Episode 39 - My Father's Work

In this episode, we become creepy mad scientists trying to complete the experiments left behind by our father.  This story-driven worker placement game offers 3 starting scenarios and 8 different endings per scenario that are driven by your decisions throughout the game.  You could end up in a bloody post-apocalyptic world  or one driven by science and knowledge, and everything in between!  Listen to find out why you should limit your trips to the town graveyard and what kind of crazy experiments you can undertake!

Also, join our giveaway!

Game Info:
2-4 Players
180 Minute Playtime
Ages 14+

Board Game Geek Entry

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Transcript

Rachel: 0:00

They don't like that for some reason you going and digging up graves ha, that's weird

Jake: 0:17

Hello and welcome. I'm Jake.

Rachel: 0:19

I'm Rachel.

Jake: 0:20

And we are so bored. The podcasts where each episode we take a close look at the tabletop game and discuss our personal experiences with said game to help answer the question, Will this cure our boredom?

Rachel: 0:31

That's right, we look at the mechanics complexity and replayability in a game to determine if it's the perfect alternative to say, I don't know sitting outside in 110 degree weather with 68% Humidity for an hour at a time waiting for your pig to go potty because she'd rather just eat grass and dig in the dirt while you're out there.

Jake: 0:52

Yeah, we know pigs are smart. But one of the things I like to say is that like a dog, dog wants you to be happy because you happy makes dog happy. Pig doesn't care if you're happy. Pig wants to be happy themselves. So they're just gonna do whatever.

Rachel: 1:09

Pig is happy digging in the dirt. Like getting really messy. And eating all the grass and just running around.

Jake: 1:17

Yeah, pig doesn't care what you want. Pig wants what it wants. Yeah. Potty Training. Yay. Yep. Now before we get started, we are streaming regularly on twitch@twitch.tv slash so bored podcast, that's s o b o ar D, we stream Wednesday nights. And we play all sorts of board games on there. And I am also getting back into a regular streaming schedule. I don't stream board games on my channel. I stream other nerd games. You know, video games, as I like to call them might schedule changes each week. So go ahead and turn on notifications. So you know when I'm on. And I'm at twitch.tv/naughty Doc 541. That's NAU gh t. YDOC 541.

Rachel: 2:03

And you recently got a Nintendo 64 controller?

Jake: 2:07

I did. Yes. So that opens up

Rachel: 2:11

a world of possibilities.

Jake: 2:13

That opens up many possibilities. And I will be streaming retro games on there. Because the nostalgia is real. For sure. Speaking of that controller, I didn't remember it being so small in my hands, but now it is.

Rachel: 2:29

Yeah. So he said that and I'm imagining like, I don't know, like it's way, way smaller than what I remember. And then I saw it. It was like, No, that's the right size. Like,

Jake: 2:39

visually, yes, it's the right size. But then when I put it in my hands, my hands don't fit around the way that

Rachel: 2:46

they used to. Yeah, you got those big man hands now. I guess. Yeah. Anyway, one last announcement. Before we get started, we are currently doing a giveaway, in case you missed it. We went to Gen Con a couple of weeks ago and brought back a ton of games that we're here to share with you guys. So we actually have three bundles of games that we're giving away currently, you can go and check out that contest on our Facebook page, it's pinned right to the top, it's a gleam giveaway, then there's lots and lots of ways to enter. Almost all of them are free. Honestly, I don't know if anyone has even done the paid one yet. And that's just subscribing to us on Twitch. So you know, feel free if you want but not necessary. I set it up so that there are plenty of other free ways to gain entries into this. So it's not necessary. Really. Yeah. But check that out. That's got details with all the games that are in each bundle. Yeah, it's really exciting. So you know, go enter. Absolutely. Like,

Jake: 3:55

like we said, We got three winners this time instead of just one. So go check out what you could possibly win. So what game are we talking about today? We're talking about abomination. Almost kind of not real kind of know, kind of, yes. We're talking about my father's work.

Rachel: 4:15

The renegade game that just recently came out. It was a Kickstarter, and you're basically like, mad scientists or trying to become mad scientists throughout the game in this story driven game that takes place in Hungary in the 1800s.

Jake: 4:35

Yes, this game like we just said was released this year in 2022. And it was designed by Tc Petty the and I have to say it that way because I just do I'm sorry.

Rachel: 4:49

Yeah. So what is I almost said what is abomination? What? What is my father's work? The goal of this game is to get the most points by performing experiments and interacting with events around the town. And kind of just a quick note, before we get into any of the actual details of the rules. This is an app driven game, the app is required, but it is free. It is free. But it is required, you can't play the game without it. If you're one of those people that feels very strongly that you don't want to play like app requirement games or app driven games, then I'm letting you know up front, this game probably isn't for you. But if you're open to it, the app is used for storytelling and creating branching paths based on the choices that you make. So the game comes with three different scenarios that you can play through. But it looks like there are potentially eight different endings to each scenario, just based on the different choices and things that you're presented with during the game. I really

Jake: 5:54

like that aspect of this. However, it could have been a book.

