JP: 0:32

Welcome to Whose turn is it anyway, our gaming podcast where we talk about tabletop board games and obviously a lot more. In this special expansion pack episode we are joined by Mark monk of ninja geek games to talk all about even more games so let's not waste any time and jump over and meet Mark So we're here with Davey at all and our special guest Mark monk. Hello from ninja geek games special guests that your special special Yeah, you're definitely special because we're not

Davey: 1:16

also here in person when usually we do this episodes, we're over kind of Yeah, over the internet.

JP: 1:22

So it's nice to have someone I'm normally in my office in my small office just on the computer screen having this kind of conversation so the fact that you're here in the Houston and headquarters Okay, the dining room is great. So thank you for being here.

Mark Monk: 1:35

Thank you it's just two more friends I have now

JP: 1:37

yeah absolutely. Yeah, it was weird because we we kind of met probably what face to face how many months ago now on the gaming rules that Apex legends. Yeah, stream wasn't it? Yeah, we did. And I was like, Why do you live? Yeah. And he's like, Oh, I live literally in the village next to yours. Oh my god. I'm really that close. I was really kind of surreal for me.

Mark Monk: 2:00

And then I nearly bought your house.

JP: 2:01

I knew. Weird. Yeah. Okay. For houses. We were selling houses kind of things. powerplays.

Mark Monk: 2:10

You just mentioned it was moving as it Where do you live? How much

JP: 2:13

did you jumped on me? And then the next thing no right move was up and he was looking around so it's all good fun. So So Mark, we always like to ask our guests the kind of first question because before we kind of get into the meat of it is your favourite game? What is your favourite game? Because we're gamers it's not an easy question. No. Top Dog remember everyone's

Davey: 2:34

gonna judge you on this.

Mark Monk: 2:35

Yeah it's really hard because for me it might my favourite game depends on loads of circumstances like mood. Who you're playing with, and I normally have a favourite for each genre and people say well if you if on a desert island what game would you take and I'm thinking well, it's gonna be a solo game.

Davey: 2:56

Game kind of you could always bring out and always excited to play Let's rephrase that, rather than your favourite that

Mark Monk: 3:02

one's easy. Yeah, that's all the time I'm a bit disappointed you didn't invite me last time is game

JP: 3:09

every time we say this on a previous episode I said I feel bad because every time we put this in we do our socials oh look we play Game of Thrones and Mark always goes was mine every time without fail so we have to sort this I don't know you see us

Davey: 3:23

at our lowest they you know they

Mark Monk: 3:26

don't know you well enough to care what I do know I do. I've been playing that for years. It's quite a quite an old game now. It's 11

JP: 3:35

years. Yeah, well, that's a second edition is Lebanese. An eighth? I think there's an IT. Well, the first edition. Yeah. It was 2000 and a fact check it people. Yeah.

Mark Monk: 3:46

I do love it. I like to play the expansion now. So yeah, always a plays. I mean, the last game we played was a 12 hour session eight plays as a lot though. It's a long time and we are we are brutal, like hideously brutal to each shouting talk the next day.

JP: 4:04

We can't even look at each other. Favourite faction or team

Mark Monk: 4:10

has to be Greyjoy on with it. There is a there is a move you should do every turn to start the season. Go out to the sea. Yeah, that tack Lannister. Yeah, destroy that ship. Yeah, the sunset. Yeah,

JP: 4:24

exactly. You got to take that bait, because

Davey: 4:27

we've watched people not do that. And then their whole game has just been not being able to leave

JP: 4:33

the whole game out to see you can't so yeah, absolutely.

Mark Monk: 4:37

And I don't have I don't care when I play. I am nice and nice and nice. And then I'll just walk the floor and watch people's faces throughout. And they look like wounded puppies.

JP: 4:48

Yeah, sorry. I'm a cat man. Yeah, I do like the greyjoys. I don't know what it is about them. I like they're called abilities. I just like where they are on the board. And yeah, I don't know. That's the only time I've won the game twice. And it's always been great. Yeah, mostly with me.

Davey: 5:04

I think we've also been lucky I think the two times you've also had the Starks as vassals, because I think they're the ones who probably put a lot more pressure on you otherwise stars the vassals

Mark Monk: 5:16

are hard. Yeah, tough, strong. Yeah.

Davey: 5:19

So and I think that's probably currently is because you're trapped between two vassal hats and I control one of them and I was the Moto slowly marching upwards because we made a pact with the tyrrells because otherwise you end up fighting again. Yeah, so we had to just make a pact and slowly move upwards instead because I've always I've done it before where you end up in a war and then all game you're just fighting down at the foot of a land

Mark Monk: 5:44

we when we play we I'll do a little video. And I'll have a Game of Thrones music in the background where we select the houses beforehand. Yeah, and then we'll have secret WhatsApp groups and oh yeah. Oh, yeah, we have you know, we send send ravens before the game. And this is about a week in advance but I'll always do something funny in the video so it'll be some cool editing, like MASH games and stuff and so on. I did. I actually did a tic tock of it. It was it made me laugh so much as I turned it into a song. The camera in front of me and I was trying to get out just I just keeling over and I couldn't do it. I'm just laughing so much. I've edited all the bloopers yeah into this real trying to do this song. You

JP: 6:30

love it? Love it. Yeah, well, I think we need to come to your events. They sound a lot more fun. Yeah.

Davey: 6:38

Dress up as well. That we do for the Game

Mark Monk: 6:42

of Thrones music soundtrack. Yeah,

Davey: 6:43

nice.

JP: 6:44

You got to do a bit of ambience. Yeah, it's

Davey: 6:47

not just someone dresses the mountain coming in some nice stilts and

JP: 6:52

I just think it'd be a Cersei it's not quite working Nice nice. Yeah, good. Good choices. It's definitely one of our kind of favourite.

Davey: 7:05

It's the most dramatic game and I've said it before but it does kind of feel very Game of Thrones you end up just making cracks and little deals with people and then quickly just

JP: 7:16

throw him under the bus.

Mark Monk: 7:19

I don't know people that don't mind it either hate it or

JP: 7:23

doesn't mind it. Yes. It's understandable. Yeah complete. What other games like you like your that you're really enjoying right now?

Mark Monk: 7:31

Why now? Yeah. I mean right now I'm doing a lot of reviews. Playing a lot of games on my these got sent to me. And I've got a load that up my shelf a shame that I want to pay myself. I've got obviously commitments for these. So what's on my table now is tonnes of different

JP: 7:50

to control. Yeah, yes.

Mark Monk: 7:52

That's a good it's good fun. Yeah, it was so my buddy played the bass game. Yeah, so I played with my son and he absolutely destroyed me. Did I like 1015 points. Nice. So that's on my table now. And I've got a nice geeknson table so on top of that is White Castle, which I got acid which I think brilliant good fun.

Davey: 8:13

Yeah. It's quite crunchy for like a mid weight Euro. And it actually plays quite quickly. Yeah, so yeah, trying to find terms so yeah, yeah, it's

Mark Monk: 8:26

really good. I like the like the mechanic of obviously on the higher dice because you get the money but then if you choose the low when you get that action Yeah, no, yeah. Yeah, so I quite like that and if you're really savvy with the dice placement you can get a little bonuses

Davey: 8:39

there's quite a lot of chaining you can do as well if you do it right so

JP: 8:43

he's Debit kind of smaller box midweight euros are doing quite well because they're red profesional was there kind of yes yeah, they're similar size map that you look at it and go like it doesn't look like much but when you play it

Mark Monk: 8:56

there's a lot of content in that box because the box is a few inches Yeah. And it's you open it up and it's packed full of stuff

Davey: 9:02

well yeah, I'm the this the quality of everything in there as well. It's nice printed printed word on that. Yeah, just it just looks really good.

Mark Monk: 9:10

Yes. At the minute we play Yeah, sounds good.

Davey: 9:15

It did remind me of bit okay but I think I preferred White Castle to partake I liked particularly I liked I don't dislike take the take the I just liked White Castle Yeah, yeah,

Mark Monk: 9:28

it's thing about bitoku is it looks horrendous when you first get it out. Set it up and you think oh there's no way I'm gonna play that no way. This game past this. Yeah, isn't that the rulebook isn't brilliant and then when you finally get to grips today actually it's not

Davey: 9:41

it's not too bad once you get into it I've

Mark Monk: 9:43

been playing a lot of solar sphere lately as well because I had an expansion for that to review an expansion at so much we're gonna get the base get and get the expansion is throw and it's brilliant. Yes. Extra modules. Actual

JP: 9:56

games. Yeah, yeah, it

Mark Monk: 9:57

is a really nice game.

Davey: 9:58

I've not heard of it.

Mark Monk: 10:00

It's a dice manipulation dice worker placement game. You're sending your dice to locations and getting resources or getting crew or fighting bad guys. And then they added in like a separate board. An easy way to get resources because normally you'd only get one type of As awesome each party had ended up with a number of rock or crystals and things for now this lets you let you get sort of like different quantities and different types so there's a bit better

JP: 10:26

agents yeah we need a bathroom yeah but then

Mark Monk: 10:32

games we need to play this it's about the same a bit longer than say white castle but ya know quite quick game yeah, that was long

Davey: 10:39

I've noticed a lot of games as I'm at the moment they seem to go towards the quicker end of games they've always left kind of wanting another time.

