Hey, and welcome to episode 151 of Maple to Maple.
On today's episode, it is number 8 in my content creator
community series. Joining me today is someone who
champions community at every turn.
And what I love about her content is how inviting and
intentional it is. Her content isn't just cardboard
and cameras, it's connection, conversation, and a commitment
to inclusivity. Through thoughtful posts, cozy
game snaps, and insightful blog pieces, She Signs shines a light
on how board games build belonging and bring people
together across tables and time zones.
I'm going to talk about her journey as a gamer and a
creator, and what the board game scene looks like in Australia,
where she's from, and how she uses her platforms to foster
unity and connection. So let's go Ree, how are you?
I'm good, thank you. How are you?
Yeah. I am great.
I am so glad to have you on and I get a chance to know you a
little bit and Share your story. And you're the first from,
you're the first in the series from Australia, so I'm really
excited to have you represent. Yeah.
It's so good to be here. Thank you.
Yeah. And so we're really excited to
have you and I know you we've got some really great stuff to
talk about recently. I know you were at PAX
Australia. So we'll yeah, certainly,
certainly talk about that. I'm really excited.
You did some coverage just recently at you post.
So so that's pretty cool. So let me dive right in and tell
me what was the first board game that you ever played as a child?
Gosh, as a child, first one I have real sort of memory of
would be like trouble, that one where you're like moving around
the board with the the poppy dice in the middle.
Yeah, yeah. My God, I haven't thought about
trouble. Yeah, yeah, that and the Kaplan.
Kaplan quit the one where you pull the the sticks out with the
marbles in the top. It.
Yeah. Wow, those are two great
classics. Man, yeah.
I haven't thought about either of those games in.
Yeah, I just remember my mom hated the the popping dice in
the middle that was. Because it was loud when it
snapped. Yeah, yeah.
Do you have any siblings that you played games with as a kid
or? Yeah, a brother.
We used to play games occasionally, but they weren't
super big or the youngest. Yeah, just every now and then.
What about the first game that got you into the modern hobby?
So it was a game called Zombies. I don't know if you've heard of
that one. I do know zombies.
Yeah, when I bring it up to people, they generally don't
know it. But yeah, our friend invited me
up to her house just to stay for her with her for a little while.
And she was like, let's play some board games.
And I was like, all right, sure, thinking, you know, like my
experience with board games was like Monopoly and things like
that when I was a kid. And then she brings out all
these amazing games that, you know, I've never heard of
before. And one of them was zombies.
And I realized what board games could be.
And I was hooked from that moment because if.
I recall these are like big cardboard tiles.
Yeah, yeah, real. Thin cardboard but you played
late amount. I seem to remember that the map
could get really big. Yeah.
And you, I remember basically trying to get away from the
zombies and trying to get to the helipad.
Yeah. Right.
And because, like I said, I remember playing it on the floor
because the table was too small. I don't think our map got quite
that big, but yeah, there are expansions and things that you
can get for it, so. There are a lot of expansions.
Gosh that was fan. Were the were the zombie like
the little miniatures? Were they like Gray and black
ones? Were there different colored?
Yeah, and I think I'm pretty sure you could get glow in the
dark ones as well. Stop it.
Of course you could. Yeah, yeah, because why not?
Right. So, so when was that?
When when did you play zombies? I think that would have been
like 20/10/11. Yeah, OK, so you play zombies
with your friend and then you go out and buy.
Carcassonne was my first, Yeah, yeah.
Another tile laying game, yeah. Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah. And yeah, watching like Wool,
Wooden's Tabletop and then just. So, you know, it's interesting.
I I thought it was just me. I don't know why I thought it
was just me. Wil Wheaton is such a famous and
popular personality, but man, that's.
I've heard that story a lot from people in this series.
Like the last three or four weeks, everyone's like, I
watched Tabletop with Will Wheaton.
You know, it is sad that that show is no longer Yeah on, you
know, 'cause, man, there's been so many games since it stopped
airing. That was one of the first really
places that I went to look for like how to play and like
learning about new games that I didn't know of.
