Root, Updates, News, and a myriad of Kickstarters

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In today’s episode Bruce and Josh talk about what they have been playing, discuss some legal news in the hobby, have an impact review for Root by Leder Games as well as its expansions, and then discuss some of the great Kickstarters to pay attention to. There is quite a bit of content in this episode thanks to Bruce and Josh experimenting with different segments. All the more content for you to enjoy and to help you make informed decisions for your gaming group.

Specific games discussed: Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right by Leder Games, Mystery a Graphic Novel Adventures game by Van Ryder Games, Gloomhaven by Cephalofair Games, Betrayal at House on the Hill by Wizards of the Coast, Between to Castles of Mad King Ludwig by Stonemaier Games, Castles of Mad King Ludwig by Bezier Games, Between Two Cities by Stonemaier Games, Cards Against Humanity, Dune by Gale Force Nine, Rex by Fantasy Flight, and briefly talk about Warhammer 40K by Games Workshop

In addition, the Kickstarters discussed are: The Game Designers video documentary, Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina Animated Special, Graphic Novel Adventures Season 2, Fail Faster: Game Designer Journal, Wyrmwood: Table Tiles, Summit, Iwari, Feudum, and Root: The Underworld Expansion

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Transcript

00:00:09 – 00:05:02

In today’s episode of board game impact, Josh and I talked about the games have been playing recently talk about some news going on in the board game hobby do a deep dive into the fan favourite game route by leader games as well as talk about a myriad of kick stars that are going on right now for your benefit enjoy. Welcome to board game impact on board game. Impact, we seek to combine our passions for the board game hobby, as well as education and experiences for your benefit. So that way you can know what experiences were having in the hobby for your game group and your benefit. So that way, you can get even more enjoyment out of this awesome hobby. That’s given us so much. My name is Bruce Brown. I’m Josh Isringhausen, and we are your hosts we did it the same size. Though q. So for those who haven’t been here in a while. Yes, Josh has joined the show. I’d recommend you go back to the last episode. And check that one out in which we kind of go into a full history on Joshua a little bit talk out talk out how him and I had met and kind of came together because of this awesome hobby of game together conventions. Some of the things that he likes go listen to that. But I’m sure a lot of that will come out in the show. So something we talked about in the last episode is that with bringing Josh onto the show. We’re gonna be trying out some different formats and things. So we’ve actually got not one not two not three but four different segments for you today in trying something out. And so this should be pretty fun. But we’re going to start out first by saying and talking about what things been going on, for us lately, in the hobbies that way, you can know and make informed decisions on knowing. Hey, how’re they staying engaged in the hobby and so I’m gonna jump right in Josh if that’s all right with you go for it. All right. So. So the most recent thing, I’ve been doing and actually what I’m gonna be spending all day on in two days playing so couple days before this recording went live is I built, the entire Daedalus productions Inc. Gloom haven insert so gloom haven for those you who are not familiar is an amazing game made by Isaac Childress who’s with Steph air games. It was a Kickstarter super popular so popular, they put out another Kickstarter for it. Number one game on board game. Geek, it is essentially dungeons and dragons roleplaying games in, in a box. And so in the game you can play up to ninety four different scenarios, but with that being said, I said, up to so you won’t necessarily play all the different things, but there has to be enough content for that many scenario. So actually, what’s crazy is the box weighs over twenty pounds and so- Josh, I didn’t even open this thing up until I got the Daedalus productions insert in. Have you ever? Seen a girl played gloom haven. I have not I have seen the box in person, only on your shelf. One time. I’ve. Heard a lot about it. I have a couple friends here in New Orleans who play a pretty regularly, but I have not myself had a chance to sit down. It’s one of those games that looks phenomenal. It sounds amazing. I have a really hard time with legacy gains, which I know is strange considering I spent a good chunk of time last recording talking about a legacy game. But the challenge for me is getting a consistent group. Back to the table. Especially gloom haven is so long, and I already have a couple roleplaying groups that get together on a regular basis. So that kind of fills that niche for me at this point, that makes sense. So actually I had been playing monster the week, roleplaying game and then also dungeons and dragons for a while. But then our dungeon master had a baby and honestly were using gloom haven to scratch that it’s for us ’cause we can’t. Dedicate ourselves to being all the play a role playing game right now. So him and I are just having guy time because gloom haven is a game some of the best from what, what other people have said it’s best to play like one or two players. Honestly, and just to kind of dive deep because you can really explore more content that way and it doesn’t populate as many monsters. So the scenarios don’t go on his long, but it’s been a lot of fun. But the assembling the Daedalus insert that instruction, manual alone had, like twenty seven pages because they were full pictures almost like what you magin a LEGO like step. So it shows that like one thing you do. And that’s all you do except in this case, you’re adding glue, and all those kind of things, but it’s been a lot of fun, so far. And we’ve already unlocked some cool content in the game.

00:05:02 – 00:10:01

I’m gonna give no spoilers for this, but it’s been super fun. I’d recommend if you like dungeons and dragons, like board games are interested in role playing games, but would rather have some more structure. They’re not as much on the roleplaying go. Check this out. There’s a whole ton of Ideo online and also didn’t undocking of it. So you can see all the crazy content in there. And as a side note, I didn’t do that video until I had already made all the insert stuff ’cause I was not going to open it up, and then try and put it back together without it. So yes, Josh what have you? What’s something you’ve been playing lately? So the most recent game that I’ve gotten to the table so I- living in New Orleans. We just ended the mardi gras season about a week and a half ago. And for those of you who don’t know, mardi gras New Orleans, basically shuts down this city, it has been incredibly difficult. I’ve also had some family things come up and had to go back to Eleanor a couple of times in the past month. Been hard to get to the table, but twice now I’ve been able to get to the table. For those of you who know where this comes from the game between two castles of macking Ludvig once again a nother stone Meyer game, not surprise talking. All week are the entire episode last time we recorded about stone Meyer here. I am back again if anyone would like to take a guess at my favorite publisher. Have at it. It’s red raven games. Right. Yeah. It’s not red raven gives the mazing, but stone Meyer Jamie’s fantastic. He blows me away, every time between two castles is actually not Jamie’s game. It is a combination of chew games. A mash up of two games one which was originally published by stone Meyer, and which was between two cities and the castles of mad king Ludwig, and I don’t know the designer or publisher on that one, but somehow, Jamie got together with the designer of that game was able to work something out to publish and create this new game. That is kind of a mishmash of the, to the concept is, you are drafting tiles, and placing them, you’re working with your partners on either side of you to build a castle. So you’re building a castle with your person to your left and a castle with the person to your right drafting tiles, you draft two at a time. Choose the two and you will then decide with your partners which of your two castles, those tiles going into, and which. Where you’re going to place them within your castle. So what it takes from between two cities. It takes the, the whole mechanic of drafting and placing tiles the difference between between two cities in between two. Castles is with cities you are building a three by three grid with castles, it takes from the game castles of mad king Ludvig, this concept of a ridiculous weird. Pattern of cow castle, and so you’re just taking two tiles, and as long as they connect their couple rules about how they have to connect. So they have to be adjacent to another tile above or below some tiles, can be placed below. Different tiles different roles and you’re trying to score your best castle. And there’s a lot of different rules about scoring and how you score your castle changes, depending on what types of rooms you have and what their next to it’s a really really, really fun game. I highly encourage people to check it out. If you haven’t, I think it takes two games that I really enjoyed and it definitely improves upon between two cities. I think if you are chiding deciding between these two games definitely go with between two castles. Castles of mad king Ludvig is different enough that I think it is okay. To have both on your shelf. So I don’t know. Have you played either this game or either of the games? It’s based on sadly. No. But I’ve been hearing a lot of great things especially about castles just in that I sometimes gravitate towards some spatial awareness game. So building those crazy patterns on the table is something that is always attractive. My, I’ve just never honestly, been around someone that has it, but it’s something that I’ve been wanting to check out, especially now that there’s this hodgepodge collaboration. I’ve been wanting to try it.

00:10:01 – 00:15:02

But no one here has it. Well I now own all three of these games. I am keeping them all in my collection awesome. They scratch different itches for me the between two cities is probably not going to get played much at this point. But I will keep it because I have a small OCD about having all of stone Myers games, and I have it. So I might as well keep it. But I have all three of them. Next time. We’re together, we will definitely hit one of these to the table, which one do you think you would take out? I. Of the three I’m going to go with between two castles. I think it makes the has the most interesting interactions with the other people at the table between between two cities has some interesting choices, but I think I think between two castles is just better around the original castles. Has some interaction because there’s some auctioning going on. But really, it feels a lot more Sola solitaire. So I mean girls sitting around the table playing your own game but happen to be playing the same game. Yeah. Like I said, the interaction is, is bidding on the different tiles, and things like that. But really, once you start going down your own rabbit hole. Your castle is going to look very different than everybody else’s. And so while there’s some competition for those pieces, it’s not nearly as an opinion competitive as between two castles. All right. Can’t wait. Literally cannot wait to play as honestly either way. I’ve heard nothing but great things about all three and you’ve just kind of hit the nail on the head with that. So I have to talk, sadly in a different direction. So I finally got the opportunity, my wife played this years before I did. But I finally played trail at house on the. Hill, which came out in two thousand four. Have you ever played this? I have played it the first time I played it. I loved it. It is fallen off of my list serve things that I want to play. And I think I can speak to that right now. So for those of you who are not familiar betrayal at house on the hill came out in two thousand four by rob Davo. And it’s kind of one of those first games that lately that has more more story and added in some elements that are kind of cool, but what you’re doing is essentially, you’re exploring haunted, house, and you start out in the entry, and then you can stay on that floor. You can go up a floor. You can go up to the attic, or you can fall into the basement and potentially get stuck there. If no one finds stairs literally that’s the thing. We were also playing and I didn’t know this, but we were playing with the widow’s walk expansion which came out in two thousand sixteen. They didn’t tell us this. Honestly. I hate to say it, but we didn’t get that great of a rules explanation. They’re like it’s going to be fine. We’re gonna teach you the rules as they come up. I had one turn. So this is a cooperative game where everybody’s kind of working towards something. You’re trying to find out what’s going on in the house. And at some point there’s a hunt they call it a haunt essentially someone or something happens. And it could be one person verse everybody else, or new mission for everybody or something happens in the house. So you don’t know what kind of game it’s going to be until you get to this point. So the haunt triggered, I literally had one turn Josh one turn, and then the hunt triggered a haven’t really learned the rules, yet and the one that triggered for us made it so that we couldn’t speak. I was sitting there, I didn’t yet know the rules of this game I was trying to ask for the rule book to teach myself the rules, and I feel really bad about this, but then I kept having to, like, try and signal questions on how to like questions about what my character can do. And sadly, we ended up after the whole thing, it, it took a while after the whole thing we looked up that scenario. And the one thing it said, on BG was unplayable, because the rule set that give to the people who were not the one character to the one who is different said, you had to do this one thing, what the rule said it gave to the person who was the other thing conflicted, and was different than what it gave to the other players. What I’ve heard, and what I’ve looked up after this session, because I’m like, no, no way, all of these nerves because there’s like fifty scenarios that got added with a widow’s walk. No way. They’re all like this, and I’ve confirmed like they’re not all like that. The thing is that apparently there wasn’t as much play testing with some of these with this one. And we happen to for my first play. Get get this one scenario.

