Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Dratnik and Friends official podcast, where we peel back the curtain on puzzle games and the people who make them. I'm Alan, the head Dratnik at Dratnik and Friends, and today I'm joined by two Dratnik co-hosts. Mari, our studio manager. Hello.
Speaker: And Rachel, our marketing manager. Hello. Oh, that was so much more energy. Should redo my hello? Different energy. No, no, no. We're leaving that in. i So today we wanted to chat about some board games we've been playing recently. We had a a little board game digression on a recent podcast um where Soren shared a lot of detail about Yu-Gi-Oh!,
Speaker: And ah i I play lots of board games. Other people here play lots of board games. We thought we'd chat about board games. oh um Does anyone have anything that they're just like raring to start with?
Speaker: Well, I think what's interesting is that we three, I don't know both interest in board games, like where you are on the board game scale. Cause I feel like it's interesting, right? Cause people can be like, I'm into board games, but it's like, okay, are you into like six hour nonstop, like really intense board games or are we more like, oh yeah, quick 30 minutes. Like I have no idea where you two land. So this is really interesting. Cause you've also not talked to each other about it on purpose. I feel like. We didn't do any prep, but I do play board games regularly with Alan. So I do feel like I've got a good sense of what Alan likes and the same.
Speaker: Yep. Mari, what's your sense of my taste? Yes, read each other. and Let's go. Oh, but here's the thing. You get board games out for me that you think I'll like. So in my head, I'm like, oh, he loves like the logical deduction, thinky games, like chronologic. But actually I'm just listing my favorite games there because I do them. Yeah.
Speaker: I can picture Alan's board game shelf and it is incredible, by the way. It's like one of the biggest board game shelves I've ever seen anyone. And you swap them out lot regularly, right? Like if something doesn't to cut do. There's a lot of churn. Oh, Yeah. I'm ruthless.
Speaker: I mean, I have to be ruthless because I buy too many of them and there is only a finite amount of space on the shelves. um And so i i i I buy a lot of secondhand board games when I like spot them for cheap or um I do a lot of trades.
Speaker: There's like this thing on Board Game Geek called the UK Mass Trade where you you can like add a bunch of like, here's a bunch of games I want to trade. And then you go through everyone's list and like, oh yeah, I would trade this for that and this for this.
Speaker: And I, every couple of months I like swap in like eight to 10 of my games, eight to 10 of other people's games. Whoa. Okay. So that's a big tune. We're not talking like one or two. We're talking about like, how does that work? How does that economy work? Like, is it done by the price of the game or is it done by like how much fun you had with the game? a little complicated, but but essentially you're only ever doing one for one trades.
Speaker: And so there's a lot of math in the back end to like figure out after everyone's uploaded the trades they'd be happy to make. It figures out, okay, how do I maximize the number of trades, which is pretty clever. um But on a case-by-case basis, you're just figuring out like, oh, in my heart, would I be happy to lose this game and receive this game?
Speaker: You must have some that are like permanent additions. Like you're like I'm not, this is game. And how many of those do you have? Oh, probably a hundred. i have like Only a hundred. I didn't i didn't say only. i did not i did not say only. I'm well aware I've got a problem. No, I have i have like 200 games in my collection and probably about a hundred of those are like, no, i this is i want I want to keep this. And a hundred of them are like varying levels of like, well, if the right offer came around, I would trade this. But like all the way to like, I think this is terrible and I will, i I'm actively trying to get rid of this.
Speaker: Oh my God. And how long have you been collecting those for then? Like, God. Kind of. Since you were young? That's crazy. No, like maybe five years because before that I was like a nomad. So I had...
Speaker: I mean, when I was a nomad, I did have like a collection of board games, which I would take around with me. I had like a very cool system of like, okay, well, these are all the portable game, like, like tiny box games that are really good bang for buck, but I would like figure out clever ways of packing them.
Speaker: So I would have like, okay, well, this game is kind of spacious and efficient, but it can fit within the box, all of its own components, plus the box of this other smaller game. And then inside that smaller box, I can also squeeze in the components of this third game. And so it's like kind of this Matryoshka doll of board games.
Speaker: ah This sounds like a video game waiting to be made. i know! Like a puzzle game of fitting the most board game per board game into your board game collection. So what's your board game collection like Mari then? What are we talking with you?
Speaker: Well, at the moment I'm in the process of moving house. So I think in my parents' spare bedroom, I've got maybe eight to nine boxes and they are all almost entirely full of board games. But why I tend not to keep- Eight to boxes sounds like a lot of games.
Speaker: If you think about the size of them, like you've seen like the size of some of my board games and that's like half a box already. um I tend not to keep ones that okay I okay dial back for a second my favorite genre are the ones that are like escape room style games like kind of puzzle tales that you can only really play it once but it's like full of puzzles and it gets you from A to B I keep those because I never know when I might want to like refer back to a puzzle or reference something so my board game collection is 90% games I've played and will never play again But if I have people over, I'm like, oh, yeah sit down, let's do this. or There's a really good puzzle here. I want you to see it.
Speaker: And then my other small collection is just, yeah, games that i would play regularly. And that's like maybe seven board games. So I think I could tell you my top seven because they're the only ones that I actually own, I guess, but. Yeah, that's how I split my board game collection and i stand by it. So and right before we jumped on this call, I was talking about my backdrop is usually of the board game collection. It's all the puzzle board game collection. So yeah, I'm a bit of a weirdo when it comes to that.
Speaker: ah Very on brand. I for me, I'm yeah not like you both at all. I feel like I, so i am my and my partner Henry, we have we have a shared collection and we have maybe...
Speaker: 15, possibly 20. We've kept it because we're the same, Alan, is that we like getting secondhand as well. And we haven't done this anymore in a while, but we used to go to ballgame cafes and play games there. And so we didn't, because so a lot of times with me, i want to play a ballgame, but not necessarily like maybe once or twice. And then I'm kind of over it. And then if I really like it, then...
