0:11

And that's the end of this week's episode of the

0:13

Shut Up and Sit Down podcast. We talked about Ito,

0:15

a game about getting on the same wavelength. It's kind

0:17

of like the mind, it's kind of like wavelength. It's

0:19

about ranking things on a scale of zero to 100.

0:22

We talked about Starfarers, Catan, Catan

0:24

the Starfarers duel, a game about

0:26

going into space doing a bit

0:28

of Catan, but not really. And

0:31

we talked about Faraway, a game

0:34

about doing things in reverse order.

0:37

Emily, have you got any final

0:39

words? I cannot believe

0:42

how perfectly timed that all was.

0:44

Like that sounded so grand because

0:46

for some reason in the background,

0:48

outside there's fireworks going

0:50

off. And so you're like,

0:52

listing off these games and it's just boom,

0:54

boom. It's like, whoa. I

0:57

think that just sums up how good the

1:00

podcast was. How good that podcast was. How

1:02

good it will continue to be week on

1:04

week on week on week. Exactly. Because this

1:06

one's done. This one's done. This one's finished. Yeah,

1:08

it's over. We've done it all.

1:10

Yeah, we have. There's no more podcasts left. What

1:13

else is there to say, but goodbye, farewell,

1:17

and see you all next week for another episode

1:19

of the Shut Up and Sit Down podcast featuring

1:22

Tom and Emily. Goodbye. The

1:27

final game we're going to talk

1:29

about on this podcast is a

1:31

little cooperative party game called Ito,

1:33

designed by Mitsuru Nakamura and published

1:35

by Arc Light Games. I

1:37

think this is really nifty. I played this

1:39

a while ago with some friends

1:41

and we didn't quite get into it. I

1:44

have now played it again at the pub a few times

1:46

and I think it's quite delightful. This

1:49

is a mix between the mind

1:51

and wavelength. So

1:54

the game itself is literally just a deck

1:57

of 100 cards labeled 0-3. through

2:00

100 and a little sheet of paper that

2:02

I guess I'll just call a prompt

2:04

sheet. The way the

2:06

game works is you get dealt a hand

2:08

of one or two cards that

2:11

will be labeled zero through 100. I might

2:13

have 52. And then what

2:15

you will do is you will roll a

2:17

dice and determine a category for the round.

2:19

So for example, popular

2:21

locations for a date with

2:24

one being the most not

2:26

popular and 100 being the

2:28

most popular. And then all the players

2:31

have to do is put their cards face down

2:33

on that spectrum from zero to 100

2:35

without saying the numbers on the card

2:37

and instead just giving clues as to

2:39

what their card is or roughly what

2:41

its number might be. So for popular

2:43

to unpopular if I had 52 I

2:45

might say like, I don't know, maybe

2:48

I'd say a

2:50

big walk for example. Right? I

2:52

love a big walk. Yeah,

2:55

I love it. And there's the rub already.

2:57

That's quite a popular one, isn't it? And

2:59

it's also based on personal taste as well.