00:15:02 – 00:20:01

So I’m willing to play it again. I’m willing to try it. I’ve actually heard much better things about the betrayal at baldur’s gate, which is the DND themed one actually received that for my secret Santa from BG. So just we haven’t gotten a chance to play at some very excited to try that. But I gotta say, I will, I don’t think I will try widow’s walk again. I know that was a one and done. And I’m sorry, I know I should probably play some of these things more always do. But in all the research I’ve done, everything is pointing towards not going for widows. Walk again, and go for the more updated rule sets that they have to learn from those walk and really put in more time. Just I feel bad going into like that. But I’m kind of curious year thoughts on what I just said. No, I so sadly, I kind of agree a little bit. There are parts of that, that I really, really strongly agree with the big thing. What intrigues me a lot is this is a game that hits a lot of people’s topless. A lot of people love this game. And I understand why it’s exactly what you said, there’s a really good story Ellen and it is a relatively simple rule, set to get your hands around. It’s a really good way to introduce people to narrative driven board games. The one word I would use to describe this game is fragile. It is incredibly incredibly easy to break this game. And it happens because. Of the randomness that is involved in the game. So you are every time you play the game the way, the house is set up is going to look different, the way, the haunt triggers is going to look different. You may play a game that takes thirty forty minutes before the haunted triggered and everybody stock piled up. And everything’s ready to go and the haunt happens. And oh look, the haunt has triggered and the person who is the traitor is one turn away from winning just because of the random way, the game was set up or in like, in your case you could play for five minutes, and the haunt happens. And no one knows what’s going on. And you’re just trying to figure it out as you go. So. But by the same token, I’ve had both. I’ve had similar experiences to both of those. I’ve had really really broken early games. I’ve had really really broken late games the first time I played this game. Like I said, I loved it. I was thrilled. I went out and I immediately bought it for myself and that was because. It was a phenomenal story and it worked really well. And when it works, well, it is a wonderful experience to have. Everybody’s excited. Everything is a race having your good time when it all works out. It’s great, but it’s very easy to not work out. Well, now I will say a good friend of mine. In addition to betrayal baldur’s gate, which I have not had she has to play. But I’ve heard better things about than house on the hill. There’s also a legacy game does just came out and a good friend of mine has it has played it allegedly, you it is set up as a legacy game that you don’t need the same people to play every time the story can develop with adding and dropping players. Pretty simply according to the person who has it. And they have allegedly fixed a lot of these issues. I’ve not played, but I have been asked to sit in on a couple of sessions. And so I’m definitely going to give it a shot like I kinda talked about last recording. I’m the type of person that if everyone else’s enjoying it I will give it a shot, and I will try and see how it works. So I’m willing to give this a second chance. But in terms of the original base game or the widow’s walk. I am actually getting rid of them out of my collection. Just don’t have a strong desire to, to sit down with these anymore just based on how fragile can be, and I really appreciate you talking about that. And it sounds like the new one. The legacy one is kind of fascinating. I’m very curious as to how that work because that’s a big thing with legacy and campaign style games in that. Is that like, hey, I’m going to be? To get the same people. So you’re gonna have to let us know how that goes after you do that.

00:20:01 – 00:25:04

But I also thank you. I think I just really I didn’t expect to go that deep. Honestly, but I think just needed a process all that. But it’s good to hear that you’ve kind of felt some of the same things, but like I said, I cannot wait to play betrayal. Baldur’s gate. Also ready talked about DND and roleplaying game theme things. So it also might also kind of trigger some deeper things inside of me and inside of the players because those are also up our alley. So I’m excited about it. All right. Josh what do you got? So the like I said, I have not had a lot of time to play a lot of games. But the thing that I have been doing more recently, I started scratching each that I did not know I had in that is I have begun painting war, hammer minis. So we’re hammer forty K. We’re hammers forty thousand the combat tactile tactical combat miniatures game. Went out and we have lost Josh. He is come to the dark side. No. This is actually phenomenal. I cannot wait to hear about this. So I went out I decided I live three blocks away from games a games workshop store. Games workshop is the publisher of war, hammer forty thousand and similar games based in the, the war hammer universe. I went out, I bought the starter set along with a starter set of paints. The long term goal here is I have a couple actual board games. So a knack, Rene. I just is one of my favorite games online times for by mine class. Yes. And I have some really great minis for that game. I have some minis from the DOD father that I’ve wanted to paint for a while. I’ve just never done a lot of miniatures painting. So I wanted to try my hand at it. There was a sale. I got the starter set for a pretty reasonable price. I’m obsessed. This is. I when I am not out at a game night or going out for drinks or dinner, whatever if I’m not being social, whenever I need. My introvert me time. This is the perfect activity to have it something that we can sit on the couch me and my fiance and watch TV and I can kind of paint some miniatures, and it’s something to do with my hands and kind of think about, that’s not taking a whole lot of my time or focus. I can be with someone without having to hold a conversation or you know, very casually. Hold conversation. Just a really great way for me to relax and de-stress at the end of the day to do something that I enjoy with my hands that. Is focused. But mindless, if that description makes sense, I don’t have to really think hard about what I’m doing, but I am focused on something. And my energy is putting into being put into something productive. In quotation marks they’re productive. But. Sense. It’s cathartic it really is. I, I haven’t decided if we’re hammer is going to be a game that I enjoy playing just because I don’t have people to play with, but the, the physical activity of putting miniatures together and painting them has been a really, really great release for me. And it’s something that I if if you just want something to do by yourself and, and to engage in that’s it, it’s an expensive hobby. Don’t get me wrong or hammer is I went into that store and was blown away by the pricing. It is a lot and. I you know, do what you can do within your budget. But this is definitely something I’d recommend for people who, who, like a little bit of alone time or need a little bit of alone time. But needs something to do that is engaging and to one of the things I love to do is put on an audio book and just paint for twenty or thirty minutes.

00:25:04 – 00:30:04

It’s a great way to kind of line down at the end of the day, and honestly, super jealous. And I really going into that deep of a dive on that. And for those curious, tabletop miniatures games are really full hobby games. So you can super dive deep on them. You can read books, you can do all this painting, assembling painting him again, if you wanna put green stuff on them and do it all, again, but then you can actually play these games that honestly go out over hours. They have a now at new condensed version of that called kill team, which I really wanna try, which is like squad based instead of full army. But I have personally, Josh, I hate to say this. I have set a limit on myself, and I have said that until I get through my PHD program. I’m not allowed. Because I will go off the I will. I I’ve been wanting to play so bad actually played in middle school growing up. That was cool. I was one of those kids did not paint them. Well, I like because you had to have three colors, so I dip them and then did two colors. But then I didn’t really know what the heck I was doing. But I cannot wait to finish the PHD program and get like full armies and get into this, because I think that I would love just sitting there and painting just like you were talking about like that just sounds like a dream to have a nice relaxing thing to be able to do. And then also be proud of at the end of it. And no you showed me right before this recording started one of your minis, and I’m just gonna say our listeners are going to have to see some of these photos posted on like interim and stuff. I don’t see that. All right. It’s not I’m not that good listeners petitioned him. We will we’ll see once I get a couple of things completely done. I might I might take one or two of my better looking minis and put put them up for, for everybody to list to see, but I think one hurry through that PHD program because I absolutely will put together a kill team. And next time we are together or whenever that may be. I will absolutely sit down and play some Kilty with you, yet, is the route, I will likely go with this. I don’t see myself having the time or the desire really to go full army. I’m really enjoying what I’m doing, but I don’t see myself going long-term with this. It is a really relaxing, fun thing to do. But I could see myself going whole hog, it would just mean no more board games. And I don’t think I can do that to myself, that’s fair and kill teams as a century. The board game version of it all because you can play them in two hours. So I’ve got another thing, real quick. And then we’re gonna move onto the next section. So I actually was sent something from a publisher. That I’ve had on the show before. And so this is from van rider games. So if you go back a couple episodes, you can listen to where I talk about when it was just me in the saddle days where I talked about captive, which is a graphic novel adventure game in which you literally going through graphic novel and everyone of those panels of art has a number. And then inside of it, it’s a Tuesday adventure. So it’ll have let’s say you’re sitting at a desk, and it might say, one twenty seven on the computer or like hundred ninety three on a drawer. You’ll turn to the corresponding panel number whether you want to open the drawer or interact with the computer, and so it’s really immersive storytelling through pictures, but I was sent a pre production copy of the one of their latest Syria, so captive as part of season, one the game I was sent is called mystery and that’s part of their season two, and we’re going to talk a little bit about that in a second because that’s actually one of their Kickstarter game. So we’re going to. Kickstarter and a little bit. But this game is not available yet. But thank you van writer for sending it. And so this game is all about, I will Josh of you ever gotten a chance to see these or play any of these? I haven’t seen them. I haven’t I believe, actually the episode you did with van writer came out, like right around the time that we recorded our first episode together. And so I was able to listen to that, and I’ve heard about them before, but I’d never heard that deeply about them and I definitely will be backing this kick starter when it comes out without a doubt like it. I think it will scratch a similar issue for me that the painting will do, I think it is. It sounds like a really great way to spend some downtime, some alone time, some introvert time and.

00:30:05 – 00:35:00

I love graphic novels. I really miss choose your own adventure. That was I grew up with those late eighties. Early nineties choose your own adventure style books, and that was one of the things that I really loved as a kid. So this idea really resonates with me, and I’m I’m intrigued to try it when I am able to get that. And so I didn’t realize they were doing a new Kickstarter. So I’m really excited about this because I will definitely be be looking forward to that. And so yet, and I walked to be sending you. I’ll send you my copy of this. When I get through it because I have not finished it at all. But this one’s about, it’s different than the captive one. And if you remember in that episode of talk, like all of them are kind of different. This one is actually you’re a superhero. And essentially, that I’m going to say like the Justice league essentially needs more people to fight this evil criminal. But you are a good for nothing hero levels, zero. And so you start off at levels zero. You get to put some points into either. I’m not kidding. When I say this after you name your character, you put some points into either flight strength, super senses all three of those make sense. We’re used to those the last and final option being super rich. Yeah. I mean, if you think about it that is what Tony stark. Is that is Bruce, Wayne Swayne is yeah. Yeah. It’s and it’s really super cool. Art that they’ve updated some of the graphics in this, because all of them have a slightly different art style. But it’s cool is I’ve been playing this, and it’ll ask me, hey, if you have points in this thing, turn to this page, if you don’t turn to this page, or if you have multiple, you can choose your own adventure, it’s got a map and you can go and explore the city. And if you put more things into flight, for example, and says this and the introduction, then you can actually get there faster. And so that might change the way the story interacts, which is cool, something that I have to point out. So this is a pre-production copy. And so I think they’re going to be changing around some of this. But there’s different levels of your character that they can be in the way that, you know, whether or not you can do something by looking at the color of the number in the text. So sometime, that’s sometimes it’s hard to see just because Dern Ferenci eating the level between, like purple and dark blue can be a little difficult. But I have had a lot of fun playing this already. It’s really funny how some of this stuff works, and it’s not like your traditional superhero stuff, because what’s weet is the book is littered with QR codes. And so when you approach new building, you can scan the QR code, and they’ll give you history of that building. So you get taken to a special website, and then they’ll give you hints about other things in the story to. And there’s once you do certain things in the story, then other things that aren’t numbers become relevant, and might be a phones ringing. You can answer it. But until you figure out how to answer the phones you don’t know just a point put that out there. It’s been a lot of fun. I cannot wait to keep going. I’m still level zero hero, even though I’ve been playing for a little bit today and over the last couple of days. Just when I can might characters name is captain automatic. I don’t know why. But that’s what I named him. This thing is a lot of fun if you like superheroes if you like graphic novels if you’ve ever liked user-owned adventures, check this out, but absolutely. Check out the Kickstarter and check out the other ones there, which I’m going to we’re gonna mention here in a little bit when we go over some Kickstarter, which is going to be one of our final segments. Say it’s a lot of fun. Josh, I’m going to send it to you. Once I get, I would, I would be free. Killed by that. I really think the concept is really interesting. I really like how people are starting to integrate some of the technology that’s available to us into some games listening to people talk about games like detective and some of those types of things that are really, really heavily integrated, but the idea of using a QR code in a graphic novel, that’s a to add some flavor and some context, that’s a really neat way to go about doing that. Without. Astronomically increasing your costs or taking a lot of space that maybe not everyone wants to explore. I think that’s a really, really great way to balance the. Visual medium, that you have with graphic novel with giving a lot of that depth and background of knowledge, that you may not have going into. It’s a really good idea. My, my hat’s off van van writer on this one.

