A few regulars on our Pixelated Cardboard Discord Server (free! come join us!) have taken on the task of working on their digital shelf of shame by learning new apps.
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The Shelf of Shame is not only a physical board game reality, it also very much exists in the digital tabletop world. See an app on sale for a good price, why now drop $3 on it, you'll eventually get around to learning it at some point, right? Much like physical games, the answer is often 'maybe.'
A few of our regular on the Pixelated Cardboard Discord server (link again) have decided to band together and clean some games off of their digital shelf of shame by learning them. While their individual lists may be different, they do include overlaps from time to time. In such cases, they have graciously decided to chronicle their experiences learning the games through the app and playing it for a bit.
This is the second in our series about these digital tabletop learning adventures, this time around we will hear from Aaron Bolner and Pete McDonald and their experiences learning Takenoko and Race for the Galaxy, respectively.
Takenoko
What was your experience with this game, if any, before February 2023?
AARON: Absolutely none, physically or digitally.
How long have you had this game in your backlog?
AARON: Since December of 2019. I took note of its release on iOS in November 2019, as it launched alongside Dream Home, a game my wife and I were really interested in. About three weeks later, Takenoko, Dream Home, and Gang of Four (which also released on the same day) were in an iOS bundle for $5, the same price as Dream Home was regularly. It was kind of hard to turn down.
How did you learn the rules of the game? If you used the in-app tutorial, did you feel it was an effective way to learn?
AARON: The in-app help was quite useful and helped me internalize some of the specifics of the game. If I was trying to do something I couldn’t, e.g. place a tile improperly or score an incomplete goal, it clearly and concisely told me why I couldn’t do that. After a handful of games, I was able to turn the helper panda off completely.
How many plays of the game were you able to complete?
AARON: Between 5 and 10, entirely single-player. I split my playtime between my 3 year old phone and 8 year old tablet. Pete and I tried to do online multiplayer, and we even coordinated being online at the same time to start the game despite our intercontinental divide. It didn’t work, however, no matter how we tried. I invited Pete; the app wouldn’t let him click to accept. Pete invited me; the next three times I started the app, I was able to accept and start a new instance of the same game. At the time of this writing, over a week later, all four games still show up when I log in, and Pete can’t see any of them. Ah, Asmodee online.
How many plays of the game were you able to complete?
AARON: Between 5 and 10, entirely single-player. I split my playtime between my 3 year old phone and 8 year old tablet. Pete and I tried to do online multiplayer, and we even coordinated being online at the same time to start the game despite our intercontinental divide. It didn’t work, however, no matter how we tried. I invited Pete; the app wouldn’t let him click to accept. Pete invited me; the next three times I started the app, I was able to accept and start a new instance of the same game. At the time of this writing, over a week later, all four games still show up when I log in, and Pete can’t see any of them. Ah, Asmodee online.
Is there a feature of the app you feel particularly strongly about?
AARON: As I mentioned above, the in-app help is quite useful. However, I found a major problem with the game, easily reproduced, in my limited time with it. I’d been wary of learning the game via the app because I knew its reputation (having not been updated much if at all since release, and it’s sitting at 2 stars out of 5 on iOS). In reading the reviews, there are several people who call out the randomizer specifically as a source of vexation with the game.
I didn’t notice that per se, but I did notice in one game that there were an awful lot of green tiles on the board by comparison to everything else. Rather than blame the randomizer, I thought to check what the actual game box has in terms of components. My local library has quite a stash of board games, so I went over and picked up Takenoko. The game has 11 green tiles, 9 yellow tiles, and 7 pink tiles. With that knowledge in mind, I started another game and intentionally pulled out as many tiles as possible.
Thirteen green tiles were on the board by the end of the game. They didn’t even match the core components of the game, which also makes me wonder if the amount and spread of goal cards is correct. Having been a beta tester for several digital tabletop games, I was and remain completely mystified at how that got through.
Do you think you will play this game more in the future, or are you going to set it aside?
AARON: I don’t think it will stick around. My tabletop group seemed to like it when I brought it to a meetup, and now that I’ve seen the flow of the game with its true set of components, going back to the app for purely solo play is a hard sell.
Did you enjoy it? If so, how long did it take you to enjoy it?
AARON: I felt good about the game itself after only one play. The presentation of the game is solid, much like with its compatriot Dream Home, and it hooked me early.
Did the game function better for solo or multiplayer?
AARON: I wish I’d been able to play a game with Pete; I suppose we’ll have to do that on Board Game Arena, where the interface isn’t as good but the game at least functions.
Race for the Galaxy
Pete had some free form thoughts to share on this one!
