Episode 18 - San Francisco: Off the Rails

Welcome back everyone!

In this episode we appraise the tableau / city builder San Francisco by the incredibly prolific designer Reiner Knizia.

We talk through the games mechanics, debate the origins of trams, and apply our usual general and two player criteria. They can't all be hits, right?

Also Al cannot pronounce 'Lapels', so that's out there on the internet now.

We hope you enjoy!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Board with Each Other, the board gaming podcast that reviews board games to see how well they play at two. Whether that's playing with your partner or with a really good friend or with that person on the council that just will not grant you planning permission for your third skyscraper. I'm L. Simpson, and I'm joined as ever by my player two and co-host, Hannah Kelly.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Hi guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

And today we are going to be reviewing San Francisco.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

Meanwhile, in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Room joke for those that will get it. San Francisco is designed by the incredibly prolific uh game designer Reneknisia, I want to say. Maybe the K silent, I don't know how to pronounce his name. And in essence, it is a city builder, Tableau Builder, card placement sort of game.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Tableau's a fancy word.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Tableau is a fancy word. Where you are essentially building the city of San Francisco. The game is played by each player taking a player board, and the player board is divided into I want to say five, yeah. Five different coloured districts. And the object of the game is to fill those districts with cards that you pick up from essentially what is a marketplace. The turns work where you can either pick up a card and place it into one of three slots.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Three lanes.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Three lanes as such, yeah, that's a good word for it. Um so you can either place it in an empty lane or you can place it on the same lane as another card and they sort of stack in the marketplace. Yeah.

unknown 1:51

Point out.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Or you can take a lane of cards. Whenever you take a lane of cards, no matter how many are in there, you take a contract token, and you can only take from a lane that has more cards in it than the number of contract tokens you hold.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

So if I had two contracts, I could only take a stack of two or more cards.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Three. You have to have less then. Whenever all player whenever all players have at least one contract, everybody discards one. So it's a bit of an odd mechanism, but say I well there was a lane of cards I picked it up, I took a contract, and then on the next turn Hannah did the same thing, we'd all go back down to zero again. What happens is if the same person keeps taking lanes of cards turn on after turn, they start to stack up their contracts, and that kind of sort of uh prevents you from taking more, kind of freezes you out until other people start taking something. Yeah, it's a balancing mechanism. In terms of points and winning the game, you gain points through a number of ways. You either gain points for filling up one of your districts first, each district card has a number of little like worker people on it that has a value. At the end of the game, whoever has the highest value of those workers in each of the five rows gets more victory points. Um there are also cable cars, so some uh cards have cable car tracks on them, and if they link up to the the depots at the start, which are all at the bottom at the start of the game, you then add a cable car onto that card.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Are they not trams?

SPEAKER_00 3:25

No, they're cable cars. San Francisco's really famous. Well, they are like trams, but they really they they're called they're called cable cars, but they're more like a tram, yeah. Confusing, I know. Croydon didn't do at first. Um The person with the most cable cars at the end of the game gets more victory points. There are also cards which have skyscraper foundations on, and those cards, once you place them on your grid, and when you place cards on your grid, you have to place them on the leftmost. You can't sort of pick anywhere on the grid. Um, if you surround that card with seven workers, you get to place a skyscraper. They are worth a victory point at the end of the game. And uh whoever has built the most skyscrapers gets the Master Builder's Medal, which is also worth a victory point at the end of the game. To take it off somebody else, you need to be build more skyscrapers than them. Um so it's sort of this push-ball mechanic with those. The game continues until either one player's board has been completely filled up, or you have drawn the requisite number, and it changes depending on how many players there are, the requisite number or foundation tokens have come out onto the lanes as such, then the game just ends immediately. Um, the only other little uh wrinkle to the rules is uh some cards have a um uh little compass symbol on them, and if you get two of those in a row, you get that district specified bonus. So they are things such as uh a token that lets you add two to the worker value of one card. Uh, you could get some cable car tracks to extend your cable car network, you can just get a token that's worth more points. Um they vary depending on the on the district. Um, and that is pretty much it for the rules. Uh, unless you think I've missed anything.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

No, there are some cards that can be placed anywhere, they're colourless.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Um, ah yes, there's wild black wild cards, they can be placed in any any row.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

But aside from that, that's pretty much it, really.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Yeah. Okay. Um playing time, 15 to 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah, if that.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, depending on how quickly you go through. So quite quite a short game.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Alright. Um, anything else you you wanna wanna say on it?

