Rapid Fire Roundup with Chris - June 2026
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Transcript
Oh, well hello neighbor. I'm really glad you're here today actually cuz today's something special here. Come along with me while I'll tell you about it. This marks 5 years since we started doing the rapid fire roundups here on the Dice Tower channel. Can you believe it? The long time 5 years to stick with anything really. That means that you've seen a lot silly antics over all this time. Weird intros and lots of dumb bits. and you've stuck through it and I appreciate that. So that's why I'm sure glad that you're here because today's special and it's more special because you're here. Next time I'll try to do something funny again. But it all started with this Mr. Rogers stick. So I figured we'd visit it one more time. Let's get started.
Welcome out to another rapid fire roundup here in the Dice Tower. My name is Chris and I'm going to be going through 10 games here that were reviewed by other people on the channel that I wasn't in the review cuz I played them later or there just there were enough people in the in the video and everything, different opinions, but I wanted to share mine here and hopefully that's a little helpful insight to you on some of these games. So, let's get started uh with Critter Kitchen. Critter Kitchen's a game that I maybe came out a year or so ago and I'm late to the table with it, but that's fine because I enjoyed this delightful little worker placement, worker programming type of a game where you're sending a small, fast, but small worker, a medium, and then a large but slow worker to different areas to get ingredients to fulfill recipes. This has a hook that reminds me of the game Tracarion that I I I love this hook where you have those different workers and you're going to face down place out cards to program them to go to certain locations and once everyone's done that you flip them over and then they get sent out. I think that's great. I think it makes decisions quick and and has this nice little order resolution to it.
I love the fact that if you need a specific thing, you send a small guy there, but you're not going to be able to carry back a lot and the inverse relationship with the small versus the large guys. I think that this game does have a little bit of fiddly moments where you're sitting there kind of remembering the tiebreers and remembering to change the tiebreaker order and stuff. It's not bad. U although it has a part where you at the top of each round have to pull out a new like guest worker and you have to go through this tray and pull out like that specific worker. I think that that part's a little silly, a little overproduced, but I think that the game itself has a great hook to it. I'm giving him a 7.5. I like the recipe fulfillment part, but I love that worker that worker placement idea of assigning out the cards that really makes this game for me. It's a thing that I wish more games did. And since this is so much more simple and and explainable than Tracarion, this is the game that I'm going to be turning to for giving that type of feel. So, 7.5 for Critter Kitchen. Next up, Take Time. I give this one a very good score. Uh, I'll just say it now, I guess, because it started. I give this one an eight out of 10. I think that Critter Kitchen, I'm not done talking about Critter Kitchen. I'm talking about Take Time.
Now, I think that Take Time is a wonderful cooperative game with limited communication, but enough avenues and restrictions where as you place cards out there, you can glean why your teammates are cooperatively placing cards down. Why did you place a face down white card there? You're trying to communicate something. Well, they played a a black card over here really quickly, so they must have a six there exactly. Otherwise, why would they have rushed to do that? So, then it allows you to try to place cards out in this increasing order, but you don't know any of the numbers. And I like that has a system that as you mess up, if you fail a mission, you get to peek at cards more often. You get to play cards face up. And so, you get a few attempts in a row to try to complete a mission. There's a lot of content in the game. It ramps up in difficulty, but it's also fun to just play some of the earlier scenarios over and over again. So, I think take time's really solid. I'm surprised this one is only on the recommended list from the yards jury. I was really sure this was going to get a nomination for the award, but uh you know, Sevie, I still really recommend this one. An eight out of 10.
Next up, a game that was nominated for the spiel jury this year, and that is Cozy Stickerville. Cozy Stickerville is a phenomenal campaign game. It's low stakes. It really does live up to that name of cozy and it lives up to the name of Stickerville where you're creating a village with stickers. This game really pops. It really comes to life. It's so It's so great and charming and cute and there are branching decisions and paths that really lead to different avenues opening up for you. Nothing too harsh, nothing like high stakes. I really love this very simple structure. flip an event card and then do one of the actions out there. You're probably putting stickers on the board almost every turn. And if not, then you're doing things that are building up to allow you to place out really cool stickers. I like playing this cooperatively with a family. Yes, it could just be solo. You are just making deci taking turns making decisions, but it's really fun to allow each person to say, "I'm going to build the schoolyard over here, or I'm going to do this or that or the other." And then when it comes to your turn, you get to kind of make some choices that will build up the village in a specific way. I like this a lot. Cory Kesca, the designer of this one, has been one of my longtime favorite designers for doing things that are very different like Eldrich horror, the Twilight Imperium expansions and stuff. And so for him to do something like this and for this to be his farewell game, I think is very fitting because it fits his studios motif unexpected games. This was truly unexpected. And if this is a Swan song, then a wonderful one at that because I believe he's retiring from the industry.
