Whose Turn Is It Anyway?

Expansion Pack: Adam Richards' Turn (Punchboard)

Loaded Dice Gaming Group

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Our expansion packs return with Adam Richards from Punchboard talking all about his love for the hobby, the importance of written media in board gaming and his passion behind why he set-up his website Punchboard.

GUEST PLAYER: Adam Richards from Punchboard
THE PLAYERS: JP
 
OVERVIEW
In this Expansion Pack episode JP flies solo and meets Adam Richards from Punchboard to talk about his love for playing, writing and reviewing games in our fantastic hobby of ours

In this episode you'll learn:

- What Adams favourite games are at the moment
- How Punchboard began
- The importance of writing about how games make you feel in reviews
- how solo gaming supports mental health
- how Adam fairs at a few of our Niche Number 1's from Round 1

LINKS REFERENCED IN THE SHOW
Check out Punchboard and Adam's highlighted written work
- Website - https://punchboard.co.uk/
- Solo Board Gaming Article - https://punchboard.co.uk/why-not-just-play-a-video-game/
- Nemo's War - https://punchboard.co.uk/review-nemos-war-2nd-edition/
- Gandhi GMT Review- https://punchboard.co.uk/gandhi-gmt-games-review/

You can learn more about Adam on his socials:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/PunchboardUK
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/punchboarduk/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/punchboard

Space Biff - Adam mentions a great review site from Dan Thurot, check it out here - https://spacebiff.com/

EPISODE CHAPTERS
0:00 - TURN 1 - Player Count
0:49 - TURN 2 - Welcoming Our Guest Player
2:56 - What brought Adam to tabletop gaming?
5:09 - What kind of games do you tend to enjoy?
6:41 - What are your favourite games?
8:02 - What's been hitting the table a lot recently for you?
11:06 - TURN 3 - Main Interview
11:16 - What was your motivation behind Punchboard?
15:47 - The importance of writing about how it makes you feel
17:59 - Writing about the industry and mental health
23:10 - Do you get support from

The Whose Turn Is It Anyway Podcast is supporting & sponsoring a much loved board gaming event in the South West called The Devon Board Game Weekend on Friday 17th October to Sunday 19th October at The Fox & Hounds Country Hotel in Eggesford (near Exeter).  For more information on tickets and pricing click here 

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JP  0:26  
Welcome to Whose turn is it anyway, a podcast all about our gaming group and our quest to collect as much cardboard as humanly possible. I'm JP and I'm running solo today in this expansion pack episode, I'm here to introduce our special guest, Adam Richards, who creates fantastically written reviews on all things tabletop on his website Punchboard. So let's not waste any more time. And let's get over and meet Adam.

So great, Adam. Thanks for for joining us on the show this evening. It's great to finally meet you. I know we've been speaking a lot on the old Gaming Rules Slack channel for quite a few months. Yeah. Face to name video.

No, no.

So yeah, for those that haven't heard of you before, or haven't heard anything about what you do, if you tell our listeners all about yourself, that'd be great. 

Adam Richards  1:25  
Yeah, sure. My name is Adam. I'm somewhere in my 40s. And I live down in Cornwall in the UK.

And the reason I'm on here is because I run a written boardgame review site called Punchboard.

That's about as exciting as it gets.

JP  1:45  
It's very good, though. I have to say I've managed to ever since I kind of met you digitally and actually learns about Punchboard. And having crawled through your reviews and obviously your social media posts and things like that. It's yeah, it's honestly it's fantastic. It kind of brings me back the old nostalgia of me getting the old Xbox Magazine that I used to get from the newsagent sitting on my sofa and reading through all the articles. And it kind of takes me back to that retro feel of reading reviews. And yeah, I just think it's fantastic. So hopefully we'll learn more.

Adam Richards  2:24  
Yeah, I've always preferred written reviews myself, if I'm looking for a new game, I'll always go looking for the written ones first, because I know that I can get through them in about 5/10 minutes. And as lazy as it might sound half an hour watching a video...

JP  2:42  
I'd much rather just read it. Yeah. And it's that convenience, isn't it of like, I can lie in bed. And I can just scroll through and read and. And it's just quite relaxing thing to do, isn't it? I find? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Well, before we get more into it's Punchboard and all things kind of reviews and all that kind of side of things. Adam, so how did you get involved in the hobby in general? Or what brought you to tabletop gaming?

Adam Richards  3:10  
Well,

I mean, I played games, tabletop games, a little in the past, it was always more about video games for me.

And then I can actually I can, oddly enough pinpoint the exact moment when I think I got hooked. And it was watching random YouTube videos when they there's a guy I don't know if you've ever heard of him called Scott Nicholson. 

JP  3:35  
No I havent actually

Adam Richards  3:36  
A long time ago, he used to run a YouTube boardgame channel called Board Games with Scott. And he's it's very sort of enthusiastic, effervescent person. And he had basically he was standing behind a table that was piled high with games saying oh, there's all kinds of games out there you might not know about these ones for this sort of person and these ones for this person. And I watched the whole thing and then I was just like, Okay, this is really interesting. I have no idea about any of this. So then went into having a look at that and then picked up a few first sort of hobby games if you want to call them out things like Last Night on Earth, Dominium, Stone Age, things like that. And then it just sort of spiralled from there.

Just generally how it starts right with you get a taste for one game and and then you all in right? CG how it happens.

Yeah, absolutely. And the first couple of really heavy games I picked up I managed to pick up from The Works, that discount bookshop. Way back when they were buying overstock I think, of games that I picked up. Nota Dame, and Hamburg and at the time for not very much money at all. And once I learned how to play those, which was a bit of an undertaking, that was it then it was heavier. sway., thats the way I like to go.

