Chasing Meeples
A lighthearted take on board games with a sprinkling of hilarity - when you listen to Chris and Angie on Chasing Meeples, expect witty banter, game discussions, quizzes, and game night stories. Perfect for gamers of all levels looking for a faith-friendly gaming conversation.
Chasing Meeples
5 Easy to Teach Games for Engaging Non-Gamers
It's time for another episode of the wildly popular podcast Chasing Meeples. On show, Chris and Angie are putting away those Thanksgiving leftovers and spreading the joy of gaming. They're going to share the five games that they think are perfect for teaching to new gamers. Brace yourselves, as the laughs, the insights and, of course, the Meeple quiz. It's all coming your way, starting now.
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It's time for another episode of the wildly popular podcast Chasing Meeples. On show, Chris and Angie are putting away those Thanksgiving leftovers and spreading the joy of gaming. They're going to share the five games that they think are perfect for teaching to new gamers. Brace yourselves, as the laughs, the insights and, of course, the Meeple quiz. It's all coming your way, starting now.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody, this is Chasing Meeples podcast. I am your host, Chris, and as always, I am with my lovely co-host.
Speaker 3:Hello, hello, it's Angie.
Speaker 2:Oh, Angie, Ho ho, I have got. I came out of my food coma. We're good. We made it through Thanksgiving I enjoyed tons of awesome food. We eat the. My strategy is I eat the food portion of everything, the meal portion, at my mom's house and then when we go over to your parents' house, that's when I load up on desserts. So I would say mission accomplished. What do you think, Angie?
Speaker 3:My Thanksgiving was great. It went really well, it went smooth. It was really quiet by my parents' house, which was a nice, you know, after being so excited and being with your family, it was a nice. It was chilled out by my mom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A lot of good conversation, a lot of good games. You know it got us thinking. We bring games over to our family's house and we try to think of games that we would bring that would be fun for people who aren't in the hobby gaming space. That's going to be the subject of this episode Five games we're going to talk about that we would teach new gamers.
Speaker 3:And these are games that are not, you know, like a party game or something. These are gamer games. So these are games that are going to give you that they meet. They're like a medium weight game, so they're not going to be something that's so light that we're just, you know, flipping some dice or something like that. Although rolling dice rolling dice.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you flip dice, I roll. I tend to roll my dice when I play strikes.
Speaker 3:sometimes it's just a little flip.
Speaker 2:See, that's what I was going to say. Strike always a hit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's some of those things are. Just give me is even we did cues and cues and then we can do what's the other party game that we bring a lot.
Speaker 2:Just one.
Speaker 3:Just one that I mean, that's, those are more part. I'm not thinking so much party games, as these are gamer games. These are many weight games. These are games that introduction to the hobby and not games or gateway, but kind of that gateway feel to it.
Speaker 2:The holiday season is always very exciting for Angie and I. Considering, if you've listened to our podcast enough, you would understand that we don't have friends.
Speaker 3:We make a sound like losers.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, okay, so we're not losers, but we just don't get out a lot. We play primarily everything at a two player count. So I really look forward to getting together with the family and basically, here you're forced to join our hobby now, you know. So I look forward to it and this is going to be a great conversation and I'm really looking forward to it Me too. I am ready to get going.
Speaker 3:I am.
Speaker 2:I am bantered out already.
Speaker 3:Okay, I am bantered. I am excited about Meeple Quiz Hospital. I am excited about this.
Speaker 2:All right. Well then Meeple.
Speaker 3:Hey, that's what I named it. Okay, I need to have a name for it.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you're naming this Meeple Quiz Hospital, considering in a previous episode I talked about how I'm not a big fan of medical dramas because of I will I get paranoid, that I have every calamity.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, exactly how you thought you had brain cancer because Dr Green on ER had.
Speaker 2:I didn't think I had brain cancer. I was doing the tongue in the mirror test. Come on, quiz time.
Speaker 3:Yeah All right, we are taking it old school, chris. We are starting with something that has to do with our name.
Speaker 2:So that's really old school.
Speaker 3:It is. It is Now. The answer is not going to have chase, it's not chasing or anything like that, but we're starting. We're starting with our name.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're confusing me, because it literally took me like four episodes before I even realized how you were doing your quizzes. So, to refresh everybody's memory, if you ever want to go back and listen to our earlier episodes or listen to the quiz extravaganza combination.
Speaker 3:We will understand as soon as I ask you the question, but we're starting with something that has to do with our name and then taking it back to a board game.
Speaker 2:Okay, hit me.
Speaker 3:The 2022 documentary Chasing is an extraordinary story of one man's obsession to cross the ocean in record time. Was it the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean or the Arctic Ocean?
Speaker 2:Atlantic Ocean.
Speaker 3:Ding, ding ding. That's one, right? Oh, I'm going to give you two points for that one. Okay. In the 2001 movie Oceans 11, danny Ocean puts together a team of 10 accomplices to rob three Las Vegas casinos in one night. Who placed Danny Ocean? Is it George Papard, george Hamilton, george Clooney or George Carlin?
