Welcome to Maple to me. People uniting players around the world. A 30-minute exploration of PJ and Gareth ball. Game experiences from across both sides of the Atlantic each episode. They share their thoughts and opinions on the world of war games including their favorite themes games. Hot topics and much. Much more. Hey welcome to episode 29. I'm PJ and I'm Gareth and today board games and focus Let the Good Times Times roll, everyone. Today it is Tuesday. It is Fat.
Tuesday in France. It is Mardi Gras in Louisiana. It is Mardi Gras, which is marking the end of Carnival season, Carnival in in Venice Italy. Our friends in Rio de Janeiro and they're also celebrating Carnival. But in New Orleans at the end, the theme of Mardi, Gras Nat the theme but the motto Is laissez. Les Bon Temps rouler in French and has let the good times roll. So today's focus is going to be Gareth dice games.
Yes, yes. So we have not and we're going to try to let the good times roll or the board games role or the dice roll. Yeah, there's a lot of dice games out there because dice games cover, you know, I thought about bringing Monopoly to the party but I thought maybe on this is with an appreciation. She ate such a such a simple
game. So I have chosen three dice games hitting my table, or I just love to play all of these hit my table like yesterday and today to be fair like in preparation Katie and I just played them all. He do a little homework. I don't do enough homework. I bring the rule books to the table, but I'm seeing here to continue with you. If you have, if you hear ruffling of her papers then that is me reading. Rubik That's a great. That's what I do.
I tried although I know that at least one of the games that you're going to talk about fits this mold, but I tried to avoid rolling, right games for this episode, I could have bought a load of all the rights because it let me nice Kim's we could have I mean we could have done that, I think. Yeah, I think you just let me write down to only wrote down, two of my listen. I was thinking about the most of my, most of my games were worker displacement by kind of thing.
Yep. You had eight days placement or days workers things that I need Ria. Something really feature or dies drafting? I have a couple days drafting games. So yeah. Well why don't you take us away? Tell me again, how bad he's? Yeah. Tell me how the dice roll. So, the three games I have selected is rolling Realms. So that is a role of right space base and dice hospital. And the money goes on about the
core game. So I'm going to start with rolling Realms. So it's a Jamie Sigma game is based on what original game was based on the stone Meyer, publications of which there's Face 11 cards in the Box. Representing each card, represents one of the stone, my games. So everything from viticulture, to Euphoria Scythe is covered between two castles wingspan Charter Stone tapestry. What I love about this game is that every card, every game has been distilled into one single
card. Picking up the elements. In a fantastic way that I just go. It's so like the game but so nothing like the game that Jamie's managed to basically pull out the essence of each of the ball games into into one of the cards. So there's 11 in 11 in the box since its release which was designed through the pandemic. There's been one, two, three, 9 promo cards. And this is where Jamie has done
other games. So we have architects of whisking, them example, Feast for Odin Arc Nova recently, Tara Mystic Mist mystica mr. Litton honey, buzz and rolling Realms. So its own riding Realms card with enrolling Realms. Each game is made up of nine rounds, three rounds, three cards, three cards, three cards. That's right. Rounds over covering nine cards, should I say, right? And you then roll a dice nine times and you basically write the two numbers down onto one or
two different cards. I'm not going to cover the rules in too much detail, but we love it. It's those games that particularly know the cards. We teach really easily to new Gamers. So we start with some easy ones and they were just dial it up. So, we've we played this last We can last Wednesday, our midweek gaming, gaming session to a couple of new Gamers and they picked up really well. It's very portable.
I've got mine down into those photo boxes so we can take it anywhere with us. So two of those and they're dry wipe cards. So they basically will last forever as with dry white pens. And if you're off to a roll and write a game to have the good times with then I always recommend rolling realms. And I'm sure Jamie has no doubts. Many more foil packs that will be purchased to add to the collection. Certainly is a nice little game that can keep growing.
Do you own drawing rooms? I do I played it with you and your friends did see. We played it. Yeah, 22 years ago. I'm not videos from. I think we met. We met face-to-face. Yep. On Instagram cool. And I think that's the, that's the beauty of this game, right? I mean, like you said, he developed it over the pandemic during lockdown to play with his friends remotely and they said you need to publish. Yeah and he did and it's I think you can see pick up print and play first.