00:35:00 – 00:40:06

That’s that’s great. I actually wonder if on the back end. I don’t know if they’re doing this or not. But if they aren’t van writer AJ an age as a phenomenal human. I don’t know if they’re doing this or not. But because I’m going from the same IP address from my phone on all of these, I’m actually curious, if they can track my progress and the way I navigate the story. I don’t know if they’re doing that. I think it’d be freaking cool, if they are just so they know if they’re not. Hey, AJ might be a good idea. But if you’re curious just wanna see how people interact with yourself but I recommend checking this thing out. It’s it’s been a lot of fun. So, yes, Josh, we have we’re going to go into our next segment here. And so that is going to be about some other stuff going on this. This is where we can pull in. Maybe some news articles or things coming up, which is exactly what we’re going to be doing, but we just have a couple free today. So Josh sadly, or maybe not sadly, depending on your perspective. But the courts have come into the board game industry and not saying in terms of hey, there’s a game where you’re judge, Judy I’m saying courts have actually had some decisions in the board game industry, and that is about the game crabs against humidity for those of you who are unfamiliar who’ve ever seen this. It looks like a red version of cards against humanity with little crab hand sticking out, Josh, if you ever confused, the two between these, you know, I can’t say that I’ve ever confused the to the first time I saw was a little bit baffled. I guess is the proper word. For exactly why this lawsuit, I think came about is. It doesn’t look like the game. It is clearly not cards against humanity is but it just kind of leaves you scratching your head like. Really this is what we’re doing now like we’re not even hiding the fact that we’re ripping off a really, really popular game. It was an interesting idea that an interesting. Experienced the first time I saw this. But I guess give me your take on it. Sure. So and listeners what the courts have been saying what the courts now saying, is that although with, like music and stuff, where it’s like, obviously a parody or some different art forms, where it’s obviously, a parody, the courts have come in on this one and said, no, that doesn’t hold up in this case using the reasonable person standard. It is difficult to determine which is made by which company and that one seems like the other. And so, in some other things that are going on the industry that we’re not going to get into. Just for some clarification. You cannot really like own aboard game. And then no, that’s weird to say, but, like you can’t copyright the game you can copyright the name you can copyright the rule set the text you use on cards and those kind of things, and you can hold some rights with art, however the game itself like somebody can take all of your same mechanics, put a new theme on it, and then just come out with it, and although that sucks. That’s just the nature of what the US laws kinda say right now. But whether or not, you can doesn’t mean you necessarily should I will say that when cards against humanity started coming out with some different expansion packs that differed from just that standard black box with white writing. That’s when I started noting crabs against humidity, and I did have a hard time distinguishing the two and so I didn’t know because there’s nowhere on this very simple box. Except the back side, which is covered because his laying down or on the shelf. I didn’t know that they were made by different publishers, until, like I dug deeper. And so I actually had to go a couple of sips of figure it out, so I can see whether coming from I just hate the fact that we have to do something like this. That’s kind of where on that with it and. So what was weird to me? The first time it saw is that it was kind of marketed as, if you’re tired of the card, you have in your cards against humanity deck. Add these in, they have a different background, but. They’re functionally no difference. And so I, I struggle with that, like. It’s. Makes business sense. Sure, you have a multimillion dollar company. That’s you know, blowing up this. Party game seen a little bit. It seems really really ethically wrong to do it. But it makes financial sense because like you said there is no copyright on this mechanic. This is I mean, and I personally backed a game that in my opinion is a blatant ripoff of cards against humanity with a rhythm and that rethink and that is.

00:40:07 – 00:45:00

Joking hazards, a game by night, and happiness. It is a centrally cards against humanity. But instead of just words it is a three panel comic strip. And let’s be on humanity is really just apples to apples. Yes. That’s all it is. It is a dull apples to apples. Absolutely. So in terms of the mechanic, stuff it the ripping off the mechanics, doesn’t really bother me that much. But it’s the straight up. This is we’re going to tell you that it’s essentially the same thing, just a different company. Feels a little weird. I, I can’t quite decide how I feel about it because. Yeah. And the reason the court said the step in on this one a little bit more. I have the case open in front of me. Cards against humanity. Actually did give crabs against humidity limited permission back in two thousand thirteen to do a very limited very small in scope print run of this thing to be sold only on their website. Then what happened in the reason they stepped in was because crabs against humidity is now available in like target, and Barnes and noble and all these other places, which violated the original permissions that the company that owns cards against humanity actually gave them. And so that’s why all this kind of came about. Yeah. I can completely. I’m right there with you about the mechanics. And also, I think that in being able to not patent or not really protect the mechanics. We can actually get better games that are themed along the same lines or streamline things better. But it sounds like there was a little bit more behind the scenes on this one, too, that this is just where they kind of had to step in. Yeah. And I mean to me, this is extremely interesting suit. I have a little bit of legal background. I am aiming to eventually get my JD here in the near future, just the work that I do involves quite a bit of legal understanding. So the idea of a lawsuit in the board game industry is interesting to me. It’s also kind of disappointing because it’s not the type of news, that I would like to see people talking about when it comes to a board game company, and I hold, no real feelings towards either of these companies. But, but they are to say that cards against humanity is not a massive player within the board game or hobby gaming scene is, is ridiculous. It is absolutely one of the titans of this, this scene. And so to see this. Kind of be the headline be the topic around this community is a little bit frustrating. But it is interesting. And it brings up some internal dialogue within myself that I’m I’m left questioning a couple of different things. Yeah. Like I can’t get myself to although I do own this game, it’s from a different a of me playing games just to call it. Now I’m not saying that I am above it. It’s just I’ve seen it brings some things on players that don’t necessarily want to see happen again or bring some conversations up. So just to say, there was a card about the Virginia Tech shooting. And like I work in higher education, and there was another person, I worked with on staff that were playing, and he went to Virginia Tech and was was in residence life when that all happened. And so we intentionally took that game out of the deck, because that’d be super triggering for him. And not something that we’ve. Experience. And so. Why would we want to do that to one of our friends? Right. And so although it is something that brings a lot of people in a lot of people get excited. There are some things in there that I think that some people should pause. And see, should we add this card in or should we just look through the deck to make sure we’re being inclusive for audience? Just put that out there and I think the whole mentality behind this game. Right. It’s shock shock value rights. It’s one of the shock jock mentality. I won’t deny that, like I own this aim as well. I don’t play it. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually played my personal copy I play this game relatively frequently whenever I’m around friends who don’t play games because this is what they wanna play. And again, I I have fun with it. It’s you’re sitting around you have a couple of drinks. It’s a stupid thing to do grows. Yeah.

00:45:00 – 00:50:01

And, and it’s, it’s fun. It brings joy and laughter there. Definitely some things that you could definitely see as being uncomfortable for people who have a really strong personal connection. But. Again, it kind of bring back to the line of lawsuit. It’s. This mechanic or this idea behind it is nothing new, it’s something that’s been around forever. And so the conversation is really interesting around this game as a whole, and then you add in this different element this different layer of the, the, the somebody else, kind of just blatantly taking that and saying, this is our own. And we’re going to I hadn’t heard about the trade up. Ignoring of a previously agreed upon discussion because I’ve been seeing this the first time I saw this was in a game shop, and so, yeah, of course, that’s very different than going to a very specific website. Order it. And so that, that is incredibly interesting to me that, that, that is the extent we had to go to, to, to reach this conclusion. So let’s go to a different note. And that is there some news that just came out that I am super excited for I cannot. Wait. This is a game a game is coming back out after nearly forty years of being out of print. I’m not kidding forty years now. Don’t get me wrong accompany, lost the rights to it. They came out with another game that just was just same everything, but a different theme. Not the same, though. And that game is dune based on the book dune now I grew up, Josh, I grew up playing like June two thousand the real time strategy game, that’s kind of like command and conquer and I fell in love with the dune lore. I’ve been reading through the book. It’s one of the best science fiction books ever made. I’ve never gotten to play this game. And also just listeners know. Game that I was talking about that. Got this is essentially the reprint of that was wrecks which was in the twilight imperium universe, which, again is fantasy flight games with Christian Petersen. And they had the rights to do, but then lost it and had to come out with Rex that this game. I cannot wait Josh like re you ever into dune, are you into this? So get ready to be blown away here. So dune for listeners who aren’t aware of this, a book written in the late sixties, I wanna say by Frank Herbert or Hebert. Herbert that it’s Herbert I have the book in my hands. I listened to dune on audio book for the first time two months ago. Oh my gosh. And just for clarification nineteen sixty five sixty five I had never I had heard Jin like right jokes. And when you’re in the general, nerd culture, you hear about these types things. I’d never read read the book never really paid that much attention to it happened to go on sale on audible. A while back I was like, yeah, no. This is worth giving a shot. Wow. I am currently in love with it. I’m halfway through dune Asya the second book in the series. It’s it’s phenomenal. And actually, interestingly enough. I did not know there was ever a game originally based around this. But while I was listening to a conversation at popped up on a Facebook group. I’m a part of which was, what piece of? Pop culture. Would you like to see a game made around? Or do you think would make a good game? And I was in the middle of listening to the first book on audio book and dune would make a great game. And so I looked it up. I was like has anyone ever made a game around doing and so I- Google it. I’m looking lo and behold, there’s a copy for sale on EBay for two hundred fifty dollars. Well, I guess I’m not going to ever get to play this game. So I was thrilled when they announced the reprint of this. I really, really excited, I think this is going to be fantastic.

00:50:01 – 00:55:01

It will definitely be on my shelf. It will. I’m promising myself now not be on my shelf of shame of games that I own, and don’t play. I will definitely get this to the table. I I’m really really thrilled to have seen that there’s going to be a reprint of this. I was I’m loving the series and it was completely unrelated to this announcement that I just kinda stumbled upon it. I’m really, really happy. So this is all coming out from Gill force nine and Josh, I did not know that you were reading the book and things like this is just something I heard about the other day, I got super excited and just could not wait. And so I’m real glad that this is like peeking all the interest for you. Because guess what that means by the time this comes out, we’re gonna get to play conventions. And that’s going to be freaking sweet. I will say, though, have you have you seen the movie the old movie I have not seen the old movie but I have heard, they are coming out with the new movie. They are. And potentially more than just that. And that’s part of how gale force nine and got the rights to this, because they’re trying to also create buzz around it. Of course. But the old movie is awesome. It is slower paced almost like a blade runner type pace moons phenomenal. And so, I cannot wait for this to come out and listeners like you will be hearing about this game. You’ll probably be seeing a lot about this game as starts come out because people are eagerly awaiting a reprint for this, because the price Josh quoted of two hundred dollars that’s cheap for what these games have been going for and that two hundred dollars probably was for a incomplete game, and I’m not kidding about that because that’s what they go for market value. Right now. It’s nuts. That doesn’t surprise me. Like I said, I just I looked and yeah, no, this is not going to happen. It was not in good shape the game, it was being advertised that will they it was pretty beat up. But it’s a game. That’s what was. Printed thirty years ago. Thirty six years ago. Yeah. I it amazes me. But I’m really excited. I’m really hoping I’ve heard good things about Rex. So I’ve never played Rex I have not really familiar with the twilight imperium setting. So it’s just never been a an interest of mine, but I have heard good things about the game. So I’m really excited to see how they do this similarly accompanied just did a reprint of an older game. The I’m loving right now which is in Denver age of sail. So I’m hoping they kind of do something similar where they take the, the game that is already a great game and adds some modern elements to it in terms of some some new mechanics. While still leaving it pretty much alone. So I’d be I’m really, really. Looking forward to seeing how all of this shakes out and how this game develops. Yeah. So it’s going to be coming out. I don’t know or release date but listeners, you’ll be seeing it from us, we’ll probably be posting on social media about it when it comes in, because I think it’s an instability for both of us. And I don’t think it’s going, it’s going direct retail which makes it probably come out, little faster. Hopefully, I’ll come would. Good. Go ahead. Let’s hope let’s hope so that’s gonna be at for our news stuff. Stay tuned because we’re gonna come right back and it with something that I know you’ve been wanting for a while. And that is a deep dive on route. All right. Welcome back to board game impact. So we’ve already talked about some stuff we’ve been playing. We’ve been talking about some stuff in the news now let’s talk about a game a little bit at nauseam and for good reason. But this one is really rooting for this one, because it’s route again that’s been super popular. It was on Kickstarter, yet, by the way, I make really bad puns. Hashtag bad, dad jokes, not a father yet. But hey why not practice? Sorry. Not sorry. Yeah. That was really really rough. Bruce. Would you say it was the root cause of all my issues? I. Josh that one touching that one. Okay. So this is something we’ve been kind of doing on the show for a while.

