TURN 1 - Player Count
0:18
Hello. Welcome to Whose Turn is It Anyway, I'm back. It's Davey's first player and I'm here with JP.
0:24
Hello. Adrian. Hello. And Tambo. Hello. So today we're going to go
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through a gaming gym where we're pretty much going to lay out the the mat and go
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through some exercises what we or how we like to teach games or games be taught
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to us and maybe ways that we could improve ourselves or maybe help other people teach games because it's not an
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easy thing. No. But before we go into that, how is everyone? How are you JP? I'm good. I'm
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I'm just in awe of your enthusiasm for this uh intro. It's very good. He's got He's got all pop pickers, he
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for charity, mate. I like it. I'm loving the energy. Yeah. There we go. I'll bring it I'll
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bring I'm bringing it today. I can't promise every episode it's going to be like this or or even the end of this episode.
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We have just come back from New Year. Let's face it. So, and we're in that kind of weird, oh, we're back to work
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situation. Yeah. Um so, yeah. Yeah. But all in all, pretty good. I'm I'm actually looking forward to tonight. It's been a while
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since we recorded in fairness. So, I've got so many games that we played over Christmas and things
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like that. I'm just I can't talk about them all today, but we'll get Yeah. Doing well, mate. Doing well. Nice.
1:35
How about you, Adrian? Uh, yeah. I think I've got toothache for probably like the second time in my life. Like, I'd never had toothache
1:41
before. That is horrific. Yeah. And it for the first time I've I've got it. And obviously there must be something wrong back here. But other
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than that, actually, I'm all right. I've had a lot I've had a lot of good stuff happen over Christmas and New Year and
1:53
all that kind of stuff. And so, yeah. doing good stuff on painkillers. So yeah, extra
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enthusiasm. I I don't tend to do painkillers either. I try and avoid them like the plague. Um suffering. So yeah, so I'm just kind of suffering
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through it at the moment, but yeah. How about you, Tambo? Yeah, I'm all good. It's January now, so
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it's kind of the chill out month for me. So I'm nice and chilled now. You had a good party the other night as well. I did have a good party. Yeah, that was
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good. Tambo was representing with a nice turn. Is it anyway? Face paint. Loved it.
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We need to get on our Discord, don't we? We should get that on. If you can read it, just look at it very closely.
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We'll zoom in. That's fine. I read it as who's turn kittens. Kittens. And I was like, "Oh, Tambbo."
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When they done it and took a picture like, "Oh, yeah, that's really good." I'm being polite. I wish I was better
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than that. Is it like getting a haircut when you go, "Yeah, that's fine, mate." Yeah. Yeah. And you walk out livid.
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Livid. You're like, "You ruined it." Right. If you can see the table I'm at with that comment.
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Yeah. Back. There's one haircut between three of you. Yeah. Back in the day. Back in the day.
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All right. I was talking about the naughties. I did I did have hair some at some point. 2003. It was No, I couldn't I couldn't not. Right.
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As the one one person actually repping hair doesn't get it cut enough if anything.
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So, not reving it in. JP in our group chat put he's repping bloody repping and the next thing all I
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could think of was Tambo in a Stormy video
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to see him chasing the status is the next thing right. that that Steven Tries video lives rent free in my head. Um
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where he basically does Stormy and if you haven't watched it very stupid.
3:30
There's that and there was the old man. Do you do you remember the old man doing like busking? It was a clearly like probo thing but it's just like this
3:37
80-year-old bloke trying to do shut up busking in the middle of like a high street and it's brilliant. Well, there's
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there's the old man Joe's like Baz and Oh. Oh, those two.
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The sons. That's it. Ghost Rider. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. But they're really good. Good.
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Anyway, all right. Moving on from that, we're going to go into
TURN 2 - Let's Talk About Hex
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Let's talk about Hex. Let's get ready to talk. Let's talk about Hex.
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There we go. I'm keeping the enthusiasm. JP, do you like that? That's good. I was keep it up, mate. Keep it up. There we go. So, um, this is the section
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where we talk about what we've been playing recently. So, let's start with Tambo. What have you been playing?
Tambo - burncycle
4:24
Um, nothing new from the group, unfortunately, but I did have my first experience of Burn Cycle with Robin JP
4:30
about 3 weeks ago. Um, ages ago now. It was. Yeah, it was. It seems like yesterday.
4:35
Yeah. Um, it was good. I really enjoyed it. Um, it was a bit of a slug, wasn't it? It was like an all day. Yeah. But, and
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we did all three floors, right? So, it's supposed to be a bit of a slug. That big long mission. Yeah. Big long mission. Yeah. Rob said it was the first time
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he's ever won. Yeah. And you were so You thought we were going to do at one point he was have a bit of a tantrum by
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Who does that, right? It's true. Yeah. Who Who has these tantrums? Um, but yeah, we we end up doing it. Um,
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I I did like the whole mechanical. Especially like the puzzle part of when you're trying to infiltrate the um is it
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like when you go into the computer and you have a face and you're trying to do the network is very good puzzle. I enjoyed that on the second
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slightly programmy isn't it? I think I will really enjoy this game but I still Yes. Very stealthy. You got to really think
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about your moves and um Yeah. No, I really programming Metal Gear Solid pretty much, isn't it?
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I um my character we smashing through a lot of walls and making new doors. Yeah.
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Not very stealthy but it worked. Yeah. And Yeah. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. More DSX. I was going to say Rainbow Six Siege is
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I think we um we we picked a good set of agents for for the mission,
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but by accident. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Had a nice combo. We just kind of worked well together. We kind of fell into the right groove, I
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think. And uh cuz you were casing, right? So casing is this big muscular robot who has a dice, right, that you
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can charge up. Um, which means you can zip around or you can add it to strength punching through walls and things like
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that. So, Tambber is basically the muscle of of the the party. That's right. Um, who was I? I can't even remember.
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Oh, I was processor. So, I was like the the de facto leader cuz he's the leader of the group and I can manipulate this
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uh burn cycle which we haven't explained, but it's basically the the programming bit. I can make it a lot
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more efficient. And then Rob, who was Rob? He was a little robot that follows people, but he couldn't move unless Yeah. He he can't move unless he has a
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certain was it program, wasn't it? Yeah. He he he took half of the the mission to figure him out and then
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realized, "Oh, this is what you're supposed to do." And then basically started to But he could never get spotted, could
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he? No. No. So, he was really good. He just be in front of a robot and they wouldn't see him. Oh, but he can move by him. But he couldn't move. It's hard for him
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to move. He can follow people, but then it doesn't necessarily penalize you if you end up in front of someone.
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Yeah. Cool. Yeah. We we kind of liken him to Marty McFly and Back to the Future. So, you know, he gets on the skateboard and has
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to hang on to the back of vehicles to move. It kind of worked in a similar kind of way. So, yeah. Okay, cool.
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Yeah, we left the first floor really early, didn't we? And you, and then Rob was behind cuz he couldn't move all the time. It took ages for doing that car,
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but um we got over that in the end. It was good. Really, really good. Really enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely want to play again.
7:09
It's a strange game. Yeah, it's Burn Cycles. It's Chip theory Games for those that don't know. It's um it's
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it's like an office dungeon crawler, but with a lot of stealth. Um, it's weird.
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It won't be for everyone. Some people it's going to be Marmite, right? So, people are going to really love it and go and some people go, "What the hell is
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this this kind of nonsense?" But I still like that game I really enjoyed. Like we
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we slog through I say slo's the wrong word cuz I actually enjoyed it. Yeah, we did either. But it was like it was a good
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It's a long game. Long game. Six hours or something. We were playing it for which is a long time
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but we I mean it's nothing compared to Twilight six player but it we were invested in it and it
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felt like everyone had a moment in that game to shine which I loved. Right. So Tambo did some awesome stuff. It's oh
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thank god he did that and I did something similar and so did Rob. So we all kind of contributed to this really complex puzzle and uh at the parts we
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were like this is impossible. It's like this is completely impossible. How are we going to do this? But we managed to like, you know, turn by turn just make
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it work and to the point where it was literally so close at the end and we just did it and it was like
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yes and then we went off for Christmas. High five high around the table. It was exactly what it was.
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Yeah. It was like that was worth it. That kind of makes it better though when you have moments like that. Yeah.
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That that scenario is probably going to stick out for you because of how close you came to
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Yeah. the challenge really kind of makes the game right. Yeah, definitely. It's like a just a
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dungeon crawler puzzle, isn't it? There's no fighting in it, but it's just you can knock something out if you want. If you really want to try and do it, but
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yeah. No, I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to playing. I've been wanting to play it for ages, but it's just it's never kind
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of fallen on the right time cuz it's hard to table. Yeah. I mean, I think we played 45 minutes after a recording one day and it
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was like, "Oh, that's quite cool, but I need to see more of it." Cuz in 45 minutes, I think I've had three turns.
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Like, it wasn't a lot. And so, yeah, I'm like you, David, I'm intrigued to try it like So yeah,
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full game. Yeah, cuz even if it's cuz you can do just two floors, can't you? Yeah, you can do one. Oh, can you? You could do a one floor mission, two
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floor missions, or three. We we thought, well, we got the whole day, so let's just do whole whole three floors and give te the the burn cycle experience
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end to end. Um because we had the time. But yeah, even one floor is probably a couple of hours
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if you know what you're doing. Yeah. Um and again, depending on player count and all that kind of stuff. But but yeah,
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it's uh it's if it sounds intriguing, it's kind of like whimsical robot set in the future. Um stealth, the stealth
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mechanic in it is very impressive. It works really well. Um and like I said, it's just very
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puzzly and it's a challenge, you know. So yeah, there you go. Play some Burn Cycle.
9:52
Burn Cycle. How about you, Adrian? What have you been playing? Again, quite a lot of games over
Adrian - Unmatched: Marvel Redemption Row
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Christmas. I was quite fortunate with that. But what I'm going to talk about is unmatched. So, finally got a game in
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of Unmatched. I've been looking at the Unmatched series for quite a while. Since
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probably since like the the first sort of set of the T-Rex and Jurassic Park
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came out, I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll pick up them." And then sort of didn't. And then eventually just managed to find a cheap copy of uh Marvel Redemption Row
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um Unmatched um which has Moonnight, who's one of my favorites in it, as well as Ghost Rider and Luke Cage, who are
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also like I like them as superheroes. So, I was like, "Yeah, I'll pick that one up. It was nice and cheap." And
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managed to get a game of it in. And the the actual turns itself and the actual
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sort of rule book is really simple. So, on your turn, you've got like a you got
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your superhero, you've got your health dial, and you got a deck of cards. And there's a central board, and you basically start if you're playing two
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player, you'll start at either end of this sort of square board in the furthest corners. And there's circles
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all over them with like split into like four or five different colored areas. And each of them is kind of each of the
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circles is linked up with a pathway. And that's kind of the base setup of what you've got. On your turn, you can do
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ultimately really one of three things plus anything your character can do. So on your turn, you can maneuver. maneuver
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is draw a card, which you must do, and I'll explain why in a second, but you must pick draw a card, which you kind of
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want to do most of the time anyway, but it's it's sort of double-edged sword, and then you move your character, and your character will have a move value.
