Hey guys, and welcome to episode 117 of Maple to Maple.
It is a Midwest Maple mania. What is going on?
Well, today I've got a guest in house with me.
So if you're not watching, you will only be listening.
But if you can, you'll see sitting right next to me.
As always, I remain PJ, and with me today is the incomparable
Shelley. Hi guys.
Thanks for having. Me.
No, this is great. This is exciting because I've
only ever, you asked me just just before we started how many
times I've done this with a live audience and or with a live
person. And I've only ever done it once
with Gareth sitting right next to me.
That's episode 75. You should go check it out.
It was right after Cajun Con last year, so thanks for being
on, yeah. Thanks for having me.
So I'm going to figure out how to do this.
I have a guest sitting next to me.
This is exciting. So you and your husband and your
daughter came spend the weekend with us at our house.
Yeah, we've only been talking about doing this for two years
now, so only we made it happen. Yeah, it's happening.
It is it is truly exciting. So Shelley is from you're from
Michigan. Yeah, yeah, you're.
From Michigan, you're from Michigan you live in Michigan, I
live in Illinois and so for our international guests or non
American guests, that's the section of the country called
the Midwest, hence the Midwest Maple mania.
It's it sounds so much more exciting than it really is.
Guys, I'm telling you a lot of. Flat countryside.
You know a lot of. Fields and.
Exactly. Exactly.
So there's nothing else to do but to play board games?
Yes, we were. So we were just doing a, a
rundown. I figured this is a good place
to start. What have we been playing this
week? What have we played in the past,
what, 48 hours? Yeah, so we had a little bit of
a a short list going into the weekend and and we're knocking
some of them out mostly playing games from your collection.
I well, all of them so far, right So far.
So yeah, we, we just played Meal Fiori.
Yep. And we've played NAR and what
else? I'm terrible at Gutenberg.
That's right. That's right.
Is one in our collection that we haven't played yet, so I was
excited to get a chance to be taught the game right.
Not. Having it.
Myself so last night we played Men Neffer.
Yeah, that. Which I've talked a lot about on
the podcast. Love that game.
It's amazing. And now you know why it's so
cool. It's really good.
Right. Yeah, a lot of a lot of theme
for for a, you know, going up tracks kind of hero game so.
Yeah, and now you know that when I talk about my wife on the
podcast, you, you got to experience masterful levels of
teaching. Yeah, a game.
Yeah, some of the smoothest and most effortless teaching that
I've ever seen. And I've been playing games for
a long time, so yeah, that's always really nice to have
somebody who's really comfortable.
Teaching. So I want to, I'm hoping one of
our friends, Kristen Mott, game designer, also a Midwesterner
herself, if she's listening to this, she's planning on having
me teach a bunch of games. I'm not the teacher in the
house. Katie is so.
I'm not either. My husband's a teacher, high
school math teacher, so yeah, I'm not.
Oh yeah, sure. I don't come by it honest.
I have learned over time to teach some, but right I don't as
a rule. But of course, not to disappoint
all of you listeners out there, we did start the weekend.
Drum roll please. With obsession, so you got to
play a. Mini Cajun con if we hadn't
started with. Obsession.
No, I think there are two games now that we've actually had a
real Cajun con. There are two games that
absolutely have to hit the table to call it a Cajun con.
Whether it's mini, whether it's Midwest, whether it's in
England, it doesn't matter. And I think that that is
Obsession and Kavango, which is on the list.
Yep, which is on the list. And you could see it on the wall
behind me. So hey, thank you to Matt and
Zara, who gave us a second copy just so I can hang an empty box
on my wall. It's.
Really next level for, you know, relationship for.
Art Well, they are, They hear me say this all the time.
They're just some of the most delightful human beings.
And then they make a really great game that hopefully later
on you'll get to experience before you leave for the.
Weekend, Yeah. That's definitely.
I've heard you talk so much about that one so.
So we also. Yeah, we did not say that.
We also played Nana. That's the only one from my
collection, right, so far, which is just a little memory game
that was all the rage in my local group, right, you know,
over the last year or two. So.
So explain a little bit more about Nana.
I had never played it before. It's based off the Japanese #7
yeah. Nana means 7 in Japanese.
So it's basically like like a memory match game, except that
you have numbers one through 12 and there are three of each
number instead of two. And every player has a number of
cards in their hand. And then the rest of the cards
that you're playing with are on the table between the people.
You order them the cards in your hand in ascending order, and
you're trying to find the cards by asking the other players or
looking at the cards in the middle of the table.
