OPENING

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Board Game Mechanism Museum. You've got your ticket. Come on in and take a look around as I talk about my favourite board gaming mechanisms of all time. But just remember, please don't touch.

PHASE A: PULL UP A CHAIR

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Welcome to the Just Play podcast. It's me, JP, your host, and this is episode two called Please Don't Touch the Mechanisms. And I'll explain more about that as we get to the centre of the table. But first, it's time to pull up a chair in our opening segment. So basically, because we're new, um, I don't have any kind of listeners or or viewer uh feedback yet. Um this is where we'll definitely be uh kind of covering their questions or your questions and and basically getting into all of that. But what I do want to kind of talk about very, very briefly is I've mentioned in the last episode that uh I was going to start a scythe rise of Fenris campaign, and I'm pleased to say that we have done episode one, which is amazing. I've been itching to do the scythe campaign again since we did it about six years ago. And we did episode one, and I'm pleased to say I came last. Great. Um, I need to improve my scythe game, people. I suck at that game and I need to be better. Although it was a fairly close game. I think I got uh 50 points at the end, and you know, and then it was 51 and 53 and so on and so forth. But we are playing a five-player game, and I'm looking forward to going through that that process and yeah, we'll see how the next episode goes. But I think future episodes, when we get released and uh you know, people are kind of engaging with the show, this is the segment where I definitely want to kind of expand on more. But let's move on to the next segment, which is just played.

PHASE B: JUST PLAYED

SPEAKER_00 1:49

So the first game I want to talk about, and I'm going to share the screen, is Unstoppable.

