Props to Efka for not actually eating any of the board games. That Jenga loaf would have gotten to me halfway through.

This Bon Jovi you speak of sounds like a great Eurogame.

The board game is absolutely better than the video game. I have rarely found a board game that captures my interest like StS. The difficulty seems just right, well designed.

Efka, did you ever share your thoughts on the expansion? Perhaps in the podcast?

12:30 With that face, the video is officially *made*. Thank you for your hard work. Truly above and beyond for a board game review.

Many people dont know this, but the d day landings in normandy were also part of a real war where real people died and was not in fact simply a fun day out playing cards.

Great review! I appreciate you touching on the things you don’t like as well. I personally am really enjoying the giant minis and am having a blast painting them and displaying the cool monsters when I’m not playing! The options to purchase is just another way that Oathsworn allows you to customise it into the experience you want. Great game, great review!

I love you so much.

I totally relate to making a strong, well argumented opinion that something sucks and then loving another occurence of that something.

So if I'm a Slay the Spire nerd and I regularly play boardgames with people who never played Spire before... they wouldn't have a good time with this one, right?

Kingdom death aeon monster : the electric bungalow

Have you tried compile yet?

Great video, love you, guys

Love the direct references and subtle allusions to Stephen King's series of the same name. Big fan. I know the books and board games have nothing to do with each other but I still can't help but get hooked. Long days and pleasant nights!

wtf is voidfall

I loved your Baldur's Gate reference! To respond to your "bear situation": This was a typical mistake to make. In Ark Nova there are card synergies that work well early, mid and late in the game. It is a viable strategy, to hold onto your later game cards first and focus on something completely different in the start. Shuffle through strategies, one might say. There's no indicator for that on the material, so I see your point. Once you get a grip for this distinction the game feels a lot more intuitive. Thank you so much for your wonderful work!

Was going to say Vindication (the game where they looked up the wrong word in the dictionary then doubled down saying it's not Redemption) as a fantastic and different euro, but it's 6 years old now 😮 Nucleum is just a Brass copy with new art.

So sick watching this now see Slay the Spire in print.

@22:22 I think the creators chose this style of art because it was contemporaneous to, and often dealt with similar characters, as their game; and more than likely directly influenced design and gameplay.

It's spins!!!!! Shut up and take my money!!!!!

This feels like a convention game. Play it once or twice for the novelty and wild fun, then put it back on the shelf for someone else to enjoy.

M BISON???????

“In and Out of Love”

Game looks super fun, sadly the theming will not work for my gaming group :(

That thumbnail though

Just found this video and it was amazing, thank you.

Excellent analysis.

Came here for the thumbnail. Couldn't stop laughing.

Not every game needs to have a person of color. It’s a board game ffs. Keep your politics out of it.

I realize I’m coming at this video years afterwards but wanted to say that I agree with the level of complexity. Having said that, I come from playing shadows of brimstone. Do you want to talk about fiddly with intersecting rules and stat cards and encounter cards and stuff all over the place. Also that game is not designed where all the components are high-quality and there’s some exact form fitting tray or holder to put it in. Your play table better be massive and your ability track stats and rules exceptions and exceptions for those exceptions better be amazing. What I learned was playing SOB completely prepared me for TMB. Everyone kept telling me it’s gonna make you cry before you enjoy it. But honestly I’m not saying this to brag but I grokked 90% of this game right away because I knew what kind of game it was and what it took to wrap my brain around it. I only have the core set and undertow. And I only played undertow so far. So getting the review on the other expansions was super helpful. Thanks for making this incredibly informative video. And I love your style and delivery.

"NO, FOOL! THERE'S ALIENS IN THE BOX! YOU FIND ALIENS!!!" Idk why that made me laugh so hard

The song title outro won a like from me. Keep up the great work!

Dude, apropos nothing, you look and sound like Douggie McMeekin as Tindaro in The Decameron. Thanks for the review, it was great!

“Proxima Centari, or Vega or M. Bison” 😂😂😂

Subscribed.

