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In this episode Bruce and Josh are back at gaming after saying thank you for your kind support during their Extra Life fundraiser benefiting Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals COVID-19 Relief Fund. In this episode they talk through two games and then ended up doing a fairly deep dive into Pendulum, the latest game from Stonemaier Games.
Games Discussed:
- Dominations: Road to Civilization (Holy Grail Games)
- Root digital adaptation (Leder Games & Dire Wolf Studios)
- Pendulum (Stonemaier Games)
Contest Link: https://gleam.io/yxaS5/board-game-impact-10-mm-september-2020-giveaway
To learn the secret code listen to the episode or read the transcription below (once available)
To learn more about Board Game Impact you can:
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Transcript (Generated by AI)
00:00:08 – 00:05:04
Hey and welcome to another episode of Board Game Impact in today’s episode, we’re GONNA be talking about initial impressions with pendulum many other Games were. Jam, packed episodes. So stay tuned. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Board Game. Impact. As always I am bruce joined by. This is Josh and Josh. Before we get into anything we needed to save two very important words how about you say? I just want to say a huge huge huge. Thank you to all of our listeners and all of our donors from our most recent recording where we did a live recording for extra life. Yeah then. Seriously cannot thank y’all enough. So if you if this is your first episode. We’re a board game podcast that talks about games or playing all those kinds of things, but we both become from an educational lens. So that way you can learn about what experiences we’re having what we’re excited about. So you can make informed decision for your gaming group however last episode. We lived up to our motto of ending up every episode on go make a positive impact on the world by participating in a thing called life life nonprofits been around since two thousand eight since then they’ve raised over seventy million dollars benefit children’s miracle network. So essentially. Has gamers use their platforms to raise awareness to help kids, and they did tabletop appreciation weekend with Josh and I both created a team for called tabletop alliance. And we did a ten hour stream in some of our friends were on their playing games. So thank you to those individuals as well, and they actually made some cameos on our last episode. But that day just we’re able to raise eight, hundred, Ninety, eight, hundred, and ninety, five dollars for. Kids Children’s hospitals I mean this crazy. Awesome and so there’s so many good ways. Yeah absolutely, it was a fantastic time great to get to game with a lot of folks that I personally haven’t gotten a chance to play with for quite some time and for it to go to such a fantastic cause and for our listeners and friends and family who are able to donate such a tremendous tremendous amount of support and the love is unending at this point. And just thank you to everyone. Yeah. Thank you from the bottom our hearts. It was it was an amazing amazing experience a kind of flew by because we were so invested but it was really nice. We had this. Sound every time somebody donated live. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you want to see that stream, you can actually go see it. If you WANNA watch it, it’s over on our facebook. So facebook dot com slash board board game back. If you want to learn more about our extra stuff, you can also find that on Instagram, which is board game impact. Yeah go check that out. It’s a really great cause if you want to donate to. That Fund fundraiser, you still can because it’s open for the rest of the year. It’s just how that platform works on, which is really great. So you can find those links still over on those pages and we encourage you if this is something that is meaningful to you and you have the means now or didn’t have the means then. And you’d like to you can go on over there and do that or to spread awareness. Learn. More, yourself. Just, a final note on that Bruce before we move on. The. Table Top appreciation day but extra life does a much larger Event, in November that involves a video gamers and live streamers raising money through through their. Choices, but they obviously encourage or gaming those types of things as well. So if you’re interested in participating or creating a fundraising group for extra life, you didn’t miss your opportunity entirely there is still a another event coming up in November that you can dedicate yourself your own time in your own resources towards as well. Yeah and actually just to put it out there if you want to join our team and just kind of have us be able to cheerlead and support you in that you can join our team as well by going to the links on our facebook page. So that’s why we called it table top alliance because it’s more than just this podcast, it’s just bringing gamers together to do good things. And with that being said of doing good things. We also started something new Josh as you know. And that was we started running contests through gleam, which is those things you see on social media platforms and things like that, and so we did a contest for miniature market giveaway of virtual gift. Card. Isn’t sponsored by miniature market was is there’s something own volition because we wanted to raise awareness towards that campaign and drum roll please.
00:05:06 – 00:10:03
Crystal, from California congratulations. You Win. So I’ll be reaching out to you and to give you this virtual gift card via email. So if you want to be a part of that, we’re going to be doing another giveaway and part of that giveaway we actually. Have a secret code that will be sharing during this episode. In the next episode stay tuned to make sure you hear the secret code to get some extra entries to win. Because what you do is essentially you go down and you spend your time going on two different platforms and things just to check it out to raise awareness and just for doing that, we want to say thank you back to you as a listener. So make sure do that listen for the secret code but yeah, Josh, she wants to any congrats to crystal. CONGRATS. Crystal and good luck to all of our entrance for our next giveaway. Hopefully, we can raise a little bit more awareness and and continue getting getting this out there for folks. So congratulations crystal Hope you are able to pick up a nice new new game with your with your gift card. Yeah. So Josh I’m today we’RE GONNA BE GETTING BACK INTO GAMING Because we’ve been able to get some games table, which is fun. To The table and also digital. Honesty leaning into this time we’re in has as you and I talked before the show really been really nice to. Be Able to dig in with players that we normally wouldn’t get game with but also platforms have gotten so much better. So. Josh. Weren’t you either digital or in-person type things obviously given Cova like in-person situations may differ listeners than. For you for me for Josh, things were in two different places in the country. But Josh weren’t you talk about a game? Absolutely so I want to actually start with a analog game here non digital. And so for listeners who have been around for a while, you recall remember that I’ve been during quarantine at least for the last couple months have been limiting my in-person gaming to a smaller group rather than going to the large meet ups and part of that is I have been working with three of my close friends here in Colorado to do we’ve narrowed it down to attend by five. So ten games played five times each over the course of a year. very, very fun and exciting way to kind of really. Deep into some of these games that we really love and I want to talk about one of those games that I had not heard of until. One of our, the members of our group decided to put it up as one of their nominations for a ten by five, and that is dominations road to civilization. So dominations was a game published by Holy Grail Games in two thousand nineteen. and. I gotta be honest with you this flu completely under my radar and I don’t know how many folks radar this really came up on, but it is a fantastic game. So in dominations you our. Draft you start with a bunch of triangle tiles. and. There is a starting. In the middle of the board. And so it is a tile placement game where you are each of the points of the triangles. Have a different color on them. and. You will place tiles onto the board. Earning, the resources of the. points that that you connect. So if for example, you have a triangle that has a red cy or read point and Orange Point and on the board, there’s a red point in an orange point that you can connect them to. You’ll score some red and orange resources which can be used to. Build Tech by technologies or build monuments or build cities through a variety of means onto the board, and so you’re building out your your section of this civilization trying to score points trying to earn prestige Barry is different ways in which you’re earning points throughout this game, and it is a beast to learn a beast to teach it is a heavy deep game, but it is absolutely fantastic I have played it now twice. Both Games I was telling Bruce before the show I lost by one hundred or more points So the the scorers have ranged from in the mid two hundreds to the mid four. Hundred’s will I have always been in the mid two hundred range.
