Episode 77: Worker Placement Games We Love, with Starla from OFPG

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0:53 Hope to see you there. Hello and welcome. Welcome to episode 77 of the Board GameGeeek podcast, where we geek out about board games, the mechanisms behind them, and the people who create them. I'm your host, Candace Harris, and I am very, very excited to be here today with Stara from Our Family Plays Games, the YouTube channel, the content creators, the amazing family that's playing games and spreading diversity in this hobby. You're flattering me too much.

1:59 How are you doing today, Stara?

2:01 Candace, I am doing great. I am so happy to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

2:08 Yes. Yes. I'm so sorry it took me this long. I was like, wait, this is episode 77 because it's like back when the podcast started. I'm like, oh, I have to have Mick and Stara on here at some point. And just time just flies on by and here we are finally doing it.

2:27 Well, you know they say better late than never. So, here we are.

2:31 Yes. Yes. How's everything going on your end? What's new with you and the family and your channel?

2:38 Oh, let's see. What's new? Uh, we just got back from Grand Con in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Had a wonderful time there. That's our third year going. That was over the Labor Day weekend. So, uh, that was awesome. Uh, let's see. We just moved to a new house, so getting adjusted for that. And,

2:58 um, congrats. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So, we're so excited about it. That's pretty much it. I mean, we're putting out content every week and just trying to live life.

3:08 Yeah. Yeah. So, wait, with the new house, because uh, you guys were on the the hobby documentary also, and I saw the storage situation at your old house. Do you have more space for games now?

3:22 Well, well, here's the thing. The games are our roommates. That's what I call them. And we've gotten so many roommates that we had to get a house big enough for them to have their own space.

3:35 Yes.

3:36 Because they had taken over. In our old house, we had games in the living room, games under the coffee tables, games in the closets, games everywhere. So, now we have a basement and the games have their own space. Uh, I thought we had a lot of space when we moved, but now we've got the games out. I don't know.

3:58 I love that. I love that like thinking about it like that. That the games are just our roommates, you know?

4:03 They're roommates.

4:04 Yeah. I mean, we play with them and Yeah. Yeah. I'll I'll be sure to tell Matt that next time I get a box delivered here.

4:13 It's a new roommate.

4:15 Yeah. That is funny. So, I asked Starla, "What kind of games are you into?" So, today we're going to talk about worker placement games that we love.

4:27 Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. One of my favorite mechanics. I love it.

4:31 Yeah. Me, too. I feel like it like worker placement as a mechanism was like one of the first things I discovered in the modern board game world that really excited me. Like I love deck building also, but like worker placement games were so cool and they're still like they're still so cool. There's still tons of designers out there you using worker placement in different ways. And we we'll get into that more. We'll get into that more in a minute. But before we start getting into worker placement games, we love I'd love to hear what you've been playing lately, Stara. So, let's jump into Fresh Plays.

5:24 Okay. So, I I just mentioned that we got back from Grand Con in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Y um in a couple of games we played there and I I guess rather fresh. We played them before, but these are games we played and had such a good time. We played it a couple of times. And my first one on my list is Rebel Princess

5:44 from Zombie Pa. And it's got a whole group of designers on there. I didn't list their names because there were names I did not pronounce well. So, I speak them, but it's a group of designers. And it plays three to six players. It came out in 2023. And this game is a new take on spades almost. It is a trick taking game. Although there is no Trump card. There's no Trump in this one. But you've got these princesses, you know, all of them, you know, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and all that. And the the crazy thing, the reason why they're rebel princesses, they don't want to get married. They want the princesses to go away. Don't come over here. I don't want proposals. So, your whole goal is in this game is to not get proposals. So, you try to get rid of those princesses.

6:32 Yes. Yeah, I love I love trick avoidance and also just like player powers. Rebel Princess is fantastic. I know there's there's like a sequel out right now, right?

6:47 And uh I think Bezier has like a a new version of it coming out or something.

6:53 I know. Or

6:53 it might have come out at Gen Con.

6:54 Yeah, Zombie Princess is coming out. I'm not into zombies, but that is coming out. Yeah.

7:01 Interesting. Interesting twist. Okay, cool. Cool. Rebel Princess has just anytime I break it out, it has been a hit. Especially if people like trickt games, you know, it's it could be wild and silly, but the theming is great. And I I love it.

7:20 And see the twist, you know, those events you have every round you've got an event and that's what adds the twist to the game.

7:27 Yes. Yes. And there there are so many that you know you can pick the ones you like every time or you can like randomly do it and have like kind of a different experience.

7:39 Right. Right. That's what I like. I love it. It's it's a fun game and I like trick taking games.

7:44 Cool. Cool. So that's Rebel Princess.

7:46 Yes. Love it. Love it. So you were mentioning you just went to a convention that was Labor Day weekend. I also in in LA we have a convention three times a year called Strategic Con and in Labor Day weekend is one of those cons and it is a great way to what I like to think of is playing the game of swapping games with other gamers, you know, like uh because we have a a virtual flea market that is I feel like every time this convention rolls around there are more and more games up there that people are selling or trading and buying and I'm like it's really kind of a community cooperative game where it's like hey I have these games I'm trying to get rid of and then people will like bid on them to help me out and then meanwhile I buy some of their games as well even though I really need to cut back but but at at Strategic Con uh whenever this virtual flea market goes up. I And I don't even know if I want to announce this secret, but I go through all the listings and I'll like anything I don't recognize, I'm like, "Huh, I don't know anything about it." I'll like click on the game and just read about it. And I found some like obscure games this way. And so, one of the games that I ended up putting a bid on is a

9:18 game called Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space. And this this is a game like I clicked on it. I was like, "Oh, that's you know read the description. I was like that sounds intriguing." I put the, you know, the starting bid amount on it. I was like, "If I get it, I get it. Cool. If not, it's okay." Because I really don't know. You know, it's not like I've been dying to have this game. But, uh, this game is designed similar to Rebel Princess. There are lots of designers on this one. So, um I'll just say there's a design team of like five five different designers and this is a game from 2010. Oh,

9:56 from Cranio Creations, but the version that I have is a newer Osprey version. I mean, I don't think it's like it's still not a new game, but have you ever heard of this one?

10:08 I have not.

10:09 Okay. See, I hadn't either. I hadn't either. There's a little story to this how I actually got to play this game. But anyway, it plays with two to eight players. And so when I go to the convention and I'm like, we're we're in the virtual flea market meetup. This guy Sergio hands me the game cuz I think I maybe paid them on Venmo in advance. And so he drops off the game. Cool, cool, cool. Got a bunch of games, you know, bought some, sold some, whatever. Then that same weekend, I end up at a friend's housewarming party

10:45 and Sergio was there. And I was like, I didn't even know that these friends knew Sergio. And so that was just like a kind of a wild thing. Like we're just like, hey, he's like, I just gave you, you know, sold you escaped from the aliens game yesterday. And it's like, whoa, what a small world, right? And that's not even that's not even that crazy. Then I had another friend, my good friend Jordan, who I've been playing games with, Jordan for like a quite a few years. He shows up and we're all like doing that thing where we're standing around the game shelves like, "Oh, what do you guys want to play? What do you want to play?" And eventually we get to a point where Jordan says, he's like, "Yeah, I brought this game, Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space." And literally Sergio is standing right there and we're like I like I have never heard him ever he's never talked about this game. So the the odds that he decided to bring that game to this party where Sergio was there who just sold me the game. So anyway, it was like it blew my mind. It blew all our minds for a bit.

11:59 That's crazy. But but we actually we actually and then we actually played it and we we played with I think there were seven of us.

12:08 Like I said, it goes two to eight players and uh we were all new. So like anytime everybody's new to it, I consider it a cold teach. So I'm like, you know, they're going to be some rules bumps, I'm sure. But you're like you're it's a learning game, right? Mhm.

12:25 So, the the premise is it's kind of like a slight social deduction setting where we're on this this spaceship, right? Some of us are aliens and some of us are humans. You get a roll card at the beginning of the game and you also have like kind of a special ability or that that might have been just for the aliens, but anyway, everybody has a dry erase booklet that has a bunch of different maps. So, we played the first map and there are on the map it's like a these tiny hex's and you have your little you have your pen and you're going to be tracking like where you're moving around on the spaceship.

