Own It, Play It, Skip It | 6 Games Reviews Incl. Witchstone, Llamaland (& More!) | Episode 6

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Agree with our verdicts? What did you think of these games? How would you rate them?

[@utubingit357]

Please do more teach videos - Dylan’s New York zoo was amazing and it’s now one of my favourites! Also loved Lost Ruins of Arnak teach :)

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Thanks Nancy! We'll definitely do them every so often still!

[@rhodesn7bgg716]

Suchy is just an amazing designer. Praga is one of my favorites, but definitely give Pulsar and Prodigals Club a try. Also, if you like Witchstone (so good!) you should try Mille Fiori when it becomes more available. (I had to import it)

[@melanieengen7135]

I love Mille Fiori too! I played it at BGG Spring and had to have my very own copy, so I'm in the same import boat as you! Lol!

[@AllYouCanBoard]

I'll definitely keep an eye out for some other Suchy games, I want to see what else he has done. And Dylann will probably be getting Mille Fiori so I'll likely try his copy. - Carlo

[@RickKoeppen]

I just want to throw a comment out about Praga in favor of the higher player counts. I've played this 7-8 times at this point, mostly at the max of 4 players, and that's where I enjoy it most. I did enjoy my one play at 2 players, but I almost felt it was too 'friendly', if that makes sense, because there was little competition for the end-game seals, the production tile inserts, getting to the end of the King's Road first, etc. With more players, getting the best options is much tighter and makes prioritizing certain things much more necessary instead of how my 2 player game went, which felt "Well I do want this, but I'm not really in a rush, I'll come back to that later." I didn't really feel the downtime between turns was overwhelming, deciding which action tile to take was the longest part, but once that decision has been made, carrying out the action and any corresponding chain reactions goes pretty quick in my experience. It's become one of my top five games of all time pretty quickly, those chain reactions are awesome.

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Thanks for the comment, Rick! Maybe I should give it a shot with more than 2 players. It didn't seem to me like it would excel above 2 but you're kind of making me re-consider that. I like when games are tight, but I felt like the min-maxing of actions would slow things down too much, and it's possible I underestimated the player interaction. - Carlo

[@ZoeMcDash]

I adore Llamaland! So happy to see it on here! While we have a few other polyomino games that we enjoy, the one bummer is that players often lose points for not covering certain things or filling areas. That can be punishing and hard to deal with for young players. What I love about Llamaland is that everything is positive! With every tile you lay, you are either extending land or gaining resources. My daughter really enjoys that! Plus, the llama meeples are ridiculously adorable! This is a game that I enjoy playing with her or other adults. It’s so fun and a definite “own” for me! After hearing your reviews, Great Plains is definitely on my list to try soon! Thanks!

[@AllYouCanBoard]

That's a great point about Llamaland that I hadn't considered, about the lack of negative points. That's a great selling point for a family game.

[@scorpian223]

Great Plains and Cesar are on my wishlist. Love Witchstone!

[@AllYouCanBoard]

They're both so good. Highly recommend!

[@JonathonV]

Llama Land looks interesting. The tile stacking reminds me of Passtally. I’m not typically a polyomino game person but I will give it a go! I feel like I’d have to play Sequoia. I’m not typically drawn to area control but I do like (or even love) some games in the genre. But I like what Dylann said about filler games … there are way too many so I’m not rushing out to get more. Great Plains makes me think of Barony for some reason. I think it’s the area control with the impassible mountains. But I can see the Blue Lagoon parallels too (I haven’t played Fjords). I almost never play two-player only games because of the sizes of my game groups, but I’ll keep an eye out for it! Haha, loved the commentary on punctuation! 😂 Caesar! doesn’t seem like my style of game, but I’d try it! I like Praga Caput Regni! I need to play it again to see if it’s a love, but I remember having a great time the one time I played it! We did play it with 4 players and I liked the downtime but that could have been because it was my first game; that might become more annoying as I become experienced in the game. And for the record, I love Underwater Cities … that was pretty much an instant buy for me. Super fun! I live for action combos in games, so this one has attracted me for a while, even though I’m not crazy about the theme. Thanks for the video, friends!

