TURN 1 - Player Count
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[Music]
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Welcome to Whose Turn Is It Anyway, a board gaming podcast all about our gaming group and of course the board games that we play. I'm Becky, your
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current first player, and this is the last of my batch of episodes until the next cycle at least. I'm joined today by
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Adrian. Hello. And Tambo. Hello. To talk about games that change the hobby. But before we get into the thick
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of it, how are we all doing? I'm okay, thank you. Good. You've been on your leave, haven't you? Yes, I have. Just a nice week off down.
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Play lots of lots of games. Fantastic. I say lots of games. We played quite a few. Yeah, it's all two-player mainly. I did get my
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mom to play Lost Rivers Vanak. Nice. Yeah, it was very painful to teach, but we got through it and she enjoyed it at
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the end, but I don't think she'll play again. She said she's enjoyed it. Your family holidays are something else. The number of board games you take away with you or
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games you get into family holidays is crazy. Like I take less when I go out with my like when I go on holiday with
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my board gaming friends. I I do count myself very lucky. My my family do love my niece and nephew, my
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brother-in-law, my brother, they love board games. So I'm actually quite lucky in that sense. It's Yeah. It always astonishes me
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whenever you post up a picture or tell us about all the games you've played and I think that's a lot for a family holiday like to get in.
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Yeah. How about you? Sounds good. How you doing? I'm doing all right. Good. Jolly good.
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Also got a little bit of holiday coming up. Um and just been getting stuff done around the house. Nice.
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It's always nice. Nice. I've got no holiday coming up until December. Sad times. But there we go. It's not
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that many weeks, not many sleeps till Christmas. Gh. God. Oh, Christmas. I know. Isn't it just miserable? I don't
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I don't want to see that nonsense in the shops. Well, this is going to be a nice upbeat episode.
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No, I I like Christmas, just not in September. I mean, you'd have been annoyed about it when I found it in
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August in B&M. Oh my god, it just loses a shine if you do it too
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early. Anyway, so we're all good and that's great. So, let's crack straight on and let's talk about Hex. What have
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we been playing recently?
TURN 2 - Let's Talk About Hex
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Adrian, tell us what you've been playing. I have been playing I really struggle to
Adrian - Tianxia
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pronounce this like all the tea games or a lot of the tea games they seem to pick lovely names that you can't pronounce and that's Tiangia.
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Um so it is a tea game. It is published by board and dice as they all are I
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think. Um, and it is a game which is quite like
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Perseverance or the Great Wall in the fact of you are defending the Great Wall
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against um sort of hordes and incoming barbarians and stuff like that. At the
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same time, you're doing quite a nice little um typical sort of Euro game thing. So each
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area has um a couple of places which have buildings in them and those
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buildings the first time you go there you'll get a little one-off bonus but they either give you like when you put your one of your workers there um and
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you have to pay money to do that you'll get like either an ongoing ability. So now I don't know going to like putting a
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person at a building will cost you one less coin or wood or whatever it was that you had to to spend. I forget which resource it was. or it might be during
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the income step, you get two of these items or whatever it is. And so kind of
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you want to build up some of those early to get yourself some bonuses. And each area also has like an influence. So
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there's four different tracks you can go up and they are like influential houses. Um and they all have like a theme. So
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some will be about using the ports more or about um defending the wall more or something along those lines. And so each
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time you place a worker or you not place a worker, each time you go to that section, um you then move up that track.
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And as you move up the track, you get sort of goodies and stuff like that. And everyone's got hidden um objectives. And
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those hidden objectives normally relate to either having a lot of influence in certain areas of the board or having
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being so far up a track. And those things move around from game to game. So it's just a dial that goes on the board.
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So each time it's going to be slightly different throughout the game as all you're going to do is you're going to place a disc in an area and ideally
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you're then going to place a person there to get the benefits but if not you'll get to do a small benefit or an action that you can do and then if the
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next person wants to go there they have to pay a coin um to go there because one person's already there for instance. So
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that's kind of I think that's the crux of it. What you then also have is a couple of other bits. So, you've only
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got three, I think it is, of these discs, and they're your actions. But in between those actions, you've
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kind of got actions that don't use up discs. And one of those things you can do is you put your worker in an area
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that gives you a resource. And they've got bridges, a little bit like White Castle, little tiny bridges
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that you put your worker on. And as you put it on, you push everyone off the other end. And then when you when they get pushed off, whoever's worker gets
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pushed off, they put on their board. And eventually, they can use those to little one-off powers. So, you're kind of trying to play a game. I need some of
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that resource, but I don't want to push them off just yet because they're going to make use of it. So, you're kind of doing that while also doing the actions
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and those bits and pieces. And then some of these workers can also be used to defend the wall and you can build the
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wall up. And every time people attack the wall, you'll get victory points for having defended it successfully. Now, a
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little bit like um Fall of Rome or I think it's Lord of the Rings Pandemic,
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there's like roots along the board and if you don't stop them at the wall, they follow these roots along the board and
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they slowly attack those settlements until as they move along the track, they
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become less powerful and they just basically keep moving along it until they've lost all of their power. So if
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you are don't defend a wall and you've got buildings in that area, especially ones near the top, they're going to wipe
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you out. And so you're going to lose all of this benefit, you're going to build up. So there's kind of a little bit of a
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push and pull in it where you're trying to defend the bits of the wall you want to defend and maybe not bother so much
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with other bits of the wall and hope that if someone's built up in one particular area, they can sort of move
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along that track there. And then if I'm honest, there's just a load of extra
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stuff which is the euro euro usual euro shenanigans which is you can go to the port and trade some goods in and that
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will give you some bonuses that go towards it or you can collect little idols which means that you can pay in
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the income step to go up certain tracks and there's all of that kind of stuff on top of it. But the actual crux of the
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game is quite a nice, as I say, it gives me like those flavors of sort of Great
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Wall of Perseverance where you're trying to defend certain areas that you want to defend but not other areas. But there's
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also benefits for kind of helping friends out because you'll get one off like victory points for having killed
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soldiers and stuff like that. So there's there's all of that there in amongst this like quite nice Euro game. um which
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is just a bit like I suppose like Lords of Water Deep where you're kind of trying to take control of buildings and
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more than one person can take control of a building but it means that you're getting benefits and building up your
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engine as you go and I think it's a really nice package of doing what it's
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trying to do which is it's trying to be kind of semi-ooperative or trying to sort of get you to cooperate slightly
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with some people and less with others. and I had a great time playing it. Um cuz we've got to get his name in. Mark
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Monk from Ninja Geek Games. Um he taught me the game and had a blast with it. He had it all set up and everything. And
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it's great production. You got the little bridges. You've got the the walls and the towers that you can build. Um
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and the little invading um horsemen, I think they are across the top that sort of come down the map. All of that is a
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sort of great board and dice sort of standard production. My one, and I think
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it really is my only gripe, is a gripe that I'm finding more and more, is that to play two players, there has to be a
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bot, right, to fill in that third player. So, like June Imperium, like Furnace, I think I
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talked about a few other games as well, but none come to mind right now. You have to play a bit of a bot.
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And um it just it always draws me away from the game. Like I want to be playing if it's
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not a two-player game. Like I my biggest thing is I wish they would advertise that it's three player,
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two player with a bot or something like that. Because if I bought it, I would probably sell it cuz like half
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my game two player. So maybe not quite half but close to a
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two-player. And therefore you kind of go well it doesn't fit in. It doesn't kind of work on in that
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sense. And there is a little bit of how you work out victory points at the wall is a little finickity, but I it wasn't
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too much. It was enough that because I enjoyed the game, I quite happily do the admin bit of okay, right, they come down
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the wall, now they do this, now they do that. Now you add up how much the wall is worth as a defensive value and here's
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victory points here, there. It's a little bit um sort of like a spreadsheet, a little bit of a
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calculator. Okay, I got to go through these steps. But actually, it was fine because you only do it a handful of
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times. Um, and it fits nicely into the Euro game. As I say, my my biggest
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grumble, and if if it's not a problem for you, then I think you're gonna like it even even more for it is that that
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two-player with a bot just takes away a little bit from the experience from me. But no, otherwise had a great time. I am
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demoing it soon and uh looking forward to demoing it cuz I want to see what it's like at more player count.
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Yeah. Nice. Oh, very nice. Sounds good. Sounds a lot like Perseverance. Is it quicker or was about the same? Sort of Perseverance episode one.
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Episode one. Yeah. Yeah, dinosaurs. Yeah, it's quicker. I think it's Again, it's tough cuz I've played Perseverance
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episode one at four player. Yeah. Then obviously another one at two player. So, it was a lot quicker, but I think they would be
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about the same time. Maybe slightly shorter for Tiangia compared to Per Perseverance.
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I think they're good fun. You got do a kind of a co-op. You kind of work together if but then you don't have to,
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you know, just let that wall go or let So, what you're saying is you can stab people in the back. Yeah. And I like that in a in a like a
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Euro game, it's very clever. I think that's a clever thing. And there is a little bit in that cuz you can build walls which are of course permanent structures. So they don't
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collapse the walls when they go through it. It's permanent. So I was building up permanent defenses where I had buildings
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that I wanted to protect. And then if there was like a building or something like that, I'd put some troops on it.
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And if the troops are there, they get you XP points for how heavily defended you have the wall. And then if they die,
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I think it is they give you XP points as well for an honorable death or something. So there is sort of but
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they're temporary pretty much because once they've the hordes have gone through them then that's it they're gone they come back to your little supply. So
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there is that little bit of you can put up the permanent defenses where you want to keep going and you can kind of almost
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lull people into a false sense of security by putting a few people down. They die but actually that horde is
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probably going to come back a second time before the end of the game if they've not built up walls there. They'll get wrecked at the end cuz the
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hordes just get tougher and tougher as the game goes on. Nice. Yeah. So, yeah, there's definitely there's
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definitely opportunities to stab people in the back. Yeah. Might be interesting to compare it, won't it, when you get a chance to play
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it more multiplayer? Absolutely. Nice. Nice. T, how about you? Okay, so my big game I've been playing
Tambo - Nemesis: Retaliation
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at the moment is the new Nemesis Retaliation, which I backed. Yeah, I've been waiting ages. Well, I'm waiting ages. Been
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waiting as long as everyone else, but it feels like ages. Yeah, it feels ages. So, is it good? Yes. It's one of my favorite games at
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the moment. Is it better than Nemesis 1? Yes, I would say. Okay. Yeah. And I'll tell you why and the differences now.
