They made math fun! - Ada's Dream Board Game Preview

hello everyone this is Johannes and this is cinon and you are watching mod gaming ramblings and today we are taking a look at Aus dream this is a new game coming to Kickstarter it is designed by Tony Lopez and published by alak Hat games it plays from 1 to four players in 90 to 120 minutes so obviously we were sent this by the publisher and as you always say in the beginning of previews this is a prototype so everything we have played all the rule books all the compon onon everything is going to be a prototype stuff so we cannot say that this is going to be exactly how it is but we're going to talk to you about what we felt when we play this game and what is it all about so that hopefully you will get a better understanding of how the game is and if it might be for you we're going to start with a little overview so that you get more feelings of what is going on in the game in aah dream you are going to be a follower of AA Loveless and you are trying to make her dream come true this is kind of a alternate reality where AA didn't die young and she gets to live longer and see her dreams comes to fruition and see what is going on later in her life it is a euro game so most of the time you're not going to think about the theme but I do like the theme Here of actually trying to make it fit and you're doing cogs and programs and stuff but that's not for the overview because that's starting here in this game you are drafting dice you're going to drop probably most of the time nine of these dice throughout the game and then you are going to place those dice on your player board which looks kind of like this it it looks exactly like this depending on if they change stuff so when you have a dice that you have drafted you will then be able to place the die on your player board and do the action that corresponds to the color of the dice that you placed you are going down to do the green action the yellow the purple or the blue action which are briefly as follows the green action is thematically you doing lectures at different universities so you are going to then Place one of your discs from your playboard onto the different spaces to get bonuses over here in the meeting rooms you will automatically hold meetings meet new people that will then go into your hand you're going to have a hand of eight cards or a deck of eight cards whenever you get a new card you have to discard a card so you always only have eight cards in your deck here you're going to travel around in a Britain and you are going to move around here to get different bonuses paying As you move and down here in a study you are going to get programs that you then will this is going to be hard to show because it's a hole in the in it but you will place them like this not balanc because this is going to be you don't have to hold it in your hand it can actually be on the table when you play it and that's going to give you scoring opportunities and then you're going to get some different bonuses some cards that will help you move on the different Science tracks you will get some of these uh gears that will help you talk about that later and some notebooks that will help you get a bonus actions who that is the overview let's talk about some other stuff for example this the artwork in the game is colorful and pleasant I really like the style of it it is a prototype but my main complaint with it so far is the small text print on on some of the actions so when you're sitting far away from this piece for example it's hard to see what it says and also over on these two action spaces over here the symbols are very small it is a fairly big board so I don't know if they're going to make the text or the symbol speaker but I would like to have them bigger for for ease of play especially this I love these components like it's a punch board the old style of punch board computer and that is nice but you also see like there is double the space here this could have been double the size and I hope they will change that because when we play that at this I would say was the biggest hurdle because every time somebody sitting on that side of the board they needed to get all the pieces so that they could read them and then they will put it back hopefully put it in the right order because that's important and then you can play the games that stopped it kind of I agree with this as well basically the first time we played you set this bace yes and you didn't do this I didn't focus on that at all so the next time I played I was just like oh these are actually cool actions I want to do these and so I hope especially these will will be uh bigger or like more more readable in in the real version yeah I'm not going to talk about the rule book because the rule book is so far a document it was not hard to learn the rules I made a video as well so that was really helpful um so I cannot say anything about that but we can say something about something else which you usually enjoy yes and that is play raids I have consulted these play raids multiple times during place of the game and on this side you have two player AIDS you have this one who which explains your turns you have like two main actions you can do either draft dice or use the dice that you already drafted and you also have the bonus action on the other side it's is some of the like bonus action yeah that you can do because it's easy to forget they are also printed here so that is also nice uh of a reminder as well H and on the other player raate it's two-sided with all the steps for the actions and the bonuses that you get I usually don't complain when there are play rates in the game but I had to turn this a lot around I would love this because this takes up a lot of space on it could be like distilled so it all would fit one side this one I think so maybe not this one then you can do that the thing you usually do with more players is to do one this side and one on this side because there is for each player so that is pretty nice and I'm going to talk about a few things just like because this prototype I'm just going to talk about a few things that is going to be different there's