Episode 232 - What Did You Expect?

Intro: 0:00

Recent Games: 0:51

Game Expectations: 13:20

Outro: 27:30

Games discussed this episode:

Holiday Hijinks #8: The Easter Escapade: 0:51

The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints: 2:40

Café: 7:49

21 Hand Games: 14:33

Hungry Hungry Hippos: 18:32

Gang of Dice: 26:26

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This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Use the code "BLITZ10" to get 10% off your entire cart.

[0:06] Crystal: Hello and welcome to episode 232 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes to convince your pets that their dinnertime has changed post-daylight savings time. Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we’re talking about what board gamers expect out of games! First, we discuss some games we’ve played recently, Holiday Hijinks Easter Escapade, The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints, and Cafe. Then, we talk about whether board gamers expectations about the games they buy and play are reasonable and how those expectations have changed over the years. And now, here are your hosts…

Ambie: Ambie

Crystal: and Crystal

[0:51] Ambie: Recently, I got to play a review copy of Holiday Hijinks #8: The Easter Escapade, which is one of the Holiday Hijinks escape room games. These are games that come in 18 cards and it's an escape room designed by Jonathan Chaffer, published by Grand Gamers Guild. I've talked about the other ones before.

Crystal: And we've interviewed Jonathan here on the podcast.

Ambie: Yeah, so you can go check out that podcast for more details on Holiday Hijinks in general. But the Easter Escapade one, it's themed around Easter. It was fun. I thought it was a cute theme. You're like hiding the Easter eggs and the cards are Easter eggs. Like the back of some of the cards have Easter eggs on them. And so they were split up into like two to three puzzles per time area. And so you can split up into like, have multiple people solving multiple puzzles at the same time. And then you all come together and hide the eggs together. So I liked it. I liked the theme and it was cute. Also the last puzzle was cool, I thought.

Crystal: I love when you're just like, you can't really say why, but you're just like, it was cool.

Ambie: Yeah, well like at first, something it seemed like it was a bunch of random stuff, but then like it came together and made sense. And I thought that was neat. And I'm trying not to spoil it. I don't have the box with me because I gave it to my kids school librarian. I had mentioned to her about board games. And there she said she was like looking for board games to play with her family. And then so I mentioned like the escape room games because she was looking for cooperative games. So I gave her some of the holiday hijacks games that I've played so that she can try them out. And she's gonna try them out during spring break. Also like those might be good for kids too. So maybe she'll be able to try them.

Crystal: I have not played this one yet, but look, ta-da, you got the box for this one.

Ambie: Yeah, you should play it. You get to hide eggs.

Crystal: Well, that sounds like Uber fun. Yes, I have this one and I have not played it yet, but that's what it looks like for those of you watching on YouTube.

Ambie: Yeah, and I guess I'll see, or I don't know if the librarian will, I'll have to like ask her if she plays it or if she like gets to play it with any of the kids at school or anything. That would be neat.

[2:40] Ambie: Another review copy that I got and played recently is The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints. This is published by Bluefish Games designed by Ace and Anna Ellett. But here it says it's an Ells and Ernie mystery. So this is themed around a book club. So like the packaging is all saying like the book club thing here on the back, it says about the author. They say write about what you know. Bug T. Carroll is not a criminal mastermind. Definitely not. Sounds like a book and it has like fake book review things on here. And so when you open it up, there's a letter. This is a escape room style puzzle game. Not escape room, there's no timer or anything, but it's more like an audio book club puzzle game. On BGG, this says it takes 180 to 300 minutes playing time. I actually played it in two separate sessions and took a total of about two hours and 40 minutes.

Crystal: So pretty close.

Ambie: Yeah. So the theme is like, you're supposed to be part of a book club. Someone reads the book and then sends it to you to read. And then like you talk about it at book club, but the person who read the book before you, Stephen P. Hincks, which that's the same person in some of their previous games. They did the curious elevator of Mr. Hincks was an escape room game that we had reviewed from them a while ago.

