Welcome to Meeple to Meeple, uniting players around the
world. A 30 minute exploration of TJ
and Gareth 4 game experiences from across both sides of the
Atlantic. Each episode they share their
thoughts and opinions on the World of War games, including
their favorite themes, games, hot topics, and much, much more.
Hey, and welcome to episode 86 of Meeple to Meeple Origins Game
Fair recap. That's right.
Just got back from Origins and we're going to talk about it.
And as always, I am PJ. And I'm here, it's me, Gareth.
It feels like, and maybe it doesn't feel like it must be a
month. I don't know the games, UK Games
Expo and then. And then you vanished.
I vanished. I went to see Taylor Swift.
Yep. Which we'll talk about different
day, Yeah. And then here we are.
That's right. So I'm looking forward to
hearing about your little galavant into origins.
So the first thing I want to say to you and to all of our
listeners, I do not recommend going to a gaming convention for
one day only. It's.
Hard isn't. It trying to do it all in one
day is ridiculous is. Really hard, isn't it?
And guess what Gareth? I'm going to do it again in a
few weeks. Did you, did you, did you buy
any games? Did you tell us about Origins?
I mean, there's a lot about origins, but I'm going to do so.
I did not learn my lesson because I'm going to Gen.
Con for one day in a few weeks. So I just want to get that out.
Which day? I'm going to Sunday on the
Sunday. Yeah.
Which I'm glad, because as part of my experience at Origins, I
learned Sunday is the right day to go.
Sunday is the day when you get to do stuff that no one's around
for. Yeah, it's a bit less, a bit
less hectic. It is it is it it, it is.
Yes, I agree Origins. So origins is great.
I think the final numbers reported from the company was
17,000 OK attendees. Yeah.
I think their highest was 20 right before the pandemic and
then it dropped and they're climbing back up, which is
great. I love it.
The aisles are wider. You're not getting knocked
around by all the big game backpacks and everything.
You have time to talk to the designers.
You can see the entire vendor hall easily in one day.
And by one day I mean from open to close, which I think is like
10:00 AM to 5:00 PM. So that's what, 7 hours?
You should be able to see everything.
And what's was there? Was there any new releases or
was it, was it? There was, it's just OK.
There are some games to buy, but most people do open gaming.
There, well there, Yep. So you have open gaming with a
games library that you can check games out and play, and then you
have like the events area and then you have the vendor hall.
But to answer your question, new games and new releases and
things, there were several games that have not yet come out that
they were demoing and featuring. There was one game that just
finished fulfillment and they were selling and then the
release, the release that was Caution Signs by Wacky Wizard
Games designed by Danielle Reynolds, who was in your neck
of the woods last week. She was in London, yeah.
And won an award and then she would.
She is currently OK Where is she right now?
She was in Croatia and then she went to Bosnia.
I think she's in Bosnia at this moment of recording, but she's
in Eastern Europe, I think taking a well deserved vacation.
Nice, yeah. Caution signs and we're going to
have Danielle on at some point as a guest to talk more about
caution signs. But let me tell you this, this
game is so good. It is better than it has any
right to be. It plays three to nine players
and you have a dry erase caution sign in front of you.
So like a yellow and black diamond or a square, if you turn
it, but it's a diamond, you'll draw two cards.
One is a caution, one is a sign. And essentially, it's an
adjective, and a noun is what it really is.
But you don't look at it. And each player takes turns
guessing, right? So once everyone's ready, you
have 20 seconds. So they start the timer, you
look at your two cards, and then you have to draw it on your
sign. And you have 20 seconds to look
at it, process it, draw it, and then the timer's up.
And then you put them all in front of the guesser and the
guesser has to guess them all. But you add two additional decoy
cards to to make it a little difficult.
Yeah. And then if the guesser for
everyone the guesser gets right, they get three points.
If they guess both words on your sign, you get 2.
If she if the she or he only guesses one, then you get one
point, but the guesser gets zero.
And if she doesn't get it, he or she doesn't get it, you get 0.
That's the game. And you look around.
Might win the game. It's, it's incredible.
It is just amazing. I was watching Danielle at play
testing sessions all throughout, like in the past six months.
She was always posting everywhere she went.
She was play testing this game. And I'm like, I have no idea
what's going on, but people are drawing and it looks interesting
and we played it and Oh my God, it is so much fun.
Even the demo, just to learn to play it real quick was just
incredible. It's great with strangers, it's
great with seasoned gamers, new gamers, who cares?
