Episode 8: Exploring Asymmetry + "My Favorite Faction", with Tim Williamson

In this episode, my amazing pal Tim Williamson joins me to talk about our epic learning game of Imperial Elegy, as well as several other lesser-known gems we've been playing. We also discuss the joys of asymmetry in board/card games and our upcoming video series – My Favorite Faction.

• 00:00:00 Introduction
  • 00:01:53 Dual Gauge
  • 00:07:12 Root in NY
• 00:08:33 Fresh Plays
  • 00:09:02 Imperial Elegy
  • 00:34:27 Auf Teufel komm raus 
  • 00:43:08 Wild Serengeti
  • 00:47:30 Embers
  • 00:51:33 Slay the Spire: The Board Game + Too Many Bones
  • 00:54:50 Stupor Mundi
  • 01:01:28 Faust vs Mephisto
  • 01:07:49 King and Peasant
• 01:12:41 Exploring Asymmetry + "My Favorite Faction"
  • 01:12:50 Root, Spirit Island, Terra Mystica/Gaia Project, Prussian Rails, Dual Gauge
  • 01:14:20 COIN games, Oracle of Delphi, Guards of Atlantis II, Dûhr: The Lesser Houses, Cosmic Frog, Argent: Consortium, Too Many Bones
  • 01:18:49 The Loop, Fate of the Fellowship
  • 01:19:57 Vast
  • 01:21:30 The Defence of Procyon III
  • 01:26:35 KeyForge
• 01:31:21 Sign-off

Thanks so much for listening and for your support! 

For more content crafted by Candice, visit kickinitcreative.com

We've got official merch now! Be one of the first to rock the first run of KIC swag!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello and welcome to episode eight of the Kickin' It Creative Podcast, where we geek out about board games, the mechanisms behind them, and the people who create them. I'm your host, Candace Harris, and I am super duper excited to be sitting here in the same room with one of my best friends who is a friend that I met through board games, and I would say also has my same energy level about board games, Tim Williamson, the professor, the improv professor.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Wow, what a tall order.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Hey Tim. Hello. I'm so excited that you're here. And Tim and I play like a ton of games together all the time. And we go down a lot of rabbit holes together, get each other excited about stuff. Even when we're supposed to be like going home and going to sleep, we will be like, oh, let me show you this one more thing. Let me show you. One last thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

One last thing before I go, right? Break out the box.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

Gotta show you what's in there. And we just get so excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yeah. Yeah. And and Tim is very much an omni gamer. But everything from like Lacerda games to like the small button shy wallet games.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Yeah, yeah. Everything from anything from like a small push your luck to a heavy euro, love a good train game, you know, party party games.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

And our our first our first game together. Wait, was it our first game together?

SPEAKER_04 1:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Dual gauge.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

Dual gauge. That was it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

And I haven't played it in so long.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

I know. I've been really wanting to play it again.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah, we should we should circle back to it because I feel like I got all of the maps.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

And haven't played it.

SPEAKER_04 2:07

Yeah. And every train company on each map has its own special power. So it's so fun to break out a new map and see like what are the new rules for this game?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Which train company looks like it's gonna be such a good bet for me to buy a stock from. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

And they're they're all like slightly weird because it's Holland Spiel, I'm a bell Holland.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

But it's got like a little bit of that 18xx feel, but like plays a lot faster. And yeah, now you're making me we really need to like bust this out again.

SPEAKER_04 2:39

Let's do it next week.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

But anyway, what's new in your world?

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Oh my gosh. Well, you mentioned at the at the start, improv.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

I'm very excited. And yeah, yes, and exactly. So I used to do improv theater years and years ago, but just haven't done it in so long. And at the turn of the year, I was just feeling like I wanted something new, something to help like just break me open even further, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

And wait a second, because Tim is like one of the best board game teachers. Like he gets so theatrical, he gets into it. He could take the driest abstract game and and and put put some theme and spice into it.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

So you are a king in medieval Europe, and everyone is trying to steal your lamb. Whatever it is, yeah. I'll bring the enthusiasm for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, that's so cool. I I'm gonna have to come to one of your improv shows at some point.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Oh my gosh, I would love for you to come. Yeah, it's just the the best group of people, and it just helps you listen and it helps you take risks, you know, and so there's ways that it's just fun and everyone loves to laugh, but then there's ways that you can use it outside of class too, you know. So I love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yes, yes, that's so cool. And another good friend of ours in the board game world told me that he's studying Chinese. Like he just decided to start taking, like, signed up for a college course to learn Chinese. Yeah, because I think he works with a lot of people that speak Chinese, and he's like, hey, I want to learn this skill. So it's it's really cool to see people like branching out into like learning new things.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

Yeah, I mean it's my favorite thing to do. I love learning new things, I love learning new games. Yes, yes, I love reading a new rule book, and so anytime you have the chance to put yourself out there, learn something new, grow, develop, that's my favorite thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

And also, uh, Tim is probably, and people can comment wherever, but I don't know if there's anyone else I know that will multi-hand solo everything.

SPEAKER_04 4:49

I I love I love playing a multi-hand solo game. I will play a game that has hidden information, hidden movement, playing all the players myself. I know it makes no sense, but I truly will do it. And I and my favorite thing to do is like play like a five-player game and just station each hand of cards around the table, and I will literally walk around the table. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

I can picture it. Yeah, I can picture it.

SPEAKER_04 5:15

And I always send Candace these photos of these giant games set up with all of these different factions, and I'm like, just a regular old solo game. It's not actually a solo mode, it's just me playing all of the sides myself. Yeah. Yes, yes. The problem is I also have friends.

SPEAKER_03 5:41

It is much more satisfying to play with other people, yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

But it is but that's cool. Like we we that's something else we share in common is that we do enjoy playing games solo and true solo, yeah, auto automa solo, whatever, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:56

All of the different ways. I just think it again, it's like fun to explore.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yes, yes, yes. So Tim and I, for like probably the past year or so have been talking about doing some content together, and this is kind of like a precursor to what we're planning to do. We both love, love, love board games, card games with asymmetric factions.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

And so we have been talking about doing something that we've have a long list of games we are gonna cover, a little video series called My Favorite Faction. And so today we are going to be just talking about what like all the joy we find from asymmetric games with asymmetric factions or asymmetric player powers. And we're also doing a bit of an extended fresh plays because we've actually had time to play some games together recently.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

We've been friends not that long, but for so long, like forever, that I hear Tim telling this story about a board game meetup in New York where he randomly started playing Root.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Back in 2018, I had just moved to New York. I was looking for a game group to play games with, and there was a spot that was doing a weekly game night on Tuesdays, and I showed up and they said every Tuesday we get together and we play this game called Root. I had never heard of it before. I had, you know, been playing, you know, games for quite a long time, but definitely nothing as wildly asymmetric as Root. And so I show up, had never played the game before, hadn't read the rules. I was like, yeah, I'll just roll right into it, right? And I got handed my faction, the birds. To this day, I have a soft spot for them because of this.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Don't spoil any episodes of my favorite faction. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

Okay. Spoiler alert. I just said I had a soft spot for them. Yeah, always a special place in my heart. So I left the game feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm instantly excited to play the next faction. I'm instantly excited to explore what does that one do? Right? I felt like there's so much game in the box.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

You know, and I and I fell in love with this idea of like different powers, different maps. It just gives you so much to discover.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 8:12

Yeah. Because I learned for myself that like the joy of discovery in games is just something I love so much.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, yeah. Well, before we start talking about some of our plans for my favorite faction, I'd love to hear what you've been playing lately, Tim.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

So let's jump into Fresh Play. So our first fresh play is actually a shared fresh play because uh just yesterday we played a very big beastie game called Imperial Elegy. And this is a six-player war game. You can play it with one to six players because it has a bot system that is apparently very intuitive. I haven't tried it yet, but it's designed by Michael Lorino. Came out just, I think, at the end of 2025 from VUCA Simulations, who were kind enough to send me a complimentary copy when I ha heard from my friend Hector and I think Uli from Spielworks how much they loved it. And I love Here I Stand. So I was like, I need to play this game, I need to play this game. And I think I've had it since like February or something, like it might it might be like a month or two, but it's it's a hard game to get six people together for because it is a big beast.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

Yeah, I mean, any any game that requires six players, that's already gonna be tough, right? To get that many players together and then a game that long.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, and then I asked for the time commitment. I'm like, hey, can you guys all give me your whole day to try this? The premise of the game is we are six different powers on the road to World War One.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

And it is a game where everybody like I played as Prussia slash Germany, we had the UK, I played as France, yeah, and then we had uh uh Austria-Hungary, Russia, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. Yeah, and every faction in this game or power has their own special abilities. You have this deck of cards that are your national goals, and periodically throughout the game, you're going to draw three of your goal cards and keep one. So you're kind of setting your scoring criteria as you play the game, but there's a whole thing where the Great War might happen or it might not. And if it happens, alliances matter because you win with your team that you're allied with, and it's just we did not get that far.