going to be because there are some things are not changeable on this map are going to be changeable so if you already seeing this think like oh like there's different goals you can go for those going to be different and and the different uh universities that you move around here is going to be different so there's many things are going to be interchangeable that aren't right now we played a game two and four player it took us between 90 minutes and like 2 and 1 half 245 with four but the first play was then a lot of rules checking and of course when you don't have a document it's hard it takes more time because I have to scroll and find the right passage so a lot of that time is for it being a prototype how did you feel like let's say you can get it to 215 with and like one and a half hours I think was pretty good B to how do you feel about that I feel like that is fine uh mostly the turns didn't go like very very long I felt like uh but sometimes you had to be like okay do I want to do this bonus action now because you get so few things done in the game you feel like I always short on actions and resources so you might want to overweigh some of your decisions very much and and then it can halt a little bit but other than that the game Flow was very good I liked it a lot with two I think I liked it better with four because there were because there are we're going to talk more about there are like four mini games or three mini games and I like a support game and then when we end up playing two it's easy to let's say somebody focuses on this and somebody focuses on that you kind of get that for yourself so it's going to be easier to get a lot of points there or like what happened when we play a two-player game is that we both were focusing here and nobody was focusing here so we kind of could very easily go in and grab some points there at the end that's going to be more interesting with two people that interaction part I agree let's talk about the game play let's start talking about the drafting mechanism because we like drafting we really like Drafting and I like dice drafting very much I here I love this because the timing of when to draft is very interesting but also what to draft because here you are bumping out dice so if I want for example this uh white tree then I have to bump with a higher dice to get that out so for example here I can bump with this five put this into the group and then the tree will bump out and and here color doesn't have have anything to say yet just the numbers and the D you bump out in the place that it is from you also get the bonus that is true and also there's there's different so you can pay something to move two space for a die if you need for example if I wanted to get this six I couldn't get it with any of these so I could pay some Co and move these two spaces so then I can bump out a six there and getting those bonuses and also the timing here is interesting as well because sometimes I really want to do the action but let's say it's like this and I'm going to I if I empty a space I'm also getting this bonus so I'm trying to like oh maybe I will then do that instead okay that's going to give me a dice I need the colors are what actions you get to do so when you do the actions like I explained earlier the numbers doesn't have anything to say yes the numbers are used for two things mostly well there are three things one is that you get to you have to have the right number to be able to to draw the die and the other one is the cards that you get to play which are really interesting sometimes you there are reasons for wanting high and low numbers and the main reason for wanting low numbers is that it's easier to play these cards so as you see this card to play that you have to play it when you draft a uh tree yes yes and sometimes you have to pay the cost of the value of the dice and then it's really cheap if you you play together with a one and expensive together with a yeah and sometimes in a game I'm like especially like okay I went for strategy I end up a lot of money and I'm like I dropped to the four yeah I'm just going to play so I get those resour I need and then last next round I'm going to be like no I needed those to be able to do the things I wanted so it was it is that balance also is is very nice and let's talk a bit about the player board because this might be the most interesting part of the game we're just going to make some room here and place it out so sorry about the mess that's going to leave off so move it out of the way again but it's a very interesting part of the game something is under air it's a book boom okay so this is a player board H and on this player board there is a lot of information um when you do the action like when you draw off the die it's going to land over here and when you place the die it doesn't really matter where you place it I other than that it matters a lot where you place it but it doesn't matter for the actions you take so of course I get to do that I get to do the action we're not going to go deeply into the actions but I did it in the overview talking about what was going on because this is I feel like more important than more more interesting than the actions like the actions are cool but what you do with this is what makes the game unique for me I agree it it isn't mandatory to place these D in any way but you can potentially score a lot of points this way so you want to make like these uh math equation not equations but like it's a computer program basically so let's say that uh we play some car and some dice over here you're making a horrible scoring now no okay I'm making a better scoring this is also pretty bad though but in this case you're starting from the top or left to right and this would net us perfect scoring sample uh four minus 2 minus one point at the end of the game so one point but usually you get like these Plus or addition cogs and you you make a better better equation than I just made Plus or multipliers oh yeah yes like addition this is yeah or else that would be the same multiplication so you could do like this which would be very good as well 4 - 2 * 1 that would be more than we just had y I don't