Speaker 2:Although I think I mean I know the answer to this. I know the answer to this, Okay, the answer is George Clooney, okay. However, George Hamilton would have been awesome in that movie.
Speaker 3:I thought so too. I thought so too. I could see George Papard in it as well.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure who George Papard is.
Speaker 3:Eighteen, that's face.
Speaker 2:Oh no, that's face. His name is George Papard. Yeah Face.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that got to be pretty cool in it too. I mean, we're talking in their prime, yeah, not like. Yeah, george Papard, I never knew that was his name. What else was George? I'm pretty sure it is Now. I got to look it up. Hold on, I don't want future Chris coming in here. I'm pretty sure it is. The cost of time travel is just crazy nowadays. No, not face. I knew that wasn't face.
Speaker 3:Okay, I never watched it.
Speaker 2:Face was the good looking guy on Eighteen, dirk Benedict.
Speaker 3:Okay, I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I thought it was Dirk Benedict. Everybody knows him from Battlestar Galactica.
Speaker 3:That's face.
Speaker 2:That's face. Yeah, so you were wrong.
Speaker 3:I was right, he was in the Eighteen.
Speaker 2:He was, but he was not face.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:So that's minus points for you.
Speaker 3:Good try, good try. Are you ready to move on here to the next question?
Speaker 2:I am ready.
Speaker 3:From 1994 to 1999, George Clooney played in a widely popular NBC hospital drama. Was it Chicago, Hope, Scrubs, ER or General Hospital?
Speaker 2:It was ER.
Speaker 3:A applause for you. Okay, three right, three right. The word hospital is referenced 20 plus times and the board game word hospital is referenced 20 plus times. And board game geek. Which game is not a real hospital game? Zombie, hospital, hospital, hilarity, hospital, hope, make it out alive, or Dr Wars, the hospital card game? Why are you trying to read my face?
Speaker 2:I'm trying to read your face.
Speaker 3:You're like sitting there trying to read my face. Do you want me to say them again?
Speaker 2:It's the second one. The second one is not a real board game Hospital hilarity.
Speaker 3:Oh, you got that one wrong.
Speaker 2:Whatever Is zombie hospital? The one that which is the not real one, or the real one which is the wrong one? I'm so worked up now.
Speaker 3:Which one did I make up?
Speaker 2:Yes, don't say Dr Wars.
Speaker 3:Hospital hope make it out alive, come on.
Speaker 2:Angie, that was very creative. When did you get so creative?
Speaker 3:Well, I can name a game. I can't make them like Stan Kornanski, but I can make them. Okay, we own one game with hospital in the title. What is it?
Speaker 2:Dice hospital, Also Stan Kornanski.
Speaker 3:So we are down to oh, that one you got wrong, this one you got right. Spell the last name of the designer. It's a bonus question. Okay, five points.
Speaker 2:Can I write it down? Yeah, you're going to make me look bad if I get his name spelled wrong here.
Speaker 3:You know, the only reason this is your bonus question is because you got it wrong the other day when we were talking about it.
Speaker 2:Okay, are you ready?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:It's K-O-R-D-O-N-S-K-I-Y.
Speaker 3:Oh, you got it for five points. You got it. Oh, thought I had you on that one. Thought I had you. Okay, now this one, and this may be why you're going to understand some of my exasperation, okay. So let's see you got two, four, six, eight, five. You got 13. So it was 15, 13 out of 15, but I had a super mega bonus.
Speaker 2:Question A super mega bonus question.
Speaker 3:I think it's a super mega bonus question About.
Speaker 2:Phil Walker. Harding Games super mega bonus question. No, it's not. No, it's not.
Speaker 3:For extra points if you can tell me how many Rocky Horror games are on BGG.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, oh, how many Rocky Horror Picture Show games.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Rocky Horror games, yep.
Speaker 2:It leads me to believe there's more than just the one that we found at the game store the other day. I'm going to go four.
Speaker 3:Oh, just two. Oh, oh oh, so you got 13 right, 13 out of 15.
Speaker 2:13 out of 15. I've had worse showings, I feel, like the last couple of quizzes I've been, you know, pretty darn close, so I guess I'll take it.
Speaker 3:Well, you should. You did good, you only got one wrong, and that's and you know what, it was my creativity that did it to you.
Speaker 2:Oh, whatever it was.
Speaker 3:It was my creativity that did it to you.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm edit. This doesn't even in the podcast. I said I'll take it and that's it.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'll take it. That's it. La, la, la la.
Speaker 2:All right, it is time for Gag Pan. For those of you that have listened to us for a long time, you might know that Gag Pan what it actually stands for. It actually stands for Games Angie and Chris played at night. So we got clever and I kind of forced Angie to name this segment, and that is the name that she settled on way back when.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not. It hasn't been that long, but yes, you were supposed to name a segment and you never did it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it just kind of went away. It kind of went away. It was stuff that Chris finds interesting.
Speaker 3:Yes, and you hated it. You hated it. You didn't find a lot of things interesting. Well the last interesting thing you talked about was Bigfoot, was the Bigfoot alien story, so maybe we'll have to find another cryptid story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'll be on our. Maybe we do cryptids on the on our Christmas extravaganza.
