Space alert can be a lot of fun but I totally agree on a couple parts. 1: it's extremely challenging and 2: you have to have people that are very communicative and aware of what everybody is doing. Just one person being off can throw everything into chaos and ruin everybody's steps.
Great video! You covered two on my wishlist: first rat and campaign trail. I'm glad at least half of you liked campaign trail haha. Sorry the original colonies are a bit confusing geographically, you should see some of the city grids - oof!
Mosaïc is in my top 5 games of all time. I love (they are my favorite) Civilization games but I don't always have time to play the 4+ hours games. Mosaïc is great at giving you the sprawling cities and tech advancing feelings with very quick, almost instantaneous, player turns. Thank you for letting it down soflty though, it's not for everyone indeed but there will be quite a few people out there that would love it ❤
I like it a lot as well, just do not need to own it, and rather have someone who will like it better have the chance to play it! 🤩 Super happy to hear you are enjoying it a lot! 😁
Do you honestly feel that it is a Civ game? Obviously has that theme, but I didn't feel like the mechanics felt anything like what a Civ game should (even allowing for the many ways a Civ game can feel). Overall, I found it a boring tableau builder.
@@KissellMissile You might be mixing up Genre/Category vs Mechanisms. Civ is the genre. Tableau building, bag building, worker placement, etc, those are mechanisms. Multiple games of the same genre can all play very differently from each other. According to BGG:"Civilization games often have players developing and managing a society of people. The aim of each player is usually to employ citizens in ways that are beneficial to society, and have them progress throughout the game so that their civilization gains superiority over others. Civilization games may have each player build their society independently, or through warfare and diplomacy, each player may find themselves benefiting or suffering from the actions of others." Mosaïc checks all those boxes. Of course it's widly different than my favorite game of all time Civilization (Avalon Hill 1980) through their respective mechanisms but ultimately fit the genre of Civilization.
Completely understand your reason for culling Mosaic.... The lack of game timer is also my gripe, but just holding on for now to see if the expansion makes it any better
I agree with First Rat! Fun fun fun. Do you know where I can find the Mint soundtrack (the song at the end 😆) Sound more entertaining than the game itself! 😂
Astra is really great, the box does make people think it will be short and it isn’t but I really love that taking the card isn’t really what you are doing, you are trying to getting the best rewards. There is a lot of tension when you go into it knowing that succeeding is all about timing it all right. 5 players is probably not ideal. 3 is probably best, 2 works pretty well, even with the extra rule set.
I’ve never heard of Time of Empires, but I love your description of “if Pendulum were good”. Pendulum is my favorite game of all time - yes, I know I’m in the minority. So if Time of Empire is anything like it, then I’m in! I love finding new games through Keep or Cull 😊
The thing about your videos guys is that you always put a smile on my face, so 35 minutes of a video from yourselves has really set my day up just great. Thanks very much, once again, for it, and I look forward to the next one eagerly.
I can't help myself. I see First Rat, i have to click on the video. But did you keep or cull it? Don't know.... I guess I have to watch the video😀 Ohh I was so scared for first rat. You culled so many games. But I am glad that you keep it. I just love this game, even though It doesn't hit the table to often😀
Exit's Return of the Abandoned Cabin was one of their best in a while. Usually it's the deduction ones that I like the most (Murder, Kidnapping, Theft, etc).
Love your videos. Always make me smile. I need to get aboard the cull train. I’m more open to it than my wife but we openly agree we have too many games but then make a cull list and it’s like 5 games out of 200
Thank you for the kind words! It makes me happy to read that you are getting enjoyment from our videos :) Yeah, getting started on culling is hard, but when you start, it gets easier all the time!
Genoa is very fun game but you are right is totally group dependent. I like it more than Chinatown or Sidereal Confluence. Lastly, in new edition they reduce 5 player game rounds from 7 to 6.
Curious what you thought was unique (legit question)? The debate is pretty cool, but it overall feels a lot like 1960, and it seems like the only advantage it has over that game is the ability to play more than 2?