It's a lot of fun. That's caution signs by Wacky
Wizard Games. It was pre released at a limited
release UK Games Expo and then it released at Origins, so you
can get a copy now. Reynolds.
Over here is the 1st of August. Yeah.
Yes, yeah, I seen a proper, proper, Yeah, so it's only month
away, but yes, I've just added it to my.
No, it's. Great wish list of games.
It's so good. You got it.
You got to do it. That's caution science.
Yeah. Caution signs.
Yeah, so Danielle, we can't wait to talk to you more about this
game in the future because I know she listens to the show so.
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, he's just gone straight
into the Yeah, probably next going up by.
So that was that was the, that was the release.
Yeah, purchase it, demo it, everything there.
So that was the one game. Also the lanyard featured
caution signs on the lanyard for the for the badges were just a
lot of fun. There were two demos that stood
out. The first one, I'm not going to
say a lot about it because you've already talked about it,
but I got to see a demonstration of SETI by CGE, and I'm going to
tell you what, that's the hot game.
See Hot game is that. That's that is everyone was
talking about Seti it Oh my God and the fact that what the
demonstrator was showing like the game's still not finished
it's. Still.
But there's still art cards, there's still hags.
Yeah, missing game. Game is incredible.
Yeah. Oh, that is just yeah.
I'm not going to repeat it because you said everything.
The hotness of essence, you just feel like it's going to be OK.
Good. I'm so glad that.
The UKU kg vibe of SETI being, Oh yes, hot on the hotness is
carried its way over to the Atlantic.
This is what I did learn from Nathan at CGE.
It's going to be released at Essence Spiel in in Europe and
it will have AUS release it packs unplugged in December.
So OK, we're going to have to wait till December in the US.
You'll get a copy before I will, but that's that's where they,
that's where they. Ask for once.
Europe is first. Oh yeah, you're 1st and then I
saw a state by. State.
Yes. A state by Grad Games.
It's Devin, Devin and Catherine, and they're going to work with
us to get us a copy in her hands so that we can play it.
We're going to have them on the show.
A state, Yeah. ESTAT.
Yes, you're running a so I, I, I picture it a little bit like
obsession. So there we go.
We got obsession into this episode.
It's sort of like obsession in that you're running an estate in
England, but during the Middle Ages and it's car driven rather
than tiles, but it's pretty cool.
We'll talk about it more when we get our preview copy and.
Estate raised the realm. Yes.
Found it. That was yeah Estate.
You get other games. I was puzzled then, but I found
it. Yep.
Looks good. It's it's.
Really a medieval theme. I love a medieval theme.
I know you do. I know you do.
So yeah, that's going to be. That was a fantastic game.
So yeah, that one's not yet released.
I think it's coming to Kickstarter October.
And like I said, we'll have Devon or Catherine on the show
in the future. I'll tell you what, that's what
I did mostly. I did a lot of work for the
podcast. I met with a lot of designers
and started getting people scheduled and lined up.
And that was really, that was fun because it gave me, I don't
know if you felt this way at the Games Expo, but the podcast kind
of gives me some direction and focus.
When I go to game convenience. It's kind of, you know, Katie
and I, we do our homework, OK? We want to see these booths.
We want to demo these games. But I feel like I'm a little bit
more focused because I had, I had this.
Yeah, but it didn't squeeze that into one day.
It's half, half the challenge, wasn't it?
Because normally you spread the the work side of things into two
or three days. So doing both the socials and
the gaming and shopping and trying to talk to people about,
you know, exactly. The world of board games.
Yes, exactly so. Now you spoke.
You spoke to some people. I did do.
You want to do You want to play a recording?
Yeah, go ahead, set us up. Who's first?
Should we go? I'm going to do in the order you
sent them to me. So we're going to go with
Kristen first. Yes, perfect.
OK, cool. Hi, I'm Kristen Mott.
I'm family dot board gaming on Instagram.
Some of my favorite moments from this year's origins was getting
to meet Roberta Taylor, designer of Creature comforts and lots of
other games. I had sort of this fangirl
moment getting to meet who IA woman, who I think is just a
wonderful voice for female designers in this industry.
So that was fun for me. And other big moments for me
throughout the convention were just seeing some of my games out
on the floor. Sharks was for sale with the
Dietz Foundation and then my game in Sectarium that's coming
out with Snow Bright later this fall was available to be demoed
in their booth. And so it was just a very fun
and rewarding and exciting experience for me and being able
to just stay up way too late to play lots of games with friends.
There you go. Nice.
