Horses and Hidden Treasures

Pontification of Perilous Pursuits

Over the last several months, I've really had a chance to think about my game selection and what I enjoy playing. I've made it no secret that the last month or so has been an extremely difficult one, with the passing of my grandmother, ongoing sickness, and dealing with the terrible tantrums of my newly minted four year old daughter. Due to everything that has been going on with my life, I've really started to reevaluate my stance on what type of weight for games get added to my collection.

There's something incredibly dumb and fun about being a killer shark.

I've typically leaned towards heavier games, usually settling around the medium-weight level (~3.0 weight here on BGG), but I do like to play games that are heavier in nature (leaning towards the 4.0/medium-heavy range). I tend to keep my collection around a 3.0 weight limit as my wife tends to like lighter games and games with too much going on tend to confuse her and I would like to continue to play with her as much as possible. This has led to quite a few games entering our collection that are lighter than I would prefer, but that she enjoys (Ticket to Ride, Azul, and Splendor remain part of my collection despite not being regularly brought to the table).

There have been a few games over the years that are lighter than I would usually like to play but I find that I enjoy thoroughly. Flamecraft, Cascadia, and Jaws are a few games that I wouldn't normally consider to add to my collection after seeing their weight on BGG, but after playing them, have found that they hit a sweet spot of being "thinky but not too thinky" so to speak. They are the type of games that I'll play if I'm in the right mood and want something lighter to play that's not going to take two hours to complete. I love Everdell, but I don't always have the time or energy on a Thursday night after putting my daughters to bed to spend two hours thinking about how I want to build the perfect city tableau.

Especially over the last month or so, I've come to realize the benefit of having some games in my collection that are lighter that both my wife and I enjoy. I ended up getting Clank! for that specific reason, as while my initial play of it resulted in me thinking it was too light, subsequent plays when I'm not feeling up for a deep strategy game have revealed the benefit of having a chaotically fun game to play in the meantime. With that in mind, I've been on the lookout for a few games that might fit that niche of being quick, light games to play that are not only easy to teach, but also fun to play.

I already have Magic Maze and it's expansion Magic Maze: Maximum Security in my collection and the quick, chaotic gameplay of the game is still one of my favorite mechanics to play with, especially attempting to play the game without any talking unless allowed. I've written a few posts about it so I won't go on about the game other than to note how much I love it. Still, I've felt like there's been some things missing in my collection since Magic Maze, while brilliant, can be a bit of a difficult time to play with new players. While Cat in the Box is quick and fun to play, it can be a bit obtuse to teach sometimes and not everyone gets the concept. I have wanted to add The Crew: Mission Deep Sea to my collection, but I've not had an opportunity to purchase it yet and that remains to be bought at a later time.

So there's been a void of quick, easy games to teach my friends and family, that I also enjoy to play myself that has been lacking in my collection. However, after this last weekend, I think that I might have one or two games to add especially since one of them Sarah immediately requested that we add it to our collection at a later date. Below, you'll find two reviews of the games and what my thoughts are on them:

Jockeying for the Best Bet

It just feels apropos to play a roll and write after talking about them previously.

Game Name: Long Shot: The Dice Game
Publisher: Perplext
Year Released: 2022
Mechanics: Roll and Write, Betting and Bluffing, End Game Bonuses, Victory Points as a Resource
BGG Score (Overall Rank): 7.7 (#314)

Times Played: 1
Josiah's Score:  8.0  

What I Liked: Long Shot: The Dice Game (I do want to mention immediately that the game is a reimplementation of Long Shot as a Roll and Write) is very clever in it's implementation of the roll and write genre when it comes to horse racing. I love the idea of having horses moving back and forth on a track as designated by a dice roll. Because each of the 8 horses is moved based on a D8 (which chooses which horse to move) and a D6 (which determines how far it moves on the track), like many horse races, there's a randomized chance of which horse will move and how far it will move. Depending on the horse that moves, one other horse (or more) moves forward one space depending on which other horses are noted on the cards.

Players then each take turns utilizing the horse number to perform a series of actions associated with that number. Players can choose to tick off their "concessions" (a la bingo bonuses for complete rows/columns) to get a bonus action, take the Jockey action (allowing them to bet on a horse to the end of the race), the Jersey Action (allowing them to add another horse to move on that horse's card), or place another $3 bet on the horse. As the race progresses, a clear winner will often begin to become apparent, leaving players scrambling to choose to purchase the horse, or add additional bets with their money that they are managing (which is also VP at the end of the game).

