Hey, and welcome to episode 115, Maple to Maple.
Today I am joined by Tai from at Tai ET on Instagram, a creator
who brings together board games, good vibes, and thoughtful
conversations about what it really means to be a part of
this hobby. We're going to dig into his
board gaming journey, how he connects with the wider board
gaming community, and why creating a welcoming, inclusive
environment at the table matters as much as what's in the box.
So join me guys. Ty, how are you?
Doing really well. Thank you for the intro.
I should clip that out and send it to my mom.
Absolutely let your mom know what a great person, what a
great job you're doing. Well, thank you so much.
Yeah, glad to be here. I'm just, I know I'm really
excited to talk to you. We've been we've been kind of
friends and chatting for you. It's been, has it been a couple
of years now that you and I have been?
For a while. But I feel like we've been
following each other for a while.
Yeah, yeah. But I think I might be the other
first person to beg to be on your podcast, right?
There was just a hint of desperation and begging.
Just a tad. Well, that's just goes to say
like how much I love this podcast and the the Creator
series. Well, thank.
You you did something so a really special here.
Thank you, thank you. I really hope that that that
kind of comes out and people really embrace what we're trying
to do here. I, I also have to be honest,
this content creator series is a bit of if if you watched, I did
like a 4 minute little short to kind of introduce the content
creator series. This is all like a giant apology
for all the sins of my past because I've made enough
mistakes. And it's, you know, we want to,
we want to build that inclusive community, you know, charges at
the tabletop, but in the, you know, in the wider world, right?
Especially now more than ever. Yeah, absolutely.
And, and you kind of embody that inclusivity I feel in your posts
and things that you advocate for on your platform.
So. Yeah, I mean, I hope so.
I try not to be political all that much on this platform,
right? I think this hobby is a form of
a escapism, so I think adding mixing some political statements
is not quite right and what I'm trying to do.
OK, Yeah, I mean, that's definitely fair.
This is this is obviously been a topic that we've all been
talking about a lot lately and we're not going to we're not
going to dive into the the politics of everything, but it's
definitely a topic that's come up.
I can't help but think to myself that at the core of politics,
right And I, I don't mean left or right Republican, I don't
mean any of that. The core of politics is people.
And we're a community of people. So the very fact that we're
together sharing a passion for a hobby is political in nature.
And I, I sometimes, I sometimes fear that people think that or
they forget, but there's a person behind all these
accounts, you know, and, and, and sometimes, you know, we
just, we, we see injustices or our passions just to overtake
us, whatever the situation is. And there's, there's a lot to
say right now about our environment and I think
everyone's dealing with it in their own ways, you know?
So, yeah, I understand what you say that it's definitely a, a
hobby of escapism, you know, I, I get that.
But at the same time, it's people.
So it's political. So yeah, that's yeah.
Yeah, exactly. So enough about that.
You know, we'll dive in that on a on another day.
That's a that's a definitely a longer discussion.
So I wanted to, I wanted to ask you what was I've asked everyone
else, what was the first game that got you into this hobby?
I believe a Long story short, it's probably Scythe.
Scythe. Yeah, just like everyone, I got
into the hobby with Katan and Carcassonne.
But right after Carcassonne, I somehow stumbled upon Scythe and
the cover of Scythe. Oh man, that that cover just
struck me. The the, the juxtaposition of
the Mex and the other farmers, the use of the, the metaphor of
the worst scythe as a tool of destruction and agriculture.
But something about that cover that just forced me to dig in
further and further. And then I just had to grab a
copy. And once I did that, I struggle
with the rule book because I've never played anything like this
before. Right?
Carcasson was literally the first game that I played, so I
was like just reading Rubo. I even downloaded the other
digital copy on Steam, trying to maybe if I, you know, press
these buttons, figure out how to play.
Like that didn't work. And then I stumbled upon this
Canadian dude from PEI who was out doing tutorials on YouTube,
and I watched his video and finally got to learn it and play
it. And yeah, that was how I got
into this whole thing, the whole big mess.
Wow, So you go from Carcassonne to Scythe that that's wow, that
that's a journey right there in and of itself, man.
I will say Scythe was Scythe was our first foray.
And by our, I mean my wife and I first foray into Stonemyer's
games. My wife typically doesn't
gravitate towards war games, right?
Axis and Allies, Fortress America area control games,
those are not really her cup of tea.
And Scythe, if you just look at scythe on a table, if you're not
playing the game, I'm sure you know this and recognize it as
well. It looks like a war game because
it's got Max and it's a big board and there's all this stuff
going on. But we played it.
A friend of ours owned it. He got five of us at the table.
He was not one of the five this is this was interesting
experience. He was not one of the five that
was playing. He just taught it to the five of
us and was there to field questions.
And I was like, this game is incredible.
And then my wife fell in love with it, the whole experience.
So we had to buy a copy and all the expansions and the big
insert and the legendary box and everything.
Like, yeah. You went all in.
Yeah, yeah. Whenever my wife says we have to
do a thing, we have to do a thing.
And also Scythe was the the game that got me into painting minis.