JP  5:01  
Yeah. Bring it on  bring on more cubes Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Awesome. So what what what kind of games? Do you generally enjoy then? Like, what's your kind of go to?

Adam Richards  5:19  
Yeah, exactly. If I'm going to play something, I'm, I've got a few hours to myself. And I think, right I'm going to play something now or I'm going to a convention where there's going to be like minded people then yea,. medium to heavy Euro. Anything from medium to heavy. It would be my preference normally, but and if it's a crowd of people, I do like a decent party game as well. Yeah. Yeah. Something social. I really like the sort of social games as well. Things like Code Names, and well, anything with a lot of players that gets a lot of people talking. The Resistance. 

JP  5:56  
Have you played Decrypto?

Adam Richards  5:58  
Not yet, there's one that I haven't I mean, I know of it. I know. All about and I've played similar games. Not that similar but things like Mysterium and Wavelength, and things like that.

JP  6:10  
Decrypto. For me, kind of, because I mean, I enjoy Code Names. Don't get me wrong. But yeah, Decrypto is the one game I've managed to kind of get non gamers actually really involved in quite easily once you kind of explain how the game works like most games, but yeah, it's Yeah, yeah, getting them going quickly. And the fact that is kind of that word association game, but it's not about guessing the words it's about guessing the code. And yeah, it's just interesting puzzle and really good fun. But there we go. So generally, what we do Adam, when we get guests on the show, we we typically ask them kind of two core questions. What's your, what's your favourite game? And what game are you really enjoying right now? Like what's hitting your table recently?

Adam Richards  6:57  
Oh, thats tricky favourite game favourite game gets difficult because some of my favourites are favourites, as much for nostalgia, as being perhaps the best game. So the ones I mentioned before, for example, Stone Age and Dominion, I will always love and I will always keep because they were two of my sort of forays into the hobby. Villages. And the another one, which I've got really fond memories of the Inka & Marcus Brand, before they started doing the Exit series of games that they're better known for. It's if you haven't played it, it's a brilliant Euro with a... It's a worker placement but it's got a really interesting death mechanic anyway, your your Meeples get old and then die. And there's even advantages and taking the best spots and the graveyard and things like that. If you do ever pick that game up, it's got a hideous amount of stickering on the meeples, but it's worth it . More recently then. I've been a really enjoyed Hadrian's Wall from Garphill last year is the sort of heaviest something and right flipping right in this case that I've played and is very addictive and very easy to understand. Looks hideous at first, it looks like a spreadsheet. Once you start playing the combos and everything in it, it feels like a full on sort of Euro game with tonnes of routes to victory. Yes, so, that's absolutely brilliant. Then I've gone down the sort of the COIN games I've don't if you're played or aware of the COIN games from GMT

JP  8:48  
Is Twilight Struggle technicall a? 

Adam Richards  8:51  
Well, is it not? It's you know, it's related. It's driven by that Deck.

JP  8:59  
distant cousin.

Adam Richards  9:00  
Yeah. So when I'm playing Cuba Libre, at the time, which was regarded as one of the lighter ones with some guys from the gaming rules Slack channel, we play asynchronously on vassal. And it's brilliant is absolutely brilliant, its really, really enjoying that. Yeah. And then over the last this week, I've had a Kickstarter, which I backed a couple of years ago now. Pingyao: First Chinese banks, has turned up, and really, really enjoying that. It's a Chinese designed and published so fully Chinese game that's finally had an English version published.

JP  9:42  
Yeah. I don't know. It sounds it sounds interesting,

Adam Richards  9:46  
Yeah, it's, it's quite complicated from in terms of, you have to think of it. Think when you're playing as if you were a banker, you sort of you can lend money and gain interest on it. You can borrow money and then have to pay it back. And yeah, there's lots of bits too. But it's it's nice to finally have it, sort of over two years after backing it and having played online with the publisher and that sort of thing.

JP  10:11  
Yeah, yes. That long arduous Wait, isn't it? Sometimes it craps on your campaigns? Yeah. You get all excited at the start. And then then it's that come on, then you forget about it half the time I do. And then they just turn up 

What's this box? Yeah. Oh, that's a surprise.

Adam Richards  10:32  
Well, what make that one worse is the fact that well, while the campaign was running, they were saying the game is already published in China. So pretty much all we have to do is put English text on the cards and in the rulebook, and then you'll have it in a few months. But then the global shipping crisis here and everything else, like that few months turned into two and a bit years. Yeah, but it was worth

JP  10:57  
Waiting for container prices to come down. Oh, no, they haven't. Exactly. So therefore, we're just gonna have to send this damn. Cool, great. Thanks for that, Adam. So yeah, let's let's move on to all things Punchboard, then it's learning more about kind of your site and what it's all about. So I mean, what was your motivations? Like? How did Punchboard start? Like? Yeah, what's the motivations behind it?

Adam Richards  11:22  
Yeah, good question. When my son was born sort of nine years ago, the hobby games that I was playing, then sort of went on the shelves, I knew I wouldn't have time, I didn't want them completely destroyed or eaten by a toddler. So they went back on shelves. And then when lock down hit, I got them back out of the cupboard, and had a look at them and start playing them and bought a few more recent games, because I hadn't been at the scene for a little while, and joined some Facebook groups, things like Board Game Trading and Chat UK, which is one of the bigger and better UK ones. And I found that I was writing about games on there talking to people. And I like to tinker. And I like technology, you know, playing around with different websites. And this, that and the other. I thought, I know, I'll put together a website for myself as a little project and turn some of these posts into what I was thinking,  they were proper reviews. And that's how it started really just me doing that. And I managed to keep up momentum on it. And not just sort of, I'm a serial starter of things and finisher of none.But this I managed to keep, I got such an enthusiasm for it. And I enjoy it so much that it never became a chore. And I'm always sort of dissatisfied with with what, dissatisfied probably not the right word. But I always think I can do better. Yeah, and so when I'm writing

JP  13:03  
Critical, critical a good word. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a bad thing is it? It's nice sometimes. You know, kind of get that enhancement of quality then don't you if you are a bit harsh on yourself and what you do. And I mean, you know, having read your articles and read your stuff, and I love the kind of flair that you add in. So it's not just a dry read of, you know, here's a review about this board game. It's the , I don't know...it feels really natural. And I don't know if it feels natural when you're writing it, whether it takes a lot of hours of craft, but it when you read it feels very natural in like I'm just sitting chatting to you now, but reading is in front of me. Yes.

