Davey  0:27  
Welcome to Whose turn is it? Anyway, podcast all about our gaming group and of course boardgames. I'm James Davey, your current first player, and I'm joined by other players Kerley.

Kerley  0:36  
Hey guys 

Davey  0:37  
JP

JP  0:38  
Howdy.

Davey  0:38  
And today we're going to be banging heads and talking about Mindclash. How's everyone doing today?

JP  0:44  
Pretty good sweltering

Davey  0:47  
Yeah, so decided to record on the hottest day of the year

JP  0:50  
In my dining room which is very warm, because we have to close the door

Davey  0:54  
So if you hear a slight dripping sound, it's the sweat coming off of my head onto the table. Not the excitement. Yeah.

Kerley  1:00  
It's not often I get my legs out and wear shorts, but yeah, today it's a requirement.

JP  1:05  
Oh, you're so sexy.

Kerley  1:07  
Can't help it mate, can't help it

JP  1:09  
We're doing the usual British thing, aren't we? 'Oh, the weather. Let's talk about the weather'. So what's the word... we're not catered for nearly kind of mid 30 degree heat in this country? No. 'Aircon what's aircon?' We have to go and sit in our cars. Yeah, yes.

Davey  1:27  
It's nice. The journey over was just so cool in the car, got to get out of here now.

JP  1:31  
Now the irony is I had an email from the energy company saying 'Oh, we're going to put your, your bill up' and I was thinking 'what energy?! It's all free, it's coming from the big ball in the sky, Bugger off!'

Davey  1:45  
We might be stripping off as the episode goes on. Yeah, who knows?

JP  1:48  
It's good job it's a podcast!

Davey  2:03  
So on to our favourite segment. Let's talk about hex. So what's ever been playing recently, Kerley?

Kerley  2:11  
So I've, well I picked up Spirit Island at the expo.

JP  2:11  
Whoo

Kerley  2:17  
I've been looking for it for a little while but I kind of decided as a treat me and Becky were going to pick that up between us.

Davey  2:24  
Everyone's kind of been jumping on it, 'We want to play, we want to play!'

Kerley  2:27  
Yeah, it's not worked out quite yet. But we got one in I think for like September the God knows when. We have to book them in in advance, but yeah, so me and Becky have been playing the hell out of our game. It's absolutely fantastic. We are loving it. It's my, one of my favourite games to play, to be honest. In fact, my favourite game to play as a two player. 

Davey  2:47  
Oh, nice.

Kerley  2:49  
Yeah, so I'm interested to get four people around the table to play as well, because that'd be really interesting. You can do three as well. But yeah, essentially, all it is, is you are playing a bunch of spirits on an island, and

JP  3:00  
Hence the name

Kerley  3:01  
Hence the name. 

JP  3:02  
I see what they did with that

Kerley  3:05  
And essentially, it kind of plays like you've been colonised really by, you know, settlers from you know, was it, probably the exploration countries, Spain? Yeah, and then it does... there's an alternate mode I haven't tried yet where there's literally the different nationalities have different special abilities to try and take you out. Okay, but you're, you're essentially trying to fight them all off. So you've got... and you've got lots of different spirits to pick from, obviously more with expansions. But I think there's in the base game about eight or nine. And you've got to try and balance between you all between a few different specialisations that they might have. So one is really good at defending against them attacking you, one's really good against sort of taking them out. Others are good at causing fear, which gives you a like, positive effects over the game. So you've got balanced that up as a first job, but essentially, they get three different rounds, they can build, they can raid, and they can explore. And that is just them basically spewing out all over your lovely island. 

JP  4:04  
Like a virus. 

Kerley  4:05  
Yeah. No, it's exactly like that. And you've got to keep on top of and by stopping them building, by killing them stop and raiding and you know, you let one get out of hand, and this quickly builds up and takes you out basically. 

JP  4:17  
Sounds good. 

Kerley  4:18  
Yeah, it's Yeah. And it's also a lovely deck builder as well. It's kind of...I say a deck builder, because you don't like draw the cards. You just get them. 

Davey  4:25  
Yeah, 

Kerley  4:25  
But you're constantly upgrading the cards in your hand to play and you know, it's yeah, great fun. Absolutely great fun. I'd recommend it to anyone, but actually, would I recommend it to anyone? No, because it's quite complicated considering the theming. Everyone says is is complicated. It's not complicated compared to some games that we've played in the past, like Mindclash, for example, but I think the theming draws in people who are not used to said complication. Yeah. So I think you know, people... it is you know, I think 

JP  4:55  
A crunchy one 

Kerley  4:56  
Yeah Becky was nearly in tears. It's not... It was just through frustration. She was just like, she knows she's intelligent enough to understand what's going on. But no matter what way she looked at it, she wasn't quite getting it. And I think she just got a little bit frustrated with it. But she absolutely loves it now she's got to grips with it, but it is a, you have to really want to do it if you're not into that complication level.

Davey  5:17  
Sounds good to me. Look forward to playing it

JP  5:20  
Yeah. There's 3 of us here that love heavy games isn't it, like... on the heavy side. 

Davey  5:23  
I like 'em all, so any game really 

JP  5:25  
Doesn't really matter, does it? GAME! Yeah, light, medium, heavy, whatever. I think what intrigued me actually was with the system that I saw, and I have't played this so I'm probably talking bollocks, but is there like the cards you play the like, slow and fast card you played before the the Gits?, 

Kerley  5:45  
That was exactly what caught Becky out. So basically, you start the turn, you gain all your income, which you can improve by spreading out all over the board. Essentially, you take your turn, you get new cards, you do all your bits and bobs, then you play your cards. Now, before the enemy gets a turn, the fast cards go off,  after the enemy get that turn the slow...

Davey  6:06  
So it's got like an initiative order or when cards work?

JP  6:08  
But the slow ones are more powerful, I believe?

Kerley  6:11  
 Yeah. Generally speaking, yes.

Davey  6:13  
You'd hope so

Kerley  6:13  
Or cheaper, or something that makes...

Davey  6:15  
Or have an effect that works in its time schedule. 

Kerley  6:18  
Exactly. But it's really a matter of.. I think the the trouble that Becky had was is like, knowing the what the board state would be at the point. Yeah, when the slow cards.... Yeah,

Davey  6:28  
I guess that's where the challenge comes in though isn't it?

Kerley  6:30  
 Exactly. So yeah. I mean, for an example, there's one character that makes himself go really fast. Like all of his stuff goes fast. And he helps make the other person go fast, as well. So it's kind of it's comboing together. Yeah, so yeah, but it is really interesting. That's part of why I love it

JP  6:45  
I'm bang up for it

Davey  6:46  
Nice, so definitely keen. How about you JP? Yeah, played anything other than Burncycle?

JP  6:54  
A lot of Burncycle. But I talked about that last time, so that's off the table. Now Unfathomable. I played, which was my first stab at it. And and I, yeah, I know, a few of the other guys and girls have talked about that on the podcast. I won't go into it too much. Because we can't we just keep talking about the same game. But no, I think from my my experience was Yeah, really good. I've play Battlestar Galactica. Lots, lots and lots and lots of times

Davey  7:21  
You've been there through the the ups and the downs of Kris stealing the cards! Yeah,

JP  7:26  
Yeah, we've gone through that, I've been accused by Davey of being a Cylon. Right? Five minutes in the game and thinking, 'Here we go!'. But no, I thought actually, they've done a great job with it on the reskin. I really liked the fact that they divorced the two... well that wasn't two tracks, but the the, the track that allows you to move your ship to the next location, and the track that wipes all the crappy things off the board, are now two separate tracks that you have to manage and maintain. I just thought it was a simple but interesting design change, which adds like, a lot more flavour to whatever side of the fence, you're kind of playing on. Do you want to rush that track? Or do you want to, you know, prevent something else going on? And yeah, it's just, it's just interesting, and the fact that everything's now happening on the boat. So if you are, you know, evil, or is it a Cultist?

Kerley  8:19  
Yeah, there's a few different types, so the hybrid is a generic one. The mixture is the cultist. Yeah. 

JP  8:25  
So the hybrids, when they reveal they're still on the ship just kind of punching you in a way.

Davey  8:31  
When you jump from one of them along the navigation, does it reset the other track as well?

JP  8:35  
No, 

Kerley  8:36  
No, that's the point. That's what makes it different, but I guess they were locked into BSG thematically. Yeah, they had to do it. Even if they thought, 'Well, we don't really want to do it that way. But that wouldn't make sense otherwise.'

JP  8:49  
Yeah. But you could have said that the ships just followed you because that kind of happened.