Like I don't know anything about minis.
And I had a close friend who has been to like Warhammer.
And then I brought the box over and he showed me how to prime,
how to, what paint to use. And my wife got into painting
minis as well, but he hasn't, she hasn't really touched the
brush afterwards. So yeah, we didn't really get
into any of the expansions except the Fendris, but we
upgraded the heck out of that game and then I even built my
own insert with. Wow, nice.
Basswood. Yes.
Yeah, so I went to a local arts and crafts store, bought some
basswood and cut them up and wow, it was a it was a whole
different thing. Wow.
I don't know you could buy inserts at the time.
Right. Do you have, so do you have a
favorite faction that you really enjoy playing or do you just
randomize it throughout? Oh.
Just randomize. Yeah, it is.
Is there? Is there one that you really
like above all the other? Well, you know what?
I'll tell you something I called Zeif many years ago.
Yeah, I I still regret like getting rid of the game because
at the time our shelf space was very limited and my wife
dictated that we have this bookcase just behind me here.
And then that's that was our limit is like whatever that gets
filled, we can't buy anything more.
Got it out at. The time, yeah, at the time,
like we weren't playing sites all that much.
She wasn't really into it. She wasn't really into the other
conflict side of site. So my role at the time was if
it's not getting played, we have to get rid of it.
So I regret that decision, like very, very much so.
Even though I still love it, it wasn't getting played.
And she's like 99% of the time she's my primary, a player that
I play with. Sure.
Yeah, yeah. I I didn't want any games, you
know, collecting dust on my shelves, right?
No, I, I get that. I definitely get that.
Well, it just means that you're going to have to come and visit
and spend a weekend and we can play Scythe or you know.
Well, all the videos are painted.
Oh, they're painted. Oh, yeah.
Oh, they're painted. We had my wife and I got into
painting. We started painting the Star
Wars Imperial Assault minis. This was back in 2018-2019.
But then the during the pandemic, it gave us a lot of
time to we had, we had other miniatures, including scythe.
And so we painted those we have and the airships that was
really, those were challenging because it's easy.
You take the airship and you're like the Roose fiats, right?
So it's red, you paint it all red, but then you got to get all
the little rivets and you get that with that silver dry man.
Those were challenging to paint, but we had a lot of fun with
like the snow, the textured paints, right, like the snow and
the the water. It really opened our world to
the different types of paints that exists.
So yes, when you come and stay for the weekend and we play
sight, everything will be painted.
No worries. So so OK, no favorite faction?
How about just in general? Do you have a favorite player
color that you like to play in board games?
Actually the way I choose my colors is I always think about
how the game board looks on the table.
OK, the player colors matter. So I try to pick colors that are
complementary to what my wife chooses.
So it's usually purple or red or pink.
So whatever that that complements those colors, I'll
just pick whatever. OK, so they always look good on
my photos basically. But there are a few aside from
the primary color, your old maples.
I love colors that are pastel shades.
OK. So like Holiday Hills just
behind me Dig it's got a really nice colors selection there.
Eno Tool has really great colors through selected color palettes.
Yes. There's a Canadian company
called Ruse. They just had their second game
on Kickstarter called The Mix, and they had a Fox game called
The Ruse, and they have some beautiful, beautiful pastel
colors. They're like shades of orange,
emerald, even white, which is a color that I never, ever used,
but it looks just amazing on the table.
So no white. 'S an interesting color.
White is an interesting color, yeah.
It's also difficult going back to painting.
White is a challenge to paint with I.
I noticed that I was AI was a go ahead.
No, I was just going to say like the the Pollyannia faction in
Scythe is white and then going back to Star Wars, Imperial
Assault, the stormtroopers, all the stormtroopers, right?
They're white with a little bit of black, and you can't hide
mistakes as easily when painting white.
Yeah, no, I noticed that with a wall painting Assassin's Creed
Brotherhood of Venice. Since all the Assassins are
white, I was asking another friend like, how do you paint
white? Because I couldn't find like
perfect shade of white, like pure white, right?
And he was saying how the closest thing to white is like
lighter Gray. Yeah.
So yeah, I learned that there there is no such thing as pure
white in mini painting. No, that's pointing.
And it's a challenge. It's a real and.
Especially when you do a washing afterwards, it just darkens the
color even further. So you basically end up like you
you paint the whole thing and then you put a dark wash and
then you you paint it a little bit more, but not the whole
thing. Right.
To create this. Yeah.
Oh God, I don't have the patience for that.
No, no, me neither. It's why so basically now when
we paint, my wife does all the painting.
I prime them so that they're ready for her and then I will
lacquer them when she's done. But I'm not allowed to touch
them anymore because there are so many droopy eyed
stormtroopers in our Imperial. She's like, no, I'm like, OK,
sorry. Yeah, my my philosophy with mini
painting is that anything is better than Gray.
So I usually just prime it, do like a single color and just
wash it. Yeah.
With Kingdom Death Monster, I think I painted all the
survivors white with washing or like prime with just highlight
white highlights and all the the enemies copper so they look like
statues. Yeah.
