TURN 1 - Player Count
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[music]
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[music] Hello. This is Whose Turn is It Anyway,
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and you're with Davey. I'm the first player at the moment. I'm doing my current run. Um, but enough about me.
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I'm here with JP. Hello. And Adrian. Hello. And did you like that, Adrian?
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Just enough about me. Yes. All four seconds. [laughter] That's all we allocate. Too much. That's
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all we allocate. That's all we have time for. We're getting too deep here, guys. 4 seconds in. Enough. Enough about me.
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Enough about me. We're moving on. [laughter] We need to talk. We got devs to talk
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about, right? It's true. We've got devs to talk about. But first, we're going to move on to
TURN 2 - Let's Talk About Hex
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[music] Let's talk about Hex. This is the
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segment where we talk about what we've been up to and what games we've been playing. So, let's let's start with you,
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Adrian. What have you been up to and what you've been playing? Not a whole lot recently, um, if I'm
Adrian - Trickerion: Arcane Arts
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honest, but what we did get to the table recently was Tracarion. Yeah. Yeah. And the new expansion, Dalgard's
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something or other. No. No. Arcane arts. Arcane arts. Yeah. Magic. Magic. Magic.
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Actual magic where you get to cast spells and everything. You don't. We do cast spells. You enchant your tricks.
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Yeah. No, you don't. Spells. Let's Let's get the law right, guys. I know you're doing it to piss me off and it works, [laughter]
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but it's the arcanist is the one who's doing the enchanting, not you. You're a magician. That's
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[clears throat] it. Um, you should see the color of JP at the moment. It's his favorite player color. And we all know why now, right? The anger. What? PE.
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[laughter] Oh, don't start this with the old color argument. We've had enough of it
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recently. Fair enough. Can't remember what color it was. Was it some green? They were arguing was blue.
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It's like a tealy color. Dard's arcane arts or whatever it's called. [laughter] Everything starts Dalgard, doesn't it? I
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thought in Trickarian, one of the expansions does. We are at Delgard actually no two because you got
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Dow God's Air which is the solo and you got Dowgards Academy which is the big
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expansion and I thought the one that comes with the Dark Alley is called Dalgard's something.
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Don't know. I'm sure I'm sure there's Dard everything but this Dodgard is a is a thing in the game.
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Dodgard's a person. He's the one that's retiring. So Oh, you're trying to be his protege.
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You're trying to be his protege. trying to take over so you can get the Tracarion stone. Oh, I just thought we were just trying to be the best um magician.
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The one who gets the most fame gets the Tracarion Stone, which has magical properties. Yes, I know what you're
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going to say. I'm a wizard, Harry. So, but you're not a wizard. You're a magician. You're not a wizard yet.
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Yet, it's God's academy where you're becoming a wizard. No, it's not Hogwarts.
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So, it's Hogwarts. [laughter] Feels like it. Anyway, Adri,
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what's how's the expansion? [laughter] So, I it's been a while since I've played Trickarion. And I'll be honest, for the first sort of turn and a half,
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two turns. I was trying to piece it all back together cuz you know when you kind of, you know, bits and then but the
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finer detail kind of falls apart on you and you're like, "Right, okay. So, I need these materials to do this. I do
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this to do that." And it's like, "Oh, but you can't get that spell without paying the [clears throat] you can't get the card that has the
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thing on it without paying the difference between your victory points and the victory points on the K." Oh,
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yeah. Of course. All right. Well, I'll undo that turn and stuff like that. So, there's a bit of that to start with, but
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once I got back into it, it was all good. In the expansion, there is a sort of traveling salesman almost, isn't it?
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That that goes between the the three main areas. So, they move between the dark alley, the um marketplace, and
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downtown. And when you put your your die, your
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person, it's not die, is it? you put your your character on there, you have the option of spending as you usually
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would or interacting with the Arcane Arts. And the Arcane Arts is just a little board off to one side. It's really smallest and sort of not even a a
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five piece of paper sort of thing really. But on there is a host of different things that you can do. One
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thing you can do is either gain or upgrade your Tracarion shards into arcane shards. I can't remember what the
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term was. Supercharged. Supercharged ones. Yeah, sparkly arcane shards. a teal colored shard basically.
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And what that means is instead of if you want to spend one of them, instead of being able to just put plus one action
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point or whatever you want to call it um using a tracer shard, you get to put plus two. And it also means that in the
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theater you can um use one of those to add plus one
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whereas normally you can't use them at all. So, normally you can't use any shards in the theater, but this actually allows you to spend an extra shard,
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which is quite useful really um because it kind of gets you out, especially if you go to
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Friday's slot, no, Thursday's slot, no, Sunday's slot, where you get the
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minus one for everything. Being able to spend that arcane shard is actually quite useful because it means you can
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actually do things, put more than one spell out normally. So, that's one of the things you can do
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in the area. The other thing is you can buy like a magic assistant. So it's kind
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of one of five specialists or something like that. Four. Okay. You can buy one
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of four specialists. And they all do quite different things, but normally what it means is that you're replacing a
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regular assistant. So you have the specialist assistants which get come with their own little board. Normally
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these are they just use up the normal assistant spot. So, they're only going to cost you one coin to use per day if
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you want to, but then they all come with different things they can do. So, some don't fill up a slot. Some are very
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powerful, but you have to use them at the start or the end of your turn. Those kind of things. And it just kind of creates
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more opportunity to get sort of workers in that you can use and they're cheaper,
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but they do cost you something to get them. So they're kind of I think they're really more expensive to get them, but
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they're more usable and they cost less normally at the end of the day. I think some of them forgo the the coin
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payday and actually want Tracaron sh cuz they're greedy bastards. Yeah. Um but there are days you cuz they're
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quite powerful and they're very flexible and you can send them anywhere. But yeah, no, it's quite nice with the workers. I think I got up to seven
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workers in Traceron. It's the most I've ever had in that game. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other main action you
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get out of this expansion is using these uh magical
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spell components. He's winding me up now. [laughter] So what you can do is when you um
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prepare a trick, if you want to instead of using the normal um sort of
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materials, you can assign one of the uh these special enchantments enchantment components as a one-off. you
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you sort of use it and you put it on the trick as you prepare it. And you think, well, why might you want to do that?
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Apart from the fact that it's kind of a wild resource, why why would you want to do that? Well, you also roll dice at the
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start of the turn. And it basically says if you perform a trick with whatever's whichever type of enchantment is kind of
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on the on the die, you will get that bonus that's on the other dice. So, one's a die that has all of the
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enchantments types on it, and the other one is one that has all of the reward types on it. And what you can do on your
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turn is kind of manipulate and lock in those dice to make sure you get the enchantment you want, but also it means
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other people can do it and screw others out of the enchantment that they want to get the bonus that they want. And I
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think it's fair to say that it's a fairly uh it's kind of minimal, but it's it works
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really well. Yeah, it definitely adds some extra. All of those kind of three, the Tracarian, the extra sort of arcane
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Tracarian shards, the worker, and these enchantment pieces all add a little
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something to it. And it's not like you're introducing a whole new board really to it cuz you the traveling
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salesman sort of goes around the various areas. And it does increase competition quite often for those areas cuz
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especially if you're going into those enchantments, you will want to almost follow him round.
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Yeah. To to make most of the boards. So it does kind of and it does then mean that the other areas a little bit freer. So
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I'll be honest, I again learning things didn't interact with that board at all. I went to look to do it at one point and
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I thought everyone's going to go there and sure enough everyone did. New things. Yeah. And I thought it was about turn
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three or four I think it was. And I was like, "All right, I'll get involved in that now." And then I was like, "Oh, I'm looking around and I reckon everyone is
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going to want to go um I think it was the dark alley at that point. So, everyone's going to want to go there. I
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know. I'll use that time to go elsewhere." And so, you can kind of use it for that is assume that yeah, there's not going to be someone
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where the car isn't sort of thing, you know? So, so yeah, I thought it was a
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great little minimalist add-on expansion. And it's one of those where I would be possibly careful about adding
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it in with some of the other expansions, but I think for the most part, if you just add it in on its own, or if you
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really want a challenge, you do want to add it in with another one, it'll really sort of add more depth to it. But it did
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did quite a bit without really doing anything crazy to the rules. They they recommend in the rules that um
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when you're playing with Dow Guards Academy, the big expansion, it's fine. Yeah. because you just flip the board
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over and it basically roams to the academy as well as the other three spaces. Um, might twist some things up, but
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nothing major. Um, it does say it doesn't recommend playing it with Magicians Powers or Dawn of Technology
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uh mini expansions, right? And now playing it, I get why because it's it says you can do what you want
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your game, but it just recommends you don't. So, I kind of liken it to you [snorts] got base carryon, you got Dow
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Gods Academy if you want to blow your brains, right? And then you choose one of the other mini expansions to throw
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in. So, you do that one, the other one. That's how I like to kind of consider it. But yeah, I enjoyed it. I thought
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it loosens up the jam a little bit in that it, you know, enabled me to have an
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enchantment to get a level 36 trick earlier prepared than I could have done.
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Yeah. and it just got me a little over the line a little earlier. Um, which was quite nice cuz normally you got to go
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this and get that and do this and then Yeah, you don't have to especially if it's just if it's just one piece you need and we'll talk about the level three the
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third level 36 spells in a second. Um, tricks, sorry. Um, talk about them in a second, but if
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you just need the one component, it saves you having to go to the marketplace, order it, possibly fast
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track it or have to go back there another time once it is ordered. So, it kind of saves. They're expensive, but it
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does save that. One of the things I did quite like though was that when you go to score your end of game
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abilities that are on the level 36, the sort of third level tricks, um, if you don't actually have the full
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list of components, you still don't get that end of game. So, if you used uh one of the
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enchantments to make it happen, and that leaves you short of the components you need to unlock the end of game, you
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don't unlock the end of game. And I quite like that cuz it kind of meant that you couldn't just spam enchantments
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and get all your sort of bigger level ones out there, especially if they only needed that one exactly
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resource. All they're doing is basically shortcutting you to get uh tricks prepared so you can get them in the
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theater earlier than you probably would do on the long way round, but you still have to invest. So that's exactly what I did.
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I I shortcuted and then went crap, I need to sort that out at some point. my last turn
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getting the components I needed so I'd score those points. So yeah, I agree. Oh, it's cool.
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Yeah. Yes. There we go. That was our game of Trarion, which was good fun. Um, how about you JP? What have you been
JP - Siderial Confluence
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playing? Uh, a long time ago I played uh Cedarial Confluence. So, I've talked
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about this on the pod about I really want to play Cedarial Confluence and it's always a game that's intrigued
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me. Um, never got around to playing it. And then Craig um in our gaming group
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basically said, "Oh, I've got a copy." And uh he he's one of Dan's um cohorts
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that lives nearby. And he said, "I'll come up and teach you it." Brilliant. So we set up a night and uh we got four
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players um for it cuz I was a bit worried about not getting enough players cuz it's a game that plays up to nine,
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I think, which is quite a high player count. Um, but for those that don't know what that game is or what the hell I'm
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talking about, because it is a weird name, Curial Confluence. What is it? Side side reel. Side reel. Uh, side piece. Uh,
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Confluence. Cidre. [laughter] So, it's a sci-fi um, spacey alien races
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kind of game by looks. So, you think, oh, it's going to be all ships and battles and things like that. No, it's
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uh, economic. It's a complete economic trading simulator. Um, anything don't switch off yet. It's
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No, that's made me more intrigued. It's Come [laughter] on, stay with me. JP said space, so we all know he's
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sticking around for a little bit longer. Um, so you play an alien race and you have a power. Um, and you know, all
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different alien races have different powers and they're quite unique actually and they're quite different. It's not just we're all the same with a bit of
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little something. They're actually quite different. And uh yeah, it it's a game
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of many cards. So you start off with a bunch of cards with your alien race and
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on these cards have various different cubes and conversions. So it's kind of like, oh you if you spend this, you'll
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get that kind of thing and you just look at it and go, "What is this nonsense?" at the start of the game. Um there's so
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many different color cubes and different sizes of cubes and different shapes and
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things for resources that you use. I'm not even going to name it cuz I don't know. It's just blue, yellow, and white, and brown, and green, and whatever. And
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every resource has a kind of um relative uh value to each other. So, you know
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that a little cube is worth, you know, half of a big one. A big one is worth some something of something else. And
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that that's important for endgame scoring. So, you kind of know the the value, but it's also important because
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this game is about negotiation and trading. So you have to kind of put your Dell boy hat on. Um because pretty much
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at the start of the game you do a trade phase. So you're kind of doing a wheeling deal and again going right I
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need I need anyone got I could do with two white cubes. Right. What have you got? I got Cherry Tips talk to me.
