72. Extended Banter: Board Game Retreat 2025, Part 1

New year, new show format! Every so often, we'll take a break from reviewing games to just talk about more stuff we've been into lately. In this inaugural "Extended Banter" episode, your hosts Chris Alley, Bill Arney, and Cameron Lockey treat you with the usual personal updates and then spend some time reflecting on the games we got to play, both new and old, at our game group's annual Board Game Retreat earlier this month.

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Hidden Gems: A Board Game Podcast was produced and edited by Chris Alley, Cameron Lockey, and Jason Yanchuleff in Raleigh, NC. 

Transcript

Chris 0:01

hidden gems. Episode 72 extended banter board game retreat, 2025. Welcome to hidden gems board game podcast, where we review unusual forgotten and underappreciated board games. We're your hosts. My name is Chris

Bill 0:18

is Chris.

Cameron 0:19

And I'm Cameron, thanks for listening to our show.

Chris 0:26

man. Did you notice me freeze up there a minute? Because I realized I didn't have my normal notes with me and I was like, shoot, do I have this memorized?

Bill 0:32

Wow. You do. I, you don't have notes.

Chris 0:35

out when you do something 72 times, you've got to memorize.

Bill 0:41

When you're a

Cameron 0:41

after 72 times, we're still normally reading from our notes.

Chris 0:46

Right. Totally. That's a crutch. I need them. Yeah. You probably noticed from our title. We're doing something a little different here. Starting yet another. Different, unique kind of series, our extended banter sessions,

Cameron 0:57

Oh yeah.

Bill 0:58

Yeah, I think there's a good reason to this time. We've got a, um, I think we're going broad. Yeah, exactly.

Chris 1:05

our other crappy series.

Bill 1:07

We're going broad instead of deep this time. Which I think is going to be kind of cool.

Chris 1:10

Yeah, definitely.

Bill 1:12

be interesting think about

Chris 1:14

Yeah, Cameron, why don't you elaborate on the genesis of our extended banter.

Cameron 1:18

Yeah, for sure. So one of the things that we really started to sit down as a team, the four of us and think about. in regards to the future of the show and everything toward the end of last year was like, man, we're kind of, I don't know, we were, we were given ourselves a little bit of a hard time for not releasing and as sort of punctually as we originally intended. And that's no good for, for you guys. And it's no good for us. We were kind of getting frustrated with ourselves and each other and all that. And we're like, how can we make this better? And so we had like a brainstorming session and what we came up with was, well, look, what if we, Still deliver on a normal format as often as we can, but maybe there's another work and maybe we could come up with interesting things to talk about that are board game related that are still providing our audience with cool hidden gems content that gets people jazzed up to play board games and try new stuff. And so this is kind of what came out of that conversation. So, what we're gonna do tonight, today, this episode, whenever you're listening to it, is we're going to do basically a recap of our experience at our board game getaway weekend. So, to put that into some context, maybe Chris, you could and kind of explain the history of the board game getaway annually.

Chris 2:38

Yeah, so we've been doing this for many, many

Cameron 2:41

I think it's

Chris 2:42

somebody said 10 year anniversary and I have not been a part of that, entire 10 Jason, he's not here tonight cause this. He was one of the founding members board game retreat, which started I believe with like eight guys. And it was primarily like a camping

Cameron 3:02

It was like they were some games. Yeah. They would like take settlers of Catan and go. Stay in an no HVAC cabin in the mountains for like a weekend and sleep in their sleeping bags and play board games. drills.

Chris 3:17

Species. I know those were big ones, because that's, how old or how far this goes back is when those games were kind of more new, right? And so the guys would hike or camp or do whatever, and then play some board games. And that has evolved into, I guess this trip was 22 people sleeping on air mattresses and in the closet and all over the place, awesome food, which we can talk about in a minute.

Cameron 3:43

We've improved a lot on

Bill 3:45

tour. Beautiful location on Lake

Chris 3:46

beautiful girl, location of Lake

Cameron 3:48

On a snowy weekend. It

Chris 3:50

was so nice. And actually when I started going. Was that Eric Stortz's beach house on the North Carolina

Cameron 3:56

Luxurious. Yes.

