Normally i try to be very even handed, sometimes more than i should. But the 3 minute format is designed to say what different people may or may not like about a game rather than hammering home whether i think a game rules or sucks. This video though. This is different. This is the one video format where i am consistently a bit spicy. And not to every game and not for no purpose. As always though, these thoughts and reckons are just that. Nothing more and nothing less. Also, i will be away for a week. So if i dont reply, that's why
I truly appreciate your integrity, unapologetic honest reviews and summaries. You are never mean but do give good reasoning on the shortcomings of games. I also like your succinct presentation. Enjoy your week away!
I own that same Settlers of Catan, which I bought in 2001. From the beginning, we called the game "Settlers" and never "Catan." To this day, no one in my house refers to the game or series as Catan.
Got "That's Not A Hat" for family as stocking stuffer. Not gonna lie, been played more than any other so far. Great quickie and low rules laugh. Good finisher/starter.
My partner and I play Smersh and Arabian nights as more of experience than a game. We read scenarios until we've both had our fill and stop without "finishing" them. We love recounting the amazing and terrible encounters each of our characters had. We played the epic encounter once and we will likely again but consider the option of just stopping instead of finishing a game. Oh, and I have both versions of Smersh. It's a big investment of space. I know you're regretting not keeping the original but the new art is just amazing. That Connery as Bond/Steed character makes me smile every time.
Thanks! I appreciate videos like this - getting frustrated with other reviewers who seem to give every third game a 9/10 or higher - if that’s the case, seems like everyone should replace their collection every year. Appreciate you providing your rationale to these decisions.
"That's Not A Hat" is hilarious. We've been using it as a great filler during our boardgames and camping weekends. Would I like to play it every week, or for more than 20 minutes at a time? Heck no. But for 10-15 minutes it's fun watching people trying to remember if they are holding a melon or a piano ... And in our house the old Catan set is "Die Siedler von Catan". I got it from Germany around the same time as the awful first Mayfair edition (with the terrible artwork) came out. And we only played Cities & Knights the once, because nobody could cope with the calendars being all in German ...
I love how pictures or video of the game play behind you and you’re shrunk down to the corner. And I like that you use the name of the game while talking about it because my memory is as long as Dory’s. And I like that you don’t repeat describing the games all over again and get straight to the point. A+!
Thank you! A funny quirk is if it has static images, we haven't reviewed it. And if it has video, that's because thats all video footage from our prior reviews. So if you see a game you like and it has video, you can go find out more.
I hear you about frosthaven. I’m 19 scenarios in the campaign with one group and I suspect at least one person will lose steam by scenario 40. Sometimes I’m really afraid of a session cuz I’m the main organizer and bookkeeper…it’s quite daunting but the pay off is definitely there.
I agree with Northgard. It's pathetic to make a retail version of the game that is just lacking, if you haven't got the kickstarter Clan Leaders with their powers.
I missed the Kickstarter but I refuse to get a retail copy for this reason. I played the KS version on TTS and it's actually great. Needs a few tweaks to combat but overall I love it. Hoping for a 2nd edition Kickstarter one day.
@3MBG I've only played Troyes once and loved it. It's sad that no one else you play with regularly enjoy it, as I found the dice mechanics to be really interesting. Next Wellycon if I see it on the shelf I'll hit you up for a game.
Troyes is my desert island game. Well, I hope I get at least two players with it. :) Such a brilliant design; not too long; solid rules and interactive.
Thanks for the summary of why you got rid of things. Even when it's not your thing, it may be someone else's (your #2 looks like it's up my ally). Keep up the good work in 24, and enjoy your vacation!
Sorry to hear about Viscounts, it's definitely the toughest of the West Kingdom for me to wrap my head around but I do enjoy it, especially with the Tomesaga little trilogy campaign. I've won a few times, but it's rare.
A real shame you didn't try "That's Not a Hat!", a contender for my favourite game new to me this year. It definitely wins if you put price/value into consideration A great end of night game right along with Cockroach Poker and Skull. Nothing beats you and your friends failing to complete a task simple enough for kids, and laughing at each other while you do it.
Interesting about Trickerion. I really feel like it's not that complicated mechanically, but there's just a high amount of decisions, un-intuitive iconography on the prophecies, and it's hugely punishing in the long-term planning and player interaction each round. The teach doesn't feel as tough compared to the head in booklet during the play and the stress over your assignment cards 😅
Yes, the PC game felt like the right platform for gloomhaven/frosthaven... and as Paul Grogan's videos demonstrate, it's absolutely practical to play it multiplayer online, and fast.
For me, the digital implementation made me wish I was playing a proper video game. It's clunky as a board game, but somehow they made it even clunkier as a video game. The digital implementation is less upkeep and less fiddly, but it's one of the worst video game dungeon crawlers I've played.
The problem with PC is IMO you lose all the magic of sitting in a table to play with your friends… in that case I’d rather play proper video games. But totally understand the setup time, that I’ve solved with a custom insert that speed up the setup a lot
Autobahn is a pretty good game but my god it was hard to learn. So many fiddly rules and combining road building with cards and unlockable spots on your board. Then all the other bits like scoring and travel routes with tracks 😅 I salute you for trying to teach this😂
I totally agree on moon, I love villagers and so was hyped for moon, but playing moon just felt so slow and yet so many of the cards are bland/ lack depth for a game that was this long. I wish they had a fast mode or a way to change the action cards so they flowed like sushi go.
Thanks for the list. I love how personal it is with the option of saying - it was just sitting on the shelf. I have sadly a too large collection and trying to get rid of games biweekly :D So sold plenty of games mainly solo games as I am the sole judge of those (the whole Onirim-verse for example). I was not a big fan of the music changes as sometimes it confused me in my earphones where the weird sound comes from :D
Ah, i tend to try to put the music pretty far back in the mix. But for some reasons, the compression i use or something, it's always louder on some types of headphones in the mix.
