0:11

Hello and welcome to this very latest episode of

0:13

the Shut Up and Sit Down podcast, a podcast

0:15

about board games, board games, and the people who

0:17

love board games. This episode

0:20

is live from Tom's office where

0:22

it normally takes place and I'm

0:24

joined by Pip Warr. Hello. I'm

0:27

not in my office and you would

0:29

not be able to gain access to

0:32

my office even if you were in my

0:34

flat because Pip. I was going to say does

0:36

it have a no pips allowed sign? Do you

0:38

think that would stop me? I

0:41

am entering this podcast shaken

0:44

because as I was, I made my beverage

0:46

and I hopped on over to the desk,

0:49

sit down ready to record. As I walked

0:51

into my office, I vigorously

0:54

pulled the handle to open the door

0:56

and the whole handle came off my

0:58

door front and back. The whole mechanism

1:00

is like popped off and I was

1:02

like, sod it, whatever. And I just

1:04

chucked it to the ground outside the

1:06

room. Right? And then I

1:09

entered the room and I instinctively slammed the

1:11

door behind me and I heard the click

1:13

of the door and I don't

1:16

know how I'm going to leave when

1:18

we're done. Okay. So

1:20

would you like to include some

1:23

sort of SOS message at the

1:25

start of this podcast just in

1:27

case that doesn't resolve itself? I

1:30

am in like a relatively, you know, Tom

1:33

friendly enclosure in the sense that I've got

1:35

my switch in here. I've got

1:38

my computer. I have my telephone

1:40

for tweeting and I have natural

1:42

light and a small glass of

1:44

water. So you know,

1:46

what more could I need? I can think

1:48

of at least two things. And

1:54

then a place to put the water

1:56

once your body is finished. Yeah. food

2:00

and a place to put the food when it's

2:02

done. No, we can work that out. There is

2:04

a window, but that might

2:06

be a little unpleasant. How many floors are

2:09

for you? I am only one floor up.

2:12

So if need be, I will be

2:14

completely fine. Or I'll just wait until my

2:16

partner gets home and then I kind

2:19

of want this solved before they turn up so

2:21

that I can potentially

2:23

not look like I've completely

2:26

lost my marbles. I mean, you

2:28

know how Matt's wife was the one that

2:30

found his passport in the bin? Correct. Yeah,

2:33

and you know that that will

2:35

be an anecdote that is never

2:38

forgotten. You don't want that

2:40

with the whole, I left you alone for

2:42

a few hours and look what happened.

2:44

It's literally only been a few

2:46

hours as well. Like it's not even that late in

2:48

the day. And

2:51

I think that the kicker is it will be, not just

2:53

remember that time you locked yourself in your office, because that's

2:55

not too embarrassing. That's just something that happens to normal people.

2:58

Is it? Well. Yeah,

3:00

okay. Let's not go

3:02

too far past that one. That

3:05

sweeping statement. But what I've

3:07

essentially done is not only locked myself in the office,

3:09

but I had the key in my hand and I

3:11

just threw it away. So

3:14

I'm feeling especially silly right now. This

3:18

does explain some of the

3:20

energy that happened as soon

3:22

as I joined this podcasting call.

3:25

I'm glad that we've solved that mystery. While

3:31

I am trapped in this limbo,

3:34

we should talk about some games. We can chat

3:36

about some games on this podcast. That's what we're

3:38

here for. That's what we're gonna do. Ain't no

3:40

prison style situation gonna stop me. What board

3:42

games would you like to talk about to

3:45

distract yourself from your current predicament?

3:47

I would like to talk about

3:49

exactly two board games and one

3:51

of them isn't even a board

3:53

game. Goodness. What has this podcast

3:56

become? I Would like to talk

3:58

about ancient knowledge, which is a... Hard game

4:00

about throwing. Loads of knowledge in the

4:02

been published by yellow and I want

4:05

to talk about the poker rogue like

4:07

the has been sweeping the nation and

4:09

I were you know the nation by

4:12

which I mean like my twitter timeline

4:14

and my flat at the moment because

4:16

I can't escape this game. We're going

4:19

to talk about ballot throw or ballot

4:21

trove. The developer has kindly ah I

4:23

realize this decision on this I was

4:26

gonna say because the developer for the

4:28

game because of him about. How do

4:30

you pronounce but trial and he tweeted you pronounce

4:32

set by true ball the see it was trying

4:34

everything he they did to do it's a but

4:36

then I tried to do that with my voice

4:38

and then I realized that doesn't make any sense

4:41

at all and that's like Spain in the way

4:43

that I just have. Explaining

4:45

something like that? Everyone knows that's what

4:47

makes it. So

4:51

first up we're going to talk of

4:54

a game called Ancient Knowledge Escape from

4:56

Twenty Twenty Three Published by Yellow and

4:58

designed by I me a mature and

5:00

this is a sort of small a

5:03

card game are up to four players.

5:05

It comes at a weird sort of

5:07

like Oblong is box is not like

5:10

a tiny small box card game. Not

5:12

a big game either. It's somewhere in

5:14

between a midi game like the crosswords.

5:16

In this game you're playing a civilization

5:19

trying to build a bunch of monuments.

5:21

But ultimately there's monuments are gonna

5:23

like crumbles had dust over time.

5:25

so you're trying to build good

5:28

stuff that people like. was also

5:30

making sure that everyone building them

5:32

games lights. Knowledge from the experience

5:34

of probably the best way to

5:36

explaining knowledge is actually through it's

5:38

mechanics rather than it's theme of

5:40

not almost certainly the way the

5:42

game itself was conceived. Like I

5:45

think both of us while you're

5:47

playing the game struggled to grasp.