SPEAKER_02 5:32

No, I suppose we kind of pick this up as a whim. So for those of you that are in the UK and are listening, um, game.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Oh, it was the game the game's gone mad sale that happened uh in April 24. Long Long May it live in the memory.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah, there's uh there's the It happens fairly regularly, in all fairness.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yeah, this one was pretty major though. The uh for those that don't know, game is a bit like GameStop in the US, if you're listening in the US, and uh they have uh expanded their repertoire due to necessity into board games. And uh in April this year they just sort of seemed to lose the plot and just discounted like 90% off a load of board games. So of course every board game in the country just went down there and just filled their boots with times as well. Yeah, so I just bought loads of stuff really, and this is one of the one of the things that came out of that.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Yeah. So if you're in the UK, check out game.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yep, always a good idea. So shall we go on to score?

SPEAKER_02 6:23

So under our general category, uh, first up is components. Um so I'm gonna start.

SPEAKER_03 6:29

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Um there are the skyscrapers are a nice touch. So the skyscrapers are built out of cardboard and you have to like 3D models. 3D models, and you have to combine them, and that's quite cool, and that's quite nice. So when you actually finally complete your skyscraper um on your foundations because you've got enough workers surrounding it, you can dump down this big old skyscraper, and that's kind of cool. That's probably where my compliments end.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Um, the insert for the box is infuriating. Okay, you really hate this insert. I really hate the insert. So the insert for the box has got like nice little sections so you can put your cards and your your tokens, of which there are an awful lot of tokens. Um, you have contracts, you have foundation tokens, you have points tokens, all of which your points tokens, most of which you won't use because they're only applicable to games when you play uh a certain number of three or four players. So you basically have three times the amount of tokens that you actually need to play the game. And because the insert is made out of cuts and folding bits of cardboard, it means all your tokens slip under the insert, and you have to yank out the whole of the insert in order to find them unless you put them into baggies, which obviously we did, but it's just really annoying.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

It doesn't need baggies, but it made me put baggies in.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah, it didn't come with baggies, it did, but we had to because we just kept losing stuff underneath the insert, which was a a a real pain. Um, in the on a more general sense, um it's all fairly flimsy in budget. Um the cards are small, they're fiddly, and they are possibly the thinnest cardstock I've ever seen without being actual paper.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Um, because you have a player mat, if you like your tableau.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Your player board, yeah, your tableau.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Um, and you place your cards on top of them, if you sneezed, you would lose your entire city.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, there's no weight to these cards whatsoever. They are very flimsy.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Yeah, a misplaced elbow or something would wreck havoc with your game.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Um you've got little cable car meeples, which you can find you said, like wooden meatle meeples or something wrong with that. Um I have a quite personal criticism of it, is I really don't like the look of it. I am a person that is allergic to pastels.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah, it's all pastels.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

And it's all very, very pastels. And I I'm not colourblind in any way, shape, or form, but I actually my brain struggles with differentiating a couple of the colours in the the district colours.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

And particularly your colourless ones as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

I haven't got a problem with those. It's the light yellow and the brown that I just seem to be interchangeable in mind, and I often make mistakes because I'm reading one as the wrong thing.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

And I think because they don't stand out, when you're there filling up your board, it's quite easy to mistake because your your board obviously has its five lanes each with different colours, and then you put your corresponding colour on top. It's not always immediately apparent whether your lane's full or not. So sometimes I have to fill my board a bit harder than I would like. Yeah, and it's just it's it's just not as easy as it could be.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

