Board With Each Other
A podcast that looks at Board Games / Tabletop Gaming through the lens of playing as a couple or with a regular gaming partner. Hosted by Al & Hannah, We review a game each episode.
Board With Each Other
Episode 19 - Wyrmspan: Forbidden Mini Eggs
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Hey you, yes, you! Thanks for joining us!
In this episode of Board With Each Other we appraise the tableau / engine builder Wyrmspan - Stonemeir's new fantasy riff on the modern classic Wingspan.
As always we appraise the game, it's components and it's fun factor and then go on to review it for how well it works as a 2 player game. Also, is milk an appropriate food for dragons?
Hello everybody and welcome to Board with Each Other, the board gaming review podcast that looks at board games through the lens of playing them as a pair. Whether that's with your partner, your BFF, or with a spouse that continuously refers to herself as the mother of dragons.
SPEAKER_01:I am the mother of dragons.
SPEAKER_02:On that note, I'm Al Simpson and I'm joined as ever by my co-host, Player2 and lovely wife, Hana Killing.
SPEAKER_00:Hi guys.
SPEAKER_02:And today, in this month's episode, we are going to be reviewing the card-driven engine builder that is Wormspan. Wormspan is a remix, rewrite, and renew of the world straddling incredibly popular Wingspan. And it is not the same game. It's about 75% the same game, as far as I understand it. I just want to put a caveat at the start of the episode that neither of us have actually played Wingspan. It's never sort of grabbed me enough to pick up a copy, mainly because I'm not that interested in birds.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, why would you go for birds when you go for dragons?
SPEAKER_02:And I was sort of considering it when this came around, but I was like, oh, okay, there's a dragon one now, let's go with that. But as far as I understand it, this is the same but different. It's not sort of compatible with it. There's quite a few new mechanics, and it is slightly more complex than the original Saturn's expansions, obviously. I know there's a lot of expansions to Wingspan that add a lot to it, but um just a sort of vanilla out of the box is supposed to be the slightly more complicated of the two. How the game works and the premise of the game is you are the owner of three dragon caves, and within those dragon caves, you need to basically excavate them and dig them out, and place dragons into those caves, and then take a stroll through your lovely collection of dragons who don't eat you for reasons unknown, um, and accumulate resources, building an engine, as it were, through sort of a tableau that you have out on your player board in front of you. Um how that works is games played over four rounds of multiple turns. On a turn, uh each player will take one action each. Um, to take an action, you usually have to spend a coin, of which you get six every turn. There are ways to get more via cards during the game, but six is the basic sort of start that you have every turn. And with those coins, you can take one or three actions. You can excavate your caves, which means you place a cave card down on one of the open slots. The leftmost uh cave, the leftmost slot of all of your caves start off the game excavator, so you can start placing dragons immediately. But after that, you need a cave placed down over an empty slot in order to place a dragon there. Those cave cards usually have instant effects, so most of the time they'll gain you resources, sometimes cards, um, sometimes uh it'll move you forward on the dragon guild marker, which I'll get on to in a minute. Um you can entice a dragon. You don't buy dragons, you entice them, and you do so by spending a coin to take the action and then paying the resources.
SPEAKER_01:It would be immoral, I think, to buy dragons.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it would be. You definitely have to entice them, you know, show a bit of leg, or failing that, some milk and milk and gold. You'll get to the milk. I'm sure we all get to the we will get to the milk. Um you start the game with three resources of your choice, so you can start placing dragons uh potentially straight away. Um I think there off the top of my head there are five resources milk, meat, gold, crystal, and coin. And coins, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Or eggs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, eggs as well. Um so each dragon will have a listed cost on it. You pay the pay the resources, you place the dragon card down. Some dragon cards will have an immediate effect. Some dragon cards will have an effect that occurs at the end of every round, others will have an end game effect, and others will have an effect of when you walk past them when you go exploring, which is your third action. To explore, you place a coin down on the cave that you want to explore, and you basically walk along a track that is made half by the player board, but also half by the dragon cards that you put down. And depending on which row you go, you go for, the top one is resource focused, the middle one is dragon card focused, the bottom one is cave card focused, you will collect those as you go and any special when you walk past your um abilities you've had on your dragons that you place down. Play continues until both players either run out of coins or pass. When that occurs, each round has a randomly uh generated scorecard associated with it, and it'll one specific criteria. So, for example, what it'll want uh large, who's got the most large dragons on your player mat, or who's got the most playful dragons on your on your player mat. And you will get uh the victory points in that are ranked, but you have to you have to play, you have to pay to play basically. So if you if if for example, let's say you need shy dragons and you've got zero, you will get zero points, you won't come second just by participating. Those point values on those ramp up from round to round. So the first one is is relatively low, the last one is is quite significant, and then you basically reset everything, get your six coins back, and begin a new round. There is a marketplace which has three dragon cards and three cave cards on at any time, and most of the time when you gain cards, you can choose to either gain them from the