BIGGEST WIN OR LET DOWN OF THE YEAR? 🥹😠| 10 Board Game First-Impressions ✅
Transcript
This is absolutely my most anticipated game of the entire year. What's the verdict? Welcome and welcome back everybody. Tabletop Toki here and in today's video I'll be sharing with you 10 new games I got to play last month. Hopefully these first impressions will help you decide whether these games are worth your time and money. Before we get started, I will say that I did actually play 33 new games last month, but 23 of those were at a convention. So, if I have time and remember to, I will make a separate video going over those games. But without further ado, let's get started. So, one of the new games I got to play last month was the parks roll and hike game. This is a roll-in ride implementation of parks, which is set collection traversing through different parks with a little bit of engine building. Interestingly enough, Park's rolling hike was very similar with little bits of set collection and building several little different engines, but I enjoyed rolling hike much more than just generic basic old parks.
A couple of the things that made this game really fun and interesting were the decisions between getting straight points by filling your journal or using those journal symbols in order to get recurring income at the end of each night phase. And the other big part of Parks Rule and Hika that I absolutely loved was the dice drafting. Instead of just taking one dye back and forth, you have four white dice and one yellow dye. The yellow dye gives the last player a huge advantage in moving forward and getting an extra journal symbol. It also signifies the end of that particular round at that point on the trail, which wouldn't necessarily be interesting except for the fact that players can collect a certain resource called suns, which are used in order to discard white dice prematurely so that they can take the yellow dye. But you can also use those suns at the end of the trail for specific bonuses that are tied to each unique park that you get. And speaking of those unique parks, each unique park also has unique endgame scoring conditions, different abilities, etc.
So, there's a lot of variability from play to play. This one was very surprisingly an extremely fun game. And I do have to say that I love the packaging with just a small little magnetic lid box. And each player sheets are actually little travel log journals that you have. So, while I'm not a huge fan of just regular parks, I really did enjoy The Roland Hike and would recommend checking it out. Another new game that I played was from Dr. C. Finn's book of two-player strategy and word games. Thank you to Dr. Cinn for sending us a copy to check out here on the channel. So, this month, I delved into a lot of the word games that were presented in this particular book, Eloquacious being one of them. Essentially, you have a crossword grid with some of the spaces blacked out and the word eloquacious written vertically down the center. This is a cooperative game where one person will be the clue giver trying to come up with three-word clues that key the other player into words that fulfill certain objectives like a length of a word, fitting a certain area of the board, getting to the corners of the board. You have to intersect with previously built words.
This was a thinky, challenging game, especially as the clue giver, but also as the receiver. And if you like word games and you are intrigued by the idea of a two-player cooperative word game, this is definitely one that you're not going to want to pass up. Moving right along, I also had a first play of NextStation Paris. This is the third game in the Next Station line where you are flipping and filling out four different subway lines, trying to complete different objectives, getting them to intersect at certain points on the map, etc. One of the new things about Paris that I really liked were the introduction of bridges, which are certain points outside of those that you're trying to cross over one way or two ways in order to score more points. I will say that I'm a big fan of NextStation London, which is the original. I was not a huge fan of Tokyo, which introduced like a center line for the middle of the district, but Paris I really enjoyed. I thought it was just as light and fun and quick and easy to teach as London, but with that new element of Bridges to change things up.
