Exhibition 20th Century Review: Sort It Like it's 1999

Mike and Zee take a look at this Racko-esque card game of drafting and sorting cards on your personal player board.

Support the channel by becoming a member!

Check out the friendliest conventions on Earth!

[cay]

I love the videos Zee and Mike do together. Thanks!

[AndrewKohls]

This game is a favorite of my favorite (as is many Cwali games). Having played the game a lot I've always taken a different view of the scoring. Yes, the scoring can seem disconnected from the play and filling up the exhibitions, but if you keep the scoring in mind, it makes the game that much more puzzly. For example, do you take a lower Years gap or do you go for those two extra continent cards, or get that perfect card that the is both a continent card and works towards a longest chain? This added puzzle nature makes it fun for all ages.

[Edu-qvlq]

Sounds like this game will get more interesting once someone uploads new scoring house rules to BGG

[cornevanmoorsel]

12:28 : "I got 1900 and 1997":
The YEARS GAP goal is a goal (the only in this game). So it's totally clear that it doesn't bring extra points if your score is much better than the score of an opponent. And the points you score for it are very clear. Strange if that is a surprise at the end. So this comment makes no sense. If Novac Jokovic wins 6-0 6-0 6-0, he doesn't say at the end "I'm so disappointed that I don't get a bigger trophy and more ATP ranking points.".

[_Cervantez]

Wow, someone is getting really defensive here

[cornevanmoorsel]

About "If this comes anywhere near drop of water, this is going to explode." (9:08) : Please try! The boards are laminated, both sides, I've seen a cup of coffee going over it, just wipe and it looks good again. Hard to destroy the boards in other ways too. Surprisingly strong.

[cornevanmoorsel]

About the YEARS GAP score (12:25) :
(It's the only compare goal in the game.)
That's 5-4-3-2-1 victory points for best player, second-best, third-best and so on.
We didn't make exception rules for different player numbers, so tactics differ with different player numbers. Cool. Winning this is still important in a 2-player game. Winning means with 2 players that "all opponents" lose it, which makes 2 victory points difference between winning the 5 points with 4 points for your opponent or winning 4 points with 5 points for your opponent. (Except of a tie, and in the rare case of not filling this showcase you get 0 points.)

[cornevanmoorsel]

About "I probably would put that there" (at 4:16, the 1948 card) ... It's the only spot where you can always place any card (in the Depot too but there it costs a victory point), so of course you normally don't want to spoil that spot early in the game for only a possible tiebreaker if endscores are equal.
At the next card you give no hints about tactics either. The video with the game just tells It does tell the rules roughly, fine, but it's weak for a video review I think.

[cornevanmoorsel]

About "artificially tied" (12:22) :
Maybe true if the game would be named EXPEDITION, but the rules are tied to this game which is named EXHIBITION. Players try to build a good exhibition about the 20th century, so:
- Of course it's interesting to have one showcase to show the contrast of the start and end of the 20th century which is the century of big changes.
- Of course you want to have an object/subject of each decade.
- Of course you want to have an object/subject of each continent.
- Of course you can make a showcase with a focus on one continent, and another with a focus on an era.
(Succeeding filling for example the ONE CONTINENT showcase gives you victory points because it avoids the penalty points for empty spots (and depot penalty points), so filling your player board is part of the score already direct, and partly indirect for your other scores which in general will be higher if you fill more spots!)
- And even having one showcase with only "the middle of the century" makes sense. (In the prototype that was the "advertising object" at the entrance of the exhibition, but that design didn't fit in the final version.)
- Having an overall focus on one continent in your total exhibition, to score more points in the end, makes sense with the theme too, and is interesting for the game depth.
- A sequence of years is logical too, more logical to have them next to each other but more interesting gamewise when you can have these cards anywhere so I made that rule for the game.