marketplace or from the top of the deck, as is quite usual for games of this of this nature. Um, and at the end of every round, you completely wipe and refresh the display so things don't get bogged down by things nobody wants. The additional mechanics are some of the dragons that allow you to either tuck cards underneath them or cachet resources on top of them. Those are usually worth victory points at the end of the game, and some uh dragons have particular effects if you cachet or tuck, it's usually the third car that you do, it will have a bonus, a bonus effect. The only other thing to mention is the dragon guild board. So it is a circular board that has uh resources and cards and what have you as bonuses that you work your way around with a marker, so as soon as you land on or pass any of the the um any of the prize prizes, squares, I don't know what to call them, on the board, you would gain everything that you passed, including the one that you landed on. When you are halfway round the circle, and when you're all the way around the circle, you get to place a uh marker on the dragon guild card that's also randomized at the start of the game, and those markers sort of stay there permanently, and there's only so many slots for each of them. And some of them will have instant uh impacts, for instance, you'll gain a coin and two resources. Some of them will pertain to end game ability, so you'll get three points at the end of the game for every full column of dragons you have, for example. And there's also a row at the bottom that has a slot for six victory points, three victory points, and one, which again you gain at the end of the game. Once the fourth round is over, you tot up your scores, and most of the scoring tends to come from the actual printed scoring values on all of your dragons out of the board and from that guild track that I mentioned. But you get bonus points for resources, you get bonus points for end game scoring abilities. There's a wide variety of um point salad scoring that comes into that at the end.
SPEAKER_01:In terms of game length, it's a fairly quick one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but not that quick. I'd say about 45 minutes. Yeah. Around the 45 minute mark with two players. We've had we have had a couple that go on a little bit longer, and we've had a few that are a bit shorter, but it depends on thinking time, really.
SPEAKER_01:How much I prefer, okay. So, can we talk about the milk?
SPEAKER_02:Um, yeah, we can talk about the milk.
SPEAKER_01:So, as Al mentioned, you have to entice your dragons, and typically you entice them with one of four or multiple resources. They're gold, that makes sense. Dragons like gold, crystals, yeah, they like the horde loot, meat, yeah. We all know that dragons drink eat milk uh eat eat meat, and milk.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, who doesn't like a cool, refreshing glass of milk?
SPEAKER_01:Reptiles. Reptiles don't like milk.
SPEAKER_02:But think of the heartburn. It's a natural anthracit.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, I hadn't thought about that. Um, yeah, it was a bit of a stumbling block for me, I've got to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:It really took you a while to get over it from a law perspective.
SPEAKER_01:I think I think for a really long time I chose not to play dragons that required milk because you know You just disagree with it.
SPEAKER_02:They're lactose intolerant. What can anybody think of the dragons?
SPEAKER_01:Um but aside from the milk issue, we haven't talked about eggs.
SPEAKER_02:No, we haven't talked about eggs. Umce per turn you get to lay an egg. There are two spots for that on your player board, and your dragons have multiple egg slots on them. Some things cost eggs, uh, particularly when you're taking repetitive actions on one space. So if you explore multiple times on one one um cave in a turn, it'll start costing you an increasing amount of eggs.
SPEAKER_01:And to lay your final uh two cave cards cost eggs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the first yeah, the third column costs one egg, the fourth column costs two eggs alongside your silver coin. They're also worth one victory point each at the end of the game, so if you start amassing eggs, it can start tanning up quite quickly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I mean, straight out of the bag, I mean it's it's a game about dragons. I I was quite happy. This was a birthday present as well. Um and uh yes, any any any game that involves dragons makes me quite happy. Yes, and they're all quite cute.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but you've listened to the podcast before will know that anything vaguely fantasy related and dragon-related, Hannah's on board, and uh yeah, I sort of saw that this had this had come out, and I was straight away, I was like, we need to get a copy of that. Um somebody will like that. So yeah, I mean I think now, rules aside, do you want to get on to some scoring? Is there anything else you want to talk about before?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I think that's about it.
SPEAKER_02:We we crack on. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So as always, we review the game on a general basis and then we move on to our two-player rating. So on to the first of our general categories, we have components. So that includes things like the board space, setup, um, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02:And the quality of the components.
SPEAKER_01:And the quality of the components.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um, yeah, do you do you want to kick off with it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so first of all, it's yeah, okay, fine, so it's dragons, but also the illustrations on the card are really, really lovely and they're really, really pretty. Yeah. Um is a very cutesy.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it straddles a line for me between cutesy and actually just quite cool. They haven't gone full-on like cartoony with it. There there is there's a little bit of grit to them, you know, they're they're quite they've very it's it's this nice middle zone between cutesy and uh I would say real real world fantasy, if you will. So, you know, halfway between Nickelodeon and Game of Thrones, really.
