OPENING

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Reunions are great, but reunions with board games on a work trip now that's chaos. A blast from the past returns and we've got stories.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello there.

PHASE A: INTRODUCING ROB

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Welcome everyone. This is a Just Play Reunion special episode, and it's the first of its kind because we have someone else here on the podcast. Someone may be familiar for those that listen to the Who's Turners Anyway podcast. And those who watch Crime Stoppers regularly. Yes. Not like Bloody Shrek. Oh thanks, mate. No, it's all good. It's a Peter K reference for those that it's old school. And you know, I just can't help but talk about what comes to my head straight away. So yeah. Anyway, this is Rob, everyone. Hi. Um so yeah, Rob, welcome to the show. And for those that are very astute in in watching us on YouTube, you'll know that I'm not at home. I am in a hotel room. Can you tell? Because there's the bed. And the man on the shape. And the sexy man in the background on the Shays Lunge, which is pretty good. So uh yeah, um yeah, like I said, for those that don't know, Rob was on the Who's Tony's Anyway podcast with me um over the past kind of four years doing it. So those very familiar who will know

Introducing Rob

SPEAKER_00 1:21

exactly who you are. But for those that don't know who you are, who are you and where do you come from? My name's Rob, and I'm from Taunton, Somerset. But other than that, how long have you been in Hobby Mate? Let's give everyone a bit of an intro.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

I think you inducted me in the cult in late 2016. Yeah, something like that. As part of our inaugural um Game of Thrones slash uh book Battlestar Galactica slash Captain Sonar um days, which shall there's stories. Um yeah, we we started playing in in in 2016 um when you said, Do you want to come over to my house and play board games? And I thought you were mad. Do you want to come around and play? I played board games, yeah. Uh and I thought, oh my god, what have I done? Uh and then we played Netrunner and loved it. And then we played Arkham Horror, and that just completely turned the switch on for me. That from that point on there was no going back, really. Um, and I became a fully indoctrinated member. Yeah. Which was great.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

And I've been here ever since. And a proud, proud indoctrinated member. 100%. Yeah, cool. So what is your favourite game and why is it your favourite?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

It's kind of like asking your favourite movie or favourite song. It kind of changes for me in the mood that I'm in. But um uh probably the best one for a long time has probably been Elder Scrolls. Yeah, that's fair. That's that's that's right up there. It's always in my top three, regardless of kind of what mood I'm in. So uh so yeah, for me, I'd probably say Elder Scrolls Portrayal of the Second Era by Chip Theory Games, which there's a big beast of a game, solid game. I I love Elder Scrolls online, I love Chip Theory Games. So when it when they announced it, I didn't I just backed it, I didn't check anything, I just went, I want it all. Um which now has come back to bite me in the ass because then I'll do in the heroes of Tamriel, which is another chunk of change, shall we say shall we say? So um so no, but I I love it. And regardless of kind of what mood I'm in, I'm always tempted by it, if even if I don't always play it. So so for me, yeah, it's probably Elder Scrolls.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

I mean we're we're massive fans of Chip 3 games anyway, me and you. Um and it's quite good because you've gone down the Elder Scrolls lane, which prevented me from doing it, and I thank him every day for that.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

And you went down the Too Many Bones road, which kind of led me to Elder Scrolls, ironically. Uh and I thank him for that because I've I've got base Too Many Bones and I haven't had to invest in the rest of it because you have it. Yeah, and we can't afford both. Exactly. It's just it's too much. So we divided, not and remain married, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

So it's kind of saved. Uh we do well. We do very well. We do well, you know, for for our wives. So aren't here, we're literally just two blokes away. We do have separate rooms, we just just just put it out there. We're not sharing that bed. That's my bed. Um but but weirdly, he has exactly the same room layout. I do. So who knows sometimes? You might get you might get confused. But there

Life after Whose Turn Podcast

SPEAKER_00 4:06

we go. Um but for those that do know you, for those that listen to Whose Turn is it anyway for the past four years. And we thank you for that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You are legends. Um what have you been up to, mate, since the the kind of announcements of of sunsetting it? I don't know, how many months ago? A month, two months ago? No, it's a little while. Is it longer? I think it's a little longer than it's flown by now, alright.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I mean, I cry myself to sleep every night um wondering wishing for days the days that have gone by. No, I've um there you're welcome. Um I've been playing a lot of solo games. Okay. Yeah, um I've been playing a lot of I've had I've been very busy. Um so I've been playing uh a lot of solo games just because I've only got to manage my own time, which like yourself, I love playing games with you. But if I want to play a game, I have to book it at least two months in advance. I don't want to play it in two months' time, I want to play it tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah, that's fair.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

So um so I've I've been revisiting my back catalogue of games and playing a lot of solo games, got a couple of new ones, so um, so yeah, so I've been uh like I say, playing with myself for the lack of a better term. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

I'm glad you've been enjoying that.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah, it's been it's been nice, especially um with the career change and the working at a computer the whole time, actually getting some of these games to the table that I've invested a lot of money in has actually made me feel quite good about the purchase again. Like you said, the the more times the the cost per play kind of comes down, makes it feel a little bit more value for money.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, I mean you've got um yeah, you've kind of gone heavy into to the solo game. It's been nice to see you kind of jump, you know, kind of headfirst back into into that because you're what you're more in the hobby than you've ever have been. Oh 100%, yes. Like you you at the beginnings of even at the beginnings of the podcasting that we did uh even the start of four years ago, you were dabbling, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah, I I kind of uh by association almost for myself, Curly, Davy, the games that you guys were interested in, I'd kind of jump in hook onto them. Yeah, um, so yeah, kind of getting more a little bit more active on my own. So it's been really nice. It's been it's been cool. That's cool. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

That's what he's been up to. He's still he's still. But we're here in um we haven't actually told you where we are. Yes. Um, you can probably tell by the the title of the episode, but we are in Memphis, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Oh what a s what a place it is.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

I mean, we're two Brits abroad, yes, with you know the accents that we have, basically trying to say bottle everywhere that we can. Just to try and free people out more than anything. You know, we are English and we're not basically from around here. Um I mean that's apparent very quickly, let's be honest. But I mean, we don't carry guns and cowboy hats. And we sweat the second we go outside because it is roasting. But this is our third trip here, yes, and we love it, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 6:50

We're very lucky to have done this for the third time. Yeah, exactly. And it's a wonderful city, the people are great. Um, we've had a blast every time we've come.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

So we've got literally work colleagues that obviously live uh here or in the in the vicinities of of you know Memphis, and we're kind of proud to call them friends now. Like 100%. Like 100%, they're great people. We love coming out here, we get to hang with them. Um even later today, we're gonna watch a baseball game. Our first baseball game. First ever baseball game. The last time we came, I watched my first basketball game in the FedEx Forum. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah, the Memphis Tigers, the college game, the Grizzly, the Grizzlies home court, but they host the um they host the college team, and uh, and yeah, it was great brilliant, great day out, a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, and we had uh fantastic nachos that I remembered as well. Good nachos. Rendezvous nachos 100%. You should definitely try it out.

