Which ranking surprised you the most? (Remember, this was just the session, not our overall thoughts on the games) Out of these 12 games, which do you think has the best chance to crack our Top 50s of ALL TIME?
For Mind MGMT, I've found setting a timer for the Rogue Agents to deliberate makes the experience much better for the Recruiter. Otherwise you're sitting there for 5-10mins while they discuss every little thing. Not fun when there's more downtime than playtime. At a 3 player game I've found giving them 3 minutes was plenty. This is all group dependant of course
Glad you guys finally played Orleans. Trade and Intrigue does more for Orleans than Norwegians does for Feast. Mainly improving the deeds board as well as introduce Trade making the type of goods you get as well as moving around the board matter that much more. As for the rules and setup, it gets so much easier once you’re familiar with the game. The slight problem Carlo mentioned isn’t even a bother at all for getting into such a great bag-builder.
I'm so glad you guys are mentioning Victory Pints. Went there for the first time a few weeks ago. Such lovely people and so glad to have them in the neighbourhood!
Huzzah! I’m glad you guys enjoyed Good Puppers. I actually managed to track down the promo solo mode/bot deck for it for you too. I was just wanting to see how you felt about it before committing the shipping cost for it.
I haven't played Sequoia, but for those of us who love such simple, streamlined, thinky games, I highly recommend "The King is Dead" as well as "Rumble Nation" - I can't say enough to praise those two. I want to buy Caesar! - seems I will really enjoy this one (reminds me of Samurai with its 'split' area control) - Blitzkrieg did not appeal to me (not sure why, maybe less streamlined than I like?) That polyomino game with its 'touching at the corners' is a common element with "Blokus." As for the top 10/12 video format - I slightly favor having split lists, as I like to evaluate if I'm more a Dylann or Carlo gamer (though combined is fine too). I'm more interested in your dialogue (which is great) in the games you present.
Interesting review of Libertlia. I found that at higher player counts, it was way more random as to what cards other players would pick. I find myself trying to plan less due to the randomness that can happen once your cards are played. At lower player counts, especially 2, It was much more strategic to try and predict their card and try to plan for that.
To be fair, this isn't an official review, we definitely need to try it with more than 3 players before we know for sure how much we like it. But there are two things that appeal to me about playing with more players: 1. More players means more mind games when choosing cards. For cards like Wind Nymph, there are just more opportunities to get canceled out, so cards like that I find more interesting with more players. 2. The loot tokens become more interesting because there's a higher chance of variance across the tiles. With 2 or 3 players, you often don't care much about which token you get, but it's tougher to plan around that with more players. Definitely more strategic with 2 players, and it gets more tactical with higher counts. Overall I think you and I agree about how the game changes with different player counts, but I think that level of unpredictability and randomness seems to appeal to me more than you for this type of game. If the game took a lot longer I wouldn't want that randomness, but for a 45-60 minute game, and for a game that benefits from people reacting to the unexpected, I embrace the randomness here. But again, this could change once I actually play it a couple times at higher counts. Thanks for watching and for the thoughtful comment! - Carlo
@@AllYouCanBoard Awesome reply! The key thing you said is "embrace the randomness" and that's absolutely true. My first play at 5 was not fun as anything I tried seemed to fail and it really wasn't fun. The next play I went in with that mindset that it's going to be chaos. I enjoyed it more then. Still prefer more strategy and less of the chaos haha, but that's totally a personal opinion. You guys rock!
Thanks Ryan, right back at you! But yeah, I find with most games that have a decent amount of randomness, my enjoyment often depends on my expectations of the randomness. If it's way more/less chaotic than expected, my unmet expectations can lead to disappointment, but as long as I go in with the right mindset (like when I tried Cosmic Frog after hearing how chaotic it is) then I can usually get past that lack of control I have, and I can enjoy the game more for the experience than the "fairness" of it, if that makes sense.
Ark Nova at #11! 🙀 It’s my most-played game this year, and I’ve played it at every player count-absolutely adore it. Like lots of games, it does definitely help with the length if people already know the game. And I completely agree that the randomness of the card draw is a legitimate complaint. I really enjoy tactical play, so it doesn’t bother me when I’m put in the position of having to adjust to the possibilities I have, but I can definitely understand how it can frustrate people to be looking for that one more bear icon and not finding it. I’ll be curious to see what the expansion does to “fix” this issue. All that being said, it’s pretty great to be involved in a hobby with so many options-there’s something out there for every taste. 🤓
Three games added to my wishlist: Sequoia, Fyfe, and Caesar. Tenpenny Parks and Orleans are on my shelf of opportunity, so hopefully I'll get to play them soon. Winter Kingdom blew me away on first play, but the difficulty of the rulebook has been a barrier to getting it back to the table. I've only played Kingdom Builder on BGA and I think if both games were there I'd almost always pick Winter Kingdom, but there's something to be said for KB's simpler rules that might make it easier to table. I like Good Puppers for the artwork but wasn't that excited by first play. I think it's one that will get better with a couple more plays so I develop a better idea of how to strategize. I love Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest, and it's surprisingly in my top 10 per last Pub Meeple ranking, but have only played 3-4 player and look forward to trying 2 player.
Love Mind MGMT! Looks like I need to look at SmartPhone Inc if you guys like it better! Will also take a close look at Good Puppers. Holding off on Ark Nova until the hype tapers off.
To be fair, I (Carlo) definitely like Mind MGMT more so far overall. Keep in mind the way we presented these rankings is we each made our own list from 12-1 and then we aggregated the scores/placements and took the averages. So Dylann liked Smartphone Inc more, and I liked Mind MGMT more, but overall since I had Smartphone Inc at #2 and Dylann had Mind MGMT at #3, Smartphone technically won out 1st place. But also, these rankings only take into account our single individual play of each of these games over this weekend. So even though I had Smartphone Inc at #2 and I really enjoyed it, that's mostly because it surprised me and it was my first time playing. If I played all these games another 5 times each, I doubt Smartphone would make my top 3, maybe not even top 5. Long-term I think my favourites from this bunch will be Ginkgopolis and Winter Kingdom if I had to guess, maybe throw Libertalia and Caesar in there too.
Haha, not quite! He's a good friend of ours. You can see him on our 24-hour livestream videos that are on our channel from the end of May. He will most certainly make an appearance at some point in the future.
Great question! Carlo won: Orleans, Ark Nova, Libertalia, Caesar and Ginkgopolis. Dylann won: Smartphone Inc, Tenpenny Parks, Fyfe and Sequoia Dylann and Braiden together won: Mind MGMT Braiden won: Good Puppers and Winter Kingdom But I (Dylann) also brought Hershey Cookies & Cream drops to the cabin, so I think that makes me the real winner of the weekend. 😎
Original Libertalia is not asynchronous. All players draw the same cards. There's no special abilities. The artwork was realistic (better). The new mechanics of this one are interesting, though. It's too bad that you can't play this game with the old art. Either game is one of the best games of all time.
I think you may have mixed up asynchronous and asymmetrical! I literally do this all the time, haha. BGA has asynchronous Libertalia, which isn't a very good way to play it.
