James Geist: Welcome to Dads on a Map, a board game podcast by Dads for Everyone. I'm James. And I'm Derek. And it's the post-Dome Con wrap-up episode. We're gonna talk a ton of games from our week in Kansas City at Dome Con 6, and hear from our special correspondent Dylan, and many of the attendees from the events. Enjoy the show. Derek, here we are again. It's been a week since we were in real life gaming. And now we are back to, you know, async gaming, living our lives and joining up for a podcast on a Friday night. Yeah, this is not the only ⁓ gaming adjacent thing my wife would let me do ⁓ week post Domcon. So ⁓ just happy to get in some game talk and be able to kind of feel, kind of relive the glory that was Dome Con six. And we will on this show for sure. ⁓ it was a wonderful event, of course. We don't have to gush about it up front. We're gonna talk about it throughout the whole episode. But thanks to our sponsors that we've talked about over the last month or so. Thanks to all the people who chipped in, my locals, Scott, Steve, and Josiah for helping me load in and load out. ⁓ Jacob did his amazing work on the Megadino. We're gonna talk about Sean at the shrimp boil. All the attendees there who pitch in, you know, I never have to really worry about anything. The trash takes itself out eventually like someone sees, ⁓ the trash is really full. Let me go take this down to the dumpster. Or the kitchen gets tidied up or coffee gets made in the morning. Like it's a bunch of grown grown adults doing ⁓ well, I don't know, grown adult things. P playing games all week and the especially when you hear about some of the games we were playing, you'd think this was like a bunch of ⁓ toddlers playing games and said but everyone acted like a grown adult and helped take care of the event and I'm very appreciative of that every year. ⁓ yeah, for sure. And like everybody always said, it's one of the best values in gaming, ⁓ to be able to go here and to to be a heartland and with them to to deal with us. I'm sure we're a very different bunch than the usual people they get. So we appreciate them putting up with us and just giving us a great value con. ⁓ be able to enjoy. And when you if you're a first timer or you're a six timer, like we have some, doesn't matter who you are, be able to come together and game in person. ⁓ it's always great. Yep. It's it's always fun to get all the the crews back together because like Derek, he wasn't there last year, but he was there the year before. And then I'll have someone who's very familiar to me because they were there last year. And then I'll see like Derek be like, ⁓ yeah, I'm Derek. I'm like, ⁓ yeah, I forget. Not everyone is here every year like me. And so there's like these strings that have to get reconnected every time, which is which is honestly like kind of the best part too is people meeting new people, putting a face to an internet name, right? And it just connects the whole thing together. It's very cool. Indeed, indeed. ⁓ so announcement for next year is coming soon. Nothing to announce yet. It'll be around the same time because that's when their availability is for us, but that'll be coming soon. A couple patrons. I want to shout out some new patrons, ⁓ Nemanja, Christopher, and Ben. Three new patrons hot off the Dome Con week. And we're very appreciative of them and everyone who ⁓ backs the Patreon. ⁓ I like at Dome Con. I get to kind of pay back the Haasendado supporters that we have with some VIP treatment, which is ⁓ some little gifts and stuff like that that I put together for them, which is always kind of fun to ⁓ repay them for their their support throughout the year. I love doing that. Okay. So here's how this show's gonna work. You're gonna hear from me and Derek. Then you're gonna hear a couple bits from Dylan, who had my recorder live on site and he was doing some quick interviews with people. They are all pretty quick. thank God for Dylan, because you know the rigors of running a con and just enjoying a con doesn't have me wanting to pick up that microphone very often. And Dylan was like, just give it to and I'll go do it. I'm like psh. Say less, Dylan. Here you go. You are the official Dome Con correspondent. Afterwards, me and Derek will get together and we'll listen together and we'll talk about some other things and here we go. So we started off the con. At least I did. Was it your first game, Jumbo Santiago as well? Yes, it was. It was jumping in, Jumbo Santiago. Yep. You know, I believe it's ⁓ your your con basically tradition. It is a tradition. It's gotta be four years at least. I might be able to trace it back all the way to Dome Con one at this point. I I'm gonna have to check my notes. ⁓ but so we start off with Jumbo Santiago, which is a version made by PC or for our attendee. And it's like all hand painted wood tiles. Very sweet. It's very very good. We've talked about it before on the show. ⁓ always great to play that game. A extremely dry, nasty game. of Santiago with nobody wanting to give an inch. ⁓ it was like half the board. It was like a line of just dry tiles. I think Derek tied for the win with like forty four, which is a a low Santiago score. It was like you almost could have just passed every turn and taking three bucks and almost probably could have been pretty competitive. That would be thirty seven dollars if you did nothing and you might end up with a couple single cubes because of it. Yeah. You you probably would have been competitive. ⁓ but Jumbo Santiago is not the only big boy in town anymore because now we have Megadina, which is a 2.5 times version of the Dome Madness winner this past year, Medina. it was incredible. It was ⁓ you know, listen, I essentially commissioned this from Jacob along with Jacob talking to him about it. He brought one of the pieces, one of the towers to Dome Con Jr. for me to see. And I was like, that is so big. But I wasn't ready for once we put it on the table. And it, you know, the the board is probably five feet wide by four feet the the other way. And the pieces are just ginormous. They're, you know, your hand is the size of each piece, essentially, right? You're picking up an entire Medina brick. And it was so freaking fun to play. Yeah, I mean it not only just a spectacle 'cause this was left on the table the whole time. You could go and look at it the whole time. People were probably almost in constant games of Medina at one point or another. but it's so funny too, when I think about gaming, some of the best like moments in gaming are those moments whenever you have a table but everybody's standing, you know. Everybody like ha is like so enjoyable and this is something you have to stand for. So it automatically like gets you in this mode of like we are playing this game. We were trying to play it well. ⁓ and so it was super fun. ⁓ super fun to have the banner right behind it. You had the, you know, Dome twenty twenty six Dome Madness winner Medina hanging right above the top of that. Just a a beautiful just thing. I don't and I know he I think people joked about sending a picture to Stefan Dora. I don't know if they still did that yet. Everybody's heard back from him, but it would be funny to see what he thinks of a ⁓ a jumbo Medina. It would be. ⁓ you know, I had high expectations for how what what an awesome like visual it would be and how it would feel to play. And they were blown out of the water. It was it was so satisfying. The toy factor was out of this world. You know, it was like playing with blocks as a child because they were so big. But you're playing the game of Medina. And like Derek said, the board is so big you have to stand up to be able to place your your blocks across the board. And so everyone was engaged. So even when you did play just a normal game of Medina You know, w I felt like we were playing in sub thirty minutes every time because everyone was up and engaged. There was no, ⁓ it's my turn or you know, anything like that. But then we took it to the next level with Speedina. So I don't remember who was in my first game of Speedina. I was there. I think I'm pretty sure that was the one 'cause we were sitting over playing P B. You're like, I haven't played Medina today. And I was like it was like, you know, almost past midnight at this point. I'm like But what if Spadita s and you're like, Yes. So the first game was me, you, I believe Drew was in that first game. Yes. And then I think I don't remember. Justin was in the game. I can't remember if he was no, I think he was in the second game. I can't remember to I have it in my book, which I foolishly did not bring to the desk here. I'll look it I'll look it up. But you talked about it anyway. We got our four players, we made sure everyone knew the rules, which Drew was ⁓ maybe sketchy on that, and he was several cocktails in at that point. But we were like, here's the thing, no thinking, right? Just go, just go, just go. We're just yelling at each other, okay, go, go, go, go. I started the clock a little like ⁓ maybe one whip of turns into the game, because I wanted to see how quickly we would play. And we cranked out a full real game of Medina in ten minutes. And I was like, it was so it was so satisfying too. Derek crushed us by the way too, because you don't have time to really y you have to be thinking on the other players' turns, which is like six seconds, right? So you're y and you if you're not ready, you gotta play something and you just start scrambling and putting stuff down. So then a couple onlookers saw us doing this and They wanted a crack at it. So I think I don't remember who all shuffled in and out, but the next game of Speedina launched immediately. And that was a eight minute Medina. I was like, okay. But then the next day, I think, Derek, you were back at that table with me, right? For the the next No, I was in the second game. I was honestly I was not in this fabled this fabled six minute game. Yeah. My next one was I think Nav Andrew and I and maybe. Maybe D Peg. I can't remember who my fourth was in that one. D Peg was in the fourth and the first game. He was probably looked it up. And ⁓ we cranked out a six minute Medina game on that that occasion. So ⁓ that was ⁓ no, that's not I forgot I scored my final day Medina. ⁓ PC. PC was my fourth in the six minute Medina. So we're playing all the Medina. I played five times throughout the weekend. I think Derek, you said you played just about as many. Four, yeah. And I, you know, I have it now. It it fit in this case that I brought. I I have this like trunk that was like my dad's trunk in the navy or something that I've had in my house. It's just like an old dusty trunk. I was like, that is perfect for Medina. I put a sticker on the side. It says like ship to Dome Con and it barely fit. On the last day, me, Logan, and Andrew sat there and Tetris this thing back together meticulously to get every piece in there. And it just, just fits in there. ⁓ so now I have this giant trunk of Medina in my house. My wife is like, is that just going to sit on top of the Calyx forever? And I'm like, Yes, it is. Until we play it. You want to play? That's what I want to ask. Or you you guys want to play Jumbo Medina? Because my kids are probably going to love it now because it's it's like playing with big blocks. It's amazing. ⁓ Yeah. Of like, here's my Medina and then the the looks like an earthquake hit it. Well no, just well just like the the w who was the other game that people used to do with like the fresh fish people that came out like that's illegal, that's legal. ⁓ yeah. Couldn't do that. And and so it was funny and every I don't think we had any issues either in regular or even Speed Medina of like 'cause of the size, 'cause of everybody being more familiar with it. Like everybody you No none of those issues really happened. In my second, my fast speed Medina game, we did have a couple questionable plays. I don't know how fast the six minute one was, or there were some questionable things that well in the six minute one, I didn't build gray. Like we wrapped it up. I look over to the left, I have three gray towers and my topper. And I just never put it on the map. And I was like, okay, I guess I'm not gonna compete in this one. So ⁓ that's the thing. Like, It sounds like it was all for the lows, ⁓ which it was tremendously entertaining and funny and enjoyable and and just joyous, but it was also the the most clear version of Medina I've ever played, right? Blowing it up by two and a half times meant like it was so easy to read and simple to see. It was so easy to place the merchants without knocking over half the city, you know? You yeah, you had to stand up, but you have to stand up in regular Medina to see over the buildings and see, you know, where the merchant line is and where they can go. So I mean, I'm not advocating anyone else that they need to own a Megadena, but you should definitely come to Dome Con and play Megadena, because it was so good. Yeah, I'm just saying if ⁓ if the Dome Con publishing house ever starts, I think Megadena's shot to the top of the list, you know. Three hundred three hundred dollars. ⁓ I feel like three hundred dollars is cheap probably. Let's kick it to Dylan, who has his first segments for us, I think including some more Medina talk. So here we go. Derek and I are gonna listen along as well, and we'll be back in a second. All right, we got the field reporter in Dylan from Dads on a Map. I am going to be walking around getting people's ⁓ answers for four specific questions. Every person that I'm gonna be asking ⁓ questions for, it's these specific four. And I will be answering those four as well. We have favorite game of dads of the con, favorite play of the con, favorite new to you game that of this con, and the worst game that you played at the con. My four, we'll say my favorite game was Medina. This is a game that I owned back in 2017, very early on in my board gaming journey. And ⁓ I let it go because it was billed as like an abstract, but it is not an abstract. If you've seen the pictures, there is a giant version and it is phenomenal. And we got to play I think I've played twice at the con. And it definitely ⁓ superseded what I initially thought about the game. My favorite play of the con was probably ⁓ we played a an unlisted game on BGG called Grandma I'm Hungry. You literally reach into a bag. The s the big pitch is that ⁓ you're a grandma who is coming home from a casino. And ⁓ you just picked up your grandson. They are throwing a temper tantrum because they're hungry. And you are the grandma trying to look through your purse. There is 28 objects in the purse, and you're trying to find a specific one and match it. it it's just phenomenal. And just and every time you get it right, you are then taking the object that you guessed and putting it in your purse. Hilarious. ⁓ my favorite new to me game is Wolfle, just because it was such a great idea for the game. I've not played Doppelkoff and it being a low barrier of entry, you're not having to follow suit or anything like that. And it was just fun because it's dice based. You're trying to like sleuth at who your partner is and who's who's the enemy. ⁓ it's just fascinating. And I'm excited that it was here at the con. And there's one for Raffle and I'm really hope win that. The worst game I played is unfortunate because it is one I brought. It is called Stonk Market, a Jan Con release from Reiner Kenizia, and it was just not as good as I was hoping. So that is my four, and now we'll get on to the next person. Speaking of Justin, we've got him letting me in because I was recording outside. And now I'm just going around asking every single person at the con four of the exact are the four exact questions. The same ones. Okay. What is your favorite game that you've played at the con? Favorite game. It's gotta be Megadena. I mean, I keep coming on the con the podcast and talking about playing Medina at ⁓ at cons, but Jacob did such a great job with Megadena that it's it's an event, basically. Your favorite play? My favorite play. that's a good question. I think ⁓ I think honestly it's been watching people play Grandma I'm Hungry. It was my that was my favorite play too. Yeah, I mean I haven't I haven't played this one, but I've shown three people it. ⁓ 'cause there's always four people who want to play and I'll just sit out and watch and it's just hilarious. Like, great. Love it. Your favorite new to you game. My favorite new to me game. I haven't played a lot of new to me games, this con so far. Let me let me stall. Yeah, you he's Let's see. What are we talking? We got new to me was ⁓ stock, paper, scissors. Actually, stock, paper, scissors is my my favorite new to me game. Can you tell us can you tell us a little bit about what stock, paper, scissors is? Stock, paper, scissors is rock, paper, scissors with shares. ⁓ it's as dumb and amazing as it sounds. It's a lot of fun. You're basically playing rock, paper, scissors, and whatever wins, that stock is going up and you're buying into rock, paper, or scissors. And so you have these weird incentives to try to like lose, play scissors and lose so rock beats you and then it's it's great. It was it's been a blast. And the last question is your worst game that you played? ⁓ coalitions by far. Not a big fan. ⁓ it I think it was doing some interesting things. I think a lot of people ⁓ will like what it's doing. I found that the ⁓ the structure of the Rondell in the game, so it's kind of a war game where you're starting out in coalitions. You can't really do everything yourself. But there's a pretty rigid structure in which countries operate ⁓ one after the other. So you sort of get forced into going or ⁓ a particular direction. So you don't have a