Episode 12: Games That Inspire Post-Game Discussions, with Alex from Talking Shelf Space

Isn't it fascinating how certain games make you think while you're playing, and then after, plunges you into interesting discussions with the other players? In this episode, Alex from Talking Shelf Space joins Candice to highlight board games that inspire post-game discussions. ...and before that, they literally "talk shelf space", and share a few games that hit the table recently.

• 00:00:00 Introduction
  • 00:02:55 Literally "talking shelf space"...
  • 00:08:20 Alex's Space-Time-Fun Continuum
  • 00:11:16 My Moving "Box" Count
• 00:16:30 Fresh Plays
  • 00:16:47 Storybook Saga
  • 00:21:27 Attika (Taluva, Meuterer, Verräter)
  • 00:28:45 The Road (Shadows of Malice)
  • 00:33:47 Very FRESH Partial Plays (Infernal Machine, The Witches of WIllowspur)
  • 00:37:03 Bronze Age (OMEN)
• 00:45:00 Games That Inspire Post-Game Discussions
  • 00:47:50 World Order
  • 01:00:18 Things in Rings
  • 01:03:28 Cross Bronx Expressway
  • 01:13:52 Stationfall
  • 01:22:53 Molly House
  • 01:25:19 ito/Eye My Favourite Things
  • 01:32:07 Antiquity
  • 01:37:27 Blood on the Clocktower
  • 01:49:10 Dune: Imperium
  • 01:52:01 Twilight Imperium/Here I Stand/Imperial Elegy
  • 01:54:40 Honorable Mentions (John Company, Indonesia, Leaving Earth, Pax Porfiriana, Greed Incorporated, Tales of the Arthurian Knights)
• 02:01:07 Sign-off

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hello, and welcome to episode twelve 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 excited to be here today with my good friend Alex from Talking Shelf Space. How's it going, Alex?

SPEAKER_04 0:49

Hey Candes. Going great. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yes, I know this is like something I feel like we've been talking about for a while, and I'm glad we're finally doing it. And it's even more special because we got to spend some time together in Hamburg where you live about a month ago.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

Yeah. It's kind of funny that we have to do this online now.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I mean, it was worth it.

SPEAKER_04 1:13

We were spending quality time, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Exactly, exactly. I had the same thing with Penelope. You know, when I was in Ettervi, it's like, okay, we could have carved out some time and like recorded together in person, but you know how it is. We want to spend time together, we want to get some games in and whatnot. But yeah, how's everything going with your blog and you know, life and everything?

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Oh, it's going great. I have a little bit less output lately. I don't know, for some reason 2026 hasn't hit me game-wise so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

I mean, I was moving apartments, so I stalled on buying new games for a while. But even then, like they weren't the big hits for me yet. So I'm more going back into the back catalogue, seeing what's on the second hand market, trying to fight this older jams and so on. And there were a couple, but not as much as I would like.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, I feel you completely with the moving because you know, we we just moved down to San Diego, and you can see behind me, like there are just some a few little stacks of games, my crokinole board in a case, one set of shelves that is completely empty. So this week is gonna be like, hey, I'm gonna give some attention to this room. Also, because I'm gonna be like filming in this room a little bit here and there, too. But I feel you. I feel you with the the moving struggles, and I'm really excited that we're down here in our new space, but I'm also excited to kind of like be back up and running and working on content and everything.

SPEAKER_04 2:52

Have you planned on like how you will organize your games? I mean, it's a new room, no shelfing. So, do you have any plans what you will do?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

I actually do have a little bit of a plan. And my plan keeps getting like watered down. So the the other night I had this vision of, you know, I was like, how can I like organize my game collection so they're not just games on a shelf, you know? So I was looking around, chopping around for different shelving options that weren't just the K-Lax. I love the Kalax, the IKEA shelves, you know, but I'm ready for something like a little just different. And so I stumbled upon, I think they're called Box Kings, you know, that company that makes those like modular shelves, and they're really like kind of fancy where your games slide in and and they don't touch each other, but they're like there's like a little bit of spacing in between, and it's super modular. But, anyways, looking at one of their sets of shelves, I was like, ooh, what if I do like, and this is tying the music in the board games. What if I do like a graphic EQ kind of color spectrum of games that are different size stacks? And so actually, like, I've started bringing up games from the garage and putting them in stacks of colors to see if I can pull this off. But I think I'm gonna end up with like more straight up, just bookshelf kind of style. And then what I might try to do is on the top level play around with that like graphic EQ and have like a rainbow of colors of different high different height stacks. So we'll we'll see. But that was that was my big idea.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

It sounds like like a checklist for like game-obsessive people. Like, how do you notice that you have too many games? I can do pixel art with all my board games.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, and you know what? I the color, my favorite, my player color, my favorite color, green, is the the color that I feel like I'm lacking the most in terms of like I go down to the garage where all the games are and I'm like looking around, and it's hard to find green boxes. And I guess like it might have to be all like Friedman Freeze designs or something. I found I found a couple, but I'll see whichever. I have lots of yellow boxes, I think a decent amount of red, a decent amount of blue, purple. So we'll see. We'll see. Look out for it on one of my future YouTube videos to see if I can pull off this rainbow graphic EQ effect. But anyway, we're not here to talk about me decorating my shelves.

SPEAKER_04 5:48

You can.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Actually, I was really impressed when we went and visited you with how well organized and compact and concise you have your game collection. And you also have you also have like a high concentration of bangers. Like there's like a whole like slot uh splatter section. Yeah, you have good taste in games.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

Thank you. Yeah, I guess it's like I started collecting board games like 30 years ago or something. Like, not to date myself, but like started very, very young, and I had to move a couple of times, which was always like a good incentive to lose some of the not so good games. And yeah, especially when I started writing about games, it was like I got very sensitive to not get too many games. So that's one of the reasons why I don't accept review copies. I actually buy the games and then resell them. So actually, like smart yeah, I'm more or less neutral. I mean, the boxes get bigger, it's more like Deluxe editions now, and some simple games go out. Yeah, but so far I managed to keep it like in a somewhat reasonable size.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

That's really impressive and wise, very wise. I yeah, because I have a lot of I have a mix of games, you know, but a lot of review copies, which is helpful because I don't have like the biggest budget for games, and I'm excited to try so many. But I need to trim down, no doubt about it. I need to like trim down my collection, and that's a good way to approach it. But I'm gonna try to actually what what's your thought on this? So I have like a lot of games that are, you know, some of them are like super new, and some of them I've had in my queue for a while, and I was thinking about some way to, I was thinking about even like randomly picking them, like having them from a list, just so I'm like sprinkling in and not forgetting about some of the old ones. But how would you like approach that if you had, I don't know, let's say a hundred games that you were like, I want to play these games, and meanwhile, you know, you still have some new ones coming in.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

How do you get them played?

SPEAKER_04 8:12

Whew, that's a good question. I think it starts a bit earlier. Like, one thing that really helped me is like I have sort of has to have a cheat code over here in Germany. Like the board game scene is so strong. Basically, I can sell every game, and if I want it back, I can get it for like 10-20 bucks more back.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:32

I'm thinking about board games more like it's almost like a rental system. I buy them secondhand. If I really love them, I keep them. If I don't absolutely love them, I just sell them and say, hey, I can go to board game cafe or anything. Yeah. Since the infrastructure is really, really good over here, it gets easier. But I think the key thing for me is I'm less of a collector in like a broad scope, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:57

For you, good.

SPEAKER_04 8:58

And it's more like it's even tied to how uh why I named my blog Talking Shell Space. I realized at the time, like, hey, I'm I have a decent day job, so like how expensive a game is is not really the factor for me. Right. That's really like something I call the space-time fun continuum. Like, right, how big is the box? How much fun do I have with my my friends playing it? So I would say if you really, really look at your collection and think, okay, which of those games like sort of Maria Kondo do it, like which of these would you really, really be sad if they are not there?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

I think you will find a lot of games you can just let go and say, okay, my friend Ben has it anyway, or I can rebuy it anyway. And I think that's like sort of ballast you're losing, right? Because you really focus to the small, the few games you really, really love and you can never never sell. And if you if you reach that state in your collection, like basically every game you you pick off the shelf is something, you have like an emotional attachment, you have really fun manuals. So they also make it easier to select the games, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

That definitely makes sense. I'm starting to kind of think that way. I'm starting to like be open to like letting go of certain things. I'm like, okay, that brought me joy at some point, it's not as good as this, or I don't need to own it. One of the things I like to do is send games to friends who are not as deep into the hobby as we are, and them getting a game, they'll cherish it because they don't have a hundred games. They might have five or ten or something, you know. But for some of the ones that I I've never even played, so like these are like the way I'm kind of thinking about approaching it is maybe what I'll do is pick out like three games that are either similar mechanism or similar theme and play them all like within the same week and then like make a video on them and then decide, you know, do I keep them or do I pass them on? Yeah, I don't know. Anyways, it it's stuff you think about when you move your collection.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Yeah, definitely. Do you want to to disclose how many boxes you do just for board games?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Oh my gosh. No. Well, the I I can't, I can't because they weren't all in boxes. So part of what we did was we have wire shelves in our we had wire shelves in the garage that have wheels. And we we took a nod from uh BGG, like the way they moved the game library for the conventions in Dallas and and for the cruises. And I reached out to like Jeff and Christine, and I was like, wow, like what are you guys doing to like so that we can not pack these in boxes, leave them on the cart? And they told us to get chicken wire. So so a chunk of the games were on like a big wire shelf that had casters, wheels, and Matt chicken wired around them so that the movers could just like wheel that sucker on the truck and then wheel it off. And so that was one thing. Then I had I got, I don't know, I want to say about 18 moving bags, and I like those too for for like just moving pillows and clothes and stuff like that versus putting them in boxes because if you get the clear ones, you can see what's in there, and they're just easier to carry, they're faster than taping together boxes and then breaking them down after, and they like they fold up really nicely. Nice, so I have like a dozen pink bags that have games and then some other shelves, but the craziest thing was on moving day, there were a chunk of games that were not boxed, and I was aware of it, you know, because we we left everything in storage, and it was like, okay, we're traveling, we're gonna come back to it and figure out where we're moving. So we had this really good crew of movers, and one of the guys just brings over one of those giant wardrobe boxes that you put your clothes from your closet in, and he's just like gesturing for me to hand him games, and I'm like, okay. I was like, How many? He's like, more, more. He's Tetrising games into this wardrobe box, like packs it to the brim, like tapes it all around, and then like gets his dolly, like somehow puts this heavy box on the dolly and rolls it away. Then he brings me an empty one, and I think we had like three of those.

