0:04

Welcome to Ludology, a

0:06

podcast about the why of gaming.

0:24

This episode of Ludology is produced

0:26

by Christian Harrow, Jeff

0:28

Pettyross, and Bruce Ainsley.

0:31

Ludology, episode 311. The

0:34

Essen Experience. I'm

0:36

Senfong Lim. And I'm Erika Bollures.

0:40

Today we're going to talk to Will Meadows. Welcome,

0:42

Will. Hey, everybody. All

0:45

right, Will, for those of our audience who may

0:47

not know your work, what are you best known

0:50

for in the tabletop industry?

0:52

Oh, man, probably just being loud and obnoxious.

0:54

But hopefully I'm known for Tantrum

0:56

House. I'm one of the founder creators over there.

0:59

And we do all kinds of media work. So

1:01

lots of Kickstarter promotional stuff, a

1:03

lot of video reviews, lots and lots of

1:05

playthroughs. We've got a big team. So

1:07

we can do those big higher player count games,

1:09

which we enjoy a lot.

1:12

Can you tell us why is

1:14

it called Tantrum House? Man, I

1:16

would love to. We've

1:18

been around for, I don't know, going

1:21

on probably 10 years. And when

1:23

we got this ball rolling, it was

1:25

game night at the Meadows. My

1:27

wife and I were hosting game nights on Monday night. And

1:30

we had three kiddos under

1:33

five, I think if I do the math right. So

1:36

we usually tried to wait until bedtime, but it didn't always

1:38

happen that way. And yeah, Tantrum

1:40

House was the nickname. Tantrum

1:43

House was born. My oldest is now

1:46

going on 16. So we're

1:48

not in the Tantrum House stage anymore. Although several

1:50

of the other team members have little

1:53

guys that are running around now. So we're keeping

1:55

it going.

1:56

The legacy lives on. And

1:58

would you like to tell us all about who? Who is on

2:00

Team Tantrum host? Oh, I would be happy to.

2:03

So myself and my wife, Sarah, Kevin

2:05

and Melissa Delp, Ryan and Katie

2:07

Pills, and then Jonah and Chantel

2:09

Do are all the official members.

2:12

We do have all of us have full-time jobs,

2:14

so this is just a hobby thing for all of us, but

2:16

we are the official LLC partners

2:19

in the company. And then we have

2:21

several interns, as we

2:23

call them, but they're really just friends who love hanging out with

2:25

us and have come along for the show. So Larry

2:28

and Amy Estrella both do a lot of work

2:29

for us.

2:30

Dan Johnson is one of our long-term

2:33

interns. He's now graduated to Journeyman

2:35

Dan. And then we've got a couple other folks

2:37

along the way, Andrew Schegda, Tina

2:41

Kelly, a couple other people that are all part

2:43

of the fun, as well as my kids. And

2:45

everybody else's kids kind of jump in every once in a while, although,

2:47

as I said, they're all much younger, so.

2:50

Right. And you also do a convention,

2:53

right? We do. It's a more recent

2:55

addition, but this will be our, oh

2:58

no, I'm terrible at math, fifth or sixth tantrum

3:00

con. It's coming up in January,

3:02

January 25th through the 28th of this coming year. And

3:06

we've been growing leaps and bounds. We keep

3:08

outgrowing our venue and having to move to a new location.

3:11

And it's been tons and tons of fun.

3:13

I hear it's a good time. Good problems to

3:15

have too. You guys should come out. Yeah.

3:18

It'd be super fun.

3:19

Well, I mean, we do have you here to talk about

3:22

Essen, but before we get into that, can

3:24

you tell us a little bit about what

3:26

does tantrum house do when they go to convention? So

3:29

kind of, you know, what are the different things that you're

3:31

looking for while you're doing there, setting up, you know,

3:33

how are you spending your time there?

3:36

Yeah. So as I mentioned, none of us are like

3:38

full-time employees of tantrum house. So a lot

3:40

of the time it is just going to have a good time. We

3:44

enjoy being able to see all the new stuff that's coming

3:46

out. And because we've been doing these videos

3:48

and the channel for long enough, we've

3:50

made some really good connections with publishers. But a

3:53

lot of times when we go to the shows, a

3:55

lot of times what we're getting is that peak behind the curtain

3:57

where we are able to kind of set up meetings with a lot

3:59

of the publishers and the marketing coordinators and they're

4:01

actually showing us not necessarily what's at the

4:04

show this year but actually what's coming down

4:06

the pipe for next year. So we kind of get

4:08

some of those early previews. A lot

4:10

of times they'll demo games for us or a lot of sometimes

4:12

we'll get a walk away with a demo copy which is super awesome

4:15

but most of the time it's sit down at the table look

4:17

at the three or four new things that are coming and

4:19

and really just kind of catch up especially at Essen

4:22

we only get to see those folks a lot of times once

4:24

a year and so it's really neat to be able

4:26

to catch up with you know whoever our marketing contact

4:28

is or friend or sometimes it's the CFO

4:31

for the company just depends on the type of company

4:33

that we're talking to.

4:34

Right and so speaking of Essen is

4:36

this the first time that tantrum has

4:38

gone to Essen or is this the

4:40

if you've been multiple times? Yeah I think this is

4:42

our fourth or fifth time we started going I think

4:44

in 2019 my wife and I

4:47

went the very first year which that

4:49

interestingly enough has some tie-ins to tantrum con

4:51

as well we had our first tantrum con and

4:54

we had a bunch of attendees who were local

4:56

and we had one attendee on the list who came

4:58

from Germany and we were like you came all the way from Germany

5:00

to tantrum con? Wow. Which

5:03

wasn't really the case she actually had worked

5:05

for a company that sent her to work in the states and so she

5:07

was there and it was a convenient thing but we it

5:10

kind of it did work out because we ended up becoming

5:12

pretty good friends. It's like she

5:15

came over just being. Yeah yeah yeah

5:17

we can we can all just pretend we can put an

5:19

asterisk next to her name official

5:22

German attendee. That's right and

5:24

our international convention. Jane has been a great

5:26

friend since then and because she was there she

5:29

she basically said hey if you guys ever

5:31

decide to come to Essen let me know like

5:33

I speak German we I know the area I go every

5:35

year I'd be happy to show you guys around and

5:37

so we pulled some strings we were able to do some demoing

5:40

for Renegade games that year and

5:42

we went to the convention it was a fantastic experience

5:45

she gave us the the before and after

5:47

tour and hauled us back and forth in her car

5:49

and everything I mean it was it was very very convenient

5:52

worked out really great and that kind of wet

5:54

our appetite and we've been going back every year since

5:56

then.

5:57

For those of us who've never been to Essen

5:59

and I'm sure a lot of our. listeners have but I'm

6:01

sure an equal or maybe even greater

6:04

amount of our listeners have it. What's

6:06

it like?

6:07

Wow there are so many people there. First

6:11

off it's huge. In

6:14

comparison to GenCon it is kind of hard

6:16

to compare the two. A lot

6:19

of GenCon if you're going to use that as a comparison

6:21

assuming that more people maybe have been there. At

6:24

GenCon you've got kind of two major

6:26

halls where everything happens at and then

6:28

there's plenty of other stuff scattered throughout but you

6:30

can find almost everything in those two

6:33

mega hallways or convention

6:35

center spaces. At GenCon or at Essen

6:37

there are like six of those. So

6:41

everything is spread out everywhere. They did some consolidating

6:43

this year which they haven't done in the past. They kind of had one

6:45

room that was more for minigatures

6:48

and painting and things like that and one room that was more for

6:50

toys and kids and products and one room that was

6:52

more for you know regular Euro style

6:54

board gaming. In the past though it's just all

6:57

been everywhere. So if you knew where you

6:59

were going you might be in Hall 1 to

7:01

visit with one company and then you're

7:03

going through Hall 2 across the way to Hall 6,

7:06

through Hall 6 to Hall 5 where you actually

7:08

find the next booth that you were looking for your feet

7:11

hurt. It's a lot of walking.

7:12

Thank God things are

7:14

labeled but holy crap yeah

7:16

going from one place to another. I have

7:18

to say last year was my first

7:20

year going. I didn't get to go this year but

7:22

it's nice to hear that they

7:24

are grouping a little bit more. It seems

7:27

very a little bit more like New York Toy Fair for example

7:30

right where things tend to be

7:32

grouped more based on like the typing

7:35

which does help a lot more when you're trying to

7:37

you know get through certain areas that maybe are more

7:39

suited to you or that's more

7:41

your business expertise right.

7:44

I think it is a but definitely a

7:45

positive move. It was. Yeah I mean I get

7:48

that

7:48

they like to see people seeing

7:50

new things that they never thought they'd see but

7:53

also

7:55

my feet have only so many miles. I think

7:58

things

7:58

get lost like that too. Like

8:00

if you're on kind of like having to hunt through

8:03

every hall is a little different

8:05

than you know it's like I'm looking for this it's

8:07

gonna be summer over here. So

8:11

quick hit.

8:12

What's the best thing about Essen

8:15

in general? Oh man. For

8:17

me the best thing is in

8:20

the States I go to a number of different conventions and I

8:22

kind of get to run into a similar

8:24

group of people over and over and over again but

8:26

there's a whole group of people that only

8:28

attend Essen and I only see

8:30

them when I'm over there. So for me it really is the people

8:33

which is crazy because we're talking about board games but

8:35

it's an opportunity to connect with people that I only get

8:37

to see once a year. It's like a big family reunion. We

8:39

show up, we grab dinner, we play the games. That's

8:42

probably my highlight.