lot of like ⁓ it felt like a lot less agency to do what you wanted to do. the diplomacy aspects of it seem really cool, but you'd have to get a couple plays in, and I think it would just evolve into like a lot of scripted openings and scripted play that I just I went the wrong direction. And it kind of ended my game like immediately as Russia, ⁓ because it incentivizes me to like go, ⁓ look, here's some point scoring and it's a race to 25 points. And ⁓ go go into the Ottoman. And I sort of did that. And then the Ottoman came the Ottoman operates right after me and undoes everything I did. And now I'm like, ⁓ now I have to spend the entire next round building back up. Then it's the third round and France is already like running amok. ⁓ so not not for me. And it ran a little long for you too, right? Honestly, no. I think it got in and got out for what it was doing. It's just like so much of it was downtime of of me. It it kind of builds itself as like there's all these different actions and everybody's doing a lot simultaneously. And then one person's doing their movement for their ⁓ for their country, their nation. ⁓ but that nation moving is kind of fiddly a little bit or it's it's not overly fiddly, but you just have a lot of downtime. And then each individual action is like, ⁓ I'm just waiting for my turn, but I'm doing like one admin step at a time instead of like, here's a big turn, here's all my admin step. All right, you go do all your stuff. There's our four questions. ⁓ I know this is early. I mean, I didn't even say we are on Friday, so we still have another full day of the con, but I wanted to get going on this because I don't want to I want a game tomorrow and I don't want to just be interviewing people. So yeah, we're just getting to it. ⁓ what are you doing right now? I'm waiting to play time agent, which will be ⁓ interesting. It'll be a time both in that an experience and the amount of time it will take. I'm just happy to be ⁓ we're playing I got Nav and Derek and Josh and Lucas ⁓ and Andrew. It's gonna be a good group. So I kinda it's like I don't care what game we're playing, we're just gonna have fun. So it'll be fun. All right. So thank you again, Justin. Time agent tease. So more of that to come later. so that was great from Dylan. ⁓ a lot of love for Megadena. And a couple mentions of some nonsense, right? We heard about stock, paper, scissors. Heard about Wolfle, which was a a con hit. A lot of Wolfle being played. A lot of Wolf being played. Not quite as nonsensical as some of the things we're gonna talk about now. But Wolfle's got a lot of shine on the show lately. So I'm gonna let that one go. Then we heard about Grandma, I'm hungry. So let's talk Dome Con nonsense here. So Grandma I'm hungry, ⁓ stock, paper, scissors. What was this finger crane? What's this game called? The finger crane championships. ⁓ Dido Racer, Puerto Banana, Bad Bets, size-wise, ⁓ Hop Hop Hooray, chopsticks. There was a lot of of of unconventional nonsense going on. I'm not gonna take the time to explain all these games, but I figure w we really need to talk about Grandmind Hungry and and stock, paper, scissors, because they those were kind of the ones that D well, first of all, they don't have BGG listings, so nobody's nobody can just go find info on them right now. Grandma I'm hungry is a game Justin rolled in with if I have the the strings of my story correct here, from Gen Con. Yes, from the Genesis. the the guys I play T chu it's Dan and Bert. Yeah. I ⁓ I unless I've got that crossed with that with that shedder. But what I thought. They did woo. I don't think they did that. I think their pictures are in that game. ⁓ okay. Yeah, their pictures are in Grand Bob Hungry. For some reason I'm thinking it's Ty who did that game, the guy who actually owns Tricky Imports. Okay, so Grand Bob Hungry. Everybody, all four players at the table have a drawbag, drawstring bag. And there are, like Dylan said, 28 items in the bag. And the game is literally. There's a row of i matching items in the middle of the table. When I say items, we're talking about like a quarter, ⁓ a button, a thimble, a hair tie, a a literal photo. Like this is a photo of a person, like a small wallet-sized photo. And the next item up on the table, everyone has to dig in their bag and be the first one to come out with it. But you can only you can't look, obviously, and you can only come out with one item. If you come out with two items. Then you're DQ'd from the round, basically, and you have a penalty for the next round. And the goal is just to win as many of those as possible because there's gonna be a bonus round at the end where you have you get an advantage based on how you performed in the regular round. As stupid as it sounds, I I never got to play. Did you play, Grandma? I'm hungry. I watched a a couple games, but I didn't actually physically play a game. Were you intrigued by it? I was something by it. Like I think the first time Justin pulled it out, I was like watching, I was like, What in the hell is even going on here? And then I as I like saw it a little more. I'm like, Okay, this is like so I think the best way somebody described it was like it's like a tripulter for like adults or something. Right. Tripulter is like a a ⁓ wank game where you have basically a bunch of random stuff in your hands and you're trying to pull it out of your hands. But this one you're reaching to the bag and grabbing it. And so I think as I watched it more I'm like, okay, this is this is at least somewhat of a game. compared to some other stuff we play played, including maybe this the game we're gonna talk about next. I think it's more of a game than that. So there's that I pre-ordered this. I can't I can't like tell I can't lie. I could not stop my finger from clicking when I got home. And then I was telling my family about it and my wife was like, I'm I wanna play that game. She's like, I've been playing that game my whole life, digging in my purse. Justin said the same thing about his wife on on Discord the other day. So I guess we'll find out. It's it's on you can pre-order it on Tricky Imports. But there's no further information like out there on the internet that I was able to find. So that's what it is. ⁓ it's like $38 pre-order. And it's literally like lots 2.0 here, because it's just bags of trash and you make a game out of it. ⁓ stock, paper, scissors. Did you get a chance to play this? I did play this one. So I believe like after the first play of this, everybody was talking about it. And I was like, what in the world is even going on here? So somebody was like, You want to sit down and play this game? And so we played like I think it was in your I think it was in your game, one of your games. I think I played multiple times. This is the one where I left scissors. I left Seeds of Strife in progress to go join the stock, paper, scissors game. I gotta tell you, we're not gonna talk about Seeds of Strife today, but this is the first time I played on that art on the table after being a Texas showdown guy. That art sucks, bro. The iconography is horrible. The colors are all too close. The like Inverse that they used to mark the face card is bad. I was so disappointed. Like this is the first time I'd ever played on that. so stock, paper, scissors is a game current in development, I'll call it, by our own Chad Wolf, who was there. And so so funny, right? I am totally a I never want to play your prototype guy. But if you say this is stupid. has dice or is nonsense, I'm like, I definitely want to play your prototype, right? But if you're like, ⁓ I've designed an age of Steam map, I'm like, please don't ruin my life. I do not want to do that. ⁓ so I was all in on testing stock, paper, scissors. It is a stockholding game where you buy shares of stock, paper, or scissors on your turn, you can buy a share. You can challenge any player at the table you to a stock paper or sorry, a rock, paper, scissors battle. The winning symbol goes up the stock chart two, and the losing symbol goes down one. If I think I have that right. That's the game, folks. That's the game. ⁓ there was no y you couldn't ⁓ outwardly strategize and communic. Like I could be thinking, hey Derek, we're both invested in rock. I'm gonna challenge you. Please throw scissors because I'm gonna throw rock, but you weren't allowed to say that out loud. And the winner of the rock, paper, scissors battle gets five dollar bonus. So Derek might want to bump rock, but he's also kind of a jerk and doesn't want to just let me have the five dollars. So the result is rock loses. It goes in the cellar and and you're just left that that's the game. I don't there's nothing else. I I don't think I put any more shine on this. Like it's barely a game. It was fun and got played a million times at Dome Cut. Yeah. It was probably top five most played games of it's also I think it's already been like three pinprin plays have been made of it already. Yeah. Of course it's loud because every time there's a challenge, you're doing a rock, paper, scissors shoot. Or as we learned from our Australian friend Ollie, who is in attendance, apparently they say paper, scissors, stone down under. So He was like, What are you guys shouting? What are you guys shouting at each other? Who's saying, why are you saying shoot? Well ⁓ it's paper, scissors, stone, right? We're all like, You're wrong. Get out of America. ⁓ so yeah, it was a blast. It honestly, this just builds the lore of Dome Con that not only is now Dome Con a place that you go to get in the games you can't get in other places, splahs, PAX games, big train games. Now you come to Dome Con to play people's stupid prototype games like Bad Bets and Stock Paper Scissors and Grandma I'm Hungry is just a step above a prototype, basically, at this point. a lot of fun though. Do you have any others from this short list that you just want to mention that you got to play? I will go ahead and just talk about the finger crane championship because I had pulled it out at the last day because I forgot I even packed it. It was like in the bag and I was like I'd throw it in there. 'Cause you know, sometimes like stuff like that, like at home, it's like if I pull that out, all right, the whole game group, they're just gonna be like, What the hell? And then they're they're gonna be like, Don't bring that back. but I was like Dylan was asking for like stupid stuff to play in last night. I was like, I have this one I brought. And then I forgot, ⁓ yeah, people want to play that. So it's like a new ⁓ game from like Tokyo Game Market has Sai Bebu art fun. ⁓ but basically it's just a a stack, probably five inches high, five or six inches high of cards that you flip over the top card and it shows a number and then it tells you what fingers you're not allowed to use. So it may be like twelve and you can't use your thumb or your pinky. And so you then have to close your eyes and then take that many cards off the top of the stack with just those fingers. And if you take a little less, you get a little less points. If you take more, you get no points. But if you take exactly, you basically hit a jackpot and get to take all the points, like a finger grain. and then also the other people, while your eyes are closed, are betting on how they think you'll do and then goading you on how many cards you've picked up. And then you realize how hard it is to pick up that many cards. And it's very stupid, it's very simple. But people loved it. So I was like, This is pretty cool. So I'll be like, like people just walk by and like, what the hell is going on? Like, yeah, that was me. I I walked by and witnessed this. And this is what I witness. D peck with his eyes closed, with his hand contorted in this awkward way. Andrew holding his hand and like literally like guiding his hand, and you guys laughing and throwing card, like just pitching cards in and out. And I think it was like your yes or no card on if he was gonna or over or under or whatever you were saying, right? But I totally could not understand what was actually happening. Just these guys are holding hands and like trying to grab cards. And that's all I can really see. And I I I don't understand what's going on. So now at least I understand a little more than ⁓ than I did. there wasn't much to understand to begin with, but yeah, it was ridiculous. So But it was pretty funny. So but yeah, ⁓ definitely good times to play a bunch of this stuff you wouldn't like never see at all. Anywhere else. And I saw someone ask you about this and then said you s they said where can they get it? And you said you can't. You can't. Yeah. I was like it's like, what is that? Where can you get it? It's like, it's this and you can't. I was just like, You can't. I was like, ⁓ I grabbed one L PG C somebody and then I I I posted for Dylan to look for him a copy, but ⁓ it is n nowhere to be found right now. So maybe someday. All right. Let's ⁓ Turn it back to Dylan and ⁓ see who he's got next. Here we've got ⁓ one of James's right hands for running these cons. We've got Steven Suhar. How's it going, Steven? Really happy to be here. How are you? Doing well. ⁓ so the way I've been doing this is ⁓ gosh. I've got four questions that I'm asking my ⁓ interviewees. They're very easy questions. You better get out your plays because you're gonna be needing those. What is your favorite game in general that you have played at the con? ⁓ it's hard. It's like picking your favorite kid. I I'm gonna say Magna Grisha. I mean that you're three of th we're three of three with that being the answer. I is that right? Yeah. Me, Justin, and you. Yeah, I mean we we had ⁓ a really good play earlier. ⁓ frankly I want to get it aga get it in again if I have the opportunity. Favorite individual play. I I think the favorite individual play was eighteen seventy. So, you know, we play a lot of eighteen XX of course online with each other, but ⁓ actually making it work over the table and not ⁓ making moves like Async. Sure. Async ⁓ is a totally different animal. When we're playing over the table, ⁓ I mean frankly just the the table time with I mean ⁓ Zach, Vince, James, being able to do that together is always really, really special. Favorite new to you game? I'm the boss. First time ⁓ I've had it taught to me, played. I don't know. It it it just hit really well. Of course, it's an awesome like post-10 PM type game to bring out, but ⁓ I don't know. I I just liked how wide open the negotiations were and that you could be kind of as aggressive or as kind as you want to be. And there's kind of good merits. ⁓ I don't know, having a lot of range. And now, maybe the hardest question the worst game you've played of the con. ⁓ This might be controversial. For me, it's woeful. So I I yeah. That was one of my favorites. Okay. Well, tell me what you liked about it. I'd love to hear. So I thought it was a nice introduction to Doppelkoff as someone who's never played Doppelkoff because it you don't have to follow suit. It's the fun sleuthing of figuring out who your partner is and who your enemies are. and has the The fun aspect of just for like having someone to be like you see someone that you think isn't your partner, you don't like what they rolled, so now they're gonna re-roll it. So just forcing a a chain of re-rolls is just funny. And it it I don't think of it as a high strategy gene. I just think if it was just like a fun experience. Yeah, I think where it landed flat for me, and you know, this can happen sometimes when I have an idea of a genre and dice are at it. So certain things like playing a card, the card is just the card. So like you're making a decision and it just resolves. Somebody else's card beats me, that happens. ⁓ the fact that you're picking dice, there is like a push your luck element to it. ⁓ yes. I mean, that's like the the nature of dice. You may get you may have a good die or f ⁓ in any game, it may be a D twenty and you're just at a ⁓ D six and There's still a chance that that D twenty rolls really badly. Yeah, so it's like I liked it because of dice, but I also didn't like it because of dice. It was just about the dice. And I don't know. I I it's certainly worth playing. Sure, I'll try it again. But it was I think that's one of the the great things about board games is that we all can think a game is great and then someone has a different opinion and those opinions are accepted and okay and that's why there's so many different board games. Cause in my space of life, I'm not really wanting to sit down and play an 18XX. So that and that's just me. So it's good that there is the breadth of options for all sorts of players. Yeah, it's as I like to say, I'm not even sure if this is the case. It might not be for me, but not everything has to be. All right. Well I appreciate you talking and ⁓ we will go on to the next one. Bye guys. We're back on the job. I caught Zach eating some dinner. What'd you have for dinner? ⁓ it was some leftover brisket and beans. ⁓ just missed lunch, so was trying to sit down and get something before I started gaming for the afternoon. So I haven't even told Zach. We've been talking about life. Every person I've been interviewing, I have four questions. And we're We're cutting it a day early. We're doing it a day early because I want to game on tomorrow and not just interview people. First question The favorite game you have played at the con? Well, I've had to work half of my days being here. So I've been working in the morning and then gaming later. ⁓ favorite play so far. I'm gonna Favorite game it's specifically. Favorite game specifically. ⁓ I had an opportunity to play Medina and we have the Megadina here. It's sweet. It has the biggest toy factor in the world. And I see why it won. I