And that was it. Nice.
I love it. That's incredible.
Yeah. So how about you have, because I
don't want to assume. How about do you?
Do you have like a favorite board game mechanic that you
just love to play? I would say engine building.
OK, Yeah. I mean, work a placement all the
way, but I love the sensation of any building, and lately my wife
and I are getting into a big building quite a bit.
That was not a mechanism that we were familiar with.
Right. But quacks just, you know.
Right. Like when we played, we were
late to quacks as well. And we're like, this game is
incredible. Why have we not played it
sooner? You know?
Exactly. It's it's so good and so
satisfying, right? That tension of pulling out that
token and hoping that you didn't, you know, your cherry
bombs or whatever exactly didn't explode.
So yeah. What about or Leon?
Have you played or Leon? I right after kind of like
brushed off Orleans earlier because of my hatred towards the
other arts data, the German art style.
But after Quacks I was like, what else is there?
So I had to look into Orleans and my good Instagram friend One
Bookcase Mike. He invited me to play Orleans on
BGA and I fell in love with it. Yeah, 'cause I'm.
Desperately looking for a copy just to have a physical version
with my wife. Yes, it's it's my wife's number
one favorite game of all time. She absolutely loves or Leon.
It's like we want to, she always wants to play or Leon.
And I think it's that bag building that she loves.
But it's also a worker placement because you're pulling your
workers out and then you and what's great about it is you're
placing them on the mat in front of you.
So I'm not, I'm not taking up a worker space on the board that
you want, right? I can't.
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's worth checking
out. It's a two to four player game.
So you basically have but you're you have tiles, right?
These little tiles that you you draw from your bag and you place
them in the garden in front of you, right?
And it's a simultaneous, this part is simultaneous, right?
We're we're pulling back. But you also have these tiles
that have gnomes if you get similar to quacks with like the
white cherry bomb tokens. If you get 5 gnomes in your
garden, they steal all of the gold or the gems that you have
created because you're lining up the tiles to match the gem
halves on the tiles so that you can get so that you could buy
better tiles, you know, at the end, at the end of each round.
It's very similar to quacks in that regard, but it's, it's
worth checking out. It's very satisfying at two
players. If, if you want, if you want to
play more than four players, you can.
And they say in the game, buy a second copy because it's it's a,
it's a thin box, takes up very little table space, but it's a
great bag builder. OK, I'm going to have to look
into it right after. This that's that's worth
checking out is Guardlings. Guardlings.
So tell me what? What is it that attracted you to
engine building that was like your first choice when I asked
you what your favorite was? So what is it about engine
building that really draws you? You know what?
I'm blanking all of a sudden. What games?
I have engine building elements in a I'm still blanking.
Engine building is an interesting mechanic that.
Yeah, I mean people, you start, you start really slow with
almost no resources whatsoever, right?
There is a point in time about halfway through, you feel like
God. And towards the end you do feel
like you could do everything. You could accomplish all the
goals. But it's the game that the games
that I love never let you do everything.
It ends just before that point in time where I could feel like,
like, I have like superpower, right?
Like that's what gets me coming back to these games.
But Oh my God, I'm so blinking. Well, here's here's one.
People always talk about Terraforming Mars as an engine
builder, and I don't think of it as an engine builder at all.
You don't really build an to my mind, you don't really build an
engine. You play because most of the
cards you play, there's a one time effect.
It increases your productivity or it gives you this resource or
grants you victory points. There are a couple of cards that
allow you to do more, but ultimately, yeah, I just don't
see it. Holy cow.
As that engine builder games that kind of trigger other,
Yeah. So the fact that you're
blanking, the fact that you're blanking means that my next
question is going to be a blank as well, which would be what is
your favorite engine building game?
Yeah, holy God, I need to look at my Fiji list.
So guys, Ty did not prepare for this.
No, not at all. Not at all.
Well, so do you. I want.
So let's go back to Carcassonne, right, because it was one of
your first games. Carcassonne is it employs my
absolute favorite mechanic, and that's tile placement.
Do you do you still as your game experience and tastes have
evolved, do you still enjoy tile placement games?
Oh yeah, somewhat, but I don't think I have many tile builders
say I love land versus sea, but I see here.
Yes, for sure. Yeah, the Newton.
Newton is both engine builder and tableau builder.
We played that today. That's a good game.
We love it. Yeah.
I think Newton was our first foray into the the Italian
designers. Yes.
And we have since amassed quite a few of their games, including
Lorenzo that we love quite a bit as.
Well, that's what I think. Great game.
Yeah, we still play Lorenzo because of it has such a short
setup time. You could literally start
playing that game within like 2 minutes.
You really can. Yeah, there's just so little
tiles or chips that you need to set up.
Yep. Yeah, you could just start
playing right away. Whereas a Newton or like
Darwin's journey requires at least like 10 minutes of like
setup. So that yeah, Lorenzo is a game
that we we pull out quite a bit later since.
And it plays well at 2:00. Exactly.
Yeah, I also think it's funny and we've talked about the
designer before, but Simone Luciani is just an incredible
designer. Games are just amazing.
