Episode 133 AP Table Talk: Multi-Use Cards

AP Table Talk: Multi-Use Cards

Episode Summary

In this episode of AP Table Talk, hosts Brian Eng and Dave Eng explore the versatile world of Multi-Use Cards in board games. They dive into defining the mechanic, discussing how it forces players to make meaningful trade-offs by using cards for one of several possible actions. Highlighting games like Risk: Star Wars Edition, Dune: Imperium, and Bohnanza, they unpack how Multi-Use Cards create strategic depth, add replayability, and integrate into various game themes. Whether you're new to this mechanic or a seasoned gamer, this episode offers valuable insights and plenty of game recommendations!

Brian Eng:

Hello and welcome to AP Table Talk, a podcast where we explore board games and what makes them interesting to us. I'm your host, Brian Eng, and joining me directly from the front lines of the educational battlefield, my co-host Dr. Dave Eng.

Dave Eng:

You know what, Brian? I was going to groan at that, but that was actually pretty good, so thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I tried to do one ribbing and then one just funny.

Dave Eng:

How many ChatGPT prompts-

Brian Eng:

Not to-

Dave Eng:

... did it take to get to that one?

Brian Eng:

No. You know what? I should be, why am I not using ChatGPT for these? I sit there and I waste my time coming up with intros.

Dave Eng:

I know, right?

Brian Eng:

I'm not using-

Dave Eng:

Sitting there-

Brian Eng:

... I'm out of the regular workforce. I'm not using all the shortcuts that I would be if I was working.

Dave Eng:

Your puny human powers instead of your massive ChatGPT powers.

Brian Eng:

Yes. All right, so how are things going?

Dave Eng:

All right, man, I'm ready to talk. Let's talk about mechanics.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, so this episode is Multi-Use Cards. That's the mechanic for this episode. So we'll start off with our definitions.

Dave Eng:

Sure.

Brian Eng:

Okay.

Dave Eng:

So you go first, Brian, with your personal definition.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So what are Multi-Use cards? I have one definition and I break it up a little bit, but generally I would say it's cards in a game that have multiple actions tied to them, or multiple ways that you can use the cards, but you have to choose one of them. You can't use all of the actions. I do have an example here. The example I use is a game that we've both played, an unexpected game that I like, which was Risk: Star Wars Edition.

Dave Eng:

Oh, yep.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. So for those unfamiliar, it has nothing to do with risk. It is closer to Star Wars Queen's Gambit game. Where you're fighting multiple battles at the same time and without getting into all the rules, essentially one player's empire, one player's rebels, and you have a deck of order cards each. And on each order card, there'll be two or three different options to activate units or a fight on different fronts.

And you're essentially choosing, I think you have a hand of six and you play three of them, and each time you play one of them, you have to choose one of those actions to use out of the cards, so you pick the one that will benefit you the most or whatever. And I think that was the most simple, straightforward Multi-Use Card game that I could think of quickly that we've both played. Now-

Dave Eng:

Right.

Brian Eng:

Sorry, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

No, I'm angry. Because I'm like, "Yeah, that is a really great Multi-Use Card game." I totally forgot about it until you brought it up right now. I was like, "Oh man, I want to play it again."

Brian Eng:

Yeah, think that was a big surprise one that we enjoyed because it kind of... I mean, it was released by Hasbro. It's more of... The box looks like more of a Monopoly or that type of game that we... Not, those games aren't good, but we've moved on from those types of games, or at least they don't generally hold our attention as much. But I thought that was an interesting find. I don't even remember why I had that game.

Dave Eng:

I think you had it because of who-

Brian Eng:

Because I don't know if somebody got it for me or something.

Dave Eng:

No, I think you-

Brian Eng:

Because I wouldn't have.... Even though it's Star Wars, I don't think I would've bought it.

Dave Eng:

I remember playing and I was like, "This has nothing to do with Risk. It just has Risk on the cover."

Brian Eng:

So yeah, I think someone must've gotten me that game because they knew I was into board games and they knew I liked Star Wars and I probably rolled my eyes a little bit when I got it, but then-

Dave Eng:

It was a good game.

Brian Eng:

... it ended up being a great game. It's a great game, especially kind of a... It's it because it's a pretty straightforward game. I think that's one that probably my oldest daughter could probably start playing that one soon. So now when we talk about the Multi-Use Cards... Actually you know what, let's do the official definition first and then we'll get into some of the minutiae for this episode.

Dave Eng:

Well, Brian, I hate to break it to you, but the official definition for multiple-use cards from BoardGameGeek is, "Multiple actions are shown on a card, but only one can be used."

Brian Eng:

Okay. That's a very short definition.

Dave Eng:

It's pretty straight, I mean-

Brian Eng:

I think that summed up in... Okay, you know what, and they say multiple actions are shown on the card, right?

Dave Eng:

Right. Right.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So we had a very quick discussion in our prep for this episode and we talked about games where you can use the cards for another action, but it's a generic action. So the example I have is 7 Wonders where you can use the cards for whatever the actual action on the card is. But your other option is that you can, I don't know if they call it selling it, but you can essentially discard a card on your turn instead and take three coins as kind of a... you can always do that action. It isn't written on the card. But I would say that's still technically multi-use. But for the purpose of this episode, I did not include that in any of my examples for Multi-Use Card games.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, no, I think that's fair.

Brian Eng:

And I mean, even if it said on the card that you could discard for three, I still just didn't because it's not quite the same spirit I think, of what we're talking about with Multi-Use Cards.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. And I think that that is a concept that's based more in the game and less on the card. It's a game mechanic that says you can exchange this card for coins at any point.

Brian Eng:

Right. We didn't speak about this one, but as I was going through Multi-Use Card games, another one that has a very similar feeling that I also excluded from Multi-Use Card games are where the cards are also used as a resource. And by that I mean, so have you played San Juan?

Dave Eng:

Oh, that's the card game of Puerto Rico, right?

Brian Eng:

The card game Puerto Rico, yeah.

Dave Eng:

No, I have not played it, but it's on my list.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So yeah, again, it's a card game version of Puerto Rico. And in that one, it has the same thing, you're doing your action selection and everyone follows and you can build buildings in that one. So in regular Puerto Rico, you build your, is it plantations or whatever, and then you can get resources on them.

In San Juan, same thing, you can build your cotton plant or whatever, and to signify resources you use any card face down on the building. So yes, you are using the card for multiple uses, but I did not include that as Multi-Use Card because you're not really... That one's even less so because you're not even making a choice, you're just taking a card and using it face down as a representation of resources.