No, it's not as easy as it could be, and it just it it looks both too busy and too plain at the same time, if that's if if that makes any sense. Um if I'm building uh a tableau and I'm placing things down, whether it be tiles or cards or whatever, I want it to kind of look a bit cool at the end of the game. This just looks like a hot mess.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Yeah, and there's nothing particularly special about any of the cards either. So they you know, they they do have sort of relatively thematic. So the blue one is the beach theme, so you've got like a Parasol and a harbour or whatever. Um, but the cards themselves are all also fairly generic. You know, we talk about a lot of card games where there's the devil in the detail. Aside from having your compass, which allows you, if you have two of your compasses, you get score a bonus. The cards just have different numbers of workers on them. Yeah, do anything special.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

There's nothing exciting there, and the art style is just very, very flat.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

Oh, it really is, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah, it's sort of a dull, a bit flat, and I just think they could dump a little bit more finite.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

But your skyscrapers also have lollipop trees either side of them.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

They do, yes. Yes. So you know. The skyscrapers are really cool, guys. The skyscrapers are cool, they are cool. Um but yeah, everything just looks a bit chunky as well, even the the cardboard counters for the scoring and and what have you, it's just yeah, the hexagons and circles.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

I mean, uh they're perfunctory, they do their job.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

But it all just looks a bit like a like I said, a bit of a like a hot mess at the end of the game. It's just it's not visually appealing to me at all. No. Um, however, there's nothing completely egregious. Um setup and teardowns fairly easy. Yep. Um, fairly quick.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

So once you fished out the only tokens that are relevant to your player.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Um so yeah, I mean I settle on a five for this.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

I get a four. Yeah, I would have gone, so it really drives me bonkers.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

I would have gone lower, but I think some of that is just my personal colour scheme taste, so I didn't go too hard too hard on it. Because I know some people like pastel colours, you know, so it's just me. But yeah, I I set them on a five for it.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Okay. So next up then we have complexity. So as always, this isn't about how complex a game is or isn't, but how well the rules serve the nature of the game. Also includes things like how much we argue about the rules and analysis paralysis if you are like me and suffer from that. So I would say that I see that there is an opportunity for depth within this game.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

I'm not so sure I do.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

I'm being generous here. I see that there are opportunities for a little bit of depth. Um, so for example, I can see that you have almost filled up two of your tracks, and therefore you're just looking for one more card. I'm probably not going to place this card here and try and bait you into taking something else, leaving what I want free, or I'm just going to take something just to screw up your turn. But realistically, I mean those opportunities are few and far between. They really are few and far between.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

I think there is for me, there is a catastrophic lack of depth to this game. Um there is very little tactical nouse to it. Um and failing the tactical nouse, there's not enough meat or the bones here to provide randomness. It's a very good thing.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Yeah, so for example, if you had cards that allowed you to do special functions or something. You'd you do. So you have one if this card is connected by a tram line, sorry, cable card, um, you get full workers out of it. Eh.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah, oh yeah, they they really like simple and rote kind of there's nothing there's nothing sort of special about any of it. And um I think I would have less of a problem with it if it wasn't so very fiddly. And there's an element of the rules around the contracts, which actually, like, I must have reread that section in the rules more times than I read anything in something like Arknova. And I don't know why, I just I found it really difficult to get my head around. And um the there's little fiddly bits that don't really serve anything, um, but they don't they don't serve anything, they don't really add anything, and they don't add any any tactical mouse. With the contracts, that mechanism never gets going far enough to actually really have much of an impact on the game. Um I understand why it's there, but they could have done so much more with it.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

So we've talked about it. I mean, we've talked about rules that or rule changes that might make it at a bit more depth. I don't think any of them would work, you disagree, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Um I think again when you have to start like fiddling with rules in order to make it more I mean if you want to start house ruling something almost immediately, and we very rarely, if ever, do that.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

And if we have house rules, they're usually about fun narrative rather than. They don't change the actual play of the game.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

