Stakeout ►►► This film noir dice game has two things I rarely see in boardgame design!
Transcript
Hey everybody. Today on Roth, we're previewing a prototype of Steakout. But before I get going, please turn your subtitles on to the Click on channel so that when I make rules goose, you'll know what they are. And if you've done that, well then welcome to the hardboiled streets of I don't know what city, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York. Um, it is film noir time. So late 30s, 40s, something like that. And each player is a hardboiled private investigator. Uh, Gumshoe. um you know, etc., etc., and we are working for a whole cast of clients trying to crack cases. I'm going to show you how it works today in a two-player run through. I am the green player, Jen is the white player, and as part of setup, each of us got one hot tip that we can use for various special powers to manipulate the dice we'll be rolling. And we also both have a client. We actually drew two and kept one. And I ended up working for the smalltime crook. He smirked like a man who thought he was untouchable. "This is just business," he said, "and I need a little professional help. He's a low-level thief who's been double crossed. He's desperate to get back what's his before his creditors catch up. So, to crack the case of the small-time crook, which will score me three points, I need to thoroughly investigate two suspects. And during my ongoing investigation, it's a little bit easier for me to investigate suspects than normal." So, that's my starting situation. And I chose this one because of the cards that are up here. Well, there's the gun, which is evidence.
There's Dunston Manor, which is a location. And what I'm setting my sights on, there's Lady Harrington, a suspect. All righty. So, I figured I I'll chase after her and see if we can crack the case. Jen, meanwhile, decided to work for the industrialists. A bigger job. Needs two evidence in two locations, but is worth five points. His suit was worth more than my yearly rent. And but his eyes betrayed a desperation money couldn't fix. A self-made tycoon whose prototype for an invention has gone missing. He needs discretion and he needs it found. So Jen's got a thing. She gets to add plus one or minus one on two dice when she's investigating evidence. Um like oh I don't know the gun. So that might be the where Jen starts her investigations. Anyway, we're set up ready to go. Um, it's black and white time and uh what we're going to do is first of all roll some dice and then spend those dice to investigate, wire tap, stake out, and hopefully claim investigation cards and get bonuses off them. At the end of our turn, after we've used all our dice to do this stuff, we have the potential to close cases, which gets us closer to the end of the game. Now I'm the first player and as it says here, I'm going to get up to two dice from my supply plus additional dice if I've got any hot tips that would give me them right now and any save dice. Now I don't have any save dice and my triple one hot tip does not give me dice to roll. It would say before rolling if I could use it right now, but it doesn't. So all I get is two
dice. And let's roll. Okay, I've got a one and a five. That is not a good start because to investigate Lady Harrington, I need a lot of twos. And you'll notice I need a lot of Well, this indicates a three of a kind. Once I put a die on her that's not a two, I have defined what um I that I need three of that other thing. So, here's my problem. Normally, to start an investigation, you need to be able to place two dice on the card. And I wouldn't be able to start an investigation because I've got a five, but you don't need a one on the gun. I've got a five, but I need fives and fours on the dun matter. So, I can't start an investigation without being able to place two dice. And I can't do it for Lady Harrington, too. If I had two fives, I could do it. If I had two ones, if I had a a two and a five or whatever, but I don't. So, normally, I would not be able to start an investigation right now. Um, but remember my ongoing investigation power with a small time crook is I can start in suspects with only one die instead of two. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start investigating Lady Harrington. Normally I wouldn't be able to do that, but I've got a special rulebreaking power because the crook is helping me out on on this case. So now uh to finish this investigation and score five points and have half of the work done to crack my case, I need to have over the course of the next few rounds. This is a big one. It's why it's worth five points. I need three twos and two more fives. All I've got is a dinky
one. So I can't use it for that. What else can I do with this die? Well, instead of investigating, I can do wire taps and stakeouts. Now, unfortunately, to do a wire tap, we're reminded right here um on our little player aid that we need to have two dice. Discard any two dice you want to um basically start a wire tap. I've only got one die left, so I can't do that. There's one other thing I can do, though, folks. It's the name of the game. I can go on a stakeout. I'm just going to kind of park my car down the street from Lady Harrington's mansion, and I'm just going to look for trouble. You can spend any number of your dice of any value to increase on the stakeout track. And I've done that. What that means is on a future turn, I can cash in the intel I've I've collected to get a 1 2 3 4 five or six plus potentially hot tip cards. Right now, one level stakeout just gives me a one. I don't need that. But over time, if I stake out more, I can start getting those twos or those fives I need.
