Crokinole - Shut Up & Sit Down Review

oh hi there following on from our reviews of chronicles of crime and Batman Gotham City chronicles it's time today for the finale of chronicles month it's time for our review of chronic croc in the crop crop The Chronicle no chronic Crowell here's what you need to know about crocodile one it's a dexterity game about flipping disks - it emerged from darkness Canada in the 1870s and 3 it's real annoying for as long as shut up and sit down has been around this game has been dogging us when we first reviewed the disc flicking game catacombs seven years ago we loved it but we heard crocodile is better when we reviewed the incredible dexterity game pitch car a few years ago once again a coterie of internet Burke's opened their horrible mouths to say it's good but it's no crocodile and whenever I sneak a peek at BoardGameGeek rankings to see what games might have slipped us by those crocodiles sat like a smug wooden fossil at position seventy nine out of a hundred and seven thousand and that's not what you want to hear because not only will a good crocodile board like this one set you back hundreds of dollars it's not even particularly appealing for all of its curves crocodile is the antithesis of sex appeal your honor buy a big wooden circle no is it fun yeah how much $300 and yet for you dear viewer I spent those hundreds of euros and you know it's pretty good here's how it works players first take their seats and then once sat cannot move their chair there's also a rule that one of your buttocks must remain in contact with the seat at all times while taking shots I'm not making this up before play begins players will take a stack of disks of their color and then take clans shooting from anywhere along this shooting line now after each players taken their shots the round is over and you score any discs that are sunk in the course of play are instantly removed - and Bowl and are worth 20 points anything in this middle circle is worth 15 points this circle is worth 10 and this circle is worth 5 at the end of each round you total up the points and the winner gets the difference in points and the first 200 points wins a full game of kracken all however if your opponent has no discs on the board when shooting your shot has to end up in this middle circle or if it doesn't it's removed that's said if your opponent does have discs on the board anywhere the rules of the game change instead in order to not lose the disk you're flicking you must hit your opponent's disk you can do this with Acheron shot however if you miss oh you actually lose everything your disk touched that's rough chuckles now if you have to three or four players everyone can just have their own colored discs but if you do have four players you can instead play the legendary team game of croc and all in which you and your teammate have just six shots each and if you had just six shots six opportunities to not look like a doofus in front of your friends would you capture them we're just those are all the rules making crocodile not just simple but magnificently accessible it made me realize how rare games are where I can teach them in 60 seconds and then just walk away and better yet crocodile isn't just fun it's full-on addictive one round of crocodile lasts just minutes but the last time I had friends over to show them my board we had an impromptu tournament lasting for hours where people had more than enough fun watching what is going on this site is not called shut up and watched this and when I finally stopped playing crocodile I had a great time figuring out what makes this game so good here comes the science the cost to your shop was shirts so I couldn't buy a lab coat and instead I just I just put my shirt on backwards so you might have played flicking games before but you probably haven't played one on wood that is sad advanced then waxed to within an inch of its life with discs that are actually slightly convex so there are less friction points and where you have access to Gliss powder or as I call it anti chalk although as I found out when I checked Wikipedia some crocodile purists revile the controversial use of lubricating powder about those people are lots of fun parties me I love Gless the end result of all of this is like flicking ice cubes on an ice block and it is unbelievably satisfying damn it feels good to croco No taken as a whole crocodile has less in common with most board games than it does with pool or an air hockey table Grande tae-hyun from pure satisfaction from how light bounces off the table to the sound of two discs hitting one another to the inarguable yep utterly unfair play that you get when Papa physics is in the driver's seat I don't know if the option is go for more points I'll just be me that's vital and I think means you should I put my shirt on the right way around again my wife helped one distinction from a pool table though is that with that game yes I think time into the table before you can start sinking balls but with the croc and all OH ladies are gonna start sinking 20 point shots on mirrors damn it almost immediately another distinction from pool is that crocodile is so Pacey setup is instantaneous your turn takes seconds and resetting for the next game is fun because and this is very important you can return discs to your opponent by loosing them around the gutter oh damn you think as you hit your fifth good shot in a row I'm like the reincarnation of great king crocodile would it be crazy if we didn't go to the movies and just stayed in and play this would be crazy if I stayed late and then we could play just another couple of games of this murder room crazy if you set up the guest beds so that we can have a rematch in the morning oh it would Oh hmm I'll call a cab but more importantly especially considering the high price crocodile is a gleaming exemplar of a game that's easy to learn hard to master let's say your opponent has a disk on the board right here you can always just plow it off the board but that has all the grace of an old man bellowing into a yogurt because these are circles were talking about what if you hit it at an angle so that it's still won off the board your disc ended up here in the central circle nestled between a peg impossible you say watch and learn it was sort of genuinely not expecting to do that first try pretty pretty please with that the point is with enough practice when you hit discs you can come to a dead stop follow-through or capture disk in an angle to travel laterally allowing you to grasp for that most magical of holes will keep your disk safe as if you were a big mother duck shepherding little ducklings to where they won't be shot and killed yeah not wild about that analogy instead why don't you think of croc and all like love you must be careful not to overshoot the hole and instead try and create as much distance as possible alternatively you could think of crocodile as like being a software manufacturer in the 1990s you have to make sure that your discs are hard to crack you see within the garbage intermediate-level that I play at crocodile reveals itself is a bit of an area control game let's say you find your first shot as blue and end up there I managed to hit that clack but it