Mat Cousineau: ⁓ I wanna play a game. Any plans for this evening? Perhaps a game night? Game over, man. It's game over. Shut up. Play the game. Play it from your heart. Twenty-six years ago, we started playing a little game. Now we're all gonna sit down. Finish it. I've made the arms be ever in your name. Here we go. Welcome to Dice Camera Action, the mashup podcast about board games and movies, where cardboard meets a silver screen. Each episode we review a game, and if you're a Cinephile, you can stick around for discussion about a movie with a similar theme. And today we have a returning guest host. I'm excited to have Mistfit ⁓ Misfit Tom on from the Tabletop Misfits. They're a group of game-loving Misfits who share their love of ⁓ for the hobby. They cover not only board games but also card games, RPGs, and more from unboxings, reviews, playthroughs, podcasts, and convention coverage, especially a Gen Con, which is coming up very shortly. mostly and pretty much all on YouTube, right? That's kind of your YouTube platform. That's main platform. Yeah, I know that's For sure. Yeah, so they'll be at ⁓ At Gen Con and ⁓ I'm actually excited because I'll get to meet ⁓ Tom for the first time face to face. So anyways, Tom, welcome. Welcome to the podcast. I'm excited to have you on. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, for sure. You you reached out to me. This was a a pleasant surprise. out of nowhere, you you reached out and said, I have a copy of Altera that ⁓ I'm done with in terms of content. Do you want me to send it to you and then we can ⁓ ⁓ you know, do a podcast about it. And I said, Absolutely, that sounds amazing. And so here we are, probably six weeks or so later. And ⁓ you know, I was hoping to maybe get this recorded and out, but while the game found ⁓ thing was still happening, but of course, you know, the timing and being on time and or being organized is not my forte. Well that and you have to play it for a while and stuff like that, and you know, you got it kind of mid mid ⁓ game found anyway. So but you know, game found being game found, I'm sure there's gonna be late pledges and stuff like that. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm sure there's gonna be lots of ways to ⁓ to get your hands on it. ⁓ even if you have to wait for retail, but at least ⁓ you get to hear about it here on on Dice Camera Action. So today on the episode we're gonna look ahead to Gen Con and talk about some of the stuff we're excited and looking forward to. ⁓ we're gonna do some shout outs and talk about some of the games, movies, shows that we've been ⁓ taking in lately then we'll jump into our main ⁓ review of Altera, the new ⁓ game coming out by Ivy Studios. ⁓ and then the movie that we've paired with it is The Emperor's New Groove, which ⁓ I'm jocked taught to talk about. It's ⁓ it's it's one of my favorite animated movies. I think it's super underrated and we'll we'll talk about it some more. ⁓ a hundred percent agreement down the line here. So before we get ⁓ Into all of that, let's take a quick moment and hear from our sponsor, Board Game Bliss. I want to take a quick moment to shout out our sponsor, BoardGameBliss.com, which is honestly where I've been buying games for years. This isn't some random ad read. They're literally the only people I reached out to because I already love what they do, and I was relieved when they said yes so I could be fully genuine when endorsing them. They've got a huge inventory of games and are always super competitive price-wise, which is important to me. At Board Game Bliss, we believe in the magic of play. Board games spark joy, forge connections, and create unbelievable moments. We source exceptional titles from around the globe, so your table always has something exciting to offer. Whether you're just starting out or you're a seasoned pro, there's always a new favorite waiting to be found. Go to boardgamebliss.com and find out why they're my personal favorite place to buy board games. So speaking of board game bliss, just to give them a little bit further shout out and ⁓ and back up my word ⁓ in the ad there, ⁓ you know, anytime there's games that I'm excited about and they're unavailable, ⁓ you can go on a on a site on on Board Game Bliss and kind of sign up for notifications. And recently I got two such notifications, one for Schadenfreud, which is a ⁓ German trick taking game or Germ, I guess a German themed trick taking game. I don't know if it actually comes out of of Germany. I assumed it did. But anyways, ⁓ Shouten Freud, one of my favorite ⁓ trick taking games. One of my favorite Yeah. Has been famously sold out and unavailable. and ⁓ so I got an email from Board Game Bliss saying it was in stock and you could pre order it. So immediately did that and then ⁓ in the same week within a couple of days I got another one for Agent Avenue becoming available again. for purchase. So I have both of those games paid for and ready for me to pick up at Board Game Bliss. So they do a great job over there sourcing games. And even if games are out of print a lot of times they do have ⁓ import games and lots of games from Japan and overseas and stuff like that that you can't get elsewhere. So shout out ⁓ to Board Game Bliss. ⁓ as I said in the ad, they are ⁓ my favorite place to buy board games. ⁓ it's not just ⁓ they're not just a sponsor. ⁓ anyways moving on here we are gonna sponsor you're one of their Favorite people. Yeah, I spend so much money there. I'm sure I'm one of their favorite people. The ⁓ the the little bit of money I get from these ads, ⁓ just they just go right back to Board Game. Just like, can you just add it to my tab? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I love those guys and I'm sure they love me too. ⁓ cool. So yeah, we're we ⁓ we're g going to Gen Con in at the time of this recording in like ⁓ two weeks. It's ⁓ July fourteenth, so ⁓ I'm leaving on the twenty ninth, which is in fifteen days. So ⁓ yeah, basically two weeks from now I'll be hitting the road and heading down to Indianapolis. And ⁓ yeah, I'm really jacked for that. I've been to Gen Con once. I assume you've been a whole bunch of times, Tom. I've been this I think this is gonna be my fifth year in a row going. So ever since ⁓ ever since they it came back for COVID, I've been there. So Right. Okay. Twenty twenty something. Yeah. Cool. It's great for me 'cause 'cause I I just I just love it. I I used to live in Indianapolis ages and ages and ages ago. And so you know, a lot of my family's still there, so I don't have to pay for a hotel. ⁓ very nice. That's huge. Yeah. That's actually my first point here is ⁓ I'm not paying for a hotel this time either. ⁓ but it's not because I have family, it's because I'm gonna be working. So ⁓ just in my ventures running around up here in Canada, going to board game events, and you know, I've ⁓ befriended some of the gentlemen from outset media. ⁓ and ⁓ so just in passing last last time I was with them at at Canada Plays in Hamilton, they invite they were looking for staff for people to demo games and and help them with their with their booth and their setup ⁓ at Gen Con and ⁓ They'd me, like when are we gonna see you next? Are you gonna be at you know, was it Origins or you know, Gen Con or whatever? And I said, Biggie. Right, yeah. And and I said, I you know what, it's I don't have plans to go to any of those things this summer. It's just not really in the cards financially and we didn't really plan for it and whatever the case is. And they said, Well, if you're interested, you know, we'll we'll put you up and take care of a lot of your expenses and whatever and that sort of made it affordable and realistic for me and I s I thought, heck, ⁓ that should be fun and you know, made some arrangements through work and ⁓ and ⁓ some negotiation with the family and ⁓ and the wife. Please let me go. Please please let me go. No, Lee my wife Leanne is is fantastic for ⁓ supporting me in my hobbies. So yeah, it was not it was not a huge deal and I was able to make the arrangements and ⁓ so I'm really excited. I'm gonna be demoing a whole bunch of outset media games, just looking at the to pile now I'm gonna be ⁓ doing Comet, which is ⁓ a newer game that's coming out, a dinosaur themed tiling game of some kind. I have I haven't opened the box yet, but interesting. I'm gonna be doing that in the next couple of weeks 'cause I've gotta I've gotta learn it. Ape Town, which is a Reiner Kenizia tiling game that is themed. It's like a noir detective noir themed, but it's all apes. ⁓ wow. And has a really cool looking theme. I I I dig it and I've played that game a few times, pretty neat. Guildlands, which is like an asymmetric tile layer. Everybody is sort of like root meets like Cascadia or that sort of thing, where everybody's they're all everybody's playing on a on a shared map. So more, I guess, even like ⁓ Carcassonne. It's more Carcassonne than Cascadia, because everybody's working on the same map, but everybody's trying to achieve something completely different on the board. So it's yes very unique, very interesting. So I'm looking forward to showing people that and a couple other games that I'll look forward to demoing. I'm looking forward to you hooking me up with an interview with those guys 'cause I'd I'd like to learn more about those and come by and interview y'all. So sure, yeah. Yeah, you know you know my number. Yeah. Give me ⁓ yeah give me a ring after this and we can ⁓ we can make it happen for sure. What's ⁓ w so what is your game plan? Like I'm I'm going to demo, you know, games for for outset with my spare time. I do plan on pitching ⁓ Some games as a game designer to some publishers, you know, and ⁓ and just kind of ⁓ meeting people and obviously buying and playing games is obviously a big part of it. What's what's your game plan at Gen Con? ⁓ my game plan is what we do every year at Gen Con is we we go and we interview a bunch of our f game developers that are out there on the floor. We we meet up with some of our old friends and we also search around for the coolest new game from people who were just, you know, there's this great little area on the floor which are like for for brand new people. And we like to go over there and see what they've got going on and just trying to just meet people and learn about their games and and and we also you know we cover basically from the floor. We're like as soon as I do an interview, zip zip, zip, I edit it, it's up on YouTube. So so we we're constantly you know posting from the floor. ⁓ yeah, sometimes it gets a little backed up if we got a lot of stuff. But we constantly we're we do live stuff from the floor. We we were kind of one of the first people in this, you know, medium to to kind of do that. ⁓ just from my background in, you know, being in journalism and stuff, I kind of knew the tools to do that. So, you know, your story for going to Gen Con is a lot like what launched our channel was ⁓ we went to Pax U. I had an opportunity to demo stuff for for Amigo Games. And so I did that and then in my off time I did, you know, Gen Con coverage from the floor. And so did so did Anthony, my my partner that and and he wo it worked for a different company. So we would run around and do all these interviews and then that's when all those just exploded on YouTube. And so that kind of made our channel at the time. So we kinda try to specialize in in covering a convention and And meeting new people and telling people about new games and trying new games and making new friends because the more you meet all these people and and you see it. I mean, that we there's some people like we see them the first year and like for there was one example of a of a game ⁓ company that they had when we first saw them, they had a fig. And it was like this big and an idea for a game. And then like three years later, there's the game and it's a fifty pound game and and and we helped them like one year they brought us through a test demo of it and they they gave us a little challenge coin because we were you know they're that we were supporting them from the beginning and all this stuff but to see them come from like one little fig to you know a game that requires you know two or three people to lift it and and just to see all this stuff and and and see a lot of people like a lot of our friends at I V studio. It's like we we start started hearing with a concept and the first g first time I met the guys at IV studio, they just put out Moonrakers, which was their first game. And now they've got so many great games. And yeah, there's great stuff over there. Seeing them grow and grow through the years and and just, you know, I could go on and on about all the people we we want to meet and see. And we we have a couple videos on on our YouTube channel. ⁓ first one was like the top ten we did, but then we we realized soon after we Ten was not enough. So we did a what we call an accidental podcast where w we don't we don't plan podcasts. We just we do them accidentally. We're when we're filming stuff, we just kinda say, okay, let's just roll the cameras and talk about something. And and sort of we we did an accidental podcast of everything that wasn't on the top ten list, which which ⁓ is gonna be ⁓ it for for my time frame, as you said before, your time frame, it's gonna air Thursday, but But it'll already be on the internet now, so it's all the other stuff that we want to do at Gen Con. And ⁓ so I I don't know how many times you've been to Gen Con, but but just the once so far. This will be my second time, yeah. Yeah, we learned ⁓ if anybody's thinking about Gen Con and all that, you you're gonna have a list of a million things you wanna do and you're not gonna do them all. And you're gonna do th you're gonna do three of them. Yeah. And you're gonna but they're gonna be on the million directions. Yeah. And and you're gonna find another thing and you're gonna You know, and and so like last year we we like every year we would just hit the floor from b from when it doors open to when the doors closed and interview as many people as we can and get this ⁓ and it's like by the time we were done, it's like it's just overload. We don't remember everything. So last year I said, Okay, we're going to do we're gonna play this game. We're gonna go play something. Yeah. We're gonna but we're we're gonna do all sorts of coverage. But I said, Okay, we're doing a D and D game. So I signed us up for a D and D game and I said, We're going to go do And we're gonna learn this other game that we wanna play. And then the Expeditions, the ⁓ the game that's ⁓ get Galactic Cruise guys are making, which is kind of a scale back Galactic Cruise. Because Galactic Cruise is a lot. But it's really cool, but it's a lot. And Expeditions is supposed to be kind of a more medium weight kind of thing. Kind of you can you can compare that like where Arc Nova and Sanctuary are. You know, it's kind of a a lighter version but the same theming. So We're gonna go do a demo play of that. We're gonna do a demo play with ⁓ with Lunar Skyline, which is one we haven't gotten around to learning to play yet. And we're gonna be doing that. So that's that's ⁓ Dead Alive Games did that. They did they ⁓ did Lunar Rush. I don't know if you played that yet. But that's a I haven't played it, but I have heard of it, yeah. Yeah, and they they've got the an expansion that's gonna be released at Gen Con, hopefully, if the if if there's so much stuff that You know, it's like it's gonna be a Gen Con asterisk if the if it comes off the boat in time and gets to the con in time and all that. So it's one of those that they really hope that they're gonna have that there because the the expansion to Lunar Rush with the ⁓ asymmetric factions just really I mean, it was a good game to begin with, but the asymmetric factions just kicked it up a whole other notch. So we're l hoping it to get there and see that. But there's I mean, there's just so, so, so much. I mean, I've got a list Yeah, let's let's get like I mean we can't we don't want spend too much too much time on this 'cause we're gonna have a six hour podcast, but ⁓ yeah maybe just our top three four. ⁓ yeah, we could just discuss a few of the quick things that we're interested in checking out. And you know, I mentioned the reason I'm going and you you you you mentioned the I forget what it's called, but like the entrepreneurs avenue or something like that. ⁓ I think it's Entrepreneurs Avenue or Alley or something like that. But they're Yeah, and that's where all the news just kinda gotten in there. Yeah, and that's who that's how I went to Gen Con last time. Dragonet Games, who ⁓ published my game Kyperium, ⁓ which you see over my shoulder here if you're if you're looking at the video. I still need to get a copy of that. That was ⁓ you don't have a copy? I'll I'll bring you one. I'll bring you one of Gen Con. ⁓ great, great. ⁓ but yeah, so I did that with ⁓ with Dragon Egg Games last two years ago. Two years ago? I think was two years ago. And ⁓ yeah, Entrepreneurs Avenue was ⁓ was fantastic. ⁓ lots of people coming through there specifically to check out up and coming games and designers and that sort of thing. So definitely a spot I want to go check out again for sure and and support those indie game ⁓ yeah indie games. I love I love the stories behind those games too. Everybody's everybody's got a great story and a great yeah, it's it's a idea and you know, we all love games and somebody's got an idea for a game, it's like Yeah, cool. 