Kerley  8:54  
It's not what happend in the...

JP  8:55  
Yeah, it can. 

Kerley  8:56  
In certain episodes?

JP  8:57  
I'm not gonna get into it. But, no, it's really really enjoyed.

Davey  9:02  
How do you find the new theme? Yeah,

JP  9:04  
I mean, I don't mind the Lovecraftian theme anyway, personally, I I'm not super in love with the theme. And it doesn't offend me. So I'm kind of that person that you know, I enjoy it. And I quite enjoyed Becky's playlists. I think more because it annoyed you. Yeah. So we had the perfect 20s Jazz and yeah, and some seagulls in the background.

Davey  9:30  
It was on a boat though. So... you know

Kerley  9:32  
I, you know, it's like... they do that that sound torture. Where it's  just like screaming in your ear hole. That's how I feel about that little playlist that she put together.

JP  9:42  
I took the role of the Captain, literally was the captain as the character and I was obviously 

Did you go sit at the head of the table?

I was at the head of the table. I got myself in the role and I was just kind of ordering people around and everyones like 'Shut up!'. But no it got to the part of the game where we're trying to suss out what's what and then you're obviously doing a skill check and then there's another naughty card or one more naughty card than there should be in the reveal, and then you go 'Here we go!'. And we deduced it to being either Kerley or Becky that were the shits, and ended up being both of you anyway! So lots of accusations, lots of you two trying to deflect it onto the other one, 

Kerley  10:05  
Yeah

JP  10:06  
And all of that, it was good fun and it came down really really close isn't it? It was... I think we just had to jump one more time. 

Kerley  10:27  
Yeah

JP  10:27  
And we were about one space away and then you just pipped it 

Kerley  10:38  
Yeah

Yeah, you and Becky just pipped it in the end

Davey  10:40  
Did anyone chime in with 'You're fucking evil' or no?

JP  10:43  
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Mainly these two

Kerley  10:48  
I think I nearly convinced people that Kris might have been naughty

JP  10:51  
Yeah

Kerley  10:51  
I was I was definitely getting some traction with that one

Until Tambo spotted his Identity Card 

Yeah

JP  10:57  
And then because Kris was trying to blame me, that... you know being the Captain that was evil that's ordering everything around, I was like 'Nah, I'm just getting into my role!', it was good game, it was good fun. I did enjoy it. I thought what they've done with it is really good. Yeah, yeah,

Davey  11:13  
I really enjoyed it. I liked the fact that there were items as well now. Yes.

JP  11:17  
Guns

Davey  11:17  
Yeah, exactly.

Kerley  11:19  
Yeah, feels a little bit more asymmetrical. Every play's a little bit different because of that

JP  11:24  
I like my trumpet which allowed to... my trumpet was best I could rescue all the passengers that were next to me

Up next to your wicker fedora?

Kerley  11:36  
I quite enjoyed having my gun because it meant that when I actually reveal myself as a hybrid, I could jump into an area and just start gunning people down

JP  11:43  
And he did! Git!

Davey  11:45  
Awesome. So yeah, for me, I've been playing Clank legacy. So I've been running a little campaign with my video game friends who I've mentioned before. I've got them playing Clank legacy and Dune:Imperium and other things now, but yeah, they're enjoying it. I'm sure everyone's played Clank before but if you haven't, it's just quite a simplistic deck builder. You go out spend skill of your cards that you have on it and you buy movement, it's got a board you have to move through. But if you start moving too fast usually start creating Clank which all goes into a bag and if your colour gets pulled out of the bag, which is meant to be a dragon, you take damage and you've got to go to the bottom, get an artefact and then get back out. Which is harder than it sounds

Especially when you're greedy Yeah,

Yeah. Which would be really good, the only downside I would say with it is the secrets book where sometimes when stuffs going off there's just so much reading going on in between 

JP  12:46  
Yeah, I remember that

Davey  12:48  
Yeah, that's the only downside but it is really good we are enjoying it and then another game I've played on we put two in there, I'm gonna cheat

JP  12:56  
How dare you, just because he's first player

Davey  12:58  
Is Everrain and that's a beautiful looking game, it's pretty much like a coop Mansions, is probably is the best way to describe it, but it's been more open-world, youfree roam and you go around boats about and you upgrade your boat. Really good game really enjoyable. Just too much admin, too many dealing with certain cards of the decks, it's a nightmare getting it all out, putting it all away, so I don't know how long that's probably going to stay on my shelf form but it is really good. And I, you know and I do enjoy it is just when something becomes more kind of like guesswork than actual playing a game then you feel like this is where the app-side I think of a lot of other games have started bringing that in, because it obviously reduces that, that work you have to do so...

JP  12:58  
Some people like though

Davey  13:44  
Yeah, they do. Yeah, exactly. It's just for me. The only problem I found with it was we were playing in the evenings, and they had a bit of a time limit on it as well so maybe I need to play it in a day when I've got like a whole day to sit,w and it kind of is a whole day game. I followed everyones recommendations and not played with more than two people, we've only played to people and I'm glad we have because any more than that I think it just... you start losing interest in other people's stories, what's going on and everything, whereas with two one reads out the stories and give the choices, so there's always... you're always kind of interacting even when it's someone else's turn, but...

JP  14:27  
It's quite a narrative based game is it?

Davey  14:29  
It's very narrative based Yeah, you build like a little story deck and then when you get to certain checkpoints all of their stories go out into those decks, and then you pull them back out. And yeah, it's just, it's just a bit too much upkeep I think too much too much admin but other than that it is a, is a really good game. It looks beautiful on the table it's all got real nice kind of Lovecraftian Horror aspect. Art work, and the miniatures look really good, little boats sailing around. So yeah, really, really good.

The jury's out. we'll see, we'll see if you keep it. 

Yeah, that's that. So moving on

So now, we're talking about Mindclash. If you don't know who Mindclash are, we're gonna do a little brief introduction of all of their games. And we're going to start with Cerebria. JP?

JP  15:24  
Yes, Cerebria is a, primarily a two-v-two area control game. Thematically, it's set inside someone's brain. It gets weirder than this by the way

Davey  15:39  
'Inside Out' is always...

JP  15:40  
'Inside Out' if you think that the emotions and spirits are all a bit kind of freaky and creature-esque, and yeah, weird looking kind of thing. So you kind of have these two opposing sides. Within three, you got the bliss and the gloom, I'll let you work out which one's good and bad. Gloom has a series of spirits that you can play as like hate and anger and all those kinds of things. And then Bliss has ones like love and harmony and yeah, and all that thing. 

Davey  16:11  
We were bliss last time when we? Yeah the happy side, yeah.

JP  16:17  
So it kind of works out like you've got the board is probably the most colourful board I've ever seen in my life. It's like an assault on the eyes and senses. And it's really hard to explain on a podcast how this thing looks and works. But you've kind of got five kind of areas like a pentagram, but there are 10 spaces on this board. And then you've got like these triads of card spaces that kind of wrap all the way around. So essentially, you've got five actions that you can do on the board, if you've got your spirit in the right place, or you've got five actions that you can do, generally, your spirit can do if you have unlocked them throughout the course of the game. And there's a starting setup thing where you can pick which of your actions to start with, some of them you can like double down and make them really good to start with and then forego an entire action type, right from the start, where you can be like the jack of all trades. So yeah, you can kind of like move around the board, you can invoke emotions onto the board, which act like your little minions, helping to kind of dominate control of the areas, you can quell and basically kill the other emotions from the opposing team. So obviously rebalance area control. You can fortify, where you can put those little pentagon plastic pieces on the board, which adds to like, defence strength of what your area is. And you can also empower which means you can kind of get the emotions stronger and stronger to the point where actually they evolved into a, like a higher being or a higher emotion. And each of these emotions on the board have their own little special abilities that allow you to do things and twist the kind of game mechanics around the little bit

Davey  17:57  
Like tug of war-esque, because... 

It's very tug of war

Area control tug of war between you and either another team or player. 

Yeah, so what's quite interesting about the game is you have... I forget what they call... the game is full of terminology. Right? That's the first I'd say barrier that you've got to break through with Cerebria is that everything's got a fun name, you know, your resources are willpower, essence and ambitions. And the VP track's called the wheel of intentions. And you know, it just it's things like this, I think your goals or your your targets for what you're trying to do each round are aspirations. I think I might be wrong. Yeah. But let's just call them aspirations because it fits well with the theme, right? So you as a team on one side, like the bliss team will have their aspiration, the gloom team have theirs. And then there's a common aspiration in the middle that's visible to both teams. And that might be 'you must control the most kind of sections on the board'. Or it might be that you need to have the most emotions on the board. Or you might have to have the biggest chain of emotions in a row, whatever it might be. So obviously, the secret from each other are from the common ones. And you're trying to, you know, like, kind of muscle your way on the board.

