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0:36

What's up, my friends,

0:37

and welcome to the Board Game Design Lab. Today,

0:39

I'm excited to do a little bit different format.

0:42

Never done this type of an episode before,

0:44

where we're talking about games

0:46

that you should play. As a game designer, we're going to go

0:48

through lists, not necessarily like a top 10, it's

0:51

not like a number 10 down to number one, just 10

0:54

games that you should be checking out, 10-ish. We

0:57

dive into quite a few more than 10. But anyway, games

0:59

that you should check out as a game designer, things

1:02

you should play, you should analyze, you should try to understand,

1:04

even if it's not your style of game, even if it's

1:06

not a game that you're really interested

1:09

in, there's still value in playing

1:11

these games. And I'm talking to Pam Walls

1:13

from Pam Walls Game Design, a phenomenal

1:16

party game designer, who's also getting into

1:18

some other types of games as well, some

1:20

adventure-type games, and she has

1:22

a wonderful YouTube channel. That's where

1:25

I discovered Pam. Pam

1:27

Walls Game Design on YouTube. And she's been putting out pretty consistent

1:29

content for a while now for game designers, doing

1:31

a lot of what I've been trying to do with the Board Game Design Lab,

1:34

of helping people design great games people

1:36

love. And she's got some really good videos,

1:38

good content over there. And so she suggested

1:40

this topic, and I was like, oh, that's really interesting.

1:42

And it was really a lot of fun to hear

1:45

her list, hear her break down why these games,

1:47

in her opinion, are just phenomenal

1:50

examples of games that people should play if

1:52

you're wanting to get into game design.

1:54

In other news, this episode is sponsored by Convivial

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That's C-O-N-V-I-V-I-A-L-GAMES

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dot com. In other news, this episode

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is sponsored by Crowdfunding Nerds, also known

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form today. And now, please help

3:06

me welcome Pam Walls. Hello,

3:17

Pam. Really excited to have you here. Excited

3:20

to dive into an episode I've never done before.

3:22

I've never done a show like this

3:24

where we're just chatting about all sorts

3:27

of games. We're talking about games that people should

3:29

be playing, that they should be analyzing, that

3:31

they should be taking notes with. I think that's another

3:33

thing as a game designer. You

3:36

never play a game again because it's

3:38

deeper now. As you're playing, you're

3:40

looking at the choices that the designer made,

3:42

and the choices that the graphic designer, and the artist

3:45

made, and the production value. You're

3:47

looking at a zillion different things. And

3:49

in some ways, maybe it kind of ruins gaming.

3:52

I've talked to designers, they're like, yeah, I used

3:54

to enjoy playing games a lot more than I do now because

3:56

now I can't turn the design brain off. So

3:58

I think that's interesting. But not necessarily

4:00

a bad thing. It's kind of like watching film You know if

4:02

you're trying to get better at anything you

4:05

go find the people doing it the best whether it's

4:07

comedians or speech Writers

4:09

or whatever and you just see how they do it and you break it

4:11

down And I think that's what we're gonna be doing here

4:14

Just talking about some of not necessarily our favorite

4:16

games because I've got a bunch of games on my list that I

4:18

don't really like Stereally,

4:20

I'm not gonna pull off the shelf. I'll play somebody But

4:23

these are games that I feel like people

4:26

should play even if you only play at once And

4:28

so before we get into that these

4:30

lists tell me your process like how

4:33

did you come up with your games? What were

4:35

you thinking about as far as like categorizing different

4:37

things just to give people context because this is not like

4:39

a top 10 It's not like oh, we're gonna go from number 10 down to number one. It's

4:41

a little different. So tell me about your process So

4:44

I actually made a video

4:46

of the 21 games I think every board

4:48

guy board game designer should play and my process

4:50

for that was trying to hit every single major

4:53

mechanic So

4:54

trying to expose designers to every single

4:56

major mechanic that I could think of So

4:58

for this I did take some from that

5:00

list So then I added some some new ones

5:03

as well. And so I'm just trying to have

5:05

a good

5:06

Threats of games where if

5:08

I were to meet a new designer I

5:10

would give them this list of 10 games and be like go play

5:12

these 10 games and you will learn so

5:15

much from these different types of themes

5:17

mechanics Being exposed different

5:19

designers that they should know about So

5:22

it's just a

5:22

broad range of games that I

5:24

think new designers should definitely check

5:26

out

5:27

Yeah, one thing I always advise designers

5:29

is don't only look at or watch

5:32

reviews or play games based on the

5:34

specific thing You're design. Like if you're working on a worker

5:36

placement game, don't just do worker placement stuff

5:38

Go do some party games go do some deck building

5:40

like see some other mechanisms and experiences Cuz

5:43

that's gonna inform everything as well And so

5:45

if you're listening to this and you're like, you know, I'm not I'm

5:48

not designing that kind of game Understood

5:50

play play these anyway because you're gonna learn

5:53

some things and even if you don't learn anything Like

5:55

you're saying from the mechanism you're gonna learn from the

5:57

designer. Like why do they make this choice?

6:00

Right and so and tell me tell

6:02

me about that. What are some things that maybe you learned? From

6:06

these games like I'm assuming these are games that you've

6:09

played that you've Figured out and all that

6:11

what are some of these general concepts? You've

6:13

kind of learned overall and then let's get more specific

6:16

when we get into the actual kind of nitty-gritty.

6:18

Sure so one of the biggest

6:20

things, you know as being a Good

6:23

game of good designers you want to give players interesting

6:26

choices

6:26

So that's one of the most interesting thing is does

6:29

the game offer interesting choices and a

6:31

lot of the games on my list do That are really

6:33

interesting ways. How do players

6:35

interact with each other? That's

6:37

always very interesting to me as well. So then

6:40

also Maybe

6:42

what not

6:42

to do trying to cram in

6:44

too much into a game sometimes Yeah,

6:49

those are the sort of general things

6:51

and also when you're looking at theme

6:53

trying to be different and unique Not always

6:55

doing the same overdone themes different

6:58

things like that. I want to I don't want to give too much away

7:00

before getting

7:00

into the list Yeah, absolutely to

7:03

your point though. Another thing to think about is

7:05

bad games Now none of the games are

7:07

lists. I don't think at least my lists

7:10

are bad by any stretch the realization A lot of them

7:12

are very well loved. They're in the top 200 500 or

7:16

so on board game geek, they've made a lot

7:18

of money selling a lot of copies But there's

7:21

so much value in playing terrible games,

7:23

right? It's kind of like when

7:25

rain is scarce you pray for it You know I mean like when

7:27

you when you don't have the balance of the good

7:29

and the bad is kind of hard to understand the Context the

7:31

full context and so yeah, if you if you

7:33

play a game and even if it is an awful experience There's

7:36

value in that right? And so I

7:38

don't know that I'll ever do a don't play these

7:40

games I'm not trying to start any kind of internet drama with

7:43

with some game design Good

7:47

good things to think about but anyway, let's

7:49

get into our list and I'll

7:51

let you go first guess first and Technically

7:54

number 10, but like this is just kind of you know,

7:57

it's not like a rank thing So what's the first thing that comes

7:59

to mind?

7:59

So yeah, the first game on my list is

8:02

Imhotep and this is a game

8:04

by Phil Walker Harding And so

8:06

every designer should know about Phil

8:08

Walker Harding. He is probably my

8:10

favorite designer He has a great

8:12

catalog of games any game

8:15

that he comes out with I'm like I want to play that and

8:17

they're all so different So

8:18

he's done sushi go silver and gold

8:21

gizmos. He just came out with one called spell

8:23

book. I played at Gen Con So

8:25

he's just a great designer for other designers to know

8:28

about first of all

8:29

Secondly, this is just a really fun game.

8:31

So the idea is you're all ancient

8:34

Egyptian architects and you're building pyramids

8:37

and obelisks and different things like that And

8:39

so you're all trying to gather resources and then

8:41

load them on ships But the interesting

8:43

thing one of the interesting most interesting

8:46

interactions between players is that any

8:48

player can launch the ship and

8:50

decide which action space it goes

8:52

to

8:53

so you could send a ship

8:56

that doesn't even have any of your resources on it has

8:58

all other player resources on it and

9:00

you can send it to an action space that you think

9:03

will not benefit your The

9:05

other players

9:05

as much as possible So there's

9:08

a little bit of take that in that and I don't

9:10

love take that but the way that he does

9:12

it is so Interesting because you

9:14

will still get something

9:16

out of it. You'll still get something good out of it Just

9:18

might not be your ideal plan a

9:20

And so I think that's just really interesting I've never seen

9:22

that in a game before where you have like a plan

9:25

you're loading up a ship But then someone else

9:27

can send it send

9:28

it to a different action space So

9:30

yeah, it's just a very interesting game The

9:33

player interaction is very interesting it deals

9:35

with a sort of take that mechanic in an interesting

9:37

way And just an introduction to phil walker

9:39

herding

9:40

Yeah, I love phil. He's been on the show in the

9:42

past one of my favorite games of all time is barren

9:44

park Which he did it's a polyomino

9:47

game about building A

9:49

park for for bears. That's kind of literal in the

9:51

bear park, but uh, it's a great game,

9:53

but to your point Completely different

9:56

than emhotep that you're talking about like he

9:58

is his brain It's phenomenal because

10:01

like yeah, I'm the kind of designer and a

10:03

lot of other designers you kind of get in your lane You're

10:05

like, this is what I do. Yeah, I'm good

10:07

at it. I've play tested these types of systems

10:09

a million times I'm just gonna stay right here. This

10:12

is where I block and where I tackle, right? So

10:14

it was like I'm gonna go do something

10:16

that I've never done before and it's still gonna

10:18

be one of the best games in the world

10:22

Every game you play by his yeah, it's completely different

10:24

I played spell book and it was the only

10:26

game I played at Gen Con and I

10:29

was just I thought I was like I'm playing that and because

10:31

it was so busy at Gen Con You couldn't demo any

10:33

games But I waited around like I finally

10:35

play it and it's just so different from any

10:37

of his other games But just like all those other games is

10:39

so mechanically sound and it's so

10:42

interesting and different So he's definitely

10:44

it is our designer that inspires

10:46

me for sure. Yeah, 100%

10:47

All right. So the first I'm

10:50

gonna cheat on a few of these just to let you know where I've got

10:52

like some either or I've got like this that sure so

10:55

the first one that I really thought about is really based on

10:58

You know, I've interviewed over 300 designers

11:00

at this point and the same

11:03

four games Come up over

11:05

and over and over again Especially as far as like games

11:08

that got people into the hobby you got people

11:10

into designing And so my first one

11:12

is those four which we and

11:15

these are all well known It's Katan its Dungeons

11:17

and Dragons its chess and

11:19

its magic the gathering Those four games

11:22

seem to be I would I would say

11:24

that those four games have brought 90 plus

11:26

percent of game designers into

11:28

game design With me, it was

11:30

Dungeons and Dragons. I know Rob Davio was

11:32

Dungeons and Dragons I've talked to a lot of people it was Katan

11:35

chess you know a lot of people grow up playing chess and kind of gets their

11:37

their wheels turning at least into This

11:39

not necessarily space of game design exactly But at least in the space of

11:41

like playing games and just kind of normalizing

11:44

in their lives And so anyone

11:46

listen to this one you've probably played

11:48

all of them If not, most of them but

11:51

to go back and study why these

11:53

four games in particular Changed the

11:55

world because they all did in different ways,

11:58

right? Yeah, people still play these games You know a lot

12:00

of times gamers they they'll come in with katana

12:03

and like oh Well katana doesn't have this

12:05

or that and they'll kind of like throw shade at it once

12:07

they get into the wider world of gaming But

12:09

I still have friends the katana is the

12:11

only game they play They get together

12:14

once a week with their katana gaming group

12:16

not their gaming group their katana

12:18

gaming group Yes, and they play

12:20

that and they you know, they'll throw in the expansions and they'll

12:23

play the game of thrones version Like they you know,

12:25

they change things up, but it's still katana

12:27

Why

12:27

why do people keep coming back to that game same

12:30

with uh, magic the gathering Just

12:32

the ability to construct a deck and

12:35

like have all these different combos and all these different things you can

12:37

do I mean that game has been around since the

12:39

early 90s. I think late 80s like it's been around a

12:41

long long time made billions

12:44

of dollars So it's easy

12:46

to look at some of these games that kind of everybody likes and

12:48

we're like, ah, well, you know I like this thing you've never heard

12:50

of that. There's only like 42 copies on the market like

12:53

cool fine But there's a lot of value

12:55

in looking at why did these games make such

12:58

an impact? So pam with you what

13:00

game got you into the hobby or

13:02

got you into gaming or game design?

