Actualol Newsletter - September 2019 (Patreon)

(The Best of the Month video to accompany this newsletter will be online later this week).

Welcome to the 2nd Actualol newsletter. It's been another month of weddings for me, we went to the wedding of Edd who loves a game of Spartacus, and the wedding of Emily who is partial to a party game.

And we had our second celebration of our own, an evening bash in London with our family and friends. Including a wonderful collection of gaming friends we’ve made over the last few years, most of whom are in this lovely photo. 

The board gamers did our community proud on the dancefloor, and partied into the early hours. Those late nights at conventions have done wonders for their stamina.

Elsewhere this month, something unheard of in the world of board game YouTubing happened. I was flown to Sevilla in Spain by Iello to celebrate their 15th birthday, along with 11 other European board game influencers.

Why Sevilla? Well, their new Bruno Cathala game Ishtar has artwork that is reminiscent of the beautiful Alcazar Palace gardens there. We went to visit and spent three days playing current and upcoming games from Iello.

I really enjoyed Ninja Academy - a silly dexterity challenge game that comes in a nice small box, Little Town - an entry-level worker placement game. And look out for Kitara next year at Essen which was a fun and thinky take on a gateway “dudes on a map” game. (see photo)

This month I've been working on two big projects. One is my Essen preview video. Just like last year, I have managed to play lots of the exciting big releases before the convention. I'm going to make a detailed video about why they're worth checking out.

The second thing is that I'm planning a Patreon pledge drive. It's been two years since I started this Patreon and I've been thinking A LOT about how to offer better rewards, and find ways to encourage other viewers to donate, so that I can afford to continue long term. I've got some exciting things to share with you when the time is right, but here’s a sneak peek:

There's been a lot going on! But somehow I’ve been managing to play games as well. Here are my thoughts on six games I've played lately:

Games worth considering:

Jaws is a one vs many game, based on the Steven Spielberg film. One player plays as the shark and up to three others play as Hooper, Quint and Brody.

It plays out just like the film, over two acts. The first act is a hidden movement game, as the shark tracks its location in the waters around the island on a paper pad, and tries to eat as many swimmers as they can. The hunters have tools to help locate the shark, and can deduce from where they've eaten swimmers. They are trying to rescue swimmers and fire barrels at where they think the shark is to tag him and enter act 2. Act 1 is a cute take on hidden movement games, but because it's pushing towards the shark getting caught it feels rigged - there isn't much room to go off script.

In Act 2 the characters are on the boat, and the shark player must decide from three movement cards where on the boat they will attack. The characters have to read the mind of the shark and point their weapons at where they suspect he'll go, based on the attack and defence advantages of each card. It's a neat game of outthinking each other, with a lot of luck from the dice rolling. But it lasts about twice as long as I'd like.

Jaws is remarkably well designed for a mainstream IP and does a great job of capturing its theme. It has some fun and excitement - some people will love it. But every time I played it I found diminishing returns, because it felt so samey.

Escape Room in a Box: Flashback is the second escape room game from Mattel, which comes in a big box and full of plastic containers and padlocks. It had a couple of impressive, creative puzzles that I'd never seen before in an escape room. But most of them were a little too straightforward and not that exciting to solve.

For adults it felt like it leant a little too heavily on the toy factor and showy-offy side of escape rooms, rather than on the challenge. I suspect it would be great for kids. And itcan be re-set so it can be passed on to friends to try. If this was your first escape room game you'd still love it. But there are so many alternatives available now, and the high bar that the EXIT series has set is not met by this one.

Goodies is an entry-level game about running a food court. It works in a very similar way to Machi Koro and Space Base. Every turn someone rolls the die and every player activates that numbered spot on their board, making money or points. 

When it's your turn you can spend money to buy new restaurants to place in your court so that on future rolls you'll get more. Each card has half stars on certain edges that you want to connect up to adjacent cards to give you extra points when either of those cards get triggered. 

There are 10 cuisines in the game and they each work differently. You shuffle together five each game. But the powers aren't very exciting, and the cards all feel very similar. I wish there was more variety so that you could feel clever making card combos. 

Goodies is very light, it's over before it feels like it's got going and it can't match up to the ridiculously big box it comes in. It was a pleasant time and I'd play it again, but I'd only recommend it to someone who wants something very simple.

Nagaraja is a two player game. You each have a board that represents a temple you will be exploring to find artifacts. To venture in, you need to win pathway tiles that you're competing for. Each round you secretly choose card(s), which when revealed grant you sticks to use, which are fancy 4-sided dice. You each throw your sticks and the player with the most pips wins the tile.

Except, the sticks can also grant you squiggly lines that you can spend to play action cards, which can add more pips, remove your opponents sticks, grant more cards or look at your face down treasures to give you an idea of where to put your pathways. 

There's plenty of think about it, but it all feels rather convoluted and in return for not much excitement. The theming is nonsense. It doesn't have the mechanical purity of a classic 2 player game, nor the theme or narrative of a more complicated game. 

Not worth your time:

Doctor Doctor is a dexterity game that I was really excited for. A deck of oddly shaped cards represent the internal organs of a patient you're operating on. They sit upon a plastic gurney. On your turn, you have to pull out the right selection of lungs, kidneys or hearts to meet your goal, with a pair of plastic tweezers. You have to do it all against a timer. But you also have to watch the patient's blood pressure, which are wooden cubes you stack on top of the cards. If they fall over during surgery then you've failed.

It sounds brilliant, it's such a creative use of components with a fun theme. The trouble is, it's way too hard. You can pick a goal with a low blood pressure so it's easier, but it's still too hard. We were taking turn after turn after turn and no one was getting any points. The cards rarely move independently of each other, so it's hard to pull them out without force and force will knock over the cubes. I really wanted to love this one, but it's dead on arrival.

Bargain Quest is a card drafting game about running a fantasy shop. You are drafting weapons to sell in your store, competing for the business of heroes. The player with the best items in their window will get first pick of heroes. You'll need the type of weapons they can use to attract them and once they’re in you sell them everything they can afford. 

Then all the heroes go to fight the monster. If you've equipped with them enough to wound the monster you'll get a point, and another one if they survive the battle. 

I found the gameplay here to be boring and rote. It had no exciting moments, I felt like I was going through the motions. It had none of the exciting reveal of Sushi Go or 7 Wonders, and yet it's more complicated. The way the game balances by bashing the leader each round felt lazy. Unless you LOVE the theme, this one is not worth your time.

*****

Song of the month: MUNA - Number One Fan  

Video of the month: Papyrus - SNL 

Exciting games that have just arrived: Sabotage, Pret A Porter, Carbon City Zero

Games I've been enjoying lately: Kings Dilemma, Deep Blue, Paranormal Detectives, The Sherlock Files

Old games that have left my collection:

The Voyage of the Beagle expansion for Robinson Crusoe, The Piece of Cake expansion for Kitchen Rush, Five Families expansion for Legacy The Testament of Duke De Crecy

Thanks for your support,

Actually yours,

Jon