So if you haven't figured it out, Kristen is one of the most
delightful people ever. So you got a you got a copy.
She sent you a copy of Sharks. We both, we both played it.
So here's the beauty of Kristen and I really hope that our
listeners take the time to follow her on Instagram and
check out her work. She's got two games two games
out and this Insectarium's the third one that we got to play
their gain their their focus towards educating children, both
her and her husband educating children are really important to
the both of them. So they're really dedicated to
that and pulling that into our board game community.
Sharks was definitely, there was definitely an educational
component. It's really focused more on
children. But she also did dinosaur
exhibit, which was fantastic. A kind of a rolling right where
you're building a museum and you're putting dinosaur exhibits
into your museum. That's that game's a hit at our
table. But she did mention in her in
her recording that she's about to release Insectarium.
Is that a Kickstarter? Is that a release?
That is going to be a Kickstarter if I'm not mistaken.
OK, show messages and. Correct.
Yeah, correct. This.
And what was Kristen's Instagram handle?
It's at Family dot board gaming. Nice.
Yeah, Insectarium was was really cool.
I mean, because it's the whole idea that you're collecting
insects and you've got like a three by three grid in front of
you. You're playing those cards and
you're trying to match the icons.
But it's very informative. Like, again, it's geared towards
kids. There's a just enough strategy
to keep adults engaged, much like sharks, much like dinosaur
exhibit. But yeah, it's all about
teaching kids about insects. And that was cool.
That was a great. I was really glad I got to play
that. Kristen is super humble.
She needs all the support that we can give.
And you know, when you meet her and you tell her, oh, I love
your Grame. And I think you're fantastic.
And she's like, no. That's lovely, yeah.
Well, it's good. To hear that she's that she's
progressing and you know, she's, she's, she's.
Kind of complicated. I saw her a geek way and she's
working on something else. She's going to lie.
Yeah. Kristen's going to be.
You're going to be hearing more from her.
I was with her when she met Roberta Taylor, the designer of
Creature Converts in Maple Valley and other games.
That was a theme in Origins was women designers and more, More
women in the community that came up a lot did it in conversations
at panels, signage. It just there was a definitely a
theme of empowering women in the board gaming community as
designers and publishers, not just as gamers.
And yeah, that's great. I really applaud that so.
How? How big is the the panel scene
over there? It's for origins.
It's growing, it's still, it's still really small.
Whereas Gen. Con, it's just there's so many
panels, it's. More around, you know, topics
like women engaged than just. Right.
Like a podcast or? Like a podcast?
Yeah, yeah. Cool.
You shouldn't say it like that because you and I would love to
have a panel about our podcast. Yeah, but but yeah, but it's
more, there are more interesting topics.
And listen to a podcast get recorded live.
No, you're absolutely right. But but yeah, so that was that
was really exciting. I was really, I was really happy
to see the advocacy of women in the in the community and that.
What else did you listen to or see or do?
So we saw a game called Sirens by Envy Born Games.
So it's envy, like jealousy, Envy born games.
It is a small two player game that you can hold in one hand.
It it's it's pretty fit. Yeah.
So it's really cool. It's a card drafting game.
You draft 4 cards. You play 3 of the you know, you
play a card back and forth, you and your opponent.
So you're fashioning a song, kind of like, and and the
picture, the artwork is done by Art Casey.
It's like a Greek trireme. It's kind of set in the ancient
Greek Aegean. Here's why I tell you about this
game. What makes it, what sets it
apart from all other card drafting 2 player games, is that
you're creating a song and we could get into all the details,
but there's an app just like Wingspan.
It takes a picture of your cards and it reads the musical notes
and it plays the song that you fashioned in your cards and it's
like that harpsichord, like like an like you would you would get
Oh my God, like a loot. And it was just fantastic.
I was like, OK, we're going to get a copy of this game and we
want to push more. Envy Born Games does a lot of
these small two players micro games.
And yeah, I had never heard of them, but we saw sirens and
we're like, OK, so I can listen to the song that I'm fashioning
from the cars in front of me. I mean, I'm sold.
Yeah, I love the artwork, the whole Greek piece, and I love
that use of technology. That's one I'm intrigued. 10.
To 15 minutes and that's true. I mean we could play a couple
games in half an hour to an hour easy.
Yeah, it's it's fantastic. Pretty sirens by in.
Sirens. Games.
Is that released now or is? It yes, no, it's out.
You can you can purchase it today.
Can see if it's if it's auk release.
Yes, it's in stock. There you go.