Recall is the spiritual successor sequel to one of my all-time favorite games, Revive. This is absolutely my most anticipated game of the entire year, and I've heard so many good things about it. In fact, I've heard a lot of people say that they prefer this to Revive. A lot of the same team that worked on Revive worked on Recall as well. So, I was stoked. Also, this is one of the games that got sent to us by our sponsor, Noble Knight. Shout out to them. Thank you so much for providing us with access to so many new and used games that I get to share with our local community here, but also with y'all here on the channel. So, if you want to check them out, please feel free to use the link down in the description as it directly supports the channel as well. That being said, what's the verdict? I have to say that while I think that recall is a great game on its own, it does not hold a candle, nor should it, nor do many games hold a candle to revive. Recall has a lot of similar elements with engine building where you are getting keys for certain actions, much like you get cards and revive for certain actions that you can then program into your board that trigger certain different extra engine building add-ons that you can program in. Very similar to slot modules in Revive. One of the things that is a little different is that as you place buildings, you don't necessarily unlock new technologies that you can utilize freely, but you do get certain new income actions that you can take or resources that you can collect when you recall and reset. The level of complexity is very similar to revive
where you have a lot of things going on on your own personal board. many different engines going for placing out buildings, for bringing them back in, for manipulating the board state, for area control, etc., fulfilling different objectives, moving up different tracks, and while it all does work together very very well, the fact that in the back of my mind I'm constantly comparing it to Revive, I think our group consensus was amazing game on its own, but again, does not compare to Revive as the clear favorite. So, if you're looking for a replacement for Revive or a direct equal to it in a lot of ways, I can't say that that was my experience, but I do think that it is a really stellar game. And if you like engine building and a lot of point salad scoring, etc., then you should definitely check it out. Spy Tales Tactics in the Shadows is a new up andcoming trick-T game from Mokumo.
Shout out to Mokumo for sending us a copy to check out here on the channel. This is at its heart a trick-taking game, but it has a lot of little elements that change things up to make it more tactical. One of the things is that all the players have unique player powers that can be utilized to change the state of different tricks. Another is that you have ghost tokens where you can anti-influence in order to abstain from playing on card two rounds. Between rounds, you also get new cards. So, it feels like there's a little bit of deck crafting/building where in round one, everybody starts with the same deck of cards that you pull from. And as you progress through rounds 2, 3, 4, 5, the decks get more and more disperate. So, you can try to go for different strategies. Now, this may be problematic, right? Because you don't know what cards you're getting or necessarily have the same advantages that your opponents do. But, the beginning of each round is betting on how many tricks you think you'll win from 0 to 5. And when you bet, you ante some of your influence. The other thing that makes this game feel really thematic is that each round you get new missions to complete. So winning a certain number of tricks, winning the first trick, winning a trick with a certain card, etc. That can also get you influence. So even if you don't make your bid, you can kind of manipulate the game state in that way. I will say that because of all of these different elements which are very cool each and on their own, the game does play a little fast and loose and become more and more disperate as time goes on. So, for example, you might find yourself in a position where by round four, the penultimate rounds, somebody has such a
high lead in points from just betting and anting properly that nobody else will be able to catch up to them in round five and they're just the clear winner. But some of the events and missions do help to combat that as well. So that is not as likely of a scenario, but there may be times where it's like, ooh, okay, there's a pretty big point difference, but that can really turn around at the drop of a dime if players are very in tune to what everybody else is doing and play very tactically. And this is all paired with, of course, Mokumo's signature handcarved wooden pieces. So if you're interested in checking this one out, I'll put a link down in the description. The Kickstarter goes live June 2nd, aka tomorrow, if you're watching this on the day of upload. So, please feel free to go check them out if any or all of that sounds cool to you. Another first play that I had was from the Dr. Steve two-player games, Quillseker. Another word game where you are doing some area control in order to select a column or row of letters that you can then rearrange into a word. One of the leftover letters, however, will be used for a bonus word at the very end of the game. I'm not a big fan of area control, but this game utilizes it really well where it's like, hey, I might take these letters, although it doesn't make the best word.