3:01

Like all of your own like, you know,

3:04

sort of real life

3:06

experience of these things comes into it as

3:08

you start arranging these things. Because here's a

3:10

little magic rule that I think makes Ito

3:12

quite special is that you'd think that

3:14

you just have to come up with one clue and then

3:16

you put your thing down and that's kind of it and

3:18

then you rearrange as you go. But you may explicitly

3:21

say this in the rules, you can

3:23

change your clue as many times as

3:25

you want throughout the

3:27

course of the process. You can like

3:29

switch it based on what other people

3:32

have said, which makes the game into

3:34

a pretty hilarious like vibes

3:36

based shifting. I don't even

3:38

know how to properly describe it, but you'll

3:40

have someone be like, you know, someone puts

3:43

their card down confidently, you know, you know,

3:45

the sort of high end of the spectrum

3:47

and they say, you know,

3:49

a restaurant or something like that. And

3:51

then you realize that like, oh,

3:53

well, maybe my like 52 if like 100

3:56

is a restaurant, the most popular, probably

3:58

the most popular location for a date. then

4:00

52 should be somewhere that's

4:02

like actually pretty unusual rather than even

4:04

approaching standard and then someone puts like

4:06

You know, I don't know the a

4:09

dustbin at the other end and you're like, oh

4:11

now I need to work out like this is

4:13

not working this needs to go somewhere else and

4:15

you have this constantly shifting thing where people are

4:17

trying to Nudge

4:19

their guesses or nudge their clues just a little

4:21

bit up and a little bit down based on

4:24

the sort of temperature of the Table at any

4:26

given time. I don't know if I've done a

4:28

great job of explaining that It's quite weird It's

4:31

kind of like There's like

4:34

less information but also kind of more

4:36

communal of the like in

4:38

wavelengths when you're having the discussion And you're

4:40

kind of like making those, you

4:42

know extremes up for yourself, you know, you'll be

4:44

like, oh, yeah I'd like oh well if it

4:46

were if it were all the way on this

4:49

end It would be yeah a

4:51

restaurant or whatever if it were all the way on this end. It would

4:53

be It

5:00

makes the like the whole thing into

5:02

that discussion period in wavelength is normally

5:04

interesting because you have One

5:07

person who has the information and they're

5:09

sort of sitting out of that whilst

5:11

everyone else kind of like debates around

5:13

them This is just a simple change

5:15

of having everyone involved in all the

5:17

conversations Like you are constantly chatting and

5:19

you're constantly getting into that like all

5:21

it is as a game is a

5:23

discussion Generator like all it is is people

5:25

immediately like one of the ones that we had was

5:27

like sort of like

5:30

celebrity or character crushes

5:32

and that was just like a Slightly unhinged

5:35

thing where people were like putting very

5:37

odd things in there and then everyone

5:39

having sort of like, you know These

5:41

very raw, cursed and silly discussions about

5:43

you know, that they're tastes in cartoon

5:45

characters or something like that What

5:48

is the endgame there? Like is one person

5:50

putting them in order of like ascending order

5:52

like what's the deal? So you put them

5:55

all out like cooperatively and then when

5:57

you've decided that you are like so

5:59

as a group Once you've decided

6:01

on your order of the cards, you

6:03

then flip them all face up and if you got

6:05

them all right Then you move on

6:07

to a second round where you deal out two cards

6:09

and a third round where you deal out three and

6:11

you just See how many you can do but you

6:13

know It's not exactly a game where you're saying like

6:15

how come you who can we you can get the

6:17

highest score? We got to get all

6:19

the points. Yeah It's just a game that you play

6:21

for as long as you want to play it essentially

6:23

But like and it's I think that nudging and that

6:26

changing of like, you know Vibes

6:28

of what your card is in relation to someone

6:30

else's is just that like that's my favorite part

6:32

of it where someone goes You know just as

6:34

something as simple as there's one which is like

6:36

I don't know Food you would

6:38

like to be treated to or something like

6:40

that And then someone says like a giant

6:42

bucket of delicious chicken And then you look

6:44

at your card and you're you know You

6:47

assume that your card is incredibly close to

6:49

theirs But maybe it's a little bit higher

6:51

so you go an even bigger bucket of

6:53

delicious chicken And then you end

6:55

up having this like sort of you know

6:57

One-upmanship where you're sort of gently nudging your cards

6:59

up and up and up making this, you know

7:02

theoretical buckets of delicious chicken larger and larger in

7:04

your mind and then someone's like Then

7:06

someone plays a big bowl of ice cream in there and you're

7:08

like, oh, but how where does that rank? Is

7:10

that between the two buckets of chicken or is that better

7:12

or worse and so on so forth? Sounds

7:14

fun. It sounds really fun. Yeah, I feel

7:16

I would really enjoy this It seems like

7:18

a good way of like getting to know

7:21

people. I like that sort of stuff Yeah,

7:23

there's actually like little more to say about

7:25

it other than like if this concept sounds

7:27

enjoyable to you Then you will probably enjoy

7:29

this game like it is an incredibly

7:31

like straightforward Proposition

7:34

and I maybe this is completely unethical as

7:36

an ethical board game tip But if you

7:38

have a copy of the mind you do

7:40

have a copy of this game You

7:43

just need to come up with your own

7:45

prompts basically Like

7:48

there is no real, you know production to this

7:50

other than just a nice. It's a very nice

7:52

production It's a lovely little deck of cards And

7:55

the game comes with some little tokens so you can remember whose

7:57

card is whose but you know It's

8:00

sort of approaching like folk game territory

8:03

over being something that is like a

8:05

packaged and sellable box if that makes

8:07

sense. Yeah. Yeah, super

8:09

simple, super good. Sounds cute. I think that's literally

8:11

all I've got to say about Ito. It's just

8:13

good. I like it. I like the sound. Tom.

8:18

Hi. You've been into space themed games lately.

8:20

I've heard. You've been playing a lot of

8:22

art. Yeah. Some random game that I definitely

8:24

don't really want and I'm very jealous of

8:26

you playing. We should play it on tabletop

8:28

simulator, but we shouldn't talk about it on

8:30

the podcast, Emily, because I literally have mentioned

8:33

it in every single piece of Shout-O-B-Sit-Down content

8:35

for the past like months. It's

8:37

not healthy. You've also been playing Dune Imperium a

8:39

lot, which I know nothing about and I hear

8:41

it's okay, I guess. Yeah, and I've heard that

8:43

it's based on books that you do not like.

8:46

I've never read them. But I've also never read.

8:49

There's only one, isn't there? I don't know.

8:51

I wouldn't waste my time on such things.

8:53

So listen, let me tell you about

8:55

a little game called Katan Starfarer's

8:57

Duel, which is also in

9:00

space, Tom. It's Katan in space, which is

9:02

actually pretty funny. Wow. Because when I think

9:04

about Katan, I like exclusively think about it

9:06

in space because the version

9:08

I played over and over and over

9:10

again during my life is

9:13

the Star Trek Katan. So

9:17

like I only think of it with

9:19

little spaceships and stuff. And when people

9:22

talk about it and they're like, oh,

9:24

I'll trade my wood for sheep. I'm

9:26

like, oh, okay. Yeah, you do that,

9:28

man. I'll trade my space sheep for

9:31

space uranium for for, yeah, space sheep.