Speaker: either buy it secondhand or normally I like buy it firsthand. Well, I haven't bought anything on Kickstarter for a Maybe we can touch upon that later. But the ones that i I've really liked, I've bought Kickstarter and then back to those and those have arrived. But yeah, ah in comparison to you both, very humble collection of board games that, uh, yeah, I have, but I love them all. That's the thing. I think,
Speaker: With mine, it's like, it's just for me, like the best of the best, because I feel like if I don't, if, even if I, I was just talking to Henry literally the other day, I was like, we're not playing this in the while in a while. Should we just donate it somewhere or just like sell it? I don't know. Like I'm very much just like one in one out or just, I just, I don't have the space as well. Yeah. Sounds like limited space situation. They're big. They're big. You just need more shelves though.
Speaker: Yes. More shelves. I could say the same to you, Alan. You can expand your collection to 400 games just with another shelf. I could. I shouldn't. I should not.
Speaker: um Yeah, on Kickstarter, i I haven't backed anything on Kickstarter in a long while. I think it's there's very rarely a game that's like, oh yeah, I'm definitely going to enjoy this a lot.
Speaker: I think it's generally better to wait until the reviews come in and go like, okay, is this is this a must have? um That said, might have to break that rule for the Bub With You board game.
Speaker: Yes, that looks good. Um, actually maybe this will be coming out around the same time that Kickstarter goes on. That wasn't planned, but, uh, that's, uh, yeah, I think it's, I think it's in a couple of weeks from when we're recording.
Speaker: Um, oh everyone go check that out. We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah. yeah Um, I haven't played it recently, but like the designer behind the board game, the, the barbecue board game, he did another one that I played.
Speaker: so the designer is Peter C. Hayward. Um, and I i played his game that time you killed me. um Which was ah super interesting. It's like an abstract two-player game, like kind of chessy. Like I'm going to make a move and you're going to make a move and you're trying to kill the other player. um But with time travel. um So it's played across like three boards.
Speaker: and Oh, this is cool. And changes to one board, like like go go forwards and affect the next board. Oh. and i really loved it conceptually and then every time I introduced it to somebody they bounced off it and like why are you making me play this which is a ah real a real shame. was actually reading the other day that you're you're not it's it's got like different chapters so you you like it has different modes and like you're introducing new concepts each time and the first thing it introduces is like um These trees that you can like um push over and roll around and crush people with kind of like Monster to Expedition. Oh, cool. But I think I maybe played like without that first module um a couple of times. And I was recently reading somebody say, oh, no, the the rule book says you shouldn't play without the modules. It just explains the base rules so you understand what you're adding the extra chapters on on top of, but you're supposed to always play with at least one chapter. So if i if I did do that, then that's maybe my bad for why people were having a terrible time.
Speaker: um But I mean, i don't I don't understand why people in my life would not want to play a highly thinky strategic game with me. And that's obviously that's obviously going to be a fun experience for all involved.
Speaker: fifty Did you ever play Message from the Stars? Because that's one of the ones on my list that I think I might have lent it to you. And that I would definitely wouldn't category as like high, thinky, cerebral and everyone I played it with banned stuff.
Speaker: And that's why you own now, think. No, I gave it back to you. Oh, so it is in one of my boxes. There you go. That's my eighth game the box. Yeah, no, we played that together, right? And then I also did play it once with other people. And yeah, like they kind of bounced off it. But I think that was user. Like we gave, so that game is like a one V many, like one person is the alien and they're kind of like giving out cryptic messages and everyone else is trying to interpret those. And like that game is very- Oh, I like those kind of games. It's very dependent on the alien player. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: playing well and in of like Mysterium yeah kind of one player giving clues but harder yeah it just it looks um it looks difficult I don't know if it's that difficult, but it is it is possible to kind of screw up.
Speaker: Also, we screwed Setup, which we were playing with, like, weirder letters than we were meant to be, and that totally broke the game. So I don't blame the game in that case. I think we just failed to set it up properly and then gave the alien role to the wrong player.
Speaker: um But... Yeah, mean another game, i mean, I think we mentioned this before, like i on on the podcast where we're talking about Yu-Gi-Oh, I mentioned the game um Mind Bug, which is another game think is really interesting. But oh every time I try and play it with somebody, they've kind of bounced off it. I'm like, I'm not enjoying this. Like, no, this is is interesting stuff here. I'm seeing a common theme here, Alan. I'm sensing something.
Speaker: this There's also plenty of games that I ah like and that I can find other people who also like them. it's i'm not I'm not just this no lonely board game. home like No, come. Come back, please.
Speaker: What's the premise of Mindbug? I've never heard of it. Yeah. um So it's kind of a two-player dueling game of like, oh, I'm going to play a creature to the battlefield or I'm going to attack with one of these creatures. But it's kind of got a gimmick where all of the creatures are like...
Speaker: really broken and overpowered. um And so it's very easy to feel like, oh, you're just crushing me. There's nothing I can do here. Except that throughout the game, you have two uses of the power where when somebody tries to play a creature to the board, you're like, no, i'm I'm attaching like a mind controlling bug to that. And it's going to come over to my side instead of yours.
Speaker: um Which means that even though lots of the creatures are like really terrifying, You've always got this thing in your back pocket of like, well, no, that's too scary. i want it to be scary for me.
Speaker: o um But you can only use that power a few times during the game. So you need to figure out when is the right time to use it. o Very Yu-Gi-Oh. I see why that came up there.
Speaker: So I guess it's not surprise to anyone, Alan, that your your preference for board games are very thinky-forward, logical, puzzle-focused. I have a lot of those. I do like other games. um i i i I kind of say I like to try anything once.