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But don't get me wrong, comparing both of them, I still play. They're both different kind of games. So, I'll be quite happy to play both still,
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but I think Retaliation just it differently. And I'll explain why in a sec. So, Retaliation, you're not you're
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kind of more built up as Marines in this one. You've got more weaponry. So, it's a bit more going on on that sense. Um,
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so you're expl you're exploring a facility. Okay. And you don't know what the facility. You haven't got the blue
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blueprint. So you don't know what the facility is and where the corridors go or what the rooms are. So you go in kind of blind basically. So it's different
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kind of actions in this. I won't go through them all cuz it take a while. But it's the same it's the same as the first nemesis. You spend a card to do an
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action at your five-handed cards. Same thing. And a room cost two cards and all that, but there's a few more different
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kind of actions. So the first one if you move and you explore. Now this is one of the best mechanics of the game. This
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what makes it is the corridor mechanic. So when you explore, you go, you choose which corridor you go off at the
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beginning and then you draw an expiration card and it'll tell you what room to put on and then it'll tell you what the corridors go off the room. So
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it's always different every time you play this game. The map is completely different and makes it really really
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unique in that sense I think. Um so that's good thing on that. Um you got
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two different kind of combats in this which is which makes it more interesting as well. You got corridor combat or you got in the room combat. Okay. In Nemesis
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the first one it was always an absolute to kill an alien. um cuz you draw the cards for the health. Um but this
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one is also if in the corridor it seems oh that's going to be easy to kill cuz they only got one health. So and you have a special burst dice which is
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called it's a purple dice and you think oh this is going to be easy. If you roll a four you're going to kill four in the corridor easy.
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Um but if you actually look at the dice there's three ones on it. So a 50/50 chance to roll a one and
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there's two twos and a four. So it's not as fun as it seems but it's still more fun cuz you are killing things more in
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this game. Um, but there's also a lot more models and stuff on the board than there is in the first one. Um, so yeah,
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that's that. But the room combat when you get you only allow one bug in a room from a corridor at a time. Doesn't mean there's only ever going to be one at a
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time in the room, but at the point of movement, if there's four aliens in the corridor adjacent to you when it to move in, you're only going to get one, which
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you think, oh, that's good. But they're actually harder to kill. So in this one, you spend a card to do a shoot action in
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the room, you basically have to put one health on it, and you always hit. So that's good as well. You're always hitting. you're always doing one damage,
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but then you got a roll the equal or less than the health of the bug, and you kill it. So, there's always a crit hit,
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which is obviously like a one on the dice. Um, and you think, that's good, but it's it's again, the dice isn't
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designed not to be a bit punishing. Yeah. So, I mean, there's one in the room, it's Yeah, it's interesting in
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that mechanic sense. I mean, that is that typical AVP or sort of alien feel, isn't it? if you can set
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up the corridor down
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every game, every film has rooms, they kind of get in the vents or they kind of shoot
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around the room and so it makes them a lot more difficult, doesn't it? And so it's really that is really giving you that feel of that it's easier to m down
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when they're in a long bunched up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's definitely right. And um you got a thing called um when you do your ammo
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and this it's not so punishing like always in the first I run out of bloody ammo. This one's not so bad. You got a
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little ammo token. If you ever do a burst fire to crawler, you have to flip it and you're always spend it's like spending one ammo but you're flipping
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your token and you're always spending ammo to do it. But you're doing a lot of damage, right? You're killing a few things. But when you're in a room, you
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don't spend ammo in the room. Well, you do kind of, but you roll the dice. And on the dice there's a little ammo symbol. And if you roll that, that's what makes you spend your ammo. Yeah.
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So if you don't roll that, you're going to keep going and going and going. So you're not spending your ammo so bad and more ammo available.
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Yeah, there's a few other games that I just can't think of them off the top of. I'm sure I've played other games where if they've got a little ammo symbol or
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something or a jam symbol, maybe they jam or I'm sure there's a few games I've played like that where they've got it on the dice.
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Yeah, exactly. So, it's good that they've picked that up. That that makes it much more fun. Doesn't feel so punishing, but is
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punishing. Um uh you always roll for noise in this. In the first one, if you move with someone, you don't roll noise if you
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move into a J room with someone. This one you always room roll for noise. Again, you can have three different
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counters now. You got the room counter, you got the bag development, and you've got the corridor counter. So, if you roll, you roll for noise. And on the
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dice, again, annoying. You've actually got an account symbol, which means you've drawn from the bag if you roll that symbol,
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right? In the room, which means you're going to get a bad guy. Yeah. So, it is quite punishing moving for noise. You think it's good, but when you
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roll the corridor noise, it's not so much cuz on the corridors, there's always different numbers on them now. So like you used to roll when you put a
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three down, you put a noise token on a three corridor. But when you're drawing different corridors from the the random tray you're drawing, they all got
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different numbers on them. So your corridor could have all threes around it. Oh, that's cool. Or you have one on two or things. So
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that is really cool. Interesting. And you can secure a corridor in this one. So you can actually flip the corridor over, get rid
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of the noise, and it comes to zero. So you don't you're never off noise again. But that's very hard to do and very
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rare. But you can do that which yeah that that's also very good. Um there's also a different one in the
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first one when the first alien turned up. You have to choose your objective cuz on something come up. Yeah. You had a sort of a joint
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objective and a bit of a bastard. You still got that. This one's a bit different. You got a task objective which everyone sees the one task on the
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board. Okay. And that is called the task objective. So if you got that kind you want to do it everyone. You know you've got to make sure that's complete before you sleep
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get off the ship or get off the escape shuttle. Okay. But the other one's obviously the dicky one. Okay. Same sort
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of thing. Someone's got to die or whatever it is. Yeah. Get some eggs, whatever it has to be. But the good thing about this is you can actually not
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don't have to choose an objective in this. You can keep them both in your hand to the end of the game. Oh, nice. So then at the end you can choose which one you want to do.
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But if you do choose an objective during the game, the first person does it gets to draw three action cards. So it gives you an incentive to choose a
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thing and then that person will get to draw three action cards. Then this little token will move down and then the second person whoever wants to choose gets to draw another two action cards
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and it goes down. So, it gives you an incentive to choose one if you want to, but gives you more cards at the time if you're in a sticky situation. Yeah. So,
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that's quite cool. I like that part of it as well. Nice. I have really enjoyed my games of Nemesis that I've ever had. They they
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become a story, don't they? Because you're you're in acting. It's like Yeah, like you say, a film I've not seen Alien or Alien versus Predator or any of those
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things cuz quite frankly, it's kind of what we've done. So, we've done Alien. Was it Alien 3 that was kind of like Lockdown where it was in the
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underground like the prisony base sort of thing or I felt it was a bit more like the Doom film with Rock Johnson if
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I'm honest. But yeah, I think this is definitely the aliens with the corridors and they're big and lots of And then this one's AP. It's like that.
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It's that it's that that feel. You don't know what you're going into this tunnel area and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's Yeah. That um Yeah. And
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so I played it solo or cooperative fully which is quite good. You put a couple of tasks down and you both got you put a
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task down per player you play at co-op with and you got complete a task. If you want to make it harder, you can put an extra task down. Okay,
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which makes it I find easier as in a couple of two-player like co-op is actually quite easy. But single
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player co-op is absolutely nightmare because you're not exploring so fast. So in this game, you got to explore, but you you got to Yeah, there's no oxygen
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in A, B, or C section. So you start off and you take an extra time unless you get life support going. So there's all
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this stuff going on, which yeah, it's great fun. What would you say is the perfect player count, do you think? Oh, it was definitely I've only played
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at four player max at the moment. So, I haven't played at five. Uh four is definitely my way fun cuz you're
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exploring more quickly, but you're also getting more noise and the more stuff's going on. Yeah. Yeah. And it's either goes one way when, oh,
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this is actually really easy and then you're going, "Okay." Otherwise, it's just it gets really dicky and you're like you're having such a bad time
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and Yeah. So, with lockdown, cuz you mentioned the the the objective that's on the board.
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Yeah. Now, my my big gripe with lockdown and the reason why I didn't enjoy that one was that quite often there was the
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signal that you had to send and if you didn't or whatever, then you could basically complete the game and it would
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be like, "Oh, but you're dead actually cuz you didn't send a signal or whatever it was." Is that like that? Yeah. Okay. So, again, that is like
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there is a thing called you got to get the data token. It's kind of similar to go escape the ship with it.
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But again, you don't have to choose that one objective, do you? Right. Okay. You can go out and leave with two
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objectives in your hand. And if you don't do it, you might do the other one. Right. So fine. It does get around it a little bit. It does get around a little bit.
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Before it was just like, "Oh, you haven't sent the signal. You're dead." But also sending the signal did nothing, did it? It was just sending a signal.
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This one, the data token, you can use the bot from another room. There is a robot in this, which is cool, by the way. Robot, which is always random.
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There's six different robots, and you draw a robot card at the beginning of the game. You don't see what it is unless someone goes in Torium and reveals it. So, you don't know it be an
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attack bot, I don't know, exploration bot, some stuff like that, a medical bot, but you don't know what it's going to I just had an image of like Doctor
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Who's little K9 robot like following you around. Don't know why. Sorry.
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Yeah. So, yeah. Sorry. And yeah, so there's the bot in it, which is cool. But um there's also I got the two extra
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characters, which is like a sniper and a drone person with a drone or explorers new room with a drone, which is quite cool. And they blow up the drone to kill
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everything in the room, but it's a one-off basically. Yeah. But that's quite cool. There's all different stuff going on. So you said that there's a like there's
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a clear winner here with this newer one. Yeah. Why is that? What's particular? It's the exploration part, I think, with
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the corridor. It's the It's the fact that the map is different. The map is different every time. That's what's really I really find that fascinating at the moment.
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Yeah, I played with the Neo Flesh race as well. Um which is the um the back what's it
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called? Um when you back something um the stretch goal. Stretch goal. That's it. Yeah, the neoflesh. And that that's even more fun
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cuz each bad guy has an ability on a card and they do the extra stuff but it's harder. Adds a bit more
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and you get cultist and everyone. If you kill a cultist, you get to flip one of the cards and make them weaker. But you find these cultters throughout the rooms and stuff, which is like a a robot human
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thing. And then you kill it and it makes noise. It's really And it makes noise. So you got to roll for noise every time. So it screams.
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I just had this image of you killing it. They go more more. You say that, but every time you hit it screams. I don't know what it reminds me
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of something of a game I've played where you find these robots in the room and they scream. I think it's like Dead Space maybe. I don't know. Yeah, Dead Space did that one.
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That's it. They scream on the wall, don't they? On Dead Space. Yeah, something like that. I didn't play a lot of that game. I love that game. I do not like jump
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scares. No, I don't. And there's a lot of them. I've been at all. And there's so much more to do. There's a there's a expansion for a lady who
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walks around and can interfere with your whole thing. I haven't played that yet. So,
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there's an expansion where a lady comes around and interferes with your whole thing. Yeah.