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Yeah. He's like talk to me. I got two white cubes. What you going to give me for two white cubes mate? And you go well I'll give you three brown ones. You
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go right deal. Sorted. Douche. White cubes have been in my family for generations. Yeah. And then you get those cube. And
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then someone else like oh yeah you got those brown cubes. Do you need all of them? said, "No, I could spare one." All right, you can have that one over there. And this is all simultaneously happening
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at the same time, right? It's chaos in the best way. And four players, we
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didn't really have to get up from the table. If we had nine, I'd be out of my seat. I'd be getting up out around the
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table going, "Ori." Um, let me show you what I got. It's like a trench coat.
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Yeah. Blue cubes, purple cubes. What do you need, mate? What do you need? I got this. You got that? Yeah. Cool. Let's do a bit of paper folded
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into a cube there. Oh, don't worry about that. It's fine. Completely legit. I don't know what you're on about. Why is
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there a kidney? No. [laughter] Um, and uh, yeah, you you kind of do that and you time the trade phase. So, you put, I
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don't know, 5 minutes or whatever you need on it. Um, I think we did 10 and you think that's way too long, but no,
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you when you're in it, you're like, no, but I don't want that. No, that's that's a deal. You know what it's going to be like, right? So, ultimately,
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you get to the point where you settle on what you've got. You might be happy or you might be like,
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didn't get what I needed. And then you get into the economy phase and you can't
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then negotiate with anyone. Negotiations have ended and you're taking the resources that you have and you're
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running your engine. So you kind of pop all the the cubes on the cards and you go, "Right, spend that, convert that,
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spend that, convert that." D. Sounds very furnace. Yeah, it's very furnace like where you're going. But you can kind of run it
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in any [clears throat] order. It it doesn't kind of matter and you can choose to run whatever. Now, one of the
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currency or one of the resources in the game is ships. These little tokens um and they're used
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for bidding. So, you use um yeah, ships to to bid. So, in the middle of the the the board,
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I say board, there is no board, but in the middle of the table, there's a a row of cards for colonies, like planets on
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one side, and then on the other side are technologies, right? So on the technologies you uh you can obviously
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acquire them and and same with with the planets and so once you've kind of done all your conversions and all that kind
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of stuff then you get into what's called the confluence phase and you will then
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pretty much uh use your your ships to do a bid. So, you kind of take your collection of ships and you put a pile
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in your left hand and a pile in your right hand. Mhm. And then you go, "Right, off we go." And
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then you choose one of your hands to bid into for the colonies and you choose the other hand to bid in for the
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technologies. So, you don't have to use all of your ships. What do you do? Um, once you commit to the bid.
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Yeah. But I'm saying it's not like a, oh, I have to split all of my ships between. No, no, no. You could take a selection and go, I'm going to bid two for that
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and three for that. You can do what you want. And actually, it gets to the point sometimes where you go, you know what? I'm not actually going to use these to
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buy, so I'm not actually spending them. But and you have an influence number on your board, which helps break ties. So, if
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you have the same amount and me and you, Adrian have three each. We go off the influence number and it'll break. So, some alien races are better
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and nipping in the bud. I played one called the Kajas and they not the Jiz.
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No, it's not. It's just Kaj is what I was thinking. Well, I'm going
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to pronounce the full name um and and butcher it. It's the Kajash Jackalim,
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right? Something like that. Fair enough. Yeah. So, Kaj Yeah. And uh jazz hands.
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And what it allowed me to do was even with one of my um collection of ships and for the bid for the colonies bid
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only, I could split my bid and effectively have two goes.
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So, you have to have a third hand sort of. Yeah. Yeah. So your kaj jazz hand [laughter]
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my kajazzle holds um which is quite a nice ability once I got my head around how it worked and so
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you kind of go I want that colony lovely put it into your tableau and then resolve all that and then you get the
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technologies lovely put it into my tableau and then away we go next round. Hey Dell boy, can you put a pony in me
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pocketly? All of that happens. Trade, trade, trade. Run your engine, run your
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engine. Now, if you manage to have fulfilled the requirement of your technology during that that time, you
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then you've got a big deck of cards full of tech and then you basically fish that out and go great, I've researched X. You
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put that into into the tableau, which means then you can also um start running
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that. And then when you get to the confluence phase, you then share your technology with everyone else. It's
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quite friendly. But you get VPs for it. Lovely because you're the one that did it first and everyone's now kind of
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rewarding you for being the first there. So you're getting technologies from other people that have done it and they're getting it from you. Uh any VPs
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gained, some can be off your converters. They go into this little behind the screen. I really like this. So, we just
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took them into the corner of the table and literally when you get them, you just drop them behind the screen so no
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one can see how many you're accumulating in the game. Um, but yeah, it's pretty much rinse,
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repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. So, that doesn't mean that there's any like we're not going to deal with that person
20:17
because they're winning the game. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to freeze you out. There's definitely I'm trying to think what there are cuz I'm like, yeah, that
20:23
there's another game that's done that cuz I quite like that the same thing. It's it's you can't no one can even like
20:30
cuz obviously sometimes it's like oh this is a one or a five or a 10 or whatever it is and they'll have blank backs so you can put them face down so
20:36
no one can actually see work it out kind of can't work it out and I quite like when when that happens cuz it it
20:42
just sort of Yeah. means you don't get frozen out especially in this kind of game. Yeah. And it works really well like it it as it premise it's fairly
20:48
straightforward but this lives and dies by the players. Yeah. So, if you got players that don't really like negotiating or don't like
20:55
trading, you're going to hate this game cuz that's what it is. It's nothing else. Um, but if you like the wheeling
21:01
and dealing and and getting stuck into it and and you kind of can't help role play a little bit like this is what I'm
21:07
going to do and then then it's just yeah, it was great fun and it was fairly, you know, it didn't go on for
21:13
too long. Um, and I think with player count obviously you could argue having
21:18
full nine players will take longer. I think it would, but it's not scaled like, oh, nine players is three times as
21:23
long as it would be cuz it's all simultaneous actions. So, it's quite nice like that. And if you can choose the timer length.
21:30
Yeah. You just agree 5 minutes. Yeah. If you really have to if you really want a complete chaos mode, you
21:35
say 5 minutes or if you want to give a bit more time, you can say 15 or something like that. Exactly. More players, you probably need
21:41
longer though, right? Yeah, probably. But you could you could limit legitimately be like, well, I'll limit it, baby. And then you need to go after
21:48
what you really need first. Yeah. So if you need need to be like one of those vendors apple and pear
21:56
white cubes to pound [laughter] I need purple cubes. They're the only one with purple cubes. I'm going to them first.
22:01
Whereas if you want if you give it a bit longer then you get give chance to people to sort of go around a bit more
22:06
gently. Take a sign. Start writing it down. Start flashing it. Well, we're doing this thing like
22:12
you know Connor was playing was then right um I've got these these brown cubes and Curly were like yeah I could
22:17
give you this for this and I'll go I'll tell you what Connor I'll give you three. Yeah. And he's like Curley's just like looks
22:22
at me going you bastard. [laughter] And then what we're in a bidding war now I really want them and it's quite nice.
22:29
Do you want do you want to play in this or like no leave it. So it's quite nice. Um but yeah really enjoyed the game. I I
22:35
really want to play. I think this will sing at a convention. I think being at a convention space with the energy that you can kind of have you
22:42
got the people you can kind of drag around to a table and you can kind of get up and move around uh easy without
22:47
annoying everyone. It would work really well. So when we played, I think me and
22:52
Curly were were doing fairly well and it was just a case of and it's quite exciting at the end because you then revealing your safe of of all these VPs
22:59
and then when it come down to it, the last thing you do is convert everything you've got and all your resources are worth VPs or half VPs or whatever and he
23:07
beat me by half a VP. It's like you get [laughter] but it was great.
23:13
Yeah, really good fun. Sounds like my street like a good old market. Yeah, I think you that. So,
23:18
yeah, that's Cadial Confluence. And uh there you go. Common Curly. Let's play it. Yeah.
23:24
Oh, was he bought he bought? He bought it. Yeah. Nice. The one to take away for a convention.
23:29
Exactly. Exactly. So, what about you, mate? Um, so I played and I was going to
Davey - Forestry
23:36
uh give the jazz hands and basically said I played it the other day, but it's probably about a month ago now. Yeah. Um, [laughter] played forestry. We
23:43
played a full game. So, we spoke about this on the E SN episode, but we actually got a full game of it in. And
23:49
you know what? It was for three player. It was like an hour and 40 minutes. And
23:55
what a game in those in that hour and 40 minutes. It was very crunchy. It was crunchier than I expected it to be. Um,
24:02
so if you don't know what forestry is, it's slight worker placement mixed with
24:07
not area control, but it's kind of you've also got digger placement going on with which does have not it's not
24:14
area control, but you want to be getting there to get certain types of seeds to fulfill contracts. So, it's all about
24:21
contract fulfillment really, but you do have an engine development with a board
24:27
um where you've kind of got uh these upgrades that go in a circle that when
24:32
you go fully round, you then get to um advance your action tracker. So, you get
24:39
slowly get more actions from doing it. Um you've yeah got worker placement
24:45
spaces which are to either get resources that you can upgrade and make buildings. I didn't make a single building all
24:50
game. I think I did one. Yeah, sure. Went down that route, but there seems to be like lots of different
24:55
avenues to be able to get points. Um, so it's not like a, you know, put buildings out, i.e. Lords, water deep, etc. But
25:03
you can do it. You can upgrade buildings. Um, which you then lay claim to and might give you VPs at the end
25:08
depending on what contract you fulfilled or what, uh, you can get some special cards, right, which have, uh, VPs on
25:16
depending on if you meet certain requirements. Um, you've then also got uh another bit part of the board that's
25:22
a VP multiplier by um getting is it water droplets? It's the uh you get the water um you
25:31
build bridges or you build meandering paths and depends two different Yeah, you you depends on which one you
25:37
build will depend on getting the token off the river to put it onto your board which then but then you right you have
25:42
to build your multipliers up. This is already quite a complex thing I'm talking about, but it's just this is how
25:47
it is. This is what it's like. There's lots of moving parts to it, but it's clever. You didn't necessar You could have like
25:53
chosen to maybe go wide on contracts and not build your multiplier up very much, but I tried to kind of specialize in a
25:59
certain contract um get a multiplier for it and then um get a couple of cards
26:06
that were also part of that multiplier. Um and it seemed to work quite well,
26:11
that strategy at least. But yeah, it seemed like you could either kind of go wide or tall with with what you're
26:16
doing. Um, it's based the theme is is forestry. You're basically digging up
26:21
forests and trying to be ecological by planting them again as well, which then fills up a little 3x3 is it 3x3 grid?
26:28
Yeah. Little 3x3 grid that if you're planting seeds in different areas, you basically place it and if you get a row,
26:35
you get an action. Bingo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bingo. And then if you get a column, you get something else as
26:40
well. Uh, I think that fills up your water meter if you get columns of certain things as well. So
26:46
then there's also um different tools that you can collect which is also a 3x3 grid. Was it a 4x3?
26:53
3x3 I think. I think it's 3x3. Um, but don't don't quote me on that. It might be a 4x 4x3.
