[SPEAKER_02]: Hello everyone and welcome to so very wrong about games.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your podcast about board gaming.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm good here with my good friend Michael Locker Walker.
[SPEAKER_02]: What did you do this weekend?
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to a gaming event.
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds like a waste of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might have heard of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it was the swag con.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's this podcast that you might have heard of.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they had a convention con.
[SPEAKER_02]: You guys so very wrong about games.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes good vibes only trans rights are human rights board games.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every was this weekend and indeed
[SPEAKER_02]: That is going to be the topic of this week's discussion.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are going to give you all that our failing voices can provide, and we'll give you a kind of a post-con report.
[SPEAKER_02]: We might have explained a dozen or two games over the weekend.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, there was a lot of rules explanations going on, and the con environment was conducive to conversation, but nonetheless taxing on the vocal cords.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway,
[SPEAKER_02]: We are going to give you a full episode of Silver Rung about games this week because we are gluttons for punishment and we have the relentlessness of a deranged Chihuahua.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to talk about the game we reviewed last year in our as yet unnamed retrospective intro segment.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about some of a very small subsection of the games we played last week.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to talk about the news and why it doesn't matter and then we're going to talk about our topic, which is the SwagCon report.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Walker.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mark, what would we review last year?
[SPEAKER_01]: Mark, exactly when a year ago we reviewed a very colorful psychedelic game called Aboria.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was an interesting sort of water-slide double water-slide because you're all your workers sort of slid vertically and then they slid horizontally.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of sliding.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to get back to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have kept it because it has stuff there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very colorful.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is neat.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was thinking about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So first of all, this is by Danny Garcia.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is Danny Garcia's best work that we've played.
[SPEAKER_02]: Barcelona was fine, but Arboria, I think, by virtue of the timing elements.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little bit like Tolkien, in that the workers get better as they age, as the season as they ferment.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it feels different from Tolkien by virtue of the way that the worker sliding goes down.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really quite cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Arboria is one of those euros in a heavy hobby of rotation where it's like, yeah, yeah, Arboria was definitely, it was good, it was good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but not quite.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the new hotness we should play it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or, yeah, this is one of the all time good euros of the past five or five years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, the category that we would put oak in probably probably the category we would put autobond in, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The ones that you submit, remember sufficiently vividly and like enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I'm saying is this is damning the fake praise.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would happily play our body again.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think there's a reason why we haven't quite gotten there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's definitely one of those games that you can't just bring out in the rules come back to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's part of it's what going on in a boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, like, even now, just trying to remember it, there's this whole phase of unlocking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, preachers, and then they sew to go into a pen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get them from the pen and then they go somewhere else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, now it's all coming back to me now.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's this vivid psychedelic dream and you're also making this sort of garden on the side where you're like matching colors.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was the one scoring element too many that I could ever quite get, but you got the animals because they serve as a multiplier for some of the scoring bit, but then there was the pattern creation, which at that point I tune out of the scoring explanation.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is all on top of the sliding workers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mostly it's the sliding, though.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm loculating those slides with druids as well on the side that will miss.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, actions better.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, the action selection.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, the action selection I remember being sufficiently interesting novel, where it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was pretty good.
[SPEAKER_02]: But perhaps it was the rules complication, perhaps it's again, you know, not quite talked here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe if we have a bit of a law, whenever that happens,
[SPEAKER_02]: will be able to spend the necessary fifteen twenty minutes brushing up on the rules and getting it back to the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: But look, if you've got a chance to play our board, especially if someone else is teaching, I jump on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe more on our board earlier.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now let's move on to some of.
[SPEAKER_02]: The games we played last week, because I quite frankly, I stopped taking notes because there were just too many.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is a good problem to have.
[SPEAKER_01]: I took notes and then when I was putting all the information in, I'd remembered more games that I forgot to write down for some reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: So these are some of the highlights that we want to pay attention to.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Walker, what are some of the games that you played last week?
[SPEAKER_01]: We set up a fandom division.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I left it set up so people could easily play it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some people got the feeling of what it takes to set up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Phantom divisions.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of walls and things to put up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which it's strange, it's strange you say that now, because I remember the first time we talked about Tantan division, I said, oh yeah, and set up as a killer, as well as Tantan.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I wasn't that bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's because I always set it up by myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you set it up by yourself, there's not these people sitting around you watching what you're doing and making you internalize the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't get this feeling of, there are people waiting to play.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you're sitting there, you're enjoying it.
[SPEAKER_01]: you're like, you're creating this cool map and when you're by yourself, it's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when there's people standing and sitting, they're waiting to play.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's such a good observation.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have a couple of sets of eyes on you and you get the sense that you're wasting everyone's time and that you're giving them this huge opportunity cost, but meanwhile, it's just by yourself, maybe it takes twenty minutes, maybe it takes forty five, whatever, it's your time to spend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because it's like found.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're playing this fucking game.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to shoot stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, the expectation, the fun levels high.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you start building up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're watching it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take down, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you want it to stay eye.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want them to enjoy this thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now it's like, you know, we have to put it all all these turrets.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we have to put out all the crates.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we have to put the certain doors in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's so you set it up on the supreme mat you left the walls set up not the crates and the turrets and all the specific the objective tokens they went back into the box, but you left it set up on your amazing lazy Susan
[SPEAKER_02]: which frankly, it wouldn't have if there's ever more crowdfunding for a phantom division.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think needs to be, you need a partner with somebody who makes lazy Susan.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's got to be an available stretch goal.
[SPEAKER_02]: If Kabuto Sumo can have lazy Susan style wouldn't ring, I think phantom division can have its own lazy Susan.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway,
[SPEAKER_02]: After crossing that hurdle, what was your experience with hand division?
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe everyone very much enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I took out my amazing shotgun again and used the proper discs this time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am going to go back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really don't think it worked as well as I thought they would.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we saw how when I did the larger discs, they did sometimes jump walls and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: The smaller ones did that tenfold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes it was a little harder.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then because they were so small and made it, I don't want to say they're tiny.
[SPEAKER_01]: smaller than the other ones that we use.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're awfully smaller.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sometimes, and lighter, so therefore, sometimes it was harder to see whether they wanted it hit hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because larger ones dislodged stuff that's hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Smaller ones did not do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but that being said, it wasn't that big a deal or make it out that it was something big, but yeah, I will always love Phantom Division.
[SPEAKER_01]: And teaching it, I think the teachers getting better because you need to just explain to the people that this is just a flicking game.