SPEAKER_04 13:49

Moving people, if you have good one, are amazing. Like the people who didn't the job here were also like for the listener, I'm living in the fifth floor. Oh my god, so it's a lot of stairs, no elevator, and it was quite a lot of boxes with board games.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yeah, yeah. They seriously, like, I could not believe it. But then it was like funny because you know, we got everything loaded up, we drive down San Diego, and then it's time to unload, and it's like, okay, well, these are their wardrobe boxes, so now we have to empty them out, put all those games on shelves or somewhere so that we can send them on their way when everything's done. But yeah, so it was crazy. It listeners, if anyone is ever moving a board game collection and wants some more advice, Alex and I are here for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, seriously. But anyway, today we are going to talk about games that inspire post-game discussions. I think there was a game in particular that kind of sparked this idea, and you and I were like kind of kicking around a couple different ideas from our time together in Hamburg. Yeah, so I'm excited to talk about this because there are some games that you play and you're like, okay, that was fun, and you move on. And then sometimes it's like you find yourself talking about like what went on in that game sometimes into the next day, into the next week.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Exactly. Like, and for me, I'm pretty much known for like writing about usually Euro games, heavy games, mid-level games. And I noticed a couple of years ago, like the average Euro got actually quite good. Like they're solid D designs, they work, but they're somewhat soulless often, right? You you can interchange the theme. And I often found myself wondering, like, hey, I played this for two hours. I could have played something else. Why did I play this? And yeah, the polar opposite of this game that you can't let go of, right? You you you finish packing it away and you're like, okay, let's talk about it and let's schedule the next session and so on.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, yeah. Well, before we jump into talking about the games that we feel lend themselves to these post-game discussions, I'd love to hear what you've been playing lately, Alex. So let's jump into Fresh Play.

SPEAKER_04 16:38

All right, my first game is maybe an unusual one, Storybook Saga. It just recently fulfilled. It's by Justin Schroeder. It's actually from the best with one games people who do the solo game of the month series. So they did like Rome, Fate of an Empire, and lots of other games, usually in a small box. They started out with WHS boxes and now have gone a little bit more deluxe, like with screen printed wooden pieces, and the boxes are a little bit bigger. But in general, the idea is you back it and it only takes a couple of months, and then you already get it. So it's a very cool concept. And Storybook Saga really caught my eye because of the artwork. It's like a quite unusual concept, and I can sum it up with a friend of mine who just said, like, wait, Alex, you actually like a dice chucker, which is super unusual for me. But if you look uh at the game, it's like this very unusual style. It the idea was they used all these IPs that are out of copyright, bunched them all together, and turned it into like a boss battler. So imagine you have like Dorothy with Mickey Mouse and Beshira in Sherwood Forests uh fighting again, like the Mad King, or I don't know, right? So it's very, very injured setting, but the artwork looks beautiful. It's by an artist called Cole Munro Chitti. Never heard of him before, but his artwork is amazing. And they also did it in a very classy like layout, so the dyes are nice and have like this this curly resin, right? And you just pick it out and it looks great, and it's the right kind of game to play after a long day. You don't want to think too much, but you want something meaty that takes like 35-45 minutes, you have lots of replayability, so it's it's really an interesting game. A little bit of a caveat. I'm not sure yet if I like the arc of the game.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

So Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

And the way they set up the systems, you often have to roll a die to see which of the villains you hit. And the more of them you you knock out, the more of the slots are empty. So instead of having this arc that ramps up, it gets tighter and tighter, tighter. It's more like suddenly you're having like five, six rounds where everybody is hitting air, and you're waiting for either the villain to hit you or not. So it's it's a bit strange. Gotcha, gotcha. There's something super fascinating. I definitely will continue playing it. I'm definitely intent on writing about it.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Very cool. Yeah, I pulled it up on BGG as you were talking about it, and I I really like the art style and the the look of this one, and it sounds like the theme just sounds fun. And looking at all this, like, I guess, public domain art for like Alice in Wonderland, Mickey, like there's like Captain Hook or something, some kind of teddy bear. It looks really interesting. I'd be curious to try it. And I don't really know. Maybe you told me about some of these games, but I've never played any of them, to my knowledge, best with one games.

SPEAKER_04 20:06

It's done by Gabe and his team, and I have to say, like, they did like an amazing progression of the games. If you look like one year back or something, the games look flatter and art style, VHA spots, VHS boxes and so on. And but now they look really, really amazing. Even so much that you have to be careful because they all look brilliant, and you want to have them all. And then you have to realize, no, let's check what the gameplay is. Is this even for me or not?

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:33

They currently have one running, which they did with Mike from OneStop Co-op shop. Oh, cool. So they did like republish, they often pick up like older designs, give them a new lick of pain, change the rules a little bit, try it again. And also they announced that Behold Rome, this 18-card SIF game, they will do a new edition in an ice box, maybe with a little bit more content. So definitely like a published I to watch.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Very cool. All right, I will check them out. So that is storybook saga. The first game that I'm gonna bring up is a game that you introduced to Matt and me, and it's a game called Attica. It's an old game, too. Old, a dusty old one where I I think I don't even know. How did you did you just say, Oh, that's one of my favorite games? And we were like, let's play it.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

I think I said it was at one point. I mean, gaming taste changed, but now old games have been gotten way more complex, but it's yeah, something about like, hey, it's sort of a sieve builder in 45 minutes, and it's really, really good. I think that was a pitch.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, yeah. And it's the the kind of game that's right up my alley. But first, uh, you can you please pronounce the designer's name of course.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

Sure. It's like hardcore more than German names. It's Marcel André Casasuda Merkel.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Beautiful. And when I looked, when I clicked on this designer's name on BGG, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they also designed Toluva, which is a game that came highly recommended to me by one of the designers of Railways of the Lost Atlas. And also Mutor. Mutter. A game that I just kind of discovered. Maybe I don't know if like Z Garcia or somebody had a video on it and I bought it. It's a small card game. I think I printed like English rules for it. And you said it's like that one is based on it. It was some kind of like pirate-themed card game that like attracted me to it.

SPEAKER_04 22:48

Yeah, it's a super interesting game. Like it's from an older publisher, Adlungspieler. I remember like back in the days, they were like one of the sort of shooting stars at Essen, not because they had like the biggest game, but all of their games were only 60 cards. And they had everything from very simple like trick taker games to like somewhere you build like railroad lines, they have one which is like a social deduction game and so on. And actually, Meutara started out as Farrito, which is like a three-in-four-player game, where actually the character selection mechanism from Citadel comes from. So the legend is that Bruno Fadotti went to Marcel André, asked him, Hey, this mechanism is super cool. Can I use it? Marcel Andrea was like, Yeah, sure, do it, and didn't know that it would become like Citadel, which is like Suba Banger.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah, it that is like Matt's probably like one of his favorite games. And it's one of the games we've had in our collection for years and years, and it's the only reason it would get replaced is if we have a different version of it or something like that. But yeah, Citadels is really cool. But anyway, so it was cool to see that this designer, there are other things in my queue to try by the same designer. But Attica is this kind of dusty old euro. Well, I guess it's not even a euro per se. It's it's like you were saying like you start with this like kind of modular map setup, right? We we lay out some tiles, and then everybody has their own player board, and you have like a stack of these like buildings, right?

SPEAKER_04 24:30

Exactly. And it has the exact same buildings, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

But you might draw them in different orders, and you're trying to make basically on this map that kind of grows as you play, you're trying to make a connection from like one end to the other or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

There's some like special like temple buildings, yes, you're depending on player accounts. So if it's two player, I think it's two, three, three. And there's actually two alternate winning win criteria. One is if you manage to do a connection between any two, you automatically win.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

But if there's like other players pay attention, they can block you, and suddenly the whole game shifts because then it becomes an efficiency race.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Ah yes, yes. And you need to be like connected to different resources, right? So this gave me kind of like some light splatter vibes, where it's like to build a building, it has a cost, and you have to can either like connect to one of your existing tiles or you have to be touching adjacent to the resources that are printed on the board. The other thing I thought was cool about Attica, and you know, it's been a little bit like so. This isn't the freshest play, but it's one that I was like excited to talk to you about because I ended up buying a copy off the geek market after we played. But the other thing that I thought was really cool is on your player board you have these different like types of these buildings, and they're like circular cardboard tokens. And there was like a chaining thing, right? Where like if you build one one thing and later you draw the thing that's like above it or something, you can like play it down for free. So, like, that was another like little interesting uh wrinkle to this one.

SPEAKER_04 26:30

Yeah, it has super simple games, it's like sort of almost Concordia style. You have like one sheet of A3 or something folded, and that's it. Yeah, it's it's really a cool game. The sad part is if you play it nowadays, most players will say, Oh, there's nothing there, why should I play it again? Not me mostly if you play it like five, six times, you get like really, really excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yeah, yeah. And Alex crushed us, by the way. I thought I thought I was gonna be able to pull out a win, and then next thing you know, you made the connection. But yeah, I love games like this that have this like number one, you have the cards, right? You're like sometimes you want to draw cards because you need the resources, but then you're trying to like make a good path, you're trying to cut off your opponents. I think it has like a lot of cool stuff going on, and that's why I was like, oh, I'm gonna buy this game. And I'm glad I found a copy, but also I noticed that there's like another edition with a different theme that they did. Had you ever tried that one?

SPEAKER_04 27:34

No, honestly, no. For me, it's like I bought Atica the first year it came out and it never left my collection, so I stay with that one.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

That's cool. Well, I am proud to have it in my collection now. Oh, the newer version is called US Telegraph. Don't know.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

Yeah, but the artwork is not as nice, I think.

SPEAKER_01 27:51

Yeah, I like I like the the old Greek, again, like that, like that old game, Eurogame kind of uh style. But yeah, I'm excited to play this one more. Again, like something simple rules, cool player interaction, and it plays quickly, like in an hour, right?

SPEAKER_04 28:10

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah. So that's Attica. What else have you been playing lately?

