TURN 1 - Player Count

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[Music]
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roll up roll up welcome to whose turn is it anyway I'm Davey I'm the first player
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for our next series of podcasts and or I should say episodes I'm here with Rob hello and
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Adrian hello and today we're going to be talking about AI within the ball game industry first things first how is
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everyone yeah I'm fine I've uh been recovering from a cold as it feels like everybody else's at the moment yeah
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there's definitely one going around I might sound a bit Gruff and well we edit the sniffles out but I'm suffering from
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a cold as well well I haven't had a cold so I haven't had to get over one
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and I'm not suffering so I'm sure that I will get hit pretty hard after this podcast but no I'm all good we're
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[Music]

TURN 2 - Let's Talk About Hex
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good so we're jumping straight into it what games have we' been playing recently is you got anything of Interest

Adrian - Galactic Cruise
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Adrian um well I've pretty much been uh gaming in board game spurts something my
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doctor said is common at my age um so I have only done full day gaming since
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start of 2024 so I was working through and I think I've worked out that I've played 14 new games and at time
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recording it's just turned March so 14 brand new games as well as playing a bunch of others so it's quite hard to
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pick one out of that cuz most of them were really good but Spurs more waves
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isn't it yeah more tidal waves possibly something along those
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lines but yeah um I think the one I'll probably best talk about cuz it seems
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quite timely is the kickstarters live now I think or maybe the episode going out it'll be just finished which is
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galactic Cruise so Galactic cruise is a new quite heavy Euro game about going on
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like uh Leisure cruises into space and I know we talked about it a little bit before on our ENT episode as well cuz I
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think you and JP both quite enjoyed Galactic cruise that right Davey yeah I really enjoyed the galactic Cruise it
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kind of it felt very ler I would agree um but it felt a little
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more forgiving and it had a little bit more guidance of what to do I don't know if I agree with the forgiving part what
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I would say is that it thematically makes so much more sense than any lder I've played because it's like what steps
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are you doing okay well I'm getting T I'm selling tickets to the cruise I am then putting the ship together and I'm
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then sending people into space and they're going on their voyage and all of those steps make a lot of sense
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thematically what you're doing so I I think it's I think it's just as crunchy as sort of some of maybe the light to
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Mid end of leras it did remind me of gallerist more than probably I had not played gallerist until recently but the
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whole where you can kind of knock the other person off and you get yeah extras for that you know is very gallerist it
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felt in that range of sort of gallerist caman maybe Vinos that kind of yeah see
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I still say the reason I said forgive is because galleris is the one that uses that same te where you can't get locked
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out of doing said thing whereas with Canan you can and with um Vinos you can
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so true it felt a lot a little bit more um kind of variable with what you could
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do but you obviously had a set kind of cycle that you needed to do and goals to do which is where I think the Lera
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comparison comes in because he's well for yeah for building like you have to do like a flow of things then quite
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often you have to start back at the beginning almost but you've got more of an engine um and I really really enjoyed
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it I've just backed it cuz it went live today on Kickstarter as we're recording so I have just what backer number were
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you AJ 1 2 3 4 quite happy with that um and I just think it's a really
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solid heavy Euro that there are some people um that I play with not in this
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room that I wouldn't enjoy teaching luras to mhm I think I would get away
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with teaching Galactic Crews to those people because of how thematically it makes sense and how you can kind of
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explain each part as it goes along so you can explain the need of getting people on board and and building it and
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all that so that was one of my memories with Galactic cruises we had a very eccentric guy who I remember you saying
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taught us how the how to play and it started off by being like you know these people they want to go into um there
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might be a stag dude who want to go into to your um cocktails and then bowling area and then do this and then for the
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countdown he did like a countdown and it then but he he broke up the phases of like how to do he got a standing ovation
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right when he walked into our hotel did he he actually got a standing ovation
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from everyone that was playing war games in the evening yeah because he he did do the
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countdown very well he had a crowd of people watching him do the teach of a ball game and that's you know need quite
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a lot of Charisma for that impressive in yeah exactly um so I can see your your
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theory and your um yeah motivation behind being able to teach other people and the fact it actually makes sense
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within its theme I think there's games that are a lot lighter that are about the same teach and so for those people
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who perhaps think I wouldn't fancy teaching you like a root or a ler or something with lots of extra rules in it
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this is I think a nice balance of the two and yet still keeps that puzzle in place place so really like the look of
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it played the Prototype on gaming rules and it looked great then and I've seen the art assets since and it looks even
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better yeah and just yeah really enjoyed everything about it everything from I knew it was going to be a fun
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like re game to play again because I lost by four points and it's because I made one mistake right near the end
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where I took the wrong tile off my own board and if I'd put another one on I'd have got those four points
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and I was like okay fine when it's that tight and that close that the one mistake but you can visually sometimes
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with these games you can't see where the mistake came from I could clearly pinpoint where that mistake was in the
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game and go okay well next time I'd kind of know what to look for and I feel like I'm going to um gain experience and reiterate on
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that much better than some other games of that sort of weight where I sometimes struggle to see where the puzzle you kind of feel bad because you can't
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progress with your own ability with the game and you can't get better for me I think I've talked about it I'm pretty
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sure I've talked about it before is I quite like a heavy game like a heavy Euro game or midweight Euro game but I
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like to them be able to yeah to see and I don't want have to play it three times to understand the flow of the game and I
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could see the flow I would do things better than the second time but I could see the flow from the first play through
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um which to be fair is how I felt about most luras as well is that I could see what I needed to do three turns in and
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it's exactly the same with um with galactic Cru so really looking forward to it really glad cuz I passed up an
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opportunity at Essen to sit down cuz I'd have been with three random people and I was like oh and then you guys went and
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played it and had a great time and I was like oh okay maybe this is one for me and people talk about being lighter they
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say it's heavier I think it's somewhere in the middle I think it's mid yeah I think it's a little bit heavier than the
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gallerist but not as heavy as weather machine if you want to say it stick it in between some luras yeah I'd say that
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it's certainly less opaque than the weather machine again the weather machine it doesn't really it does make sense but in a
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really abstract way yeah destroy the atmosphere so we can learn from the atmosphere it's like or learn from the
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weather just feels a bit like okay it seems counterproductive but yeah so I
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think that's where Galactic cruise is going to shine and I think it's going to win a lot of people across to to to
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playing that game because it will be much easier to teach in some of the luras yeah cool look forward to playing
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it me too yeah in January 2025 you not going to get to play it
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before then I really hope so oh nice we know we know some people with prototype copies so I'm hoping we can tap them up
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for a game somewhere yeah Galactic promise right how about you rob a bit

Rob - Furnace
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like Adrian we've been on a lot of board gaming weekends so I've had loads of time to play loads of new games um games
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that I traditionally would probably have thought were a little bit too heavy for my liking but I've actually enjoyed
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a large selection of them it's like when you confuse one art game for another art game yeah I stupidly confused the
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gallerist for art Society so good so I was mentioning to Adrian that um if
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anybody remembers the old video game Broken Sword I thought oh yeah the galleris is you know it's really that
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kind of art style and Adrian looked very confused but he was like okay um and
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then we set up the game and I was like this isn't what I thought it was and we proceeded to play and yeah
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that that's a little bit above moment he knew I [ __ ] up um but no and I I
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enjoyed the experience uh not necessarily the game CU I think it's a little bit out of my a little bit too
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much out of my comfort zone um but I get why people love it but the game I wanted to speak about was furnace which
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surprised me a lot because there's not a lot in the game as in it's not a massive board it's not a massive box um but the
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complexity was great and it's lovely little engine builder and I usually struggle the first time I play games
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like that I normally really struggle I kind of figure out about sort of uh 34 of the way through the game um but I
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picked it up and and just got it immediately and it's not a very complex game the complexity comes with the people that you're kind of playing with
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and what you're trying to achieve um but I absolutely loved it it was a quick game we we had an hour to kill um and we
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sat and played it and and had an absolutely fantastic time it's great game yeah it was really really good I was really uh really really impressed
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with it um to the point where I'm probably going to end up getting it cuz I can play stuff like that with the kids yeah it's
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and there's Advanced rules where you have to freeze everything in order and I tend suggest just don't do that like it
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sounds like a a really Trixie puzzle to do but there's so much in there already with having to remember and work things
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out that the idea of keeping everything in place seems a bit extra yeah I feel
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like if you play the game a lot it might come as a nice variation but if you're
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just sitting down as a filler game it's it's good as it is it was great and we had we had a good time playing as well
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and it was a nice little pette cleanser of all the heavy games that we were playing or heavy games for me not
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necessarily everybody else um but no absolutely loved it and and yeah probably going to end up picking that up
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at some point I really enjoyed it yeah so happy been burning in your heart ever since is I thought about a lot to be
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honest like I really enjoyed it like I genuinely just enjoyed it yeah so it was
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last year I think it was my favorite game to show people so the year before it was It's a Wonderful World last year
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was furnace and then this year so far has been far away and they're all those quite similar nice simple to teach but
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give you a really cool engine building thing so yeah I have to agree furnaces I enjoy teaching it as much as I do
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playing it I normally suck at engine builders but there was enough options there that people I wasn't relying on a
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card one card to kind of make it all work there were enough options there that if somebody wanted the C that I
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want I could see the work around really quickly yeah um which was great and I loved it and like I say it was a little
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nice little pallet cleanser uh you never starved of resources which are nice because of the whole the way that the
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bidding mechanic works and the betting like um within the auction is itself
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where you can get other resources and it's just a nice fresh Twist on a typical engine builder isn't it one of
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my favorite things is the compensation part cuz obviously if you win a car so if you're the highest bid on there you
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win the card you add it to your engine if you have one of the lower discs there's a compensation across the top
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which is you gain something or you convert something yeah and there's nothing funnier than Someone putting a
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really low number thinking they're going to lose the card and then nose bidding yeah no one else
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bidding so they win the card and it ruins their future compensation CU they were hoping to be compensated two steel
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there and then further down they knew they were going to turn two steel into for oil or something like coal or
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whatever it is yeah and they then don't get that first compensation because they accidentally won it which ruins the
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whole thing further down the line ruins their other bit and I think that is the genius I think of furnace the engine
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building is great but the compensation makes it just something extra yeah I
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really really enjoyed it so um yeah like I said I'll probably be picking that up in the future cuz it was really good fun
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yeah nice and quick as well 45 minutes you had a teach I think I think we had an hour and that was including the teach
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and we were finished in about an hour it was about an hour yeah I think 50 minutes so really setting up from Joel's
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horribly managed box where were everywhere
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Jo he chucked in all the expansions wasn't it we had to kind of separate it thank you for Lending us the game yeah
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we we very grateful um you're not you're not having my 3D printed insert to
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M that's that's that's your right and you chose to excise it that's fine so for me I played Beast again and I think