'Cause I've I've had ideas for for games that didn't last more than a couple of rounds of notes, you know. And it's ⁓ for somebody to to come up with a great idea and see it through is just amazing. It's a l it's a lot more work than you ever imagined, but yeah, if you can see it through and you have the the if you have the patience and the the willpower to do it, ⁓ it's ⁓ it's pretty rewarding, you know. And I'm not talking about financially because it is not financially rewarding. But it's very rewarding to just have a product out there and people playing it. And, you know, when I see reviews, you know, Kyperum specifically has a super small sample size, you know, I think under a hundred ⁓ reviews, but it's an eight point two on on ⁓ BGG. ⁓ nice. So, you know, I I love seeing small designers and small publishers, indie games ⁓ do well and I'm looking forward to checking out that ⁓ entrepreneurs avenue. So what's ⁓ what's one of the titles or things you're excited to check out at Gen Con? Let's rip through these lists real quick. Well, I most most of these we kind of touched on as far as on our top ten list, but I know that you know I'm I I can't wait to see the guys at Ivy Studio and introduce you to the guys at Ivy Studio, especially Yeah, absolutely especially Austin and and Zach and everybody and and they're going to have Realm of Reckoning there. And if I can Suggest it is it is an amazing game. And we have played the heck out of it. And that's it's going to be released at Gen Con. And I think you can pre-order it on the website right now. I'm 99% sure. It's one of my favorites from them because it's just so much fun. And and the descriptions of it, I really don't think do it justice. Do it justice. Because the because they they talk about, you know, there's there's an area control kind of aspect of it-ish. ⁓ but the whole deal about the game that what what makes it just really sing for us every time we play it is that you will set your your what scores basically as you play the game. So there's different conditions on the board and you've got to kind of fight it out to take control of of what's called a reckoning. And when you get when you win a reckoning through your influence and and other stuff that happens in the game, you get something that lets you decide what's going to score. One of the scoring conditions that's cool. Yeah, one of the scoring conditions. So you could go in and you know there when you first start the game, there's no scoring conditions. Yeah. No direction. That's weird. No yeah. So so somebody comes in and they go, Okay, we're gonna grab this that says, Okay, the top regions, if you've got control in the top regions, it's going to give you points. And then because they've already got control in a couple of the top regions, and then you gotta go. You gotta go, ⁓ I gotta get points in that first of all, but then you also go, I gotta make sure they don't get points in that. So it it it's an evolving game as it goes and it I really have never had a situation like that in any game that I can think of. So that's the replayability on that is is so, so good. Two to five. That sounds really cool, Isaac ⁓ Isaac, one of our regular co hosts on the podcast, literally messaged me today and he's like, ⁓ let's see if we can get our hands on Realm of Reckoning to do a podcast about it. So maybe I'll use you as a connection and we can ⁓ go and and snipe a copy ⁓ snipe a copy at a Gen Con that I can ⁓ that I can play and ⁓ and discuss on the podcast. So I can I can guarantee you'll get No promises, listeners, but we'll sometime before the end of the weekend you'll get a copy. I guarantee it. Okay. I I'll hold you to it. You heard here first, folks. Cool. What are the games I'm looking for? It may be a prototype copy. You'll have to download the rules because I got an extra prototype copy over there, but at the very least. But it's the the prototype was was ninety nine point nine percent ready when we got it. And so it was it was it it's it's great. It's I can't say enough of that. And they're also gonna have ⁓ ten there if anybody's been trying to get tended. And they're gonna have I think if the boats work with us. They're gonna have SOR there, which is a small box game, which is kind of in the ⁓ fractured sky universe. It's a it's a fun game that it it's it it's mu it's a much bigger small game than you'd expect and the art is beautiful and and you know we've we we've ⁓ been taking it to pubs and stuff and bars and we go we have some video online of us playing playing in a tiki bar in Orlando and then you know because it's a small Footprint, but it's really, really fun. And then they're gonna also have another another game there. ⁓ it's a a s social game kind of thing that that they haven't given me any details on, but I can't wait to see it. Very cool. ⁓ yeah, one I'm sort of looking forward to is Drillers. I don't know if that was on your list. It wasn't. It didn't cross my radar. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, it's ⁓ it looks really cool. It is what was the yeah, I think there's deck building involved. I'm trying to yeah, here it is. So area movement, area majority, deck bag, and pool building, ⁓ pan management, it and the art looks great. It's about mining for minerals, and I think there's like a push your luck element where you can try to go deeper and more and more, but then if you overdo it, you know, then you can that can cause problems. So I really like the push-your-luck element, all the all the ⁓ the mechanisms that that were listed and the way that was explained here. You know, it says ⁓ drillers is a game about planning ahead, tough decision making, and knowing just how far you can afford to drill. ⁓ will you be the first to extend the horizons and uncover what depths what the depths hide. So it ⁓ yeah, it's it looks really cool. The art is neat and ⁓ a lot of the mechanisms seem right up my alley. So That's one that jumped out to me as I'm kind of just browsing through the the stuff. Yeah, put it on your list, Tom. I gotta put that on my list. Well I've got I mean, I've got an interview with CGE on Saturday. There you go. Friday. So I will definitely talk to them about that, 'cause that did not cross my radar. Thanks for the heads up. Sounds like an awesome game. And you you talk about bag building, that's gonna that's gonna go, you know, lean into Altera later, but Yeah, we'll talk a little bit about that. And then ⁓ Dune Imperium Conspiracy is another one. I mean Dune Imperium Uprising is my favorite game of all time at this stage. So yeah, any any content that comes out for that, ⁓ I I you know, I don't I don't necessarily play all the content. I I w I that's a That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know. I just saw it on an ⁓ most anticipated list and so I didn't dig into it much further than that, but ⁓ Either way I'm excited to check it out and see what it's all about. Yeah, I love it. And the last thing I had on my list. Yeah, I love that game too. Yeah, nice. Yeah, I love it. I think it's the perfect amount. Like I love Euro games and I like lots of not necessarily conflict, but I love lots of interaction and and and really caring about what my opponents are doing on their turns and just Exactly. Just kind of z zooming in and honing in on the game without having moments where I want to check my phone and get distracted and get bored or wait for my turn. ⁓ if if you don't watch what the other people are doing, you're you're gonna lose. You gotta be all over it. Yeah, exactly. So the Dune Imperium just hits all the all the marks for me personally. And ⁓ so that's why I'm excited for ⁓ Dune Imperium Conspiracy, the ⁓ the new expansion that I think works for both Imperium and Uprising. The last thing that I mentioned, you know, I I mean ⁓ there's there's like a lot of the big games are just kind of obvious ones. And ⁓ the one that kind of jumped out at me is Trick to the Future. ⁓ it looks to be a back to the future themed I I mean, obviously it's not I don't think it's licensed, but it definitely evokes the movie. So it's called Trick to the Future and it is a ⁓ trick taking game that is back to the future themed. So if there's some time tri ⁓ time traveling elements where you can kind of go back and forth and change things, if there's any of that in the game, if they can find a way to make that work, that sounds really cool. ⁓ honestly, I know nothing about it other than the theme and ⁓ that it's a trip-taking game. So but it jumped out at me as something that like I'd I want to check out for sure. What do you have, Tom? Well, ⁓ I've got another thing that we really want to go get because we love the the franchises is Thunder Road ignition, which is supposed to be a scale back Thunder Road, but it also integrates into Thunder Road if you want to. So can't wait to get that. I've already got I'm going to the the launch party for that, so I I know I've a hundred percent know I got a copy. But that that definitely is something we were looking forward to because you know, sometimes I mean sometimes even bringing Thunder Road somewhere is a is a bit of a you know chore because it's a I have the I have the maximum chrome edition and so Yeah me we just recently reviewed it on the podcast and ⁓ in that podcast home I said like since I've got this edition I play it less. It's just too in it's intimidating to to bring out 'cause it's just like so much more work to set up and dig through the box and everything else. So ⁓ a scaled back one sounds like it might be a good idea. Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't have the helicopters in it. ⁓ you kinda have a a mechanic where you shoot missiles out of the cars so you don't have to have that that helicopter step, which takes up less box space. But and and it's ⁓ the rules are a little simpler. ⁓ the the tracks, you can add all the tracks to the current Thunder Road, so and it's got curves. So it's gonna take up a little more real estate that way. But it's got it's got curves, it's got some other stuff. So I I like that it could be separate and a small ⁓ easier game to get to a table, but it's also you know integrates these the new new stuff to it. So that's I I can't wait for that. And then You know, as far as expansions too, Paverson Games is gonna have the distilled insp expansion. The cocktail. They're supposed to have that there. I can't wait for that. Cause I just the ⁓ it's one of my one of my top games is distilled, and we really like that because it's it's a lot of fun. If you haven't played that, it's it's quite ⁓ a fun experience. And ⁓ so that's those are two expansions. But the big thing I think I can't wait to get is Into the Machine. That's ⁓ AEG. We we did a Kickstarter preview for it and it's getting sent out to all the Kickstarter people now and they're gonna have it there and they're gonna have a bunch of other AEG's got like four or five games there that they're releasing, but Into the Machine is so much fun. And ⁓ I feel like he talked about this. Have you had this for a while or Yeah, I I got it last Gen Con because ⁓ they were they were getting ready for the Kickstarter. So they gave us ⁓ Yeah, last time you were on you talked about this a little bit. So it's c it's it's gonna be available at Gen Con for purchase? It's gonna be available at Gen Con and not only that, but the you know, everything that I thought was limiting on the prototype, they've gone well past that. They the the gameplay is even better because they've got Like the the first thing we noticed about in the machine is like if somebody got really far ahead there wasn't really a catch up mechanic. If they really started, you know, it got to be like, ⁓ yeah, you're gonna win and we we would just, you know, call a game here and there. But now there's ways for you to to manipulate other people's robots on the line and bring them back and have, you know, somewhat of a catch up thing and that and they've improved the the main game board. ⁓ before they were having cards that you put out and the cards would kind of slide around a little bit. Now they're gonna be inset into the board so they won't slide around. So it's gonna be so much nicer and then they got a couple more expansions with it, so it's gonna be there and so that's gonna be cool to see the final version because you know I that's one thing I just love is that you see it's Like it looks really cool. ⁓ and it's so much fun and and ⁓ misfit ⁓ Doctor Chaos around here. He he calls it a a programming game. And that I I guess that clicks in his head that way is like he's He's thinking about how to program his robots to get to the end and and he's he's actually kind of more using logic puzzles and and right sequence where I'm just flying by the seat of my pants like I do every every game I play. But but he he sees the but he sees the ⁓ rain man math that goes around here and he just totally dominates whenever we play that and that's why I'm like, I need a ketchup mechanic so I can keep up with you. So we we can't wait to get there. Yeah, and there's a whole bunch of others I I don't wanna drool all and on because I can go another couple hours, like I said, but but ⁓ definitely yeah, check out our videos, we'll tell you all about what s some of the cool stuff that that is at Gen Con. That we know right and then honestly, we you just pulled, you know, drillers out and I have never heard of drillers and I have I've already set up the interview with C G E. Yeah, I've already set up an interview with CGE and I didn't know about it. So it's like I I've gotta get that. That sounds awesome. And you know, but it's just what a it's ⁓ we're in kind of prime overload of board games that so much comes out that that you don't even see until it's out and gone and and you know, somebody else is talking about it and that's why I love following s you know, a bunch of other people, like especially people like I I follow a couple of people in England, I follow you know, a lot of other countries because the distribution is different. So it's like they'll see a game that I've never heard of, nor have I ever seen. But you know, it's like it's it's it's there's just so much out there. You just it's hard to keep up with everything. Yeah. Yeah. It's not even yeah, you don't even try to keep up. You just do what you can and ⁓ look for the stuff that you love and that's all you can do. So yeah, very cool. And that's part of the last few weeks we ⁓ the misf at the Misfit Central we've been we just said nothing new. Everything is gotta be something that we we played before that we liked that we we haven't got off the shelf in a long time and we just been like, you know, the last three w get togethers have been like something that we haven't played in a long time that we love. And we It's content creators curse, ⁓ Is just playing out constantly just playing new games and and not not playing some of your old favorites. Like I haven't played Dune Imperium Uprising in probably months and months and months at this point. ⁓ it's my favorite week, but it's like I gotta play Lee. I gotta play Altera. I gotta play all the new stuff, you know? Yeah, and especially trying to get ready for Gen Con, but like the the nice thing about it is that there were a lot of people who were kinda holding off for Gen Con. So it gave us a little bit of a breather as far as, you know, not having the floodgates open, but post Gen Con. I just I can't even imagine how ⁓ how much stuff we're gonna have to learn to play. But it's great. But it's great. It is. It is. It's gonna be fun for sure. Well, I'm looking forward to to doing it and ⁓ and meeting you too. That's gonna be a blast. So looking forward to it. ⁓ yeah. All right, let's ⁓ let's move on with the episode. For sure. Let's move on with the episode and do some shout outs. No can we go up It stop shouting. I'm not deaf. I love that open. It's always a hit. I should have added something from Emperor's New Groom Emperor's New Groove in there for the episode of work. Alright, so ⁓ shout outs are gonna talk about just some of the ⁓ movies and or games, andor TV shows, media, whatever we've been watching of late. So I guess I'll start. ⁓ I recently so I recently got hooked on a new podcast. ⁓ if there's if there's anybody out there who's interested in board game design and want to start kind of developing those ideas, Tom, you talked about how you know you had an idea for a game and you jot it down and then it doesn't get much further than that. A podcast like ⁓ Fun Problems is what it's called with AJ Brandon and Peter C. Hayward. I think it's winding down now, but they have like Over a hundred episodes, I think. So there's tons and tons and tons of content on there. And it's great for designers who've been doing it for a little while, but it's it's it's especially good, I think, for newer designers. It really kind of helps you focus on what's important and what's not and and ⁓ really gives you a lot of very useful tools to kind of move your board game design, ⁓ you know, t hobby, career, whatever you want to call it forward. And ⁓ so with that, because Peter C. Hayward is a very accomplished board game designer himself, one of the hosts. He often ends up just using examples from some of his games. And so because of that, you know, you listen to content online, you listen to tabletop misfits or dice camera action, and we mention games and then you kind of look them up and say that looks cool. And you buy games. Well, I've been buying a ton of Peter C. Hayward games lately because just hearing him talk about them and ⁓ so ⁓ fiction is the latest one that I picked up. I don't have you played fiction from Allplay? I am not familiar with that. So it's a word game. I would not sure I would put it fully on the party game because it's not like a rah rah fun hub like laugh. It's it's a little bit more thinky deduction kind of game. ⁓ but it is a word game and it plays in in ⁓ I think ten minutes. And what it is is it's wordle with a lie is how it's how it's explained. So the way it works is one person is the librarian, which is ⁓ very clever, enjoyed that. So one person play is the librarian, and that person from a list of cards or whatever chooses a word, a five-letter word, and ⁓ writes it down on their little board and it's kind of a hidden zone. And then all of the other players at the table then basically play a game of wordle. And so they'll guess a five-letter word, and then I will do the wordle thing. So I will there's little tokens that I can put underneath each of the letters that they've given me. And so I will put a little token with a check mark if it's if it's the right letter in the right space. I'll put a little a different icon, I don't even know what it's called, but it's like a similar to the little wavy line. So if ⁓ so I'll put that below a letter. If it is a correct letter in the wrong place. And then I'll put an X underneath the letter that does not belong in the word at all. Right. So that's how Wordle works. And you have five guesses to get your word. Well, in in fiction, like I said, it's Wordle with a lie. So as the librarian, one of my five hints that I've given, the check marks, you know, the the right letter, wrong letter, whatever, one of those five is a ⁓ so then the the team of people that are that are the you know the guessers. are now gonna look at that and try to deduce and try to catch my my lie by using those words and differ using those letters in different spaces and forcing me to maybe make two lies, but I can't, right? I can only do one. So then by by looking once they get to the third, fourth, fifth word that they've put in, they can kind of do the backwards math and be like, okay, he lied about this here for sure. We know that. And he lied about this one over here, we know that. So that means that those letters are over here and that should be this and then you can kind of like as a team try to deduce what the word is and and I have to try to as the librarian have to try to be really smart about how and when and what letters I lie about so as to not give it away too easily. And so you have ten guesses and there's a timer and there's a couple other little things, but generally that's how it plays. and ⁓ I played one game of it so far and ⁓ I was the librarian and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really fun to try to be sneaky. And just be really smart about where and what I letters I would lie about to make it harder for the team to deduce. And ⁓ so I didn't get to be the guesser. So I'm actually looking forward to next time I play the game to be the guesser. But ⁓ yeah, so it's called Fiction by All Play, designed by Peter C. Hayward. If you like word games, you like deduction, it's it's one to pick up. It's one of those small box games. It's like twenty dollars, twenty five dollars, whatever it is. Definitely worth picking up. Wow. That sounds interesting, yeah. Yeah, it's neat. If you like I I'm not I'm not one that normally plays ⁓ you know, word games, but the idea of having some you know, lying about one of them and trying to figure it out, that that kind of kind of scratches an itch there. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely fun to like anytime you're playing like a hidden movement game or any game where you get to be sneaky, it's just always fun to be the the the the like the tension of that, right? Of like trying to hide and and not get caught and and not all of that. ⁓ I really dig that in a game. Well that reminds me. I didn't I didn't book a blood on the clock tower game at Gen Con. I gotta I gotta do that. Put that on your list. ⁓ yes. I haven't done that yet. So Tom ⁓ yeah you shoot us ⁓ a game here or a movie or something that you've been ⁓ you've been checking out. Well as far as games, I mean we're I I like I said we've been we ⁓ other than Realm of Reckoning, which we've been playing a heck out of up until re you know, the last few weeks of catching up on games, we got to catch up on a game that I didn't have for a while, but I picked up at a local game night or game weekend convention. It's back behind me right back there. It's ⁓ my father's work. Which I I played it once before, a long time ago, when it first came out, and liked it, but I didn't have it. So I ended up picking it up and we put brought it to the table last weekend and just fell in love with that game. It is so much fun. ⁓ I don't know if you've you've played it yet or ha I haven't. No, Isaac, who I've already mentioned, 'cause he's the one that really wants us to do a podcast for Realm of Reckoning, he's obsessed with my father's work and has been like banging that drum for a long time and I just haven't, you know, gotten my hands on it and whatever for whatever reason. So you know, if I do if I do manage to get my hands on it ⁓ at some time in the short term, maybe Tom I'll have you on again and we can do a trio and we can talk about my father's work, but Yeah, it's It seems like a really cool game. If you want to get it and anybody advice for everybody to try to get the app on the store now. ⁓ it's going to be delisted if it hasn't already, because they're they're not they're not continuing to to do the support for the game. Unfortunately, they're kind of sunsetting the game, but I can't th it it's got so much replayability. ⁓ you know, we we downloaded the app when we got it. ⁓ about a month ago, so it was still there. And they're also making the app available. I just don't know I don't know the technical voodoo, but that you can download it and such. So I know that they're they're supporting a way to make sure that you can keep playing the game. It's just gonna be a little yeah. It's I I I don't have the tech savvy to make that happen. There might have to be a working on my iPad, so I'm happy. Yeah, they they they put on their Renegade put on their website, you can download the stuff and and get what you need. So They're just not supporting it in the app store anymore after a certain date. But it's just it's it's worker placement, but you you go through three different generations of your mad scientist family. It's kind of in the eighteen hundreds kind of thing. So you're like you you find out what your your mad scientist grandfather was working on, you inherit the state the estate, you see his goals that you get that you know, his hi the thing he never did. But you're in this village and as you do things and the app will drive you on some some of the questions and and things that you uncover, but like the the map will change, the the certain things will change, certain cards will come out during the campaign, and there's I think they said like each campaign pack has like eight different story branches in it per pack and there's three packs in the box. So I mean that's and and no game is the same. And depending on how many players you've got, it also adds a lot of differences to it. But but it's just it it the the core when you boil it down is it's it's worker placement and then trying to do things with your what you collect as far as your resources and such. But but the the game itself, the quality of the game, the the pieces, the the the tokens that you get with the game, the figs. I mean, it's just it's beautiful. It's it's a it's a work of art. And so we were we were very happy to be able to find a copy of it and actually get it to the table. And Miss Fit Dawn just handed me a note that says, Choose your own adventure ish, which is definitely definitely a a a good thing about that because like w we noticed there was one time though where it was branching and I knew something and and Miss Fit Omega didn't knew something else and Miss Fit Dawn knew something else. And then so the actions of one person kind of made My stuff irrelevant. And then so it is like you can tell there there's a lot of interaction with what we do and what we find and and it's it's it's but it's a core worker placement game. Whole lot of fun. I c if if you can get a copy, get a copy. I can't recommend it enough. Very cool. Yeah, I'll have to keep an eye out for ⁓ for that, my father's work. Yeah, maybe they'll have it at Gen Con in the ⁓ in the flea market or the the somebody'll probably be ⁓ right, yeah, I'll have to look into that too. That's another thing. No. No. Speaking of time, let's keep it going here. Okay, t twenty-eight years later, ⁓ the Bone Temple is the other thing that I wanted to shout out. So it's it's funny because I think they made a mistake here with the titling of these movies. Did you know there was A second twenty eight years later movie, Tom? I I didn't I'm I never really got into the the sure franchise. I I it's just yeah. Yeah, it for me it's like ⁓ I I horror doesn't hit me the same way it does other people. I just laugh the whole time. Because Alien burned burnt st Alien when I when I saw Alien when I was a kid, it burned all the fear out of me. So like if I watch a horror movie, I'm just laughing the whole time. Because ain't nothing more scary than a xenomorph gonna eat ya. So it's like sorry. Chucky, nope, you're a joke. Freddie, nope, you're a joke. It's like it's like if you're not a xenomorph, don't call me. ⁓ yeah. So twenty-eight so they had twenty-eight days later, mm which was like you know, a cultural phenomenon cult classic at this point, one of the all time best zombie movies. And then they years later, without the original creators, they you know, the studio made twenty eight weeks later, which was fine. It was a like a fairly good zombie movie. It didn't really capture the twenty-eight days later feel. And so, you know, I don't know how many years later, twenty plus years later, ⁓ maybe closer to thirty, ⁓ Danny Boyle and Ale Alex Garland, the original writer and director of these of of of Twenty Eight Days Later, ⁓ decided they were gonna make a trilogy. And so they made twenty-eight years later. ⁓ And then ⁓ I wanna say a year, less than a year later, they had twenty-eight years later the Bone Temple is what it's called. So I think I I can I can speak for sure for one of my friends at work, he had no idea that a second twenty eight years later movie had even come out. And he's a fan of the franchise, but just because it's like because the way it was titled, he had missed it for whatever reason. So I thought it was interesting. But anyway, at that point with that title. Yeah, it could be. But twenty-eight years later, The Bone Temple kind of and and even twenty-eight years later from you know last year, just fantastic movies. Like these are incre two incredible movies that yes are zombie movies, yes, they're horror movies, but they are so, so, so much more. The they have way more to say about ⁓ culture, about the way that people live, about survival, about grief, about addiction. about acceptance, about judgment of other people. Like the the themes just go on and on and on. And you could pick out just tons of, you know, whatever's whatever like I I've just I've had conversations about this movie with multiple different people. And everybody seems to pull something a little bit different from it. and one of the main through lines of this movie was the Ralph Fine's character as a as a doctor And he has ⁓ a bunch of like morphine and that's how he controls ⁓ the zombie one main alpha, this huge alpha zombie that's like super dangerous shows up and he uses morphine and a and a dart spit gun thing to protect himself, right? And so, you know, it's not a spoiler because it happens fairly early in the movie and it's a main through line of the movie, but basically this zombie gets addicted to morphine. And he comes back for more. And then ⁓ because he realizes the source of morphine is this doctor, he he ⁓ doesn't kill him. He like sort of befriends him. ⁓ wow. So they're intelligent zombies. Well, the they're you know, up until this point, they're not. They haven't been, right? And but ⁓ you know, the the the the human wants what the human wants, right? And addiction and all this stuff is part of it. It's all chemistry and whatnot, but it's just handled in such a beautiful way. Believe it or not, like there's they're in this like post apocalyptic scenario and they're like half naked and like zombie and there's blood and it's scary and it's messed up. But there's this beautiful kind of piece of humanity in the movie. The the relationship between these two dudes who are just kind of become codependent and ⁓ helping each other out and and whatever and the doctor's kind of experimenting and and using some of the stuff that he that he's learning from dealing with the zombie and I don't know. It's just like that's just one tiny slice of the themes of the movie that I just talked about and it's fascinating and you you know ⁓ it's just a part of a part of the movie that I found really, really interesting and so well done. A lot of the stuff could be s could easily be so cheesy and and and difficult to swallow. But through the performances of Ralph Fines and the direction of Danny Boyle and the writing of Alex Garland, you know, sometimes when when geniuses work together like that, they're able to convey something really interesting from you know, from a zomb a zombie apocalypse movie, right? We're getting this like beautiful slice of of humanity. And that's just one small, you know, piece of of all of the themes and through lines that go through this movie. But ⁓ yeah, I I I can't speak highly enough about 28 Years Late at the Bone Temple. I think it is a incredible piece of work. And like, you know, if if I sat down and and and told you the story and what happens throughout, you would say that sounds like a dumb movie. Like that sounds that sounds like weird, weird ass, strange sideways, like who wrote that and whatever. But man, they pull it off and it is beautiful. So anyways, if you like Danny Boyle does have a great, great ability to to make stuff that you wouldn't even think work work, you know? You're absolutely right. Yeah. He's dipped into all kinds of different genres too, right? Like Slum Dog Millionaire and Sunshine Sci Fi. Blew my mind. The guy knows how to pull humanity out of a script and just make really great characters and exciting moments and yeah, he's he's one of the masters for sure. Anyways, ⁓ twenty eight later's twenty eight years later, the Bone Temple, the second of of a trilogy of ⁓ of movies. I think the next one comes out next year. So so far they're two for two with this trilogy. It it's it's it's ⁓ mind blowing how incredibly good it is for for what it for what it for what it actually is, right? It's a zombie apocalypse movie. And ⁓ they're just able to transcend the genre and give you so much more than just like guts and gore and and zombies, which they do deliver on, just for the record. Good. Yeah yeah. Okay, so I think I think my shout out for a movie is probably the exact opposite of of the the humanity and drama thing. ⁓ but it's it's a bucket of fun. It's ⁓ called Good Luck, have fun Don't die. And I don't know if you saw the the trailer for it or not, or if you've seen it, yeah. Yeah, ⁓ the Sam Rockwell, I he's one of my favorite all over the place. He could yeah, you you never know where he's gonna land as far as character, but he's always gonna be chewing up all the scenery that he's in. And and I would say I I guess if I was to do an elevator pitch on this, it's like it's like Terminator two meets just insanity. Because it there's there's time travel in it and there's unlikely heroes and there's you know the the I mean I'm not giving away a heck of a lot in it, but because he ⁓ d they say this in the trailer, but it's like this is like the eighty fifth time I've tried to do this. And you it's so he so Sam Rockwell's character has been in these time loops where he's trying to to save humanity, and each time loop he's like, ⁓ yeah, where here's where Bob but I dies or whatever. It is like and just he knows what's going on, but it like evolves and this is like kind of his last run that he's you know getting closest to it and and there's like unlikely heroes and he he gets in this diner and then and then they're you know and as it evolves it there's there's lots of crazy ridiculous stuff in it and and but it's like if Terminator two dropped acid it would be this movie because it is just It but it's fun. But it's it is a blast. It's fun from from the first frame to the last frame. It's fun and and you know, even it it leaves you guessing, it leaves you going, what the heck was that? And and even you know i the ending even I'm not gonna say what the ending is, but it even makes you go, D did that even happen? Did that you you never know where you're it is wild from beginning to end. It is a ride like no other. And and I'm surprised it didn't get a lot more I because every time I mention it to somebody, they're like, I haven't heard of that one. It's like you don't you you don't travel the same circles as I do because that's just crazy. I mean that that was a movie that when when I first was able to watch it, I'm like, yes. I'm right there because I'm I'm not necessarily one to n every movie has to be Academy Award nominated. Not every award not every movie has to be expecting, you know, you know, high brow anything. I I sometimes I just like to strap in and have fun and that is definitely one to strap in and have fun and just watch and go, What? And go, Wow and at what? And then whoa. You know, it's like It it it just keeps you on the edge of your toes through the whole thing and and it's it's it's highly remote. I won't say anything specific about the ending or not even necessarily the ending, but sort of where the movie ends up going in maybe the third act, the second the second act. I'm not even saying necessarily the ending ending, but it's like it's it's like what? Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of a double edged sword though, because if you're on board with where it goes you can really go down this like rabbit hole of ideas and thoughts and it's fascinating. And I I kind of fell into that side of things. But a lot of people did not buy and did not jive with where the movie goes, which I can totally understand. And I think that's why the movie didn't take off the way that that maybe it could have, because ⁓ it's directed by Gorb Verbinsky, who's obviously an acclaimed director, does a great job, did a great job with this movie. It's just like I think it's just based on on w where the movie goes. It's it's just gonna have its fans and it's gonna have people that are just like, ⁓ no, not for me. But I really find two they tie in. They didn't market it well. I I mean I they marketed it a bit, like from the beginning, but I think they didn't really because a a lot of the hard sci fi kind of, you know, time travel sci fi aspects in it really weren't a hundred percent you know, kind of presented in the in I think in the in the trailers and such. So a a lot of people that I talked to just they didn't realize how how crazy deep it was going to be in sci fi and like you know 'cause time travel fans like if if you watch a a movie that involves time travel, there can be, you know, from from Bill and Ted's excellent adventure all the way to, you know, hard time travel kind of you know stuff. And and this this has just it's all over the place. But But it makes sense in its own thing to a degree. So it definitely is a lot of sense. The sentence Good luck, have fun, don't die has become a staple in our household. So now every time, you know, if I'm going to if my wife's going to a ⁓ her slow pitch game, I'll good luck, have fun, don't die, you know. That's it's just a staple sentence now in our household. ⁓ but a really fun bit. Yeah, yeah, exactly. ⁓ a fun board game tie-in is that the movie is written, the screenplay was written by Matthew Robinson, who is one of the hosts of the Game Brain Podcast. So Game Brain Podcast is one of my favorite ⁓ board game podcasts. They ⁓ talk a lot about more heavy games, ⁓ heavy games with lots of player interaction. They do a lot of eighteen XX games as well. And ⁓ what does I heard that term, but what does that mean? Eighteen X. It's a I I to be I've never played one and it's not my genre of games, so I I I can't speak about it in too much depth. But just because I've listened to this podcast, I have a little bit of an idea. They're primarily, if not completely, train games and they're economic games. Economic train games and ⁓ very much about like buying and selling shares and stocks. ⁓ And building up your business or building up your portfolio or whatever. And I know they're very, very long games. And from my understanding, I think. Is that like a John Company, maybe, or something like that? ⁓ I think in that direction. I haven't played John Company, but from what I do know about it, I think it's somewhat in that direction. But more like Age of Steam, I think, is a sort of a ⁓ kind of ⁓ I think if I'm not mistaken, and don't quote me on this, again, not my genre of game. I don't know that much about it. But I think Age of Steam is sort of like a gateway eighteen XX game, or at least ⁓ sort of ⁓ in that direction. I've heard of four XX, but but eighteen's a lot higher number. So I didn't know. It's it's yeah, it's like it's like ⁓ it's roughly fourteen more on average. Hey. All right. I d I don't have those mass skills. I went to an American school. Right on. So good luck, have fun, don't die. Yeah, I I'm a fan. I I really liked it. ⁓ I don't think it quite fully, fully stuck the landing because of where it goes. I I think I want to watch it again. ⁓ but you know what? Like just you said it. Sam Rockwell is is makes the whole ride worth it. You know, battle. And I love a movie that refuses to to wrap it up in a bow at the end. You know, that that refuses to answer the your c your question. You know, you've been over it refuses to give you an answer. It means whatever you want. Yeah, it's it's a very much that. It's a it doesn't wrap it up with a tiny little bow at the end and that drives some people crazy. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the big pieces too. On top of everything I already said, it doesn't just kind of yeah, it doesn't give you a satisfy, quote unquote satisfying ending. And so for that reason too, I think it ⁓ one of the reasons it didn't it didn't necessarily take off, but But still a a a solid movie. I enjoyed it. I recommend it. If you you know, watch a trailer. If it seems like your jam, if you like Son Rockwell, it's it's a good one. It's fun. ⁓ can I add one little shout out? Yes, one little shout out. Go for it. Mm-hmm. I finally got last week of summer. ⁓ nice. Yeah. From ⁓ Silton Holtz, one of the co hosts of the podcast. when I heard him on the podcast, I wandered over to his Kickstarter and And got it. So I it it arrived ⁓ la last week and we did an unboxing video for it that'll air somewhat soon, but but awesome. I can't wait to play that. So Sean's a great guy. He's been on the podcast a few times and ⁓ yeah, so I'm I'm glad ⁓ is his his Kickstarter fulfilled, it's doing it seems to be doing well. And ⁓ yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to to get in my hands. I'm hearing a lot of Gen Con buzz about it. Yeah, right on. Do you know if it'll be it'll be at Gen Con available? I don't know. I just know that a lot of the people have been that it's been on a couple of lists and I haven't been able to confirm whether it's gonna be there or not, but but I'm just glad I got my copy and I can't wait to play it. There you go. Right on. Okay, so ⁓ let's move on to the the main board game of the episode. ⁓ I'm excited to talk about Altera. So Altera was published ⁓ or is currently being published ⁓ in twenty twenty six here by IV Studio. Designed by Max Anderson, Zach Dixon, Austin Harrison, and Toby Sarnell. It plays ⁓ the the BGG says two to six players. The box that I have says two to four. So I'm not a hundred percent sure about that. Gotcha. There's an expansion that the to the Kickstarter you can get and to bump it up to six. Gotcha. Okay. ⁓ plays in ninety minutes, ⁓ which I'll say is fairly accurate depending on ⁓ it it didn't it didn't seem to be over long for me and ⁓ the BGG weight is a three point ⁓ however take that with a grain of salt it has four votes making it a three point ⁓ in terms of BGG weight but I would probably s somewhat agree with that. ⁓ maybe even a touch lower than three point ⁓ to be honest. ⁓ I guess there's a lot of iconography. And I mean I I don't know how many times I've had this conversation about the BGG weight thing. You know, I I I think I think it's a little bit ⁓ interpreted differently by everybody. And it encapsulates also not just com complexity and depth, but also how long it takes to play a game. So sometimes a game's just really long and it's not that complex. That'll give it some weight. But yeah, I'd say it's probably around a three point And then currently with only sixty-four ratings again, because it's it's ⁓ you know, not that many people have played it yet. It's a seven point seven on BGG. I imagine that probably might come up a little bit when when more people play it, but ⁓ but we'll see. I think so. I think so a lot. Yeah. So the description is as follows In the mountain city of Altera, the world conflicts are no longer settled on the battlefield, but at the Ascension Festival. Each year the great factions gather in a shared belief that ambition, ingenuity, and unity can shape a better future. than war ever could. Altera is a simultaneous play bag building worker placement dice game. Each round draw and roll each each round players draw and roll their dice, then strategically deploy emissaries to shape their path to victory. Over seven rounds you'll build your engine, outmaneuver rivals, and earn enough prestige to win and ascend to the high council. Do you, Tom, wanna do a just very brief general overview of of how the game plays? Sure. I can kind of jump in there and help along too as well as we go here. The the first thing to to realize is that that it's pretty simultaneous play. So that that is how they keep the the 90 minutes down. Basically you're trying to figure out where to place your emissaries out. I think they're called emissaries. I'd I'd have the rule book, but it's over in Canada, right? Which way do I point to get to get can but ⁓ it's up the up the up in Canada. And so but basically you're you're placing you you first of all you s you're you start with the dice and you roll the dice and they they tell you where it gives you the option of where to put your emissaries because you have to spend dice to put them out and then depending on what side they're on and and what what roles basically you gives you the options of where you can put it and and you basically end up going up tracks on on the three guilds or there's a couple other tracks and what you're trying to do is is it's a very very very tight victory point game. One point matters in this game so much because you're trying to to get the the victory points by being the highest up the track But the magic about that is when you're the highest up the track, you go back down to the bottom. So you're trying to fight. ⁓ Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Not to but the yeah, the track on the guild tracks, the guild tracks, every every round when you get your emissaries out, and then you you go up on a certain track, and you can decide to lean into different tracks depending on what you think is the best strategy and the best dice that you have in your bag. Yeah, I think it's important ⁓ maybe we pause for a second and talk about the bag building because essentially it's a deck builder. ⁓ but instead of cards, you start with I think six dice and they're basic dice. And then as you play the game at the end of each round, you'll have so much, I forget what it's called, but spending power. And then you can use that to upgrade dice. So then you'll get rid of a level one blue die and you'll take a level two blue die. And eventually you can get a level three and a level four, I think, of the of of the three different is it three level? ⁓ there's a zero and then there's one, two, three. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's a zero generic, but then each color has three levels. Each color is three, yeah. And then the dice get better and better, right? So then when you roll your level three blue die, it's gonna instead of having one symbol, it'll have three or four symbols on it, which really expands on what you can actually do with that die. But ⁓ I think that's the crux of this game is is building that bag and then towards the middle of the game you take out a fist of dice and they're level twos and threes and you feel really powerful and really strong and really great rolling these dice and then and placing them out to do way more powerful actions. So it's kind of a game with a really steep arc in terms of like your engine building and how much you can do on your last few turns versus your first few turns. is as exponential. But yeah, you're you're absolutely right. There's there's the three different guilds with tracks, and that's really fascinating. I really like what they did there. Because anytime you choose to send your emissary to a specific guild, you'll move up that track. And then at the end of each round, I think you alluded to this, whoever is highest on that track will get a reward and then get sent down to the bottom of the track, leaving the other people where they are. And then so they have a head start on that track into the next round. So I really like that mechanic. It's sort of a bit of a catch up mechanic, but at the same time, you can kind of use that to your advantage and stay just behind somebody, knowing that next turn it's gonna be you for sure and you'll be able to get some of those higher levels and higher rewards. So that I think that part of it's really fascinating. ⁓ go on. I just wanted to take a second to talk about the the deck building part of it. Yeah, and that's an important part because ⁓ because the dice is you know, it's where you start, but the also the the way you improve the dice is you get higher up on the other tracks and then you gain the you know the resources base for better lack of a better term to get better dice or upgrade your dice. But it's also like ⁓ because it's it's everybody's asymmetric. Like e everybody's guild that or that they have, you start off with a random character that might have a different c set of setup of dice, might start with some some other resources, you know. And so you kind of have to there there's what I regret sending it to you about because like I only scratch the surface. I played like three or four games and I didn't at all ⁓ scratch the surface on the different strategies. to go up because I felt ⁓ well I you know I leaned into red at one game and it did really well for me and I won the game and and because I got more red dice because you know when you're buying dice it's you're you're determining when you get dice how what directions you're going in the game and on what tracks you're going to dominate. So somebody else going blue they might be getting just as much victory points as you are going red and and but they could get a quicker engine going. You know, and it and that's why the that catch up mechanic, even though you've you've you might have like you you can di get all the way up 'cause the the higher you get on a track, the more rewards you can get. And and you can get more resources to get better dice. But if you're leaning into one track and somebody's running away in another track, you know, you're you're not really getting ahead. And the the and every game that we played, I mean, I think first player, the whoever won the game was one point ahead of the next two people who were in second place and the th third person was in third place. And it was that tight of of because y if you're leaning into one zone, you're leaving another s side open and somebody else can run with that. And and you definitely need to diversify a little bit. You can I think I think I'm because I've only played this a few times myself, but I think you can like you can primarily focus on others. But if you limp up the other tracks even just a little bit, eventually In the second or third round, you're gonna win that because you keep moving up and then not winning that track so you don't go down. So eventually, you know, as long as you're limping up and participating a little bit in some of the other tracks, you will win once or twice on those tracks at the end of a round. So you can't just ignore anything, I think. Right. But you definitely have to diversify and you can focus on one thing. Like I was my my character focused on the blue track. And getting those shards, which are really cool. And then with those shards, you can buy ⁓ cards to put in your tableau, and they're once per ⁓ round use cards where you tap them and then refresh them at the end of the round. Well, because I was my character that I that I drafted at the beginning of the game, focused on that, I I went hard into that. And I ended up with a tableau of like five or six or seven cards. By the end of the game where I was doing tons of stuff with that, and ⁓ and I ended up winning the game, and that was a huge part of it. ⁓ so yeah, that was cool to be able to like get an asymmetric start in a certain zone and be like, okay, like I don't know this game well enough to like fight with my with with the the head start that I've been giving in the blue area. So that's what I'm gonna lean into. But of course, like I said, I think diversifying a little bit and moving up those other tracks is gonna be important too. So that you can limp into a victory now and then on the other ones as well. Well that and with the fact that that every once once everybody's ⁓ emissaries are out and you've got, you know, everybody's scores based on where, you know, whoever's highest on the track scores the rewards for that card, there could be some tracks that we y somebody threw, you know, two at it and was up two but still won the track. And barely put any resources, one emissary on there. Nobody else really challenged him on that because I was going red, they were going blue, and then you throw one emissary over there in orange and well suddenly they got a couple of victory points that I was like sleeping on because I didn't I didn't cover orange enough, you know, and and so it's it's it's a very I mean, I I just noticed like the first game when I went all in one direction, I said, Hey, well maybe this is the winning strategy. I'm gonna go in on all all in on the second game. Going that direction again. I lost horribly. I you know, I came in last and second because it just didn't work and other people were hitting other other things. And and the nice thing is that like there's a there's a mechanic where if you make it all the way to the top, ⁓ you get you basically get a bonus. And one of the bonuses you get to roll in an extra die. And another one is you get to I I forget what the all the bonuses are, but if you have those, they affect the way you roll in. So it's like, going deep into one category and getting that, then you can you know, you have to have built an engine to get there. But then ⁓ well how am I gonna deal with somebody else who's got a better bonus over here that like you probably had a whole bunch of artifacts out. Yes, that's what they're called the artifacts, the blue cards. Yeah. And I bet the person who was you were playing against had none because you you went so hard into paint on blue. You know, and it was it and there's just so much. And then there's even the th the third track on the top that you get from doing other things. That's like Misfit Dawn one time just started hitting the heck out of that and and you know, went crazy with points from just doing that track and wasn't even fighting the other people down here. And it was it was just there there's that's why when I I played I think we played four games and I feel like I barely scratched the surface. of the strategy and the interaction and stuff. So it was just like and I was watching everybody's videos and no knowing that I already sent it off to you to to to play and I'm like I'm like sitting there just itching, just going, ⁓ man, I wish I could bringing my game back at Gen Con Well I I was I was if you were done with it, I w if you're done with it I'll I'll take it back. But It was just it was just like, Man, I gotta play that again and then and then every time one ⁓ Misfit Misfit Chaos came over, it was like, We wanna play Altera I'm like, ⁓ is it Canada? Sorry. And he's like, ⁓ everybody was just for the summer. Yeah, everybody was just chomping at the bit to get that to get to get to play that because it's just it's it's addictive. So we so we just played W Realm of Reckoning instead and and had fun. But But that yeah, so the I'm just looking at the rule book here and ⁓ so there's there's five tracks. There's or sorry, there's six tracks on the and that's all the board is, is just a bunch of tracks, right? So there's a victory point track at the top, then there's the high council track, which is a one that she did. So that's one that you move up just sort of randomly by doing different things. It's not ⁓ it's not affiliated to worker placement locations like the other ones are. ⁓ But that's another track where at the end of each round, whoever's the furthest up will will score points or get a bunch of rewards and then go back down to the bottom. And then there's the I don't know what that one's called, but basically it's the buying power track. So at the end of each round That's where you get more dice. Yeah, that's where you'll spend your money, just like in any deck builder. At the end of a round or at the end of a turn, you'll take your buying power and you'll purchase Cards and or in this case dice to put in your bag. And where where we didn't mention that before is that those are the dice that you don't commit. Like when you roll a certain amount of dice in, you're committing, you have like three guys to put out and you're rolling like five dice. So the other two are how you generate your resources. So if you yeah if you don't, you know, generate good yeah, if you don't watch the generation side and commit dice to go to the generation side. you're kind of hobbling yourself later by trying to get the best places on the tracks. Like I there was one game I didn't buy. I bought one die. And I because I was kept trying to go to the right places on the board. And I'm like and and I'm No, everything's done with dice man. Yeah. The dice are the most important thing. You definitely it's it's your deck. It's your it's your deck building deck, right? And if you don't have If you don't upgrade your deck, you're in trouble for sure. And then there's the three guilds or colors or whatever. The artisans, the merchants, and the alchemists. And it's really neat actually in the I think it it ⁓ puts a lot of replayability in the game, but there's these huge cards that get put on the board, and each of these cards basically it's randomized at the beginning of the game, and then every round a new card gets revealed, and they ⁓ they go up in power. So the the abilities on them ⁓ get better and better as the game goes along. But there's three worker placement locations on each card ⁓ for each of the three guilds and there's seven cards that'll go out. And there's a huge stack of cards. There's probably like I want to say thirty ish cards per faction, maybe more. And you're only gonna play with seven of each of those per game. So there's tons of replayability there. And I just like how modular it is Because these cards will