Always good to see Rumble Nation (and games from Asia in general) get more love. I first played this game in 2018 and have been a fan of it ever since. In face, I think there were only 4 other games from Asia in 2017 that I ranked higher than Rumble Nation. One of the coolest things about living in Taiwan is experiencing games here and then, years later, see the NA and EU markets giving these games the hype buzz and love they deserve. I see RN get compared to The King is Dead quite a bit, and there are similarities. I do think the card/passing mechanics are really interesting; however, I have found that RN is far more approachable as the end game triggers and scoring for TKiD can be confusing for new players. Thanks for this series of videos--always great to hear your design thoughts.
I think two games that deserve more discussion are Jiangnan (Taiwan) and Natsumemo (Japan). Natsumemo is a roll/flip and write about junior high school kids enjoying their last month of summer. Though the draw of the game is the excellent execution of theme and gameplay, I think it's interesting to see a flip & write lean more in the direction of a party game and not a euro number crunching combo style game. Natsumemo boldly goes for something in between & it works really well. Jiangnan is really fascinating. It's a worker placement into 6 different areas. Then, all the workers from each area move down and onto a boat. The boats then move to the right & the process continues. So the boats become a mini area control game. Players want to control the boats as the boat majority chooses what resources score points in the game. I hadn't seen that marriage of mechanics before and I'm curious to see other designs use this idea.
Sounds like a fun game! Reminds me a bit of an older game called Quebec. From the BGG description: Québec introduces a unique and addictive majority rule. The player with the majority in a zone cascades half of his workers by moving them to the next zone. Workers moved in this way allow a player to score even more points. If a player still has the majority in the next zone, his workers cascade again - a potentially devastating ripple effect.
I just received the game game today from Amazon jp and played a 3 player game. What a great game! We made 1 rules mistake, giving the player who won a region 2 reinforcement cubes in 1 adjacent region in which that player had a cube instead of ALL adjacent regions in which that player had a cube. This could have easily affected the strategic decisions as to where to place cubes, i.e., in the middle of the board instead of the edges (perhaps depending on values of the regions). A player with seemingly fewer soldiers in some regions could use this domino effect to win the game. It's hard to see the value of playing a card instead of placing soldiers. With only 18 soldiers to place, winning the tie breaker sword seems really important. We'll have to play this seemingly lightweight game at least a few more times to get a better handle on the strategy.
It’s funny, the board, cubes and colors appear identical to those in The King Is Dead. And in that game too, you want to control regions. But it seems to play out in a completely different way!
This is a really cool mechanics. The dice choice I really like a lot where you control the dice and how you'll use them somewhat. But the area control is super slick, especially with the "pandemic" type of effect. It's a cascade of cubes lol.
Hello. Great video. Question about game mechanisms. There are games where players are playing against each other and games where players are playing against the game mechanism, more or less playing along side each other and comparing scores at the end. A lot of times the score comparing to see who won doesn’t feel fulfilling to me, or like anyone really won because the players weren’t really playing against each other, and sometimes if they did win, nobody can really pinpoint a reason. The game was too open with too many paths to victory to really see the strategy as it relates to someone else. I really like older designs like Tigris, or even chess where the depth of the game is in the player interaction and the skill of the opponent. But, designers seem to be going away from this in the last few years, and when I started looking at BBG I was surprised that people were calling these competitive type games “mean", or saying that a skilled opponent will always win, as if that were a negative thing. It seems like a lot of people grew up playing Checkers or Chess, or Risk, or Hearts or sports like basketball, and football . Those games are directly competitive, and have a skill level and players are playing on the same board or court, or field, and nobody was calling them mean. That's what we expected from games. I’m just wondering your thoughts on why designers don’t make these competitive games as much. As I look at popular games today on BGG, I’m guessing my opinion is the minority.
J: Thanks for your question. Are you talking about direct conflict in games where players can actively target each other? I think there are still plenty of games like that, but they're more balanced than older games so that a player who commits to a 2-3 hour game isn't sitting around doing nothing for the last hour (or feeling that way). So I think there are lots of ways that games still have players interacting with each other, just not as much actively targeting each other.
@@jameystegmaier The difference to me is playing against the game vs playing against the other players: Example of games where you play against other player(s): Chess, Checkers Tigris and Euphrates, Santorini, Trick Taking games, Battleline, The King is Dead, Unmatched, Quest for El Dorado, Hive, Mr. Jack, Whitehall Mystery, Mexica, Tzaar, Terra Nova, Clans, Codenames..etc. And here are games where you play against the game along side each other and compare points at the end. Some of these games have blocking, but that is not the truest form of playing against each other: Azul, A Feast for Odin, Agricola, Orleans, Grand Austria Hotel, Architects of the West Kingdom, Raiders of the North Sea, Patchwork, Castles of Burgundy, Jaiper, Sagrada…etc. For instance, if Azul was to be transformed into a competitive game, the players would not have their own board, but there would be a common board where players place their pieces and try to make patterns against everyone else. Aqualin almost seems to be the answer to this. You could almost call it competitive Azul. It’s on the same board and to me it feels so much better just having the interaction with another player.
Always good to see Rumble Nation (and games from Asia in general) get more love. I first played this game in 2018 and have been a fan of it ever since. In face, I think there were only 4 other games from Asia in 2017 that I ranked higher than Rumble Nation. One of the coolest things about living in Taiwan is experiencing games here and then, years later, see the NA and EU markets giving these games the hype buzz and love they deserve.