5:49

What exactly was going on

5:52

with the knowledge stuff? I.

5:54

As. A page and off

5:56

as notes that are essentially like

5:58

this does not now. with

6:00

what you are actually doing in the moment

6:02

to moment. Like the concept and the

6:05

actual actions you're taking, they don't map

6:08

onto each other. So I feel like

6:10

the best way to explain ancient knowledge

6:12

is to just talk about the card

6:15

and the shenanigans that

6:17

you put on the cards and need

6:19

to get rid of. Go

6:22

full mechanics, Tom. Yeah, let's go full mechanics.

6:24

So in front of you, you've got a

6:26

little player board. It's got slots on it

6:28

for four different sort of categories of card.

6:31

On top of your board, you've got your

6:33

timeline. To the left of your board, you

6:35

have your decay pile. To the right of

6:37

your board, you have your technologies. And on

6:40

the board itself, you have room for your

6:42

artifacts. These are specific and irritating

6:44

words for cards, but they are all just

6:46

different kinds of cards. It's a card game.

6:49

Your timeline is like the biggest chunk of

6:51

like what you care about this in front

6:53

of you. You're gonna be playing cards from

6:55

your hand onto this timeline. And the cards

6:58

represent monuments that your people are building, like

7:00

a Stonehenge or an Egypt

7:02

Pyramid. So these cards or monuments that you're building

7:04

into your timeline, they'll often cost other cards from

7:06

your hand. So there's a little bit of the

7:09

race for the galaxy, what to bin and what

7:11

to keep. The cards that you're

7:13

playing though, they show which slot in your

7:15

timeline they go into. There's six slots and

7:17

you'll put them in one because as

7:19

the game goes on, they're gonna sort of

7:21

slowly slide down your timeline. At the end

7:23

of every turn, they're gonna pick down and

7:27

eventually ending up in your decay pile, which is basically

7:29

your score pile. Decay sounds bad, but it's actually not

7:31

that bad because everything in there is gonna score you

7:33

points at the end of the game. The thing is,

7:35

is that when you play these cards into your timeline,

7:38

they also come into play with a few of these

7:40

knowledge tokens on them. Knowledge is

7:42

kinda bad because if a card enters

7:44

your decay pile, if it slides off

7:46

the end of your timeline with knowledge

7:49

still on it, all that knowledge

7:51

is lost and becomes negative points, one point per

7:53

knowledge that you lose. And some of these cards

7:55

that you'll play out, they might have like seven

7:57

or eight knowledge on them. So you really need

7:59

to... work hard to remove it. How

8:01

are you going to do that? You're going

8:03

to do it through the other cards you're

8:06

going to be playing. Artifact cards go onto

8:08

the middle of your board and they'll give

8:10

you sort of passive effects that will kind

8:12

of upgrade your ability to remove knowledge from

8:14

cards or decrease the cost of

8:16

cards in your hand, all sorts of different things. Technologies

8:19

are these other little cards that sort of

8:21

exist in a shared market. Maybe the only

8:23

source of player interaction in the game is

8:25

this shared market and these

8:27

technologies they have requirements on them and as

8:29

soon as you meet those requirements you can use

8:32

an action to take those and put them on

8:34

the side of your board. And again there's

8:36

lots of like point-salady combo potential here. Like

8:38

a lot of technologies will score you points based

8:40

on things in your score pile, a lot

8:42

of things in your score pile will score

8:44

based on your technologies and also all

8:46

of those monuments that you're putting into your timeline

8:48

over the course of the game, they all have

8:51

all kinds of different effects and strange text that

8:53

you need to pass and understand because you can

8:55

make these big combos if you

8:57

play them in the right place at the right time.

9:00

But it's a weird game. Like

9:03

I don't know whether we should jump straight

9:05

into your problems with the

9:07

game's mismatch of what it says you're

9:10

doing and what you're actually doing. Maybe

9:12

before then I'll just quickly say that

9:14

I think this is like a solid

9:16

game but I did find it

9:18

quite hard to get excited about what it

9:20

was doing. I think the

9:22

problem here is that when

9:25

the theme isn't aligned you

9:28

then struggle to remember the

9:30

key verbs that the game

9:32

is using. So you've explained

9:34

about how it's essentially you

9:36

are a civilization or person,

9:38

builder, whatever, moving through time.

9:40

And that is represented by

9:42

this timeline that is constantly

9:44

at the end of each

9:46

term being shunted down the

9:48

top of your board one

9:50

and anything that gets shunted off

9:52

that number one space falls into the

9:54

bin. That's the decline phase of the

9:57

game. So you've got action

9:59

phase where essentially creating. You've got

10:01

your timeline phase where you look

10:03

at what's in the timeline. And

10:06

then there's the decline phase where

10:08

it's about that shunting down and

10:10

a thing falling off. But decline

10:13

actually only refers to the one

10:15

thing that falls off and goes

10:17

into the past. Everything

10:20

else in that phase is

10:23

actually, I think it happens

10:25

after decline. Like that's when

10:27

everything else gets shunted down

10:29

because something that I

10:31

realised partway through was that a power

10:33

that I had played, I

10:35

had played a card thinking that the power

10:38

was a useful thing to

10:40

have for multiple turns. And then

10:42

it would activate during this third

10:44

part of the turn phase order.

10:47

And then as the things moved

10:49

down, I was like, well, where's

10:51

my card draw? And it was

10:53

like, oh, it only happens during

10:56

decline. And decline is literally that

10:58

one card coming off the end.