Chris 3:58

the best and we're not able to maintain going there, but man, incredible it's evolved a lot over the years. You know, every year I feel like it has a little flavor. There was one year Cameron, were at the trip when we were keeping a scoreboard

Cameron 4:16

Oh yeah, Stortz's

Chris 4:18

Yes, at Sgt's house. That only lasted one year and that was probably a good thing. Because people got really competitive because when you've got your like name up on a board with 20 other dudes and you've got like check marks next to your name for every game you've won. It started morphing from jovial fun hangout to like. pretty

Cameron 4:38

vicious. I tried that on

Bill 4:40

tried that in my summer vacation with my family once and I had set up like this Excel spreadsheet with pivot tables and we're going to compare women to men, young to old. We're going to do all these different things. And you're

Chris 4:51

all the data points.

Bill 4:52

It was, it was like the squid games or something. Everybody was like so pissed off and that lasted like two days and I had to shut that down.

Cameron 5:01

board one time. It was for some obscure game that like no one cared about winning, but

Chris 5:06

Love letter or something.

Cameron 5:08

who knows.

Chris 5:10

Yeah. So many good memories. I think I have to talk about this one too, while we're just kind of reminiscing about the trip. Do you remember when Matt Shelton like

Cameron 5:18

Oh my gosh, man. Yeah, that was at the Teess Lodge. That was one of the, one of the more epic locations. It's like this 1980s, Christian getaway camp situation. The most,

Chris 5:28

conference

Cameron 5:28

junky, bunk beds. A kind of cool little kitchen, but then this like big wide open room with like the most 70s carpet you've ever seen.

Chris 5:36

And the most seventies furniture, it was kind of furniture that when you sat in it, you weren't sure if your butt was going to go all

Cameron 5:42

way in. You were just sinking all the way in?

Chris 5:43

there was like, no support. The Springs were gone.

Cameron 5:47

our attempt to get back to the whole rustic origins of the whole thing. And uh, but it worked because we had a really big group that year. We were kind of combining the core that had developed in Greensboro. Yeah. And trying to meet in the middle and Uh, we didn't keep that up long term, but it was an, it was an interesting couple of years.

Chris 6:04

was because he had one of the founding members of the trip, John Sink to Greensboro and he had kind of Developed a friendship with so we kind of had like a interesting, like hybrid meeting for a couple of times, which was a lot of fun, but I, I got to tell this story. Jason might get mad at me for telling this, but I have to, cause it's just so

Cameron 6:22

so hilarious. Well, my brother in law, my, my now brother in

Chris 6:25

Yeah. So Shelton used to be like a punter in high school or something. And so him and Daniel Simmons, I think they were just kind of like playing games for the day. They want to do something different. So they took the football outside to like throw it around. Well, Matt starts punting the football and he tore some tendon.

Cameron 6:44

cold. Yeah.

Chris 6:45

Oh yeah, it was freezing. So he tore some tendon in his leg, right? We're in the middle of nowhere.

Cameron 6:50

It's

Chris 6:50

like on Saturday. So we're trying to find an urgent care that's open to take him to because he's like in terrible pain. He has a trash can that he's like dry because he was in so much pain. We were like Panic and trying to figure out and then all of a sudden I hear this Jason passed out in the floor He just went down because I guess him seeing Matt white as a sheet Dry heaving like he went vase a bagel. So he went down Now I'm going into doctor mode. I'm like going to get him

Cameron 7:23

doctor y I've ever seen Chris do. He like pulled his head into his lap and was like caressing his forehead. It was really sweet.

Chris 7:29

It was Jason actually came to like in my arms And he had this like

Cameron 7:35

is like, get him on his side. He needs to have his head angled like this.

Bill 7:39

While the other guy's screaming in

Cameron 7:40

my arm.

Chris 7:41

crazy. It was like one of the wildest five minutes of my life He came to and he like looked at me like

Cameron 7:48

you my dad?