Dave Eng:

Well, I'm willing to debate that point, but I want to save it for a later part of the episode.

Brian Eng:

Well, in that game, because you're not even picking a card from your hand, you're taking a card from the deck face down and just putting it on to represent.

Dave Eng:

Oh, I see. Okay.

Brian Eng:

If you had to choose one of your cards, that is more... But you're not even really making a choice, you're just taking a card and using it to represent a resource as another component, which to me is even less of a Multi-Use Card from what we're talking about.

Dave Eng:

Agreed. I'll put my pitchfork down.

Brian Eng:

So that gets through our little definition there with some footnotes for the episode. So we'll move on to some examples then, or major examples.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, major examples. And we're going to lead with a die roll here.

Brian Eng:

All right, roll for initiative.

Dave Eng:

I got to do virtual roll because I don't know where my D20 is, but it's nowhere near my desk.

Brian Eng:

Okay, no problem.

Dave Eng:

But okay, I'm rolling online, so you tell me when you're rolling.

Brian Eng:

Just do the countdown. We

Dave Eng:

All right. 3, 2, 1, roll.

Brian Eng:

Okay. I got 17.

Dave Eng:

I also got 17. Oh, it's a push. That's the first time it's ever happened.

Brian Eng:

We did not... Are we just re-rolling?

Dave Eng:

Did we re-roll? That's what my-

Brian Eng:

We don't really have a... We never planned this.

Dave Eng:

I know.

Brian Eng:

I guess we just re-roll.

Dave Eng:

I guess it's a roll-off.

Brian Eng:

All right. All right.

Dave Eng:

3, 2, 1, roll.

Brian Eng:

Let's roll it off again.

Dave Eng:

All right.

Brian Eng:

10.

Dave Eng:

We got 11.

Brian Eng:

Okay.

Dave Eng:

What'd you get?

Brian Eng:

So you can go. 10.

Dave Eng:

10. Okay.

Brian Eng:

You can go ahead first.

Dave Eng:

Okay. So we're on major examples right now. We're talking about the first ones. I had a lot of difficulty, Brian with this episode because I feel like Multi-Use Cards are... it's present in so many games. I mean, your definition I think narrowed it down a little bit more. But for me, I had a really tough time thinking, "What is the very first Multi-Use Card game I've ever played?" I couldn't go back far enough in my game ology to come up with that.

So I had a tough time. But what I did instead was I tried to find one of the most, I would say, "rudimentary" Multi-Use Card games out there, that I feel like this one's going to be common to a lot of listeners, which we just finished our game on Board Game Arena, which is going to be Forest Shuffle. So Forest Shuffle uses those cards in multiple ways. We played it, it's a game where you are trying to build a forest using cards that score points in multiple ways.

There are tree cards that make up your forest, but then there are animal cards. And those animal cards can either be tucked above the tree, below the tree to the left of the tree or to the right of the tree in different configurations. So I think if you're interpreting, here's multiple options on it, but you could only use it one way. I'd say Forest Shuffle is probably one of the most mass available games I would say that have that mechanic. So it's not my first, but I think it's the one that would be most accessible to a lot of listeners. How about you?

Brian Eng:

Okay, so for my first, so I agree on you. I was thinking about the games and I did try to choose... at least for our examples, I tried to choose ones where the Multi-Use Cards had a more significant role in the game. Now, in certain examples it was more or less to that degree. But the first game that I could think of that I played that had Multi-Use Cards is actually... It's not one of my favorite games. It's a cooperative game. It is a fairly popular game in the board game hobby sphere, and that is Pandemic.

So for those not familiar with Pandemic, its a cooperative game. The goal is you're trying to stop the spread of diseases throughout the world by, I think you're discovering cures. You each have asymmetric roles, so you each have cards and you're not allowed to share what cards you have. And on your turn you take actions and the actions are like move, building research stations, treating diseases, discovering the cures. And of those actions, a couple of them.

So when you move is one of the actions in which you use your cards and your cards have a color and a location on them I think are the ones that least you use for moving. And in order to move, you have to have... Or one of the ways you can move is a direct flight to a location where you have the card with that location and you can move directly to that location.

So the board is a network of locations across the world. So you can move to adjacent cities without a card. You can take a direct flight to any city as long as you have that card or you can charter a flight. If you have the location that you're currently on as a card, you can use that card and you can fly from that city to any city.

Dave Eng:

Oh, okay. It's been a while since I played. It was all new.

Brian Eng:

Right. So I had to refresh myself. So one of the uses is for moving, but the other use for those cards as well is that if you have... In order to create the cures for the diseases, you have to have five cards of the same color. And if you're at a research station, one of your actions can be to discard five cards of the same color in order to create the cure for that disease. So that's another use for those cards basically.

Dave Eng:

I see.

Brian Eng:

So that is one where you have to make that choice of, "Do I want to use this for moving? But I need to keep these yellow cards. I still need five yellow cards so I can make the cure." That kind of thing. So I think that was the first, or at least the first Multi-Use Card. Again, that falls more into what we're talking about or the feel of what we're talking about today.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, man, I forgot about that. That's a really good example of Multi-Use Cards, but it's been years since I played Pandemic. I totally forgot.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, again, it's a super popular game, but it was never my favorite. Just again, mostly because it was cooperative, but I felt there was a lot of quarterbacking whenever I played that game. So I just never really-

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it's really easy to quarterback that game, I think.

Brian Eng:

... like playing it too much. All right, so we will move on to-

Dave Eng:

Should we go on the next one?

Brian Eng:

So you want to go ahead with your, is it your favorite?

Dave Eng:

Yeah, this is number two for favorite. So I'm glad we had that discussion at the very top because this one... and we talked about this in the pre-production meeting too, because I really wasn't sure if this game counted as Multi-Use Cards because you are... I don't really consider it an action, but after you've couched your decision and the framework for how you classify the Multi-Use Card, this is actually coming from your hand. This is actually one of my favorite, I would say trading games. And it's Bohnanza.

Because the Multi-Use Card here, it's not as in depth as I take other games. It's not even as in depth as Forest Shuffle. But the reason I like Bohnanza is because the game's all about trading and you may have really valuable... The game is about trading beans and you sell these beans for the most amount of money and money is how you win the game. Since you cannot rearrange the cards in your hand when you sell them, it is opportune sometimes to try to get rid of cards by trading them.

