 So the other game we played I don't think you should buy it No, I don't know if you can buy it square on sale. It's an actually it's actually from 2005 But it's considered first look because it was not easy to obtain in the US It's like a Japanese published game and we they somehow got a copy of it designed by a so what I tied you right So basically what this game is is it's a fellow you've played a fellow also that is Iago Reverse it's weird how many people only know it is reverse. I ran into a co-worker like last month who literally had no idea What a fellow was I knew it as a fellow because that's what the board game in the store was called, right? But then on like on the computer. I was like reverse II what's that and I'm like, oh, it's a fellow I'm saying same and then and then on Linux and KDE Linux KDE on Linux. There was a there was like K. Iago or something and I was like, what is Iago? I'm like, oh it's reverse How many different names are there for this stupid game? It's like Klondike solitaire It's all these same names for this different names of this game Now I've never seen a game incorporate a fellow so nakedly before Except like actually, you know what did of all things WarioWare on the GameCube. Yes But I did it did but the point I want to make and just remember what I'm about to say and we'll get to it And later in this review There is a fundamental problem with a fellow in that the heuristics or the math like the hard math to actually be good at A fellow are not really human implementable like humans Cannot do that. It is very hard to learn the the right way to be good at a fellow at any scale But it is trivial on a small board. You could do it. It even yeah, like a four Tile board sure Yeah Six tile eight like the tiniest as soon as you get above like three by three humans cannot be good at a fellow Well, I feel I was typically played on like what five by five seven by seven something like that But yeah, but a lot of the I don't know what the I guess the actual board game is a huge board Right, but though most of the apps I played where it would let you choose the board size Yeah, remember five by five and seven by seven usually being defaults, but there is a Easy algorithm for computers that can play a fellow perfectly if you've to play any like random a fellow online There's a decent chance it implements that algorithm. You will never win There's literally you just use that algorithm in your human head. It's too difficult for a human to do in their head I don't think anyone's ever played a fellow. Maybe I'll spend this this my free time I tried I I actually have some really fucking complex a fellow heuristic for a fellow is getting the corner No one could take you once you're in the corner My heuristic is based on a point value that I've assigned to every type of square on the board and then that And then those points are mitigated or altered by board states But I can't say like I can't say the rule for doing that I've just memorized certain patterns and if I see those patterns in the local area I know how to interact with that area Anyway, so square on sale is a fellow. However, there is two big changes to this game, right? Change number one is it normally in a fellow let's say a place in the top left corner and then the bottom right corner all the Pieces on that diagonal would get filled in with my dudes if they're there like if they're filled in already You're not allowed to play in a regular a fellow. You're not allowed to play non-adjacent Yep, you gotta you gotta place it so they would convert to so that wouldn't be a legal play in regular a fellow Unless they were all filled in anyway. Yeah, we're square on sale It is a legal play for reasons we'll get into but anyway what happens in square on sale is the same thing I play one and I play another I play a second piece and all the in-between places are now mine But instead of just conquering them. I place my pieces on top of the enemy pieces that I've conquered Such that they're each place on the board each square is stacking higher and higher, right? And how high the stack is is how many points that spot is worth and whoever has the top piece in the stack is The owner of those points so if the yeah square that changed hands more times It's just worth more points to whoever has it when the game ends and the game doesn't end when the thing's full Like a fellow it ends based on a whole bunch of rules Right the second major thing in the game is that it is a bidding game You don't just on your turn go on a spot that you want to go on you bid on a spot You want to go on with money, right? And then you get on a random spot. I could be like I'll bid on the corner I'll just go on the corner right now. Yep And when you bid you have to basically just outbid the current bid on that spot if there is one There might not be one in which case you could bid like a dollar, right? You put your money on the spot so that and the next person who has to come around knows how high the bar is for bidding And then you don't get that spot for three turns you bid you put the two on there It flips down to a one Right the next turn and then the turn after that you actually would conquer the spot And if someone outbids you right they would take the countdown timer at its current state of two or one Right and we have to now if people keep outbidding on a spot It never ticks down because it just keeps staying. Yeah at its current position And this is a little it seems a little complex and it is a little bit difficult to teach this but once you start playing it makes sense