0:01

It's what day December seven,

0:04

and you honestly do the

0:06

secret prop. and

0:17

revisit our funding

0:19

in board games. And

0:23

now, please, what not

0:25

secret, no fuck, founders.

0:32

Hey. Now, Kibossa, what 262 episode

0:34

two

0:34

sixty two of the secret

0:36

cabal. Gaming Podcasts. This

0:39

is Jamie. Tony here.

0:41

Hey, this is Chris. Hello. Hello. This

0:43

is Don. And this

0:45

is Steve. And I tell you what, I'm just gonna

0:48

start ripping this show like a chainsaw right

0:50

now, the opening joke. Alright.

0:52

Hey. I got this. This is listener

0:54

submitted joke. Oh, no. Now we're taking

0:56

submissions for jokes. That's right. It makes

0:58

my job easier. I'm optimistic this will be

1:00

better than Eves. Exactly. There you go. There you

1:02

go. There you go. Alright. Alright. Hushdown.

1:05

Y'all. This is Chris

1:07

Perez. Though, hey, Tony.

1:10

What's going on, Steve? What's

1:13

the difference between deer nuts and

1:15

deer nuts?

1:16

I don't know. Hell,

1:18

man. Beer nuts ring

1:20

you about tree fitty, but the deer nuts

1:22

are under a buck.

1:24

Oh,

1:27

man. Well, I I guess it is fitting that the

1:29

funding season has started. Yeah. Right.

1:31

Alright. There you go. Thanks, Chris Preston.

1:34

Steve's mailbag is closed. Let's talk about

1:36

pack or whatever. Alright. Anyway,

1:39

Steve, you suggested packs. Well, we're not gonna be

1:41

talking about packs yet because we didn't get back

1:43

from packs yet. As matter of fact,

1:45

this episode releases right after we

1:47

got back. So

1:49

our packs unplugged recap

1:51

will be in the next episode. But I did

1:53

wanna talk about something as of

1:55

late. I noticed that there are a lot of

1:57

kickstarters arriving all at

1:59

once.

1:59

It seems like, you know, with the whole

2:02

twenty

2:02

twenty one, twenty twenty two, the

2:04

shipping backup and all this different stuff,

2:06

everything seems to be coming all at once. And I wanna

2:09

talk about something that came in the mail the other day and

2:11

how I felt about it. I got the

2:13

darkest dungeon pledge.

2:16

I pledged for that game. Darkest dungeon was

2:18

for mythic games, zone kickstarters, a

2:20

couple years ago, whatever, based

2:22

on the video game of the same name.

2:24

Now the video game is kinda like a what

2:26

is it like a rogue like type dungeon crawl

2:29

type thing? where you're marching through and

2:31

fighting monsters and all this different stuff. And it has a

2:33

very cool different,

2:35

like, almost comic book style artwork

2:37

to it. And I thought it just looked great. the miniatures

2:40

look very much like the comic book style,

2:42

like the video game and everything. I was so excited

2:44

for this thing. I gotta tell you.

2:46

Like, as much as I am excited to

2:48

have this thing, I'm starting to

2:50

get quite a bit of fatigue. Getting

2:52

these gigantic packages

2:55

of games in the mail. I didn't even go all in.

2:57

This is like the base stuff

2:59

with the stretched goals. And I think

3:01

one expansion, maybe I don't know that I even bought

3:03

the expansion. I think it just came with it. So it's like

3:05

the base pledge. And it came in three

3:07

boxes that's like four feet

3:09

tall and I pull out the rulebook

3:11

and the rule book could choke a

3:13

donkey with this thing because it's so thick.

3:16

And I'm like, man, I'm not sure I'm

3:18

not sure I have the energy in me to

3:20

deal with this thing. Chevy, are

3:22

your games? Mhmm. So numerous

3:24

now that they're starting to turn into just

3:26

stuff and not games?

3:29

No. Well, No, Chris. I

3:31

wouldn't exactly put it that way. Now, obviously,

3:33

as a reviewer, we get some copies

3:35

in the mail that I did not request. That's

3:37

just the nature of having, you know, a popular

3:39

podcast. People want you to look at their stuff. Now

3:41

I wouldn't necessarily say that I don't have

3:43

any interest in that stuff, but I also

3:45

don't have the time to play that many

3:48

games. So I have to pick and choose what we actually

3:50

cover on the show. Right? Some of that

3:52

stuff just becomes stuff.

3:54

And I I recently tried to perform

3:56

a purge where I went through and

3:58

I took out lots and lots and lots of games

4:00

that I just know I'll never play again or

4:02

I just straight up don't like, put them

4:04

in here in in like sort of the shelf in the storage

4:07

area. Those I don't care about, and but

4:09

there were a lot of them that was having hard decisions

4:11

whether I wanted to keep them or get rid of them

4:13

because I liked them. So no. The

4:15

answer I guess technically is Chris. No.

4:18

But it's just now it's getting to a point

4:20

where some games

4:22

are becoming burdensome because

4:25

it's just too much to deal with.

4:27

Yeah. You there a lot of the games I'm

4:29

getting now, because it seemed like there wasn't anything for

4:31

a while that was delivering. Maybe it was the the, you

4:33

know, the supply chain backups or whatever.

4:35

And now tons of stuff showing up and

4:37

-- Yeah. -- I I have a little bit of fatigue

4:39

because it's like, I'll open the box and I'll

4:41

be like, as you said, this rule book is just

4:43

I certainly don't wanna tackle. Like, I'm losing energy

4:45

for that kind of thing. My darkest dungeon

4:47

box showed up. I haven't even opened it.

4:49

It's still in cardboard box. Yeah. I

4:51

got mine all out and I looked at all the miniatures

4:53

and I tell you I was excited because

4:55

the the miniatures look great. I like

4:57

the theme and everything. Like, I'm

5:00

just very excited about the idea

5:02

of it. but I'm like, I'm looking around and I'm

5:04

like, where am I gonna put all these boxes

5:06

now? Like, you know, I look and I see, like,

5:08

Cthulhu death may die is like

5:10

is like a three foot stretch on the shelf.

5:13

And right next to that's onk, you know,

5:15

and right next to that is something else that's

5:17

gigantic. Next to that is something else that's gigantic.

5:19

and I just don't have the space for this stuff

5:21

anymore. I gotta start. I really

5:23

really have to like take the purge seriously

5:25

at this point and get rid of some of this stuff. And

5:27

not only that, I have to stop pledging

5:30

to things that are gigantic. And I'll and I'll

5:32

tell you, we're gonna be talking about Kickstarter

5:34

later in the episode and sort

5:36

of the way that our our we're

5:38

changing the way we use crowd

5:40

funding these days. But I'm getting to a point and

5:42

I've noticed it with my pledges as well.

5:44

Most of my pledges now aren't those big

5:46

giant kicks stars with a ton of miniatures

5:48

and stuff in it. They're more just like

5:51

a euro with nice components.

5:53

And I'm happy to have that that's it,

5:55

you know. you need to switch

5:58

from the Catholics to the IVR.

6:00

Oh. Because with the IVR and

6:03

these are IKEA shelf names,

6:05

Most people are familiar with the Keppel Let's.

6:07

I think they're more popular, but I got the

6:09

i VAR. The thing that's nice

6:11

about the i VAR is you can get them so

6:13

they go all the way to the ceiling.

6:15

So they can go very high. It

6:17

just gives you more shelves. Yeah. I guess

6:20

that might be okay. Well, I love the the

6:22

calyx just look pretty in the room

6:24

though. You know, I painted my

6:26

game room with the white calyx in

6:28

front of them. I painted them to sort of work

6:30

together well, like blue gray

6:32

walls with the nice white shelves.

6:34

Well, you're invested into the Cafflex

6:37

now then. harder.

6:38

Yeah. Well

6:39

Is it a Calix Tony? Cafflex

6:41

is an antibiotic? What

6:47

are the shit else calling? You gotta get through through through through

6:49

it. Yeah.

6:53

We were just talking about it because Don is the

6:55

background of his you know, webcam

6:57

here has Solomon Cain.

6:59

And we only see, like, two boxes of it,

7:01

and there's, like, sixteen boxes back

7:03

there. That's funny.

7:05

And have you played it yet, Don? Yes.

7:08

Yeah. Yeah. I played yep. I played three or

7:10

four, you know, episodes of that or whatever.

7:12

And it's great. and I played them like,

7:14

oh, I wanna get back to this. And that's been what? Two or

7:16

three years ago, I don't know. You know, other games

7:18

have come in and I've played them. I've got three or four

7:20

of those expansion boxes out there having it open

7:22

yet. my initial of the shrink-wrap. The

7:24

band soft with you, James, it's just it's getting to be too

7:26

much. It's getting to be too much. Too much

7:28

stuff. With that, why don't we get on

7:30

to some games that we've planned so the cabal

7:32

sat can figure out what their next perk is gonna

7:34

be to fill their shelves with. The

7:37

first one I wanna talk about on the list here

7:39

is a game that can sees consistent

7:41

Now not frequent but consistent table

7:44

time in my basement

7:47

because it's a theme that I absolutely

7:49

adore and this is Star

7:51

Trek Ascendency. Now I got

7:53

together with some of the boys, Aaron

7:55

and Bender and Mike from the Battle Tone

7:57

Podcast. We were gonna do miniature games but

8:00

something happened where we couldn't get the miniature

8:02

games in. And Bender said, while we play

8:04

that and he pointed Star Trek

8:06

Ascendency, I'm like, I that's what we're doing. So

8:08

we got it out and we played all

8:10

day. Star Trek Ascendency, and

8:13

it was the AAA

8:16

fantastic, bathing ourselves

8:18

in Star Trek lore and geekedom,

8:21

we just had the best time this

8:24

just for those of you who've never played Star Trek a

8:26

fantasy. Obviously, the theme is Star Trek. You

8:28

play play one of the factions of Star

8:30

Trek. In our particular game, we had

8:32

the the Kardashians, the

8:35

Andorians, the clingons, and the Federation

8:37

were playing. The base game comes

8:39

with the Federation of the Ramulans and the

8:41

Klingons, And there's tons of expansions that you

8:43

can get to get various other

8:45

factions throughout the the Star Trek

8:47

universe like the Ferengi, the

8:49

dominion, the bringing they have now, the

8:51

Balkans. Aren't the Andorians in the

8:53

Federation? Andorians are

8:55

in the Federation. That's right.

8:57

It's star fleet, I guess, is what you're playing if you're playing

8:59

the Federation quote. Oh,

9:01

okay. So are the clingons. But

9:03

in the next generation era,

9:05

Anyway, you play one of these factions, you have

9:07

a home system which would be earth for the Federation

9:09

so on and so forth, and you

9:12

span out into the galaxy, you

9:14

draw tiles that are various planets and they

9:16

could have production

9:18

nodes or culture nodes or scientific

9:20

nodes on them that'll produce you

9:22

resources so that you can research technologies,

9:24

build more ships, build more

9:26

production facilities, build star

9:28

bases, and then you go to war with the other

9:30

factions, or you can trade with the other

9:32

factions. whatever you wanna do. And whenever

9:34

you hit a planet, you're drawing cards that

9:36

are basically little star trek episodes.

9:38

Something like a star trek scenario

9:40

will happen on that planet. You have to deal with it, or it

9:42

could be a civilization that you could

9:44

ally with, or you could colonize it, or you

9:46

could conquer it if you want to.

9:48

The triples That's right. That happens in the game

9:50

somewhere, Steve. Anyway, so

9:52

it's a big massive Think

9:54

Twilight Imperium, but

9:56

more exploration oriented type

9:58

of game. And I gotta tell you,

10:01

we talk about this game

10:02

fairly frequently on the show at least

10:05

once a year because we play once a year

10:07

because it's so great. But I I wanna be

10:09

clear about this game. I love the

10:11

game. I think everything is fun with the game,

10:13

but I also don't think it's a perfect

10:15

game either. I think there's there's

10:17

a lot of opportunity with this game to get

10:19

unbalanced. If one particular

10:21

faction starts to get ahead of the

10:23

other factions when it comes to

10:25

resource productions, resource

10:27

productions like science production, you could

10:29

get significantly more

10:31

powerful with your shields and your your

10:33

your your weaponry, and

10:35

then you will just annihilate other

10:37

players, like easily in battle.

10:39

So every player has to keep

10:41

up with their neighbors and

10:43

That sounds like, you know, obviously, you'd wanna keep up

10:45

with your neighbors, but sometimes you can't do that

10:47

in the game. Because in our game,

10:50

whereas we all had fun, My

10:52

side of the table was me as starfleet,

10:54

and Mike was the Andorians.

10:57

Mike just kept drawing

10:59

spatial anomaly after spatial anomaly

11:01

instead of planets that he could

11:03

colonize. So his resource production

11:05

was so behind that he couldn't

11:07

catch up. And I just kept since

11:09

I was the Federation, I kept

11:11

drawing planets, and then they would the card

11:13

that would come out would be prewarps civilization.

11:17

and I was not allowed to interact

11:19

with them because of the prime directive. So I

11:21

had all these prewarf civilizations

11:23

all around me that I couldn't touch.

