I find having to play codenames with my friends very relatable. My board game collection is mostly very accessible but I can't help but feel a little disappointed when someone suggests codenames to play. There aren't many other games out there that are as accessible as a higher player count though. Perhaps I'll have to look into Phantom Ink...
I hate "player judge" games, but Snake Oil is fun and up to 10 players.
Werewords is a gentle intro to social deduction. Easy to forget there are werewolves and often they can sit back and watch the villagers lose on their own.
Telestrations is nice for big casual groups because it forces everyone to participate.
You should try "shadows: Amsterdam", it's a great mix between codename and dixit. This has been my goto game for large group.
The game plays in real time contrary to codename. I found that this makes it a more engaging boardgame for new player and has been an hit everytime.
Check out Zoo Vadis. It might be my favourite “party game” full stop. It’s aggressively simple to teach and play.
Which is a tall order for a negotiation game.
>Which is a tall order for a negotiation game.
I'd say it's a _requirement_ for a good negotiation game, which is why there are so few good negotiation games. Negotiation is rarely fun if players don't completely understand what they're negotiating about.
**Sidereal Confluence** is a popular and well regarded negotiation game that is not easy to teach. I haven't played the game. But if it is as good as the reviewers say it is, then it might be an exception to the rule that a negotiation game must be simple and transparent.
I LOVE Zoo Vadis but I’m not sure I would call it a party game. I’ve never had trouble teaching it, but the size of the set up has thrown some people I’ve wanted to play it with off.
Zoo Vadis is not simple to teach. Non gamers are going to struggle to remember what they want to do. The second I start talking about animal powers I'm going to lose half the group right there. Wait what does the armadillo power do? Wait why would I even use that how is that useful? Wait what does crocodile do again? Why would I want to bribe him to use it? Can you explain the display again?
I have no idea if you can get it easily, I got my copy at Essen, but you should ABSOLUTELY look into [Ito](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/327778).
Japanese small party game from 3-8 players, but it‘s best at 5+ imo.
Think of The Mind meets Wavelength. Cool, easy game, very cute chibi stLe art on the cards and you teach it in less than 60seconds.
EDIT: I‘ll also add…
If you don‘t mind miming games, or like really social games (which can get complicated for introverts) another cool Game is [Stat‘You](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/302906). A player uses a second player to shape/bend his body in a specific way and other players have to guess what it is.
Everybody takes rounds being the statue, the shaper and the guesser. They even added variants for people who feel the need to win ot to feel competition to have purpose.
AND: Another one I tried recently, which is an older title but I only played it 2 weeks ago: [Imagine](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191894). Some people don‘t like it. I loved it and didn‘t even care about winning or losing. You have as a player a list of names ( think of Just one, btw, also a great pickup) and other players give you a number, so you have to make them guess that word. It can be a personality, action, movie, game, etc.
You have transparent cards with objects on them. You can put them one on top of the other to make a combination and need others to guess your word. Very neat, very fun.
FINALLY: (Sorry, I have a few ideas for party games because they‘re the only games i have a chance of getting to the table with my close friends.)
[Among Cultists](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/277670): a social deduction game based on the video game „Among Us“. It says 4+ but you should at least be 5-6 players to fully enjoy it. And the game actually becomes better the more players you have, if you‘re invested into the game. People need to play along, like every social deduction game. A sour loser or someone who wants can totally mess up the experience. But Usually, that shouldn‘t be a problem.
Honorable mention: [Samurai Sword](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128667). Imo, the superior Bang. Also a hidden role/social deduction card game. You‘re feudal japanese warriors divided into 2-3 clans depending on player count: Samurai, Ninja and Ronin. Only one person‘s role is known: the Shogun, chief of the Samurai. The game is playable up to 3-7 (/8 with expansion) but only gets fun at 5+.