SPEAKER_04 11:06

Yeah, we got almost through three rounds.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it it's it was I'll just say it's a very complex game, but I'm so excited now that we've had that like that kind of like bumpy learning game where we're all like looking up rules, we're checking BGG for this and that. It can be a thing that is definitely not for everyone, but to me, it just gets me excited because now, like, as soon as we stopped playing, a bunch of us were just like talking about like, oh, look at this card I had. Oh, I could have done this, oh, we need to figure out this, and like we're excited to play it again and figure those things out because I think I said this like with Fire in the Lake, heavier war games that are like have asymmetric factions, multiplayer, you're not really getting to experience the game when you play it once with all new players.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

Yeah, I I I I fully sort of had the understanding that we'd be going in, we'd sort of be exploring things out. We don't understand maybe like the long-term strategy, you know. Like we sort of try to think like, what do I just want to do in my first couple turns to get the ball rolling? But I I just sort of inevitably thought, like, okay, I'm gonna make some expansion or some battle that I'll look at later and say, oh my god, how foolish was that, you know? And then learn from it, right? And I think getting to know the steps, getting to know the systems, there's a lot of value in that. Like the first battle.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Oh my gosh. Yeah, I yeah. So me as the uh German slash Prussian player, I play first every round, and I was going with like my strategy to unify Germany, and so I'm taking the very first turn of the game, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna start attacking some areas to try to unify attacking to unify Germany, because I needed to kind of get what, like, 10 different spaces all on my side to basically say Germany is unified, and then all this other stuff happens, which I did not get to.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

Yeah. You know, and seeing like the battle steps, and you have to declare your region, you have to think about what armies you're bringing in, and then it's actually a very cool battle system. So, like each player gets to use a card, and the action points on that card set your war budget. Yeah, and then you actually go back and forth spending one point of your war budget at a time.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

So there's this back and forth, which is quite tactical, right? It really simulates this very like, you know, battlefield strategic picture, right? But that takes time, you know, to look through all your options. How can I spend my points? How many points do I have?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Do I want to bring in, do I want to deploy a reserve army? Yeah, do I want to move some units? Or do I want to just start a land battle?

SPEAKER_04 14:06

Yeah, yeah. So there's lots of intricacies in each of those steps, right? And then so it takes time to learn them, it takes time to see how they unfold, and then and then we don't get to know the consequences until the end. Then we see.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

And there were a lot of consequences, right? It's not just like who won, who lost. Yeah, it's like there are different levels of victory.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Yeah, and treaties.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yes, and then you get some people get treaty options, and then you can do stuff with that. And so there's like there's so much there, but I I'm pretty sure this is my first game that I'm playing from VUCA Simulations, and I'm really impressed with the production of everything. Yeah, the player aid has so much going on that it's helpful, but also I feel like I'm gonna want to like really learn the combat system and make my own player aid for that, because there were things like the treaty options where in the victory conditions, it's like, oh, well, you get a treaty option, and everybody's like, What are the treaty options? And you have to just like look down the page, and it's there. Yeah, everything was there, even like we had c we had questions on like naval movement and stuff like that. But that was helpful, but once you get it, the player it is like really, really good.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

Yeah, and thoughtful, right? So like I was sitting on the far end of the board, right? Like the far end of the table, and there's a particular spot on the board that was totally opposite of me. And the at this, I think at the start of the game.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

I was like, take a picture.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

Yeah, because in the rules it says these flash points are basically areas of like control or dominance that you can sort of vie for, and if you are able to meet the conditions, you get a really strong card draw benefit. Yes, and the game says, like, listen. This is your number one thing to out the gate to really just focus on one of these if you can. Yes. And they're like so far away, I can't see them.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

So, but what I'm what I'm going with this is that on the player aid, they're all listed there. They're all so no matter where you're sitting on the table, you feel like, okay, I can always look here to see what the details of those are.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's really well done. And I like that. I'm glad you brought up the flashpoints. I should probably take a step back because I got all excited. But this is a card-driven game. So the main game is if you're playing the full campaign, it's seven turns long. Each turn represents ten years. And theoretically, when you get to the end of that seven turns, the Great War, the World World War One might break out. And it might break out sooner, I think, depending on the world tension track and everything like that. But it's a card-driven game. So the like the the flow of the game is very straightforward in that sense. Like, we had a diplomacy f well, first we built the deck, you build the deck of cards, like on some turns you're gonna add new cards into the deck, but each turn you're you're reshuffling the entire deck aside from a few events that get tossed out, like once they're triggered, they're like once per game. But then you get everybody gets a hand of cards, and this to your point, cards are everything in this game. Like, you can use a card for either the command points, which are just like action points, to do a bunch of stuff, or you can trigger the events on the cards, and some of them are really powerful.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

Yeah, and if you're newer to war games like me, a turn is a round.

unknown 17:40

I know.

SPEAKER_04 17:41

In most other games, yeah, but in war game lingo, the turn is the round.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

So our our turns were called impulses in this game. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

But each individual player turn, right, is an impulse. Impulse, yeah. And a round is a turn, right? But these are kind of more standard for folks that know war games, right? That's more standard.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And so when you play a card, you're getting to do stuff. So the more cards you have, the more power you have, the more you can do. And so when you when you take advantage of these flashpoints, which usually like it's like control certain areas, like have control of certain. I think most of them were about controlling key spaces.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

Yeah, exactly. Like either you control Egypt over the Suez Canal or Italy has four spaces. So if you have, you know, ally or control over Italy, that's another one.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Oh, I I I don't know anything about control over Italy.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

My diplomatic efforts led to that for me, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

I loved that diplomatic aspect too. So there are all these like minor powers that are in the game, and they're represented by little chits, like markers on the board that are purple and it'll have like whatever their nationality is. But you can in the game try to ally with them, and if you do that, there's it's a two-step process, right? It takes time. You can't just go to like up to some people that you don't know and say, hey, we're we're cool with each other, right?

SPEAKER_04 19:10

You gotta make inroads.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Yeah, yeah. So so the the way the game handles that is that you have to first take an action to put a diplomacy token out, and then on a future impulse, you can then flip that over and become allied with them.

SPEAKER_04 19:26

And that's very expensive. So the diplomacy is I think it's only one point, one action point. But then to flip it from diplomacy to allies, three action points. So it's which is a lot, four points all together, and these are not stable. Other players can actually weaken your diplomacy and undo some of your interfere. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

So because only one player can be allied with any particular minor power. Is that what they're called? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

Yeah. And as you were mentioning, there's also such a real a cool alliance with other players, like an alliance system with other players, which we barely even like scratch the surface on. But I have to say, this was one of my favorite parts of the game was this alliance track system because there are six powers.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

And there are two alliances that could be formed, right? And everybody starts at neutral, and you can sort of shift to the left alliance or the right alliance. I don't remember the names of them.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Entente and Alliance. I think it's just triple alliance at Triple Entente.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

I just remember T E and T A.

SPEAKER_04 20:37

Yeah. One was kind of orangey and one was kind of blue. And so what I think is really cool is in a lot of games where you can set alliances with other players, like I think about like classic Dune. Yeah, the players kind of have full agency. Yeah. Are we gonna get into alliance, right? We just choose. Do we want to do it? Do we not? Yeah. And we can also choose to abandon each other, right? And sometimes there's consequences for that. And this game, it does something different that I find really interesting. There's a track where every player can actually move down this track, and you have you can manipulate anybody's tokens on this. Anybody's tokens. And each player actually has three tokens.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:18

One that might push you towards the orange alliance, yeah. One that might push you towards the blue alliance, or one that might push you towards neutral.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

And so what you can do is if I wanted to be in alliance with Candace, maybe you are gonna come for one of my regions. And I'm I'm feeling a little vulnerable.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

What I can actually do is stack this track, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:42

By actually spending your action points, your cards. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

And putting her chit on this track towards the blue alliance. Right. Right? Uh, which might be my alliance, right? And if we become allies, you can't attack your ally.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

So, in some ways, I'm sort of like using this intrigue. Or this kind of diplomacy to sort of bring her onto my side, but then it you get a little bit hamstrung because you can't attack me even if you want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

If we're an alliance, we cannot attack each other. And what was it? It was like committed, and then I forget what the other so there are two levels on each alliance side. And the other cool thing was that like when you are involved with combat with another player, then that automatically pushes the whoever the defender is away from the attacker.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

On the alliance track. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

So if you were if you were no neutral and I'm on the orange alliance side, yeah, and I go to attack you, you're pushing one step closer to blue. Yeah. Like away from me.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

Which makes so much sense. Yeah. Right? Because once you start attacking me, of course we're gonna be enemies.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

Yeah. And and what's really cool is that that manipulation of that track where I can spend points to push you up that track doesn't guarantee that you're gonna go to that alliance. Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

There's a die roll process, yes.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

At the end of the round, and I'm basically adding a modifier.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

So I think that's so cool because for me, this is one of the only games where I've really seen like sort of shadow diplomacy or like intrigue, where it's like, I feel like I'm sending my diplomats or my envoys to talk to your people and sort of And it might work out and it might not.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah. But like you can highly increase your odds if you want to invest in that in it going in your favor.