PHASE B: LET'S TALK ABOUT HEX

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Um, so what I think we should do, because this is a reunion episode, right? So we're kind of like lending the mic back into the past a little bit on a just play podcast and giving it the um who's tells it anyway vibes. Nice. So what we used to do, which you know, I I have a segment on on the episode um called Just Played, and it's a basically a blatant ripoff of Let's Talk About Hex. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not even gonna pretend it's anything different. It's the same thing. It works, go with it, right? And it works. Um, but I thought I we could kind of call it Let's Talk About Hex again. Oh, and I've got the special sting for those that have listened to the to the the old podcast, amazing, might get a little bit of I might not. I'm actually listening to this episode. You might actually do it, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I think we should get on to the next uh segment and let's talk about hex. Awesome. That was fun. Um I I do like those things. Yeah, they are cool. I do kind of miss this.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

I get a little bit because I used to help you with the editing of the podcast, so I do get a little fractional bit of PTSD when it comes to it. Yeah, and I'm like, oh thank god that section's over. Now I can move on to the next one. And I'm four hours in and we've done the intro intro. So um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, there are some of those things that go, I'm nearly finished. I'm nearly done. I'm nearly done. Just a little bit more, a little bit more push through it, for sure. So let's talk about hex. I'm not actually gonna talk about the games I've played because because I do that on my own website. What a wonderful host you are. Because I am such a selfless man. Thank you. I'm gonna let you talk about your and what you've been playing. So tell the listeners and tell the watchers and viewers what you've been up

Sleeping Gods

SPEAKER_00 9:17

to.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Okay, so as I said, I've been playing a lot of solo games, which um is really cool. Um, so I we went to Expo and I was looking for a new solo game, and I stumbled upon uh upon Sleeping Gods. Now it's one that's kind of been on a lot of people's top 10 solo games. Um, and I thought, cool, I like the artwork, it's always kind of intrigued me a little bit, but I heard it had a really good solo, and other than that, I didn't really know a lot, but I took a chance, and I'm really glad I did because it's a very, very good game. Um story, narrative driven, um, not a choose your own adventure, but kind of you do a thing and you check it, check out what happens in the book, and then you make decisions based off of that. So it's really cool. You kind of get sucked into a different world where the gods have been put to sleep and they've pulled you in this universe to awaken the gods. And it's kind of set in the 1930s. Uh you've got like a steamboat that you travel on. I say steamboat, it's more like a like an old ocean liner, yeah, that you travel around this world on, and it's played on uh a foldable map, uh like a ring binder map that when the you know you change the pages to go to different locations. So so yeah, I started playing that and I really really enjoyed it. I didn't realise it was a campaign game, okay, and the campaign is about 40 hours, so it's a uh a long game. So I've kind of learned that, and of course, I also have now a 3D printer. And if anybody else out there has a 3D printer, you will know the fun and joy of finding a file that you know somebody has already gone through and created a 3D file for board game inserts, and it coincided that the 3D insert held all the expansions. I was like, oh well, it's a bit rude if I don't. And that and that was and that was my justification for buying the expansions for it. So you needed to fill the insert. Well, I mean, I couldn't get lonely. Um so I'm looking when we get back, potentially to kind of get that to the table, even if it is leave it kind of set up for a long time, just kind of a couple of hours here, a couple of hours there, kind of make my way through it. But it's been a lot of fun so far. Um, I played it with a couple friends and we played it for I think it was about 10 hours. I think it was about 10 hours. You did a good Saturday, didn't you? Big stint on it. And uh come the end of it, I still really enjoying it. So really intrigued to see where it goes. So yeah, I want to carry on playing that when we get back. When we get back, when we get back, which is gonna be a while.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

It's gonna be a little while because we've got a two-week holiday after the two weeks of being away. So if I've not spent enough time with him at work, I get to go on holiday and vacation with you as well. You are welcome. Yeah, so literally four weeks solid with pretty much being with you, isn't it? Pretty much, yeah. It's a good job we get on.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

So if there isn't if if if the podcast mysteriously ends, you know that he didn't quite make it back from holiday and he had an unfortunate accident in the uh in the seas of Egypt. He's just had enough. Yeah, it's done, it's done. Snapped. And if you never see me again, it's because I'm in a prison in Egypt. Oh, you'll be fine. On a completely unrelated matter. You'll be fine. No, so uh so yeah, fun and games. Sleeping gods. Sleeping

20 Strong

SPEAKER_01 12:19

gods. Um I've like I say, I've been trying to get a lot of games off the shelf again. Um I've had 20 strong for a very long time, yeah, but I've only ever played the um solar sentinels and the um uh too many bones boxes. And uh I had Hoplomocus, and also when we were at Expo, we were speaking to the Chip Theory guys, and they very, very kindly gave me a copy of the Cloud Spy deck. They did, and I've never played CloudSpire before, even though we've kind of talked about playing it for a very long time. It's gonna happen. I'm gonna get in playing CloudSpire at some point. Yeah, I think I'll enjoy it because it's just nonsense. I like nonsense games, I like kind of see what happens, and that sounds right up my street. Um so so uh so I thought, well, I'm gonna get these played, and uh I kind of played the solar sentinels, I played Too Many Bones, and then I played Hoplomocus, and wow, I loved it, I absolutely loved it. It's probably my favourite. That's cool. Um, and I I I enjoy Hoplomocus. The dice in Hoplomocus do not like me. So I I figure out these epic moves and then roll. And if you know Stu, if you've listened to the previous episodes, Stu will highly take the Mickey out of me for being completely unable to roll dice. So um it's a skill that I do not possess, apparently. So um so to play Hoplomocus um Victorum in that way, and you build the pyramids of cards, and it I don't know how um factual it is to the full Hoplomocus Victorum kind of theme, but I loved it. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. And each of these games you can easily do in an hour, which is kind of right on my street at the moment. Um, so I did that, and then I did CloudSpire straight afterwards. Um a lot of fun. Um, kind of you've got to channel the enemies down uh basically what is a killing column, yeah. Um, and and see how long you can last for. You gotta kind of outlast the deck, and then you fight a boss. Um and it was a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, really enjoyed it. Really good. The the artwork of the cards, I mean, because it's the cloud spire artwork, it's fantastic. It's brilliant. Um and I I really really enjoyed it. So I I thought I'm kind of digging the the solo vibes. So I had a look at

Warp's Edge

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Warp's Edge, yeah. Solo only, space, time travel game, um, and I absolutely, absolutely adored it. Yeah, it's it's a brilliant little bag builder. Again, it takes about an hour, hour and a half if you kind of want to get really, really sort of complex with it. Um, and and yeah, and I've given that a go. Uh that's and that's been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, they're doing um, I think it's renegade studios, I believe. So yeah, they're doing uh uh their solo hero series, um, which uh Unstoppable is is one of them, which is great fun. I talked about that on a previous episode. But um another one that uh funny enough, we were looking at a board game store yesterday, which is Reclund Run, which is a bit like a Mad Max style um kind of game, dice. It looked very interesting. I very nearly bought it, wasn't I?