13:06 Okay.

13:07 The aliens are trying to eat the humans as you'd imagine like find them and eat them. And the humans are basically trying to make their way to these escape pods that are at the edge of the map. And if if they're all able to do that, like they can win. But otherwise, if the aliens kind of take over, the aliens win. And I was an alien. And so, and I made this like major mistake the very first play of the game. Like I ended up like when you're an alien. So, let me say every turn you must move. Humans by default only move one space away. Aliens can move one or two spaces. And for my very first move, I decided to move two spaces. So, I just write down on my little sheet like I move to A2 or whatever, you know, whatever the the the space was. Now, in this game, you have gray hex's and white hex's. If you move into a white hex, that's a silent area. So, all you need to just say is, I think it's silence in all sections. And then everyone knows wherever you moved, you move to a white space. So it's like some deduction like you're figuring some things out. When you move to a gray space though, you have to draw a danger card, I think they're called. And this card is going to have one of three icons that's going

14:38 to tell you if you number one say silence, that means there's there's an icon where you don't have to say anything about your location. There's an icon that says you can make up whatever location you want. You know, you could be lying or telling the truth. And then there's another icon that means you must say exactly where you are. So, turn one of the game, Stara, I move two, I draw this card, and the card I draw says I have to say my exact location. So, I'm like, "Well, everybody's gonna know I'm an alien because I I couldn't get to this space if I was human, but I think because we were all new and there could have been like some confusion or I could have been making it up."

15:26 Yeah.

15:26 Even though would I make up a space that's two spaces away? I don't know. So, it was a big blunder that I was not expecting, but everybody's doing this. And the cards that you're picking up when you go to these gray spaces, they sometimes are items that you can use. But after you move and if you have to draw a card, draw a card and everything, you can attack where you are. Now, if you attack and there's a human there, that human is going to become an alien. So on their next turn they become an alien and starts like and I think that we started with four aliens and three humans. So, humans were already at a disadvantage in this game, but it was just th it was such a fun game to fumble through our first game because even at the point where it was like, "Oh, we know Jordan."

16:22 Well, we know two people that are definitely aliens cuz one attacked the other and then it became obvious like Midame like who are aliens and who are humans. But you're still trying to like find each other and and use deduction to be like, "Oh, okay. Well, this person moved and then they they said silence at all sections, so they had to be in a white space, but then they moved and they drew a card and they did the, you know,

16:48 so it ended up being like hilarious and I really can't wait to play it again like now that we all know how it works. So, it's like that kind of I don't know. It almost reminded me of Nemesis and Blood on the Clock Tower or something or maybe Station.

17:04 I think it's Aliens one, right? Yeah, the aliens won. And it was funny because the other thing is um my friend Gigi, she would took her turn and I was like, "Oh." I was like, "Did you draw a card?" And she said something like basically like, "Oh, just pretend I moved there or whatever." And I was like, "Wait, I don't think she understands the rule about like when you move to a gray space, you must draw a card." and she didn't she was missing that for like half the game. So, it there were just all these hilarious things that happened, but it's something I'm going to hold on to and play more. I love that there are like a bunch of different maps. And again, now I want to see how it actually works now that we all like understand all the rules.

17:55 Well, isn't that so cool when you find a game and just fall for it and it's like, where does this game come from? How did I not know about it sooner? And so now, you know, you're so intrigued. But that's what's so wonderful about this hobby. There's so many games out there and then you'll find one and they'll say, "Oh, this was made 10 years ago. Are you kidding me? This game is great."

18:14 Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Very. It's very exciting. And that's part of the reason I love these like flea markets to see what other people picked up that I missed and vice versa. But yeah, that is Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space.

18:29 Oh, wow. What else you've been playing?

18:33 Okay, now there here's another one that uh we played at Grand Con. We've played this several times before, but I just love it. It's such a really fun game. It's easy to learn. And that's called Castle Combo from Ketchup Games. And the designers of this game is Gregory Gerrard and Matau uh Rousel. And they also designed the game Zenith, the two-player team and team game.

18:58 Love Zenith. I love it. It's a two to five player game, uh, Castle Combo. It came out in 2024. It's a tableau building game, and that's another mechanic that I like. I love tableau building games.

19:10 And and in this game, you are trying to build a 3x3 grid, a tableau, and you've got the town uh market that you can go to, or the I guess we'll call it the castle or the royalty market you can go to.

19:26 Oh, right. Right. Yeah. to the markets and you've got this evil little messenger and the messenger, he's evil because he determines which market you can get your cards from on your turn. Now, the messenger can be in either location and if you don't like where he is, then you've got to pay a key to move him somewhere else. So, you hope that you have keys because keys are what you use. They're like a currency and then there's also um a money, a monetary currency as well. the little evil messenger. It's like every time it's my turn, wherever he is, that is not where I want him to be. So then I'm running out of keys trying to move him around and he's got this little look on his face like, you know, too bad for you. You know, I'm getting paid. I'm getting my keys, you know. But the game is so much fun and it's all about maximizing the points. So each card has a different criteria you're trying to meet. Whether it's the card has to be in a special space or the card has to be around other cards or it has to have a particular shield on it. Whatever it is, you're trying to place those cards in your tableau so that you can maximize points at the end of the game. And it is so much fun. And in this game, it's always not only is the messenger evil, but your opponents are always evil. And especially if you're playing with my husband because my husband definitely gonna want to look and see what I have in my tableau and if there's any way he can take a card from me

20:58 to deny you. Yeah.

20:59 Yes. He will do it. And it's it's just frustrating. But I love that type of frustration is that tension that you get because you get the satisfaction at the end. Especially when you win or at least in my case if I just beat my husband I'm totally happy and totally satisfied.

21:17 Yeah.

21:18 And it's just awesome.

21:21 Yes. Castle combo I've played a couple times. It is just it is such a delight. Like you can kind of teach it to just about anyone you know who's played some card games before. And you're right, like just the decisions of trying to synergize and optimize your tableau for scoring, but then also you you definitely feel that h when somebody takes one of the cards you wanted or somebody takes a card that shifts the uh the little evil messenger and everything. But it's Yeah, I love the art and it's it's a banger. It's a banger.

22:04 Oh yeah, the art is really cute. It's real quirky. It's colorful. So, you smile when you look at the little town's people. And I was saying you've got you've got the two uh levels. It's peasants and nobles. That's what it is. To be in the peasant area or the noble area. And usually the peasant cards are going to be cheaper in cost to purchase because you have to purchase them. Uh but then the noble cards I think give you more uh points at the end because their value is higher. Something like that with high

22:31 something like that.

22:32 Something like that. But, you know, sometimes, I mean, you can win with a bunch of peasant cards. It depends on how you, you know, put them in the tableau.

22:39 Yeah. Fun game. Fun fun fun game.

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23:42 So, treat yourself and your games to some new goodies from the BGG store at boardgamegeekstore.com. I totally agree. Castle combo. Nice. Well, that is a good segue into the next game I'll mention because I just played a game called Antiques Ghost Show. And no, have you played this or have you heard of this?

24:12 I have not. I have not. But when you said it, you know, you've got Antiques Road Show, so it's a ghost show. That's insane.

24:20 Antiques ghost show. Yes. And this is also a card game. Not so much like a tableau builder in the way that Castle Combo is, but players are basically rival antique collectors. And we're going to this manor that we heard is having this this auction. And when we get there, we find out that all of the items that are up for auction are haunted. Oh, wow.

