Operation: Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation: Game Night
Special Ops: From Heat to Acquire - Our WSBG Power Rankings and Why They Surprised Us
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Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. We are still riding the high of the World Series of Board Gaming, and we just want to continue talking about the good time that we had playing games together. So, uh joining me as always is my co-captain of the ship, Clayton Gable. How are you doing, Clay?
SPEAKER_00:I'm doing great. It definitely was a high, Travis. I mean, it had been two years since I played a game with you in person.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And since all three of us got together. It's wild. I mean, I had been not my passion for board games is always high, but it's been a while since I've been around people that were as passionate about board games as I am. And it just really lights a fire within you to have that camaraderie with people again. Yeah. And you know, we're out here trying to make content for the people. And what do I like? I like top 10 lists, I like rankings. So we're gonna go ahead and rank all the games we played at the World Series of Board Gaming and just let you know what stood out.
SPEAKER_01:Let's rip through them. Uh, we've talked about a lot of these games in the past. Uh, we just recorded a couple of episodes describing a couple of these games. So uh if you want to hear about Acquire and Ruins, go ahead back and uh go back and listen to those episodes. My camera is like blurry as hell today. I don't know what the deal is. Maybe my internet's bad. But Clayton, you played a couple extra games after I had to leave. So why don't you give me your number 10 and 9, and I'll pick back up with eight.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds good, Travis. So number 10 for me was Slambo. Nothing against Slambo. It's a small box game from all play. You're basically just randomly throwing cards into a pile, trying not to go above above 10 or below zero. Um, it's a fun time for a five-minute game, but it's my number 10. Um my number nine was tapestry. Now, tapestry is one of my top ten games of all time. If you are caught up with all that, but we did play it in unideal circumstances. It was late at night, very late at night. It was a five-player game of tapestry. So we're talking 10 p.m. We started a game of tapestry with five players, one of which, Travis, uh, had not played in person, so it was a little bit more um of an effort for him than maybe it could have been. So it was a fun time. It went long, it took us late into the night, and I did very poorly. So that was my number nine. Travis, we're now at the point where we both have eight games left to talk about. What's your number eight?
SPEAKER_01:My number eight is Slambo. Uh, it's a quick game. It's fun to pass these cards around. It's fun to try and you know, yell like sumo wrestlers and and pass the numbers around. But is it it's so simple. It's just like a it's a filler game. It's like a five-minute play. Probably no more than that. I would be surprised if any play of this took more than five minutes. So it's just so light compared to some of the other games. It's just not gonna take any, it's not gonna take any other spot on this list, but my eighth play.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, my number eight was Heat. Okay. We played that on Friday night after we got in. So it was our second play. It was fine. I like Heat. It was an acceptable play of Heat. It just, I mean, all these games we played, we had a good time. Like we're just talking, like, you know, when we look back, what was the most fun we had? And heat was just it was a good game, it's always a solid game. Like, you're you're not gonna go wrong with Heat.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh, and it was fun to play with Mike. It's always fun to play with everyone played board game. He had never played Heat in person, or maybe not at all.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think he played it. I think he played on on BGA once and for it.
SPEAKER_01:First time in person, so we kind of had to uh walk him through the different steps, but yeah, it was a good time. Uh, my number seven was also tapestry, uh, second to last place, just because we had had a long evening to that point. We were all very tired. We were running on low sleep already. Uh, we went out to celebrate Clayton D. Gable's birthday. Uh, we had a huge dinner of sushi from Nomakai. We went out and we watched a magic show. We had several beverages, and it was a long play, man. We played, we didn't finish until like after one in the morning. It it dragged. I had to, I felt like I was holding everybody up. I'm like had to be coached through the resources every single time. Like, it just didn't feel good to be dragging people down like that. So, Tapestry was my number seven.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Uh, we're pretty much in lockstep here so far.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, my number seven was Castles of Burgundy. This was one of the games I played after you left, and I'm so glad I did. Mike and I were wandering around while Jared was in World Series of Board Gaming, and we're like, what should we play? The Lux edition of Castles of Burgundy was set up. Mike mentioned he had never played it in person and had kind of a sour taste in his mouth from the few times he played online. I was like, we gotta fix that right now. Yeah. Sat down, and I think he he can verify Mike comment, but I think you changed your tune a little bit about Castles of Burgundy. I think you see the majesty in that game now. So great play. It's just, you know, it's one I play often, so it's not like soaring to the the heights of some of these other ones, but it was still fun. And it was great. That's great.