understand why it's champ right now. And it it has been of the four people I've interviewed, including myself, it has been that is four for four of it being their favorite game they've had. No surprises there. ⁓ your favorite play, which is why I cut you off. ⁓ actually favorite play would be playing Mahjong with Trenton, Jeff. And James learning that for the first time, sitting down with him, stacking up those clunky tiles and ⁓ playing around with those was really fun. So satisfactory on the sensile or like the tactile feel. Yeah, I that's still like in my things I need to do. And Trenton gives me garbage every time that I've never played it. But what's your favorite new to you game? Ooh, I'm Again, I've only played, I think, five games so far, the con. I'm hoping to stack up some numbers here today and tomorrow. ⁓ but new to me, Medina or Mahjong. Both of those were really fun. And now your worst game that you've played at the con. I know that's a limited choice, but worst probably comes down to how bad we played it, but I hope no one looks at the pictures of our eighteen seventy game that we played on Wednesday night because that was a hot mess expressed with people playing after traveling, but it was still a great time around the table with good friends. You know, think about it s considering you've been working the whole time. Maybe work is your worst game that you played. That's a tremendous point. Yeah. That has not been my favorite game to play. It helps to pay the bills and make it possible for me to be here. And that's fine. But yeah, I'd much rather be gaming with everyone else and spending time with my friends than doing that. And now you're done with work. So you're gonna be gaming nonstop until ⁓ well other than bed and food. ⁓ yeah. Bed, food, some disc golf here and there with ⁓ the good people here. And then yeah, games, games, games. Let's go. Well that got my questions answered. So now time to move on to the next person. Some good train talk from ⁓ Steven and Zach, who were both in my my game of 1870 there. so I'm gonna segue right into some trains. still more Medina love coming down, and it was really fun to teach a couple new people Mahjong. ⁓ Zach was a new Mahjong player. ⁓ there were so there were a couple others that I saw that I saw Trenton and Steven. Teaching over there. So that's very cool. So I played an absolute ton of train games. Like I don't really know what got into me this year. I don't know. The only thing I scheduled were plays of 1870, The Old Prince, and 1841. And and riding through England. I scheduled a bunch of big train games. And I, you know, I have been thirsty for the train games because. While I have Steven here at home who who is new to trains and interested, our game group does not want to play 18XX. They they don't even really like suggest that they want to play Cube Rails either. So I wanted to take advantage of what Dome Con provides, which is a lot of time and a lot of people who are interested in doing it. And so I got down with some trains. You heard about eighteen seventy from from Zach and Steven. That was a game for the belt. Steven took it from Vince in that one, which was fun. ⁓ yeah, Steven really steamrolled us with a nice combo over there. And then I got to play The Old Prince with John and other Steven, local Steven. And ⁓ those two I have played The Old Prince with and 1841 with online all year on 18xx.game. So we were like, we gotta make this happen in person. We played ⁓ On Thursday on my print and play copy of a of Top. It was fun. It was a good game. I ⁓ bankrupted in that game, which is rare in Top. And the craziest part was our scores when I bankrupted. I had sixteen hundred dollars, John had eighteen hundred dollars, and Steven had twenty one hundred dollars. So I was within shouting distance of first with a bankruptcy. through a very weird set of events that happened. I absolutely I have honestly I'm I'm not humble bragging here. I have smoked those two in top all year long. Like our our records are probably like 30 wins for James, three for John, one for Steve. Like ri like I I'm not taking you know, I'm not taking it easy on them. I am trying to teach them things while I shove it down their throat basically. But I got mine because Steve wins the inaugural game on the table. We'll be back for more, I'm sure. But he takes the win and he was very excited about that. The next day I got to play on the newly arrived overnight that night, Joshua Starr from Grand Trunk Games came into town and he had his pre-production copy of the new old prints with all the fancy bits and the new shares and the full color charters. And the dark blue waters that everyone hates on and and and all this stuff. And I woke up and I said, ⁓ man, I gotta play on that. I got on the disc golf course and I sent a message, I wanna play top at nine o'clock, who's in? I got Kim, Nav, and Nate, and they were all like, Let's do it. I was late for that game. My bad. Disc golf dragged on a little longer. But what an enjoyable time playing on The new version of the old prints. Like this was this play had everything. Not only did we get to experience all the art and all the everything in it, I love some of the decisions they made. Like the shares being a single vertical line is actually super tidy and trackable on the table and takes up less space. The kind of like share yard that exists is really smart and it's aligned with the tranches. It's very smart. The train yard that runs across the bottom of the board is tied directly into the stu what ⁓ a number of s of operating rounds we're running, which is super smart. The train colors, rusting train color, like seeing it all in person after reading, you know, the design diaries and stuff, it is working. And I think this is one of the best productions of a I mean, it's the best 18XX production I've ever seen. The decisions make sense. The changes that have happened make sense. So cool. And then halfway through the play, Lucas Boyd, the designer of the game, shows up, sits down next to our play. He says, This is the first time I've ever put eyes on this in real life. So he's literally like, Hey, will you hand me those charters? Like, let me check these, you know, which is super cool too. Like he's experiencing it and s and kind of seeing as we're experiencing it. And he wasn't commentating or even commenting on our game or play. He was just letting us play. I ran the bank in this game and I don't play a lot of four player anymore, but I showed amazing restraint for myself by never parring a company. I never ran a company. I never laid a track. I was the bank and I sat in my seat for four hours while we played the old prints and I had an amazing time. Not only because I'm playing on this new art, you know, but It was a great play. And then I Kim, I lose by $25 in this play where I did nothing. Like, how cool is that? And then, like, again, just play on everything. There's Kim with his receipts. If you haven't seen Kim's receipts and his calculator and all this stuff, so Kim has an app that he has built on his phone where and it's Bluetooth connected to a little receipt printer that he carries around. And so he'll be like, What did GT run for? And he's over there. He pushes print, prints out GT's most recent run and gives it to the player who just ran the GT. And it'll say, like, GT ran for 140 payout, you know, 14 per share. Completely unnecessary, but completely cool. Like and then he has like an end game printout. So he has like a spreadsheet on his phone for end game payouts. So for the last OR, it's just what did you run for? What's the new stock price? Let me punch all this in. And then he prints the game end tally and gives it out to us all. So cool. Like so completely unnecessary, but it was the cleanest endgame real life 18XX I've ever sat through because of Kim's little app and printer and all this stuff. People have been asking on the Discord after some picks, like where do I get this? And Kim said he's not ready to share it yet because of Some permission issues with some of the back end stuff he's using. So he doesn't want. So it's not a public thing, but it is super cool if you get a chance to play with Kim. And then I got to play Riding Through England, which is a seven plus hour, usually winsome, huge riding series game in the vein of West Riding Revisited, Wooden Shoes and Iron Monsters. This is a massive game with a big map with 10 basic. Railroads that that group into four grouping railroads. And then you can trade three of the grouping railways to get into the British rails, which then scoops off a percentage of payment off the top of some of these things. Absolutely insane game. It takes forever because of the game end conditions, which are like you have to basically all the cities on the map have to be grouped or ungroupable, or ⁓ everyone agrees, or nobody builds track for a round. Or like all shares are gone, maybe is one of the other ones. I don't remember. We eventually, after about six hours, it it just felt like we were just treading water. There weren't gains to make anymore. We were just making the moves, paying for the shares, building, blah, blah, blah. There was like incremental gains, and we were like, okay, do we all agree to not build this round? Which is basically we pass on putting up a share. We all agreed and went to the end game. The end game of riding through England, you essentially Flip over the board, so to speak, grab this like map that matches the board. And then we all take turns blind bidding for routes that we have previously built on the map. And what you're at, the way you win, all the cash you made during the game is your pool for blind bidding. The way you win is by the score you get based on the routes you win in the blind bidding. So, regardless of who built the route during the game, it's now up for bid. And it might be a twenty-eight dollar route. It's like worth, you know, twenty-eight points in end game scoring. How much of the money you've gained are you willing to pay for it? And there's like an added thing of like you want to string things together, kind of like Dutch Inner City. You see all of these Han Hadema games coming out in riding through England, where they were all like ideas in here that got splintered off into different games. And it was it was amazing. It was it is like the Grail game with some for me. That I never thought I'd get to play on the table for both availability and time reasons. It is almost unplayable, the actual production of it, because I said there's 10 shares, 10 basic companies. There's three different red companies, and it's a winsome game. So the certs are just red construction paper with the name of the companies on them. And all like, Half of the companies are t are the London and something company. So it's like, no, that's the London and Northwestern. You were talking about the London and South. No, not the London and South, the London, South, and Beesbury over here. Absolutely insane. Like, I need to reprint this, you know, make a PNP of this with all the companies being unique, which means you gotta have unique markers for them because this is a marker crayon game where you're drawing routes. but it needs to be done. Because I want to play it again. I don't know when I'm going to play it again. It's a seven-hour wins of game. But I but whenever I can figure out when I'm going to play it again, I want to whip up a PP. And then lastly, I got to play 1841 again with John and Steve, who I've been playing with all year. Again, I've been kicking their ass in 1841. And again, I got my ass kicked on the table. I don't know if this is a case of of me being too comfortable on Doc games. To where I'm not thinking as much at the table because I don't have endless time, right? Dot games, async, gives you endless time to actually think about things and plan contingencies and not shuffle and fall on your face, which is exactly what I did in top and 1841. Just made that little baby mistake that completely derailed my entire game, and John took advantage. So John wins one of our games, Steve wins one of our game, James leaves with a goose egg in the ⁓ three player series. But you know what? We already played a game of of the old prints online since we got home, and I'm right back to my winning ways. So apparently they didn't learn enough lessons on the table. So they're gonna have to check check themselves before they wreck themselves. So that's James's train corner. Derek, you have trains listed too. I think a couple of trains, a couple of trains. later on we'll talk about. misses. And I I feel like I did get a couple in, but there was definitely some I wanted to get in. Like especially like you said, spooky top. I mean, that was just beautiful to look at. And that's been like on my since I've gotten back in the trains and started playing a little bit more. That's what I want to learn. I I almost felt like I was like, I don't want to sit down and I know I think everybody played the game was a constant somebody was at that table. Yeah, once it arrived, it was yeah, it was constantly being played. Yeah. And it seemed like everybody knew the game, so it's like I don't want to sit down and like try to make somebody teach in this game right here. I don't know. Steven Stephen Suhar cold taught Clef and then Clef almost won. Almost won. Like supposedly won. That's all the story. Some drama some drama there. The belt changed hands and then was revoked. And I I and I don't think I'm satisfied with the ⁓ official ruling at the end of the day on that one because there there's some shenanigans afoot, so they might have to play again next year. Yeah, I did get it in a couple ⁓ QBs. ⁓ I did a play of Southern Pacific. ⁓ this was one that Corey, I think, when we were sitting around, he wanted to play this. And so he pulled that one out. That was interesting. ⁓ just because of the the way that companies run and then must pay out. Almost like, you know, I compare to when you think about it for me, like John Company style, where it's like if you have a share, you have to pay out equally among all your shareholders and you can't pay out more. But you choose if you want to pay out. So can choose up to a number that you want to pay out, you know, ha all your money or just part of the money and keep the rest in the in the the banks and stuff like that. ⁓ and it's got some interesting little map MacGuffins of like corners and the way that the valuations work as far as like if you're connected to a city and multiple companies are, then that lowers their that company's value. But if you're able to kind of map off places and get your own little corners, you get to keep that value up and literally interesting it's like I had three shares the entire game and I think John was to my left and he had ⁓ probably six or seven shares and I ended up winning the game with my three shares compared to his. so I was like seemed I don't know if that was like typical. I don't know if like there was, you know, first play for most of us. I thought that was interesting the little couple of yeah so they they changed a rule, a subtle rule from the winsome to the Rio Grande. And I I haven't followed along to know if this was a like a intentional change or a screw up or or a it should have been this way to begin with. But in the Winsome, when you have two companies touching and you want to buy each other's track, which is like the way to fill up a company that you're you're invested in alone to cash out a bunch of money, you know, you could only buy each track for three dollars. But in the RGG, you could buy it for as much as you want, which is like Like a cross train by an 18XX. You can send all the money over there and then pay it out if you're the only one in it, which is way more powerful and I'm gonna guess way more threatening and ⁓ of available to be abused and prop so I can't even say and I had asked John if what version you guys played. You played with the unlimited, which s it sounds more fun. I'll say that. It sounds more fun because moving three dollars at a time was always kinda like, okay, like big like yay, right? Like that that's not aggressive enough for me. So it sounds more interesting, but I can't really comment on it because I only played the old version. And that's a I mean, it is a different game. It's a subtle rule change, but a very different game. ⁓ yeah. And that and that was something we talked about too, because I mean like there was those moments where it's like, you know, this company has thirty dollars in it as it's just paid out. It's like, ⁓ I can just transfer that all into this company where I'm it's got two thirds of the shareholder compared to this one where it's All set up that makes a difference in the bull market too. Sometimes it's like it's like, ⁓ I just wanna pass, but like, I need to not pass because they have control of that. So I to make sure that they don't have these two companies that can, you know, they're butted up together each other. So you had to kind of protect against set too. So it was definitely interesting. ⁓ when I wasn't really on my radar, but it was really fun play. ⁓ I got to teach Hill Country Grocers, ⁓ Jake Stanley game. ⁓ and that was really fun too. just to see people's reaction to it as a kingdom. Very simple, very streamlined. ⁓ using that SAR ⁓ action selection, but keeping it a very fun, you know, different theme. ⁓ But you don't get to say I get to put down my grocery store here in San Antonio and it's fun. and then we also play North Pack, which is just always a good time. Like that was literally when I was like, is North Pack up there? And then I think it was ⁓ Jason was like, I want to play Northern Pacific. I was like, Hell yeah. I always will