Adam Richards  13:43  
Yeah, exactly. I mean, from my first few months, I was I found what I thought was a structure for them. And I tried to repeat that. So I do a little intro text and I do a sort of a what's in the box, and then a gameplay summary and that sort of thing. And I thought it was okay, but there was something sort of niggling me a little bit about it. And then I joined the Tabletop Mentorship Scheme, okay, which I found out about on Twitter and applied and I got matched up with a mentor who was Ian from the Giant Brain and Brainwaves podcast, okay. They're Scottish group who they produce a news podcast, a board game news podcast. And he also has a site where he does reviews and things like players guides for Arkham Horror. Yeah. And so yeah, he was my mentor for three months. And I got exactly what I was after, which was sort of fair criticism. And he echoed the things in which I was already starting to realise which were: having the same structure. It can be a little dry. And also, you know, things like describing what the components are like what's in the box, explaining the rules just didn't fit well, because what I wanted to do was the exact thing that you mentioned was to make it sound like I'm sat across the table talking to someone about the game, instead, I think that's what a lot of reviews can miss out on, it's very easy to fall, and I still catch myself doing it now, it's very easy to fall back onto the mechanical side of it. Where you're talking about how the game plays and what you do, and so on and so forth. And what, what I keep away from at all costs, and what I don't like, in a review, is an explanation of the rules. That's what the rule books for. That's true. You don't need to tell me the rules, I can read those, I want to know what it's like. So what I try and get across, when I write, as you say, I want to keep it conversational, I wants a bit of myself in there. And I wanted, the main thing for me is to explain how the game makes me feel which which things I really enjoyed, and why which things I didn't like and why. Those sorts of things.

JP  16:06  
Yeah, so reading your work, Adam, it's, it's abundantly clear that you know, how the games make you feel, it just comes out in spades, really. So that's the kind of notion I get when reading it's that. And that's really helpful. I think, when you're when you're kind of covering reviews, or when you're reading reviews is, and if you've got a similar or you feel like you got a similar taste to the reviewer, and you're quite aligned in you know, their preferences and what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy, then, yeah, you're just naturally going to kind of take that, take that in, aren't you? Because if you go with Adam likes that, then maybe I should check that out. Or if that invokes this particular feeling, and I like that, when I play games, then maybe I should share that as well. So yeah,

Adam Richards  16:49  
Exactly. And I've found that there sort of two or three main types of review, if you want to put sort of a broad umbrella over it, you'll get the sort of the, like fluff pieces, which sounds worse than I actually mean. But those sort of things where they're heavily promoting a game, you know, this game is new, it's brilliant, so on, so forth, fantastic. We need that we need people to understand, then you've got people like Dan Thurot and dunno if you know him, Space-Biff, if you haven't read his stuff, you should. And that is proper board game critique. I mean, his I was about to say he's like... essays, he actually does essays as well. And his reviews are worth reading, even if you weren't interested in board games. They're very, very good. And they do a fantastic job of making you feel inferior as a writer, which is good.

JP  17:48  
If you want to up your game!

Adam Richards  17:57  
And I'd like to try and fit somewhere in between. So I like to be enthusiastic about a game. And I will get overly excited about things which I'm overly excited about. But at the same time, I do like to do some editorial pieces. And just things about what's going on, things that are going on in the industry and the side pieces, I did a big piece about how I found solo gaming, solo boardgaming helps me Oh, nice. Through lockdown. As from time to time I'll suffer from depression. And there's a lot of people obviously now with, you know, various degrees of mental health issues, and people are more aware of it now I'm more open to talk about it. And yeah, the I found them very, very good. My mental health during the lockdown, a lot of people suffered. So I wrote a piece about that. And I ended up getting it published in a magazine. Nice. That was Kickstarted Yeah, so that was quite nice, too. It's always nice to feel validated, I think.

JP  19:05  
Yeah, yeah. Especially. Yeah, kind of getting that that recognition do you know what I mean? And getting into the, you know, to that publication.I bet that felt great. But yeah, I agree with the solo gaming aspects. I think I solo game actually, there's not many people in my gaming group that do, they tend to think it's more hassle than it's worth getting the stuff out onto the table or setting the games up and, and doing that, but actually, I quite personally like just shutting everyone out for a night. And I just want, I want to talk to myself, right? I want to talk to myself over the moves I need to do and just keep things, I say keep things simple, because the games I play aren't simple. That's why I'm talking to myself half the time. My wife would walk past and just look at me going, God, are you okay? Like I'm having a kind of a breakdown like sometimes for the moves. I've got to make go no! oh, well, I've done that. But generally, it's good to escape, isn't it? I think so like gaming is a good way of escaping just like you would do if you just put a film on. Or if you want to play out a computer game or whatever, it is just good pure escapism.