00:10:04 – 00:15:06
And I still love it I still want to get it back to the table and play more and figure it out because even though I’m getting stomped, it is so much fun. It is such a nice little puzzle to try and put together. I gotTA. Say Josh if you’re getting like that and still want to bring it back out either masochism just like really great game and creating some fun emotions. Absolutely. You know the the other thing that’s kind of cool about the way they did this game is at the time of kick-starting they. Also released four expansions with it on the kickstarter and each of those expansions have a pretty dramatic impact on the way the game is played. So what we’re actually doing for our game group since we’re going to be playing at five times anyway is we played the first time. We just played the BASS game. Okay. The second time we played with one expansion and we’re just going to keep doing adding different expansion to it to see how it changes the game, which way we prefer it, and then we may at the end of this, all play a six time with all of the expansions. Might. I might I think that might get a little overwhelming we’ll see. So you’re going to go forward power rangers and Voltron. Absolutely. I can’t. I can’t recommend this game highly enough. It is a bit pricey. It’s it’s a little bit more expensive especially if you want to get all those expansions with it, but it is an absolutely fantastic game really difficult to explain in the short timeframe but again comes with my highest recommendation. Looks like the base game is normally Emma RPM of sixty on that Okay. Yeah. But obviously with the expansion things like that would change it up I’m so Josh, I’m looking at this on board. Game Geek. And it has a really cool. Now pollyanna. That’d be the wrong word but like domino, feel of connecting all of these things. Does that really play through in terms of that puzzle and Are you able to pre plan your turns at all or is it really waiting till the player before you? Kind of changes up the dynamic. So it has this very interesting way of evolving throughout the game. Where early on your options are pretty limited your and it makes it much harder for you to game plan because there are so few places. Available for you to place your tiles. That it’s very easy for an opponent to block off that move from. But as the game progresses and this board gets bigger and bigger and bigger, you have more and more options for where to place and so you’re. To find a good placement for you Really really. kind of explodes throughout the game. One of the things that that is really cool about this is. So normally when you place, you get the benefits of the. Connecting side. Of your of your tile however. Because they’re triangles eventually, they will create a circle. And if you are the person to place the last tile to complete a circle I’m going to blank on what they call it in the game. I think it’s Nexus or something I can’t remember the word that they use. But when you complete that, you don’t score the sides, use score all of the points that make up the circle and so you earn a lot of potentially a lot more points are a lot more resources by completing circles. So in addition to. Trying to find the best move for yourself. You also don’t want to give your opponents the opportunity to complete one of those circles score a bunch of points for themselves. And take away those resources from you. So, there’s a lot of really really interesting decision making that goes on and we’ve had some different ways in which is played out one game. We had where everyone avoided though circles like the black plague, and so we had this really sprawling weird map by the end of it. And we had another game where. We didn’t care so much about letting people, complete circles, and so we had this very close tight. Map that that was very contained and kind of. Structured very differently and it. It definitely has a significant impact on the way in which the game scores at that point as well. If you have one game is what I’m hearing Joshes, if you have a game where it Kinda sprawls out and that’s your only play of it.
00:15:06 – 00:20:03
You might have a very different Lens that you’re looking at the game versus a more condensed one. This is that correct absolutely I think this is a game that warrants multiple play throughs. And like I said, I’ve I’ve gotten stopped my two times that I’ve played it but it’s something that I keep wanting to come back to and keep wanting to explore more and learn more about. So okay. It’s a very, very interesting La- game and highly recommend it for folks like I said, it flew under my radar I, don’t know how and I’ve heard very little about it. So it may have flown under listeners radars as well. So I I’d give this my strongest recommendation if you can. Try and pick something like this up sounds something that sounds interesting to you. Definitely give it a shot. Okay. Sweeten that’s dominations by holy grow games right. Absolutely okay. Well, I got some. Yeah. Looks like you have some some digital things to talk about I. do sorry I’m just kind of chomping at the bit to talk about this one but the domination sound really cool by the way but I have been binging. Route. So. I am not I haven’t really been able to play with anybody but my wife in person because I’m actually. self-isolating right now because. A student came to one of my classes. Who lives with all people who are testing positive for covert right now? Obviously wish that student the best with their health and also wherever you are in the world listeners. Please just be safe and I hope that you and your family and friends are safe environment. Luckily, I’m not feeling anything and I’m good but I’m kind of on. Lockdown Josh. Those just important for context of not able to game as well. But I am so excited about this re digital. So Josh you and I have talked to route a number of times in the past. With especially with the fact that you introduced me to vast by leader Games. which hooked me and when you’re like, you can play the cave. Because you have the asymmetric things. So route is asymmetric game that’s got super super cute art. It looks like non-threatening because it’s all woodland creatures. But it is a cutthroat wargame. One hundred percent deep strategy. But about a week ago, they launched their digital adaptation on steam. Which is currently selling early access but as somebody who has a Mac, it’s available on Mac which like not everything’s available at Mac Josh like it’s so nice to be able to play games verge change. Besides board game arena. But. Honestly early option scared me for a couple of days. For it ’cause it’s full price fourteen, ninety nine. But the fact was I’ve been seeing like super positive reviews of early access working because he never know because it’s took they’re still working on it. But it’s still full price and so I took the plunge and actually did just the other day A. Actually to our livestream playing this. Over on facebook if you WANNA watch it, you can go do that played as both the birds and the cats. So the thing about route is they’ve each each faction. Different types of play styles. So one has more of a building buildings and maintaining resources and supply lines and other one’s got programming. That’s the birds on the first one of the cats. Another one has hand management. And like area control. So that is more the woodland alliance, which of these little mice, and then there’s the vagabond which is a trash panda. Raccoon that runs around and that is actually a cooperative style play player. WHO has. Action selection tight mechanics So. It, it’s phenomenal Josh, like it is phenomenal. It’s got online play already enabled. So I was able to play with our Buddy Justin. So him and I played in about two days we played about six games because the games don’t take long at all. The thing is though it’s also got a solo mode on there. because. It’s got a I for every faction. Now, we’ll say the is not that robust yet, but you could easy medium or hard but. I think that’s part of the early access and training the just put that out there. So might be better to have some more players but the really cool thing too is there’s challenges. So you can be challenged to play against the. With like a longer game. So normally, it’s the thirty points you could play the forty I played one where it was too player. So it was myself versus the cats I was the birds and I couldn’t win unless destroyed them from the.