00:55:01 – 01:00:06

And that’s where we’re really focusing on one one game. And so we’re going to be bringing that into these episodes from time to time. And so this one, we’re going to be talking about route, which came out on Kickstarter. It’s game by leader games leader games had a game before this called vast. And they’re both similar in that they’re, both ACM metric, however route took this to a whole new level and really blown up on the board game board game platforms all around the world, just the other week itself by south west, which is a convention, as well as festival here in Texas in Austin, Texas, route actually one table, top game of the year for two thousand eighteen. And so what route is asymmetrical game by symmetric? We mean that every single player has different powers. What’s fascinating about route is they kind of took that and went to an extreme and said, we’re not only going to give you extra powers. We’re going to give you your own mechanic. And so every single player sitting at the table for a game of route is technically working towards the same goal of earning thirty points. That’s at least what the goal is to start the game. There’s some other side variants that you can play but you’re working to earn thirty points but how you’re going to do. That’s going to be very different essentially brings into the game, the reality that people come to every experience in life with different motivations with different ways of looking at the world and put that into practice by using different mechanics. So one player might be playing a euro style game where they’re doing resource management building buildings collecting those resources and building more buildings to win. Another game might be playing in person might be playing area control through program movement in which you actually have to put down cards. Execute your command line and go ahead. Another player is actually playing more psych subterfuge, and trying to spread influence throughout the board and create NUP. Freising. And then finally, there’s one person actually playing cooperative style game in this competitive environment. Route is a strategy based game Josh and I both been playing this. And the real thing, I think is really helped route get noticed is the fact of its theme is called route because it takes place in a forest and the story is that the birds are the our stock recy- who have ruled over the forest for quite some time. And the cats the mortal enemy of the birds said, no not you say that because they’re actually called the murky that get very French. I don’t know what they got to get the French, but the cats have taken over the forest they literally start the game with people on every single space of the board except one and that’s the corner where the birds are living the birds or trying to take back control. The forest and so there’s another faction that legitimately doesn’t even start on the board. And that’s the woodland alliance. There. They don’t like being represented by the cats. They don’t like being represented by the birds. These are the mice in the common folk and they’re there for the people. And so they’re trying to do is create that uprising. And then finally, the cooperative style player is the vagabond. This is represented by trash panda. Yes. Trash panda a raccoon and they’re trying to go around as different powers to try and play cooperative style game by going on some little quests getting cards from other players and having a lot of fun. And so let’s dig into route. Okay. Josh we are talking about route. This is a fantastic game with a lot going on. It’s really caught the imagination of a lot of people what tell me about your experiences with route just real quick. So real quick, here’s what I will say about route. I think this is a really really well designed game. I it’s interesting last time, we recorded you talked about playing raccoon tycoon. And when you talked about the aesthetic of that game in terms of the artwork in terms of what it looks like on the table in the box, it really reminds me a lot about route specifically the what’s funny about, I think route, particularly, because I’ve played it from what it sounds like with raccoon tycoon is it looks super cute on the board and the theme sound super cute. This is not a cute game. This is a really intense war strategy game that just has cute little woodland creatures as its theme. And so, I. The, the interactions between players are this game is set up in a really, really interesting way.

01:00:06 – 01:05:02

And I actually I really, really love their older. This companies older games. I loved. Vast vast was thank you. Vast was a really really great game played together. Yeah. And I own vast, it, unfortunately, does not make it to the table often enough, because one of the challenges with a gang and asymmetrical game in general, but specifically these games fast and route is it takes a lot to learn each player’s abilities. And so really each time you sit down at the table. If you’re playing a character you’ve not played before you’re really learning an entirely new game. So there is a pretty high barrier to entry with this game. And I, I will give it that is a little bit of a knock in terms of now, I think they improved a lot between bass and route, I think route does a lot better job of lowering that barrier to entry. It’s the, the mechanics are a little bit more simplified than the mechanics invest the, the difference. I think the big difference is. In route. Everyone is working towards the same in game. Whereas in vast, the game ending mechanic was different depending on what character you were playing. So if you were playing the invest being a little bit more fantasy driven if you’re playing the dragon you ended the game an entirely different way than if you were playing the night, who had to kill the dragon? And so. That I think diminishes the barrier to entry a little bit. Yeah. And so bringing that up about like the different end goals because what I found with route is because you have the same goal, right? At least has that common thread. And so I’m not having the learn what does it take for me to win the game? I’m having to learn how do I get there? What I have what I have appreciated with route is the fact that sometimes I’m just going to call it sometimes I don’t wanna play an aggressive style game. I don’t wanna play an all out war. So if you’re the birds like your trying to go out and you’re trying to knock down your enemies, and you’re trying to plant your Reuss and take over the board. If you’re playing the cats you’re trying to hold onto what you can have what you have and it’s constantly slipping out of your hands, but you’re playing Wackle if you’re the woodland alliance, you’re trying to spread that influence your trying to cause eruptions. And if you’re the vagabond you’re trying to make partnerships with people little bit. But the reason I say all that is some days, I don’t feel like playing the aggressive style game. And you know what? I’ll be the bag of vagabond. And I’m just gonna go around. I’m going to have fun. I don’t have to deal with any of their stuff. I can just go and I can trade cards and play my own kind of game. That’s different so cooperative style. And so what’s nice about it is. I don’t have to learn a new. End condition for a game all I have to do is to learn this one little part, but if silicates a whole new experience, gives me new life. Every time I get out to play it. And then, whatever other factions we bring in can also change that. And so that’s actually what is really got the base game itself really coming out for me. I’ve personally played this at four players. I played this at three players. I played this at five players played this, and I think you’ve played this a little bit different too, right? Yeah. And so I will add very briefly. We’ll talk a little bit more about the expansion content here in a second. But when says talking about a five player game even played it up to a six player game that is only available with the expansion content. The, the initial expansion being the lizard, Colt river folk and second vagabond, but we’ll, we’ll talk about that here in a second. The player count, I think a player count is actually one of the reasons why I’ve played this game as much as I do talk a little bit about this last time. But my player count tends to be in the five to six player range and unfortunately most of the games that I love are in the four player and so we’re a little bit restricted as to the games that we play win. We hit that five player. So this is one of the games that has hit the table, a lot in.

01:05:03 – 01:10:05

Recent months, largely because a everyone really, really enjoys this game that I play with a there are multiple people in my game group who want to play this game constantly and the other thing is, is it’s scratches that need for a a five or six player game in it. Relative? It plays. Well at I five and six player game, it does get to in my experience a little bit of the challenge, which is the more players you have you can feel like you’re just sitting there waiting for a while. Turns can take a little while in this game. And so when you get into that five and six player range, sometimes it can be a little overwhelming in terms of tree, it, become very difficult, especially if you’re new to track, what everyone is doing, and it can feel like you’re just kind of sitting there waiting for your turn and not quite understanding, and the board can change dramatically talked about this being different mechanics, and there art ever mechanics. But the one thing I’d push back on is at the end of the day, almost all of these character types are looking for area control. If you don’t control large swath of area, you’re going to struggle with everything except for the vagabond under present. Right. And so. The state of the board can change dramatically between your turns, especially when you’re at that five player Mark of there were three major battles that happened between the last time I took the around now and that can be a bit of a challenge. But it’s also really exciting because it keeps things new and interesting turn to turn keep doing gauged, even when it’s not your turn because you need to know what’s happening. And what’s changing on the board state? Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head with all of that something that’s been fascinating for me to watch going back to so my points and of leaning on yours. So you win the game. When you get to those thirty points unless you do one of the other victory conditions, which triggered you can read up on the rule sit figure that out because you can’t do it until your third of the way through the game. Anyway. But what’s fascinating is. So there’s a guy in our game group here in, in Texas. I don’t know if you know on his name’s Conrad Conrad, I met Conrad at BG con- this last. All right. Conrad’s getting his PHD in mathematics and so- Conrad played as the cats. And when Conrad purchase game especially a more euro style game. So for the cats it is more of a euro style game. He tries to find how can I find the sharp point of this? And how can I break it? And so when he was playing the cats I also think we didn’t really do all that we should have like two crucial points. But the dude scored thirty nine points at the end because that last turn he went from one point, which is below thirty and at the end of his turn we just figured it out. I wanna see how high he actually just got he went up to thirty nine points. Now it’s fascinating about all that is the way route is designed he was. So intrigued by trying to figure out. Okay. But how do you work and how do you work? And how do you work that he has constantly asked for this game to come back to the table because he wants to like live? Those different experiences and doesn’t understand he does understand, but doesn’t understand how all these different types of experience. Can live in the same ecosystem because that’s not something we see in games. And so although he’s kind of figured out some strategies that like he will freaking win. This game has presented enough opportunity that he wants to challenge himself, and try something new, which is really cool. And I’m actually really glad that, that brought that out in him. It’s gold watch that happen. Yeah. I think there couple of things that you mentioned there that I think are really interesting about this game, one being the being able to learn and try different mechanics. Right. You’re if you play the cats and you figure out okay, this is how this works, and this is how I win with this faction. Now, let me try the birds and this is a whole different mechanic and a whole different strategy to figuring out how to play this game. And I think that breeze a lot of life into the game in terms of wanting to replay it more and more and more. And I think that’s one of the reasons why this game has the table. A lot for my game group. I have been I tend to be a little bit more passive in my character selection in my game group.

01:10:05 – 01:15:03

And so I’ve actually not had the chance to play with all of the factions. I’ve only played with the cats and the birds. In my game group. And I think gun the chance to play every single faction I played as the woodland alliance my first very first game ever, and I didn’t know what was happening. And I didn’t really feel like I understood that. That faction well enough to really play it. And so I don’t even consider that I play as having experienced it because I didn’t do anything. Right. So I really want to try some of these different character factions. I think that would be helpful for me. Getting a better idea about this game. The other thing you said about this, though is the need to know. The about the different ways in which people win. I think that learning this game is a lot of fun. I think playing this game with people who are learning it can be frustrating, and that is because. I there you need to be everyone is learning the game. Or if you have one person who knows you mentioned. The scoring thirty nine points with the marquee to cat in the last term. This game is incredibly swinging and it is possible to make those massive swings. In one turn unless everyone at the table knows what to watch for you really need to work together in order to prevent those massive swings. So there are different points in the game where the cats are really really potent or where the woodland alliance has the ability to just completely run away with it. Unless everyone else at the table knows that is happening and knows the strategy that is being employed. It can be really easy to miss that, and then it feels a little bit frustrating, because you’re like, well, I saw this. I knew this is I knew how to stop this. But no one else at the table would work with me to prevent this massive swing. And so. It’s fun to learn that, right? It’s really fun to be the person learning that it can be incredibly frustrating to be the person just watching it happen and knowing that you’re powerless to stop it, or you’re not in a position on the board, and you can say things, but you’re not in a position on the board to do anything about it. I’ve been fortunate in every play of it that we have had it’s been some of the same players most of the same players, but it’s been everybody’s saying, I want to try different factions. So it’s constantly been learning. So I’ve been pretty privileged with that. And I’m thankful for that. So thanks gamers, but I totally see that, Josh. So there’s a little bit more dog about night spoke to soon about this. My apologies but that was soon as I started playing this game and saw some of these interactions anything that brings out these interactions and players like I wanna see what else it can do. And so I’m mmediately bought the expansion, which if you back the Kickstarter you got the expansion for free. And so, I. Paid another MS RPM to get the expansion on this, and that was for the expansion content. It’s called the. I can’t think of the river folk it’s, it’s a river folk expansion ads in the lizard cult, which literally is a lizard cult in which you can sacrifice your people in order to do some stuff on the board. But also, you can put down little. Gardens on the board, which essentially are kind of like your temples. And if you have gardens out there, then you control those areas, you can convert people. So you are a cult you can convert people to your side, another faction brings in the river, folk, which are the authors, their door, -able. There’s this like light aqua color. They are traitors. Their hand of cards is open, and they essentially have a market, and there is a, a little river that runs through the board. They’re the only people that can use it, but other people can pay the auditors for that ability to use it for their turn the it also has because the vagabond is, like a favourite of people just the fact that there’s a trash Banda. It’s just got like this cult following. So they added in a second Bagga bond with all new types of quests in different things you can add, on, but also added in because let’s face it a lot of kick starters, doing this edit in a solo mode. Ended in mechanical marquee with two different styles of play for the cats because the cats are on ously kind of really required in all of the expansion scenarios that you play because they take up almost every spot on the boards gives you a lot more to do. So if you wanna play without the cats, but you kinda still need the cats in the game.