Adam Richards  20:18  
And the biggest difference I found from something like watching a film, or watching the TV or reading a book is that it's not passive. So I find that my mind will wander, if I'm, if I'm just trying to sit watching a film, unless I'm tired, and I'm fully into it, my mind wander, I start thinking about something else, and I want to do something. And I think, I mean, if if you've ever suffered with depression, for example, one of the things they teach you , ot was taught to me about stopping those cycles of thought, that sort of internal monologue you have, the thing I found is great for that is playing games, because for that time you're playing, you don't think about work or health or anything, you're just concentrating on what you're doing. And that that comes right from the outset of even picking the thing off the shelf, and the physicality of having the box, setting the game up. And all of that, in all those little pieces all contribute to the larger thing. For a couple of hours, you're not engaged with the world. Yeah, I think that's important, certainly, to me,

JP  21:37  
It is, I think it's important to a lot people. And actually, I think this hobby is a fantastic kind of safe space for for that mental health, isn't it because you can just escape and you're right, there's, there's no brain space for anything else, whilst you're, you're even a mid mid weight Euro, right? You just, You just haven't got the brainpower to think about life and also how you're going to win and beat the system. It's impossible.

Adam Richards  22:08  
Yeah. And that's why I noticed actually, I went, I've been to a few conventions, since the lockdown lifted. And I remember it striking me when I was at AireCon this February or March, whatever it was. And at one point, during the convention, I've taken a break between games, I looked around, and it was just a sea of people. And they were all just smiling and concentrating on what they're doing. And sort of for that moment, nobody in the room was worrying about work or what they were doing or any of that stuff. Everyone was just there, in the moment with like minded people enjoying a distraction. You know, we're, you know, we're lucky we live in the part of the world where we can do that. Yeah, so it's very easy to lose that sense of scope or scale of understanding. You know, where you are? What's important?

JP  23:06  
Definitely, so I love this hobby. Okay, yeah. So kind of going back to that to Punchboard then, with your site, do you get to kind of review like the latest games? Do you get much support from publishers that are out there? To cover their game? Yeah.

Adam Richards  23:27  
There's sort of two main avenues. I mean, first, no, absolutely not. Because if you just want to turns up on the publishers doorstep or in their inbox and says, Hey, I write reviews, can I have some games, they're polite, they're going to tell you to go away. So where I found a lot of my early help, if you like, in terms of having games to play that I hadn't bought myself, were things like, previews of Kickstarters and working with prototypes. And there are a lot of people, especially very small, independent publishers who are looking to get their games out into the world and want coverage. And so if you're a sort of an aspiring reviewer, joining the things like the Facebook groups where people connect, are brilliant for that. And so I did cover a few smaller games. And then gradually it sort of, I wouldn't say snowballs, but if you can keep up the momentum and keep doing what you're doing. Then yeah, the opportunities are there, there are plenty of publishers are very helpful. So Stonemaier games, were the first ones who ever sent me a review copy of a big published game. They have immediate signup form on their page. And if you get picked and you'll get an email from from Jamie himself, saying, you know, these are the games that are available at the moment. And it kind of goes from there. So there's, I particularly like to work with UK publishers, especially the Indies, where I can. So the likes of Braincrack games did Ragusa and Florence, Yeah. So those guys are fantastic. Cogito Ergo Meeple. They did the Philosophia games, they've got a new one coming out called Solar 175. Those guys were really lovely. You know, I've met all these people at conventions now. And it's great to, to meet them. But the bigger publishers are there as well. AEG, who else? Capstone? I've worked with GMT. Yeah, that

JP  25:41  
Just just the small names?

Adam Richards  25:43  
Well, I mean, you know, those are sort of names that I think people would recognise

JP  25:49  
Yeah. but you do a mix though don't you, Yeah, that's the thing. You don't just go on the big, big publishers, you mix it up. So that's great.

Adam Richards  25:57  
Well, I don't think you can really call yourself a proper... Well, that sound great... Well, if you want to call yourself a game reviewer, then you should at lease sample the sort of the full spectrum, you know, the whole gamut of what you're doing, it shouldn't just be the big 100 pounds, plush box full of minis, and God knows where else, you should be looking at the small box card games that people are creating. Because what I found from doing this is there are so many brilliant games out there, that unfortunately people never see or hear of. So one of the things I like to try and do is give them a voice and a bit of amplification that likes of trying to give them some examples. Unfringed games, made a game called... a little card game called Zuuli, which has been very popular recently. I looked at that game early on. It's brilliant game. And now in on Facebook, for example, in some of the bigger groups, I've seen people talking about it trying to get hold of it. The guys from Stone Sword games. They originally... I was going to cover a game called Zball, a sort of combat sports PvP card game. And then they also put Senjutsu out to Kickstarter, this big Samurai, Hex grids battling thing, and their Kickstarter campaign just went absolutely crazy. And rightly so, it's a fantastic game. You know, and then having sort of spin off games designed by Martin Wallace. Wow. So yeah, the point being I've sort of rambled away and gone off down several tangents now, I know. But that's fine. But there are some brilliant games out there. That sometimes you should just take a chance on. Yeah. read some reviews, pick up something small and cheap. And see how much play you get out of it for a few pounds. You know, it's always worth trying, I think. Yeah, I like to try and cover those games as well, to give people the opportunity.

JP  28:15  
Perfect. Sounds good. Sounds good. So in terms of like, is there a kind of a favourite piece of content that you've done or a series of content that you like, especially proud, like, if you could point anyone that hasn't jumped onto punchboard.co.uk before? Like, what was.. What is your signature piece? Do you have? Do you have that? Do you have that? That's probably a hard question to answer

Adam Richards  28:40  
Should be harder than I find the actually, I am proud of the piece I did around solo board gaming, which you'll find on there relatively easy if you go to the blog category on there rather than reviews. Because I think it resonates with a lot of people. If you're looking at reviews, the two I'm most pleased with will probably be for Nemo's War second edition. Which is a solo indy game. I don't know if you played Nemo's war,

JP  29:10  
I've not played it, I've heard of it. I nearly picked it up once. Because it because it's you know solo, solo only and I was like, oh, I should I should or not No, I haven't. But maybe if I read your review now I might change my mind.