SPEAKER_01 15:14

I need to play Warp's Edge a little bit more before I buy uh another game. Um so so yeah, so that that's kind of what I've been playing. That's cool. And I bought uh Marvel Dice Throne over two years ago.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

It's been a while, isn't it? I remember you getting excited about that, and then you never talked about it since. I I opened the box and it looked really, it looks really it looks a lot.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

I can't deal with that right now and kind of forgot about it. So that's currently on my table. Um I was about to play it, then we had a heat wave, and uh I I it turns out you can't really get sweat out of cardboard, so I put it down and thought right I'll I'll come back to that when when the UK kind of you know, when the fire is out, that is the United Kingdom at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

It's really weird, right? Because we've come to Memphis, obviously we're here for work, um, but we've also come to cool down um as well, which is the byproduct of being here. Like obviously the UK's been undertaking uh a very severe heat wave for the past three or four weeks, and it just seems to be very relentless at time of recording. And I was looking forward to mainly coming over as well because of air conditioning, which is an absolute godsend. It's just lovely to hear lovely to be in uh uh air conditioned buildings constantly, and you know, we went for a uh 10k hike this morning, didn't we? I've never been so dripping wet, I don't think. I mean the scenery was beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

You know, we we were on a trail running going through a forest in in on the outskirts of Memphis. It was lovely. Right. I was looking for alligators the whole time, didn't find one. I saw deer, I saw lots of deer, which was cool. Um what concerned me more is what might eat that deer that we did not come across, which was quite cool. Um but you mentioning aircon, it was really weird. I could almost hear all your listeners calling you a prick. Very near. I thought I could hear a little echo of like just just the It's not because of the aircon.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Oh I think it's uh generally generally uh personality, I think. Well, yeah they listen to it funny. But it is it is nice to just I'm gonna miss this to get a full night's sleep and they think actually I'm quite cold.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Pull the DV out. Yeah, it's not I'm actually a bit chilly. Really nice. Really over.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

I'd sleep I'd sleep in my car if uh if I needed to, because this is this is another game. It's lovely.

PHASE C: BEALE STREET BOARD GAMES

SPEAKER_00 17:21

There we go. That's your let's talk about how? Yeah, that's what we're doing. There you go. So I think we should go into the main segment, which funnily enough is us talking about more games. So you you're good. You're good here, right? Um I've got a thing, I think it's the right one. Let's hit it, let's do it. That was exciting, wasn't it? That was lovely. Sorry, you called me mid-dance. It is, yeah. Mid groove. Yeah. Um, so basically, what I thought we'd do is is put an episode together where we'll talk about the games that we played right here in Memphis.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Just because we've played a lot. We've done alright, haven't we? We've been here since Monday and we've played quite a few games. I think we played six. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah, and we are working. We promise. We promise we are working. Especially if we're listening, Amy and Shell. Yeah, and and our work colleagues, if they ever get hold of this episode. But if they do, we have been working hard as well. Yeah, we have. Um so let's I think we'll just go in the the chronological flow because it kind of naturally tells the same story, right? So we flow uh flow, we flew into Nashville. We did. Um, because we've now managed to kind of get the right logistics of understanding how best to get into Memphis. And we like flying into Nashville because it's about three hours' drive rather than Atlanta being six. Um but we do miss Buckeys. We do miss Buckeys, and anyone who's been to Bucky's will know why we miss Buckeys. Yeah, anyone in the UK, I've got to set this scene, right? Anyone in the UK It sounds mental. It's mental, but it it's I get so excited about Buckeys, right? Anyone in the US and the South will know exactly what I mean. I've seen this man at Euro Disney, I'm sorry, at Disneyland. It's this better. This is better. More excited Bucky's. I'm mid 40s and I get excited about uh service stations now. Um but Bucky's is effectively like uh uh a BP garage on steroids. Yeah, it's like it's if Carlsberg made petrol stations. Yeah, it's and it's basically their mascot is this big beaver with with big teeth, yeah. That's their mascot. Bucky beaver. I can relate to him. It's it's cool. And and uh they've got like 40 pumps, maybe more at some of them. It and inside that's not an exaggeration either. There are quite literally 40 pumps. It's massive, and then when you go in, you think, okay, well, what's very impressive about a petrol station with 40 pumps? But when you go in, the merchandising around Bookie itself, just like a department store. Yeah, you know, I I think I got I went a bit mad. Think think Marks and Spencer's, not not like Asda or Tesco, think Marks and Spencer's inside. Do you want a booky's water bowl? You can have it. You want a bookie's uh mobile phone holder, you can have it. I've got one at home, I should show you on the next episode. And the water bowl shot it. Um the but then the best thing I love about is the food. Oh, it's unbelievable. Is you get uh oh, do you want a beef brisket roll wrap thing? And it's like all right, and it's eight dollars or whatever. You kind of expect it to be like a bit crap from the UK because you whenever you go to a service station, you're I'm gonna pay three times the price for a sausage roll.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

It's it's just yeah, it's not crazy.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

But then you just have it and you go, Oh my god, this is like the best thing ever. It was just fantastic, and I love it. And we are hopefully on the way home, um, because we are actually driving up to Indianapolis um for for work as well after this tomorrow, and we come back down, hopefully past uh Oak Buckies in the state of Kentucky. So there we go. Fingers, and I'm gonna get excited, I'll get some pics, but that's that's it. But anyway, so we land in Nashville. We did, um, and we were very tired. Very tired, so we got a night's sleep, and then um we were basically again different rooms, people, different rooms, um, and then we had a morning to kind of kill. So we found a board game shop called Game Point, uh, it's on the east side of Nashville, and we basically rocked up for the morning and camped there and played some games. We did, and they were lovely, they were great. They were lovely, really. The stuff were lovely, the the selection of games was good. It was cool. Um, yeah, it was a really nice place. Really nice. Really, really, really chill. If you're ever in the area, check it out. Um, and it's just a nice place. You get a coffee, the libraries there, free for you to use as long as you're eating and drinking.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

They very nearly tempted us with a few games of purchase. But it was like we're day one, calm down. We do have a luggage allowance that we need to that we need to consider. Um, so we were like, right, cool, we kind of gotta chill out, just calm down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah, so I'm