There's very limited actions from my remember, it was like, I want to do this and you need wasn't an extra little cube and gave you an extra action? Or you could do something else if you spent a certain resource?

JP  19:22  
There's an ambition token that you share between you. 

Davey  19:25  
Yes

JP  19:25  
And you've got to talk with the other player going 'I really want to use that'. 

Davey  19:28  
Yeah

JP  19:29  
'I was gonna use that to do this thing'. 

Davey  19:31  
There's always  flipping it back over as well, isn't there?

JP  19:33  
Yeah, you can end your turn by getting, flipping that back over or I think collecting willpower from memory. Yeah. But yeah, it's it's an interesting game. It's not going to be for everyone actually. And I think I quite enjoyed the game we had as a two vs. two I'd like to play at one vs. one, just to see how that that works, because you can play it just one vs. one.

Davey  19:53  
Yeah, I really enjoyed the two vs. two as well, but just, I do think it is one of those where it's: if one side was enjoying it and the other wasn't, yeah, then maybe it will be better two player because obviously, there's going to be less downtime, and also more agency of what you're doing. If you're working in a team and you're not working so well together, it's quite punishing. 

JP  20:19  
Yeah, it's part of the game that... you know, it's like most two vs. two games, is that you kind of want to talk openly about what you're doing. But if you do, then the other team are listening. So they're like, 'Yeah, like, Kerley what we need to do, mate, I mean, you need to go over there. And I need to go over there'. And then like, yeah, sure, if you do that, I'm gonna block ya. And you end up in that kind of thing, which is not for everyone. And I'm looking at kind of Kerley here because

Kerley  20:44  
I want to chime in with this because two vs. two is my least favourite game mode of any. I cannot play, like for an example two vs. two game modes that I can think of top my head that I really didn't like, is Star Wars: Rebellion. I think War of The Ring, and Cerebria are the other three that I've tried. I don't think I've tried many others, and I didn't like any of them. Now, having said that, before everyone gets up in arms. I absolutely love War of The Ring. I absolutely love Star Wars: Rebellion one vs. one. I just feel that those are the types of games...Cerebria maybe doesn't fit into that. I don't know. I don't feel like the addition of two extra players adds anything. It just takes away. Cerebria from what you're saying... maybe that's an exception. I have played it but it was a long time ago. And it didn't click with me yet, I've got to be honest. But yeah, the whole two vs. two, I'm not a big fan of.

Yeah, I understand that with Rebellion and War of The Ring for me that kind of feels...

JP  21:41  
Pasted on

Kerley  21:42  
You're just filtering down the same amount of jobs you do as a one player into two.

JP  21:42  
You do the space stuff, and I'll do the land stuff. But what about the really important decision? Oh, we do those together

Davey  21:57  
Where as Cerebria,  you still have a bit more agency over each one of your turns, I guess. But...

JP  22:02  
It's part of the game. Yeah. To try and synchronise with your partner in a way that doesn't give away what you're trying to do. So remember, Davey, me and you were on the same team. And you were looking at me going 'I hope you're going to do what I think you're going to do, because I've just seen the opportunity on the board'. And if you do it, and then when that happens, you're like, 'Yes', then obviously, it's not always going to happen. So I think I think if you had like-minded people who didn't mind that kind of game, I think you're right. I think two vs. two would work well. I am just intrigued to see how it works from a one vs. one because maybe that might lose something in the translation, I don't know. Or it might actually be the same. It's just that you have all the decisions and you have all the choice. 

Davey  22:02  
It'd be interesting whether it's more enjoyable or less enjoyable

JP  22:08  
Or you're having to invest more in the move actions on your spirits, because you need to traverse the board a hell of a lot more than you would do in a two player.

Davey  22:52  
And you might miss the challenge of trying to work out the puzzle I guess.

JP  22:56  
It's unique. There's no game yet like that. 

Davey  23:00  
I really like the theme. Yeah.

Kerley  23:01  
Everything about it made me want to try it. Yeah, just yeah, the two vs. two just wasn't for me. But that I will say to everyone, I do like coop games. So it's not like I can't work with other people.

JP  23:12  
You've just said about Spirit Island.

Kerley  23:13  
I just.... I don't like working with people against other people, for the most part

JP  23:19  
It's because you play games when you want to be the most efficient you can be, and you can't be... I don't think you can be in Cerebria because theres always a weak link

Kerley  23:29  
No, you're absolutely correct, but something changes when it comes to a true coop that means that competitiveness is out of the window, and I think it doesn't mater as much

Davey  23:32  
It's more about having fun.

Kerley  23:40  
Mansions and Spirit Island and you know, we could go on and on

JP  23:44  
That's different though isn't it, you're against the game then

Kerley  23:46  
Yeah, exactly. That I'm fine with.

Davey  23:50  
Makes sense.

JP  23:50  
But no, it's it's fun game. Interesting. Not gonna be for everybody. But if you quite like that quirky theme, and there's yeah, there's a lot in there as a kind of tug of war area control game. It's a lot of fun.

Davey  24:06  
Yeah, that's so that's Cerebria and another one they've done is Anachrony

JP  24:10  
Woooo!

Davey  24:11  
Which Kerley is gonna have a brief chat about

JP  24:14  
Sorry, I got excited

Kerley  24:17  
No, you know, I will preface this by saying probably my favourite of all the Mindclash games, although the more recent ones are up there now. But yeah, Anachrony has always been my favourite

JP  24:26  
It's amazing

Kerley  24:28  
But you know, I'm not gonna go into too much detail because it is a... quite a complicated game to be fair, and the first play was a little bit of a struggle for me. 

JP  24:35  
Yes

Kerley  24:35  
For my poor old brainus. 

Davey  24:36  
But I think you still won

JP  24:37  
But you had the rule book infront of you

Kerley  24:38  
Yeah well, I needed it didn't I?! But no, it's... the idea of it is you play for want of better word, a faction in a futuristic kind of Earth. And we've got futuristic technology, ie for a large part of the mechanism the theming is time travel for an example. But at its base, I think it's probably just a Euro game with a few extra bells and whistles of...

Davey  25:04  
Worker placement.

Kerley  25:05  
Yeah, so it's kind of... you, you've got water, which helps you recruit, and it's basically a resource of the future. But you recruit more workers, you put those workers then to work surprisingly, you put them into jumpsuits to go to certain spaces, you put them into buildings that you've purchased in previous turns in order to use those buildings. And, you know, you're working towards whatever goals are out in front of you, it's a fairly standard Euro game in that way. But there's just something really meaty and crunchy about it that I absolutley love

Davey  25:36  
Because there's a lot to take in. There's a lot of different ways of getting VP's isn't there? 

Kerley  25:40  
Yeah, there is

Davey  25:42  
And you have to do a bit of everything. You can't focus on one thing, which is where I usually struggle with it.

Kerley  25:46  
But there's... you know, I'm making it sound relatively simple, I suppose. But like, if you've got like four or five different types of workers

JP  25:53  
Five in the expansion

Kerley  25:56  
And they all do different things. And one of them particularly does all of the things and another one is just for time travel and another one's just for, you know, we could go on and on. Yeah, it's quite a complicated game. But you got get resources, get water, get power, to power your jumpsuits to go to the spaces, you want to go

Davey  26:11  
Get the resources to pay for something that you've borrowed from the future. Yeah, then you have to pay it back otherwise it'll cause...

Kerley  26:19  
Once a turn you normally borrow from... from yourself in the future. But yeah, if you don't pay it back, then you risk getting, I had to actually write down what they actually were. But it's essentially you get a paradox marker, and you get three or four of those depending on faction. Yeah. And then you get an anomaly. And when you gen an anomaly, essentially, it gives you negative effects for you know, that, you know, not only in VP's, but also in you can build less buildings. 

JP  26:46  
Takes one of your slots

Davey  26:47  
Yeah, you don't want too many of them. 

JP  26:50  
But you have to kill your workers to get rid of them. Yeah.

Davey  26:54  
Sacrificing people,

JP  26:55  
Thank you for your service. Now you have disappeared into time and space

Kerley  26:59  
And then you know, and it's all about one of those games thats all about timing as well. You know, you gotta time when you want to leave you're... leaving, I forget what they call it when you leave now. 

JP  27:08  
When you leave? Oh, evacuation

Davey  27:10  
Evacuation, is the world ending is that what...