11:25

Now branded. I did very well in the game because I,

11:27

you know, went out and I was made

11:29

allies with the Andorians and the

11:31

and the the dominion. I'm sorry,

11:33

not the dominion, the the Kardashians. And

11:36

Bender was the cling on, so he was coming in. He

11:38

was trying to battle everybody. So

11:40

he just he spread himself too

11:42

thin. So all the factions were

11:44

coming in and attacking the the the the class.

11:46

But I will say Bender ended up winning the game at

11:48

the end by a very narrow margin.

11:50

So despite the fact that there were those sort

11:52

of disappointing aspects to it

11:54

where I just couldn't get the planets I needed and

11:56

Mike couldn't get the planets we needed. Doing

11:58

other things in the game kind of brought

12:00

us up and and got

12:02

us the ability to win

12:04

the game potentially. So, Bender won

12:06

the game, but it was a it came down to a tie

12:08

at the end. Like, I had five

12:10

ascending. He bender had five ascending. And he

12:12

just managed to get a sixth one in that

12:14

final turn, which gave him the win,

12:16

which I think is a pretty good indicator

12:18

that even though bad things can happen

12:20

in the game, you can still come

12:22

back from it. And we all had a blast just

12:24

because it's Star Trek. I really

12:26

enjoyed this game. It's fun. It

12:28

takes up a lot of table space, although

12:30

-- Yeah. -- I think you said, like,

12:32

when we play it's without the limit think

12:35

the new game is a limit of number of planets.

12:37

Well, it's a number of planets. It's a

12:39

it's a size of table

12:41

limit, Steve. It says here play

12:43

with the size of

12:45

galaxy. And since our table is twice as

12:47

big as that, we just let it go to twice as big as

12:49

that because whatever -- Yeah. -- who cares? and it works out.

12:51

And actually, the book says you can just

12:53

let the universe kinda grow to whatever

12:55

size your table is and that's it, you

12:57

know, which I think works out pretty

12:59

well. No.

12:59

That's a great game. I mean, you're not gonna

13:01

play as of a coffee shop.

13:02

That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's a

13:05

great game if you have a big enough table.

13:06

Well,

13:07

four players, I would assume, adds

13:09

more planets that are

13:11

getting put into your galaxy.

13:13

That's right. Mhmm. Yeah. That's what

13:15

I was curious about because I've only played this

13:17

at three players. And does four

13:19

players significantly slow the

13:21

game down or expand the amount of time it

13:24

takes? because it's a long game with

13:26

three players. Well, Tony,

13:28

yeah, of course, because they're

13:30

taking their turn and sometimes turns take

13:32

a while. What's interesting

13:34

about this game is that number

13:36

of actions doesn't always equal

13:38

better because this game is one that the

13:40

more star bases you collect, the more actions

13:42

you get. But we have found

13:44

that there's a lot of opportunity of or there's

13:46

a lot of situations you get into where you're like, well, I don't

13:48

need these extra three actions. because there's nothing I can do

13:50

with them in this moment. So it's always like,

13:53

alright, you get like six actions. You're

13:55

usually taking like four. Or

13:57

just using those extra actions to

13:59

juice up your your your your

14:01

warp drive so you can go further or

14:03

whatever. So it's not that big a deal. a lot

14:05

of the game can be done simultaneous.

14:08

Like, the first phase of the game can usually

14:10

be done simultaneous, and you

14:12

can usually take turn simultaneous.

14:14

If you're If you're at

14:16

least to the point when the factions

14:18

meet, before that, you can take it through

14:20

simultaneous because nobody's around. Right? Like, you're

14:22

not touching anybody. Also,

14:24

Tony, you you talked about in previous

14:26

episodes, in the back of the book,

14:28

there are rules for advancing

14:30

the game. meaning, like, you

14:32

start with more resources and things

14:34

like that, and that helps sort of

14:36

jump you about about a half an hour

14:38

into the game immediately, which

14:40

I find every time is the right way to

14:42

play. because you get to do things on

14:44

your turn quickly. So

14:46

you never feel like there's any downtime in the beginning

14:48

of the game where you're just trying to find

14:50

resources. You have them at the beginning of the game. Just build

14:52

stuff. Go to it. And that that also made the

14:54

experience a lot better. So

14:55

game has always been a little odd to me in

14:57

that there's It

14:59

seems like the ends of the spectrum are both very

15:01

present. There's so much to like about this game

15:03

from a gameplay and a thematic

15:05

point, you know you know, aspect. There's also

15:08

some stuff you get on it that randomness. Right? The

15:10

randomness of the technology card draws,

15:12

the randomness of the planet. randomness

15:14

of the dice you're rolling. That's mitigated because you're rolling

15:16

so many dice at certain times. Yeah. But there

15:18

are such great things to like about this game.

15:21

There are such things that kinda go, oh, I wish they

15:23

could have sort of mitigated that some way about

15:25

this game. And and those are very

15:27

pronounced. So I've always enjoyed this game,

15:29

but I don't play it very often because the frustrations that

15:31

come along with those other things. Now I think

15:33

that there's ways that you could easily

15:35

house rule -- Right. -- a couple of

15:37

the things that are problematic. And

15:39

the house rules would not affect the game

15:41

negatively in any capacity. you know,

15:43

just for example, like, just make the rule,

15:45

okay, you can never draw an

15:47

anomaly or a hazardous zone

15:49

more than more than

15:51

once around or something. Or, like,

15:53

if you draw a second one in a row, draw

15:55

another one until you get one. You

15:57

know? So it's like the e you even

15:59

it out. in a way. Now that's still not

16:01

perfect, but it's better than before.

16:03

Right? I think just little things like that

16:05

could make the game just a little bit better if with

16:07

a house roll. One more question. I

16:09

just have the base game and I've I've it's

16:11

always been on my sort of list to

16:13

get one of the expansions,

16:15

mostly just because, you know, a lot of times,

16:17

four players is the number of

16:19

players that come to game night. Which of

16:21

the expansions

16:24

do you think is the the

16:26

funnest or like the be the

16:28

best to pick up if you had to I'm looking

16:30

here and I see like the Ferengi and the

16:32

Kardashians. And there's a bunch of other

16:34

ones too. That's right, Tony. And, yeah, there

16:36

are tons of them. Let's talk

16:38

about it. Those are the Ferengi. I

16:40

have those. I've never played them

16:42

and no one's ever selected them to

16:44

be played. But I think

16:46

that their concept is very interesting. You

16:48

know, that the furring gear very profit

16:50

oriented. So they're very much into

16:52

production. They're not into the combat nearly as

16:54

much. They can be if you want them to be,

16:56

but they're more about the production knows. They can

16:58

build them anywhere they want. They use those to

17:00

generate culture. So that's a very different play style

17:02

that I think could be good. Now the Andorians

17:04

as much as the Andorians are my favorite

17:06

Star Trek faction. In this

17:08

game, they're too much like

17:10

the clingons. Now their technologies

17:12

and some of their play some of their

17:14

rules are different. So that's

17:16

a variety, but really they're just

17:18

a combat oriented faction in the

17:20

game. So if you want something different, they're not

17:23

gonna be different from the klingons. The

17:25

Cardaceans are also very

17:27

combat oriented, but they're more

17:29

about conquer bring planets and and

17:31

occupying them just like they are in the Star

17:33

Trek lore. Right? They conquer and

17:35

control planets. They're also

17:37

very spy related.

17:39

So they're they're trying to but steal your

17:41

technologies like crazy. Aaron was

17:43

constantly stealing everybody else's

17:45

technology, and that was a really cool

17:47

concept. So the Kardashians are

17:49

definitely one 262 check out. The Volkans the other hand

17:51

are very much about diplomacy. Now I have

17:53

not explored them enough to really give

17:55

them a fair shake but

17:57

they're that you have diplomat miniatures

17:59

that you're placing on various planets and that gets you

18:01

all kinds of stuff. And I don't remember what they do,

18:03

but they are definitely also a different place

18:05

aisle from the others. I would not

18:08

recommend picking up the Borg expansion, and

18:10

that's because I've I've read

18:12

the rules I was not impressed with what I

18:14

read. It didn't seem like it added what I

18:16

wanted. And I've read a lot of people

18:18

online that say that it just doesn't play

18:20

very well. So I have not had the

18:22

courage to try yet. And I really don't

18:24

think that it's the kind of expansion you're

18:26

looking for here. It's not the first

18:28

go to expansion. It's if you really wanna

18:30

go deep into Star Trek Essenancy,

18:32

get that one later and explore it if

18:34

you want. And of course, now we have the Dominion

18:36

and the Breen and I got those

18:38

after we played this game and I just hadn't broken the

18:40

shrink yet. And you

18:42

played this all day. So how long

18:44

was one game of this for you guys?

18:46

We

18:47

started around noon and we

18:49

ended around five. Wow.

18:51

And -- It's

18:52

a long game. -- that one. Yeah. We were planning on

18:54

ending in five, and that's when it

18:56

ended. naturally. So it

18:58

worked out. It is a long game. But if

19:00

you're into Star Trek -- Yeah.

19:02

-- arithmetic. That is a full afternoon

19:04

of Star Trek Fun, and that's kinda what

19:06

you're looking Right? Anyhow, it's a I highly

19:09

recommended if you're a Star Trek fan, it's a no

19:11

brainer. Go check out Star

19:13

Trek Ascendency.

19:15

So

19:15

we have been looking forward to this next game

19:18

for quite a while, and that is

19:20

Vitaliserta's latest weather

19:22

machine with graphic design by E.

19:24

262. Right? got a chance to play this

19:26

last night. It is

19:28

like many of the Vitalis Air

19:30

Games extremely complex. The theme behind

19:32

it is that you are working with

19:35

professor Lativ, and

19:37

professor Lativ has built a

19:39

machine that can correct weather, but they found

19:41

out that as it corrects weather in one area of the world, it

19:43

causes worse weather, catastrophes, and

19:45

other areas of the world. And there are

19:47

there are three sort of big

19:51

conglomeruses isn't the word, but the sort

19:53

of factions or or places that are

19:55

involved in trying to fix these things, build

19:57

prototype from experiments. and that is

19:59

the government's got a hand in it. And and also

20:01

there's a professional team in his

20:04

lab and also there is

20:06

research research and development facility.

20:08

So these are in in the board. And on your turn, what

20:10

you do is you move your scientists

20:12

to a spot and you will take one

20:14

or two actions associated with that

20:16

spot depending on you know,

20:18

what order you get there, whether your first day or second day or third day

20:21

or whatever, you are adjusting

20:23

what's called vouchers on your board, and these

20:26

vouchers fall into a variety of categories, supply

20:28

to get you more gears

20:30

and chemicals and bots that you put out

20:32

to do things. You

20:34

also have, you know, government vouchers that allow you

20:36

to take government actions in that third of the

20:38

board. You have lab

20:40

vouchers that let you take lab

20:42

actions you have. d vouchers that let

20:44

you do r and d actions. And

20:46

anytime you go to a space, there is

20:48

a very quick forty seven step

20:50

process to figure out exactly what

20:52

you're doing. given space.

20:54

This is the first

20:57

Fatalesir to game. And on Mars

20:59

was closed, but I think it's getting worse

21:01

over time. This is the first one

21:03

where I feel like the complexity

21:06

of the game is there

21:08

solely for a complexity sake in

21:10

some places. It's the first one of his

21:12

I've played where I felt like the

21:14

return on that investment was

21:16

just not enough. I

21:18

think it's a good game, but when we were done playing it that that

21:20

original, it's like, we don't really know

21:22

what we did, how we were doing it. We

21:24

were trying to get the rules right, but it's like

21:26

it's hard to real how out exactly how

21:28

you sort of manipulate this strategically. It may be the

21:30

kind of game after you play it ten times. It's

21:32

like, okay, I got this. You know, I kinda know how

21:34

to manipulate this. but the

21:36

first time was just basically making sure we didn't screw

21:39

anything up. And we still screwed stuff up. Right?

21:41

That's how complex

21:41

it is. I'm

21:44

looking at some of the comments on BoardGameGeek, and I love

21:46

this one. It's very fitting. It says,

21:48

the Eno Tool graphic design makes the game

21:50

playable by mortals. And

21:52

that's about right.

21:54

because the graphic design

21:56

is amazing. Yeah. But

21:58

it's gotta be

21:59

amazing given like I said,

22:02

you know, how many things are going on in

22:04

any particular turn. And it gets

22:06

worse over the course of the game because you can

22:08

literally go to an area, do an action

22:10

there that gives you a tile you

22:12

flip over that gives you another action on another part

22:14

of the board. And sometimes you lose track of where

22:16

you are in your turn, whose turn it is,

22:18

there's just a lot going on in

22:20

this game. It is beautiful and complex.

22:23

And, man, it just when we're

22:25

done, we weren't sure. We made the

22:26

comment.

22:27

I made the comment. I could have

22:29

just played art mover and sort of scratch the

22:31

same itch without some of that

22:33

complexity for complexity sake. I'm

22:35

probably speaking blasphemy here, but just

22:38

some fatigue is sitting in with some of these kind of

22:40

designs from Vitaliserta. Yeah.

