OPENING

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Some games challenge your brain and some warm your heart, and every now and then one seems to do both. I'm talking, of course, about the mega hit Tembi.

PHASE A: INTRODUCING BENJIE TALBOTT

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to the Just Play podcast. I'm your host, JP, and we're here with another Just Play with Others episode, and I'm joined by Benji from Cozy Cook Games, the designer of the well mega hit Tenbi. I'm sure you've heard of it, but I'm gonna waste no time. We're gonna jump across and basically speak to Benji. Hello, Benji. How you doing, mate?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hey, mate. Yeah, good. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:41

I'm good. I'm sweating and hot, and I'm sure you are. Today's two of us. It's another heat wave week in basically the UK, and it's just crazy town. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, it's good to be here. Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hey, pleasure. Absolute pleasure. So I'm sure people are probably itching to learn more about Tembi and your um kind of meteoric success with the game, but we're gonna get to that. I promise. I promise we'll get to

What was the last game Benjie has Just Played?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

it. Um but I I want to know personally is what have you just played recently? What's hit your table? Just played. Yeah, what's what's the game that you just played?

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Oh gosh. Last night we played Calavera, which is if you've come across it, is a really small little dice game, roll and write dice game. Oh. Based on like Day of the Dead stuff. It's really, really lovely. It was it was a favourite of ours of that kind of genre. Um roll the dice, pick a couple colours, mark them down, and if you go above a certain number of colours, you go bust, but like you try and like stack your points before you go bust. It's a really simple concept, but you know, great little sort of filler at the end of the night when me and my partner that do other things in the daytime or in the evenings get back late and we're like, just want something to wind down.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yeah, you do it's good to have those kind of games that kind of just chill, chill you out. For me, similar game, not similar, it's probably not even remotely similar, but that feeling is uh rebirth and it's your game. And that for me is like just the chill game. All I've got to do is draw a tile out of a bag and put it onto a map. That's really all I there's a bit more to it than that, but that's pretty much it. And you're like some points, yeah. Just minimal input, but where you place that tile matters a hell of a lot. And before you know it, not even an hour, the thing's finished, and you're like, that was great. So I like that. Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Even shorter than that, we've played uh River Valley Glassworks. I don't know if you've played that one.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

No, I've not played that one.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

No, it's one of the all-play um games. Uh picked it up at UKG, just gone, and uh from time around I played it with my dad. It was it's it's lovely, it's great. It's not anywhere near as complex as I thought it was gonna be. It's uh it's very, very chill, but it has that exact same quality if you just take a piece of glass, place it somewhere, get some stuff. Get some stuff. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful, lovely, simple concept. Does what it says on the tin. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Exactly. That's what we want, that's what we need.

What are Benjie's favourite games?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Um, so basically then, do you have a favourite or favourites of games that you you come back to and go, you know what? It's always that one, or it's always those three. Like, do you yeah? And if so, what are they?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

I don't know. I think maybe from a nostalgia point of view, maybe like I am a sucker for a worker placement game. I really do like worker placement games. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I joined the club, I guess. Um uh I mean the game that me and my partner play probably most often or have played the most is Wingspan. Um that is definitely like uh, especially with the new expansion as well. I really like that one. That's really cool with the hoverbirds and things. Hoverbirds, that's not what they are. What do you call them? Hummingbirds. Hummingbirds, yeah. They hover. I think it's because it's the hover that's come out, yeah, isn't it? Yeah, um, so that probably makes it to the table most often, but like, you know, I I grew up playing like Agricola and Catern and things like that. So like Agricola is like still it doesn't get to the table, but in my mind, I'm like, that's what I want to play.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Uh even if it doesn't get to the table once every couple years, you know. Um that might change with, you know, I bit back the Awakened Realms uh Agricola special edition, which will be coming at some point soon. So it's coming.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

I think it's probably is it this year or next year? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, they keep pumping out the special editions of I mean they've just got Concordio on, haven't they, at the minute? Um epic and amazing, um, completely. Uh but yeah, uh Agricola, I own the the 15th anniversary box one, which is the old one. And I'm I'm alright with that. I'm like, I'm good with that. So do I need the the special? No one needs the special edition, it's about what could be. But it's the zombie, didn't they do a zombies one or or the touting to do a zombies version of it? I heard no, I didn't use that. Yeah, you got Agricula. I think you're still doing the farming thing, but they're no zombies involved. I'm like, but like a survivalist agriculture, yeah, basically.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, just because you know I play it, sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Yeah, farming isn't hard enough, let alone throw some zombies and amazing. Uh but there we go, yeah. Oh cool, yeah. Agric Agricola is solid. Um it's it is a it's kind of like uh it's kind of one of my cozy games, even though it can absolutely infuriate the crap out of me because it's it's worker placement at its core, basic, but I'm gonna take that wood and now my whole thing, my strategy's fallen apart because I need a three-wood and now I can't get it for another three turns, and you're like Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um people just block you. It's yeah, interesting. I do enjoy I like the the evolving board of workers um placement spots.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Um the general power curve is good, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Like another one that my partner and I like playing is the Raiders of the North Sea, I think it's called.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shen Phillips, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of that sort of series. I really like that as well from a placement point of view. That is a mechanism I really like of placing one location, picking up another. Fantastic. There's a really nice sort of rhythm to that. And um, yeah, it's just a really neat game, again, in that regard. I think really well balanced. I think I really like that one. Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yes, I haven't played it, I know of it, but I've not played that one. The only ones I've played in those series is Architects and the West Kingdom, Paladins. I've played uh Architects and Brutal. It is brutal, it is it is brutal. Paladins is a mind melter. Um I have not played that one. Yeah, it's good, but it's just like um the Vycounts have not played in any of the ones after, to be honest. I've just not had the opportunity too many games on.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Well, it felt like we started like really pumping them out as well, which is great. They're good games, so yeah, look forward to playing them.