11:01

Oh, right. So it's

11:03

kind of like, okay, well, so that

11:05

isn't really the name given to that

11:07

part of the thing. Like that's a

11:09

verbal confusion. When the concepts aren't quite

11:12

lining up, you then end up

11:15

with this actual mechanical confusion, where

11:17

I was like, oh, well, this thing

11:20

that I thought felt pretty clear to

11:22

me would activate that this part has

11:25

now been a bit of a wasted

11:27

turn because I only

11:29

used it in order to get card draw

11:31

power. And now I'm without card draw

11:34

power for two more turns because of where

11:36

I've put it in the board. Yeah,

11:38

I think that's a really interesting, like, problem

11:40

with a lot of games where they will

11:43

have this very specific language for what certain

11:45

things are doing in the game, but only

11:47

sometimes does that language feel helpful or like

11:49

useful. Just because it's on the top of

11:51

my head right now, I've been playing ARCs,

11:53

which is the latest leader games game, and

11:56

I've been rambling about it all the time.

11:58

But that game is a trick. taking

12:00

game that has three different options

12:02

for what you can do when you try

12:04

and play into the trick. You can either

12:06

copy, surpass or pivot. And you know, initially

12:08

those words made people go like, I just

12:11

want to follow or not follow. Like I

12:13

want to use the normal like verbs of

12:15

trick taking. It's only because

12:17

those words are so specific and referenced

12:19

in so many other places that they

12:21

are actually useful. If they are

12:23

not like razor sharp on those kinds of

12:25

definitions and if the manual doesn't do a

12:27

really good job of explaining those definitions and

12:29

constantly using them in its language, that kind

12:31

of thing becomes really obstructive really quickly, especially

12:33

when you're dealing with people who are playing

12:35

your game who have like played a bunch

12:37

of things that existed a similar space. Because

12:40

there is a lot of stuff that is

12:42

similar to ancient knowledge in both the fact

12:44

that it is this sort of combo building

12:46

card game, but also that it has this

12:48

phase of like things decaying that's often like

12:50

a mechanic in a lot of games is

12:52

like, Oh, you do something good, but then

12:54

everything gets a little bit worse over

12:56

time. And the fact that there is

12:58

a little bit of confusion in how those

13:01

different phases are differentiated. Yeah, it ripples out

13:03

because it means that your like ability to

13:05

build a strategy is kind of turned. And

13:08

I think something that's kind of interesting here as

13:10

well that I wanted to touch on is that

13:12

I said this was a solitary game, right? Yeah.

13:14

And it is telling that I did not know

13:17

that any of this was going on on your

13:19

side of the board at any

13:21

point, because like we basically

13:23

just sat and did our own little puzzle

13:25

in this game, like there are these sort

13:28

of Tableau Builder combo games that have a

13:30

bunch of like they have very limited player

13:32

interaction, but still managed to be cozy. This

13:34

is a new sort

13:36

of high watermark of non interaction,

13:41

which to some people might not be a

13:43

bad thing. Like some people might quite enjoy

13:45

that. But literally in this game, the only

13:47

way you interact is through that technology market.

13:49

And in our game, the

13:52

only interaction that we had was you just

13:54

like bidding a card from my hand. And

13:56

I don't even know if you would

13:58

have done that if I'd have been silent

14:00

because I think that that turn I was going like

14:02

oh this is gonna be tight but I'll make it

14:04

and if I hadn't have said that you would have

14:06

probably just picked a different tech. I

14:08

don't like the implication of how

14:10

spiteful I am because yes I am

14:13

spiteful but you are overestimating how much

14:15

attention I was paying to you at

14:17

that point because I just thought do

14:19

you know what this is the only

14:22

thing that I can really use right

14:24

now and I'm going to just see

14:26

if it if there are

14:28

any repercussions to interacting with the

14:31

other person so I'm afraid that

14:33

was just a sort of a

14:35

problem of synergy because a problem

14:37

of you know like just the

14:40

timings being suboptimal for you. Oh

14:43

wow. And I think something

14:45

that if perhaps you were less sort

14:47

of panicked about being trapped in in

14:49

your room you would you would have

14:52

realized that if I'd done it on

14:54

purpose you know I would never have

14:56

let that one go and I

14:58

would have been like cackling away to

15:00

myself for a good 20 minutes.

15:04

That is very fair. But that is so telling though that

15:06

like because it's also I was thinking about this as well

15:08

and I was like well why you know if that is

15:10

the case it's like well why did you take that particular

15:13

tech and it's like well there's so many different reasons that

15:15

you could take a technology like a

15:17

lot of my cards that I had in my

15:19

score pile would scale depending on how many techs

15:21

of one kind you would take and there is

15:23

every possibility that you would have looked at something

15:25

like a writing technology and been like oh I've

15:27

got a card that scores off writing I'll take

15:29

that it'll annoy Tom and that is like the

15:32

worst kind of player interaction for me it's

15:34

like someone doing something that just like irritates

15:36

you without even having intention behind it like

15:38

if someone wants to take an action that

15:40

affects me in a game I want them

15:42

to know that they're affecting rather than just

15:45

doing it like as a byproduct of the

15:47

situation. So I think that my

15:49

main feeling is that any game

15:51

that gives somebody

15:54

like the player who is currently taking

15:56

their turn if that's the point at

15:58

which I can envision in every single

16:01

other person around the table taking their

16:03

phone out, then that worries me

16:06

in terms of the actual experience

16:08

of a game night. Because at that point, people

16:11

aren't really in the room

16:14

anymore. And it's more about

16:16

like, oh, have you finished your turn?