00:20:03 – 00:25:01
Board. Another one where it’s like you’re the raccoon and you can’t fight anything in a war game. So, it’s got like these fun challenges that because it only plays for like if you’re playing by yourself, apply finished game twenty, five minutes. But. If you’re playing with somebody else less than an hour if you know what you’re doing. So much fun I’m curious. What do you think about this because I just brain on this because I had that much fun with it and it’s so cute. Honestly. For a long time listeners, you may recall that route. I I have very different. Viewpoints on route. So. I I’ll be honest I’ve been tempted by the digital adaptation. Mainly because I have A. Feeling that the. Issues and concerns that I have with the game may be eased slightly. From. Doing this game online. My main issue with route is. It is a game that if one player. Does not, know how to play the game. and. Does Not know all of the factions well. There’s the potential for that person to king make without realizing their king-making. And that’s very frustrating. Thing for for for a player who is trying to do really well and has their game. Kicked out from underneath them because somebody misplayed because they didn’t know how their actions affected other players at the table. Yeah, and so. I think with a digital adaptation you have the potential of gaming with friends who have maybe played this more have a similar experience to you with it, and you wouldn’t have that issue as often as getting it to the table with people who are newer or or may not be as experience with it, and I can comment on that. If you want me to. Yeah. So like I have felt more lighthearted. Playing it digitally. then playing it in person. In the past at least that’s how my memory serves me right. It’s it’s been a while because there’s a game you really WanNa play person at the full player count. So, but here’s the thing like root has a lot of little things. And you have to explain every faction. What’s Nice? Is that with this one? When you’re playing in person. Every choice has a little bit more weight because you’re physically moving the things. This one. They’ve designed it where every factions things. All a little action selection thing in the bottom right. So, when you’re playing them, they’re similar things for each of them. For when you’re playing as it, the other thing though is normally when I’m playing in person. I have to look across the board across the table at an upside down board to try and see if I could potentially decipher what the heck is going on for that other player. In this one, it’s got each faction on the side with like how many points they have. Currently, any other details quickly need to know and I can click it to see their player board oriented the right way, and they stripped away all the BS and other artistic things just make it easy to communicate the information. So they took away the rules part of it and focused in on like the the aspects. But if you WANNA learn more the nitty gritty of another tab where you can learn more about how that player acts at each phase of their thing. But they stripped away the things you don’t need to know about how they play to focus in on what they get points from. Yeah. I think. That’s the thing that that kind of rubs me the wrong way about playing this person is if I don’t know how the Woodland Alliance wins. I don’t know how they score points. Then it’s very easy for me to set that person for a huge turn without ever knowing that that’s what I’m doing. Yeah and so it sounds like this is a little bit easier for you to see at first glance. Okay. What is it I? Don’t really I don’t need to know how. That player earns points I. Just you know I, don’t need to know what actions they need to take. I. Just need to know if I make a move. Am I going to be giving them points right. Right. So something to know is when you’re playing if the if the and recognize this ’cause, I played it a number of times and I’ve played his every faction. Digitally and in person of course. When you’re playing it digitally.
00:25:01 – 00:30:03
Computer recognizes because you can sign in and create your own account which they don’t do email validation. So just put in like a completely fake email like expletive expletive are you actually reading this at gmail.com? And it worked. Actually create the account. It’s not a real email. It was kind of fascinating that that worked. But he just wanted to test it. But what’s Nice is if a recognizes because you’re logged into your account. If if you haven’t played that faction before it has some stuff pop up to kind of. Not, walk you through because there’s a whole tutorial you can do to learn about each of the factions if you want to. But. It’s more of like the hey, here’s this kind of little nudging hint. Type of thing if it’s your first time playing as faction. Interesting yeah I’d be I’d be interested in giving this a shot I don’t know that because of my experiences within the past that I I’m Jumping into an early access for for shifting dollars. But. Definitely. If this is something that goes on sale on steam, I would definitely consider picking it up just to try it out bruce, you mentioned the A. I not being. Overly. Robust any your players with Justin, have you been playing for player Games with a I or have you just been playing two player games four player with AI? So so there was a couple of times where it’s like we put the. Cats so the marquee, the cat, the The ones that are really playing like engine building the putting out their buildings and things like that and their supply lines. They weren’t. They weren’t taking some things as. I call US experience players. They, weren’t taking some things like battling like didn’t battle for the first two thirds of game we had him on hard. which we were surprised that we thought they were going to like really squash down they only focused on. The Woodland Alliance at one point. So I think that’s part of the early access is it’s learning but like don’t get me wrong. I have lost. We lost to the Woodland Alliance game. And I’ve lost the vagabond and different factions. So although I think there’s some tweaking I. Think it’s good. I think it’s effective. But. I. The thing is you have to recognize that it’s playing as a player that I’m not used to. So I also might be making some assumptions they’re right. About what they’re trying to do personally. Yeah. I’ll be interested to see how that grows through early access to the actual game itself. The other thing I just WanNa point out which I think is important to reference. I think it’s a really good thing they’ve done, but it’s a little weird. It’s not what I’m used to in playing a game digitally and that is so when I am doing a battle, right, let’s say I am battling XYZ faction. It actually goes to like a cut scene fight between me and them. I saw that while skimming through I saw the screen where it had the cut scene battle and I was interested in that do so battling involves dice rolls are are you checking still and and how does that feel I’ve? Yes, generally avoided dice chucking games on digital adaptations because I think the fun dice chucking game is chucking the dice. So how does that feel? In. In the digital world yeah yeah, and you’re right like I’m, GonNa? Where like the luck and like how my faction doing in this moment right? That’s why you do that to simulate those things. The way they did the graphics it’s like a cut scene. Anna may street fighter mortal combat, not mortal combat. That’s way too gory. But like street fighter but cute woodland creatures like with strike the the movement lines from an anime rushing by and it was cool. It was simple because it just rolls the two dice it’s to d twelve. Zero one and three on them, and they have multiple instances of those numbers on those dice, and then it assigns them the correct way because if you’re the within alliance, you always get the higher result. was just how their faction works. And then unless you play cards prompts you with what cards you have in your they’ve crafted that you might want to add to that battle. and. So it takes care of all those things but honestly. It kind of felt epoch. So yesterday I was playing against Justin, but I wasn’t fighting Justin and I was the vagabond and I was playing his the thief, which is trash panda with A. Little knife like he’s gonNA run and stab. And the cats left there keep undefended, which is like their corner of the board it’s castle and so I set fire to the whole thing and I actually I was so inspired by the moment I hit to screen record that.