Rachel: 6:01

Definitely. And I think I'm gonna go into more of that in the our experiences section. Okay, let's just say for now that it is app driven. And the only other thing I want to add to that is that there are some parts of it that are voiceover, but most of it is not. So if you really want to get the full experience of the game and like, read the story, it is a lot of reading

Jake: 6:24

it is, but it's good, which we'll talk about. So how do you play this game? This game is kind of interesting, because it doesn't take place over one generation or one person, it actually takes place over three different generations. Each generation is three rounds long. You have the early years, the middle years and the late years. And the rounds consist of placing your workers at different worker placement slots on either the town or your own estate, to complete different actions. And during these rounds, this occurs until either all workers from all teams have been placed, or all players pass or a combination of these two. Once that happens, the round over moves to the next set of years, the next set of years. And then after the late years of that generation are over, you move to a new generation. And speaking of your worker, so we talked about this being a worker placement game, and it really, really is there are four types of workers that can accomplish different tasks. You have your servants, they are denoted by a round base. When I say base here, I mean the physical base of the Mini, because these are all miniatures that are included in the game. So the round base, it can go to work replacement slots in town, or you can use two of them to complete experiments in your estate. If you do that they are lost. You can also use one to record knowledge if you do that the servant is also lost. Your caretaker is a square based figure, it can only do actions in the estate, it can complete experiments conduct the state affairs and record knowledge, we are going to talk about these different worker placement slots in a little bit. So for now, I will just list what they can do. And then we'll go into what these all mean a little bit later. Next is your spouse. This is denoted by a round base with kind of like snowflake things on the side, it acts the same as a servant however, the app and some cards will refer to this piece specifically for story elements. And then there is you you are denoted by a hexagon or base, you can go to any worker placement slot, either in town or on your estate. Normally, if you place a worker at a slot where somebody is already at you must pay a coin to the supply. However, if you send yourself there, you do not need to pay the additional cost. Also, when you send yourself to a worker placement slot in the town, you can usually complete the action there twice instead of just once unless it is specifically notated.

Rachel: 9:04

Just to add to that, it's kind of cool because I think this is something that's happening with a lot of newer games. But the miniatures themselves don't have these different shaped bases. It's something that kind of fits over and around the actual base of the miniature. So you can choose different miniatures to represent you or your caretaker or whatever. So that makes it you know, a way to kind of customize your experience a little bit and like you can choose a female scientist over a male scientist, for example. So I thought that was kind of nice to include. Yeah,

Jake: 9:38

I do like that. All right, so

Rachel: 9:41

let's talk about what the board looks like. So the board is these like four pieces, I think that fit together like a little puzzle. And honestly, for the most part, it's blank because in the center, there's just space for you to place this spiral bound note Book that represents the map of the town. And it's this really thick notebook that has many, many pages, I think there's like 18 different pages per scenario, to indicate just the different states of the town, the you know, advancement of the town, different slots, just kind of based on, again, the decisions that you're making. And so the pages that you're on for that is driven again by the app, and that'll tell you flip to page whatever, based on whatever's going on. At the top of the board, like above, the spiral bound notebook is the creepy track. So this is tracking your creepiness level, which I don't know I just love. I love that that's a thing that's tracked in this game, you're creepy. This level is represented by a token that has a Frankenstein head on it. Frankenstein's monster,

Jake: 10:52

thank you, I was going to say something but you got it.

Rachel: 10:57

And you will start at zero and move from left to right, as you gain more creepiness. But somewhere along the right side of the track is going to be an angry mob token. And that's just a token that looks like a torch. And that token typically moves from right to left. So you doing things like let's say you go to the graveyard and dig up a body because you need that for one of your experiments. That not only adds creepiness to you, but it irritates the townspeople and causes the angry mob to get closer and so you kind of move to spaces closer to that in the process. Yeah, they don't like that. Yeah, they don't like that for some reason you going and digging up graves Hmm, that's weird.

Jake: 11:44

I don't know, prudes.

Rachel: 11:47

Right? If you are ever overtaken by the mob, meaning that the two tokens pass each other or are on top of each other, you can no longer perform actions in town, except to go to church to reduce your creepiness level, yes, don't get too creepy. And then at the bottom of the board, or the bottom of the map, is the insanity track. And this is represented by kind of a broken brain token, like imagine, like a broken heart symbol, but it's a brain, that's what it looks like. And so again, you start at zero, and you are going to move from left to right. And as you do things that cause you to gain and sanity. So certain types of experiments cause you to gain and insanity and gaming or using occult knowledge causes you to gain insanity. As you go up on that track. A lot of times this will grant you a compulsion card, which can be good in the beginning, if you have a limited number of these, they are basically actions that you can perform to gain a couple of extra victory points. And so a lot of times it ends up being like, Oh, hey, I was gonna do this anyway. And I can just get an extra one or two victory points out of it. But if you go too insane, you know, too quickly, you start having negative effects, such as adding creepiness at some point you lose your spouse,

Jake: 13:13

that's creepy five, to insanity five, oh, Insanity, five, yeah, you lose your spouse. And

Rachel: 13:20

you continue to gain these compulsion cards. And so if at the end of the generation, you have two component cards, or for every two compulsion cards you have, you will gain a maladjustment card that goes into the next generation. And so this basically represents like, you did a poor job of raising your children. And so now they have these maladjustments that they have to deal with. And it makes the game a little bit harder for them as they go and continue to try and complete your work. So I have a couple of examples. In addict, you must complete an experiment requiring chemicals each round, oh, wow, each round. If you do not you lose two victory points at the end of the route. So that's, you know, just an additional thing that makes it a little harder. The other one that I have here is creep. Anytime one of your pieces is placed in the last for any reason, you gain one creepy, so things that just make life a little hard, you want to try to not get those mal adjustments.