Kerley  27:14  
So that's what it is. So, essentially, you want to leave it as late as you can, because you've got certain goals you've got to complete before you actually go. But then you don't want to be... you get extra VP's for leaving first and second. And then if you leave it too late, then yeah,

JP  27:28  
Penalised for it and...

Kerley  27:29  
Yeah, penalised for it. So it's all about timing that end as well. But I find it such a crunchy game. And although I was reluctant to try the expansions, because it was already quite a complicated game, they actually add to it. Like for example, they give you more to do on your board. They give you additional workers, they give you more things to do on the other board, they've given you a new faction, but

JP  27:49  
Let's... let's verify because there are five expansions. Yeah, you're talking about Fractures of Time. So...

Kerley  27:55  
I'm gonna take your word for that

Davey  27:57  
The one we've played the most. And for me, it doesn't actually add any time on to the game, gameplay wise, it just gives us more to do 

JP  28:05  
You get less rounds in the game actually

Davey  28:08  
But that's probably because you're doing more per round 

JP  28:10  
The rounds last longer because you get more actions out

Davey  28:11  
Yeah. So I think that's balanced that off nicely. It's fairer

JP  28:17  
Yeah, just to kind of explain, like going back to the core, like one of the most interesting decisions with that game is the fact that you kind of have two worker placement areas that you would send your workers to, so as Kerley was saying, You... you're powering up your exosuits, which takes these like nuclear cores that you've got to find, and they're not easy to find, if... you've really gonna work at getting them. And then you got to decide how many exosuits do I want to power up, then it's like, okay, you have to put a worker in an exosuit to be able to send them to a location. And then you kind of working in your head 'Right, so I need to go locations a, b, and c to get all of this stuff. So that next round, I can then power up four exosuits to get this thing, or I need to build these buildings that actually I don't need to send my guys out in exosuits because I can do all my actions in my own home. 

Yeah, territory area

Davey  29:02  
And then it gets to the round and you forget that you need to pay a resource in the future and you go 'Noooo!'

JP  29:08  
And it's the crunchiness of that decision and forward planning, which is so Mindclash, it's so Mindclash that that's their DNA all over

Davey  29:17  
It's very layered complex... complexity, isn't it? Yeah, it's not just one singular layer of like, you're doing this for this. This is what you want to do is, there's this with this and this and this and if you don't do this, then you're gonna get penalised over here, and that's

JP  29:32  
But that's why I love it 

Kerley  29:33  
You've got to think about three turns ahead, don't you?

Davey  29:35  
Yeah, you do

JP  29:35  
You do. And then the satisfaction you get when you've built these buildings in your kind of home area which you've got what 12 slots for, and then suddenly you're not having to go out using your exosuits anymore because once that asteroid or meteor or whatever the hell that is that comes and hits the earth and then initiates yeah evacuation process where suddenly two of your Exosuit bays are gone. The worker placement spots on the main board are now starting to disappear. Although you get little bonuses at the end, everything starts tightening up, doesn't it and so you're really reliant upon your engine essentially that you've built, which is what I love about it because every game is different. Like the the engine you build of the buildings that are available. Am I going down the water route, am I going down time travel route and getting lots of points that way?

Cheaper buildings or super projects? 

Yeah, and and all that. And I remember a game you played Kerley, and never seen anyone get as many super projects ever!

Kerley  30:30  
Well, you know, I decided early game like I can't remember what triggered it, whether it was the faction ability or something like that, or technology. And it was just a double whammy where I got like a multiplier of VP's for one way, and I got another research...

Davey  30:44  
And you were able to also get super project off of your board as well.

Kerley  30:48  
It was just kind of like, 'Right, Okay. Thats what I'm doing this game then'. So I just went hard into it and it really paid off.

Davey  30:55  
Super King Kerley

JP  30:59  
The Fractures of Time though, going back to that I just wanted to kind of loop back on the other point because...

Davey  31:03  
Oh you're going back in time are you?

JP  31:03  
Yeah we're going back in time! It's Anachrony! Factures of time; the reason why I think that is probably my favourite of all the modules that have played, and there's a caveat that we've not played them all, we haven't played them all yet guys! But the Fractures of Time what makes it brilliant is the blinking mechanism, and the fracture board that you get, which essentially means you don't need to power up as many exosuits as you used to. Because you can blink them, like teleport them from one space to another space already out there on the board. And that alone is such an interesting decision. But it comes at a risk of doing it. Because though you've got this fracture board, there's like bolted onto your, your mainboard. And there's a risk kind of reward of doing it. So if you're kind of flipped because you spend flux, there isn't another resource to do it. And if you've got so many spaces available in your fracture board, you roll a die. And if it's, I can't remember if it's more or less, but either way you start taking... there's another word it's not anomalies...

Davey  31:04  
It's not a paradox ...

JP  31:32  
It's not a paradox it's something else that, that... Glitches, glitches it goes onto your your main board, which might be an exosuit Bay, or it might be something that just gets in the way, starts getting in the way.

Davey  32:14  
I remember when we were playing, I had a glitch literally go on to the next action I was about to do. Yeah, I've never had it happen before. And I was just like, yeah, that's kind of screwed me. I shouldn't have done that.

Kerley  32:25  
But then that's what's fun about Yeah, so you can, not only can you utilise this new resource, but also you can gear up around reducing the chance is going to impact you if you do use it. But you've got to put time and resources and effort into doing that. And it's like, do you go out of that way to reduce the negative? Or do you just go for it and hope for the best? 

Davey  32:41  
Yeah, just then, you then have to change your whole game plan towards anyway, because...

JP  32:46  
But it also adds the technology cards, which we referenced earlier, which I quite like actually, that gives you another little avenue of bonuses that you can invest in to really double down on your strategy.

Davey  32:56  
Yeah, I think for me, literally, the game goes from like a six to a nine in my eyes from one expansion

Kerley  33:03  
Six?! I mean, I would say an eight to a nine. Yeah, it would be closer for me, but we've all got different preferences. Yeah, but I mean, all of that, while it's all asymmetric. And for me quite well balanced between those, those different factions that you've got, it's just about learning... learning the different ones and what's most effective for them. But yeah, I mean, we were going through earlier on but there's four basic factions Progress, Harmony, Dominance and Salvation. And then Unity is one of the ones that you add on with an expansion and they all feel like you've got a chance with them which I do think that is the downfall of a lot of asymmetric games a lot of the time. This one definitely doesn't. 

Davey  33:39  
It doesn't, and never when someone gets a faction do I think 'Oh yeah, they're just gonna... they're gonna win the game now' 

Kerley  33:48  
Yeah exactly,

JP  33:48  
It's not even that though is it? It's that you've got the four/five factions, and then you've got the three leaders leaders as well. So there's a lot of choice like I always dread anybody's first game of an Anachrony. When you've never played just because of the sheer amount of choices you have to make before you even play the damn game. Yeah. 'I have no idea!'

Davey  34:10  
That was one thing for me it, was I think why I didn't enjoy it, which was why I sort of gave it six beforehand, was it was very punishing to new players playing the game. A lot of actions. And you can... if you mess up, it can impact you for the rest of the game. Yeah, with the base version. Yeah, with the next one, because you get that pullback, you get another action. I think it's a little bit more forgiving. Even though there's more action, it's probably more choice. Probably more complex. But I think you... if you make one mistake on it, you have a chance.

JP  34:39  
Another round to correct it

Kerley  34:41  
I will say that I suffer from this worse than you, I'm the worst. Right? But I do think sometimes we need to write off the first game as a learning game? I'm the worst at this. I just, I just go. 'Absolutely. All right. I've got to nail this'. I've tried recently to kind of reduce the pressure on myself, go 'It doesn't matter if you win'. Yeah, learn the game. Enjoy it as best you can. And then... but yeah, I do think a lot of that has to do with, you know, like, 'Oh, you know, I should have done something else and now I'm screwed' and yeah, you just end up winding yourself up.

Davey  35:18  
Definitely. But yeah, that's just my own personal feel... is quite... the core game is quite punishing for a game if we've got it to the table more I'd probably... And we have, and I have enjoyed it more and more and more anyway, so maybe next time when, if we play it without the expansion, I'd be like 'Oh, I actually really enjoy it anyway'. Yes. You try and be more optimal. 

Kerley  35:38  
You want to play a game without an expansion, with JP? You've got no hope!

Davey  35:42  
We'll just play with different expansion anyway. Yeah.

JP  35:44  
But yeah, love the game. It's... it's up there, I think I've listed is pretty much one of my favourites and it still is there, and it's brilliant. 

Davey  35:50  
Yeah, do apologise about lying about the brief bit.