Only one shop in the UK has got it in stock.
Well then you better get a share.
I've never. Even heard of all rolled up.
There's some advertising for All rolled up.
Never heard of them as a shop £14.99 there's only three left
in stock. Well.
That could be it. Be about to be two in a minute
once I've. You need to get that.
So who's who's next? #2 On the list was our friend
Adam. Oh yeah.
Here we go. So Origins 2024 was a blast.
Got to hang out with PJ and lots of other content creators which
is always such a fun time hanging out with friends and
building a relationship with them as well as going all over
Origins, Medium, publishers, playing games.
I think the highlight for me was get to play in Sectarium with
Kristen Mott and our whole content content creator gang.
It's so much fun. What a blast.
Can't wait to see everybody again at Gen.
Con and or PAX. I mean nicely lined up.
I mean, you couldn't have asked for a perfect segue from 1:00.
I told you to the. Next.
Yeah, so I, I pictured Kristen listening to this episode and
just blushing from ear to ear. She's like, Oh my God.
Nope. Kristen, you're awesome and we
love you. And what what games do you play
with Adam? Did you actually play games?
Did you just hang out? No, well, we did.
We did a lot. Chris, Kristen, Adam was Adam
kept himself busy. Adam was he was rocking it.
His, his platform tabletop vibes is just really they're, they're,
they're kicking out of the park with their first impression
videos on YouTube, so be sure to check them out.
We played, we played Insectarium.
He was one of the ones we played Insectarium together.
We played caution signs together, the whole group,
everyone, I think pretty much everybody you're going to hear
from. We all had dinner together
Friday evening and then we went back to the table and played a
few more games. Yeah, yeah, we didn't get in a
lot of games, but probably I'm going to tell you the same game
for everybody. If the same game.
We we really didn't play a lot of games because it was like
meeting people, going to dinner, you know, doing this and that,
but and. It was only a day.
And it was only a day. I don't recommend it, folks.
Don't do a single. Day.
It's hard to do a hard day. Do you do another?
Do you want to do another one straight away?
Yeah, I want to say one more thing about Adam.
So Adam's wife is like about to have a baby, like, you know, I
think she's due in a few weeks. So we want to offer our
congratulations to Adam. We may not.
I don't know. He said Gen.
Con. I don't know that we're going to
see him at Gen. Con because he's going to have a
newborn and he's going to be pretty busy.
I know he's sweating it, but my Rose bro, I love you.
Yeah, I have loads of time to do content now though, you know.
Oh yeah, maybe in one arm video. Microphone in the other.
There you go. Piece of cake.
Easy. So who we were?
Who's who's next? So, Adam, next I've got Sam.
Who is Sam? Sam.
This is Sam Barmettler with Around the Stump Games.
I would have to say my favorite part about Origins was
definitely the relaxed atmosphere.
It led to an opportunity to actually be able to engage with
other board gamers instead of just having to go through people
very rapidly while working a booth.
I would say a strong second runner up was the giant bear hug
that I got from PJ as soon as I saw him.
Can't be APJ John bear hug can you?
Did. You.
Crush him. I mean, I tried.
So for those of you if you don't remember, Sam is the designer of
Outrun the Bear. He has a new game that's coming
out, and that's true. Yeah.
Run PJ. Yeah, we got to chat with him.
He's still in production working on it, but he was kind of
demoing a prototype, which was cool.
We got to visit with him for a little bit.
I like how he described Origins as a relaxed atmosphere.
Yeah. It's nice.
I, I think that's probably accurate.
Gen. Con's really high stress.
There's just it's, it's constantly on the go now.
Granted, Origins was a little high stress for me because it
was constantly moving, but it was good to see Sam.
We'll have him on on the show when he's ready to talk about.
Him Oh definitely it was the next game last time and he's
talk about that. He's pointing around the relax.
Where does PAX sit? Is that less even more chilled
or? So, you know, it depends on who
you talk to. So I've never been to PAX.
The reason I've not been to PAX is it's in Philadelphia in the
first week in December, which is like 3 weeks before Christmas.
So trying to wrangle all that in the middle of the holidays is a
challenge. You know, I know a lot of our
friends do it, but mostly the people in New England who are in
the northeastern part of the United States.
They can make it because Philadelphia is there.
But people love it. I've heard nothing but good
things. I've heard it's really chill.
I suspect that it's more chill than Origins.
I'd love to have a winter con like, Oh yeah, do you know what
I mean? Yeah, because they were in the
summer and it's always hot and I quite like a.
