Me: has a side table for drinks to prevent spills near the game. Tom: THROW MULTIPLE EGGS ON IT. Happy to see the return of both Lion Matt and Worm Matt in this one.
I almost got a heart attack when he threw that egg on it... thankfully, a few moments later you could see they placed a cling foil on top of it, so no lasting damage.
@@Wustenfuchs109 I love that they put in time to manage that plastic because from experience it takes time to get it to look perfectly crystal clear. Even on camera.
absolutely cracking vid, but now the bar has been raised for all board game reviews and I'm gunna be expecting an entire egg devoured, uncut, on camera, in each one. the industry can't keep up
I was so relieved to see the plastic wrap put down slightly move so I know for CERTAIN it was there... like I ASSUMED it was but it was still haunting me with the uncertainty
Noticing the wrinkles of the plastic wrap around the board when Tom ate the egg (7:25) was a weird mix of relief, that thank god they didn't actually smudge their board and cards with greasy eggy stains, and disappointment in the illusion being broken.
While this is not the first time I've watched a grown, hungry man devour a freshly-cooked egg off of a board game, I was still shocked enough to realize that I have no idea what Matt was saying at the same time.
I was going to say the exact same thing. I feel like I wouldn't like the game, yet I keep coming back to it with my friends because it's just fun and enjoyable
Do you mean Matt had a gun? Or did Tom have a gun at some point too? Or did Tom have the metaphorical gun required to adhere to Chekhov's Gun and Matt had a real* gun. *Hopefully not an actual legit real gun, but a prop gun.
@@KindredBrujah "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." legit 'hanging' (leaning) on the back wall ^^ 0:37
@@stevetubeuk That was my first thought as well. It's also the kind of gag that can just get funnier and funnier the more takes one does, triggering a loop of egg-eating disaster.
Something that needs to be stressed when playing in that is that it is very much a race up the various tracks to get stuff 'n' bonuses. Like Lost Ruins of Arnak, Ark Nova showers the strongest player with further rewards to help juice their engine, which can leave those lagging behind in the cold (not quite as bad as Arnak, mind you. 3rd and 4th players can get a consolation prize of some cash in lieu of a juicier bonus token). In all games of Ark Nova that I've played, the first person to get access to the various goodies on offer invariably went on to win. Unlike Terraforming Mars, say, where there are arguably very few objectively bad cards in that you're always gaining something at least, in Ark Nova you absolutely can get junk cards that do nothing to support your strategy. Also in Terraforming Mars, each game feels largely equal and competitive up until the end - snowballs rarely occur and the various means of scoring points are well supported. This is in stark contrast to Ark Nova, thanks to its racing aspect. Your point dobbers for Appeal and Conservation serve to mark the end of the game when they cross over, so when your dobbers are adrift across the yawning chasm of the points track, you can only watch on helplessly as the frontrunner's dobbers rush together to close like the jaws of a steel trap. When someone's dobbers cross over, signifying the game end, they also serve as a point threshold as you get a higher positive score the bigger the crossover. It means every other player essentially gets saddled with *negative* points based on how far apart their dobbers were at the endgame. Bad enough that you never drew cards that supported your strong opener and pivoted too late, or that you spent the last hour knowing full well how far behind you were on the board, but then to be told your zoo scored -28 points? Christ, what were you even doing the past 2.5 hours? Building an anti-zoo?! Ark Nova has its merits but without some means of mitigating the card variance, it's difficult to recommend it over Terraforming Mars, with its gentler and fairer pacing, from a competitive gameplay perspective. Ark Nova is a different beast and I don't regret playing it, but for those unprepared to get their skates on and race you may well be left in the dust, with a half-finished petting zoo and some crushed dreams.
Thanks for the thorough elaboration. Im pretty interested in arnak for the engine building. My groupg had alot of fun with dune imperium. Would you recommend arnak?
I haven't found it to be too bad in terms of getting cards as long as you are prepared to pivot. If you've decided your going birds but the cards don't come up then just pivot and score something else. You can always go back to birds if you find them later. Grab some late game petting zoo animals, then throw them down for quick appeal points.
I'm a big fan of Arnak (130 games played on BGA). I don't agree that it showers the leading player with rewards, personally. One aspect of the game, the research track, gives a tiny bit of extra points to the player to reach the top first and has some bonuses along the way, but the leading player won't get all of them unless the other players are asleep at the wheel since there are multiple bonuses at most tiers. There are other avenues for gaining points, too, that don't give even these small benefits to the lead player.
I personally think TM playes way slower. Most of the times you are pushing cubes and trying to think of every possible action you can do (that is why I only play it with the app). In ark nova you always have an interesting option right in front of you, and the depth of this streamlined action selection system is just brilliant! And with two players under two hours playtime is perfect for a game of this complexity. You can't really say what game is better, maybe in the end it just comes down to the theme 😄
@@adamxpaul I'll proffess to not playing Arnak to such an extent as yourself, but my experience has boiled down to whoever gets first pick of the assistants so as to improve their conversion engines will go on to climbing the rest of the research track and grab those temple bonuses to win. Yes there are multiple bonuses per tier but woe is the 3rd or 4th player who has to make the same climb unrewarded. A research track frontrunner would need to have dropped the ball significantly to have their lead lost, outside of it being a neck-and-neck race. From experience, whoever started climbing the research track first pretty much stayed in first. All of this doesn't make Arnak a bad game, of course! It just means to be sporting I make sure to highlight the importance of the research track to new players since its significance is often lost in the spread of everything else that's on offer.
