Cerebria: Emotional Turmoil with a Purple Pillar
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- čas přidán 12. 11. 2019
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"I use eight willpower, play Ennui, and spin the wheel of intentions"
"THAT'S EMOTIONWANG!"
That's the first place my mind went to when he said that too.
Matt is now in serious danger of becoming typecast as a worm for the rest of his career.
He should do that.
Worm-Matt is best Matt.
Living his best worm life.
I'm partial to disembodied orange happy head Matt.
Muatt’dib
The question is which video has the best Worm-Matt performance.
@@SubjectNate Gotta be Dune.
“I’m exhausted from me” hit me way harder than it should have.
"feels like an exercise in gaslighting yourself" LOLOLOLOL
Me too man, me too. It's been a rough few months, maybe years.
Maybe the next decade will work better for us all.
@@PopeGoliath 2030 is gonna be my decade i feel it
@@razorboy251 I know how it feels. Trust me when I tell you it does get better, bit by bit. You'l have to fight for every second of rest, but you'll get there, I promise.
It amazes me how often I find myself watching your videos while not particularly interested in the board game.
The fact that you've managed to make board game reviews as entertaining as they are informative is a great feat and one you should take pride in.
Thanks for the great content :)
Darn right...best board game reviews on the net.
Omg I was thinking exactly “is this cones of Dunshire?”
"The bones of this skeleton are made of squeaky toys." Artistry, right there. I would buy your fantasy book, if you every wrote one.
"It's like being assaulted by a rainbow" Now that's a box quote :-)
It looks like the smell of a lush store
"If that's what's in the box, then that's what's in the box." Sums up so much of what actually matters when considering a game.
The moment Matt dropped the word "worm" I started holding my breath.
My favorite mind clash game and top 5 boardgame. I LOVE IT!
I've never been eight minutes through a SU&SD review before and still had this little understanding of what the hell the game actually IS. It looks like a _mess_.
Oh, it looks complicated but it's really quite simple! Basically, you have areas that you want to control and you power them with cards.
...And there's areas that overlap those areas you also want to control which modify how the other areas are powered. And objectives related to that control, and tower pieces that you want to build in those areas but also you have bits you need to remove from the turntable to power actions which incidentally frees up space to shift those tower pieces to the center, which also shifts the turntable letting other areas be powered by different sections of the turntable, but wait, do you really want to sacrifice that tower piece when it's giving you an advantage? But that's not nearly as important as getting your character around the board in time to reach the regions you need, which in turn isn't nearly as important as achieving your hidden objectives although both elements are intrinsically tied to each other and also less important than building the tower. And also you need to spend different currency to power cards and oh yeah play cards from the deck you're building, did I mention you're building a deck? I'm sure I did, anyway yeah that's a quick overview although that's not the complete goal of the game because there's also the intention wheel, but I think that was a pretty straightforward summary
Is that when he says it's a kickstarter game? Because only then it began making sense ... Sense in a way a horror clown on a kids party makes sense.
I think the main problem with this game is that it's trying to do a million different things and nobody told the developers that sometimes less is more.
@@Tomja87 The amount of bloatted mechanics and things to do just give me a headache.
I think that comes largely due to the theme where you just don’t have a good analogy for anything since it’s all weird abstract a motion realm nonsense
"Cones of Brainshire" and "heaping layers of emotion-wang" are both excellent additions to my list of Matt-isms.
I love this game!!! It has everything. Complex strategy, great theme, making your own private decks. I only play it two player competetive but it has been a blast. He is true that it is a very mean game. You are not building empires next to each other and hoping to get more points. You are crushing the hopes and dreams out of your opponent. (For the mtg people; it's not like playing your fair tribal deck, it's more like playing lantern control.) But if you can live with the game being very competitive. This is great. It has it all. Deck construnction, upgrading your character, area control, unique player powers, large strategic depth. It is a beast. But, if you manage to tame it, it is a great beast to have.
@@ravensshade No I sounds like the best of times. But to be serious. I meant it more ike; you are reading the opponents and disrupting their plan as much as you are playing your own game. Not like a literal lantern. :)
I get what you're saying about the game being difficult to learn, but I must fall in the middle of that venn diagram, because I LOVE this game. I find its theme engaging and interesting, the sheer number of moves you can do pretty cool, the gameplay pretty quick (usually runs 90-120 minutes) for a game of this heft, and the table enjoyable. I guess I fit that small niche, but I'm glad I do and I love this one.