SPEAKER_01:Um yeah, the cards are really cute and the illustrations are really lovely. Um I also want to shout out to the eggs themselves. The eggs are really well made, they are wooden, they're quite tiny, so quite fiddly, but they're really pretty, and again, they've got like flicks of different colour on them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they're gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01:They're they're really well made and they're really lovely.
SPEAKER_02:For putting many eggs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, don't even know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, no, they they they are really good. I mean, I I think I read somewhere if if by some chance you're reading this person that wrote this online, that Stonemeyer games are kind of like the apple of board games where everything's very, very slick and stylish, and you come to expect a certain quality or product from them. I know from my experience with Scythe and with this, there is a there's a very professional, well-made sheen to everything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that makes sense because one thing that I was going to mention was the little um you know the the boxes that we couple with little token trays. Little token trays, which is a really, really lovely touch. Yeah, and I absolutely value and appreciate a game designer that puts those in. However, they're not big enough, and there aren't enough of them. So there are only four of them, but there are lots more resources, and I'm a bit confused as to why they picked four as the number, um, and yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, I guess I guess so. I mean it's not something to mark them down on because it's like the the only games that seem to come with them at all, full stop.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, to be fair at this point in our full gaming relationship, we thought we should just invest in some ourselves.
SPEAKER_02:Some actual token, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But um, you know, I appreciate it nonetheless.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, it's really cool. But the whole package is just incredibly well made, it's incredibly slick, everything's of really nice quality, um, the cards feel great, um, everything's quite weighty, uh, the player boards, it's it's got this sort of pastly pink kind of colour scheme to it, which would normally I wouldn't like, but I actually quite like it. I think it looks good. I think the the matchingness of it all is is everything sort of blends together out on the table. Yeah, it's very aesthetically pleasing. Um you get a full-scale uh compendium of every dragon in the game with lore write-ups associated with each, and there's hundreds, so I have to admire the ludicrous effort that probably went into that for no real reason as I won't.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, if there was a job, that would be the job that I would want. Make up backstories for dragons.
SPEAKER_02:Don't let your dreams be dreams. Actually, do we need a paycheck? Um, but yeah, I mean it's it's it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful package, it really is. Um and in terms of setup and teardown, quite quick and simple.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, again, once you've separated everything to baggies, it becomes really quite easy. You do have quite a few small little tiny tokens. So, for example, the things that you use to mark victory points on the the guild tracker. Um, but I mean that's all part of the course really, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:They're not that fiddly. The only the only bugbear, but yeah, I have the same issue with Arcanova is trying to shuffle the bloody deck.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because uh as with Arcanova, um, and I think Terraforming Mars is similar from what I've heard. There there's a there's a there's a rise of the deck of many things, which is just these massive, massive main decks that you play with. Um and it's great because of replayability, but shuffling them is a little bit of a nightmare.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so it's probably not one of the ones you actually want to shuffle, it's more like DNA.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, just just sort of have an effort at it, have an effort at shuffling, but yeah, it is it is quite painful to do so.
SPEAKER_01:Slight bug bur, maybe, is that your cave cards are much smaller than your dragon cards, and there's a reason for that, so that when you lay them out and you play them, but it's annoying to hold them in your hands.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's don't really bother me, fair enough. No.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe it's because you've got bigger hands than the bigger.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, maybe. Yeah, I don't know. I just tend to order them and hold them and find them out. That's been all.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe I'm being picky.
SPEAKER_02:I've just got really tiny hands. Um yeah, so I mean on that basis, I've given it a nine because I've got very, very little to to criticise this about in this in in in this vein.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I gave it an eight. The reason I didn't score it higher was because the trays they gave us, which I feel admittedly is lightly mean because they gave us trays. Yeah. But I don't understand why you gave us the wrong number and then they're too small.
SPEAKER_02:Protect designers, unless you're going to do something very, very generously, just don't bother with Hannah. She won't mark you down for it. That was an attempt stone by, I'm still not satisfied. Right, okay. That's that's because I that's why I just don't try. There you go, put a bit there. Right. Shall we go to complexity? So, for those unfamiliar with our scoring, this is not complex game is good, simple game is bad. This is how well the rule set of the game uh suits the gameplay and how well it all works together.
SPEAKER_01:How much we argue about the rules.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that too.
SPEAKER_01:And how much time I sit there thinking about my mates.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean that's more that's more just you. Less the game. So, what are your thoughts on complexity?