24:53 Yeah. Yeah, they're haunted. But, you know, we could probably like, you know, going into it, we're like, yeah, this they're haunted, but people might be willing to like pay a lot of money for these if they're cool, you know? So, anyway, this is a game designed by Nick Bada. 2025 release. This I think just came out around Gen Con from Trick-or- Treat Studios who actually sent me a copy. My friend Will is works for Trick-or- Treat Studios and I had my other friend Chuck Case who's a solo developer. He went to Gen Con and was sending me photos and I was like, "What is that?" And then so when he said it looked cool, so he bought it. I was like, "Hey, Will, um, can you send this to me?" So, this is a game that plays with two to four players, and it's mostly cards. Like, there's a little board that you'll put in the center of the play area because you're going to be putting cards around it. And you have, I want to say like six different suits, their types of items, different colors, and they range from one to nine. And that's the haunt value of the card. And the goal of the game is to have the collection of items or your warehouse at the end, which is like your scoring cards in your area. You want to have the lowest total haunt value. And the way you calculate your haunt value is let's

26:26 say I end up getting a purple card that's a three. So right now my haunt value is three. And then maybe I get another purple card and I like I spllay that with the purples like you kind of group the similar colors together because when you have the highest total haunt value of a particular color you attract a uh I want to say oh a collector I think yeah they're called collectors. So when a a collector comes to you like if I have the you know the highest total sum of my purple cards, the purple collector comes to me and then that purple collector while I have it means that all of my purple cards just have a hunt value of one. So I could have I could have the nine value purple card. I could have the seven, the three. not going to have all of them, but the total is just going to be one per card as long as I have that collector's attention.

27:27 So, number one, so there's going to be a competition with, you know, these different collectors are passing around depending on who has the the majority the the highest haunt level, I guess, of their combined cards.

27:42 So, that is a way to like kind of keep your score down. Also, you could just avoid taking cards altogether, but the way you get cards, you might not be able to do that. And if you're playing with someone like Mick, you are definitely going to get screwed.

28:01 Sure.

28:04 But on your turn, you basically you take one of two actions. You either appraise and that means you would add like you have a small hand of cards. I want to say like two cards in hand, maybe three. I don't remember. No, I think it's more than that. It could be three or four cards in hand. But if you appraise, you take one of those item cards from your hand and you add it and to one of the card slots to like make it uh let's say that at the beginning of the game you have five different card slots and you'll put cards there and that's like this is the auction spot. So when you appraise, you're going to add one of your cards to any card around this like central board and you just what it looks like is it's played. So you can see all the cards cuz that means it's a lot. So anytime you know there's a car one card, they're always going to be there these item lots.

29:04 Okay. The other thing you could do on your turn is just move your pawn because we each have a player pawn that's on these lots. So, you can move your pawn to a different lot that doesn't have any other player pieces. That's like what you're doing. But after you take an action, you have to check to see if any of the item lots are filled, meaning they have three cards. And if they're if it's filled with three cards, whoever's pawn is there takes those cards. So this is how Mick is going to force you to take cards you don't want.

29:42 Sure.

29:44 But the other thing is there's a card that's in the center of the board that's like we'll say the uh the it's called the auction house card, I think. But basically, if you end up taking a lot that has a the suit that matches, like let's say purple again, all your purple cards go away and that card goes away. So, you're kind of like removing values from the you're removing cards from people's potential scoring situations. And then you have so you this card rotates

30:22 the auction card because then once that happens we we deal a new auction card out and so now now maybe orange is the suit that's that does that. So that kind of fluctuates.

30:35 But but but the thing is again, you're trying to either avoid collecting cards altogether or collect low value cards or collect so many higher value cards that you can attract the collectors to keep your score low. Because the final twist is that at the end of the game when all the cards run out of the deck,

31:08 you have to add all of the cards in your hand to your warehouse.

31:13 Oh, okay.

31:14 So, you're So, you're also while you're doing all this these like little simple actions, you're thinking about which cards do I want left in hand by the end of this game. So that like when I add cuz you have to add them to your warehouse and that's going to impact your scoring you like so you're do like that almost reminded me of like arboritum where you know in order to score a certain color you have to have the most because nobody knows what people have in their hands you know.

31:44 So anyways it was it was very cool. I played we played it with uh friends of ours who aren't really gamers. So it's definitely like a familyfriendly game. Uh, I will say the art, it's Trick-or- Treat Studio, so the art is kind of uh scary, but but like but cool. Like it's not going to give you nightmares, but I don't know if people want young kids playing it, maybe. I don't know. I don't know.

32:11 Yeah,

32:12 I I really like the art on the box cover, though. This is one like you where we're playing it and it's like okay the rules are simple and then you have these aha moments like oh well he's trying not to pick up a card so if we all play do an appraisal and add a card there we're going to force him to pick up a card and again this is stuff that you're going to find out from Mick I'm sure.

32:35 Yeah for sure for sure. Well you know that's a really good one especially this time of year we're getting ready for Halloween. find those games that are, you know, in the theme of Halloween and that pretty much says it.

32:48 Yes. Yes. Yes. So, if people out there are making their Halloween game night list, Ant Ghost Show is definitely one to check out.

32:57 Yeah. And I'm I'm, you know, again, this is one that I've only played once. Both of these games I've only played once,

33:03 but I see I see them, you know, like I I see and I can't wait to play it again. Well, Stara, let's talk about worker placement games. Well, I'll start by saying like I think it was episode 23 um was the last time I had an episode that was kind of focused on worker placement games. And it was funny looking at the list that I brought then because it's so different now. Like I still love those the games that I had on there, but lots has changed, you know.

33:42 Well, you know, like you said earlier, worker placement is one of those mechanics that really drew me into the hobby. Uh when we first started in the hobby over a decade ago, I didn't know what worker placement was. It's like, what do you mean worker placement? You know, I have to learn all this different terminology. But in essence, you know, it's just putting out your mele or your dice or whatever your worker is and you're getting something or doing something when you put them in a particular location or whatever. And I love that whole uh put out something, get something back. Um, but what makes it difficult is the decision decision- making where you know, okay, I've only got a limited amount of workers and how do I maximize these workers and get the most benefit from all the work I'm trying to do in this particular round, you know, and and and that's where the decision-m comes in. And you got to think about it and you got to outstrategize your opponents because you're looking at their workers and what they're doing. I love it. I love it.

34:40 Yeah. Yeah. And to add to that is like the just the sheer competitiveness of so many of them because like you'll have the cringe moments where it's like like oh well if I if I the the decisions you're talking about they are excruciating because it's like I need to do both those things but which one do I do first and oh crap somebody did the other thing you know like like it's that that competitiveness of like that tension of like am I going to get to do that or is somebody going to beat me to it or should I prioritize that? And yeah, when you have like a limit limited amount of resources too like in terms of your workers

35:26 and there's so many now too that have

35:29 different types of workers that have you know that do different things or maybe you get additional workers or maybe you lose workers somehow. It is a really really cool mechanism. and I love it. I mean, even though in on my list, I have some of my oldies that I I fell in love with and then I have some newer games that I've learned recently.

35:51 But when I started looking at it and you know, you said five and so I know we're kind of going from our five to to our number one for right now. It was hard. It was hard because then I didn't realize how many worker placement games I actually played and love. I had to go through the list, oh my god, yeah, I forgot about that one. Oh, I forgot that one. I forgot that one. So, actually just making this list was almost like worker placement in a way because I'm trying to make decisionions. It's like you get which game gets to go on the list, you know, and I can talk them out and share with people and which one does not, you know. So, I make at least 10 games, but I hope I have a good list and and and it's just one that I think has a good variety of games. I hope.

36:34 Cool. Cool. Yeah. And I I totally agree. Even though I I do five and usually number them five to one, like it is hard to say like when there are so many that we love cuz I

36:47 I probably could have spent, you know, or I could have come up with a list of like 20 and I kind of went a little fast and loose as I was thinking of uh games because I was like, well, what have I played recently that's resonated with me and had worker placement And even though like there are certain games like Trarion um that I love and appreciate, but it's not something I get to the table often enough. So it's like I don't know. There there are tons of really really cool worker placement games. But

37:26 let's let's just jump into your number five.

37:29 All right. So let's look at number five. And this is one that I almost forgot and I saw it on my list. I said, "You know what? I have to talk about it cuz it doesn't get enough love." And so, I want to give it some love. And that's Alpu Harris, uh, from Dr. Finn Games, uh, designed by Steve Finn. It came out in 2023. It's a one to four player game. And in this game, it is so powerful,

37:55 interesting, and I think what I fell in love with, I I love little uh little mele or wooden pieces that are in different shapes, and this one shape. So, in in this game, you know, it's set during, you know, the the Arab agricultural revolution. It's a turnbased game. You know, players, you're going to move around this like uh board and you've got a mule and and you're on this action track and you've got to select different actions. So, again, making all these decisions and as you you do these actions, you're placing your farmers and and you're expanding your your irrigation. So, you perform these actions and you're trying to grow fruit. And when you grow the fruit, you've got the oranges and the lemons and all that. And when you grow it, you deliver it to the towns and you get a chance to sell it to people. I love this game.