think it would be worth it to use a lot of resources to build that multiplier um the think that makes this really cool is that you to be able to score those rols you have to have tree dice in it you're going to have dice in all of them most of the time if you don't play very weird and and and and also you need to have then the two gears in there to able to score the row so it doesn't matter if I have like 4 * 2 and I don't have anything there it's going to be zero points yes so so it's better than to build this negative which is is cheaper if I don't have enough to or if I don't have any more addition cogs it's going to be better to get that to get the actual points and also what is really cool is that there's a limit to how much you can score because you could basically do like four * 4 time five six like four 2 * 6 that's going to be 8 8 six times I don't know what that is but it's a high number and and can you score 48 points no you actually can't in this game how many points can I score right now right now you can score 10 points because your steam marker is down here at 10 so during the game you can use books in these bonus actions and in the workshop specifically and call to up your steam level and that dictates the maximum score that you can get for in the this part of the game I didn't feel so far that going to 40 was worth it like then you're going to because the thing is that I'm trying to fill up as many of these as possible because every one of these you haven't filled is going to be negative points so that means that I want to f as much as I possible mhm and then I'm probably not going to have more multiple of these maybe one maybe two if you go like very heavy for it I don't think like four of these I'm not going to say because we haven't played the game like 10 times but it's it might be possible but to get multiple scorings up into here or even get one when you so I felt like using those bonus books for actions other places and going here maybe up there was the maximum I felt was needed because if I get 20 20 20 that's going to be a lot of points yeah I think the game is encouraging you to uh place these or like make um what you call it um even equations to even it out so you can get like many like medium siiz numbers instead of having like one row that is 10 and Row one row that is 40 that is much more efficient but if you have built two rows with 40 and the other way zero probably you should go for this yeah and also you're going to win I think so and the other thing you're going to score points for other programs which you can't see now but I like this it's kind of makes it pop it it also dust so that the other players doesn't see it but they can ask and most of the time I'm not going to hate draft never I'm not going to do that oh you want that to score that 12 points it's going to be better for me to score some points yes so these are going to be for example all D same value so if I place that here I would like to to draft enough twos and there are ways to manipulate the numb so if I get a one there's ways to later manipulate it to a two so I can to score these and there's different strategies to go for you don't have to go for many of these no could like I have done so all the times we played gone for like this purple strategy uh I don't know I don't i i w one of the times we played I think so one or two times and but I I like all in all I really enjoy this part of the game I agree that's another other puzzle element that my brain really likes let's talk bit about the board because basically there are I'm going to move this away again it's going to look messy uh not the football player but uh the where it looks not tidy opposite of Tidy uh so basically as we mentioned these are mini games three mini games these are kind of the most mini game c this one gives you new cards and and might give you some bonuses at the end of the game and this is like a support action yeah I don't feel like these they don't work together like this works with the others but there's not like I'm doing this to be better at this no it feels like what I think is really cool is that okay they don't work together but if I do this action that gives me a bonus maybe lets me move two up or something up on this track then it makes this action better and then it makes my brain be like I want to do everything after something else I want to make my actions better before I do them but to make them better I have to do the actions so that means that you're going to all of the time think okay which action do I want first so the next action that I can do gets better and that way they kind of work together even though they are very separate from each other I will say that this game is kind of it's it's semi tight like it's not one where I like oh I don't know where to get my next coin or I don't know where to get my next resource but as you said you never you always want to do the thing before you do the thing because you need the thing to do the thing to do the thing and that makes makes for it to be like a it's a tight game because you need to do things and also you're always going to be in a position like oh I want to do some blue actions now but I'm only doing nine actions and I already done two of this and two of this okay I'm only drafting two more dice what is the most important for me to draft now am I going to go like heavier into this to get maybe to the bonus or I'm going to go o over here because nobody went for this row so I can go here and get the bonus four points and the bonus ability so there's there's a lot of things to to to think about one other thing I really like about this game which I haven't seen it this way I think in a game and I think it especially makes it better for two and it also gives it a better more interaction and the timing is even more important is that every time somebody takes a card or a program or one of these cards two cards are going to be discarded so let's say I take this so it's this is not going to be discarded but I take this then this one is going to be discarded because it's the oldest one and you're going to add two more so this is might be a problem if I look at something and