Yeah the last "boardgame" that Games Workshop was similar. In the trailer they showed people pushing around cardstock tokens...not cardboard...like paper tokens. They couldn't have made it look any cheaper. Yeah your 100% correct, they are just disguised to give people that first hit of their business: selling overpriced plastic. They said so themselves they see their company as primarily a model company and not a company that makes functional/well balanced games. To the uneducated people or those new to the hobby they may seem appealing, but to people who actually PLAY boardgames, its very appearance they are nothing more then a bait n' switch in a box.
Can't argue with that at all. Sometimes, they do put out a small box game that is good so i feel i did them a little dirty here. Blitz Bowl was damned good, but that was a few years back. This years offerings were nope.
Thank you for this video! It's great to see reviewers be honest about what didn't work for them, what didn't work at all, and that it's okay to not own or play a game based entirely on vibes. You remain one of the best in the business.
Awesome video! But a genuine question about Brazil, what makes he go away in your collection than scythe or the other game that you mentioned? Do you think it has some rules that dont add up? I never played any of this games, so I'm very curious about that.
Well, for one I painted Scythe and its first expansion. And having a hand painted set of a game makes it a lot less likely for me to sell it. The 2nd game is Rurik: Dawn of Kiev, and that game has an amazing activation system. Brazil was fine, but i felt the other two games just offered more.
I have yet not finished a single game of Viscounts of the West Kingdom, despite many tries, and i don't think i ever will. It's hard to teach others, and it's just not that fun.
I did not get rid of anything in 2023. My collection feels small and manageable to me. Although finding time to play everything is another thing. I did recieve some new games via Gamefound & Kickstarter this year, and am currently waiting on 2 more that ran behind schedule. Now I can tell I have a lot if big box games fighting for attention, and they can be a bit of a beast to table. The only game you culled that I own is Eternal Palace. I backed it because the concept sounded intriguing, and I love the easel and painting pieces. The art is pretty. My main complaint is the board is too small. So small, it's hard to read some things on it. I have only played it once yet, so I can't speak to the game play of it. But I appreciate your honesty. Thanks for the video and the hard work you do on reviews every year. And now I want to check which version of Catan I bought a few months ago during a sale lol. Some of your spicy takes were more than I expected. Like Indian curry or Sichuan hotpot spicy, when I thought you'd be jalapeño tacos spicy. 😀
Loved this video, really helps show those games that really have something to stick around. Easy to tell this with the Tusks and GW stuff that’s “bad” but as a collection grows you need something that’s really worth keeping around. Even handed and quality as always - thanks 3MBG
We sold Hamlet this year as we just found it a bit dull. Totally agree that Autobahn would be better as an app as well. We thought it was a good game, but it’s definitely too fiddly and even after a few plays we’d forget to upgrade road values etc.
Oops. Did you play PUSH? Heavy gamer here who loves PUSH. Plays 6 and is pure simple push your luck with a clever flow and lots of sneaky strategy. Highly recommended. So, yeah, it's very good.
I completely agree regarding AH, 2nd edition and Eldritch Horror. I would never choose EH over AH and it sounds like I can give Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. a complete miss as well! Thanks for the video!
For Viscounts, were you teaching it each time? It feels the fiddliest of the series, and hence players need a bit more in-game support, and that can be a handicap to the teacher. Not that I mind that, for me losing by a mile would be much worse than winning by a mile. I'm still somewhat on the fence about it, feeling it needs one or both expansions to fill the game / strategies out, yet conversely that makes for an unfairly intense teach to new players.
The first games i played were against Shem, Sam and Bobby from Garphill Games, so i expected to lose those. And a couple of teaching games, but i think i played it 7 or 8 times in the end.
@@3MBG Which is plenty to decide whether you like a game or not :¬) It is a game that does seem to divide even West Kingdom / Garphill fans, and it does lack those short micro turns that make Architects and Paladins feel like they play quickly (the latter IME amazes people that it's about an hour later than they thought it was at the end of the game).
My son was brilliant in Viscounts (was: since I sold the game). He beat us by hundred points or so. Every time. For me it was always three unconnected systems (cards, the castle and traveling meeple) that I just couldn’t make work together in my head. Huh.
Learned Catan at game group: very engaging since every dice roll affects everyone's resources. Its mechanics've been copied by later games, its contribution to gaming--RIP Herr Teuber
Viscounts gets big negatives for having a circular board. Hate those. The worst option for readability next to using a board with more than 4 sides where everything is printed aligned to edges (not sure any game does that tho 😂)
The Flow of History KS Ed (kinda regret now), The King is Dead 2nd ed, and Votes for Women. Trying to sell Journeys in Middle Earth and Sleeping Gods as I've had my fun with them and am playing ISS Vanguard and Vampire Chapters.
To a lovely beach town where he lives on a yacht? Hopefully he tries something different or just takes a rest for a bit. But if he is going to do another game like this, a sci-fi one would be nice
God you summed up my thoughts on northgard so well. I liked the video game. Liked the production of the board game. But it was just... eh... I looked at it and thought, oh, i have like 6 dude on a map games that ate better.... i guess ill just play those ..