I’m there, too. Love the tactical turns and the back and forth manoeuvres. I get that it’s not easy to explain and the emotions don’t matter to the game play, but I love it!
I absolutely love how you guys always review based on what's in the box. Thank you so much for keeping that promise
I know this will sound weird from a 33 year old Eastern European man, but I love you Matt. I want to buy you a bear, have a laugh, get into arguments, get frustrated by arguing too much, have a laugh again, say goodbye, go home, have a soup, go to sleep, REPEAT.
Also, good job on the Desire cosplay! You gave a new meaning to the word! Cheers!
It's Praul who probably wants you to buy him a bear!
Bro you just posted cringe
@@drmilkweed Good. I like to share!
😳
This is one of the most wholesome comments I've seen on this hellsite and I love you for it
I agree with everything. The player count, the hard work of learning the game via the novel... sry, rule book, the amount of time to play it, the game being overdesigned, the theme obstucting the rules and understanding of how it works, the overproduction etc... and still both myself and my play group absolutely adore Cerebria. It's one of the go-to games of my group, together with Great Western Trail.
My suggestion: try it out with someone who knows the enitre ruleset by heart. You just might become enamoured with it.
Sometimes theme gets in the way because it is well integrated.... I argue that this is the case here.
@@TremblingQualifier I dunno, from a distance, the relationship between different emotions and faculties seems totally arbitrary and unintuitive.
@@TremblingQualifier something cannot be well-integrated and also get in the way of things, those two ideas are mutually exclusive. Unless the purpose of a thing is specifically to get in the way, which a theme should never do.
@@bgm-1961 I know this is splitting hairs or semantics, but that sounds about as integrated as water and oil. Theme is INCLUDED, perhaps, but not integrated.
@@philipkelly7369 That is not actually true. See for instance Android: Netrunner. The theme is perfectly integrated and still gets in the way; especially for newer players. I mean, when the discard pile bears two different terms depending on which side of the table you are playing, you know that the designers went all-out batshit crazy in their themeing, disregarding any accessibility rules for new players.
This is just the kind of game I hate. The type I will never be able to play because it takes 4 years to explain the rules and by then my friends and family have died of starvation
Caleb Rogers there’s rule videos online.
... or boredom. Whenever I get the glazed eye look, I realize
a) I'm doing a horrible job explaining the rules -or-
b) they've tuned out and will soon check their phones for something more interesting on youtube or instagram or (bleah) facebook.
Rule videos are the way to go if you don't have the patience of reading.
Done this myself.
I still go over the book at some point, but the video makes it easier for me to break into the rules book.
Unfortunately this game is rather complicated when you start out.
@@TremblingQualifier It shouldn't need rules videos online to explain it. The game should be able to be explained using the provided rulebooks - it just sounds like bad design choices that somehow got a kickstarter funding. :D
This worm thing is getting out of hand. Then again, maybe it lands them a sleeping bag sponsorship?
Matt’s simile game is in fine form this review.
Have this game on the shelf, and am wondering if I will ever be brave enough to play it.
Steven van Lijnden just watch some rules play video. Play a learning game or two, then you’ll get it.
Worms are the new eggs, all the cool kids know that !
Of course it's getting out of hand. Worms don't have hands. How could they not be out of hands?
Quinn's hey Matt how is the review? Matt in a sleeping bag: oh you know.
0:53 Call me petty, but did you just fade into an example where the token was blue-side up, from a picture where it was orange, and flipped it back to orange?
What a loop I was thrown for.
0:50
Dang how did I not notice he flipped it from orange to orange
Love your work man - your reviews are pure gold.
Thank for saving me from this experience, also brilliantly done Matt!
If you fit in his venn diagram he explains then I'd ignore everything else. It's a great game
Thanks for reviewing Cerebria Matt! The game is REALLY heavy and you nailed it describing how everything sounding so similar just makes it more confusing. I do agree though that beneath all that fluff there is a really interesting puzzly game that burns my brain in the best way. Keep doing these more nuanced and complicated reviews, these perspectives are always interesting!
QUINN: (bzzt!) Sonory!