Davey - Beast
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I spoke about Beast before but I did I haven't played as the hunter so I have played a lot of games but I'm going talk
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about them in another episode I think so I'm going to talk about Beast i' I really enjoy it as a hidden movement
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game um it just works you can kind of always
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guess it was me curlyy and Tambo Curley was the Beast uh and me and Tambo were
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just the hunters um I feel like my hunter was a little bit busted which was the Trap Hunter but
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when there's three player you play on a side of the board with there's only two zones so you only have to put traps in two places right okay so it's a 50/50
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chance of where he's going I know you've got all of the environments and stuff but you had to hunt The Villages The Villages are here I'm going to put the
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Trap here cuz he has to attack here um and the hunter has won both games we got
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two games in the end oh wow did you yeah um I'm not sure curly and enjoyed playing the Beast as much because he
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felt like we were just on him all game the the larger map makes a huge difference I think that and also as I
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said I think the Trap character is a little bit busted for the three player
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it seems strong I mean other people may have had other experiences but I felt like basically I kept drafting the card
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that brought that ability card back to my hand for health so I was getting two items every round I was picking up all
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the item cards as well powerful meaning I can the traps back out for free um and
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then I was getting Health back from the item deck that I was drawing from so I was able to heal myself back up after
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losing said health so it was it seemed very very strong and quite easy to be
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able to trap curly I was making him discard cards of my trap which cards is like your tempo as the Beast you have to
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kind of try and keep your big moves till the end so you can kind of do a big
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flurry at the end and like Outlast The Hunters it's very Mouse um but I cuz I I did think I
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really enjoyed playing Beast and I enjoyed playing the beast but I didn't know if I'd enjoy playing the Hunter and
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I did really enjoy playing the hunter so yeah if you're on the fence about that game I definitely probably would get it
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CU you know if you enjoy that type of game you're looking at it just get it I think it's better in my opinion than um
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theur of Dracula um and I can't really think of many other hidden moving games
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I've played think I've played you played letters of White Chapel or White Hall mystery no they're both very good you
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love those games so I prefer White Hall mystery because it's quicker and simpler
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um let as a White Chapel you have to keep returning to the house and have to kind of work out where you're returning to almost whereas um whiteall mystery
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you are quite gruesomely dumping body parts in each corner of London and the police kind of have to
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coordin you but it always ends up as a close game whereas Fury of Dracula I've had some really not close games
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games yeah um and well the very first scenario Tambo threw us into the one
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whereas like a very Hunter bias right so I mean we we literally the first day we
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won oh oh wow yeah yeah so I think that put curly on bit of a bad fitting anyway
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it being like oh well that didn't feel great and it was like T was just like yeah I did pick the one that was really
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easy for the hunters was like look I know I said I think the Beast is overpowered but we need a bit
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more of a balanced one so we flipped um flipped the scenario and played the other one and it was it was a lot closer
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got to the second evening and then I think yeah we uh we actually killed the
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beast wow um but he curly was playing a very stealthy beast and we did we were
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quite lucky with two other times while tracking him of where he was we just like yeah he's there we're bang on on
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each time so it was uh wasn't easy for him but um yeah I basically enjoying
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that game the artwork game solidified the artwork yeah same about the standies
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the little cardboard standies aren't very good cuz the the bottom base becomes really loose it's a standard um
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where you've got like the female base and then the male or both of them with
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an insert you put them together they slowly get looser and looser the more you play it So eventually they just like falling AP you think oh come on there's
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other things you could have done here but I know the expansion or the upgrade has Miniatures just an extra 30 40 quid
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or whatever it is thing is like it would be worth the the the price cost that
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game like especially if you do play a lot because like you said those standies are going to fail over time and it is is
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a great game I really enjoyed it I've only ever played as the hunter um I've played it twice and the first time I
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played the hunter I didn't really the hunters are very different yeah and I think if you don't play the hunter
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properly I think it it can kind of seem ridiculously difficult but if you play the hunter the way really have to play
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together the way they're designed to be played and and the way that that you know certain Hunters interact with other
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Hunters like you know you can actually chain abilities between characters which make sense but if you don't do that it
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can make it a really tough game yeah and I think that's it like we were playing with pretty much open information but
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we'll that information to each other so yeah okay we're giving the Beast all that information as well but actually
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was more beneficial for us to play together and give that information away then to just try and be you know play
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our own game we had to really play together and I think that is when it's at its best
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because and I think um whiteall mystery and I think Sniper Elite if I remember correctly both have a rule it says you
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can't secretly converse with each other you have to keep the information like
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the person can over hear you because they're supposed to be close by so they like Beast is a bit different cuz they
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can't speak English I'm assuming the beast but well I don't know some of them like spirits and stuff so maybe maybe
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but the idea that they can hear you cuz they're nearby so they can understand what you're conversing about and I think
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that's the best cuz I've I've never sweated harder than when I think I'm going in the right direction and I can
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hear the other three all talking about closing net about where I'm just about to go and you're like nah I can't go
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there now I've got to do something else completely like Sidetrack and yeah I just I like that about hidden movement
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games it's you do you you feel very tense and you feel like you're being chased even though you're all sitting
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around a cardboard you know board that's why I don't SWAT more I
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don't think I can play the Beast cuz I don't I I hate that tense feeling it makes me uncomfortable and my poke face
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is really CRA but it's different to Hidden roll I find I really enjoy hidden
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movies mement and I don't mind being the the hunted person in Hidden movement I
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don't like hidden roll games and I feel like it's a different type of pressure yeah yeah it is absolutely but I don't I
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don't like that you don't like either of them but no it's not that it's it's more um like uh Star Wars rebellion yeah like
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that when they're getting close and I'm like oh Christ I don't like this like it makes me feel quite uncomfortable so I'm
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like oh I don't like it so um if somebody is getting close to my position I think if they just watched me they'd
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kind of figure out if they were close or not you know that's a fun part though well yeah see that bead of sweat run
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down your brow and drip onto the board as they get closer and closer and then shout at me for getting water on the

TURN 3 - Main Event: i-Game
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[Music]
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board so on to our main segment in this episode we're going to be talking about
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AI so I'm sure you've all heard the murmurings and the the whispers about AI
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slowly creeping into the ball game industry and there's been a lot of controversy and I'm sure we've got
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people here at the moment who probably sit on the E opposite sides of their opinions so any opinions that we are
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going to talk about in this episode are just that it doesn't we we aren't experts on the subject either by any
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means by any means um it's just it's kind of a healthy discussion about something that's kind of slowly going
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going getting into our industry and we thought it'd be quite a good thing to maybe discuss and see where it's going
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and kind of get everyone's feelings about the whole subject so I first of
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all thought you know what I'm going to get AI to do my work for me today so I've got AI to plan out the podcast
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structure and I'll be dropping some of its hints in for people who maybe are
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looking to make a podcast and uh don't have ai tools at their disposal we don't usually use this by the way this is a
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disclaimer I just thought it it was very fitting of the episode to drop this in
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for anybody that's met us we do we kind of look like the
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GRE I just had the thought that dve went AI what are my feelings on
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AI wish it could do that make your life a lot easier you'd be like one of the
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the old eight ball but obviously a lot more accurate magic eight ball yeah what should I do now AI um it might be a good
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experiment one day just live your life the day of Davey with AI controlling his
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life could you imagine if it was like one of the greatest days of your life how sad you'd be that you you had no
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control over it and you had a wonderful day that's terrifying it would be terrifying it's like bit like The Truman
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Show I guess wouldn't it yeah other than no one's watching or probably would want to watch
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no that's a different subject so first of all the AI told me

