Episode 245 - Cozy Games

October 2, 2025

Ambie, Crystal, and special guest Amanda Panda discuss a couple games they played recently (which all happen to be from AllPlay), including Slambo!, Llama Llama, Tearable Quest, Alibis, and Waddle. Then, we talk about relaxing or cozy games that we like and what can make a game relaxing (or the opposite of relaxing).

Check out Amanda on all her links!


Intro: 0:00
Recent Games: 0:45
Cozy Games: 20:23
Outro: 32:50
Bloopers: 33:54

Games discussed this episode:
Slambo!: 1:45
Llama Llama: 4:15
Panda Panda: 6:46
Tearable Quest: 8:24
ClipCut Parks: 10:28
Digsaw: 10:40
Alibis: 12:28
Waddle: 18:15

Dorfromantik: The Board Game: 22:28
Akropolis: 23:05
Starving Artists: 23:19
Kanagawa: 23:29
Canvas: 23:34
Super Mega Lucky Box: 24:21
Bingo: 24:35
Creature Comforts: 26:13
A Gentle Rain: 27:07
Final Girl: 27:42
Tranquility: 29:30
Draft & Write Records: 29:33
FLOWERS: 29:34
Trellis: 30:12
Bonsai: 30:15
Best Treehouse Ever: 30:16
Point Salad: 30:18
Arboretum: 30:31
Tussie Mussie: 30:45
Tokaido: 31:19
Let's Go to Japan!: 31:55

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Consolidated Links

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Board Game Blitz's theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.

Transcript
[00:00:06:21 - 00:00:44:23]
Crystal: Hello and welcome to episode 245 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes to figure out where to record a podcast in a house that isn’t yours. Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we’re talking about games that feel relaxing! First, we discuss a couple games we’ve played recently, Slambo!, Tearable Quest, Llama Llama, and Alibis. Then, we talk about games that help you chill out instead of stressing out. And now, here are your hosts…
Ambie: Ambie
Crystal: and Crystal, plus our special guest...
Amanda: Amanda!

[00:00:46:02 - 00:01:25:04]
Ambie:  Recently, we both got review copies from AllPlay, a few review copies. So I'm going to be talking about three that I got today, which are Slambo!, Llama Llama, and Tearable Quest. These are all from AllPlay. So I'll talk about that in that order that I said. Oh, and these are all like tiny box games. Like Slambo! and Llama Llama are both the size of Oink games, but smaller width, not quite half a little more than half. So two of them together is a little bit more than an Oink box. And then Tearable Quest is like the same height, the same width, but like bigger. It's bigger than twice the size though. So it's like a big rectangle kind of, not big, but small.

[00:01:25:04 - 00:01:31:03]
Crystal: Basically everybody should go to the podcast YouTube channel and see what it looks like because Ambie is showing them all off right now.

[00:01:31:03 - 00:01:34:14]
Ambie: But yeah, I'm kind of annoyed that it's not like

[00:01:34:14 - 00:01:38:28]
Amanda: exactly twice the size. It's not exactly twice the size. That's that.

[00:01:38:28 - 00:01:52:15]
Ambie: Yeah, but whatever. It's still a small box in the correct size because it's like it's got a pad of paper in there. Anyway, Slambo! is Slambo with an exclamation point. This is designed by Ryan "the Boulder" Richford published by All Play.

[00:01:52:15 - 00:01:57:25]
Crystal: Wait, I'm sorry. His official title is The Boulder.
Ambie: That's what it says on BGG.

[00:01:57:25 - 00:02:00:11]
Crystal: I love that so much.

[00:02:01:22 - 00:03:18:18]
Ambie: It was 2025, but this is a two player or two to four players, but I've only played it with two. It's best with two. The three and four players is like a variant where you add some cards, but it's a two player competitive card game themed around sumo wrestling. But basically it's a math card game. You're playing cards in the middle. It starts with a five and you have cards that are red or blue that are adding... blue adds or red adds. One of them adds and one of them subtracts a number. And so you have numbers ranging from like, I don't know, two to nine or something and negative two to negative eight or nine. And then so you have to add them. So if there's a five there, you put like a four and then now you say nine and then the next person will put negative two and then they say seven. So you say what the new number is. If you go above 10 or below zero, then your opponent says Slambo and they like get you out of the ring thematically. So then you get a shame card and if you get three shame cards, then you lose. So yeah, I played this with my friend. It was very quick and it felt like very luck based depending on what we got. Because we just kept going back and forth and then none of us got out when we like both played well and didn't get unlucky with our card draws. And then you add another shame card and then say like, whoever just gets unlucky kind of loses. And then I wanted to play with my kids because of the math thing, but I explained the rules to one of my kids. And then he's like, I don't get it. I'm bored. I want to play something else.

