Episode 53: Great hexpectations - Return to the chez lounge

Adrian signs off his first player run but allowing us all to get our board gaming gripes off our chests in a second round of great hexpectations.  It's time to take off our shoes, jump back onto the chez lounge and dive into the inner conscious minds of our players...you have been warned.

FIRST PLAYER: Adrian
OTHER PLAYERS: JP, Becky, Tambo

In this episode you'll learn:

- that JP has been digging a small boxed light game for a change which crossed deck building and an Uno style game in Avant Carde by Resonym
- Adrian continues his Sinister Fish trilogy by playing the latest game in the series Moon
- Becky decides to not talk about board games but her new found love of Walkabout Mini Golf on the VR (MetaQuest)
- Tambo goes back in time to talk dinos in Dinogenics by Ninth Haven Games 
- that Adrian is giving the group another chance to offload their board gaming woes with a return to great hexpectations

LINKS REFERENCED IN THE SHOW
N/A

EPISODE CHAPTERS
0:00 - TURN 1 - Player Count
1:52 - TURN 2 - Let's Talk About Hex
2:24 - JP - Avant Carde
7:07 - Becky - Walkabout Mini Golf VR...that's not a board game?
11:24 - Tambo - Dinogenics
19:33 - Adrian - Moon
25:40 - TURN 3 - Main Event: Great hexpectations - Return to the chez lounge
26:15 - Getting stuck in roll & move hell in Batman Talisman
33:31 - Dog Park can keep its new tricks
40:57 - There's a Mindclash Game which I think might not be for me
48:33 - I just don't like Uwe Rosenberg games
54:56 - Getting punished in Hallertau by having zero card combos
59:02 - My husband just isn't interested in playing Earth anymore
1:03:17 - I no longer have the capacity to go on lengthy big adventures in my board games
1:11:04 - It feels bad that I don't have a corner of the hobby which feels like mine
1:18:45 - TURN 4 - Would you rather...everyone around the table talked through all of their thought processes or play silent
1:26:35 - TURN 5 - Penultimate Turn: What's Coming Up
1:33:09 - TURN 6 - The Final Turn

Transcript

0:00
the whose's turn is it Anyway podcast is live this year at the UK games Expo you can check us out on Friday the 31st of
0:07
May at half 1 to halfast 2 in the dice room which is in pza 4 if you want to
0:13
get involved in the live episode then please come along we can't wait to see you there
0:19
[Music]
0:30
hello and welcome to whose turn is anyway a podcast all about our board game group and the board games that we play I am your first player Adrien and I
0:37
have with me we are what we are because we have been who we have been that's Sigman Tambo
0:45
hello knowledge rests not upon truth alone but upon error also Carl Gustav JP
0:52
howdy there and if you only have a hammer you tend to see every problem as a nail Becky maslo oh God hi everyone so
1:00
today we are back to the couch to talk about Great Expectations part two but before we get there how's everyone doing
1:07
super super good it's spank holiday weekend right been nice as we record not when you listen to this timey Wy wibbly
1:14
wobbly podcast stuff but yeah enjoying a nice kind of chill weekend to be honest yeah I've had a nice weekend nice and uh
1:21
yeah lots of um chilling out and not doing a lot of anything useful yeah same
1:26
here bit of ball gaming as well over the weekend which was good good yeah nice it's to talk about it helps it helps I
1:33
thought it was gardening is this not the gardening podcast uh right C right cols no that's
1:39
um yeah right that's Icelandic Icelandic green housing green housing yeah yeah Green housing that green hosery I don't
1:46
know what do you call it I don't know who knows we've gone off of the tangent again haven't we we've already gone off the tangent it's all good
2:00
with that it's time to talk about you and me and all the good things and the bad things that have been as we talk about hex love it it never gets old mate
2:08
does it not no good I'm glad cuz I'm going to cuz you're never not going to do it you're always going to do it yeah
2:14
that's it good the only one in the whole podcast team that does a little sexy intro to that segment yeah when we came
2:21
up the name it was like that's exactly what it is it's exactly what it is yeah so JP what have you been up to what have
2:27
you been playing recently so recently I had my birthday obviously you guys all came around and celebrated and had a
2:33
really good time uh well hopefully you did I did I had a great time and uh after that I went away for a kind of a
2:40
little weekend break with the family so obviously it's an excuse to get lots of
2:45
board games together and uh bring you know inflict them onto the family so one of the games I actually got for my
2:51
birthday was a game called small box game called Avant card so like Avant
2:57
guard Avant card and it's art themed themed around you collecting artwork um
3:05
nothing like the gallerist at all looking at you Adrian uh but you you kind of collect this artwork and uh you
3:11
kind of show it off to basically get um lots of money to then purchase more art that you can put into collection and
3:17
Away you go but mechanically it's a deck building Uno that's what you need to think about it's beautifully presented
3:25
like the box that kind of opens up you take a little Tock box of the like the main cards and then you open it up
3:31
doesn't open like from the top like a normal Tu box opens from the side and you kind of then roll it out onto the
3:38
table and all the cards are there ready to rock all kind of it's just the way it's hard to explain but you kind of
3:43
roll it all out there you go done and you got like uh all the twos threes four fives and six sevens all ready to go and
3:49
then you've got another set of uh cards in another top to box and it does the same thing roll it all out and they're
3:56
like the patreons and not patreons they're the patrons and and they all have different uh powers that you can um
4:04
basically tell you what all the numbered cards do and they're variable in the game so you can kind of mix and match and have a bit of bit of a difference so
4:11
yeah you kind of have a starting deck it has like a one and a two which is like a white and a gray and you've got some 11s
4:17
and twelves that are kind of two main colors in your starting Decks that could
4:22
be one of the uh four suits that are available and you kind of like in Uno
4:27
style trying to play a run so you're either matching the uh the same number of different colors uh or you can play
4:34
any number of the same color and you're trying to kind of get as many of cards played out of your hand um as possible
4:40
the more cards you play the more money you're generating which is then what you use to buy more cards and then into the
4:45
deck they go and then all of the uh the twos to seven cards that you buy will have the powers that can trigger off it
4:52
do different things wacky things like uh generate generate you more money allow you to draw more cards allow you to
4:58
change like a four to uh either any number of the same color or the same number of any color and it's
5:04
a bit like oh my God this is breaking my brain but for such a small box game and you know it plays in 20 minutes and it's
5:10
got that kind of Uno feel very easy to kind of wheel out to your family I really enjoyed it and it's just I don't
5:16
know it just it kind of did something a little bit different to like you know I've played you know so much and but it
5:23
kind of has that with a little bit of deck building flare oh really thought he was really good I like the sound of that
5:28
me me and curly have got like a running tally on our kitchen noteboard of who's winning at UNO we haven't
5:35
actually played for a long time but that one sounds like it could be a a contender to get rid of Uno who's winning who you think's winning all
5:42
right okay come on Becky come on I know got take a shot it take him down Uno is
5:48
not my strong point none of the games are clearly what about strong point is that your strong point yeah I do know I
5:55
think I normally win curly strong point I mean I I'm not saying I win the game but I think I probably get more than he
6:00
does yeah H nice yeah I think you're right I yeah strong point I love that love that game I'm going to bring it to
6:07
Expo um because it's quite a nice filler game you can s it out play job done but yeah I think some of you guys might
6:13
enjoy it it's not overly serious it's uh it's good fun it's got some nice little catchup mechanic in there as well so if
6:20
you're kind of losing the idea is that you're trying to get these Awards so if you spend sorry if you generate $6 i.
6:26
played at least six cards or have uh abilities that allow to get $6 you can
6:31
pick up an award uh so if you get eight you can get two Awards and 10 you know get three and the idea is they award
6:36
deck uh when that runs out ends the game and you're just trying to get as many of those as possible so it's quite simple
6:42
quite straightforward but yeah recommend it it's good fun sounds good yeah it sounds yeah as you said it sounds like a
6:48
family like one that will be good to roll out for families and stuff like that CU yeah definitely I know I know
6:53
like kabos was one of your sort of big winds a little while ago and it sounds sort similarish weight to that but kind
7:00
of the opposite end of instead rolling dice doing a bit of deck building instead yeah yeah just all cards and
7:05
cards and fern nice nice Becky what have you been up to well it's not a board
7:11
game but it is kind of linked so been playing a lot of Walkabout golf what a
7:18
game oh my good it's just so good it's the most realistic game I think that
7:24
I've played in VR okay maybe slashing boxes as they come towards you in beat saber isn't perhaps very realistic but
7:31
it's fun though yeah it's great but walking around with your little Golf Club thing crazy little you know setups
7:38
just like a you know crazy golf that you do on holiday or whatever oh God I love it I just love it it's so fun and me and
7:46
curly quite well matched on it so he beat me by one point earlier and I was livid because I'd done so well all the
7:51
way through and then I naed it and was gutted but this yeah this game so yeah if you've got VR I would hugely
7:58
recommend that you get walk about golf brilliant even if you don't like golf I'm not a massive actual golf in real
8:03
life person only Crazy Golf a little bit but this is just so good it's so fun and
8:09
the the courses are really cool like there's one in space there's like a
8:14
piratey one so obviously I'm all for that one um and yeah you can pick up like lost balls which you get like cool
8:21
patent balls later on when you play you can get better um I was going to say sticks clubs what they
8:27
called go those the sticks hit the balls with them things yeah you can get cool patented ones so yeah loving it
8:33
absolutely loving that game yeah it's such a good fun like we got uh a VR from
8:39
my son a meta Quest 3 and it's the first game we bought on it because everyone recommends get walk about mini golf so
8:46
unoffensive as a game it's chill it's easy to play you can you know drop in
8:51
for a you know a course on by yourself or whatever but we we recently started playing as a group right which has kind
8:58
of reinvigorated my love for the game as well so that's been a lot of fun it's it's really brightly colored it's I
9:05
don't know it's just a like you were saying earlier you kind of you go to lean on something cuz it's it's you feel
9:11
like you're there you really feel like there it doesn't take up much room and you like you don't need a very big area to play in either because you what
9:18
you're doing basically standing there hitting a ball you can kind of Transport around the map so you don't need to walk around there so I think even if you've
9:25
only got a very small area to play in this game will absolutely be brilliant for you cuz it's just great yeah my
9:33
favorite moments that we played the other night and Adrian you can see basically when you play with other
9:38
players you just see this head and and their putter floating about floating around it's really weird and then I
9:44
watched it I just saw Adrian just fly upwards I like how the hell are you doing that he oh you just put you put
9:49
her in the air and you press up on the stick and you hold it and then suddenly you just like Superman and weirdly when
9:55
I did it I put my left hand on my hips so I L I literally had one one like Statue of Liberty the other one on
10:01
my hips just Superman and it it was brilliant nice yeah it's great fun I'm Keen to show you guys meow wolf oh I've
10:08
downloaded that one course because it's just so trippy you talk about it kind of feeling a bit cartoony and a bit normal
10:14
but it's so trippy I'm going to a couple of spoilers on a couple of the different they're all completely Bonkers but like
10:21
there's one where you're one side of a pond and the hole is on the other side
10:27
of a pond and you're like there's no it's too far away to get in one shot but
10:32
it the ball bounces above and below the pond until it gets to the other side but your brain can't quite quite figure out
10:39
what's going on with it there's another one where your golf ball turns into about a football sized thing and then you start trying to pop that oh God
10:46