Unstoppable

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So Unstoppable is a cardcrafting game by John Declare and published by Renegade Studios. And I've heard about Unstoppable for uh quite a while, actually, and it's just a game I've been kind of yeah, been on the sidelines about. Um I've been wanting to kind of give it a go and learn more about it, but you know what it's like. There's so many games out there. And then I just pulled the trigger. Um, I think with the Dungeon Crawler Carl uh Unstoppable, as you can see in the banner at the top uh here, um, that's kind of reinvigorated the system um and and kind of brought it to the forefront of many people's minds. Now, Dungeon Crawler Carl is not an IP that I know very well. I haven't read the books. Um, it is on my list to do. People keep telling me you must read this. So uh one day I I will uh eventually do this, which will be amazing. Um, but so I just thought I'd pick up the the base uh unstoppable game. Um as it said, it came out in 2025. Um, and uh I've been having a blast with it, to be honest. So I thought I would talk about it on this episode and and kind of give you a bit of a rundown. So, what is unstoppable? Well, thematically you are taking uh control of a character, and there are different factions in the game from the Silver Family and uh the Verons and the Council and the Junkers and all those different kinds of factions, and you've typically got a character that represents each of those factions in the game. And each faction, uh sorry, each character has a uh a few cards that are very specific to them that makes them a bit sort of asymmetrical, and you'll start your kind of deck with with a few more cards of like basic attacks and and some economy and things like that. But what this game is, is a uh as I said, it's a cardcrafting deck building game. And you're basically trying to uh defeat a boss. Um, and the first boss I think you you go up against is called the Harbinger, and you're basically trying to amass uh enough damage on the boss that you win. And throughout the game, you're leveling up, you're becoming more powerful, acquiring uh better cards, upgrading cards, and as then the title suggests, becoming unstoppable to the point where you are literally killing everything and and sorting everything out. Um, this game is actually fairly difficult. This game has a uh it's a challenge, it is definitely beatable. I've done that on on normal difficulty uh a few times now, but it does pose a challenge. And you can play one um solo play, uh, which is pretty much what it's designed for. It's part of their solo hero series, um, and that Renegade Studios does, but you can play it cooperatively as well, which I have done uh as well, which is both both modes have been fun. So let me just show you what this looks like on the table. If I just jump to um a kind of picture, um I can kind of see how it looks here. Here we go. This is a good representation. Um, so basically, you've got your your deck of cards, and it sits on on your player board, um, kind of around this kind of area here, and you've got a health tracker and you've got a shield tracker, and you've got your profile card here. You also kind of collect money in the game through economy, and that money is used to buy upgrades. Um, and buying upgrades is cool because this this bottom row of cards um actually are the upgrade cards, and this is where I find one of the most innovating uh kind of mechanisms, which is very on point for this this uh topic or this episode today, is that the cards that you buy or the upgrades that you buy, they slot into your current card. So all of the cards that you have are sleeved, um, and basically you'll have the the front side of it, uh, which will be the thing that you want to do, and then on the back there are uh what's called threats, and I'll cover those in a bit later. But the upgrades that you buy, you slot in between, and they've got kind of notches. Um, so all of the cards in the game kind of have a little bit cut out. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can see exactly what I mean. Now, these upgrades that you buy slot straight in and then like basically add effects like extra damage or extra money or this, that, and the other, and really allows you to create kind of cards in your own way that I've not seen done before. And um, yeah, and I think this is one of John Declare's car crafting systems that I think is quite well known for. So I've been enjoying that aspect of the game, tailoring your deck, not only by getting more cards, but by upgrading the cards that you have to make them more specific, and that's been a lot of fun. Um, now one of the things in in this game is that you've got your your deck of cards doesn't sit like you would traditionally think it does, it sits the other way up. So, as I said, every card that you have has a threat on the back, and that sits on your player board threat side up. So every round you're dealing, typically, three um threats into your battlefield, and those threats are basically what you have to deal with in the round. If you don't deal with them, they're gonna hit you back, and bad times, you're gonna lose health, etc. Um, and as I said, the there's a boss typically uh that you're gonna be fighting against and you can't directly damage the boss, and each boss has their own kind of rules and mechanisms of how you deliver damage to them, typically by um defeating the the battlefield of threats that you've got. So the way that you draw cards in this game is very unique because you have to defeat the cards in your battlefield in order to draw them, which is kind of very different. Uh, normally you know you're getting loads of cards to draw, and then you can deal with lots of things. Now you have to tactically think which threat do I want to kill so I can get the right card in order for me to deal with the others on the battlefield, and and away you go. But as I said, you can upgrade your cards to give them extra effects, um, more damage potential, things like that, um, which you need money for. But also um the thing that happens here at the top row is basically your level card. So you'll start with your core cards at a level zero and your marker, your level marker starts at level one. Now there are ways to temporarily train your level to move that up so that you can acquire cards from uh different pools. Um, but generally when you deck out, um, you're gonna level up your character to the next levels of permanently, you'll be drawing cards from that level um up. So yeah, basically becoming stronger and better. So every round you will draw one card from that card card pool, and you will pretty much be uh yeah, taking well, you draw three and you slate one, and you'll take that into um your hand, and then eventually that'll have a threat card on the back as well, and it'll end up being circle around like the rest of it. Um, the other thing I didn't say about upgrading actually, when you upgrade, you're not only making your cards better, but you're making the threat side on the other side worse. So the game kind of scales as you improve, the threats are improving and giving you something to think about. Um, but yeah, it's it's it's such a fun game. I I've I've played it like you know four or five, probably six times now, and uh yeah, it's it's a it's a good fun game. I I'm really liking the system. Um and uh yeah, I I think if you're interested in kind of a solo game that takes about I don't know, 60 minutes to uh yeah, about an hour, possibly 90 minutes if you're you're kind of taking your time, and you like card games and you like the the aspect of potentially upgrading your cards as you go, then yeah, you might want to check this out. I think it's uh you know a fairly reasonable price at the moment. Um, and I think it's generally available, or was at the time when I bought it anyway. So yeah, that's unstoppable. Um, so yeah, hopefully uh you like the sound of that one. So let's move on to the next game.