9:34

I can think that what are the resources in

9:36

Star Trek Katan? Oh, I can't remember exactly. There's

9:39

a green one. There's a red one. There's

9:41

a white one, which I think is oxygen.

9:43

There's a there's a borg. There's

9:46

a borg. A borg resource. Yeah,

9:48

there's borg. There's balls of borg.

9:51

There's a Cylon. A Cylon. Yeah,

9:54

go on. I've never watched

9:57

Star Trek. So you could be right. Okay, good.

9:59

Because I have a... either and I'm almost

10:01

certain that a Cylon is wrong and I thought you

10:03

would call me out on that but then it became

10:05

apparent that you didn't know anything about Star Trek either.

10:07

There's a legendary card's hair that you

10:09

can get and that just instant wins. Instant

10:12

wins. I

10:14

see. Cool. But this is

10:16

not Space Catan or Star Trek Catan because

10:18

there is Catan, I initially thought this was

10:20

Catan Starfarer's regular Starship

10:23

Catan, something like that. But this

10:25

is Catan Starfarer's duel, a two

10:28

player version of Catan Starfarer's. My

10:30

goodness the Catan expanded universe is extending

10:33

beyond the borders we thought were possible.

10:35

This is a game designed by Klaus

10:37

Tuber, Benjamin Tuber, with art from Franz

10:40

Volllingo. This guy's been around. Franz

10:42

Volllingo's done Puerto Rico, he did

10:44

Beyond the Sun, he did some

10:47

Dominion stuff and the quest for

10:49

Eldorado and Ra. For listening. It's

10:51

so prolific.

10:53

And now he's led his talents to

10:55

Catan Starfarer's duel. Oh my gosh. And

10:57

you know, have you played Catan some?

11:00

I've played it once or twice in

11:02

my time with my family when I

11:04

was younger. Now how about if that

11:06

game were two players and more

11:09

complicated, would you like

11:11

that? I would love that. I

11:14

mean I'm looking at pictures of it

11:16

now and it doesn't look like Catan

11:19

at all. It's like, it's pretty much

11:21

all that is connected is like the

11:24

resource management, like buying and

11:26

selling. Do you even buy and

11:28

sell? I don't know if you do. There's like trading. Yeah,

11:31

there's not a whole lot that connects this

11:33

to Catan, but like it has the vibe.

11:35

There is the vibe there. It's so

11:37

funny like how many layers removed it

11:40

is from Catan and yet it still

11:42

has the Catan name. It's like, it's

11:44

not about like a hex

11:46

board with like shared like stuff on

11:48

it. It's not about like trading sheep

11:50

and bricks. It's not about like, I

11:53

don't know. It hasn't got presumably building like

11:55

long roads and raising armies and things like

11:57

that. And it's got a heavy dose of

11:59

memorization. Oh god, so

12:01

it's like nothing like Catan, and it's also

12:03

set in space, but it still has the

12:06

Catan tagline. That's the Catan I know, don't

12:08

you dare. There's a slant of Star Trek

12:10

Catan. Yeah, so

12:12

what Tom's going on about is

12:15

essentially, you have this big starship

12:17

in front of you, each of you do. You

12:19

and your opponent. And then

12:21

there's a mat in between you, which will

12:23

have four decks. And they

12:26

are like areas of space

12:28

to explore. So

12:30

on your turn, you'll roll this

12:33

d6, which is meant to be a d3. This

12:36

is very annoying. When I first, should I get

12:38

into this now, or should I get into this at the end?

12:41

This seems like a pet peeve, so I think you

12:43

should delve into it right away. It's

12:45

not a pet peeve. They

12:47

put the wrong component in there. So

12:50

it's a d6 with 136 pits. And

12:54

they don't put anything anywhere saying that

12:57

this die is meant to be a d3. It's

13:00

meant to be a d6, but with 123, 123. And

13:04

so we played it multiple

13:06

times, thinking it's so interesting

13:08

that these resources require only

13:11

one, two, and three. One of the ones that

13:13

when we roll a d number, that we're going

13:15

to get it. And

13:19

then we're also traveling so much we don't get into.

13:22

Yeah, they just put a post online, and I

13:24

think it's on their website if you go to

13:26

buy it. But nowhere else can you find

13:28

that. And I found that very frustrating.

13:30

Such a bold, interesting decision for three sides

13:32

of the dice to just give you absolutely nothing

13:35

when it comes to resources. But I was like,

13:37

oh, but you get to travel further. So I

13:39

guess that's the benefit. Like I tried to rationalize

13:41

it in my head. So

13:44

yeah, with this orange die, it's

13:47

essentially you roll it. Just

13:49

like Katan, if it's got a number of

13:52

like a planet that you've colonized, then you'll

13:54

get the resource on that planet. But also,

13:57

you'll add that number that's on the orange

13:59

die. to the

14:01

amount of boosters your ship has. So you'll start

14:03

with two boosters, but as you go on, you

14:05

may add to that. So you add that to the

14:08

number that you get, and then you can choose

14:10

one of the decks in the middle of the

14:12

table, and then you can go through that

14:14

many cards in that deck of your

14:16

boosters plus the dice. So

14:19

that's your little traveling. So this is

14:21

where the memorization comes in, because the

14:23

decks essentially stay the same throughout

14:27

the game, apart from some cards

14:29

being added and some cards moving.