JP  35:53  
Yeah, it's never gonna happen

Davey  35:59  
Yeah, it's no of course it's not. So yeah. Next one, Perseverance. Which is 80s dinos. I was gonna do an intro, but seeing as JP just knows so much more. We'll put it over to JP

JP  36:14  
Yeah, I mean, I've talked about it on the podcast, we probably don't need to labour it too much on this episode, but just to kind of round off the Mindclash games vibe. Yeah. 1980's dinosaur kind of vibe/theme, where you're all passengers on a luxury ocean liner that's gone into a storm and crash landed on this mysterious island, which is overrun by dinos. And essentially, you're settling on this beach. And you call the town Perseverance. That's essentially why it is called Perseverance. And obviously, the dinos keep killing everybody. You must persevere. Yeah. But mechanically, it's a dice drafting worker placement game, where half the board is essentially the kind of slots where you put your dice that you take from a communal pool, and which you can add your own coloured dice to that pool as well. And then the top half of it is, well, it changes depending on the episodes. So that's the first thing. It's an episodic Euro game, which is kind of a weird thing to kind of talk about, I've never really seen an episodic Euro game. The last bits of a campaign.

Davey  37:22  
Yeah.

Kerley  37:23  
I mean, what's the difference between 'campaign' and 'episode', but I get what you mean. 

JP  37:26  
It feels standalone, but they can be strung together,

Davey  37:30  
I guess the way it feels different is because it's completely different, its two completely different games that you're playing as well.

JP  37:37  
Correct. Yeah, it's not like it's the same game, but with a slightly different rule. Yeah, they are different. They feel difference.

Yeah, enough different to be a different game,

50/60% of the games are the same... elements. And then the 40%, I would say is the different vibes of... of the episodes. So. So yeah, you kind of got episode one, which is kind of what tower defence style where the dinosaurs are literally just coming in and trying to murder you. And every time you put one of your dice onto a spot, you're seeding dinosaurs into that kind of track, because the board is broken down into four sections. You got Sustenance, Military expansion and protection. And, and yeah, so you're kind of managing all of that stuff there. And, and typical Eurostyle, get resources, spend resources, do things. And what's quite unique about it for me, is that it's part worker replacement part area control, because you're kind of wanting to get your coloured dice, you're kind of pieces in a certain area dominate that ready for the assembly and the assembly is like a kind of end-round scoring phase.

Kerley  37:48  
Yes, like voting of the council to be elected as the... as the new leader

JP  37:52  
As the new leader of Perseverance, but it's interesting, because you're going, 'I really want to go there. But that's not the action I want to do. I want to do that action over on the other side. What's... what's going to help me the most?' and that's kind of for me where the interesting puzzle is. So Episode One is all about that, you find dinosaurs, you're chucking your soldiers out there, eliminating the dinosaurs and away you go, and Episode Two just kind of flips it up on complexity, definitely flips it up on complexity

Davey  38:33  
It's more engine building isn't it? 

JP  39:23  
It has a lot more... it's the fact that you're... you've got 30 perks on your character to unlock

Davey  39:31  
You made me smile when I saw that

Kerley  39:33  
I just went *head explosion noise*

JP  39:35  
Typical Mindclash games! Like well, you've got pretty much...well, not 30 decisions, but you know, there are 30 things that you can unlock on your character and like, what do you start with first go? You just don't... don't even think about it

Davey  39:48  
I found it quite a cool thing with that, where there's a lot of one off ones.

JP  39:51  
Yes

Davey  39:51  
Some... some of the captains or abilities...we had a, we had a building out on one of the places that let you move one of your own cubes. So I found that quite nice for the... because all the ones I used as a one off perk, obviously useless to me. So then move them off that and move on to something that was useful. I did quite enjoy that a little aspect

JP  40:12  
Episode Two is mainly around exploration. So it kind of takes the theme of episode one of just defending because you've just literally land on this beach and being assaulted by dinos to now: we've established a wall, we're safe. And now we're going off exploring the island 

Davey  40:26  
Get to the Temple!

JP  40:27  
And we see a temple on the horizon. What the hell is that? Oohh, there's people that have been on this island before. And essentially you're kind of exploring flipping the tiles, attacking dinos, and it's just yeah, it feels so different. And then, as you say Davey, you unlock more kind of spaces when you build outposts on those tiles, which just gives some awesome abilities. And like, but then if you use them, you're kind of potentially breaching certain areas of the... of the board, which might limit other people and yeah, just really, really fun. I love it. I think it also has a chronicle mode attached to it, because there will be an episode three and four, they are doing it. It's coming. 

Davey  41:10  
Was it part of the same bundle?

JP  41:12  
 No, no, it's another Kickstarter, course it is!

Davey  41:17  
It's quite a big one traditionally.

JP  41:18  
Yeah, it's quite... it's quite chunky, but it'll probably be out in a year or two. But the idea of the chronical mode is a set of rules that strings all the episodes together, but at the minute you can only play one and two, but you do two games of one, two games of two. And it is kind of like a mini campaign. But without it being like 17 games long and taking forever. It's just four. But you kind of... you might not win the first game, doesn't matter, you're winning abilities and perks and things to help you in the next game. And and shaping your kind of strategies as you go. So, interesting to see how it goes. 

Davey  41:52  
And they can start tying it in with Anchrony, and we could go back and get dinosaurs couldn't they?

JP  41:55  
Yeah, borrowing dinosaurs from the future

Davey  42:00  
Use it as a resource! Yeah

JP  42:02  
But you know,  I'm ejoying it lots. And I'm looking forward to that, that series of games that are coming up.

Davey  42:08  
And last but not least, Trickerion

JP  42:11  
So first game, they released

Davey  42:15  
Their first yeah, yeah, I just meant in my list, but yeah, 

JP  42:18  
No, no. Mindclash games, though, they came out which Trickerion first,

Davey  42:22  
Yeah, which is one I've been looking at for a long time, and I'd just never made the dive to buy it. But JP luckily did. So we've played it recently. It's a game about an aspiring magician, you want to create tricks and go out and perform them, you do that. So first of all everyone picks their actions from a deck of cards, they start with. You all pick it at the same time. And then you flip over. And then you can see what everyone's done. There's limited spaces where you're going. So it's got some worker placement, where you're putting out your Assistant, and some other different types of workers which have different effects, and you put them out and depending on the value of their actions that they have, gives you certain bonuses and effects when you're on that space. From what I remember the whole... there's the theatre where you go and perform your tricks. There's the Downtown, then there's the market, and then there's the dark alley, and they've all got different effects, which is quite cool. But lots of tight decisions to be made people always doing what you want to do. And learning the tricks requires you to have to go get the resources to put them on the track, you've learned the trick, you then have to go and perform it and schedule when you're going to perform the trick. And there's certain bonuses from obviously, getting there early, which means you can perform the tricks in a certain way with also... with a benefit. It's real, real tight worker placement game, a lot of thought goes into it. There's no... it's not so much engine building with it. There's nothing really... because that's quite different to any of their other...

It leans more heavily into the... what we were talking about as far as like having to think three turns ahead. Yeah. 

JP  44:07  
Planning is everything

Kerley  44:08  
Planning is what this is all about, less engine more planning what you're doing. Yeah. You could argue like gathering the resources because you don't spend them, you only accumulate that's kind of an engine

Davey  44:19  
And then whatever tricks you get then also gives you resources back, 

Kerley  44:22  
So small elements of gathering resources to then be able to gain bonuses, buy at the market, make sure you've got money and then actually perform.... getting you ready to perform a certain trick

JP  44:33  
Ohhh, money.

Davey  44:34  
And then there's, there's a big caveat and that where in certain rounds, there's like four different bonuses on this little wheel of fortune or whatever it's ...

JP  44:45  
On the dark alley. Prophecies,

Davey  44:47  
Prophecies that's the one, and depending on what's in that prophecie is kind of what benefits you're getting when you're going around doing

JP  44:54  
Ignore them at your peril.

Davey  44:56  
Ignore them at our peril, which is exactly what we did. JP was playing the prophecy master over there

Kerley  45:02  
Make sure you're sitting next to the prophecy bit of the board.

JP  45:04  
The bottom right is where you want to sit, then you get full view of the prophecies Yeah, you know exactly what's coming up

Kerley  45:10  
It's a good job we put the newest players near that, and the one who knew the best...

Davey  45:16  
But yeah, so JP played them like I said, or when basically was reading off these prophecies left, right, and centre

JP  45:23  
Probably more luck than judgement if I'm completely honest with myself, but you know, once I realise that everything is strategically aligned for myself

Davey  45:34  
So, yeah

JP  45:36  
It is great though.