right there's one where you start putting and the ball moves to be on the Roof oh my but you're still on the floor
10:52
so you've got to somehow no you putt as though the ball is on the floor but it only moves oh my God it's fantastic for
11:01
taking that idea of mini golf and then really what could we do with VR it just laun it's probably the first one that
11:07
really launched it to me that I played that I was like yeah you couldn't do this in there's a couple of holes in the
11:13
other ones that you're like you wouldn't do this in real life but this was you couldn't do this in real life no physically physics just doesn't work and
11:20
yeah absolutely fantastic had a blast playing that that course as well just cuz it's so crazy what about yourself
11:25
Tempo okay so uh just yesterday it was wasn't it we JP curly and I played
11:31
dinogenics yes ra dinosaurs but um really good um curly asked me to watch a
11:37
video beforehand if if I could and I thought no problem I'd try it cuz I'm I don't mind videos to be fair um and I
11:42
just looked at it and when I watched it I just thought this is Tiny epic dinosaurs but a lot bigger and a lot
11:48
more a bit more involved so far I'm going to really like this just big epic dinosaur big epic dinosaurs yeah um so
11:55
yeah you basically it's just like Jurassic Park your own Jurassic Park owner and you're here to build your own Park get the visitors in put them in
12:01
hotels make sure your dinos are all caged up and obviously the more dinosaurs you get obviously the better
12:06
your VP generation is and um it was great fun I thought it was good fun worker placement which is always one of
12:13
my favorites um yeah it was uh really successful um you have DNA cards so
12:19
you're there just to breed your dinosaurs so you have make a set of free T rexes for instance and then you can just put it in the it go to the science
12:26
whatever it's called I what it was called dinogenics labic you go in there you can make a T-Rex and make but you
12:31
got to make sure you got your Park ready for it um and obviously the bigger the dinosaur generally the more VPS it generates um other D you reputation
12:39
track which is all about the first player which we found out was very important didn't we JP yeah yeah we wasn't sure what the reputation was all
12:45
about until you start playing it and how important it was to get first play you get more visitors so the more visitors
12:50
you get obviously you get more you can you get first dibs in them basically and then they give you VPS and money at the
12:56
end of the game well between Seasons actually wasn't it yeah and um so we figured out that was quite important and I flew up reputation at
13:03
the beginning and then curle went behind us always and then he just went ahead with a reputation and then as always we
13:09
didn't see him D after that he like where's he gone on the VP track he's he's disappeared he's gone around the
13:14
corner twice he's gone he's gone yeah we had the expansion with it as well which was all about the water dinosaurs it's probably a real good term for thato
13:21
aquatic aquatic maybe who knows we're not Dino experts are we T no we're not
13:26
no but um that gave you a wild um simple which is the main part that really helped you get dinosaurs toart cuz if
13:32
you say you trying to get three same three cards of T-Rex you do three ring T-Rexes you could get two with the wild
13:38
token you can put out dinosaurs a lot more easier which made it easier yeah 100% but um yeah I'll definitely want to
13:44
play again cuz after that I was talking what I would have done differently and game like that always makes you want to
13:50
play it again yeah it's got a uh the the really cool dino me PS in it and
13:56
actually because there's a lot of different species that you can go after I'm I'm no Dino nerd you know how much curly loves his Dino fetishy yes dino
14:03
stuff we talked about in the Pod before he loves it um so you got your you know your traditional Raptors and your
14:09
T-Rexes and your pteranodons and uh ETA and then all these other dinosaurs I've not heard of yeah but they're real that
14:16
apparently I don't know they got four legs and scales who knows I know some of the pictures from Jurassic Park but I
14:21
can't remember the names of them no yeah work but there's loads of little meatles right and expansion the control chaos
14:27
expansion there's loads of more aquatic megalodons and all sorts of stuff but
14:32
yeah and you have to kind of keep the the carnivals fed otherwise they get a bit pissed off right yeah uh which is
14:38
fair enough I do if I don't get fed um you have to get goats yeah the goat people that's the best bit about it
14:43
goats little goats feed them the old goats keep them at Bay um but yeah has
14:48
has a little I I really enjoyed the game Y and we had a little moment didn't we too yeah um where the chance part of it
14:56
yeah the the the less Euro part of this game which is more the you could call it
15:03
thematic cuz it probably is quite thematic and then we had thematic in the real life of dinosaurs in the real life
15:08
of dinosaur breeding and park management the there's basically an event queue that kind of comes out these breaking
15:14
news cards and you can kind of see what's upcoming and what's going to fire in the next round so we knew that if you
15:22
had a herbivore and a carnivore together in your Park they're going to get a bit NY and Rampage as they call yeah so I
15:29
like okay you know we haven't seen the Rampage mechanic because that would normally happen if you don't feed your carnivore um dinosaurs you know quite
15:37
rightly they get hry right um and there's other effects that can they escape the barriers or the barriers not
15:42
prop or you not put them in barriers properly or stuff like that yeah if one of your barriers is broken and you haven't fixed it it will run around your
15:48
Park and start murdering people likely uh so so yeah we basically had this thing we all rolled the dice it affect
15:55
affected us all and I think you rolled it to yep broke all it did broke a fence
16:00
yeah curle rolled it broke a fence I rolled it and then fence broke a fence
16:06
killed two visitors and then ended up with these two tokens that are worth minus six VPS each so I was like great
16:13
so it's one of them things like thematically I get it but it doesn't make you feel good no because it's like
16:19
dice roll oh you're screwed kind of thing but it was unfortunate cuz the last season that
16:25
happened as well yeah well last ultimate season wasn't it so you didn't have time to fix it no no he was like oh I've got
16:32
to spend my entire last round just trying to get rid of this and of course worker placement people blocked and
16:37
like so yeah it's one of those little moments where I actually enjoyed the game mechanically uh simple to play work
16:44
a place simple um but yeah just that little bit of dice chucking and you think maybe done that in a different way
16:50
but it is what it is but I would play it again so you said minus 6 VP is that your reputation track no no the C
16:58
victory points is the the dinosaur victory points reputation track is different so so do you does having your
17:03
visitors eaten not also decrease your reputation or just your V it just gives you negative 6vp token you get a
17:09
scoundrel token so the more naughty things you do in the game because you can go to this place called the Boneyard
17:15
and you can pick up DNA cards that fall off the market so if for free you don't have to pay for them if you get them you
17:22
kind of get a scoundrel as well so there are different ways of getting Scandal tokens but it's a bit like the corruption in Water Deep you know easy
17:29
to get but there's a penalty but if you keep hold of them you probably don't want them you need to get rid of them
17:35
there is a spot on the board where you can get rid of one scand token so it's quite easy to get rid of them as well so
17:40
it's not the end of the world so you got to just time it right that's the thing it was good fun it was great fun but
17:45
yeah maybe in my head I was thinking it would be more than what it was that's kind of how curly felt he was so excited
17:51
understandably as dinosaurs it his thing he was so he's like this is going to be I reckon this is going to be my top 10
17:57
games just looking at it on you know on popping it and stuff and then when he came back he was like yeah it it's
18:03
really good but it it didn't really live up to expectation but to be honest I don't know if it could have lived up to
18:09
expectation he was so stoked about it um but I asked him did it is it going to be
18:14
in your top 10 and he was like no I don't think so but it's a really good game so I think perhaps he just really
18:21
was looking forward to it and then it wasn't quite as good as he thought I think what we're after is Dinosaur
18:27
Island has some excellent parts to it and it has some parts that aren't as fun and it's the same with this and I
18:34
actually think out of the two I prefer dinogenics as a game um but I just wish
18:41
they kind of Amalgamated some of the bits together and actually made a super epic uh dinosaur game that did what it's
18:47
trying to do CU it still feels like it's missing something for me um but but no I
18:53
didn't hate it thought it was a good time I think if you you treat that game as maybe what it's intended for which is
18:58
a bit of laugh you know things might go wrong don't take it too seriously and
19:03
just you know it's about Bloody dinosaurs at the end of the day I think you know it is what it is yeah
19:08
definitely I was going to make a joke about if the Marine expansion allowed you to drown the dinosaurs you didn't want like in Arc
19:15
NOA now T kept feeding his dinosaurs to his other dinosaurs to get rich Point what you do do it's good VP generator
19:23
was mhm life will find a way right Ian Malcolm oh okay yeah I know it's
19:29
nice as Hammond isn't it yeah yeah all right move on how about you Adrian so recently I
19:36
finally got moon to the table by Sinister fish games so it actually Moon
19:42
came out last Expo pretty much um and it's the final one to the best of my
19:48
knowledge of what I'm going to call the long box games from Sinister fish games so they've produced Villages streets and
19:55
moon and these are games that come in like a very long thin box that I
20:01
actually really like I wish they were very slightly wider because it doesn't seem to matter what they've done with it
20:07
the box it's just a little bit too thin to fit all the components in and I just wish that bearing in mind that you can't
20:12
fit four of them side by side on a cax you can only fit three anyway it felt like they could have put just a little
20:19
bit bit more width on it to get everything in the Box nicely but apart from that all of the games I've really
20:25
enjoyed um villagers was was really strong early doors and really enjoyed playing that um you're kind of drafting
20:32
from a river of cards to build up your village and you kind of need to unlock certain professions so you have to
20:38
unlock the woodworker before you can start making wheels and beds and stuff like that in your little village um and
20:43
it's got two rounds of scoring and then streets was a little bit more of tile placement again it's the idea of you're
20:49
building up your modern day neighborhood um and uh once you've fulfilled a street
20:56
everyone there gets fomo and moves on on to other streets that they then you then need to fill up um and so kind of things
21:02
become worth more because of me getting fomo which is actually what it's called in the game um and moving other places
21:09
and then moon is kind of the next part of that so you you've built up your medieval village then you've built up your city streets and now you've got a
21:16
moon base that you're building up and it kind of takes a little bit from like card drafting so you've got that sort of
21:24
um Seven Wonders esque bit mixed in with the original Villages so you got three phases you get a handful of cards um and
21:32
one of the things it does slightly differently is that each hand has an era
21:39
card in it which is like a special ability or a permanent change to the hand so it might be oh if you pay if you
21:45
buy anything from this that produces stuff you have to pay extra for it or you pay less for it or you get an extra
21:52
so as the hand goes around you'll see that era card come back around a couple of times that just give you little
21:57
one-off abilities which I thought I don't think I've seen that in other drafting games where there's a that hand
22:03
always has a permanent ability attached to it um so though you draft that and
22:09
then in between each phase as you play something if it's got production you produce it automatically but between
22:15
each phase you produce everything on your production and then there's flag in order to build like a super highway you
22:21
have to have Road Flags like three Road Flags before so you're kind of just building up flags and production to to
22:28
then build these massive things that are worth victory points at the end and I really enjoyed
22:34
it but I know there's a but yeah those Era cards at two player are really
22:42
swingy and because you see them every other turn you can be stuck constantly seeing a rubbish hand that you can't