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So, it will move two, three, four, five circles, something like that. Um, and then you'll just move them through. You
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can um play a scheme, which is like an instant ability, and it's normally things like, you know, refresh some
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tokens or gain some health or something along those lines. So again, nice and
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simple. Or you can attack. An attack is play an attack or versatile card face
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down for its attack value. And then your opponent places if they want to places a defense down. And then the difference
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between the two plus any text or any other bit bits of ability is the damage you do to them. And you win when your opponent is down
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to zero health. Um, also with attacking, the reason why the board is split up
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into colors is a lot of people, a lot of um, characters will have melee, which means you need to be in the next circle
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to them. But some will have ranged. And ranged is simply you can target somebody else in the same color zone as you. So
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it doesn't matter how many circles away you are, you just have to be in the same color. And some of the circles will have
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two or three colors. So if they're right in the center of the board, potentially you could be hit from anywhere.
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Yeah. Yeah. Um, and that is that is it. That is the basics of the game. and they're the three actions you can do and you're
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going to keep going until someone's on zero health. And that might sound like a oversimplification, but what it's doing
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is it's setting a very basic framework for then all of the characters to to interact in their very cool way.
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You break the rules. Yeah. So, Moonlight has his three personalities and at the end of every
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turn, you will change to the next personality and one person one personality moves two spaces at the start of their turn. One does one one or
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two more attack and one does one or two more defense. So at the end, so you're kind of wanting to attack when you're in
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Konshu, I think it is, who wants to do the attacking stuff. When you're in Mr. Knight, you want to be doing the defensive stuff.
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And that's kind of how he works. So it's all superhero with Moonnight. Hasn't got the personalities of Mark or
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Yeah. So you've got uh you got Mark Spectre. Yeah. Mr. Knight, and Konshu, I think. Or is
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it Moonnight, Conu, and Mr. Knight? Yeah, I think that might be the three, but it's three. There were three personalities in the deck that cycles
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through. Um, and it might say, for instance, if you are in this phase or whatever, you
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can um get more bonuses out of out of a certain card or whatever. And then in
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the game I played, I played against Ghost Rider. And Ghost Rider has these five tokens that he spends. And he uses
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those tokens to do extra damage or to move further. And if he goes if he moves over somebody, which you can't normally
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move over someone, he'll do a point of damage. Whereas I had like one of the personalities means you don't take
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damage apart from in a melee. So he was pointless while he was sort of moving over doing that there. And then he'll
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play cards which allows him to refresh stuff. Are they like souls the tokens or is it Yeah. Well, they're like little skeleton
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hands like through a fire thing. So I'm guessing they're I can't remember what they're called, but um it's not like he's got his penants
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there. Yeah, that's might be penance tokens or something like that. But yeah, they're for just five tokens that ultimately he's just going to spend for different
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bits and pieces. Um, and then, um, Luke Cage comes with Misty Knight. So, Luke Cage's, uh, melee attack, and Misty
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Knight is a sidekick, which is just a little token rather than the cool 3D model. And Misty Knight can do ranged
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attacks. When you've got more than one model in there, it might say on the card, this can only be played by Misty
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Knight or any or Luke Cage, for instance. And so, you're kind of trying to make the best of both. But the reason
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why I mentioned the versatile cards is like Moonnight, 90% of his cards were versatile of his combat cards are
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versatile. So it means he can use them both for attack or defense as he needs them. Whereas Luke Cage had almost no
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versatile cards. They were but they were more points of damage and more points of defense. So he was when he hit he was
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going to hit hard. When he was going to defend, he was going to defend pretty much everything you threw at him. But you might not have both in your hand
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or you might someone might be able to tease out all the defense cards with like little light ones and then attack. And so each of those decks are kind of
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doing completely different things as well as the character ability. And the other thing is that the decks are all a
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different size. The reason why that matters is if you remember at the start I said if you maneuver you draw a card and you have to
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if you can't draw a card you lose a point of health. See fatigue kind of thing. So there are some characters so um I
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can't remember which ones particularly but some characters have about five or six more cards in their deck than other
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characters. So, kind of what you want to do is want to attack and flee because in order for them to move up to you,
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they've got to draw a card. So, you don't mind moving because you've got a bigger deck than they have. Whereas,
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they do mind moving because they're going to burn through their deck quicker by drawing more cards into their Yeah.
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So, you can kind of play that bit of of kind of trying to keep them at arms reach, attack and move, attack and move,
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forcing them to move up, whereas what they probably want to do is just sit there and and whale on you basically at
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arms range. And as you can probably tell, I found it a fantastic I don't I'm not really one for like
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these like 1 v one battler kind of games. I prefer like Warhammer or something like that for that kind of
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experience. Obviously that's a bit bigger but that's kind of my preference. But this was just really neat and I
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couldn't wait to explore more characters cuz you've got the Marvel one I guess. So I've got the redemption row.
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Redemption. Yep. After that game I then picked up Teen Spirit. Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl. Miss Marvel and Cloak and
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Dagger. Mhm. And then I picked up Hell's Kitchen, which is Electra, Daredevil, and um
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Bullseye cuz I think a match they don't only do Marvel, they do a lot. And you can there's Batman as well.
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No, there's no DC. Is there no DC? There's Bruce Lee. There's Teenage Teenage Mut Ninja
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Turtles, Jurassic Park. Is there extraordinary League of Gentleman or something
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kind of? So they've got the battles of they've got cobble and stone and they've got battles uh legends of battles. So
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you've got like, you know, Hercules or whoever it is. And then yeah, you've got uh there's I think there's Sherlock
17:18
Holmes and Jackal and Hyde and stuff. That's the other one. So there's and you can take any of
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there's Bruce Lee versus Muhammad Ali, you know, Teenage Mut Ninja Turtles. You can take any set of characters and use
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them against any other set of characters versus um Leonardo. Yeah. Yeah.
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So you can you can do that and they all come with a slightly different board that works. It's not a massive difference, but they work slightly
17:42
differently. And most of these boards come with like some tokens that you can randomize up and place on the board that
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you use. And so, and they'll give you plus one attack or defense or uh discard two cards, draw two cards, and those
17:54
kind of things that you can do. And and that's it. You get two turn. You get two actions on each turn. So, you're going to move and hit or scheme and hit or
18:00
move and scheme or whatever it is. And that's all you're going to that's what you're going to keep doing until someone runs out of health. And it's
18:07
it's nice that it's easy to pick up and the complexity comes with the characters you play. So, it's going to be easy to
18:14
teach someone the core concept of the game and then it's just up to them to work out how to beat you and how to play
18:20
it via what car. It's a 5minute teach. It really is. And then everything else and then quite often there's like a little bit of a
18:25
blurb in the back of the rule book about characters and stuff like that. But if you have a flick through now that I kind of know what I'm doing, I reckon I could
18:31
probably tell you what the characters can do with a quick flick through of the deck and their and their cards because they all have different health values. They'll all
18:37
have different movement. And that's where all of the differences come in is in those abilities. But
18:43
Sounds good. Yeah. It's really And you can play up to four players. The new Teenage Mut Ninja Turtle one is a co-op version.
18:49
Oh, cool. um which they've had a cult version before, but this one is a cult version, but you can take all of the
18:55
characters, including the bad guys, and play them against each other, whereas you couldn't do that with the first one.
19:00
They were kind of locked to being co-op. So, I think there's loads of potential here. And I really kind of want to pick
19:05
up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to play the co-op. Just so I can be Donatello. Yeah. Yeah. Uh no, I'm sorry.
19:11
Is that your favorite? Is it really? Yeah. U Raphael.
19:17
No, Donatello. The little the little nerdy one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The nerdy one that builds all the
19:23
machines. Yeah. That does all the cool stuff and has little robots. Yeah. There we go then. So that's Unmatched.
19:28
Unmatched. Sounds really good. Look forward to playing it. Um how about you JP? What you been playing? Playing lots. Uh but before Christmas I
JP - Earthborne Rangers
19:36
picked up Earthborn Rangers and I've hit that game hard to be honest. I've I've
19:44
kind of slowed down on it a little bit, but I've when I got it, I just went all in playing lots and lots and lots of it.
19:50
So, for those that don't know what it is, Earthborn Rangers is a game um which
19:56
is uh basically it's a card game. Um but it's kind of sandbox open world card
20:01
game plays, it's really hard to compare it, but it's kind of got LCG kind of vibes with it.
20:09
So, if you like play your Arkham Horror card game, that kind of thing. Less contained though, isn't it?
20:14
Yes. Yeah. Pretty sandboxy. Completely less contained. Whereas Arkham Horror, you have scenarios and
20:19
you play through a scenario and you and you beat it and you go done. Well, well done. We won. Hey, this is a pretty much
20:25
a Breath of the Wild style Zelda open world experience. And you start off in a
20:32
place and you don't really know what's going on. The whole aesthetic of of the world is set in the future where nature
20:39
has kind of reclaimed the earth. Everything's green. It's lush. Nature is there all around. Um, there's technology
20:47
out there in the world, but it's not kind of what you'd expect like a cyberpunk dystopian. Nature punk, isn't it?
20:53
Nature punk. Yeah. Solar punk. Solar punk. So, it's just really lush and ravaged and all that kind of stuff. Um, and you
21:01
kind of start the game basically going, you know, you you do a few things and
21:06
you have to deliver some biscuits. This is how it starts. Well, I'm not spoiling anything really. I'm not. Um, and you
21:11
basically get given some biscuits from this chief from from this this village and he's like, "Right, you're a ranger.
21:18
You got to go off and deliver the biscuits to the neighboring village." You know, "Okay, right. Oh, and off you go." And you go and deliver said
21:23
biscuits. And from there, everything kind of explodes and opens up um with
21:28
side quests, with NPCs, and and all of this stuff that whoever you meet,
21:33
whatever you do, it just like, "Oh, I've got this thing. I've got Oh, this is cool. I found this reward. and and the adventure basically
21:39
continues. And the way this works, and it still blows my mind cuz it's just
21:45
cards, just a set of cards, right? And you can travel around how whenever you
21:50
want with conditions, and I'll explain that in a bit. Um, but you can travel from different places. You get a big map
21:56
uh with different locations on. And yeah, the game doesn't kind of restrict
22:01
you. It's like just do what you want and obviously guides you. There's a main story just like in any RPG. So, it's not
22:08
completely like just do what you want. Doesn't really matter. It's kind of more in the timer the main story, isn't it?