Kerley  45:37  
It's right up there for me.

Davey  45:39  
Yeah, it was really good. I'm, you can't unlock tricks until you go to a certain point in fame, 

JP  45:44  
That I like.

Davey  45:45  
And I really like that, yeah. And then they also have a little catch up mechanic with the billboards, wherever who's first and last as well. So there's a good balancing if someone starts rushing off ahead, then other people will, will catch up. Yeah. So I really enjoyed it. I love the theme of it. It's what drew me to it in the first place, but it's just, it's just really cool.

JP  46:10  
It's just a great game. Yeah, I knew it'd be good, like I didn't, I knew it'd be good. I watched the videos and I got it with my Perseverance Pledge, so that's why it's only recently kind of hit our table, but when we sat down and played it, I played it so low just to learn the game because I heard it's a bit of a bitch to learn, and teach, and it's quite...

Davey  46:31  
Well there's a lot... there's a lot of little 

JP  46:34  
Intricacies of how the chain and things work

Davey  46:37  
And you, if you miss those

JP  46:39  
Oh you're knackered

Davey  46:40  
 Yeah, so I do understand that, it took me a while to understand how the theatre properly worked. And but once it clicks, it clicks. And you can suddenly start understanding it, and there's a lot of cool little combo things you can do with other people's tricks, not just yours or, you know, other people performing your tricks, so yeah, there's there is a lot of depth to it as well.

Kerley  47:02  
I will say it's one of the... one of the games lately that I've lost, like, not super-badly but I lost convincingly, you beat us, I think me and Davey were quite close points, and I still thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Davey  47:13  
I really enjoyed it 

Kerley  47:14  
Which is a hallmark of a great game. Yeah. And I feel the same about the Perseverance once I got into it, and a few other games I've played lately you know, it's really a mark of a good game for me. If you end up losing and you end up getting frustrated, you're not going to win every time therefore it's not going to be the game for you, I think.  So... The mark of a good game for me, Trickerion, definitely definitely.

JP  47:32  
It's just... it's yeah, people might have been put off by it, because it is kind of notorious, I suppose, being notoriously a heavy game; and having played it, and we're probably biassed, because we play heavy games, and we're not that... kind of afraid of them, or to try them out. But I think, like, after me playing it solo, which again, solo mode, and it's brilliant, simple, and you can easily just get that out to the table and you can learn by messing up right? You can just go and just get that lifecycle of how the tricks work. Get that right in your head. Once you've got that, you're good. By the rest of the.. you know where you need to go to get stuff, and you know how you should plan, and then the frustration comes in when you do the action selection reveal and everyone else goes 'No, I wanted to go to the market, you're gonna go to the market before me and ohhhh' 

The actual action side of it is quite simple, really, you put the worker placement out, and if you have the actions to be able to do it, you go and do it, you know. So that's, you know, the heart of it is obviously that... that trick order and getting in those bits in

Kerley  48:33  
Its not only that, it's like making sure your tricks have similar components so you don't have to go out of your way to get like you know, all different components

Davey  48:40  
Oh, I love the little menus.

Kerley  48:42  
That's a really good term.

JP  48:43  
Yeah, so say your head's not in that trick menu, then you're not playing it right. Yeah, if you're not constantly just thumbing through going 'Right I need... I need a rope Where's the....'

Davey  48:53  
Or 'This combos with this, then I can do this, but oh, that trick's not on the board'

Kerley  48:58  
I had an amazing plan, but then Davey had my trick. I was like 'Oh, For God's sake!'  I was like looking for something, looking for something that fitted and had all the similar components and everything, I finally found it, and then he had it.

Davey  49:11  
Go into the streets and doing my tricks. What can I say? 

JP  49:14  
I completely recommend it, it's well up there.

Davey  49:18  
Yes. So that's all of the games which are out at the moment, and there's a couple of ones coming out which we'll talk about in a bit, but ranking order: So which ones do you feel like your favourite... so we'll do favourite to least favourite. So I can start if you want

JP  49:36  
Go on

Davey  49:37  
My favourites going to be Trickerion. I've only played it once but it's up there. My next is Anachrony, then it's going to be Perseverance Episode Two. Cerebria,  and then Perseverance episode one, 

JP  49:49  
So you're ranking the episodes differently? 

Davey  49:51  
Well, to me they're a different enough game that it's... it completely changes the dynamic and the mix for me.

Kerley  49:59  
I don't think I can answer this one very well. I'm gonna go ahead and just through longevity, I'm gonna put Anachrony at the top. Now, there's lots of different expansions that I haven't played yet, but for the length of time... Now, the reason why I say I can't really say yet, is because I loved Trickerion. So I'm with you on that one. But I haven't played it enough to rank it number one yet, because Anachrony is really is a top three or four game for me overall. And Perseverance, despite the first half of the first game I played it nearly making me..... my brain fall out of my ear

The table nearly went out the window, didn't it?

It nearly did, but after I got over that, that little hump with the complexity, I've started to really, really enjoy it. So I'm really looking forward to the Chronicle mode we're doing, so I think again, that's got potential but yeah, the only one that I would say is definitely bottom for me, is Cerebria

Davey  50:48  
 Yeah, yeah

Kerley  50:49  
So that's not because it's a bad game. It's just because the way it plays is not the way....

Davey  50:53  
I'm not well, I'm not saying that any of these are bad games. It's just to be... your enjoyment order

Kerley  50:58  
It's personal perference

JP  50:59  
To be at the bottom of a, you know, a four game ranking by Mindclash games are still probably some of the best that are out there. Let's just make that clear. I agree exactly what you said Kerley. I mean, the last game of Trickerion has been one of my favourite gaming experiences, it helped that I won, don't get me wrong, but I just... I just bloody love that, I had such a good...

Davey  51:18  
I think all of us had a really good time at the table as well. Yeah. And Rhiannon was playing as well, and it was just...

JP  51:24  
I can see it... it knocking Anachrony off, I can see it. 

Kerley  51:27  
I can see it

JP  51:28  
But for the same reasons why you said it: The fact that we've played Anachrony a hell of a lot more, and we still love it. 

Kerley  51:34  
And we haven't played half the expansion as well. So it's like who knows whether that'll...

JP  51:39  
I think Anachrony, Trickerion, Perseverance. I'm not going to say episode one and two, they're both lumped in for me, and then Cerebria at the bottom. But again, would I play any of them? Yes, 

Davey  51:49  
Yeah, Yeah. 

JP  51:50  
Anytime.

Davey  51:51  
Yeah, definitely 

JP  51:52  
Bring 'em on.

Davey  51:52  
So from all these games, is there a telltale sign of what a Mindclash game is? What kind of mechanics do you, would you be able to link to them? 

Kerley  52:03  
The planning

Davey  52:04  
Or do you think ...

Kerley  52:04  
All to do with the planning, that's Mindclash for me. I mean, yeah, we've got dice drafting. We've got deck building, we've got worker placement, but it's really all about that planning. Trickerion being the first one makes complete sense. 

Davey  52:16  
Yeah. 

Kerley  52:16  
Because that is the one that is deepest on the planning, but you look at all of them. You have to think about what you're doing two or three turns ahead. And if you don't, alright, you'll still have fun, but you're... you're probably not gonna win

Davey  52:26  
There's a set sequence of you having to do things. If you miss out on some of those parts. You can completely mess up your strategy. 

JP  52:26  
It's hard for me to answer that though, I think icons? Iconography.

Davey  52:39  
Yeah, well, sometimes the artwork's a link for it

JP  52:42  
Like, I think even though thematically these games are wildly different. Like you know, you've got 'Inside out' emotions to dinosaurs to time travelling futuristic sci fi, and magicians in steampunk Victorian era. You couldn't get kind of wildly different but I can tell they're all Mineclash. I just... I can tell by looking at... they have different artists for the, for the visuals as well, but I can tell that it's a Mindclash game.

Davey  53:09  
For me? It's their mechanics always have a certain... they have a layered depth to them. And they're always really tight and very well polished. Yeah, they do have... they're balancing... I know I complained about Perseverance in previous episodes, but all their games are usually really well balanced. Yeah, as you were saying with the factions, like usually you'd be able to pick one and you'll have a different game, but you won't be like, 'Oh, that ability, well, you know was...

JP  53:36  
Weaker than the rest Yes. It's a ruddy good time!

Davey  53:40  
A ruddy good time. We are Mindclash fans. No headbanging from us. Yeah. So the games that they've got coming out: Voidfall and Septima. You've played Septima?