March of the Ants: Evolved Edition

SPEAKER_00 9:25

So this is March of the Ants, and this is a game by Weird City Games, published by Weird City Games, and designed by Tim Eisner and uh Ryan Swisher. So yeah, March of the Ants is a 4X Ants game. So if you don't know what 4X means, it's basically um a game that covers the the four X's, which is explore, exterminate, expand, and exploit. And typically the theme of 4X games tend to be either civilized uh civilization grand uh kind of style games or spaceship, space battle games, space exploration games, those kind of things. So what intrigued me is that this basically takes that grand epic um kind of conflict game and puts it into a garden with ants trying to uh fight over resources and things like that. And and essentially that's that's what it does. Um it's got a lot of familiarity with Eclipse in the way that you um explore the garden and the way that the hexes all connect up with with the different connector points and things like that. Um but yeah, typically if you if you've played any 4x game, you'll be quite familiar with the mech mechanisms in in this one. Um but why do I like this one so much? Um well it's it's just the the way that the actions work, I think it just keeps you engaged. So everybody takes a turn, which is nothing new. Um, but generally, um yeah, in in the kind of main worker phase, which is the the where the bulk of the game kind of happens, when you take an action, often the the players to the left and right of you will take a reaction. So constantly you are doing uh something continuously on on other people's turns. You know, if you're playing a three-player, you're always doing something. Obviously, if you're playing a five player, um you'll you'll have gaps where you're not the neighbour of the person that's being active at the moment. Um, but yeah, that's that's pretty much um kind of how it works. So you're constantly invested and going, please pick that action so I can do that reaction. I really need a card draw, or I really need to uh get more uh lava into my egg chambers and things like that, or my lava chambers, sorry. Um so yeah, so the worker phase is really all about exploring, which is your typical draw uh draw a hex from from a stack, and this stack has um kind of level one, level two uh style hexes on there. So level one's being less good but easier to kind of move around, and then level two has all sorts of shenanigans in there. So you can explore, you can march, you can move your ants around different um uh hexes and areas, um, and you can um basically forage for for additional cards. So you have three types of cards in the game. You've got your red cards, which are your events, my particular favourite is sparrow attack, which is just awesome. You play it and sparrow comes down and annihilates most people's ants. Usually a lot of swearing follows from that. Um, you've got your green cards, which are evolution cards, and you you have a queen. So let me show you. Maybe I can find a um uh kind of a picture of of what's going on here on the player board. Um and yeah, here we go. So basically there's a uh yeah, you have a queen that's kind of on your player board, and you can play evolutions um on there from uh different heads, uh thoraxes and abdomens that all kind of do different powers in the game, and I can really start tailoring your experience. So you can become this um this kind of engine of of destruction or engine of economy, or kind of a mix of deterrence and and tanking and and and turtling, all that kind of stuff. So so yeah, so that's that's pretty good good fun. Uh and you have your blue cards as well. Blue cards are your colony cards, and that's a way that you can kind of do your scoring and and getting to um yeah, that that kind of position of giving you something to aim for. And you can have max two colony cards as well. But yeah, I mean, looking at the kind of how the game looks here uh on screen for those that are watching on YouTube, um, you have the Great Tunnel, which is like the biggest area, and everything will expand off the Great Tunnel. And the Great Tunnel kind of acts as this communal space where you're gonna have a scrap um at the end for you know big resources, whether that's food or different things there. Um but generally the hexes are kind of on their own right. Now, with when you explore, you will find wormholes, which I find hilarious because in in forex space games there's always wormholes which could basically connect a hex from here to here. They work exactly the same in March of the Ants, but you know, it but it is an actual wormhole, which is amazing. Um but you also have centipedes as well. Centipedes are, I think they're classed as the dragons of the of the ant world, and they are basically a ferocious thing that will kill anybody in their wake. So if you're going into a a hex with a centipede, uh you need to make sure you can try and take care of it. The good news is the earlier you find centipedes, the easier they are. As the game progresses, the more centipedes that come out, they grow and they get worse. And and but also high risk, high reward uh strategy for that. Um some of the hexes that you explore will have uh abilities on them uh that will do different things, but really the the the kind of actions uh are fairly simplistic and and yeah, it basically works in in a really nice flow and and and kind of gets you through there. But generally around, we'll start with the worker phase doing lots of stuff. Um, you'll then do all your combats um from the Great Tunnel outwards from all the hexes that are contested because every hex, as I didn't say, has a collection spot. So you're putting your ants on these collection spots so you can kind of get um food and and cards and VPs and all those kind of things uh later in the round. So once all the fights are done, then you do the the queen phase where you harvest all of those collection spots. That's how you're getting more economy into the game. Um and then you do your kind of Queen's uh choice where you can get a bit of extra food or extra extra babies that you can use, and then you'll kind of do your slumber and you'll do all your scoring and different conditions there based on your colony cards. And round around around you go. And typically a standard game is is four rounds and the epic game is five rounds. I typically play the epic game because I like the the the bigger, longer experience and that it provides. But I'm enjoying it. I've played it a few times now, and everyone who's played it has enjoyed it. They like the theme of it, that it's different, and it's not just spaceships. And basically, um, yeah, I'm itching to get hold of the the predators and prey uh expansion. I can't get hold of this for love no money yet. Um, I'm hoping it will become available in retail very soon so I can pick it up because it adds um kind of extra uh insects like spiders and different things that you can, I think you can ally with or use against the other opponents. And I think you have a large like super worker as well that that has extra abilities and things like that. So yeah, I'm I'm interested in in learning more about this game, playing this game, and yeah, I've I've enjoyed it a lot. We'll see how um, you know, how long it goes if it's got staying power. But yeah, if that sounds like your thing, then check it out.