How did you into the hobby?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Cool, nice, nice. Um, so a lot of times I like to ask guests, uh, Benji, is is how you got in the hobby? Like what was yours uh I started early and I've stayed in in the hobby space, or have you kind of dipped in and out? Where's your your board gaming tabletop journey? Yeah, how did it work?

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Um, pretty, I don't know if you call it classic, but like my both my sense of grandparents played games in different regards. So my mum's side played Scrabble and Cludo and Rummy Cub and all those kind of classic games.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Um with a bit more of like I guess of an emphasis on like the more intellectual, I guess, side of things.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Um so I played a lot of especially like Rummy Cub growing up on my grand. That was definitely like I'd go stay stay there for weekends and things, and um that's a pretty enduring memory. And then on my dad's side, uh, they had games like Buccaneer and Totopoly, and like a bunch of like super cool but really old school games, like I guess that were sort of part of the path of Progenitor towards the modern board game scene. Um which was really cool. I really, really loved that. I've got really again like nostalgic memories for um for Buccaneer, especially like playing with cousins around a table because we'd all meet there to you know, Christmas or whatever. Um but then like I guess the introduction to the modern game world was really through German friends. Um we uh the town I grew up in happened to be twinned with a with a town in Germany, and my mum was uh like a steward or secretary or something of the of the of the committee. And there was a family over in Germany who whose son uh wanted to come to Wales to for A levels, and he came and stayed with us for a couple of years, which is really cool. He was a really nice guy, but with him brought things like Catan. I remember going over to Germany beforehand to meet him and his family and things. I must have been yeah, yeah, and um so that would have been in yeah, early two thousand very early 2000s, playing um playing Catan in Germany and then bringing it back because obviously it was the most mind-bending thing ever to discover as a kid. Yeah, what is nice, yeah. And then my family, I guess, played it like probably every other night for a good year, and then yeah, it was um a real staple, and then we got into all the other games, you know, like Agricola that was out at the time and a few others. Um, I think Tigris and Euphrates was another big one that we played a lot at the time. That was really cool. Yeah. Um, yeah, so that was kind of like the entrance into it, and then after that, yeah, went to UKG and all the things and just got my mind blown as to yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

What is this? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

UKG must have been half the size it is now, but like even so that was uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

When did you start going to UKG?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

I mean, I haven't been every year, but probably the first time would have been 2010, something like that, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Okay, yeah, in the early early days, yeah. Okay, yeah, definitely, definitely a smaller fair. I think my first UKG was 2017, 2018. Um, and even then I've seen such a dramatic difference in the you know eight years that I've been going on and off, obviously. COVID. COVID was a thing, and we didn't go uh I think a year or two in that middle, but yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, cool. Okay, that's cool. That's cool. I like that. The little exchange student bringing bringing the German fair over to uh to the the UK and getting you into some more fun stuff,

PHASE B: COSY CUB GAMES & TENBY

SPEAKER_00 10:04

so yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right, well let's let's get into it then. Let's talk uh all about Cozy Cub. So Cozy Cub Games is your um your your company, and I want to know how did that start? Like, did you have the the Cozy Club Games uh company to start with, or was it with the the birth of Tembi that these two things are kind of just became one?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

So yeah, how did that yeah it was it was exactly that, the second one. Um yeah, I mean had I been able to do the whole project without creating a company, I think it in some ways it would have been preferable to do that. But actually I'm really glad I did. And um, it's really nice to have that like brand out there, and uh it's it's nice having a a face for the things which isn't my face. I think that's also really important as well. Uh yeah, no, they they definitely evolved at the same time. At the time I decided to um um more seriously think about designing board games as not just a hobbyist, because I've done that for 10 years or something before. Yeah, yeah. Uh it was a real sort of life decision of you know moving from one career to another, potentially. Um and there was there was a bunch of sort of legal reasons for doing it as well, of you know, importing rules and things, making sure that you know where I'm out of run a successful Kickstarter, um then yeah, there's all the technical things about okay, well, you need some vehicle for importing and exporting stuff. And it seemed like a limited company was the best option for that.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

