Boonlake | We Wish This River Had More Flow | Board Game Review
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- čas přidán 2. 07. 2024
- These lovely riverbanks look like the perfect spot to create a delightful settlement... and that's exactly what you'll be doing along with navigating your boat down the river, canoeing for resources, mining for...cards? And building giant levers that dispense all types of delightful goodies. Linger around your opponents while they do their actions & you'll get to join in on the fun, but remember, what goes around comes around drops everything on the floor
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
00:26 Theme overview (Themer)
01:06 Mechanics overview (Thinker)
06:57 A surprising aesthetic
08:08 The action selection board: very clever, disaster prone & slow
13:14 The puzzle of resource management & cards
14:44 Another clever idea; levers dispensing goodies
15:45 Amy's favourite part - the scoring tiles!
19:41 Interesting... but is it fun?
27:03 Player count & solo mode
29:56 Wrap up
For more information: boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3...
Thanks for stopping by! We're Amy & Maggie aka ThinkerThemer. We're an Australian couple with two very different perspectives of what makes a great board game - Amy (Thinker) is all about the mechanics and enjoys tight, competitive games, and Maggie (Themer) is all about the storytelling and the theme of the game, and the 'world' that the designer is trying to create. Subscribe to our channel to hear us talk about these two elements of a game, and how well integrated we feel these are in delivering a cohesive and wonderful game experience.
Are you #teamthinker or #teamthemer? ❤🏳️🌈🇦🇺
I really appreciate and like how you not only break down how to play, you also break down how to go through decision-making during play, and how that analysis plays out and the decisions they make. Even when I go through teaches with people I'm playing with they don't seem to engage so thoroughly and positively about how the game plays in that regard. Thank you so much!
This is why you are amazing. If you listen to other board game channels carefuly it's easy to notice that their reviews are very superficial. But it's clear you have analyzed the gameplay carefuly and have understood where things start falling apart and you are able to talk about them in great detail. I love that. When I want juicy reviews I come here. I also like that you don't shy away from calling out things that did not work for you. It seems like most channels are scared of outright saying "We did not love it".
Thanks for this review! I always appreciate your honesty.
Thank you for watching, commenting and for your support as always! 🥰
I was very impressed with the amount of relevant details in this review. Subscribed.
Thank you for the sub! And glad you enjoyed the review. Thank you also for taking the time to comment 🥰
Spot on review. I really appreciate you being able to articulate my exact same thoughts.
Thank you for that and thank you for watching and for taking the time to comment. 🥰
Great review guys!
Thank you Carlos! And thank you for taking the time to comment. 🥰
Have been waiting for this review :-) Time to watch and find out if it's any good!
Thank you for watching & for your support as always! 🥰
Great review! So glad to hear both the ups and downs of a game, I think it's so important to include it all. My friend has this and I'm looking forward to trying it out, but not so secretly glad it's in his collection and not mine.
Definitely a game that must be checked out because mechanically there’s lots of unique and interesting things going on. For us, it’s was just the flow and length that didn’t make it a keeper, but if those are no issue for you when you play it, then it would make for a great experience. Thank you for watching and for commenting!
Thanks, Well explained.Very useful.
Thank you and thanks for watching and commenting!
Totally agree with your impressions. Well done review - and not simply because I agree with it but because you lay out solid reasons for why you feel about the game as you do.
Thank you for that and for taking the time to watch and comment. It’s been an interesting experience getting into content creation and approaching games with an even more analytical mind, where before I (Maggie here) may have just dismissed a game as not for me, now it’s really interesting to go deeper into the layers of why specifically did I or did I not connect with the game. 😊
The production sites give you the resource even if the boat is not under it. Each boat produces an additional resource.
Wow, this video is PHENOMENAL!! Alexander Pfister is perhaps my all-time favorite designer so I've been *very* interested in Boonlake, and this is probably the best gameplay overview I've seen in all the videos I've watched so far! Some people have been saying that this game is fairly similar to Maracaibo so I've been hesitant about pulling the trigger on this one but it seems like there are many unique mechanisms that would definitely justify having both Boonlake and Maracaibo in my collection! That being said, you point out some very valid concerns that have been worrying me as well, especially about the length/pace of play. Love that you highlight the positives and negatives in such a balanced way! Thank you so much for the wonderful review, Amy and Maggie! ☺
Thank you for all those lovely words. Definitely a game that Hass to be experienced for all those interesting and clever mechanics at play. The flow and length meant that it unfortunately wasn’t a game for us, but absolutely should check it out when you get a chance to. Thank you again for watching and for taking the time to comment 🥰
Great review. Still haven't play Great Western Trail so will keep an eye out for that over this. Thanks
Yes, we both really enjoy Great Western Trail. Looking forward to the new formats coming out! Thanks again for watching and commenting! 🥰
Thank you for your review, at first i was so much looking forward to it, but more and more i saw reviews and tests the excitement cooled down so much and your review very solidified it. I will try it when i will have a good occasion but with limited time and money ill focus on other titles.