My Moon-mood this year was The Fox Experiment. I bounced hard off that game in response to a bad rulebook design rendering the game not actually usable at the 1 or 2 player counts it claimed to support. Pandasaurus really dropped the ball here by putting the rules for the (reasonably) required automa player's turn actions in a separate part of the rulebook-and the solo turn actions differences in yet a third spot!-but then including no turn summary which brought it all together. Flipping back and forth every single turn is just not an acceptable game experience. I also was distracted and missed the point in the Kickstarter where the charming wooden fox meeples (which I figured I'd keep even if I recycled the rest of the game) got "upgraded" to uglier plastic along with many other components. When Daybreak arrived soon after with its completely sustainable build, great rulebook, and vastly better gameplay, The Fox Experiment went right onto my "For Trade" list and mercifully got snapped up quickly for A Fake Artist Goes to New York (to be gifted to Manhattan friends) and an old copy of Roll for the Galaxy. Finally gave in this year to the fact I was never going to play on the Betrayal Legacy board again even if it was nicer than the old version of the base game I have. Fun experience that got us through the start of the pandemic, but on to the recycling bin with most of it. One False Step Home, a stray supplement for a Cheapass game I don't even have also got recycled. Pretty sure other very old paper packs of Cheapass games Save Dr. Lucky and The Dr. Lucky Ambivalence Pack met similar fates, tho' they may have gone in the charity box. Kanagawa and Enemy Chocolatier got traded for Tiny Epic Quest. Cleared out some old games and donated them to a very small town library in the rural community where my dad lives. The Big Idea (a pretty funny party game from Cheapass), Citadels (unplayed as I bought it hastily in pandemic shopping in an unexpectedly crowded store thinking it was a different game), Cottage Garden, and Patchwork now off to amuse some other folks (or possibly ruin friendships if what I hear about Citadels is true). Chrononauts and Early American Chrononauts, Clue: Dungeons & Dragons, Wonderland Fluxx, and a 1973 copy of Predator: The Food Chain Game all went to one of our nearby Little Free Libraries, iirc. Still a lot of stuff to prune, but I did get down to all my boardgames fitting in one large armoire with the coats and a drawer holding the supply of COVID rapid tests, a weirdly related item to gaming.
Moon-mood, lol. Fox experiment had some interesting stuff happen online as Elizabeth Hargrave seemed very let down by the publisher, not often you see a designer just out and out say that.
Trickerion looks so awesome and I'd love to play it some day but yeah from everything that I've heard im not sure that its worth all of the effort. Oath falls into that category for me as well.
I believe it was somewhere in this video you talked about a game you played a lot when you were sick - what was that game? Was trying to find where you mentioned it.
Arkham horror 2nd edition most likely. I had recurring viral pericarditis and was in and out of hospital for a year, living in a place with no internet, so it got played a lot
@@3MBG Thanks for the reply! I'm trying to find good board games that are easy to play when sick and in bed, so it made me remember you talking about that.
I love hearing the kiwi accent bro. I just bought my two grail games this month, and I hope to prove to my wife that I can go close to a year without buying more
I too do not know anybody local that likes Troyes, but I love that game and will keep it till I die. Same goes for the other games in my collection with the same problem.
37:35 this is Thai-food-level spicy. I appreciate your honesty, because you have sound reasons and examples to reinforce why you did not like a game. You were pretty fair throughout the video, but Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. (they really should have turned that into an acronym) got seriously burned there.
Catalan is still a gateway game, and it does nothing on my shelf except every three or four years introduces gaming to a new cohort. Along with carcossone and terraforming mars. Never remove these staples if you want to grow your community!
There was a patch released 2 months ago, so I don't think so. I think the game is pretty much complete and the only things they would add now are bug fixes.
Got rid of Sleeping Gods (de) this year. Had a blast with 2 campaigns, but my second player decided 2 is enough, so I sold it on for someone else to enjoy.
Can't you put in some chapters for these long videos? Most of these games I haven't played, nor am I interested in hearing more about them. I'd like to be able to jump to the games I am curious why you culled.
I've never looked at doing chapters because it seems super tedious to mark out, and while i know some people like them. I'm not convinced it helps the video long term at all. If someone else does them, which happens on my top 100 vids, i usually pin them though. But, think of it this way. You are asking me to do even more work on a video so you can watch less of it.
Not strictly speaking correct. It would be doing slightly more work so that some of us would watch some of this video, not none of it. Please don't take this the wrong way. I think your stuff is good. I just don't have the time to watch 45 minutes of you talk about games I am not getting, nor have any interest in. I do have 5-10 minutes to scroll through and watch the ones I am interested in.
Hmmm.. Moon! It works, it doesn’t take too long either. Also if you copy other drafting games then you get a clone. But fair enough if you didn’t like it. My friend and I find it interesting and fun to play. He Ho!
GWT was a really solid title. GWT NZ has almost nothing to do with actual NZ. It's like someone read one article about NZ written by chat GPT and called that their research.
You did not like the theme of NZ or the gameplay. I guess being from NZ does invoke anger if things aren't as they are supposed to be, however the gameplay is quite solid.
The TLDR version is that the designer just made stuff up about NZ. Go look at the island map at the top of the board, then look at NZ at the map. Then try to figure out what those islands are. The game is riddled with made up stuff and factual mistakes and has precisely nothing at all to do with actual NZ or NZ sheep farming. Very strange and very disappointing.
Much respect for not reviewing Stroganov. #russiaisaterroriststate regarding getting rid of games - it is hard for me. I've done it once and regrett of it, despite not playing that games much. I really loved idea of having a limit of 20 games you made videp earlier, I even almost decided what to keep, but again, it is hard for me :(
There are a few. The first one is legendary is set up as a competitive game where you are scoring points and there is a winner, even though you can all lose of the bad guys win. Secondly, encounters has a lot of cards that interact with other players more, meaning you can buff other people in your group and coordinate actions easier. Legendary, you only really focus on your stuff. The third one is that cards enter face down in encounters, and there is an extra mini game about revealing them, and the risks around that. Fourthly, is Legendary uses random goals for each bad guy that are shuffled in and Encounters uses a movie style Act structure, where you have scaling difficulty missions to do. These makes encounters feel stronger in terms of how it tells a story, more balanced as you dont get randomly high difficulty missions early game, and creates more varied gameplay as the acts can have quirky rules. And finally, Legendary you win once you beat the boss. Encounters tends to have an interesting finale for each 3rd act as well. 90% of the game is the same, but those 4 things really make a difference
Real bad. Might as well be called Great Western Trail: Madeupastan. It's hilariously badly done, like the designer read about New Zealand on the back of a cereal box somewhere and based a game on it. Seriously, look at the island map on the GWT:NZ board, then look at NZ on a world map and try to figure out where the heck you're supposed to be shipping goods too.