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Based on what you've told me (and what I also heard about it recently on a podcast), I really need to try Barony. And it sounds like I need to try Praga Caput Regni again soon too. - Carlo

[@JonathonV]

@@AllYouCanBoard Now that you mention it, I just realised that both Barony and Praga Caput Regni have a sort of tiered track that lets you move vertically or horizontally. Interesting coincidence (it’s more important to the gameplay of Barony, though, if I recall correctly).

[@TurtleDude05]

That reaction from Carlo when he tricked Dylann into reading the names, has me fully convinced Carlo is secretly an evil mastermind and I'm totally here for it. 🤣 But beyond that Great Plains and Sequoia captured my attention more than anything else on this list. The more I see about them, the more I want to play. Good list gentlemen as always. 👍😁👍

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Hahaha, I even asked him before we started filming if he was going to try and say the other (not Knizia) designer's name and he said no. I definitely felt a bit evil putting him on the spot but I'm glad you enjoyed it! Worth it. I think Sequoia is good but I'm not sure how much depth or replay value it'll have long term. It's fun though and one of the quickest games I've ever played so that's a bonus. Great filler option. But man, Great Plains... I don't want to overhype it but I think it's amazing. I know you like games with simple rules and tough decisions like Carcassonne, so I think you'll really like this one too.

[@TurtleDude05]

@@AllYouCanBoard Totally worth it. And yeah. That was kind of my thinking as well. Sequoia is interesting for it's brevity. My game group has a lot of banter time between games. So a quick filler like that is always welcome. As far as Great Plains.... everything you described hits the right spot for me. So I have definitely moved it to the short list. I will probably put it in my next order.

[@tamaravanheel3758]

I own Gingerbreadhouse (with family rules inside, to play with kids) and I played Llamaland ones, I liked the interaction, but found it een mish mash of rules. I don’t need to own it next to gingerbreadhouse. Playing tetris in multiple layers is better executed in Miyabi. Rules are simple, but a thinky and elegant design, with little modules in the box, that change up the gameplay significantly. Witchstone is roll and write the board game, but I like it more than a roll and write because of the components and the board, you also see better where your opponent is going for.

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these! We're very curious to see how Llamaland compares to Gingerbread House. We haven't played Miyabi yet but it sounds interesting.

[@ryangallagher7183]

Is that Super Mario RPG on your shelf? And a John Wyndham shout out?? I love it! You got a subscribe from me! I highly recommend you try Underwater Cities. I got it a few months ago and it's quickly become one of our favourites.

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Haha, yessss! Super Mario RPG is Dylann's so I can't take credit for that (even though I love the game too), but John Wyndham is suuuuuch an underrated author. I love everything he writes. And I'll definitely check out Underwater Cities as soon as I have a chance, I've been wanting to play that one for a while. - Carlo

[@maggieotter793]

Well just added 5 more games to my eventually purchase list…. And it would’ve of been six but I recently picked up Great Plains 🤣

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Hahaha, sorryyyyyy. 😬

[@timreuter2164]

I like Plolyomino games, but after on play Llamaland, it’s a complete leave it for me. I somehow liked the puzzle, but the thing that’s absolutely stupid are the helpers. Not because they’re abilities aren’t nice, but because I had like 10 at the end of the game of them. The puzzle wasn’t important anymore, because I got everything over the helper cards. Didn’t liked that game, didn’t liked the art, but luckily there are good polyomino games out there. Praga on the other hand is fascinating. Once one scratched 200 points, you realize the deepness of this game.

[@AllYouCanBoard]

I didn't have the same issue with the helpers as you did. I would've liked a bit more variety in what the helpers could do maybe, but keep in mind you only get one when you cover up one of those specific spaces on a tile. We found our games never went long enough for us to get upwards of 10 helpers in a single game. Either way, you're right, there are plenty of good polyomino games out there, and Llamaland isn't my favourite, but my wife and I really enjoy playing it together so far. And maybe I'll play Praga again soon, I can't remember what my scores were like before but I don't think I ever got 200. - Carlo

[@jrobinson5053]

Great video. I'm interested in Caesar and Great Plains. Great Plains has been compared to Kingdom Builder and Blue Lagoon. I have both of those game. How would you compare Great Plains to those?