8:45

Mixed in there is also the food which

8:47

is very different from the food that you would get over here.

8:50

You can find the McDonald's and the you

8:52

know Chinese restaurant or whatever but they

8:54

just have a whole different palette over

8:56

there and so and even in the convention

8:58

center all the food that you're eating in the space is

9:01

it's fun and unique and neat and so that's a

9:03

big part of it as well and then I think the other

9:05

thing is the big game releases

9:08

like people do hold out until Essen to

9:10

to release their big huge game for the year. So

9:12

there's a lot of hype, a lot of excitement, a lot of people

9:14

you know in crazy long

9:16

lines trying to get their favorite game

9:18

for the show. So

9:20

I would love to know though like what were some

9:22

of the big lineups you're noticing because

9:24

you know everyone kind of always wants to hear the buzz

9:27

on what was selling and what

9:29

were people excited about.

9:31

So this year we had an opportunity to demo

9:33

for Inside Up games and they kind of partnered

9:35

with Stonemaier games to have one

9:37

big booth. So both Apiary and

9:40

Earth were big hits. People were in line

9:42

for crazy amounts of time to pick up both of those games, one from

9:44

each company. It's

9:46

kind of always weird for me because a lot of times

9:49

like I said we at Hitch-Miles get to see the games

9:51

a year in advance and so like

9:53

I can't even remember what the hottest hot one was

9:56

because I had already played it you know three months ago which is

9:58

crazy. And

10:00

I'm also the wrong guy. Kevin from our team

10:02

knows the name of every game that is

10:04

great. All I remember is there was a dice

10:06

game everybody was talking about. They were going crazy.

10:08

Small box, dark color. I don't know what the name

10:11

was. Was it Nakatsu? It was.

10:13

Thank you very much. People were freaking

10:15

out over that. Everybody was talking about it. I really

10:17

liked that one. I

10:18

played it in April,

10:21

I think it was. And I actually had

10:23

a list because my boss is there, he was

10:25

like, here's my list. I want you

10:27

to get me. And that was on it. And

10:29

he said, unfortunately, they didn't, well, they didn't, they

10:31

said they actually didn't bring like almost any. So he,

10:35

but he's, I think he got it through some other

10:38

means. So I was like, I think it's coming. The

10:40

other big one, I don't know if you played this, I'd love to hear

10:43

from you. I know he really wanted, but it was,

10:45

it was the only, the German version was a dragon

10:48

keeper.

10:50

I did not play it, but I did see it and people were

10:52

freaking out over it.

10:53

Okay, I got that one in pre-orders here. I was

10:55

just curious what some of these ones, because I'm like, I still haven't,

10:58

don't, you don't see them, right? Like

11:00

you, there's no tangibility when you're not there.

11:02

So, so it was great to hear from

11:05

somebody or like, if you ever got to see those walkthrough

11:07

videos, I'm like, Ooh, what are they looking at? It

11:10

is interesting though. Like, so

11:12

gone are the days, I feel anyways,

11:14

where there are some things

11:16

that you can only get at Essen and you'll

11:19

never see them again.

11:19

I think we've gone so

11:22

global with the market

11:24

that eventually we'll see

11:26

it, right?

11:27

It's one exception, but I'll go first.

11:30

Well, I think there are games that do rise

11:33

to the top and they make it to that point where somebody is

11:35

going to pick it up and bring it overseas. There

11:37

are plenty of games that do come out first

11:40

at Essen and you can kind of only get them there.

11:43

And then there's a lot of like language stuff too. Like

11:45

I know there are plenty of games where it's not translated

11:47

in English, but maybe it will be next year and

11:49

we might be able to actually read the rules over here.

11:51

Yeah, there's, I don't know

11:54

if you just learned German. That would be a great

11:56

idea. I wish I could.

11:59

GGG forums though. I have to say there's always

12:02

some amazing person who's already done

12:04

the translation for you. It's

12:06

beautiful. You can buy the German

12:08

games, especially if the cards are language independent

12:11

because some beautiful human being has

12:13

already translated the rules.

12:14

Yeah. If we did that with

12:16

more... Oh,

12:18

I can look it up. Am

12:19

I living here?

12:20

Well, it's not good with names. I am.

12:23

I am the worst. I pick pictures of games, so

12:25

I remember which ones are which because I need that

12:27

cue.

12:28

We picked up a German game and we went immediately

12:30

to GGG. There were the rules. We were good to go. We learned

12:33

to play it in the airport. That was great. That

12:35

was great.

12:37

Yeah, I think the only exception that is

12:40

getting better, at least

12:42

you'll see them maybe a couple of

12:44

years later if you see them, is still a

12:46

lot of the Asian market. Sure.

12:49

We just talked about one Japanese game

12:51

that was so popular, but they're like, yeah, we bought like 20. I'm

12:53

like, but that's just so Japanese market.

12:56

They're like, we don't do

12:58

that many. There

13:01

was one company I noticed last year that

13:03

I think this was their first year at GenCon,

13:06

like first year they've ever bought their products over from China.

13:08

As I say, it's starting, but

13:12

I do feel like Essen was that one

13:14

time to... Without having to go like maybe

13:17

Tokyo Game Fair, Essen was that

13:19

one place where you actually had a really good

13:23

opportunity to see what was going on within the Asian

13:25

markets because we get way more exposure

13:27

to the German and French in general.

13:32

Will is now looking behind himself

13:35

at a shelf. Are you thinking of games? I

13:37

was refreshing myself. Another thing that

13:39

does happen is licensing issues too. I was

13:42

able to pick up the ops Dark Side

13:44

Rising, which is in that same line as Thanos

13:46

Rising and stuff, but I don't think they have the rights

13:48

to like Star Wars in the US. Oh

13:51

yeah, European only, isn't it? It

13:53

is. I had to snag that one last year and

13:55

bring it home. Just like the Kaka-san

13:59

version for Star Wars. is only in Europe

14:01

as well, right? So that is true. There

14:04

are things like that. I just don't feel like

14:06

I have to get a friend to mule games back

14:08

for me anymore because eventually I'll

14:11

get them through normal channels, I think.

14:14

I just don't have that hype anymore. I don't

14:16

know. Maybe we're just getting old and jaded.

14:21

I think what's nice is that people have been maybe

14:23

more accommodating. So like for example, if you

14:26

have an opportunity to go to PAX, you know

14:28

you're going to see a percent of

14:30

those ones. You can't buy them. That's not it, but you could

14:32

play them, right? So I think people

14:35

are trying because let's

14:37

be really honest guys.

14:38

Well, how expensive was Essen? Oh man,

14:42

plane tickets, food, hotels,

14:45

train tickets. It gets pricey. It's

14:47

not a cheap trip. Even when fortunately

14:50

like we like I mentioned, we actually went with Inside

14:52

Up Games and so our hotel was covered by

14:54

them, which was fantastic. We did some a

14:57

bunch of demoing of their games for them over the course of the convention

14:59

in exchange kind of for a hotel

15:01

hookup. But otherwise, it's not cheap

15:04

to get over there for sure.

15:05

Yeah, you're talking several thousand dollars for

15:07

most people because of flights staying

15:09

especially if you're even remotely

15:12

local. I mean, the nice thing is they have a great

15:14

train system. But yeah, I think I'm going

15:16

to say, you know, that's probably one

15:18

most people's major barrier is it's

15:20

a very expensive trip in the middle of Germany.

15:22

Yeah. And if you don't already have your passport

15:25

and you know, all those things luggage I mean, it's it

15:27

adds up real quick. But

15:30

this is the fourth time you've gone. It is. Yeah.

15:33

And it's something you're going to continue doing. I

15:35

sure hope so. In the past, we have gone

15:37

with Genius Games. And I've actually

15:39

run their show for them. So I work as a

15:42

graphic designer. Normally, that's my day job. And

15:45

I'm good friends with John Covey. He's got

15:47

little kids. He's in the tantrum house stage and

15:50

isn't doing as much international travel as he has in the past.

15:52

So not this year, but the previous two years, I actually

15:55

ran the Genius Games booth and handled

15:57

all their volunteers and did all the international fulfillment

15:59

stuff. I just did it

16:01

as a job and then it of course paid for

16:03

my trip over there. So right it was a great

16:06

great way to do it Right. So there are ways

16:08

for people to get over there if they're

16:10

willing to do some work while they're over there,

16:12

right?

16:15

I'm not sure what that does for visa laws. I don't

16:17

know don't ask me and

16:19

don't say anything at the border Things

16:22

where you don't admit you're there for work.

16:25

I think I can I don't you can okay

16:27

Yeah, I don't exactly remember how it did but there was some paperwork

16:30

that we had to fill out They have an international distributor.

16:32

So all their product is already over there It

16:35

just gets delivered to the booth and then yeah,

16:38

so what are the cons of?