Yeah. And then of course, found watch
it played, and it just really expanded from there, Yeah.
Yes, it it really it just exploded egg from get into
games. We were chatting actually, I
think it was what, episode 138 or 9?
We were talking about the honeymoon period when you only
had like 20 games in your collection and every game was so
amazing. Yeah.
And then you get, you get overwhelmed and you're like,
whoa, I got to start selling games, right?
And making room for more and. Like would have been around that
time too. Sure.
Yep, that's when you were buying every game you could.
Yep, yeah, I ran a game group then too.
So I was buying things to play with people at the group and
then after that went through a stage of like selling everything
because I'm like, this really isn't my interest.
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. So what about South in all this?
This is typically a controversial question.
Oddly controversial, although I've had some interesting
answers recently. Have you developed a favorite
player color? Yeah, purple.
Yeah. Purple.
Good for you, good for you. So what is it about purple?
Because it's not in every game, right?
Not every game. Has.
Yeah, yeah. So what is it about purple for
you that attracts you to it? So my favorite color used to be
purple. OK, And then I've recently
gravitated towards green, and green would probably be my
player color, but my best friend's player color is green,
so I opted for purple instead. Because it used to be your
favorite color. Yeah, yeah.
So I'll go for the next best. Yeah, yeah.
I love. That's great.
OK, yeah, that's a much. That's a much better answer than
just. I don't, you know, I either get
my favorite color is blue, yeah, you know, whatever.
And I don't really get a reason or I get I don't prefer any
color at all, which is kind of interesting because, well,
there's purple, there's purple and Carcassone.
Yeah, Yeah, there's purple. Yeah, there's there's not.
A lot of the older games don't have purple.
Some of the newer games are bringing it in more and taking
out some of the the classic colours as you would say.
Right, So what was that journey from?
You go to your friend's house, you play zombies, you get
exposed to this hobby, you go pick up Carcassone.
What were those early years like, like for you?
Like, you know, how many games were you buying?
How voracious were you gaming? I know you said you ran a gaming
group, Like, how did that happen, right?
You know, you don't just wake up one day and go I'm running a
gaming. Yeah, there was.
There was lots of lots of buying, just like everything in
the early days. But actually the game group
actually started because I worked with someone else who
really enjoyed board games as well.
And so we ran a board game group through our work.
We had a function space at our work and we just used that space
to run a board game group. That's convenient.
Yeah, super convenient. It was quite a large space too.
So yeah, we just. Space is at a premium, right?
Not just on the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Came with tables and everything, so it was quite convenient.
And so we just amassed all our board games together and took
them. And yeah.
Is that is that game group still together?
It is not, no. We actually lost.
We lost the space and we've since parted ways.
Yeah. Is there a new gaming group that
you are championing or have you just moved past that entirely?
I've joined other board game groups since then.
Well, that's cool. So I think I know the answer to
this next question. Do you have a favorite board
game mechanic? I mean, yeah, I like so many
though. Sure, and I'm going to tell you
the same thing I tell everyone else when I ask this question.
You can't just list off all of them.
No, if I had to pick I'd probably say worker placement.
You would. That was not what I expected.
OK, so tell me why you why worker placement?
I don't know, I feel like a lot of my games are.
And specifically maybe dice worker placement?
OK. Yeah.
Which is a completely different beast and very cool.
Yeah, I just think, I don't know.
I just think it's really interesting and I don't know, I
don't know if I could specifically say why.
I just think it's it just itches my brain in the right way like.
Yeah. Yeah, it's just a fun puzzle to
solve. One of my favorite.
Games is going to be a therapy. Session no, One of my favorite
games is actually. I don't know if you can see it
on the shelf or not Is Kingsburg.
I've never played it, but I know about it.
Yeah. And so just that having is.
That a dice? Is that a dice worker placement?
Yeah. So just having to like figure
out how the best way to place your dice to get get the
resources and having to pivot when someone else takes that
space that you need. And and the same thing with
worker placement as well. Yeah, yeah.