Jake: 14:24

So first, we're going to talk about the worker placement slots in the estate. First, we have recording knowledge. This allows you to spend the knowledge cubes that you're going to be accumulating throughout the game by completing experiments and other ways throughout the game. You are able to spend them to record knowledge in your book that is passed through generations this is pretty much the only thing that is passed from generation a generation is any recorded knowledge. That being said, it is only passed if the knowledge is recorded, and the cost becomes more expensive for each level of knowledge. There are four different types of knowledge in the game. You have chemistry, biology, engineering, and occult. And they can grant different effects when you get to certain levels. For example, the biology, when you get to level two, it allows you to actually keep two resources from generation to generation. So instead of having to just discard everything, you're able to keep them. And each second level of knowledge will give you a type of benefit. Other than the occult knowledge, the occult knowledge does add creepiness, and moves the angry mob closer to you at the beginning of each generation. Also, the knowledge that you bank or the knowledge that you record can be used as a bank of knowledge to complete experiments in the future. So if you've banked a second level biology, that means you have two biology available to you at any given time to complete experiments.

Rachel: 15:55

Yes, that's really important. That's something that got missed by a couple people in the beginning, when we first went through the rolls, it's like, there's kind of no reason to not record knowledge, it's a really good way to just make sure you always have that available for your experiments.

Jake: 16:11

Next worker placement slot is to conduct a state affairs. So the conducts a state affairs slot allows you to either gain gold or draw into experiment card. The next slot is the one that is pretty important for this game. This slot is the complete and experiment. This is where you're going to be spending knowledge cubes and resources to complete experiments. On the experiment cards. There are three different types, you have an A, B, and C experiment. The name of the experiment is listed at the top and some of them are pretty cool, actually.

Rachel: 16:45

Yes, again, I have some examples. A Level A experiment that I have here is minor necromancy, just minor that says created a human Marionette from skeletal remains wires and pulleys, that does give you some insanity as a result. So that was a Level A and then you know, they get cooler and cooler because Jake is gonna explain here in a second that it requires more and more to complete the higher level experiments. But a level C experiment, for example, is a fire breathing Eagle, that is pretty cool. Note also add resistance to fire in the upon the next trial,

Jake: 17:23

it's got the name of the experiment, and the cost is listed in the upper left corner. And this cost is going to be resources, knowledge and previous experiments. And the previous experiments, we'll talk about that in just a minute. The type of experiment is in the background and the border, it's the color. So if you have got like this grayish red one, that's the occult, if you have the yellow, that's the engineering, the blue would be the chemistry and green is the biology.

Rachel: 17:53

There's also kind of a little border that goes along with it. So like the chemistry one, it has these little like green vials that are kind of around the border as well.

Jake: 18:02

Yeah, they have different items that are displayed to kind of show what it is. Next at the bottom is going to be the reward and the experiment type knowledge and resources and victory points. So each type of experiment will give you different rewards. The A experiments will always give you victory points and knowledge but the B's and C's can give you things like resources, more victory points. And sometimes it can do things like make you creepy or more insane. Or it can sometimes reduce that depending on what you do. These can be completed by yourself and your caretaker with no penalties. Or you can send your two servants and one of those could be your spouse. This does cause them to be lost.

Rachel: 18:46

Yeah, I don't think we mentioned this that your spouse is for all intents and purposes in this game is considered a servant. So they really only kind of come into play in story effects. Or like when you go to insane you lose your spouse. But for the purpose of like worker placement slots, they are treated as a servant. read into that what you will,

Jake: 19:11

I didn't write the rules. I think you wrote the rules. The knowledge can come from either cubes or recorded knowledge that kind of like we talked about earlier, the occult knowledge is actually used in specific experiments for occult knowledge. But it can also be used like a wild type of knowledge so that if you don't have enough biology, for example, you could supplement what you are lacking with occult knowledge. And it does cause insanity. The last thing I want to talk about on the cards is the experiment pyramid. That's the different costs to do these different experiments. So the A's don't have that listed because you don't need anything to complete the a level experiments. However, the B experiments on their pyramid show an A a single a so In order to do a B level experiment, you must complete and or have stored an A level experiment. If you would like to complete a C level experiment, you must have a single a and two B level experiments completed and or stored to perform the master work, which is something that we haven't talked about yet. The Master Work is a card that you are given at the beginning of the game. It's kind of like your ultimate goal like your ultimate father's dream experiment, something that he wants to get done. These are very high level victory point cards, they're usually very difficult to get done. I don't know that we've ever had anybody complete one yet.