Crystal: Yeah, we've done a couple of the Mr. Hincks games.

Ambie: Yeah, and so like it's in the same universe, but anyways. So he read this book and then dropped it in a vat of toffee or something. So he can't send it to us. And so he records his own audio book of the abridged version of the book, what he can remember, but like leaves off parts for you to fill in yourself because he doesn't want to spoil it for you. So that's the theme of the game, which is hilarious. It has five parts. So it has like this little envelope or a little packet that comes with a pen and a bookmark and stuff. And then it has five envelopes that have flyers and stuff and different things. These are the puzzle parts. So each part comes with the narration. There's a website, you're gonna use the website, listen to the narration. There's also a transcript for you to read if you don't want to listen to it or like you can read while listening to it. But the narration is just flavor. Like you don't need that for the puzzles. And then like after the narration, then you can do the puzzles and you enter the answer into the website and then continue. The website also has hints. The hint system is really nice. It has hints for each section. So there's like four or five items in here. And so there'll be a hint like for this item, hint one, hint two, hint three for each item. And the puzzles were fun. I enjoyed them. Each item, usually it would have a puzzle in each one, but sometimes they're interconnected. And there was a variety of puzzles and I enjoy that.

Crystal: They have a really nice variety of things in their games. Like little trinkets and different types of puzzles and just like little fun tidbits and things that you don't always see in other companies content. Not that others are bad, but this one just, there's always a little bit of surprise and delight there.

Ambie: Yeah, so like all the stuff in here is like paper based stuff. It's not like anything fancy metal keys or anything. So it's all like papers and stuff for the puzzles, but there was a mixture of like word puzzles, math puzzles, logic puzzles. I thought it was cool how some were interconnected and stuff. You can write on the materials and then you wouldn't be able to reuse it, but you can also not write on them. So I ended up writing on like separate notes. And so I can pass this on to something else. There was one item where I had to fold it, but it says right on it, fold here. So like that's not really a spoiler and I don't think it would ruin it passing it on to someone else cause yeah.

Crystal: Yeah, no, that would be fine.

Ambie: So I enjoyed the game. I used hints once and I liked how the hints are laid out. The hints also like with the interconnected items, like I think that's what I needed the hint for cause I wasn't sure like what order to solve them in. And so I looked for the hint for something and it's like, you need this other part first. I'm like, oh, okay. So if I'm stuck on something, it lets you know like, oh, did you solve this other thing first? And like, okay. That's why I didn't know what to do with that part. And then for the audio book park, I enjoyed the story. I don't listen to audio books, so I don't have much to compare it to, but I thought the audio part was nice. It had like Steven P. Hincks telling the story. So it's like an old man voice. And then it also has like background music and some sound effects and stuff. So I thought it was a nice recording. I also was reading the transcript along with it because sometimes it does go kind of slow and you can't like do 2X speed or anything. So I'm used to listening to things on 2X speed. Yeah, so sometimes I would like zone out and then read the transcript, but none of that is necessary for the puzzle. So you can just like skip that if you want it to only do the puzzles, but it's fun to just listen to the story for the flavor text and like this stuff is thematic. It's for the theme. The stuff in here kind of matches what's going on in the story. It's supposed to be like references for the story. Yeah, so I enjoyed it. And also when I finished, you get to put in your name to go on like the leaderboard thing, to show when people played it. And I was right next to NPH, Neil Patrick Harris.

Crystal: Yeah, it's funny. I saw that Eric Summerer actually commented on your Facebook today and he was like, wait a second. Did you finish this like a little while before me? And also who's that right below you?

Ambie: Yeah, so Eric finished it after me and I finished it after NPH. Yay, that's my brush with Neil Patrick Harris.

Crystal: That's the closest you've come.

Ambie: That's the closest I've gotten.

Crystal: Is you're on a leaderboard right next to him.

Ambie: Yeah, but yeah, that was The Case of the Curiously Correct Blueprints.