00:30:04 – 00:35:05
because. I’m like I want to have a video of this little raccoon coming in and torching a castle. like it was epic. But what’s interesting is I am the only one who gets to see that when you’re playing against somebody else. So when I was having that battle, the Justin was not involved in. He didn’t see that cut scene battle. He saw that area of the board just kind of going in dust storm kind of like if you were watching a cartoon. What’s Nice is what that does is. When I finished my turn stuff, it speeds up and essentially takes care of the I for the other factions in a speed where I am not having to just sit and wait and wait and take my turn. So it kind of the say it’s weird lead with why it’s weird because. Sometimes you’ll be talking about something. You’re seeing that somebody else isn’t. Right so they might be seeing some other action or sort of an action happen a couple seconds maybe like five seconds before you do. Or takes longer for you than it does for them. The whole cut scene took longer for me to watch then took for him to watch. So kept kept the speed of the play high, which was cool I know there was a lot about it, but there was a lot of cool things to talk about. But again, early access check it out on steam all cross-platform platform stuff because he was on PC. So we’re good. So, Josh. I think it’s time we get into are much. More important for our listeners probably. Even. Though those games are amazing but I know this is a hot button one. We talked about this one coming out and that is our early impressions on Pendulum which I’ve actually been able to play. So listeners, what we’re GONNA do is we’re going to. Talk about pendulum and then Josh is going to interject some questions because I know he’s going to be getting into the table very soon because he just got it in both that being said, wanted to share today’s secret code. So Josh, why don’t you tell us what the secret code is for that giveaway? So, for our giveaway on and you can find this on facebook and our social media’s our context secret code for this week is thank you. That is thank you know spaces just T. H. A. N. K. why? Oh, you? Perfect and actually there’s a link in the description of this podcast you’re listening to You just need to do this within the month of. September twenty twenty. So enter before the end of the month. So, Josh Unite I’ve talked about Stone Games a lot on this podcast again, still not a stone podcast. But again, this is going to be early impressions. Josh. How do you WANNA start this. Do you WanNa Kinda give overview of what you know going in of like this is what I know about the game and then I can build on that. Absolutely. So pendulum is the newest game from Stone Meyer Games designed by a brand new game designer. Travis Jones pendulum is the the. Big Takeaway for for Jamie Steg Meyer at least as he was deciding to to create this according to him was that pendulum is actually the highest scoring game in the. History of Stone Games, game design, day, which is an event where folks come together and play test of variety of games from game designers, them, and then the folks over at stone. Meyer Games take those scores, look at the Games and occasionally pick up one of those games to publish. So. Pendulum is a game for one five players. And it is a worker placement real time game. Where players are Using their workers to. Take actions. But rather than having turns the the actions are marked by a timer. So when you place your worker down, they are locked up for a set period of time. So there’s a forty five second, a one minute and a two minute sand timer that comes with the game. And when you place your worker, you are placing your worker onto an action space. When the timer flips, they will begin taking that action. You will receive the resources, but that player is that worker is stuck in that action space until the timer flips again. Once. The timer flip again, you can then pick up your worker and assign them to a new action space. throughout this, you are trying to collect various different resources to gain different victory points. There are are some asymmetric characters involved in the game and I.
00:35:05 – 00:40:03
Believe There’s a easier side where the the main differences really you’re scoring in game scoring, but not so much everything else house name. Yeah. Actions play whereas there is a more advanced side with some unique abilities and different Different ways in which you will score some points so. That is my general understanding of how the game plays right now I’ll be. Honest with you I am incredibly incredibly excited about this. I ordered got on the preorder within. Ten minutes of it going life I was very very. Quick to jump on and pick this game up. I have not had a chance to get to the table I have laid it out and set it up for a two player game and played through a couple rounds of it just to teach myself the basic mechanics so that I can I typically do this with a new, any new game I get to. Help myself decide how I’m going to teach this game. It’s A. Very, very interested to hear Bruce your if there’s anything I’ve missed about the. Game. And what your first impressions after playing and I believe you’ve played with a two player game at this point. So I’d be very interested to hear kind of what your impression of that has been. So, there’s some really important things to now Josh you really hit the nail on the head just some minor things. So like the timers are forty, five seconds, two minutes in three minutes. The game’s going to take place over four rounds. Around there’s For the there’s three timers there’s a black one, a green wanted purple one. Those are the respective time. So forty five minutes purple is three minutes when the Purple One flips a third time that initiate that’s the last little thing of the game. For that round. So when that happens, you finish out his actions and you’re done. For that round. Game is going to score based on victory points. The interesting thing is if you look at the player board if you happen to look up a picture on board Game Geek, you notice the player board has these three tracks on top technically four but ones just one circle. Those. Victory Point tracks almost like a blood rage style track. But. There’s this gold box and you have to a get that one with a single one’s called your legendary. Into that gold box in order to even consider winning the game. And then the other tracks you’re going to score based on. All three other tracks in that yellow box you’ll score, you’ll add up the points there. So each worth one and that’s your score for the game. If you have all one in that area, your scores actually going to be how many points away from there you were. So it’s a lesser negative. So is important to note that. You also have each player yes. It’s asymmetric quote unquote and we’ll get into that. Has Four cards. These four cards have similar actions because you can. It’s it’s a non action thing to play our card to your player board and those actions are essentially you’re asymmetric. But they’re little actions you can take to pick up a worker from a space that has a timer because usually cannot if timers on a row where a worker is, you can’t touch that worker. and. Similar to another Steinmeyer game and that is viticulture. You have guerande workers who are bigger and they can go places where other workers are or other grand workers are. So they can kind of muscle their way in but just like you Josh I preordered this thing immediately. And I honestly bought it, and then I texted you that I did that and you’re like one second and then you place your order. Yeah and you pointed something else I should’ve picked up on sonar website that I didn’t. But yeah. So that is essentially the thing in a nutshell. Of how it really works but. Josh. We talked about this being a real time game. And the rules everything say this right when you open it up in that is that For your first play. They give you this timer track and have actually my hands. To kind of walk you through the flipping, and now when you’re playing with this, you’re not playing with timers per se. Have them on the board now it’s kind of confusing for. The other player, my wife. Because she’s like, we’re not playing with the timers while raising the timers the timers become symbolic if you’re if you’re using this time or track. Because it tells you which ones to move at what times. So with that being said, there’s a total of eleven times that you would be.