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Blue Lagoon and Kingdom Builder are both in my top 20 right now. Amazing games, but I like them best with 3 or 4 players. Blue Lagoon loses a lot of its appeal with only 2. Kingdom Builder is still very good with 2 but not quite as good as with 3 or 4. Either way, both these games usually take 30-60 minutes, 45 on average. Great Plains is 2-player only and plays MUCH quicker. Plus, there's only 1 way to score points. I think they're all fantastic games. Great Plains is a bit too new for me to know where it ranks in my all-time games just yet, but if you want something kind of like those other 2 games that excels with 2 players, you really can't go wrong with Great Plains. - Carlo

[@elkauppila]

I have to be contrary, you do not need islands to win in Feast haha Last game I won, I didn't take a single island, but capitalized on both Sheep and Horses. Animals are the key to winning

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Hmm, fair enough, I guess it depends how well/poorly your opponent does. I haven't found animals to be all that strong when I've played. Technically any strategy CAN win if your opponents don't do well, but I've only ever been able to crack the 100-point mark when taking at least one island, and usually I need 2 or 3 islands to get over 100. When I went heavy into animals I think I scored around 70 or 80. Maybe I need to try again though! - Carlo

[@elkauppila]

@@AllYouCanBoard I've definitely scored close to and over 100 with Animal focus. Gotta go for horses, that's where the big money is haha

[@draheim90]

Caesar! is so good, perhaps my favorite 2p game and I’ve played a decent number of them at this point. Blitzkrieg! is also exceptional but slightly below Caesar! for me. Blitzkrieg! has a more obvious tug-of-war aspect to it though as there are only five theatres (with a cube moving more toward one player’s side which each placement) with quite a few spaces each whereas Caesar! has like 15 or so regions that require only a few tokens to close it.

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Thanks for the breakdown! We definitely need to try Blitzkrieg! and then one of us will probably compare them in a video at some point. Paolo Mori is SUCH a good designer.

[@joshlamar9319]

Sequoia sounds similar to Las Vegas… you might also really like that too :)

[@AllYouCanBoard]

I didn't realize Las Vegas played similarly, I'd heard of it before. I'll have to check it out!

[@marziadigirolamo6133]

Pronunciation: Kiàckiera 🤣 Nice video 🥰

[@JJEMcManus]

The problem with videos like these is I now have a larger list of games to look out for when prowling my FLGS. Also Attempt the pronunciation of the “new” classic game AGRICOLA;

[@AllYouCanBoard]

That pronunciation seems pretty spot on to me.

[@JJEMcManus]

@@AllYouCanBoard Do you include the leg twitch? And which leg?

[@FestaNoYoutubiu]

Based on the explanation, sequoia seems like Rudiger Dorn's Las vegas.

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Yes, I've heard that now! I'll have to check out Las Vegas finally.

[@vanyaserra1]

Do you guys have goodwills or other donation stores that sell the donations for charity up there if so.....have you checked those often you probably can find a copy of can't stop in there. Since it is an older game it seems to end up in those donation centers often down here.

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Not a bad idea! We do have those places here but I usually just see the same popular games over and over- Tribond, Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories, Pictionary, Guess Who, etc. It's rare to find anything beyond those but I'll definitely keep checking.

[@perezoso9206]

I have played Gingerbread House a lot of times and always liked it. So when Llamaland appeared I read a couple of reviews and then decided to buy it, and also liked it. Both games share a common ground, same author exploring the options of tile placing mechanics, but they are different enough to have their own character. So both of them are part of my collection. Perhaps I liked a little bit more Gingerbread House, but that could be due to the fact that I have played it lots of times before getting Llamaland.

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Yeah I wonder if it will be a case of whichever one is played first tends to be preferred. It will be interesting to see what Carlo thinks and then what I think if I end up playing Gingerbread House first.

[@riotvale]

Martin….. ch ch ch chia

[@AllYouCanBoard]

Hahah, you're onto something here!