01:15:03 – 01:20:01

There is this mechanical faction and you can choose the two different play styles, which is a cool thing. I haven’t seen with before in the past Josh if you’ve been able to play with any of the expansion content, so I have not personally played with any of the expansion kinda as the player of those, but I think every game that I’ve actually played of this has involved at least one of the expansion character factions, the most common is the river folk everyone really enjoys the river ful. It is a really fun. Faction to play with, because it gives a little bit of diversity to your ability to manage your hand size. Now there’s a little bit of debate within my gaming group about the use of the river full because the person sitting directly next to the river, folk has a distinct advantage in that they can purchase any car that the river folks draw on their turn by the time it gets around the board, especially when you’re at that four five six player player, count, most of the good cards have been purchased by the time it gets back around to the river, folks. So there’s a little bit of debate there around the use of that faction. But it definitely is incredibly fun, and you can manage your prices. And so that’s kind of the, the flip side to that. Is if the river focus playing well, and the person directly next to them is really, really winning. They Jack up the prices of their cards and the person who’s winning may not be able to afford them or will only be a blue afford. One versus maybe two of the cards and so it gives other people a little bit more of a chance. So there’s definitely some some interesting decisions that get made with the with the authors. And so what’s interesting about the otters is we haven’t talked about a currency and that’s because there isn’t a currency in the game. The authors people pay you in literally, their meals, their little characters on the board, and so not on the board. But like their personal supply and the give you those little characters to do anything in the game. If you’re trying to get something from the river, folk now what’s fascinating about it to Josh? I appreciate talking about the order of the seating. There actually is a order that you’re supposed to sit and every one of. These factions comes with a letter of the alphabet and you’re supposed to sit around the table in alphabetical order. And so it makes a difference listeners Josh’s giving face like I just blew his freaking mind. And so the first player is always supposed to be the cats. The second players always supposed to be the birds. So that’s a and b and I believe see is the woodland alliance. And then as you get to the lizard, folk and all them its like h and things like that. So they will be sitting closer to the end. If you think about it, the woodland alliance since they’re causing like subterfuge in the game. They should not be buying things from the authors. Like they are not really working together. The auditor trying to trade more with the birds and the cats first and then the other people, so Josh, I need you to unpack the face. You just made. This is a rule that was entirely overlooked by my game. Rupe? And so we’ll get into closing thoughts here in a minute. I have not played this game in a while for some very particular reasons, and I wanted to try and bring it back, just to give it a second chance. And now with that knowledge there’s an incredible need for me to bring this game back to the table with understanding because that completely changes the dynamic of the game. And probably, I, I’m just taking a shot in the dark here because I’ve never played like this. But probably balances that issue that I’ve always had with the inclusion of the otters. Significantly because you’re right. I think also other factions the factions that have the hardest time getting cards and need the most specific cars are probably the cats and the birds, so makes a lot of sense that they should have earlier picks of them. I’m I’m really interested to see what that organized seating chart would do with our game group. And so it’s kind of also like twilight imperium on this in which you have to sit in a certain order and that affects like when you get to do things to start the game.

01:20:02 – 01:25:02

So, yes, so on the Josh on the back of the boards and listeners on the back of the boards. It has like the starting setup and it’s easy to miss. So, like Josh, you did not miss something that was like right out in the open because there’s a lot of little rules to this game especially when you’re also trying to unpack the rules for your own people, but next to the name of your character, it’s got in parentheses a letter, and there’s like maybe one or two line. Tens in the rule book that say this thing total of the whole rule book. And so that’s where that exists just so you know, it’s not in the rule book of the recommended, the seating, order, the only place, it is on the player boards and on the back of the player boards that honestly if you’re just setting up the game and you think you know how to play, you’re not going to look at. And so it’s easy, easy easy to miss so play players. Josh like for that. Glad I could help you with that one, but I will say this, the lizard Colt and the river folk, I have not played as the second vagabond or gotten to play with those winds yet. But the lizard folk offers they were harder, because you had to think a lot different than the original factions and something then found after the first play played as the lizard cult, I I’m like that was a lot of fun. And I actually got to do some cool stuff. And so there’s a thing called dominance cards in which you can win by different circumstances. The one that I had was control three of certain type of clearings will, Josh, I also got a super high level crafting card in which I essentially created a narrative in my head in which, I summoned, my lizard, God, my dragon God, and I burned everything, everything except my people in all of those exact clearings, and then everyone had to essentially rush back in and try and take control of those clearings because if they didn’t I would’ve won the game on my next turn by starting my turn. But so that was fascinating thing to experience. Brought out nice new narrative, but I will say these factions were very different and harder. I will agree, especially with the lizard. The lizard is an incredibly different difficult faction to get at. But the thing that you said there that I really wanna pick up on and really hit on. I’m mentioned this last time I have a friend, I’d mentioned this, why talked about wingspan. I have a friend for whom the Ludo narrative of a game means more than anything else and. This is his favourite game. And it is because of that Ludo narrative that the game tells exactly what you said, when you take an action like that crafting card that eliminates all of players meatballs in three different clearings. The story that tells not through the cards, not through any storytelling, but through the actions that are taken. Are incredibly fun. It is really, really fun to think about these. We talk about the lizard, coal, recruiting converting people as these rabbits and birds putting on these robes that look like lizards and pulling the hood over their head and now they look like wizard cultists and all of these different things, and we tell these really fun stories with the way in which this game plays, and that is I think one of the things that makes us game shine. It makes us game people talk about this game in such high regard is not just the the playing of the game. But then the stories that are created as you play the game and the different ways in which you design you develop these these narratives about the characters that you’re playing. Yeah. And so there’s actually been a lot of work done by leader games behind the scenes to really develop inbound, try and balance out these different factions. But as you can imagine different powers, and different mechanics. And the, the number of permutations that can come with this during different stages of the games is incredible incredibly high. And so they’ve actually come out with an updated expand updated rule set. And so I actually took a sharpie to my player words. Yes, I took a sharpie to them to update them based on the feedback from leader game saying, hey, we tried real hard. Now we’re listening to our audience, we’ve been watching closely about how things are balancing out and they’ve offered some suggestions. And so I actually made those changes.

01:25:02 – 01:30:00

So I actually took the sharpie, and change the lizard cult in how often they can get extra cards, the change some stuff with the woodland alliance on the number of points. They get. Based on how much influence they have on the board and change some of those different aspects. And so just let you know the current if you’re listening and in very interested in this game and wanna go buy copy right now, I’m going to also recommend you go onto BG and look bullet board game eek, and look at that updated rule set there’s like five updated rules to the player boards that you might wanna make note of, and we’re gonna be talking about something in our next segment, which is going to be out current kick starters, which you can get those updated player boards. And also, if you’re listening to this while after the original recording, which is, and we’re going live at the end of March of twenty nineteen the third edition printing will have all of these updated rules in them. So they’re the now new standards. So just wanted to let you know that. But Josh we’ve talked a lot about this. And so I’m just kind of curious what are your closing thoughts and then I’ll wrap up with mine? I kind of lewd into this a little bit earlier, I had for a while the last probably month and a half pretty much written this game off. I this is one of those interesting situations for me where. I can look at this game. And I can objectively, say it is a really, really well designed game I it is balancing a number of different factions that have different mechanics and it does a really good job of it. It silicates some player interactions that are interesting and unique. It is just a generally, like overall good game that I do not enjoy playing, and it’s just a personal preference thing. And I recognize that as perf personal preference. There have been some situations in my game group that have led me to say I don’t enjoy this game, and there are some specific facts designed around that there has been a situation in which I fade with a person who just really rubbed me the wrong way with. The way in which they played the game. And that was a win at all cost lying to making a an agreement to take a certain action and then going back on it to win themselves the game. And I’ve had some situations where a new player is going in without a knowledge about what is happening and just because they don’t know what they’re doing or no. What’s going on really with the other factions being set up perfectly to stop someone from winning, but not recognizing it and not following other people’s advice to take that action and allowing someone else to run away with the game. Right. There’s, there’s a lot of finicky hearts to this game. Win the first time like I said the first couple of times, I played, I loved it because it is a fun game to learn. It is really, really fun to learn, and there’s a lot to learn about it. But once you’ve played it quite a few times, I feel like you really need to play with the same group of people, people who you enjoy playing with people who aren’t win at all costs type of players and people who recognize the strategies that the other factions employees so that one person doesn’t just run away with the game. And so that’s kind of been my experience with it. I like I said, those are all circumstantial things that have diminished my enjoyment of the game. And so I would really like to try this game again with. That setup with the setup of people who know what they’re doing note. Everyone else’s factions are doing and are just looking to have a good time and not necessarily win at all costs men. So. I wanna give this game a second chance. And like I said, since you mentioned, the, the seating chart. I think that dramatically changes some of my experiences that have occurred of people running away because of where they were seated specifically the person next to the.

01:30:02 – 01:35:03

The river full running away with it just because they had access to purchase all of these cards. So I really am intrigued by trying this again, I want to try it again. I am looking forward to getting this back to the table and being able to come back and say, I had a much better experience. And I hope that’s the case. But as of right now, I’m, I’m kind of torn like I said. I recognize the fact that this is a good game. It’s just not something that I’ve had fun playing in the past. Sure. Sure. And before I get my final thoughts Josh wanna say like some games like, also don’t really work with some game groups, and that’s part of why I’m very glad that you and I are both on this. We can offer different perspectives from different groups from different parts of the United States, while having some well, having a relationship in which we kind of we both understand each other and can hear each other out and one thing one lesson. I learned while reading it’s in the white box of board game design with comes with, like chits and stuff. But also book and that was one of the rules of game design is that no rule set? No game can never fix players just to call that. And so you just have to try and match up the games to also match the players. And so that’s why we’re doing this. So you really have to learn your game group. But then also learn these different things. And so for me route is a game that I’ve had very different experiences every time I’ve played it, but it is permanently living in my game bag right now. It is a game that I bring to every game night. It’s a game that I have no problem in bringing out and teaching and something we didn’t even talk about in my apologies for not talking about this. But that the board is double sided. And so there’s a winter side in which you can randomly set up, what the different clearing factions are. And so we’ve tried that out. It’s just one of those games for us where I happen to have a very curious game group that wants to just try out some random things, and that there’s more of us than one of us sort of sounds like you’re experiencing. That all being said, I’ve had difficulty in playing some of the races, and I don’t know that I always wanna play some of the factions but overall this is a game that I’ve had a lot of fun with. And I cannot wait to see what else is to come that being said this game is awesome for me. It’s, it’s definitely one of my top games at twenty eighteen. So check it out. If you’re hearing any of these things ins driving with you go check it out. There’s a lot of videos, but also stay tuned because the next segment, we’re going to jump right into some current kick starters that are coming out. One of which is the third expansion to route. And so if you’re like those expansion sound cool or played route, and you want to dig deeper, then really check this. Check this out and stay tuned. Okay. Julio. One second. Yup. Get that on my system. You’re good. All right listeners. Welcome back for another segment is going to be our last segment of the episode. This is not a segment. We’re going to have in every episode. It’s really going to be dependent on what’s going on. And also for seeing anything out there that we really wanna talk about, or if y’all send in some things that you’d like us to cover, but that is kick starters. So. With it being when people are getting tax returns just going to call it. This is a season right now, in which there happens to be a good number of kick starters out there in the world. If you are somehow unfamiliar with kick stars, this point Kickstarter is a crowd funding platform, in which content creators go on and this website. And they put their thing out there to the world and say, hey, I want to do this thing, and they find people if advise with you, you back their passion project and you help make this thing, a reality board games is one of the largest, if not the largest segment of Kickstarter. It’s bringing in a ridiculous amount of money and several of the stars were about the talk about have already in themselves brought in over two million dollars together actually wanted to kick. Stars is brought in over seven million dollars in itself. But that’s not where we’re going to start the first thing I’m going to start with is actually Kickstarter that’s already closed but I want you to know about it because I think it’s a good. Thing for the hobby and to learn more about the hobby and if you’re really interested in the hobby, you’ll love this. So Josh board game, geek, one of the founders is name is Scott Alden is goes by all the.