SPEAKER_04 28:17

So as I mentioned, like I'm often looking at the secondhand market, and the interesting stuff is often what other people are selling, right? So you you sometimes see a game and you're like, I have never heard of this one. And one of these games was The Roads by Joseph Fari. The publisher's alone editions I had never heard of, and apparently was on Kickstarter.

unknown 28:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:39

And the designer seems to be like a character because he seems to like only do one issue of every game, and then people ask him, Hey, can you do it again? And he says, No, I'd rather do the next one.

unknown 28:50

Ah.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

And it's also when I got the game, I tried to check out the rules because there's only a QR code in there. And the website was defunct. I had to like find out where do I get the rules, and they were not on BJG. So already it's like a little bit of a challenge in a puzzle, which I like. So this again, just a quantity is also a solo game. Imagine like a post-apocalyptic world, so like maybe like Last of Last a video game or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yeah, yeah, gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

And the idea is you're like a sole survivor person. I don't know, you have to travel to a destination. It's rather abstract. Okay. And you have to survive six days. On the six days is like the last part of your journey. And every day you draw two cards that say, like, okay, either you have to go this many segments on the road but get this bonus, or you might have fewer steps to travel, but you get a penalty. So you choose, like, okay, maybe I do five steps. And then you flip road cards and it's stuff you discover. So maybe the first card is there's a truck that's flipped over on the road. And for every card, you can decide like, do you want to circumvent it and take a detour? So you often have to draw more cards. Okay. Do you want to bypass it? So often it's like you have to spend energy to go through it or around it or something, or do you want to actually act with it? So you want to go into the truck and look for stuff, and that's usually when you have encounters, which some people can either be like you have to fight them or they trade with you and this kind of stuff. Oh, good. But that also gives you more items, and of course, items increase your chance to survive. And you have three basic stats, and your goal is to reach the end and not be on zero in any one of them. Yeah. And what's really fascinating, of course, is like the background, right? Hey, what is this game? Who's this today? And I never heard of it. It has quite good art on the road cards, but on the other hand, like the destination cards and everything is just numbers and very abstract. So the game you currently imagine in your head with this description is probably way more lush than the real game is.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:04

It's almost like a story generator. So if you play it and you think like, okay, stat goes up, stud goes down, I have this one card, okay. But if you try to like get into it and think like, okay, I find this lake full of nuclear waste and so on, it actually starts to grow on you. And the designer actually all published two scenarios where he did like a little bit of like a story snippet, what happens if you go that path and so on. So overall, like a very interesting concept. Again, I'm not sure if I can do like a buying recommendation. Right. First of all, it will be hard to get. Second of all, it's like there is something super, super interesting in like how it tries to do narrative, but I think it's not this, it might be the next game. So definitely like a designer and a system to watch. So that's cool. The road.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

The road. That's really cool. I like games that can do that, that kind of on a surface level look kind of abstract, but like if you, the player, are committed to kind of getting into it a bit, that abstractness becomes like immersion in the story and everything. Because yeah, you're right. Like as you were describing it, I was not picturing something that was gonna be more abstract, and it actually makes me think of a game that I've learned multiple times but haven't like played that much. And it's called uh, have you ever played Shadows of Malice?

SPEAKER_04 32:37

I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Okay, it's from Jenna Feli, the designer of Cosmic Frog. It's an older game, but it's got like kind of a mage night feel, but it's very abstract intentionally. When you encounter like a monster or something, you roll some dice and you get characteristics, but there's no like art of like, oh, here's what this monster looks like. You have to like envision it as you're playing. And it's a cooperative game that I think a lot of people play solo, but it's one that's on my list to delve into. And actually, while I'm before I talk about my next fresh play, a quick little segue that I have two very fresh partial plays in the works. Um, one I was telling you about before we started recording, but I have GMT sent me a copy of Infernal Machine because I was so curious to try it. It is an American Civil War time period game where you are an inventor and an entrepreneur, and you are designing a submarine and you're managing your crew, and it has this campaign. But I like I've set it up. I started like organizing all the counters and cards and everything and like reading the rule book, but I haven't had time to actually like play through the training scenarios yet. So that's another one that I'm like very intrigued by and like excited to when I have time where it's not where we're not still like unpacking boxes galore. But speaking of Genophelly, I have an early copy of The Witches of Willowspur, which is a game that's coming out uh this Gen Con 2026, and it's a cooperative game where each player is a witch, like you're a teenager kind of witch, and your moms are trying to like curse this one kid and and make him stay a frog, and it ties back to Jenna's uh previous design, Murray the A-Hole Frog. And so thematically, this is kind of like tying into that, but the teenage girl like witches do not want this poor Murray to be cursed forever. So you're you're doing stuff, you're brewing potions and trying to like basically reverse the the spell that your moms are working on. And so I've been so excited to play this. I set it up on the table last week, and I was just like looking at it, and then it's like every day that goes by, you know, because it's like you walk around, oh, let me put this away, let's sort this out. Next thing you know, it's like I'm exhausted. You know, I don't feel up for like playing a game right now, sadly. And then it was like Saturday morning, let's play it. But then we're like, okay, let's take a break so we can start putting together this vinyl shelf or whatever. Next thing you know, hours have passed. Oh, let's eat dinner. So I haven't finished the game. I was hoping to like have more progress on both of these, but just wanted to quickly mention that's what's on my tables right now. Like one, the solo game on my solo table, and the other one on my main table. And you'll hear more from me on The Witches of Willispur and Infernal Machine as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

But my sec you see how I cheat there where I throw in.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

I was thinking if I should sneak in some other mansions as well. Uh you go.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Yeah, you just gotta you gotta like, yeah, you gotta be sneaky with how you do that. So the game that I was gonna bring up, because again, you know, I haven't been gaming a ton, and a lot of the stuff that I've played most recently, because we were living out of suitcases, is like smaller games. And one of those games is called Bronze Age. Bronze Age is a an abstraction of like a civilization-building game that's all card-based. It's from designer John Cloudis, who I find to be like a really, really interesting designer. Omen, I think was one of the more popular ones. And even then, like I had never heard of it until someone introduced me to John Cloudis. But it's this is one that like Dan Thoreau, like I'm I'm pretty sure has like played all of John Cloudis' games and like written about them, including, I feel like Dan is the one who told me about Bronze Age. So I bought Bronze Age, and it's a small card game. So I've been I take it around for probably a solid year. I would have it in my bag and just never get to play it. And finally I said, I am gonna play this game. And so I played it one night with my friend Eric, who were crashing with in San Diego the first night we flew back, and it was, you know, I pull up the rules. The rules are online, thankfully, easy to find. But I pulled up the rules because the rules aren't, I don't think there are any rules in the box, so to speak, because it's just like, you know, a small deck of cards. It's not 18 cards, I forget how many, but it's a multi-use card game where we are competing to have the most points. We each are going to choose one of three cards. I guess you're like it's your like civilization or your your specialty kind of thing. And it's gonna be basically something that gives you a power during the game based on a certain type of icon. Actually, you'll get two powers. So you'll have three cards and you'll pick one of these cards, and that's gonna kind of set the tone for your strategy. One of the other cards you'll just flip over, and there's like a basic side. So both players will have like a basic and an advanced kind of civilization card that they're gonna start with, and you're gonna be taking actions to essentially like tuck cards, almost like innovation or something. You're gonna tuck cards and trigger different effects. Now, where it gets kind of interesting is you'll have three stacks of cards that you're gonna be interacting with. And each card in the game, aside from those initial like sieve cards, on the back, there's a type of landscape. So there's like one that's the sea, one that's the mountains, and one that's like the hills. So sometimes when you take a card, you're gonna put it into your tableau as the type of landscape, and sometimes you're gonna look on the other side of it, and and each card has two, like a top section that does something, and a bottom section. And you're trying to get the icons for your specialization because the those cards are gonna score you more points at the end of the game, but also trigger your kind of special ability when you tuck it. And then, meanwhile, that like the the basic civilization that both players have in common, you're kind you're competing with the other player to have like, I want to have more uh exploration icons tucked than you because if I do at the end of the game, maybe I get some more points. But meanwhile, the other thing is I mentioned there are these three decks that you're drawing from. On your turn, you have action cards. The players start the game with three action cards, they're pretty much the same effect, but they have the three different types of landscapes. So when you play, if one of those three decks on the table has a mountain card on the top, and I play a mountain action card, I'm gonna be able to do a better action if I can synergize those. But when I play that card, it's no longer like mine, it's out there and it's like a public card because another action you can take is to return cards and take those action cards back into your hand. And when you do that, it kind of triggers a different action. So you're doing a lot of this, like, oh, play a card, this lets me draw. Oh, I get to do it twice because I match the icons. But then there's a cool thing that happens in this game where when one of those decks runs out for the first time, there's like a collapse. Like civilization has collapsed, and any landscapes that you have that are like basically you have to go down to one type of landscape cards. A couple other things happen, and then you reshuffle and deal three even piles again, and you play till one of them runs out, and then that's the end of the game. And so it's a very quick game. The first time I played it, it was kind of a little fumbly. I mean, it was late at night. I think I'm pretty sure it was the night that we flew back from Europe and had a long day, but was excited to play something. But the second time I played it, I was like, okay, I got this, I got this. It's it's really fast. I played with Matt the second time. I don't know. We might have we might have played, so I might have played it like three times now, but I really like what it does for a you know, a small game, two players that's quick to play. You have some interesting choices with the multi-use cards and the timing of like which action card you play, because that's dictating which card which deck you're drawing from, so you can kind of like rush that collapse if you want. And yeah, so yeah, so it was it was kind of neat. And then I feel like the scoring has been pretty tight at the end, so it's like you have to still compete for those those three different icons that the players you need to have the most of. But meanwhile, you want to also trigger your ability to do stuff, and for such a like a simple game where you get these three cards at the top of the game and you decide which one you want to be your specialization, and you don't know which one your the opponent's gonna pick, but like it kind of changes up the field of the game because some of them interact with your opponent, some of do other things, and there's like there's a lot there for a deck of cards.

SPEAKER_04 43:19

You know, when you when you sent me the the name, I quickly looked on BGG, and this is one of the games where you see a picture and you're like, huh, this looks interesting. Like it has its own art style, yeah. Super detailed graphics or anything, but it's like something special about this one. Like I'm I'm very intrigued to look into it.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

And I think that's what like John Cloudus's kind of specialty is these games that kind of like do something a little different, like even the whole thing with the timing of playing the action cards and that card staying on the table, and the timing of when do you decide to pick one back up so that you know you. At different points in the game, you're gonna have a different number of action cards in your hand from your opponent, but when the collapse happens, it resets. So each player gets three, one of each type again.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

I I like it and I wanna like I want to play it more. And it's like now that I know how to play it, yeah, I dig it.