Speaker 3:Yes, we have a nice new cryptid story.
Speaker 2:We always bring cryptids into it.
Speaker 3:Yes, there you go. That was an interesting one. So yes, I named Gackpan. And what games have we been playing? We played Don Abulos.
Speaker 2:We did.
Speaker 3:We played Chakra.
Speaker 2:We played Chakra.
Speaker 3:And we played our most recent acquisition that came in the mail Novoroma. Yes, which one are we going to go? We'll leave Novoroma for the for the last, because that's the one I'm kind of like. It's right there, it's right there. You can see it, can't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to talk about it, I do. Well, we're going to talk about it, but we're not going to give out too much, because we will be having an episode where we do talk about the game in depth. Well, at least as in depth as we talk about games. I listened to some other content creators and the way they review stuff and we're just like yeah, I like the game. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But let me put it out here yeah, you are so awesome at your research, but I'm going to ask you this yes, maybe listen back to your surgeons review before you create this one.
Speaker 2:Okay, I will. I will 100% If I'm going to rate a game at 10, like I did resurgence.
Speaker 3:You must rip it down.
Speaker 2:I must tear it to pieces and make it sound like I hate, absolutely hate, the game stand. I'm really sorry that I had to say that, but I'm going to make it sound that way. It just means that I like it.
Speaker 3:I just have to tease you about that, just because it was just. It was so funny when it dawned on me what exactly you were doing when I realized you went 10. I'm lucky your whole review of it was just like you know, they cut it on this and you cut it on this and you could have done this. I'm thinking it was a 10.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking he's going to go. It's a solid six.
Speaker 2:Nope, it's 10.
Speaker 3:It was a 10. All right, okay, just mean.
Speaker 2:So the other game that we got back to the table, that we haven't played in quite a while, was Arc Nova. We were sitting around and Angie asked me what I wanted to play and I was like I want to play Arc Nova. And I think the look on your face was a little little surprised. I hardly ever pick Euros when you asked me what to play, that's true, it's a good game.
Speaker 3:We've played it several times. I am maybe I'm surprised, because, yeah, you know, it's a long game for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the first time you were going to take play a game for two hours. Yeah, the first time we were played that game it was four hours.
Speaker 3:And even when we played it at the, we played at PhoenixCon it took us three hours, I think, and that was only, I think, the second time we played it. Yep, I think that was only the second time we got it. We played it once and then we packed it up and took it there. I mean, now we, you know, don't take quite that long. I think this one actually probably was much quicker. Did we get it done in an hour and a half?
Speaker 2:We got it done in a boat. No, we got it done in about two and a half. It was about two and a half Because I remember I had these grand plans to play Arc Nova and then probably another game, and we just got Arc Nova and then I had like 11 o'clock and I knew it.
Speaker 3:I knew it. I didn't. I knew that's what it was going to be. Anyway, it was a great game. It was a great game. What do you think about that game?
Speaker 2:It was a good game until you won. Final score 24 to 10 and you wins. That is a game that I enjoy playing until the scoring. I've never played a game before, other than patchwork.
Speaker 3:We talked about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did talk about it, but other than patchwork that just makes it feel so at the end of the game.
Speaker 3:You worked so hard for a good score.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you end up with like 10, 24. Sometimes, you get the negatives. The one time I got in a negative and I'm like okay.
Speaker 3:Is that like that?
Speaker 2:Arc patchwork.
Speaker 3:It's like almost the worst thing that could happen to you is this negative point.
Speaker 2:Negative points in games are so bad from my psyche, my mental health. No, it was good. I don't know what. I don't think I tried a different strategy during that game, except I ended up. I ended up royally messing up. I had an end game scoring card that I would get points for. What is it? Prestige points, the hat track.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, when you get all the way up there.
Speaker 2:Reputation, the reputation.
Speaker 3:That track. That's like me, yeah, say something like that.
Speaker 2:I didn't flip the card that I needed to to be able to go to the higher points.
Speaker 3:I did not have. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't get as many flipped over because there was something that I didn't do at the beginning of the game. I can't remember what action I did not take, so I could not flip as many cards.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that hurt once or twice, can't remember what it was, but yeah, that hurt you, I felt bad.
Speaker 2:I was cussing. I was cussing just a little bit. I don't, I don't cuss.
Speaker 3:You know, when you get to flip a card you're looking at going, okay, which one? You're looking at it, which am I going to get the immediate benefit? I can maybe add more animals on one turn, or I can get more cards and with some of them like the sponsor association those are maybe or the building. You need to flip over that building once to be able to build certain areas of the zoo, and that was when I didn't have flipped over and suddenly I'm trying to have to fit a piece in here going. There was like one area I could fit it in, you know to, because I was surrounded by three areas that I couldn't dig because I didn't have the construction card or the building card flipped over. So sometimes it's not until the end that you really see that, oh, I really needed to flip that one.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, normally I can think about the long game.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I don't focus and what you know I think what screwed me up is I was looking at end game scoring cards. Yeah, we say I never. I never do that. But this one I was and I focused. I had two of them. I had one that needed to have large animals Okay Okay. And then the other one was the reputation track and I ended up when we started off the first. In my starting hand I had an elephant Well, that's a large animal and I had my mindset that I wanted that elephant in my zoo and the only way I could have got that elephant in my zoo was turning over the animal card and I hardly ever flip over that animal card.