ends up there you returned fire by bunting me away and your shot is now there that is a complete pain in the ass to hit Oh I'm genuinely fuming of that why is the one time I can hit difficult shots when I'm trying to prove how hard it is oh my god I'm not saying crocodile is like chess in terms of the strategy involved I mean for one that people actually want to play it but it's more like crocodile gives you just enough to think about from round to round as you work out angles and what you think the best play is and overall game of crocodile multiple rounds gives you just enough to think about that when you pack it away for the evening you keep thinking about it but my personal favorite thing that crocodile makes you think about is can I make this shot if I've got a disc here and so rather than shoot for the middle I actually want to end up just inside the circle maybe here if I do that oh that's good but what were the odds that I was gonna end up right there and the shot would instead be wasted if my opponent has one disc on the board here that's almost literally pointless and another disc here that's to the very limits of my ability if I want to get rid of it without dislodging my own disc which one do you go for how confident do you feel up imagine my joy when I found out very quickly with croc and Oliver any shots from the center of your body are easy but as you travel further along the line and you have to curve your wrist your accuracy will fall out of your bump reaching a climax of incompetence with a far left shot shooting inwards you can do this you tell your wrist mate this is not happening I believe in you stop making me do this you have to get back in the eva Shinji now so far I've mostly been talking about individual shots but like the very best two player games the quick individual plays of kracken all together former conversational back and forth because the shots you take depend on where your opponent's discs are which depends in turn on their own skill and choices there's a beautiful connection with your opponent with players firing off opening statements then probing questions and rebuttals that are answered with dismay and heroism and revelations and vitally since crocodile is usually erased to a hundred points and the score in an individual game can be five or even zero games feel like colorful battles in a larger war big it up more Rob I think you see because crocodile is all muscle memory a good shot sets you up psychologically and physically to ace the next one but my god but because a for a full crocodile contest is to a hundred points right but that gives you enough time to find your groove but then fall out of it again and that fills the board with all this tasty tasty tension as players might bang shots off the pegs over and over again and you think to yourself oh yes I could make that shot on a good day but I've scotch my last two shots is it smart to do this so should I try something simpler ah this is also probably why in my experience a fun side effect of crocodile is players swearing like sailors because they know they can do this they were doing it five minutes ago what is happening oh my god Kylie Kylie Kylie wow this is perhaps it's no surprise that this game has lasted since the 1870s why don't we find out a little more about this game's history with a tape from the shut up and sit down archives story of crocodile begins with the arrival of the circle in Canada in 1870 both new shape took the colony by storm and heralded the arrival of circle fever in which circles transformed the nation's industry as well as ladies fashions even small children were captivated by the circles curvaceous flame and would search high and low for errant circles that they would then lay claim to this circle at once their property and loyal companion this activity would later inspire the game Pokemon but the invention of croaking owl itself begins with one Tabitha Grundy a carpentras living in the town of Spruce Grove located in the Canadian province the bog of service upon seeing a barrel for the first time Tabitha was heard to declare that any man who packed that many circles into an invention was trying too hard and a hustler and a hedge creeper to which the barkeep responded well if you think you're so good with circles why don't you make something to which Tabitha declared that I would well that she would later that evening Tabitha was killed by a moose but who should inherit her carpentry workshop then the hero of our story none other than mr. crow Cannella definitely making this up so by and large I agree with almost almost everything that the Internet has to say about crocodile even though me and my friends liked it enough that we now have crocodile nicknames such as Killer Croc Kalista fur and the enigmatic first Kylie but there was one area where it didn't land for me while I totally agree it is a phenomenal one-on-one game I didn't like crocodile as much as a 3 or 4 player game not even in the loudest two-on-two team game you see it's not just that you spend more time waiting for your turn and as such it's also harder to find that Pleasant groove that I love so much also it just loses some of that tactical richness that I can't stress this enough I found that it had rubbish level you see with three or four players that around the table there's nowhere to hide your disks you've got shots coming in from every angle and the only thing that matters as much is accuracy but this is a 150 year old game which means not only do I know there are going to be people who disagree with that I'm sure that you'll find those people commenting on this very video right now so maybe take my criticism with a pinch of salt or better yet go and read what those crocodile experts or as I believe they like to be called croc Anolis Bert's have to say yourself which finally takes us to the only question that matters is crocodile good enough that I recommend you buy a board and hmm that is a tough nut to chew on for the price of a crocodile board you could buy not one not two but three great dexterity games and still have money left over for one two three shut up and sit down recommends board games the highest award we give and also you can have enough money left over for a lovely new deck of cards because you've been watching the new shut up and sit down series card games that don't suck haven't you if money is in any way an issue for you I just don't see how buying a crocodile board makes sense but if you're the kind of person who likes to buy things that don't make a lot of sense I will tell you I don't regret buying this even though I have nowhere to store it and have to wheel it against the wall as if I was hoping to one day escape my flat in a covered wagon of my own design then again I didn't actually pay full price for this board I got a discount from the lovely people at modesta k-- kracken all as a link to their lovely website in this video's description and you can just tell em I sent you that's crocodile tune in next week we'll be reviewing such hot new games as jump rope marbles and cornhole just kidding I will be reviewing hot new board games again unless this video does really well which point you guys are in trouble you [Music] can leave us alone now [Music]