Rachel: 20:41

Krista and Matt, were both able to complete theirs in that game when you had to leave a little early.

Jake: 20:47

Okay, I did have to leave during that one. So, this is considered a D level experiment. And in order to complete this, you must complete one a level two b's, and three C's either must be completed and or stored in your experiment

Rachel: 21:03

slots. And an example of a masterwork experiment is the giant spider chariot. So as Jake said, it requires one a two B's and three C's. It also requires a generally kind of high number of knowledge cubes and resources. And it gives you too creepy and to insanity. But it's worth 21 victory points, that it's large enough to make like a really big difference. You could be losing, and then complete this and win the game.

Jake: 21:36

Yes, it is a significant amount of points. And so

Rachel: 21:39

one thing that we haven't really talked about is like everything that you lose between generations. So like, you have the recorded knowledge, and you can store one completed experiment. So it doesn't matter how many experiments you completed this first generation unless you have some kind of special upgrade to your house or something like that, you can only store one of those. So moving into the next generation, you have to go back and create like, let's say I store a B experiment. So now I have to go back and do an experiment to be able to do another B experiment. And then I could do a C experiment. And so it starts to become really difficult to actually get to the point where you can complete this master work like it's probably going to be one of the last things you do if you do manage to complete it. Alright, so let's talk about the worker placement slots that we have in town. It's a little difficult for us to give you a comprehensive list of this because the story is always changing. And we're constantly flipping pages, you know, depending on whatever the current scenario situation is. So I'm going to just give you some examples of things that are usually there. So you'll have the church, which is where you can go to reduce your creepiness. And that's the only place you can go to if the angry mob ever overtakes you. Usually there's a couple different places that you can go to gather various resources. So it will usually start out with like each resource is in its own slot, you go to one place to get animals and a different place to get chemicals. Sometimes we'll see that in future like as we flip the pages. And as the story advances, sometimes we'll see that those can be combined into a single location where you can get either, which is really nice when you send yourself there because you could choose to get one of each, because you're able to complete that worker placement slot twice as yourself.

Jake: 23:36

Yes, like you said, it's very useful later on, because you will have different slots that have different resources available to you. And you can pick and choose what you want from those.

Rachel: 23:48

So the resource types that we have are animals, bodies, gears, and chemicals. So that kind of represents I guess, the different areas in which you can gain knowledge, like the gears are typically for engineering stuff. And the chemicals are typically for chemistry stuff, like bodies are kind of a cult usually, and animals are usually biology, but you can have a little bit of mixing and matching in there. Sometimes there are also places that you can go to gain knowledge cubes. So usually, as far as I've seen, there is a place to go to gain occult knowledge. And then you may be given the opportunity to add buildings or you know, your town might change to the point where you can gain other points of knowledge. Like in one of our games, we had a library built and that was a place you could go to gain engineering, chemistry or biology knowledge so that was really nice. One of the other worker placement slots that you usually see on there is the ability to expand your estate. This is like the builders union or something like that. This is a slot where you go to purchase upgrades to your manna or your estate that provide different ongoing bonuses. It's really the first two, but they'll tell you the first three slots are free. The reason I say it's really only the first two is because that first slot is already filled at the beginning of the game. But after you've got your third one, you have to pay to expand your mansion and have room for these additional things that you're adding on. And so it can get expensive to do this, because one of the rules is that you can go to work replacement slots where somebody already is, but if they're there already, you have to pay a coin to the supplier. So you potentially are paying a coin to the supplier to just go there. And then you're paying for whichever room that you want to add on. And then you have to pay to actually expand your mentioned to add on to it. It can potentially be expensive, but there's a lot of things that are really worth it. What's one of your favorite ones, Jake,

Jake: 26:00

one of my favorite ones is the scenic overlook, it allows you to once per generation record knowledge as a free action, paying the normal cost. So you still have to have the cubes for it. But you don't actually have to send a worker to go do

Rachel: 26:15

that. Yeah, that's a really nice one. I really like the hounds that says that if you are ever overtaken by the mob, but then they are moved back so that they're one space away from you. And I don't know if that says that that can only happen once per generation or if that's just how it always is like you can never be taken over by the mob. That's once per generation. Is it okay? It's still a cool effect that has saved me a couple of times, like, oh, like I can still do my plan, I can still go execute the things I was going to do. I'll make sure I go to church at some point.

Jake: 26:51

I think I've only been overtaken by the mob once. And it wasn't a problem. Yeah,

Rachel: 26:58

I just would hate for that to happen when it's like I'm right in the middle of something, I've got all of my moves, like planned out already. For this round. I don't have any room to be like, Oh, crap, now I need to go to church and reduce my creepiness so that I can do these other things that I need to do in town. Right. All right. And then the last worker placement slot in town that I'll talk about is for hiring servants. So usually, this is a place that you go to spend gold and you gain an additional servant worker. And they will last for the entirety of your generation unless you do something to lose them like I don't know, sacrificing them to an experiment or having them go crazy from recording knowledge. But other than that you typically have them. And that's just an additional worker that you have. There are definitely more worker placement slots than what we've talked about. But like I said, it's difficult for us to go into too much more detail than that, just because it's always changing. Yes.