play Northern Pacific. That was a great play too, 'cause it's always a good time as North Pack. So got some trains in. ⁓ and so especially with ⁓ D Pek hanging around more, hopefully that kinda rolls into playing some more trains here locally too. Sweet. Yeah, it was a good train, Colin, that's for sure. I loved it. And there was there's plenty of other trains being played. I mean, I thought There were there was like multiple plays of eighteen and ninety four, I think it is that one. I know I saw I think eighteen twenty eight play or something. I don't remember if I saw twenty-eight on the table. What else did I see ⁓ that that Kim and his crew played? I think it was all other ninety-four, I think, really. A pocket train game gotta play. ⁓ a couple, a couple plays of that too. Yep. There were some other tube rails, I think, that made it ride the rails was out at least one time that I saw. ⁓ yeah. Okay. Let's go back to Dylan and see who he's visiting with next. All right. Well yeah, we we're just gonna do right here. I've got Ben with me and he was going to ⁓ or he's getting his ⁓ a c a copy of Cross Monks Express, a game that I played yesterday, and he's gonna be playing with is it Scott and ⁓ his son? ⁓ no, Scott and Adam. And so I've just been asking the same four questions of every every people I've been interviewing. You might wanna get ⁓ do you log your place because you may need some help. ⁓ yes, he does have his card. He gets his he gets his reading material out. And now we've got the first question. Your favorite game that you played? Ooh, I mean whip. I played T Choo. Ticho's my number one game of all time. So probably that. ⁓ if I had to pick a r a runner up, I did play Wolful yesterday and really enjoyed that. That was a good one. Well that's a good follow-up because you're I asked favorite new to you game? Yeah, Wolful. So far, definitely Wolful. I I said it is one of my favorites and Jeremiah said it was actually his worst game he played. What what do you think makes Woofle stand out to you? ⁓ well I like partnership games. I actually really like dice, which is kind of a sin in the Dome community, but I'm a big fan of the dice. Well, not currently because James was b all about ⁓ games that he likes with dice. Mm. That's why he played we played out aqueduct yesterday and he's like, Santiago with dice, please. Okay, sure, I'll try it. Yeah. Yeah, partnership games. I I obviously again, Teachu is my favorite game, so the partnership is big for me there and the variable partnership was was cool and ⁓ yeah, I enjoyed it lot. Your favorite play of the con? Might be I don't even know what it was. It's Deep Pockets in English. The German name is like Tief Tichin or something. But I ⁓ yes. ⁓ it was ⁓ Tief Titian and it was reprinted with a ⁓ a re implementated as good critters in the US. Yes. Yeah, we played that last night, eight of us. ⁓ a lot of shit talking, a lot of screwing each other over and stealing each other's money. And yeah, it was a good time for sure. And now your worst game that you've played at the con. Ooh, this should be easy for me. I don't know, Dino Racer was kind of garbage. Now Bud, now Bud. Yeah, we played that one together. Yeah, I think it was probably that. Yeah, probably probably Dino Racer. That hurts because I love Dino Racer, but you know, as me and Jeremiah said, not every game has to be for you. That's true. That is true. Yeah. I I'm having a good time though. I got a lot of good plays in. Just finished a ooh, four and a half hour game of Cuba Libre. So grap who ended up winning? ⁓ Adam won. ⁓ didn't nobody won. Nobody won on the initial victory check and he won on final scoring. So yeah. All right. Well, ⁓ easy interview with Ben. He's off to play Cross Bronx Expressway and I'm headed out to interview more people. We're back at it and I found Josh. How's it going? Josh. So I'm ⁓ going through since James is gonna be doing a ⁓ kind of a roundup of what he's played, I'm interviewing and asking every person that I interview four questions. First question what is the best game you you've played so far? ⁓ at at at the convention. Best game's always the last. I just played Hanza Toots with ⁓ the P and P for Iberia map, and it was it was good and it was different, especially for someone who'd played like a lot of times, 30 plus times or so. It was interesting and fun and different, and I'm probably gonna go try and print my own because it was a really good time. But yeah, that's that's it. ⁓ what is your best play that you've had? ⁓ The best play was when I was playing Cerebria with Derek, ⁓ Jeff and Kunk. And I don't remember what all I did. There was a lot of steps involved with it, as as it is with ⁓ that game. But we we moved a lot of pieces around the board, generating a ton of points and there was like happy or no, we were the we were the sad emotions. So we were putting sadness all all out into the world and it was awesome. And I think that was our game winning play. So that What is your favorite new to you game that you played at Dome Con this year? new to me. ⁓ where's my list? I don't have my list. We can pause for a moment, go find your list. I will I am ⁓ burning a little time as he runs and finds his list. Not the first time this has happened. As I'm asking questions, it's always a big deal to have your ⁓ list of things that you've played. But it has been not too hot it for the disc golfers in the morning. It is very ⁓ wet because of the ⁓ dew but now that josh is back ⁓ that's definitely ⁓ definitely bauern schlau ⁓ yeah yeah that's definitely my favorite new to me i i scheduled my play of it even though that's not one you should normally have to schedule because it's very short but I kept missing it year after year got that one in and fun sheep game is good sheep game talk to me about ⁓ why you liked it why I liked it ⁓ well Just like the rest of the simple older dusty German games, it's ⁓ very simple rules, very clear what you should be doing in a moment. ⁓ but then you can actually turn those very simple rules into things to mess with your friends and change incentives and it actually gets kind of devious and funny. And it almost everyone got it immediately, clicked, and was instantly jabbing each other with knives, and it was a good time. And now the final question what is the worst game you've played at Dome Con this year? I will say mine. It was my first ⁓ first what's the winsome. I actually did some arts and crafts and and and cut out the pieces because we didn't have them all ⁓ ready to rock and we played it and it was it was a game and it was put up. ⁓ the n the game mine. Yes, the game is mine. Exclamation point. Why was it bad? Cause I couldn't figure out what was going on and then I had to arts and crafts it together. Those two things, it was a no for me. I think if I'm Thinking correctly, it's one that has a like a five ish score on BGG. So yeah, there there was probably one post in the forums about it. There wasn't a whole lot going on with it. I just happened to sit down ⁓ with Chad and John and Daniel and ⁓ the last person escapes me off the top of my hand, Logan. And we there was like, hey, we're gonna play this game. You want to? Yeah, sure. Hey, we gotta cut this out. Damn. Dove on the grenade and did that thing and it was a game. I played it. It was it was it was cool sitting around everybody laughing and seeing what's good. Well, the question is all answered, and I'm gonna get let you get back to gaming, Josh. Thank you. Yeah, ⁓ sometimes that happens, you know? You show up at Dome Con with a hopeful copy of a weird game, you open it up, you're like, ⁓ crap. ⁓ Never s ne never punched this, never in the case of an old Winsome, never cut this out. So Josh had to take the heat there for John, I think. Yeah. There are many days leading up to Dome Con where it was punching, organizing, printing stuff out, getting stuff ready. Yeah. but BL mentioned a little keyboard replay and since we just talked about the choo choo crew, I think it's only fair the coin collectors to prove that they also live on in Dome Con lore. ⁓ 'cause there was quite a few war games to the table. ⁓ there at the con. I know personally. I got to play Baltic Empires. That was a nice five player game that we had scheduled. Cross Bronx Expressway, ⁓ coming hot off the heels of being talked about called Podcast. I think it was played at least three. I know at least three. Maybe four times. Saw quite a bit of play. I saw play Maria, Keeper Libre, as BL talked about. And then I'll I'll slide time age in here, even though it's not in the war game category. I mean it's a bunch of little chits on a map where you roll dice. So it's war game adjacent, ⁓ we'll say. And it's it's war game time frame of like six plus hours. So it's there too. but definitely there was still quite a bit of ⁓ a war games hitting the table. ⁓ and then ⁓ like I said, Baltic is one that I talked about on the BGG Pi ⁓ kind of postgame show, ⁓ bugged to teach 40 players that. That was me, Nav, Andrew, John, and Adam. I believe that's correct. That way. ⁓ and that was really fun. ⁓ cause that's a really good one because it's especially for con setting. ⁓ it's five players. It's it took us like, I think around three to four hours somewhere in there. but the nice thing is, you know, I taught it in fifteen, twenty minutes. And it's one that where the rules get out of the way real fast. And it wasn't something somebody had to prep. You know, we had we had originally like had like here I stand on the schedule list and nobody signed up for that. But that's one where it's like, okay, everybody needs to spend an hour in the rule book and then we need to like spend nine hours here. ⁓ so Baltic fit a good like, okay, this is a you know, one where you don't have to give up your whole day, but let's you have a good like negotiation and feel that kind of like n back and forth on war fronts and stuff like that. And so it's been a a really fun one to get out. I also, speaking of both these two too, people asked me about, I had these grip mats that I bought before the con. ⁓ so it's an Etsy store ⁓ that does like different board game mats. And so I think a couple of months ago they announced they were doing some GMT mats. And so they had put out ⁓ like, you know, an order. And so I bought like one for Baltic, one for Cross Bronx. And then we're gonna try to play those more. And then another one for Here I Stand. And so it's like a basically a neoprene playmat or something like that, but it's not neoprene. It has like this nice, like rippy texture. And so when you put something down on it, it like kind of holds it in place until you go to pick it up. And so sometimes when they slide or move stuff around, it kinda keeps this like nice like hold on pieces. And that that was the that was the most things. Like everybody would like looking at that like GMT didn't make that. I'm like, no, I bought it off and like That's so nice. I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty pretty excited about it. It's like the game board, but that texture. ⁓ Yeah. The whole board is like. I never I never saw that. I never noticed that. And I definitely saw you guys playing like Baltic Empires. And I saw several cross-bronks expressways on the table, but I never noticed there was anything like that going on. Cool. Yeah. And the one thing too is like now I was saying, like, especially with these compared to a lot of other neoprene labs, they the art and the stuff like has like zero bleed. And so whenever you look at it on the table, it's hard to even tell like it is a a playmat until you go up and touch it and feel it. And so it's a makes it to where like the art still like pops and still does well, but like it doesn't like feel like okay, it's just like a muted down version of what the board would be. ⁓ and so those are food's good to kinda get a first test on and say that, okay, maybe something 'cause they they seem like they're adding new board games ⁓ pretty often. So Some lookout for if you if you're in the matt, ⁓ want to pick up one of those. Are they pricey? Like I think I'm trying to remember. I think they're like thirty five to forty ish dollars, something like that. Okay. So reasonable. And so I think I bought like three the first time, ⁓ but I ended up getting like free shipping when I bought three plus like a little additional extra. So I was like, No, let's just do it. You know, free shipping, I'll I'll pay a little bit more. Grab those and ⁓ they're a good investment. So Well, I did not play any war games. does Guards of Atlantis count as this section? Because I didn't play that either for the third year in a row that I said I wanted to. However, however, it did get a couple plays. So we're thankful to Jake from the the for Omaha gang for letting Clef drag it down here. And then Clef forgot it at the con. Who b who borrows a man's like three hundred dollars worth of Guards of Atlantis and then leaves them at the con? So I brought it home and I played Guards of Atlantis last night with my family. So that's a teaser for an upcoming episode. We're not gonna do that here, but I'll definitely talk about it on the next episode. So hey, it all worked out. I got my Guards of Atlantis in. ⁓ just not a dope god. Yeah. ⁓ and then just to kind of quickly hit on it, ⁓ because of this section, I just I I do want to talk about time age, because we talk about games that can't get played anywhere else. Like the first one to me comes up with this is Time Agent. A game from nineteen ninety two that takes four plus hours, that needs six players exactly, that has a web based app for the scoring, 'cause otherwise I mean, everybody at the table's like, this game would take another two hours if you didn't if you're able to just click buttons on a a screen and update the points. 'Cause it's just weirdly laid out. ⁓ but Time Agent is a Tom Lehman game from from way in the past. ⁓ that's basically six different factions going back into the time stream, trying to undo events that cause negative effects on their faction in order to get the most like adjusta points, kind of a running total of points. And then once you shut off time ⁓ travel, basically at the uninvent it, then whoever's winning at that point basically can't go back in the past anymore. So they are they win the game. ⁓ this was one that I played, I think it was like two or three years ago with RJ at BGG, ⁓ and he brought it to DomeCon. Y'all had less stellar play than we did. And so it'd been a while since I had our play with R J, ⁓ and Drew and the crew at B G G Con. And so I was like, I need to get this back out. I need to see if, you know, our first play was what how I felt about it, or maybe it was just a, you know, a circumstance thing. And I'll say like I still absolutely love this game. I think it's so unique in what it does. ⁓ And it's just something that is wild and out there. especially for the time it was made in. it just fills my heart with joy to play it. ⁓ I would say ⁓ the opinions we had a table of like Nav, Justin, Josh, and Nate and ⁓ Lucas. So a very interesting table of like board game developers, designers and stuff like that. ⁓ so I think some of them looked at the game in a different lens than you know, some of us might, which is interesting. And I think you'll get varying opinions of like this game is bad probably, or at least not good up to this game was really fun. and so a whole swath of things. I think I'm still the highest probably on it, but it's definitely something where I I feel like, you know, whenever you're walking by it's it's just fun to see people look at it and say like, What in the world even is that? And you're like, this is time. It's such a mess. It's such a mess. Such a mess. Time age is supposed to be like Drew Drew was supposed to bring his little tile plunger, but he forgot. ⁓ yeah. Time age, it's like if Christopher Nolan made a board game, basically. Because it's it's all just timey whimey bullshit. Yeah. And somehow even harder to understand, even though you watch Tennant, you're not sure. Right. ⁓ okay. Let's ⁓ I've got breaking Breaking news, Dylan is ⁓ on the scene with somebody else. Let's see what he has to say this time. Alright folks, we got Steve, the local KC guy, and And now he's gonna go get Jeff an ⁓ of course. Why why the heck is he come can he not just take five minutes to be interviewed for the podcast? ⁓ and now Chris. I ⁓ give me a second. Steve, put the MMs down and get over here. Yeah, yeah. All right. So I'm actually interviewing people for the podcast. ⁓ okay. ⁓ so I've asked this everyone four questions. The first question what is the best game that you've played at Dome Con this year? John Company, second edition. Okay. Easy answer. Didn't even have to think about it. It's not your first time you've played it either. No, but Scott killed it for our group. So I'm gonna play it as much as I can. Got it. ⁓ yeah. G yeah, that's right. Because Scott ⁓ like is not playing anymore. That's right. He's he he's like We can give that a little bit of a pass and I respect that. But I love John Company and want to give me some more John Company. What is the best new to you game that you've played at the con? ⁓ that's tough. And if you need a second to look at your lock place or look at ⁓ your ⁓ badge, that is totally fine. Let me let me check. Yeah. I mean, y I literally have had to kill time as people have either got their badge or looked. Let me check. Let's see. What did I write down? Nothing. Nothing. ⁓ not not helpful. And do you you don't log plays either? No, I don't log plays either. No. ⁓ there was what was new to me? ⁓ come back. Come back. Ask me question three and I'll come. Okay. Question three is what is your favorite play of the con? ⁓ so that has to be so far that has to be the eighteen seventy one top game that we played with John and James. That's a continuation of what he's been talking about on the podcast and the in the ⁓ Thunderdome. And I and it was just it was just a really great play. James got close to winning from a bankruptcy. Yeah, and it such a great game. The designers here. Josh brought the cool new version. To look at, I mean, 18X is great. And that was a great 18XX. What is the worst game that you've played at the convention? Believe it or not, it's a game I really like. We played Thunder Road Vendetta and we didn't bring the the big box with all the expansions. And I just had the base set because I didn't want to bring a lot of shit. And we got into it and it's it was I don't know. I mean People I was playing with was great. It was just kind of flat when you get the base game. So I think you need to get the expansions for it. Some of them at least to spice it up a little bit. Right. And did you re th or did you think of the new to you game? New to me game. No, I I really I I gotta think about that. ⁓ I don't know. Maybe I played everything. Something had to somebody had to have explained rules to me though. Because I'm pretty stupid, Dylan, and I don't remember all the rules. ⁓ wait. ⁓ I played. We played, ⁓ I know, easy. I'm sorry. The new to give me game was a stock, stock, paper, scissors. Shoot. Yeah, I I did not think a rock, paper, scissors variant would be as fun as it is. Yeah, no. Chad did a great job with it. It's a lot of fun. That's definitely and ⁓ and on a more serious game, I it's coming back to me. We played Locust, which is Pontus' new game. Yep. And and or it's new to me at least. And we gotta play with the table tapest guys playing locust, and it looks pretty abstract, which I'm not into abstracts. But then when we got into it, it's a pretty cool game. I mean it's it's got it's interesting with the action cube selection and some other things. There's not a lot of other stuff out there like it. I think people who get a chance to try to play locust, get it on the table. Or get in a play test because it's a very intriguing game. I'm interested to see what happens with it. Okay. ⁓ how would you what type of board game would you describe locus? Because it's been on my radar. It is it's a tempo game. It's got a really interesting mechanism where you're making choices about points on where you want to score points. And It was also really interesting about okay, I'm gonna put my cubes out over here or my action point over here to try to grab something that helps or move my my grasshoppers or my locuses over here. But if I do that, then I don't yeah, I'm not gonna get that action cube back for a long time. In our in our particular play, for example, I was able to set it up where I ended up getting three turns in a row. That was pretty cool. So there's a real tempo. So if you like those kind of Simpler ⁓ it's it's not a simple game. I don't mean to apply that, but I mean it it it has you know few pieces, easy to parse board state, but fairly opaque to understand what your strategy should be and how to how to make it you know, how to score points and what you should do. That's a real interesting puzzle. What I'd like to see a little bit more in the development is it doesn't have a lot of shared space. It doesn't have a lot of six in yet. And I don't know if they're gonna try to do something with that, but right now it's definitely it's interactive through tempo management. So I think it's a tempo management game. Right. Well, that is a good explanation for it. It's been on my radar, like I said, but having some more insight post play for you from you is helps me to see what the actual vision is. But but yeah, all my questions. Thank you again, Steve, and you get back to playing. And thanks for Ghostplits. I like Ghost Splits too. That was a lot of fun last night. ⁓ two in the morning. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. I Ghost Splits is always a fun time. But yeah, thanks again. All right. So another person I have is Alexander, who we've played what did we play? We played size wise. Yeah, size-wise, of course. Did you play Hellas? Yes, we play you, me, Chris, and Ben played Hellas. Yes, we played Hellas. That was good. We yeah, and it's great to finally have that in print. And you know, we were kind of worried about the small components, like the small ⁓ columns. But it really isn't too bad and the fact that it comes in a box that small with plates, it's perfect. Yeah, I really liked I was also worried about the components maybe being too small. ⁓ but it's really nice to have something that's reasonably priced that you can finally play 'cause it's a really good game. I was really impressed by it. I didn't win, but definitely a good game you can play with a lot of different peop people. So the four questions I've been asking, what is the best game that you've played here at the convention today? Or ⁓ over the little few days that we've been here. My favorite game has been Wolfle. ⁓ I loved just I love trick taking games. That one is one you can just kind of pull out with almost anybody. I could see myself playing that with my kids as well as like my parents. ⁓ I absolutely just loved it. It's just the surprise there's enough fun decisions, but it's also just like a fun game you can play with anybody. So that was surprise surprise hit for me, but I loved it. So then ⁓ one of my questions is the favorite new to you game. Is that also still woeful too? Yeah, it'd be definitely woeful so far. Hellas is close though. I played Hellas when we played Hellas, that one was really good too. So those two are my favorite. ⁓ what ex was your favorite play of the con? Not necessarily the favorite game, but the favorite play. ⁓ I can't remember the I can't pronounce it, but it's that German tof toffetition? Yes, the ⁓ because Ben said the same thing. ⁓ it's ⁓ ⁓ the American edition is good critters. Yes. Okay. So we played not that version, but that was it was just loud. Everyone was shouting at each other. There was alliances formed and broken almost immediately. It was just a fantastic con game. And now the final question. What is the worst game you've played at the con? Worst game. I don't know if there has been a worst game. I mean they've all been great. So and probably my least favorite. ⁓ I played Woodcraft. That was probably my least favorite one. It's still fun. but it's in my my mind it's just kind of another heavy euro. didn't really stand out among the other heavy euros I could play. But it was still a good time. ⁓ you know, I I probably wouldn't play it again though. Right. And was this your first Dome Con? Yeah, it was my first time at Dome Con. I don't know. Where's this been my whole life? Is what I've been thinking this whole time. So I'll I'll be back as often as I can. It was great. Yeah, well, I'm glad you're having a great first experience. So, ⁓ I'm gonna let you go. Thanks again for the interview and we will talk to you later. One of my favorite things is to hear new people say things like that, right? And that's not like some like like, ⁓ yeah, we're the best. No, it makes me happy that people come and find this group of misfits and weirdos and they are like, ⁓ man, I can't wait to do it again for You know, that is just the best to hear people say that. ⁓ yeah, 'cause definitely yeah. It it's a unique vibe. So you you could bounce off it pretty easy. And so whenever you say something like that, it's like, ⁓ you you're meant to be here. Right. Especially someone like Alex, who I believe was a connection of John's. Mm-hmm. So John is like well integrated into the Discord, knows what he's getting into, and then it's like, and my friend Alex is coming, right? And for him to enjoy, you know, us as much as I think John did, you know. is really cool. ⁓ and so of course he talked about and also we've had a lot of people talk about one of the I think a big hit of this con, ⁓ that's been Tief Toshin. So we've had a couple of games here that had in between that, ⁓ team like Shadow Hunters, game Dark Moon. These are some games that are, you know, kind of that negotiation space, kind of this kind of BS South late night game, but not like get gives a little bit game to it. ⁓ and also just Saul. Quite a bit of table time. ⁓ and so that's you know, between all three, you know, multiple, multiple plays over the three days ⁓ for all three of those. And so they were kind of those sleeper hits from Dump Con this year. That was my first taste of Tief Toshin, which you you and Drew talked about on the BGG Con show. And it I mean, just the mechanics of it alone are are i it i it can't fail because it's literally just like you know, pointing guns at each other in a circle. Like, you know, who nope, you, no, you, no, you, no, gimme. No y you know, I didn't quite I didn't quite understand how to weaponize and I'm not even sure how weaponizable it is, the you have to vote or you don't have to vote things, giving away money. That never seemed like a very good idea to me to ⁓ it's it's typically not, no. Yeah. Like it was there was the threaten to threaten to extort someone, right? Or, you know, play the yes and no game to to keep the right people in power. ⁓ but that alone, it doesn't it doesn't take much to make a good game out of that, and it makes a good game out of it. Yeah, and it's funny too, because like the first time I played was a six. And these both I played twice. I taught it twice at the con. Both those were eight player games, which was like the the max count. You know, you feel it to ⁓ eight. And I always thought it was funny because I feel like people get present. And they get to draw those eight cards and their thoughts are like, ⁓ I have eight cards, there are eight people. Let me try to be nice. And you give somebody a five million and somebody one million. I'm like, That's not like why do you even care about giving that person the one million? And so I think that's where that like a little bit more of that meta conduit. You play it multiple times, get you the point where you're playing like, you know, a seven player game and two people have money in front of them, and you're like, Well here I'll for IPU, you vote yes. We have three yeses. Let's just keep going and just keep raking in the money or something like that. ⁓ In my eight player game with you, you like you ended up flipping over and you had like you had like three times as much money as anyone. I don't even know how it happened. I literally would just like always support the president and for some reason they would bribe me to vote yes, even though they were giving me money. Still I'd be like, Okay, sure. Yeah, just keep keep doing this. I was like, you know. I was like, if I just hype up whoever's in power, for some reason they'll just give me money. And so let's just keep doing that. We transitioned that eight player game of teeth and right to an eight player game of of Shadow Hunters. which was hands down my funniest, funniest moment of the con. ⁓ you know, I I said this to someone, like Dome Cod, it might I don't want to sound like sad or something. I'm not I'm not, but in day to day life, being a forty five year old dude With responsibilities and family and things, you don't get I don't get the gut busting laughter in my life much anymore, right? I'm talking the late night delirium, high school, hopped up on Surge, playing video games till four, cackling about the dumbest shit in the world that's not even funny. But I can always count on Dome Con delivering at least one of those moments. And this was the moment. I come into the I think I walked away to grab a ⁓ a soda or something and I come back to Steve doing the worst teach of Shadow Hunters ever, first of all, with Derek and Chris just rage baiting the hell out of him. Talking I guess Steve's first rule he must have said is Bob is not in the game at at eight players or whatever. 'Cause Chris just keeps talking about Bob not being in the game. And Chris hand draws a little stick figure named Bob with a X through him. It was it's unexplainable because it was so stupid, but I was just trying to stifle my laughter because I could see Steve starting to get pissed at these like, you know, it's like these three students in the corner snickering. And I'm trying to hold it in and I can't, and it's just coming out of every pore of my body, and I'm just trying to wrap it in. It's amazing feeling. Yeah, it was like 'cause I think the first game I never I mean, I mean, I just met Steve at the con and so I played we played Toshi with him previously and he w like was the first president. We kicked him out like two two days in, like he got like no money. And he so he was like already like on edge, I feel like. And so that we're doing this. And I was like I think you wrote on like your BGG con like your your page recap, you're like surprised Steve went through with it. I was like Halfway through his teach, I was like, He's just gonna get up and just leave. He's just gonna leave. He's just gonna be like, I'm done. I'm like he and I was like, I'm gonna try to get myself together, but like I could not because Chris was just killing like it wasn't even like it was a bomb stuff, but it wasn't just like anything he said, one of us on the other end of the table had some snarky comment to make and it was absolutely reveal yourself. When you reveal yourself was the other thing you kept saying. You know, and somebody lost their virginity to somebody named A. ⁓ my god. Just so stupid. Like and it was it was a fun game of Shadow Hunters. And and ⁓ later I had a not as fun game of Shadow Hunters. This one was fun because it was dumb, low stakes. Everyone was just like, Yeah, I'm gonna attack them, whatever, attack them, whatever, attack them. We weren't trying to figure out the game as much as we were just having a good time together. And I to me, what what I've experienced with Shadow Hunters, that's how Shadow Hunters is fun. Cause then I played the flip side later in the con, which was a bunch of people trying to like gamify Shadow Hunters. And I was just sitting there like, roll the dice for the love of God. Like this is boring to me. Like they're like, No, we have to figure things out. And I'm like, I That's not why I sat down to play Shadow Hunters. I didn't sat I didn't sit down to figure it out. I don't know. I don't know what it was. It's just the people or the vibes or or whatever, but it didn't work the second time for me. The only thing I know from my game was A, Steve revealed as a good guy and I was also a good guy, but not revealed. And I still tried to hit him because I was just like, ⁓ yeah, you hit people that are next to you and that's like ⁓ wait. So and then Subs interstate was a bad guy that was thinking like Derek's bad. He's gotta be bad. Attack him. I didn't ⁓ see it at either of my two games. Maybe I maybe I imagined it. I swear I saw a chainsaw once before. And so then rolling into that, ⁓ another late night game that people loved. It seemed like I think every night it got played. I remember I I think it was always Tim teaching. It was Tim favorite. It was his dark moon. ⁓ did you get a chance to play this? I played once at PPCon in the past and it it was ⁓ it was a really weird game for what I understand. We didn't even make it a whole round around the table before it ended. So not everyone even got a turn. So I missed this the first couple of nights and then Tim was like we gotta play game together. I was like, okay, we'll play Dark Moon, you gotta teach me it. Cause I like picked up a copy of BG Con and ⁓ I felt bad too because he was like, we're gonna play like well I had this Indonesia game scheduled. And so I was like, well after the Indonesia game and that Indonesia game took a while. And so it's like midnight on the last day of the con. And he's like, okay, we we stood up. So it was like me, Tim, Dav, Andrew, Dylan, and BL. I think that's everybody. ⁓ and and D Pek. We play like a seven player game on Dark Moon. And it was absolutely hilarious because like they like a couple them and played so like they have like this meta they're thinking of at the same time like you know D Pek is at the corner. Like you know, he's doesn't talk. And so everybody's already sus with him. And so like he had to prove himself as like not bad, like six times. Like he was like, I'll throw myself in the brig just to prove I'm not bad. And everybody's like, No, you're still kind of sus. And then Dylan's to my left and he's like being super quiet. And so everybody's like, Okay, we automatically know Dylan's back because he won't because usually he won't shut up. ⁓ and so it's actually a pretty good play though. Like that was, you know, a game where I was like, compared to Shadow Hunters, like it has more game on top of it. Like you have to game a little bit more. But I think the game itself is good enough to like justify being a little bit more gamey compared to like when I played Shadow Hunters like if this was more than a game, I'd be like, This is stupid. But like that one actually has like some cool things that it's doing. Like you said, it's like, you know, BSG Express. So it gives that kind of feel and that kind of you know, I think our play was like sixty ish minutes and like super long. But it was it was really cool to learn. I know it's like a Tim favorite, so it was cool to be at like their table and see like how they interacted over the game and stuff. Yeah, I need to give it another chance. It was that weird first play, and then now I've just kind of like made it a meme with Tim where I just say it sucks and I and I don't even have a reason, but but now it's like I haven't given it another chance in so long