OPENING

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What if your favourite game was actually playing you? This week on Just Play, I talk about games that belong in a Black Mirror episode.

PHASE A: PULL UP A CHAIR

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome everybody to the Just Play podcast. I'm your host, JP, and this is episode five, Games That Belong in a Black Mirror Episode. So, yeah, uh welcome to the show. It's good to have you back. It's good to do another main episode, actually. We've had so many kind of guests episodes that have been coming hot out of UK Games Expo lately. It's been it's been crazy, but all in the best way. We're going to start the show, as always, with the first segment, which is pull up a chair. And uh as always, I'd like to start with a listener's question because it's great. And we I've got loads of questions now, but keep them coming. Um if you want to submit them, please jump into our Discord uh server, which you can find the links in the show notes below, and yeah, become a member of the Just Play uh server and yeah, start submitting questions there, or on the YouTube comments or on the socials, all the usual stuff, really. Yeah, so I'd love you to do that. But the question I have is actually from Alex B from our Facebook socials, and he's asked uh what my favourite Too Many Bones box is and why, and my favourite gearlock in each uh box or expansion, I assume. So thank you for the question, Alex. And those that do know, Too Many Bones is literally my favourite game and most played game, so it's good to always talk about this. Um, so I'm gonna go through all of the main boxes of of Too Mini Bones, sharing my favourite gearlock, and then I will kind of highlight my uh my favourite kind of Too Mini Bones expansion box. So, base game. We have four gearlocks in the base game. Um, we've got Pickett, we've got Boomer, we've got Patches and Tantrum. Tantrum is actually my favourite out of the base game. I love how Tantrum is basically uh a berserker. The artwork is this really small uh gearlock character, um, but his rage is is massive. Like he's just this really angry little dude. And the way his rage mechanic works is basically you have to be an accountant to make it work. But when you do, you can cause devastation on the map, and it's just bloody great fun to play. So base games tantrum. Um, in the Too Many Bones undertow box, which is one of the main uh campaign expansions. Um stanza is my favourite. She's the bard. Um, she has a really cool mechanism where she can basically start songs spending her focus, and literally songs will kind of play through their sections, which is basically sides of a dice. And depending on how much focus you have, you can have multiple songs kind of kicking off at once, and they're going to create buffs for the party or debuffs for uh the the baddies and things. It's just mechanically bloody brilliant fun to play. Um, in Unbreakable, which is the I think the latest uh box uh that actually contain gear locks, um, that has Gale and Figment. Um, Figment is my favourite from that box. Figment is like a wizard um which manipulates time. Anything to do with time travel or time manipulation is always gonna prick the ears up. Um so yeah, Figment messes around with a round counter, kind of rewinds time, and he can proc uh certain abilities off that and he can kind of phase himself across the map and dropping his little phase ghosts uh to distract the enemies as well. So he's cool, he's good fun. Um if I was gonna pick a non-expansion gearlock, so the ones that you can buy separately on their own, Gasket is probably gonna be my favourite from that box. There's so many uh to pick from now. Uh Gasket is a hydro-powered mech, and he's just like uh we don't even know if Gasket is a gearlock or gearlock is inside him. No one kind of seems to know that from the lore, but yeah, he's just uh a beast and he literally has a saw and he's got a gun on on the back and he just causes cool devastation. And his main shtick is that he never exhausts his dice, um, and he's just powered by water, and you've got to make sure you have enough water in your cylinders to power those actions. So, yeah, he's great fun. To be honest, they're all fun to play. Um, the dimensionable nod to the one gear lock I haven't played yet, which is the latest one they released, which is Trover. Um, so Trover turned up, I don't know, a few weeks back now. And yeah, Trover is not actually a gearlock, uh, he's a kobold, which is one of the creatures in Daylor, which is the world where Too Many Bones are set in. So, yeah, those are my favourites, and I think my favourite Too Many Bones box is probably undertow. So if anyone has got the base game and they're looking for which expansion to kind of go into, undertow all the way. The way the raft um works, so you've got the battle mat, which is this typical battle mat that you get in the base with some extras um because of mechs and things that come in the game, and on the other side, you've got the raft, and I love the raft battles, I just think they're they're very different. Um, the way you start on the raft is very different, adds the different puzzles, and then you have the Krellin, which is like these fish-like creatures which are trying to eat the raft away. I just find the the those fun. And also some of the bosses you get in undertow are brilliant. Um, so there you go. So thank you for the question, Alex. I really appreciate that. And uh yeah, keep them coming, man. Um, and it's just good to have you here in the show. So

PHASE B: JUST PLAYED

SPEAKER_00 5:28

let's jump into the next segment, which is just played. And just played, I have played quite a few games recently, but there are two that are kind of fitting, I think, to this theme of the episode. So I'm quite glad how this kind of worked. I didn't actually plan this, it just kind of worked. Um, so the first one is uh a game, I'm gonna share the screen now. Uh for those that are watching on YouTube, if you're listening, I will do my best to um audibly uh explain what's going on.