SPEAKER_04 23:31

And and then if you really want to turn on me, you have to invest in kicking me out of the alliance.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_04 23:37

I just think that part was really, really cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Yeah, and I think later, after we actually get to play a full game of this together, like after we do some homework and study up. By the way, something I'll mention. So this is a very complex game, and I knew that going into it, and I kind of like everyone knew that. Everybody like did a little bit of research coming into it. Not everyone, but me.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

I came in very fresh.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

But that's okay. That's okay. It's like as long as everyone knows, like, this is a learning game, right? But something I read on I think it was someone posted on BGG that they the way they did this is how I want to do it going forward with any kind of like heavier games like this. But they had everybody read the rule book and they gave each player something to specialize in. Like Tim, you need to be the expert at pacification. Steven, you need to be the expert at naval combat.

SPEAKER_04 24:38

Rules-wise. Yeah. We have to be the expert in some aspect of the rules.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah, so everybody like reads the rules, yeah, but then you have like one little area that you're the person. So if I have a question about how to do pacification, you have to answer.

SPEAKER_04 24:54

I think that's so cool because you know, right? Yeah, and in some ways, our game table actually started forming in that way. Like I don't know why. I was just reading those treaty options. Maybe I just had my playwright open there, but I was hoping who was the treaty expert? I never even used a treaty, but I just read that section.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Always had the answer. We're like, actually, you can do Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:15

I was like, yeah, there are oh, and you have this option available, and if this happens, you could do this, right? So I I I was just reading it and became really familiar with it. So I totally get why that could be helpful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

And I think I think that's how I will approach it going forward. But I think personally, like, I know going into a game like this that it's gonna be all sorts of bumpy, it's gonna take forever, we're not gonna finish it likely. And I'm totally okay with that because I came out of even round turn one yesterday, I feel like we came out all so much more knowledgeable. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, like stuff still took a while, like battles, because like, oh, we have a different type of battle situation. Yeah, and we're it's mostly I feel like the timing comes from or the the long periods come from the uncertainty.

SPEAKER_04 26:04

Yeah, and I think the battles have a lot of steps, right? So that's the other thing. So a turn could be so simple as I play this card, it's gonna be I'm recruiting an army here. Yep, done. So you you're most turns are super quick. I would dare to say, despite us only getting through three turns across 10 hours, eight, ten hours, however long it was, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Most turns It wasn't 10 hours. It wasn't 10 hours. Because well, no, it wasn't 10 hours.

SPEAKER_04 26:34

Yeah, not 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Like people left at 7:30, and I don't think we even got cook until noon.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, somewhere closer to eight hours, yeah. So, you know, given that time, right? Most turns, probably, or most impulses, right? Most player turns took less than two minutes, less than a minute, even I would say. It's just the battle steps. It's when we have questions and the battle steps, I mean it's very high stakes. So you also really want to take your time to really make sure you know each step, right? Because that has really long-term impact. So the battles that that's where I think a lot of the time came from. But again, we were learning through those steps.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah, exactly. And it it if I had had enough time to like prepare a little more, if if somebody knows those rules, yeah, it would have like made it even smoother. But in spite of all the like the complexity of the game, yeah, it has some really cool stuff that I'm excited to explore and play more. And I definitely like went to bed last night and was like watching the video, one of the videos the designer put up to say, like, oh, did we get something wrong? I'm reading like BGG forums. I'm very excited about this game. I think the production is really, really thoughtful. Even the flashpoint spaces on the map, like they have a dot. There are lots of reminders. There was a there were a couple of like weird things that I might reach out to the designer to ask to get clarification on, but overall, yeah, I'm yeah, I'm stoked to play it. Like, I think the asymmetry is cool. I mean, you as France, you were talking about your two each each power has two home cards, and every round you will get to choose one of those home cards.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

Yeah, I don't even know if we talked about the diplomacy fees, but there's a whole negotiation, there's a period of time at the start of a turn where you can kind of huddle with each other, leave the table with someone and say make deals. Yeah, I got this card that you know can assassinate someone, right? I can take out one of your enemies, but what what can I get from you to do that, right? So there's a lot of this like direct player bargaining too, which is always so fun for me.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

But I'll just say too, I was so excited. Like, I know you're definitely like one of my friends, game friends, that is down to play anything, right? But usually when I play games like this, there's there's a common group of friends that are like into some of these like heavy war games. And yesterday was like extra special because it was like you were there, Steven was there, even James had never played a war game like that. Yeah, so it was just like it was and and like I love playing with Drew and Aaron also, of course, but they're my usual suspects for games like these and coin games and stuff like that. Yeah, so it was like really something special to have some new, like fresh meat there.

SPEAKER_04 29:23

Oh, I'm glad I could be that fresh meat for you then, my goodness. Yeah, no, it was so fun. It was such a great group. Like I had such a great time, and honestly, I didn't come in with many expectations.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

You had a beret on, though.

SPEAKER_04 29:35

I did. You were prepared. You know I am spirited, so I will always find an outfit or a costume that I can wear, a color that matches my faction. So, yes, I was France. I knew I was France, so I came in with a beret.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

It was perfect.

SPEAKER_04 29:52

Um, you know, I just love those little moments to give some joy at the table. But I think for me, I agree. I like I left it feeling so excited to play again, so excited to keep exploring. And I'm someone, like you said, I think I've only played one game that really could be considered a card-driven war game.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Land in Freedom, right?

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Yeah, I played Land and Freedom with you.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Which is much lighter.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

Yeah, so much lighter. And I loved it. Yeah, but I am not in this genre as much, right? And and so, yeah, exactly. And I but I seriously, I mean, here's something that's complex and heavy even in this space. And I felt like, you know, it was like I was so excited, right? Like, and two things I'll say, you know, about that exploration and excitement for future plays. When I played France, I have these two home cards.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Oh, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 30:42

And every round I can pick one of them, right, to add into my hand as a guarantee. And the France player has two very clear paths, right? One is very peaceful, one home card is very peaceful. It's literally called like City of Light. Yeah. It's like, let me build my Eiffel Tower, let me celebrate my Eiffel Tower and just be this shining city. Yeah. So peaceful. I just kind of click up this little track, my little City of Light points.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

And that's the whole thing. Basically. The other one is like you gain two reserve armies, declare a war. You can target two people if you want. Oh my god. They can even be two meaningful territories. Other players that are not in the battle can come and fight against you. It's like so aggressive.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

It's wildly aggressive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:29

There's a penalty for starting these kind of conquest wars.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:32

And it's like you don't even get the full penalty, right? So it really incentivizes you to be aggressive. Yeah. And so even as the France player, I was like, wow, I could really pivot here. Yeah. I could like I didn't play that card. I was terrified to really make an enemy, but also battle felt so intimidating. So I just went my little city of light. But I'm so excited to actually see what it would be like, actually, to take that more kind of military route.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Scared, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

The glimmer in my eye.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

I'm like, uh, uh-oh, got a problem.

SPEAKER_04 32:05

And so it just makes me think like each of us probably had these branching paths like that, right? That's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:11

And then the other thing that is so interesting, we keep saying, like, oh, the great war might happen. And so many things in the player raid is like, oh, once the great war starts, everything changes, right? Yeah, yeah. Ignore this. You know, here's a whole new color for what this looks like. Right. And so I'm like, we have no idea what the game looks like once that starts. Who knows?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I'm excited though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

And it turns into a team game. Yeah. You win or lose with your alliance. They get locked at that point.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:37

Right?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 32:38

And so, or or semi-locked, I'm not sure, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:40

But no, I think you're pretty, I think you're locked in.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

Yeah. And you know, I'm not 100% if this is true or not, but on the side of the box, I think it indicates that there's a scenario you could play that's just the Great War. Like you might be able to just get right to that start, maybe. It looks like a shorter time.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Oh, I thought you said there was yesterday. Because I I told Hector today. When I was giving him the recap of our game, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, there's a great war scenario. So we might do that just to like familiarize ourselves with that part of the game.

SPEAKER_04 33:12

But that's so cool too, where it's like that, you know, if you want to do a little bit of the if you just wanted to learn that part or just play that part, it's an option, I think. Yeah, to do that.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Yeah. So anyway, that's Imperial Elogy. I was not even intending for us to talk about it this long, but you could see obviously like we're excited about it and intrigued, and so more to come.

SPEAKER_04 33:33

It was a full day game. Yeah. So there's lots of lots to say about it.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. And I'm I'm already like thinking about when I'm gonna put the next date on the calendar.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Because I'm I'm ready. I'm ready.

SPEAKER_04 33:46

Sign me up.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Ready. And we're gonna pick the same factions?

SPEAKER_04 33:48

I'm down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

I might switch.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

I'm down either way. I'm down either way. Yeah. You're normal.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

No, I know. I want you to lean into that. Because then I'm gonna worry about like all I'm like, is he gonna do City of Lights or is he?

SPEAKER_04 34:02

I'll wear my other color buried.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

Awesome. Well, outside of Imperial Elogy, what else have you been playing lately?