I consider myself quite patriotic about my country. I'm proud of where i'm from, and well, when game designers just treat it like a made up fantasy land they can paste onto any mechanical mess they've constructed. It annoys me. Still, not the worst example, that's "Gisborne: Die ersten Kartographen" In that game you are exploring New Zealand, and its push your luck because if you explore too rapidly you might get attacked and killed by wolves. NZ has no wolves, never had any wolves, NZ never had any land mammal predator of any kind even. It's not even that it's disrespecting an entire country, it's that it's so ******* lazy of them. I'm making a Mars game, I read a bunch on it, and therefore Mars doesn't have 27 moons and a water park and spa for hot milfs known as "martian manhunters".
I suppose Intrepid is a game for those that rail against co-op games that are vulnerable to alpha gamers telling others what to do. Personally I'd rather address the alpha gamer as the issue!
After your comments on how wasteful the King's Dilemma is, I'm surprised you did not comment on how wasteful the production of Flourish is. Maybe you did not get the chance to open it at all
@@3MBGthe game only needs the deck of cards, it's a garden-themed sushi go, yet it was filled with extra usless cardboard 'bling'. Most of it is cosmeting and serves no purpose. Cardboard 'ribbons' awarded in one game variant could have been cards. The game comes with giant score markers, twice as big as SM Libertalia (ever felt the need for those in sushi go?). The result is a voluminous box filled with usless carboard instead of a deck of cards in a small package. Bigger and havier than needed. It translates to a higher environmental footprint in production and transportation. I recommend Ludology's episode "green team wins"
King's Dilemma isn't wasteful because it's a big chunky box. It's wasteful because it's got legacy destroy-the-game for no good reason. There is no map or other game components where I ever felt the single-use stickers had any point to them other than purposefully rendering the game single-use. Tweaking the components a bit would've made it an equally enjoyable campaign game, that even the same group could play again after a year or so if they enjoyed it the first time round.
@@martinba9629 3MBD showed sensitivity towards the theme of waste in board games. Most recently in the King's Dilemma review. Still waste comes in many forms. Legacy games where everything gets trashed aren't the only offenders and other forms of waste should not be overlooked. If 80% of contents get eventually trashed without even using them is arguably worse than TKD which at least lasts that one ride
I'd be interested to know that as well. I've never played any of them. As he's from New Zealand, like I am, I was thinking it was some sort of historical issue?
The TLDR version is the New Zealand depicted in that game exists only in Alexander Pfisters head. It was like he got chat GPT to design a game about NZ and put his name on it. Incredible levels of just "making stuff up". I don't care if people make euro games very abstract, just don't lie about doing your research and saying the game has anything to do with real world history. For one great example. Grab a copy of the island map on the GWT NZ board, then look at a globe. Try to figure out what the islands you are shipping wool to from NZ are. Because no one here has any idea where those islands are.
Normally i try to be very even handed, sometimes more than i should. But the 3 minute format is designed to say what different people may or may not like about a game rather than hammering home whether i think a game rules or sucks. This video though. This is different. This is the one video format where i am consistently a bit spicy. And not to every game and not for no purpose. As always though, these thoughts and reckons are just that. Nothing more and nothing less.
Also, i will be away for a week. So if i dont reply, that's why
I truly appreciate your integrity, unapologetic honest reviews and summaries. You are never mean but do give good reasoning on the shortcomings of games. I also like your succinct presentation. Enjoy your week away!
Thank you very much for the kind words
I own that same Settlers of Catan, which I bought in 2001. From the beginning, we called the game "Settlers" and never "Catan." To this day, no one in my house refers to the game or series as Catan.
"22 years ago, in 2001"
Man, that line during the Catan section made me feel old.
Me too, me too
Got "That's Not A Hat" for family as stocking stuffer. Not gonna lie, been played more than any other so far. Great quickie and low rules laugh. Good finisher/starter.
Agree completely. Not just a kids game.
Love how well substantiated this list is! You have become my favorite boardgame reviewer! Keep up the great work in 2024!
My partner and I play Smersh and Arabian nights as more of experience than a game. We read scenarios until we've both had our fill and stop without "finishing" them. We love recounting the amazing and terrible encounters each of our characters had. We played the epic encounter once and we will likely again but consider the option of just stopping instead of finishing a game.
Oh, and I have both versions of Smersh. It's a big investment of space. I know you're regretting not keeping the original but the new art is just amazing. That Connery as Bond/Steed character makes me smile every time.
Thanks! I appreciate videos like this - getting frustrated with other reviewers who seem to give every third game a 9/10 or higher - if that’s the case, seems like everyone should replace their collection every year. Appreciate you providing your rationale to these decisions.
"That's Not A Hat" is hilarious. We've been using it as a great filler during our boardgames and camping weekends. Would I like to play it every week, or for more than 20 minutes at a time? Heck no. But for 10-15 minutes it's fun watching people trying to remember if they are holding a melon or a piano ...
And in our house the old Catan set is "Die Siedler von Catan". I got it from Germany around the same time as the awful first Mayfair edition (with the terrible artwork) came out. And we only played Cities & Knights the once, because nobody could cope with the calendars being all in German ...
These yearly videos of your are especially curious. Always a pleasure to watch.
Live long and prosper! :-)
I appreciate you sharing your list of culled games. I gave away 20ish games last year but I did not keep track. Makes me think I should this year.
I love your attitude about the "old" Catan! It is awesome to think about that someone else is now enjoying it a lot! 😊
I love how pictures or video of the game play behind you and you’re shrunk down to the corner. And I like that you use the name of the game while talking about it because my memory is as long as Dory’s. And I like that you don’t repeat describing the games all over again and get straight to the point. A+!
Thank you! A funny quirk is if it has static images, we haven't reviewed it. And if it has video, that's because thats all video footage from our prior reviews. So if you see a game you like and it has video, you can go find out more.