22:41

And I got this in the mail. I was I was

22:43

super excited because I've been waiting for this game

22:46

and it is it is absolutely

22:48

gorgeous looking. The components are amazing. But, like,

22:50

when I was reading through that rulebook, I could

22:52

tell there are, like, little little

22:55

very important minutia

22:57

to the rules that

22:59

could easily be forgotten while

23:01

playing it because there's so much

23:03

to remember as far as the rules and

23:06

the flow of the game goes that these little

23:08

tiny ones are gonna

23:09

gonna get missed obviously

23:11

during your

23:14

first play, and then it's

23:16

gonna affect the game in in quite

23:18

a significant way. I

23:20

think it was just reading through the rules, it was complexity that

23:22

didn't, like, fit together.

23:26

Right. Well, right?

23:29

Sometimes, gays are really complex and they

23:31

flow. And this one seems like it's just

23:33

kinda like, okay. Well, when we get to

23:35

this stage, we're just gonna add some some

23:37

complex stuff to it. just to make

23:39

it complicated. Yes. You do. Did you find

23:41

it thematically satisfying though, Don?

23:43

You know, controlling the weather and,

23:45

like, doing other things

23:48

because I think of games like Anacrony,

23:50

where Anacrony is a very complex game,

23:52

but it's thematically fulfilling. Like,

23:54

you feel like you're doing the time travel. You

23:56

feel like you're doing sending out

23:58

the robots to do things.

23:59

Did you get that feeling at all in weather

24:02

machine? Not

24:02

really. I mean, you feel like you're putting bots out in

24:05

different areas of the board. and you're

24:07

spending gears or putting these little, you know,

24:09

cool looking gears in different places and

24:11

spending chemicals. But, you know,

24:13

it's just there wasn't that much

24:15

thematic underpinning for anything. When I play it in

24:17

Acrony, I sort of feel like I'm

24:19

traveling back in time. Right? When I when I,

24:21

you know, receive AAA

24:23

good or something on a current turn in

24:25

an equity, I know I'm owed that good

24:27

in the future. And so thematically, I'll send this back

24:29

to the past. Later, it's like, there's a thematic

24:32

underpinning for that. And there was not much

24:34

of that at all in this game. I mean,

24:36

you have Like I

24:38

said, you have these vouchers. And it's

24:40

not clear. You go to the government

24:42

section to get lab

24:44

vouchers. You go to the lab section to get r

24:46

and d vouchers. You go to the r and d section to

24:48

get government vouchers. This

24:50

mechanism seems to be in the game to force

24:52

you to go to all three of those places. somewhat

24:54

equally. So you can get vouchers to do

24:56

the other things. So imagine

24:59

I mean, it reminds me a little bit of a game I

25:01

really like. and is

25:03

trajan by Stefan failed, right, where

25:05

you're fighting through that encada to do

25:07

something. You wanna

25:08

do something, you have to manipulate the

25:10

encada. Well, this is you have to manipulate those

25:12

vouchers a little bit, but it's just

25:14

so much more complex than a trade

25:16

dinner. I would say even an an

25:18

acrony. This was starting to say it was on

25:20

Mars, but even on Mars,

25:22

I felt like, okay, I'm moving

25:24

my guy between space and the planet.

25:26

And at least when I'm on the planet, I'm doing planet things.

25:29

When I'm in space, I'm getting supply

25:31

things. So there was some thematic

25:33

underpinning. All that is almost out the

25:35

window in this game. And I'm probably speaking a lot

25:37

of blasphemy for the Vittales aerofing.

25:39

That's my self included. It's getting to

25:41

the point where it's like, I don't know. It's

25:43

just really, really

25:45

complex I had to read through the rulebook three

25:47

times. We still miss stuff. And after

25:49

it was done, I just wasn't sure

25:51

what we did right or wrong. You know? I

25:53

know there's one area we missed a

25:55

little bit. And it would have mattered. As you

25:58

said, Chris, you could miss one or two things,

26:00

and those things will matter. And

26:02

that's that's not a great

26:04

thing when there are so many moving

26:06

pieces to this game. Well, that's

26:08

shame, Don, because this is one that I am

26:10

very excited to play. I didn't back it and I

26:12

was kicking myself that it didn't back

26:14

it. And

26:14

now I'm maybe thinking, maybe I wouldn't

26:16

have gotten wouldn't get this one played if

26:18

if I did have it. That's You

26:20

know,

26:20

I wanna play it again, but it's

26:24

know them looking forward to it. I wanna play it again to confirm

26:27

or refute

26:27

my previous feelings. That's all, to

26:29

be honest. I love your outlook on all

26:31

of this stuff. You're like, I I I'm kind

26:33

of excited to play this game, but I really don't

26:35

want to. Like, what the hell? Well,

26:37

the thing is, I think it's a good game,

26:39

but it's just at

26:41

some point, it's like, okay, we get

26:44

it. You can have a thousand interlocking

26:46

mechanisms, and that's cool. But

26:48

may not be fun given

26:50

given at this point the number of options on the

26:52

market. Mhmm. Like I said, you have the

26:54

Octavas of the world, and you it

26:56

scratches the same itch. with one

26:58

tenth of the complexity. So a little

27:00

bit of a mixed review leaning toward

27:02

the negative side. I think a lot of people like

27:04

it. If you like the complex complex games,

27:07

this might be your jam. But for

27:10

me, I'm not sure the return

27:12

is fitting for the investment

27:14

of time and effort you have to put in to

27:16

play it. That is weather machine

27:18

by autologerda. So far, I've learned

27:20

that Jamie and Don are just

27:22

getting old because they're tired of

27:24

having all these mushrooms. They're they're

27:27

they're tired of these

27:29

complex rules. Yeah. We're getting

27:31

rickety. Our brains are getting rickety. It's

27:33

just kind of hard. You can't. Well,

27:35

that was a little bit of a bummer. I will say

27:37

that that that weather machine didn't

27:39

hit with done. Now, I talked about a star

27:41

trek ascendancy a little bit ago, and I was

27:43

raving about it. I said there's some weird things about

27:46

it. I looked on BGG and I

27:48

haven't ranked a nine. and

27:50

that's pretty darn high on board

27:52

game geek. I don't rank many things a

27:54

nine. This next one I have on the list

27:56

is ranked a ten. and

27:57

I revisited it recently, which has

27:59

been years since I played it,

28:02

and it is still a

28:04

ten. And that game is

28:06

mix versus minions. Max

28:08

versus minions is a game that was put

28:10

out by riot games. And riot games is

28:12

traditionally a video game company. They put

28:14

out legal legends. And mechs versus minions

28:16

is based on League of Legends, the

28:18

video game, that lore. Right? It's not

28:20

like the video game League of Legends

28:22

at all. It's

28:22

a completely different thing, but it uses

28:25

characters from that world. Essentially, Max

28:27

versus minions is a gigantic box

28:29

filled with miniatures, the most

28:32

lavish beautiful, gorgeous, amazing

28:34

production for a board game that you

28:36

will ever see, and it's it's better than

28:38

most kickstarters that you'll get in

28:40

the mail. everything from the miniatures to the

28:42

packaging to the boards

28:44

to the cards to the

28:46

playerboards. Everything in this production

28:48

is the best you're going to find in

28:50

board gaming, and it's not

28:52

that expensive. It's like what is it?

28:54

Like, seventy five bucks or something I have to look

28:56

to see, but Basically, what you're doing here is

28:58

you're playing these little characters that ride on

29:01

mix. They're yordles in theillegal

29:03

legends world. And they're riding on these mix and

29:05

all of the minions which are these little dues

29:07

with with with axes and hoods

29:09

are coming in and attacking your

29:11

base basically. And it's essentially

29:13

a campaign game in

29:15

that the missions are, like, story

29:18

based that go from one story to the next story. It's

29:20

like a progression of stories. But

29:23

it absolutely does not matter if you play them in

29:25

any order. They're stand alone at,

29:27

like, little scenarios in and of

29:29

themselves. And The

29:31

extent of the story is a tiny

29:33

conversation of, like, five sentences at the

29:35

beginning of each one of the the

29:37

scenarios. What you do is you

29:39

program these bets by playing cards from

29:41

your hand onto the onto

29:43

your 262 Sheet, and then you run the

29:45

MEX Sheet from left

29:47

to right. and each card will

29:49

either be a move or a turn or

29:51

an attack or some kind of special

29:53

ability and it will run-in the order

29:55

that your program is

29:57

set. and your program is continually set.

29:59

It's set like that until you change

30:01

it. Every round you'll draft new cards

30:03

and you'll program them into your

30:06

your mech. replacing old cards

30:08

or adding two old cards or

30:10

doing something to move cards from one

30:12

space to the next to try to refine

30:14

your program. and you're essentially

30:16

trying to move around the board with this program.

30:18

Kill the minions, satisfy

30:20

whatever goal there is for this scenario.

30:24

to win. And

30:24

each one of the scenarios is

30:27

very, very different from the

30:29

last. The strategies that

30:31

you have to perform each time are very

30:33

different because of what you're trying

30:35

to do. And each one of the scenarios

30:37

that you unlock will bring new cards into

30:39

the game or you might open up a box with a big

30:41

cool miniature in it or whatever. Of all

30:43

the programming games that ever existed,

30:45

this is the absolute best one.

30:49

This

30:49

is probably one of the best cooperative

30:51

games I've ever played in my life,

30:53

because you're doing your own thing

30:55

over here on your next sheet.

30:57

And you are, yes, cooperating with the

30:59

other players via, like, you know, strategically

31:02

speaking about, you know, you go over there and take care of that, and I'll

31:04

go over here and try to take care of this. And I'll try to

31:06

cut this guy off so you can go over there and

31:08

do that. So you're not in

31:10

trouble. That kind of thing. But you're

31:12

really playing your own game. because you have you're the only

31:14

person that could manage this

31:16

large Tableau of

31:18

programmed cards. Like no one else can really help

31:20

you with that. Other than during

31:22

the draft, you can talk to each other about what going

31:24

to draft to to add to your program or

31:26

all to your program. So you're really

31:28

playing your own game, but you're still like doing

31:30

some light co op on the side.

31:32

I gotta tell you, this game is so much fun.

31:34

I played it with with Pete and Mike,

31:36

our buddies, they had never played it before.

31:38

And at the end of the night, they were thanking

31:41

me for bringing this game out

31:43

because it was so much fun. They were like,

31:45

this is exactly the game we needed today.

31:47

It was exciting. It was

31:49

fun. It was a little bit thinky but not

31:52

like weather

31:52

machine thinking. Thinky

31:55

more and like, we're trying to

31:57

figure 262 how to arrange our cards in

31:59

the right way to get them to do things.

32:01

And not only that, when you fail at

32:03

this game, it is just as

32:05

fun as when you succeed in

32:07

this game. because failing in the game means that your

32:09

program is not doing what you want and your

32:11

mech is spinning around and banging into

32:13

rocks and and shooting off into

32:15

the disc shooting things off in the distance and

32:17

doing nothing, and it's funny. But

32:19

the cool thing about the game is your

32:21

program is always gonna be kinda wonky

32:23

at the beginning And through the life of the

32:25

scenario, you're refining the

32:27

program and getting it to do what you

32:29

want it to do by the

32:31

end. And by the end of the game, you're moving around, you're clipping along,

32:33

you're attacking monsters, and they're flying

32:35

everywhere, and you feel good

32:38

that you succeeded in

32:40

the long term. You know, this is not a tactical game.

32:42

This is a long term strategy game within

32:44

its own scenario. This game is

32:47

fantastic. How

32:48

hard was it for you to

32:50

jump back into this after

32:52

not playing it for a while? Easy

32:55

as pie, Tony. The rule

32:57

book is so simple.

32:58

It's like, you know, I read it I

33:01

read the rule book in ten minutes. And I was like, okay,

33:03

I remember all these things because it's not a whole

33:05

to it. It's just you gotta remember the

33:07

the ins and outs of how you program

33:09

things and how you use cards.

33:11

And then it's like, read the scenario and

33:13

go to it. scenario just kinda walks you through what you

33:15

gotta do. Yeah. I love

33:16

this game. So it's exciting that we're

33:19

playing it again. And I

33:21

like it kinda like a legacy game in that

33:23

you will, like, unlock stuff and

33:25

open new packages and things and add

33:27

things to the game as it goes on. So it

33:29

rewards playing it

33:31

off Now this one

33:31

is ninety five dollars is the

33:34

retail value. Now that's not inexpensive,

33:36

but the value at what you get

33:38

out of this ninety five dollars box

33:40

is immense. You will not be

33:43

sorry. And the problem is, like Joel

33:45

Eddie and I were just talking about it last night.

33:47

And Joel said, It's a shame that this

33:49

game seems to have been forgotten. And I

33:51

agree this one kinda has been forgotten.

33:53

People don't talk about it much anymore. But I

33:55

think the main reason is I've

33:57

seen many places online people say,

33:59

like, I'm I'm hoping that they reprint it.