00:40:03 – 00:45:04
You will flip timers. On this time retract now that’s not eleven flips. It’s actually sixteen flips if you’re using this. One. Flip has like you’re flipping three of them So it’s just important to know that. Now it’s important to bring it up though because. Because it’s a real time game. and. There are three zones of the board. With. Two to rose because you have a timer in one row? No time timer in the other. Oh The iconography across the board and figuring out how you generate your little engine of taking actions you have to really have to play with this timer trek without using the timers for the sand aspect and the timer aspect because you need to be able to make some decisions in relatively quick time. So it’s important to essentially teach players and teach yourself what the heck do I need to do. So it is imperative that you use this. Now you can choose to not use it on your second round, your third round, your fourth round of your first game. That’s absolutely your choice. What we found though. When we got to those points. It was still trying to figure out how the pattern really works to build your engine. So we ended up not using the sand elements again, this is first impression sand elements for the entire first game. So, Bruce Lemme ask you. Yeah and that was my impression my impression when I picked up the rule books and started moving through it. My impression was. It’s probably going to take at least a full playthrough if not. Multiple play throughs to really know. To the extent that I can make a decision in forty five seconds. About what my next action is going to be. What the different actions are going to do and what what actions I can take in what actions are available to me given any. Specific Point in time. So with. With that, do you feel so write this this. Board that you that it comes with your talking about that that tells you win to flip different timers on different actions in those types of things. It simulating the idea of time passing, right? It gets kind exactly. Instead of having this very real. You have five seconds to make a decision. It is simulating that that those decision making while giving you the time an ability to really process through what your decision is going to be. Do you feel. That using the. Turn based system. Rather, than the time based system. Takes away from the experience. I do. I do and that’s a great question. I say I do because. I think the time based thing makes. I’m trying to phrase this. Yup, hosting a podcast and struggling with some words. The time based elements I, think adds a weight to it. A pressure right. But to be honest. Even with unlimited time. I still don’t know if the choices we were making were beneficial. Now, I’m going to get into the reason for that and but here’s the thing about the timer that’s important to know the actual timers. The rules state that the round will end when the purple one flips third the third time. So that means that if and also says you don’t have to flip a timer if once it flow wants it out. So that means you could get a lot less flips. Of all of them except the purple one, the owned the purple could has to flip the whole three times. But the other one you might be looking elsewhere and all the play other players are looking elsewhere. You might not get a lot of actions in the green area because people just keep forgetting to flip it. Because you have to take the initiative to flip it. So I yes. On the importance of having the timers but at the same time, no because your group might happen just completely ignored by accident. Yeah I think that’s a very interesting. Perspective and and and I think the actions that happen with. I think the the. Rules giving you the decision to not flip a timer.
00:45:06 – 00:50:09
Can become really really intriguing or sounds very, very intriguing. When you think okay. Well, my opponent. Has Their worker tied up in Green Right I see that green is available to be flipped. But. Maybe I rather than taking a green action and flipping it. I wait and just keep that worker tied up for them or. I see that the timer is available to be flipped. So now I make a decision that I’m going to immediately placed my worker and then immediately flip it so that my workers tied up for less time right And so I think there’s some really. Really Really Nice depth that the timed process goes through but but it sounds like you’re not entirely onboard with with the way that this game plays. So I love. There’s another reason your thoughts. There’s another there’s there’s another reason that’s important to bring up. And this might sound weird but I can see why it scored. So well at a game day versus the experience I had. The reason I can see it scoring really well. And don’t get me wrong like Travis this is a game that you if you’re listening to this like you poured a lot into and I’m very thankful for it is very innovative. As, well, as Robert for doing all the art on this, but the hard part is I could actually see this game performing better as a prototype design. And the reason I say that is because I think the art got in the way. Even. Though because it’s nice right. But what that meant is there was in a real time game. There was more thinking and processing. I had to do to figure out what action spaces I could take to get me the things I needed. But. I can see on a prototype that is just like a bear sheet and I don’t know what the prototype for this look like. But if it was just bear and icons and it was just the icons, I could see it being clear as day. So do you is the issue that you take with it the ICONOGRAPHY or is the issue the busyness of the board it’s the business, the iconography and the colors So the. The business it’s a it’s like a table in front of you. But there’s this other thing of asymmetric nece and yes the of a better deck of cards like four cards if you do the more advanced side and the powers or slightly different. But the art was so whimsical and like evocative for like an Alice in Wonderland almost style art, right? But really cool fantasy that I didn’t have a connection between that art and why we were doing the things. So. That was just the disconnect there. It was more of like focusing on the activity of the of the generating stuff and like focusing in on the board versus a I felt pulled away from it. The iconography was difficult for us. In trying to make fast decisions because we tried to kind of go to normal speed. But obviously we weren’t exact because we weren’t using the actual timers for the sand elements, but I say is so there’s a couple of different things. So there’s red. As a circle represented power, which is the victory point track read as a square represented military read as a heck’s represented production of the red production area. Blue. As a circle representative prestige, Victory Point track blue as a circle, a square represented culture reece’s resource like military. And then a dark purple that was very hard to distinguish from that from the blue shade they had was. Production of as a heck of purple. But. That usually gave you another thing which was a light purple instead of dark purple, which the color is on your board. Vote token and and then there’s also a blue color for player. Then at the same time. Besides the dark purple for get usually generating votes that act that. Production area there is a dark brown. That almost looks like a dark purple. That is production of the. Your popularity, which is the third victory. Point track. So that was a yellow circle that was on a brown space. So you had to connect the shape and color of the area to know the type of action you’re taking, and then the symbol within it, which could be the same color or a different color as a different shape to tell you then what resource, what victory, point, track, etc the you would then move or get.