Anyway, though, that was my turn. turns in this game are incredibly quick. This is a very uh fun little breezy game. And now it is Jen's first turn. She uh her save one hot tip doesn't give her any extra dice. She doesn't have any save dice, so she's just rolling two. And what she got? She's got a five and a four. That's what she needs to start invest. Well, heck, she could go either way. She could start the gun or a dun manner. And by the way, if the dice hadn't rolled quite her way, remember the industrious will um you know flex some of his contact and give her plus one or plus two going for evidence. So it's easier for Jen to go for the gun because she's got this ongoing power. That means does she start with this cuz she'll be able to finish it quicker or does she spread out? This is harder for her to do this location one. Um, so maybe because she's got a five and a four, maybe she starts on the harder one and maybe she does two investigations at the same time. Now that's dangerous. She might spread herself thin, but it also gives her more flexibility over time, so she's more likely to be able to come up with good use for her dice. So that's it. Jen has started investigating Dunston Manor. Maybe that's where the industrialists live. She's poking around seeing if somebody on the staff uh was involved. Anyway, that was Jen's first turn. My second turn, I still don't have a hot tip that'll help. I don't have any saved dice, so I'm just rolling two. And I'm looking for twos and fives. And two fours is not what I need at all.
So, I got to get clever. Um, well, first of all, I could start investigating Dunston Manor as well. And then where's a race? Because only one player can claim an investigation card. So, the first player to get all these dice will score the five points. I could go for this even if it doesn't help me crack the case because it is worth five points and I'd be keeping it from Jen, but um if Jen finishes it before me, then I've kind of wasted these dice. So, I don't know if I want to risk it. Um and I don't have a four and a five or a four and a three, so I can't start investigating the gun. Although, again, I don't care about evidence. I care about um suspects. So, I got a couple of options. you can always do something no matter what you roll. I could um uh you know do a bigger stake out. So, hey, now I'm almost up to a five. If I make it all the way to the six, then I can take anything. I take a five and I get a hot tip card. Once I'm, you know, or I could do both of these and um that means on a future turn, if you do uh stake out on a given turn, that means you won't be able to cash it in until next turn. That means on the next turn I could keep on building up or I could get myself another hot tip. You can see in these ones it's take a three, four, or five.
If I'm at five, it could be a 5,43 or a two or one or take a hot tip. If I make it up to six, then it's any die I want plus a hot tip. So anyway, so I could do that and keep on working on the stake out or I could do a wire tap. And that's what I'm going to do. Wire tap. Uh discard any two dice you want. Again, for stakeouts, it could be anything. For wire taps, it could be anything. So, I'm going to discard these fours cuz they are not helping me. And that says, "Draw 1 2 3 4 5 investigations. Pick one for yourself." And this is going to be a private side investigation I've got going. Now, I'm looking for suspects. So, I do not want to investigate Candlewood or the Paperweight or Boots or the Old Book. I got lucky. I did find a suspect. It's Mr. Stockton. the executive. Could Mr. Stockton be the industrialist that Jen is working for? I don't know. Um, but I can't help myself.
I love kind of spinning yarns as I get going. So, in addition to these um investigations I could contribute to, I've got my own private one that only I know about. Now, this one I need two fours and a three of a kind. Um, but once I finish both of these, I'll have cracked the case of the small time crook. All righty. So, that was my turn. I did a wire tap. It is Jen's turn again. She has no save dice. This doesn't give her any dice. So, she's just rolling two, trying to keep pushing on either of those. And what does she get? She gets a two and a two. Okay, that does not help her with Dunston Manor where she needs fours and fives. It doesn't help her with the gun where she needs threes, fours, and fives except the industrious will let her plus one minus one on two dice. So, the industrialists could turn both of these into threes. And now Jen is splitting her time working on two different investigations at the same time. She's going to go for it. It's a bit risky because if you run out of dice, then you have to pass. And that's super painful.