22:49
really draft well from and if someone else gets just the good card straight off the other hand and you've got the
22:56
one with the NAFA card in it feels a bit like it's missing something and I feel
23:03
like I haven't played at three or four players yet but I feel like at three or four players it will actually get rid of that but I think it's not as good a
23:09
two-play game as Villages or streets but I feel like it's probably at three or
23:14
four players going to really compete with villagers streets is fine but it's definitely the weaker of the set for me
23:20
personally I know there's people out there who feel differently but for me it's the weaker of the three but they're
23:26
all good games that I really like and a quite travel sort of easy to to travel with um and they all feel quite similar
23:33
despite doing different things so the first one is much more about sequencing
23:39
getting drafting off of this River of cards um the next one is drafting like you get cards into a hand
23:46
of cards like you get these uh Street tiles into your hand and then you're playing those to try and block other
23:52
people and stop them getting what they need and then moon is drafting like more typical drafting so you still hate draft
23:59
off of people and you still kind of pull the cards you need and want so it kind of feels like they all have a very
24:05
similar feeling but they do them so different enough that I'd absolutely keep all three nice um so they've done I
24:11
think since the fish games has done a fantastic job of giving you three games bit like the century series that feel
24:16
similar they're a similar weight they have similar Vibes but different enough mechanics that you'd keep all three of them it's like a DNA thing is yeah and I
24:23
think they've done a really good job of that and I know that they're moving away from that box size at the moment but I
24:31
really hope at some point they feel like revisiting it and doing another Trilogy or something because again we talk about
24:37
games per cax you can stack these on top of them and you could actually get nine games in a cax which quite space
24:44
efficient and and they just produce that nice little puzzle and I think it restricts them from getting adding too many mechanisms which I think can be
24:50
quite a common problem where I feel like that's a good game and then they've added this random extra set of tracks on it and added this I felt like it's
24:57
restricted the a little bit into that design space a bit like the tiny epic games you know I
25:02
feel like they're restricted by the box size a little bit and I think they've done a great job of working around that as the games have gone on with tiny epic
25:10
but um it feels like it restricts them to how much they can fit into that box I think it's exactly the same with
25:16
Sinister fish games so quite looking forward to seeing them at Expo this year nice yeah I've only ever played
25:21
villagers and I I enjoyed that game actually not play Streets not played Moon so yeah I think I think moon will
25:27
be one that definitely would get to the table and play and say I'm happy to play Streets just not the one I'd put in
25:32
front of person next after villagers right sounds cool yeah sounds good Happy
25:38
Days Happy Days heck's
25:43
[Music] over so we've just had a little bit of
25:50
stoppage time cuz it started raining so like the cricket we've all sort of ran off the pitch um we're now back on so
25:57
you might hear a bit of rain in the background but hopefully you don't and then this just get edited out anyway and
26:02
so with that we're on to our main turn where we're going to be talking about our great hex expectations and when they've possibly been let down or just
26:09
not quite what we were hoping for I'm going to kick off with Tambo so what great expectation did you have that
26:15
didn't quite live up I'm going to go back to a real old school one Batman Talisman and um I bought it and I
26:22
thought the family going to love this my nie and neew we're going to have a great time playing it and I put and I I love Batman who doesn't love Batman right
26:28
love it I'm Batman Batman and then um he's got a C okay fine yeah I'm good you
26:33
were born to the darkness Mr R sorry we're just doing
26:38
that really [ __ ] vein Impressions I love it anyway um so basically on a quick one
26:44
it's a it's a roll of dice movement game um play cards sort of Qui quickboard and
26:51
there's three levels of the Arkham Asylum you're actually the villains not the Batman you're actually the villains
26:57
um and I thought well this is simple I know we're going to love it and then 3
27:02
hours later we're still rolling on the first level three hours one of us might be on the second level but then it was just
27:09
roll do one thing do it again do another thing and I thought yeah this isn't I think I can see the frustration on my
27:14
brother-in-laws on my sister's face bless him they're like this is going to be over soon no so it was uh it's one of those
27:22
games where I thought I like the look of it and I thought it was going to be great fun for the whole family and it
27:27
turned to be a bit of a job yeah yeah a bit of a tartour to get the game done
27:32
and it hasn't hit the table again since and that's my memory of Talisman and I think anyone I've spoken to that played
27:38
Talisman about the same time as I was playing it so 15 years ago 20 years ago even maybe whenever it was was that that
27:44
was it it was just going around in circles but at the time there wasn't a lot of competition out there for it
27:50
whereas now there's a load of competition for it yeah um like I said I
27:56
love the figures are really brilliant I love the figures at the card the art the um the the cards and you know it's it's
28:02
good idea with the Batman coming down you move him he shoots down he attacks us and stuff but it was just yeah it was
28:07
really painful and unfortunately same still on my shelf though so I've still got it we will I
28:13
might try it again is that where he plays the villains yes it's the villains so you're the villains trying to get to the the actual core of the prison to
28:20
escape is it yeah and Batman's there just trying to stop you basically and you can move Batman which you roll a
28:25
certain amount dice for what I can remember cuz it's been ages since I played it you get to move Batman into Stitch other people up yes and then
28:31
stuff like that so but um yeah that's a shame really that's my I was quite excited about it and then it was just
28:38
like n batman is failed you yeah it did fail me so I think well you just talking
28:43
then T and I was thinking you love Batman and I was thinking about Gotham City Chronicles yeah maybe and I know
28:49
the games that you really love you love that kind of uh action dudes beat dudes
28:55
up on on on the board and all that kind of stuff and I know it's quite heavy and Adrian used to have this we talked about
29:00
this ages ago on the we but yeah Gotham City Chronicles might be your Batman game that you might enjoy if you can put
29:09
the time in to learn the booger yeah it's it's one of those where I wouldn't put it in front of a family whereas
29:14
Talisman as long as it goes on that's the good thing about Talisman right it's you could it's accessible and it's easy to yeah able to play play whereas Gotham
29:23
City Chronicles is really thinky crunchy and you can add time on it one of my pet hates of it was
29:28
the time like the time was so short that you couldn't just go and beat up a few villains because you felt like being
29:34
Batman or red hood or whatever you had to go straight to the targets and do them as efficiently as possible and that
29:39
was kind of part of the puzzle but yeah it's not quite as accessible as as
29:44
Talisman and as you said they've done like a Harry Potter version as well and they've done there's Lo there quite a
29:51
few isn't there they've done I think they've done 40K Talisman they've called it something else but I'm pretty sure it's 40K Talisman as well cuz obviously
29:57
Talisman was produced by the the play like the old Games Workshop production lot if I remember correctly so the
30:04
production values really come along and it looks really good on the table but yeah if it plays anything like IR
30:10
remember Talisman I just yeah I can't imagine it being much improved like I
30:15
can't imagine them having done anything radical to the game play to really bring It Forward into 20 years and where it
30:23
was origin it's like hero like you play it I think people play it to feel a bit
30:28
more nostalgic rather than to have a new game that's cool I remember though you know when you played say Monopoly as a
30:35
kid playing it for 3 hours was fine yeah like looking back that just sounds like the worst thing ever play Monopoly for 3
30:42
hours oh c you no thank you but back then like Adrian you were saying there wasn't really the competition so finding
30:50
a game that you could play for three hours well that was Sunday afternoon wasn't it so maybe we've just got not just us particularly I mean but I don't
30:57
want to sound like the kind of social media naysay is oh we nobody's got concentration anymore but maybe we're
31:03
just more refined as a as a nation for games like we're just like no I don't want to play something the same for 3
31:09
hours I want you know improvements or upgrades or because that's the kind of games we play on our phones and you know
31:15
every other game you level up to a thing maybe we're just not we're just not prepared to accept same same same same
31:23
same for 3 hours now whereas before we sort of did didn't we well I definitely did deep on this cou aren't we I did
31:30
forget I think I forgot that a roller move mechanic is actually really painful
31:35
yeah and I kind of brought it back like actually this is actually really painful so I didn't do roll roller move mechanics when I was younger it's like
31:41
now I've got a game Talisman was like it never bothered you when you're young you're like oh no yeah I'm a dwarf and
31:46
I've moved 17 spaces oh I say I'm an elf and I've moved one there's no thematic reason just because you know but it was
31:53
fine yeah we didn't know any better though I think and like you said the choice wasn't there the the pedigree and
31:59
the design and the the years that I've gone into gaming to refine and improve upon those mechanics like you know we
32:06
are spoil for choice now there's just so much on the breadth of of different games accessible to families or Die Hard
32:13
crunchy nonent or whatever we we you kind of want it's there isn't it so but yeah I think when you go back to an old
32:19
mechanic you just kind of go yeah not for me yeah yeah exactly yeah so you
32:26
you've been through that experience and you lived it and you've kind of understood what perhaps wasn't up to expectation was there anything you
32:31
positive you took out of the experience was there anything you took away well got the family together didn't it we played three hours and we managed you
32:37
know got the n and nephew not on their iPads or anything so it was going be that that's always a win man yeah and like I say as a Batman fan the the
32:45
actual story to it and the actual idea of it is really good nice yeah and like I said the actual figures are actually really if you like your figures and you
32:51
like your details it's they're really good um yeah it was just a bit disappoint I'm not say I won't play
32:56
again I think we'll try again yeah definitely I haven't played in the group I actually Tred should have always triy to put an event up but again it's not
33:03
everyone's go to and I think you need players for this as well you need least probably minim of four yeah you've not sold it to me too I'm sorry no so
33:09
there's no point put the gr now so I don't think I'll be signing up for that one too do you want to play this game that I really didn't enjoy yeah for
33:16
three hours go on give it go some we talk about the podcast isn't it come on go on actually I will play it then you
33:22
mate I'll play I'll play I don't mind right so anyway too get off the C
33:28
we actually get into yeah into psychiatrist territory so Becky tell us about an experience you've had so this
33:35
is I'm a bit I'm in two minds it was a disappointment but that's not because it's a disappointing game so it's dog
33:43
park New Tricks I thought you might have mentioned that no see I really liked it
33:50
I liked what it does to the like what it the improvements it makes the dogs are be the cards are great you know it's
33:57
thing I like the boards you got even more little meeples now one of the little dog meeples has got like Wheels
34:02
instead of back leg so it's brilliant a I know and like I say the artwork I really like it the thing it does is it
34:10
makes it a bit better of a game so basically you got to think more yeah so
34:16
it makes more bit a think tank yeah you mean I might like it now yeah so it's
34:22
good for other it's probably good for other people but I liked it as a let's just play a game with cute little dogs
34:29
there's no real oh thinking necessarily yeah you might be aiming to get more of one type than another because you get
34:35
more points for this all that but it was just a Mindless nicely mindless kind of