SPEAKER_01:So I think that it it's a really nice fit. I think that, and I don't know whether this is part of Wormspan uh Wingspan originally, but the guild tracker.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's not in Wingspan.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so the guild tracker, and I thought that might have been an added data, is a really lovely way just to be able to add that additional layer of complexity and strategy and depth to the game that I think probably you would really miss without having it there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So not only are you thinking about immediately you're on your player board and also you know what you're aiming for each round, um, you're also thinking about what points you can get on your guild tracker and at what time point to pull them and what what that's going to do to your final victory scores. And I think that we've had some games that have really been cinched because of the guild tracker.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I I fully agree with you. I think um it's a great mechanic, and I think it adds one more thing to have an eye over. And I think for a medium weight game like this, it has a real sweet spot where you don't fancy some to our brain burny epic clash, you know. There's there's that in-between bit, and I think it's one of those things that we'd be missing on our shelf for quite a while because we tend to go either you know, light or heavy, or like medium-heavy. There's we haven't got that much that's in between, and I think there's just enough going on here to keep my brain interested and tickled, um, and there's enough to keep an eye on between your board, your opponent's board, the marketplace, the dragon guild markers, and the round scoring criteria. I think it it it it hits a real sweet spot for me.
SPEAKER_01:One of the things that I will say is there is quite a lot of luck based in this. Whilst you can cycle through cave cards and whilst you can cycle through dragon cards, if you just keep drawing a rubbish hand, you can get really stuck. But I think your dragon guild is a way of being able to then mitigate that a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and that's why I think it's such a fantastic addition.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I was going to talk about luck in one of the later categories personally, but I'll bring the discussion here.
SPEAKER_01:I think thank you for taping it for discussion.
SPEAKER_02:No, just like skip it forward. Um I I could see people getting quite frustrated with this until they learned the ways that you can mitigate it. I think the two resources to swap for the two resources a wild thing is is great. I think it would really suffer without that. I think you have to plan ahead a little bit because you can you you can place yourself in a bit of a corner. I think people might get a bit uh snooty about the the criteria for the first round. Because you can you can have a thing that, oh, you need playful dragons, then your opponent could have had two in their starting hand, which is of which is three, you start with three dragons in your hand, you could have zero and there could be zero in the marketplace, which almost by default you've then lost that round. However, I think the game mitigates that by the scoring on the first round for that for that scoring criteria being quite light. I think if you win it, you get four points. I mean, four points is nothing. You lay four eggs and you've caught up. So while you can get screwed out of getting anything on that first round by the luck of the draw, I think anything that comes after that is uh there's a lot to do with the player there.
SPEAKER_01:And again, you can see what your victory conditions are in the final scoring round. So actually, quite often in the first round, I'll be working towards that already. Certainly, the first few games that we played, I did get a little bit screwed over in terms of cards, and I did lose a lot, and I did find it quite frustrating.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It was only when I started realising the value of the the guild tracker that I began to sort of be able to mitigate. Plus, also, you know, embracing the fact that dragons do drink milk and therefore. And then I started playing dragons that required milk.
SPEAKER_02:Um but yeah, I think I I think some people may be initially put off by that happening. I might I would say power through a little bit because uh the more you play it, the more you realise how much mitigation is there. And yes, luck is a factor, there's no getting out of it, but it's not as luck-based as it first appears.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we'll talk more about luck later, but I guess it's yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Fine. But yeah, I like I said, I think it hits a real sweet stuff for me. It's it's it's definitely not a light game, but it definitely falls a slot for when you don't have as much time or your brain's just not up to something that's you know massive and expansive. So I've got given it an eight.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, I also scored it an eight.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, lovely.
SPEAKER_01:So then on to shelf life. So under shelf life we talk about things like value for money, but we also talk about that replayability factor. So are we still gonna be playing it in a year, five years, ten years time?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so what's the price point?
SPEAKER_02:I think this goes for somewhere between the 40 and 50 range, depending.
SPEAKER_01:So I think for that kind of price with the components that you get and the huge big whopping stack of cards that have obviously had quite a lot of production value go into them, I think that's a really reasonable price point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think for a big box ball game of what you get in the box, I think it's perfectly it's it's perfectly fine. I don't think it's like, oh wow, the value for money, but I for a game of that size without miniatures, 40 to 50 is what you pay. You know, and I think the production values are good compared to some of the games I've probably played similar for. So I've got zero complaints there. They do have the advantage of being a big publisher, yeah, so you get to pull prior production costs down a bit, which is all great. We'll we see that at the end of the day, don't we? So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, and in terms of replayability, well, you've already kind of hit the nail on the head. There is a whopping stack of cards, so you've got a constant variety of charming dragons, sometimes aggressive, but often charming dragons, and then you have that random factor by randomising your end of the round victory conditions and also your your your guild, which guild you go with. So there is a lot of randomization involved in it. I would say what's quite interesting is we've obviously played quite a few games of this, but actually the engine that you build is often very different as well.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, massively different from game to game.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think that's what's really telling and really interesting that you have to build your engine around what you've got in your hand or or where your your board state is taking you, and that often looks quite different.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so that also speaks, I think, to the level of replayability that's there.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think there's a lot of replayability. I think realistically for me, and this is more to do with the the depth and what's involved in the game, I could see myself becoming a bit bored with it in like 20 to 30 plays, maybe. I don't know for sure. But I just I don't know, I don't know if there's enough there to keep bringing me back for years and you Years and years. I mean that you not every ball game has to have that, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01:I also think that we've hit this quite hard because it's filled this spot which we've had missing for quite some time. Um I'm not feeling bored of it yet, but yeah, and so I think we've played it quite hard, quite intensively, and as a result, that novelty might wear off.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But actually, I can honestly see myself still digging this out.