SPEAKER_04 34:10

Oh my goodness. I'm so excited to tell you about this one. So this game that I have played recently has a whole story behind it. The game is called, it's in German. Okay, so I'm gonna do my best. It is called Alf Tufel Kom Raus. And I one more time? Alf Tuffel Kom Raus.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 34:29

That's my best attempt. I believe I got it all. It translates roughly to like come hell or high water or something like that. But the this is a really fun, push your luck kind of betting style game. And the reason why I got interested in this game is because I saw a picture of this game from a friend who had recently played it. And if you look up this game online, it has this really goofy art. It's the theme of this game is that you are trying to steal coal out of the devil's furnace. So already it's just this little zany theme. He's got this red cartoony devil, this huge furnace, these chunky coal pieces, and something about this picture that this friend had sent me of like, hey, check out this one. Like, I won't play this. It just looked so fun. Like I was just instantly hooked. So I went online and I was like, oh, let me try to pick up a copy. It's only in German, right? Like it was only, I think, ever published in German. I couldn't really find like a used copy. And I was really sad about it because I was like, this it's it looked simple, it looked fun. It was push your luck. I always love a push your luck game. And so I looked through the rule book and I just stared at it. And I was like, you know what? I could try to make this. Like I could try to be crafty. Yeah, I could try to just sort of proxy some pieces together because I really wanted to play this game.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:59

So I found some cabbage meeples. And instead of stealing coal out of the devil's furnace, I just themed it, you know, with my little my own version as you're stealing cabbage out of the witch's cabbage patch.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

And I had as one does.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

Yeah, of course. Every witch has a great cabbage patch, and you're trying to steal those cabbages. So I had to make a little bit of my own little backstory here to make it make sense. But the game itself was so fun. So I was able to put these pieces together. I was able to play it with friends. And what you do in the game is you actually have money. You actually have money. And you use that money to make a bet at the start of the round. Okay. Right. And the bet is almost like a bid. Like, how much cabbage can I steal out of this cabbage patch, right? The tokens range from 10, 25, 50, 75, up to 100. That's the highest cabbage. So when it's your turn, you can steal a cabbage token, flip it over. Oh, I got 50. Great. And then you can choose to steal again, right? So you're building up this like cabbage value, right? Or the coal value, if that's the original game. I am cabbage on the brain. And so what you're doing is you're basically having a bet of like how much cabbage can someone steal. And you see how I said someone. Because it actually doesn't matter if you are the player that stole your bet, as long as anybody steals as much cabbage as your bet, you're going to make your bet.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

That's cool.

SPEAKER_04 37:31

So if I bet a hundred, as long as somebody at the table gets a hundred, then I'm going to get paid out. So that's cool. But then what's really interesting is if I bet lower, I'm only going to make that lower amount, right? So if I bet 60 and someone gets a hundred, I made my bet because they exceeded the 60, but I only get paid 60.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

60.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

So do you want to bet low and go safe, or bet high and actually try to get more money out of it, right? That's kind of a cool choice.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Now, are you trying to get more money out of it by like pushing people to like pick more?

SPEAKER_04 38:05

Yeah, I mean, at that point, especially if if because what I didn't mention is some of the coal pieces have the devil on the back.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Or does the cabbage also have devils?

SPEAKER_04 38:15

I drew a witch's curse. Skull. And so if you pull, you know, that token, you bust and you lose all your value, right? So if you bust and you don't you didn't meet your bid, for sure you're egging other people on to try to get to where your bid is, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

This this is like slightly reminding me of the the finger crane championship game. This is a game that on the episode of number something that I recorded with Taylor Reiner back when we were in Cincinnati at TJ, this uh trick-taking convention where there are lots of like import games there. There's the finger crane championship, I think it is what it's called. And one player you flip a card, and it's like, oh, you can only use like finger these particular fingers and you are trying to pick up a number of cards. Maybe it's like 11. And so all the other players are gonna bet whether you're gonna go under, over, or exactly hit. Then if you're the crane player, you have to close your eyes, and all the other players are like, no, no, you you need more. No, oh, oh no, that's too much, you know, and they're like pushing and pulling you, but they're trying to do it for their own interests.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. Like there's these sort of competing interests at the table being like, no, no, go further, right? Like, you know, because they want to make sure their bet is made. And what is really cool is that the game also has two bonuses. So if you are the person who pulled the most cabbage in terms of the highest value, like the biggest sum, you get a bonus$50. So you still kind of want to be the one to pull the most. And I think that's important, right? So you're not just egging other people around, right? And then the other one is you get a another bonus$50 if you pulled the most tokens. So who you whoever pulled the most tokens gets$50 too.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

So there's no that this is cool, but like with your cabbage game, I feel like all there need to be characters with lore.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

Oh. Aren't you in luck? Because I had to find little meeples to represent each character. And I had to, of course, as you know, I had to write a whole backstory for each one.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

I love it.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

Yeah, my favorite one is that I had this like bride meeple. It's like this bride, and I was like, oh my god, why is she in the cabbage patch stealing cabbages out of this witch's garden? So her whole backstory is she was at her bachelorette party. They dared her to go in there and steal a cabbage, but then she sees like the prize money at the fair, and she's like, Oh my god, I got a wedding to pay for. So then she gets so competitive and just starts stealing cabbages left and right.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Wait, so is the original like German game? Does it have characters like this?

SPEAKER_04 41:05

They just start player pause.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

This is why we call it kicking it creative. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 41:09

Yeah, you have to, you know, it was just so fun. And and the player in my game who played the bride won.

SPEAKER_02 41:16

I love it.

SPEAKER_04 41:18

She was determined that pride. But it's a really, really fun game. You know, it's that it gets it's just this classic little push your luck, but you're setting these bids, you know, you're pushing other people to take more. There were groans at the table, screams at the table, laughs. Like any game that makes the whole table react that strongly is a win in my book. So I loved this game. It's it's designed by a mother-daughter duo.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Oh, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 41:42

Tanya Engel and Sarah Engel, and it was published by Zocke for Lag. And it was just a really What year did it come out? It came out in 2013. Yeah. Yeah. I had never heard of it until I saw this picture from my friend, and I'm just so glad that, you know, that's cool. It speaks to just how sometimes the look of a game, the components, it just pulls you in like a magnet sometimes. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

That's so cool. And uh repeat the title. Oh goodness. This is like Steven's uh one of his special abilities had some word that was hard to pronounce, and we were like, wait, what was that power against?

SPEAKER_04 42:17

But it was off to Fulcombe Rouse. Okay, I think you got it. I think you got it. I just have to say, if anybody seems to find this game somewhere, you know, if you find it in like a uh yard sale, yeah, please, please, you know, but pick it up. It is so fun, it is so worth it.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Cool, cool. Well, I want to play your cabbage patch version. Yeah, we'll do it. That's so cool. I guess for me, I was trying to think about like what I've played recently, you know, because Imperial Elogy is just still very much all up in my mind, my brain space. But I'll just shout out a couple real quick. Wild Serengeti is a game that I picked up at the Strategicon virtual flea market. And this is one I had not heard of, but then I think I heard of something else from either the same publisher or the same designer. I think it was the same publisher. It's Bad Comet. Yes, someone told me about like life of the Amaz Amazonia, and there's they also did Shallow Sea. I think Monica Naveen did a video on that. Anyways, this game kind of hooked me in because I looked at it and it has all these like big, like chunky animal meeples. And the premise is you're filming a documentary, a wildlife documentary, and I'm like, just like even if the theme was pasted on, I'm like, I love that that theme is kind of like out there.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

Yeah. And so You know, I'd come with a director's chair. Yeah. My camcorder. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Yes. So one morning, and it was there was one of those like rare Times where like Matt was kind of like, let's play a game. And I'm like, okay. And I like go in my bag, stuff that I've been wanting to play with two players.

SPEAKER_04 44:09

Oh, yeah. When the spouse asks, yeah, we show up.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

When the spouse asks, we show up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

Same. With me and Adam, same.

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Yeah. Yeah. So so I was like, he's like, oh, you know how to play this, right? And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, you know, flipping through the rule book, like learning as we go. But it's a very puzzly game. Like you have all the you're trying to like complete these scene cards, and you have different resources where you are placing like the actions on the board. It's sort of worker placement-y, but there are a lot of spaces that many people can go to, but you get a certain amount of money at the beginning of each round, and you can spend that to go on these different spaces, and you're either like placing animals on the board or you're moving them around, like there's a swap action. And you're trying to position them to complete these scene cards. As you complete scene cards, you're like building an engine, you're getting like some resources, you're getting points, and you know, you're trying to have the the best documentary by the end of the game. But there are some like nice thematic touches, like one of the resources is meat, and you can like spend a meat to like move an animal closer to get them like into position where where you need them, where you need them to be. Yeah. And there's also like there are different types of terrain on the board. The game board is double-sided. And yeah, it was it was a nice puzzle. Like, I don't know if I would play it with more than three players.

SPEAKER_04 45:40

And and can anybody move any of the animals? Yes. Oh, I love it already.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yeah, but that's why I'm like, I think with four, it would be just chaotic. A little too chaotic. Everybody. Which, if you got the right group and you're like, just a different vibe. But it was uh it was really, really nice at two. I would do it at three. But yes, there were a lot of moments where like I moved something, and Matt was just like, uh, like I was just about to do, you know.