[00:03:20:16 - 00:03:41:05]
Amanda: Your two boys are so cute. I played it with four.
Ambie: Oh, you did?
Amanda: Yeah, it's not. I don't know. It just felt weird at four. And you're right. Like it's very hard to Slambo someone, but also you can get into that. Like, oh, I only have one card. I must play it and you just have to go out and it's terrible.

[00:03:42:11 - 00:03:56:17]
Amanda: By the way, the hairless cat in my arms, if you're watching on YouTube, is Mo, is Corey's cat and he is lovely and he's never been in my lap before. So I'm very excited for this. He's also purring a lot.

[00:03:56:17 - 00:04:02:21]
Crystal: So that might come through in the audio a little bit.
Ambie: I don't hear it.
Crystal: He's also very interested in the microphone.

[00:04:03:23 - 00:04:18:02]
Ambie: But yeah, Slambo!, I didn't particularly like my play, but I do want to try to play it with my kids just to practice math. It seems like a good math practice game. If I can get my kids interested to play. Next one is Llama Llama. Not to be confused with Llama.

[00:04:18:02 - 00:04:20:05]
Crystal: Oh, that's what I was thinking of.

[00:04:20:05 - 00:04:20:22]
Ambie: Okay.

[00:04:20:22 - 00:04:25:18]
Crystal: So yeah, because Llama was the spiel winner from a handful of years back, right?

[00:04:25:18 - 00:06:18:11]
Ambie: Yeah. So Llama Llama is designed by Kaya Miyano, published by AllPlay in 2025. It's re-implementing Dog Poker, which was in 2023. So Llama Llama is, I liked this one. This is a drafting game. In the game, you have these cards, the cards A through F, and there's like 10 A cards and oh, there's one G card and then like two F cards and a lot of A cards, but each card has different scoring conditions. So the A card, for example, the scoring is an A is worth one point. And then if you have A, B, C, D, E, F, G, then you get 50 points. And then, the other cards have different scoring. So like D is a D is four points and you have A, G or C, E or B, F. Those are each five points. So in the game, you're trying to get, you're going to end up with a hand of seven cards and you're trying to score points based on what you have getting those sets. So you're going to get eight cards at the beginning of each round and you pick one of the cards to be a scoring thing. And so the first round, those are all going to get mixed up and they're going to be faced down. So no one knows what the scoring things are. You know what you put in, but you don't know what the other people put in. And then they get flipped over one like turn. So there's four turns in a round. And each turn, a new scoring condition gets flipped over. So you can kind of see what you're going for, but you have to pass cards. So the first turn, you're going to have to pass four cards. And then the next turn you're going to have to pass three. So like, you know, there's going to be scoring for like A, B, C, D, E, F and you have those ones and you have to pass them because you only have seven cards. It's like, Oh no. So yeah, you have to pass. And then the last round is you only pass one card and then you score based on that. And then the next round people are going to place on the scoring in order of like the, the winner has to show their card first, I think. And then the loser gets to show their card last because that's like an advantage. But yeah, it was interesting. It's like a quick drafting set collection kind of thing. Because you're trying to get these scoring cards. I liked the feel of having to pass cards when you don't want to.

[00:06:18:11 - 00:07:12:04]
Amanda: Really? That was the worst is that like, I think the last round you had to pass four. So you had to pass over half, but you have set yourself up because whatever is in your hand is what you score. So you're like, Oh, I'm setting myself up to score a lot for the card that I know I put in and the other three cards that are already there. But then you have to pass over half of your hand at the beginning, you're the last scoring and you're like, and it's so great. It's so great. Also, this is a sequel to Panda Panda, which of course I love because of the Panda. It's a game from all play where you're either taking or putting down cards and you're trying to get a certain set. It goes from a two card set of two specific cards all the way to like a seven card set of one of every letter. And there's always only one G I think just like in Llama Llama, there's only one G it's like a special card like in Panda Panda, it was a red panda. I forgot what it is in Llama Llama.