16:18

And then they'll do their thing and

16:20

everyone else stays on their phone. There's

16:24

so little interaction there that I

16:27

just wish that either the things were

16:29

quicker to take those turns

16:31

so that people didn't lose their

16:34

focus, or that there

16:36

was stuff that other people could be doing

16:38

simultaneously. The other thing that I did want

16:40

to say is, you know how you were

16:42

saying about like, there are lots of different

16:45

reasons that one might pick up technology

16:47

because there's different things that it does.

16:49

You know, the thing that it doesn't

16:51

do is actually help you build anything

16:54

that you're doing that is

16:56

technologically difficult. Oh, that's

16:58

true. Yeah, good point. So

17:00

like, you know, okay, good. I've

17:02

hoarded a lot of writing technologies.

17:04

I was doing that entirely because

17:06

one of the buildings that I

17:09

had would let me score

17:11

out multiple end game

17:14

points based on if

17:16

I had five or more writing.

17:18

But because I'm good at writing, it didn't

17:21

give me any advantages with like making the

17:23

buildings because I was good at mysteries. It

17:25

didn't help me build the pyramids because I

17:27

was good at, you know, astrology,

17:30

it didn't help me build any, you know,

17:32

I was like, why am I, I'm, I'm

17:36

pretty literate here. I'm

17:38

pretty advanced technologically. And

17:40

I'm still like,

17:42

having the same, oh, well,

17:45

I can only build this building if

17:47

I've got a card to discard. It's

17:50

like, yeah, I mean, but

17:52

that was the case at the beginning of the game.

17:54

I haven't actually advanced as

17:56

a builder or as a

17:58

civilization, whichever thing. I'm

18:00

supposed to be being, but also like,

18:03

okay, I'm a builder or a

18:05

civilization, but I don't limit myself

18:07

to one style. I can be,

18:09

you know, I'm building

18:12

a stepped pyramid from the Americas.

18:14

I'm building some sort of stone

18:16

edge. I'm building a fairy

18:19

grotto, which I think that's just a

18:21

natural formation, is it not? You

18:24

are really like building such a

18:26

wide-ranging smorgasbord of different cultures in

18:28

this game. Like you are

18:31

truly not limiting yourself to any one

18:33

period of history, to any one place

18:35

on the globe. Yeah, no, 100%. Like

18:38

who am I? What am I

18:40

doing with my, you know, and then you have

18:42

like a bit of an existential question. It's like, am

18:44

I a magpie god

18:46

of some kind? In

18:49

which case, why is some of my

18:51

technology false? You

18:54

know, like the god of

18:56

Age of Egypt too, with sort of

18:58

like the record keeper and the scribe

19:01

of the heavens and all of

19:03

this stuff. And it's like, I just,

19:06

it might sound like I'm ripping into the game

19:08

and I really don't want that to be the

19:10

case, especially because I think with board

19:12

games, it can start feeling really personal because

19:15

often there is just one designer and things.

19:17

And I really don't want that to be

19:19

the case. I just like, these

19:21

are the things that were going through my

19:24

mind as I was playing. Yeah,

19:26

I completely agree with all that in that it is such

19:28

a weird thing, especially in that framing of like, who are

19:30

you as a like player? Because

19:33

it's like, what it's, I think

19:35

the action is called like archive is the is the

19:37

action that lets you take knowledge off of the building,

19:39

which is like, okay, so you're like

19:41

archiving the knowledge, but then the cards

19:43

and the language is like you are a

19:45

builder and you are taking builder cards. So

19:48

it's like you're building a building and then

19:50

you're like learning about the building that you

19:52

just built. Like it is such a, an

19:54

odd little like, you know, sort

19:56

of linguistic twist that doesn't really

19:58

make much sense. of

20:00

slight oddness to those

20:02

kind of things, like kind of trickles throughout

20:04

the entire game. We talked about earlier this

20:07

differential between artifacts, which are things that go

20:09

on your board and technologies, and it's like,

20:11

well, yeah, the technologies, they should be the

20:13

other way around, because the artifacts on your

20:15

board are what helps you build things more

20:18

efficiently or archive more efficiently or do

20:20

the actions more efficiently, surely representing technological

20:22

advancements. And the technologies that you take

20:25

are often things like a bust of

20:27

someone's head or like some rosary beads

20:29

or something like that, surely more like

20:31

relics or artifacts or, you

20:33

know, old technology. And it is that thing of like,

20:35

yeah, it very much sounds like we're just sort of

20:38

ripping into this for like these potentially like, you know,

20:40

something as simple as like translation errors or just

20:43

wording errors or the source of this could come

20:45

from anywhere, basically. And sort of to put like

20:47

a bit of a cap on this at the

20:49

end, like, I think that this is a really

20:52

good example of a game where the mechanics have

20:54

evidently come first and the theme does not do

20:56

enough to sort of like really glue it together.

20:58

And in fact, works against the game in that

21:00

it is not a theme that you

21:02

can easily like ignore its inconsistencies,

21:05

kind of like slowly trickle

21:07

into the game itself and make it a little harder to

21:09

read. I think there is a

21:11

core here that's like smart and interesting and

21:13

good. Like there are these opportunities for like

21:15

big like flashy combos that you can pull

21:17

off if you're clever with your card placement,

21:20

although you will be the only one to

21:22

enjoy them because you'll show your friend, hey,

21:24

look, I got to remove like for knowledge

21:26

off of my pyramids of Giza by using

21:29

my Babylonian hanging gardens.