But when you have beans planted in the game, it allows you to, once you reach a certain set level, like three or five or seven of the same being you get to harvest them. When you harvest them based on that set, you earn money from them. And the way the money is earned is the actual card itself. So you take that card, flip it face down, and then the face on the back of the card is the coin. So that's what actually counts.

But now that I think about it, I think it actually serves two purposes here. One, it's face down, it's a coin, it counts for points but it also means that one of those beans in that set that you've selected does not go back into the reshuffle pile.

So it's actually making it that kind of bean in the game to collect later. Much more difficult because you've basically killed one of those cards in your score pile.

Brian Eng:

Right.

Dave Eng:

So I would go with Bohnanza for my favorite.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that's Uwe Rosenberg, right?

Dave Eng:

Yep, yep.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Yeah that's a... You know what? I'm wondering if I played that before. No, I think I played Pandemic before that. But yeah, that's definitely one I played a long time ago. So onto my favorite, actually we were just talking about this before we started the episode. And I think I brought this up in my favorite category many times. Sometimes I just mention it, but then use another one so that I don't talk about it all the time.

Dave Eng:

Talk about it.

Brian Eng:

In this case, I think it makes a very good use of Multi-Use Cards, and that is Dune: Imperium. Whether that's Dune: Imperium or Dune: Imperium - Uprising. They're basically very similar games. So again, I won't go through all the rules of that game, but essentially it's a worker placement deck building game. And part of the deck building, it's kind of your standard deck building. You've got a hand of five cards... Or sorry, a deck deck of 10 you start with and you draw a hand of five. And on your turn you are playing agents, which are your worker placements. But in order to place an agent, you play one of your cards. And on the cards there is symbols on the left side, which correspond to groups of locations.

So you have to have a card that has the, I'm just going to call them colors, essentially colors of the location you want to go to. But in addition to that, there are two boxes at the bottom. One called the agent box, which when you play the card to place your agent, it has an effect that occurs when you place that agent.

So it could be to draw additional cards, it could be to gain resources or to trade resources to gain troops, or some examples, basically. It could be anything. And so you're choosing to use that card either for playing agents. So generally you're playing either two or three agents around.

Now the other use of the card I should say, is once you've completed the agent phase of the game where you've placed all your agents, you do a reveal turn and the other box on the card is the reveal box. And that has other, I guess, effects on it, which could be to gain persuasion, which persuasion is the currency used to acquire more cards in the deck building part of the game.

You can gain resources, you can deploy troops, things like that. It can increase your battle strength. So all the cards from your hand that you do not play in the agent phase are presented in the reveal phase and you get all the effects from from the reveal box.

So the entire round is a trade-off of the cards you want to use in order to do the work replacement you want, but also the cards you don't want to use so that you can gain the effects from the reveal box. And I find it to be one of my favorite implementations of Multi-Use Cards. It's a little thinky, but just you have to make a lot of really interesting trade-off decisions in that game.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I think that is the reason why I really like it, because it's not just about choosing what cards you want to play. It's actually, I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong here, Brian, it's like splitting your cards. It's like, okay, "I want this group of cards to do this. And then I'm not going to use these cards because I want to use the discard ability or whatever is the other action...

Brian Eng:

Exactly. Yeah. But then it's like, "Oh, but to go to... I need Spice, so I need one of the yellow locations." And that has to come from this pool of cards and... Yeah.

Dave Eng:

It's a good decision-shape work, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, it's just really interesting and really fun, which again is why it pushes that game up for me. And actually talking, I made a little note in my show notes here because I was going to guess what I thought your favorite Multi-Use Card game is?

Dave Eng:

No. What did you think it was going to be?

Brian Eng:

But I'm not familiar with the game and I only making this guess from the list of Multi-Use Card games on BoardGameGeek. And I know it's a game you like, I think, or at least I think it's a game you like a lot is, I thought you were going to pick Raiders of the North Sea. Or is it the other version of that game that you like? But not familiar with how multi... I'm not familiar with that game, so I haven't played it yet. So I don't know how the Multi-Use Cards are in it, but...

Dave Eng:

I forget because I played it once, I think years ago.

Brian Eng:

Okay. I thought that was one of your... There's another version of that game I think that you prefer, right?

Dave Eng:

It's Shem Phillips, he's a designer I believe, and he has designed a lot of games that use Multi-Use Cards like that in multiple different ways. We might have to look this up, but no, I mean I just haven't played it enough.

Brian Eng:

Is it Raiders of Scythia or something like that?

Dave Eng:

Raiders of Scythia, yeah, that's the one I have.

Brian Eng:

Scythia. Yes. Which is basically Raiders of the North Sea, right? But a real implementation.

Dave Eng:

But it's like Mongol Invaders I believe is the theme.

Brian Eng:

Right. Right. And again I don't know if-

Dave Eng:

No, I can't remember if that game had Multi-Use Cards.

Brian Eng:

I don't know if the Multi-Use Cards carries over to that version of the game or if that's only in North Sea or what. I might have to-

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it might be North Sea. I'm not sure.

Brian Eng:

It's possible. Yeah. Again, those are two that I've been wanting to play with you, but we've never had the opportunity to get that one to the table together.

Dave Eng:

No. Maybe for the next sessions.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Okay. Well we can move on then to your most noteworthy or biggest game in your opinion.

Dave Eng:

All right. So for this one, I really wanted to say Bohnanza, but I wanted to talk about Bohnanza as my favorite. So I chose a different one. So again, I was having... This episode has been a real challenge for me, so I had to really focus down on this one. I think that it seems like Multi-Use Cards is an easy feature, I think to add to a game if you have limited components or if you want to want your players to make decisions based on component limits. So you were talking about that before Brian with Dune: Imperium. So it is, I don't know if it actually has enough cache to be considered the biggest, but we played this one of the last times we were together, it's Oh My Goods!. Do you remember that game? Small card game?