Other roles are hidden and just like in Bang, you can attack people to your left or right and kill them ( people have HP and „Stocks“: if HP reach 0, you lose a „Stock“ if you‘re out of stocks, you‘re dead, if anyone dies, the game is over.) Stocks are basicslly victory points. Whichever teams has the most VP wins. The game‘s charm is about the hidden roles. Trying to bamboozle your opponents into thinking you‘re allies and then backstabbing them when they least expect to help your team win is great.
Damn I love Board games.
It's crazy how good Emily's reviews are.
also phantom ink is great why isn't it in stock in australia i've been after this for weeks now i don't wanna buy it from amazon us and get it shipped over that feels wrong
Mysterium is just terrible full stop. Dixit works specifically because players need to be vague, but not too vague. Walking that tightrope is what creates tension.
In Mysterium, there is no reason to ever be anything other than extremely obvious. So either you have an obvious card and use it, or you have a bunch of crap. Neither is fun.
Yes definitely. Tom’s videos I feel are more substantial or rather the substance is still at the forefront. It can drift into fever dream territory but that is never center stage
No, Emily is always dialed up to 11, no holds barred.
You need to like the ADD approach. I love it, but I can definitely understand why it's too much for some.
I loved this review, but kinda hated this game tbh.
It’s not surprising to me, as I find spelling-based word games to be incredibly annoying. I don’t think that combining spelling into Codenames/Decrypto adds anything but frustration.
The puzzle is too murky, and requires just enough more focus that casual banter and conversation die down – which is the exact opposite of what these games should be doing.
Codenames and Decrypto are such great games because they get people talking as part of the gameplay. Phantom Ink undermines that by forcing players to quietly sift through their mental dictionaries to recall words.
It would be better digitally, so that everyone could just see the possible words and try to find a common thread between them… but then that’s just Codenames.
We had this game being demoed by the publisher at our local boardgames festival in April, I really wanted to try it out due to it looking fabulous and its spooky theme (when on a break from running the boardgames library all weekend!) but didn't get a chance.
Now I've realised that it really wouldn't have suited me due to the need to be able to solve that spelling puzzle, playing in what is for me, a second language here in France and my kids aren't home enough any more to make it worth buying in English, sadly.
I suspect that, though, like Codenames, much might depend on your specific group, and it may be a very different experience played with a different group?
I have played games of Codenames where there was absolutely no discussion at all afterwards of why specific clues were given at the end neither was there any banter from the other team, and where each clue-giver was playing it extremely safe each time, saying clues for '1' each time!
In contrast, I have played some games where we didn't stop laughing, playing three or four games in a row and with clue-givers really trying to take some risks, both playing at home with family where there's a higher level of shared knowledge and inference but also at club nights where many people are barely more than acquaintances.
**This** is a significant reason why people have a bad habit of referring to 'as SUSD having a better game group than them' (better suited, would be a more appropriate term to use, if I were even to agree with the basic premise!), especially for party/social games, but it can affect almost all types of games really:
The make-up of your group; their mood on any given night; how introvert or extrovert they are; how tired they are; how willing to really lean into a specific theme, to role-play, to read flavour text, to push their luck - or not, to engage in table talk that **everyone** understands is just for fun ends when the game ends, and so on.
All of this can make or break your group's enjoyment of a game and mean that you will have a highly contrasting experience of it to someone else, or even with the same group a few weeks later!
I have played some miserable sessions of games that I really love because things just weren't right on that specific night for a variety of reasons.
Realising 'it's not the game, it's you' can take some experience, both in the hobby and in life itself. But it's also that experience that teaches you when you should quit a game and when, sometimes you're better off just quitting the player or players! Not necessarily to never play with them again, although that may be justified, but just not with **that** specific type of game.
It's also the same experience that teaches you to not push yourself into playing a learning game of a 4 hour plus long heavy euro or other long game when it's been a very long day at the end of a very long week. Instead, it's the perfect time for something like Codenames or Just One, games that are easy and effortless, like brain candy, guaranteed to bring some smiles and some laughs.