00:50:11 – 00:55:06
and. So was layers of thinking you had to think with every single space. And if you take what’s called. Conquering province it changes up because you can make your production areas better by doing that. You slaughter them in. So if I was to take the purple one. Could add another purple thing, but it might be a different type of icon that I get in different type of color. And the hard part was to and I know I’m just kind of laying out things I think it’s important to bring up seeking the NASA. Was that the victory points had a symbol on them. So make it better. For like if you’re colorblind however the victory point tokens, there was no sticker. There was no screen printing anything on them for a nor the resource cubes to distinguish them easily and the spaces they were on the on your player board. The although you get a square cube of that color, the the space you’d put it into is square but with the sides bent into each other like bose like two sides of a circle coming together. So. It wasn’t always clear because that can slightly look almost like a hexagon. I See So. This was something that that I I did notice in terms of so one of the things that I I made sure to do before making the decision to purchase this as I, always try to watch. Some of the folks who get early copies and I watched Rondos play through a as well. This game and then I I noticed Rodham making an a number of. Mistakes in his playthrough. In regards to exactly what you’re talking about the ICONOGRAPHY and the the difference between these things I think my my question Bruce is. So the color you described these colors and the different ways in which they play out but. Correct me if I’m misunderstanding this really when you’re talking about production of Color So. Let’s take red. For example, Yeah Red Cubes, our military right to present your military power and then. Read victory points are power that circles Yup Yup and the red heck says is producing military. And that’s not necessarily know. So it is producing, producing, read, producing the Red Section on your player board, which could include military, but you could upgrade it by conquering provinces. But with if you were to play with the advanced sides, it might not be military. Oh. Yeah. Interesting right and when you upgrade it by adding provinces in might not be military. Yeah. So, but but you’re producing that section right right and so. When you’re producing then so let’s say you do produce a military. Okay you. Is it not true that you are then that military into power, there’s other things you can do with it besides turning it into power, but your. Ultimate goal is to turn it into power. For the purposes of victory points is that correct or am I missing something there? Yeah. You’re there’s a disconnect so you would and it’s a great question. You would turn. Usually if you’re taking that production area, you’re going with the base side of your player boards right that would be military, which means that you could get the military cubes to add to your player board the red section, which then has a shield with two swords icon, which you can then use on the main board. When. Those spaces are activated and you happen to have a worker there to then get provinces. You actually do not spend military units to go up on the red victory point track in the Green Zone you’ll spend to money to go up one on the victory on that victory point track, and you’ll also get a vote. There is no spending of military units to get. Red Victory points. Yeah, I think that makes things very confusing, right? Especially, if you’re getting a province that’s going to be for something else that never gets you the the red in the end.
00:55:06 – 01:00:02
Sure I I understand I think. Part of that is understanding the the. So I would compare what you’re describing very much. To. A Game I know that you’ve actually played this trick. Kerryon, I have played. Wear. So with your carry on, right your. When you take it and you look at it as a Like you’ve you pull all of the. Story the narrative out of it it becomes very confusing about the sequence in which things take place. Right, and so I think when you’re look what you’re describing to me is when you’re just looking at the ICONOGRAPHY. It’s hard to put two and two together. Right but when you start to create the narrative in your brain a little bit right. So I’m earning victory points I’m earning military power. And I’m going to use my military to go out and conquer provinces and these provinces are going to give me. A boost to my production of some type of other resource it may be military, it may be culture, it may be. Gold our wealth but I’m using those my military to conquer provinces which are giving me an upgrade to my i. think the disconnect is that the ICONOGRAPHY may not be perfect with. V. Story that this game is trying to tell you that that is accurate. I do think that’s accurate. Especially when you look at your player board the aside the basic side. I’m going to go through them for you. Yell Yellow Heck’s has where you’ll get to money right that if you do the yellow one, you’ll get to money. If you do the purple one, you’ll get five. Five culture. So it’s a purple within a blue symbol on it. The Red One will give you military. The Brown production will give you power the red victory points. So you’ve got this brown hexagon with a large red circle on it. which makes the hexagon hard to see. So. So it sounds like it’s it’s it’s an issue of. Puzzling out. The ICONOGRAPHY. Like you that’s why I said flat out. I thank you for helping me get there. That’s why I said flat out you like we had to play the entire first game and probably most of a second. No matter if I was playing to player if I was more player just honestly my current feel right now is that out have to play it without using the sand timers for the sand. Just so we can understand those layers because. It is it’s a little muddy. And so you re like we to understand the pattern of the inauguration in those layers, but then also the pattern of these different spaces flipping right. So there’s just a it’s essentially a whole culture and itself with two cultures in it to then understand and we didn’t even talk about. The achievement deck and things like that. Nor at the end of the round, little bonuses and things like that. So there’s still other layers to this. Understood now. For me, I think this is a game. So one of the things that my wife said is if the thing about this game is that it’s about time in the boxes time conquers all. And the thing that made this fun for people at the Game Day was playing it with these timers and it is an innovative thing of like using time to do more powerful things I’ve actually love it when games have that. Was a game. We got a couple of years ago from BG attending be. Called Samarra when you wanted to do production of another worker, you had to offline a worker for nine months because guess what they’re pregnant. So. That manipulation is cool because different things take different amounts of time. So that is cool to have that in real time. But the hard part for us was well, how many times I have to play it where I can have the real game. Right. So if you have a group that is committed and what and is going to go through the, we’re going to understand this. We’re going to understand like you’re doing your five by five. I bet by game three, you’re going to be in a really good place and probably have a lot of fun. We have to be willing to get to game three. So.