Dice worker placement. It adds an extra layer of
complexity. Isn't.
It correct, Yeah. But dice worker placement the
number of pips on the dice add that extra layer, right?
Correct. Yes.
Yeah, it could be more, more calculating.
Yeah, Yeah. Do you?
Do you usually win when you do you win games at Dice Player
Dice worker placement game? No, I'm just playing for the
fun. Sure.
Yeah. A lot.
That's great. Yeah, I know that.
I get that too. I feel that way as well.
I'm probably most competitive when I'm playing games with my
wife, but otherwise I think I just want to have fun.
And more importantly, I want to make sure the people at the
table have fun. You know, unfortunately, if
you're a highly competitive individual and it's really hard
for me to make sure you're having fun if you're losing,
can't, can't control that, you know.
So next question is in two parts.
And there's a reason. Do you have a favorite game of
all time? That's Part 1, Part 2.
Part 2 is because I realize how challenging and difficult to
question that is favorite game of all time when there's
thousands upon thousands of board games.
How can you choose? I get that, which is why I asked
the second part. Do you have a favorite game
right now that's hitting your table a lot?
So you can answer either of those or both.
OK, a little bit of a giveaway. So of all time, because I'm
currently doing my top 10, yeah, it's taking me all year to do my
top ten. Those you know all time would be
5 tribes. Yeah, that is a good game.
I haven't played that in years. Yeah.
So again, that that worker placement and it's got lots of
different ways to score points as well.
So another another thing that I like in game, lots of point
salad. Yeah, that's really good.
It's all about the victory points in that game.
Yeah, I mean, it's all about the victory points in every game,
but 5 Tribes is particularly unique.
Yeah, it's really been a long time since I played that.
Yeah, and just the ever changing state of the board as well and
constantly having to like pivot your strategy.
And you don't, If I recall, you don't have a player color like.
No the. Colors of the maples on the
board activate a certain. Yeah.
It's that last Maple that you're placing, Yeah.
Right, right. Yeah.
It's like if you you pick a tile and you pick up all of the same
color, and then you're just kind of right.
Yeah. So you're picking up all the
maples and dropping them and then it's the last colored Maple
that you drop. You pick up all of that color.
Yeah, wow, that's a, that's a really good game I haven't
thought about in a long time. And that's your favorite of all
time? Wow.
Yeah, it's really good. I mean, that's a.
That's a solid game. So is it?
Does it still hit your table pretty regularly?
Not as often as I would like. Comes out every now and then.
I think it's just a case of like, there's so many new games,
like constantly needing my attention.
Yes, yes. But nothing gets played as many
times as I would like, yeah. So we have a commitment.
My wife and I, we tried to play every game in our collection a
minimum of once every calendar year.
That helps us to determine what games to get rid of, right?
Usually when you get midway through the year and we're at
like 60 or 70%, it's like, OK, well, let's look at the other 30
to that's left unplayed. Why?
Why hasn't it hit the table right?
So we can have real, we can have real conversations about each
title in our collection and say, do we really need to keep this?
And then we can also track, 'cause my wife tracks all the
stats she can, she'll track and say, you know, we've been
playing this game a lot. So, you know, it's pretty, you
know, going to be up there and we're going to, we're going to
stick with it. So yeah, it's interesting.
We are currently at 9090.9%. Of our that's.
Impressive has been played, Yep. Well, that's good.
It's a good strategy too. Yeah, we've got we've got three
games left that are kind of Halloween ish Halloween theme,
spooky theme that will knockout in the next few weeks here as we
approach Halloween. I realize that we're approaching
Christmas as the time you're listening this episode, but
tough. Yeah.
So I think we have a total of 27 titles like left and then we're,
you know, free to play whatever we want you.
Know that's really impressive. Well done.
It's, it's, it's a challenge. It's a challenge.
How many games do you have in your collection?
Do you know? I do not.
You don't. I don't.
Counted. You haven't counted.
Last I checked, it would have been around 150 with expansions,
but I think it's a bit more than that now, yeah.