Politik

SPEAKER_00 5:56

But the first game I'm gonna uh basically talk about is Politik. Now, I've been banging on about Politik a lot, and for those that um follow the kind of channel on YouTube, you'll know that I actually have a playthrough on Tabletop Simulator live right now. You can go and check it out, which is uh me and Martin, uh listener uh of the show and a good friend of mine. Um basically we did a two-player um uh playthrough of the game, and he introduced me to this game. I knew nothing about this until Martin said, Look, you should check this out, JP. You should look at politic. It's doing something pretty cool. Um, and I think you'd be right over your street. You like you like knobby games, and this is kind of bringing it all to the table in something unique and and not done in a way I've seen before. So, yeah, politic, what is it? Well, it's a game designed by Black Yeti Games, um, so I think is a new new kid on the block. And it's essentially your part of this world where there's been this big, great collapse. The whole world economically, politically, and everything's just kind of crumbled from this this kind of thing that's happened. And it's not our world, it's just the kind of fake um world where you've got all these different nations, which no one's obviously heard of, but the ideologies in the game and the things in the game are very real. So, you know, you have we're dealing with communism, statism, we're dealing with fascism, we're dealing with these ideologies. Um, and the kind of purpose of the game is that you're trying to rise from the ashes as a nation and you're rebuilding your nation through uh kind of corporate uh power struggles, um uh engine building, military presence on the map, and all these kind of things, and essentially trying to dominate this this new world and and getting in other people's grill, um, which is all good and funky. So I think the best way to kind of show some of this game off and talk about it is probably jump to the uh GameFound page. And basically, if I kind of get to the main board, here we go. So I'm gonna show you that. So basically, the if you think about the board as being this this world map, and this world map is unlike anything you've seen because it's not based in our real world. You've got all of these different nodes in there with various different um kind of colours, and uh basically this is kind of the the way you're gonna militarily uh influence the the board and and the game uh through these discs with your or your influence on them. And on the kind of top section of the board, you've got a market which is dynamic and it will kind of determine the cost of various different actions, um, whether you're campaigning or whether you're doing um clashing, which you're gonna do a lot in this game. Um, these these things are gonna vary as well, and you've got these national actions um at the top, which uh uh basically you're allowed to do once for each time. So there's four different ones that you can do. You can do them all but in different sequences, but you can't do the same one twice until all of them have been done. They're gonna help you mess around the game, and then on the right, you've kind of got this area where your basis for the different uh ideologies, um, communism, fascism, etc. etc., and then the council uh seats at the bottom of the main board um as well. But how does this game work? You you basically you have two actions on your go, and you can do uh uh a bunch of different things uh on there. So as I said, you can play a card. You can play a card, you pay the cost of it, and you can put it straight into your tableau. Now, cards are varied in different suits. You have propaganda, so you can play propaganda, and you'll always start with uh a propaganda based on the nation you choose. So if I picked uh this nation called Grand Sante, which is one of the nations in the game that I've played, you can pick one of two uh propagandas, which is kind of giving you a little bit of uh asymmetry in how the the game works. Um, so yeah, you might go this route or that route, and all the nations aren't built the same, which I kind of like because that's they're adding a lot of variety into the game. Um so yeah, so basically you can play a card, and that card can be a propaganda card. Um so you can start to you know go deeper into communism as it as it were, or you can diversify if you've got enough uh kind of uh political bases in in there to do so. Um, and that's gonna help you spread the message uh across the the world of politics. You can uh play cards of um companies, so you can build a company, cost credits of like say 15, and you can put that in, and then that's gonna basically um yeah, uh gonna provide a margin for that company, which is this little uh tile that sits off to the side of your company board. And the the higher the margin of that company, the more sweet, sweet profits you're gonna get um when you kind of trigger um income, which is one of the nation actions at the top of the board. Um so you can play that, you can play assets for that company, um, which is all good. You can kind of start to build a tableau of abilities, and each of these cards will have um, you know, you may tap or exhaust this card to do a thing. Some of that might be free, and that's what they call edge abilities, and you can basically exhaust that and start doing things. So, yeah, as you're building up this game, your country gets this engine, which allows it to sustain itself for money or for food, which is a resource that you're gonna need to recruit leaders, um, or uh carbon, which you're gonna need for fighting and clashing, things like that. So, anyway, that's just playing a card. You can campaign, um, which is taking um some of your your bases in um from the the different ideologies and putting them into council seats. So you can literally start to um