Yes I truly believe you can house rule the game to get more satisfaction from it. I agree the potential is certainly there, it has the bones of a really great game but just not in its original form. I'm a big believer in if you can make a game more enjoyable for you, then go for it. There is quite a few suggestions in the comments of my Casting Shadows video that hopefully will be a decent starting point 👍 I have kept both games in my collection mainly for the amazing artwork, but with tweaks there is still fun to be had with them.

Mate I was at Pax Aus on Friday and Saturday 😁 Yeah loved seeing it setup for people to play. Like most of the new versions of Catans, it's just more of the same formula with extra twists but that's not a bad thing!

Haha thank you, yeah our chihuahuas often make a little surprise cameo 😄

This is great, I will keep an eye out for this game. We are always on the look out for new additions for our family 👍

There is another game on KS currently and again people continue to back them. After the last 2 Unstable releases, I am shocked so many continue to back the game without proper reviews. I am not saying it will be bad, but I am now very cautious. The lack of playtesting is obvious, I just hope they will one day learn and improve. As you said the artwork is fantastic, so they just need to improve the gameplay to match the production and art quality.

@@BangersProject I think it's just the artwork that's selling. People see pretty and buy without thinking about gameplay. The add-ons definitely give that impression at least: it's figurines and standees and stickers and playmats--accessories rather than gameplay. All the more so for cryptids, since cryptids are having a popular moment and people who aren't even into games will buy it just because it's got their favorite creature in it.

Thank you so much for this. I am about to return from holidays and am keen to do a full video on Nekojima when I get home. This is such a great party game that needs more love. Really appreciate the comment and hope you my future videos 👍

I play 2 handed quite a lot, normally this is my go-to on my very first play to learn the game before I play the solo mode. Wyrmspan is mechanically better in lots of ways, but I struggle to relate to the dragon theme. I know I am biased because I have always loved birds. I reckon half my photos on my phone are random bird photos 📸 😁

Hey mate, the other 2 are brilliant! Trains especially is a very underrated deck builder. Yell out if you ever want to borrow them to try them out 👍

Thank you so much, the holiday is nearly over and the realisation that I need to properly finish my cull. The hardest part is I think I could justify in my head an excuse to keep every single game. I need to change that thinking. I was considering something like I keep my top 50 games in each category (solo, playing with kids, playing with my partner, and playing with my games group). That should halve my collection but it's going to be super tough. In regards to selling, I don't like posting games, so often sell in my local board game buy, swap, sell facebook group. This way it's all local pick ups.

I think a lot of people fall into this category. Having variety in game choice is a great thing, but I am way past that stage. I am ashamed about the quantity of games in my shelves that may not have been touched in a while (in some cases years 🫣)

Sorry been away on Holidays and catching up on the comments. I reckon I did the exact same thing when I first started playing as well. Changes the game a lot as you can keep planning around those remaining tiles. All the best with it 👍

Haha thank you for this comment 😃 I think collecting is definitely healthy and another great way to enjoy this wonderful hobby. But my problem is I do struggle to let go, I wish I had the willpower to just keep my absolute faves and keep it properly curated like yours. I have a really hard think while on holidays, my plan when I get home is to sell 100 games. It's going to be tough but I want to categorise it out. My best games for family, 2 player with my partner, solo games and strategic games with my friends. If a game doesn't rank high enough in one of those categories then it's time to let go. My shelves will thank me for this 😁

I think for me once I started finding gaps on top of other games to squeeze in to fit more games, that was the moment I realised I have a problem. I have 6 shelves that will comfortably fit 300 games. I realistically want to get rid of 100 games when I return from Holidays and keep it around that number.

@@BangersProject good luck 🤞 (SO many good games coming out soon 😜)

Sorry, I only got internet to be able to reply. I think I had that plan a while back when I was on about 100 games, but instead caved and brought a new shelf. Now have 6 shelves lol. This video was just my original starting point, realistically I need to get rid of 100 games and will tackle that when I get back to Australia. Finding 10 games was tough, letting go of 100 is going to be brutal 🫣

Hello, my apologies I am currently on holidays in Canada and only got internet access. My preference is Dawn of Humankind mainly because it's got more complexity. But New Energies is a lot closer to the original Catan in the core mechanics and gameplay. If you want something more challenging and slightly different to the original game, then I can highly recommend Dawn of Humankind. I hope that helps 😃

Omg you would think that I would love Root but for whatever reason it just didn't work for me. I'm actually so much more excited for the Root RPG that's on Kickstarter at the moment. I don't have any RPG friends but really want to try this somehow.

Really appreciate this comment and my apologies if I got this wrong

Amazing, thank you for the comment! Yeah I reckon if you just go in and enjoy that wonderful story then it's definitely value for money. Glad to have you on board 👍

Flamecraft is so amazing, such a great choice to start your collection. I will assume Wrymspan will get expansions one day, but for now Wingspan has 3 really solid expansions and a 4th one on the way. I like that Oceania and Asia really do bring new features to the game. You can't go wrong with Wrymspan or Wingspan but I still very much prefer Wingspan. All the best with your choice 👍

Hahaha 😂 well it seems I have now un-matured and looks like I am back to board game videos again. It was a very quick retirement 😁

I love Japan so much, I cant wait to come back and visit ❤️ thank you so much for watching my video. Im super excited to hear your thoughts on Kanban EV when you play it 👍

Hopefully the kids really enjoy it. Our eldest is really enjoying it but she also loves the collecting aspect. The Disney theme really opens this up to a wider audience.

