It Came From the Tabletop! - Fireball Island, Goldland, and Family Games

Trivia about this episode- We weren’t happy with the first attempt, we actually got back together to try it again. Just saying, nothing but the best for you guys.

I want to play with the snake expansion.

Great episode fellas!

A couple of relevant titles came to mind from this episode in terms of Indiana Jones.

So, Tikal, which is a Kramer game as well. Yes it's definitely at the Euro end, and probably just beyond family fare depending on your family - I mean it's a German Family game, simple clear rules, but there's a fair bit of strategy - but the idea of competing archaeologists exploring the jungle and muscling in on/stealing each other's discoveries comes through pretty strongly.

Kramer and Kiesling also came back and designed Tikal II which I've not played but is much more at the trash end - looting a temple with nasties and stuff I seem to remember. Maybe worth a look.

Then there's The Adventurers , two of those titles. Get in, avoid the bad stuff, grab the loot and get out. They use a Gold land type mechanic where however much stuff you are carrying dictates how many turns you get in a round. Or at least the Pyramid one does, I've not played the first one which has a heap of Indiana Jones tropes including a rolling ball timer (the pyramid one has blocks falling from the ceiling to potentially block your exit). Pretty good family fare.


And... is there a resurgence of family games?
Or are the people who kind of enjoyed the initial wave of the german stuff drifting back to them after having their fill of complicated mechanism heavy stuff?

Another fantastic episode. Loved it!
Al talking about saying what you are thankful for reminded me of a few years ago when my youngest daughter was about 7 or 8. Leading up to Thanksgiving, my wife was telling all the kids to get ready because, on Thanksgiving we would be going around the table and saying what we are thankful for. Well, my youngest daughter was SOOO excited about this. So, come Thanksgiving, she insists that she gets to go first and we all looked over to her and told her to go ahead. So, she stands up and starts walking around the table listing off the things she is thankful for and we all kind of looked at her with a puzzled look, My wife asks, "Why are you walking around the table?" and she gives my wife an equally puzzled look and says "you said we were going to go around the table and say what we are thankful for, didn't you?"
Still cracks me up.

I'll mention that this did not drop onto my podcast app. The most recent episode I'm seeing is #3.

Sagrilarus wrote: I'll mention that this did not drop onto my podcast app. The most recent episode I'm seeing is #3.

Which one are you using?

mc wrote: Great episode fellas!

A couple of relevant titles came to mind from this episode in terms of Indiana Jones.

So, Tikal, which is a Kramer game as well. Yes it's definitely at the Euro end, and probably just beyond family fare depending on your family - I mean it's a German Family game, simple clear rules, but there's a fair bit of strategy - but the idea of competing archaeologists exploring the jungle and muscling in on/stealing each other's discoveries comes through pretty strongly.

Kramer and Kiesling also came back and designed Tikal II which I've not played but is much more at the trash end - looting a temple with nasties and stuff I seem to remember. Maybe worth a look.

Then there's The Adventurers , two of those titles. Get in, avoid the bad stuff, grab the loot and get out. They use a Gold land type mechanic where however much stuff you are carrying dictates how many turns you get in a round. Or at least the Pyramid one does, I've not played the first one which has a heap of Indiana Jones tropes including a rolling ball timer (the pyramid one has blocks falling from the ceiling to potentially block your exit). Pretty good family fare.


And... is there a resurgence of family games?
Or are the people who kind of enjoyed the initial wave of the german stuff drifting back to them after having their fill of complicated mechanism heavy stuff?

Admission time: I had never played Tikal. I had stayed away from it in my earlier years because it was always being played by the “boring” group at the LGS and it seemed to take them an eternity to finish. Years later I played several of the games they played after avoiding them and found it wasn’t the games, it was them. I’ve been messing around with theTikal app and while I’m liking the game, the implementation kind of sucks. I snagged a copy on eBay for next to nothing, I think my wife will really enjoy it.

I’d like to give Tikal 2 a shot. It seems to have gotten a mixed response and I always seem to lean in the favor of games that do.

I had forgotten about The Adventurers. I played the first one but didn’t see much staying power.

I do think family games are an emerging new market. There’s a lot more people playing games these days. I’m always shocked to find someone at work who totally is not a hobby gamer but knows about a few hobby games. The lines are blurring!

Josh Look wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: I'll mention that this did not drop onto my podcast app. The most recent episode I'm seeing is #3.

Which one are you using?

Castbox on Android. It appeared shortly after I mentioned it in this thread, thought you might have pushed a button somewhere.

I can imagine the Tikal situation. It's the 10 point action allowance thing. I bought it over Tikal 2 when I was in my very shortlived "strategy sophisticate" phase. Thing is, compared to the bloated messes on offer these days in the same space, it's a really clean design, and the players make the game. Somewhere someone on here wss saying when they play Euros they do so with a Trash attitude. If you go hard and fast and quit the beard stroking there's plenty of good theme and confrontation that shines through.