[00:07:12:04 - 00:07:16:03]
Ambie: Oh, the G is a camel. I didn't actually pay attention to the theme.

[00:07:19:01 - 00:07:23:16]
Amanda: Two differently played games, but similar in set collection.

[00:07:23:16 - 00:08:01:12]
Ambie: Oh my gosh. I was so close to getting the A through G like all one of each card on my last one. So like I put in the A because I had the G I started with the G and then I was passing cards, but then like I wasn't sure what to pass because then as the things were turning over, I was seeing people are scoring for A's or something. So like maybe should I not pass the A or should I pass the A and hope to get another one until like if I had passed something else instead, I would have gotten it because like I got the perfect last thing, but I passed both A's or something instead of passing just one A and keeping the B or whatever. And so I didn't get a B and I was like, oh, so close the 50 points. So yeah, I did not get 50 points, but yeah, I thought I thought it was fun. It was quick too. It sounds interesting.

[00:08:01:12 - 00:08:10:16]
Crystal: I haven't played this one, but I did not like Llama when it came out. So now I can maybe play Llama Llama and like this one. It does sound more enjoyable.

[00:08:10:16 - 00:08:13:10]
Ambie: Yeah, if you want the same type of theme, I guess of a llama.

[00:08:13:10 - 00:08:22:01]
Crystal: I don't know. I mean, I do. Llamas are enjoyable and funny and cute in some ways. So yeah, I'm going to try this one at some point.

[00:08:22:01 - 00:10:03:06]
Ambie: All right. And then the last one I'm going to talk about is Tearable Quest, but this is T E A R A B L E quest Tearable because in the game, it's kind of a dexterity game. You're tearing paper. So there's going to be these monster cards that come out that tell you like there's a boss monster and then other monsters that tell you what things will give you points like two swords and a boss or like a sword and a monster will give you points. But you're trying to match up basically the color monster with the color sword. So like a sword and one monster will give you three points or something. And within a sword and two monsters will give you like seven points or something. I think it's usually fewer, like one and three and stuff, but then you're trying to tear carefully around it and you have to tear exactly those things to get the points. So a paper with exactly what it says to get the points and it has to be complete. It can't be like partially torn off. It can't like just on the edge of it can't be like that. And then also on the back of the paper, there's treasure chests and coins and curses. So if you have any part of a curse on your chair, then you get negative for that. And if you have, if you have the full coin or the full treasure chest, then you get bonus points, but it has to be the full thing. It can't be like partially torn off and there's a timer. So you're tearing in two minutes each round and there's new monsters each round. So it was tough. Like it's very dexterity like trying to tear and it was tough to get these shapes because for like the boss, you're trying to get this shape like just this part. So it's kind of like a little triangle boomerang shape that you're tearing around and trying to tear off these other pieces and trying to plan out what things to tear. So you still have stuff for next round and then you mess up and tear through a coin. I'm like, "no!" but yeah, that was interesting. I want to play this with my kids too. Cause they like tearing, like they like cutting things. So maybe like I could give them the handicap of using scissors and then I would tear or something because they might not be able to tear as dexterously.

[00:10:03:06 - 00:10:37:24]
Amanda: And it's really cute. Like you cannot also tear it completely in half because you only have one piece for the every future rounds. I think it's smaller and smaller. Also they have two sheets, one's green and one's black. The black one's harder because you can't see through it as easily because you're constantly looking through it to try to not tear the back of it.
Ambie: Yeah.
Amanda: Now did you play ClipCut Parks with the scissors and the, so it's scissors and you're cutting straight lines in polyomino shapes to get different things.

[00:10:37:24 - 00:11:18:08]
Ambie: Wait, I played a different one that was called Digsaw.
Amanda: Oh, I'd not heard about Digsaw.
Ambie: So Digsaw is like a roll and write, roll and cut game where you're cutting along straight lines and trying to cut things. So my friends compared it to that, but I thought it felt different because I mean, it has like the similar of getting shapes and then you have to have a piece left for what you're doing. But the rolling and writing, it was, this one was more dexterity I felt because of the timer. It's all real time and you're tearing. Whereas like the scissors, it's not real time. It's just like you're, it's more strategically like doing based on what you rolled and cutting and planning ahead. Whereas this it's like tear, tear, tear, try to tear. Like it felt more of a dexterity game, even though it doesn't say dexterity on BGG.