13:04

Yeah, and I was asked

13:06

this actually just the other the other day and

13:08

I I I don't remember like a certain

13:11

Specific like aha moment or

13:13

anything like that What I think it was was

13:15

a board game cafe opened up near

13:18

me when I was in Toronto snakes and lattes One

13:20

of the first board game cafes ever and

13:22

it was teeny tiny now, it's huge and

13:26

so I I think it was that just being

13:28

exposed to a board game cafe with a Million

13:30

different kinds of games and just started playing

13:33

a million different kinds of games I think that was

13:35

really the door kind of opened a little

13:37

bit and then it got flung open as soon as

13:39

I joined the Design group

13:42

in Toronto at snakes and lattes meeting other

13:44

designers then talking about different

13:46

games So I would check it out mentioning different

13:48

things. So I would try that out So just

13:50

being exposed getting more into

13:52

the community I then learned about

13:54

all the all these of the games that exist

13:57

that I didn't know about

13:59

Yeah something you did on your

14:01

own or were you invited?

14:02

To go to the design group.

14:05

Well, to go to Snakes and Lattes at the beginning.

14:08

I just, I heard that this board

14:10

game cafe was opening down the street for me and I just went

14:12

and checked it out. And then they were on

14:14

Twitter and I saw that they posted they have a design

14:16

meetup and I saw that. And I

14:19

was

14:19

like, oh my God, that's a thing. It

14:21

was happening that night. I ran down the street

14:23

to go do it. And then like Christopher Chung,

14:26

who designed Lanterns

14:27

was one of the play testers who play tested my

14:30

game the very first time I went to one of these things and I was

14:32

just like completely hooked after that. Yeah, oh,

14:34

that's awesome. And I had a similar experience of like, wait,

14:37

what is this? Like this exists? Like what

14:39

is this world that I did not know of? Apparently there's

14:41

a whole bunch of opportunities. So yeah, that's really

14:43

cool. But all right, so moving on, what's

14:46

your next one?

14:47

Just another thought about

14:49

that too is that I do remember

14:51

playing Ticket to Ride and

14:53

that was my first exposure to like

14:56

a modern board game I'm pretty sure. And

14:59

I just remember feeling completely overwhelmed

15:01

and not having

15:02

fun at all. And

15:05

just like not. I think it's really complicated. Yeah, I was just

15:07

like, what is happening? Like I

15:09

had only been using, you know, yeah, like party games,

15:11

trivia games, very simple role and move

15:13

games. And this was like a game

15:15

or friend of mine, like friend of a friend who

15:18

played

15:18

Ticket to Ride. And I was just like, yeah, I was just

15:20

completely overwhelmed by it. So that

15:22

did not

15:24

hook me in. So I can't

15:26

remember what other game it was, but

15:29

now I play Ticket to Ride and I love it. But when your first

15:31

exposed to these games, they can be overwhelming,

15:33

absolutely. If you're used to just sort of the standard

15:35

role and move. Yeah, absolutely.

15:39

But yeah, so

15:39

moving on to number two, which is

15:42

definitely not an intro

15:43

game, definitely not

15:45

beginner friendly, super heavy game is called

15:47

Robinson Crusoe.

15:49

And I don't know if you've played this game. Oh

15:52

yeah, I almost put it on my list. I almost did.

15:54

Oh, okay. I was really close, it's

15:57

like coming down to like the final slot.

16:00

one that was up there. So anyway, great game. Go ahead.

16:02

So yeah, so

16:04

as a designer, I always want to continue to push

16:06

myself and to, yeah, like

16:08

you said, play games outside my comfort zone, but also

16:11

play games that are heavier than what I might be

16:13

comfortable with or used to. So

16:16

there's a lot going on in this game. Be

16:18

prepared to watch an hour long how to play video

16:20

and then struggling

16:21

through it for three to four hours.

16:23

So yeah,

16:25

it's on my list because it is a great game,

16:28

but it's a very heavy game. So just be exposed to that.

16:30

But I would also challenge designers to play

16:33

it and maybe while you're playing it, think

16:35

about one thing that could have been cut

16:37

because I do think there is a lot

16:39

going on and I think the publisher was very

16:42

nice to the designer. Just let them do whatever

16:44

they wanted. I mean, it all makes

16:46

sense.

16:47

Everything there that's in the game has a purpose.

16:49

Everything works together very well. If

16:51

some of the rules are a bit finicky,

16:53

some of the things you forget are there.

16:55

Some of the things you're like, oh, wait, when I do

16:57

this, then I can do that. But it doesn't happen

17:00

all the time. It just happens this one specific time.

17:02

Feel a little bit finicky sometimes, but

17:05

it is a fantastic game. But from a designer

17:08

point of view, I would maybe look at

17:10

it and think if this is my game, what would I

17:12

maybe streamline a little

17:13

bit from it?

17:15

Yeah, not really good, good ideas with

17:17

any game in general, right? How could you change

17:19

a mechanism, cut a mechanism? How would that affect

17:21

the game? You know, Rob Seccruzzo has those dice,

17:24

which a lot of people loathe because they do all

17:26

these things. They build up these strategies, they get everything in place,

17:28

and then the dice just wreck you. And there's nothing

17:30

you know about it because lady luck was like, ha

17:32

ha, not today. And so what would it do to

17:35

the game to make their card based system where

17:38

they're still the luck of the draw, but you can

17:40

count the cards. You know what your odds are.

17:42

You know the percentage is a little bit better. Sure. How would

17:45

that change the game? You could maybe stack

17:47

it. You could add more good things to

17:49

maybe

17:49

potentially help you so you know

17:51

there's less of a chance of

17:54

something terrible happening because so many terrible

17:56

things happen

17:56

in this game. Exactly. Which

17:59

is one of my favorite. things though I love the

18:01

system in that game of you

18:03

you have the card and you read it and then

18:05

it's got like it's gonna come back later

18:07

you know you have to put it back in the deck you're like oh

18:09

man now you know what's in there you're like oh

18:11

the tiger the tiger's coming back to eat me

18:14

it's gonna happen yeah

18:15

or like you eat something and then

18:17

it comes back later and you get sick like

18:20

I there's so many clever things in

18:22

this game so in case anyone doesn't know so you

18:24

basically you shine it on an island and there

18:26

are different scenarios the basic one is you're trying

18:28

to build a fire to alert a ship that's

18:30

going by in time or you all

18:33

die so it's a cooperative strategy game with

18:35

all different kinds of scenarios and you're all

18:37

trying to work together to not die but you

18:39

definitely probably will die

18:41

but there's so

18:42

many different smart things going on I love

18:44

how if two people go do something it's

18:46

a guaranteed success but if you decide

18:48

the group one of you is going to go do it then you

18:51

have to rule dice I think that is

18:53

just that alone it's just such a cool cool

18:55

thing there's so many cool things happening in

18:57

this game and I don't even know if you have to cut anything

19:00

but it's an interesting exercise

19:02

to think if I wanted to streamline

19:05

this game what could maybe be cut

19:07

or what could maybe be clarified or maybe

19:09

not so edge case kind

19:11

of finicky

19:12

situations

19:13

yeah definitely okay excellent

19:15

choice my next one is a game

19:17

called kimit you ever played kimit

19:19

I've heard of it haven't played it

19:21

phenomenal game it's kind

19:23

of this like Egyptian adjacent

19:25

thing going on where it's like pyramids and

19:28

pharaohs and all the like Egyptian mythological

19:31

mythos mythological creatures and stuff like that but

19:33

it's kind of it's basically a war game so if

19:35

you like risk then kimit is like

19:38

the way better version of it right one

19:41

thing I love about kimit so let me

19:43

back up one of the problems with risk is

19:46

somebody can turtle they can go down there in Australia

19:48

and it's like hard to get at them and you know there's

19:50

other people up here and they're going at it and but it's

19:53

not balanced like the map is not balanced right

19:55

kimit changed that in that pretty

19:58

much every space Can

20:00

reach almost every other space and

20:02

when you start the game you have equal access

20:04

to everyone else on the board The

20:07

way the map is arranged like the

20:09

areas and you can also teleport

20:11

and like you can do different things So like nobody is safe.

20:13

You can't just turtle somewhere like if you're if

20:16

you're doing really well Everybody's gonna

20:18

come get you and there's nothing you can do about it And

20:20

it's great because it kind of self-balances in that way

20:22

But players can also go totally

20:25

different paths to victory It's all sorts

20:27

of different strategies that you can take different

20:29

types of creatures that do different types of things The

20:32

combat system is phenomenal. It's not dice

20:34

based It's card based and it's kind of that you've

20:36

got these cards in your hand and you're gonna play one And

20:38

it's gonna do different things and you're gonna, you know, look

20:41

at the numbers stuff like that But it's not just winning

20:43

and losing. It's also Basically

20:46

how many casualties you take right?

20:48

So you could you could win the battle

20:50

but end up losing more Men

20:53

on the board than your opponent It's it's

20:55

really interesting thing and different cards do different things

20:57

and so And it's you especially

20:59

early on the game, you know what your opponent has And

21:02

so then you're like, oh do I do I go

21:04

all out? Do I play this like do I play my

21:06

best card? And then you know

21:09

Basically because if you play it then you lose it for a little while Anyway,

21:12

phenomenal system if anyone is creating

21:14

a game that has combat that has any

21:16

kind of skirmish has any kind of Board

21:19

movement as well highly highly recommend

21:22

Very cool. Very cool. Who

21:24

designed that one?

21:25

I do not know. I will look that

21:27

up and i'll tell you in a second You

21:30

go ahead what's your next one, okay

21:34

Yes, okay, so my next one is creature

21:36

comforts by reberta taylor it

21:39

is a

21:41

Dice worker placement game and

21:43

I just I love worker placement games in general because

21:45

again it comes down to choices You have so many different

21:47

things you could do on your turn and I love how it's

21:49

a bit of a race

21:50

to see If you can get to that space first.

21:52

This one is slightly different But the

21:55

main reason is on my list

21:57

is because of the theme so I mentioned this earlier

21:59

that a

22:01

lot of themes in my opinion are overdone

22:04

and this game has one

22:06

of the most

22:07

interesting and different themes than I've seen

22:09

in any game.

22:10

So the theme is you're

22:12

all different animals and you're all getting

22:15

ready for winter and you're trying to make

22:17

your dens as cozy as possible and

22:19

I just love that. It's so different.

22:22

I'm so kind of tired of

22:24

seeing the same theme over and over and over

22:26

especially at playtesting meetups. It's just, oh here's

22:28

another one of those kinds of games. So it's

22:30

just so refreshing and so as

22:32

a designer it's good to see different

22:35

kinds of themes, different

22:37

interesting worlds you

22:39

can create, different themes you can have and

22:42

this does that really really well. The art

22:44

is amazing. You really feel like you're building

22:46

up your little den and you have your

22:49

little soup and you

22:49

have your socks and you have your like blanket

22:52

and it's just fantastic. So it's a great

22:54

game mechanically but theme wise it's

22:57

different and interesting so it hits those both

22:59

of those two points very

23:01

well.