Setting up for solo mode the first time is probably even more tedious than for multiplayer! Because if you don't absolutely have all the rules memorized for the multiplayer, you're going to find yourself going back and forth between the two large rulebooks. This game already takes up so much space (my entire medium-sized dining table). I do not have room to keep two open rulebooks on top of everything, even one open rulebook is pushing it! I have to use three different chairs as additional "table" space to set rulebooks and guides and box on top of. It's absurd! My housemate is gone for a week, so I'm planning to play it multiple times this week so I can memorize all the rules better bc I last played this 3-4 months ago and it feels like I'm starting over again, or worse! What's insane is that I still haven't even "unlocked" any of the extra material suggested after first game. I cannot even fathom if they had us unboxing it all at once.

Finished my first game of solo mode. That took all day. Partly because I didn't have another person to avoid analysis paralysis for. I won 39 to 26 using all the easy mode options, but I'm sure I didn't play it entirely right. Couldn't remember if one rule I remembered was actually in the rulebook or if I'd kind of just assumed it, but couldn't find it anywhere in the book when searching for it. Do players get the melody shown on the crest track at the beginning of each song phase? By the time I started revealing the blue gems on the track, I figured that was the only possible significance... though it did turn out that there was one other use for the melody on the tracker in solo mode, which was to determine how much to spend on challenging the Rival.

Amazing input. Yeah I know exactly what you are talking about starting on location and moving to a region at the start. This confused the hell out of me. I certainly apologise for any mistakes. It was a real tough one to wrap your head around some of the rules. I will definitely try better moving forward.

Mate this is super helpful for others. I really appreciate the time you took to outline all these points. Definitely the most complicated and convuleted solo modes I have played for a long time.

I actually really like that as an idea as well. I will need to go back and give this another try 👍

that's incorrect

Amazing, mine is still on order. Haha it's only a single dice but I'm excited to finally get it 😁

I have really enjoyed the story, who would have thought a lizard and a frog could get themselves into so much trouble 😁

I do apologise it was going to be a longer video but I realised it had spoilers in the Noko & Umi story, so after I cut that out it trimmed the video a fair bit. But really happy for the opportunity to help show off this wonderful expansion and game. It's still sitting on our games table as we want to keep finishing the story, super addictive stuff 👍

Thank you so much for the comment. I think it's nice to have variety out there, my taste is definitely unique but hopefully people find some great suggestions in this list 👍

You are right it's truly beautiful artwork. I still use my neoprene mats for other games just because I love the look of the characters. But yeah can totally see how the fighting with the kids could happen lol can be frustrating 😁

Thank you so much for the comment. I do like to try and simplify things to make it as friendly to new players as possible 👍 Such a great game!

Thank you so much for this. Some of our biggest questions revolved around ongoing resource cards and timing of the resolution, basically when should the ongoing effect finish? For the ones that affect a particular soldier, we played it as when the adventurer left the space (or if the soldier moved away from the adventurer) then that ongoing effect ceased. I will provide you more specific examples via email. Another one which seemed so obvious in hindsight was the Tuatara Pirate and shoot the cannons in Scenario 2, it seemed logical that the cannon shoots the land but we were confused because the pirate has a range of 2. We then saw the dice rolls on the land spaces but there was confusion initially. A lot of simple things like this that we can fill the FAQ with. I will make time to send proper list of queries to add to the FAQ. This will really polish off an amazing gaming experience.

@@BangersProject Will add these to the FAQ!

Spirit island was a good comparison in basic theme but the gameplay is very different. Peacemakers is lighter and easier to table then Spirit Island and has cute animals 😁. Both games are pretty tight mechanically and does give me similar feels of requiring proper co-ordination to achieve the win. The idea of increased fear in SI and the horror cards in Peacemakers achieve the same purpose of escalation of game arc, but again it's friendlier in Peacemakers. I think Peacemakers is perfect at 2 players so I still think it's worth trying with your partner. One last thing to note is that Scenario 1 is a bit vanilla as it's teaching you the game, the real fun begins from Scenario 2 onwards. Let me know if you pick it up, I really do highly recommend 👍

Simplistically you are right, though I truly believe there is more strategy than this. Getting rid of wagons fast is one thing but having a proper goal on how best to utilise them in as an efficient manner is where the strategy comes into play. Appreciate the comment 👍