SPEAKER_04 46:08

I also love the image of like competing documentary crews.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

One it just throws a slab of meat to like attract some you know tiger or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

I was trying to capture that.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

I needed those three elephants lined up. That's funny. But yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

So that was I needed them lined up.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

So that was that was pretty cool. And almost like unfortunately, I'm like, I don't want to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

I'm like, sometimes I play games that I have like new games that I'm like, I hope I play it, and I'm like, oh, I don't need to keep this.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

Ready to move on. No, don't you hate it when you love a game? I know, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

And I did on my YouTube channel for kicking a creative, I did record a little short for a new series that I'm doing. And the first one was for this game. So if you want like a peek of it, yeah, um, check out my YouTube channel and you'll find it.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:06

Sounds great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Do you wanna what else have you played?

SPEAKER_04 47:09

I have been playing a lot of a game called Embers that I would love to tell you about. Yeah. This is a Butten Shy game. So as you know, I love Buttonshy. You know, their classic model is that they make games that fit in little wallets. They're 18 cards. Some of them come with a little expansion that come with balls.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Or lots of expansions, and then Tim built a whole like deluxe box for Battlecrest.

SPEAKER_04 47:35

Yeah, I I love their games. I think I own a hundred of their you know, Button Shy wallet games. I love this company so much. But the and Battlecrest, one of their games, has so many cards, and so yeah, they start to expand beyond that. You got me into Battlecrest.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

It's so good.

SPEAKER_04 47:51

It's so good, it's so good. But Embers is a solo-only game by Steven Aramini, and he's done several published games with them before, and so I knew that I liked a lot of the games he just designed. But also, if you look at the cover of this game and the character cards of this game, it's another one of those games where instantly, like the art, I was like, I want to be in this world.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Like that's cool.

SPEAKER_04 48:14

It's just so evocative. You're playing as this sort of group of uh people surviving out in nature. Um, and so there's a campfire in the center of your tableau, right? In the center of your table. And then you position four of your characters around this fire, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:32

That's cool.

SPEAKER_04 48:33

And every round, it's almost like a little mini tower defense game. Every round, you take cards from this fire deck and place them around the outside of the perimeter of where your heroes are. And their goal is to kind of attack and like snuff out the fire. Yeah. So if any given time you your fire goes out, you lose the game, right? So what happens is at the start of the round, you get to position these kind of like demon, you know, monstrous, sort of beasty beings here, right? They look quite gnarly, right? In the art is very good art, in my opinion. You position them around, and you get to know there's a little bit of like they're gonna move around, they're gonna move to where your heroes aren't often, right? They're gonna try to do that. Because then on the player's action, every character around this fire gets two action points. You get to choose the order you you know execute those points, yeah, and every character can only move in a very specific way. So sometimes one character it can only hop over another character.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Magic maze.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

Yeah, yeah. Another character can push, like it can only move if it pushes another character next to it, right? And so it's a little bit of this spatial puzzle of like, how am I gonna move them around to be the best defense? Because frankly, all the other actions are really simple. Like a defense action thwarts off one of these demon guys, a forage action takes one of the discards and puts it back into the deck, right? So everything else is pretty simple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

But the movement is the one where the decision of like which one, which person do I want to activate in which order.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

And if I move one to that spot, then it allows the other one to move. So there's kind of this like domino effect where the order really matters. It's thinky, and then each character can upgrade. And so you can instead you can basically pass that character's turn and just upgrade that level. It costs two points, right? And then they level up, but then they get more health points, and usually like some action gets stronger. And so every game you play with four of these characters on the board, you can have different arrangements of these characters. I think there's five in the base game and three extra. So there's eight total, eight total, and you might get any given combination. It's just a nice little thinky puzzle, little tower defense game. Yeah, I I just have like play it like almost nightly at this point. It's just so fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Ah, that's cool. Yes, I do remember you telling me about that one.

SPEAKER_04 51:00

Yeah, I'm hooked.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

I guess I'll just say one more, and then we we could talk about the two that we just played. I finally played Slay the Spire, the board game. Only one act, I think. Have you played it? No. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 51:15

Just the just the uh video game.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

The app, okay, or the game the video game. Yeah. So Slay the Spire, if you're not familiar, is just it's a it started as a video game that's based on a common uh board game mechanism deck building. And then someone decided to like turn it from back from a video game into a board game. And I really liked it. It it had a very like kind of weight of clank or something. Maybe the icons there was something that was kind of straightforward getting into it. It's cooperative, I think everybody had their own character, and I liked it. That's all I'll say about that because I honestly I'm starting to realize I don't remember. I don't remember too much more than I had a good time, and it's like been one of those games that I've been wanting to try for a while. But the last thing that I wanted to mention real quick is just because this is relevant to our asymmetric factions conversation. One of the games that I'm I still cannot believe we have not played together that I love that has asymmetric characters, too many bones. So I our our good friend Kyle has like recently gotten into Too Many Boons, and it's it's so cool because I see the excitement is like the same as I was like when I first got into it. I'm like, this game's amazing, and I still feel that way. It's just that like I don't think about it every day, but but we were like you know, about to we were like, oh, let's play one more game for the night, you know. And Kyle was refreshed on it because he's been playing it, so I was like, let's let's go, let's do it. Like I love it, like I haven't played it in like a year, probably, and it definitely is a game that has a lot of like finicky rules, but like if you can run it, I can run my character, and you know, we'll do our thing. And it was just cool because it I just was reminded how much I love that game. I played this character called Static, and he like meditates and does all this stuff with like mindfulness with his fighting. But I think I'm just gonna go ahead and put this out there. I don't know what you're gonna say for your favorite faction for all the different too many bones sets, but I think you're gonna love it. Yeah, like just the way you like the characters are so different, so thematic. There's so many like funny pun things in the adventures that you have, but it's essentially kind of a boss battler, a little bit. Like you're mostly like you have some like friendly encounters, but you're going and you have this battle mat, and it's very puzzly. It feels really satisfying to like work with other people, and the gear locks are just amazing. So I had to just give that a shout out just because I've I love too many bones.

SPEAKER_04 54:16

Yeah, I would love to play it. Yeah, it sounds so much like we're gonna do it. I want to give one quick shout-out too. Yeah. To a game, you know, I'll just be really brief here. But I recently also played a game called Super Mundy. But I just was really fun. And, you know, it has a really cool, it has a lot of cool things going on. I don't, you know, I can't get to all of it, but it's like, you know, you start your turn by moving around this rondell, and that might inform some of the choices you make, what card is available to you, and what allies are available.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 54:46

Because in this game.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

Did you say allies?

SPEAKER_04 54:49

Yes. You know, I love a game with allies. So in this game, what makes this game so special is that, and I'm losing the name, I want to say it's like King Frederick, I think is the king.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 55:02

So the king, right? I believe you. Yeah, his nickname was Super Mundy, right? Like the wonder of the world or whatever. And I want to say it's Frederick, but I we'll look it up later. King Frederick is basically this like non-player character in the game. And I love it when games do this, when they bring in sort of a non-player character. Oh, yeah. And he's got his own castle, and he will kind of like, you know, have pieces that are walls and towers. And then what is so cool about this game are these ally tiles. These ally tiles come in two different sort of categories. One is to be aligned with the king, and so their goals will basically help you, as the player, score if his castle meets certain conditions, like like good conditions, right? Okay, okay. Like you want his towers built, you want him to have allies, he you want him to have money, he has all the same stuff you've got, right? And probably more of it sometimes, right? But sometimes less. Because the other type of ally you can take is like a rebel. I forget the name of what they call it, but it's basically like against the king. And they give you points as the player if you take away stuff from his castle. So what makes this game so fun is Frederick. That's Frederick. Oh, it is Frederick. Great, it's Frederick. He makes it fun. What makes it so fun is that like your goal might be that you want the king to have a lot of towers, and I might just not want the king to have very many pieces in his castle at all. But now, do you see how that creates this kind of interesting tension between us? Because now, if I get the chance to remove pieces, you best believe I'm gonna remove the towers because that matters for you, right?

SPEAKER_00 56:46

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 56:47

But then imagine like another player gets an ally that also wants towers. Now you have a buddy that during your actions, you both like to build towers specifically. So it's just this nice way of where you're everybody has parts of King Frederick's castle that they either love or they hate, right? That's cool. Um, and it that's what makes it for really kind of interesting dynamics. There's a whole, I mean, I didn't even get into the card play. There's so interesting card play here and resource management, all this stuff, but cool game.

SPEAKER_00 57:14

Well, you want to know? So, Stuber Mundy, do you know who first told me about this last year?

SPEAKER_04 57:19

Tell me.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

Penelope from Penelope Gaming in France, who is the same person who had me pick up Prasage and also Arapa Mine.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

Oh, both great games.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

Yeah, yeah. And I remember Penelope was very excited about this game. And ever since I've been like, you know, it's been on my radar to to check out.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:42

And it's the same designers, one of the shackleton base designers. Is it one of the is it the IR? Not okay, a different co-designer. Yeah, so it's Nestori Mengone.

SPEAKER_04 57:54

Yeah, he designed Newton. He also co-designed Autobahn. Yes. And Shackleton Bass. Yeah, which of course Shackleton Bass is one of my favorite games. Yeah, and it's by Quined Games.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

That's cool. Yes, I really want to play this. I really want to play it. And I did not realize that it was the same designer as Shackleton Bass or Autobahn.