SPEAKER_01:And how clutch that the setup is already done for you. If it's already sitting out there, you have no excuse not to play. That's the worst part of that game. Okay. Uh, my number six is Heat Pedals of the Metal. Wow. Step. Wow. Uh this this game's great. I always love Heat. I always feel like anytime that I play this without you guys, I've only played it a couple times with you guys, but whenever I play it without you guys, I feel like I'm like screwing up the rules somehow. And it's such a simple game. Uh, but this is the first time I have, I think I've ever won a game of Heat, ever, period. Online, in person. That might be my very first win. Might have elevated it a little bit, but man, so we were still like riding the high of like getting in there first night. We're getting to get some games under our belt. Uh and we're gonna play some heat. And it was great to play with Mike. Mike came in and joined us. So uh yeah, heat's my number six.
SPEAKER_00:My number six was another first night game. In fact, our first game, an ambitious game, yeah, as a first game, but it was Vantage by Stonemaier Games. This game has been just um freaking ear, like you know, they call music that's stuck in your head, an earworm. This has been like a board game earworm for me. I mean, typically a game's like my interest in it chart drops off steeply after one or two plays, and the exact opposite thing has been happening with Vantage. So when that was already set up and had the deluxe components there too, it's like these games are sitting out there, people like they have them ready to play. Yeah, and I was like, Oh my god, I gotta play this with Travis and Jared, it'll be awesome. And it was, I mean, it was awesome, but we did win strangely quick, like so fast. It it just so happened that the mission we got, like Jared accomplished half of it in his first turn, yeah. So it it was uh there's a lot going on, so it was kind of distracting trying to you know get into it, um, like the immersion of the game, and then we won very quick, so it didn't quite you know rise to the heights, but I just played it like earlier today by myself. I am not a solo gamer. This game is good, it's number six of my plays at World Series of Board Gaming, but uh definitely check this one out. It's everything I would hate in a game, but I love it.
SPEAKER_01:All right, Clay, any guesses on what my number five is? Vantage. It's vantage. No way. I wrote these down ahead of time. We did not discuss this at all. Clay gave me the games that we played and I numbered them quickly. Uh, heat or yeah, heat is number six, vantage is number five. I really enjoyed this game. I wish that it would have gone on longer, like you said, but I have been dabbling in a little bit of like solo RPG, and this felt very RPG-like, where you are kind of using your imagination to fill in the gaps between these cards, uh, to communicate with your other teammates about what is going on and how can we solve this problem together, yet separate. Um, I man, it was like a perfect one-shot where we played in I don't know, 30 minutes tops. Yeah, like 30, 45 minutes, and my story was just kind of like beginning to peak right when we ended it. I'm like delving deep into these underground cities. I'm following these worms down weird caves. I found this giant hanging crystal and I'm about to crack this sucker open. And uh then the game was over. So yeah, it it left me on a high note. Um, but I definitely want to go back to Vantage at some point. This might be one that I might just have to pick up and play solo. I I like solo games by themselves, and uh man, if it's gonna be like a immersive RPG on cards, then I'm gonna be doing it.
SPEAKER_00:So you you you would get a kick out of this solo, Travis. Heck yeah.
SPEAKER_01:All right, hit me, Clay.