Speaker 2:hardly ever and I usually go with I believe it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had. There's some lizard. I couldn't get in the zoo because I didn't have it flipped. I never flip that.
Speaker 2:I believe it's the I believe it is the association one that I would always flip, the one that would allow me to get to the end of the reputation track if I did it and not not playing that game for as long as we did, you know, is the span in between playing it. I didn't realize that when I got to that part on the board I was like I can't, oh, oh, you know I can't get past this.
Speaker 3:And the thing about those, the end goal cards, is that one thing you're going to get rid of. So when I look at mine, I almost always look at it as this one. I'm not going to do If you concentrate on both of them and you get to that one point in the conservation track, you have to choose. You have to dump one, yeah. So if you work so hard towards one and then you have to dump it, so I kind of, when I look at it I'm going, okay, I'm not going to worry about that one, so much it may be. Concentrate on a different, on one of them.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Because you have to get rid of them eventually.
Speaker 2:So that was our Knova. I forgot how much I enjoyed that game, looking forward to possibly getting a chance to try the Marine Worlds expansion. That is actually, truth be told. Watching people review that on YouTube and and some of the socials that we're on kind of made me wanted to play the game.
Speaker 3:So oh, okay, that's why. Yeah, yeah, you do, that happens.
Speaker 2:You see other people playing it, that's why it was tough of mine for me. What? What else do we play, Angie? So Angie and I again. You know that we, when we do go out, we always have what I like to call our EDC games. Every day carry. They're always in the Jeep, they're always somewhere in a purse or at a bag or something, and we brought a game.
Speaker 3:Silver and gold. Silver and gold. We did not. We do not have silver and gold pyramids.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 3:That's his new game.
Speaker 2:Silver and gold pyramids.
Speaker 3:Yes, In case you know, Mr Phil Walker already wants to send it to us. Oh, yes, yes, had to get my slight bit of pandering in this episode.
Speaker 2:I'm sure shipping from Sydney, sydney to Wisconsin, can't be that, no, no, not at all Anyway. So yes, silver and gold. I even lost track of where we were.
Speaker 3:I know I just it's like I shocked you, but I told you something that you didn't know.
Speaker 2:So silver and gold game a game I always enjoy we actually noticed in the rulebook that we were playing it wrong when we were scoring. We were only scoring for the trophies.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly the coins Wait a minute.
Speaker 2:In this example, they are also adding up the coins.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what Then that was? I wasn't getting as many points because if I wasn't getting the trophies, yeah, I was missing out on some points.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am Wow. And our score is just like skyrocketed Once we realized oh, that's good, that is a great game. For those of you who have never played silver and gold, you should check it out. Poly Amino game where you have cards that are shaped in different poly Amino shapes and you're flipping a card, kind of like your Super Mega Lucky box, almost right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a flipping right. That's the term. It's a flipping right, and whatever symbol is there, you try to fill in on your card. If you can't fill in the shape, you can at least put an X in and then all the cool scoring opportunities that you have on that game.
Speaker 3:It's a good palm trees and coins and free spaces. It's a quick game.
Speaker 2:You order your appetizer, get the game going and by the time your appetizer is at your table, you are almost done. That's that's how quick that game is, so I don't know if it's that quick.
Speaker 3:That's not Okay. Are we ready?
Speaker 2:Whoa, whoa, whoa whoa, whoa, whoa clappin here, clapin in my head. I'm sorry my ear holes. Are we ready for what, angie?
Speaker 3:I want to talk about what came in the mail.
Speaker 2:Oh, you want to talk about Nova Roma.
Speaker 3:I want to talk about Nova Roma. Now we're not going to talk a lot about Nova Roma, but I was very excited when it came in the mail that I made the mailman very happy. Because I jumped over a couple things to get to that. I was excited to play it. I was so excited to play it all day. We're going to play it. We're going to play it and things weren't working out and it wasn't working out and we did it, got it to the table and I watched a video on it.
Speaker 3:I'm reading the rule book and Chris's very first move I thought this is it. You looked at and you're like well, what am I supposed to do? And right away I'm like oh my God, the whole game is shot.
Speaker 2:He's going to hate it forever.
Speaker 3:That's it. He hates it already. One move in and he's looking at it. Go, why don't I know I can't do that. I don't know. Why would I, especially since you get the choice of like eight different actions to take, options to take and I had tunnel vision.
Speaker 2:I had tunnel vision. I was like this is what I'm doing.
Speaker 3:But you haven't even started.
Speaker 2:I was like this is the move I have to make.
Speaker 3:And then I realized you couldn't do it because I didn't have the resources required.
Speaker 2:And then I was just like whatever. But on that note though, so you said you read the rules, you watched some videos. Randy and Ellen did a from we, we game together.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Did a fantastic job with the.