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And and the game space. No one can hear. She can help or she depend on room
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discovery. I've read quick rules on it. It looks good fun as well. There's so much Yeah. Sorry, that caught me. No, it sounds like it's added a lot of
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variation. Yeah, which is I think I think that's nice, but sometimes it can detract from
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It feels like it's more fun cuz you don't waste ammo, but it's still just as punishing. Okay, that's cool.
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Nice. But don't tell Rob that cuz I wanted to play it. Yeah, Rob, it's really easy. You You'll love
22:38
it. There we go. He'll play it. There we go. He loves the co-op. Yeah, I said we'll play it fully co-op. We said we'll play
22:43
it fully co-op, Rob. He's like, "Yeah, okay. That'll convince him. He'll be fine with that." Becky, what about you? So, we all went to Rob's house the other
Becky - Power Vacuum
22:50
day and played lots of different games. You did? Actually, we did. Yeah. So, I played Power Vacuum finally at last.
22:57
Yeah. So, that's a game I picked up um uh the last UK GE. It's by Keen Bean
23:02
Studio, and it's a nice little trick taking game um where if you win, you can either keep one of the played cards, so
23:07
you can like curate a better hand for next time, or you can take a power token to your little stash area. um you're all
23:13
given like an alliance card at the start of the round which just got a picture of two different factions on it. So like red and yellow say or green and brown or
23:20
something and they're the factions that you want to have the most and least power at the end of the round. So you're
23:25
kind of sort of hedging your bets over what you think is going to win. Yeah. You then take turns in typical trick
23:31
taking sort of style. One person starting and then everyone else has to follow suit if you can or trump. And
23:36
there's a various couple of different ways to do that. And if you're the lowest numbered card in the trick, you get to tinker with the power meter
23:43
rondelle thing in the middle, which transfers a power token from one of the factions to the other. And then you get
23:49
to switch around the sort of wires which control which two factions you can interfere with um the next person. So
23:56
you tot up your points at the end of each round. So that's like the stash of the amount of um tricks you've won and
24:02
then the scores for having your alliances win or lose. And you get more points if you don't declare your
24:08
alliances. But then you have to have the correct you can sort of tip the card up either way. So you can say red's the
24:13
most, yellow's the least, or if it looks like it's going the other way, you can turn your card around. That's fine. Or you can declare it early, in which case
24:20
you get less points, but you don't have to have both ends correct. So if you're if you're not going to declare what your
24:26
allegiance is, you have to have it both perfect. So white has to be the most, red has to be the least, or whatever
24:31
your card says. But if you declare early, you can turn it particular way round and then you only have to get one correct. So either red having the most
24:38
or yellow having the least. And you do get double points if you get both of them. So it's a really interesting sort
24:44
of do I declare early and and sort of hedge my bets, but then everyone knows what I'm going for. So they might try
24:50
and, you know, botch my plans. Um the funny thing is that every 10 points that
24:56
you get, you build a chunk of a statue, which is basically a statue of yourself. And the first one to get the last bit
25:01
on, which is a head, is the winner. So, it's just first to 40. But it's an interesting little scoring mechanic. Like each chunk of your statue is 10
25:08
points. I like that. I just had really good fun with that. I thought it was a nice little, you know, very simple trick taking. I
25:14
mean, like style your own statue with all the different pieces. You do. Yeah. So, the the the sort of thing is basically there's um lots of
25:22
kitchen appliances which are sort of anthropomorphic personifications of a kettle or what? It looks like a robot
25:29
with a kettle head or a phone head or whatever. And they're basically taking power from everywhere else and sucking
25:35
the power from everyone around them, which is I don't know. It's cool. I liked it when I cuz I saw we saw it I think at
25:41
Essen the year before. And um I assumed it was done by the same guys that did Cogs and Commissaars, which has a very
25:49
similar red roboty look. And that is like it's a that's a sort of a um like a
25:57
exploding kittens style game almost where it's a take that game but each deck is based is kind of very loosely
26:04
based around a Russian politician. Okay. So depending upon which ones you are you want different tokens and stuff like
26:11
that. And so I assumed it was by the same people but I don't think it is at all. I think it's completely different. And I kind of assumed it would be sort
26:17
of a similar theme, but no, it's just it just looks very Soviet. Yes, it has got that kind of vibe. Um
26:25
the kind of font they use and just Yeah. the general look of it, but it's Yeah, it's just basically you're doing normal trick taking, but
26:32
you're trying to influence who's going to win. I mean, so you can win and lose the same hand at
26:37
the same time, which is double helpful. So if you've played the lowest but it happens to be the only trump that was played
26:44
but you've also got the lowest number. So then you can interfere with the power meter which is
26:50
it's just a nice little mechanic. Nice. And it's got a nice little magnet. It's like it reminds me of those um if you
26:56
made like a a telephone thing when you were a kid where you put a cup on one end of a string and then a long string
27:01
and a cup on the other end. It kind of looks like that but with magnets where the cups are. So you've got this kind of string connecting the two colors
27:07
together. It just looked cool. It just looked cool. So, yeah, it seems to add a There's because there's quite a few games where you're
27:13
obviously hidden allegiances and you're trying to give power to one of them and all that. There's a few games out like that, but that seems like it's also as
27:20
you say, it's adding trick taking um on top of it, but it's also sort of adding a bit of a
27:25
a toyification of that with the with the little strings and magnets. And a couple of times if you can like
27:31
for example the game that we played, I could see T moving power from one color to another. Now, I had both of those
27:37
colors in my hand. I was like, "Oh, I reckon he's going to he's trying to get red the most." So, it makes sense for me to keep my red the most as well. And
27:44
then I'm not going to be in sort of not competition, but we're not going to be acting against each other, which is
27:50
quite useful. Yeah. So, as I say, it's reminding me a lot of Secrets. I don't know if you ever played Secrets, which was KGB versus
27:56
CIA, and then there was a hippie group in there as well. And that was similar things. It's like, "Oh, if you take this
28:01
person, like you can trade two people's allegiances cuz no one we're all playing
28:07
like secret spy games and all that kind of stuff." And it sounds a lot like that. But that game was um lacking a
28:13
little bit in a sort of a core game to go with it. It was very much I offer you card, do you want to take it? Wink wink
28:19
nudge nudge sort of thing. Um or do you want to return it to me and then we'll do different things with the allegiances. And it sounds very similar
28:25
to that where potentially you're sort of trying to figure out who everyone else is, but also deciding do you want to play it or do you want to show it off or
28:33
not or those kind of things. So it sounds like it's got quite a lot in common with that but more of a game to it. Yeah, it was it was really fun and quick
28:38
to play. The rules are really simple I think. But um yeah, a happy little what would you say to about half an hour?
28:45
Oh, that 20 minutes you get around pretty quick which is for four rounds that's pretty good if you got four rounds in that time
28:51
cuz you only have I think eight cards in your hand. So you're only doing eight tricks. It's like I mean we were learning it was a little
28:56
bit longer but once you got the knack of it is quick. I suppose it's more than four rounds. It's just the one who wins four rounds. Yeah, we won in four rounds actually cuz
29:02
I mean who won Stew, wasn't it? It was St. He was on He was on fire. Yeah, he won quite a few games.
29:09
Really? Saving it all up for one day. Yeah, he was Oh, Stu listener to friend
29:15
of the podcast. Did you hear that burn? Take that. Yeah, cuz he won Cubs, didn't he? He did. Yeah, he was.
29:20
And then he won that only two games. He won that Cubs. That's pretty much on fire in my opinion. That's more than ste.
29:26
Oh, Stu. Stew. I've got your back, buddy. Don't worry.
29:32
Anyway, uh I think that's enough of poor hex. Yeah. Ruining Stu's reputation.
29:39
He won't mind. There's not much to ruin, is there? Double burn after burn after burn.
29:46
What's that? You can smell it. Stew on fire. [Music]
TURN 3 - Main Event: Games that Changed the Hobby
29:59
In today's main segment, we're looking at games that changed the hobby forever. And what does that mean exactly? So,
30:04
we're looking at it through the sort of lens of games that redefined what designers thought were possible. Maybe
30:10
games that introduced new mechanics that everyone copied, games that pulled new people into the fold, and games that
30:15
made us poor but happy. cuz who doesn't like a game that they now feel indebted to play every single time because they
30:21
spent 450 quid on a Kickstarter? So, what do you what do you think of
30:26
when you think of games that change the hobby forever? What's our
30:31
um mainly for me I would have said I'm not uh mechanics I think for me I think changed games or progressed games as
30:38
well. I think that's been probably the thing that has grown since those, you know, Manala super early games, getting
30:46
more complex kind of structures in how we're how we're playing. So, I think things like say
30:53
Katan. So, that was one of those games that has changed the hobby forever. Most people have heard of it. Is it a
31:00
gateway game? Yes, I guess it it could be. Yeah, it can. It normally is, I think, but it's it you're trading, you're using
31:07
modular boards, there's no dice in combat. So, there's lots of different things that perhaps we don't normally
31:13
think, well, traditionally people might not have thought of as particular games because there's no dice. There's no
31:19
there is dice. Well, not in the same way. No, it's not combat. It's just it's just resource generation through the dice,
31:25
isn't it? You're not kind of deciding how I'm thinking of more like a D and D. So this has got this power but it's not in that
31:32
kind of same way. So I think that really kind of opened up. Yeah. And it's got um you know I think
31:38
it was probably one of the early ones where I felt the limited resources thing. So you only get so many of the small buildings. So it means you've got
31:44
to upgrade to the to like the big castle towers. At some points you kind of got to you got to work around that. And
31:50
that's something that I I think has now become more of a thing since. And of
31:55
course you've got kind of route blocking and route building and stuff like that which you know you then see in Ticket to
32:01
Ride which is another big game that I think has influenced a lot of the industry as well. So yeah I think I think Katan's is a
32:08
good shout as being a bit of a a big game. You know it got an earlyish app
32:13
for it to so you could play it on your phone. I didn't realize it was 1995.
32:18
Yeah. That's such a long time ago from from a back when it was settlers in Katan.
32:24
Yeah. But it and it still sells millions. Yeah, it's still going strong,
32:30
which is just mad, isn't it? If you think of any other kind of there's loads of variations of how you can play it. So, I
32:37
got into the habit of playing with an app, which um creates a better bell curve of cuz
32:42
you're rolling two dice. Obviously, the seven is the most common. If you're rolling those dice, especially at the ends, it can just be you could just roll
32:49
loads of twos. Whereas if you if you use an app or a deck of cards, you can standardize that bell curve and
32:55
that's sort of become more of a thing as well where people have decks of things which even out across time and stuff
33:02
like that. So there's all these things that again that wasn't in the base game but that's something that became known for like in katan you could do that and
33:10
I think that's influenced some of the industry as well. Yeah, I think it it perhaps it's made people think about
33:18
yeah, like you say, the probability of stuff and actually think about how is this game played? And I think that's
33:23
part of either being good at a game and learning a game well, isn't it? Sort of realizing those kind of I don't want to
33:28
call them cheats, but those sort of sneaky ways of actually this is the the
33:33
most common thing, so I'm just going to hedge my bets on that. So, I think it's teaches you basic probability,
33:38
doesn't it? which is a seven on 2d6 and then everything from that gets less common. So if you can get a good set of
33:45
resources teach you how to play katana if you can get a good set of resources with good numbers around them it's a
33:51
it's an easy choice to do that. So yeah anyway this is slightly off
33:56
topic katan with Adrian this is all your top tips says me who's played the game one single time.