I think I have like 4 or five games by Simone.
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, you're right about
Darwin's. Darwin's journey does take a a
bit of time. I think Newton is pretty I I
would think I might have to disagree.
I think Newton's setup time is pretty quick.
I think we were like 5 minutes and we were playing because you
really only have, you only have coins, you have the potion
tokens, You put those out, you put out the two main boards, you
take the player board. I mean, yeah, there's a little
bit of little bit of set up on your player board, but I.
Also love the maps like populated the maps with the
other bonus tiles. And sure, yeah, that's true.
I can't seem to win that game though.
I'm always one step behind my wife.
Always. Always.
Do you guys always use like similar strategies?
Not usually. OK, I I always, I always, I
always try something different. But inevitably I'm like, I watch
her and I'm like, I better get these books on my shelf.
Right, right. Or I better start travelling on
the map or. Yeah, Otherwise, you know, she's
she's really good at that, that fast, those income tiles where
at the end of each round she gets victory points and I'm
like, right, yeah, yeah. By round one she's ready to go
and I'm three rounds behind her. I think Newton is one of those
games where I have a slight edge over my wife.
Yeah, I think I have a better winning rate.
So I think like you, I try to do something different since I am
likely to win. And I think my one of my crown
achievement in this hobby is using one of the most useless
tracks in Newton to win the game.
I don't know. I don't know what, I don't
remember what what it's called, but on the side of the board
there was a a track with all these money.
Yeah, it's the. So it's, it's the work.
It's the work. Track the.
Yeah, the icon is like, it's like a ruler with a scale.
Yes, yes, that's. It yeah so it's like you go out
to do work using math right you get you get money for it and.
That's right. Yeah.
So, yeah, we never ever, you know, used those tracks before.
But I went all in on that track, which allowed me to jump around
the the map of Italy. And then I just blasted her.
And that was a that was a proud moment.
Yeah, well, that's that's, that's, that's a similar thing
that my wife did to me today. Is that right?
Yeah, she, she went up that track pretty quickly.
Like before I knew it, she had three leaders already unlocked
and I'm like, I'm on my first way behind, way behind.
That's crazy. So here's my question in two
parts, 2 parts for compassion in case the first part is too
difficult. Do you have an absolute favorite
board game of all time? And I realize that's a difficult
question. So if not, do you have a
favorite board game right now? Yeah #1 void fall.
Void. Fall.
Yeah, not it would close, but I haven't played in two years, so
it's been a while. But it it lives in my in my
brain like rent free, like all the time.
Yeah, in my work office it's staring at me just across with
my computer. So it's always in my life.
And I think I played it when my baby was just born and he was
sleeping all the time. So I have plenty of free time.
So in my office I just set it up on my solo table for weeks at a
time and I would just play. So it has a solo mode.
Yeah, it has solo, Co-op and competitive modes, so there's a
booklet that lists all the different scenarios for all
three modes. So you could pick and choose
easy mode, medium mode, hard mode and whatnot and it's
brilliant. I'm going to have to check it
out. I've never played it.
It's it's like so it seems intimidating.
It is. And then it's like, will my wife
like it? But you just said there's a
cooperative mode and and we both love cooperative games.
So yeah, yeah, we don't we don't shy away from the the
intimidating scale. I mean, jeez, we've got we've
got all the Nemesis and we've got Ether Fields and Frost Haven
and Gloom Haven. And these are big weighty games,
you know, and we love heavy EUR. I mean, Vital Lacerda, forget
about it. Right.
But Void Fall. So tell me a little bit about
Void Fall. Like how?
Tell me about the gameplay. So you're fighting against a
common enemy called Void Born that almost acts like parasites
trying to take over the entire universe and you're trying to
prevent that. The intimidation factor is also
the brilliant part is Eno tools graphic design.
Of course there are. There are dozens and dozens and
dozens of icons that you need to be familiar with.
Oh yeah. Yeah, they're they're variations
of a few different icons. So once you know the core icons,
you understand the game basically.
And once you crack that, it feels like you're you're seeing
the the Matrix code. It's like you're speaking on
another language and that just feels brilliant.
That's amazing. That sounds, it sounds so good,
like just you're describing the background and the setting and
the theme. It's like this sounds like
something that would hit our table.
Yeah, but it does require a lot of commitment.
You need to even just set up or prepping the game.
The setup takes forever, which is why I left that on the table
for weeks at a time. Sure.
So once I once I'm done with one session, it's easier to just
refresh and start, go again and instead of starting completely
new. So yeah, I still like have like
really fondness for that game like 2 years ago.
But right now I would say quacks.
I still have have like fondness for quacks.
Yeah, because, you know, because of toddler and my new job, like
I rarely have time to play right.
And Quacks, Quacks is so easy to set up again and it's just so
satisfying. Finish in less than an hour and
we could go again the next day. So that gets played quite a bit.
And we recently got Holiday Hills on Christmas Eve no less.
And I've become really good friends with designer Chris
Porter and he's an amazing person to just chat with and
just get into his brain. And very generous as well.