22:13
Yeah. It's driving you towards conclusions, but whilst you're going to this direction, you can go off and do
22:19
side quests and and things like that. So, so imagine that's kind of how it is. So, I I liken it to a kind of Zelda
22:25
Breath of the Wild card game format where you kind of do these things. So, mechanically
22:31
that you you have a deck. your deck is your ranger. If you play the play the prologue, um, which I did when I set up,
22:38
the prologue takes you through how you set your ranger up and it all asks you questions like, what sort of job do you
22:45
want? What's your background? What's this? What's that? And you're taking sets of cards as you build um against
22:51
your aspect. And your aspect is basically a grid of four different um attributes of like fitness and focus and
22:59
uh awareness and spirit which is red, blue, green and yellow. And and you you
23:06
you'll be good at one thing, crap at one thing, and usually average on the other two. Um and you'll be kind of building
23:12
your deck in the prologue as you go and you go, "Oh, I fancy doing this. I fancy being a herbologist and being really
23:18
good with like uh uh foraging and things like that or or you might be good at tinkering with tech or whatever it might
23:25
be. So you kind of build all this this deck up and then suddenly this is you. This is your your character and and off
23:30
you go in the world. So when you go to a location at the top you'll have your location card which says this is kind of
23:36
where you are or where you are journeying to. And every um uh kind of
23:43
trail on the map has different uh kind of biome types. So you got this is a woodland, this is grassland, this is the
23:49
rivers, or this is ravines or whatever. And they have a set amount of kind of cards that you'll shuffle into this path
23:55
deck. Um if it's like a pivotal location, so it's like a really like a big city or whatever, you'll get some
24:01
specific cards that go in. If it's not, if it's just a general run-of-the-mill location, you'll get these generic kind
24:07
of um valley cards that go in. But either way, you've got this path down which are kind of random from the decks. They can be different every time.
24:13
It's like three, isn't it? So they're three that are Yeah. We don't know what they're going to be until they come out and surprise you. So you're shuffling
24:20
this path deck, which is basically full of um nature, uh wildlife, um sometimes,
24:29
you know, oh my god, it's it's a thicket like and and sometimes it's a a foxy
24:36
thing or or whatever. It could be all sorts of different things and and when
24:41
you're playing you have these things and the game terms it as within reach and
24:46
along the way, right? And then you've got your location at the top. So along the way is like sits under the location
24:53
and for every player it's kind of the the barrier between the end location and where you are. Um and within reach is
24:59
your personal players set of uh kind of path cards that sits between you and
25:05
along the way. So, you kind of have this kind of three tier um kind of set of
25:10
cards to to kind of get through. And each of these cards has like a I forget what they call it, a presence or an
25:16
awareness. It's um it's a number. I cannot remember the life of me what it's actually called, but it's it's
25:22
essentially the things that uh in order for you to kind of bypass if you don't want to deal with it and you want to
25:28
bypass to do a card behind it, you would fatigue. and you fatigue your deck, you literally just discard into a fatigue
25:35
deck the amount that it says on the card. So sometimes you're in a situation where nature's just overwhelming you and
25:42
and sometimes some cards will say it's an obstacle. It's a tough crab. You can't just walk by it. It's a bloody
25:47
cliff and you've got to kind of deal with it or or do something else like a lump of rubble. Yeah. If it's like Breath of the Wild, you
25:53
just climb over it. Yeah. You just go Yeah. So you run out of stamina and fall
25:59
off. Um what's quite good is if you can uh how you deal with these things are
26:04
just through challenges through tests. So it goes back to your your kind of uh
26:10
your attributes attributes where you have energy stored on them. So you would spend energy to
26:17
commit that to a relevant test. So you always have generic uh tests that you can do all four. One is traverse. that
26:24
you can kind of traverse the path um which is essentially walking along uh to to get to where you need to. One is a
26:30
connection where you can um try and connect with beings. So beings can be people, they can be uh animals uh all
26:38
that kind of stuff. It's a way of filling up the influence, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So, and usually on cards they have two values that you can
26:45
satisfy to get rid of them. one is through traversal um and through
26:51
connecting with people and the other one's through harming it. So it might be that um other things might happen that
26:57
harms this uh other thing. So an example of that would be you might have a deer
27:02
that pops up and eats your biscuits and does not eat your biscuits, but then you might have a predator that pops up.
27:09
And the way that these cards interact so clever because when you do a test, you
27:14
pull a card, a challenge card, and on that card it will say plus or minus depending on the attribute you're
27:19
testing against, and then at the bottom of it, there's one or three symbols. And depending on which one's shown, then
27:25
activates all of the cards with that symbol on. So if it's a red symbol, you check across the top the location, you
27:32
check along the way, you check within reach, and you're triggering all of those cards. So this is how then
27:38
predators stalk their prey and this is how they then attack their the things or you or and and things like that. So it
27:45
this just this kind of whole thing comes to life in a real clever way. They've like sequenced it as well. So if
27:50
the prey was there and the predator was out it would say attack the prey and if there was no prey there then it would
27:55
attack you. Yeah. So you're the prey cuz now you're the prey, right? So it it is it is very well done.
28:02
Just really clever. So yeah, it it's kind of you're playing the game. you're you you've got uh the
28:08
campaign as such is 30 days in the base game and you you a session is really
28:13
going through a day and your day runs out when your deck runs out and you kind of get to a point where like you're
28:19
fatigued and you're knackered and you've been trying to get to where you need to go. Um but generally every round that
28:25
you do you always have a chance to travel providing you fulfilled the traversal on the the location card. If
28:32
you've done that you can travel and off you go. So, even midday, you can go right off to the next place and you get the new location, get the path deck, and
28:39
then create it. Um, and then, yeah, by the time you you get towards the bottom, you're looking, I only got like two
28:45
cards left. I probably should uh rest, but you can only rest if you fulfill the location um kind of traversal uh
28:52
requirement. And if you rest, happy days. You can start respecking your deck
28:58
to all the available cards because, as I say, you might unlock rewards. You might
29:03
I won't spoil anything, but you might unlock things for helping other people, these NPCs that pop up and you go, "Yes,
29:08
I'll come and help you." Um, and and just generally fulfilling missions and and things like that. So then you can
29:14
kind of go, you know what, I really need that bit of kit that I've unlocked and I'm going to throw that in the deck and then get rid of that cuz you'll always
29:20
have, I think, 30 cards. Um, so you're kind of chucking things in and out. If you rest properly, you can do all of
29:25
that. If you don't, because you just get to the bottom of the deck and you haven't fulfilled getting out the area, you kind of go, "Whoops, I'm a bit
29:31
knackered. I've just fallen asleep and then you have to kind of deal with what you you have. It's not the end of the world,
29:36
but there are things in the game that can injure you. Um, but it's just quite pleasant. I find it's good. It's good
29:43
fun. There's cool little combos you can get off like when you think you're going to fatigue as well. Like I was, oh no,
29:49
I'm just like getting rid of cards, but then sometimes there might be quests you do that refill your soo. So, it's
29:55
actually better to fatigue them cuz when you soothe, you don't put it back on top of your deck. You draw into your hand as
30:00
well. So you're actually making use of being fatigued instead. Yeah. So there's equipment you get out as well
30:07
which modify and happen when you're doing checks or can combo off of like
30:13
playing a card. So you then basically play it for free or then get a token back. And yeah, it's just I really I
30:20
enjoy it as well. Just all all sorts of card game nonsense but in a really nice experience. And I
30:27
say I'm on day 17 now. It's kind of like choose your own adventure with a with a
30:32
LTG, right? Yeah. So, I'm over halfway. Like I said, I have slowed down on it, but I think
30:37
that's Christmas and everything else that that's been going on. It's still part of me going, I need to finish that. But I I kind of picked this up as a bit
30:44
of a an experiment for me to say because I always say campaign games, no thanks.
30:51
But actually, what it is is campaign games are great. I just don't want to schedule them with people all the time.
30:57
Yeah. If I'm being honest, like It's just a D and D thing, isn't it? It's an It's a typical RPG thing. If you got to get
31:02
four people around a table on a regular basis, it will fail at some point. Why? I think two players it will sing as
31:09
well cuz it's going to be a lot easier to arrange. I think with four players sitting there not interacting for a while is going to
31:15
there's going to be too much downtime. So, I do think two players where it really shines. That's why I did Pandemic Legacies at two player in the end because it was
31:21
just like, well, I can actually get through this in a reasonable amount of time. And so, I can imagine being
31:26
exactly the same where you'd go, "Right, okay. Well, actually two of us can meet up every other week or whatever and it
31:32
won't take much scheduling really. Yeah. But if people are wondering if if can you play the solo, yes, you can
31:37
absolutely play a solo. The only thing it does say is make sure you pick um an aspect uh where your fitness is at least
31:44
two. And now playing it, I get why. Yeah, I get why as well because you need fitness to move around.
31:49
Yeah. And if your fitness is weak, you're not going to be traveling. You're not going to go anywhere. You're basically I'm naked.
31:54
So that's like part of the part of the game is traveling, isn't it? So yeah. Yeah, this is sounds really good. It sounds
32:00
interesting. It's definitely worth it. Um, it's great. I'm enjoying it. Want to finish it. I want to see where it goes. And
32:06
yeah. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Um, on your recommendation, um, I got it at Gridcon
32:12
and um, yeah, I've actually played it solo and it Yeah, it was one of the few games I didn't actually mind because I
32:18
kind of set it up and was able to keep just go back to it and play it. Yeah. and like we like pick it straight
32:24
back up as long as I documented it accordingly. It was quite easy to go and
32:29
actually once you've organized it to start with Oh yeah. Um which I looked up online at the best way to organize it and I followed that
32:36
guide and there is there was one in the rule book but I just found one online I found a bit easier. Once that's set up
32:43
it's actually really easy to just pick out and play as well which is for me is a major point of the game.
32:49
Yeah. There we go. What about you then, mate? Uh, so I played Kimfire Council. We
Davey - Kinfire Council
32:55
finally got it to the table. Um, this is ever since the episode with the expo where we got a little bit of a dodgy
33:01
demo, but Philip Hatch from All About Games kindly sent us a copy to get it properly to the table. So, um, I learned
33:08
the rules. Um, I still cocked up one rule. So, I a big one. Quite a big one. Yeah, it did feel very
33:15
tight throughout the whole game. We were like, "Oh god, that was really tight." And it was like, oh, I accidentally
33:20
dealt an extra worker to everyone. Whereas it's meant to be it was meant to be four players, but we had five.
33:27
Too many workers, too many sylons. It happens in many games. Exactly. So, but what we did experience,
33:32
so if you don't know what Kinfire Council is, it's set in the Kinfire universe, which is a great little universe created by Incredible Dream
33:38
Studios. Um, so we've talked about Kinfire Delve before. Um, this is
33:43
Kinfire Council where you're trying to become the best council member there is within the city. Uh, which is called Dun
33:51
I think something like that. Dton. Um, how you d
33:57
it's the worker placement side of it is kind of your average worker um placement, but you have a special power
34:04
that attaches to these worker sheets which everyone has a special power. So there's like scholar where you when you
34:10
put it out and get a resource, you can get a book instead. These books kind of have lots of abilities on that you can
34:17
play or give you resources and can be played at any time. Um you then got worker spaces which this is one of one
34:25
of the greatest bits I loved as well is the the organizers of the game then also become your kind of worker uh placement
34:32
spots. So they become tiered. So you've got your lower tier, tier one, tier two, tier three, and then afterwards you just
34:39
take those off and put everything in the nice organizers at the bottom. It fits into the box really nicely.
34:45
It's a nice touch. It is a nice touch. So it's really easy to get out and and and set up and really easy to pack down. Um but yeah, so tier
34:53
one there's no tax. Tier two there's one coin tax and tier three is two coin tax.
34:58
So it cost you to go to those spaces. Unless Yeah, my character basically could spend because he's going to the
35:04
coffers. My character had a power. You just spend from the coffers. Oh, so frustrating.