So, Race For The Galaxy time. I've had no experience with this at all. Nothing. I'm about 80% certain it involves cards, and the app has a sort of blue theme. That's all I know. I've had this in my library for ages, probably bought on an 'ooh, shiny!' impulse. I don't even know that I was aware whether it had a good or a bad reputation at the time (I've since learned it has a very good reputation round Pixelated Cardboard parts, so I am going in with pretty high expectations here…) It's actually still on my phone from whenever I bought it, it's just sat there ignored.
Unfortunately the first thing I notice on opening it is it's not going to be something I can play on the go. The aspect ratio is knackered on a modern smartphone. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get it to fill my 6"-ish screen despite going through the usual system settings and there don't seem to be any settings in the app to make it larger than about 4". This means it's pretty much unplayable - definitely unlearnable - on the go because it's really hard to read any text, or even to make out what the pictures are of. This might not be as much of an issue when you're familiar with the game, but for me this is going to be one for the tablet.
The tutorial is mildly bewildering but entertaining - I felt like I could sort of follow bits of it and it didn't make me feel too bad for the bits I couldn't. It condenses a lot of information into 4 pretty short sections and though I won them I couldn't really tell how. Which is, generally, quite a good thing in tutorials - it can be a fine balance between being micromanaged into doing every little thing step by step, or being thrown in the deep end with a few copy and pasted sentences from the rulebook. The key things the tutorial seem to be telling me are to build up a strong military empire, trade routes to sell things for more cards (I'm unclear on what the 'things' are at the moment) and then to sell more of these 'things' for VPs. I'm not quite sure I've got enough of a handle on what's going on for my first game but I'll give it a go…
Nope, didn't have a clue what happened there. I lost 14-48 in a 2 player against the AI. Some initial thoughts:
- A quarter of the tutorial is on the importance of military, but the AI seemingly didn't need to build its military up at all in order to win. And I'm not quite sure of its importance myself still. It's still not been explained whether there's any player interaction, whether having a better military has a negative effect on opponents.
- I need to understand how to get more cards using the trade button instead of the explore button. I was doing it in the tutorial.
- There are symbols and colours all over the place on the cards, so I'm going to have to actually read them and figure out what they mean before playing them. Honestly, this is just like Through The Ages all over again.
After a few days off, game 2 sees me lose by a lot less, which I'm choosing at this point to see as a small win. Losing 16-24 to the easy AI this time. Seems a bit better.
And by my 4th game, I achieve a win! An actual win, 33-18 against the easy AI, which is I think pretty good progress, having done nothing more than fiddled around with the app and essentially taught myself. So now I think I’m ready to play a game against a human opponent, maybe an intermediate player or a learner like myself, or maybe…
Aaron, who has 600 games to his name, and promptly demolishes me 48-6. Although this was to be expected, I was baffled by the fact that we were all of a sudden taking two actions per turn - I learned that this is actually how most two player games are played. Fair enough. After a few more games I learn more details about windfall worlds, why military matters, the order of actions - some of this Aaron explicitly spells out to me, some of this he gives me pointers in the right direction which I appreciate, especially when I understand them. By the end of this write up I’ve played roughly 10 games and counting against my mentor and at least 40 against Easy and Medium AI.
Because the game is fast moving enough it would be perfect for playing on work commutes and so on - it would be great to just knock out a quick 10 minute game here and there. That’s probably the part of the app I feel most strongly about - I can’t run it full screen on a one year old phone running Android 13 - and it’s not a cheap app either. (That said, it was updated last November to be compatible with more phone resolutions so maybe they’ve just not got round to making it compatible with more recent devices).
I can see me continuing to play this regularly in the future. I don’t know that I find it as addictive or compulsive as other games I actually love but the short length of the game and the intellectual challenge definitely means it’s a winner to play when I’d like to have a quicker game. It is 100% a game I would have given up on after 5 plays if I hadn’t known its reputation beforehand (it came 6th in the world famous 2022 Pixelated Cardboard Best Board Game Apps Awards as everone will of course be aware…) At the moment it sometimes feels like staring at one of those magic eye things and failing to see a sailboat when it comes to seeing a strategy… but I think that feeling is starting to recede. Maybe I’m starting to see the rudder. I’m certainly not at the stage where I can predict what the other player is going to call and ride on the back of their decisions - that just seems like madness to a cider-drinking yokel like me. But if you offered me a game I’d be happy to lose to you. The mobile screen issue is definitely a still a thing though, I lost a game recently by not being able to properly see some of the markings on the cards. Fix the aspect ratio on the app and they’d have much more of a deal breaker.