Unknown: 28:01

I will sacrifice my elephants into this vat of chemicals. To understand the initial animal trials, verbal did not survive initial acid test. Larger rodent will be more resistant to the effects of

Rachel: 28:26

like a governmental agency and you like tell them that like you're aligned with their politics or whatever. And they're just like, here's a body like you're some money in a body. So that's basically the game.

Jake: 28:51

Yeah, you play that for three generations. At the end of the third generation, the person with the most victory points wins.

Rachel: 28:58

So let's talk about our experiences with this game.

Jake: 29:01

I really, really, really liked this game, I have only got to play at one and a half times, one and two thirds times really. I did win the first game. And I was winning when I had to leave. So there's that. But I had to leave early because I had to work the next day. And I worked very, very early in the morning. So the game is pretty balanced. I feel like in every worker placement game I've ever played. You always feel like I just wish I had one more worker. And that's kind of a bittersweet thing in a game. I think. It makes the game really competitive. And it makes you really have to think about what you're doing and how you're using this limited resource you have. And this game does that pretty well, especially with the changing worker placement slots. That is something that I really, really like, because it changes the dynamic throughout the game. and this can have multiple middles and endings for each scenario. So depending on what you do in the first round, you may be playing the same scenario but have something totally different than next round, your work replacement slots are different. Overall, I feel like this game has done a really good job of being what it's advertised to be, huh. Also, the components for this game are incredible. They are awesome. So for the chemicals, you have these little glass vials that have a cork stop on them, they are actually glass, they're about an inch or so inch and a half tall. For the gears, you have these tooled metal gears that are not all identical, they have three different versions in them, which is pretty cool. And then for the animals, it's not just a generic animal, like you have a shark, you have a cat, you have a bird, you have a fox, like you have different animals that you're getting is pretty cool.

Rachel: 30:55

You know, playing into some of that like that, really can add a lot of entertainment to the story. So you might have heard this in the montage that we put together from our game with Krista and Matt. But at one point, Matt did an experiment to basically sacrifice an elephant into a vat of chemicals. And the flavor text says like that the elephant didn't survive, whatever his name didn't survive, maybe you need to try a bigger mammal next time. This like sacrificed a whole elephant. So I think if you pay attention to a lot of those details, you can really kind of spice up the story, even beyond what it's already doing.

Jake: 31:44

And I love the flavor texts on a lot of these. I forgot what my experiment was called. It was a metaphysical something. It wasn't a cult Level A experiment. But basically, the flavor tech said that I was just seeing the effects of insulting ghosts. Screaming insults, that goes to see what happens.

Rachel: 32:07

I agree the flavor text is fantastic. Like the production quality on all of this is it really brings this game up to the next level. And you can really have a lot of fun just kind of reading and integrating all of that into the story that you're telling.

Jake: 32:25

Well, and that's another huge thing is that the story changes from scenario to scenario. First off, like we said, there are three scenarios currently available. But then the story itself can change and branch from the first generation to the second generation to the third generation. So there are approximately eight endings to each of these scenarios. That means that there are multiple middle scenarios as well,

Rachel: 32:51

well, and I think there are even multiple starts, because we kind of made a mistake. And we hit back too many times in the game that we were playing with my sister and her husband. And we saw that there are different ways that the scenario can start with you having like alliances with different groups of people. And so, you know, that in itself makes it unique and interesting to actually, you know, just start out a new scenario, I'd be interested to go back and replay one of those ones we've already done and see how it's different.

Jake: 33:25

I definitely want to go back to the one with the plague and see what happens when we build the hospital instead of decide not to build the hospital.

Rachel: 33:33

Yes. Okay, so that's something we need to talk about. Are we gonna go into some detail of what actually happens and have like,

Jake: 33:41

oh, no, no spoilers.