But you can only ask for the highest or lowest card in
another player's hand or reveal from your hand the highest or
lowest cards. So you're kind of working your
way into the middle. And then, yeah, it's just the
first person to find three sets of three cards, or if you happen
to find 2 sets of cards that are added or subtracted together to
equal 7. So like if I find the ones and
the sixes, then I win with only two sets.
Or if you find the sevens, which are really difficult because
they're locked in the middle of everybody's hand, then you win
right away with the sevens. This game is absolutely insane.
I think it broke my brain. I was like, I don't, I don't, I
I I understood the words that came out of your mouth when you
were explaining the rules. But I'm like, what?
I'm not what? Yeah.
We were, we were like a few hands in and you still were like
not quite, not quite there. You're quite affected the way
and. She was.
That is because I'm married. Probably the smartest woman
ever. And yeah, so because I'm, I'm
that much of an idiot, had to marry up.
Had to marry up. So yeah, it was, it was.
So we played it twice. And you even commented in our
first play that no one had made a set.
No one. Like I guess typically someone
gets a set relatively quickly. Yeah, you'd find a pair pretty
early on and then you're able to, yeah, find the third.
But no, we I think we saw about one of every number before we
made our first set. I think that's because my idiocy
was infectious and I infected everyone at the table.
They were just really shuffled you.
Know Oh, that's a good answer. That's a great answer.
That game for those of you in the US too.
This is a little bit difficult to find the Japanese version of
Nana if you haven't heard of it before, but it's easier to find
under the name Trio. That is also the same game.
It's just, you know, a different, different.
Publisher. Yeah.
I can't think of who. Don't know off the top of my
head, but that is Trio. If you're looking for it.
It's worth it. It's a lot of fun.
It's silly. Yeah.
No, it's it's not meant to be heavy.
Yeah. No.
So before you arrived, you had sent me a short list of games
that you were like it's. A short list, but it's.
It was a short, guys. It was a short list, but I want
to read this list to you. There were six games that she
was hoping we would teach or play.
There's technically 7 because I added obsession and so we had to
play that first. And so we did Men Neffer check,
we played that. Emilie Fiore, Check.
We played that Vango. Hopefully we'll play that this
evening. Yeah.
Civilution. Yeah.
So that's like the entire day right there.
We couldn't afford. The entire maybe not.
Going to happen. And then Ninos Dawn of the
Bronze Age, which we have not yet had an opportunity to play
that, but hopefully we will. I do promise.
I did promise Shelly we will bring out Civil Illusion, at
least kind of do a little demo, a meatball to meatball demo of
Civil Illusion. So we're 3 for six and it's a
short weekend, so, you know, we'll see what we get to.
It's fine. So I wanted to talk about the
community. You're how do I want to say this
there? It's very unique.
The the situation. Is it like a in my mind, I
envision southwestern Michigan, Yeah, to be kind of a board game
desert. Yeah, I mean, when.
So I lived in a really small rural town in southwest
Michigan, but I had a group of three or four people that I
played with pretty regularly. But we moved, I'm a little
closer to Lake, MI and the friends that we played with also
moved at the same time. So we didn't really know anybody
in the town that we were moving to.
And desert or not, I people have actually kind of come out of the
woodwork and there are more people around who play board
games than you might think at first glance.
But we definitely felt kind of alone when we moved to our
Newtown. So to be clear, board, what I
mean by board game desert is this.
There's not board game cafes and local game stores in terms of
it's a desert in terms there's a lack of businesses because you
kind of created a whole community of board gamers.
I did. I did.
She did. She did.
I did and I am, yeah. Maybe not the most extroverted
person you'll ever meet. So it was really for a love of
board games and really wanting to find some people to play
with. So it was kind of a selfish
endeavor in the 1st place. But yeah, we don't have, we have
one local game store that has a once a month board game night.
OK. And then there's another one
maybe 40 minutes South of us. I mean, there's really not a lot
and definitely no board game cafes.
And you know, sometimes you'll find a game night at a library
or something like that. But was moving to the area and I
wanted to, I wanted to find something.
But what? So what's interesting is that
you had you had more grandiose plans initially, didn't you?
I did. I was kind of burned out.
I worked in healthcare through COVID and I was really kind of
burned out and kind of looking for what comes next for me.
And we had just moved. So I had in the back of my head,
maybe I'll make this group right?
And then what if I turned it into like a game library that we
could rent out games? Or what if I eventually turned
it into a board game cafe, Right, Right.
That'd be cool. So that was kind of the thought
in the back of my head, like maybe I'll start this community
right, And then once I have all of this buy in from the
community, maybe I'll turn it into something else.
And instead you turned it into a a magical, mystical Michigan
Kingdom of board gamers. Yeah.
And like that alliteration, I kind of liked it.
Yeah, every now and then. Alliteration before we started.