Channel: Shut Up & Sit Down

Views: 856,390

Keywords: Shut Up and Sit Down, SUSD, SU&SD, Board Game Review, Review, Board Games, Board Gaming, Boardgame, Board Game, Gaming, Tabletop, Fun Games, Quintin Smith, Matt Lees, Crokinole, Flicking

Id: XMKzeg78peg

Length: 18min 41sec (1121 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/KingOfCarrotFlowers]

If you’re the kind of person who likes to buy things that don’t make a lot of sense, I will tell you I don’t regret buying this.

This speaks to me on a personal level.

[u/extendedwilsonwolfe]

One of Canada's greatest achievements!

[u/YDAQ]

My fingers hurt just seeing the name of the game. lol

For some reason, every time we end up drinking we pull out a Crokinole board and play till we lose all dexterity. From the game.

[u/RoadToInfamyGames]

$69 for Blood on the Clock Tower... Are you crazy!?

$300 for Crokinole... Amazon has free shipping ,_,

[u/fastattaq]

I bought one of the first Jeremy Tracey boards last year. Tracey took over for Willard last year after Willard retired. I love it. The extra money you pay for a quality board used for competitive play is worth it.

The CAD to USD exchange rate makes these boards a lot more affordable to Americans than a lot of people realize.

[u/zeeaykay]

Just here to say that Quinns is wrong and 2 vs 2 is absolutely the best way to play. Having a teammate to share all the amazing shots and embarrassing botched flicks amplifies it to another level. It also makes for a really great couples game, and I've had friends feel less stressed when they're sharing the pressure with a partner.

[u/tomaw33]

Thanks Quinns, now Youtube (correctly) thinks I want to watch the Crokinole 2019 World Championships

[u/Fastr77]

if you don't have a crokinole board you should get one

[u/[deleted]]

I love crokinole, I wish it was easier to carry around though