14:31

So as you're traveling through each

14:33

deck, you'll learn what planets

14:35

are in there and

14:38

what you're looking for in the future, you'll be like, okay, I'll

14:41

move that deck in that deck. So

14:43

essentially there are like- Do you put them, and

14:45

you put them back in order, or do you

14:47

shuffle? They get shuffled, but there's so few. I

14:50

think it's seven in the full game, because

14:52

there's modules that you can go through. But

14:54

yeah, in the full game, I think it's

14:57

seven. So it's like not that many. So

14:59

there's a little bit of like a push

15:01

your luck there, like hoping that you'll get

15:03

exactly the one that you wanted. But you

15:05

know it's in there, which is something. But

15:07

yeah, so there'll be like trade planets, which

15:09

are ones that you can

15:11

give money and you'll get a resource

15:14

or whatever else. There are target planets,

15:16

which are like, you can

15:18

do missions if you get those planets, which is

15:20

essentially just trading and resources, you'll get a victory

15:23

point. The aim of the game is

15:25

to get 10 victory points, just like Katarn. There we go.

15:28

Yeah, exactly. It has the essence. It

15:30

has the essence tone. You

15:32

can smell it. You can smell it off the game. But

15:36

then there are also like colony planets,

15:38

which you can build

15:41

these little, these colonizing ships.

15:44

Yeah, if it's a colonizing planet, you can

15:46

use your little colonizing ship, you trade that

15:48

in, you get that planet. And then in

15:50

the future, if that number that's on that

15:52

card comes up, you'll get that resource. You

15:54

see, that's quite nice. Yeah. It's

15:56

like Katarn. But how

15:59

this exploring works. It's like

16:01

a little bit of player interaction. I guess

16:03

it's it's um kind of weak kind of

16:08

I find but So

16:11

essentially the traveling Your

16:14

opponent is like revealing the cards one

16:16

by one and it like encourages you to

16:19

To like look at the card beforehand. So

16:22

I guess it's kind of like you're meant

16:24

to be bluffing I don't I don't understand

16:26

that I don't think that And you're gonna

16:28

be like like you don't want to go

16:31

to this planet. It's stinky. Yeah, because

16:33

the point is yeah You start off

16:35

with like two actions you can take So

16:38

you'll get like a planet at the time if you roll

16:40

to three you've got your two boosters You'll go through five

16:42

planets so you'll get that first planet and you know, you've

16:44

only got two actions So you'll be like, oh, I don't

16:47

know I don't know if I want to use this one

16:49

or if I want to hope that the next one's better

16:51

That's like the gotcha. Yeah, so that's like the

16:54

push your luck element. So you're like, uh, I

16:57

Know that in this deck there

16:59

is this card that I want But will it come up

17:02

or should I just or should I just use this

17:04

trash card? That's it. It's pretty fun That's

17:07

pretty fun. I think the bluffing things a little weak, but

17:09

it's a pretty pretty fun little idea there

17:12

are also other things you can do like you can Build

17:15

modules you'll start off with two but you

17:17

can build modules to like improve your starship.

17:20

So So

17:22

you can give you more actions to

17:24

take like you can take three actions and

17:26

explore three planets or whatever or you can

17:29

build You can

17:31

build more boosters and that will let you travel further

17:33

or you can build cannons Which are dumb and I

17:35

hate the cannons and I'll get to that in a

17:38

second avoid but

17:41

with the modules you can also Get

17:43

golden modules, which there's only

17:45

one of each one And so

17:47

the two players have to like compete for those

17:50

and you'll get a point for those and then

17:52

you'll also get like an improved Thing so you

17:54

may do four actions, you know, like it'll be

17:56

even better than when you improve the last one

17:59

But okay, so I'll just I'll quickly

18:01

get to the pirates. I

18:03

hate okay. I hate the pirates

18:05

Tom I do not like the pirates.