35:10
So, but I my tax didn't go back into the coffers. So, I wasn't, you know, it's not self-perpetuating. It's I have to
35:16
spend it into the general supply, but I have to wait till other people maybe go into the higher tiers. But I kind of
35:21
built myself so I didn't have to worry about money too much, which was nice. Um,
35:27
wish you could do that in real life. Yeah, I know. Um, and then so at the start of the round, I'll kind of go
35:33
through it. So, at the start of the round, there are two cards that are pulled, which like your is like an
35:39
order, uh, a law, um, maybe an event you have to deal with or, um, one of the
35:46
other one, which is maybe there's only three. We only saw
35:51
three that game. I think there is another one, but I'm forgetting. But these you kind of vote on as the game
35:56
goes along, right? And depending on who has the most votes gets to choose whether it's passed and it comes into play or whether it's
36:04
um just discarded and we ignore it. So crisises um which are ones that will
36:09
come out. It say crisis and event. So crisises that will come out will help the cult which I haven't described the
36:15
cult yet but I'll go into that in a second. Um events might be things that happen. Um orders are things that happen
36:22
instantly. So it might be say something you get VPs depending on how many cultists everyone's killed or and
36:28
crisises put up the VP tracker of the cult. Uh and then laws change basically
36:34
they're like endgame scoring as well as they change like how the game is played. So these are quite important to vote on.
36:40
It's it's a cool little um uh caveat to a normal worker placement.
36:46
And then there's the cultist. So the cultists if they have the most VPs
36:52
everyone loses. Yeah. Okay. So they take over us on VPs. But any point
36:57
there is a little track that you can put your influence on. And influence is how
37:03
you do everything. At the start you only start with four. And when you vote you have to put your influence out. When you
37:10
do build a bit of the lighthouse which is for VPs you have to put your influence out to mark you've done it.
37:15
So, at the start, there's only four markers that you have, but there's ways in the game to gain it through worker placement spots, through laws or orders.
37:23
There's lots of ways to gain influence as the game goes on. But to become the
37:29
cultist leader, which is a way of winning if the cultists have the most VPs, is you have to put your influence out. But that will stay there for the
37:35
rest of the game, which means you're kind of taking from your pool. Also, everyone will see that you're doing that. So, you don't really want to
37:41
maybe do that early. who would kind of want to cuz it's it's literally it's not like a it's a hidden role. It's in front
37:46
of everyone you're saying, "Oh, I'm screwing the town over. I'm trying to be bad." So, people can then fight over
37:53
that as well. And it's the person who has the most in this pool that basically becomes a cultist leader, which Rob saw
37:59
that he was kind of losing and thought, "Oh, I'll see how it goes." Cuz right at the end, you pull these cultists from
38:05
the bag. They get put into spots. So they block up worker spots and then you also pull cultist cards which are
38:11
threats that you have to deal with with your special worker or if you don't
38:16
more cultist stuff comes out. Yeah. And it become it like we we started off really good. We were like
38:22
arresting the cultist to arrest the cultist you can go on the space that's adjacent to it and arrest that cultist
38:28
unless it's on the next tier up and you gain that cultist as a resource later to trade.
38:34
But you you do that instead of doing the action though. But you do it instead of the action that you go on.
38:39
Unless you upgrade the worker and get something called guard, which means you can do both. But none of us really did
38:44
that. And at the start, everyone's arresting the cultist, being really good, helping each other cuz it frees up
38:49
that spot that's underneath the cultist, which means someone else can go there. Late game, everyone's like, "No, I'm not doing that. It's freeing up that space
38:56
cuz everyone it's like tight for VPs and suddenly the whole town was overrun for cultists and no one could do anything."
39:03
And it was just like, oh, we've kind of screwed ourselves and backed ourselves in the corner. And then Rob was like, right, I'm going to try and join the
39:09
cultists. And just screwed us over even more. And luckily the cultists were so far behind cuz we did really well at
39:15
dealing with them early on. Um because when you deal with threats, you get lump VPs as well. Um and there's lots of cool
39:23
little spaces to do like trade in a cultist and a threat card to get really good resources back and VPs and stuff
39:29
like that. So, there's a lot of different avenues you can go down by the looks of it. And yeah, I I really
39:35
enjoyed it. Yeah, absolutely loved it. Yeah, I I thoroughly enjoyed it. Um, great little experience. It doesn't try
39:41
to bring anything new to the what a worker placement is, but it does what it's doing really well. Um, and it has
39:49
enough unique aspects that are incorporated on top of your work placement game to make it um,
39:56
interesting and to keep you coming back to it. You draw three top fret cards and you put them on the at the top side. So
40:03
there's three fret cards that will get revealed right at the end. They've all got high VPs in them. So that's what the cultist will score definitely. So you
40:09
got to keep yourself ahead of the cultist at least 20 points. You don't know how much it is but it could be a lot.
40:15
You got to factor in that surge at the end and if they beat you any of you they win, right?
40:21
Yeah. So if the cultists if you don't clear up the cultists early on they just can continue to fill up the board each
40:26
round. Yeah. They they don't go away at the end of turn and uh well you you resolve them by um so
40:33
they've got numbers on them right when you bring them out and they'll go to that numbered space. Okay. That's how cards are then drawn. So if
40:39
you draw a number one you'll pull a a card into the number one slot. You draw a number another number. I think it's
40:45
like one to nine. Yeah. Yeah. If you draw out a nine you put a threat on it. And basically on
40:52
that card, it's got the amount of threat tokens that have to go onto it for it to
40:57
basically go off and a bad thing will happen. So the more of the same number that you pull
41:02
and if you don't deal with them, you start drawing more and more which will start building up this threat. Right. Okay.
41:08
But I Yeah, I think there's once at the end if you don't deal with them, you resolve them again and you all those
41:14
numbers will put more threat on again and when the threat get hits them out they get the VPs on the card. Yeah.
41:19
And they get the the points. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. I was just trying to work out cuz you know the idea of
41:24
So that will clear them after they after they I was going to say the idea of a board that because obviously blocking out
41:31
spaces each turn is nothing new as you say it's sort of not reinventing the wheel but the idea that those spaces are going to continue to escalate or
41:39
they can the card goes off. So the card goes off it can bring three more cultists into the game which is
41:45
horrible. And also there's leaders which will put threat which will draw all of the cards out or put threat in all of
41:51
the cards. And if two of those leaders come out, it kind of refreshes the bag. So you don't keep getting the same
41:57
numbers out because they don't go back into the bag. But if you've captured them, they go
42:02
back into the bag as well. So you've got to be like you've got to spend your cultist pretty soonish after you get
42:07
them because there is a chance that they might just go back into the bag after you've got them feral.
42:12
Yeah. Just I'm intrigued now. I'll be honest with you, like it was one of those where I looked at it and I thought, "Yeah,
42:18
this looks cool. I'll give it a go at some point." But I'm now really I'm now really intrigued because I now want to see what this combination of cuz some
42:26
there's a couple of worker placement games out there that you can fill up a spot not to use it kind of thing, which
42:31
is kind of what you're doing when you're arresting, right? You're kind of filling up a spot not to use the spot
42:37
so you can use it to arrest someone but also stop someone else going there and stuff like that. So you got that you've
42:43
got this sort of escalation of of threat coming out by which you have to work together for but you also don't want
42:49
someone running away with the points and doing really well. So it's got a nice push and pull there. I'm intrigued. Yeah. It just it's just
42:55
elevated what sort of I thought was going on in the game. So I'm I'm now really intrigued to try this. Definitely enjoyed it.
43:01
Yeah. Really good. Yeah. Um that's good. Definitely looking forward to getting it to the table again. Definitely.
43:06
Yeah. I'm intrigued. Do it. So that's uh Kinfire Council.
43:12
Uh and I use Paul's video to to teach me the game. So thank you Paul. Thanks Paul as always.
43:17
Gaming rules. Is that before or after he delivered Jaffa cakes to them in Earthborne Rangers?
43:24
Yes. Biscuits. Biscuits. All right. So going on to the main
43:30
section of of our podcast.
TURN 3 - Main Event: The gaming gym
43:42
onto the gaming gym. So, in this section, we're going to talk about not me gaming, but we're going to talk about
43:49
how we think we could make other people's gaming experiences better. So,
43:54
this is during the teach, this could be if you're having to demo a game, this could be while you're playing the game.
The struggle with teaching and playing games
44:00
So, I'm I'm going to start and I I'm my kind of it's it's not really a tip at
44:07
the moment, but I always struggle and I'm going to see if you guys can help me here and train me. I always struggle
44:13
while I'm teaching a game and playing a game. I always seem to do
44:18
worse because you're focusing on other people's games kind of more than yourself sometimes cuz you're teaching
44:24
them the game, especially if it's a more complicated game. Yeah. And then I'll do worse, especially if
44:30
it's a game I know well because um and I'm going to use this example over the 24hour um marathon I I taught
44:37
Terraforming Mars and I was trying to make sure that everyone was was getting a good feel of the game. Kind of forgot
44:43
about my own game plan and then you know I very nearly lost that game against two
44:49
two new people. I didn't but I still struggled with trying to play my own game as well as help other people. So I
44:55
don't know whether you guys have any tips for this. No exactly like genuinely except except that that
45:02
will except that that will happen to some extent. Um there is I think there is ways of you kind of um using markers
45:09
and stuff like that to kind of keep track of what you want to go after but that I would much rather that everyone
45:16
like didn't forget, oh when you go up this track you need to do this and stuff like that. And so therefore, I'll pay
45:21
more attention to what they're doing knowing that I won't do trying to make sure that they have an enjoyable experience, right?
45:27
Because then you can play a second game and then you can think sod them, they know it all now, like I get to play my game on the second time round if you
45:34
really want to think of it that way. But yeah, I think I personally am of the opinion that you kind of have to accept
45:39
that if you want to do a good first teach whilst you're playing, the likelihood is you'll pay slightly less
45:46
attention to yourself. You're weakening your own play for sure, but for the
45:51
right reasons. Um, but you got to remember what's the goal? The goal isn't to to get newbies and and
45:57
smash them into oblivion, even though that might be fun. Fun for one person.
46:03
Exactly. But it's Yeah, I suffer from it all the time. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it. Uh, but yeah, but I it
46:10
doesn't bother me. That's the thing. Like if we've got three people around the table who never played a game and
46:15
Gridcon's usually the one for that. Like sometimes we will a Lorda out and there's noobs that haven't played it.
46:22
It's fine. If they got out and went, "Yeah, that was cool and enjoyed it. I don't really care who didn't, to be honest." And I think you're right. I'm
46:28
with you, agent. Accept it. It's going to happen. I don't think you can for complex heavy games, you can
46:35
lend yourself to the teach helping people and have all those plates spinning at the same time and be really
46:42
efficient. You're going something's going to slip, right? We're all human. There is a bit of a fun twist, I think,
46:48
on this as well, which is you can sort of variously play through them. So, you can kind of think, how would I play this
46:54
turn? What am I thinking about if I'm them? And stuff like that. And and not playing their turns for them. As I said,
46:59
as long as you don't start going to the No. Yeah. No, absolutely. Don't start and be like, well, you know what? You really should do this. Don't do that. That's rubbish.
47:05
But you can certainly think about, okay, they're in that position. What would I be looking to do next? Tough love. That's a crack turn. Why are
47:12
you doing that? Yeah. Take it back. Take that. Take that. Take that back and do a proper move. Piece out of their hand.
