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 28 - Sky Team: I Just Want to Tell You Both, Good Luck. We're All Counting On You
Boarding passes please!
Thanks for joining us for this month's episode as we do a deep dive into the 2 player co-op smash hit Sky Team. We examine mechanics, how well it plays, it's longevity and of course the concept of passive aggressive dice placement. We hope you enjoy.
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Board With Each Other, the board gaming podcast that reviews board games and looks at them through the lens of how well they play at two players. Whether that be with your significant other, your BFF, or with your co-pilot who just will not cooperate and keep spilling coffee all over the controls. I'm Alistair Simpson, and I'm joined as ever by my co-host and wife, Anna Kelling.
SPEAKER_01:Hi guys.
SPEAKER_00:And today we are reviewing the two-player co-op experience that is Sky Team. In Sky Team, you take the role of a pilot and a co-pilot, and essentially you need to land that plane. Or not just as the case may be quite quite a lot, not in uh later scenarios, but we'll get to that. Um you do so by rolling each rolling a set of four dice at the start of your turn and placing them on a board representing your plane's cockpit. You can't cockpit. Oh, this is gonna be a long episode, isn't it? You have certain spots on your board that you can place dice, uh whether that be just the pilot or co-pilot, or some shared spaces. A lot of the slots on the board have a number requirement on them, some do not. Um so you for example, your axis and your engines, which control you know the tilt of your plane and how fast you're going, are sort of free. They they're open spots, you can place any number on there. But there's other elements like your landing gear, your brakes, your flags that uh you need to put specific numbers down, or a pair of specific numbers. For each uh scenario, you have an airport that you're trying to land at, and these airports usually have a number of planes in the sky around them. To clear these planes, you need to place dice on the uh radio the the air traffic controller spaces, um which the co-pilot has two and the pilot has one. You need to also land your plane at the right time. You have an altitude meter, which is essentially a turn counter. You need to reach the airport at the right time. Uh sometimes you need to hold back and circle for a bit, other times you need to speed up to go faster. Some airports have spots on their tracks as you progress through them that require you to roll uh another die that tells you to put more planes into the sky around there. And when you reach the airport, you basically need to slow right down. You have a brakes, you have three brakes spots which increase the intensity of your brakes, and you need to basically put your engines and the combined score underneath that to successfully land the plane. There are also spots that you can put down to get coffee, which will basically allow you to alter dice rolls by one for each one you use. You have a maximum of three. With each scenario and each airport, as you progress through the scenarios, they introduce a lot of different mechanics. So, for example, you have an intern that you need to train that allows you to replace the replace uh dice from their board onto the onto the board. You have fuel sometimes, which is constantly running out because you have a fuel leak. So there's lots of little sort of quirks to add to the challenge of scenarios as you progress through.
SPEAKER_01:I suppose it's probably worth mentioning you talked about how you can place any sort of number of dice on the axis or or or on the the the gas pedal if you like. But the trick is that you need to make sure that you don't go into a tailspin or a drift.
SPEAKER_00:Um yeah, so on the axis you basically you you compare your dice scores, and the difference between those dice scores is the is the number of times you move the axis in a particular direction. If you move an axis three times in one direction from level, you go into spin and you lose the scenario. So it's all about unseen information. And I guess uh well one thing I didn't mention is you this is all played behind a screen, so you roll your dice, you don't know what your opponent has, and you cannot communicate at all during the actual game.
SPEAKER_01:You allow to have vague conversations before you roll your die.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but not after.
SPEAKER_01:Dice, sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but yeah, not after.