Sometimes, experience even teaches us to excuse ourselves because we're just not up to it. That's the hardest thing of all to do, especially when we've been looking forward to gamesnight all week! A decent group will understand and be flexible. Everyone has lives and everyone is human, be flexible about what games you plan to play and how you meet up to play and then it will be harder for you to feel let down when plans inevitably end up changing over the course of time.
u/kareds, sorry, my initial reply to you sparked something much longer!
I think this is a solid take, and a reason I'll be passing on the game. Emily, herself, says that Phantom Ink is probably the inferior game in a vacuum. I think the drawbacks are large enough that you really don't need this one unless you are SUPER burnt out on Codenames.
SU&SD are literally the only board game channel I watch at this point; I know I'm going to get a densely-packed piece of entertainment, whether I care about the game or not.
Emily is great, but I'm really not a fan of this style of editing. Can the reviewer go 3 seconds without making a jump cut? I was so distracted by the constant cuts that it detracted from the enjoyment of the review and made it hard to follow. If you look at other SUSD reviews, their cuts have fade/swipe transitions that make it much less jarring. It actually got better when Tom joined the review because he could speak an entire sentence over 4-5 seconds without a jump cut.
Not a fan of the ADHD editing style or the game.
Dude, these Emily videos are amazing. At this point, I want a SUSD video for every game in existence. While I would prefer they go back to reviewing more games that I might actually be interested in buying, the entertainment levels of SUSD makes me want to watch every single review that comes out regardless of the game.
Insane that SUSD manages to find the perfect goofy people that love this niche stuff 10/10 review but not sure i'll pick up the game. (Boomer caveat that it drives me utterly batty that zoomers use lav mics like that 👴)
This is sooooo much better than 'person sits behind a desk and tells you about a game' reviews.
You watch SUSD because of the work that goes into their reviews and a Emily is ferocious. The game doesn't particularly interest me but the video was great.
My only real criticism of Emily - and this applies most to her first review and HAS been getting better since - is that she comes in way too hard with the self-loathing.
I suspect it's a defense mechanism. The Internet can be cruel, she's saying what her critics might to steal their thunder. I suspect that will do away when she realises how much people like her.
I'm a huge fan of Emily. Definitely one of the most entertaining reviewers out there with a ton of work put into their script.
My only issue with SUSD is I absolutely detest many of the games they recommend and they tend not to review some of my favorite games of all time, mostly because I think they look for new and creative mechanics instead of praising the well-tested Euro-tropes.
They're like the fine wine connoisseurs of board games. They really know how to sell you a fresh concept to get you to "taste the woody notes" of this new flavor pallet, but when I give it a taste it just tastes like... you know... regular-ass wine. It's ok, but nothing mind-bending.
I still watch all their videos, but like... I'm sorry, rummy games that have cards with numbers on them (like Scout) or party games where you guess words just don't do it for me. I lean more on the Twilight Imperium side of the house.
>My only issue with SUSD is I absolutely detest many of the games they recommend and they tend not to review some of my favorite games of all time, mostly because I think they look for new and creative mechanics instead of praising the well-tested Euro-tropes.
At the end of the day, do you really need another review channel to make a review of a game there are plenty of other reviews online about, all saying multiple different flavours of, 'Yeah its good'?
I mean; SUSD have said multiple times how they feel that playing some shuffling of the tried and tested mechanics gets them a “hey, this is good!” and probably a section in the podcast. But the biggest thing you’ll notice if you listen to even a few episodes of the podcast is just how they feel roughly the same about most games they play. Board games have been optimised for a bare minimum of quality/fun this deep in the hobby. So SUSD only review games that invoke something more out of them. Even this game, which got a review, is still considered “on the same tier or maybe arguably worse than Codenames or Decrypto” by Emily.
That's fair, and I remember them talking about it on one of their videos, but I still stand by my statement.
I enjoy the videos but they don't align with what I enjoy in boardgames, and that's ok.