23:02

Yeah I love that. I love anytime a game

23:04

can have some interesting things thematically

23:07

going on but at the same time it still

23:09

makes sense with the mechanisms. Like things still

23:11

intersect you go, oh that makes sense. I guess still intuitive.

23:13

Yeah so the designers

23:16

of Kimmet I'm gonna totally butcher these names but

23:18

I think it's Jacques Berio and

23:22

Guyame Monty,

23:25

hey, French. It's

23:27

in French. I don't know what it is. My Alabama accent

23:29

does not let me say those letters next to each other but

23:32

it's from Matagot. It's from 2012. Like

23:35

a lot of games on my list are OGs. Like they've

23:37

been around a long time and

23:39

I think that kind of is nothing to think about. Like

23:42

if people are still playing this game they're still buying

23:44

it. I mean chess has been around a zillion years. You

23:46

know Katan D&D, Magic Gathering, Kimmet.

23:49

Several more of my list are from like 10 plus

23:51

years ago and they're still selling copies.

23:54

So

23:55

I definitely tell you something for sure

23:57

and there's a lot of cult of the new in the

23:59

board game.

23:59

Community so no, I think

24:02

it's great. So there's so many great games

24:04

that are 10 20 30 years old for sure Absolutely.

24:06

Absolutely. And there's a lot of flash in the pan stuff

24:09

right now. It's a game that comes out You know, that's

24:11

fine, but it's no it's not a favorite game. It's

24:13

a three out of five Yeah, you know I

24:16

think I would rather have a game that a

24:18

certain group of people are like this is my favorite game

24:20

of all time And then a lot of other people are like I

24:22

hate this. I never want to see it again I would rather

24:24

have that then just a game where people are

24:26

in general like yeah, that's fine

24:27

Mmm,

24:28

you know something to think about as the designer, you know

24:31

You want a strong reaction one way or the other? Yeah,

24:34

absolutely. Absolutely and find your people, you

24:36

know, right? Yeah, not every game's not for everybody

24:39

like you can't if you create a game for everybody It's

24:41

a game for nobody. So how can you really

24:43

lean into your target audience so that

24:45

it's their favorite game? It's one of their top

24:47

ten games of all time Yeah knowing

24:49

that in doing that you're gonna have a whole bunch of

24:51

people are like I hate this This is nothing I want

24:54

to see it all and and that's okay If you go to Amazon

24:56

and you look at the best books ever

24:58

written those books have a bunch of one-star

25:01

reviews It's just like what is so something

25:03

about alright my next one speaking of games been

25:05

around one time Twilight Imperium, which

25:08

is now in its fourth edition Or

25:10

or if you're not quite into that Dune

25:14

which has been around a zillion

25:16

years as well. And These are the

25:18

kind of games that take forever

25:21

to play Yeah, noon is like a three

25:23

plus hour experience Twilight Imperium four

25:25

plus five plus depending on how many players at the table and

25:28

So why would I tell you to sit down and play one of

25:30

these games? Even if you have no desire because

25:33

I want a designer to understand what

25:35

it takes for a game to last

25:38

that long and Still be good.

25:40

Yes, because I don't know about you. I've

25:42

made 20 minute games that lasted too

25:44

long. We're parasol. This is too long This

25:47

needs to be five minutes. Okay, I'm sorry But

25:50

you've got these games that these are these

25:52

are two games that like people say are their favorites of all time I can't

25:54

tell you how many people I've met this say. Oh, I love Twilight Imperium one

25:57

of my top three favorites Well, that's crazy and

25:59

they they will They will devote a weekend

26:02

bringing friends over planning out the meals

26:04

for the day because it's gonna take all day because they're playing a six

26:06

player game or something crazy and They'll

26:09

do it all day and they love it. They'll get to the end and they just feel

26:11

satisfied So as a designer,

26:13

how can you design a game

26:15

that takes up a long time?

26:17

But it's still good the whole way and one thing you

26:19

learn about these games is it's different

26:22

systems players Aren't just thinking about one

26:24

thing. They're thinking about a whole bunch of stuff

26:26

in chunks in bites, right? And trial

26:28

and period there's combat. There's the voting

26:30

where you can bring new laws in they're

26:32

gonna change the game in some way There's there's just so

26:34

many different little phases They kind of keep your

26:37

brain working and none of the phases in and

26:39

of themselves are big. They're all pretty

26:41

small They're just a bunch of them and they can stack

26:43

on top of each other And so and also with any

26:46

time you see a new edition like this is a fourth edition.

26:48

What did they change? Why why do they

26:51

why did they take that out? Why did they add that in and just

26:53

analyzing that? So let

26:55

me toss that back to you Have you seen any games that you enjoy

26:57

that have come out with a later edition or

26:59

an expansion that changed the game in certain ways? You're like, oh

27:02

and you kind of saw something new that was really cool

27:04

Nothing is jumping to mind where they like fix

27:07

the major error in

27:08

an updated edition

27:10

Yeah, it could be or change a mechanism

27:12

like I'm working on a game right now that came

27:14

out a couple years ago it's hunted Kobayashi

27:17

tower and it's very dice-based and I I

27:20

Made that game because I wanted it to have a lot

27:22

of luck and a lot of just like swinging I wanted that

27:24

but then the more people played it they're like as just too much It's like

27:26

okay And so going back in and changing d6

27:29

is to d8 Adding some

27:31

cards in the ad just a little bit extra mitigation

27:33

where you can go plus one or minus one or just

27:35

a few tweaks Have drastically

27:37

changed the swinginess of the game still

27:40

a lot of luck And so it didn't have to be a massive

27:42

change Could also just be the rule book a

27:44

lot of times second editions just fix the rule book and help Yeah,

27:47

they were first ever. So

27:48

yeah for sure. I mean one of my

27:50

games is a second edition, but it's

27:52

just like a re-theme I don't think they really

27:55

changed anything or updated anything. So

27:57

what's what theme to what thing? Well

28:02

it's actually, should I just talk about it now? Oh

28:05

heck yeah, it's not really, let's go for it. It's

28:07

not my list, yeah. So yeah, it's Century Spice Road

28:10

Golem Edition. So

28:13

the first one is just,

28:15

yeah, I guess you're collecting spices on a spice road.

28:18

Now this one, you're collecting crystals and

28:20

then

28:21

forming them into golems. I don't even know what

28:23

a golem was until I

28:25

played this game. The theme

28:28

is almost unnecessary in

28:30

this game. But

28:32

I did actually look at it

28:33

this morning about what's different

28:35

between the first edition and the Golem

28:38

Edition. And from what I saw,

28:40

they didn't change any tweak any

28:41

rules or anything like that. So I guess it was pretty

28:44

solid from the jump. But

28:46

the reason it's on my list is that it's

28:49

a very interesting engine builder.

28:51

And it seems like engine builders have a tough time

28:54

of finding themes that actually aren't

28:56

intuitive, make sense,

28:58

help learn the game more, are immersive,

29:01

slender, Century

29:03

Spice Road. I didn't even

29:05

really know what the theme was. I had, like,

29:07

I didn't remember what the theme was. I had to look it up this

29:09

morning, like, wait, what's the theme? I just remember

29:11

enjoying it, but the theme didn't

29:13

stick with me. But it's a great engine

29:16

builder.

29:16

And also there's open drafting,

29:19

you are collecting cards, you're

29:21

deck building, you're building up a strong deck,

29:24

you're playing them. So

29:26

there's a lot going on in this game. But

29:29

they all work really well together. And it is fairly

29:31

simple.

29:32

But I just found it so satisfying to

29:34

build up my crystals. And you're restricted

29:36

with how many you can hold at one time.

29:39

It's all about timing as well. And

29:41

it's also with the open drafting, there's that race

29:43

element again, too, of you're trying to

29:45

get a card before someone else. But you can see

29:48

what everyone else might be going for. So

29:51

there's just so many things that work really well

29:53

together. And I just love engine builders,

29:55

where

29:56

as the game goes on, you're doing more and better

29:58

things. It's just so satisfying.

29:59

especially when you have a deck builder element

30:02

where you can have that hand management where you can decide

30:04

when to play your different

30:06

actions.

30:07

So yeah, it's a fantastic game. And then

30:09

with the Golem Edition, the major difference,

30:12

I guess, is upgrading the components. So

30:14

instead of the little cubes for the spices,

30:16

now you have these really cool shiny

30:19

crystals and different beautiful colors. And

30:22

then the art is really nice as well. But

30:24

that's secondary to the mechanics. The mechanics

30:26

are just so satisfying. I

30:28

only played this game one time, but I was like, I love

30:30

this game. So if you want

30:33

to play an engine builder, I would definitely

30:35

suggest playing that because it's not just engine building,

30:37

it's also deck building, open drafting,

30:39

things like that.

30:40

Yeah, definitely. So the designer of that one, Emerson

30:42

Matsuchi. Matsuchi? Anyway,

30:45

phenomenal, phenomenal guy. I've hung out

30:47

with him at conventions. He's just a great dude to be

30:49

around, but his brain is just kind of like

30:51

Phil Walker Harding. It's like they're on a different level. They

30:53

just see things differently. And

30:55

yeah, that game is definitely a great

30:58

example of that. And

31:00

to your point about the theme, yeah, that game

31:02

is so theme-less, you could literally slap on anything

31:05

and it would still be fun. It's

31:08

an engineering game. It's not a thematic

31:10

deal. It doesn't even need a theme. No,

31:13

not at all. But you're right though, in the satisfaction,

31:15

it's something about our little lizard brains that love

31:17

taking blue and turning

31:20

it into purple and then turning it into green. I

31:22

don't know why. There's so many guys in the market that do that. And

31:25

Splendor was the one in it. So

31:27

that's what I was thinking about. And they're acting them all in for

31:29

this golem card that gives

31:30

you points and getting

31:33

it before someone else. So

31:35

I love that where you have to be aware

31:37

of what the other players are doing

31:40

because they might get what you want

31:42

first. Because a lot of games, you can be

31:45

in your own little silo. But in games

31:47

like that, where you have the open drafting,

31:49

you have to be a lot more

31:50

aware about what your other players

31:52

are doing. Yeah.

31:53

So follow up to that. My

31:55

next game I'll do is called

31:57

La Havre. You ever play La Havre?

31:59

No.

31:59

Okay, another OG. I added all these games

32:02

to my list of games to play. 2008, alright.

32:05

Yeah. A while back, still holds up

32:07

today. Same concept though with what you're talking about

32:09

with Spice Road, in that you're

32:11

taking this, turning it into that,

32:13

turning it into this other thing, scoring points, this is how

32:16

I'm going to build up this thing and win the game. It's not quite as

32:18

engine-buildy as Sentry,

32:21

but it's still, there's all these buildings out

32:24

and all these cards, cards are the buildings, so the cards

32:26

change every game. So it's always different. Yeah.

32:29

You have these special buildings that come out and do interesting things.

32:31

You have a ton of resources. I'm trying

32:33

to think, there's fish, there's wheat,

32:36

there's cows, there's all sorts

32:38

of different iron and metals and everything like

32:41

that. And you're constantly like,

32:43

and the tiles are all these tokens that are double-sided.

32:46

So wheat is, you know, wheat on one side and then on

32:48

the other side it's bread. Yeah, yeah. Fish

32:51

or fried fish. Cows are meat. And

32:53

then you can also turn cattle into hides

32:56

and then turn the hides into clothing and then trade.

32:58

Clothing for points. And so it's such

33:01

a cool game, but on your turn, you're

33:03

not doing very much. I think that's another thing that

33:05

a lot of these great games have. They're not overwhelming

33:08

the players with too many choices at a

33:10

time, but in general, there are lots

33:12

of choices, right? And one thing I love about LaHove

33:14

is like, there's no, oh, that's

33:17

the best choice and then there's nothing else. Like,

33:19

okay, there's these other choices I could do, but that's the obvious.