[00:11:18:08 - 00:11:41:08]
Amanda: Oh, that's so weird because I totally feel like it's a dexterity game.
Ambie: Yeah.
Amanda: I feel like it's more closer to clip cut parks than anything.
Ambie: Okay. Yeah. That one I haven't heard of.
Amanda: So they said they're not going to give you refills because it's just so cheap. You just buy another game. If you need a refill pack and you just get the other five cards or so. But yeah, that was a hit at Gen Con. I think that was their release.
Ambie: Cool. That's Tearable-

[00:11:41:08 - 00:11:45:00]
Ambie: Tearable quest. Not Terrible, but tear.

[00:11:45:00 - 00:11:50:28]
Crystal: The name is great. Like honestly, having not played it, the name is my favorite part.

[00:11:50:28 - 00:11:57:25]
Ambie: Yeah, that's actually what drew me to it because I was looking at their list of review copies. I'm like, what? Tearable. What?

[00:11:57:25 - 00:14:16:05]
Crystal: That sounds cool. Well, Amanda and I, in case anyone hasn't figured out, I am not at my house. And Amanda is obviously here with me as our special guest. We are in Santa Rosa, California, at a friend's house, kind of doing a little board game retreat this weekend. Just playing some board games with some friends, which has been really lovely. And I brought along some of my review copies that I very graciously got from AllPlay. And we got the group to play. Alibis, which is a thinky party game. It is a cooperative game where you are given a grid of suspects and you are trying to identify who the one bad guy is. There is a deck of cards that has each suspect on it. And one is pulled out at the beginning of the game. All of the other suspects are dealt out to the players. And then on the grid of suspects that's on the table, word cards are added to each one. The word cards are ones that look like what you might see in Codenames. They're like double-sided so you can read them from either direction. And they're just general words, like the ones that are visible in the bag here are notebook, phone, appetizer, school. So it's just kind of just general words. And each person will have a word associated with them. And then each player secretly is given two of the people from the grid that they now have to tie together based on the words on those people with a single word clue given to the rest of the group. And so once everybody has written down their single word clue regarding their two people, which are all unique, there are no crossovers, once you've gone around the whole table, in theory, if everybody did what they were supposed to and got everything right, there should be one person on the grid left over that nobody had. And that is the bad guy. And ultimately, throughout the course of the game, you get points for getting other people's two things correct, and for identifying the bad guy in each round. And the number of points you get varies, you have heat that you're trying to remove from a pile. And if you can remove all of the heat by the end of the game, you win. I really liked this one a lot. Amanda, what did what did you think of Alibis?

[00:14:16:05 - 00:14:37:07]
Amanda: I really like it. It feels like So Clover-ish. What I love, love, love is that someone else's clue might help you with your clue. Or, you know, like someone else's clue will help you discard the other person's clue. And it and you can change your mind before the final like reveals happen.

[00:14:37:07 - 00:14:46:11]
Crystal: Yeah, you don't have to like, you don't have to make final decisions on anything until everybody's given out their stuff. And you can kind of like, okay, couldn't have been that maybe it's this instead.

[00:14:46:11 - 00:14:48:27]
Amanda: And it plays well, I had high player counts.

[00:14:48:27 - 00:14:53:23]
Ambie: So is each person like making their own decisions on what the culprit is?

[00:14:53:23 - 00:15:10:17]
Amanda: Yeah, we have our own little board. Every person has a specific symbol. And we'll mark that symbol as Oh, I think their two cards are this and this and we'll mark it on the board. But then if there's overlap, you can kind of take little notes. There's a tiny area. Yeah, you can change it.

[00:15:10:17 - 00:15:15:10]
Ambie: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, this has been on my want to playlist because like, I like all those types of games.