I see RN get compared to The King is Dead quite a bit, and there are similarities. I do think the card/passing mechanics are really interesting; however, I have found that RN is far more approachable as the end game triggers and scoring for TKiD can be confusing for new players.
Thanks for this series of videos--always great to hear your design thoughts.
What's another game that you think has a bit of delayed buzz for the rest of the world? I'd love to know! :)
I think two games that deserve more discussion are Jiangnan (Taiwan) and Natsumemo (Japan).
Natsumemo is a roll/flip and write about junior high school kids enjoying their last month of summer. Though the draw of the game is the excellent execution of theme and gameplay, I think it's interesting to see a flip & write lean more in the direction of a party game and not a euro number crunching combo style game. Natsumemo boldly goes for something in between & it works really well.
Jiangnan is really fascinating. It's a worker placement into 6 different areas. Then, all the workers from each area move down and onto a boat. The boats then move to the right & the process continues. So the boats become a mini area control game. Players want to control the boats as the boat majority chooses what resources score points in the game. I hadn't seen that marriage of mechanics before and I'm curious to see other designs use this idea.
@@CardboardEast Thank you so much! I'll check out your channel for more information about those games.
hey Just for interest: which asian Games that are maybe Not too known Here would you recommend Higher than rumble Nation?
Just Saw hat jamey asked you the Same question never mind 😂
The area control mechanics of Rumble Nation remind me a bit of El Grande.
Sounds like a fun game! Reminds me a bit of an older game called Quebec.
From the BGG description:
Québec introduces a unique and addictive majority rule. The player with the majority in a zone cascades half of his workers by moving them to the next zone. Workers moved in this way allow a player to score even more points. If a player still has the majority in the next zone, his workers cascade again - a potentially devastating ripple effect.
I just received the game game today from Amazon jp and played a 3 player game. What a great game! We made 1 rules mistake, giving the player who won a region 2 reinforcement cubes in 1 adjacent region in which that player had a cube instead of ALL adjacent regions in which that player had a cube. This could have easily affected the strategic decisions as to where to place cubes, i.e., in the middle of the board instead of the edges (perhaps depending on values of the regions). A player with seemingly fewer soldiers in some regions could use this domino effect to win the game. It's hard to see the value of playing a card instead of placing soldiers. With only 18 soldiers to place, winning the tie breaker sword seems really important. We'll have to play this seemingly lightweight game at least a few more times to get a better handle on the strategy.
It’s funny, the board, cubes and colors appear identical to those in The King Is Dead. And in that game too, you want to control regions. But it seems to play out in a completely different way!
This is a really cool mechanics. The dice choice I really like a lot where you control the dice and how you'll use them somewhat. But the area control is super slick, especially with the "pandemic" type of effect. It's a cascade of cubes lol.
Hello. Great video. Question about game mechanisms. There are games where players are playing against each other and games where players are playing against the game mechanism, more or less playing along side each other and comparing scores at the end. A lot of times the score comparing to see who won doesn’t feel fulfilling to me, or like anyone really won because the players weren’t really playing against each other, and sometimes if they did win, nobody can really pinpoint a reason. The game was too open with too many paths to victory to really see the strategy as it relates to someone else. I really like older designs like Tigris, or even chess where the depth of the game is in the player interaction and the skill of the opponent. But, designers seem to be going away from this in the last few years, and when I started looking at BBG I was surprised that people were calling these competitive type games “mean", or saying that a skilled opponent will always win, as if that were a negative thing. It seems like a lot of people grew up playing Checkers or Chess, or Risk, or Hearts or sports like basketball, and football . Those games are directly competitive, and have a skill level and players are playing on the same board or court, or field, and nobody was calling them mean. That's what we expected from games. I’m just wondering your thoughts on why designers don’t make these competitive games as much. As I look at popular games today on BGG, I’m guessing my opinion is the minority.
J: Thanks for your question. Are you talking about direct conflict in games where players can actively target each other? I think there are still plenty of games like that, but they're more balanced than older games so that a player who commits to a 2-3 hour game isn't sitting around doing nothing for the last hour (or feeling that way). So I think there are lots of ways that games still have players interacting with each other, just not as much actively targeting each other.
@@jameystegmaier The difference to me is playing against the game vs playing against the other players:
Example of games where you play against other player(s): Chess, Checkers Tigris and Euphrates, Santorini, Trick Taking games, Battleline, The King is Dead, Unmatched, Quest for El Dorado, Hive, Mr. Jack, Whitehall Mystery, Mexica, Tzaar, Terra Nova, Clans, Codenames..etc.
And here are games where you play against the game along side each other and compare points at the end. Some of these games have blocking, but that is not the truest form of playing against each other: Azul, A Feast for Odin, Agricola, Orleans, Grand Austria Hotel, Architects of the West Kingdom, Raiders of the North Sea, Patchwork, Castles of Burgundy, Jaiper, Sagrada…etc.
For instance, if Azul was to be transformed into a competitive game, the players would not have their own board, but there would be a common board where players place their pieces and try to make patterns against everyone else. Aqualin almost seems to be the answer to this. You could almost call it competitive Azul. It’s on the same board and to me it feels so much better just having the interaction with another player.