Speaker 3:Kickstarter.
Speaker 2:The how to play. They did a good job yeah.
Speaker 3:Job.
Speaker 2:So, randy and Ellen, if you actually listen to this podcast, good job.
Speaker 3:Good job Good job.
Speaker 2:A fellow from one fellow Wisconsinite to another. Good job, do you want to be our friends?
Speaker 3:Oh, they're going to think you're creepy.
Speaker 2:Well, they wouldn't be the first, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, we'll talk more about Nova Roma and upcoming. We're going to give it a full review, because that gives this, is going to give us a chance to play it several more times and in true fashion. We tied this time. I won the tiebreaker. I will lose. Next time I will lose. I am, I'm already prepared. I'm going to lose next time and that's the way it works. It does work that way. I'm I'm like all hyped, I'm go, I know what I'm going to do, I'm playing, I've got it, I'm feeling confident, and then you play through once and then you know what to do and the next time you've got that down and you know where you're going to strategies in and you're just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and I'm just sitting in the dust going oh, I thought I knew what I was doing and I feel like the whole time I get this tension going.
Speaker 1:I can't let him win, I can't let him win, and then you do.
Speaker 2:So you touched on something that I really wanted to save for the for for our full review of the game. However, it is just I just want to say it. So you mentioned that we ended our first game ended in a tie, so the tiebreaker rule on this game is I don't know is in somebody might get docked a point and a half for that.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say it. So the tiebreaker rule in this game is first you check your influence track, the person with the most influence is the winner. If you are still tied after you check your influence track, the youngest person wins.
Speaker 3:I'm feeling personally hurt.
Speaker 2:I was so happy you were, you were. You were so excited to was like I could win this just because I'm younger than you.
Speaker 3:But you did, you're tied and I think the first thing you said was I won, I'm younger, I'm thinking no, that was a second time breaker, that was a second tiebreaker and like, literally, I think I had like two more influence track.
Speaker 2:Oh, we got a phone call. Hold on a second Greba Lucy. Hello, this is the chasing meables podcast. What can I do for you?
Speaker 3:She hung up on you. She hung up on you.
Speaker 2:Man, oh man.
Speaker 3:I think she got confused the way you answered the phone. Hello, now, everybody that listens to the way Chris does this, you think that maybe he's just sitting here like a deadpan thing and this voice is coming. Oh no, it's exactly how you could imagine. It is here, he is all like super and in his arms are flying, and hello everybody, this is Chris at the chasing meables podcast. Yes, it is exactly what you think it would be.
Speaker 2:Yes, Hello, grandma Lucy. Thank you for calling the chasing meables hotline. So yeah, I totally thought I don't know how I'm going to fix this in editing, but I, oh, I thought I had in the bag and you were just Nope, we got to check the influence track and then I was so mad at myself.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right. You remember when I said oh gosh, yes.
Speaker 2:Oh, we can't talk about this.
Speaker 3:Okay, we can.
Speaker 2:We're stopping right now. Cue the bump up tunes. That is it. Moving on to the main segment.
Speaker 1:Hey Meble Chasers. Up next, Kristen and she are going to talk about five easy to teach games, ideal for newcomers to board gaming. Simple, engaging and fun these games are perfect for introducing friends and family to the world of games.
Speaker 2:All right, Meble Chasers. This is the moment I think you've all been waiting for during this podcast. What are the five games that Angie and Chris think would make a easy teach when introducing non-gamers or newer gamers to the hobby gaming world?
Speaker 3:Angie A good way to put it. That was a good way to put it because we want to introduce Like we said earlier, we want to introduce actual game games to them, and not necessarily a party game. So what's the next step? What's the next step from a party game?
Speaker 2:Next step games.
Speaker 3:There we go, there you go, there you go.
Speaker 2:All right, Angie, why don't you start this?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:No, is there a particular order that you have?
Speaker 3:That's what I was going to say there's no particular order, so I'm going to grab one out of the list here and I'm going to talk about Trekking through History. It is a 2022 game from Underdog Games. It is a, so it is a newer game. It is in the Trekking through line of games Trekking through national parks. There's Trekking through the world. This is Trekking through history. It's an easier game.
Speaker 3:I had originally been thinking about my brother and something that maybe would interest him. So when you're talking about intersticing a game to somebody who doesn't really play games, maybe a topic and my brother is like a history buff, he's that type of thing that would really interest him. It is a set collection game. So there's a good example of a set collection game, because that is essentially what you're going to do. You go through three eras and you are trying to collect a number of cards that descend or ascend by the year. Essentially, you're ascending. You're ascending because you might be starting at 1200 and go all the way up to 2020. So you need to. You're going on a running here. You're trying to build a timeline.
Speaker 2:In chronological order Thank you.
Speaker 3:You are building a timeline in chronological order. The cards are really interesting because they give you facts about them. They have a neat little artwork. Like I said, you go through three eras, so it's a pretty simple game. Your turns go by a clock so you can choose how you want to move around the clock and that determines how many spaces you're going to move and how much time you want to use to move. Say, you just want to use two times, you're just going to move two.