47:18
So, not that. Not that is what I'm recommending. What I'm recommending. Okay. So, they've set themselves up to
47:24
do this. I think they should do that next. Yeah. and sort of just kind of you can kind of
47:30
play which I think is a good thing to quite often do even when you're not teaching you can kind of play other
47:36
people's turns out in your head but because you're trying to get them to learn things you're probably doing it a little bit more anyway and you can make
47:42
a bit more of a thing out of it is seeing if you can keep track of four people's strategies all at once.
47:49
Yeah, I think I think it depends on the situation. And I think if you're at a convention, you don't really have time
47:55
to prepare for anything. And sometimes you've just got a sign on the table that says looking for players and people turn
48:00
up, right? How do you play this then? And you're in that situation. I think you absolutely just got to do what you
48:07
got to do and everyone has that contract around the table that says me, whatever. Um, if you if you got a game night and
48:13
you've planned it and there's new people coming, not new people, but people that haven't played that
48:19
particular game and obviously use the resources. Yeah, there's resources out there. Go and check it out. Like bone up.
48:24
This will help you and it will help yourself as as the teacher because you won't have to do maybe as thorough a
48:30
teach if they've prepared themselves. So it it just depends, doesn't it? So in that situation, it some of the
48:38
responsibility goes on to the player as well as to maybe learn a little bit about the game, especially if you know that you're not you don't pick up games
48:45
maybe as quickly as other people do cuz some people do have a knack with picking up. Some people will take a little bit longer but you know they'll refine the
48:52
strategies. Um so some of that responsibility goes on to the player
48:57
bone up beforehand and they also help the the person teaching. Right. Yes. I'd say some I I know we have
49:03
difference of opinion in our gaming group of this very topic. We talked about it I think probably two years ago.
49:09
But um and sorry Curly, I'm going to have to throw you throw you here, but I know he's very much of the opinion that
49:17
the player is turning up is responsible to know how it go. He will teach, don't
49:22
get me wrong, but he's there's a level of expectation that you're coming with knowledge or at least some form of
49:27
knowledge. Um whereas me, if I'm hosting the game night and I want to play the
49:34
game that I own, I feel it's my responsibility to to teach you. If you want to look at resources to help
49:40
me out, oh, I'm not going to say no. But, you know, and you're right, Dave. I
49:46
think if you you're turning up and you're a good example of this. If you're turning up to one of my game nights and you haven't played, I don't worry. I
49:52
I'll be honest. So, don't worry cuz I know you'll pick games up in your own unique way, which is
49:58
just learn the language. Not annoying. It's just it's just the way Dave Davey picks it up. It's like here's the language. Go and learn it. And he's
50:04
like, "Got it. Let's move on." And sometimes there'll be a few things miss. We had it with a dream the other night.
50:09
There's some things that didn't quite probably go in, but it it's going to happen.
50:14
I'm annoyed with myself at that moment. Not annoyed at the teach. I'm annoyed with myself cuz I didn't pick that up. I'm like, "Oh, I didn't do that." Ah,
50:20
it's more of like that frustration, but then I'm like, it doesn't matter. I've I've learned to then step away and go,
50:26
it doesn't matter. It's a learning game. I'm happy to teach people the game. And and again, then you got to
50:31
factor in the time and when you're playing it and all those kind of things, you know, conventions, you you kind of
50:37
have to do it cuz you can't expect people to to prepare for seven games over a convention weekend. It's just not
50:43
going to happen. Especially if they don't know how like at the start of the weekend, if they don't know they're going to be playing a game on Sunday, there should be no
50:48
expectation. But it depends on the type of game. If defense of Proion 3
50:55
is hitting the table, you are going to tell everyone that they need to know what to do in advance to some level and
51:01
you are also not going to be able to track their turns in the way that would be for a for a beige euro would probably be
51:09
quite possible where you can expect them not to really turn up with too much knowledge and you can
51:14
we were really lucky in that first play because we had the designer. We had the designer. Yes. But this, you know, you played it
51:20
again with three people around the table who hadn't played it before. And the expectation was
51:25
you need to learn this to some extent before we start. Here's your rule book. Here's a video. Watch it and read it, please. You might
51:31
not know everything. You might not understand everything in it, but if you come with that contract of look, it's a
51:37
learning game. And Tambbo, I'm looking at you because I know you you had a I knew how to play it. I did learn like
51:43
faction. You No, but you But I did one bad move and Yeah. Yeah. But you didn't know the strategy, which is fair. You're not
51:48
going to know that. The game might teach you this is what you need to look out for, but you ain't going to know that
51:53
until you play it for the first time. It's just it's it's just such a unique game. So, yeah, you were prepared in
51:59
terms of how it played mechanically and what you were trying to do, but strategically it
52:05
didn't kind of work and you got punished the the crap out of it by Curly Gloated and uh took when the push the buttons
52:12
thing backfire big time. Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. It's just it's one of those. But what what who what faction were you
52:17
playing? I was the Earth defense trying to get off the planet. But I So I thought I was going to attack
52:23
them and put on white and I lost two leaders and it was just bad. Oh jeez. Yeah. And it was just and then it was
52:28
just whitewash. Yeah. Yeah. It is just one of them things. But but I would never do that again next time. I want to play again. Definitely.
52:34
I just won't do that ever again. But yeah. But yeah, it's a great example. So asymmetrical games,
52:39
Root, Defense of Prom 3, anything that's really heavily asymmetrical. And I I felt bad as a teacher. Not really. I
52:47
wasn't really a teacher in that game cuz I couldn't. I was like, I can't read my full rule book and watch my video and
52:54
watch yours and read yours and yours and yours and yours and tell you what to do. And I was like, you're kind of on your
52:59
own in that game and and it's a weird place to be for me as a as a teacher of games. Really
53:06
really not comfortable, but it's kind of like sorry to, but you're on your own. The same with everyone else. I'll I'll
53:11
always say as well, 80% of my experience of playing a new game, watching a video or how it plays, it makes it more
53:16
enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah. For me myself, um, every time I've watched a video and then gone and got
53:21
taught it and I knew something about it, it clicks a lot better and I have much. It's like a warm-up basically. It's much
53:27
better. There you go. Nice. Nice. I like the I like the little gym. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So our first who's
53:33
turn trainer tip is that people's basically fun and enjoyment levels come
53:40
over your own kind of enjoyment in that sense while you're training depending on the game.
53:46
Depending on the game. Depending on the game. Yeah. So can we just put that as a caveat for 90% of what we're going to say here is
53:51
depending upon the game. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Don't try and lift too much. Um
53:57
and and trainer tip too. Warm up. Warm up. It does help. It definitely
54:02
help. Some responsibility. Yeah. In brackets goes to the player. Yeah. You'll pull a muscle, guys. Yeah. Yeah.
54:08
About brain muscle. No, you don't. Next day.
Our thoughts around teaching games to others
54:14
All right. So, we'll go on to the next one. Um, I struggle with teaching games because I
54:20
think I've got quite a fragmented mind in the way that I learn a game. Yes. Um,
54:26
it's like listening to a pinball machine sometimes. It's just like, wait, what's that?
54:31
N because sometimes I like to learn it backwards rather than forwards to maybe
54:37
how someone else will will learn. I'll be like, all right, how do I score VPs? or my first thing I look at is the
54:43
symbols which is weird and maybe weird to some people but do you have so my own
54:48
personal tip for this would be how I like to learn is I'll look at symbols
54:53
and I'll learn the symbols like a language and then I'll take the rules in afterwards and see how they all link together
55:00
might sound a little bit strange and weird but has anyone got any of their own kind of ways that they like to learn a game or
55:06
Yeah, I think I mean I I teach a game in a it's kind of a methodical
55:11
doesn't doesn't always happen on the night because depends on tiredness and other factors. But generally it's what
55:18
the hell this theme setting is. generally um how you you win complete
55:24
finish highle overview of of structure phasing round
55:31
then start deep diving into well stage one is this stage two is that stage three is this d and then it's kind of
55:37
like layers of the cake that you kind of go down rather than going straight into well you know this action spot right
55:43
here is this is what you do to get gold and then to get the gold you go and then was like what what so I probably come at
55:50
it from a traditional Like a layer cake, like a layer cake of of just high level
55:55
summarize deeper than deeper to the point where either people go we got this
56:01
now we can probably go forward or actually I'm still confused about this particular action or whatever it is. So less onion like more more layer cake
56:08
more layer cake. Um because I know you you're basically liking I'm probably like an onion, right? No, you're like a Tarantino film.
56:14
Yeah, it's like a pyramid, isn't it? Dave starts at the bottom of the pyramid and then figures out how to get to the
56:20
top. We all start at the top and sort of show them right here's your basic overview and then sort of work downwards.
56:26
Why I think with my teaching is abstract as well which is probably why I'm not the best teacher because this is how I
56:32
like to learn it. It's not how everyone else likes to learn it. It's tough though. Sometimes you nail a teacher, right? So
56:38
I've I've been open and said like sometimes I really dislike your teachers because they're they're just chaotic
56:44
sometimes. But sometimes you absolutely nail it because you start with here's the core component of what you're going
56:50
to need to do to win and then you kind of still work that way. So you've not kind of done it in the same sense but you've taken the core of it. I think the
56:56
the the the sometimes when I sort of struggle is when there's too when there's too much sandbox going on and I
57:01
sort of you sort of to that let's start with this action over here and I'm like but what happened but why how do we get
57:08
there? Why are we why are we doing this? Yeah. So sometimes it really does work and you really do nail this. Don't don't give
57:13
yourself a hard time on that cuz I think there is there there's been a few teachers and I thought damn that's really worked.
57:18
But I think it is that if there's a more linear route, you absolutely nailed it cuz it's here's your core theme. It's
57:24
when it becomes a bit more sandboxy that it's that I think the easy way is then to follow the more traditional method of
57:29
here's what you're doing, here's how to score points. Detail sort of thing is kind of that then
57:35
better one for me and how I learn anyway. How about yourself though? Yeah,
57:40
exactly. Same. I think J, we had a when we first started the podcast, we had a whole thing about this, didn't we? I did JP to put the structures in. Ever since
57:46
I've done I've done the structure thing. You start with the VPs, the theme VPs, and then you try and work backwards and
57:52
then that's what I do always. I have done a few teachers where you've done it so many times and you forget about the VPs and
57:57
yeah, I had one had one of white caston about two weeks ago. We got to the end of the teach and they went, "So, victory points?" And I Yes, there's a victory
58:04
point tracker. You've picked up that there's victory points. Let me show you the symbol for victory points. And now
58:09
retroactively point out everywhere that there's a victory point on this board. That's why I said like when I remember
58:16
because I found that maybe now comparing to maybe four years ago my teachers are
58:22
lazier for sure. For sure. Like you know you get over a long day, you
58:27
got people coming around, you're just like I just want to get into it, man. Um whereas before it'd be like properly
58:32
prepared and I would have done like everything to to a tea. So yeah, I think when you remember and I've had that and
58:38
gone, a I've forgotten the the the goal, the goal aspect of this teach quite important. People need to know
58:44
why. Who's turn trainer tip three is be methodical with your teach and don't
58:50
skip leg day. So now we're going to not be in the room
Demoing games and receiving demos
58:57
training with you, but we're going to turn into your PT instead. um your personal trainer and um we're going to
59:03
demo a game for you, right? Okay. So, um with demoing,
59:10
is there a structured approach that you like to take? Is there a certain kind of
59:16
rulebook or do you go by the game's own advice on how to demo the game? Well,
59:24
because there's the the way um and I know Paul from Gaming Rules to mention him again uh loves to demo a game um is
59:32
you go through uh uh like a a playbook where you go this is a structured turn.