Right. I mean, that's that's a lot to
manage, you know, seems to be kind of the the threshold for my
wife and I, we try to I mean, it's not an exact science,
right? It's not like we buy a game and
we're going to sell a game, but we do try to and sometimes we go
up and sometimes we go down. It just it kind of ends.
You know, I regularly go through and try and like keep the
collection in check and sell things that aren't getting
played or they just aren't like sort of my interest anymore.
Sure. So I want to ask you about, and
this is kind of the core of the conversation here, right?
It's what it's all about community.
And we're all content creators. So at some point you shifted
from just being a casual gamer to a content creator, right?
Tell me about that moment. When did you what was your first
post? At what point did you decide to
get really intentional and you know, dive all in?
Because you're pretty successful right now.
You got a lot going. On yeah, Thank you.
So I think I just kind of wanted to reach out and meet more
people who like the same kind of thing.
I was sort of feeling a little bit like I didn't have a lot of
connections in, like, my immediate circle who wanted to
play games. And I just wanted to see if I
could find some more people who liked board games as much as I
did. And I didn't know whether, like,
Instagram would be that place where I would find that.
But I just thought, you know, it's worth a try.
And yeah, I've just found an amazing community online of
people who, yeah, who share that passion that I do.
So it's been really good. And have they been, I mean, have
you plugged in with a lot of local gamers in your area or has
it been a lot of like the bigger community?
So it's it's kind of hard in Australia where it's a big
country, there's not a lot of people who are doing what I do.
And we, the ones that are, we are very spread out.
So I have connected with people who do what I do.
But there unfortunately are in other states.
I have been lucky enough to actually go and visit them and
meet them. I actually just went to PAX
recently with one of them, so that was that was quite nice.
So you're you are in Melbourne, right?
And that is, if I'm looking at a map of Australia, it's on the
eastern side, yeah. And is it down South?
Down South. Yeah, just above Tasmania.
OK, OK. Tasmania being the little
triangular shaped island. Correct.
Yeah, yeah, it does exist. It gets left off maps, but it is
there. It's true, it's true.
How big is Melbourne? Do you know do you have off the
top of your head? Off the top of my head, no, not
really. It's pretty big city though,
yeah. I'm just wondering if it's like,
you know, like 200,000 or is it like a million people or you?
Know I couldn't tell you, sorry. Yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to
get an idea of how big it is, like what American or European
city I could compare. It.
To to get kind of an idea of how many people.
So when you say that the your local content creators and
gamers are far away, 'cause this was a really interesting
conversation with Iris from Crimson Board Games just a few
episodes ago. How far away are you talking
about? Like how long a drive to the
nearest content creator or gamer friend.
So content creators like 8 hour drive.
OK. Yeah, Yep.
I think there are maybe a couple who live a little bit closer,
maybe within the state, but I don't know them as well and as
well so. But no, that's that's pretty
substantial drive. Yeah.
And I've done it. I've driven there.
Yep, it was so the, the, the joke.
The joke is So for Iris, who lives in the Netherlands, she's
like, they're like 40 minutes away and that's just far.
I mean, a 40 minute drive is a quick drive for me.
Exactly, yeah. You know, because the
Netherlands is small, but then so is the, so is the UK.
You know, back in the early days when Gareth and I were doing
this, we would talk about it all the time.
It's like one of the things I really like about all of our UK
gaming friends is that they can get together and do these one
day gaming, you know, get togethers with all.
Their Yeah. Friends, and almost all of them
are content creators as well because they can drive an hour,
2 hours, you know, someone may drive 3 hours tops.
The, the public transit system in in England is just fantastic,
although they would say it's not.
But I'm from the US, We do not have a very good mass transit
system and everything's too far away.
Right. I mean the yeah, if you were to
drive to Perth on the opposite side of Australia, how long
would that take, do you reckon? That'd be days, I think, yeah.
Yeah. That'd yeah, because.
It's like, yeah, because it's like 22 to 25 hours from one end
of the United States to the other.
So, I mean, it's still, it's, it's a long time.