34:01
Yeah me too I haven't played that so once. I played it loads on the app. I played it a few times in person, but I prefer
34:07
to play it with the app or deck and most my gaming group don't. They like to roll the dice. I think Katan was one of the first games I played when I joined this group. I
34:13
think play a couple times I think Max and then we just there's so much other stuff to play. We know there's loads out there, isn't there?
34:19
So, but it's interesting that people still choose that one as like an introduction. I'm not saying as a gateway to to lure
34:24
people in or but it's this is what a board game can be if you've never seen that kind of thing.
34:30
Yeah, it's we talked about it on the live podcast recently. I think you know that you've got the likes of Carcasson, Katan, Ticket to Ride.
34:36
When people now talk about hobby board games, it's what they think of. Yeah. Um or what they'll tell you. Oh, so you
34:44
play and it's norm quite often it's one of those three cars on Katan or Ticket to Ride. And that tells you how much
34:50
those sort of three games have influenced industry media
34:55
and people people's brain space generally. Yeah. Perception of what board games are. I think with with ticket to ride
35:01
it's it's really simple where as soon as you get around the fact of you're you've got red trains that doesn't mean you can
35:07
only go on the red routes because that's everybody's immediate oh so I'm red so I go on here no you just happen to be red
35:12
don't worry about it I think as soon as people get over that it's so instinctive is it
35:18
it's just set it's it's very basic set collection and route planning but inside those basic rules
35:25
is a lot of things that players can learn and so I think that's because it's as you say like entry level from a rules
35:32
point of view because it is that but actually it's got a bit of meanness and it's got a bit of like other things that
35:38
you know going and getting more objectives and stuff. There's a certain flow to that game which means that people naturally
35:45
have honed to it and it's sold really well because of it. I mean it helps it's got like a thousand expansions but yeah but actually I own 999 of those
35:53
expansion. Not quite. I own lots of those expansions. Do I play the expansions? No. Do I still play the
35:59
original Ticket to Ride? Occasionally I play Europe, but I still pick the main normal normal one, the regular Ticket to
36:06
Ride. So, I wonder why. I don't know. Do you think they release expansions just for well, I don't want to say easy money
36:12
grab, but it makes it kind of you can buy the the ticket to ride for your area or your favorite holiday destination or
36:19
whatever. But I think I imagine people don't play them very often. Or do they? I don't know. I I I know people who use quite a few of
36:25
the maps. So I think Europe is now the bestselling one. I mean I've only ever played Europe. I think I've played the original with you guys once but Europe
36:32
because it's because it's less mean. Yeah. As a game I think that's proved more popular. Yeah.
36:38
Generally. Yeah. Maybe. So do you think if Katan came out today, would it be a hit?
36:44
Not at the price point they have it at. Okay. How how much is it now? Like 60 quid. Wow.
36:49
It's it's up there because it's wooden components and nice thick chunky. So they've not like scaled back. I'm pretty sure it's 60 quid and that's just for
36:55
one to four players. Then you have to buy five six player expansions. Do you think it's like a video game always holds its price because of its
37:01
name? Oh, now it's in the industry. They can charge that and I think they can get away with it price because of that. I think if they bought it out now, they
37:08
would have to make certain sacrifices. It would probably be a print and play or something like that instead maybe. But
37:13
do you think it would still be such a a popular um type of game or is it too simplistic
37:20
now compared to what's out there? Oh, we've still got games like that in the industry that come out kind of not
37:26
particularly not necessarily exactly like it. We've got similar games that come out most years planning resource
37:31
kind of do well. Yeah. Anything that's kind of a bit of area like not area control, but that sort of you know competing over
37:38
resources and very simple bits and pieces like that. Yeah, games still come out like that, but they're more
37:44
streamlined, less luck quite often or various different bits and pieces. So, I
37:49
think it would survive. It would absolutely not have the name it has now because it paved the way.
37:55
I wonder what games wouldn't exist if katan had never been a thing. Loads. Yeah, probably. Yeah, it has been kind
38:01
of it. The way I think about that that game is it's one of those kind of branches on the tree of not tree of
38:07
life, but tree of games and it's very near the trunk. If you took that one little game out, you lose a whole kind
38:13
of section. You know, it's a good analogy because if you think about, I'm going to talk about this a little in a
38:18
little bit, but if you think about board games in general, quite often the ones that sort of came out in the ' 90s,
38:24
early naughties, that kind of era, you can see where they got their inspiration from quite clearly or at least can
38:31
understand where they drew it from, etc. And then the closer we've got to modern
38:36
day, it's harder. It's like they've all interwoven and so you can't often see
38:41
where people got their inspiration for every single bit from like you could sometimes before and it is that you know we talk to
38:48
designers occasionally and when I go back and listen to some interviews like really early on they were talking about
38:55
well this one or two games were my inspiration when we talk to designers now you they can list 10 20 games as
39:01
inspiration for one game sometimes and I think that is because now as as the industry grows and and sort
39:07
becomes more adaptive to things. People like borrow and take take ideas from elsewhere. And so the influence that you
39:14
can see from one board game to another, you know, like that trunk um and those
39:20
sort of those early big twigs that come off, they you can clearly see where they go, but by the time you get right out to
39:25
the leaves, you can almost not see where the influences come from. The connections are so intermingled. Yeah.
Games that brought in mechanics which were never seen
39:31
So going on to mechanics then. So games that brought in new mechanics that had never been seen. So I know Dominion is a
39:37
really common one. Personally haven't played it, so I'm not I can't say much about it, but
39:43
that one invented deck building. Yeah, it did. Yeah, which is a really simple sort of
39:48
mechanic, but how many of our games now have deck building as a a really main part? So you know, my favorite being say
39:56
Clank Catacombs and uh Lost Runes of Arnac, but they use other stuff as well. Yeah,
40:02
sure. And that's what that's the difference, isn't it? So, Dominion was a pure is considered a pure deck builder. Whereas
40:09
quite often like even things like June Imperium or or Lost Runes or or any of those kind of games, they're
40:14
what they're doing is they're taking that part and applying a small part of it. You know, it's if you think back to Dominion, there was
40:21
like 10 decks out, I think. I can't think how many there would have been. There's about eight or 10 decks out that
40:26
you keep buying cards from and it's like a limited number of those kind of cards
40:31
that you can buy from, but there's there's like a lot that you can you can buy deep. So there's like 10 versions of
40:37
every card. And so the the the puzzle was in working out which cards comboed
40:43
well and at different price points because you get different amounts of money in your hand, a bit like the sort of Harry Potter board game or or um
40:49
what's the new one? Avatar Last Air Bender one. um you'd have different amounts of coin in your hand. So you had
40:55
to kind of work out what combos worked well for how many coins you'd have in your hand and that was it. You off that's that was the whole game was
41:02
working out that combo. Now what you're doing is you're looking to see what goes from a like quite often the whole lot
41:08
that you can buy are completely unique quite often or there'll be several unique ones and you're looking to see what you can buy out of what's there
41:14
available in that second rather than trying to work out an ultimate scheme of how these cards fit together. I guess
41:21
that makes a big difference from and again never really played this much but the only other kind of card game that I
41:27
knew anything about really was Magic the Gathering and that's kind of a a card game where there is no kind of limit is
41:34
there you you can keep buying those trading cards and you can keep buying them and keep buying whereas at least Dominion is a this is the thing this is
41:41
this is it has like 20 expansions well sure but per game you know you you you have the options there
41:47
yeah it's slight slightly different because magic is go out buy boosters. Yes. Put the ones you like into a deck, into
41:53
a pre-built deck, you know, and and that has it. So, supposedly Cosmic Encounters
41:59
um was the predecessor to Magic the Gathering that helped inspire Magic the Gathering. Um and that is very basically
42:07
people have life pools and loads of cards that just deal damage and stuff like that and you're trying to trump
42:12
each other and you're aiming at different people and that's kind of supposedly the influence for Magic the
42:18
Gathering. Well, that then went on to however many different trading card
42:23
games that you could play with. There's hundreds of them if you look back over time. And there's various different, you
42:30
know, you got battlers like um Ashes and stuff like that that's been born out of all of this kind of stuff as well as
42:38
even some extent seven wonders. So, one of the formats, and this isn't the only time drafting has ever been used, but one of the Magic the Gathering formats
42:45
is drafting. So, you take your deck, your booster pack that you open, you take the card out you want, which is normally the rare one to start with, and
42:52
you pass the rest to the left, and then slowly over time, you're going to build a deck that you play with. Well, Seven
42:57
Wonders or any other sort of drafting game, you are having a card of seven hands. You pick the one you want. You either play it or put it into your hand
43:03
for later, and you pass the rest around. And it's you again you can kind of see that evolution whether that was the
43:09
direct point of reference that they used. You can certainly see that Magic the Gathering drafting was happening
43:15
before Seven Wonders came out. Seven Wonders used drafting in a way that you know hadn't been seen as much
43:21
before. Normally it was well you draft one of these seven cards out. It wasn't pass a whole hand of cards around. And
43:27
so that kind of led down that route and then from Seven Wonders we've seen a
43:32
load of other kind of similar ones. So you can see that evolution. If you look at if you compare seven wonders to cosmic encounters, there's nothing in
43:39
there, but it's taken a route. The shared DNA talking seven wonders is an interesting one because um that's one
43:45
of the first ones that bought simultaneous play to a really common game. And that is one of my favorite mechanics. I love the idea that you're
43:51
playing, you're all doing, I know drafting is all you are taking your turns, but you're doing something all together all at the same time. You've
43:57
not got to sit there for 45 minutes waiting for someone to take their turn. And I really like I really like that as
44:03
a game mechanic. I think it's certainly more prevalent in the industry as simultaneous. Anything to reduce that sort of downtime between
44:10
turns has proved generally popular whether or not it's micro actions or follow actions or
44:15
whether it is simultaneous actions. That's definitely come quite a way um over the last few years. And again,
44:22
there's I think there is influences in there. Um like LERA games now all have a
44:27
follow action or something quite often you can do between other people's turns. Not all of them, but a good portion of
44:32
them now have that in as well. And so again, you can kind of see things. Oh, I like that. That's got no downtime in it.
