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Hello everyone, it's JP here from the Just Play podcast, and this is the vlog number three, uh, which is actually day two of Essenspiel, which is the Friday. And uh yeah, I'm not long uh kind of got back from the halls, uh, just had a cheeky beer downstairs, which is always nice after being on your feet for you know countless, countless of hours. So, yeah, as always, I'm just gonna give you a little, you know, uh kind of high-level rundown of of kind of what I've been up to today. Um, and as always, there will be a uh more detailed episode when I get home and I can get into more time and you know, more details about the games and things like that. But generally, this is just a little bit of a whistle stop tour for those that are interested in wants to get something a bit earlier. So there we go. So we started, we ran a little bit late. Uh well, I say we ran a little bit late. Actually, we were on time. We left the hotel about nine, and uh, we went down to the uh the underground, and the basically it was massive, but the queues were huge. People were queuing to get down the stairs to get onto the platform. So we kind of made a quick decision and said, Shall we get a taxi? Yeah, let's get a taxi. So we we got a cab, and and weirdly, um, I don't know why I'm getting onto this. Um, we were talking about kind of Halloween, so it was me, Mark, and Paul Grogan in in the cab. And I was saying to Mark, have you um seen the SNL sketch uh for uh Halloween that they did about 10 years ago around David Pumpkins? Bit random, I know. And and he said no, so we ended up watching the uh the David Pumpkins sketch. If you've not watched this or you don't know what I'm going on about, just Google David Pumpkins SNL. And effectively it's Tom Hanks being this really weird character, and I'm just gonna leave it at that. Um, but he's a legend. So yeah, we got finally got to the shot the halls, managed to get through, and I didn't have my first meeting until about 11 or quarter past 11. So I decided to get a demo at AEG uh with uh a couple of friends of mine, Rob and Curly, and we played Electrify, um, which is um uh a game that has two designers, one of which is John D. Clare, which I do know, and I can't remember the other one, so I apologize on that one. Um, but yeah, Electrify is uh quite a cool little um kind of game where you're generating electricity um and effectively trying to score these contracts, and you have these big column tiles which has the cards that allow you to sit on top, and you you take your turn, you've got a result, uh sorry, we've got a dial that you kind of spin around simultaneously and you pick one of your departments. And if you get the same one as another person, then you get some research tokens, um, or you go up the research track rather, and and if you don't, you get to slide your column um further up one of the the board that you have, and it kind of works like arcnova in that the further right the column or department is the more powerful it becomes if you select it. So then you simultaneously work your your own kind of puzzle where you're you're activating the um the department and you put cubes on to kind of help you because some of the cards that you have has an arrow, so you'd be like, Yeah, I'll do that, I get that thing. That would also trigger this, which then might also trigger another card and another card. So you end up with this like chain. So you put all your cubes on first, and then you can do them in any order, which I really like. I like the fact I can do that before that, before that, which really helps me do what I'm trying to achieve. So sometimes it puts cubes on. Oh, there we go, phones on, puts the cubes on um to the uh the space above it, and you've kind of got from coal to renewable energy, where renewables are giving you more electricity and coal's like the worst. So, yeah, you kind of want energy to be on the furthest right because the most powerful um you're gonna get more for bang for your book, and also you're spending energy to put cards down onto your columns, and yeah, it's this nice little engine buildery combo kind of game, and yeah, really enjoyed that. Um, I'll go into more detail later on it, but yeah, really enjoyed that. It's a nice little demo to start the day. Um, then I met with um Mindclash Games and spoke with uh Soma, my good friend Somer, and we were chatting about all things Mindclash coming up things for next year and beyond secret, um, but also yeah, hoping to try and get uh Victor on the show uh to basically chat more about uh Against the Storm, which I am very excited. Um it feels like it's been it doesn't feel like it's been a while since my clash have released a real heavy game because we haven't, it's it's not been that long, but for me, for one that I've really enjoyed, it's been a while. I always go for the whole staples of an Aquini Tricharya on Void Fall, and yeah, something kind of new that's coming that's kind of that heavy weight. I'm I'm really looking forward to that. So I'm hoping we can kind of make that work next year as the the crowdfund kind of um comes to fruition. Um so we did that and uh also had a meeting with um uh Peter from Alby. So we caught up with him again, and yeah, basically had a beer. But this is obviously not beer in here, it's water, because I desperately need more of this lovely liquid in in the body because you know it's been it's been a while. But yeah, it's basically uh uh a nice little beer glass. So me and Mark Monk met with with Peter and we had a lovely beer, which was great. Um, and we started chatting about things, and again, I kind of mentioned this on the the the first vlog. Um yeah, some of the stuff they got in the catalogue coming uh next year. It's gonna be good, it's gonna be good. Um, and then after that, we bumped into Stella from Meeppola University, so that was really nice. We