With the (often already problematic) deference given by reviewers to publishers over authors these days, I am surprised that folks find it so hard to distinguish between original publisher and international licensee. This is not a Capstone game. The game was published (and developed) by Feuerland. Capstone Games is merely the co-publisher in the US. They presumably had little to no input into the game development except for putting the logo on the box.
Video games have had this problem for a long time as well. As if a game coming from the same publisher, but not the same _developer_ , means it would be any more likely to be any good. Hell, even the better developers sometimes have duds, so that's no guarantee either, but it's at least a better measure than the publisher.
@@KindredBrujah (talking specifically about videogames here) I've rarely seen a publisher make a game "better in a way unique to that publisher" but examples of making it _worse_ certainly exist. Essentially any time they do anything but "give enough money, time and marketing for the game to become what it should" really
We have played a few times now and drawing from the deck early game works, but snapping and using the card upgrade to draw from the table makes it more competitive. Our last game was 18 to 24.
As usual, you jump from absolute silliness to discussing something deep like the ethics surrounding environmental conservation projects in a seamless whim. And there is a worm and an egg, so absolute SU&SD branding there. 10/10.
No, I was mad because they were ruining what I figured was a free copy for reviewing just for the review. Between that and the raw egg earlier I was super glad to see that they covered in plastic first.
No, they very clearly dropped an egg directly onto the expensive boardgame. In fact, the destructive effects of the infringing foodstuffs was so severe, that you can see that it instantly bonded with the surface of the board, melting and warping it the moment that Tom moved the egg with his mouth. Tragic.
The arc of that game though: it starts as a hectic efficiency puzzle to get your economy going and your action cards upgraded. Then there’s beautiful breezy exploration finding synergies in the cards you draw. Until you realize that the scores are really ramping up and you have to decide which of your plans you can still finish in the few remaining rounds. This is one of the greatest game designs in years!
Totally agree! Even if the endgame scoring can in fact be a little shaky, there is always a pleasant tension at the table. I do think the best player will most of the times win though, such "elefant-incidents" will be quite rare😁
@@Guinnes1988 Yah but in wingspan there are also multiple ways to increase card draw, cards that allow you to draw but force you to discard as well and cards that let you tuck cards from your hand underneath them for points. If you draw a card you don't need in wingspan it will probably still be useful to you if you are smart about it.
@@tylerbrown9797 All those points are also true with ark nova, I always have a good handful of cards and you also can stuff them under cards for extra benefits (with certain animals at least :D)
If you thought this was overly optimistic, you should play Endangered! That game is so realistic it makes me and my friends depressed when we play it. It's almost impossible to win and we call it the Eldritch Horror style version of conservation boardgames
playing it I felt the game with so many intertwined systems to keep track off would work better as a computer game. So agree with the Zoo tycoon reference. Also there is little player interaction, everyone focused on their own little engine, may as well have been on a computer. I like the social interaction of sitting down to play a board-game and felt this one suppressed that.
Same. Aside from a few of the animal abilities which affect others and maybe blocking off or picking up a card someone else needs theres little to no p2p interaction and thats a huge fun factor for me 😢
Great review and makes me want to play the game. As an aside, your 'elephant in the zoom' issue of pulling a lucky card to score big points is why I was unsatisfied with Isle of Cats, having scored 14 points for a complete fluke pull on my last turn in that game and seen other people do similar.
The ending to this is comedy genius. Between Tom's face and the fact that it follows Matt's 2 minute monologue on responsible conservation representation... omg.
Holy hell I was INDREDIBLY UPSET watching them put raw and cooked food on top of a beautiful board and cards. Then I saw they were using plastic wrap to protect it like good boys and just thought "Damn they hide it well"
so happy to get to watch a double review in person. the zoom stuff and single is great but I love watching everyone play off eachother it's what has made SU&SD itself since episode 1. be safe love ya'll
Love it when two SU&SD reviewers work together! And I think Matt is on to something at the 14:30 mark. One of the things I really like about Terraforming Mars is that you can build an engine that is light with plants and fish and scrub brush, or you can go dark with nuclear weapons and drug-fueled metropolises and indentured servants. It makes no difference mechanically but it really adds to the flavor of the game.
For some reason I've not been keeping up with susd vids for a year or so. VERY happy I get back into them by watching Matt and Tom barely contain their laughter as Tom slurps an egg. That's board games baby!
What a great and nuanced review. I love that you guys don't just go in gushing at the newest hotness-great critiques on the luck factor in the competitive game and the overly optimistic nature of this game. I appreciate well-thought-out reviews like this. Keep it up.