Brian Eng:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Eng:

So that is-

Brian Eng:

Actually enjoyed it... Sorry, go ahead. I was just saying I enjoyed that one. I don't know if I would own it, but I actually thought for the little small box, it had some interesting decisions in it.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it definitely has some interesting decisions. I think that it being a small box card game only, it really leads into the fact that, "These are the only components we got, so let's see if we can make best use out of all of them." So I think that small box, the card game factor makes it, I guess easier to get at the table because it's not as daunting as a large box game. But I still thought it was pretty crunchy. There was enough decisions in there to make it pretty meaningful for me. So again, I would've filled this answer with Bohnanza, but I used it as my favorite. So most noteworthy or biggest would be, Oh My Goods!.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So on the same note, yes, I agree. I had some games that I wanted to put into each section and I was going back and forth, but I figured there's enough variety in the way the Multi-Use Cards that I would talk about them somewhere in the episode. So I essentially went to the BoardGameGeek rankings to decide out of my choices. So the one I chose as the biggest/most noteworthy is Gloomhaven, which is almost the opposite. You have a very small box. I have the largest box.

Dave Eng:

As big as you can get.

Brian Eng:

So I haven't played it a ton, basically just filled in a couple turns for someone. But it does have a very... Are you familiar with Gloomhaven, have you played it at all?

Dave Eng:

I mean, I know about Gloomhaven, but I've never played it. It's not really a game that I would go out to play.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I just mean... Okay. So it's a dungeon crawler game, it's essentially D&D in a box where you don't need a dungeon or a dungeon master. And the Multi-Use Cards portion is basically on each of your turns, you take a turn by playing two of your cards and each of the cards has a top part and a bottom part. And I want to say generally the top is an attack and the bottom is a movement. So you are choosing a combination of your cards out of your hand to take an attack from one and a movement from the other in order to do whatever your action is on your turn.

And it creates a lot of, again, that interesting decision because you'll have a card that has a really strong attack, but also might have a move five and jump action also. So you can't have both of them. You'll have to take... Or you do have two strong cards, but then you're blowing essentially four strong actions in one turn. And actually now that I think about it. It has multi-use in that sense where you're choosing the top or the bottom of each card, but also cycling through the cards is the way they monitor your stamina in the game as well. So it's also a counter almost.

Which I've just throwing that one off the top. That just came to my head now. I don't actually remember the exact mechanics of that. But yeah, the main thing was the choosing the combination of two of your cards and choosing the top action part of one and the bottom action part of another card. And having that combo, which I thought was a very... It's simple in its implementation, but does create, again, very interesting decision space.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Now I want to play it. It was never a game I wanted to get to the table because I'm like, one, I don't think anyone in my group has it, and two, it's just... You see it's like a bear to set up. That's half of the experience just setting up the game.

Brian Eng:

I've been on the fence of do I want to get the... Because there's the digital version, but then it's just like, but if I'm playing a digital version of that, there's so many other D&D games.

Dave Eng:

Right. Right.

Brian Eng:

So I don't know, maybe we'll do some tabletop simulator with it or something.

Dave Eng:

I mean, if someone else wants to bring it and host it, I'm all for it. I just don't-

Brian Eng:

And set it up and-

Dave Eng:

Yeah, set up set up the team.

Brian Eng:

... and run it basically. Yes.

Dave Eng:

You do the work, you do the work.

Brian Eng:

My sister-in-law has it. My wife's sister has it and she's played a little bit, but I don't know if I would ever get to her place to play it. Okay. So that's our major examples. Shall we move on?

Dave Eng:

We're going to go into beyond the basics now?

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

So we're rolling again?

Brian Eng:

Okay. So let me just move my notes here. We'll do our roll for initiative again.

Dave Eng:

All right. I wonder if it'll be a push again. We'll see.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Really.

Dave Eng:

Ready? 3, 2, 1. Roll. Got nine.

Brian Eng:

I got a two.

Dave Eng:

Oh, you left.

Brian Eng:

All right. You definitely beat me there.

Dave Eng:

Okay, so we are in beyond the basics right now. First topic, we're going to be talking about integration with theme. So really we're going to examine Multi-Use Cards to see if it is flexible enough to fit in with different themes, game worlds, and stories.

I really, really stretched Bri. I try to find different examples for each one of these categories and beyond the basics. So I could see Multi-Use Cards being used with theme. I think the closest theme would be resource scarcity or resource transformation.

Because again, a lot of the examples we've talked about are using your cards as resources, as actual things you earn or just actions or just things that your player character can do in the game. And I think that the game that has Multi-Use Cards that I feel like is the cleanest implementation of this would be Furnace. You remember Furnace?

Brian Eng:

Yes. Yeah, I do. So it's really funny, I'm chuckling over here because I have almost the exact same things written down. The only really thematic thing that I could think of was resource management. And Furnace is the example that I have here.

Dave Eng:

Oh, you have Furnace too?

Brian Eng:

But go ahead.

Dave Eng:

Can we just talk about it?

Brian Eng:

As my example? Because that one I think is... Yeah, you go ahead and we can just both talk about it.

Dave Eng:

Because with Furnace it is basically, there's the auction component, right? It's been a while Brian, so correct me if I'm wrong, I only watched a playthrough video.

Brian Eng:

So here I'll run down the game and then you can go back to your points on it.

Dave Eng:

Okay.

Brian Eng:

Because Furnace is up there in one of my top games that I like. So Furnace, it's engine building, Euro economic game. It's based on an auction and tableau building, I guess. So essentially in a game round there's the auction phase and the production phase. So in the auction phase players... you lay out a certain number of cards based on the number of players, and each person takes turn bidding and you bid, each player has discs numbered one to four. And you're using that to bid on the different cards. And you can only bid once on each card and you only have those...

Well, there's other ways to acquire discs, but essentially you have those four discs when everyone's done bidding, whoever bid the highest on a card gets to take that card and add it to their tableau, and all other bids get what they call compensation. So on each card there is some resources at the top of the card and some other either resource or benefit on the bottom of the card.

When you win the bidding you get to take the card, you essentially use the bottom part of the card. And when you get compensation, you get a multiple of what you bid times, whatever resources are at the top of the card.

And then once everyone's gotten their cards, place them in their Tableau, you do the production phase, which is activating all the cards and then rinse and repeat. So yeah, you go ahead and talk about whatever... Go ahead and finish your point and then we can discuss from there.

Dave Eng:

Right. I'm really glad you brought that up, right. Again, it's been a while since I had played Furnace and I needed a refresher on the mechanics. But what I think is interesting here is because I'm really concentrating on the theme of resource scarcity and resource transformation.

What I think makes this game really interesting overall is that for most of the part, for a lot of auction games, you're trying to win the auction. There are a few games where you don't want to win the auction.

And in this case, both winning and not winning the auction is a tactical decision because sometimes I've played it in the past where I'm like, "I don't want to win this. I just want to be able to get this... I don't need the card, I just need the resource transformation right now."