SPEAKER_00:So you yeah, you can't roll your dice, which is a mistake we made for the first few times we played it. We rolled our dice and then said, Oh, don't worry, I I can handle this or that. You can't do that. You need to you need to sort of talk about what your priorities are and what you want to do, like, oh, we need to speed up, for example, but you can't say, Oh, don't worry, I'll handle X, Y, or Z. Um, the other thing to mention is as you go through the game, you start to get sort of special abilities and cards that you can take on, usually one to two per scenario in some of the harder ones. And they do things like if you match dice on the engines, you get a an extra re-roll, or you know, they they do they have various impacts. But again, they they all have sort of true a lot of them have triggers that you need to do things and aren't necessarily, you know, gonna be obvious because you know what your opponent not your opponent, your your partner's going to do. Um, to trigger them. So they're more sort of uh they're a little bit luck-based almost. The scenarios ramp up in intensity, they've got basically colour coded difficulty levels, so you start with green, move on to yellow, then red, and then black. We have played about 30 to 35 games of this, I think, and we are currently on the red scenarios, just so for reference in terms of where we've got to with the game and how much time we put into it.
SPEAKER_01:In terms of running time, it can be really sh really short.
SPEAKER_00:It can be two turns sometimes.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes you can crash into a mountain almost instantaneously. Um, but I would say probably 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a full game's probably gonna be running 20, 25 minutes, I'd say, depending on how much uh thinking time. So obviously this has been quite a big deal and quite a big hit over the last sort of 12 to 18 months, I think. Um, depending on when this goes out. That maybe 12 to 18 months might be a little bit meaningless. But yeah, I saw a lot of chatter about this, so I thought, why not? Let's pick it up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, yeah, anything else you want to mention before we we go on to scoring?
SPEAKER_01:No. Okay, so if we move on to scoring. Uh so first up in our general category we have component. Um so one thing that I will say about Sky Team is that when it arrived, it arrived with quite eco-friendly, sustainable packaging. It does, yeah. So it wasn't all in plastic little wraps, they were in sort of brown paper bags. Yeah. And that scores a big, massive tick in the box for me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's always a good thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's really, really lovely to see and to show that actually that can be done. Yeah. And it is possible, it doesn't have to have you don't have to have everything wrapped in plastic. Um, I will say though the components themselves are actually quite fiddly, and I think within about two games we'd already lost a piece down the floorboards.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I I just want to give a shout out to Scorpio Mars Games because we did lose a piece. We lost the um the little counter that goes in the fuel gauge tracker, and they were exceptionally responsive and sent us a new one out pretty much straight away. We didn't have to wait very long at all. Yeah, absolutely. Um, asked nothing for it either, which so massive shout-out to them. There are, yeah, there's quite a lot of small fiddly components of the board. The board's sort of uh three-dimensional to a certain extent, and you've got these tiny little counters, particularly for the the gears, uh the landing gear and the flaps, which if you're not careful are very easy to lose.
SPEAKER_01:I also think it was quite it was unusual to set up because you had to stick the two player boards not player boards, the two players, and the idea is that you then slot your runways into that so that they move inside. However, that never really worked for us, so we ended up playing underneath, so it feels like it was a bit over-engineered. Although I really like the concept, I thought it was kind of cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it is kind of cool, and I could it could have just been me sticking it together wrong and something. I mean, probably. I mean, yeah, that's that's probably more likely than it being a functional issue with it. Um but once it's stuck, it's stuck. So just a shout-out when you do open it, be careful, probably more careful than I was, because I was like, la la la la la la, this stick goes down.
SPEAKER_01:What I will say though is that then within that on the top of the board, you have a number of little counters that you put into slots. So for example, when you apply the brakes, you then move counter, slide it to the right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Once those counters are in, you would think they would stay in, but they don't. So the board always has to stay face up, otherwise, if you turn it over, everything will all fall out and fall onto the floor. Again, I suppose it's that trade-off, isn't it, between not making something that's full of plastic versus making something a bit more sustainable. Yeah. It still works, you just need to be mindful because the first time we did that, yeah, whenever it was.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think one of the first games we played, I tried to put it away a little bit too enthusiastically, lift the board up too quickly, and they all came flying out in the sky. So yeah, you need to be careful about that. Um, I think this is probably more relevant of value for money, but I am just going to say it here. I think one of the things that impresses me about this is it is obviously a very non-standard construction board game. You know, board games are ball games, everything comes with different elements, etc. But this is a quite a unique, I assume, production run.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And they managed to do it in a way that has kept the costs low. Because I could see this if it was done in perhaps slightly more deluxe fashion, would have run, you would have been paying quite a lot for quite a small box. Um, so I I think that's worth mentioning and taking into context when you're talking about components. Yes, they are quite small and vidly, yeah, yeah. But I think there's there's reasons for that. I don't think they've done it just because, for the sake of it, I think there's a definite reason why they've made the choices that they have.