@@KissellMissile I've never played 1960, so I can't speak to that but most area control games I've played don't have this kind of card system where your card can have so many different action functions as well as the strategic option to save them for the debate. Also, the P + VP working together is a neat addition.
@@BoardGamingRamblings Sunniva is one of my go to voices for gaming, so I'm not surprised. Once you are more comfortable with the "weird" map lol, you'll perhaps enjoy it more. Try a shorter version with less cards in the deck so the length is to your liking.
At 9:40, I read the rules and the game sounded horrible so I put the game away. I later re-read the rule book and it still sounded horrible. Finally, my wife’s brother came over and we figured we would play it because it was horrible………..and…….(twist)……we loved it. Great game. Me: What the heck just happened? I haven’t been this surprised since I saw that murder-mystery movie Glass Onion.
Nooo, the Exits are still excellent! Some are not as good as others, obviously, but some of the recent ones have been really Good! Return to the Abandoned Cabin, for example :D
We are feeling that they are not as good as they where in the beginning, but I still enjoy playing them. We have two more here yet to play, so we will see after those!
Really enjoying your reviews and all these mini reviews within keep or cull! It’s refreshing to hear reasons other people didn’t enjoy a game so I can decide if it’s for me. I played seize the bean at a con recently and loved it! But it’s impossible to find! Any chance your copy would like to come live with me in Canada? 😂
Thank you so much! Glad to hear you did enjoy it. Sorry to hear you cannot find Seize the Bean anywhere. The shipping to Canada would probably be quite a lot! :/
At Board Game Rambling - sadly for Solar Sphere you did *not* play it incorrectly. I went into it thinking it was a point salad. There are so many ways to get points……you can recruit people with powers that give you points, you can fight rebels and that gives you points, you can go up tracks on your personal boards and those give you points. And if you play with the expansion you have a rondel that can be used to give you points. HOWEVER…….all of these points pale in comparison to just occupying the solar sphere. Every game you can swap out how points are scored by occupying the solar sphere BUT…..If you look at the point distribution of every single scoring card for the solar sphere it is by far the best way to score points in the game. If you try to do a Recruit new workers + Fight Rebel strategy exclusively……..YOU WILL LOSE. It’s always better to occupy the solar sphere and diversify only a little. The game comes across as having multiple avenues to victory…..but there is only one true path. All roads lead to Rome…..and all strategies for winning will rely on occupying the solar sphere. I think this can be remedied by reducing the scoring on the solar sphere. After I played a couple of times, I kept feeling that the game gave the illusion of multiple paths of victories but only had one main one. I will say the game looks gorgeous and I really love the mechanisms and I enjoyed playing it but they really made a mistake by making the game so heavily dependent on the solar sphere….BUT i guess they did call the game SOLAR SPHERE…..so maybe it was an oversight by me in not instinctively going for occupying it.
I will also say that I think that the game can be “fixed” imo……but just reducing the points earned by the solar sphere to make the other paths to victories more viable….but who has time to figure that out. I’m on to the next game.
You don’t know the name & location of all 50 United States, Johannes? That’s okay, most Americans don’t either! Don’t know about Campaign Trail, but 1960: The Making of the President is a great game from the same designer as Twilight Struggle (which is a much better game using similar mechanisms). Of course, the best election game is still Die Macher.
Shame you didn't like Solar Sphere, I thought it was pretty good. Didn't have the same problem as you, but also ultimately didn't keep it as felt 4 plays was enough to see the most of it. So can't say if you were wrong or right, but didn't see it myself.
I feel like you must have done something wrong in Solar Sphere. I only played it once, but with 4 players, we went to 6 rounds. I came second, having placed the fewest tiles on the sun. If I had to guess, maybe you took resources for each moral you went back instead of going back to the previous spanner/wrench icon? I remember it being hard to get the resources necessary to put out the tiles and found getting cards a better option most of the time. You also need to attack the rogue/enemy ships to avoid negatives - did you do that part? First Rat is definitely my favorite here. Wasn't expecting much before I first played it (about a year ago), but Gigli delivered again!