start to get the the council seats there, and that's gonna trigger off one of the nation actions as well. You can uh research as how you get more cards, and in this game it has so many cards that are all unique and all different. And then if I just scroll up um on here, you'll start to see here's an example of a uh a company card, and yeah, you you there's so many types, and the artwork on them it lends to that constructivism uh style artwork that you you kind of saw saw in Russia in the early 1900s, and I'm all for it. It's really like it you know fits this game. It it's really, really cool uh how that works. And all the cards are multi-use as well, because you've got the main card of what it is, it's a company, it's an asset, etc. The cost, and then on the left hand side, you've got uh a red triangle, blue circle, and a uh yellow square, which is kind of highlighted that when you're clashing, you'll use these as well to add power into that clash. So let's talk about clashing. So, clashing, going back to the the board, you can clash in three different ways, which is the three main um ways of trying to win this game. So, how do you win? Well, depending on player count, you're trying to get um basically power grabs in in one of the three conflict areas of the game. Military, which is basically getting enough presence on the board that you control um, I think three regions, which are the colour sections, and having control means you need two, um, at least two of your influence um areas on on there with the most amount of influence on on the board, basically. So once you do that, you can uh effectively start to get a military power grab, and then people are obviously going to react to that and kick you out. You've got a corporate uh power grab, which is kind of related to the top section of the board. Um, so every time you build a um a company, you'll have uh an industry type with that company. And this example I'm showing on the screen is humanities, and you've got financial, media, um, yeah, construction, I think, and and different ones there. And you basically will control certain industries. The more companies of an industry that you have, you're gonna have more control. And assets also come with industry types. Uh, but when you build an asset, you don't get the industry straight away, but there are ways in the game that you can start acquiring. And again, you can start clashing, doing a corporate clash and basically pitching one of your companies against uh one of your opponent's companies and effectively trying to erode the margin out of that company to the point where you can start stealing industries off that player, um, and again, effectively controlling the corporate markets and getting a power grab that way. And then the last way is political, which is down at the bottom, and that's basically getting four seats in the council. And as soon as you've got four seats in the council, away you go, you've got the political uh power grab. And as again, you've got these three dynamic ways of getting power grabs that all intersect with each other. Um, and the way that they've designed this is so bloody clever. Um, yeah, it it's kind of all interlinked. And and basically how you do the clashes are all the same, depending on what you're doing, um, is effectively you can spend leaders that you can recruit for food and you can put them in to basically make the clash free, because normally it'll cost you the value of the clash cost in the market, which is uh typically carbon. So let's say it's two carbon. Um, and then you're committing those cards um that I mentioned uh before with those symbols, which you can do as many as you can from your hand to add power into that clash. So if I'm going military clash, I'm going to be using my red uh section on on the card. And let's say I've got uh two cards in with four power going in, and my opponent only has one. Then basically there's a three difference, and now I have three influence on the map. Um and again you can clash neutral areas on on the map as well, and to do that, you would just flip a card from the top deck. So it's kind of this random, will I do it, will I not? And in the playthrough, you'll notice that uh I think I screwed one of the one of those up where I thought I was gonna win and I didn't. But politic is just I I'm gonna wax lyrical about this game. Um, politic is just is fantastic. Um, I I've played this twice now. I'm backing this game, I'm supporting this game because I've never played anything like it. And it's rare that a game comes along and and just makes me so excited. You know, I've been in a hobby for 10 plus years. It's difficult to find games that truly like really excite me when I'm playing new stuff because like don't get me wrong, I play games and go, this is great, but ones that really go, Wow, this is this is effing brilliant. It's rare, and it's it's been sitting in my brain for the past, I don't know, couple of weeks, and I cannot wait for this to launch. I cannot wait to get this in my hands, and yeah, it's just brilliant. So there you go. I I urge you to check Politic out. If you like your big event games um like Game of Thrones and you love player interaction with lots of people um uh around the table with lots of shenanigans flying around, then I urge you to check this this kind of game out. And you know, in terms of its play time, I mean we did a two-hour playthrough on TTS and two hours, you get it done uh a lot quicker than that for sure. But you know, this is gonna be a good, I mean, I don't know how actually how much it says here, 150 minutes. I mean, that's gonna depend uh solely on player count, but yeah, 40 to 50 minutes per player. It's probably right, and this goes up to six. Um, so yeah, you're talking a nice weekend game, Saturday, get your mates round, uh we gaming group and and just basically clash away. So that's politic.

