Salton Sea | Board Game | Playthrough | Review

[@TimothyPetersphoto]

Been on a Devir kick lately. There isn't much about this game so I'm glad you covered it. I really enjoy your play throughs and reviews. Thank you.

[@AntLabGames]

You are welcome, thanks for watching!

[@jponeill2151]

Devir do amazing games. Big fan of their work.

[@davidbernal4744]

Thanks for the review! I’m so glad that you enjoy the game. Thanks a lot again!😊😊

[@nobuthatsme9201]

You are pretty much a genius, man. Love it. I own around 200 or so games and play almost daily. This was the surprise of 2024!! Maybe of the decade.

[@davidbernal4744]

@@nobuthatsme9201 Thank you for your kind words ☺️

[@nobuthatsme9201]

Btw, you guys really knock out some heavy games and I can always tell you have played through them more than once. Really appreciate the channel. We love you in west by god Texas.

[@AntLabGames]

Thanks!!!

[@davidfiser113]

First time viewer! Lovely playthrough and teach. Thank you! I haven't finished the video, so maybe you catch it, but I believe Anthony played his first turn incorrectly - he didn't use the dollar discount and discarded 3 cards when he only needed to get rid of two!

[@AntLabGames]

Hey! Thanks for watching, and welcome! I can’t remember if we caught this or not, but you’ll find that when we do mess up, we usually make things much harder on ourselves 🤣 We’re glad you’re here!

[@joelsummerell1012]

Fantastic game. You're not wrong about it being a Heavy Euro in a little box. My brain is scrambled eggs just from watching the tutorial. lol Salton Sea is officially on the wish list. Thank you both for another evening of pure enjoyment and entertainment. Thanks for all your hard work. Much Love. X

[@pincao]

Thanks for sharing this. I’m now intrigued with this game. Hope you both are feeling better.

[@AntLabGames]

Much better now thanks!

[@pantroglodytes8685]

Used to follow your channel. For different reasons I didn't do it last months. I'm happily back and I want to thank you both, for this fantastic game and playthrough. It is a heavy fantastic game. Small box, low price, good components original theme and nice mechanics very well implemented, that make a huge game. A very special game for me. Thank you very much and nice to see you again

[@AntLabGames]

We’re glad you’re back! Thank you for the support, and happy gaming!

[@VuNguyen-uc7xe]

Thank you for the great playthrough and insightful review. I'm sold!!! :)

[@shannonpepitone4920]

Thanks for the review! I just bought it thanks to this lol sorry you guys didn’t get to come to Level Up! Hopefully see you some day! Thanks again!

[@AntLabGames]

We will definitely meet up at some point! This week of illness was so unfortunately timed. We think you’ll really enjoy this one, let us know!

[@shannonpepitone4920]

@@AntLabGamesI will let you know! I figured someone got ill. It’s the season. 😢

[@bookaddict777]

Thank you for the play through! I love Devir's games for the most part - they have been on fire recently for me - and was curious about this one.

[@nobuthatsme9201]

Just got this game and played it. It’s a masterpiece. You guys helped me get through it

[@johnkoontz1271]

Thanks for the play-through. I'm always glad to see a new game on the table.

[@george_castle]

Hope you both feel better soon. Thanks for the playthrough, this one looks great!

[@Yettipike1]

Thank you for the content. Definitely giving this game a try when it comes out. Really good price to quality ratio on the Devir games in addition to not taking a ton of shelf space.

[@stevewithington1787]

For whatever reason I completely missed this video when it came out, but just over a week ago my wife and I were at AireCon (UK) and we picked this up on a whim - I was expecting something similar to Red Cathedral or White Castle. Boy, what a pleasant surprise. White Castle is great, but this is truly exceptional. I get Lacerda-like vibes from it, but in a tiny box and for a great price (we paid £25). With this and Galactic Cruise (which we got to play at AireCon) the year has started out really well for these heavy games.

[@greginfla_1]

Great play through, thank you. I think you mentioned at the end of the video that it was good to have a solid game to play. Was 2023 bad year? Do you have a video that elaborates on these thoughts?

[@AntLabGames]

We just didn’t feel it was a good year for new games.

[@johngoodwin9606]

I was just looking at my list of potential "small box" games to buy. Salton Sea is now added with a wishlist comment "Ant Lab loves it". That is probably enough, but I'll do some additional research before buying. Thanks.

[@bestatstartrek2179]

Thanks for the review . I ordered this game right away 😀 get better I am also recovering from Covid

[@JaimeR13]

The game looks great. I already have it and I'll play it soon solo. My only problem is that I am to critic with the theme because I work in a Lithium company 😅

[@TheXtreme32]

Great job guys! I have a question about the drilling. Is every claim card split in 3 ?