That has nothing to do with affecting my score. But it's nice that he's going out. I'm giving this game a 9 out of 10. He's going out with such a good game. Such a great family charming game. And I'm This is one that we're going to play a second time because you can really play two whole campaigns out the box uh with the stickers and everything. They give you enough to do two runs of it. And I'm excited to see the other path of things. N out of 10. I think it's wonderful. Next up, Aquatica Duelum. Dualum. This is to me an unfortunately not as interesting version of Aquatica. Aquatica I rate extremely highly. I think at this point it's a 9 out of 10. Wonderful similarities between these games that allow you to pick up cards and do the card tucking, sliding, uh, moving the cards up for the special effects. I love that part so much. This does what several other duel type games have done where there's multiple avenues to winning. And I don't find all of them to be terribly interesting.
Unfortunately, I I have heard that there is one particular that tends to win. And that doesn't bother me that one of them tends to win, but it feels like the path to do the other ones just isn't fun is the problem. If I if there's multiple paths, one happens 50% of the time, the other two 25%. If I'm having fun pursuing all of them, it doesn't bother me. It does bother me in this one, unfortunately. I also think that the pieces don't fit the the board size. There's a couple of issues with it. And then one of the main interaction points in the middle where you're rotating these costs does it doesn't feel great. It's not as good to me unfortunately as just playing Aquatica with two players. I give this one a six. It's very clever. I see what it's doing, but unfortunately there's a for me just a better product already out there and I will always turn to Aquatica even for two players first.
Next up, down up looks like Dinup. What a stupid name. This is This is weird branding. I don't know if this is one of those uh efforts of branding that's seems kind of dumb, but it really sticks with you because it has stuck with me to be fair. And the amount of people who call it Denup forced I assume the publisher to put print on the box. It says it's pronounced down up. So whatever. It's a card game and the whole idea of it is that you can flip cards up and down. So down up. This is from the same designer who did what is that game that I the card shedding game that I don't really love? Scout. This is a game that I scout is a game I wish I liked more. Down up to me is the better version of that game. You are trying to empty out your hand of cards, but it's done in a really delightfully interactive way where as you play higher sets of cards than other players, you force them to rotate those cards and put them back in hand. But there's a lot of strategy. There's a lot of good avenues of of play here where you might play a set of cards out on the table knowing that they will get beaten.
A pair of ones is not going to last very long out there because someone could play a pair of any other number. But when you rotate those ones into your hand, now it's a four and an eight. And now I have four of a kind of eights and three of a kind of fours. So now I'm in a much more powerful position. So the way that you kind of orchestrate playing out your hand feels really cool. forcing people to pick back up a a series of cards they weren't expecting to or adding to another player's cards out there. So, like, oh, I only have one four. What do I do with it? I'll play it on his set of fours. And now there's four fours on the table, which beat this player's four ones. They weren't expecting to have to rotate those cards, pick it back up. There's a lot of cool gotcha moments in this. I really like this this game so much. So, an eight out of 10 for me. I think that this is a uh a funnier, more interactive, kind of in-your-face card shedding game, and I think it stands out a lot for that reason. So, eight for Down Up. Next up, Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era. This is a huge game. This is enormous. This is from Chip Theory, so all the production is wildly over the top and super good and really well done.