SPEAKER_02:Quite a while in the future.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, quite a while in the future.
SPEAKER_02:Saying that, Wingspan got, I don't know, 55 expansions or whatever. I say exaggerate, of course, I do. The word it got a lot of support. Throw a couple of expansions with some new mechanics at this once a year for me, that might bring me back over and over and over again. I just I think there'll be a lot of lot of life in this for me yet. So I don't think it's a I don't think it's bad, I don't think it's negative shelf life. I can just foresee a time where I become I I might find this start to get a little bit dull. But that's far in the future, I don't think it's now. So that basis combined with the value of money, I gave it a seven.
SPEAKER_01:I also gave it a seven. The reason I gave it a seven is possibly because of the whole too much luck thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Rather than perhaps maybe more strategy, but I think we kind of talked about that already.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay, that's interesting. I think it's what's always interesting with some of these categories is where you bring things in. So you've that's affected perhaps the shelf life for you, whereas for me that's more a competitiveness thing. And yeah, it's just interesting, just a aside.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's because when I talk about things like replayability, there is an element of I want to be building on strategy or I want to be building on my ability to do better.
SPEAKER_02:You want to get better at the game, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And when there's a high degree of luck, well, actually, to a certain extent, it's out of my hands a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, fair enough. So that makes complete sense. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And then on to our final category under the general uh scoring criteria, and that is fun. So do you have any fun when you play it?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I do. Yeah, it very much is fun. I really enjoy it. Um it's got a really satisfying click to it when you build your engine, if you get an engine working. I've I've managed one so far which seemed to be a a a never-ending, perpetuating money factory. Yeah. I don't quite know how I managed it, but I I eventually passed because I just, you know, got it was ridiculous, it was unstoppable, and that was really satisfying. Um, obviously it depends what you get, and having to think your way around the the puzzle that your hand and the other player and the scoring criteria are presenting to you. Um, but luck aside, there is a lot of strategy in this, and it's the strategy is not so complex, labyrinthine, and deep that without having to really, really think, you can you you can have quite an impact on the game. You know, you just it's it's that seeing your strategy come to life without having to think way, way too hard about it, which again fits a sweet spot for me on certain evenings. There's some evenings where I want you know labyrinthine and all the rest of it, but when I don't, this this is really good for that.
SPEAKER_01:The flip side is that it can be quite frustrating. So if you don't get it working and it doesn't quite pay off, it can be quite a frustrating experience. Again, that's my whole issue with the luck, but you prefer luck more than I do, I think, in a game. So it's it's that two sides of the same coin. That said, I wouldn't say that it's not a fun game. Um I still scored it at seven.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, I I mean I d I do enjoy it, and it's just it's just it's a fun game to play, you know. You keep telling each other names of your dragons and look at the artwork, and it's it's just it's it's a pleasant experience, yeah, but without being too dull and light.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there's something really quite lovely about being able to take a waltz through your dragon cave. Um, possibly the names of some of the caves.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I need to get hold of some of his dragon repellent. Um so yeah, I yeah, I gave it an 8 because I I I have a lot of fun playing this. It's it's it it's it's a really good time, and particularly with that engine works. You can paint yourself into a corner, or you can go a bit too hard on something, and then that doesn't pan out, which is mildly frustrating, but I have never found it that frustrating. I've just kind of you know shrugged and got over it. And I think uh what what help what helps is it's it's quite hearted. It's quite light-hearted game, so I don't feel that overly, you know, invested in that sense.
SPEAKER_01:You you talked about scythe being like a comparator, you know, it everything about the board is quite intense, your mechs are all quite intense. This is complete opposite. It's lots of pastel colours, it's very warm feeling, cute eggs, lovely little dragons. Do you know you can't it's cozy?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's co I don't know it's cozy, but no, because cozy is dragon scale.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so let's add up those scores. So that gives us an average score of 7.8. So as always, we round up or down, that gives us a score of eight.