21:32

Am I not the coolest? And you will look at

21:34

me and go, yes, okay. Get

21:38

back to pondering. And

21:41

so I think that it's like the bones of it

21:43

are strong. I just think that there's a little bit

21:45

of support that's kind of needed in

21:48

that thematic cohesion to make something like

21:50

this like sing past the fact that

21:52

it's this very like solitary title. What

21:55

a weird little game. It made us think a lot

21:57

for sure. And I now know.

22:00

about anaximonies which I didn't

22:02

Google. Well there you go.

22:04

You learned something that's some ancient knowledge

22:06

that you have acquired. The

22:14

next game we're gonna talk about

22:17

on this podcast is not a

22:19

board game, it's a video game.

22:23

But it's a

22:25

video game card game which

22:27

means that it's kind of

22:29

relevant. Pip, honestly I just

22:31

want any opportunity to talk

22:33

to as many people as

22:35

possible about Balatro, Balatro, Balatro,

22:38

the poker roguelike that I am

22:41

actually hopelessly addicted to. I

22:44

knew that was why you wanted to talk

22:46

about it. It's okay, this is a safe accepting

22:50

environment. Sometimes

22:52

I feel like I will get

22:55

really fixated on something and the only way I

22:57

can remove my brain is by like doing some

22:59

kind of coverage for it which is good for

23:01

my job but bad when I

23:04

do not have the outlet to do so.

23:06

Balatro is a stretch because it is a

23:08

video game but it's a

23:10

board game related one so let's get

23:12

into it. To explain what this is,

23:14

it is a poker roguelike where you

23:16

have to make progressively more outrageous poker

23:18

hands in order to win a run.

23:21

A sort of standard run

23:23

of Balatro is made up of eight

23:25

ante's and each ante is made up

23:28

of three blinds. A small blind, a

23:30

big blind and a boss blind and

23:32

each blind has you playing a limited

23:34

number of hands from your deck to

23:36

try and earn a target number of

23:38

chips. The first blind in the

23:40

game requires 300 chips to clear. You look at

23:42

your starting hand and you've got a three of

23:44

a kind so that will net you let's say

23:47

a total of like 120 chips. So

23:50

playing a few three of a kinds will let you clear

23:52

that bar and move on to the next blind which is

23:54

like 600 chips and so on and

23:56

so forth. But how are you gonna scale

23:58

your deck to compete with... those higher blinds.

24:00

In between each blind you get to

24:03

buy upgrades from a little shop and

24:05

these upgrades let you do two main

24:07

things. The most obvious one are

24:09

upgrades that let you manipulate your standard 52

24:12

card deck into these progressively more and more

24:14

ridiculous forms. So you could for example pull

24:16

a card that lets you get rid of

24:18

all of your 3s and you

24:21

could do something that would ultimately let you add 10

24:23

aces of spades so you can make 5s

24:25

of a kind and flush houses that will

24:27

score these big stacks of chips. But

24:30

also you can buy jokers. There's

24:32

150 of these in the game and they

24:35

all have completely unique effects.

24:38

Some of them will make certain cards score you

24:40

more points so maybe you'll get a joker that

24:42

makes all your aces giving you huge pots of

24:45

extra chips if you play aces so you start

24:47

manipulating your deck to have a bunch of aces

24:49

in it. Maybe some will multiply your score so

24:51

there are jokers that mean that all your hearts

24:54

will now quadruple your score.

24:57

Some will then multiply that multiplier and

24:59

so very quickly you're down this rabbit

25:01

hole of screwing your deck as much

25:03

as possible to create this monster that's

25:06

going to push through a rapidly scaling

25:08

difficulty curve because the pots of chips

25:10

required gets higher and higher and higher

25:13

and higher and you need to make

25:15

something that is like super

25:17

bizarre. Basically the way that

25:19

I'm trying to explain this game when I

25:21

talk to you about it is it's a

25:23

game of poker where you sit down next

25:25

to the dealer and you pull nothing but

25:28

the right cards at the right time out

25:30

of your sleeves like a magician. It's this

25:32

game where you have a little smug

25:34

smile on your face as you play

25:36

physically impossible poker hands and

25:38

I think it's pretty delightful.

25:41

Pip, I've played so many hours of this

25:43

game over the past few weeks because I'm

25:46

literally playing it every morning when I wake up

25:48

a little cheeky run of bowtro in bed. Every

25:50

night before I go to sleep a little

25:53

cheeky run of bowtro before bed. It's

25:55

never just one there is it

25:57

Tom? I'm willing to bet that

25:59

it's a It's not a cheeky

26:01

run before bed, it's cheeky like

26:03

two and a half hours before

26:05

bed. Yeah, it really is.

26:07

It's until I win, which can be

26:10

anything between like 20 minutes and about

26:12

like two hours. It's

26:14

not good for me. To the extent that

26:16

now, because also the presentation for this game,

26:18

it kind of looks like a Vegas video

26:20

poker machine, but run through a bunch of

26:22

haunted house filters. It's kind

26:24

of all like hazy and hallucinatory and

26:27

weird and the music is this one

26:29

looping track that's very like hypnotic. And

26:32

so playing it before bed has meant

26:34

that like my dreams are now

26:36

poker hands. Like I am

26:38

just imagining like these cards like floating

26:40

through the soup of my brain as

26:42

I drift off to sleep. It

26:45

has a terrifying hold on me. Now,

26:48

I'm obsessed. You have played

26:50

a little bit of this? I've played one hour.

26:52

Maybe a normal amount of video game to play.