But then, you know, it was also good, like I said, to not not have a face that was mine, but to have a a sort of a company that represented a set of values. Yeah. And um uh part of the reason for doing all of this was trying to create a vehicle that could tell stories and tell positive stories, tell sort of unified stories, like you know, without getting like like super political from a very gentle point of view, how do you bring people together? And like the board game probably does that anyway. Um, but I really set out with a bit of a mission to try to um create games or support games which have kindness and community at the heart of them and sustainability and all you know, all wonderful kind of things that the world should be moving towards, in my opinion, anyway. So that was the kind of the convergence of the two, and then uh yeah, Tembi was just a really nice happenstance, I suppose. There's a bunch of games I was working on at the same time that anyone maybe could have been the game that I chose to try to crowdfund first. Uh, but Tembi happened to be the one. Jesse, my partner, was like got to the point she was like, You've got to choose one idea, just one, just go with it and see what happens. So it became Tembi. Um, but you know, again, the two were really like closely linked. Like Tenbi ended up being that game, which is you know, um, not overtly but gently about community and and kindness and collaboration and all those good things. And yeah, I'm just I'm very pleased with uh with how things have ended up for sure.

The meteoric success of Tenby

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah, I mean, what what a start. To be honest, are you what an opener? I mean, I bet you probably got I'm glad I picked Tenbi.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

I'm glad it's I'm glad my partner picked Tembi, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, I I'm glad that was the one that was chosen because you never quite know, and it must be this massive unknown for you, where you know you you God know no idea how these things are gonna go, but you're kind of I assume very proud that you've done this thing, right? You've designed this game and it works and it's fun, and and I'm sure you've had play test and feedback and all that kind of stuff. And and and you know, and I I I can imagine like when you put in a product or you create a product from an idea that was once in your head and now it's tangibly in my hands, and people can play it. I mean, that must be a a mega feeling, and and only to get the you know, the reception it's got.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

It is bizarre, yes. Everyone I I I've talked to about this has you know that same kind of thing of like it must be crazy. It is, it really, really is crazy. Um but I think for me it was never it it ne I never had expectations or designs on it being anything more than just a project. Like it was it was really for me to try and figure out okay, do I like designing games as a main thing? Do I like running a company? Do I like you know, doing all of that stuff? Because before for 15 years, I was a composer for for film and TV. That's like my that's my bread and butter, that's what I trained in. And uh I I loved that, but I really wanted to, like I said, come and tell my own stories rather than support someone else's stories. And um yeah, it was supposed to be an exploration. And then the the exploration turned into a project which turned into a a business which turned yeah. I mean, I feel very grateful, very, very lucky, and it has been a whirlwind. Um certainly some stressful times throughout that. Definitely some stressful times, but right now, yeah, definitely I can look back and think that was great. Um, I feel like I hammer handled myself all right. And um, yeah, enough that you know it got enough tension to to warrant Mighty Birds getting interested and wanting to support the game, which I'm just again blown away by and kind of constantly find myself sort of you know pinching myself a little bit, being like, is this actually happening?

SPEAKER_00 15:18

And then this is real, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah, and then you know, you end up with UKG this year with the games being a water stones and then them selling out, and I don't know, it's it's it's baffling, but wonderful. Maybe that's the best way of putting it.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

No, it's it it's it's really good because you know uh I you know the phrase the flying off the shelves, right? We've all heard that like products are flying off the shelves, right? I've never actually seen it happen until my own eyes honestly at the UK Games Expo, and I was at Waterstones because I think two friends of mine wanted to get a copy of Tenbi. They had heard that Waterstones had some copies in, so it's the Friday, they're in the queue, and they got stacks and stacks of this game, and I I could just watch them like within not even nanoseconds, like just getting people in in their hands, like and I was just watching there going, bloody hell, like this is this is mad, but all in the best way, and it kind of takes me back, mate. It takes me back to when we had a uh uh kind of an interaction on on Instagram. I think you messaged me when I was doing the Who's Tennis Anyway podcast, and you said, Hello, I'm Benji, and I've got this game called Tembi, and it'd be cool if you want to like check that out. And I was like, Yeah, go for it, because obviously we had a a larger ensemble at the time and Becky, I'm sure you've met, and um and you know, I said this this for me, like because I try to pair games up with uh the members of the the old squad because I'm like, right, who does this kind of fit in into that side? And I I admittedly, Benji, I kind of went, I think this is more Becky's thing than my thing, right? And that was that was a mistake because I have played this game, right? So I I I've eaten my own words, but I passed it to Becky and I said, Go and play that and uh see what you think, and we can chat about it on the show. And that's what she did. And so to go from from that position to then you know, hearing about your your kind of deal with mighty boards, and I was really chucked, honestly. I was like, I'm really chuffed for you because we met you, I think, at Expo last year or the year before. That's right. So we finally got to meet you, and we were talking about the success and the fact that you were just selling out even then before that announcement happened. And then, yeah, it's just been I was like, oh my god, what what a success story to to have been a part of, and and then then witnessing literally this game just go flying straight up the shelves, mate. I was like, I'll chuck for you because it's such a you know it's been a strange road, yeah. It has, yeah. It's been a strange old road, but yeah, I have played Tembi now. I literally first I am I am ashamed to admit it was the first game I've played was at last UKGE because finally it's fine. I know, but I mean I've been saying I want to play this game, and then for whatever reason, things happen. Uh and then no bloody play in this game at Xbo and we did, and we had a we had a blast. So I was like, yeah, I should have kept it.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

I think a lot of people are surprised by how uh yeah, by how tricky and um yeah uh yeah, yeah, how much depth there can be if you look for it. You know, on the face of it, it is a pretty game, and like, yeah, like it was very consciously chosen to be that way, of course. But like I'm uh you know, I want to make the games that I want to play and I want to be challenged by games and Tenbi, I never win, by the way. Oh, okay. But I like the challenge of trying to win. Yeah. Trying to get the next go.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Yeah.