So, Jen's risking it for the biscuit. But now we're back to me. Show me some twos and fives. I got two. Oh my gosh. Boom. I am closing in on Lady Harrington. We're going to clear her name or we're going to find out she uh was maybe she hired the the small time crook. Easy peasy. My turn. Didn't take much time. Back to Jen. And Jen says, "Oh, I've got a four and a three." Okay. Now, remember the first die you place on an in the first time you place on an investigation, unless you've got a rule breaker like I did, you have to be able to place two dice. But then afterwards, you can add them one at a time. So, Jen says, "Hey, how about I keep working on Dunston manner and how about I keep working on the gun?" There's uh now Jen's got all her threes or Okay, now here's the deal. Jen's running out of dice. She's a little nervous about spreading this wide. So, I think she's going to double down on the gun. So, now all she needs is two fives to finish that. All right. And remember, she can modify things to get those fives with the industrialist health. So, I think she's not going to split herself because she does not want to run out of dice. That was it for her. Back to me. I am up and I want some twos. And oh, that's not bad. Hey, so I've got one, two. I'm getting closer. But then what am I going to do with this six? Let's come back to that because folks, before I use my two, it's time to use my hot tip. This is a triple one. Take two dice from my supply if I've got them, and I do. Set them to the same value as any
one of my active dice and add them to my pool. I think I'm going to take a couple dice. And am I going to make them sixes? No, I'm going to make them twos. And then just like that, boom, boom, boom, bum. We have finished the investigation of Lady Harrington. And so whenever you do that, you immediately resolve it, which means, oh, yay, I've got my supply of dice back. I have scored five points for investigating her. And whenever you successfully investigate, you get a bonus. um if it was a uh suspect. Turns out they they go informant and your reward is another hot tip. So now I've got a plus one minus one on two dice on any type of investigation unlike Jen who has an So this is a going to help me out later. And now I just need one more suspect and I'm already looking at you Mr. Stockton. All right. Anyway, as soon as an investigation card goes away, a new one comes out and it's a key. More evidence. Remember, Jen needs two evidence in two locations, but man, it's an expensive one. That's going to take a lot of dice. Where's the cheap ones? All righty. Anyway, that um finishing interrupted. I still got one die to use.
So, what am I going to do with it? Well, um normally I probably just have to throw it into stakeout cuz I don't have two for another wire tap. And remember, when I start on something, I need two. But if it's a suspect, I only need one. So, how about we put it over here? And now to finish Mr. Stockton, I need two fours and three sixes. Looks good. Um, and I've got plus one minus one to help me with that. All right, back to Jen. And she wants to see two fives. If she gets two fives, then she's uh cracked the case. She's uh found the the the weapon that was involved with this industrial theft. Oh my gosh. I didn't think that was going to happen, folks. Um, normally you have to work a little bit harder, but Jen says, "Okay, done. I found the missing gun." And she uh she didn't even have to use her power to do it. So, she has finished her first thing. Five points for her. She's a third of the way done on this. And whenever you finish investigating some evidence, uh, you find fingerprints. Roll a dice and place it into your save die area. So now Jen has a save dive and it is a two. Okay, we reveal a new one. It's the Clipton Ballroom. There's two locations. Hey, Jen needs two locations. Oh, so Jen's got everything she needs to investigate as we continue. It is back to me and I'm rolling and I'm wanting to see fours and sixes. Show me fours and sixes. And
that's a four. Okay, we'll put that on there because um once you've started, you only have to put one. And then I've got this one. It's not going to do me any good. So, I'm just going to go back on the stakeout. You know why the game is called that now, folks. I'm going to continue my stakeout. And it's Jen's turn. And now she'd like to work on Dunston Manor. Although, man, Clifton Ballroom's pretty easy. She can get that done fast. We'll see what she rolls. We Oh, wait. No, actually, hold on. Before she rolls, because she has a safe die, a saved die, there's a couple different ways you can use this. Jen could take this two right now and add it to her roll if she doesn't like the two. And honestly, she does not like the two. The two doesn't help her with any of these things she wants to investigate. So, she could take it and add it to her roll. So, she's working with three dice. Or she could leave it because after she rolls and she's trying to do stuff while she's spending her dice, anytime she wants, she could take this as a two. So, like if she rolled and then finished another investigation and a new one came out, it was a two, she could say, "Oh, boom. I'll use the two after the fact."