Speaker: And there's lots of games that I've tried and I'm like, yeah, that's not for me. But um i I do like i I play a lot of games with my housemate and she is much lighter in taste than me.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. And so we we play a lot of stuff that's like thinky, but not too thinky, where it's like pretty... ah the The options aren't too overwhelming.
Speaker: There's only a limited number of options at a time. And maybe there's not too much way to take that stuff. um So stuff that's kind of like a little bit thinky, but not like, oh, I must think for five minutes for each turn.
Speaker: Oh, God. Oh, God. See, I, again, my partner's very much more thinky and logic and any game where your turn takes over five minutes, I cannot.
Speaker: I cannot. I'm like, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. already know want to do for my turn. But I guess it's because I'm... I like a lot of lighter board games. I'm very much in the Wingspan, Everdale, pretty cute, adorable creatures building a something or other. Like I just, yeah, I'm very, I i think when I play a board game,
Speaker: My preferences are, it looks nice. Unfortunately, that's very high up for me, probably more than it should be. That it's either co-op or, this is to sound like I'm such a baby, but non-confrontational. Like, I don't want anyone messing with my shit. And I think I can play other games like that. It's just, I really like to play...
Speaker: non-combatitive board games i just i'm just a bit sensitive maybe i'm like don't fuck with my shit please but um yeah have you played the stardew valley board game because that sounds like you're just describing that one to me and it's gorgeous Yeah, how is it? Like, oh, it sounds really fun. It's one of the games I love the most in the world. And it's very unthinky, but it's collaborative. It's sweet. It mimics the video game perfectly. You can have up to four people running your farm and then you can divide sort of what you do. So one of the persons a minor, one person is a fisherman, one person something else. And you just sort of move your character along a track and do the actions. And it's quite punishing in that it's very easy to lose. But it's so nicely collaborative and they've like balanced the collaborative aspect in a really nice way. I do like collaborative ballgames, yeah. Yeah. The idea is you've got a certain number of days in the world and that's it. And you can sort of set up your little day deck, like your year. And you flip the card over. Oh, day one of spring, day two of spring. And you're sort like, oh, it's all fun and games. And suddenly it's day one of winter and everyone's like, no, quick, get the mind. We've got to do everything. Like, it's delightful. I highly recommend it. I think you'll love it. Yes. I've had that one on my radar for a hot minute. But again, it was like when it came out, was like, well, it's a video game adaptation to a ballgame. Like, oh, how's it going to be? But yeah, I think you and like everyone else is pretty good.
Speaker: Pretty great. so Takes a long time. A lot of setup, long time, but very rewarding when you do play it. Oh, nice. Yeah. um Speaking of video game adaptations to board games, um there's two more I want to bring up. One I've played and one i haven't. um The one I've played is Dorf Romantic.
Speaker: That's like such a perfect transportation of the video game gameplay to a board game. It's it's basically the same thing. yeah It's very relaxing, um very charming, and yeah, just just just lovely. And it's got like a little, think it's got this is like upgrade tree where like the more you play, the more um missions you so you you you unlock. And then that lets you open a box and get new components and the gameplay will like vary like that. So haven't, I've only played like the first couple of scenarios, but like it's, yeah, it seems like it's,
Speaker: Got a nice sense of like giving you more and more like gameplay concepts to play with as you play it more and more. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that about it. Okay. Yeah. Like not, not quite a legacy thing, but like, just like, yeah, you're, you're, you're adding more stuff as you, you play.
Speaker: And then the other one, i don't know. Have either you played, um, Slay the Spire, the board game? no No, I want to though. I love i love the video game.
Speaker: Oh, you do? Yeah, I have not played it. Yeah. I've not played the video game as much as you might think. It's like, it's it's it's it's too much my share. Like it would just would just steal my time. I'm i'm aware that it's a danger, so I'm not just not going to touch it. ah But the board game's got like really, really positive reviews. I'm really intrigued by I think I have an impression it might be a bit mathsy, right? Because when you're playing the video game, you play a card and everything is done for you. But if they transpose that to a card game, I imagine you'd sort of play your card and it's like, oh, hold on a minute, add four, minus one. Like i see it where it might have pitfalls. That said, I've also not played it.
Speaker: They might have smoothed that all out. I think they like changed the numbers so they're smaller in the board game, which makes a lot of sense. Oh, okay. okay Like if something is 80 in the video game, it'll be like 8 in the board game, which I actually think is like good game design for video games too. like i' give me I love small numbers. um like Michael Bro's stuff is like the epitome of this, but like yeah, I think... ah You just end up with more elegant systems with smaller numbers than if you go like, oh, well, yeah, this could be 80 or 85 and like let's let's choose the difference between that. It's like, no, that's that's too big a number.
Speaker: Nothing above five should exist. yeah Yeah. ah Rachel, any other games you want to bring up as like peak peak components of your collection?
Speaker: I never trade away. Okay. So interestingly mentioned before wingspan, right? Love wingspan, very approachable game. Then they brought out Wormspan with dragons. And I said, you're not going to trick me. I don't like, I feel like this is not going to be as good as wingspan. I don't trust you. Even though the components are so pretty, the little dragon eggs are so cute.
Speaker: But I was like, God damn it, played it. It's really good. And it's different from Wingspan. And then they have the audacity at Stonemire to be like, guess what? Fin span anyone with fishes? And I said, i said, no, Stonemire, you cannot do this. You've gone too far. far But guess who bought it and played it and also really enjoyed it. And you know what? I was, I was, ah I was going to be a hater. I was ready. I wasd ready to be like, these are basically the same game, but with different animals and fishes, like no way. But the way the the kind of engine aspect of the board game works in different in the three different variations is so fucking good. It's so smart. In Wingspan, it's more about building your own engine. In Wormspan with the dragons, it's about like individual lines instead of it being one whole. And in FinSpan, you're like moving stuff around like a flowing river or sea and it fits so well with the game. um and ah So I think...