18:08

I presume the pirates are Katan Colan

18:10

Starfarers duels version of like the robber potentially

18:13

right you gotta have a little bit of

18:15

that nalsiness somewhere in there Although what was

18:17

it called in Star Trek Katan? I think

18:19

that was the Klingon the Klingon I

18:23

think so. The pirates didn't come

18:25

in until the final scenario and Okay,

18:28

okay. There are a couple things I don't like about

18:30

it So the cannons are

18:32

pretty much useless until you have pirates

18:34

in the game And they

18:36

don't come in until the final scenario The

18:39

asymmetry of the game is that

18:42

you have a faction each one of you is

18:44

a moon faction and one of

18:46

you the Sun faction and the

18:48

Sun faction their whole deal is That

18:51

they can like improve boosters quicker

18:53

and which is like so beneficial

18:55

in every way Because you

18:57

can like it's the all the traveling

18:59

and you can like it just it's

19:02

obviously good baseline Whereas

19:04

the the moon faction their whole deal

19:06

is improving cannons, which is only good

19:08

Against pirates which don't come in

19:11

unless you're playing the full game And so like

19:13

if you're playing any scenario before the

19:15

final scenario It's like

19:17

one team like one person just has such

19:20

an advantage over the other. I think that's

19:22

weird I think that's so strange

19:25

But the pirates also just suck that

19:27

just because it feels so punishing But

19:31

for like no reason if you beat them

19:33

you'll like get a resource and you'll also

19:35

get like a little I

19:37

don't remember what the icon was exactly, but it's like

19:39

a little like a little yay. You did it a

19:41

little doohickey Yeah, which will go

19:43

towards like the longest road

19:46

type achievements, right? So it's

19:48

like you get a bunch of those you'll get you'll

19:50

get the victory point little thing But like if you

19:52

lose then it's just like okay your

19:54

turns done You don't get a travel anymore and

19:56

like and you might lose a booster or you

19:59

might lose a cannon Like the losing is

20:01

just so you just lose so much and the

20:03

only thing that it is is a dice

20:05

roll for both of you So you roll the

20:07

dice for you? Pirates

20:09

and then you just hope like

20:12

the cannon wow But

20:14

like you really just hope and and it

20:16

just feels so punishing and I didn't like

20:18

them at all Potentially

20:21

also like a bit of a like downward

20:23

spiral where if you lose one roll against

20:25

the pirates and they blow up some of

20:27

your stuff You're then that likely to be

20:30

able to regain them too. That is so

20:32

true But

20:35

look I understand why they're there I just feel

20:37

like In a lot

20:39

of things with this game. It just feels like there's

20:42

a lot of like good ideas That

20:44

weren't refined and maybe maybe

20:46

that's not helped by the the rule

20:48

book is pretty Hard

20:51

to pass and also the dice issue

20:53

Well that the dice thing definitely reinforces

20:55

that idea of like something just being

20:58

like overlooked You know as you

21:00

go through and I think that like the

21:02

idea of that like sort of slow Modular

21:04

like introduction of new ideas into like a

21:06

simple game I like that in

21:09

theory, but I don't know if I like

21:11

it in like a competitive game You

21:13

know from the get-go like it works in the

21:16

crew where you add in that sort of like

21:18

slow Complexity drip where things get you know ratched

21:20

up because that's something you're experiencing kind of

21:22

together But when you start putting that

21:24

into a game that is directly competitive

21:26

and also has like a sort of a sort

21:29

of canon Final state it's like well I kind

21:32

of want to just skip straight to that side

21:34

of things Especially exacerbated if

21:36

one player just doesn't get engaged in

21:38

the same. Yeah But

21:40

I think I think I can see why they did it

21:43

just for the sake of like Like

21:46

Star Trek a ton. I played that

21:48

a lot with my family, right? Like

21:50

my parents included who will never play

21:52

games. They Really

21:54

enjoy katana the full game of

21:56

this is is like a level

21:58

up from katana There's more

22:00

complexity there. So it's like

22:02

okay, you kind of want to have those

22:05

scenarios just to if you liked katana They're

22:07

like we'll ease you into it. I understand

22:09

that but yeah, I I think it's done

22:11

a little clumsily I would

22:14

quite like to play this with Like

22:16

with them. I feel like I feel like they could get

22:19

into it just for the sake of the name even just

22:21

to be like Oh, yeah, that's yeah. Yeah, I will play

22:23

this And it and there's

22:25

like enough there to where it is fun

22:27

to play Yeah, I would say I would

22:29

say it's a little bit of a faraway

22:31

but less but the faraway problem was that

22:33

it was Too polished. This is a little

22:35

wonky on a little one. No, I like

22:37

that. That's good. That's good Emily

22:44

let me tell you about a little game

22:46

that I've been playing that's called far away

22:49

Far away. I am far away. We worked out that

22:51

I'm very far away. Well, we didn't work out. I

22:53

worked out Australia was

22:55

and went Wow Today

22:58

general geography My

23:00

geography is lacking as is my memory This

23:03

is a small box card game designed

23:05

by Johannes goopy and quarantine labrat with

23:08

art from Maxine maurin and our copies

23:10

published by Catch-up games, but you can

23:12

get it from like literally every publisher

23:14