Space alert can be a lot of fun but I totally agree on a couple parts. 1: it's extremely challenging and 2: you have to have people that are very communicative and aware of what everybody is doing. Just one person being off can throw everything into chaos and ruin everybody's steps.
Johannes's facial expressions in reaction to Sunniva saying Astra felt fresh cracked me up - you took us on a whole journey!
Haha, glad you enjoyed the journey 🤩
I am really interested in kids stealing from tombs right now. Thanks for the very full video!! ❤
Mint Delivery „this is a series of games (…) about delivering things“. Nice!
Haha 😅
Absolutely agree about First Rat! Great game!
Yay 🤩 Glad you are enjoying it!
Great video! You covered two on my wishlist: first rat and campaign trail. I'm glad at least half of you liked campaign trail haha. Sorry the original colonies are a bit confusing geographically, you should see some of the city grids - oof!
Johannes! Hold the game box still so we can read it! 🤣
Haha, sorry! I’ll be better!
Please cull your feast for odin? :D haha no seriously, fun episode :)
Mosaïc is in my top 5 games of all time. I love (they are my favorite) Civilization games but I don't always have time to play the 4+ hours games. Mosaïc is great at giving you the sprawling cities and tech advancing feelings with very quick, almost instantaneous, player turns.
Thank you for letting it down soflty though, it's not for everyone indeed but there will be quite a few people out there that would love it ❤
I like it a lot as well, just do not need to own it, and rather have someone who will like it better have the chance to play it! 🤩 Super happy to hear you are enjoying it a lot! 😁
Do you honestly feel that it is a Civ game? Obviously has that theme, but I didn't feel like the mechanics felt anything like what a Civ game should (even allowing for the many ways a Civ game can feel). Overall, I found it a boring tableau builder.
@@KissellMissile You might be mixing up Genre/Category vs Mechanisms. Civ is the genre. Tableau building, bag building, worker placement, etc, those are mechanisms. Multiple games of the same genre can all play very differently from each other. According to BGG:"Civilization games often have players developing and managing a society of people. The aim of each player is usually to employ citizens in ways that are beneficial to society, and have them progress throughout the game so that their civilization gains superiority over others. Civilization games may have each player build their society independently, or through warfare and diplomacy, each player may find themselves benefiting or suffering from the actions of others."
Mosaïc checks all those boxes. Of course it's widly different than my favorite game of all time Civilization (Avalon Hill 1980) through their respective mechanisms but ultimately fit the genre of Civilization.
Completely understand your reason for culling Mosaic.... The lack of game timer is also my gripe, but just holding on for now to see if the expansion makes it any better
Better to have someone else enjoy it even more :)
I really like hearing your thoughts on 'older' games.
And I like your video's in general. 🙂 Thanks
I agree with First Rat! Fun fun fun.
Do you know where I can find the Mint soundtrack (the song at the end 😆) Sound more entertaining than the game itself! 😂
It will be released sometime during the next 45903 days!
Astra is really great, the box does make people think it will be short and it isn’t but I really love that taking the card isn’t really what you are doing, you are trying to getting the best rewards. There is a lot of tension when you go into it knowing that succeeding is all about timing it all right. 5 players is probably not ideal. 3 is probably best, 2 works pretty well, even with the extra rule set.
I’ve never heard of Time of Empires, but I love your description of “if Pendulum were good”. Pendulum is my favorite game of all time - yes, I know I’m in the minority. So if Time of Empire is anything like it, then I’m in! I love finding new games through Keep or Cull 😊
I also liked Pendulum, so that comment was a bit out of place, but I like this one better! Check it out, it might be your new favorite!
The thing about your videos guys is that you always put a smile on my face, so 35 minutes of a video from yourselves has really set my day up just great. Thanks very much, once again, for it, and I look forward to the next one eagerly.
Thank you so much! That means a lot to hear :) Super happy that you are getting enjoyment out of our ramblings!
Sunniva's face when looking at that mint tin
... Dead giveaway... Feel the same.