Speaker: Maybe those are, you know, they're not exactly thinkiest games, but in terms of the ones which I enjoy and I felt like I've played with other people and they've enjoyed it who don't play a lot of board games. I feel like Wingspan and the other two are just like really great. And so those are three that I'm like, I can't, I mean, I couldn't even choose between them because Wingspan was great, but I love fishes. The fishes in, oh, the fishes in Finnspan and the way it works is so good. And then dragons, so you can't beat that. But I think for me,
Speaker: I think the, wi that yeah, those three Wingspan collections. I haven't gotten any any of the expansions or anything, but I just, yeah, I think those are like probably my solid. And then, like I said, Everdale. But although, again, I'm not really one for expansions. That's one with the cute animals and you're like building a city and they're very cute and adorable. And there's a bunch of expansions and stuff haven't played any of those but the base one i find really cute and also other people you can bring other people in they find it really great and also both of these things have in common that the components i kind of want to kind of want to eat them just like things with components yes see that especially with everdell like yes the berries like oh
Speaker: Beautiful. Yeah. So those two, but you know what? I love a game of Cluedo. I love a game of Cluedo. I love Cluedo. There are so many better options than Cluedo. I've heard this. It's not as bad as Monopoly though. I'm not going to come into this podcast and say like Monopoly. Not happening. But Cluedo,
Speaker: There's just something very timeless and classic about Cluedo. And there might be other variations that do cool shit, but I'm like, I just always come back. I always come back to Cluedo, Super Cluedo. I am a big fan of Super Cluedo, but yeah, I just think it's a good game.
Speaker: So I will, I will say I'm looking at Cluedo. I, Cluedo is a real fallback for me, but I almost have like a joke because I've, the version of Cluedo I own is Simpsons Cluedo. and I've lost half the pieces. I've added my own pieces over the years and it's the jankiest, like scrungliest box you've ever seen. And it's so fun.
Speaker: There are so many versions of Cluedo. I feel like every franchise has had a Monopoly version and a Cluedo. And I just, Simpsons is respectful. I respect that. Yeah. But yeah, i think those, I like it. I'm like you, Mari. I like a detective game.
Speaker: If we were going to do a dracnec version of Cluedo, which of our games would would be the best. We need more characters, actually, so you'd have to do the complete collection to have characters. yeah, That's what I was thinking. There's got to be the monster from Monster's Expedition and then the Electro-Incident monster and then the guy from Bonfire Peaks all in the same board together. Hell yeah.
Speaker: What the murder weapons be? The block from the Watchers? Just blocks. Different blocks. Oh yeah, just all the blocks. Each game's block. Dracnet Cluedo, when? Oh, that would be so cool.
Speaker: Who would be murdered though? i Me. I'd be murdered my own characters. It's getting very Jumanji-esque. game coming to life. Yes.
Speaker: Okay, if Jumanji was real though, would you play it? Yes, you've seen the escape rooms I do. I'm literally going to the escape room tonight. Like no you two and a half hours. You do anything for the plot. Yes. deep and i I think i I would also like, for one, how can you pass up a unique experience like that? Like once in on a lifetime chance to be ah stuck in a board game and possibly die. Yeah. Like obviously, ah but also, obviously I, obviously I could survive, you know,
Speaker: The thing is, with Jumanji, just got to play it quickly, right? If you just keep going, it can be over in 30 minutes. It's only like a like a dice roll and a hopping game, right? Oh, right. Yeah, you're saying you're think the the rhino might not have time to catch up and kill you if you play quickly. Yeah. yeah Right? Or like, it's it's just like, if you if you just keep going as fast as you can.
Speaker: It's all good. Like it they it took them so long. He got sucked into that board game and they left him there for what? Like 20 years? Like if you just played it in 20 minutes, it'd be great. Rachel has the pro strats here.
Speaker: ah If you guys had trapped in one, which one would you pick? Like what game do you rate your odds of surviving and would be a fun experience? system Oh, see, I, Flamecraft, another very newbie cute game. That would be a lovely village to just settle into. With the dragons. You could stay there for 20 years. Yes.
Speaker: That'd be good. Okay, I choose Flamecraft.
Speaker: Dorf Romantic might not be so bad. yeah Maybe a bit hard work, but. ah Yeah. a long and difficult life.
Speaker: What's the um parks with all the ah national parks in America? You just be like wandering around a national park each day. That sounds cool. Sounds cute to me. There's some nice options out there. are the worst ones?
Speaker: what the worst Sky team. Imagine having to land a plane on god the hardest level. Pandemic. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: been there done that don't need to repeat that so wait is that game you're talking about you have to land a plane yeah sky team is like a two-player co-op game where you can't talk to each other and you roll dice sort of place dice on your side so one person's the pilot one person's the co-pilot and it starts off nice and gentle like land the plane you gotta tilt the wings you gotta put your wheels down everything and then later on it's like There's a storm, like you're upside down. You've got two turns left to land this. This is cool. It's delightful.
Speaker: It's one of my favorite games. That's one I bring with me everywhere. But unfortunately, the version I own is Spanish. And I don't speak Spanish that well, but I know every term about flying planes in Spanish now. Well, the components don't have words on, right?
Speaker: No, but I always consult the instructions. And then the introduction about all the different levels, I'm like... Hola. Buenas dias. Buenas dias. she's going down into like, this is today's disaster. Oh my God.
Speaker: I mean, you're planes enough, Mari. I i i didn't know if you'd really want to do board games. It's too much. well i don't want to do it anymore. I've had enough. If you play enough Sky Team, then you can be the person who saves the the world if if the pilots pass out.