34:01

I'm hoping that they reprint it. This thing's

34:03

in print. You can buy it right

34:05

now on their website. Well, as you you

34:07

don't buy it on Amazon, you don't buy it at that miniature

34:09

market or cool stuff, Inc. or at your local game store,

34:11

you don't find it there. You have to go to

34:13

riot games website to

34:16

buy it. and here it is. I just put it in my cart and hit checkout. I didn't pay

34:18

for it because I haven't already, but I just wanted

34:20

to make sure. You get a free you get a

34:22

free plushie right now. Yeah. You get a

34:24

free plushie with

34:26

it too. So it's a big deal. You can buy it. And

34:28

people don't think you can buy it because you can't find

34:30

it anywhere. Anybody out there who doesn't

34:32

have this game who likes co

34:34

op games, This is this

34:36

is amazing. You will have a

34:38

blast with this game. It is ranked a ten

34:40

on BGG for me, and I

34:42

think that it's it's worth

34:44

that ten. Yeah.

34:45

And you don't have to play with

34:47

the toxic leave of the legends community. You

34:49

can play with your toxic

34:52

friends.

34:54

That's right. So

34:54

that's mix versus minions. Check that one out. Find

34:56

it at the riot games website. You'll you won't

34:58

be sorry if you pick it up. I know

35:02

it. So if

35:02

you're looking to avoid playing with your toxic friends, there

35:04

are some good solo games out there,

35:06

and I played a great one. I'm kind of

35:09

on a Fours games kick right

35:12

now. We're gonna be talking about

35:14

sabotage in a bit. I also played

35:16

paper back adventures, which is something I kick sergeant and

35:18

got just a couple weeks ago. this is a solo

35:21

word game. So Steve, I

35:23

really think this one would be right up your

35:25

alley. And you know those words?

35:27

is

35:27

that you are a page Turner, and that

35:30

is the I believe that's

35:32

the writer, APAIGE

35:34

Turner. Yeah. That is the author

35:37

from the original paper bag. And this

35:38

is a solo game and there's a

35:40

if there's a brainstorming session.

35:43

about how these protagonists are gonna

35:46

fight against, you know,

35:48

lackeys and bosses of

35:50

a variety of types. Don, you

35:53

ever hear of a author named Beaufort? No.

35:55

Don't you look them up? So

35:56

him up so

35:59

you are going to be fighting these lackeys and these bosses here. And

36:01

what you're gonna do is you're gonna have a handful

36:03

of cards. It's a little bit of a it's

36:06

not as it's a deck builder, I guess, when you get

36:08

down to it. But these cards in your hand are

36:11

letters. Right? And sometimes they're kind

36:13

of letters hard to use in words, like

36:15

a lot of x's and v's and stuff like that.

36:17

you are gonna be fighting a

36:19

sequence of three lackey bars

36:21

combos, so you do six

36:23

phases. Right? Lacky bars, lackey

36:25

bars, lackey bars, If you do that, you beat this

36:27

whole scenario. And there are three scenarios in expansion

36:30

boxes. You have to have the base

36:32

box and almost like final girl.

36:34

Right? She gotta have the base box and something else

36:36

with it. So this is you there are three

36:38

boxes you can have that, you know, for

36:40

each different you have a different hero

36:42

and sort of scenario and and and lackeys and bosses that you

36:44

could fight against. The idea is that for

36:48

any given lack your boss. There is a letter of

36:50

vowel that is sort of their weak

36:52

point. So for instance, if you're playing against the

36:54

deep c diver, the e

36:56

in c

36:58

is their weak point. So you always have e available to you

37:00

in any words you make. And you also

37:03

have a wild card letter in any words.

37:05

So you got a e and

37:07

whatever you want and you use those in combination

37:09

with the cards that you have in your hand at any

37:11

given time to make a word. When you make

37:14

this word, you're gonna lay these

37:16

cards out and you're going to splay them left or right,

37:18

revealing some symbols for

37:20

attacking defense, energy, either

37:22

on the left hand side of the

37:24

cards or the right hand side of all the cards. Further, when you

37:26

split them out, one of the cards would be

37:28

up top. And that card up top

37:32

has text on it. And that tells you something to do. Get energy

37:34

or get more attack or stop the attack

37:36

of the the lack of your boss or

37:39

whatever. And so After you do this, you do some damage

37:41

against the bad guy. You got this thing to mark the

37:43

hit points. They do some damage against

37:46

you. And you will take

37:48

the top card of

37:50

that splayed word that you

37:52

made and you will put it in a fatigue

37:54

pile so you no longer have access

37:56

to that. And the idea is that as you're fighting these lackeys and

37:58

bosses, your deck is getting smaller

37:59

and smaller because you are getting

38:02

rid of these top cards

38:04

from splay word every

38:06

time. So there's kind of this

38:08

time limit associated with each one of

38:10

these, you know, bad guys that you're facing,

38:12

and your options are getting smaller and smaller

38:14

and smaller. As soon as you beat one of them, you get to

38:16

reconstitute your dick. So it's almost like a

38:18

road like game

38:20

in that you're trying

38:22

to push really hard to beat them fast

38:24

and they reconstitute

38:24

your deck. There's also additional cards

38:26

you can buy that replace cards

38:28

with your deck you have these core cards or

38:31

item cards just use energy to

38:33

activate. So there's a lot of cool

38:35

stuff going on around what is

38:37

otherwise a relatively straightforward

38:39

word game. And I don't

38:41

normally I'm not a huge fan of

38:43

word games. This one I love though because

38:45

of those tactical choices you have

38:47

in your hand and sort of the how creative you

38:49

can be in using that valve

38:52

available to you in that wild card with

38:54

whatever is in your hand. And you get some really cool sort

38:56

of word

38:58

combinations. and you have to figure out, okay, what word do I wanna do?

39:00

Which way do I wanna splay

39:01

it? What do I wanna be on top to

39:03

generate a power for

39:05

me? And am I willing to lose that card for later portions of

39:07

the battle? It's really cool.

39:09

There's a lot of variety in the

39:11

the hero you have and also the bad guys

39:13

that you're facing. There's tons

39:15

of them in all those boxes. So a lot of

39:17

a rowdy. Really cool gameplay.

39:20

And sounds fun. I

39:22

love the thematic that I'm looking at

39:24

here. I I've not this is the first I've ever

39:26

seen this game, so I'm just clicking through the

39:28

BGG pictures. And I

39:31

love the artwork I love the thematics that I'm seeing

39:33

here. Like for example, there's like a pirate

39:36

one here called plot hook. plot hook.

39:38

There's one called Makina, which

39:40

is a robot, like, shooting a big

39:42

laser. And it it looks like an old

39:44

timey, like, nineteen forties

39:46

pulp magazine

39:48

with the cheesy like metal robot. It just looks

39:50

terrific. I love This is

39:52

right up my alley as far as thematics. I

39:54

would love to check this

39:56

one out. How long did it

39:58

take to play down? Well, it doesn't take me long

39:59

to play because I get whooped up on by this game

40:02

pretty quick. Like, so

40:04

you can play it I think if you went all the

40:06

way through, like, you know, the all

40:08

three of the lacking boss, you know, for a

40:10

front and adventure, it would take a while.

40:12

Probably two and a half, three hours. but

40:14

you can generally play it in about a hour. It's pretty quick. And that'll

40:17

get you through maybe a lackey and a

40:19

boss or a lackey and boss and

40:21

one more lackey. You know, it's a I

40:24

have to admit. I haven't made it through the first lakian boss yet, so I think there's a skill cap

40:26

here that I'm not getting even

40:30

close to. but it's a ton of fun. So looking

40:32

here, it says one to two

40:34

players on board game game. That's 262 best for the

40:36

ones. I guess if you were two of you,

40:38

you'd be

40:40

like, chatting about what to do. I I don't know.

40:42

Not right now. You build

40:43

two decks. Right? I haven't read

40:45

the rules

40:46

associated with two players,

40:48

but it really is a one

40:50

player game. Right? Yeah. I mean, you could tell

40:52

that it's core. That is what it was designed

40:54

to be. Yeah. It's kinda like

40:56

what the demos were. You could play that as

40:58

a coop. But really, you're just like,

41:00

okay, now you take control of the board for your

41:02

turn. Alright. Now you take control of the board. Then it's

41:04

back to me, and you're all just taking the same turn.

41:07

Right? Yeah. And say additional gameplay variants

41:09

for cooperative play between two players,

41:11

really, it's a solo game. Yeah.

41:13

But a very good one.

41:15

Yeah. And and Fours games, Tim Fours, he

41:17

designed some quirky stuff. Yes. Those little

41:20

brothers is one of his. They're

41:22

very fun, very semantic,

41:24

very cool. The artwork is

41:26

always cool, really good designs,

41:28

but they are quirky. And

41:30

I like that

41:30

quirkiness. Right? There's nothing quite liking

41:32

of his games. So that is Paperback Adventures

41:35

by Tim Fours and Fours

41:38

Games. So this

41:39

is a episode where

41:41

every game in the banter that I've talked

41:43

about, I have loved. And I'm gonna

41:46

end the, you know,

41:48

our our our our banter here

41:50

one from the master legendary game

41:52

designer Reiner Kinesia.

41:54

Reiner Kinesia put this game out this

41:58

year called San

41:58

Francisco. Now this is a game that I had not heard

41:59

of. I just happened to be stumbling

42:01

through the the board game

42:03

store, and I saw it on the shelf. That's

42:05

a call. San go, what's this? I

42:07

pick it up, says Ryanair Kannitsia on it. I flipped it over, looked at the back and went home with

42:09

me. Couldn't help it. Because

42:12

Ryanair Kannitsia, beautiful

42:14

artwork, seemed like a middleweight little city building

42:16

type game. I was so gotta

42:18

take it

42:19

home. When I played it,

42:20

I'm so happy that I found

42:22

this game. Essentially, what you're doing here is you're

42:24

building the city of San Francisco. Each player

42:27

has their own player board, and

42:29

it is broken down into five rows

42:31

that are different districts of San Francisco

42:33

and they're marked with different colors. Now

42:35

the deck of cards

42:38

has buildings that you will construct into those districts, and each one of

42:40

them is color coordinated with the row

42:42

with the district. Each one of those cards

42:44

also

42:44

has a value on

42:46

it, little guys with a hard

42:48

hat on it. That's the value. The number of hard

42:50

hats on it is the value of the card. Some

42:52

of them that don't have values also

42:54

have little abilities, you know, like it'll

42:56

score or it'll give you some kind of special thing

42:59

that I'll get to in a minute. Now how do you

43:01

get those cars in your hand to place into your city?

43:03

Well, you're drafting them from play in the

43:05

middle of the table. Now if you've ever played the game Colorado,

43:07

the drafting of the cards in the middle of the table

43:09

is pretty much exactly that

43:12

game. And if you've never played Colorado

43:14

before, it's kinda hard to understand the experience of this

43:16

kind of draft. Now, the way it

43:19

works is On your turn, you take

43:21

one of two options. You're either going to draw a card from

43:23

the deck and place it into one of

43:25

three columns in the middle display. You can put

43:27

it into any column

43:30

you want. or your

43:30

other option is you can take all of the cards that are currently in

43:33

one of those three columns and build them

43:35

into your city. So what you're

43:37

trying to do here is

43:39

you're trying to make columns

43:41

that have juicy cards in them that you

43:43

can get them later and build them into your

43:45

city, like group cards together that

43:47

you wanna have. But you're also at the

43:49

same time trying to make sure that you don't build piles that other players wanna

43:52

have. You know? So if you see that a certain

43:54

person is collecting a certain kind

43:56

of card, you don't want to put

43:58

it with other cards that that player wants to have. You

44:00

want to put it in a different column so it's a hard

44:02

decision which column for them to pick. There's a

44:04

ton of strategy to

44:06

that draft. I love it. I love it in

44:08

Colorado. It's not identical to

44:10

Colorado, but the strategies are very

44:12

very similar. and it adds a ton of thought as to when you're taking

44:14

columns, when you're placing things into columns,

44:16

when you're placing things into columns, where you're

44:18

gonna place them, you're constantly looking

44:20

around at everybody else's tableau and seeing what

44:22

they're building and what they need and so on and so

44:24

forth is terrific. And

44:26

there's the area majority things.

44:29

It's area majority essentially. It's getting majority in those different districts. You wanna have the

44:31

most value of cards in those districts to score

44:33

points at the end of

44:36

the games. you're constantly looking at everybody else's boards to see which

44:38

ones you can win at. And if there's certain ones

44:40

that you cannot win, the

44:42

majority's in you can use columns

44:44

for other things because you can play those cards

44:46

that have the special abilities in them. There's

44:48

a whole sideboard of extra special things you

44:50

can get for playing certain cards into your districts.

44:53

You're also trying to build the cable car line, you

44:55

know, the trolley car that goes through San

44:57

Francisco. Trying to build that. The person who has

44:59

the long trolley car line is gonna get points at the

45:01

end of the game. You even have

45:03

these little skyscrapers in the box. You construct these little cardboard skyscrapers.

45:06

Certain buildings that you build in

45:08

allow you to

45:10

build 262 scrapers and it's

45:12

like a little spatial relations situation

45:14

you're trying to do. When you build those, they score your

45:16

points at the end of the game.