Adam Richards  29:24  
You can play coop, but it's designed for solo, and the artwork and everything and it is absolutely beautiful. It's all done by Ian O'Toole. Yeah. And the game is amazing. And it's this kind of narrative thing. If you're familiar with the Jules Verne book, you know, 2000 leagues under the sea. All the characters from there, all the events are in there, sort of woven into a game. And I wrote a review of that and I cross posted it on the BoardGameGeek reviews forum for Nemo's War and sort of said on there "this is the first review I've written for on here for however many years it was Be gentle". And their feedback from it was fantastic. And that was the first one that I've really felt I managed to do that thing of making the same conversation or trying to get across why I was enthused, why I loved it so much. So that one and the only other one I'd specially handpick would be a review of Gandhi that I did. Yeah. The full name escapes me. I think it's something like Gandhi, the decolonization of British India 1916 to 1919, something like that.

JP  30:40  
Okay, I'm gonna test you later, I'm gonna see if you're right.

Adam Richards  30:45  
That's a COIN game from GNC. And that was the first sort of air quotes proper, war game, even though it wasn't really a hex it was a war game. But, you know, big GMT games that I played. And I was excited to try them. And it was a real steep learning curve coming from Euro gaming to the sort of the, the way that Wargaming rule books are formatted. But I did my review from the perspective of a Euro game fan who was war game curious. And yeah, I'm really pleased with how that came out. And GMT were very pleased with it as well. So yeah, if you are curious about sort of the GMT side of it these COIN games, then that's a good review to sort of start with, I think, nice. And the one thing I would say about those games is that if you are into Euros then it's not as big a leap or as alien territory as you think it might be. There's a lot of commonality.

JP  31:49  
Okay, good to know, good to know. Yeah, I'd say I've never really kind of dabbled in the COIN genre, although there's some people say Root is a war game. 

Adam Richards  32:00  
I mean, Root is war game. I mean, yeah. Got pretty artwork. And it's got a, you know, woodland creatures. But yeah, it's very much. Yeah. And it's very much along the same lines as a COIN game. Absolutely. Yeah. It would be like a COIN light. I'd be hesitant to call it that. But yeah, if you've played Root and enjoyed it, then I think you'd enjoy COIN games. And I would suggest you start with something like Cuba Libre. Yeah, before moving on to the heavier ones, like Pendragon, or Gandhi in fact,

JP  32:41  
Good stuff, good stuff. Has there been any kind of games that you've reviewed that you thought, Maybe Maybe this isn't gonna be for me? Maybe you just had that mindset, but that expectation, and then once you kind of played it, it actually absolutely blew you away, like surprised you. Have you ever had that situation?

Adam Richards  33:01  
Well, when I mentioned earlier Zuuli Yes, spelt Z U U L I if anybody's looking for it. I agreed to have a look at it. It was again, Indy British publisher, and I wanted to support. And it was a card game about making the zoo of animals with very bright, cheery sort of cartoony artwork on it. And I thought I'll have a look at it. But I didn't expect to be blown away by it. But as soon as I started playing, I was like, this is really, really good. A lot of people were sort of... I've seen posting recently, calling it Ark Nova without all the fuss.

JP  33:42  
Oh, really?

Adam Richards  33:43  
Because it's yeah, it's about building a zoo and finding the right animals to go into your enclosures and comboing them up and that sort of thing. So yeah, I was really pleasantly surprised. And it was one that sort of sort of made me check myself a little bit it's like, hang on a minute, be completely open minded when you get a game turn up and go into it with an open mind, because you'll be surprised. And I think if you're looking at bigger games that surprised me... The one that probably did the most was Pendulum.

JP  34:14  
Oh, the real-time Stonemaier games. Yeah. Yeah, not played it.

Adam Richards  34:20  
Well, my worry was I've seen a couple of sort of playthroughs and reviews and heard people talking about it and how real-time thing was worrying me because I thought, right, this is just going to be someone starts the game, everyone else's heads down. You're constantly moving stuff. You all look up at the end of the game and see who's won and there's been zero interaction or anything throughout the game. But in reality, having played it a lot of times to review it. A lot of the worries I had about their real-time aspects were unfounded, really. It wasn't as fast and frantic because I thought it would be an There were some clever things you could do with it, you know, there is a turn based rule set that you can play with, but playing it with the, with the real-time is fine. Again, it's just for those things where, you know, I've probably read or seen a few comments somewhere, someone talking about it, and I've let those stick in my mind thinking, Oh, but whereas in fact, I should be more open minded. But it turns out to be ok. Yeah, not the best game in the world, but certainly not a bad game by any stretch of imagination.

JP  35:32  
I love that when that happens, so and it's not just in board games, it can be films, or you just have I don't know, maybe you're watching Netflix or something. And you just say, I'll put a film on you're like Meh, doesn't sound great. And then it blows you away. I love that. I love that you kind of Yeah, you're right. You should try and have that open mind shouldn't you and just give anything a go, try things because you know, things can surprise you. And it's just fantastic. When that moment happens think oh my God, this is amazing. Why haven't I been doing this or playing this? earlier? Etc.

Adam Richards  36:04  
I'm finding myself slipping down the WarGames rabbit hole more and more. Other ones now and yeah, even when you're looking at them thinking God, there's just little cardboard squares on a map of hexes or even to a boardgamer that looks sort of terminably dull. Like okay, I get it.