So, so you, so now you've got this created.
You created this whole community of board gamers and you you
partnered with the local brewery.
Yeah, it started there. So I started like an Instagram
so that I could talk a little bit on there about games I had
been playing. And I just basically followed
every local business that I could.
I also made a Facebook page, but I just followed different local
businesses and kind of talked about wanting to find somewhere
to get together to play games. And that was the first venue
that reached out, was a local brewery a few minutes from our
house and just said, you know, Tuesday nights is our quietest
night of the week, so why don't you come in and give us some
business. And we've been.
Awesome. Yeah, yeah.
We've been going there faithfully for like 3 years now
so. So we're the owners of this is
the, this is the livery. No we no this is not delivery
too, but the first one that we and our longest standing venue
is called Watermark Brewing in Stevensville, MI.
And so the owners of of Watermark are they gamers?
And that's why they gravitated toward it or.
Not necessarily, but they are really involved in the
community. So they do lots of different
things, Like they have a bingo night, they have an event space.
We don't actually use their event space.
That's more of a formal space for like weddings and stuff like
that. They just opened an indoor golf
center. They do a lot of community
projects. They do a big like, oh, a polar
plunge every year to raise a bunch of money.
So they just do lots of like fun stuff that that brings out a
really small community. And I think this was just kind
of another thing one of the guys does, like games, but he's
literally never come out for, you know, like and sat down and
played games. Or he hasn't.
You know, he's, you know, running a brewery instead.
But but yeah, I mean, I think they just like to invite
different kinds of people and and they wanted to make a space
for us. So, yeah, that is great.
So what about if anyone who's listening and they live in?
I know that there are some of our friends, both the content
creators and just listeners of the podcast who live in really
rural, kind of isolated areas. And we're thinking about doing
something similar, partnering with a brewery, partnering with
some local business that can support the space.
What are some lessons learned? And follow up question to that
is I'm really interested in partnering with a brewery
because drinking beer and playing a board game does go
well, but I'm just worried about the board games getting ruined
or, you know, losing pieces. Talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, so that part to put your fears aside, we've played, we've
had probably close over 100 events, I'm not sure how many,
but maybe closer to 150 events in the three years since I
started. And we have literally only
spilled 1 beer on a game. We spilled beer on Dixit and we
wipe down all the cards with a wet rag.
They were not sleeved or anything.
And we still own the same game of Dixit and it works just fine.
After that is great. I know it's not as scary as
people try to make it sound. So, you know, not, not as big of
a deal as you think. And it's a really nice kind of
casual environment. Yeah.
So I do like that venue and whether drinkers or non drinkers
of alcohol, we I would say our group is about 5050 actually.
A lot of them come out and don't drink at all.
So it's it hasn't seemed to scare people away in the way
that I was maybe worried about in the first place.
So there's not like the the the beer garden or the brewery,
wherever the venue is, they don't require like a one drink
minimum or anything. No, they haven't.
And actually, we've played in, gosh, 5 or 6 different breweries
or restaurants in the area and nobody has ever required
anything of us. Well, that's good.
For what it's worth. So yeah.
And we actually have kind of gone through different
iterations of requesting that different venues when we are
getting a good kind of group of people coming out, you know,
2025 people sometimes for these events asking for a small
donation to the group fund. I'm not monetizing for my own
pocket necessarily and we're not generating so much money for the
business that I feel like we can charge by the hour or something
like that. But that was kind of a nice a
little bit of seed money so that we could use it for different
things that we needed for the group.
Like I've bought some lights so that we have better lighting for
the events or, you know, different things like that.
You posted about those lights, right?
These are the tables. I did.
I did, yeah. I'm not trying to call you out.
I think that's really cool. And someone else might tell me
about those lights because we talked a little bit about them.
Was it last night we were playing men Nefer?
I think so. And you we somehow it came up
about the lighting. Yeah, they're kind.
They're kind of life changing. Once you start playing with a, a
small task light for a board game, it's it's just better.
You just can see so much better. Umm but no, one of the venues
that we play at is really dark and just doesn't have adequate
lighting for playing board games so.
Because it's not designed for that kind of activity.
Exactly. Yeah.
So we just kind of improvised and we bought task lights on
Amazon that are kind of weighted at the bottom and they have USB
plug in so you can recharge them.
And yeah, they work very well. They've been a real hit.
So what are some like? Or were there because there may
not have been, it sounds like this was a pretty smooth kind of
process, but were there any pitfalls?
Or again, if anyone were thinking about doing, is there
something they should be wary of or don't?
Don't assume this or any any lessons that you can take away
from the early stages. Sure.