just happened to kind of cross paths, so we had a good chat, um, and you know, did the old photos and things like that, and really enjoy um those interactions um with Stella and the Meeple University team. And yeah, long mate continues, that's been cool. Um, other things, oh yeah, whilst I was at uh Albi obviously picked up a copy of Prague on scene. That that lights in the way again, isn't it? Um so this yeah, I played this on uh the gaming rules channel already, and I thoroughly enjoyed my play of this. So I'm happy to have uh a copy of that of mine. Uh so hopefully we can cover that in more details. I've gone blurry camera autofocus, which it might do at some point. Um I passed by another store, and actually it was a friend Ian who clocked it and he said, Oh, look at this, JP. There's a game that is a Rubik's Cube and it's a game. And I was like, Oh, and my son is massively into Rubik's cues at the minute, and thought this will be the perfect present. Um, so yeah, it's uh by Foxy Games and it's called Dungeon Cube, and it's literally you have your hero in the middle, and I think you can as a free action, you can spin the cube one way, but if you want to turn it another way, it costs you an action. You're trying to match um kind of circles, and if you can see that, you match circles on the sides to to basically do stuff or defeat enemies. I don't actually know how it works, but I thought that's quite a cool premise, and he's into Ruby's cube. So, Joshua, this this one's for you, mate, if you are watching. Um, and if that was a surprise, I've just ruined it. But anyway, it's there, so that's pretty cool. Um, so Dungeon Cube, and then you know, we've done a lot of walking around and just looking. I think I've spent a lot more time looking around the halls today than yesterday. Yesterday was very busy um doing kind of press meetings and things like that. So I obviously had a few today, but nice to kind of spend a bit of time looking and just going around the different halls. And I spent a lot of time in hall two um today just having a proper look, so that's been good. And then we kind of got to the I'd say the end of the day, and I just needed to sit down and I wanted a demo, something I wanted to start the day with a demo, I wanted to end the day with another demo, and we walked past and we managed to um go by the Incredible Dreams studio uh booth, and they had Mechs versus Minions, and we went to sit down on one table. But you know how if you've ever been to conventions and you end up with you've got your group, we had three people, and you got another group of three people, and it's like, oh, who's gonna get to the table first? And we just kind of fell short. Um, and then we walked literally a second, and then that table the people got up. So, right, quick, let's get in here. And we played um pretty much a full mission of mech versus minions, and it's the first time I've played it. It was brilliant. What a good game. I now understand why people rave about this game. So it's kind of set in the League of Legends universe, and it's very much a programming game where you're putting cards down to activate from left to right, which sounds straightforward until you end up turning your mech um like 90 degrees away from where you want to, and you've got hordes of these minions coming down uh from the top of the board all the way to the bottom. And in this mission, we had to stop uh a single one from getting through to the end, and we had to get to the other end, and yeah, lots of combos, lots of uh you know, destroying lots of minions and things. It was just a fun, fun experience. And we sat down there for about 90 minutes, to be honest, which is very, very welcome. So that was kind of the end of the day. Got back to the hotel. Um, and I'm about to get ready. I'm literally just trying to record this before I'm going out tonight, but I'm about to get ready to go out uh for a meal with um some content creators. I think I mentioned this yesterday. So we've got Cardboard Alchemy's um uh kind of dinner event tonight. So Rosie, uh, who also does cozy um cozy ball games, and uh yeah, basically uh she's invited myself and Mark Monk from NinjaKeek Games out, and we're gonna meet uh some other content creators. So I think uh obviously Peter Vaughan from Cardboard Alchemy will be there, Luke Laurie, the designer, will be there. I think Tantrum House uh are gonna be there. So that's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to that. Um, I was gonna record this after the meal, but if I'm having some beers tonight, I don't know how I'm gonna be. So I thought let's play it safe and and uh yeah, record this before. But I'll let you know, uh, maybe on tomorrow's vlog how that one went and I'll start that one there. But that's pretty much it. I've got to go and get ready now. Um, but thank you for listening to these vlogs. I've been enjoying doing this and kind of cataloguing pretty much what's been going on all day, and yeah, um, and that's oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention in Mind Clash, and it's in my bag here. Look I've got um the Ironwood Steel and Spirit expansion. So that's quite cool. Um, so that kind of adds a few more kind of minions and train tracks and uh all sorts of different things um for the ironclad and um the woodwalkers, and of course I had to pick up this anachrony uh promo expansion uh thing with just a little uh bunch of tiles, but anything anachrony. Yes, please, I want it. Um so that's pretty much it. Um so thank you for listening as always. I'll catch you on tomorrow's, which will be the Saturday. Um, and we have the meet and play event uh for the content creators, which is cool, looking forward to that. And it's also going to be the busiest day. So I've got to decide whether I'm having a lay-in, but that'll probably depend on the beers. But anyway, take care everyone, and I'll see you on the next one. Bye bye.