Mark Monk: 10:46

Yeah, the same with this I've kind of always left on a cliff edge

JP: 10:53

it's better than the other way around, isn't it? Like if you think of endless winter when you think of the opposite where you go, I've done and I've still got another round I can do anything. Yeah, and it just just kind of just like runs out of steam in that way because you don't really feel like there's any contention game this Yeah, just they added an official variant and that sorts that out? Yeah, that's just kind of like should have been there from the start. Yeah, because

Davey: 11:24

I played at once and thought well, I've completed it I felt satisfied with my play and it was good but I thought I didn't really need to pay it.

JP: 11:38

What do you do next slide. The same thing really? Yeah, work. Yeah,

Davey: 11:42

that was it. I didn't win but there was nothing else to do. I've completed my engine I completed everything. Yeah,

Mark Monk: 11:49

but it's Halloween this this weekend. Well, it is on the weekend. And I normally obviously pull out a horror game and things and I've got my top five horror games but I was just gonna play the Arkham Horror third edition. Yes, I haven't played that yet. So I'm just gonna get that out. But Vanda games contacted me and they're revamping Evil Dead two. Oh, okay. With the solo mode now. Yeah, so they sent me the balls to that so I said why I'll I'll get that play just play the game and get into

JP: 12:18

Necromicon out and yeah, it's

Mark Monk: 12:20

very very basic background

Davey: 12:22

showing I repeat every time

Mark Monk: 12:34

yeah, that's that'll be hitting the table this

JP: 12:36

weekend. Yeah, it's great. Isn't it this time? Yeah. And you can pull out like a kind of thematic game very, I mean, we played What's your favourite horror one? Oh, horrible. I mean, the one I would end up going towards is probably fury of Dracula. Oh, yeah. That's the one I have but things

Davey: 12:54

that suspension Yes. Suspense it's not

JP: 12:56

what I think for Halloween because though Halloween you think in which is true nothing something like horrified or? Yeah, fury of Dracula or you know, any kind of game you can probably say like the mummy man. Yeah, stretching it. Mansions of madness. Yeah. But yeah, Nemesis is our love nemesis. Yeah, that's gonna bleed right? It

Davey: 13:20

does kind of have that have that corridor it can't trust anyone it looked at

Mark Monk: 13:26

the new version. So yes, yeah, retaliate. retaliate. Yeah, that

Davey: 13:30

looks great. Yes, that's really good.

JP: 13:32

Yeah. Twist it up a little bit yeah,

Mark Monk: 13:34

I think it's on a smaller scale isn't yeah

JP: 13:36

the the aliens or intruders or whatever the arcs I think they're going with another species make sense? Yeah, they're all kind of mini down yeah, they all can see the screen was there Yeah. When we looked at him and Christ is quite a lot on this board Yeah. And but then all kind of answered

Davey: 13:53

slightly tower defence in some aspect but still with the aspects of I think you've got blocked going to be overrun. Yeah, I'm kind of like space hulk-esque yes yeah. I'm intrigued corridors that kind of ran along. They've

Mark Monk: 14:04

also got the saw someone opening the day. side quest or something. Nemesis side quest.

JP: 14:10

Oh, yeah. Is it like an escape room?

Mark Monk: 14:11

Yeah, I just saw some of the

Davey: 14:13

box. Yeah, and I haven't seen Yeah, there

JP: 14:17

we go. But thing for nemesis for me is what I love about it is the fact that you are that kind of character that's in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah. equipped for this now the show, you know, you're literally going oh my god. Yeah. So the fact that you're kind of these, like, kick ass Marines, we just call because aliens is probably my favourite film. Agreed. So big can be like Hudson or hex or whatever, is awesome. And obviously you can do all the lines from the film, which I think will be mandatory. Yeah, stay frosty. But then, will it? Yeah, where's the tension? And I'm sure he's probably gonna be done.

Davey: 14:56

being overwhelmed. Yeah. But you'll actually be killing stuff which I feel nice as well. Especially when Tambo rode like five it was the equivalent of ones Yeah, because there was literally there was six I think was one thing that he failed on, which was like the queen side, and he rolled it like three times Was it a right it was a soldier he was I think I killed more things as the engineer than he did as a soldier.

Mark Monk: 15:25

I just like the stories that you tell after Yeah, he kind of reminiscing about it. But what happened and working on your Whatsapp group was what happened last night you go well,

JP: 15:35

that's what it's brilliant. Such a narrative game with no words. Yeah, like there's no story, per se. It's what you do. Yeah, everyone's got their own agenda, playing a film in a weird way. And you know, sometimes you're going to be the character that gets killed. Yeah, in a horrific way. And

Mark Monk: 15:52

so we have the alien ambiance playing in the background. Yeah, you can just hear the queen. The motion tracker going off?

Davey: 16:03

Somewhere we have a water spray bottle just in the back of the neck

JP: 16:13

they you'd be like, not in the board. Games expense? Animals. Absolutely. So how do you get in the hobby there? Mark? What's your kind of entry into tabletop? In general?

Mark Monk: 16:25

This is probably when I was about eight shows my age now. When I got heroquest for Christmas.

JP: 16:31

I mean, yeah, yeah.

Mark Monk: 16:34

My dad got it out. And he he's as brutal as I am now a Game of Thrones. He was like what we're gonna play this game. And he was a dungeon master all the time. I'm just wiping loves it when the

JP: 16:48

screen Yeah.

Mark Monk: 16:51

It's all loser then. I've been playing things like I went on to them. Space Crusade. Yeah. Never played things like Warhammer. I played the tabletop games like bloodbowl and Necromunda. And things like that, you know, this the smallest scale versions that will have them for a few years. And then Arkham Horror a second edition for Alex nice. And I got that. And it's something I've never seen before this huge sort of like, story driven game with you know, just just one game. And that's it. And it takes hours to play. And I just fell in love with it. absolutely fell in love with it. And then just started getting one game at a time at a time and now hundreds and hundreds.

JP: 17:36

Where it happens it kind of happens before you even know it's happening. Yeah. And you're like, Oh my God. What's going on?

Mark Monk: 17:44

Yeah, room bound. I think room man was next the second this year. Yeah. Yeah. Got into that. Game. Brilliant. You think I thought you had Dungeons and Dragons? That was it? And I'm just venturing then you know, playing room bound and I think I got Do you remember doom? Yeah, it was all fantasies like basically it was Yeah, because they did a lot of different games back then. Didn't they know Star Wars and Marvel? Yeah, that's it.

JP: 18:08

Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah.

Davey: 18:10

They didn't want to risk anything else Now do they? Well,

Mark Monk: 18:13

they turn off series was good. I thought rune ward was Birnbaum they had a rune wars card game as well. Didn't they think so? Yeah. Yeah. Rune age Rune age. Yeah. Well, same universe descent. Yeah. Yeah. Although they just redone it obviously in the expansions. Yeah, for that. Yeah.

JP: 18:31

We saw I saw your video. Yeah, it's nice. Yeah. It's a ROB yet, because

Davey: 18:37

we need to we need to complete the first load of you.

JP: 18:42

Rather than dragging

Mark Monk: 18:44

the size of my arm. It's really. Wow. Super. And then yeah, so just kind of, that's how I got into the hobby I think I had to go into I didn't have many people. I didn't know many people into gaming back then. So I had to go on to BoardGameGeek and look at the solo variants and things to get to these games. But yeah, now that becomes more popular. I don't think you'll find games many games without similar variants. Now, Kickstarter is a sort of veering

Davey: 19:16

off. And I'm guessing it's because it's probably maybe it's now easier to say easier to design but there's more more help and influence the design the certain mechanics they hit a certain developers that they all seem to go towards? Well, David

JP: 19:32

does does a load of them 90% off so yeah, so I'm guessing and they know there's also a market there for it. I think it helps sell the game though, doesn't it? Because yeah, you know that you can play it solo actions. Yeah, he's gonna get to the table. Yeah. So you go. Oh, by that

Mark Monk: 19:49

was some games. I think a better solar I played. We played autobahn.

JP: 19:53

No, that was

Mark Monk: 19:55

I think it was lucky duck games. And they said them at Alleycat game. I can't which one? They sent it to me and they said, I looked at it. I was like building motorways in Germany. Oh, yes, please. Yeah, it's not a theme I usually go for. I thought, Okay, I'll give this a whirl. I played it. So this is amazing. It's so good. Let me play it for player UK games Expo and I wasn't keen you just get blocked off so much. In You know, that's what the AI does. Lucky but in before players I was just going oh, I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. And it become quite frustrating again to stick to this you have to play Max I think yeah, yeah,

JP: 20:33

I think it's good though isn't there that? Like I'm a big advocate for solo games and ideally you don't really dabble that much in. There's probably a few of us in the group. A minority I

Davey: 20:44

would do I think I would like solo games more if someone could

JP: 20:48

set them up for someone stop asking I'm not

Davey: 20:59

like I can play some computer games online with my friend. Or I can play a soli game and I and then I go play board games you guys anyway so understandable. Yeah, it's one of those were the two times a handset episode again me you know what, I'm gonna play this game so Toku I know when

Mark Monk: 21:20

I do. Like if I get a new game, I'll read it. I'll set it up and I think right and I sit down and go like any any, like games made specifically just for solo play with the solo modes like

JP: 21:35

Yeah, yeah, I mean, the solo games I've I enjoy not a purely for solo Hoplo or hoplomachus. Yes. If I'm in the mood, and I want this grand experience, and it's really weird because you're sat there and you get all the game. A huge game is huge. You're rolling out the neoprene stadium you got the stadium of all the chips go in and you're just sitting there go like you're an emperor play it just about to play again. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know your wife walks past like to get a cup of tea. Loser.