And even though, I mean, Christmas is over, we still play
it. Yeah, it brings us back to
Christmas festival mood. And we still have actually
Christmas tree still up. Like I just don't have the time
to take it down. That's OK.
Yeah, we used to back when we were in Louisiana, we would keep
our Christmas tree up until probably February or March
because what we do is when Christmas is over and Christmas
ends, a lot of people think Christmas starts like, you know,
the 1st of November. Well, Christmas doesn't actually
start till Christmas Day, right? There's, there's 12 days of
Christmas, right? That's why the Christmas Carol,
the 12 days of Christmas and that ends on January 6th, which
is when Carnival begins and it culminates on Mardi Gras.
So usually on the 6th of January, we take the Christmas
ornaments off and we would put Mardi Gras colored lights and
Mardi Gras ornaments and keep that up until Fat Tuesday.
So, you know, you're, you're in good shape.
You're in good shape. And I, I think you're actually,
you're OK According to the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar,
tomorrow, February, February 2nd is Candlemas, which means you
can take your tree down then. So you've got one more day and
you're in good shape. Yeah.
We'll see. I got the tomorrow day off, so
we'll see. Yeah, put the baby down and get,
you know, get cracking for. Sure.
What about South Void? Fall is your favorite of all
time, but you're obviously not hitting it.
So you would say that your favorite?
If so, then your favorite game right now is Quacks.
Then yes. Quacks.
Yeah. Castle of Burgundy, the special
burgundy gets played quite a bit, even though it requires a
little bit more set up than quacks.
A lot of like light games. Like my wife and I used to play
a lot of heavy games like you with little sort of Martin
Wallace games, but nowadays anything that requires 10
minutes or more of setup doesn't get played.
Right. Parenthood, it kind of, yeah, I
can understand that. Do you play, do you play Quacks
just the base game or have you incorporated any of the
expansions? My problem with expansion is
that we rarely play games on a regular basis.
So once we come back to a game, we have to refresh the rules and
play again in order to get to the expansion.
But we may never get to that expansion.
Sure. So we desperately want to try
all the expansion and the other content in the game, but we're
just so happy with the base game already.
Yeah, we figured this game will stay with us for a lifetime, so
eventually when when the the boy goes off to college, we'll get
the expansions out. So 20 years from now, you'll
finally get the. I love that.
So tell me when you decide when you decided to start creating
content on Instagram, who inspired you?
Were were there any content creators or designers or anyone
that inspired you personally? Yeah, for sure.
I started the the Instagram for very very selfish reasons, which
is to get free games. OK.
Yeah, so I had a gaming, very small gaming group and a friend
who's from Middle East and he had a YouTube channel and
Instagram and he he taught, he was basically introducing the
Western games to the Arabic audiences.
And one of these game session, he was saying how was game
publisher sent him games to review and cover.
I was like you can do that. Yes, you can, yeah.
So that day I converted my personal Instagram account to
board game Instagram account because I didn't know this thing
was going to take off. Right.
So let's post some pictures of our gaming sessions and see what
happens. And then, yeah, I was never
really into influencing people into buying games that have been
enjoyed. I just wanted to share.
That was the only reason. And I contacted few publishers
early on, and they were gracious enough to send me some review
units. And I try to cover them as best
as possible because I understand not all games are for everyone.
So even if I do not like these games, if I tell people what I
like what I didn't like, people understand their own what they
what? What?
What am I saying? Yeah, You know what I mean.
Right. Yeah, so even even if I do not
like something that I might be like a trade that they like.
So I try to cover all bases and try to introduce games as much
as possible in a in a good manner with the resources that I
have. I don't have any like fancy like
camera equipment, no lighting, nothing.
So it's a table with my iPhone and that's like that's it for
all my photos. And yeah, it struck core with a
lot of people online and I've been doing that for like 4-4
years now. Yeah, yeah.
And still going. Yeah.
So I'm wondering if how was it like?
So when you first just, was there any content creators that
you like you looked to to see knowing that you didn't have all
the equipment and everything like you said, were there any
that you were like, oh, I really like what they're doing?
And did you read? And if so, did you reach out to
them? How were you received in the
community? Sure.
Yeah, Early on, I think Mike of 1 bookcase, we found each other
somehow and we were playing similar games.
We had similar tastes. He had a lot of great photos,
not only photos, but great tasting games too.
And I was constantly discovering new games through him.
And I think he became like one of my first friends on IG.
And eventually I gather about nine other guys who were like
like minded. And we created a group right now
it's called the fridge repair Supports and they come from all
walks of life, like some cover. Obviously they're all on IG, but
many of them do have YouTube channels.
How many do you have? Tik Toks?
So we all share different information, a different
experience that we tried and we share the findings basically.
So we motivate each other and help each other grow.
Yeah, they, they all have different size of audience, but
that doesn't really matter as well as we're always constantly
motivate each other. And the name came from we had,
we constantly changed the name of the group.
Sometimes it was like King Max and the Minions or something
like that. And one day one of us, we always
talk about board games, obviously.