JP  36:25  
Yeah, I was just thinking Becky's also one of our players on the podcast who no doubt will be listening to this episode at some point, once it's out there, she has probably already gone on and trout tried to find Zuuli, I can guarantee that she is all over that already. Because that's probably going to be right up her street. So Becky, if you're listening, I'm sure you're welcome, theres another game for your collection

Adam Richards  36:53  
The other really nice thing about that game, sort of going back to it, Chris, the guy who runs Unfringed, I think is the name of the company who created it. Absolutely...you know, lovely guy, really nice guy met up with him at UK games Expo this year. It's just nice when you when you like a piece of entertainment whatever that is, a game or film, whatever. And you meet the person behind it. And there was nice as you'd hoped they'd be

JP  37:23  
Nice and, nice rounded. Yeah. The... tell us when you review then, do you kind of have your own gaming group that you would kind of put these review copies and test them out with, do you kind of host your own gaming group of any kind? Or do you? Are you part of a group?

Adam Richards  37:40  
Yeah. Over lock down. I wanted to start a little gaming group. And then somebody else was posting on Facebook, in fact, saying, Has anyone in Cornwall got gaming group going. And I messaged the guy saying, you know, I was thinking about doing this. And it ended up turning into this relatively small group. And we met semi regularly. I've got a group of guys who will play online with as well. So it's horses for courses I've got when it comes to sort of the lighter and party games, I've got my brother, his wife and one of the friends we will play some of those lighter things together. And sometimes I'll even get my wife or son to play games with me as well. So yeah, there's there's a decent mixture of people who I, who I get to play with, that's my sort of lifelong friend group. They're not really into the hobby games as much as me. I will keep trying to convince them, wear themdown eventually

You'll get there. That's right.

Yeah, I'm never short of someone to to play a game with which is good, which is lucky. And one of the things I've always tried to do since I started the site was to make wherever possible feature games, I have a solo mode as well. And if it's a good one, I will talk about it in particular. Because it's, as I say, it was an important thing to me and I've realised now it's important thing to a lot of other people as well. So if you are looking at the reviews on my site, for example, it's a tag cloud you can have on the left and the solo is one of the biggest tags on there.

JP  39:25  
Okay, good, good, good. Excellent. I think that's really good. I think hopefully everyone who's listening has kind of got a good flavour of kind of who you are Adam and what Punchboard is and definitely encourage people to check out your website and start reading reviews and and yeah, so looking forward to the the new stuff that's coming up but I think before we kind of Yeah, no pressure. Yeah, keep keep up the quality mate. But it's all good. But now I think before we kind of wrap up, Adam, have a episode where we cover what's called niche number ones. And niche number ones are essentially like your top, top 10 lists, but for really niche circumstances, so they're usually pretty, pretty tricky to kind of think of the specific games etc. So in that episode, we featured actually six niche number one, so I'm not going to run you through all six, so don't worry, but we've picked three out for you to, to kind of think of so I'm just gonna quickly run rapid fire through these. That's okay. So the first one I've got is your favourite game that's under 20 quid

Adam Richards  40:39  
I would have to actually give you three or four.

JP  40:42  
That's fine. If I'd lie if I said I only gave one when I did the episode and there's there's evidence of that. So yeah, I think that's fine. Go for it mate

Adam Richards  40:51  
the ones I think we're always worth getting is 6 nimmt. Yeah, okay. People have played on Board Game Arena. Fantastic. Simple game to learn. card game, you can play anywhere. Heckmech, or Heckmeck Deluxe. The Reiner Knizia game about collecting worms off a grill. Sounds weird. It's a fantastic game. And usually at conventions, you'll always see people playing. They do a teeny tiny version, which could fit in your pocket as well. Which is great. Nice. Nice. The Resistance. Yeah. Social deduction game where we ended up calling, I used to play it with a group of my friends. And we ended up calling it...jokingly called it Divorce Fuel. Because the moment you got Husband and Wife, one of them was a spy, and one of them was a member of the resistance. And they swore blind to each other that they weren't. But it's actually brilliant. And it's again, it's another one of those games you can take anywhere. It's some cards, and it's all about the people around the table. Yeah, that's fantastic. And the other one, which is more recent, that people always seem to love is a game called Anomia.

JP  42:02  
No, I haven't haven't heard that one.

Adam Richards  42:04  
Another card game once again, another one, you can fit in any bag. Trying to explain really quickly, basically all always flipping cards over everyone around the table. And as soon as every card has got a symbol on it in the middle, and also a word on it like a noun for example. And it might say, I don't know, make of car or a TV show or whatever it is. And if you're.. if the symbol on the card in front of you matches the symbol on the card in front of somebody else, you have to name an example of the thing that's written on their card and they have to do the same to you. So if our both has a lightning bolt on it and your card said breed of dog on it, and mine said car, car make I would have to think of a breed of dog. It does this brilliant thing though, where the second you make them match with the symbols your brain breaks. It's asking me for a breed of dog I would just sit there and go dog dog. And yes, it's genius it's absolutely genius. And everyone I've sort of introduced to it has just loved it and yeah, it's, it's it's good fun. But any of those depending on your situation, and the people you've got with you get Cockroach Poker, another one. Yeah. Cockroach poker is brilliant. So any of those tiny games you can take with you anywhere often will play up to a good number of people. And they're cheap.

JP  43:32  
You can't go wrong with them can you? We've got Avalon the resistance. Oh, yes, And yeah, we don't play as much these days. But yeah, we've had some heated heated games of Avalon, or resistance Avalon back in the day. But I agree it is a fantastic game for what you get in that box. Which is basically an enablement set of tools for a fight or heated debates, or just people swearing at each other typically. But there we go. Similarly Coup, and Love Letter. Yeah, same thing.