34:41
chill yeah I'm not I'm not going to put anything very heavy into this it's just a pottering around a park picking up
34:48
octopus toys and picking up balls and bones and things it's great but now there's actually some skill and some
34:54
tactics involved which which doesn't actually improve the game it does it's fundamentally a better game now I think
35:02
um it now plays five players yes um so it's done nothing but improved the game
35:08
I have to say but for me I liked the fact I could introduce this to someone who didn't really understand game
35:15
mechanics so you know Curly's mom for example she really likes dogs I thought she's going to like this game and she did like it and yes there is a little
35:21
bit of strategy as in each little dog has got powers yeah not you know magic
35:26
powers but you know like they they might be when every time whenever you pick a ball up pick up another one whatever
35:33
that's what the tricks does is yeah but the tricks makes it more harder cuz each yeah each dog has gives every dog an
35:39
ability that there's the trick yeah so you can get an engine going now you can and I I'm not very good at yes see
35:45
everyone's more excited I was thinking oh I'm actually going to have to be bothered now I'm actually going to have
35:50
to invest a bit of tiny bit of brain and
35:56
I that's what I liked about just regular dog park it's just dogs it's just cute you're wandering around a park at very
36:01
very low stakes like you know I'm not going to win anyway because I'm playing against curly so that's always irrelevant but now would he have an
36:08
engine of loads of balls and course he did he had a ball collecting engine whatever he was he always
36:14
got done something but now there is the potential that he could get maybe not
36:20
500 points but you know loads and I might still be paring around 20 or something and that's whereas before it
36:26
was just ploted now it's actually thinky so absolutely improved the gaml 100%
36:32
recommend buying dog park new tricks if you've got regular dog park but for me
36:38
it's made me less likely to want to play it that's interesting is it's also made the park better because you got these
36:43
tokens you put the park so you get more resources now in the Park yeah it's it's done nothing but improved the game
36:49
absolutely 100% improved the game but for me I just wanted a bit of mindless cute dog playing not really having to
36:56
focus now you have to think about it a bit more which is which is totally a pro mhm definitely good for the game but I
37:02
just wanted boring so as your standin pretend board game therapist I'm going
37:08
to say something slightly controversial and I think probably offensive to JP which is that you don't have to put the
37:14
expansion on the table y well actually it is totally ripe for that because the boxes
37:21
do need to stay separate so I could you're right Adrian I could just choose to not play how rude but but would you
37:28
get curly to play it now without the expansion that's exactly it the problem my question was you've now played it
37:34
with the expansion you think you know what I kind of preferred it as the chill experience without it but will it get to
37:41
the table because will will now anyone play it with you no and without it no interesting so now the game that you
37:47
knew and loved has gone it it has a in a weird way I mean I think it's still certain people yeah yeah it's still a
37:54
game I can Trot out with some friends that aren't gamers and it's easy enough for everybody to
38:00
understand again it's not super high stakes it's very obvious so that's cool
38:06
so I think I'll still get to play it with maybe some girlfriends who aren't Gamers or I can't think of any other
38:14
time play thanks T you're going to want you're going to want to play the good version would all right cool cool but I
38:20
am going to I am going to miss the sorry just it's the way you I want to play the good version mindset is already the with
38:27
the expansion is the good version yeah but it is with the expansion is the better game it fundamentally is a better
38:33
game now for bigger Gamers back it's not necessarily the better game for everyone people have the same opinion as you that
38:39
the fact that it's is better head versus heart right kind of thing you know you think logically logically this makes
38:46
sense and it is better and I know it's better but I'd enjoy it how it was yeah that's fine I enjoyed just basic nothing
38:52
wrong with that say Baron Park the grizzly bears Bad News Bears Bad News
38:57
Bears whatever they're called doesn't interest me I still haven't played the bad news bear expansion it's still sat
39:03
on my shelf or might have now sold off play but I had it on the shelf for
39:08
ages knowing that I didn't want the expansion because it was going to make it more of an experience but I didn't want that out that's exactly it that's
39:15
exactly how I felt about dog pot new Trix and and I hope you know if the designers are listening it's a brilliant
39:20
expansion you've done a fantastic job with this you have you know improved it
39:25
monumentally by only adding a very couple of little extra steps that are very very easy to understand and totally
39:32
mesh in beautifully with the game as we talking to designers I still think they should put should have put a a dog poo
39:38
thing in it so the dogs poo in the park and you get Negative VPS if you don't pick it up yeah that would have been quite a cool mechanic makes sense makes
39:44
sense cuz that's a big thing about walking stock of poo bags and you don't could be a great mechanic or expansion
39:50
for it I'm sorry and you've got to go and ask people for poo bags and have the shame of going we got a poo bag you haven't got one you to hang it from the
39:56
tree whatever what they going to call the Third Edition then like dog [ __ ]
40:02
Edition pick up your poo something like that dog [ __ ]
40:09
expansion oh this good name for it this is going
40:15
in yeah there you go birdwood games that is but and I still yet to do the um
40:21
jigsaw puzzle so I'm really looking forward to doing that cuz it's it's a great I really love the game I love
40:26
everything about that game and I even love the expansion it is better but I've just got that little soft spot for the
40:32
Billy basic yeah just give the expansion someone's dog to chew through it and
40:37
then you've had a real life dog experience out of it and you curly can't ever say I'm not playing it now the
40:43
expansion you don't own the expansion I think I think you've covered the what have you gained out of this as well because you've learned that you don't
40:49
need the expansion in things no I'll never learn that I'm in JP's park for this more stuff more shiny stuff y makes
40:57
It betterer Go Mr betterer JP hello um yeah I I actually struggle for this a
41:04
little bit um cuz secret listeners I wasn't actually going to be on this episode tonight but you've got me so
41:10
there you go um but the game that kind of Springs to mind is
41:18
Septima oh my God I know Becky she's I'm not going to look at Becky as I talk cuz she'll peer into my soul so septum as a
41:26
game I played the pro type God I don't know nearly two years ago so I had the the fortunate experience to play that
41:33
and I had a really good time with it thought yeah this is really good really country and the more I've played the Bas
41:39
and I'm classing the Basse game as the the standard game with the ritual track
41:45
and the the advanced side the advanced side yeah so when I say base that's what I mean I don't mean without all of that
41:51
um so the more I've kind of played it and played it there just for me there's just something not quite hitting the
41:56
mark for me me don't know what it is and I'm like it's mine Clash I'm going to love this cuz I'm like a big mine Clash
42:01
fan as you know so I kind of like to own every mine Clash game possible where I can um and and yeah I just the more I
42:10
played it the more just like I don't know just something not quite right it's a bit I don't it felt one note it felt a
42:16
bit procedural you go for a round you play the cards end of the round you get
42:22
the cards back you play the second round play some more cards collected some bits Brun potions do and no it just didn't
42:28
know there wasn't enough going on I think for for me personally and to the point where I was like you know what had
42:36
a kind of one final moment I put an event up in the group before I'm going to give this one more shot if it doesn't
42:42
uh grip me then that's it I'm just going to move it on it's not for me um and the one little module expansion talking
42:49
about expansions I thought I need to try it with that before I kind of make my my kind of full decision um was the shape
42:56
shifters and n man's expansion and I thought right let's go all in see how I feel let's try it out
43:04
and actually when I played it with that my kind of opinions changed a little bit on it um and and it's solely down to the
43:12
The Shape Shifters part of that expand the Omens I could take or leave the Omens are like event cards that you just
43:18
put in do a thing depending on how much um uh suspicion that you you kind of
43:24
raise between you as a group well depending on whether it's a dark side or the light side of the omen card that gets triggered so so there's a bit of
43:30
like oh do we all want uh to incentivize to to be good or bad or do I not care unless you Tambo you didn't give give a
43:37
[ __ ] he was like yeah suspicion L you one from top right you hovered one from top or half of it for all the game one
43:43
from Top yeah one you just just you just a DOD I think you'll explain in a minute but it's a lot harder to get rid of
43:48
Suspicion with Ship Shape Shifters and I think in the base game suspicion is quite easily managed in my opinion you
43:55
can mess up chant right the chant card is the one you could yeah easily kind of just keep it at Bay and and for those
44:00
that don't really know suspicion is just kind of a uh a track that you manage so the more um that you match with Septima
44:08
or match with other players when you play the cards I.E the same card you you you're kind of being a bit more noticeable by the the the witch Hunters
44:16
that are kind of circling the board and they're going to jump on you I've noticed a lot of people are picking mushrooms today what's going what's
44:21
going on over there why are you using a lot of magic um all that kind of nonsense so in the shape shifters what
44:27
it does to flip the game on its head a little bit is you can no longer get your
44:33
cards back at the end of the round so the only way you get your cards back from the discard pile is playing The
44:38
Shape Shifter card and ideally turning into one of the two little animals that you get is that between actual Seasons
44:44
then so you don't pick your all your o yeah okay um and when you're an animal
44:50
which you can choose at the end of your turn to morph back into human form but when you're an animal you can only have access to four action cards so depending
44:59
on which one you pick one of them has a special ability also limits what you do but every time you don't match as an
45:05
animal you reduce suspicion so it's kind of like it's just added a little layer to the game which is not now I just go
45:13
through the motions play the season get my cards back do the same rinse repeat
45:18
rinse repeat for me now you got to think when do I shape shift when do I get my cards back which ones do I want um so
45:25
just add another layer so I've gone kind of on a weird loop the loop Journey with this game and I'm not saying I've fully
45:32
made my mind up yet because I've only played one game with the expansion and it might be I play it a few more times and I've gone I'm done with it but I
45:39
don't know for me like going in with a mine clash and I'm like is this the one that I'm going to have to get rid of cuz
45:44
I really like most of them do you know what I mean just kind of felt I don't know I feel bad I kind of feel bad you
45:50
feel bad for not liking a game yeah a m game M that's yeah for me it's like like
45:57
them all don't I surely I like all the ones the games all the games that they do it's just yeah weird it's my you know
46:04
enter into my psyche here um it's be like chip Theory like I've not found one
46:09
I hate I'm it's going to happen cuz naturally the more games you put out I'm not going to love them all right it's
46:15
just the way it is so yeah when you when you kind of have one of your favorite Publishers and you just think that was not quite for me I don't know just made
46:22
me feel bad I think it's it's interesting because um The Shape Shifters yes it is an expansion but it
46:28
does come with the base it's not like you've got to play that for ages and then you got to go out and buy your shape shifter expansion it's is part of
46:34
the game I don't know actually because for the kickstarter Deluxe versions I think it's in okay but it might not be
46:41
in retail when I bought FR check this people when when I bought it at Essen you bought the kickstarter version oh
46:47
did I I see yours is the deluxe version same as mine mate yeah yeah so I think it depends cuz I've seen some people
46:54