SPEAKER_01:Um, in terms of footprint when you're playing it, it's actually quite tiny. So again, it's really small. So again, perfect for things like travel. Probably couldn't play on an airplane.
SPEAKER_00:No, I think no, definitely not. No.
SPEAKER_01:I also don't think my anxiety can handle that.
SPEAKER_00:She's it probably wouldn't be great for the people stood around set around you and the um but it is quite a small footprint. Yeah, it is, definitely. And I mean, set up and tear down is seconds. It's absolute doddle. You find your airport, you find your scenario, you slide everything into place, you roll your dice, and you're you're off to the races, basically. Um I think all the I I like the um the the axis counter, it's like this clear sort of plastic thing that you actually turn like a dial within the the board. I I'm a big fan of that. And there's lots of just sort of little widgets and things that come along with it for the scenarios, which are quite exciting to crack out and play around with. It's like, oh, this is like a new board that we just attached to. It's it it's fun. It's really quirky.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So how did you score it then?
SPEAKER_00:Um I gave it an eight for components.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so I gave it a seven. Um I hadn't necessarily factored in the whole thing about um print run and components in the way that you had, um, but I did definitely score it up, I think, because of the eco factor.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so our next category then is complexity. So, as always, not about how complex a game is or isn't, but how well the complexity serves the game plan. The actual rules themselves are fairly straightforward and easy to understand. They are, yes. Um, the complexity comes within the scenarios and the challenges that you have to complete and what's a very limited space of time. Yeah. Um, I would say that perhaps because I'm a bit slow, I still struggle with the whole access thing. I'm like, wait, so if I put down a higher score than you, then it will take us this way. Yes, then.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, we have crashed multiple times because Hannah just decides to grab the wheel and just turn wrench it to the right. Um bit like in real life. Yeah, just like in real life. Um yeah, okay, heard. Yeah. Understood. Um definitely a new problem.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_00:Um, yeah, I mean, I think this is one of those beautiful examples of the actual getting to understand how the game works is a doddle. You can teach this to somebody in ten minutes, easy. Um, the complexity comes from the ramping up of the difficulty, so there's complexity in difficulty but not in rules.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And what I think's really lovely is the way they introduce the different components. So again, we've we've all played those games that you know you learn as you go and the scenarios get more complicated. But I think what's really lovely about this is they introduce them at just the right time. Yeah. They ramp up complexity in terms of having to do things with your axis or perhaps speed up, and then once you've got your head around that, they'll introduce another component. And I think that's a really intelligent game design choice.
SPEAKER_00:It is. I think the progression through the scenarios is exceptionally well thought out, and they've obviously put a lot of thought into it. It's very much like, okay, this is an extra element, but it's quite an easy one. So play with us. Okay, you've you've done that. Let's play with something a little bit more complex now. Okay, you've done both of those. Let's go back to the other one, but now let's throw a little load of planes at you, and you have to turn in particular ways. And you know, it's just that that that ramping up in difficulty is a very smooth curve, which I was really impressed by. Um, until you get to the red scenarios where they decide to just pull out a baseball band and start beating over the head, which is which is great because that's what I want from the most difficult scenarios. Um I think we'll circle back to that more in shelf life, but yeah, I think this is a very, very gold standard scenario of how well complexity is tuned to a game.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:As a result, I've given it a nine.
SPEAKER_01:Oh. Um, so I didn't give it that much. Um, I gave it a seven.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so why did you mark it down?
SPEAKER_01:Um I don't think it that was that I marked it down so much. I think it was just So through the magic of editing, I've just gone away and had a good long hard think about my scoring. And I've come to the conclusion that probably I was scoring based on personal preference rather than necessarily the actual category. So perhaps maybe I need to up that score.