Yeah. When you got someone in Love Letter and you get them out on round one, turn one. Yeah. That's always a sweet, sweet victory.

Adam Richards  44:22  
Anyone who's just played who's played Love Letter has just laughed at the thing you said because we want to have sweet days.

JP  44:29  
Yeah, it's a lovely moment. It doesn't happen very often. But when you pull it off, because it's it's purely just guesswork right at the beginning. When you go 'you're the prince' you go How the hell did you know?

Adam Richards  44:43  
When you get about halfway through the rounds, that's a bit of logic, but yeah, it's still reading people as much as anything else.

JP  44:51  
That's true. That's true. Cool. Okay, second number one then so your favourite game to play at 2 players that plays at 5

Adam Richards  45:00  
Oh blimey. I think there's plenty of games where you could play there essentially fully multiplayer solitaire things like Hadrian's Wall, for example, plays as, it's as good with solo as is with five. But you're really doing your own thing, and you just happen to be comparing score at the end. I think the best designer for these sorts of games is probably Uwe Rosenberg. And things like Caverna, Nusfjord, Hallertau. Agricola. They have some interaction, obviously like blocking and things like that. But I would be just as happy to sit down and play Caverna, for example, with two, as I would with five, it would take a lot longer five, but I wouldn't lose any particular enjoyment from the game for having fewer players there, which isn't true of a lot of other games.

JP  46:09  
Brilliant. Yeah, I played Agricola long time ago, actually. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not played Caverna, I'd like to put that on my wish list to give it a go. Because a lot of people think they prefer it

Adam Richards  46:22  
It's yeah, you could definitely see the similarities between that and Agricol. And also Hallertau. More recently does the same. He sort of has these groupings against... Nusfjord is brilliant as well. There's a similar sort of spatial puzzle, an engine building at the same time.

JP  46:40  
Nice, nice. Okay. Last niche number one then, is your favourite game that you're getting rid of.

Adam Richards  46:47  
Okay, so for this one, I'm going to have to go with a game that I've already gotten rid of. But that's fine. I really like and really respect and understand where people play. And that is Spirit Island.

JP  47:02  
Interesting. Why is that?

Adam Richards  47:04  
Well, it's a great game. If anyone's played Spirit Island, they know the setup. Basically, you're playing as an island spirit that's working with the indigenous people trying to repel colonisers and it's very, very clever, how it does it. But what I found with that, and it's one of the things I don't like in games, is games that make me try and find the perfect move from a big set of choices on its own. And what I found with Spirit Island was that every, every single turn I was taking, I would agonise over, and I will go through every possible combination of which region I'd move into, which action from which card I'd play. And then I'd be trying to read okay, if I do that, and then they move to another desert space after that, what happens then? And I found it was stressing me out. Just because, I mean, I could have been more relaxed about it and just try and roll with the punches. But if you've played Spirit Island, you know that for the first two thirds of the game, nothing goes your way. And it's only in that last third of the game where the engine gets going. And suddenly you start winning. Yeah, and if you just try to like... it's not as sand-boxy, because a lot of Euro games for example where you can... there's so many different routes to victory, you know, first playing Agricol, I might try to do loads of animals this time or I'm gonna grow the farm out bigger, I'm gonna do you know there's loads of different ways to do it but with Spirit Island I found that it was just... I was agonising over it and games would take forever and there was I can remember a particular point I picked up off the shelf and they sat down to set it up and I started setting up I just thought you know, I don't want to do this and I sold it later that night on Facebook, and but thing is I know it's a great game and I do enjoy enjoy it more with more people playing it coop but yeah, it just it stressed me out too much. And I realised I should be doing this to have fun.

JP  49:17  
I've not played actually we recently in our gaming group just got a copy of it in there with Kerley and Becky's just purchased it up at around the expo time. I can't remember if we actually got it at expo or afterwards but yeah, that they're kind of enjoying it. Actually they're enjoying it a lot. I think Becky's not really a heavy gamer. But she's realising that Spirit Island is pushing her, probably probably for the same reasons as if you just explained actually but yeah, I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

Adam Richards  49:49  
It's very clever as well. I mean, there's some really understated things I did a review of it because I bought it and I reviewed it because I loved it so much at the time and I appreciate it, but but even little things it does like all of the little, I cannot remember the name for the life of me now. But the little people that you control the little mushroom guys that you have are all rounded, smooth wooden things. And all the colonisers the little people that come in and their buildings are all made of plastic. They're very angular. Angular and spiky. And they're just not as nice to hold or touch as the little wooden pieces. So it's very subtle, but very clever little touch.

JP  50:29  
Yeah. That's quite cool, isn't it? Yeah. They've thought about that. And they're kind of ergonomic design of the pieces. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I look forward to giving it a go. And hopefully, I won't get stressed out. But we'll see. We'll see.

Adam Richards  50:43  
I think, yeah, I think that's quite unique to me. I don't know if anybody else who's done. who's gotten rid of the same reason.

JP  50:51  
Yeah, I will say we've all we've all had them games, where you just get on the table and you go  'Ahh, nah!'

Adam Richards  51:00  
What was yours if I can ask?