[SPEAKER_01]: I shouldn't say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a flicking game.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very serious.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Phantoms died for our Liberty Walker.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's all been redacted.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very fun flicking game.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can do almost anything that you want to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a rule set around for passing stuff around for moving around, shooting around corners.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get to do everything you want to do in this game.
[SPEAKER_01]: But essentially it is a flicking game with a rule set around like just sort of containing what you can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be moving around.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be flicking.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there are rules around to tell you how to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: just understand that that's where it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna have fun doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'd be interested in see how that particular explanation went in practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had a very different experience at the con in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You had left the board set up.
[SPEAKER_02]: People wanted to play Phantom Division.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a lot of pent up demand, but learning it from the rulebook at a con is not exactly a thing we've been done, especially since as it stands, the rules are in rough shape because as a reminder, this is a
[SPEAKER_02]: production copy that we have from the purpose of retroly sending it back so they can show it off at Jencon and the rules are in rough shape.
[SPEAKER_02]: They say they're working on them.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: But even though we have already like
[SPEAKER_01]: They have iterations after the one, after the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we don't have the latest version printed out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even with the latest version, there's still some blind spots.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was concerned about what set up there was left to be done.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was concerned about the rules explanation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And both concerns proved to be unfounded.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because what happened was I took out the scenario.
[SPEAKER_02]: I noticed that the scenario that I randomly picked required subtle modifications to the map from what you had constructed.
[SPEAKER_02]: That took barely a minute.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when it came time to setting out the crates, setting out the turrets, setting out the objective tokens, I was able even with the lazy Susan to just lay the scenario flat on the table, hand someone a bag and say, randomized these and put them where it says on the map, hand someone also bag.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the supply, put them all on a cloth bag, randomized them on these positions.
[SPEAKER_02]: And classic example of many hands make for like work.
[SPEAKER_02]: The entire setup took barely any time at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I dare say even,
[SPEAKER_02]: it took less setup than your average lightweight euro frankly with that provider granted as I said the map was mostly constructed for me and then the rules explanation went fine because broadly speaking with one person has internalized the AI cold then the rules that the other players need to understand
[SPEAKER_02]: in detail are very minimal.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess I guess that having phrased it thus, I can kind of understand where you're coming from.
[SPEAKER_02]: And since you can do more, you know, you have the rough parameters of what you're able to do, go to town, and then people like, okay, well, where is this enemy going to go?
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, they're going to move towards the noise so they can either move to this space of that space.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with that in mind, allow me to emphasize that I really think that Phantom Division building upon the strength of Seal Team Flex, it does stealth so very, very, very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: where they're gonna go, what can draw their attention when you're in serious danger, how to hide, when to go loud, when to be quiet, is so exceptionally well done in Phantom Division.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is at the end of the day, what appeals to me as much as the hybridization of tactical gameplay and flicking.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had in our game a shotgun operator that we were just operating, I did not import.
[SPEAKER_02]: my overpowered seal into this particular scenario unlike Walker who desperately is attached to it to that shotgun.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it wasn't just that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was because we always want your toy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only it was only because solely because we inflict the wrong size discs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we wanted to see how we're in the fair enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're journalistic integrity mandated and in this intro con game, you bring in your leveled up seal.
[SPEAKER_02]: You nailed it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And our shotgun operator
[SPEAKER_02]: wasn't quite the surgeon that you were.
[SPEAKER_02]: What he was was a battering ram because what they were able to do was with remarkable accuracy have both pellets hit the same target.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a particular problem where we kept getting enforcers at problematic instances.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how much firepower we were able to put down on him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the shotgunner would just show up and just murder them with one shot.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because yeah, with those super tiny discs, it's rough They're gonna they're gonna scatter all over the place even independently of the fact that they're stacked physically on top of each other But no, they went straight right where they wanted them and managed to do it with with a great deal of success I will say that the easy difficulty level now for me I think is too easy I think next time we play we're gonna go straight to hard even if some of the players are new because I think easy gives you
[SPEAKER_02]: too many rounds, too few adversaries.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd like to see what the higher difficulty levels are.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a cake walk.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was incredibly easy to get through.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not having to know more cream bombs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, we had mercury bombs.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had mercury bombs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, well, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have any mercury bombs.
[SPEAKER_02]: What we did have though on the topic of bombs was we had a little bit of miscalibration between positioning and mission objectives.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of our mission objectives was to destroy a fixed installation with a remote detonated bomb.
[SPEAKER_02]: The person who took the remote detonated bomb got bogged down and was separated.
[SPEAKER_02]: The basically two or three phantoms I keep wanting to say seals.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two or three phantoms went on ahead
[SPEAKER_02]: And basically there was a wall of enemies between us and the person with the bomb.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we found the thing that needed to be blowed up by the bomb, the bomb was way off on the other side of the map.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, what happened was that Phantom had a spare action at one point, and I mentioned casually, well, the bomb does have two uses.
[SPEAKER_02]: You only need to save one for the objective.
[SPEAKER_02]: You could, with that extraction, just drop the bomb in the zone.
[SPEAKER_02]: They did two turns later, there were three enemies in that zone, and we had already left.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the person with the bomb started looking at that area, and like, you know, you could detonate that bomb as a free action, and sure enough, bang.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, the game would have been considerably more difficult if we had to deal with the mercury bombs.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious about what they're going to do with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that it's fandom division designed by Pete Ruth and Mark Thomas put up by Phantom Horizon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Scheduled for release in twenty twenty six after a successful crowdfunding, but of course when it comes to crowdfunding fulfillment, we'll believe it would we see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel so there was a concession made there that Pete wanted the game called Phantom Horizon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mark won a fan division, and there was some sort of conceit, well, you know, okay, we'll call the company Phantom Horizon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a call the game Phantom Division.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to play Westphalia.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been wanting to play Westphalia ever since it was released.
[SPEAKER_02]: Westphalia is designed by Emma Holland published by Holland Speel in early nineteen.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a six player only historical negotiation game about the seventeenth-century negotiation surrounding the Treaty of Westphalia.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't believe we didn't invite me to this because this sounds like it's right up my alley.
[SPEAKER_02]: Walker, the more you make fun of the setting of this game, the, the not making fun of your ignorance is revealed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you familiar with the term Westphalian states?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what happened in the thirty years war?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know the reverberations of this that some of you do is Kardashians?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my goodness, Walker.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, one of the things that's really striking about West Valley as a product, I highly recommend anyone who even has the remotest interest in the period to read the first half of the rule book, because it's all just historical table setting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love Emma Bellhoun's voice, because it's
[SPEAKER_02]: very well researched, very knowledgeable historical period and at the same time incredibly sarcastic and sarconic because the end of the thirty years war was a shambolic mess.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone was exhausted.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was one of those things where everyone knew what they were doing is stupid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those that had lost, no knew they had lost years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those that kind of sort of won no one really won the thirty years war.
