Salutations summer children,
I hope you enjoyed my latest video - it was a return to the kind of video I want to be making after the Top 100 series. In this newsletter, I’ll be reviewing Hot Streak, the Extra Pepper expansion for Sea, Salt and Paper, and Wine Cellar.
Thank you to everyone who renewed your yearly pledge from last year’s pledge drive. The summer is always a quiet time for Actualol on YouTube, so I really appreciate your support.
Actual Life
For my birthday this year, I had some friends visit, and we went on a little pub tour, playing lots of small games along the way.
To immortalise the experience, I printed out a scorecard to track all the games we played. Players could track their scores, the winner of the game, their rating of the game, the venue we played in, and a rating of the vibe of that venue.
Over two days we managed to play 15 games, but as you can see from the ratings, it was not the strongest selection. I was hoping to find some hot new small games to recommend on the channel, but instead I found a lot of duds. The highlights were the two games I’ll talk about below.
Actual Games
Hot Streak is a new betting game that threatens to take Camel Up’s crown, by being more chaotic and entertaining. It has an iconic look - you are betting on the race of four 3D mascots - a hotdog, a queen, a fish and a bear.
They will be running down a track trying to get to the end first, but on the way they will be falling over, running into each other and turning around and running backwards. There is silly joy in watching these idiots desperately try to get to the finish line - with the hope that your idiot can pull themselves together and win.
The movement of the mascots is controlled by cards. Some are dealt out at the start to show you how they’re likely to move. You can see if the fish has a card that makes them fall over, or one that stands them up again. But you don’t know the order they will come out in. When the race starts, they’re shuffled and revealed one at a time. If the fish’s “stand up” card comes first, it will fall over later, and then spend the rest of the race crawling to the finish line. The idiot.
So you look at these cards, trying to predict an outcome. And take it in turns to bet on a mascot. When you take a bet you can decide to flip it and make it “risky” - so it will pay out more if they win, but less if they come 2nd or 3rd - which adds some extra drama. There is also a fun side bet you can choose - betting on something such as “a mascot will be knocked out” (falling down twice in a row).
You do get some small agency. Every race, you will each add one card to the deck. So if you have a helpful card for the hotdog, you could bet on them and rig the deck in their favour.
But your control is minimal - don’t buy this game if you like to feel in control. It’s much more about enjoying the spectacle of luck. Hoping for the best, and watching in horror when nothing goes to plan. In that sense, it’s a great simulation of gambling on a horse race. And I think the chaos of this game is particularly entertaining - more so than Camel Up.
But I also like the flow of this game better, it’s less stop and start. You do all your admin up front, then enjoy a fast, action packed race.
But, but, but - I do worry that the flashy newness is blinding my judgement. I’ve only played it twice. So I need more time before I sign my name to these statements.
The Extra Pepper expansion for Sea, Salt and Paper, was a nice little surprise. It twists the game in a way I wouldn’t have guessed, by adding little rule changes.
Every round you draw a card that changes the game - “crabs let you draw from both discard piles”, or “you can win with three mermaids” etc. They add a nice bit of variety, and something new to focus on for that round, by making certain cards more valuable.
At the end of the round, the card will be awarded to a player. If it’s a positive power (like the crab one), it will go to the player with the least points. Only they will benefit from it in the next round. It’s a catch up mechanism for the player in last place. Other cards go to the player in first place, to pull them back a bit. And once they are no longer the player in last place, they lose the card.
They can definitely feel overpowered at times - but I really like playing with them. You can now try to finish a round with the least points to secure a really good card to help you excel in the next round.
It’s not one to throw in with newbies, but it can be a fun addition for every other game, and it fits in the box with the other expansion.
Wine Cellar is a new auction game with a cute theme, you are collecting bottles of wine, and stacking them in your cellar.
That is the order in which you’ll drink them, and since some age better than others, you will score points depending on that order. But the frustration is that when you claim a bottle you can only add to the top or the bottom of the pile. You’re also trying to claim wine of certain varieties and nationalities to please your clients, giving you another way to get points.
The flow of the game is very neat. You are given a hand of wine bottle cards to bid with (they each have numbers on), and each round there are a few bottles in the centre to win. You all pick a card face down and then reveal - the highest number gets first pick. Which is underwhelming. You could get a bad hand of numbers, and you have no idea what other people are going to bid, so there’s very little to base your decision on.
The wine bottles you all bid with become the selection up for grabs in the next round, which again, means the game flows nicely, but doesn’t add that much in terms of strategy. So what you get it is a very pleasant, quick game, but with very little depth or intrigue. A good present for a wine lover, but not a game lover.
Games I’ve Been Enjoying Lately:
Rumble Nation
Jungo
New Arrivals:
Gatsby
Ichor
Iliad
Song of the Month - “If She Was A Boy” by Gatlin
Have a great month!
Actually yours,
Jon