JP: 0:33

Welcome to Whose turn is it anyway, a game podcast where we talk about games, or game topics. And sometimes we even get the occasional guest. I'm JP and I'm joined by Mr. James Davey and today we're going to interview Joe Fritz Paul from Oak Lounge Games to talk about their latest game Prestige, a semi cooperative civilization style card game. So let's not waste any more time and head over and meet Fritz. So we're here we're joined by Fritz Paul from Oak Lounge games, who's the designer for their latest game Prestige. So welcome Fritz. It's great to have you on the show. Yeah,

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 1:17

Thanks for having me. It's exciting. Yeah.

JP: 1:20

Anytime

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 1:21

Been a longtime listener

JP: 1:21

Hey, great, great stuff. We're happy to get you as a longtime listener. And we're happy that we're gonna get into some really good conversations. But for those of our listeners who haven't heard of Oak Lounge games, or yourself as the designer for it, so a little bit of a intro for them, that'd be great.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 1:37

Yeah, sure. So if you have heard of me as a Yeah, like many designers we've spoken to, they've always got a designer, I'd be rather surprised. First published title. But I appreciate your your eagerness for me as a designer anyways, but yeah, my name is Joe "Fritz" Paull at Oak Lounge Games. And Oak Lounge is a small and upcoming publishing company here in the States that specialises in locally designed and manufactured games, just as a way of kind of trying to support some local economies. And we've had two internally published games at this point, we have Hero's Journey, and Bootleg. But Prestige, which is the game that I've designed will be our first Kickstarter game. So we're excited to be jumping into our campaign pretty soon. And yeah, as a designer, I've dabbled with many, many ideas and have more games in the junk pile than I do ready to roll. But I'm excited to have an actual physical game published for once, and it's gonna be pretty exciting. load of things in the works. Usually, lots of ideas forming in even if it's not written down yet like there's so many things so many cogs turning, and it's yeah, it's really exciting to see. Usuall I'll tell people that I have X game on the back burner and whatnot. But at certain point, somebody told me, like, how big is your stove? Because you've got way too many back burners?

Davey: 3:15

Yeah, I was just gonna say, usual kind of thing with some designers, you can see the evolution of their ideas are through their games as well. And they usually have like a little little spin off of that designer flair. So look forward to your future ones as well.

JP: 3:30

Yeah, yeah. So So what was your kind of entry into the hobby then Fritz? Like, how did you get into tabletop gaming and board games? Which I'm assuming you have, hence, you're designing games in that space? So yeah, like, how did it all start for you?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 3:48

Yeah, it started probably about six years ago or so. I, like most people have played off the classic games, monopoly, life, all those things growing up as a kid. To this day, I'm not sure if I've ever actually played Monopoly according to the actual rules, because then I always used to just make up our own rules. It was probably the start of my game design journey, even though I didn't know back then. And then in college, I got into Catan dominion. I was invited by a friend to game nights to play Sentinels of I think it's Sentinels of the Multiverse, a bit of an older but classic game. Now a lot of fun, but I had no idea the extent of what board games were until I moved out here to this San Francisco Bay Area. And I had a roommate who had about two to 300 games just sitting on his shelf. So when I moved in, I was like, what is this and I lived with him and his family for about a year and two to three times a week, we break out a brand new game, or at least new to me, and just give it a whirl. And it just blew my mind with all the different types of games that were out there, the breadth of themes and mechanics that you could introduce. And from that point on, I started collecting my own games and really getting into the hobby. And then I started dabbling with design.

JP: 5:16

Nice. Yeah, I mean, that that moment when you discover The hobby, and I think I had that kind of similar moment, probably similar time about five or six years ago. I'd say rediscover the hobby, because I've always played games as a kid, just like yourself. We dabbled in like the HeroQuests and the Blood Bowls. But then it never kind of went anywhere. And you know, you grow up and become a teenager and into your 20s. And you're doing doing all sorts of different things. So, so yeah, but when you rediscover the hobby, and you kind of enter in, like you said, that shelf of 300 games, and you're just like, in awe, you're like, Oh, my God. It's like, this is a world I didn't even know existed. And it's a form of entertainment that I didn't know I could get so much enjoyment from. It's amazing.

Davey: 6:01

Then you try and buy every single new one that comes out. You realise, yeah, this is not sustainable. I can't do this.

JP: 6:09

It's like, it's like a journey, isn't it? Where you enter the hobby. You go, Oh, my God, this is amazing. I want to have everything. So you can buy buy, buy, buy, collect, collect and collect, and then you realise you can't sustain it. And you have to cull and you end up down the other side and right, refine my collection into something that I will play. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah.

Davey: 6:31

Was it kind of like a natural progression from over playing games to designing? Did you kind of fall into it? Or was it always something that you kind of were interested in?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 6:44

really got me into thinking about how things work together. And then I eventually, I'm now a traffic engineer, or at least I do traffic engineering for my job. So I did not go down that route. But it still kept the the mindset of like, Oh, how did this How does this work and no idea of how its slots together

Davey: 7:12

Yeah.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 7:14

But I didn't really start designing a game until about three quarters a year into that time with that roommate, I was actually getting ready to propose to my wife. And I was building this really elaborate contraption that like, opened up and it was like a music box inside and had all it was, it was a lot. But I hadn't worked with wood in years. So I decided I was going to, like try a practice project. And so I built a game out of wood for my roommate just as like a Christmas present. And then we got into like, actually designing the game itself because the game that you can't play is really boring and not a great president. And that was a pretty pile. Yeah, I just started dabbling with it. And that's actually a project that is my biggest quote unquote, backburner project is that one, because I revisit that over and over again, the first iteration was probably crap, did not play well and played for like five times the length that I wanted it to. But that was my introduction. And it's still something that I'm hoping to continue to work on.

Davey: 8:28

Yeah. Good little gateway game by the sounds of it. So yeah, good.

JP: 8:33

So how did the the the wooden box for for your fiance How did that go down? Because obviously, I'm, I'm getting the I'm getting the visions of I don't know if you've seen the film, but Glass Onion, the knives out film, where the film where everyone gets this box. And it's like this really elaborate box. Like, I'm just getting that vibe. I don't know if it's as intricate as that. But that's that's the division I'm seeing. Definitely.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 8:58

It's definitely the vibe I was going for the end product wasn't nearly as cleanly designed. And it did not incorporate puzzles. That would have been probably a little bit different for me to go like I proposed to you. But first you have to solve this puzzle.