Sure, one of them was having some trouble with fridge and
everyone was pitching in different ideas to fix the
fridge, which is why we named it the fridge repair support.
And then they just suck. So I can have you all over and
we could play a bunch of games and if I have a problem with a
refrigerator y'all can help me with that too.
Sure, yeah, there's no guarantee it'll get fixed.
What about the one problem when when you change the name, did
you, did you come up with a solution for fixing that
refrigerator? Or I don't think it's it's
fixed. No, we just, we just provide
support, support. Yes, this community, this
community is really great at supporting one another, I think.
And it's it sounds like you plugged into a good group.
So that, that, that's great to hear you And I had talked before
about some of the things we wanted to cover.
And I always ask this question, is there anything in the
community that you've seen where you think we need to do better?
Yeah, yeah. Well, for sure, Yeah.
There was a topic that I posted on Facebook Media Group for
content creators and publishers. Yeah.
And one thing that I want to tell people is as an
Instagrammer, like I post all my photos to BGG and a lot of
Youtubers, they create a preview videos of like SN or Gen.
Con or, or this year and they pull a lot of photos from BGG
that's not their property. Or they have a, a screen capture
of them going through the BGG page to show what the game looks
like, what not. And sometimes I do previews and
I had the privilege of proving these games and post photos
early. And I wish the Youtubers
understood more about the copyright laws and the terms of
service for PGG. Where you cannot use other
people's photos without permission, YouTube is not
really enforcing it. But you do require permission
from the photographers to use those photos.
And BG GS terms of service states that any for photos
uploaded to BGG, the BGG can use it obviously.
But and any users have a non exclusive rights to use those
photos within BGG, not outside BGG.
So in order to use those photos on your YouTube content you have
to obtain permission from the photographer or at the very
least at them right? Because those pictures aren't
your assets, but you didn't take your, you didn't take those
photos yourselves. So you need to ask for
permission 1st. And I think a lot of Youtubers
doesn't really know, but they just think if it's from BGG,
it's a public forum, public resource.
So they think these can just use it.
So that was a big topic that had quite a bit of comments.
Yeah. And a lot of Youtubers didn't
realize that you had to ask for permission.
That's I appreciate you bringing that up.
I think I think it's a copyright is copyright law.
Jesus in the United States alone is so complicated.
So let's let's let's take that to fruition, right?
Because obviously I post the video of this podcast on YouTube
and let's say in the section where you and I were talking
about quacks, I pull a picture of quacks to do an overlay and I
pull it from BGG, right? So how would you cite that
picture in the video? Like how would what would that
look like? How would that work?
Well, yeah, I would definitely ask for the the owner's
permission first. If not, I mean Alex of a pork
and coal, like he never uses any like overlay photos.
He was just, you know, hold up the box or put the box on the
table to, you know, point at it or whatever, right.
So there are there are ways. I mean, quacks is a popular
title. You could definitely create your
own assets, take your own pictures and overlay those
instead. I mean, that's the best possible
solution. Use your own assets.
Right, Yeah. So what I, what I have, what I
have found that's worked for me is if I, if I talk about a game,
I usually take a picture of it so that I could put it on the
overlay. And like, if you talk about a
game that I'd like, you talked about void fall and I don't own
void fall. I would be like, hey, could you
take me, take a picture of it for the show and send it to me
so I can put an overlay while we're talking.
I find that that serves me well. It's better than us holding them
up because I'm on a, I'm on a very portable system.
I'm sitting in front of my my shelves.
I'm not sitting at my game table.
If I were doing more of a vlog kind of thing, I could do that.
And I have in some of my shorts. So yeah, I think there's room
for everything. But I think again, you bring up
the great point. Any assets that you use if you
pull from a website, getting that permission so you don't
violate copyright is fundamental.
Exactly. And also publisher will be happy
to provide you with really great publicity photos of their, of
their games. So that's another route that
any, anyone can go through. And many of them do have these
media assets on their websites that you could go and download
them. They're super high quality and
they show the game in the best possible light.
And yeah, and if not, just e-mail them, ask for some
photos. They'll be happy to provide
those photos for extra coverage and exposure.
For free. Yeah, absolutely.
I love that. Thanks for bringing it up.
I think it's I think it's an important thing to bring up
because we're all we all work so hard on our digital content and
to not get recognized when someone uses it.
I know there's been a lot of talk about people copying other
folks content, the rise of AI as well.
I know that that those those conversations seem to be kind of
together. And I think copyright law is
something people need to know about, you know?
Yeah. And, and yeah, all these people
like using my content in their content.
Like I'm sure they have no malicious intent.
Yeah, they never expressed that my photos are their content.
They're just showcasing the game.
And my photos happen to be on BGG that they pull from so I
completely understand it. But at the very least, credit at
the very least. Give tie to credit guys he
needs. That not just me, not just me,
anyone. And they see these the biggest a
board game channels like Dice Tower using these photos from
BGG without any credit and other smaller Youtubers I think like
that's OK because the biggest ones are used doing it right.
Right. And absolutely, it's not fair.