Speaker: Yeah, they're like, does anyone on Hinoa to fly plane? And I put my hand up like, no, but I played like a thousand hours in Sky Team. I've got this. Get in there, girl. Get in there. You get into the cockpit and where are the dice? Where are the dice? What's going to my dice? I've rolled to five. Where do I put this? justgainst the Against the wheel. not a wheel. What do they have? Controller? i don't know.
Speaker: It's a wheel thing. I don't know. I've never flown a plane. It's a thing. Is that a flight stick? Or is that more for fighter planes? I don't know if like a passenger jet would have a flight stick.
Speaker: a Yeah. No idea. My God. Okay. Ball games. um ah gun Going back to Wingspan, I actually played recently Wingspan Pocket, which is like card game version of it. I've heard of this. How was it? It was nice. Oh, cute. Yeah,
Speaker: ah yeah i i I felt like I was playing like decently, but in the end I didn't win. So I'm like, okay, now i must I must play this again to crash the opposition. ah But no, it's ah I think it's a really streamlined version. Like I think Wingspan...
Speaker: I respect it, but it's maybe a little long for my taste. Whereas I think Wingspan Pocket I'd be more keen to own because I think it would be like more time efficient for like similar gameplay. And yeah, I think it boils down some of the so similar systems into something that's like...
Speaker: pretty elegant and like interesting and like okay yeah you every turn you can play all of these birds in a row but you could never change the order in which they're in and so right yeah yeah yeah and then the the cars all double-sided and so on the back they've got the resources they will give you if they're if they're a resource And so it's very, very ah efficient use of components because the same cards that are the birds are also the resources you're using to buy the birds. It's just a case of this card face up or face down.
Speaker: cute. That's smart. I like that. So you you might have to add a fourth Wingspan game to your collection. oh maybe, maybe. When will it end? Then next to the expansions.
Speaker: Did we talk about some of your favorites, Mari? I know you mentioned a lot of escape room, but do you have like a a couple of ball games that will stay in your collection that they're not getting cycled at anytime soon? Yeah, i never cycle out my puzzle games, but if I had to, the ones I put like front and center, like on my shelf, like all to see. There's a company called Post Curious and I genuinely think anything they make is incredible. um So they do, they call them puzzle tales and what the premise is is like it's sort of a 10 to 12 hour long experience that you play over a number of chapters and each chapter is sort of designed to be played a couple of days apart because the idea is you open up this envelope and you've got all these materials and sometimes it's on a board but sometimes it's not and
Speaker: You solve the puzzles and then the answer to the puzzle leads you to the next item, leads you to the next item. And there's a story going on the background. These are just phenomenal. Like some of the best puzzles I've ever experienced in anything. Not exactly a board game if there's no board, but it's an experience that you play on a table with by yourself or with a group of friends. And and I just love that. So I would say those. i In fact, I own two copies of some of those games as well.
Speaker: And the other one that's coming to mind, you guys ever seen box one in any of the shops? I, yeah, I i wanted to play this. Oh, I can lend you my copy. It's And that case I won't spoil too much. So this is actually a game that Neil Patrick Harris, the the actor, was very involved in designing. And it does a clever thing that it's like pretends to be one thing and it turns out to be another thing. So not a spoiler to say it is a puzzle game, but it's like, oh, Neil Patrick Harris's box of fun. And so you start drawing cards from a deck and it starts off fun and then it weirder and weirder and weirder and really sort of breaks the fourth wall and goes to interesting places. But it is a puzzle game. Like it's very gated through like moments puzzliness and i reference it all the time like there are things that that game does that I've never seen any other like of this genre do it as well so no spoilers no spoilers but
Speaker: um Although that said on spoilers, one of my friends bought it in America and then as they were flying back there, like bags got unpacked and the the people at TSA were like, like, can you explain this? And he had to unpack the entire game, like lay the cards up.
Speaker: It was very much secret things in the box kind of thing. And he had it spoiled. and So he texted me when he got back and he was like, so I kind of know the ending, but I'm still going to play it. That is very funny though.
Speaker: Yeah, that is. God damn. But it's like buying a board game and you don't even know what the components are and then TSI like, well, there's some weird stuff that. Open it up. And valid. Honestly valid. The ending of that game involves finding the secret vial of uranium.
Speaker: Yeah. That that level of of what is this item? TSI being like, wow, what's this now? Um... um I also love, this feels very mainstream. I feel like you guys would have maybe come across as the micro macro series. Again, board game and inverted commas. Love them.
Speaker: It's a very small box and you just get this massive map you unfold and little decks of cards and you need to find characters on the map. And then follow and see what the characters do. And it's like a logical deduction kind of thing. It's like they're all crimes. So you it's like, here's the body.
Speaker: da-da-da And you you search the map, you find the body and then you flip the card over. And then it's like, OK, before the body was killed, they spoke to someone. And so you kind of have to go back in time and plot their route and stuff.
Speaker: And as the game continues, these like little characters, their lives intermix and stuff. And they've done so many expansions. And I own like four them. They can lay these maps side by side and they start to intermix even within that. And I just think it's so clever what they've done. So very like single play, but I love what they've with the franchise and They can make any game and I immediately go and buy it. I'm like, this is so fun.
Speaker: um It kind of sits in the same part of my head as a jigsaw puzzle, you know, like ah people and I need to pour over this thing for several hours to solve it in air quotes. Oh God, I'm going be spending so much money after all, Chats. I'm going to be spending so much money.
Speaker: Because like, I don't know, I'm quite casual when it comes to like these kind of like, I don't know, pen and paper or ball games or anything. Like this is so cool. I want box one now and the micro macro. and how How long is box one? Because like there's a difference between one of these puzzly games that's like an hour or two one that's like 10 to 15 hours. And I don't actually know which category box one is in.