01:00:03 – 01:05:01
Yeah I find this very interesting. So Bruce I, I know you haven’t. Played Zolkin we we have this a little bit earlier but Zolkin is a game that that Jamie stagnant lower has compared the feel of. Pendulum to. And that is. The puzzle of the game is how to manage. A representation of time whether that be in Zolkin Turns our rounds right you’re. You’re you’re leaving your workers on the board for a number of rounds. Or for the purpose of pendulum either these. Turns that you’re simulating the passage of time via or or the sand time or themselves. Do. You feel that that is something that comes through when you’re. Using when you’re not using the sand timers, do you feel like you are man? The puzzle is managing. Time. or do you feel like you get so lost in this puzzle of figuring out the ICONOGRAPHY? That, you lose that time management piece. The felt the time management because it does walk you through when the different things will flip and we were actually able to think okay blacks gonNA, flip next. So like let’s see you I can manipulate that. So we did have that and we definitely had the other thing of like I can’t put it there. I had to call her out or she had to call me out for putting a worker someplace. We couldn’t which I don’t know that we’d be able to do in real time just to put that out there. But we were able to feel that pressure of that wall of we can’t go there because there’s a timer or how can I make sure to manipulate that we definitely felt that. I think the hard part was is that with the art being as cool as it is on the player boards and things like that? And then this. Enigma of the layers to the actions spaces. Then how do you generate the things that any resemblance of theme for US was lost? So we lost our why am I doing this? And Yeah so that so there was a disconnect of. Trying to figure out that puzzle and trying to know where I’m trying to go and but having that theme that narrative theme of anything kind of go through. Sure Though? I think that brings me to my next question, which is, do you think that the puzzle? Is, enough. To hold up against a lack of theme or or an inability to see the theme. So. It depends on which puzzle we’re talking about the timer puzzle. Yes I think that is. The puzzle of the action spaces I don’t think so. Okay. And I say that because. My my wife pick this one character and because kind of looks like a almost like a the queen from Allison Wonderland. Korean hearts so and. I had this almost like beast guy from beauty and the beast with counting his money. So my guys all about money. But that wasn’t necessarily what I was trying to do at the in the game and that got lost by trying to figure out the puzzle of the game of the. Action Selection. Which I know they tried to mitigate I, didn’t talk about this. But every, there’s the three areas of the board and there’s two rows per one where you’ll put a time or one where you won’t have a timer. The action spaces are actually the same icons on both rose so you really only have to learn three tracks. It’s just how many workers can go in those spaces change from Rwanda two or vice versa. So, they did trying make it a little bit more streamlined, but those layers and iconography. Aspects made me lose a theme with that. But I could see if you want if you had the timer element and you wanted to play up your character. You could probably do that. But the other part makes is where it gets, lost. So. I have one more question on on the theme ing here. And I think this comes to how you learn and how you teach a game. and. We played a lot of games together, but I don’t know that we’ve really done a whole lot of teaching gains to one another. And so. My question for you is when you are learning or teaching a game. How much? Do.
01:05:01 – 01:10:02
You read into the theme when you’re so when you get a new game. And you. So, let’s take pendulum for example. Yeah. The first page of the rulebook. Is this story. Right, you sit down and read that story and become immersed in the world before you start to learn the game. Or do you sit down and learn the game and? To pull the theme out of it. Personally for me when I am learning a game full first of all whenever I’m getting a game. then. This is probably no surprise as a podcast, her in the Gaming Hobby I consume a lot of content. A lot of content and that decision to get something doesn’t really come likely except if it is things like. I know, I’ve already heard all of these things and read all these things. So yeah, absolutely. In that moment, I’m going to buy it. But I put a lot of weight behind making those decisions. So for this one, like I had watch everything for radio I had watched. The watch it played video by Rodney. I’d listen to other reviews online I the. Dice Tower where Tom Vassal talked about it, and so I put a lot into it. But when I’m learning the game then so Rodney always introduces like he has like a one paragraph thing which this has. For this game in particular on the first page split up into two halves I read the right half. Of the general overview theme. Because, I think that that is a trick and a tip for good teaching is to create a narrative of what the heck we’re trying to do even if it’s anecdotal and small, right? To try and capture that. Then when replaying, let’s try and tell a story of what we’re doing right So. That’s kind of how I go about it. Yes so that that is generally speaking also one of one of the tips that I have really picked up on more recently as I’ve been trying to improve the way in which I teach and talk about a game. And so with pendulum, right the the. The theme here is your in this fantasy world That has been ruled by a timeless king for for. An ERA YEP and the timeless king has gone missing, and so there is a power vacuum that all of these different. Nobles. Are are trying to fill to become the the next timeless king. And so. As. You’re going through that then. Do you so so for me at least when when I’m than when I take that concept and I start reading the rules. I am then building the narrative in my brain. Right of these at this action is the equivalent of me doing my character doing X. Y. or Z. Right. do you feel like that’s possible in this game or do you feel like it’s so abstracted? That that the the theme is is impossible to come through. So I think that that theme of there’s a power vacuum. Right, and that is like, yes, it has flavor text about that kingdom and things like that. But when you’re playing is a player, honestly I think you’d care more about your person. and it doesn’t listen. The story has six paragraphs I’m looking at it right now. And then your character which has a basic and advanced side each of which with their own separate Decca for cards. Has a single one to two cents thing. About them on page five of the rulebook. And the thing is about this you’re having to learn everything else about it, but then it comes after let me tell you about these characters. right One thing I didn’t even get into that. It’s just important to mention is before getting to that page three of the robot because page one is the cover. Page three the rule book is a photo of the game, right so to help them with setup, its giant printed up, this is a pretty huge sheet of paper Listeners if you’ve played like viticulture or some other games before where there’s definitely a way like a way where all the icons are oriented where you can read them like looking at a painting, right? This is printed if you were to turn that. About one hundred degrees to the left to the right. So you’re actually looking at this from almost an upside down angle to set up the board.
