Actualol Newsletter - April 2021 (Patreon)

Ahoy Actual Heroes!

I hope you enjoyed this month’s Top 5 Games of 2020, and The Board Game Ambassador sketch. I actually wrote that one at the start of last year and it’s taken until now to work up the courage to film it. I’m delighted that people are enjoying it, and I hope to do another one when the right idea comes along.

Actual Life

Last weekend we had our first game day, outside on the balcony. It was so nice to see some gaming friends that we haven’t seen since last March! Later this month we’ll be allowed to have groups indoors - for some proper board gaming. I’m really hoping to get my first vaccine by then.

We’ve been out and about on our bikes, making the most of the stingy bursts of sunshine that we’ve had. Apparently the weather doesn’t care about our new freedoms, because we’ve had the lowest temperatures in April since 1922!

To carry us through the cold evenings, we’ve had our new TV obsession - Call My Agent (aka Dix Pourcent), a French comedy drama on Netflix about acting agents. We’ve become so attached to the characters that I’ll be sad when we reach the end.

Actual Games

This month I was sent a batch of games from NSV, the publisher behind some great small games such as The Mind, Qwinto and The Game.

They’ve put almost all their eggs in the roll and write basket, with their games Hashi, Alles Auf 1 Karte and Diceland. And they’re taking it seriously, even committing to new box sizes to accommodate high-end dry-erase pens from Faber Castell.

Hashi is from designer Jeffrey Allers (New York Slice, Gunkimono), and it’s a thinky one. You flip a card, and write the number onto an island. Then you draw the bridges, connecting up islands.

To finish an island (to score it), you need to connect as many bridges to it as the number written on it. So it becomes a logistics nightmare, making sure that each island can be fed by bridges that are connected to islands that also need them!

For this level of simplicity - it’s probably the toughest flip and write I’ve played. You constantly feel like you’re making mistakes. If you took your time, counted cards and planned ahead it would really help, but then it starts to feel like work.

If you want a tight tactical challenge, it is a solid game. I’d actually rather play something looser, like Railroad Ink or On Tour, that doesn’t require such precision play.

Alles Auf 1 Karte (Everything On One Card) was a pleasant surprise from designer Steffen Benndorf, who started the roll and write renaissance with Qwixx.

On the surface it looks like the most generic game ever (colours and numbers anyone?), but isn’t that how all the best roll and writes look?

You roll the dice trying to get groups of colours to fill up rows on your two cards. Whatever you get, it can only be used on one card. So based on your roll you need to decide what to aim for, because you can re-roll twice.

You have to take all of a colour - if you roll too much you can’t take any of it. Which is a brilliant rule. You will often push for more colours then bust yourself from scoring by getting too many.

The other players can also cross off the colours you get, so there’s room for screwage as you aim for colours they don’t need.

And, there’s incentives to finish certain rows to get bonuses - which is what every roll and write needs to get you all in a fluster (and Hashi and Diceland don’t have 🙄).

Diceland has the tragically generic look of a game designed by a bank to give away as a free gift.

And it is the definition of “solid”. You roll the dice, pick a colour and try to re-roll to get more. You need them to fill up regions of your map, to reach the treasures before the other players.

It has the same over-rolling mechanism as the last game (Diceland did it first), but that’s the only interesting bit.

The rhythm of the game is odd. The active player can take a while on their turns. But worse, when someone hits a star, they get a free treasure roll. If they cross off another star they get another treasure roll, and the other players start to feel like spectators.

The competition in this roll and write renaissance is fierce, and Diceland is less Sistine Chapel and more Pristine Apple - ten a penny.

As if that wasn’t enough roll and write for one financial quarter, NSV also has Hungry Hamsters (Hasbro lawyers on red alert), Thread Count, Honey Moon and Fency Sheep which is a better name for Agricola than Agricola.

They are four tiny, adorable roll and write games which come in tear-open paper packets to release dopamine into the long dormant football sticker collecting part of your brain.

They consist of 1 pencil (to share), one tiny wooden die - light enough for a fly to steal - and a pad of game sheets. Each game takes five minutes to play.

And....they’re better than you’d expect. But they’re still not great. When the BEST roll and write game in the WORLD, Qwinto, is only a few centimetres bigger, it’s a little hard to see the point. As a cute gift for a kid, they are very approachable rules-wise and a fun gimmick. Or if you have a need for a 5 min game. I wouldn’t recommend them to you, but there are worse, more pointless games on the market. And I’m thankful that for a throwaway game, the entire thing is biodegradable.

Games I’ve been enjoying lately

- Fairy Tale Inn

New arrivals

 - Kyoto

 - Duck

Botanik

Song of the Month: Ticket To Ride by KAWALA

Now Watching: Call My Agent, Superstore Season 2-5 😳

Now Reading: Ramble Book by Adam Buxton

May May be great for you - maybe!

Actually yours,

Jon