Kelp: Shark vs Octopus

SPEAKER_00 21:43

gonna talk about the first game. Okay, which you picked it up, and you went, Oh, how about we play a game called Kelp? And I went, Oh, yeah, I've not heard I've I've heard of Kelp, not played it. I knew nothing about it, other than the artwork looks pretty cool. Yeah. Uh basically it's kelp uh shark versus octopus, and that's You everything you kind of need to know about the game, right? Because it's an asymmetric game, like a hidden movement game, where one of you is a shark trying to kill the octopus, and one of the one of you is the octopus trying to evade and outlast the shark before he gets exhausted. And starves affect. Um, and it's a bit harsh when you put it that way. It's quite brutal. Um, and and that's pretty much the game. And the components, I have to talk about the components in the game because they are phenomenal, like the the the mahjong style, like clicky clacky um tiles that the octopus uses, very satisfying to move around, very yeah, put them in the bag and they click and they clap. Like anyone who's a board gamer will know that's just um basically a board game porn, isn't it? Effectively, which is which is great stuff. Um, but effectively, it's it's completely asymmetric as the shark, which I played, and you are doing a dice bag building um kind of mini-game. Um, and on the the main board, you've got these lanes that you uh swim around. So it's like a main circle, and then the main circle, it can only be best described as a hashtag symbol in the middle of a circle going around it. That's the best way I can kind of put it that way, but yeah, that's that's the point. That's pretty much it. And the the shot the shark stick is like you on your turn, you have to flow from top to bottom for your actions, and you have to do them in a sequence and order. Um, and the two things you have to do is draw uh dice out of the bag and move. And so you're basically got a bag full of dice, you've got red dice, yellow dice, and blue dice. The blue dice are called current dice, and uh they're gonna help you swim around faster. Yeah, yellow dice allow you to search through the the kelp forest trying to rummage around seeing what's there, and hopefully the octopus is there, and you can do that. And that reveals the tile. Yep. So all the tiles on the octopus side um are all facing the octopus player, so all I would see is just the the nice teal-y green colour of the backs, and I don't see what's on the other side. And one of those tiles is the octopus. Um, so that's where the hidden movement aspect comes in. Um the movement's quite cool as the shark because you're having to always go forward. You can't ever 180 on yourself to go back, so you're always having to kind of swim forward around, and that's where the current dice come in, um, which allows you to kind of accelerate around, and providing that the dice are kind of in decreasing numbers, and that's part of the puzzle that you're you're playing. But yellow dice are searching, and the red dice, which are rare as hens' teeth, are the ones that are used to strike and attack. And the the thing is with the red dice is when you use them to attack, you put them straight onto your exhaustion track, of which you have I can't remember how many spaces, seven or eight, something like that. Yeah, it was about that. And when you do that, you need to be very sure that the octopus is where it is, otherwise you're just wasting and exhausting yourself and ultimately uh getting to the end of your your natural life as the shark. Um it is a little bit sad, but the cool thing I didn't feel it at the time. No, but the cool thing is the shark is that you can um effectively level it up and grow it. So there's like a growth track. So the more you search and the more you swim around with the currents, you're putting those dice, those yellow and blue dice, onto the the growth track. And when you fill up a tile, you flip the tile and you get better. You can get better draw out, the dice pull, you can move around, you can re-roll crap. Oddly symbolises growing, yeah. The the shop growing and getting stronger, yeah. Um, but you know, the more you also um get cards as well at the bottom as like a shop, the more that you get spend energy to get cards, one of the dice that you spend to get them go in the exhaustion track. So if you constantly getting all these cards as well, which is great, which is great, because you're getting better and you can do cool things, you are also exerting yourself too quickly, which is bad as well. Yeah, so that's the sharks kind of thing, trying to hunt down the octopus and basically murder it.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

And as the octopus, you are trying to outlast because the you know that the more the shark is doing, the quit is kind of hastening its own demise if it doesn't catch you. If it does catch you, then you're in trouble. Um, and I felt really under pressure through the whole thing. So as the octopus, your your job is to grow as well. So you have got four food groups that you try to eat. Um, I can't remember what they all are, but but you have to eat one yeah, like crabs and lobsters and things like that, aren't they? Um so that's one win condition is to eat all four food food groups. Um, and the uh so your job is to kind of navigate around your using cards to manipulate where the so you're constantly to pay for a di to pay for a card, you have to uh lay down one of your tiles. So that's it. You so that then you could see which tiles I'm laying down. Um so and to then do other things like switch tiles to stand other tiles back up to feed. Um, and when you eat, you have to lay down the octopus, so you know exactly where I am. So for the there's a real risk reward, is I need to do this, but I need that the whole game was timing, it was absolutely kind of when to do things, um, which was great. Uh and I felt under pressure the whole time. The the shark oddly felt powerful, but not overpowered, but not overpowered. So and it got to a real tipping point where I'd eaten three of the food groups, and I was like, actually, okay, I I feel a little bit more I felt I felt it kind of swing a little bit because you you know you by by that point you were getting your hunger track is is high, so you're really restricted as to what you could do, whereas I was really restricted as to what I could do at the beginning of the game. Yeah, so it had a real real seesaw mechanic, or at least it our game felt that way anyway. Um so yeah, and it was it was great. The artwork's phenomenal. We played it in what just over an hour, yeah, I think, and that was another and that was a learning game.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

That's a lot of referencing because you gotta remember like uh we're pulling games off a library shelf and then learning it. Yeah, literally there and then.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

So we we kind of understood that we might get a couple of rules wrong and and and that's fine, but it gave us enough about the game to know that this is awesome, it was really good. I I've played a couple of hidden movement games, they're not my favourite, I'll be completely honest. I enjoy Beast, but I don't being the the beast in that scenario really really stresses me out. Yeah, just the thought of it. So um, and I love Star Wars uh Rebellion, yeah, but it felt epic and you felt really under the kosh as the re as the rebels. Whereas this it it it felt it felt more balanced in the at the beginning. I was really underpowered and you were quite you had a lot that you could do, and then it kind of pinched. So um, yeah, it's probably been my favourite hidden movement game so far. I absolutely loved it. The artwork was phenomenal, like you said, the quality of the pieces was great, yeah. Um, and and yeah, there was a lot to it. And to the point where we walked out of there, I said, Oh, would you buy it?

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Well, mate, I already have you know what it was, it's like I love games that I didn't even remotely have it in my brain, like I didn't even think about kelp. Kelp didn't even exist in my my gray matter of um that I should even want to play it, let alone think about it enough to buy it. And it wasn't until you you kind of highlight, oh, there's kelp here, and I went, Yeah, why not? Let's give it a go. Because it's we're only two of us, right? So playing Joule kind of games is perfect for this kind of trip. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and after playing it, I was like, Oh, this is so cool. It's clever, very clever how it works and integrates. And I already knew halfway through, maybe not maybe 10 minutes in. I already knew that I need to buy this. Yeah, it was great. Um, so yeah, I have bought some. I'm really glad you have. It I think it might even be uh home right now, which is awesome, which is great, and it's waiting for me there. And of course I picked the expansion up as well. You take it to Egypt? Yeah, you might I might do. I might do, yeah. Shark versus Octopus, the rematch, because you did win. I did. You did win, which is it's touche. I ran out of red dice and I just couldn't get you knew where I was for ages.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Yes, I just couldn't get and couldn't get a red dice out of the bag, and you had one, and I think we we then after the game ended, you you did a fake how many times do I need to draw like five dice before I find a red one? I think it was like three more times. I was like, this is awesome. But that's the puzzle, but it's very tight, so yeah, you have to kind of be aware you can't just randomly strike stuff, you have to absolutely 100% know where the octopus is to do it. So yeah, it was awesome, it was great. That's cool. So um

Sagrada

SPEAKER_01 30:26

then we played uh Sagrada. We did. It's a game that I've been back and forth on for a long time. It's one of those games that I think my wife will enjoy. And I've made this mistake before that when I say I you'll really like this, and she doesn't. So I and again, solo mode, solo chill, yeah, can do it in 45 minutes, easy. Yeah, 45 minutes when you when you kind of get the gist of it. Really puzzly, yeah, and you can make it harder if you kind of get it. So I'm not gonna talk a lot about Sagrada because it's been it's been for a long, long time. I had a test game of it at the expo a couple of ye a couple of years ago, okay, and really enjoyed it and thought, right, I'm gonna get this, and then obviously other games come out and stuff. But um, but yeah, I think I'm gonna pick it up because I I thought it's simple and it's brilliant, it's easy to play, difficult to master, and you don't realise the depth of it until you're about halfway and you're like, oh, I've got a red four, and I need to put a red there, and I can't do it, and it's a real frustrating, fun game, not frustrating, kind of painful game.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