SPEAKER_04 44:19

No that we have still compete against the hundreds and hundreds of other games you want to play.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

You're right, you're right. So that is Bronze Age. Well, Alex, it's time to talk about games that inspire post-game discussions. I think we're each gonna share about five games. Are you are yours in in order, or is it just kind of a free-for-all?

SPEAKER_04 44:50

I was also about to ask you, like, it's quite difficult. Did you have like a certain like approach to making a list?

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Yes. So sort of. So my approach was like there were there were a couple obvious ones for me personally that I'm like, oh, of course I need to have those on. And then I I I started kind of just like looking through logged plays from probably the past six months to a year, or just kind of scrolling through and and thinking through like different games. And so I don't have my games ranked. I think I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, technically, but I feel like in certain instances they can be grouped together. So that's kind of like my approach. But uh, what about you?

SPEAKER_04 45:45

So for me, it was quite hard. Like, of course, I I just checked my reviews. Okay, which were the games that really stood out? Because usually, if I really like a game, I write about it at some point.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

I also asked a couple of friends, like, okay, which one still sticks in your mind? And then at one point I realized, okay, you you limited me to five, and I was like, I can five fill five even just with spotter titles, right? So I was thinking, okay, that might be not so interesting for the listener because they're hard to get, and so on. So I thought, A, I try to pick one from each publisher max, and rather have like a backup in case you pick it. And two, I also try to stack them in like from the game that's like yeah, not the least interesting, but maybe like, okay, I don't have so many deep thoughts, it's just interesting. To like the one that always keeps us talking after every game. But yeah, I realize it's it's a bit like like board game garage, right? Yeah, it might be drafting, you may might pick mine before I get to it. So it's right, right. Uh balance of like maybe I scoot one further down the list, although I want it further up just to like beat you to it.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Okay, okay. I love it. I love it. I think I'm gonna mention mine in the order where I think we're least likely to have overlap. But like also, I think like we we do overlap in taste, but I don't know. We might we might not overlap. Well, let's see. All right, you want to kick things off?

SPEAKER_04 47:19

Sure. So I I thought I like preemptively strike and pick first world order. So world order came out this year, just fulfilled. Designers are Vangelis Bagiatakis and Varnavas Timotheo. These are the two designers from hegemonic project games that did hegemony, which of course was like a massive hit. Yeah. And a little bit of backstory. I actually uh met Vangelis at Spiel one day. Like I went to Spiel, first booth I went was the hegemony booth because I wanted to have some promo or something. Cool. And I saw a box there, and I'm like, what is this? It had like a really amazing looking cover, but there was no information at all. So I just grabbed someone from the booth and I'm like, hey, can you tell me anything about it? It was the world order box. They wanted to announce it on that day, and I was like literally like five minutes after opening there. Ah nice! I asked this random guy, like, hey, can you tell me anything about it? And he's like, sure, I can. I'm one of the designers. And that's how I met Magulis and did later an interview with him. Super nice guy. So that's cool. World order is I think quite difficult to explain. Like it looks like a standard map of the world. Maybe you might think risk or anything. It also has a DNA of hegemony, like the art star, the black art with like the gorgeous uh artwork and everything. They also brought in like the player asymmetry again. So there's lots of things that like are remiss reminiscent of hegemony, right? But it's a very different game. So it's best described as like a deck builder combined with air majority. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I think like to me, it has like a multi-layered area control thing going on, and this is going from you know, I've only played it once with with you and Matt, and I I loved it. Like, I I so one of the things that I thought about when I first played hegemony was the that voting phase, and I was like, this reminds me of TI4, like the agenda phase in TI4. And when I played World Order, the whole thing where you get to get these allies of different countries and have those small cards, and then you can like exhaust them to use them for something else. I was like, huh, that reminds me of TI4, like the the the way the planets work as resources. And I just I like that because I'm like, I don't know a whole lot of other, I mean, I'm sure they exist games that do something like that where you you get some card and then you can use it for multiple things, but you exhaust it, and then you need to eventually refresh it. This game like has so many cool things going on, and it's it's not the asymmetry level of hegemony, which I actually liked because you don't have to spend forever teaching people because like you taught us, like 85% of the game is the same for all players. That doesn't mean it's like boring or anything like that, but but then there's some asymmetry in how the different factions play and your deck of cards that you start with, and then the deck building reminds me of Dune Imperium, which is one of my favorite games. Like you the cards that you don't play during the action phase, you then use to get new cards. And I forget where where I was even going with any of this, but there's so many things you can let on, right?

SPEAKER_04 51:23

Yeah. So for me, the most interesting thing is how they approach asymmetry. Because I feel most games give you like, hey, these are your powers, you can do something nobody else can do, and then you're like, oh, okay, after erases, my faction and root can do this better than the other, so I lean into it. And this is more like deceptive, I would say. So the whole publisher was founded because they wanted to do political science and education with games, right? So they're they're a little bit more like nuanced about it, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:56

Let me tell you about the the first time I played World Order at Spiel, actually. Like we were only allowed to play one turn because it takes quite a bit. But all of us four sat down and said, Okay, this will be amazing. And then we got the rule stage, and we're like, uh-huh. Sounds simple, sounds simple, sounds simple, got it, okay. We started playing, and then we were like, but where's the asymmetry in this, right? Like we all have similar-looking player boards, we get like the same same cards we thought. There's all those allies, they all look the same. But it turns out there's so many limitations for each faction, but in a in a sneaky way. And we started playing, and after a couple of turns, interesting things developed. So, for example, the EU was suddenly dealing with Russia to buy oil, the other players didn't like it because Russia suddenly got money and could buy other stuff we didn't want it to have, and all this kind of stuff. And suddenly we noticed, oh, good thing NATO exists because otherwise US player and the EU player would currently bang heads and so on. And it's for me, it's almost like they created like four different maps with four nuanced factions that have their strength, but then they said, okay, explore. They don't tell you, hey, as Russia, you have a really, really hard time to deploy troops in South America. But if you pay a bit attention to the news and like history and so on, you can think like, okay, probably as this and this faction, I should act this way.

SPEAKER_02 53:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:20

And probably I shouldn't go against like the nature of the faction, let's say it this way.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

Yeah, and I even like, like you're saying, like this is all like starting to come back to my memory, but how you can't just automatically start placing your influence in certain places. Like there's a a way that you need to like kind of build up to even do that. And so sometimes it doesn't make sense. It has like that kind of like more realistic feel to it.

SPEAKER_04 53:53

Let me ask you this: like, when you played it, did you have feeling you were like on rails or there was like gout raids on the side that put you into a certain direction?

SPEAKER_01 54:02

I don't think so. And no, I'm like, I'm I'm trying to like remember back because like right now, the the most prominent thing was just like I love this game, I want to play it more. Like, that's that's I'm I'm trying to like think back to some of the the nuance of how I felt. I just remember and we played a three-player game, which I'm curious to see how it would go with four, even, but like we had so many cool interactions between the three of us, and yeah, who was you were the US, I was the EU, and Matt was China or I think China, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:41

And he and he and I were like banging heads in the in the Pacific, and we were like after the first scoring, we were way ahead, and then you sneakily did a lot of diplomatic actions, and suddenly you were like way ahead of us.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Yeah, yeah. Oh yes, now it's now it's coming back. It's it's interesting because you mentioned like that year that they had it at Spiel, and I was working for BGG at the time, and I remember going to their booth and like seeing it set up and kind of like getting a brief overview of it, but I remember like not being that excited about it. You know, part of it is like you're at the convention, sensory overload. I'm probably focused more on filming than I am like digesting like what the game is truly all about. And I was like, okay, area control, sure.

SPEAKER_03 55:32

See that done that.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Yeah, yeah. But it really, really surprised me. And it's a rare thing when I play a game and a turn or two in, and I'm like, I want this game. I need to have this game, I need to play this more, you know. And I had that with world order.

SPEAKER_04 55:51

And we played the old prototype version. So I was I was lucky the guys were so kind to send me forward like one of the prototypes, one of the YouTubers got when the campaign started. So in the final copy, there's more like tech cards, there's the historic event stuff going on. So it really feels like they created another maybe platform. So in my preview, I even like teased them a bit like, hey, what they could do is there's something in the news, they could do a print of play of just two, three cards, yeah, and suddenly switch the whole formula. That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Yeah, yeah. And I think you cut you could do stuff like that. That's cool.

SPEAKER_04 56:32

It's a great game. The only downside is it takes a while.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Yeah, I uh I forget if it was like three and a half, four hours for us.

SPEAKER_04 56:40

I would say so. And I so far haven't seen that it really decreases because people really want this interaction, they want the band, so they want to think a little bit through it. It never feels like AP. And I I feel like even when we played, it felt like playing for 10 minutes or something.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:58

But it's like, yeah, it's not a two-all game, let's say it this way.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

I heard someone else who got a chance to play it was saying that each game he played, the the players kind of got bogged down with deciding which cards to get. And I thought that was interesting because I'm like, to me, again, it's like it reminds me of the like Dune Imperium, where hey, I just finished my last action, so now I know I'm gonna be first to do the the deck building part. So I'm gonna look at the cards while you guys are finishing your turns. So I didn't think that got bogged down.

SPEAKER_04 57:36

I think the the big benefit over hegemony is it feels like playing for 10 minutes. So people are, and as you said, like the rules, so much of the rules are shared, it's way easier to get in. So I have no doubt that we'll get this way, way more to the table than hegemony. And I really like hegemony.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Yeah, and so as in terms of like post-game discussions, do you find yourself talking about like, oh, I can't believe like we had this interaction or remember that thing, or is it more like I think it's one of these games where where it's really hard to say where are the limitations and where is like the flexibility?

SPEAKER_04 58:19

So, I mean, with a lot of games by now I I have sort of an eye for it. I play it once, I have a theory, I play it the second time, and I know how to explain the system. Yeah. And this game is like it's so like you basically have to look through all the ally cards if you really, really want to game it. But where's the fun in that, right? Right. I'm still like in an exploration discovery phase with this game, which is saying a lot for me.

SPEAKER_00 58:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:49

And so the the post-game discussions usually were about like, okay, if you would have done this, could I have done there? Oh, I should have been more on the economic route than the military route, or why didn't you do this? The other player may have gone away. So it's just there's always something to talk about, and I think it's because it's so nuanced and so hard to grasp. There's no you did this wrong in turn three, because nobody could say, was this an excellent move or not?

SPEAKER_01 59:16

I could see people getting into like current events in the political world and like tying that to like stuff that's happening in the game. Yeah, this is a great game.

SPEAKER_04 59:29

It's amazing that they managed to create like two games like this, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Yeah, yeah. They're they're doing great stuff there. So that is world order. The first game I'll mention is a way lighter game, a way smaller game, but it is Things and Rings.

SPEAKER_03 59:48

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

Yeah, I was thinking about this because every time I play Things and Rings, which is kind of like I think what do we call it? Like a gamer's party game or like word game, like like it, there's another level to it where I wouldn't just like sit it in front of everybody because of the way you need to kind of like the way the deduction works and the way you I love how it's like if you're the person that's the the one that's the leader or whatever, you have to think critically about like where you place cards. For those who aren't familiar with Things and Rings, it's a game where you put these three overlapping circles, a red one, a yellow one, a blue one, and you do it such that you have different areas where it's like, oh, if I put a card here, that means it only applies to the blue thing, the blue characteristic, or if I put it here, it only applies to the red. If I put it here, then it's blue and red. And then like there's one area that you put cards in the middle, meaning it corresponds to everything. This is a game from Peter C. Hayward. It came out in 2024, small box game from All Play. And I just find there's never like an obvious answer, whether you're the person that's the one that knows the solution or the ones that are trying to figure it out. It's always like very thinky. And so after the games that I play of this, I always find myself talking with people, like, oh, would you really have thought that this? Okay, you know, and you're like, it's it's it's one of those games that like uh kind of helps you understand the way people think differently from you. If that makes sense. So yeah, so as I was like looking through my games, I'm like, yeah, I feel like things and rings always generate some kind of like post-game discussion. Also, it's one of these like games that I remember when I think Derek from BGG first taught it to me at like one of BGG cons, and I didn't really like love it, and he loved it. And I this one has just like grown on me. So I feel like I almost like didn't get it, maybe like that first play. But like the more I play it, the more I'm intrigued by it, and I just like how challenging it can be because it's it's like, oh, like, do I consider this to be? Oh, they're asking if this is bigger than a chair. Well, depends on what chair we're talking about, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:37

Like I have big chairs, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:41

Yeah, so, anyways, that's why I was thinking things and rings for one of my pics.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:46

Nice, good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:48

Okay, my next one. I was discussing if I should put it into fresh place, but I snuck it in here. It's Cross Bronx Express, it's from 2025. The designer goes by Non-Breaking Space, it's by GMT Games, so you're familiar with it. And for those that don't know about it's in the ICS series, so some people say it's Corn Light-ish or something. Yeah, before I played what's it called? Vija Nagara.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

Vijayanagara, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:18

Thank you so much. Which all already was interesting, but I picked this game because I'm still figuring it out. Yeah, I have no clue what's going on. And when I played it with reference, I was like, wait, is this working or not? Because you play in the Bronx, you can play uh multiple decades, usually it's two, you can start in the 40s, and there's cards up to the 2000s, and it's three factions. So it's the public sector, it's community, and it's a private sector. What makes this very approachable is a a lovely production. Like some GMT games are easier to get into than others. This is definitely one for people who are not used to like the big tombs of rules and everything. It has nice introduction explanation booklets that make it super easy to get in. And also the asymmetry is rather not light, but it's like you see the similarities. Okay, everybody has something how to build buildings, everybody has something to move people, and so on. But there's a lot of nuance. So what makes this so interesting is it's a yeah, semi-co-op, which usually doesn't work, I would say. Like as a rule, usually it doesn't work. And each faction has a few goals or objectives, and there's just two scoring usually. So it's a bit like you mentioned doing impairing, do an impairing, every victory point counts, right? Because there's a few. I have a thing that's similar here. Like if you manage to screw someone with like a tiny little bit, they lose one of four VPs, they can score. Yeah, so it's super tight. But on the other hand, you can end up not everybody loses because the city loses, and then everybody loses, and the game is over. And it's interesting on multiple aspects. Like A, the Bronx is a super interesting topic, and they have like a nice yeah booklet with all the historical events, a bit of explanation, and it's like 70s or 80s.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:21

I'm trying to remember which decades, or does it start in like 700? That's right, that's right. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:26

And it's basically you're trying to build infrastructure, get people in there, and then yeah, there's an event system where basically you can say, like, hey, do you want to act? Do like a lot of actions, do you want to re-act so you're behind the event, or do you want to get the event card that's special for the turn? And all hell breaks loose. I mean, there's like events, people come home from the war, and suddenly you have people you need their house, or crime rate goes up, or I don't know. There's so many interesting things that in the cards that it's rather approachable. Rules-wise, it really isn't that difficult to learn, but to be honest, I still don't know what to think. Like, I still don't know how to play it good. I still don't know if it really works or not. And I'm so fascinated by this game. So the post-game discussions were exactly about that. Like, we're like, okay, we all lost. How could we have won it? But still I won before you.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:22

And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:24

How should we deal with the events? How different are the decades? There's so much to explore in this game that it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:31

Yeah, this is one that I've I think I've played. I haven't played like a full. Is the full game three decades or two?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:40

I think Standout is two.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

So I think I've only done one decade twice. And it was like right when it first came out. And it's I I I've had the same feelings. Like there's there's an opaqueness kind of to it, but there are people that I know, like Joel Eddie from Drive-Thru Games, who have played it multiple times. And hearing how they describe their experiences, and I think Ken, my friend Ken, I mentioned before, I he I think he put it a couple of times. I completely agree with you that a lot of the discussion is kind of like figuring out do I like this? What? Like what what what did what just happened here? Oh, like that was it's different, you know, it's it's different, like the theme is different, the faction interactions are different. It's a great pick because it's like whether you like it or unsure or dislike it, like it seems like it's always gonna be a game where there's something that people are gonna be talking about after you play it, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:50

And the funny thing is, I can't analyze it yet mechanically, so I can't really write a review about it. Yeah, but I can answer what you said. Like, I think I like this game. I even like after playing it a couple of times solo to just get familiar with it, I actually mailed NB and said, Hey, I think this is my second favorite GMT game I've played.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

Oh, cool. So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

Something there, and even if I don't get it to the table, I just want to keep it on the shelf, basically, because it's such a nice production, such an interesting theme, such an interesting idea to try, let's say it this way.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

Yeah, and I remember I actually played a MB's prototype at some point when he was at weekend at the warehouse and had it. And it's funny because the prototype, I think the board was like black, like it was like all dark. So when I saw the finished production, I was like, oh, it's like different for GMT, but also like different than what I expected from the prototype. But I remember playing the prototype and thinking, like, oh, this is like really interesting. This is hegemony adjacent, and I still feel that way, and I'd want to spend more time with it, and I will. I want to get more familiar with it, and it's one of those games that's like that's deep. I think also maybe Cole Worley maybe told me about his experiences. Like, there were like three people whose opinions I value and who have played it multiple times and had like really cool things to say about it, and it just like makes me want to play it more when I get to it. When I get to it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:38

It's like so it's it's it's really for that alone. I think it's worth a play.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

Like, yeah, and thematic. Yeah, and and the theme is also daring. Like there might be people who are like, What? A game about the Bronx Expressway being built?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:57

Like, what I mean, it's also small stuff, like everybody asks the same thing. Like, you see the board, and then you see uh seven districts, but they're numbered one to nine because the map is historically accurate, and like I think region district three and four are just like to the north of the area that's shown on the map. Yeah, and they didn't renumber them, no, they used the actual numbers and stuff like that. So there's there's a lot to discuss there, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

How did you guys make out with the the like the bookkeeping part when you do the check the expenses and stuff? I forget what that phase is called. Because I remember when I played, we were like, Oh, should we trigger this? Yeah, let's do it. And then we're like, Oh, maybe we shouldn't have done that.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:42

It's like they have this census phase. So usually what's also interesting, each decade I think has 15 cards or something, and you only play eight of them. So even if you replay the same decade, it's it's different cards, and then there's a census, and the census is where, like, yeah, all the processing happens. Yes. I say as much, I think it was a good thing that I played it like three, four times solo before I tried to teach it to friends because it's like, okay, I have to pay for what? And then taxes on this, and who gets it? And wait, why should I even do a bond? And like there's so many things in there.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the the fact that the cubes represent like population, but then sometimes their vulnerabilities.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

Yeah, there's some there's some things there, but you're making me want to bust it out. How did you like playing it solo out of curiosity? Like, was it fun or was it more just helpful, like learning process-wise?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:40

That's a good question. I think yes, fun. The why I'm a bit hesitant is the the bots basically use a priority card and they stick to that priority until a certain condition is hit. So they always go like, okay, I want to do this, then this, then this. Gotcha. Next turn I try the same thing until it like basically hits a certain phase where it can't use that priority, and then it switches priority, which is smart, but it's more like not predictable, but but it feels a little bit like odd, but otherwise easy to process. So it has its pros and cons. I would say I think it's good for solo. I'm not sure if it really works for two. Like the friend I played it with with two interesting was like, okay, let's try it at three. Yeah. And I feel when you're a solo gamer, you're more like, oh great, I can really dive into this game, even if it's just bother they do their stuff, they they kick me in the behind if I don't do this right, and so on. So I often feel with Automas, it's like it's easier to do a one that does well for solo than it does for two-player, right? So I think that's the case here.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

Cool, cool. Well, I will look forward to like talking to you more about this one when I get to play it a little bit more.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:56

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:57

But yeah, but now, yeah, now it's like back on my mind. So, all right. It's on the list, Alex. It's on the list. So the next one I'll mention is I don't know if you've played it, but it's Stationfall.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:13

I always wanted to play it. I haven't yet.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:16

Okay. Stationfall is a game. This is a party game for heavy gamers, but um, but this is a game where everybody has secret roles at the beginning of the game, but it's one of those games where each player can use any character and manipulate them on the board. And it's fascinating because everybody has like kind of a primary objective, and at some point in the game, you can reveal who you are, but uh initially you're kind of like manipulating different characters to kind of like set yourself up to meet your goal. And the whole thing is the round timer is like ticking down till this like spaceship crashes down. But the whole thing is you're trying to either get on an escape pod, usually, your goal might be to make sure a certain character doesn't make it on the escape pod. And I just find that every time I play Station Fall, I want to play it again immediately after. And it's it's a little it there's definitely a learning curve there, especially with all the characters, and you definitely should grab some good player aids off of BGG. Thank you to the people who put those out there. Oh my gosh, lifesavers. But knowing how to teach this game uh well and also how to get into it without like learning every rule and learning every character, there's there's a sweet spot there. But I just find that every time I play it, we're always like, oh my gosh, I can't believe when you moved this guy there, and oh, you were trying to, oh, you let this creature out, blah blah blah blah blah. You know, there's there's always some like really interesting narratives and the fact that there's like some secrecy every single time, like there's there's conversations. I feel like some this is one that I talk about the next day, and again, it's it's something I always want to play more of. Yeah, so I'm hoping to maybe like when I'm more set up, get get that one to the table like once a month to keep it keep it fresh. And you know, I love that you can play it with like something like one to nine players. I've never I don't think I've ever played with more than six. That sounds wild, but I'm not opposed to it if if people are down for the ride or already experienced or whatever, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:58

Do you have any recommendation like what's the ideal player count? Like how does it play with two versus four versus six?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:06

Just from knowing how the game works, I think probably five and six might be a sweet spot. I don't know if I've ever played it with four. I'm I maybe have only played it with like five and six, and I have no idea. I'm gonna wait for you to play it solo to tell me how that is. But yeah, this is like one of those games where I think like by the time I play it again, you know, at a mid-range player count, like four, five, six, I would totally, because I know Matt loves it too, I would be totally down to try two players and just see how that feels. Because I know you you change the amount of characters that you're playing with. There are also always characters, I believe, that no player controls. So like there's some mystery there. But it's cool. And I I started painting the minis for it too. So that's I I gotta finish that up and get this to the table.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:12

I haven't heard that much about it, but I remember like listening maybe on like Survey Wrong About Games or something, and it sounded also like a story generator. Like, you remember the one time when the monkey did this and this, and then went into the skate hatch. So, like when I interviewed Ryan Lockett and to talk with him about Sleeping Gods and how he created it, he mentioned this concept of memorable moments. So when he designs the games, he thinks about like, okay, what's the memory I want to give people when they leave the table? What absolutely discussions they should have. And have the feeling Stationfall is one of those where you're like, Oh, do you remember four months ago when we did this and you blew up this and I still hate you for it, or something?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:52

I remember people comparing it to Nemesis when it first came out, and I think I played Stationfall before I played Nemesis, and I definitely get the comparison, like they're different games, but what I love about both of them is that feeling of not knowing if I should be trusting you. And oh wait, why are you turning the cameras off? That's that's sus. Why did you just pick up that that wrench, Alex? Huh? What are your intentions? You know, like I love games like that where it's like they might not be doing something no good, but they probably are. I don't know. But yeah, it's definitely like a really interesting like story generator, and and the fact that you do have this like kind of project X thing, and there it could be one of multiple like creepy things, and you know, someone can go and let it out, or maybe you don't in a game, you know, it kind of just varies, but yeah, just talking about it gets me excited to break it out.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:01

Yeah, would you say I should definitely pick it up with the minis, or would you say no, they're more optional?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:07

Okay, so my here's my thought on the minis. Initially, I regretted getting them, but someone on BGG, a friend, I cannot remember his name, unfortunately. He's actually the person I played with the first time that I played it. He made a 3D printed insert for it. And along with that, he made bases for the minis that you can print stickers on. So if you're gonna do that, which I know you probably would if you get it, and print the stickers, the minis work. But if you don't print these bases with the stickers, it's hard to tell who is who, unless you unless you paint them. And so a lot of people were preferring to use like the little hex cylinder pieces just because it's easier to see. You know, you're looking across the table at these different characters and being like, oh, the botanist icon is this. And if you just see a gray mini, you're like, wait, which one's the botanist? But if it's in a base that has the sticker of that icon, that you're like, oh, that's the botanist icon.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:15

Yeah. So like that, and again, the player aids are uh uh essential, in my opinion, because unless you're sitting on the side of the table, and plus you don't want people to know which like characters you're like kind of reading up on their abilities, but I make sure everybody has their own sheet that has all the characters and it's a dry erase thing. Like I laminated it so you can like cross out the ones that are not in the game, and you can take some notes, and when you're like, hmm, do I want to use activate that power? You know, you're not like looking over at the table at that little character player eight.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:52

And do you have like a favorite memory, like the super crazy situation where all hell broke loose or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:00

I want to say yes, but like I really feel like lately, because of the the past two months, my brain is a little bit mush right now from traveling for a month and then like intense apartment hunting to moving. Sure. I can't even think of one now. But listen to the last podcast episode where I talked about it. I probably have some more specific stories. I probably do, but like brain mush right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:30

Great pick. I think also like hidden role systems like lend themselves to it because you always like have this double thing, and later you get the reveal and explanation what was someone trying to do and the system didn't allow it, and so on. Yep, yep. Now comes like the problematic era where I really had to pick, and at first I was thinking about picking John Company second edition, which is a game I absolutely love.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:56

But then I thought like, gosh, how did I not put John Company? That's a great game.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:01

It's like amazing. But then I was thinking I played this a lot solo, so it's more like discussion with myself, so it didn't want to occur. But instead I picked Molly House, which is also WhirlyGig. Uh uh 2025, Joe Kelly and Cole Whirley designed it. As always with WorlyGig, lovely production, lovely historic theming, really like a game you treasure and you just have in your collection. Yes, you're happy to see it and get it to the table. What I really like there is like how it's almost like a daring riddle. You read the rules, and there are certain parts where they don't explain, oh, this happens because of this. This is simulating this, but you play it, and then later, like people are like, oh, this represents this, and this would be this if the party would be real, and so on.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:55

And I like this communal like deciphering of what the game's trying to do almost.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:02

Totally. That's a great. I actually thought about Molly House. I don't know how I did not think about John Company. I would almost go as far as saying any Cole Whirly game or Whirly Gig game, regardless of the designer, that they're all very like even have you played Oath much?

SPEAKER_04 1:23:23

That's one I haven't played, actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:25

Well, now, like the there's like the solo, then they like create a whole solo mode for it. Like Liz Davidson and Ricky Royal, Richard Wilkins, great combination. Yeah, oh yeah, you know, because you're playing solo of John Company and Pax Pamir, probably. So he also did the solo mode for Molly House, so yeah, and he's also doing the solo mode for my game, Rival Surprise. Yeah, I'm really stoked about that, but that's a great pick, and I 100% agree. Like, I think I've only played Molly House like three times, but like it is the kind of like design and theme and the whole package that definitely gets people talking about like what happened, what does this mean? How do I feel about that, etc. etc. And so yeah, good pick.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:22

Okay, I'm gonna go with to to vary it up, I'm gonna go with another lighter game, and I'm going to I kind of had a slash here, and they're kind of two different games that do something similar. So I'll say Ito. Okay, I think it's never played it. Okay. The other game that I had as a slash was I my favorite things, and there's there's a there's an overlap, I think, with why I'm associating them together, but Ito is a game that is cooperative where we are trying to. I think we have cards numbered like the mind or something, I forget the range of them. And we have some kind of topic, and we each need to answer based on the number that we have and try to get our cards in the right number, our cards in the right order.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:21

I heard about it, but it sounded so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:24

Yeah, and I don't own it yet. This is one that I also like Things and Rings, I don't own, but I I I want to. But it's one of those things that again makes you. I remember there was something like, oh, if you if you were trying to like impress someone you love or something like, what would you do? And then someone was like, Oh, I would bring them coffee in the morning. Someone said something like, I would take them on vacation, but our in-laws are coming, and you know, like you're trying to gauge and figure out like how much does getting a cup of coffee brought to you in bed mean to you versus like, oh, an all expense paid trip, surprise trip to Italy, or taking out the trash or something. And it I feel like every time I've played it, there are moments where people are so off compared to like maybe what I'm thinking, and I'm off from what they're thinking. I'm like, wait, you had a 60 and you and you you said that, like, and it just I feel like it always gets people talking and after the fact, and you're you're remembering those moments of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you were thinking that because I would have put that here and said something like this and stuff like that. So it's like one of those games where you're getting to know the people you're playing with through like learning how they rank certain things. It's creative, also, right? Because it's like you have a number and you have to think of something that is gonna help everybody get the cards in the right order. And with I my favorite things, this one is a trick-taking game where you write your, like, I think you write like on this deck of cards that has dry race markers, and you sleeve them, but you write your your top five things, or maybe four things you like and one thing you don't, or something. But there's a scale where you're writing something, and then you shuffle the cards and you pass them to the person on your left or right or whatever. I don't remember exactly how it works, but then you're playing a trick taking game based on knowing, like, okay, well, I know Alex sort of likes Doritos, so I'm gonna try to play this as a thinking it's a three. And you don't know like the number, like there's something like weird to it. And both of these games, yeah, it is kind of wild. I've only played it a couple of times and then I donated my copy to friends who are moving away. But that's another one that I would like to get again and play more.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:18

Let me quickly get back to Ito. Like it sounds like a game where you run a little bit of risk of losing like one or two friends and maybe a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:25

Like Yes. Yes. 100% yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:31

You only bring me coffee, so I'm only worth 10.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:34

Yeah, and you noticed what which example I brought up for the a very memorable one. Because there was something, there was something quite controversial where like we're met, it was like five of us playing, and I think I like I don't remember if it was me, but like uh Ben Mandelkar, our friend Ben, was was playing too, and I think he said the coffee thing, but this this particular question, I mean, uh a lot of the questions in this game like just generate conversation and after the fact when you see the results. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:13

Do the questions come in the game, or do we have to be creative and someone picks a topic?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:18

No, I think you have like a deck of questions or prompts or something like that. And yeah, it looks like each player gets a secret number card that has a value between one and one hundred based on the clues you give related to the chosen theme. Yeah, so I think it's a small deck of cards and it has themes. Like, okay, I'm looking at a picture on BGG and like one of the cards says scary things. So but imagine we're playing with six players, numbers range from one to one hundred. So it's tricky, you know? It's tricky.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:54

And what would you say is like the ideal player count for this one?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:58

I I don't I haven't really played it enough to know, but I know Ben broke this out at his birthday party, and we had like whatever the full let me see what the full player count would be. But I think it would be solid with four plus probably. Cool. It goes, it looks like it goes to 10 players.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:17

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:17

So I I I think oh, I think it would be tough with like eight and up. So I would I would say like four, five, six, seven, maybe. And then like you could do it with more, but it's it's probably just gonna get like really hard to kind of nail down. Like, let's say you get a 64 and I have a 72, and so I think then it would get a little too tough, but maybe like three might be too little. I don't know, there might be like a variant or something for two or three.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:47

And would you say is like safe enough to play with like work colleagues or something, or will this create like enemies for life?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:54

No, I think I think it'd be fine to play with work colleagues. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:59

Nice one.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:00

Depends on who you work with, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:02

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:04

Cool, okay. So two more for you before any honorable mentions.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:11

It's getting tough, but these are some of my favorite games. So, Candace, let me ask you, how often do you think about pollution in medieval Italy? So the game is antiquity. I had, of course, to pick at least one splotter. So, this is my honorable splotter. I was thinking about Indonesia because we had like great discussions about how the economy changes all the time. So I had fun situation with bus. There's so many games I could have picked. I picked this one for multiple reasons.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:42

Roads and boats, also.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:45

Okay, that's more like we never talk again because you stole my geese, right? True story. I picked Antiquity because I think it's one the fewest people had like access to. Like I paid an arm and a leg for my copy, and I had to get it like from Italy, so I it was still sensible to get it. But one, they currently still have the pre-order for the reprint open. So anybody who's ever been interested in a splotter, take a look at this one. I would say it's one of the best. And they're about to close it, so pause the podcast, go to the website, check it out. If you like it, buy it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:26

And and get the geek bits. Do you have the geek up bits?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:30

No, I don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:31

You don't? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:32

I actually like the cardboard.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:35

I feel like it's so much easier to read this the board state with the geek up bits. Okay. All right. All right, anyways.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:43

Before we go too deep into it, what is integrity? I would say it's a mixture between like a city builder and area control, maybe. It's it's difficult to describe because you start with your small city scale state. You can build some buildings so you get workers, but of course it costs pollution.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:03

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:05

The workers called food and space in your city. So space in your city is actually one of the resources. If your city is full, you cannot build anything. And you have tons and tons of different buildings you could build. You could build a market and suddenly you are allowed to trade with other players, but they can only trade with you because you have the market. You could build storage because usually you cannot take resources you harvest in one round over to the next round unless you have storage and put a worker in there to man the storage. There is like weird stuff like the forced labor building, which is a favorite of a friend of mine. Suddenly you harvest way more stuff, but you also, yeah, you're basically like locust going over the landscape, harvesting everything. And the clue about the game is like there's multiple things that are super interesting, but the clue is every hex you can basically only harvest once. Forest is an exception, but basically everything you can only harvest once, then you put like a pollution disc on it, and that naturally propels you forward, that you have to go headfirst into where your opponents are.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:11

It's a nasty fight, and you have stuff like oh, if you place your worker in the wrong position, maybe they harvest wood for two turns too long, and you have locked them up, and you don't really need the wood, so you lose the wood because you can't spend it. If you would have put the worker one to the left, it would have been a bitter there. And it's one of these games which I think for splotters really approachable because you have your safe space, at least in the beginning, nobody can screw with you. You have your own there, and then it's snowballs, and you're suddenly, oh, in turn two, I made a mistake, I should have done this more efficiently, but you still have fun. Yeah, and yeah, due to the buildings, there's always always different combinations. You can try, okay. This time I use the harbor to extend my area of control further. Yeah, on top of that, you can choose your own victory condition. There are five, and you only have to choose it once you build your cathedral. So I would say it's m probably the ideal splotter to get into for Eurogamers because it has so many like familiar mechanisms, but then things you have never seen in any game.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:15

So every time afterwards we were like, okay, we should play this immediately again. Yeah. Yeah. Every game was like a story we could tell today.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:25

Oh, you're making me regret selling my copy of Antiquity. I know who I sold it to, though. Wait, I think my friend Francisco. So it's still sort of in the family.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:36

Just pre-order a new copy. You pay like 75 euros per shipping. Honestly, I paid I think 150, and that was a steal.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:44

No, Alex, I am going to get more plays in with the Splatter games than I have.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:51

That's a good resolution.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:54

But I'm like, I did really, really like antiquity. I mean, I do like it. Like, I just was like, I can't keep all these games. And I know I I still have the great Zimbabwe, I still have horseless carriage and roads and boats. I think I don't have food chain anymore. I have a love-hate relationship with that one.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:17

Okay, I was thinking it, you were saying it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:22

That's funny. That's funny. Cool. Good pick, antiquity.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:27

What's your number two?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:29

All right. I guess my number two is going to be Blood on the Clock Tower.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:39

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:40

Yeah. And I mean, you were kind of talking about it when I brought up Stationfall and saying stuff with like hidden roles always brings up conversation after you reveal everything. But yeah, Blood on the Clock Tower for me, I definitely still, even with my brain mush, can remember so many crazy things that happen. I remember the first time we played, we played two games back to back. It was like my friend Brandon from Optimal Play. His copy like had just delivered, and he had a big party, and we had a full player count and played two back-to-back games. And I still remember things that happen from that. And it was just one of these games that we were talking about the next day for the next couple of days, like, oh my gosh, this game, you know. So I think for me, and I have friends who are like really, really deep with it. So every time I play it, we're playing some crazy, like homebrewed script that has like this crazy combination of characters that like half the time I'm like, wait, what? How does this role work? And like it kind of breaks my brain a little. Like sometimes it gets a little possibly too weird and wild, but every single time there is stuff to talk about, and we talk, and usually it's like like whoever's storytelling has to say, okay, shut up so we can actually play another game. Because they're just like, oh my gosh, when you when you said this to me, and I can't believe, wait, so you did that? Oh, I you know, so much. So this technically could be the number one, and it was definitely the first game that I thought about when we started thinking about post-game discussions. Have you do you have any experience with Blood on the Clock Tower?

SPEAKER_04 1:38:39

I've literally never played it. So I'm not big on social games like or social dead action games. So I remember playing like the public domain version of Werewolf basically, like the murder game ages ago. Okay. When Werewolf came out, I was already like, okay, what's why are people so hyped about it? I played that the original a long time ago. So I wanted to ask you like for someone who hasn't played it, like why is Blood on the Clut Tower such a phenomenon? Like I remember Shut Up and Sat Down were raving about it early on, and everybody wanted to have it because they were raving about it. But what makes this click even more than werewolf?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:14

Okay, so first of all, you're talking to someone who has never actually played Werewolf. Shocker. Yeah, I've never played Werewolf. I want to say that my first like social deduction game was Secret Hitler, or maybe Resistance or Avalon or something. But I think what makes Blood on the Clock Tower stand on its own is that each character has their own ability. And some of them, like you might get information in the evening, some of them you might just get information at the start of the game. They're also, you know, you have the the townsfolk or the village people. I forget what the the the pure good guys are called, but then you have outsiders that depending on which minions are in play, there might be more outsiders than the expected value. So there's a lot of like really cool deduction where it's like, hey, we're trying to figure out not just like, oh, who's on the bad team, but which minions and like the main bad guy, the demon, like which ones are in play because that's gonna have implications on other aspects of the game. And then I think also because the game was designed such that it comes with all these different scripts with different characters that you can explore, but people can also make their own. You could take some combination of characters from this script, some combination of, and you make your own homebrew and you test that out with your friends. I also I have never played online, but like a lot of people, I think Jackie Fox, the designer of Rockhart, I think she was telling me that she plays almost every day, like first thing in the morning online with people in like Europe or somewhere. And I I guess whatever the platform is for playing online, it's very good from what I've heard of. But yeah, to me, it just it kind of feels like a like a murder mystery. And I just don't know that any other social deduction game has ever generated the stories and just like twisted my brain a bit. And I can't compare it to Werewolf because I've never played it, but I know Werewolf is just a little more simple, you know? Like you still have the like, oh, it's day, it's night, we're talking. But I think because of the the characters in Blood on the Clock Tower and their abilities, it that's kind of the secret sauce.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:57

Yeah, lately I'm thinking a lot about like what is pulling me forward in the game, right? Is there a campaign that makes me go, okay, the completionist in me wants to play through everything? Or is it like valuability in the cards? So it sounds like the characters maybe are the thing, and that there's more than one script. So you get used to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:14

Yes, and another thing I was just thinking about is the storyteller aspect. It's not like Avalon where it's like, okay, good guys, close your eyes. Okay, put your thumbs up, whatever. Like, it's not like scripted. The like the storyteller is also playing the game because they get to manipulate things, I think, in kind of an RPG way. Like if you're a game master. So I've only like co-story told once, and I was like, this is hard. So kudos to all y'all out there who are storytelling for Blood on the Clock Tower because I don't know that it's ever. I and maybe that's why I don't own it. Because I don't know that I really I don't know if I it's like a thing where I think I wouldn't be good at it, or if I just don't want to do it. Maybe I would love it. Alex, you've now convinced me to buy Blood on the Clock Tower. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:14

Sorry. I guess it's also like it's it's a big responsibility, right? If you have like the the storyteller and the storyteller sucks, then you have like 20, 30 people not having a good time, or exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:27

And the storyteller has quite a bit of agency in that, like, if there's a role, like number one, in which roles are in play, they know. Okay, if certain roles are like, hey, at the beginning of the game, the storyteller is gonna show you two roles and it means something to your character. I'm deciding what to show you and what not to show you. Like, and they're and their job is to essentially make sure everyone has a great experience. So you have some like creativity in that role too, which I think is another thing that kind of like sets it apart from other social deduction games.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:04

For me, it's fascinating because like I have literally zero interest to try it, but I see people like for them, it's the one game they go to a con just to play this game all the time. Yeah, and I'm like, wow, how can a game do this?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:18

Yeah, there's there's at least one convention that I'm aware of that's like a blood on the clock tower convention that you people go to and just play blood on the clock tower all crazy. We it is kind of wild. Like, I know I always play back to back, and when I do my gaming retreat, we probably play, we probably run a couple games each night, and usually like it'll be like depending on how many people are interested. Sometimes we have two games going at once. I don't it's just I think it's from all the like the stories that come out of it and just like the feeling you have, whether you're on the good team, the bad team of just figuring things out, and then like you have metas that establish. I have a whole thing like with my friend Kyle and anybody I know who is a theater person, uh, because I feel like they're sneaky, and I always try to like warn people, but it's like, oh, maybe I'm doing that because I'm on the good team, or maybe I'm doing it because I'm on the bad team, and you know what I mean? Like, just yeah, there's so many layers to the the meta that evolves when you play it with the same people too.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:29

I don't know what it is, but while you were talking, I was reminded of like the earlier Game Brain podcast where we they were always talking about their group's meta about playing Avalon. Yeah, so so it sounds like Blood on the Collector also like gives a lot of room to develop your personal meta, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:46

Totally, totally, but even in a different way, because like you know, with like Avalon, it's like those characters. I think you could decide if like you have a Merlin or something. I've I forget exactly how it works, but it's a little more bare bones. So I I remember the first time I played Avalon with the game brand guys, I was like blown away with how like deep they were with it, slash R with it. And I'm like, wow, it definitely, you know, they played it so much that that dynamic just makes it interesting and kind of fascinating to be a part of. Yeah, I can imagine, but yeah, I think with Blood on the Clock Tower, because you know it depends which script you're playing and you know which characters are in play for that script you're playing with. Because depending on the player count, I mean there's also something where if you have extra players, you can have travelers that kind of come in and then leave. And there's a lot to it. There's a lot to it, but it's it's definitely if there was a list of like favorite games that I'm kind of surprised I don't own, like Blood on the Clock Tower is one. And I think it is because I'm not a textbook storyteller, like I'm not, but who knows? Maybe I'll become one at some point. Like, maybe that's a life goal. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:13

It's always time to learn.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:15

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:16

It's like something that's like outside of my comfort zone. So now I'm like, hmm, maybe I should try to storytell them. Maybe I'll be good at it.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:24

There will surely be someone who's very, very happy to have you as a storyteller.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:27

Oh thanks, Alex. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:30

Maybe in the Patreon Patreon level, like if they are like on the higher tier.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:35

Yes, yeah. But I hope you give it a try sometime if you're with the right group and you know, just to see, even if it's not typically your thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:48

I think I will admire it from afar.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:51

Fair, fair. There are plenty of games out there.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:55

Sure they are.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:56

Alright. So I think we've come to your number one.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:01

Yeah. I kind of feel guilty about choosing one because it feels like cheating. Like this is a super popular game, and it just lends itself to post-game discussions. It's Dune Imperium.

unknown 1:48:17

Oh!

SPEAKER_04 1:48:18

It's I don't know what it is about this game, and I definitely don't play it to like tournament level or anything, but I've played it a lot, and every game was different. Every game later on, we were like, okay, in this round, I thought I would be winning, but you were here, maybe I should have done this, and so on. So I intentionally don't read like the strategy guys. I'm still on OG Dune Imperium, not uprising, but of course I got all the expansions and so on. Yeah. So there's always something to throw in, new combinations of cards to find, new people I play with, and it's I don't know what it is. Maybe it's this this like the VP are so tight, and it's this constant like back and forth. Everybody has hope and everybody's despairing that they cannot possibly make it. But there always seems to be like post-game analysis in this one.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:08

Yeah, and have you played it yet? Oh, I guess if you haven't played Uprising, you haven't played the six-player like 3v3 version.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:15

I actually did once, like on a retreat.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:18

How'd you like it? Like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:20

Holy moly, it was like a beast. Like I have only wake memories, but I remember like I didn't like the scentworms and how they were, probably because I was on the opposite side.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:32

Something like that. But for me, there's still so much fun to be had with the original Dune Imperium, so I never bothered about uprising.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:41

And now I'm always like a bit how to say the politically correct, disappointed that I can only use like half of the expansion content.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:50

I hear you, I hear you.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:52

But such a great pick.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:54

Yeah. Yeah, I I that's a really good pick. And I think I was I was gonna say because like Thinking about like Dune Imperium, all things like the uprising, I feel like the 3v3 always that definitely brings post-game discussion. I actually like love it. Love it. I mean, I love it anyway. Like, I I think I think it is that like everything is so tense, like the worker placement, the hand management. You want to kind of like deck build the right way so that like you're paying attention to what you're adding to your deck, the decisions of like which cards to play so that you have stuff remaining. The conflict is amazing. You know, there's there's so much. It's it's 100% like one of my absolute favorite games. And I think I think it is because of that, like that tightness in the scoring that that actually is a real nice setup for my last pick.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:02

Go for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:03

Okay. So this is this is a kind of a bundle one, but it is Twilight Imperium.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:10

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:10

So yeah, and Twilight Imperium is another, you know, a much longer game, but it has the the politics, it has that tight scoring where initially, oh, I, you know, I scored the subjective. Oh, you know, there's like there's some tension to it, and it's on such an epic scale that every single time I play it, it is something we're talking about for a few days afterwards. And sometimes the emotion, well, almost always there's some emotional roller coaster for almost everyone experiences. So I think that, but like there are games in the historical space that I refer to often as historical TI4, like Here I Stand, and another recent love of mine, Imperial Elogy. So I'm kind of like saying my last game is these like big games that take all day. You have like six players, and everybody is an asymmetric faction, and they always like Imperial Elogy, here I stand, Twilight Imperium, they all generate this like discussion at the end of the game, stuff I'm talking about for days later, it's invigorating, you know? So that's kind of what why I went with this and TI, oh my gosh, with the the agenda phase and how just how like if you watch somebody's game of Twilight Imperium, where again everything's like a slow burn, like, okay, we each got a couple points, and then somebody took Mechintel Rex, oh no, and then somebody's gonna go for them. Oh, while they're doing that, I'm gonna sneak and do this thing, and all this like crazy stuff happens, and then when you introduce that agenda phase, when that starts happening after somebody takes Mechatel Rex, and now we're voting on stuff, and like like, oh, I'm gonna vote for that. Oh, you're going against that? Well, blah blah blah. Like, there's some negotiation. So that's kind of my my other one. Do you have any quick honorable mentions that you wanna shout out?

SPEAKER_04 1:53:38

Sure. Like, I called them honorable mentions slash backups because I didn't know if you would hit any of mine, but one I have to mention John Company. Yeah. For me, this especially like the second edition is just a gener a story generator, like with the maps of India. I actually like second edition so much that I got first edition just out of curiosity. Yeah, it's night and day almost, right? Like with the new elements, the new production, and everything. I really love that game. Indonesia mentioned probably the best economic game I've ever played. And that says a lot because I play a lot of them. Nice new edition just came out this year. Leaving Earth. It's again one more where I feel like it's post-game discussion with myself because I can't find anybody who wants to play it with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:25

Me! We didn't have time. I think we kind of talked about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:30

So Leaving Earth for the listeners is a game that simulates a space race. So everybody plays like space agency, you have to get funding, and then you have to like research rocket stages and everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:44

Test them.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:45

And the it really is a game like you start reading your rules, and you want to put on your lap code, get all your calculator and everything, and then literally in the game, you have a phase where everybody says, Okay, let's stop. Everybody gets 20 minutes with a sheet of paper, let's calculate flight trajectories. Which is like sort of horrible as a gaming experience, but it's like a thematic experience. It's like amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:09

Totally, totally. It it has a very like everything you're thinking about, like, oh, if you want to send a crew of people out to that planet, you need to have enough food for them to survive and you know, and to make it back to Earth or whatever your goal is.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:30

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:30

Yeah, it's it's really, really a gem.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:34

Quickly, one I know you love Paxpothoriano. I just recently started playing with it, but it's like fascinating. And I started listening to podcasts, and I actually have a colleague who's Mexican. So I ask him about it, and he's like, no, no, stuff like this still happens and so very rich texture. And the final one I want to give a shout-out to is Greet Incorporated, also by Splotter.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:57

I wanted to play it at your house.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:00

It's so ridiculous. I rarely have a game where we play like 10 minutes and everybody is on the floor laughing because the yields get so crazy. It's basically like simulating Wall Street like in the movies, and it's a brilliant game. Unfortunately, hard to get, but I think they're working on a reprint for in like three, four years or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:20

Yeah, I think they're hopefully, because I feel like I saw something or saw it on a pre-order.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:27

Some some American distributors jumped the gun and then, like, I think yours uh posted on BGG. No, no, no, we were just asking for ideas. We haven't like even talked about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:36

Dial it back, dial it back.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:38

Yeah, people are excited.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:40

Of course, of course. I would say, like, next time we come to visit you in Hamburg, leaving Earth and Greed. But they're on the list. It's locked in now that we recorded it on this podcast. The only one that I'll just quickly mention that I had on my list, but I don't think it's as much so as the other ones, is Tales of the Arthurian Knights.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:06

Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:07

Have you played this or Tales of the Arabian Knights, the game that it's based on?

SPEAKER_04 1:57:11

Unfortunately, no, but I'm really, really interested.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:14

I think you would like it. Like, it comes with this big old book, and every time we play it, there's all this narrative that involves. And the like the game mechanisms are not like the most easy thing, but it's pretty like straightforward. And it's all about you kind of traveling around trying to like complete these objectives and whatnot and score points and do stuff. But like the story is like just so cool. And I feel like we're always number one, like wanting to play it again, number two being like, oh my gosh, I can't believe when you tried to do this and you had such and such encounter, and it has some it has some good narrative that's baked into the book, just the writing is really good, but also like what happens to your character as you play it is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:11

That might be a nice topic for you, like games with actual good writing.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:16

I think there's not so many, right? Like often the writing is more tech on and everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:22

That's true, and also the other topic, the alternative to that is games where the narrative is strong and but it's like user-generated.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:34

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:35

Like where like the design gives you the resources to come up with like a crazy story.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:41

I would be looking forward to hear that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:44

Good. You're gonna have to do it with me. Well, Alex, I'm so glad we finally got to do this. Yeah, we've been talking about it since for the at least for the past. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Probably since I joined BGG full-time and started going to Essen, we would just like bump into each other in the halls and just have a quick conversation. Last year we actually got to like hang out more and play a game and a half or so together, get a meal. And now we've like since Matt and I visited you in Hamburg and got to hang out more. And so, yeah, keep up the good work. Check out Alex's blog on BGG, Talking Shelf Space. And uh, do you have a website also?

SPEAKER_04 1:59:34

Or is also Talking Shelf Space. So the website has the reviews and the blog and 3D minis and solo modes I do and everything is sort of also sprinkled around BGG, but if you want to check it out, it's yeah, talking shelvespace.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:51

Cool, cool, awesome. Well, thanks again for joining me and for staying up a little later to do this because uh probably we have a nine-hour time difference.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:03

No, this was fun. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:06

You've been listening to the Kickin' It Creative podcast, produced and edited by Candace Harrison. Special thanks to Logan Staley and 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 kicking it creative content crafted by Candace. Thanks for listening and happy gaming.