Apex Legends: The Board Game

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Okay, next game is Apex Legends, the board game, and I mentioned this on my kind of mechanisms that should belong in a museum episode two. Um, but I've again recently got this to the table, and I just I love it. I'm just gonna come out of the gate. I just adore this game, and it's a game I shouldn't like. Like when I got to play this game, and I probably mentioned this before, so apologies. But when I got to play this game on gaming rules, I just wasn't bothered, wasn't interested, and and basically I was you know doing Paul a favor and saying, yeah, no problems, Paul, I'll come out and help. And I played it and I went, This is brilliant. Like within 10 minutes, I was enjoying myself, how this worked, the fact that you've got the the 3D terrain, um, which again, if I can find it, I'll show it. You've got 3D terrain um that basically are built up of these cardboard buildings, and it works so well, you cannot help but get immersed in this game. So, what is Apex Legends? Apex Legends is a game designed by Glass Cannon Unplugged, which is a fantastic publisher who really know how to convert video game IPs into board game experience. Their design team are some of the best, like they're they're brilliant at what they do. Um, and it's a first-person shooter, it's much like uh Fortnite or you know, it's a battle royale kind of shooter where you team up with uh you know a few of your mates and you basically gun each other down until you're the last one standing. Now the board game adapts that into um the the final kind of you know few minutes of of that match where the ring has shrunk to a uh a small size and you're literally um kind of at the end of that match where there's one team versus another team, so 2v2, and you're just going at it till one of you survives and wins. And in the box, there are so many um game modes. I've not even played half of them, not even half of them, I've only played 90% of those game modes. I've only really done the the the battle royale uh mode, but we're gonna do capture the flag and there's boss battle uh modes and all sorts of stuff. I can't wait to get stuck into. Um, but basically how it works is you start the game with loadout. So you get uh four weapons, you're gonna get a bunch of loot tokens, and then you're gonna each player, and then you're gonna sit with your teammate and figure that puzzle out. And I love this bit because it's like, right, I'm gonna go sniper. You've got sniper, oh you've got a scope for that sniper, can I have that for this? And you're you're kind of working together simultaneously, trying to kit out your equipment and making sure that you've got the best start possibly that you that you can between you. Uh, you know, oh I've got four grenades, you've got one here, have a grenade, that kind of thing. So once you've got set up, you're done, and then you decide, and depending on whether you're red team or blue team, and you know, I think red team typically goes first, but blue team typically uh picks their legends and drafts their legends first, and also picks the the side of the map they they come into uh first as well. So you'll take turns and go, right, I'm gonna enter in the north side. I mean, each each side's got like a bonus that you're gonna get, um, and also uh an epic loot token as well. So you go on and go in here, do that, cool, I'll add that to my weapon. Brilliant. Once everyone's decided, the game starts effectively, and away you go. So you get two action points uh on your turn, and you can do a variety of things like you can move a lot, you can interact with the loot crate and then move one, you can use um like a grenade and move one, you can shoot, you can melee, you can do all of these kind of things, and you're traversing around the map, um, trying to get in tactical positions behind cover uh to try and pop shots at the the enemy. And depending on you know your your guns, it has all has optimal range. So if I got a sniper rifle, his optimum range is likely to be five or six uh squares away, and uh yeah, you want to be in that optimal position because you're gonna get penalties when you shoot. Um, but just how you navigate around the map is simple. You can move diagonally, you can move all the different ways, you can go up levels, of which there are two levels in in the game. To go up a level, you spend an additional movement point. Um, and basically the the way um shooting works, which is my favourite bit in the game, and I mentioned this before, is you you'll determine your target. So you're five squares away. I've got my sniper rifle. Brilliant. Am I in optimum range? I am. If I'm not, I have to take penalties on on basically uh my my hits, and it makes it harder to hit, which makes sense. If I'm up uh close and personal with a sniper rifle, it's gonna be bloody difficult to hit you. And if I'm too far away from a shotgun, it's gonna be difficult, right? Um, and effectively you can then um do any enhanced shoot action. So you have these feet cards, and again, love the feat cards in this game. So each legend, so if I'm playing Wraith, as uh I think it's eight feet cards, and you can play them, but they're once they're played, they are done for the game. I love that design decision because normally you'd expect to be getting these. Back and back and back, but you don't like when you play this amazing ability, it's done, and and that's really important, right? Um, so yeah, basically the uh feet cards are kind of used as well as enhanced shoots. You can enhance your shoot, and then they have uh the chance to to react um as a squad before you you shoot. So sometimes they have these red red cards, they can go, nope, I'm gonna do this thing, I'm gonna put shields up or whatever. And again, these are off their feet cards, and then you get into the shooting, and the shooting is is this basically no uh dice system, it's all done uh basically on this aim board. You draw cards on an aim uh board based on your weapon. So if you've got a machine gun, you're gonna be drawing lots of cards across that aim board. Draw a shotgun, it's gonna be a burst. And the more that you you kind of shoot, the cards are getting weaker and weaker against the aim board, as in the board is is nerfing each shot further and further as you go go down. So if I actually show um maybe what the aimboard looks like, so you can actually see if I can find it. So if you can see um, you know, the the board itself has these like you know, start on zero, then it will go to minus five, then minus ten, and each of the cards have different numbers as they're shuffled, and different icons mean different things, like I'm gonna get a headshot, uh, or I'm gonna get a half hit. So if we get two half hits, it's a hit. And if I'm elevated, I get a hit. So if I'm higher than than them, all that kind of stuff. And you're basically checking against your weapon, so my weapon might be I need 50 to hit. So yeah, in in it's as simple as that. And once you get your head around the aim system, it's it's brilliant, and everybody who's played this game just enjoys it. So yeah, you can do all of that, then you can do some after shoot abilities and things like that. So you're literally just running around, taking your turns, firing, trying to kill people. Um, you've got your shields and you've got health. Um, you start with 20 shields and 40 health, and as soon as you basically kill one of the teammates, they're done. Um, and you get a victory point, and then they respawn at a kind of uh action economy cost, and then basically, yeah, you're going until you have killed each of their legend, or they have killed each of one of your legends. And if you kill two, um you'll then trigger the end of the game and the other team will get another turn to try and even the score, and there's some tie breaks in in there, which has happened in many of my games. Um, but most of my games run the distance. Um, and what surprises me is this game can be played in under three hours if you know what you're doing, you can get on with it. And you know, to pack a game into like two to three hour mark of this kind of calibre, it's just fantastic. And every time I play it, it's a it's a bloody joy. Um, and now I'm gonna basically explore pretty much the what the rest of the game has to offer. But you've got so many legends in there, and even in the core box, you've got you know a good amount of legends with lots of uh variability, they all feel different. You know, Gibraltar feels like a tank, um, Bangalore feels like uh uh kind of uh someone who does a lot of distraction, hides in smoke, Wraith's fast, she creates portals, you know, there's just so many different um yeah, legends that are just great