SPEAKER_00:What you got? My my number five is Ruins. I think based on our discussions, this might be where we diverge a little, but I mean, anything five and up here is like I was impressed. Ruins, awesome little game from All Play. It's a shedding game where you're also card crafting, so you're able to slot these transparent sleeves into your cards to give them upgrades. So now my two can be a seven, or it can be a wild card, and I can create sets that I couldn't create before. Uh, awesome game by All Play and John Declare. We played this in the hotel room. I once all three of us, and then once just me and Jared, and I'm super glad to have this in my collection now because I did buy this one, but yeah, that's my number five.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Uh, my number four is ruins. I don't want to belabor this too much because we're gonna gush about the same games a lot, but uh man, I I have this sick satisfaction that I get out of punching cardboard pieces out of freshly bought purchased board games and sleeving cards. Sometimes I feel like I buy all these living card games just so I can sleeve the cards when they come in. Yeah, man, it a game about sleeving cards feels really good to me. So, yeah, ruins, ruins is up there. I love I love the mechanic, I think it's cool. There's some weird, like interesting decisions that they made rule-wise. Um, but if you want to hear more about that, go back and listen to our ruins episode. Clayton, hit me with with your number three, number four, number four.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um, I I got a jump start on you a little bit. I forgot. Yeah, so my number four is no loose ends. So this is a game head games trick-taking game. I love this game. Like trick-taking games, I buy a lot of them. A lot of them end up being way more convoluted than I want them to be. But no loose ends, it just has such a cool little core hook where you're planning out your perfect crime, you're putting cards down from your hand that say, I'm gonna win this many tricks, and then you have to do it in a way that covers up your traces. So if I put down a two blue as my bid, I have to win a trick with a two or win a trick that's with a blue card to cover that up. And it's just like that's the core hook of the game, and it's very understandable, and it adds just enough to like a basic trick-taking game. I loved playing this with you guys. Um, Mike, Jared, like it was so cool to teach you all and you know, see you guys appreciate this one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Uh my number three is no loose ends. Dude, we are like we are serious. We did not discuss this at all.
SPEAKER_00:Um, you won't believe it, but we didn't.
SPEAKER_01:We did not. Uh, gamehead came on the scene with a bang. Like they kicked the door in, they're out there with some seriously banger games. I've seen a lot of people uh talking highly of Trinket Trove, uh No Lucents. Man, I wish that I would have played this previously. I I bought their first suite of games, uh, and No Lose Lens is shining amongst that first wave of game head publications. Uh, we talked to Paul Solomon here on the podcast, friend of the show. Man, he is such a smart guy and and knows what he's doing with game head right now, and no lose ends really shines. Uh, betting cards from your hand on what amount of tricks you're going to win. Not only are you like putting yourself at risk, like exposed risk when you are putting those cards out, but you're also decreasing your hand size to play with, you're decreasing your chance that you're going to win that amount of tricks. So, man, what a what a cool decision to make. Uh, and no loose ends shines amongst those uh small box trick taper takers.
SPEAKER_00:All right. My number three was acquire. So we played this Sid Saxon game from the 60s, it's been around forever. I had no interest in it really. We the only reason I sat down there was because we were wandering for a long time, and it was one of the games that was already set up, and I assumed it would be not that hard to learn. I was right about that, but I was wrong about how fun it would be because this game is so cool trying to get stocks in the different hotel chains, create mergers, gather up all sorts of money. Like, oh, the nuanced decisions there in how to play your tiles out on the board to maximize the size of different hotels and to create those mergers. Like, uh I it's that's been another one that's been in my mind. Like, I really want to go back to acquire because I think we all were just gobsmacked by it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely gobsmacked. Uh however, my number two game is Blue Lagoon. Yeah, Blue Lagoon is a phenomenal game. We talked about it a lot on one of our co-a selections to Jared. Clayton came into this game with certain with feeling some kind of way because uh Jared did not pick Blue Lagoon in that co-a selection. I think of the two games that we pitched, Blue Lagoon is the better game. I do believe that. Uh and I do love Blue Lagoon. I would love to own it, I'd love to have it on the shelf sometime. But man, what a what a sharp game. And so simple. It's like the same flavor as like a rebirth where you are just placing a chip on a space on your turn. That's it, next player. Yeah, and the decisions that you make and the kind of maneuvering that you can do all feel really clean. You feel like your strategy really comes together or it falls apart based on that decision. It's on you alone, and you have just been outmaneuvered if it doesn't work out for you. So it's such a clean mechanic. I I love Blue Lagoon. I could play this a million times. I wish it was available uh more readily and uh physically and more readily available digitally because I love Blue Lagoon.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that brings me to my number two, which was Blue Lagoon. I when we went to World Series, not World Series Dice Tower West a few years ago, and that was the first time I that was with you and Rachel, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, me, you, Rachel, and Mary played it. I think that was my favorite play of that weekend was Blue Lagoon. Maybe no, no, maybe it was High Society, but Blue Lagoon was up there, and after that, Khan, I got Blue Lagoon. And since then I've played it mainly with my kids, yeah. And it's fun, like they can play it because it's pretty simple. Like you said, you literally put a tile out and you're you know competing for area majority in these different islands, you're trying to collect resources for set collection little mini game, but getting to play it with you and Jared, like with adults, and just the maneuvering and the the mind games, you know, like don't you dare go there. If you go there, I'm gonna go here. Like, you know, the the do not go there. Um, it was so much fun, and again, yeah, it's just like a 40-minute game. I don't know. We've been hot on rebirth, but I think I think I'll I grab Blue Lagoon before rebirth. Yeah, it's just it's good. Like my number two play. It was such a fun time playing with you guys. I would do that anytime.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and really the main difference between the two, between rebirth and blue lagoon, is your pieces have to be connected in Blue Lagoon, not so much in rebirth. And you're trying to create big big pieces, big uh get groups of your similar uh tokens in rebirth, but the fact that you have to kind of build this web out in a sequential line. Uh you can see a move coming a million miles away, like they are coming here for this resource, or they are coming to connect right here to this island and cutting people off and like not letting them get around the edge of the board just feels so good. It's such a cool, such a cool game.