SPEAKER_04 58:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:13

I mean, I should like that should have told me why Ben, like yeah, our friend Ben loves this game.

SPEAKER_04 58:19

Yes, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

And he's a big, he was always a big fan of Autobahn. He loves that.

SPEAKER_04 58:24

He loves Shackleton bass.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

What do you call it? Evangelicus or evangelizing that game. I don't know that one. He's it's like he wants spread the gospel.

SPEAKER_03 58:39

Oh, Ben himself is a very yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought that was a game. I was like, I don't know the evangelizing game.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

I was like, I think I'm getting the phrase kinda right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

No, you got it. You got it.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Cool, cool, cool, cool. All right, and then let's quickly just mention the the two games we just played together.

SPEAKER_04 58:57

Yeah, these were so fun.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

So we've been talking about this for a while. The two-player trick-taking game versus Mephestus.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

Mephestus.

SPEAKER_00 59:08

And we actually were just having a like an interesting conversation as we were playing it, thinking about the like the evolution of two-player trick-taking games. Like they have come a long way since it was like it seemed like it was just like Fox in the Forest for a while.

SPEAKER_04 59:23

And claim.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

And claim. I remember I had claim one and claim two, and you told me there were like 20 of them now.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

There's so many. Yeah. But I remember that too. I remember actually the first time I played Fox in the Forest. I think it was with my dad, who you've met and you've played trick-taking games.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:41

And my dad taught me trick-taking games, hearts, you know, growing up, all these things. I've he he loves these games.

SPEAKER_00 59:47

And you know what he didn't like? No.

unknown 59:51

Iceberg.

SPEAKER_04 59:52

He's not a big fan of climbing games, as we've learned, which was surprising for all of us. We were like, yeah, it's so, you know. But yeah. Anyway, sorry, sorry. But he loves a trick taking. And when I found Fox in the Forest, I was like, wow, this is so special because my dad and I can play a two-player trick-taking game. It was so it was to me, it was like this shining light.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

That's so cool because he's the one that taught you trick-taking games.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:14

Yeah, and and we played it together and we both loved it. To this day, I play it with him all the time. Like it's one of our favorite things to do together.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

So that's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:20

So two-player trick-taking games like have a special place in my heart because they make me think of like a special kind of that memory.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

Exactly. Now, did you like the co-op version?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:29

I never played the co-op version. Never played it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

Oh wow, I'm surprised.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:33

I know, me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

I think I liked it, but like, you know, now, like years later, I don't know how it holds up, but I think I liked it. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

Yeah, I definitely want to play it, you know. But it's you're right, it's so interesting to see. Like, I I think I made the comment while we played this game today, this Faust versus Mephisto. I said, I said something like two-player trick taking games, it doesn't sound like they should work. Like, yeah, you have to do something kind of twisty to kind of make it interesting, right? And so it's so cool to see the creativity people are bringing to truly make it work.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

Absolutely. And I know you haven't played Slasher yet, but like I still think the Slasher as a two-player co-op, I mean, we have Sale.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:12

I mean, I'll bring a chainsaw to game night.

unknown 1:01:16

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

Maybe maybe we better not play that one together. You know, it's cooperative. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:22

Okay, I'll leave it at home. I'll leave it at home.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

I was about to say, but there was an assassin in this. That's getting ahead of myself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

Faust is Mephisto. This was so it's uh designed by Gio Nil, who actually designs two-player trick-taking games quite a bit. He's has several of these, right? And it's published by Mandu Games. And the the way this game plays is one of us is Faust and one of us is Mephisto. And Mephisto. I was Mephisto. And Mephisto gets to uh win, gets to win. Mephisto wins if one of the players wins all of the cards in one of the four suits, right? So if by the end of the round Candace wins all of the yellow cards, I think that's the suit that's called greed, right? Then whether or not she's Mephisto or Faust, Mephisto gets to flip that token over, right? Yeah. So basically Mephisto is trying to lose all of the cards in one suit or win all of the cards in one suit, right? And if after two rounds, if Mephisto can accomplish that for two suits or more, Mephisto wins. If Faust can hold off that from happening for two rounds, Faust wins.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:29

Yeah. We didn't get to a second round. You won. You got three of these tokens flipped.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

Somehow, somehow, this is a brain twisty game.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:40

It's really twisty because you know you play the strength of the suits. You play a card, and as soon as you play a card in, the suit you play, that there's a token for that suit that goes onto a little track. And as those tokens get added, that indicates how strong the suit is. So if you play off suit, the tiebreakers with whichever one's higher on the track. So if you are waiting to play a suit, it's gonna probably be stronger. And if you play it off suit, it'll likely win. So in some games where when you play off suit, you lose, this game, you have to really be careful about that because again, winning off suit could really change.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:16

If that chip is about to be placed on the top of the stack there, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:20

And then if all four of the suits get played, so there's those tokens get out into a hierarchy, it clears. You reset them.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:27

So like timing every single turn, you're you're wondering what's the suit that's gonna be, right, to come out. And each suit has a little special ability of itself, right? So like one of the suits never clears. Once it gets added to the track, it stays there. Yeah. The knowledge one. Love, right, can never be led, right? So that one can only be played off suit, right? Or unless you only have that card. There's little wrinkles within each suit. There are different numbers of cards.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

Two cards are out.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:55

Two cards are out. Each suit has a different number of cards. So there's more green cards than red cards, right? So if that wasn't enough, you know, to add in, then the biggest twist of all.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

We have these coins. So both players start with these two coins. And when it's your turn to lead or follow or follow. Whenever you want to play a card. You can uh spend your coin and I could say, Tim, I want you to play your highest blue card for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:28

And so you're declaring, you're making your opponent play a specific card color. Color and number.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:36

Well, it's you say either it's your highest or lowest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:39

But playing it for you, so hopefully, you know, you're swaying the cards in your favor. Yeah. But it like it becomes a mind twist.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:48

It's a total mind twist because if Candace plays that token and says, Tim, play your highest green. I play a high green, but then I need to follow from my own hand, right? So what's really interesting, that's like the mind twist. Because you can basically kind of see like, am I gonna win? Can I win? Am I gonna lose? Right. But then the the other twist is like I could play a coin back and tell you to play my card. Yeah. So we have two of those coins, and we played each of us played two coins every time. So like we were spending our coins to it's just such a cool little twist, right? That really makes it brain burning.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:26

And everything, yes, it's a brain burner. Like every single like time it's your turn to play a card or decide if you want to spend the coin, you're just like, wait, if I do that, then they might do this. And wait, if they can't follow, then that's gonna be now stronger than this.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:43

And what suit hasn't been played yet? And that's gonna get added. And oh shoot, I only have the weak one, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

Yeah, but it's but it so it's it's a brain burner, but the art is so cool. It's yeah, every card is unique art. It's a really cool design.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:56

The metal coins are super chunky and nice, very satisfying. With it that comes with it, yeah. That's in the game. Yeah, it's really nice. And dare I say, because I've played several of his two-player trick-taking games. This is his best one, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

Cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:10

You know, I love a lot of them. He's done the Jekyll versus Hyde.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

Yeah, I still haven't played that one.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

And that one is great. I love that game. But I really feel like this one, it's just humming, it's just shining. He's done The Yellow House, which is another one.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

No, I've I've played that on BGA, I think. I've played that on BGA.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

Ptolemy. I might be pronouncing that wrong, but he's he's done several of these two-player trick takers. And I this one so far for me has been my favorite.

unknown 1:06:34

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

Cool. Cool. Then we also, Tim brought his bag of tricks of every once in a while. This is like, I'm sure other gamers out there have this too, where you have like friends where you're like, oh, we're gonna play two-player game day at some point, and we talk about this all the time, and it just happens every now and then.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:55

I texted you a list of games, two player games. I said, listen, I pack these in my bag. I'm ready anytime. You tell me this is my go bag. I'll come over. These are the ones I've packed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:06

Yes, yes. So Tim recently acquired a copy of a game called King and Peasant. King and Peasant. And this is like right up both our alleys because it's it's just a little card game, and it has multi-use cards. Each card is split in half, and one player is gonna be the king, and the other player is gonna be the peasant.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

And it is a very much like a mind game kind of game.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:40

Because the goal of the peasant is to kill the king, and the goal of the king is to stay in power. And so there's one card, the assassin card, and if the king ever draws that card, there's only 20 cards, may I say, right? And I think two of them are player aids. So it's a really small deck, and we share that deck. So as you were saying, like every card, the top half is for the king, the bottom half is for the peasant. And so we actually share a deck of cards, but if you ever, as the king, draw the assassin, you lose.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:10

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:11

And so the game is basically this game of cat and mouse where the peasant player can sneak that assassin card into the deck somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:19

With certain actions, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:21

And actually, like very specifically, like I'm gonna place it second, right? Yes, and secretly.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:27

You decide how far into the deck you place it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:29

But the king has these guards in town, right? Which is the part of the city.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:33

Tableau, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:34

And the guards often have abilities that help the king get more certainty. Like maybe I can peek at the top three cards and reorder them.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:41