27:00
No, I think you're fine, Dave. I think it's 4x3. It's a level one where you're trying to build rows. So getting different tools
27:05
and basically placing a row of tools will give you an action as well. So there's ways of like
27:12
getting kind of free actions on top of what you're doing. So it's very combo heavy. So there's 10 rounds which reset
27:18
at the first player and that kind of stays at that marker to remember who the first player was and basically you're
27:24
flipping the to the token round cuz I don't think first player really mattered too much cuz the board's quite open. You
27:30
might not be doing a workers placement space. There's a little benefit if you're one of the either first or second
27:36
to that space, but you've got such a big selection of actions. It's you're not shutting people out. The starting
27:42
contracts is kind of designed in a way that the resources you start like the trees that you start in your your
27:49
storage area is not the one that you need for the contract. So, it's kind of like everyone's got slightly different
27:54
things and you're all on a level playing field from from the off. So, and like you say, when you place at the start, it
28:00
doesn't really matter. doesn't really matter. So, yeah, it's 10 rounds. They go by quite quick. Um, but sometimes you
28:07
can have a real meaty round. It's one of those games where sometimes you have a round where you don't really do a lot, but you're building up for that bigger
28:12
round where you'll get cuz you can always spend money as well to buff, so you get extra actions. Oh,
28:18
okay. So, I take it money as your VP. Is it all No, money is a separate resource. Um, so
28:25
the resources you have in there are ones that you need to fulfill a contract which are um either some kind of
28:31
element. It's like sunshine or like Yeah. It's kind of what you're doing to the wood to prepare it. So staining
28:39
treating treatments I think they're called. Treatments. There you go. Um, and then the type of tree
28:45
and sometimes it requires multiple and some you have to like build up your storage space to be able to accommodate
28:50
for that. Um, but you can never have treatment without the wood cuz it doesn't make sense. You need to be able
28:56
to treat the wood, right? So, you have to have the wood first. So, that you get by going your digger out and digging up
29:02
that type of wood, which requires a certain amount of action points. Two action points usually gives you more wood. The one action point is usually one
29:09
wood, right? Then the treatment you can normally only get through via um worker
29:15
action uh worker action spots, which like the building. So, you're going to this building to buy some treatment for
29:20
the the the wood that you've put out, or you're getting it through special action
29:25
cards or things on your board, which might be, you know, break the normal way of you getting it. Once you fulfilled a
29:32
contract, it takes an action to fulfill the contract. So, that's another action point. Um, I think you start with four
29:38
on your is it start with three. It can go up to four and then five on your little upgrade track. Um, or you can
29:45
spend four money and get an extra action up to twice. So eight money in total get two more actions. Um so towards the end
29:52
you're getting a lot more actions as well. So toward as the game goes on you're doing a lot more. You might fulfill two contracts on one turn. Um
29:59
and the contracts sometimes give you things like resources if you fulfill the top and bottom. So usually on a contract
30:06
it's broken up. Top one's easy to fill. But if you've done it you only do the top bit that gets put aside. You won't
30:12
be get to do the bottom. But if you do all of it and fulfill all of it, you'll get the bottom benefit as well. Usually
30:18
the bottom benefit is is bigger VPs and the top has given you resources so that you can build up for those better
30:24
contracts. Uh yeah, it's a lot of moving parts of the game. Um I really enjoyed
30:29
it. It was a sleeper for me. Definitely. You guys when you went to Essence said I
30:34
said sort of what's the one that you weren't expecting to look at that looks really good and you both sort of said forestry looks like it could be a
30:41
could be a hit. And since I've looked it up and it does look like I need to give that a go. I think I'd enjoy this one.
30:47
Strangely, it has flavors of viticulture to me because you're doing the you're
30:53
doing that sort of production linees. I need to do this, then this, then this, then fulfill a contract. I need to do this, then this, and but the actual
31:00
puzzle you get to get there is very different. But it does feel it feels like it's still trying to do that production line.
31:07
I need to do these things in a certain order. Definitely. Yeah, it's more enclosed than obviously vit
31:12
culture. V culture is more a bit more bitty and separated. In this season you want to be doing this. This season you want to be doing this. This is kind of
31:17
like it's its own thing and you can do it in kind of any order other than treating the wood that you want to do it
31:24
in. Um so you might want to upgrade your your kind of uh water droplets first and
31:30
then go down your strategy. You know, it's up to you in the end of the day. So it's a little bit more freer in that
31:35
sense. Um but it's yeah, it getting the production chain going and then how
31:42
you're going to multiply VPs or how you're going to make those VPs work for you is is yeah it's kind of where the
31:48
crunch is. Um but yeah, I enjoyed it. Um so cool. Definitely play it again.
31:54
Nice one, mate. There we go. Going over to the main section.
TURN 3 - Recliner Designer
32:08
onto our main section. Recliner designer [laughter] makes zero sense because we're we're
32:14
just going to be chatting casually about our our favorite designers and some certain designers as well. Like I've got
32:21
a little list here that I'm going to go over and see if we agree with. It's not my list. It's some lists I've pulled
32:26
offline from BGG. It's the one I found as well. Yeah. It's kind of it's like the only
32:31
list that I If you Google designers, it's the one that comes up. It's the one that comes out. you did more research than I, so I'm glad you
32:39
did. We're going to talk about this first and then probably go into our favorites and then discuss them and also see if what
32:46
kind of collabs we would like to see. So, but before before you go in it though. Yeah. I've just got to press the button
32:51
on my sofa. Okay. [laughter] Yeah. In recliner mode. Recliner mode. Mine's a Mine's a like old P handle [laughter] like a lazy boy.
32:59
It's like douche. Yeah. Now we reclined. Now we're reclined. Design. Now we're reclined. So
33:05
get ready. You got the power headrests on your sofa as well? No, no, I haven't got the pop-up ones. No, I've got I've got a You got to
33:10
manually go. [snorts] Oh, okay. I've got the power ones. Mr. Bgeo.
33:18
Right. So, now we're getting to the recliner position and we're going to talk about our favorite designers.
33:24
This is getting sideted off the podcast at this point. [laughter] We totally get it.
Uwe Rosenberg
33:31
So, at number one, this guy's got Uve Rosenberg. So, who
33:38
I'm joking? I'm joking. Yeah, I was joking. I know who he is.
33:43
Um, no, I thought I thought it said the name wrong. I was wrong. No, you got it right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's the design where
33:50
I can't say his game correctly, so you know. So true. It's It'd be apt if I get his name wrong
33:56
as well. Yes. Um, yeah. Yeah. So, we we all kind of know and I'm guessing I I see why he's
34:02
probably put him as the top designer, but I also probably don't agree with that, but I can see why.
34:09
I He's not my favorite designer, but I have a lot of respect for his designs.
34:16
In fact, I own a fair amount of his games, and they're still in my collection. I probably play more of his games than I
34:22
have any other like designer as well. Yeah. Of of a type. Like I've probably played like what 12 14 of his games.
34:30
Yeah. Easy. Um and for me to play so many I can see
34:35
why he's made the top list. Yeah. He's he's an OG, isn't he? He's one of the first big Euro game designers who
34:42
kind of got known for something other than just cranking out Carcasson repeatedly for instance. You know, he
34:48
got known for designing different games. It's probably help that's probably helped in the fact that I've played so many is
34:53
because there are so many as well. Right. There are and what he seems to do is kind of follow like a little like
35:01
some people have the same thing through all of their games and some people are just complete like chameleons like all their games feel very different. What
35:07
Uve seems to do, and a few of the designers do actually, but Uve seems to be very good at it, is they'll kind of go, "Right, I've started with this, then
35:14
I'm going to adapt, adapt, adapt." Right? That's like four of the similarish games. Right? Now, I'm going to move on to something. I'm going to go
35:20
and get a wheel in my games, and now I'm going to design two or three games that have a wheel in it. And
35:26
there's usually a core concept with him, right? Yeah. So usually it's there is either
35:31
some kind of re there's definitely resource management, a lot of resource always and those resources sometimes don't deviate
35:38
much between what kind of game it is. They're similar resources other than maybe his puzzle games.
35:44
I was going to say he's got deviate from that. It's the weird That's the like the New York um zoo and and patchwork and all
35:50
that stuff are kind of the they're the sort of exceptions that prove the rule, aren't they?
35:55
Yeah. They're the ones that if you didn't know it was UV, could you actually tell it was Uve? Only ignore
36:01
the artwork because you could probably tell from the artwork, right? Because there's a certain style that seemed to have followed him for quite a while.
36:07
Um, yeah, she's your France Clemens in the artwork that does a lot of the Lookout Uve games for sure. Similar feel.
36:15
So, if you ignored the artwork, you probably wouldn't be able to tell that those games were
36:21
his as such, right? Because they're more puzzly in nature. But his core games usually had like a this is a some sort
36:27
of resource conversion. This is there's usually some sort of breeding quite often.
36:32
There's usually breeding and some sort of feeding and some sort of feeding. Keep people fed wise people get
36:38
there's nearly always asymmetric cards with lots of text on them. Yeah. Yes. Who would you like to see a
36:43
collab with eBay? Yeah. Who do you think you would work with really well? [sighs]
36:50
That's a question, isn't it? Um, so mine probably would, and I'll go back to this later as well, but I think
36:56
weirdly he might cuz they're so different in style, but some of their core like they're both like a wheel is a
37:04
uh Sim Simone Luchani. Simone, well, he is the king of partnering with
37:10
people. If you look up his games, I think there's only one that's on his own. All the rest he's partnered with
37:16
someone, even if it's just kind of well, they've supported or he's supported or whatever.
37:24
at least one other person but there's always another person nearly
37:31
always another person so if you want to pair him with everyone else on this list I think you could get away with it he he
37:38
seems to like and obviously works well with others cuz he seems to enjoy working with other people and a lot of his games do have a wheel
37:45
in so maybe they could join and and well I mean rats rats of with barrage. Um, so yeah, I think maybe
37:53
those two and you can make quite a tight or labor style game. I would like it.
37:59
But yeah, how about you guys? Is there anyone that comes to mind or not really? Not really with u. It's hard for me to
38:05
think, oh, it'd be quite interesting to pay him with such and such. But yeah, I
38:10
I find that he hasn't. I know I know on Plantanubo his name is on the box, but
38:16
it's not his design. I think he either collaborated, de helped develop or do something with it.
38:21
Same with Lowlands. He kind of put his stamp, he sort of gave it a once over and went, "Yeah, that looks like a kind of game I would like." And then kind of
38:28
put his name to it or sort of endorsed it at least. I still really want to play Lowlands as
38:33
well. Drown sheep. I want to drown some sheep. You want some dams and you want some sheep. That's your game, baby.
38:39
Um but yeah, I can't think of one. Um if one pops up that I think that would be quite unique. Yeah, maybe we go through
38:45
the list and see and then you be like, "Oh, actually when we ask who would collab with them," you'd be like, "Oh,
38:50
might collab with them." I did say a long time ago that actually
38:55
[snorts] if you went with the Terraforming Mars developers, so we could do Terraforming Mars. There we go.
39:02
And and have a have a collab that way. But yeah, it's purely for the P. If you were here, you could have seen
39:07
Adrian's soul leave his body. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not Mars, it's hexagons, but it's fields. Adrian reclined himself into a different
39:14
dimension. [laughter] Anyway, right. So, moving on. And this
Reiner Knizia
39:19
is like the granddaddy of ball games, right? It's Raina Kitsa. Oh, good old Kitsia.
39:25
Mainly because he's made so many games. He has. One of the quiz questions was like, how
39:30
many games has he made? And everyone kind of lowalled it compared to what? Yeah. Yeah. I think we worked out he he created one
39:37
every 3 minutes. Yeah. That was a Dice Tower joke, wasn't it? Where it was like he turned around and
39:42
he went, "I've just created four games." He went, "All right, okay. One second." Sort of turned away and went back and I've designed 12 games. What? Turned
39:49
around. I've designed 34 games. Well, how are you doing this? It's a self-perpetuating games machine.