Great review. Thank you. On the theme, there is something naturally sinister about zoos anyway isn’t there? People especially, very young kids, walk around a zoo looking at the animals failing to really acknowledge the bars or the glass they are staring through. Or later we shake our heads disapprovingly of the bars and glass screens, while failing to acknowledge why some of the animals in the zoo are endangered in the first place (where is the bin so I can throw my Pringles pack away). My god a walk around Sea World gave me chills, and I would still class myself as semi ignorant!! But I admire the fact that the game tries to bring light to how a zoo can work for a positive purpose, having said that I like the idea of a future expansion that has you making difficult moral decisions. Overall I love the game, and respect the views in this video. Thanks again.
The game had an opportunity to raise awareness about the untold harms against animals perpetuated by zoos under the guise of "education" or "conservation" (and really, in service of profit), and neglected to do so. I can't see it as anything other than a contributor to those harms in how it glosses over them and pretends everything is fine and zoos are great. Which, for the 98% of the population that doesn't give a shit about animal wellbeing, I guess works for them, but I won't be financially supporting it, and I certainly couldn't bring myself to enjoy the game due to this theme.
Great teamwork on this review and I really appreciate the way your two takes give a much better whole impression. However the bit where Tom eats the fried egg broke the illusion, I will forever see the clingfilm behind the jokes!
And one which thankfully has died in the better examples of that style. End-game scoring is, of course, a useful way to create a little bit of uncertainty in who's going to win, but there are better ways than secret objective cards. Or at least ones with as vast a swing impact as the ones here seem to.
@@KindredBrujah They don’t even need to be secret. A lot of VP-based games have themed bonus scoring cards/tiles/etc that can be gained late. There’s always the chance you draw the perfect one and get a huge late-game payout in such games. I think this is less distasteful in shorter games. It’s probably a worse thing in Ark Nova since this is a longer game.
@@maxducoudray Still, the better examples don't do that. Terra Mystica, for instance, or Hegemony, do have end-game scoring, but it would technically be possible to calculate how many points everyone is going to earn, because it's all open information. It's just hard.
Agree that with some nice illustration work, this could have really popped visually. As it is, the photographs are "a bit naff". Some of the photographs are terribly chosen too. Eg, the frilled lizard doesn't even show it's aforementioned frill!
A small fix for the randomness in this game would be to have 3 face up animal cards at all times to choose from with set rules on when they can fully reset (like Wingspan).
I was today years old when I realised you guys put clingwrap on the components for your famous "food shots". No doubt because of the disaster that was the "Eton Mess Incident".
That end game scoring thing that Tom mentioned is the reason why I hate Killer Bunnies. I was playing one time with some friends, and by all accounts, I was doing the WORST at the table. Just really bad, I should have had no hope of winning. But at the very end of the game, I drew *EXACTLY* the cards I needed, in *EXACTLY* the order I needed them, and it just snowballed into me actually winning the game. And that made me so irritated that the winner of the game can end up being a simple game of chance, I never played the game ever again, and I never want to.
It just seems like it's taking up a _massive_ amount of table space when the vast majority of it could have been done just on the character boards. What is that enormous runner in the middle even for? They barely even mentioned it in the review.
It is actually really easy to teach compared to other heavy games but that will always be a personal opinion. I teach a lot of games and with ark nova pretty much all first time players have loved it.
Dunno if you said it explicitly in the review, but I get the impression (without actually knowing for sure) this is from the same designer as Terraforming Mars? It certainly shares a lot of the same DNA... Both games look like they have their flaws, but I confidently predict that some day a game in this style (draw cards, meet pre-requisites, build cards, gain bonuses, use bonuses to meet pre-requisites on better cards, surge to the moon) will accidentally get the mix just right and become something INCREDIBLE within the industry - the next Dominion, basically... There's just some deep magic in both those games that will get fully harnessed one day
I feel like these reviews just get better and better, more and more entertaining. I feel like maybe this game isn't for me, as I think I will be put off by the payoff not correlating to the effort put in, I find that I have that problem with some other games with similar hidden scoring criteria, so I'm really glad you pointed that out.
The game is lighter than BGG implies. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to learn. Try it out on TTS if you want to avoid the setup and teardown (that's where the effort is). At most 1 out of 5 games will be decided by a hidden scoring card. And given that the pool of them is TINY you will be able to memorize and predict which ones your opponents have after seeing each of them once.
@@dereksimmons5877 Sorry, I think I was a bit unclear, I didn't mean to imply it was the investment in learning the game and it's complexity that put me off, I love that. But if spending the effort to pick out the perfect move each turn isn't correlated to actually doing better in the game then it feels like wasted effort to me and I don't tend to have a good time.
@@LordApricot Ahh okay. I don't ever feel that my choices don't matter. There have been games where the luck of the draw prevented me from winning, yes, but I was always given the agency to mitigate the risk that luck brings. In other words, the value of each action selection is in preventing a loss more than securing a win. Its all about keeping your options open, without dragging your feet, and being ready to capitalize on the luck. In this way, it reminds me of Cole Wherle games like Oath and Pax Pamir 2E.
Target of a hypnosis is quite often shown not remembering being hypnotised. So maybe your friends should bring tape-recoder with them when visiting those sneaky magic animals. Who knows what freaky stuff those animals are into nowadays.