16:40

that con

16:42

Well, one of the main cons is the

16:45

legwork The

16:47

thousands of steps are gonna get in and

16:49

and it is crowded I'm not sure why it

16:51

feels so like packed

16:54

in there shoulder to shoulder but trying to get through some of those convention

16:56

centers is is tight like you can't

16:58

just Walk straight you got a duck and weave

17:01

and hop over people sometimes It's

17:03

a little crazy the spacing the other thing

17:06

of course is the con crud that comes with any

17:08

con I walked away myself with

17:10

a little bit of sniffles from it But

17:13

fortunately health is good and

17:16

and we really didn't have any issues like that

17:18

But I think yeah time like

17:20

it's just hard to get to see everything that you want to see

17:23

It is a four-day convention or whatever. So

17:25

you should have plenty of time But man, there were definitely

17:27

aisles. I did not make it to at all and

17:29

I was running everywhere

17:33

So it's a lot of space, you know what I find

17:35

interesting is or you don't think of it is

17:37

just how truly small the town This

17:41

giant convention is in. Yes,

17:43

like the idea that it's like, you know

17:45

a mall I like

17:48

a little downtown maybe shopping.

17:50

I don't know whatever you want to call it Plaza. That's That's

17:53

it that you're done. That's the entire

17:56

like entire

17:57

area when they closed the hall at 7 and everybody

17:59

tries to go get dinner at the same time. I mean it's

18:02

insanity. The city is not really

18:04

built for feeding 100,000 people

18:07

at night. So usually we have to try to disperse

18:09

and catch the subway and go three extra stops

18:12

and find something outside the main bubble, which

18:15

is all part of the adventure actually. So I kind of

18:17

like that part.

18:18

Yeah.

18:19

It is interesting though that they don't have the

18:21

infrastructure to actually support

18:24

these volume of people. Yeah. I

18:27

mean I guess the train,

18:29

right? I guess the train is the thing.

18:32

The infrastructure is getting people out of there

18:34

to

18:35

go to the other things rather than building stuff in

18:37

the local area. The train is surprisingly

18:38

small, but I get that it

18:40

would be for the rest of the year. Right. Absolutely

18:43

makes sense. But when you have

18:45

a six-hall convention

18:48

center that even has

18:50

a hotel right attached to the side of it, you'd

18:52

think somehow you'd have additional

18:55

cars going or I don't

18:57

know, it just seems like it's still really

18:59

small for the number of people coming and going.

19:01

Yeah. I've never been there outside of that

19:04

event or any other convention. So maybe it is

19:06

more. I have no idea. It does. It's crazy.

19:08

It's crazy time. The

19:10

food one's a good warning though because everything closes

19:13

relatively early and there's only

19:16

so much space. Well, and this year I think the exhibit hall,

19:18

I feel like it definitely stayed open an hour

19:20

later. I feel like it closed at six last

19:22

year. Is it stayed open? Oh, maybe they extended. It stayed

19:24

open until seven, but that just means everybody stays in there

19:27

until seven and then goes to dinner. It's

19:30

a long day. One of the big differences at Essen

19:32

between Gen Con and Origins is that it

19:35

seems like when the show hall closes,

19:37

that's it for the night. Everybody

19:40

goes and eats dinner somewhere. European

19:43

dining is a little bit of a slower experience

19:45

than the American eat and go type of thing.

19:48

So typically you're leaving the convention center at seven,

19:50

you're going to eat for like the next two and a half

19:52

hours and then it's, well, all right, let's go

19:54

to bed. Whereas at like Origins and Gen Con,

19:56

a lot of those places will have open gaming halls. And

19:59

so the commission will. Close the exhibit hall people

20:02

will go eat But then a lot of times will come back or they'll come

20:04

to the local hotels and everybody will be playing

20:06

games till midnight That's kind of that doesn't

20:08

really happen as much as Gen Con or at

20:10

SNME

20:12

You know what? It's it's it's funny you say

20:14

that someone said recently when they came back We're

20:16

like wow the hotel lobbies are so

20:18

small and that ultimately is exactly

20:21

what you're saying is there are no spaces

20:23

to game Right like you don't

20:25

game at the restaurant. Nope Do

20:28

not do that But yes,

20:30

usually if you're an origins Gen Con, whatever

20:32

it is You do exactly that you

20:34

do have your group dinner team dinner Whatever

20:36

it is and you're probably going to

20:38

go back literally either to the convention

20:41

center or to a hotel where it's large

20:43

enough That like these large groups

20:45

of people are having multiple games happening

20:47

at the same time and this is happening everywhere But

20:50

then imagine the one of the largest conventions

20:52

in the world and nobody's doing go home and go

20:54

to bed However, I am they all go

20:56

to bed I will say though that is surprisingly

20:59

a large con feed them out of play

21:02

like there's so much of that space is playing

21:04

That's true Yeah, they have a plenty

21:06

of retail but they do have a lot of demo tables set

21:08

up and people can can try the games

21:11

out Which is nice

21:13

It's

21:13

quite different than I would say Gen Con like you

21:15

don't you want to do a quick demo get the person

21:17

moving Like it's it's not the same

21:19

and usually you think of open tables as being

21:22

like less facilitated You know what I mean?

21:24

They'll be in the second hall It's neat when

21:26

that is

21:27

half of what the booth is is just

21:29

you're gonna make sure people sit down They sit as long as

21:31

they want doesn't matter because they're there

21:33

to play games Yeah, and that's what as a demo

21:35

or when we were teaching the games in the you

21:37

know in the US base conventions It's normal

21:40

to do like we're just gonna play two rounds So

21:42

you guys can see what it's like and then I'll tell you how final scoring

21:44

works and then we'll be done They are like

21:47

they're ready. They want to sit down. They want to play the whole game

21:49

at us and they'll like get mad

21:51

at you If you try to cut it short,

21:54

they're like no no no we we we've only got two more

21:56

rounds left We're here for the whole duration. Okay,

21:58

you don't flip tables That's tantrum

22:00

con, but yes. Yeah,

22:03

so what's some advice you

22:05

might have, Will, for people who are going

22:08

to consider going to Essen

22:11

for the first time? Oh, I got some good ones for you. Here we

22:13

go. First off, download the app.

22:15

We've talked about the trains, we've talked about the subways,

22:18

like it's way easier and

22:20

cheaper to know when trains

22:22

are leaving, what time they're picking up, which one

22:24

you got to hop on and where to go. First year, I tried

22:26

to do like printout tickets and stuff. No, I

22:29

don't know what I was thinking. Apps make everything

22:31

better. Same with like restaurants and

22:33

dining. You can make reservations a whole lot easier that way.

22:37

It is harder to get into spaces, so being

22:39

planned ahead, a lot of all these hotels

22:41

and restaurants do take reservations in advance.

22:43

So especially we did like a tantrum con

22:46

meetup where we invited a bunch of other media

22:48

folks and people to come join us for dinner. We

22:51

were able to make those reservations, you know, a week

22:53

and a half in advance, which saved us a

22:55

seat and actually got us a dinner

22:57

for the night, which was great. So yeah, download

23:00

the apps, figure out the transportation before you get there because

23:02

if you're not used to subways and train

23:04

lines and the red line and the blue line, you'll

23:07

need some help. So be prepared for that. The

23:09

other thing I would say is they do release

23:11

the exhibit hall map early for

23:14

the event. So if you know, hey, I'm looking for

23:16

these five games, figure out where they're at on the map,

23:18

make your plans just like you would at any other convention

23:20

and get in line early because

23:22

the lines are crazy

23:24

there just like they are at every event. So and

23:27

then the final advance advice I would have is anybody from

23:29

the US who's looking to go over, you should try to

23:31

reach out to your favorite publisher. They're

23:34

almost always looking for volunteer

23:36

help and for demoers. And so it's

23:39

pretty easy. I think people might be intimidated by

23:41

it or I think there's like an inside trick to it. It's

23:43

pretty easy to get your foot in the door as a demo

23:46

or as a volunteer for a lot of these publishers, just send

23:48

an email to their marketing guy and say, hey, I'm

23:50

looking at demoing for S and I'm going to be there. You

23:53

know, is there any perks you can get? The biggest perk

23:55

you can get is that exhibitor badge because

23:57

if you can get in the hall before the other

23:59

90,000 people, that's the only

24:02

way that you're getting the dice game that you want

24:04

because those guys are sold out before the show opens

24:07

every day. That are you going to make? I'll have to make

24:09

so many different friends to figure out how you're

24:11

going to get this exchange system to get these

24:13

games. But I

24:16

will just add a little caveat just when I watch

24:18

people to see who is doing what to take

24:21

people to SN. I have noticed a lot

24:23

of publishers are great about covering

24:25

the badge and hotel. I

24:28

can't say that all or ten

24:30

really do cover the flight. Oh no, I wouldn't

24:32

say that at all. So that is something to be aware of, right?

24:36

Is that maybe you can do it where

24:38

if the flight is worth the cost to you,

24:41

you could do a longer trip out of it by

24:43

also getting that hotel and badge

24:46

coverage, working while you're there. So

24:48

then you can turn it into something more just

24:50

because I don't think you're going to get there free.

24:54

Yeah.

24:54

And I think part of

24:56

that is just because you can never figure

24:58

out where somebody is flying from in

25:00

order to cover the whole cost of it, right? So

25:02

I get that. It's a really expensive flight in general.

25:05

So I think that's a big part of it. But

25:07

one of the tricks that we found because we do exactly

25:10

what you just said. We usually fly in either four

25:12

or five days in advance or we stay four

25:14

or five days afterwards. Tickets become

25:16

a whole lot more affordable when you go to

25:19

touristy locations. And

25:21

so we've flown into London or Amsterdam

25:23

or Paris and gotten the cheap tickets

25:26

that get you over there for 400, 500 bucks a person, which is reasonable.