But this is the first game I come across. I was like, oh, you know, maybe um and I just I don't think uh the classic thing about this this category is how well does the complexity serve the gameplay? A the complexity kind of ruins the gameplay a bit because there's there's a not enough depth there, and B not and not it's not simple enough to be kind of okay, we can play around the table, the family.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yeah, and I mean I'm not gonna bash people that like city planning and stuff, but the medium, like the actual thing, is not particularly inspiring to me.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, I mean that's that's the theme, and that's something that's that's a little different, that's not really this word.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Well no, but it but it is, but again, I think you know, so for example, people might find plant blah blah blah people might find planted quite simple and you know, but I'm really into it because I like the theme.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Yeah, well it's a whole like theme can carry carry you through some sins that a game may make.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Exactly. I don't know that even the most avid fan of San Francisco cable cars or architectural planning would particularly.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Yeah, I mean if you flip that on this head, if you flip that on this on its head, if this was about, I don't know, dragons driving Faster and Furious cars in a amazing fantasy backdrop, I don't think you'd like the game anymore.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

No.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I think I don't think the theme's got anything to do with it.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Although, I mean, game developers out there, just give it a try. I I'll be your beta tester.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Uh I don't I I mean I'm I'm not crazy about the theme, but then I've got played lots of games where the theme doesn't really matter to me and I still enjoy it massively. I I I don't think the theme is what's at fault here. I think it I I think it's definitely the actual the the actual rule set on the game itself.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Um so yeah, I don't think the complexity serves the gameplay very well at all, so I've given it a three.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah, I gave it a four.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah, fair enough. Okay. So on to shelf life and value for money.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

So what's the price point?

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Uh it it varies, but it's somewhere between 20 and 30 quid, depending on, I don't know, the wins and things.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Uh 30 quid is an absolute ripoff. No way. Would I pay 30 pounds for this?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

20 pounds I think 20 is a reasonable price point for it myself. Um just looking purely at what's in the box, like uh it's a it's a 20 quid game.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Um I'd even say up to 25 for a better game, I wouldn't I wouldn't have any issue paying at all.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Um yeah. I think value for money, just purely what it costs and what you get in the box, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

In terms of components, you mean?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

In terms of components.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

I mean, in terms of replayability, this is a nice warm-up game.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, I mean, if it's any good, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Well, yeah. I I think that that the hard thing is, isn't it? Like, if it if it's not been clear up to this point, we probably aren't massive fans of this. So therefore is there a huge amount of replayability for us. No.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

I don't think there is any way.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

I think objectively, I don't think it has enough depth that anyone would want to bring this out more than a handful of times.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Yeah. I'm inclined to agree. I think in board gaming groups, for example, or where you've got like a larger collection of people, again, if you want a warm-up game, I I think it's absolutely fine. But then am I paying 30 quid for that? Absolutely not. Am I paying 25 quid for that? Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

There are other better And I think that's kind of my point with us. If anybody is bringing this out week after week, I want to kind of grab them by the labels and tell them to play more games.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Grab them by the what?

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Lapels.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Lapels. Lapels. Lapels.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Lapels? I've only ever read it. Um trying to hide behind my accent African pronunciation here, but it's not gonna work, is it? No, it's not. It's not. Whatever. Okay. I mean English is not my first language. It is.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Um go on, stop speaking.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah, anyway, uh back on track. Let's get back on the cable car rails. Um I tram lines. I I would just say uh, you know, no shade, but you probably need to play more games because there's probably a hundred games that fit that 20-minute mark that are better than this. Yes. That that will get the juices flowing that are fairly easy. I mean, I can think of a handful off the top of my head looking about our shelf, you know what I mean? It's just like I d I just don't know why you'd bring this out in front of anything else. And I I think anybody who plays a fair amount of board games is going to get very bored with this very, very quickly.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

And I mean we did. Yeah, well, I think we're bored on it the second time we played it. Um but I I yeah, I think its shelf life is is dreadful. I think there's there's uh one-shot legacy games that probably give you more fun than this. Um so I've written it, I've I've gone for two.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

So I kind of wanted to temper my scoring on the basis that the theme is not appealing to me, and I wonder that if the theme is more appealing, then perhaps I would rate it higher. Um so I've given it a four.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Okay, fair enough. I mean, I think uh the theme thing, I think turn it on its head and imagine this with a theme that you did like. I I mean you might, but I can't I can't see you actually.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

You give me Cantle Dragons on, I'm probably gonna be a happy.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Okay, fair enough. But no, I think this is completely theme independent for me.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Alright. So I think we probably alluded to this quite a few times already, but is it any fun?