It does block my opponent out from using some of these letters over to the left of it, etc. So, I thought it was a really fun take on word building and using some of those again area control elements. Switching gears, Tether is a card game. Um, primarily two players, although it does play up to four. What you're doing is you're shedding cards from your hand, trying to create these different groups of astronauts that are floating in space and tether them together by playing sequences of cards. One of the interesting things is that a card that's 47 can be flipped upside down and now it's a 74. So they invert. And as you build out different grids of cards, if I have like an 11 here and a 20 here, if we get 12, 13, 14, etc., and it gets all the way up to 19, you can actually snap the 20 cards into the grid and they can make a larger group. And as the groups expand, there are certain triggers for scoring once they reach sizes of 6, 10, or 14 cards. But just because you make a large group of cards does not mean you're going to score well because the vertical player will score the number of different rows and the horizontal player will score the number of different columns that each of those groups spans. So, it's very tricky because you want to make sure that you're able to tether astronauts together in the way that benefits you while abstaining from creating patterns or openings that could benefit the other player. This game was definitely a lot for me to wrap my mind around, but I think it was a genius concept and
implementation that was really fun to see pieced together. In addition to that, the art is really stunning. Every single card had unique art of different astronauts and was so fun and whimsical. A very tactical, interesting game. I've not played one quite like it before. So, this is definitely a unique one to keep your eye out for. And then we had another word game from the Dr. Steve Finn book, Spell Track. This is a bogggleesque game where you are anting how many spaces you want to move around the track and then drafting certain letters in order to make words. There are words of different lengths, kind of like scrabble scoring where some of them will score a double, etc. And you're building out words, trying to complete longer or smaller words first. Basically, the first person to solidify getting 12 points of any combination of words that they built is the winner. So, you really have to be in tune to what your the other player is doing, which works really well since it is a drafting game at heart. I thought this one had a lot of very fun back and forth and was very interactive as far as two-player word games go. Mushroom Cats was a drafting game that I got to try. Very similar to Sushi Go, but with a little bit more Take That. To be honest, although I did really like the art and theme, I felt like the game itself was not the greatest. Not a big fan of Take That, especially when it comes to like a quick, concise drafting game. It took a lot of the agency out of selecting specific cards when somebody else can just pull a card out of your hand or take a card from your set. So, this one was not my favorite. And last but not
least, I got to try A Gentle Rain. Another one sent from our wonderful sponsor, Noble Knight. This is, as you probably know, a solo puzzle game where you are flipping over tiles and trying to connect different halves of flowers. I've heard so many good things about this game. I've been recommended it over and over again. So, I finally decided, you know what? I must be missing something based on the game description. It's probably way better implementation than I'm imagining in my mind. Spoiler alert, it wasn't. I didn't like it. Um, I think it's fine if you do. A lot of people said it was like doing a puzzle, which I love doing puzzles, but this was not a satisfying puzzle because you are at the whim of flipping up the tiles and seeing like, okay, which ones did I get and where. There's some strategy that I tried to employ with, well, I know that I've already connected these many of this color to flower and I know that this pattern of like red yellow has already shown on a tile. So, I don't think that I'll get another red yellow. So, I'm not going to avoid making a situation where I would need to place red, yellow, but even then, you're really just at the mercy of the tiles and the order in which they flip up and how you can connect them together. So, I didn't find this game to be at all strategic or rewarding, even though there are some strategies you can employ. It is just very random, very passive, very transparent as far as what is the best move. Okay, I'll do that.
But based on the order of the tiles, it could be the best, it could be the worst. It really doesn't matter. So, this is one that I will not be keeping in my collection. So, there you have it. Those are 10 first impressions of new games I played in May. Let me know in the comments down below. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Do you have additional questions about some of these games or other games that you'd like to see for future videos? Again, a huge thank you to our sponsor Noble Knights, to Mokumo for sending Spy Tactics in the Shadows. I'll put the link for the Kickstarter down below. And to Dr. Finn for sending us the two-player word and strategy games. I'll be looking to play the rest of the non-word games this coming month and talking about them in next month's wrap-up. But I will put a link down in the description to that book as well if you're interested in checking out some cool two-player strategy games. That's about all the time we have for today.
Thanks so much as always for joining and we'll see you next time. Bye.