I would say two things that come to mind are not not going into
it expecting to turn it into your job, right?
I, I have not really found a way and maybe my heart is not in it
at this point to find a way to turn it into like a side hustle
or anything like that. Different places are not
necessarily willing to pay you the kind of money that you would
kind of hope if you were doing it as you know it.
It needs to be a pet project and it needs to be something that
you're OK with doing without any monetary reward.
You know, it needs to be. It needs to be your, you know,
your life's work instead. How many people show up on an
average night? It varies quite a bit.
I would say the minimum is like maybe eight people, but it's not
unheard of for us to have 20 or 25 people.
That's pretty. That's pretty.
Solid. It's a decent group.
I would say like 15 is an average night.
So yeah, we usually have, you know, 3 or 4 tables going and.
That's cool. Yeah, that is cool.
I love that. I love that.
So I was thinking about back, circling back to Dixit.
One of our friends, one of our friends over in England, Craig,
I get into games. They do something at New Year's.
They play what they call Dirty Dixit with the adults after the
kids go to bed or it's unclear, but it's like a New Year's Eve
tradition. I'm thinking he's really going
to love the idea that drunken dirty Dixit because.
And he's probably going to want to play with your copy because
your copy has had a few drinks. Yeah, right.
So. I can send that long if that's
what he's looking. Slightly sticky copy of Dixon.
He's going to love that it's. A great joke, and more than one.
Way that is going to be great. That is amazing.
Do you? I was thinking about, you were
talking about occasionally you ask for donations.
I was thinking about museums. You know, they've got like the
little that you can afford a big glass bottle.
Like like a tip jar, Yeah. Is that is it like that and
people just drop a few dollars in or?
No, no, really what we've asked for is a little bit of cash from
the venue itself. I have never missed our
attendees to pay any money. OK, so there.
I miss that. That is the main tenant of the
group is that I want all of the events to be free and open to
the public, right? So yeah.
No, no, what if, what if John Doe comes in and he and his wife
or he and one of his kids, whatever they come in, it's
their first time and they're just really excited.
Either they're avid gamers and they're happy to meet other
gamers, or they're new to the hobby as a whole and they're
really excited and want to get into the hobby.
Can they make donations? Do you have a?
Do you have an apparatus for anything like that?
I, I don't and it's never come up.
I mean, if, if you're posting that an event is free, I, I
don't feel like somebody's ever thought, oh, maybe I'll give her
some money, I guess. Yeah.
I mean, you know, in addition to breweries, we also do events in
libraries on a fairly regular basis now too, just because I
did want to broaden, you know, not everybody wants to spend an
in evening or an afternoon in a brewery, especially if they
don't drink alcohol. So I wanted to kind of broaden
that up a little bit. So especially in a library, you
wouldn't think to, you know, offer money or anything like
that. What about kids?
Is there are there any, are there are there age restrictions
at the beer garden? So someone wanted to bring their
kids to play games with their family.
I know you play games with your daughter.
Does that happen? And again, are there any age
restrictions imposed by the venue?
Most of our events are early enough in the day that there's
not an age restriction. I think some bars do have age
restrictions. Maybe on a late on a Friday
night or something you need to be 18 or 21 or something like
that to go in. But no, ours are mostly
afternoon events or early evening.
The Watermark events are at like 5:00 PM so no kids are
definitely allowed at all of the events.
It's nice to know ahead of time if kids will be there because I
can, you know, adjust what's in the bag to make sure that we've
got things. But I do try to try to cater to
the widest audience possible. So I always try to make sure to,
you know, have a huge variety of stuff in the bag.
Yeah. So do you, do you supply the
games or is it, is it BYOBG or? It's both OK, we always bring
enough games that we feel like if nobody else brought anything
I would feel comfortable teaching all of these.
I feel like I've got a variety for maybe non gamers newer to
the hobby, younger, less experienced or real hobby board
gamers too so. So it sounds like this is an
open gaming event that we would find in our gaming conventions,
but it just happens to be at a coffee shop, a library, or a
brewery or something. Exactly.
Yep, Yep. And we, we keep it to about four
times a month, which is, which is no small feat really.
It's it's right almost every weekend thing for maybe 3 or 4
hours. There's always a post with this
calendar update. Yeah, right.
I don't, I don't know if anyone else feels this way.
And sometimes I do chime in. You will pose like Tuesday night
here, Saturday night here. And I'm like, I want to come.
Yeah, yeah. So that, that's really cool.
And all I schedule is that's all new, right?
It is all me and that was the other thing that I was thinking.
You asked earlier about tips and tricks and I didn't really get
back to that part. OK.