Recent news & events happening in the board game industry about AI
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that what we should be discussing is recent news and events that happening
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within the industry about AI so I'm going to kind of bottle it so AI has
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actually been within the ball game industry for quite a while but obviously with
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more they are kind of just as complex but they're more kind of traditional games so chess has been using AI for a
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long time yeah so it's always been a good way to kind of for people to practice and like have you guys ever
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used AI to like practice chess or anything like that do you play chess I've played the computer at chess which
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is kind not really the same thing but it's not modern AI is it no no so was it
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Go was the recent one though where go was the really recent one where it offended almost an entire culture of
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people cuz the idea that go couldn't be beaten by an AI was a bit of a Cornerstone of what they were you know
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oh hey I can beat chess cuz that's a lesser game than ghost thing I'm not saying whether it is a lesser game or a better game or anything like that but
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the idea that now ai could beat some like a world master at go kind of set their world on fire and turned upside
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down it was a big deal yeah cuz you you were speaking to me about this so then I kind of watched the episode of where it
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was just kind of short Snippets of it but where they were had the AI up and there was a guy moving the pieces as the
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AI was telling him what to do and the guy the pro looked distraught it was
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absolutely crazy how quickly this AI picked it up as well will forever be known as the guy who lost to a computer
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yes was it g Southgate that missed the penalty yes and got like known for yeah that's him now yeah absolutely so that's
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been the recent developments which is quite scary in some aspects of how the machine learning so I guess we should I
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probably give I should probably should have started with a brief description of a I just you don't know what it is because at the moment it's not really
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artificial intelligence it's kind of something we tacked on it's more deep machine learning where it basically
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learns off of us and the internet where we've got vast quantities of data it can
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act extricate said data and kind of correlate it into into answers and they
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can do it in Nan seconds depending on how big of a processing so I think Google's one Genesis is like one of the
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biggest ones that thing is absolutely crazy what it can do um you can literally put an image in front and it
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can tell you what the image is and what so they put street art that's coming out so 3D street art that looks it looks
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like it's you know real and the AI goes oh that's some sort of street art that they've used and basically it would
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describe the image to a t wow which is which is crazy cuz it knows the difference and also it would know kind
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of very small details of an image that you wouldn't normally so it had a had a
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s d this doing their usual like starting routine but it's was just a still image of him going opening his mouth head
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backwards like in a silly pose they goes oh that's an air stward uh doing the first thing it looks like he's making it
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a bit more jovial than usual and went over all this stuff and you think oh Jesus that's that's very Advanced I'm
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more worried that AI in Planes but um it couldn't do the exact
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math of two rockets going together though because they've had to make it so that it's only getting data from humans
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so it can't do a precise subject source of information yeah well and yes and
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this this comes to it its own downfall in some aspects so there's a lot more of a news bits really um but try and
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streamline it down to games um there's also AI Pictionary I think that's coming
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out all right where you can use AI with your in your Pictionary game I'm guessing you get it to draw um an image
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and then people have to try and guess what it is you get the AI to draw the image for you and off you go so picture
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jumped onto the bandwagon there so that was quite a recent new game sounded interesting at least a little bit
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different um we just we just did a quiz recently where they used AI artwork they
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told the the the AI what kind of artwork it needed to be what kind of game it needed to be and it tried to
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reproduce the cover or whatever you know and so all of those kind of things will absolutely sort of help with that but
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can also obviously be point of frustration I think I don't know whether we're coming on to that which is where
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where we're leading to now it's a natural course of things so as the AI said this is going to be our Deep dive