Haha, yeah, not a very good game 😅
You are slowly becoming my favourite board game content creators! Great job!
Thank you so much for saying that! It means a lot to hear! :D
I can't help myself.
I see First Rat, i have to click on the video.
But did you keep or cull it? Don't know.... I guess I have to watch the video😀
Ohh I was so scared for first rat. You culled so many games.
But I am glad that you keep it. I just love this game, even though It doesn't hit the table to often😀
It’s a super good game! 🤩 Thanks for watching!
Yay for keeping First Rat! I love that game!
Fantastic game 🤩
Always a good youtube day when your Keep or Cull videos show up!❤❤❤
Thank you for the kind words! Glad you are enjoying it :)
Exit's Return of the Abandoned Cabin was one of their best in a while. Usually it's the deduction ones that I like the most (Murder, Kidnapping, Theft, etc).
Need to check that one out!
Great channel!! Thank you! Great energy! Time of Empires looks fun. The wife and I looooooooove First Rat!!
Thank you so much! Glad you are enjoying the videos :D
I’ll add to the First Rat love. I just played it for the first time this past Saturday and really enjoyed it!
So happy to hear that :D
Love your videos. Always make me smile. I need to get aboard the cull train. I’m more open to it than my wife but we openly agree we have too many games but then make a cull list and it’s like 5 games out of 200
Thank you for the kind words! It makes me happy to read that you are getting enjoyment from our videos :) Yeah, getting started on culling is hard, but when you start, it gets easier all the time!
2:21 my favorite part of any episode
Hahahaha, I loved that as well! 🥳
Like everything about this video!
Thank you so much 🥳
New England on notice for having too many small states.
Hahaha 😂
I almost bought the huge production of Mosaic. It has a good looking map, which is a weakness of mine.
Genoa is very fun game but you are right is totally group dependent. I like it more than Chinatown or Sidereal Confluence. Lastly, in new edition they reduce 5 player game rounds from 7 to 6.
Glad to hear you are liking it! It’s not our usual style of game, but I am happy to have tried it!
7:40 "Please ....make better games"🤣🤣🤣
Luckily, there are so many good games to choose from! 🥳
Oh no! Culling Campaign Trail. I think that's a good area control game with unique mechanisms.
Sunniva saved it for now 😅
Curious what you thought was unique (legit question)? The debate is pretty cool, but it overall feels a lot like 1960, and it seems like the only advantage it has over that game is the ability to play more than 2?
@@KissellMissile I've never played 1960, so I can't speak to that but most area control games I've played don't have this kind of card system where your card can have so many different action functions as well as the strategic option to save them for the debate. Also, the P + VP working together is a neat addition.
@@BoardGamingRamblings Sunniva is one of my go to voices for gaming, so I'm not surprised. Once you are more comfortable with the "weird" map lol, you'll perhaps enjoy it more. Try a shorter version with less cards in the deck so the length is to your liking.
agree with Exit - just exit.
Would have loved it if they released fewer, better ones each year :D
At 9:40, I read the rules and the game sounded horrible so I put the game away. I later re-read the rule book and it still sounded horrible. Finally, my wife’s brother came over and we figured we would play it because it was horrible………..and…….(twist)……we loved it. Great game.
Me: What the heck just happened? I haven’t been this surprised since I saw that murder-mystery movie Glass Onion.
Hahahaha, good to have a twist here and there 😂
Nooo, the Exits are still excellent! Some are not as good as others, obviously, but some of the recent ones have been really Good! Return to the Abandoned Cabin, for example :D
We are feeling that they are not as good as they where in the beginning, but I still enjoy playing them. We have two more here yet to play, so we will see after those!