I would say once you are kind of establishing relationships with
local venues and you have places, you know, either that
have reached out to you or that you felt comfortable reaching
out to ask about starting events, I would highly recommend
kind of systematizing how you are posting about it so that it
doesn't take up as much time as running the event itself, right?
So I have like, you know, when I post on Facebook, I load all of
the events as duplicates of the last time that we ran that event
at that venue. You know, it has the same banner
at the top of the page because I was really trying to customize
that from one event to the next. And it got to be kind of too
much labor, right? For, you know, I want to spend
my time doing the the events themselves and I don't want it
to feel like a burden. So I've really tried to kind of
streamline that process so that I'm loading up events with our
venues a couple months at least ahead of time.
So we'll line up like, you know, maybe the next quarter worth of
dates at once, or we're doing it on some sort of a regular
schedule so that we're not too worried about getting in touch
with them every month or every few weeks or something.
It's just too much communication.
It's too much trying to figure things out, Right.
That's awesome. Yeah.
And just, and just streamlining the social media part of it too,
but making it easy for people to find your events, right?
So that's right. That's a big deal, too.
Even for people not in the area, we know how to find like I, I
know when you're having an event, like I can just go to
Instagram and be like, oh, hey, they're going to be at Water
Park on Tuesday at 5:00 PM or what?
I still expect you to show up sometime.
It's not so far away. Well, you know, I mean, now that
you've come to my home, I feel like it's, it's gonna happen.
Yeah, you don't have the excuse. Anymore absolutely has to
happen. So I think so there was a
milestone. There was there was a
significant event where you got some publicity.
I'm guessing it's from the local news outlets there in Michigan.
I remember there was an article published and I was like, we
have to have Shelly on the show. I want to talk about this
because this is so cool. Like I don't have any listeners
who were published in newspapers or you know, so remind everyone
again where that was published and tell me a little bit about
it because I don't know since I'm not familiar with the.
Yeah, I actually there have been two different articles written.
1 was by like a Southwest Michigan online magazine.
OK. That I couldn't even tell you
that I could start to research here.
You're catching me off guard, but I didn't.
Mean to I'm. Sorry, no, that's OK.
And the other one was a local newspaper.
A reporter reached out to me and just asked if I'd be willing to
be interviewed for an article for the paper, and she came out
and observed one of our events with a photographer and took a
couple of pictures. But that's the Herald.
Palladium is the name of the local newspaper.
But that means that people are talking about you.
Yeah, I'd like to think so. You know, I mean, people who
come out for the first time definitely say, well, I've been
following you for a couple of months and I've really wanted to
try it. So it's it's really kind of neat
the way that it's caught on. And we've definitely found, I
mentioned this at the beginning, but really pulled some some
hardcore gamers out of the woodwork in the area too, who
maybe didn't have a big group to play with before.
So that's really cool too. So when you asked if we are the
ones who are supplying the games, we do.
But now it's, you know, there's there's a few bags.
Because it's cool. Yeah, because there are
definitely some gamer gamers. Because because gamers have a
tendency when they're going to an event.
We talked a little bit about this last night offline as a
family and gaming. We were talking, it's like they
they're going to an event that has a games library or they're
going to somebody'd house. We were talking about you coming
here and I was like, just bring this one game because, you know,
we've got, we've got a collection, you know, so there's
no reason for you to bring a whole burden yourself with
hundreds of pounds of games. I know some of our friends did
it who went to the Gamers Ranch in Missouri last weekend and
they brought a ton of games. Brought games to the gamers.
Gamers Ranch has this huge library.
It's like you don't have to do that, so.
Yeah, that I don't do that. I mean, guilty, yeah, you know,
but but I do, you know, when I said this last night.
But I do think that there's some sort of impulse with people who
are really deep in the hobby and they get together with somebody
else who's really deep in the hobby.
And you think of the one game that this person hasn't played
before that you're like, I am going to introduce your new
favorite. I can't believe you haven't
played this game that's so dear to my heart.
It's a part of me, Right. So so that just seems really
important. But I love that we came here and
you're just teaching me lots of games that I hadn't gotten the
chance to play yet, so. And for the record, I'm not
teaching any of them. My wife's teaching them all.
Your wife is incredible. She is she.
Is she? A smooth.
Teacher, she is very smooth teacher.
Yeah. So what I've learned, I think, I
think both Katie and I learned this.
Every time we go to a convention, whether it's as
small as Geek Way in Saint Louis or as big as Gen.
Con in Indianapolis, we always leave.
We come back with games either purchased or won in the Play and
Win library or something like that.
And I got tired of I would have this huge bag and every gamer
knows what I'm talking about, that it's 30, forty, 50 lbs of
board games that you bring. One of them might, might hit the
table and then you're like, and you're bringing more games back.