[00:15:15:10 - 00:17:31:23]
Crystal: So each player has a little and everything is dry erase in this game, basically. And it works well. And yeah, each player has a grid that looks identical to the grid that's on the table. And you each player has a symbol associated with them. So if Amanda's gave a clue for two different words, and you're like, Okay, I think the people that she's trying to point us toward are number one and number two, then you would write her symbol like a triangle in number one and number two. So you think those are hers. But again, later, if somebody else gives a clue that definitely points to like number two, then you can say, Okay, I'd race that put theirs there and then try and figure out what the other one Amanda was talking about. And that happened in our game, I had put someone symbol in Alaska in one of our games. And then one of the players later gave the clue Fairbanks. And I was like, Oh, no, what am I done? So then I erased that and changed it and figured out where it was supposed to go instead. Also, I did choose snowman for the word inseam because I thought snowmen wear pants. Apparently, I don't know exactly how I thought that some of the clues because you're given two words that possibly have nothing to do with one another. So you really do have to be creative in how you tie them together. In one round, I had the two words cactus and dog. And I was like, how do I tie those together and especially based on what else is in the grid matters because monkey was also in the grid. So I couldn't like I thought bite might be like a good one because like ouch like maybe like a cactus but no because like a monkey could bite you too. And it ended up that monkey was the bad guy. So it was very good. I actually the word I picked was bad kind of because I used needle because dogs have to get shots. And then cactuses have needles. But it ended up working because it pointed people toward cactus for sure. And then somehow, I guess I don't know, I think it just it worked out okay, a lot of people and then only one person has to get each person's two people correct for us to score. But then the more people that get the final suspect right each round, you get to remove a lot more heat from the pile. So you want everybody as many people as possible to get that final person. We did well, we ended up winning.

[00:17:31:23 - 00:17:55:01]
Amanda: So yeah, it's really good. The words, it could be really easy, or it could be really hard, or it could be somewhere in the middle. It just really depends on how the words come out. But I feel like it's quick enough. That's pretty good. And if you like those types of games, like if you like So Clover or kind of like Codenames or Wavelength, you know, like, it's that feel right with the big...

[00:17:55:01 - 00:18:02:04]
Crystal: and it's a much smaller box than all of those games. So incredibly portable. So if you're looking to like take a party game to a party way portable.

[00:18:02:04 - 00:18:04:04]
Amanda: Yeah, that it's really good.

[00:18:04:04 - 00:18:10:00]
Crystal: So yeah, two thumbs up for Alibis from Allplay. This one is a great one.

[00:18:10:00 - 00:19:46:06]
Amanda: And since we're talking about Allplay, do you mind if I say one that I've played recently?
Ambie: Sure.
Amanda: There's Waddle. So Waddle from Allplay. It's about putting out your penguins onto the ice. It's a random board setup. And you have ice flows with water and some of the water has fish and some don't. And it's area control. But it's like Rumble Nation in that the area control is not competitive, like it's not confrontational. So I like it. And on your turn, you're just basically either going to you start with number one, and then you go to the holes in number order and you're putting out penguins surrounding that hole of water onto the ice. And you either put out a penguin, or you skip and scout ahead. And then you can be the first to put out the payment on the next hole on the ice. And you're going to fill up all the ice and then you're going to go on and see who has the majority around each to get the fish points or you also count up each waddle, each group of penguins that are connected. And those also get points as well. So you're kind of like, I have to break up their waddle, but it doesn't give me points. And you have two penguins that are couples.
Crystal: Oh my gosh,
Amanda: So they're worth like two penguins for the waddle and for the fish.
Crystal: Adorable.
Amanda: Yeah. And it's a great like mechanism, because if you play, you go to the back of the line. But if you scout ahead and skip that turn, then you go to the next the start of the next circle. Yeah, it's really good. Really quick. I don't like area control. Love this game. If you like Rumble Nation, definitely try Waddle, but it's so adorable. It really is.

[00:19:46:06 - 00:20:17:25]
Crystal: That's awesome. Yeah, I feel like this year, I mean, I've talked ad nauseam about how much I like what Allplay is doing. But this year, especially, they are just kind of coming out with like banger after banger after banger. And obviously, we got some of these games as review copies, we just to be clear are not required to give positive reviews to any of the games that we have been provided. I requested review copies from them because I really tend to like their games a lot. And you might hear more about some other games of theirs from me in the future.
Ambie: So stay tuned.
Crystal: Yeah.