Oh yeah. If you want to try it out. Yeah it's not a crazy expensive game. I'd say no, the replayability as huge as well as my first first game off my list. What have you got to cover? And what's going to go first one? So I've got three games as well. I'm going to talk about Sagrada, I'm going to talk about a role player and I'm going to go back. Go back, a ways to tabula. Never had it sounds awesome.
I'm gonna tell you all about it later but first, I'm going to start with Sagrada came out in 2017 by Adrian, Adam skew and Darrell Andrews published by Floodgate games. This game is great. It's dice drafting. I mean this is incredible. So you are fashioning a, stained-glass a panel of a stained glass window from the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and you're doing it with colored translucent dice. Beautiful, do you take the number of players plus 2? I believe plus 2?
Yeah, and that many dice and you roll them. And the colors matter because you've got, you've got like this grid that you can put your dice in, you slide a card under there. So there's a lot of replayability the colors matter but you can have the same colors, orthogonally adjacent. Yeah. The number of Pips showing matter, sometimes they matter and you can't have like two next to a two orthogonally. So so you can't put them to the side by side. So you've got to be very cautious.
This, when you're doing that, there are three public projects that help you, in case you don't have the colored ice or the number that you need for your little panel. So there is a little bit of a set collection because you are trying to collect sets of colors of diamonds and numbers as it were, you also have a private objective when you're playing. So you're trying to do that, you're trying to match whatever the whatever the project says on your panel.
And you've got a private objectives or you're trying to do that, and you've got public objectives which are giving you
more points. We've played this countless times, Katie, and I play it a lot at two player is we could it's a solid two player, it's better with more, I feel like it gives it just it you increase the number of dice that come out, it gets more, there's more options, but yeah, that's A guarana because it, because with you've got your same glass windows that they change as well. Didn't they see? Not only your actual layouts
different? Yeah, you'll collect in different numbers or different configurations of dice. Absolutely not. It's a lovely game where we play two player. I think we removed, we end up removing half the dice, which is not a rule in the book, but it just makes it tighter into. No, I definitely agree with that because we had just played this This morning in prep for the episode and I was like we take out half the days, right?
No, you know, the rules say, you put them in a there's a lot of dice and it's like I think I think one Katie at one point she was she needed a green dye. I think to Green Dykes came out the entire game. Yeah you know so gotta watch out for that but that is Sagrada. My Floodgate games pick it up at a store near you. Fantastic. It's the only game that through food lockdown that a few people played on Instagram on the lives and people joined in.
So again, it's a game that could be played remotely with each other because you can just just the other dice pool. Everyone just takes the title. They got a copy of the game. Yep, that's a key to choice. So, Okay. Number two for me. It's space base. I love this game now. It's a very simple game. He's chucking dice activating dice a bit like Machi Koro. If you don't match your queries, you played that we shall not. We had that game as your fan of this is got very similar
mechanics, but the other. So you got a player board where your you have a set of ships numbered 1 to 12 and on those ships, various Things like Gathering money, Gathering victory points or improving the amount of wealth that you can generate every Rams. So you roll two dice. You can either add those together or use them separately allocate, the dice to those ships and take the benefits.
And then as you upgrade those ships with new tips that you purchase through saving money, you took the existing cards upside reverse, it and tuck it in face down there. Up down words, that make sense and on that has another Power which you activate on everybody else's turn. So on your turn, you're activating the main card on every on it. Everybody else's tell when they're rolling a dice, you activate the cards. You've previously upgraded. So you're always doing something
down time isn't too bad. This game now people the expansion's place six maybe seven I've only played it with 425. It's plays reasonably fast. First of all day. See there's loads of cards to upgrade. Lots of different combos are you can trigger the card, next to the card your plane and there's been a think to box expansions, which are kind not legacy, their story driven. So there's like, let's say eight modules in the Box. You play through all eight stories, it unlocks more and more.