Rachel: 33:42

No spoilers. All right. So I agree, this is a great game, fantastic production quality. I do want to gripe about the app for a little bit if that's okay, you can go ahead and great. Okay. So the thing about having an app, I feel like there are certain benefits that you can get from that, that are not necessarily being taken advantage of currently by this app. And I mean, the good news about it being an app is that it can be updated. So you know, maybe more changes are coming down the line. And this is just kind of the current state of it. But there's two big things that I think they're kind of missing out on. So first of all, the voiceover there's a lot a lot of story here, and like only one out of every, I don't know, five or six pages that you read is actually voice acted. And I don't understand why I feel like adding that option add some ambiance it, you know, kind of evens things out for people who might be really slow readers and you know, just keeps the experience consistent, but it's not doing that consistently. So I hope that's something that they add more of, and obviously you shouldn't be able to have the ability to just skip ahead For like, mute the voiceover if that's not something you're interested in, but I feel like it shouldn't be there for people who would want that. I agree. The other thing that I feel like the app really isn't taking advantage of is keeping track of who makes what decisions. So it will guide you through like, hey, you know, here's a couple of options. So for example, in the second game that we played, we had the ability to go to the town hall and talk to people. And there would usually be like two or three different options of people there that we can talk to, and it would kind of change as we would go there at different times, and different people would go there. And depending on who you talk to, you might receive a token to indicate, you know, something, something that you've talked to them about, it doesn't ask who went and did that and receive that token. It just says, Hey, give this person that token. And it would be much better if it did. I agree, because the thing is, is that things get kind of confusing later, where it doesn't know if that token has been assigned to anybody, or what if the same person receives two tokens, and they're kind of conflicting with each other. So that happened to me, where I had two tokens from kind of two opposing sides. And I was able to make decisions for each side. And I don't know it kind of, they kind of canceled each other out. So like, the fact that you have an app that would be so easy to add in, because it has you type in the names of your players anyway, it's keeping track of people that way, it'd be so easy to add in just, here's the name of the person that received this option, or that chose this thing. And then the game could become more like, fluid and dynamic. Based on that it would know, oh, hey, this person's already received the token for this one side. Maybe they shouldn't be able to receive the token for the other side, like maybe something different should happen if I go talk to that person to the other side. And they'd be like, Oh, hey, I see that you're already supporting the other people, you know, something like that. In general, it also like, feels like the app is a little clumsy. Maybe there are situations where things aren't completely clear. So, you know, again, when I was making those decisions for the two different sides, it wasn't clear to me who I was making the decision for at the time, like, am I representing a or b, and that could definitely be enhanced. So that also caused some problems along the way that can kind of mess up your story and can kind of mess up your experience as you're playing. You know, if there's confusion if there's a mix up. So yeah,

Jake: 37:56

yeah, I do think that that would make it a lot better if they indicated who these decisions would benefit. Yeah, for sure.

Rachel: 38:04

But the good thing about this being an app is that they have the ability to continue to update it, they can maintain it, they can receive this feedback, and make changes. So that's the benefit of having it be an app over having it being like hard written already in the book. Because that's one of the things Jake, you said at the beginning of this, is that right now, the way things are, there's no reason that this like these decisions, and everything couldn't have just been a script text at the back of the book.

Jake: 38:36

Right? It could have been that being said, you know, there are games that we have played, like ether fields, that has probably just about as much text as this game does. It's in, I think, two different books. But it could be done.

Rachel: 38:54

For sure. And I think, I don't know, we the only problem that I can say we had with that in either fields is sometimes like some of the numbering was off. And some of the references that were like, if you make this decision, go to this thing over here that go to the script number. There were a couple of instances where like, that wasn't correct. And I had to google it. But I would say like 1% of the actual like scripts, so like it can be done. And the state of the app currently, I agree. This could have been just a booklet, like you're not really getting anything else out of the app currently. So I don't know why they chose to go this route unless they're planning on adding more to the app.

Jake: 39:40

Yeah, I think that they do need to add more to the app. And I think they probably will as they release new scenarios for this game. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about. Next is our expansions and our add ons for this game. Because this game was released this year. There's nothing right now that is available as far as expansion Add ons. However, as we said, the three different scenarios that are available will have multiple branching story points that lead to different endings. But because of the way the game is set up, and the way that it's designed, I feel like the new scenarios would be very, very easy to do. You type it up, and you throw that into the app. And then you create the different cards and tokens and things like that, and send them out in the same size box that the scenarios are in. And they're very small, like a large deck of cards box. Like, that's what the scenario is.

Rachel: 40:35

Yeah, I can definitely see that being some expansion or, you know, add on in the future. So as

Jake: 40:41

of right now, there is nothing available, but I'm sure there will be

Rachel: 40:45

agree. Also, kind of on those lines, I feel like there's a lot of potential here for, but for lack of a better term, modding. Like, there are so many resources and components that are a part of these different scenario boxes, there's so many different maps, I feel like anybody could come along and kind of create their own story that just utilizes the things that are already existing in the box, and like make a totally new experience. And it would be super cool. If renegade would actually like, be on board to support that and help people maybe get those added to their app. So like there's an option to select, you know, the official stories, and then there's an option to select, like, you know, user mods. I don't know if I can expect that to actually happen. But I feel like the potential and you know, the opportunity is very real for that.

Jake: 41:44

Absolutely. I feel like it wouldn't even take that much effort. You know, if you design what your scenario is, ideally, and you can just go cherry pick and choose, like different maps even.

Rachel: 41:57

Yeah, absolutely. So I think that there's a lot of really cool potential there. But I'm kind of excited to see, let's see what people come up with.

Jake: 42:05

Yeah. So next, we like to talk about the Board Game Geek ratings. This is rated at an 8.1 of 1600 reviews, which is actually a pretty good amount, considering that it just came out, like a month and a half ago. I mean, I feel like I agree with 8.1. I think I would rate it at a nine probably. But

Rachel: 42:26

yeah, this is a very highly rated game, in my opinion, just the production quality, and the opportunity for replayability. And a lot of that stuff that they've got going on, you know, I've only got just those couple little gripes about the app. Right, then that's really the extent of my complaints.

Jake: 42:46

Yeah, I have some of the same complaints. The app feels a little bit clunky. But other than that, I think this game is awesome.