What is Tenby?

SPEAKER_00 18:37

So for those are going, that's great, JP, you're talking about Tenbi. I have no idea what you're talking about, which I doubt you exist, because I'm sure most people will know this game by now and go, yes, we know what Tenbi is, we've played it. But from the off chance that anyone's watching this, Benji, who has never heard of Tenbu or have, or maybe heard of it but haven't played it to know whether it's for them. Can you give a bit of a pitch on on what it is and how it works and maybe how the gameplay loop works? Just something like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Yeah. It's uh it's it's a card drafting game, it's an action drafting game, a street building game, kind of a tableau builder. And the main puzzle of the game is feature matching. So what you're gonna be doing is taking one card and looking at the just neighbor card and looking at the scoring condition and then the features on the neighboring card. And each card at the bottom's got a scoring condition which looks for a feature, and that feature's worth a certain amount of points, and that condition is gonna look a certain range. So maybe it might look one card to the left, one card to the right, two cards to the left, two cards right, etc. A range over which it operates, and if it sees any features in the adjacent cards, then it's gonna score some points. And of course, every card has that. So the idea is you're trying to fit the puzzle together in the best way. How do you put the cards so that that scoring condition matches with that feature and that scoring condition matches with that feature, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's the kind of um the challenge. And then the gameplay loop is a um action selection mechanism with a dynamic turn order. So what you're doing is in a particular order, you're gonna choose an action card that you want to draft. So there's two phases of the game, the night phase and the day phase, and the night phase. You're gonna take your counter in um ascending order to any one of the cards that's available, and everybody does that before you then resolve the cards, and the action cards then resolve in least powerful to most powerful. But because the market, the area that you're drawing cards from is exclusive for that round, the players going first get maximum choice. Cards aren't replenished during the round, so by the time you get to the end of the round, even though you might have more powerful actions and more numerous actions, there's less available to you, and then that happens every round. That's sort of the the main game.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

And that's the genius bit, is the bit where you're bidding, like, I want to do all those three, I want to pick that card up, and I want to um you know the the the ports or the uh yeah, the the or whatever, and I want those cards and I want this, and I'm like, yeah, but I know they want that as well. So I don't really want this particular one with the red house. I want that red house because that's and and what are the odds of me getting that red house? Probably slim. Yeah, um, so do I have to go earlier and forego maybe an extra pick to get what I want? And that alone is just really good, simple, clean, and and just think for me it makes the game. It makes the game, and and I like the fact that you can you've got different strategies in there as well. So you're gonna go for like the super super street, which is so long and you know, massive, or you're gonna go for lots of little ones. And because obviously you can start new streets, right? You can start these different things, and um, and yeah, and I forget what the cards are called because you can get them, oh they're the purple ones. They they give them the residents, yeah. Residents, yeah, you go. Yeah, the residents give you a bit of a like a nod to a direction. So it's like have it you know, have your longest street of this or do something. So it literally not tells you what to do, but it gives you uh and you can get more of those in the game, right? So sometimes you end up having lots of different things and different strategies. So yeah. So yeah, it's like I say. Benji's explained it in probably under a minute. And it is that simple to kind of pick up and play. But when you're playing, you're sat there agonizing over your screen going, Oh my god, I've got to find these uh these lampposts. Like I've got to put that there. And yeah, it it's it is a puzzle. Puzzle of your own making.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

That was the thing that I was not surprised, but like really, really pleased with that people enjoyed was the aspect of sort of the like the where's walliness aspect of it of actually looking at the at the table and having to find the features on the cards and really enjoying that process. That's not something I expected. Honestly, like when when I had the idea, it was a mechanical, um, it was a logical mechanical decision to make rather than a sort of like a thinking about the human psychology part of it. So that was a lucky, a lucky turn for me. But now sort of reflectively thinking about it, you could think of it as a smart choice, but at the time it really wasn't. It wasn't just lugged into it, yeah. It was yeah, but it's uh it's that's a lovely thing to find out.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah, yeah, and and I suppose it lends into the fact that the art style is that cartoony, and you you're right, whereas one it fits in that kind of aesthetic where yeah, you're trying to hunt for these, oh, it's those things, those chimney pots at the top, or this, and you're literally trying to find them. Oh, there's one there, and you get so excited to go, I didn't know that. Was that oh, awesome? Yeah, that's another two points. Yeah, yeah. I looked into that one.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Yeah, lots of mini dopamine hits. How do you get to those stars?

SPEAKER_00 23:22

It's all it's all good. It's all good.

How does the Community Expansion work?

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Um, so you have an expansion which I haven't played actually, the community expansion, right? So, what what does that do? What does that add to the game?