[00:20:20:23 - 00:21:01:27]
Crystal: Occasionally, we like to revisit topics that we have discussed on the podcast before and way back in 2018. Holy moly, that was seven years ago, we talked about relaxing games. And so it's been long enough, we're gonna do that again. And especially since we have Amanda here with us, we've got some new opinions potentially on what we think are relaxing games. And as I was making my list for this, I realized that I do tend to see some themes that pop up a lot in games that I feel are relaxing. But relaxing themes do not always make for relaxing games.

[00:21:02:28 - 00:21:05:16]
Amanda: Yeah, so is it relaxing or cozy game?

[00:21:05:16 - 00:21:43:25]
Crystal: I mean, well, I we could I'm kind of calling it either like however you want to interpret it. But it's for me, it's like the feel of it like not necessarily the theme by itself because there's there are a lot of games with cozy or like cute or relaxing themes. But like, is the experience of playing this game relaxing? Because games are generally inherently competitive, which by its nature is not a relaxing or cozy thing for a lot of people. But there are games, especially if you're not just a horribly competitive person that I think can create a more relaxing experience than others.

[00:21:43:25 - 00:21:50:23]
Ambie: And on that note with competitive, I was like the first thing I thought of was just cooperative games are generally more relaxing.

[00:21:50:23 - 00:22:09:02]
Amanda: Oh, because the cooperative games nowadays are way harder, you know, to win and they can really get like tense. Like, I just need to pull this one thing, or I just need some dice roll to cut. I just need you to do this one thing. And I'm not going to tell you where you're going to see if it happens.

[00:22:09:02 - 00:22:23:16]
Crystal: I agree. I think some cooperative games feel relaxing or cozy. And others are incredibly stressful because you're not only trying to make decisions with the rest of the group that you're potentially not agreeing with, but you're also fighting against the game itself.

[00:22:23:16 - 00:22:35:18]
Ambie: Yeah, but probably the most cozy ish relaxing game that I played recently is Dorfromantik, which is co-op and like tile laying. I feel like tile laying tends to be a relaxing mechanism.

[00:22:36:20 - 00:22:52:13]
Crystal: I would say that's likely the case because well, and you're building something. And it's almost never something antagonist. When you're laying down tiles, it's often something pretty that you're building not always but often.

[00:22:52:13 - 00:23:02:10]
Amanda: That's true. That's very true. I do like a good tile layer. Like there's really good drafting, tile laying, tableau building games nowadays. So yeah, I really like that.

[00:23:02:10 - 00:23:05:14]
Crystal: Do you have any favorite tile laying games?

[00:23:05:14 - 00:23:10:11]
Amanda: Akropolis is my favorite drafting tile laying game.
Crystal: Nice.

[00:23:10:11 - 00:23:56:09]
Crystal: I have found that games with an art theme generally tend to be relaxing for me personally, even Starving :rtists, which theoretically is you being an artist that is like struggling to make any money, you would think that theme would be like, but it's like that game or Kanagawa where you're painting a giant landscape or Canvas, where you're using clear cards to build up a painting like in multiple layers. All of those feel relaxing in a special way to me because you're creating art and art for me is a relaxing thing. So I think that's why those games feel like that even though they are competitive board games where you're competing against other people.

[00:23:56:09 - 00:24:06:06]
Ambie: Yeah, I guess like what you were saying before with where you can build up something that you see and you've made something, even if it's competitive and you lose, it's still like, oh, I made this and that's nice.

[00:24:06:06 - 00:24:40:12]
Amanda: Especially when it's pretty afterwards. It's really nice table presence. You're like, oh, that's quite nice. Yeah. But there's also relaxing games that are just relaxing because it doesn't use a lot of your brainpower. Super Mega Lucky Box is one of my favorite. Just relaxing games is basically Bingo with some extra stuff to it. And it's like multi-card Bingo, but you don't get to stamp every card. But I feel like that's why a lot of people like Bingo itself is they're just thinking there and then just gonna, you know, mark off numbers.

[00:24:40:12 - 00:25:01:15]
Crystal: Oh my god. Now I want miniature daubers for Super Mega Lucky Box. Like I want dry erase daubers. Is there a someone? Please invent dry erase daubers because that would make that would take that game to a 12 for me. Like how is that not a thing yet? I absolutely want daubers for that game now.

[00:25:01:15 - 00:25:08:13]
Amanda: If you can do it, do it. So, Ambie, what is one of your favorite cozy, relaxing games?