25:29

I mean, that's how much it cost me to fly to visit my

25:31

in-laws in Nebraska. So

25:34

for 500 bucks, 500 to 800, usually we can

25:36

take us to somewhere nearby and then train

25:39

travel is super affordable. So once you

25:41

get there, train travel is super

25:42

cheap. Then you can hop on a train for 20 or 30 bucks

25:44

to get to where you actually need to get, which makes

25:47

it more doable. And the trains are fun. You get to watch

25:49

a train going like 300 kilometers an hour.

25:52

It's fascinating. You could play a game on

25:54

the train. You could actually. A boat train.

25:57

Train. Perfect.

26:01

I think that's really good advice though. If

26:04

you're going to do this, there are ways to keep it. Get

26:07

the S in the experience, get to say you got to

26:09

go see all the cool stuff by the cool games.

26:12

It's going to cost you a little bit, but you can

26:14

also get your foot in the door, get some contacts,

26:18

get some time on the floor, that kind of

26:20

thing. So it's a balance. And

26:24

is there any must-see

26:27

thing

26:27

in SN that's not

26:29

board game related?

26:30

Did you go to a specific

26:32

sightseeing thing or anything

26:34

like that? We really didn't this

26:37

time. As I said, we've landed

26:39

in other locations and checked out the sites there

26:42

and then traveled in. I do have a couple

26:44

of favorite restaurants, but I'm not going to tell you about them because

26:46

I want them to stay not well

26:48

attended. I got some

26:50

secret spaces that have... That is fair. They

26:53

fill up. I'll wet your appetite with it. One of the other

26:55

European things that I'm not used to as an

26:58

American is the lack

27:00

of availability of water. They

27:02

try to charge me... Oh, I'm glad you said that. I'm

27:04

glad you said that. Did you carry

27:06

your bottle opener? You got to carry a

27:09

bottle. You can't survive otherwise. Yeah. They're

27:11

trying to charge you more for water than they are for beer

27:13

over there. You sit down at dinner. It's like

27:15

you can have a whole beer for $4 or a

27:17

whole tiny glass of water for $5. I'm

27:20

dying. I am so dehydrated. I

27:23

finally found... More drunk. Right. One

27:26

of the two. That's really the options. I finally

27:28

found a place that offers free refills on

27:30

all their beverages and I'm going there like every

27:32

other night while I'm

27:34

at S's. Just to fill up. That's

27:37

right. Recharge.

27:39

There is one place I noticed... I'm

27:41

not giving any food locations, but one location

27:44

that I kind of wish more people went

27:46

to go visit is there is quite

27:48

a large toy store in town and

27:51

you'd be amazed like what's on

27:53

the shelves sometimes or like they

27:56

will fill like two... It's like two

27:58

aisles up and down both sides. It's just games. right

28:01

but not necessarily stuff. Some of the stuff that's even

28:03

on the acid floor, I've literally seen that

28:05

do. But I wish more people

28:07

went to visit the toy

28:08

store and had a peek at that and seen

28:10

what's in there. It is kind of fun just going

28:12

to their local shops like just seeing

28:15

what the clothing styles are because they're a little different

28:17

over there and maybe even cooler

28:19

in some cases and also more affordable

28:22

in some cases which is pretty neat. So my

28:24

wife and I usually just hit up like Woolworths

28:27

and a couple other random shops that are over there

28:29

that they don't have over here anymore. I can't

28:31

find them and those are kind of fun. There's

28:33

a Chris there is a depending on

28:35

when Essen Falls they do have like a light

28:38

show Christmas

28:40

market thing that's super cool. Oh yeah

28:42

yeah it's like a couple stops away

28:45

from the convention center the Hoff

28:47

and Hoff HBF and they

28:50

take the whole street and they put a bunch of shops

28:52

down there and they serve like mulled wine

28:54

and pretzels and all kinds of different cool

28:57

stuff and then they have like different light projector

28:59

shows going on. So if you can hit

29:01

it right it never falls with Oktoberfest

29:03

you always got to go to that early and then there's

29:05

Essen and then there's the light show and every once in a while

29:08

all three of those kind of line up and it's that is

29:10

a pretty cool experience. So I'm curious what

29:12

did you bring home? Okay are you ready for my stack?

29:15

Yeah I brought

29:17

a bunch I mean we picked up a huge haul of

29:19

games I picked up some of the ones that

29:21

I have enjoyed already

29:23

playing. I didn't get to the deep part

29:26

of the stack where the games that are gonna take me an hour to learn.

29:28

So some of the ones that I just enjoyed

29:30

really quickly was quicksand from Horrible

29:33

Guild. It's a sand timer game where you're

29:35

sinking in the sinking sand and

29:38

great time super fun. Probably

29:40

one of the coolest games that I saw at the show have

29:42

you guys seen hard to get yet? That

29:44

was also my boat so both

29:47

of these are on my list that I did get a coffee

29:49

coming. Hard to get is like code

29:51

names without any downtime and no

29:54

pressure to come up with cool clues. So

29:56

it's super fun really easy to play

29:58

it's cooperative so everybody's playing. together. The

30:01

best way to describe it is French

30:03

toast. Have you played French toast?

30:06

No. Me neither. Okay, so there's

30:08

a few different versions of this game. Usually

30:11

we just play for free and for fun. The idea is, is it

30:13

closer to this or French toast? Or the

30:15

Japanese version is called what or

30:18

like something like that. And

30:20

so you always say the idea is, is the new

30:22

word closer to where you're getting than where you

30:24

started from? Right. And it kind

30:26

of replaces it. And yeah, this spread looks like

30:29

code names. I don't know if it needed to funny

30:31

enough. Yeah, it kind of miss it, misconstrued

30:33

itself, but it's a neat

30:34

premise. Yeah. And the box you play out of the

30:37

box, which is kind of cool. So you pop up all the cards and

30:39

like the side of the box and it's, it's

30:42

real fun. Mighty boards had art

30:44

society, which is a pretty neat little

30:47

placement game that we've enjoyed. And my

30:49

wife is an artist and enjoys

30:51

all the games that feature cool art. And that one definitely

30:54

does it for us. The box, I haven't, I don't

30:56

think I've ever seen this on a box before. The box is like

30:58

dual layer cardboard. So all

31:00

the frames I'm showing out on the camera.

31:02

Oh, neat. It's got

31:04

a light. But you can't see it.

31:07

But yeah, it's their recess. So the idea

31:09

is that the top just so anyone can't see

31:11

this right now, because we can imagine

31:14

like that the top layering of the

31:16

cardboard is the framing. So then

31:18

all the recesses

31:19

is the art itself. Yeah.

31:22

That's a mighty board. So doing

31:24

some cool stuff as of late. Yeah. Really

31:26

looking forward to see what they do with everything. One of the things I picked

31:28

up is archaeo logic from Ludo

31:31

not is from the same designer who did

31:33

the Turing machine game.

31:35

Yeah, and my brain

31:38

hurts just imagining how he was

31:40

able to figure that out. But this is the

31:42

new kind of like cooler looking

31:44

version that features some similar like look through

31:46

holes to figure out the clues and write and narrow

31:48

it down. And I assume at some point,

31:50

it'll probably come from a US publisher as well. But

31:53

it was really neat. Two

31:55

of the other ones that I really was excited

31:57

about was sweet mess from Fantasia

31:59

Games. It's got a great history

32:02

story about how It

32:04

was funded on Kickstarter a couple years back and then

32:06

the publisher dropped the ball

32:08

and blah blah blah all the things that go with it, but

32:11

they finally brought it to all the

32:13

backers and they're Selling it now and it looks beautiful

32:15

and it's a super fun game And so

32:17

I was really excited to be able to pick up that as well

32:19

as some game mats and other cool

32:22

Features for it they had and

32:24

then one other game that I'm excited about that's actually

32:26

coming out like right now is Ezra and Nehemiah

32:29

from Garth Hill games.

32:32

I got to meet Sam and Shem while I was over

32:34

there. We actually played their newest game, which is scholars

32:37

of the Tigris West

32:39

Tiger East Tigris one of the Tigris's and

32:43

Those guys are putting out really cool game super enjoy that

32:46

I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you this are you ready for a secret

32:48

that I'm just gonna totally blab all over The internet

32:51

while I was talking to them. They said that they're working with Bobby

32:53

West again He designed

32:55

Hadrian's wall for them last year, which

32:58

was it's like probably my favorite

33:00

Roll and Write game It's like super heavy lots

33:03

of pieces move in great game

33:06

Maybe there's a sequel coming. So

33:08

what I might have heard. Yeah. Oh, you guys already

33:10

knew fine Yeah,

33:13

so I'm pumped about that one. I really

33:15

enjoyed Ezra Nehemiah and scholars was also

33:17

super cool So all the stuff they're putting out is

33:19

right in my alley of game style. I

33:21

really enjoy it

33:22

I mean a lot of the stuff there was was

33:24

preview this year If

33:27

there anything that you're kind of like, oh, I really

33:29

I can't wait to get that one. Um

33:32

Yeah, actually, I wish

33:34

I could remember who the publisher was on

33:36

it. I Want to say

33:38

game brewer game brewer has like two

33:40

cool games coming out next year that

33:42

they gave us a taste of and Heavier

33:46

worker placement style cool themes Those

33:49

look really neat Hash

33:52

yet games is a like conglomerate

33:54

that has a million Publishers under its

33:56

title gigamix is coming out with a couple games

33:59

next year that are look like super fun party

34:01

games. They just look that we

34:03

got to demo them and they were a blast to play. So

34:05

I'll be looking forward to seeing those games coming out next

34:07

year. It's a long list. I

34:09

have to look at my spreadsheets so I can remember all

34:12

the cool stuff that we got to peek at while

34:14

we were there.

