Last night, on Malts and Meeples, I didn’t have a chance to get out a new campaign game. Mainly finding the time to learn the rules is about finding the time. Instead I pulled out a few board games. I’ve played them before on stream and talked about them before in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2022 Edition. I’m talking about Ganz Schon Clever, Doppelt So Clever, and Clever Hoch Drei. Next time there might be four games with Clever 4Ever.

The Board Games

All three of these games are roll and write games in a series, connected by some basic mechanics, designed by Wolfgang Warsch. The base mechanics of the games, like I said, are similar across the board, but the games each offer their own twist.

The basic mechanic in the game is that you roll your dice, pick one to use, get rid, to a common pool, all the numbers lower than it, and repeat the process until you’ve used three dice, or fewer. Then the other players use a die from the common pool. Then the next player rolls and you repeat that process. Your goal, get as many points as you can.

There are two other things that are always true. The white die is a wild. And if you use the blue die or the white die in the blue section, it’s always the combined total of the white and blue dice. But the white ie you can use anywhere that you want. I guess a third thing, which is could be an afterthought when teaching is the foxes. If you get a fox, at the end of the game, multiply the number of foxes times your lowest scoring section.

Ganz Schon Clever – Doppelt So Clever – Clever Hoch Drei

Let’s talk real quick about each of them. Mainly compare how they work and actually maybe a slight change in my opinion after last nights play.

Ganz Schon Clever

Ganz Schon Clever is maybe the most basic of the games. Which makes sense being the original one that came out. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t have combos, it has a lot of them. But Ganz Schon Clever, doesn’t have the more complex sections like some others do. It is basically always simple on how to use the dice. It’s the one that I started with and it’s the one I’d use to teach, even if you like others better in the series.

Doppelt So Clever

Doppelt So Clever has always been the toughest for me and been the lowest of the three for me. Now, I’m not sure that’s the case anymore. Mainly, I think I’m seeing the puzzle better now, and I have some ideas of how I want to handle the game as I play. It definitely ramps up the complexity in the game with basically every section. While some, pink and blue might not be too complex, they offer more to think about.

Clever Hoch Drei

Finally we have Clever Hoch Drei, probably the one that clicked with my fastest and the one that I get the highest score on. A lot of the things just make sense to me as I play them. I didn’t do a great job comboing as I could have last night in the game. Mainly not using the yellow section as effectively as sometimes. But you fill in a whole lot more and get many more combos, it feels like in Clever Hoch Drei.

I think that Doppelt So Clever went up in my estimation last night and Clever Hoch Drei went down. Mainly you can do so much in Clever Hoch Drei that decisions matter a little less. Where as Doppelt So Clever being a tighter game, what you do matters more.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I am streaming my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2022 Edition – 50 through 41. The video down below. So join me on that journey, then the following Monday, the 31st, I might take off for Halloween. I suspect it’d be cutting it close with podcast, Trick or Treating, and getting a kid into bed.

As for my Wednesday stream, next week my hope is to get Chronicles of Drunagor to the table at least for an unboxing. And I know a I have a few other boxes coming in as well. So I might play Final Girl, or we’ll see what my mystery package coming in might be. But soon I will get Chronicles of Drunagor to the table. And next week might be an unboxing of the game and picking out of characters, actually.

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