Davey: 22:11

Definitely have a tiger you were I can imagine you sitting there and it will tell you it's not just the plane.

JP: 22:19

So that one I do enjoy one I'm kind of in the mood to do so the other one I like on the Falling Skies if I just want to quick blast. Space Invader II kind of did the

Mark Monk: 22:28

cullompton. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.

JP: 22:32

Yeah. You got Berlin, London. And now we've got Collumpton. Literally, yeah, Paul Grogan town. Yeah, no amazing but yeah, nice little game. Quite possibly. Yeah. Brutal.

Mark Monk: 22:45

That is huge to have a huge version of that. Oh the day Yes. And was it sure was that game had like a massive version of it and it was like a little ramp.

JP: 22:54

Oh, okay. Now I don't know who makes

Davey: 22:56

it check games Yes, it

Mark Monk: 22:58

was Yeah, it did. Yeah, they're a huge huge sort of like almost life size.

Davey: 23:02

I think was too busy we did didn't not see this massive

Mark Monk: 23:05

with dice like

JP: 23:07

shocking them around yeah, there we go there we go. Guys to talk about games all or Leps I mean, that past we've just talked about you Mark Okay, a little bit so you've obviously got your channel ninja geek game. Yes. And

Mark Monk: 23:25

obviously on this now yeah.

JP: 23:26

Is it three is it been three years? So what's the Genesis how do you how do you I mean not die clicked a few buttons and set up an account but like what was the idea behind it? Like

Mark Monk: 23:37

it was during COVID When we had a we had the lockdown that thing Yeah, remember? Yeah, that's when so trying to forget gaming was my it's my birthday and normally every year I have it's actually good now because it's always around gridcon I can go there instead now that my friends at my house now Paul can organise it. I normally have loads of friends. And obviously we couldn't do that. And I was I was gutted so my friends chipped together and he got me a legacy. Yeah, the legacy Yeah, they got you got me that and they're all going on? What's it like what's in it? So I just did a quick Whatsapp Video doing what's in it and my friend so that was really good. Do you script down? No, no, no, I just he said that was really good. You should consider doing a channel showing people what's in what's in the box. And so I started and I the first video I did I think it was what's in Outer Rim and watching it now. I cringe more now than then when Becky found out she was queuejumping. It was that was I watch it now. They actually and I'm not I'm looking at myself in the camera. But when you look at yourself in a camera, you're looking about four feet to the right. It's like I'm talking to someone on screen. I got no mic, and it's just terrible. But and that didn't deter me. So I just kept doing it. And then Tristan Hall from holding I think productions I think he he sent me a game. It's like my first ever one and I was like oh wow, this is great. Yeah, I'll review it. Yeah. And then there was a Another company that I don't think they're around anymore jafco games, they're the ones that did Evil Dead. Yeah. And they do a lot of collectible card games for like Street Fighter Street Fighter as well. Okay. And they, they sent me Evil Dead, Buffy and I did a an unboxing video and a playthrough for those. And they were really appreciative. They put it on their website, and I was like, this is this is great. I'm really enjoying this. And as a thank you, they actually did my logo, because that's yeah, that's a tattoo I got in Vegas. Yeah, and they're based in Vegas. And they said that one of our artists is going to be do your your logo because it actually was just an edited copy of my tattoo. Just with likes, like contrast changes stuff and they they completely changed it. And then I just started first of all just like reviewing my own games and things like that and then started getting into doing Kickstarter previews and things and then I did I mention a few I do tabletop grudge match. So I get two closely related games like both copies of the thing or rune bound in Google killed fourth. And I talked about the mechanics and how the different components and how like battle is different in them both and see which one I like best as well as do that. And I quite enjoy doing that. Yeah, got two games to look at at the same time. Yeah,

JP: 26:33

brilliant. Yeah. Nice. Pros and cons of each and yeah,

Mark Monk: 26:38

that's crap. Yeah. There's a winner. And then I got into tiktok as well. I thought I'd never get into TikTok. It's far too old. TikTok took. This is

Davey: 26:51

JP Morgan. Coming into first mentioned

JP: 26:55

it as I Davey dude, like seriously? No, my daughter's on Tik Tok and she's doing all these dances and it's just weird. It's a weird place. JP expected us to do lots of dances board game. Yeah, I didn't know what you had in mind. But you know, and then I started to dabble with it. And I was so sceptical. Yeah, so ya know, and we did it. It's quite good fun actually.

Mark Monk: 27:19

yourself for hours. Yeah. Oh, like you know good or better than four hours later. I'm so tired. Three in the morning. One more video. Yeah. I was kind of just cruising through that just getting the audience 250 likes that's the average isn't it? Yes. And then I just did one video where I just smashed games together called edit that just went viral was like 400,000 views just getting ping ping ping all night with his likes and comments and then it just kind of hit off yeah.

Davey: 27:52

So your ideas with your videos or Tik Tok? You got inspiration from anywhere

JP: 27:58

yes copy

Mark Monk: 27:58

people find this I look for I look for videos that have the music that gets repeated and I'll use that sound because obviously that sound is trending what can I how can I make that into board games? I saw one today actually it was we watched them Monsters Inc. Yeah, and you know that lady Oh yes, I saw about 10 videos in a row with Dogs looking at the screen and then people playing that how can I do that and board gaming so it's just it's just a like a vine of me making sure people are collecting the correct resources be a good one and then but the editing one I can't really wait because my table top grudge match with two games and I thought well if I two games, and I could put them together what would they be? They'd be so you get like, you know a dice game with a fantasy game and then I've got roleplayer Yeah,

Davey: 28:55

I've seen I've seen your edits and on em is really good so

Mark Monk: 28:57

simple. Yeah, really, really simple. When

JP: 29:00

I first kind of saw your videos obviously I thought Oh, who's this guy? I honestly thought you were American. Yes, I think American Jonathan a white American dude. Yeah, so you spoke when? Oh no. Oh no. He's from the village literally which is really kind of surreal from it. Yeah,

Mark Monk: 29:22

I did I did a video the other day I don't know if you saw it and it was like behind the scenes of how I do the smashing. Yes, I actually do this and actually did the edit and yes, I want to tell people

JP: 29:33

magic happens and it smashes together and does actually work. Yeah, you didn't you do a cracking job with it. Like I think if anyone is listening to this who haven't heard about ninja kid games, get gut and tick tock watch Mark's videos and you will just be going through them literally you're gonna be disappointed. No, it's really good fun to kind of watch and

Mark Monk: 29:51

get those traps next I think

Davey: 29:52

first draft Yeah. The water dance along with Martin the Bacardi. Nice.

JP: 30:00

Yeah. That's all that's working. You know about your your dog my dog.

Davey: 30:05

works for you and your dog didn't

Mark Monk: 30:08

mean she likes you.

JP: 30:12

So three years in. Yeah, so going strong. It

Mark Monk: 30:14

is yeah. It's hard because you you've got I would say to people, if you're going to start a channel is don't take too much on people's you can say yes to every publisher and design. Yes, I'll do your game. So do you end up with a massive list? And it kind of really stresses you out? And you then you know, do I do them quickly? Or do I do a thorough job and then have to make that people person wait, and I did that, like, when I first got into, I think I'd like to six games to review and you've got to play them enough to review them as well. And I was like to take a week off work, you know, just just just to get all these games played. And then it really, really stressed me out. And

Davey: 30:49

I'm thinking like, just just one at a time. So now you you try and pick and choose a bit now. Yes, I

Mark Monk: 30:53

do. Yeah, I do the ones that you would also kind of enjoy. Enjoy, because I don't I don't want to be that guy that because if I enjoyed every game, you wouldn't watch the video. Every game can't be great. Yeah. And there are some games that I reviewed. And I really didn't like but I try and find areas where I think people would like them. So for instance, one game I really didn't like was Horizon Zero Dawn. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Didn't like that at all. I thought it was very basic as half a game. But I said why? If you do like the game, then you know, and I went into why you should? If you like the game,

Davey: 31:27

it does. It makes sense that you can't like every game, some games that some people will love and you don't like and hate. So you do kind of have to be open in that sense, but yeah, I do. I do appreciate the honesty as well. Yeah,

Mark Monk: 31:42

so someone's got to be Yeah, yeah. Actually just gonna be you get called out, you know? Can't have every game can't be good. It's just this

JP: 31:51

game is the best game ever. It's amazing. And it's like, yeah, is it really though? Yeah. Yeah. And you will you don't the the internet will find you and yeah, and your BS? Yeah, very quickly.

Mark Monk: 32:03

One of the reasons why I do it all for free. You know, I suppose it is my own opinion here that I've got no. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. To give an opinion and stuff. So I've got tabletop gaming contacted me today. Yeah, the magazine. Yes. And they're sending me the app and calendar. They're doing this. See what they're doing? That looks really useful. So they don't want me to do some daily videos of what you get. Yeah. And I said, that's fine. But people don't know what they get.

Davey: 32:33

Yeah, it's not gonna be a surprise for them. Unless

JP: 32:36

you do it in the evening.

Mark Monk: 32:37

Hashtag. Obviously, before it comes. Oh, yeah, November, isn't it? Excellent.

Davey: 32:42

So we could do two videos, one where you actually blur out what you're taking out? And then the other video is the reveal. So people can see us like, Oh, that looks like that. And then they don't want to know what it is. They can then by the calendar. Yeah. On

Mark Monk: 32:56

BoardGameGeek. Then they blow out images of enough to push the click Yeah.