So if I Or discard the top two cards from the deck.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:44

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:44

Risky.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:45

Yeah. So if I see the assassin is in those top three cards, I can then maybe mobilize another one to shuffle the deck or something, right? Yes. So there's a little bit of like each side gets a little bit of tools here and there to, you know, add some secrecy or reveal some secrecy.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:01

And yeah, and the peasant player is playing these like different rebels face down. Yeah. And then beside did you mention the decoy?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:09

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:10

Okay. So there's the assassin, and then there's also a decoy card, and both of them have this infiltrate ability. And so when you're the peasant player, your rebels are placed face down on the table. But like if you're the king, all of your guard cards are face up.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:30

Yeah. Standing proud.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:31

Yeah, stand and proud. But like when you choose to use their ability, you mobilize, they're discarded. So there's this like balance of like making sure you have guards to do stuff and that you're protected from the rebels, but then you're also playing this mind game of like, well, where is the assassin?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:50

Because the other way the assassin can get you is if you as the king have expended all your guards and you have no face-up guards, and the peasant player flips over one of their rebels and it was the assassin, then that'll kill the king too.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:04

Yeah, tell them how I I killed you the second time, like in our second game.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

That was heartbreaking. So I was the king, and it's clever because the game is set up to play two out of three, but whoever wins the game is gonna be the king in the second game. So I like that because if you were the king, you stay in power. But if you were the peasant and killed the king, of course you're gonna take the throne. So I just think that's a that's a clever little bit, right? Yeah, sure. Yeah, so I so you started as the king, yeah, you know, in the first game, and then I was able to assassinate you.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:37

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:38

But in the game where I was the king, you were able to assassinate me, and it was like such a nail biter. Yes. Um because at one point I was convinced that you had put your assassin out in the tableau, right? And and so I was flipping over these cards.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:53

Yeah, taking actions to like reveal my rebels.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:56

Where is this assassin?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:58

But but then I had that I had one of my like rebels let me shuffle all of my hand and my uh rebels in my tableau into the deck and draw three new cards. Yeah. And at that point, neither one of us knew. Well, Tim didn't know that I didn't know where the well, I knew the assassin wasn't in my hand, so I was like, it's in there. I'm just kind of patiently waiting for him to draw it.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:23

Yeah. And he did. Oh, yeah, right. So there's that one point you had this rebel ability that allowed you to shuffle and redraw. And I was like, there are so few cards in the deck. I bet you drew the assassin. Yeah, right. So I kind of blindly went into the deck and just drew it, and I was like, oh, like so it was so sad, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:42

But it's a cool little game. Yeah, I'd never I'd never heard of it, but definitely like something you could throw down on the plane to or yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:50

Yeah, super quick, super quick too, right? Like five minutes per round.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:54

Yes, yeah. So that's the king and peasant. You and I have been talking about doing this my favorite faction thing for a while. We have a a list already where we're gonna go through like some of the classics, like root.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:11

Yeah, terrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:12

We're gonna break it down. We're gonna say, hey, hey, this is my favorite faction root base game, and here's why. And we're both gonna do that for a lot of games we're gonna be exploring and like deep diving. We're both big spirit island fans.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:28

Lots of factions to explore there too. But there are also like when we think of asymmetric gameplay, yeah, we're talking about player powers. You want train games?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:41

Yeah, like even train games like Prussian Rails, where each of the different companies has a different sort of ability or a power, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

Which one's your favorite?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:50

Yeah, like some of them feel super strong, right? And maybe that sort of determines the auction a little bit, which is fun, right? Or the very first game we ever played together, dual gauge, right? Each one has a new map, right? And as we talked about, each train company has its own, again, special ability. And so that really adds some nice texture into the game.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

And I'm I'm I really I don't even know right now, like for I think a lot of the games that we're talking about doing, I'm gonna have to like sit down and think about it and like replay certain things because I'm I'm more the others sometimes like gravitate towards one faction, but then we have also like Gaia Project or Mystica, Age of Innovation, like that kind of all those games. So you have like the heavy Euro games. Yeah, now I got you you're I got you in the war game world, so I'm gonna show you some coin games which have asymmetric factions too.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:44

And even more minor ways in which games give you these different different positionings. Like I even think about like Steffenfeld's Oracle of Delphi, right? And you start with a little boat that just has a really minor boost, right? But it is meaningful, right? And you might sort of fall in love with one of those boats.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:02

Sounds like somebody did.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:05

And so I think it's fun, even for games that are like, you know, I agree, the ones that have like wild asymmetry, and that's like the whole crux of the game, but even games that just add a little bit of a boost, right? It's kind of fun to think about it that way too.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:17

Yeah, and then there are games like Guards of Atlantis, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:20

Yeah, characters. Yes, right? So the character has a flavor and love games with asymmetric characters, mechanic that could go with that character, which is really interesting, or abilities. Yeah. So we've played a game together that has been so fun by Jennifer called Door.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:35

Oh The Lesser Houses.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:38

It's a game of secrets and intrigue and gossip and scandal.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:42

It is a weird little game.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:44

And it gets it's so fun if you really get into it and really get into the table talk, right? The trash talking, because you're you're spreading scandals and lies about all these other noble or lesser noble houses. And each of the different minor houses have their own special ability.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

What it makes is very, very meaningful. And I feel like that's that game is so strange, but I've had so many like memorable gaming experiences. Like the very first time, because I had what Bemused. I played Bemused first, and like I don't know if we like just didn't grok it or or or what it was, but then the first time I broke out dir and there were five of us, and again, I still felt like I'm like, I don't know, this is what we do. We like play cards on each other, and we had this incredible experience because, like, yeah, if you kind of get into it a little bit, and there's a lot of like LARPing, like, oh, I heard Tim's house has skeletons in the closet. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:52

There's a house that makes you know music or something, and you're like, I've heard you've been building these instruments with some unfair labor practices, right? Every card just says scandal or secret, so you get to add all the flavors.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:04

Exactly, exactly. And the scoring is super weird and wild, but yes, yes, even games like that that have like an ability, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:14

Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, again, if we're thinking about you know Jennifer's game, like Cosmic Frog, right? Yes, you cycle through these frog cards and frog abilities and which one is so fun to play, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:24

I'm looking at Argent the Consortium, that is a worker placement game that has several different types of workers. Yeah. Like, is there one that you gravitate towards? I want to know. Don't tell me right now, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:36

Those sorcerers that boot people out, right? Like maybe that's so satisfying, or you know, you prefer the druids that are into the nature magic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:46

So so I think it's gonna be really fun because again, I'm I'm sure there are probably like lots of games that you want to show me, and vice versa. I want to show you Sue Many Bones.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:56

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for sure. And I think too, it's interesting, like there's asymmetry in every type of game. Or there could be, I should say, right? Uno? We're gonna make it Uno with player powers.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:14

Yeah, later coming later this year.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:17

I guess, yeah, you could do that with any game with player powers. I'm just add that to any game, right? But it's interesting to think about, you know, for example, what does asymmetry bring to a co-op game experience, right? Because in that way, we want to work together on a goal.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:32

So, like our asymmetry is how do we work our factions together?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:35

You want to look for that overlap and think about like, okay, you know what? You're really good at foraging or searching, so you like, why don't you go here? It's a lot of you know, maximizing the asymmetry. Other games, right, like Terra Mystica or whatever, you're gonna be in direct conflict. So it's sort of like, what do you think gives you the best advantage? So thinking about the different mechanics and even just different styles of games, asymmetry like brings a new flavor or texture to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:02

Yes, yes. And it when you were talking about that, I was looking at the loop because I know we both love the loop.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:08

Oh, so much fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:10

But also, have you played Fate of the Fellowship? No, okay, yeah. That's that's another one. Like, as soon as you start talking about cooperative, like, hey, I can do I'm strong with this, yeah, you're strong with that. And of course, now I I can't recall, like I I hope that's true. Yeah, all the different characters that they have different abilities. Do not quote me on that, but I did enjoy Fate of the Fellowship.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:31

Yeah, yeah. I mean, even something like, right, and we can stretch what asymmetry means, right? Because I think sometimes we think asymmetry, it means we each have to have a different mechanic, uh, you know, but again, like we're talking about different maps or different abilities, different boosts, even a different starting position on a map, right? I think it's an expansive way to think about just different ways that asymmetry is brought about. And it's fun to think that way.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:53

Absolutely. And I think it's also just like as we're as we're talking now, thinking about the complexity levels or like the level of asymmetry in different games. Because like one game that I was very intrigued by that I haven't played yet is Vast.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:12

And Vast, all I hear from people is like, like, you need a dedicated group because it's like, you know, it's on another level compared to even something like Root.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:22

Yeah. That's one, yeah, that's one where I did a four or five player solo four or five-handed solo game myself. And and it was one of those things where it's like, yeah, once I'm playing as this character, I have no idea what the other characters are gonna do. Like, I truly felt like I was competitive with myself as all five characters. But you're right, like that the level of root, everybody has that shared point track.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:47

So the main question is like, how do you score points? How do you score points? We all score points differently, but in vast, we all have different win conditions.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:55

So that takes it to a whole nother level, right? Where it's like in root, it's 30 points wins, right? But in Vast, we all can end the game in victory different in different ways, right? So that totally changes it in a different dynamic.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:07