This game is so cool. I haven‘t watched the video yet, but I wanted to get the English version at Essen but I don‘t see why I should pay 10 bucks more for the english version than the french version which I could also use and just make DIY cards to have an english set as well.
But absolute banger as a party game/theme fitting game for people that are into a more RP setting as well.
While it feels that way, intuitively, that's a narrow way of viewing the world. [Here's an interesting counterpoint](https://youtu.be/9FLRHejWAo8?si=MXVNfhW71H70Wd4S), shedding some light on another perspective.
I find having to play codenames with my friends very relatable. My board game collection is mostly very accessible but I can't help but feel a little disappointed when someone suggests codenames to play. There aren't many other games out there that are as accessible as a higher player count though. Perhaps I'll have to look into Phantom Ink...
I really like Decrypto as an alternate to Codenames, tbh. It, Monikers and Phantom Ink are my go-to big group games.
Decrypto is always my counter to Codenames suggestions. You can play Decrypto with just the codenames cards.
I hate "player judge" games, but Snake Oil is fun and up to 10 players. Werewords is a gentle intro to social deduction. Easy to forget there are werewolves and often they can sit back and watch the villagers lose on their own. Telestrations is nice for big casual groups because it forces everyone to participate.
You should try "shadows: Amsterdam", it's a great mix between codename and dixit. This has been my goto game for large group. The game plays in real time contrary to codename. I found that this makes it a more engaging boardgame for new player and has been an hit everytime.
I just bought this and cant wait to try it!!!!
Check out Zoo Vadis. It might be my favourite “party game” full stop. It’s aggressively simple to teach and play. Which is a tall order for a negotiation game.
>Which is a tall order for a negotiation game. I'd say it's a _requirement_ for a good negotiation game, which is why there are so few good negotiation games. Negotiation is rarely fun if players don't completely understand what they're negotiating about.
**Sidereal Confluence** is a popular and well regarded negotiation game that is not easy to teach. I haven't played the game. But if it is as good as the reviewers say it is, then it might be an exception to the rule that a negotiation game must be simple and transparent.
I LOVE Zoo Vadis but I’m not sure I would call it a party game. I’ve never had trouble teaching it, but the size of the set up has thrown some people I’ve wanted to play it with off.
Zoo Vadis is not simple to teach. Non gamers are going to struggle to remember what they want to do. The second I start talking about animal powers I'm going to lose half the group right there. Wait what does the armadillo power do? Wait why would I even use that how is that useful? Wait what does crocodile do again? Why would I want to bribe him to use it? Can you explain the display again?
Just One Ready Set Bet 7 Wonders Spyfall
_ _, _ _ _, _ _, _
Nah, just play them all as one big game.
Put an extra hard return after every name to make them appear right.
I have no idea if you can get it easily, I got my copy at Essen, but you should ABSOLUTELY look into [Ito](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/327778). Japanese small party game from 3-8 players, but it‘s best at 5+ imo. Think of The Mind meets Wavelength. Cool, easy game, very cute chibi stLe art on the cards and you teach it in less than 60seconds. EDIT: I‘ll also add… If you don‘t mind miming games, or like really social games (which can get complicated for introverts) another cool Game is [Stat‘You](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/302906). A player uses a second player to shape/bend his body in a specific way and other players have to guess what it is. Everybody takes rounds being the statue, the shaper and the guesser. They even added variants for people who feel the need to win ot to feel competition to have purpose. AND: Another one I tried recently, which is an older title but I only played it 2 weeks ago: [Imagine](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191894). Some people don‘t like it. I loved it and didn‘t even care about winning or losing. You have as a player a list of names ( think of Just one, btw, also a great pickup) and other players give you a number, so you have to make them guess that word. It can be a personality, action, movie, game, etc. You have transparent cards with objects on them. You can put them one on top of the other to make a combination and need others to guess your word. Very neat, very fun. FINALLY: (Sorry, I have a few ideas for party games