basically you have a limited number of dollars and You can bid and over bid and you'll just leave a pile of dollars on the space And when you basically what it means is you bid on a space and you win the space if no one outbids you For twice around the board. Yep But once you win a space, yeah, you put your square on top But now your money stays there and if it's any space other than the edges every round Instead of doing your bid you can spend an action to take a dollar from all the stacks you've left out there So you might normally on your right So on your turn if you have any money in the middle nine spaces You would pick up one dollar from each of the nine spaces, right? That's left hanging out there to get your money back slowly because you have a limited money supply You just start with all your money, right? It's not like you're making money It's like you start with all your money you put it out to bid and after if you get out bid you get all the money back But if you successfully bid then the money you bid slowly comes back to you, right? From I guess your people paying rent who live in the building you own this is the metaphor, right? But if you put money on the outside spaces that not the nine central spaces the outside five ten sixteen spaces, right? That money because the outside spaces are stronger because it's a fellow, right? Those are hard to take away They're not more powerful They're not as powerful as an Othello because someone doesn't have to maneuver Heuristically to take them they can take them just by bidding on top of you at any time Those out the money that you put in those outside spaces You don't just get back slowly from rents You have to forgo bidding for a turn and then you can take one dollar from every stack you have on an outside space So if you go for a lot of outside spaces to try to make lots of strong Othello plays and put out lots of your building square tiles Then you will end up with your money stuck in the outside edges of the board You'll have to spend your turns getting that money back when other people will come in and actually Reconquer all the spaces yeah while you're not bidding and now what did you actually get right and then I think the game ends There's a bunch of conditions, but one of the conditions is I think what if every square square has something in it? Yeah, I think if every square has something in it the game and if one player Yeah, if you put out all your squares the game ends. Yeah, I forget there might be another end condition, but there's another This is one other mechanic is one other mechanic involving some jammies on the board to incentivize you Spaces there's little jammies on the board at the in the early game So that let you like you know conk get some extra points here and there Sort of so if you go early and get conquered late you still got some points for going early But that's not really a big deal. It's more of a balancer Yep, though. They are substantial amounts of points. It's hard to get what's in this game Yeah, they're not insignificant, but they're they're just sort of like there But that end game condition that sort of leads to my point remember that heuristic thing So a fellow has non human like implementable heuristics like a fellow humans basically can't be good at a fellow But this game plays in the same heuristic space But because of all these differences from a fellow No, a fellow heuristics actually work So it's as complex as a fellow in terms of humans probably can't build reasonable heuristics But simultaneously people are good at a fellow will not actually necessarily be good at this game because for example in a fellow If you get a corner space there is literally no way to lose that no like it's invincible in this game Like corner spaces just get eaten In a fellow you can assign very clear point values to like how worthwhile the space is because once a space is in It's locked in it can only be taken from you by being attacked within the placement rules of the game here there are multiple avenues for attack and A fellow ends Well, when the game is sort of full and complete kind of like a go ending But this game ends on other conditions So you can't rely on the board filling the game might end well before it fills and you're just hosed So you can't even rely on any knowledge of a fellow to be good at this game, right? Like I had a pretty good play on the board But then the game ended before my the night the ticker ran out on my bid and the result of that was I didn't make the big play and my score suffered a lot because of the timing of the game ending not even a bad play I was doing really well in the beginning But then I lost a bunch of places But that was fine because based on my a fellow heuristics because I played a hell a lot of a fellow I Knew that I would be able to retake those places pretty easily and I had a plan and then again The game ended early which is not something that a fellow heuristics take into account and I just got boned I went from being in first place by a lot to being in second to last place Yep So even though it's a pretty simple game. It's just got what three or four components right up board Squares little money tokens and some jammies, right? It's all it is is bidding on spaces and then a fellow wing when you win the space Right and then adding up score. There's not a lot going on But there is way too much that particular Combination of simple ingredients ends up being way too complex for human brains Yep, I don't think if I played this ten more times. I would be Recognizably better at it Like I