Yeah, might be a good idea to try someone else’s copy first and see how you go with it. Some great elements in it, but it just didn’t come together for us unfortunately. Thank you for watching and for commenting!
Great balanced review as always, thanks for your opinions. Will be avoiding this one if anyone brings it to game night, the lack of flow and noticeable length will just aggravate me. And love the t-shirt Maggie!
Thank you! And thank you for your support always 🥰 And sounds like then yes, this one might be one to check out when someone’s playing, but perhaps not commit to a game until you’ve seen if the flow and mechanics would be interesting to you.
Excellent description of game-play and flow (or lack thereof). Thank you for the review - after reading the rulebook, we had strongly suspected it wouldn’t be for us either.
Yeah, it’s an interesting mix of mechanics, but unfortunately didn’t come together for us. Thank you for watching & for commenting!
Hi. I'm not sure that the canoe has to be underneath the resource you want to use but thanks for the review anyway. Great video.
Maggie, I love love love your tshirt!
Thank you thank you! 🥰
Lovely informative video. I'm a big Pfister fan but I've been on the fence about this one.
Some really interesting mechanics here. So you can definitely see the Pfister mind at work. Though unfortunately didn’t come together as a whole for our preferences. Thank you for watching and for commenting!
Awesome and informative review as always! The thumbnail for this one is hilarious and perfect! It’s interesting to me that my brain automatically categorized this as a co-op after reading the description of it on the Capstone website. Did any parts of this feel like a co-op to you?
Technically we’re all contributing land tiles to build the city, but there’s never any collaboration aside from the fact that all the tiles are going into the central board. So it never felt like a co-op to us. There is a sense that everyone is getting a benefit from everyone else’s turn because of the secondary action that all players get to do, but it was never about doing it intentionally as something nice for other players. Definitely felt entirely competitive to us 😅 Thank you as always for watching and for your support! 🥰
Great review! Sounds like I like the game more than the two of you, but definitely agree with all your points. Happy gaming to everyone!
There’s lots of great mechanics in there, so absolutely can see how it makes for a great experience, particularly if you don’t mind the length. Thank you again for taking the time to watch and comment 🥰
This is my first expert Pfister and I like it very much. My first play was over 2 hours, but as soon as everybody knows the rules better it will be a quicker play I guess. Other Pfister games like Maracaibo and GWT are on the ‘want to play’ list.
Oh nice! Great Western Trail would be right up there for us. That one also has a great deck building element with the cows you acquire along the game. Great gaming experience. Thank you for watching and for commenting!
I recently played Great Western Trail and liked it but didn't love it. There were lots of great features, but it just seemed to drag a bit. Sounds like this moves even slower. I still want to play GWT again & would like to try Boonlake, but play it before buying it. Thanks for the great overview and review!
Yeah, definitely a play before you buy, particularly if you found Great Western Trail to go a bit long. Thank you as always for watching and for taking the time to comment. 🥰
I really like your reviews, so I enjoyed this one very much. I enjoy listening to the discourse. I don't need fancy graphics and images (although a few are helpful), but I like turning up the volume and listening to your insight while I do other things. I was most curious to see if this review would make me want to get it. I've heard it compared to Maracaibo and I'm not done with that one yet. I know you weren't the biggest fans of Maracaibo, but it's the only Pfister game I still own after buying several of his other titles.
Thank you for the kind words. I’d say Great Western Trail would be up there among Pfister games we enjoy the most. This one had interesting elements, but didn’t come together overall for us unfortunately. Thank you for watching or listening! 😊 and thank you also for commenting. 🥰
@@ThinkerThemer I've been watching a lot of Boonlake reviews lately ever since I casually watched one where the reviewer said something like there's no need for him to keep Maracaibo now because Boonlake does everything slightly better. Right after watching your review (for the second time) I watched a different video where the group of reviewers said pretty much the opposite of what you two said: that this game is SMOOTH, flows beautifully, etc. "Smooth" is the one word he would use to describe this game. I was kind of dumbfounded because it was the polar opposite of your thoughts, right? Ultimately, I sided with the other reviewers (we'll see anyway), sold Maracaibo and bought the last copy of Boonlake at my local store all this morning. I've never felt more curious to learn a game. I love your reviews! Thanks!
Some of the mechanics y'all pointed out made me excited to hear and imagine interacting with, but the fact that the pacing can be dragged out and may not be consistent is what gives me a big pause in seeking it out. I love Pfisters GWT, it's at my top 10 games, so I'm always curious what he has to offer. But some of his themes are too problematic for me to want to buy and try, and some of the other ones don't seem to be in my ball park. So I'll see if there's any more buzz around this, but thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Lovely review as always and have a good one!