Speaker 2:It's an hour, it's like two hours.
Speaker 3:It's an hour.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, so you're. Each round. There's three rounds in the game and each round represents one day of your trip through time.
Speaker 3:There you go, there you go, and if you ever played Patchwork, does Patchwork do it. Yeah, patchwork does it. As you're going through around, the person behind takes the next turn, so you don't go back and forth, back and forth. Somebody may have two turns in a row in this, so that's one thing that makes it really interesting. But you take a turn, you buy a card, you get the resources from the card and those resources you're going to use to put on a time board, and then you can get some benefits from that, and the longest chains of your timeline that you can make, those are going to score you some points. So it is a pretty easy game to grasp.
Speaker 2:I think you hit the nail on the head on this, because if you actually look at the way the publisher talks about their goal when they design this game is the goal for this game was to make the game inviting for non-gamers but have a little subtlety under the hood for gamers, and I think they accomplished that and that's a really good pick. Angie. Truth be told, Angie picked every game on this list. I'm just here for color commentary. What is the next game on our list?
Speaker 3:Creature Comforts.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 3:Creature Comforts is a 2022 game from Kids Table Board Games, so it is a game for the entire family. It's got really cute artwork. They are animal. Oh, they're little creatures I'm not going to say the word, so they're like little woodland creatures.
Speaker 3:It is a form of a worker placement game and you're fulfilling contracts, so they're going to be. You're going to have a number of workers, family members that you're going to use, and you have some dice and you're going to. There's a number of different places on the board, so you're going to get different resources. So you're going to put one of your workers in an area that maybe it's going to give you some wood and some wool, and then, on your turn, you have to roll some dice. These different spaces have requirements. You have to have dice requirements. Maybe you need to have two of the same number or they have to total less than five. If you can meet those requirements with your dice, then you get the resources that are there, and the reason why you're getting these resources are the cards that you're going to be getting.
Speaker 3:The whole idea behind this game is that the woodland creatures are gathering everything they need to hibernate for the winter, so all the things that you would like to have, like the rocking chair, the soup, some activities, some games, some knitting, any of these type of activities. They're all on little cards and each one of these cards have requirements. So maybe I would like to get some soup. I will have to pay the cost of that card, which is probably like two yarn and a piece of wood, which doesn't make sense for making soup, so that I'm kind of just making up.
Speaker 3:But at the end of the game you're going to score these up. There's going to be points that you're going to get for having different cards. Some of the cards work together, so it is a pretty and there are other ways to get some sort of bonuses. But it is kind of a easier worker placement game. It is something that you can play with the whole family. It gives you that introduction to like what's a contract for fulfillment, which means meeting the requirements of a card that you're eventually going to get points off of. So that is creature comforts Anything, chris, that you have to add.
Speaker 2:If you're looking for a game that is going to make people go wow, this is cool looking, that's one of them. It's a cute game. It looks really good on the table.
Speaker 3:Good components.
Speaker 2:The components are good, the artwork is good. I think if you want to maybe show those new gamers or the non-gamers how attractive a game can look on the table, that is a good example of one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm going to talk about the next game on our list and that is Century Golem Edition, published in 2017 by Plan B Games and designed by Emerson Matsuchi. So the theme in this game? It's a rethemed version of Century Spice Road, where in that game, you are caravan leaders who travel the famed roads of the spices and you're delivering it to people who want spices. In this one, you are caravan leaders who travel the famed Golem Road to deliver crystals to the far reaches of the world and basically get these crystals with the help of your Golem friends. So essentially, what you are doing is you are harvesting crystals and you have to fulfill a demand by the demand on the Golem cards of the certain colored crystals, and each Golem is worth your point value at the end of the game. It is beautiful, it's simple, it is a great game.
Speaker 3:It's a fun deck builder During your turn. You're going to, very simply, you are either going to it is a deck builder.
Speaker 3:It's a deck building game where you're either going to take one of the cards off the table the cards themselves are what's going to give you gems. So I might pull a card that's going to give me two yellow gems. When I play that card, I take the yellow gems and I put them on my little pool board that you have in front of you. So eventually you can decide to trade up your gems. But you want to use your gems to fulfill the Golems. So if I get two yellow, a pink and a blue, I can purchase one of the Golems and at the end of the game, the person with I think the first person with 15 Golems or is it first one to 10 ends the game.
Speaker 2:The last round is triggered once a player has claimed their fifth Golem, basically.
Speaker 3:Five Golems, yeah, five Golems. So whoever gets five Golems, then you end game and then you add things up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great game and I always win Next game.
Speaker 3:Next game.
Speaker 2:I'm like horrible at describing games, aren't I Angie?
Speaker 3:Well, no so. But as I'm sitting here, I'm thinking, oh yeah, these are easy games to teach and we can't even describe them, so I don't know how we'd actually teach them to somebody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hey, play this game. It's about this and Sound interesting.
Speaker 3:This is why we always yeah, okay. This is why we have no friends, chris.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so usually enough, we are doing a podcast where you have to be good communicators.
Speaker 3:Crickets. You know what? I'm pretty sure people just hear for the enjoyment.