38:44 I haven't even heard of it.

38:46 See, that's what I mean. Not getting enough enough love.

38:50 Wow. You know,

38:52 it I I need to look it up now because I number one, I love like chunky shaped customshaped meeples and everything and especially when they're screen printed, but I actually don't like farming games, but it doesn't look

39:10 I know. But but you know what made it even more intriguing is that you're growing fruit. I don't know. like the fruit aspect seems uh more fun to me than collecting wheat and stuff like that. Um but what is the t what is it called again?

39:27 It's alooharus and it's a l p u j a r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r a s

39:35 yay. I'm so glad you the first one I don't even know what it is. That's great.

39:39 Dr. Dr.

39:42 Cool. Cool. All right. Now I have to think about which one I because I Let me just see real quick.

39:51 You got to put them in order, Candace.

39:53 I I have everything in order except one. Okay. All right. Okay. Yeah, I'll do it. Okay. Well, wait. I'm torn between two. I'm gonna say Okay. Okay, I'm going to say Divvia Project.

40:16 So,

40:17 Doo, have you ever heard of this one?

40:19 I have not.

40:20 Okay, this is another hidden gem. Um, unfortunately, it is a little bit harder to find because I it was a uh Tasty Minstrel Games and Spiel Works put it out, but it's designed by Alexander Garcia. Came out in 2015 and it's another like again like hidden gem kind of game. It's plays with two to four players and thematically earth has is overpop populated but there are a bunch of new technologies that make it possible for us to build cities that are hovering in the sky. So in this game we're entrepreneurs trying to construct the first like sky city. And the thing that's cool about this game is you have this market phase where you do tile drafting and then you have an action phase where you do worker placement. And in the tile drafting part, you have like a 4x4 grid of these different tiles that you're going to be kind of competing to grab. And I just realized a connection with this in the game that I'm the next one I'll talk about that I was deciding between. Um, but anyway, you have this you have a zeppelin and then you're you're picking a row or column and depending on how far away from your

41:51 zeppelin the item is, uh, that is how you determine the cost.

41:57 So it could be one, two, or three. And it's like a game where money and resources are very very um tight. So off the bat you have this like just this tile drafting phase which is really competitive and kind of a unique mechanism. And then you have like a worker placement phase where you can like reserve plots of land, get resources, potentially buy leftover tiles from the market, or you can spend money to construct buildings. And there are a couple like special workers and like if you're the first person to place a special worker in a section, you get a bonus. And I think I think yeah, you might there might only be like one person who could put a special on each space.

42:47 Um, but then you have the, you know, then you're like kind of building up this sky city on a like a sh a shared board. And I also just love the I love the like the look of this game. But I will say the graphic design can be challenging because they like they leaned a little more into making it look cool where they could have like pulled it back a little and made it a little more functional. But it's it's not like terrible. It's not terrible. It's just like it could have been a little bit better.

43:24 Yeah. And then the last thing is there's this two-part scoring system where you're getting population and prestige.

43:36 Mhm.

43:36 But you win by having the most population, but the only way to get population is by advancing your prestige. And you have to like hit these different targets. I don't. It's been a while since I played it, but there's just a lot of player interaction um with the tile drafting choices. The worker placement is tight and competitive, and you're you're doing the thing that I love, which is like building stuff on a shared board.

44:08 So, yeah. So, this is Duovia Project. if you uh ever see it at like a you know con library or something definitely worth playing. Like it's a fantastic game and I wouldn't be surprised if we see a like new edition of it at some point.

44:24 It it How long does it play?

44:27 Um I want to say it would probably be like a 2hour game. Like it's it's it's probably like medium plus in weight. Like it's not super like hard. It's not like a Mind Clash game or anything like that, but it's um it's also not as light as something like perhaps the Apple game you were just talking about, but it but it's very very good. It's very very good. It's a nice blend. Yeah. And the worker placement is just great because of all the other stuff you're doing.

45:03 So yeah, that's the Louisia project, my number five.

45:07 All right. So now let's move on to my number four.

45:10 Yes.

45:11 Now my number four is one of those games that I learned about again we went back about 10 or 12 years when first time I played this game and when I first played it it it not only blew my mind it kind of frustrated me a bit because it was hard for me to understand it. And that is Stone Age from Hans Mluke. Uh, it was designed by Burn Brunhofer.

45:37 It's a two to four player game. It came out in 2008. And we were at a game night. Uh, we were living in Houston at the time. And we were at a game night. And the game night was being held at a little restaurant called was it called? Was it not not Taco Cabana? I think it is Taco Cabana. And And it wasn't, it was, you know, was kind of a lot of activity going on. They had the group of us in a little corner playing games. And the lady who was trying to teach us the game, uh, I think she did the best she could, but I got frustrated learning it. And I think just because I was so new, I wasn't grasping. And this is really worker placement 101. It's all about worker placement because in this game, you've got these tribes members, and you can build your tribe up to 10 members, I think it is. And you've got these different phases you're going to go through. I think it's three of them.

46:29 So, in the first phase, you know, you're going to place your workers out there to get resources, and you go out and you can go hunting, you can get uh wood, you can go get food, uh you can get stone and gold and all these different things. Um, and each round you're trying to build up your workers. You can also put your workers uh in the village where you can increase your tribe or go up the food. They have a food track where you don't have to work so hard for food because at the end of every round, you've got to feature your tribe and make sure everybody has food. And I guess that's what was getting me. I wasn't understanding I got to feed my tribe and I don't want to lose anybody. And and at some point you got to figure out what's the best size tribe that's going to give you the maximum advantage. And with when I play with my husband, he wants to get all 10 members. But I found that I work best at around eight. I don't need all 10 to get what I need because you spend so much time trying to increase your tribe that you're not putting people out there,

47:27 right? Yeah. And get tiles and, you know, get all these things and and I I love the way it looks. Um it's it's just a fascinating little game with uh putting your little meeples out there. And I I don't know the like I said the first time it kind of threw me for a loop but once I got it and it finally that that light bulb went off you know and like I said I realized okay cuz the first three times I was getting and I saw him getting 10 tribes members I'm going to try to get 10 right and I'm going to go down to six wasn't working and I fell upon the magical number of eight and I don't know about everybody else but that number

48:06 that's your number

48:07 if I can get my tribe up to eight I think you start off with five and then you build up from there. But if I can get my tribe up to eight, then

48:16 I'm golden. I can get everything I need done and that's when I can beat him.

48:22 But yeah, Stone Age is a fun one. It's I know it's an old game, but for me, I always tell people, you know, if you're a hobbyist, it may be old, but if you're somebody who's not a hobbyist, it's still new to you. Yes.

48:34 So that game is going to be fun to you. and and and I love, you know, introducing these what we call old to somebody who's never played and something new to them.

48:43 Yes. Yeah. And I it's been a while since I played Stone Age, but I loved it and I definitely taught it to um our friends Tony and Autumn when they were kind of

48:56 just getting the the passion for playing board games. And I remember it was one that they were like, "Oh, we love Stone Age." I think I might have passed my copy on to them and when they remember they came out with that like snowy version of Stony.

49:11 Yeah.

49:12 I don't like it.

49:13 Oh, really? I was like I I think I always wanted it but never actually got it and I don't think I ever saw it really.

49:21 I I love it. And and Mick always talks about the the cup that comes with Stone Age. We have the one of the old ones that has the leather cup. He calls it the stinky cup. you know, I'm I'm not trying to smell the cup. That's what you put your dice in to roll everything. I don't I don't consider it that, you know, but um yeah, I I just think, you know, forget about the way the cup smells, but I I love that we have the leather cup. I think that's very unique.

49:45 That's cool.

49:46 Have that in the game. Um but yeah, this game just it just something about it has resonated with me. It's it's gonna be beloved for me I I think forever in this hobby because there's some games that you play

49:59 that just leave an indelible mark on your memory and on you know on on the experiences that you have in the hobby that no matter how old they get, you're going to love that game.

50:10 Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, you bringing stone age up because Yeah. It's just not something a lot of people are talking about these days or at least like people in our like deep hobby world because it's because it is so old. But it is really really good and now I kind of like want to play it.

