A new deck builder from CGE! - Drillers Board Game Review
Transcript
Hello everyone. This is Johannes
and this is Cinema
and you are watching Board Gaming Ramblings
and today we are taking a look at Drillers.
Drilling into the earth for minerals in this game Drillers from CG. This is a review copy. So, thank you so much for sending that along. We play the game now and now we're going to talk to you about it. I don't know why I have to like say that because it would be very weird and we have talked about this before. It would be fun to one day do a review of a game we have not played to just like see how it would look. We could do it like in a a live video or something like just as an obvious joke, not to put it out as an actual review. If you want to see that, let us know. I don't know if we will do it, but we will might try. Maybe we could do it as like a we did this kind of challenge videos
where like I bring a game to you and you get to read like
you just get to see the box cover and you have to describe the theme of the game.
Yeah.
And not like the mechanics because that would be impossible but what like what the theme and what you think you're doing in the game.
Would actually be kind of a fun thing.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
With that said, today we're talking about this game which is a deck building mining game. In the game you will be playing cards. You have cards in your hand. You're going to have them shuffled. Then you're going to place them in this little stand here, which kind of cute. It's going to have the top card of your deck face up so you can see it with your eyes. Then you will draw some cards and you will play them. As in any normal deck building game, the cards are not going to give you coins like in many deck building games. They're mostly going to give you movement and they're going to give you drill symbols and you will have to use fuel to get those symbols. You could also play the cards to get more fuel, like when you're down in the mine and need fuel to get back up again. And then you will be moving around, not around, but up and down the mine. Some of the floors will be locked.
We have unlocked one floor here somewhere in this setup of a game. You will be moving down levels and then you will be able to drill the emeralds or the the minerals that are there. You can also drill out these pieces to get more minerals in there. And then you will drill the pieces and place them in your supply. When you go all the way up to the top, you can sell the pieces up here to your own little markets. And then you will use those money to buy new cars or to upgrade your uh capacity or fuel capacity and also to re repair some damage or repair some of these bad cars that you start with that are worse card and also give you negative points. When you move down, there will be uh rules for each level. So when you drill a new piece, this also has like a drill value on it. You will put it up here and then you will move down, you will reveal a new car that has like a different rule.
So every time you play, there will be some differences there. And then there will be some kind of milestones. When you fill up this, you will get some points. The other will get some money. And when you get all the way over here, and after a while, I might have filled up all my blue. I will start filling them up here. And when these two rows meet, that's going to trigger the end of the game. that player is going to finish. Then the other is going to have one more turn. You will get some negative points for where you are down in the mine if you don't get up fast enough. And you will also get some points at the end for different emeralds, the minerals. Yeah, emeralds as well. But the minerals, not just the emeralds as well. And for some other few things like these things and that is probably the game. That's mostly all the rules.
Yeah, that's mostly the rules because this is a pretty straightforward deck builder with a board. I like the board very much in this game because you get a sense of the urgency of how you want to move up and down and also you have different possibilities in which floor you are and you want to do that basically that movement up and down into the mining shafts as efficient as possible. So it's a balance between moving and drilling and that needs to be balanced in your cards as well.
Mhm. This is might not, as I said, it might not be like the most innovative thing, but I would say like it is, as I said, pretty straightforward.
It is the most innovative thing I've ever seen, but I feel like it does this like deck building aspect in an interesting way because when you get to the top, you get some money, but you probably don't get enough because you have so many things you want to spend them on. You want to get new cards, but you can't like buy all movement cards or all drilling cards. There are some like variety. There's some special cards that you mostly need these batteries that you get from drilling tiles. There are some that are like auxiliary cars that do like different things. Then there are specific movement and specific drilling cars and the damage card. You can't buy them. You're going to get them when you don't want them because they're negative
we don't want.
And then you want to upgrade your stuff because you need more fuel because you're going to get stuck if you don't have fuel. So the balance there and then you want to repair stuff because if you're stuck with all these stupid cards, it's going to be hard. So I feel that balance of what to do when you are on top while like also you move down you try to get resources that you need and then you can also use drones to send some resources or even buy a card if it's like somebody else goes to the top and buy a card as a really cool card come up you can buy that and then you will get that later into your hand and I think that balance is probably the most like interesting thing of the game. Yeah, I think it's cool that you don't have like money on your cards. For example, in other deck builders with boards, for example, Clank, you're like accumulating also points to buy new cards. Here, you sell things for money and that's how you acquire new cards.
But as you said, the more capacity you have like in your storage and your fuel, you can stay down longer. So, you don't need to like rush back and forth. But you really want to also go to the top to actually convert this into coins to upgrade your hand as well. And I feel like a lot of deck builders are that way. But I feel like it's a race.
Yeah, I feel like most deck builders are like the minion is a race. Tank is a race.
It's like world is a race.
It's a race and it's about making your most efficient like hand basically. [clears throat] And I feel like that is interesting in this game because I have had um sometimes when we played I've not like within my deck a lot damage.
I think that's important to repair damage so you don't get a clogged up deck but games are all also different in that way that you see some opportunities and sometimes you don't have like want to go all the the way down here. So, we have games that we haven't drilled these two spots and especially this last one because there are so many spaces to go up and down. So, there's a lot of opportunities.
I do feel that repairing and teing out the deck is kind of essential.
It's because it feels important.