Davey: 9:14

As if she didn't solve it. You'd both be kind of stood there awkwardly just like? Yes.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 9:21

She said yes. And as well as the

Davey: 9:25

Congrats. Well, yeah. Sounds like some work went in those those good?

JP: 9:29

Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. So talking about those hundreds of hundreds of games that you've been cracking through that over over your time as a gamer? Which one would you say is your favourite? Which is always a difficult question to answer. But if you had to pick one, which one would it be?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 9:47

This is a very easy question. My favourite has been and always will be Above and Below by Ryan Laukat. Which is the first installation of that like series of games that he has in the same universe that all have that same type of title Above and Below, Near and Far, Now and Never. But yeah, Above and Below in particular is just something that has always captivated me. It comes with a nice little storybook that like you can explore these caverns. And to this day, I still am finding it. It's like randomly generated so I'm still opening up to like new pages and getting new stories, even though I've played it probably 100 times. And the artwork has always just been breathtaking, and probably is a real influence on how I've designed games going out as well, just as like tableau builder with multiple facets, and it's really interesting. So yeah, there's plenty of amazing games out there, but I think I'm an oddity in that I definitely have a favourite.

JP: 10:46

No, no, it's quite good. I mean, the fact is that it's an easy question to answer. And we we ask this question of every guests that we have, and I think it's kind of half and a half actually, some people are like bang straightaway, I know exactly what it is. Because because it is my favourite game, but suddenly, yeah, some, some can struggle. Some can kind of get well, it just depends on mood. Because I like if you ask me on Friday, it's this. And if you ask me on Monday, when I've had a bad day at work, is that, you know, so yeah.

Davey: 11:12

Or it could be rotating. We don't like playing something for too long anyway. And it kind of Yeah, evolves with you. Yeah.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 11:20

If you'd asked me my second favourite game, I would have a much harder time.

Davey: 11:25

Maybe that's what we should start asking.

JP: 11:27

Yeah, what is your

Davey: 11:28

quite a good one as your

JP: 11:30

game? Like, let's put your 17

Davey: 11:34

Yeah.

JP: 11:38

So the games, obviously, you've got your favourite, but like, are there any kind of games that you've been playing that you are enjoying? Kind of right now? Like recently? That has been hitting you? Yeah.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 11:48

I've been exploring the Outer Rim of the Star Wars universe now. Star Wars Outer Rim, which is reaping great playing on my nostalgia of like being able to fly around with Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon. Which has been a lot of fun.

Davey: 12:04

Again, the expansion as well,

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 12:06

I did not, that's on my list. But I've heard that definitely enhances the game,

Davey: 12:11

It does. Yeah, it really does.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 12:12

Yeah, and then Tapestry is another big one that I've been bringing to the table a few times. I really enjoy anything by Stonemaier games, but I love city builders in particular. And just the variety of different civilizations that they created in that game has been really compelling. And I just want to try them all in different combinations. And then Endangered Orphans of Condyle Cove is probably my wife and my favourite game.

JP: 12:43

Oh, no.

Davey: 12:44

Yeah, I've never heard of.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 12:46

It's a bit of a niche. It's an interesting take on a theme. You're playing as orphans in this dreary little town, trying to avoid the Boogeyman. And you essentially win by pushing your other orphans into the Boogeyman. So he doesn't get you

JP: 13:04

Love. I love board games. I love that. Like, there's no theme, there's nothing. There's nothing off the table though is that like that's the thing is like, I've got this idea.

Davey: 13:15

And this is what something's probably should be. But there is nothing off the table.

JP: 13:19

But no, I just love it. I love the really wacky out there themes in games sometimes. Just fun. And yeah, definitely

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 13:26

This one particular theme is kind of weird and wonky and kind of dark. But as you look closer, so you lose the game by drawing a boogeyman card. But each boogeyman card has different piece of artwork to it. And what we've just kind of figured out is we think the boogeyman card is supposed to actually be, the boogeyman is a like social worker trying to rescue the orphans, which just kind of like cool little twist that you get afterwards, cos all the time like you draw the boogeyman I lost but then the boogeyman is like holding an umbrella over your character so doesn't get rained on and then like taking him in a car. And it's just like these orphans have built up this like oh the boogeyman and his trench coat and hat. And he's out to get me and eat me but it turns out that it's actually just somebody trying to rescue them and help them I think that's

Davey: 14:16

It's all down to perception

JP: 14:18

That's clever, I like that. That's clever. So that's the the imagination of children and the fear. Yeah, they're manifesting this this persona as the as this evil creature and it's just some guy trying to do his job. You know?

Davey: 14:32

It's it's quite like the game I was trying to design which is about the basically an orphan but in the Victorian era, and it's all about his perception of what's kind of evil and what's good is completely different. And his emotions are run through. But yeah, that's sounds good. I like it.

JP: 14:49

Yeah, there's a little hint there. So Dave Davies got a bit of a design brain as well. I'm new David, you do a lot of percolating of ideas. But we've had this conversation before. It's like, we need to get some of these out, man. And we need to we need to start prototyping and stuff.

Davey: 15:05

Yeah. It's just I'm an ideas, man, but I'm not really a doer. JP's the doer, So it's fine.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 15:14

Yeah, well, that one sounds like a winner. It sounds like at least something that'll hit the table for me and my wife if you ever, ever publish Yeah.

Davey: 15:20

Yeah, yes. Something that's been in. Because originally I was into computer game design and I did a course. ages ago. But yeah, so then I, I kind of realised that I'm not very good at coding, it's probably never gonna stick. And that was my it was an idea that I changed over from the computer game as well, we'll see anyway, who knows?