SPEAKER_00:I just want to make something clear because it sounds like I've turned the mic off and then shouted at you for a while. I have not done that. Hannah just said, no, no, I'm gonna think about this, and I just sat there and watched. It's like when we play games.
SPEAKER_01:Fair, but okay. So I think probably maybe it was it was a personal preference thing. Um I also think it's probably worth mentioning that you have a pilot and a co-pilot, and actually the way uh the the things that they can do are slightly different. Um so as a pilot you'll focus mainly on black brakes, whereas as a co-pilot I am mainly focused on clearing the sky of planes, but also my flaps.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um I think probably we should have played more I always played the co-pilot and you always play the pilot.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, interestingly, we've got we started with our roles and we've never changed.
SPEAKER_01:And we never have, have we?
SPEAKER_00:We've always just played the same roles.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but yeah, I mean the yeah, the the clearing the skies thing is more of a burden for the co-pilot. The the pilot can still do it, but the co-pilot has two slots instead of one to be able to do it. Although it's other scenarios you both need to be going full steam ahead with that, otherwise you crash. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um so anyway, back to the original question, what am I score? I originally scored it at seven, but I think probably uh that's based on my own personal preference. Am I gonna go high as a nine? No, probably not, but I will go with eight. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Alright, fair enough. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Alright, so next up is shelf life, and under that we talk about things like value for money but also replayability.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So where does this land price point wise?
SPEAKER_00:Uh, usually under£25. So£20 to£25. I think the price point is exceptional.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Um, you don't usually get, but as I said in the previous category, this the non-standardness of this as a package, you don't usually get for under 30 yeah, even then there's a complete rarity. They've really managed to keep the price down on this, which I think is possibly part of a success. Um there's a lot of lot of game, yeah, for that money.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and so we've played, as you said, over 35 times.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'd say over 35 times, and I'm not done.
SPEAKER_01:And we're not done at all, and we have an expansion that we're gonna go to, and also the expansions are fairly cheap.
SPEAKER_00:I think the expansion was like 10 quid.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um that introduces new rules, new airports, all sorts, new boards, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so you've got an awful lot of road or you know, runway sky. Sky Um with with this game. So, yeah, I think 20 odd quid is a really, really reasonable price point for something like this, the amount of playtime that we've got out of it. In terms of replayability, so what we haven't really touched on is that each of the scenarios can be quite difficult. So therefore you have to play each scenario multiple times in order to be able to I mean you don't, you can just be really good.
SPEAKER_00:No, or you could just pick any scenario you like and play that. There's nothing in the game that states you need to play them in order. You can you can just open the book and go, oh, I'm gonna want to play that one. I mean, we the way we do things, we are quite a stickler for that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, my point was that because the scenarios are difficult, quite often you'll have to replay the scenarios.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, oh yeah, definitely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So you do get replayability in that sense. However, my question to myself is once I've completed that scenario, is it likely that I would say to us, say for us to go back to it? I think there is an element of one or one and there isn't an element of I would go back and play with it, but I think I would need a bit of time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, completely understood. I think uh I in essence, I think where the game is heading, we've not got there yet, is once you start to get into the red scenarios, you you can b bash your head against it ten times and still fail. Now I think we we've we've come across that one because I say 35 plays, but I haven't counted the myriad of times and we failed within like three turns and we still didn't count it. Yeah, I just don't count it. Um but I think there's probably an element of there, especially with an expansion where you go to some of the more interesting scenarios when you just fancy playing it and want a bit of a challenge. Yeah. But even if you do treat this as a one and done, I mean you've got all those scenarios in the box and more with a very cheap expansion, you're still gonna get a huge amount of mileage out of this, perhaps more than a lot of other things. Yeah. So even if it is sort of play through everything once and then okay, I'm done with it. I still think that's exceptional.
SPEAKER_01:I'm struggling to think of a board game under£30 that has given us this many hours.
SPEAKER_00:Of entertainment. Of entertainment, yeah. No, I can't think of one. Radlands is close.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Radlands is definitely close, but I think after that I draw a blank.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so yeah, in terms of value for money, it it's it's phenomenal.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It is really, really good. Uh not the amount of hours you'll get out of a really small price point, if you like it, obviously, if you enjoy the the core, the core game is second to none.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So how did you score it, then?