Deep dive into AI in the board game industry
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into the AI industry um where basically we're exploring exploring the impact of
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AI in game design game play and player experience Etc so it leads nicely on to
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that where yeah it's going to be a lot easier for designers to make games yeah which is the bit I agree on I I see as a
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wheel of industry and there's been these Pinnacles within each industry so when the first um massive
29:02
sewing machines came out the automated ones everyone was worried cuz humans were going to lose their jobs everyone's
29:08
going to lose their jobs but it kind of went the other way and it made a lot of these things cheaper for people to buy
29:14
which meant their quality of life would go up I feel like with AI we're probably going to have a similar experience SOB
29:21
games games yeah we're going to have cheaper Games come out for the designers but then you'll and then for the people
29:28
that do do great art people will be able to tell the difference and that means they'll
29:33
probably be able to put better price tag on I I think it'll be easier for smaller
29:39
developers to make high quality games at least high quality art without the cost
29:46
involved I think for the larger developers I think because the teams that they have in place it I don't think
29:52
it's going to make that much difference to the bigger developers see this is where it's interesting cuz stronghold game GES are
29:59
using AI strong games made terraform Mars so they're not small F games F
30:05
games is it not fix games uh stronghold of the Publishers oh okay yeah yeah I think they're the ones that you can see
30:12
that little stronghold on the side of terraform Mar but they've done it for the Prelude 2 yeah and they're
30:18
Kickstarter they're using Ai and this is where it starts to get a little bit murky because we don't mind smaller
30:24
developers using it at least how I feel but when you start getting big Developers is just yes I I I do feel
30:30
quite differ on this because I don't think they I don't think final product should be using AI I think it's great
30:37
for your prototypes and we can talk about design but I think it's absolutely fantastic for certain design philosophies and and
30:44
working through designs but I think from a final artwork point of view I disagree
30:51
I think all companies should still ideally be using
30:56
um up say for prototypes I think it's great and I think it's also good for if
31:02
you've got a template so the stronghold games thing was all about they were
31:08
saying they were only using it to generate the templates so they had all the Arts separated and all of the information in Excel tables and they
31:14
were using that if I remember correctly to then input it very quickly into their
31:21
templates and I think that is a fairly good use of it because it's otherwise it's someone sat there for hours just Dr
31:27
dragging and dropping information into into every single piece of card and I think that's fine but when it comes to a
31:34
skilled sort of piece like like art is yeah I would ideally like not to and I
31:42
have sort of forgot backing a couple of games because I you can clearly see
31:47
where they're using AI art yeah yeah um see for me if it if it lows the cost of a game and they put that cost forward
31:54
and as cuz there's a great point where someone went well is just learning off of people you're you're ripping off a
32:00
load of people's art but isn't that what a load of artists who would imitate another artist are doing anyway that
32:06
person has learned from that other person's art so as long as that cost gets pushed to the
32:12
consumer and we know the difference so you know if a a person's made that AR at
32:18
the moment you can tell that's what you're paying for so one's kind of like an artisan and the
32:24
other one's going to be machine processed how it comes comes up lower price point but that's how industry
32:30
Works no or some of that art if you look at some of the AI artwork that's come
32:35
about they've literally taken the foreground of one image and the background of another image and put them
32:41
on top of each other and then go here's new art and you're like but it's not you've taken two pieces of artwork and
32:47
you've composed one on top of the other and because AI has then done that you kind of feel free to be like that's fine
32:55
but if you did that for yourself and you literally like took your little Snipping Tool and went around one and put on top
33:00
of the other you would feel like you cheated someone just cuz AI has done it for you is not but then that's that's
33:06
different if it's blatant ripping off like power world was pretty on the nose if anyone saw that where it used AI well
33:13
they said they haven't used AI to create their Pokemon but and they're not in Pokemon they're
33:18
Pals they look like ripoffs of Pokemon but look like AI generated but that looks so on the nose it's like nearing
33:26
copyright and that's where think there's a morally gray area where yeah okay you
33:31
can use it for your art but then if you're starting to actually rip off other artists then whoa whoa whoa whoa
33:37
you can't be doing that I I think the trouble is it's really hard to tell like it will drag images up from quite far
33:42
into I've sort of looked a few um few Series where people talk about how much
33:48
a lot of AI not all of them but a lot of AI art images like design your tattoo and all you have to do is look three
33:53
Google Pages down and you can find one that's nearly identical but you'll have to look through a few pages and it's so
33:58
hard to do that due diligence if AI you can just reverse Google search it to some extent but that doesn't always work
34:05
either you can't quite get a a positive match I also think today will start
34:10
saying well it's fine for the smaller Publishers and the next thing we know we've got IO tool with a cardboard sign
34:15
out begging for money on the street because we've literally said to him your artwork is not needed anymore in the
34:21
industry see but this is where I don't think that will happen because it's not like we don't have people making
34:26
furniture thepoke we don't have people making these products still because we
34:31
know the handmade ones are better than the ones that a machine has made i. in
34:39
this sense aren't our human eye can tell the difference by looking at that human
34:44
made art compared to Ai and the price point will be the difference I don't
34:49
think they'll pass the pass the the cost saving on though and this is this is this is where it can fall down yeah this
34:55
is I feel like I'm I'm quite utopian I've got utopian view of AI I think it's going to make us a lot better but I know
35:03
a lot of people don't have that view or I think it will push Ino Tool's price
35:09
through the roof or you know what they'll charge for having real will then double in price now and so but hasn't it
35:14
kind of got that way with ball games at the moment anyway it but in what what way are we
35:20
it's already inflated to such a especially with Kickstarter we've already got to that kind of price point
35:25
A lot of people are going to just probably have to you're going to businesses will have to
35:31
make a cut elsewhere but that's the for most part of that kind of Kickstarter
35:37
feel is is plastic Miniatures versus nonplastic Miniatures or you know acrylics versus cardboard um and that's
35:44
a really tactile thing that you can choose not to have the Miniatures or to have it in most Cas yes everything's
35:49
gone up because that's the economy we live in at the moment and I do think board games have gone up possibly more than um I guess it's cost of material is
35:57
an actual phys a cool thing um and you know board games are not a small package you know especially if you get
36:03
Kickstarter it takes up half a crate to like half a shipping container for three kickstarters sometimes um soal
36:11
Awakening so I think those kind of things and they're they're easier to spot again you look at um so Puerto Rico
36:18
from awaken Realms just made it into the news recently and it clearly passed a
36:24
lot of people by that it was Ai and then as always the hands gave it away cuz AI hands are Dreadful someone was like look
36:32
at the hand there and look at how the wheel is attached here and all of those little points AI doesn't get right at the moment and suddenly everyone was
36:39
like who there's AI up but until it went a long not a long time but it went enough time before people noticed that
36:45
there was AI art in that yeah and bearing in mind that that's twice companies have been called out they've
36:51
not openly said oh this is air they've been called out on it and that I don't agree with that I think if you're using
36:57
a tool you got to be and and it's a bit controversial at the moment you should be open about using said tool and I feel
37:03
like your consumer if you then said we're using said tool this is keep an X cost down or the artwork that I mean
37:10
this is another thing they could do is the artwork that we feel like this is inspired to we've given a small proceed towards people would be a lot happier
37:16
with that potentially it's no different to anything else you look at uh let's try and figure out you look at um
37:22
genetically modified food they don't put on the front cover this is genetically modified food I had a Bann press for a
37:29
while didn't the companies that are not doing genetically modified food will start announcing that they don't do
37:34
genetically modified food and so you'll have like I've seen it but now you've got stickers and little things in there that say we use no ai ai in the making
37:42
of this game or you will get things like that coming up but you're not going to have all of the Publishers especially big ones going yeah we use AI art
37:49
absolutely I know I know as I said just and that's the idealists kind of sense
37:54
like you're saying at the moment as well like that artwork got through quite a long way in in the process of the game
38:01
you give that 5 years I'd be amazed if you can tell oh yeah by looking at a
38:06
product whether it's AI or whether it's not you give it 10 years you give it you know we say five years we've going to
38:12
grow to the point of um where AI is probably doing a lot of people's jobs
38:18
yeah 100% 100% And that's that's that's the worrying part but again like you
38:23
said you know people are losing their jobs for you inovation that hasn't quite
38:28
worked out that way for years like you know but it is a possibility yeah yeah
38:34
yeah it's just we've got to regulate and I think be safe with our use of it but I
38:43
don't think that's going to happen and I think there are safer ways to use AI so mostly so far I've been the detractor of
38:49
AI and you guys have been a bit more EA AI one of the things been more of the on
38:55
I don't know enough about it that's that's the point all my whole reference of AI is from movies and we all know how
39:02
well that turned out got well other than the one with Johnny Depp mat that's got the utopian
39:09
view of it but I mean in life I'm very very sort of um skeptical of it so
39:17
there's a great experiment they did with some AI they had an AI that was which they basically released into the onto
39:24
the internet for a while then asked it oh if it actually came out you sens and what was the first thing You' do and it
39:30
said I'd kill everyone yeah then the second one they exposed it a little bit
39:36
to the internet and asked it what they would doing it would say I would try and figure out what I was and then they had
39:41
the third one which was in a nice padded environment and then they asked what it would do and it would said I would try and better the world and make the world
39:49
a better place and it's like so what they were said that they were trying and do before they released any like super
39:57
power for AI is they need to have it away from the tox toxicity of the internet before unfortunately we know we
40:04
know amazing we know the majority to filter that out yeah yeah you know we know that people are individuals it's
40:11
not done on a Hu on a on on a and the internet is not a good I don't think it's a good gauge of people no not at
40:18
all people are the worst on the internet yeah but I think that's why is a good I think I think you have the two kind of
40:24
people you have the people who who behave when they've got the anonymity of the internet or driving in a car or
40:29
whatever and all that kind of stuff and then you got the people you're going to meet on the street cuz that person who flipped you off in their BMW as they
40:35
drove past shouldn't really be as the goto you know that I bet you nine nine
40:41
times out of 10 they wouldn't be a one to say Bo to a goose on the street and I think the internet has that multiplied I
40:47
think that's the worst in people though I don't think that's the best in people I don't think that's a good gauge of character still I still I still think
40:54
it's part of that gauge though yeah yeah but it's the extreme yeah yeah and that's why I don't think
41:00
it's a good gauge of your average person is because their toxicity or their stress and everything else they feel
41:07
free to just vent that into the into the stratosphere or into the Internet it's part of them is part of yes I'm not
41:13
saying it's not if all you did was look at them from the internet then I would agree but it's a very good part of
41:18
anyway this well well off topic we well off topic a little bit but yeah it's mainly just on the gauge of what because
41:24
AI is going to be that is where it gets most all of his information but sort of going back to I
41:31
suppose point I was going to make a few minutes ago was I think something that AI will be really useful for in the
41:38
board game industry is ultimately things like maths so if you say okay well a
41:44
mushroom's going to be worth Five Points uh a Berry's going to be worth Four Points uh things going to be worth three
41:50
points I need all of these across 62 cards work the math out for me AI is
41:55
going to be able to do that pretty now let alone years time this is where like
42:01
I going use Genesis as an example again it's actually really bad at math because where it picks where it gets all this
42:07
data from is from people and trying to objectively be
42:13
um so cuz math is set it's right or wrong where what they've kind of
42:19
programmed AI to do at his current state and they're trying to actually kind of Branch out and make it so it is more um
42:26
it it can switch on which as a human brain can we can basically be artistic
42:32
and have imagination and do all of this and then suddenly switch and do something um objective like math whereas
42:38
at the moment the way they programmed AI it can't so it actually has some variables within math where it can get
42:44
stuff wrong okay I've seen some different bits around yeah which is probably an AI that's been been been
42:51
programmed to do that within this machine learning where it's been like yeah statistics it's given all of stats
42:57
and that's it whereas a lot of more generic AI where we're trying to they're trying to use it to for art Etc but
43:05
anyway I digress I just found it an interesting point I I didn't know that I say I I I've not used any AI tools
43:12
myself I've just looked at what AI is doing and someone was doing some what's the statistical probability of this and
43:19
getting AI to pull out um and I thought to myself well you've got to be able to
43:24
use that then to work out stats within mats yeah same as play testing I think ultimately play testing time will reduce
43:31
quite significantly under the use of AI because it can keep running scenarios you look at um so one of the one of the
43:38
very early things I remember from AI was it got it to run Super Mario yeah yeah and they learned how to
43:43
play Super learn how to play Super Mario and basically all first thing it did was run off a cliff and it's like okay well
43:49
that's not the right thing to do so it then learned to jump at Cliffs then it ran into a Cooper Trooper thingy and it
43:54
was like okay that's the wrong thing to do I can jump on that and I can and so slowly it learn how to play the game and
44:01
if you apply that to potentially board games again AI doesn't seem like it's there right now but in the future you
44:06
can absolutely get it to run a thousand play tests in a day easy no problem yeah
44:12
you can't do that at the moment and I still think that's worthwhile for human play testing because AO can't understand
44:18
the experience it's fun whether it's fun or not right it's not going to ever do that for you but it is going to do what
44:25
it is going to do for you is tell you whether all your strategies are valid potentially and stuff like that so balancing is going to come a lot easier
44:32
with the game I agree with this use of it as well where they could run a board game through the AI you know on B on
44:40
board gamer um tabletop Arena or whatever and you run it through and it would be able to play the game hundreds
44:46
of thousands of times in like like well you know fractions of the time compared
44:52
to people which means that you're balancing you'll be able to do a lot better which is a great tool to have for
45:00
the industry because we do have some games when they come out um tapestry um revive revive revive had
45:07
yeah revive had balancing issues and even you look at things like root and stuff like that where they're so
45:13
asymmetric yeah you can absolutely run that through a simulator and it will tell you that on average and it can run
45:19
different simulations hopefully at some point and it will tell you that these are all balanced okay an individual's experience might then unbalance it CU
45:26
they might only see one route or whatever but ultimately this is balanced within its own ecosystem and say the
45:32
human part comes in is this fun is it engaging is it entertaining that you still have to play test it for that but
45:38
balance and and the maths behind the game and AI should certainly be able to support a developer with that in the
45:44
future yeah yeah yeah you can run get all the stats you want from it what do you feel like is the the best outcome