JP: 15:42

Yeah, we still got time, mate, you still got time? So? Exactly, yeah. Great stuff. Okay, let's let's kind of move on to the the main kind of topic of our chat then Fritz, which is all about your first design. It's all about Prestige. And like every question that you probably gonna get asked, what is Prestige? What is it all about?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 16:06

Yeah, Prestige. It's a semi cooperative city building game, with Tableau and resource management mechanics, which is kind of the obvious, but boring way to describe it, really shines when you look at the thematics of it. And the idea of Prestige is, you're at the dawn of civilization. And there are multiple tribes that were once nomadic and once at odds with one another living in this valley. And they've decided to put aside their differences and build a great city where all of their people can thrive. But old rivalries diehard and so you need to work together to ensure the city survives, it isn't destroyed, abandoned or forgotten. But at the same time, if you succeed at building a great city, you want to make sure that you're the one remembered as its founder, and not these other people that have come alongside you. So that's where the semi cooperative aspect comes about. And you're constantly managing your resources to make sure that the city doesn't fail. Things like your happiness of the citizens within your city, as well as like the city's defence and the money available to build out the city. But at the same time, you're looking at how much influence you have over the city, based on the number of cards from your tribe that your tribe has been able to bring to the table are present. And that determines who ultimately is remembered in the history books.

Davey: 17:31

What made you choose your theme, and what kind of led you down to the tableau like city builder style?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 17:40

Yeah, um, the, the theme actually stemmed out of a game that is not set in the ancient world, which is semi spoiler, but not really. But it's from Horizon Zero Dawn, which the robot dinosaurs could probably tell anybody that it's not actually set in an ancient world. But the idea is like civilization has lost all technology. So the humanity has been brought back to the ancient world. And I just fell in love with this game. During the pandemic, somebody had given me their PlayStation, and I just spent way more hours than was probably healthy diving into this world that they have created. And the one thing that I loved about it was the city of Meridian. And I have a bit of I mentioned, I'm in traffic engineering, and I do a lot of work in the city planning realm. And I was just kind of blown away by this beautiful city with great architecture that they had really thoughtfully Incorporated. And I was listening to the people who actually designed the game, talk about how they designed the city of Meridian that sits right in the centre. And they talked about how without technology, you have to think about where everybody wants to be a relationship to each other. So the markets want to be next to warehouses want to be next to gates so that you can bring in all of the goods. And then the guards wants to be near the markets as well to protect the people. And that just kind of got me thinking about like, oh, that could be a great Tableau builder. Just the idea of placing things next to each other in a way that they are happy with. That's just kind of how it started. I just started thinking about it. The first iteration of this game was actually a spreadsheet, which sounds really boring, but was really fun to me

Davey: 19:28

Gotta start somewhere, yeah.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 19:32

So I just created all this list of all these ancient buildings, and was like, What did they want me next to and just assign different effects based on that fanatically, and then eventually whittled it down to make sure it wasn't overwhelming and

Davey: 19:44

Got a flow to it as well? Yeah, yeah.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 19:47

Just kind of evolved from there. Yeah. So I will like to say that if you're expecting a Horizon Zero Dark game, this has nothing to do with that. It was inspired by an interview of the designers of Horizon Zero Dawn.

Davey: 20:01

Yeah, it's it's a cool little theme, the whole web kind of the world's been wiped out. And it's so long that they kind of you can't even remember that, you know, yeah, remind you of like, it's kind of like the Aztecs in some ways. They're like, how did they build that or the pyramids, and maybe that is encompassed within our own world as well. So it's a cool theme. I

JP: 20:19

Yeah, it's great that you kind of took inspiration from like it. that. And having played the game because I was lucky enough and fortunate enough to be teached by yourself Fritz the other night, and I can totally see how elements of maybe your job as well, I've kind of interceded into this. And the whole hard play in Tableau building the fact that actually, it matters where you place the cards, it matters, if you're placing them to the left or the right, to above and below and the positives and negatives that that can have on your civilization. And the just thinkiness us around that the puzzle that that creates is, yeah, really want the money, but actually, it's going to come at the cost of happiness, or we really want to make people happy. But maybe we're going to make our city less defended, and things like that. It's just yeah, definitely a really intriguing part, rather than just putting the card down and doing the thing. It's, I'm putting the car down, but it's specifically here. And I've got to be really clever about where and why I want to do it as well. So yeah, no, it's great.

Davey: 21:26

Semi Co Op as well is quite a quite an abstract market, in some ways, it seems, seems to work really well. What made you lean towards more of a semi Co Op rather than, you know, competitive or fully co op?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 21:40

Yeah, um, this is where I have to admit that when I made the game, I didn't know what semi Co Op was. And I had to have another designer who's playing it was like, Oh, you made a semi Co Op game. And I was like, Oh, that's cool.

JP: 21:55

I love that

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 21:58

Same thing with Tableau. I didn't know what the word Tableau meant until somebody was like, Oh, you made a tableau builder. I was like, Oh, I just called it the cards that I put next to each other.

Davey: 22:10

But just kind of a natural progression, then yeah, it just from everything you've worked out, it just kind of it formed itself

JP: 22:18

Organically. Yeah.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 22:21

I think from this, from it starts I always knew that I wanted somewhat asymmetric factions going into the city to build together. And it was just a really interesting mechanic, in my mind of like, these diverse groups trying to work together, but also looking out for themselves. And along with that, I knew that I always wanted the city to be able to fail, because that just made sense to me phonetically, like, so many cities in the ancient world, just failed for one reason or another. And it's really hard to maintain. And if a city fails, it makes sense to me that that means everybody loses. But I also didn't want to be fully Co Op, I do enjoy fully co op games quite a lot. But for this particular game, I was like, I really want these factions to be working together hand in hand, but also slightly set apart. So there's a little bit of tension there. So only one of them can win was

Davey: 23:15

A bit more replayability in some aspects as well.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 23:18

Yeah, definitely. And with the different factions, too, you can experiment and have all sorts of fun. Speaking of replayability, the game itself also comes with I, I think we landed at 230 unique cards, but you're only ever playing with 58. So every game is entirely unique, because you're just randomly choosing from each faction, and putting it all into a deck. And so every game is totally different. So replayability was a huge thing for us and just creating a new city every single time was Yeah.