Speaker 2:Hear for the banter.
Speaker 3:We're all here for the entertainment. I mean, if you want knowledge, there are a thousand YouTube channels that you can go for actual information. True, really. I mean, let's be honest, you want actual facts. We can give you the name of a half a dozen good YouTube channels and even some podcasts. People come here for us, chris. They come here for us. We keep them entertained while they're doing the dishes. We just keep them entertained.
Speaker 3:The next game on this list is an old one. It's one that Anybody that's touching the board game hobby knows about. People who are not board gamers probably have heard this game somewhere. It is Ticket to Ride. It is a 2004 game by Days of Wonder. The nice thing about this list I think all these games are available, not even at a game store. I think you can walk into Target or Walmart and pick up these games, so they're all very accessible. I'm pretty sure I saw Creature Comforts at Target. I know Ticket to Ride you can get that anywhere. I'm pretty sure I saw Sensory Spice Road or the Golem Edition at Target. So all these games are really easy to get. But right now we're talking about Ticket to Ride.
Speaker 3:Ticket to Ride is like I said, it's a 2004 game. It's got hand management. It has route building. Ticket is going to have you start the game with two contracts and a hand of cards. Your tickets are your contracts so I may want to travel from. I might want to travel from Los Angeles to New York. The map has routes throughout the country so there are different ways to get there so you don't always take the same route. And one of the tricky things is that Chris may be trying to go from El Paso to Chicago and he might be blocking some of my train routes. So a big ticket like that might give me like 20 points at the end of the game If I can get my trains from California to New York.
Speaker 3:So what I will do, I will try to. Maybe the first leg of my trip I will need to get four white. So I will have to look at my hand. I will have to collect four white train cards, hand them in and I can put my own little trains on that area of the track. So the board is covered with different colors of train tracks, but there are some areas that are. They're neutral. Essentially they're invisible, they're clear. You don't have so you can use any color train to go on there, like through Texas. So you're handing in cards.
Speaker 3:This is where your hand management. You're deciding when you want to use which cards to go on to which path you want to go on to across the country so you can take little routes. So the strategy comes am I going to try to fulfill a big card? Am I going to try to use all my trains to go across the country, which might take me a while to get to New York? Or maybe I want to pick up a couple shorter routes, like Orlando to Charlottesville, and you could do several small routes. But it is a pretty accessible game.
Speaker 3:So, like you're just choosing cards, one of your action may be just to choose a card. You can choose two cards that are face up. You could choose something from the face down pile. If you decide to choose a wild card, that's the only one you can choose on your turn. Or you could take your turn and you could hand in three white cards and put your three little trains on a little white track, or you could take a new ticket.
Speaker 3:You said you do start the game. I believe you start with two tickets Once you complete those tickets or contracts they're not called contracts. They would be tickets. Once you fulfill one of those, you're going to want to grab another one. That's where you get routes, that's where you get your points from, and you could choose them. And you get to choose a couple and decide which one you want.
Speaker 3:Do I want to take one of the big ones or do I want to take smaller ones and get those done faster, making sure I get all of them done quicker. And as you finish your routes, you know there's score tracker around the board. At the end of the game you do get points whoever has the longest train connected train route. So if you happen to have a big, long train route, you do get extra points for that too. The neat thing about this game is it does have a very good app. You can play on your phone or on tablet. So if you want to try that out before you even pick up the board game, I know I think we've probably played the app as much as we've played the physical copy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3:Because it has, and it's a really good, accessible one. We've played it. I think we're in a waiting room of a hospital or something like that. We've played it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did.
Speaker 3:So that is tick a dried. I should say that there is your base ticket to ride and then there are ticket to rides all over the world, just about everywhere. There's a map for Italy, there's Europe, there are parts of Africa. We got the. It's called. I think it's a 6.5. It's the Poland app or the Poland, excuse me. We have the Poland map pack, which is a difficult, hard to find. It can only be found overseas and I happened to have found it last year. Thank God, it for Christmas, or was it the year before it?
Speaker 3:was the year before the year before, and then there's smaller versions. So if it's something you're not sure you want to invest in, for like 18 bucks you can pick up ticket to ride New York or ticket to ride London, and that's a really shorter version. Introductory edition.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's a good game.
Speaker 3:Last one on the list, Chris, can you do it?
Speaker 2:Can I describe the game?
Speaker 3:Our oldest game on the list. Oldest game on the list.
Speaker 2:All right. So the game that I'm going to try to describe is Carcassonne. Those of you that have listened to this podcast for a while know that Angie and I love this game Carcassonne, Originally published in the year 2000,. We happen to have the Z-Man version of the game. There's at least 35 different publishers who have published this game. I do believe the original was published by Hans Imgluck, If that's how you pronounce it. But anyway, Carcassonne. It is a great example of a tile laying game. So in Carcassonne you are essentially making a map and you are placing tiles down to complete the map. Am I doing, Angie?
Speaker 3:That's why it's easy to teach. You can do this. That's right. You are making a map.