Save dice work in two different ways. You can roll them right up front. Um, and then you're stuck with whatever you rolled and you got to use it that turn or you can save them and use them as their value whenever you want. They're very valuable. But anyway, so Jen doesn't need a two for anything. So she's going to call this in and try to roll it to something a little bit more useful for the actual thing she's investigating. All righty. Oh, that's very nice. All right. What does she got here? She needs a four and All right. So, she's got another four and another five. And because she's working Oh, shoot. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. This plus one minus one is only on evidence cards. She can't use this four on Dunsen Manor.
So, hold on a second. Let's take one of these five back. She's done with the fours. Um, she just needs a bunch of fives now. Is she going to put the five there and keep working on it? Or is she going to throw them over here and get Dun Clipton Ballroom done lickety split? I think that's what she's going to do. I think so. Yeah. Um so again, she's splitting it up. Um giving her more flexibility, although it's not much flexibility because these both needs four, fives, and six. But hey, if she gets a six, she can finish this. If she gets a six, it doesn't help her with that because she can't modify. So I think that's it for Jim. Okay, back to me. Okay, I've got a five and a one. And don't forget, anytime I want, I've got a one or a two based on the time I put in on this stakeout. And I could turn that into a three or whatever. But anyway, what do I need over here? I need more fours and fives.
This is not a four um or Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm sorry. I need fours and sixes. So, crap, crap, crap. I could use this to But I want to use this for I I don't need to modify this. I think I'm just going to do boom boom. I'm just going to keep on staking out. So now I've got a four or a 302 or one whenever I want it or I've got a hot tip whenever I want it. Although I can't use it now. If you work on staking out, you can know you can't cash it in. You um now you could first thing after you roll, you could cash in, get whatever you want, and then you could do another stake out, but once you've committed to a stake out in a turn, you can't get the payday uh until next turn. So anyway, that's it. I'm just continuing to stake out. All right, Jen's turn. Wee. a one and a four. She did not get that six she wants to finish that. She can't put the four there. She can uh She doesn't need a four over there. Shoot. Right. Jen's not happy with that at all. Those don't help her.
It doesn't even help her. She could. No. H. Does Jen do a wire tap now to get a her own personal one? No, she's got plenty going on over here. Does Jen just do a stakeout? Yeah, I think Jen's going to stake out for the first time. That gets her up to a two. That's it for her. back to me and oh that's no that's not more like that's exactly what I rolled last time. Come on. All right then. Then I am going to stake out one last time and boom and next turn what addition whatever I roll I'm going to be able to get one of the sixes I need and a hot tip. So that's worth it. Jen's turn. Okay. All right. A five and a five. That's more like it. Boom. Boom. Now this is dangerous. Jen needs one more five over here. She needs a six over here. She's only got three dice left. She could um No. Okay, she's going for it. She's going for it. All right, we'll see what happens. My turn. Uh I've got a five and a six. Oh, boom. That's a six I need.
I'm going to call this in and get another six that I need and another hot tip. And so I'll put that six over there. And now all I need is a four. Swap one. Take one die from your supply. Set it to the value of an opponent. Oh, boom. Let's do a swappy swap. Take a die from my supply. So, I have to have one in my supply to do it. Uh, set this to the value of an opponent's die on investigation card. Jen's got a four. That's what I need. Set it to a four. Um, and you know, and then replace my um replace their die. Oh, with one of yours. Oh, hold on a second. All right. You know what? You know what? I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to slow Jen down. So, and return their die to the supply. So, now I'm in it. That's two points, but I've slowed Jen down.