Davey: 23:52

Effeciency in value. I like it,

JP: 23:53

Yeah, the thing that I took away from from the game, and I think I said this on probably some of the social media posts was, it's always you can always tell a sign of a good game. It's when as soon as you finish, you just want to play it again. Like you literally can we just do this again. And and that's exactly the kind of feeling I got. And I think the one of the things that surprised me about it actually was the obviously the semi cooperative nature of the game, which I think's really great actually in in it. But it's the fact that you're sharing the resources. And I think I said this when we played Fritz the, the coffers, right? You're sharing the coffers between all players, you have a shared pot of money for the cards that you're playing. So in the game that we played, I was Mr. big spender. And I was spending all of the coffers from the city going yeah, I'm gonna put this particular building down or that particular building down, and it came to like your go and Stewart's go like, Well, gee, thanks, you've spent all of our money and now what we're supposed to do. But I think also the things that we kind of reflected on as players of the game afterwards was, obviously we just had the one place where we're learning the rules, and we're just learning kind of how to kind of get through the game from from A to B. Was the fact actually having more conversation between us as players and encouraging that saying, right, we really need more money, guys, for us to do that. You know, to get the city to build up the Prestige in the city, who's got what, who's going to help with what, and also maybe bluffing some of that as well saying, yeah, maybe don't build your building right there. Because if I can build a building's gonna give us more, or X, Y, and Z, and then I can probably stitch other players up later down the line, maybe. But that's also going to come at a cost, because people won't trust you. And they'll probably try and freeze you out of the game. So it's definitely, I think, on our first game was more is quite quiet apart from as mumbling to ourselves, or what should we play. But I think, as you get more used to the game, and use that to design and the mechanics, you can really lean into playing the players, if that makes sense, rather than just playing the cards. So yeah, I really enjoyed that.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 26:08

I'm glad Yeah, that's definitely our intention is to really encourage player interaction. But also not make it purely a player interaction game, you're still got the tableau that you're building. And it's just when you need to, you have the opportunity to work together or stab each other in the back.

JP: 26:25

Like every good semi Co Op game. That's what makes them so fun. To me, you know, wherever you're playing a Nemesis or Battlestar Galactica or, or an Unfathomable or whatever, it's the fact that you, you have that hidden information. And not everyone knows everything around the table, and no one quite knows your intentions and motivations. And that's just the fun thing. So everyone's kind of own little agenda. Yeah. And it's something I've not seen in a game like this. Not not, to my knowledge I've not seen it's very unique.

Davey: 27:01

In a lot of like civilization, or Tableau style games, it's usually either kind of your own objective, you're just working against each other. And that's it. Whereas having the whole communal resources is a really interesting idea, because you're trying to help everyone, but you're also screwing people over from taking their resources, because it's also your resource. So it's, yeah, it's an interesting idea. And I definitely looking forward to playing that

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 27:32

Yeah, the communal coffers were definitely one of the bigger points of contention early in the game, because some people would play and be like, it's really interesting idea, but I just don't see it working. But it's something that I really wanted to hold on to, I really liked the idea that all of your money is shared, because the theme is a huge thing for me. And it just made a lot, a lot of sense for the coins to be shared, that you have to decide together or, essentially punish each other, if you're not working together to decide who's spending the coins. And I just thought was really interesting and stuck with it. And I'm really happy with the way it turned out, I think it's balanced by the fact that you're not just playing your own cards. So every person has a kit, hand of cards that has different buildings, or units from each tribe, it's kind of randomly given out. So you that sort of time, you might not even have any of your cards, or you might be holding on to your cards until you can play them. So by spending the coins, you're not necessarily even spending for your own benefit. You're just spending so that you can get a card out of your hand. So it's got a lot of interesting little little tidbits. As you dive deeper, you start to learn as somebody who's played 250 times here, I haven't learned them all yet. So

JP: 28:48

Ya know. Yeah. And I think the the fact that you can't be truly selfish in the game, because you'll tank the game for everybody, and you'll lose. So if you were to be that one at the table that say, No, I'm just doing it for myself, I'm doing everything for me, you're, you're not going to win. Like you have to work with others. And that's that's the good part of the design in my book is that it's kind of forcing you to play along. Because you have to in order to progress the city in order to reach your kind of prestige levels and endgame goals and happiness and all those other things. But yeah, but it allows for that little deviousness that you might like to tap into every now and then. So that yeah, that's good. I think the other thing I found playing as well is obviously it made it sound like money's the be all and end all. And I think there were other cards in there aren't there Fritz I forget what we call them, but they're not characters what are they called?They're the ones that slide?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 29:46

Units

JP: 29:47

Yeah. So you got the unit cards, maybe, what are the unit cards all about?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 29:52

Yeah, so from a mechanical standpoint, the unit cards are kind of your engine builders. So they offer effects on the city that lasts more than just their turn. Most cards when you put it down. It's just dependent on what surrounds it. And you'll immediately get that either resource bump or you get to draw an extra card or something along those lines, but Unit cards they stay active. And as certain things happen in your city, you'll gain extra benefits so long as they're there. But from a theory perspective, these are the people that are working your city, they're your city guard, or your city scribe all of these specialised roles, and they're filling in and kind of breathing life into your city. And it also adds the, a little bit of an interesting back and forth or player interaction, and that there can only be five active at one time. So anytime that you play a six, you have to decide which one gets pumped out, and that person loses that influence. So if you're pumping out somebody else's tribe, that can really increase the tension between the two of you. And also, if you keep playing the ones from your tribe, you're revealing which tribe you are. So there's always a cost to every choice that you make, but also hopefully benefit if you play your cards, right.

JP: 31:07

Yeah. And in that game, Stewart was thinking, I forget the specific name, but the purple tribe, the religious tribe, the priestly tribe, the priestly tribe. Yeah. And he was bluffing all the way through it. And he played a blinder because he was definitely that tribe in the end, and he won the game. Yeah. And trying to guess like, Are you the warrior tribe? Are you this like, you played a lot of the blue cards? So? Yes, it's definitely a Yeah, today, you're

Davey: 31:34

Do they all lean towards having like a certain like victory condition as well then do they, or is it always.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 31:42

It's all the same victory condition. And I like to call it a life's asymmetry to them in that there's no special powers that comes with a specific faction that you're representing that you have to memorise, there's no new rules introduced by just the faction that you represent. But they each come with a deck of cards, and each deck is slightly themed. So thematically, just like the the tapestry of the city that you're building. Each one has specific buildings and units that makes sense to them. So we have like the fishing tribe, the priestly tribe, the warrior, tribe, merchants, craftsmen, peacekeepers, but there's six of them. Each tribe has its own offerings that brings to the table. And some tribes are a little bit better at certain things like the merchants are good at making money, but they might not be so good at, like increasing your populace, or the Warriors are great with defence, but they might not make happiness go up very quickly. So little things like that, with