So it's yeah, it's it's one of my most zen games to play. Like, um, and that's not because it's dull or it doesn't have enough going on. I just find the whole experience of the way the game flows is chill. So if for those that very doesn't don't know, very, very, very quickly, it's a dice drafting uh game where you're effectively putting glass into a stained glass um in the window. That's effectively it. And the only rules are you can't put the same number and the same colour adjacent to each other, orthogony adjacent to each other. Sounds really easy, right? It's easy, right? But then but the your window has requirements of no, but this space has has to have a three, and this space is a yellow, and and you think, okay, well I'll I'll just move around it, it'd be fine. But the way you you're trying to puzzle it all, then you go, ah I mean but then you get a cold sack, then you get a then you get an objective, yeah, and then you get like a common objective, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

And then some tools to help you out.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yeah, so um so yeah, I I love it, I adore it. I'm gonna put I'm gonna pick it up. So there we go. Sagrada. That was that was the second

Flamecraft Duals

SPEAKER_00 32:28

game. And then the third game, um, we wanted something fairly quick because we needed to get on the road to Memphis. We did. Um, so we pulled Flame Gra uh Flamecraft Jewel. Um so I've not played normal Flamecraft, you have, and you I played it once and I really enjoyed it. You enjoy Flame Craft and and Flamecraft Jewel, for those that don't know, it's by Cardboard Alchemy, and it comes in this really tiny box, and it's got this little dragon clasp on the front. Which is cool. Very cool, like the way this thing's produced is ridiculous because it didn't need to be anything like this. It shouldn't be anywhere near as good as it is. No, but you get the they get the box and you open the box up, and there's your board already laid out, and then each of the sides lift up like a jewellery box, and you can pull all the components out and away you go. Um, but effectively what the game is is you've got a bag of these kind of thick acrylic discs. Lovely discs with the dragons on them with I don't know, six different colours of them, all the different dragons doing different things, and you've got these shop cards, which are effectively your contracts that you're trying to fulfil by placing dragons onto the main board in a certain arrangement of colours um or clusters in order to score those shops, and you have two cards in hand each time, and then you get these coins, which again unnecessarily uh beautiful metal coins are these hexagonal coins, um, and you can spend one of those to draw two extra uh shop cards and ditch to so if you ever find yourself in I cannot find these dragons for love and money, you can draw it. It is what it is, but we're pretty pretty much on your turn. You you draw a dragon from the bag, it has a colour, you place it onto the board um wherever you like. There's a free space, or on top of uh another dragon on the space, as long as it's no more than three in a stack, and you fire up the dragon, and depending on what colour dragon is, they all have different effects, unique abilities, yeah. Yeah, so one might say you move uh any adjacent uh dragon to any other space, or you might be push two one space away, or all those kind of things. It's very puzzly in and sometimes causes chain reactions. So I do that and then does physics up and does this and does that, and a little bit knobby, it very knobby because it's a jewel game. So I'm trying to fulfil selfishly my objective, and I'm trying to do mine, and you know what you're trying to do, yeah, and hold yours off the amount of times you're like, oh, you bust. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what he's got, so he's got his contracts faced to him, yeah, but I know where he's putting stuff, and I can work out hang on a minute, he's trying to he's trying to get this row here.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

And it was usually a combination of three discs. So whether they were in a straight line, whether they were clustered together, um, and that's how you achieved your your kind of contracts that you needed to do. So, yeah, if you if you can see somebody's been placing tiles around a certain, you're like, well, I don't know what they want, but I don't want them to have it. So you're like, I'm just gonna throw a big old sp uh a spanner in the works over there, and and yeah, and it was oh, it's fantastic. It's just a great little game.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

It was just uh it it uh under an hour. Yeah. Um when the bag of dragons is is uh empty, the game ends, or when the shop deck is empty, the game ends. Now for us it's with the dragons, right? But yeah, the bag was empty. Uh close game, managed to win with one point. You did, which is which I was really happy about. I was I know because I basically my shot got exhausted earlier, so yeah. But you weren't going into a three-hour car journey. That's true. Yeah, it was great. Now drive me to Memphis, Rob. Um but that but that's the game. I can't really say much more about it. It's um it's very cool. Great, production was great, the game's great. Brilliant travel game. You're fantastic. I think if you because of the the way the box is, it's very small, can pack all of that game together. I think you can chug that in your in your travel bag, no problem. If it's two of you, you can just whip that.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

And that artwork looks very cutesy and very lovely. Yeah, and the gate the just yeah, it's not that kind of game, it's it's it's brutal. Yeah, so um, yeah, it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

It's good fun, innit?

SPEAKER_01 36:24

It's cool.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

It's great. So there you go. And then we got on the road and we did. We we didn't play any games while in the car. No, because that's driving, yeah. Yeah, mainly listened to 80s rock and hip hop, I think. It was great. Yeah. But there we go. We have discovered some new music uh whilst we've been here as well, haven't we? We did. What do we what do you call it again? Outlaw rock. Outlaw country rock.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

Outlaw country rock, sorry, yes. Holy crap. It's amazing. Yes. Um we we were invited to a friend's house for whiskey and cigars, and it's the most manly I've ever felt in my life. I think we were next to a pool. You were you were drinking whiskey, I was driving. Yes. You're responsible. We both had cigars and we just watched the outside in a gazebo with a fan in it. Listening to outlaw country. Listening to Outlaw Country and just talking, and it was it was fantastic. So, yeah, outlaw country rock, check it out. You'll like it. Check that out. It's very cool and very reminiscent of this area. It's like Bru Blues and Country had an illegitimate baby and it's a distant and it's addicted to whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

It's raw and it's gritty, and I'm gonna be listening to that while I'm working when I get home for sure. So uh yeah, definitely.

Echobound Adventures

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Um, so let's talk about the big main event, right? Okay, um did we play it the first night? Yes, I think we did, didn't we? Yeah, we played it the first night and the second night, and we've been because I was never falling asleep. You were literally there.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

I was like, please, please just finish this game, I need to go to bed.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

So I'm talking about this one, which is Echo Bound Adventures, which I conveniently had on the side there. Um, so Echo Bound Adventures is a kind of co-production by Tempest Workshop and Open Hour Studios. And it's currently, um, I believe of release of this episode, it'll still be live on Kickstarter. I think so. Yeah, and I'm very fortunate to have a uh prototype copy. Um, so thank you, uh, Open Our Studios for letting us um basically have that. And we've been uh enjoying that. I've been waiting for this trip to to play because I've literally had no free time with work and everything else beforehand to to get to it. And I thought, well, I've got lots of time on my work trip and evening, so I thought I'm gonna bring it with me, and we we we were excited to play it. Absolutely. So we busted it out and uh yeah, we basically had had a blast. So the first night we did the the tutorial scenario, um, which effectively kind of works as a seeded deck and and it it's very much it it pr it it it's not random in in a sense because it's like it it's forcing you to experience certain things because it's a tutorial and it wants you to learn what what to do, exactly. Um, and then every time after that you are literally on your own, who knows what's gonna happen, and away you go. But anyway, what what is this world? This world is like an alternate 1931 um kind of era where you are part of a Penrose society, I believe it's called, and you play as a steward. Um, and the steward um you were uh Bill Bulliam, I believe. Yeah, he's a big Hulkin dude, very cool hat. Very cool. Yeah, um, and I was Dr. Andrea Faraday. Yes. Um, so basically a bit more the the smarts up there. You just punch things, and I'm just like, maybe we shouldn't punch anything as well. Um I'm alright with that. Yeah, it's all cool. Um effectively you go through these echoes, these echoes are like dimensional tears um that open up to these different worlds, and in the prototype box, um you have the Zelethi jungle, um, which is one of the various different echoes that you can go and explore. So this world is is kind of like a um an exploration style game, an adventure game, kind of reminiscent of Seventh Continent, that kind of thing, where you've got these uh tile, not really tiles, but these cards that are squares that you will explore out and and do things and interact with the world. The difference with this game uh versus like a seventh continent, seventh continent, the world is set. So if I go north, I if I've played this before and I go north, I know exactly what's north, and I know exactly what's west and east and south. Whereas this is done off a um kind of randomized location deck, at least after the second, third, fourth. Even the first is random, but at least within reason. Yeah, within reason, because again it's tutorial. Um and you start on a base camp and and you basically go off you go. And you're like, oh okay. So you can kind of move around, you can explore by taking new locations off that deck and placing them onto the world, and you have uh free form of where you want to put them, depending on certain restrictions, like if there's a river, then you need to continue the river on. You can't just have a river going nowhere. It's not a lake, it's not a pond. No, it's like it makes sense, like it you naturally want the world to be kind of naturally uh connected in the way it is, and and then you're gonna stumble across things. So you some of the locations have what's called site locations and have a letter on there, like A, E, B, C, D, or whatever. Um, and I'll give you an example which isn't really gonna spoil the game. So one of the site locations was uh a broken bridge. So basically we we got the letter, and then in there's another kind of box where you pull the letter that corresponds to it. So let's say that was I don't know, D. You pull site D and you put it into a site area, and it'll say broken bridge. And then it'll be a way of interacting with that site to fix that broken bridge, which is what you did. I did. So you fix the broken bridge, and what happens? So the tile with the broken bridge is then uh exhausted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

