Ancient Realms, River Wild & WildTails - A Button Shy Review Roundup

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Button Shy continues to surprise me with what they can accomplish with only 18 cards…so how do I feel about some of their recent additions? Here are my quick reviews for 3 new Button Shy games.
Wildtails - boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3...
River Wild - boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3...
Ancient Realm - boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3...
TimeStamps:
0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:13 - Overview - Wildtails
0:01:56 - Review - Wildtails
0:03:59 - Overview - River Wild
0:08:28 - Review - River Wild
0:09:54 - Overview - Ancient Realm
0:17:24 - Review - Ancient Realm
0:18:28 - Final Thoughts
5.0 - My absolutely favorite games. You can pry them out of my cold dead hands.
4.5 - Love this game! At the same time missing something that would make it a 5. Could be hard to table, lacking variability, a little light, etc.
4.0 - Really great game, almost always keeping, although has meaningful complaints as to what takes away from the experience.
3.5 - Really enjoyed, don't love it, may lose out to better games but the idea of never playing again is a bit sad.
3.0 - A good game, would play and suggest with the right people, if I never played it again wouldn't lose any sleep.
2.5 - A game I'd play again , but will never suggest it myself
2.0 - A game I don't want to play again
1.5 - A game I can't find any reason to recommend
1.0 - A game that is just bad.
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[@webnoodles]

Good news: Steven Armani has a leaders expansion for Ancient Realm in the works that will add win/loss conditions. "soon hopefully."

[@BoardGameCo]

Oooh nice :)

[@sapien01010]

Yeah, I feel the same way. Ancient Realm was an unexpected hit and Wildtails was an unexpected disappointment. I thought for sure Wildtails would be a hit considering how much I like Rove and Sedlec.

[@johnbeuck]

You are a very fast talker. Not the easiest to keep up with as a non native speaker. But so far I enjoy the videos

[@gcanceko]

Really like Ancient Realm (love your inadvertent wood joke 😂). The design is superb esp for such a compact package and the gameplay is fun! This and ROVE and The Royal Limited are my top 3 solo Button Shy games.

[@anthonychilds8193]

9 months later, I've just gone through my first couple of playthroughs of The Last Lighthouse which I backed on Kickstarter. I got the 2 expansions but I haven't added/played those yet. I won my 2nd game but so far I'm still not 100% sure I'm playing it correctly. Love the art. It's only the 4th game I've backed, and the 2nd one I've received (backed Moonrollers and Mycelia which should be arriving later 2024 or early 2025 for Mycelia). There's several Button Shy games that have piqued my interest and I'll add Ancient Realms to that list . Thanks, Alex.

[@emmahunneyball2990]

I absolutely love Ancient Realm too. I agree that it feels like a tiny Civ game. There is so much decision space and so many different ways to play out the game. I have the first expansion and I hope they bring out more as it would be an auto-buy for me!

[@andrewstewart7078]

These just arrived for me today! I also picked up Space Shipped. I quite like 'beat my own score' style games if they're quick to set-up and play :)

[@CamObscura88]

From my reading of the rules, the mountains cut off sacred lands so you cannot score across mountains (i.e., as soon as you connected the first two cards you could not longer score either test).

[@gachzorge]

That is correct. If you look at the gameplay section they have an image showing one landmass with mountains in the middle, they have it count as two separate sacred lands. It is always disappointing when a reviewer misses rules and bases their reviews off of incorrect gameplay. However, I doubt that this review in particular was affected by that rule miss, but maybe his scores would be drastically different.

[@north.by.northeast]

Ancient Realm does indeed look interesting, a wickedly wee wonder engine builder; but similarly just seeing if I can beat my own score doesn't fire me up - I need a scenario or other players to play against.

[@jserrano51]

Ancient Realm was a delightful surprise! So clever. And I agree, Wildtails was disappointing. I'm still figuring out River Wild.

[@joek0620]

The 1st Leaders expansion is coming very soon. It has goals and milestones to expand on the game as well as some winning conditions. The goals are really tough,, but I know you will enjoy it by your review.

[@BoardGameCo]

Nice :)

[@MarkThould]

River Wild & Ancient Realms just arrived today for me. (Along with the corrected cards for Fishing Lessons, Space Shipped & Wonder Tales). I also got the expansions for River Wild & Ancient Realms - didn't Button Shy send those to you?

[@thomasspicer6229]

I really enjoyed river wild. But understand your points about it. Haven’t tried Ancient Realm yet but really want to grab it soon. Enjoyed the video and appreciate that you’re trying to fit 3 game reviews into a short space of time, but as someone else said, I really think you need to talk slower. I am a native English speaker and I missed what you said a few times because it was so quick. Thanks for the video though. Appreciate your thoughts.

[@garytheosophilus]

Graphically, River Wild reminds me of Unsurmountable. Is there a resemblance in gameplay and, if so, which do you prefer?

[@BoardGameOfficer]

So you never touched on this, but what do you think about the scoring with this game!? 😛

[@garytheosophilus]

Graphically, River Wild reminds me of Unsurmountable. Is there a resemblance in gameplay and, if so, which do you prefer?