[00:25:08:13 - 00:25:14:13]
Ambie: I'm not sure. A lot of the games I like tend to not be cozy or relaxing.

[00:25:14:13 - 00:25:18:22]
Crystal: What? 18xx games aren't relaxing? The train rush isn't relaxing?

[00:25:20:11 - 00:25:25:10]
Amanda: Because you're gonna kill your opponents and, I mean, opponents and like really be competitive.

[00:25:25:10 - 00:25:28:08]
Crystal: Drive someone to bankruptcy. Yeah, that's the thing.

[00:25:28:08 - 00:25:52:02]
Ambie: And then like even like the short games that I'll play, it's like I want to play a real-time cooperative, like real-time cooperative games that are 10 minutes exactly. Like those are not relaxing.
Crystal: That's like the opposite of relaxing.
Ambie: I guess to me it's like relaxing in that I don't have to learn the rules or like setup is easy. So it's relaxing in a different way to me and that the game itself is not really relaxing.

[00:25:52:02 - 00:26:06:16]
Crystal: It is a controlled kind of stress.
Ambie: Yeah, controlled.
Crystal: Yeah, like controlled chaos, right? Like you kind of can get that like tension and then release it afterwards. So maybe the relaxation in a real-time cooperative game is the after.

[00:26:08:02 - 00:26:42:27]
Amanda: Have you played any of the Kids Table Board Gaming? That series with Roberta Taylor starting with Creature Comforts?
Ambie: I have not, no.
Amanda: That whole like the art in it, like the way you play, it's so cute and because you're animals and you're creating things to make your winter comfortable, like a quilt or a pair of socks or a whole outfit that you're trying to, you know, fairy lights, you know, it is adorable. There's a whole series now of it that they did. And I feel like that's like also very comforting and cute-lasting games.

[00:26:42:27 - 00:27:40:06]
Crystal: I do really want to try those at some point and I haven't gotten a chance to. Kids Table Board Games is a company that I really like and so I definitely want to check those out. There are definitely some solo games that I think are relaxing as well, especially because in a solo game you can control more elements of the game experience like the pace, the timing of things. And then there are also solo games that have relaxing themes as well. A Gentle Rain is a really great example of this and there have been a few different versions of it that have been published. I know there's two different versions that you can get at Target and I have the fancy version. Yeah, the deluxe one from Target with the nice pieces and I do not do a lot of solo gaming but I played that game once prior to owning it and I was like, this is so lovely. It feels really nice to play. It's a very relaxing experience, more so than just about any other game I think I've ever played.

[00:27:40:06 - 00:27:53:23]
Amanda: And that very opposite of that is Final Girl from Van Ryder Games. Another solo game but it's the most stressful thing because the monster's coming for you or eating, the people you're trying to save. So there you go.

[00:27:54:28 - 00:28:06:03]
Ambie:  I have played some solo games like solo puzzle games I think tend to be kind of relaxing and cozy for me as well. I think when I'm playing solo I don't care as much about winning or following the rules.

[00:28:06:03 - 00:28:11:15]
Amanda: That's the great thing is you can fudge the rules for fun, right?

[00:28:11:15 - 00:28:32:16]
Ambie: Yeah, you don't have to get the rules right. You don't have to win. I mean I do want to score better than my last time sometimes but it doesn't feel as stressful as in a competitive game where you're like, oh that person's gonna do this and I gotta get this and if they don't do that then I'll win and I get that heart racing thing when I'm playing a competitive game but not solo.

[00:28:32:16 - 00:28:42:05]
Amanda: So do you like solo games which is like a, oh you made so many points so you get this on a scale or do you like it if it's just a win-lose?

[00:28:42:05 - 00:28:47:03]
Ambie: I think I prefer win-lose ones but I play ones that have the point scale too.

[00:28:47:03 - 00:29:19:02]
Crystal: I don't know if I have a preference for me when it comes to solo gaming. The win condition I don't think is the thing. The experience is the part that I'm focused on more so I don't mind. I think I actually maybe like the scoring because then I don't ever lose, right? You just you might get like a lower score and sometimes they do like label the really low ones as like bad things but generally I'm just like, oh it's like room for improvement, right? You know it doesn't feel like a loss. It just feels like, oh I can do better next time.