SPEAKER_00:Nine.
SPEAKER_01:Um so I always hold off scoring until you tell me how much it costs, but um I score it in eight.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Lovely.
SPEAKER_01:Um and then our final category under general is fun. So do you have fun when you play it?
SPEAKER_00:Most of the time, yes.
SPEAKER_01:I am thinking about this one particular scenario, which just threw God damn Kuala Lumper. Oh Christ!
SPEAKER_00:We must have played it about 15 times. Yeah. It just the dice just would not behave. It would not be in your favour. And was it wasn't harder than some of the other ones we completed with ease. It was just like our bogey scenario. Um, and I think that goes back to my most of the time point. So, most of the time, yes, I have a really, really good time playing this. I think it's a really enjoyable puzzle each time. It's thematic, it's dramatic, um, it doesn't outstay its welcome. I have a really good time.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's the other thing as well, isn't it? Is that whole thematic thing. Never did I think that I was gonna have fun trying to land a plane.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, but you find that so many times at board games, the themes that just don't scream out to you. Sometimes you play it's like actually this works so much how it captures the imagination. Yeah, and even though I'm not interested in it, I'm now interested in it because it's a fun mechanism.
SPEAKER_01:But we all know for a fact that pilots sit there drinking, chugging back coffee, rolling dye, and that's how they land the plane. That's why everyone applauds when the plane lands.
SPEAKER_00:And giving the interns to do stuff, yeah, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_01:Well, there's a fuel leak out wind jumps, and there are plane screens crashing into you, left right and center.
SPEAKER_00:So, yeah, I do I do have a wonderful time most most of the time. Why I say most of the time is it can be a frustrating experience if the dice are not going your way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But also, it is a quick, short, snappy game. And if you're having one of those nights where the dice are not in your favour, you just pack it up and move on to something like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you just struggle like, oh, fair enough. You know, that was 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I think what's also really interesting is when we come to the most difficult scenarios, um uh one of them um was You have 60 seconds. So for little of me here who likes to think and protificate for quite a while, I was like, no, no. We're not doing this anymore. Wait, we're never playing this game ever again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you you weren't you weren't on board with that.
SPEAKER_01:I was not on board with that at all. I did not like that. Maybe we can increase the time to two minutes, or maybe three minutes, and you're like, Hannah Nine. And I was like, no, yeah. But also, I think that's what's really lovely about that higher that that that final level, if you like. Yeah. You pick and choose.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and it's those things really really difficult things at you, and it's up to you what challenge you want to do. But I think obviously for you that's not a challenge you even want to do. That's not fun. You just find it horrifying and stressful. Yes. Whereas I was quite interested in that, but you were like, nope, nope, nope.
SPEAKER_01:I was like, oh, just throwing dice bored up, I can't even think. There's no way I can think.
SPEAKER_00:We crashed within 60 seconds.
SPEAKER_01:Probably because I didn't put a dice down.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or we just put something completely random in the wrong space. I was like, what do you do? Oh, no, no, we did. Yeah, you don't do hope so well with the thinking under pressure thing, do you?
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:What I would also say is that for a game it's really simple, and you kind of touched on this earlier, it's that gentle building of different challenges and the way they all marry up together. So you might have a fuel leakage and an intern that keeps it fresh. And I think no, aside from the first maybe couple, where it was just teaching the core concepts, no scenario, if you like, um, felt the same and it constantly felt fresh. Yes. And I think that was again really intelligent game design.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, fully agreed. There's a couple of other things as to why I find it so fun, but I'm actually I'm going to save those because I think they're more to do with the how I approaches co-op. So I'm going to save those for the the the next category. Um, anything else you want to say on the fund?
SPEAKER_01:No, that's about it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So I gave it an eight.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I also gave it an eight.
SPEAKER_00:Alright, fantastic. Okay, so let's do it. We add those up, we average them out as we always do, and that gives us an overall general rating of eight, which I'm really happy about. Yeah, solid game. Solid eight. It's a really good game.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so for our two-player rating scales, first up, we have table talk and getting to know you. I mean, you've kind of already said it. There is no talking, no talking allows.