The accidental scoring sounds a lot like my experience with Takenoko and Seasons. Sometimes you draw cards that mesh with your system and sometimes the cards force you to work twice as hard to win
Let's be clear, the elephant gives you a potential extra 12 points, I wouldn't say it's that powerful. That's 32 tickets worth, at 36 bucks in a 5 size enclosure. Strong, but not broken. If anything, it's a gamble because you are more likely to get a final scoring that gives you only 3-6 extra tickets
So its a good introduction to some areas of conservation but should act as a stepping stone to better nuanced discussion; while maintaining a fun mechanical base that may still be a smidge unbalanced. Neat
Man I really hate skits in reviews and critiques and guides and basically any kind of youtube video... that isn't made by Shut Up and Sit Down. I don't know how you guys do it but it kinda amazes me.
I like that in the SUSD cinematic universe, the most common recurring character is Matt in a sleeping bag being a worm. I hope this never changes.
I hate to break it to you, but he _dead_
@@VadAndensong it’s a twist ending. The worm pulled a Glock and it was Matt who was found wanting! RiP in peace Matt
@@03dashk64 True! No one ever truly dies offscreen in TV. The worm will return!
@@adamxpaul hé dodge every bullet like in the matrix.
It’s ok. He’s in two halves.
Me: has a side table for drinks to prevent spills near the game.
Tom: THROW MULTIPLE EGGS ON IT.
Happy to see the return of both Lion Matt and Worm Matt in this one.
I almost got a heart attack when he threw that egg on it... thankfully, a few moments later you could see they placed a cling foil on top of it, so no lasting damage.
@@Wustenfuchs109 Thank you, I wasn't feeling well xD
But not Deer Matt?
@@Wustenfuchs109 I love that they put in time to manage that plastic because from experience it takes time to get it to look perfectly crystal clear. Even on camera.
@@Wustenfuchs109 thank you for this...I never noticed as I was having a heart attack
absolutely cracking vid, but now the bar has been raised for all board game reviews and I'm gunna be expecting an entire egg devoured, uncut, on camera, in each one. the industry can't keep up
I was so relieved to see the plastic wrap put down slightly move so I know for CERTAIN it was there... like I ASSUMED it was but it was still haunting me with the uncertainty
@@Zalintis Same here. Was on the edge of my seat, honestly
board game review eggflation is out of control
Their humour is their niche. It would be shit if they all tried to be funny.
I'm kinda wishing board game reviews review board games, not feeling is the right place for sketches and bits... Imo. Why I love dice Tower
Noticing the wrinkles of the plastic wrap around the board when Tom ate the egg (7:25) was a weird mix of relief, that thank god they didn't actually smudge their board and cards with greasy eggy stains, and disappointment in the illusion being broken.
Matt deserves an Oscar for still delivering his lines while Tom handlessly devours and egg off plastic wrap. Bravo, gents.
This was somehow both upsetting and amusing
SU&SD: Putting breakfast foods on board games for no adequately explained reason since 1623.
Soooo happy to see 2 person SUSD reviews again!
I'm halfway through the video and I'm really loving all the animals, especially the slow worm. Can't wait to see how the rest of the video goes!
I am sorry to hear the news about your friend the slow worm.
One word: EGG
It is killed off. Brutally.
This is the first SUSD video where I actually gasped. Tom really went for that egg! Kudos for nailing the bit.
While this is not the first time I've watched a grown, hungry man devour a freshly-cooked egg off of a board game, I was still shocked enough to realize that I have no idea what Matt was saying at the same time.
I have a lot of design issues with the game, and yet, it is SO FUN to play. And that's why we play games, right?
Yeap. I love that my animals constrict or poison other zoos! Get em Rex!
I was going to say the exact same thing. I feel like I wouldn't like the game, yet I keep coming back to it with my friends because it's just fun and enjoyable
I said to myself “why does Tom have a gun?” I didn’t realize it was Chekhov’s gun.
Wow, it really was. Good spot
They held it so long I thought they were going to violate Chekhov’s principles on purpose.
It wasn't just me then? Good good!
Do you mean Matt had a gun? Or did Tom have a gun at some point too? Or did Tom have the metaphorical gun required to adhere to Chekhov's Gun and Matt had a real* gun.
*Hopefully not an actual legit real gun, but a prop gun.
@@KindredBrujah "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." legit 'hanging' (leaning) on the back wall ^^ 0:37
Tom eating the egg off the board at 7:40 was something else
It was eggscellent. (I’ll get my coat).
Got to wonder how many takes it took for them not to crack up. I worry for Tom's cholesterol
It makes me a little sad. I never thought of tom as a twerp T.T
I went and ate eggs off my entire boardgame collection it made me so hungry.....does anyone want a 2nd hand slightly greasy very yolky gloomhaven?
@@stevetubeuk That was my first thought as well. It's also the kind of gag that can just get funnier and funnier the more takes one does, triggering a loop of egg-eating disaster.
I will forever remember the egg eating bit. That slurping noise will haunt my nightmares and fuel my.... other dreams...