I know okay I really want this one and then you take this and this one goes discarded and I see that other people also have purple D so maybe no I have to go here even though that destroys my timing plan to actually get this before it gets discorded and I think that is a very smart mechanism I it might have probably been in other games as well but I haven't seen it in this way and as I said like sometimes in two-player games markets get stale yeah because some oh there's three four cards three cards nobody wants but if I get one of them then one is going to go away and we're going to Fresh up half of the market so I really like that part as well I agree I think that th this makes the timing as you said very interesting and I also think like trying to plan um based on what the other players has the opportunity to do is interesting in this game because you can store tree unused like drafted dice at a time so if I see that you you have those tree spaces F filled up I know that you're not going to interact with this board for a little while if you don't have any white that's wild or any um of these purple dce drafted I know that you're not going to be able to do this probably um if you don't get a bonus for somewhere somewhere else before I get to do it so you have some sort of control especially in a two-player game but a little less control which we and four let's talk a bit about the weight and who do you think this game is for I would say that this is a medium Plus game so almost into the heavier scale but I would place it in a medium category and I think this is a par Euro game so if you're into I think it's a fun dice drafting uh game and if you want this it's basically points optimizing puzzling that's what you do what I really really appreciate is that you can very easily have an overview of how much you get to do in the game so you can especially towards the end you can kind of see okay I have four bonus actions left if I want to do this things I have to start doing them now because I just get one per turn for example that is true I think that this is a I think that it it's a classic feel like it feels like many other games but it does so in a couple of unique ways I really enjoy this St dropping mechanism I haven't seen that before this is kind of like it's not my f thoughts now but it's kind of is uh I really I think this is something that you will see that and you will see like oh this is a novel way of doing that I I enjoy the different things they have done to make it just like a tiny bit different than many other games does every game need to be super different it doesn't I don't feel that it's I'm notal person who feel like every game needs to have be Innovative and be very different but I feel like this and discording like it's taken these mechanisms and made them differently I will say this is not a super interactive game but it also not multiplayer soliter like the puzzle you're doing that is going to be your own thing but the timing of these things andity here you have some majority here I also think that that is what makes it better with more than two yes not it's still a very good game with two but I think like if you're want to play this to three and four it's going to be better than the two-player experience do you have any final thoughts you want to add I have a couple so you can start I will continue we're not waiting because it's a prototype but we're doing some final thoughts overall I really like this game uh and the the fact that you have a limited things that you can do in one play makes it higher replayability for me because still I I want to explore like okay but what if I do this this time maybe I'm not going for filling up the cogs at all maybe I will find my point somewhere else or maybe I will try to fill up my playboard as much as possible with high dice instead of playing the cards for example so there is many many roads to Rome or what you say but but I really like it I I really wish they make some of the text bigger that's my biggest gripe with the game overall enjo enjoyment all the way yeah I will say this is not a revolutionary game it's not one that you will play and feel like oh I never played anything like this and and but sometimes that's fine I enjoy my time playing this quite a lot I love this puzzle like this and this is what makes the game fun like it's some games where like the other things are there just to make this make sense because just doing this without having any reason for doing it like I'm playing a die here nothing happened that would not be a fun game so everything together like the drafting you need specific dice you want specific numbers for the scoring here but also you want the lower numbers to play the cards you also want to have the program so that you get have specific dies and colors in the different roles so that this is what makes it a good game for me I would say that if you like you were just drafting the DI and just discarding them to do the actions that would be a fine game that would be an okay game even though this is unique and new it will still be just like a fine game adding this makes it a good game for me so if this is something that you think is interesting you can check it out on Kickstarter if it's not something you can think it's interesting you cannot check it out in Kickstarter because there's so many you can't check it out anyways because it's free to check the page and read a bit about it and you don't have to back it if you don't want to that's up to you famous lost words yes this is the end of the video If you enjoyed it and it give you any info you can help us out in a very big way which is very helpful and it makes us very happy like this by giving a say victory points and we victory points when you click that subscribe button you can also click the Bell to get notifications every time we post a new video and that's going to be the end of this video thank you so much for watching I'm Johannes and you've been watching board gaming rambling s bye-bye for

Channel: Board Gaming Ramblings

Views: 2,392

Keywords: review

Id: bfHgdWLOAp4

Length: 24min 43sec (1483 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2024