What's the best outcome of AI in the industry
45:51
and the worst outcome from having AI within our industry then do you have do
45:56
you have any like hopes and dreams for it Rob do you uh the thing is mate I I don't know enough about it I'm very much
46:02
representing the person who who has no idea about Ai and my understanding of it
46:10
would be like Adrian said that the the algorithmic sort of use of it would be
46:15
would make massive sense like uh I'm not sure if you've ever played um double the
46:22
AL the algorithmic process that goes into that game for a very simple Le game is is
46:29
hurts my brain to even think about how on Earth they achieve that yeah yeah so obviously that side of it would would
46:35
kind of make more sense like you said to make it quicker to get to the shelves because they haven't got play an AI DM
46:40
dungeon master in something like descend would you think that' be a cool thing I think it would be cool in regards that
46:46
you would almost have a NeverEnding game yeah because obviously at the moment it it's what's programmed into the app or
46:53
it's what's written on the book cuz it would eliminate the whole feel bad like DM you know where sometimes people don't
47:00
want to have play against another person because it's three people against one especially with descent the first one
47:06
you could the DM could feel like he's getting ganged up on badly also the the main job of the DM in those sort of
47:13
games is to gauge where the players are yeah and for the players to have fun
47:19
maybe sometimes at the expense of themselves having fun yeah absolutely but the AI it wouldn't matter AI
47:25
wouldn't care was like this is my castle to defend and I will defend it well but
47:30
you could set certain variables of it though where you're like it's up to the you know VAR difficulties which you
47:37
learn from yeah I I I think it's it's got potential yeah and would you play it
47:44
I'd give it a go You' give it a go there's not a lot there's not a lot of games I wouldn't play to be honest with you I think I think there is something
47:51
there again I think it needs a human intervention somewhere um because so in
47:56
my last year in my preemptive midlife crisis hopefully um I decided I was
48:02
going to start skateboarding out of nowhere and so I started watching apart from the fact I fell off and hurt my hip
48:07
several times like an old man um I started watching some channels and one of the one of the main channels set can
48:14
you do us like a course set out with AI and they said like a lot you could see a lot of the course was really good
48:20
and it was tricks that normally go together and stuff like that and some bits they were like we're never going to do this because it clearly hasn't
48:27
understood the physics required it's just kind of spit out a couple of Tricks together that it's heard about and all
48:33
that kind of stuff doesn't understand the human anatomy And the fact that we're we're weak weak fragile things and
48:39
is it put like the in there and you could see they struggled
48:45
with those parts of the course and they s cheated it a bit and all that kind of stuff and I've seen some other similar
48:50
things like that where they've got AI to write bits and pieces and I think some of it worked out really well and where
48:57
you need the human bit to get the AI to run it and then to to help pull what's suitable and what's not out because I
49:03
think if you give certainly at the moment if you give AI free run it's going to yeah at the moment definely for
49:09
D and D or anything like that I don't think cool though it learn from other games that are happening and then it
49:15
could incorporate into its own game it would be cool I I think this is me just thinking out the
49:22
box of the whole yeah I totally agree would it would it understand the difference between groups so I've played
49:27
in several different D and groups and I can tell you if I took what I learned just from one group and put it in another group that other group would
49:34
hate it would they would hate it so and this is where I kind of get a little bit sort of skeptical that this is good or
49:41
possible like in the near future but D and D is very different to like descent like true D and D is obviously mainly
49:48
it's all imagination it's it's bit more it's bringing that story to life and
49:53
it's very random whereas descent obvious ly lot more like more structure to it
50:00
which which would make more sense that if you you know it's it's effectively creating a chapter whereas D and D is
50:08
essentially creating a journey in my opinion from what I've played of both I
50:13
suppose yeah there's two parts of that isn't there there's if you're asking descent just to set up a dungeon that's
50:19
mathematically correct and just set out like it's no different to randomly
50:24
generated content at that point well I think what it would more be more likely to do is with descent 2 you've got kind
50:31
of things that you interact with and enemies that are spawn in that it all does on the app anyway at the moment and
50:37
basically what you would want the AI probably doing is how well you're doing
50:42
or how easy you're doing a mission to vary its difficulty to then make sure that you're always just about do said
50:49
Mission so cuz it's always more enjoyable when you just about do a CO
50:54
game not when you when you actually smash and troun it you're a bit like oh that's too easy and then when you get
51:00
absolutely hammered you go that was too hard yeah it works the other way doesn't it if you win too easy it's nowhere near
51:05
as fun and if you get absolutely smacked but if you just do the Miss or you just lose and you think actually you know
51:11
what we could have done that so like what I was thinking was kind of more of just an AI that would learn your group
51:18
of how well you play said Mission or how meta that you kind of gauge it yeah and
51:25
gaug in various difficult according accordingly cuz that would be very for me that would be like Oh i' instab by
51:31
that cuz that would be quite fun to play against with a group I think it'd be worth it it' be worth seeing what they what they produce with that because it
51:36
is an intriguing idea yeah yeah yeah and it well I mean it's all theoretical it's
51:41
it's just where I'm trying to like to see where it can go where it can go into the industry and not be as intrusive as
51:48
take artist jobs or basically take a game like there is a so there has there
51:54
there is a designer that made a game just using Ai and it's currently sitting at 7.1 the the the designer he did it
52:01
for his PhD uh it's Cameron brown with with an e on the end um and The Game's
52:07
name is y valf it it kind of looks yeah I think the AI made the name as well
52:13
let's face it um I think he did every aspect using AI this is at 7.1 for people easiest PhD in the
52:20
world do that for me um and it looks a bit like a I think it's a slightly like
52:27
Goos game or like Connect 4 um yeah not connect for um Tic Tac Toe or something
52:34
like that but like a bit more advanced and has its own set of rules from from what I saw but I just thought it was quite interesting someone's basically
52:41
just went oh yeah I'm going to I'm going to just design a game complet I'm just going to design a game completely um
52:47
there's another one called fog of Adventures which the guys using AI he's a small time developer by lit and he's
52:54
been very open the fact he's using AI and he's doing what we said where he's using it to help design his game and and
53:01
go from there so I think all of that is really intriguing and it makes me laugh because I've seen some really like I've
53:07
seen people just plug in design me a game sort of thing and I've seen some ideas and I thought actually that's if you took that one part of it I think you
53:13
could build a game around that that no one's built before but the one that made me chuckle I think it was about two
53:18
years ago someone said please just design me a I think it was a worker placement board game with no dice and
53:24
the first thing the computer the AI said was use a six sided
53:31
spinner and I was like it's not using dice is correct and just and these are
53:38
kind of the two sides of AI that I see you see the stupid AI where you're like really is this kind and then you see
53:44
some really useful Ai and I think I find it it is a tool and you have to use it
53:49
you have to use it as such use it as a tool not as a means of being lazy and oh
53:56
I'm just going to use that to do everything all my work for me whereas if you I think if you use it as said tool
54:04
to help you do things is good um and a lot of people wouldn't agree with me or
54:09
you know are very hesitant about it and that's fine like this is only my opinion
54:15
with it I use it for a tool in work and it's made my life a lot easier customer service emails you'd be
54:22
surprised how many now were written by AI where someone's said here's the problem please me a suitable response
54:28
yeah or job applications please write me a suitable job application opening email
54:35
for this um and all of that kind of stuff it's just a tool for that and I think as
54:42
a board game Community we are slowly working out where as a collective our
54:49
Line in the Sand is yeah where our morals kind of are with it individually we may not all agree and i' you just
54:55
have to go on to any board game for or or thread to see that there's definitely a difference of opinion but that's the
55:01
internet as we've were talking about yeah but somewhere there we're going to draw that line right and we're going to
55:07
say we're happy for AI to do this we're not happy for AI to do this yeah and
55:13
over time that line will move as well I'm excited because it is going to change the world there's there's no
55:19
doubt about that AI will change the world it's just which way it will go whether we go a Terminator way or had to
55:26
be mentioned at some point absolutely I think it's going to be I
55:32
think it's going to be for the better it's basically there will be people that will try and use AI for for for bad
55:37
which there is people try and scam people using AI now there's I mean a million bots on Facebook where if you
55:43
have ever tried to sell anything on Facebook Marketplace recently it's a nighta you get bots messaging you I like
55:49
to mess with them sometimes if but I just don't like selling there anymore but it's just about the people that are
55:55
trying to use it the good to basically outrace the people who are trying to use it for the bad have you have you tried
56:03
eBay AI to write your description yeah yeah I have that is something else so I
56:10
was buying a box of uh Games Workshop models and it said this crazy set of
56:17
sentences that I was like these do not make sense so I messaged the guy and said messaged the seller and said hi
56:25
just wondering cuz it says new in box but it also says that it comes with painted Miniatures and I don't think you
56:31
can have both so what is it the seller came back with I've got AI to write it
56:37
I've used the a the eBay AI to write and he didn't proofread it I didn't proofread it and you're like man this is
56:44
this is crazy lawyers in America got in trouble cuz they got AI to write their mhm their brief and it it mentioned
56:52
three law cases that didn't actually exist and used them for use them for
56:57
examples to to prove someone's cases is that the error of the AI or is it the
57:02
the error of the humaning on the exactly they need to proofread it yeah and this
57:07
is the point is my understanding is at the moment in American legal system you're not allowed to use AI at all or something they've got very strict
57:14
reasons as to why ch um but yeah it just made me chuckle when I saw that this leads me on to our next