Something that needs to be stressed when playing in that is that it is very much a race up the various tracks to get stuff 'n' bonuses. Like Lost Ruins of Arnak, Ark Nova showers the strongest player with further rewards to help juice their engine, which can leave those lagging behind in the cold (not quite as bad as Arnak, mind you. 3rd and 4th players can get a consolation prize of some cash in lieu of a juicier bonus token). In all games of Ark Nova that I've played, the first person to get access to the various goodies on offer invariably went on to win.
Unlike Terraforming Mars, say, where there are arguably very few objectively bad cards in that you're always gaining something at least, in Ark Nova you absolutely can get junk cards that do nothing to support your strategy. Also in Terraforming Mars, each game feels largely equal and competitive up until the end - snowballs rarely occur and the various means of scoring points are well supported. This is in stark contrast to Ark Nova, thanks to its racing aspect. Your point dobbers for Appeal and Conservation serve to mark the end of the game when they cross over, so when your dobbers are adrift across the yawning chasm of the points track, you can only watch on helplessly as the frontrunner's dobbers rush together to close like the jaws of a steel trap.
When someone's dobbers cross over, signifying the game end, they also serve as a point threshold as you get a higher positive score the bigger the crossover. It means every other player essentially gets saddled with *negative* points based on how far apart their dobbers were at the endgame. Bad enough that you never drew cards that supported your strong opener and pivoted too late, or that you spent the last hour knowing full well how far behind you were on the board, but then to be told your zoo scored -28 points? Christ, what were you even doing the past 2.5 hours? Building an anti-zoo?!
Ark Nova has its merits but without some means of mitigating the card variance, it's difficult to recommend it over Terraforming Mars, with its gentler and fairer pacing, from a competitive gameplay perspective. Ark Nova is a different beast and I don't regret playing it, but for those unprepared to get their skates on and race you may well be left in the dust, with a half-finished petting zoo and some crushed dreams.
Thanks for the thorough elaboration. Im pretty interested in arnak for the engine building. My groupg had alot of fun with dune imperium. Would you recommend arnak?
I haven't found it to be too bad in terms of getting cards as long as you are prepared to pivot. If you've decided your going birds but the cards don't come up then just pivot and score something else. You can always go back to birds if you find them later. Grab some late game petting zoo animals, then throw them down for quick appeal points.
I'm a big fan of Arnak (130 games played on BGA). I don't agree that it showers the leading player with rewards, personally. One aspect of the game, the research track, gives a tiny bit of extra points to the player to reach the top first and has some bonuses along the way, but the leading player won't get all of them unless the other players are asleep at the wheel since there are multiple bonuses at most tiers. There are other avenues for gaining points, too, that don't give even these small benefits to the lead player.
I personally think TM playes way slower. Most of the times you are pushing cubes and trying to think of every possible action you can do (that is why I only play it with the app). In ark nova you always have an interesting option right in front of you, and the depth of this streamlined action selection system is just brilliant! And with two players under two hours playtime is perfect for a game of this complexity. You can't really say what game is better, maybe in the end it just comes down to the theme 😄
@@adamxpaul I'll proffess to not playing Arnak to such an extent as yourself, but my experience has boiled down to whoever gets first pick of the assistants so as to improve their conversion engines will go on to climbing the rest of the research track and grab those temple bonuses to win. Yes there are multiple bonuses per tier but woe is the 3rd or 4th player who has to make the same climb unrewarded.
A research track frontrunner would need to have dropped the ball significantly to have their lead lost, outside of it being a neck-and-neck race. From experience, whoever started climbing the research track first pretty much stayed in first.
All of this doesn't make Arnak a bad game, of course! It just means to be sporting I make sure to highlight the importance of the research track to new players since its significance is often lost in the spread of everything else that's on offer.
With the (often already problematic) deference given by reviewers to publishers over authors these days, I am surprised that folks find it so hard to distinguish between original publisher and international licensee. This is not a Capstone game. The game was published (and developed) by Feuerland. Capstone Games is merely the co-publisher in the US. They presumably had little to no input into the game development except for putting the logo on the box.
Video games have had this problem for a long time as well. As if a game coming from the same publisher, but not the same _developer_ , means it would be any more likely to be any good. Hell, even the better developers sometimes have duds, so that's no guarantee either, but it's at least a better measure than the publisher.
@@KindredBrujah (talking specifically about videogames here) I've rarely seen a publisher make a game "better in a way unique to that publisher" but examples of making it _worse_ certainly exist. Essentially any time they do anything but "give enough money, time and marketing for the game to become what it should" really
Have you seen Portal before it was picked up by the publisher?!
We have played a few times now and drawing from the deck early game works, but snapping and using the card upgrade to draw from the table makes it more competitive. Our last game was 18 to 24.
As usual, you jump from absolute silliness to discussing something deep like the ethics surrounding environmental conservation projects in a seamless whim. And there is a worm and an egg, so absolute SU&SD branding there. 10/10.
Wow incredible editing here, I really felt like Matt and Tom were in the same room together!
Wish Tom didn't eat that egg, revealed the illusion of willing dropping a fried egg on the expensive boardgame materials.
Yeah I was going to say, they had me on the egg until he tries to eat it and you see the cellophane.
No, I was mad because they were ruining what I figured was a free copy for reviewing just for the review. Between that and the raw egg earlier I was super glad to see that they covered in plastic first.