And now, here's the deal. Even if Jen finishes this thing, cuz I can't finish it now. Although, heck, I could maybe beat Jen to the punch. If you have any dice on an investigation that you fail to finish because somebody beat it to you, your dice go back to the supply except for one of those dice, your choice. that goes to the save die. So, if you've only got one die, and in fact, if you get a chance to, it's not a bad idea to put a single die, if you have the power to do it on an investigation somebody's about to finish, because then that means you could take that die you didn't have any other use for, save it, and use it on a future term. So, am I doing that? Yes, I am. I totally am. And Jen's like, "What the heck? The ballroom." All right. Well, Jen steps up and now she might want to use this and finish that sooner than later. I might have overextended myself being a little aggressive. Let's see what we get. She gets a one and a three. She needs fours and sixes. This um is not going to help her. Wow. Okay. Okay. Says Jen. Well, Jen says, well, first of all, don't forget she's got a two. That doesn't help her. She's going to go on ahead and just keep staking out. All right. So now she's got upwards of a four or a hot tip if she wants it on a future turn. Back to me. If I get a six now, well, I've got two homes for it. Let's see what I get. I get a four and a six. Oh, boom.
Boom. I didn't even need to investigate the Clifton Ballroom, but I just scored two points and kept it from Jen. So, I have finished this investigation. Jen had only one there. So, now she's got a save die that's going to help her over there. And I have scored two points. And whenever you finish a ballroom or I'm sorry, a location investigation, take a die from your community investigation. So, here's the three I had on here. So, I take one of these dice set to any value I want and move it to any other location. I don't even change. Yeah, I'm just going to take this and put it back over there. And just like that, I have now finished Mr. Stockton as well. Boom. And that is an informant. So, I get another hot tip and boom. Oh, and I've still got a four. What am I going to do with this? Uh, well, first of all, okay, this is still my ongoing investigation. I can start investigations um on suspects with only one die instead of two, but this is a four. I would need a three. I could change this, but no, I think I'm just going to use the last one and start staking out again because I don't even know if I want a I don't know what my next client's going to be. But here's the deal, folks. At the end of my turn, I have now closed the case. I've got two suspects. In fact, I overd delivered. Uh the small time crook says, "What were you doing at the ballroom?"
Like, "Don't you worry about that. It was very important." I have to take all of these, turn them face down, put them here, and this is a closed case. Once somebody closes their third case, that triggers the end of the game, and we reveal all our cards and tally. And right now I'm sitting on 4 6 11 uh 14 points towards the end of the game. Nice, nice, nice. So now the last thing I do is I draw two new clients and I see who am I going to work for next? The inventor or the silent witness. And of course they've got fun uh uh you know flavor text. They've got special powers they've got. And they've got requirements. One suspect, two evidence, one suspect, one evidence, one location. They're both worth four points. I got to figure out, well, hey, looking out here, I don't think I could get that location, but there is a suspect and there is evidence. They both need suspects. This only needs one evidence, whereas that needs two evidence. Um, which one am I going to go for? I'm not quite sure, folks. But I think I'm going to stop right there because that should give you a pretty good idea of the flow of Stakeout. And now, if you'd like to hear some final thoughts about this game, well, before I get to that, please remember folks, this was a sponsored preview. And with that out of the way, oh folks, this is lovely. This is such a sweet, charming, fast playing little gateway style um dice chucker. And I've got to say, I mean, the the highest praises I can sing for this game is the fact that strictly speaking, this is a
straightup gateway game. It's very very lightweight. It's just a got a little bit more going on it than pure yatsi. And if you watch my monthly roundups, you know, where I talk about all the games I have played over the preceding month, um, you know, games that tend to rank low in my personal estimation, often one of the main reasons for that is because it's too lightweight, that I'm not looking for gateway games. gateway level games, you know, ticket to rides, you know, levels of depth and complexity are generally not something that my wife Jen and I are drawn in by because we've been playing board games, you know, hundreds of board games a year for over a decade now and we're kind of experienced gamers and so it has to be something really special as a a straightup gateway game to pull us in.