34:15

So I'm curious after you walked around,

34:18

you know, all of those many, many,

34:20

many, many floors, what

34:22

were some of the standout things

34:25

that you noticed? Like what are some of the big themes

34:27

that are kind of popping up right now or kind of

34:29

the trends you're seeing? Yeah,

34:30

like not necessarily games, but like maybe

34:32

marketing trends or game

34:35

trends in general. I think this has already

34:37

been said by other people, but one of the trends that I'm seeing

34:39

right now is the like rebirth of trick

34:42

taking games. Everybody's got like a

34:44

new twist on the old classics. And

34:46

I've seen two or three that were published

34:48

this year that were really neat. Have you seen

34:51

Aurum yet? That

34:52

was super fun. I'm enjoying

34:54

playing that one. It's like a trick taking game

34:56

where the

34:58

Trump

34:59

card is not

35:01

in the deck. You have to like earn it to get into your

35:03

hand and then you could, but it's worth points at the end

35:06

if you don't use it. It's just got some neat stuff

35:08

going on. I've seen, we got to preview

35:10

a couple of different trick taking games that are going to be coming out

35:12

in the next year. Bezier's got one

35:14

that they're working on, which is super

35:17

cool. Lots of neat

35:19

trick taking things I've seen. Marketing

35:21

wise, that's a great question because I

35:24

do typically pay attention to that kind of thing

35:26

and I don't feel like I saw anything revolutionary.

35:28

Game brewers was actually serving beer

35:31

at their booth, which I don't know how they managed to pull

35:33

that off, but it was like the line for beer

35:35

was like longer than the line for games. So I'm sure

35:37

they made a killing on it. So that was a pretty great gimmick.

35:39

Yeah, I don't know that I

35:43

saw anything like super original. I've kind of

35:45

gotten a little jaded, as

35:48

you said earlier, to the booths at

35:50

Essen. The booths at Essen are bigger and nicer

35:52

than they are at GenCon. Like, it's not uncommon

35:54

to have like a two-story booth at

35:57

Essen or to have like just a huge space with

36:00

bunch of stuff going on and palm trees and props

36:02

and things like that which we don't see

36:05

as much of in the US. I feel like it's been coming a little

36:07

more in the last couple years at GenCon. But

36:10

yeah it was grandiose as per the

36:13

S unusual.

36:15

And is there anything that

36:18

you'd want to do differently? Like

36:20

when you go next year, is there something

36:23

you're gonna do differently to

36:24

enhance your experience?

36:26

So one of the perks of having some interns

36:28

on our team is that they do a great job of

36:30

following up with all the emails that we get from publishers

36:33

and they reach out to publishers and try to schedule meetings

36:35

for us. The first two days

36:38

of Essad we literally had a meeting every

36:40

half hour which is too

36:42

much. That

36:45

doesn't sound fun. They did too

36:47

good of a job. They crushed

36:49

it. Yeah good job interns. They had

36:51

a tight schedule for us. We were hopping

36:53

from one end of the convention center to the other literally

36:56

like almost sprinting to get to the next one.

36:59

Which was great because we got to cover a lot of ground and meet

37:01

a lot of people and make a lot of connections and shake a lot of hands

37:03

which was awesome. But I would love some more time

37:05

to just literally meander.

37:08

There were plenty of places that I still missed as I said

37:11

and it'd be nice to just stroll

37:13

through and do less of the business

37:15

and networking and more of the oohing

37:17

and awwing if we could.

37:19

Like you know, planned wandering time. It's like

37:21

take that first hour or two to always wander then

37:24

jump into your meetings when everyone else is awake.

37:26

Right. I think that'd be a great idea. One of the other

37:29

things that was pretty neat that I would love to do more

37:31

of is when you schedule these

37:33

meetings, the publishers are very kind.

37:35

They give you a half hour slot,

37:37

come in, have a seat, they offer you a bottled

37:39

water or an espresso. That's how I stayed alive on those bottled

37:42

water offerings. I mean those bottled waters are like gold.

37:45

They were liquid gold. You

37:47

know, European candy or whatever which is super nice.

37:50

But it's always like you and your marketing you

37:53

know rep or whatever. It was

37:55

kind of funny this year. I don't know if you know

37:58

Justin from Man vs. Meeple. He's one of the writers

38:00

for their channel. We

38:02

ran into him like four times. He had scheduled his meeting

38:05

right before us, so he was leaving as we walked in, or

38:07

we were walking in right as he walked out. And so for

38:10

the third time it happened, I was like, let's just

38:12

go to this meeting together. Then

38:15

we could have an hour instead of a half hour. We

38:17

could ask questions from different perspectives. It

38:20

was surprisingly fun. And I

38:22

was like, man, we should just team up with another media

38:24

content creator group or whatever and do

38:26

it at the same time. It would save publishers time,

38:29

because they only got a pitch at once instead of saying the same

38:31

thing 400 times during the day. And it was

38:33

actually more enjoyable for us, because he

38:35

asked a question I would have never thought to ask. And then,

38:37

you know, whatever. I cracked a joke about whatever.

38:40

We all laughed. What a great time. It

38:42

was a lot of fun.

38:44

I'm trying to think, is there anything else we haven't talked

38:46

about yet about Essen?

38:49

Let me ask you guys questions. Sure. I

38:51

do the interviewing on my own podcast, so it's cool to be able

38:53

to flip the script all of a sudden. What, you

38:55

guys have been to Essen in the past? I haven't,

38:58

actually. I never get to go.

39:01

I've only been once. Last year is my first year

39:03

going. So then, Sam, the

39:05

question would be, what are the things that you're still

39:07

curious about? Have you seen

39:09

things that you're like, what is this? What's happening? What

39:12

is that swirly thing on a stick?

39:14

Wow, a rotato.

39:21

You know what?

39:24

I'm not that hype about going to Essen all

39:26

the time. I mean, I want to go. I

39:28

don't want to not go. But

39:30

I don't think

39:32

I'll change my life to go. So the

39:35

problem with Essen is just when it falls, it's like right

39:37

within midterms for colleges and universities.

39:40

So I usually just cannot. Though,

39:43

I have been planning my sabbatical and

39:45

thinking, I should just do a sabbatical in Germany.

39:48

And then I can just go.

39:49

It's also Thanksgiving sometimes, too.

39:52

Yeah, so it's just a bad time of year for

39:54

me, personally. Yeah,

39:57

I've never been super hype on going. I'm actually really

39:59

more interested.

39:59

I'm going to like Tokyo Game Fair just

40:02

because I know how much

40:05

more limited those products are,

40:07

right? And that the only time you might see

40:09

this is in this print run of 500 handmade

40:11

games that are really interesting

40:13

and cool. Whereas I like

40:16

I said, I have this feeling that a lot of the

40:18

stuff that I'd want from Essen comes

40:21

out anyway, eventually. Yeah.

40:24

But yeah, so yeah, I

40:26

will go one day I will go retire and

40:29

go to Essen. It's

40:32

like everybody else says I'm going to Disneyland, I'll go

40:34

to Essen. And I will go

40:36

and I will enjoy myself and I'll have a spiral potato

40:38

and some currywurst and I'll be happy. That's right. That's right.

40:41

I keep hearing good things about the

40:43

UK Games Fair as well. So that's actually

40:45

kind of next on my list. I'd like to make it to

40:47

that one of these years. Me too. I

40:49

was hoping to go

40:52

this year, last year. I don't know, I just never ended

40:54

up working out. But that

40:56

one's definitely on my list as well as the as

40:59

Tokyo at some point. I don't care if it's spring

41:01

or fall or whatever. I just want to go with

41:03

some time. Yeah. So UK

41:06

Game Expo, I think next year in 2024

41:09

is like

41:10

two to three weeks before

41:13

origins. Because usually it's on top

41:15

of something else. But I can't remember what. Yeah.

41:18

But next year, origins is a little bit later,

41:20

I believe. And

41:22

UK Games Expo might be just a little bit earlier.

41:24

So there's actually like a decent

41:26

amount of time between the two. And that

41:28

is actually the semester I don't teach.

41:31

So maybe I'll go to UKGE.

41:33

Maybe. Maybe. Let's connect there. They speak

41:35

English. I speak English. Perfect. We

41:38

could talk.

41:39

You guys, what you really need to do is come

41:41

to Tantrum Con in Charlotte,

41:44

North Carolina and come hang out with us there. Wow.

41:47

I mean, sure. When is that again? January?