45:17

It's about an hour long to

45:19

play the game. and the strategies are excellent in

45:21

this game. I adored

45:24

every bit of this game from beginning to end. I played

45:26

it with a couple other buddies out at the

45:28

Game Haven and all three of

45:30

us really liked it. It's not a game where you

45:32

go into it immediately thinking that all this is so

45:34

easy just like building a little Tableau of cards and

45:36

stuff. There's a lot of thought that goes

45:38

into 262. because you gotta build

45:40

each one of those districts from left to

45:42

right. And you wanna make sure that you have the

45:44

right cards in the right position. So you don't

45:46

wanna take cards and place them in there

45:48

willy nilly. You have to think ahead about how you wanna construct these districts so

45:50

that you can maximize the points for

45:52

their position in those districts.

45:55

You wanna make sure have the most value in each district,

45:58

but some of the powerful abilities on

45:59

the cards don't have any value at all,

46:02

so you have to

46:04

sacrifice there. you know, you can go for skyscrapers or you can

46:06

completely ignore skyscrapers. You can go for

46:08

the longest cable car or you can completely

46:10

ignore that and go for

46:12

something different. very simple

46:14

game. Clearly, a Ryanair

46:15

can eat see a game. So if anybody's if

46:17

you've played Ryanair can eat see games out there, if

46:19

you played this one not knowing it was

46:21

Ryanair Kinesia. Be like, yeah, that's Ryanair Kinesia

46:24

because

46:24

it's got that weird quirky way of operating.

46:26

I love it. I think

46:28

it's terrific. I think Ryanair Kinesia Yet

46:30

again, being one of the most prolific designers ever

46:32

in the board gaming space, he

46:34

continues to put out games

46:36

that are of high

46:38

quality. and I admire

46:40

the hell out of

46:42

that. Yeah. It's sort of amazing. He has so many

46:44

designs. And like you said,

46:46

there's still sort of resident

46:48

feel to each one of them. Right? You feel like it's a

46:50

Kenizia game, and I love that coming

46:52

through because you can you know, he's he's got a

46:54

PhD in math, and you can sort of tell it from the

46:56

design wins. Right? It's like there's this

46:58

mechanical core to the game

47:00

that's very pure. Yeah.

47:02

Always like a

47:04

scoring mechanisms. So I don't know. It's amazing sort of pumping

47:06

out stuff like this. It's really good. And

47:08

I will say that Reinhard

47:09

Kornitsi is

47:11

not known for

47:13

thematics in his game

47:15

games generally. This one

47:16

has a pretty good theme.

47:19

When

47:19

you're laying those tiles out, you're building

47:21

out little district of San Francisco and you get like

47:23

Lombard Street, you know, with the, you know, that that one

47:26

that's like the squiggle that goes up the the

47:28

side of the hill and you're building the cable

47:30

car out,

47:32

There's various landmarks from San Francisco that you can build

47:34

into your little city, that they're just artwork

47:36

on cards and things. So it's

47:39

not really rich with theme, but there is good

47:41

theme there. And it feels good. It does

47:44

feel like you're building something and you're

47:46

extending your rail line and that kind

47:48

of stuff. I gotta say if

47:50

you're looking for a middleweight

47:52

game with a middling length of

47:54

about an hour, you want something

47:56

that's stinky but

47:58

not crazy, It's easy to play. This is a good one to go for. It's

47:59

called San Francisco, and it's from

48:02

Reiner

48:04

Kinesia.

48:05

And

48:07

now, the Secret

48:09

Cup balls picture review.

48:12

Our feature

48:15

review today is a game

48:17

that Tony probably pronounced

48:20

sabotaging. With the rest

48:22

of us, call it, sabotage. sabotage. You say

48:24

sabotage. I say sabotage.

48:26

This is designed by Tim Fours

48:29

and Jeff It's for two to four players, and it plays

48:31

in about an hour. And I believe it's based off of

48:33

a beastie boy's song.

48:36

Listen, I'll be wrong on

48:38

that one. Yeah.

48:39

So the theme of sabotage is this

48:41

game of team stealth tactics. So

48:43

you have two teams and they are

48:45

across a divider from each other. So you

48:47

get see what your partner's doing and you get to

48:49

collaborate, but your movement on the four

48:51

by four grid is hidden from the other

48:53

team. One team is the villains,

48:55

and one is the spies. The spies are there

48:58

to try to hack doomsday

49:00

devices of which there are three on the board. They

49:02

hack eight times. They win

49:04

the game. and the villains are there to try to reveal and hit the

49:06

spies. If they hit the spies a

49:08

total of five times, they win the

49:10

game. Right.

49:12

So let's start off with thematics. And I want to start off by

49:14

saying that I believe this game to be an

49:16

extremely abstract game. This is

49:18

an abstract game here. But

49:21

I think you know, literal thematics,

49:23

I think the artistry of the

49:25

game, the artwork and

49:28

the vibes that all the components give off, which is a very beautiful

49:31

come a production here. I think

49:33

all of that stuff takes an abstract

49:35

game and brings it back. it

49:37

really does feel like you're playing a spy

49:40

game. Yeah. Just looking

49:41

at the game, it makes me think

49:43

you're in the sixties. Exactly.

49:46

Like, James

49:46

Bond, like Sean Connery area, James Bond. Yeah. But but tongue

49:49

and cheek can kinda comedic in a way because,

49:51

you know, there's the bathroom. And at one

49:53

point, we were talking about one

49:55

of the spies is hiding in the

49:58

bathroom and taking food.

50:00

Yeah. Who does number two work for?

50:02

Tell that Terry's boss. And

50:04

I like the the powers themselves with thematics. Right? I mean, getting the gameplay a bit,

50:07

but, thematically, you have, like, powers like, land

50:09

shark and it destroys walls. So you can set

50:11

this land shark down this

50:14

whole rower column, or you have the orbital laser that can just

50:16

demolish a spot. Mhmm. Cool stuff like

50:18

that. I really think that where

50:20

this game lacks in physical

50:24

thematics. You know, like having like a

50:26

big base that you're moving around on, like like a

50:28

game like spy, like

50:30

sniper elite, like, a specter ops,

50:32

spherical, that kind of thing with a hidden

50:34

movement. That's very literal. Like, you see

50:36

the whole map and you're moving around

50:38

on it. This one is extremely

50:40

abstract in that respect, but I think where it makes

50:42

up for that is with those

50:44

abilities and the feelings this game

50:46

generates of

50:48

sneaking around. Right? Right. Even when you're the villains and

50:50

you're hiding from the spies and your spies

50:52

hiding from the villains, that battleship

50:54

style of hidden information on

50:56

both sides,

50:58

It feels very tense. It feels very much like you're sneaking around

51:01

throughout the game. So I

51:03

think this game a

51:06

spectacular job of pulling the theme out of

51:08

you through experience as

51:10

opposed to through, you know, component

51:14

thematics. Verizon a lot of battleship too when you're playing. because battleship

51:16

a screen kind of in a way that you

51:18

can't see the other players board. Yeah. And you're

51:20

putting down tokens on your board, like,

51:23

where it might the other person be? Where could they be? Where do you

51:25

think they are? All back to the the gameplay and

51:28

the the components. It's very interesting. But

51:30

unlike battleship where you're taking shots in

51:32

the dark, the actions

51:34

that each of the two sides are taken, give you clues

51:36

about where they are and what they're doing. Right? When

51:38

the when the spies scan, they have

51:40

to scan a row column

51:42

or quadrant in which they are

51:44

in, at least for their original scan. So at the

51:46

beginning of the game, whenever they

51:48

scan to remove I'm sorry,

51:50

whenever they scan, you can tell kinda they're

51:52

at, especially if they hack a doomsday device. If

51:54

they hack a doomsday device, you know right where they

51:56

are. So to begin the game, the villains have

51:58

a little bit of advantage because they

52:01

will often know game widens up

52:03

and both sides get more

52:05

powers, the the villains can

52:07

do more damage and

52:09

the spies have a little more

52:12

movement capability. And so it's

52:14

kinda cool. It's leaning toward the villains at the

52:16

very beginning. They get a couple of shots off of

52:18

the the spies. And then later on, the

52:20

spies seem to get more powerful. And I like

52:22

that that sort of strength

52:24

trade off throughout the game and how it how

52:26

it evolves. One last thing I

52:28

wanna mention about the components is I have to

52:30

say that this game is not a a

52:32

significantly complex game.

52:34

It's not a hugely deep game.

52:36

And I don't think and, of course, we didn't

52:38

get there yet. ReplayBILITY, I'm not sure how much there is

52:41

to it. So this

52:43

game feels a little

52:45

overproduced for the type of game it

52:47

is. This game could

52:49

very easily have tokens and

52:51

tiles as opposed to the

52:53

lavish miniatures. The box is

52:56

gigantic so that you can have that

52:58

big sort of screen in

53:00

between you. I I

53:02

think that Despite

53:02

the fact that I love the production, I think it's a little bit

53:05

much, and

53:05

they could probably have made this in

53:07

a smaller package at a

53:09

smaller price point. Yeah.

53:11

I

53:11

I think the only reason they did the minis is

53:14

they show off part of the

53:16

theme and -- Yeah. -- styles.

53:18

They like The spies

53:20

remind me of a movie

53:22

minions with the freshly shaped

53:24

people. It's the same kind art like that.

53:26

Yeah. minions, you know, grew. They worked for that grew

53:28

guy -- The minions. -- the cartoon.

53:30

262 glowy

53:31

yellow things. Yeah. We know,

53:33

Steve. Oh, I thought because of you. Let

53:35

Steve go for about thirty minutes. You just keep explaining

53:38

that. I got you, Steve. Anyway,

53:40

so 262 art reminds me

53:42

of that. where everybody's, like,

53:44

freakishly shaped and I don't know if you could

53:46

necessarily show that on a

53:48

standy. Yeah. But, again, like, it

53:50

is overproduced. Alright. So let's

53:52

jump into the gameplay. So first

53:54

off, this is a team's game. It's

53:56

generally played with four players with two

53:58

players on each team. One side takes the

53:59

rules of the spies, one side is

54:02

the villains. You're playing on a four

54:04

by four grid that is the

54:06

villains hideout. Each team sits on opposite

54:08

sides of a divider. They have their own board that is set up identically. In

54:10

the hideout, they're going to have generators

54:14

doom's day devices and walls to make up this

54:16

little base. To win the game, the spies

54:18

need to remove a certain number of cubes

54:20

from the doomsday devices. And

54:22

for the villains to win, they have to hit spy players a certain

54:25

number of times with their guns, their laser

54:27

guns, stun guns, whatever they

54:30

got. First phase of the game, you're going to program your actions. You do this

54:32

by rolling the dice and you're gonna get a

54:34

series of numbers. Everybody is going to

54:36

use those same numbers to program their

54:40

actions. Each player has a series of tiles that have actions on

54:42

them, and you need to use the dice

54:44

to activate the action tiles.

54:47

You lay them out in a certain order, you put your dice

54:49

assigned to them, and when your turn comes up,

54:51

you will roll those actions out from left

54:54

to right. The Villa team goes first and then the spies

54:56

go second. These action tiles have the

54:58

normal stuff you'd think. Of course, there's a move

55:00

tile. You can move around

55:02

the base. There's a scan

55:04

tile where you can scan down

55:06

hallways, trying to find the location of the

55:08

hidden opponents. spies can hack

55:10

so they can remove cubes from the

55:12

Doomsday devices. Villains have their

55:14

stun gun. They shoot it into the next square and

55:16

hope that they hit the spas. Now,

55:18

each team also does certain things in

55:20

the game that will allow them to

55:22

generate these white cubes and these white cubes

55:24

are used to unlock more ability tiles that are more powerful

55:26

than the ones they start the game with.

55:29

And abilities can be all kinds of crazy cool things. It

55:32

can be ziplines and

55:34

flamethrowers and all kinds of

55:36

weird technology that'll help

55:38

you develop a strategy to find your

55:40

opponents and win the game. And as I

55:42

said before, the spies are

55:44

trying to remove cubes from the doomsday

55:46

devices they get eight of them. They

55:48

win the game. And the villans are trying

55:50

to locate the spies and hit them with their

55:52

stun gun to their flamethrower or whatever weapon they

55:54

happen to have. If they hit them five

55:56

times, they will win the

55:58

game. First thing I'd like to talk about is

55:59

just like a few major

56:02

areas of what this game is all about. And the first one is the hidden

56:04

movement. And I'd like to discuss the

56:06

hidden movement

56:08

first. Mostly, that this is a

56:10

double hidden movement game, which I think is

56:12

a very rare thing in board

56:14

games. I think I can only think of one

56:16

otherness Captain

56:18

where it's like a double hidden information game.

56:20

I can't think of any others. I'm sure there

56:22

are, but I gotta tell you I

56:24

love this. It's a team's game

56:26

where it's double hidden movement and that is absolutely spectacular. I'm a big

56:29

fan of hidden movement and most of those games

56:31

are one versus many of course. Yeah. Think about the classic

56:33

sort of theory of Dracula.