39:54
Yeah. And when I say quiz, it was at the one of the Fox and Hounds ones. Yeah. Yes.
40:01
So, Joel came out with this question and we were just like, "Nah, no way you gave me that."
40:06
I think we given four options and one of them was a ridiculous amount and everyone was like, "No, that's like Yeah. ball game every three minutes."
40:12
Even for him that's too many. It was that figure. I can't remember what it was now. A lot. Yeah.
40:18
Yeah. I like uh I haven't played loads of uh his games. The one that sticks out
40:24
proportionally you played a very small Yeah. Proportionally I've played 0.005% 005% of his game catalog, but the one
40:31
that I've enjoyed the most is Rebirth. Yes, for sure. It's the one that I go, a it's
40:36
just really cool and cozy and lovely. I really like Rebirth. So, I think for me, Kitia's kind of
40:42
again got two styles. He's got auction games and some of those are probably his more classic ones.
40:48
Um, so Val, what's it called? Zuardis.
40:53
Zard Zard. Yeah, that's the most recent one. The one before it was called he's had he's like the two big ones are
40:59
RAW and either for sale or art something or other. Yeah, it's an art
41:05
sales game and they're kind of the ones that I think people know of. Uh like Yeah, modern art.
41:11
That's it. It's not art Neil Buchanan is it? So you've got that and then you have hexes with exciting pathways and
41:18
interactions. So, Babylonia and um the most recent one which is like Babylonia.2
41:24
which we played I played um which is like a yellow and Yangy thing we've like done Rebirth
41:31
Rebirth. There you go. Rebirth is like Babylonia 2.0. I've done Cascadia. No, not Cascadia.
41:36
Cascadero. Cascadero. Um I've played that as well and I feel like I've played another one of the Hex
41:44
games of his but I can't remember. But then you play Babylonia with me? No. cuz I own it. No. Yeah. No, but I'm aware of it. But
41:51
they're definitely feel like his games, not entirely, but mostly kind of fit into those categories, which is here's
41:58
how to do auctions, but different. And here's how to do hex's with interesting
42:04
interactions. And it's not just about sort of dudes on a map or or um area
42:11
control in a specific way. It's about creating cool interactions of how do I put that hex down that does something
42:17
different sort of thing or creates a bit of difference um like creates a a unique interaction
42:25
that you haven't seen yet in this kind of game. They seem to be his two divides and I've enjoyed as I say I enjoyed Ra.
42:31
I'm not really much of an auction person so I haven't tried the others and the few sort of hex games I've played of his I've enjoyed as well. I really want to
42:38
play uh Zuardis or was it the other one? It's I think it's Quo Quo Vardis is the
42:44
the original. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, Zuardis was like the updated version, but apparently it's meant to be better cuz it's it's got a
42:50
little bit more leeway, whereas the other one uh Qo I can't remember how to pronounce it,
42:56
but um yeah, it's I do want to play that game because it does look up my alley. Um but
43:01
again, it's one of those where I think you need the right group of people to play it with. Yeah, like Hang definitely
43:07
needs, which say is is sort of a reiteration of a reiteration. Um, but
43:13
that definitely needs people who are willing to kind of get in each other's
43:18
faces a little bit and sort of you need to kind of have a bit of a thick skin playing it. Yeah.
43:23
Um, but they're quite interactive for multiplayer games, which he's he's good with. Yes.
43:29
It's like cascadero is about joining up hex's going from one to the other that's on the board and you you know that at
43:36
some point someone's going to cut across your route and stuff. So it's about then making those choices or am I going to be
43:42
mean and cut off that route even though it doesn't really probably benefit me much and all those kind of interactions
43:47
are quite cool as well. Yeah. Yeah. Which rebirth and Babylonia do as well. So yeah, it works.
43:53
Def. There's Cory Connies um who has made Twilight Imperium.
Corey Konieczka
44:00
Yeah, legend. Star Wars Rebellion. Another legend. Star Wars Imperial Assault. The top
44:06
games listed. Fantasy flight games. Starcraft. But yeah, he's was like a
44:11
real fantasy flight games guy. Yeah. Um he's up there. I can understand why
44:16
cuz I mean he's done some classics there. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a very specific
44:22
flavor. You have to like that game cuz he would not make my as much as I've kind of enjoyed
44:27
Star Wars Rebellion and Imperial Assault and all that lot. It would nowhere near make my top 20 30 designers.
44:33
You have to be very specifically into those. I've played a lot of his games and that's obviously because I'm into those
44:39
get those games. So, I can understand why he's up there. Again, he probably wouldn't be on my top five even though I
44:45
really enjoy all of the games that he's made. Um, couple I haven't played. Starcraft, never played. Um, but yeah, I
44:53
uh he would definitely be be up there for me. I I just there's a certain
44:59
tension at the table with Twilight Imperium. Um, I don't play enough to play it with people who are like
45:05
religiously play it, who know all the combos, who know what faction should take what strategy.
45:12
Don't religiously play it. But I like getting uh beer and pretzels grouped together and you know playing Twilight
45:18
Imperium now and again. I think it's the game that will touch the table once a year. Yeah, he he's a designer that I would
45:26
kind of liken to more of a arcade style game if that makes any sense in a board
45:31
game. So it's kind of like it's not something I'll go uh for for a heavy crunchy Euro experience. It's just is a
45:39
designer that kind of creates that kind of arcadey feel. So, you know, I think that's why fantasy flight games in their
45:45
heyday pretty much had a lot of games designed by him. I think he probably involved with most of them within the the between
45:52
2010 2020 kind of era when I got in cuz I think I remember seeing his name on many a rule book and box.
45:58
Um, and I own Twilight Imperium and I own Rebellion and others. So, I'm sure he did did Descent stuff as
46:05
well, right? I'm pretty sure that if he didn't do it, he was probably involved somewhere. Um, so
46:11
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, there we go. That one's um another one. But
46:16
yeah, as I said, not our list. Not our list. Yeah. But we're just going to discuss some
46:22
devs and you guys might put it in a completely different order, but here's another one that's probably up in
Stefan Feld
46:28
Adrian's list anyway. Um and it probably, you know, this I haven't played enough of his games to formulate
46:34
an opinion, but Stefan Failed. Yep. Yeah. Um Castles of Burgundy. Obviously, I really
46:40
enjoy Castles of Burgundy. That was that was a real surprise for me cuz I didn't know I was kind of on the fence of
46:45
whether I'm going to enjoy it cuz it seemed like there was a lot of randomness with it. But when you actually play it,
46:51
there are there's a lot of strategic elements to negate these this randomness and also there's very cool powers what
46:59
buildings you put out. It's it's very it's structured really well. Yeah. And I it's it's a classic for a reason.
47:05
Yeah. I I think again I don't feel like I've played enough, but he is I will
47:10
struggle when you ask me what my top five designers are because I don't really follow designers in that respect. I don't
47:16
I don't consider if I've liked one of them that I'll probably like the rest. I just don't feel that way normally about games.
47:22
Um but Feld, the ones I have played have all been pretty good. I I'm Berlin was great as well.
47:28
Yeah, I say I enjoyed Hamburg. I need another play of it. I was watching an Amsterdam playthrough and was like, I
47:33
probably need to get this game. I've heard really great things about some of his city series. Traan is another one which like looks
47:41
beige, but I think I'd really enjoy it. Um, and I am pretty sure that that guy just sort of sits staring at a die
47:48
and sort of like in like the thinkers sort of position and how do I roll you and yet not use you
47:54
really fully for your rolled, you know, like kind of how do I do something interesting and different with you this
47:59
time sort of thing. closed palm, chin [laughter] on chin on top of the the knuckles with the dye
48:05
staring just staring [laughter] at it. Yeah, that's how I feel. He probably designs games with maps in the distance as well. Maybe
48:11
just looking at some cities. Oh, yeah. Oh, which one? Haven't done Bristol yet. [laughter]
48:17
Interesting. But he seems to always he likes a point salad game. He does.
48:23
In fact, I think he like all of the ones I've seen of his have been pretty much point salad. Um obviously um the one
48:29
game of his I have not got on with at all was C evolution. Um I love his civil bounced off
48:35
completely. But I think it's again I think it's because it puts too much onto that die roll whereas what he normally
48:42
does is make sure that there's better mitigation than I found. So I think there is mitigation in this game.
48:47
I just don't think it's enough. I think there is. Personally for me, there was not I had too many bad rolls in a row to
48:53
then go, well, this doesn't feel like a normal failed game. But again, I know there's plenty of people who love it.
48:59
But he definitely likes a point salad game. Even Civolution was a point salad to some extent%.
49:05
And he board game I probably ever played in some aspect.
49:10
And he also likes dice that you roll and then normally sit
49:15
on one side of the board or a used kind of as your as your turn but then loads
49:22
of mitigation or lots of options of what you can do with those dice.
49:28
Yeah. Yeah. I think I like it for it because it's for me again civil evolution beside
49:34
from what I've played it's a nice mix of strategy and tactics. Yeah. You want to play Bora Bor?
49:40
No. No. I wanted to play Bora Borrow as well, but Yeah. You want to borrow borrow it?
49:46
I want to borrow borrow into it. Yeah. Oh, borrow. Okay. Borrow borrow. No, I think I think Stephen Feld games
49:53
for me. It's hard to say they don't do it for me cuz I've played it hardly any of them.
49:59
You've enjoyed everyone you've played. Castle the Burgundy is a great game. No, hands down. Can't really fault it as a
50:06
game. It's a great experience. Um, Civolution. I really enjoyed it when I played it. Played it a few times and I'm
50:13
not in the same place with that game as I was. Okay. Um, not to say I hate it. I still play
50:19
it anytime. I still enjoy it. Um, I don't know. There's just something about the games I have played. I'm not like
50:26
itching to play them again. Um, you know, that's and I don't know why. It's probably a bit like with some
50:32
of the designers of other people and you go, "Yeah, it was fun. It was great." But it's just maybe it's just not my
50:38
cognitive hasn't got the hook. Yeah. And um but I don't know why.
50:43
Maybe you don't like dice. Maybe I hate dice. I know that's not true. I dest I mean he needs to throw too many bones
50:50
in a lake then if that's the case. I hate if I hate dice then I have to basically write off dice.
50:57
Pip. Bloody pips. Bloody pips. Bloody pips. But no. Too many dice. Too many too many dice. [laughter]
51:02
Too many bones doesn't have any pips. No, it does not. But I I would play more and maybe there is a fa out there that
51:10
that really grips me like to the point where I'm have to own cuz I don't own any.
51:15
So I I want to try more every cuz again I've enjoyed all of his apart from that one. So yeah, never say never.
51:22
Yeah. I'm going to put another disclaimer in here as well. This is an older list. So [laughter]
51:27
the problem is with new developers up and coming, right, is they're not they haven't made enough to to kind of make a
51:33
list. A lot of the developers we love and like sometimes are, you know, not one hit wonders, but are recently
51:39
into the game, so they haven't had that time to uh design. No.
51:45
Uh there's next one is Bruno Carthala. Katala. Yeah.
Bruno Cathala
51:51
Catala. Yeah. I've not heard of him. Bruno Catala. You would have heard of his games, would I?
51:56
Yes. Uh 71 is Jewel. I've heard of that. Yeah. which he's already partnered with cuz he partnered with um Antoine Bowser.
52:05
Yeah, I've heard of him. Yeah. [snorts] Mhm. Five Tribes. I've heard of that. And Cades Cardich.
52:13
Yeah. And Cichlides. Okay. Which you've heard of as well. I've heard of them. Yeah. Yeah. But and then then there's also
52:18
Abyss. Um Abyss is good. I enjoyed Abyss. And I mean I've not heard of The Little
52:24
Prince Make Me a Planet. Haven't you heard of that? was a kids game obviously cuz The Little Prince is like is a book,
52:29
right? I don't know. Yeah, I think so. Take word for it. And [laughter] Cleopatra and the Society of Architects.