[SPEAKER_02]: those that kind of sort of went already had what they needed and everything was just delaying the inevitable because they didn't want to be desperately embarrassed and sometimes when I see I could call it I could I could call it specific events during my lifetime but sometimes it's important to forget that people do things that are against their self interest just because they don't want to admit that they were you know bluffing with a two and a three the entire time to pull out a poker metaphor but anyway so
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been wanting to play Westphalia for a very very long time, but exactly six players want to play historical negotiation game.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people don't want to play historical games.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people don't want to play negotiation games.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not super long.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about two hours or so.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not a huge lift in that sense, but it's so fragile for player count and interest.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had the opportunity
[SPEAKER_02]: They had five, they were looking for six, I'm like the stars have aligned.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got to play Westphalia at SwagCon and it was legit glorious.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a fabulous experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: The person who was teaching the game did such an incredible job at setting the stage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the details got lost, but quite frankly, one of the other problems of playing with failure is that in classic MML Hall and fashion, yeah, the rules are only about six to eight pages long, but they're full of tiny little thorny details that are super easy to forget and almost impossible to convey in a rules explanation and almost impossible to retain.
[SPEAKER_02]: That having been said, the person that got his surgery did a splendid job.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because again, it's a lot about the tone, it's a lot about the theme, it's a lot about understanding what each historical power wanted to get out of the situation and the particular burdens and overall context of what was going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there's so much, one of the reasons why the thirty years were so complicated was so many different powers were involved and their goals were also weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like just as an example, and I think it's a good one, I was playing as France.
[SPEAKER_02]: France has some client states that each have their own fights to fight.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Dutch have a revolt against Spain, and the Swedish want to retain and expand and get back some past stuff that they lost to the Austro-Hungarians, and the Swedes also really, really care about the spread of Protestantism and the entrenchment of the rights of Protestant rulers in an environment that was sometimes hostile to non-Catholic forces.
[SPEAKER_02]: France at the time was heavily Catholic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's this bizarre combination of interests that are so strange and weird, but it was not entirely unlike in this'll make far more sense to an American audience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not entirely unlike the fact that the American Revolution was largely bankrolled by the French.
[SPEAKER_02]: the French monarchy mind you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he would lead to the situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you as the French king are funding this anti-monarchical revolutions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, but I've heard someone I don't like.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, sure, this won't blow up in your face ever at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, there was this one moment that I have to mention, just because one of the players at the table playing the Dutch pulled off probably the greatest gaming move I've seen in years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another problem with was failure is that at the end of the game there is a multi-part resolution system to determine what your score actually is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And none of us really understood how it worked even after we had done it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's over a dozen steps.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it involves at least several steps for each player.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the player playing the Dutch figured out that at the end of the game, if the French and the Dutch collectively controlled as much in one of the two theaters of war, do I mention that France is fighting in two theaters of war?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's wild.
[SPEAKER_02]: As much as the Spanish, then the French get a huge benefit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the Dutch player looks at their standing.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've been doing very, very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, OK, Spain, you desperately want to make peace because Spain isn't no business, fighting a war.
[SPEAKER_02]: They can't afford it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody can afford it, but the Spanish desperately can't afford it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the Spanish are asking for peace.
[SPEAKER_02]: Round one and two, the Dutch position.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nah, I'm not quite ready yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think you've suffered quite enough was the undertone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so finally, as it was of the map, here we are, okay, fine, let's make peace.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I shrug and I say, look, that's not great for me, because now I'm finding the Spanish alone over there.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the Spanish are allied to the Spanish, only have to come after me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so now suddenly I have to worry about two fronts and one of my allies is gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not great, but we'll see what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the Dutch player looks over and says, you know, you could just give me that territory you have in the Netherlands.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, why would I do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm at peace with Spain.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if at the end of the game we collectively have the territory, you get the bonus.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have it, he can take it from you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I have it, he can't.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I stand there slack-jotted and stunned for a solid ten seconds, processing the evil genius of this individual who had just cut a piece treaty and that was knifeing their partner with such ferocity and with such a pleasant smile on their face.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hell, a boot in your throat, that's all.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The reaction of the Spanish player a couple minutes later when they realized what had happened just as they were going up for their great campaign to wipe the French out of the Netherlands and and reestablish their homeland.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was delicious and amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I cannot tell you how fantastic it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: There were tons of interesting little moments of tough negotiations of everyone thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't really afford to do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody could afford to do anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was really well done.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was possibly
[SPEAKER_02]: find it difficult to imagine a better context and a better execution for trying this game.
[SPEAKER_02]: Balanced?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh no!
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, this is about, you know, the historicity, it was almost a borderline-lapping experience in terms of historical war games.
[SPEAKER_02]: We realized at the end of the game that the Austro-Hungarian player gets a, well, we knew this at the start, they get a random victory-conditioned card that tells them the primer so that the victory-conditions aren't all perfectly transparent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we looked at what the Austro-Hungarian player needed to do in order to win.
[SPEAKER_02]: And frankly, based on the game we just play, I struggle to think of how it would even be possible, let alone likely.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so difficult and arbitrary.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then again,
[SPEAKER_02]: A fair number of historical games are like that, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Tend to be very, very, very slanted in favor of the historical victor.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not something I enjoy, but it's something I understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is also the case that a number of haulage-filled designs and a number of games I am beholding tend to be very, very fragile, very rickety, full of sharp edges and weird little nooks and crannies and chrome.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in this particular case, I don't think I would have had it any other way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know that this is the kind of thing that you can approach with a vaguely competitive mindset at all, like trying to think that, oh, this is a game where we all have a chance to win.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want that, you should play a serial conference.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a much, much more fair and approachable game.