SPEAKER_00:No talking. So, yeah, not great for the old table talk thing. However, what is really interesting about this game is it relies on you being able to read your opponent. I keep saying opponent.
SPEAKER_01:Not everything's a fight, huh?
SPEAKER_00:I just want this to be a competitor of who can crash the plane first. Okay. Um you have to sort of guess and second guess what somebody is going to do, particularly around the axis and the engines. And I find that as a getting to know somebody experience really interesting.
SPEAKER_01:There is, and I I've thought about this quite a lot. There's no better way to describe it than a dance.
SPEAKER_00:I was going to use that very phrase, but I was going to use it in the next category.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. But fine. There is. There's this absolute dance where you know you have to work out whether you've got quite a good hand and therefore you let your opponent lead with the things that are really, really critical. So for example, if speed is what you've established is going to be the priority, you let your opponent lead not your opponent, I've done it again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but you let your other player lead, or or whether if you're really struggling, you try and blonk it down there first in the hope that they can kind of counteract.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's that it's that non-verbal communication via dice, which as an avid ball game, I'm all about.
SPEAKER_01:Passive aggressive dice facing.
SPEAKER_00:You say passive aggressive, I'm just trying to communicate. You're just you're just bitching at me through the medium of dice. Look owl, it's a one. What are you gonna do about that? Um, but no, there is a really interesting element at play here where you it's that constant back and forth, and you really have to. I I feel like this is a game that is easier with playing with somebody when you know how they tick, yeah, and you know what they're doing, and you know how they sort of behave.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it would be so hard if you had never met somebody before and you're at a ball game club, for example, and you crack this out because you'd be like, What are you doing? What are you doing?
SPEAKER_00:Um and you there are those little elements that you can communicate non non-verbally, like you can put something down on a coffee when like first, for example, to say, like, okay, there's problems here. Yes, I'm gonna use one of my dice to give you an opportunity to sort of fix it. Um and I think it becomes really interesting when you've got the extra boards in play as well, because you know it always becomes a little bit of a standoff about who's gonna save us not blowing six fuel on a turn and all that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01:Turns out neither of us mostly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sometimes it's oh just let it just let it flow out, it's fine. We'll be fine, we'll follow up at some point. Um we plot us, we didn't. Um yeah, it's it's a really interesting experience in getting to know somebody, and I think this makes it a really good game for couples and really good friends, because I think you will have a a better experience because you kind of know how the other person ticks. Or if you don't, you'll find out, which is also really interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so yeah, I've given an eight because I I think as an experience that requires zero communication. I play quite a few games that require zero communication. This one I actually don't do think allows you to get to know the other person. Um so yeah, it's it's I think it does really, really well in this category for me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I'm gonna have to disagree. I think there is a lack of communication. That is by nature a game. I know, I know it is, but also, you know, there is, and I think you can say a few very vague sentences uh before you roll your die, but after that all bets are off. So actually, I don't think there is that huge amount of interaction there. Um I understand what you're saying that I think that makes the game, makes the experience, but I think if you're looking for a game where you're interacting, where you are um getting to know you, I don't think this is it. I do think there's an element of, as you said, when you do know somebody, it becomes uh a really fun dance, but I think that's something else. So I think of the original criteria, then no, and therefore I've rated it a four.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, all right, fine. I'm not changing my rating, I stick by it.
SPEAKER_01:I never do.
SPEAKER_00:No, I never do.
SPEAKER_01:It's always me that revises them on my oh shit, it's right. Hannah's random scoring of the day.
SPEAKER_00:No, that's fine. Opposite ends of the spectrum now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, so then let's talk about the co-operability.
SPEAKER_00:So this is interesting. The point that you just made I was about to make under this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So when I play a co-op game, I I like to strategize with my partner or partners. I like to be able to tactically think things through and make a plan and see that plan executed. I think that's the joy out of co-op games to me a lot. And you can't do that in this. So okay, but I kind of agree with the point that you just made.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, okay, fine.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and I think it lacks that teamwork aspect to a certain extent where you've got a plan and you execute it. You you you can't you can make, as you said, vague plans, but you can't really pull off something really amazing that you've planned to do. And that's something that really ticks my boxes in a co-op experience, and that is missing here, and I think it's worth saying.