52:35
Yeah. Which I've not heard of before. I So they they famously did a massive
52:40
big box reprint that didn't sell very well and now it's in every sale ever. And I keep looking at it and going, "Well, this is a light to medium weight
52:47
game that takes up the same space as the base Apex Legends box." Oh wow. I'm not sure that I need to own
52:55
a light to midweight game. It's a bit like Foundations of Rome, isn't it? I don't need to know that I need to own
53:00
this massive box for what is a light to midweight game, but I am intrigued to try it.
53:05
It's the crunch to space ratio that we all concerned about. I'm definitely definitely concerned about that.
53:11
If it takes me 2 hours to set it up and it takes me half an hour to play, then do I do I want this game? I mean, it's cool. It comes with like a
53:17
little palace that like it's a bit like um Dice Forge in the fact that kind of you put the box out and it becomes part of
53:23
the board sort of thing and it's got the little towers along it and it looks impressive but I know that it's not even
53:29
a medium weight game sort of thing. So I wouldn't even put Bruno on my list in all honesty. The games that are there
53:35
for me um are not my favorites and I've not played half of them. So there's obviously a reason why
53:40
I didn't know who he was. So, I've enjoyed a lot of his games that I've played, but again, there's there's
53:45
not always the most cohesive. There's kind of there's a bit of drafting quite often in a lot of his games that I've
53:51
played. Um, but beyond that, I can't tell. So, Abyss is is like quite cool
53:57
because it's I pull a card out and then it's do you want it? Do you want it? Do
54:03
you want it? Do I want it? And if someone doesn't buy it, then we kind of move on to the next card. And there's
54:09
it's an exciting way of drafting. And I think the same with sort of you look at like seven wonders jewel and stuff like
54:14
that. There's some exciting things he's doing with drafting in the games I've played. But apart from that, I couldn't
54:20
really tell you kind of what his MMO is sort of thing in games. You know,
54:26
you look at Five Tribes and again that's drafting colors off a board. Yeah. And it's just full of Again, I think I'd
54:32
hate that game because it's just lots of wooden meeples on a board.
54:37
Just a complete sea of colors. So, I don't think that would interact well with my brain and the way it works. But, there is cool drafting stuff in all the
54:44
stuff I've either seen or played of theirs, but I don't know if that's all the way through the games enough to make it his kind of thing that he does.
54:51
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Uh, then we're going on to the next one. Um, number
Eric M.Lang
54:57
five, Eric M. Lang. Eric Lang. [clears throat] Eric Lang. Yeah. So,
55:02
I mean, this is like it's got Marvel United. Um there's a load of big games
55:08
here in some XCOM. Yeah. Did the famous trilogy of
55:14
Blood Rage Rising. And before that, the precursor to that, Chaos in the Old World.
55:19
Chaos in the Old. What a game. Chaos in the Old World is. I love that game. Talking about that literally with the
55:25
the previous guest that we had on the show. That's one of his favorite games. Oh, I I do like Chaos of the Old World. It's just
55:32
I've played it. I need to play it. Um, so Liam Liam owns it. Okay.
55:38
I I don't know whether he sold it on by now, but yeah, I know he did own it, so used to play it quite a lot.
55:44
But um I think the only game of his that I haven't Well, Marvel United was one, but
55:50
I it didn't feel like a lot of his other dudes on a map sort of games, which is what he's got kind of famous for.
55:55
Yeah. Yeah. But I'm pretty sure he also did the um Song of Ice and Fire miniature game.
56:03
which is unfortunately slightly broken now, but when it came out it was really good and a really different twist on the
56:09
miniature game idea. Um cuz it had a politics board. So you either took your turn on the main map or
56:15
you took your turn on a politics board which quite often affected the main map. So it kind of created this cool
56:22
Yeah. like alternating system. Um Rising Sun is another one that looks
56:28
really good. I'd hate on a map. How do you hate it? absolutely hated son. So again, it's the
56:33
middle of the trilogy. Um, and when it came out, it was one of the first bigger
56:38
Kickstarters where it's like, "Oh, here's all of these like not not gods, but sort of mystical creatures and all
56:44
that kind of stuff that you put on the board and you don't know what half of them do until they come out." And they did a they did a remaster version
56:50
recently, haven't they, with rising sun, I think. Possibly. I think they did. I was I was around for day one when my friend backed
56:56
it put it on the table and I think half the table clear bounced off that but the other half fell in love with it
57:03
so much that they bought it every week in hope of playing it. So [laughter] I think it's I think a lot of his games
57:08
are divisive in that way of you either love these dudes on the map games or you don't like them at all. It looks like he hasn't made a game in a
57:14
while as well. Cthulu Death May Die was the last one that he's made which again is supposed to be quite popular, isn't it?
57:20
Yeah, it it is. But again, it's that it's a weird take because you kind of want to be suffering damage and and
57:26
becoming a bit insane to boost up your powers. So, it's that balancing act of kind of balancing your powers versus taking the
57:33
damage, for lack of better term. Yeah. Um but yeah, he's done he's done he's still going. He just he slowed down, I
57:39
think, in his design. Yeah. I have a lot of respect for Eric Lang because he made XCOM and XCOM was
57:44
the game that got me into the hobby. So if if he had have made XCOM
57:50
different or I bounced off that game, who knows? It's only played XCOM once and it was a
57:57
it was just a a mess if I'm honest of when we played it cuz it's cuz it's timed.
58:03
Yeah. Oh yeah. It's it it's it's it's unique in in how it works. But you know,
58:08
so I have to give him props for that cuz it's like it sucked me into the hobby. Yeah. Um, but Blood Rage
58:16
I found was a bit meh. Yes. Yeah, I found that way as well. It It wasn't bad, but it wasn't amazing.
58:23
But then some I mean Tambber Tambber really likes it. He really likes it. So it's just I don't know for me, but then it's dude doody
58:29
dude map game is like pure dudes on a map, isn't it? It's less offensive than Rising Sun and
58:34
that's why I think I got on with it slightly better, but I didn't like it either. So yeah. So I think it's probably more his
58:40
style of games has not matched my mine really. Yeah, which is fair enough. And sorry I was wrong. Ank looks like
58:46
his last game he made. Oh, was it? Okay, that's the end of the trilogy, didn't they? Well, Cthulhu Death May Day had a
58:52
expansion two years ago. Yeah. So maybe just building on the games cuz I think Rising Sun did as
58:57
well. Yeah, I think I they might have done a reprint, but I don't think they produced Rising Sun for a while, but who knows?
59:03
Anyway, who knows? Um, who's next? Sorry, that was pre that was he was number six. So, this on to number seven is uh Vlad Chhatel.
Vlaada Chvatil
59:12
Oh, yeah. Good old Vlad. Um, Through the Ages, Mage Knight, Code
59:17
Names. They're kind of his biggest ones. Space trucker. Galaxy Trucker. Yeah. So, I actually really like his games. I
59:24
didn't realize he designed them though. Yeah, he's uh I think Didn't he do Space Alert? Space Alert. Yeah, maybe
59:32
possibly. Space Alert. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dungeon Lords. Yeah. Um,
59:38
I think he's got a few. He's got a few titles that I wouldn't mind trying actually. I mean, Mage Knight for me, I not for me. I really
59:46
enjoyed Mage Knight. Yeah. Um, which is fine, which is good. I'm glad I played it. I'm glad I tried it. Not for me. Through the Ages, I
59:54
think it's a great game, but it's better as a app. Digital. I'll only play digital version is 10 time there.
59:59
There's there's so much admin that you have to do with through the ages that just works on the app.
1:00:06
that app handle this. But it's it's an amazing game, right? It is good. It is good. Um but yeah,
1:00:11
whereas if someone gets the admin down, you could probably you can knock it out, but otherwise it's a very long game,
1:00:17
which doesn't feel like it needs to be in some aspect. Yeah. Um but yeah, it is like
1:00:24
it's it's a true Civ game in in that aspect where you take a civilization, you build up from the core, and you go
1:00:30
through the ages. Yeah. You get it to the end and away you go. But yeah, so again, he's another designer where I've not played loads and
1:00:36
loads and loads of his titles. Um, Space Alert intrigues me cuz I think you you play as Star Trek
1:00:43
real time like you're all in reacting to everything going on in space and shaky camera work as you get hit by
1:00:50
photon torpedoes. Yeah. All of that nonsense. So yeah, alert alert. Yeah. Space.
1:00:56
Yeah. I think you used to put a CD on or something like that. I'm sure it was something like that where you used to be
1:01:02
able to have a video like a backing like atmosphere like kind of not quite but yeah it used to have kind of pre
1:01:08
I'm pretty sure there was an option like those old murder mysteries where you used to put it on the TV and they'd have to put a DVD in right and there'd
1:01:15
be someone sitting in an armchair going hello welcome to this house and then he
1:01:20
would go through it games yeah yeah they were they were the best quality
1:01:27
back in my day this is what it sounds like we're going down now. But
1:01:32
nostalgia, but yeah. Okay. It's that's a solid pick. Yeah. No arguments there.
1:01:37
None of it's going to interest me. None of it. No, none of them. It's really weird because I'm sure I would probably like them and
1:01:44
I've never games. I've I've never played. So, I won it at the raffle, but again, it's a team game that I'm not sure how I'd get on with it
1:01:51
or my group would get on with it. Party game really. There's just literally and it's not that I've kind of
1:01:56
gone, "Oh, that is one of his games. I'm not playing it." It's just that every time I've looked at a game, no. And then
1:02:02
someone will go, "Oh, you know, that's Well, they're all quite different. I couldn't I wouldn't Yeah, there's not there's not enough
1:02:08
there's not a natural linking mechanic or any design that you'd be go, oh yeah, that's
1:02:14
Yeah, they're just none of them are sort of Euro games, are they? But apart from that, Major Knight,
1:02:20
I've not played it. Oh, yeah. So it's it's a dungeon crawler. That's a sorry it's a euro
1:02:26
that's disguised as a dungeon crawler, but it is pretty much euro, right? Okay.
1:02:31
Definitely. It's very deterministic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and then number eight,
Simone Luciani
1:02:37
this is I spoke about him earlier actually. Simone Luchani. Okay.
1:02:43
Um so Zulkin. Yeah. Barrage.
1:02:49
Yep. Voyages of Marco Polo. Yeah. Um, I forgot about that. Lorenzo, you've
1:02:54
got that, haven't you? I love Marco Polo. It is a quality game. They're doing a reprint remaster still.
1:03:00
So, the one I've got is a second edition already. Oh, they're doing another one, though. They're doing another one. Yeah, I don't blame them. It's a
1:03:05
nice game. It's one of my top games, even though Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about it. Grand Austria Hotel's always been on my
1:03:12
list to try. I'm with you. This is one I'm like, I think I'm going to like that one.
1:03:18
Yeah. So, typically I don't like these games. They're designed for you to get in each other's way. Like you have to almost all
1:03:26
of them are designed that you have to get in each other's way. And like normally to a big detriment, but there's
1:03:32
a handful of those. So like Lorenzo, Marco Polo, they're a little bit less
1:03:37
that. Yeah. Marco Polo, you don't really get in each other's way at all actually. You you claim stuff,
1:03:44
isn't it? So it's sort of that race game there that still shows that DNA of what he likes to do which is create slightly
1:03:50
mean game all the way up to very mean game the mean. Yeah. And obviously um
1:03:56
one person will have a hissy fit every game of barrage. Did you do Nucleium? Nucleium. Yeah. Did Nucleium with David.
1:04:02
That is that is a total like getting each way and and so I just don't like a
1:04:08
lot of those games but Grand Austria Hotel's been on my list for ages to try. Just haven't. I still want to try Rat of
1:04:14
War as well. Uh cuz that looks looks looked really good when we went to Essen a couple years ago and yeah, missed that
1:04:21
one, didn't we? We still haven't played it. Yeah. Well, we played was it another one of his or did he do he do Anunnaki?