Speaker: It's shorter than most of them, but I still think it's at least a good two hours, maybe three. Oh, that's not too bad. A single session. I would say you'd do it in a single session with one caveat. We could bring it to the, if we do a Dratnik meetup before the end of the year.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I'll bring it. That'd be cool. I would love that. um There is a caveat that I really won't spoil, but come back to this in the future because i want to talk about one moment in the game. In fact, I feel like I should record an addendum to the podcast be like, by the way, this is the caveat, but i don't want them to know because they need to experience it. It they does a weird thing with time.
Speaker: I'll just leave it at that. but Okay. I have no idea what that could mean. Damn. Oh my God. I won't have to, I can't wait that long. I need to play now. and Oh my God.
Speaker: Yeah. i can't wait till meet up. I need all these games now. Last time we did a DracKnight meetup, which was um not for not for while, it was last year. We played a game called Far Away, which is one of my favorite little small box games. What's that? um So it's ah it's a card game where you're playing cards and you'll play eight cards in sequence and they've each got like nice little characters that you're meeting. um and they've all got like scoring conditions.
Speaker: And so, okay, well, if if this card can see like these symbols, ah then it will score 10 points. Great stuff. Or this one, ah, yes this will score two points for each of the key symbols you've got in total. But you're playing them out in sequence, but then the end, you flip them all face down and you reveal them in reverse order.
Speaker: And so... the first card you played will get to see all of the later cards but the last card you played only gets to see itself and so it's this really interesting engine building thing where you're trying to like play a card and then cross your fingers that you're going to get the cards required to actually score it um And yeah, had some really interesting trade-offs. um that ah It looks really nice. The art is really cool.
Speaker: Which for me is 50%. Alan wins every time. Not every time. I've never seen Alan not win this game. i i I have lost this game in the last couple of months. Once. And how many times have you played that? I rarely lose. I sometimes crash, but I i usually do respectably.
Speaker: and when you mentioned the Dratnik meetup I thought you were going to talk about the hide and seek game which is sort of technically begins in a box oh I think you talked about this one Mari was it the one where you're like you have to go out into when you were out London yeah it's like an in-person hide and seek and you sort of split into teams and one person hides and the other seek but the idea is And you go out, you find your hiding space and then other people can like sort of, is it play cards or not play cards, but they can sort of ask you specific things like, are you within this? Are you da da da? And it gets closer and closer and closer and it's absolutely delightful.
Speaker: um But yeah, it starts as a boxed game. This is from the um the YouTube channel, Jetlag the Game. um so it's kind of like a a home, a play at home version of a game that they played on their channel.
Speaker: um And... Okay. Yeah, it's like, it's it's super interesting. um I think maybe, I think it's better as ah television than as game. I think it's... ah ah Well, it's not balanced for some players, Koff Koff Mari, playing with extreme ah like strategy of like, okay, i'm I know London, I am going to find the hardest possible place to find me. I think I did. That was so mean of me. I'm sorry. That was so mean of you.
Speaker: But that wasn't even my first choice hiding spot. I had in my head. I was like, ooh, did I? And then you ended up, you left me in like location I couldn't get to anywhere. So I did the best what I- Where did hide? Where did you go? Do you the area in London, Temple? There is indeed a temple in Temple and it's a very like walled area that looks very inaccessible, but it is publicly accessible. And you get inside and it's basically like a maze. So I was able to like get to one of the lesser known entrances and then go and hide within this already difficult place. And
Speaker: Alan and Ben were so close to me so many times that I could like lean through little windows in the wall and like see them walking past and there was no way they could get to me. and it was Crazy. Oh my god Very unfair in hindsight. I'm so sorry. nine i I would play that game again. I'm not sure I'd play a game with you. You you were too good at it.
Speaker: Maybe different city. Different city. Maybe in a city where none of us knew each other knew knew the place. That would that would like balance it out a little. for the next... Next direct neck meetup, we will pick a city no one lives in, nobody knows. I thought I thought i was doing pretty okay when I hit, but then you asked for you asked a question that made me have to show a photo, and I didn't realize that in the background of that photo, there's like the flag of an embassy. like know where the embassy is. Exactly. Like, okay, Google Maps, this country's embassy, like,
Speaker: narrowing down. if if it hadn't If it hadn't been for that photo, I think I would have given you a good run. Yeah. I just, I recognize those buildings in the background as being the embassy buildings. And we zoomed in. I was like that. I recognize that flag. Go, go, go.
Speaker: It was great. We were playing a different game. Honestly, i was playing GeoGuessr. I was going to say, it's like on GeoGuessr it's like, I know the color of that dirt. It's South America in this very small hut in this village. Yeah. Crazy.
Speaker: Yeah. Any, any other board games come to mind as a, something you played recently and hot takes any, any board games that are beloved, but you hate.
Speaker: like I didn't vibe with search for planet X and I was so sad because I really thought I would vibe with it, but we played it somewhat recently. i shows Is it leave it pretty popular as well?
Speaker: It's not popular, yeah but it's exactly my kind of thing. Logical deduction and it's set in space. And I was just confused the whole time. And I felt like I'd built it up in my head as this great game. i had no idea what was going on at any given time. And it should have been for me. That said, I want to give it another go. I think you were just tired.
Speaker: When am I not tired? Well, if I can't play it tired, I can't play it. So I need to be able to play it tired. I i think there's a lot of deduction games that if you play Cranky with a headache, you're just going to have ah a bad time.
Speaker: Yeah. True. I don't know if I have a hot, I don't know if I have one. I don't think I play enough. i don't even know what's popular these days. I'm so so out of the loop with board games. Yeah. What are they playing? I don't know.
Speaker: What's yours, Alan? It feels like a loaded question. You've definitely got quite a few. Yeah. I yeah must do. I'm trying to, I'm trying to think I'm gonna, i'm gonna go I'm gonna look at the board games I've played over the last ah few months.