SPEAKER_02:Good solid eight for general scoring of wormspan, which I'm really happy with. Yeah, it's an eight out of ten.
SPEAKER_01:Right, so let's move on to our two-player rating scale. So this is now thinking specifically about how does this game work at two. So under our first criteria, we have table talk. So that includes things like how much banter, getting to know you, and how much direct uh player interaction is. And direct player interaction. Thoughts.
SPEAKER_02:So it is not a solitaire game you play together, as we encounter quite a bit. Some people may see it like that, but I've actually found that there's quite a degree of player interaction on this one. I think because of its simplicity, it's quite easy to keep an eye on what the other person is up to. And it's quite easy to block them. Picking cards out from the the display that you know they need, playing cards that you know are going to have an impact on the scoring criteria that they're going for. I think I it's not a direct head-to-head, and you can't really mess with each other too much, but I do think it's there, which impressed me because when I first started playing it, I thought, oh, this is this is another one of these.
SPEAKER_01:Hmm. I don't know, I entirely agree with you.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, that's fine, you can disagree with me.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so we do talk quite a lot as we play it because we will read out the name of the card, and as we go walking over our cave, we'll explain what we're doing, etc. Yeah, yeah. But you don't have to. No. And I think that's because we we talk an awful lot and and that's how we play. Um so I don't think the game forces you or pushes you into that interaction.
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_01:And I think you could play it almost completely silently if that's either your inclination or perhaps your playstyle. I acknowledge your point about blocking each other, but also I think because your hand is so uh limited most often, well not always, because you can amass loads of cards.
SPEAKER_02:You tend to from like the second round onwards.
SPEAKER_01:You don't have to buy all the cards.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but you have nine.
SPEAKER_01:Um but because of that, whilst you might think you're blocking me, actually you might just be pissing in the wind and you've got no idea what it is that I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, perhaps. But uh the amount of swearing that came out of you on several occasions when I did it makes me think otherwise.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, once or twice, perhaps, maybe.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, I mean, okay, fine. So what are your what what are your thoughts though? Are you do you think it's poor for that or I don't know, it's hard to know, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Because like I say, we do talk an awful lot and we we do have that interaction, so it is there if you want it, but if you're looking for a game where it is encouraging you to have discussion or encouraging you to strategize, that's why it's a co- it's a competitive game there, isn't it? A huge amount. I just I don't think there is a lot of touch points built into the game for that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I th I think you're correct on that on that front. Well, I mean uh I haven't given this a huge score for this. I think just when I first cracked it out and first played it, I was expecting this to be very quite low, but it's actually crept up a little bit for me over time.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, see, see maybe that's the the difference then because I actually didn't I didn't think it was going to be as quiet as this. Fair enough, okay. And so therefore perhaps maybe I had higher expectations that have fallen short all the way around.
SPEAKER_02:I mean to skip to the score quickly because I mentioned it. I've given this a six.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow, okay.
SPEAKER_02:So I think it's slightly above average, but I think I was expecting a a three when we first started playing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that's why I've scored it.
SPEAKER_02:I was expecting a I was expecting something that was completely Mystic Veil level, you know, completely separate, playing together, and I don't think it is that. And the more I play it, the less I think it's that. Um I think there's also an awful lot going on in front of you, and I think there's a lot of sort of interaction with the space, and yeah, I I don't know, it it's there there's there's something there that is slightly above what I usually expect from this type of game.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I can say, well, I scored it at three. I'm sure I want to revise myself. No, no, not really. I don't know where I scored Mr. Cavale as comparison, and it's random scoring of the evening. But yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that's random scoring criteria.
SPEAKER_01:That's why I put out. But yeah, I maybe I wanted to talk to my dragons more, okay?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, you can talk to your dragons anyway. It's not talking to me, though, is it? Does it go into Table Talk? Um your lone time with new dragons. But yeah, I I think I think it's slightly above average in general, and it is it it there's more there than I thought. And maybe that's just me. Maybe that's the way I uh it's hitting me, but you know, it's objective, objective opinion. Subjective, not objective, subjective.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I'm gonna say a little bit more, but I'm gonna wait until the next category.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So shall we move on to the next category? Which is competitiveness and co-op slash co-operability.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, competitiveness in this case.
SPEAKER_01:So for me, this is one of those games that I I find quite difficult to score. Um because obviously it's competitive. Obviously, we are trying to get most points, but because you don't have that intense sort of head-to-head nature, you're not often um you don't necessarily have that high level of interaction or interactivity, it doesn't feel as competitive as perhaps other games that we have of a similar nature.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay, yeah, fine. Um I think I agree with you partially. I think it it's on the surface level, you could quite happily just play this for the fun of it. Um and it nothing really matters. However, I do think that it is a game that you can get better at.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um I do think there's skill involved, which is for me anyway, a big building block of a competitive game. And I think the better you get, the more competitive it will get.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean I'll say that the level of competitiveness, competitivity, competitiveness between us has increased again, I think, as we've perhaps got better.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think one of the other complicating factors is a bit like quite a lot of these kinds of games, there are multiple scoring criteria, it is not just points on a victory track.