Luckily we've got some friends and content creators who are
like an hour to an hour and a half away.
So that's or sometimes 3 hours. That's about the the Max I would
drive to get together with members of the community.
Except for big conventions, obviously.
Yeah. So what about when you decided,
OK, you you wanted to connect with a larger community.
You're on Instagram. You started gaming.
You played zombies in 2010. So you're on Instagram.
I imagine what this is what, 20? Actually, I think I know the
answer to that. You've been on, you got on
Instagram in 2022. So you're not, you haven't been
on very long. No.
So you had been you had been gaming for a long time before
you decided to reach out to the the community and become a
content career. Yeah yeah sure 20 because I did
my research yeah so. OK so 20/20/22 So what was the
first post like I'm, I'm I'm like I could.
So for me, I was on Instagram in 2013, like when it was just
photos and it was bare minimum brand new and I didn't know what
I was doing and I had like 8 followers, whatever, you know?
And it wasn't until 2017 where I started meeting other gamers and
I saw that they were posting pictures of board games.
That never occurred to me, right?
And so I took a, we had just finished playing a game,
Pandemic, my wife and with her mother.
And so I set it on the table with my coffee cup and I took a
picture outside because it was a nice sunny day And I was like,
that's not a bad picture. And that's, and, and that just
kind of started it all. So what was the like?
How did you approach your first content?
Yeah, so I used to. Picture of why all that?
Yeah. I used to take photos of board
games and post them on my personal Instagram and didn't
get much love with them. So I pretty much just started
doing that with with this Instagram and would take photos
of the games that I was playing at friend's house and post it on
the Instagram. And then it just kind of evolved
from there, moving more in towards like from talking about
the game, saying what it was into, like doing a little bit
more of a review of the game. Right.
And saying whether I liked it or not, or saying, hey, these games
would be good for Christmas gifts or, you know, things like
that. So your first, your first post,
when you created your new account, was it based on the
quality of the photograph that you took or was it based on the
content of the game that you took a picture of?
Like how did you approach that? And maybe you still approach it
this way. I think it was just more wanting
to share, like share the game and like let people know about
the game. And that's always been my focus.
I think like, hey, these games are out there, I enjoy playing
them and you might like to play them too.
So less about this is an amazing photo or right, Yeah.
But more about this is an amazing game and I really enjoy
it. And I think you might too.
Yeah. My photographs are terrible.
I don't take very good photographs.
I can't do it, not compared to some other content creators so.
It just comes with practice I think.
It does. It does, but I just don't have
the eye. I look back up for my yeah, I
look back at my original, like my early stuff and I think, wow,
like I've come so far from what I was first posting.
Yep. So once you really dove into it,
you started making connections with the community.
Was there anyone? And it can be this time you can
give me multiple answers, but what were there any particular
content creators in the community that really inspired
you to be like, I'm going to start doing more reviews or I'm
going to do more, you know, any, any sources of inspiration?
Yeah, there were two in particular that really like,
well, actually probably 3 in particular that really took me
under their wing. The first one that really
reached out to me was Talia of La La Games.
OK, Yeah. She's another Australian content
creator and she reached out to me and then she introduced me to
Craig of getting to the Games and then.
Good man, good man. We're now besties and Chris,
Magic and Maples as well. So, yeah, Chris.
Chris is. Lovely.
Yeah, Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting.
So Chris and I actually, we're contributing writers on a board
game that was published last year.
Nice. Yeah.
It's called Prestige. I wish I could remember what
episode I had Fritz the the designer on.
She had mentioned, I think she told me about it, like, hey,
there's this game designer. He's looking for material.
And it's like a city building game with cards.
And so Chris suggested that I reach out to him.
I did. And I was very, I was very
literal and academic. So like, because I studied
ancient Greek and Roman history. And he said it was kind of in an
ancient city setting, but it wasn't a specific city in this
game. So I was like, all these, like,
historical events in Rome. And he was like, I need you to
just pull back a little bit. But he was very considerate.
Yeah. And Chris and I chat a little
bit as often as we can. Yeah, yeah, she's so lovely.