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah, so I couldn't score it as Euro. That felt very mean to score it as hero.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah, no, I I haven't gone I haven't gone that low. Um there are little dribs and drabs of fun.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

There are times when I've really sabotaged your move and I've had that moment, aha, gotcha. But again, it's how invested am I in the in the game, how uh it doesn't yeah, and I'm not really.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah, no, there's been a couple of moments I've been like, ah yeah, alright, that's that was that was quite fun, and there there's there's odd moments of satisfaction, particularly around cable cars where you manage to link up a whole network. But I think a lot of it is tempered by how random the draws of the cards are, that it's very difficult to have any sort of strategy because you're constantly reacting to whatever's been presented at you.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

And what really sucks is that you know you can be holding out, trying to build a little bit of strategy, try and get something really good, and then I've pulled out a card and you just completely decimated that because I can't I can't claim the card that I've just drawn.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, it's all situational randomness.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

It's so situational, and you know, i it's so luck-based that there's that mm smattering though, I think, of of a a a a a false smattering of strategy.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, I don't think it's a lot of different things.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

It feels like you should be more strategic than you actually can.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

You can't be because you could and I think I think it's one of its massive detriments is the restrictiveness of card placement. So not only are you dealing with this random markerplace, which so you people would say, Oh, well, you know, what's the difference between that and carcassonne where you're drawing a random tile? The difference is you can only place those cards in the right row, but also on the leftmost thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

What we haven't talked about is you can just trash cards. So if you drew uh a lane of three cards, you could actually only place one of those if that's what you wanted. You could trash the others, whether you've got space on your board for it or not.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Yeah, but again, it's a bit of a race to fill your board up. So if you start doing that and the other person just goes, Oh well, you're you're trashing cards, I'm just gonna fill my board up. And they will get more points because of that. And I think the the value of the points is so high, there's so few points to be had. Um the games tend to be somewhere between the region of zero and fifteen victory points, as an example. So points are really hard to come by, and one point is worth a lot. So if you dally about and your opponent decides not to, you've lost immediately. Which is what I tried one time and that didn't work for me. There's no room to do that, there's no room to be strategic. Which makes the game just feel like the spuncture, I'm drawing a card, placing a card, drawing a card, placing a card, placing.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

And that's to see where that ends up.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

To see where that ends up. You can't have a strategy because it will just go out the window because the card, somebody's taking all the cards you need on that turn because of just simply because it's their turn, or they're not flopping like you need them to.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

The other point as well is that you obviously are time limited in terms of the number of skyscrapers that come out. So you at um two players you only have the option of having six. And as soon as that final foundation has been taken, well the drawn. It's not even taken. You can't even take it off the board. The game ends immediately. So again, you you can't and we've had ones where just out of luck of the draw, you get like three in one, you know, in a very short space of time. Well, you know that your game's up gonna be long quickly.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

We had a game end in I think it was about six or seven minutes because we just we just drew all the skyscrapers, that was that game over. Nobody really got anything vaguely going. It was just like, oh, game's over, fine, fair enough, boom, yeah, done. Um so all of this is anti-fun, in my opinion. There's no there's no satisfaction to be had there because there's no way to coherently pull off any sort of strategic move, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Um whilst feeling like it is actually quite strategic, and whilst feeling like you could have strategic um manoeuvres but actually you you don't, but the depth's just not there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah. So no, it has its odd moments of fun, but in in overall I've given it a three.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

Uh so I gave it a two.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Fair enough. Okay. So we tell you up our scores and average them out, and that ends us on an overall rating of three. So, not to beat around the bush, a bit of a stinker, this one.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Um I think it's fair to say that I don't hate this game in a way that it doesn't make me angry, I just think it's a complete non-entity. Yeah. And I think our scoring criteria is quite harsh on games that are just complete non-entities, because there's just nothing there that that is positive to say about it. It's not something that I'm like, oh god, I hate that game.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