Brian Eng:

Yeah. And that card has two oil on top and I need a bunch of oil, so I want the oil.

Dave Eng:

The oil machine.

Brian Eng:

So you have to bid on it, but you don't actually want to win it.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that-

Brian Eng:

Yeah, it's-

Dave Eng:

And again, it's only those two parts of the card. It's only the top part or the bottom part. There's nothing on the back that I remember, right?

Brian Eng:

Yes. Well, sorry, you can also flip the card, but once you own it, you can upgrade the card. It's no longer-

Dave Eng:

Do you think it was more efficient or more powerful?

Brian Eng:

More powerful. So I'm just going to cut in a bit. And what was interesting about the Multi-Use Cards in the sense is that they are only multi-use during that auction phase. Once the card is won, they are no longer multi-use anymore, which I thought was interesting as well.

They become just an action card in your tableau. Yeah, well, so the payout happens, they're just an action. So it's multi-use when they are a communal card. Once it becomes one player's card, it becomes single-use card, which I thought was also interesting use of multi-use, a different design-

Dave Eng:

Consideration.

Brian Eng:

... for it.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. So I think that's the cleanest implementation for me. I know you talked a lot about Furnace already but was there anything else we didn't cover?

Brian Eng:

Yeah, again, it was more just, I had it as actually an example in here, an example later on, just from different design implementations of Multi-Use Cards. But yeah, Multi-Use Card mechanic itself, it's really flexible. So I think it can serve many functions, which doesn't really tie it down to a theme, but it is easily able to fit in. But I don't think it generally adds to the mechanic itself.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, I would say so.

Brian Eng:

It's just one of those very basic mechanics as far as a building block of the game. So it doesn't really take away or add to the theme, but you can use it for whatever theme. It's more about just making decisions with it.

Dave Eng:

Yeah. Which I think is, that's part of the mechanics of the game for most games, I would say.

Brian Eng:

Right. Okay.

Dave Eng:

We're on depth and strategic options now. All right. I'm leading off on this one?

Brian Eng:

What are we doing here? Sure, yeah, it doesn't matter. Or do you want to swap or do you want to lead off on each one? I'm okay, either way.

Dave Eng:

Okay. Well let lead off in this one, I want to see if we have the same game again for strategic options. So again, I'm looking at this from the resource scarcity transformation perspective. So for depth and strategic options, we're looking to see if Multi-Use Cards offers meaningful choices and decisions for players, which I think several of the games we've talked about already do. So I think that this is really good for the resource constraint component.

And I think instead of limiting the quantity and type of other physical components we've seen in other games with meeples or other physical resources like cubes or something else, you can add them directly to an existing component like the cards. And I think a game that did this really well, and we played several games of it actually on Board Game Arena is Jump Drive, you remember Jump Drive?

Brian Eng:

Oh yeah, right. I forgot about that one.

Dave Eng:

So I think I owned a physical copy of it a while ago, but I included in part of a trade and never got to play my physical copy. But what really stood out for me was that the way that you use the cards in Jump Drive are to again, build something, but you pay for those buildings with other cards in your hands.

So you really got to make a decision for how you're going to build these cards. But at least for two players, it was a superfast game and I was like, "Wow, I'm losing at light speed." I never won any of those games. And I'm like, "I don't know. How does everyone have their engine going so fast with the cards in their hand..." So mine would be Jump Drive. I don't know if you chose the same game here, Brian.

Brian Eng:

So I didn't actually have an example in this one. I just had a general idea. So as far as... the whole purpose of Multi-Use Cards is to add meaningful choices or trade-offs to the game. So I think that generally if it has them... the good implementations are adding those meaningful choices and making you pick those trade-offs and generally offering more strategic options. So I think that it's more just a general statement that it's likely to be a positive to adding depth and strategy to your game.

Dave Eng:

There's a caveat there, but I'm going to talk about it in another question. I did think about that, about adding those resources. So that was... Anything else for depth in strategic options?

Brian Eng:

Not really. Again, I think just again, almost as the base mechanic itself is adding options, so I feel like it's all encompassing for that topic.

Dave Eng:

Okay.

Brian Eng:

Some balance and fairness.

Dave Eng:

Do you want to lead out on balance and fairness then?

Brian Eng:

Sure. So when I think about balance and fairness in this one, I see that when you have Multi-Use Cards it generally helps eliminate weakness in your cards because having more options is never going to make it a weaker position. You just have the chance that there could be something better you can do, right? If you had one option as opposed to multiple options.

Well, if you have multiple options, it can never be worse than having only one option. So I think that from a balance standpoint, yeah, it's not going to make things weaker, but you can run into... The potential drawback being that you could run into an early dominant strategy, if you're able to acquire cards that can give you a really good combo early on that push you ahead.

Because again, you, you're never really going to get weaker, but that gap of how strong your position is could push ahead depending on how those choices and those cards are made. If this particular combo with the choices that you pick on those cards gives you just some really powerful combo.

And I mean, I've had an early game in, I'll go back to Dune: Imperium where I was able to acquire a really powerful card early on, and because my deck was small at that point, I could cycle that card back often and it essentially gave me another worker placement really early in the game. Which-

Dave Eng:

That's huge though for a worker placement game.

Brian Eng:

Again, for that game where you only have two or three worker placements and the game only lasts most 10 rounds, having an extra action every round is a huge advantage.

Dave Eng:

And if you can get that as early as possible too, right?

Brian Eng:

Right. Yeah. The earlier, again, the more additional actions you're getting over everyone else. I think it was an unhindered action either, like you can't be blocked.

Dave Eng:

Oh wow, that seems OP, but I'll allow it.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I am not sure if I'm thinking, I think this was in the second time I played the game and I'm wondering did we miss a rule, and I shouldn't have had as much persuasion at that point? But I was able to acquire that card and it ended up... Yeah, I just dominated that game. But yeah, so sorry, back to balance and fairness.

Yeah, obviously there is the luck element of the cards you get or whatever, but yeah, I do think one of the potential drawbacks, depending on the playtesting there is unforeseen combos or things like that, but there is that potential of just really powerful combos that just push one player way ahead.

Dave Eng:

Right. So for balance and fairness, I think your example is really good, and I have some other examples of other games I want to talk about like the action economy and changing resources and everything. So I know that, especially if you're going to include resources on a card and those cards are going to be limited and generally if you include resources in a card, it's not fungible anymore. You can't remove that resource later in the future. It's tied to that specific component. The game that I am referring to where I really struggled this, and Brian, you actually helped me playtest this way back in the beginning was Air Sloop, you remember Air Sloop?

