Emerald Skulls Review! (How well can you bet on other's luck?)

All right. So, we're getting ready to record Emerald Skulls, right? Hey, what are you doing? >> Well, I'm just getting the hot sauce. >> What hot sauce? We're not talking about hot sauce. We're talking about Emerald Skulls, the board game. >> No, but this is Swindler sauce. Like to go with the game.

>> Oh, but we're not eating anything right now. >> Yeah, but I mean it it matches. It goes I want Okay, fine. >> Later after this, then we'll have some hot sauce. >> Okay, then we'll have some hot sauce. >> Hey, everybody. What was that weird intro? I don't know. Let's talk about a game. It wasn't. It wasn't.

Anyway, so today we're going to be talking about Emerald Skulls. This is designed by Steven Dash and is published by Thunderworks Game. But before we talk about that, we want to make sure that you subscribe so you can see all our videos as they come out. >> That's right. We are Ryan and Bethany and we are Ryan and Bethany Board Game Reviews.

Uh but today we're not talking about any of that other than Emerald Skulls. >> Yeah, we're not reviewing hot sauces right now, unfortunately. be talking about the game, >> but I can't wait to >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> All right. This is a dice rolling kind of miniame within the greater universe of roleplayer.

This Thunder games, all those kind of role player games like Ctographers, for instance, in that same universe. This is in that same universe as well. Uh basically, there is this guy in prison and he's playing this prison dice game in that world and we get to now play along with him as well. All right.

So, this is a kind of a push your luck style game where basically you are going to roll your dice and you are trying to on your turn fill out this kind of this skull, these emerald skulls uh with these all these different dice, but there's a lot of different outcomes that can happen. And everyone else while you are rolling dice, they are betting on what the outcome is that they think is going to happen.

So, you're rolling your dice, they're betting on the results. Uh and then, uh on your turn, same thing's going to happen. They're now the new person who's going to be rolling dice and you are betting on what you think they're going to do. Um, this is going to be a push tile game where you can bust, right?

If you need to place a dice and you cannot place it, you bust. You get nothing. But other people might who bet on you getting that result might still get some kind of a payout. You can also chicken out, which simply means, hey, I'm stopping. I don't think there's a safe play for me here. I'm going to take what little points I have and run with it.

In which case, you can do that, too. And then there is the geming out. Geming out means that you were able to place a dice on the final five spot at the top of the skull. In which case, that's way you kind of finish because there's nothing higher than that because you have to kind of go in order from the bottom of the skull on up.

So, if you place that five on that skull spot, >> uh you're done and that's a good way to end. >> All right, but then there is running out of dice, which means you've literally were able to figure out how to place all of the dice on this skull. And that's going to be good for you, too. And the very last way you can go out is what they call a double out, which means you've run out of all your dice and the last dice you placed was that final gem spot.

And that's going to get you the highest possible rewards. But again, just because what you roll doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be what everybody else gets. They're all betting on what they think you're going to do. And they're going to get some rewards based off how accurate they were in their bets.

>> Yes. So when you are the tumbler, so you're the person rolling the dieice. Um, like Ryan mentioned, you have to place it in order. So, as soon as you go higher, you can't go backwards. That's how you would bust. But it does have this mechanism in there. Ryan jokes that um I'm like a 10-year-old boy because sometimes I find potty humor hilarious.

>> Not for me. >> It's not for Ryan. But there's uh there's uh a thing in this game where one of the dye you can put on the nose, but if you're about to bust and you can't do anything else, you can pick your nose. >> Severe eye roll. >> I love it. So, you can take that dye back that was on the nose spot.

You do place a token on there to signify that you have used this, so you can't um use it again, but then you have another chance. So, I just really like that when you're the tumbler, it gives you this, I don't know, get out of jail free mechanism. This one last chance you can try one more time to do this.

And so, I really like that it has it built in. So, you don't just like lose right away. You still get another chance. >> All right. So, when it's your turn, you're only guaranteed to roll three dice. However, you can choose to purchase the ability to roll more dice. And the more you choose, the more expensive it gets.

Uh so at the beginning of the game, you're not going to have a lot of options to do that. But once you've acred some money from making successful bets or rolling well, then you're going to be able to to do that. Uh why would you want to do that? It's more risk, right? And it costs you money to do it.

But the more dice you have, the more chances you have to build up rewards. So there's kind of a a a riskrewards thing going on here as well. Maybe I'll do a medium amount of dice because I I want to be able to get more prizes, but I also don't want to spend all my money quite yet. I'm not sure how I'm going to do.

So, being able to kind of choose how many dice you roll based on how much money you're willing to pay, it's kind of a fun mechanism. Um, it's got a lot more buy in and potential, but comes at a price. >> A lot of push your luck games are interactive in the sense that while somebody while it's somebody's turn, you're like engaged with what's happening because pushing your light games are just fun as you watch people do that.