26:54

Do you have any

26:56

immediate takes on it from that

26:58

little hour or should I

27:00

just just go off the deep end about how

27:03

good this is? I mean, I

27:05

could go and make a cup of tea. So

27:09

it's one of these things where I

27:12

mean, I would argue that

27:14

it isn't a poker game. It just

27:16

uses poker hand scoring to give you

27:18

a way in in a lot of

27:20

ways. So essentially, like it has a

27:22

little cheat sheet of the types of

27:25

technology and what they refer to. So

27:28

what a flush is, what a full house

27:30

is, what a royal flush is, you know,

27:32

all of what a straight is, all

27:34

of those things just because it

27:37

doesn't expect you to actually have

27:39

any poker knowledge or really be

27:41

playing poker. And

27:43

so it's just doing what we

27:45

actually talked about a little bit

27:48

earlier in terms of how trick

27:50

taking games have a vocabulary that

27:52

a lot of people understand. Therefore,

27:54

it doesn't feel like

27:56

a stretch when you encounter those terms

27:58

in a new game. And here

28:01

it's essentially like, here's a roguelike, but

28:03

I'm going to use poker terminology because

28:06

that is a thing that a lot

28:08

of people understand. And it is also

28:10

a thing that revolves around a deck

28:13

of cards and you don't usually get

28:15

too cheap with decks of

28:17

cards. And you know, partly

28:19

because it's such

28:21

an easy thing to check because, you know,

28:23

if you are in a real casino and

28:26

you start pulling out more than four aces,

28:28

someone, even the dumbest

28:31

croupier is going to say, well,

28:33

hang on a minute. Whereas, you

28:35

know, you with your 25 aces

28:38

and you're not

28:40

full deck in any way, shape or form,

28:42

like, you know that. But

28:44

also it's the sort of thing where at

28:46

the very start you are playing with stuff

28:48

that you could find around the house. You

28:50

know, you're just like, okay, well, I could

28:53

do this with a deck of cards. But

28:55

pretty soon, like a few rounds in, it's

28:57

going to be like, yeah, this would have

28:59

completely destroyed my deck. And also I

29:01

would have had to print a lot

29:03

of things on a lot of card

29:06

grade paper and also

29:08

be like shredding things and turning

29:10

something gold and some of the

29:12

cards are stone. And there are

29:14

also tarot cards in the mix

29:16

as well. And all of these jokers,

29:18

one of which is just a banana.

29:21

Gross Michelle. Paul Michelle, which,

29:24

you know, people older than

29:26

thou will know as

29:29

a reference to sort of an

29:31

actual type of banana and banana

29:33

exporter. But you know, I see.

29:36

Yeah. The reference,

29:38

the big banana joker will multiply your score by

29:40

15, but has a one in four chance of

29:42

being eaten at the end of a hand, which

29:44

I find delightful. I like the misprint

29:46

joker as well, which is essentially just

29:48

some random multiplier because it's, you know,

29:50

and the picture of it on the

29:53

card is so smeared and

29:55

glitching. Yeah. And

29:57

the number continually changes as you hover over

29:59

it. it will be like plus zero

30:01

plus nine minus four it's like anything goes with

30:03

this little guy i

30:05

think so something that i find interesting with this stuff

30:08

is every now and again a game

30:10

will seem to break out in

30:12

this space you know this roguelike

30:14

space is a theme that

30:17

is fun and

30:19

easy to comprehend but

30:21

also that sort of ability

30:24

to go into full-on absurd

30:27

territory i think is also

30:29

a really useful thing something

30:32

that i was thinking of was

30:36

icy dungeons in terms of you know

30:38

being able to do different things with

30:41

essentially just a dice roll game but

30:43

then you've got you know different themed

30:45

characters that you then get to have

30:49

different effects on the dice with

30:51

as you go through these spaces

30:53

these you know these single

30:55

run dungeons and pick up

30:58

different weapons and different things

31:01

to influence play but also something that

31:03

i find with bell art trades that

31:05

i don't actually necessarily get on with

31:08

is the

31:11

so it sort of leans into the

31:13

oh get all the chips do this

31:15

you know like it doesn't necessarily lean

31:18

into it but it allows you to

31:20

lean into it you know like with

31:22

these gokers and this sort of thing

31:24

spiraling out of control and the numbers

31:27

getting huge really quickly and

31:29

i have a very awkward relationship

31:31

with the actual sort of joy

31:35

puncturing moment of this has

31:37

earned you three dollars

31:39

after it's kind of like

31:42

you know i if you skip

31:44

a blind in a in a

31:46

particular ante the game applies a

31:48

tag to you which is essentially

31:51

like oh you know you have

31:53

done something a little bit bold

31:55

maybe a little bit foolhardy so

31:57

here's the benefit of the game

32:00

benefit that you get from that, but also,

32:02

you know, you will not earn the money

32:04

of doing this thing. You won't get to

32:06

try out whether your deck actually works in

32:08

the way that you've maybe tried to set

32:10

it up for, you know, these things. So

32:12

in the first thing, in

32:14

the first part of a run,

32:17

I just skipped the first two

32:19

blinds and went straight to the

32:21

big blind, the boss. And then

32:25

I managed to get this like huge

32:27

combo going. And I was like, Oh,

32:29

brilliant. You know, it's like the numbers

32:32

were like coming in, you need what?

32:34

300 or like 600? Is it?

32:36

What is it for the first boss? 300,

32:39

450, 600, I think. Right.

