42 Reviews in 18 Minutes - with Tom Vasel

Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassel and welcome to 42 games in well, who knows how many minutes. Uh, we're going to start this up here. This is just short summaries of a lot of games that I played. And I do this for a couple reasons. one. I'm doing it specifically now because I want to talk about a lot of games that I played from the Essence Spielfare and give you some quick thoughts on them since many of those reviews won't get done for a while.

I do plan to review most of the games on here or at least um this is my thoughts on them. Some of them have been reviewed by other people in the studio. So, just kind of a smattering of thoughts, but don't take this as the full review. There's probably a full review either already out there or one that I will do at a later point in time.

So, here we go. Let's get started. First up, we have WER's Contract. Weird name, but this is from Explorate, so I think they like this idea. This is from Michael Munes, and it is a game in which one person is running from everybody else. I tend to like this style of game. And each of the people chasing this f, it's an alien, right?

It's an alien, and everyone's like, "Where's the alien?" There's a bunch of scenarios in the game and they kind of go a little over the top and open an envelope. A little scenario book would have been just as fine. But each of these different people chasing has a template on how they can search. And I found it to be a fun amusing time of chasing everyone verse one.

It's it's nice. It's light. It's interesting. Eight out of 10. A carnivore did it. This is from Domus Articax and Erdis Sinc from Horrible Guild. This is a deduction game that you can play with other people or by yourself and you're just trying to figure out how this carnivore, you know, who did it.

Basically, it's a logic puzzle that you're putting out there in front of you. A bunch of animals said someone else did the crime. I love this. There are 2,000 cases in the box. There's so much content. It's very, very enjoyable. Now, it's very light, simple. So, I don't know how like my recommendation sounds lower than me liking the game.

It's a 7.5 because I'm not going to want to play it all the time, but if I want to pull out something for some puzzles, I think it's really cool in that regard. Antiques. This is from Pythagoras from Fabio Lima. Uh, this one is a game in which you are collecting antiques uh and then putting them in a storage and then putting them in museums and selling them.

There's a lot of games like this. I felt like this game was a lot of work for little payoff. I think there's a lot of things I enjoy about the game, but it just felt like take this, get these, move them over here. There's a little bit of Splender Duel at the beginning and then you're taking stuff over here, then turning over here and it was a lot of work and then it also kind of felt too short to I don't know.

It's okay. I'm giving it a 6 out of 10. I just wish it was more involved. Arriato from Melody Landra and Florian Sir. This is from Luden. This is a very unusual game uh in the sense of it seems pretty basic in the sense that you're collecting these different people and you're getting resources to send them off to the temple.

It's you know you've these cards, some cards you're passing, some cards you're collecting resources and then you're sending them off. But the longer you leave them in front of you, the more you can use your special ability. This is one that's going to take a while for your mind to get into, but I think it's very enjoyable.

A seven out of 10. Beasts from Clarence Simmons and Pandaars. I just did not really like this game. It's a cooperative game where you're trying to make the lowest number you can. It's just not that interesting to me. I give it a five out of 10. Um they had the two different suits which look too similar for me.

Um the the beast they come out and mess things up and I this is just a game that's not for me. Behind from Cedric Millet and KYF or KIF editions. I this was a very enjoyable kind of solving a puzzle style game. You have a bunch of tiles and you have to put them together in a certain way. And I and I won't really go over too much how the ways are because that's part of the fun.

And when you're done, you logically put them together. You flip it over and it makes a picture and it tells you if you did it right or not. It's pretty tricky. I thought each of the three cases in the box are pretty good. It's like an escape room almost in that way. You don't use up anything. You can pass it on to someone else.

Uh eight out of 10. Bohemians from Portal Games. Jasper Dange. This is a game about it's it's a deck building game that's pretty solitary in many ways except for syphilis. There's a lot of syphilis in this game. But in this game, you are trying to have the perfect day, but every time you don't go to your job, then bad things happen to you.

So, the theming is strong, the art is good, and that carries this game. The game is fine. You're putting things out and trying to match symbols up with each other. I like that. But uh the theme is what brings it on board. Seven out of 10. Bouquet from Garrett Lively and Thomas Yungenberg from Rough Draft Games.