that I'm like, ⁓ do I just keep telling Tim it sucks or should I actually play again? I think I need to play again. So I think you can play again. All right, Dylan, give us the next people. Here we go. All right. We're back on Saturday. The last day of the con. I just finished a play of Hill County Grocers with Vincent, Jacob, and Derek. Had a really good time. It's a really ⁓ great, ⁓ concise cube rails games. But now I've got Vincent with me. We're gonna be talking the four questions I've asked every person. And they are first question. What is the best game you've played at Dome Con this year? I would have to say ⁓ gosh, what was it? What did we just play at the very beginning? ⁓ you're gonna have to edit this out. ⁓ no no no. I I knew if you need your phone for your blog place. ⁓ that's a good idea. Yep, because I have had to stall time a lot with almost every guest. So you go ahead and do some a little bit of ⁓ research that's on the fly and we'll go from there. Also, don't believe that I do any of the editing. I just no, that's how you let's see. Okay, so what did I have that was really f fun? Okay. No j just the game the best game. Absolute best game. All right. Of what I've played so far, I think the absolute best game I played was our game of eighteen seventy to open the con on Wednesday night with Zach, James, and Steve Suhar. And that was with the belt on the line as well, right? That is correct. It was a belt match. ⁓ I was the former belt holder. ⁓ Steve took it in a masterful play where he got to dominate ⁓ with the GMO and the ick, had them hit their their destinations with threes and fours in his companies and it just ⁓ he just became an unstoppable force of cash that he could throw at anything. Right. So now looking back over your plays, what is the best play of the con? Not necessarily the game but the favorite your favorite play. That's a great question. I think I might go with ⁓ Dick a Cartoffin, which is a game that I found and brought, learned and taught. It ⁓ is about being a potato farmer. It was a lot of fun, surprise as as as ⁓ surprising as that might sound. I played it, sorry? What what what what's the big hook behind it? ⁓ well, every year you have to plant your fields, you have to decide whether or not you fertilize or spray for pesticides. ⁓ if you don't fertilize, you grow sunflowers on your fields that make you be able to sell organic potatoes after a some period of time. And then every time you grow ⁓ like you you you grow in a field, you if you fertilize, if you put pesticide in, it kills worms on your field that you need to increase the yield of potatoes. So you have this c like cost benefit of pushing hard for like major big yields, but then you basically like destroyed the ability of the land to grow something again in the next year. Right. You do that over a few cycles. Next question. What is your what is the best new to you game of the con? ⁓ that one's easy. It was er 1830 BC as part of our splatter day B sides. We opened the day with that. It was just absolutely excellent. You can like you can feel the combination of Splatter and 18XX in that game. ⁓ I am very much looking forward to playing it again. And now finally, the hardest question, what is the worst game you played at the con? it can also just be your least favorite, ⁓ because there are some pe some interviewees that said, Yeah, I haven't played anything bad, but this one was my least favorite. Yeah, I I would say it wasn't bad, but Webb from from Splotter. I'm not sure if we just didn't play it well or something, but it just totally fell flat. ⁓ I think I had sort of a really quick ability to pick up the win that sort of ended the game early, but no one was really interested in trying to rack it up again for any reason. Right. So that that's probably it. Well, I appreciate ⁓ you being the ⁓ next interview and ⁓ I didn't want to talk about Hill City Grossrooms? What well do you do you want to? Yes. What do you want to talk about it in terms of I I kind of introduced it ⁓ in terms of the concepts. What did you think of it? ⁓ I thought it was way clever Lots of fun. It's like I feel like it has so much ⁓ Chicago Express in its DNA with like making the development action actually interesting and fun. And I ⁓ that I really appreciated. I felt like a lot of my a lot of my heuristics from Chicago Express transferred over. So I also felt like I could play the game well immediately. ⁓ but the tight map. And sort of the the way that you could send money into other companies too was really interesting and made for a very exciting play. The playtime it being like thirty to forty five minutes plus the size of the board being no more than thirty hexes makes it to where it's an easy introduction to the cube rails like in cross investment style of games. Yeah, absolutely agree. ⁓ and makes it very fun to kind of re rack and run multiple plays back to back. That's the truth, but That I'm now off to the next year of UE. Thanks again, Vince, and ⁓ enjoy the rest of the con. Thanks, Dylan. I've got with me now Colton, who this is your first Dome Con? Yes. Yes. I'm not James' son. But so so this is your first one. You drove here from Colorado, right? That's correct. That is correct. ⁓ he's not in Denver. He's in more the rural counties of Colorado, correct? I'm near Colorado Springs in Manitou Springs, where the incline is. Okay. Well, you're speaking over my head because I've been to Colorado one time and it was in the corner. So I was literally in Colorado for forty five minutes. ⁓ but I'm just going through and asking ⁓ attendees of Dome Con this year the same four questions. We'll start with number one what was the best game you played at Dome Con thus far? It's gotta be the Philippine variant of Indonesia that Joshua Starr showed me. And ⁓ I play a lot of Indonesia online, and every little twist just blew my mind, and I want to play it more. ⁓ how ⁓ don't go in depth too depth. ⁓ like deep on it but ⁓ what types of twists really stuck out in your mind? So there's ship redeployment. When you merge ships and they're in the shared space, you can redeploy them elsewhere. ⁓ there are there's a new map which is completely different. There's all kinds of little twists in that. And there's a standalone C up Faji you can buy which really changes the merger game. Right. Okay, well I appreciate that. I saw it and I was like that's even a thing? Yes it is. ⁓ so ⁓ second question what is the best new to you game? I didn't play it, but Grandma I'm hungry has been a standout. I'm going to play it today, I hope, and ⁓ I want to buy that game. Always ⁓ when you hear about those dumb, stupid games, know about the the dark time. Once the sun goes down, that's when the the crazy stuff comes out. Absolutely. ⁓ Next question, what was your best individual play? Not necessarily the game, but your play experience. Like maybe the you had some really standout people at the table. Maybe it just sunk to you in a way that others didn't. I think that I I really enjoyed Cross Bronx Expressway with you. And the only game I've won is Bad Bets. And so I had fun playing that too. ⁓ Cross Bronx really ⁓ jives with you because of what you do IRL. Yes, I'm an urban planner and I'm still thinking about all the dynamics and things at play in that game. There's things I think that are left off the table that maybe could be incorporated that make it a little more reflective of my experience, but I it really opened up a lot of thoughts for me. Final question. What is the worst game you played so far? And if you need a little time to think, that is fine. I've had to stall for a lot of people and as he's thinking. ⁓ we've got a lot of things going on right now. of course Steve is playing another game of ⁓ Joko. That's I think his third or fourth play. Jeremiah is teaching Chris Pax Ren. We've got ⁓ the ongoing ⁓ prototype of top eighteen seventy one. Giant Medina has ⁓ regularly had players And so we've had we've just got a lot of variants going in. Like ⁓ one of the games that Rio yeah, Rio Grande gave as a possibility was Beyond the Sun, which I remember getting from a f FLG our friendly local game store. And it's kind of amazing that they just gave us copies as a door prize. But any lux? Yes, I'm ready. So I didn't play this, but it was last night. At one AM, someone busted out ⁓ Pax Ren and it and taught it from scratch to some people. And it went until about four AM and it was just absolute delirious ⁓ chaos. And Ollie taught me about the Barbarossa brothers, the pirates, and all the different historical dynamics. And it was just a memory I'll treasure forever. But the game was it was ⁓ I d I can't even describe. And what time did you start? Say you started? It was one AM. That is a game that I would say has a 45 minute teach and can end I had a play end in 20 minutes one time. It did not end in 20 minutes. Yeah, that sounds miserable. Especially at 4 AM. So, well, I appreciate how how was your first Dome Con? I gotta say, so this is my first time here and it's been incredibly welcoming. I have been just roped into games. Everyone's super friendly. It's a wonderful space and I wanna come back again. All right. Well, that's a high endorsement of This con that I've been coming to for six years. So thanks again for the in ⁓ the interview and ⁓ I'll let you get back to gaming. Thank you. Another newbie, another satisfied customer, and another person I hope we see in the future. Colton was a lot of fun to have around. And I didn't I didn't get a game with him, but we did get to sit and visit. And that was very cool. ⁓ don't start, don't do, don't drunk teach Pax Ren at 1 a.m. Like, what are people doing? Play Paku Paku, play. Size wise, play grandma I'm hungry. Don't don't don't do that to people. The best part of that one was like in the Dome Con like ⁓ channel. Like two thirty AM, you see like Ollie like putting a message about like a rule. A rules and like three thirty later it's like another rule thing. It's like, What is going on? And these people just messaging back like rules, clarifications on packs for it at three o'clock in the morning. Yep. ⁓ You heard ⁓ Colton talk about the Philippines Indo map that Josh Starr brought and he also had the skism stuff for the great Zimbabwe that I know gotta play. And then there were some splatter B sides that some people had like a set a set day of. ⁓ I didn't play any splotters. Did you play any splatters? I'm glad to hear people did. Yeah so ⁓ I was in Colton's game of the first play of the the Philippines Indo and then also Going the next day, I had a game scheduled with the Swatter Boys to play Indo. We first like Jumbo Indo. But then they were like, ⁓ we want to play Philippines too. So I actually got back to back plays of ⁓ the Philippines map. ⁓ which is very cool. ⁓ it was kind of funny to talk to Josh about it afterwards too, because they're playing it twice and like seeing some of the things from from play to play. definitely feels Very splattery still. ⁓ I think the rules, like, but kind of what he was saying, like so Colton's play, we played with just like the map changes. So that was pretty simple. So what it does, like he said, you know, has some different things, has like a single cert seat faji that comes out in Arab B, which is very interesting. but also it does like in the map. You have areas where expansion only goes one way. And like our first play of that, like we didn't really see that come into play, but then when we played with The second day I saw some like very nasty ⁓ city placements that really like cut places off based on that, which was very cool. and then it also has like a variable setup. So depending on certain companies that come out in the A, they flip over to different C's. And so what companies come out in era A determine where the oil starts in era C. ⁓ so it's like it gives a little bit different feel than like just the baseline setup of Endo ⁓ originally. On day two, Josh was like, Well, you're playing again and then like everybody else is like, Were they familiar with Endo? Why don't you try merger subsidy? So he's also testing out two different new R and D tracks, ⁓ little ⁓ things to add on there for the R and D phase of of merger subsidy and shipping subsidy. So we play with just merger subsidy, which basically says like if a merger's happening and you'd have to pay money to somebody, the bank pays up to a certain value of what money you'd have to pay. So like if, you know, ⁓ level one is a hundred. So if I need to pay somebody else 150 bucks, the first hundred come from the bank. on top of that, if you don't have enough money, so like say we're in a merger and I bid up to my maximum amount of cash I have on hand. If I'm paying somebody else out, I can actually use the subsidy to go above my cash limit. So if I if I need to pay you, you know, two fifty and I have one seventy-five, I can still bid because I have merger subsidy. I can pay you out of the the coffers ⁓ from this money I'm getting from the bank. And so it definitely added some very weird things ⁓ and made the the valuations like very hard to figure out. and then also made the game a little longer because you know, you add another R and D track that's something that's people get away from compared to taking slots or mergers. Yeah. And so our our our our four or five player game still took like four and a half hours. I feel like I think it like eight to like midnight. You'd probably essentially have your merger heavy players scared to propose. If there was another player who was into subsidy, right? Like that was the thing is like I took I was like, I'm just gonna have fun. I'm gonna take merger subsidy first thing. And somebody took merger first round, you know, typical like, I wanna merge these two. And so I was like it basically protected my company and said, like, ⁓ if you want to merge it, I'm gonna ⁓ you know, just hit you up right now. I can go above you because even though we have about the same amount money, I have a subsidy. And and that basically won me the game almost. We had a very beginning, like first round merger of two spice companies. I took it and I ran that spice the whole game and ⁓ delivered every spice every round. So I grew it from like a four spice company to like a twelve spice company. I was able to deliver every single round, which was the craziest thing I've ever seen. It's like I was able to like and most of these deliveries were like five dollar deliveries. I wasn't like having to do like fifteen dollar spice deliveries. I was literally going like dink dink dink and just like plotting them. So it was like I I basically ran the spice company as like a a winner from round two, ⁓ which is very cool. ⁓ but yeah, so I know they brought the Shizum expansion too. And and it's really cool what Josh is doing. He's like, yeah, 'cause you know we talk about people making things, especially like a fan expansion. You sometimes worry like, ⁓ they're making the expansion 'cause of like what they want the game to be. And then it doesn't really feel like what the designer would have done. And I feel like he is really like doing a lot of research and has a good feel for what Splotter does in these games and is using that to make expansions that feel very splattery. ⁓ you know, his favorite thing is like he he he was talking to me off telling him, he's like, I just want to feel like, should this exist? And I think for both Shishm and for this, I'm like, yes. These are things I think should exist that people should interact with and play. ⁓ because if you like those games, I feel like you will love these. ⁓ and so it's really cool. I'm hoping that, you know, he he hopes one day hopefully to actually print these officially. and so I I really hope for them that too, 'cause it was it was just cool talking to him about him too and about his process, ⁓ having him there. Were you involved in the B sides play of Webb that just got clowned on here a little bit? I was not. That was just the Splatter Boys, they were all doing their B sides. I mean Web is not a good game. I'll just straight up say that. I I I don't blame Vince for saying that because I don't think Webb is a very good game. It's it's an interesting game. Like most spotters, it's especially those early spotters, they have interesting bits, but they turn out to not be like the best games that they could be. ⁓ then we have our Cole Cole Corner got some rep too. ⁓ Joko had a couple plays, like you heard Steve championing it. I got in on one of those. It was wacky and fast and ⁓ that was our three round game. Yeah. And it was just kinda like everyone was kinda like, Well, we played enough Joko. Like Drew got to make the choice, which it was a very like he was not doing anything to help himself. He's just like, Yeah, yeah, let's just nuke it. Y you know. But I think we were all like satisfied. All right, we we played enough Joko to to walk away from this mess. Yeah, it's it's funny too when you say that because, you know, our play of Joko. about three rounds, you know, of a full campaign. Didn't do we actually I think we voted for and put down ⁓ no, that was a that was a different that was a law that we actually voted for the change of the valuation on shares. ⁓ yeah. but like, you know, we played three hours I think we probably played for two hours, maybe less. Maybe an hour and there's yeah I would guess ninety to one twenty. Yeah. Yeah. And then we were in and out. And then you hear about the Steve's play of Joko. I don't know if you heard about his seven hour play. ⁓ my God. No, I have not heard this. Because we were playing, it was the day we we were playing Time Agent. So I they set up Joko at like s nine AM to start playing. I think they get started around ten. And then I