Davey: 33:02

Into the spoiler image. Yeah. So you could do something like that? I'll

JP: 33:05

tell you if you subscribe.

Davey: 33:06

Yeah.

JP: 33:11

If not, you're not gonna know. I'm joking, of course. So yeah, like, obviously, this takes a lot of time. Right? That's, I mean, I kind of know, although we only do the audio part. And it still takes a lot of time. And you're doing both video and audio and creating content for your channel, when you must, is even when you're not recording, you're probably thinking about jotting ideas down or thinking about it is so how'd you fit it in? Well,

Mark Monk: 33:37

I mean, I don't know if, because, because I worked full time as well. So I dissect people for a living. That's what I do. I cut bits of body parts. No,

JP: 33:47

I Yeah. So no, no, no,

Mark Monk: 33:50

no, no, no, I get the bits from surgery.

JP: 33:54

The bits afterwards to Yeah, to come over and diagnose diagnostics.

Mark Monk: 33:57

Yeah. So I do that in the day. That's Monday. Which is why Ilike abomination

JP: 34:03

Yeah, make sense?

Davey: 34:06

Going on, and it's always slightly lit. There you go. My friend Igor. Bill Bailey coming.

Mark Monk: 34:19

So I do that in the day. And then I also run kickboxing gym as well. Yeah. So I've got my I do that. I do four sessions. Where do you find the time? I know exactly. Yeah. And then I teach. I teach, you know, one or two private sessions before I start working the morning as well. Yeah, so I have to I have to have a script. So I feel like a news reporter with you know,

JP: 34:39

you got a teleprompter Yeah, I

Mark Monk: 34:40

do. Yeah, I do I've

Davey: 34:42

ever messed with you and wrote something else. And it's only from

Mark Monk: 34:47

the window put me off. I'm trying not to look. But I have to I do have to create my scripts. That takes you know, I can take a couple of hours to do especially if it was like a deep dark souls and that was a huge you know, 40 minute video and that was pages and pages of script and I do it in segments. So that does take a long time to do and in all my YouTube clips and even Paul was pretty impressed with this all my huge clips and editing is all done on my phone. Yeah. I was like done really? Yeah. Yeah. It's 22. And I'm not. I'm not selling them.

Davey: 35:28

Available. No. I'm just intrigued is a piece of software that you use? Yeah, coin

Mark Monk: 35:33

master. Okay. Yeah. Chi master and I am not a lot of people like that. I just find it so quick. Yeah. And I can edit it with my thumbs really quickly. But my wife has bought me a laptop and a camera for Christmas.

JP: 35:46

So are you going to transfer the editing over though? You can still do on the phone? I'll do Tiktok

Mark Monk: 35:50

on the phone, and I'll use the camera. Yeah, so nice. Sam, is it Samsung or Sony v one? V? Yeah. So looking forward to getting that

JP: 35:58

nice. Yeah. Nice. It's great to kind of see someone who, you know, takes that idea starts a channel and like you said at the kind of beginning where you look back at your first kind of videos, it's horrendous. We do the same with our stuff. We

Mark Monk: 36:14

cringe, isn't it? Really?

JP: 36:16

Yeah. Sounds like a new and, you know, like anything, the more you do it, the better you get. Yeah, I'm

Mark Monk: 36:23

thinking you're not gonna get any unless you try. You know, you're not gonna go into your first one's not gonna, you know, go viral or anything.

Davey: 36:31

Lot of hard work. And slog

Mark Monk: 36:33

one of my earlier videos. It's not my fifth video. It's again, it's it's this one is scripted, but I didn't have a teleprompter. It was just lots of pages. And I had my son someone turning the pages. And my son was, and it was really hot in the room, and I could see him sweating. And that was that was the top five solo card games. That was done. I think that was done during COVID that make 30,000 views on YouTube, which is huge for him. Yeah, a channel that had I think 100 subscribers. Yeah. And I was really I've never hit that again. Never never hit that change. And yeah, it's yeah, just right time. Right Thing. I really like that. My old ones. I really liked that one. Because they're quite the games that people wouldn't really pick. Yeah. Yeah. And they were for my own reasons. Yeah.

JP: 37:23

You Yeah. Nice. So you obviously recently had been to ask them yes. You know that we talked about our encounters. And I told you they're getting same hotel same hotel. Getting the hot dogs in the queue. Yes. Thank

Mark Monk: 37:39

you. You saved

Davey: 37:40

nearly died in front of your friend. And yeah, we talked about.

JP: 37:43

Oh, yeah. You had a weird moment.

Davey: 37:46

My body forgot to how to function function. Yeah. It just choked on. Yeah. Live your friend for going like, oh.

Mark Monk: 38:02

I was used to play football religiously. And is that a tournament down in them? But it was, it's called football. 100 people? Yeah, that sounds brilliant. Actually, it's three days of camping, food, football and drink and it's about 50 pounds. You know, it's absolutely amazing. Aren't we all at the first night we're having a few drinks. And this was when we had wristbands on to say whether you wanted social contact or not, you know, to be out of COVID for everyone was a little bit you know, 100 people in the same room together and I was sat having a drink talk this group of guys. For some reason this guy just drank a beer and went all over my face. Everyone

JP: 38:47

needs to leave now. The

Mark Monk: 38:49

funniest thing that caught his mouth and he didn't. You just it just came to me when I'm really sorry. That's never happened. I was good.

JP: 38:58

It's really good. Every time it'd be weird.

Mark Monk: 39:02

That was strange. I should have said Yeah. You

JP: 39:07

just made a weird devil devil know where we go anyway. So you obviously went through so I'm interested to kind of get your take on it. Like what was what was the the kind of games that you played? What did you enjoy, particularly when

Mark Monk: 39:20

it was incredibly i I knew it'd be big. I had no idea how big you know. Yeah. And I was just like, it's huge. You need to get it to prep. And the first thing I learned was and I did is I prepped what I wanted to do and wanted to see because my wife bought it for me as a present. She didn't understand the magnitude doesn't understand the magnitude of UK games Expo let alone this. So she booked me a day and a half there which is nearly not enough time but I appreciate what she did. Yeah. So I went over there. We got there on a Friday afternoon and had Friday afternoon Saturday there so we look up I thought I'd booked in for when you'd booked in the d&d games galactic our galactic cruise Yes, I hadn't but it was just a chat with the guy so frustrated that I come and sat and watching you guys play for

Davey: 40:04

a while. Yeah, we were really lucky with that. We just turned up and then two seats became available and we just kind of sat down yeah to the colours that I don't know how it happened. It was swirl pattern to apply over Shall we roll? I think Yeah. Brilliant.

Mark Monk: 40:19

Yeah. I mean, I don't know how that fits in the box. I've got no it's pieces a massive

JP: 40:22

Yeah, chunky. Yeah.

Mark Monk: 40:26

We put our company we played now we played White Castle. That's why I bought it. I know that and I loved it was a hell

Davey: 40:32

of a cue for that. And the next day Yeah, the

Mark Monk: 40:34

first day I just pushed in. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I said on the Friday, so you went to them and it was not in there. Yeah. Yeah, I played that. I not normally into my tabletop battle games of Warhammer, but there was a bar there selling beer. And they had to miss

JP: 40:56

this. I saw a photo I think it's probably your photo. Yeah. Where was this bar selling beer? Well, they

Mark Monk: 41:01

said it was it was in level three.

JP: 41:04

spent most of the time

Mark Monk: 41:06

to stores down from nucleum. And we see it now I know.

Davey: 41:12

That massive game I

JP: 41:16

honestly don't know what I was doing.

Mark Monk: 41:18

They said oh, we got two types. What do you want? And it was it was gamers Bill gamers big triple. Okay, what's the difference? Well, that's 4% that's 8% 8% Please read this beer. And as we were just grabbing our beers there's a table to the left and it was Alpha strike. Okay, like a big giant bought. That was quite good. Actually. I really enjoyed that and not played many of the Warhammer II type games but that was that was quite different because it was smaller number of miniatures were using each miniature had their own abilities. Yeah, I really like that. We sat there for about an hour playing. And the guy kept trying to come into this huge community in the southwest and I was like, No, I'm just playing. But actually, I really enjoyed it when I sat down to the table. It was really good. I can't think absolutely we looked at Dante from creative game studio that's coming to Kickstarter next year. It's based on the Divine Comedy going to hell and yeah, and it looks incredible 3d amount and doing a video but I'm doing it for Paul's channel because he isn't he some doing that. Nice. That looks really good. And we had a look at that being demoed and played. It's great. Even all the scenery changes you can throw pillows around and block areas in a huge deal and you've got a fight. It's really nice. As

Davey: 42:34

loads of like Ed versions of Dante to come out most of them are really really good. The computer game Dante was amazing. Never played the computer game. There's lots of references in Hannibal as well. Fair enough. Yeah.

Mark Monk: 42:47

I played my first game of wingspan Yeah,

JP: 42:51

just play wingspan. Like really?

Mark Monk: 42:52

Yeah, I've never played it before and we've spoken by and there was a free table and my friends and you want to play out I just don't like the theme I just don't get it. Yeah, but

Davey: 43:00

it's it's standard euro euro themes are so dry on Yeah,

Mark Monk: 43:05

but I quite liked to actually have to buy but I thought we played the with the expansion as well.

Davey: 43:11

We've kind of started taking the viewpoint review rows where the theme doesn't really exist anymore because we know somewhere that could be an amazing game so we'll play them and if the themes then good and works. I call this extra on

JP: 43:24

top. I like it when it's really obscure and strange. Yeah, sure. A game about German motorways. Yeah.