PHASE C: CENTRE OF THE TABLE - Please don't touch the mechanisms

SPEAKER_00 16:21

So I think it's time to go to the center of the table. So let's put the camera back here and talk about this episode. So I've called this Please Don't Touch the Mechanisms in reference to the fact that I'm pretending it's a bit of a museum where I'm going to guide you through my favourite mechanisms in board games. And this was quite tough actually. I had to sit and think, what do I really enjoy out of certain games? Now, certain games I enjoy the mechanisms out of the game more than I actually enjoy the the game uh experience in in its totality, but um, but yeah, I just thought it'd be quite a fun uh episode to kind of talk about these things, and I'm keen to hear what your favourite mechanisms are. Have I touched upon a few of uh a few of those, or are there ones that I completely missed and you think, JP, you're wrong, these are the best ones. I want to hear from them, so get engaged in the comments and and socials and all that kind of stuff. Um, honourable mentions um is the carcrafting from Unstoppable. Uh, I I've already talked about it earlier in the episode. I think it's really unique. I love how that kind of makes you feel in upgrading cards without obviously putting stickers on and things like that. It's a good temporary way of buffing cards um and using that kind of sleeve system. So that's an honourable mention that I thought I'll just mention because I've already talked about

Hand Management in Concordia

SPEAKER_00 17:35

it. Um, so where we're gonna start. So um I'm gonna start with Concordia's hand management um system, as it were, or mechanism. And for those that don't know, basically it's quite a simple premise where you have a hand of cards and you're playing various cards for different effects. Um and and then when you play the card, it stays in your discard pile. Nothing new there. You play another card, stays in the discard pile. Um, but you have one specific card in your hand which will redraw all of the cards back and give you some sort of bonus of money. That mechanism alone is so interesting. In I can play a card, I can play the other card to get it back again to play again. But obviously, I'm being penalised and in how much money I get because my discard pile is is one card. Or I can play through all of my cards, then play that card to get them all back, and get a lot more money, but what if I need the third card and the one I've played? And and just the way that that whole um yeah, that whole kind of hand management works, it's just I love it. I love that mechanism so much. And I think other games have I've used this. Flotilla is one that springs to mind that I used to own, and that uses the same mechanism, and it's just a fun, great mechanism um of just how you can play cards and get the ones you want back uh when you want it in order to do what you want. And Concordia is a a classic game. I'm actually intrigued to see how the Awakened Realms Deluxe um uh kind of board game version uh of that is is coming to fruition. So yeah, keep an eyes on that one. But yeah, that's Concordia

Dice Drafting in Coimbra

SPEAKER_00 19:08

hand management. The next one I want to kind of guide you to is uh a game Coimbra. Uh Coimbra is a midweight Euro game um set in uh the the Portuguese city of Coimbra, uh mainly around the different universities that were were spinning up around the I think around the 1800s, maybe even earlier, I can't remember the exact year. Um, but specifically the the mechanism that I really enjoy is the dice drafting um and then how it in uh implements the uh the dice in in that game. So you're gonna have a pool of dice, you roll those dice, and you've got purple, green, uh, grey, orange, and uh some other colour that I can't remember. And and basically you are drafting each turn what dice you want, which sounds simple, but the complexity in the game is that well, the number means one thing and the colour means something else. And actually, if you can pair up the get the right colour and the number, then that dice is gold dust to you. Um, but in this game, the number is is basically gonna help you activate um your your your kind of action in a particular order. So some rows where you put the dice, the higher numbers are better, some rows the lower numbers the better. So it just depends on what you're after. Um and the colour represents kind of what tracks you're gonna bump up and what you're gonna get off the the tracks on on your um uh the main board. So you're in this real turmoil of do I want that number? I really need to go first, but that colour is rubbish, it's not what I want. Well, actually, I really need purple because I want to move my pilgrim around and and start uh visiting universities, but the number's just not what I want. I'm gonna go late in the round to get the cards I want. And it's just a real kind of tough decision space, and I love it. And I love that you can take something so simple like a dice, six-sided D6, and and just create a decision space around it. And other games are starting to kind of mix around with that same decision space. Ada's Dream was a uh a recent one where again you're you're picking a number because you're trying to use it for computations in your player board and get the right number or the right mix, um, but then the the colour is based on what action you're gonna activate out of the main board as well. So, yeah, really, really clever, interesting uh decision space.