And then you put the whole thing into the game, or you can just pour the whole lot in straight away. So we always play with, at least a first version of the game. That's sort of the base game and the expansion. Action because it adds a really nice little mini dice the game and we're just playing through the second box at the moment, but it's really like light-hearted. Not too complicated. You can teach it really quickly. Lots of, in jokes, and Easter eggs with the different ships.
If you can try and think back to which realm of galaxies that came from. So that is space space. Highly recommend it as a simple dice, rolling resource Gathering game and Yeah, super fun to play. That sounds awesome. I still have not had a chance to experience that game and it looks good and I've got said he looks Grace, not I say it's nothing.
Nothing shattering in terms of mechanics but just I find incredibly satisfied because you're trying to build like this engine up by checking the dice or see you got the bell curve of distribution. You're trying to get the best possible opportunity to combo out the back of what you roll, or all what everybody else wrongs was you. You always got a chance to game resources on everybody else is go. So anyway that's number two from me. What's your number two?
Number two is role-player row player. Yeah so this is this is 2016. Keith Motika, this is a dice rolling Drafting and set collection game but I think what I really enjoy about this so much is It's a game about creating a character that one could possibly play in a D&D game. Be a for any that the oh yeah. Right. So it's like, there's no story. There's no, there's no, there's no paraphernalia.
There's no extra. It's just you're rolling three dice or however many dice based on the number of players you put each die on initiative card. And draw that initiative. And then you go to the market and you draw a skill, a trait, an armor or an item, a weapon of some sort and you're basically creating your character. And I know that they've expanded, right? They there's a is like role-player Adventures or something where you role play the character that you you built.
So this is another game that we played this morning and I created a dark elf enchanter who Is lawful good was a guardian who's back story was that they were emotionally damaged and like that's all there and then you get points because you roll the dice and then you put them just like in D&D, you've got your stats right, wisdom intelligence career at mom Constitution and you put the cards in there and you have a target number that you want those stats to be threw the dice
that you're putting in place. And then You're getting gold to purchase new items. It's just a really cool. Very simple concept. And well, that's the way they haven't seen it. Done anywhere else, right? Just grab anything, you make, you're making a game out of character creation, done. Then you'll be alignment piece of trying to get the dice in the right place for the alignment, gather, the right items. And then, I think it's a couple expansions that adds a few bits to it.
There are like, we've never played me. We have Monsters and minions do it. So, what what's really interesting is for those of you who played tabletop role-playing games in the past, one of the things that troubles me about the D&D world is the beginning, you're all in a bar and you've never met each other or you're going to tap Maron and there's this guy who just walks up to you with a quest. Well, why do I care why, you
know, by role player. So you go through all this dice rolling and drafting You're collecting your sets, you're creating your character because your backstory and everything like my dark elf enchanter. But if you add monsters and minions, it's like another Market of cards, right? Where where we the players as we're creating our characters. Woven into our back story, is we are facing off against this monster and we reveal things about it. In stages, right? That gives us bonuses.
So I can access knowledge before you, which will make it easier for me to defeat the monster at the end of the game. So, presumably when we all get to the Cabe, get to the table, for our RPG, all the characters have met each other because we've got, you get back stories and everything and will they fought this giant Hydra, who terrorized the city? And now you as a Storyteller or the game master and dungeon manling? That's that's where you start.
So it solidifies the group a little bit more. It's, I love this game. This is such a great concept. It's so tight. It's so clean. Yeah, yeah, it's super sweet that good, right? Which starts to grab out the draft? Exact trying to balance it. Yeah, it's a lovely game. Really nice cable. That is role player and is my number two. All right. So similarly, my number three is Dice Hospital, which is also a
dice drafting game. So this game, I thought your it was a good question, it was 2018 Kickstarter, I think originally, if you've got the kickstarter version, you've got lots of plastic ambulances and items but the core game, I think is cardboard, basically, you're running a hospital, not surprisingly named as dice Hospital. You've got to I see the first page drafting the ambulances and bringing those patients into your school.
So, if you take more complex, patient, full of the dice represents how ill injured they are. So, like a one is close to death sinks is basically healed. So if you take an ambulance for the of more injured people it's obviously harder to do. But you'll get to go first and draft. Some of the rooms you upgrade or some of the Specialists can help you or you take an easier, one, you'll see you can last your further round and around. That's the first is in your decision.