And you archive it into the bridge. Archive, sorry, it's archived, so you will you won't see that tile in this scenario again. No, not that we know of. And it's replaced you might see it somewhere else, but you won't see it in this bit. Um, and you it's replaced with a new tile where it has a bridge on it. Yeah. And you will use that tile now for the remainder of the game until something else happens, potentially in the story. Uh, I don't know that, but I don't want to say that it definitely won't. Um, so so when you pull that tile out again, it will have the bridge on it.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

When you come back to the to the in on the second or third or fourth playthrough, if you pull that tile, you're ah, that's the bridge that I fixed.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah. Exactly. And this this game's got persistence in it. And I'll I use the word persistence because back three, maybe four years ago, I interviewed um Brendan McCaskill from uh Open Hour at Open Owl Studios, which was or used to be Oom Games, and that interview's always stuck in my mind because Brendan talks about persistence, he loves games with persistence in. And what I mean by that is that you interact with the world and it's gonna remember what you've done, and it's gonna persist in that world forevermore. And the way that Echo Bound Adventures works is that you're going into an Echo, you're gonna spend some time in the Echo exploring it and getting adventure points and doing quests and missions that uh the Penrose Society want you to do to basically be adventure. It's a lot like Star Trek in that you're going down to these worlds and you have the prime directive, but it's called something else, yeah, and you're not allowed to meddle with with the the worlds in in an exploitive way, and you're gonna help you can yeah, you can help um interact with people. You basically you're extracting out of that echo at the end of your session, and you're spending all your adventure points on cool things and abilities that levels up and things like that. And and the persistence comes in that that when you jump back in and do your another playthrough, like you said, you get that location tile, and now the bridge is is there. It's fair.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Or as well, if you've helped somebody, yeah, they know who you are, they remember you because you've done something for them. It's not you know, chapters of a story or or kind of you know a new chapter every time. One elongated story dependent on what you've done in the past. It's very clever.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Very clever. It's the way that the world has a branching quest line. But it's not chapter one, play that, and get to the end. Oh, it's then chapter two, play that, and it's very linear. It's not, it's like, do what you want, get your adventure points in the way that you want to and how you want to interact with the world. Oh, look, side quests, I'm getting lost over there. Like you are fully like freeform to do what you want in this game. And the way the mechanics work in in the exploration is that everything's kind of done on uh ability checks, um, which are based on dice. So you'll have three different tiers of dice from your D8s, your D10s, and is it D12s? D12s. Yeah. Um, and obviously D12s being better and D8s being not so good. But if you're doing an ability check, you roll your character's ability dice and you put one danger dice in, which is a black dice that has a hit symbol and a threat symbol. And effectively you're rolling, and I'm trying to get four. So you roll those dice and you go, I've only got two, but the game doesn't penalize you, so you can go again. But if you go again, you put another danger dice, it's now I've got two, and you can keep going as long as you want, but you're pushing your look in order to get that ability done. Yeah, fighting works kind of similarly. We're not gonna get into the main rules of it, um, where you have adversaries in the map. So, in this world, in this particular prototype, we had Brash's brigands, and the the plot is basically uh Alistair Brash as this guy who's much like what we are as stewards, yeah, helping, but he's a bit of a git and a bit of a knob.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

He's had a change of heart and he does not believe in the prime directive anymore in that we should only observe and help. He's like, This is all there for the taking. I'm gonna take it. And he's like in traditional bad style, yeah, bad guy style fashion. He's he's yeah, enamoured with the uh the the peaceful, nice way and gone, I'm gonna take what I'm owed. Um and he believes he owes it, he's owed everything.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Yeah, he's a bit of a knob. He is um for lack of a better word. Yeah, exactly. So uh we we played through a couple of like a few sessions on this and we had a blast with it, I think. It's fair to say. Now, Echo Bowl, like generally these kind of games aren't really my vibe, they're more your vibe. But they are my vibe. Like Rob Rob's the target like player for this kind of game. Like he will fall in love with adventure style games, dungeon crawler games, you'll eat them up.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, we played this for about an hour and I went, I'm having me some of that and backed it. I backed it. I to be honest, I was on the fence already. I was thinking, but I I don't know if it's a maturity thing or I've been burned too many times before thing, but I was like, Do you know what? I'm actually gonna wait. I've got the opportunity to play it before I back it. I've I'll just wait a day to play it, and I'm I I needn't have bothered. I mean, I should have just ordered it like literally the second it went live. I think I ordered it, I think it was 24 hours live before I backed it. Um, this is my jam, this is right on my street, and it looks very, very interesting. The fact that a session can be done in an hour. It's an hour and 90 minutes. I mean, our second session went on a little bit longer, but we got quite lucky in that. Um, but yeah, this is this is right on my street. Great. The good the storytelling has been great from what I've experienced so far. The mechanics of what you do in the world has real impact going forward, which is amazing. Um, and the way it's done is very, very clever. So yeah, this is this is me.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