44:39
I'll borrow that mechanic for my game sort of thing. And therefore, it's in that you've kind of got that progression
44:44
as time's gone on. Yeah. Do you play Seven Wonders much, too? I like Seven Wonders. I play that one much. Um, I was just thinking about the
44:50
the deck building mechanics, not deck buildings, the one where you've already bought a pre-deck and you can buy
44:56
different predecess. Um, what's that mechanic? Oh, like so like Star Wars have got one, they not the deck builder one, the other one.
45:01
Well, if you're talking about specifically um FFG, then they call it a living card
45:08
game. Living card game. But there are other games where you can buy predetermined decks. Yeah. And if you buy them with change
45:14
them up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that could have changed the board game for a lot of people, I think. Every time I go like expose, they're like heaving cues coming out of them to
45:21
demo with them and stuff like that for some people. I mean, you've got off the top of my head, you know, you've got what was the
45:28
I don't know. I wouldn't know what the first one would be. I mean, what was the one that you bought a whole deck? I can't think of the name of it.
45:34
Key. Key. You bought the last one I think of. Key forge. That's what I introduced first to a deck building game
45:40
here in this game group was key forge. So, you've got things like that. So, you got things like Ashes or even like Imperial Settlers where here's a
45:46
pre-built deck. However, when you get a bit more used to it, you can shuffle and change and out new cards. Obviously, you got Marvel Champions. All of those
45:53
clearly draw a level of of um inspiration from those typical trading
45:59
card games. Yeah, I wouldn't know what the first one ever came out to be honest to change it, but I began. Magic was the one that I knew about. I
46:06
said I didn't play it, but various boyfriends have and see the cards forever and you just think, "Oh, I'm
46:12
just sick of seeing Green Mana all around the house." I mean, it was a license to print money in the sort of
46:17
2000sish. Like it I know that that game sustained many a board game shop
46:25
or sort of nerd shop or whatever you want to call it because it was just a license to print money at one point. Not
46:30
so much these days, but it will still keep a few companies a loft um that game. So, and it's that it's is it gambling?
46:38
It kind of is, isn't it? It's pushing that it's pushing the edge of collecting. It's giving you that that
46:44
sort of a bit of FOMO and a bit of endorphin rush when you get the card you want or something like that. Um, so
46:50
yeah, it's definitely doing something like that. So, I'm glad that there's not as many in our gaming group that have this kind of
The importance of engine & tableau building in games
46:57
buy another thing, buy I mean, we're bad enough with expansions, aren't we? We don't need booster packs every two
47:02
minutes to make a better deck. You buy singles now. Yeah, that Well, that's true. I suppose
47:08
things like I know I'm not going to mention my favorite game cuz I mention it every time. So I'm not going to mention that. So things like
47:14
it's gone. No, I'm not going to do it. What's your favorite game? Well, I'm going to talk about Terraforming Mars. That's not your
47:19
favorite game. No, I'm not I'm not doing it. That kind of I feel like that kind of bought engine building into a massive
47:25
mainstream. Most people have heard of that game, I think. And it was in games much earlier than
47:31
that as well. I think what that did was really pushed the engine building and
47:37
kind of tableau building. Not quite, but you know, it pushed it in into a more mainstream audience again.
47:44
So, it was building on, you know, even you can look back at games like much
47:49
earlier than that and sort of go, oh, I can see. So, if I think about Kingsburg, Kingsburg was what, 2010, so it was a
47:55
straight six years before that had your ability to buy certain things. that meant well every time I do that action I
48:02
get a bonus from it and so that there is those kind of engine buildings in it but this idea of tableau building okay every
48:08
time I play that I'll go get these resources or increase my income and kind of all of certainly the tag thing was
48:15
something I wasn't aware of and so you can definitely sort of see the progression there from previous games
48:21
I wonder if there were any games before that with tags on in in the same sort of way it's kind of a it's not quite set
48:27
collection is it but it's a sort awareness of a a set. I mean, if you want to think about it
48:32
really, Magic the Gathering again definitely had it in because it' be like all vampires get plus one plus one and
48:38
so while it's not a tag as such, it is a key word and there are other games again
48:44
I know war games and stuff like that that you know all tanks get this that was out before it. So, it's just taking
48:50
that and adapting it to a more Euro game feel. But yeah, those those kind of things have definitely been out there
48:56
again beforehand. It's it's hard to it really is hard to find like the the origins of a lot of them where they
49:03
didn't take inspiration from. Do we think all those games still hold up now? Loads of them do.
49:08
I think even I will admit that Terraforming Mars can sometimes just take a bit too long.
49:14
Adrian thinks it takes far too long. But I know me and T firmly on the Terraforming Mars band. That's fine.
49:22
I think if you if everyone's playing it really quickly, you can absolutely speed through.
49:28
But there is where you have ever got those kind of pausing for deliberating
49:33
your options. That's that's what's going to the time, isn't it? That's exactly where I had the time definitely as a player.
49:39
And again, a lot of people wanted the drafting mechanic and that adds a load of time. Yeah. If you draft every round, like you
49:46
shouldn't do if you actually read the rule book, then it adds time to the game and therefore
49:53
it makes it longer. But but ultimately those games will hold up and there will be you know if you look at if we talk
The surge of worker placement games
50:00
about worker placement because that's I feel like when you talk about you know games evolving and influence and all
50:06
that lot it's a really common one that a lot of people talk about. So Keem is the
50:11
granddaddy by all accounts of that. I've not played it, but it had had some of that in it. And then Kais, again,
50:17
another game that I haven't had, but was very mean, was like is considered like the first time it's used as a core
50:22
mechanic. Well, those are a few years apart. And then it sort of skips forward a few years and you get towards almost
50:28
like 2010s and then you get a Galola, still played, yeah, massively. Um,
50:34
you've got Kingsburg, well, that's been reprinted like five times. That's still playable. That's dice placement really
50:40
rather than work placement, but it's still still using a dice as a as a token, isn't it? You had Pillars of the Earth based off a
50:46
book that doesn't quite stand up anymore and I think had its heyday a little bit,
50:52
but that kind of came around at sort of a similar time. Um, and you've got Stone Age. Well, that's still considered a
50:59
really entry level worker placement. And then you sort of, so that's 2010 and
51:04
2011. Then 2012 is when Lords of Water Deep comes out. So you have gone like Kedum was like 90s,
51:13
early 90s I think. Um and then Kais was a little bit later and then suddenly you
51:18
get 2010 and bam bam bam bam bam loads of games that come out. It's clearly like workplacement is clearly the new
51:24
thing that everyone's putting in. Yeah. And you know, I think
51:29
for a lack of a better term, like Lords of Water Deep is the Boomer version of it because what it did was it took all
51:37
of what had been learned, put a good IP on it, and it just swallowed up a load of other games that had come out at the
51:42
same time and held its own market value. Yeah. By by being there. And loads of games
51:48
have come out since. And yet it that game again we know personally me not not
51:54
so much but that game has held its value as has a grier to be fair much more than everything else that came before it or
52:01
at that same time. Yeah a grile to me is that that is one of the sort of OG worker placements that
52:06
that I when I have happened to play that one but I knew about it even before I played it because it's such a
52:12
like a seinal worker placement. It's got that position, hasn't it, as oh, if you
52:17
played a grier, if you like this, did you like it? And it's it's just one of those ones that's just really famous and and yeah, but as I say, you've gone
52:23
you've gone like 10 15 years between those two points and yet actually the majority of the evolution happened in
52:29
the last two years before Lords of Water Deep and then obviously since then. But yeah, it's definitely
52:35
I find it definitely interesting that there's a little group in there, say Stone Age is still beloved. I think Pillars of the Earth didn't get quite
52:42
the celebration I'd like to have seen it got. I think we thought it was doing some in innovative stuff at the time, but there's certainly a bunch of games
52:48
in that period um that stood up for a long time and some of them are still standing.
How have story driven & narrative games evolved?
52:54
How about the story driven and legacy narrative kind of things. It seems like that's a really popular I don't want to
53:02
say trope, but that idea of having a game and having it be like it bought out like campaign games. So, Pandemic Legacy
53:09
being probably one that Adrian's most familiar with. I've not played Pandemic Legacy, but it's got that kind of It's
53:15
almost like you're setting yourself up for, I don't know, five
53:20
um sessions with your friends. It's almost like you're plotting a I don't know, like you're pre-planning meetings,
53:27
right? Like a D and D session. Like, you know, you're you're you're saying, "We're going to play this every Wednesday or however you organize it, but you know
53:34
that you're going to not finish this story line until however many." And when it finishes, you go depending
53:39
on what story line you go off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you can do Yeah. Some of them I think I think I've always been
53:45
put off because of the penny pinching nature of myself and buying things like games because I feel like
53:51
I know that's a bit of a Yes. You just went and spent loads on various different games, but that's not the point. I like games I can reuse. Whereas
53:58
I always worry that with a legacy game once you've played it through, you kind of know the story line or you know the
54:05
main I don't know the main you know the es and flows of of it. Yeah. Absolutely.
54:10
But you play you play Mansions of Madness quite a lot too. So even though you know the story lines of things, do
54:16
you find that detracts from um your enjoyment of it or Well, no. I think cuz the boards are
54:22
different every time you play it. The story is still there like you know what the outcome, but I mean some of them are
54:28
different depending on what questions and answers you give, right? To different people. Yeah. So it's always slightly different. It's
54:33
never put me off cuz the board's always different I think. Yeah. Yeah. It's a one-off story driven game that isn't it? So, you got to do a
54:39
scenario. It doesn't really follow on from each other, does it? On that, but um no, I never I don't get bored of it.
54:44
I think it's um No, not on mansions. I think it definitely is
54:51
not too story driven, I don't think. And I guess scenario is story driven, not too bad. I don't think that's the key, isn't it? Having enough
54:57
replayability to make it still okay. like Gloom Haven. That is, from what
55:02
I've seen, Gloom Haven and Frost Haven, that seems to be a game that it really
55:08
should be just a a computer game that doesn't have a lot of that that setup and all of that admin that you have to
55:14
do. That would that just puts me off so badly. But I know that the narrative and
55:19
the interest that it holds because it's such a good game carries people through that. it wouldn't be enough to make me
55:25
want to play it. But I think yeah, it's basically a board game RPG, isn't it?
55:31
It's doing what a lot of videos game would do. Video games would do. And there was certainly certainly when Gloom Haven came out, I think there was a
55:37
little bit of a push to to kind of recreate some video game vibes and put it, no matter how
55:43
unwieldy, into a board game, make it work even if it doesn't. sort of I don't know about even if it doesn't but quite
55:49
often it would be like well like you say with Gloom Haven here's a big coffin box that you have to have in order to make
55:56
this work whereas it would be normally contained within a computer game or or
56:02
free flow like Dn D sort of thing. I think the the good well the good thing
56:08
about those games is that they're just like you get utterly emotionally sucked in, don't you? it becomes a a story that
56:15
you're playing a bit like maybe that's why the the appeal of D and D is there because you're just totally immersed and
56:22
sucked into this world. Oh, I think I think the first ever legacy game was Risk Legacy.