59:37
So green will like scripted. Yeah. So green will do this, someone will do this
59:43
and you go around the table until they've kind of got a method into what they're doing. So I think when we were
59:48
taught uh Luia Yeah. Exactly the same. It was the same. Um,
59:54
I don't like to be taught that way, but I think it works for the majority when especially from demoers. As I said,
1:00:00
everyone's different, but I think it does work for majority, I think, where you've got 25 minutes.
1:00:06
So, like we've done different demos and we've seen different demos, right? And we've seen those, you've got 20 25
1:00:12
minutes to get like a flavor of the game and to walk away understanding a little bit about it. And then we've done demos
1:00:19
where it's I'm going to show you the whole game. And I think those scripted turns work best at those expo mented
1:00:30
I've got 20 minutes to get through to you everything that you can do and it'll be right here's your one or two scripted turns then maybe one or two turns of
1:00:37
your own and then that's it the game's over but you're not going to have scored points you're not going to have developed a strategy of your own that
1:00:43
kind of thing in it I think it works but those work best when that player is also involved with
1:00:48
everyone else's turn as well right cuz then they're seeing how the game can play. Whereas if that if that's a person
1:00:53
who maybe turns off during other people's turns, it's not going to hit them as well. Um,
1:01:00
and I'm not saying I'm that kind of player cuz I I, you know, I wouldn't pay attention, but
1:01:06
I I'd like being left to my own devices and try and work out myself and try and figure out that challenge and that those
1:01:13
kind of demos take that away from me. Yep. Um, but
1:01:18
when you're doing the expert, you got to do what works for the majority. And I think that probably I think you're right is that probably works for, you know,
1:01:24
probably 70 80% of people. So yeah, I don't know that it actually works for everyone in the sense of
1:01:30
giving them freedom. I think what it does is it teaches everybody all of the actions required.
1:01:36
Yeah. In the quickest, simplest way possible. Well, it shows them the whole scope of the game, right? In that sense.
1:01:41
Yeah. But even I I quite like it because I know that I'll get 25 minutes and I'll
1:01:47
get to see everything. Whereas we've had other teachers which is just okay here's the basic actions off you go and you're
1:01:52
kind of like I don't know how this all fits together. Right. So I think it railroads people into
1:01:58
having to learn and getting to see everything. So it takes away that sense of decision- making and autonomy of
1:02:05
being able to make an active decision. uh but it takes it away because it's
1:02:10
giving you the teach as quickly and as efficiently as it can in a short period
1:02:16
of time. But if we talk about like when we do gaming rules ones or whatever or when we do like live streams or
1:02:21
whatever, it's much more of a here is all the rules like I would teach you normally
1:02:27
and off you go and I'll just keep an eye but not play.
1:02:32
Yeah. I think for me, I I've demoed the gaming rules, but that that demo is more
1:02:39
like a a full play through. You get the you get the time allotted. It's an assisted It's an assisted playrough.
1:02:44
Assisted play through. So, it's not really it's not a demo, whereas I've been in Essen and I demo for for Mine
1:02:49
Clash and they they do a lot a lot of time for for their demos in fairness.
1:02:54
Um, so I don't tend to go down the scripted route for those. Um, and I
1:03:00
don't know if I would anyway. I I think for me I kind of like to to get them into the play as fast as possible
1:03:07
because you got to remember why why are we demoing the game? The demoing the games is to get them interested in the
1:03:13
game and and see if it's for them or see if it's not for them. That's really what demo's purpose is. And I think when
1:03:18
people go to demo, they forget that. Um so the first thing I always do is to remind them that this is demo. So don't
1:03:25
don't sit and overanalyze your turns, guys. Just like like I say, push some buttons and leave. See what happens. and
1:03:30
see if this is the sort of thing to do. And you can see them and they go, "Right, it's your turn." You're like, "God, what shall I do?" So, just do
1:03:37
doesn't matter. Like, do something. Just do something like you, if you want recommendations, I'm here. Like, why don't you try that? Okay, cool. Um, if
1:03:44
we can get them kind of getting through around uh as quickly as possible and I'm happy to kind of explain as we go more
1:03:51
than I would on a standard night where I'm trying to teach a game. Um, then for
1:03:56
me, yeah, getting them to to experience it. It's probably more attuned to what you would want daily from a demo, which
1:04:02
is I'm letting you do what you want to do. You can explore this this puzzle how you
1:04:07
want to to see if it is right for you. I think sometimes the danger of script and I don't think it's the wrong thing.
1:04:13
I think it can help and I've had experiences of good and bad scripted uh demos. Um the danger in a scripted thing is
1:04:20
that you maybe showing you an element of the game that's not what you would do and therefore maybe going
1:04:26
you won't enjoy that not enjoying it. But then like you said, not paying attention to the other three so much and what's going on over there?
1:04:32
What did you do? I don't know, you know. So, kind of going back to to scripted, like I don't want to kind of rag on on
1:04:40
Adah's Dream as the example, but like A's Dream, love the game. It's a great game, but the the scripted demo we had,
1:04:46
I I walked away going, I don't know what I don't know what. But that wasn't scripted, wasn't it? That was move a dice and I'll tell you
1:04:53
what that dice does. Oh, okay. Fair enough. And for me, that's not scripted. that is here's your playground. Go after it.
1:04:59
Yeah, I might do something wrong. I might not. You know, I might end up It was the worst of both worlds though, wasn't it?
1:05:04
It kind of was. Um, and again, it's it's tough cuz you were ragging on We've ragged on this one demo a lot,
1:05:10
but it was It was kind of scripted cuz it said what each one of us should do,
1:05:15
but then it didn't tell us what that would do until we did it. and then they explain it afterwards
1:05:21
rather than with a normal scripted is uh demo is you'll do those things and they'll kind of explain why you're doing
1:05:28
it as you go as you're doing it. And then normally a good scripted demo is designed to set you each up with a
1:05:33
way forward in the next couple of turns. So like in Luia it was okay well I've
1:05:38
set you up so that you can build an instrument straight away. I've set you up so that you have a better engine.
1:05:44
I've set you up. So, and that was kind of the point of the Luia script and a few other scripts I've seen is kind of
1:05:50
I'll set you up with going the what like each of you will now go down a kind of a different path ideally. But if you
1:05:56
decide not to go down that path because you've seen a better route, it it kind of removes a point part of that script.
1:06:03
But I think it's it's one of those where really you're just trying to get as cross as much either way. You're just
1:06:08
trying to get as cross as much of a feel as you can as quickly as into that time slot. And again, we've sat down and had
1:06:17
25 minute demos of really complex games, and we've sat down and had 2hour demos
1:06:22
of slightly easier games ultimately in conventions. And it's kind of that combination of how quickly do they want
1:06:28
to move through people when they're doing that convention, how how quickly do they need to get through, how many
1:06:35
tables have they got available versus how much of the game do they want you to sort of see before you buy.
1:06:41
Yeah. So going from the other side being demoed too because I I've never demoed a
1:06:47
game. I've never demoed a game. Never demoed a game. So for someone demoing to us, Tambo, what what kind what do you look
1:06:55
for? Well, okay. So I've enjoyed most of them there is sometimes one of the big complex games when they've done like three turns ahead and they've already
1:07:00
set you up a kind of an engine. That's a good idea. And then you get the full experience of the game. I've had a few of them, not too many of them, but
1:07:06
then I like that. That was good. So it shows you kind of they've already just said they've just kicked you off an engine already. Yeah.
1:07:12
And then you keep going with that engine and it just shows you the feel of the whole game instead of starting from the beginning. Um I don't I'm not
1:07:19
with um deep regrets. Regrets. Yeah. I was just thinking that um also I do think you need that
1:07:25
personal attention. I've had some demos where they've come along told you how it goes and then you end up hello or I have
1:07:31
to read the rule book and I'm like puts me off when I do a demo. Yeah. As soon as you have to get the rule book out, I think that's an instant
1:07:38
like dismiss of that game, right? Well, we we did Monumental Jewel. Yeah. And if you hadn't played Monumental,
1:07:44
we'd have just sat there and read the rule book. Yeah. At the table, cuz there was It was Are you guys okay?
1:07:51
Well, we're halfway set up and we're kind of halfway through cuz Davey knew what was kind of going on.
1:07:57
All right. Okay. Cuz it played like the best bit of that game. It was the card bit. We'd already been sat there for 15, 20 minutes before
1:08:03
anyone kind of came over and went, "How's that going for you?" And you're like, "What?"
1:08:09
You raised a really good point to about attention. And I kind of linked to that is sometimes the energy
1:08:15
of the person like we've had great demos of people uh who have had great energy
1:08:22
and that's what you remember. You remember as an experience and it's like that was cool. So if you
1:08:27
ever got to Will Will Yeah. Will from Dr. Right. Um, and if you have a good experience, you
1:08:34
you're going to tie that to the game. So, I remember I had a great experience with Galactic Cruise. We'll always talk
1:08:39
about the experience that we had at Galactic Cruise. My first launch. Yeah. And and the way he built built
1:08:45
that that experience of of demoing was basically to gear you up for your first launch into space. And he made it a
1:08:51
thing. It's like, it's what we're gonna do. And you knew that was where you were going. You knew that's when the demo was going to end. And you're just building
1:08:56
your way up to your first launch. And it just made a massive deal. And yeah, but you had attention.
1:09:01
He was there making jokes, you know, just really attentive. And I think that
1:09:06
is so key for demo. And then on the other end, we had the guy who was nearly dying from a hangover. Do you remember that? Me and
1:09:13
Adrian, we got taught um what was it called? I've got the game as well. And I
1:09:18
I could still teach it because he did teach us the game. And it was it was simple enough. It was the one where you
1:09:23
have um the tiles of the animals and and as well as the
1:09:28
Oh, fool. Fool. So, he looked like he was dying. He did. I did a hangover.
1:09:34
So, you you were trying to get a box of it and someone walked up and he looked like if I have to teach this game again,
1:09:41
I'm going to vomit, basically. So, I was like, I'll teach him how to play and taught them a demo of a game I'd played
1:09:47
once myself and they're like, oh, this is good. Have you done many of these demos? Well, no. This is the first one
1:09:52
cuz I thought I'd help him out. Yeah, I think he was really hung over cuz at first he was like, "Has it got the flu or something?" But then thinking
1:09:59
about it, it was Yeah, he did look drunk. Yeah, it looked like he was
1:10:04
German beer. Yeah, it's a thing. Re-evaluating his life choices. But um
1:10:09
yeah, so that's kind of all ends of the spectrum. We've got being demo to as
1:10:15
well as demoing. So tip four of who's done training tips is while being demo
1:10:22
to or demoing bring the energy. Basically that's the that's how I that's the only way I can summarize it is try
1:10:28
and be enthusiastic about the game you're learning about. And also if you're demoing try and be enthusiastic about the game you're teaching.