PHASE C: CENTRE OF THE TABLE - Boardgames that belong in a Black Mirror episode

SPEAKER_00 25:06

fun. So that's Apex Legends. So I think it's time now to get to the main segment of um centre of the table. And I want to talk about games that feel like they uh belong in a Black Mirror episode. So for those that haven't heard of Black Mirror, Black Mirror is a TV show. It's been around quite a few years now, um uh created by Charlie Brooker, and he's created this kind of dystopian, like not even future, but dystopian view of of worrying trends in in our society. And the Black Mirror is kind of referencing the your phone screen, right? Um, and you've got uh kind of episodes in there that really lean into and twist uh these these these kind of ideas into some dark, dark places. And I love it. I just think, wow, if we had this particular technology, how great would it be? And then also actually, how awful would it be? And I think one of them from memory was like around social media and liking and making sure that you know you're giving people uh five-star reviews on natural people, and everyone would see what your star rating was in real world, and then if you were like under a certain amount of stars, a bit like an Uber uh rating, right? You people will start treating you very differently. And it's about this this woman's uh kind of fall from being a five-star, really nice and polite, but obviously it's all fake because everyone's kind of um playing up to the fact they just want to be this this kind of five-star person, and until she gets wronged one day and it and her rating starts to fall and fall, and she gets to the dregs of society, and it's just yeah, just things like that. It just really, really uh makes it a fun watch. You should definitely check out, and it just made me think about maybe doing an episode where you know, where we've got board games that lean into the darker themes, right? And I was like, yeah, but that there are kind of some synergies there of which board games would fit in the Black Mirror episode. Maybe they could do one in the future. And I thought I'd just talk about a few. So so these are the games that um I think should belong in the Black Mirror episode. So I'm gonna start with some games that um I've not played, and I'm gonna start with games that I absolutely have played, which which are more. So let's start with the ones I

This War Is Mine

SPEAKER_00 27:14

haven't played. So This War is mine. So This War is mine is a game uh published by Awaken Realms based off a video game IP as well. And effectively, you're playing as a group of survivors uh in this war-torn uh city, and and again, you're playing as the characters from the video game, I believe. Um, and by day you are in this um this ruined house, this this shelter, and it's got rubble everywhere, it's crap everywhere, it's grim, the everything just looks dark and depressing. Um, and it's supposed to invoke that that feeling from you that, oh God, how are you gonna even survive this thing? And so by day you're excavating this this house, you're trying to build this shelter, um, you know, craft certain things to help you survive. Because at night that's when the shit hits the fan guys. This is when raiders come uh knocking on the door, trying to uh basically sort you out and get rid of you and steal your stuff, and you're gonna have to go out into this war-torn city to try and find resources which are gonna be limited to keep you and your survivors alive. And I've heard that there are very questionable and uh immoral choices that you have to make in order to survive, which might push the boundaries of you as a player if you are not used to that kind of um yeah, decision making. And I've not played it, I'd like to play this game. Um, I'm not sure I'd buy it uh because I've got a game that's similar, um, which I'll talk about in a minute. Um, but yeah, it it seems to invoke that. Oh my god, do I have to do I have to do this? But yeah, we're gonna have to do this, guys, because we're gonna die. That kind of feeling. And uh yeah, if you kind of like that that war-torn landscape feeling of I'm just trying to, you know, day by day keep alive and then maybe want to check out.

Kingdom Death Monster

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Okay, next one is Kingdom Death Monster. So Kingdom Death Monster has been around for, I don't know, maybe it's been around for 10 years now, and it's had so many iterations. But what is it? It it's effectively a civilization boss battler, is the best way I can describe it. So you're kind of playing this civilization in this world where natural resources are very, very limited, and you're at the dawn of your civilization, and and it's kind of broke into various different phases, like uh, I think it's your civilized or settlement phase, your um um hunt and showdown phase. And effectively your settlement phase is like your your civilization building, researching technologies, like probably fire and you know, your basic things just to make your civilization grow. You can spend the limited resources that you do have to craft better kit and weapons and train your people to survive longer, etc. etc. And then there's always this kind of looming threat, this this beast that is trying to hunt you down. And I think in the hunt phase, it acts like a uh choose your own adventure, and you basically have an encounter and you can make decisions and do things which might end up killing you. And then you get to a showdown, which is like this arena battle. And if you've ever seen the board of um Kingdom Death Monster, it's this basically square grid uh which looks like uh a big kind of fire or light source in the middle when everything else is black, so it's very black and white. So you've got this feeling of it's dark, there's no light in this world, and there are things trying to kill you, and inevitably these beasts are going to come and you're gonna have to take them down. They'll either kill you, um, which is gonna be bad for your civilization because you've got less people, um, or you'll kill it and you'll get the spoils of that that kill, which you can bring back into the settlement. So maybe you'd use the bones and start crafting that for different things. So it's got this kind of cycle, they call it lanterns, um, where you play through each year and you go through year and year and year trying to basically build up this this place. And yeah, it's got that dark edge to it where you can kind of say, actually, this is very much what what if you know uh a civilization was it brought up in a world where it wasn't like ours and they had to deal with this kind of this this nonsense every day. So Kingdom Death Monster, so that's quite

Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr

SPEAKER_00 31:15

fun. Um, the last one in my not played area is a game, and I thought I found it and I completely forgot this existed, and it's called Holding On The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr. Now, when I looked at this game and I was like, what is this game? So basically, you you play as a a group of uh nurses and and medical staff in a palliative care um uh place in a hospital, and Billy Kerr is your patient, and he is dying, and you're trying to ease his uh way into the the afterlife. Um the trouble is Billy Kerr's got a lot on his mind and and he's had a troubled life, as the name suggests. And your job is to try and ease the pain of Billy to so that he can get a lot of his regrets or a lot of these stories out and off his chest. I think some of these stories are quite dark or or darkish in nature, um, you know, definitely not for kids. Um so maybe uh, you know, is he been abused in the past? Is he done this? Is he done that? Again, I don't know, I've not played this game, but it kind of the theme of it fits that that Black Mirror episode where you've got you know uh a particular person, and job of the team is to keep this guy alive long enough so that he can basically feel free of his burden uh of the life. And yeah, maybe one life to try. Um, but I thought I'd include it in the list because it's just different. And I love that board games can kind of get into these places, they can kind of get into these themes and genres and and really I don't know how gamify it or or provide experiences that maybe work differently is if you were watching it on a TV show or film. You you probably feel like you are that that nurse or you are that that medical staff uh or doctor, just trying to to do what you can and you know things are gonna be thrown your way that uh are gonna make probably Billy uh pass along quicker than you you need him to, that kind of thing. So, yeah, interesting uh concept, but there we go, not played it. Right,

Frostpunk: The Board Game

SPEAKER_00 33:11

so let's go into the played list. So, what have I played? I'm gonna come out of the gate with another glass cannon unplugged game called Frostpunk, the board game. Frostpunk is another video game IP, and it's very similar to that This War is mine, uh, feeling. And um, I think Adam Kwipinsky's designed um both of them, I believe. Uh correct me if I'm wrong. So there's there's definitely some synergies in how this kind of works. But Frostpunk is is like uh an oldie world um alternate history where the world has basically been impacted by another ice age and wiped out the majority of civilization as we know it. So cities like London have now built these massive BMF generators that sit in the centre of the city in these big towers that they're feeding coal into to this. And it's kind of like got a steampunky vibe setting the early 1900s or late 1800s, and so you're feeding coal into this generator, creating enough heat and warmth for the people in order to survive this permafrost that's actively killing them. And again, like in any kind of civilization management game, you are making some hell of a choices, um, and the way this game makes you feel is brilliant. It's like uh this is one of my favourite solo games to play. When I've got the time and I can sit, I get lost in this world, and some of the choices, man, that you've got to make is just grim. Like, do you want to do you need to put children to work or not in this horrible condition? And you're thinking there as a uh Euro gamer, of course, because that's just basically the extra action economy. Brilliant, I'll get more for my bang for my buck. But there's always a consequence of making these choices. So if you go, yeah, I want more actions, fantastic, but there's cards that you put in based on that decision, and they're gonna come out. And the fact you put children to work might spark some dispute or civil unrest uh later in the game, and and you've got to deal with that, and then there are things that are happening with the people, they they might not like what you're doing, they will react to how you're managing this civilization, you know, right from dark themes of uh the ladies and the night that might appear, which might comfort the men, um, but also might spread disease around. And again, you're you're just dealing with these very adult themes and very adult uh topics, and trying to keep this whole civilization working and and not for them to lose hope um or get too much despair, they they give up essentially. So yeah, this game is just brilliant, and the way the the game flows in each cycle, and you're trying to keep this generator, which inevitably gets worse and worse and harder and harder to keep fed um the the warmth as as it kind of shrinks around to that generator, it really, really uh it's yeah, starts causing lots of problems and people get sick because they've been out in the cold too much. And yeah, it's it's just bloody fantastic. If you if this sounds like up your street, I would definitely check Frostpunk out. It's it's it's a game. And you can play this cooperatively with up to four. Um, but it's as a two-player, I think it works really well. All

New Angeles

SPEAKER_00 36:19

right, next one. So we have uh New Angeles. New Angeles is a game um by Fantasy Fight Games. Um, not sure if it's actually out or valuable anymore because it's one of the older ones, but it's set in the uh Android Netrunner universe. So you play as CEOs of um a variety of corporations like uh Gintechi and Hasbyroid and all that kind of stuff, and you are there in the boardroom trying to determine the fate of New Angeles, which is the Los Angeles new version uh of the city. You've got riots, you've got um uh basically security units trying to move um organized crime along, you've got all of these decisions to make, but equally you're trying to be a greedy git because you're a CEO of a of a corporation and you're trying to raise as much capital as your rival. And this is the bit I really like about the game is your win condition is you need to need to beat your rival in capital, one player around the table. Now, sometimes um if you at the start of the game draw yourself as the corporation is your rival, then you need to beat two other players with capital. And the crux of the game is that there is a federalist in there, which is the knob. And the federalist is basically working for the government, and they want the government to take over. Uh, so that once they get to 25 capital, they want to tank the game and and effectively make sure the uh the government win. And if they do, then then the federalist wins. So you've always got this who is being a bit of a cheeky so-and-so. So that Battlestar Galactica vibe, and it actually has uh similar mechanisms to uh BSG as well. So, yeah, if you want to be that that kind of cyberpunk um yeah, kind of CEO, corporate world, and negotiation is basically a negotiation game. You are negotiating for assets and people to help you get what you need. And if you don't like negotiation games, leave this well

