SNR Fresh Plays: Feelin' Good from The Hobby, While Feeling Sus from Heist Games + Jazzy (Painting) Vibes
Published 20 days ago • 5 min read
Fresh Plays
July is turning out to be a very exciting month on my end. Our 3d printer is (FINALLY!) back up and running thanks to Matt with some premium Eagle Scout assistance from our good pals Nate & Steven...so I've been printing inserts galore to consolidate and organize my favorite games and tackle my board game clutter "situation". Feels so good to finally have some time home to take care of projects like this.
Butttt, the real exciting news is, The Hobby: Tales from the Tabletop (a board game documentary I'm in?!) is premiering in Los Angeles on the big screen on July 17th! I've already seen it five times and I'm still so pumped to see it again...especially in a movie theater right here in LA. I'll be joining my good friend Simon (the director) for a Q&A after the screening, which should be great. Please share this with any documentary and/or board game fans, or anyone curious about the ever-growing modern board game hobby that brings people like me so much joy. If you're in the L.A. area, I hope you'll consider checking it out at the Laemmle Theater in North Hollywood.
BOARD GAMES
No Loose Ends
I'm always tickled playing trick-taking games that manage to feel thematic with only a deck of cards. No Loose Ends is a trick-taking game all about planning a heist and covering up your tracks so you don't get caught. Each round, you play cards (representing evidence) from your hand to bid and carefully plan your heist. The bidding system is clever and thematic because you need to win the right tricks to cover your bid cards, thus hiding the incriminating evidence. To do this, you need to win tricks with the right suit or number matching each of your bid cards. You lose points for leaving loose ends from the robbery, meaning you end up with uncovered evidence or extra tricks (outside of your bid cards), but if you manage to "hit your bid" by only covering up each of your bid cards, you score bonus points! Thanks to Tim for bringing it over to play, and as always for his lively, signature broadway-stage-worthy teach! ...and I'm happy to report that it's available for $20 directly from the publisher GameHead (GamerMats).
Another cool and thematic trick-taker (and sadly much harder to find) is The Six of VIII. This one is played with teams of 2v2, and each suit in the game represents one of King Henry's wives. Tricks are played as a timeline corresponding to the lengths of the reign of each Queen, with Anne of Cleves being the shortest. As you advance through the timeline (playing tricks), the trump suit changes based on who the queen is. Plus, there are a couple other thematic nuggets that make this game a gem.
Dan Thurot (Space-Biff) mentioned Scape Goat on episode 60 of the BGG podcast, and as soon as we finished recording, I ordered a copy for myself because it sounded so interesting. I had been eager to play it for a while, and finally did the other day. ...and it...was...a... HOOT! Each game, one player is secretly the scape goat, and the others are masterminds. Unlike typical social deduction games, the player who's the scape goat doesn't know that they're the scape goat, so everyone is super suspicious of everyone else the whole game. Imagine that, you think you know who the scape goat is, and you think the other players are working with you to frame them, only to find out that you're actually the scape goat. It's hilarious! Gameplay wise, you play with a deck of cards that have one or two player colors/characters and you perform simple actions to manipulate the cards in your hand in hopes to have the color card of the player you believe is the scape goat. When someone attempts to frame the scape goat, everyone chooses a card from their hand and simultaneously reveals it to show who they think the scape goat is. If all but one player play the same color, the other player is busted and successfully framed as the scape goat, and the mastermind players win. If you start suspecting that you're the scape goat, you can go to the cops to win the game before the other players frame you. Things get very interesting as you try to deduce if you're the scape goat or a mastermind with all other players doing the same. This is a fun, fantastic, quirky little game!
I recently discovered this Scottish rock band, Dead Pony, and listened to this catchy, riffy album multiple times back-to-back...but I don't recall exactly how I stumbled upon them. COBRA was a memorable, hooky track that stood out to me, but the whole album is worth a listen since they fuse in a variety of sounds.
When our friends Nate & Amanda visited a few weeks ago, Nate and I bonded over our mutual obsession with appreciation of Radiohead. We were listening to some tracks from OK Computer and I mentioned DJ Shadow because Philip Selway (Radiohead's drummer) was inspired by DJ Shadow's debut album, Endtroducing..... when they recorded OK Computer. Sooo, naturally I had to "introduce" Nate to DJ Shadow, which inspired me to revisit a bunch his albums. I used to jam along to this track on drums, so this is the one I decided to share. If you dig it, I highly recommend listening to more of his music.
I'm assuming my DJ Shadow groove led me to Rival Consoles, but who knows. Either way, I dig the synths and beats a lot and need to listen to more of this stuff.
I love jazz. Maybe the improv nature of it reminds me of my brain?? I go through phases where I crave listening to it. One night I was painting to unwind and I wanted to listen to some jazz. I started thinking back to when I was studying jazz drums with Joe LaBarbera and went super deep with it. Afro Blue came to mind, and when I searched for it, I discovered this Gary Burton track. As a percussionist, I love that his specialty is jazz vibraphone! It was cool hearing his collabs with Chick Corea too. Good "vibes" for painting minis.
I've slowly but surely been painting the monsters from Primal: The Awakening. These "minis" are soooo fun to paint and the game is sooo awesome! ...and now that Steven and I started a campaign, I'll be painting them gradually based on the quests we unlock during the campaign. They'll all be a work in progress for a bit since I have limited time to paint, and when I do, I jump around and focus on whichever one I'm feeling in the moment. Can't waitto paint more of these monsters...and play more Primal tobeat them up!
Thanks for reading Squawk 'N' Roll: Fresh Plays!
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