Brian Eng:

Ah, okay. Yes.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, because we had to find-

Brian Eng:

I'm not sure if I know the final form of that game, but I know I've played many variations of it.

Dave Eng:

It doesn't have a final form, it just has the current form. So you played the current form and basically remember there was a point where... So Air Sloop is the first game that I designed by myself, and it was a game of pick up and deliver.

So you have your little airship that's going around a board to pick up cards, and then cards were designed to have different color districts on them, and based on the district that you fly through, you pick up resources of that color, but the backs of cards allowed you to return them to a trading post to collect that card for points.

So I ran into this whole issue and not designing anything else prior to this. I'm like, "Well, how do I balance a card? How do I make sure that..." Some resources could be really scarce one game and they could be, you could have a surplus of resources the other game and it was very difficult for me to do, but I knew that I really liked this component. We talked about this before, Brian. I really like games with Multi-Use Cards because I feel like they make really great use of limited components.

So for me, I think balance and fairness is incredibly important, but it's even more difficult I think when you tie those resources that are inherently tied to usually the balance of the game to a card that cannot be changed because that card will always be worth three oil or one oil or zero oil or something else. And I think that's a hard thing to consider.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I think that's always a tough one when we've talked about any of our game designs is just figure out that balance. And when you have Multi-Use Cards where the cards can be used in multiple different ways, I think that just increases that complexity of how do you balance that card?

Dave Eng:

It's tough. I know. Still playing... Well, I haven't played in a while, but it's tough to balance out because again, you can't change the resource in the card after you print it out. Right.

Brian Eng:

Okay, we'll move on to player engagement and fun. So again, links to what we've already been saying. Generally Multi-Use Cards I think increase the complexity of a game in general, which I guess one of that would be a potential for analysis paralysis, just creating more decisions.

And again, I think there are some good... We've discussed some of the games that are simpler that kind of eliminate that. I think Risk: Star Wars Edition was a good example of, yeah, you're increasing... I mean it is the only decision though really is which card you're going to choose and then picking the action on that card.

And so it streamlines that decision even though it is using Multi-Use Cards. But I think that is something maybe to look out for with Multi-Use Cards. But I think all in all, for both of us, our sentiment is that we really enjoy multi-use. I like making that trade-off decision and weighing off the benefits of each option on the card is. That to me is what is fun about Multi-Use Cards in any of the games that we've talked about.

Dave Eng:

Not to belabor the point, because I know you talk about Dune: Imperium a lot, but I really like the fact that with your hand, the cards, it's not like, "Oh, for this turn, I'm only playing these cards." It's like I consider you're dividing into lots. This group of cards is going to do this and then this group of cards is going to do this. You're always going to get something. It's just how you want to turn the dial on what you get.

Brian Eng:

And that's a good point is that from a kind of a reward system method is that even though you have to make a trade-off, it can be designed in such a way that you don't feel like you're losing out all the time. I mean, you are losing out on a decision, but you're still gaining something even though you had to use the card one way or the other. And again, it's just balancing out that which thing is gaining you the most and where you need it that time kind of thing. I really enjoy that.

Dave Eng:

Over to me?

Brian Eng:

Yeah. Again, I didn't have a specific example because I think our examples illustrated that. So yeah, if you have anything else to add to that.

Dave Eng:

I think that when I was able to get one game to the table that had Multi-Use Cards, like a physical play of the game. And then this one, I don't think it's as good as an example of the other games we talked about before. But I played Fantastic Factories because I backed it on Kickstarter way back when. You played Fantastic Factories before Brian? I don't know if you backed it some time.

Brian Eng:

I don't think so.

Dave Eng:

Fantastic Factories is a little bit like Furnace actually in that you're trying to generate victory points, which are goods. So you buy specific components of a factory and you're turning metal and energy into goods and those goods get your points and everything else.

The Multi-Use Cards in the game are how you purchase different things. So you get a hand of blueprint cards and you can use those blueprint cards to build specific components of your factory, or you can spend those blueprint cards to buy different blueprint cards that may make your factory run more efficiently.

You can also use the individual types of blueprint cards you have to buy contractors. And contractors are like an instant ability that gets you more resources or allows you to do something that may be against the rules.

So I think that the main fun element for Fantastic Factories for me is just discovering those combos, just like you were talking about before, Brian, which is like, "Okay, well I have this factory that can make a ton of goods, but I don't have enough electricity. But I can spend these cards in such a way, which will give me a ton of electricity this round and I'll pump out all of these goods just this one time. But I can't reach that point until I've set up my factory in such a way to produce all these goods in one single motion."

Brian Eng:

Right. Right. All right. Do you want to start us off then on variety and replayability?

Dave Eng:

I will. Okay. So for variety and replayability, you talked about this. Again, we're going back to Dune: Imperium here in getting the action efficiency from your gameplay. And I think that one of the games that I think highly is dependent on this, is something where you need to really make the best use of all your actions because you only get nine of them in the game. And I'm talking about The White Castle. Had you heard of that Brian or played it before?

Brian Eng:

I have not played it. I've seen reviews and rundowns of that game.

Dave Eng:

Well, it's a good one if we can get to playing it or if we can play it at some point that is just, it is-

Brian Eng:

It's on my list for sure.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, it's a good one because again, it's only nine actions. Last time I played it in person, I had this epic turn where I was able to do 20 things in one action because I was able to cheat everything correctly. But the way that the... We're talking about variety and replay ability here, we want to know if there's enough depth behind this mechanic that gets players coming back for more.

And I think if Fantastic Factories allows you to find ways to chain different actions together, I think The White Castle is like that on steroids because if you get the right combo and the right cards and the right place and time and resources, you can really turn that out.

I think as a construct of resource management and resource conversion is, I call it, and I've read about it, the concept of faucets and drains in games like the faucet being how do you introduce a resource into the game? And then the drain is how that resource is spent or consumed that allows you to get something else in the game.

So when it comes to doing that in The White Castle, again, there's other mechanics that are related to it specifically like dice drafting. But the multi-use components, Multi-Use Cards in this game allow players to either get an instant ability now or an ongoing ability later.