Davey: 32:43

With different player counts, How does the game scale?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 32:47

Yeah, um, I think, for me, I always love playing games, that two players. So that's probably my favourite, but it feels pretty similar at two, three and four players. Because essentially, you're still trying to do the same thing. There's no added like, tension. And, in particular, at the two player level, there's a variant that allows you to represent two tribes at once. It doesn't change how you play too much, except for the fact that there's more hidden information added that otherwise you'd struggle with at the two player count. Because it's pretty, it becomes pretty obvious who's who at two players, if you only represent one faction, it also gives you the chance to like go back and forth between those two tribes. So ultimately, I think it scales really well. It's something that we were very intentional with in the design to make sure that it played well at all the player counts, and that the solo mode is actually something that was the hardest for me to design. So I went through like a million different iterations. And I'm actually really happy with the way it turned out, but offers the most unique experience. And we really tried to put you into the mindset of multiplayer mode, you've got multiple people running the city, and you're trying to be political about that with other people playing around you put in solo mode, you're the sole leader of the city, and what does that mean for you. So in this particular case, it means guarding your reputation, as well as the reputation and welfare of the city. So you're, you're trying to battle all these negative attributes that the people have assigned to you like the war monger or, you know, you're the miser or you spend money too quickly. And throughout the game, you have to change the public perception so that you're remembered well in the history books, as well as maintaining your cities that itself is remembered. Otherwise, you know, nobody cares about somebody who's great. Yeah, didn't lead a good city.

JP: 34:47

Yeah. Lost in the annuls of time.

Davey: 34:50

Yeah.

JP: 34:52

What's What's your favourite aspect then Fritz of this game? Like what was like if you have to kind of zone in on one particular, whether it's a mechanic or, you know, elements of the theme? What what's, what's your favourite,

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 35:04

um, I really like the like, hidden stories that you get in in the cards. And it's just trying to figure out like, why certain buildings next to each other, have certain effects. For instance, I thought through a lot of these myself, but what I love hearing is that other people's interpretations as they play the game, because they're not written out anywhere, it's just, I thought about it, I transformed it into icons, and then other people get to interpret it. So when I first designed the game, the first effect that I came up with was for the fish market. And the fish market, you gain money. If you're placed next to a water water card, you lose people if you're placed next to a home. And just the background, in my mind of what that meant was like you gain more money if you're next to the water, because your fish take less time to get to you and they're fresher. But nobody wants to live next to a stinky fish market. So they all moved away. And just a million little interpretations like that. You're just hearing what everyone else comes up with as they as they play.

Davey: 36:08

People have their own little names and spins on spin on things. Yeah,

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 36:11

Yeah, for instance, there's another card called the sacrificial altar. And if you place the next to a home, you lose populace and the quote unquote, official ruling of why that is, is because nobody wants to live next to the sacrificial altar. Yeah, I'll leave it to your interpretation as to why that happens.

Davey: 36:29

Soylent Green? Yeah

JP: 36:36

Yeah. Get more food, but people have gone down what's going on? You're right. And, like, how big do the tableau get? So thinking in our game? I can't remember the size of it before it ended. But it was what, six by four? Kind of that way? Is there a limit to the tableau? Like, can you keep to keep building and building out? Or? Yeah, is there a cap?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 37:00

There's definitely not a cap? Oh, I guess technically, the cap is 58? Because you do have a limited number of cards. Okay. Yeah, um, but I've never had some groups play all 58 cards into the city. It almost always ends one way or the other long before them, I'd say 25 ish cards is probably about average. So right around where we were with our game. And that's usually it had been conditioned, provided you survive the early stage of the game, which is probably the hardest to avoid the everybody loses conditions, which makes sense for an ancient city. That's the the earliest stages is when it's not going to go so well, for your citizens. Yeah, but also for us makes it work well, because you know, if you lose in the first three steps to just set it up and go again.

JP: 37:47

That's true. I mean, the games, the games are really quick anyway, I think you can literally just go, you know, we didn't go so well, let's, let's have another crack at it. But I think because you've got the core tracks that you're measuring prestige and happiness in your defence and other kind of important metrics of your city. Maybe talk about the different kinds of events that can happen if you let your city sloped towards the negative side. Or maybe if you you get your city more towards the positive side, because those events in the game right, there are things that can trigger. Yeah, so yeah, how do they work?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 38:25

Yeah, so events are points in time when your citizens are either really happy or really disappointed with your rule. And they either are looking to join in and help you build a great city, if it's a positive effect, or they are blaming you for every problem that they have, regardless of whether or not it's relevant to you. So those are triggered at the start of your turn, if you have a resource in usually the far ends of any of the resource tracks, these events can trigger. So some of the resources are a little bit more of a balancing act. So like defence, you don't want to go too high in defence, and people feel like they're under martial law. But you don't want to go too low in defence, or people feel as if they're not safe in their beds at night. So you want to find a medium where you start to trigger the happiness events. But others are just like a straight line forward. Like obviously, if people are happy with your rule, and the happiness keeps going up, you're gonna get more happiness events. And so what those essentially do is they'll present you with a situation, some of the situations will present you with the decision, or they'll just present you with an outcome of how the people are going to treat you as their ruler. And they can really throw a game for a loop. If you're not too careful if you draw too many of them. Especially, there's another set of cards called the invader cards, which you can draw if you have no defence, or you draw if you take too many discard actions. And those invader cards can result in the destruction of your city essentially. But I'm really excited about the event cards because we've also looped in some, like content creators from throughout the board gaming universe, who have written us some events as our guest writers, which is exciting because that's cool. They're a lot more engaging of events than what I wrote.

Davey: 40:22

What kind of difficulty is is the game? Would you say that?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 40:25

It depends on how you measure difficulty probably, to grasp the concepts, I'd say it's a gateway style game, it's a little bit heavier than most classic games, but it's designed specifically so that anybody can really jump in and after a few rounds is really started to click in terms of survivability, and how hard it is to reach a success. We have it at about 50/50. Win versus loss, provided if you haven't played 250 times like me. And then, like most Co Op games, that's probably a bad number to have, because you actually want to be losing a lot more often than you're winning. But since it's semi Co Op, we don't want everybody to be losing all the time. And then like that Slim 10% of the time that you don't hit a loss condition, you actually aren't the winner, you're just the person who didn't lose as hard, I guess. Yeah, yeah, we have more of a 50/50 win loss. And then, depending on who you're playing against, it'll depend on how hard it is for you to beat them.