So aside from copyright and credits and captions, right, If
someone were to come to you and say, hey, you know what I'm
thinking about, you know, becoming a content creator, you
know, starting to post some of the games that I'm reviewing for
people, what advice would you give to them?
Create content that makes you happy.
It's like things that you play. Don't ever chase the the new
hotness because you're going to need another mortgage.
I mean, I like, even though I have a lot of access to a lot of
new games, Yeah. I think I only request games
that sparks my interest. I mean, you know, a few years
ago, like I used to request everything because.
Yeah, because I could get them. Yeah.
But now I'm very selective of things, that of the games that I
think my wife and I will enjoy. And I fall into that trap of
only covering games that I review positively.
But I mean, you don't want to spend hours on a game that you
that's dreadful. And you don't want to spend
hours writing that review and taking photographs.
I don't want to waste my time. I don't know that's that's
taking time away from my toddler.
Right. Well, yeah, Yep, that's true.
But that's good advice is do it. Do it.
I think that's been coming up a lot is everyone's advice is do
what you enjoy, you know, maintain your happiness,
maintain your joy. As long as you, you enjoy the
content you're creating, then go for it.
I think that's the best, that's the best advice that I keep
hearing this time and time again.
So I, I wanted to ask you though, about reviews real
quick. I wrestle.
I don't do reviews. I'm always upfront with
publishers, designers that I don't do reviews.
What I do like to do is if you design A game, I want to have
you come on the show and tell me about your journey.
I'm more interested in that. That to me is a compelling
story, and I think it's the way that I contribute my little bit
to building this community. But sometimes I get games sent
to me. It's less often than one would
think, believe it or not, but I wrestle with this.
I I get a game and I don't like it.
How do you handle that? Right?
Like how do you balance because you want to give a balanced
review, You want to be honest. This is another topic that's
been coming up in the content creator community is giving an
honest review. Not that you want to be negative
and just eviscerate the designer in their game, but how do you
balance a game that you you review and and you don't you
didn't like it or you have you have things to say that are less
positive. How do you balance those two?
Yeah, that's a that's a tough question.
I think early on in my content creation career, I think I try
to be as truthful as possible. And I think that got me on a lot
of blacklists because, yeah, I think I just crapped on the
games. In hindsight, I don't think I
should have done that. OK.
There are ways obviously you could point out the positives
and the negative things that I like and dislike.
There's another way where you could contact the publisher and
tell them I do not enjoy this game.
This game does not fit my taste. And they will likely tell you
to, I know some publishers, they will tell you to donate the game
to a local gaming group or library so that it's not sitting
on my shelf. So that does happen.
So it's it's best to be truthful with the publisher.
Yes. Let them know I do not enjoy it.
What do you want me to do with this review copy?
They might say, yeah, keep it or give it to someone who might
like it. Yeah, yeah.
So you don't. You don't always have to post
games that you receive. Yeah, and.
It's a challenge. It's a challenge.
I think what I would say if anyone's listening and they're
either new to the content creation or they're thinking
about starting to transition from just being a casual gamer
to content creators, be aware of that.
You want to be honest, but you don't want to be negative.
And I believe that you could be constructive through that
honesty. And I think reaching out, I
like, I like your advice is reaching out to the the
designer, the publisher and say, hey, before I publish anything,
before I post anything, this is, this is what I thought that I
this is what I really like. So rather than reviews, what I
do is play test, right? So I, what I do see a lot of are
prototypes. I see tons of prototypes that
come through. So I know that the game when it
arrives at my door, it's going to look so different when it
leaves my door. So I don't have to worry about
that. And then what I can do is so you
design A game, you mail it to me, I play test it.
My wife and I, you know, eviscerated to, you know, in, in
that constructive way. And then we send you our
feedback work on this, this is good, this is bad, this, you
know, whatever. And then have you on the show
and talk about your journey, which is, which is so exciting
for me, which I really the, the, I never thought about it until
this last year, 2025 was probably the most prolific in
terms of prototypes that came to my house, right?
That they they were willing to ship me prototypes.
In fact, I had some designer friends stay for the weekend.
They they did they came over and stayed the weekend and, you
know, they were working on a new game we got to play a they got
we got to play the final product of their game that we play
tested in the past. So that was really exciting.
I love that. Yeah.
So people think I'm just making this up.
No, see, I don't have any children.
So I have like this house. You can stay.
You all can't stay at one time, but you could come and stay for
the weekend, right? I will cook for you and you can
play games with me and I'll be happy, you know, but play
testing in the podcast, just they go hand in hand in ways
that I wasn't prepared for and it has allowed me to slightly
upgrade my system. I'm I've got a mobile studio now
that I didn't have before. I hope.
I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I have the new 4K
camera. So I'm really excited about that
because I I'm a little bit more crystal clear.
Maybe shouldn't, maybe I shouldn't be with this face, you
know. But yeah, I love the prototypes.
I think the beauty of play testing it it there's a lot of
there's less pressure when reviewing, right?
Because you don't, you don't want to be too negative.