SPEAKER_01 23:31

So, in that expansion, there's five different modules. Um, so they can all be added individually or in any combination or all together. And uh they do something small or a little bit larger to try and affect the gameplay in some way.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

So, for instance, um you might have a mayor card. So you might have a mayor that is part of your town, and that mayor is going to give you points for um patterns of coloured houses. So the very original version of the game that I designed was more in line with this. It was like uh just a game about coloured houses. No features, no nothing. It was just colored houses, being very much inspired by Tembi and being there, thinking, okay, I can make a game out of the colored houses. And um putting them in different relationships, you know, red, yellow, green, etc. How do you sort of board multiple different goals together? That game by itself just didn't feel like enough. So I did avoid that. But as a layer on top, it was a nice, like for me, a nice sort of homage to where the game mechanically came from, but also a really nice extra sort of pull towards okay, well, I now want to get these strings of different patterns of colours. So the mayor wants that, they're also gonna give a little boost to um points generated by particular features. So on the scoring condition, if it says like a seagull is gonna generate one point, now that seagull generates two points, for instance. So you're drawn towards a particular scoring feature. So that's one module. There's another module. I think my favorite is the locals, which are a set of five different colored um little meeple pieces. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that word anymore, so I don't know what the fallout from that is. Um meeple-like. Where uh yeah, yeah, meeple like, meeple-like pieces, where um uh anytime you place a home down, and a home is just a little one with the banner of the heart at the top in the pink. Uh anytime you place a home down, you can place a little local on it. And at the end of the game, the local is going to extend the scoring range of any of any of the features it ends up on at the end of the game. But during the game, you can spend to move those locals around, or you get, I think, one free move at the end of every round as well. So that yeah, just like you know, things like that, which pull the game in a slightly different direction, give it a slightly different inflection, more scoring opportunities, but again, hopefully just kind of like more ways of interacting and feeling like you're you know part of this little town that you're making.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

That sounds cool. That sounds cool. I'll have to check that one out then.

Why is Tenby a special place for Benjie?

SPEAKER_00 25:55

So so obviously you mentioned you're from Wales. Are you actually from Tenby? Do you I'm not no? Is that a happy coincidence there? Or just or what does Tenbi mean to you? Like what why Tenby? It's just I fancy Tenbi.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

No, no, it does have some meaning. So um my mum used to take me and my brother to holidays in West Wales, and and Tenby would be uh one of the places that we'd go to. And um I so I'm from Sandrindod, which is in Middle Wales, okay, and uh so you know it's a good couple of hours to the coast. Remember the car joies as a kid. Um but yeah, very much like remember being being there and having a great time. And um, so that's sort of part of it. My partner and I still go there now for holidays, like you know, when we can get away, because we live in Cardiff. And um, so although it's kind of just down the road, it's still almost a couple of hours to get there.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah, still a still a while. It's still a while.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Um, but uh eight years ago my mum died. And uh so it was kind of around about that time I started thinking about different directions in life, different sort of, you know, what was gonna make me happy, how could I figure out where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. And uh Tembi was is kind of a way of honouring her as well, you know, like the things that parents do for you when you grow up, you know, they didn't need to take me on a holiday, and but we have great times, and like you know, it kind of hits in this in the nostalgia feels for a lot of people, and yeah, so there's part of the core of the game is trying to honour my mum through it as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

That's that's such a lovely, lovely moment uh to be able to do that as well. Because

An aside on Heartbeat the TV Show...yep really

SPEAKER_00 27:30

I think we can all think of places in our childhood, like as you were talking then, I was just thinking about um you know uh kind of where I went on holiday. And yeah, right. You know, my mum passed away um, you know, probably what 10 years ago or something now. And I think of uh a place called Gophland, which is in the North Yorkshire Moors, and it's the place where uh back in the God, was it 90s, there it used to be a TV show called Heartbeat. Um it's basically filmed in this place called Gophland. Yeah, and we went we were going there before um uh Heartbeat was even a thing. So like we we'll be in our caravan just in the middle of this field in the middle of nowhere, and then suddenly all these TV crews are just descended on this very quaint little village, and I'm thinking, what is going on? And it's all then you know, six, nine, whatever months later, this new show comes up, and is all the locations that's the pub we go to. This is one of the characters as a uh farmer, he's a bit of like uh he's a bit of a rogue, he's a bit of a naughty one, and his farm is where we would stay. Literally, it's like this is absolutely mad. So, so yeah, so when you're talking about little you know places you go when you're younger that resonate with people that are important to you, yeah. There you go. Maybe I should create a game called Gophland. There we go. It's my destiny to do it. You've inspired me, Benji. Um, but I don't know if it'll be any good. So let's see. I'm not a designer, I play them, but I I'm not sure I could build them or craft them. Who knows? Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Yeah, I mean, can you call it beat heart?

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Maybe that's uh yeah, you can't see me anymore. That show's dead. It's all good, it's all good. Cool, okay. Um that's just funny, it's making me laugh.

What's the one mechanism in Tenby that defines the game for you?

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Uh so what what's the the kind of one mechanism then in Tembi that defines the whole experience for you? So like if you were to to kind of hone in on one thing, what what is it about that game?