[7:49] Crystal: Well, I wanted to talk about a game that I actually got to play at Dice Tower West. Speaking of Eric Summerer, he was actually the one who taught it to me. So that's a nice little segue there. The game is called Café. It was published in 2020 by Pythagoras. It also lists 16 other publishers on Board Game Geek because it's a Portuguese game. So I'm guessing that it's being distributed to different countries via different publishers, but Pythagoras is the main one listed on BGG. Designed by Costa, Rôla, probably mispronouncing that name and I apologize for that. So Cafe is a card placement, action selection, pick up and deliver style-esque game where you are producing, processing, and shipping coffee, either to different little cafes or to your warehouse. The way the game works is players in turn order will draft new cards to add to their tableau. All of the cards are the same size. They're not standard playing cards. They are large. I would say even larger than tarot cards. It's kind of hard to describe the size, but they all contain a grid, a two by three grid. So they have six squares worth of content on them. Then when you draw a new card and add it to your tableau, you are required to cover up at least two squares worth of squares from other cards that are already on your tableau. You can cover three or four, but you have to cover at least two. There are some squares that are blank, but most of them have things in them. So inevitably when you're adding new things to your tableau, you're often having to cover up things that you already have in your tableau. And those squares show the different actions that you can take as well as different places that you can put your coffee beans to do things with them. So there's four different colors of coffee beans that you can produce. And those are all represented by cubes. And there are squares that will let you produce certain types of cubes. Then you can take those cubes and move them to other squares to dry the beans. Then you can move cubes to other squares to roast the beans. And then once the beans are roasted, you can ship them using particular squares and they can go either to your warehouse or to different cafes, which are also located on the cards in your tableau. And certain cafes will want certain colors of coffee beans. Your warehouse can hold any colors of coffee beans, but at the end of the game, you'll score points based on the two colors of coffee beans that you have the least of. So you want to try and kind of keep things somewhat equitable in your warehouse. You also have to spend the cubes from your warehouse to acquire new cards sometimes because the cards will also have coffee cups on them. And what's neat about the coffee cups is they will give you additional actions on your turn. So a single action is like, okay, I produce red coffee beans, but you can get more coffee cups into your tableau by paying for cards that have coffee cups when you draft them. And now you can do more actions on your turn up to a total of, I want to say it was like eight total actions that you can take on your turn if you get enough coffee cups. So toward the end of the game, you're doing a lot of different actions and optimizing those actions throughout the course of the game is definitely kind of where the strategy comes in because you can do different things on different cards and it doesn't always have to be a single square that you're activating. Like if you group different beans altogether in a single area, you can produce on all of them at the same time. So placement of the cards and action optimization all have to kind of synergize to get you to do things well. The game can be played anywhere from one to four players and it plays very similarly solo that it does with multiple players. It's a nice little satisfying action selection game. I really, really liked it. The artwork is somewhat minimalistic, but nice. And it was really fun. I also found out that it is in alpha on board game arena. So I will be able to play it digitally, which is very exciting. But I think I'm probably gonna pick up a copy of this one for my collection as well. Cause I think it's relatively easy to teach. The theme is nice and cozy cause who doesn't love a good cup of coffee. And yeah, I just really enjoyed this one quite a bit. Oh, Ambie's raising her hand. She does not enjoy a good cup of coffee. You enjoy a cup of tea, but there's no tea in this game.

Ambie: Maybe I haven't had a good cup of coffee. I don't know.

Crystal: Some people don't like coffee, but do you like the smell of coffee? Most people, even if they don't like the taste, like the smell.

Ambie: Yeah, I like the smell. I like coffee ice cream.

Crystal: Then if you just think of the smell, ooh, coffee ice cream is very good. So basically if you like coffee ice cream, then you just need a coffee with lots of milk and sugar in it. And what that tells you that that's not real coffee is no, like don't let the haters win. If that's what I mean, like your coffee.

Ambie: I don't think it's the coffee I like.

Crystal: Well, I mean, do you drink cups of just milk and sugar with no coffee in them? I guess that's kind of like milkshake.

Ambie: No, but I've eaten sugar, just sugar. Like I like just sugar.