41:49

Last week in January. Last weekend, January 25th through 28th. So

41:52

it's a four-day thing. Thursday, Friday, Saturday,

41:54

Sunday. We're going to be flipping

41:56

tables. We're going to be eating

41:58

our Torna meals where you... come and play a game

42:00

and the winner gets to keep their game and go eat

42:03

and play with their friends later and got

42:05

a huge all the things library play

42:07

to win everything you could want. So what's

42:10

North Carolina like

42:12

in January? Because I'll tell you what

42:14

London, Ontario and Toronto Ontario like

42:17

in

42:18

January. It's

42:20

pretty good actually we had a the first

42:22

year we did it we had a little dusting of snow

42:24

which was nice because all of us Southerners were like magic

42:27

snow mostly it's like

42:30

I don't know 65 70 wear a jacket

42:32

if you need to it's it's a good time we're

42:35

in Charlotte.

42:39

How far are you from the airport? We're right there you can get a shuttle

42:41

from the Charlotte airport to the convention

42:43

center. So

42:46

that's what I like. I

42:49

don't mind and

42:51

I do want to visit the city and all that

42:53

kind of stuff but also if I'm

42:55

there for a convention especially

42:57

because it's usually on a tight tight travel

42:59

line for me it's like I

43:02

just need to go I don't want to waste all this time

43:04

going to and from places. That

43:06

would be cool. I'd be okay with that. Erica you

43:09

want to go? Let's go. Yeah I was gonna say it works

43:11

out because the New York choice fair is not around there anymore

43:13

and I can't think of anything else it is I don't think I'm

43:15

going to like Nuremberg anytime soon so

43:17

sure. Yeah it would be awesome. It

43:20

would be amazing we really do try to make

43:22

it a pretty different experience we've

43:24

attended all the other conventions and for us you

43:26

know I think about tantrum house we're pretty family-friendly

43:29

and so we got like a whole kids area so if

43:31

you

43:31

want to bring your kids that's an option that we've got as

43:34

you were saying like we try to build it so you don't have

43:36

to leave the convention center so we do have special

43:39

events at every mealtime and then

43:41

we've also got you know food options

43:44

at the event which is pretty cool and yeah

43:46

we try to keep it hopping all night long we

43:48

have our special like late-night gaming

43:50

starts at 10 or 11 and goes till 2 or 3 a.m.

43:53

so you can have organized you know

43:55

blood on the clock tower or whatever

43:58

you want to play all night yeah a

44:00

really good time.

44:01

Awesome. Right. So I just have to ask

44:03

though

44:05

for food like it's

44:07

vinegar

44:08

not mustard. We

44:11

got both. North Carolina they got both. Yeah,

44:13

they got both right there. Okay. All right.

44:16

You go any further south and you only got one but.

44:19

Well, thank you so much for coming and telling

44:21

us all about your Essen experiences

44:24

from this year and the years past. I

44:26

think hopefully our listeners now have some idea

44:29

of what to do to maybe get there

44:31

and what to do when they're there. So thank you so much.

44:33

Yeah, you guys are super pleasure. Very excited to have

44:35

been able to go for once counted a huge privilege and

44:37

then also

44:38

very much privileged to hang out with you guys. I very much enjoyed

44:40

chatting and sharing some of the tales.

44:46

So we'll have to leave us because we'll have to

44:48

go to dinner. But Eric and I

44:50

thought that we do our ludological

44:52

lightning round with each other

44:55

because I mean why not right. So are

44:57

you ready for the ludological

45:00

lightning round modified

45:02

but

45:03

never answer

45:06

these but you know what we thought might be kind of fun.

45:08

Yeah, I

45:10

gotta go first because then you said you've never been

45:12

to Essen but I mean and people take a ton

45:14

of pictures. What is there

45:17

a food that you would love to have

45:19

or try when you finally get there? I mean

45:22

I already said the rotato thing and I

45:24

think that's probably the most interesting

45:27

of the foods to me because

45:29

I like a good crunch. I also

45:31

have heard that some of the other stuff is just like

45:34

not what you'd expect it to be. No. Like

45:36

if you get a certain type of food that

45:38

you expect to be a certain type of food that

45:41

the

45:41

Germans do it differently. So like

45:44

when you're getting like another food from another ethnicity,

45:47

it might taste a little different.

45:49

Oh, I don't know if I told you when I had

45:52

it's Robin somewhere and they use

45:54

spaghetti noodles.

45:56

Interesting. Yeah, that happened.

45:59

I see. You're correct.

46:02

I can't I

46:04

can't say that was my favorite

46:06

part of Germany. I think

46:09

there's a lot of lovely things, but I I

46:11

don't know so much about the food.

46:13

Like if I was to eat German food, I would eat

46:15

German food. Right. So I would

46:17

definitely try some of the

46:20

various worsts and schnitzels and things

46:22

like that. I think I'd be fine with that because

46:25

it's what it's supposed to be. Right. But

46:28

yeah, I think some of the best

46:31

things about Germany I wouldn't enjoy

46:33

because I'm not a beer drinker and things like that. So

46:35

I know a lot of my friends are like, oh, you can get all these cool

46:37

beers. They're like, well, not if you don't

46:40

drink beer.

46:41

But Erica, what is one of your favorite

46:43

things

46:43

about conventions that are like

46:45

that

46:46

astronomically large?

46:49

I think you can think you've seen like

46:52

every type of game and then

46:54

go to somewhere like this and be like, what is

46:56

that?

46:57

Yeah, was that a good one? Is that or is that a bad

47:00

one? I mean,

47:00

it's both. You'll see things where

47:02

it's like you've never seen something that's been

47:05

so overproduced in your life. And

47:07

you're just like, what were you thinking? And other things you're

47:09

like, that is so weird and cool. And I just want to touch

47:11

it. And then other things you're like, oh,

47:13

my God, I never thought to use that medium

47:16

or that type of piece

47:19

or whatever it was. I

47:21

find it fascinating when somebody

47:24

incorporates their box into their

47:26

game. Like there's a there's a Chinese

47:28

company that's like does this every time

47:30

I see their stuff where they tend

47:33

to do these larger L fold boards. The

47:35

box is the board. Right. And

47:39

I love to see all that on speedrun, because the

47:41

funny thing is like I don't

47:43

find conventions necessarily

47:46

fun. But

47:49

as somebody

47:49

who has to constantly be making

47:52

and producing games, for me,

47:54

it is like the easiest speed

47:56

research I can do because

47:58

everything's in one place.

48:00

and even better now that they're organizing

48:02

it by room. Oh my gosh like so excited

48:05

if I get to go

48:06

because I

48:07

have to it's almost like speed

48:09

absorbing kind of like what everybody

48:11

else is up to in the effort

48:13

of not only being caught

48:16

up because you never want to be doing what someone else is doing

48:18

it's almost like you're already too late yeah

48:21

but also because you have to constantly

48:23

be adding more and more to that like mechanic

48:25

database like how do things mash

48:27

and emergence so it feels like

48:30

the amount of time it would take me to go through all those games

48:33

personally would be like months

48:34

probably right

48:37

but someone has them on display in a giant convention

48:39

center and all of a sudden it took me hours do

48:41

you know what I mean yeah mm-hmm

48:42

and it's funny actually that will mention

48:45

trick-taking as like the thing so

48:48

for designers out there who are listening that

48:51

is a done thing now yeah just so you

48:53

know I heard there was a lot of them

48:55

yes like most publishers

48:58

are not

48:59

looking for more because they were

49:02

inundated with them after last year's success

49:04

of the crew so

49:05

I will say sit on it because

49:07

a couple years before that people would

49:10

have told you that people were done with

49:12

trick-takers again yes

49:13

so everything comes

49:15

full circle everything cyclical it's

49:17

just that they're probably not looking for it right now

49:20

based on the current trend of what

49:22

selling so like Erica said if you're

49:24

looking at the trends and going I'm gonna replicate that

49:26

now you're behind the curve right

49:29

you're a little too late it doesn't mean you're not gonna

49:31

make a good game it doesn't mean that game that you have is

49:33

it a good game it means that it's potentially

49:36

not marketable

49:39

for the next couple of years yeah it's

49:40

gonna it's gonna get lost in the noise and

49:43

to be honest you don't want that anyway if

49:45

you if you really really really feel confident

49:48

in a game like that it is worth just waiting

49:50

or take it as okay that version

49:53

of that's been done how are you going to

49:55

advance that trend

49:57

or that idea right so if truth-taking is right

50:00

now, what's the thing that you compare trick

50:02

taking that people aren't doing? Because they're

50:05

going to be tired of, you know, maybe they're on,

50:07

actually, it's kind of funny. If you onboard somebody

50:09

right now and they get into the hobby, what is it going

50:11

to get a lot of, you know, something like tricktakers?

50:14

That's when you want to get that next level of game

50:17

because now they're, they are

50:19

that group coming in. But it's

50:21

like, you know, it's weird how your foundational

50:24

games do sort of affect

50:26

like where you go next. Right. So.

50:29

And funnily enough, even though you're like,

50:31

if your game was like, everybody says

50:33

my game is so much better than the crew, it doesn't

50:36

matter because the crew was first to market.

50:38

They already know what the crash. Yeah. Right.

50:41

And so it's got so much more marketing

50:44

and name recognition and word

50:46

of mouth behind it and ratings on BGG

50:49

that even if your game ostensibly

50:51

is better than the crew, it takes

50:54

a lot to knock the crew out of its

50:56

current top spot of the

50:59

trick taker that we all talk about

51:02

in the current batch of tricktakers. Right.