50:29 Yeah.

50:30 Cool. Awesome. Awesome. Let's

50:33 What's your number four, Candace? Come on now. You got it in order.

50:37 Yeah, I got it. I got it now. And so my number four is uh a game that I just discovered about I think e it was either earlier this year or last year and it's called Whistle Mountain.

50:50 Oh, okay. I've seen that one. I have not played it.

50:53 Yes, this is another like hidden gem, but this one is still available. I think because it came out in 2020, I think it never like fell onto a lot of people's radars. It's designed by Scott Caputo and Luke Lori and it's from Bezier Games. Plays with two to four players.

51:11 And there was a game that I think Scott Caputo did before called Whistle Stop, which I've never played. And as far as I know, it's completely different. So, I think that's another thing, too. Like, when Whistle Mountain came out, maybe people were like, "Oh, that's the sequel. If I didn't play that or if I didn't like that, maybe." I don't know. But like Whistle Mountain is cool because it's a worker placement game with polyomino tile laying in a shared space. So I just I just realized that like this is another game like Divia Project. I mean, Dolivia projects aren't polyominos, but this game thematically, uh, we're in the Rocky Mountains and there a bunch of resources and we have workers and we're going to be building like scaffolds and then uh and then we're going to build machines on top of them. So, you're doing like tile placement, but then as areas of the board get covered with tiles, you can like build machines on them and do stuff. And the the iconography and everything for this game is so excellent. you know, there there are a lot of different buildings you can get or different effects, but like the iconography is so good that like once you learn a couple things, you're like, "Oh, yeah, this does that. This does

52:42 this." So, um, your workers in this game are these three different size airships. And so, you're talking about you like the the customshaped meeples. These are wooden ships that are different sizes. And one of the things you can do is place them out like around the board. You have like regular worker placement spaces where you can buy uh machines that you want to eventually build that'll like help you in some way. You can get Oh, I don't remember everything, but you can get stuff. All right. you get stuff around the board and um there is competition to get stuff and I think certain times like if you're buying certain tiles like getting there first you have better options or you get a bonus but then also the way you collect resources is by placing your airship on to the the grid the like shared space where we're all building up this scaffolding and everything and the the resources that you cover up with your polyomino are the resources that you gain. So there are ways to like optimize and and there's a lot of competition to like place your airship in the right place to get like a bunch of cool stuff and then later as the game develops you're building these machines. So then you can place your airship so that it's touching a machine and you get to use the machine

54:13 and all this and that. But the uh the other thing that I really like is that the way the game the end of the game is triggered is by like the I guess it there's like a flood kind of thing. So on the board you're going to be gradually I forget what triggers it exactly but you're adding these long water um rectangular water sticks. They're tiles, but they're long. And you're going to be adding them gradually to represent the water rising and rising. And when the water like hits a building or something that you've done, like nobody can ever go there anymore. Like that's it's game over. And as you build a as players build stuff, that's what uh what signals the water coming out. And so it's all like a very playerdriven thing which I love. And then you also have this element of you have your your workers worker placement wise are airship but you also have little meeples that you're trying to they're working on the scaffolding and you're trying to do stuff to promote them so they can go to like one of these like retirement slots.

55:36 Otherwise, they might get flooded and then like they'll be in the like pool where I think you could save some of them in the swirl pool or or you um yeah, you could save some of them cuz I think they're negative points at the end of the game, but it's just ends up being this really uh fun worker placement game with the extra interaction of all this stuff going on in the board and knowing the timing of when do I want to place my ship to, you know, get a new building tile that's face up or do I want to go try to grab those resources? And also because of the size of each of the ships

56:20 as the board fills up, it's going to limit how you can place your ships out there. Uh because I don't remember if it was like they can't be half on a tile or half on you know there there are some placement rules where managing your your worker airships becomes important. U but I I just love Yeah, it's just fun. It's just such a fun game. It's a very like mediumweight Euro. I ended up like after I played it the first time I bought this really nice insert. So now I need to play it again. And I highly recommend it. Whistle Mountain. And you know, if you any of these games that I'm mentioning that you haven't played, I will be happy to teach and play with you at BGcon or whenever we're at a convention together next.

57:12 Okay, that would be great.

57:14 Yeah, cool. That's Whistle Mountain. All right, you're number three.

57:19 Okay, number three for me. Now, I'm doing a little something a little bit newer this time. Okay, this one on my list is one that I just thought was really interesting. It's just right up my alley. It's a city building game that has worker placement and that is called Cities from Deve. It's Phil Walker Harding and Steve Finn.

57:40 Um Dr. Finn has a four player game. It came out in 2024 and and I love cityb building games. That that would be another um

57:50 genre that or mechanic that you like. Yeah. really like putting cities together. And so they've got these different destinations you can choose, which, you know, kind of sets the tone for the game. You know, they have Sydney and and I think it's Venice and and New York. Oh, cool.

58:04 Um uh Rio and Mexico City. And so that sets the tone. It sets the the different gameplay for that particular game. And so you're drafting projects and and you're and you're building neighborhoods. And so you've got these tiles and you're going to um put them into your little city and you're going to stack your buildings up to four stories tall. So you have these cards that you can collect during the game and you can get so many points for, you know, buildings of a certain height or of a certain color or a collection of colors. They have again different criteria for you to meet. And so you're doing that. Um you've only got eight rounds to play and so you got to make a lot of you know decisions. Um, so you got the Again, it's almost like these other games I talked about with playing with my husband especially, you know, me inevitably he's going to grab the the tiles because you got to place your you got to place your workers on different rows to pick,

59:01 you know, what you want and he'll always get the stuff that I need. It's always feels that way anyway. I say he does it on purpose. Probably not, but it just feels that way. Yeah. You know, uh, but I love the way it looks. So you you can put monuments in your city and water features and parks and I always liked you know to tease you know my husband we always do a lot of trash talking in our games you know it's like you know people like my city because I have more parks than you and that's I have better lakes and you know he's like oh you know yes I just see I have better lakes you know but if I do something like that that means I have a card that has a requirement that you need to have the most water or the most you know I love those type of things. So, I'm looking for one type of thing. They're looking for something else, but sometimes, you know, they kind of overlap and it's a fun little game where you're just building a city. I love, like again, I love the way it looks, the table presence of the buildings, that kind of stuff. So, it's just it's a fun game.

59:56 I have never played Cities. And I mean, I know it just came out like a year ago, so it's not like it's been around forever, but I I heard when it came out last year at Gen Con or whenever it was, I kept hearing people that loved it and actually I was like trying to play it and I just never got around to it. But it sounds really fun.

1:00:20 Oh,

1:00:20 and I remember it looks cool. It has a cool presence.

1:00:23 Yeah, you you got to play it. It it may be too light because I know you like those heavy games, but it it's it's a fun little game.

1:00:29 I like the light I like the good light ones, too. But yeah, and also just cuz I play with so many like different people that are different levels. I like having good lighter games like like stuff like Tower Up. Did you play Tower Up?

1:00:46 I No, I have not. No,

1:00:51 I have not played it. Do you guys have Tower Up?

1:00:54 Nope, we do not.

1:00:56 Okay. It's not a worker placement game, but Oh, we need to play that. You You'll love that cuz it's it's light. It's

1:01:06 but it's there. You're building on the board and you're building these buildings up and Oh, it's so good. It's so good. that that was another last year release that was kind of a um a sleeper game until I think till Eric Eric ended up like discovering it maybe there or a couple days before Gen Con and was like, "Hey, you need to play this."

1:01:29 And it's very it's very cool.

1:01:32 Yeah. So anyway, we'll put a pin in that until we see each other next.

1:01:37 Okay. Okay. I'll keep you to that.

1:01:40 Yes. Yes. Yes. It's a It's a banger. Okay, so my number three is a game that was new to me this year, but it's an older game and it's called Argent the Consortium.

1:01:54 I've heard of that. I've never played it.

1:01:57 Yeah. So, this I figured you probably heard of it because you know I guess uh well I got in the hobby around 2018 and like when I got into worker placement games and kind of started getting into slightly heavier games, this was always on people's list as like a heavier worker placement that's really really good and I bought it at some point and was intimidated by it frankly and and I never played it until this year. And spoiler alert, it's definitely not as heavy as it felt in relation, I guess, to other games back when it first came out and stuff cuz it's it's I would consider it medium.