The Combat System in Arcs

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Um, right, next one I've got is uh arcs. Okay. And where I'm going with ARCs is actually the the combat system. Now in kind of space battle games, dice are not new. Dice are pretty much the main way of handling um combat within within the system, and you you're throwing them and you you know the highest you get do lots of damage. Boring, it's the same old thing. Now, where ARCS twists this up is that you have uh three different uh dice types. You've got you you your standard uh Uh attack dice which are blue and they're like a 50-50. So three sides have a hit, three sides have blank. You've got your aggressive dice, which are red, they have a lot more hits, but they do a lot more damage to yourself, or so they're riskier. And then you've got the raid dice, which are orange, and they're used for basically attacking in uh installations and structures and allow you to steal and pilfer um cards and and goodies from the other players, usually at them swearing back at you when you do so. And what I really like about this system is that you've got so many ships and you want to fight, you choose. So do you want to go full aggressive? And I've got six ships, I can take all six of those aggressive dice, roll them, and I know that's a risky move. Or I can balance it and say, actually, I'll take two aggressive dice and take four um kind of blue dice, and and you know, even out that that balance a little bit. So whilst dice are random and you never quite know what you're gonna get, it's just the fact that you can kind of tailor um the combat decisions in there. So you can go full aggressive, full reserve, full raid, or or a blend of of the lot. And it's just a simple system. And the combat system is you know, you don't roll for attack and roll for defense. You're basically rolling and it's resolving itself, and you know, you might get hits on you, etc. And there might be symbols on those dice, which means that the opponent does a retaliation. And again, it's just really clean, such a clean combat system. I I love it, I just think that is so interesting in the game. I mean, ARCS has a quite a lot of uh fun mechanisms in there, anyway, you know, with the kind of trick-taking aspect, uh, but generally it's the dice, uh, the dice combat system, which I really enjoy. Um,

Aim Board in Apex Legends

SPEAKER_00 23:43

my next one in the uh the museum um that we're going to talk about is Apex Legends. Yeah, so Apex Legends, the board game. Now, as I was saying about dice being used for combat systems, Apex Legends doesn't use dice for its combat system. So Apex Legends is a game where it's a battle royale shooter, you have a map, um, and you basically go around and you try and kill each other, right? And it's based off a popular video game IP. And I was very pleasantly surprised by this game as a board game because thinking how are they going to turn a first-person shooter into a board game experience? And you know, Glass Cannon have nailed it, in my opinion. They they have really captured the spirit of what that game is and it works so well. Um, and without me going into the the long depths of the game, um basically it's uh the the mechanism that I really enjoy is the combat mechanism again, but it uses uh what's called an aim board and it uses comma cards. And so if you're firing with a shotgun, the way that the cards draw out on the aimboard is different if you're firing with an assault rifle where you've got lots of bullets going along. So you're typically drawing cards onto an aim board, and if you've got stability in your your weapons, you're drawing it higher up on the aimboard, which means you're getting buffs to the hits, potential hits. And each card has a number on it, and you're trying to basically secure a number um higher uh uh enough to get a hit on your weapon. And um, yeah, there are different ways that the game messes around with that mechanism and it makes it thematic. Like if you're just shooting a machine gun, you expect to have lots of little cards um trying to do as much damage as possible. If shotgun, you're doing a lot of burst, you know, um kind of damage in one go. So, yeah, that aim board mechanism is just so much fun, and uh yeah, if you haven't had to try Apex Legends of all game, I definitely recommend that you do.

Powering Up Cards in Civ New Dawn

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Okay, so let's move on to the next one. So the next one is the uh kind of power powering up cards uh mechanism in Arknova. Um, but I really should say is the powering up cards mechanism from Civilization New Dawn from Fantasy Flight Games, because they did it first. And it's what I'm talking about is you have a row of cards from one, two, three, four, five, and if you activate the card at level one, it will be in its weakest position. But if you activate the same card in its level five, it'll be in its strongest, most powerful version of that card. And you picking a card to use will then move that card and move it to the level one slot, and basically that in itself is a really interesting puzzle because you're trying to sequence your actions and basically get what you need. And sometimes you you want to make sure you get that card all the way to the end to get the most efficient use out of it, but it takes time and other players are doing different things, so yeah, that whole mechanism for me is just super interesting. I mean, I think I I quite like how kind of card action selection mechanisms uh are so different in games, and I really enjoy when they kind of do something you know a little bit unique with that. That's something you've not seen before. Yeah, so I really enjoy that one. Um,