51:05

Even though like, I think we'll mention like two or three

51:08

that he thought were really good,

51:10

even if they are really good, the chance of them making

51:12

the dent in the market that

51:15

the

51:16

games like the crew have already done, it's not,

51:19

it's not a great chance. It'll be like one of them.

51:21

One of them will be like the next

51:23

thing to like, oh, if you love the

51:25

crew, you're going to play this. Right.

51:28

But people aren't going to list like eight. Yeah.

51:33

All right. So after everything you've kind

51:35

of heard, uh, how

51:38

much do you think like Essen is

51:40

worth most people going to? That's

51:43

a really

51:43

good question. Right. So I have

51:46

very little concept of this because I

51:50

am a person who gets caught

51:52

in analysis paralysis a lot. You

51:54

played games with me. You know that, uh, that

51:57

I will over think my expenditures.

52:00

because of how I was brought up. And

52:03

I will basically nickel

52:05

and dime everything. Like, is this worth it to me

52:07

to go to this thing? So I'm a really

52:10

awful person when it comes to a lot of

52:12

these, especially when there's a huge upfront

52:15

cost of a flight. Right?

52:18

So Erica also knows that I'm the guy who drives

52:20

to every convention. So I will drive

52:23

to Gen Con and Origins and

52:26

Gathering of Friends and all these things. I

52:28

can't. All of those are within five or six

52:30

hours of me. I'm going to be driving to gamma

52:32

because it's nine hours now.

52:36

But I never went to gamma when it was in Las

52:38

Vegas or Reno because that's a flight.

52:40

And part of it is the time.

52:43

I just don't like spending time like that. And

52:45

part of it is the cost. I would

52:48

rather spend my money in a different way. So

52:51

is Essen worth it?

52:55

I don't know if, as a game designer,

52:58

if it is as worth it as it was maybe 15 years ago. I

53:02

do think a lot of those publishers do

53:04

eventually come over to Gen Con,

53:08

not all of them, but some of them. And

53:10

then Erica and I have the

53:12

luck and the, honestly,

53:15

it's a blessing to be at the Gathering

53:17

of Friends, which is a place

53:19

where several of those European publishers do

53:21

come to the States just for this one-off kind

53:24

of little convention that Alan Moon runs. So

53:27

I don't know. I think it's,

53:30

looking at it from my perspective, Jay

53:33

and I, as a combo team, have only

53:35

been once in our lives.

53:37

And

53:38

we have, I don't know, 50 games published.

53:41

So I don't know if it's

53:43

that big of a deal. Do I want

53:45

to go? Like I said to, well, of course I do.

53:48

But everything else kind of has to follow.

53:50

Can you justify it? Yeah, I

53:52

think it's a bucket list convention.

53:55

But that's why I say you may attach more

53:58

of a trip around it. Like

54:00

this, you know, do you like a whole sabbatical

54:02

year? Well, that's it. Like are you you

54:04

can easily travel through Europe,

54:07

you know, and in kind of this is just part

54:09

of that trip. Yeah,

54:12

right. Because I mean, when

54:13

Carrie and I are talking about retirement right now, we're

54:16

getting old, and she

54:18

would love to travel to Europe, and this would

54:20

just be a stop, as

54:22

opposed to the reason to go. And so

54:25

we went over to Europe for like a X number

54:27

of months. And it

54:29

happened to end in October or

54:32

November. Our

54:33

trip over there, we come back for December, that

54:36

would be totally fine. There's

54:38

a bunch of stuff I'd like to do in Europe. So why not?

54:41

But

54:42

I don't know if currently I can justify

54:44

taking all that time off

54:46

and the costs and all this stuff just to go for

54:49

the game convention right now. Also,

54:51

I hate being away from my students. So

54:54

that's the problem.

54:55

Yeah, I was gonna say if I was gonna say

54:58

whether or not like the average person

55:00

should be going to this, I don't think it's necessary.

55:02

Again, unless it's a bucket list want. I

55:05

think there's a lot of designers feel like sometimes they have

55:07

to be places of missing out. If they're not, I

55:09

feel like a lot of media feels this way too. But I

55:13

don't know if you're going to get the value you think out

55:15

of it, right? Unless you do have

55:18

money to throw around. It's, it's, as

55:21

I said, it's a good research dump. It's good to see what's

55:23

going on, it's good inspiration. But

55:26

as you said, almost all this stuff comes over for

55:28

the most part anyway. In

55:31

my noticing, within one

55:33

to two years, you will see that same gaming company

55:35

at Gen Con.

55:36

So I mean, even this year when I was at Gen Con,

55:40

what did I buy? Oh, escape the

55:43

dark

55:44

castle and escape the dark

55:47

sector. So two games, they're

55:49

very old school style, black and white art,

55:52

grim dark stuff. And it's like, Oh my

55:54

gosh, what are you doing here? They're like,

55:57

Oh, we had, we never come to Gen

55:59

Con. This is a first time we've been here and

56:01

we were out of print for a couple of years so blah

56:03

blah blah and but they're from like

56:06

Britain and Europe and stuff like that so it

56:09

was just really interesting to see them come over

56:11

a few years after they would have

56:13

had their Essen debut or the

56:15

UKG debut and I think both

56:18

sides are the same way right so I'm

56:20

sure one day

56:22

off the page games will do something

56:25

in Europe although we have

56:27

right now like our stuff was at Essen

56:30

because we have a localization partner

56:32

right so you don't need to be there

56:35

don't need to be there yeah right

56:37

you

56:37

gotta work hard for their money it's

56:39

true to success

56:41

air job

56:43

right and so this so I

56:45

forgot to ask Will this so I'm gonna

56:47

ask you Erika

56:49

what are some tips and tricks on packing

56:53

all of that stuff to bring it

56:55

back other than like getting Daryl

56:57

to do it because Daryl's like the mule

56:59

of all I mean

57:01

I've heard some good ones what I like to do

57:04

is actually nest suitcases so

57:07

what I'll do is I take my super large

57:10

suitcase I put my large suitcase

57:12

inside of it and then I fill my large

57:14

suitcase with like whatever I'm bringing with

57:17

me but like assuming it's like that's not

57:19

necessarily gonna be that full you know what I

57:21

mean even if you were doing a longer trip

57:23

it's like sure if that large suitcase is

57:25

full but the extra large suitcase is theoretically

57:28

completely empty right so when

57:30

you get to where you're going to be loading up again

57:33

you just separate them

57:35

and instead of all the hassle

57:37

of go traveling into suitcases you

57:40

don't have to actually have two of them till

57:42

you're leaving all you'll end up doing is paying

57:45

for the one extra but with rather than paying like

57:47

some overloaded

57:47

fee

57:49

right or like a huge like shipping

57:51

cost this is in my

57:53

experience the easiest way to do it as long as both

57:55

of them are not overweight you're better

57:58

off for each individual bag you're putting through

58:00

rather than overpaying like overweight

58:02

for each one pack. Like you know what I mean? Like

58:04

let's say, you know, a bag might be like 30,

58:07

$35 a check, but an overweight bag is now 50. Right.

58:11

Right. Or something like that. So

58:13

you're like, or like however you're doing it, right? So

58:15

it just ends up being like, okay, well, then I can

58:17

just have a few different bags going through.

58:20

Get everything I want. Because what some people

58:23

will end up doing is they

58:25

will start breaking boxes down.

58:28

Yeah. So I remember Daryl had

58:30

a pile in his room because he sent pictures where

58:33

he punched everything, sorted

58:35

everything, broke the boxes down,

58:38

flat packed everything, vacuum

58:40

sealed it and then put

58:42

it back into his bag. And then he brought it back

58:45

to Orca cod actually,

58:47

which is happening in Seattle right around now. And

58:51

then he gave it to the people who bought the stuff

58:53

that he was carrying over for them, which

58:56

was fascinating. Right. You

58:58

wanted it that badly that you're willing to like have

59:01

a flat box that you have to rebuild. Yeah.

59:04

I would

59:04

crush a box if it was me because

59:06

you're already going to have enough problems getting

59:09

those home as is. Like I will say

59:11

no matter what you do, no matter

59:13

how you ship them home, something's probably getting

59:15

squashed or, you know,

59:18

pressed or whatever

59:20

it is. Something's not going to come out perfect

59:22

by the time you're getting home, no matter how it's

59:25

going home. Doesn't matter.

59:27

But there is something to punch in

59:29

your game. I would not unwrap the box personally. That

59:32

would drive me crazy. But there is a lot

59:34

of weight to all of that punch board.

59:36

Right. So if you do buy a lot of

59:38

the heavy euros, not like just a bunch of small card

59:41

boxes because who cares? Interestingly,

59:43

the card boxes are probably denser by the square.

59:46

Yeah, but you can load those up in let's say a carry

59:48

on and they don't weigh those. Oh, true. Right.

59:52

That's what I'm saying. Don't even worry about stuff like that. That's

59:54

what I'm saying. Like you worry more like they're going to charge you all this

59:56

extra money on each thing that's going to cost too much. other

1:00:00

than pay all the extra, like paying for the bag

1:00:02

plus a fee, just pay for extra

1:00:04

bags. Right. Obviously,

1:00:08

I haven't done this enough. I'm no expert.

1:00:11

Well, it's just one of those things, right? I

1:00:13

think it's just check your bag unless you're...