[SPEAKER_02]: in terms of accessing the mechanisms.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you want something that's evocative and fascinating and occasionally moments of deliriously delicious tension and pain, because you can't afford to keep fighting, but you feel you have to, Westphalia is a triumph in terms of delivering memorable gaming experiences.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I have no regrets whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you go in with that mindset, Westphalia has my highest possible recommendation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And once again, thank you so much to everyone who is at that table, it was a glorious experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got to show some people project elite and what sound as glorious as was glorious, but it's not so decadent as a negotiation historical game.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a mow the aliens down real time, roll a bunch of dice slaughter fest.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people go into, you know, they said, oh, we just have to go out and you know, put some dice out on these objectives and they'll come up and then come back and be great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the first turn happens and we played with five players.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you play with five players, just means more things spawned because they expect you with five people, you're going to be able to kill more things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So after the first spawn phase, the look of horror,
[SPEAKER_01]: and fear around the table was palpable and then you know halfway through they just didn't they didn't think there was any way and then I explained to them how you can manipulate the board states like this boss that came out
[SPEAKER_01]: is going to destroy us because we can't get to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no, you know, I mean, it's doing these things that has no one, when we roll the dice and we have to move aliens, only move that boss.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone move the boss.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bring him to the front and then we will mole him down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they understood they could see the lanes that we could funnel aliens down to how we could manipulate because during the real time, you have two minutes rolling the dice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you must when you roll the alien symbol you must contend with that first which is moving alien one space and then you get to use the other dice to you know attack and or move or search things and so you can bring things to the front
[SPEAKER_01]: cycle aliens down through certain lanes use the people that have the good guns to clear the board we managed to get down there and even the objectives that are like right near the spawn point we got we got stuff on there we took a little bit of wounds a little bit of pain and suffering there the one that one of the players had that
[SPEAKER_01]: great ability where you could roll the dice and the two sort of search use things could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could were wilding some as anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, when you roll the alien symbol, they all counted as two aliens.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I remember that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was interesting in people to watch as that worked out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it worked out great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was me going down the one sort of the right side of the field, all funneled down this one sort of corridor.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I was desperately trying to fight my way up that quarter, but I guess I just worked out because I would sit at this one corner where we get the aliens that could run past me, and I wouldn't get pushed because when you get pushed, you take wounds, and so they'd come down, and I would mold them all down.
[SPEAKER_01]: They would fill up again, and I just couldn't advance down there, but it still worked out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone went around the other side.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you win?
[SPEAKER_02]: We did.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've just worked it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wandered over after.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the start of the second round, you were all at the base.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not having progressed very far physically and the entire board was full of enemies.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what they did to look away with the cow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we possibly going to get up the field?
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, so you have to
[SPEAKER_01]: We had got up, the objectives, and then you have to get all the way back to the base in order to win.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one can die, everyone must make it back.
[SPEAKER_01]: By certain number of turns, there's bosses that are spawning, there's events that you have to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Always will love Project Elite, and I'm so glad I got to play it.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is signed by Constantinous Cornelius, Marco Portugal, and Solerios Tassalis.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the addition I have is not their tipi one, it is the Seaman Nure Edition, and I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get to play on gods of Egypt, which was our game of the year, twenty twenty one.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are a number of reasons why con environments are amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a number of things that you just have to accept as being part of the con experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of them is, is that typically when you play a game, you're going to play at Max Player Count.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes that's not a deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like for example, with Project Elite.
[SPEAKER_02]: Project Elite is probably not best with five, but I think you and I would both happily play with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some games you just flatly shouldn't play with Max Player Count.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that sometimes becomes fraught.
[SPEAKER_01]: in a common environment which is kind of funny because I totally forgot like I had sat down with four people and we're ready to play it and someone came along and said it was full and then I just sort of had to think for a minute like oh no wait you can play this with six you're right yeah oh oh you're always with six oh I thought you were playing with just five oh my goodness no no no no we were we were four to start we did not play with six we played with five but I mean we were we were four because I just thought it was four and then another person asked if I was a room
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had to think for a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, there's pieces and I looked at, yeah, you can play up to six.
[SPEAKER_01]: Five.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's do five.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought Max Platter count was five.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know that yours six would be
[SPEAKER_02]: A trip and a half.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, so we played onc gods.
[SPEAKER_02]: We played with five, not my ideal player count, but I'm still happily willing to play it again.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's some games I wouldn't play it next player count, flatly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I'd just have to do the awkward kind of there's room, but go away, which I didn't have to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And unlike most games of onc gods of Egypt, because there's a lot of ways for the game to end.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd say prematurely, but that's kind of a misnomer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some games end prematurely by virtue of special sudden death, victory conditions, it's just onc.
[SPEAKER_02]: The threat of the game is typically it ends when somebody cracks the top of the victory point marker and that tends to happen before the game would end of its own accord.
[SPEAKER_02]: You progress on one event track and you seldom go the distance.
[SPEAKER_02]: This time we did because there was a two-way tie leading up into the last battle event where two players were one point shy of winning and so it all came down to timing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the timing was determined by something that I'd never seen before in a game of Onk, but which happened twice in this game of Onk, which is a province becoming entirely full.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was literally no room for anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: The first time that it happened was somewhat in the middle of the game where three players in the same battle
[SPEAKER_02]: played build monument.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we all built monuments.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say all, but the last player couldn't build a monument.
[SPEAKER_02]: There wasn't any room left.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was literally no geography available.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they just happened to get the short end of the stick.
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly, I was one of the two players tied for one point away for victory.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, OK, OK, how's this going to go?
[SPEAKER_02]: I look at Region one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Region one does me no favors.
[SPEAKER_02]: Region two is small.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm able with a movement action to just
[SPEAKER_02]: flood the zone and occupy all the areas of area two with my own figures.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, there was a way for the other player to come in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Onk is great because there's all this weird stuff that can happen, but nonetheless in a very controlled way.
[SPEAKER_02]: As we sometimes commented, it's the Eric Lane game co-designed by Reiner Kinizia, even though Kinizia isn't there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels shockingly Kinizia, it's in a lot of ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, so back, the Crocodile,
[SPEAKER_02]: can be in water areas which no one else can and that could have allowed that player to get in the region too and therefore compete for that point in terms of timing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The scoring happened before that could be done and so by the very skin of my teeth in terms of timing, we were able to pull it off.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just really interesting to see that geographic limitation kick in in a way that I hadn't seen in other games.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not granted, it's more likely in a five player game that it is lower player games and the geography always matters in terms of positioning and availability.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not uncommon for you to want to get next to something and be unable to because someone's walked it after you even in a two-player game.
[SPEAKER_02]: But twice we saw Provinces completely fill up, and that'd be very influential in terms of the resolution.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of new players, but everyone seemed to have a great time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love Onke Gods of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_02]: My only misgiving about the game now because I've got the Kickstarter all in version of a couple of expansions.
[SPEAKER_02]: is I'm having increasing difficulties storing and transporting it.
[SPEAKER_02]: For while I've been keeping it in the laser ox, all in one containment system, which is kind of okay, but it's a bit of a bear to deal with because it's actually two different organizers in one, one just for the base game, one for the expansion materials, and so consequently the materials are just spread out all over the place.