JP: 41:32

Yes, the other thing I kind of want to talk about or try to describe for for our listeners, which is always difficult on the podcast, which is the kind of theming and artwork, because the the art on these cards, they've got a kind of papyrus kind of style and look and feel to them and, and actually on the cards themselves, you've got the buildings that you're placing down, but they're all done like very kind of heartfelt brushstroke as kind of specific style. It's very beautiful. It's a very, you know, great choice. So was it? Was it a conscious decision? Or did you have a very clear cut direction for the art on in this game? Or did it just kind of happen with Oh, that looks good.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 42:15

Um, I definitely leave that mostly in the credit of our amazing artists. We commissioned all of these pieces of art from an artist named Terri who just does amazing work. They, they are like actual brushstrokes. And what we did was we, instead of hiring her to make each piece of art for the cards, we hired her to paint, seven, massive cityscapes. And we told her what buildings and units need to go into there, and she just painted them. And they came out wonderfully. And I really love her style really feels like it matches the vibe of the game. It's kind of common, but also really intricate and interesting. And I'd say it's fairly unique. I don't know much about the art world. But I don't see too many artists pumping out artwork like this. So I'm really glad that we ended up working with her. But with the seven massive cityscapes what we did was we then broken them out into each individual card. So each cityscape was broken into 30 to 40 cards, depending on what you use it has. And then that makes up each individual deck. So there's six tribal decks representing each tribe and a communal deck that's just like cards from every ancient city like well, the city wall and things like that. And then as you're building out your own Tableau, you're essentially reassembling these massive cityscapes in your own unique way while intermingled with the other tribes, which are just kind of really cool. interpretation of how a diverse ancient city comes together, I thought,

JP: 43:54

Yeah. Now you said that, and having seen the artwork on the cards, it makes so much sense because you have that isometric kind of viewpoint of the city, across all of the different kind of coloured factions and tribes that are influencing the city. So you're right, you're kind of building that picture back up, but in your own way, in your own style, and in your own influence. And yeah, I've not thought about that in that way. But yeah, artistically, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. So. So Fritz, tell us all about how we can kind of get a hands on Prestige. Like you mentioned at the beginning, it's coming to crowdfunding, when is it coming?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 44:34

Yeah, June 2, is the day that we launch it, it's going to be on Kickstarter. And yeah, if feel free to find us, and click that notify me on Launch button, and you'll be one of our day one backers, which would be exciting, hopefully, if you like it.

JP: 44:52

Absolutely. And we'll put the link in in our show notes so people can come and find you. Yeah, and check out the campaign and, and, yeah, give it a look, because it's definitely a fun game. It's like you say it's that gateway game. It's something you can literally play at the start of your gaming night and get everyone interested and you'll probably continue to play three or four times after that if you do and maybe you won't get to all the big games that you are planning because it's definite In intriguing and exciting products. So

Davey: 45:25

Rathr than a one more turn game. It's a one more game game.

JP: 45:27

It's a one more game game and because you can literally blitz it out in 30 minutes or so, you know, it's yeah, it's it kind of sits in that that nice. I'm not saying party game, but it's that nice, lighter. And again, but still gives you enough crunch to make it really interesting. So yeah. Okay,

Davey: 45:48

I've got a little off the cuff question.

JP: 45:50

Oh, go for it.

Davey: 45:51

You say you, you game? You've been playing your game within your gaming group? Yeah, have you? Is that what you've been kind of testing out? Was there only been a select few?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 46:01

No, it's uh, we've got about as many play testers as we'd have played tests. So we, I do have a gaming group that I'll play with, either online, there's a gaming group I have, or here in San Francisco, we have a game designers meet up at once a month. And I boght it to that several times, which is really cool. We all just get together and play each other's games. Really cool. But at the same time, I've just like pinged people, or people or ping me, back and forth. And these either swap games or people are just interested in playing new games that haven't been published yet. There's a whole crowd of them online, which, as a designer, I absolutely love. Because that's, that's really the most valuable thing is each play test. And yeah, so a wide variety of

Davey: 46:46

So this leads me on to my actual question, which is gonna people. say, Well, what kind of game group? Would you describe your main game group? And are you kind of the kind because us as a game group, we we like to kind of not shout each other, but we like to kind of, you know, give each other a little bit of stick now and again, especially when taking resources. Oh, yeah, exactly. So what kind of gaming group do you play in?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 47:18

If I'm just playing, I'm just like, for fun, not necessarily play testing my game. I think we're a bit more of a calm group. Yeah, just like, Oh, we're just playing have fun. And the game is more of a medium for us to hang out than it is like, I'm here to defeat you. But I've definitely played plenty of games and rounds with people who have that mentality. My favourite people to play this game with are those that feel like if I can't when nobody's going to win? Yeah. And then just trying to battle them to make sure that you reach a victory condition, even if you don't win the game, because you just want to spite them.

JP: 48:00

Yeah, yeah, we got a few of those

Davey: 48:05

Do not know what you mean.

JP: 48:08

That's why you asked the question, Davey, it's a little window into your psyche

Davey: 48:11

Just intrigued, I was intrigued. I'm quite competitive, but I don't mind losing. And it's, it's the whole experience of playing the game. And it is the social side of it as well. But just I was intrigued, kind of what the game brought out within your group as well, and kind of the interactions that you may have. So yeah, really

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 48:30

It's a really interesting spectrum. Because I'll play with some people who are like, Oh, I'm just, I want to play like a co op. And you know, you could be co op or competitive, that's fine, but I'm just gonna count it as a win. If one of us wins. That's yeah, really interesting mentality. And then others are like, yeah, if I can't win, you're not gonna win. I definitely lean somewhere in the middle of those two, I think. But yeah, it's been a lot of fun to play with people who come at it from different mindspace.