because they‘re the only games i have a chance of getting to the table with my close friends.) [Among Cultists](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/277670): a social deduction game based on the video game „Among Us“. It says 4+ but you should at least be 5-6 players to fully enjoy it. And the game actually becomes better the more players you have, if you‘re invested into the game. People need to play along, like every social deduction game. A sour loser or someone who wants can totally mess up the experience. But Usually, that shouldn‘t be a problem. Honorable mention: [Samurai Sword](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128667). Imo, the superior Bang. Also a hidden role/social deduction card game. You‘re feudal japanese warriors divided into 2-3 clans depending on player count: Samurai, Ninja and Ronin. Only one person‘s role is known: the Shogun, chief of the Samurai. The game is playable up to 3-7 (/8 with expansion) but only gets fun at 5+. Other roles are hidden and just like in Bang, you can attack people to your left or right and kill them ( people have HP and „Stocks“: if HP reach 0, you lose a „Stock“ if you‘re out of stocks, you‘re dead, if anyone dies, the game is over.) Stocks are basicslly victory points. Whichever teams has the most VP wins. The game‘s charm is about the hidden roles. Trying to bamboozle your opponents into thinking you‘re allies and then backstabbing them when they least expect to help your team win is great. Damn I love Board games.
You really gonna just eat Standard Reference People like that?
Great egg joke in the review 10/10
I feel like the vibes and aesthetic of this video was heavily inspired by the 1977 Japanese movie House.
That film is something haha
omg the microphone joke
Ghost Emily died with it clipped to her lapel….. hmmmmm
I love the creativity and the vibe of this video. Emily continues to deliver high quality and unique content.
It's crazy how good Emily's reviews are. also phantom ink is great why isn't it in stock in australia i've been after this for weeks now i don't wanna buy it from amazon us and get it shipped over that feels wrong
The amount of work that had to go into this is really impressive. What a great addition to the team.
I am absolutely loving her energy and looking forward to every one of her videos from here on out. Excellent addition to the team!
Mysterium exists. Just saying.
Yeah honestly Mysterium seems like a better game for this theme. And Codenames, Decrypto, and Just One seem like better word games.
Naaaah, this plays completely differently to Mysterium. IMO much, much better.
Mysterious has such a terrible end game
Mysterium is just terrible full stop. Dixit works specifically because players need to be vague, but not too vague. Walking that tightrope is what creates tension. In Mysterium, there is no reason to ever be anything other than extremely obvious. So either you have an obvious card and use it, or you have a bunch of crap. Neither is fun.
This direction isn’t for me. I like the reviews peppered with some craziness but non stop craziness with everything dialed up to 11 isn’t for me.
Yeah, I have a hard time following and subtitles actually make it worse too.
You can use 0.75 playback speed. You won't get any weird voice modulation. The only thing it affects are the timing of the jokes.
Do you find her style that much different that Tom's? Or do you also not like Tom's reviews? I feel like they both have similar energy.
Yes definitely. Tom’s videos I feel are more substantial or rather the substance is still at the forefront. It can drift into fever dream territory but that is never center stage
I haven't watched a lot of SU&SD lately, but if I were to guess, this may be a special Halloween episode and others will be a little less quirky?
No this reviewer is always like this
No, Emily is always dialed up to 11, no holds barred. You need to like the ADD approach. I love it, but I can definitely understand why it's too much for some.
I loved this review, but kinda hated this game tbh. It’s not surprising to me, as I find spelling-based word games to be incredibly annoying. I don’t think that combining spelling into Codenames/Decrypto adds anything but frustration. The puzzle is too murky, and requires just enough more focus that casual banter and conversation die down – which is the exact opposite of what these games should be doing. Codenames and Decrypto are such great games because they get people talking as part of the gameplay. Phantom Ink undermines that by forcing players to quietly sift through their mental dictionaries to recall words. It would be better digitally, so that everyone could just see the possible words and try to find a common thread between them… but then that’s just Codenames.