1:10:34
Yeah. And basically that will keep the energy levels high for those expos. And if
1:10:39
you've never been demoed too get yourself to an expo. Try it out. Try it out. You'll enjoy it.
1:10:45
One of those things I've noticed which is if you work in retail is is kind of one of those things they try and drill into you is you're for you you've had 22
1:10:52
customers 34 customers whatever it is for that customer there that's their one interaction with you the energy should
1:10:59
be as high at the end of the day as it is at the start and it's very hard to do but the number of sort of
1:11:05
wishy-washy Sunday demos I've had cuz people are clearly running on fumes at that point and they're normally
1:11:11
volunteers right so you can't have too much of a go at them you're like man you look tired, but also if you're being demo 2, try and
1:11:18
understand that and also be I if you're high spirits, you probably help lift them up as well.
1:11:23
100%. So don't go into it, you know, kind of expecting the world as well, right?
1:11:29
Yeah, exactly. So there we go. Um I think that's probably going to conclude our demoing
1:11:35
and and teaching tips. We could go over some personal tips if you want. I've got a six-pack now. So
1:11:41
yeah, there you go. I've got a six-pack on my forehead. I've got a cake.
1:11:48
Mine's not just six packs. My cake's best. Mine's just wrinkles on my forehead. So, it's from all the frowning I do.
Final top tips from the gang
1:11:54
But yeah, um yeah, let's do some gaming tips then. Own own personal gaming tips.
1:12:00
Can we Can we reel some off? Can we think of some? The only thing I was going to say for for training and teaching is you do not
1:12:06
have to explain every symbol. So don't show every single card in a deck off just to sort of be like right okay this
1:12:12
one if it comes up does this but at the same time don't hide all the components away so no one knows what anything looks
1:12:18
like until it turns up. So if there's a deck of cards show them a couple of examples from the deck of cards and then
1:12:23
go when these turn up I will explain what they do. Yeah. Because so sometimes less is more.
1:12:29
Yes. So you don't need to teach the entire especially with a deck of cards where it's like if you think of like June Imperium or something like that.
1:12:36
Oh god. Yeah. You're not going to teach what every card does in that deck. But I have had that experience where someone
1:12:41
wanted to show me every symbol and what it did and all that lot. Do not worry about that. But at the same time, show them a couple of cards. Here's what the
1:12:47
top of the card does. Here's the bottom. Here's the cost. Here's the benefit. Any more questions? Ask me as we play.
1:12:52
I will explain them as they come up if there if it's a new symbol we've not seen for the first time. And I think that is just a very simple way to do it,
1:13:00
but gets a nice balance of both. Whereas I've had plays where people have insisted almost on not touching the
1:13:06
decks or showing them off or anything like that while they're trying to teach and it makes things really abstract. And
1:13:11
I've also had someone who basically put the entire deck out and gone right this card, this card, this card, this card, this card. And I was like, please don't
1:13:18
card number 360. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I actually I do have
1:13:24
a last parting tip is don't be too hard on yourself if you mess up a rule. I
1:13:29
think that's a good one because it happens and sometimes, especially if it's the first time you've also played the game and you've learned and you're
1:13:36
trying to teach everyone else, it's probably going to happen. Um, it's happened in like pretty much most of them
1:13:43
most games, especially if it's your first time as well. So, it's going to happen. It's a learning game. Don't be
1:13:49
too hard on yourself or don't be too hard on the person teaching you. They've taken their time out to teach you. It's
1:13:55
gonna it people make mistakes because normally what happens you remember that rule as it comes up for you or someone else and you're like oh
1:14:01
hold on a second you know that thing you were going to do you can't I should have said that let's ignore that for now or
1:14:06
whatever it is fudge it through and then next time you'll get it right sort of thing. And sometimes the rules can be um not
1:14:14
not phrased uh objectively. So they can be subjective in the way that you've
1:14:20
taken that rule. So you've brought that rule to the table and someone's then questioned it and you've went, "Oh, okay. Is that" and then you read the
1:14:27
sentence again and you think, "Oh, okay. So that actually means that instead." And then people go, "Oh, wait a minute.
1:14:33
So that rule's been in." You're like, "Yeah, I'm sorry. You're right with that." But it happens,
1:14:39
right? I got to about four games of Century before we found out that the convert
1:14:44
card can be done as many times as you want to convert. We thought it could only be done once and we played it like
1:14:49
that for four games easily and then someone came in and went, "No, I can do this twice using one convert card. Go
1:14:56
get the rules." Oh, yeah. It does say that literally on the rules, but easy done. Yeah, it is. I think my tip kind of
1:15:03
follows on from what you said, David. Very similar. um is you're in a game
1:15:08
state, you've already done the teach. Let's say you've done it as well as you could do it and the rule of question
1:15:14
comes up and of course you want to lock it up. You want to get it right, but what you don't want to do is spend
1:15:20
10 minutes doing it. No. So sometimes you make a judgment
1:15:25
in that moment and in the moment and agree that's how that will be played or interpreted and get on with the game and get people back
1:15:32
into the game. And then afterwards when you packed it up and I've do this a lot especially with first plays I go I get
1:15:37
weirdly I go to bed and I look and then I'm looking through the rule book or whatever and go ah
1:15:43
and then I kind of share that actually I share that with with players go right we did a few things up guys these are
1:15:50
the things how it plays because you know some of the games we play are really complex like too too Freud too furious
1:15:57
yeah exactly conscious mind unconscious mind it's gonna happen but realizing that is
1:16:03
all part of the experience. So even after you finish your first play and after you've done the teach,
1:16:08
you're learning about the rules that you got wrong and things like that. It's all part of it and don't worry about it. Like you say, don't don't beat yourself
1:16:14
up because it wasn't perfect. As long as everyone had a laugh. A lot of like war games and stuff will
1:16:20
have a rule in there that says you take the two opinions. One person's opinion is right on one, two, or three. The other one's right on
1:16:27
four, five, six on a roll of a dice. Job done. Get on with it. Figure it out another time. Look up the FAQ.
1:16:33
There's nothing that takes the enjoyment out of a game more than everyone then suddenly having to stop and wait for
1:16:39
someone to read through a rule book and kind of thin it down, right? Arguing over a point as well that can
1:16:46
kind of lead to a negative contentious kind of play experience which is like
1:16:52
look I don't know it's new. I can't see it immediately. I've read through the rule book but you know you don't
1:16:57
memorize this thing front to back. So, I'm interpreting this way. This is how it will be. If I got that wrong, hands
1:17:03
up. But I'll I'll I'll check later properly. On the other side, you can also be like,
1:17:09
I don't think it's rude to ask to read the rule book either and have a skim through yourself. No, it's fine.
1:17:15
Yeah. As long as it's not on your turn. As long as it's not on your turn. That's That's I was just thinking about adding that in as a do not sit there
1:17:23
for 15 minutes looking up a rule when you can play a turn quickly. Yeah. and then look it up while you've
1:17:29
got three other people's turns to read through or go I just need to know this and hand it to the person who's just had
1:17:35
their turn and I'm sure they'll look it up for you as well cuz no one's going to sit there unless you're really like competitive to the
1:17:40
point where you want to win and that rule is enabling you to win which I don't know anyone who would be that petty to kind of go well I want this
1:17:47
rule to be interpreted this way so I win. Um, so actually everyone would want to play the right way and actually if if
1:17:53
it's a case of you know that thing we did last round, yeah, it's not this, it's that. Oh crap, sorry, I didn't get
1:17:58
that. Fine. Just agree to play it either from now on in that way or just agree as
1:18:04
long as everyone's agreeing. That's the point. Just agree. It's all good. Anything for you, Tambo?
1:18:10
Uh, just a standard tip. That's what everyone's good for. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Yeah. So, always don't be afraid and
1:18:15
have a bit of consideration for the person who teach. is his go. Make sure he has his go cuz I'm terrible for it. So when normally JP does things, I try
1:18:21
and make him finish his turn, then I ask him the question. Yeah. And it's better for the person who does teach.
1:18:26
Well, try and be a bit considerate for the person to the person. Yeah.
1:18:31
I've done it. I might start doing that now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I was did it for a dream. It's
1:18:37
middle of his turn and you ask him a question and then he's like, "Uh, let's have a look." And then we're like, "Oh, wait. It's JP's turn." And I caught
1:18:43
myself doing it. I was like, "Have your turn first, mate. Then we'll then we'll have remember the game that we were playing. Um I think t you were on it. I
1:18:50
think Mark Mr. Monk, you know, there's the one stamp for the uh theater.
1:18:55
Ninja Geek Games. Um was on it. I can't remember the game, but I just read about Was it It wasn't Savalo, was it?
1:19:03
No, it it was a game where I was teaching it and it was just it was like
1:19:09
a barrage of questions. Like it the most amount of questions I've had in a teaching game ever. It was like, "Yeah,
1:19:15
how's this work?" No, JP has this. It's like Jesus Christ. Was it that one?
1:19:20
I can't remember. I can't remember. I can't remember. But I just remember I remember I can't remember the one. Overwhelmed with oh my god. Like just
1:19:26
how bad is this first time around? You've still got this many questions. Did like this up or something. I can't remember the game, but it doesn't
1:19:31
matter. But yeah, it was funny. There we go. So that is our workout, you know, conclusion, our
1:19:38
tip. So hopefully everyone's feeling, you know, a little bit sweaty and, you know, endorphins running high. Um,
1:19:45
don't forget your cool down stretches. We got to do the cool down. Cool down stretches. Yeah, there we go. After the board game play, remember cool
1:19:51
down with a lighter game. Yes, your cool down is putting it away. Yeah.
1:19:58
All right. So, so that's our main segment and we're going to move on to our new segment which is going to be
TURN 4 - Haiku: With a Clue
1:20:04
called
1:20:20
So, this is Hi coup with a clue. So, I'm going to read you a haik coup which is
1:20:26
going to be about a board game. You guys don't say anything. Um, and then we'll go through and see what you guys thought
1:20:33
it was gamewise. And if you don't get it, I'll give you a clue. Okay. It's like being on a radio talk show, isn't
1:20:39
it? You know, with weird Radio 4. Yeah. With those It's not going to be as
1:20:44
intelligent as Radio 4, let's face it. So, we're going to Of course it isn't.
1:20:50
We're going to start off with cards turn. Hearts pause soft. One more draw.
1:20:57
Luck leans closer. Cheers or quiet size.
1:21:06
Happy new year. Um, say it again. Card's turn. Hearts paws soft. It's more
1:21:15
to do with how you're feeling. One more draw. Luck leans closer. Cheers or quiet
1:21:21
size. So, push your luck. Mhm. That's all I got out of all of those. I'll be honest.
1:21:27
Do you all want a clue then? You feeling Do you not have a Do you not have a clue? So, you want a clue? It's a It's a
1:21:34
push your luck game with cards. Yeah, it's recent.
1:21:39
Is it flip seven? I've never played flip seven, so wouldn't have a clue. Wouldn't have a clue if it's flip seven. So, it's flip seven.
1:21:45
I think you push your luck card game. It's the only one. If you got that without a clue, you get two points, right, guys?