I hear you about frosthaven. I’m 19 scenarios in the campaign with one group and I suspect at least one person will lose steam by scenario 40. Sometimes I’m really afraid of a session cuz I’m the main organizer and bookkeeper…it’s quite daunting but the pay off is definitely there.
Ahhh great western trail…I had a terrible experience with the first edition too. Personally not a fan and I think it’s overrated.
I also hate Troyes….I’m afraid your group is right about it. It’s terrible lol
Thanks for not pulling any punches. Whether the game is garbage, too fiddly or tough to teach, we don't have enough time.
I agree with Northgard. It's pathetic to make a retail version of the game that is just lacking, if you haven't got the kickstarter Clan Leaders with their powers.
I missed the Kickstarter but I refuse to get a retail copy for this reason. I played the KS version on TTS and it's actually great. Needs a few tweaks to combat but overall I love it. Hoping for a 2nd edition Kickstarter one day.
I just got troyes and great western trail for Christmas so here's to hoping my family and group will like them.
If not, you can come over to my house and play 'em with me.
Catan was the first boatd game that got me and my family into board games.
My deepest condolences for the loss of Troyes 😢
@3MBG I've only played Troyes once and loved it. It's sad that no one else you play with regularly enjoy it, as I found the dice mechanics to be really interesting. Next Wellycon if I see it on the shelf I'll hit you up for a game.
Troyes is my desert island game. Well, I hope I get at least two players with it. :)
Such a brilliant design; not too long; solid rules and interactive.
Yeah, as i said, its a game i quite liked :(
Thanks for the summary of why you got rid of things. Even when it's not your thing, it may be someone else's (your #2 looks like it's up my ally). Keep up the good work in 24, and enjoy your vacation!
Thanks very much. Looking forward to a week away :)
Sorry to hear about Viscounts, it's definitely the toughest of the West Kingdom for me to wrap my head around but I do enjoy it, especially with the Tomesaga little trilogy campaign. I've won a few times, but it's rare.
I have no excuses either, i was taught the game by Shem and Sam themselves. it is all on me
A real shame you didn't try "That's Not a Hat!", a contender for my favourite game new to me this year. It definitely wins if you put price/value into consideration
A great end of night game right along with Cockroach Poker and Skull. Nothing beats you and your friends failing to complete a task simple enough for kids, and laughing at each other while you do it.
Interesting about Trickerion. I really feel like it's not that complicated mechanically, but there's just a high amount of decisions, un-intuitive iconography on the prophecies, and it's hugely punishing in the long-term planning and player interaction each round. The teach doesn't feel as tough compared to the head in booklet during the play and the stress over your assignment cards 😅
I'd put Trickerion in my top 10 PITA games to teach. And that should be a list video i do at some point.
Yes, the PC game felt like the right platform for gloomhaven/frosthaven... and as Paul Grogan's videos demonstrate, it's absolutely practical to play it multiplayer online, and fast.
For me, the digital implementation made me wish I was playing a proper video game. It's clunky as a board game, but somehow they made it even clunkier as a video game. The digital implementation is less upkeep and less fiddly, but it's one of the worst video game dungeon crawlers I've played.
The problem with PC is IMO you lose all the magic of sitting in a table to play with your friends… in that case I’d rather play proper video games.
But totally understand the setup time, that I’ve solved with a custom insert that speed up the setup a lot
Autobahn is a pretty good game but my god it was hard to learn. So many fiddly rules and combining road building with cards and unlockable spots on your board. Then all the other bits like scoring and travel routes with tracks 😅 I salute you for trying to teach this😂
Ha, yeah. I really liked it, asides from the teach and adjusting the scoring. Probably would play an app of it to death
I totally agree on moon, I love villagers and so was hyped for moon, but playing moon just felt so slow and yet so many of the cards are bland/ lack depth for a game that was this long. I wish they had a fast mode or a way to change the action cards so they flowed like sushi go.
Yep. Moon could have been awesome. I think that's why it made me so damned annoyed.
Very good video. Many games look fantastic but go stale after a while. I seldom buy "new" games anymore.
Thanks for the list. I love how personal it is with the option of saying - it was just sitting on the shelf.
I have sadly a too large collection and trying to get rid of games biweekly :D So sold plenty of games mainly solo games as I am the sole judge of those (the whole Onirim-verse for example).
I was not a big fan of the music changes as sometimes it confused me in my earphones where the weird sound comes from :D
Ah, i tend to try to put the music pretty far back in the mix. But for some reasons, the compression i use or something, it's always louder on some types of headphones in the mix.
@@3MBG Thank you for the reply. I guess the noise cancel phone weirdness adds to my experience :)
Yeah the last "boardgame" that Games Workshop was similar. In the trailer they showed people pushing around cardstock tokens...not cardboard...like paper tokens. They couldn't have made it look any cheaper.
Yeah your 100% correct, they are just disguised to give people that first hit of their business: selling overpriced plastic. They said so themselves they see their company as primarily a model company and not a company that makes functional/well balanced games. To the uneducated people or those new to the hobby they may seem appealing, but to people who actually PLAY boardgames, its very appearance they are nothing more then a bait n' switch in a box.
Can't argue with that at all. Sometimes, they do put out a small box game that is good so i feel i did them a little dirty here. Blitz Bowl was damned good, but that was a few years back. This years offerings were nope.
That was an interesting list--thanks and happy new year! :)
Happy New Year to you too.
Thank you for this video! It's great to see reviewers be honest about what didn't work for them, what didn't work at all, and that it's okay to not own or play a game based entirely on vibes. You remain one of the best in the business.
Thank you very much
Awesome video!
But a genuine question about Brazil, what makes he go away in your collection than scythe or the other game that you mentioned? Do you think it has some rules that dont add up?
I never played any of this games, so I'm very curious about that.
Well, for one I painted Scythe and its first expansion. And having a hand painted set of a game makes it a lot less likely for me to sell it. The 2nd game is Rurik: Dawn of Kiev, and that game has an amazing activation system.
Brazil was fine, but i felt the other two games just offered more.