Tile Placement & Activation in Glen More II

SPEAKER_00 26:51

next one I want to talk about is actually Glenmore 2's tile placement um uh and activation. So Glenmore 2 is a tile laying game where you're basically putting little tiles on, you've got little Scotsman meeples, very cute, and you'll move them about trying to do different things. And when you build a tile, you'll build it next to one of your Scotsmen, and then you place the tile down, you activate it, so it'll produce your resources or or VP conversions or whatever, but you also activate every tile around it, so all of the eight uh other tiles around it, and that's so cool because you're you're thinking about where you want to put stuff, but you're also thinking what you want to generate, and it really creates this um kind of puzzle uh on on the the table that you're trying to orchestrate the most efficient way of getting things that you need, and also um yeah, trying not to design yourself in a cul de sac, and it's a game that actually rewards you for having the least amount of tiles down, which is very, very weird because you want to grow your your your towns and cities, but this thing, like no, it wants to reward you for keeping it lean, so yeah, you can do overbuilds and other things, which is overbuilding is great because you're more than likely gonna activate things around, and I just love that get a tile, place it, activate everything around it uh mechanism. So, yeah, that's another one on the shelf for you to

Card Shedding in Anno 1800

SPEAKER_00 28:15

have a look. Right, next one. Next one is a game, Anno 1800, um, designed by Martin Wallace, and this one took me by surprise. I was not even interested in this game when I uh was about to play it around uh a friend's house. And and when I sat down and started playing it, I just went, wow, I love this. And the main reason why I love this game is the card shedding um aspect of it. So you get dealt uh a bunch of cards based on your your kind of population or workers, and in the cards, you are literally trying to get um the right industries on your board um or access to the right industries so you can play these cards down. And the idea is that you want to shed your hand through as much of these cards as possible so that you basically empty your hand and and you're good and you can end the game. Now, it's not as easy as that because there's a whole deep hierarchical structure of industries that you need to have this to unlock this, i.e., you need to get sausages, you need to have um pigs and and something else. And yeah, there's a whole kind of deep hierarchy, and some of the um uh the cards that you need to get rid of will require a lot of those bases to to be covered as you kind of work your way up the tiers. And but I just found that fun. You're trying to link if I get that and then I do that, and I get this, and then that I can then I can play that card down, get that benefit, which will then help me get this. So it's like chaining lots of uh of actions and sequencing them together. Is yeah, it's just it's just brilliant. And if you're not played Anno, please give it a go.

Deck Shift Management in Revive

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Right, we're getting towards the end of the list. Um, and I'm gonna talk about Revive. Um, so Revive uh is uh basically uh a game that's come out I don't know about three years ago, maybe even four years ago. Um, and there's two aspects I really like about this game, uh, mechanism-wise. The player card into a slot on your player board, and then basically activating it, and also activating any slot modules that you may have in the player board, that is just fun because you can customize those slots with different things so you can get more and more out of the cards depending on the colour you're putting in. That's just a fun mechanism. But what I really like about it is that the game um kind of works on this like two shift pattern thing. And what I mean by that is that the cards that you play into your um player board, at the end of that round, they'll go into like a rest deck, and then the ones that are in the rest deck will come out. So you kind of have like a day and night shift with your workers, your workers being cards, and you're trying to orchestrate, trying to get the right workers in the right shift in order to do the right things. And I found that quite an interesting mechanism. So you're getting more cards, but you want to put more cards in that shift because it synergizes better than the other one. So timing when uh cards are coming in and out of that shift is is yeah, it's just really, really good. And and I like the game as well. I think it's just a good fun all-round package.

Secret Action Selection in Coloma

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Okay, penultimate mechanism that I'm going to talk about is Coloma. So Coloma uh is uh a kind of a Western game um based on the Gold Rush uh in America, and in the middle of the board, there is like a wagon wheel, a Western style wagon wheel with with different um action spaces on them. And how you select that I find really interesting. So each player has a wheel or a dial, and you will simultaneously pick in secret what action space you want to go on. So I might be like, I'm gonna go on number three, and player two over there might go, I want to go on number four. Um so you all do it in secret, you all reveal, and then you put your uh your meeple onto that action space. Now, if you are on your own, goody, you get all of the bonuses, you get everything, you can do the top and bottom action, and you're happy because it's like the most efficient thing you can do. If you're contested, you get to do one of them. I can't remember if it's top or bottom, but it limits what you can do because it's more contested. So it's this beautiful bit of you reveal, people swear, because like, no, I really needed that, um, and and away you go. And I just find that whole secret select, reveal, go to action again, it was just a fun part of the game. Um, so yeah, that's Coloma.