It's yeah, and for me, where like I said, I'm not typically the target audience for this type of game, I really enjoyed my plays of this, and I could see me playing this um because of the way it is. If it was this linear hundred chapter campaign, I'm I'm not interested. But the fact that it is this, you you jump in, you extract, you jump in and you extract. And actually, you don't you do it in any order. So if you've got some more of the uh expansion echoes, I can jump over there, do a bit over there, extract out. I can go back in here and do a bit more there. Like you can do whatever you want, you can mix and match the the plots, which are the the bad guys, and the locations, smush them together, and you're getting a unique experience and away you go. That you won't that you won't be able to repeat. No, and parts of it you will, but the majority of the experience you won't because it's it's just the way it's done. It's bloody clever, guys. That's all I'm gonna say. It's bloody clever. And if you want to learn more about Echo Ban, obviously check out the the Kickstarter page. But also, I have interviewed um Chris and Isaiah from Tempest Workshop as well, um, which I'll drop a link in in the show notes. So yeah, go and check that out because they they talk more about the the world building, the mechanics of it, and the who the stewards are and all those kind of things. So, but I just wanted to get an opportunity to play it and follow up from that interview, and and thank you so much. This is gonna shock you, but I actually listened to your podcast.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Well and I listened to the episode and they got me kind of excited about what this could be. Um, and I'm really glad that they're that the the prototype that we played is is kind of bang on what they talk about and bang on what they kind of wanted, and you can tell the amount of love and detail that's gone into it. So I'm really really really happy for them, but I'm really happy for me when I get my hands on my copy.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Oh yeah. So that's Echo Ban Adventures. Um so pretty much we went to the board game cafe. We did, which is called Board to Beers. So just outside downtown Memphis, yeah, just outside there. And if you're ever in town in Memphis town, you ever get an opportunity to visit, um, check this place out. I can't like praise this this board game cafe highly enough. Like we this is our second time going to Board to Beers, and they're just the the staff in there are so welcoming. Um, the way that the the whole thing works is just makes perfect sense. Like you'll go in, you'll you'll pay for five dollars to five dollars each. Yeah, to access the library of over 3,000 games, by the way. Um, and that's all day. You get a stamp on your hand, and that's all day. Um, and obviously you can get beers there, hence the name, you can get craft beers, uh, even down. Coffee, soft drinks, you can get food as well. Yeah, and you know, we've had beers from the Wiseacre brewery before, which is very nice if you like your IPAs and things like that. They they do that, and and effectively you'll sit there and you've got a little uh flag system on the table that it can call people over when you're hungry. Yes, you haven't got you haven't got to leave the table if you could you could stay there all day. It's literally like brilliant. Um so we played two games that uh uh last

Cosmic Encounter Duel

SPEAKER_00 50:21

night. Yes. Um so the first one was Cosmic Encounter Jewel. Um I've got a love-hate relationship with Cosmic Encounter, I'm not gonna lie. The original, and the original's really old, yeah. I know it's been around for a while. 40 years. Holy shit, really. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's it's it's an old game, came out in the late 70s, I think, maybe 80s. I'll have to check. Do fact check me because it I just I'm going off a memory, which is probably wrong. Um, but it's an old game for sure, and I I nickname it cosmic bullshit um because it's just complete nonsense of I'm an alien race, and my power completely breaks the game, and you've got an alien race, and your power completely breaks the game as well. And then you throw it all together with four or five people, and it's like and it's crazy. But I do now having played Joule last night, I'm kind of like maybe I should try it again. It was a lot of fun, it was really close, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

And uh all the way through it, I was like, I don't like this, I don't like this, all the way through it, and we got to the end, I was like, this is awesome. It's one of those that when when it swings in your favour, it feels great. Yeah, when it doesn't, you're like, oh, that feels bad, but it doesn't feel like it's not soul destroying, you know, it's it's just so it's it's a mild inconvenience versus a mild high, and you're like and it was done very clever, and again, it wasn't too long.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

No, it's it's it's really well done the jewel version. I did wonder how they were gonna do it, but and I think I like the jewel version might maybe a little bit more than standard, and the reason is is because you don't pick on people because they've only got one opponent and you've got one, and we're against each other, pick on each other, and you just pick on each other, and it just takes that element away of sometimes someone can get real like dick. Yeah, if they feel like everyone's gang enough, but it's not nice feeling, is it? No, it can happen in cosmic for sure. Um so this you are like 1v1, you're against each other. Um, but the way that it works is off these, is I think it's called the destiny decks or something like that. I think that's right. And you've got three different deck types. You've got discovery, you've got events and resource uh decks, and you'll flip the discovery over first, and typically a discovery will be put a planet out and have a jewel on the planet, and then you're gonna go through this step-by-step process of jeweling, um, which I won't list out now. You can read the rule, but uh, but effectively you're putting a number of ships out by uh secretly doing it on a dial. And the ships are just like standard cosmic encounter ships, and you put them on the planet, and then you can do these tactics where you can effectively remove um or defend, so you can attack or defend like a little battle. The little mini battle which may end the jewel there and then if you have no ships, um, but if you still have ships left, then you're going into the whole card play, which is very familiar for cosmic. So you have these plan cards of which your deck has between minus two to 42, I think. Not every one of the sequence of numbers, but numbers that are within that range. And these plan cards you're playing face down or have played face down, and then you reveal them, and uh effectively whoever is the straggler, so the one that is the uh has the least controlled planets because the win condition is five, right? Have the first five, um, will get the um uh break ties in in the plan numbers if you ever have the number, uh same, never happen to us. Yeah, we ain't anywhere near each other. Um so you've got that, and whoever has the most ships on the planet will have the ship advantage and usually add to your clout your your kind of power in in that clash. Um, and there are ways that you can get reinforcement cards that can add to that or or negatively reduce your opponent's uh uh kind of clout, and it's just nonsense because then you've got your alien power that's doing something, you've got these envoys that can kind of help come to you, they add additional powers. You've then just got this thing that can I'll do this thing and then this thing, and you go, no, and no, and then the way that the cards work, once you've done your discovery card, it'll say at the bottom next event, and you do the event, and then some knobby thing happens. Like we were playing a game of GoFish, and then we'd love Cosmic Accounting. Effectively, yeah. Um, and then resource cards allow you to get things and ships out of the warp, which is like this kind of graveyard for for ships, and it just bounces around. But the way that those destiny cards drive the game in different lanes is it's unpredictable, it's quite exciting. And oh, you can't plan, friend. You can't plan, um, but it's cosmic encounter. I enjoyed it. So it was fun. I enjoyed it. Um, I'd play it again. I don't think I'd own it, but I would happily play Cosmic. Actually, to be honest, I'd happily play Cosmic again. I think I'm in the mood for so let's let's let's do it. So we've just got a copy. That sounds that sounds fun.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

Um that's cosmic. Yeah, and like I say, we played two aliens, and there were how many in the pack?

SPEAKER_00 55:09

Oh, it's loads. I mean, there's 40 or something.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Yeah, there's a lot of different by that. Yeah, so um if if you you know you play a lot of two-player games, yeah, check it out because it's silly and a bit nonsense, but you get probably good, very good value for money because uh yeah, there's a lot in there.