56:28
Yes. And when I was from my vague research that I did vaguely for this that came
56:34
2010s or something around there 2010 2011 something like that. And I think it was the first sort of main board game
56:41
that wasn't deliberately a storydriven game that me and friends were talking
56:47
about afterwards. So, you know, in risk typically you're taking on certain areas
56:53
and it's always well well known that things like Australia is a good holding out point and all that kind of stuff for risk, but you change the board up as you
57:00
go. So, we knew that like Australia was an absolute pain to to hold on to cuz we
57:05
changed the board enough that Australia was not a good place to go and you had different factions to start off with.
57:11
And literally, some of them you looked at them and because they had been beaten so many times, you're like, "Well, I'm never playing that faction."
57:18
And other factions were good because they'd been played a few times and they'd won and so they got benefits. And so we ended up living these stories of
57:25
of like that time when we really like went after
57:31
um like Europe and stuff like that and therefore it ended up with all of these problems in it and we could talk about
57:38
that game because it was across several campaigns. You talked about it for weeks and weeks and weeks. It becomes an event, doesn't it? and and
57:44
especially when you're doing things as visceral as ripping cards up and and that sort of thing that you do in these
57:49
legacy games, like the idea of ripping a card up, I I don't know, just makes me feel a bit it was I think it was the first time I'd
57:55
ever looked at a box that basically said you'll never open this content. So like until this thing happens, you are not
58:01
opening this box. When this thing happens, you can open this box. And so you're like, what happens if it
58:07
never happens? You just don't see what's in the box. I did that. And it's that thing of and I'm not going
58:13
to spoil any secrets cuz Risk Legacy is is a bit if you've played legacy games since it's a bit like lots of first
58:20
things. They've learned since how to do legacy games better. So it is a little
58:25
bit sort of shony in that respect, but there are some amazing things in there where you're like, "Okay, when this
58:31
thing happens and you go, should we just make it happen so we can look inside the box? Okay, fine." And then there were
58:36
other things you're like, "Yeah, we're not doing that. Like we'll leave it like that." Yeah. And so if you wanted to, and
58:41
probably as you should, you'd never look inside that box, you know, unless you wanted to play it
58:47
again. You go and buy another version copy of it and replay it. I think I'd have to look in the box if I played all the way through and didn't
58:52
find out what was in it. We did, but potentially you could play it that way and then replay it again a
58:58
year later with a different group or whatever. And yeah, it was it was unique at the time and it was a long it felt
59:04
like forever till another legacy game came out again. And it took felt like a lot longer for people suddenly go I want that. And now
59:10
you see maybe not necessarily legacy games but you see chaptered games a lot more and stuff like that.
59:15
Yeah. Yeah. It's well the time frame that I've got here is pandemic regular was 2008 and pandemic legacy was 2015.
59:23
So that's that is quite a few years in the making before a legacy version came along. Yeah. But as say if you think of I'm
59:29
sure Risk Legacy was 2011. So that is four years which is still quite a while between them. You can tell that that
59:36
kicked off and that I remember that selling really well at my friend's board game sort of shop and
59:42
because of that I think that set up the way for future legacy games. So
59:48
other games that you can't imagine having a legacy version like the ticket to ride legacy versions there is now
59:53
would that have would that have happened if you know those original legacy games hadn't come along? Probably not.
1:00:00
Who who knows? There are certain things that I look at and I think, you know what, someone would have done that eventually. And sometimes I think what I
1:00:06
think is the most influential board game that has shaped the way we look at board
1:00:11
games at the moment. And I do think if that one hadn't done it as well either,
1:00:17
it would never happen again or someone else would have lifted the crown and done it. And it's unfortunate to say,
The impact of Zombicide on the industry within crowdfunding
1:00:22
but I think one of the games that's had the most impact on the industry is Zombicide. Okay. Yeah.
1:00:28
And that's not unfortunate to say. Say it. You can say it. You can say it. Yeah, that's fine. And that's not because of the mechanics,
1:00:33
thankfully, or anything like that. It's because it was the first game to really go gang busters on a Kickstarter.
1:00:40
Okay. So, Kickstarters have been happening for I think about 5 years before Zombicide came along and had been successful to
1:00:46
some extent. And the if you look at the first couple of Zombicide Kickstarters,
1:00:52
they really set the template for what we know as a Kickstarter. Now, here's the base game. Okay. We've got some stretch
1:00:58
goals. All right. Okay, they sort of get closer to the stretch goals. Okay, here's a box you can buy. Do you want to
1:01:03
add a Sheldon for the Big Bang Theory for $10 or whatever it was. So, everyone now goes and adds $10 to their cart.
1:01:10
Well, that pushes up the stretch goals. So, now I get this free, this free, this free, this free. All right, a week later, you can go and buy Chuck Norris
1:01:17
or whatever it was. $10. Okay, I'll put that in my cart as well cuz that's going to unlock this, this, this, and this.
1:01:22
And it was the first game that I really remember going absolutely crazy. And
1:01:28
it's not because of necessarily its mechanics. It was riding off the back of a bit of Walking Dead, I'm sure, but it
1:01:34
was the first one to really blow up Kickstarter and paved the way for for
1:01:39
better or for worse, it paved the way for how we think of board games now that it's not necessarily just bought off a
1:01:45
shelf. Cuz until then, games were bought off a shelf. Yeah. And K I think Zombicide was at least for
1:01:52
me and what I saw was the first one to really do it. And again, if you go back and look at those Kickstarter pages, I
1:01:57
did it a couple of years ago, they're bad. Like, they don't even do half of what we'd expect on a Kickstarter page
1:02:03
now, but they did set up the fundamental framework for how to do it. And then within two or three different launches,
1:02:10
they had got that down to a finely tuned engine of launch, Kickstarter, like
1:02:15
stretch goal, launch the next product, stretch goal, stretch goal, stretch goal, keep it going, keep putting people
1:02:21
trying to tempt everyone into the all-in pledge to push the stretch goal as far as possible.
1:02:26
And I don't, it's that FOMO, isn't it? We talked about it before. It's that FOMO of but everyone else will have all those
1:02:31
characters, and I I'll miss that one. No. And also, you've kind of pot committed by that point. You've already dropped however many pounds you've
1:02:38
decided to spend on it. What's another tenner? What's another tenner? Oh, and then you look at it and oh cracking it's
1:02:44
double the price it was to start with. It's I think the prison outbreak one was the first time I really remember going
1:02:49
around a mate's house and him having just a ridiculously large-sized box on his table like unpacking it all and all
1:02:55
that kind of stuff. And I remember then thinking you're never going to play all of that. And we'd only just started Kickstarter and I
1:03:01
was like, you're never gonna use all of these boxes of different characters like, oh, look, there's a pretend Buffy
1:03:08
group or whatever. And yet it it really did pave the way for every Kickstarter
1:03:13
since. And I say either it Kickstarter would have bimbled along for a little bit and then wouldn't have been used or
1:03:19
another company would have come along and shown you how it's done. Yeah. But either way, it was Zombicide that did it. And I think it's Zombic Side
1:03:24
that gets accoladed at least for a lot of what Kickstarter is these days. I think I played that with a group of
1:03:31
friends and one of the guys alphagamed it so bad. Oh, you can. I It was just like, well, there's not
1:03:36
any point in me sitting here because you're telling me what's happening and if I even say, oh, what about if we do that? Oh, no. You don't want to do that. You want to do that.
1:03:42
You think, well, I'll just go home. Shall I? There's There is literally no point in me sitting here. I'm not having fun. You're having great fun because
1:03:48
you're just basically having 10 amounts of people's worth of fun. Great. Well done. But I guess that's just playing
1:03:55
with the right people, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's not the game itself, J. Yeah. That's not Zombie Side's fault. That was he shall remain nameless.
1:04:02
So I I never actually knew about Kickstart till I joined this group. Yeah. Yeah. And I would I just thought board games for chef. That's like what you
1:04:07
said. I would never have thought this. I think actually you can back board games and then get it before obviously everyone else gets it as well, which is a plus, isn't it? When kickstarting,
1:04:13
I think I think it was either 2014 or 2015 again. It was on Kickstarter
1:04:19
Zombide. And if you joined a group around 2016, it had only really had its first Yeah.
1:04:25
sort of it only seen its first few out sort of thing and it wasn't doing all the things it's done since. So it's
1:04:31
understandable at that point that you wouldn't have. But yeah, that makes a really good point. I think that's that's
1:04:36
I think it's I think for everything else we can like we can I've have lists of mechanics in the first games and stuff
1:04:42
like we can talk about that kind of or I could till the cows come home. I already have been. Um, but I think in terms of
1:04:48
what shaped our industry in the industry that that we love is probably
1:04:53
Kickstarters and that was done by Zombide. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hats off Zombified for better or
Stepping into the modern age with accessibility and asthetics
1:04:59
for worse. Yeah. Tell us about it. I think the other section that I was thinking about was the kind of modern
1:05:06
age where they really focus on like art and being accessible and inclusionary to
1:05:12
everybody. So, the list, it's not going to surprise anyone. Wingspan is right at the top of that. Um, I think that's one
1:05:18
of the other games that if someone knows you're into the hobby and they are a little bit, Wingspan is one of those
1:05:24
first. It's almost like a code word, isn't it? Oh, have you tried Wingspan? Ah, I know that you're at least somewhat of a
1:05:31
serious board gamer because you know those you know that word. So, it's Yeah, it's kind of like a like the secret
1:05:36
handshake, isn't it? I guess um that broadened audiences so much because of the appeal of the beautiful
1:05:42
artwork. I think the quality of it as well. Absolutely. That that beautiful design and the production value, everything is
1:05:50
no more little cardboard tokens. Well, actually, you can have some cardboard tokens in there, but you can very quickly upgrade those to the nice little
1:05:56
wooden meeples, but you don't have to. But even the cardboard tokens, they're not just crappy little one color pieces.
1:06:03
They are beautiful. The artwork is lovely. It's very cozy. It's very, I
1:06:09
don't know, endearing, isn't it? Wingspan. Even if you're not that interested in birds really, but it can
1:06:15
as has been proved, it could have been anything. Absolutely. Yes. See various other spams
1:06:20
since, but it it does it brings you in. It shows you mechanics and I've I've
1:06:27
played with my friend who who doesn't play many board games and I it was really lovely to see her putting those
1:06:34
mechanics and getting, oh, this is a bit like that. Oh, so we we all draft from there and it's like, oh, you're using the words. Like I could see the kind of
1:06:41
cogs turning for her. That's a bit like this. And so therefore I understand it a little bit more now because it uses some
1:06:48
of the same. We would call them game mechanics and that kind of thing. She wouldn't use that language perhaps yet.