JP  53:55  
Yeah, I played it. I was fortunate to play a prototype copy of Septima, which I talked about on previous episode that I cannot remember which one it was. I think it was episode seven, but don't quote me on that. So you want to hear that? Then, you know, obviously go and check that out. But all you need to know is: Witches. Well... witches.

Kerley  54:18  
I'm looking forward to it 

JP  54:20  
Witches, it is the lightest of all of the Mindclashes that I've played. But it is not light. 

Davey  54:27  
Yeah

JP  54:27  
So let's be clear. 

Kerley  54:28  
I'm looking forward...

Davey  54:29  
It'll be interesting, 

JP  54:30  
It's medium... a medium weight game. But I still had a tonne of fun with it. Again, it's modular so you can kind of 'Do you want it a bit lighter? We'll take that board off'. 'Want a bit heavier? Put that in and throw that module in'.

Davey  54:45  
That's something they like doing as well isn't it? They love modular... modular expansion, which is good idea of lot of things because if you like one bit of an expansion but don't like the rest of it, it means you can just just add that bit. Just play with that section

JP  54:57  
But in preparation for this Voidfall, I thought I'll watch the video on it again, because it's been a while since I backed it and I've not heard much apart from the the monthly updates, and then just watching the video again. Yeah, this is great. This looks really good but yeah, for those that don't know what the hell I'm talking about Voidfall is... its Mindclash games' kind of foray into 4X. So think Twilight Imperium, think ...let's think insert any other 4X game. Yeah. 

Davey  55:25  
I feel like Eclipse is the closest similarity from looking at it. 

JP  55:29  
Yeah.

Davey  55:29  
In my mind

JP  55:30  
Cos Eclipse is Euro... is the most Eurofied 4X 

Kerley  55:33  
You're getting me excited to be honest. I don't know anything about Voidfall, but Eclipse I want to say is probably number one for me. 

Davey  55:42  
For you 4X's?

Kerley  55:43  
In general, in general, I think it's pretty much number one. Yeah,

JP  55:47  
But the difference with this one is it's completely fully Eurofied. And what I mean by that is like, even the combat is fully deterministic. Like there was no dice rolling of combat, you know, going in, you're gonna win or not. And so that game is all about the threat of war. Yeah, rather than the war. So it's kind of like, 'Ah, you've just unlocked that technology, haven't you? If you come over here, you're definitely going to take this'.

Davey  56:13  
I did see that they've got two different boards, though. So if people didn't like the war side of it, there's another... they've got another layout or board, which means it's a lot more peaceful. 

JP  56:23  
Yes. 

Davey  56:23  
You don't have to do the War

JP  56:24  
You've got the modular tile layout. So yeah, if you don't like that 'I'm going to cut throat' 

Davey  56:30  
Probably gives you more resources or something, which means you don't have to fight

JP  56:33  
There's also, you know it's competitive, you can play Co Op. Yeah, the whole thing about... the reason why it's called Voidfall is that there's a corruption in the galaxy called the Voidborn. And they're like the horrible alien kind of race that's invading and corrupting the systems that you need to eradicate. So even in a competitive game, you have that presence there. Yeah. So it's not always 'I fight you, you find me and I'll fight you'. It's, 'We need to kind of cleanse the galaxy with this corruption'. Also, you might go 'Might want a cheeky planet'.

It's reminding me of Game of Thrones with the Dragon expansion? Is that kind of the level of... I'm not saying the way it plays, I'm talking about the overriding enemy that you kind of have to...

Not... no I wouldn't say it's as dramatic as that, I think they're more kind of maybe, maybe co op is, maybe co op's got a bit more, there's a big baddie that you have to... I've watched the co op playthrough, which I thought was quite interesting, it did play completely different. But it's more I think... 

Davey  57:33  
It's nice they've added that in as well though

JP  57:33  
It gives you options, I think in a competitive mode, which I always like. I like it in Eclipse that you've got a neutral player that you can go and smack first, to build yourself up and get better and grow.... Yeah, the Ancients...And I think that's a similar kind of thing. They're there, you can, you know they're there to get in your way, a little bit

They're not an overriding evil presence trying to

Davey  57:56  
In the coop, I think they would be.

JP  57:58  
In co op you've reallly got to work together to sort it out. But it's... yeah, hand management. You've got these focus cards, the free actions on each card, you do two of the actions as you play. And yeah, just really interesting. Really... Mindclash does 4X

Davey  58:17  
Smething to look forward to. So that's coming to the end of our main segment. And that is Mindclash games, one of our favourite developers, and it's been a pleasure to talk about and pleasure to play them.

Moving over to one of our questions from one of our listeners, Rick Howard, thank you for this. "Why do I buy board games and not play them?" Not me personally! 

JP  58:48  
I don't know Davey, why do you buy games and not play them?

Davey  58:52  
But I mean, we all do it don't we? We all get them...

JP  58:55  
I love this question. 

Davey  58:56  
Yeah, it's the Pile of shame, isn't it that usually gets quoted. But for me personally, I think I'll buy it in... on a whim, a spontaneous whim, I'll see something that looks cool, looks pretty, looks really good, and then I'm like 'I've got the money to buy it now, I want to buy something'. I'll buy it, and then either won't have time to play it, or I... no one else will want to play it because not, not.. not their thing. So that's probably reasons I will never end up playing my games.

JP  59:26  
I think for me, there's, there's a hobby within this hobby, which is collecting

Davey  59:33  
Secret hoarders.

JP  59:34  
It's real. So I just had this really weird conversation with myself about Marvel Champions for this exact reason. So Marvel Champions, if people don't know, is a living card game by Fantasy Flight Games, and they release packs out the wazoo all the time, and is you know, starts off 'Yeah, just buy a £40 quid starter pack, it's got five heroes off you go'. Nice, great, brilliant. Fast forward three years later and you're about £600/£700 quid in debt, because you've been buying every... every expansion hero pack they've ever released. And it's this thing of 'Am I collecting this game? Or am I playing this game?' Yeah, yeah. And it's I think it's the same kind of principle with with board games for me, is that I see myself doing it on certain publishers Mindclash, we just talked about them, like 'Mindclash have released a new one, ooooh, I'm interested'

Kerley  1:00:04  
'I'm having that'

JP  1:00:19  
'Chip theory have done.... Oooh, I'm interested'. And it's like, again, am I collecting these? We did play them and that's the difference, but it, I can totally see why people do it.

Yeah, 

Like... I buy it, the endorphins you get from buying the game, from punching it out. Not Kerley, but punching out and reading it, and learning it, and oooh, it's the new puzzle and just get my head around. This is brilliant. It's the opportunity of 'This is going to be so good when we get it to the table'. And then it doesn't, sometimes. It's, it's addictive. 

Davey  1:00:57  
I think I found... found that point of view as well. Yeah.

JP  1:01:00  
Addictive to collect. It's an addictive to, to get new things. And, and sometimes people just like doing that. Yeah,

Kerley  1:01:09  
I don't suffer from that too badly. I don't think, although I can certainly understand the want. Mine is more about scheduling really, it's it's that fine balance between you wanna buy the shiny new game that you really fancy, and probably everyone fancies as well. But then you want to keep up to date with all the games that you really like that you've probably previously, and you don't want it to be a year or two before you played it last, and then okay, now I've forgotten all the rules. Now I need to watch another video, and then I'll do another learning game. So it's a balance of playing old games, playing new games, and just probably getting that balance a little bit wrong sometimes

Davey  1:01:47  
Time. Father Time

Kerley  1:01:49  
This is it. And especially like, you know, I mean, I'm not too bad. I've got a lot of... fair amount of time, but most people don't in the gaming group, right. So we have to book-in games. So unless it's going to be a relatively low player count, you're talking a month or two in advance, you know, so it's just one of those things, scheduling, and also playing all of your old games that you still bloody love and keep wanting to play.

JP  1:02:10  
Yeah, we don't have a regular games night, like other groups do, do we? Like a lot of groups will have, like every Thursday, for every week, until the end of time is when everybody will meet up and play a load of stuff. And it's just for us, it wouldn't work.

Davey  1:02:22  
Ours is an event thing. A couple of months in advance and you go 'Yeah, sign up for that one'.

JP  1:02:27  
We're booked up until September.

Kerley  1:02:30  
And to be fair, we normally play more than once a week. 

Davey  1:02:32  
We do. Yeah.

Kerley  1:02:33  
When you add these podcasts in

JP  1:02:36  
When do we fit it all in guys?

Davey  1:02:37  
I can't even remember what Gemma looks like. So thanks for that, Rick. Let us know why you buy games and then play them. And yeah, if anyone else wants to answer that question, then. Yeah, comment and message us.