There's an excellent push and pull mechanic where players can choose to use one of their bingo actions to move horses forward or backward, buy a horse for free, or even get extra money to bet with. At the end of the game, players total their bets and earn money based on a multiplier on each of the horse numbers. Horses with a lower number have a lower bet multiplier as they are more likely to move based on prechecked numbers on each of the horses, whereas horses with a higher number have a higher multiplier, but are less likely to move with another horse. There's even a mechanic that the winning horse takes an extra $35 for it's owner, second place an extra $25, and third place an extra $15 at the end of the game. Horses can be bought until they cross the finish line, but after that, no more bets can be placed on the horses, nor can they be bought.

It's an extremely clever mechanic and I found myself trying to cleverly bet on which horse that I thought would win early on, only to find that I needed to balance my money spent on bets with purchasing horses. I found myself out of money midway through the race, but fortunately was able to complete my bingo card and got an extra $14 that allowed me to place more bets and buy another horse, earning me a final $15 due to the horse getting third in the race.

The pieces themselves are also very well made with clearly marked colors on the D8 for each of the horses. The horses themselves are nice, thick wooden pieces with screen printed horses on either side along with numbers on the top of the pieces to track where each horse sits on the racetrack. Additionally, the player boards and horse cards are all dry erase laminated, allowing players to use and reuse each of the parts to play the game over and over using the included dry erase markers. I appreciate when roll and writes add in that small addition as while I love paper, it makes it so much more reusable to have a dry-erase board.

What I Didn't Like: The board itself for the racetrack could have been slightly more clearly marked for each tile that the horses move onto. I had several times where I moved a horse too far along and my friend had to move the horse back due to me pushing it an extra space. I wish there was a slightly darker lines on the horse track to designate where each section ended. The game itself is fairly compact and can run into issues when the horses are grouped together quite closely, as the designated sections are hard to find due to the lighter lines used.

I'm also not certain how I feel about the horse illustrations on each of the pieces. It's a very distinct art style akin to old cartoon styles from the 1950s such as Rocky and Bullwinkle or Underdog. It's a very interesting art style and while it does hearken to the era that it's trying to represent (1930s), I think I would have preferred a more classic look for the horses/jockeys.

There's also the issue of teaching betting to younger kids. While I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of playing a betting game (I played poker with my dad around 10 or 11), I am a bit on the fence about introducing it too early with kids. The game is noted to have a 10+ age rating on BGG, which I agree with, but there's often a fairly negative outcome that can come from betting that I'm hesitant to add into my collection due to wanting to teach my kids smart money management.

However, all of these complaints are very minor and don't really detract majorly from the gameplay. I personally thought that the game was very fun to play and didn't overstay it's welcome. The box noted that it was 20-25 minutes and that was fairly accurate, even when learning to play the game. The quick dice rolls, constant pressure of horses jockeying for position, and managing your dwindling finances make for a fun game that I wouldn't mind playing again if offered. It probably would need another game or two for me to consider adding it to my collection, but overall, Long Shot: The Dice Game is an excellent implementation of the roll and write mechanic.

Final Thoughts: I enjoyed my time with Long Shot: The Dice Game and didn't feel like it overran it's welcome on the table. It was quick enough and had enough meat to the gameplay that I found it to be clever and slightly challenging to play. With the BGG Rating of 8 ("Enjoy Playing and Would Suggest It), I think that accurately describes my thoughts on the game. It was very enjoyable and if available, I might suggest playing if there was a shorter time to play games. I might choose a few other games over it, but overall, I was very happy with how it played and would definitely play again

Pirating Someone Else's Luck

Pirates and cards: What goes better together?

Game Name: Captain Carcass
Publisher: CSE Games
Year Released: 2015
Mechanics: Push Your Luck, Set Collection, Take That, Variable Player Powers
BGG Score (Overall Rank): 6.9 (#1,314)

Times Played: 4
Josiah's Score:  9.0 

What I Liked: I'm just going to be up front about this and note that I love push your luck games. It's a genre that I was recently introduced to later in 2023 with The Quacks of Quedlinburg, although I had played other games with that mechanic earlier in my life, this was one that really jumpstarted the enjoyment. The feeling of "one more card" or "one more chip", especially with the constant pressure of losing it all is something that I really enjoy. This is a concept that Dead Man's Draw has taken and distilled into a simple card game that is easy to teach and play all within a 10 minute span.

The basic idea of the game is that players draw cards from a shared deck one at a time, taking specific actions associated with each card and suit listed on the card. Players can choose to "bank" their cards at any time, but if they draw a duplicate suit, they lose all cards that are drawn and they go into the discard pile. Each card is numbered 2-7, but only the highest numbered card is scored at the end of the game for each suit, resulting in significant push your luck each time a player turn comes around.