And I think that's the aspect of The White Castle that makes it different or noticeably significantly different each time you play that I think gives a lot of hobby board gamers, at least something to come back to in the future.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that's on my playlist too, so maybe we can try and do it at our next meetup.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

So yeah, again, I more have just general thoughts on this. It's the same thing as you're adding more decisions, you're adding more combos. Which, if you equate the combos as more possibilities of variety of paths to take things like that, adding replayability, I generally think it does now. How it's designed and how meaningful those choices are, how well the design is. But again, the games we've talked about so far and most of the ones that we find appealing, that is what is appealing about Multi-Use Cards in those games is that you're adding that variety and making those decisions tough is I think the thing that we enjoy.

Dave Eng:

Which is weird, right?

Brian Eng:

Yeah.

Dave Eng:

Some people don't like having tough decisions.

Brian Eng:

Well, I don't like them in my real life, but in board games...

Dave Eng:

Yeah. When it's a game and it doesn't matter, I want the decision to be hard.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, exactly. If there's no actual real-life consequences, make those decisions real hard. Okay. And yeah, you want to go ahead and lead on our final category here?

Dave Eng:

Sure.

Brian Eng:

Innovation and originality.

Dave Eng:

So for innovation and originality, what we're looking for is does this mechanic offer something new on a regular basis? And this speaks to what we had talked about before with variety and replayability, and balance and fairness. I think this is very much... This is a hobbyist category for me because I think that people that are really into tabletop games or going to want to know, "Is this game going to do something different that none of the other hundreds of games in my collections really does?"

To be honest with you, I don't think that Multi-Use Cards are a really innovative mechanic. I think that it's about the data that's printed on the cards and how you use them. I think that it's more of an aspect that's focused on making the best use of your components.

But I will say that I think one of the heavier games that use Multi-Use Cards that I was able to research, I didn't get to play it because I don't have a copy. No one in my group does is... I forgot how to pronounce this, but Mottainai, M-O-T-T-A-I-N-A-I. It's by Carl Chudyk, C-H-U-D-Y-K. Had you heard that about that game, Brian?

Brian Eng:

Not familiar with that game. Nope.

Dave Eng:

So this game, we talked about Multi-Use Cards before. We talked about with Gloomhaven, there's the top and the bottom action. With Furnace, there's the main action and the tertiary action with Mottainai, and I think that's how you pronounce it after I watched the video, it is, there's a front and back of the card and there's also top, bottom, middle, left and right components. And when you get the card, you got to determine how you use this for resources. Did you use this for action or anything else?

I watched the playthrough just a broad... not even a playthrough, just the how to play. And I was like, "I don't know if this is more decision-making than I really feel comfortable doing in the game." For me, I like a certain level of decision-making, but for this, it just felt like paralyzing. So I think when it comes to innovation, this makes it so that there's really tough decisions to make in a game of Mottainai on a regular basis. And I think the decision space is just for a card game is much larger than you would expect.

I think that if you're trying to introduce someone to Multi-Use Cards for the first time, you probably want to play Bohnanza or Forest Shuffle or... What did I say before? What was my other game? I'm looking for it now. Oh My Goods!. Mottainai is just like... If I had to choose one game to represent Multi-Use Cards, this would probably be it because that is the main draw for the game overall.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I do think that there has been innovation in the implementation of Multi-Use Cards. Even in the games we've talked about. We talked about Furnace is it's a Multi-Use Card until the auction is over and then it's a single-use card. We have ones where there's... Again, Dune is multiple ways that those multiple trade-offs in different areas that you're making on that card. Another game that I haven't got to talk about yet, I think I mentioned it to you before, I don't remember if you said you've played it is La Granja.

Dave Eng:

We talked about it, but I have not played it yet.

Brian Eng:

Okay. So that's one where it's an older game. It's your typical Euro, so it's a farming themed and goods delivery. So it's kind of a Euro economic game as well. And it has various parts of the board that have different mechanics, but the Multi-Use Cards is in building your actual farmhouse. Each player has their own board and there has gaps on the board. And when you get cards in that game, so the game takes place in six rounds and each round you add one card to that board and the cards have a top bottom left and right side.

And you choose a card, and then you choose which part of that board you want to tuck it to. So for example, the left side is your field. So when you tuck it on the left side, you're adding spaces to your field on your farm. And then it allows you to harvest different goods, for example.

But if you choose that card and you tuck it on the top instead it's the market barrow and it gives you unique orders, I think it was. So that orders that only you can fulfill. And if you tuck it on the right side, you actually extend your farm, which that one has various benefits. It could be increasing your income for deliveries, it could be increasing how much you get in a harvest, or there's also livestock that you can get more offspring from your livestock.

Or finally you can tuck it in on the bottom, which is special workers. So each card has a different worker on it and each of those workers gives you a special power. So it could be a one-time use, just get a bunch of goods, or it could be a persistent discount on all upgrades or bonuses to other actions and things like that.

And so each card you're trading off in completely different areas. And the way that the Multi-Use Cards is very different now. There's other games that have... I think you were talking about a game where you could tuck it in all the different ways too, I can't remember which game you brought up, but yeah, we've seen that. In our follow episode, I talked about Glory to Rome.

So that was one where it's the same idea. You could tuck it in on all the different things and it would give you different follow options. So this one is, yeah, you're building up your farm. It's only one aspect of that game, but it's just implemented very different and very original at the time for that.

Since then, I guess Glory to Rome came first actually. But we see that in other games like that one you mentioned. Expeditions also has a tucking in the different sides to make use of the cards.

Dave Eng:

I realize now from my notes, Brian, that Glory to Rome is designed by Carl Chudyk who also designed Mottainai. So he's really into Multi-Use Cards apparently.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, there you go. And he likes that tucking mechanic as well. Yeah, I think that there is some space to, because it is a very basic, almost component level mechanic, I think there is room in having an original way to implement it. And I mean, as we always say, the games that we tend to like are combining mechanics in new ways and things like that. I think that's going to be a blanket statement on all the topics we talk about.

But that's always fun is seeing it is where you're having that and how you can roll that in with other... So again, I mean we use Dune: Imperium a lot as an example, but you're rolling in that multiuse card with your locations for your worker placement. So you have to make that decision in conjunction with that, which was again, I don't know if it was the first... It probably wasn't the first one to use it, but it feels like a new innovation and it feels original in that game.

Dave Eng:

Right. Right.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, that's all I've got for that.

Dave Eng:

Should we go on to our bonus round? You have anything for that round?