But >> and struggle >> and struggle. But what's really awesome about that is not only is it interactive in the sense that you're watching what people are doing, but you're betting on that as well. So you're doing stuff, you're engaged in the game every single round, whether you're one of the persons betting or whether you're the Tumblr, you are engaged in the game as it's happening.

So it's kind of like exciting for everybody involved because the Tumblr obviously wants to get a lot of points so they can get a lot of money, but you're also like wanting certain things to happen. Like here's a little tidbit into Ryan's mind every single time we would play this game every single time.

I would say that he would chicken out. So guess what he would never do purely because I bet on that and he did not want me to be able to get that. Like I totally messed with him on that. It was fantastic and glorious and I loved it. But that's what I'm talking but I did not want to let her get rewarded based off of my chickening.

That's how it's still very interactive every single round. Everybody in is involved in everything that is happening. >> There is an advanced mode. So there's mentions kind of there's these cards that you lay out what you're going to be betting on and they're kind of standard things every single game when you play the normal mode.

But when you're playing the advanced mode, there's actually a whole lot of different kind of more specific scenarios that you can be betting on. Uh but they're going to be much more lucrative because they're so much more specific. Yeah. >> But they're going to also be again riskier, which is why you don't want to start with those.

You want to start with the normal mode and work your way up to the advanced mode and kind of as you get more comfortable as a player with the game, then you can kind of expand your your push your locking as well. Me, I kind of like the normal mode as it is, but at the same time, the advance mode gives you those options.

I will say the rule book for this should have been extremely clear, extremely simple. It's just a push lock dice game. Not think not to be dimminative or, you know, make you think less of it. It's still really great game. The rubric should have been simple. It kind of wasn't. It was a lot longer than I thought it should have been.

Uh and on top of that, it did this thing that I've noticed where uh it will mention something and then it will not explain what it is. >> Yeah. >> And then later on, four five four or five pages later, it then explains what that thing is. It's like, oh, I wish I would have done that back then. Now I I've been kind of struggling for the past four or five pages.

>> You have to like reread that to even >> figure out how it works in context. So for a simple dice rolling game, this rule book was not that good. Um, I gave it like a C minus. It still works, still readable. It just took me two times through, which should not have been the case for a game like this.

>> Yeah. Um, even with that said, I thought it worked. It was really fun. Um, I am pleasantly surprised that it worked at two-player. I feel like a lot of games, bidding type of games don't actually work at two-player, but it did because the payouts are different if you're betting or not betting. And it also favors the bold.

So if you are playing with those higher player counts, you can bet in the same spot, but there's a stacking mechanism. So the person who bet there first, you know, with what the Tumblr was going to do, the first person to bet there, if that comes true, gets the highest payout and then second and then third.

So I like that it's favoring the people who are making those risky decisions on the certain cards. So everybody is still even interactive in that way. But I was very impressed that this still played great at two-player. This to me felt like a combination of two games that I really really enjoy. First, Ready, Set, Bet.

Ready, Set, Bet is a game where you're betting on horses racing and you don't necessarily know what the outcome's going to be because the dice are going to do what the dice are going to do, but you're going to bet on what you think's going to happen. That same element is here. You're betting on what you think the results are going to be before you really have any idea because the dice might betray you and the person rolling as well.

Uh, so it reminded me of that. There's also a game called Spookies, which was a cooperative uh not cooperative, a competitive uh push your luck style dice game as well, um where you had these kind of tiers that you were going up and you could never go back down. You always had to go higher and higher or stop and you'd get rewarded based off of how well you you rolled uh and pushed your luck, right?

And it reminded me of that. So, it kind of felt like a combination of these two things. this felt like the the kind of the rosy up the the ladder from Spooky's mind with the betting on what everybody else is rolling and ready set Bet. I enjoy both those games and I enjoyed this. I'm not a pusher luck fan, but this did something different and cool in a way that made me uh interested in it and I got to do some things on my turn that weren't just rolling dice.

I got to do I get to bet on things or I got to, you know, uh experience. Okay, I think it's going to go this way. I think this is the result over here. I'm going to bet on this. I'm going to bet on that. And then also on your rolling turn too, the rolling was really forgiving at the earlier stages and got harder and harder the higher up you went as which is how it should be.

So I enjoyed this a whole lot more than I thought I would. Again, not a push your luck fan, but this is something cool and unique that I'm really enjoyed. >> Everybody, thank you so much for watching it. Don't forget to subscribe so you can see our videos as they come out. Until then, you can find us in all of these places.

>> Yes, thanks for watching and we will see you next time where we talk more about hot sauce. I mean, Emerald Skulls. We'll give you a review of that later on. Follow us on social media channels. We'll talk more about the hot sauce. >> I am so excited >> as we play Emerald Skulls. >> Bye guys. >> Bye everybody.

>> You guys, thanks so much for watching. Uh, this game was provided to us by a publisher for in exchange for a fair and honest review. >> And if you want to see more stuff, check out over here to see something we think you might like. >> And over here, we think that YouTube has picked out a great video for you.

You're going to love. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next time. >> Bye.