No, they very clearly dropped an egg directly onto the expensive boardgame. In fact, the destructive effects of the infringing foodstuffs was so severe, that you can see that it instantly bonded with the surface of the board, melting and warping it the moment that Tom moved the egg with his mouth. Tragic.
I bet Matt promised Tom he would make him dinner. "There you go Tom, that's all your getting...and I'm going to film it for the review"
@@bigguspiggus6041 we know that when Matt makes an egg for a good friend, he makes the best egg that he can.
The arc of that game though: it starts as a hectic efficiency puzzle to get your economy going and your action cards upgraded. Then there’s beautiful breezy exploration finding synergies in the cards you draw. Until you realize that the scores are really ramping up and you have to decide which of your plans you can still finish in the few remaining rounds. This is one of the greatest game designs in years!
Totally agree! Even if the endgame scoring can in fact be a little shaky, there is always a pleasant tension at the table. I do think the best player will most of the times win though, such "elefant-incidents" will be quite rare😁
If you like that mechanic, I think you'd also enjoy wingspan :)
@@shanashinigami Except with wingspan you have even more cards that you definately will never ever see 😆(love that game though)
@@Guinnes1988 Yah but in wingspan there are also multiple ways to increase card draw, cards that allow you to draw but force you to discard as well and cards that let you tuck cards from your hand underneath them for points. If you draw a card you don't need in wingspan it will probably still be useful to you if you are smart about it.
@@tylerbrown9797 All those points are also true with ark nova, I always have a good handful of cards and you also can stuff them under cards for extra benefits (with certain animals at least :D)
If you thought this was overly optimistic, you should play Endangered! That game is so realistic it makes me and my friends depressed when we play it. It's almost impossible to win and we call it the Eldritch Horror style version of conservation boardgames
2:04 Easter egg: the Lady in the "bird expert" picture is Elizabeth Hargrave, author of Wingspan.
I was horrified until I saw the creases in the plastic wrap form underneath the egg
playing it I felt the game with so many intertwined systems to keep track off would work better as a computer game. So agree with the Zoo tycoon reference. Also there is little player interaction, everyone focused on their own little engine, may as well have been on a computer. I like the social interaction of sitting down to play a board-game and felt this one suppressed that.
Same. Aside from a few of the animal abilities which affect others and maybe blocking off or picking up a card someone else needs theres little to no p2p interaction and thats a huge fun factor for me 😢
Great review and makes me want to play the game. As an aside, your 'elephant in the zoom' issue of pulling a lucky card to score big points is why I was unsatisfied with Isle of Cats, having scored 14 points for a complete fluke pull on my last turn in that game and seen other people do similar.
The ending to this is comedy genius. Between Tom's face and the fact that it follows Matt's 2 minute monologue on responsible conservation representation... omg.
Holy hell I was INDREDIBLY UPSET watching them put raw and cooked food on top of a beautiful board and cards. Then I saw they were using plastic wrap to protect it like good boys and just thought "Damn they hide it well"
Arboretum showing up amused me immensely.
I cannot state how relieved I was at seeing the cling film underneath the egg.
so happy to get to watch a double review in person. the zoom stuff and single is great but I love watching everyone play off eachother it's what has made SU&SD itself since episode 1. be safe love ya'll
Love it when two SU&SD reviewers work together!
And I think Matt is on to something at the 14:30 mark. One of the things I really like about Terraforming Mars is that you can build an engine that is light with plants and fish and scrub brush, or you can go dark with nuclear weapons and drug-fueled metropolises and indentured servants. It makes no difference mechanically but it really adds to the flavor of the game.
But does Ark Nova have a monk track?
I flipped out on that egg until I realized you covered that board in plastic wrap. Great video and humor!!!!
Lmao, Tom and Matt visibly fighting the urge to smirk at 7:36 😂
I'll never forget Gorm.
Do you.. have.. ANY IDEA!?!.. how relieved I was when I saw the plastic wrap?! Jesus Christ y'all. My heart can't take this.
Oh no, the game was impossible to get hold of before, nothing makes a game sell out than a SU&SD review :D
Can't believe the gun that showed up on the wall in act 1 (0:37) fired in act 5
For some reason I've not been keeping up with susd vids for a year or so. VERY happy I get back into them by watching Matt and Tom barely contain their laughter as Tom slurps an egg. That's board games baby!
Love seeing these collaborative reviews again, always a joy to see thank you susd
Rest In Peace slow worm 😔
Nice to see you boys doing these reviews together. I missed the duo-dynamics.
Big Bin Barry & Big Bin Garry are the true MVPs here
Amazing Chekov's gun play. Didn't even clock it the first time 'round.
What a great and nuanced review. I love that you guys don't just go in gushing at the newest hotness-great critiques on the luck factor in the competitive game and the overly optimistic nature of this game. I appreciate well-thought-out reviews like this. Keep it up.