get revealed at the beginning the round, and that's when you can look and kind of formulate a plan to be like, ⁓ that's a spot that I want to go, that's a spot that I want to go, et cetera. So ⁓ one thing I'll say though, ⁓ it's and this is a point that I think is gonna be the crux of the review here is the more I think about it and the more I talk about it, this game is very, very, very similar to Dune Imperium. And I don't know if you've if you've made that connection, and ⁓ I have and I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that in a negative way or in a positive way. It's it's mechanically very, very similar to Dune Imperium, but feels completely different. This is a game that does not have the teeth that Dune Imperium has. ⁓ so that could be a positive or a negative for for somebody, depending on how they feel about about these games. I know for sure the people that there's lots of people that, you know, appreciate Dune Imperium, but they don't necessarily doesn't really rise to the top for them because of how much conflict there is in it and how much blocking. And it's very much more on the traditional side of worker placement where like I go here and nobody else can go there. and that changed a little bit in uprising with the spies, but you gotta work hard to use the spies to be able to do that. In this game it's simultaneous, you know, ⁓ selection. ⁓ so you'll roll your five or six dice if you unlock your sixth die. And then you'll use Two or three or four of those, depending on how many workers or emissaries you unlock. ⁓ so you'll use a certain amount of those, just like Dune Imperium, you'll use a certain amount of them, and the ones you don't use, at the end of the round, you'll cash in for different for for the icons on them for resources and stuff. So ⁓ you know, and then every time you go to a guild, you'll move up an influence on that guild. And so there's like so many parallels to Dune Imperium. ⁓ I would say that this is Dune Imperium for people that don't want conflict. There's still a good amount of player interaction here because we're constantly racing up all these tracks. But I would say that this is a game that f that is is mechanically incredible like the more I thought about it, the more I'm like, holy smokes, like there's so many parallels to Dune Imperium. But it's Dune Imperium but way more Euro and without the teeth. If that makes sense. And and randomness factor too. I I think I think we're ⁓ yeah, it's way more modular, yeah, as well. Yeah. And I I didn't I didn't make the connection until you just brought it up. But you know, I I ev yeah, the fact that there's not as much blocking because when you put stuff out simultaneously, you you don't block somebody when you you know when you place on the first ⁓ each placement. But I can see I can see the parallels. But ⁓ the one of my big reservations and one of the big reasons why I don't get Dune Imperium to the table a lot more is the IP. because a lot of people say, ⁓ I don't know anything about Dune. And granted it's improved with the latest set of movies that came out, but before before that, you know, any getting anybody into any Dune game was like very hard to do. So Yeah. I think the th the theme of Dune kinda keeps some some newbies out as far as that. And and it's hard to get them to to to learn, you know, enough to to get into the thematic side of it. But Al Altera I think is it definitely doesn't have the the It's way more welcome to the treachery. I agree. Yeah. It doesn't have the treachery but it doesn't have the ⁓ I'm going here. Now nobody else can go there and you know. Yeah. Granted, there a lot of worker placement games play that way, but I think with the with the card element in and the dice element, you know, changing how each turn's gonna play out will makes you have to make decisions as you go. instead of like a normal worker placement game like say, you know, ⁓ whatchamacallit, ⁓ the D and D one that that everybody cuts their teeth on when they first get into this ⁓ profession for worker placement. Yeah, merchants mer something with an ⁓ I don't know why I'm blanking on it, but I know exactly the one you talked about. 'cause I've only played it a hundred times, but it's a it's the D and D ⁓ one that ⁓ everybody plays. And that one it it's very Lords of Water Deep Go here, okay. Yeah Lords of Waterdeep. I don't know why I forgot Lords of Waterdeep. I I don't know why I forgot Lords of Waterdeep. That should I should have to to do some. I had to look it up. I'm not I'm not taking credit. I had to just I Googled it real quick. But that one it gives it gets you into a lot of a lot of early board gamers get into that from from that aspect. And granted, because it's an older game and and you know, and I was getting into board games, that was kind of one of the newer worker placement games at the time, but you know, you learn from the mechanics that, ⁓ if you somebody else is there, you can't go there. And somebody else is there, you can't go there. And there's a lot of worker placement games now that, like for example, like the My Father's work, that there's mechanics that let you do that. And with the newer Dune with the spies, there's mechanics that lets you do that. Well, Altera doesn't really have that option. I mean, you you there is a certain amount a little bit, but But not a heck of a lot. So you can more or less do whatever you want to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, but if somebody's there already, you can't go there after that round. You can't go back there. Or if you get an extra guy, you can't go back there. But it's it's very mild bumpers, you know, as opposed to hard no, you can't do that. So so that that definitely gets people more welcoming. And I think too, what gets people more into this game as opposed to say a Dune is that it's simultaneous. So everybody's playing, everybody's playing, everybody's playing. It's not like your turn, your turn, your turn. Everybody's playing as they go and and getting the rewards and doing the same thing at the same time. And and that keeps the playtime down, which is great. You know, I love I love when games do that with multiple players, especially high counts, like Critter Kitchen. You know, you play simultaneously with Critter Kitchen too. But it's it's just I I like that aspect of it. And then and then the idea that everybody's got their own strength. strategy and everybody's trying to go up to certain guild tracks that you might not be leaning into, but you might not have gotten the dice that turn with that color to even challenge them in that area. You know, you there was many times when people were dominating on blue that I didn't have a blue dye come out of my bag. So it was it was yeah, the randomness aspect on top of that, I really I really like that. That and the modularity. I really like that like round by round the whole board changes in terms of the the the worker placement locations that you can go to. So that's the boards really need to. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I I I like it a lot. I think there's there's lots of great things to say about it. But it's it's just funny because the more I thought about it and the more I played and later I got into the game, it's like it's like this this like this clone of Dune Imperium Uprising. And I think Again, I'll say I'll I'm I wanna make sure I s I say this loud for everybody to hear and the people in the back to hear. It for the back row plays it plays very differently and it feels extremely differently. There's lots of parallels, but I would say like if you've played Dune Imperium and you're like, Yeah, it's pretty good. I like some of the mechanics, but I don't like the conflict and I don't like the blocking. This is like sort of the same mechanically, feels very different and definitely is is way more welcoming and way breezier and way cosier and way I'm not you might even say smoother. I'm not I wouldn't say more elegant, but it just like glides along the game I find. And ⁓ and ⁓ you know tons of iconography shout out to the artwork too. The artwork it's beautiful the style which is just beautiful. It's it's something that you know I I I'm not familiar with like s you know ⁓ ⁓ the the region of South American and, you know, kind of Incas and Mayans and that, you know, that kind of art and such I'm not very familiar with. But then in looking at the research that they did for the art on this was just that people went to museums and such and were inspired by ancient works from from a long time ago and modernizing that into kind of a futuristic but still with the roots of of that kind of of origin is just it's a beautiful game. It's beautiful. It is, it is. And and I was just ⁓ talking about ⁓ the iconography, and there's tons of iconography in this game, but it is all so very intuitive. It is such a well designed the graphic design is so well done. ⁓ I was a little bit intimidated at first when I'm like, ⁓ my god, all these icons, what does this mean? What does that mean? Or whatever. And I mean like 15 minutes in, barely had to reference anything. Like at in the beginning, the fr you know, our first maybe two rounds, ⁓ which go fairly quickly, we were referencing the cheat sheets and we were looking at the back of the book and trying to find stuff, but like past that fifteen, twenty minute mark, the game were just we just hummed along and we barely had to look anything up and it all made a ton of sense and and it became very intuitive. As soon as we knew the little castle things meant buying power, that was done. And anytime we saw, you know, iconography around that, we knew right away. And ⁓ yeah, I just find it was just like really, really cleanly designed, especially for a game with lots of iconography. As soon as you have an a general idea of the language of the iconography, it all just clicks into place and you know exactly what everything does. It's really, really well done. Yeah, when it makes sense, it makes sense. And ⁓ that was you you haven't played a ton of IV studio games, but they they they do a really I this is my only game. This is the only one I've played. Well, hopefully you'll walk away from Gen Con with a few. Yeah, I'm d I'm down to play more for sure. I've heard I've heard almost nothing but good things. And I I know ⁓ they done ⁓ they did a ton of marketing. I I feel like when they when Moonrakers came out, you could not open your eyes in the morning without a Moonrakers ad in your face. So they did a great job getting that in front of people. And ⁓ what I had heard from that game specifically was that it was it's very group dependent because of the amount of negotiation And the amount of like ⁓ cooperation and yeah, I guess negotiation's probably the main word ⁓ that I'm looking for there. But it was very group dependent and I wasn't sure about that for my group and for me. And so I never went down down the Ivy Studios rabbit hole, but ⁓ I've heard I've heard all pretty much nothing but good things about about their stuff. And this is my first Ivy Studio game. I'm definitely down to to try more for sure. No, I'm I'm gonna introduce you to all the all the peeps there and and hopefully you'll you'll fall in love like I have because I mean I love Moonrakers. It's if you give me any top ten list any time of the week, any time of day, ⁓ Moonrakers is number one for me. So they've they've taken that into a special place in my heart because ⁓ it's it's deck building, but it's you know, there's negotiation for teamwork, but but there's a certain point too where especially with some of the expansions enhances that and kind of forces some teamwork that you think doesn't because the the only criticism that I've heard a from a lot of people is that when you get to where somebody's almost gonna win or getting close to winning, nobody wants to help you. Nobody's gonna help you. And sometimes you can improve your ship enough to where you can you can force your way through it, but There's there's other sides of that where in one of the expansions you you you like do favors, but you you have a little favor token that you're you're you're gonna be like, I gotta call in a favor. You're you're gonna help me, you owe me. You know, and it's like hello, you know, and so so there's a lot of that. But but but every one of their games is unique. I mean, unique in look, unique in style. ⁓ I love Fractured Sky is just one of my favorite games to play too. Definitely I mean they're all on a top shelf over here, you can't see. They do. They they do very unique stuff. Yeah. And and it's like, you know, a lot of times it's like the putting the the the chocolate in the peanut butter kind of revel revelation where they're they they say, okay, well what about this element mixed with this element? And you're like, wow, you know, and and like Misfit Dawn's over here going, you know, waving moon rollers, you know, which is a kind of a rolling game in the moon rakers universe. It's a small box that they've got that she just loves to death. And it's it's themed like moon rakers, but it's a push your luck dice rolling game. And so they they like have all sorts of different different ⁓ games that just scratch different itches and different ideas and and like Brink is in the moon moon ⁓ rakers universe that that it's it's a completely different kind of game that but it's exploration. It's things like that. And then they've got ⁓ Honor's End which is currently being printed up and stuff right now which is Which is a cooperative dice rolling card building or deck building game where you're all heroes trying to defeat bad guys. You know, it's everything is different. And and I you know, check out any one other games and they're all they're all winners. I mean For whatever for whatever reason, I have not ⁓ kind of ⁓ went down into all of the Ivy Studio games. ⁓ this was the first one that I played. I'm I'm very impressed. I like it a lot. And I've I've always kept an eye on all their stuff and they all look really interesting. And I love the big swings and I love how unique a lot of their projects are. So I definitely looking forward to exploring more of the Ivy Studio games. I guess again, like like we were saying earlier in the podcast, we just live in an age where there's just like so much and for whatever reason I just miss the IV studio boat. But I'm jumping on. Well then I mean they they haven't distributed outside of their own Kickstarters in their own shop. So I mean they're starting to Right. I guess you don't see them on the shelf. Right. Yeah, they're starting to get some of their later games out in in in stores to where you can get them and and stuff like that. But you know, it's just that they've been, you know, just you can only get ⁓ through them and at cons and and so they haven't That's a barrier for sure. Maybe yeah, maybe that's probably the main reason, to be honest, why it why I missed it. Because I just never and I don't and I don't I don't back a lot of games. ⁓ being in Canada, shipping is fairly prohibitive for that. So I you I often wait for retail or cons or whatever the case is. So that's probably honestly that might be the main reason why I just haven't haven't ⁓ gotten into their games. But I'm looking forward to it. Let's let's wrap things up. Let's ⁓ just overall thoughts. ⁓ on the game. I want to talk a little bit very quickly, sp like a favorite thing, you know, w is there something in the game specifically, Tom, that made it hum or sing for you? Like what's the core and the soul of this game for you? Well, I just think for me it's it's I I it it plays into a lot of what I like about games is that I I'm reacting to situations. I'm you know those you you roll those dice in and that's when I'm like I I could have a plan, but I I when I roll the dice in, that's when I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do. And the best approach to to handling trying to win the game, but it all depends on what dice I pulled out of that bag and what faces are up on the dice. And and so I really, really like that and and and the idea that there's, you know, four or five other people at the table who are trying to do the same thing and I don't know where they're going. And I don't you know, and it's cause we all simultaneously put it out. It's like, ⁓ hello, you're going you're going straight up blue and I'm not even near there and I can't do anything to help this and wow, okay, well I'm gonna have to, you know, and it's it's a lot of thinking on your feet. It's a lot of you know, there's there's a certain amount of planning you can do, but there's a lot of thinking on your feet and a lot of trying to and and with it being such a tight, tight margin for for victory points, it's it's just every step matters, really. But There's ways to even if you think you're gonna get clobbered on one, you could you could end up you know second place on the track and know that you're in a really good position to to score the next one. And you know, so that's that it really it keeps you in the game even though you might not have an ideal turn, you're still in the game by no stretch of the imagination. You're you're still, you know, fighting and and you're in it, you know, because you you could have a bad round, but the next round you just you know, could pop off on a couple of different locations and and just really come back. And it's just that I just love how tight and and and simultaneous and decision making, you know, is right there as as you roll the dice and you see what you're what comes up, you're like, okay, what am I gonna do? You know? And I I just love that about a game. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, for me it boils down to three things. I think the I think the look of it is beautiful. I've heard mixed things. For me, it fully works. I love the vibrancy of the colors and the icons. I think it's just so clean. It looks amazing. I love the modularity of it and how much how the games differ based on these massive, really cool looking cards that you're that that go onto the board. and change the actions from round to round. But my favorite thing is just like and it boils down to a system that already exists, is the deck building slash in this case dice dice bag building. When you like upgrade your dice and then you're rolling in a whole bunch of like level twos and level threes, that just feels so satisfying. It makes you feel so powerful. And you can have some massive turns towards the end of the game. I think they really nailed that. so I think they did a really, really great job and ⁓ You know, I mean I keep mentioning Dune Imperium. I like I wanna I just wanna make sure that people understand it's a very, very different game. Mechanically, there's a whole bunch of parallels, but you know, it is they they just feel completely differently for a bunch of different reasons. And I think we should hopefully even see it. You know, you saw you saw that parallel and and once you brought it up to me, I'm like, Yeah. I but I never thought of it. That's right. Yeah. It it just they they feel very, very different though. And you know, I think ⁓ we talked about ⁓ the differences and you know, this ⁓ feels like it has a a bunch of parallel mechanics, but that it very much removes the teeth and makes it feel a lot smooth not smoother, but like just like ⁓ you kind of glide through it without any any major ⁓ speed bumps. Or hurdles. It's just a like an efficiency puzzle. And there's just enough of player interaction in terms of racing up those tracks and trying to stay ahead of people. Like I'm watching my opponent, and I know that if I can stay ahead of him on that blue track, that's going to be huge for me. Or if I stay ahead of him on the red track, and ⁓ like I can't catch him on that orange track or whatever. So but I'm going to stay close behind him so that I get it next round. You know, there's just There's enough of paying attention to what opponents are doing and trying to race them up all of these tracks that's satisfying enough. And the game plays quickly enough that that that that lack of teeth doesn't hurt the game for me as much as ⁓ as much I would as I would expect a game with no teeth to feel, if that makes sense. ⁓ so that's kind of where I land on the game. And there's not the bad feelings that you might get I mean I and when I say bad feelings, you're playing a game. So but like with Dune, you can really ⁓ screw over another character, you know, another player by getting the right things and y and you know, they might feel bad that turn, like I didn't get to do what I did, but Altera doesn't have that to where it's really, you know, it it's it's like the difference between a a race where everybody's racing and trying to to find the best path and And the other one is like everybody's racing but they have baseball bats and are hitting each other with so that's like Dune is like with the thing about baseball bats and they're smacking each other or should I say hockey sticks, they're smacking each other with hockey sticks. But ⁓ it's so it's like it's it's smoother, but it allows more for for strategy and and not the bad feeling side of things. So I think that's that definitely definitely was more open to general gamers than than people who would want to play Dune Imperium. Yeah, absolutely. So I think I think ⁓ hopefully people from hearing our explanations and everything, people will be able to look at this and be like, Yeah, this game is exactly for me. And I'm thinking of my friend Steph, who like does not like a lot of player interaction in her games. I think she would love this because it's like bag building, deck buildings, you know, and all that stuff. She's she loves deck builders. ⁓ And I think like she's only played a couple of games of Dun Imperium and she liked them, but I don't think the level of interaction and the teeth that come in that game is necessarily for her. I think she would dig this hugely. So ⁓ I think that for a a huge section of of board game players, this is gonna be a big hit. And and I guess we can get into our scores because all of this preamble is basically explaining why and where I land with this game. ⁓ I have it as a seven point five, very good, you like usually or almost always willing to play. I love the teeth that come in a game like Dune Imperium. Like when I screw somebody over, I have those heck yeah feelings that feels amazing and that was super fun. And when somebody does it to me, I'm like, ⁓ but I like appreciate and love it as well because I had it coming and I deserved it, you know, because I did it to them. And and we all get an even amount of that in the game. And I like that stuff. So if you really, really live for that for those teeth and those moments, maybe this game isn't quite for you, but but even so, like this game is clean and smooth and plays in a lot shorter time, ⁓ is a lot more accessible, a lot easier to get to the table. ⁓ so it has so much going for it that it's still a game that I would welcome into my collection despite ⁓ you know, everything that I just said. ⁓ so out of seven point five with a few more plays, maybe it'll go up a little bit, not sure, but I really dug it. My first couple of plays is, you know, sort of the first impressions because I only played it a couple of times. But ⁓ yeah, I th I think it's a great product that's gonna have a a spot on a lot of people's shelves. ⁓ I I agree with that sentiment, definitely. ⁓ you know, it's it's very welcoming, but it's very, you know, like you said, it's it's it you've got the you you boil it down to it's got it's like Dune Imperium without the the pointy bits. And and I I like that and I like that it's simultaneous too, because I like the fact that there's a lot going on, but you know, it's it's not everybody is going at the same time. So it's everybody's engaged. And that's what I really like about that. I I have to say I I give it an A point five. I it's it's not my a hundred percent favorite s ⁓ Ivy Studio game, but it's just so different that it just has me thinking about it after I'm after I played the game. And like literally like I was saying once once I sent it away and and was watching other content providers talk about theirs and I'm like Wow, I didn't even think of that side of things or I didn't even think about that side of things. So I just there's a level of depth that I did not get to in the short time I had it. And it makes me want to play it again. And it makes me want to play it again with and hopefully try out some of the other asymmetric factions and try to you know see how those play. It's just that it it seems to be a game that that has a whole lot more to unfold and and I can't wait to to, you know, be able to play it more. And and it really also I think leans into ⁓ a certain amount of people's play styles too, is that you know, it's it's not horribly complex by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the it it can it can get different people play styles. It can it can handle different people's play styles. If you're somebody who who wants to jump forward and be more aggressive in in a certain area and you're like trying to plan everything perfectly and you're trying to really get into the the the math of it, you can actually get into the math of it and kinda think about that kind of side of things. But then we you you got other people like me who like to just kind of play it as it comes and and you know and I have just as much fun as, you know, one of our misfits that kind of tries to f you know find the numbers behind it and, you know, see see all the matrix behind the game. You know, he's loving it too. So it's it's like there it it it really caters to a whole bunch of different people. And I g I gave it an eight point five, but you know, that's with an asterisk on that I haven't played it an as much as I want to and I'm playing prototype. So I'm I that's not our official our our stance was with the misfits here is that we don't give it an official number until we see the actual the final product. Yeah. You know, the actual final product. But that definitely if for this we'll I'll bend the rules a and give it an eight point five with a little asterisk. Because I want to see the final version. Very cool. Yeah. I think it's I think it's way more accessible than it presents, right? Like when you look at it, it's like for I I I I you know, I picture like a casual board gamer ⁓ looking at this and going, No way, you know. But I would I would wager that I that a lot more people would play this and be like ⁓ Yeah. Like as soon as you start to understand the language of the iconography. It all just falls into place and it sings. So I r that's probably the thing that jumps out to me the most is how accessible it is, how beautiful it is, and the ease of play, with still a ton of depth to mine there, I think, once you once you get into it. Yeah, you might look at it and and go, ⁓ that game's a lot. And then you're like, Well, hold on. It's not. Let me show you why. You know, and it and it would be. Even more so than the average. ⁓ yeah. Because I 'cause I would say that about most. Yeah, I would say that about most ⁓ medium to heavy Euros is that like ⁓ like almost every time you play a game at first it's like, ooh. And then you get into it and you're like, ⁓ okay, it's not so bad. This is that to an even deeper degree, I think. It's like way more accessible and ⁓ and and ⁓ kind of like that that ⁓ this isn't so bad moment is like even deeper and easier than than you would ever expect. And I think it's primarily I almost disagree on the terminology of Euro. I almost disagree on the idea that it's a euro, you know, is as far as what a lot of people a lot of what people think of a Euro. It's not I don't think it's a Euro it by definition, you know, that a lot of people think like a like a brass or something. You know, it's not that. Right. It's definitely not that. But there's there's a certain amount of building mechanics that that tends to be attributed a lot to Euros is building your your mechanics up, but but I just I it it's almost like, you know, for me, when a lot of people tell me Euro, I'm like, ⁓ maybe you know, it it makes me hesitate. I'm an Ameritrash guy through and through. But I I've likes there's some Euros I like. I played that I like, you know, like I like Galactic Cruise, but but it was a lot. You know, and and and so I it wouldn't be something I'd bring to the table a lot. But Altera's one I'll bring to the table anytime you want. You know. Right, right, right. Cool. Right on. So that's Altera from IV Studio. I think a fantastic product, and I think it'll do very, very well. Let's see And I think if you're interested, you can go get it on GameStop probably late pledge on GameStop. But if you want to learn more, go to our channel and we'll tell you more about it. Yeah. We we did about two or three videos of it. So awesome. Okay, let's move on to our discussion of the Emperor's New Groove. It was ⁓ the Emperor's New Groove was released in two thousand, directed by Mark Dindle. ⁓ stars David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, and Patrick Warburton. On Rotten Tomatoes, it's an eighty six percent with critics, eighty four with audience, so a rare situation where they ⁓ they agree. On Letterboxd, it is a three point nine, which ⁓ really surprised me very high on letterboxed. Let me it doesn't surprise me. No, yeah, letterboxed. It is indeed a three point nine on letterboxed. Yeah, fascinating. ⁓ very cool. And ⁓ so I God like I don't know if you looked at the show notes here. There's a ton of stuff here and I don't want to necessarily your show notes on this were were extensive. I was going through going, Wow, this is gonna be good I copied and pasted a bunch of research that I kind of found. ⁓ I I I kind of just I I I just think the conversation about Disney and where Disney was at this point. And the trajectory of Disney in general and where Emperor's New Groove fits within their catalogue is all really fascinating. It was a weird place. It was a weird place for it to be. I mean what it was the last drawn Disney movie, wasn't it? I wanna say it was the last, you know, drawn like Aladdin and Lion King and I think it was for a little while and they've done more since. Yeah. They did they did change Some of their stuff, yeah, ⁓ after that, but ⁓ there definitely there were more. There was a there was there was not many in recent history after that. So Right. Yeah. So basically the story goes and I'll try to fly this through this really quickly, but I think it's fascinating and it's interesting. So Basically before the Renaissance. So from the seventies and eighties. I'm sorry, Walt Disney dies in nineteen sixty-six, leaving the animation studio without its creative leader. Very briefly. Throughout the seventies and eighties, ⁓ Disney animation struggles to find its identity. Films like The Black Cauldron underperform, nearly killing Disney feature animation. ⁓ then Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg arrive in the mid-80s, and ⁓ basically Katzenberg kind of rules with an iron fist. And basically turns this like wishy-washy, hippy-dippy, you know, cartoon studio into a business. And he makes decisions and has a vision and does a great job turning it around. And then Howard Ashman comes in ⁓ with Alan Mencken and they begin reinventing Disney animated musicals by borrowing from Broadway. And they kind of go in that direction. And that's when they came out with The Little Mermaid. So middle ⁓ Little Mermaid in 1989, considered the official beginning of the Disney Renaissance, ⁓ was a huge critical and commercial success. It won two Academy Awards. ⁓ one of them was for ⁓ the music, which was fantastic, obviously. Then it was Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast in nineteen ninety one was the first ever animated film nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, and cemented Disney as the king of animation. And in that time. 1992, the very next year was Aladdin. Robin Williams genie changes animating animated voice acting forever. That was the beginning. ⁓ because Beauty and the Beast, Rescuers Down Under, Little Mermaid, if you go back, can you name a single voice actor in any of those films? Probably not. No, I mean I I can when you get up to Well, I mean, Robin Williams, definitely. I mean, he just Well, that's the start of it, right? He made that movie, but but I couldn't tell you who voiced anybody before that. Yeah, exactly. Robin Williams kind of changed that, right? And then that's when we started getting actors with names in in animated films and and being used in the marketing to be like, hey, this movie has James Earl Jones as Mufasa, right? And has Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Simba, ⁓ bringing us to our next movie, The Lion King in nineteen ninety four. was Disney Disney's biggest animated success, highest grossing traditionally animated film of all time. And this, and after Lion King is when the bell curve kind of hits its peak and starts to come down a little bit. Still some really quality movies here with Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Nerdame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan. All of these movies did fairly well, but they're definitely sort of on the other side of the bell curve as the quality starts to come down a little bit. And that's when we get to Emperor's New Groove. ⁓ Emperor Emperor's New Groove originally was planned as an epic musical called Kingdom of the Sun. ⁓ they completely reworked it into a comedy during production. and it became kind of a cult classic. ⁓ and it but but it definitely wasn't the blockbuster that ⁓ that Disney expected. ⁓ we'll get into a little bit more of that. But after Emperor's New Groove was, and this is what they call sort of the experimental era of Disney. ⁓ so there was Emperor's New Groove and then Atlantis, the Lost Empire, which obviously doesn't have a huge place in the in the culture. Lilo and Stitch was a massive success, but then they had Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt. So that was basically the 2000s for Disney. Up until they hit the second Renaissance, starting with ⁓ the Princess and the Frog, and then Tangled, which was a huge hit. They had Winnie the Pooh, Wreck It Ralph was also another big hit. And then obviously Frozen was was a massive, massive spike for them. ⁓ so that was a cultural phenomenon. And at this point, I believe the highest grossing animated film of all time. They had ⁓ Big Hero Six, Zootopia, which was an Oscar winner and also a big hit, and then obviously Moana, which did extremely well. You know, and then you jump into you gave a good history there, but I think I think the the caveat to all of that history was kind of there was a line with Disney where it was hand drawn and animated like they used to do. And then there was Pixar. And everything after Pixar changed. Absolutely. And that really that really it to ⁓ to me, especially as as somebody who's, you know, was yeah yeah had kids around the two thousands and all that, but was watching I mean I remember going to Sea Aladdin, I remember going to Sea Lion King, you know, and it was they were just majestic animated movies and then you know the when when Emperor's New Groove came out, it felt like there was a different animation world. Like people were kind of you know, that's when yeah, they they you know, tossed Katzenberg or he left, depending on who you talk to. ⁓ Eisner hated Katzenberg and Katzenberg hated Eisner, so you but ⁓ Basically basically DreamWorks was created because Katzenberg, you know, called Steven Spielberg and said, I'm outta here, let's make a studio and DreamWorks comes in and starts eating their lunch. And yeah, and a ton of the animators a ton of the animators from Disney actually jumped over to DreamWorks as well. They took a lot of their ⁓ their their ⁓ oomph there from Disney over to DreamWorks for sure. Exactly. And at the time too, like Pixar was not even owned by Disney. It was it was a side project that was that was owned by Apple mostly and and they were they were kind of a a skunkworks as as they call it in ⁓ in you know espionage is that they they were kind of hey we got this idea to make these computers that can animate and stuff and we think we got a got ⁓ an idea here and Disney was like, Okay, well we'll throw a little money in it and and you know, you guys go figure it out. And then so they went and that the and that now you can't even imagine a Disney without Pixar, you know. Especially, you know, 'cause they bought ⁓ back. But it it really was a a ⁓ turning point in Disney animation where they were going from, you know, painting the stuff and, you know, making traditional animation to this new world of computers. And that was kind of pushed out a lot with their their rivalry with DreamWorks at the time. But I also, when you when you look, there's a there's a documentary, there's there's a lot of documentaries on the making of this. Like the movie that you watched The Emperor's New Groove was basically you could say it was made in six months. Like it was it was they they did a lot of pre, they did a lot of ⁓ this is gonna be this huge grand movie with all these musical numbers and blah, blah, blah. And then it got to a point where Disney's Disney watched the first test print and went, What? This is not working. This no, this is a and they gave it to the guy who they credited with ⁓ making Lion King. You know, this was supposed to his be his big vision. And after four years of development, they were like this we no. No, no. And and if and and so they said, you know, we gotta make a window of summer and we've got how are we gonna make this movie? And they need to come up with new ideas at that point. Yeah. They said come up with new ideas. So they went in a different direction and really fascinating. It's an interesting story. Yeah, and I and I wrote down a really quick history, just kind of some bullet points here. ⁓ and then we can get into actually talking about the the movie here. But I just thought all of this was really fascinating. And I did watch ⁓ that documentary. What was it called? I'll have to look it up. The ⁓ sweat sweatshop I or not the sweat. The It was something talking about the room that sweat box. Yeah, that was it. That's what they called the room that they watched it because it didn't have air conditioning. That was like so so they had to be in the sweatbox and watch it on YouTube and If you can find that they quashed that a lot. Yes. Disney keeps trying to get versions. Yeah. They put sections out once and then they at a film festival and then they cut sections out of it, the the nicer sections. And put it in in like the the DVD of New Groove. But there's a it's it's definitely very tells you warts and all about what it was like to work in there. And yeah, so it was originally very interesting conceived as a dramatic musical called Kingdom of the Sun. It was a lot darker and a lot heavier, and sp and it was inspired by the Prince and the Pauper and Incan mythology. Original director, as you said, was Roger Aylers, ⁓ who did The Lion King. And he envisioned envisioned a much more serious epic story with romance, magic, and multiple musical numbers by Sting. And they brought Sting on, and Sting wrote like I think six or eight, like a whole bunch of songs specifically with story beats from that original vision. ⁓ Disney ⁓ execute ⁓ executives were unhappy with the pacing of the story after early screenings and demanded major changes. The film was essentially scrapped. Halfway through production and rebuilt from the ground up as a fast paced comedy. The creative leads were basically split split into two groups. one side with Roger Aylers, ⁓ who did The Lion King, who envisioned this big, grandiose, epic story, as I just said, and Mark Dindall, ⁓ who wanted to do just a fast paced comedy full of bits and fun and silliness. ⁓ so they were basically split into two groups by the executives and pinned against each other. Being given a certain amount of time to come up with a pitch and storyboards. I think it was two weeks. Yeah, I think you're right. Now that you say that out loud, yeah, I think you're right. It was two weeks, and then they each had their opportunity to pitch to the executives. And ultimately, Mark Dindle took over as director while Roger Aylers left the project. ⁓ most of Sting's songs were cut, leaving only the opening song, which it wasn't even performed by Sting. It ended up being performed by Tom Jones, which is called My Funny ⁓ sorry, and my funny friend and me, which was basically just played over the end credits, and which is the only song that survived that was actually sung by Sting. The protagonist ⁓ changed from a more traditional prince into a self absorbed Emperor Cusco. And the final film bear film bears very little rembl ⁓ resemblance to the original concept. The movie ended up costing over a hundred million dollars to make, despite its like What is it like eighty minute runtime and fairly basic animation? But Yeah, and it and it didn't lose money ⁓ in the long run, but it was all but it was viewed as a flop because it didn't make a ton of money either. And ⁓ at the end of a fairly impressive run is now ⁓ sorry, it kind of marked the end of a fairly impressive run known as the Disney Renaissance. So that's basically the story of with a I mean, that's the the Coles notes. It is filled with a lot more drama and back and forth, and Sting was very unhappy with the new direction that they went. And ⁓ yeah, the that documentary sweatbox was actually made by Sting's wife. And ⁓ yeah, really interesting. He was not having a That was a brilliant because they wanted him at they wanted him attached to the project. And he said, Well, my wife wants to do a documentary. They're Yes, that'll keep him involved. ⁓ I didn't realize that. Okay, so that's basically all of the background noise and everything sort of leading up to, you know, the the the making of Emperor's New Groove. And I thought all of that stuff was just really interesting and fascinating. And I did not. I, you know, tip of the iceberg, if you're interested in that, there's lots of documentaries and stuff online that you can watch. Yeah, and if you look if you do podcasts, ⁓ go and find ⁓ blank check with Griffin and David. That's the name of the podcast, blank check. I think it's actually called Blank Check with Griffin and David. But anyways, they did an Emperor's New Groove deep dive. They talked about it for like three hours and talk about in way more detail everything that went down. And they are a couple of fascinating dudes that are great, great. If you if you like movies and movie podcasts, definitely check out Blank Check with Griffin and David. And their Emperor's New Groove episode is amazing. so I haven't I haven't I heard that one like years ago. ⁓ I'm just remembering now because we're going through all these facts. But all right, let's get into talking about the actual movie. You you want to start us off like ⁓ maybe very briefly go through ⁓ the the broad strokes of the plot and ⁓ and and your general thoughts of the of the movie. Well, spoilers for anybody who hasn't seen us since the year two thousand, but ⁓ the Emperor Cusco is self absorbed ⁓ Emperor of whatever country, I don't even think they even mentioned give it a name, but no, I don't think they do. I think he calls it the world at some point. Yeah. So he's a self-absorbed kind of ruler, but you know, he's kind of benevolent, but ish. But he's he's very spoiled and and what he wants happens. And so basically he has a brilliant casting of Earth of Kit playing his his advisor who's a who's a ⁓ old witch kind of Disney character, I guess you could say. Very much a Jar esque character, right? It's in a Disney villain parade anytime you want, but she she just had so much style and her her sidekick Kronk. My favorite Patrick Warburton. Patrick Warburton just brilliant work as Kronk. I mean hilarious. I love him in everything, but Kronk is definitely up there with the tick for me as being brilliant. But ⁓ they basically she want he he f he fires her, so she's mad because she wanted to take over the kingdom. So her magic she ends up turning him into a llama and throwing him, you know, onto onto a cart. Kronk throws him on a cart and she's gonna take over because she's turned the emperor into a llama. And the basically he ends up r b in the cart of John Goodman's character, who I forget his name, but It yeah, which Poncha originally was supposed to be the person who was swapped in the Pop Prince and the Pauper story, but we digress. ⁓ but he ends up he's a he's a llama herder who's got the most beautiful part of land on this beautiful hill where the emperor wants to build his, you know, vacation home. And so he had him come to the castle and told him, Yeah, you're gonna have to move out. We're we're gonna we're gonna I'm gonna build my vacation home there, and you can't do anything about it because I'm the boss. And so As he's leaving, Kronk throws him on the back of Poncha's cart and t Poncha takes off with him. And so there it's basically a ⁓ he fig he figures out he's he's the actual emperor when they when they have their their meat cute after that. And and basically you know ha the idea is he's gotta get back and and turn him back into a human and and ⁓ so they they're trying Now Earth of Kids character is trying to find him to keep get him out of the picture and so she can take over and and rule the whole country and hijinks and su and when I say hijinks and su the one thing that a lot of people say about this movie is Disney had Disney style, Looney Tunes head looney tune style, and never shall the twain meet. was always what what Walt Disney was. Walt Disney was about characters and stories and making you go and and Looney Tunes was about crazy and fun and bits. And yeah. And this was the most Looney Tunes movie that Disney ever made. And and it is just I mean, hijinks ensue from one end to the other and even all the way up to the resolution. And it's it's very it's very fast paced and and fun and but you know he kind of the emperor meets meets Poncho's family and and basically you know it it changes him. His old experience changes him in the in the movie and then you know he's a benevolent emperor at the end, you know. So it's it's it's a cute story. It's i I mean it's it's not deep, deep deep. It's very very deep. It's it and and you know, to the idea that they really ended up doing this in six months because after they did that pitch, Isenberg was like, Okay, you got six months. We're we're moving you from summer to Christmas. You got it. And so make it happen. And and then from what I when what I read one oral history, they just said, Okay, go and then they got out of it. Like they they didn't watch how what they were doing. They did just okay, we love your content run. Because they had other fish to fry. They had other movies. They had dinosaur was coming out at the time and they had to deal with all this other stuff and and moving so they just said go and they really did the everything it wa it was like watching almost like a Looney Tunes movie to a certain degree. ⁓ go ahead. I was gonna say they they hired like ⁓ a comedy skit like an SNL writer or like ⁓ one of the comedy writers from comedy. That's what it was. Yeah. ⁓ so they hired like a just a comedy writer to come in and just write bits. And clearly that worked because like honestly, that's the crux of this movie. Like, yes, it's basically ends up being this like road trip movie with You know, a a a a a nice character and a mean character and then they learn to understand each other and you know lessons are learned in what's It's the Shrek, you know, get they they hated each other at first and then they loved each other at the end, you know, kind of thing. And and I mean even one of the sequences which really popped out at me today when I was watching it is ⁓ there's a part where where the family is delaying Eartha Kitts character from chasing them and giving him a head start and It is straight out of a Looney Tunes movie. Hundred bridges. She the the Earth Kitten comes out and she gets in a barrel and then she's she's going down a wheelbarrow and then one of the kids holds out a honey b ⁓ or a a bee's hive. A beehive and then she hits the beeshive, gets h honey all over her, then the other one like holds up a feather pillow and then she's covered in feathers, and then she ends up be replacing a pigata at the end and all these kids like beating her with a p and that's like that is straight Looney Tunes. That was in in the episode where Bugs Buddy was fighting the bull, where the bull was like going to different spots and and getting worse and worse and then at the end like that was completely a Looney Tunes sequence right there. And it works brilliantly. And I just I I mean I can't say enough about what kind of of the they gave them the tools and they they gave them the ⁓ we're not watching you get to play with all the tools you want. And we're not gonna stop you and we're not gonna tell you you gotta be in these lines and these Disney lines, because all they wanted to do at that point, honestly, when Catchpoint Eisner walked in, all he wanted to do was not he wanted to make his money back. And that was all he cared about at that point. He didn't he didn't think they their expectations were so low for what was gonna happen, and then it it just they're just like, Go, just make it to where we don't have to write this off. And I think it's another example. I mean it it yeah and then it did, yeah. And then it goes to to it goes to D V or video and DVD and it explodes. It's like it it was It's a cult classic now. Yeah, it's definitely a cult classic, but it was one it's like their number I think their number three most successful DVD release, I think, from what I was looking at. It's really high up there on VHS and DVD. It was just it went through the roof in the secondary market and I You know, and and I honestly would argue because looking at what came out around the same time and and where it ended up, it was going across from Disney's Dinosaur, which I th or I think it was Dinosaur that was out there, but everybody got shellacked by ⁓ how the Grinch stole Christ or the Grinch sold Christmas with Jim Carrey. Everybody got destroyed on that weekend by it. And so if it would have been a couple of weeks before, a couple of weeks after, maybe it would have made a lot more money and got more buzz, you know. But it was just drowned it it hit at the wrong time for the theaters. So and it still made its money back, plus some. But yeah, that's not what Disney wanted. Disney wanted another Lion King that made, you know, its money and then given everybody else's money on top of that. At that point, I think they'd given up on the fact that this was going to be a Lion King or whatever. Like when they said, like, you know, just just here's your toys, here's a comedy writer, ⁓ go with your little comedy, you know, zany movie. And just go and do it and and and don't cost us any more money. You know, and I think that was and what I was gonna say is I think it's a really good exam another really good example of like when a studio doesn't interfere with the talent and they just let them they just let them play with their toys and they let their brilliance shine. You know, we've seen we talked about it recently on the podcast with movies like Backrooms and Obsession and you know Zach Kregger recently doing like weapons and these like these weird sideways horror movies that have just like every Aaron every single A twenty four movie. It's like here, here's money, go do. Go go. Let let their money go do their thing. And and that I think is is when the studio backed off and said, you know what? Like don't complicate things. Make a simple little comedy and just do a good job. And they let the people do their jobs and they came out with this hilarious movie. But yeah, I think I think the whole thing just ends up being this vehicle for a bunch of Looney Tunes esque comedy bits and and like sort of s SNL style ⁓ you know, gags and and they just have these like four characters that all just like fit in their little boxes perfectly and they're all hilarious and they play off each other. And like I I put this movie on and I watched it with my six year old Remy. Yeah. last night and like we had a blast. He was laughing, not getting most of the jokes that I was laughing at, and I was laughing and he wasn't getting most of the jokes that I was la and we were just having a blast. We were both just like giggling at this silly comedy and ⁓ and and it's like it was Disney has never returned to that style of movie either, right? Like I could I couldn't tell you a Disney movie that I would watch over and over and over again. Or, you know, I that I've watched as much as this one. You know, I've I think I've watched you know, ⁓ I watched Aladdin like twice. You know, Aladdin's Aladdin is my jam. Aladdin's my one of my all time favorite movies. I I liked Aladdin. I liked Aladdin a lot, but I'm saying, you know, ⁓ I I think I've watched Lion King once and then once with my kids, but was kind of you know, not paying a whole lot of attention. But you know, it's like i they're good movies, but like I would watch Emperors, if it was on TV, I'd and I'd stop there and watch it for a while because every every gag is great. I mean, I just why do we have that lever? You know? It's just like and they keep going back to that and the running how is the can you name another Disney movie that has a running gag in it? I mean, I can't think of any. ⁓ yeah. So many hilarious bits like the diner is maybe one of my favorite Comedy scenes of all time where the mama's dressed up as as Pacha's wife, and he's like, they wanted to distract them, so they like ordered a birthday cake for Isma, and then Gronk is Gronk is so stupid, he's Isma, it's your birthday. I didn't know it was your birthday. And then he ends up in the kitchen cooking. My God, there's so many puffs. ⁓ and everybody was Yeah, at the beginning where they want to give the poison to ⁓ Cusco and he's like, The poison, the poison for Cusco, Cusco's poison, the poison's the poison specifically made to kill Cusco. That poison? Yes, that poison. And he's mixing it up in the back and it's classic Looney Tunes like smoke coming up and lights and all that. It's like it's like classic, you know. Everything about that was ⁓ and the the the the devil and the and the angel version of him having the discussions. I mean that is just beautiful. And he's like, Plus look what I can do and then he does this handstand thing and then Krug's like, What does that have to do with anything? And the a the angels is like, wait, he's onto something. He's got a point there. Yeah. Like it's just so stupid but so funny and ⁓ So silly. I mean so I remember watching this. You can tell it was one of the Conan writers that did it because Yes. Because there's very s th Conan always his people and and Conan O'Brien always leaned into silly. You know and subversion of expectations. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. This came out when I was like sixteen years old, I think. And as a teenager I saw this and I watched it over and over again with my buddies and we would like this is a formative like comedy movie for me. Like we would just quote these lines at school and with friends and like yeah. It was ⁓ I hadn't seen it ⁓ probably in fifteen years. I I I don't know, it's been a long, long time since I've seen this movie. And ⁓ yeah, when we talked about pairing a a movie with this game, ⁓ It it had it didn't come up right away, but as soon as I like I don't know how or why I thought of it or where it came up or whatever. Probably the imagery like you know, the imagery with with Altera, I think a lot of that. Yeah, immediately I'm like, that's genius. Like, we gotta do that movie. Like I haven't seen it in so long and I was excited to watch it and it was way shorter than I remembered. Like it's like eighty something minutes. It is very is mercifully short, but man, you are laughing the whole way. It is a straight up buddy comedy. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Definitely a a buddy road comedy. Like of all the hundreds of buddy road comedies out there, it is just brilliant that yeah. And and it even but it does it it it really still has w which is surprising, buddy comedies might not have it, but it still had that Disney heart to it. You know. Yeah, you did have a link of that for sure. Yeah. You know, you you definitely felt good when he turned into a nicer person. And, you know, at the ending, you know, when they're when they're close, and yeah, that was just like, yeah, he he you you got that. You it it they earned that in the movie. You know, that good feeling. Yeah, it just doesn't have the like epicness And the the gravitas, right, that all of the other super iconic Disney movies have. It's just a straight comedy. When yes, it has a little heart and it has a little bit of lessons or whatever at the end. It does do a little bit of the Disney thing, but like, you know, you think about, you know, a lot of these Disney movies have like a significant death and ⁓ some trauma. ⁓ yeah. Nobody's nobody's mother died in this one. Nobody's father died in this one. You know That's right, yeah. Yeah, granted, you don't know where some of those people that got thrown out the windows ended up, but only one guy. Yeah, and he survived. He made it. He landed. Yeah, he survived, but those those those those ⁓ those ⁓ guards, I don't know exactly where they ended up, but Well that one got sent. That one got to go home because he was a cow. He got turned into a cow. It's like, are we okay? I got turned into a cow. Can I go home? You dismissed. Okay. ⁓ You are you ⁓ you rest you all in? Yeah, we're we're yeah, we're good. So many stupid lines like that that are just hilarious. Like, ⁓ my god. So good. ⁓ yeah, I mean I don't think there's there's ⁓ we're not gonna have a big deep discussion about Emperor's New Groove. It's just like a hilarious ⁓ buddy ⁓ road trip movie. ⁓ I think the most interesting thing about it is all of the preamble and you know, how the movie got made and and again, just to go back to like I think when ⁓ a creative genius or a group of creative professionals are given constraints and time limits and budgetary constraints and ⁓ are are are basically given the g given ⁓ you know what's the I'm I'm just trying to think like ⁓ put put into a box to say like do what you can with this. You know what I mean? I think that when there's a lot of times when there's no rules and creativity is abounding and you're left alone but do what you want to do. Sure. Yeah. But a lot of times constraints like you see so many times small creative small movies or small indie creators of whatever name the art form are excellent. And then because they did so well, they're given all the money by a studio or whoever. And then they because they don't have any sort of constraints, a lot of times it doesn't come out that well. You know what I mean? And Because they they they aren't I I don't know what it is about given constraints or or or guardrails to be like stay within these lines, you know what I mean? And a lot of times when a creative is given like all the money in the world, they cr ⁓ I don't know if they crumble under the pressure or whatever the case is. ⁓ but I think that they were given like six months. Here's your budget, here's your comedy writer, here's your team, make something happen, make it quick and don't lose us money. You know what I mean? And they had to just scramble and work their butts off for six months and get something out. And a lot of times that's the congenius out of people. And I think what what you're saying is it's a different direction for that. Because these were all fun like the the people who ended up writing it in the, you know, and and going with it and doing this, they they were c they were not the people who just had a huge success and then, okay, we're gonna give you a hundred million dollars, go make your dream movie. You know, there's a lot of directors and stuff that that or teams that do that and ⁓ now that we've got all the money and they're giving us complete freedom, we didn't realize, you know, that we had to be cre you know, true to ourselves. And I think a lot of people kind of smell their own farts as, you know, the ideas. They're they they buy into their own hype and they they buy into like it, you know, it's part of part of why I think that, you know, George Lucas, the first three Star Wars are far superior than anyone ever made after that. And it's because when he made the prequels, nobody was there to tell him no. And he believed that he was the font of everything and every one of his decisions was brilliant. And it's like, but before, when you look at the first three, he didn't even direct the t second and third one. You know, he he he and the first one he was scrappy and coming up with his own thing that was not establishment Hollywood. So it was like before he was given the the He he had the constraints because that was where he was at the time. And and sometimes you get a director and there's very few that really can take a success and stay creative. And and you know, it's it's like the the rock band that has the follow-up album situation. How do you follow that up now that you're given everything you need or everything you wanted, you don't realize that sometimes, you know, hitting the walls and and trying to find a way around a situation. It might not be something like a studio having a thumb on you, but it might be having to figure it out on your own that brings it creativity. You know, there's there's I mean, when you look at like when I was first knew about sinners, for example, you know, I was like, what's he gonna do with n all the freedom in the world? Coming from being in the Marvel plane. What's he gonna do with all the freedom in the world? And I was like, you know, that's what he does. But other people just make Horrible trash after the first success because they just don't know why they how why they did what they did. They might not have they might not accept the limitations that they had. Yeah, you try to capture the magic again, but this time you have all the money in the world. And again, like you're you're you're just not you could just do whatever you want, and you don't end up tapping into your heart and your soul, and like what you said, like you you just end up thinking like you're you're the man and you can do whatever you want and whatever. And I think we saw it with George Lucas a little bit too in the in the prequel. Like that's when he had he finally had all the money to do whatever he wanted. And you know, I don't think that the I don't think we got his true creative genius from that. We got it we got it earlier when he had more budgetary constraints and he had to be scrappy and he had to just figure out what he had to do with what he had. And But ⁓ yeah, I think I think ⁓ yeah, just to go back to Emperor's New Groove, ⁓ this is it's a highly underrated movie. I tell people this all the time, like, you know, what's your favorite Disney movies? And Emperor's New Groove is not my favorite Disney movie, but I think it is by far the most underrated. Aladdin has to be my favorite. I I grew up on Aladdin, it's like an all time favorite. Jeannie is like, you know, as a as a little boy. I thought Genie was the funniest thing that ever existed and I quoted Genie and it was my favorite and yeah, I watched Aladdin a million times. It's my comfort movie. And I bet you when you watched it, you didn't get half of his his references too. You know? Absolutely not. I do now. A hundred percent. I didn't know who the heck of Rodney Dangerfield was or what that what that, you know, or even Jack Nicholson for the you know, you go on and on. But ⁓ yeah. Robin Williams is genius too. Yeah, we lost him too soon. Too soon for sure. Cool. Any final thoughts on Emperor's New Groove? ⁓ other than they, you know, they need to use these characters more in the theme parks because every time I go to Disney I don't see I don't see Kronk, I don't see i they they really they I don't I don't think they even acknowledge at this point how much beloved this is to a certain window of people. And and how how much that you know and and I will tell you right now, if they go to make a live action version of this, I'm gonna go burn the studio down. Because I know it did it wasn't successful enough for them to try to recycle it. ⁓ give them time. Give him time. And and I think this really opened up too it what what you don't realize if you really look at Old Disney compared to New Disney, it kind of it being able to be funny the way they were allowed for funny things in Lilo and Stitch, allowing for Pixar to just be I mean, funny, funny, funny, funny, funny, but then aw, but that you know, like or maybe give them a little bit more permission to be silly. Yeah. Walt Disney would never have approved a script of any dis Pixar movie ever. The way he visioned animation, he would never have approved one Pixar script. And Pixar is what saved Disney. you know, as far as animation's concerned. And and you gotta say a lot too for DreamWorks and what, you know, Katzenberg's hate for for Michael Eisner created, you know, we wouldn't have Shrek, we wouldn't have any of stuff. Yeah. And and that was all, you know, fun. And they they leaned into the fun. And I think that that it really showed that, you know, we don't need somebody's mom dying every freaking movie. We don't need And we don't need like it was the I think it was an edict at one point that they needed somebody needed to sing a song. You know. You know, other than Tom Jones, where it fits in this where he's, you know, his song that he's doing is describing, you know, the the Yeah, it's his entrance or whatever. Yeah. And yeah, it's his theme song and he's i but it's funny because it's a lounge singer singing his theme song because that fits. Because that's who he is. That he would definitely have somebody walking around a castle singing his theme song to him. And then Kronk doing his own theme song. But that was hilarious. Is he really doing his own theme song? Yeah, they broke the fourth wall a lot, which we didn't see ⁓ either in ⁓ in these animated movies. So that was kind of a new a new thing that's now been super popularized with Deadpool and all that. But yeah, that was That kind of caught me off credit was like, ⁓ yeah, they did this whole like fourth wall breaking thing long before it was like a a super popular mainstay in pop culture. But yeah. Tom, are you familiar with just not recognizing its time? Yeah. Are you familiar with the Wilhelm scream? No. I might know it by context, but not by the name. ⁓ yeah. Does that sound familiar to you? Yes. Yes, you have. ⁓ for so for those who don't know, at some point in like the forties or fifties there was some Western movie, and I don't know if it was the actor or the character, but the person was named Wilhelm, and they had this scream, and I don't know how, but at some point it caught fire and became an inside joke amongst audio editors and and film editors. and ⁓ sound designers and ⁓ they ended up putting it in more and more and more movies and it is in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of movies ⁓ including Star Wars including you know b basically every movie that has an action sequence probably has a Wilhelm screen. Not all, but a ton of them. And so ⁓ just for fun, I started asking my guests and I haven't looked this up so we'll guess. Together, do we think that the Wilhelm scream was in the Emperor's new groove? I put my answer already. I think it was somebody who ended up flying out that window. Yeah, I don't sp like all now that I've now that I'm like attuned to it, I often hear it. Often, often, often I'll catch it. I'll be like Wilhelm Scream as I'm just watching a random action sequence. I did not specifically hear it in Emperor's New Groove, but my guess is that it is in there. ⁓ so let's look it up real quick. Is the Wilhelm scream in Emperor's New? Groove. Yes, the Wilhelm Scream is in the Emperor's New Groove. Is it used during the film, though the sound effect is slightly altered and pitched lower than the classic version? For a quick refresher on the film's funniest ⁓ Okay. Yeah, so it is in there, although apparently it was altered, which is why I I guess I didn't catch it. So there it is. Wilhelm Scream is in the Emperor's New Groove. What's your s what's your score for Emperor's New Groove, Tom? okay, so it's out of five. I I mean, ⁓ honestly, it's it's hard not to love this movie. I don't think objectively I should give it a five, but I I really love watching it so much. You're a lot of it's personal favorite, but I I I'll give it a four point nine. There you go. Fair enough, fair enough. It's underrated for ⁓ and I love I love a good cult classic, but I even think that this is just it it it was robbed and it it should you know, it should be one of those that you know, kids today when they're wait you know, ha sitting in class and they're ha watching a movie because it's the last day of school or something. This a good one works perfectly. Absolutely it should be shown to every generation because it is timeless. It is funny and it's it's just hilarious. And I I mean I always loved Bugs Bunny and all that Looney Tunes and And it just it's like Disney doing Looney Tunes and it was just note perfect for it it was you could it it's got the you could feel the love of the funny from it it came through. It wasn't just funny, but you could tell that funny people wrote it because of their love for Looney Tunes, for gags like this, for su and and it's just it's just a pure You th you might not have that heartbreaking or heart wrenching moment, but you really just feel that the people cared about those jokes and they did it for the love of the game because it was just they couldn't have been doing it for any other reason. They had six months to make that thing happen and they'd made it happen. And it it's six months for animation is Herculean, you know. I was like, whoa. Like they already had the toys and they had to go back and redo the toys and rename That was what Disney was working with. They had a McDonald's deal for like six or eight songs and they barely used one. Yeah. Yeah. And I love what's funny is i I don't know if you caught that with the the Sting's note at the end. Like originally they were going he was going to then build his house in the rainforest and tear down part of the forest next to him, and Sting was like he wrote a letter to the guy saying I just can't I I I can't have my music in this because I don't believe that they should tear down the rainforest. And then they're like He's right. He's absolutely right. And then they change the ending to where they're living together yeah, they're they're together on the hill, you know, and it's like Yeah. And it makes sense. That was that little note that Sting gave him at the end was like perfect. Thank you, Sting. Thank you, Sting. One of many thousands of things I've thanked Sting for despite not really having his music in the movie as much as it was supposed to The way that like Elton John and ⁓ was it ⁓ Peter Jones? Well mostly Elton John. He was the one that really despite not being in the film the way that those guys are in their films, you know, he still had his his his ⁓ stamp ⁓ on the on the movie for sure. Very close. You're right. Yeah, he got nominated for ⁓ My Funny Friend, I think it was called. That's the the last song that plays over the end. Closing sequence. Yeah, which does not fit Of course also Blame Blame Canada got ⁓ nominated once too, so I guess you know it might not be that much of an accomplishment sometimes. But ⁓ speaking of Robin Williams, when he did Blame Canada, that was really good. Yeah, blame yes, yes. He did that at the Oscars, right? Yes. Yeah, Robin Williams performed it at the Oscar ceremony and he was he just knocked it out of the park. That was a moment. That was a moment in time that happened. All right. ⁓ Did you take offense at us blaming Canada at any time when we at all South Park thing? We are v no. Canadians are not we're not like we're proud, but we're not vain. ⁓ we are totally fine with laughing at ourselves. And ⁓ I watched the kids in the hall. I know. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We have no issues with laughing at ourselves. We are very proud, but also we are not vain and we are able to laugh at ourselves, so That's ⁓ that's something that ⁓ yeah. South Park Bigger, Longer Uncut was one of my favorite movies ⁓ when it came out. I thought it was a f one of the funniest things that ever that ever came out at the time. So ⁓ big fan. Big fan of those movies. I was like tween, like ⁓ th thirteen, fifteen, something like that probably. So yeah, old enough. Okay. We're not gonna talk about that. Cool. So I I have the Emperor's New Groove as a four. It's ⁓ I I think it's one of the most underrated animated movies. It is one of my favorite animated movies. I think it's it's amazing. It's super fun. It's just like it's just a straight up buddy road trip comedy. There's not really a lot of depth there. And four for me is probably the ceiling for a movie like that. There's just like not much other than the fact that it is absolutely hilarious. and a total romp and I have a total blast with it. So yeah, it's not gonna h hold the weight of a movie that gets up to a four and a half or five for me. But if for what it is, it's it's amazing. It's a total blast. So yeah, I that's I agree with your score. I I just it's I agree with your score if I was being academic about it. Fair enough, yeah. I can't be academic about this. You're going with your hearty and that is totally fair. Yeah. Very cool. Tom, thanks so much for doing this. This was a blast. We we always go long. ⁓ the w last time you were on, we did like a three hour podcast too, but what the heck. It's a blast and I'm glad to It doesn't feel like it's been that long. No, it doesn't feel It doesn't feel like it's been that long. No. Hopefully it doesn't feel that long for the listeners either. Yeah, I can't wait to see you at Gen Con and neither can Miss Fit Dawn over here who's been watching the whole thing and and we can't wait to meet you and ⁓ get together and and have some fun. Sounds good. ⁓ folks, if you're enjoying the podcast, take a few minutes, ⁓ rate review, subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on. You could follow me on Instagram at Dice Camera Action Pod. I post a lot of game content there and clips from the podcast. ⁓ and if you have any feedbacks or comments, email me at dicecameractionpod at gmail.com. Thanks again, Tom. This was a blast, and we'll see you at Gen Con. Yeah, definitely. And check us out at it's ⁓ the Tabletop Mess Fits with the on ⁓ on YouTube or go to the tabletopmisfist dot com. Awesome. Thanks Tom. Cheers. Thank you. See you later.