Speaker: Of which you have a long list. I'm assuming taking you half minute. Long, long list. Um, what? that i I mean, i I mostly pick games that I know I'm going to like. Oh, actually, this isn't a game that hate,
Speaker: but ah Mari, you actually, we swapped some games. um Canvas. um Beautiful, beautiful game. Yeah. um it's It's like a I'm happy to own it because it's just so beautiful. Like it sits on a shelf and it looks like a little piece of art. And then you get it out and it's got these like transparent cards that are really striking, really cool. um And the gameplay is it's just kind of fine. it's It doesn't give you enough options to play well. i like It's exactly kind of thing that you look at it and you look at the rules and you're oh, well, obviously Alan should be able to like crush at this game. It's just a case planning ahead, seeing the perfect path, making the perfect artwork, and then executing And no, I just just can't do it. and Maybe I'm just...
Speaker: like i A lot of thinky bit games I would kind of vibe through. I'd be like, yeah, this yeah it seems good. um But Canvas, i I struggle to play well at it. um Maybe people I play with are just getting lucky or, um ah but yeah, it feels like it's so limited. Like you can, you're you're playing like three paintings and each painting is made up of three like layers of art. And like, you've got these transparent cards and you can choose to layer them in different ways that hide or reveal different parts of the card, which will score them differently which is really, really cool and really thinking. It seems like it should be exactly my kind of thing. But like I feel like you can only have a hand of five cards.
Speaker: And then once you've got five cards, you have to choose three of them to play into being a piece of art. And that's just, it's not it's not enough. i need I need a bigger hand. I need more options. i need i need more tokens because you're super limited in which...
Speaker: oh pieces of art you can take from the shared pool. um ah Yeah, i something about it just like, I can't figure out how to you play it better. oh do you That's an interesting point because do you both ever change a game's rules to make it suit more your play style or how you would have more fun with it? Is that something you both do? Because we do it. Me and Henry do it a lot. For sure. And it sounds to me like, Alan, if you had tweaked the rules, literally gave yourself a bigger hand. that card limit, Alan. Yeah, possibly. yeah Possibly I need to up the hand limit or have more starting tokens that you used to spend to buy stuff. That that might that might help. um And i i will I will keep playing it. Like my housemate really likes it, so I'm sure I'll play it again. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, this is one that I've had an eye It surprised me how much I didn't super get along with it. Speaking of games that you changed the rules for, I will. I'm not super attached to official rules, but I mostly don't feel the need to. If it's a good game, then normally you don't have to.
Speaker: There is a game, what is it called? um Which I think the rules as written are kind of fine, but not like super something. But like I came up with a few variants. I need to write up and like post on Ballgame Geek, but haven't. um Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: ah It's Codex Naturalis. um Also really lovely looking game. It's got these like gold foil cards um that look really striking and and you're like layering them in like a um they they cover the diagonal edge of each other. And so you're making this like nice pattern on the table. It's very satisfying.
Speaker: um The rules I've written are kind of a quite limited as to which cards are available to draw, but it's all about combos. So you really want like a green card. And so if green cards aren't coming out of the deck, you're like, well, I want a moment to do here. Um, so i i came up with a few variants where, um, also also it's got like these secret objectives and those are,
Speaker: just very luck based some of them are like just better than others and some of them just might play better to the cards that come up than others and so that's also kind of like feels very uneven so uh i think it's uh better to just have shared objectives and no secret objectives and that just makes it better but then um I also tried playing a few times and thought it was better with, um instead of like one draw pile, um where like you can either take one of these cards or you can take the top card of the draw pile, having separate draw piles for the different colors.
Speaker: And then, you know, well, at any time I can always draw a green. It might not be the green that I want, but that's always available to me. um And I think that makes the game really sing and like really, ah um yeah, be strategic and let you like go for the strategy and feel confident. Well, this isn't going to completely screw me over.
Speaker: that makes a lot of sense my version of that is again coming back to stardew valley i always i often play a modification which just gives me more days in the year like if i just want good time not a hard i will just make each season three or four cards longer or add in more special events so like i get the halloween event pop up and stuff if i just want to play fun mode in air quotes But that's about extent I probably modify things. I mean, there's plenty of board games played completely wrong for many years and only later realized what the correct rules were. Oh yeah, I've definitely done that.
Speaker: And then you go back be like, I'll go back to how was playing it before because that's how I know. It sounds like with the board game Stardew, it sounds like exactly like PC Stardew in that mods make it better.
Speaker: Exactly. So I actually have one that's, uh, I also thought of a board game that maybe I don't hate, but got tired of and it ties in with bending the rules, uh, or like changing them a bit is my family are really obsessed with Dixit for the longest time. And, um, my special rule is to just put all the cards back in the box and put the box back on the shelf because I'm so sick in Wow.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong, that game is fine, but I just, I think I've played it so many times where I think if I i just see it, because it's quite often I see it in Waterstones and stuff, I'm like, oh, no, so many times, because like my parents loved it, and I'm like, no. It's definitely a a good game that you could very easily see how you could get tired of playing it.
Speaker: Yeah, and I don't know whether that's like a very mid take or not, but I'm just like, no, I cannot. But maybe it's been long enough now. It sounds like you've had this reaction for a long time. so maybe like not not like get back into it like a lot, but like you could play like a game a year, maybe just just like i could inoculate yourself against it.