JP: 48:58

Yeah, yeah, I think it's quite cool that it can kind of lean both ways. So if you want to be a bit more cutthroat, it will help enable some of that if you're comfortable as a gaming group to deal with, that, if you want more of the calm, you know, I just want to build a city, yeah, I just want to build a city with my friends, and have a good time and not get into some of the sloppiness that can can happen in certain semi co op games, it facilitates that as well, right?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 49:23

Yeah, there's two variants at the end of the rule books as well. So there's a fully cooperative variant. So if you don't, nobody wants to play competitively. You can all have fun building a city and just makes it a little bit harder to do so to kind of negate the fact that the tension of semi Co Op has been removed. But at the same time, if your gaming group is like really cutthroat, there's a version that I call city of squalor are basically, starting resources are just stripped from you. And you're competing to like, I need this for myself. So there's there's few variants that we've designed for those who lean real hard one way or the other

Davey: 50:01

Gate to hell kind of thing. Yeah.

JP: 50:03

Trial by Fire. Yeah. It's the

Davey: 50:06

first gate. Yeah,

JP: 50:07

yeah. Good luck. Well, that's great. That's great. Thank you for kind of taking us through Prestige and talking us through it all, you know, obviously had the chance to play and it's definitely Great fun, I'd recommend everyone kind of checking it out. But I think before we we kind of wrap this up with you Fritz, we have a little segment or a section of some episodes that we do on the podcast called Niche Number ones. So if you've listened to the show, you'll you'll know exactly kind of where we're going with this and kind of see what I get. Yeah, absolutely. Some of the, yeah, some of the episodes that we do on this are just like our favourites because they really just make you think about your collections, your experiences in these really niche circumstances. And you're like, oh my god, what am I gonna pick? Which is kind of the point. So Davey, you got the list in front of you? I do. Yeah. You can start mate

Davey: 51:06

We're gonna go for because you because it's leading off after the whole competitive thing, favourite game you never win at. Win rarely, you rarely win at

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 51:16

That is all of them if I'm playing with my wife. But probably the favourite one would be, there's a game called Henchling. And it used to be called Minion. But it got renamed due to some copyright issues. But it's a really interesting designed game, that it's not very well balanced. And despite that, my wife can destroy me every single time. Like there's there's very little strategy that goes into the game. It's very lightweight, it's a lot of fun and feel quick. Yet, for some reason, no matter which faction I'm playing, or like how well the cards are being dealt into my hand, she always wins. And I've just come to accept that.

JP: 52:02

It happens, it happens. The best of us, unfortunately. Great stuff. I'll take the next one. So your favourite game that was quickly overshadowed or replaced. So it could be a style of game or certain set of mechanisms in a game, that you really love that. And suddenly this other games come across and gone. That goodbye old game, you'll never see it again.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 52:28

Yeah, um, I think the number one for me is there, there's a game called SubTerra that I love. I still play it quite a bit, except for one, it's really hard to find. So I just don't have it anymore. And that, of course makes it easy for it to be overshadowed because you kind of forget it exists. But it also it after like a few rounds of it. It kind of got a little old, like if you're playing a few rounds in a single sit down. And that's just typically how like I play with my friends. So it just quickly got shuffled to like, oh, we'll come back to this later. And it just never came back. But I'd still love to play it. It's one of those that's now on my list like I let go of it. And now I want it back

Davey: 53:18

Go on Davey, next one Favourite game with terrible game components. The example foe me would Be Terraforming Mars the OG I guess, but something like that

JP: 53:32

That's a stock answer for most people that won't but yeah, have you got one that comes to mind? But obviously it's not. Sometimes you might feel a bit bad when you're kind of saying, Yeah, kind of hitting on game, because it's got bad components. But you know, these are all opinions. Right? This is what you think, you know.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 53:48

Yeah. The one that comes to mind doesn't actually have terrible components but components that after I got it didn't really make sense. That's Don't go in There. And I'm real quick to like, jump onto a campaign if something really intrigues me. And this game had glow the dark ghosts dice, which was like, Oh, this is really cool. And like a dice tower that all these ghosts come out of as they're like glow in the dark dice. But then I got the game and I was like, This doesn't make any sense. At least to me. Maybe I'm misunderstanding because I can't play the rest of the game in the dark.

Davey: 54:22

No, you're gonna tell them you're gonna roll the dice. Turn the lights off.

JP: 54:26

Turn it back on again.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 54:28

It's really fun game. I love it. It's just I was like, Oh, I got duped on that one. Didn't I

JP: 54:35

They've used this for marketing and they've just got

Davey: 54:36

Put a bedsheet over the dice tower so that you can all me put your head under when you roll the dice.

JP: 54:44

Ironically, you'd all look like ghosts, exactly. Whilst you're playing the game for the ghost dice

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 54:53

I believe that game in particular also has my favourite components of all time. So it's really widespread for that game, because they have this little ghost meeples. And each one. It's just like, the really cutely designed meeples. And each one is different. Like a lot of thought went into this and yeah. So yeah, that's a great game. The ghost dice just got me I was like, this seems a little silly.

JP: 55:18

Yeah. There's no reason for this to be in it other than to sell the game, but kudos well done.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 55:24

But it worked. Yeah, but it works. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Got you.

JP: 55:28

Cool. So that kind of wraps up our little niche number one segment. I mean, before we kind of run off and wrap up Fritz, is there anything you're particularly looking forward to like, is there any kind of future conventions you're excited about? Or is there any events that that are coming up? Yeah. What what's happening for you? Other than your Kickstarter, oher than the crowndfund, obviously. Yeah.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 55:51

I, I've only been to one convention before, which is Gen Con last year, which was really quite the like, jump in feet first to conventions kind of situation. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend this year. But I'd love to go back to it eventually. So that's probably one of them. I'd also love to go to like UK game Expo eventually. But that's a little bit further for me. Yeah. But there's a bunch of games that are currently unpublished that I'm really excited to hit Kickstarter as well from other designers. I'm not just like flooding my own here. So there's a game called Escape Alcatraz or, Alcatraz Escape the city. I have no idea when that's going to publish. But it's a beautifully designed hidden movement game kind of on the same realm of Whitechapel. Yeah. But it's it's based here in San Francisco, which really excites me. And then there's a Galactic Cruise created by two probably the best designers that I know, or have ever played a game by. It's being produced by Kinson Key games. Also, I have no idea when it will come because I thought they were going to publish it because it was in great shape. And then they're like, actually, we can make it better. And they just went back and like, rewrote a bunch of it, which like, kudos to them. That's like, awesome, and it's gonna be beautiful once it comes out. And then let's see what else is out. There's a game that was recently renamed. I don't know what it's called now, but it was called biome worth. And it's by a designer called Falk, Hanson, or Hansel. And it's just this beautiful like legacy style. Like dungeon crawler game set in this post apocalyptic world where you're these telekinetic beings in the last sanctum of humanity, controlling these like biomass creatures that you're able to create with your mind. And it's it's really weird and wonky theme, but it works beautifully. Well, the artwork is fantastic, and the designer has like really poured himself into it. Also super excited for Harrow County to be like, fulfilled it kick started last year, I met the designer at GenCon. And it just looks like a really cool game. I didn't get to try it, but I'm really excited to get my copy.