1:06:54
I'll get her. But um yeah, it it it just really opened up its arms to everyone. I
1:07:00
think Wingsman and things like Routt that I still haven't played because to be honest, I know I'm not going to like
1:07:05
it. It's asymmetrically war game kind of stuff just dressed up with cute little
1:07:11
critters, isn't it? Which which is appealing. Makes me want to buy it, but I know I wouldn't like it. It's just not
1:07:16
the game for me. But you could easily lure someone in like a if if you can
1:07:22
tell that say your child likes that kind of not conflict but but war game kind of
1:07:29
a things, you think, oh actually this this looks a bit more appealing than little toy soldiers perhaps. But maybe it doesn't, but that might be a bit more
1:07:36
appealing to you. So, I think that's really open. It's trying to be accessible, isn't it? It's trying to to
1:07:44
I say lure people in like it's some kind of dish. It's a cutification, isn't it, of gaming. Um, which I think is
1:07:53
again it's moving away from those typical it's a war game, it's Dungeons and Dragons stuff like that or it's
1:08:00
agriculture which was kind of a lot of I think those three together probably put together like 70% of board games at one
1:08:06
point. Um, and it's kind of enticing people with look this isn't your standard affair. This is other
1:08:13
things. You know, we you look at it now, we got games about flower collection and printing press and stamp collecting and
1:08:19
and all those kind of hobbies that people might have or interests of say birds and dinosaurs and all those kind
1:08:25
of things that that lure people into a false sense of security to some extent of they can be
1:08:32
as mean or as unmean as you want them to be, but it'll give someone a theme that is like that little crossover,
1:08:39
a little entry level sort of theme of or an easier to enter theme. Yeah, I think what another thing that
1:08:45
changed hobbies and the way we're going to do it is figures like little plastic figurines. Minis
1:08:50
that really changed I mean I'll always go back to her quest as when I was growing up and you had this little goblin figures but since then you can go
1:08:56
off and think wow there's Warhammer for a start that's huge and that's all about the figures and when you go into things like zombie
1:09:01
side obviously one of the big attractions of it you get all these little cool zombie figures right so a big influence to the hobby I think is
1:09:08
the way miniatures have gone in a way the quality and Then you got the painting and then
1:09:14
everything goes into people being just so you can paint them. I'm one of them. I'll buy a game just so I can paint figures sometimes.
1:09:19
And again, if you look at those like original zombie figures, they're not good. No, they are original. No.
1:09:24
Yeah. They are stand They are 3D standins for them that you could just about paint and you could sort of squint
1:09:30
and go, "Yes, that's a zombie. That's a person, that's a this person or you know Chuck Norris or whoever you want it to
1:09:35
be on the tabletop." And over the years now we've started moving into much higher qualities included with board
1:09:41
games. So yeah, but it's definitely it's definitely something that's that's brought the game forward is is that
1:09:48
table presence. Yeah, definitely. I think yeah, if if it's appealing to the eye either because of the detail,
1:09:54
because of the quality like we mentioned with maybe minis and things like pieces.
1:09:59
Um, I think the other accessibility kind of draw is things like say Azul, which
1:10:05
is the rules are really simple, but it's still very beautiful to look at. It's
1:10:10
it's easy to it doesn't look like it's going to have thousands of rules. Like, it does look
1:10:16
fairly simple. And I think that's quite nice that it it it almost does what it says on the tin. I know you're not
1:10:22
really a Portuguese tyler. It doesn't matter that that you you know smash your dreams of
1:10:28
your Portuguese tiling, but it's those pieces are really tactile. Yeah. Um the colors are very obvious. So I
1:10:36
guess even if you had some kind of um visual sort of um disability or or sort
1:10:43
of extra needs, you're probably still going to be able to play that. Whereas I imagine quite a lot of other games if
1:10:48
you've got any kind of vision impairment that's going to be really difficult because either your writing's too small,
1:10:55
the colors are too similar, I don't know, there's no symbols where you I think you notice now a lot more
1:11:00
awareness is is placed on things like say ticket to ride back in the day probably the red pieces didn't have like
1:11:07
a certain sort of almost almost imperceptibly faint like shape on them. So that if you
1:11:14
can't tell the difference between red and green, you can tell that's that track and this is the other one because they've got tiny little a diamond or
1:11:21
putting shapes on colors has been a thing for a while which is again it's all about accessibility.
1:11:26
Yeah. And that inclusion it's not it's making sure that everybody is kind of catered for and I think games probably back in the day weren't as
1:11:34
those original ones weren't as aware. But a lot a lot of the early games when
1:11:39
I think of them, maybe it's cuz I think of like some of the lookout games, they were designed to be easy to read boards.
1:11:45
They weren't designed to be beautiful or artworky or anything like that. You know, artists generally, and there's a
1:11:50
few exceptions, but artists generally weren't known by name in the industry back then because it was about making
1:11:56
sure that you knew what area or what piece or whatever. You could see it clearly interface
1:12:02
rather than rather than art and stuff. Now, now you and we've moved on again and like Iano
1:12:09
Tool is now a household name inside the board game industry as an artist who produces lovely looking
1:12:16
boards that are usable. And I think that's what's come
1:12:21
on a lot as well is you now have artwork that is also readable and usable to some extent. Um, whereas before it was all
1:12:28
about like a lot of those like people that were drawn on on cards and that were the the typical I'm going to like
1:12:36
I'm going to call it lookout games kind of they had that agricular look to them. Yes.
1:12:41
um because it was much more about making sure that everything was readable and looked
1:12:46
was easy to see what was going on and therefore like the level of artwork wasn't didn't seem as considered as it
1:12:52
is now or I think one of the things you had is like a very very high fantasy kind of
1:12:59
picture um choices where all of your characters were either men in giant
1:13:06
rippling muscles with big gauntlets or women with the most ridiculous armor that's just literally covering up bits
1:13:12
of their body that they're not legally allowed to show on the front cover of a board game unless they've got a special paper around it, which I think that does
1:13:20
make it a little bit less appealing to certain demographics of the the population. I'm not necessarily saying a
1:13:29
woman might not want to play a game with, you know, a very sexualized fighter on it or whatever, but it it can
1:13:35
be a bit off-putting. Yeah. because because that kind of artwork is
1:13:40
just used all the time. Back then it was used all the time whereas now I think there's a lot more awareness of oh actually this might alienate some
1:13:46
people. So we'll maybe just do it a little bit differently. Maybe that's not I don't think I saw that so much in
1:13:51
board games. Comic books, yes, Dn D and those kind of games and role playing games. Yes, you did see it in board
1:13:57
games, but I didn't feel like it was as prevalent as those. Yes, there was. And especially miniatures wise,
1:14:04
there was definitely those miniatures. And you know, you've got certain games like any game with Conan is clearly
1:14:09
going to have that because that's what Conan the Barbarian was sort of portrayed as in every in every form of
1:14:14
media. Um, but I don't there was there definitely was. I'm not saying there wasn't, but I
1:14:20
thought that comic books, TV, and Dn D and roleplay games were much worse.
1:14:26
Oh, for sure. For that were often sold in the same sort of places, aren't they? And I guess it it I I don't feel like
1:14:34
it's ever put me off of those spaces, but I was already in those spaces because I worked next door to one or
1:14:40
because I was friends with someone in there. So maybe but maybe if I hadn't been that would I have just walked into
1:14:46
one of those shops, maybe not. I don't I don't know. It's hard for me to say whether it would have affected my
1:14:51
whether I would be comfortable in those spaces. But I think now a lot more thought is put into things like has this
1:14:58
kind of not has it has it at least got options even if there is the option to be very uh
1:15:03
lowkey dressed then absolutely at least there's also the option for someone who's not that you know as a
1:15:09
and I think that's just that's just a general kind of um description of media
1:15:14
nowadays anyway isn't it for for lots of different people's opinions on this but I think there is definitely a thought
1:15:20
about is this being inclusive to everybody body. Yes. Which is going to make more people attracted
1:15:26
to it potentially, isn't it? Yes. If you're just looking at a pure accounting accountant bean counter thing saying,
1:15:32
"Do I want this game to appeal to the most people who's going to buy it?" Yeah, I suppose you do. If you're only cutting out 5% of your audience, well,
1:15:38
you're probably going to sell more games, aren't you? Don't know. I'm not a I'm not a marketer for that very reason
1:15:44
because I don't know. But I think it's it's good that it is art and the
1:15:49
presentation of things like you were saying T about the the production of the pieces, the quality that's really
1:15:54
thought about now, isn't it? Yeah. Again, I think it's I think it's all
1:16:00
based on the Kickstarter stuff. You sell Kickstarters by selling miniature by putting miniatures in it, by putting upgraded components and
1:16:06
stuff. And that has driven all board game prices up or a lot of them up because they want to make sure that they
1:16:12
grab that audience because table presence especially now we've got lots of expose. Table presence is key.
1:16:18
Yeah. And so and I I'm just as um prone to it as other people. If the board game looks
1:16:25
flat or where the pieces look a bit genericy, you walk past it quite often.
1:16:31
But like and this is Adrian Drive Beuros. Oh yeah, I love it. But even every now and again you'll be like a don't know if
1:16:37
that I don't know if that quite ticks all the boxes, you know, of at least looking good or a good a half
1:16:44
decent production quality. The bar has been raised, hasn't it? By Kickstarters. The bar has been raised. So now everybody else has to kind of
Raising the bar in party games to influence wider games
1:16:52
fall in line with that at least to a degree or have options like we were talking about. I can't think what the
1:16:57
name of the game is. um something of Rome and then it was reissued as oh
1:17:03
oh foundations of Rome and then foundations of metropolis. Yeah. Yes. That so yes if you want those absolute you know amazing
1:17:10
miniatures of buildings you can do it that way. Yeah. It just costs you three times as much and takes up three times much of
1:17:15
space sort of thing. But that might be, you know, that that might be what you want. And I don't think many games will be
1:17:21
able to get away with doing literally a a crap half halfass version of cardboard
1:17:27
bits or really swanky bits, but at least they're thinking about that now. Yeah. Which is surely better for us for as a
1:17:34
customer for having options. I think for me one bit we sort of haven't talked
1:17:39
about but I think has been a big influence into the entry of board games is
1:17:45
the uh party game. So Dixit was probably for me the
1:17:51
original one where it was it's sort of loosey goosey over it. It's kind of what do you feel? What do you interpret from
1:17:58
this image? And then from that we had things like code names which is now
1:18:03
everywhere with 20 different versions and is kind of again it's a household name. People know code names as much as
1:18:10
they know like bananagrams and some of the other bits and pieces. And then for better or worse we had games like Cards
1:18:16
Against Humanity and and Secret Hitler and those kind of games which became household names. Now the last two there
1:18:22
Cards Against Humanity and Secret Hitler got there by being edgy.