1:02:44 Like there's a lot of stuff, but it's not like

1:02:48 complicated in any any way. But anyways, this game came out in 2015. It's from Trey Chambers. Um, and it's

1:02:55 Okay.

1:02:56 Yeah, it's published by Did you play Spooktacular?

1:02:59 That's okay. Trey Chambers. That's why I know it. Trey Chambers is from Houston

1:03:04 and Yeah. So, we know him from there, but he also did a game that we love called Harvest.

1:03:10 Yes. Yes. Yes.

1:03:12 I love, you know, Harvest just had a remake. Uh, but I like his original version of Harvest better than the remake.

1:03:19 And you know what? I've heard Harvest is good, but farming, so I haven't played it.

1:03:26 Yeah,

1:03:27 I I I'll have to try it sometime. But yeah, that's Trey Chambers designed this one and it plays with two to five players and it's orcer placement with like engine building where we're basically part of the staff at Argent University of Magic, a magic school, and we're competing to become the chancellor. And one of the things I love about this game is there aren't really like there's no victory point track, but you have these 12 votes that are going to be divvied up for like what people are looking for in this for the new chancellor. And at the beginning of the game, you only know, I think, one or two of those because the rest of the cards are face down. So there's one that's face up. like whoever has the most influence is going to win this vote. Whoever has the most supporters or this resource, you know, they're all like kind of resource related having the majority of something. But you play five rounds and whoever has the most votes out of those 12 wins the game. And as you play the game, you'll gradually be able to like take a look to see what other people are looking for that are voting. So, and sometimes it'll be like, I know something that you don't know, but you might see like, oh, Candace is saving up a lot of money. Maybe one of those goals is related to having the

1:04:57 most money or something like that. Mhm.

1:04:59 So, off the bat, I just like it because there's no like traditional victory points and it's these the scoring is neat and there are a bunch of different cards, so you don't know exactly what's going to be out each game that you play. The other thing that's really cool is that there's a lot of variability because there are different types of mages and those are our workers. And

1:05:25 everybody starts the game with I think like two of one color and then there's like sort of a draft I believe that where you get these different color mages and they're little plastic miniatures and you might be able to like get different ones or swap some out during the game and each of those mages have like a different little ability that like oh if you place the purple worker when you're doing XYZ Z, you'll get to do it twice or whatever. Like they all have some little bonus to them that's actually very thematic.

1:06:02 And then this and then the other thing is the the game board. There is no game board. You place tiles out. So you have all these different location tiles like room tiles. And so that's another point of variability because they're double-sided and the board is always set up in a modular with a modular setup. And the other thing is this is a game because it's an older game, but also just because of the way some of the mechanisms work. You place all your workers and then you resolve starting from like the top location going right then moving down. And so the order in which things resolve like uh I don't know like something like dominant species or something. But like the the order in which things because it's like oh if I'm eventually going to try to get this scroll well I need these resources so where am I going to get that from you know before meanwhile um and there are ways that you can kind of boot players off of spaces. Uh, but it's not that bad because they get to go to like the infirmary and you you get some cool little bonus if you get knocked to the infirmary. Um, but then there's also there are like spaces where you can shadow another worker, meaning you get to do the thing before them. And often you're competing for spell cards

1:07:34 that that they're spell cards, they're supporter cards. So you will be building a tableau. And I think that's part of what looks intimidating about this game is it takes up a lot of the table, but it is just so fun. It's It's so fun. And there's a whole thing of the timing of when the round ends

1:07:57 is once everybody takes uh I forget what these cards are called, but you can choose to take one of these cards as an action. And it's like it's got something cool on it. And then, you know, people take turns. Oh, all of a sudden, uh, Mick took one of those cards. Uh-oh. You know, so you feel the round is about to end. So players are driving that, which I love, too. But yeah, it's just it's such a cool game. And I know this one should be still available, but I was so intimidated back in the day. But even like playing with my partner Matt, he doesn't like a lot of like heavy games and he was like, "Oh, this is not hard."

1:08:43 You know, so I highly recommend it. It's super fun.

1:08:48 Urgent the consortium.

1:08:51 Okay. Okay. All right. So now we are on to my number two.

1:08:56 Your number two. This is one of my favorite modern, you know, most more recent worker placement games. It's the cutest little game. I mean, the from the artwork to the whole theme of it, it's just as cute as it can be. And that just if you have the cute factor, I'm totally sold. Uh, so this one is Creature Comforts from KTVG.

1:09:21 Uh, it was designed by Roberto Taylor. Yes.

1:09:25 Uh, this game is a one to five player game. Came out in 2022 and and it takes place over you've got three different seasons that you're hitting. You're hitting spring and summer and fall. And during that time, you're going to use your cute little workers to go out and gather goods from the forest and use them to collect items that's going to improve your den before winter comes. So each round, you know, the players uh the players, you're gonna you're going to assign family members to family members. That's right. You're going to assign family members to various because that is your family uh various locations and you're going to get supplies. And so if you don't get the supplies you're looking for, like you've got these different things you're trying to do, then you gain a lesson. It's a little little token that has a little uh band-aid on it. So, it's it's just

1:10:19 it's just totally uh uh wild the way the game is. And so, some of our favorite characters, I like to play the raccoons

1:10:28 and and then um Mick likes to play the bunnies. And so, uh I told Mick that I love the raccoons because the raccoons, they've got these little paws and they can grab up stuff, you know, and and so I I always I got raccoons and he said, "Oh, no. I've got the bunny mafia." And so, the bunny mafia goes out and gets stuff. and and he always wants to have in his den um the games because in in the game there's a card that has board games. So he's going to go that every time

1:10:57 and then I like to make sure he knows me. I like to make it make sense. So I like to have you know the blanket and I want to have food and you know I want to have to make it cozy. I go for that. I mean I would love to have board games during the winter time but I I'm trying to go for making sure that my

1:11:14 first

1:11:15 Yeah. My family's gonna have blankets, gonna have maybe a rocket chair. We're gonna have all, you know, so those are things I like to go for. And I like they have different tracks and different places you can go to put your workers. And it's a combination of workers. You've got uh little mele workers and you also have dice workers. So, you've got a combination of workers that you're going to use. And And I really I mean, I love the way it looks. Oh my god, the game is just so cute. And and I I just they just did such a great job with it. And then, you know, they've got the sequel that they put out, Maple Valley, where the kids are are having a little festival. But that whole line, everything.

1:11:52 Oh, yeah.

1:11:53 Comfort. I just love Yeah. I just love it. It's just fun to look at, fun to play. I I just love it.

1:12:00 Yeah. It It's I feel like that was like one of the first more modern cozy games. And like Roberta as a designer, she is all about like bringing out cozy feelings and and you're totally right. Like everything about that game is like, "Oh, we're getting stuff for winter. I want socks. I want blankets."

1:12:25 And they have, you know, event cards and having you do different things. And I mean, the game just works well. It's just everything works so well together. And it's every time I play it, I'm just having a really good time with it. And I I love games where I can just get into the theme and I get into, you know, this is my family. We're gonna get the stuff we need.

1:12:47 I love it. I love it. And the other thing that's cool about Creature Comforts is that

1:12:53 Yeah. Because it's cartoony and light looking. There's still like a meaty game in there, you know?

1:12:59 Oh. Oh, yes. Yeah. It's not It's not like a kitty game, even though you could

1:13:05 teach kids to play it and stuff like that, but yeah, it's very very cozy.

1:13:10 Good pick. Creature Comforts.

1:13:13 Creature Comforts. Okay, so now we're going with my number two, which is a an old game that I just got, and it's almost like it almost feels like a worker placement in disguise, but this is a game called Diamonds Club. It is

1:13:32 Oh,

1:13:32 yeah. It's from 2008, and I'm pretty sure there was never an English edition printed. It was It's a Robinsburgger game that released in German and Germany and uh I think that was it. But I'm gonna talk about it because I think this one needs a reprint. It's very good and it's designed by uh Rudigerornne who's the designer of Goa and Istanbul

1:14:02 Karuba like all sorts of games. But uh this game we're in London. It's 1899 and we are all very successful gemstone dealers and we're basically trying to make our like make money from trading gemstones to build like a beautiful park.