Cerebria: The Inside World

SPEAKER_00 38:08

alone. All right, Cerebria is the next one. Cerebrilla looks like a cutesy little game, and it's anything but rarely when you look at the the thematics and subject matter. So Cerebria is uh published by Mindclash Games, and effectively you are playing as a team game, typically 2v2, where you are the uh inside someone's mind, you are playing uh a bit like inside out, right? Where you're playing emotions and different things, you are playing emotions uh on the side of bliss, which is all like love and happiness and all those kind of things, and also against the the side of gloom, which is anger and fear and all those kind of uh kind of bad emotions, and you're pitching these two factions together in this very asymmetric um kind of way uh of how they're trying to control airy control uh somebody's mind for the depths of bliss or the depths of gloom. And I'm not gonna get into the mechanics of it because it's quite a complex game and a very unique game at that, but it's the the subject matter of the fact you've got negative emotions trying to take control of someone's um basically mind, and what's gonna happen after that, who knows?

Nyctophobia

SPEAKER_00 39:20

Um all right, Nyctophobia. This is an old one, I've not played nyctophobia for years, and nyctophobia is it's really like a serial killer trying to kill uh the hunted. And the the crux of the game is that the hunted team all have these glasses on, which means they can't see. And you're thinking, how's how's this work? Um uh basically they are trying to feel their way around this maze, which is very much designed for visually impaired or even blind people who could play this game, which I think is brilliant, the fact that this game exists. Um, and he has the hunted, you're trying to move around, I think it's in turn order, um, and you're kind of feeling your way around the maze, and you don't quite know where the murderer is, the axe murderer. And the one who's the axe murderer can see, and they're trying to move closer and closer to hunt these people down, and it's that feeling of dread because you can't see what's going on, it's heightening the experience of what's going on, and again, serial killer, it's a bit of horror, and uh thought I'd mention it, nyctophobia. And I believe the designer actually, she designed this game so she can play that with um some visually impaired uh family members, and I just think that's bloody great, and we need more of that kind of stuff in the hobby, right?

Deckers

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Getting to the end of the list. So, Deckers. Deckers is a game where you play as a hacker and you're trying to hack into uh the mainframe against some horrible bloody AI that's trying to take over the world or has already taken over the world, and they're called supermassive computers or SMCs. And the fact that you're yeah, you're trying to basically take control back um from the the AI revolution, as it were, um, is that kind of linked to the Black Mirror episode. So, you know, humans or some humans are just trying to uh basically stick it to the man. And the way the game works is this really fun, um, kind of abstracted puzzle where you're playing cards, your deck building um cards to get better and more uh uh efficient in dealing with the objectives um that you're trying to achieve of copper, silver, and eventually gold to win the game. And and for those that haven't played Deckers, play it. It's such a good puzzle. Um, whether you're into the theme or not, as a solo game, I would recommend Deckers um if you can get a hand uh hold of it because it is quite tricky, I believe. Um so yeah, that's Deckers. Um,

Nemesis

SPEAKER_00 41:41

and of course, I have to end with Nemesis. Nemesis by Awakened Realms, it puts you in aliens. You've got um, you know, these horrible bloody aliens running around trying to kill you, and yeah, what more can I say? I'm not gonna get into nemesis, most people know what nemesis is, but yeah, that that feeling of tension and the feeling of other players trying to shaft you um is just bloody brilliant and it's set on a spaceship. And what more can you want? And there's so many variations of Nemesis now. You've got lockdown, we've got retaliation. I still think personally, again, probably in the minority, that the original base nemesis is the best nemesis game. And if you were to pick one up, I would probably pick that one up. Retaliation is good. Um, you play as Marines and you go in and you've got you know all the tooling, the guns, and everything. But I quite like that you're the scientist or you're the captain and you're completely outnumbered, overwhelmed, and outgunned, as it were. And I think that just works better. Um, and the fact that it's not really a uh traitor game because you haven't got one person trying to be a traitor, it's a selfish bastard game. Um, because everyone's got their own objectives, which are no doubt gonna conflict with others, and you're just trying to be a selfish kit so you can get off the ship and win. But anyway, nemesis, as I said, horrible shit's eating you is probably the reason why it's there. So there you go. So that is pretty much um, yeah, pretty much the uh center of the table and games that have dark themes, and maybe you should check them out. If you like Black Mirror and you like those kind of dark themes and stuff, then yeah, definitely check that out.