[00:29:19:02 - 00:29:22:17]
Ambie: Yeah, I guess those are more cozy the ones without losing.

[00:29:22:17 - 00:29:54:25]
Amanda: Yeah and I for the longest time I'll go to BGA and there's like three different games that'll play solo in the mornings just for relaxation. It'd be Tranquility, any of them, or Draft and Write Records, or Flowers. Not the one with the petals of flowers but the one that you're trying to put them in like groupings of flowers but yeah I love doing that in the mornings is having a nice relaxing solo game and then you know they never you never losing those three, you know? Except for Tranquility you can lose in that but you know it's quite nice to do everybody.

[00:29:54:25 - 00:30:33:22]
Crystal: You actually bring up a really interesting point with flowers in that I think that horticulture themed games on average tend to be more relaxing and cozy than a lot of themes in games. I specifically when I was thinking about this like I think Trellis is a pretty like cozy relaxing game, Bonsai, Best Treehouse Ever, Point Salad isn't really like horticulture but it's vegetables like I think the things that grow in the ground it's hard to make that like sharp and antagonistic in a game right like oh, Amanda-
Ambie: There's Arboretum

[00:30:33:22 - 00:30:39:25]
Amanda: That's what I was gonna say! That is the meanest, prettiest tree game ever.

[00:30:41:15 - 00:30:48:09]
Crystal: I stand corrected
Amanda: Also you put Tussie Mussie on the list and I'm like that's a mean game.

[00:30:48:09 - 00:31:00:10]
Crystal: No, see Tussie Mussie like I love the I split you choose moment where you're gifting somebody else and it doesn't matter if the thing you're gifting them is bad for them it feels lovely.

[00:31:01:11 - 00:31:10:29]
Ambie: So I guess games that are cozy for some people could be like cut throat for others too depending on the person and how you play.

[00:31:11:29 - 00:31:44:08]
Amanda: Yeah and some games that are cozy for one person could just be boring just because you know relaxing sometimes is boring and Tokaido I know is very cozy for a lot of people but for me it is not that I don't feel that way it's a beautiful game you know I feel like you should add some of the expansions that it has but for me it is more I'm just walking around I can only do I know I have to do this that or this and I don't get a lot of choice in it but yeah I mean some people love it it's not my game but I know you like it

[00:31:44:08 - 00:32:11:29]
Crystal: I do like Tokaido a lot and I know I mentioned it on our episode in 2018 or I'm fairly certain I did and I would still like it's the going on a journey through Japan and there's the newer game Let's Go to Japan which doesn't feel at all relaxing to me that feels like a very busy packed full of whatever trip Tokaido feels like a lazy in the best way kind of journey whereas Let's Go to Japan feels like we're gonna try and do as many things as possible on this vacation

[00:32:11:29 - 00:32:29:11]
Amanda: that yeah I mean that is two different ways to vacation right it is the tour and you got to do as much as possible or the we'll see what happens and I like a mix of it I want some breaks right where you could just kind of explore but I love Let's Go to Japan

[00:32:29:11 - 00:32:50:24]
Crystal: I know you like that game a lot.
Well I would love to hear from our listeners what relaxing and cozy games you all love so please drop a comment on YouTube or whatever social media platform you follow us on or in our discord and let us know what your favorite cozy games are and tell us which ones you think we should check out

[00:32:50:24 - 00:33:49:16]
Ambie: And that’s it for this week’s Board Game Blitz. Visit our website, boardgameblitz.com for more content and links.
This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Vampire Survivors: The Board Game is coming to Kickstarter soon, so head to VampireSurvivorsTheBoardGame.com to sign up for pre-launch updates, behind-the-scenes info, and to get a free deck box with your pledge! And don’t forget that when you shop at GreyFoxGames.com, you get 10% off all purchases, including exclusives, by using the code BLITZ10 at checkout!
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Our theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.
Until next time,
Well I'll make this play
I don't know how I’m doing
I'll make this play
I'm taking my time
So this game is fair
Bye everyone!
Crystal & Amanda: Bye!

[00:33:55:02 - 00:34:05:11]
Ambie: and then the last one I'm going to talk about is called Tearable quest but this is t-a-
Amanda: t-e-a-r
Ambie: I can't spell okay
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