Well done! Recently (past year or so), it seems to me that NPI has really hit the sweet spot between describing and reviewing the game, and talking about the wider context of the game. Other reviewers seem to do one or the other, but in this case, for example, I came away with both an understanding of the game and some ideas about where it fits in the genre that are grist for further thought and consideration.

it's dangerous to ask, in the internet, if someone likes milk

Just want to point out that your definition of "strategy" or "strategy" games in regards of Ark Nova critique is misplaced not because you don't understand the game, but because of your definition of strategy (which is a bit biased towards euro-types-of strategy offerings). Strategy is not being able to choose and follow a "bear path". Strategy is just a framework for making choices based on the moving parts in the game. These "card filtering" games offer more emergent strategy, probabilities and weighing potential rewards of your choices, developing A, B and C plans for choosing cards. The tactics in Ark Nova is more about whether to choose this or that action, now or later, weighing the pressure from your opponent. Strategy is about evaluating and commiting (not over- or undercommiting) to a potential path, which then narrows your selection of cards down, and then provides you with a frame for your tactical choices. Euro games, however, are often much more deterministic and offer a less fluid experience of strategic choices, as in, gathering points from different minigames in order A-B-C or B-C-A. It's still strategy, but a less complex system in which to build a metaplan.

Frodo was over 50 years old when he started his journey 😅

I am so happy I run into Your channel :D I am horrified that how much Your views of Things are My views of Things

Thanks for this Efka. I really have been curious as to why this game was on the Kennerspiel list as a strategy game of the year. I could not fathom how it was THAT different than Oathsworn (or KDM) but I now see how.

But is Pluto a planet.

Every boardgame review is kind a game design class. This one make it clear. Congrats.

Thanks for pointing out in the review that this game features a lack of diversity and weak female characters. Some of us play board games to escape the cultural enrichment that diversity brings with it and besides I don't think Somalian and Haitian migrants are the target market for Oathsworn anyway. To me the lack of adherence to the forced wokeism propaganda that you seem to take for granted that should happen because everyone just has to agree with progress pushed on us by bankers who want to replace us with cheaper labor is actually a selling point of Oathsworn. 100 years ago 1 in 4 people on the earth were subjects of British control. 100-300 years from now, unless something changes, there will simply be no British people on Earth. I don't care if board games grow up or not, but if you ever decide to have kids instead of dogs, Efka and Elaine, then your kids are likely to be brutally murdered by 'refugees' today than 200 years ago. And if you complain about it you're just a racist bigot. England is for foreigners, after all. And no, in the real world, your 15 year old daughter can't outfight a 30 year old Somali with a machete, even with all the girl power on Earth. And I'm glad that Oathsworn reflects that. Women aren't as strong as men physically. But the food is so good, right, so I guess being slowly genocided from your own country is worth it. Cheers, mate. Great review.

Just to mention, the way you talked about Pampero made really curious about that game, even though it's heavy and all-too-euro

I LOVED the callback to Quinns' Secrets video 😂, which itself is a favorite. And you know, I think I prefer Secrets and Night of the Ninja as deduction games. Those are guessing too, based on social cues, but they're faster, and the information's reliability is more clearly determined. I don't care so much if I don't know my team anymore at the end of the game because it's funny. I spent a day playing 3 games of BOTCT. Yes, this game gives us information, but none of it is reliable in any way. So it allows convoluted reasonings and player interactions that eventually just boil down to guessing. But the guessing is covered in steampunk gears so it looks like science, like that famous mechanical chess player. It's all a big lie, orchestrated by the man behind the curtain. And that's okay, it's an experience. Like The Mind, which I love and have used to help calm an agitated tween. But while I love playing a role, the role is thin (I brought props, had a bonnet as washerwoman, and seashell jingles as the gravedigger, and a fan as the drunk Ravenkeeper). And the information is less reliable than gossip. 😅 I dunno. I'll probably play it again, it's an interesting game and my gamer friends like it. The most obviously neurospicy gang, among the gamer groups I frequent. Who, I should mention, decided that the proper name for a group of neurodivergents (like a "murder if crows"), is a gamesnight of neurodivergents 😅

yes it is an ugly game

Where did you get those bowls for your resources? Great review.

I truly appreciate the artful way that here, in recent installments, and also on the podcast, NPI's fatigue with stale patterns is made apparent. We need this kind of tonic to the treadmill of "hotness".

The bon jovi ending was master class 😂