Really enjoying your reviews and all these mini reviews within keep or cull! It’s refreshing to hear reasons other people didn’t enjoy a game so I can decide if it’s for me. I played seize the bean at a con recently and loved it! But it’s impossible to find! Any chance your copy would like to come live with me in Canada? 😂
Thank you so much! Glad to hear you did enjoy it. Sorry to hear you cannot find Seize the Bean anywhere. The shipping to Canada would probably be quite a lot! :/
@@BoardGamingRamblings fair enough! I’ll keep looking 😆
great video
great keep of cull
Thank you! Glad you liked it :D
At Board Game Rambling - sadly for Solar Sphere you did *not* play it incorrectly. I went into it thinking it was a point salad. There are so many ways to get points……you can recruit people with powers that give you points, you can fight rebels and that gives you points, you can go up tracks on your personal boards and those give you points. And if you play with the expansion you have a rondel that can be used to give you points. HOWEVER…….all of these points pale in comparison to just occupying the solar sphere. Every game you can swap out how points are scored by occupying the solar sphere BUT…..If you look at the point distribution of every single scoring card for the solar sphere it is by far the best way to score points in the game. If you try to do a Recruit new workers + Fight Rebel strategy exclusively……..YOU WILL LOSE. It’s always better to occupy the solar sphere and diversify only a little. The game comes across as having multiple avenues to victory…..but there is only one true path. All roads lead to Rome…..and all strategies for winning will rely on occupying the solar sphere. I think this can be remedied by reducing the scoring on the solar sphere. After I played a couple of times, I kept feeling that the game gave the illusion of multiple paths of victories but only had one main one. I will say the game looks gorgeous and I really love the mechanisms and I enjoyed playing it but they really made a mistake by making the game so heavily dependent on the solar sphere….BUT i guess they did call the game SOLAR SPHERE…..so maybe it was an oversight by me in not instinctively going for occupying it.
I will also say that I think that the game can be “fixed” imo……but just reducing the points earned by the solar sphere to make the other paths to victories more viable….but who has time to figure that out. I’m on to the next game.
It was such a weird experience to play it, but I reread the rules so many times during that play to make sure we did it right!
Have you played Pandemic's Star Wars: Clone Wars? That is fun and from what I've heard is an evolution of Lich King.
We have not played it! Maybe we’ll have to check it out.
I like Century 3 the most out of the 3, but still not a must-have. I knew Mosaic was my biggest disappointment of the year in January already.
Still want to try the third one, but will probably not buy a copy!
Nice
Thank you!
You don’t know the name & location of all 50 United States, Johannes? That’s okay, most Americans don’t either! Don’t know about Campaign Trail, but 1960: The Making of the President is a great game from the same designer as Twilight Struggle (which is a much better game using similar mechanisms). Of course, the best election game is still Die Macher.
I actually really like Mosaic, but 4 player or 3 player, at 2 player it doesn't really sing...
I agree! We really like it, I just don’t need to own it!
Shame you didn't like Solar Sphere, I thought it was pretty good. Didn't have the same problem as you, but also ultimately didn't keep it as felt 4 plays was enough to see the most of it. So can't say if you were wrong or right, but didn't see it myself.
It’s so weird. I’m 90% sure we played everything correct, and it makes the game make little sense 😅 Glad you at least got 4 plays out of it!
I feel like you must have done something wrong in Solar Sphere. I only played it once, but with 4 players, we went to 6 rounds. I came second, having placed the fewest tiles on the sun. If I had to guess, maybe you took resources for each moral you went back instead of going back to the previous spanner/wrench icon? I remember it being hard to get the resources necessary to put out the tiles and found getting cards a better option most of the time. You also need to attack the rogue/enemy ships to avoid negatives - did you do that part?
First Rat is definitely my favorite here. Wasn't expecting much before I first played it (about a year ago), but Gigli delivered again!
Somebody did attack, but the negative is also only one morale, which isn’t a lot. And sadly we did play morale correctly 🥲
Agree on Mosaic. I thought it would be to my liking but it feels bland, derivative, and just not really "cilizationy".
I like it quite a bit, but I know others will enjoy this copy more!
I can't believe you don't know about the American voting system! That is sooooooo un-American!! :)
Hahahaha 😂
Right, because to be American you'd have to THINK you understand the voting system and feel it's awful or unfair.
😂😂😂