1:21:51
I don't know what you can do with these points, but maybe you can cash them in with with whose turn is anyway. Yeah, you get two turners anyway
1:21:56
vouchers that you can spend at GridCon to stay at Davy's house.
1:22:01
as we as we as we've No, we actually I can't promise that because that is a perk for the uh the the coffee
1:22:07
supporters. Yeah, basically my house. Anyone's a coffee supporter. Gridcon who needs that place to stay in Taton.
1:22:14
Yeah, if it's nice weather, tent in the garden. Tent in the garden. November.
1:22:20
I did camping in November. I did. You did. So,
1:22:25
dust roads stretch westward. Cattle mark the passing days. Prophet rides the
1:22:33
rail. Come on, T. I think this is Tease's. What?
1:22:38
You own this. I'm sure you do. If it's what I think it is, it's Well, you you own a a version of this.
1:22:44
Just start with Just do the first line again. Dust roads stretch westward. Cattle mark
1:22:51
the passing days. Okay. Prophet rides the rail. Great Western Trail.
1:22:56
Great Western Trail. I didn't even need a clue. Two points to you. Two points. Right. And then for the last one, cuz
1:23:03
I'm not going to drag this one. Fair. Land shifts that a touch faction shape
1:23:10
earth into home. Power hums below.
1:23:16
Power hums below. Say again. Lands shift at a touch. Faction shape
1:23:24
earth into home. Power hums below. I think I've not played this, but I'm
1:23:29
gonna think I know what it is. Cool. I don't think you have played it. Yeah,
1:23:35
it it's either Age of Innovation or Terrammystica, I'm going to say. So, I've gone with the original.
1:23:43
Terrammystica. It is Terrammystica. Nice. Doesn't need a clue either. There we go.
1:23:48
And that is Haiku with no clue. No clue. No clue. We had one clue in the end.
1:23:55
Thanks, mate. No worries. Will this be back in your next episode? I think I I enjoy it, but I don't know
1:24:01
if anyone else. It's fine. What What we can get used to it. It's fine. Just the first one. If we get used to it, it's fine.
1:24:06
This is your run. You can do what you want. But if people just for the name alone, hi coup with a clue.
1:24:12
I bet that's what you started with. You're like, you know what? I've got a great name for a segment. I just played Ghosts of Sashima, so that
1:24:20
was all it was. So, yeah. Nice. I I just I was like, "Oh, these highQ are nice and relaxing and a for be a good windown after our quite
1:24:27
enjoyed after our session." I quite enjoyed it. I think for anyone's kind of going, "Oh, but what about Connect 4?" I'm sure it'll be back.
1:24:32
I'm sure it'll be back. So, don't worry. That requires no effort on anyone's part. So, I'm sure that'll be back.
1:24:38
It's the easiest segment to run for us. We're moving on to the penultimate turn.
TURN 5 - The Penultimate Turn: What's Coming Next?
1:24:51
Moving on to the penultimate turn. So, starting with Adrian, what are you getting up to?
1:24:58
I don't really know what I'm getting up to gamewise. So, there's a few different bits and pieces that are kind of board
1:25:03
game adjacent. So, my board game table arrived just before Christmas. the brave people delivered at 900 p.m. on the
1:25:10
Friday before Christmas. They got stuck in traffic at London and played on it. Lovely. But um getting
1:25:15
new table, getting new chairs and getting the bits and pieces sorted so that game room will be finished and I get to just enjoy it, which is one
1:25:21
thing. Um, and then the other thing I thought I'd quickly talk about that I'm kind of looking forward to,
1:25:27
but I think is also just going to be a challenge is I love designing board game inserts and I have used Tinkercad for
1:25:35
ages because it is just nice and simple. It is the Lego bricks version of how to
1:25:42
build anything in there. And I've kind of got to a point where I'm reaching my limit with I know I can
1:25:48
do this, but I can't really do it in Tinkercad. So, I have been learning Fusion.
1:25:53
Okay. CAD software. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is an entirely different beast. Like, I knew it would be a little bit,
1:26:00
but I've started doing some like YouTube courses and it's so different. So, with
1:26:06
like Tinkercad, it's like take square, take cube, put cube on mat, right? Make
1:26:12
cube with hole. Put that in the middle. There you go. There's a box. With Fusion, it's draw a box, a 2D box, then
1:26:19
extrude that up, then create an counter extrusion
1:26:25
with a wall of this. And it's just very different way of thinking. And I'm going to, I think, enjoy the challenge of it,
1:26:33
but I think it is going to be a challenge. Mhm. Reminds me of 3DS Max, that kind of 3D software stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I've
1:26:40
never used anything like it before, but I love designing 3D prints and stuff for
1:26:45
inserts. It's actually part of the hobby for me. And I am really looking forward
1:26:50
to learning Fusion more so that I can make better board game inserts and I can do more funky things with it.
1:26:58
I'd like to see eventually you do 3D models of all of us that we can get
1:27:04
printed out. I'm not doing I'm not doing actual modeling. This is This is
1:27:09
Oh, you can move it on. This that's your next step. Next step. There you go. This is creating just simple boxes but
1:27:15
better boxes than I was creating before. Fancy rectangles. Yeah. So, that's
1:27:21
the odd um parallelogram. Yes, I did that before. So, I did I have
1:27:27
created random shaped boxes and stuff like that before. But this all came about because I got my table and was
1:27:34
loving it and I just wanted to create some um 3D printed like bits that hang
1:27:40
off of the the groove on the outside of the table or off the inside as well. And
1:27:46
cheeky cuz natural 20 does do some of what I want but not quite the way I want it. So, I thought, okay, well, I'll 3D
1:27:52
print it. and I started designing it in Tinkercad and I was like, I can't do this in this bit of software and I'd
1:27:59
already come across a couple of those before and I was like, no, I'm going to go away and I'm going to learn a better
1:28:04
ver like a sort of more adaptable version of 3D cadding and so that's what
1:28:09
I'm looking forward to doing. So, that's what Adrian's getting up to. How about yourself JP? Yeah, this um
1:28:15
I've got an upcoming trip and I'm heading off to the mountains with my
1:28:21
brother and snowboarding. Nice. Very excited for So, it's quite nice. I've had Christmas and I've had a lovely
1:28:27
time, my family and all that kind of stuff. And I think what's getting me through finishing Christmas and going back to work is knowing that in couple
1:28:34
of weeks I'm leaving work. Yeah. And going away for a week. So thinking
1:28:39
about what games to take to the mountains, obviously not in the day. What mountain range you're going to the
1:28:45
Alps? It'll be the Alps. Yeah, in the French Alps. And it's a place called Lac Valinia. Valia.
1:28:52
Yeah, it's a it's a smaller place. Been before. It's very nice. Um but yeah, I'm just thinking about games and it'd be
1:28:59
quite nice to to hang with my bro cuz me and him don't like go away together. We
1:29:05
haven't been away together for God, I can't even remember. Long time ago, you know, we all got our separate lives and
1:29:10
things like that. So, yeah, looking forward to that. Looking forward to just getting some good quality time um with
1:29:16
him and trying to think, yeah, what game shall I bring? Pull those gastros. Yeah,
1:29:22
you you definitely feel it down on on those muscles afterwards. Oh, yeah. The first day is always the hardest. And
1:29:28
then once you get through, deep heat is my friend. And a sauna. And a sauna. Anything just warm. Yeah.
1:29:34
Um, a rub down. So either way, so yeah, thinking of
1:29:40
games, thinking of what we can bring like for the evening and sit in the pub and well appris cuz I won't have it with
1:29:46
me. Um, for sure, but yeah, probably some card games will come. Flip seven will no doubt come along.
1:29:52
And maybe something a bit more more meteor for get some other people playing. Yeah, exactly.
1:29:58
Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's I'm looking forward to that. Nice. How about yourself, Tambo? Uh, not too much going on gamewise. I got Civ,
1:30:04
the new dawn coming up. I've never played it. Always wanted to play it, so I'm glad I'm on that one now. Playing that with Cly next week. Yeah, that's my
1:30:11
next exciting game. Apart from that, I'm loving Dungeon Call of Carl at the moment. I'm absolutely adoring it. I'm on book six now.
1:30:17
Oh, wow. It's amazing. Yeah, Becky's recommendation was it? Yeah, just since Becky mentioned it, I thought I'll listen to my first audio
1:30:23
book ever and I've just hit the whole six books now. Yeah, really good. I do recommend it to
1:30:28
listen to it if you do audio books. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, book five is my favorite so far. But yeah, good. It's
1:30:34
really good. Okay. Uh and for me, I'm looking forward to So, I've been smashing out Arc Raiders.
1:30:40
Um I've been absolutely hitting that hard as as well. I just love that game.
1:30:46
Um it gives me nostalgia like no other game. Um but I've also got well
1:30:52
hopefully Tracarion coming up. Um but we'll see. I might have to work, which is which sucks. But um if not then DN D.
1:31:01
Um, always look forward to our D and D sessions, um, with Stuart running them. Had a great time. Uh, I think Rob wants
1:31:08
to host the next one cuz he wants to do one on his new gaming table. So, yeah, looking forward to that as always.
1:31:13
It's very nice. This table's very nice. Oh, cool. So, yeah. Um, pick the weird
1:31:20
mushroom druid will come out and uh, yeah, cause havoc to Stuart's brain. So,
1:31:27
yeah. You're welcome, Stuart. We always look forward to it and we've
1:31:33
got a little bit more backstory going into this one that we're injecting in slowly cuz I think he's done it in a
1:31:38
real good way and that we've slowly kind of gone into it. We went into it just being like make your characters and then
1:31:46
as we've developed Stuart's fleshed out the story cuz I think also for him
1:31:52
you don't know how long this is going to take. you don't know if everyone's going to be committed, but now cuz we're all
1:31:57
committed and we're all enjoying it, including Stuart hopefully, um, he
1:32:02
started obviously getting more of a backstory from us and then going from there instead. I think that's been a good way of doing it cuz otherwise
1:32:09
as a DM, you're probably investing too much time elsewise and
1:32:14
people might not see it through. Yeah, that definitely sounds like Stuart. He makes it like a when you play a game, he does a story afterwards of
1:32:20
the game we play, which is really cool. I always like reading them. Yeah. Yeah, he does. So, we get a little
1:32:25
uh little feedback of everything that we've done. So, yeah.
1:32:31
Cool. Cool. Nice one, man. Yeah, nice one. Well, so that's been who's turn it anyway. It's been James, JP, Adrian, and
TURN 6 - The Final Turn
1:32:38
Tambo. And thank you for listening as always. Uh you can find our socials at
1:32:44
the bottom of uh the download and our link. Um please give us a follow. Always
1:32:49
helps us out. And if you want to support us f further, you can go to uh coffee or kofi um and put a little donation in
1:32:57
there. You'll you'll get access to some of our episodes early. Um as I say, you
1:33:02
get access to our Discord, but come along to our Discord anyway. Um come and join us. We chat in there. Um and you
1:33:08
can see some of the more unhinged things we say. Um, but other than that, it's
1:33:13
been, yeah, hopefully it's been fun recording it and hopefully you've had a fun time listening. And as always, who's
1:33:20
whose turn is it anyway? Don't know. Yeah, it's still mine. I got two more