[@lukesanwick4840]

Nope, there are between 1 and 3 levels on each claim!

[@jogandomais]

Thank you guys, awesome video!

[@slice9996]

Looks interesting. According the the Dev page it comes out on 2/5. Might have to make a trip to the game store. :)

[@shbenton01]

preordered this when you talked about it last week, so based on this review, guess my decision wasn't premature!

[@AntLabGames]

Good choice!

[@jonathansaah9163]

@@AntLabGamesPreordered

[@pks-bisqp2677]

Hey there, thanks for the video, pretty interesting title. I think you made a small mistake @00:09:42. You have payed 3$ instead of 2$, thanks to discount from the card.

[@krstakg12]

Do you start with the same cards at the begining?

[@pks-bisqp2677]

And one more @01:03:34, Francine, didn't take the brine for extracting, though she flipped the claim.

[@michelhadife8464]

I loved this game, i bought it and played it solo even...the GMI is soooo difficult to beat

[@mrbovinejoni569]

Looks right up my alley.

[@gamalsaluta668]

Hello good! What size sleeve do the cards have?

[@alexreichline]

I think Anthony was supposed to get $1 discount on the first card he bought. But he paid the full $3.

[@bestatstartrek2179]

I think Your roght

[@josyuen4207]

Thank you for the playthrough! This game was on my radar and the playthrough and review helped with the decision. I did notice in the top right corner a copy of Earthborne Rangers. Any plans to cover this game? 😊

[@AntLabGames]

Yes, we will cover Earthborne Rangers in the coming months.

[@shatnershairpiece]

Did you guys even mention that this game comes with five rulebooks? It’s trying to promote a pro Eco slant, which it isn’t, and then they include five rule books that nobody needs and will mostly all get thrown out. Bizarre logic. They are stressing the small box format, which is great and then they waste a lot of space with paper content that nobody needs. Games don’t even need a rulebook anymore as most download online. The other odd thing is I can find very little information about this game on KZbin. You’re about the only channel that has reviewed it. Is Devir embarrassed to promote it? You’d think they would’ve handed this out to at least three or four major channels to review.

[@AntLabGames]

Hey maybe they offset by making the box super small (which it is ;-)) Also, I’m pretty sure having multiple books cuts down on the need to print different versions in more languages. Maybe it’s just me, but I would t throw out extra rulebooks.

[@shatnershairpiece]

What I’d like to see are games made for two players that remove the parts of the four player game and exclude the rulebook entirely. And that would result in a cost of at least $10 less. Never going to happen, but I like the idea. If I added up all the useless parts I have from my 50 board games it would fill a large garbage bag.

[@craigandrews7544]

@@shatnershairpieceyou really don’t understand production costs do you? 😑

[@shatnershairpiece]

@@craigandrews7544I understand 5 rulebooks is ridiculous, do you?

[@jonathanleach383]

The game looks great but i cant stand how they have like 6 different language rule books in their games

[@AntLabGames]

You can always throw the other ones out.

[@andyandersen7898]

Seems that is an easy solution. More languages are better for more people. Good grief.

[@jonathanleach383]

@@andyandersen7898 6 rule books takes up half the game so when you throw those out it feels pretty bare is my point, other publishers print separate versions for each language rather than printing a bunch of rule books that no one will ever read

[@nobuthatsme9201]

More waste happens with thrown away magazines in one city in one week than what this game wasted. Beat your drum on some other cause.

[@jonathanleach383]

@@nobuthatsme9201 what a stupid comparison 😂

[@shatnershairpiece]

Here’s where theme loses me. Lithium mining as a game? Nasty, nasty business, incredibly wasteful, absolutely no doubt about it. People need to do their research. Amazed this even became a game. Makes me lose interest in devir as a company to watch. What’s next from Devir: ‘Klaus Schwab’s bug farm’? I see you guys really liked it, but you must be overlooking the theme completely. It’s a shame because it could be mechanically great, but the theme is a big turn off, for us at least.

[@AntLabGames]

Ah, so I’m not an expert at all about any of this, but the understanding is that the salt content in the Salton Sea provides an opportunity for much much cleaner extraction of lithium from the sea, taking advantage of the geothermal nature of the sea, rather than the nasty mining they do right now (which is why it’s so attractive). There’s a huge forward in the rulebook about the science behind it and what they are trying to do in the area to date.

[@shatnershairpiece]

I just think ‘lithium mining’ in general. I found a a bgg thread under ‘salton sea’ talking about this issue under ‘why does everyone think lithium mining is so great.’ The game seems to be solely focused on the economics, nothing else.

[@ramyahoo]

lol board games have games where you kill people. It's a game.

[@nobuthatsme9201]

Glad you are lost. Love it

[@GonzaloErloi]

😂😂😂