So for me, if it's, if it's more than £5, you know, like we don't
bring anything, right? Unless, unless I know right,
we're going to be attending. You have a plan, right?
Right. So and so wants me to bring
this. We're going to play it, Yeah.
There's always the expectation that I either teach someone how
to play obsession or you get to play obsession because I know
Gareth and I have hundreds of episodes now foggle out
obsession. And so I think it's kind of
become a thing that people want to play obsession with.
Either Gareth or myself. He gets it in England all the
time. They're like, you're bringing an
obsession, right? They're at air con this weekend
and I'm pretty sure obsession will hit the table there as
well. Other than that, I typically
don't bring anything. I think a couple years ago I was
like Gen. Con.
That's all I brought was obsession.
And then I was like, and we hit the table.
But then it was like, well, not anyway.
Now everybody's got a copy. So I'm good.
I'm good. I'm just gonna, I'll put it in
my little backpack and if it fits, then yeah, it's good
enough. That's it.
Yeah. So now the pressure's off.
Pressure's off. We got through all of it.
OK, put the pressure back on me because it's my understanding
that you have questions for me. Yeah, I mean, my biggest
question, right, is we've been talking about my game community,
my people, my the way that my hobby looks for me, right.
You know, I do play to play with my husband a lot in addition to
the game group, game group. A lot of times we'll end up
playing maybe the the one to two hour games at the longest.
The heavier, weightier games stay home.
We play two player, right, but not everybody has a a giant
board game group of, you know, lots of people that you play
with every week that you know, you're you're running events and
and all this. So I just, you know, I think to
kind of contrast, I know you have a good game group yourself
and you play lots. So I just wanted to hear about
your community. I don't know that I've really
ever heard you talk too much about beyond, you know, playing
with your wife. And I know that you play with
other people. Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about your community.
I can do that. I did.
Thanks for asking pressures back on me guys.
How about that? So there, there's a pretty
vibrant when we moved to Springfield, and this was 2000
and 1617 because Katie moved here 1st and I came of several
months later from Louisiana. There were, and I guess there
still are three local game stores, right?
I mean, you've been here for 48 hours.
This is not a big metropolitan Springfield's not huge, but it
supports 33 hobby game stores. And they're all different in
their own ways. You have, she's been to Titan.
Yeah. So yeah, we made sure to make a
visit there yesterday. And so Titan had a pretty
vibrant. They had it every night.
There was an open game night on Thursdays, right?
Again, this is 2017, right? So Katie and I, we were like,
well, let's go. But we didn't know what it was
all about. So we brought Ticket to Ride,
which was a game that we played a lot, like at the end of the
day for work. And we're like, but it gets us
out of the house or the apartment because we were living
in an apartment back then. And it was like, OK, so we went
and we played. And that's where we met our
friend Vincent. Vincent doesn't listen to the
podcast often, but now I'm going to tell him that I'm talking
about him, so I'm going to force him to listen to this one.
Vincent was kind of like our first friend in Springfield.
He just walked up to table. I think we were playing the
South Africa map for Ticket to Ride.
He knew of Ticket to Ride, but he did not know.
There were all the maps that are out and we're still friends with
Vincent today. And then we got to know more and
more people and there were a lot of folks.
COVID changed things, right? You don't say.
Yeah, right. COVID changed things.
What? So a couple things happened.
People started, they bought homes or they reconfigured their
homes and had their own play space.
And so they started wanting to play games at their house, which
I think is OK. I think, you know, we don't have
a lot of board game cafes outside of major metropolitan
American cities like New York and Chicago.
We do have a lot of local game stores, Right, Right.
And they usually host an open game night, much like what
you're doing back home. And So what will happen is you
outgrow it, right? Like we'll have our core little
group of players and we'll just come over here.
I don't even have to leave my house, right?
Right. And they can just, it's cheaper.
I can have the snacks that I want.
I can. Wear my pajama pants.
You know you could you. Could if you wanted to, that
would be acceptable. Just, you know, OK, right.
I'm blushing for those who can't see.
So what what ended up happening was we had our little COVID
bubble. There was a core group of us
that were hanging out through COVID.
We were role-playing online using Role 20 or Discord or
whatever it was. And then when COVID ended, we
got back together again. So there's myself and my wife
Katie, and then there's our friend David and Eric.
And then Vincent kind of joined our group and we meet every
other weekend for various schedule, but it's but it's
every other weekend, right? We meet on Friday nights where
we go to our friend Rich's house.
Rich has a rather large basement.
He's got one of those beautiful game tables.
So Friday night is that where Katie stays home.
So she gets a break from me and she gets to relax with the cats
and do whatever she likes to do. I game with the guys we don't
know, right? Right.
I don't ask and then I do. Skip our local events once in a
while, put the kiddo to bed, let the husband go and I just, you
know. Do my thing.
You need that, right? It's kind of nice once in a
while. You do need that, yeah.
And I recognize that my wife needs that and so.
OK. And of course, I'm the crazy
instaverter. Can't shut up.
So there's a story that I have to tell you that happened to us
yesterday, but I want to share with everyone.
But I'll get back to that. So then on on the subsequent
every other Saturdays, David, Eric and Vincent come over here
and we are in the middle of A5 player Frost Haven campaign
right now you're. Talking once a week, every week.
No, every other week, every other Saturday.
But then a group gets together. Then every other Friday.
So is it a Friday? Saturday.
Back-to-back it is then. The next week it is correct,
correct. Yes, if I didn't make that clear
that. Every weekend turns into a whole
thing where you are. No.
So it's, so it's this core group of five or six that we get
together on a Friday, Saturday, back-to-back.
And then the rest of the time it's just Katie and I yeah, you
know, now Titan, as you saw, they recently expanded a year or
so ago and they've got beautiful storefront and they've got a
huge open gaming area with two private rooms for like tabletop
role-playing. A lot of DND.
A lot of DND for high school kids, they really do a lot of
that. They have Puzzle Nights, which
has been wildly successful. Yeah, I had never heard of that.
Yeah, it's like competitive speed puzzling.
I mean, I have seen speed puzzling online, but I've never
seen a local place do that. I think that's such a cool draw
for a different group of gamers. It brings gaming to a non gaming
crowd. They they go for puzzles and
then they see the other products and start.
Yeah, exactly. So that's kind of our, that's
kind of our core, our core gaming group.
Yeah. Occasionally there's, you know,
one offs. We have some friends in Saint
Louis, which is like an hour and a half away.
So one of our friends who, you know, she's, she doesn't have
it. She's single.
She doesn't have a family. She lives in an apartment.
So she'll come up here and spend the day and of course, Laura
obsessed with board games and her husband, Ryan, Mr. obsessed
with board games. They live in the Saint Louis
area couple other gamers. And so we'll go and meet them at
we'll meet him for lunch and then miniature market and play
games and things. We've kind of got this.
You know, this Saint Louis for like an A full day every other
Friday, Saturday weekend is our game group core group here in
Springfield. And there's there's so many
others too, right? Like, you know, you've got a lot
of 40K Warhammer, which I don't do, but there's a big group and
they do an event at Titan. So yeah, if I'm not playing with
Katie, I'm playing with Katie, David, Eric, David, Eric and
Vincent, right. It's always every once in a
while somebody can't make it just so you just so then we
don't play Frost statement. We play something else.
Whenever, whenever Kenya and I go to purchase a game, we look
at the game and we're like, David's really going to love
this or David's really going to hate this.
So maybe we don't want to get it or we're like, the guys are
going to absolutely love this game.
And then occasionally there's a surprise.
While I know it's not your favorite, not saying you don't
like it, but not your favorite. Flip 7 by the OP games, I didn't
expect that. I had no expectation.
Sure. They sent it to me so I could do
a little review and post and drop them a hint in the podcast.
I was like, okay, it's straightforward and simple
pressure. Take a card or don't, there's
nothing. There's no skill.
Holy cow. Caught on like wildfires, You're
saying? Your group?
Really. They really, they really like
it. I think what they like does.
Too. To be honest, I think I'm the
odd opinion out, you know? You are the opinion outlet's.
There's just. Maybe not quite enough there for
me. I need a little tiny bit of
like, right autonomy, right? Yeah.
I just don't feel like I have enough of a say in in how things
can alter myself. Maybe this is speaking like I've
played three times and I have lost so bad every time.
Like I mean zero points around. I've lost.
I've lost quite a lot too, yeah. It does have a fun, you know,
draw to. It I think because it's so
accessible, you just, you pick up the deck of cards, you just
you play and that's right. Yeah.
Especially after a long day of Frost Haven.
It's nice. Flip flop is a nice yeah, yeah.
It's just a nice turn the brain off and be like, can I get 7
cards? Yep.
And not repeat any of the cards. Yeah.
So there you go. Right.
OK, so I want to tell the story. I'm gonna, well, I'm gonna tell
I. Don't know what story you're
telling yet. No, but you will.
Like, I think as soon as I start telling the story, you're gonna
know. OK, so this is back to that My
wife, as an introvert, needs and deserves.
My wife deserves time away from me occasionally, Right.
And to prove how extroverted I am And excited, when you first
arrived, we were sitting in my living room.