33:22

LaHove, it's like, do I want this really good choice or

33:24

that other really good choice? Or I could do this other really cool

33:26

thing that sets me up for an amazing choice next time. Right.

33:30

There's so many cool things you could do and

33:32

I would only play it with two or three players, though.

33:35

That's the one, I will say one negative four player is

33:37

not great just because the way this turn structure

33:39

is broken down, it just doesn't work as well

33:41

before, but two or three phenomenal

33:43

game and it's got a little, little fun Easter

33:46

egg things. Like for instance, the church building

33:48

will take bread

33:51

and like turn it into more. It's like it

33:53

turns a certain number of loaves into

33:55

more loaves. I see what you did there biblically. You've

33:58

got lots of fun things, but it's just a great. Great

34:00

game is one of the things that you play it and you get down you're like I want

34:02

to play it again and it didn't take that long to

34:04

play And you can you see where

34:06

if you lose you're like, ah I should I should have done

34:09

this or that like you have a pretty good sense of why

34:11

you lost or why you won And then

34:13

you but again, you could set it up play again and have

34:15

a totally different experience because the the buildings that come Out

34:17

this time are gonna be different gonna change your strategy. So

34:19

definitely recommend laha. That's le space

34:22

H a V re

34:24

Yes

34:25

On my list. It's not lahavari, which

34:27

is what I called it

34:30

Well, I called golem golem,

34:33

so I don't know well if you're familiar lower

34:35

the ranks I know that's all I knew I was like

34:37

golems golem edition

34:42

Yeah, I was gonna say some oh, yeah, so yeah, I don't

34:44

know there's something about upgrading things There's something

34:46

about crafting things and upgrading things

34:49

that I just love Like I want

34:51

to yeah get all these resources

34:53

to pay them to Craft this thing

34:55

and then I want to do something to flip it over to

34:57

its better side And now I get like I

35:00

don't know why that's so satisfying as humans

35:02

But it's I definitely get that for sure and there is

35:04

a lot of that in

35:05

Creature comforts as well. Yeah something

35:07

about going from nothing to something

35:10

Right and same this in the real world Like if you're

35:13

if you're doing mission work or you're building a house or anything

35:15

like you start off and there's like a plot of Land

35:17

and okay

35:18

And then you know a certain amount of time later We

35:20

have a structure that people can live in and

35:22

it's just like so satisfying to

35:24

your to your soul And there's

35:27

a lot of games that really lean into that and

35:29

do well, and I think it's part of it engine builders, especially Maybe

35:32

it's cuz it and maybe with the engine but let me get your

35:34

thoughts on this one thing I found I can't remember

35:36

who told me this in an interview. Anyway, they said

35:39

Gamers are people in general. They want to feel one of three

35:41

things if not more at the same time They want to feel

35:44

rich. They want to feel powerful. They want to feel

35:46

smart So anytime your game can

35:48

get them to feel that way It's gonna do well

35:51

and I feel like there's something with engine builders You feel smart

35:53

because you're the one that came up with I'm gonna put a next

35:55

to B next to C and we're gonna run This thing and then

35:57

I'm gonna win the game, right? So has that been something?

36:00

noticed as well?

36:01

Oh for sure, 100% and I

36:04

think yeah you just want to feel like you maybe you

36:06

built something at the end, you did

36:08

something like look how much I did,

36:10

I started with nothing and now I'm here like absolutely

36:14

no I agree with that 100% yeah

36:17

so letting your players feel like that's another

36:19

thing too even with party games they want to feel

36:22

funny but not have to come up

36:24

with the funny content you know so it's like

36:26

look at this funny card that I pitched to

36:29

put in this scenario look how funny I am

36:31

but all they did was pick the cards

36:33

that you created with the actual funny content

36:36

but you are helping people enabling

36:38

people to feel like they're the funny ones

36:41

so these other things you're helping people feel like they're

36:43

the smart ones because they combined these two cards

36:45

that you made so then they

36:48

are doing that so you're facilitating yeah

36:51

people either feeling

36:52

funny or smart or powerful

36:54

all these types of things you have to see the

36:56

situation all right

36:57

what's your next one

36:59

okay so my next one is is an

37:01

or it's not four or's but

37:04

it's a vast or

37:07

root so these are extreme

37:10

asymmetrical

37:10

games if you haven't heard of them

37:12

I'll take vast as an example so

37:16

the scenario is there's this cave

37:18

there's a dragon inside the cave and

37:21

you can play one of I think five

37:23

different characters so if you play the knight your

37:25

goal is to kill the dragon if you play

37:27

the dragon you're trying to get out from the cave

37:30

you play the goblin you're trying to kill the knight you

37:32

can even play the cave and you're trying to collapse

37:34

onto the other players which I find hilarious

37:37

um so it's an asymmetric game an

37:39

extreme asymmetric game meaning where

37:41

each player has their own different set of rules

37:44

and own different win conditions so it's

37:46

almost like everyone is

37:47

playing a different game but you're

37:49

all playing together so yeah I

37:52

don't know if I'm the biggest fan of this

37:54

mechanic but I definitely thought

37:56

this game out to play it because I wanted to be exposed

37:59

to

39:00

all

40:00

of them to really get the full experience.

40:02

And so just something to think about. But yeah,

40:04

that might be one of those things like you

40:05

were saying that yeah, when people love

40:08

it, they love it. Like I've met

40:10

some real root fans. But

40:12

like you said, like they've played every single faction

40:15

multiple times. So for them, they do

40:17

know what everyone else is doing. So if

40:19

you find your people who like really,

40:21

really love it, and then they invest the time

40:23

to learn every single mini game

40:26

within the game, then I'm sure it can be a fantastic

40:28

experience. So for the average gamer, you

40:30

know, it's a very long learning

40:33

time. It takes a long time to learn. You're learning

40:35

multiple

40:35

games at once. And then yeah,

40:38

not really

40:38

knowing what other people are doing. Right.

40:41

Also, the games are now you have to write five

40:43

rule books, which makes

40:45

me inside like I hate just

40:47

the thought of that makes me want to go get back

40:49

in the bed and just try again tomorrow. No, I can't

40:51

even imagine the play testing for that. Like,

40:53

let's play with these four factions. Now let's

40:56

take one out and replace everyone. Now take one

40:58

out like you would have to play test so many

41:00

different combinations to make sure that

41:02

they all work together because it could

41:04

be broken in so many different ways. Oh,

41:07

well, my thing won't work because you block

41:09

this and yeah, oh my god, I

41:11

can't even imagine the play testing they had to do

41:13

for those games, especially for root. Right.

41:15

All

41:16

right. So very different game, but one

41:19

of my favorites, a game that I believe is

41:21

perfection. I don't know of a single thing

41:24

about it. That's not just like

41:26

exactly what it needs to be. And it's called Concordia.

41:29

You're playing Concordia. No. Adding

41:32

it to the list. Again,

41:34

came out a long time ago, has a ton of expansions

41:36

at this point, all sorts of different maps and different ways to play.

41:39

It's from a designer named Matt Gertz. And

41:41

Max is a great guy. He's another one. It just kind of sees

41:43

things on a different level. But Concordia, it's

41:47

got a boring thing. It's trading in the Mediterranean. I

41:49

mean, it's, but it was one of the ones for a long

41:51

time ago. So at least they, there weren't quite as many

41:53

games back then, if there are now, but

41:56

the idea is that you, you have

41:58

your little board. basically

42:00

moved around the board building cities

42:02

and collecting resources, trying to get victory points. And

42:06

what I love about it is the card system. And

42:08

it's a system where you start off with a certain number of cards

42:11

and each card lets you do a different thing, right? It

42:13

might be move on the board. It might be collect

42:15

resources. It might be build a city. It might be copy

42:17

someone else's last action, all

42:20

these different things. Um, collect money, but

42:22

then there's also a card that you have to play

42:24

to be able to pick all the other cards you've played back

42:27

up. Right. And so the game is all about timing

42:29

because that's a wasted turn. And

42:31

so when am I going to waste the turn and do I, do

42:34

I want to do two actions in a row? Well, if I do

42:36

that, that means I have to play the action, play

42:39

the card to pick the action back up and then play that

42:41

card, except three turns. And so

42:43

I can, oh man, it's just the tension of that. And then there's this

42:45

open market of other cards and

42:47

these cards are like more powerful

42:49

versions. So like these other cards might let you get

42:51

more resources or might let you, uh, buy

42:54

something without having to spend as much. Right. So

42:57

you're trying to balance out, do I want to get

42:59

these new cars to add to my hand, but if I'm doing that,

43:01

then I'm not building cities. I'm not collecting, you

43:04

know, different resources on the, so I'm not necessarily

43:07

getting closer to winning. And so it's such a good tension

43:11

and nothing I love about it. There's no rounds,

43:13

there's no phases. It's not like step

43:16

one, we do it's you play a card and

43:18

then the next player plays a card and, and

43:20

we're going to do that until the game ends and the game

43:22

ends either when you run out of all

43:25

the auction cards, like the deck empties, or

43:27

somebody builds their last city. Then

43:30

the game ends. And so there's no, I don't

43:33

know. I just love that idea. Jamie Samara has a big

43:35

fan of this too. And I think it's something he tries to do with all his games.

43:37

Like there aren't

43:39

in round one, this,

43:40

that, and the other. And we're going to have a beginning and middle and an end

43:42

that we do round two. Like, no, we're just going to play

43:44

it. And when the game ends at end and

43:47

oh, so phenomenal. And now there's like 10 or 15

43:50

different maps and all the maps are different. And

43:52

some are big, wide open spaces. Some are like a lot smaller

43:54

and so you're kind of having to fight over different

43:57

resources and everything's more. So anyway, can cord you.

43:59

Is there area control in that

44:02

as well? No, not really area control. It's,

44:05

but there's a bonus, there's a benefit. If you get to a

44:07

place first and build a city, anyone

44:09

else who wants to build a city there has to pay more. So

44:11

there is a benefit to- Oh, they don't pay

44:14

you? They just have to pay more. It'll pay you, it just costs

44:16

them more. And so there's benefits to getting your

44:18

stuff out there. But at

44:21

the same time, you got to do this and you got to do that over there.

44:23

You got to do this other thing. And you kind of have to, it's

44:25

this holistic approach because you kind

44:27

of have to do all the stuff. You

44:30

can't be like, all right, I'm only going to buy cards. It's like, well,

44:32

no, or I'm only going to build cities. It's like, well, somebody

44:35

else is going to buy the cards that build cities

44:37

faster. And even though you're focused on cities, by

44:40

the end of the game, they're going to do it better than you because

44:42

they built up these combos, right?

44:45

With these different cars. And so anyway, it's just

44:47

a phenomenal game. I showed up and sit down, did an amazing

44:49

review a while back about it. And

44:51

that's one of the things that really turned me onto the game. I

44:54

was like, oh, okay, if these guys have all these nice things to say

44:56

about it, I'll check it out. And so it's just a great game.

44:58

Yeah, there's something to say

45:00

about an incredibly streamlined

45:02

game like that. I actually

45:05

really liked that kind of the opposite

45:06

of Robinson Crusoe.

45:09

I don't know if you play the game, Eight Minute Empire.

45:12

That it didn't make my way. Is that from

45:14

a Ryan Lockett?

45:16

Yeah, yes, I believe so. But

45:19

yeah, it's just a very streamlined

45:22

area control game where

45:24

you're just drawing cards, you're playing cards, that's

45:27

it. Yeah, literally takes eight minutes to play. And

45:30

there's just something to be said, like even as a design

45:32

experiment, as a designer to try to make something

45:34

as straightforward and streamlined as that,

45:36

but still have a fun,

45:38

engaging experience for the player. I

45:41

think that's really cool.

45:42

Yeah, absolutely. And something just to take away

45:44

from, because that game accomplishes

45:47

in eight minutes what other games accomplish in 60. And

45:49

it's not to say better or worse, it's just preference.