01:35:04 – 01:40:04

Scott all gonna call them all the partnered with another gentleman. These all these phenomenal human being. Phenomenal human being partnered with another gentleman who’s been going around for the last couple of years and interviewing board game designers about their journey about what’s take to bring a game to market. And that is the game designers documentary. This is a motion picture about board games. And what it’s going to be doing. It’s tracking the lives of several creators over a couple years as well as has interviews with some of your favorite designers, Josh and is gonna throw it out there. They do have Jamie stack Meyer. Of course, they do have Ryan lock it. They have Martin Wallace. They have you name, it, these people, there’s like twenty five plus designers, but they also focus in on a certain five track over three years of experiences. Whether it’s going to conference the Essen convention or going to board game geek in Dallas going to gen con in Indianapolis, and I just think that’s a cool thing for the hobby to have a motion picture. So I backed it because that is a dream that I think I wanna use with students, I want to be able to pull in and like show people about. And so I actually back to have my name in the credits. Just gonna call that I could not help it, but I had to because I believe in the mission of what was going on here. Josh turned over to you. I did you see this did you know about this? Yeah, I actually so. I don’t remember if we talked about it or actually follow, Bruce on Kickstarter to see what he is backed. He’s. I am. I’m creeping. A lot of people to be fair. I actually I almost backed this a producer level. I based on my funding decided the smarter decision was to back at the twenty dollar level. So I will be getting a physical copy of this DVD when it comes out, because like you, I agree, I think that I this was one of those things that I very easily could have just sat on and paid less to get a digital copy when it came out or to watch it with somebody or whatever. But I really believed in this concept. I think this is a great thing for the industry. And so I, I was thrilled by and. I’m really looking forward to see what this comes out to be. I think I really enjoyed documentaries, just in general. And so I think the idea of having a documentary about this industry is only going to improve the. Amount of focus that this industry has on it early. So I hope that’s what this does. I think that this industry has grown a lot in the last couple of years, I actually want to throw this out there because you mentioned Kickstarter being board games being a big thing on Kickstarter. I just looked this up because I know I heard a story about it. Awhile back in twenty seventeen to give an idea for how big the board game industry has gotten recently in twenty twenty-seven. Pene Kickstarter raised one hundred thirty seven million dollars for table, top gaming creators. That’s just just in tabletop gaming. And also she gaming raise that much ridiculous. I want to put that into some perspective here video games, which also hold a pretty decent market share on Kickstarter raised seventeen point two five. Five million dollars in time spanned, so. When you think about this industry’s growth in recent years. Over a hundred ten million dollars or just under one hundred ten million dollars more raised through Kickstarter and seventeen than video games. Now. Yes. Video games are well established as giant companies and tech companies and have a ton of Billy, it’s a billion dollar industry but. I think it speaks to the creators and their relationship to the consumer that. It is crowdfunding. That is really pushing the table top gaming industry forward. And so I think that this idea of a documentary focused on the creators, a creator of video game has is dozens of people if not hundreds and. A year. There’s no relationship between the company and the consumer.

01:40:04 – 01:45:03

But. That’s not the case in tabletop gaming. We go to conventions, and you run into these people. Are you see them and you are directly contributing to their success as a creator through Kickstarter plus? Just going to add this in your plus, there’s another level that is board games, literally bring people together at a table where video games can be solo. So it makes sense that I’m more crowdfunding campaign is board games, just to call it, but you’re right. Keep going. I mean, I think a yes, I, I mean that is what I love about board games and don’t get me wrong. I play video games. I enjoy video games. I enjoy my alone time. But I enjoy the, the board game industry in the board game hobby, because it brings people together around a table. That’s what I love about it. And so, I think one of the reasons why such a big supporter behind this documentary coming out is. For most people will never interact with a game designer beyond. Yes. I love your content, and I am going to give you money to make that happen. That is a far more direct connection than you have with most industries that you’re engaged with. But it’s not getting to sit down and talk to somebody. So I really liked the idea of being able to hear from these creators. It’s why I listen to Jamie, Steg Myers YouTube videos, and why I follow his newsletters. It’s because I really like hearing from the people who are creating the content that I spend a good chunk of my time consuming, and researching, and I mean, at this point now, me and you talking about in this podcast like this has become a major part of my life. It really gets helps me. Through a lot of the stress of my day to day life. And so to be able to kind of hear from and connect in a different way with these designers and developers. I I’m really intrigued. And so I’m really thankful that somebody has taken the time to do this documentary, and I’m really, really looking forward to what this is going to be when it comes out, and that’s coming out in September of twenty nine thousand nine that’s what the projected release of this. And that’s for the digital copies of it. So I’m going to change topics real quick, Josh still within starter. But really talking about that engagement and getting to hear directly from the content creators, and that is the critical role which is a phenomenal dungeons and dragons team, essentially, it’s on critical role that put together this amazing amazing content in which they’re playing D. They’re all voice actors and they’re coming together over this phenomenal. Thing called dungeons and dragons roleplaying games. Now, I remember growing up, and like the DVD kids were like the ones that were like super nerd, and I didn’t actually wanna play d for a long time because I didn’t want to admit that I was that much of nerd I am. And I’m proud of it. I love it. And my life has been changed by DND. It’s phenomenal. But apparently, so of a lot of other people’s things lives, because critical role put out this Kickstarter. So they’ve been doing these amazing and immersive storytelling experiences playing dungeons and dragons on YouTube, and on twitch and have this really cult following. But what they wanted to do is they want to take that to another level and animate some of their former content and bring in top level, animators, and really do some amazing content. And so they put out a seven hundred fifty thousand dollar goal to make a twenty two minute video. They funded two point four million dollars in the first four hours of this campaign. There’s over twenty days left of this campaign. If you’re listening to this at the time of going live, and they’ve already raised almost eight million dollars. They have blown through every single stretch goal. And yes, there are people pledging as much as twenty five hundred dollars a person thousand dollars a person five thousand dollars a person, ten thousand dollars a person, and yes, even twenty thousand dollars a person and twenty five thousand dollars a person which is nuts. But to say that this these things have been able to play out for these people in their lives is incredible. And I think these successive, this is really showing how much cultures have changed over time, how in and how impactful this content has been for people in their lives.

01:45:03 – 01:50:16

Josh, I know that you and I didn’t record a couple of days ago because you were. Doing dungeons dragons night. So talk to me, like, what do you feel like what’s been the impact of critical role met, Mercer? What’s this all been for you? Is this something that you stay in tune with? So I I have struggled. So I was very similar to you. And so is very funny. I think I’ve constantly pushed the bar of what is a quote unquote, nerd, that I’m not willing to accept myself as throughout my life. So it used when I was a kid growing up. I didn’t play magic for a while because magic was too nerdy. I played magic and I loved it and then it became video games. And I’ve played video games than I loved it. And then it was. Wow. And I played, wow. And I loved it. And eventually, it was like, well, my most recent hurdle is actually were hammer forty k which we talked about a little earlier this episode. But for a while it was DeeDee. I didn’t play D until I got into college and the first time I sat down with a group to play DND. Mandat. I love it and has it changed my I have forged some really really great friendships over the table at DNS really what kind of pushed me towards tabletop gaming in general. And that is like I talked about my first time on this up the show was that is how I make my friends now is I play games. And so I’ve struggled getting into critical role because they have had such long form content that I just don’t have the time to go back and start from the beginning, and it’s kinda hard to dive into the middle. But I understand I, I am a huge listener. I wasn’t a to actual play podcasts of DeeDee, and are well, roleplaying games at this point. And I, I love them and I’ve grown with them and. I really really enjoy everything that they provide me the content that I get to listen to. So I’m not that surprised by how much critical role because, like the, the actual play podcast, I listen to are nothing compared to the listenership of critical role. And I’ve known that for a while. I’ve just never had a good jumping off point. So I’m actually thrilled that this is because I believe if I’m correct me if I’m mistaken, but they actually went for my twenty minute video of this to a season of content at that they’re planning to put out. So essentially, they’re going to put out like a whole motion picture, and then an entire freaking season of content which lists. And I’m very proud of them, and I’m happy for their success. I’m thrilled because this now gives me a good jumping off point. This gives me a way to introduce myself to critical role in a format that I have the ability to digest and get into without feeling overwhelmed and daunted. So I’m really really excited about this actually while I’ve never listened to Matt Mercer or any of critical role. I think this is a great way for people to get introduced to, to this. This content. And I’ve actually I’ve thrown my hand into doom being dungeon master and a game master for multiple formats, so that was that was monster of the week and a couple of other roleplaying games, and I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to that. And so I actually watched Matt Mercer videos that really helped me personally with some of that inciting. So congrats to critical role and all of the success. And so with that we’re going to move onto the next one. So we’ve talked about critical. We’ve talked about this board game designers documentary. Josh, those are both for me. What is something that you’ve seen that you want to talk about with kick starters? So the game that I am probably get as a recording this I get paid in two hours and so probably the first purchase from that paycheck is probably going to be backing the game summit. And so summit is a game that popped up on my radar. Are a few months back? Now, this is actually the second Kickstarter I believe for this game. Summit is a game based on the it is a racing game. That is mountain climbers racing to the peak of a mountain. And I’ve heard a little bit about this game from some different people in terms of the types of against storytelling that this game creates there, you are racing to the top of the mountain with the goal of being the first to reach the summit.

01:50:17 – 01:55:04

But that is not from my understanding how you actually win the game. You win the game by scoring the most points. So the difference between that is, for example, it is also partially resource management. You are trying to conserve oxygen and try. To conserve food, and energy while you are racing to the top of this mountain, and you can score some bonus points by giving your opponents some of your food or some of your oxygen and sharing with the people around you or you could lose some points by say, cutting the rope of your opponent also trying to race to the top of the mountain. And so there’s some really fun story elements that go into this game. The Kickstarter that is live right now is actually four an expansion that is teams. And so this is actually a type of game that I’ve become a little bit more interested in recently, which is rather that it is cooperative competitive. I’m I’m if he on a lot of cooperative games didn’t tend to be not my favorite type style of game. But this idea of cooperative competitive of it is to verse two or three verse. Three is really intriguing to me. So that’s actually what this Kickstarter is. I’m definitely going to be backing into this point just based off of the reviews. I’ve heard about the base game. The fact that it is a team game. The fact that it is not it is actually roughly the same price for the base, and expansion as some of the other big kick starters that are out right now. I believe the base game is going at a. The expansion is going at twenty five dollars and then the base and expansion is going at eighty nine because it’s own Canadian. Yes. So that’s the other thing is that is sorry, that is Canadian, it is going about sixty seven dollars for the base and the expansion and nineteen dollars for just the expansion American dollars. Give or take. Right. That’s all. Dependent upon what the exchange rate’s going to be. But I’m really looking forward to this game a lot just based off of what I have heard from reviewers, and from what I’ve seen the theme seems really, really unique and interesting. It’s the game play mechanics. Look pretty interesting and unique. So I’m really looking forward to it. Yeah. I actually didn’t know that much about this, Josh until you just brought this all up. And I’ve been scouring the pages real quick. This sounds like there’s a lot of really cool stuff going on. And I definitely be interested in trying this out if you’re going to be picking it up. Yeah. Absolutely. So I got another one for you, Josh. And that is, first of all listeners because of the way our work, some of these things are only open for a certain amount of time and based on when you’re listening to this. Some of those things that may have closed so might already v of Elba retail, but it’s always worth going, and checking out Kickstarter dot com to make sure because some of them do offer a late pledge where you can still get in on those deals. Do go check those out so Josh, I’m gonna talk about one. We’ve already talked about this episode and that is the graphic novel adventure season two. So we were talking about this one before with the mystery base game from van rider games. And so actually listeners if you’re listening this at the time of getting published your we’re going to have to probably jump in on this late pledge because this window is tight, but they have had about fifteen hundred people back this way. Surpassed goal thirty thousand dollars. They’ve brought in over one hundred fifteen thousand dollars on this game. The interesting thing about it. It’s not just that one. One copy game of mystery. There’s two pirate themed ones one that and talking with AJ about this. Apparently somebody’s overboard in your immediately trying to chase them and get them back on board. But then you also stumble upon this island and things. And so it’s just fascinating things going on. There’s an another one different pirate themed one that kind of continues that story. So it’s called the see two stories in the same universe that kind of continues the story, and then there’s actually two so in the first season, there was one on Sherlock Holmes.