32:41

Okay. So I needed 600. I think I got

32:43

like 7000 or something so

32:45

stupid. I can't remember. But then

32:47

it's like, Oh, fantastic. And so

32:49

you get, you know, whatever it

32:51

is, like $4 for

32:53

winning against the thing. And then you

32:56

only used one hand, so you get

32:58

$3 more dollars. You know, like

33:00

obviously the numbers aren't quite right. I can't remember off

33:02

the top of my head. Yeah, yeah. But it's like,

33:04

okay, yeah, I got like these thousands of

33:06

points, like the numbers were going

33:08

up, the adrenaline was, and then it's

33:11

like, here's your like less than a

33:13

tenner. I was

33:15

just like, okay. And I can't

33:17

decide whether that's like funny,

33:20

or whether it just really puts a

33:23

weird handbrake on some of that

33:25

experience. And obviously I know that

33:27

it needs to, because otherwise, you

33:30

know, you get lucky in one thing, and then

33:32

the shop is out of control, you know, you

33:35

can buy everything, you know, the balance of the

33:37

game is so off. But I

33:39

think it's that thing of like, well, then what

33:41

are the chips at this point? Like the chips

33:43

aren't, because it's like, you don't have an option

33:45

of cashing out or not cashing out. So it's

33:48

like, you have to cash out. But that makes

33:50

it feel like, well, shouldn't I

33:52

have the option of not cashing out? If

33:54

this is a casino? Like, right, why can't

33:56

I risk it all? Or you know, all

33:58

of this stuff. So like that

34:01

terminology then didn't quite work for me

34:03

and I felt like I was being

34:05

forced to just accept this

34:07

tiny amount of money and that didn't

34:09

feel great. That's interesting to

34:11

me your point about like not earning necessarily

34:14

like the sort of money proportional to success

34:16

in the game because I think that that's

34:19

the part of it that kind of works for

34:21

me because I think that there is in a

34:24

lot of the coverage of this game in a

34:26

lot of the videos or screenshots you see it's

34:28

like people getting really excited about the fact the

34:30

game has like exponential scoring when you get to

34:32

the higher tiers of difficulty. The fact that you

34:35

can get these like absurd like game breaking hands

34:37

where the numbers don't even fit on the screen

34:39

and that is so that is almost

34:41

alien to my experience of playing

34:43

the game which is that I really

34:46

like my almost my

34:48

favorite thing about Ballotro is the way

34:50

that it scales aggressively that makes success

34:52

just feel like it's hard won most

34:54

of the time that even when you

34:57

get one of these really big wins

34:59

in the early game it's

35:01

really easy to rest on your laurels and be

35:03

like I've got an unkillable deck I just made

35:05

like eight thousand chips on the first blind I'm

35:08

in heaven but the challenge of the

35:10

game is not to succeed in one

35:12

big flashy hand it's to a deliver

35:14

continual successes over the course of the

35:16

whole run but also to scale those

35:18

successes as the going gets tougher like

35:21

I can tell you're in management now. It

35:26

very rarely lets you like take your foot off

35:28

the gas in a way that I just think

35:31

is like it perfectly fits the kind of roguelike

35:33

that I want to play and that the runs

35:35

are so snappy that like Inslay the Spire which

35:37

is my other favorite roguelike I love that game

35:40

towards the end of a run if

35:42

you lose it feels absolutely devastating because

35:44

you've put so much juice into something

35:46

and you spent hours with it and

35:48

then it's gone and Ballotro's runs only

35:50

scaling up to eight Antis eight very

35:52

fast rounds means that failing doesn't feel

35:55

so bad it feels like a gamble it feels like

35:57

some runs you do great some runs you barely get

35:59

through by the. skin in your teeth. And

36:01

on top of that, my maybe like the

36:03

cherry on this is the way that it

36:05

approaches the endless mode for the game. So

36:08

roguelikes will normally let you play

36:11

out an endless mode to the point of boredom,

36:13

right? They'll be like hey you've built this perfect

36:15

engine, just let it run for as long as

36:17

you want and it just it takes all the

36:19

wind out your sails because it's like once you've

36:21

attained that like incredible number

36:23

crunching machine, actually watching it

36:26

run isn't that satisfying once

36:28

you've built it oftentimes. Ballastro

36:30

has this thing where the eight ante's are

36:32

really like perfectly pitched in difficulty and then

36:35

endless mode rather than being

36:37

actually endless really it scales the difficulty

36:39

up so crazy high that like

36:41

it gives you a little bit of a

36:43

victory lap where you get to spend some

36:45

time with this deck that you're really proud

36:47

of and it lets you see a few

36:49

absurd numbers and then it will become so

36:51

difficult that you literally cannot continue. And I

36:53

think that that is a really good way

36:55

of approaching it because I think otherwise it

36:58

would become a game where people would just be

37:00

obsessed with getting over you know these crazy hurdles

37:02

of numbers when in reality it's a game where

37:04

the progression just comes from you like playing another

37:06

you know trying out a different deck trying out

37:09

a different stake and making the difficulty a little

37:11

bit harder rather than necessarily turning it into sort

37:13

of an idle clicker game where the numbers get

37:15

you know huge. And my

37:18

final like big point about this and the thing

37:20

that I think is just so my

37:22

favorite part of this game is

37:25

in an area where it's very similar to Slay the

37:27

Spire which is that initially I played a lot of

37:29

Ballastro and I was really like just struggling to get

37:32

anything off the ground like I played a lot of

37:34

runs where I didn't really get anything to click but

37:37

there are no real you know

37:39

like big game-changing unlocks it's this you get

37:41

a few little things get sort of drip-fed

37:43

to you you get these little unlocks over

37:45

the course but they're more like orthogonal changes

37:48

rather than upward momentum and I think

37:50

that that leads to a

37:52

game where you get better at it

37:54

through knowledge rather than unlocks like my

37:56

understanding of the shop and my understanding

37:59

of like how much

38:02

certain hands pay out intuitively has really led

38:04

towards a feeling where initially I was really

38:06

struggling to get through the first four antis.