45:52

You know, if you only have 10 minutes, well, we know which game

45:54

we're playing.

45:55

Yeah, exactly. You can play that when you're taking

45:57

a break from Twilight and

45:59

P.

45:59

Yeah,

46:04

it's Ryan Lockout, I just wanted to confirm that. Okay,

46:07

so yeah, so that

46:08

was your in your mind, that was the most perfectly

46:11

designed game, a perfectly designed

46:13

game, in your opinion. So my next one is

46:15

actually a perfect, as close

46:17

to perfect design game as

46:19

you can get, in my opinion. I actually

46:21

made a whole video about why I think that's true. I

46:23

put it up against Jamie Stegmaier's 12 tenets

46:25

of game design and I put it up

46:28

against my framework

46:30

that I work within when I design games and

46:32

it hits almost all of them. Not all of them,

46:35

maybe one day I'll find a game that hits all of them, but

46:37

it's called Assemble the Dice Game. So

46:39

it's not the pick up and deliver original Assemble

46:42

game, it's Assemble the Dice Game. So

46:46

there's just so many great things about this

46:48

game. One of the best things about it is I

46:50

do think it's a fantastic gateway game. So

46:52

if you're just new to this or you have friends

46:55

or you want to bring into the hobby or

46:57

someone's interested in modern board games, have

47:00

them play Assemble the Dice Game. And I

47:02

can pretty much guarantee you they're going to get hooked, they're

47:04

going to want to play again, and they're going to want to

47:06

play new and different games. It'll open

47:08

up

47:08

them into this whole world of board games.

47:10

So the idea is you're rolling

47:12

a handful of dice, which is always fun, and then

47:14

you're deciding what to do with that die result.

47:17

And there's a bunch of different fun things you can do. And one

47:20

of them is you can acquire mosque

47:22

tiles, which somehow give you abilities

47:25

for the rest of the game. You can kind of build up, you

47:27

level up your player and you can do more

47:30

interesting things as the game goes on, which

47:32

I think is always a fantastic thing to have

47:34

in a game.

47:35

So yeah, it just does a bunch of things

47:37

really, really well. It's very fast paced,

47:40

doesn't go on too long, lots of interesting

47:42

choices. And one thing that's come might be a bit

47:44

silly, but that I like is that when you're

47:46

rolling these dice, they're not pips,

47:48

they're not numbers on dice. They

47:50

have icons on them. And

47:52

so in a lot of games, you have to be like, Oh, it's a four. And

47:55

four means I get wood or like,

47:58

you know, I don't know. But if you have a little. icon

48:00

of the thing and you're like, oh, I get

48:02

jewelry. I get this, I get that. There's

48:04

you're something I just like about

48:06

that. Where you're not counting pips, you're

48:09

not adding one pips, losing

48:11

one pips, you're not doing that. You're just, you roll,

48:13

you look at the icons visually, you connect,

48:15

you know what you got, it makes sense. It's not

48:17

arbitrarily four

48:18

equals brick or whatever. Yeah,

48:21

so there's just a bunch of great

48:23

things going on here. The goal of the game is to be the first to

48:25

collect five rubies. There's a bunch of different ways

48:27

you can collect rubies, a bunch of different

48:29

strategies you can try out and

48:31

just so many different things you can do with the dye results.

48:34

So fantastic game is stumble

48:36

the dice game.

48:37

Very cool. Is there a second edition called Constantinople?

48:40

Not as far as I know.

48:42

Okay. No, I

48:44

would follow up with that. If anyone is interested

48:46

in games like that, check out nations, the

48:49

dice game,

48:50

okay. Similar vein where you've got these dice that

48:52

have different icons and you're trying to upgrade

48:54

the dice as you bring in new buildings,

48:57

you get different dice and they have different,

48:59

you know, two of this and one of that.

49:02

Like they get different dispersions of

49:04

icons and things like that. And so that's

49:06

another one to check out. But also just as a general,

49:09

like kind of higher level concept,

49:11

what is someone doing when they

49:13

take a game and then turn it

49:15

into a dice version? What does

49:17

the translation look like? What do they have to change or

49:20

cut? Because nations, the dice game is

49:22

very, very different than just the regular nations

49:24

board game. They cut 78% of the game

49:27

and turn it into this dice

49:29

version almost to the almost

49:31

to the point where it could be a, you just put a different title

49:34

and it's a different game. Right. And so what

49:36

did the designers do and why is nothing just

49:38

to kind of look at. And so yeah, go out there and find these

49:41

kind of long worker placement games and then find their dice

49:44

counterparts. Katan has a dice version. Check

49:47

that out and see

49:48

what's different. Just as a pandemic,

49:51

I haven't played it, but it looks very different.

49:53

And this is very different from the original

49:55

Istanbul game. Very, very different. Yeah.

49:59

Definitely. things makes it a lot

50:01

faster. Yeah.

50:05

Speaking of dice,

50:07

my next one, let's go with Sagrada.

50:10

If you're interested in abstract

50:13

games, if you're interested in dice

50:15

manipulation, dice mitigation, Sagrada

50:18

is a really cool one. You're basically building stained

50:21

glass windows and you've got all these really pretty

50:23

translucent colorful dice and

50:25

you're putting them in different orders and you're trying to score points

50:27

and do different things and move them around and

50:30

change them. It's really interesting. It's very

50:32

similar to Azul and I know a lot

50:34

of people love Azul. I don't. That's

50:38

fine. I'm good at it. I win the game. It's

50:40

not like I lose. I'm going to hit this game. I understand

50:42

how it works. I just don't like, I think I

50:44

don't like the way you take

50:46

tiles in Azul and I've seen too many people get

50:49

screwed over and the game is really

50:51

mean if you want it to be. I

50:53

think that bothers me a little bit. Sagrada is a little

50:55

nicer to each other and so I think that's part of it. I

50:58

really like Sagrada. Also a game

51:01

from a friend of mine, David Abelson, is called Garden Bow.

51:03

Garden Bow. Garden Bow. It's got that

51:05

similar, you're moving around,

51:07

changing different things. It's a flower theme.

51:10

It's really great. Anyway, it's one worth checking out. If you're

51:12

designing an abstract game, check

51:14

out Sagrada. Check out Garden Bow and just

51:17

see the choices. See

51:19

the interesting options that players

51:21

have on a turn and then try to figure

51:23

out, okay, why did they do this and how did they mitigate

51:25

that? I don't know. I just think both

51:28

those games are really good case studies

51:30

and how to do it effectively. Garden Bow didn't get

51:33

the reception. If we ever did a

51:35

list of games that were

51:37

underrated, it would be on my list.

51:39

I really feel like it should have done a lot better.

51:41

It's worth checking out. It's also beautiful. It's also

51:43

a game production wise. Sagrada too.

51:45

We're not just talking about games. We're talking

51:47

about experiences. Laid out on a table,

51:50

Instagrammable, where people can take a picture

51:52

of it and it shows up and it looks good online on social media.

51:55

It's all part of this. It's a great

51:57

example. You take a picture of that, people go, ooh, that's a pretty

52:00

Pretty thing. What is that? Tell

52:02

me more versus another browned,

52:04

you know, soulless Euro game. And they're

52:07

like, Oh, okay, cool. It's just different. And

52:09

so it's nothing to keep in mind from a product standpoint as

52:12

a designer. All right, what's next?

52:13

So yeah, talking about table presence. My

52:16

next one has great table

52:17

presence is called Colt Express.

52:20

So in this game, there's a 3d cardboard

52:22

train in the middle of the table. So

52:25

that just will bring people over right

52:26

away. And that is something to think about as a designer,

52:29

you know,

52:30

how you attract, you know, people

52:32

if you have great table presence, you will automatically

52:35

bring people over to your to your table, whether you're

52:37

play testing, or if you're pitching, you might grab

52:39

the attention of a publisher who's walking

52:41

by. But yeah, there's a 3d train

52:43

and you're all like bandits trying to

52:45

rob on this train. But

52:48

what's interesting is about about it is that it uses

52:50

a programming mechanic. So

52:53

if you haven't been exposed to this, it's basically

52:55

where you're going to decide what actions

52:57

your character will take in what order and you will

53:00

lock them in. And then everyone

53:02

reveals their first action that those are

53:04

resolved, reveal the second action, those are resolved.

53:06

So it's called programming, it's like writing

53:09

code and then hitting run.

53:10

So it's just an interesting mechanic.

53:13

I don't know if I love it.

53:15

Because you are trying to anticipate,

53:17

you know, what people are going to do.

53:20

And your third and fourth actions might

53:22

be completely useless because the

53:24

situation has completely changed by then. So

53:27

it's just an interesting mechanic as a designer

53:29

to play and to try out, maybe

53:31

you'll find that you do like it. But just to

53:34

just to be exposed to someone of a

53:36

mechanic that's not used as

53:38

much in games.

53:39

That is

53:40

kind of interesting.

53:42

Yeah, so Robo rally is another one that

53:44

almost made my list. Do you play that one? No.

53:48

Very, very same vein as Cold Express

53:50

where it's programming. And I'm going to program

53:52

my robot and it's going to move forward two spaces and it's

53:55

going to push and go turn right and can do this. And

53:57

then you let it run. Everybody just bump it into each other and

53:59

you know, they're Robots are all you're

54:01

pushing each other in the conveyor belts and then the saws

54:03

and like all sorts of stuff, right? It's

54:06

old-school that's games around long long time cold

54:08

Express took that idea and then made it much

54:11

more thematic, right? How could we do that idea

54:13

that concept on a train with

54:15

a heist and a shootout and stuff like that? And

54:17

so that's another cool thought is how

54:19

can you maybe take some ideas from concepts and

54:22

mechanisms from games that have been around? Long time have

54:24

proven to be well liked

54:26

they say well,

54:27

how do you take that?

54:29

Core

54:30

and then change it change the theme

54:32

make it better add something to it. Yeah, take

54:34

something out Put it on a train with a heist

54:36

and a shootout like okay, that's cool. That's cool And the

54:39

nice thing is the mechanism is already proven We

54:42

know this works. How can we do that mechanism

54:44

in a different way? See it from a different angle, right?

54:47

I feel like a lot of times as game designers we get maybe

54:49

too preoccupied with coming up with something too

54:51

new It's got to be super unique and now you've never

54:53

seen anything like this Like there's value in that for sure,

54:56

but there's also value in leaning into something people

54:58

are familiar with They especially like

55:00

the deck building, you know, everybody understands I draw

55:03

five cards. I'm gonna play them. I'm gonna discard

55:05

them I'm gonna be like we understand that concept now. Okay,

55:08

how can you change it just a little bit? Right, but

55:10

it also at the same time. It's okay to make a debt builder that you just

55:12

draw five cards What if you what

55:15

if you do that, but now you add a board? That's what ascension

55:17

did right this deck building game But now

55:20

we've got a board over here that I'm moving around

55:22

and so I'm doing the cards here But then also moving my pieces

55:24

and having combat over there Okay, so now that's

55:27

different even though those concepts have showed

55:29

up in a million other games debt building or combat

55:31

on a board Like okay, that's not particularly original,

55:34

but the combination

55:35

was super unique. Yes

55:38

Yeah, I

55:40

always say like yeah one of the reasons to play as many games

55:42

as possible is to be inspired by all

55:45

these games that exist and think like

55:47

I like this One element of this game

55:50

and I like this element of this game What

55:52

happens if I combine them and push them together,

55:54

but maybe then add in a little extra in there

55:56

myself Yeah, I knew that's one

55:59

of the best things about playing

55:59

as many games as possible for sure. And

56:02

just as you were talking there, just had a couple thoughts

56:04

about Cult Express is that

56:06

Robo Rally makes a lot of sense. The

56:09

programming mechanic makes a lot of sense because

56:11

they're robots. They have been programmed

56:14

and then they're doing that. That's why it makes sense. Cult

56:16

Express, I don't know why I'm shooting if there's

56:18

no one there

56:19

anymore. It's all happening so

56:21

fast. We're

56:23

reacting. Yeah, we'll play it. I'll

56:25

play that. Yeah,

56:26

I know that that is true. Yeah, I guess if

56:28

you pretend like it's so high speed that

56:31

when you took the shot, they were there, but

56:33

then they dropped down to the bottom level and now they're

56:35

not there anymore. But if there

56:37

are maybe robot

56:39

people, that would make a bit more sense.