01:55:04 – 02:00:01

And apparently that one was super popular. And so let’s lean in and plus Sherlock Holmes, has a lot of different story opportunities. And so this one brings into new Sherlock, adventures, one is sure lock Holmes and Moriarty in which the original season, one, you got to be Sherlock or you got to be his associate. And so you can either play Sherlock or places, socio Watson. In this one, you can literally be good cop bad cop by being or like good Cup evil, evil person and choose who you’re going to interact with the people in the town with either gonna choose to interact, and more of a hard stance already or Sherlock and the other way, and then another one is about Sherlock Holmes, and the case of Irene Adler, who another again, is another famous character in the Sherlock Holmes series. And then there’s this mystery one each of these books by themselves is looking, let’s go MS RPM for about twenty two dollars US, and you can choose different packages, whether it’s getting to books or getting the full set of books, which actually will only cost, you seventy five dollars, which is like a super good deal on these. It’s only like what like thirteen dollars a book to get all five of those. That’s pretty cool. You cannot get the original ones on here, but you can get them from their website. So if you’re interested in the ones from the other episode just wanted to let you know that this is. Graphic novel adventure season two. Josh I now you’ve probably been looking at this. I’ve been talking and also pondering it since we talked about earlier in the episode. So what are your thoughts on this one? Yeah. I mean, I think I said it before this is probably going to get backed by me. It is just based off the question at this point to me is really not the. If I’m going to back, it is, how many books I will getting when I back it. The superhero I’m I’m really looking forward to trying that Sherlock Holmes is always one. That is interesting to me. I like the fact that these are not necessarily all the same storyline. I like the fact that you don’t have to back this all or nothing. I like that. You can do one or two or three books to me that gives me a little bit more of a easy entry into this this series. The fact that I can back at twenty dollars for a book, that’s, that’s really, really helpful. Right. Like I may or may. In the board game hobby. We spend a lot of money on board games, whenever if you’re a collector, and you are really, really invested into it. There’s a lot of money that can be spent. And so when you have such a low entry cost, that’s to me. That’s really nice. It’s a really great way to bring people in. I’m really looking forward to this definitely going to be checking it out. I’m hoping that there is a late back to this. So that our listeners can also jump in on it. I will say looking at it just a backup to summit summit is also on the same timeline for backing as this graphic novels adventures again, there will be very tight window, if our listeners want to back it. So. Just just be on the lookout for that. And again, hopefully these things a lot of them do are now doing late pledges. And so I’m hoping that our listeners will be able to light pledge some of these things Josh what’s another one he got. So the next one actually closed day. But I will say it is as of right now as a recording late pledging, and that is the game, e Warri. I think I’m saying that, right. It’s I w a r I is how you spell that the best as how you say that. Yeah. So they describe e worry as an abstract, like euro game where players represent different tribes who endeavour to define their identity identities by traveling and expanding settlements. I’ll be honest with you, the thing that attracts me to this is one hundred percent the artwork. The board looks kind of boring. In terms of graphic design but the rest of the artwork looks phenomenal. The, the theme is not overly new right? Like. Tribes, settling different.

02:00:01 – 02:05:02

Territories has been done a lot. But the mechanics in which you do that the they have these. Totems that you are arresting. It looks like for control and some of those types of things and some of the ways in which your mechanically doing taking these actions, seems pretty interesting. So I’m I’m intrigued by this. I’m looking at it a little bit more. I’m kind of kicking myself for not backing it right now. But again, that’s e Warri and it is as of right now available for late pledges. And so this game has actually tarot sized cards. I like when they do that, and they’re all with a linen finish like this game. Look super legit, y’all and don’t feel bad about, like missing this one, I’m looking on the page, it was only on Kickstarter Josh for sixteen days. Yeah. That is, that’s, that’s tighter turnaround than usual. That is a pretty tight turn around. But I mean in those sixteen days got close to fifty five hundred backers four hundred thousand euro yeah. This, this did blow up pretty big. I’m I’m really proud of these guys for for what they were able to do. I will say that this was pushed really hard at least to me on Facebook. I saw a lot of advertisements for it. It’s where I saw. I and so I mean props to these companies that are taking advantage of that social media and recognizing that there’s an algorithm. Algorithm that exists to be exploited. I mean. It gets the attention of people. Right. And so I I’m. I’m really, really impressed with the artwork in the graphic design the artwork, specifically on this and some of the. D component quality looked really, really nice. So, like I said, check it out if this sounds like something that intrigues, you, it’s definitely looks really, really pretty so I got another one for you, and that is the fail faster play testing journal. So this is more of, like if you’re looking to get your hands into, like, what’s it like to design a game? And then what’s it like to prototype at all? It’s says designing board game choirs creativity, but also some disciplined, but, but you don’t really know what goes into that play testing. That’ll being said, this is a journal that I’ll guide you through that process and it game five the experience. And so every page like double page of you open a book. You have those pages on the left and the right is a different play test experience for you to walk your game through at the table with other players. And then as you do those things I thought this was pretty. Cool. It’s either depending on if they get enough people, it’s going to be like a scratch off like a lottery ticket on the cover the book. And so you’re going to be able to really like game a fi. You’re prototyping experience and then also be able to really make this all come together for yourself. It’s just kinda cool. These journals are super cheap. They’re only, like ten bucks a piece. And so if you’ve ever wanted to get your hand into designing a game like I would check this thing out get that game design out there. But then this will help you with the prototyping. And so check it out. And we’re going to move onto our next one now. All right. And so our next one we have for you, Josh. This is your call. Sure. So the next thing, I’m going to talk about this is man, I guess, all of these kicks ours are running at the same time ends in four days from recording. So right around the time that this will be coming out, but that is feud them. Rudder. And ramparts. So this was a game that I actually had not heard much about until BG con in November. And while we were there, the company had a booth set up. They were displaying this and looks fun nominal. Just the artwork of this game looks really, really great. I love the visual aesthetics of it. This is the expansion to the game feud them. I have not backed this and to be perfectly, honest probably will not just based off of the price, but it looks amazing the base game. Plus the expansion is kick starting at ninety nine dollars or more. The expansion by itself is running at thirty five.

02:05:02 – 02:10:20

So if you have the, the base game, it’s a relatively reasonable price for an expansion, the issue, I am having right now with backing it because it looks great listening to people talk about it and reviews. It sounds really, really good. It also sounds like a game that will be my shelf of shame. It will be a game that will sit and sit and sit the most recent ex explanation of this game. I’ve heard is that it takes about an hour and a half to teach. So that’s the base game. That’s the base game. So I have some games that are like that an acronym mentioned earlier. There have Sarabia which is made by the same company as an acronym. I have some of those games and I love them. They’re great. They’re phenomenal games. But really? When we talk about barrier to entry this is another one of those games that just has so many different mechanics in it, that it’s hard to teach. It’s hard to get people interested and win for my game group because we’re not at someone’s house. We have a time limit. We have to be out of the store by midnight. And so if we don’t get there till seven or eight o’clock at night. An hour and a half. Keach ING means that that’s the only thing you’re gonna do all night. And for most of the people a game with just not feasible to do that. So I, I really am interested this game looks really really, really good. It’s just unfortunately. Not going to be something that I can support at this point. But by the same token, this is a game that I would love to have if I ever had a game group that I could convince to play some of these heavier meteor deeper games with. Yeah. And Josh this game looks phenomenal. It’s got different art than a lot of different games. But I get it. This is a game ride have to dedicate a lot of time to really learn. And like, really, really learn because everything I’ve seen about this game every single rule and everything in the game you have to learn everything else because every single rule is dependent and has an impact on every other aspect of the game, which is awesome. But at the same time for any talk about, like barriers to entry that means you’re having to learn all the game all the time. And that’s not as digestible, that’s not as easy to do. And I could see you spending the hour and a half, and then playing and then still not fully clicking until you’re almost done with that game. And then you really don’t learn it until you’re done with that. But that’s a lot of time and you have to get it out again this game I’d be definitely down to play definitely down to try. I just need to know. I am playing in an advance. So that way, I can watch a ton of videos and read the rule book myself, maybe more probably more than once, and then dig in. And so, I think Josh, I’m right there with you on this. I think it’s really freaking cool. I think the art on this game is phenomenal scrolling through this Kickstarter. Holy dang the way that they upgrade some of these components are freaking ridiculous is one of the most beautiful games. I’ve seen I will. I will give it that, but I think for me, I think. You and I can do this. This is a game when we go to a convention, if we plan time and we know we’re going to be playing it. You and I can both read up on the rolls and we’ll play this with you. I would I would love at our next convention. This is so this is similar to how I did Sarabia I back. Three brea. I knew it was coming. So I watched the video explanation of those rules before I got to the convention, so that I would be able to play it when I got there, I would love to do that with this game because this is unfortunately the reason it didn’t get played for me at BG con it was there. It was available for play. I didn’t pick it up because it was an hour and a half video explanation for the rules and at a con- you just don’t have time for that. But I would love to try and pick this up next time where we’re at a con where it’s Vail will for for us to pick up and play. Yeah. So the next one, I’m real excited to talk about. And that is wormwood table tiles, Josh, like your eyes just lit up talking when I was talking about that. So I gotta differ to you what’s going on with wormwood for you. So I have not seen much about these table tiles, I will defer to you to talking about them where I’m was just a phenomenal country for folks who don’t know wormwood is they are a hard wood working company that designs wooden.

02:10:22 – 02:15:16

Components as well as wooden. Accessories for gaming there. So a game that I backed and really love tok. It’s it’s T A K really great abstract strategy game. They designed all the pieces for that. But really, what sets worm what parts there tables are amazing, there tables are thousands upon thousands of dollars but they’re worth every penny there. They use unique rare hard wood for all of their materials. They’re just to me. They are the Pitney of what if I had unlimited money, I would buy wormwood products. So just like again you hit the nail on the head there. This is a little bit different though. It’s not tables. It’s more of the accessory go. What these things are so they liked to also use like rare earth, magnets, to make some of these things. So wormwood besides for the tables is also well known for making some phenomenal dungeon. Master screens for role playing games that have modular components in which you can like build them differently, including a dice tower as well as like insides of that dice tower. Different screens that you can flip around all sorts of stuff in modify them, as you go using rare earth, magnets to stick them together in bedded within these super high quality woods. What these are these dungeon tie? These tabletop tiles are essentially little bowls that are look like a hexagon from those of Catan. They’re a little bit larger with divots in them or lines across them to hold your components. Just a really nice feature to have on your table to, to hold your things. They do a really nice video. That’s actually kind of cool. They. Have it where it’s gloom haven set up with all these stuff set around like these little cardboard components? And then it pans around the back of a player and then all of a sudden, all those components are neatly organized in these things, and really cool part about these every single one of them, you flip them over, and they are now a high quality wooden coaster with a cork inlay. And so they’re also coasters for you. So if you’re worried about gaming and having condensation leak on the table like this’ll take care of that. There’s been actually a really nice phenomenal YouTube channel as well as Facebook presence for wormwood in which they were explaining, some of the challenges that they’ve had over the years and getting different seem machines got some of the different stuff out. But if you have ever watched something we’ve already talked about, and that is critical role worm, what is the are the people who made Matt Mercer’s dungeon master screen worm? What are the people who made the giant table? They play at with all the nice inlays like they make phenomenal products. I recommend go. Check out our Facebook page, and watch some of these videos about the level of care and detail that they put into these things. They’re not just trying to put out a table or try to put out an accessory like they’re putting out things that are going to increase and seriously bling out your table this maybe not for everybody because these things can be expensive. Like the there’s only two real tears to this. It’s like nineteen dollars whether you want them in wave one or two or three and you’re to be pledging there and you get for those nineteen dollars, you’re going to get one of these things. And that is if you’re getting a single red oak solo tile, you can choose what type you want it to be. But if you wanna go, like let’s say black walnut, you’re going to be paying even more. And so this, these are expensive, and I cannot stressed out enough, but it is worth it. If you have the means because these things are freaking legit. I wish I could afford this. The, the first thing I will say is. Go and look at this. With the caveat of. E go and look at this, if you want to feel really, really frustrated by not being able to afford it, because you’re right it is it is designed for very special brand of person, which is the brand new person who has disposable income that is far above what I will likely ever make, I would love love love to have one of these tables, or to have a full set looking at these I just saw the spell caster tile for your deity that tractor spell slots.