don't think I could get better at it without study and like for a fellow You know how I got better at a fellow as a kid study like reading books on it and like playing out scenarios and memorizing patterns That is what it would take to be very good at this game And I don't know if normal people are willing able to do that or if it's even worthwhile to do it I don't know if the ceiling on the game is as high as go But it's very very high and the floor is definitely lower than goes floor It's a much more accessible game than go like in go You just basically just get destroyed until you get good enough and recognize enough patterns You can actually kind of play this if you just have some brains. Yep, right, but you can't play it really well Right without a lot like super genius level. It's almost like while I was playing it Like I like to talk a lot about brain feel and games like what does this game feel like this game didn't feel like Anything I was I was like reverting back to these like raw Naked heuristics and like I could not model the game in my brain I was followed when we first started like three or four rounds in I was modeling it based on a fellow and then because of the bidding and everything Suddenly my mental model deviated rapidly from what the game was actually doing So I had to throw it all away and just play Completely raw and the only the only way I was able to keep the game in my brain Is what I was doing was basically like it became I would try to look and figure out what to do And it became so messy that I just went like blank And when I ended up what I ended up doing was just focusing on a small part of the game only and ignoring the rest Yep being like, okay. Here's my guys Here's the play. Here's a play that I see that I can make that could work Uh, I'll recognize this one aspect of the game and focus on that and ignore everything else And it didn't work out great, but it got me to help me make a decision at least So about what to do I want to play it again But I don't think that will change anything I have to say about the game And I really can't recommend anyone buy it Oh, I mean first of all, I don't recommend you buy it because this is such an easy game to make true You don't really need to buy it. You could find like your grandpa's a fellow You know the one with the green board and the little plastic things like the little I don't know if the game even has a publisher in the united states Uh, or in english We were playing like a you know, sort of a messy looking. I don't even know who published the copy We were playing with it wasn't the original japanese publish Maybe it was the european one, but we had rules printed from the internet clearly and not a real rule book Um, so yeah, I don't even know if you can Purchase it if you can You know, this is there are two threads in the board game geek forum for this The first one was started 15 years ago and it just says more information The second thread is how to get a copy from eight months ago There are a total of nine posts about this game on all of board game geek Right. So if this is if this game is up your alley I recommend, you know making a copy and playing it that way And if you get really into it then find a way to get a legit copy somehow I could see a publisher like say big cat games or someone publishing this in english at some point Um, but I don't think that's happening right now So do what you can but yeah, this is not for everyone Uh, but if you are someone who cares about games likes really hard games likes Abstract games and bidding games if you want that blank feeling that scott described the like I am in a world with no heuristics like a world with no rules. What do I do? Yeah, like if you want a game where you can't apply Most of the things you know about games to it to get better at it quickly This is the game for you right? It's like, you know about bidding that doesn't help you You know about a fellow that doesn't help you even though it's a bidding a fellow primarily It's almost you know, you know what it's like, you know in uh, oh god end music started playing. Okay, there we go There's no weird pipeline with the remote thing. I think that got recorded on your channel, but anyway Uh This you know, where was I going? I lost my entire train of thought now. I went blank Right, you know when you there's a language like german language You don't speak and there's cognates like some languages use the same or a similar sounding word to mean something like tea Che chai like you can kind of figure stuff out. It sounds very similar But then there's false cognates a word that sounds a lot like a word, you know But it actually means something completely different Like uh in french, uh, I was writing a thing. I remember I said like uh mon aunt a formid dabbler like my aunt is formid dabbler That does not really mean formidable That's not what that means in english effectively But formidable and what formid dabbler actually means in french like they're not really the same thing So you can be led astray by it appearing to be similar to something you know Right in spanish someone might say cerveza and you might think oh does that have to do with service? Right? It's like no that means beer. Yep. Okay. It's like So uh, this game has the is false heuristics Yes, if you try to be good at that if you if you're good at bidding and good at a fellow I think you will do worse at this game than somebody who has never played a bidding game and has never played a fellow All right, so yeah, that's uh, that's enough of that. I think that was a show