HOST: That's emotionwang!
AVA: (bzzt!) Schaudenfreude!
HOST: That's emotionwang!
MATT: (bzzt!) Ennui!
HOST: Hm. Judges?
MATT: Wait...
MATT: Optimistic ennui!
HOST: THAT'S EMOTIONWANG!
You might be onto something. There even is a rotating board!
Context for my fellow Americans who don't have the privilege of being steeped in the Mitchell & Webb oeuvre: czcams.com/video/ZH-cXBhkl-E/video.html
@@DerBK2 It's Schadenfreude.
Matt is very good at this.
Another entertaining and informative review!!!
Top notch lads!
I won when I played it, yet the game actually made me angry and I hated it. The game manual look gorgeous but seriously it was a constant pain. It took me 5-6h to parse through the rulebook and play it. It has not left the shelf since that one painful game.
I was wondering why my worm sign detector had gone off when I clicked on this video
This is great, this channel is great
There's something so compelling about a floating, purple Matt head.
It's this kind of review that I love from SU&SD. Nobody delivers this kind of insightful and slightly silly review like Matt. This game is definitely not for my family, but I didn't have to spend loads of money to find out that the beautiful box and board were masking a monumental morass of monstrous emotions and methods. Nice job, Matt, and thank you SU&SD for all you do!
Lovely as always!!!
But can I assemble a Spectrum of Sadness?
Sounds like the perfect gateway game for alien lifeforms.
Thanks for another great video
LOL I was literally thinking about that film while he was explaining this game and than Matt mentions the movie and leaves me Inside out with emotions;P
Here I am writing a comment because Matt told me I didn't have to, and because that outro is hilarious.
So much mileage out of Worm-Matt. I am honestly impressed.
The only purple pillar I'm interested in is a purple worm sleeping bag cosplay
I love how many times you've switched positions on this game, which is oddly meta considering the theme. I've lost the game while controlling the tower, though, so it isn't the best indicator of who's winning. Not to mention scoring a fragment (the pentagonal chunks) means that it's one less fortress you have out.
This is definitely the hardest game I own from a teaching perspective, mainly for the reasons Matt stated, but there's something about it that just does it for me. It's certainly not an evergreen, but sometimes you just want to spend all your brain power on a game.
Great review, Matt.
Oh snap, I have been looking forward to this.
I love these reviews.
Matt is such a delight. Emotion matt is incredimatt
Two minutes into this review I figured out it's a kickstarter game. Five minutes in I figured out there's no way I could convince anyone who's not a professional board game player/tester/reviewer to sit through an explanation of how to play. The next 15 minutes didn't tell me anything more about how the game works (it's a confusing mess, got it), but it's pleasant to hear Matt chatter.
"Days your mental health is so shredded that you just want to be with nice people but you can't really deal to talk to them much." I felt that. I have those days often. Those days are wonderful for plonking down Caverna or a Feast for Odin and just building up your little board.
Totally understand the reservations you mention. Teaching time though: We were teaching the (basic) game in 15-20 minutes at Essen. Some groups demoing it even played an entire game through in 45 minutes (after the teaching time). But I do agree, learning from _purely_ the rulebook is a pretty daunting job.
45 minutes sounds like someone was either brilliant or superficial. This game is deeeeep...
@@bartwalczak2715 One team was playing strategically much better than the other, that's true. But the basic-mode isn't that deep. Once you grok how the overlapping area control works, you just work to do the best you can on the aspirations (scoring goals) and aim to trigger revelations (scorings) at just the right point. Do that next to a fortress and you get an extra scoring fragment in too.
Once you add in the full gameplay mode, with intention scoring, empowered emotions, and all the individual emotion powers, then yes, it gets WAY deeper.
I played with two groups, where only I knew the game. both times we finished 2 basic games in 3 hours. Granted, I was explaining the rules during the first game, but after two turns, everyone knew all of the rules and just needed some reminders from time to time. Game is really fast.
@ Yes, it can be fast once everyone knows the rules. Just don't play with AP-prone players. ;)
I think I must also be at the center of your diagram, as I love Cerebria. I also really love the team game, and somehow find myself very interested in other people's turns in this game, which is not usually the case for me with long down-time games. For those confused by the rules from this video, but interested in checking into Cerebria, I highly recommend watching some how to play videos. Yes, it's big and complicated, but I find it a lot more orderly than it's presented here, and once people know the rules, it's really not that long a game in play time (easily comes in at 2 hours or less).