Even though it's a lot, I think it's well done. a bit extra for my taste, right? But the fact that you can keep your characters uh because you you play through three scenarios, three game sessions for a campaign, like a soft campaign, one adventure of it. Uh and so I think that that's I think that that's great. I think that it's it it's it does a good job of like keeping and packing well, and then you can pull it back out and set it up and oh, my characters are exactly where they were, and you don't have to do weird things to like to remember where you were. Uh, I think that the story, the the breadth of what this game accomplishes is incredibly impressive. I think that some of the parts of it are a bit overroought as is Chip Theory games, right? There's and yet it's also less overroought than a lot of their other games. There's a lot of keywords you have to remember and like little calculations of like what's okay, what experience, battle strength are we at and therefore what are we bringing out there and stacking up all the chips. So yeah, there's it's an involved game, but it is actually simpler than I was afraid that it was going to be. I do like playing this one a lot. It's it's really impressive, but at the end of the day, how do I kind of come down to the score of this? I'm giving this one a seven. I'm recommending it on the idea that you have to know what you're getting into.
This is a big, immersive, cool, huge game. And so I would like it more if if I mean it would be perfect to have something like this that's also like 100% accessible and it's never going to be that or it's not necessarily that case, but I know that it's one that I'm going to struggle getting back to the table. So as much fun as I have with it, I do see enough of those downsides where I don't know when's the next time I'm going to play it necessarily. But the systems of it, leveling up, adding dice, all the customization to it is really cool. So giving it a seven out of 10 still. I like it. Mayor of Chicago. This is a solo card game from the imprint Impatience. This is in their mini imp. And I think that uh Zen Mike did a very good review of this one talking about what makes this game unique, why is it so cool, and the downsides of it. It's an incredibly challenging game, but I like the challenge of this one a lot. I think it's really clever. It it does the idea of like building out a spatial puzzle, but it does it in a way that feels very different from most other card games where you're or tile games where you're building out this map. I think that it's so cool. I love the theming. I love the look, the art, the presentation. Everything about this game just it just sings to me. It's really good. Yeah, it's very it's tremendously challenging, but I I enjoy what it I I enjoy what it offers. It feels different from other little solitire games. Heck, it feels different from other multiplayer games. There are some annoyances with like tracking the resources and all that stuff. So, all in
all, I really like this one. I'm giving this one an 8 out of 10. I think it's a solid game. One that I'm excited to just challenge myself more and more and play it when I have a when I have a, you know, 30, 40 minutes or so to kind of play through something that's a bit brain burning and challenging, but also also just very fun, good solo games. So, yeah, an 8 out of 10 for Mayor of Chicago. Next up, Excalibur. This is from Roxley Games, and this is the social deduction style game where you're trying to hold on to the Excalibur sword token. And then there's a million billion other tokens around, and they all have different effects and and swapping and stealing and forcing people to discard and then grabbing and taking from each other and drawing new tiles. There's a Excalibur, there's a cursed sword, and then there's like a I think it's called the wooden sword or like the apprentice sword. And so at the end of the game, have Excalibur, don't have the cursed blade. And if you have the apprentice sword and the person who has Excalibur is to your side, you also co-win the game. It's hot potato with a lot a lot a lot of special powers. Just a lot of powers on tiles.
It's incredibly clever. I don't like it. And it's okay that I don't really like it. I could see I could see why this is just not a game for me. It feels like the first 70% of the game mostly doesn't matter and I don't love that part of it. Right. You you're doing so much for so long. Just kind of waiting for it to get near that end state because that's when it gets interesting. And even at that point, the payoff is not there for me. It's funny. It leads to some cool moments. Wonderful production. Whether you get the basic version or the ridiculous over-the-top collector's edition one, even the basic version has great production to it. All that to be all that to say that I give this one a five out of 10. Not the type of game I want. There are plenty of silly games with like passing and snatching and stealing and all that stuff that I do enjoy. This one feels like too much just too much work, too much doing uh just having to do mechanisms and stuff until it gets interesting. And even when it's interesting, it's not interesting enough for me. So, five out of 10 for Excalibur. Quagmire is the next game.
This is a cool uh this is a there's a cool story behind this game. It's it's from Chris Handy who does the PCO games. Perplexed is the publisher. I think I'm saying that right. Uh and he does those pack of gumsiz little card games. Well, this is a board game version of one of his little games. And it it changes it from a two-player game to a up to four player game. Two to four players. And this one's fun. You have this little puzzle out in front of you as you're playing out these frogs and they can move to certain lily pads out there, but they have to move in a specific pattern. So, you're trying to jump on top and capture other players frogs to capture them for a point, but you're trying to get these frogs to jump to their like terminal point and then you have to spend another action to call them back from the board and then they're worth points equal to the number of players.