[SPEAKER_01]: As I would say,
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I also did the same sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have the site, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And remember, I pretty well just hollowed out almost everything from.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think you should keep the outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've released rocks and then just dump everything else at the Senate and go back to the bag and just fill that thing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it'll just be faster.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what, you're probably right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, that having been said, deep in my heart of hearts, I'm convinced that somebody with a three D printer has come up with a really, really good organizational system because one of the reasons why I moved away from the baggies was number one, the cardboard box situation was becoming unmanageable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other problem is, is that the miniatures are really cool, and there's a lot of spears and staves, and they're not the bendy plastic, they're the stiffer plastic, and I live in fear that something's gonna snap, and then I'm not gonna be able to find it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, and I feel wrong, I should just spend some time on printables and think of her since see if there's anything good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Listeners, if you've encountered any good storage solutions for all, please let me know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But as it is, something has got to change because sadness of sadness, someone at the con, I don't know who left a little note on the box that said the organizer has defeated us.
[SPEAKER_02]: So somebody wanted to play on, tried and couldn't, and that is sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: So clearly something needs to be done.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is very sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it is very sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: That had been said.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, huge fan of Oncards of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't play it nearly as much as I'd like to.
[SPEAKER_02]: In part because of the organizational scheme and that's tragic.
[SPEAKER_02]: So game of the year, twenty twenty one, glad to play it at the con.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a great experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll talk about this because it's very similar.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a game that ends prematurely.
[SPEAKER_01]: and randomly and also is to do with blocking we played or I played rise and fall this design by crystal ballinger and put out by ludicoly your french accent is glorious walker i'm very sorry i'm just joking it's fine
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had this feeling before, but it sort of doubled down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not saying that there's only certain ways to play a rise in fall, but it seems always fall into certain categories.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone will start up a merchant strategy of acquiring a whole bunch of money, either merchant or a bunch of boats.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other players have to end the game very quickly before that gets to cycle over and over again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was the sort of circumstance I saw people getting merchants and another player getting boats.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got a cup.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just focused on getting trophies and getting the game over.
[SPEAKER_01]: sooner rather than later, which is too bad because the actual gameplay of blocking and moving around is super fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you're like forced to end it before someone gets too out of control, I'm just not sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I was hoping that I was hoping it would sort of eventually merge into.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's great to focus on certain things, but the person that does a bunch of everything will still get enough points.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just doesn't seem to work out that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's one of those things where not entirely unlike the so-called big money strategy in Dominium.
[SPEAKER_02]: The process of getting a large income from other ships or merchants are both is kind of straightforward.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for somebody who isn't very good at visualizing the blocking game or imagining circumstances at developing out into new unexplored area, either in terms of new kinds of workers or just in terms of geography, requires a little bit more imagination or skills that not every gamer has.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, so when I play a Ryzen fall, I definitely feel the pull of the so-called big money strategy because it's straightforward and then you're just cycling.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now it's a bit of a trap because it's just somewhat difficult to make that truly remunerative and it's also a little bit repetitive once you start cycling into that rhythm.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I imagine the intent at least.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how successful it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't played Ryzen fall enough to know.
[SPEAKER_02]: The intent at least is to make it so that the time pressures and the various other pressures emerge so that it's delicate balancing act between those different kinds of strategies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe because I've yet to buy temples.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm wondering because the merchants were not in my areas, someone had unfortunately built a honeycomb of cities in order for the merchant to come in and capitalize on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just squat there and tax like crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so maybe I'm wondering if people
[SPEAKER_01]: focus more on temples which lets you convert merchants to your side and maybe deter people from bringing merchants in, or like you said block it out, maybe that will focus it more as a more equal type of.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well that's exactly what happened the last time I played Rise and Fall.
[SPEAKER_02]: saw me I think once or twice get a very successful merchant turn partially off of his cities and he just built a temple and that was the end of that and at that point I was too bullheaded to switch strategies so I just kind of doubled down allow that's only a minor impediment on my merchant and come I'll still be fine I was not fine also employed another interesting strategy that you can use in rising fall because when there's trophies and the trophies you get or when you get all of a certain piece I run the board
[SPEAKER_01]: Then at the end of that round, people need to retire a card.
[SPEAKER_01]: The interesting part is that you can fall in Risenfall.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that you can retire a card that you've already played that round.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then you can immediately buy it back and therefore stay in the round and then play that card again because when you buy it back it goes back into your hands I see okay so it's like I play all my you know I get the trophy because you know I played the city card I retire the city card I get the city card back I play the city card again and it seemed to work out it was a very interesting way to sort of manipulate the table state I very much enjoy your eyes and fall
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just is amazing because it just looks so beautiful when it's on the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Many people commented that they were very disappointed that it was impossible to get now because of how impressive the table presence is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because even building the map is part of the game and it's fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get these, it's super thick tiles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now fun it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not some people enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not painful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you put it the water, you put it
[SPEAKER_01]: grass and then you put a forest and then mountains on top of the forest and then snow peaks on top of that and it's this very three-dimensional and all of the wooden pieces are our screened on both sides.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, at least in the super deluxe version that you have.
[SPEAKER_02]: True.
[SPEAKER_02]: Finally, for me, played Space Cadets Daystool.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a game that I don't get to play nearly nearly enough because this is a real-time, pretty quick madcap game with a fair number of rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, that haven't been said.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did experience when explaining Space Cadets Daystool this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: a little bit of the same phenomenon that I observed when teaching race for the galaxy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Namely, this is a game that I haven't explained in about five years at least, and I remember it being of a certain burden to teach the rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in both cases, after explaining the game after a prolonged pause, I then had a occasional fight.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I can't help but feel that the average amount of complexity has kind of crept up certainly in the Euro sphere.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what we're willing to tolerate in terms of weird thorny side cases and different kinds of card types and weird different effects has proliferated for both good or ill.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I will say that the rules explanation was not as bad as I remember being.
[SPEAKER_02]: That haven't been said when it comes to real time games.
[SPEAKER_02]: The barrier is a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_02]: The bar is lower.
[SPEAKER_02]: because you can't be answering questions in the middle of play, merely as easily, if the time pressure is pronounced.
[SPEAKER_02]: Given that space cadets' dice tool is a two-team real-time game, the time pressure is pronounced.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not operating yet some sort of clock.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're operating against the fact that the other crew is trained to kill you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so in this case, the ability to be able to take the time to help your crew members understand what their stations are is very much lower now.
[SPEAKER_02]: That I haven't said in this particular case, that wasn't the primary burden.
[SPEAKER_02]: The primary burden that we had in this instance of space cadets dice to all were the following.