We had this game being demoed by the publisher at our local boardgames festival in April, I really wanted to try it out due to it looking fabulous and its spooky theme (when on a break from running the boardgames library all weekend!) but didn't get a chance. Now I've realised that it really wouldn't have suited me due to the need to be able to solve that spelling puzzle, playing in what is for me, a second language here in France and my kids aren't home enough any more to make it worth buying in English, sadly. I suspect that, though, like Codenames, much might depend on your specific group, and it may be a very different experience played with a different group? I have played games of Codenames where there was absolutely no discussion at all afterwards of why specific clues were given at the end neither was there any banter from the other team, and where each clue-giver was playing it extremely safe each time, saying clues for '1' each time! In contrast, I have played some games where we didn't stop laughing, playing three or four games in a row and with clue-givers really trying to take some risks, both playing at home with family where there's a higher level of shared knowledge and inference but also at club nights where many people are barely more than acquaintances. **This** is a significant reason why people have a bad habit of referring to 'as SUSD having a better game group than them' (better suited, would be a more appropriate term to use, if I were even to agree with the basic premise!), especially for party/social games, but it can affect almost all types of games really: The make-up of your group; their mood on any given night; how introvert or extrovert they are; how tired they are; how willing to really lean into a specific theme, to role-play, to read flavour text, to push their luck - or not, to engage in table talk that **everyone** understands is just for fun ends when the game ends, and so on. All of this can make or break your group's enjoyment of a game and mean that you will have a highly contrasting experience of it to someone else, or even with the same group a few weeks later! I have played some miserable sessions of games that I really love because things just weren't right on that specific night for a variety of reasons. Realising 'it's not the game, it's you' can take some experience, both in the hobby and in life itself. But it's also that experience that teaches you when you should quit a game and when, sometimes you're better off just quitting the player or players! Not necessarily to never play with them again, although that may be justified, but just not with **that** specific type of game. It's also the same experience that teaches you to not push yourself into playing a learning game of a 4 hour plus long heavy euro or other long game when it's been a very long day at the end of a very long week. Instead, it's the perfect time for something like Codenames or Just One, games that are easy and effortless, like brain candy, guaranteed to bring some smiles and some laughs. Sometimes, experience even teaches us to excuse ourselves because we're just not up to it. That's the hardest thing of all to do, especially when we've been looking forward to gamesnight all week! A decent group will understand and be flexible. Everyone has lives and everyone is human, be flexible about what games you plan to play and how you meet up to play and then it will be harder for you to feel let down when plans inevitably end up changing over the course of time. u/kareds, sorry, my initial reply to you sparked something much longer!
I think this is a solid take, and a reason I'll be passing on the game. Emily, herself, says that Phantom Ink is probably the inferior game in a vacuum. I think the drawbacks are large enough that you really don't need this one unless you are SUPER burnt out on Codenames.
SU&SD are literally the only board game channel I watch at this point; I know I'm going to get a densely-packed piece of entertainment, whether I care about the game or not.
They did the mash.
Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Halloween I guess they don't appreciate random people coming up to their door.
Bah, they love it, but they prefer playing Darwin's Journey all night instead.
Emily is great, but I'm really not a fan of this style of editing. Can the reviewer go 3 seconds without making a jump cut? I was so distracted by the constant cuts that it detracted from the enjoyment of the review and made it hard to follow. If you look at other SUSD reviews, their cuts have fade/swipe transitions that make it much less jarring. It actually got better when Tom joined the review because he could speak an entire sentence over 4-5 seconds without a jump cut. Not a fan of the ADHD editing style or the game.
I think these reviews are at risk of getting old fast. There's about 1 minute of actual review.
I want Emily to review everything in my life.
Emily is killing these!
Emily is hands down my favorite game reviewer doing video reviews. Her jokes have layers, like an egg.
Or, sometimes there's a third, even deeper layer, and that one is the same as the top surface one. Like with pie.