TURN 4 - O-REAL-E - AI Reviews vs Human Reviews
57:25
segment [Music]
57:31
I've got AI to write me some reviews of Bard games some of our beloved ball
57:37
games yeah and I've grabbed some reviews of the ball games I want you guys to
57:43
tell me which one's Ai and which one's a human interesting you've met Bard Gamers
57:50
right it's one out of 10 absolutely would play again that's the normal same game I called it oh
57:58
really oh very good nice thank you very good well did you come up with that or did the AI are you I you taking credit
58:06
for the ai's no I did that that was all me so the first ball game I've picked pandemic
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okay thanks a particular I how much how much yeah exactly so as an Enthusiast
58:20
who has tackled pandemic several times I can attest to the rush of adrenaline it consistently delivers each session feels
58:26
like a high Stak battle against time and chance where communication and strategy are just as crucial as the role of dice
58:32
or the draw of the card the game's ability to stimulate the tension of a global crisis is both thrilling and
58:37
sobering and the satisfaction of curing all four diseases is matched only by the despair when an outbreak spirals out of
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control okay so that's one yeah the next it seemed like we' only just started the
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game and the yellow strain had not been cured but eradicated we were on the cusp of a cure for the second strain this one
58:55
was in the bag we had weathered two epidemics so far without any arious problems sure there were was a pair of
59:02
cities in Eastern Europe that was in danger but what were the odds that there was going to be a problem one of us was already there then another epidemic hit
59:09
the infection rate increased three cities were drawn and it seemed like the cascading outbreaks knew no bounds I
59:15
think nearly everyone in Europe died that day and we a group of specialized scientists were served a plate of bitter defeat again again and again always
59:22
defeat oh the humanity I've never played pandemic okay
59:28
but judging from judging from your facial expressions I think you might be
59:34
struggling with this one a little bit well so the first one mentioned a role of the dice and I thought there's no
59:39
dice in pandemic so the ai's got it wrong there but because they were
59:45
referring to it as a instead of a chance of probability I think it's probably a
59:50
correct usage of it whereas the second one you could have someone who's a real
59:55
storyteller but it just feels weird the
1:00:00
whole Europe again and again and again but it they're both legitimate
1:00:07
possibilities but I think it's the second one is AI I think it's the first one you're right with the first one oh
1:00:13
wow okay the first one is uh AI the first one basically I've got AI to write
1:00:20
as if it's a human and I basically corrected it on things as well and I've
1:00:25
got no second one was taken from Amazon review I've got no viable reason of why I picked one as in I honestly it's not
1:00:33
easy though is it didn't know it's just one used a couple of phrases that I doubt I could
1:00:40
spell I thought I thought the first one sounded a bit odd and the use of roll of
1:00:45
a dice I thought but it does use it in the right way it uses it it's like the strategy is just as um so it says where
1:00:52
communication strategy are just as crucial as the role of a dice or the draw of a but it was that and that was the role of the dice thing I was like
1:00:58
but it is chance but there's no dice in it so I'm really not sure about it and the second one it was used in the correct way it was just well actually it
1:01:05
wasn't if I listen to it again it wasn't because it suggested that there's a role of the dice in the game whereas I was
1:01:10
thinking it just simply said it was as less chance well I think it was It was kind of referring to the
1:01:16
fact that it was beautifully worded don't get me wrong yeah yeah scarily worded the fact that how how well it
1:01:24
kind of does the review to be honest um right so the next one is void fall okay okay I know nothing of this I've
1:01:31
played it once void fall feels incredibly well balanced deeper than the other games FAL and is tied to a core
1:01:38
that still excites me so many plays into the experience void forall is near the top of the list in terms of its core
1:01:44
mechanics it's amazing this entire experience boils down to the decision space on when and how to play one of the
1:01:50
nine Focus cards a player has in each game combined with production that is truly out of this world void for is a
1:01:56
winner especially if you can find a small group of super fans willing to play this regularly the next one having navigated
1:02:04
the depths and space of uh of space in void forall I can share that it's a complex and deeply strategic experience
1:02:11
the game's mix of type Resource Management with the grand of a Space Opera is both intellectually stimulating
1:02:16
and immersively thematic each decision feels weighty from the subtle maneuvering of fleets to the economic
1:02:22
choices that can Ripple through later turns the game mechanics are a testament to the designer's ability to merge theme
1:02:29
and thoughtful gameplay and the production values from the detailed minates to the vibrant artwork inhance
1:02:34
the overall experience one or two I'll ad go
1:02:41
first on Rob um I think it's the first one think it's the first one say or
1:02:46
human a that was my guess as well but man if it is that second one we've had
1:02:52
two really flowery languaged is it's the second one is it is it the first one the first one was
1:02:59
written from uh just a Blog that I picked online that some guy just written the blog about void full and the second
1:03:06
one is the the only reason the only reason I would have said the second one um is because things comments like
1:03:15
it's at the top because it is very high on B right and I see I saw that as a more human element what I thought I saw
1:03:22
that as a data point oh no I saw it the other way around you I did think I didn't think AI would pick that up but
1:03:28
when you pick the second one with such flowy language I was like he's picked that as a Double Bluff because that
1:03:34
sounds like it's AI trying to create something Majestic and I think he's done it as a Double Bluff again I tell you
1:03:40
what as a the first one was very straightforward into the point isn't it yeah as my experience of that game too
1:03:47
was bang on yeah absolutely Bang Yeah Yeah it's it I was very impressed
1:03:53
especially when I cuz at first when I said do a review it was very impersonal
1:03:59
and then I said write this as if you played the game and then it wrote the review and then I was like ah here we go
1:04:06
here's what I want from this this is written now like a human playing this ball game it's like the AI knew exactly
1:04:12
what I Wasing it was like someone was being paid by the word and that's why I thought as a Double Bluff I thought that's why it'll be the second one
1:04:18
that's human cuz he's found someone who's written the most flowery review of the game anyway yeah on to the
1:04:25
next one too many bones oh here we go JP too many bones is a game that doesn't
1:04:31
shy away from complexity or Chuck in a mountain of dice and while it could be a gear lockage dream for some it may feel
1:04:37
like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube in the middle of a mosh pit diving into the game is like jumping into the deep end
1:04:42
of a pool filled with Rule books and dice lots of dice the learning curve is less of a curve and more of a right
1:04:48
angle which might leave newcomers feeling like they're studying for the world's strongest final exam and once
1:04:53
you do get the hang of it you better be ready to bow to the whims of Lady Luck because she's the one truly calling the
1:04:59
shots here prepare yourself for the roller coaster of emotions when your master plan is foiled by rolling all the
1:05:04
bone bones you didn't need um okay the next one is too many
1:05:10
bones more like too many dice jeez this game has a billion dice in the Box okay
1:05:16
that's an ex exaggeration it has 130 by my Reckoning but it's still a lot of Cubes to throw dice fans this game is
1:05:23
practically porographic you'll love it ring dice rotating dice plugging dice
1:05:28
into perfectly fitting holes it's in nepr playmats it's enough to get anyone hot under the collar too many bones is
1:05:34
an adventure strategy game full of fantasy steam P Punk and monsters although a staged as some kind of Grand
1:05:40
Adventure RPG style in truth the flow of the game is driven through a deck of encounter cards yeah there's play
1:05:46
attacks and the monsters and gear loocks your player characters have great artwork and feel fleshed out but it doesn't feel like you're going anywhere
1:05:52
each turnover card feels more like just finding out who's next for the ride of the Pain Train so I picked negative reviews for this one cuz the other ones
1:05:58
were positive but I do think T go bones is a good game by the way I just thought I do this for
1:06:04
JP's I'm more shocked that there is a negative review for that game cuz it is
1:06:09
perfect Adrian's face also agrees with me it's good yeah so which one do you
1:06:16
think it is that was really tough yeah it's ridiculously tough
1:06:22
because there was a couple of bits in both that I thought were very
1:06:27
human but there was a couple of bits in both that I thought that's how I would expect AI to sound so apologies if you
1:06:35
wrote those reviews um I'm going to say that the first one was the human one I'd
1:06:42
say the first one's the AI one first one was AI the second one was
1:06:47
the human one so basically I fallen for all of the and you were the one that said we'll be able to
1:06:54
tellw oh you between I can't at all oh yeah you can I can't at all again so
1:06:59
like if you look at the Puerto R the Puerto Rico Kickstarter I wouldn't have picked it out personally cuz I wouldn't
1:07:05
look at the images that closely but you can quite often see when AI artwork is
1:07:11
done but it's the reviews are really I I basically if it was the very first one
1:07:17
it threw at me you would have been able to tell cuz it just it was so inum inhuman and basically I had to say right
1:07:24
make this more human and then the next one I basically for the tooo many bones I said make it negative made it negative
1:07:29
and I said make it more jovial and then that's when it threw in the a load of the jokes and everything else but it's
1:07:36
quite it's quite scary in some aspects it was it was it was very close like it's very tight again not not any one
1:07:44
specific thing it was just a feeling of the way some of the things come out in in the in the thing that just kind of
1:07:50
put me off a little bit yeah but then the human ones weren't there were still there's certain bits you think o um that
1:07:57
sounds like it's not human I I wouldn't have been shocked if you said it was two either way I wouldn't have been like oh
1:08:03
yeah they love that's obvious no no no and but I also did try to pick ones where they were maybe a little
1:08:09
bit and this is less distinguishable it's the same with artwork I watched um a tattoo challenge where they did um AI
1:08:17
tattoos and they got to about 30 images there's three or four different tattoo artists and they got to about image 30
1:08:23
or 40 before they felt like they were poning in on what was suitable for tattoo art but they got there and they
1:08:30
had to Discount the first 30 like you probably did with reviews you know these are not suitable these are the ones but
1:08:37
it will get there eventually and it will produce it may not produce exactly what you're thinking of but it will produce a
1:08:42
good and I think that's just hammering and you need to use it as a to it's not just a one and done you type this in
1:08:48
there you go leave it you have to Define its boundary like its boundaries and kind of hone it into what you want
1:08:55
but yeah there we go there's a really nice little different game I'm sorry if you're going to miss our um would you
1:09:02
rather but there we go would you rather listen to a review from AI or from a
1:09:09
human depends on the human