Brian Eng:

To our bonus round? Yeah, I didn't really have much else to say. I think, I was really just... I think I got to all the games I wanted to talk about. I did have another runner-up for most noteworthy. But I ended up passing on, it was... another one of my favorite games was Brass Birmingham. Again, really high on BGG as well. So for those not familiar, that one, it's a network building game, another economic game.

And that one is you start with eight cards and on each turn you use one of the cards, and once you're out of cards, the age ends. There's a second age where you essentially do the same thing and then the game is done. So the cards are a timer for the game. The multi-use in that one is a little bit different, but it wasn't as multi-use or didn't have that same multi-use feeling. So that's why I ended up going with Gloomhaven over it for most noteworthy.

But the multi-use in that when you play the cards, you are essentially playing each card for an action. You can play any card you want for most actions. The only exception is when you want to build... So the map again is a network of locations where you're building different industries on the locations and you have to connect them through rail or through port.

And when you want to build, you have to either have, there's two types of cards. There's location cards and there's industry cards. So you either have to have a card with the location you want to build at or a card with the industry type you want to build. Any of the other actions you do, which could be building the railroads or selling or taking a loan or any of the other things. You can spend any card you want.

But you do have to make that decision on which cards you want to make sure you have so that you can build at the locations you want or build the industry types you want, because you don't get to draw cards back until that age is done.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, tough decision.

Brian Eng:

It is multi-use but I just felt it felt less multi-usey than the other examples.

Dave Eng:

Is that an adjective, multi-usey?

Brian Eng:

That's the technical term.

Dave Eng:

Yeah, technical term reserved for true hobbyists, multi-usey. I had a couple other honorable mentions. Brian, should I go down my list?

Brian Eng:

Sure.

Dave Eng:

Okay.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, go ahead.

Dave Eng:

So like I said at the very top, I had a real tough time with this episode and I think it's because that I really associate the Multi-Use Card with more of a component than a mechanic. And I feel like that was... I think it took this discussion, Brian, to really open up my horizon to what you could do and how you classify Multi-Use Cards. But some games that we had played and done some research in preparation for this that we didn't mention so far, and correct me if I'm wrong here, Brian. Number one, we played this online, Isle of Trains. You remember that?

Brian Eng:

Isle of Trains? It sounds familiar, I'm trying remember the game.

Dave Eng:

It trended on Board Game Arena? We can pick up or deliver goods or people. Cards could be used as trading cards.

Brian Eng:

Oh yeah, yeah, sorry. Yes, I remember.

Dave Eng:

Had that, a physical version of that. Played it online. Wasn't a total fan of the online versions so I traded that way. Also I had Bruges, B-R-U-G-E-S. You know that, Brian?

Brian Eng:

I've heard of that one, but I have not played it..

Dave Eng:

I believe that's a Stefan Feld. Hold on, let me, before I perjure myself, let me see. This is Stefan Feld game. It is a Stefan Feld game. This is one again, I guess a traditional take on Multi-Use Cards. We could use a card for workers or goods or to get rid of some sort of penalty that Stefan Feld had put into the game because he likes to put in penalties into the game and you got to use his cards to stop that penalty. There's Maracaibo. Have you ever played Maracaibo, Brian?

Brian Eng:

That's another one I've heard of, but I don't think I've played it.

Dave Eng:

Okay. This is Alexander Pfister and he also designed Great Western Trail, which we played. This one's another use of Multi-Use Cards again for resources or I think buildings, last time I checked. I don't think I ever got the play Maracaibo, so I just watched playthrough video in preparation for this. We talked about it before, but I don't know if we discussed Compile, Brian, you told me about Compile.

Brian Eng:

Compile. So that one's kind of funny. I mentioned it, it was a newer game coming out soon at the time of this recording, because I had watched a quick review on it and just skimmed. It's multi-use. I don't know if it's multi-use now that we've gone through the defining it. Because I don't think you actually choose...

There are multiple actions on the cards, but I don't think you actually choose the action. The actions that get executed are situational on how they're executed. I don't think you choose the actions from the card. You always do the top action. I think the middle action happens when it's shown, when anytime it's shown and the bottom action happens immediately, I think.

Dave Eng:

Okay, yeah, because I remember watching that.

Brian Eng:

So I don't think you actually make a conscious choice of which action you want to do, it's just that there are multiple actions, but in our definition of multi-use is that you're making that trade-off, you choosing one of the actions and not being able to do the others. And in that case, I don't think that it falls within our definition.

Dave Eng:

I see. Okay. And then, well, you talked about Glory to Rome and the last two games I had here was Lost Ruins of Arnak, which I think we covered for our deck-building episode.

Brian Eng:

Right. And I think it falls similar... I know a lot of people compared that game to Dune: Imperium at the time when it came out.

Dave Eng:

We know which is the superior game...

Brian Eng:

It's the game for people that don't direct conflict, that's Dune.

Dave Eng:

Right. And then-

Brian Eng:

Because it's missing that portion. Well, when I say missing, for me it's missing that portion.

Dave Eng:

The combat portion, yeah. And then Apiary-

Brian Eng:

The direct conflict.

Dave Eng:

Yeah.

Brian Eng:

Sorry?

Dave Eng:

I had Apiary on my list too, but it's been like over a year since I played Apiary. It's the bee game from us.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. There is a small component of that game that has some Multi-Use Cards. I didn't end up using that as an example. So essentially, I'm just going from memory here, you can get these seed cards and you can choose to use them as a resource or you can plant them for an ongoing benefit.

Dave Eng:

That sounds familiar from the last time I played it. But those are my honorable mentions. We didn't mention specifically, but I had included in the research for this episode.

Brian Eng:

Yeah, I mean, again, I think it's used in a lot of games. But it's not generally the major focus in all the games. So it was a lot to sift through to find the ones where it was a focus of the game or a larger portion of the game.

Dave Eng:

All right.

Brian Eng:

Yeah. So that's all I've got on the topic today. You have anything else to add?

Dave Eng:

No, that's it. Again, this was a challenging topic. I'm glad we got to talk about it. But hopefully all of our listeners out there learned about some new games and Multi-Use Cards.

Brian Eng:

That wraps up our Multi-Use Cards episode of AP Table Talk. If you'd like to hear more content like this, please be sure to subscribe. You can also check out more of our content, projects and other information about us at universityxp.com.

Dave Eng:

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References:

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Cite this Episode (Audio):

Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2025, March 9). AP Table Talk: Follow. (No. 133) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/133

Internal Ref: UXPFFD33TZ9I