[SPEAKER_02]: Number one, my captain seemed as intent on chucking dice onto the floor as they were in terms of allocating the various stations so that they could do their job.
[SPEAKER_02]: Number two, the weapons officers seemed utterly indifferent towards any form of protection or loading torpedoes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Number three,
[SPEAKER_02]: The Helmsman, who may or may not have been me, seemed primarily insistent on hurling abuse rather than support at the other team members.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, which of these contributed the most to the fact that we were utterly and completely destroyed?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Was that an instance of the other team to sort of sat back?
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't watch your step spirally in a control.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, they were, they were operating like a well-own machine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't privy to their discussion or how they did it, but the coordination was truly impressive.
[SPEAKER_02]: The game was ended when we were positioned on their flank.
[SPEAKER_02]: I managed maneuver us so that we were at point blank range so that simplified the weapons officer's job and we were on their side.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were completely out of our, they couldn't fire on us at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had already set up shields, so we had some shielding and all directions, and then I was there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, possibly, hurling what might be considered abuse set the weapons officer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't my best moment, but whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was then sent out into the inky blackness of space without any oxygen as a consequence of their actions.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like I'm the victim here, but anyway, and then suddenly I look down and in about two seconds the their helm operator gets their ship into our flank and suddenly two torpedoes have been launched simultaneously immediately after this relocation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now,
[SPEAKER_02]: I will then mention the fourth contributor to our ultimate demise, which is that the weapons operator, in addition to being very, very competent at loading and firing torpedoes, always managed to do the die roll that penetrated our shields, because I will point out, in my defense, every time we got attacked, or lack their own defense, because you're about to blow up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every time we got hit, the first torpedo encountered shields in the arc where we were attacked in my defense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the weapons operator managed to roll so that they didn't matter any time, but, you know, I'll take my victories where I can get them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, this is one of those games where the rules explanation is almost as long as the game itself, sometimes even shorter because, again, it's real time.
[SPEAKER_02]: As I say, real time games are a bit niche, but I really think that Spiskin at today's duel has age rather well,
[SPEAKER_02]: especially since it's kind of aged into an environment where people are willing to shoulder more complicated games anyway and real-time dice rolling as much much for common now and people seem to enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I made a huge fan of this, especially at this dice duel.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was designed by Jeff Engelstein and Sidney Engelstein.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did actually some looking up to see what Sidney Engelstein has been up to because I really like her design work.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's mostly been working on ANZN games, so not so much for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: which is a bit sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was published by Stronghold in twenty thirteen originally.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the space get a nice tool is a great content experience game and I'm very glad to have played it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Highly recommended if you can get a chance to play.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lastly, for me, a listener was very nice to bring me a game called Outlive.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my biggest regret of game that I gave away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm by Gregory Oliver and put out by Labwet de Jue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what Outlive is is a post-apocalyptic sort of action selection rundel.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have your pawns and they rotate around this giant rundel, which is sort of like the city.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they have values from three to five, a couple of three is a four and a five.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you put, and it's sort of counterintuitive, because almost every other game, you, when a, when a worker is not available, it's lying down.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the opposite in this game.
[SPEAKER_01]: You sort of wake them up, they get up and they move around and they stay standing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you move, say, let's see, if there's a three standing up, because they've already used that particular,
[SPEAKER_01]: worker and you move a five-in-you-putting on pressure because you move to higher worker into a lower worker than they're both active and they have to give you stuff or use Boltzdi.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's an interesting thing of workers being more powerful than others.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other interesting thing I would live is
[SPEAKER_01]: that you're not allowed to move your worker can move around the wrong to two spaces, but you can't move to where you already have a worker.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm calling them workers, but it's not worker placement.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's this interesting of, I need to do this action where I already have a worker.
[SPEAKER_01]: that has an activated yet, so I must move that one out first, but it's a three, and I don't want to move it right away because then he might get bullied, and so it's this interesting of what one do I need to move first, and what I need to get done right now, because on top of that, there are limited resources that get populated every round, and it's like, and you need to get to these spaces before everyone takes them all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And anyway, lots of ancient things, cool weapons that you have to build and repair.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to build your little base with an airlock to, you know, to keep other radiation and all these different buildings that have different abilities and you have to populate them and you have to feed all your people and everything about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoyed it just as much as I did back then.
[SPEAKER_01]: Outlive is a great game.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the games, some of the games.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, play lessons of more dozens more.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now for a brief break while we pay some bills.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now onto the news and why it doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: No time for news.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just go on to talk about the con.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, newsletter.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, I really like to thank Mark for for organizing all this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take the initiative, getting this done, finally making this dream of having a convention for us possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, thank you, Walker.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your assistance was absolutely invaluable and you are a key part of the success.
[SPEAKER_02]: People don't come to Kingston for Mark.
[SPEAKER_02]: They come for the show, Walker.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we call Walker the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I very much also like to think my wife who made make make baked goods for people.
[SPEAKER_01]: My goodness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Set stuff up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Had the coffee ready for people.
[SPEAKER_02]: This we could have we could have charged.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another we're interested in being mercenary wanted to cover costs and we did.
[SPEAKER_02]: We could have charged I think three times as much and people would not have complained because of the spread.
[SPEAKER_02]: This con had the best food of any gaming con ever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bar none.
[SPEAKER_02]: We charged for nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was what six different kinds.
[SPEAKER_02]: No seven different kinds of baked goods from your wife that were all amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those open bars were deadly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my goodness, those open bars.
[SPEAKER_02]: On top of that, you brought chips from Costco and granola bars and trail mix and bananas and there was the coffee and there was the water jugs
[SPEAKER_02]: And we had pop in the fridge.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, sorry, soda or soft drinks depending on where you're coming from.
[SPEAKER_02]: We ate, we ate in drink like kings and queens and gender neutral monarchs.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was wonderful.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's why I make sure that, you know, that she's not only enjoyed doing the bacon, she just enjoyed being there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone was so friendly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she said, you know, if people want, she has a Facebook page for her cooking, chef Ashley.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll leave a link in the episode tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to put a link.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if you want to thank her or go check out all the other stuff she does, you can go there.
[SPEAKER_01]: She does great meals and everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead and check out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to thank the volunteers.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was great listeners that showed up early.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone wanted to know how they could help.
[SPEAKER_02]: People were willing to clean up the bathrooms to haul garbage bags.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, it was amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So much hauling.
[SPEAKER_02]: So much hauling to do because we needed a library, we have a game stick away.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the weather, this is a technical meteorological term.
[SPEAKER_02]: The weather in Kingston this weekend was gross.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet people were more than happy to go into my basement and haul stuff away.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so, so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, well, one listener in particular, he knows who he is.