on the planet If you look at board game

23:16

geek like it's published by like ten different people

23:19

Is crazy. This is a drafting

23:21

and tableau building game where you

23:23

are going on a journey together

23:27

separately, it's Unclear the

23:29

way this game works is you're playing cards

23:31

in front of you from this sort of

23:34

limited hand of three And each card has

23:36

like a bunch of symbols on it as

23:38

well as a scoring criteria That's most often

23:40

looking for those symbols So you might have

23:42

a little card in your hand a little

23:44

square card that says plus 10 points at

23:46

the end of the game If you've got

23:49

two rocks and a leaf in your tableau

23:51

for instance And then

23:53

that card might have like two balls

23:55

of yarn on it or something like

23:57

that, right? So all these different symbols

24:00

combo with different scoring cards that you're playing

24:02

out in front of you each turn

24:04

you're just playing one card and then you're

24:06

taking a Card from the middle of the

24:08

table from the little market to refill your

24:10

hand and then when you've played eight cards

24:13

You'll score the tableau that you've built over

24:15

those eight rounds So super simple literally just

24:17

take a card play a card the cards

24:19

of scoring criteria on them try and combo

24:21

them Well, right. Yeah, no There's

24:25

a twist. Oh, there's a there's a

24:27

twist. There's a big his comes the

24:29

twist That I'm gonna explain

24:31

badly. I'm excited in far away You're building

24:33

your tableau from left to right that you're

24:35

going on a journey and you're seeing these

24:37

things on your journey Like you're seeing this

24:39

little guy you're seeing this little guy you're

24:42

going from left to right on your journey

24:44

But at the end of the game you

24:46

flip all of your cards face down and

24:48

then you score your tableau from right to

24:50

left Flipping the cards face

24:52

up as you go So those

24:54

scoring criterias that are like five points

24:57

for every leaf or whatever you have

24:59

only actually count the cards that are

25:01

currently Face up so you're

25:03

scoring your cards in the reverse order

25:05

that you played them you're like journey

25:07

back through your cards chronologically and The

25:11

scoring criteria like you only

25:13

score things if their relevant

25:15

criteria was played after them

25:17

chronologically Which is weird?

25:21

Yeah, it's the kind of thing that actually doesn't seem

25:23

too crazy when you explain it It's like oh, so

25:25

you just score it in reverse order, but when you're

25:27

playing the game like texturally you're

25:29

so used to things being like

25:32

Compounding in board games you're so used to

25:35

things being like oh you play this and

25:37

then you like suck this on top of

25:39

it Basically and having this sort of weird

25:41

reverse scoring Definitely messes with your

25:44

brain and the first time I played it

25:46

I just was completely lost and just completely

25:48

messed up my tableau I

25:50

had a nightmare time where it didn't make

25:52

any sense my journey was useless There's

25:56

a couple of other little systems around the

25:58

edges here that kind of smooth things out so

26:00

like the cards have numbers on the top of

26:02

them and playing a low card means that you're

26:04

gonna be the first person to pick a card

26:06

from the market. In a two-player game there's only

26:09

three cards in the market so you can be

26:11

quite mean with what you're choosing or

26:13

there might be just an obviously better card out there that you

26:15

want to get access to first so you play a nice low

26:17

card from your hand but you

26:20

want your actual cards in your tableau to go

26:22

in ascending order you want their numbers to get

26:24

higher and higher because if you do that every

26:26

time you play a card that's higher than the

26:28

previous one you get these little extra cards

26:30

that contribute bonus symbols to your tableau and

26:33

like bonus scoring criteria and stuff like that

26:36

and that's all of the rules like I

26:38

think that you could quite comfortably if you've

26:40

just listened to this podcast you could buy

26:42

a copy of Faraway right now and you

26:44

would know how the game works because there's

26:46

a good little sheet that explains the iconography

26:48

and the rules are really simple

26:51

it's just a deck of cards that's the whole game and

26:55

I think it's all right

26:57

oh after all that the big

27:00

twist and it's all I know the big

27:03

I was I was hooked you were

27:05

hooked and I've betrayed you by doing

27:07

the classic Shut Up and Sit Down

27:09

podcast twist which is that most games

27:11

that we play are like good they're

27:13

fine oh just you wait until we

27:15

get to Catan. That'll be exciting. Don't

27:18

worry we've got like I think Ito

27:20

at the end will be an exciting

27:22

cherry on top of our sort of

27:24

melange of like average games. No

27:26

I've heard a lot of people being

27:29

really positive about Faraway on podcasts and

27:31

people sort of singing its praises and saying they really

27:33

like it and I do think

27:35

that is very smart and it is

27:38

very clean and it's very polished like

27:40

I finished the game and I said

27:42

to my friend I was like wow

27:45

that sure felt like we made 16 interesting

27:47

decisions like it is just

27:50

the simplest way that you can get to

27:52

just making like some some good decisions and

27:54

then you shake hands and you're done with

27:57

your game. Yeah I get you but it

27:59

sounds so like It really did hook me.