All that said, though, I do agree it's a niche game, as I've met only a few other people who are as into this game as I am.
Also one of my favorites! I was really surprised that Matt simply trashed this game right out of the gate. Halfway through and he still said nothing about *how* to get those fragments into the identity (center). Speaking of which, while he finds that massive centerpiece depressing and discouraging, it is also a driving force, reminding you always of where you stand in the game (unlike sooooo mannnnny other eurogames where you only think you are winning and then, BAMM, the game is over and all those bonus points on the hidden cards or contracts you've fulfilled or cows that you've collected or... whatever, puts you dead last in the end).
Glad to see I'm not alone here; sad to see such a great game taken down so thoroughly.
Matt was obviously Gloom.
Yea i have the amazingly beautiful painted kickstarer edition and we finally attempted to get it to the table. And after a nightmare of a time trying to figure out that rulebook, which has a seperate rule book if you want to play with 6 players we got it to the table and watched a video it still took us 2 hours to probably get to a playing state that felt somewhat competent.
I do say that when we played it with the 2v2v2 mode the teamwork started to shine a lot more as the third team is actually a chaos force that is trying to either make things balanced, or make one side better then the other so you're forced to work together more to make sure they don't mess up any plans and i think that really helps the game.
Matt Freitas I recommend following Quinns recommendation that the owner of the game keep the manual in the bathroom for at least a week prior to introducing the game, as well as testplaying it with himself before attempting to teach it. Learning a manual together is much less fun than playing nor is it quicker than doing it by yourself.
I'm a simple man, I see Worm-Matt and am happy
Really enjoyed Matt's stint as Tiny Tim. Or is it Tiny Matt? Tiny Matt. Coining it here officially.
You can call him whichever makes you happy. Because that's the most important thing.
Despair, harmony, anxiety, hope, that’s emotionwang!
It takes a lot of effort and creativity to make a game so mechanically simple feel like the most complex game there is. But like the theme, the complexity is just the cover. It's an area control game, and areas are divided into smaller areas. You get points for controlling certain areas and you get points be controlling certain areas.
Lads and ladies, we've got ourselves a box quote: "Cerebria could be a real thing." - Matt Lees, SUSD 2019.
Wonderful. Uplifting.
Agree with all of the individual points here, but still really enjoy this game. Steep learning curve for sure, bad manual, all of that. But we like the open + hidden scoring aspect quite a bit, the player board upgrades are fun. Keenly planned absorbs are incredibly satisfying. The obelisk doesn't bother me. We've had a game where it was clear we weren't going to win. We conceded. I play plenty of games I thought I was winning in and then lost at the very end scoring that were way more disappointing that giving the win to the winner "early".
My group is a few games in and the biggest issue now is the length of waiting for turns, but I actually like the time to chit-chat with my team mate.
About our feelings.
Eurogames: when "you want to be with nice people, but you can't really deal to talk with them much."
Sums up how I use Eurogames to relax, even when I'm feeling burned out :)
This game was added to the "board game reviews" playlist no less than three times lol
The thing about complicated games is, they usually are complicated to be more "realistic". It makes you feel like "maybe I actually could have won WW2." or "Maybe I could run a business." In this game why would I want to memorize a bunch of complicated rules just to find out whether or not I'm happy or sad? Or be king of the board that looks like unicorn vomit.
Good point. I might think it interesting to manage the building of a house and this affects that, the plumbing, electric, placement of the walls and floors, and types of materials used, but this seemed contrived complications not interesting to me. I am not condemning the game just declaring my lack of interest. I might be stating this incorrectly but there seem to be 5 abilities based on random cards from a central deck and 5 abilities determined by which character I play and when two things that are different seem similar or seem similar but work differently and even worse seem to be called the same thing, that makes a game hard to teach.
I bounced off this game so hard. I absolutely do not get the love of it.
Matt, you are the greatest !!
I went paintballing once. That board looks like my worst bruise after two days.
14:05 stop talking directly to me, I can't afford it right now, I've...I've got uni to think about, and...and.
Yea, I'm just going to buy this game and love it, thanks Matt, you did this!