I have yet not finished a single game of Viscounts of the West Kingdom, despite many tries, and i don't think i ever will. It's hard to teach others, and it's just not that fun.
I did not get rid of anything in 2023. My collection feels small and manageable to me. Although finding time to play everything is another thing. I did recieve some new games via Gamefound & Kickstarter this year, and am currently waiting on 2 more that ran behind schedule. Now I can tell I have a lot if big box games fighting for attention, and they can be a bit of a beast to table.
The only game you culled that I own is Eternal Palace. I backed it because the concept sounded intriguing, and I love the easel and painting pieces. The art is pretty. My main complaint is the board is too small. So small, it's hard to read some things on it. I have only played it once yet, so I can't speak to the game play of it. But I appreciate your honesty.
Thanks for the video and the hard work you do on reviews every year.
And now I want to check which version of Catan I bought a few months ago during a sale lol.
Some of your spicy takes were more than I expected. Like Indian curry or Sichuan hotpot spicy, when I thought you'd be jalapeño tacos spicy. 😀
Loved this video, really helps show those games that really have something to stick around. Easy to tell this with the Tusks and GW stuff that’s “bad” but as a collection grows you need something that’s really worth keeping around.
Even handed and quality as always - thanks 3MBG
You’re supposed to be doing the “buy this game next” type videos. Do you even board game content bro?
Hey, I've got 2 of my own games coming out this year, plenty of time to go full used car salesman on those
@@3MBG I'm aware of Red dust rebellion, but wasn't aware of the other one. Care to share the name so we can keep an eye out for it?
No official name yet. But it has been officially announced as coming on the Arkus games facebook and discord
Happy New Year 🎉 love your videos 🎉 looking forward to seeing what is coming out this year.
We sold Hamlet this year as we just found it a bit dull. Totally agree that Autobahn would be better as an app as well. We thought it was a good game, but it’s definitely too fiddly and even after a few plays we’d forget to upgrade road values etc.
Oops. Did you play PUSH? Heavy gamer here who loves PUSH. Plays 6 and is pure simple push your luck with a clever flow and lots of sneaky strategy. Highly recommended. So, yeah, it's very good.
I didn't. I have about 60 unplayed games and yeah, it was just sitting there
I completely agree regarding AH, 2nd edition and Eldritch Horror. I would never choose EH over AH and it sounds like I can give Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. a complete miss as well! Thanks for the video!
For Viscounts, were you teaching it each time? It feels the fiddliest of the series, and hence players need a bit more in-game support, and that can be a handicap to the teacher. Not that I mind that, for me losing by a mile would be much worse than winning by a mile. I'm still somewhat on the fence about it, feeling it needs one or both expansions to fill the game / strategies out, yet conversely that makes for an unfairly intense teach to new players.
The first games i played were against Shem, Sam and Bobby from Garphill Games, so i expected to lose those. And a couple of teaching games, but i think i played it 7 or 8 times in the end.
@@3MBG Which is plenty to decide whether you like a game or not :¬)
It is a game that does seem to divide even West Kingdom / Garphill fans, and it does lack those short micro turns that make Architects and Paladins feel like they play quickly (the latter IME amazes people that it's about an hour later than they thought it was at the end of the game).
My son was brilliant in Viscounts (was: since I sold the game). He beat us by hundred points or so. Every time.
For me it was always three unconnected systems (cards, the castle and traveling meeple) that I just couldn’t make work together in my head. Huh.
Learned Catan at game group: very engaging since every dice roll affects everyone's resources. Its mechanics've been copied by later games, its contribution to gaming--RIP Herr Teuber
Viscounts gets big negatives for having a circular board. Hate those. The worst option for readability next to using a board with more than 4 sides where everything is printed aligned to edges (not sure any game does that tho 😂)
“Push” is such a fun simple push your luck game. Works with kids and adults.
The Flow of History KS Ed (kinda regret now), The King is Dead 2nd ed, and Votes for Women. Trying to sell Journeys in Middle Earth and Sleeping Gods as I've had my fun with them and am playing ISS Vanguard and Vampire Chapters.
Where does Childress go from Frosthaven? FOMOHaven, in a box twice the size of Frosthaven?
To a lovely beach town where he lives on a yacht?
Hopefully he tries something different or just takes a rest for a bit. But if he is going to do another game like this, a sci-fi one would be nice
Naturehaven
Umbra Via is pretty clever. Keep almost getting rid of it, but it feels like a lesser Knizia and keeps just barely holding on.
God you summed up my thoughts on northgard so well.
I liked the video game.
Liked the production of the board game.
But it was just... eh...
I looked at it and thought, oh, i have like 6 dude on a map games that ate better.... i guess ill just play those ..
What's your favorite dudes on a map? And, what do think of Inis?
@@nicolasarevalo6024 Inis is a fantastic dudes on a map game that really doesn't feel like a dudes on a map game at all. Love it!
No way 2001 was more than 20 years ago!😮
Its sad that you cant find players for Trickerion. Its a good game. I hope someday i will play with Daalgaard Academy.
My Moon-mood this year was The Fox Experiment. I bounced hard off that game in response to a bad rulebook design rendering the game not actually usable at the 1 or 2 player counts it claimed to support. Pandasaurus really dropped the ball here by putting the rules for the (reasonably) required automa player's turn actions in a separate part of the rulebook-and the solo turn actions differences in yet a third spot!-but then including no turn summary which brought it all together. Flipping back and forth every single turn is just not an acceptable game experience. I also was distracted and missed the point in the Kickstarter where the charming wooden fox meeples (which I figured I'd keep even if I recycled the rest of the game) got "upgraded" to uglier plastic along with many other components. When Daybreak arrived soon after with its completely sustainable build, great rulebook, and vastly better gameplay, The Fox Experiment went right onto my "For Trade" list and mercifully got snapped up quickly for A Fake Artist Goes to New York (to be gifted to Manhattan friends) and an old copy of Roll for the Galaxy.