38:08

And now I have runs where I will

38:11

never lose before

38:13

then because of this sort of accumulated

38:15

knowledge over the course of several runs, which I

38:17

think is just so satisfying. And

38:20

not necessarily stuff that goes hand in

38:22

hand with this game's overarching themes of

38:24

to the moon stock market massive point

38:26

scoring hands, or certainly not what you'd

38:28

see in the coverage of it. I

38:30

think that it's much more subtle and clever than

38:33

that, than those big

38:35

numbers might have you believe. Hmm. I

38:38

think maybe what I was talking about

38:40

is like that sense of, cause I,

38:43

yeah, I think there's a few

38:45

things there that I agree with.

38:48

I think that the sense of the

38:50

difficulty and being able to actually sort

38:52

of use your own knowledge

38:54

or skill to

38:56

meet that challenge is more satisfying

39:00

than the bing, bing, bing, bing, bing

39:02

of numbers. And I think abstractly

39:05

I am on the side of, it

39:07

is just really funny that you get

39:09

all of these huge numbers

39:11

and then it's like, here you go. Here's your little

39:14

pocket money. Here's your little tie out. So

39:17

I think ultimately that is funny, but I think

39:19

at the beginning when you're learning the game and

39:21

you're still sort of like, it

39:24

feels like the bing, bing, bing numbers

39:26

are hard one, because you're still trying

39:28

to pass a lot of the game.

39:31

I think that's where that mismatch is

39:33

creeping in at the moment for me.

39:36

And so even though I'm only

39:38

getting into early bits of the

39:40

game, I'm now kind of going,

39:42

oh, okay, yeah, I'll

39:44

try and learn the joker positioning a bit better.

39:47

I'll try and like figure out

39:49

like how to make all the

39:51

difference using this thing. And those

39:53

moments are so satisfying. Cause you're

39:55

like, I use my brain. And

39:57

someone said, well done. three

40:00

dollars. I also love

40:02

like later on with that stuff like some of

40:05

the jokers are very just straightforward you know like

40:07

I'll make a straight get paid this much you

40:09

know in chips or like just get some money

40:11

at the end of around and so on so

40:13

forth. My favorite ones are the ones that push

40:16

you into like very odd and risky play styles.

40:18

So there's one joker which is if

40:21

you discard a hand like

40:24

like a standard pokehead if you discard a flush

40:26

it makes your flushes permanently better for the rest

40:28

of the run and so you can be

40:30

in these positions where you have to have

40:32

real faith that your decks gonna turn out

40:34

enough points that you can throw away a

40:36

perfectly good hand and then have another one

40:38

to play afterwards. So many

40:40

of those which are jokers that do

40:43

not have you making decisions just in the

40:45

here and now but have you making these

40:48

like meta considerations. There's all these different like

40:50

and that's maybe the place to end it

40:52

is that like my delight in this is

40:54

that there are so many different strategies that

40:57

I've had to pull in this game from

41:00

such a simple set of levers

41:02

right you have this very standardised language of poker

41:04

that very quickly like feeds away to become something

41:06

that is entirely different and that's definitely true that

41:09

I think a lot of people who are approaching

41:11

this game look at it as a poker game

41:13

they look at it as you know they're expecting

41:15

to make poker hands and get paid a big

41:17

amount of money for it whereas

41:19

it is something different it is just using that

41:21

veneer like you said at the start like you

41:23

initially see this is a poker game but over

41:25

time it kind of morphs into something entirely different.

41:27

I think we might stream this at some point

41:30

I might do a little Balotro stream while I chat to

41:32

some folks because it's just

41:34

good it's just good clean fun and I

41:36

also like I've been watching a lot of

41:38

streamers playing it and I love the sort

41:40

of slightly manic gambling energy that they inject

41:42

into their streams so maybe I'll try bring

41:44

some of that next time. I think

41:47

something that I've realised is

41:49

that the way that it

41:52

is presented visually it's almost

41:54

as if a casino security

41:56

team is zooming in on

41:59

your hand using their

42:01

like 80s sort

42:04

of slightly grainy CRT

42:06

monitor display of your

42:08

hand. And

42:10

they're just sort of like, it's like

42:12

they are streaming it to the rest of

42:14

the people in the security office like, do

42:16

we stop this? Like

42:19

this isn't even poker at this point.

42:21

Like why is there a banana on

42:23

the table? Thank

42:29

you very much for listening to this episode of

42:31

the Shut Up and Sit Down podcast. If you

42:33

enjoyed this podcast, you can find

42:36

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42:38

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42:42

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42:44

you can get bonus podcasts, you can

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get bonus videos, you can get loads

42:48

of extra bits and bobs that we've

42:50

been working really hard on recently. So

42:52

check that out if you would

42:54

like to. I am now going to

42:56

try and figure out the puzzle of

42:58

how to get out of my office.

43:00

Okay, cool. I will update people how

43:02

it goes on on twitter.com maybe you

43:04

can maybe you can or maybe the

43:07

podcast thumbnail will be me free in

43:09

a field, something like that. Just

43:11

running. Like where are you going to? This pod

43:13

dimension. To see you from whence I came.

43:15

I do need to use the laptop. Do you need

43:17

me to say something? I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

43:20

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm

43:22

not sure. I'm not sure.