28:01

I thought that sounded sarcastic when I said

28:04

it, but really like the idea of having

28:06

to think that different way of about

28:08

it where it's like Planning

28:10

ahead and then I guess you sort

28:12

of with the cards that are

28:14

in the middle that you're choosing from Mmm

28:16

How how often are they cycled out like

28:18

it can you actually plan ahead or is

28:20

it a lot of I hope that symbol

28:22

comes up? And I'm going to bank

28:24

on it coming up Yeah, that's that's a good

28:27

point in a three in a two-player game There

28:29

are three cards in the middle you both choose

28:31

one then you bin them and deal a narrow

28:33

of three That's a lot of hope. Yeah, there

28:35

is a lot of hope but like you

28:37

can mitigate against that hope quite a lot

28:40

with those You know, I was saying how

28:42

you get those Little

28:44

bonus cards if you go in ascending order Yeah The

28:46

way that you actually take those is that you look

28:48

at how many of this little map symbol that you

28:50

have like you start off with like maybe one map

28:52

symbol and then you get more map symbols as you

28:54

build out your tableau and you get more cards and

28:57

The more map symbols you have the more

28:59

of those little mini cards you get to

29:01

draw and look at before choosing one So

29:03

you can mitigate if you there's like one

29:05

particular thing you really really need You

29:08

can mitigate against the luck of it by getting

29:10

a load of those extra I think they could

29:12

sanctuary cards and like finding the exact

29:14

one that's right for you because you've drawn so many

29:16

that the symbol that You want will probably come up

29:18

somewhere and I

29:20

think that's true of like there is a eye

29:22

to the Distribution of the different symbols being like

29:24

a little riskier like I think the red symbols

29:26

are slightly more rare than the blue and the

29:28

Green ones So when you put one of those

29:31

scoring cards down, you know that it's inherently a

29:33

little bit risky that you might not be able

29:35

to Find that thing it is

29:37

as much a game about like Opportunism and

29:39

jumping on something and being like oh that

29:41

will work with everything that I've you know Or

29:44

everything that I've played before or I'm

29:46

going to play afterwards Rather

29:48

than necessarily being like my strategy this game is

29:50

to build out a load of blue symbols and

29:52

score a bunch for those Yeah,

29:55

because of that scoring the way that it makes

29:57

you think about things sort of as on the

30:00

fly as your tableau builds out and you're trying

30:02

to fill criteria in that weird way, um,

30:05

you think that it's not necessarily a

30:07

game about making a big structural plan. Yeah.

30:09

I just don't know whether I necessarily want

30:11

to bring it out again or play it

30:13

again anytime soon because I think

30:16

that whilst it is sharp and good and

30:18

an enjoyable little box, I

30:20

think that like in the environment in

30:22

which I'm playing like a small box

30:24

card game like that, I

30:27

either want something that's like quite

30:29

intensely interactive and is

30:31

like deliberately like either mean

30:34

or like I want

30:36

the sort of either end of the spectrum. I

30:39

want something that I'm playing with someone across the

30:41

table for me to be either like super mean

30:43

and confrontational or like super cozy and relaxing and

30:45

this fits in this weird like middle ground of it

30:48

has some like nasty bits where you take cards away

30:50

from other people but it didn't

30:52

feel like I was necessarily engaging with the

30:54

person opposite me as much as I would

30:56

if I was playing a game like I

30:59

don't know Arboretum and it

31:01

didn't feel like I was just having a nice

31:03

time doing a cozy puzzle with something like I

31:05

don't know patchwork for example. Right. It's a weird

31:07

game. It's a really odd box. I

31:10

am inspired by this box. I

31:12

think the podcast as the

31:14

journey as it is we should we should

31:16

have it all backwards. We should start with

31:18

either or you should start with the ending

31:20

and then put either and then put guitar

31:23

we should just have it all played backwards

31:25

and have people be very confused until they

31:27

get into this point and then they're like

31:29

oh I

31:31

get it. You know like it

31:33

could work and I guess the listeners

31:35

will know if it if it worked

31:37

as an edit like right now. That

31:40

was a goodbye. See ya everyone. So

31:44

our first game is either or. Will I reverse the theme

31:46

songs? Wow yeah

31:49

this would be fun. That would be great. Yeah

31:51

let's do it and then it

31:53

will then it'll go into the intro. Then

31:55

it'll go into the intro which was mediocre

31:57

like this game. We're being so inspired by

31:59

this. game. Wow, it's

32:02

got its roots down, it's tendrils throughout

32:04

this whole podcast. I'm so

32:06

surprised that it got published by so many publishers

32:09

if it's so mediocre. It's not

32:11

like, I don't think it's mediocre. I think

32:13

it is, the thing is, is that it's

32:15

good and it's sharp and it's a nice

32:17

design. It's very safe. I think it's just

32:19

like, it has enough decisions

32:21

and it has a cool little

32:23

quirky feature that makes

32:25

you go, huh, cool. But

32:28

it's not gonna like, it's no one's favourite

32:30

game, right? Like it isn't something that's like

32:32

risky or bold or weird. It also has

32:34

like a slightly collectible aspect, I think. There

32:36

are these four different versions of the box

32:38

that come in different colours, but there's no

32:40

reason to buy one box over the other as far as

32:42

I can tell. It's just if you want four of the

32:44

same game in different colours. Is there a reason to have

32:46

duplicates of the same cards?

32:49

Like can you ban the game?