And Stakeout does it. Oh my gosh, does it do it. We both had a blast playing this game. Um, you know, and I'm not saying this is going to, you know, melt our brains or, you know, anything like that. Uh, you know, often the the decisions are are pretty simple and straightforward. Oh, these are the dice I rolled. Okay, fine. Well, I can't do what? All right. Well, then I'll just do a stake out to set myself up for later. Um, but occasionally, occasionally based off some hot tip you might play or, you know, some kind of combo you might get, you'll have more complex turns where you might be, you know, applying, you know, three, four, five, six dice at once. Then things start getting interesting because you can push your luck a little bit and you spread yourself out thin, work on multiple investigations at once, or do you just try to focus like a laser, which becomes harder to finish because if the dice don't go your way, you get nothing. But you never get nothing in this game. this game knows understands the the lesson that Stephen Feld taught the entire industry with Castles of Burgundy, you know, um one of the greatest or actually the greatest board game of all time as far as I'm concerned. Uh but anyway, uh you know, Castles of Burgundy knows that if you've got a game where you're rolling a lot of dice, there's always got to be a use for that dice. You should never be in a situation where you say, "H, I can't do anything with these dice." That's an instant design fail. And what was it?
Amber Wells. This is a little independent publishing team. Uh Amber learned that lesson well. I don't know if she's ever played uh but Burgundy, but the important thing is the the name of the game, stakeout, you can always spend dice do a stake out, which means uh the more you stake out, meaning the more busts you get on dice. Oh, I don't get what I want. The more powerful you become because you can turn those failed dice into the perfect die you need at the perfect time. and or uh another hot tip which are always very cool situationally powerful cards if you can use them at the right time. So you never feel like h man the dice hate me. No it just means okay I'm going to keep on working on that stake out or I'm going to do a wire tap or am I going to risk it and split up or am I going to say oh you started that investigation you know what I'm going to jump in on it. I don't think I could beat you at it. Uh cuz you're already so far in. But me just being uh being involved in investigation that you finish means I get to save this die so that on a future turn I can reroll it and turn it into something better. You know, again, this is not, you know, a super cr uh, you know, brain crunchy mindmelting game. This is a fast, you know, most turns take less than 15 seconds and it just goes goes goes. But it's so fun from start to finish because it's so satisfying and it gives you enough to think about and also I got to say, oh my gosh, this game oozes theme. It is done so nicely. Uh
again, Amber did a great job of realizing that she needs to come up with thematic motivations and justifications and just names for all the different things you can do, whether it's your wiretapping or the bonuses you get. Oh, your suspect turned into an informant. So you get that gives you another hot tip. And um you know the fact that as you play I just can't help but think that oh yeah the investigations I do end up do telling a story that dubtales back to my client or maybe my opponent's client. None of that matters. But for me it's just a fun enjoying enjoyable you know story exercise as well that these stories come up and in this game it's going to at a two-player anyway it's going to take less than a half an hour. Um, and it's just going to be a light, fun, breezy time. And normally, I'll be honest, a light, fun, breezy time is kind of a death nail for me and Jen. Um, we tend to avoid them. But I've got to admit, I've got a uh soft spot in my heart for Sam Spade and, you know, um, you know, it's Chinatown, Jake. I mean, all that kind of stuff. And Amber does such an amazing job bringing that theme to life here that this is one of those rarest of beasts. a gateway game that I think for me and Jen is a keeper. And again, that's why I said it's the highest praise I can come up with for Stakeout. If I had any complaints, I really only got one quite frankly. The hot tips are very, very cool, but there's not that much variety here. Uh I mean, because they're all really about
manipulating the dice. And by the way, if you watched my run through, you saw that oh man, what what about that mean die? That swap die. In this entire deck, there are only two mean cards and all the rest of them are about just duplicating dice or, you know, re-rolling dice or saving dice or whatnot. And that's great. It's It's not really a problem. My one little tweak is Amber, man, I'd love to see some more variety in that deck. If you could come up with some more surprises because often you might have two or three hot tips in and they're all, oh, they're all literally the same one because there's not that much variety in the deck. It's a minor minor quibble. And if nothing else, it makes me think expansion time maybe. I don't know. Folks, if you want to know about that, you can uh check the crowdfunding page for this. There's a link for it on screen or you can hitting that eye in the corner or you can um go follow the link down in the show notes.
But either way, folks, oh my goodness. Um I was so pleased as pl punch with Steakout. And that was the preview. Thanks for watching. Have a nice day. Talk to you later. So long. Bye-bye.