunch of heart cards. I'm going to to do very well this round." And I didn't get a single point because I I didn't meet any of the scoring criteria.
And there's a lot of variability in it, which I think is great. I think this is a very good beginner style trick taking game. I really liked it. And the players we have played it with have really liked it. I think that it's not going to be like my favorite, but it is a great introduction to more unique trick taking games, I would say.
I agree. Yeah, absolutely. Next up, we have Leader. Leader is a two-player game. It is It is a game where you can play with as like these cute I don't know, and maybe not cute. Like these animal factions.
I like the last thing I just said is I haven't seen sharks with hands. The first thing I see on this page is sharks with hands. In my defense, we played Snow White Tricks before we played Leader.
Yeah.
So, that is that is that.
Uh the factions that you play with are very different. So, you're playing like an asymmetrical game, but you both have the same like What do you call this? Spatial puzzle?
Yes.
So, when when it's another turn, you do a turn simultaneously, but the active player chooses between some options what part of your grid of actions to activate.
Yeah.
So, then you see, okay, if I activate this, this is good for me, but it's even better for you, for example. So, you want to activate a something that is not horrible for you, but it is the worst possible thing for your other player. And you're trying to get like to meet your factions criteria or similar for all factions get to certain number of like war points.
Yeah.
This for me wasn't like a super interesting spatial puzzle because I I really like spatial puzzles.
Yes.
And and it was all right. And also I thought it was interesting with a different goals that your faction wanted to have to win, but I I wasn't in love with it. For me it was it's just like an okay game.
I don't really feel like the spatial puzzle. Like I don't really feel like it is a spatial puzzle. It is more like this is my grid of actions and it's randomly set up and I can upgrade some of them.
change some like the position.
Absolutely. So, it's more of a tactical like because you know that these kind of spaces can be activated multiple times. So, you're trying to put like your best in there, but depending on the faction you have, maybe you want for example the shark want to have their tiles adjacent to each other. So, you can't really manipulate that in that way. So, it has some spatial and it's not it's not like in its core a spatial puzzle. It is more of a trying to upgrade your board in a way that for example in one game we play I had like a couple of rows that were really good and a couple of rows that were horrible. So whenever you got to activate those and then I had better position where I didn't want to move things around and I got almost nothing. And it is kind of a race as well because you're trying to get these resources to get the cards and you're trying to get activate more power than the other players that you get that power victory points for the combat. I think it's a decent game. I think though I agree with you and in the jungle of two player games I don't think this one stands out. I had high hopes reading the rules. I really enjoyed the the concepts of it but it didn't just like it didn't fit my brain. It didn't like excite me that much.
Yeah, I agree.
We have one more game and that is Crab Rage, one of the most fun themes in a long time. This is in a post-apocalyptic apocalyptic That's the word. Post-apocalyptic world where the crabs have gotten sentient and decided that they will do a TV wrestling show where the crabs are in the in the mix and trying to to win. This is a game which has action selection in it and you are selecting actions to place your dice which is the crabs. Not very thematic crabs. They're just dice with numbers on them but we don't mind. We like cubes but cubes around and you are trying to be the best. You're trying to go on teams with other players. So when I not the PC program teams but I'm trying to be in a team with other players. So when I place out my crab I can say like I'm going to partner up with you and we're a team now and it is basically a a real majority game. So sometimes through the game you will check like okay who has what and you will score points and and or you will score basically fans and influence and at the end of the game it's like a a another layer of of area majority where there's like the the player who got the most fans in each of these sections is going to score most points. So, I love the theme of this game. I felt that it is a shorter game. It is more of a I feel like I think to make this work you have to be
way meaner maybe than we were when we played the game because we are not mean players most of the time. Some meanness happened but I think you do need to have even more manipulation, forcing people out and getting these things, trying to sneak in, feel force people out because we ended up in a position where by the end it wasn't that exciting to score the points.
I have many opinions about this game. I don't like it.
Okay.
No. I like the I like the theme. Royal Krill for the win. Yay. And but but I felt like yes, it's not a long game and but it it couldn't be so much shorter because it's a little chaotic.
Yes.
So, if you're just like doing one round, it would be very boring I felt like
Yes.
cuz like okay, you you got to do that really cool thing and and and I was out of these action power thingies. So, I didn't get to go against that and now you have the majority but the next round maybe that's that's falls to me that I can do something cool the last round and like switch around in the majorities but I felt like it was too long.
Yep. Yep.
So, that was my problem with it. And and so at the end of the game I was just like a little disengaged because I just like okay, we we spent this time and now I felt like it didn't I didn't really control the outcome at all but but at the same time I liked the chaotic things in this game. So, so I I felt I feel like the positives in this game is all also things that I don't like.
Yeah. That's my point.
feel like with this game, uh it can't win me over.
Really? And I agree that it maybe fits a a group that like the chaotic things and like like being like mean a little more, but I felt like it was an action where you can just like spend power or like action cubes to to deduct the values of other players. But, it's so easy to to negate that. So, I felt like whatever I did, it was a way to counter that.
Mhm.
And then I was just like, "Dude, does it really matter? Anyone can see."
I think I liked it a bit more than you, but also I agree that it wasn't a big hit, but I I think main reason for me to play it was the theme. It was fantastic and I would have liked to like the game a bit more than I did. And that is going to be the end of the video. Subscribe. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Johannes. And you've been watching Board Gaming Ramblings and bye-bye.