This one's just a weird little game about building some flowers and vases and putting out these pedals and flipping them back and forth. There's too many rules for such a small game. It ends quicker than you feel like it should. Didn't love it. Five out of 10. Children of the Colossi. This is from Jacob by Starai Cosmo Drone.

I really want to like this game. It looks amazing. It also takes up way too much table space. This is one of the biggest table hogs for how big the game is. I've seen a while. You have these giant beasts roaming across and then you're putting workers on each of the beasts. But the symbology in this game is insane.

There's so much symbols that and you can never remember what anything does. Takes up too much space and it comes down to kind of a very basic area control game. I I just found it very disappointing. A five out of 10. Uh then we have Chroma Arcana. This is from Moshawa Rock Nest Games. In this game, you're taking some colors and putting them together to make a deck where you fight the other person.

You've cards coming and spells, but often you have to kind of show your opponent what spell you're going to be charging up before you hit them with it. It does have some I have a if I have a deck, I put cards in your deck that just specifically cancel my cards. I don't love that. And the whole thing came together and it's there's a lot of interesting ideas, but I just found it to be okay.

Six out of 10. DC Forever from Damon Stone Whiz Kids. This is a deck building game that is overly complex. I just found there to be so much going on in this game. So many rules. Uh I I don't think the game itself is particularly complex, but the rules themselves feel overly especially since they're different.

And for a deck building game, it doesn't feel like there's a lot of deck building in it. It I This was just disappointing me. Five out of 10. Dirt and Dust from Obby. This is from Peter Kazlava. This is another five out of 10 for me. And here's the thing. I understand this game when you explain it. It's a deck building game about racing down a path and you know the the the the racing games that are the rally racing.

There's a lot of interesting things to it. And when it was done, it just left me cold. It I just said I got it. The mechanisms worked. It was there, but I didn't enjoy it. It just it lacked like the fun factor. I don't know how to explain it. Five out of 10. Dungeons and Dragons. Uh this is the new Dungeons and Dragon games, Builders of Boulders Gate from Matthew Dunen and Whiz Kids.

And this is a game that I'm really glad I put time and effort into because when I read the rules and went over everything, I said, "This is an amazing game." And then it went on and on and on and on. And I played with one group of people who almost broke the game. There's not a very good timer trigger in the game.

The game play is hard to see where stuff is on the board. There's really strong imbalances between the different cards. Some cards are clearly better than others. There's a lot of great concepts. Building up Balders's Gate, building towers. This one I'm giving a five to because I thought it was going to be so good and it was very disappointing to me.

So that's that game. Enthrone. This is from Smirk and Dagger. It's an abstract game uh in which you are playing against someone else and you each own one piece in the board. You're going to go attack each other. Big giant pieces, but I found it to be a fun amusing game. 7 out of 10. Flamecraft DS. I'm giving this a 7 out of 10.

Amazing production. Just absolutely stunning production, especially if you get the deluxe version of it. But this game is very, very light from Manny Vega. So, keep that in mind when we do a review of this. You will find some very divisive opinions on it. Uh, I enjoyed it. Seven out of 10. But I also go into it just saying you're just pulling discs out and making little patterns.

Simple, fun little game. But I can Yeah, it's going to be divisive. Formidable Farm from Freedman Freeze from 2F Spiel. This is a game in which uh players are going to be uh using a card to turn this resource into that. I turned one tomato into two of the carrots and I turned a carrot into three wheat.

That's the whole game. But you need to find the the combinations quickly. No strategy, all tactics. It's fun. Seven out of 10. Garden Lake from Uve Rosenberg and Albby. Uh, this is an a game in which you're filling up a grid with really weird shapes. I've seen it so many times before. There's some interesting ideas there.

It's almost what I want. 6.5. Gazebo. This is a remake of Quinn from Bitewing Games. Rhinoia. Uh, it's a very back and forth in-your-face area control with dominoes that I like a lot. Uh, seven out of 10. And also from Bitewing Games, Gingham. This is from Robert Hovakan. And I didn't like this one at all.

It's about ants. And I felt like there was too many rules for me to enjoy it. Coming in in different angles and doing stuff. It felt really fiddly. Five out of 10. Glass Garden. This is from Buttonshy. a solo game where you're building a terrarium and it just felt too constrictive for me to enjoy it.