SPEAKER_01:So the reason that I like it is because I think, again, it's very reactive, so I can see when you've had a really difficult hand because you've played something stupid in a stupid axis.
SPEAKER_00:Or it could just be me, really, stupid.
SPEAKER_01:Or just you being stupid, and you run out of your reroll die, and therefore you have to think and you have to work with each other, um, or with your other partner's dice. And I think that for me is the bit that I really like.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, fine. But it's just getting different things out of carb experiences, I guess. And that's the beauty of this.
SPEAKER_01:I have to work with your shit dice rolls, basically.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you yeah, usually. Um but that that's the beauty of this format and this podcast. We come out of the you you we we've got different likes, and we can clearly say that from for my for my money, what I like out of carb experiences doesn't quite tick that box in this regard, whereas for you it does. So that's that's fine.
SPEAKER_01:I also think there is we've played co-ops before where I don't necessarily feel like I'm in it with you, um, whereas I absolutely do because I think turns are very quick.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and can you talk a bit more about what you mean in it with me? What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_01:So that we are both striving towards the same end goal, and I think that we do make selective choices. So, for example, when you've got a six, you will bump that down on the fuel and because you can you'll sacrifice that six role to do that. And I think the sacrifices that you make on your turn in order to make sure the game progresses, I find that really satisf not satisfying, but I I find that that gives you my element of strategic, perhaps. I don't I don't know, I don't know, but I I really like that. Right. And I also like how maybe I just think you're being more strategic than you actually are, and you are just walloping dice down as and where you see fit.
SPEAKER_00:I mean it's me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, probably. Ascribing a level of doesn't actually exist.
SPEAKER_00:I just do things. Um I don't, I do think about what I'm doing in this. Um sometimes.
SPEAKER_01:And when we've had Quala Lumpa, for example, and we finally beat it, there is this huge sense, I think, of shared satisfaction.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:You know, which again rates it really high for me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I d that that was one half of what I was gonna say. The other half, again, you talked about in the previous category. It it it is like a dance, that is the easiest way I can describe it, um, with somebody leading, and then the other person leads, and then the other person leads. And I think that as a cooperative experience is a thing of beauty. I absolutely love it.
SPEAKER_01:And I've not seen it or experienced it anywhere else.
SPEAKER_00:No, no.
SPEAKER_01:I think that dance, that quiet, silent dance, is just really quite magic.
SPEAKER_00:The only thing I think that came close in sort of mechanism, I guess, would be the crew. That's the only thing I can think of that that's sort of vaguely close, but this does it so much better for my money. Um I I yeah, it's something that's quite hard to replicate, I think, and it's it's done it really, really well. So overall I gave it a seven. Sort of on balance of those two things. It's a seven for me.
SPEAKER_01:So I gave it an eight.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, fine. Um and here we would normally talk about scalability, but obviously this is a two-player experience. I think one of these days we might need to think of a replacement category for this when it's a two-player thing, but today is not that day. We haven't planned ahead that much. Um, so it'll just be the two scores for now. So let's add those up. So that gives us an overall rating of 6.75. So we round as always to a seven.
SPEAKER_01:Which I think probably would be higher if it weren't for me and my table talk.
SPEAKER_00:Union table talk. It's always a union table talk. Um yeah, I I think it's a better two-play experience than that, personally, than the seven suggests, but hey ho, it is what it is. And again, the meat is in the conversation, isn't it? So if you choose which direction, pick a side, people, pick a side. Um okay, great. Thank you very, very much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Uh we've got lots of other content, obviously, online. If you want to, if this is your first time listening to us and you want to check on the back catalogue. We're doing regular bite sized episodes now, so much shorter, sharper looks at uh simpler games, shall we say? Well, not necessarily simpler, but you know, small box games and expansions and things like that. But until next time, be good to each other, have fun, play loads of board games.