Speaker: I would think maybe with more expansions, because that's like all the cards, they're, you know, they come up a lot if you keep playing. And so it was just a case of like, okay, mom, I know what you mean when you say that word, because you mean this card, mom. Okay, you definitely, you definitely played it too much. When you're getting to the point where you can just recognize specific cards from the phrase without seeing the card at all, then you played it too much. Mum, I know it's a sad clown standing in a spotlight. I know what you mean. Oh, that sad clown. I always remember that card. He always showed up. I was like, here he is again. Sad cloud in a spotlight. Okay, maybe not enough time has passed. Maybe you can never play Dixie again. I know, I sound it's so salty.
Speaker: but um But in general, I do prefer games... I, I'm not a big fan of games where that you have you have to interpret something or maybe what some, I like a set of rules and that everyone's playing the same rules and we're all doing the same thing. Like, I'm not a big fan of like, I don't know,
Speaker: maybe someone trying to give you well I don't know the games you were describing earlier you two about like you interpret what someone's saying that sounded cool but like message for the stars yeah but like with images I'm very much because there's been a few that's like similar to this and I'm I just I bounce off them quite quickly because i I just like rules and I like turns and I like that we're all moving our little pieces and doing stuff You describing that makes me think of the the Hughes game, you know, the color board game. Is it Hughes and Clues? Oh, yes. That's very interpretative. How do you feel about that one?
Speaker: Oh. no I like to play a variant where like you just get harder and harder. Like you can't even mention any like color and then you can't mention anything visual. You just have to vibe. that Oh, this one's happiness. And then people like, okay, which is the happiness? Yeah.
Speaker: This one, this one is taxes. Like, okay. Because then I guess you get to know people a bit more. Because you're like, okay, you think this color is taxes or something. I actually, I like watching people play that on YouTube. So I've seen people play it, but the people I've seen playing are like, I don't know, entertainers and people who are generally funny. I couldn't, I don't think I could play that kind of game with someone with...
Speaker: zero to no imagination. I don't know. Maybe that's... I think the the thing with like playing He's and Clues with like increasingly more limitations is like it kind of gets less of a game and more an activity. And that's actually my my take on Dixit. It's a fun activity.
Speaker: I don't think it's a good game. Like i i think just playing like like like i lost a couple of rounds of Dixit is the perfect amount of Dixit. Playing an entire game of Dixit is too much Dixit.
Speaker: Love that. I actually really like that. That's a good take. The hottest take here on the Drannica Friends official podcast. Dixit, activity.
Speaker: it's Not a game. On that note, ah should we should we call it there? Have we have we exhausted our board game takes? e Yeah, i think that's... Are we looking forward to any board games coming out? I think we maybe should end on a bit more of a positive note instead of me trashing on Well, we already mentioned the Bub with You board game. Yes, yes. Perfect.
Speaker: It's also going to be in the same Kickstarter as a Party Cows board game adaptation, which I didn't love that video game as much as other people did. I feel like a lot of people like, oh, this is the best thing in UFO 50. I'm like, yeah, this is a deck building game. um Yes. I remember this mini game, yeah.
Speaker: if i'm If I'm going to be paying shipping for Bubba, I might as well get Party House and check out check out that. um Other upcoming games.
Speaker: Any from you, Mari? Trying to think. i I'm not in the know about upcoming games. I do feel like there was, so one of my favorite franchises ever is The Expanse. I do feel like I saw that someone was developing and a board game for The Expanse.
Speaker: But when I saw it on Kickstarter, it was like fulfilling multiple years in the future. And I was like, I do not know if I will be here, there, or even alive. Like I'm not going to back this until I know it's good. sure But in somewhere in the back of my mind, I am aware that this board game is coming out and I'm excited for it. But I cannot give you any more information than that. I've forgotten its name.
Speaker: Just know it exists. ah I'm looking at games I've put on my wishlist. Oh, yeah. I'm interested in Cascadia Alpine Lakes, which is like, i think Cascadia is fine. It's like a very, it's kind of a pleasant landscape building game. um But I kind of felt like it was kind of the same every time. Cascadia Alpine Lakes makes it a little more 3D. You can build upwards as well. And I i want i want to give that a go.
Speaker: Also, Citadel's Duel. um I played a lot of the game Citadels with my housemate like 20 years ago. um And it's a game that plays like two to eight players, but I really think it's best at two or three players where becomes really stinky and like getting in each other's heads. Like you have these hidden characters and you're selecting them from drafts.
Speaker: but nobody many knows which characters you've selected, but you can play actions targeting specific characters, but not know if that character is somebody else or if that character is just completely out of play and your targeting ability is just going to be wasted. and.
Speaker: and Yeah, Citadel's Duel is a two-player only take on it, which I think is like pretty similar concepts. like the Duel games. But some different concepts. And i yeah I'm definitely going to get that one um and check it out. And cross my fingers, it's going to be good. i think it's I think there's some interesting DNA in there. should be should be a good one. Oh.
Speaker: um Nothing comes to my mind, but Stonemaier, my pitch is swim span. It's underwater aquatic mammals. And so we've done fish and now I think we could do whales, dolphins, orcas, seals. I think, I think we could go there.
Speaker: So call me. If you want to get in touch for any reason. No idea how the game would work, but. In which span does octopuses fall under? Are they already in the fish one or could they fit in this game as well?
Speaker: They might be in the fish one. I haven't come across one, but they would, I don't know where they would be. Octop, hold on. Octopus, fin span.
Speaker: Not octopus lifespan. You know what? This this doesn't need to go in the podcast. We can put this in the show notes. he i'll I'll look through the cards and take a photo. See if I can find an octopus in there. but Yeah.
Speaker: oh Cool. Well, thank you both for joining me. Thank you. you And thank you for listening to the Drackneck and Friends official podcast. Our music is by Priscilla Snow, who you can find at ghoulnoisemusic.com.
Speaker: Our podcast artwork is by Adam DeGrandis. Our podcast is edited by Melanie Zawodniak. Please rate and review us on your podcast services choice and be sure to tune in next episode for more interesting conversations.
Speaker: you