32:52

In theory, you could play the game because

32:54

it goes up to like six

32:57

or eight, no six players. It goes up

32:59

to six players. And so in

33:01

theory, you could, because there's like no

33:03

real like interaction outside of

33:05

that market, you could like smoosh two

33:08

copies together and have like a 12

33:10

player game that's far away. That sounds

33:12

amazing. Well

33:14

it is one of those things where like

33:16

the, there is no, there is also no

33:19

real like turns other than picking things from

33:21

the market. It's like you just choose a

33:23

thing and play it. And then you like

33:25

take a, I think these are all the

33:27

reasons why it's like been published by so

33:29

many different publishers. It's like it is easy

33:31

to pick up and it's also has like

33:33

no downtime and it's just like make

33:36

decisions and go like, cool, that was, that was

33:38

nice. That was nifty. And it's cheap enough that

33:40

you'd like pick it up at a booth on

33:42

a whim. I just don't know where

33:44

it fits into like, you know, when

33:46

am I going to be like, you know what I really fancy right now?

33:49

I really fancy a game of far

33:51

away, a blue version

33:53

or yellow version, you know, the yellow

33:55

version, pick at you on the cover.

33:57

I need that one. Hello

34:03

everybody and welcome to the very 250th

34:06

episode of the Shut Up and Sit Down

34:08

podcast. That's one quarter of a thousand episodes.

34:10

Oh my god. And who am I spending

34:12

it with? Emily from

34:15

Australia. Hello. Who

34:17

are you though? You haven't even said a year. Oh yeah, who

34:19

am I? I'm

34:21

Tom from Ingerland. Hello

34:23

Tom. We're doing another podcast, a 250th

34:25

podcast. Are

34:28

we doing anything special for this 250th episode? No.

34:31

I mean, we're doing something special in that we're spending

34:33

time together and we're talking about board games, which is

34:36

a special thing to do. A nice way

34:38

to spend my Saturday morning and

34:40

your... Is it Saturday for you

34:42

still? Yeah. Saturday evening. It's

34:45

my Saturday evening. I'm spending my Saturday

34:47

evening locked inside alone talking to you

34:49

about board games. Isn't that cool?

34:51

I realised that when I messaged you and said, hey,

34:54

I'm sorry, I'm going to be on a train on

34:56

Friday, can we do Saturday instead? That I was swapping

34:58

out your Friday evening podcast record session for a Saturday

35:00

evening podcast. It's okay. It's

35:03

important, you know? This is important to people. When I listened to this,

35:05

when I listened to this back in like 129 episode 129, when I

35:10

was just listening for this for fun, it

35:12

made my day, you know? It was a bit of

35:14

routine. And the people need this. They

35:16

need it, Tom. The people need it. You'll

35:19

sacrifice any evening for the pod, for the people

35:21

at home. As will I. The

35:23

13th of April. I will not be available for

35:25

that if you need me for that. No. Why

35:28

is that? What's what you're doing on the 13th of April? That's my

35:30

birthday, Tom. Is something cool and exciting happening? What? Sorry?

35:34

That's my birthday, Tom. Sorry, I'm getting some, I'm getting

35:36

crackling. I'm getting interference on the line. That's my birthday,

35:38

Tom. It's

35:41

your birthday! Do

35:44

you want people to know that at home? Or

35:46

do you think, or are you worried that they're

35:48

going to, you know, send you unsolicited board games

35:50

in the mail? Oh, God. I

35:52

would hate that. Don't send it to this

35:54

exact address that we're going to put on

35:56

the Spotify description. Do not send me

35:58

free stuff. I

36:01

would hate that. We're both April. We're

36:03

both April children of

36:05

April. I know. Yours is the 25th. It's

36:07

not exciting. You can beat that if you want. I

36:09

remember it. Oh my goodness. I can't believe you. That's

36:12

so nice. I'll remember yours now because that's how it

36:14

works. No, you don't do that.

36:16

Like if you remember someone's birthday. This is

36:18

a one way stream. Okay, okay. Your favorite

36:20

color is orange. I know that. Oh wow.

36:22

Dang. Your favorite color is purple. You're

36:25

the worst. Let's move on. What

36:28

are we talking about Tom? On

36:30

this podcast we're going to talk about

36:32

three games. We're going to talk about

36:34

Far Away, a tiny little small box

36:36

card game about going gondar journey. We're

36:39

going to talk about Catan

36:41

Starfarers Duel, a two

36:43

player version of Catan Starfarers that

36:45

Emily's been playing. And

36:47

we're going to talk

36:49

about Ito, a tiny

36:52

little wavelength-esque box of

36:54

getting to know your friends and

36:56

who they are in love with, but

36:58

only in one particular scenario. That didn't

37:00

make any sense. Let's move on. That

37:02

makes perfect sense. That was a

37:04

completely unhinged intro, but you know what? That's fine.

37:07

Yeah. I was going to

37:09

mention it when you were like, we're

37:11

doing nothing special for the 250th. I'm

37:13

like, it's, we're dropping the ball. That's

37:15

all we're doing. What is this? New

37:17

Year's in New York? We're completely fumbling

37:19

it. That's all we're doing. We're

37:26

going to be

37:28

doing something special for the 50th. We're going to

37:31

be doing something special for the 50th.