online with the socials they've got like a separate box for the shape that's interesting so might not be we're
47:00
going back the same way aren't we so when you play set on its own it's a think tank but when you put the shape shifter makes a bigger thing tank yeah
47:06
and again you might have the same response to this will which is a quite
47:11
like septum or how it is and there's nothing wrong with it as a game personally like it's it's fine but I
47:16
don't know for me it's missing something so it's kind of like I think you know in shelf space is a commodity can't own and
47:24
it's huge and it's kind of like I've had fun playing it it's been great but it kind of needs to do something more to
47:30
for me to keep it it does have that dice chance that you don't like that can ruin yeah well they have made this more have
47:36
got deterministic variance now on BG you did say this before we played didn't we didn't do it did we yeah and it's to be
47:42
honest the dice rolling I'm all right with uh is the bag pulling of the um
47:48
crows I I need to get my my guys in the chamber uh no no no I put put five in
47:55
where are they no red red red you know great I I like I like it yeah it is what
48:02
it is um but at least they've done deterministic variance on it anyway I'm not a to talk about scepter in great detail it is what it is but that's yeah
48:09
it's more about the feel bad moment I think yeah but it's kind of come back around for you at least then for the
48:15
moment yeah which is kind of weird it's like the positive out of it was well thought I was going to get rid of a game
48:20
tried all of it actually made it more interesting gave it a sixth chance and
48:25
there you go there you go well even if you do get rid of it mate it still be around my house so if you need to borrow it at any point you know it's exactly
48:32
it's there isn't it yeah how about you then Adrian what's your uh so I'm about to talk about an entire designer here um
48:41
so I I don't think I've made I don't think I've been too vocal or too quiet about it but I
48:47
was over lockdown I created a list of designers that I really wanted to try
48:53
like a good portion of their games and top of that list was Rosenberg um and I knew that I didn't
49:01
like Feast for Odin going in just wasn't going to be a game that I enjoyed i' watched other people play it wasn't
49:07
going to be for me but I genuinely thought based on videos I'd watched and feedback I'd seen that uve Rosenberg
49:14
could be my guy my designer and he's not um it's is the short story
49:21
right let's move on so we played so it's all started off where we talked about
49:26
well let's get an uve Rosenberg episode in and I put up one of my ideas like I'd like to do a uve Rosenberg episode and
49:31
Davey was keen and so were you Becky I know and I think JP you were kind of in on it as well as be nice to do that that
49:37
as well and I was but I've only played like half a game of U and I don't i' need to play more to and probably more
49:45
of his sort of standard Euro games to actually really say anything on that episode so you guys created the episode
49:52
and I think there sort of at that point you played like five or six different ones but you've played loads more since
49:58
then definitely and I what did we play first we played
50:03
agria and I didn't enjoy that cuz there was like the predetermined Seasons that
50:09
aren't actually predetermined but you need to know the game from start to finish to know what to do in that game
50:15
same as Cava and the way it worked and I just didn't enjoy that process at all it felt like you had to have at least one
50:22
go where you just didn't really know what you were doing you didn't know the flow of the game and it's not like a Lera where you can still see the flow of
50:28
the game very quickly you can't see the flow of the game until the end of the game pretty much your first game is crap
50:35
yeah I didn't like that and then we played oh and then in that it also had
50:40
the thing that I think is the main reason why I don't like uve games which is that it has just lots
50:46
of very different cards with bits of text on them yeah there's no symbology
50:51
that ties it all together quite often these cards are quite wordy or you don't see where they fit in until you've played half the game and I was like oh
50:58
man just not loving this now we played AA labora and that was the same there's just lots of different cards with with
51:05
just I don't know how this is really going to affect the game until I've played it a couple of times and I had nfield on the shelf and I was like cuz I
51:12
that was the one to me that looked like the most likely for me to sort of fall in love with that was fine again just
51:18
lots of cards with random bits of information on played glass road that was okay didn't mind that too much and
51:24
I've played atwa since which is definitely my favorite of his designs which I think is also controversial
51:30
because most people seem to not think that as an uve game as the rest but
51:35
that's probably why I like it is that it's not as uve as the rest and so yeah so I've I've kind of having gone on this
51:42
sort of Journey where I'm like I'm going to work through designers or like try and make sure I play two or three
51:47
designs from each designer that I really like so I've gone from that to straight
51:53
away like this is the one on the top of the list don't have much love for and I'm not excited by any games of his
52:00
anymore like you've talked about halow before JP and there's no interest for me to want to play it now what crop
52:07
rotation yeah but I don't mind that I genuinely that is not what puts me off
52:13
of it in fact I was like you know what a bit of beige Euro sounds all right can deal with that but yeah so yeah just
52:20
kind of left me feeling really quite felt me left me feeling quite disappointed generally um that I'd SP
52:26
spent so much time on a designer that I think after two games I knew probably wasn't me but I was so determined to see
52:31
if there was something in his collection I think that's that shows that you kind of you're not going to
52:37
write it off after the first game so I think it's commendable it's in your favor that you really did try a few
52:43
different games to go I really want to like this and you kind of you didn't just play one round of one game and go
52:50
oh this is it crap I don't like any of it but I think there's there's two things I took away from that one is that I really detest
52:56
lots of individual cards with text on them I don't mind lots of individual cards but they need to be summed up by
53:03
one or two pieces of iconography just symbols and then I think that's okay cuz
53:09
if you can what's you're at most going to put probably 10 symbols into a game
53:15
you're not going to put many more than that and so I think that limits how many like variations you're going to see even
53:21
if it's like three of these turn into two of those fine I can deal with that but actually I've noticed that I think I
53:27
probably wouldn't get into Dominion as hard as I did when I was younger because
53:33
of how many text cards there are just with text on them sort of in the game um and then the other thing is that I've
53:38
actually looked at other designers so stepan Feld I've only played a couple of the games from Stefan Feld but I've
53:44
loved the design so much that I'm now like right now I have to Deep dive into their games and I've looked I think I've
53:50
generally paid more attention I always paid a bit of attention to to designers
53:56
but I think I've now paying more attention to who's designing games and noticing sort of themes in their type in
54:04
the games they're they're designing so so yes that's my little journey on on uve thought I was going to
54:10
love him didn't got out of it well you found a little I was going to say happy ending but that's probably not what I
54:18
meant but you know you you found a uh um a light at the end of the tunnel should we say absolutely and that's fine isn't
54:24
it you I think it's quite nice when you on an exploration with designers and I did the same with UA but I've kind of
54:30
gone on the other side of it where I've really enjoyed a lot of his games some of them less so some of them actually
54:35
really surprised me it's funny he said about the cards cuz even in halow actually it doesn't have Tex really they
54:41
got rid of it um and I I can appreciate that in agricul it's like reading ESS not essays it's probably a bit harsh but
54:47
there's a lot to take in on those first plays it's like here's here's 14 cards that you've got I have no idea how these
54:54
all work together where they would go in Etc so background to Tempo then um I'll go quick one then um as you be mentioned
55:01
uve I played Hal with JP and Curley the other night and right so when JP bought it to the game Expo last year we played
55:06
it me you and my brother that's the first time we put it and I loved it I thought was great doing all these card combos and um and I thought it's great
55:14
it's growing crops I do like that aspect in the game um so I really enjoyed the game I'm not sure if I won I can't remember but I had a good score and I
55:21
say my my expectation on this one was I'm going to love it but then this time I can get any car cards so it's
55:27
obviously a l basic card and I realized if you don't get some good card combos and you draw them up you're just stuck
55:32
you can't do anything and I think I they Davey doubled my score yeah he did well and it's just dis after that I went to
55:38
your house had a horrible game H last night and I didn't realize there's that big gap I don't mind games where you
55:45
kind of go in between that was that was a bit of a whitewash and I was just I had like a turn and I went to around JP
55:51
and he was like I'll do this with this car do this and I'm doing this and well mine not so hard to get I couldn't do it yeah synergize with each other all you
55:58
want to feel competitive right it doesn't matter if you lose by a little bit you just want to feel like you
56:03
competed you you gave people a bit of a run for their money at least and yeah you don't kind of get that feeling out of it it can be a bit that's it well I
56:09
had such a good feeling the first time I played it I thought it's going great game second game and it was just like no
56:14
but it doesn't mean I won't play again I will but it's it was just that expectation of it I thought I'm going to love it again and this actually didn't like it I didn't enjoy it that turn yeah
56:21
so I think you'll have a third game maybe just to see but I don't know tide breaker or whatever but then if I find
56:27
out I get a bad score again I think that's it but yeah think it's like yeah were you super unlucky is it and I've
56:32
heard that about that particular game is um you know it can you know feel like
56:38
that you can you get a certain set of cards that were just randomly dealt to you and you're like well they don't really clock off each other or you just
56:46
got what you got and you're trying to you know make the most of it you can always draw more cards but you don't know what you're getting it's not like
56:51
you can pick out of a shop or anything you get what you get and make the best of it and you know workers are a
56:57
commodity in that game like every every Euro game but generally you don't want to be using them all the time to draw
57:02
more freaking cards to do something you know maybe I didn't do that enough maybe but there was yeah but also the the
57:09
opposite side in that game is that you can end up going down some rabbit holes because your cards are going go down
57:14
here and you you're losing the objective of actually what you're trying to do so there can be a real big distraction as
57:20
well in that game too I think I had a bit of that when I played Scythe for the first time the other day um I hadn't
57:27
played it before so I didn't really have a clue what the point of anything particular was and I just thought right
57:32
well one of my objectives is get loads of resources on one hex so I just went
57:37
down that route and it was basically rubbish it didn't like everyone else was upgrading everything and I was just
57:43
focusing on get some oil get some whatever so that kind of yeah I think I
57:49
would probably enjoy the game the second time I played it but I'm at absolutely no rush to play that again and I'm sure to you probably feel the same about
57:54
halel right like yeah I I think I would play again yeah I would play side again
58:00
but cuz you were looking forward to that I was yeah I really wanted to experience it because I like I like a lot of stone
58:06
my games um and Scythe was the one that Curly had said I probably would like the least because it's
58:11
about um you know people on a map spread out know area control which isn't
58:18
normally my thing but I could see the I could see the appeal of it I I
58:25
can I'm just not interested I'm just not interested which is a shame because I I wanted to really
58:31
like that because I know that it's got a lot of you know people have got a lot of
58:37
really good things to say about it Dan's a real fan um and he you know goes on about how great it is and and I can see
58:43
why it would be I just didn't enjoy it maybe that was because it was my first run through I don't know but you know me