You have to make once you've got your ambulance and your your patients, you then can look at improvements or which could be different ways. That activate the different kind of dices three-color Dyson again.
Or you can take a specialist who might focus on green nice or red do. So, you know, dice then Kind of everyone for themselves as you start with like three standard nurses and then your specialist, and you allocate them to rooms and that makes that you manipulate advice from like a 5 to a 6 or higher heel, all the ones to to or the specialist might be if you hear a green, another green can heal.
So you're trying to optimize the allocation of your of your of your doctors and nurses around the hospital. Beetle and any sixes that turn to a 7, go into the get they get discharged. So and then, of course, the more you heal and discharge them the more points you get in that round and you play the game over, I'm going to say about eight rounds. It's super tight. The dice, your after trying to keep everyone from not dying, otherwise they do go to the morgue that's negative points.
Yeah, we really, really enjoy it and then There is a Kickstarter expansions of like a maternity, which we've got with pink dice this improvements. And there's even like a part where you actually laying out the city towels for the ambulance as a primary tokens to collect patients. But I've not tried those. If you're off to dice drafting game that is kind of that Theme Hospital game of the past but you're trying to get the right rooms to hire the right people.
I would also highly recommend dice hot Spittle. There's some of the artwork. There's an expansion for like, an emergency room, right? Some yeah, yeah, it's like yeah, it's got extra rooms say that. There's a big one about paternity and Maternity Ward. Okay? We always end up playing the base game. It's just really straight forward.
Again, quick, the table easy to teach because everyone kind of knows how schools are run in. General is quite a nice Gateway game as well for our gaming group. Have you played all know? I have it? It's been on my list for a while because I mean you got the little lamp, the little plastic ambulance at you put the ice in I'm like Malik school. We need to ask that Deluxe.
Yeah upgrade yeah otherwise it is then comes you ditched us if the card which you put three dice Auntie okay at those needs painting, that's a reminder. I know those are merely because my hair grey do. I think you're doing starts the best in, in an expansion recently. There's a helicopter so you can helicopter people and what Is Maxie helicopter. So yeah, one single players, it's like 2.04. So not very complicated stop.
Here's a question. Are you competing hospitals or are you a special role within this hostile? Yeah you've got your hospital and so we've got the same. I'm going to say about eight or nine rooms to start with and then you can buy additional rooms that they're hexagonal
tiles. You basically put around the edge so it's that bit of going first and having the worst Patience. But getting the first dibs on the, on the rooms or taking the easier route, but ending up with maybe not so optimal, it's lovely. That's a bit is that is the key and then the stress of everyone be clear, because if they do not get seen by anybody in the rounds, they deteriorate to. They're not looks after then they get worse. Which again, is really nice
theme at the end. There's a die that has like five Pips growing and you didn't, you didn't tend to them, they'll go forward. Yeah and one's got 20. Another stair climbing. And so it's like a tiny man. You trying to do as much as possible? Yeah. I just keep people generally getting better, knowing that. Yeah, hopefully no one dies on my shift. Oh boy. All right, there is Dice hospital. So number three from you. Number three is the Dark Horse of the day's game episode and that is tabula.
I have No idea of now, Googling what tabular is tell me. This is okay. And you can find it on Board Game Geek. It was published in 1990. Wow, my went back far, it was designed by Sarah Finch and Leslie Scott, this is a two player game so and I the reason I got it actually, you know, it's very interesting, a friend of mine picked it up for me while he was in London on. Occasion and he brought it back to me. It's based on this ancient Roman game.
That's the precursor to what is today backgammon? Okay. So it's at its simplest. It is a role in move that it's very simple. You have. I can't remember it's 16 or 18 but each player has a number of these beautiful stones and you're trying to get them onto the Board and then all the way around the board once so there's four sides 60, there's 24 spaces total you roll two dice and you can move your Stones now.
You can't move your Stones off the board until you've gotten all of your Stones onto the board and you have opportunities to bump your opponent's, Stones. Back to the center. Which means so if they're scoring and you're getting behind, you have a chance to knock them out if they leave their. So, if it's a single Stone on a space, you can then occupy that space after your dice roll land on that space and bump them. But if they have two or more than that, space is protected really simple.