Thank you Ania for your lovely words as always 🥰 agreed that great western trail is one of the games we enjoy the most of his collection, but this is definitely one to try before you buy. There really are several interesting and clever mechanics in here, but the flow and length made it not for us. Thank you for your support as always!
at 12:17 you make a point about not being able to necessarily decide what action you want to take until it's your turn. Here's a question for IAQ, what're your thoughts on planning moves on other players' turns? I have a habit of ignoring what other people are doing in order to strategise my future turn. Do you both manage to multitask planning and observing other players?
Thank you for the IAQ! Keep them coming! Always a tricky balance. Amy’s always wanting to watch every turn closely, but I (Maggie here) tend to just go into my own little world and plan my next few moves ahead, usually with a plan b and plan c in the event other players ruin my plans by the time it’s my turn again 😅 Thank you for watching & for commenting!
How do I get a top 100 of all time from you guys? Do you have one and I just haven't seen the video? I kinda must know...like a list from each of you and then a "combined list"...which games do think and theme the best TOGETHER would be darn near priceless
Haven’t made that video yet! but definitely must come around to it. There just never seem to be enough hours in the day to make all the content we want to create! 😅 It will happen though 👍
I personally thought this game was great, one of my top 5's for the year, the art on some of the cards was probably the only thing I didnt like about it. I always find it interesting listening to the point of views of players that didn't like it quite as much. I do agree that the river can be meh and there's no real point in rushing, maybe there needs to be bonus points for passing the gate first. I also wonder if the top 2 actions should gain money or points in the way the bottom ones deny points. As for game length I only play this at 2 which I think helps, I wouldn't play it at 4, 3 is ok.
Was really looking forward to this one but between my love for gwt Maracaibo and Blackout Hong Kong it sounds like I'd just be better off getting expansions I don't have yet. Thanks as usual!
This is definitely worth playing at some point if you get a chance to try someone else’s copy because there’s several interesting and clever mechanic elements going on even if it didn’t come together for us. But agree that it’s a clever thing to try before you buy. Thank you as always for watching and for taking the time to comment. 🥰
I've been interested in this for solo only but I think I'll pass. Great video overall (as always!) but I appreciate the solo comments too.
Still not sure if I should try Great Western Trail or Maracaibo for solo only, thoughts? My wife had zero interest in either.
Maggie here 👋 I haven’t played Great Western Trail solo, but I’m really keen to try it as I really enjoy the game. Thank you for watching and for commenting!
In terms of Maracaibo, I haven’t played it in a while so I had to go back and rewatch my thoughts about the solo from it was fresh and we did a review of it. It has an AI which I found a bit frustrating as it would bring the game to a close too quickly for all the things I wanted to try 😅 but that’s what it’s like playing with a player that speeds through is as well. So if you’re interested check out our Maracaibo review where I cover the solo mode in more detail as well.
I really like Maracaibo but this one feels a bit too much. There seems to be even more moving parts in Boon Lake! Not sure if my brain would cope.
Your review had definitely a great Flow. Thanks for this informative episode. To make it shorter, maybe don't loop around the river and just/only go with the main river-flow...
Thank you Ralf! I guess one could defineipt make it shorter by going around only once, but then it would also mean not having to commit to 2 of the interim scoring conditions which the force you to commit to the interim scoring goals section which is quite an interesting puzzle. So this is making me think maybe another way to make it shorter, without losing the extra 2 interim scoring points would be to allow to double the number of steps allocated to your action. That could mean someone rushes through and triggers scoring, but would make it faster and definitely more tense 😅 Thank you as always for watching and for commenting!
I set this game up and read the rules today. Hope I like it. Thanks for the review. Have you tried Corrosion yet?
Haven’t tried Corrosion. But did you get to play Boonlake yet? And if so, how did you find it? Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment 😊
@@ThinkerThemer My wife and I just finished our first page. (Work was been busy) Halfway through neither of were sure, but by the end we both felt that despite no real theme, we really enjoyed the mechanics. I think you nailed it with your review.
An awesome review! I really appreciate your authentic views on games. I have been waiting to hear your thoughts on this. It is high on a lot of people’s top list for 2021. I wasn’t sure about it, but might have bought it blind just on cover art alone! I think it will be a pass for me after listening to you. It shouldn’t feel like a force fit of mechanics and game length does matter. Honestly I would probably just rather play GWT! 😁. I have to be just a little more picky since shelf space is limited (especially since I have to give up cubes to Laura 😁 ….who is now coming to DTW later on Wednesday night!). More on that later 😁…. Thanks for a midweek review! Always so so exciting to see that notification pop up! Love you girls . See you in one month! 🤞🦘
Can’t wait to see you both then!!🥰 And yes, this one unfortunately didn’t come together for us, even though there’s lots of very interesting and very clever mechanics going on. Thank you as always for all your support!
