Actualol Newsletter - November 2023 (Patreon)

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the games are so delightful. Let’s not leave the house ‘til May - let us play, let us play, let us play!

I hope you enjoyed my 11 Gifts for Gamers (That Aren’t Games) video. In this newsletter, I’ll be reviewing Zoo Vadis, The Same Game and Deep Dive.

Don’t let the Christmas season pass you by without listening to my definitive Christmas playlist - Jon’s Christmas Crackers.

Actual Life

It’s been a busy month of moving into the new studio and adapting to my new life there. I’m completely indebted to my friends Ben, Ben, Ben and Tom who helped me paint the room and move in my things.

After proclaiming how hard it is to move hundreds of board games in my pitfalls video, I got to live that truth, almost breaking my back in the process.

Having filmed and finished my latest video there, I’m relieved to say it’s going well. I have no idea if my studio neighbours can hear me rambling about board games for hours on end with occasional swearing - it’s probably best that I never find that out!

And I’m happy with how I’ve managed to retain the feel of the old backdrop. I find it funny that from 50,000 views no-one has mentioned the new shelves in the background - I managed to change studios completely undetected! Who said board gamers care about aesthetics?

Actual Games

I put too many Reiner Knizia games in these newsletters, but I can’t fix that today because I finally played Zoo Vadis, the best game with the stupidest name I’ve ever seen.

It is a reprint of Quo Vadis, a negotiation game set in ancient Rome that I’ve never played. But Rome and, well, people are now considered unfashionable - so it is now set in a zoo, and called Zoo Vadis - which translates as “zoo you go”. Hmmm.

The zoo is made of pathways along which you want to advance your animals, to collect points and ultimately reach the star enclosure. But to leave an enclosure and advance up the paths, you must receive a majority vote from the members of your enclosure. And what that means is negotiating with your fellow enclosure buddies, bribing them with point tokens, or making future promises (that you don’t have to keep).

It’s super simple, and I love it for that. You need each other’s help, so you’re going to have to come to some agreements. You’ve got to spend points to make points. But at some point you may decide to become a meany, blocking a vote because you don’t want them getting ahead. To have a chance of winning you have to have one of your animals in the star enclosure - which I LOVE. Because you’re always worried you won’t get there.

The unique touch of Zoo Vadis is that you each have special powers, but you can’t use them on yourself. They can only be used by other players, so you’re encouraged, nay, forced to barter with them. It’s a cool idea that works really well.

And it’s surprisingly quick, which is rare for a negotiation game. I can’t wait to play it again. Expect a video on this one in due course.

The Same Game is a party game from Wolfgang Warsch, the designer of The Mind and Wavelength - so I was obviously excited. It’s co-operative - you are each given a familiar object such as “Lawnmower”, then you’re secretly assigned a category, such as “Length”. What you have to do is come up with another object which is the same length as a lawnmower. That’s your clue. So you might say “Bicycle”.

BUT, your clue should only connect to a Lawnmower in that category - it mustn’t be the same “Price” or “Frequency Worldwide” or  “Importance to Humanity”. Because your teammates need to eliminate the categories it isn’t. So they will discuss whether a Bicycle is more important to humanity than a Lawnmower. And that’s where the game shines, those are fun discussions.

It feels like a new challenge for a party game. And it can be really hard - there was definitely some AP from players trying to think of the perfect clue. I’m looking forward to playing this one more, I don’t know where I fall on it yet. It’s got promise - but it’s perhaps not as smooth as you want from a party game.

Deep Dive is a little push your luck game in which you send your penguins to dive into the ocean and catch fish. You start at surface level, flipping over a face down token. You can stick, take the fish you found and go home, or you can twist, go to the next depth level where you’ll better tokens worth more points. You can go lower and lower, but it gets riskier and riskier as you’re more likely to encounter a deadly shark that makes you go bust and traps your penguin.

The pleasant modern touch of the game is that you’re collecting sets of three colours. If your fish tokens aren’t part of a set then they’re worth half the points. It gives you a nice incentive to keep pushing to get the colour you need.

You can also pick up rocks which allow you on a later turn to dive to whatever depth you like, so you can fish for the best stuff - effectively wasting two turns to guarantee some safety. But even going bust isn’t too bad, because it lets you skip the depth level where your penguin is trapped. And when all three get trapped they come back and bring one fish with them.

Deep Dive is wildly inoffensive. It has a nice balance of luck and decision making. But it doesn’t have a wow factor. It’s one of the better push your luck games I’ve played, but it’s not one of the best. For a push your luck filler, I’d rather play something like Push or No Mercy which have more player interaction.

Thanks so much for your support, I hope you have a great December.

Actually yours,

Jon