And that's a really interesting puzzle where you're trying to make sure to play things that won't get captured, but then you sometimes have the opportunity to capture someone, but then that's going to put you in a position where you'll get captured and you also want to jump onto these flies which allow you to draw extra tiles be uh the frog tiles cuz you don't want to be without them. I think that there's a lot of good stuff going on in this one with four players. There is way too much stuff going on at the table. It is hard. It becomes at that point for me one of those uh there's a term that someone used I really love high search abstracts where you have to look at everything on the board state and you play poorly if you don't scan and you catch this this move high search right I really like that term because that describes this game at four players the fewer players you have the more readily visible everything is and it's a fun game I think it's a little less fun at four players so quagmire a seven out of 10 for me. I like this one. A cool a cool game. Some funky frog artwork, but overall I I enjoy playing this one a lot, especially at the lower player count. And then the last game I'm going to cover today, Rattlesnakes. This is a card dueling game that is just delightful. You have a deck of cards.
There's a little market of cards, and on your turn, you play out some cards to attack and or you can discard two cards to purchase anything from the lineup. Cards don't have cost. It's just discard two cards and you can deck build a little bit. And so when you attack each other, you want to play a higher set of cards than the other person. But then also once you reveal those cards, I played three fives and so I want Oh, I played a four, five, six or a two, three, four. I should I should use real numbers that exist in the game. 2, three, four. Well, three of a kind beats a run of three, but a higher run of three beats a lower run of three. Very simple little little combat system. And if you win the attack, then the other person takes a hit. However, every card also has a special power on it, and you can remove those cards from the game, not discard them, trash them, they're gone. And then you can do things like mess with the opponent's attack stack and whatnot. I think this game does a lot of things absolutely right. You never mess with the hand of your opponent. You never take cards from them or force them to discard or anything like that. If you're discarding cards, it's because you're playing a card that says, "I discard my hand, draw three, hoping to get some better cards or some better special effects." So, it you mess with each other, but only what's on the table, the attack cards, the defense cards. That feels really good because it does not ever lead to those like bad feeling moments where like I have the perfect hand of cards and the person goes discard your hand. There's none of that.
But it is really in your face back and forth as you're trying to make your hits. You're trying to make them land. And I like the dynamic of this a lot. Very simple cards are just numbered one through five. Every card has a special power on them, but there's only a few special powers in the game really. All of your starting ones through fives are the same. And then the market of cards has one through fives that also have different effects that are absolutely worth buying. So all in all, there's really only 10 kind of mess around effects more or less. And I think that that makes this game both approachable, learnable, surprisingly snappy, and really interactive. I love this head-to-head dueling game. It's one of my It's one of my favorites I've played in a while. Actually, I'm giving this one an 8.5. I think this is an excellent, excellent small form factor card dueling game that does not feel like anything else I've played. And I'm extremely pleasantly surprised with this one. Yeah, there's some games that are going to have some similarities, but I just just kind of all in all the way that this package comes together. So good. Really like this one. Uh Osprey is the publisher and they just recently announced that they're not going to continue to be carrying board games and card games so much. So, if this at all sounds interesting to you, I would make sure to pick this one up or at least give this one a try. See if it's something you want to pick up because I think it's excellent. I think it's great. Uh so, yeah, check it out while it while it's still for sure available for a bit. So anyway, that's my thoughts on uh 10 games here. Hope that this series of reviews was helpful for you.
Thanks for coming at this Rapid Fire roundup. My name is Chris Ye and have yourselves a great day. Hey everybody, thanks for watching another video from the Dice Tower. Hey, you want to learn more about us, communicate with us, we have a Facebook group, we have a Discord channel, lots of different ways to get involved with the Dice Tower. You can find that in our link tree link below. So just click that. It will take you and you can communicate with us on Facebook. Join our Facebook groups. There's lots of cool things that you can find and become part of the Dice Tower. Thanks so much for watching. I'm Tom Bassel.