Great review. Thank you. On the theme, there is something naturally sinister about zoos anyway isn’t there? People especially, very young kids, walk around a zoo looking at the animals failing to really acknowledge the bars or the glass they are staring through. Or later we shake our heads disapprovingly of the bars and glass screens, while failing to acknowledge why some of the animals in the zoo are endangered in the first place (where is the bin so I can throw my Pringles pack away). My god a walk around Sea World gave me chills, and I would still class myself as semi ignorant!! But I admire the fact that the game tries to bring light to how a zoo can work for a positive purpose, having said that I like the idea of a future expansion that has you making difficult moral decisions. Overall I love the game, and respect the views in this video. Thanks again.
So much this. I've never really liked zoos, not even as a child.
Is it possible to play a game as a game, and not patronize actual zoos?
@@lauraweiss7875 of course! I’ve played the game loads, I was just talking in the context of the views made in the video. Not sure I patronised zoos!
The game had an opportunity to raise awareness about the untold harms against animals perpetuated by zoos under the guise of "education" or "conservation" (and really, in service of profit), and neglected to do so. I can't see it as anything other than a contributor to those harms in how it glosses over them and pretends everything is fine and zoos are great. Which, for the 98% of the population that doesn't give a shit about animal wellbeing, I guess works for them, but I won't be financially supporting it, and I certainly couldn't bring myself to enjoy the game due to this theme.
Seeing Matt and Tom work on something together now gives me Forbidden Waters vibes, having seen them play it together with the creators.
7:36 when Tom nearly breaks after he slurps the egg. Comedy gold.
Great teamwork on this review and I really appreciate the way your two takes give a much better whole impression.
However the bit where Tom eats the fried egg broke the illusion, I will forever see the clingfilm behind the jokes!
Great Collab.
I appreciate the transparent film under the egg. It would have hurt to watch otherwise.
Winning by drawing a lucky end-game scoring objective is a time-honored tradition in eurogames.
And one which thankfully has died in the better examples of that style. End-game scoring is, of course, a useful way to create a little bit of uncertainty in who's going to win, but there are better ways than secret objective cards. Or at least ones with as vast a swing impact as the ones here seem to.
@@KindredBrujah They don’t even need to be secret. A lot of VP-based games have themed bonus scoring cards/tiles/etc that can be gained late. There’s always the chance you draw the perfect one and get a huge late-game payout in such games. I think this is less distasteful in shorter games. It’s probably a worse thing in Ark Nova since this is a longer game.
@@maxducoudray Still, the better examples don't do that. Terra Mystica, for instance, or Hegemony, do have end-game scoring, but it would technically be possible to calculate how many points everyone is going to earn, because it's all open information. It's just hard.
"Who are you talking to?"
"I don't know. I've never been sure."
XD
1990's Zoo Tycoon is a classic. So much fun.
So glad that I could see the Saran Wrap over the game when Tom was eating the egg off the board. Stopped my board game anxiety
Getting some significant Mighty Boosh flashbacks with you two running a zoo.
Old Greg
7:30 - I am surprisingly glad there was plastic involved for the egg-drop.
Truly the Monty Python’s of board game reviews
A true Kheckhov's gun sort of video! Kudos to you! Great vid. Not a game I think I'll play but was laughing out loud at the review!
The pure chaos energy in Matt and Tom sharing a video is exquisite. *Chef's kiss*
Agree that with some nice illustration work, this could have really popped visually. As it is, the photographs are "a bit naff". Some of the photographs are terribly chosen too. Eg, the frilled lizard doesn't even show it's aforementioned frill!
Brilliant! Watching this first thing in the morning over a cup of coffee really put a smile on my face :) Thanks!
I wish you guys would review everything in my life. Brilliant video.
2:19 is that... is that the Ster bird impression from the "Jerma's got talent" stream???
shhh...
holy fuck I knew I heard it before - that's exactly where its from
A small fix for the randomness in this game would be to have 3 face up animal cards at all times to choose from with set rules on when they can fully reset (like Wingspan).
I kept expecting to see the worm costumes reappear 😄
Edit: nevermind, there it is!
And here I was thinking this was going to be a game about animills, when it was actually about aminals the whole time!
I was today years old when I realised you guys put clingwrap on the components for your famous "food shots".
No doubt because of the disaster that was the "Eton Mess Incident".
That end game scoring thing that Tom mentioned is the reason why I hate Killer Bunnies. I was playing one time with some friends, and by all accounts, I was doing the WORST at the table. Just really bad, I should have had no hope of winning. But at the very end of the game, I drew *EXACTLY* the cards I needed, in *EXACTLY* the order I needed them, and it just snowballed into me actually winning the game. And that made me so irritated that the winner of the game can end up being a simple game of chance, I never played the game ever again, and I never want to.
Big Egg has a strong presence in this review.
For those bad draws, just draw the cards indicated, and then do a complete mulligan if you need to. Fixed. Mostly.
7:30 I saw the clearfoil on the table what a cop out
This game looks so fiddly and intimidating to teach to be honest with you, seems like a pass for now unless the group really wants it
Reminded me of this: ruclips.net/video/fyvyhkF8Xr4/видео.html
You should give the game a shot. It's extremely smooth....even on Tabletop Simulator, of all things! :)
Many, many bits.
It just seems like it's taking up a _massive_ amount of table space when the vast majority of it could have been done just on the character boards. What is that enormous runner in the middle even for? They barely even mentioned it in the review.