Speaker 2:So you want to make roads, you want to make rivers, you want to make cities and you want to make roads. The larger you, for example, the larger you make your city, or the longer you make your roads, the more points you get. How do you get those points, angie? Meeple, chasers, listeners, how do you get those points? Tell us, chris. You get those points by taking your meeples and you put them on your map.
Speaker 2:You, for example, if I was taking, I wanted to start to create a city. I would put the city down. I would put one little tile down that has a city on it and then I would say little meeple guy, go and live in this city right here, and I would put that meeple down in that city. Now I want to continue to build that city until that city is completely done. When that city is completely done, you get those points based on how many tiles worth how many tiles those cities are comprised of. Same thing with roads. If I want a road, I'm going to put my little meeple on the road and I'm going to get points for that. Angie, anytime you want to hop in here, anytime you want to hop in here, instead of just sitting there laughing at me.
Speaker 3:I'm not laughing at you. You're doing a wonderful job, no.
Speaker 2:I'm doing a horrible job.
Speaker 3:Okay, when you play Kakarzone, you're going to start out with a starter tile.
Speaker 3:These are just square tiles and that's all there is to the game are tiles and meeples, and there will be a starter tile and then you place large pile of everything else face down each player You're going to. It's a square, so you're going to take your tile and you're going to put it next to one end of the other tile and you're matching the terrain. So you're going to have to match grass up to grass or if there's a road, you can continue the road. There are some tiles that have now the artwork on here is old and dated, but there are cities on here that you're trying to create. So if you're going to, you'd have to put the city area next to the city. There are some areas that have like there's different things on tiles, like there's an abbey. So if you're going to place an abbey, it's got to be all surrounded with other land. So you're going to take turns just laying a tile down. Then you're going to score by placing meeples down. So if I am building a road as I'm building a road, so I may just place a tile down and it's got part of a road I can put my meeple there. How is that going to score me? Because as that road gets bigger, if I keep putting more road tiles next to it, the road's going to get longer. It will stop at like little villages around the tiles. So when you have a beginning and an ending to that road, you're going to score that road and when you do that you get to take your meeple back.
Speaker 3:There is also Chris was trying to allude to that there are cities. So you may put a tile down that has a city and decide, hey, this is my city, I want the city, I want to score the city. So you put your meeple on it, but that city isn't complete. You just have like half a block of that city. So maybe on your next turn you're going to try to complete that city and then that the city is completed. When it's enclosed, there are walls around the city and then inside that you're going to score how many tiles it is that you had to use to make that city and you get extra points if there are any shields in there.
Speaker 3:There is a tricky method that you can use to upscan somebody else's city. Chris tried it once and he'll never do it again. As I was mentioning before, there are abbeys. So when you place an abbey down, you're just placing it next to another grassland because it is going to score by surrounding. So if you completely surround the abbey, then you get nine points. I think it is for completely surrounding that there are the fields, and that was the one thing I always thought was kind of tricky.
Speaker 3:But as you lay a tile down, instead of putting it on a road, instead of putting it on the city, you can put it laying down on the grass.
Speaker 3:Now, this is the way that your meeple is there and you don't pick it back up.
Speaker 3:So when you complete your city, you get to pick your meeple back up and you can keep reusing those meeples. But if you decide to put it on the side of the road, laying down in the grass, there he's there for the rest of the game. So you better hope that what you're doing is creating a big field, so you're going to score that whole farmland that's all adjacent to it. So if you can create a large field or a large farmland, you score all those tiles, but that meeple is there until the end of the game. So if you for some reason decide to lay all your tiles meeples down, you got to realize that you're not going to be able to score other things roads, cities and stuff like that and there is a score tracker that's just keeping your score during the game. And here is the interesting fun fact about it Carcassonne is the reason we are called Chasing Meeples, because you use your meeples to go back and forth along that score track and there is one meeple that is always chasing the other.
Speaker 2:It's usually my meeple.
Speaker 3:I didn't say that, but that's where we get chasing meeples from. So how does that? How did I do? How did I do with that one?
Speaker 2:Oh, you did way better than I was. There are different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are different iterations of the game. There is a brand new cooperative version we just picked up. We have not played it yet. Hear good things about it.
Speaker 2:Carcassonne Yay, so that is the five games that we think would be a good, good choice to teach people that are new to the hobby or people who have never played games before. If you're going to your families this holiday season, leave us an email comment on this podcast or this video on YouTube and let us know what you think. Did we miss any? Are we right? Are we wrong? Should I just shut up all the time and let Angie do all the descriptions?
Speaker 3:No, the halfway through I'm thinking do we teach anybody games I could teach you, because you're the only person that understand me. There's a reason for that.
Speaker 2:All right, angie. I think this wraps up another episode of the Chasing Meeples podcast. Listeners, I really appreciate you sticking with us because as we went on, especially during that last segment, I realized that I am still in a fukoma.
Speaker 3:I have a leg cramp.
Speaker 2:You have a leg cramp. We are falling apart here, everybody. It is time to just stick a fork in us. We're done. Because we're done. All right, everybody keep chasing those meeples.
Speaker 3:Bye, bye.
Speaker 1:We're here for you. We're here for you, you.