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

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Okay, so then we go into the next uh segment, which is uh what's hot and what's not. So let's jump back into the screen share uh for those that are watching on YouTube. So what we got in now a hot list of uh top five. So we have uh Schadenfreude, which is I've heard of this, I've seen many of my friends play this and have a brilliant time with this game, but it's effectively a trick-taking game where um yeah, you you you basically second highest wins the trick rather than the highest. And again, not quite sure how that works, but you're trying to basically get up to a certain score. And uh I think as the name suggests, Schadenfreud is uh uh as a term that says someone who in gets joy out of someone else's misery or pain. So That probably tells you everything you need to know. I need to play this, but it's a trick-taking game. And sometimes trick-taking games I really like, sometimes I don't um enjoy them so much. But I'm intrigued by this one. Up to number two is Jewel of Meloch. So this is uh Stonemaier Games' recent announcements. That's probably why it's shot at the hotness. And it's a strange one, actually, because it says here Scythe versus Expedition. So Scythe being their um one of their original classics, and I'm enjoying the Rise of Fenris campaign, as I've been mentioning on previous podcasts. Um, but it's pitching you as a 1v1, like a jewel game, where one of you has the scythe components and one of you has the expedition components and puts you in a head-to-head clash. Now, how this works, I have no idea. And am I intrigued? I I don't know actually. Um, I've kind of yeah, I think for me with Stone My Games, like I I really like respect Stonemai games and what they've done, and they've done some fantastic games in the early days, but I think there became a point where Stonemaier diverted a certain path and became probably more um family friendly. Um, whereas I kind of went into more of the heavier uh side of things. So for me, I don't tend to get as excited about Stonemai games as as other people, um, and that's okay, right? Because we've all got our games, we've all got our lanes. Um, but the fact that this is leveraging some sort of scythe components, and I've never played Expeditions, so maybe I need to rectify that, and I can kind of see how they're gonna do this asymmetric uh 1v1 uh pitching these two against each other. Who knows? That's Jewel of Meloch. Number three is Chivalry. Now, Chivalry shot up the uh the hotness charts, and this is uh designed by a good friend of mine, David Tursey. So uh I think it's to do with uh the basically it says it travel the lands of Camelot with your um yeah, with your team for influence and glory. Um so again, knowing David Tursey, it's gonna be heavy, it's gonna be a brain burner, and it's kind of that pre-Camelot uh era of Arthurian legend. Um, and that's all I know about it. I know nothing about this game. They've not released a lot of information um about Chivalry at all and want to keep an eye on because to be honest, anything that David does, his his designs sit with me. I I really enjoy his his um kind of design space and his games. I I have to check them out. So this one I will be checking out. Number four is Rolling Deep. I've said this before, if you listen to I think episodes one and two, I think Rolling Deep maybe was on the hotness of that time. Now it's a crowdfunding campaign has has launched, and yeah, basically Rolling Deep is uh is a Ballatro inspired dice game. And if that's not enough to to kind of tick all your fancy, then I don't know what is. But if you don't know what Ballatro is, then maybe that's why. But effectively you are you've got three dice and the representative of the three characters, which is this cuphead style art. Um, and I think it actually is designed by the cuphead artist, and you're rolling these these dice, and you've got a number to try and beat for the for the round. So let's say you're trying to beat six, and you roll these dice and you've got one, one, one. Cool, I've got three, and you get three rolls of that dice to basically get over that number. And you think, well, that doesn't sound exciting, does it, JP? But no, but I think once you get into the end of the chapter, you can go shopping, and then you can start putting cards into a tableau that says if you roll this number range, you start to proc these abilities, which might give you more numbers to add to the score. Um, or you can start getting mushrooms, which will buff um the the overall score there. And and again, it's the building um of something simple into something more complex and an engine building as it goes. And also the dice have customizable faces you can pop off. So as you buy uh a card from the shop, if you're upgrading an adventurer, which is one of the dice, you can pop the side off, and then it helps you get more coins, allowing to go more shopping, and again, go over and over and over again. And it's a roguelike game where if you play it and you win, you get to unlock content. And there's a big box of content that says basically when you win, you unlock and you put more content into the game. I love that because that's like a reward and a dopamine hit for when you actually win, and it's just gonna improve the overall uh content of the game. And container, I think I mentioned last uh episode, so I'm not gonna go into that, but I am intrigued by container. I've watched uh ball game bollocks' review, it's a great channel. And um, yeah, I think I need to have a look at container, so we're going to be looking at that

PHASE E: JUST ABOUT TO PLAY

SPEAKER_00 48:28

one. So there we go. So that is what's hot, what's not, and just about to play. I've got a few games that have basically come uh arrived to the table uh recently, and uh one of them is nippon. Um never played Nippon's abetsu, and I am really intrigued to play this. I I literally just bought it on recommendations by other people, and I've been missed, you know, it's missed me by, and I think the latest Kickstarter of of uh Nippon uh Genru, I think, is is uh basically there, and it's just come back to the forefront of my mind. I'm like, yeah, why not? Let's buy Nippon, let's play that. So I'm looking forward to playing that one. And also I've got um Zoo Tycoon. I've been looking for a a game that's kind of in the animal zoo space and looking for something a bit heavier. And you know, I played Arknova to to death when I used to own it, and I'm kind of like done with Arknova for uh for the moment. And I say done, I'll always play it, but I don't need to own it. And yeah, Zoo Tycoon was just something I thought, why not? So I've picked that up and I'm really looking forward to it.

PHASE F: THE LAST PLAY

SPEAKER_00 49:30

So there we have it. That's the end of the episode, guys. And uh again, thank you so much for for listening and watching. If you are here on YouTube or if you're listening on the usual podcast players, I really appreciate it. And if you love or like the show, please uh comment, engage, and like and subscribe and review and all that stuff. It really helps channels uh like this just grow bigger and get better and better. And again, if you really enjoy this show and you want to support uh the longevity of the show, then uh I'm on coffee and any pounds that are kind of uh given really helps the show, really helps uh level up the equipment and basically get better and better, get more guests on, all that kind of stuff. It really helps. And for those that already do and have been doing, thank you so much. I couldn't do this without your support. Um, and basically I'm gonna end the the episode right here and effectively say you only grow old when you stop playing. Take care, everyone.