Yeah, she is fantastic. I really would love to get
together with her and play a game.
Mm hmm. Yeah, same.
But you know, there's a whole ocean between us, so.
I know. And I live in the same country
as her. Yeah.
I I Yeah. That's that's really great.
Yeah. Good.
You will have to tell Talia to, you know, Cook, we'll have to
connect cuz always looking for more and more content creators.
And I don't I don't have a relationship with her.
I think when I follow her on Instagram, this community is so
big, it is so diverse. It's so hard to keep up with
everybody, right? Yeah, yeah, she's busy being a
new mom at the moment, so. So do you have any tips for how
you manage to maintain your relationships with everyone in
the community, given that there's so many of us?
Yeah, it's a good question. I think just like reaching out
to people as often as possible, but.
That's like a full time job. It is, yeah.
Literally. Sometimes I would literally just
go through my messages and be like, oh, I haven't messaged
that person in a while. Reach out to them and see how
they're doing. Yeah, I guess just like you
would any other friends. Yeah.
And and that's what I try and do, like I will try and form
friendships with people, not just not just the little
associations, but. Yes, yes, absolutely.
I'm all about the relationships, yeah, which is why I have a
podcast because so I don't take very good pictures.
I love to talk and I'm all about relationships.
Yeah, Oh. My gosh, do you, do you have a
favorite platform? I mean, are you on other
platforms besides Instagram or Instagram as your primary?
Yeah, Instagram is pretty much my primary.
I signed up to like Threads and Blue Sky, I think, but I just
don't have the time or energy to maintain them.
That's. Another.
Instagram in itself is a full time job.
It's true, it's true. However, however, you are a
little bit more diverse. It's one of my favorite things
that I learned about you. Hey, tell me about the Board
game Detective. Yeah, so that's Jeremy.
He has his own Instagram and blog and he very kindly asked if
I would like to have some of my posts on his blog.
So he hosts both myself and A Tale of Two Maples on his blog
and yeah, just like a mini sort of mini posts that he does for
us. How long have you been doing
that with him? That's a very good question.
Maybe like 6 to 12 months now. Yeah, it's not too long, Yeah.
Yeah, you have it LinkedIn, your Instagram.
And so I went to it and I saw there was you and A Tale of Two
Meeples and I was like, OK, this is cool.
And so I went straight to your About Us page and but I couldn't
figure out how long, like how long had it been going on and
whatnot. Where else do you get
inspiration for games that you decide to review?
Like how do you approach that? I pretty much only review games
that I enjoy. So yeah, if it's something that
I've been liking and I want to share and I want to tell people,
hey, this is a great game. Yeah.
But also, I get a lot of inspiration from seeing other
people's posts and how they do things, and it encourages me to
improve on what I'm doing. Yeah.
Just pushes me to be better. Yeah, yeah, I'm really learning
that this community is just very encouraging.
And like, I feel like I've made a lot of new friends just in
these past few weeks and it's like they're like, you know,
I'm, I'm, I'm getting the kind of kind of encouragement because
this can, it could be very lonely sometimes.
Yeah, yeah. I think that's one of the
reasons that I like to do collaborations with people.
Yeah. So I've got a couple of those
sort of in the works at the moment as well.
Excellent, excellent. So tell me what is I've been
asking this of everybody and I know we've kind of, we kind of
just talked about it, but what is the one thing that you see in
the community that you absolutely love and it makes you
proud to be a part of it? I think the willingness, like
the kindness and willingness to like, help each other, like I so
often see like people asking questions and like, if people
aren't sure of something, like so many people willing to jump
in and like give an answer. And there's no like I, I'm not
seeing the meanness that I see in a lot of other communities.
Like I'm not afraid to ask a question in this community
because I know, you know, I'm not going to get a mean answer.
I'm not going to get like, terrible comments.
Yeah, I think that willingness to like be open about, I don't
even have a good example, but yeah, yeah, if I had a question
about how to do something, yeah, people be very willing to
explain. And you probably have certain
people that you lean on for certain types of questions,
right? Yeah.