Finally gave in this year to the fact I was never going to play on the Betrayal Legacy board again even if it was nicer than the old version of the base game I have. Fun experience that got us through the start of the pandemic, but on to the recycling bin with most of it. One False Step Home, a stray supplement for a Cheapass game I don't even have also got recycled. Pretty sure other very old paper packs of Cheapass games Save Dr. Lucky and The Dr. Lucky Ambivalence Pack met similar fates, tho' they may have gone in the charity box.
Kanagawa and Enemy Chocolatier got traded for Tiny Epic Quest.
Cleared out some old games and donated them to a very small town library in the rural community where my dad lives. The Big Idea (a pretty funny party game from Cheapass), Citadels (unplayed as I bought it hastily in pandemic shopping in an unexpectedly crowded store thinking it was a different game), Cottage Garden, and Patchwork now off to amuse some other folks (or possibly ruin friendships if what I hear about Citadels is true).
Chrononauts and Early American Chrononauts, Clue: Dungeons & Dragons, Wonderland Fluxx, and a 1973 copy of Predator: The Food Chain Game all went to one of our nearby Little Free Libraries, iirc.
Still a lot of stuff to prune, but I did get down to all my boardgames fitting in one large armoire with the coats and a drawer holding the supply of COVID rapid tests, a weirdly related item to gaming.
Moon-mood, lol. Fox experiment had some interesting stuff happen online as Elizabeth Hargrave seemed very let down by the publisher, not often you see a designer just out and out say that.
Trickerion looks so awesome and I'd love to play it some day but yeah from everything that I've heard im not sure that its worth all of the effort. Oath falls into that category for me as well.
I believe it was somewhere in this video you talked about a game you played a lot when you were sick - what was that game? Was trying to find where you mentioned it.
Arkham horror 2nd edition most likely. I had recurring viral pericarditis and was in and out of hospital for a year, living in a place with no internet, so it got played a lot
@@3MBG Thanks for the reply! I'm trying to find good board games that are easy to play when sick and in bed, so it made me remember you talking about that.
Oh, the thing with arkham is i had a big table in my room and could just move between the bed and table easily. No way you are paying it in bed though
@@3MBG Haha, I did realize after I said that. Never played Arkham so was just thinking of cards, but looked it up later and saw the big board 😂
I love hearing the kiwi accent bro. I just bought my two grail games this month, and I hope to prove to my wife that I can go close to a year without buying more
Kia ora and thank you
Unfortunate about GWT and Troyes. Luckily both are available on BGA if you feel you really need to get a play in or "scratch" that particular itch.
I too do not know anybody local that likes Troyes, but I love that game and will keep it till I die.
Same goes for the other games in my collection with the same problem.
I can respect this.
37:35 this is Thai-food-level spicy. I appreciate your honesty, because you have sound reasons and examples to reinforce why you did not like a game. You were pretty fair throughout the video, but Marvel D.A.G.G.E.R. (they really should have turned that into an acronym) got seriously burned there.
My test group begged for the game to stop. Hands down the worst game by a major company i played last year in terms of mechanics and fun
Catalan is still a gateway game, and it does nothing on my shelf except every three or four years introduces gaming to a new cohort. Along with carcossone and terraforming mars. Never remove these staples if you want to grow your community!
best gaming decision I've made for a while was keeping the original SMERSH and expansion and not bothering with the new one.
Yeah, you might have done the right thing there ;(
Moon was dire. I checked out halfway through.
Out of interest what games do you use instead of dream homes to introduce new gamers to the hobby?
Century: Golem edition normally. And between two cities if its a bigger group
Good and very fair list.
i heard gloomhaven for pc has been abandoned - is that true?
There was a patch released 2 months ago, so I don't think so. I think the game is pretty much complete and the only things they would add now are bug fixes.
Got rid of Sleeping Gods (de) this year. Had a blast with 2 campaigns, but my second player decided 2 is enough, so I sold it on for someone else to enjoy.
That sounds perfect.
Can't you put in some chapters for these long videos? Most of these games I haven't played, nor am I interested in hearing more about them. I'd like to be able to jump to the games I am curious why you culled.
I've never looked at doing chapters because it seems super tedious to mark out, and while i know some people like them. I'm not convinced it helps the video long term at all. If someone else does them, which happens on my top 100 vids, i usually pin them though.
But, think of it this way. You are asking me to do even more work on a video so you can watch less of it.
The pen is mightier than the sword
Not strictly speaking correct. It would be doing slightly more work so that some of us would watch some of this video, not none of it.
Please don't take this the wrong way. I think your stuff is good. I just don't have the time to watch 45 minutes of you talk about games I am not getting, nor have any interest in. I do have 5-10 minutes to scroll through and watch the ones I am interested in.
Yeah Northgard was so boring!! And I got the Kickstarter version
Hmmm.. Moon! It works, it doesn’t take too long either. Also if you copy other drafting games then you get a clone. But fair enough if you didn’t like it. My friend and I find it interesting and fun to play. He Ho!
I've heard people playing it 2 player like it a lot more. We played 4 i think, maybe 5, and it was a grind
All good discards. 9 out of 10 games aren't great, and won't be remembered in 5 years.
I have a pretty good memory, but even I am struggling to remember some of the average games i've played in the last 5 years or so
hey - where's that umbra via review?
lol, lost to the winds of time.
GWT is a shocker, Gold Metal Game, NZ must have really been a real letdown for you.
GWT was a really solid title. GWT NZ has almost nothing to do with actual NZ. It's like someone read one article about NZ written by chat GPT and called that their research.
You did not like the theme of NZ or the gameplay.
I guess being from NZ does invoke anger if things aren't as they are supposed to be, however the gameplay is quite solid.
Wait, what was the reason for disliking GWT:NZ? Did I miss something?