I liked a lot of their solo games. This one I like the theme of it a lot, but this game from Rashny Patel I gave a five out of 10 too. Grand Central Skyport. This is from 25th Century Dan Germaine. This is another game that's kind of too big. It's too big of Tableh Hog. Everything is just giant in this game, but it's very procedural.

You are collecting things. You're moving your airships kind of around this big rondelle and collecting cars and trying to match colors together. It's it's fine. The theme is so awesome. And then the game itself is just it's okay. Six out of 10. Havocville. This is from Fabrico Leati and Tulio Amalas from Dice Coalition Games.

You're a god creating a city here, but it just really falls apart to me. There's too much chaos, too much messing with each other as you bid for things and go back and forth. It just felt very messy the whole game. A four out of 10. Hit me. This is from Daniel McKinley and Thing1 12 games. This is a game where you're just playing cards against each other, hitting them back and forth, and you have the deck.

AND THERE'S SOME COOL ASPECTS to this game until you just kind of go on and on and on and on, and I'm like, is it over yet? Five out of 10. March of the Ants. Now, this is the second edition from Weird City Games. Tim Eiser and Ryan Swisser. I didn't love the first edition, but this anniversary edition, they made a lot of changes and most of the changes made it easier to play, which was one of my problems with the original one.

It's still an in-your-face, a lot of stuff going on game, but I enjoyed it. 7 out of 10. Night Soil from Grail Games from John Moffet. Hilarious theme. You're all out there digging up poop and keeping this this the cities clean at night. It is so problematic. It has bad components. It's a cloth board that's hard to read.

It has really, really mean gameplay where you are mean to the other players on purpose for no good reason and you can ruin their game. I do not like games that do that. Four out of 10. Nuns on the run. This is from 999 games, a remake of the classic game from Frederick Moyerson. Again, this is a one or two verse many where several players are young nuns uh going to find their secret piece of cake or letter from a boyfriend or whatever and the another player is playing or two are playing the abbs who are walking around trying to find them.

Really fun game. Eight out of 10. Uh Octo Cube from Carl Lang from Sitown. This is magnetic cubes and you're just basically rolling them around the board picking up tiles or you can pull it off the board and collect those tiles getting points. Very straightforward. Yes, it's a gimmick. Yes, I liked it.

7.5. Or space from Jung Hi Choy and Wanjin Gil from Plate Games. I love the Oapa Mines. A rapa Space. Sometimes the curves can throw you off on how things bounce. That's my only negative. I give this a 9.5. It is This is a two-player perfection abstract game. I love it. And that black hole is bonkers.

Uh, Paradox Island from Steanalev Hobby World. This is a game which such a cool theme. These paradoxes here shows up and is he a human or an android and there's all these different paradox uh on the island and one person is controlling all them the island and I wanted to like it. There's some cool concepts here, but the theme is almost instantly gone.

It's very abstracted and the person who's running the island the if you just play your hardest, you will destroy everybody. I don't see how you get around that. You almost have to play like a dungeon master and the rules don't tell you to. It's messy. Five out of 10. Pencil pirates from Hava Nicolage Christensen.

You get a map. You draw a line between two islands. You get everything on that line that you draw. You then pass the maps around and you keep going. Simple, but I found it to be very enjoyable trying to figure out the best way and how much cool stuff you can get. Eight out of 10. Pawnscape from Prank Trapador and Tomas Hleek, who's very well known.

I love his stuff. normally. I did not like this one. I give this a five out of 10. It's a simple game that is made too complex. Too many icons over the cards, putting the groups of frogs together, remembering how each frog scores and a single frog. There's just so much. And then the game just fill a grid and score lightly.

There's so many other games like castle combo and things that do it better without all the effort this one puts in. It's beautiful, but I can't recommend it beyond that. Sprocket Forge from Ananda Gun Gunarte from Sophisticated Cerebrous Games. This is one of the most overproduced things I've ever gotten cuz I got the Kickstarter version and it had some cool plastic tiles.

Nah, metal gears. It's crazy. But you're moving these metal gears around and getting different resources to move. It's more fiddly than I would like it to be. The action where you take an action and everyone else follows with a slightly different action is a cool concept, but it the game is just longer than it needs to be.

I like a lot of concepts of it, but it just doesn't reach what I want in a game. 6 out of 10. Tea Witches from Annie Vega. This is from the OP. This feels like the prequel, right? He had the, you know, Flamecraft and and and this one here, the third game in that kind of series. There's just too much going on.