56:43

But one other

56:44

thing... That'd be called Cult Express?

56:46

Yeah, I was gonna say

56:51

Robot Express.

56:55

It plays really well on a board

56:57

game arena, obviously,

56:59

because the programming mechanic takes

57:01

a very long time to go, okay,

57:04

resolve. Okay, what's this card? Resolve.

57:06

It's like board game arena. It's boom, boom, boom,

57:09

boom, boom. It's one of the games that plays

57:11

better on board game arena than in

57:13

person for sure. Yeah,

57:16

it's very interesting,

57:17

definitely. Yeah. All right, so next

57:20

one on my list. We're gonna go kind of to the opposite end

57:22

of the spectrum. We've been talking about a lot of complicated games,

57:24

games that take a while, kind of heavier, whatever. I'm

57:27

gonna go to a game that's barely a game, basically

57:29

an activity, and it's called Silly

57:32

Street. And it's a game for

57:34

families. It's a game that my kids have

57:36

loved, especially when they were a little bit younger. And

57:39

it is silly. It is a silly game of

57:42

going down this silly street, and it's kind of this roll

57:44

and move type deal. And every time you land on a

57:46

space, you draw a card from different places.

57:48

It's almost like a trivial pursuit thing where you draw

57:50

a card and you're gonna have or cranium where you're gonna have to

57:52

do different things, right? You might have to draw, you

57:54

might have to act something out. You might have

57:56

to, you know, you've got 30 seconds to run to

57:59

your room and grab some. something red and

58:01

bring it back. Um, you might have a vote.

58:03

One of them it's in there. It's like, who has the worst bedhead

58:07

in the mornings? And I obviously always got

58:09

voted that as the person. And

58:11

so all my kids laughed at me, but I also, because

58:13

I got voted that person, I got to move forward two spaces. I

58:15

was like, well, you know, it works out. You can laugh at me, but I'm, I'm now

58:17

winning the game. And so there's

58:20

a lot of games on the market like this that as

58:22

gamers, as game designers, especially, we have a tendency

58:25

to look down our nose at, and we go, Oh, this

58:27

is barely a game. Where are the choices? Where are the

58:29

interesting decisions? That's a

58:31

valid criticism. However, silly

58:34

street has probably sold more copies than

58:36

all my games put together for the rest

58:38

of my life. Right. And

58:40

so it's just something to be aware of again,

58:43

what's your target audience? What's the market you're, you're aiming

58:45

at and, and be okay with a game

58:47

being a little lighter. Cause one thing

58:49

I've found, especially in play testing, the

58:52

more I play test the game, the easier I think

58:54

it is. But that's because I've played it a hundred

58:56

times when someone plays it for the first

58:59

time, they're like, wow, this is too complicated. This

59:01

is so simple. It's simple for me. Cause I made

59:03

the thing and I've done it a billion. So

59:06

to always remember that someone coming in

59:08

is going to feel like, kind of like your experience to take it to ride. Like

59:11

that's not a complicated game, but when you don't

59:13

have experience with it, it's overwhelming

59:16

because it's so brand new. And so

59:18

that's something to think about. Also there's something

59:20

to be said for a game that is just simple. You put

59:22

it on the table. You

59:23

don't have to think you just

59:25

roll some dice, see what happens. Another couple of games I

59:27

wrote down shut the box, which

59:29

is a game where you're literally just rolling two dice and then

59:31

you're hoping to get certain numbers. That's kind of it. There's

59:33

like two decisions in the whole game. There's

59:36

can't stop, which is another game

59:38

from, you know, the eighties, I think. And you're

59:40

rolling dice. You're trying to move. It's a push your luck game,

59:42

but you're really just rolling dice and

59:44

hoping for the best.

59:45

People love those games and they take 10 minutes to play. And

59:48

it's easy right after dinner before kids

59:50

have to get ready for bed. Just throw it out on the table, have

59:52

some fun, laugh for a minute, have a nice little moment

59:55

and then move on about your day. There's

59:58

so much value in those games. Oh, totally.

1:00:01

Yeah. 100%. I mean, as someone who loves

1:00:03

party games and loves designing party

1:00:05

games, creating those experiences

1:00:08

that are easy to learn, easy to get into,

1:00:11

easy to understand, but they create

1:00:14

those memories and those experiences

1:00:17

that you want to create for

1:00:19

people and their friends and family. And if

1:00:21

you can do it in a clever

1:00:24

way, like designing

1:00:27

very streamlined, simple

1:00:29

games, I put simple in quotation marks

1:00:32

is difficult. You know, a lot of people

1:00:34

can't do it, especially when you want to do something different

1:00:36

that hasn't really been done before. But if

1:00:39

it takes, if it does something in a clever

1:00:41

way, but in a simple,

1:00:42

clever way, I

1:00:44

think that's,

1:00:45

I think that's fantastic. And that's what I try to

1:00:47

do with my party games, not have a million

1:00:50

different things going on, but have some sort of clever,

1:00:52

interesting thing that makes it have

1:00:54

that, ooh, moment when you read the back

1:00:56

of the box. And then that creates those

1:00:58

moments

1:00:59

between players. I think it's great. Yeah.

1:01:01

And to your point, it's, it's much harder to cut

1:01:03

than it is to add. Exactly.

1:01:06

Exactly. Yeah. All right. What's next? Yeah.

1:01:09

Well, my next one is definitely

1:01:12

not simple. It's Tyrants of

1:01:14

the Underdark.

1:01:16

So this

1:01:18

is a deck building game with area control

1:01:21

set in the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy

1:01:23

world. So I was also going to put Dungeons

1:01:25

and Dragons, but I'm glad that you set it to

1:01:29

have like a role playing game. So this isn't role

1:01:31

playing, but it's set within the Dungeons and Dragons world.

1:01:33

So if you enjoy this, then you might get hooked

1:01:35

into sort of want to explore

1:01:36

the Dungeons and Dragons world a bit more. But

1:01:40

it uses deck building with area

1:01:42

control. And I don't think I played

1:01:44

a game that does that before. But

1:01:47

it does a really interesting way to really

1:01:49

solid mechanics that work well together. It

1:01:51

just feels like you're playing two really good games

1:01:53

in one. Because you have the deck building going on

1:01:56

any of the area control. So in case anybody doesn't

1:01:58

know, area control, just if you have the.

1:01:59

majority of a region, then you have,

1:02:02

you control that region, you get points or

1:02:04

resource or whatever.

1:02:05

So yeah, and then the theme, just the

1:02:07

art, the feel of it, you feel

1:02:09

like you're in this world,

1:02:12

you're building up your army and you're

1:02:15

trying to vie for control over the Underdark.

1:02:18

So

1:02:19

yeah, I thought this was a fantastic

1:02:21

game. It took a little bit to get into, but once you,

1:02:23

I mean if you already know the deck building mechanic,

1:02:25

you already know the area of control, you get into it fairly,

1:02:27

fairly easily, but

1:02:28

the mechanics wise and theme wise

1:02:30

all works really, really well together. Yeah,

1:02:32

very cool. And so piggy backing on that, my next

1:02:34

one, also a deck building game, Legendary.

1:02:37

And I think these games have some interesting things to

1:02:40

think about in how they implement

1:02:42

something, but do it

1:02:45

in interesting ways, right? It's

1:02:47

not just a clone of Dominion, right? It was, it

1:02:49

was designers figuring out a way to take the

1:02:52

concepts of Dominion, but then turn it on its head

1:02:54

and offer something brand new that really

1:02:56

appeals to people, whether it's in theme, because Dominion

1:02:58

is kind of like, you know, again, we're trading in the Mediterranean

1:03:01

basically, but with

1:03:03

Tyrants of the Underdark, okay, Dungeons and Dragons sells,

1:03:06

right? And people love fantasy to put

1:03:08

into that. Or Legendary has

1:03:10

like 10 different themes now and

1:03:12

all the games are a little bit different. You have the Marvel, you have 007,

1:03:14

you have X files, you have

1:03:17

Firefly, Alien, The Matrix,

1:03:20

which I think just came out. And every game

1:03:23

is different. It's the same course, the same concept,

1:03:25

but it's different and the changes

1:03:27

that they make, they make sense. You're

1:03:30

like, okay, because we're

1:03:32

doing this whole different universe now, it makes sense that

1:03:34

the cards work this way. Still the same,

1:03:36

you know, I spend these resources to gain these cards,

1:03:38

cards are moving around this little board and

1:03:40

whatever, but it kind of makes sense, more intuitive.

1:03:43

And so something I want designers to be thinking

1:03:45

about is, can you create a

1:03:47

game that's also a system that

1:03:50

leans itself into being able

1:03:52

to be re themed? Yeah,

1:03:55

to make more money and to make more games. I mean, pandemic,

1:03:57

it's had like 20 different versions at this point,

1:03:59

there's Thulu there's also different

1:04:01

like time periods like ancient Rome

1:04:04

is one Yes, and they just keep

1:04:06

printing money with this right so if you

1:04:08

can create a system Right tires

1:04:10

are dark similar kind of thing like you could set that in space You

1:04:13

could set that in the Wild West like you could take

1:04:15

those core concepts of dick building and area control

1:04:17

and the way things Are moving around on the board and

1:04:19

put a new spin on it and have a very

1:04:21

very different game that appeals to either the same

1:04:23

Audience that wants more of the same or a new

1:04:25

audience. It's more interest. They don't like fantasy, but they'll

1:04:27

play space they'll play Wild West right because

1:04:30

they have a cool core system and

1:04:32

I don't know you can just

1:04:35

You can productize things in a really cool way

1:04:37

if you create like a really nice core

1:04:40

Yeah, a hundred percent and to build on that so

1:04:42

I've been working on this game for the past two years

1:04:45

It's finally coming out next year, so I can't talk about

1:04:47

it like in such detail, but it

1:04:49

was a game I had to create a system that wasn't

1:04:52

couldn't necessarily be I mean it could be received

1:04:54

but with the idea of scaling

1:04:56

it of being able to add in expansion

1:04:59

to add it to slot in different

1:05:01

characters or add

1:05:02

Different characters to the world to build

1:05:04

it out So I had to think of how

1:05:06

can I make that work? Where this game

1:05:09

you can play it with two you can play it with three four

1:05:11

or possibly five six with the expansions How

1:05:13

would they fit in with that so

1:05:15

each player has their own? Land

1:05:18

tiles

1:05:19

and then depending on which players are

1:05:21

playing

1:05:21

that's what would create the board So

1:05:23

you could play with six because they all come

1:05:25

with their own

1:05:26

reason their own tiles

1:05:28

their own

1:05:29

Get like they want to talk about the theme

1:05:31

so bad when the kid comes out We get

1:05:33

to talk again But yeah Just the idea of

1:05:35

like yeah creating a

1:05:36

system that can be scalable or like you said

1:05:38

can be re-themed to different things It's very important.

1:05:41

Yeah, very cool. And

1:05:43

just from a

1:05:44

Again from a business standpoint

1:05:46

anytime you can make a game with a long tail Right

1:05:49

that you build up an audience and then you can

1:05:51

keep giving them new factions new

1:05:53

characters new expansions Right

1:05:56

that and again, you're not just making stuff

1:05:58

make you're making it because they want it. It's gotta be You know

1:06:00

kid just oh, I made a system and here's a million different ways It

1:06:02

was so has to be fun and enjoying a good experience. Yes.