56:36

letters from White Chapel. I love the fact that both

56:38

sides are are sort of they they have

56:41

the thrill that comes with trying

56:43

to stay hidden. I also

56:46

like the asymmetry in the game when it comes

56:48

to that because the spies have to make trade

56:50

offs. Right? Because they wanna stay hidden,

56:52

but there are opportune times where they

56:54

have to hacked these things and the villas are gonna know exactly where they are. Meanwhile, the

56:56

villas are trying to maneuver around the map so

56:58

the spies never feel safe no matter

57:00

where they are. And that's sort of

57:04

it's cliche phrase, but a delicious tension associated with

57:06

that hidden movement game, normally, over only

57:08

one person can experience, but everybody experiences

57:11

in the stands. And further,

57:14

you're sharing that with a partner. And not only that done,

57:16

I

57:16

think another thing that's that's important to

57:18

note in that delicious tension. tension

57:21

right Right? the

57:22

sheer size of this game being a four by four

57:24

grid. Now, those of you out

57:26

there listen to this, if you visualize

57:28

that a four by four grid and

57:32

there are four players in that four by four grid

57:34

just trying to find each other. That does not

57:36

sound cool at all. Like, that

57:38

sounds absolutely

57:40

horrible. when you just say it, but when you're playing it's perfect.

57:42

It's perfectly sized. Tim Fours did

57:44

an amazing job here because the tension

57:46

is high all the time. Because

57:50

You're you're usually finding someone. You're usually

57:52

stumbling across each other. There's a lot

57:54

of opportunity for failure too. It's like

57:57

a very balance, the size of board here.

57:59

You're in

57:59

the action immediately, which is

58:02

something that

58:02

many hidden movement games do not have.

58:05

In this one, you're right there. You're in it. You're in the thick

58:07

of it immediately, and that's great. And it's it's

58:09

not just more than a four by four, once you have

58:11

those walls there, which are further restricting

58:14

movement somewhat. I find that puts you in interesting situations where it's like, oh, I could

58:16

do this, but I'm gonna reveal right where I'm at,

58:18

and I have no way of getting out of

58:20

there efficiently. the the

58:22

game, the spies are trying to invest in

58:24

tactics that give them more maneuverability.

58:26

Meanwhile, the villans are investing in weapons,

58:29

that sort of destroy big parts of the board at one

58:31

time. And, you know, it's it's kinda cool how both

58:33

sides escalate to the game. No. I

58:35

didn't

58:36

really read the rulebook

58:38

or set the game up.

58:40

Jamie did that. So I

58:42

don't know. Are there, like, scenarios that

58:44

set up where the walls are, Jamie, or do you

58:46

just pick where they are? That is the basic

58:48

intro setup that we played, Steve.

58:50

There are ways to sort

58:52

of randomize the setup and change it

58:54

up. Yeah. You can can be different.

58:56

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's very good. And I

58:58

I'm assuming you put the generators and the --

59:00

Yeah. Yeah. -- the place that's where

59:03

the game tells you, so

59:05

they're, like, optimally positioned. the

59:08

walls are cool, like, you get

59:10

that power, like Don said, where you can destroy them

59:12

with a land shark. That's extremely hard to get a land

59:14

shark out. though. And I think by the time you did, like, your game be

59:16

wrapping up anyway. collaboration

59:18

in this game

59:19

works really well. Each of

59:21

you controlling your individual figure

59:24

and trying to

59:25

coordinate your actions on the board even because

59:27

you have to program those actions.

59:29

And you have you're working

59:31

on your program for the turn. What are we gonna

59:34

roll out during this turn? So the

59:36

collaboration here feels very

59:38

different than games like pandemic or defenders

59:40

of the realm where you're working on things. You

59:42

know, you're taking your actions and things each round you

59:44

gotta go. This is planning out

59:47

your entire turn all at once collaborating with

59:49

another player similar to mix versus minions like we

59:52

talked about earlier. And not only that,

59:54

you're sitting across from the

59:56

other team. So

59:58

you're just saying things. You know, out in the open.

1:00:00

So you have to

1:00:01

be kinda clever about it. Like, for example, at one

1:00:03

point, I kept saying I'd

1:00:05

look at Pete and I'd say, I'm gonna spend this. And

1:00:08

I was meaning that I was gonna spend the

1:00:10

green cube to move a space. And I'd pick it

1:00:12

up and I'd look at Pete and I'd say, I think I'm gonna spend

1:00:14

this and Pete be like, alright, And I'm like, okay. And

1:00:16

I put it down and I wouldn't spend it. I wouldn't

1:00:18

spend it or remove. And then Steve at one

1:00:20

point goes, like, he just spent one of those cubes. I

1:00:22

was like, yes, he fell for

1:00:24

the trap. This

1:00:26

is saying that over and

1:00:28

over. Interesting. You

1:00:28

preempt those cubes. Yeah. I

1:00:31

don't know. In other hit movement

1:00:33

games, like, we'll say, the

1:00:35

one comes to mind 262 White Chapel. You have

1:00:37

those cards you could play where you hop in a coach

1:00:39

or you like dip through an alleyway

1:00:42

or whatever. So this is kinda like that with those cubes that

1:00:44

you kinda know where the

1:00:46

people are if you're paying attention, but at the

1:00:48

same time

1:00:50

not. because they could've used low green cubes or, like,

1:00:52

we we said you roll the dice and

1:00:54

you see what everybody's numbers

1:00:56

are. You have another colored

1:01:00

cube when near the I forget which side

1:01:01

of it. Anyway, you have another colored cube that you

1:01:03

can change a die roll. Dry one. So

1:01:05

you have a rough idea of where

1:01:07

everybody is, but really

1:01:09

hard. Yeah. I'm curious to find out what you think about this

1:01:12

done because Steve and I both, coming

1:01:14

out of the games that we played,

1:01:16

we're disappointed by the

1:01:18

green cube. I felt and

1:01:20

Steve felt that it kinda spoiled

1:01:22

the fun of deduction in the

1:01:24

game.

1:01:24

Because people would Like, if you'd

1:01:27

build up a couple of them, you

1:01:28

know, in key moments. All of a sudden, the other players

1:01:30

would disappear and it wasn't fun. Like,

1:01:32

it was like, you feel like you just got to the point

1:01:34

where the game was gonna get great.

1:01:36

and they disappear into thin air. That didn't feel fun to

1:01:38

me. How did how did you think about that? So, actually, I

1:01:40

think the more I've played this game, I've played it

1:01:43

a couple times at this point. I

1:01:45

think those green green cubes are sort of like a

1:01:47

resource you can track a bit. So the idea is

1:01:49

that if I take a shot where you're supposed to

1:01:51

be and you're not there, that means,

1:01:53

they used a green cube. Yeah. And so if I can sort

1:01:56

of track how many of those green cubes you've

1:01:58

used, it takes away your

1:01:59

future mobility. So that's

1:02:02

something we can factor into as the villains are

1:02:04

future decision making. So I think it's one

1:02:06

of those things where it it does sort of

1:02:08

it it's not satisfying in the moment. but

1:02:10

it's a little satisfying the more I play by that force I'm

1:02:12

gonna use a green cube. So they're using up

1:02:14

that resource which is gonna make it easier

1:02:17

for me later to hit them. I

1:02:19

also like the fact that everybody has the same four dice. And

1:02:21

so you know not only what options are available to

1:02:23

you and your teammate, you know what options

1:02:26

are available to the other team. And

1:02:28

further, you know they have to have

1:02:30

pairs or sums or something like that. And so

1:02:32

given what you have, it's like, okay, they can't make

1:02:34

that combination for this big power

1:02:36

they have, unless they

1:02:38

spend some of those yellow cubes to change

1:02:40

those dice. Mhmm. And that's another resource.

1:02:42

You kinda force them if they're gonna do

1:02:44

big things. to could look down and say, okay. They're gonna have to spin those

1:02:46

cubes you can track that a bit as

1:02:48

well. I think there's layers that can be

1:02:50

revealed throughout this game. If I

1:02:52

had 262 credit

1:02:54

if I have two minor criticisms of the game. One criticism

1:02:56

is associated to what you said, which is

1:02:58

the deduction space gets smaller

1:03:00

throughout the course of the ring.

1:03:02

game, and the randomness space gets a little larger throughout the course of the game.

1:03:04

So it gets more random as the game goes. The other

1:03:06

big thing I have is since these

1:03:10

the villains go first every turn. If they can hit one of the spies,

1:03:12

it completely nerfs that spies turn,

1:03:14

and the spy then doesn't get

1:03:18

a turn. which is sort of yuck in the yum a little bit. Right? You're

1:03:20

taking a little bit of gameplay away

1:03:22

from the spies. And I wonder if there wasn't a

1:03:24

a little bit better way that that could

1:03:26

be done. But those are two minor

1:03:28

criticisms for what I otherwise think is a really

1:03:30

good game.

1:03:30

My only other criticism

1:03:32

is that the powers

1:03:34

take too long to unlock. And it

1:03:37

seems like by the time that you've unlocked them, the game's almost there.

1:03:39

We can't really use them too much. I

1:03:41

very much agree with that, Steve.

1:03:42

That's something that we talked about. I

1:03:45

think they take just far too long to get

1:03:47

those abilities. Because the fun part of this game is

1:03:49

programming those actions and being able to

1:03:51

evolve those actions or get better

1:03:53

ones over time, is

1:03:55

part flavor of this game. And I never feel like

1:03:58

we get to the third level

1:04:00

enough to actually use them to their

1:04:02

completion, you know, to actually experience

1:04:04

using them. but I talked to

1:04:06

Tim Fowler's and Tim has

1:04:08

designed what he calls a

1:04:10

streamlined convention style of playing this

1:04:12

game that gets you to those powers a

1:04:14

little faster. and he says that people actually like playing it that way better.

1:04:16

There's, you know, like a split in the community where

1:04:18

some people like it to play it the original way, some

1:04:20

people like to play the streamlined

1:04:22

way. So

1:04:24

that one complaint that we have might be fixed by these

1:04:26

convention rules. So let's jump into

1:04:28

replayability here. And my thoughts are

1:04:32

that This game is very, very cool. I like it,

1:04:34

tons and tons and tons, but I don't

1:04:36

think that there's a ton of discovery here.

1:04:39

Now granted, there are a number of different characters, and

1:04:41

each one of those characters has a different set

1:04:43

of abilities that you can unlock and multiples

1:04:46

of them. So

1:04:47

you can explore the way they play,

1:04:49

but I don't really think that that changes the

1:04:51

core experience of the game

1:04:54

drastically. So so the

1:04:56

replayability here is simply that it is

1:04:58

a fun game. I I feel like it's gonna be one

1:05:00

of those games where I may not get it out

1:05:02

frequently, but I do get

1:05:04

it out consistently. Like, maybe once or twice a year kind

1:05:06

of thing. Yeah. And

1:05:08

when you're buying

1:05:08

games and stuff, you have

1:05:09

to consider your other options too that you

1:05:11

could be playing.

1:05:14

And this game's fun, but I enjoyed playing it. But also enjoy

1:05:16

sniper elite, for example. So

1:05:18

as far as replayability, I

1:05:22

think that at some point, maybe not too

1:05:24

long after you start playing it. You'd be like, okay.

1:05:26

I feel like I've seen it all here.

1:05:29

I wanna get the same feeling from another title instead of

1:05:32

just replaying that. I think the

1:05:34

replayability is okay in this game. I say that because as

1:05:36

you said Jamie, four characters, only

1:05:38

two of which on each sides you'll play with each game.

1:05:40

And further, the level two and level three

1:05:42

tiles, you can only get one of each of those. So it's like

1:05:44

for each of those characters, you sort

1:05:46

of have four combinations, you can go down level two and level three powers

1:05:48

if you, you know, all the way down that

1:05:50

track. I'm I'm with you though that

1:05:52

maybe more replayability will unlock with

1:05:54

some of the the the the to

1:05:56

set up randomized boards and things

1:05:58

like that. It's not a strong

1:05:59

suit of the game, but I don't think it's too

1:06:02

weak personally. Alrighty,

1:06:03

gang. Why don't you say we give some

1:06:05

final thoughts here on sabotage?

1:06:08

Steve, why don't you start us off? Yeah.

1:06:10

I'm a big fan of this genre of game. And I love this one

1:06:12

too. It's it's a lot of fun. Like I said,

1:06:14

the action programming's a lot

1:06:16

of fun. The hit

1:06:18

movements fun. you know, as far as

1:06:20

the deduction game, I felt

1:06:22

like I was crossing my fingers a lot

1:06:24

more than I do in other games. That's why I said it

1:06:26

felt like I was guessing more than deducing even though I have a rough

1:06:28

idea. But that was still

1:06:30

fun at a good experience with it.

1:06:32

That said, I

1:06:34

don't know if it's just me, but I prefer being

1:06:36

the spies versus being the villains. It

1:06:38

seemed like I don't know. I

1:06:40

just had more fun on

1:06:43

that side of the board helps that eye one on that side board.

1:06:45

But, you know, winning and losing a

1:06:47

side, being the the

1:06:50

the bad guys and trying to guard your lasers as kinda stressful

1:06:52

whereas being the spies are just sneaking

1:06:54

around and being a nuisance does a lot of

1:06:56

fun. All in all though, I think it's

1:06:59

a solid game. Hi,

1:07:00

Don. What do you think? Final thoughts for sabotage.