1:04:27
Um someone on my list I was looking at. He did do Anaki. Yes. And I think they were on the same stand and we chose to play Anunnaki.
1:04:33
We did. Yeah. And Darwin's Journey. I kind of bounced off that one. I wasn't a fan.
1:04:39
No, I wasn't a fan. It's one of the few. It's hard to tell you why I wasn't that fan, but I kind of played it and just
1:04:44
went, I'm happy if I don't play that again. Yeah. And I don't know why. We just designed a lot with the Italian
1:04:50
mafia as well, right? Cuz he's Italian himself. Um that is kind of the name for that ball game group though cuz there's
1:04:56
a group of designers that like to work with each other and they've collabed quite a few times like
1:05:01
separate of each other and then obviously with each other as well. Anyone who designs Lorenzo or
1:05:07
Magnificico is all right in my book because that's just a staple. It's a game I don't think I'll ever get rid of
1:05:12
and and the expansion's really mean as we've proved before. Well, the the Paty Conspiracy can excuse
1:05:19
my French, but off. Um the massive argument at the table
1:05:24
that mini expansion is can stay in the box. But the Houses of Renaissance always will play with
1:05:31
that one. So yeah, as as a game and as a system, it's brilliant. The mean one, Curly found a really
1:05:36
broken combo. I'm sure we spoke about it before, but now milked it.
1:05:42
Milked that combo and milking everyone's points. It was like real feel bad moment. It was like, oh, we're just
1:05:47
everyone's just losing points. Great. It's like a leech. We can't stop it. It's just leeching off like three or
1:05:54
four other players all at once. It was that that tactic there just two other
1:06:00
people probably wouldn't have worked as well but because we were playing at the full five as well and it was like oh god
1:06:06
and barrage I love like barrage is one of my top games. I love that game like obviously I love food chain magnet as
1:06:13
well but no one will play that with me. Um, but and barrage I can kind of get it
1:06:18
to the table now and again, but some sometimes and I've had games like when when I'm playing barrage where I go,
1:06:23
"Oh, I'm screwed here. Rough." The last time we played, Martin absolutely screwed us and I was like, "Oh, I can't
1:06:29
do anything." But that's how I felt about Nucleium as well when my playthrough of Nucleium was I've
1:06:35
picked a thing up cuz I have to. I can't complete it. Game's done. But for me,
1:06:40
for some reason, that game it's you've those lows actually like build up bigger
1:06:47
highs when I play and I'm doing really well because it's it's kind of like a big middle finger to everyone else at the table, which
1:06:53
if you've experienced the lows as well as the highs, you can see where the game is. Like you you kind of understand
1:06:59
where you go, yeah, I've had a bad game at this, but like I know that when next time I know where my mistakes are and I
1:07:06
can kind of try and rectify it. It's not it's not especially with barrage as such. It's not pure luck. It is
1:07:11
placement and trying to cut people out which rewards you the more you play it,
1:07:16
right? But I can understand with a counterbalance why people then bounce off. Again, it's kind of got to be not a
1:07:22
lifestyle game, but it's got to be a game you play regularly enough with a [clears throat] group that are also the
1:07:27
same experience level as you. And I think that makes it a tough I think it's a it's my toughest game
1:07:33
that I own that I will never sell to get to the table. Yeah, I think I think with uh Nucleium I had that roller coaster
1:07:41
moment with it, but I think I've played it enough now to know not to get myself on a culdeac with that game. There were
1:07:47
ways to to not do it, but it's just a tough lesson, isn't it? But it is a tough lesson and it, you know, when I played barrage and I
1:07:53
tilted, it's the only game that's tilted me properly that I just wanted to go, you know what, you. I'm going to
1:07:59
walk away and just Yeah. Everyone fell at the table. We were like this. It doesn't happen to me. But this game
1:08:05
just did something to me where it was like, you know, he took my my kids hostage or something and I was having a similar game, but it was
1:08:12
one of those where I've experienced that barrage before. So, I was like, you know what? I'm going to sweep under the roof.
1:08:17
I don't know why I'm tired this. I don't know. But, well, no, I've had it with games as well. I do understand. But I will play it again.
1:08:23
I did say this. I will give it another go. Yeah. Uh cuz I want to get the expansion. There's there's certain things that open
1:08:29
the game up a little more with expansion and stuff where there's different maps that are a little like more forgiving
1:08:35
and I think there are ways to mitigate that bad feeling of the the core original.
1:08:41
So, fair enough. Yeah. All right. All right. Moving on down to number nine.
Wolfgang Kramer
1:08:48
I've not played one of his games. Who is it? Wolf Gang Kramer. Heard of him.
1:08:53
Uh Wolf Gang V or Kramer. Kramer. Kramer El Grande.
1:09:00
Oh, I have played that. The Princess The Princes or Florence. Yeah. Tical. Mhm.
1:09:06
I mean, again, if you want to talk about a pairing, Keling and Kramer basically design everything together.
1:09:12
Like 90% of the games that they do are together. Did they do Paris? I take this back. There was one game I've played of his which was I played on
1:09:19
stream. Coliseum. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Played that. Yeah. Yeah. We played that. That was a
1:09:24
good little bidding game. It's actually one of the better bidding games I ever played. Was Keling and Kramer. Did they
1:09:30
do Paris together? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Not played it, but I nearly had that game for some reason. But
1:09:35
played Palace as a Kurara. Yes. That was nice. Yeah. Like but again, it's not it's not a duo
1:09:42
cuz they it basically is a duo. It's not a duo of designers that I've really spent a lot of time with their games.
1:09:49
No, I don't think any of our group have, which is why day is the only one I played at full board gaming and you spoke about it and
1:09:56
it was great. I thought it was for an old game. I had a blast with it. I thought it's like the mcdaddy of of dudes on the
1:10:03
map. Yeah. But it's a dudes on the map game that I found really kind of interesting
1:10:08
in how it was doing it rather than going I'm coming to invade you and it was just really like clever.
1:10:14
But it's it's one of the earliest of that type, you know. So it's great. I I think that was a good game. But um
1:10:20
and I I really like Coliseum the they're remaking it. Yes. The uh the the event um management
1:10:27
event management bidding bidding cuz uh me JP Rick and Paul played that on a a
1:10:32
stream. We did. And it for a bidding game it was quite
1:10:37
cuz there was a lot of tra they had trading phases as well as a bidding phase afterwards. Um so it was quite deterministic cuz you know what was
1:10:44
there when you were bidding on it and you then had a trade phase. So, you could take, even though you didn't have
1:10:49
a choice of sometimes what to take, you could then um be like, "Oh, I won't bid
1:10:55
or I will bid on it cuz I know someone else needs it and they're going to want to trade with it with me later." So,
1:11:01
that's still valuable. It's not valuable for me me, but it's valuable for someone else. And that's what I quite liked
1:11:07
about that is there wasn't such a dead bid. Yeah. Um even if sometimes you weren't going
1:11:13
to bid on something, there was always something else at the table you could bid for. So, I did enjoy that and it
1:11:18
seems like he's kind of designed a lot of bidding games. Um, so maybe there's a
1:11:23
mechanic there to see. Um, please tell us. Yeah, cuz we obviously don't get a lot of his
1:11:28
games to the table. No. Moving on. We do get a lot of these games to the table. Who is it?
Vital Lacerda
1:11:34
Vital Lerta. Number two. Don't I don't know who he is. Who is that guy?
1:11:40
I'm a lot higher up the list for me. Oh, 100%. got to play on Mars recently.
1:11:46
You did? Yeah. Really enjoyed that uh at Grid. Don't play his games enough. We had a
1:11:52
little spate where we played a lot of them. Yeah. We have a phase of it where we go, "Right, I play this and then I get like
1:11:58
his kept back catalog in the in the events list and we just churn through them, but it has been a while.
1:12:03
Inventions. Inventions. I want to get that to well like to play that again soon cuz that I really
1:12:10
enjoyed. Weather Machine still up there for me. I'll always play weather machine. Good. I just Yeah, I I really like them.
1:12:17
You know, Liz B is one of my favorite ever games ever. Not much to say on VTail. Really? Is there Is there any collabs do you think
1:12:23
he'd be good with? I am going to ask that question for Vale. Yeah, for me he's ty. You think him and Ty happening
1:12:30
and it's happening. I think his mind is so cuz his designs typically are here's the gameplay loop
1:12:37
that you need to be in. Don't fall off the wheel. You need to stay on it. And it's a complex loop as
1:12:43
well. It's not like a simple loop of sort of It's like a penny faring. Yeah. [laughter]
1:12:48
Is it like Heml Hamster roundabouts? Yes. You've got a roundabout of roundabouts.
1:12:54
A Swindon, isn't it? Yeah. Swindon Magic roundabout. Yeah, the magic roundabout. Swindon. Exactly. It's like that
1:13:00
and details magic roundabout. And it But that's what it is, right? So, you've got to have someone else who's
1:13:05
got that mindset, I think, to build those complex loops that you've got to stay on
1:13:11
cuz I just can't imagine him. And again, I've not played like Escape Lab or Speak Easy, Escape Plan or Speak Easy, which
1:13:18
are kind of his two outliers from what I can make out, but every other game that I've played of his has definitely been
1:13:24
here's the game play loop you have to find. You have to stay on it. If you fall off it, you're losing. Yes.
1:13:29
Sort of thing, you know. Um, and yeah, so you have to find someone who can work within that mind
1:13:35
or you have someone that works outside of that loop and he has the core loop in the game and then they do something that
1:13:40
tacks onto that loop that helps put that loop together. Right. I I they I just can't I think it's got
1:13:47
to be a special someone who gets into that mindset with him and that kind of can build within it.
1:13:53
I know I know that him and David Ters are collabing. Uh that's quite well
1:13:58
known. don't know what on um but when we had a special experience in Gridcon last
1:14:06
year, year before last year uh 2024 and both Vital and David were there.
1:14:13
Yeah. And then sat and nerded out at a table. And they sat and nerded out at a table. And I wasn't there for this, but I know
1:14:18
Curly and Rob were. And they were like earwigging and it was basically like two
1:14:24
people just spouting off um like mechanisms and ideas binary speak, wasn't it? Yeah. Basically, zeros and ones to and
1:14:31
and they were like, "What is going on?" Like what what it was just like a different level like a different level
1:14:37
of communication and things like that. And I thought that's that's cool. Um so yeah, I'd like to see what they
1:14:43
come up with. So, for me, two of my favorites. Definitely just clashing together,
1:14:49
seeing what uh madness comes out of it. I love it. There we go.
1:14:54
Yeah, we'll uh probably talk a bit more about VTEL. Anyway, uh number 11, Martin
Martin Wallace
1:15:00
[clears throat] Wallace. Okay, I can understand this. Brass. Brass. Yeah. Only one I've really played of his, but
1:15:06
I enjoy it. I think it's a good game, but I've not played many of his others because there's the Disc World game I've played as well, which I enjoyed, which
1:15:13
there's a remake of as such, which is under a different guys. It's under a different theme, and they've smoothed
1:15:19
[snorts] out some of the rules. Nanti Narkin, is it? Yeah, I think so. Um,
1:15:26
but I mean, he's he's he's absolutely cracked out the games really got loads of them.
1:15:31
Yeah. Yeah. Again, been around a lot longer than I think people give him credit for. If you think the original Brass is is old.
1:15:38
Very old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it looks like this the first game listed here. Anyway, there might be a game that he's made that I
1:15:44
don't know about, but 1993 was Lords of Creation and then he's still making games with Casius Belly. If I'm saying
1:15:51
that wrong, I do apologize. [laughter] I am not good at pronouncing things. Um,
1:15:56
but yeah, it's a solid pick. I mean, you can't really argue about it. Ano 1800 we
1:16:02
loved. Ano is a bloody good game. Very good game. Bloody good game. Somehow they captured the feeling of Ano
1:16:08
without it really being ano, but it is ano. I forgot he did that. Yeah, I know. Ano is a good shout. It's
1:16:14
always play. Always play that game. Has any got any sausages? Yeah, sausages. Oh, I need some sausages. We're going to trade some sausages.