It is actually really easy to teach compared to other heavy games but that will always be a personal opinion. I teach a lot of games and with ark nova pretty much all first time players have loved it.
Dunno if you said it explicitly in the review, but I get the impression (without actually knowing for sure) this is from the same designer as Terraforming Mars? It certainly shares a lot of the same DNA...
Both games look like they have their flaws, but I confidently predict that some day a game in this style (draw cards, meet pre-requisites, build cards, gain bonuses, use bonuses to meet pre-requisites on better cards, surge to the moon) will accidentally get the mix just right and become something INCREDIBLE within the industry - the next Dominion, basically... There's just some deep magic in both those games that will get fully harnessed one day
0:35 the gun in the corner gave me unnatural levels of anxiety
Much like the news today, that went from bizarre to incredibly sad and dark very quickly. Well done.
Idk who put that UB Funkeys song in here but damn
OK...I have to know. How many egg takes were there?
"No eggs were not harmed during the making of this video."
If you laminate the prediction sheets for Dream Crush, that's a dry-erase game too!
Ok the egg on the board triggered me to a new level!
I feel like these reviews just get better and better, more and more entertaining. I feel like maybe this game isn't for me, as I think I will be put off by the payoff not correlating to the effort put in, I find that I have that problem with some other games with similar hidden scoring criteria, so I'm really glad you pointed that out.
The game is lighter than BGG implies. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to learn. Try it out on TTS if you want to avoid the setup and teardown (that's where the effort is).
At most 1 out of 5 games will be decided by a hidden scoring card. And given that the pool of them is TINY you will be able to memorize and predict which ones your opponents have after seeing each of them once.
@@dereksimmons5877 Sorry, I think I was a bit unclear, I didn't mean to imply it was the investment in learning the game and it's complexity that put me off, I love that. But if spending the effort to pick out the perfect move each turn isn't correlated to actually doing better in the game then it feels like wasted effort to me and I don't tend to have a good time.
@@LordApricot Ahh okay. I don't ever feel that my choices don't matter. There have been games where the luck of the draw prevented me from winning, yes, but I was always given the agency to mitigate the risk that luck brings.
In other words, the value of each action selection is in preventing a loss more than securing a win. Its all about keeping your options open, without dragging your feet, and being ready to capitalize on the luck.
In this way, it reminds me of Cole Wherle games like Oath and Pax Pamir 2E.
Tom and Matt doing reviews together is super Wholesome.
Surprised you didn't mention how to end it, not taking your turn or ending a whole is something id like to see more of. Good idea.
What a phenomenally comprehensive and entertaining review/analysis. Bravo!
The sequence at 2:15 destroyed me
Wait a minute. Hypnotic animals? Why did my zoologist friends never tell me they had to deal with hypnotism as an occupational hazard‽
Yeah, I spotted that too. That's not actually a thing. Bit silly in a game which has all this realism draped all over it.
Target of a hypnosis is quite often shown not remembering being hypnotised. So maybe your friends should bring tape-recoder with them when visiting those sneaky magic animals. Who knows what freaky stuff those animals are into nowadays.
Very impressed that Matt managed to not break down completely when the egg-consuming happened. Wonder how many takes, and eggs, it took
The "wow" part hurt so much 🤣
The accidental scoring sounds a lot like my experience with Takenoko and Seasons. Sometimes you draw cards that mesh with your system and sometimes the cards force you to work twice as hard to win
I wonder whether setting the top objective cards in a face-up display would help matters. At least the players would have some level of foresight.
11:30 watch Matt move the coffee marker backwards 😹 like those ads where people are holding controllers and definitely playing
And then he flips the cards proving that it was holding it upside down xD
Let's be clear, the elephant gives you a potential extra 12 points, I wouldn't say it's that powerful. That's 32 tickets worth, at 36 bucks in a 5 size enclosure. Strong, but not broken. If anything, it's a gamble because you are more likely to get a final scoring that gives you only 3-6 extra tickets
Know that I hunger for real Zoo. Best line of the review. Oh Tom, tis you who I hunger for.
Not since The French Connection have we seen such a bold ending: gunshot - fade to black!
11:30 moving back on the break track... XD
Gotta say that SHOT at the end was unexpected had me on the floor!!!
So its a good introduction to some areas of conservation but should act as a stepping stone to better nuanced discussion; while maintaining a fun mechanical base that may still be a smidge unbalanced. Neat
7:28 my new ringtone
The action mechanism that is 100% copied from Civilization A New Dawn has been called "genius" in this review.
Great review. Hope Quins is working on Clash of cultures :D
Man I really hate skits in reviews and critiques and guides and basically any kind of youtube video... that isn't made by Shut Up and Sit Down. I don't know how you guys do it but it kinda amazes me.
i actually yelled when tom slurped that egg
zoo tycoon is something ive been deep into, so ill have to at least try this one if i get the chance
If you're not already, planet zoo is the spiritual successor video game I gotta reccomend you play!
@@tashacraven yeah im super interested in it! i gotta get a better computer first tho lmao
@@TheInvalidInput oh dam yeah it's got my laptop sounding like a jet engine D: