Hey, and welcome to episode one O 6.
Happy holidays everyone. Maple to Maple, we're back.
As always, I remain PJ. And I am still Gareth.
Houston. It's been like.
A long. Fix episode 6 One O 6 is
literally 106. One O 6.
More episodes later. I mean we we did record one O 6
already. We did and we had a bit of a
technical problem, which is supposed to be kind of our
leading up to Christmas. Yeah.
And then I, I've been off, I've been at the hospital and have
keyhole surgery and that's it. I think Christmas got, in a way,
New Year's, New Year's celebrations, and here we are.
Yeah, it's. This week.
Oh, happy New Year, by the way. Antoine's.
Everyone had a good Christmas, yeah.
It's been crazy. I spent a lot of it riddled with
worry because my friend, my brother, my mate Gareth had
surgery on his knee and I'm like still can't join.
And then you, you mentioned that, you know, so I'm thinking
your pain would be in your knee after a surgery.
You were complaining about pain in your calf.
Honestly, it's so I my knee, I stopped taking pain killers off
the second day and then I think maybe a little bit too much ball
gaming because I had is. That what it is at.
Home you're supposed to keep your leg elevated and people
just came to play games. So we and so there are a couple
of days when I think while it was elevated, it probably wasn't
elevated enough and the calf swelled up to like an elephant.
'S. Elephant's leg, which then I
think I pulled a muscle in my calf.
Yeah, and it's just tender. It was, yeah, really bad.
But anyway, it's been 3 weeks and I'm up and about.
We're walking around. I just can't drive for another
month. So when you told me that your
calf had swollen and you had problems so let you know where
my brain went, I went dark. I went dark.
I was like, Gareth's going to die.
He's he's got a blood clot in his legs.
At one point I thought that deep thrame, deep vein thrombosis,
Yes, I'd phoned the hospital. I was like, can you just let me
know whether these symptoms or anything I used to worry about?
And they went through all the questions and they said no,
you're fine. Anyway.
Yeah. So.
But I'm several 1000 miles away and I can't see you, so I worry.
Yeah, you can worry. That's what I do.
Nobody else did. I played.
I played ball games and played quite a lot of PlayStation.
That's relatively I couldn't sit down and play games for a bit
because I just couldn't get comfy, right.
So there wasn't as much game playing over Christmas or cover
games in a minute what we played, but right, But not as
much game playing as I would have wanted, right?
Because some days I thought Gareth, you should probably just
sit and rest. So.
We got in a lot of games we should get.
We got in time with our family, well, with Katie's family.
Then we had time, just the two of us, where we got in a lot of
games, and I'm happy to say that for the first time since we
started recording them, Kenny and I played every game in our
collection. 100% of our entire collection hit the table in
2024. Subtly checking my stats so I
could be really. Proud, I know, but but before
everyone starts freaking out and feeling guilty because they
haven't played all their games, we only have 270, six games in
our collection. So I know many of you are
listeners and Gareth included, you have a lot more games than
that. So I'm just saying for us, every
year, and the clock started back on January 1st, we want to play
every game at least one time. We could play more than that,
but we want to hit it once and we did 100% this year.
The year before, in 2023, we're at 98.
In 2022, we're at 96. In 2021, when we started
recording these stats and made this kind of annual commitment,
we were only at 93%. So we've gotten better, and we
finally succeeded. I did 22. 22%.
But over that collection of 800 games, that's nearly the same as
you. Right, right.
So. I must try harder.
You'll be good. Good news is that we're five
days into the year. Yeah.
And I've done 1%, but what are you on?
5.2% Yep, we have played 15 different games now.
This is not plays. These are just titles, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, 15 different games
have hit our table in the last five days.
I've played 10. Yeah, I'm quite proud.
I should now say that out loud. That's pretty good.
Ten different titles 10. Different games, yeah, yeah.
That's that's pretty good. That's pretty good.
So that's. Only like 3 days because like we
didn't play games so until yesterday I think.
Yeah, I messaged you. I think it was December 27th, I
messed you to let you know that we had played 100% and it was
far away by Cherry 3 days. A game, Three days to go.
Yeah, three days. You could have more.
I did, yeah. So Cherry Pick Games Far Away
was our last game, and we talked about that game a lot.
We love that game. You sent that game to me.
It's several years. Ago my pile of games to get out
to play in this quarter. The problem is, I really wish
that cherry pick games would get together with folded space and
make an insert. It needs or it needs
organization. Yeah, I open the box and go, oh,
it's just Baggies and. Baggies, Baggies, yeah. 3D
printer. Yeah, I don't have that.
That's all my list of things I'd like to buy this year.
Oh, I've I've done my research. I know which one I want to buy.
Maybe we need to try to work on getting a sponsor for the show.
It's a 3D printer. Who could get us a 3D printer?
Yeah, each. Each.
Yes, each. Yeah.
Absolutely, because we have, we have two markets.
We've got a European and American market we've got to
work on. 3 printer will be quite a quite.
I'm quite interested in A3 printer.
Yeah, we have to. Wait and see.
Yes, not cheap. So, so we're going to, I guess
we're just going to do a recap of the last like six weeks.
I, I, my plan was to talk about some of the games we got for
Christmas. Yeah, some of the games we've
played over Christmas. And then we're going to do a
kind of last year we did a really good episode from our
most popular, which was Reflex and Projects.
We're going to do that either next week or the week after,
which is looking back in 2024. Yeah.
And then looking forward into 2020, well into this, into this
year and what's going up. Right, Brian, where do you want
to start then? That's a good question, because
there's a lot, there's a lot for us to talk about.
Why don't we talk about one last thing?
Let's talk about culling of games.
We did an entire episode about it last year.
That's yeah, I think that's the last stat.
How many games did you call from your collection?
I'm going to make a guess over 50 over maybe, maybe more.
I could probably it when you fill the space, I could look on
it here I don't so. We called 35 different unique
titles last year in 2024, sold them at used game sales at Titan
Games here in town, maybe did trades with people, giveaways,
things of that nature. So there was 35 different
titles. What I like about our annual
commitment to playing all of our games every year is it gives us
an opportunity to evaluate each game and say, why is it November
and we're just now playing this game?
Yeah, yeah, right now. Now, sometimes that's just
logistics, right? All our Halloween themed games
we saved till October anyway, so that's fine.
But it's like why? Why is it not hitting the table?
Sometimes? I'll be honest with you.
Sometimes like we get into March and we're playing a game and
we're like, this game is no longer satisfying.
Do we want to call it? We have, We currently have.
I've taken it out of rotation. So in that 276, it's no longer
in there. We still own it, but we've taken
it out of our collection. We've got 12 games on the shelf
in the in the closet to sell this year.
Yeah. We just decided we just.
Yeah, I think it's over 100. Yeah, it's scanned down over 100
games are sold. I mean, we've been, I've been
vicious and then I stood up earlier because we got a lot of
games. I've been finding rare games
I've been looking for like for ages.
I've acquired 2 grail games just by luck.
What I should do when you're sitting down on your Bumble day?
And so even earlier today, I was stood up and went, I've got
another Carl in me. I could just feel another
another purge coming. Yeah, yeah.
So I reckon, I reckon there's about 100 here.
Which reminds me, I saw one yesterday which I need to go and
box up. Oh.
Yeah, OK, I'm writing that down. I remind remind myself of my
drop pen but. Box.
Box up. Game.
I sold yesterday, so yeah. So I think selling's been a real
theme. I think cleansing, cleansing out
the game collection, making space.
The games room is currently we have the floor is not visible.
That's not good. No, it's not good.
And I've just scattered them 'cause I can't bend down
properly. I'm not really tidying up.
I'm just kind of got little, little static tights, static
tights, mites, which I wait around, it goes tights, mites
going upwards, right? Just that anyway.
Yeah, we've done done some good selling.
So what did you of the games that you Do you want to talk
about games you played over the holidays?
Or do you want to talk about games that you purchased or
received over the holidays? Because playing.
Playing. Let's do playing.
I mean, my favorite game over
Christmas was SETI. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, not give any hints away, but it's high up my Game of the
year list. So yeah, I've played it a couple
of times. I've played it two and three
players I think I've played all play against now.
And then Diz, Ball Game fanatic came over.
Dizzy's really good at games and she raced ahead and I'm thinking
I'm going to get, I'm going to get trounced here anyway, came
back. Pulled out the victory, yeah.
Came back strong, strong and just showed how to head to game
properly. So I nearly broke the 200 point
mark, I think it was like 1199. So I was quite pleased with that
score. OK, so yes, let's see, that was
a good highlight. What else have you played me
looking in my list of other highlights?
OK, so let's see. So over the holidays, what do we
play? So we, we picked up, it's a game
that pretty much you and everyone in England, actually
all of UK, all of our friends in the UK, all were posting
pictures of this game. And I was like, man, maybe we
should get this, we should get it.
And we did. We got it at the end of
November. We played it probably five times
over the holidays as Castle Combo.
I think I'd say fromage. Not yet.
Not yet.
Yeah, Castle combo is. We play also.
While my that is a well, that's a top game for us this year.
It's probably another game. It's another game you and I are
probably going to talk about when we do our top 10 of 2024,
but. Definitely so good.
It's been slept by most people when we've had like a end of
games night. What do you play?
Castle Combo? Because it's not doesn't
overstate, it's welcome. It's not quick quick.
It's just nice to. No, it's so good.
Finish off the last time we played it was the day after
Christmas. I guess Boxing Day for you,
right, the 20s and we had Thea who on Instagram is perpetually
bored. She she came up from Saint Louis
and she spent the day with us. And that was one of the games
that we we played was Castle Combo had three players and it
was just as good. Yeah, yeah, it scales
brilliantly. It's perfect.
It's so good. It is so good.
I don't know how else to describe it.
It's a it's again, it's worthy to own.
It is a filler game, of course, but it's satisfying.
Oh. It's just no, it's 9 cards,
nine. Yeah, nine.
Small placement job. Done.
You're just playing cards in a in a three by three grid right
in front of you, one at a time and scoring points.
It's but it, I think it's, it's squeezing out that cash is often
tight. So how do I get the cards to get
me the triggers to get me this to then It's there's a lot of
there's a lot to it, which is for one, which is my cards.
Yeah, it's yeah, that, that will be in there.
Yeah. From Alger's had a lot of plays.
I think it sneaked into my some of my most play games this year
and it only came out in November.
I think we played it. Yeah, seven times.
What in a month? Nice, nice.
So yeah, we've talked, we talked Nick Ball game of the UKI think
he would be out and bought himself a copy.
We played it 2-3 and four players and everyone, everyone
who's played it just goes, Oh yeah, it's just nice, you know,
it's just, it's quick, it's simultaneous gameplay.
And again, it it, it's 30 minutes, even four players, bam,
bam, bam. Yeah, so back in November,
Shelley Michiana Board Gamery reached out to me and she's
like, hey, she had just gotten a physical copy of Homage.
She's like, do you want to play on BGA?
And we and I did. And I'm like, I don't know what
I'm doing. I BGA for me is not the best way
to learn a new game, but I'm like, I don't know what I'm
doing. I I see cheese and cows and I'm
like, I don't what's happening? What is going on?
Why is this thing turning on the screen?
And so I talked to Katie and I was like, why don't we buy
Fromage for each other? Put it under the tree for
Christmas, right? Yeah.
And so we, and so fromage was
our. That was one of two games.
It was like Christmas game. Yeah.
We played it three times. I mean, you played it four
times, Crystal. No, we've just played at two.
Yeah, it's. It's shine.
It's OK at 2:00, but it's really good at 3:00 and 4:00.
So it's really cool because it's still new, a lot of people may
not know about it, but you have 3 workers, right?
And you put your little wooden cheese wedge on the turnstile,
the board in front of you. Lazy Susan.
Lazy Susan? Thank you.
Although mine is a retail version, it doesn't have a Lazy
Susan. It is, which I don't think you
need it. You know.
But anyway, the direction, as you know the direction that the
wedge is facing right? So if it's facing to the right
when you turn it clockwise, it'll be facing you in the next
turn, so you'll get to recall it.
But if it's facing away from you or to the left, it's going to
take long or three because you got to let the cheese age, which
I think is just an incredible, it's incredible way to think
about your worker placement strategically.
And it's also a great way to let the theme of aging cheese, yeah,
kind of come to the forefront. I mean, I think Zulkin, I try to
think of other games like it. Yeah, the aid Zulkin, I guess is
on the wheels. Yes, there's a few others I'm
sure, but that's one that springs to mind.
It's so good in. Terms of yes, it's nice, yeah.
And that's that's when I wasn't going to back and I think Gareth
Ice and Dice talks about it. It wasn't it was it wasn't an
expensive Kickstarter is relatively cheap for what you
got. So I backed it in a bit of a a
bit of a whim, but, and please I did.
So I made a list of all the games I wanted to play when I
was off. So this is the list of games you
wanted to play. Yeah, things that I thought
anyway. I think I did too.
I did too. Everyone, everyone, get your pen
and paper and write these down, because then Garrett's going to
tell us which games he actually did play.
Yeah, so so 1 was civilution. Civil Illusion.
Played that today. OK.
Loved it. Somebody messaged me on
Instagram about asking me about it and I replied to I'd
literally just said I love this game.
But that's my kind of game. It's heavy play.
I think I'd play 2-3 with a push for never.
OK, but that was on the list to play.
So was Trickarian the magician game, you know?
Yep. Cussing tricks apart for a
couple of rule gaffs. That was.
Very much enjoyed the game. Three hours, obviously, TI
toilet Imperium. We got through another year,
another 10 hour slog. Wasn't a slog, it just went like
that, Yeah. It did go like that.
That's what I heard from you and Iz and George.
You all messaged me and were like it.
Always just goes, just goes. It never tried to explain to
people that. So we got there at 11.
I was a bit late because I had a hospital appointment and we
spent 45 minutes messing about choosing like our species races,
which in hindsight we could have done that through an app someone
sent me. There's a website that you
classical for you. So we started at 1 and I think
we finished at about quarter past 9:30.
Yeah, so I know this is, I knew this game, right?
This is a long game. This is one where you're going
to be at the table for 10-11 hours.
So I'm messaging tis going. Would you please make sure
Gareth Ray elevates his leg? I know that they got, they got,
they got me a little poufet and that was kind of there.
It's all good. Yeah, That was all looked after.
Good. All looked after.
Yeah. That that was that was good.
And they knew other games. I don't think I played, but
they're all games like they're all 7 hour, 88 hour games.
They're all like Thief, the games that I'm never going to
get to table. Europa, you and Ivelaris up.
Here. Oh yeah.
That's three days if you play the whole thing.
So they're all it was all stuff on a bit of a wish list, which
will remain a. On a wish list.
On a wish list and one day we might even just play that game.
That's the game. Another game that I saw on
Instagram. Yeah, I think it was Tony Budell
who designed of Snowdonia, right?
He has a he has a a gathering of chums of gathering about a
gathering of friends every year. And he then posts about it on
his on his blog on Ball Game Geek.
And there's a game called Steve at Stevens.
You posted something about it. Yeah, I've never even heard.
Never heard about it. This is about to.
I end up being buying niche games.
So I was like, that looks like my cup of tea.
Did a bit of research, put it on my Christmas list.
Yeah. And then, yeah, Carrie found a
copy and it's based on glass making, so fit to the whole
glass road. And, you know, and it's based in
1750s. I'm going to say I've probably
got that wrong. After the earthquake in
Portugal. It's it's an all true story.
A glass maker called something Stevens went across and started
making glass in Portugal. And it's still one of the
biggest classmakers I think in the world.
It's good. First game, no idea what was
doing. Second game kind of got it.
It's yeah, I'll talk about it. I think when I talk about the
summary of the year. But it's yeah, it's it's yeah.
Stevens, Stevens. Stevens.
So we were playing, I think you played that yesterday.
Yes, we played it last week and then again yesterday.
So Katie and I were playing Barcelona.
Which is in neighbouring Spain,
of course. And I realize, you know, but
like, you had posted that and I shared that with Katie.
I was like, look what? Look what Garrett's playing
right now in nearby Portugal. Literally class making.
Yeah, really cool. It's got a really cool mechanic
where there's two sides, 2 furnaces and you get going to
call them assistants or master crafters on one side or on the
other side of the furnace. But I, I can put them either
side and other people can put their premises with them.
And then when people go to make glass and take glass out of the
furnaces, you trigger all the people who, who basically helped
race it. So you're trying to build, it's
kind of tableau building, but with the furnace, it's not in
front of you. It's, it's clever.
The whole economy loops together and.
Yeah, I can't explain it. It's too much for now.
But yeah, that was another highlight.
And then yeah, Wells, we played recently, I picked up Worm Span
you. Did.
I think it's better than Wingspan.
Do you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know. I, I didn't think I would, but I
picked the second hand copy. You know, when you're selling
games, you often end up buying games.
And I finished playing it and thought I do like Dragons and
it's just slicker, it's faster, none of those stupid dice.
I even thought about selling my Windspan mega Megabox.
That's. Wow.
Because. It's just too big now, I can't
both get downstairs. Well, OK.
Yeah. I mean, yeah, anyway, but I
didn't, I didn't think I'd be saying that because I kind of
ignored it. Free however long it's been out
for because it's. Still, yeah, I still haven't
played it. I just.
I'll check it out. If you like Wingspan, I'll check
out Wingspan. Okay, there you go.
If you like wingspan, check out Wingspan.
That sounds good. Well, so Katie and I went to
Ohio to spend some time with her family and there's a fantastic
board game store that we hit up. We always go visit and we picked
up. This was interesting.
We were not expecting this. So Isle of Cats dual OH.
Yeah. Which is the two player version
which I didn't realize was out, I didn't know about it.
And then there was the side quest, Isle of Cats.
Oh, that's yeah, that's by Borden Dice, isn't it?
Like Nemesis? Yeah, the same We series.
We have the Nemesis. We played it and it was really
cool. It's fun, yeah.
Once you play it once, you can't play it again.
But so there was this unintentional Isle of Cats kind
of theme. Isle of Cats Duel is superior
when playing it with two players, obviously, right,
because it's designed for two player.
I'm like, I don't think I would play Isle of Cats at two players
ever again because I have the dual version.
That's interesting because I. But but I will keep Isle of Cats
so that I can play it with my friends at a higher player
count. Yeah.
It's so smooth. I think we played it maybe two
or three times, like back-to-back, like we played it
the first time at the table here.
And I was like, OK, that, that was great.
And we're like, whoa, only 25 minutes with Teach, right.
So we played it again. We're like, this is really good.
Played it a third time. It's, it's a really, it's so
much tighter than yeah. Isle of Cats, dual guys.
Because I am. We've got the the car, the
rolling flip and write. You know the flip and write
version. I I don't have it, but I know.
It as I often thought about getting rid of Isle of cats as a
whole because that kind of again back to speediness.
But but maybe yeah, I like think I'd like to try the two player.
It's it's nice. PJ recommended.
Yes, PJ recommends Cats duel. Yeah.
Did did you buy anything else? That was the only two games we
bought while we were in Ohio. We're like, yeah, we'll just,
you know, it was kind of a whim. They had other things where we
were like, you know, you then you got to travel back home with
it. And we knew we had fromage under
the Christmas tree, which we're going to play.
And we knew we had, we had at the moment when we bought those
two games, we had three games left to play to hit 100%.
Oh. Dangerous.
Yeah. Right.
So we bought those games, Isle of Cats dual.
It's like wow, we now we got to play those.
So it's like you got to you got to be really careful when you're
trying to manage that. There's a whole, there's a whole
strategy behind you. Don't just play your games and
go, hey, I hit 100%. You sell games.
Some people think that's cheating too.
I'm like, but no, it helps me to evaluate a game.
I can get rid of it, but then you always like, do you imagine?
If I hadn't sold any games, I'll be at like a 15% or something.
Yeah, I would. If I had never.
If I had never sold or called a game from my collection, I'd
probably be it. It'll be a nightmare. 55.
Percent 506 hundred games sold. Good for you.
I think I think so. Good for you, yeah.
Over the years, it's been a long time.
Right. No, absolutely.
There's a lot of games that we've got that I, we haven't
played. Yeah, things that have arrived
that have yet to be played. Oh, so I've got two games which
have been on my Board Game Geek wish list for a long time.
Well, tell me. And I was having a ball game
geek, you know, you go through like pre-ordered games, you got
your wish list games and you got right.
So I was having a cleanse because I just I think I sat in
bed and I was going right. OK, it's on my wish list and
there's a game. So there's two games, one called
Alf de Waltz, which I think is German for going for a walk,
which was like an Esser release. I think it's 500 copies.
It's on board Game Geek for like $50 at the moment.
But shipping over here is like 80, right?
And anyway, somebody had a copy. It's just a, it's just a game
that looks interesting. You travel around Germany back
in this again, 7 hundreds or so right, gaining experience as a
journeyman crafting things. It looks just I'm just intrigued
by it. I think it was 120 lbs at Essen
original. I think it was really expensive
because it was it's a it's a spill works game, so it's only
limited print run. Anyway, somebody had I found a
copy on eBay in the UK and I was like on Christmas Day.
I thought I'm just going to put stupid.
You know you can do make an offer.
Oh, sure. I just made an offer thinking
this. This is never going to be
accepted anyway, maybe because it was Christmas the day after
they accepted my offer. So that came in.
So that's arrived, but Yatton played and then there's a game,
as I had pronounced this, I'm going to say Yakutan.
So HYAKKATNE, it's a Japanese game released like in the
Japanese game fair, OK in 2019. It's been a well wished list
since then. Never seen a copy over here.
And and I just did a quick search ball game geek, nothing.
It's in the rule books in Japanese, but I have found an
English copy, English rule book. Somebody's somebody's made it.
And you know, my background is retail.
So you are basically you are investing.
It's three or three to five players you're investing in
shops are going your shopping mall like a skyrise and you've
got escalators that you position.
So people go up and down it just it just looks great.
And I've got a few board game ideas around retail that I've
that I've I'd like to explore. So it's been all wishes because
I think just I'm interested by the mechanics and the theme, you
know, so I'm Googling it. Nothing appears second page of
search and there's a copy in a shop in Japan that sells second
hand games. And I'm like, I don't know.
So I, I Google them and then like on Reddit, they people say,
yeah, they're, they, they, they base yourself second hand, you
know, vinyl toys, figures pop up, that kind of thing, you
know, that's, you know, and I was like, OK, how much is it?
Because it's all in yen. Oh, sure.
Yeah, so I'm like 27,000, whatever it was and it was like
£23 and, and it's free shipping. And I was like, OK, that can't
be free shipping. And it was free shipping to UK
and I was like, I don't think it was 25 LB overall.
I was like 25 lbs free shipping through DHL Express.
So I am like, what's to lose apart from 25 quids?
And they, they got loads of good reviews.
So that was Christmas Eve, right?
OK. It arrived Friday as in 24th.
Wow. For free anyway I get this
massive box the boxes like this open it up brand new copy, brand
new second hand shop brand new I mean it's only I don't know, but
it never been opened so that's arrived so whatever they're
called can't remember they're called now, but the second hand
games they had loads of ball games in the shop, but nothing
nothing else, which I would have that I really wanted.
That's I guess I don't know much about my Japanese ball games,
but anyone knows the good Japanese games let me know.
So that's so that's on the list and anything else other games or
my ball game geek Secret Santa. Oh yeah.
They gave me plan to Naboo, which is the kind of Rosenberg
and some other designers game, sure, which I've set up and
learnt and oh, then I won Evacuation just before Christmas
in the UK's Facebook ball game raffle group.
Evacuation. Saatchi Yeah, I go.
What's the designer's name? Somebody help me out.
You know, I mean, I do same design as Vladimir.
Sushi, sushi, sushi, same games as like underwater seas.
So yeah, we won that. And there's some other games
that we've not played. But yeah, we had a good, had a
good Haulover Christmas. Good, good.
So just a week before Christmas, we had a Kickstarter that we had
completely forgotten about. What was it?
Who hasn't experienced this?
Right? So we back this God, What was
this? 2022 May 2.
May 23. Tabreeze.
Tabreeze.
Here this is her Tabreeze. You're you're making carpets in
the Middle East and the the board is neoprene, double sided
edge stitched standard. There's no board like yeah.
Just to. Roll it out.
And so you're moving your move. You have 3 workers.
You move each of them. You're trying to collect
resources so that you can make these fill these.
Feels like viticulture, but you're making rugs.
I mean, that's an oversimplification.
Yeah. Yeah.
But it's worker placement. But you're moving, right?
Because you have like these paths on the board, and each of
your workers can move up to three spaces, but they can't
circle back on themselves. So it's not like you take your
workers and then you place them. You have to move them on the
board. OK, Yeah.
And you have three of them. That sounds good.
And yeah, you can purchase and the each market, whatever's
left, the markets get reloaded at the end of every round.
And it's, it's cool. It's very cool.
That's pretty cool. It is a beautiful game.
I will probably talk about it more in our look back at 2024,
so I don't wanna talk too much about it, but it was amazing.
But it's like a Kickstarter shows up at your door.
Who hasn't experienced that right?
I had that yesterday when the whole loaded button shy games
appeared and it carries like oh, these arrived and I was like I
have no memory even back in it right and then I was like maybe
I misclicked this one. I don't.
I don't remember any of it. Then went, looked in game, found
and there it was. You know.
Sure, it's summer. There was the 2024 reprint,
yeah, which has got a game called Pizza Pizza.
Yum Yum Pizza Pizza. I saw you post about that.
Fantastic. Really.
Yeah, yeah, lovely too. OK.
It's just making pizzas really good.
Nice surprise because I don't I like button showy games.
So I just often just back it for the whatever that they're doing
for the crowdfunding, right. And that was when I, you know,
didn't think much of and it was very fun, perfect to go inside
the pub or restaurant there. There is a Kickstarter.
Look, it's a game found which I completely missed.
That is, now there's not, there's very little on my ball
game geek wish list apart from I think it's two or three, but a
game called Inferno, which is around man.
I think it's based on Dante's 7 levels of.
Hell. Hell, it was a game game.
Found thing that this. I'm intrigued by it but it's
deluxe copy is stunning. The retail just looks a bit meh
so hopefully there'll be a reprint but that's that's one
I'd completely missed. Speaking of a crowdfunding game,
I think you and I both have backed it.
The deluxe version, I think it was Nemesis Retaliation.
That's going to be a that's going to.
When that arrives. When that arrives, you're going
to be like, I forgot about this. Oh my God, yeah, because it's
going to be. On it's been like, I mean, I
went all in. So do we.
It's Nemesis. This would be a wall of Nemesis
behind me. I mean, there was so much
content. I know Omega Omega.
I know. Uber purge.
Well, yeah, yeah. Did get tank garden finally.
Arrived. Yeah, so slowest.
UK's you You had yours months before the UK.
I've got it sitting right over there.
So the day after, thanks. The day after Christmas, when
Thea came up from Saint Louis and spent the day with us, we
introduced her to Tang Garden. So she she sent me a text
message when she got home. Hey, I made it safely.
La Dee da. She said Tang Garden is her new
favorite game because she didn't know.
Yeah. Tang Garden is.
We we just played the base game. We didn't want to throw too much
at her at first because it's so it's really interesting like
Tang Garden for you guys. If you don't know, get on board.
Tang Garden is amazing. It's probably the most beautiful
game that we own in our whole collection, right?
You take one of two options. There are 4 tiles, stacks of
tiles that you place in the center board.
So you choose one of them and you place them depending upon
the tile. You get a resource, you get
money, whatever that that changes.
Or you draw cards which are decorations that you play in
front of you like a tableau. That's the game.
Is. It's that it's.
All the it's all the characters which you position looking at,
looking across the garden or side the garden.
Because the game is block. You.
Yeah, the the game is 3 dimensional because at certain
points you will set up these landscape tiles, but you don't
lay them flat. They fit like this vertically.
You you know, so it's. Like a Vista, isn't it?
So when you yeah, so when you put your mini, when you put your
miniatures on the board, whenever certain things happen
to trigger them, they're looking out at that Vista.
And those vistas have a little symbols.
And so they get so many points for that, right?
Like the Emperor wants to look at Dragons, so I bet he plays
Wormspan. Good detail, I'm forgetting
that, but I. Mean the the Empress gets 9
points, but if she sees the emperor, it's -5 and if she sees
the lady who the emperor is having an affair with, it's -4
It was really great because Thea had the Empress and she put her
out there as close as possible. She couldn't see anybody.
She's like, I don't want to see my husband.
It's. Really clever.
It's so good. There's a lot.
It took me about an hour and a half just to pack it all away.
Yeah, yeah, I haven't. I haven't touched any of the
expansion stuff. Same.
I think we'd end up playing the bass game again because it's
been, it's been a little while. Well the Ghost Stories is really
cool. That's a previous expansion.
Yeah, so much content. There's so much content and it's
so beautiful and it's 3 dimensional and you've got these
beautiful, heavy what? Dual layered cardboard.
Yeah, trees. And you got the pagodas.
The pagodas and the pavilions and the bridges.
Pavilions, Yeah. There's there's a golden cat,
there's two Black Cats to put out for bonus points.
Look, Tan Garden you've got, if you like it, our placement, if
you like cool miniatures. Check it out.
Yeah, yeah. Any other games you want to
cover? I think everything else I'm
going to cover. When we talk about our top are
we doing top five games or top ten games of releases of 24?
I was thinking we would do top ten, I would choose five, you
would choose five. We'll do top 20/20/24.
And then I'd like to try to, I'd like to talk about the games
that I plan to play. Looking.
Forward. Yes, we look forwards.
I'd like to make a joke about the games I plan to play OK in
2025 and how many. Times are good, but you're
looking forward to. Playing like like I'm looking at
yourself now, looking at Kuna Hora, I think yeah, I am sure we
talked about that game a lot this time last year because.
We did an entire episode. It was in my hotness but I don't
know how many times I played it, probably from mid year onwards.
I would. So what it's interesting is, and
maybe we should even do an episode about like publishers,
because if you notice here, this is mostly CGE games and this is
all devere games. That's my Christmas pal.
I got so many devere games. Devere, you're in CGE.
They're warriors. Yeah, five games is devere,
because I got that, Datoshi is it and I got the Mac.
Oh, Datoshi. Yeah.
I got the White Castle Marshall expansion and there was nothing
to there was OK, which I've now forgotten.
Yeah, yeah, could do publishers, but yeah, let's do top five of
2024. So next week probably is our
it's going to be our top ten. Look back to 2024 and we'll do
our top ten and I'll be 5, you'll take 5 and yeah, it's
fun. That'll be good.
No, that'll work. I've got a list to go through a
couple of things I want to talk about that games that I've
listened to you and all of our friends in the UK and games that
I finally got to the table. Middle Ages want to mention
Middle Ages we played. That Yep.
Yes, yeah, yeah. OK.
So OK, now that I've been called out, I have to tell you the
story. It's worth, it's a good story.
So Katie is. Math on the same.
Right, so Katie and I are playing Middle Ages and we've
got it set up and I want to mention that the yellow and the
pink riders, the wooden riders, they're male.
And that just gets Katie riled up because she likes to play
pink and if she can't play pink, she likes to play yellow.
And neither of the writers are female.
So she has to play a color other than her favorite because she
wants a female. Yes, this matters.
This matters guys. Anyway, so we're playing Middle
Ages and we're we run out of money.
We're running. And I'm like, is this, is there?
Is this a flaw in the game? I think they didn't print enough
money. We're what's going on?
So I messaged Gareth and I'm like, hey man, because I knew
you were sitting at home with your leg up.
I was like, dude, we're playing Middle Ages.
It's like, whatever. And you send me a picture
because no, there's 10s and 50s. I was, I was like how I say how
I looked the rules and thought either I've been plenty strong
since I got the game or P JS done something.
And so I got up, I hobbled from my chair, I got the box and went
photograph. OK, so if you have Middle Ages,
you know that the cardboard insert has kind of a little flat
and that's where our 10s and 50s were and we didn't look we
didn't look so so now we look and we know we've got enough
money when. We say we never run out of money
and there's a lot of money flowing around.
So I thought, well, maybe I've scored this wrong, maybe maybe
I've missed, you know, you know. Anyway, it turns out, check
under your flaps. You've got to find the money.
So you've got to find the money. Yeah, but it means, yeah, put
the 50s and whatever was the 50s and the 20s, whatever it was in
the visible and the hidden ones, ones and fives, then people are
good. Yeah.
OK, so we should we call it wraps then?
I think we should. I think we're good.
Episode 106 in the bag. Don't forget to box up your game
that you need to ship that. I will I need to now should I
need to get collected tomorrow? So you and I talked about this.
I want to, I'd like to see what you think about it.
And then I also want to ask our listeners for their feedback on
this question and I'll post something on Instagram.
So we've talked a lot about Meatball Monday.
You've talked about and that was something that you did.
Yeah, restarting. So I was, you and I, we've toyed
with the idea of now I don't know how this is going to work.
And the question is to our listeners, do you want us to do
this? And then we'll talk about format
later. Do we want to bring people
Monday, Mac? And then this week will be
Gareth talking to someone from the UK or Europe.
And then next week will be me. So I'm talking to someone in
Canada or the US. And then you and I rotate time
zones, right? Because time zones are a thing,
guys. The US side of things used to
kill me. It was, it was a night.
It was either like lunchtime, so we used used to be 5:00-ish my
time or people's lunch breaks. Right.
And if it was in the US, if it was Australia, Oceana's side of
things, it was like had to be Sunday and it was their
breakfast. I can't remember.
Well, and I think the other point too is everyone in the
Central and Eastern Time zone, so the eastern half of the
United States, you would be a little bit OK.
But when you get our friends in California on the West Coast.
Oh, it's it was. Really.
Yeah. Yeah.
So that's what we want. To hear from you, do episodes
like at 11:00 at night UK time which which you haven't got an
audience at 11:00 with dinner live.
No, no. Yeah, let's know what people
would be interested in. I've got I had a quite a list
from post ukge but life has just not got got to it.
So for those of you who are like, what are you talking
about? Because you're doing the whole
thing. So back during the pandemic of
20 and into 2021, Gareth was doing every Monday.
He was doing this like 30 minute interview, face conversation. 8
minutes. Well, until I came along and
then, yeah, that's I think I killed the.
Hours. He broke me.
But you had 10 questions you had written in advance.
We'd send it to you and then we'd just talk about you and
getting to know you and. I've revised it.
I've revised. The question I don't know about.
I think Gareth would agree with this.
I think we want to bring it back because the tagline of the
podcast is uniting players around the world and what better
way to do than to feature all of you?
Nice. Honestly, but the best, it was
really nice thing to be locked down.
It was just really good to talk into at the time, the people
that we just met on Instagram right and we're that 3 three
years later must be those people AI still talk to most of them
I've now played with I've met in real life yeah, absolutely for
games, it's games. There's no there's not everyone.
It's quite the US it. Would be cool if we could get it
like a virtual map that we could like colour in where our who we
interview. I'm gonna get it done.
I'll go. I'll go and do the previous I
think, right. I think there's about 40
episodes. We've got about 40 episodes out
the way. There was see, there's even
season one, season 2. This was going to be Season 3.
So Season 3 will be a little bit more organized.
You've got a partner now in me easier.
OK, So let us know what you think.
Do you want us to do it? And does that sound like a good
idea of us splitting up the globe, as it were?
Because. I think it's a good idea.
Yeah, I do too. Time zones are a nightmare.
But you know, we'll figure it out, so.
OK. So thanks for listening.
Thanks for listening. Good to see you today.
Happy New Year, Christmas, New Year, and I'll see you.
Next week. Bye everyone.