JP: 58:22

Nice

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 58:23

None with dice that glow in the dark.

JP: 58:25

No, no. You've learned your lesson. For now, for now, for now. Yeah, so good. But that's great. Okay, so it's really good to kind of hear you excited for some of the other kinds of designs by other designers as well. And yeah, we'll definitely keep an eye out for those or an ear out for those. As we we learn more throughout the upcoming months and years. So before we kind of jump off for it, is there any questions you want to ask of us is anything you want to put forward to the Whose turn is it anyway? Podcast team?

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 58:57

Yeah, sure. I think when we were on, TTS, you all said that you were probably going to make your way to the UK game Expo and even had like a special pass or something. Which is exciting for you. Is there anything in particular you looking forward to there?

JP: 59:12

Yeah. Yeah, this is our first year basically getting press passes. Like being completely honest. Our podcast started, yeah about a year ago, wasn't it? Davey? So So yeah, to go to the UK games Expo with press passes. For us. It's like, you know, it's a nice little milestone for us. Because

Davey: 59:33

I literally said last year, was it last year, I was like, Yeah, you know, what would be really cool? Yeah. And what we really want to aim for is if we get some press pass, we

JP: 59:41

We could do it. And we've got them and yeah, we are going up to the Thursday night Preview Show. And this is something I don't think any of us have ever, ever done that and so basically, they will condense the show from the exhibitors that are going to be there over the weekend into a three hour segment on a Thursday night before the show starts on the Friday. So you get to kind of have a yes, it's like having a tapas meal, isn't it? So it's kind of like I'm a little taste of of this designer over there as a game over there and you can get to kind of check out and and network with people before the show starts and Before the kind of general public rolls in on the Friday morning, and that for me, I'm actually really looking forward to that, because a lot of the time at Expo, and I'm sure it's the same at Gen Con and, and the various other conventions, and like Essen, it gets busy, like these publishers and the designers who are, you know, trying to kind of push their games and designs for people, they're getting crowds of people that demoing and it's sometimes quite hard to get the time to meet those people. So for me, that's, that's definitely one of the things I'm looking forward to, from a podcast side of it, but actually, from a personal side of it, it's, it's more just being away with my friends, to be honest. It's, you know, we play games together a lot. Like a lot. And, and that's, that's brilliant. But we don't always hang out as, like friends having meals and drinks and things like that. And I think that's always a highlight for me, where we kind of get to get away from work, we get away from our adult responsibilities, and we get to sit down and just have fun. And yeah, I'm up for that. Yeah,

Davey: 1:01:28

I'm, I'm really looking forward to that. As I was talking to a lot of the designers and developers I find it really interesting. Yeah. So obviously, where we first met Jackson and Paul, last year for for flick fleet. Yeah. And yeah, it's just, it's just really nice. It's the whole atmosphere, everyone's kind of getting together and seeing all these little games, like, how they've came to fruition from people's minds is just for me, it really ticks a lot of boxes, because that design process I've always found interesting, and how people slot mechanics together and how suddenly, you seen a little bit of mechanic from this game and a little bit of mechanic from this game. And they've been into woven into this kind of nice tapestry as it were. And it's yeah, it's, I enjoy it. Two games I'm looking forward to is Darwin's I want to, I want to play Darwin's journey. So it's gonna be there. Yeah, I want to play Earth, which are both games that are already been released, but there's a lot of buzz around them. And I'm hoping that, you know, there's going to be some copies that I can either get ahold of or play.

JP: 1:02:41

But I think I think Earth's wangled its way into our our gaming groups collection, someone Yeah, so like I say, if we don't get chance, I'm sure we will very soon. But yeah, it's, it's for me, I like doing chats with yourself, Fritz. It's, it's just great to get a peek behind the curtain. Like we're gamers, right. At the end of the day, we're a gaming group, who we sometimes come to the mic, and we have a bit of a chat about what we're doing and what we're playing. But we're gamers at our hearts, and, and I think for especially for me, especially for you, Davey, I know you get a kick out of it, it's just speaking to people like yourself, who have done it, you know, they've gone through the evolution, they've had the idea they've brought the product to life. And now you're you know, you must be so like excited that your crowdfunding is literally a month away, and you're going to release your baby into the wild. And that's a massive deal. That's like, that is such a huge achievement already to even get it refined enough to that point where it is ready. And don't get me wrong. I know, there's a lot of hard work that goes into getting it to this point. And there will be a lot of hard work afterwards. Because it's a whole different set of challenges, right? Making something that's digital or like you say from Excel into a physical product. But yeah, very excited. So excited. I'm really pleased for you and I hope you have every success with the campaign and the game because it really truly deserves it. So there we go. No problem. We'll probably say our goodbyes here then Fritz. So I just want to say massive thank you. Like Thank you very much for for joining us tonight. And it's been great having to chat with you. And yeah, good luck with everything.

Joe "Fritz" Paull: 1:04:25

Thank you. Thanks for enjoying my game

JP: 1:04:36

Thank you all for listening to this episode. Please review, like, subscribe, and get involved get get engaged with us. We'd love it when we talk to our listeners. And all we ask of you actually is that you share this with someone that you know someone that you think might enjoy listening to this episode so that they can have a turn with the podcast. If you want to get in contact with us. You can do so by the usual handles which is on Facebook, Instagram, tiktok BoardGameGeek and of course our email which you can find the details in our show notes. And until next time, we'll be back again with the main episodes so, Whose turn is it anyway?