1:07:02

Yeah. I like to twist this puts on hidden move.

1:07:04

It usually hidden movements one versus meaning. This

1:07:06

is two versus two. that wrinkle associated

1:07:08

with kind of the cutie aspect of the components and

1:07:11

the variety of powers makes it a winner in

1:07:13

my book. I like this game a lot. It's a

1:07:15

high recommend for me. I

1:07:17

agree, Don. I think this is a fantastic game. I

1:07:19

think Tim Fours did a

1:07:21

absolutely

1:07:22

stellar job of making a

1:07:24

small hidden movement game

1:07:26

that doesn't feel small. The production's

1:07:28

big. It's got great miniatures and,

1:07:30

you know, this giant box with the

1:07:33

divider and everything But the game itself is small. Four

1:07:35

by four grid with four hidden

1:07:38

characters on at trying to find each other.

1:07:40

But it feels big

1:07:42

even though. It just gets that

1:07:44

tension going. It's get the action going.

1:07:46

You got your laser guns shooting off

1:07:48

your giant sharks going down the way.

1:07:50

You're blowing up walls. You're ziplining in and

1:07:52

stuff like that. It's a

1:07:54

really good game with really good

1:07:56

strategy. And despite it being very

1:07:58

abstract, pulls that theme right

1:07:59

out of you. because of the

1:08:02

artwork. Tim Fowler's is

1:08:03

a

1:08:04

fantastic design. He does

1:08:08

really great things that people should pay him closer attention to this guy

1:08:10

because he does some good,

1:08:12

good, good stuff. Now I do wanna say

1:08:14

this

1:08:14

that this is not

1:08:16

a new game. This is a few years

1:08:18

old. And I talked to Tim Fowler's, and it is currently out of print. But

1:08:21

he has copies on his website

1:08:23

that you can buy. It's says

1:08:26

out of print, but you can add it to your cart and check

1:08:28

out because he's got some in stock. So if

1:08:30

you like what you heard here, jump over

1:08:33

to his website and don't hesitate because I bet he's

1:08:35

gonna sell out real quick. He did say he's

1:08:37

going to do a new printing coming up

1:08:39

soon, so hopefully that'll come

1:08:41

out very very soon. So that is our

1:08:43

review of Tim Fowler's

1:08:47

sabotage. Spot

1:08:48

spock sabotage and sister

1:08:49

sabotaging system. Okay. Do

1:08:50

you have line one ninety three again?

1:08:53

Is that a set of

1:08:55

static static pause?

1:08:56

I don't say zone attack. You

1:08:58

say something. Let's say

1:08:59

something. Please don't

1:09:01

tell me how

1:09:03

to do it. It's

1:09:05

sick

1:09:06

of men. Hey, now, Kabbalist, Jamie here

1:09:08

for the founders update.

1:09:09

And I don't have a whole

1:09:12

ton I wanna talk about today, but

1:09:14

I do wanna mention give you an update on the

1:09:16

evolution of our review, so

1:09:18

to speak. I think the

1:09:21

way we did it today, and in the previous

1:09:23

episode is how we're going to stick with it.

1:09:26

That would be that we do

1:09:28

the we

1:09:31

present the game Then

1:09:32

we do theme overview, then we talk about the

1:09:34

theme and review the theme, then we do gameplay overview, and

1:09:37

then talk about

1:09:40

the gameplay. I really feel that's a

1:09:42

solid review format, and I think we're gonna keep it that way. And of course, I wanna try to keep

1:09:44

them shorter. I don't want

1:09:46

them to go on forty minutes.

1:09:50

ever. Right? Fifteen minutes

1:09:52

is a really good time. Sometimes it's gonna

1:09:54

have to go to twenty minutes if it's

1:09:56

like a bigger game, maybe even a little more

1:09:58

sometimes. Depends on the game, but I try to

1:10:00

keep it as close to fifty minutes as possible. Now,

1:10:02

the the the thing that's bothering me about that is and

1:10:04

I'm sure you've noticed, the shows

1:10:07

have gotten a little short because

1:10:09

of this new format. Right? You know, they used to be three hours,

1:10:11

some of them, like, three hours and

1:10:13

fifteen

1:10:16

minutes depending. Now they're down around two hours and

1:10:18

forty five minutes. Now depending on the type of listener you are,

1:10:20

that's a good thing

1:10:23

or a bad thing. I've heard a

1:10:25

lot of times over the years, your podcast is too long.

1:10:27

I've heard that a lot. And some people like it that

1:10:29

way, some people don't like it that way.

1:10:31

Personally, the reason that I like

1:10:34

to do a three hour show is because that's

1:10:36

the kind of show I like to listen to. I

1:10:38

like long form. I like to be able to sit

1:10:40

at my desk when I'm in an office and just

1:10:42

Almost all day long have a podcast to listen to.

1:10:44

I'm a talk radio listener. That's why I've

1:10:46

always done a long form show. Search

1:10:49

shows gotten a little bit shorter. So what are

1:10:51

we gonna do about that? Are we gonna add to

1:10:53

this show? Or are we gonna add somewhere

1:10:55

else? I'm not quite sure

1:10:57

yet. I talked a little bit about how I

1:10:59

had an idea for something we could add to the news

1:11:01

segment, where the rest of us can contribute a little bit to

1:11:04

the news you

1:11:06

know, and add to the news segment. That would add maybe ten fifteen minutes to the show. I was thinking just

1:11:08

today, maybe instead of adding

1:11:10

to this show, I could add

1:11:12

to 262 Secret

1:11:15

Football Express

1:11:15

podcast. I'll make that a longer form show.

1:11:18

That's an hour long now. It could be

1:11:21

an hour and a half show. And

1:11:23

doesn't really make it an express episode at that point. But when

1:11:25

you're talking about two hours and forty five

1:11:27

minutes, I guess an hour

1:11:29

and a half is an express version, isn't it?

1:11:31

But the whole point of what I'm trying to say here is that we're trying to make the

1:11:34

show better. We're experimenting with things, revolving,

1:11:36

things, we're

1:11:38

trying to make it better, and the goal is to have the entire

1:11:40

lineup of shows back

1:11:42

in full force in January.

1:11:46

And of course, make sure you keep your eyes

1:11:48

open for our fundraiser coming up in twenty

1:11:50

twenty three. It's gonna be in the first

1:11:52

quarter. Likely, it's gonna be in March. and

1:11:54

it's gonna be a very important one because we didn't

1:11:57

fundraise at all in twenty twenty

1:11:59

two. So this

1:11:59

one's very important for us to be able

1:12:02

to keep the lights on here at the

1:12:04

Secret Club. gaming podcast. And speaking of

1:12:06

keeping the

1:12:06

lights on, let's hear a word for our absolutely fantastic sponsor

1:12:08

restoration games and then onto

1:12:10

the news with Tony 262. Hey,

1:12:15

baby,

1:12:16

this is Wolfman,

1:12:19

Steve, and you

1:12:22

know you spooks, ghoulies, him big feet

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out there getting down with a banff.

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Most of a rock and then

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a rolling gaming podcast

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of the mall. the secret cabal

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Amen. What'd you

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there's no doubt apple

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bit more gloomy gaming podcast, check

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out base tower network dot

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com. Oh, yeah.

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Oh,

1:13:04

yeah. Cobaltz, you know, it's time for

1:13:06

us

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to talk about our absolutely wonderful sponsor.

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If you're like me, you got a wall full

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Who needs sleep? Let's play some unmatched.

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It's awesome stuff. Check it out over

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on game found and also check out

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restoration games dot com. And with that, you know

1:14:33

it's time for us to get on

1:14:35

to the greatest segment of this

1:14:38

podcast, and that would be Tony

1:14:40

Topper and

1:14:42

the news. And now,

1:14:45

the news

1:14:48

with your host

1:14:50

and secret cabal founder, Tony Topper.

1:14:59

Greetings,

1:15:00

cabalists. This is Tony

1:15:02

t with the news. So

1:15:04

maybe you don't have enough players

1:15:06

for your next game of diplomacy. Well, if

1:15:08

that's the case, Facebook might have

1:15:10

something to help you out sometime soon. Uh-oh.

1:15:15

They've created they've created Cicero, which is

1:15:17

a AI bot that

1:15:19

they claim

1:15:20

has achieved

1:15:23

human level performance in the board game

1:15:25

diplomacy. God, I think it's gonna be toxic. It's gonna be

1:15:27

trash talking about the related news.

1:15:29

As if there

1:15:32

weren't enough humans for me to hate after I've

1:15:34

played diplomacy. Now I got to robots. I can hate jeez. For once they're doing something

1:15:36

to save friendships, now you

1:15:38

262 just take the AI bot.

1:15:41

You humans are trash. Diplomacy's always been described as you wanna

1:15:43

play that with people you love so much. You

1:15:46

could never dislike them.

1:15:49

and people that you will never see again in

1:15:51

your life. That's the kind of people you would've played in Florida. Well, that's hilarious, because the

1:15:55

the the last time I played diplomacy was

1:15:57

many years ago. Actually, at this point, it's probably, like, five, six years ago. And it was with Rodney. Rodney

1:15:59

was in the game with

1:16:02

me. And we were allies because

1:16:06

you know, we were we were near each other on

1:16:08

the board, and we talk a lot anyway, so

1:16:10

it made sense so we just became allies. For

1:16:12

most of that game, we were rocking and rolling.

1:16:14

But then it got to a point where the

1:16:17

cooperation was starting to wear a little thin because it

1:16:19

didn't work out great for both of us

1:16:21

to do what we both

1:16:23

mutually beneficial. Right? And

1:16:26

man, we were pissed off at each other

1:16:28

for days. Like, we were hulking for days

1:16:30

because we were pissed off each other. And,

1:16:32

like, that's never happened to me with Rodney

1:16:34

before, but game made it happen. Now we became friends again, but still

1:16:36

there were three days there where we

1:16:38

were not friends because of diplomacy. that

1:16:42

gave me piss off a Canadian. I mean, I

1:16:44

won't. I can't play that. But

1:16:46

the big story here is is

1:16:49

Cicero the AI from meta,

1:16:51

meta is what Facebook, Facebook calls itself now. Cicero, if

1:16:54

you watch this video

1:16:57

they're very convincing that this AI can

1:16:59

interact with you in a way that's

1:17:03

very human like Make decisions

1:17:05

about the game of diplomacy. Make alliances with humans. And humans are like,

1:17:08

alright. AI, I

1:17:10

will be your teammate. I

1:17:14

imagine it lies to you. You know, I mean, like, this is kind of some scary shit here. Right?

1:17:17

Well, there's

1:17:20

a buy there I think

1:17:22

that most people would have in that, like, I wouldn't feel bad about

1:17:28

screwing over the AI bot in a

1:17:30

game of diplomacy. I would feel less reluctant to lie to it

1:17:33

262 less

1:17:35

reluctant to, like, backstab it. Yeah. Do any sort

1:17:37

of, like, shady dealings. My

1:17:39

thought is is

1:17:42

the AI vindictive, moreengeful at all.

1:17:44

Because that would be more interesting if, like,

1:17:46

if you stab me about does

1:17:49

it have any sort of response

1:17:51

emotional, or is it like, cold

1:17:53

and calculated. Tony, it has to have that because that's part of diplomacy.

1:17:55

That's the whole point of diplomacy. Is

1:17:57

that you have

1:18:00

to be honest enough and

1:18:02

trustworthy enough, but not completely. And if the computer on a Kirby

1:18:04

trail has hurt me

1:18:06

deeply. Well, it's just mimic

1:18:10

Right? Like, a lot of these bots are trained

1:18:12

on human interactions. Yeah. So

1:18:14

they they're mimicking the

1:18:17

patterns of human

1:18:20

interaction. Sure. Whether it's real or not does

1:18:22

that matter? It's still the same outcome. I'm wondering though has it been, like,

1:18:24

how

1:18:26

is the how has the training been done versus, like, the

1:18:29

communication aspect of these AI models?

1:18:31

Right? Like, being able to

1:18:33

verbalize or, in this case, write a text

1:18:35

message that is doing the negotiation versus, like,

1:18:38

what is the strategy of

1:18:42

the game And how do those two things come together? Like, the

1:18:45

the communication and the mechanics, I

1:18:47

guess, are the two

1:18:49

things I'm sort of hinting at there.

1:18:51

Well, the fact that it is human level performance. Now that

1:18:54

doesn't mean that it is

1:18:56

good human level performance because you can be

1:18:58

good at deployments and you can be bad

1:19:00

at it. So

1:19:02

I'm not sure how what quality

1:19:04

of the gameplay is here. But human level performance does

1:19:06

imply to me that there would be, like, emotional responses

1:19:11

based on your actions towards it. And like I said

1:19:13

before, does it actually matter if it's

1:19:16

human real, human emotions

1:19:18

because computers can emulate that

1:19:20

stuff? or at least in science fiction.

1:19:22

Could I may emulate that stuff? There was that movie with Joaquin Phoenix, her where he fell in

1:19:24

love with his computer.