58:51
say la V I would play it again I would yeah I would okay but just not if I've
58:56
got any other options to play any other games yeah definitely lower down the preferences 100% is yeah yeah fair
59:03
enough so is that counting as yours as well well no I do I do have a which is a game I really liked so my other kind of
59:10
sort disappointed expectation Earth now I like it this is
59:16
not why I'm bringing it to the table I've already backed the Ed the abundance the abundance expansion yeah curly
59:22
doesn't like it which really surprised me really really surprised me I know he
59:28
said it was a seven out of 10 is what he he classed it as he's never wanted to play it since and he's not bothered anymore no he fallen off y I don't think
59:37
I wonder why he got the table again yeah he's just not he's just not if everyone else is interested great I'll put up a I'll put up a thing I really oh right
59:44
I'll play I don't I don't hate my fa I'll try again yeah well I mean it's a lot more complicated than I think I it
59:51
can be played a lot more complicatedly or a lot more kind of um
59:57
with a lot more Nuance than I can play I don't think about you know the is this next to that I I'm just looking at the
1:00:02
pictures I'm not going to lie and I like it I like the game dog park but and that's why I thought shut that's why I
1:00:09
thought curly was really going to like it because you can really super like combo Max this to the absolute Nth
1:00:15
Degree so I thought he'd be all over this like you can make your little well this Farms off of this that does this
1:00:22
and and out of one turn you can get like everything but he's just not B I don't know what it is about it specifically
1:00:28
that he doesn't like but he's just like CU it's not on Mars well so your
1:00:34
expectation was you thought Cur would it curly was going to really love it and we were super excited by it and you know I
1:00:40
remember not pushing in the queue to get it you know we were super excited about it but yeah he just he played it and was
1:00:49
like and I was really surprised because I thought it would be right up his street I'm I'm surprised because I do
1:00:55
think it's I think it's quite similar to terraforming Mars I don't think it's quite as grandiose as terraforming Mars
1:01:01
that's why I like it but I think it has a lot in common with terraforming Mars and yes that's why I'm surprised this
1:01:07
feeds off of this feeds off of this yeah I remember when you were explaining it when you first played you told a group all it sounded really great and exciting
1:01:13
I thought that sounds a really good game and it is I've played it once yeah I really like it I mean like I said I'm not I don't spend enough time really
1:01:20
deciding where I'm going to put each particular card which makes a massive difference so I normally get crouched in
1:01:26
it but I don't care cuz I like I like the game and building the little you know your little what Sprouts well the
1:01:32
little green Sprouts which I've now changed for little glass of course I have but the um you
1:01:38
not got the new um in the expansion you not going for the upgraded expensive are they expens really expensive I just
1:01:44
couldn't it looks like Super Mario like world when you look know I really liked it but I just couldn't justify it fair
1:01:50
if curly had really liked it that might have just pushed me over the edge to buy the super sexy swanky
1:01:56
but he just doesn't so I know it isn't going to get to our table that often so I'm just stuck with a it's disappointing
1:02:03
it I think because obviously you two husband and wife live together and actually finding a game that you both
1:02:10
really enjoy that you both get something out of which I know honestly might be a challenge cuz like Curley lights on the
1:02:16
heavier end not too far cuz then he he's like no no thank you and and I think for
1:02:22
yourself Becky you like the more lighter end of the scale right in terms of the game so trying to find that that balance
1:02:28
between you yeah I thought Earth was going to fit in that category so we've played an absolute boatload of arova the
1:02:35
the bass version on board game arena and he's still beating me almost every time but I'm I'm still pleased with my game
1:02:43
I'm still pleased with how I performed in it um and like yeah I thought Earth could be another one of those you know
1:02:49
yes I will gradually get better as I kind of Snoop on what he's doing and figure out where I didn't get load of points where he did which is what kind
1:02:56
of happens in AR NOA with us to be honest but I thought Earth was going to be that that game well but it's not yeah
1:03:03
sounds like we got us four that would play it so I definitely would play it let's play it then do it it's C that's
1:03:09
WR that's it yeah four against one yeah no I'll put it I'll put it in the game group then because I would like to play
1:03:15
it more do it do it I will do it nice JP yes back on the couch um mine's going to
1:03:21
be very quick and it's I am now coming to the
1:03:27
realization that I don't care about Campaign games anymore this kind of
1:03:32
makes me feel a bit sad um and it's basically the last campaign game that I
1:03:38
played was ISS Vanguard and really like when I got that so excited about it Mass Effect the
1:03:44
board game kind of vibe love Mass Effect playing it on the Xbox love sci-fi space
1:03:52
exploration had it all and you guys were so excited about it God you were so excited all of you were just like oh
1:04:00
awesome yeah like it just felt like oh you in there you all had a a department or section who was in you know that you
1:04:05
in charge of and you had little dudes in there that you you kind of hired in and the whole ship management phase which I
1:04:12
thought might be a bit admin but was quite you love admin don't pretend that's a back for you you're right but
1:04:18
it it has it had a lot of the XCOM video game feel of building your base up and researching and doing all that and it
1:04:24
was actually really well done the way they've done it and I I think it's an impressive feat to what they've achieved with that game but again as the games
1:04:32
went on the weeks went on the the excitement starts to wne you know
1:04:38
Session 8 we've got Vanguard tonight do you know what I mean that
1:04:44
feeling of I just can't be asked and it's really annoying and I wish I wasn't like that um and I've done it with Gloom
1:04:51
Haven I burnt out on Gloom Haven a lot back in the day I was running two uh tandem groups because everyone wanted to
1:04:58
play it and that took up quite a lot for months of my life to the point where I just dreaded and the setup of it is a
1:05:05
[ __ ] um not as bad as Frost Haven but still bad and it was just like I've got
1:05:10
to play Gloom Haven tonight is that get to that inevitable conclusion with a campaign game which is I just kind of
1:05:16
bothered just it's the same thing grinding away doing the same stuff and
1:05:23
maybe I'm not that invested in the story I don't know what it is and maybe if I played it solo and I kind of could Blitz
1:05:30
it a bit more I might be more invested in the narrative but I kind of just go for the emotions with it and and I just
1:05:35
thought you know what Campaign games aren't for me I think I've just come to that realization I think got to say as
1:05:40
well we're not a campaign group not really no no with more one shot games do
1:05:45
like and or short campaign groups if we can get a short one that's true that's true so I'm not saying I write them off
1:05:51
completely but any kind of game that's requiring 207 sessions out of you I'm
1:05:57
just like no I'm I'm done and even though I get tempted and I look at some crowdfunding oh that looks good and you
1:06:04
think oh that'd be amazing yeah and and you kind of have that Fant uh like fantasy moment of it be great and
1:06:10
everyone comes around and we're going to experience this thing together and and then obviously the logistics of is everyone free two weeks on Thursday no I
1:06:17
can't do two weeks on Thursday oh great okay we're going to have to bounce that back another week and then you've been
1:06:22
playing it nine months and you're not even a third of the way through you just I can't be asked it's just such a commitment isn't it it's also you know
1:06:30
if you've got a group of four of you and it's a game that really needs four players if you're not feeling it you
1:06:36
then get a bit sort of like I need to keep playing this because otherwise it doesn't continue yeah and what happens
1:06:41
if others are enjoying it and quite often maybe it's us being British but my experience of it is no one will put
1:06:47
their hands up and say we're all not enjoying this and I've had Campaign games where it's only like four or five
1:06:52
sort of sessions and then at the end of it it's like how do everyone feeling about that was all right and you're like
1:06:58
oh so we all felt like it was all right but actually no one said anything so we just continued to grind through this
1:07:04
game that we weren't feeling great about I suppose it depends how your board game group is made like the the the component
1:07:12
part so we are quite ad hoc with the games we put in you know we don't have a particular set game night so if you
1:07:18
always had Friday night game night or whatever maybe it's easier for campaigns but you're right agent if one person
1:07:23
isn't feeling it you then feel either bad if obligated as well yeah you got and then as soon as you're obligated
1:07:29
it's a chore isn't it I'm the same even if it's something I loved doing like when I've been in bands in the past and
1:07:35
stuff it's like oh it's cool it's band night tonight oh God it's band night even though I loved it when I was doing it and anything that is an a set day you
1:07:43
know this is always happening on Tuesday or whatever that's a chore then to me and I don't want to do it even if I love
1:07:49
doing it in my brain it's turned into an obligation not interested now yeah and I'm not saying vanguards a bad game at
1:07:55
all it's not it's fantastic and I think it's well produced and I know there's groups out there that absolutely I'm the blast with it and I can completely
1:08:02
understand why um but yeah I think you're right Tambo maybe in our group we don't we don't tend to stick at Campaign
1:08:09
games not really I we' all had the same as you JP like you had Gloom Haven and it just kind of went that's bit of a TR now and then yeah and then you just and
1:08:16
then the fan guard came up again Bry at the beginning yeah but then it just got a bit too much didn't it and like that's
1:08:21
it it's the way it goes I thought I'd be a really big campaign person but I'm not about campaign no weird is it I love the idea of the
1:08:28
story line of it like I actually really enjoyed the king's dilemma really really enjoyed that but we just we kind it fell
1:08:35
off the boil didn't it yeah I really enjoyed Kings great but it just again one I really wanted to play that was top
1:08:41
of my list for a long time yeah there's just always something else you'd rather play isn't there yeah and that's that's kind of how it works on the leaderboard
1:08:47
of yeah games that I need to get to the table Yeah just they get in don't they
1:08:52
they get in push it down see the most luck I have is two player campaign cuz I meet up with quite often the same person
1:08:58
on a Sunday got a few hours together or something along those lines and if
1:09:03
you're you turn up you put out Marvel Champions or pandemic Legacy or whatever
1:09:08
kind of campaign backtack Hogwarts battle whatever it is you put that out and if you're really feeling it you keep
1:09:15
pushing through for four or five hours you'll get through a couple of episodes or couple of missions or whatever if you're not you just kind of put it down
1:09:22
and then okay fine we'll move on to something else and I find that quite freshing way to go cuz when you're really feeling it it means you can go
1:09:28
through it in two or three Sundays whereas if you're not you still might feel like oh we should play this but
1:09:33
actually you can kind of spread it out a little bit more and do that and so that's that's the most success I've had
1:09:39
with Campaign games is just doing two player ones where you know the person's turning up on a Sunday or Saturday or whatever it is and then you kind of you
1:09:47
know the deal between you you got that little packed between you of if we're feeling this we just say it and we'll keep going and if we're not feeling it
1:09:53
one of us says and then you just kind of have that one game and then move on to something else for the rest of the day
1:09:59
yeah I mean the caveat the one caveat to what I'm saying is there is one game
1:10:04
that's coming out whether it's a campaign game or not well I'll let you guys be the judge of
1:10:10
it but it's uh Elder squrs from Chip Theory right and it's it's it's kind of
1:10:17
a campaign game but it's only three sessions yeah so it's like you play you know the beginning the middle and the
1:10:23
end three sessions and that Arc is done reset new character new skills off you
1:10:29
go so it kind of gives you that that too many bones one shot experience but adds
1:10:34