JP  51:02  
Oh, God, Food Chain Magnate. It just yeah, just didn't. I wanted to I wanted to love it. I wanted to really love that game. And I actually played it once. And I was thinking about it a lot. And basically whirling around in my mind going, do I like this, do I not like this. And it's hard right after one play. But I tend to get a sense of whether I enjoy a game or not, or whether I really want to play again. And, you know, Food Chain Magnate... It's one of those games that is going to warrent lots and lots of plays to be anywhere, you know, competent at playing it, which I understand. And I think for me, it just came down to thinking am I going to get this to the table enough? Because it's, it's not going to be for everybody in the group. And with everything else, all the games that are going on that I particularly enjoy, like, you know, Trickerion, or anything Mindclash games, to be honest, I'm a big fan would always hit the table over things like, and I know that they're wildly different games, and I shouldn't compare them. But it's yeah, I just I thought for the kind of weight of the game, for the style of the game. It just wasn't doing it for me. And I just, yeah. Nope, see ya!,

Adam Richards  52:20  
I can see that I mean, there's there's some... feels like if you want to be a proper, in air quotes, "boardgamer", you're supposed to really admire and like Splotter games, Vital Lacerda games, for example. And that feels like a lot of pressure to like them. It's a bit like turning round and going to music buffs and going "Yeah, you know what? I really don't like the Beatles, The Rolling Stones. Yeah, all of these. It's like one of things, the unwritten rule no, you've got to like them if you're a music fan, if you're a board game fan, but

JP  52:59  
And that's, and that's okay. Right. And that's absolutely not everybody's gonna like everything, are they? And yeah, to the annoyance of Davey, another player on the pod. He was like, ', don't get rid of it'. And I was like, 'well, you can buy it off me'. And he went, 'No, you're right, because it's expensive'.

Adam Richards  53:16  
That tells a story in itself, doesn't it?

JP  53:18  
Yeah, it does. Yeah, you like it if I own it, but you don't like it enough to own your own copy. So it's going mate, see you later. Yeah. Great. All right. My final question to you then Adam, is kind of what games or events or anything that's upcoming on Punchboard that you're excited for thats in the future. That's coming soon?

Adam Richards  53:43  
So from.. for the site, I mean, there'll be more reviews, I've got a backlog of about 20 or so games at the moment to cover. I started doing, I started with, I started doing these industry spotlight pieces that I'm trying to do. Because there's a lot of focus on the games, obviously. And then there'll be focus on you know, the publishers and that sort of stuff, but there's a lot of other people as well. So the first one we did, for example was Hachette board games UK headed up by a guy called Flavian and and they, they're a distributor, trying to say properly, and I don't really hear many people talk about distributors of board games. But what they're doing over here is fantastic and importing all of these French published games, which we would never see otherwise. Nice. So I'm doing a few pieces like that. I've got another piece on a couple of designers who started publishing their own games and then got picked up by Asmodee, which is good. So I'm going to try and do more of these sort of pieces, these adjacent, board game adjacent pieces just to try and make people aware of these other people who are out there involved in our hobby. Cool. And I think from an event point of view, the next thing I'm looking forward to a lot is the next GridCon convention from Paul, and his Gaming Rules channel, up in I think that went up, in fact it's right next to you isn't it? Taunton

JP  55:22  
It is literally, yeah at Taunton just off for those M5 nerds out there junction 25 But yeah so yeah literally around the corner I can go there in 10 minutes which is brilliant and when he when he told me, said well yeah 'Where you doing GridCon Paul?' when he said yeah, I'm gonna do it in Somerset which is its own joke anyway, because it's obviously gaming rules in Devon convention but yeah, he said I'm doing Somerset just off the motorway, I thought Fantastic! Selfishly

Adam Richards  55:55  
I wouldn't have booked my Airbnb, I could have come into stayed on your sofa

JP  55:58  
You absolutely could have crashed at crashed at ours. I don't know probably saved your fortune. But But no, yeah, I'm really looking forward to GridCon as well I attended last year, I couldn't do the whole weekend. But I did basically kind of two half days in the end because just had other commitments. But it's just, I just love the fact that it's the simplicity of the con, I think and the fact that it is just open gaming and everybody there's friendly as hell, and you know, the systems that they have, just to kind of get gamers to come and join your table. So wherever you're, you know, extroverted/introverted, you know, Paul's gonna look after you, like he will make sure that you're gaming within seconds, upon your arrival somehow with some people. And it's and you started and yeah, I just loved it met so many great people there, and hopefully, hopefully gonna, you know, meet them again and also meet new people, as well. So I'll see you there, Adam.

Adam Richards  57:01  
You will I must I probably saw you there last year. I mean, I went last year and the people I met there, I then met up with a load of them again, Airecon and then yeah, UK games Expo. And yeah, it's like catching up with old friends now. So yeah, very excited about that. If there's anybody listening who's from down this neck of the woods, or even if not, do check it out. Because yeah. It's like that nice, open gaming bit of UK games Expo. But without the madness.

JP  57:34  
Yeah. Yeah, without the chaos of 'my brain. What's going on?' But yeah, he's just, it's just games, games, games. What's not to love about that, right. But I think we've come to the end. But now I just want to say a massive thank you, Adam, for for your time tonight. And just joining us on the podcast and you know, talking all about Punchboard And you as a gamer, so thank you very much, really appreciate it.

Adam Richards  58:04  
Thanks for having me. It's been nice to just, if you don't meet up regularly with lots of people who are as enthusiastic about games as you are, when you finally do meet with them. You just talk non stop, as you noticed. So

JP  58:21  
we could carry on I'm sure for about an hour

Adam Richards  58:24  
Yeah. This won't be the last you hear of me.

JP  58:30  
But no,  Thanks, Adam I appreciate your time.

Adam Richards  58:33  
Lovely thanks a lot

JP  58:42  
we're back and our final turn is wrapping up.If you've enjoyed the show please like subscribe and review on your podcast player of choice. And if you want to get in contact with us you've got various different options as always, you can email us at players@whoseturn.co.uk , Facebook at Whose Turn Is It Anyway Podcast, on our Instagram @whoseturnpodcast , or check us out on Tiktok @whoseturnisitanyway

And we'll be back again very soon with another episode. So until then, whose turn is it?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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