Mark Monk: 43:34

Well, I said if they said to guys that stone if you make this about dragons, Dragon keeping I'd be all over it. Yeah, exactly. The same mechanics. Yeah, I'd be all over it. But birds.

JP: 43:45

Yeah, I think it has has a wide appeal, though. doesn't lie. Yeah.

Mark Monk: 43:48

I mean, it's millions.

JP: 43:50

And it's kind of tree does that. Even though I don't think it's a gateway game. It has that gateway game field. Accessibility, because it's nice birds. Expensive, aren't they? It's hard to get really angry about some cute birds

Davey: 44:05

have played wingspan but I don't think I would get them around a table playing about dragons. So maybe it does work. Well. I mean, I would prefer the dragon.

JP: 44:14

I think I would. Yeah. But you know, we're kind of in the hobby though. Yes. Very, very deep. 100% We

Mark Monk: 44:20

played Furnace we went to I went to see arcane wonders. Yeah. And because I was looking at the expansions solo version of it now and I've not played I've not played the originally the base game because it's two to four player and most of my games have a solo I cannot all but I just didn't buy it for that reason. And then I played it. And I thought this is great. It's really, really nice engine builder. And we played the two Argent times. And my friend is kept in analysis paralysis. We would dunk and I'd like six or seven factory cards and you'd like 12 So he's asked me we're just sat down I was like, I'm so sorry. So I've got that and I've got the solar expansion as a flute player and I think as a fifth player, I'm sure as a fifth player, and your mechanics are nice and the solo mode as well. It's

Davey: 45:14

so crunchy for as little light weight game is done in My

JP: 45:16

husband I was impressed with and we did it last week. Yeah. Your game was yes. I was like,

Mark Monk: 45:24

it's not very long either. So it was another quick game but yeah, I feel like I'm afterwards. That was brilliant. I feel done. Yeah,

JP: 45:32

yeah, you get a lot out of that 60 minutes. The same as if he played like a two and a half hour midway. Yeah, I'd really like to really perhaps a punch for what it does. I'm now i because I'm a sadist. I want to play with the advanced walls, which means you have to activate from left to right. Because you get

Mark Monk: 45:50

the you get like totally asymmetric abilities as well. Yeah, your factory. Yeah.

JP: 45:57

So I'm like, Yeah, I'm up for that. I just need more of a, you know,

Davey: 46:02

sitting at home was bringing the grid on. Yeah.

JP: 46:04

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Because cool.

Mark Monk: 46:07

That's good. Yeah, I don't think I've played anything else in Essen. Because obviously that's only for a day and a half. Yeah.

Davey: 46:13

Did you buy anything you didn't play?

Mark Monk: 46:15

Yeah. Loads nucleum. Planta nubo . Nice. Jealous. Yeah, it looks great. Yeah,

Davey: 46:21

it looks amazing.

Mark Monk: 46:22

Nothing about the game. I didn't know I didn't know anything about it beforehand. I was desperately looking. I thought why I love the designer. Let's look at this game. I was like, Oh my God, there's nothing and there was one I think I've seen one video in German. I don't know German. In fact, we had to alone GCSE German to get us from the airport

JP: 46:40

by train the same it was tough but you know telling everyone that I have blonde hair and green eyes. phrase I remember. Yeah. And I live in the UK. Yeah, again, not really useful. No,

Mark Monk: 46:53

no, sorry. I look forward to planting you because I saw that being played at the hotel so I just kind of went over and drifted and just watched the lived great the components that yeah, I love that tile laying you know polyomino,

JP: 47:05

kind of style. Yeah.

Mark Monk: 47:07

I mean, it's got it's got whispers of, obviously. Feast for Odin. Yeah, yeah. So the tiling game I saw was I forgotten the name of it again? World wonders Yes. For marking wonders that looked like a mash up between like Feast for Odin with that matter and the toll lane and then the giant buildings from tapestry. And I wanted to buy that but that was that was sold out within two days, I think. Yeah. I got I've got loads again, I just can't think of a suitcase because I was gonna ask you to take back voidfall

JP: 47:38

that didn't say a word. Yeah. But if you wanted to buy it should get in the car speak to

Mark Monk: 47:42

my wife and try and sneak in. She would have known Something's happened. She's very quick like that. Yeah. You played voidfall Yeah, no, I haven't. No, I have not played I don't mind

Davey: 47:52

if you go on Friday. Full grid company. They're Friday. That will be out three days yet. Don't want plan. Oh, I'll play a game if you want to always be one of my favourites.

Mark Monk: 48:01

I sat and watched that again. I just missed that like a creep just staring at people over tables just like that breathing heavy in someone's mind me.

Davey: 48:09

Just watching the metal places.

Mark Monk: 48:14

I did that looks. I mean, that looks incredible. I love my flash game. Yeah. Everything they voted

Davey: 48:19

for was for me.

JP: 48:22

Perfection

Davey: 48:23

is one of my that is it. For me, it's just got everything I like from it's kind of like a 4x. But has it's all deterministic. Yeah. It has completely different engine building. You've got tech that comes out which which is very variable. Every game I've played sound completely different so far. But obviously I think I've only played about five times. That for me, that's you know, a lot of people

Mark Monk: 48:47

have said already, regardless of what comes out in the next two months, that's their game of the year. Yeah, a lot of people. For me.

Davey: 48:53

I feel like it's my game. I

Mark Monk: 48:54

mean, I love anachrony. I love games that give me a headache. It's yeah, we did I sometimes do. Gaming day all day. Yeah, it might start at nine finish at midnight or whatever. Yeah, the first game we played once was in that creek sometimes. Yeah. People drift in for the days, we always have the big game the eight player at night because that's when everyone's normally free. And I remember we played anachrony four player. And afterwards we were just sat on the sofa their head and rocking. And then we had to play like a filler now and everyone was just glazed after it because there's so much thing

Davey: 49:35

was quite good. It's weird, but those kinds of games are relaxing to me when they shouldn't be. But I find that it's just kind of like quiet in my mind this hyper focus on it is quiet and I'm just like, oh, this is relaxing. They are satisfied. Yeah. And that's what I liked from it. That's like a stress relief

JP: 49:52

exercise for the mind, isn't it? Yeah. And then you cannot think about any problems whatsoever. You can't think about anything. You just don't have brain powers. Yeah, it's gone isn't how many to get through that I always leave the neck. Okay, yeah, so

Mark Monk: 50:08

that I mean, another game that I get a headache after playing especially multiple multiplayer is Age of Empires. Yeah. Big Head. The heavy game when you've the world expands depending on the amount of players you've got a nice play that a few times and it just wraps your brain so many little moving parts and tech trees and and all sorts of developments. By the end of it you are your eyes it just

Davey: 50:39

seems I find that make me feel more drained properly like the more social games so such as Avalon like Avalon. Enjoy it, we enjoy it, but after it's been shouting at someone for an hour I

JP: 50:52

need to just because of the way you play Avalon is probably very aggressive.

Mark Monk: 50:57

I told you about my experience with the thing with our first night. Yeah, who thought it be funny to throw in sort of like bad cards just just for shits and giggles really? Yeah. Why did you do that? You really missed you missed everyone. Anyway. Oh, it was fun. No one wanted to see what would happen having said that. I said but one time you started blaming ting I was. I wasn't. Yeah.

JP: 51:24

I'm still great. I love that film though. The things that one of my really?

Mark Monk: 51:30

What's the remake? Yeah, that's amazing. Well, that'd be

JP: 51:33

a prequel isn't it? It's the Swedish camp, isn't it? Yeah. to do with the old Norwegian love it yeah. It's a prequel. Yeah. All the way up to the start of the the original film. And that was a thing.

Davey: 51:49

Actually, I liked it. Yeah. Yeah. Not recent now. Like 10 years. Yeah. Something like that. Because the original thing Who is this in it?

JP: 51:59

Really? Yeah. Big beard. Yes. Yeah. It's just great film. It's just our best quality this day it in its visuals a little bit now. But I still love it.

Mark Monk: 52:11

Funny story about that is when I was about eight years old with when you know, your parents watched videos from VHS blockbuster. Oh, yeah. And so the local local shop is I remember coming down and my dad watching the film. And he sat watching it. He's like, Oh, watch this bit. And it was it was a bit when the guy was on the chair and it was just in the blood. And then when it comes up out the Bloods and the you know, the guy started shaking on the chair. Now I sat there and I was an eight year old boy. Just like traumatise me. And I remember when when blu ray plays become a kind of thing and I went to our price Yeah, and I saw the thing I've always wanted to watch that and I got it I was watching the film. And at some point I was thinking I feel I feel uneasy sweat something's going on and then when the that thing come out of there I just like oh my god I remember this panic attack. Visions of when I was eight screaming at the telling

JP: 53:06

me it was the spider head. Creepy. Yeah. And it was like the upside down head and then legs come off. What the hell is going on? But

Davey: 53:15

this time it wasn't it was.

JP: 53:18

Really? Yeah, absolutely disgusting. Mad

Davey: 53:21

over and over when we're about probably 1413

Mark Monk: 53:24

Have you played the played a game? No. Yeah, we simple but really, really nice.