From what I've read the first Adventurers probably has a bit less staying power than the second because the traps like the rolling ball or whatever are a bit... scripted? Or something. My kids have loved the 2nd one since I got it and they teach their friends when they come round. It's one of those ones I can take or leave but actually enjoy once I'm going. We've got a meta happening where basically I don't consider it a win for myself unless I grab the deepest most expensive treasure, so they all grab bits and pieces aND try and get out before me and lock me in. In the best tradition it's also been easy to tweak and house rule.

Tikal can be f*ing torturous. The scoring round can be endless when you have players who try every permutation of their 10 action points to see if they can squeeze out 1 more point. AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH. I played once (can't remember if it was Tikal or Tikal 2) and just went for the treasure set collection and built nothing. My turns were super fast. I won, and the other players were pissed as hell at me, and declared that I had ruined the game forever. I never was asked to play again - so huge win for me.

Think I was in that game. It was Tikal, you did win, everybody was pissed except me. I like the idea of Tikal but those late game turns were tortuous.

repoman wrote: Think I was in that game. It was Tikal, you did win, everybody was pissed except me. I like the idea of Tikal but those late game turns were tortuous.

Probably. I don't recall. I do remember playing once with someone who wasn't calling their actions by their proper name, and instead was calling them by their "language independent" symbols, like "I'm going to shovel a square," just to be annoying. It was funny as hell. That might have been you and might have been this game.

I'm listening to the podcast right now and I have just one question -- what the hell is your problem? You haven't explained the rules of Fireball Island to me, and I have no understanding of the component quality. You haven't even mentioned how long it took you to set it up. How can I make an informed purchase decision when you drone on and on about "excitement" and "fun" and "seat of your pants" play?

Jesus.

Sagrilarus wrote: I'm listening to the podcast right now and I have just one question -- what the hell is your problem? You haven't explained the rules of Fireball Island to me, and I have no understanding of the component quality. You haven't even mentioned how long it took you to set it up. How can I make an informed purchase decision when you drone on and on about "excitement" and "fun" and "seat of your pants" play?

Jesus.

What can I say, we’re on a mission from god.

I just got the show entered into BGG’s podcast database but haven’t gone through tagging the episodes to the games covered. I CAN. NOT. WAIT. for the first serious “Where’s the review?” comment. Most BGG users and even some “critics” don’t actually review games either, we’re just upfront about it.

I listened to your star trek/civ show on Monday and quite enjoyed it.

But how spicy do the marbles taste? These are the questions we need answered!

TALK ABOUT THE MOUTHFEEL

Josh Look wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: I'm listening to the podcast right now and I have just one question -- what the hell is your problem? You haven't explained the rules of Fireball Island to me, and I have no understanding of the component quality. You haven't even mentioned how long it took you to set it up. How can I make an informed purchase decision when you drone on and on about "excitement" and "fun" and "seat of your pants" play?

Jesus.

What can I say, we’re on a mission from god.

I just got the show entered into BGG’s podcast database but haven’t gone through tagging the episodes to the games covered. I CAN. NOT. WAIT. for the first serious “Where’s the review?” comment. Most BGG users and even some “critics” don’t actually review games either, we’re just upfront about it.

I usually put a certain podcaster on on to fall asleep at night. The excruciating rules walk throughs knock me out.

Sagrilarus wrote: Jesus.

Sag, you really crack me up!

Vysetron wrote: TALK ABOUT THE MOUTHFEEL

I think that the tactile experience of a game is a factor that is not talked about enough. For Fireball island, the marbles had a great look and added a nice heft to my mouth. Of course Josh has the ultra cool Kickstarter upgrade fireballs and embers, so I can't really speak to the feel or taste of the non-upgraded game.

engineer Al wrote:

Vysetron wrote: TALK ABOUT THE MOUTHFEEL

I think that the tactile experience of a game is a factor that is not talked about enough. For Fireball island, the marbles had a great look and added a nice heft to my mouth. Of course Josh has the ultra cool Kickstarter upgrade fireballs and embers, so I can't really speak to the feel or taste of the non-upgraded game.

tl:dr ~ Josh has quality balls and they feel good in Al's mouth.Yep, didn't take us long to drag that into the gutter.

Tikal is a good game, but it's not an 'experience' sort of game, a'la Tales of the Arabian Nights. If the other players are paying attention, you have to grind all the points you can out of the game. Back when I played it a lot, it had the 'too much AP' rep in a crowd full of AP players. Talking about it is definitely making me want to drag my copy out again, though.

As for Uba kicking some folks' ass with the treasures, winning with that is like winning 7 Wonders with Science - if nobody else grabs them, the player who's grabbing them all wins in a walk. I seem to recall that your best bet to prevent that was to grab the tile, grab the treasures, and then use the empty tile for your camp drop.