Analogue Point & Click in Cantaloop

SPEAKER_00 32:29

So now I get to the last one. This is a bit of an off-the-wall one, um, but I wanted to talk about it because um this is not a typical board game, um, but I think mechanically, the way that this works, I just think it's just brilliant. So, what am I talking about? I'm talking about uh a book called Cantaloop, and this book um is is effectively a point-and-click adventure, much like Monkey Island uh or Day of the Tentacle that you probably played back in the day. And how it works mechanically, how does a point-and-click game work as a book? And I thought the same, and I I basically gave uh this this a punt one day, and I thought I'd give it a go. Because Monkey Island is basically my youth. Um, and the way it works is you're interacting with different scenes. So the book, you'll open it up and you've got scene A, and you might want to interact with the door. So to do that, you'll have in uh a bunch of cards in your inventory, and on the cards you'll have a uh a bunch of codes, and you lay the card with the the area that you want to interact with, which adds codes as well, and then the arrows that they're pointing to each other generate uh alphanumeric code, and then you refer to the book to basically say what happened. And it could be yeah, you found another item and you get another item, it could be that nothing happens, or you could trigger a dialogue, which then you go off and and do a dialogue. And in the book, you get that kind of red film, which usually see in the old children's spy kits, and you use that red film to kind of cover um uh you know text in in the book, which normally would spoil things, so you can kind of find the the paragraphs and and sections you want. And I'm telling you, it works so well. And there's three books in the Cantaloupe series, one, two, and three, and it's all about um trying to get revenge, so someone wronged you. You play as a uh a petty kind of thief or or crook, and he's actually called Hook. And it's about him plotting his revenge as someone who wronged him um in the past, and the three books that kind of tell the story, it's very funny. Um, and it's it just some of the best Sunday afternoons that I've had just sitting there going through that point and click adventure, but in analog form and mechanically, it's it's brilliant. So if you haven't heard of it, check it out. If that that's your thing. So that's it. That's the centre of the table. There's uh the mechanisms that I've kind of described that I really enjoy. There's a million others, I know there's loads. I probably could talk all day. Um, but yeah, those are the ones I wanted to talk about today. So, yeah, let me know what your mechanisms are, and uh yeah, I look forward to to hearing more

