It is nice to know that I'm not the only one who finds it hard to look past Vincent Dutrait's artwork to judge a game on its own merits. His art is just gorgeous.
Pretty disappointed about this review, tend to have the same tastes as Chris usually but this time I agree with Zee more. We played this game in Cannes and it was awful, barely got any cards in our decks, the person who won didn't build his deck at all, lots of luck involved... pointless. It's pretty and I like the simultaneous play though.
I have to say this was a complete disappointment. The title, the theme, even the description guided me to a game that this is completely not. Collect cards, match symbols, get stuff...this is probably the most boring gameplay you could have with a theme like this. Just thoroughly disappointed.
Dear Dice Tower, could you please make a video about the ratings? Sometimes it feels kinda random. Like Zee's 6.5, which had an explanation of a 5, or the 8 ratings, after the relatively cold review.
So you are basically saying that this is a way to 4-5 solo players to come and play a multiplayer player game while still playing the genre of game that they love 😂
Me and my wife roasting the horrible cheap graphic design feel of this game for about 10 minutes with the video on pause -the "edgy" spray paint and stencil style on the boards, the diagonal lines on the cards, everything with this pre-adolescent style (cause "wild monkeys" right...). First thing this guy says on Final thoughts: "I LOVE the art on this game!" I know The Dice Tower is massive channel but I honestly never agree with their taste in "Art". To me it looks so cheap. 🤦
For me, this game made it way better solitary than multiplayer I like playing this little puzzle, which can be quite hard or easier, regarding the starting configuration (IA monkeys and Tiles at my disposal), Once you played it 2 or 3 times solo, the IA goes really smooth, and the pacing is nice. And the fact that you're stealing ressources from the IA is a game changer for me and the reason why i dont like the game that much multiplayers not the best, not the worst.
Played it at dice tower east and we loved it! Our only complaint is it felt like we didn't have much time to truly build up our decks and get a good engine going before someone reached 80 points. We wished it went a little longer... To 100 or maybe even two laps around the board
Well, Zee has bumped my enthusiasm down a bit while everyone else lifted them! I'm still wanting to get it at GEN CON, but it's not at the very top of my list.
Zee knocked it out of the park with the number rating, 8 is quite forgiving. It's a fine game but a soulless exercise with zero reason to play this with any other players.It's easy to teach, yes, but just play it solo, though the AI is a bit . . . . fiddly to operate. The time length is pretty extreme when you go to 4+ players for how basic the game is. What's funny is that no-one wants to buy it 2nd hand despite this being the "must grab" item at the UK Expo.
I enjoyed beating Chris and the other guys, with my solitaire play. There was a hint of interaction when we got close to 80 points, just tracking everyone else's points. By that time, I had abandoned upgrading, and just focused on immediate points. I agree with comments, that there's little incentive to do deck building. (But I only played once, so it could have been a fluke.) I only bought a few high-level cards, only raged once, and just kept collecting batteries to hit the 5-point action on the tiles. It was fun, though. This is one that may get played a lot at game groups for non-gamers, for its simplicity and speed. I'm all-in with another comment: house rule that rage can be used against another player (neighbor). I would make it a random, unseen card in their deck or discards (their choice). Choosing the most valuable card in their play area would make deck-building even more futile. The attacker should still get the benefit, for balance and incentive reasons (unless you did allow trashing one from their play area). With that house rule in mind, I will probably buy this game after all. Also, you could extend the game to 100, 120 points, or more, making deck-building and attacks worth doing.
It sounds like a fun experience. I wonder if an expansion can be nicely made to add some meaningful player interaction without losing too much of the fast game flow.
Dunno, they tried adding interaction to "multiplayer solitaire" sports like track and field, and it just led to injuries. :) (I mean, not everything needs interaction. A race to a point total is still a game.)
@@TheBrokenMeeple Yes but all the time you see people complain about multi player solitaire. Just because theres is a lot of something that doesn't mean its not underrated.Many people wont play the game at all if its like that, which to me makes it a vastly underrated style of game.
@@untilmay9323 Rightly so, I don't need games where I punch people in the face but I need to care that they are sitting at the table and making this game much much longer in the process to justify it. Lately there's been so many games quoting six players on the box for a solo only game at the end of the day. By 90 minutes of rinse repeat arrange my four cards in this game I'm ready to rage like a gorilla.
I find myself in accord with Space Biff on this one, and thus also in alignment with Zee. Smoothness of play is not actually a feature, as the flipside is lack of crunchy decisions.
This gave me serious Sierra West vibes. Most of the decision space is in that card arrangement at the start of your turn & then you just run it out. This is a little better than Sierra West in that you all act simultaneously, but that leads to even less interaction. Both games seem like they should be solo games.
It makes me think of Earth: very much head down, reading left to right, gaining stuff, swapping stuff, then it ends. Not that that's a bad thing as such. I rather enjoyed earth!
I expect Chris must've written the pun in the title, since he also references Planet of the Apes: Original Recipe in the video as well. Well done, though that pun is a reference to a 1974 movie and a 1985 song, which begs the question: "How OLD are you???" Speaking of "orange-u-tangs", what's happening to the color in this room? You all self-tanning now?
'Twas Mike, though I'm glad he was on the same page as me. Especially it's a great Simpsons reference to Planet of the Apes. The musical, not the planet.
To add some player interaction, how would you feel about a house rule where rage could be used to exile on of your cards for the benefit or to exile one of your opponents’ cards? Maybe they would get the benefit to make it slightly less mean?
Haven't played it, but I expect that for my taste the token handling (taking, returning, exchanging) would be too frequent for how quick the game moves. Like all players constantly touching hands reaching for the same stuff
This was easily my least favorite game I played at Dice Tower East. Theme and art was cool but I was so bored and unimpressed by it I asked the table if if I could leave halfway through.