So much pieces in the game. The downtime is incredible. Sometimes there's also crazy luck. There's a lot of rules. It's too much. This game desperately needed a developer to just kind of pair things down. I The theme is fine, but I just didn't love the five out of 10. The Peak Team Rangers from Scott Arms and Madigo Games.

This is a uh cooperative game where you give cards to other people then hope they use them correctly. Uh, this one I give a five out of 10 to, but this one I'm very clear on. It's just not for me. I don't like the concept of this game. I don't like having to give people cards and hoping they figure out the right way to use them.

I I also don't like the way the game rules are laid out where the full game is kind of several levels in. And it just it felt too it's just not for me. I just don't like it. Treasure of the Dwarves. This is another one I don't really like that much. Five out of 10 from Bruno Fidudi and Trick-or- Treat Studios.

And he says it's his favorite game. He thinks it's his best game and I was like, "Oh, well, I guess we'll disagree. His best game is Citadels." Um, but Bruno Fudi or no, it's Vabank. But anyway, this one here, you have these you're you're kind of bidding on different cards and this is a lot of stuff that he's done before, but and and and getting gems and your little treasure chest has some neat components.

At the end of the day, it just felt okay. I just felt kind of cold at it. It didn't You make a a wrong error somewhere and the game's over for you. Five out of 10. Tricky Kids from Danielle Reynolds and Steven Angaro from Pandasaars. This is a trick-taking game where you get to write the numbers on your cards ahead of time as long as they equal a certain value.

That's a fun idea, but since you don't know what everybody wrote, it's as a trick- taking game, it's fine. It might work for kids better not. I mean, it looks like a kids game, but it's not quite. Six out of 10. Uno packs. So, there's a lot of different uh expansions for Uno. Some of them are terrible where you're switching hands.

Others ad rules that people want it for a while where you can stack plus two. I just think it's hilarious that expansions for Uno exist. So, four to six out of 10. Whatever you want to give them. Uno zero. This is from Lil Pilican from Mattel. And this is just a Uno version of golf, but it's better than golf and better than Uno.

That doesn't mean it's great. It's a six out of 10, but it exists. vineyard from Roberto Taylor and Pencil First games. There's some cool concepts in this where there's workers out on the board but everyone controls them and you just move that to a different spot and it's about making wine and there's a lot of games about making wine and this one so overly complicates it.

It has actions that nobody wants to take. Finally, someone will take it just to move the game along. It's very confusing many of the actions about making wine and you're moving love these hearts that you have into wine. The theme doesn't really make a lot of sense either. A lot of good concepts, a good production.

Just I don't want to play it. Five out of 10. Viva Katrina. This is from Fred Boyet and Gregory Guard from the flying game. And this is a tileing game where you're building a little area in front of you and like sort of like Carcosone and scoring points of collecting balloons. It's based on the Day of the Dead.

I really thought it was a fun, enjoyable, nice, light tile game. 7.5. White Castle Duel from is Isra and Sh from Dvere. I was very intrigued my first playthrough and each successive playthrough I liked it less and less. It's just way too tight and I'm someone who does like White Castle. I don't love it, but I like it.

I think it's a fine game, but this one felt even tighter than the original game. The downtime seems tremendous as I sit there and look where I can go for my actions. Can I change an action in a spot to it? You don't make a lot of decisions this game and I thought scoring was boring unfortunately. So another five out of 10.

And then finally, Whiswood from CGE Reed Ambrose. This is another game where you're putting stuff into your grid and scoring points. There's a lot of those, but I like that there's three rounds. The grid is reset in between rounds of some sorts. And it just feels nice and enjoyable across the board.

So that is a seven out of 10. And there you go folks, 18 minutes. But I want to talk about a lot of these games again. full reviews coming later or reviews already exist on our channel and you might have very different opinions than me. Well, let us know in the comments. Thank you all for watching and before I go, I want to say thank you to some of our game found backers.

Want to say thanks to Matt. Everyone is great but Z is the best V to Pel from Chris Fendette to Spencer the Zoo Volunteer and Jason Dunham. Thank you all for supporting the show and thank you all for watching. I'm Tom Vassel. We'll see you next time. Hey everybody, thanks for watching another video from the Dice Tower.

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