01:10:04 – 01:15:02
So before you even get to the give you these five paragraphs, six paragraphs, but then it hits you with this. Not The easiest thing to set up the board. That then throws you back into. Here’s one paragraph on each of these characters. And then here’s another how many pages worth. Here’s another seventeen pages of rules. So. Bruce I. We’re we’re running a little I. Know I know and I I there’s so much more that I want to get in with this game because like I said I, this is a game that I’ve been looking forward to for since it was announced and and. As many issues as I think. I could see it having and all of these things that you’ve brought up I think are valid points I’m it. It’s definitely something that I want to get to the table experience and hopefully we can revisit it on a future. Yeah where maybe you’ve got some more plays under your belt or or I’ve got a couple plays undermine. But. I guess let’s just go with what is your overall takeaway and your feel from this game because it it sounds a little. Negative but but maybe maybe is there something here that? You think is worth. I mean, it sounds like you your interested in revisiting it. So what what is it that you’re interested in revisiting yet and I thank you for prompting it that way. And I will say I’m not trying to be negative I’m just wanting to present it to our listeners and yes, we’ve Kinda gone way longer than you and I both anticipated but it generated a lot of good questions because it is new it has these new elements that haven’t really been seen before. And, that needs to be unpacked. Actually give you the answers. So with it I do personally think that I will play this again. As I because I am dying to try with people who know what’s going on. That being said. For some players, they might not do that. And I respect completely respect this game and I respect what is going on here but I just need to acknowledge that some. I’m going to have to find players who are making that investment to play it out to learn it. Because I think. Then then there could be some cool things that happen from those who really understand and can go past those not the puzzle of the Congress and colors but the understanding because I don’t think it’s a, it’s not as much a puzzle as it is. Almost abstracting the abstracted in your own mind to understand innately where things aren’t how they work. So. That’s where I need to get and I’m excited to do that because I wanna see. The fullest of what these timers can do and the cutthroat nece that can come with that the Oh, I meant to pick that up the timer flipped. Now with a person’s stuck there, what do I do because it’s not like you can use them for another action that’s base actually because you slide them. I’m dying to see that. and. That’s why I say that I could have seen at a prototype day where didn’t have the extra things on it where that would most likely come through a lot clear. And that is the thing in the experience that I’m wanting to have so. Is My is my wife GonNa play with me again she’s already told me no. But. I’m going to hang onto it because I think that I can have that other experience and I’m in a place where I have the luxury of being able to hang onto some games. Right? So and also to be fair I can’t really play it with a group before because of covid right now and I wanna see what interaction that that experience is going to facilitate down the line but. Did this game and again, this is not trying to be negative but did this game hit as well as the other stone Meyer, games for us. No, it didn’t. But ironically like the name of the game, a pendulum. We all we all don’t stay in one area for time we kinda swing back and forth, and so this one skin to be a swing, one way or the other each person that’s going to play it. All right. Well, listeners very. Indepth look at pendulum from Steinmeyer Games a little bit of a mixed review from Bruce. I will be honest. This conversation Bruce has not diminished.
01:15:03 – 01:19:30
Desire to play at all because I, WanNa see some of this inaction, right right and so hopefully, by the time we record next I’ll have had a chance to get it to the table and can provide. A very brief. Explanation of my thoughts as well and so be looking forward to that and if this sounds like something that that is interesting to you Yeah. I I believe that. As of this recording has not launched for retail. So Bruce and I both pre-ordered this and I believe it should be going to retail sometime in the next few weeks I think timber was when they planned on end of September Yell Retail Release Yeah Yes. Yes it is. It’s mixed for me and again I’m going to get it to the table again I’m looking forward to that, but it’s just a game to know some stuff about so just wanted to put it out there still love Stone Meyer very happy for Travis Mary Having Happy for Robert and I’m getting their game published and doing the school art. But it’s a game that just do look I look forward to hearing Josh, now that you’ve heard from me, what things that stood out for me. Kind of what staffer you and how that landed for you. Listeners stay tuned for that one in an upcoming episode. But Josh. We went way over our normal time. So with that, I am going to cut us off. so how `bout you do some closing thoughts Absolutely. Once again, I want to circle back around to say thank you once again to everyone who supported Bruce and I for the extra life campaign My d twenty dice from extra life as a gift is coming in the mail today very excited to to get that and so could not have have made that. Day. As much of a success as it was without all the support from you. So thank you once again and as a reminder will put it out a second time here. The contest code for this month is thank you as well. No space in that. Listeners you you’re wonderful and your generosity and support means the world to me and I know it does for Bruce’s well. So thank you. I hope you enjoyed this episode I hope you stuck around with us to the end a very indepth. Look at a couple of games here This has been impactful and this has been helpful for you in deciding you know what types of game do you want to be playing? What types of experiences you want to be having a stable? Thank you for listening and I wish you all the best. Thank you, Josh So listener hop on over on the facebook feeds, all those kind of things to check out those different livestream things that we did for extra life. Thank you so much for your support in that It was actually really nice to see all that and just know that despite everything going on in the world, we can do some good. And we hope that this has been helpful and we are so thankful to have you as listeners and we want you to enter that contest because we want to praise you in any way we can so make sure to enter the secret code you get those extra ways to enter. But we just WanNa say thank you again for all the things hop on over at all the social media page pages. Thank you to our Patriot supporters. Thank you for being a Gamer in this amazing hobby. And that we’re still thankful that we have all this technology till allow things to happen and to enable these things happen and which wasn’t the case really a couple of years ago it’s just really been reflective time. So we encourage you to and thank you for staying on this long episode look forward to hearing more thoughts on upcoming episodes. I’m as well a really fun and exciting and humbling other thing that Josh and I’ve been working on behind the scenes with some others for a while and we’re going to announce. On of coming, you definitely don’t WanNa miss that and young going to spoil like teas that one as long as we can because it is a big deal So I will leave it tied to our quote that we always end the show with ’cause it has to do with it, but that is to hopefully wherever you are in the world. The matter what’s going on that you are out there you’re able to do some good. We encourage you to go make your positive impact on the world. Thank you.