Looks like the action selection board is going to require another craft shop purchase of miniature magnets to ‘fix’.
They’re very useful in games where information predominantly in text form (on communal cards) is constantly being inquired about. But this board seems to suffer from the same malady.
Ooo yeah, a magnet fix would do wonders for this and could work really well as long as you’re still able to slide the actions up. Great idea 👍 Thank you for watching & for commenting!
Couldn’t agree more on the theme. It’s incohesive hodgepodge of past euro themes. The cover and premise want to be something new but it’s dead on arrival. I feel like the publisher needs a new voice in the “board room” to really do something fresh.
Love the mechanisms though. Seems like it’s a better two player experience. Thanks for your thoughts!
Yeah it’s an interesting conundrum because the length feels better at two players, but the board itself feels way tighter and more competitive at the higher player counts. Tricky balance. In terms of aesthetics, it felt like three different styles of artwork, which individually I (Maggie here) don’t mind at all, and in fact I find myself really amused by the artwork on the cards. But they feel like they belong to three different games. Thank you for watching and also for taking the time to comment. 🥰
I felt so disappointed when I saw the board for the first time. It is not that the board is bad, is a bit meh. But the cover was so promising and that the board don't live up to it. I haven't seen the cards before your review but I kind of like the art on them too Cartoonish. I agree with Maggie: the game looks like it suffers from a identity crisis in what art is concern xD
About the actions board: I think the passing problem could be avoided, specially in a two player game, maybe even with 3p. If that board is in the middle of the players, everyone could see it and just slide the pieces. Or aren't enough space in the table for that?
It is unfortunate you didn't enjoy it that much. I haven't try it myself, but still want to. Thanks for your review!
The game unfortunately takes a bit too much table space to have a comfortable central place where all players could handle that action board from where they’re sitting. So you do end up having to pass it around so people can see the individual actions and do the lifting and sliding. I really did enjoy the cartoonish artwork on the cards, but it absolutely feels like the cards the board and the cover are from three different games aesthetically 😅 Thank you for watching and for taking the time to comment 🥰
Yeah... can't dispute any of the observations. I love GWT and Maracaibo and I was hoping this one would be a go-to game for 2020. The length of the game is a big problem and it's hard to imagine getting folks to play it much. It reminds me a bit of Caverna, which took lots of things from Agricola, etc. and is a terrific game, but so long. A lot of important things in this game just kind of exhaust without a satisfying conclusion. You run out of houses and settlements and that's just it. You get to the end of the tracks. You're just kind of grinding it out and it if you grind a bit harder then you'll be in first.
Yeah we did find that particularly with the higher player counts, that you’d actually run out of things to do and some of the actions seemed useless by that point. Which is what made it feel like the game should’ve ended by then. Thank you as always for taking the time to watch and comment 🥰
Love the shirt, Maggie. I want one!
Perfect review as always. I totally agree with everything you've said. The stop-start nature of the game play is what I think lead to our ultimate disengagement and lack of caring about what was happening on the board. Each component of the gameplay is actually really clever (I loved the levers in particular) but the combination just didn't work well enough to overlook the massive AP that ultimately wrecks the flow. I'm a bit confused how this game was released with the issues that it has - It feels like it was rushed to production. Pfister makes amazing games (thematic issues not withstanding) - but this isn't one of them. To be fair - it's not terrible - it's just not for me.
Yeah agreed. All the individual elements, mechanically, are really interesting and clever and it just feels like a shame that it didn’t seem to come together for us in the end. Thank you for watching and for commenting! 🥰
I love Great Western Trail and Maracaibo…I really appreciate your review which makes me think Boon Lake is not one I need to bust a gut to get.
I love theme and mechanics that blend and I think you were too kind to this game…
Boon LAKE! without a lake.
Lock gates that seem modern with some other images that appear from an earlier age. A big lotus flower on the box cover and player token which speaks to me of an eastern religious concept of peace or spirituality that annoyingly has absolutely no connection to the theme or mechanics.
I think the games designer needs a more astute team around him to make his amazing mechanics look much better and produce a far more cohesive story/ theme.
Thanks for the video!
I agree on your opinion of the game. The game overstays it's welcome, even when you rush the river. I enjoyed the game less with every play, after four plays I sold the game. I wouldn't recommend this one, play mombasa or great western trail instead.
Yeah, interesting to hear you had a similar experience. We do really enjoy Great Western Trail. Thank you for watching and for commenting!