You know, it's just blown.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

It's just a a nothing nothing burger of a game. Alright.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Right, so let's then talk about how it plays at two.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

So under our first uh category is table talks. That includes things like getting to know you and how much conversation discourse you can have.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Uh-huh. Yeah, this to continue that unfortunately the theme, this sucks for table talk. I think it's the most silent game we have, and that includes the crew.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

Well, but also uh so my first thought is it's a very solitaire-esque kind of game. Yeah. But if I compare it to something like Mystic Veil, which we've also reviewed, um, which was a design to be a solitaire that you played together, yeah, a co-op a competitive solitaire type type game, this has still has even less communication. Yeah, I think. Because at least you have to kind of like explain what it is that you're doing and and how you've suddenly got like 15,000 mana to spend.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

This, it's just and it just doesn't it's very rapid and it doesn't stop, and there's no reason to converse at all during it. You just you're just doing things, and the mechanics of you doing things explains everything that needs to be explained. Yeah you could play with this with somebody who didn't speak a word of English. But that's probably and that could be a really but we include getting to know you in this, um, and it is a massive detriment. We we do not say a word during games with us, not a single word. Um, mostly because the pace of the game and the flow of the game just doesn't allow for that.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Um and there's no reason for it. There's you just don't there's no reason to converse, there's no reason to talk through anything.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Yeah. I think probably the most I said to you in the last game we played was actually don't bother take a bang contract because I'm just about to take this way.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

Yeah, I'm about to not this vaguely pointless mechanism because I'm going to take a turn now. Yeah. Yeah. Um so yeah, it is it is dreadful for table talk, it is absolutely dreadful. Um if you ever wanted to scare first date away and just play something with cable cars and not talk to them, this would be great for that. Yeah, I mean Yeah. Yeah, no, yeah, no, don't do guys. Other games to play with your data.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Unless maybe they're really into like city planning and and and San Francisco.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

I don't think about San Francisco that harkens me to this either, so No, no, no, just ACC.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Yeah. Um, right, yeah, so I gave it a two.

SPEAKER_02 26:45

Yeah, well, I also gave it a two.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Probably not the most conversational game.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

No, it is not.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Alright, well, let's then move on to competitiveness. I think the fundamental problem is we I mean we've already talked about the lack of depth.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yeah, we have, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

So the thing is, how competitive can you be when you know you haven't got an awful lot of strategic depth to it? Because it's not me out foxing you or playing spectacular moves. And in fact, when you've stolen the Master Builder token off me, I'm like, oh well done you! And I mean, I don't normally congratulate you when you beat me. I'm like, oh, well done you.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from not enjoying the game. Okay, so I have to take that there's that big elephant in the room is like it's not competitive for us because we don't enjoy the game. And I'm trying very hard not to do it a disservice just because I don't like the game. I'm trying to take a step away from that and go, could this be competitive? If you for some reason all of the planets aligned on this for you and you found this really, really cool, would you would the thing I always go to this category in this category is do you feel satisfied if you win? Is it a satisfying game to win? Um and and beat somebody else in.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Um I mean, in all fairness, again Yeah, our last game I do think was really quite close. Um we were quite even Stevens all the way through.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Um yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Yeah, it's the one category that I don't perhaps feel as massively negative about as a lot of the other ones. I think if you if you everything else we've said aside, if all of that for you was wrong and this the sounds like your bag, and there's two of you or more, then it could potentially be a fairly competitive game for you. Um it is not for for me, but I'm trying to step outside of that a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Yeah, I also think how competitive can be push-luck. Not even push your luck, because it's not push your luck, it's how competitive are luck-based games.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah, yeah, I don't think the strategic depth is there for me anyway to make it satisfying to win.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

And therefore, I think probably not. I wonder if actually Yeah. No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Anyway, I mean, yeah, I I wasn't as down on this because I see there are moments of it where you know you are trying, despite the randomness, to to beat the other person, but I uh I settled on a four in the end.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