1:14:30 Yeah, we're we're and and the park is we have our own player boards. We're going to be like collecting tiles and putting them out to like kind of build our park. And that's actually the the trigger for the end of the board or the end of the board. That's actually the trigger for the end of the game is when someone com like places their last tile on their board. I don't remember if you get one more. You might get one more round or something like that. But anyway, the thing that's really cool about this game and it also makes me think of Duvia Pro or playing this one reminded me of Duovia Project even though this is older than Duvia Project, but it's an older game. So, you have like five phases. You have five phases, I think. And the the first phase is the worker placement phase. But the way it works is you're going to be playing coins, money onto spaces. I should say this too. Every round you rebuild this central part of the board cuz they're these long slats of tiles or tile slats that you randomly put out a number of light brown ones and dark brown ones. So the order and position of different bonuses and you know what you get when you place money changes every round. So at the either the beginning of the round, I think at the beginning of the round you get income and at the start of

1:16:01 the game everybody starts with 10 coins I believe and you can do stuff to increase that. But you place a coin out on any empty space. If there are any spaces that are orthogonally adjacent that have coins on it, you have to increase the amount of coins you're paying to place your coin there. So that means on the surface, this game did not look like a worker placement game. I don't have meeples or anything, but we have this grid of stuff that we want to get and some stuff is better than others and we want to get it get there first and get there fast. But the more these coins start going on the board, the more expensive everything gets.

1:16:47 And and and the the actions you're doing are like very very straightforward. Like you could uh like some of the things you have these tech tracks. So you have three I I'll call them tech tracks, but like they're very like one of them's going to help you increase your income that you get each round. One of them's going to give you bonus gems when you get gems, and one of them is going to, let me see if I remember. One of them is going to give you more points for these forest tiles that you can build into your park. So, one of the things you could do like is when you or one of the like boxes you could put coins on is something that's going to advance one of those tracks. Sometimes it's a wild track. So then you can pick whichever one you want and those spaces, you know, like people want those. And then you also have a score track. So certain things, certain spaces you can go on advance. I think there are like there's a hat icon or something, but certain spaces will let you advance on this track for turn order for late for a later phase in the game, which is very important. And also with turn order there were like there's some other bonus like whoever's furthest ahead on this track you get a diamond crystal because you have like red, blue, green and

1:18:18 yellow I believe gems and then you have white clear gems that are like diamonds that are wild and so they are really really cool. And so whoever gets furthest ahead on this track gets a free diamond. And then you also have you have these like you can get ships mines which is how you're going to get the gems and mining rights. So there are three different types of tiles because in the next phase or it might be two phases later you then can get gems based on having a set of all three of these things. So let me give you an example. So, it makes sense. Maybe at some point I pick up a mine that's a blue crystal mine. Okay. So, I have that. Then I get a ship that's maybe a number four ship.

1:19:14 But then my mining rights, I have a a level three of that. So now I have a set. So when we go to like generate gems, I get three blue gems because you basically you need to have all three tiles and then the the color of the gem is telling you the mine you're getting it from. And then between the ship and the mining rights, whichever number is lower, that's the amount of gems you get. So there's just all sorts of things because it's like set collection, but you need to have that set to generate these gems. And then in the last phase or the last main phase, you are then spending the gems that you've acquired to to build stuff on your park. And there's like a fountain you can build.

1:20:03 Like there are like three different things that you can build into your park. And of course, because it's like a Euro game, you have scoring objectives, public scoring objectives, like the first person that builds three fountains on in their park. The first person that does this gets you're getting extra points that way. But the auction to get the pieces for your park, there's a spot like, let's say I want a fountain. I put my and I'm first because turn order matters. I put my piece down and it says for a fountain I need to spend a red, green, and a blue gem. So, I pay those gems. I get a fountain. I put it anywhere on my board. Then, Stara, if you want to build a fountain when it comes to your turn, you have to pay those same three gems plus one cuz my piece is there. and then the next person if they wanted to do that. So then you're like you have this competition over the prices of getting certain things as we're racing to have a number of these things in our park and it's oh my gosh it's so competitive.

1:21:16 It's so competitive, but it's also just

1:21:20 such a like easy design with just these three tracks

1:21:24 and and also like the forest tiles, like the third track I was mentioning, um the further you go down there, the more valuable these forest tiles are because on the back of all the other like three major types of things is just a forest. and one of the spaces during this phase where you can use your gems to buy tiles, you can simply buy a forest tile, but it's not going to mean much unless you move that track down. So, it's just like this a really really banger of a game that I cannot believe does not have a new addition. So, I'm just putting it out into the universe that I think someone should somebody should handle that like rethe it if you want modernize it. But it is such a tight game and it's very very streamlined like with the actions like I could teach you this game in six minutes. Six and a half minutes.

1:22:19 Give me six and a half minutes and we'll be playing

1:22:22 and it's it's awesome. It's awesome. So, yeah. So that's Diamond's Club. And this one was a game that I was like I heard about a couple like a year or two ago and I was just like, "Oh, nobody's selling it." Or maybe one person in Germany has it, but it's listed for a hundred bucks or something. And it came back into my mind like a month ago. And I have I was like, "What was that game?" I look it up and somebody was selling it in the States for 50 bucks. It's very good condition. Buy now. Buy now. So, I'm really really happy to have it in my collection now. And again, I hope I hope somebody remakes this. It's really really awesome.

1:23:10 What's amazing is we we're doing all these games and we haven't had one crossover.

1:23:14 I know. I know. I'm surprised. And I I know you're not gonna cross over on my number one. I don't think you're gonna cross over my number one either.

1:23:24 All right. Well, tell me what it is.

1:23:27 All right. So, I'm going back in time.

1:23:30 Okay.

1:23:30 This is another one of those games that we uh Well, actually, I think it's my first worker placement game. I played this one before Stone Age.

1:23:40 Wow. Okay.

1:23:41 And and this one took me by surprise because the theming of the game is not my thing. And so, it took me by surprise. So, I'm gonna go and tell you. I'm not gonna tease people much longer. Okay. This is Lords of Water Deep.

1:23:56 Oh, okay. I was like, when you said the theme, I was like going to guess viticulture at first, but Oh,

1:24:03 no. Lord of Water Deep because I'm not into, you know, Dungeons and Dragons. That's not my thing. My husband likes Dungeons and Dragons. And so, he said, "Well, no, it's the it's in the Dungeons and Dragons world, but it's not Dungeons and Dragons, per se, but it's in the world. And and I want you to try it." So, we were trying out this work of placement. Now, this game is made by Wizards of the Coast and and the designers are Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson. It's a two to five player game and it came out in 2012. Now, in this game, uh you you're going to you're going to have a hidden role. So, in the beginning, you're going to pick a card and it's going to be your masked lord for this particular game. And it gives you a particular power or something that you're looking for throughout the game. Um, and then as you go on, you got eight rounds. And so you're going to deploy all of your your your meuples or your agents out to uh recruit uh adventurers.

1:24:56 You're going to take request I mean, excuse me, go on quest. You're going to get buildings. They've got these thing called these things called intrigue cards where you can, you know, uh either help players or hurt players or help yourself, you know. Uh they've got um

1:25:11 uh when you're doing buildings. So, for example, when you buy a building, you can buy buildings that you can, you know, that'll help you or that will help your opponents and then every time someone comes to your building, they give you something or you gain, they don't give you, you get something. I put it that way. I love that. So, I love getting buildings that I know people are going to want to visit because that gives you more options for your workers to go to. Those buildings give you more locations and and you're waiting on people to add buildings because when you start off, you don't have but a few places you can go to get resources. So, getting those buildings out there, you can get more things.

1:25:47 I fell in love with this game. It is still

1:25:50 one of my It's my ultimate favorite. That's why it's number one.

1:25:54 I love the hidden roles, you know. I love knowing, okay, my lord is doing this. Maybe I'm looking for uh I think what do they have? Uh Arcana. uh you have different factions that are out there and you're looking for those kind of uh cards to have in the end.

1:26:10 Uh I just I don't know. I love it.

1:26:13 I don't know how how to pronounce Oh, I know what I I want to say about it.