The TLDR version is that the designer just made stuff up about NZ. Go look at the island map at the top of the board, then look at NZ at the map. Then try to figure out what those islands are. The game is riddled with made up stuff and factual mistakes and has precisely nothing at all to do with actual NZ or NZ sheep farming. Very strange and very disappointing.
@@3MBG oh I had no idea. Sounds like a bummer.
Thanks for the great content!
Thanks for watching and commenting DrDrew my dude.
Much respect for not reviewing Stroganov. #russiaisaterroriststate
regarding getting rid of games - it is hard for me. I've done it once and regrett of it, despite not playing that games much.
I really loved idea of having a limit of 20 games you made videp earlier, I even almost decided what to keep, but again, it is hard for me :(
So what’s the difference between Legendary and Legendary Encounters..?
There are a few.
The first one is legendary is set up as a competitive game where you are scoring points and there is a winner, even though you can all lose of the bad guys win. Secondly, encounters has a lot of cards that interact with other players more, meaning you can buff other people in your group and coordinate actions easier. Legendary, you only really focus on your stuff.
The third one is that cards enter face down in encounters, and there is an extra mini game about revealing them, and the risks around that.
Fourthly, is Legendary uses random goals for each bad guy that are shuffled in and Encounters uses a movie style Act structure, where you have scaling difficulty missions to do. These makes encounters feel stronger in terms of how it tells a story, more balanced as you dont get randomly high difficulty missions early game, and creates more varied gameplay as the acts can have quirky rules.
And finally, Legendary you win once you beat the boss. Encounters tends to have an interesting finale for each 3rd act as well.
90% of the game is the same, but those 4 things really make a difference
Thank you for that breakdown!@@3MBG
Great Western Trail: they insulted New Zealand, so I trashed the og 😂
How bad was GWT: NZ?
Real bad. Might as well be called Great Western Trail: Madeupastan. It's hilariously badly done, like the designer read about New Zealand on the back of a cereal box somewhere and based a game on it. Seriously, look at the island map on the GWT:NZ board, then look at NZ on a world map and try to figure out where the heck you're supposed to be shipping goods too.
@3MBG 👏
I hope the designers are reading this comments section. You've got some real zingers on GWT:NZ 😁
Oh, i told him straight up on twitter exactly what i thought of the game. With photos :)
I consider myself quite patriotic about my country. I'm proud of where i'm from, and well, when game designers just treat it like a made up fantasy land they can paste onto any mechanical mess they've constructed. It annoys me. Still, not the worst example, that's "Gisborne: Die ersten Kartographen"
In that game you are exploring New Zealand, and its push your luck because if you explore too rapidly you might get attacked and killed by wolves. NZ has no wolves, never had any wolves, NZ never had any land mammal predator of any kind even.
It's not even that it's disrespecting an entire country, it's that it's so ******* lazy of them. I'm making a Mars game, I read a bunch on it, and therefore Mars doesn't have 27 moons and a water park and spa for hot milfs known as "martian manhunters".
Do you have a store you sell these at?
Nope, just an NZ facebook group or at the sales table at the local convention once a year
I want to see Tusk! now.
You really don't. ;)
@@3MBG I watched a playthrough. You are absolutely right. It’s not even so-bad-it’s-good, that I can appreciate.
Love the long form.
I suppose Intrepid is a game for those that rail against co-op games that are vulnerable to alpha gamers telling others what to do. Personally I'd rather address the alpha gamer as the issue!
100%. I've always said alpha gamers are a social issue, not a game design issue.
Thanks for sharing
New video, nice!
After your comments on how wasteful the King's Dilemma is, I'm surprised you did not comment on how wasteful the production of Flourish is. Maybe you did not get the chance to open it at all
I looked at it. I'm not sure what you mean though. It appeared to be a game that could be replayed if you were of a mind to do so.
@@3MBGthe game only needs the deck of cards, it's a garden-themed sushi go, yet it was filled with extra usless cardboard 'bling'. Most of it is cosmeting and serves no purpose. Cardboard 'ribbons' awarded in one game variant could have been cards. The game comes with giant score markers, twice as big as SM Libertalia (ever felt the need for those in sushi go?).
The result is a voluminous box filled with usless carboard instead of a deck of cards in a small package. Bigger and havier than needed. It translates to a higher environmental footprint in production and transportation. I recommend Ludology's episode "green team wins"
King's Dilemma isn't wasteful because it's a big chunky box. It's wasteful because it's got legacy destroy-the-game for no good reason.
There is no map or other game components where I ever felt the single-use stickers had any point to them other than purposefully rendering the game single-use. Tweaking the components a bit would've made it an equally enjoyable campaign game, that even the same group could play again after a year or so if they enjoyed it the first time round.
@@martinba9629 3MBD showed sensitivity towards the theme of waste in board games. Most recently in the King's Dilemma review. Still waste comes in many forms. Legacy games where everything gets trashed aren't the only offenders and other forms of waste should not be overlooked. If 80% of contents get eventually trashed without even using them is arguably worse than TKD which at least lasts that one ride
If you think Trickerion is complex, I hope you stay clear of Voidfall!!!
After their dinosaur game, Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles, i've been a bit cagey of mindclash games in terms of learning times
What was the very bad experience with GWT New Zealand?
I'd be interested to know that as well. I've never played any of them. As he's from New Zealand, like I am, I was thinking it was some sort of historical issue?
The TLDR version is the New Zealand depicted in that game exists only in Alexander Pfisters head. It was like he got chat GPT to design a game about NZ and put his name on it. Incredible levels of just "making stuff up".
I don't care if people make euro games very abstract, just don't lie about doing your research and saying the game has anything to do with real world history. For one great example. Grab a copy of the island map on the GWT NZ board, then look at a globe. Try to figure out what the islands you are shipping wool to from NZ are. Because no one here has any idea where those islands are.
Great video!
There's always BGA for Troyes
True, i tend not to play much on BGA as i rarely like to play with randoms.
it will be a cold day in hell before i get rid of Troyes. Even if no one wants to play it with me.
I can respect that
Love your videos!
Audio
audio?