a little bit more depth to it and feel like that you're progressing and leveling up and doing all those kind of
1:10:40
things so that I am intrigued by and Rob's back this thank God saved me a few quid thanks Rob um and that's the only
1:10:48
one I'm kind of like yeah I think that might work cuz three games is not a short campign massive commitment um you
1:10:54
can kind of get that done in 3 weeks if you just put three sessions in done and yeah then you you're not obligated to
1:11:00
then stick around for another 10 years are you so yeah there we go what about you buddy um so I'll try and make one my
1:11:06
one fairly quick as well but it's something we've already kind of touched on both in mine and yours JP I think which
1:11:11
is before I started with this group I knew who Publishers were I knew who designers were but I'd never felt the
1:11:18
need so this is all your fault guys um I'd never felt the need to have like my
1:11:24
designer or my publisher the one that I get excited about every time something comes out and there's quite a few people
1:11:30
in our group that have that they have a designer which every time something comes out from them or they must look at it or like every time something
1:11:38
publisher produces they're straight on that website and having a look at it and I don't know what you mean it it wasn't
1:11:45
something I'd experienced before in in board games or maybe I just sort of cuz I was sort of jumping between groups I
1:11:50
hadn't really seen it as much and then sort of joined this group and I'd already started the sort of Journey of
1:11:57
let's go and have a look at loads of different designers and see what they do and I kind of just want to experience a couple from each of them sort of thing
1:12:03
but I feel like in the last couple of years I've been really searching for that publisher or I've been really
1:12:08
searching for that Designer that you know they're knocking out the park nine times out of 10 and I
1:12:15
don't know that I found it still which I find just quite deflating and a bit disappointing there's definitely
1:12:22
designers cuz we were talking about it while it was raining and we were trying to Let the Rain pass but there's definitely designers and Publishers that
1:12:29
I look at more but none of them are like my go-to designer or my go-to
1:12:36
publisher there's just ones that ah D quite often produce games that I like
1:12:42
but they don't knock out of the park every time Arcane wonders is another one and you know and I've talked about
1:12:47
Stefan Feld as well um from a designer point of view but yeah it just it it's
1:12:53
left me feeling and I've feel like I'm slightly getting over it now but it left me for quite a while feeling a bit sort
1:12:58
of lost at sea for something that I didn't care about before you just wanted to love something
1:13:04
as much as JP loves chip Theory right you wanted that love it's not possible mate it's like he's found religion and
1:13:10
you're just still searching for it but it's like you know leras and mine clash and uve for some of you and all that
1:13:17
I've seen PE like different people in the group really you know really look at
1:13:22
certain Publishers or certain designers and get really into them and I've just never you know I liked half of all the
1:13:28
sers and I've liked less than half of mine Clash or less than half of stone meire and I've really enjoyed some of
1:13:34
them but I've not found my everything they produce is gold or like nine out of
1:13:40
10 of what they produce is gold and yeah it it left me strangely empty and and
1:13:45
sort of feeling a bit lost at sea um but yeah I'm feeling a bit better now because like I feel like I've got over
1:13:51
it a little bit but I'm still feel like I'm searching a little bit to find that that right fit for me and yeah I've
1:13:57
definitely found you know as we've as we've sort of gained more experience doing this and going to the conventions as well cuz I didn't go to conventions
1:14:04
before definitely found that I've noticed that my sort of all these tend to do pretty good although I'll have a
1:14:10
few that I enjoy but yeah just haven't found it and found it quite yeah quite sort of yeah demoralizing yeah a little
1:14:18
bit deflating sort of thing like there must be a corner of the hobby that is mine yeah kind of thing yeah there must
1:14:24
be a safe space a homely place that like every time I go on their website I'm like and I say there's some that
1:14:31
probably the closest I feel I'm going to get to but none the way that sort of yourself or Davey or yeah or yeah some
1:14:38
of the other group have kind of found their like like Dan and ston me and all that kind like they've really found
1:14:45
their their home their place to look every time every time they in as announcement from that publisher they're
1:14:50
just zero to 100 super excited I'm like oh I'll give them a look because they do
1:14:58
produce some good games that I enjoy as sort of thing yeah I think it's like it's brand advocation isn't it it's like
1:15:05
and it's not just in board gaming there are certain brands that I'm sure we could all affiliate with or feel like
1:15:11
they just speak to you or they just sing you know you're tuned in on what they're delivering that's just completely what
1:15:19
you're about your Vibe or whatever and that's you know with me i' fortunate there's a few publishers I'm just tuned
1:15:25
into like I am excited I'm not going to name him you know who they are but I'm excited when they announce any
1:15:31
announcements I'm excited when um you know there's a new game and it's crowdfunding oh what's that uh just
1:15:36
anything they put out I'm like I will check that out because they haven't not always that don't always get it right
1:15:42
but generally like you say nine times out of 10 I'm going to enjoy this it's going to be a really great experience and some of the best games that I own
1:15:48
I'll buy them so yeah I I get why I get why you feel that way yeah it's just odd
1:15:55
and to say before before I started this group it wasn't started this group not not trying to claim ownership here but
1:16:01
before you it's a coup but yeah before I I joined this
1:16:08
group it wasn't something that had sort of occurred to me almost it wasn't something that I was like oh and then
1:16:14
you know and when you watch YouTube a little bit more and with this group and stuff out I've realized that I think it's more common than I was aware of and
1:16:22
yeah now I feel like I need one like it's you don't and yeah and and I think that's it I think I don't and I think
1:16:28
I've started to realize that and started to be comfortable with the fact that there are Publishers out there that
1:16:33
generally you know they're producing good stuff and I like a good portion of their games they're just not my be all
1:16:40
and Endor sort of thing like I think some people have I think that's probably quite good because can you imagine if Chip Theory brought out a game and JP
1:16:47
thought it was crap can you can you imagine what that do to his little soul it would crush me it would CR exactly so
1:16:53
I think having an affiliate with something that strongly can can be a downside can't it well it's that Septima
1:16:59
thing earlier right yeah and the reason why I felt bad is like is this the game I'm going to let go and and let go of um
1:17:06
cerebria and I don't think cerebria in my opinion is not a bad game I just wasn't going to get it to the table so
1:17:12
it's kind of like I enjoy it and I'll play it like if someone said you a fantasy game yeah go for it but it just wasn't going to hit the table it's just
1:17:19
going to sit on a shelf and thought no Let It Go but yeah it's that I crush
1:17:25
your soul it's probably getting a bit too heavy it would crush your soul mate if CH 3 bought been out and you didn't like it you'd be you'd be really sad
1:17:32
well weirdly like some of the directions that they're going now I am less interested in yeah some of the you know
1:17:39
like the latest one with rough I've played it it wasn't like oh my god I've got to own it and it was the first game
1:17:44
that I kind of said no I don't need to own that go that's fine talk like that and you lose your sponsorship I know I
1:17:50
know I know sorry guys but yeah I don't know maybe they are turning into a
1:17:56
different direction I'm not as super high Direction it possibly possibly um
1:18:02
you it's me yeah it's time for us all heard that haven't we come on we'll always have
1:18:08
Paris or Essen but there we go but now it's it's it's an interesting topic that
1:18:14
well we'll call it there now we've all had our our board game therapy and hopefully feeling a little bit better about it always if you've had board game
1:18:21
expectations that have not been met or or just yeah a bit sort of well that wasn't quite what I expected um please
1:18:27
leave us a comment on our socials somewhere we'd like to hear about themely we had a couple last time we did this episode we've heard from a few
1:18:33
people about their sort of board game letdowns or not living up to expectations and I found them
1:18:39
fascinating so please feel free to to add some comments or get in touch with us on socials much appreciated
1:18:56
so that brings us on to our next section which is would you rather so as we've
1:19:01
realized here talking things through can be quite important so in this episodes would you rather would you rather
1:19:08
everyone around the board game table told you everything they were doing on every turn or people just took all their
1:19:15
moves really quickly and didn't say what they were up
1:19:21
[Music] to I think I'm go yeah go to I reck I
1:19:26
would like people to talk for their turns CU then you cuz I when I play games L track who turn that is yeah so
1:19:33
if everyone talks between their turns I know where exactly where we are around the table Yeah cuz you know we are so
1:19:38
every time I go like whose turn is it and they okay so I didn't realize cuz I just switch off a little bit sometimes
1:19:44
when it's on between turns so if everyone's talking through their turns I know exactly where it's coming back to me so when you say talking through the
1:19:51
is it just literally talking through the turns or is it literally just talking through anything that's on the mind at the time as well no no no like oh I
1:19:56
could go there and do this but then oh I wouldn't have enough coins for that so maybe I should go
1:20:01
process yeah well again they're talking through exactly what they're thinking of doing and what they're doing on their
1:20:07
turn not necessarily during your turn as well but just on their turn they're talking through their logical process of why they're doing what they're doing or
1:20:13
oh maybe I think I do this anyway a little bit but like what I'm saying is every single time or every turn they
1:20:21
never say a word they just move things around the board and then just point at you to to have your turn which of those would you like you can still people can
1:20:28
still have conversation and still social like still social I'm not saying everyone has to be completely quiet just
1:20:34
they either don't mention what's happening on their turn or they're talking it completely through I'm glad I've stumped you with this one cuz I I
1:20:41
took I'm still with it completely talk cuz I actually get quite a little frustrated when someone's doing all this
1:20:46
stuff and they're not speaking for and thinking are they doing everything right are they breaking the rules a little bit here are they actually doing it right so
1:20:52
yours is from like a like a paranoid oh lawyer okay so you'd like so I'm some
1:20:58
sort of talk I don't really want the whole conversation great but some sort but if you have to have the whole conversation then I'll still go with
1:21:03
that yeah yeah I don't know because I find I would probably learn stuff from
1:21:10
when people like I'd learn their process so I'd learn kind of like oh I hadn't thought about weighing up that thing or
1:21:16
this thing however hearing someone's internal monologue all the time oh
1:21:22
Christ I don't know so I go here um should I go there if I go there I get the coins and then I can get the coins
1:21:28
and then I can use that to get I'm like no the other thing no but I can't get the coins to get the wood because the
1:21:33
woods does need the wood for to build the house but no to get the house I need to get I know that that's what I do so I
1:21:38
know that I'm that person but I find it infuriating having to listen to it from someone else is this all just carefully made so
1:21:46
go Becky will you just Christ alive this you ear in I think this is just more self-reflection cuz JP even went this is
1:21:54
what I do do I do I have to listen to it or is it
1:21:59
just going on in the background what is it you want to have a podcast on in your headphones while it's happen no I like
1:22:04
I'm just I'm just going to ignore what they're saying and just still look at my board or do I have to be focused on what they're saying it's happening you can
1:22:11
ignore it it's the talent you got do yeah well yeah I think can you ignore it yeah I can ignore some people's mindless
1:22:17
D dribble witterings yeah um because I would learn something I
1:22:24
think I'm I'm going to go with the narrated thought although although I really don't want to I really don't want