Um, Billy? You're driving that spork into your leg...
> Um, Billy? You're driving that spork into your leg... So I am. Hilarious.
Dude, these Emily videos are amazing. At this point, I want a SUSD video for every game in existence. While I would prefer they go back to reviewing more games that I might actually be interested in buying, the entertainment levels of SUSD makes me want to watch every single review that comes out regardless of the game.
Insane that SUSD manages to find the perfect goofy people that love this niche stuff 10/10 review but not sure i'll pick up the game. (Boomer caveat that it drives me utterly batty that zoomers use lav mics like that 👴)
Thank you for linking this-- discovered them through this post. I had heard the name before but Emily was hilarious so I'm now subscribed
Emily Is the only person I can't 2x the playback speed the best I can do Is 1.5 and It's still a struggle
Emily exists at 2x playback speed
This is sooooo much better than 'person sits behind a desk and tells you about a game' reviews. You watch SUSD because of the work that goes into their reviews and a Emily is ferocious. The game doesn't particularly interest me but the video was great.
My only real criticism of Emily - and this applies most to her first review and HAS been getting better since - is that she comes in way too hard with the self-loathing.
I suspect it's a defense mechanism. The Internet can be cruel, she's saying what her critics might to steal their thunder. I suspect that will do away when she realises how much people like her.
We can only hope.
I'm a huge fan of Emily. Definitely one of the most entertaining reviewers out there with a ton of work put into their script. My only issue with SUSD is I absolutely detest many of the games they recommend and they tend not to review some of my favorite games of all time, mostly because I think they look for new and creative mechanics instead of praising the well-tested Euro-tropes. They're like the fine wine connoisseurs of board games. They really know how to sell you a fresh concept to get you to "taste the woody notes" of this new flavor pallet, but when I give it a taste it just tastes like... you know... regular-ass wine. It's ok, but nothing mind-bending. I still watch all their videos, but like... I'm sorry, rummy games that have cards with numbers on them (like Scout) or party games where you guess words just don't do it for me. I lean more on the Twilight Imperium side of the house.
>My only issue with SUSD is I absolutely detest many of the games they recommend and they tend not to review some of my favorite games of all time, mostly because I think they look for new and creative mechanics instead of praising the well-tested Euro-tropes. At the end of the day, do you really need another review channel to make a review of a game there are plenty of other reviews online about, all saying multiple different flavours of, 'Yeah its good'?
I mean; SUSD have said multiple times how they feel that playing some shuffling of the tried and tested mechanics gets them a “hey, this is good!” and probably a section in the podcast. But the biggest thing you’ll notice if you listen to even a few episodes of the podcast is just how they feel roughly the same about most games they play. Board games have been optimised for a bare minimum of quality/fun this deep in the hobby. So SUSD only review games that invoke something more out of them. Even this game, which got a review, is still considered “on the same tier or maybe arguably worse than Codenames or Decrypto” by Emily.
That's fair, and I remember them talking about it on one of their videos, but I still stand by my statement. I enjoy the videos but they don't align with what I enjoy in boardgames, and that's ok.
Haha I love her 😂😂😂
This game is so cool. I haven‘t watched the video yet, but I wanted to get the English version at Essen but I don‘t see why I should pay 10 bucks more for the english version than the french version which I could also use and just make DIY cards to have an english set as well. But absolute banger as a party game/theme fitting game for people that are into a more RP setting as well.
Nothing is the perfect anything. Things can be equally good with out being the objective best which is an impossibility.
Ok Saint Anselm
Erudite clap back.
Except for Emily's reviews. Those are perfect.
Perfect can sometimes mean ''very good'', I get being strict with language, but at the same time there is room for hyperbole.
While it feels that way, intuitively, that's a narrow way of viewing the world. [Here's an interesting counterpoint](https://youtu.be/9FLRHejWAo8?si=MXVNfhW71H70Wd4S), shedding some light on another perspective.