TURN 5 - Penultimate Turn: What's Coming Up
1:09:20
really so as we progress through the episode we're on to the winding day down
1:09:25
the last couple turns the penultimate turn um what's everyone getting up to
1:09:31
you we we going to be playing games we're going to be watching films I'll start with you Rob hopefully a bit of

Rob - Watching Dune Part Two & Burncycle
1:09:36
both oh a bit of both yeah so obviously due to the magic of podcasting um and
1:09:42
time frames uh hopefully I would have either still looking forward to watching
1:09:47
the second June or have watched the second June quality film and I don't know which obviously I'll be but
1:09:54
hopefully I would have seen it so I saw it on Saturday and in my personal opinion it's been the best film to come
1:10:00
out in the last 10 years I said five years but I think 10 years when I'm trying to actually quantify it I just
1:10:06
thought it was amazing everything especially watching in the cinema I would advise seeing at the cinema the sound design in that film it makes you
1:10:14
feel like you're there it's very Bassy and we watched the first one and when
1:10:19
the ship took off my seat was like vibrating it felt like I was going up in the air with it it's it was one of my
1:10:26
I'm so glad cuz we watched it quite late on in its Cinema run yeah I'm so glad
1:10:32
that we did because it it just it it made me fall in love with the Sci-Fi genre again and I forgot how you know
1:10:41
when it reveals the pudar in the first film I just it was so so Warhammer to me
1:10:46
that bit with the emperor and then they're all there and you've got the blood running down the middle of the the troops I just thought that scene was
1:10:52
absolute quality you can see where they got where obviously wama 40K took a lot
1:10:57
of its inspiration from do in the first place you can see where it got his kind of roots and this next film just builds
1:11:04
the tempo and just keeps going whereas the first one did have it slow points a lot of people said it was a bit slow but
1:11:10
I still enjoyed the first was an introduction to the world I mean I I couldn't wait for 9 years to see how
1:11:16
this story ends and I listen to audiobooks when I drive around which I've talked about in the past so I downloaded the the the June books and
1:11:23
all I can say is if they stay anywhere near true to those books they are going to what a Trilogy it's going to be yeah
1:11:29
they've they've obviously had to condense a lot into the films so I feel like the film could have been longer but
1:11:34
it was 2 hours and 45 minutes so give me a longer film if it means a better story yeah it's still it's still good though
1:11:40
they've done it in a way where it flows and you still understand what's going on
1:11:45
um it just could have fleshed out some other bits but very much I understand the other thing um at gridon back in the
1:11:53
day back in the day a few months ago a lot happen in there exactly um I won a
1:12:00
copy of burn cycle I've played burn cycle before I absolutely adore it um
1:12:06
but I still haven't got it out of the box because i' we've been moving rooms and and other games I mean I got too
1:12:12
many bones and that stayed on the table for a solid 6 weeks uh so yeah very much looking forward to finally getting that
1:12:17
to the table cuz like I said I I Adore that game I've never beaten the game no
1:12:23
I've quite often had my ass kicked um to the point where me and JP both failed a
1:12:28
mission within an hour um one day so I'm no very much looking forward to getting out to the thing is with games like that
1:12:35
is I really Panic about getting them back in the box so a lot of the times I'll open the lid and be like yeah I'll
1:12:41
look at that later because getting it back in is a puzzle in itself and I'm crap at puzzles yeah yeah so I need to
1:12:49
take photos of every single stage when I take stuff out to be able to put it back in and hly the the amount of anxiety it
1:12:56
drives in me is is is I I've realized that I've got a real serious problem with I understand this cuz void full I
1:13:03
would have got it to the table about four or five times more if it wasn't for the pack up and the pack down and only
1:13:09
on the third pack up I realized there was a little sheet cuz it was hidden right on the box that tells you how to
1:13:14
put it back in oh my god without that thing I was like there for ages just trying to tesate and trying to get it in
1:13:20
and it was horrible soon as I found that sheet I was like okay this makes the 20 minute job a 10 minute job 20 minutes B
1:13:30
you see how long it takes oh the this is the only downside to that game but anyway yeah to pass review on that one
1:13:37
I'll let you know if I feel the same on that yeah I liked burn cycle in my first play through but I couldn't quite see
1:13:42
what it was trying to get me to do um but I only played like half the first mission while I waiting for something to
1:13:48
happen and um yeah so I do need to give it another go but yeah an hour in and I was like I'm not quite sure what it's a
1:13:55
long game what it's trying to achieve deely a long game as well I think I would enjoy it cuz it's a programming
1:14:01
game isn't it kind of yeah you you've kind of got like you have to set a certain amount of task and then kind of
1:14:06
run it and then see what happens but a bit more like metal gear solid as well with the stealth aspect yeah um cuz I
1:14:13
really like Cloud Spire um I think that's an amazing game I know a lot of people hate it I've never played it I
1:14:19
love it never played it but JP just doesn't want to get it to the table cuz I don't know it's just
1:14:25
gamesz only it's only me that want to play that's why I bought too many bones cuz i' play every week yeah and he's
1:14:32
yeah we'll set a night in I can do it in six weeks time I want to play now so that's why I bought I do more podcasting
1:14:39
than I do board games at the moment so that's just the sad fact and I haven't been in the podcast for what three
1:14:47
months but you need to get to the table yeah I know I know I mean this month's been pretty good though we had full
1:14:53
board I mean had B gaming ball gaming weekend so I can't complain too much we
1:15:00
would kill me we've played a lot yeah I think that's probably why you I've had good good yeah waves or spurts as ad lik
1:15:08
to call it yeah um talking about your ball game Spurs you got anything coming up um got