Various suits have different abilities that can both hinder or help the player based on when they are drawn. A cannon allows players to destroy the top card of another player's banked cards, but it equally could be used to destroy the top card of their banked suits if pulled by someone else. A hook is both a blessing and a curse as it allows players to pull a card from their banked cards, but if there are no banked cards, it has no effect. With ten separate suits in the game, each with their own abilities, there's always something that will occur when a new card is drawn by a player.

There's also included variants on the game included with the game that add traits (player powers) and additional rules to play the game with. One variant includes scoring all cards in the bank versus just the cards that are on top of each players suit stack, another involves giving the cards that come from a bust to the player sitting to your left. Each one adds a different level of strategy and depth, allowing the game to be played in multiple ways to change up it's feel.

It also plays extremely quickly, resulting in games that are 10-15 minutes tops, which makes for a really fun "one more game" feel when you finish. There has not yet been a game that I've played where I didn't want to play another game to see if I could do better and I love that feeling. Sarah played it for the first time on Friday of last week and immediately asked me to pick up a copy of the game whenever able (as we were playing with a friend's copy). For her to do so is very rare and that's how I knew I had a winner on my hands.

What I Didn't Like: As with any push your luck game that involves cards, there's often an element of human error when it comes to shuffling the cards. A few times when we played, we ran into a series of cards that resulted in initial draws being sets of two immediate pairs of suits, resulting in an almost instantaneous bust. In fact, the first game that I played last week resulted in me getting no cards whatsoever as each draw I had a bust three cards in at maximum. We laughed about it at the time, but a quick bust two or three cards in could be very frustrating for younger kids when playing the game. Obviously, this is within the nature of card games, but I would highly recommend on shuffling the cards thoroughly to reduce any overall potential for immediate busting.

Overall, that was really the only complaint that I had about Dead Man's Draw. The game is good at what it claims to be and although it's quick, it plays well. Sure, there's not much room for more than simple luck of the draw gameplay, but it doesn't claim to be more than that and I love it.

Final Thoughts: This game is a solid 9 ("Excellent: Very Much Enjoy Playing") partially because of how quick it feels, but also how easy it is to play once on the table, and it left me wanting to play another game after each game we played. The included extra ways to play also help with replayability and longevity of the game. While it's absolutely not a 10 in my book, it is quick and easy enough to play that I can see myself suggesting this more often than not, especially with my family. We love competitive games and the "Take That" nature of this game is absolutely down their alley. I look forward to trying it with my family and see what they have to say about it.

Lightweight is Fun(?)

As I noted above, I'm finding that lighter weight games are much more fun than I have given them credit for. This week I sought to teach my coworker how to play Cartographers, but after our initial game of it, he wasn't convinced and thought that it took too long to both learn and play, especially in a work break setting. After some time to think about what he had said, I realized that he was correct. The game itself only plays around 30 minutes, but teaching a new player could add an additional 15 minutes or so to that timeframe. Add in another 5 minutes for setup and teardown and you've taken up nearly all of an hour long lunch break for a game.

This got me thinking more about what benefits are to games such as Dead Man's Draw and Long Shot: The Dice Game that tend to be lighter weight. While my original stance on lightweight games was to play nothing under a 2.0 weight rating (with some exceptions), I am finding that there's absolutely a time and place to play some lighter games, especially in situations where time is short and there's not time to teach a longer game. Sure, I'm not going to choose a lighter game on a day where a heavier game could be played, but it is nice to have a "filler" game as needed and I'll have to be better at allowing myself to both play and enjoy those lighter games.

Give me your thoughts: What is your stance on lightweight games (those that fall in the >1.0 - >2.0 rating here on BGG)? What, if any, time would you choose to pull out a lighter weight game versus a more medium-light game to play? Are there any lightweight games that you enjoy playing that you initially thought would not be your "cup of tea" so to speak? What are your recommendations for a quick game to teach non-board gamers in a time constrained setting (max 30 minutes for teaching/playing a new game)?

As always, thanks so much for your time and thoughts here on this blog. It has been super rewarding writing this blog here on BGG and I'm very appreciative of the ongoing comments and support that y'all have shown. I'm trying a few experimental things (like the "Top 10" list on Monday, and a more narrative-esque post on Wednesday) so I appreciate you staying with me for the ride as we go over these bumps. This is an incredible community and I once again hope to create a great place for us to chat and discuss our favorite past time. I hope today's post gave you a few new options to play and I look forward to your thoughts and comments below!

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*originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 29/3/2024*