1:16:19
I was going to say it's the sausage game, but it's not. It's [laughter] not. Um. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, most every game that
1:16:26
I've played of his I've really enjoyed. So, I've yet to finally I mean, I even enjoyed the Discord one. Maybe it was
1:16:32
slightly because of the theme cuz it's one of my favorite authors as well, but
1:16:37
um Stuart had a copy of it which meant I got it to the table during one Gridcon.
1:16:44
Yeah. Nice. Bloody enjoyed it. Bloody loved it. I'm going to do one more of the list rather than go through all of them which
Alexander Pfister
1:16:49
is Alexandra Fista. Yes. Yeah. Marbo um
1:16:56
Great Western Trail. Great Western Trail. Awesome game. Solid is solid. Solid designs for me
1:17:02
those and Pirates of Marico and all that stuff, but Boon Lake Boon Lake's very
1:17:07
good as well. Yeah. For for me, what I quite like about the ones I've played of his design is is the
1:17:13
width of options that you get. [snorts] Yes. Mhm. Cuz it's always they always feel
1:17:18
replayable because you're like like if you think about Great Western Trail Sky Mines, it's like I haven't gone down
1:17:24
this route. You're still kind of doing the same things, but it's going down a different engine route normally or
1:17:30
something like that. Yeah, I found the original Grey Western Trail though to have a cowboy problem,
1:17:36
but maybe that was just me whenever we seem to play it. The most recent one sort of sorted that out, I feel with the
1:17:43
sheeps of New Zealand. I think that's my favorite great wrestling trail now. But um yeah, we did find that the like
1:17:50
trying to go down the building avenue never seemed to work out as well as if you went down the cowboy avenue cuz
1:17:57
obviously you're turning out and you can push the game on quite quickly if you're going down the cowboy route.
1:18:02
I agree. I think the second edition for me has fixed some of that. I still agree that it's there, but I don't think it's
1:18:07
as big a problem as it was. I've probably not played the second edition, so that's my problem. But I still agree. I think it's still
1:18:13
there, but I think it's a more valid option than it was in the first edition. That's cool cuz yeah, New Zealand
1:18:19
distorts that. So for me now, I'll just probably just play New Zealand. Again, I love New Zealand and it would
1:18:24
probably be the game I would choose to play with people who know Great Western Trail. My problem is is that there's literally like five, six people I know
1:18:31
that want to play Great Western Trail that know it. Yeah. So, I'm having to introduce it to new people a lot and I wouldn't chuck people
1:18:37
in with New Zealand to start with. Fair enough. There's too much going on in it. whereas I can take the base one and then
1:18:44
if I want to I can add in the uh Rails expansion and that kind of gets you to a
1:18:49
similarish feel as New Zealand. Mhm. But yeah, no I think um I really enjoyed
1:18:54
Sky Mines as well. Yeah. Um just quickly um there's one little game
1:18:59
of of his that I haven't played and I'd like to give it a go is All My Goods. Fista. Yeah.
1:19:05
Did he do All My Goods? I think he did. Okay, cool. They do a big box which isn't that big, right? So, the big box is still a little
1:19:12
box, but it's basically a little card game where you do resource conversions and things like that. And I'm like, I
1:19:17
want to try that. Can't tell you how many times I've looked at it and gone, I should pick that up. And then just not. Yeah, same. I'm like, nah. And I don't
1:19:24
know why, but it looks fun. Oh, it looks like a game look that kind of makes me
1:19:30
kind of go, is this going to be like other Lookout games that I don't quite enjoy. Yeah. And it's got it's got the Clemens
1:19:36
Fran artwork on it as well. So don't like if our listeners have played this and they say you should absolutely pick
1:19:42
it up, let me know because I I need an excuse to buy a new game clearly.
1:19:47
So yeah, just one no one else just if one listener says you know J is picking this
1:19:52
up. If anyone says it's good, that's enough. Yeah. [laughter] So carry on then.
1:19:57
Just tipping the balance. Yeah. And it's one of those sometimes it's good to look back and see what games
1:20:02
you've kind of missed throughout the years and play some of the classics, right? 100%.
1:20:08
rather than because we always going for all the new hotness and sometimes you
1:20:13
you miss out on something that's sitting right there in front of you. So, moving on to David Turtzy. Voidful is probably
David Turczi
1:20:21
my favorite of his. I love Voidful. um don't get it to the table enough, but
1:20:27
hopefully that's going to be rectified when I move and I be able to set it up and leave it under the table and crack
1:20:33
it out now and again because everyone that I've played the game with, even people that, you know, aren't
1:20:39
necessarily board gamers, once they've got their head wrapped around it, they've absolutely loved that game. So,
1:20:45
yeah, I can't argue with Tootszies. I mean, yes, Star Trek, Captain's Chair, Imperium.
1:20:52
I've not played enough of Captain's Chair. I've only played it once. So good. Like there's there's I'm trying
1:20:58
to think of games that I don't like from I'm sure there are. Um but the most of
1:21:03
the ones I've played I've I've definitely enjoyed. Um you know, an Acrony for me. Love it.
1:21:10
Yeah, an Acrony is amazing. Probably my first experience of his designs and it kind of went, "Oh, this
1:21:16
is new." And uh yeah, I can't really tell you what David does as as a like
1:21:23
you said, designers have their themes. I just know he does bloody complicated games. I think you he's got some outliers,
1:21:29
right? So if you look at like defense of Oh, yeah. That's wacky weird three or whatever it is, then
1:21:37
I think there's some outliers, but for the most part, what he does is great interlinking euros.
1:21:42
Yeah. Um, and some of them are are dressed up as deck game, like deck building games or whatever, and some of
1:21:48
them are a bit more standard, but he does like sort of interlocking mechanisms that are fairly complex.
1:21:57
Um, but yeah. Yeah, there's solid euros, right? Just solid brain puzzles that you you
1:22:04
finish the kind of game going, "Oh, Christ." And and then off you go. But
1:22:10
there's one of his I haven't tried. one of his latest ones which is thei or however you pronounce it.
1:22:16
Thieves. Thieves. I'd like to try it. Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't bothered and then I'm like well
1:22:22
maybe should try it cuz it's on the lighter end. It's not got to kenu on my shelf and have had forever.
1:22:27
That's the phallic game, isn't it? It's the one with the oppos. Yeah. Yeah, I do want to play that.
1:22:34
I keep I keep telling myself I am going to get to that at some point but just haven't. Um still got there. But yeah, I've not played many of
1:22:39
David's games. Um, no. A lot of the theming doesn't do do it
1:22:44
for me. No. And I don't like massive amounts of text in games and some of his games are quite
1:22:50
texty. Yeah. But I need to give some more a go. That's fair.
1:22:55
Yeah, we should definitely do. I I mean the academy also with Tracer and he did the expansion.
1:23:00
He did the uh he did go academy. He's done lots of solo modes. Done lots of solo modes.
1:23:06
He's done a few, hasn't he? Yeah. He's done one or two. um the solo expansions for games generally if you look at it
1:23:11
you go oh this is designed by David so he's very good at um
1:23:19
working out yeah the the automation of a game right and he can strip it back down so he can take a game system strip it
1:23:25
all the way back down and rebuild it all all the way back up from a solo AI perspective and that's for me it's just
1:23:31
freaking impressive isn't it really um but if you ever get the opportunity to to have met David, you'll realize like
1:23:40
he's just got a special skill to do that. He's just wired that way. And uh
1:23:45
yeah, it's he's very clever. He's a clever guy. Um and but yeah,
1:23:51
cool games. Good fun. I want to give a little shout out to some designers which are the both the designers for Reggie
Honourable mentions
1:23:58
Games. Um Thomas Tomaso Modori and
1:24:03
Alberto Paresi. Um, I thought I thought Primal was their only game, but there's
1:24:10
another one called ELO. Um, which is like a mobile game, which looks interesting actually. But, um, for some
1:24:17
designers that have done so little games, like Primal really comes in and
1:24:22
just that's one of my top games. Yeah, I I love Primal, but because they haven't had much else out, it's hard to
1:24:28
then go it's hard to gauge, right? So, that's I just want to give him a little shout out. Yeah. Yeah. Agree.
1:24:34
Honorable mention. honorable mention. So, Shm Phillips again, I tried
1:24:40
Wayfarers and didn't like it, but certainly three, four of his games,
1:24:47
Architects, Paladins, uh, Raiders of the North Sea, and, uh, I
1:24:52
played very briefly some Explorers of the North Sea. All of those were strong games in my
1:24:58
opinion, and three of them are like really worker placements with a twist. Like good strong worker placements. Ezra
1:25:05
and Neay again. I've not played that, but I I nearly bought it about three times
1:25:11
because everyone but everyone kept saying there's a Paladinsish like there's a kind of overlap there.
1:25:18
And as I already own Paladins, I was like, do I need to own Ezra and the Maya as well? There is, but I think there's enough
1:25:24
deviation to make it kind of worth owning both. So I wouldn't necessarily
1:25:29
say you don't need to, but then I get I get pounded into the table so
1:25:34
little anyway, but it's kind of like So yes, so Phillips is someone who's persuaded me to part with money quite a
1:25:40
lot. Um, interestingly, the uh other name I've got on here is Harken because I've
1:25:47
bought the Sinister Fish Triple Box set and really enjoyed all of them. Streets was,
1:25:53
but for the most part, I like the design. I like the look. I like how much they've um crammed into a little box.
1:26:01
And the the other thought I had was obviously Scott Arms from Tiny Epic because I think they do a great job of
1:26:07
squeezing all these different games into a little box. But I think I prefer all of the ones that I've played of Harkens.
1:26:13
Yeah. Um who we've interviewed recently. We have literally last week. So So yeah, check that out cuz his new game
1:26:21
sounds freaking amazing. Deco. Yeah. Yeah. talk about that soon.
1:26:26
And then I'm going to quickly mention, I'm going to be really greedy here. So, I'm going to mention a game where I don't actually particularly love all of
1:26:33
his games, but I think we can all say we've played a bunch of them, which is Wolf Gang Vash. So, um, Quacks and
1:26:40
Taverns probably most known for I think they've had a great impact on
1:26:46
that kind of, you know, done deck builders and bag builders and all that kind of stuff and that kind of
1:26:52
it's a midway punchy game, right? Yeah. Well, they're not. I don't even think they're midweight. I think they're light to midweight for most of them.
1:26:58
Like, if you layer in all the expansions, happens with everything is the same with Cracks. If you put everything into
1:27:03
Cracks, it starts to layer up a bit, but I think they've had a bigger impact on a lot of people's wallets than for for the
1:27:10
few games they've designed sort of thing. Um, and then my other call out is one where I bounced off the one game of
1:27:16
theirs I've played, but I keep looking at games they design and go, maybe I should give that a look and just don't buy them, which is John Declair. Um, so
1:27:23
Space Base, I fell in love with it almost instantly, then realized for me there was too much of a reliance on what
1:27:29
dice you rolled. Yeah. And that's not for me. But they've produced a number of games and I know
1:27:36
that um, Friend of the Pod Marcus is a big fan of John Declair's work as well, and I keep telling myself I need to play
1:27:42
more of their games. It's fun. And they're ones that Yeah. And this is it. It's It's ones that I want to give
1:27:47
more of a chance to. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but again, it's one of those where the designer name pops up and I'm like,
1:27:54
"Oh, yeah. Tell me." Was he a Cubas? Um, Unstoppable,
1:28:00
which is the solo card crafting. He he's basically the the card crafting
1:28:06
source. Like he it's kind of originated from him, but he did Rolling Heights, I think, as well. Yeah, Rolling Heights was one I looked
1:28:12
at. As I say, Kabutos, Dead Reckoning, I've looked at a few times. Oh, he did that one, didn't he? EOS I've
1:28:18
looked at a few times. That's the pirates with the cubes that you fire and you
1:28:23
Yeah, there we go. So, I think we've spoke enough about designers. Hold on. Probably I'm
1:28:30
coming out of recline mode. [laughter] We got to set up now. Now, yeah, let's wake up. Come on then.