JP: 53:31

They sound fair. It's

Davey: 53:33

the one where you have like a deck of cards and you have to like trade the virus. No, you don't. That's the original one. Yeah,

Mark Monk: 53:41

I'll post it. 31 Yeah, that's the and the other one is it's actually got miniatures and so

Davey: 53:50

you have the deck of cards and you have like

Mark Monk: 53:54

the the games Yeah, one Yeah. Yeah, this one is just the that one is a really nice light like version. But that one more crunch I think but yeah, the first one you can actually win if you the thing by doing nothing. Just play really well. Yeah, just play right. And all you do is you just just get on the helicopter and go. That's That's the dumbest thing I don't like about that. This one here. You've got you've got dogs that can infect you. You've got a you've got this just like that wasn't good. It like a traitor track. It goes up and it shows the likelihood that you're infected. Yes. But it means nothing sometimes. Yeah. So people start distrusting. Just misdirection and you can you can get rid of it by getting blood and testing your own blood. Yeah, it puts you down to zero again. It's the magic though is and so then what you can do is and you can see, right? If you prove it by, you know, by testing yourself and then you okay, then you do anything. You see. I told you so.

JP: 54:47

It's cool. Isn't that? Yeah. Okay, sounds good. Nice. So, just finishing off so and then are you going back next year? Definitely younger as well. Yeah.

Mark Monk: 54:56

We need to do a bus for the whole of Toronto. I've seen him even Luke used to live in Toronto. Yeah, definitely going back next year.

Davey: 55:09

The game bus Yeah, sure we should do

Mark Monk: 55:13

a long way in that. I was mad, but I quite enjoyed It who? Who would let you down on the snack side about that? The snack aisle, Rob Yeah, we let ourselves down there. Yeah, we were okay. We are their own snacks. Yeah, but yeah. Did you bring bottled water?

JP: 55:31

Oh, I forgot about snacks on this 12

Mark Monk: 55:35

We're gonna do look at condensation.

JP: 55:39

I've got some crumbs where my son has sat over the past year

Davey: 55:44

an average breakfast that was called grey But Britain the good. The good breakfast. Yeah. Which was just the most average breakfast. The below average.

JP: 55:52

Yeah.

Mark Monk: 55:55

You going next year? Yeah. It's got to be I think that's probably one of the best ones I've been to

JP: 56:02

wasn't I said it was not gonna go every year. It's just your best time. Well, yeah. But the first time we went and I said, I won't go be here. It'll be like a special thing. Yeah. And then I went, I went brilliant. I've got to

Mark Monk: 56:12

get back. Yeah. And I went for two days. I need more. When we're walking out on the Saturday night when it was like everyone was closing down. I've walked through one and when I thought you've been so went off?

JP: 56:28

Yeah, yeah, I need the days like even we did three.

Mark Monk: 56:31

You need to see all the games. I wanted to seem to win. We did win.

JP: 56:36

Yeah. And I don't want to wing it. I didn't I didn't really prepare. I'm not gonna lie. I looked at the download the app and the night before. It was about to go in the car and I tapped a few things. And then I can't be bothered. And then I've gotten the car and drove. So I

Davey: 56:52

think I only planned the night before. But I didn't go to bed till quite late, which probably a bad idea. But he didn't drive. So yeah, right after you were DJing. Yeah, I was DJ. I was.

Mark Monk: 57:03

I didn't play one game. Actually. There's this cursed Empire is like this universe. This guy Chris is created. And he's got a couple of games in this universe. And here as

JP: 57:15

we spoke to him, Expo, did you Yes. Did

Mark Monk: 57:18

you play the mage one?

JP: 57:19

We didn't play it. But you're showing us the? Yeah, it's got like a card game. And there's the like a tabletop version? Yeah, there's

Mark Monk: 57:27

all tabletop versions in production at the start. And that looks enormous. Yeah. You

Davey: 57:33

can mix and match all of

JP: 57:34

them. Yeah. Kind of blend us up. Wow. Yeah, no, it's

Mark Monk: 57:37

I've played here as a sagas that's really good to play Julian card game. You can do lots of different things, you can do a campaign, and you can do solo play as well. But I prefer the one on one that's better, where you can kind of build your carry your four characters, and you build them. And then you basically fight for something in the middle person claims it. And we play this really light card game or you're a mage, and all you do is you spent like, Exploding Kittens draw their card, if you've got a deck of about 4 cards, or when you play a spell is all attack you. And then you can take or defend it. If you defend it, then it doubles. And you've got to defend and it goes round now. So with your hand, you're not really sure who's going to be attacking you because it can loop Yeah. And then you can play things too.

Davey: 58:21

So you don't want to spend too much because if you don't have enough to defend, yeah, that was really good. So I was quite impressed with that. It

Mark Monk: 58:26

only took about 10 minutes. So I want to do that again. I get there. I want to do that again. And you start creating this nice combo and you can gel cards together to create better effect. That was quite nice, actually.

Davey: 58:36

Cool. spell casting wizard game again

Mark Monk: 58:40

just duelling card games. Yeah, I don't like trading card games. No, I don't like trading card games.

Davey: 58:46

Yeah, I

Mark Monk: 58:47

mean, I I tried Lorcana. And I just thought I just can't see that apart from Disney. I can't I didn't like the game at all. But I've got a couple of games. One of them. One of my favourites is scum of the earth. So it's set in Napoleon times one of us Napoleon wanted us Great Britain and the allies and he just duelling card games you can have up to nine cards out and you can equip them move them about and attack. Brilliant game, really, really thematic as well. The guy who makes it he's even done like research the histories, all the kinds of little bits of things that happened and it's written so you literally never do that happened. Yeah, and then this you learn that one guy could have actually won the war for Napoleon. But he got up late he got up late and he missed he's meant to go to high ground and he was beaten to it because he slept in yeah slept in

Davey: 59:35

Berlin it's amazing the stories from like walls where it's just a human's mistake so alarm

JP: 59:43

will be on the porch too much. Yeah, I'll set an alarm. Yeah. Got a battle at 730 I need to deal with

Davey: 59:51

Churchill and world war one way it took all those boats into into the little channel between Turkey when he shouldn't have just craps decimated and then was just like, got kicked out of the army. Yeah, it's just those little interactions. Isn't that crazy?

JP: 1:00:09

Cool. So why don't we talk about some of our niche number ones there. Mark. Are you ready? This is like kind of another one. I guess said it's not ball game speed dating so think on your feet

Mark Monk: 1:00:22

okay

JP: 1:00:23

so what is your favourite game? Like gives you the most AP Oh God

Mark Monk: 1:00:32

I have analysis paralysis thinking of this now yeah

JP: 1:00:38

we can cut the bit out that's the thing so it's fine

Mark Monk: 1:00:41

I probably say Anachrony it's got to be an accurate yeah I think for me it's I do plan my terms on other people's terms I'm a good boy you know I learned by modern as you said deck game circumstances can change your terms but

Davey: 1:00:57

I usually audibly say that as well so when it comes around to me I'm going what you've done is just screwed me yeah, I've planned everything but it's all gone get your pillows you’re gonna be here for a while

Mark Monk: 1:01:07

yeah it's although when I did play furnace deciding what order to do everything is and you kind of put my cubes and going wait if I was gonna put that there just to count so that enough for a very small game that was dire to Argentine I just sat there going in flight. Yeah, that pretty well, but you

JP: 1:01:31

mine is Lorenzo il magnifico

Mark Monk: 1:01:34

I've not played that.

JP: 1:01:36

And like literally mentioned it on an episode previous but it's around the towers. So the cards on towers and and again, it's about board state changing and you plan maybe around two of those cards. And then two of them have gone right? Okay, start again. And you literally reevaluate the board and you're looking at cards going yeah, I want that. I can't afford that kind of situation. Yeah, so yeah, I do. I do like that game. It's fun about you.

Davey: 1:02:06

I'm gonna save the new hotness. It's actually nucleum Yeah, is it games I've played I've sat there and I've planned my turn and it's come around to me and I've gone that doesn't work. That's why I don't why doesn't work yeah, it just doesn't work. So then I sit there go and I enjoy the puzzle. And it's a nice little combination of or do I place this at all but then I need this to place this action up here and I need it back but I need these colours to place there and it's slowly slowly you end up melting into yourself but it is enjoyable.

JP: 1:02:39

Right? Thanks. Well, my favourite game that you wish you were just better at that you're not Oh, you'll never will be in your own

Mark Monk: 1:02:46

head game. Do I always lose? Yeah,

JP: 1:02:48

I secretly go I just wish I was

Mark Monk: 1:02:52

my parents always that I will come over for a game or come over for a game and every time they play me I always lose regardless of which game regardless of which game I play my parents both beat me up we played to the committee and then we played some games I picked up from Essen so I portals and I think smash me even. He’s meant to be an expert think for me it's anything abstract to sagrada, Azul, I love playing them I do but I always want a place to grind at the end I looked down I think in crisis a lot of holes still in my window there's a lot of holes oh I forgot about the sort of tools that you can do. Yeah, and you know the scoring part that's quite important yeah and so I just pretty window but it scores nothing so for me definitely abstract games I just I just yeah just can't visual lost

Davey: 1:03:47

in the in the abstract and yes, scoring.

Mark Monk: 1:03:52

Greens got to go there and yeah, just make doesn't Yeah,

Davey: 1:03:55

why? Yeah, making a nice, pretty window. And

Mark Monk: 1:03:58

they do they always beat me and they just laugh. My son beats me as well all smashed me at taverns of the day. Yeah, absolutely. Just. Not only did he beat me, you went in and said I've beat dad again. Yeah.

JP: 1:04:10

Thanks to the whole family for the next three months.