Well, in this case you do. You want to be brutally honest
so that you could help the designer make their game better,
right? And that's.
That's been great. Yeah, I definitely see the
attraction of point testing, but I think I'm the opposite of you.
I think I prefer the final version.
OK. Playing the game as intended by
the designer. But I'm like, I mean, I've
played plenty of prototypes that are close to final.
And depending on our feedback, the studios actually do make
those changes because they can possibly play taste every aspect
of the game. Yeah.
So it is really gratifying to see those changes that your
feedback meant something. Yes to the to the designer.
Yes, Yeah, Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah. So I've got to ask you about
your your Instagram name, right? Thai ET.
Now, I understand it's TAE and you put it in its three
different forms, but I wanted to ask you about tea.
Here's the question. Are you an avid tea drinker?
No. No, that ruins the whole episode
for me. Wrong answer.
Let's try that. Again, no.
I do drink tea quite a bit, but I only drink like, green tea.
OK, so something that doesn't have a lot of fruity flavors.
Yeah, green tea is pretty much the only thing I drink.
Or something with honey and wild ginseng.
Sure, yeah. What about What about at your
tape? At your tabletop, you and your
wife sit down to play a game. Do you have a pot of tea or a
cup of tea while gaming? Beer.
Just beer. Beer.
There it is, beer. OK, but I mean like my name was
anagram like it's true anagram for eat.
Yeah. Tea and eight.
Yeah, that's true. So anything that's related to
like Edie? Well OK, so let let's talk about
the eating then, since you pretty much ruined my theory on
tea. No, I'm just what about what
about snacks at your table? Do you allow them and do you
have a favorite? Yeah, I mean, we do.
We do fruits quite a bit, some chips, but like any good Asians
we use chopsticks to eat chips. Sure, sure.
Because we don't want to get these precious games any dirty
then they need to be. No, you're totally, totally
right about that. I agree with that.
Yeah, we like, well, especially now after all the surgeries I
had over the holidays, we 'cause I'm more on a high protein and
low fat diet, so a lot of hummus with very vegetables, you know,
you know, really enjoying that. And also it's not very messy,
you know, 'cause you can have it.
You can have your little bowl of hummus, you know, and your
Peppers and your cucumbers and carrots and stuff.
So they're all good for you then.
Yeah, healthy eating, healthier guys, so that I can give you
more podcast episodes to enjoy. Well, PJ, but we want you to
live forever. That's all I want.
OK, well thank you. I'll tell you something that
I've not told anyone. I've I've never said it online
before. It's not really a secret.
So when my wife and I first met and started dating and when I
asked her to to marry me and she said yes, she's like, but I want
a 75th wedding anniversary. So.
So let's do the math for a moment.
Let's do the math. PJ is now 50 years old.
I have to live to 109 so that my wife can have a 75th.
Well, it's doable, but clearly I was doing something wrong
because I got it led me into the hospital over the holidays and I
had to have all these surgeries because I wasn't taking care of
myself. I thought I was, but clearly I
needed to work harder and so. Well, those are the medical
interventions made you clearly better.
Yeah, now I just got to follow through, so yeah, watch that.
So we improve the snacks. We improve the snacks.
Thank you. I appreciate that because I need
it. So yeah.
Well, Ty. Thank you for your time.
Thanks for joining. Thanks for reaching out to me.
You know, look, and, and this is for all of you.
If you want to come on the show, man, you know, send me Adm on
Instagram. You can find me on Facebook.
I'm on TikTok. Tell me you want to come on the
show. We'll just chat for an hour.
And you know, we'll, we'll keep building this community and
nurturing openness. I think I really loved your
story about the the friend of yours who was teaching Western
games to an Arabic world. I mean, if that's not nurturing
inclusivity and diversity, I don't know what else is.
Right. Yeah.
And I feel, I feel like that that friend is doing more for
the community than I am. Oh, yeah.
I, I need to work harder, guys. Yeah.
Man, he had all these, all these really great gateway games.
Yeah, on his shelves are our all Arabic.
I can recognize the cover, but I I couldn't obviously read it
right. Yeah, he was, he was involved,
like I think he was helping publishers to bring those games
over as well as teaching those games on YouTube.
So like, he was doing some amazing work.
That is so great. That is so great.
I love that. That's just incredible mission,
uniting players around the world.
I'm all about it. In all languages.
Yeah, so Ty, where can, if anyone wants to reach out to you
after listening to this episode or watching it on YouTube, where
can they find you on the socials?
Yeah, Instagram is the only social that I'm on, OK, Too lazy
to do anything else. OK, No, you are you are at Thai
TAE under score Eat, eat under score TI love that that that's
fantastic. Well, thanks.
Thanks for joining me. I really appreciate this.
This is This is. Great, it only took months of
convincing. Months.
Months, he says. What's the name of this?
Guys? Don't forget to like and
subscribe. Please give me comments.
I thrive on that. So I can continue giving you
content. And if you've got an idea for a
topic or you want to join me on the show and just talk about
whatever game you want to talk about, come on, let's do it.
And as always, remember, be kind to each other and let's play
more games.