1:28:36
Let's [laughter] Let's go. Let's go on to the new section. Haiku with a clue.
TURN 4 - Haiku: With a Clue
1:28:45
[music]
1:28:54
[music] So, got to be on this wavelength and I'm
1:29:00
going to go in soon. We're near a pond. All right. Power hums through steel. Concentrated
1:29:05
flow shapes the river. Turbines wake the light. Okay. for me. Barrage.
1:29:13
I'm gonna say just because it's Davey that it's got to be Barrage. It's got to be barrage. It is barrage.
1:29:19
Of course it is. It is barrage. I thought he was going to mention like JP loses his [laughter]
1:29:28
Corrupt worlds collide. Fleets carve path through endless night. Stars shiver
1:29:35
in fear. H. Say that again. Corrupt worlds collide.
1:29:41
Fleets carve paths through endless night. Stars shiver in fear.
1:29:48
Is it a spacey game? It's it's got to be conflict game, but it's just it's a 4xy. It feels like it's
1:29:54
a 4x game of some description. Fleet being like Twilight Imperium. You have fleets.
1:30:00
Well, so's every other So's Voidfall. So's Eclipse.
1:30:05
So, the only thing I that was I was like, is there anything that I don't think I know of that's a star that you
1:30:10
have to go after? I think you're focusing. So, I want to give you the little clue. But this is with a clue. So, you know,
1:30:17
we'll add a clue, aren't we? Yeah, we're going to add the clue. They actually need the clue. Um, if there's one word that you could
1:30:22
probably focus on and get this right, so I'll read it again. Corrupt worlds
1:30:28
collide. Yeah. Fleets carve pass through endless night. Stars shiver in fear. Assuming corrupt is the word he's going
1:30:35
to say to focus on. That's voidful. Or is it? Yeah, it could be corrupt. But then I think in star is it forbidden
1:30:41
stars. There's nothing corrupt about that. Let's go voidful. It is voidful.
1:30:48
It is voidful. The corruption side of it, right? Um it's not really worlds collide. Should have been ships, I guess. But it is
1:30:55
voidful. Should be houses collide. Houses collide. Yeah. But kind of
1:31:01
god damn you AI. [laughter] It was hard. You're doing my job for me well enough.
1:31:06
No, it was houses is one syllable, right? So, it
1:31:13
it's a lot harder to So, I wanted to corrupt in there because it focus on the corruption of that. Um, you do kind of
1:31:19
cast paths and I suppose endless night is to space, right? Um,
1:31:24
but yeah, the star shiver and fear wasn't a great line, but oh well. This is Davey's mind, by the way. So he
1:31:30
basically he's created a little puzzle for himself to for this segment which is fun to watch. Yeah. So yeah, there you
1:31:35
go. Uh clouds boil with intent, calculations pierce the dark, knowledge
1:31:41
strikes like fire.
1:31:49
See clouds, I'm thinking Petraore, which before the podcast Dave mentioned
1:31:56
Petraore, didn't he? Which is why I might be thinking that. And then I thought of Cloud Age, but I don't think anyone's played that.
1:32:02
That's a Fista game. That's a Fista game. Um, but the rest of it then didn't line
1:32:07
up. So I was like, right, okay, stop. Give it to us again. Clouds boil with intent. Calculations
1:32:14
pierce the dark. Knowledge strikes like fire.
1:32:21
Oh, is it weather machine? It is weather machine. Weather, isn't it? It's all weather. Yeah, bloody
1:32:27
weather is just Well, it's also you've got to calculate quite a lot and also there's the whole
1:32:32
you got to publish, right? Yeah, that's right. So, publishing is a core mechanic of the game.
1:32:38
Um, but it was quite hard to tailor that one because I kept being like, well, I want to do science and I want to have
1:32:44
the whole publishing aspect in there, but there's not, you can't fit a lot into a highQ. Why the clue?
1:32:51
I should probably do the clues as well, which I'm going to do next time for people that aren't getting it, who are listening, which is what it's for. So, I
1:32:57
will do the clues for people as well. But, um, that was HiQ with a clue.
1:33:03
Hey, thank you, mate. Enjoyed that.
TURN 5 - The Penultimate Turn: What's Coming Up?
1:33:11
[music] Moving on to the penultimate turn. This
1:33:16
section is where we talk about what we've got coming up, what games we're excited about. And sometimes it might not even be board games. It might be
1:33:22
computer games or films or whatever. Whatever we're excited about. So Adrian,
1:33:28
what have you got coming up? I'm going to steal all of your thunder and say rebuilding Seattle. That's fair
1:33:34
because we're all on that one. And interestingly, I am up in Bristol for the week and driving back down just to
1:33:40
play that game. Oh jeez. Really? Are you going back to Bristol afterwards? Uh, I will stay here tonight
1:33:46
for the night and then at 4:00 a.m. I am leaving. You really want to play that? It's that bad. It was more the fact that it was a game
1:33:52
that I've had to cancel a few recently that I don't enjoy doing. And it's a game I genuinely want to play and of
1:33:59
course work really got in the way and I was like, nah, you know what? So, I'm going to travel back down that evening
1:34:05
and then probably leave at 4 a.m. for next to go back up. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Um, supposed to
1:34:10
be putting sanctu sanctuary on the table. Um, so the Ark Nova Light game.
1:34:17
Yeah, tiles. Yeah, I'm not entirely sold on it, but it looked something that would
1:34:23
interest me and I think I could get to the table quite a bit. So, going to give that a go as well. And
1:34:29
then hopefully I'm joining the local Blood Bowl league. Oh, wow. You're getting into this in a
1:34:34
way, aren't you? Yeah, I've quite enjoyed my games of it and I'm trying to figure out. So, my
1:34:41
I've never done a Blood Bowl league before, but I have done kind of connected games. And my biggest problem with Blood Bowl is if you take it
1:34:48
semi-seriously, don't know how you can, and your team gets wrecked.
1:34:53
Yeah. Then you're kind of almost out of the league. Okay. Screw day one. [laughter]
1:34:59
However, I've never played a fully like non-serious team. And the idea of
1:35:04
running So, my two options are my three options really are Undead. Yeah. Jurabashi team, Necroantic
1:35:11
Horrors, which are a bit of a mixed team, but I would probably play as an agile team, or goblins, and goblins are
1:35:18
no I I've played Blackhawks before. I do they're one of my favorite teams. I like Blackhawks.
1:35:24
Um, but they are the Goblins are definitely I've never played them before. They're not my
1:35:30
style, but it does mean that you can't take the league seriously. So my mindset
1:35:35
is, do I play with a team where I stand a chance of winning games, potentially lose several key positionals and have a
1:35:42
dreadful season season, which I think will turn me off again to Blood Bowl if I'm honest,
1:35:49
or do I take a team where I don't even know whether I like them or not, but it forces me not to take the league seriously and therefore it won't be the
1:35:55
league that upsets me. And I can't decide which route to go to. So I have about 3 weeks to make that decision at
1:36:01
the time of recording. By the time this comes out, I'll have probably started the league. Yeah. Uh or be close to. And I'm just I'm
1:36:09
looking forward to it. I've never played a full League before. I've kind of just played connected games and like someone
1:36:15
killed a yet. I played Norse and someone killed a yeti in the first game and kind of ruined the rest of the games and then
1:36:20
I didn't want to play Blood Bowl for 3 years. Um so I'm kind of in that space. I don't know what I want to do, but
1:36:26
it's definitely on the horizon and I'm kind of intrigued. I keep looking at Age of Sigma and going, "No, I don't have
1:36:32
time. I don't have time to play that. Leave it." I don't think it's a good game either, if I'm honest. Oh, I really like Age of Sigma.
1:36:38
What? The newest version. The newest edition. I haven't played the newest edition. I've only played first and second, I think. So,
1:36:43
nearly everyone I knew that played Age of Sigmar fled. Oh, really? In this edition. Oh, okay.
1:36:48
So, I just love the models. The models and the world building. Considering sort of the job they did of
1:36:53
destroying the old world, I think what they've built with H of Sigmar with the feel of it is great. Um, I've got a
1:37:00
feeling that because old world's doing so well, they're just releasing them in a like the old old world armies for Age
1:37:07
of Sigma and it's making it feel less Age of Sigmary [snorts] cuz it's just like, well, this is oldworld but a
1:37:13
little bit like dialed up. Um, but yeah, I there's loads of games that I'm either
1:37:19
playing or have planned to play in the miniature game space at the moment. It's kind of I'm back on track with that.
1:37:24
Nice. Good. Um, but yeah, cool. JP,
1:37:29
me. Sorry, I'm directing traffic here. You're fine. You can direct over this way. Uh, I'm looking forward to
1:37:36
Fullboard Gaming, which will literally be when this releases pretty much this week. Um, so I'm looking forward to
1:37:42
that. And the reason why I'm looking forward to full board game is I get to to hang out with some other other mates
1:37:50
as well. Like it's it's the convention for me where Adam from Punch Board Game comes along. We have a generally a good
1:37:56
laugh um about nonsense for for a period and
1:38:02
yeah getting some games in with them. I know a couple of our listeners are going to be there. Um, so we're going to be
1:38:07
playing some Imperium, I think, with them. And yeah, just looking forward to that. Um, I'm also hoping we'll get our
1:38:15
pre-production copy of Deco that literally we talked about last week's episode.
1:38:20
I so want to give that a go. Um, so I'm hoping to to have that with me um as we go to full board and give
1:38:26
that a bit of a test run. And so yeah, for those that don't know, very quickly, poker mixed with debt building. Um, so
1:38:32
anyone played Bolatro? It's kind of not the same thing at all, but it's that kind of twist twist the game up and I
1:38:40
thought intrigued. So hopefully I have that with me. We can get a few games of that. But yeah, just looking forward to
1:38:45
hanging out, catching up with people, having a bit of a laugh. So that's pretty much me.
1:38:51
Yeah. Which leads on to me. Um, I'm playing with Robin Paul Grogan. Uh,
1:38:56
Elder Scrolls. We're going to try all weekend. Well, I think it's two days off at least.
1:39:02
Yeah. Well, I think it's two days off. So, yeah, at most. Paul said it's two days off. So, I think
1:39:07
he's trying to keep to that cuz he's got loads of people booked in for Sunday as well. So, um I think we're basically
1:39:12
playing at the Friday, Saturday. He's got some of his Patreon members to vote on what scenario we're doing. So, cuz it
1:39:20
was kind of like we don't mind, Paul. Just whatever. So, yeah. Um and I don't know what class
1:39:26
I'm going to play cuz I haven't played it fully either. So, I'm really looking forward to playing Elder Scrolls. I loved the little live stream we did of
1:39:33
it. It's good. [clears throat] Great game. Great game. You've not played it since? No. Oh, wow. You're going to have a blast
1:39:39
then. Yeah. This is why I thought, you know what? I Yeah. Yeah. Rob is very excited.
1:39:45
Yeah, I'm excited. And I'm like, Rob, like you're just going to be playing one game. And he goes, and he's like, I'm happy with that. I'm just
1:39:51
playing Elder Scrolls all weekend. So, fair enough, mate. I'll see you I'll see you on Sunday. Yeah. Um, so yeah. No, it's fine. play deco on
1:39:58
Sunday, right? It'll be around. It'll be around. Yeah. Cool. I can teach you. If I'm not playing, I can teach you.
1:40:03
Yeah. You can have a go. So, yeah. So, that's what I'm looking forward to. Nice one, mate. Nice. But that concludes our designer
1:40:10
episode, recliner designer, and we've hope that you've lent back in your seats
1:40:16
and enjoyed this episode. So, that's been whose turn is it anyway. Thank you guys for listening. Um, you can find all
TURN 6 - The Final Turn
1:40:22
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1:40:49
who whose turn is it anyway?