Crystal: Like just plain sugar. Yeah. A spoonful of sugar does make the medicine go down. Fortunately, I do not need any sugar for this game because it goes down smooth regardless. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. It even though it came out in 2020, I had not heard about it. So I don't know when it got published here in the States or if it just slipped my radar because of the pandemic. But yeah, I'm glad it's getting added to board game arena and I'm looking forward to playing it a bunch more in the future. So that's cafe.

[13:20] Crystal: All right, Ambie for our thematic segment today, we are talking about expectations. So I wanted to start this off. It's one of those things that I think we as board gamers don't consciously think about a lot. But if you were to buy a new board game and open it up, there are certain things that you expect to be present in that box, both physically and kind of ethereally, I guess, not necessarily just in their physical components, but there are certain expectations that we have for what should be present when we open a board game box. What would some of those things be?

Ambie: Rulebook.

Crystal: A rulebook is definitely a good one. And what's interesting is there are some games that don't include rulebooks, I think, or sometimes it's like on the box lid, especially for older games. What else do you expect to see when you open a game box?

Ambie: Well, like components. I mean, it really depends on the game for me because it's very different depending on the type of game.

Crystal: It goes back to the whole, we've discussed in the past, what is a board game? And the term board game has obviously evolved to mean a lot of different things. During our Blitzies episode, you were referencing the 21 different games that you can play with just your hands. And, you know--

Ambie: Oh yeah, that was just a book.

Crystal: Right, that it was a book. And the games referenced in that book are not board games, but nitpicking over certain definitions is obviously less productive. But we, as gamers do, have come to expect certain things out of the games that we play. And those expectations, I believe, have changed over the years, especially as hobby gaming has become more prevalent. And I wonder for publishers how they approach the creation of their games, knowing that we are expecting certain things out of them.

Ambie: I think with a lot of Kickstarter and Deluxe Editions now, too, people expect better components and better inserts and stuff. So you're expecting to have shaped meeples or custom minis and stuff and colorful things and then high quality cards and everything fitting in the insert and the little cover things on the inserts. Oh, and I think we mentioned a while ago, plastic baggies now are standard coming in game boxes.

Crystal: Yeah.

Ambie: Where before it was like, oh, this game came with the baggies. That never happened before. Yeah, now it's just like oh gosh, more baggies.

Crystal: And now it's sometimes too much. Sometimes it's like so many baggies.

Crystal: Publishers, don't stop that. I prefer, I mean, plastic waste aside, which that's a whole other issue and obviously sustainability is very important and plastic waste is an issue in general in the world, but I prefer to be able to organize my games because otherwise when you just end up with a mess of components that you have to kind of just toss back in the box. And especially for those of us who like to store our games sideways, even if you have little like wells in the tray that you could theoretically put the components into, if you're storing the game sideways, yeah, that can get messy real fast.

Ambie: And if the cover just like comes out a little bit, it'll--

Crystal: It's so frustrating because then you'll pick it up and try and close it and it doesn't close because all the components are like shifted down and then you have to reopen the box and take everything out. And it's just, it's one of those things that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter, but it kind of does, right?

Ambie: Board gamer problems.

Crystal: It is, first world board gamer problems, 100%.

Crystal: But that's the thing, board gaming, for many of us, it is not just the act of playing board games. It is also the collection aspect. We're investing not just time, but money into these physical items. And then we are displaying them on a shelf, obviously, you know, to be looked at to some degree by us or potentially other people who come into our homes. So there is, I think, some expectation there that not only should the box be functional, but it also maybe needs to look good too. And so I think art expectations have definitely increased over the years as well. If you look at games from the 60s or the 70s or even the 80s, you will see a lot of stock photography style art on the backs of the boxes, where it's just a photo of like a cookie cutter, white family playing the game, like on the back of the box, which is really not helpful at all. It doesn't provide anything meaningful to see people on the box playing the game that's in the box.

Ambie: Well, at least it has like a picture of the game, right?