Yeah, I've started to realize because we all have a, you know,
so I'm reminded of, I think it's Star Trek 2, The Wrath of Khan,
right? There's a moment where Kirk
turns to Spock and he's like, how are these trainees?
How are they going to react? Right.
And Spock says each according to his own gifts, right.
So we massively diverse community, we have our own
gifts. And so, you know, if I've got a
technological question about my setup, I know there's, there's
someone I know who I would go to for that.
Exactly, Yeah. More content or like I have
someone that I regularly go to after they watch an episode and
I'm like, how could I have made that better, you know?
Yeah, when I was just starting out with working with different
distributors for who were sending me games, I had a lot of
questions because I didn't know how it all worked.
So I had people that I went to and they were really helpful and
open and and excited for me instead of they could have just
said, you know, they could have gate kept and not wanted to
share their information. But yeah, they were really open
and helpful. That's true.
So you just recently got back from PAX Australia?
I did, yes. Yeah.
So how was that and, and how many, how many days is it?
Where is it? How big is it?
Right, because there's there's several, there's PAX Unplugged,
which is in Philadelphia. There's PAX W you know, there's
a lot of them and I don't know that they're all the same size.
Yeah. Tell me about that.
Yeah. So I don't know the numbers this
year, but I know last year was I think was about 80,000 people
across all three days. Yeah, so.
Very big. That's Gen.
Con big, you know, like which is the largest in the US and it
hovers just shy of 80,000. So I had no idea.
Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure that's around that numbers.
So, yeah. And then it's in.
So it's in Melbourne like in in Melbourne itself.
And it's across three days. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the
Friday and the Saturday are longer days.
So 10 AM till I think 11:00 PM. The Saturday is 10 until 6.
And it covers like so much of gaming, your console, your PC,
board games, war gaming, card gaming, you name it, it's
probably there. So there's a big vendor hall
where you can go and buy. Is there also a large open
gaming area where you can just go play?
Yeah, so there's free play. There's also like demos.
There's also a collaboratory. She's local.
Does local designers come in and show you games that haven't been
published yet? They're working on.
It's really cool to see. So we spent our set day
basically going around and playing games in the
collaboratory. OK.
And then, yeah, you've got your board game shops where you can
go and buy the latest and greatest games.
You've got like accessories, like if you want to buy lap gear
or that kind of thing. OK.
And then you've got your your Expo hall where you can go and
play demos of video games or like the fun little things where
you can win prizes. Yeah.
Is it always in the same location every year?
Yeah. So the first year it was in a
different location, but it wasn't a great location so they
moved to a better one. And I recall, if I recall
Friday, you didn't get to play any games.
No, we played like 2 games and that yeah, we didn't get to sit
down and play until after it was like 330 or something.
You did get to play a lot of games on Saturday to make up for
it, which you posted about. So I saw your post.
I don't want to hear about that. I want you to tell me about
Friday. What did you do?
How did you spend your day on Friday that you didn't get to
play any games like? What was that day like for you?
So I actually met up with Stella of Yeah, Maple.
University, yeah. And we spent most of the morning
just walking around the vending hall, chatting to people,
meeting a bunch of different people.
She introduced me to some people that I hadn't met before.
So that's one of the other big things about the convention that
you get to do is like meet people, see people that you like
met in the past. So that's, that's another big
thing that I like to do there. And I always remind myself after
I go to PAX every year that like it's not always just about the
games because I often feel like, oh, I didn't get to play every
game that I wanted to play. And I have to remind myself when
I get home, but I also got to see a lot of people.
Yes, yes. Did you get to meet as Cadelia
from all? Play.
I did, yeah, very briefly on the Friday morning.
Yeah. Yeah, she was.
Blessed for you She's yes she has been so busy.
She is a content creator that I reached out to to join the
series and she's just she's just so busy.
She hasn't, you know, hasn't had time yet, but hopefully we'll
hopefully we will get her on the podcast 4th with Yeah, but.