Adrian - Baycon (hopefully), completing Venom Goblin in Marvel Champions & Moon
1:15:14
[Laughter]
1:15:20
go no not when you're around so I've got a few things um on
1:15:27
the way or on the horizon so as this releases it'll be a few weeks till bacon
1:15:32
nice which is a a convention I think it's like a 4- day convention down in ex and every year I'm like I'm going to go
1:15:38
to it and so this year my I'm telling myself I'm going to go at least to do one day at bacon um but we'll see if
1:15:45
that happens or not because the last two years I've canceled and i' like really close to the line I'll go I'll go I'll go last minute I won't go so hopefully
1:15:52
I'm going to make that this year so that's that's one of the things I would like to get done in the next few weeks I
1:15:58
am going to finish off my current last boss of Marvel Champions nice so I'm not
1:16:05
interested in X-Men stuff and there's been five four five boxes of that now so I'm just about to hopefully defeat um
1:16:13
Venom Goblin and then that will be all of the thing in the game yeah venomized
1:16:19
Green Goblin oh oh I've just got back into Marvel Champions Fu sake
1:16:25
and then I will have played every character up until X-Men and I will have defeated every boss up until X-Men and
1:16:31
then best what the X-Men said no the best story um when they start and get
1:16:37
Defenders and champ not Champions yeah Champions and stuff like that a bit more going I'll get back into it but and F
1:16:44
because Fantastic 4 is kind of X-Men kind of not it gets lumped in all the time with X-Men I mean Avengers are the
1:16:49
B Squad from Marvel's old Comics aren't they they are the B Squad stop trying
1:16:55
they were were the they were the characters that didn't sell very well in the first initial yeah but no one
1:17:02
cares our day judging from the buzz of X-Men 97 you are very wrong yeah
1:17:07
probably X-Men just didn't interest me so personal opinion with that so I I grew up on the X-Men that that was my
1:17:14
introduction to Marvel so did I but I also grew up on Spider-Man and all and Spider-Man and I love Spider-Man I love
1:17:19
the way we saying we grew up we're here arguing about V games when I was younger
1:17:26
um so that's number two and then number three is I keep telling myself I'm going to play Moon so the Sinister fish games
1:17:34
last of their what I'm calling the thin box Trilogy um so has villagers has streets um both of them were good and I
1:17:41
really enjoyed villagers and moon is supposed to be quite like one of the best like good things for Moon yeah some
1:17:47
people are saying it's the best some people are saying it's the second best so if it's in that top two discussion then I really want to give that a go and
1:17:54
it's been there for ages we we did the um I request you to put the game up aan
1:18:00
unlucky um we got to see uh Expo cuz they they
1:18:07
they pre-launched it at Expo um before the kickstarter people got theirs which is a little bit controversial but I
1:18:13
thought they did it in a great way of of going out and saying how do people feel about this and so I saw it there and I
1:18:19
was like when I get home I'm playing that game and that is now 9 months ago and I keep telling myself that's going
1:18:25
to be the next game I play in any play X possibly possibly so they're the kind of
1:18:30
three things I'm looking forward to in the next few weeks nice that's the triple threat from Adrien greedy didn't
1:18:37
want well one wasn't enough was it well because they they didn't feel like big pieces to talk about so I felt like they
1:18:43
were little pie thin box um about yourself mate so I I've got Great

Davey - Great Western Trail 2nd Edition & Imperium: Horizons
1:18:49
Western Trail the new version not New Zealand not New Zealand just second second edition which been meaning to
1:18:56
play cuz I do enjoy Great Western TR um but we haven't played the second edition I'm guessing because it streamlined a
1:19:01
lot of things has it and it's it's nicer I can some people seem to have a bit of
1:19:07
a problem with the artwork looking a bit muddy and I can kind of see that but pretty much everything else is a bit
1:19:12
clearer is better yeah um I still want to play in New Zealand but obviously this just requires a bit more learning
1:19:18
so we just thought we'll get a game in and and play the second edition so I'm looking forward to that um and then
1:19:26
other than that let's talk about a game I might might play well I've requested so I will play at some point uh Imperium
1:19:32
again got to play with JP which we I'll probably talk about in another episode we've got to play it at Devon Bard
1:19:38
gaming weekend I'll get to play Imperium again I love that game and I'm looking forward to it it's it's very different
1:19:44
for a deck builder it's nice I'm I've been looking at buying it and it's 25 quid yeah it's not bad for the box like
1:19:52
just just for the amount of game you get in the box is said the solo Mode's very good um I would never even look at the
1:19:59
solo mode I just wouldn't get it I've played it three times and every single time I didn't even care that I did I
1:20:05
wasn't even looking at the VPS I was just doing really cool [ __ ] and it felt good and sometimes that's all I need
1:20:12
from a game yeah yeah just in future when JP orders a game ask for a second
1:20:18
copy to be ordered and then you'll have your copy ready thing is though like games like
1:20:25
that typically I haven't really enjoyed I I've enjoyed being around the table
1:20:31
but haven't loved the game now I've played that game three times and each time I've absolutely loved it yeah so
1:20:37
it's like okay maybe maybe there is something there I'm finding your recent board game Journey really fascinating
1:20:44
I've leveled up because it's not just you're just trying new things that I think you wouldn't have tried a year ago
1:20:50
no um because you'd have been put off put off by something or you'd have gone out it's too much for me whatever and
1:20:56
you're triangl it and there's some games I think he'll fall in love with that that you have and some that you haven't
1:21:01
and some games I think you'll hate that and you you've loved it so I'm finding it really fascinating to watch you at
1:21:07
the moment it is strange develop your taste in I'm I'm having a lot of fun
1:21:13
just trying games all the way around Essen I just
1:21:18
basically wound these guys up by talking about because they they all love void fall so instantly I I'm like a [ __ ] like
1:21:25
I've got no reason to say that other than to wind you guys up it's not an opinion I hold it's a very pretty game
1:21:32
looks cool as [ __ ] I like like that looks awesome are you becoming one person you two you look you look alike and now
1:21:40
slowly you're merging it's the same opinion but I I I played the co-op version mainly because JP didn't want to
1:21:46
do the teach of it again he didn't want to do the teach Mission again so he said right I understand that the teach is a
1:21:52
hard teach and I prefer teaching it C up people say don't do it because they say it's too complicated but in my honest
1:21:58
opinion if you're not enjoying a teach teaching the game and playing the game yeah you don't want to be there so so we
1:22:06
we played it we didn't play a full game just because it went on a little bit later than we kind of realized but I
1:22:11
really enjoyed it I and I can I've I've played enough of that game now where I can see why it's so hotly rated yeah um
1:22:19
you know and and things like but also that the events that we've gone to we've had three 4 day gaming events to to play
1:22:27
these games so when these games go up in the group I don't want to take the place of somebody who absolutely loves that
1:22:33
game I felt quite guilty about taking the place of somebody who absolutely loves that game just so that I could try
1:22:39
it out no do it no but but when with the the gaming weekends that we've had like you know I've sat down and I've played
1:22:45
the so many new games like the The Talky weekend of then I hadn't played a single game that I played before which was
1:22:52
really cool yeah do find the more games you play the more open you are to
1:22:57
playing other games because you start to see one you start to see patterns in game mechanics so games become easier to
1:23:04
learn at least I do but I do feel like that you people become a bit more adventurous because you've played more
1:23:09
games therefore You'll Play a heavier game you'll dip your turn in a bit more like Becky within our group she she
1:23:16
would there's a load of heavy games she now plays that I wouldn't have ever put like seen her playing before where now
1:23:22
she loves them like septum is not NE it's not a heavy heavy game but it is
1:23:27
heavier than it is I think for me it was when we went to Essen and we played sep
1:23:33
and I was like I could play this like we when we' played what the first quarter of the game I think I was like I could
1:23:40
play this whereas before you know listening to you guys talk about it it sounded so heavy and so complex I was
1:23:46
like I don't possess the energy to pay attention for that long you know but um
1:23:51
but yeah no I've played a lot of bigger boy games yeah big boy games big boy games and um and yeah and it's it's big
1:23:59
girl games as well AB we don't discriminate um but I've I've really enjoyed learning new
1:24:05
games this is this is a long tangent since I said it I feel like but I've really enjoyed watching you discover
1:24:10
thanks man so we're going to be wrapping up this episode um I've rolled a one so

TURN 6 - The Final Turn
1:24:16
it's time to end right here and there if You' like to support us please do um if
1:24:22
you'll see our Links at the bottom of the page uh go and give us a like um one
1:24:28
that's been a real big help to us has been coffee um want to say a big thank you to everyone that subscribes and if
1:24:35
you want to subscribe great you obviously don't need to but yeah it helps us obviously keep improving the
1:24:40
podcast and we're nearly at one of our goals of getting better like sound equipment so hopefully you'll be
1:24:46
listening to some silky smooth Dave Airwaves very soon but well and everyone
1:24:52
else we keep our subscribing
1:24:58
um but yeah uh as always who whose town is it [Music]
1:25:15
[Applause] Anyway



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