Crystal: That's true. Like for something like mouse trap, maybe that's neat, right? To see the whole little Rube Goldberg machine set up. But in most, I don't need to see you playing Monopoly.

Ambie: But if there's like no picture of the game on the back of the box at all, then it's like, what is this game?

Crystal: That's true. I do like having that. Having idea of what it will look like when it's set up on the table. 

Ambie: Yeah, the game set up or something.

Crystal: I guess back then the rules were also probably a little less detailed maybe. And so having that picture could have been beneficial for that reason as well.

Ambie: Speaking of like boxes back then, like boxes back then too, weren't really made to last. Like for example, Hungry Hungry Hippos does not even fit back in the box after you assemble it for the old one, because like you snap in the hippos and then they're bigger than the box and you can't really take it apart anymore. But now like the new one, they have it like fold in and it actually fits back in the box, which is nice. But like now like hobby board games, those boxes are a lot sturdier and people expect the boxes to not have any like dings in them at all.

Crystal: That, okay, that's a whole, I could rant on that for like a while. I understand if your board game gets shipped to you and it ends up like demolished by the time it gets to you, that's one thing. But the number of people I see online complaining about like a like mushed corner of a box, it only affected like the top, right, of the box. And it's like just mushed a little bit. I get that you want things to look pretty, but if it's not affecting the functionality of the box at all, that to me, especially when they like reach out to the publisher and they're like, you need to replace this box. Like no, they don't.

Ambie: Yeah, that's expensive.

Crystal: Physical items are going to get damaged in transit. And the publishers who do ship out replacements for those types of things, good on them. Honestly, like that is above and beyond as far as I'm concerned. But yeah, I think there are some gamers who nitpick the little bits of damage a little bit more than they probably should. But we do expect the boxes to function over time. That is important, right? You should be able to open and close the box a lot and have it still function as a box. I still have, we've talked about the games that I've carried over from my childhood and those boxes are not in good condition. My Omega virus and mall madness boxes, they are in rough shape. And I honestly at some point should probably do some reinforcing with tape or something like that. But yeah, they don't hold up the same way that modern boxes do.

Ambie: Yeah, I remember having to tape a bunch of our boxes when we were kids. Also, kids are a bit more rough with their boxes. So even the modern boxes, for some of our kids games, those I've had to tape up. But yeah, like the older games, they don't last as long.

Crystal: So aside from the stuff that's on the outside, once you get into the box, we said we expect to see a rule book or a rule set, I would say of some kind, whether that's printed in the box or printed into a booklet, components of some kind. If you're sending us a box, it's gotta have something in it. And then I would say that in general, there needs to be an experience of some kind contained within that box. Obviously that's a very broad and vague term, but the other parts combined need to create something unique. And that is what the game itself should be.

Ambie: Yeah, yes, that's what we're expecting when we're playing the board game. We're expecting to have an enjoyable time.

Crystal: I think that, as you mentioned earlier, kind of the past, I would say decade or so of Kickstarter games has probably led to some really good changes in board game production because it has allowed smaller publishers to do bigger things because when they're getting the money upfront, it makes it a little bit easier for them to, I would imagine, for cost purposes and figuring out what they can afford and all of that, like to put in some fancier stuff. But I think it also potentially sets expectations higher for the future. As you mentioned, people are used to seeing fancy inserts and deluxe components, maybe metal coins or miniatures instead of standees. And if you get a box nowadays and all of the components are kind of more akin to what you would have seen 30 or 40 years ago, like paper standees, for instance, or the little tiddlywink-style plastic tokens. I think if I opened a modern game and saw a lot of those types of things, I want to say that I would be disappointed. And I don't quite know why that is because assuming that the game is functional and those components lend themselves to whatever the experience is, I don't think they should necessarily be disappointing right off the bat, but we have kind of been built up to get these really crafted, curated components throughout the past, you know.

Ambie: And it's fun when you open a box and you see these cool components, like opening a present.

Crystal: It is, it really is.