1:06:05

Yes, but if you make a game that is

1:06:07

so Specific

1:06:10

then there's nothing wrong with that, but it's gonna be hard to

1:06:13

change it It's gonna be hard to like add more to it and

1:06:15

again, there's no wrong answer It's just a matter of just kind

1:06:17

of thinking what do you want to do? And how do you want to carry

1:06:19

it out? Yeah,

1:06:20

all right. What's your next one?

1:06:23

So was legend legendary was

1:06:24

yours there was mine. Yep.

1:06:26

Okay, cool Our games seem

1:06:28

to be like magically kind of aligning

1:06:30

to each other. Well, I'm doing I didn't have them

1:06:32

listed like in a number

1:06:39

Okay, so my next one is king of Tokyo

1:06:41

nice Richard Garfield

1:06:44

designer of magic the gathering you can't

1:06:46

see it, but it's like right over my shoulder right over here

1:06:49

Literally was like again the other one those borderline

1:06:52

ones you I'm glad that you chose almost

1:06:54

all of my borderline ones Yeah, yeah,

1:06:57

this is great. Yeah,

1:06:58

no matches yet. So

1:07:01

we have one more Okay. So yeah

1:07:03

in this game You're trying to be the most powerful

1:07:05

Monster in Tokyo and it does

1:07:08

a great job of two of the toughest mechanics

1:07:10

you can work with as a designer in my opinion

1:07:13

Let's take that and play

1:07:14

our elimination.

1:07:15

So in general players don't love these

1:07:18

they can generate bad feelings among

1:07:20

players People are waiting

1:07:23

around possibly for a long time before

1:07:25

they can play again if they've been eliminated But

1:07:28

it does it really well in my opinion

1:07:30

because first of all eliminating

1:07:33

the other Monsters is not the only

1:07:35

way to win You can just build up your

1:07:37

own power high enough that you are

1:07:39

the strongest so you win So you don't

1:07:41

have to go after other players if you don't want to

1:07:44

And then player elimination. It's such

1:07:46

a fast game that if you get eliminated

1:07:49

You're waiting around max 10

1:07:52

Maybe 15 minutes before you can join

1:07:54

back in for another game It's not like monopoly

1:07:57

where you're waiting around for a couple hours before you

1:07:59

can get back in So it takes

1:08:01

two tough mechanics

1:08:03

and does a fairly, a pretty good job with them, I would

1:08:05

say. But just in general, it's a fun game.

1:08:08

You're again, rolling a handful

1:08:09

of dice and it's a Yahtzee roll. So

1:08:11

you can reroll a couple of times, try to get

1:08:13

what you want

1:08:15

and you can buy cards to power up your character. You

1:08:17

can decide what direction you want to go. Do

1:08:19

you want to try to build

1:08:22

up resources to buy cards? Do you want to, do you have to

1:08:24

increase your health? And there's also a bit of

1:08:26

a push your luck aspect to it where if you're in

1:08:28

Tokyo, you can't heal,

1:08:30

but then you get more points the longer you stay in there.

1:08:33

We just stay in there too long and your health goes, gets

1:08:35

down too low, you have the potential of dying. And

1:08:37

that does happen quite often, but the, you,

1:08:39

they so like, you

1:08:41

want to stay in there as long as possible. So interesting. So

1:08:44

the lock going on, but it is a fairly simple game

1:08:47

and it's one of my

1:08:47

favorites for sure. Yeah. This is one of the ones

1:08:50

that anytime I was playing with new

1:08:52

gamers, right? People who are only familiar with

1:08:54

monopoly and clue and stuff like that. This is one of my

1:08:56

go tos because it's like, okay, you're played Yasi. Peter

1:08:59

Bunger, everybody's played Yasi. It's Yasi, but

1:09:01

we're going to add a couple more things and we'll explain

1:09:03

them as we go. And there's only a few cards out at a time. So

1:09:06

you don't have to explain every card. You just have

1:09:08

to explain the few that are out there to say, Hey, well, this one does

1:09:10

this gives you more energy. Very simple to understand. And

1:09:13

I'll say most of it with high school kids down in Honduras

1:09:15

and they all just picked it up real quick. And then they just, they loved

1:09:17

it. They, especially younger people, they love, take that.

1:09:20

They love destroying you. You know, that's part

1:09:22

of it too. But also

1:09:24

I love how anytime I got eliminated

1:09:27

for a while, it was my fault because

1:09:29

I was trying to do too much. I was trying to push it. I was trying

1:09:31

to max out. I was trying to stay in Tokyo

1:09:34

and max out on damage everybody

1:09:36

else. And that was really what was more important. I wouldn't even try

1:09:38

to win. I was trying to do something cool and

1:09:41

it gives me the ability to do that. It makes sense that

1:09:43

that's possible because Richard Garfield designed it. And he

1:09:45

also did magic the gathering, which is another thing. It's like

1:09:47

you have players that want to win. You have players that want

1:09:49

to do cool combos and both

1:09:51

are cool. It's either

1:09:53

strategy is fun. And so that makes

1:09:55

a lot of sense. Yeah. I love, I love that game.

1:09:58

But I was saying earlier.

1:09:59

How do you how can you take a games mechanism

1:10:03

from a long time ago in this case Yahtzee

1:10:05

and then right do it Totally differently and

1:10:07

make it something special

1:10:08

All right On the opposite

1:10:11

end but that these these two are not related at

1:10:13

all. My next one is sleeping

1:10:15

God, which I

1:10:17

Just look this up the other

1:10:19

day. It looks so cool

1:10:20

Phenomenal I'm excited for the next one the

1:10:23

sleeping God's part to basically distance guys, which is

1:10:26

Somewhere in the shipping process right

1:10:28

now. I gets about to get on people's tables

1:10:30

and Because sleeping God for

1:10:32

all its amazingness. It did have some issues which I think

1:10:35

the next Iteration is fixing

1:10:37

a lot of that. So

1:10:37

there's another example of fixing

1:10:39

some things in the next edition All right,

1:10:42

and it is a massive adventure

1:10:44

game

1:10:46

Kind of open world in nature But you still have

1:10:48

these like euro mechanisms that are controlling like

1:10:50

how far you can move and there's like some resource

1:10:53

management and stuff like that But it

1:10:55

is just going back like like root a

1:10:57

phenomenal feat of game design even

1:10:59

if you don't like it even if you don't like adventure games and

1:11:02

it's not your style just To take a step

1:11:04

back as a designer and appreciate

1:11:06

the amount of work and effort that went into bringing it to

1:11:08

life Even just a book of the

1:11:10

narrative. I saw the size of that book. I

1:11:12

was like, oh my goodness

1:11:14

A lot of

1:11:16

people's favorite game a lot of people hate it

1:11:18

But a lot of people it's the thing that they love

1:11:21

most about the hobby And so

1:11:23

just have those to take away from that but it's got story.

1:11:25

It's got puzzles. It's got combat It's

1:11:28

got all these different things that make up this really big epic

1:11:30

adventure Yeah, and also it doesn't hold your

1:11:33

hand necessarily like it doesn't say go to

1:11:35

space F5 and do this It'll

1:11:37

say oh you need to go find the

1:11:40

the jagged rocks. So now you're looking at

1:11:42

the map You're like, okay, what which rocks? Okay, that

1:11:44

one could be a jagged rock that one Let's

1:11:47

go over there. Let's see what that is and continue

1:11:49

the story And so you kind of have to figure some things out on your

1:11:51

own It does have one issue where it kind

1:11:53

of resets Where as

1:11:55

you go throughout the game you kind of get to

1:11:57

different points and like it resets your ability Is

1:12:00

it resets or cards

1:12:01

that's kind of an unfun thing that they're fixing in the

1:12:03

next one? But I don't know that

1:12:05

no, but I understand what

1:12:07

I'm designing an open world adventure

1:12:09

game in a lot of ways inspired by Sleeping Gods.

1:12:12

So my games called Robomond. It's kind of like Pokemon the

1:12:14

board game and Sleeping

1:12:16

Gods is not just a great game. I think

1:12:18

in general It's a great game for me as a designer personally

1:12:20

because I saw that game and I was like, oh There's

1:12:23

so much more we can do with board games and

1:12:25

then that inspired me to do some cool stuff So from a personal

1:12:27

standpoint, but one thing I've learned

1:12:29

this goes back to when I was talking about Twi-Twilight Imperium

1:12:32

and Dune. How do you make a game that lasts

1:12:34

a long time in this case like 30

1:12:37

hours of gameplay? But

1:12:39

you still keep it interesting and different and fun and

1:12:41

I think what happened was Ryan Lockett ran into the situation

1:12:44

was

1:12:44

with like If you just

1:12:46

continue to gain cards and abilities like

1:12:49

by the end of the game You're gonna have a hundred of these things and

1:12:51

so how do we fix that? Well, we need some resets

1:12:53

We need to do some things that cause

1:12:56

that not to happen. That's just too much going on

1:12:58

and that

1:12:59

was his answer There are better answers

1:13:01

and I think he kind of figured that out in distance guys I'm really

1:13:04

excited to see how he's doing it differently But to

1:13:06

keep players engaged for a 30 plus

1:13:08

hour campaign, that's a challenge, you

1:13:10

know And there's games like tanked grail and a lot of waking realm

1:13:12

stuff. They're doing this They have so much

1:13:15

narrative and story and content or content

1:13:18

to get through

1:13:19

How do you make it fun for a long time something

1:13:21

to think about? But

1:13:23

it's hard. It's a big it's a big challenge. It takes forever.

1:13:26

That's nothing I was talking I did episode Ryan

1:13:28

and I was like man How many games

1:13:30

could you have designed in the time it took you to do

1:13:32

Sleeping Gods? It's like 10 You

1:13:35

could have done 10 other products for the time it took to that

1:13:37

one. So something Investment

1:13:40

it really is it has to be a labor of love if

1:13:42

you don't love it It's not worth the time the

1:13:44

effort the money

1:13:45

everything that goes into it You don't have a publisher

1:13:48

who's interested who's who has?

1:13:50

Signed the contract to make it. I don't

1:13:53

know if I get like this game that I've been working on

1:13:55

for two

1:13:55

years that

1:13:57

Is all I've done for like two years.

1:13:59

It's also

1:13:59

like open world

1:14:02

quests and all that.

1:14:05

Yeah, there was

1:14:06

with a publisher who was, I signed

1:14:08

the contract at the start of the development process.

1:14:11

So

1:14:11

it's not like, I don't know if

1:14:13

I could have the motivation to

1:14:15

do something that big without

1:14:18

a commitment from a publisher. Yeah,

1:14:20

I would honestly warn a

1:14:22

designer against it. If you're not

1:14:24

gonna do it yourself, like if you're not gonna do your

1:14:26

own crowdfunding campaign, cause the potential

1:14:28

for,

1:14:30

it's hard to find a publisher no matter what, but

1:14:33

it's really hard to find a publisher for big games that are expensive,

1:14:36

and the amount of time and effort, and yeah,

1:14:39

I would say. And lore that

1:14:40

you maybe just came up yourself and they

1:14:42

don't know anything about it. Right. And

1:14:44

they might have IPs that they would rather work with, and

1:14:47

they might ask you to completely change

1:14:49

their narrative to one of their IPs, they have to

1:14:51

redo everything.

1:14:52

Yeah, that's a

1:14:54

tough one. If you're not gonna do it,

1:14:56

if you're not gonna publish it yourself, I

1:14:58

would warn somebody away from diving

1:15:01

into it. Big epic. Cause

1:15:03

I got started working on this game in April of 2020.

1:15:06

So where

1:15:07

are we at now? It's like September, 2023. You

1:15:10

know, hopefully it's gonna come out spring-ish

1:15:12

next year. Like that's the plan. That's a

1:15:14

long time. Yeah. So, so

1:15:17

let's see where it. All right. Yeah, 100%.