Oh, I can't wait to play some coin games with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:09

Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:11

That also made me think of something like as we're planning out like how we want to start actually doing this. It would be fun to kind of bundle like as like little seasons, like, hey, now we're exploring cooperative games.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:27

Yeah, theme. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:28

Yes, yes, like like oh, or two-player games or card games or team games. That is exactly what I was thinking. Sorry, because I I brought up cards, yeah, but I was also thinking of defense of games. Defense of Proceon. Three. I was like, is it a two or three?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:46

Defense of Proceon is awesome. Like, I think it's a like highly underrated game, but I understand because it's it's complex if you aren't able to like kind of get into it the right way.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:02

Yeah, and that's an example of that level of asymmetry is so high. Yes. Where every single player has its own rule book. So, you know, if you're gonna typically have one game teacher, that's a big ask, right? To be able to go through the main rules, all four rules, to be then.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:17

And then I gotta listen to all of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:19

Yeah. And so, you know, when we played, you know, we all knew what faction we were gonna play, did our homework ahead of time to read. But even that takes time and commitment, you know. So it's it's a high bar, but but it was so fun. So fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:32

And I had no idea, like, and so like Defense of Proceon 3 is a a team game where one player on your team is going to be doing like land battle stuff, the other person is in space against the other team.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:48

Yeah, and there's an alien team and a human team. Yes. So you have as the alien on land, which is what my character was, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:56

Oh, yeah, we were in the land battle together.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:58

Yeah, you have your primary opponent, which is the land human, right? The human planet. Yes. And then you have your primary ally, which is your same faction, but the one in the different battlefield. So you have these two main connections, your main opponent and your main ally.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:13

And so everybody has that, but you know, across from me, you know, at the diagonal was Jordan. Yeah. He was the human player in space. And I'm like, I never basically interact with him, right? Because I'm either fighting you or trying to get help or help my buddy in space. So it's a cool way in which you have these little ties with the players.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:31

Like, yeah, and I think like, you know, because that was our first time playing too, like, I think as we like, once we've played all the characters, we can then probably pay attention more to like, hey, what is that person? And maybe I can advise my teammate a little bit. But like thematically, it is like it reminds me of something like Star Wars, where you where they cut back and there's action going on in the land and ewoks. Yeah, there are no ewoks in the game though. But then, but then it jumps to like, okay, now we have this space battle. Oh, now we cut back, and and like it's just very unique.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:08

And there's small and meaningful ways in which like the space player can drop stuff into the land or the land player can start.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:13

Oh, yeah, you can work together a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:15

It's subtle, but it's important, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:17

And every faction in that game had like a different core mechanism.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:22

That's right. Yeah, so that's another just an extra layer, right? So like I had these like multi-use cards where I could, you know, trigger them off for actions. I have you had like an action point system, I think, where you had four characters, right, on land, like these four heroes. And each turn you had to, I just noticed because I had to play.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:41

Oh, yeah, you played them all solo.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:42

I played a four-handed solo. So you have these four characters that are like these heroes.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:47

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:47

And each of them has an asymmetric ability. And each turn, you have to pick like which one am I gonna activate? And then I sort of mobilize armies around this character and use their ability with a with movement points and action points. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:02

And then I'm also thinking about doubt is our product.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:05

Yeah, yeah. Another Hollenspiel game.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:07

Oh my gosh. Yeah, there's so much. So yeah, we're planning for 35 seasons of my favorite faction at this point.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:15

Yeah. Hit that subscribe button. Yeah. But I think, you know, for me, like why I get so excited about this topic and why I feel like we could do 35 seasons.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:26

Is because easily. Yeah. The for me, one of the ways that I find joy in this hobby so much is this joy of discovery.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:34

And asymmetry is such an invitation to do that. I instantly want to play again as my character, right? To learn it better. But guess what? I instantly also want to play again as that new character.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:46

And it might feel almost like a gimmick to get you to play again and again, but but it's it if it is cool, it works. Because I want to do it. And I want to play every character. I want to try every map, right? Because I love to do this comparison of like, how did this change the dynamic? How did this make me feel differently this time? Which one flowed and and and like made me feel like, wow, I just really rock this one. Yeah. Which one, like I have the a Spirit Island? Yeah, I have a Spirit Island spirit where I'm like, she and I do not get along. I do not know what she's supposed to be doing. Everyone else says she's great, and uh, she and I just do not click. And I've tried so many times, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:26

So sometimes you just kind of click and don't click with different things, like yeah, and there's the there's another game that I kind of got you obsessed with that also is gonna come into this conversation. Oh yeah, you know what I'm thinking of?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:39

Which one? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:40

What's the second game that we went deep together with? Popcorn chicken.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:46

Keyforge.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:46

Keyforge.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:47

Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:49

Like Keyforge, you have all those different houses.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:52

Yes, and they have very distinct mechanics. I mean, not quite mechanics, they have very distinct kind of like flavors, flavoring. Some of them are more aggressive, some of them are more card draw focus.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:03

I'm like, I didn't realize I was so aggressive till like I found out that Brobnar has the like the band, and I'm like, well, this these are my people.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:12

I mean, if there's a rock band, yeah, that's true. I I do gravitate towards oh, what's the festival card called? The big rock festival card. Oh, Halifest or something like that. That was like your signature card.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:23

Oh my gosh, where I get to like bring the whole band.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:25

The whole band comes together, and it was like so fun. I mean, it was just so you.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:29

Yeah, yeah. But then I loved other ones, and I still always see you as the dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:34

That's my that's my faction. And and uh Philosopher Philosopher Dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:39

I mean, I'm feeling a bit typecast, but it's but you I'm I'm sure people listening to this can already hear like how many different types of games have asymmetry that that we're also like very big fans of as knit gamers.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:58

So I'm I'm I'm excited. Like, let's we'll we'll start dropping some videos soon.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:03

Yeah, and let us know in the comments like what are your favorite games that have different factions, different maps, different abilities, because you know it's there's so many out there, and so we'd love to hear. Like, what are what are the ones you want us to cover?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:16

Yeah, we could do some YouTube polls too. Like, maybe if like we figure out what are the first four we want to do, like throw a poll up and see what people want to hear about.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:26

Yeah, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:27

But either way, I'm excited because again, like I don't know. Like, if you were gonna ask me right now, oh, what's your favorite faction of the Spirit Island, this expansion?

SPEAKER_04 1:27:36

Yeah, I gotta think about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:37

I don't know. I need to think about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:38

You gotta think about it and play it together more, right? Yeah, and what a great way to also focus our plays, right? Like that. It's so fun, right? It's gonna be so fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:46

I'm excited. Well, Tim, I'm so happy you were down to like record with me. I know this was kind of like a sort of spur of the moment thing, but that's kind of how I roll these days. And you know, you're one of my favorite people to play. Games with one of my favorite people in general, and so I'm glad we're finally doing content together, and other people in the world can hear your wonderful voice. And Tim is also an amazing blood on the clock tower storyteller. Oh blood on the clock tower.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:17

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:17

For every script. Every script. Who's our favorite? And then we have to go like, who's our favorite outsider? Outsider. And what demon villagers, right? What are the other people that we go?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:29

So yeah. Oh my gosh. My brain is gonna be like just just just going.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:35

I love it. Yeah. No, uh, thank you for having me. This is so fun. I mean, you're one of my favorite people in the world. Oh. And when we get excited, we just upward spiral. We upward spiral together and just get more excited and more energetic.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:50

We do.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:50

Those are the type of people that just give you energy. Yeah. You give me that energy, and it's just always such a blast to gain.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:56

My spouses still support it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:58

Yes, thank you, Madden Adam. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:03

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. So much joy, so much joy. But I'm very excited. I've been excited since we started talking about this. It might have been two years ago at this point. I don't know. Yeah. But I'm we're gonna do it. And I'm just excited to think about the first one and to like start replaying these games and to introduce you to Too Many Bones.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:26

I think we'll probably have to get some special guests popping in with us here and there too. Yeah. Because I think that just will be even more interesting conversation to see, you know, like multiple perspectives on.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:39

And we know, you know, some folks, for example, like if we did each, you know, expansion of root, we know pleep peop, we know pleopals.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:47

We know pleeples, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:49

We know people that really play these games, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:52

So deep dive. Yeah. And so we'll pull them in.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:55

We'll pull them in and hear what they have to say because you know, folks that have more and more plays, like maybe my sort of first impressions after playing a game, you know, five plays, right? It's a little bit different than someone's who's played it 20 times. So it'd be nice to see that too. Like, yeah, how do your favorite factions evolve as you play them more and more, too?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:13

Yes, yes, yes. Awesome. Okay, anyways, I gotta get you to bed because you're an early.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:20

We're gonna turn into a cabbage.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:28

All right, thanks again, Tim.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:29

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:30

You've been listening to the Kickin' It Creative podcast, produced and edited by Candace Harris. Special thanks to Matt Fonda for editing and mixing our music. Be sure to visit us on the web at kickin' itcreative.com and on YouTube for even more kickin' it creative content crafted by Candace. Thanks for listening and happy gaming!