Davey: 1:04:14

And the wound

JP: 1:04:16

is the same. Yeah, he when he's eight, so

Davey: 1:04:19

I thought it'd be a really gracious winner.

JP: 1:04:23

He's exactly like he will gloat that forever. Yeah. Yeah, don't like it. I see why you don't like

Mark Monk: 1:04:32

I Don't gloat much in games. But the one I have gloated in was a Game of Thrones and I was I don't like playing Martel stuck in that corner he got dragons and then burritos and things are with the with the expansions. And I just played a really placid game, and I was just being really nice. And the last term I just ransacked everywhere. And people I was the last place that people just left me alone. Yeah, all about game. Don't win. Don't be winning now. Yeah. Be kind of close to winning Mario Kart. Yeah.

JP: 1:05:04

Like not in the running and then just shoot from the back. Yeah,

Mark Monk: 1:05:07

my dad's always said there will be last but don't be first.

JP: 1:05:12

Yeah, so hovering that middle pack and then reach out about your day. yours Oh I mentioned earlier

Davey: 1:05:18

thing and actually most mine most of mine clash I you know I won or been close to winning or you know, good at and then but anachrony to brag about the ones I can do because the ones are bad and bad doesn't click on me but I enjoy it

JP: 1:05:44

nice last one then. So favourite game that you should sell that you just cannot bring yourself to

Mark Monk: 1:05:50

do it every single game. My wife had a rule saying every game I bought back from Essen I had to sell one and I did yeah. And it was it was hard. I was in there for about half an hour. Which one I haven't played over a year. Right now I need to add another variable into that every year that starts with the letter A,

JP: 1:06:10

B, C.

Davey: 1:06:13

Why did you make me do this?

Mark Monk: 1:06:17

I mean, it breaks my heart to say this, but I probably if I probably I mean I love bloodbowl I've been playing that for years. But you have to have one other player. Yeah, who is good? Yeah, as you know, fun if you're playing a new the new rules. There's a lot more intricacy now with the passing and things like that. I don't think now I've got my channel and doing busy and things. I don't think I'm going to get to play any tournaments. Because none really local more Bristol and things. So that would probably be and it would I would. I don't think I can because I know I'm never going to play it. The last time I played bubble was about two years ago. Yeah. And that was at a tournament. Yeah. And none of my friends but they do they do play but I think they'll never come over for a game and they'd rather play something else. So I don't think I'm ever going to play that again for a long, long, long time. And it's a lot of tournaments. I

Davey: 1:07:09

happen in Taunton blood bowls quite poorly. Yeah,

Mark Monk: 1:07:12

I mean, I actually know I lied. I did play one in Taunton. I won.

JP: 1:07:15

Nice I beat

Mark Monk: 1:07:17

the third bowl referee that come down. It was pretty good. It was literally it was for game one all went to an extra time and I scored in the last turn of extra time. With lucky dice roll. Lucky dice. Do you usually play them undead or kemri really hard? Yeah. Yeah, one that's absolutely got to get out there.

JP: 1:07:37

Yeah.

Mark Monk: 1:07:42

I should get rid of that because I know I'm not gonna play it and I've got a load of teams for it. But I don't think I'm gonna play my I just can't because I just it has sentimental I've been playing since I was about 13 You know, as hard to do as it is. Yeah. And it just so many memories of playing and it's really weird because when I opened the box it has it has a smell and it smelled like when I was 14 opening up the box my birthday and I just get I get this really weird that I just I can see myself with the table you know with my with my career. And my one if

Davey: 1:08:15

you get out to sell it and then the box opens a little bit you're like No, I can't I can't do I can't do I can't put it away and

Mark Monk: 1:08:21

I know never gonna play it and I need to get rid of it from room as well. I just I just can't. I just don't think I can know

JP: 1:08:28

it. Well. Nostalgia is a good thing. Yeah, I think you know we're not telling you to sell it so obviously you don't have to but yeah, what your mind says and what your heart says that's a tough one. And how about you JP too many bones? No. Every remotely thought about something I've got

Mark Monk: 1:08:47

gasket unboxed. I've

JP: 1:08:52

just played with some of the new character I

Davey: 1:08:53

wouldn't say that JP is about to kick your eyes. Yeah,

JP: 1:08:57

it does still got my copy. I do like gasket

Mark Monk: 1:09:00

you've always got the fuel

JP: 1:09:01

the moment you you got hydro Yeah, it's very different because now we're gonna start talking about different things. Yeah, but yeah, all completely definitely asymmetrical the whole lot. It's such a different game. Yeah, you do.

Mark Monk: 1:09:14

When you teach someone the rules you then teach them their character. Yeah. Everyone

Davey: 1:09:18

played riffle? Is the new deck wise

JP: 1:09:21

for fun. Yeah the plane kind of poker and too many bones at the same time. Oh, yeah. Good. Goodbye. quite powerful. Actually. It's very versatile. You can hear we can do damage you can get bones on the screen. Just hard to get to the table with you. Even though you love it so much. It is it the downside to the game is takes forever. Yeah, yeah, it's a long game like unless you're playing solo or to

Mark Monk: 1:09:44

play solo. Sounds like the undertow one? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I've got that and just a couple of stands

JP: 1:09:49

or duster. Oh

Mark Monk: 1:09:54

stands out I think yeah, yeah. Don't

JP: 1:09:56

music the bar system. Yeah. It's just really clever. Yeah. Remember, that's

Davey: 1:10:01

one of the games where you're playing

JP: 1:10:03

just up the phone isn't interesting. You get switched songs out and yeah, I really enjoy Stan's.

Mark Monk: 1:10:09

I use the dice to play the song is really good. Yeah,

JP: 1:10:12

it's very clever. But you make what's yours? So

Davey: 1:10:14

have tried to sell this one. Should I say it cuz I have actually tried to sell it, but it never sells what monumental, monumental is it's one of these where I never really want to sell it, but I put it up to sell it because I hadn't played it. And it's a really good game, but it suffers with really long term. And in between, yeah, you basically have to combo cards. It's like a civilization game. And it's got like a Forex, you fill in some aspects where you go along and you take over sectors, which gives you things and then when they give you these things, you can then do this stuff over here, you've then got a combo, where you've got like a grid of cards, and it's three by three. When you activate a row or column, you get all those abilities, oh, but you can time the stuff however you want. So you can move around do this because you've got the movement from that. But that then gives you something there, which means you get buy from the shop, which then combos with that car, and some people's turns to end up taking. But it's a really fun game to pay for the player while you're playing. It knows his turn and you kind of sit there and go,

JP: 1:11:19

Oh, my God, there's not much interaction, make some food. Yeah, there's

Davey: 1:11:22

not much interaction until it's gets towards the late game where people start actually caching and some things happen, but even the combats like not combat. So really fun to play, really enjoy it. But also, I think I need to throw in some of the other aspects of the game, which sounds counterintuitive to a game that already takes too long and people's, you know. But some of it's like you have monsters that go around that you fight, they'll give you things. And it might add like another little bit of interaction for people trying to fight over resources that's moving around the board and some other aspects. And then markets determine the other day. So I want to play that game. And I thought, yeah, I'll crack it out. Take off for sale.

JP: 1:12:13

Like it? Yeah,

Mark Monk: 1:12:14

I got one question for you to them. Go on then, what game do you think has been made better by house rules or house variants that people have made? Yeah.

JP: 1:12:25

Yeah. So

Davey: 1:12:28

I would actually say, every game that we play that has a selection mechanic or the start, so has a character, we've started to house rule a lot of these by if it says you just want to get one Yeah, we actually start giving out too. And then you choose, because sometimes you get stuck with one where you've played it a lot. So then you just choose the other one. And a lot of ones are just like you just get one out. So that's the house rule that we've done for a lot of games, which we prefer of all of them are over we do it as well. We give rather than just pick one zoo, we just give out to zoos. Yeah, you just pick one just because for us variety is the variety. Yes, a variety of choice. Sometimes, otherwise, I would have been stuck. I think I've been down like the same view three games in a row. And I wouldn't have wanted to play that zoo three times in a row. So it's a

JP: 1:13:20

tough one for me to answer. I've got an answer. But it's tough because I don't genuinely like to do it. I'm the guy that's like now playing. They know better than us. We're just plugged. But there is one game, which is Fallout boardgame from Fantasy Flight Games. Picked it I've always wanted to play that. Yeah, it's it came out what 26 themes something around that time I went to Expo picked it up. It was kind of the hotness, that's the title. Yeah. Revealing slightly revealed tiles, and then you go around, and it's kind of weird, because it's it's not now because the cooperative now yeah, there's time for it. Yeah, the time it was a competitive kind of Fallout game. Yeah. Were you obviously going through your story, they're very thematic to the game, but you're kind of just playing your game, and everyone's playing their game, and you don't really massively interact with each other. And then you kind of get in into it. And you're like, getting into it, and levelling up and doing all the you know, the special and, and you're getting all these abilities. And then someone just goes, right, got the objective. I went, Oh, I immediately Yeah, well, and that's the most unfold out kind of Yeah, ending to a game where you're kind of in the middle of a quest. Change that level. Yeah. Well, the at the time, it always felt jarring. We played it a few times. And I was like, I just don't like the way this ends. I like the game. I'm enjoying it. And it's just like, bang. So there was like a variant that came out and officially that will get us one or Yes, someone kind of house came up with the house rule and did like some rules on it. And so it wasn't official but you know, looked like it was considered. And yeah, and even then I was like, I don't really want to put this in the box. I did and then we play within it and it was a bit better. It was a lot better as a bit but yeah, but it because it kind of gives you a chance to question Slowly

Davey: 1:15:17

teeter off wasn't it? Rather than, like had a like an arc? So So yes, we played kind of like a good midpoint and then it started to teeter off a little bit I found

JP: 1:15:26

it kind of worked with the factions that were kind of on the board that you are helping or hindering. And it kind of ended when one of those got to a certain state. So you could least see the quest line through. Okay, so the end, yeah, wherever you're helping, you know, fraction a fraction B. But then they kind of said, No, this is a co op game, which I completely agree. It works better as a co op playing against the game. We make the game need to support an expansion. Yeah. Things called atomic bomb. Yeah, it's like a small expansion. Added obviously some more cards and things but yeah, just changed the rules to full Co Op. Okay, and then retrofitted that back through all of the scenarios of that and its expansion. So, which I haven't played crispy. You get that? Yeah, yeah, it did. Yeah, he's, he's, he's got it. But yeah, that's the only one that I can really recall that we've house rolled, but it's not really my house floor. So then if that counts, is

Mark Monk: 1:16:17

the same thing for me is mine is probably Dark Souls. I mean, apart from elder child, I'm not a fan of big dice. Chuck is like a plague. Zombicide once I couldn't stand it, I'm just rolling dice moving rolling dice moving. I really liked Dark Souls. And it's do you've ever played the console game? And it's

JP: 1:16:36

played album rain.