1:15:20

What's your next one?

1:15:21

Okay, so this is my last

1:15:23

one.

1:15:24

It's Charterstone. So

1:15:26

yeah, Jamie Stegmeyer's Legacy game.

1:15:29

I feel like it, yeah, it would probably be on

1:15:31

my list of maybe it's underrated.

1:15:33

A lot of people, I feel like don't talk about it, but

1:15:37

it's a great legacy game.

1:15:38

You know, Pandemic Legacy,

1:15:41

Tickets to Ride Legacy, they get kind of all

1:15:43

the attention, but Charterstone is

1:15:45

very cool. So you're basically, and

1:15:48

it's a competitive legacy game, which is interesting,

1:15:51

but you're all trying to build up this village and

1:15:53

yeah, you're unlocking crates.

1:15:56

So there's all these little boxes in the game

1:15:58

and you're opening them up.

1:15:59

and you're adding new cars, you're adding stickers

1:16:02

to the board, you're changing the board over time,

1:16:04

you're building up this land and

1:16:06

just the art is super cute.

1:16:08

Opening up the crates is so satisfying,

1:16:11

it's so cool to discover

1:16:13

new things and add it to the board and make it

1:16:15

the board unique and different from anyone else's

1:16:17

board. Yeah, it's a fantastic

1:16:20

game, there's a lot going on like Jamie

1:16:22

Stigmer, I don't know how he designs these.

1:16:25

We were just talking about that like size

1:16:27

and Charterstone.

1:16:28

How much effort goes into these

1:16:30

massive games that he makes and I

1:16:33

don't know how

1:16:34

he probably has a big team helping him and lots of

1:16:36

playtesters and stuff but it's a lot,

1:16:38

it's a big endeavor

1:16:39

for sure especially with legacy games. I

1:16:41

don't

1:16:41

know how you playtest that, that's a tough that's

1:16:44

tough to do but yeah it's a great

1:16:46

legacy game, I definitely recommend it to check that

1:16:48

out especially if you haven't played a legacy game before

1:16:50

and you don't really know what that genre

1:16:53

is, it's a very cool concept.

1:16:56

Yeah, Charterstone taps into one of the things

1:16:58

that people love in general which is

1:17:00

surprise. What's in the box, right?

1:17:03

What new little goodie are we going to find in

1:17:05

this box especially if it's based

1:17:08

on like your own choices, you know that's nothing.

1:17:11

Yeah, some legacy games it's okay we're going

1:17:13

to open box number five because the game

1:17:15

told us right versus I'm

1:17:17

going to open box number five because I did

1:17:19

a thing and I traveled over here and I explored

1:17:22

this or that and now I get to open box five like

1:17:24

it's all it's my decision like that's a cool thing

1:17:26

to lean into and yeah, Tarstone just

1:17:29

a great example of that yeah to your point like a little underrated

1:17:31

like people don't really talk about it

1:17:32

now. Yeah,

1:17:34

there's been so many other legacy games come out, not so many,

1:17:36

not that many like 10. We're not talking about very many

1:17:38

that they take so much. Yeah, it's very weird that

1:17:40

it doesn't get the attention that I think. They take

1:17:42

forever to design, the same reason there's not a whole

1:17:44

bunch of these like really massive open world games.

1:17:47

Yeah, I had a really good conversation with Rob

1:17:49

Dalbio just a few days ago where we're chatting

1:17:51

about play testing and I asked him how do you play test

1:17:53

a legacy game and he's like oh like

1:17:56

you can just see the the weight the burden

1:17:58

of this and because you have to

1:17:59

Get

1:18:00

groups that are gonna go through the entire campaign,

1:18:03

but you have to but you're also iterating and you're

1:18:05

making changes But you can't necessarily

1:18:07

get the same group to do it again because they already

1:18:10

seen stuff, right? So you're constantly having to find new people and

1:18:13

it's a challenge

1:18:14

Yeah, that's one. I don't think I'll

1:18:16

be doing anytime soon All

1:18:18

right. My last one

1:18:20

is Arkham horror the card game

1:18:23

So is another example of a really popular

1:18:25

game that was then turned into a different version

1:18:28

But in this regard, I think

1:18:30

a better version Arkham horror is

1:18:32

amazing games They're all alone on time had some issues,

1:18:35

right? It could take way longer than it should

1:18:37

It's like a game that shouldn't last that long kind of

1:18:39

it's a lot of luck life swing in this lot of dice

1:18:42

And so they turned it into a card game and

1:18:44

you still get the adventure Even

1:18:46

though you're not moving around a board and going to do you still

1:18:48

feel like you're exploring

1:18:50

you're investigating You're moving from card to card room

1:18:52

to room But the systems

1:18:55

are just so tight like they're just so good, you

1:18:57

know And you're building your deck based on you know,

1:18:59

you're select a character and you have

1:19:01

certain cards that are just Generic cards,

1:19:03

but then each character has different cards specifically

1:19:06

for them some really good some not so good So

1:19:08

you get some kind of flaws flaw cards in

1:19:10

there and that's kind of interesting which gives you more replayability

1:19:13

So even though like each box

1:19:15

doesn't come with a bunch of scenarios and my honestly

1:19:17

is a little overpriced for what you get But

1:19:20

you can play each scenario with different characters

1:19:23

and play it out in different ways. And so cool

1:19:25

this replayability there There's

1:19:27

a big campaign. So it's like this overarching story

1:19:30

if you're into that like you can kind of go from you know

1:19:33

The beginning middle and end and kind of see how the story is

1:19:35

gonna change and evolve it can change depending on your

1:19:37

choices It's just a cool game and then also

1:19:40

Orgum horror had dice and you had to get like a five

1:19:42

or a six for success and

1:19:44

you're trying to roll as many dice as Possible but it's still swingy.

1:19:47

Well, they replaced that with this bag building

1:19:49

kind of system where you're reaching in a bag And you're

1:19:52

drawing a token your you're playing cards

1:19:54

to get let's say you need five five

1:19:57

resources or five five is your

1:19:59

your target number

1:20:00

Well, I might play cards and now I have

1:20:03

four

1:20:03

so I need to draw a

1:20:05

token out of the bag and hopefully I get a plus

1:20:07

one or higher. But there's

1:20:09

also negatives. There's also instant fails.

1:20:11

There's also tokens in the bag that do different things

1:20:13

based on the scenario, based on the chapter

1:20:16

of the store you're in. So

1:20:18

that changes. You can make the bag

1:20:21

easier or harder by changing the token

1:20:23

distribution in there. So that's kind of cool. Anyway,

1:20:26

so they took that idea, that system

1:20:28

of, okay, we still want some luck. You

1:20:31

don't know if you're going to kill the monster,

1:20:34

but we're going to make it a little less lucky,

1:20:37

a little less swingy. I think it was a really cool

1:20:39

system. So anyway, Arkham Horror, the card game.

1:20:42

And are you able to add

1:20:44

better tokens into the bag as the game goes

1:20:46

on? If you do good things, are you rewarded with

1:20:48

that? No, I don't think so.

1:20:52

All the ones

1:20:54

at the beginning. And you change it depending on the

1:20:56

scenario. So if some scenarios you're

1:20:58

going to add different tokens. A lot of the

1:21:01

tokens are generic and they might mean different things

1:21:04

for this scenario. So this icon

1:21:06

in scenario A means this, the icon in scenario

1:21:08

B means that. And so that can change.

1:21:11

But there's also that freedom where if

1:21:13

you wanted to, as the game is now, you could go in and

1:21:15

kind of mess with the bag and make things a little

1:21:17

bit different. Yeah. And so I would want

1:21:19

to do, like if you

1:21:20

succeed at this thing, you

1:21:23

can add

1:21:23

one more good token to the bag. Yeah.

1:21:26

And that might be, it might have, there's so many scenarios at

1:21:28

this point, like so many different versions.

1:21:31

They might've added that. The ones I played, I don't think that was part

1:21:33

of it. So it very well could be, I don't know why they wouldn't

1:21:35

do that. You know, change the distribution

1:21:39

during the game. You can also make it harder. You know, as Cthulhu

1:21:42

comes out, then all of a sudden he adds these really

1:21:44

negative tokens in the bag. They're

1:21:47

more likely to have bad things happen. Mid

1:21:50

game, as opposed to from the

1:21:52

beginning where you're just kind of getting started. I like game one games

1:21:54

level when they scale. You

1:21:56

know, we go from not a lot going on to at the end,

1:21:58

it's like, oh my gosh, there's so many things.

1:21:59

Things happening and yeah, it's

1:22:02

just really tense and something

1:22:03

Definitely you want that arc for

1:22:06

sure. Yeah.

1:22:07

Well Pam. That's a good list you had. I really appreciate We

1:22:10

didn't have any crossover which

1:22:11

no not one cool Yeah, I thought

1:22:14

I didn't think we would

1:22:15

but that was cool. That was really fun.

1:22:18

Yeah, I mean I need to do this again I need to like

1:22:20

find other

1:22:21

like top 10 topic kind of things

1:22:23

I mean the Dyches Tower has made a living off of doing

1:22:25

top 10 For you do top 10

1:22:27

insert whatever you've

1:22:29

got a viral video

1:22:31

Yeah, absolutely and just but I love breaking

1:22:33

it down from a design standpoint because you know 99% of

1:22:35

those videos are this game is fun

1:22:38

because of X Y and Z reason whereas it's

1:22:40

kind of cool to look at it this game is Not

1:22:44

even necessarily good. It's just like this is a game

1:22:46

to be aware of Yeah, or a game to

1:22:48

play because of these cool things that

1:22:50

has going on. I think this is a school Thank you for

1:22:52

suggesting. I really appreciate you offering up. This

1:22:54

is a topic

1:22:55

Yeah, super fun

1:22:57

Well, where can people find

1:23:00

you? I know you've got a really great YouTube channel. That's

1:23:02

how I've discovered you You've been putting out some really cool game

1:23:04

design focus videos for a while

1:23:06

now So tell people about that and any other

1:23:08

place they can find you online

1:23:10

Yeah, thanks so much for having

1:23:11

me gave this is super super fun

1:23:13

Yeah, so my YouTube channel is Pamela's

1:23:15

game design. So I try to put a video

1:23:17

out every week I'm

1:23:20

also on Instagram Twitter Facebook

1:23:22

my website Pamela's game design as well That's

1:23:24

where you can find me.

1:23:25

Yeah, any games you can plug

1:23:27

or where

1:23:28

people can find your

1:23:28

so my Last so

1:23:30

I have three published games one is hold that phase with

1:23:33

Hasbro act fast without that media

1:23:35

Blob party with with kids and that's the one that

1:23:37

just came out at Gen Con. So

1:23:39

it is

1:23:41

Slowly filtering out into stores.

1:23:44

Hopefully gets into a few more. It's

1:23:47

definitely available

1:23:47

online It's pulled

1:23:49

out at Gen Con and really get really it's been

1:23:52

getting really good feedback

1:23:54

So I'm really really

1:23:56

happy with that game. It's my favorite part of game that

1:23:58

I've made so far. It's a cooperative

1:23:59

game where you're trying to all become one

1:24:02

big blob and you have Play-Doh you can smoosh

1:24:04

together with googly eyes so it's

1:24:06

super fun so that one for

1:24:08

sure and then hopefully I'll be able to talk

1:24:10

about my adventure game coming

1:24:13

out next year it's with Ravensburger

1:24:15

and that's all I can really say right now but hopefully

1:24:17

can announce

1:24:18

it pretty soon awesome yeah I'd love to have

1:24:20

you back and we can dive deep into that

1:24:22

game and hopefully my adventure game is out by then

1:24:24

too and maybe we can just compare notes and see.

1:24:26

Adventure party! Yeah definitely. Well

1:24:28

fam thank you so much for being here really appreciate your time.

1:24:31

Yeah thanks for having me appreciate

1:24:32

it.