1:19:27

Has Karl Johance's voice? She's

1:19:30

joking around with him. She's talking him just

1:19:32

like a regular person. You know his computer

1:19:34

though. He fell in love with it.

1:19:37

And movie's actually incredible. Those emotions seem

1:19:39

real to 262, so did it make

1:19:41

any difference that they weren't actually human?

1:19:43

They do mention in the article here

1:19:45

now that I'm looking at it again,

1:19:48

that it doesn't they claim it

1:19:50

doesn't. It have that sort of vinn

1:19:53

revenge build into it. Really? which is

1:19:55

kind of interesting because I'd I'd almost think, like, how did

1:19:57

they they must have trained it

1:19:59

to

1:19:59

communicate communicate

1:20:01

not using the game

1:20:03

diplomacy. general language model and then applied

1:20:06

the rules of diplomacy

1:20:08

to some

1:20:10

other model. if it was trained

1:20:11

on, like, interactions specifically around diplomacy

1:20:14

or, like, any sort

1:20:16

of gaming

1:20:18

communication within a

1:20:20

game I

1:20:21

would think that it would have picked up on

1:20:23

that, but you could de bias these these models too. Like, there

1:20:25

are different techniques for

1:20:28

doing that. I don't

1:20:30

it would be curious if someone wrote up paper

1:20:32

about this. And maybe maybe they have maybe there's a paper out there about

1:20:34

Cicero and how they built the models and how they trained it.

1:20:36

built the models and highly trained

1:20:39

But it

1:20:39

is AI, so we don't really completely understand in that regard. So

1:20:41

maybe it's it doesn't it's not

1:20:43

vindictive in the game,

1:20:45

but, you know, you backstabbing this game and diplomacy

1:20:47

it. know, back in time, and kill

1:20:49

kill your mom. That's something you're

1:20:52

doing. So that's

1:20:54

the funny thing. Like, Joel Eddie, was had

1:20:56

he had good insight on this. He says,

1:20:58

like, I'm not sure I approve of us

1:21:00

teaching computers how

1:21:03

to trick us. Very good point. We

1:21:06

don't wanna be tricked by

1:21:11

our computers. Well, if you ever listened to what's the one what's the freaking

1:21:13

Google one called? GPT three or

1:21:15

GPT two is like

1:21:18

one of their advanced language

1:21:20

models. And you you can sit there and, like,

1:21:22

people have interviewed it and asked questions of it, and it's

1:21:27

in there. the deception in there, in their

1:21:29

in their concept, their

1:21:31

language concepts, at

1:21:35

least. So I mean, this cannot

1:21:35

end well. That's bottom line. Tinder cap catfish

1:21:37

me. We're all gonna be we'll

1:21:40

probably bow

1:21:42

it to the machine soon. Facebook is essentially just like dooming

1:21:44

us all with this -- Right. -- this.

1:21:46

Goofin' around here trying to make them play

1:21:48

games and stuff. And eventually,

1:21:50

they're just going to, like, figure out

1:21:52

how to press the button. Back to

1:21:54

Zuckerberg. Yeah. Hamedo was in the news for AI

1:21:55

recently. This is not kinda board game

1:21:57

related, but it is very

1:22:00

interesting. They Galactica is another

1:22:02

one of their AIs. In Galactica, they trained on scientific papers around

1:22:07

COVID-nineteen. Right? So And there's like

1:22:09

a hundred thousand, I think was the number that they quoted papers. Like, there's scientific

1:22:12

papers that have been

1:22:14

published with COVID-nineteen as a

1:22:16

subject. when

1:22:18

you think about, like, understanding

1:22:20

the scientific consensus is

1:22:22

very hard when you

1:22:24

have ten thousand scientific

1:22:26

papers. But an AI can scan ten thousand papers and

1:22:29

start to make conclusions much quicker

1:22:31

than a human

1:22:33

could. It's okay, human. You do not need to get the

1:22:35

booster shot. You do not need to

1:22:38

wear a mask. I mean, it

1:22:40

could be better than, like, some of

1:22:42

our government bureaus. You wanna be just

1:22:45

fine and won't die.

1:22:47

Don't pick your friend's

1:22:49

noses. It

1:22:51

will be fine. Anyway,

1:22:56

well, they've created AI. I guess the

1:22:58

bottom line messages hope you like being

1:23:01

harvested because it's coming. That's a

1:23:03

common. It's it's gonna happen. And and there'll be some

1:23:06

good and some bad, I guess. We've

1:23:08

got a

1:23:10

bank doing something good. the book industry

1:23:13

charitable foundation. They're offering

1:23:16

mental health support for retailers.

1:23:18

Get on that, Steve. So books

1:23:21

Well, I

1:23:22

mean, they're maybe they're not the biggest organization around, but so,

1:23:27

like, comic

1:23:28

book Right? A

1:23:30

lot of times these stores that sell

1:23:32

comic books are also selling the games that we love.

1:23:34

So maybe if you're one of those hybrid shops,

1:23:38

where you're doing the comics and games.

1:23:40

You can check this out.

1:23:42

They're giving away free therapy sessions.

1:23:45

Well, I can imagine that being a small

1:23:47

business owner you know, twenty twenty

1:23:50

and

1:23:50

everything that went on there

1:23:54

and beyond that that could be very difficult for

1:23:56

a lot of people to handle. You're not

1:23:58

everybody was super successful

1:23:59

during that period. So

1:24:02

so this is kinda cool. They're helping people that that need it. No. It

1:24:03

should open up a comfy store.

1:24:06

they should open to become good start

1:24:08

So Euro News I wasn't familiar with Euro News,

1:24:10

but apparently

1:24:11

they're a big TV station in Europe. Tens

1:24:15

of millions of

1:24:17

viewers,

1:24:17

up on their website, they did a they did a piece on

1:24:19

Reiner Kannitsia

1:24:24

recently. Yeah. the man

1:24:26

who's designed over seven hundred board games, seven hundred -- Oh my goodness. -- can you imagine

1:24:28

that's like how

1:24:31

many a year

1:24:32

would that have to

1:24:34

be? Like, when did he start designing games? And

1:24:36

how old is he now? And, oh my goodness. That

1:24:38

must that's several games a year. I

1:24:40

mean, what season? You think he's,

1:24:42

like, seventy years old, roughly? That'd be my guess. But I've

1:24:45

never seen -- Excuse me.

1:24:46

-- mister Kenizia before, but I

1:24:50

was today years old and I realized he looks like

1:24:53

Wayne Newton. Well, here that says

1:24:54

twenty five year career. So in twenty

1:24:57

five years, he's designed seven hundred

1:25:00

board games. Wow. I gotta tell you though, I

1:25:02

I talked about him a little bit earlier when

1:25:04

we talked about San Francisco, his new

1:25:06

gay newest game. This man is amazing. This man

1:25:08

has designed seven hundred board

1:25:09

games, and I'm sure not every single one of

1:25:11

them is great. To

1:25:14

this day, His newest game that just came out twenty five

1:25:16

years later, seven hundred board games

1:25:18

later, it's great. It's a great

1:25:21

game, very fun, great,

1:25:23

you know, concept original in

1:25:25

a lot of ways. So this guy

1:25:27

is just prolific. And, you know, I'm I I

1:25:29

I'm thankful for him. We talk about

1:25:31

what we're thankful before

1:25:34

in the last episode, I'm thankful for Reiner Kinesia. Some

1:25:36

of my favorite

1:25:37

games this guy made. Twenty eight

1:25:39

games

1:25:39

a year. Twenty eight games

1:25:41

a year. Twenty two weeks. over

1:25:43

one, over two weeks. Yeah. That's crazy.

1:25:44

That's just a quick

1:25:46

math obviously of dividing seven

1:25:48

hundred by twenty five, but

1:25:51

That's crazy. Yeah. Like,

1:25:53

How do you do that? Now, kind of

1:25:55

imagine that, you know, like, if you look at some of the Uber Erosenberg's

1:25:59

an

1:25:59

example. Right? ouvet Rosenberg, when you look at

1:26:02

some of his games from a certain period, they were

1:26:03

those sort of Tetris style

1:26:08

games.

1:26:08

There was the Indian summer and, you

1:26:10

know, there was one a whole series

1:26:13

of those that were very similar.

1:26:15

I that was same way.

1:26:16

Right? He made a bunch of games that

1:26:18

were similar and kinda had variations on those

1:26:20

themes. I know that Ryanair Kineshi

1:26:22

also did a lot of app games.

1:26:25

app related games. He's a mathematician runner Kinesia. So he

1:26:27

probably created a lot of of math

1:26:30

puzzles in a sense.

1:26:33

and allowed other plate people to form them into an app or

1:26:35

into a game. Yeah. It doesn't mean a lot of

1:26:38

different variations. In other word, this

1:26:40

is Reiner

1:26:43

Kenizia is like a he's focused

1:26:44

on a very just

1:26:47

a sliver of the overall

1:26:49

production of a game. Correct.

1:26:51

Yeah. He's just just the, like, what

1:26:53

is the mechanic of this game? And then someone else has taken

1:26:56

care of everything else

1:26:58

-- Right. -- sort of

1:27:00

makes it a final product. Well, like I said, he's

1:27:02

prolific and I love him

1:27:03

and we should be thankful that

1:27:07

we have him. He's

1:27:08

got some great stuff out

1:27:09

there. Check out San Francisco. I watched the video here on the

1:27:11

this year end news page. And

1:27:15

throughout it, it's got San Francisco, like, coming on down the

1:27:17

first line. He's playing it with people at conventions

1:27:19

and stuff. So this

1:27:21

came out around the same time as

1:27:23

that game. talked

1:27:24

about how Eldon Ring, the

1:27:26

Eldon Ring board game

1:27:28

had

1:27:28

been

1:27:30

announced Yeah. And it's up on Kickstarter now, and it's it

1:27:33

is raking in the

1:27:34

the dough. No worries. lock

1:27:37

into it locking to

1:27:38

it. Wow. eight

1:27:39

thousand backers and two point four million dollars.

1:27:42

I mean, this is a super

1:27:44

popular. This is a

1:27:46

AAA video game that was peak

1:27:48

popularity. It looks good to

1:27:49

these miniatures.

1:27:50

I mean, you can see why people

1:27:53

are excited

1:27:55

about it. I

1:27:56

do not see Dawn as a backer though.

1:27:58

I'm always surprised by that. There's no Dawn as a backer at the top

1:27:59

of my

1:28:03

of my

1:28:03

page for this one. Give them a

1:28:05

minute. Let's give them

1:28:06

a minute. Refresh. Click

1:28:09

them on it right now. So yeah.

1:28:12

think it's because Steve Forged Games. I mean,

1:28:14

I think they did if I remember

1:28:16

correctly, Bard song, and I haven't been

1:28:18

able to get that to the table 262,

1:28:21

There's been a couple other games I was looking

1:28:23

through what

1:28:23

they had produced. I'm like, yeah,

1:28:25

I just don't get these played. And so as

1:28:27

good as this look, and the

1:28:29

minis look great. The theming is great. I just don't think I would

1:28:31

play it. And so I'm not gonna back it.

1:28:33

For me, it's

1:28:36

yet again. a game

1:28:38

of the same

1:28:39

ilk. I mean, there's a hundred of

1:28:41

these games that I have and could

1:28:43

have. Great beautiful miniatures

1:28:46

beautiful graphic design and artwork,

1:28:48

marching around aboard, fighting other miniatures, and going

1:28:50

through a story. I mean, that's there's

1:28:52

just a lot

1:28:53

of those out there at this point.

1:28:55

And I'm telling you, like, I'm in the minority because this game's

1:28:57

two point five million dollars at

1:28:59

this point over eight thousand backers

1:29:01

with only six days to go,

1:29:03

this is crazy. People are

1:29:05

way into this stuff. Here's the junkiness of this particular project. So there's

1:29:08

there's there's

1:29:12

a

1:29:12

couple pledge levels. There's the

1:29:14

entry pledge, which is ninety one bucks. And then there is the all in

1:29:16

pledge. then there's the all

1:29:18

in pledge And these

1:29:19

names are kind of where they call entry pledge, but they call another one in

1:29:21

the core pledge. Yeah. And that is a hundred

1:29:24

and eighty

1:29:26

four dollars. The thing

1:29:27

that that is crazy of of these three levels, the

1:29:29

most expensive, the all in pledge,

1:29:31

is the most popular,

1:29:34

by far, by far.

1:29:36

And

1:29:37

It's four hundred and forty one

1:29:38

dollars. It's crazy. Oh my

1:29:43

god. I mean, i mean That

1:29:46

serious business right there. Yeah. It

1:29:49

is. That's got forty

1:29:51

five hundred backers. Wow. The

1:29:53

core pledge level doesn't even have two thousand backers. It doesn't

1:29:55

even have half the number of backers as this all in

1:29:57

pledge, which is four

1:29:59

hundred and forty

1:29:59

one bucks. So

1:30:03

a lot of I mean,

1:30:04

that's a lot. We're a

1:30:06

Kickstarter, and people are just

1:30:10

eating it up. No. I

1:30:11

think this is primarily like a like a

1:30:14

a must have for people

1:30:15