Got the KS with the painted miniatures and I love it is a great game imo combining thinking and relaxing. Sometimes I like to introduce new people to boardgames using this ( sounds crazy but I cannot describe to you the faces of amaze they all do)
That’s emotionwang!
I've always wanted to play Cones of Dunshire.
Ahh, thick layers of emotionwang.
Happy matt is nightmare fuel
Good review was interesting. :D
Beware! don't be tricked by the chaos gods. This is the works of heresy.
Joy is the villain of Inside Out, great outro 😅
I'm always happy to see worm matt
1) This was a really interesting review, full of neatly constructed arguments and hypotheses which posed questions I will be returning to for a while, I reckon. Thanks for writing it, and for writing it so well.
2) The throwaway delivery of "like chasing a goblin through a hall of mirrors" was beautifully judged and, I found, delightful.
A card game version just came out, as far as I can tell its set collection, fairly straightforward. This could only exist in the realm of the abstract, perhaps in a Salvador Dali painting
Wheel of intentions wend, wend, wend
Tell me the action I must intend
Shut Up & Sit Down has worms. I have some worming paste I use on my cats, I can send it in if you want.
Fabulous as always, Matt. I know you’re not supposed to have favourites... but you’re my favourite!! (Don’t tell the others I said that)
PHWOOOOOOAR ! Look at the setae on that !
Reminds me of a lovely game Paul once showed us, called The Hexes of Hyperspace.
yeeeeeeah too much going on with this one. I have both Anachrony and Trickerion which are both by Mindclash who also made this and one thing I find with their games is that they are visually intimidating. The only difference is that Anachrony is actually a REALLY easy straightforward worker placement game and Trickerion is as well. This just looks......oof!!
Cones of Brainshire 😂
For the love of crumpets!
I like that phrase.
14:06 This is why it has one of the best solo modes in an area control game that i have ever played...absolutely fantastic solo game...
Except in Inside Out there are no bad emotions which is the whole point ...
There are no bad emotions in Cerebria either...there is the Gloom side and the Bliss side...the little thematic explanation there is in the rulebook says both are a necessary part of the identity.
@@aonline_abridged Then why is one side trying to conquer the other?
Even though I'd never want to play this game, I'm still kind of glad that it exists. It makes a lot of missteps, but in a way that will make a lot of people looking at it better designers.
I've got The Cones of Dunshire already, maybe I'll pass on this one.
shouted "Yes!" by reflex for the worm
Thats numberwang!
While I understand the reservations you mentioned and how a lot of people would agree to them, I do want to address the Identity tower and scoring. If one team performs really well, the other team is required to shorten the game by removing one of the shared objectives. This should prevent any team from feeling like they are being dragged along for another hour plus of gameplay. During your plays, did you remember this rule?
I find that a lot of my games have had the players disregard the scoring in the tower (more so than the tracks in other Eurogames) because who is winning can swing from one big turn to the next, especially late game.
As far as teaching the game, it will take some time to get all of the rules running smoothly for all players, but most people will be pretty well off to start playing just from watching this video. I don't recommend this game to everyone, as I know that it will probably not be as popular as other games from MindClash, but I really don't think that the game is as difficult to learn and play as is often suggested (though I will admit that I am probably biased).
Thank you again for taking the time to review the game and for providing what I thought was a pretty unbiased and realistic video on your impression of the game without discouraging anyone from checking it out. I do appreciate how, if you guys cannot recommend a game, you mention who you think would enjoy it.
Listening to Matt explain the game made me think the game needs more cones.
Matt has been rewatching The Mighty Boosh again, I see.
I'm fairly certain I'm also the type of person that would fall in the middle of the Venn diagram and I understand why someone recommended this to me. The issue is it has sat on my shelf unplayed for about 18 months now because I just cannot get the right group together.
I wonder how the discussion to include a shot of Matt and Quinns going to bed went
1:17 A SAND WORM, GRAB IT!!!
6:19 Suddenly I wish I was watching a review of Klask.
I experienced a very weird emotion when playing this. I win the game with a teammate yet I didn’t feel happy or fulfilled, but more like I had been dragged along by the game. The game seemed to play me instead of me playing the game.
Uh oh, return of the purple bowls
The goofs are strong with you, brave young worm!