She's so loved. She posted a lot.
I saw a lot of her content from PAX Australia.
So it was just, you know, so I'm glad you got to meet her and you
got to meet, hang out with everybody and see new people as
well as old friends that you only get to see once a year
probably. That's kind.
Of how our conventions go. Yeah, my PAX buddies.
Yeah. How far away is the convention
hall from where you live? Like is that like a, is that a
really quick drive? Do you have to go and get a
hotel in Melbourne or are you able to stay home?
How does that work? It's about an hour, so OK,
depends on depends on the traffic.
So like an hour, an hour and 20. So I drove in every every day
this year, which was a choice. No, I mean, yeah, that's where
the. That's where the.
Real, it was nice to have my own bed it.
Is, yeah, that is probably the biggest expense that makes these
big conventions so cost prohibitive.
It's not the convention itself, it's the lodging.
Yeah, I mean, it's nice to stay local, but yeah, agree the cost
to stay local is is a bit much. So what if you've got a friend
in Melbourne or anywheres in Australia or just anywheres in
general, It doesn't really matter, but they reach out to
you on Instagram or whatever and they want to start making
content and being a content creator.
What advice do you have for someone wanting to join our
community and diving into this? I guess I would say like it
doesn't need to be perfect. Like I spend a lot of time
trying to make my posts as perfect as possible because I'm
I spend a lot of time worried about like how I present myself
online, But I also find that the posts that do the best are the
posts that I spend the least amount of time on.
I'd say just have fun with it and try not to stress about what
everyone else is doing because I do see a lot of like people, the
mental health side of things getting to people with the
comparison. Well, this person like has so
much better pictures or videos or whatever, but you'll get
there. It's time and practice and yeah.
Yeah, there it is, simple and succinct.
That's that is. There are no truer words spoken,
you know, And that's definitely advice I need to take in my own
right, to be honest. Sometimes you do get caught up
and oh, well, do you see that? You see that reel that remade?
Man, I gotta, I gotta step up my game, you know?
Yeah, it's, it's a thing. And remember why you're doing
it, too. Yeah, because I'm here for the
community and and sometimes it it's easy to forget that.
Well, I got to say, you're in a lot of trouble now because you
have a new friend in the middle of the United States who's going
to check in on you constantly. Be like, how are you?
What's going on? Yeah, absolutely.
Because it's. Yeah, I'm always checking in on
folks. And, you know, I, I just feel so
bad that I let so much time go between chats.
And then what Instagram is becoming a real challenge for
keeping track because as our followers grow, the number of
followers grows. Those messages get buried.
You know, like sometimes I'll tell you what I, what I suffer
from because we all have our different hang ups, you know,
and how it affects our mental health.
For me, I send you a message and you don't get back to me for a
month. I get into my own head and I'm
like, what did I do wrong? What did I say?
What did I do? You know, did I, did I say
something in my Last Post? Nope, Nope.
Did I say something on the podcast that was offensive?
You know, I that's immediately I go to what did I do wrong you.
Know yeah, it's hard. We're just busy.
Yeah, yeah. And.
We're diverse and there's. A lot of us, yeah.
So yeah. And we've got to remember people
have lives outside of Instagram, too.
That's right, that's right. So tell everyone where they can
find you if they wanted to reach out to you and just have a chat
or, you know, play a game online through BGA.
I know you do that. Yeah.
You know, yeah, Tell everybody where they can reach you.
Yeah, so the best place to find me is on Instagram.
I'm bored all the time. I'm also on BGA or board game
arena and I'm bored all the time there as well.
So yeah, always happy to play a game.
Well, Reed, thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm I'm really grateful and very
appreciative to you guys. Please, please, please, please
like and subscribe to the channel.
Trying to make that YouTube channel go.
We hit our one year goal. I was just reminded today,
YouTube reminded me that it was one year ago today at the time
of recording, not at the time of you listening to this, but that
it's been one year since our very first video on YouTube.
So that's kind of cool in its own right, you know?
And just remember guys, be kind to each other and let's play
more games. Let's do it.