Baseball Highlights 2045

SPEAKER_01 55:24

And then we get to the last game, yes, which you've been banging on about phrases. We've we've hiked over Nashville, we've hiked over Memphis, all the game stores and anywhere that might potentially sell this game. And we found it in in the available um games to to play.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

And I I'll be honest with you, I wasn't too up for this game, but it was bloody brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Yeah. So I'm talking about baseball highlights 2045, don't turn off plays. It's um it's very cool. So it really is. It's a very cool game. So basically, it's a deck building baseball game, which is very apt where we are. And what we're doing, as we're gonna do it. And what we're doing literally later today, right? Um, but it's set in the future. So you've got humans at play baseball, you've got cyborgs and you've got robots. So it's kind of this this league where they reduced the amount of um uh innings of the game um to make it a bit more friendly, and effectively you're kind of playing the highlights of a series of minigames over uh basically first to seven mini games. And you start your your deck of 15 players, of which are mainly rookies and some vets in there. There's like 10. 10 rookies, five vets, I think so. Yeah, and they're all a bit crap, right? But you I had uh was I LA, Los Angeles, you had the New York. I had New York team. Yeah, yeah, the New York team. And in front of you, you've got your your playmat, which is basically shaped like the baseball diamond, where you've got your lineup, which is your deck, your dugout, which is your discard pile, and then you've got your on-deck area. So when you draw your hand as six, you can choose to put one of your cards in the uh uh on deck area and then draw another one, which is just a way of you holding back a secret card as part of your hand, yeah, that you can either use it for an offensive thing, or you can use it as a kind of hell mary dis uh defensive thing as at the end. So, and effectively, it took us a while to get our heads around this because it's not um it's quite unique in the way the game flows, and you're effectively the first player plays their card, on their card will have a bit of text sometimes, not always, that does a thing.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Usually kind of single, double, or a triple or a home run.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

Yeah, well, before that, you've got the ability text, haven't you? Yes, which might cancel hits or do something cool, and the game's got keywords and things like that. But you're right, so you've got your player card, I'm gonna try and do a thing. If that happens, great, we resolve it. Then the other player, if they had their card played, um, would effectively run um their their kind of batters around the bases if they had uh hits is what we called on on your card, and then on I would then add batters to my base based on those hit boxes I have on my card, and just that alone, you're probably going, I don't understand what you've just said. And I get it, I get it, because we were like, What?

SPEAKER_01 58:17

Yeah, um so you you get a chance to stop each other, yeah, and if you don't, that's when the run action happens. Correct. So if you don't stop my batter and he's at the he's at the batting plate, yeah, you he will run or when I play my card. On when you play your card, but what is on my card? Yes. And it took us a long time to kind of is it is it my game because I've just done something or or or what? So the first few were a little bit rough, weren't it? A bit yeah, a bit jumpy. But we got we picked it up fairly quickly and it flowed brilliantly. So at the end of every you know, when you score score runs, you've got a little score tracker. Whoever wins the the whoever gets the most scores at the end of that mini game of six, potentially seven cards because you've stored one, yeah. Um that's the first game, and effectively it's the best of seven games. But at the end of the game, uh on all the cards that you played is a value. Yeah. So and that value contributes to basically hiring new players with better abilities and different abilities. So then uh when you bring one of them into your team, you have to get rid of one of the one of the other cards. It's typically a rookie or a a standard veteran just because their skills aren't as good.

SPEAKER_00 59:31

But it's one of the ones that you've used to purchase.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

Yes, yeah. So you can't just go, I'll take one out of my discard from the previous game or whatever and use that. So it has to be in in your hand. And uh, yeah, the the the deck the the the consequences of those deck building characters became pretty apparent very quickly because they they were a lot more powerful. They were so good. So uh so then you're like, right, well, I'm gonna cancel your hit. I'm gonna I'm gonna cancel. So if you've got two people out on bases, yeah, get rid of them, get rid of them. Yeah, and it was a real push-pull battle set on the baseball backdrop that's really a deck building game, and it was it was phenomenal. It was brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

You went the distance last night because it was four three, wasn't it? Yeah, you won four four games to three. I edged out really quick, you know. I had like three games and you had one, and I managed to pull it up. And then you pulled it back and it came to the last. I think it came to the last one. It did, and literally it was like whoever wins this wins the series. And it was a lot of fun to the point where I'm kind of hoping you do get it because I I I I'm buying enough games as it is. Yeah, I've got to pick this up, I think, because it's it's so unique, it's a little memento to being here um in the US as well, and and just getting a little bit of that culture. But as a uh solo uh experience, apparently it's very good as well. Then I definitely hope you pick it up. Yeah, and I just I thought it was very cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:51

Yeah, it was. It's cool. It was the artwork. I wasn't thrilled with the artwork. No, the art I I'm with you actually. But but it had it when you play it, you're like, I get it. It's it's kind of nostalgic, but it's kind of futuristic at the same time. And a lot of the cards look like um baseball cards, which are obviously quite a big thing in the US, um, not so much anywhere else, but but obviously they they look similar to that. And and yeah, and I was like, actually, it fits the game very, very well for because you think it's one thing and actually it's it's it's something completely different. So yeah, I'm really glad that you forced me to play it because it's really good. Forced. Well, I said, Do you want to play it? And you went, yes. Well, yeah, but you know you get grumpy when you don't get your own way. So I was like, well, you know, no, but it was great. Deveron tool. Yes. Um hashtag pray for rob. Yeah, um but but no, it was great, it was really, really good. I'm really glad we played it, and it got to the point when it was a nice time. You know, we I think we played it for what? Just over an hour and a half, maybe and that was a learning game as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

So you could definitely play in an hour. I think once we got the flow, it's snappy as hell because it's like I play a card, do the thing, you run your your dudes, I pop my dudes out, you'll go.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

And it's like just and because my players react to what you're doing, you're always into the game, you're always looking for what the other person is doing. So you're like, I've got a player with a home run on the base, please don't please, please don't cancel the batter, please don't cancel the bat, and he goes, ha ha cancel the bat, and you're like, Oh, bastard, and and and it's really good. Yeah, you're always in, aren't you? Constantly in that game. Um I think there was a there was one game where you won 2-1. Possibly, but it was again, it was because we were just like, Nope, get rid of that person, get rid of that person, and and yeah, it was really tight, really good, really easy, loved it, but really difficult. Yeah, like they're really easy to play, but kind of the the deck building element is if you don't get it right, it can be it can suck when you lose three games in a row, trust me. Um but but it was phenomenal, it was really,

PHASE D: THE LAST PLAY

SPEAKER_01 1:02:46

really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:47

So that was it. Like we're we're gonna head up to um indie tomorrow. Yeah. Um, we may play more games. I think we might. But this is the only kind of opportunity for us to sit down and record today. We've got a bit more time today because we are working, we are doing work, like this is what we've got. Well, it's an eight-hour drive tomorrow, so we won't be playing any games tomorrow. No, unlikely. But then and then we've got a very busy start, very busy beginning of next week. So there you go. That's pretty much what I wanted to do is sit down, do a little bit of an episode, and share a bit of the the Rob joy um um on on the podcast and on the channel. And for those that have you know followed on for Who Says Anyway, it's nice to bring you back and say hi and allow the the listeners and viewers to say hi back. And and if you've got questions for Rob or questions for me, yeah, absolutely. You know what to do. You put them in the the old YouTube comments, or you go and comment on our socials and all that kind of things and Discord. We've got the Discord. But you are in. I am. So you should join the Discord server. And if you want to get that, again, that's all in it's all in the show notes. Everything's in the show notes. For the cool people, for the cool people, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

So full of core people cool cool people, not full of cool people. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, glad you clarified that. Well, I'm just saying we're gamers. I don't think anybody uh I don't think anything I do is cool anymore. But uh but the people involved are very cool. So um so yeah, come and join us, it's good fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:07

So thank you for joining jumping on the app. Thank you for having me. Pleasure, pleasure, and uh yeah, if you've enjoyed the show, you know what to do. We've just said it all. So uh yeah. I would say um the last thing, what what do we usually say on the old who's turn is it anyway? We just say who's turn is it? See that shows how much he's he's moved on. It's been a while, isn't it? Yeah. But there we go. Whose turn is it? Yours? No, it's yours. Is it mine? I think it's great. My players run then. See you later, guys.