1:22:30
to but I'm going to go for that yeah I think talk because you know we're
1:22:36
playing a ball game it's good if it gets a bit beardy is it you know what I mean like everyone's getting like really super into converting wood into oranges
1:22:43
and whatever one would sheep or whatever and actually I find it just makes the game play a bit
1:22:50
more open um to to people around the table if they know what going on part partially what you said to about making
1:22:57
sure people are doing things right because we can inadvertedly cheat I do it don't do it on purpose but you can
1:23:02
easily it is easy done I do this and do that how you doing that oh yeah God Christ I don't know I'm doing so you
1:23:08
know it catches a lot of that out to makees sure the play is right um but also if people are just zero like silent
1:23:15
as they make the moves it's like the I don't want you to notice what I'm doing and therefore I'm getting ultra
1:23:21
competitive and actually I don't care for that either yeah yeah I'd rather just play a game and have fun um and if
1:23:27
people are deliberating about converting wood to oranges then I can take the Mi out of them so it's fine yeah so I think
1:23:33
I'm going to add the fourth voice of let's have people talking because and I think mine comes from a similar place to
1:23:39
kind of what you mentioned T which is that I used to play a lot of Warhammer tournaments and stuff like that and people would constantly roll handfuls of
1:23:45
dice and then just pick up a load of dice not say what that what they need oh I need fours or anything that they just roll dice and then pick up numbers and
1:23:52
I'd be like what did you need there oh I need I needed fives and they're already rolling the next handful and I'm like I
1:23:57
don't think you just picked up fives I think you picked up some fours and some threes in that and I think you've
1:24:02
cheated sort of thing and and I think out of that grew this expectation that
1:24:08
anytime someone was doing something silently it was maybe a little bit devious or a little bit and over time I
1:24:13
got over that but now I find myself when I'm teaching new players the first few rounds I'd do it anyway deliberately to
1:24:20
sort of go okay I'm going to go here now this allows me to do this and this allows me to do that and then on their turn I'll be like right phase one you're
1:24:27
going to draft the cards okay we've all drafted our first one we' and I kind of narrate if anything a little bit more
1:24:33
during sort of first teaches and I think now I've started doing it more the other way where I I like to see people talk
1:24:41
because I like to see that they're getting the game and they're understanding it and they're on board but it definitely came out of originally
1:24:47
that kind of feeling came out of a place of I think you're not doing what you'll say you're doing or and again sometimes
1:24:54
is inadvertent but certainly in in tournaments and stuff like that there's a lot of cheating can go on that where
1:25:00
if people think they can get away with it and you don't call them out on it they will and they'll just be silent and I sort of attributed the silence to
1:25:09
Cheatin but no it would it would irritate me though I'm not going to lie
1:25:14
hearing someone's like I mean like say I know I do it oh should I do this should I do hearing that five other times
1:25:21
that's happening in my own brain oh bloody hell could be even more is heartening as well so if it's like me and I go I just need the wood and then
1:25:27
someone like Davey or curly go I'm doing this because I'm doing this I'm doing this I'm doing I think I should be doing so much
1:25:32
better it makes you realize that you're operating on a different LEL yeah I'm the same I'm the same it Al it also
1:25:39
potentially builds um strategy blows strategy out of the water right because if you're explaining your turn on your
1:25:44
turns there's no keeping secret of if they forget that y or whatever because you're kind of probably talking through
1:25:50
that you know I'm not saying you'd have to talk through everything but might give a bit game strategy as well so I
1:25:55
can understand why people don't do that espe like a worker placement or something like that you don't want to highlight you don't want to highlight
1:26:01
some going to do this I'm going to do this ready for next turn sort of thing everyone's going to be like oh what are you doing next turn yeah I've got two
1:26:07
wood and two Stone and that means oh there's a building there that cost exactly two wood and two Stone and it's going to give you seven victory points
1:26:13
please don't get it yeah I'm not saying you have to do that exactly but there's a potential that as you're talking through it highlights what you're about
1:26:20
to do next yeah nice well we've all decided then fairly unanimous decision was had
1:26:26
to think about it yeah to think about it cuz yeah equally playing a game silent is not fun either but there we go peny
1:26:33
playing with
1:26:41
us and now we're on to our penultimate turn where we talk about what we're looking forward to what's coming up so I
1:26:48
shall go first because the big thing we've got coming up is Dro please
1:26:54
don't don't don't drum wrong I'm not going to it's Essen no not yet that's
1:27:01
for later it's the UK games Expo woohoo so this episode is out on the Wednesday
1:27:06
most of us are driving on the Thursday to get to the Expo because we're going to be there for the Thursday afternoon evening e pre-release preview thinging
1:27:15
but then the and a lot of people will be there on the Thursday picking up tickets or booking into hotels and then Friday
1:27:21
is the Expo itself and I think it's fair to say yet again another year where we're all excited really excited to to
1:27:27
go yeah and then the cherry on that that cake as you well have heard at the start of this episode most likely as well as
1:27:33
on a lot of our socials if you follow us is that we have a live episode shock do we what is it Adrian
1:27:42
well we're hopefully going to know what it is well we do we literally talked about it before we recorded didn't we um
1:27:48
but now I I we can't wait I know I can't wait but it's yeah it's going to be good
1:27:54
fun it's just a new experience right yeah complete different again like two years ago we started a podcast sort of
1:28:01
little baby steps of like what can we do and what's it going to be like and all that kind of stuff and and every now and
1:28:07
again you seem to feel like you get a big milestone yeah um and I felt like last year's Expo felt like a big
1:28:13
milestone because we were actually talking to Publishers who were Keen to talk to us as a bit of a sort of a we'd love to to sort of be on your show or
1:28:22
you know please have us on socials or just want to chat to you about what we've got coming up and now we've got a
1:28:27
live episode where hopefully we're going to have people turn up please turn up please turn up this is my fear guys so
1:28:32
like if you're if you're listening to this and you're thinking I'm going to Expo tomorrow or even Friday two days
1:28:38
from now unless you listen to this after the fact then this is irrelevant but if you're listening and half one on the
1:28:45
Friday come please come and if you can't get in cuz the queue is so massively long then I'm sorry we we didn't get a
1:28:52
big enough room and we you know we we underplayed it but what a great experience that would be that be great
1:28:59
yeah tell us the location and stuff JP give yes so Friday the 31st of May half
1:29:04
1 to half two in the dice room in pza 4 um and if you go on to the event which
1:29:10
will have a link in the show notes it'll literally tell you all the details where it is when it is you can add it to your schedule on on your UK games Expo
1:29:17
account so we can kind of remind you and do all sorts of things to plan out your weekend so yeah like we we would love to
1:29:23
just meet some of you guys hang out with some of you guys and you know if you
1:29:29
can't physically come on the Friday cuz you're only coming for the Saturday or Sunday we will be there right Adrian
1:29:34
we're going to be there all weekend all weekend so please come and stop like last year there's a few people who stopped us um and just said hello and
1:29:40
love what you do and all that kind of stuff please do and we'll chat with you whatever you want to talk about 100%
1:29:46
good and and we're kind of throwing the format out a little bit our usual sort of Six turn formats kind of going out
1:29:51
the window a little bit in order for us to try try and give everyone a little bit of sort of few different episodes
1:29:57
like a feeling of sort of some of the stuff we do bit of a wider range than if we just did our normal format but we're
1:30:03
excited for you to see that and hopefully it should be some really good fun and a bit of interaction but you
1:30:09
know if you don't like interaction you don't have to be you know it won't be obvious that you don't want to take
1:30:15
part no yeah rules make it fun no there will be a yeah that you can have a
1:30:21
chance to get involved or not and it is totally fine yeah it be really nice to just to see some people it' be really
1:30:27
good so we're hoping that hoping the people turn up and hoping it all uh yeah
1:30:32
highlight year though is it xer is just generally highlight year me so this is the reason I'm working I've not got a
1:30:38
day off this week so Bank H Monday is obviously normally for the UK listeners like a bonus day off so I was booking
1:30:45
the Thursday off oh nice uh and then realized I hadn't gotten if I you leave H I was like oh dear I've already booked
1:30:52
the rest of it crap so therefore I had to kind of take back my day off this week in order to carry it forward so so
1:31:00
that I can have the Thursday off so always a way back yeah absolutely re re jiggled it was fine nice but yeah it's
1:31:06
just it's a really great time to all get together we had some um probably W have as much fun in the car as we did when we
1:31:12
were going down to Essen but I don't know when we went to the Expo JP we had some singing just me and you wasn't it yeah yeah we had some singing karaoke
1:31:18
times didn't we so that's what I'm looking forward to cool so what what are other people looking forward to too very
1:31:24
quickly I'll go next so I've recently got um the new species for Eclipse
1:31:29
second Dawn they landed oh yes yes and uh so I've got two like expansion boxes
1:31:35
that has two uh species in there so I've got four new races to play and we've got
1:31:42
a game coming up on the Friday and I'm looking forward to it I haven't played Eclipse rages and uh yeah it's all good
1:31:49
it'd be good to kind of get the gang together play a bit of a bit of the game see what the new stuff's all about add
1:31:54
more variety in there I'm looking forward to the alliance mode but now we've got a Fourplay game I don't know
1:31:59
whether I'd use it or not because it's probably better for Higher Play accounts but um yeah Eclipse great
1:32:06
yeah yeah otherwise I'd be there be more I'll do some more do another one yeah 100% so when you're talking about
1:32:12
Publishers and getting excited to buy every time they release I've actually gone now on I've backed tiny epic tiny
1:32:19
epic Game of Thrones me too have you have you got you gotone all of it I
1:32:24
think so yeah I think I did yeah so yeah every time the tiny epics come up I got have a look so I think I've gone down
1:32:29
that road unfortunately but yeah so that's that's what I'm looking forward to nice yeah that is your nation you love the tiny epic games yeah I'm
1:32:35
getting into them so I'm playing worms span soon which I am very excited about but the
1:32:42
thing I'm thinking about more than anything at the minute is the new courses on walkabout golf not going to
1:32:47
lie not lie just so good I'm just loving it but I am looking forward to playing
1:32:53
worms span because I think I've kind of got into my zone a little bit I've played a few different games with the
1:32:59
different Dragon guilds and they do change things around a little bit but I think I'm still better at it than I you
1:33:07
know I'm better at it quicker than I have been with other games and that brings us to our final turn thank you
1:33:12
very much for listening if you know anyone else out there who think might be interested in giving us a listen or might be just interested in hearing
1:33:18
about board games and our board game group please let them know about us much appreciated it's best way we can get Word of Mouth out there please interact
1:33:25
with us on our socials we love it when you guys uh comment on our videos or bring up anything we've said in any of
1:33:31
these episodes including correcting us that's absolutely fine as well we appreciate that as much as anything else we love it we love it also a big thank
1:33:37
you to our coffee supporters um hopefully this sounds better than the last few episodes and that's all through
1:33:43
our coffee supporters and what they give just a few pennies every month much appreciated really helps with uh with
1:33:49
the cost of these things so with that being said whose turn is it Anyway the
1:33:55
couch the couch [Music]
1:34:05
[Music] [Applause]