1:18:28
Yes. But it did bring in this whole idea of we can kind of have a fun game. Maybe
1:18:34
not so so much secret. We can have a fun game with very little rules where it's all about that kind of group think or
1:18:41
that sort of just interaction. And again, some of those mechanics then
1:18:46
turn up later on in other games and stuff. But there was a point where you could walk into like John Lewis and get
1:18:55
Cards Against Humanity, Code Names, and Dixit all on the same shelf. Yeah. And that is a huge difference from his
1:19:03
Bogle, Trivial Pursuit, and Scrabble, but only at Christmas. And at Christmas,
1:19:09
that's like party back in the day, was it? I've played all of them. I've had fun with most of them. So, it's not If you
1:19:15
if that's your game, then great. But I think it's it's brought in a new wave of party game that is aimed at both board
1:19:22
gamers and introducing people to board games as well as actually being a party game. Yeah. And I think those games uh certainly
1:19:29
like code names is again I'm going to call it a recent it's not really that recent but it's their recent influences
1:19:36
that have then made other games. So like you know wavelength and decrypto and all
1:19:41
those kind of other games sort of come into the market. So now we've got a plethora of choice of, you know, Secret
1:19:46
Identity is still currently one of my favorite games to play as a party game that wouldn't have existed without Dixit
1:19:52
and Code Names and stuff like that paving the way for it. And I think it's it's like Exploding Kit into that. Yeah.
1:19:58
Yeah. That that that era of then just having a big pie of car games to stitch you up basically. Yeah. It's all you
1:20:04
luck stitch you up games. There was there was like nine of them at one point. Yeah. But you're you're right. It's
1:20:11
it was the it was an explosion of those kind of games, wasn't there, that then made it into party games, but then
1:20:17
taught people a little bit about other games or maybe drew them into the section where other games were
1:20:24
and I think also helped Yeah. influence generally wider games. But yeah, definitely. I think as soon as you
1:20:30
can buy something in a supermarket that is that is seen by
1:20:36
thousands upon thousands of people day after day, you've already made it more accessible. You've already made it more
1:20:42
likely to be sold, therefore more talked about. And yes, all right, party games
1:20:48
might not be your favorite game of choice. I mean, to be honest, I love party games. They fit in my ven diagram
1:20:53
of I want the social interaction, I want the fun, but it needs to have a a point and a I don't want to say strategy.
1:20:59
Quick. Yeah, it's got to be quick. Absolutely. I don't want downtime, but there's got to be a bit of
1:21:05
can I not can I win. It's not always about can I win, but is there a is there like a score point kind of a thing? Is
1:21:12
there something that we are in trying to do that isn't co-op? I don't know that I'm that interested in co-op as a party
1:21:18
game. You play just one a lot and so I suppose I suppose. Yeah.
1:21:23
So there I think that that is a co-op but it's about finding you've got to find the
1:21:28
clever clue. Yeah. Again it's it's about it's about finding the gray area in between two
1:21:34
points to kind of go well I've only allowed one word but what can I make it and and again it's the same with a lot of those kind of party games that I just
1:21:41
think of has appealed to a mass audience. Um and as you say it provides that social experience as well.
1:21:48
And hopefully they realize, oh, there's games are not just the ones we play at Christmas that we've mentioned lots of
1:21:54
times. Yeah, there there are other things out there. Oh, I'll have a little bit of a dabble in there. And then turns out they're five Kickstarters deep and
1:22:00
they've bought trophy bones for they know where they are. Yeah,
1:22:06
we'd be really interested to hear any of our listeners uh opinions on games that they think have changed the hobby. And
1:22:13
also what we didn't mention was where we think the games will go into next sort of what's the next big original thing AI
1:22:21
maybe hybrid games with digital boards I mean that is already there isn't it and
1:22:26
the next one is probably sitting in a prototype box somewhere now on someone's desk.
TURN 4 - Connect Four
1:22:41
So, our next section is connect four. This is where we take four random cards from a deck that Adrian has carefully
1:22:46
created which has all sorts of gaming related words um as types of mechanics, components, and genres and things. And
1:22:52
we try to think of a game that can fit as many of the selected words as possible. Our randomly selected words
1:22:58
this time are abstract, combat, deck or bag building, and
1:23:05
horror. Oh, blime me, that's a bit of a Trixie one.
1:23:10
So, I mean, there's one there's one that we've talked about this episode that does three of them, which is Nemesis,
1:23:17
because it's a horror game with combat, and while you're not deck bag building, you're building up a bag with monsters
1:23:23
in it, so you are curating a bag. That is true. So, there's three of them.
1:23:29
I I'm really struggling. How are we going to get When you've got abstract and combat in there or abstract and horror, that's
1:23:34
really I think getting three is going to be tough. Getting four is going to be tough, but got three at least. So come
1:23:40
on guys. Well, I've got another three. So Clank Catacombs has got combat, it's got horror, and it's got deck building.
1:23:47
Nice. There's not a lot abstract about it. No. No. I can't think of anymore. I mean,
1:23:54
Arkham Horror comes into the combat horror and deck building, but abstract. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:24:00
I would say a lot of war games are combat and abstract and horror of war.
1:24:07
And then Yeah. I'm not. No, I'm not pulling a Becky. Maybe I can pull this extra one in for no apparent reason. But
1:24:12
there's a lot of like if you think about Command and Colors and um and any sort of hex combat game, even chess is really
1:24:20
combat and abstract. Um so there's plenty of com abstract combat games. I
1:24:25
just don't I can't think of one that's necessarily got
1:24:31
deck and bag building. No. Um what's the Wonderland Wars?
1:24:37
I haven't played it, which is the it's the Alice in Wonderland, and I believe that's a bag builder with combat in it, and it's a
1:24:44
relatively abstract game. I don't know enough about it, but I'm going to tentatively put that out
1:24:50
there as another three options, and people can correct me when it turns out I'm actually wrong. We'd be really keen to hear from any of
1:24:56
you guys if you've managed to get another variation of the three or in fact, the golden the golden hind of the
1:25:03
four, please, if you can find it. So, we look for combat, horror, abstract, and deck or bag building.
TURN 5 - Penultimate Turn: What's Coming Up?
1:25:09
[Music]
1:25:16
It's time for our penultimate turn. What has the next couple of weeks got in store for you all? Adrian, take it away.
1:25:23
Um, so yeah, a couple of things. I think the biggest thing we've got coming up next is Grid Con. Yay. So usual um entry
1:25:31
into our diary every year um where we go just down the road and join Paul Grogan
1:25:37
and his team of of merry people who then set up a wonderful convention that lasts
1:25:43
three days basically. Um three and a half if you do what I do and get there on the Thursday and play some games
1:25:48
then. Um and yeah, I mean I'm really looking forward to it. I've said before I'm demoing a couple of games there. Um,
1:25:55
and I'm hoping to catch up with a few people I normally catch up with and play some games with them as well. What is on
1:26:03
my list? So, I still need to see what Paul is going to bring back from Essen
1:26:10
in order to, as we record this, we don't know what's on the special library yet. So, I need to see what Paul's bringing
1:26:16
back then. But, there's a few Essen games that I've got my eye on that I'd like to try there. So yeah, just looking
1:26:22
forward to GridCon and whatever that brings my way in terms of games. I'm
1:26:27
normally quite happy to go with Flow on that. So between that and doing some demoing, very much looking forward to
1:26:34
it. Nice. I'm looking forward to playing Worms with the expansion. Now I picked
1:26:39
up the expansion from our friendly local gaming shop, Crackers in Taton, and I didn't even know that there was an
1:26:45
expansion. Me and Curly just went in and just had a chat with Tony and we're just wandering around and I saw Worms Span
1:26:50
the expansion. I was like, "What? What? How did I I missed the email about that? Missed the missed the memo." So yeah,
1:26:58
picked up that which was really really interesting. So going to add that to the collection and that should be really
1:27:03
good. Maybe I'll take parks to to Gridcon and hope that you Adrian will teach me how to play parks if you've got
1:27:09
five minutes. I could bring the second edition. No, we've we've talked about this. You're not bringing your shiny nice
1:27:16
edition making me feel like my version's now crap that you sold me. So
1:27:22
I I still think your I still think the first edition looks significantly better. Okay. All right. It's just that it hasn't got the
1:27:27
expansions in it. Okay. And also Martin, friend of the podcast, has agreed to sell me
1:27:33
Viking seesaw. Viking seesaw for the So you can stop playing my the sweet sweet price of a pint of Guinness.
1:27:40
So I said, "Well, we'll go with two points of Guinness and maybe then we'll talk." So hopefully Martin will bring
1:27:45
that and that'll be great. So thanks Martin. Tamo, what about you? Same as everyone. Gridcon looking
1:27:51
forward to that. Just bit like just go with the flow. I'd like to get maybe Nemesis retaliation down at one point,
1:27:57
but apart from that, I'm quite easy with that. And Terraform with Mars specs. I'm looking forward to playing a game of
1:28:03
that. So I'm looking forward to playing that. And I've I've seen my rotor. I am off, so I'm available to play it. Fantastic. Oh yeah. Sorry. I'm glad. I'm
1:28:09
looking forward to that. I know a like, but I I I have played it occasionally. I I I
1:28:16
deliberately rag on it because it feels like an easy target, but I don't mind it. The online version is actually
1:28:22
really good and I've played it a bunch of times. So, I like I like it mechanically. I've just never played a game that doesn't last two and a half,
1:28:28
three hours. You got four players. There's a sweet spot. Four player sweet spot. Three player is pretty sweet as well, I think. Yeah. Three or four is good, I think.
1:28:33
Yeah. No more. Well, they It's too long. Five, but but again. Yeah, look forward to that. Yeah,
1:28:38
at its core is still a strong game. Yeah, 100%. And that just about wraps up our episode
TURN 6 - The Final Turn
1:28:45
for today. Thanks so much to my fellow players around the table this evening, but most of all, thanks to our lovely listeners for being there and
1:28:50
downloading the podcast. A massive big thanks to our coffee supporters as always. Your support really helps us to
1:28:56
continue to make this podcast. Um, we have a coffee account. If any of you feel like subscribing or chucking us a
1:29:02
few quid, um, you'll then get the ability to help shape the episodes we put out. So, uh, there's a special coffee only section of our Discord
1:29:08
channel as well. Um, the rest of which is open to anyone. So, look us up and jump on in if you fancy it. As always,
1:29:14
follow us on all the socials, the details of which are in the show notes of this episode on your podcast player of choice. So, without further ado,
1:29:21
whose turn is it anyway? [Music]