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Yeah, good question. The one thing I mean the core of it really is the puzzle. That really is the core of the game. But I think you did identify that what makes the game is the the feeling of the action selection mechanism. And that was that was the very final piece of the game to come together. Everything after that was just sort of um balancing and tweaking here and there. But um I was really inspired by um playing a game called Electropolis, which is from a Taiwanese designer, I want to say, or Singaporean. I feel bad now, sorry. Um but it was um at the time I was doing some um reviews with the UK board game review circle, and so that was one of the games that came through. I really liked it actually. It was a very small um game, but uh did what it did really well and really efficiently. Yeah. And one of the things in that was a really nice action selection thing where um I think what it was was you had a um uh a board and all around the board there were all these different tiles. And what you selected was turn order for how much you were getting. And um it wasn't where you were getting it from, but what you had to do was select sort of like tiles that were in a row around this around this table. Um so you could select one and definitely go first, or you could select you're gonna take four tiles but definitely go later or something. So that was that that was the inspiration point for sure. Uh, and then the sort of the combination of it was thinking about King Domino, really. I mean, that is a touchstone for a lot of people. What I really liked about King Domino was that sense of I am getting this thing. Um and uh so the kind of like the fusion of the two really was the sense of how do you play earlier versus later in terms of value? How do you play relative worth of the thing that you're getting on the on the actual card itself? Um and then yeah, the the I guess the source of it was you're reserving the action rather than the the actual thing. And so I think, yeah, I think you you you put your finger on it, man. That that's the real tension in the game, and that really provides the core of the game, the gamified part of the game, if you will. Yeah. Um, which is yeah, that that tension between this is the action that I want because I can see the stuff that I want, but that doesn't guarantee the stuff that I'm gonna get. That's the yeah. Uh yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

I'm a sucker for action selection mechanisms in games anyway, because anytime anytime that you come up with a clever way of doing it, it's like, God, that's clever. And it's just because that's your primary interface, right? That's your primary interface into the game, it's how you push the buttons in in doing certain things. So yeah, it doesn't matter whether it's heavy or if it's light, if if it's got a clever uh way you can input. I'm I'm not I'm all over that because it's just that's what makes it fun. Because that's where the decision space yeah, decision spaces lie. You're just in that and go, oh okay, well, I'm gonna do that. And that could be as simple as you know, in Vignos, if you've ever played Vigneos, one of Vital La Surda's heavier games, it's basically about winemaking. Um and their action selection mechanism is is like uh they call it a quadral, right? Which is a basically a three by three um spaces, like uh grid. And on your turn, you can move into one of the adjacent boxes and do the action, or you can spend the coin to go additional into areas, or if other people are in there, you have to give them a coin, and it's that that little it's like the game within the game, you're like, oh my god, Jesus, how are we doing that? And I love it. Like when when when designers come up with really innovative ways of of of messing around with how you take actions, which is a simple thing, it could be playing. It's like actually now I'm gonna do something slightly different. It's cool. I really do like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

So it's it's beautiful, isn't it? I mean, yeah, I'm very keen on that as well myself. Like the I'm I I always want players to feel like they have agency. Like when I'm in a game where I feel like I don't have agency, it's fine, you know. Yeah, I could play it, but it doesn't really bring me satisfaction. Like it's fine if it's a social experience, you know. That that's great. That's a whole other sort of category of game, which is really worthy and wonderful. But the kind of games I want to make are very much which, you know, I grew up I grew up playing Go, playing um Badook, if that's what you know it as. Yeah. And that is our only agency, really. There's nothing else other than just you have the choice, and the choices are numerous, but you have the choices. And so, you know, I kind of feel like that's sort of one end of the spectrum and the other end of the spectrum is snap. How do you sort of like you know, how are you gonna choose between like those two extremes to place like this idea of agency versus chance? And um, yeah, you're right. I love those games as well, where the designer makes you feel like you have agency, but the design brief is like, hmm, but you can't do everything, you could, but you can't, like, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

We're not gonna let you, so you're gonna you'll be in turmoil about what you do. No, no, that's it. That's where I'm happiest, weirdly, when I'm in anguish.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're all sadists, really. We just love it. We just just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, that's exactly where we are.

Listener Question - What is your dream bling to have in your game?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

So I've got a couple of questions from um the listeners of the podcast, and they I told uh them that you were coming on. So we have a Discord server. Um and basically I said, Benji's coming on, and they said, Yeah, we'll shoot some questions. So if you're good, I will uh I'll pass you some of these. So Zach Zach has said, What is your dream bling to have in a game? Now, not necessarily in 10B, but generally in a game that you might design in the future. What is your dream bling?

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Dream bling, components that feel heavy.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Something with a bit of weight, yeah?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Yeah, I don't know, man. There's something about like the game can be and again as simple as you like, but like if it's got a nice weighty coin in it that's made of metal, I'm like, I'm a happy bean. Um it's weird, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Yeah, why is that?