1:00:16

Also why I don't like flying. I don't

1:00:18

want limits on myself. I don't follow

1:00:21

your rules airline. Yeah, that's fair.

1:00:23

I drive for a car. That's fair. If you

1:00:25

drive, you can load that car up, but you're not driving to Germany. Right?

1:00:29

That's also true. What

1:00:31

are like conventions you think you're going

1:00:33

to be going to since sessions,

1:00:35

you know, maybe out, which ones are do excite

1:00:38

you?

1:00:39

Oh, so there's a couple

1:00:41

that I really want to go to. And

1:00:45

I think a lot of them

1:00:45

for me professionally are

1:00:47

ones that I'm interested in for other

1:00:50

reasons. Right.

1:00:52

So not just as a game author or writer, but as

1:00:55

like a therapist. So

1:00:59

one of the things that is going

1:01:01

on, like, I think very soon,

1:01:04

it might be this weekend, is Saved

1:01:07

by Fear,

1:01:08

which is a

1:01:10

specific convention for therapists

1:01:13

and parents and people

1:01:16

who use games as therapeutic modalities.

1:01:18

And so I've been doing

1:01:21

that convention virtually for

1:01:24

a couple of years. And now that they're back to live

1:01:26

and in person, it'd be super nice to go. And

1:01:29

I believe it's in Pittsburgh

1:01:31

or near somewhere in Pennsylvania. So

1:01:33

it's not too, too far. So I'd like to do that

1:01:35

one. I'd like to go there. Again,

1:01:38

I mean, Tokyo, that's

1:01:40

one that I would love to go to. There's

1:01:43

actually some in Singapore

1:01:44

that I would like to go to.

1:01:46

So I'd be Asian

1:01:48

markets, I think would be really fun to explore.

1:01:52

And I see games that come out of there because

1:01:54

I'm friends with lots of the designers

1:01:56

out there and we don't get to see them here. They're

1:01:58

just not picked up.

1:01:59

for whatever

1:02:00

reason. And it's funny

1:02:02

because that's where some of the companies like Tasty

1:02:05

Vistro Games before it folded

1:02:08

really, that was one of their big things. Like

1:02:10

Michael would go over to Tokyo

1:02:13

and pick up some games and that

1:02:15

would help him to round out

1:02:17

his lines with games that were proven

1:02:20

to be good games

1:02:22

but really unseen

1:02:24

by the North American market.

1:02:26

Right? So I think there's a lot of cool

1:02:28

stuff happening over there because of

1:02:31

the

1:02:32

artisanal nature of

1:02:35

games and how they're treated in Japan

1:02:38

specifically. So I'd be looking

1:02:40

at going there first. And

1:02:42

then UKGE would be fun.

1:02:46

Oh and I would like to go to

1:02:48

visit Gordon in Malta because apparently Malta's

1:02:52

real nice. And there's a bunch

1:02:54

of symposiums that I think

1:02:56

the game studies program that he runs

1:02:59

does and so that's more like academically

1:03:01

interesting to me. So there's

1:03:04

a bunch of other conventions that I

1:03:06

would like to go to like GDC,

1:03:10

the Game Developers Conference. I'm on the

1:03:12

board and I don't get to go. Right? So

1:03:14

there's a couple like that

1:03:16

where I help out a lot in the background and just

1:03:19

never get to go because they interfere with the

1:03:21

class schedule. One

1:03:23

day, when I retire, I

1:03:25

won't go to those.

1:03:28

What about you Erica? What are some conferences

1:03:30

and conventions that you want to go to?

1:03:32

It's a good one because I feel like a lot

1:03:35

of times it's like I could tell you why one's good for

1:03:37

work but I'm trying to think of which ones I would

1:03:39

rather go to just for fun. So

1:03:41

I mean definitely as I said I don't

1:03:43

care if it's spring or fall. I definitely want to do Tokyo

1:03:46

at some point. So I'll be honest

1:03:48

that's going to be a big trip because my kids each

1:03:50

have a list of everything they want to do when we

1:03:52

go to Japan one day. Right. And so

1:03:54

if we're

1:03:55

already at three people who have lists of things

1:03:57

they were going to do one day when we

1:03:59

get to Japan.

1:03:59

And it's gonna be quite the trip. I

1:04:02

have- Does Alex not have a list of things?

1:04:04

No, I think he's just gonna get dragged

1:04:06

out to all these places. He's gonna be a

1:04:08

very, so for those

1:04:10

who don't really know, my husband's not

1:04:12

really into games or very

1:04:15

much into anime or anything like

1:04:17

that, yet me and my children do

1:04:19

nothing but play video games and watch anime

1:04:22

and other things like that. So, you

1:04:24

know, we're just all three weirdos who

1:04:27

can do stuff together. He just kinda leaves

1:04:29

us alone. And Alex does some weird

1:04:31

stuff, but just not the same

1:04:33

weird stuff. Well, that's it. No, I mean, it's just

1:04:35

like, you know, when you have like an incredibly

1:04:38

nerdy family, but you're just a different type of nerd

1:04:40

is really what it comes down to.

1:04:43

So,

1:04:46

Tokyo for sure. What else?

1:04:48

I definitely wanna do

1:04:51

UK's Game of Expo at some point. You

1:04:53

know what I really wanna do? I would love

1:04:55

to see like PAX, I think just did

1:04:58

Australia.

1:05:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. PAX Australia is like

1:05:02

a yearly thing. Yeah, but

1:05:03

I think it's relatively new, isn't it? It's only

1:05:05

been the last few years, that's what I mean. I think it's building

1:05:07

up really well, from my understanding. I

1:05:09

think it'd be amazing to have an excuse to go, like

1:05:12

I haven't been in Australia since I was like a teenager.

1:05:14

I would love an excuse to go to

1:05:16

Australia for games. Yeah, I mean, even like

1:05:18

Wellicon in New

1:05:21

Zealand, there's a bunch of conventions

1:05:24

that

1:05:24

I would just like to go and play games at.

1:05:27

Yeah, part of it's like, because I want

1:05:29

an excuse to go into the country too. Yeah,

1:05:32

but also play games. But also play games, an

1:05:34

excuse to be nerdy in that country is excellent.

1:05:37

It's kind of funny because Carrie

1:05:40

and I, like we're thinking about retirement, like I said, and

1:05:42

we're thinking about buying a resort so that

1:05:44

we can host game jams and

1:05:47

writing symposia and

1:05:49

therapy stuff and whatnot.

1:05:52

But the idea, I used to have

1:05:54

this desire or thought, like, oh, I

1:05:56

could go across the country and

1:05:59

go from game to game. a game cafe,

1:06:01

a game cafe, a game cafe. And

1:06:03

then I realized I don't actually love game cafes.

1:06:06

Like they're great for what they are, but

1:06:09

I think for that kind

1:06:12

of effort, I

1:06:14

would just rather go to the conventions that

1:06:17

are in and around maybe the same area,

1:06:20

as opposed to go to the game cafe all

1:06:22

the time. So I don't know to think about

1:06:24

it though.

1:06:24

Yeah, I think game cafes are great when you don't

1:06:26

have the convention. It's just,

1:06:29

that's where you meet up with like-minded

1:06:31

people when the bigger thing is not brewing.

1:06:34

Yeah, and I think that's probably part

1:06:36

of it. As we're talking, I kind of realized

1:06:38

that I go to conventions just like

1:06:41

Will said, a lot of it's for the people that

1:06:43

we see on a regular basis, but only intermittently,

1:06:45

right? And they're not necessarily gonna be

1:06:47

at that

1:06:49

cafe. Games are as they're not.

1:06:52

And I like games, but I can play games

1:06:55

with lots of people at other places. So it's

1:06:57

not necessarily the cafe scene or

1:06:59

the games that I want. I want to see the people,

1:07:03

but then some of the other places

1:07:05

like Tokyo, that's kind

1:07:07

of extra special

1:07:09

in Singapore and whatnot. It's

1:07:11

just different for me, I think. So that's

1:07:14

where I'd like to go. Well,

1:07:16

you know what? I think that's a good way to wrap

1:07:19

up this whole

1:07:20

thing. We've talked another 20 odd minutes.

1:07:23

So, you

1:07:25

know,

1:07:26

I think Essen and conventions

1:07:28

are

1:07:28

really fun and I hope

1:07:31

that people are

1:07:32

thinking about going to them.

1:07:34

And if you've never gone, you should definitely go. But

1:07:37

if you've gone to a bunch, then think about it.

1:07:40

Which one should you, do you want to go to?

1:07:42

What's on your bucket list? Make a bucket list

1:07:44

of those things and knock them off

1:07:46

one at a time, I guess. That's what I'd say.

1:07:49

Yeah, that's fair. All

1:07:51

righty, guys, we'd like to thank our benefactors,

1:07:54

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1:07:57

James Redmond and Michael Durt.

1:08:01

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1:08:09

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1:08:11

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1:08:14

We have

1:08:14

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1:08:16

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1:08:18

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1:08:20

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1:08:22

So that will do it for now, and we'll

1:08:24

see you all in two weeks with another episode

1:08:26

of Ludology. Let's

1:08:28

get those games out of your heads and onto

1:08:30

the table. Till

1:08:31

then!

1:08:45

Ludology

1:08:59

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1:09:01

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1:09:04

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1:09:08

Until next time,

1:09:09

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1:09:12

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