We were telling a story. And Katie started to tell the
story. And I slid forward in my seat,
interrupted her and just took over the story to what?
You stopped me. You now you remember the story,
right? Because I do that and I try to
be good about that, the podcast helps because I'm trying to
maintain an interviewee without interrupting.
It gives. You an outlet right to just,
Yeah. It really does.
Although I will tell you it's easier.
It's it is easier when the person's sitting right next to
me. Yeah, there's technology things
too. Sometimes I worry that I sound
like right that I am. I'm talking over my Co host or
my guest on the podcast. I worry that that's what it
sounds like. Right.
Well, I think there's an inherent like that tiny bit of
delay, right with with a web kind.
Of absolutely. Mode for your podcast that is
different when you're in person and there's a little bit more of
the non verbal that you might not catch, you know, when the
other person is starting to talk.
And yeah, so there's maybe a little less issue with that.
So this is cool. Thank you for that so much.
Yeah. It's less scary for me when
we're sitting next to each other like we're just talking in real
life, right? Instead of.
Yeah, because you're 1 of you're one of our like most dedicated
listeners and I think you've been with us from the beginning.
Yeah, about the beginning, yeah. I knew you online and in person
a little bit before you started the podcast, right?
So I've been listening since the beginning.
Yeah, and then and then we met in Origins a couple years ago,
and I remember you just you staring at me and you're like,
you're putting a face to the voice for the first time.
And it was this. Really weird, you know, when you
listen to somebody talk a lot in your ears by yourself and then
and yeah. And then they're right there in
front of you. You silence the same, right?
I'm real, guys. It's true.
I'm not a figment of your imagination, though.
Yeah. So Shelly, thank you for doing
this. Yeah, thanks for having.
This was great. It's been a fun weekend.
Yeah, it took me a little while to, you know, talk myself into
doing this. I'm like I mentioned, I'm not as
extroverted as you would think for somebody who started a board
game community in my area. So I completely agree.
I would have expected you to be more extroverted, but yeah, I
struggle with that honestly. My husband's the Charming 1.
I just really like board games. And I've gotten really lucky
that our group is just incredible people.
They're just really wonderful. I mean, they've really turned
into friends, you know, so. Right.
And I've had the opportunity to meet a few of them.
Shout out to Sean and Bill. I know that I met more of you
but that was so many years ago and I'm trying to remember.
But Shawn and Bill? Really.
Two origins ago. It was 2 origins ago and Orange
is about to celebrate his 50th anniversary this year.
So that's, that's huge for them. So yeah, hopefully we'll get
more listeners in Michigan and around the world and that would
be great. And once again, once again I do
this every time and y'all are getting tired of hearing me say
this. Please guys like and subscribe
to the channel and post a comment.
Subscribe button. Thank you.
I'm supposed to do all of this at the beginning of the episode
and I always, it's like I'm sitting here talking.
To you still here, smash that subscribe button.
Smash it. We need more followers and
subscribers and give us comments.
You have questions for Shelley? Tell them where they can find
you if they want to know more about how you created your
community. Yeah, I am Michiana Board
Gamery. So as you can see on my shirt, I
think it's backwards for you guys on YouTube, but Michiana
Board Gamery on Instagram and Facebook.
No dots, no underscores, no spaces, right?
I think it is a dot. Well on Facebook you just
Michiana board Gamery is 2 words.
But on Instagram, I do think there's a dot in between but.
So so yeah, you can find her there.
Michiana is yes, a mash up of Michigan and Indiana if that
helps you with the spelling. Yep, I didn't know that, right?
Because you know. Yeah, we're right at the border
of Michigan and Indiana. I had to do it right.
I had. To do.
Yeah. So for our international
listeners and viewers, I know we picked up some viewers in India
recently after episode 111. Paul, good if you're listening.
Hey man, thanks for supporting. Keep watching the show.
I know you may not be familiar, but the the way that the state
of Michigan is shaped looks like a mitten right?
And so you point on your palm where your where your town is
from to say that this is Michigan.
Is that right? We're both backwards here for
are you just? Yes, yes, that's how we
reference where we're from in. Michigan So.
So that's a thing, right? This is now the the most
Midwestern goodbye sign off. I mean any YouTube.
It's a Midwestern Maple mania, and that's how we're going to do
it, right? They're going to convert me.
Y'all need to pray for me because this Cajun is going to
become Midwestern and I don't know how I feel about that.
Shelley, thank you so much. Thank you for spending time with
me. Thank you for letting me share
my story. Absolutely.
It's a great story and thanks for sharing it with everyone.
Everyone please like, surprise, like and subscribe and we're
looking forward to hearing from you again.
Thanks.