SPEAKER_00:Go Kenitsia Go.
SPEAKER_01:Go Kenitsia Go, as always. The good doctor. Uh all right. My number one is Acquire. Man, it's so sharp, so clean. That game has been like kind of buzzing around my head since we played it because there's math there that I don't understand, and I I feel like there's like legit uh market manipulation type math that I am not aware of, like some weird micro or map macro economics that that I don't understand. Uh, I've never been a hotel magnate, but man, acquire makes you feel like one. And buying up those stocks and owning the majority of stocks when your hotel chain gets bought out by a bigger one, and you just trade all those in for a vast amount of money, feels really good. Uh yeah, man, Acquire so clean. Sid Saxon developed in 1963. Like, this is not a new game. 1963 is first first published, and we played the 2023 version. I highly doubt that any rules have changed since that 1963 version.
SPEAKER_00:They don't need to, they don't need to.
SPEAKER_01:It's so clean. Yeah, it'll last forever. So, yeah, Acquire is a really cool game, and I hope to uh come by a copy to purchase in the future.
SPEAKER_00:Heck yeah, man. Well, my number one, you're probably racking your brain. Like, I heard all the games we played together on the last day when you had to leave, sadly. Wow, I did get to play a game with Jared, just the two of us. And Jared's a deck builder, yeah. And he has been ever since you went bonkers over it on the podcast, the Star Wars the deck building game, he has been wanting to play that game. Yeah. So we got to play Star Wars the deck building game together. And I hadn't played this since I played it with you maybe three years ago. Yeah. And I was like, oh my god, this is a great deck building game. Like just that galaxy row and being able to attack the other side's cards in the galaxy row to get benefits, and you know, getting your little ships out to protect your base. And I mean, Jared had some type of engine built up where he had a ton of cards that would like wreck my day, basically make me discard cards from my hand. Okay. So at the very end, I had Darth Vader in my hand. I was ready to deal massive amounts of damage to his base, and it was down to the wire. And he played on his turn this card that discarded one card from my hand randomly. There went Vader. Wow. But it was just such a good, like 30-minute, 45-minute pure deck building game. And Jared freaking loved it. And so uh that was an awesome experience and just reminded me of a game that I'm like, dang, I wish I played that game more often.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And and if that was your number one play and you loved the base version, I would highly recommend that Clone Wars version because the factions feel so much more thematic. You feel like you're actually leveraging the powers of the individual factions. Uh, and man, like the the clone or the the clones are like playing off of one another and off the Jedi to amass this force against the Separatists. The Separatists are like shedding droids all over the place and then bringing them back from the dead out of their discard pile. Oh man, chef's kiss. It's so good. There's a reason that it moved so high up my top 10 list this year. Man, what a clean game.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it definitely reinvigorated me, man. I was like, dang. All right.
SPEAKER_01:What a clean game, and what a weekend of board gaming we had. None of the games are bad. It's just we like to rank things. So yeah, that has been our number 10 through one, eight through one for me on our World Series of Board Game Plays. I have been Travis, he has been Clay. This has been Operation Game Night. We hope to see you at the next convention. Happy birthday to my daughter. Go play some games with your friends, and we're out.