These cards are not good. Uh they're not too bad. Some of them you could do like a strategy I guess where you like super fuel and you can use like this one which is six for for three drills. But then you have another card which is like three for three drills. five for four drills or one for three drills but you get a damaged card. So there is like I feel like if you can if you get stuck with these cards, if you don't get any repair and you can only repair once each time you go up, then you will maybe then like the strategy you need to is to go here up and down, up and down. But then the research you can get here if after you have three of them, you get zero coins and you can't really do that anymore. And I feel like last time we played, I got a couple of turns where I drew and in all deck building games, it's going to be like random the cards you draw. And I feel like there isn't that many cards that you draw more cards. So you're kind of stuck with the three cards that you draw. And if you get some cards that are only fuel, it's going to be harder or only I mean only movement, it's going to be harder because you spend those, you might move down or what I what happened to me is I was up here and I got three cards. All of them are drills.
Oh yeah.
So I can't really use them for anything. There is like I can pay three fuel each to move. And I did that. But what happens then is I don't have enough fuel to use the cards. Then I have to use cards for fuel and I have to use that mining to drill. And then I'm down here and I have zero or I have like two. So then I'm kind of stuck because I draw two or three more cards and then I have to use those cards to get energy and maybe I get to move two and I have to use another round and in this game you don't have time for that. So I feel like the luck of the draw can kind of screw you over in that sense I felt.
Yeah. And I feel like the luck of the draw you have to be okay with in a game like this. But I like the little uh detail with you being able to see your top card. Uh, I thought that was an a little tiny detail that was nice. And also what I do really enjoy about this game is the feeling that I can do cool stuff.
Yeah.
Like as you said, those beginning cards, they're not great, but even in the beginning, you feel like you're doing a lot.
And also, when you upgrade cards, they feel really good. So, you're just like this, I feel more powerful now that I have this card. And I feel like the interesting thing about buying new cards also is that they always go on top. Yeah. So, you know that you will get that card like the next round already, which is also really nice.
Yeah, that is a huge thing. Like I I feel like if it wasn't for that and since you're drawing cards so slow, it would not feel as cool to draw buy new cards.
I agree.
Another thing that is a negative, I would would say. uh it's it it might be bigger or less of a negative depending on who you are is that there is really no interaction like there is interaction in the fact that I don't want to go here drill that and not take any of it
because that kind of also makes it interaction
it is interaction but it's not
because I was thinking about that a lot I was just like I want to do this but someone will exploit that opportunity that I give will I then do that and be like okay I'm doing sub optimal turn or will I like because you can save some cards if you use fuel on it. You can save it and you will have more cards next round. So maybe you should will wait with doing that. So I think there is absolutely some interaction but then again you're
there I like there is interaction but like the bare minimum interaction. It's not interaction to the point where I'm like no no no you did the thing in a huge way and to come like my argument is that
playing this we only played two players and it took an hour and the box says around that I think
and for me that is like the game length this game should take yeah
so if you add a third player let's say that take 90 minutes to play the game
it's not going to be fun for me
because I think already in two players I don't care about like it's in many games.
For example, when we play the causes of burgundy as an example, there is interaction of course, but it's I I care like in many Euro games I care about what you're doing on your turn. I sit there, I'm excited, I'm looking, oh, you did that cool combo. You did that move. Here it's like, okay, this is my turn. I'm going to play that for two. That gives me three.
I'm just going to think about what I'm going to do anyways. Yeah. But yeah, I absolutely agree. And and and sometimes the turns takes a lot of time. Yes.
Especially when you go up. So you go down, you do some stuff, you go up again, and then you sell the things, then you buy the cars. Yeah. So don't time is already there with two. So for me, we didn't try, but I played enough games
to be in a position where I didn't need the third player to feel like the game would be long because I feel like with two, it should be like if we can play it in 40 minutes with two and an hour with three, that would be fine. I don't think you can do that.
No, I agree. I think that uh some things that we might have missed because we only played two players is like more opportunities opening here that you can try to exploit on the board with somebody drilling and leaving these minerals out for example or more people would be incentive to drill to the bottom for example. But I agree with you. I don't think that that's worth like adding so much downtime. I don't mind this game like losing for an hour. That's that's totally fine. But the turns, especially mine, can be quite lengthy. And yes, you don't care a lot about what the other player is doing during that time
and not because it's not like kind of interesting is because the way that they play out. So I think that is it before we go to the final thoughts. Are you do you want to begin? As always, I don't know why I'm asking you. I'm going to say you begin. You begin because it's the rules.
The way we're doing things. I like this game a lot. It gives me that, oh, I want to play again feeling and I I'm excited for the way that it does the deck building. I think I like deck building is a really like a mechanism that I I feel like I've played many deck builders, but I'm very few of my like favorite games are deck builders. So sometimes it's I think like like what do you call it that like a veil of eternity. Yes. That that's not that's a card builder but it's a deck builder also. Uh that's one I really like. And I like this as well. And I I really like the the efficiency puzzle of it. And also, if you're not hit by some really bad luck, then I I think it just like gives you this like cool feeling of being able to exploit these opportunities and trying to be as efficient as possible. Uh, and also if you are unlucky, the game doesn't last that long that you can't do another round of it though.
If you're playing with two,
if you're playing with two disclaimer, I think this I I I think I agree with you. I would only want to play this at two because of the the downtime. Um, but other than that, I think it's a great game. I do recommend it at two players. I don't know about three and four. I'm going to give it an eight. I think it's a great game
for me. Drillers is is a good game. I I don't think it's fantastic, but something about it makes it for me better than the sum of its parts. Like, it's there's something also I played it the first time. I played it with my cousin. I didn't play it with you. And I was thinking about it all the time till we played it again which was like half one and a half two weeks later.
Then you played it with me just to clarify.
And then we played it quite a few times. H I do think it's good. Uh I I'm having fun while I play it. Is this one I will be like oh I need to go back and play it again. I'm a bit unsure about that. I think I think you want to keep it.
I think for me it's going to land on a seven. I think it's a good game. I do enjoy many of the things they're doing with it, but it's not like a fantastic game in my book.
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