No, so I gave it a two. Mainly because I congratulated you for oh well done. Oh I just think that's not how a competitive game should be.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

No, but I mean your level of do not care with us is is quite spectacular.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Yeah, so we also had one game that we got halfway through and I was like, ow, I don't care anymore. Can we just put it away? I just don't care.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

After ten minutes, by the way, this is not a two-hour slug.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

But I also would point out you'd half filled up your board and I hadn't placed any cards because I just couldn't be asked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Okay. But yeah, I settled on a fall for this.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yeah, and that's what I gave it to.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

And then our final rating scale is scalability. So, you know, would more people make this better?

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Um it's hard to conceptualise, really. I can't see how it improve it would improve it massively. However, I imagine the contracts system would be slightly more interesting if you have four people around the table.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Yeah, so I think what you would see is it would make it a lot more dynamic. So I think if one person got which has happened to us where you've been lucky with the cards that have been drawn, you've been able to take all those best cards because I'm the one that's drawing all the good cards. I think that would balance it to a certain extent. And I think for that reason I'd be quite interested to see it playing more people. I think it would be better. However, I do also worry that what would happen is one person would fall behind very, very quickly and would really struggle.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

You'd have almost have a runaway loser problem, not a runaway leader one, but somebody just gets iced out immediately gunned you. Yeah, but I'd have to I'd have to see in action to to make a but I can theorise that that would be the case.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

I do think it would change gameplay quite a lot, and I think it would make it faster in some ways than the other thing. I think you'd have much bigger stacks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

But there also might be a bit more strategic depth. Because one of the things that we didn't mention is when you play with more people, you have more possible lanes. So you can have up to five lanes when you play with four people in the marketplace. Yeah, in the marketplace, which may add a little bit more variety off the marketplace being there, which allows you to pick the pick and choose a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

And also think about where you place cards. So again, thinking about you know sabotaging other people's turns or preventing them from taking action.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

So there might be a there might be a bit more to it there.

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Um, and I do feel like there would be. Um also games will probably go on a bit longer because you need more foundation tokens.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

But I mean, realistically, it's not going to go on to 45 minutes. No, no. I mean it's still going to be done within half an hour.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

I didn't mean that in a negative sense, I actually meant it in a positive sense because of the game, I don't think the game would end as prematurely with the the foundations coming out.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Yeah, so I think yes. It'd be less likely between I often feel like there is that race and yeah, it does end up.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

All but one of our games have ended from too many foundations coming out. All but one, and we've played a fair few. So yeah. Um makes that more less likely because I I don't like immediate game end conditions. I just I don't think I like to be able to pull the trigger. Yeah, yeah. Um so yeah, I have gone with a four on this one.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

So I went oh, I've scored it the wrong way round.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Upside down scoring.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

I've done it upside down scoring, so I would have so I scored it a six, but that's the upside down screen.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

You actually mean a four.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

But I actually mean a four.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Okay, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

You'd think after this long I'd know our own scoring criterion.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Everything's a journey. Everything's a journey. So that gives us a two-player rating of three as well.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

So basically university shit. Don't pick the card. Don't buy it.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Just a stamp with an actual poo emoji on it, really. Um yeah, it's a it it is a bit of a stinker. Um, not a fan. Uh I don't see why anybody would be, but that's why objective opinions are, you know, objective opinions. Um, but yeah, from uh from from us here, bored with each other, we would say avoid.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Right. Well, on that, terribly positive note. Um thank you very, very much for joining us. Being quite uh short sharp on this time round. We are we I don't know if anybody's noticed, but we're trying to have a bit of a pattern with these where we put out something very, very meaty and weighty and then intersperse it with something a little lighter each each each each month and go around. And we also got our specials on sort of out-of-print or not really two player games or three player games or whatever coming out uh on a regular basis. I think we've agreed to try and get those out every quarter. Um we'll see how many we do. Um, but yeah, thank you very much again for joining us. And until next time, be good to each other and play lots of board games.