[cornevanmoorsel]

About the components: It's made to fit for low delivery costs, with thicker player boards the delivery costs would be about 15, - higher. (5 big player boards are in this small game box.)
The cards and the wooden parts are normal material for games, and great quality. The player boards are a bit thicker than in for example *The Castles of Burgundy*. The folds in the player boards, to fit in the small box, were a challenge for the factory. After many samples they found a good way to make these laminated boards strong, with "flat folds" at the surface as you can see in this video. Excellent, but when you unpack the game you think "what is this?".

[JosephFlemming]

I liked this game… it’s simple but thinky.

[cornevanmoorsel]

"stick to the lower player counts"??? Subjective of course, but it seems like most people like the higher player counts the most. With higher player numbers it's a bit more gambling, but that is interesting too and you know that chances on the upcoming fitting cards during the game are high with more players. Turns seem to go the fastest with higher player counts, keeping it a fast game still.

[cornevanmoorsel]

About the victory points for CONTINENT FOCUS: That's 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 victory points normally (theoretically 1-7 points), as Zee says. It doesn't bring you 10 points, as Zee says. True. A few points more or less is important in the end scores, players definitaly try to get these CONTINENT FOCUS points.

[cornevanmoorsel]

About the CHAIN OF YEARS: 3, 2 or 1 victory points for that are common, more happens too, I've seen 6 points for a years chain several times. A few points means much in this game for endscores, so for the score it's important. Though I do agree that this score rule is the (only) one which isn't connected so well to the theme. And one score rule more or less was always part of the prototype process of course. I did think about making this rule optional instead of base game, but I do miss it when it's not in the game.

[christianesch]

Scoring is a bit bad, but I love the game.

[cornevanmoorsel]

About the looks of the game: Subjective of course, looks great I think, but some "objective" things about it:
With all design choices the theme and playing comfort played a big role. So:
- The year font on the cards are common/popular fonts in the 10 different decades. Which may make the overall look for a newbie "messy", but it's very functional with playing the game. You often look for a certain decade and a distinction in 10 decades too instead of only the 100 numbers is helpfull for the overview once you know the game a bit.
- For the showcase frames I wanted wooden frames, so that are the card frames which look just brown from a distance of course. The drawings artist hinted on changing that choice, maybe I should have followed her, but wooden showcase frames did fit to the exhibition theme in my opinion.
- The velvet underground under the historical objects does fit the exhibition theme too I think. The darkness differense from bottom to top of card gives some depth in the card pictures, making it not just vertical bird-view, looks good I think. While the 6 different card colors (and continent silhouet and name) keep the game very clear, even the overview of other players boards is very clear in this game which is important in this game.
- The continent colors are the same as in Risk btw.
- All cards have a different exhibition object drawn on it. And text about the subject/object of that year. The design emphesizes this well too, while not hurting the clearness gamewise.

100 different cards, 100 numbers, 6 (7) colors, emphesize on the century exhibition theme. Not an easy task to make that work well gamewise, but the final game works great.
I've seen many different reactions on the game. The "smiling" about the design in this video is ... let's say strange.

[kevinbhieey]

Say the first 3 sections were scored like Karuba or games like that... First player to finish each gets the highest amount, second gets the next-highest, and so on. Then the one with the highest difference in the last section at the end gets the highest blah blah blah. Would that be better, or are there just not enough sections on the player boards to make this fulfilling? If I were to second-edition this, I think I would do this but I would add even more sections to the player board, increasing the options where you can put a card. Kind of like all the different scoring options offered in Welcome to... which would create even more decisions for players to make.

[geographist]

I can already see a new Dice Tower Top 10 list.. 10 Games I Have Fun Playing, But Am Disappointed Everytime..

[cornevanmoorsel]

You say the game's name is EXPEDITION ... 3 times ... while it's EXHIBITION.
This gives a hint about the level of the video?

[flawed]

It’s disappointing when the game is fun to play but the scoring just makes the winner feel kind of random. You wonder how these things make it through play testing