[SPEAKER_02]: He helped both on the setup and the tear down.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But everyone was so generous with their time and their efforts and energies.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, what I think to venue.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no limitations.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was always open.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no sort of weird funky rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's let us do what we needed to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had my concerns, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it had been so long since I had done the tour.
[SPEAKER_02]: And well, one listener in particular, one that had any comments, like, you know, you say it's like a church hall and you have certain ideas about what that is, like a basement somewhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, no, we're talking twenty foot tall windows and
[SPEAKER_02]: My other big concern was whether the AC was gonna hold up because again twenty foot tall windows and gross weather But I think the AC more than held up its end.
[SPEAKER_02]: I never felt uncomfortable Yeah, one one person actually I this is one of my regrets.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a section of regrets one of them is somebody asked you know, and I get to get chilly from the AC because sometimes there, you know, especially during the summer
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually knew the sweater because the aces crank up too high and I said I don't think so and I was wrong and I felt terrible about it all weekend because I mean I wasn't chilly, but I was running around the entire time, but I guess if you're sitting in the wrong place or if you've had a metabolism or whatever you need some coverage fortunately, this person had ignored my advice and had brought long sleeves by the sweater anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, not a sweater, but they brought the long sleeves and with the long sleeves, I said it was okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess that goes to show that in future instances you just cover your bases and say do you think I might need a sweater and say better take one.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I know the venue was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: The only thing that I would have changed about the venue is carpeting would have been nice, so as to keep the noise a little bit down.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was never bad, but I don't think it was ever ideal in terms of background noise, but whatever cons get noisy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, a million thanks to everyone who attended, everyone who volunteered, everyone who helped.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had Marvelous swag as well, largely by virtue of Walker's efforts.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had the official swite pen in the swite notebook.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also have the official swite token.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks to the kind efforts of a very, very generous listener, and that helped us play the green team wins.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, so I've got my regrets briefly, because I agree with you overall.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was a result.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was trying to think of something negative to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: and everyone was always positive.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was never any, I did not hear any complaints about anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was nothing that was lost or, you know, parking bad or I can't find this or I heard no complaints.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, same here.
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem, me, of course, this is one of the things that I wish had emphasized a little bit more that we had, how do we get in touch with the external Ambedstein?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it occurred to me only exposed Facto, that even if someone did have an interaction that they felt wanted some comment, that they might not feel comfortable, even if it wasn't about us, they wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable talking and talking to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wish that we did have an external Ambedstein when we still do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to get in touch with with them, you absolutely should.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I'm going to do is I'm going to set up a some sort of after-con survey and then make more clear how to get in touch with them if anybody wants to report that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's one of my regrets.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some sort of better anonymized version of feedback because again, I don't think people are going to come and complain to us in hindsight.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another regret I have as I say I replaced I wish I could have handled whole AC question better.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's some guard.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's some games I didn't get to play.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't get to play Guards of Olympus two more than that later.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never played all the person that we're doing with play.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to play corporate America.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to play space kits.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have liked to have been able to play the Mario Kart variation of gas lines that got set up and played those glorious.
[SPEAKER_02]: One listener asked if I could set up and teach and play voidfall and I wish I'd been able to do it but I just couldn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have destroyed me and it would have taken the entire day.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just I had to bail on that and so I felt bad about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish we had better landyards.
[SPEAKER_02]: The name tags get kept getting switched around and given that we have such, you know, we met like sixty people over the course of the weekend.
[SPEAKER_02]: We started forgetting names and the landyards were always facing the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to investigate better landyard technology to try to try to deal with that recycling.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a little spotty over the course of the weekend.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wish I had handled that a little bit better.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also just I got a whole bunch of recommendations for Roguelight video games, and I didn't write them down, and so I remember zero of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did make notes when people said things that I wanted to remember.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, I wanted to personally, I, yeah, put the note in which was mostly happened, which was mostly happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, but it would go away.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it was another thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was one of our policies that we circulated.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was I was a completely pleased.
[SPEAKER_02]: I asked people who were attending
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, if you want to take a picture, if you want to use a scoring app, you want to do whatever you absolutely take out your phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you want to compose an email, read the news, do social media, try to do that either outside the venue or before or after the con.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the weather had been better, that would be an easier thing to ask, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Someone could just step out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did that a couple times.
[SPEAKER_02]: I stepped up to take a call or try to check up on something that was happening with respect to the event itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I just didn't want, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, it's it's about creating the environment.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't phone uses contagious and I wanted an environment where people would actually be playing games with each other rather than sitting around all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I didn't see that being as a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't see if you're problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mostly have the same regrets as you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just two ambitious.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I made this list here with the games that I'm bright.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I could have told you that at the outset.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, here are all these promises that I made.
[SPEAKER_01]: of games I wanted to play like I said I was going to bring he man I said you know so many people want to play rising fall and people get to play and games I said I was going to run that you know I think from now on that it'll just be that I think the best way to do is just if you're going to say you're going to people want to play a certain game that's be the first game of the day
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, committing to one game a day, I think as an organizer is about as much as you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is a timing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it has to be the first one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I should have been more aggressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because a lot of times I would finish game and that was just wait because like all these people in play a certain game.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll just hold up for a bit and see if they get free because I was finished a game, but everyone else is still playing.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I should have just kept cycling games after games, instead of waiting around more aggressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because I clearly didn't play enough games.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do get the sense though that by and large, people got to play what they wanted.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there were lots of people taking games from the library.
[SPEAKER_02]: I definitely taught more games than I played, because especially if I saw somebody sitting with, you know, four science or through the desert, I taught through the desert, I think three or four times.
[SPEAKER_02]: over the course of the convention so that's great a lot of people got to be exposed to that and I taught for science a bunch of times and I taught other games while I chakled in bass I didn't play but I taught people shakled in bass there was you know a lot of people just exposing themselves to do games which was which is great and by and large you know the library represents the games that we like
[SPEAKER_02]: And the games that we didn't like were on the different people that people, the table that people took away, which was great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, no, that's not even true.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got rid of a lot of good things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I gave away a complete copy of an acronym.
[SPEAKER_02]: I gave away a complete set of too many bones.
[SPEAKER_02]: I gave away tons of really good stuff on that table.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, the library was definitely a very, very high quality overall.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do have some questions for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think the game of the con was if you had to characterize?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was saying earlier, I didn't see one game being played much more than all the rest.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a lie.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what Walker would consider to be a joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: On day one.
[SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, there were four different games of guards of Atlantis too, going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Never heard of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: At the same time, it's awful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will point out that that did not even exhaust the number of copies of guards of Atlantis that were available.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, it never repeated that, those heights of day one, but guards of Atlantis too was played every day of the con.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so no question about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Guards was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Guards was the game.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to play it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just feel as though there's people up there played it a lot and having someone that doesn't play it a lot come in and it just changed their day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's just a game that you need to play a lot of or else you're going to bring your team down.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I, I, I, I didn't want to be that guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I heard some great stories of to in particular the eight player game, the foreign foregame, where there were very experienced players as well as relatively new players.
[SPEAKER_02]: The new players pulled their weight and did some pretty impressive stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: I heard great stories about the tooling map and someone breaking off and effectively cutting everyone on anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of great stories about a lot of great games of Guards of Atlantis, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have a, you know, I have a surprise game of the con.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't expecting to be played very much at all, but it was to be played all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I taught it a bunch of times.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's Crash Octopus.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: There were two copies at the con, one in the library, one that had been brought by a listener.
[SPEAKER_02]: And several times,
[SPEAKER_02]: Both copies were in play.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was just a lot of crash octopus going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I heard from a couple listeners that it's impossible to get.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you find some of it selling it, it's going for a ridiculous price.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why maybe that's that's why.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been told this by a couple of people that I've taught the game to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another regret, I have a payment near the end, or like practically while we're clean up, I saw this sort of demolished pop case with we need a teacher written on it and sort of like, propped up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I remembered that one of the greatest things I remember from Shucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was the fact that at the opening of the gaming area, they would have these weights tied to balloons.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the color of the balloon.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the indicate, we have a spot available, or we need a teacher.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need more players.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to drink.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, why did I not do this?
[SPEAKER_02]: See, I thought of it the day before the con amongst a million other things that I needed to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, I can't.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do regret that as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did, like I say, if I ever saw anybody sitting down with like a partially set up game in a rule book, and I did this at least a dozen times over the course of the three days.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said,
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you need any help?
[SPEAKER_02]: Would you like me to teach you the game?
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes they said, no, we're good.
[SPEAKER_02]: But much of the time said, please do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, that's one of the reasons why I sense a horse, not just because I was at the combat because I was teaching games almost the entire time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wanted people to be able to play what they wanted to play.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it just people seemed to be, and it did seem to be the case.
[SPEAKER_02]: that the people who wanted to just play games over and over with the same people were able to do that, but the people who wanted to be able to play games with new people also did that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I mean, yeah, I might have a conception that as somebody who's, you know, nominally involved in a community that everyone should interact with everywhere else, but not everyone wants to do that, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to go to a con and you just want to play games, sometimes games, even that you have at home or whatever,
[SPEAKER_02]: with the same person at the same table, that's cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to empower you to have the experience that you want.
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing I definitely don't regret is, and it sounds stupid, but I actually think it paid dividends was the emphasis on good vibes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vibes are good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Someone's like, oh, we don't know what if it's a good vibes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not a toxic positivity.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, don't sweat it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good vibes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will fix it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing I wrote is that I got the conversations in.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: we have a sort of hotel core that was near the venue and there they had like a eye hop so I you know told people every morning be there so there's like a table of always like ten to fifteen people that's great I'm sorry to miss that and for like an hour and a half we would just talk shop
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where I made the notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to make sure I say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really regret not being able to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But every night I was I got to I got to bed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm forced you to and then we have to open up in the next morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is what it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I needed that extra time of just, you know, resting my voice and and sleeping and being able to slew the fill off me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because again, I would like to remind you, the weather was gross.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: The barometric scale reading was gross.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was absolutely necessary.
[SPEAKER_02]: Loved the play of green team wins.
[SPEAKER_02]: Went well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Any any surprise results?
[SPEAKER_02]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you know, I was shocked that cookie won over pie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's much like the Puppa Puppa does, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That when you slander one choice over the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: people tend to choose the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, like I said, it worked out exactly the way I thought it would.
[SPEAKER_02]: These are lies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cookie won by the strength of its inherent goodness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course it did.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have dare you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I just presented the question and the people answered.
[SPEAKER_02]: The people who are there will, will differ.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that is absolutely not true.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other, I mean, something I think we need to end on, though, really, is the greatest travesty.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the rules was violated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mark, do tell.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the conditions of attending, so very wrong about games, sometimes good vibes only transwets a human rights board game jamboree, was that every attendee was required to take something from our games.
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe they signed a waiver that said they had to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the inspirant.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can attest that somebody has confessed to not having done this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And do you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the coolest cut of all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know us?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who was that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Wormboy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wormboy did not.
[SPEAKER_02]: on under the terms of the agreement he's banned.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a great challenge.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a grave challenge.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a shock to our values.
[SPEAKER_02]: And after he reclaimed his name.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a little bit worried because once again we set this a number of times and the people are still shocked.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is W-A-R-M.
[SPEAKER_02]: Warm, not warm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course that's a valid differentiator than some people don't have.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's warm when you validate the rules though.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_02]: hurts my hurt.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was cold, warm boy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, very cold.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now he's cold boy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks again for everyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: It came sincerely grateful.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is, I'll talk more about this on bloat, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it, this job that we have can be very alienating.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is endlessly rejuvenating to be able to encounter people who consume and possibly even appreciate what we do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that was the biggest value for me, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it would definitely change the attitude of recording.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like going forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you know, knowing an audience, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, as opposed to the blur that you think you're talking to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and the last time we were able to do this was years ago at Shucks.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, there you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thanks again, everyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hope those that missed the con got some sense of what's going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have more pictures.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got some video that we'll be uploading to various venues in due time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, even on Ashley's chef page, he has a bunch of pictures of the con as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, link in the episode notes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much to those that joined us and thank you so much for joining us for this episode.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're running on my games.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's going to do it for this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: We do have a Patreon.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is an episode that's about to bowl five.
[SPEAKER_02]: So please consider supporting, free and independent media at patreon.com slash svag.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got tons of bonus content.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of bonus content there available for lower prices as well as add free episodes and a whole bunch of other benefits.
[SPEAKER_02]: We hope to see you again soon.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take care of yourselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take care of your hobby.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you rules, explainer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Peace!
[SPEAKER_02]: You've been listening to sober and wrong about games, or gaming podcasts about board games produced by Michael Walker and edited by Mark McBick.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find all our information at sowronggames.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: Special thanks to what's the city for allowing us to use their most excellent song FLS as our intro.
[SPEAKER_02]: Find them at what's the unique.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: We hope to see you again soon and as always.
[SPEAKER_02]: Try to be right to but remember you're so very well.