But deep strategy, it's rumored that the emperor Claudius. The third emperor of Rome. Third know, the fourth emperor of Rome. Um, he had a, a version of this game mounted onto his Chariot, or his litter. Not go through Rome. Yeah. So this is a really old game, very cool. It's a lot of fun. Kate, and I played this yesterday. Again in anticipation is like man, it was tense for a while but then she totally blew me away because that's typically what happens.
But that is tabula. You guys know. You say it's like back in the be a guy in the same way, around the board that you are going. I'm just looking this been wearing, I like the artwork. The cut is the Roman may sink structure? Yeah, it's not plastic. These glass beads is components. Yeah, there's there's not a lot to it. It's on its unassuming. Again, it's just a modern take on an ancient classic. I like it more than backgammon. Maybe I'll bet you a million
years. It's in print or Oh, yeah, still in print. You can still get it to be honest. I think so. Like just go to London. Go to the British museum, they have a good shot of? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. I see it, as one of these on. Is she crazy Jenga? Yes, there you go. There's a claim to fame. Oh, so again that's tabula tabular. I think it's I think it's called tabula the Roman game I believe. Yeah that's what the book says. It on the bottom again. Yeah. So I thought.
Yeah, that looks like a nice to play a game. So there we are. There's a dice game is covered. So we've covered rolling Realms, we have covered Sagrada. We've covered space, space, role-player dice, icicle door, and tabular, and because because today is Mardi Gras. And because Louisiana is all about another French term called Lagniappe. Yeah. Explained explained explained soul and your abs a little something extra is how it translates.
Okay, little something extra. So if you go somewheres, they might they might give you some free thing, right? Okay. And so this is a little something extra in honor, my negro and I want to talk about real quick and that's Big. Easy, busking in honor of New Orleans, the city that I love this game has no dice. But again remember this is And yet was published in 2020 by Joshua Mills and weird Giraffe games. I absolutely love this game. It is so theme attic.
It's really reminiscent of being in New Orleans. It's really reminiscent being in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, but it's set at any time. So you're a, you're a trio of buskers Street Music performers in the French Quarter, and you've got this one card in front of you. And you have the These cubes that represent the energy that
each of those musicians have. Yeah and then you will play cards which are songs and you play them and you have locations in the French Quarter in front of you that give you money money. Equals victory points with the end of the game. It gives you an opportunity. You can tip your your your musicians and case they're running low on energy because you have a reserve of energy cubes and I can add it but it's got the classic purple green and gold to try colors of Mardi Gras.
But say the Outlook is is amazing. That's so bright. I've never heard this game. Yeah just looking at the current image is now I'm like this game needs to be played. Now it's great. It's okay at to it's better at a higher player count just because you want more. Competition. Yes yeah. Can basically a two players like well I'm going to play this card here. What's cool is each location has an icon and the subsequent song cards. Have the same icon.
So you have like a little a little in the corners, like a Mardi, Gras beads, or there's a heart or there's the fleur-de-lis, and there's a mask like a Mardi Gras mask. So the location has that icon. If the song you play, has a match. During icon, you'll get an extra bonus, right? So it's just it's really cool because it's like yeah my my trumpetear did a awesome job playing this song and it's so fun and it's got the balconies,
the artwork on the cards. It's just, it's amazing and it's like being in New Orleans at Mardi Gras. So that's a little Lagniappe for y'all and happy Mardi. Gras to everybody. Yeah, I think Melody, Gras, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I quite like that little sticky bonus at the end. So I have to become a regular feature. Maybe maybe we can do that. Look at Ya PJs. Super bonus. We just pull out a little Lagniappe extra life. Yeah. Well thank you for sharing that.
And with that I thank you everyone for listening, please don't forget to subscribe like and follow us. See don't miss the miss a future episodes and we'll speak to you soon. Yeah, thanks again, this is great. Thanks everyone for listening. Please subscribe. As always, we love to hear your thoughts and ideas. So make sure to leave those in the comments and don't forget, you can also chat with us both on Instagram at meeple to meet people.