PHASE D: WHAT'S HOT, WHAT'S NOT

SPEAKER_00 35:01

about them. So let's move on to the next segment, which is what's hot and what's not. So we'll go back to the screen share. And again, if you're not watching this on YouTube, don't worry. I'm gonna explain as much as I can, um, and and you'll get the sense of what's going on. So I'm gonna talk through the top five hotness games on Board Game Geek to basically see if I agree that whether they're hot, whether I've heard of them, whether I care, who knows. I think it's quite good as a segment because it reoccurs, things change, and it might introduce me to new games that I've not heard of. So let's start with number one Terraria the board game. Now, this has shot up the hotness uh scale, and I think um mainly because of uh uh no pun included NPI's uh review of the game, and they they pretty much put out a bad review on Terraria, um, which I've I've watched. And I have played Terraria, but I've only played a little bit of the game on Tabletop's uh simulator TTS, and I enjoyed it. I I thought it was a great exploration game. I had a blast, it was so sandboxy. Basically, JP, what do you want to do? Do this, cool, I'm gonna do this. But I've only ever played a small section of the game up to I think King's Slime when King's Slime pops out. Um I do have a copy coming, and I'm really looking forward to kind of exploring this game. And I think most people's uh comments on the game is that it takes too long, it just takes too long. Um, and I think people's expectations probably weren't kind of met and that aspect, thinking, well, it's probably just a three-hour game, and when they play with friends, they're they're there for like seven, eight, nine hours, which obviously is a long time to be playing a uh a board game, especially one that isn't really badged as a campaign game. But I've had fun with this, and I I'm looking forward to kind of getting my own opinion and my own um kind of experience in the game. I quite like those kind of crafting sandbox games, so yeah, um I'll I'll see what happens on that one when I get it. Fate of the Fellowship number two. So this is jumped back up. Um so I have played Lord of the Rings Fate of the Fellowship. So this is the pandemic system, um, but with Lord of the Rings uh skin on there, and I have to say, um, I do enjoy Fate of the Fellowship. Um, I'm not a massive pandemic fan. Um I I don't mind it, I don't hate it, I don't love the the games, but they're they're they're cool, they're they've they're important to um you know the hobby and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, this one really feels like Lord of the Rings and really feels thematic in in what you're doing as you're trying to move Frodo across uh you know from the Shire and getting them down to Mordor and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I'd happily play this more. And I quite like that you have two characters, so you play and you have two characters to to kind of move around and synergize off. And that was always good fun. So yeah, Fate of the Fellowship. Um, yeah, if you've not heard of it, maybe worth uh worth a go. Lands of Evershade. I mentioned this on uh episode one. Uh I won't go into it much more, but you know what? I think Paul Grogan did a uh unboxing video uh not long back and I had a look through it and I was actually quite impressed uh with so much content for this game that that's been landing on on people's uh shelves. Um yeah, I might have to check this out. The thing is, I've as I said before, I'm not a massive campaign game player. I think it kind of puts me off if I think I'm gonna have to be playing this for 100 hours, I just know it won't get done. Um, but just the way it looks, the way it works, the fact that it's kind of like DD, but board game um version where you you know you're building your character sheet, the player boards. I'm a sucker for player boards anyway. Um yeah, so I'm gonna probably look at Lands of Evershade and just explore it a little bit more. Rolling Deep number four, which is one I mentioned again on episode one. I can't wait for this game, Bellatro with Dice. What else is there to say? Um, yeah, I've really kind of been reading some of the design diaries in here, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this works. Is it is it really Bellatro with Dice? How are they gonna take that dice customization that we've known in in Dice uh Dice Throne and um and Kapow and other uh kind of board games, how they're gonna take that system and make it really cool and unique? So I'm really really keeping my eyes closed on this one. And then Faya Swamp. I have heard of Faya Swamp. Uh, when I went to Essen last year in 2025, um, I saw Faya Swamp um kind of being demoed, um, but I never got a chance to play it. Um, I don't really know what the game is about. I know that when you kind of jump in, and maybe let's just jump in and have a uh a quick quick look at some of the pictures. Um but yeah, I know that you've kind of got a board of hexagons, you've got ships, um, which is obviously uh around the swamp, and you've got kind of got cutesy characters in there, but mechanically I have no idea. But again, listeners and viewers, do you think I should check that out? Do you think it's something um that might be of interest? Yeah, um, kind of let me know. But there you go. That's the the top five of the the BGG. That's what's hot, what's not, and

PHASE E: JUST ABOUT TO PLAY

SPEAKER_00 40:07

let's revert back to um just about to play. So, what am I gonna play? What's on my horizon? What's coming up? Well, I've got a two-player game with uh Mark Monk from Ninja Geek Games. I'm looking forward to that. So, Mark, if you're listening, we might have already played it by now, but I'm looking forward to to playing uh Dune War for Arrakis. So that's uh a 1v1 um kind of head-to-head kind of skirmishy uh game. So if you've played uh War of the Ring for Lord of the Rings or Star Wars Rebellion, the Star Wars kind of version, um it's kind of in a similar vein to that, but in the Dune universe, which I absolutely adore. So I've asked Mark for a game and looking forward to to getting that to the table and seeing if it's my jam. It's kind of been living in my head going, should I buy this, should I not buy this? And yeah, we'll we'll see. Um, the other one is Nucleum. So my Gibraltar expansion arrived. Very excited for that. Um, I love nucleum to bits, I think it's a great game. Um, I it's a heavy game and it's one that frustrates me and that maybe I wish I was better at sometimes. Um, but I really love the way mechanically it works with uh, you know, you're you're deciding whether you want to lay track onto the board or you want to use the action tar, which is the same thing, and that whole mechanism is just genius in the way that that happens. So yeah, Gibraltar's the new map expansion, um, much like Australia that came out, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that works. There's a submarine in it. What's it all about? I don't know. Well, I kind of know it's about military contracts, but um, I'm looking forward to playing it and we'll we'll see what happens.

PHASE F: THE LAST PLAY

SPEAKER_00 41:43

And now it's time for the last play where I have to say goodbye and thank you so much for listening to the show. Um, I really, really hope you enjoyed the show. And if you have enjoyed it, please share it with with other people in your gaming group or your friends and family and all that kind of stuff. It really helps. And if you really enjoyed it, please think about subscribing and also following us on our socials. Every little helps, people, it really, really does. Um, so yeah, um, if you want to follow us, we're on all of the typical socials, your Facebook, your Instagram, and of course, we are visual on YouTube. But if I can leave you with one final thought, which is you only grow old when you stop playing. Take care.