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Yeah, Kenny, it's just it's the psychology of something between you know, things that feel good, things that like feel like they have weight, sort of generally sometimes have more weight in your brain. Like, I don't know, it's satisfying. Yeah, yeah. So that from a component point of view, yeah. I mean, we've already spoken about like mechanisms and things. So anything that feels like a tasty action selection worker placement mechanism, that's that's the bling mechanically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, give me a but give me a nice heavy coin.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

You know what? I I was like, yeah, this bling thing is is stupid, right? Well, why do we put ourselves through it? And then I got myself, um, no, it's for Christmas, I got some um weighted alloy dice, right? For a game called Hoplomacus, which is a gladiator battle game from Chip Theory. And and I got these dice, and I thought, oh, this is gonna be stupid. And I picked them up and I went, oh and it like it did something to me. And I'm not quite sure what it was, Benji, but it did something, and then you roll them, and and the trouble is with these dice, like you have to put them in the dice tray or a dice tower because if you roll them into, you know, I've got a gaming table, so I'm fortunate to have one, but if I rolled them into the side, they would probably just stick themselves into the wood and you know, coming out with some force because they're so heavy, like dunk amazing. But to roll them is cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

That's really, really cool. Yeah, yeah, man. I mean, there's something really specific about dice as well. There's something so like primal about rolling a dice and like having that weighted in your hand as well.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Yeah, chonky bow, I think. A chonky, big bloody dice. Cool, okay. So thank you for Zach

Listener Question - What is Bejies favourite modules to play with in Tenby?

SPEAKER_00 37:06

for that one. Uh so next one is Martin. Um, so Martin said uh one of the things that um he likes about Tembi is the modularity, and I'm assuming he means the community expansion if he's got that. Uh, do you have a preferred version that you like to play?

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Sophia's like the sort of the the yeah, all of it, a little bit. Yeah, it makes a very long game though, if you have everything all together. Um yeah, I think the combination I really like the most is using the from the community expansion anyway, using the visitor, the visitors expansion, the locals, and then having the accolades from the the the core game. And then if you had the Kickstarter version as well, there's a little mini expansion called the Guides, which are a red-backed card. Um, and they do some things to mess around with like the turn order or like some sort of slightly more drastic things during the game, but like one-off abilities. Um, that combination is like a really interesting um combination because you can do some things to affect your own scores, like moving the locals around. Um, the visitors will pull you towards like buying certain cards, getting certain cards from the market on a given turn. The visitor on a s on a specific turn will want a different thing. So, like if you collect a card with a with a feature on that matches that thing, you're gonna get some points at that moment in time, which is really cool. So cut some things to help yourself, but then the accolades at the end is like, yeah, who has the most of these things? I really like that. And then the guides throughout the game can really mess with your plan, and I really like that as well. So it's nice, yeah. I think that's a good combination.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Yeah. There you go. There you go, Martin. That's that's how you're gonna play it, pal. Gotta play it the Benji way. So uh yeah, follow that and let me know how you get on.

PHASE C: WHAT'S NEXT FOR COSY CUB GAMES?

SPEAKER_00 38:56

Cool, okay, mate. Um, so probably kind of one of the final questions I've got for you is what's next for yourself and Cozy Cup that you can share if you can share anything at all.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

So yeah, happy to share. Yeah, I mean, no, no concrete sort of plans at the moment in uh project-wise or another, but there's plenty of games I'm developing. Um, and what I can say is that I'm really keen on um trying to go one step further with the mission statement of Cozy Cub Games, yeah, uh, which is to try and build games around stories that are that sort of you know to have a have a different narrative at their core, which reward players for doing particular things. So like I love all like you know, uh board games with huge amounts of conflict, I think, are great. Like it's difficult to have a game without some level of conflict. Um, you know, it's just part of life, and that's great. And how we navigate that is a is a is a story worth telling. I think there are plenty of games out there that have um reward systems that are named particular ways that reward you with certain things. So, for instance, you know, like games that are based in historical settings where maybe you you're getting slaves and you're moving those around and like you know there's a there's a sort of narrative around that, although it might be historical, you're being rewarded for doing certain things. Yeah. And like it's it's um I can see why it's there, but totally fine in in some regards, but also there's plenty of other ideas out there we could be exploring. And um I think trying to find ways that we can create narratives which um still have conflict within them, but which reward you for doing things, you know, like the points might be named a certain thing, or you know, the instead of it being 100% about resource extraction, it's how do you use those resources? What's what's the narrative behind the thing? Uh so the the games I'm exploring um at the moment is how do we mechanic uh make that a mechanical aspect? How do you how do you keep the narrative nice and consistent and clear and and interesting and that people want to engage with whilst having this sort of maybe more collaborative um uh what's the word I'm looking for? Sort of like competition, but sort of friendly competition. I don't know what I'm looking for, you know. Yeah something of that kind of it's uh the reason I'm I'm having difficulty talking about it is it's quite a difficult concept to try and move towards from a mechanical point of view. So um yeah, that's what I'm doing at the moment. I've got a couple of ideas that are nearly ready to share. Um, but um I'm gonna hold back on sharing exactly them just for the moment. So that's the kind of like the flavour of the background.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Yeah, no, that's cool. That's really good. Yeah, I think it's important as well. I think you know, some some games will lean into more historical aspects of how things used to be. Um, and they can have their issues because obviously those those uh viewpoints and things don't exist today, or or that you know the world's moved on. Um and some games like to tell the story of this is how it was, right? So they faithfully recreate the fat warts and all. And that's that's kind of what it is. But then I think some games use some of those themes and don't do them in a in a great way. So, you know, um, and I I liken to a game, um, an example was oh, what was it? Mombasa was an example, uh, which they did a reskin and they re redid it and and turned it into Sky Mines. So same game mechanically does the same thing, but changed the narrative around what that game was doing. It was, you know, something that was around colonialism, um, uh back when I think it was in Africa, uh, to moving it to basically you're on a moon and it's very sci-fi setting, so completely different, not in the real world future, something slightly different, and and it just made you feel in a different way to what you were doing when you're playing a game with with that sort of topic. And so I completely get it. Um, and I think as board games or board games and board gamers, exclude you know, inclusivity is is a key. Like we want to feel yeah, everybody's got a part or role to play within this hobby and not to be excluded because of some subject matter or this, that, and the other. So, yeah, the fact that you're kind of looking at how do we, you know, retain some of those those things that are in board games that are inevitable, like you say, conflict or or competition, but not make it so fierce that it just pulls people off. That's that's tough. That's a tough one to come up with, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:28