SPEAKER_02:Point point salad.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, point salad does. Yeah, is that a thing? Is that a phrase?
SPEAKER_02:That's the general term for it.
SPEAKER_01:And therefore, it does make it quite difficult to know and I always find this really difficult, so I found this again with like Terra Mystica to a certain extent and other things as well. I don't necessarily know how I'm doing, therefore it then becomes an internal competition with myself.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. And some would argue that's a feature, not a bug. Um it's to stop it it's to stop you knowing when you're winning. Yeah, I mean it's not. I get why I get why they do the whole sort of they I mean everything's there, if you wanted to really sit there and add everything up, but like Scythe, you you could.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's not necessarily a criticism, it just for me it means that it is a little bit less competitive.
SPEAKER_02:Because you're kind of playing Yeah. Yeah, in a bit of a vacuum. Yeah, I suppose that that that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:And then without the lack of, you know, trash talk.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, you know, as as things progress, maybe. And yeah, I agree with you that it it lack it lacks a nail-biting edge, it lacks a real head-to-head edge. This is not this is not June Imperium, you know, it's but I don't think it's non-competitive. No, I I do think it is satisfying to win, which is always a thing for me in this. And when I win, I don't feel like I've fallen into it. I know a game that I phoned in, I got battered.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I absolutely battered.
SPEAKER_01:And here's the other thing. I don't again, we're not necessarily talking about how competitive it is for the get for the game that it it is, but there is that certain element. It is a cutesy looking, feeling game. I don't know that I want to be battling our dragons.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think you're battling our dragons. That's a different game entirely. That's a different game entirely, yeah. That's that that's yeah, uh bring me a that's one front matched. Yeah, bring me a battle dra uh battle dragon skirmishing game, I'm all over it. But yeah, no, this is not it. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:And and so do I mark it down for that? I d I don't know because again, it it it does feel like an appropriate amount of competitiveness for the game that it is. Yeah, could it be more competitive? Yes, yeah. Um, and I also think there are lots of people who do get put off by that really confrontational um nature of games, and you don't have it in this, and that might be a really lovely way of being able to introduce a bit of competition, you know, in a two-player environment. Where I think it often feels a lot more personal, doesn't it, when it's like two of you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's uh one of the reasons of the rise of popularity of the solitaire you play together type games is because it's nobody's feeling gets hurt at the end of the day because you're usually kind of playing yourself a little bit. I do think there's more to, as I've already mentioned, I do think there's more to this one than that. Um, but it's it is the margins, like I say. This is not a June Imperium, this is not a you know skirmish battle, this is not something that you're really up against the other person all the time, and uh while you can impact them, you can't completely decimate them like you can in other games. So there is that, and there's that's that's that's softness to it. And I don't think I don't think I ever look at this category as marking things like that up or or down. I th I I always think about it, can you get better at it? Is it satisfying to win? That's that's the the competitive nature of it, I think. And I think the more you played this, the better you got at it, the more you would care. And that for me is quite that that's positive competitiveness to me. So I gave it a seven. I don't think it's the the best in ever, you know, in the world, but that's that's where I settled.
SPEAKER_01:So that's really interesting because I also scored it seven.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting, so very, very different sort of take, but kind of settling on the same the same score. Yeah, I think higher would be wrong. Yeah, no, um, but I don't think it deserves lower than that. No, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, all right, and then our final category under two player rating is scalability or frame o. So would this play better with more people?
SPEAKER_02:This is an interesting one. This is an interesting one because I I've heard a lot, and like I say, caveat, I've never played it, but I've heard a lot that wingspan kinda sucks at two. I don't find that with this, and I don't know if this is because it's a different enough game to Wingspan, but it plays absolutely fine at two players. Like I don't there's no there's no massive negatives for playing with two that I can see. The the the conversation with me really starts about talking about playing this with more and what that means, but go on, you you had a point there.
SPEAKER_01:So I think the bit where quite often people say at two player it sucks is around when you're fighting for resources, or in this case, when you're fighting for um your guild point slots, because quite often when you get that bonus, but then you get either at 12 o'clock or six o'clock at the top or halfway round, there are usually only one or maybe two of that available, so actually it becomes like a little bit of a fight to get there.
SPEAKER_02:Ah, but if you play more players, you flip that card over and there's more slots.
SPEAKER_01:Is there?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so those cards are double-sided, and there's a two, there's a two to three player side and a three to four player side, I think, and you can choose which one you want to.
