Some of you may remember about 15 years ago last April (I’m pretty sure that’s an accurate timeline, it may have only been 13 years since last April, it’s easy to lose track of time when you never leave your house) in a place very much like this but also, at the same time, different, I received my new-in-shrink 20th Anniversary Edition copy of Roads & Boats. This milestone should have ended my quest to acquire R&B for good. Unfortunately, my copy had a couple of issues.
I posted on BoardGameGeek about the out-of-bleed die cutting on some of my punchboards, asking if it was a known issue with the 20th Anniversary Edition. Some people said that their copies also had off-center cuts, but not as bad as I had shown.
I then also noticed that one of the 30 donkeys included in the game was suffering from a crippling injury. And while I will certainly care for this donkey and ensure it has a long, rewarding life, I felt it may hinder actual gameplay due to the “stand up, lay down” homebrew mechanism that is often utilized to make note of what transporters have moved this round. I emailed Splotter about the donkey, wondering if I could get a replacement.
I got a response back from someone at Splotter and they indicated they had seen my BGG post and concluded that my tokens did not meet their standards and they would like to replace them for me, in addition to providing a new donkey.
Unfortunately, COVID-19 had become a worldwide problem at this point and they said their access to replacement components was extremely limited and they would have to wait. I said “no problem” and consigned myself to being patient (which I am very good at, given the proper mindset).
Over the last 9 months, I’ve checked in with my contact at Splotter every 4-6 weeks, just to ensure I was not forgotten. At some point, it seemed to be a surprise to the person on the other end of the email that I had not yet received my components; presumably, they had shipped some replacements (and possibly to my old address, despite me updating them for my new address?) but without a way to track the package.
Eventually, however, my patience paid off and they supplied me with a new donkey:
And, also, some new punchboards with better (not perfect) die-alignment:
Well, you know, over half of the boards needed replacement, so they just set a full set:
Well, actually, they just sent an entire copy:
Which means I now have 2.5 copies of Roads & Boats again, but this time I also have 2.5 copies of &Cetera as well:
So… I have a 2nd edition copy that’s missing all the buildings and all the goods and all the Wonder bricks (because all the chits were organized in a Plano that was forgotten about when it was shipped to the person I bought it from), but it has ALL of the terrain tiles.
My “flawed” copy of 20th Anniversary edition is very playable; it contains everything you need, except maybe if you’re playing with 6 players- then someone would have to be green with a less-than-perfect donkey. I have strange feelings about selling this copy… because, well, I got it for free, basically.
Maybe I’ll just come up with really big terrain scenarios that utilize the 3x number of tiles as normal.