It's hard, and it won't be for everybody, you know, but that's that's not the the point. You know, I I the the games that I will make in the future won't be liked by everyone, and that's that's totally fine, you know. Like that's not an expectation. It's a general, I think, attempt to be a part of a move that that moves the center of board gaming in a certain direction, right? You know, and I feel like that's the kind of journey that the film industry, the TV industry, novel industry, all the kind of other main ways in which we engage with stories, you know, that's been moving in that direction. For the past 10, 20 years, or you know, arguably has been on that journey since you know those things were invented. Um and I feel like you know board games are just maybe five, ten years behind. And it's it's is it's a bit of a catch-up thing. And yeah, I mean, you know, given the choice of the stories that I I have to tell and that I get to choose which ones I tell, then those are the ones I'm gonna choose to tell.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

That makes sense. You're in the driving seat, pal. So you do what you want to do that makes sense to you. So cool. Uh okay.

What are you looking forward to?

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Um last question for you then, Benji, is what are you looking forward to? Anything uh on the horizon that you're generally looking forward to? And that could be anything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah. So I mean, other than designing, of course, which is is a real dream and a joy. Uh my partner runs a um a swing dance organization here in Cardiff. We we dance and teach Lindy Hop um locally and internationally as well. And uh that's a great joy. We're looking forward in July to our annual festival that we run here locally, that Jesse and I teach at, um, which is a lovely thing. And then later on in the year in November, Jesse's putting on Cardiff's first ever international Lindy Hop Festival, which is gonna be super fun, really, really cool. Lots of new challenges with that, but it's gonna be great. I'm sure it's gonna be great. And um, yeah, so my whole, you know, that's a another life of C.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Yes, another parallel lane that I'm I'm in. Um, but that's that's cool though, because that's that's the truth for most of us, right? We we've got all these different aspects to us, like you know, we do this, I do podcasting, but there's like there's so many things I'm I'm involved with with work and personal life and other hobbies and things. So yeah, it's cool to learn a bit more about that about people. So yeah. Oh, good luck with all that. That sounds cool.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

No worries. Well, I just want to say then thank you so much, Benji, for for jumping on the show and uh yeah, chatting about your your success story. I think I'd I'd like I said at the beginning, I'm really chuffed for you, mate. Um chuffed that you know we we got that interaction in you know a few years ago and and to see yeah basically how how things have progressed over the years, and I'm sure there's many, many more success stories that come. I think people will be watching very closely about what your next one. You've got that that the challenge of the second album, haven't you? Yeah, how are you gonna land that second album now you've had such good success of the first one? But I'm sure you'll nail it. So, but no, thank you for for joining us, man. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

Uh it's been a real pleasure. Thanks for being part of the journey as well. It's been great.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

No problem. Take care, man.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Thank you. Take

PHASE D: WHAT'S HOT, THE LAST PLAY

SPEAKER_01 46:33

care, man.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

And there we have it. Thank you, Benji, for for taking the time and talking to us at the Just Play podcast. And uh yeah, if you've enjoyed this show and you enjoyed this episode, then please share, comment, engage as you normally do. I love it. I love kind of going through all the comments and and yeah, please, please, please do so. And if you want to engage with us, all our socials are in our show notes in the easier place right down there. Um, and yeah, you can get us on Facebook, you can get us on Instagram, you can also join our Discord server. And yeah, come along and join the many people in there. We've got some great um listeners in there, talk about games, we've got some designers in there. So yeah, come and join in and have some fun. Um, so yeah, if you want to support the show even further, uh I do have Coffee, which is basically our crowdfunding platform, and it keeps this show going. It helps host the podcast, it helps pay for the equipment, it helps do all sorts of stuff that just keeps shows like this happening. Because without your help, it doesn't happen. So thank you for those that do. Um, but yeah, all I would leave you with is my usual sign-off, which is you only grow old when you start playing. Take care.