realized that we sat there and then we also s we set up Time Agent. We played Time Agent. And then I realized we were still playing that Joko game. And then finally it's like, yeah, we finished. And it's like they had started at like ten and it went to like five. Basically like went through almost the whole morning. And I I was talking to B L after 'cause B L was in that game. I was like, it's just like every year at Splotter you ⁓ at at Dump Con you have to play a Cole Worley game for like twice as long as it should take. ⁓ 'cause two years ago you played that one like base game arch for like four hours. Yeah. But yeah. I heard ⁓ ⁓ I I think some people enjoyed it, but I think some people were like it was a lot of ⁓ Joco for one play. And then we made to like round five. They did a full campaign, they made it to round five and it took ⁓ seven hours to play through five rounds. It's a long time. It's a long time. ⁓ I know the Oath Oath crew got a game together and extended their campaign. Yeah. And that was the I guess they jump into that one. That was a good time. ⁓ you remember the night? I didn't miss I was like randomly in it. So originally Justin was supposed to be in it and then he like had to do something else. It's like they just taught the game. And so like, well I'll just jump in 'cause I don't know the game already. And that was a really fun play. ⁓ that was a good group of guys and especially like you talk about like just ending the game. Like at one point I was like trying to go for a win and Steve was to my right and he could like just absolutely wipe me out every turn without question. Like he was gonna be able to prevent my win. And so I like, Well, if you wipe me out, I'm just gonna let ⁓ Jacob win. I'm just gonna be like, You're my homeboy. We're we're in this together. Either I win or you win. And he was like, Why would you do that? I'm like, because I don't want this game to just go into a death spiral. I'm like, if I have control, I'm just gonna say, Jacob, win, I'll your ⁓ assistant next time. So he did it. He d he took me out and I was like, Okay, I passed my turn. I just looked some cards up and ⁓ Jacob, you win. I was like, I played enough hoof. I was like, I'm good. ⁓ that's good. Wow, I haven't heard some of these stories. This is good stuff. ⁓ and then that was played Root as well, right? Root with the Root Boys. We'll hear more about that later. I'll I'll talk I'll save that one. But Root with the Root Boys got played and then I think I saw Premier Two E get played. And so this is pretty good representation for spotters and Cole. I you know, I felt really underrepresented 'cause I only played one Joko and I was playing with trains the whole time. So I missed a lot of this stuff. Not playing a jumbo indo is like insane to me that I just never managed to stumble into one. ⁓ There weren't a lot of them this time either. There weren't a lot of them. That's the thing is like I think I saw all I think I only saw one jumbo indoor. I think I only saw one also. Because we were supposed to play it and we played Philippines. There were two Philippines, at least two Philippines got played. Which is understandable. Like it's a limited ⁓ availability situation. So get it in while it's here, you know. So all right. Our last Dylan cutaway. Let's hear from our last couple people and then we'll ⁓ wrap this puppy up. So I got Tim here with me. I am doing some there we go. A little bit of fixing, but ⁓ he was filling out all his tickets and I wanted to interview him. How you doing? Pretty good. This is great. I only I every person I've been going around asking four questions. Okay. First question, and you may need ⁓ do you have ⁓ your log place? I don't can he gets it out. I it's better for me to ask now than get it ⁓ 'Cause there've been times where hold on, hold on, and I've had to stall. So best game you've played at Dome Con this year? Mm I my play of Ur eighteen thirty was awesome. It d so my next question was your ⁓ favorite play? Would it be that? Or would it be a different you know, it's Dark Moon. ⁓ yeah, you've played it three tim ⁓ twice now. We're gonna play it tonight. And we're gonna play it tonight. So ⁓ why because Ur was another ⁓ I think ⁓ Vincent also said it was amazing. How would you what would you say made it stand out? I was able to teach ⁓ five new players, so there was six of us playing and the the flow of the game, even though obviously sometimes learning a new spotter game can go long, but just having everyone on the same page learning at the same time, it was excellent. It was awesome. I just loved it. And now, ⁓ what is your favorite new to you game that you played? Shh. Hmm, Cross Bronx Expressway. I I've been wanting to play that for a while and the interaction between the three factions, I loved it. I wanna play more. And now the hardest one. What is the worst game you played at Dome Con? ⁓ I didn't like Webb. I put so Web from Splotter wasn't exactly what I wanted out of it. Maybe with more plays and learning how some strategy works I could get better at it, but I don't want to put that time in. Vince has said the exact same thing because he ⁓ pulled ahead and he was like, you know, it was a quick finish, but you guys did want to rack it up again. Yeah, it didn't have the attraction that I was hoping for it. That's all. But all right, well, easy interview. I'm just trying to get these ⁓ questions in real quick and I'll let you get back to ⁓ Your tickets. Have fun. Thank you. You too. Alright, so ⁓ now I have Bernice, who this is your first time at Dome Con. It is my first time. First of all, I ask, what brought you to the Dome community? Yeah, so I've been on the Discord for a while. and I wanted to come to a con that had a good mix of really heavy games that I wanted, really light and stupid games, but tons of interaction and yelling, and I got all of it. Love it. So I've been asking Interviewees the same four questions. So if you want, you may want to get your log plays out through the BG stats just so you you can know. Okay. The first question is what is the best game you've played at the con in general? ⁓ that is Euro Crisis right here. This incredibly hard to print or find print game or out of print game. ⁓ yeah, it was amazing. It it's ⁓ the action selection was pretty standard and maybe simpler than I thought it was gonna be, but ⁓ Super shared incentives, ⁓ lots of fighting back and forth, lots of surprises at the end. Well, I it's been one that's kind of been on my radar for a long time. And you played it did was it twice today? No, I turned down the second play to let someone else play, but I wanted to play it a second time. Next question is what is the best new to you game that you played at the con? Okay. New to me game. Well, so beyond Euro crisis, I take it. ⁓ best new to me game at the con. I should have pulled this out. Shoot. ⁓ let's go with what did I play? ⁓ let's go with I'm not I'm hesitant to say this on ⁓ no, let's go with Barnschlau or ha Baronschlau. Yes. Yeah, let's go with Barenschlau. What stood out to you with Bar Baronschlau? ⁓ just ⁓ how one, how devastating it is to get one fence away from finishing this ⁓ and like how much fun the memory is in it actually. Yeah. what was your favorite overall play of the con? So not necessarily the best game, but just the best experience you had with maybe the table. Okay. ⁓ sure. Let's go with Honestly Taj Mahal. It's been a while since I pulled out Taj Mahal, but it was it was a good time. I got completely shut out of the whole middle. There was no connection there. And I lost and rightfully so, but I tried hard. It was fun. And the final question, what was the worst game you played? Ooh. ⁓ that's a good question. I think it was our play of web. You go, that's the third time that has happened. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I you know, we were playing the Splotter B sides or whatever, and we might have played it wrong. I heard some people say that they love web, but ⁓ it finished super quickly. We all pulled from the same stack and the game ended with like four computers connected max for one person. Yeah, I They Vincent and whoever whoever I just interviewed I they were all and they'll probably all say Webb. Yeah, yeah. It was I mean we might not have just known what we were doing. We were we were all just going on the same route and so it ended the game really now the question I will ask for you since you were a newcomer, do you think you'll be returning to Dome Con? Yeah, I would love to return. I ⁓ this this is probably the most fun I've ever had at a con. I love like staying on site. the cafeteria food was was good, but at least, you know, homey it felt like I was at camp. That was good. ⁓ so yeah, I I would love to come back. ⁓ you know, hard stuff in the morning, bullshit in the night. It's great. The truth. And now I will let you get back to gaming. Thank you. All right. We are at two AM on the final day of Dome Con. I found Ollie and I'm you know I'm gonna make some interviews before I get to bed. How's Dome Con been? Tylan, it's been amazing. Even better than last year because I actually knew people this year, including a good self. a few questions I've been asking people. What is the best game you played? ⁓ it was fantastic to play PAX Ran and teach you in actual real life, not on my phone. But y you know what? The best game I played this weekend was Euro Crisis. Nice. ⁓ and then ⁓ what is your favorite individual play? Like the game that ⁓ maybe it not necessarily the best game, but the people around you was just like it made the experience that much memorable. So last night, Saturday night, we played Hair and Tortoise, a Spiel de Jar winner from nineteen seventy nine, I believe. We have a quite drunk Jeremiah Lee and ⁓ was it Chris Karloff and a couple of others? It was some absolute bullshit. And yeah, that was I think I came last, but you know, who gives a shit? ⁓ do you have a ⁓ favorite new to you game that you had never played before? Euro Crisis. I mean, what a game. ⁓ d you know, Scott played it back to back. That's how good it was. and here's the thing, like everyone was taking photos at the end, ⁓ because everyone was talking about we need a P and P this thing. And final question, what was the worst game you played this week? ⁓ man, that's I don't think I had a bad game. ⁓ I mean look, I played we played Giro Galopo, it was kind of fun, but it was Yeah. And ⁓ you know, if size wise was fun, but it was kind of like an activity. I don't know. Yeah. There were no there were no bad games. Right. And it just goes to show that you just sometimes you may not think the game is the best, but just being around the people it makes the experience that much better. Hundred percent. And here's another thing. I came here and I ⁓ Trent has been talking about Bino for a few weeks and I was like, Yeah, whatever. ⁓ ended up A a lot of people kind of came by, they were kind of they looked a bit kind of dubious. And then you just see them like six hours later they were like, ⁓ you're playing a game of this. Anyway, ⁓ and here's a lovely story. ⁓ I put a lot of tickets into the raffle to win Bino because I know my kids will love it. ⁓ Dan Jingle, ⁓ he actually won it. So I went up to say, you know, well done. I was really hoping to get this and he said, You know what? My kids are growing up now, ⁓ I'm not really gonna play this. I put You know, I kind of entered the raffle for a lark. You know, your kids will probably get more out of it. Do you want it? So God bless Danjing or he donated his copy, his winning copy of Bino to me, and that's what I love about this community. That's such a heartwarming story, and it's also just goes to tell because that seems to be the consistent nature for the Dazomatic community. I agree. I'm exactly I ⁓ Josh gave his oath, jigsaw to Steve, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So yeah, you know, I think I want to get to bed though. And I just want to get that interview in before we went to bed. So thank you for stopping by and s ⁓ talking. God bless you, Dylan. And I really hope I can see you next year. Sounds good. Have a good night. All right, Dylan. Your watch has ended. You can go to bed. Thank you for your hard, hard work. It was great to hear from thirteen different people and Dylan, and that's pretty cool. I like I like hearing all the reports and everyone's favorite moments and all the all the good vibes, good stuff. Yeah, it's fun enough just to hear the background. You just hear like ⁓ there's just gaming going on the whole Yeah, there's just like this like buzz in the background. I love that too. good thing he didn't record at night. Bernice said, ⁓ lots of games with yelling. She said, Lot lots of games with yelling here. There was a moment when I was standing between two tables playing stock paper scissors, which is them going, rock. Paper, scissors, shoot. And the other table is playing bad bets, which is make bad bets as you're pounding the table. And I looked around and I said, Look what look what my dome has become. This is this is Dome Con. Just you know, a six player game over here, a seven player game over here of people just yelling at each yelling words and and pounding the table. And I loved it, right? I loved it. I loved it that this is is us having a great time. It's so so good. ⁓ ⁓ Ollie mentioned Biño, which didn't get any like shouts in the all the people who who talked, no one mentioned Bigno. Trenton was Trenton got our Binio sponsorship ironed out for us. Had there were three boards there to play on. We had a little mini tournament. Everyone kinda played a lot of Binio, I I think, because it was easy to sit down and play a ten minute game, right? Did you play some Biño? I did. I mean to like the semifinals of the tournament. So did I. So did I. And I like I I was like trying to lose it. Yeah. I was like, I think all my mattresses are like six, seven. I was just like just flicking as fast as I could. And I think that's the thing. It was like, it's not like my Vino worries all came to fruition, unfortunately. I felt very little control. And you know, for a decks like Crokinole, I feel control. You are you either hit your shot or you miss your shot in Crokinole. Vino felt like complete nonsense. I would just slap it off the wall. Sometimes it goes in. Cool. And I'm sure if you played a ton, maybe you'd develop some skills and get good. But, you know, for me, a person who doesn't like soccer anyway, there's no draw there. And just slapping the ball around, it felt most of the time it felt tedious. Like, okay, I'm just gonna keep flicking, keep flicking, keep flicking. Even the card system, which is like the cutest nod to soccer in it, is kind of stupid. Like it'll ⁓ okay, flicking it out of the arena. Okay, I agree with that. That that should be a car that could potentially have a punishment. But the stuff with like bumping the net, like really? Like the nets were kind of like chintzy? Like I d I don't know. I'm not a beingo guy. I can tell you I'm not a beño guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean and I think the the best games were like the ones where like I would sit down with my opponent and be like, Okay, let's go. And they're just like constant flicking. 