1:26:16 What what

1:26:17 my husband he this is the first game where he blinged out the game because it comes with little cubes.

1:26:24 Uhhuh.

1:26:25 And so he got on I think it was either Etsy or I don't think it was the board game geek store, but I think

1:26:31 Source or something.

1:26:32 Yeah. and he got all of the little characters, the warriors, the priests, all those. They were made in the different shapes. And I loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Uh Grant loved it. We introduced this game to Grant when he was about 10 or 11 years old.

1:26:47 Wow. Cool.

1:26:48 We loved it. We would play this game all the time.

1:26:52 Still love it. People who haven't played it, they need to try it out. It is worker placement 101. That's the whole game. You're putting your workers out there. you're getting something and and that's the whole you're fulfilling, you know, uh different requirements on cards and set collecting in there.

1:27:09 Love this game. And again, I don't I'm I'm not an RPG person, so you know, Dungeons and Dragon is not my thing, but this game takes it to a different level. And then they've got the expansion called Skullport, which I like Skullport. I don't like getting the skulls because the skulls are bad, but I like having that option that if I really need something really bad, I may have to take a few of the bad skulls in order to get it.

1:27:35 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:27:37 Overall, the game is just excellent.

1:27:40 I completely agree. So, this was one that I remember like when I've, you know, was first out there looking for more worker placement games. It was on so many people's like top 10 list. um you know back maybe like five years ago or 10 years ago whatever but I had never played it and I think similar reasons like I was like oh you know and the whatever that theme but like a lot of people were still saying oh lords of water deep is really good lords of water deep lords of water deep and also that it's like a good intro for worker placement and so like I want to say it was

1:28:18 a year ago maybe two maybe two I played for the first time cuz uh my friend Sam has like everything for it and you know we were at a my local game convention and we were we're just like oh what do we play? Oh I brought Lord to Water Deep. You want to play? Sure. Sure. I loved it. I loved it. And that was like after, you know, at that point I had played tons and tons of worker placement games. And now Stara, you're making me want to add this to my collection, you know, like. But the the other reason I think I'm going to have to like pick this one up

1:29:00 is because I love Tyrants of the Underdark, which is the same designers. same designers, same uh D&D kind of like theming, which I don't care about either, but the game is so clean. Like I'm like Tyrants of the Underdark I would pick over like Clank in terms of having a deck building

1:29:27 over Clank.

1:29:28 Yeah, I love Clank.

1:29:30 I know. I know. I know that's not going to be a favorable answer to a lot of people. Uh, I I loved Clank, but at some point, I don't know if it's because some of my friends loved it too much that I'm like, I'm sick of Clank, but but Tyrants of the Underdark is like deck building 101, but with area control 101 on the board, and it's such a clean design, just like Lords of Water Deep is for worker placement, but it still does some things that are like awesome this day and age, you Great. Yeah, I'm gonna buy it. I'm gonna get it.

1:30:09 Yeah, Candace, I think you should have it. You should have it.

1:30:12 Yeah, I think I need to have this one, too. So, thank you for putting it back on my radar because I definitely like loved it the ve the first and only time I played it. And for some reason, I resisted getting it then, but now I know this is a sign from the universe. So, speaking of Clank, my number one is Dune Imperium Uprising.

1:30:38 Okay, that almost made my list. I love it.

1:30:41 It almost made it. Yeah. Yeah.

1:30:43 Okay, cool. Cool. Yeah, this is by the same designer as Clank. I mean, I have talked about this game many of times on the podcast. Like I believe when I did the worker placement list, you know, like 50 episodes ago, Dune Imperium was my number one. And I still think like it's not something that I'm necessarily always in the mood for because it is so competitive and like h but I love it. I love worker placement and deck building and it just like you know Paul Denin does it so great and uprising the the changes in uprising are great. I love that you could play the 3v3 mode. Um that is super cool. I love that it has the intrigue cards similar to what you were talking about with Lords of Water Deep like the entry cards. The intrigue cards and then the scoring. Oh my gosh.

1:31:42 I love that it's just like first to 10 points and every single point matters and that you have these conflicts at the end of the round and it's like how hard do I want to go for that? Oh, I can't let Stara just get get that free point and for you know or that spice like h like there's just there's so much awesomeness to it and it just has to be at the top of my list. So yeah. So that that's Dune Imperium Uprising. We had no crossovers.

1:32:16 No crossover. We could have though cuz I I looked at Dune and I do love it. I said, "No, no, no. These other ones I'm going to put on my list." But yeah, I love that game. It's a great one.

1:32:26 Cool. Cool. Yeah, that was awesome. And I'm I'm so glad that you were like, "Hey, I like worker placement games." cuz I did not realize it had been, you know, that long since I did it an EP the original episode that I did of this podcast on worker placement games. Been forever. It's been forever. And there are lots of great ones. I mean, we could talk exclusively about two-player worker placement games or like, you know, like stuff like that. Like there solo worker placement games. The Yeah.

1:32:57 Crazy. It's a huge world. Then also the dice worker placement games like you were talking about.

1:33:03 There's like h there's so much. It's it's a fantastic mechanism and

1:33:09 yeah, great choice. Great pick.

1:33:12 Oh, thank you so much. Thank you.

1:33:13 And I I will report back when I get Lords of Water Deep and pimp it out.

1:33:18 Yeah, you you have to you have to get the the custom meuples. You have to do that.

1:33:24 Cool. All right. Well, Stara, it is time for my random question segment. So, I will roll my BGG colored D20s and look at my little random question grid.

1:33:40 Oh, okay. This is actually good. This one's relevant to what some of the stuff we talked about, but which which game which board game has your favorite player pieces components? Like you love the way they look andor feel or whatever.

1:33:59 Okay, this one could have made my list as well, but it didn't. And I'm going to go with quadropolis.

1:34:08 Oh, and I'm going to tell you why. these little translucent, you know, meeples. They're they're uh what? Blue and then they've got the little red uh energy things. And the first time I saw Pedropolis, again, this was a while back, again, new into the hobby. Every mele I'd ever seen before that was wooden.

1:34:32 Yes.

1:34:33 And when I saw the little clear ones, the little acrylic ones, I'm like, "Oh my god, I actually wanted the game just because I saw the blue meeples." Yeah,

1:34:41 but I actually like the game. It's a fun game. It is a worker placement game as well. You're putting them on the little grid thing, but um

1:34:50 it has a worker placement mechanic, but I I love the way they look and I know they're just little meles, but they're just so different from other other games. I think that's one of my favorites.

1:35:00 Cool. That's that's great. Yeah, I'm always kind of curious because, you know, we we do play a lot of games and every once in a while you'll notice stuff like you mentioned like, oh, the these people had customshaped uh wooden meeples or they had like screen printed or they're huge or whatever. So, it's uh it's fun to kind of like think about what what your favorite one is.

1:35:22 Cool. Awesome.

1:35:24 Well, Stara, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I mean, again, this is something I'm sorry it took so long to like make this happen, but I'm really grateful to have you in the gaming community to be a friend, and I love what you and and Mick and Grant do. And

1:35:45 yeah, so it's good to just have you on this for once. And I'll have Mick on here, too, you know.

1:35:52 Oh, that that's gonna be a wild ride. That's gonna be wild. I can't I can't wait for you to have him on. Um he talks a lot more than I do, so I can't wait for that. But thank you so much for, you know, having me and inviting me uh on the show. It has been wonderful uh talking about something that I love. I love worker placement games. So that's easy to do. So thanks again. We really appreciate it. And we've got to play something together again. I mean, we played a game uh at BGO last year. So, next time we're together, we got to play

1:36:25 last year.

1:36:27 Yes. Yes. And it's either Tower Up, it could be Whistle Mountain, whatever. We'll figure it out. Or that Apple game. We will play something together at BGcon.

1:36:39 Okay, let's do that.

1:36:41 Awesome. You've been listening to the Board Game Geek podcast produced and edited by Candace Harrison. Special thanks to Matt Fonda for editing and mixing our music. Be sure to visit us on the web at boardgamegeeek.com. You can also find us on YouTube, X, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, and Twitch under boardamegeeek. You can reach us by email at podcast at boardgamegeeek.com. Thanks for listening and happy gaming. Lovely. Stop.