Well, you need a S You need one based in Southampton.
Is what you need to do because that would be feasible, right?
And easy for me, very convenient.
There you go, get everybody to come down instead of going up to
Birmingham or wherever. Yeah, I'll try.
I'll try it. I think winter meeple or maybe I
can't use that word anymore, so maybe it's winter hue meeple or
whatever it might be. Any other highlights before we
listen to that video? Yeah, so we had one event.
I talked about it in my preview where I went solo, Katie and I
did. We got to learn how to play
Dabba Walla. Say that again.
Dabba Walla. How do you spell that?
DABBA. DABBE.
Walla, it's by Queen Games, our good friends at Queen.
Games, yeah, yes. Yes.
So we got to play a full game, you know, learn to play and then
play a full game for players. So it was Katie and I and and
two other people we had never met before and then they had it
for sale because their Kickstarter fulfilled.
They were selling them. So that was good.
So we picked up a copy of Dabba Walla and God we love that.
That's cool. It's a Poly amino tile laying
tile stacking game a la Acropolis #9.
Yeah, yeah. Except you don't.
You don't want any gas, right? You're, you're, you're basically
just like the dabba Walla in Mumbai, right?
You're stacking up the dabba, you know, on your bicycle, on
your bicycle and you're. Going to do like the.
Artwork and you're going to deliver it it's.
It's really colorful. It is really good.
OK, it is. Heavy.
Quite light. It's it's lightweight, but the
strategy is deep. I'm just saying it's it's easy
to comprehend but difficult to master.
Queen Games Dabba Walla. We got a free copy of Finish
Line as part of the purchase, which was kind of fun.
Oh yeah, that's a horse racing. It is and it's.
I've not heard of that. When you posted there about it,
I looked it up and thought it looked quite interesting.
Right. No, it's cool.
It is a fun game. We played with some friends
yesterday here at the house and it was it, Yeah, Finish Line was
a lot of fun, but Dabba Walla is it is serious.
It is. It is so good, right?
Queen Games, right? Queen games.
When they hit it, they hit it out of the park.
You know what I mean? Like their games are just so
good. Yeah, we're still playing
Marrakesh, which is we are. So we.
Yeah, Yeah. In fact, we have.
You know, Kenny and I were just talking about Queen games and we
have six games in our collection.
I was. Just thinking of, I'm just
thinking the same thing. There's have we got certain
games by Queen Games? I'm looking up to see one now
We've got Shogun up there. I can see.
Yep. My oldest one is from 2007 so
even their older games still hold up.
Yeah, and and Merigo and Merigo. Amerigo.
That's still in the collection
and we're very, I mean, it's all, it's all a bit beige, but I
still like the mechanics of the tower and the cubes and the
Rondell. I'm sure that's got Rondell.
Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. See, it's all this in a day.
All in a day. Keep that in mind, kids.
All in a day. OK, so #4 we have Ben lined up.
Ben, click on. #4. Hey, this is Ben from Games with
Ben. My favorite part of Origins 2024
was probably playing Marrakesh. I just love the crunchiness of
that game and the cool cube tower where some of the cubes
get stuck on the way down. It's very unique.
And I, I, I got to also mention Fliptown.
It's a new flip and write game that I really, really enjoyed.
It's just with a standard deck of cards.
So pretty cool concept and really enjoyed learning that one
and look forward to playing it more.
I'd just like to say though, I haven't listened to these clips
so I didn't know that Marrakech was the highlight.
So glad only these segues between episodes.
You wouldn't even wouldn't. Even think about it so so Ben is
Ben lives in Cincinnati, so he's only like an hour from Columbus,
which is where origins is this is an easy trip for.
Him. Ben is really interesting.
If you go to his Instagram and follow him, he has a series
where you track he's trying to knock out his board game
backlog, which is substantial, right?
It's just, it's really interesting how he does it and
he takes you on that journey. You know, he'll put up his post,
his stats, you know, 575 games, this percentage.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that he does that.
That's really cool. That's what he's most known for.
He told me something interesting.
Game conventions are good opportunities for him to knock
out his board game backlog. Yeah.
Like this is when he gets his games played, you know, get a
big push four or five days of just.
Yeah, if you can find people who's who've played them, then
you can play the games that you haven't played and somebody has
taught you. He and I talked about queen
games a lot, so it was not surprising that he mentioned
Marrakech 'cause I think when I saw him first.
He had dinner with us later that evening, but I ran into him.
He was getting ready. We had just finished the learn
to play of Doba Walla. He was about to engage in a
learn to play of Vienna. Which?
Part of the city collection for Queen Games.
So also Queen Games has a new social media marketing agent.
I'm not really sure. Her name's Rachel.
So she's kind of consolidating all of the social media.
She runs their TikTok and she's trying to get get everything
consolidated in Instagram and other socials.
Yeah. So I'm sure that's why I looked
at about 6 different social media accounts.
They do different. Countries and.
They're trying to tighten it up and so got to chat with Rachel a
good bit, made some contacts. She's going to get us on the
list for their upcoming games so that we can work more with
Queens. So that'll be fun.
You'll hear more about Queen games.
I thought I mean Ben mentioned flip town so that was probably
my favorite flip and write from last year.
Is that right? Yeah, it's really good.
I mean, yeah, I mean, it's really hard.
I think it's really hard to find.
It was a Kickstarter but the Decker cards playing through
excellent if you can find it, highly recommend it myself as
well. There you go guys.
You heard it here. Who do we have next?
Abby yeah #5? #5 should.
Put these in order. There we go.
Hey, it's Abby. Do you even game?
So my favorite experience of Origins was getting to talk to
all the publishers and getting some review copies and the fact
that they see. Worked in my account and want to
share their product with me. So I want to tell you a little
bit about Abby. I have not yet met her.
So how did you got a different day?
Yeah, no. So we were part of a chat group
for Geek Way in Saint Louis, and we missed each other because
guess what PJ did? He went to Geek Way for one day
so he missed Abby. We were in the same chat group
for Origins. Nice.
And guess what PJ did? He went to Origins for one day
and he missed Abby. And so we were chatting after
Origins and I was like, listen, send me a sound bite.
Tell me. Tell me your favorite event.
Tell me your favorite moment. I want to get you on the show,
and we're going to remember I'm going to Gen.
Con for one. Day.
It really is the one day conventions for PJ this year.
I hopefully will see Abby at that point.
I'm just admiring the Guinea pig, right?
Makes a often a feature in Abby's account.
So do do space you as you to you dot even dot game.
Dot game Yep. Do you even game?
And so I like what Abby said. She was talking about how
designers and publishers saw worth in her account.
And I think that we, for whatever reason, I don't know
why we do this to ourselves and present company included, OK, I
I'm guilty of it. We don't see our own worth.
And we always think, oh, this publisher is not going to want
to work with me, or that designer's not going to want to
talk to me, or that podcaster's too famous to even know my name.
And that's not the case. Never, you know.
So just to drive that point home, so I connected with as
Cadelia and Professor Meg before Origins.
And the whole thing was, look, I'm only going to be there for a
day. Even if I could just come by,
say hi, get a hug, that's cool. And they were very, very
accompanied. And these are these are famous
people in the community, right? I saw them, but they were
chatting with someone they and you never know when someone's in
a meeting because they are actually employed with some of
these companies. So I'm not going to, you know, I
don't want to be that guy, right?
So like, I'll just walk. I'll come by later.
And then I'd come back and they were, they look like they were
talking and I didn't. So I sent them a message and
they were like, you absolutely should have come and said hi.
We wanted to see you, you know, And it's like that that makes me
feel good. It's like, OK, so I do have
worth. I am doing something.
People do see the work that we produced and they want to share
that joy. So there you go.
We're all worthy. Go and say hello.
Yes. And I said filming something
like that would be really awkward.
That would be awkward. But yeah, that would be awkward.
So there you go, Everyone's got worth.
Who's next? Who is next?
Next is Laura. Yep.
Where is number six? There it is.
Here we go. Laura of Obsessed with Board
Games One of my favourite Origins experiences was running
a demo table at the All Play booth.
I was able to demo things and rings a lot of the time, which
has gotten some attention on social media lately.
People are getting excited about it coming out, and I loved
teaching people. It was so much fun to watch
people come up with theories, to have their minds blown when I
proved their theories wrong and choose whether or not to work
together, to try to figure out what the different rules were
that they were trying to to uncover.
And ultimately, just watching people have fun and connect,
whether they came there as a group or whether they walked up
individually as strangers. Bonding over games is really
what it's all about. Things in rings I mean.
This looks like. Didn't you see it all about veng
diagrams? I've not played before.
And it is. Oh, you didn't see it at the
Games Expo? No, must have missed it
completely and I like a veng diagram so looking good.
It's it was interesting. So there was a group of us,
there were four or five of us, and we knew that Laura was
working the table. So we waited for her to finish a
demo and we all got to we, she got to demo it with us.
It's interesting. It's not for me.
It's it it, it didn't really sing to me.
I was like, OK, great. Yep.
All right. Yeah.
What? What fell flat?
Well. I'm not smart enough.
That's just it. So the idea is one of the
circles is about the word on your card, one of the circles is
about the attribute of what's on the card, and the other one is
the context under which the card is inserted.
But you don't know. Yeah, you don't know what goes
wrong. You have to work out the rules.
I'm just I'm just reading the the high level summary on Board
Game Geek and. And, and I'm really bad at that.
Sorry. Yeah, I'm the worst.
Yeah, I'm just, yeah, I'm looking at it.
I mean, I think I'd want to play it.
Laura did a great job. No, that look love Laura to
death. She is absolutely one of the
greatest people ever. She lives in Saint Louis.
We try to see her every time we go.
An amazing person, an amazing gamer, and she's a good teacher.
She taught that game. I mean, I understand it's not
Uber complex, but it's still she.
She engaged everyone at the table and even though she was
friends with some of us, there were a couple of strangers at
the table. She did not care.
You could see her joy in teaching the game.
I that's what I love about this community is that we get to
share joy in all aspects. It's not just a bunch of people
spending time slinging dice and flipping cards.
You know, I know that sometimes that's the impression on the
outside. That's the impression that our
hobby gets. But this is one of the most
intimate experiences, being at a table, opening yourself up and
playing a game and. With Venn diagrams, I mean,
that's not. With Venn.
With Venn diagrams. So it's all come crumbling down.
There you go diagrams you try, you try to be, you try to be
meaningful and insightful and Gareth just.
Just with Venn diagrams anyway, I have, I have subscribed to see
more, but it's not out in the UK that one isn't out.
And then finally, we have Jerry. Jerry Hey, PJ, So good to see
you at Origins again, buddy. So some of my favorite moments
included when our friend Kristen Mott taught us her new game in
Sectarium that's coming out in a few months.
Great to play that game with her and some fellow friends that we
have. Also the time we were all
sitting around a big table playing Danielle Reynolds new
game Caution Signs, which brought so many laughs and and
just so much enjoyment of all the people around us.
A game that stood out to me in particular individually, I know
a lot of people would say SETI and that is just an amazing
looking game, but I'm going to go with a game from smirk and
dagger and that's called hi-fi. This game jumped out at me
because you opened it the box and it looks like an old school,
you know, turntable record player, whatever you want to
call it. And when you turn the record,
that is how you do your action selection.
You are trying to create songs for the B side of a group called
the Meeples, which is kind of a take off of The Beatles.
And even the rule book looks like an old cover of Rolling
Stone, except for instead of Rolling Stone, it's called the
ruling book. So that one looks really,
really, really good. So I'm excited to see that one
and just was so great to see all of our fellow friends and gamers
and creators and. Experience Origins for the first
time. I will definitely be back.
Again, what a great summary of the entire episode.
And I mean I've. Never heard of Called Hi-fi
which has also piqued my interest.
Jerry hit. Jerry hit it all.
Yeah, you know, and I didn't pay Jerry to do.
That it was, I mean, yeah, yeah. New games, old games and just
again, just of hanging out and playing games with your friends
and how do you know some time? He hit it all.
Did you play Hifi?
I did not. I thought very briefly again,
you're trying to cram everything in one day.
You know, Jerry was, Jerry was working.
Jerry was working it, you know, because you know, his his
platform Tabletop Worldwide, he is killing it.
He's got, you know, the followers and the content.
I mean, you could tell he's a content creator.
He's so professional. The rest of us, he makes us look
like schlobs, you know? Yeah, I mean, he was just
working meetings, meeting designers, getting behind the
scenes, you know, So I, I, I would have seen hi-fi if I would
have probably done more days. Once again, don't.
Do one day. Don't do it.
So I've got you've gone to get something.
I did. So I promised that I would make
this mention. In closing, this is not Origins.
It was just before Origins. I honestly just reaching out.
I mean, you've heard me say this before.
There's not enough of me to go around and I spend so much time
just connecting with everyone, seeing how they're doing, how's
their health, how's their job, you know, whatever.
So I reached out to our friend Tate Wu and he if you remember
Gen. Con last year, we play tested
his game in the stars. That's where I'm sure it's a
Stars game. Yes, it was a role.
Well, for whatever reason, things happened.
He had to abandon that project. He just recently finished a
project on Kickstarter called Aqua and he sent me the pocket
version of. Aqua.
It's cute. It is it's a two player game by
the way, it is still time you can go to Kickstarter for late
pledge Aqua Aqua. It's a set collection game of
art. The publisher is sunrise
Tornado, Sunrise tornado. So check it out.
Check it out, Wu. Yep, it's, it's 18 cards, pack
of 18 cards. You got some visitor tokens
because you're going to move around the board.
So you and I are trying to score.
We're playing cards in front of each other and we're we're in
disagreement on our priority of where exhibits should be placed
in the museum. I want to score columns, you
want to score rows and you're just trying to put sets together
to score points. I told him that I would, you
know, since he sent me a copy for free, I wasn't even looking
for it. I just, he mentioned that he was
working on Aqua. I looked it up and I'm like, how
did I miss this? I know I'm busy, but so Tate Wu,
Sunrise Tornado, Aqua and so Katie and I were playing it in
the open gaming area at Origins Friday morning.
We were waiting for the vendor hall to open and so we're
reading the rules and we're playing it for the first time
and you just hear the loud booming voice of our friend
Brian nine to six games and that's it that's and then the
day just took off from there but I wanted to get in Tate when
you're listening thanks again for the game really love it
check it out guys I. Like the artwork, it's
beautiful. I do like really simple games,
which is it's just made-up of 18 cards a game, a game I'd
probably miss, but it looks really interesting.
I like this sort of small pack games.
I think you and I think you have a, yeah, perfect travel game.
I think you and Kira would enjoy playing that.
You know, hit the table. You know, you don't want to.
You don't have to scroll out something.
There you go. So that, my good friend, was
Origins Game Fair 2024. So what's the next event you've
got? Gen.
Con. Which is August.
So it's 1st to the 4th, but I'm going on the 4th only because
I'm glutton for punishment and I'm the.
Street here in the last day. I think our next one is
Scootcon. So let's slavery near.
That's in Sussex, right? Yes, next time we see friends I
think, but we have got quite a few Instagrams coming up to our
house over the next couple of weekends.
Good. Next weekend I will not be here
again because we have the British Grand Prix, but you've
got a plan so you've got you've got something lined up to record
so that is good. So I'm going to give you a
little a week. Afterwards, aren't you?
I'm off because I'm at a work conference, so I won't be
around. Yeah.
So yeah, July and August. Can't you do a special recording
episode there? I mean quite interesting your
whole game. Ball game nights, non gamers.
I do. I am.
Are you mixing work with pleasure now?
I'm yes because it's a professional work.
Yeah, yeah. And my wife is the president of
the organization you. Get free pass.
You get free pass. Well, I don't get a free pass.
I do not, you know, I don't get a free pass at all.
No, indeed. But I will plug real quick.
So check out next week's episode.
I am going to be interviewing the designer of an upcoming game
called Prestige where I personally wrote some of the
event cards that are in the game and you'll hear us talk about
it. So that's going to be fun.
I've written like, are you kidding me?
A game is coming to Kickstarter and I wrote some of the content
for it. What?
See. Look at you grow.
I know, I know. Look at me.
I can't. I can't hear to hear Origin to
hear. Gencom Next.
Oh, that'll be, that's coming up.
We'll see how that goes. Now we're going to have to
figure out what we're going to do because that's a Sunday and
that's usually the day that we actually record.
Yeah. And then after that I'm away for
two weeks. Guys, we need.
Backup. Because I'm we need backup.
I'm not in the country, so we're going to need some.
Backup So this is summertime. Summertime, Yeah, OK, here it
is. It's like this UK chat shows
when the normal host gone holiday and everyone could take
over the show. In fact, both of us have holiday
and that some people will just take over.
That would. I think that's your goal, right?
So DM us and then you can be summer hosts.
Summer hosts. PJ, thank you for sharing your
origins recap was it That's what episode was called that's.
It Yeah. I have spent some money because
there's now only two copies left of Sirens, so that's on its way.
I thought it'd be great for the Grand Prix.
No, that's. Perfect.
Perfect evenings, Summer nights looks like it might rain, so
that may not be so good. You know, you know what would be
good when the Grand Prix is awkward.
Yeah, that's, that won't get here in time, like 3 days to go.
So with that, thanks everyone for listening and we will speak
to you again soon. Thanks everyone for listening,
please subscribe and as always, we'd love to hear your thoughts
and ideas, so make sure to leave those in the comments and don't
forget you can also chat with us both on Instagram at Meeple to
Meeple.