Mark Monk: 1:16:40

Games the same? Yeah. It takes a light hours because you basically play one full game of two hours do you might that's halfway reset the board now and do it again, we've got the big boss. Oh my god, this is horrendous. And it takes hours and hours as people come at house rules for you will end up with a market deck like this half the time you're drawing cards that aren't even suitable for your class. And it's a wasted use paid souls for them. So you're going I can't use that I just wasted 10 souls for magic and I'm a warrior to people house for all they got what characters you playing like at these cards to the deck, remove these ones. Change the number of lives you get, and too much quicker game and it goes through in a couple of hours. Now. It's not my household, but it's yeah, it's from BoardGameGeek. And it's really good. Much better. Very

JP: 1:17:29

interesting. There we go. One last question we've got for you to say can go home. Yeah, we got the blower bad boy. Yeah, it's all good. What are you looking forward to? What's kind of your game or event or maybe both that you're like, you know what? I just cannot wait. Looking forward to gridcon. Yeah,

Mark Monk: 1:17:50

I first time last year. Okay, cool. It's my birthday. Yeah, so

JP: 1:17:54

really,

Mark Monk: 1:17:54

I really enjoyed it. Last year we played played loads of games are all three days you're there from start to finish. Now. There was a really bad moment where I am a real stickler for drinks on the table. I even got myself my friend who always spills drinks from a deconcentrate I got him a bought cupholders just him really expensive. And that was like I've got them all for everyone. But there for you. We were at we were at grid con and we were playing aliens. You're next to us. They're paying Ark Nova. And I think back then it was probably quite new.

JP: 1:18:32

Yeah. Not longer now. Yeah. And then my friend had a beer

Mark Monk: 1:18:36

on the table. And this guy said, Oh, don't put your being in my drink. And I thought, Yes, that's right. So my friend went to grab the beer. And he knocked it with his finger and it felt and we all just went, oh my God and he picked up the drink but because it was very slammed on the table and it went Oh, and we were just ah, my stuff got wet and I don't care about my stuff. Get this guy stuff cleaned up now. And I said to my paperwork, go to the kitchen, get some towels now and he came back with the dirty wet dish cloth. is the worst thing you could have got. In the end. I got this is my birthday. They got me a t shirt. Yeah, a new T shirt. Um, so I'm like everyone was running around and the guy who did it just just sank into himself and just become a small ball and Yeah, didn't want to move or breathe.

JP: 1:19:27

You know? Yeah.

Davey: 1:19:30

My rum runner experience.

Mark Monk: 1:19:32

Oh guy. Yeah, it was really I felt so sorry for the guys by the game if you want to know Okay, yeah,

JP: 1:19:37

but I just yeah, we're all right.

Mark Monk: 1:19:40

Looking forward to great con. I am looking forward to get my new camera I said it's yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Start Editing on it laptop and things. And conventions. Really. I just want to get to them. I want to go to hand aircon. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's gonna take as long as it moved him to get to Germany. Yeah, yeah.

JP: 1:19:58

I mean, it's the UK motorways. Yeah. I

Mark Monk: 1:20:02

don't know what they did want to tack on

JP: 1:20:04

West. Is it? Yeah. I don't know how big days. I think they're just starting it this year. Isn't that? Yeah, I think it's a smaller one. But yeah, they're branching out across the country.

Mark Monk: 1:20:14

I have asked my guys if they want I go to that mini marathon one in which there is it. Yeah. Well, one is told in January, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm hoping to get

JP: 1:20:25

to that. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, Dan runs as part of our pod now. Oh, yeah. So it was the 24 hour board game marathon. Yeah. So it says, couldn't

Mark Monk: 1:20:34

do that for reason. Oh, yeah. It was the day I got back from holiday and I thought we really cheeky

JP: 1:20:39

is the Washington Yeah, I go play ball games. 24 hours to see. Yeah. Did

Mark Monk: 1:20:44

you do 24? Yeah, yeah,

JP: 1:20:45

I was on the live stream I was doing I ran the live stream with Shelley's been doing it for a long time. So I was literally pretty much on on lot. It got to a point where that and I said it. We did one of our episodes, you can kind of go back. We've literally recorded snippets throughout the entire 24 hour and you can just tell by the end. It's like, hello. It's 3am I can't be and yeah, and it just

Davey: 1:21:16

ate a six hour game of hegemony.

JP: 1:21:19

Over like the universe knew the

Davey: 1:21:21

rules and we decided to play and then we just, it was absolute chaos is the most chaos. We enjoy everyone else. We will really enjoyed it. Yeah, we will just but yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't do that. Again. I'm not paying hedging. I

JP: 1:21:33

was dreading save. Like, I love sci fi of any day. Love it. Yeah. But I didn't. As the kind of day went on the site was booked in for 4am Oh, yeah. Like whose idea was to put Scythe on 4am And I was just like, if I could get out of this I work because mentally I was just degrading as the the hours went on. And then we set it up. And then we played it was great. Oh, but he just suddenly just poked me right up. And it was the cleanest scythe game. We had like six seven players. Still done in two and a bit. So Oh, that's really good. Yeah, a

Mark Monk: 1:22:09

friend of mine them for birthday present last year, he said a birthday present. I'm gonna paint your side miniatures, all everything. He painted airships. The characters everything. And they look incredible. And I haven't played it yet. I cannot wait to get it out. Yes.

Davey: 1:22:28

Can I always enjoy the size as well?

Mark Monk: 1:22:30

Have you seen all the easter eggs on the board? Yeah, it's

JP: 1:22:34

really Yeah. All sorts going on this legacy with

Mark Monk: 1:22:36

Jon Snow. Jon Snow is on there. This dog? Yeah.

JP: 1:22:43

There's loads of little easter eggs on that board. Yeah. Brilliant. Any other questions? No, thank you for having me. No, honestly,

Davey: 1:22:49

did a pleasure.

JP: 1:22:51

It's been a good touch. We could probably chat for another two hours. Yeah, we probably probably shouldn't.

Davey: 1:22:56

We were talking about board games before we even started the podcast. My good questions I

JP: 1:23:03

should have recorded them but no long massive massive thank you for for popping on the show. Thanks for having me know, anytime. And yeah, it's been nice to catch up with you over the conventions and get to know you a little bit more. And we need to get again together. So

Mark Monk: 1:23:16

we do Yeah, cuz different person then. Yeah, yeah. We want to turn into like red rocks.

JP: 1:23:28

So now we need to we need to definitely do that. But maybe maybe great concert day. Yeah. But the weekend? Yeah.

Davey: 1:23:38

Well, the 44th was offers there. Yeah,

Mark Monk: 1:23:40

because I've got the eight of us going. But yeah, it's over three days for some of them can't do the Friday. So I was trying to find out who's doing what so I can do a spreadsheet. I like my spreadsheet. When I do my board game days. I go right, who's coming? What time? And they go right, this and this? Right. Okay, so we've got this time to this, and I get you to start and the thing is, I'll tell my friend we start an hour early because he's always late. Yeah. So Oh, yeah. Like bang on time. Make? Yeah.

Davey: 1:24:10

Hey, I'm good. Now.

JP: 1:24:11

I know what I'm thinking. I wasn't thinking about you. You're very good. But you have to know and you do in game days. You have to know who's coming when when people are arriving or leaving. And then you like, if you anything like me, you want to shedule the day I know exactly what you're playing in the morning straight after the after that after that

Mark Monk: 1:24:29

I send out I send out links for YouTube videos for rule plays and things like that. Yeah. boning up on the rules expects you to ask it. I'll test you during the week.

Davey: 1:24:38

A pop quiz coming out. Yeah.

JP: 1:24:41

Great stuff. Thank you Mark. No worries. Thanks for listening to the episode. It's been great catching up with Mark. If you really enjoyed the show, please share this episode with a member of your gaming group or a friend. We'd love to get the podcast out there. And if you want to support the show, you can do on coffee, which is Ko-du, and you can get all the details on our show notes and our website. Also, if you want to get in contact with the show, you can contact us via our social media platforms and our email address which again is all in our show notes, but we're going to wrap up and put all the games The way and we'll see you next time