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Overland Gamer The Podcast - Board Game Spotlight - The Mind from Pandasaurus Games

9/8/2020

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Board Game Spotlight where we take a brief look at games that have come across our table. Today we're taking a look at The Mind from Pandasaurus Games. 

The Mind

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Players: 2-4 players | Play Time: 20 min | Age: 8+
Designer: Wolfgang Warsch
Artist: Oliver Feudenreich
​ Publisher Pandasaurus Games

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Players work together to play cards into a single pile of cards in an ascending order. The trick is you cannot communicate what cards are in your hands. In fact you can’t communicate at all with other players. Can the players clear their hands out in eight levels of play? Ten? Twelve? 
The players start with a number of lives equal to the number of players. Each player receives a number of cards based on the level of the game. Round 1 one cards each, round 2 two cards each. Each player tries to play a card in ascending order to the previously played cards. If no one holds a card lower than the one just played the game continues. If someone does all players discard all face up cards lower than what you played and players lose a life. Lose all your lives and it’s game over. When everyone empties their hand successfully the round has been won. Players have an opportunity to earn Shuriken cards. When played Shurikens allow players to discard their lowest card face up. Opening up options for play to continue. 

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This game is tricky and fun. Not being able to speak to each other is super difficult. It takes a bit of finesse with the card playing to know when to play your cards. Early on it’s not so bad. Starting off you have one card each so it can be easier. 
This is definitely a fun game in our collection and it is simple enough for a variety of folks to play from seasoned gamers to beginner gamers. 


Game or Developer Games - https://pandasaurusgames.com/products/the-mind
Board Game Geek - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244992/mind

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From the dice wall! 
Dragons Lair Omaha - https://sites.google.com/site/dragonslaircomicsandgames/home



  • Pandasaurus Games - https://pandasaurusgames.com/
  • Zero Session - https://www.zerosession.com/
  • Indie Game Alliance - https://indiegamealliance.com/
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A Minty Fresh spotlight of Mint Works and Mint Delivery

9/10/2019

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Mint Works and Mint Delivery

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In honor of the launch of Mint Cooperative Kickstarter from Five24 Labs, I decided to put together a review for Mint Works and Mint Delivery. These games are part of the mint games from Five24 labs. We’ll begin with a little review of their games currently out. We will then talk about Mint Cooperative that is about to drop on Kickstarter.

The Mint Collection from Five24 Labs is a series of minty fresh games with a whole lot of fun in a small container. Each game contained in these small tin cases is a really fun experience. Mint Works is a quick worker placement game. Mint Delivery is a fun pick up and deliver game. Each game is about the size of an Altoids can. These little tin boxes contain a lot of fun and don’t really take up a lot of extra space. 

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Five24 Labs

Mint Works​

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Mint Works is a minty fresh worker placement game. In Mint Works you will be gathering and placing little white wooden mint looking discs trying to gather the most victory stars to win the game. 

Each player begins the game with the same amount of mint tokens. During a player's turn they choose a location on the available locations. After placing the required number of mint tokens the location ability is activated.

These locations will either give you access to more mints, allow you to pick up plans, or complete buildings. Completing buildings are the typical way to score points towards victory. 


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Each plan or building is personal to the player who acquired them. Usually only affecting that player. The plans show what victory points the building is worth. Each building may have an upkeep ability that is triggered during the upkeep phase of the round. 

At the end of a round when all players have played and have passed their turn a new round begins. At the start of a round if a player has achieved 7 or more stars they are declared the winner of Mint Delivery. If multiple players have reached the 7-star victory the person with the most stars is declared the winner. 

If no victory has been reached the players refill the plan supply cards. If this deck is empty the game ends and the person with the most victory stars wins. 

Each building may have an upkeep ability tied to it. Those trigger after the supply deck is replenished. There are two deed locations that trigger rewards for the owner if mint tokens are placed on there. 
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​Players clear off the locations of mint tokens. Each player gains one mint and the players may begin their turn. 

The game does feature a solo mode where the players have a solitaire ai to face. Each of these brings their own challenges to the game. 

The game is a minty fresh take on the worker placement genre. It is super simple to play and pick up. It takes up such a small space on the table that it is easy to pull it out and set up quickly. It is definitely a solid travel game. Though the airport metal detectors might get a bit angry at the metal. 

While this game is fantastic to play it does have a few drawbacks. The first being the small packaging. While this is a great selling point of the game, there is so much to this game that sometimes getting the cards out of the little tin can be difficult. I do not have very dexterous hands and they are very large as well which I understand is a factor. AI can be difficult to follow along with the flow of how they work. It has taken me a few plays to get their patterns down right. The only other critique of the game going back to the small size of the container is there isn’t much room for expansion of more buildings. While the advanced locations do provide great randomness to the game they can be a bit repetitive. 

Mint Delivery

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Mint Delivery is a minty fresh pick up and deliver game. In Mint Delivery players will acquire mint loads travel across the map and deliver the goods to score victory stars. 


Players begin with a couple of orders and a full truck. On their turns they’ll move across the roads connecting locations on the map cards. Once they reach a city or factory location they can activate abilities on that location depending on where they are.


On city locations a player can drop off mints to fulfill orders. They can pick up new orders. On factory locations players can pick up mints or exchange mints for the desired type.

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Players continue until two towns have no more orders or all 4 towns are out of order cards. The players proceed to scoring phase. Each completed order is worth a star value. The player with the most stars wins. 
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The game has two alternate setup modes including player abilities and road conditions. These add variety to the game that allows for more replay-ability. 

There is also a solitaire game which can be a fun way to play. ​

Mint Cooperative

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Available on kickstarter right now! 

Review coming soon! 
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Shad0fx

Joe DeMarco, single father, aspiring writer and game designer, software tester. I am a writer on Elfwood a seafaring campaign setting from Harsh realities. I enjoy all aspects of writing and storytelling. ​
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    Shad0fx

    Joe DeMarco (Shad0fx) is a father, writer, game designer, and podcaster. 

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