Rachel: 42:53

I agree with this rating. And I hope that it stays high as more people get their hands on it.

Jake: 42:59

I think it will I have high hopes that it will. Yeah. All right.

Rachel: 43:03

Should we talk about our rating section?

Jake: 43:05

Yes, I think we should. Okay,

Rachel: 43:07

so first, we have easy versus difficult. This is basically how easy it is to go through and understand the rules. Is the rulebook put together? Well, does it make sense? Do you have to constantly go back and be checking things? That kind of stuff? I feel like there's a lot of assumptions in the rulebook that you already know, like what a worker placement game is. And it's not thoroughly explained. So this might be a little difficult for people who are new to the genre, or new to this type of game. There were several times that we had to go back and re review the rules, just because I don't feel like things were written quite as clearly as they could have been. One example is, what do we start with? It doesn't say to like, you've got so many of these different little bases, you know, the square and the snowflake and the circle bases, right? You've got so many of these, it doesn't seem to fill all of those. And then it says put a servants, a caretaker and two servants and a single caretaker. Okay, yeah. So it says put two servants and a caretaker in the last area, and you don't currently have access to those. So the assumption is that you get everything that is remaining. And I mean, that that seems to be what's accurate. But at first, it didn't make sense to me that you would have the potential to have two caretakers. So it was like, Oh, I don't know why I have this extra caretaker base, like is this in case I lose one or it seems like it would be a special scenario that would allow me to have two caretakers, but that's the correct thing is that you were supposed to start out with yourself, your spouse and a single caretaker. And that part of it is never called out explicitly. It's kind of the II, it's the opposite is called out what you don't have. And so you should assume that you have everything else.

Jake: 45:05

Right? I do feel like some of the rules are not great, like you said. But I also feel like, this isn't as difficult as some of the other games we've played. Definitely not. I think if I had to give this a rating, I think I would probably honestly give it like a four. As far as difficulty, that's kind of what I was thinking. Assuming, like you said, it does make the assumption, you know what a worker placement game is like, and just kind of throws you went from there, it doesn't do a great job. Like you said, of explicitly telling you what to do with worker placement. If you do understand it, this would be about a four. If you don't probably like a six, it might take you some getting used to.

Rachel: 45:49

I think that's accurate. And I would probably suggest starting with a different worker placement game, if you're just learning what that concept is, go check out, ever No, I was gonna say Stone Age, I feel like that's like the simplest worker placement game that I know of.

Jake: 46:04

If you want a really easy worker placement game, you should go play crisis. That's a really great beginner worker game. False disagree, 100 percent. placement The next reading we'd like to talk about is simple versus complex. And if you're not familiar, we like to use chess as the example. This is a very easy game, because there are very few rules. But it's very complex, because of the amount of strategy and the mechanics in the game that are used to win. So I feel like this game has a lot of viable strategy. I agree. There are lots of ways to play this game. I feel like one of the core concepts, however, is getting those experiments done to get victory points, but how you do them and what you do for them and where you're getting your resources from. That is where the strategy comes in how you use your workers in the worker placement slots.

Rachel: 46:55

Yeah. So like, I don't know, for my first game, I didn't realize, you know, how little was going to kind of carry over and matter, you know, between the generations. So I spent a lot of time performing experiments, but I never recorded knowledge. And so that came back and bit me because I basically had to do all those same experiments over again, for the new generation in order to be able to make advancements. So I came nowhere close to being able to do my Master Work experiment. But I think you've gotten closer,

Jake: 47:31

I have gotten to the point where I could have made it, but it was the very last round of the last generation. And I didn't have the resources for it. Okay, so I had all the experiments completed for it. So I had the three C's, the two B's and the A, all the necessary components done. I just didn't have the necessary ingredients for the experiment itself.

Rachel: 47:56

Yeah, I think there's also strategy in so like, you know, you can go into town to collect your resources. But I think there's also strategy and attempting to do it through experiments. Sometimes you get lucky and you have experiments that give you the resources that you need for the next experiment. Yes. But if you don't have that there is a worker placement slot in your mansion that allows you to draw three experiment cards and pick one to keep. So you could potentially keep doing that, like send your, your multiple caretakers there to go and do that, to attempt to get you know better experiments that really kind of give you a path that leads to where you want to go. And then you don't have to worry about becoming creepy. When you go dig up a body in the graveyard. You know, you don't have to keep doing

Jake: 48:48

that. Everyone's creepy when they go to the graveyard.

Rachel: 48:51

Yeah, but I'm saying you could get bodies other ways from your previous experience.

Jake: 48:56

Why? Why would you want to

Rachel: 48:59

know, I'm just saying that's one thing you could do. I like the creep. I think even outside of strategy, you know, there's all these decisions that you can make in the game. Like for the story, for example, in the first game that we played, we were presented with an option, do we build a hospital or not? You know, is that something we want to work towards? And we didn't? What changes when we build the hospital, you know, it changes the whole story provides you with different opportunities, potentially makes things easier, and, you know, smoother. There's a whole lot of stuff going on. I agree. And there's a very high amount of strategy in this. I'm gonna give it six.