Ambie: Also, the expectations change based on the price of the game. So like, if it's a super cheap game, then I'm fine with like being paper stuff. Like usually like a party game is gonna have like a pad of paper or something and it's gonna cost less. But if it's a more expensive game, then I'm expecting higher quality, more expensive components and like it to look a lot nicer. But when I have like a relatively cheap game and then I open it up and it's like higher than average quality components, then I'm like, "Oh, whoa, that was better than expected." So, they can go the other way too.

Crystal: That's absolutely true. And I think that that tends to happen more often than the opposite. I think I've been more impressed with the production quality of a lot of games over the years.

Ambie: Maybe because we're used to older games and now like manufacturing has allowed people to make better quality games. And we're still thinking about 10 years ago.

Crystal: Well, and the growth of hobby gaming just in general has also led to publishers being able to take larger risks and do larger print runs of games, which when you produce things at scale, obviously the costs go down. So, you can get better components for theoretically the same or similar costs to the cheaper ones if you're producing them in a smaller scale. But I do think that that has been an issue for smaller publishers that they've had to kind of figure out how to deal with. And Kickstarter has helped with that a lot, but then there are still small publishers who don't want to go the crowdfunding route and who have to end up charging more for their games if they do in fact want to include fancier components. But it seems like for those types of publishers, they usually have kind of already found their audience and their audience wants what they're making generally. And so, it's always kind of determinative based on who's buying your games, what types of games you're making. There's a lot of different factors that play there.

Crystal: So, would you say that most board gamers have reasonable expectations when they open a board game box?

Ambie: Probably, I don't actually know most board gamers.

Crystal: What? You don't know all the board gamers?

Ambie: Yeah, but I think most board gamers are reasonable. There's just like a few loud ones online where it seems like they're all being unreasonable, but I think for the most part, people are reasonable.

Crystal: I would say that that is mostly the case as well. And I do think that with any niche hobby product that people can learn to temper their expectations as well. And I think the longer you're in the hobby, the more you kind of get a better grasp of what exactly to expect from not just a game, but like a game from a specific publisher or a specific type of game. And I think that can be helpful, but I also, I try not to have too many expectations about games I've discussed in the past, how I tend to sometimes judge games based on like the look of the box. And there have been games that I specifically didn't play because the name in the box just didn't appeal. And I don't know how to stop myself from doing that. Like if something doesn't appeal to me, it's hard to just say, "Crystal, that should appeal to you." Because why? Like it doesn't. One example is a "Push Your Luck" dice game that I somewhat recently learned and it's called "Gang of Dice." And I hate the box cover. I hate it so much. My brain does not like it. And there's nothing wrong with it per se. My brain just doesn't like it. I don't like the name of the game either. And yet the game is super fun. It's a light "Push Your Luck" dice rolling game, which is a genre I really enjoy. And I do like this game, but the box and the title, I do not like. I don't like them. I just don't.

Ambie: I'm actually looking at the box cover now and I think it looks cute.

Crystal: It doesn't make any sense to me. Like why is the box a person with a mustache and sunglasses and a suit? And it's a "Push Your Luck" dice rolling game. I don't, I just, it's weird. But the game is really quite fun. So I actually do recommend the game. But yeah, it's one of those things where I don't know how to subvert my own expectations in some of those instances.

Ambie: But you don't always have to because there's just so many games that come out. So part of that is just, you need to have sort of something.

Crystal: At a certain point, you just have to throw some stuff to the wayside, I guess. You can't play everything. So if your brain decides you don't like that one, then I guess you don't like that one.

[27:30] Ambie: And that’s it for this week’s Board Game Blitz. Visit our website, boardgameblitz.com for more content and links.

This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. If you missed the Champions of Midgard 10th Anniversary collector's edition on Kickstarter, don’t worry! Late pledges are available so you can still grab a copy! And don’t forget that whenever you shop at greyfoxgames.com, you’ll get 10% off your entire cart, including exclusives, by using the code BLITZ10 at checkout!

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Until next time,

I’m the one who wants to game with you

Deep inside I hope you love games too

Bye everyone!

Crystal: Bye!

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