'Cause my feel like that's the the the benefit of the food foosball style. ⁓ Yeah, you're just like, let's go. Like let's not like, you know, speed, speed be no. We're not trying here to try to like figure out the best like geometry for this. We're just gonna see what happens. Right. Among the several things that were left at the con that are now at my house awaiting, I don't know, instructions on how to get them home. Jacob's beño board didn't make it home, ⁓ through Justin, who was supposed to bring it home. So I have a bino board sitting at my house. So I'll probably see what my kids and wife think of it at least before it makes its way back to ⁓ the Chicagoland area. So we'll see. One benefit don't copy don't know. Did ⁓ James just try all these games. He didn't get to play at the con. This is definitely not a benefit. Me having to ship people ship people's stuff after the con is not a benefit. I had to ship Josh's schism ⁓ expansion back to him today. It it was left as well. I was like, ⁓ did Josh leave me a gift? But he's like, did anyone happen to find my TGZ stuff? I'm like, yep. Did you did you ship Justin back his component from ⁓ Grandma I'm hungry? I did not. I ⁓ he declined the the hair tie being returned, which could have been an actual hair tie, not a grandma I'm hungry hair tie. Who knows? ⁓ okay. We are gonna answer Dylan's questions now here to wrap up the show. Long show, two hours, this is enough. We'll we'll run through these and shut her down for the night. ⁓ so we'll start with best game. We both agree it was Medina, Megadina. The giant Medina, Toy Factor, Speed Medina. It was just such a treat to play it. And I played every day and I would have played even more. Anytime if someone would have said you want to play Medina, I would always have said yes. And it's amazing. Yeah, if I was sitting there, I saw people walking over there. I'm like, Do you want to need another one for Medina? Yeah, I'll I'll be there. ⁓ me too. Constantly. It's like it's great because it's like, you know, if I think about best game, it's like if we had just played Medina, it probably wouldn't have made best game. But the fact that it was Megadina is like, yeah, Megadena is something I would play literally every day if I had the option to. I know. And it was always on the t like people just leave their finished game. So then until it gets played again, everyone's walking by going, Who let someone get a gray size nine building over here? You know? And I I love that. Also, there's a little fact, we played always with the merchants on the the towers. Yep. And also it was always open information. I'm like, I think after playing it only that way, I'm like, that's the only way I should play. I agree. Like I'm like I'm turning around like, yes, merchants on tiles. Yes, open info. Don't play any other way. Yep. I agree. ⁓ favorite single play of the con. I'll let you go first on this one. All right. So we mentioned this earlier, but my favorite play of the con. I think Dylan put this great when he was talking to people. It's like, maybe not the best game, or the the one top play or whatever, but like the one that the people at the table made the game. And that was root for me. So we had, you know, myself, Justin, Jacob, and Dan, who have been in a online, just continual kind of like your top series, ⁓ just continual root games where we be in the game. Next day we start another one up. We just keep playing root. ⁓ it's been a great way just like to get back into it because it'd been a while for me. Locks on the table. And so like getting to take all that like fun we've had, but also all the frustrations or something of like playing a game async and stuff like that. And all the table flipping moments we want to have and like sit down and actually play a game of root and be able to jump into it was just absolutely fantastic. And those guys are awesome. ⁓ and so that was like the highlight. Like that was something I was like we had to make that happen and we did make it happen. And it was so fun. And then and to go along with your top and your ⁓ your other series where now you're dominating. I think like I'm at like fifty percent ⁓ a four player game a fifty percent win percentage of our online games and dan had won one game but he won this game so dan took the win in person and then he also he said that if he got the root copy in the raffle he would start his root journey at home to try to get people to play and he won the root copy he did he did he it came to fruition it was it was meant to be so that is one of my basically baptized with root with us one of my sneaky favorite bits about Dome Con Is gathering with people. And it like you said, if you have an online game that you've been just hammering with people, knowing that when you sit down, there's no questions. I love that. That's always been one of my favorite things. I can remember that at Dome Con one playing a Pax Premier second edition where everyone just knew the rules. It was just bam off to the races. I love that. You just said that with Root. That's also in my favorite personal play, which was the old prince. on the new pre-production copy. We call it say spooky top. I wonder if I wonder if Joshua hates spooky top that we that we're now saying that. ⁓ but same thing. All the people at the table knew the rules, boom, we're fired off the auction immediately. That is just so nice to do and everything about that play was perfect. ⁓ honorable mention, shout out to Loen Hertz, a game I love. Got to teach two new players that Zach and John. And whoever my fourth was in that one, ⁓ I just keep saying D peck whenever I can't remember who my fourth was. It was Jeff. It was it was Canadian Jeff. ⁓ but that was a really great play and I love teaching people Lohan Hertz too on on Dan Domey's eight bit ⁓ redraw, which is what we had there as well. So that was my favorite play. ⁓ now we can shout out it's on board together now, so it's on board together. During this show, while while listening to Dylan's interviews, we have ⁓ started our game of Loen Hertz on board together in beta. Yep. ⁓ new to me game. I only had like four size-wise, which is not gonna win any kind of award ever. Bino, which I just dogged, ⁓ another game, and Tief Tashin. So I picked Tief Tashin, which, like I said, I don't know if I saw the full breadth of everything going on. I don't know that I have to go get a copy. Kind of like kinda like I felt about Shadow Hunters. But it sure is fun to sit down and and just do the thing with people and spite people and and just it's just be nasty with your friends, you know, ⁓ for are most plays short. It feels like they are because you churn through that deck pretty quick. But our play was short and s and satisfying and I liked it. So Tief Toshin, my favorite new to Yeah, I got a chance to play quite a few, ⁓ still just kinda ended up at a table. you know, one thing that a lot of people did talk about was their Bar Baron Schlau play. They did. That we had we had like scheduled that. I was too 'cause like I never played this, I never got a chance to play it. So I sat at the table too, and that game was awesome. Like I was like, Is this game as good as it is a great game. I understood why everybody was like saying that 'cause like this game's awesome. But for me it had to be Manila. Like the thriller and manila for sure. Like the the game that we played, the five player game was absolutely awesome. It was everything I wanted that game to be. It was hilarious. It was like just just gambling on a mouth with a board in front of you. ⁓ I know you talked about like they played on Sunday in the afternoon and it was kinda like quiet and just kinda ⁓ like I don't know what they were going through. Of course we were ⁓ you know First night of the con, just absolutely going crazy. Right. The hype was through the roof already. The hype was through the roof. And so that that that play absolutely I was like, this game is absolutely peak. And I just cannot wait to play that game more. It's so good. And then on top of that, like I I guess it's just I don't know if it's just 'cause of the people too, but we had a great group. And then a Chris is always in the game. I feel like anytime Chris is in the game, it just makes it better. I'm just learning that. You after Shadow Hunters and Manila, I'm like, this if he's in a a a game, it's gonna be pretty good. I think I think that's pretty true. ⁓ and then the worst game that you played at the COD. Yeah, so like most people like I didn't play like really I I would not dog any of the games I played. ⁓ they were all like pretty good, but probably the worst game would be like Pueblo. We played the Kramer and Keysling game, but that's a kinda like a weird, abstract building together game where you're like trying to not get points. It was okay. Like it was like something that was interesting to play, but like once we got done with it, I like, Yeah, I don't really care to ever play this again. So it popped that. Mine was Dylan pulling out this game Stonk Market, which I had recently seen chatter on Discord that is like like Pit, which I've never played Pit and like Justin kept saying, But there's no bell I'm like, It doesn't mean anything. I've never played Pit. I don't know what you're saying. ⁓ It wasn't good. It was like a real time trading game where the whole goal is like to get the majority of something, but and you can't end the round until you have the majority of ever you know, your whole hand is majorities. It was weird. It was hard to communicate the colors and things to each other. I it was just it it didn't work at all or or instill any need to to check it out again for me. So that was a miss. Quick shout out. I pulled up this this little ⁓ info chart graphic thing that I made. So we had a channel going that some people were using and some weren't, where every time you had a play of something, post it in the Discord. Like one player from the table post it in the Discord. And then I did like a what do you call this stupid thing? When you generate a s a blob of words and the more times it appears, they're larger. I don't know why I can't think of a name. ⁓ Binho was very very big on this this blob of words. Medina and Puerto Banana, very, very big. Coming in behind those, ⁓ a lot of stock, paper, scissors, a lot of broom service, John Company, container, Euro Crisis, a lot of Wolful. ⁓ Richie Mahjong, Kuhandle Master actually saw saw the table quite a bit, as did ⁓ Dino Racer, was on there too. Didn't really get much talk about Dino Racers was good, good not great. ⁓ but just, you know, those are those are like some of the most popular played titles at the con or the most plays. Again, a lot of them are short, so they're gonna get more entries in in the ⁓ Discord when we do that. ⁓ so regrets and misses. My biggest one, I have to apologize to the eighteen people who signed up for Blood on the Clock Tower. I just I just didn't have it in me. Like The rigors of planning the con, setting up a con, running a con, enjoying the con. Even on a con that for the first time I wasn't drinking, so I wasn't dead every day. I I didn't have it in me Friday night to run a large player count game of blood on the clock tower. I was ready as far as like I prepped a scenario. I was not ready as far as what you need to be ready for as the storyteller. Essentially, you got to be ready for all these interactions and things. I I wasn't ready. I'm like cramming during my game of low and hurts. I'm like reading my sheet. And I was just like, I I mean I needed Brandon. I miss Brandon so much because he was my guy that was like, I'm gonna do this. I even went to like Nav and Justin, who both have store done Storyteller before. And I'm like, either of you guys would have run Blood on the Clock Tower. They're both like, No, not really. I'm like, So then I just started going to all my people and I was like, Are you gonna be heartbroken if we don't play Blood on the Clock Tower tonight? I'm gonna try tomorrow night. It didn't happen to tomorrow night either. Like, so that sucks. I wanted to make it happen. I just I think worse than not doing it would have been doing it poorly. I didn't want to do a bad storyteller. I think it would have been an absolute disaster. And so I had to just wash my hands of it. Brandon, you better be here next year because I can't disappoint the people again. And and now I know. That I don't think I could be storyteller at Dome Con. Like I I felt it when I was like, I I can't do this. ⁓ my other big one is just the lack of PAX. I didn't play PAX Tren, I didn't play PAX Porf. I really wanted to play Pamir First Edition again at this con. Didn't do that. I didn't play any PAX. I never wasn't close to getting a pack. Like, there wasn't like, what do you guys want to play? Maybe PAX, maybe no. I don't even think I touched the boxes up there. And that disappoints me 'cause I wanted to crank out some of those games and just didn't. Other things grabbed me and most of them were trains. So that was my misses. Yeah. I also did not get any packs in, which is kinda funny because ⁓ the first year I'm in Dome Con I did that Pax Gauntlet thing where we went like six different packs. And so very different than that time. I think for me the biggest misses our regrets were like war gaming in general, like I definitely wanted to get a couple more in. Like Maria was something like people were interested in. I like, ⁓ yeah, I'll teach you Maria, I'll do it. But if like scheduling thing, it'd be like, ⁓ it happened and then it just didn't and I was like, kinda wish I would have. But and then on top of that too, like you could say like just the struggle of a con and like teaching in just in general. I like scheduled the day I had Baltic Empires was also the day I was gonna teach ⁓ Cerebria. And then after that was supposed to teach Tribe and Tragedy. to Nate and Kunk. And like after I play at Baltic, I was like going to street be I'm like, I don't think I can do that. I was just like straight up like I was like still trying to like get a grasp on those rules because those rule but that rule was awful. So I just went out to both of them like, are you fine if we don't play? Cause like I don't think I could do this. And so I felt bad. But I was like, this is one I just couldn't knock out and just be like, no, I don't want to worry about this anymore. I want to be done with it. like the alternative is you doing a bad teach, a bad long play. Like nobody's gonna like that, you know? Yeah. So I'm just like if I just can just, you know, admit that I shouldn't have put that on there probably with everything else going on and we can just say, Okay, you're fine, okay, we're good. We it's not like we're gonna miss gaming. We still got plenty to go through. Exactly. ⁓ but then the ⁓ the two big misses as far as games I really wanted to play 'cause I knew they're gonna be there and I I'm very sad we're The organism. ⁓ I think between Dan and Justin, they got together a little like P and P of it. ⁓ it'd been a long time since I played it when I was playtesting. And so I really wanted to play a physical copy. Didn't get to, but the Kickstarter's coming in a couple of weeks, so at least there's that hope along the horizon that a organism will be a real thing ⁓ soon enough. And then doing the dice game was like I've had my personal P and P like printed out for a while. I know Dan worked on that one that he did after y'all played at that Minicon. And so I was like, Yes, I wanna play a six player game or doing the dice game, knock it out. I know Dan worked on his new player aids and got them ready and they just never got together. so those are kind of the big misses that I had come into wanted to play, but it's not like I didn't fill that time in with great gaming and great friends anyway. So can't be too upset. Yep. I think, you know, we we we at least and I think everyone should feel this way. You can have the highest aspirations and plans. You gotta realize that it's gonna be really hard to do them all and you don't have to feel bad when you come up short or when you have to cancel or when you have to disappoint someone. Like it everyone had an amazing weekend, regardless of triumph and tragedy and blow on the clock tower not getting plate. You know what I mean? would you do anything different next year? Like scheduling wise. Did you over schedule yourself? Did you underschedule? Or would you just try to give equal time to different games? Like just cu out of curiosity. I think on the scheduling part, I I liked having something in the morning. I think that was what I would do. Yeah. Having a starter at night. On some days I kind of like did a little bit too much. Like I'd have like three games scheduled. Even though like one maybe shorter, I would like play bit too much or, you know, schedule like even as I feel like if I schedule something after dinner, it's gotta be something I have played a a bunch of times. 'Cause I'm not gonna be I'm just gonna be worried about teaching it the whole day and feel like I can't like review the rule book like I can. Like there were some games I taught in the morning. I usually woke up at like seven o'clock. So I would get up, I would go set them up. Like I set up Baltic and read the like reviewed the rules all before dinner or breakfast and was ready to go. And so I felt good about it and everything. And so it's like that is one thing. I'm like, schedule in the morning, in the evening, just let it ride. And I think that, you know, as far as like looking for games, ⁓ I I it's just so much whenever I do my scheduled game, just just a vibe. Just like I have a game I wanna play, but you know, if you wanna play something, let's do it. Let's just try. Like I got into some certain games like that, like Justin had brought a copy of Woo. ⁓ from Gen Con. And so there multiple times there's like there was like somebody's like, I wanna play that game. I'm like, I wanna play that game, so let's just let's just pull it out. Let's just do it. Let's just find a group and let's do it. And so it's just fun like that. Whenever ⁓ I think ⁓ Corey said it really best. Like a lot of things that he talks about is like when you're learning a game from somebody who's passionate about it or somebody really wants it, it just makes it all the more better. Like it makes it more fun. And so if I can just be available and say, you know, ⁓ you wanna play this game and you love it, let's let's do it. It just makes it ⁓ You know, not have to worry about it. Yeah. I'm I might not be able to play four eighteen XX games and the biggest, dumbest winsome next year. That might I I I just gotta find the happy medium. I don't wanna go all the way back with no eighteen XX, 'cause I did that last year, I think. But I gotta find the happy medium for myself. I I don't have regrets. Like I feel a hundred percent. This con was amazing. Like they're They're they're misses, but they're they're not regrets. Everything was amazing and and I'll remember this being the con that I managed to play a ton of train games like it was twenty twenty two again or something. ⁓ cool. All right. That's enough show. Two and a half hours, long show. Hopefully you guys split it up over some listens and enjoyed Dylan's work talking to the some of the attendees and what Derek and I had to say. like I said, new Dates will be announced soon. I hope everyone who wants to come can come. Dome Con seven, be here before we know it, and we'll be doing it all over again. So can't wait. And James says there's a close to the season of Dome Con. Well, it's next season. Yes. Start off the top twenty. Season to seven starts next next in a couple weeks. And then yeah, I'll have Derek back on here for top twenty lists again. And ⁓ we'll get it all popping again. Season seven isn't really right 'cause we started in twenty nineteen. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I don't know what season it is. It's the twenty twenty seven season. There you go, the twenty six twenty seven. ⁓ all right, Derek. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for taking the time and to everyone who listened, or Zet DomeCon, thank you for enjoying the ride with us. Well that's it. So yeah.