Jake: 49:43

I was thinking six or seven. I think I'm gonna go six.

Rachel: 49:46

Gonna go six and a half. Okay. Yeah, decent amount. Lots of options there.

Jake: 49:53

Okay, and the last rating we like to talk about is the rope versus random rating. And this is what mechanics in each gameplay change to make a unique experience, dice, rolling randomize cards chances to trigger different scenarios, things like that. However, there's not a lot of mechanics that change per se in this game, but sometimes they can, depending on how the map changes with the worker placement slots. That being said, this game has the three different beginning scenarios that have the branching story points and have the different endings. I feel like this is a pretty random game.

Rachel: 50:31

Yeah, this is the first time that I feel like, there's a lot of options and choices and directions of this can go without it being random. It's not random what happens, it's based on choices that you make, right? And so I'm having a little bit of a hard time kind of resolving that in my mind. It's definitely not rote. No. So like, there definitely is a lot of replayability a lot of different things that you can get into, you know, but it's story driven, and it's decision based. So I guess I'm gonna give this like a seven. Yeah,

Jake: 51:09

yeah, I'm gonna give this a six. Okay, because like I said, the mechanics themselves don't change, really. But there are lots of different scenarios you find yourself in. But there

Rachel: 51:20

are times also when you're unwilling to accept what's printed on the map. Like when you just get a servant for free. When you go to church, you're like, No, that has to be a typo.

Jake: 51:30

I do feel like that was a typo. Like, no, I think it's part of the story, but it said nothing about it. Yeah,

Rachel: 51:39

I don't know, final thoughts. I guess. Like, there's a lot of really cool things going on with this game, there is still a little bit of clunkiness that I think can be enhanced and fixed with the app. And that will make it smoother and just a better experience. But already, it's a pretty awesome experience. So I really liked this game.

Jake: 52:00

So we have to answer the question now, actually, would you rather play this game? Over, sitting outside, and 110 degree weather with 68% Humidity for an hour at a time waiting for your pig to go to the bathroom? Because she'd rather just eat grass and dig in the dirt?

Rachel: 52:18

Yeah, especially in the summer here. Way prefer to sit inside and play this game? Yeah. I mean, I love that girl. I love her. And I'm glad she's having fun. But I need to have some fun, too. Yes. So yeah, I definitely would prefer to play this game. And there you have it. That is my father's work. Thank you guys so much for listening. As always, hit us up on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at so bored podcast. That's S O B O A R D podcast. We'd love to hear about fun experiences and house rules that you have playing this game or your interest in general in playing this game. We'll also be able to find pictures and short stories of other games that we've been playing recently and just interact with us all things tabletop. If you don't feel like doing it on social media, you can also hit us up on email at we are so bored@gmail.com That's W E ar e s o b o a r d@gmail.com. Lastly, make sure that you subscribe and leave us a rating. Subscribing ensures that you are notified whenever we have new content that comes out and leaving us a rating helps us grow and become more popular. Meaning that maybe we can do more stuff. We can do cooler giveaways. We can do all kinds of you know things. One of the ideas that we have that like is just not possible right now is we'd like to do this weekly. But we need a lot more support before that's even a possibility. So leave us a rating tell people what you think we really, really appreciate it.

Jake: 54:02

And of course, we can't forget the shout outs for the people who knew what game we were reviewing, based on the picture we posted last week. So congrats. Two trips, plenty. That's an awesome rich Olson, Haley Aldrich, Kim Froman token fan forever on Twitter. Thank you, everybody. You guys did awesome. And I'm glad that you were able to participate in our little shout out game. We also want to thank Michel Mims, the designer of our art. He is currently accepting commissions. So go check him out at misco Sa ra on Instagram or on his website, Michel Mims. That's mi ch e l m i m s.ca rd.co. Thank you to our editors and to podcast management for editing this episode. They are professional podcast editors and can be found at a&t Dash podcast management.com And that dashes a hyphen not a slash of any sort.

Rachel: 55:03

Once again, you can come hang out with us. Usually on Wednesday nights on Twitch, we are playing something fun. Last week, we actually played this game. So I hope you tuned in and got a chance to see what kind of craziness we can get up to.

Jake: 55:18

Yeah, we liked this game so much. We were gonna play something else. And we both decided now we want to play this one. We could

Rachel: 55:25

do that. But my father's work sounds so much more fun.

Jake: 55:29

could also play my father's work. So you

Rachel: 55:32

can find us on twitch.tv/snowboard podcast.

Jake: 55:36

Yes, and I'm also streaming on Twitch. I will be streaming retro games pretty soon here, some Nintendo 64 games, the nostalgia is real. And I'm at Naughty Dog 541. That's NAU GH, t y d, OC 541.

Rachel: 55:54

And lastly, don't forget about our giveaway that's still going on for another, I don't know, 15 days or so. So go check out our Facebook page. It's pinned right to the top. There's a gleam giveaway with many, many ways to enter for free.

Jake: 56:10

And thank you all so much. That's it.

Rachel: 56:14

We'll talk to you guys next time.

Jake: 56:15

All right, bye. Bye. When I put it in my hands. My hands don't fit around it the way that they used to