@@BangersProject if we are going deeper in strategy.... that's my way of thinking about Ticket to Raid (it's simplefied way of thinking): Pick two long tickets (if we are talking about Megagame it will be three tickets the best option is if this tickets combine with each other, in next step try to build routes in perfect world it would be longest routes but in reallity it's easy to block you this way and it's risky also it's rlly time waster so you will probably will take routes that are shorter or just avaible. In proces if you will starting to draw cards (from market if you need anything from top of deck if it's nothing interesting) you will probably end up to be forced to take some routes bcs other players behavior if you will be not threatened by other players you just keep drawing cards. Your in game decisions will be splited by two options: Draw or put wagons bcs you felt threatened by oponent behavior When you end up you ticket it's good time to use rest of your card you didn't used to stretch out your route by adding long routes (6 squers) nearby route you already had... and that's it, at the end you will try to use unused colors and oportunites other players gave you to flush out all wagons by using cards you have to complete your routes and add more in best case scenario 6 squers (but often just look for longes routes possible and available to combine to route you already have) to collect many points you can and to force fast end. You will get lot of points for ticekets you will have a lot of points since you will be collecting them during game by taking long routes and you will probably get (that's the goal)bonus from longest route. If you are playing with Megagame you will porbably not get bonus from the biggest number ticket recieved but you will probably out scale with points, wagons and with tickets your opponents.

So appreciated thank you. I really did enjoy this one, definitely more then I expected. But what I didn't expect was for my partner to love it also. A real hidden gem that deserves more love!

Haha you were quick 🤣 love it!

@@BangersProject haha! What do I win? 🏆🤪

Lol for now all I can offer is an expired coupon to a theme park that has since shut down 🤪 Its value may be nothing but a winner is still a winner and no one can take away that sense of pride from you 😁

I much prefer Here to Slay, I find the dice rolling a fun aspect and I love adding the items to my party to modify rolls. Not as much of a fan of the 2 separate win conditions though. But in saying all that Here To Slay is my favourite Unstable Game. Both Casting Shadows and Command of Nature are nicer looking games and decent enough follow ups in the fact they offer very different types of gameplay. The problem is both these games feel like there was no playtesting in the designs. A lot of very simple niggly things that should have been ironed out prior to release means they both fall short in my books.

Really useful comment

All of their games have great artwork, it is so easy to fall in love with this. I think this video just helps in understanding the gameplay elements and if the game is right for you or not. A lot of people will still really enjoy this game and others like me not so much.

You are right I did miss improv. Just shows how broad party games can be. This weekend we are playing with 7 people, so I need to go through my own video for inspiration ideas 😁

Haha but how can it be no when it's a very big yes 😁 appreciate the comment though

Mate, I so wish we got to meet at PlayCon. I will be there next year for sure, so let's catch up and play a game next time 👍 I didn't back this game after what happened with Casting Shadows, but instead got offered it for review. I was really keen to check it out as I felt Casting Shadows was a bit outside of their design wheelhouse, but a card game is very much what they do. So I had some sort of improved expectation going into it. Sadly while it's good, it's far from great. Again just those niggly things that I believe could be easily fixed. I believe they need to playtest this with people who aren't loyal fans, who can be honest with feedback. Again so much potential but sadly misses the mark.

Really appreciate the comment Dean 👍

Haha sadly all my games play under 8 hours 😜

Haha I hope I didnt hurt the wallet too much 😁 Wingspan just keeps me excited, from solo to all the expansions. Looking forward to the next expansion, though it's felt like a really long wait. Appreciate the comment and would love to hear if you get to try any of those other games 👍

Unfortunately this is one game I am yet to try. I have such good things about Obsession, so I very much want to try it. Any games I don't own, normally at least one friend has a copy but in this instance not. I am going to Pax later this year, I will see if I can bring home a copy. You had me at a Distilled Lacerda like game. Really appreciate the suggestion 👍

@@BangersProject ooh! Lucky you that you'll be at PAX, I can't make it myself cuz of work 😞 ... thank you for taking the time to reply to me : ) , and yes I am very confident that you will like Obsession, if you can , try it with the upstairs and downstairs expansion, which just basically adds some extra workers with different abilities, it doesn't change the game all too much complexity-wise, but it gives you a lot of flexibility with thoae new workers, also try to find a player aid on BGG with a diagram of which servants (workers) can step in to double as a different type of worker, that is very helpful on your first plays , enjoy!

You are an amazing sales person cause I really like the sound of that expansion as well 😁 really appreciate the explanation

I finally put in my ticket with Catan to get the correct dice so hopefully it turns up one day. Amazing how 1 mistake like that can change a review so much.

Super appreciate it. It's a tough one because there is nothing wrong with the game, it's just my heart keeps drawing me back to Wingspan 🐦

Heya Paul, amazing you got to see this video. Such an incredible design and concept. Really looking forward to getting my Fall Flavours expansion to the table ❤️

@@BangersProject oh awesome. I’m excited to hear what more people think on the expansion.

Honey Buzz looks like a sweet game. As a stamp collector, I can’t wait to get Stamp Swap !

@@dantheboardgameman9593 ohhhhhhh yeahhhhhh. Big thanks.

Thank you so much Jordan. Was a lot of work but I'm really proud of the end result. I'm going to try and do more of these types of videos in the future as tge feedback has been super positive 👍

Can't wait to see Lands of Galzyr get even more love when people see the upcoming expansion ❤️