SPEAKER_01:Must be why I should read all the rules before we review these games.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, yeah, we either thought we always split setup listeners, we always have our own jobs, and usually the randomization of tiles is mine, so you've just never seen that really. But yes, you do have you that does flip, so playing playing with more, I don't think would change that that much.
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't think it would.
SPEAKER_02:Um I think they've balanced it with that in mind. What I think is interesting if you were playing with more people, is I think the mix of victory points, particularly from the end-of-round scoring, would be far more of a mix.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think it does have a little bit of a runaway leader problem when you're playing with two in that sense, because I think from the experience, the games that we've played, usually one of the two of us wins three out of the four of those. I don't know if you've noticed.
SPEAKER_01:What I'd also point out though, listeners, is that if you both if you tie, you both get first slot.
SPEAKER_02:Top slot, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you don't unlike June where nobody wins, you both get second slot if you tie. Yeah. Um perhaps maybe There'd also be a market scarcity issue, particularly I think if you play with four people, or five, it goes up to five, you still only have those three cards for that entire round.
SPEAKER_01:But you can so hit well, yeah, you can pull from the top of the deck from most of cards, so you can just go from the deck. Yeah. But there are some, particularly on cave cards, that will allow you to do something really quite powerful, which is take a cave card from the marketplace. From the display, yeah, instantly for free.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. There's one for dragons, there's one for dragons as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so if you're doing that in your final slot, well, that costs you two eggs, and that's actually that's quite expensive. Um, so but if if if obviously there's nothing in the display, then the card becomes almost useless. Yeah, that card becomes useless.
SPEAKER_02:Um so there is that scarcity of display element, which I think would be interesting. I don't know if it would be better or worse, but those cards would run out a lot quicker because you're not getting any more cards, and people are taking twice, three times, four times the number of moves, that's gonna disappear really quickly onto the round. And then, interestingly, you are more into the random luck-based element because then you're just having to top top deck cards all the time, and maybe that makes the game worse. I don't know. I haven't played it, but there's a part of me that goes, hmm, maybe it's not as good.
SPEAKER_01:It's unusual, I think, for me to play games and never think, oh, maybe a third would help here, or a third person, and actually I've never had with those. No, I've always been completely fine with it being two of us.
SPEAKER_02:Aside from this review, it's never even entered my mind. Yeah. If you told me this is a two-player game, I'd go, yeah, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um which is interesting, and I'd love to if if if anybody wants to engage on this, I'd love to hear if that is actually the case in Wingspan or you know, it's the classic, oh no, we must play with more than two, the board games are useless when you only play them with two. I know that element of discourse seems to exist, but I have heard that it was rubbish and uh some expansions fixed it a little bit. And I I'm really I really wonder what it is that they they changed unless they made it that way because from my perspective, this is perfectly finer two.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I have nothing that I can criticise it over, and I can't. I I I I do think having more people, a third or a fourth, would make the game slightly different, and quite I I'd be intrigued, and I quite like to play it like that, but I don't think it desperately needs it.
SPEAKER_01:No. So how did you score it? So I left my scoring criteria blank because I couldn't work out how to score it.
SPEAKER_02:I teeter between a seven and an eight on this one, and I'm gonna settle on an eight.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so interestingly, I think I was going around a seven. Um, although maybe I should have rated it higher because if I've never played it and I've never gone, oh, maybe having a third would help, then probably actually it should be higher.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so you're just never even entered in your mind, and that that's zero FOMO, and that's also works very well at two. We're already rated it as generally as an eight. And if it never enters your mind that oh, this needs more people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, that's that's that's a good score for that one.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, fair enough. I will call it an eight then.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, shall we top the scores up then? Okay, so that gives us a overall rating, two-player rating of six point five. So as always, we round to a seven. I think given the given the splits and the scoring, that probably makes me happier than more happy than you, but no, I I I think it's a fantastic two-player game, don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's just that table talk category. Yeah, I think we have a big difference of opinion. Yeah, we have a real difference of opinion on that. Do I think it's a bad two-player game? No, not at all. I just think that if you're going in there looking for a game that is gonna, you know, encourage you to have discourse with your your other player, then this probably isn't necessarily the game you would want to pick.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, fine.
SPEAKER_01:It's not a bad score, it's just uh it's not a talky one.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, alright. Thank you, Mother of Dragons. Thank you for joining us. Mother of Dragon. Um so thank you all very, very much for joining us. Um, as always, uh if you like what you heard and this is the your first time joining us, please follow us on your uh podcast medium of choice. Hello. And hello, welcome. Uh we've got a good chunk of content up there now. I think this might be knocking on our 20th full episode. Um, and if you do listen to us on your podcast medium of choice, a little review would go a long way, and I really appreciate that. But until next time, be good to each other, play DOS of all games.