02:15:16 – 02:20:01

That’s a really cool idea is really neat. I don’t think I can spend twenty dollars on it right now. But, you know. They, it’s just real. I really love this company. It makes me sad that I can’t afford it. But it makes me happy that there are people out there who have combined these two I love watching people’s passion projects, and it’s clear to me that this company is a passion project. It’s people who love working with wood, and making these making things with rare and exquisite inexpensive and exotic woods. Who are also giant nerds and want to enhance their board gaming and tabletop gaming experiences. So it really makes me smile to see some of these things, but it also breaks my heart that I can’t buy all of it. Yup. And what’s really nice is so whenever you’re watching these guys are there at conventions, they’re always wearing like these almost like it’s back in the day, craftsmen wearing this vest, that a woodworker would wear the level of attention to detail. They do with what they wear to the, to their what they were, they work to what they put out there. They just always kind of raise the bar, and they have been super successful in this, and they’ve got fifteen hundred people backing this almost sixteen hundred and there’s still a long time to go. You’re more than able to check this out and jump on this, if this is something that you are able to do like I would go for this, but they’ve already almost raised two hundred thousand dollars doing this, because this is something that will. Will really really really enhance your table. And so, that’ll be really cool. So if you want check that out that is wormwood table. Top tiles, Josh, we have one more talk about, and this is one that we stole the listeners we’d be talking about, but wanted to save it for last, and that is route the newest expansion. It’s called the underworld expansion. So this expansion what it adds in or two new factions? And those factions are essentially the moles that go underneath the board, as well as the crows. So another bird faction, each of them is going to have just like the rest of the factions there on ace metrical player powers their own individual mechanics game mechanics that are going to be different than other players comes to new boards. So that is one board. That’s double sided all the components reach of those factions. What’s fascinating about this? Kickstarter is that they don’t have any str-. There’s none. And people have been like where the stretch goals. What’s nice about this, though? And how has operated in the past is when the regional game of route came out on Kickstarter? They included the river folk expansion for free. And so this expansion is just the expansion but then for free. You got a new deck of cards to play with all sorts of custom vagabond pieces, that you can pretty much only get with this, as well as new markers that are much more higher quality than cardboard, the resin clearing markers, when you do the board, as more set up as you go or a different play style, which is really cool. Josh, what are your thoughts on all this? So actually, this is something that I kind of find really interesting. I really like the addition of this vagabond pack. So one thing we didn’t really talk about we talked about the vagabond being trash panda and that is the marker that you are given. But that is not necessarily the character, you are playing because the vagabond can actually be either a recruit or an apostle or a Honey badger. So there’s a lot of other options. And so there’s vagabond pack, I think is kind of fun and funny in that it provides me people’s for all of these different types of aga- bonds, you can be I thought that was really clever. I think the resin clearing markers. Actually, I I’m a big fan of that. I think it will help with especially the larger player count. Games where it’ll make it a little bit easier to see what the clearing is our what each clearing is because that can be very important. The idea of a new game board intrigues me. I’m a little bit.

02:20:03 – 02:25:03

I have some questions about what that’s going to look like in what kind of impact that will really have these new new expansion factions. I’m I’m intrigued, I’m interested. I want to know what their mechanic is. I think one of the things that makes this game. Really interesting is like I talked about that ability to explore each faction. Each time you play it. And so, yeah, of course, anytime you can add some more replay ability because to me the fun in this game is learning the game. I think once you have it learned. I don’t know. Maybe like I said, if I play it again, with people who all know what they’re doing. I will find more enjoyment in it that way. But I really enjoyed learning this game. So I think these new expansions will be may maybe make us a little bit more revitalize this little bit more for me. Sure. And I can actually give a little bit of information. So the, the mole factions called the great underground duchy, and then the crow faction is the corvette conspiracy. So they actually the CROs have their own set of cards, how they operate is they infiltrate other player’s hands, and so they will actually put cards from their stack that are different into other players hands. Now is fascinating about that is all those players are limited to five cards at the end of their turns. And so they’re like, they’re limiting the powers of the other players, which is kinda cool. What’s fascinating also about route in the way that leader games has going about this? This game has actually been available during the entire play testing phase. If you went to leader games as website or on their Facebook page, you can get access to their Google Drive and play test. All these things at home for free. And so you can actually go on right now and try out all these factions pronounce the new map for yourself on your local color printer and try this all out before even getting into this, but you do have you’re going to have not as tight of a window on this one as you’ve had with some of the other ones we’ve talked about, but you probably have about a week from wants video, this episode goes live, but I will say that this. They had a funding goal of twenty five thousand dollars. This game has raised one point one million dollars as of today, which is just ridiculous. All this is the expansion if you liked what we talked about with route. You can also jump in and get everything. Thing for one hundred fifty dollars. Now, you’re wondering, maybe is that a good price? So the base game alone, fifty dollar game each of the expansions full retail, is about fifty dollars, and they are so in demand that you can only really get them at Fulham b but this is also going to include all of the extra free content in that hundred and fifty dollars. So vagabond pack the. Every clearing markers all that stuff. But there’s also some add-ons with this, so you can pay the five dollars and get that route upgrade pack which gosh that’s what I was talking about. When I was saying, I had to take the sharpie to the board. So this’ll take care of all of that, but you can also now also had in automated factions so not just the cats but they’re talking the other factions as well. Yeah. So if you wanted to play with the birds in the cats on the board, but you’re the other things the Cadbury’s cats can be automated interesting. And I think that’s a really good. Interesting idea, a little bit confused as to why they didn’t do some additional factions when they did the. An initial solo I get so low games can be hard to design or, or automated games can be hard to nine but. To me, the cats are the least fun to to play against. So I think this, this is a really nice idea. And so something else with this, that, honestly, like has me like begging at the seams in, like burning a hole in my wallet. ’cause I wanna spend the money on this, ’cause I’ve already gone in on this thing in that is the double sided, neoprene Matt boards for the original board, as well as the new board. And like that’s a twenty five dollars a piece like ending game that I have that has neoprene Matt’s like I will play on that frequent neoprene, Matt, because it’s going to lay flat. Every time it looks gorgeous is just phenomenal. And so that’s everything going on with route kinda any other thoughts Josh on all this now. Like I said, I mean, this is definitely. I. I have. I have my own personal experience with this game.

02:25:03 – 02:30:03

But I really realistically, I, I think this is a well-designed game. I think this is a great game. And I think if you’re interested in the least bit by this idea of asymmetric, gameplay, and territory control, and the theme of, you know, cute woodland creatures fighting against one another. I highly encourage you to take a look at it, it seems like a pretty expensive entry. It is it one hundred fifty is a lot. If you’re going all in on this absolutely. The MS RPM like said is is right there. I think it’s kind of reasonable for what you’re getting the quality of the components are really, really good. You’re getting a lot of wooden meatballs and things like that the, the cards are pretty high quality. I think this is worth it in the long run. If you have a group of people who are going to play it a lot. And if you. Are intrigued by this style of game. So, yeah, I like I said, it’s it may not be something that I’m backing. But it’s definitely I think something taking a look at if this is something that intrigues people. All right. And so that’s all the Kickstarter updates. So we have for you again. Many of those have some late pledges. If you’re hearing this at the time of the, this going live, like do check those out because some of those have very tight deadline. And we hope that if it peach, your interests that you can jump on it. But Josh how can the listeners get in touch with you so absolutely? Again, my name is Josh during Hausen. You can find me on board game. Geek has really probably update this. I’m bad wolf. Ninety that’s stuck. I know I know I should really just create a new one doctor who will not it’s a doctor who thing be a D W F ninety board. Game. Geek. That’s probably the easiest way to find me. I am also following the board game impact Facebook page Instagram. If you post things on there, I will respond to you through those things as well. And again, my name is Bruce, brownie find me on board game as Bruce Brown. I know. Like, sometimes you’re supposed to pick a more clever avatar name and stuff like that. But I’m like it’s just my freaking name. I’m going to be me. But we just want to say thank you for listening to board game impact. Yup. That learning about what experiences that are going on, for us makes a positive impact for you, and your gaming group also just wanna put out there that I hope that trying out these different formats has been positive for you really love to get some feedback on this. And thank you for those of you who have reached out, but we really wanna keep hearing from some more people. So Email us at board game impact at gmaiLcom. So if you also want to check out the website and learn more about, Josh and see his stunning headshot, that he has up there, you can go and check that out at board game impact dot com. That being said we’ve added a really sweet new part of the website as a tab called games and gear. So if you’re curious about any of the games that we have been reviewing on the show, talking about on the show, or the or if you’re a podcast or looking to get into more podcasting, all the gear that we have up on that website is available through Amazon. Zahn as your that we’re actively using to record this show as well as the games that we were playing in talking about just quick note, all of the proceeds that come through that will help benefit the show. So if these games or something, you’re interested in please go, there, check those out by those will help fund this show and help us do more for you. So it’s a win win. So check that out games end gear again. If you have something, you want to have disgust. Please Email us at board game impact gmaiLcom. Absolutely. Make sure to follow us on that Instagram Josh mentioned, which is board gained impact, as well as, like the Facebook page where we’re also doing some videos and that’s board game impact surprise, surprise. Just wanna take a moment to thank our phenomenal patriot backers supporting the show, your support really makes this happen. There’s been some nice developments with those kind of things, and we’re going to be updating some of the goals there now that we’ve added in Josh to kind of make this really be self sustaining so just going to call it I got a notice. From our podcast hosting like, hey, you and over your monthly allotment and they’re okay with that. But with that being said, because we’re doing more content for you. That’s really going to be enhancing, how much content we’re putting out that being said that has increased prices were hosting. And so if you can please, please, please go on and support show, it would mean so much because this really is a passion project, and we wanna be able to keep doing this for you.

02:30:03 – 02:31:32

And also, this is some of the most filling stuff we’re able to do leaving. These episodes has just been really fulfilling for myself, and Josh and actually real quick Josh’s fiancee came into this episode for a little bit that I I’m getting out of this show, but she’s like he giddy. He was giddy like a school girl after recording the last episode and I’m gonna I’m gonna call him out for that because I was too, and I will own it. But Josh and I love and doing this so please share this board game impact thing with your fellow gaming friends. So can also help them and rate, the show on your favorite pod. Cast out but really, really, really just want to thank you for taking the time. Josh do you have any closing? Cozy comments. Once again. Thank everyone for listening. Thank you, all for your support. Let us know you think about this. I know we’re running a little bit longer than what maybe Bruce had by himself in the past. Let us know if you if you like that if you want us to try some other things or want us to talk about some different things. We’re really just experimenting here in throwing spaghetti at the wall. We wanna we wanna make something that our listeners really enjoy. So thank you so much for listening. And. Please go ahead and give us any feedback that you may have certain if you like this episode or one here more, please. Stay tuned. And we’ll be putting out a new episode in two weeks on Tim’s day. So until next time go have fun out there. Go play some great games and have a positive impact on the world. Thanks.