So moving over to the penultimate term, what we've got coming up, and what are we doing the moment maybe. So for me, I'm going to talk about something non boardgame related. 

JP  1:03:10  
How dare you?

Davey  1:03:14  
Been watching a lot of 'The Boys' I've had to rewatch it all again, just because of how good season three was. Just how good it was. 

Kerley  1:03:22  
Are there spoilers ahead? I will say

Davey  1:03:22  
No, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna mention it. I'm not gonna say any spoilers, but I just thought it's, it's an ingenious bit of TV. Okay, it's overly graphic sometimes, and it's very, very, it's definitely got the 18 Plus, you know, age rating. 

Kerley  1:03:25  
Deserves it

Davey  1:03:40  
Yeah, deserves it. But I think it's quite clever what they've done with some of the bits, some of it's quite political on aspects as well. And what's happened over in America, you can see certain relevance. But yeah, I just thought it was quality. I just wanted to mention it. 

JP  1:03:56  
No, it's great. Yeah.

Davey  1:03:59  
It's all about the superhero, as if... you know, it's more realistic, I think, than all the Marvel 

JP  1:04:05  
Yeah, it's like if superheroes were narcissistic arseholes.

Davey  1:04:11  
Well, I think power does make people like that anyway, doesn't it? So...

Kerley  1:04:14  
It's superheroes if they were actually real. This is what they'd probably be like.

Davey  1:04:18  
It's quite scary in that regard. But, but game wise, then. I've got Barrage again. I'm just looking forward to that coming up. I've got Bitoku tomorrow, which is gonna be really good. But yeah. How about you Kerley?

Kerley  1:04:34  
So I'll follow a similar theme and move slightly away from board games. I've been rediscovering my love of an old computer game called Heroes of Might and Magic. 

Davey  1:04:44  
Oh, nice. Nice.

Kerley  1:04:45  
Yeah, me and my little brother have been going real deep into that at the minute. So yeah, we're loving it. But the boardgame catch for that one is the fact that we've got an upcoming Kickstarter launching in November, which we've talked about previously, so I won't go into, but that... the board game version of that game is coming out. 

Davey  1:05:00  
That'll be good

Kerley  1:05:01  
Which we played at the Expo. Which looked excellent. Even though it was in what I would call 'alpha stage'.

Davey  1:05:08  
Yeah, we did... I briefly mentioned it in the last podcast. The fact that was coming out

Kerley  1:05:12  
So we're looking forward to that. But yeah, apart from that, as far as board game events go, I've got a few I'm chunking through some 'old 'uns, but good uns', you know, at the moment, so I won't go into too much detail.

Davey  1:05:25  
And we're gonna we're gonna learn On Mars on Wednesday.

Kerley  1:05:27  
Yeah, we're gonna play On Mars on Wednesday, where we've both got half a day, so we're gonna do that. But yeah, apart from that, Lords of Waterdeep, Terraforming Mars, we're playing a lot of the old games at the minute, 

Davey  1:05:36  
We are going back through our catalogue and getting all the classics out

Kerley  1:05:39  
And I like to do that, to be honest. Yeah, the...I'll just, again, we're looking forward to the board gaming marathon in, in a couple of weeks time or a week and a halves time

Davey  1:05:49  
I'm on holiday, I can't make it

JP  1:05:49  
Nah, same.

Kerley  1:05:49  
Gutted. 

JP  1:05:52  
Dan did tell me, he did tell me off. He keeps continuing to tell me off. But what can I do? 

Davey  1:05:58  
Can you get a spanking? JP? 

JP  1:06:00  
Yeah. But I say 'Kerley's going and he's your best friend'. 

Kerley  1:06:03  
Yeah, apparently.

JP  1:06:06  
So, that's enough. You don't need more than Kerley. 

Kerley  1:06:08  
That is true. You don't need more than Kerley

JP  1:06:09  
That's true. It's your big day coming up, though, isn't it? You got a big day coming up.

Kerley  1:06:14  
Oh, what my birthday?

JP  1:06:15  
Yeah,

Kerley  1:06:16  
Yeah. The thing is my birthday....

Davey  1:06:18  
"Happy birthday to ya"

Kerley  1:06:23  
A couple of weeks away, but I mean, I cannot have a birthday boardgaming day with the 'group leader' I want to call you, even though he wouldn't call himself that. 

JP  1:06:33  
Big 'ead

Davey  1:06:33  
Oh Captain, my Captain

Kerley  1:06:33  
"Oh Captain, my Captain JP" without him being there. So I'm going to wait for him to come back from holiday and then we're going to do a... an all day-er. What did we get it down to August? 20... 

JP  1:06:33  
Something? 

Kerley  1:06:44  
27th/28th. So we're gonna do an all day 

JP  1:06:51  
For bank holiday? 

Kerley  1:06:52  
Yeah, that's it. Gonna do an all-day boardgaming day. 10...I think it was up to 10 or 12 people coming around my house, it's going to be a fantastic day. But yeah, it's my 40th birthday. So...

JP  1:07:03  
You old Git

Kerley  1:07:04  
So instead of going out on the piss, I'm having a boardgaming day. I don't care.

Davey  1:07:09  
Sounds good.

Kerley  1:07:09  
I'm more than happy with that

JP  1:07:10  
 Yeah, sounds like the best thing to do. 

Davey  1:07:11  
Sure the listeners will agree. So...

JP  1:07:13  
If anyone disagrees, they're probably not listening anyway. 

Kerley  1:07:16  
Yeah, if anyone disagrees, it's probably not the podcast for you

JP  1:07:21  
Well, sticking with that theme of non game and game related. So as you mentioned, I'm going on holiday. So I'm going to France with Rob. Also, obviously, on the podcast. So we're going with our respective families. For two weeks, cannot wait, just want to switch off and do the typical things you do in France without me being stereotypical and saying things. I'm not gonna say it... baguettes. No. I'm not gonna say that, 

Davey  1:07:45  
Baguettes, nice garlic...

I'm gonna say any of that.

Moules et frites?

JP  1:07:49  
I can't speak French mate. So that's what I'm looking forward to, and then the same weekend as your birthday weekend.. The game I'm actually looking forward to obviously looking forward to your birthday weekend, but the day before we've got Twilight Imperium. 

Davey  1:07:50  
Oh yeah, we've got double... 

JP  1:08:04  
We've got a double bubble. That weekend is going to be gaming heaven. But no, the reason for Twilight Imperium is I've recently got the third Codex printed, which adds another faction

Davey  1:08:20  
Who did it in the end? Some guy did it for us...

JP  1:08:22  
Yeah, some guy on the Twilight Imperium Facebook group called Cow Slap Fact

Davey  1:08:26  
Yeah, Cow Slap Fact. I nearly said 'milk something' but I knew it was something to do with a cow

JP  1:08:32  
Credit to him, I know he didn't do on his own, and he had a group of people kind of helping out. But he definitely coordinated all the requests for all the codexes one, two, and three, and saw it all out, got it printed and posted it to everybody. And I thought fantastic. Already had Codexes one and two, if anyone doesn't know what the hell I'm talking about, which is probably quite a few people. The codexes are like, print and play mini expansion modules, or card replacements for balance. Just think of as like an update

Davey  1:09:02  
They do an update in FAQ, don't they? 

JP  1:09:03  
Errata

Davey  1:09:03  
Not FAQ, Errata, right.

JP  1:09:07  
And they essentially just release all of that through the codex, which is quite cool. So I thought I've got all that now, I'm just really excited to play T.I. because I love it

Davey  1:09:16  
I think it's the only way that a game from the 80's is still relevant, because they keep putting love into it.

JP  1:09:22  
So yeah, we've got, I think we've got at least, now I think we've got six, six players. Yeah. Well, we have at the minute, it always gets a bit of fluctuation, 

Kerley  1:09:33  
Because it's an all day event.

JP  1:09:34  
Yeah. Yeah. But looking forward to getting around the table and making an event of it as always. 

Kerley  1:09:39  
Me to mate

JP  1:09:40  
Yeah,

Davey  1:09:41  
Yeah. And with that, our final turn is wrapping up and victory points are to be scored. Thanks for everyone for listening. If you've enjoyed the show, please like, subscribe, and review on your podcast player of choice. If you want to get in contact the show on our socials you can email us on players@whoseturn.co.uk Check out our Facebook page, Whose Turn Is It Anyway Podcast, Instagram page @whoseturnpodcast and TikTok @whoseturnisitanyway. We're back in two weeks with another episode. Stay tuned so until then whose turn is it again?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai