OPENING

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There are things in board gaming I love, and then there are things that made me question my life choices. Today's episode is about the latter, so buckle up, I've got feelings. Welcome to Just Play. I'm your host, JP, and we're back again for another main episode. This is uh episode four, which is just play, but not like that, where I talk about all of the kind of pet peeves or things that kind of piss me off in board games, to be honest. So, yeah, that's the main main

PHASE A: PULL UP A CHAIR

SPEAKER_00 0:38

topic of the day. But let's start with the first segment, which is pull up a chair. And I just want to kind of basically say, you know, a big thank you because if we recently just crossed a little bit of a milestone uh on an Instagram, we've uh crossed uh the 2,000 followers. So massive thank you for those that have done that. I really appreciate it. It's always great to to kind of hit these little milestones and yeah, it's it's just awesome. So thank you so much. And and again, I I'm probably I normally do this at the end of the video, but I kind of want to do uh a bit of a kind of pledge and say, you know, for those who enjoy the show and listen, please like you know, hit that like, hit that sub sub button and you know, comment and and do all those things, follow because you know, for a small channel, um uh it really helps. It really does help. It's like it goes a long way. So if you could do that right now, if you're listening, jump onto YouTube and and subscribe, or if you're you know, jump onto Facebook, jump onto Instagram and just yeah, give it give us a little follow. It really helps. So so yeah, there's my little plea. Um, but generally, what else do we like to do and pull up a chair? I'm gonna talk a little bit about my update to the Cive Rise of Fenris campaign because I'm unlikely to kind of do a deep dive on Cive, um, mainly because it's uh it's an old game and everyone's probably played it. You don't need to meet me to tell you what what it's all about. Um so yeah, we we've been doing a Rise of Femrus campaign, and and last night um we played uh episodes two and three because it to be honest, it's some of the quickest scythe play I've I've ever had. Um, not to kind of spoil the Rise of Femris campaign, I know it's been out for that long. I doubt uh I can spoil it really. Episode two is like a fork in the path where at the end of episode one you decide whether you're going down this road or that road. Um and we picked uh a particular route, which basically meant we're gonna go for a war-y game. Um and it basically meant that we started um with half the upgrades. We have three upgrades already on our faction boards, and we started with double the work as we would normally have. And I'll tell you what, that that's a pretty much like starting Terraform in Mars with a prelude. It just gives us the nitrous oxide for the engine. And that game, four uh sorry, five player lasted 55 minutes. It was literally done and dusted, um, with you know quite a bit of knobby combat in there uh for for good measure. So really enjoying this. So we had such a blast. There was a lot of banter around the table, and I'm playing with uh some of the Who's Turn alumni, um, which is Curly, uh Dan, and Tambo, and we've got friend uh of the pod, Nate, joining us as well. And yeah, just having a real good time. I'm I'm loving going back through that. So I'll keep you updated as as we

Question from our listeners

SPEAKER_00 3:16

progress. Um, so I'm gonna also talk about a question. We've got a bunch of questions in, um, which I love now because we'll get to kind of you know answer some of these back and and get some of that engagement from you guys. So if you've got any questions, um please jump in and and and ask them either directly on the um social media posts, or if you're in our Discord server, uh, which you can find in the show notes uh below, then yeah, come and jump in to the Discord server. We have an Ask Me Anything channel where you know uh listeners can kind of ask these questions. So this one's from YGS Games, um, based on our YouTube uh comment. So I believe Stuart, uh, thank you so much for this. Um and he says, Great episode, dude. Uh as for the question, if you could give advice to a game designer publisher about the creation of a new game from the perspective of an experienced board gamer, what would it be? I love this question. This is a really good question. It's difficult to answer. Um, I go back to an interview I did three and a half years ago, probably around that time, and I interviewed uh Brendan McCaskill from um what was then Oom Games, but now Open Owl Studios, and we had a really good chat, and there's something he said that's resonated with me um around designing games, and uh the one thing that I kind of make sense is when he designs games, he always asks the question, how do I want the player to feel? Right? And and it makes sense, right? Do I want the the the player to feel stressed? Do I want the player to feel relaxed? Do I want the player to to feel like they're they're having this kind of good time? Do I want them to feel like everything's against them? Um, and that I think is is is a really good question that as a designer you should should try and answer, right? Because ultimately that's what you're trying to invoke uh from the player. So yeah, that's always stuck with me, and I think that's uh that's something I think, yeah, it it kind of makes sense to me. So hopefully that answers your question. Um there's obviously other aspects to that, which we probably could go into a whole episode about, but that's the thing that that kind of um came to the forefront of my mind. Well, there we go. That's pull-up a chair. Thank you for that. Thank you, Sure, from YGS Games. Um, and let's get straight into uh the next segment, which is just played.

PHASE B: JUST PLAYED

SPEAKER_00 5:31

So, as always, I'm gonna jump to um the screen share for those watching on YouTube. Obviously, if you're listening um on the podcast players, use your imagination. I will try and fill in the void uh with my voice uh as best as I can. Um but for those watching, we'll obviously get the little benefit that I'm actually sharing uh board game geek.

Terraria

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Um and my first one is actually Terraria, uh the board game. Now, Terraria the board game um has had a lot of press and and probably not great press, um, from if I'm being honest. I think no um pun included MPI did basically uh uh a bit of a review that said this game's bad. Um and obviously MPI are a massive channel, um, and everybody's kind of right to their opinions and reviews, of course. It it makes perfect sense, and every game's not going to be for everyone as well, and and I think they do hit upon some um kind of aspects and criticisms on the game, which are fair, um, and then other other aspects maybe not so, but I just wanted to kind of approach this um, you know, with a neutral mind, a neutral set. And I, you know, and I know and have uh interviewed uh Chris um basically uh one of the designers from PaperFort Games Um and James as well. And so I I've spoken to them about uh kind of their experiences of this and their future uh game Course of the Lamb as well. And yeah, I have a pretty good relationship with those guys, and this is in no way affiliated uh with Paperfort or whatever, these are my own opinions. Um so I just like to kind of uh let people know that um because in case they think that I'm completely uh aligned into different publishers, I'm not, I'm independent for sure. Um, so I picked up a copy of Terraria, and I've always since I played uh a TTS demo of this game, which you can probably hear on one of the Whose Turn Is It Anyway episodes, you'll notice I had a good time with it, you know, and I played probably about an hour and a half, two hours max um um of the game, and what I played, I thought, oh, it's a real solid uh kind of thing. So anyway, let's get back to the beginning. What is Terraria? Well, for those that know the video game IP, which is a video game by ReLogic, um, will know that it's kind of like a 2D Minecraft, is the best way to explain it. So you're this character in a 2D world, you start with start off with bugger all, and you you basically can do a variety of things. You can dig uh down into the the world, you can dig for resources for different ores like copper, iron, gold, silver, all that lovely stuff. You can chop trees down for wood on the surface, um, and you can fight things like slimes and bats and different monsters that are kind of in this world. There's a day and night cycle, all that kind of stuff. So it's basically this big open sandbox world where you can get lost in for hours, and every now and then a boss turns up and and screws you up, um, depending on what you do, and you're just kind of crafting things, getting better gear, looting chests, all that kind of stuff. So I was quite intrigued to see um how they've done this in the board game world. I've never played the video game. I want to kind of put that out there. I'm coming at this uh completely fresh. Um and yeah, I think right from the moment where I got the game, opened it up, unpacked it, you know, there's a lot of pieces in this game. There are so many pieces, lots to punch, lots to sort. Um, I have to give kudos to the um production value in this game. It's very, very good. Uh the trays that store everything, it all works. I could not imagine trying to even attempt to play this game if that insert solution wasn't what it what it is. It'd be a frigging nightmare. Um, so the fact that they've taken the time to pull that together actually makes the the setup um fairly fairly breezy in in compared to other games like Voidfall, one of my favourite games ever. Um so yeah, basically you start off with um these these tiles, uh biomes on on the map, right? Um, which um I'm showing on the screen right now, uh, so those can actually see it. But generally it's like a I don't know, it's like a three by five um square um basically tile where you you've got some artwork on basically how the terrain looks. So you start on the surface and you've got a tile to the left of you, the tile to the right of you, and a tile directly underneath you. That's all you know of this world of terraria, and that setup's always the same. So as you kind of progress, you can kind of do a variety of things. Um, you can kind of explore the world, so you can explore different biome tiles, um, which then increase the world either horizontally from left to right, or you can go vertically, so up and down. Well, not up, but you can go down into the depths. And in this world, you've basically got five levels of exploration. So you've got the surface, you've got the tunnels, you've got the upper caverns, you've got the lower caverns, and then you've got the the the underworld which sits at the bottom of all the lava and all the horrible shit, to be honest. It's all the the the horrible stuff, and and yeah, it the game doesn't kind of really hold your hand in the sense of oh, you should do this and that. I mean, there are objectives in the game, which does kind of steer you into a path of this is what you should do. And the objectives are all based around four different um aspects of the game exploration, fight, dig, and building. So you can kind of do different things at the start, you're likely to do a lot of all of them because you're trying to level up and do those kind of things. When I say level up, I don't mean actually level up, but I mean get better equipment and just become stronger. Um, but the purpose of the game is to get through one of those objective chains, and once you get to the the end of one, you win. Or if you uh basically trigger the um uh the wall of flesh, which is one of the bosses in the game, which I'll talk about in a minute, and beat that, you win default outright. Um but all the while the games are kind of get against you because there's a threat meter, um, and then at different points in the in the day, um, you basically go through the round, which is your character phase, uh the enemy phase, and then like an environment phase. And depending on um the environment phase where your your day marker goes, and I think there's like five or six slots for for the day, and then at night there are two slots for the night. So things get hairy at night, zombies appear, all that kind of lovely stuff. Um, but generally, um yeah, you you you've you're kind of progressing, and certain things will trigger like events like fret will go up or enemies will be respawn and things like that. So, yeah, um, so digging's pretty cool. I love the dig mechanism in this game. It's uh I mean it's literally, I want to dig down. Cool. So you dig down and you put these little tiles on on top of the uh the area, and you you effectively um you're you're digging around in in the world, you know, as you as you kind of dig around and you can dig left, dig right, dig up, dig down. But gravity's a thing, and I quite I know it's obvious, but I kind of love the fact that gravity plays a part here where if you dig down into a tile which is completely open cavern, guess what? You're gonna fall through and and probably hurt yourself. So you've got to kind of be careful where you're digging around. It kind of reminds me of Dig Dog, uh the old video game from the 80s. Um, so that's pretty cool. Um, and then yeah, as you dig around, you're gonna find uh more exploration, you're gonna find uh loot chests where you'll draw cards depending on the biome you're in, and then you'll get some more stuff. Um, and typically, as you get more equipment on your kind of player board, uh you've got a slot for your sword, a pickaxe, and a um a general axe for chopping trees down, and and a slot for something other, which could be for a bow, could be for a yo-yo, uh grappling hooks, all those kind of things. Um, yeah, you can find uh armour, and the cool thing about that is the armor cards are transparent and they sit over your character and they basically give you better buffs for defense or uh ongoing buffs like free actions, etc. etc. So yeah, you can kind of dig around and do those things. You can fight uh monsters by uh basically initiating uh combat, and combat's pretty straightforward. You have attack dice, which start off pretty crap. You start off with d4s, which are the worst dice ever. Um, and typically the enemies do as well. So you roll for your attack, depending on your sword or weapon, and then you roll for their defense. If you kill them, happy days. You get the loot, you'll get some gold, you'll get some stuff like that. If they still survive, they'll retaliate against you, and then you roll your defense against their attack, and hopefully you you kind of win. But really, it's kind of you roll their attack defense, if you roll equal or higher uh that many times, you do that many hits, and and away you go. Happy days. So, yeah, you're kind of doing those things. But how does this work? Like you're doing this thing in the world, um, you're you're pretty much um doing uh basically a bit of a deck building kind of game. So you start with a starter deck, I think it's eight cards, and they're all pretty meh as you start. So you draw four cards and away you go. And on the cards, you've kind of got um these these green circles, which are like your action points. And if I can find I will show you, here we go. Um you've got these green circles with action points, and that allow you to do an action. An action could be chop, it could be dig, it could be fight, it could be all these different things. And there's other cards that allow you to draw more cards, there's cards that allow you to buff your attacks with these red diamonds, or there's cards with shields which buff your defenses, and da da da. And as the game progresses, you're gonna get more money, and you can actually buy more cards for your deck from the NPC characters that are kind of appear in the game. You always start with the guide, um, but as you progress and build houses, so you can basically craft more things, more NPCs will come, and you can then go to the merchant and buy better cards, etc. etc. Um, and and away we go. So you get to the point where you end up having a deck of this probably nonsense that's uh dealing lots and lots of fun. Um, the the the bosses in the game are I found really good fun. So in the big playthrough that we had, um, me and Rob from Who's Tunners anyway, we did a a full session. Um, and I think one of the criticisms of the game is the game length, and I have to I have to call it out, all right, because it says 45 minutes per player on the box. It is not, like, don't don't even remotely think that it's gonna be 45 minutes per play, it's not even remotely close. Um, it is a longer game. It took my first game with two player took uh about four and a half hours, right? Maybe five, um, once we got into it. And and to be honest, like that people might say that's a bad thing. Um, I don't think I'd want to play this if it was a streamlined experience for an hour or even an hour and a half. I don't think it would give me enough. I think it would just be too streamlined where I'm just walking around not doing much that's interesting. But the fact that it is like it is makes it more interesting for me. It's it's definitely uh yeah, a bit more going on um in the world where I have a sense of a proper sandbox for sure. Um and I think the as I say, the bosses are uh are there, they're they're pretty good fun uh as well. So the first boss you'll you'll fight against is King Slime. You'll you have to fight against him, he will trigger regardless, uh depending on what happens. And he's good fun. The way the bosses look in the game, they're they're really cool little minis, um, and they they have kind of a sense of purpose on the map. And we did trigger another boss later in the game, which is the Queen Bee, as well, and we had good fun uh trying to kill her and got some really sweet loot for doing so. Um so yeah, so I think the the kind of criticisms I said that the game length perception, um, if you're thinking you're gonna get this done in an evening, you can't. There isn't really a save system in the game, so that is a bit of a pain for those who want to kind of do it over evenings and you can't set it on the table and leave it. That's just something to be aware of. But this probably is a weekend game. You're gonna start on like Saturday morning, you're gonna set it up, and you're gonna blitz through it. But you know, people have said it takes them nine, ten hours to do, and everyone plays at different speeds, everyone is different in the way they internalise the rules, of course. There's no set time, but I wanted to let people know that you can play this in around five hours, it can be done, and that wasn't as rushing. Um, the good thing is that you can do simultaneous turns. Um, so when me and Rob were absolutely doing that at the same time, so I was doing my thing, he was doing his thing, and where it made sense, we we talked about it. Um, we shared resources, we we shared equipment to help us tackle with things, etc. Um, and yeah, I I'm not gonna lie, I had a lot of fun, right? I had a lot of fun with this, and if people kind of think, hey, hey JP, I thought you were a serious gamer, and a lot of people have kind of hated on this game, and you liking this game means you're not a gamer, then I'm sorry, I don't care. Because I just I literally had fun with it. Me and Rob both just had a blast playing Terraria. It was what I kind of wanted it to be in terms of a sandbox game. Now, is it fiddly? Absolutely, it's fiddly, all right. And the packing away is a bit like, oh my god, there's just so much on the board because by the time you've explored the world, you've got platforms, you've got dig tokens on there, you've got these other tokens, there's so many tokens um that it just becomes the sprawling thing. But you know, me and him just we we tackled it and we put it away. Um, and I can't wait to play this again. I I I haven't even scratched the surface, right? We've played through five hours, I've not even seen probably five percent of the loot, I've not even seen the items, most of the items, we didn't even see any magic stuff. Um, I wanted to get some like magic items and and explore that. Didn't see any just the way it kind of happened. And you know, we won on uh the build objective chain, and and there we go. And we're we may be thinking about next time doing two objective chains to make it a little bit harder and actually see a bit more of the game, which obviously will take longer, but we don't mind. That's okay. So I wanted to kind of give you my thoughts on on the game and and yeah, kind of give a counterbalance to maybe some of the negativity that's out there. This is not going to be for everyone, this is not gonna be a game that um you can pick up and play in an evening. But if you just want something fun, casual, um, you've got the time on a Sunday or Saturday just to kind of while away and explore and get lost in this world, this is exactly what this game does. This game opens up um this this kind of fun 2D puzzle world, which I've not seen done in a board game like this. And and I think you know the Chris James and the team at Paperfor have done done a really good job with it. I think um, yeah, maybe in the expansion that's coming, there might be some ways to smooth out some of the edges. We'll see. But no, I enjoyed it, and that's all that matters.

Jackpot: Set The Reel

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Okay. The next game I want to talk about is Jackpot Set the Reel by Dranda Games. And I picked this up at UK Games Expo. I've heard about this game for a long time, about two years now. Friends of mine have um played this and demoed this at various different conventions, and I just thought, you know what, I'm just gonna pick this up without even playing it. I just think why not? You know, it's fairly cheap, it was what 20 quid. Um, and I thought it's something I can take a punt on, and you know, people have given me uh uh assurances that it's good good fun. And you know what? I'm glad I did. I'm glad I did. Um, I really like jackpot, and I actually introduced it to my family. Um, and we played a game and and we had a blast with it. Um so basically, how does it work and what is it? So jackpot is basically you're simulating a uh one-arm bandit fruit machine, um, and you're trying to rig the the machine to basically get a set of three, just like you would in in a fruit machine to win. And it's a game of trying to get the most victory points like every other game. Um, but the the unique twist in this game is that you have a deck of cards, starting cards, and you shuffle them at the start of the game, and you'll never shuffle that deck ever again. That will be exactly what you get. What you see is what you get, and that's what you've got to deal with. In those are the lemons that you have to make lemonade out of, okay? And some of these cards are like they've got different uh symbols on. And again, for those watching on YouTube, I'll see if I can find uh some examples of the cards. Um, and yeah, you'll you'll basically have a card that some of it will be sevens, it'll be bells, it'll be uh cherries and watermelons or whatever. And some of these cards in your starting date will be grey, which means they're like duds, they're just basically inactive and don't do much. So all you've got to do on your turn, you've got your your hand of cards. If you played scouts, you'd be very familiar here, is that you pick three cards that are consecutive in the you know together in your hand and you'll play. them into the top of uh three different columns. And basically if you get one um set, so if the leftmost is a bell and then the others are something different, you get one money. And if you get two of the same, you get a bonus token, which are one of these tokens that allow you to get victory points, more coins, or allow you to rearrange your hand, which is a frigging amazing when that happens. Or if you get all three, you get to get like a it's like a contract card where you're gonna basically get some VPs, which ultimately is what you're trying to do. And you're saying, okay, JP, well, how's that going to work? Because if you get a shuffled hand and it's full of crap, how are you going to deal with it? Well, just like Scout, if you play a certain three cards out of your hand, the others are going to smush together and you're gonna create opportunities to get better and better things. So you'll play your first row, then you'll play your second row once everyone's had a turn, which you'll play directly underneath, then you'll play your third row and then you'll end up with one final card which you pass to um counterclockwise to the team. So you'll end up getting one. It's like a weird kind of draft system. And then you'll place that in one of the columns and then you pick one of your columns to basically do a uh income um which effectively um yeah basically gets gives you more coins you look at all the coins count them up and then you get coins but any point during your turn during that whole process you can then buy more cards you can buy another one of the fruit cards that you're looking for um and you can kind of slot those in you can basically yeah ditch one and replace one so you can basically create that opportunity there. You can also upgrade cards so each of the cards um have um some upgrade symbols or or costs on them which allows you to flip them over so a lot of the duds that I explained earlier allow you to to do that which is is pretty good. And then the the the whole clever bit for me in this game is at the end once you've got your income you have to pick up the the columns in any order you like so you can pick column one column two column three or you can pick three one and two or two one three and then assemble your new your new hand. So the way you're playing these cards matters because that'll end up the the position it'll be in your hand because again you don't shuffle this thing you're constantly trying to manipulate this again hence the name set the reel um and and ultimately you know get as many victory points as you can and we had great fun we actually played it weirdly eight player um because we were doing it in teams and that's because you know we um had some uh friends over and we just wanted to uh everybody to be involved and it kind of worked really well in that because we you know as pairs we were kind of puzzling over our own hands having conversations around around that but equally the you know this is going to work as well as you know anything else um uh at four player so yeah I I really enjoy this game I've got the expansions for it as well which adds a lot of little mini games like you'd expect to see on fruit machines I've not played with any of those yet but I just wanted to kind of give you my you know initial impression of of the uh the game this is going to sit in my um kind of gateway game box where I can wheel it out when I've got friends over this is something I think um yeah kind of hits the mark so I've I've had fun with this um and you know contrary to uh the basically some of the the ratings on on uh board game geek you know 6.5 it's got which I think it's really low I think it's a lot of that's probably unfair I don't know maybe but again I've probably not played it enough to uh to to know so yeah but no I enjoy it I've uh I've had fun with this and I can't wait to play more it's kind of sat in my brain saying play me um

PHASE C: CENTRE OF THE TABLE

SPEAKER_00 25:35

but there we go so that's the end of that segment let's move to the uh the centre of the table the main segment where we're gonna talk about just play but not like that um and what I mean by that is I kind of wanted to do an episode around the pet peeves right things that kind of piss us off in board gaming and you know and let's face it along the the main like we we're generally pretty pretty chill people I think we generally like to have fun while we play games but there are just sometimes you know because it's social interactions there are things that people do that can inevitably get on our nerves and that has happened I've run a gaming group for you know 10 11 years now and that's kind of grown from size from you know four people five people to 10 to 15 to 20 and I think we've got around 25 people not all of regular attendance and different um attendance levels um but yeah the more people that you interact with whether you run a gaming club that you meet up on a Thursday at somewhere or you run a convention and you're trying to organize a weekend of games or you know you're just trying to do uh gaming nights around your house you're gonna run into these kind of things and I just thought wouldn't it be fun to to basically get get annoyed at some of these things and maybe you can join in as well I'd love to know what your your um pet peeves are as well so please share them with me um in the comments and all that lovely

Where the hell are you?

SPEAKER_00 26:56

stuff so here we go here's a trigger warning right some of these things might piss me off so let's let's let's go so the first one is probably my top one right it's the the one that will straight up get on my nerves is lateness so lateness for me bothers me generally in life right so if I if I'm late for anything I I'm mortified so if I say like I'm gonna be there at 7 pm and I'm not I will stress about that I will panic about that and that's just because of the way I am right I'm quite um kind of O C D in that that respect I if I say if I say something I mean it and I will do it right I've come hello high water and unless there's obviously a reason a valid reason why that can't happen. And and sometimes you know shit happens and and people can't um help it you know accidents happen you know we've got flat tire on the car all good right um but generally people can just turn up to a game night 20 minutes after you've said no we need to start at seven and bearing in mind a lot of the game nights I do are midweek like school nights um and that's because you know I like to to play in the evening um and that's yes basically my my unwind time so when you kind of sat around there's three of you in a four player waiting for someone who's 20 minutes late and sometimes don't get an apology right which it's like dude we've been sat here waiting for you to start um yeah it it's it it just sets up the game night in the wrong way because you're already kind of starting in a bit of a you know I'm a bit annoyed by this and and then generally it sits in the game for a little bit and it's just not what you want. But lateness is just a pain in the arse um but sometimes it's it's inevitable and and you have to kind of roll with it. And usually if someone kind of says look I'm running late um sorry about that this has happened this has happened I'm cool like we'll all chill and have a cup of tea and we'll have a chat and wait and it's not an

Erm sorry I can't make it now...WHAT!!!!

SPEAKER_00 28:51

issue. And it kind of leads me into the next um kind of pet peeve which is last minute cancellations so sometimes you have a game that you've you've set up and let's say it's a four player or three player maybe three player is a better example you've got a three player that you you've put in because you couldn't get the fourth or whatever and then one of the players decides whether it's two hours before it's supposed to start an hour before it's supposed to start and they said yeah they can't make it and sometimes you get a reason sometimes you don't and you're like and then suddenly the whole game night collapses on itself that will pee me off and again it's all relative to the uh the the instance of what's happened right you know like I said emergencies happen I'm cool with that um but sometimes yeah people don't feel it and I think so when you book games for like two weeks on Thursday do you fancy a bit of Lisbon or everyone everyone's like yeah fancy it and then it gets to two weeks on Thursday and people have had a shit day at work and you're just getting to the point where you're like oh can't be bothered and I get it I've been there and I think it comes back down to that you know do you do what you said you you would do are you are you in it you've made a commitment to make this happen um and some people have just different levels of of um flexibility with that there and again that's just the way the way different people are um so yeah so you get a last minute cancellation and your game's knackered and then you either have to then figure out do you want to do a two player or something which it wasn't what you originally wanted to do and yeah and and basically you just end up feeling a bit meh about it. Now it annoys me more if I'm looking forward to a game. Now if people cancel on a game and the game can continue in its current form if it's a four to a three player and we still have fun I don't mind as much because the game night didn't get ruined because of it. But if the game night basically collapses in itself it's just a bit and obviously if people keep doing it they are going to get told I can't help it I I will I will have to say look this has got to stop happening because it's it's just annoying

Would you kindly stop bending my frickin cards!!!

SPEAKER_00 30:55

a little one then moving on a little one is bending your cards right I had this recently with uh some family friends of family who are playing um a game card game and they're just sat there with the hand of cards and I don't know they're just bending them and you just sit in there at the other side of the table going do I make a thing of this or not? Right? And you you know I'm sitting there like oh my god um am I gonna deal with this am I gonna say something and inevitably I'll be I will kind of say look guys can we respect the cards if there's kids I will usually have a bit of a speech about look this is my game um please look after it this means we need to look after the cards we don't put them in the mouth or you know you don't eat food and do all those kind of things um but ultimately kids can get quite rough with the the cards and start bending them around and and obviously that's just yeah if you look at any Uno deck that any kind of family member has right that you you just look at how dog eared those cards are and it just basically makes me want to scream so don't do it. So yeah bending cards is just like that that's a trigger for me definitely um

Right guys...I need to go

SPEAKER_00 32:03

another one that that kind of peas me off is unexpected leaving so if you've booked uh let's say a Sunday afternoon at 2 pm and you know there's a three hour game and then someone's like yeah I've got um basically they arrive and say yeah and I need to leave at half four and you're like well this is going to go on past half four yeah and I'll we'll let's see how we go and then at half four they just have to up and leave and then ultimately you ended up with a game where you've got a player that has to leave and you're like now what do we do? Because in a competitive scenario that can mean um a lot of different things right that can be uh a bit of a problem um so you either then have to work out what we're gonna do yeah divvy this and yeah I just think again it comes down to that commitment if you're gonna commit to be there commit to be there if you can't do it don't show up as in don't don't sign up to a game night that you can't make the time for and allow a buffer on the beginning and end of that um because it's courteous to to you know the host who's who's

In your face...have some of that

SPEAKER_00 33:03

hosting it um competitive energy competitive energy people who are uber competitive will turn me off at a board game night 100% I don't play I don't think I do maybe my friends will will will call me out and say bullshit but I I don't feel like I play competitively don't there are competitive moments right we've all been there where you're like oh this really matters and and that's cool like we do I kind of encourage a bit of that in games but when someone takes it too far where it just becomes that's what it's all about and in yeah and that that will start to erode the fun for me that will start to to to basically eat away at my uh um yeah my emotions as people just basically start drilling that competitiveness into a game I'm here to have fun I'm here to relax and and generally I'm a casual player right um but generally yeah some people are uber competitive now you can get out I don't I don't care which is why I don't do tournament games and it's why I don't do um a lot of these um kind of CCGs as well because I think it breeds a lot of that competitive play and I used to play Netrunner like fantastic game love Netrunner I still love Netrunner to this day one of my favourite card games of all time um but it brings out um yeah this frustration I think sometimes where it can get quite tense and and competitive and yeah I just I just it it'll turns me off turns me off I don't like

Well there's no point carrying on now

SPEAKER_00 34:35

it um so in a similar vibe the opposite I suppose is players who then quit don't give up and what I mean is not leave the table but they check out they're just checked out they are not there um so it could be that let's say 30 40% in the game they've decided they've cocked up their game and they like no oh this is it this is this is rubbish this is rubbish um I'm I'm not having fun with this oh this is crap and they're just doing random stuff to to cause chaos in the game they are literally don't care anymore checked out now I'm a bit of an empath right uh what that means is I'm very susceptible to other people's emotions around the table and in social situations. So if everyone's having a blast at my table I'm gonna have the best time. I'm gonna have the best gaming night if everyone's having the best gaming night. Now if everyone's having the worst time I will be dragged into that that moment or even if one person is that's going to feed feed on my emotions and it will change how I feel um and there's something I've had to learn to live with like it's it's difficult sometimes um because you know if two people having a great time one person isn't usually the one that isn't will I start overriding how I feel and I've learned to kind of deal with that you know in time um and and just kind of say look sod it like the games aren't going to be for everyone and I had a good time so just have a good time. So yeah it it's when people kind of yeah check out and and they just sit and say this is trash and they just sit there for for two hours it completely kills the vibe for me. And I just rather like if you if you commit like I I'd be mortified if I did it I think I think if I wasn't enjoying a game I'd like to think I would just persevere with a game and maybe at the end and say look that wasn't for me. I'm not I don't think I want to to recreate that experience but I had a good time hanging with everybody and thank you very much rather than kind of just sitting there whining which can happen and I've had it happen at conventions before and it's just yeah it's just awkward isn't it um

Excuse me...what did you say?

SPEAKER_00 36:40

next one then rudeness when people get rude and this probably because again it might come back to the competitive thing. People get competitive and they get a bit narky and a bit like Aggie they they can sometimes come across rude to other players and that I don't stand for on my table. I think if anyone is rude like there's a difference between rudeness and banter like people can have banter and I'm all for that and I'm up for it and I can take as well as I can kind of give it out and dish it out but sometimes people just get rude and that I don't have I don't stand for that that crap at the table because there's no need to be rude like especially if you're in my house right if you're in my house we're playing the game and we're having having a good time so yeah we're not having it

Whose Turn Is It?

SPEAKER_00 37:27

this is probably going to be on most people's lists like this is probably a game killer a lot of the time which is someone who severe severely suffers from analysis paralysis or AP and I mean severely we all get AP I get AP I think people have nicknamed me APJP before which is a nickname I don't want sticking because it's not true. And we all have that moment in the game where the board state changes and you go oh crap I've got to have to rethink my whole turn and you just got to make a decision. I would tend to just make a decision quicker than I I would normally like I would just get on with it tends to um but what I'm talking about is every round it gets stuck every round it gets this person and it gets stuck and you're there for 10 minutes and you can just watch the souls souls like weep away from everybody and you can tell because they'll just jump on devices or whatever but yeah I happen at a convention and it's just it's just awful and you just think oh this game's dragging on it's never ending and and yeah that that can happen and tend to like to deal with that is is like you make you make kind of comments to kind of say you know who's who's go is it oh yeah it's you oh are you okay uh yeah I'm just thinking about this yeah and we do need to kind of get a wriggle on you know we need to get this game finished at some point but it's tough that's a tough one to sort

Oh it's my turn...whoops you didn't want to keep this game did you?

SPEAKER_00 38:46

um drinks near the table right uh obvious one and it's one that I sometimes forget because I tend to like generally my my gaming group are very good at this they they will keep drinks away and I have fortunate to have a gaming table where the drinks holders are outside of the table. So if there's any spillages it goes on the floor. I don't care we can mop that up no problem. Historically I've had tea knocked from that uh my my board game table holders up against the wall I've had coffee go in to the middle of the table before in a game of Eclipse which is not a cheap game but that fortunately survived um but the two casualties I have had were for my wife which I have to be careful about what I say if she's watching um she's not watching um and she she would be having a glass of prosecco but we usually then if we're having uh friends over I'm not playing in the table I'm just playing on the table so the drinks tend to be on next to the game which I've learned maybe not to do in the future um and Prosecco gets knocked over because you know we've got a few drinks and then ends up going over cards or cardboard and and generally prosecco is a killer for board games I've noticed I've lost two games I've lost Bombusters where to be fair there's not many components in Bombusters other than the little tiles that uh for the wires but that's uh yeah that was uh ruined basically the tiles got killed so I had to buy another one now that was only 20 odd quid so it wasn't the end of the world um and another one was a prototype for a game I won't mention um which yeah basically got proseccoed but luckily I've got a brand new copy coming uh very soon which will kind of replace it and um I'm okay with that. So yeah so we make it a thing now with my wife is like you keep the prosecco away you put it over there bless her but no it it it I try to be very understanding because accidents can happen um and I think if you're putting an expensive ball game on there it's I think it's right that you say look guys can we keep the drinks away because accidents can happen and I don't want this game ruined especially if it's an out of print one you know I I think I fear for for my my board gaming life when I put um uh eternal decks onto the table I think I'd need some protection because that game is like like gold dust to get a hold of and I'm not having it ruined by by bloody prosecco um

Erm no thanks, i'll stick to my old favourites

SPEAKER_00 41:05

so the other one I wouldn't say is a pet peeve I think it I it maybe comes from a place that I don't understand um which is some people unwilling to try new games um and I I'm from a school of I'll try anything like you put a new game in front of me I'm I'm down I'm in and there are some uh gamers who just want to play the same old stuff they're not interested um and that's okay actually like I don't think it it it pees me off but I I think it's just like oh I really want to play with with certain individuals and and I can't because if I'm playing the new games they're gonna be playing the old games and I just kind of want to play with those guys. So usually the way I have to interact and and get some time with them at the gaming table is to play the old stuff which is not a problem because I like the old stuff um but I'd like to play some new stuff with those guys as well um so yeah that's kind of a little uh rather than uh uh kind of something that's pissing

Where does this go?

SPEAKER_00 41:57

me off um and yeah I think one of the final final ones for me is um yeah helping to to pack the game away at the end of the night I'm like go away honestly I'm like nope nope please and when they try to help they don't help right you know how your game goes away it has a particular way the way the tiles face the way everything's stacked together if you've got an insert or whatever you know all I ask of my players and they know now is collate your stuff pull it together pull the things where they should go on the table and bugger off and say thank you good night please leave the house and I will tidy this thing up my way um because I can't have other people pack my games away it just it you know I've played uh gaming days where people come around my house they played a game and they've packed it away and then the next time I unbox it and I'm like what has happened it's like they've just vomited every you know everything in in the box and I just I can't stand it I just don't like it so not having that

Board game phone zombies

SPEAKER_00 42:55

um last one I promise last one pet peeve and this is a bit of a pet peeve is people who sit on their phones uh during the game like come on like you're supposed to be invested in this game let's play the game not play on your phone in between turns and then play the game and I think it kind of I don't know if it's a rudeness thing but it kind of can come across as a bit of a rudeness thing and I I just think like if you're here to play let's play like if it's not your turn let's have a little chat let's engage socially not sit on a a screen device looking at something else so yeah I I don't like it. Um I get that if you've got AP um centric people at the table it's gonna happen more often and it depends on the game if you've got long um you know uh gaps between player turns then it's more likely to happen but if you've got games that are going to keep people engaged it's less likely to happen. So yeah there you go. Those are my kind of things that kind of piss me off in board games or kind of make me go um so yeah I'd love to know what yours are. Please tell me what yours are what what also annoys you. Does any of my list annoy you or is it just the JP thing is It like you know, that's definitely just you, mate. Um, yeah, please get engaged and uh yeah, I'd love to know. Thank you very much. Okay,

PHASE D: WHAT'S HOT, WHAT'S NOT

SPEAKER_00 44:07

so let's move on to the next segment, which is what's hot and what's not. So back to board game geek we go. Um, so I'm gonna look at the hotness now, the top five uh hottest games uh currently, right now at time of recording, and what I think about them, what I know about them, which sometimes is nothing. So just just beware of that. So number one we've got is uh Altera. So Altera is a game by IV Studios. Um, and uh I don't know loads about this game. I need probably need to be checking this one out. It's getting a lot of buzz, but Ivy Studios do very aggressive marketing for good reasons because they want people to know about the game. The fact that I know about this game is because of that marketing, and they've done games like Moonrakers and the Roll and Write 10 um and other games in there. I I've never played an IV Studio game. That's I'm putting it out there. Um, IV Studio, if you're listening, I'd love to play one of your games um and give it a go. I think they've got a very unique look. Um, if I just jump to some pictures for those that are watching, you know, they have a very distinct colourful pop to them in their production, and I think they do a very, very good production in their board games. Um, and I think Altera is a uh dice worker placement game with bag building, um, which I think is where the dice come from, but don't quote me on that because I don't know much uh about that. And I think you're playing like this ancient civilization, um, which uh is trying to strive for probably VPs because that's what most games are about. It does look pretty cool though. Um, it's got a lovely little pop to it. So maybe I need to check this one out, right? But yeah, is it hot? Is it not, in my opinion? It's probably gonna be hot. If it's IB Studios, it's gonna, it's probably gonna do well, and maybe I should just check it out and see if it's got some mechanisms I'm I'm interested in. So 213, it looks like these are expansions for um harmonies. Never played harmonies, so harmonies being a kind of cozy game where you're you're building this the kind of hexagonal uh biome for for animals to kind of live in. So you're putting like so many trees together or rocks or mountains and stacking these little cool tiles on on these these pieces in order to fulfill um conditions for these animals to live at. It looks like these are expansions. So we've got Harmony's uh crescendo, um which, yeah, I have no idea what it is. Probably more more stuff by the looks of it. And we've got Harmony's Pulse. Um, so again, another expansion where your landscape becomes more dynamic, uh, apparently. More animal cars, more requirements, test your spatial organization. So I think if you love harmonies, then maybe check out those uh that are coming. Now, container number four, container. I know about container, and it's just had a reprint and become more accessible. Now, this this is another game that's been out of print for a while where you basically play uh as as companies, I believe, uh, with with shipping containers, moving shipping containers around the world. Again, I don't know much about this, um, but it looks pretty cool. I love themes like this. Like, yeah, you send me into probably what is the driest theme, I'm gonna be interested in it. And the fact that this has had a uh kind of resurgence, um, I'm yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna check this one out. I'm gonna look at that. I'm putting this on my my intrigued list uh for sure. So container. And again, if you know about any of these, let me know. Hit me up and uh we'll look at it. Concordia special edition in at number five. Yeah, I mean, no surprise here, right? This is gonna be um uh surprise this isn't higher. Um, but Concordia Special Edition is the Awakened Realms um basically deluxified version of Concordia. I can already see people review bombing the crap out of this because maybe they don't like it. I don't know. BGG ratings, eh? You gotta love them. Um so yeah, I mean this game. Do we have any images? Should we have a look? Nope, no images yet, but I'm sure you can check out the um crowdfunding campaign. Now, for me personally, I've played um some well, one of the Awakened Realms Deluxe games in um Castles of Burgundy, and it is very beautiful with the acrylic tiles, not the the 3D printed uh style. I I think that's just for me too much. It's too much. The acrylic tiles though are very good, and I think they are more tactical play and um yeah, more functional use. And uh yeah, I think a friend of mine, Adrian from the Who's Turn podcast, is back has backed this. Concordia is probably one of his favourite games, and I'm not I don't blame him. And it also saves me how to worry about that as well. But if you like Concordia and you want to get the best probably the looking version of the game, this will be it. Hands down. Does it uh I think it bundles in a lot of the expansions that have come out all into this one big nice produced package. So if you love Concordia, you're gonna be you're gonna be at home right here. So there we go. So that's uh that's the the kind of what's hot and what's not in terms of the hotness of of today. So yeah, there we go.

PHASE E: JUST ABOUT TO PLAY

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Okay, so let's talk about the next segment, which is just about to play. So, what are the couple of things that um basically are kind of occupying my brain space? So the first one is uh unmatched teenage mutant hero turtles or ninja turtles. I'm so old school saying hero turtles, aren't I? But yeah, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, um, which is basically you play as the four turtles in the unmatched system. And uh Adrian uh picked this up and I'm looking to looking forward to playing it. The only downside is that Adrian's favourite turtle is Donatello, and so is mine. So I'm not gonna be able to play as Donatello, which is sad. Um, who's your favourite turtle? Come on, I want to know who's your favourite turtle. I should get a poll on this and and see who wins. So I'm probably gonna play as Michelangelo, which is probably my second favourite. Um, and yeah, and I think he's probably the favourite as a kid, and then I kind of morphed to Donatello for I don't know, maybe because he's a nerd like me. Um so I'm looking forward to that. And I I've just kind of learned his co-op, which kind of makes sense, right? I don't think the turtles would fight each other, but normally in unmatched, you fight each other. So I'm intrigued to see how that works. But I think you go up against Shredder or Krang, and I think we'll probably do Shredder. So yeah, I'll let you know how that one goes. Um, the next one is uh and I've recently done an interview with OpenR Studios and Tempest Workshop um on Echo Bound Adventures and uh basically getting the prototype um game to play. And I can't wait to to basically give that a whirl and experience them the game because ever since I spoke to to Chris and Isaiah, honestly, I've been quite excited to um to yeah, to learn more about that and and just see how that world works, that persistent works uh in the game. So yeah, I'm looking forward to to getting lost in a little bit of that, um, which I might take away uh at a work trip uh because I'm going over to the US for work. So hopefully I can bring that along and maybe that's something I'm gonna play in the hotel room.

PHASE F: THE LAST PLAY

SPEAKER_00 50:52

So there we go. So that is it. We are at the the last play, and basically, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for listening to the show. I hope you enjoyed um the content that I've been putting out recently. We're we're definitely hitting the stride now. Episodes are coming out very frequently, probably more frequently than I had originally planned. I'm not gonna lie, guys. I was hoping to just probably keep it to a fortnightly release, but it's been weekly at the minute, and you know what, I've been enjoying doing it, and and UK Games Expo has been giving um yeah, a lot of opportunity with me to speak to different designers and things, and uh, yeah, I've I've been enjoying doing that. So at the minute I'm pretty good. Um, the whole reason why I wanted to do just play was to keep the pod life balance in in measure, and the fact that I can do this on my own and record when I want and edit when I want and all that kind of stuff is it's working really well for me so far. So, yeah, brilliant. But you know, every share, every comment, every like, every subscription, every everything helps. So please, please, I'd love it if you could do that. It'd be amazing. Um, and if you really want to support the the show even further, we have coffee. Coffee is a crowdfunding support platform that I use, and every kind of penny or pound that goes to the show really helps us to kind of level up, you know, the equipment and keeps the the podcast hosted and all of the costs that are involved in in basically producing a podcast like this. So yeah, and if you want to get engaged, you know all the stuff is. It's in the show notes right below. So please, please do that. I love it and keep the questions rolling in. But the last thing to say is you only grow old when you stop playing. Take care, guys.