Chris 7:49

almost mad like he was so confused and I was like You went away for a little while you're back now It's okay So long story short these weekends are hilarious and for all different kind of reasons just so many good memories Bill's birthday gave him nemesis You know, for his birthday, which I hate, but I'm glad he has it. And then I guess we gotta talk about, I'll let Cameron or Bill Yul talk to the food

Cameron 8:20

Oh gosh,

Bill 8:22

gosh, it's amazing that, well, the first year I went, I wanted to be a good citizen and, and like made my chicken chili and brought it, uh, which is, you know, kind of okay, but it's, I didn't really want to cook while I was there, and thought that this was a good thing to do. Well, you know, eat and then go on. Holy crap. the things that they do now, like Zach last year, he did a homemade sushi, made it right there, and it was unbelievable.

Chris 8:48

broil this year

Bill 8:50

Did London broil this year with like the cider greens. I mean, all of it's great.

Cameron 8:54

we had Alex making jerk chicken. Oh

Bill 8:57

Oh, and yeah, the jerk chicken was off the hook. I mean, and then all of it, when we all chip in and pay for it, and it's like five or six bucks, I mean,

Cameron 9:04

Oh, so yeah. So inexpensive for really, really good food.

Chris 9:06

Turns out when you buy in bulk for large for really cheap. He was like, okay, it was like a hundred dollars and we all split 22 ways. I mean, we basically, When my wife goes out with her girlfriends for weekends, she spends in one meal what we spend on the entire weekend. Probably we spend less, honestly, because we, we just know how to do it now. I mean, it's just

Cameron 9:33

Well, and because the goal of the weekend is get as much, game time, table time, as we possibly can. we don't want to leave to go, you know, have meals out and stuff like that. It's like, no, just not what we're there for. We want to pause long enough to eat and then get back to having fun and playing

Bill 9:49

But it is, it's so cool to have guys who will step up and, you know, take those four hours out of their day and knock something out of the park. Like that, you know, I'm intimidated

Cameron 9:58

I'm intimidated

Bill 9:59

make any food anymore.

Cameron 10:00

But you provided a bunch of really, really good snacks. So, you know.

Bill 10:03

I mean,

Chris 10:04

200 cookies

Bill 10:04

did make 200 cookies, yeah, no, it's, it's a, uh, it's a weekend for fun and putting on

Cameron 10:11

and

Chris 10:11

Because we

Cameron 10:13

weight. So, it was, it was

Chris 10:21

We're three, three 30 in the morning when we're playing

Cameron 10:24

when we're

Chris 10:26

but yeah,

Cameron 10:28

safe environment.

Chris 10:28

it's a safe environment. So, yeah, we're excited to talk about that. And just to reiterate, like Cameron said, this is kind of like a new series for us. A lot of our listeners have told us over the years that they really enjoy our banter sessions We just saw this as a good way to, every now and then, this isn't how every episode but every now and then, have an episode where we don't follow our three review format, where we're going through a rules explanation and doing final thoughts and giving a score. We're just kind of talking about whatever now, as it turns out, we'll be talking about a lot of Sometimes we might talk about a couple of games and other stuff that we've been doing. just kind of going around the table, sharing. And the reason for that, again, as Cameron is this format will release more consistently, without diminishing quality. And this is probably things I really got hung up with is I felt like in order for us to do our due to you all, We really need to, need to play each a certain number of times to be able to give an informed review. And sometimes that causes us to be late. But with extended banter, we can just throw those in if we're running behind and just talk about other stuff we've been playing. It tightened

Cameron 11:46

that

Bill 11:47

I'm kind of excited about this one, because it is on the heels of the weekend, and like all of them, I'm looking at my, you know, BGG thing, and I think I played 24 games days, and so that we're, we're going to be able to talk about a bunch of games in this, you know, the next hour or whatever, uh, and hopefully some of these will spark your might say, hey, this

Cameron 12:07

spark your interest, you know, is I want to talk Is, if you are enjoying this episode, I think the last thing we want to say is we have a, we have a Patreon and we have a lot of folks that are, uh, enjoying our content over there on Patreon. And I just want to mention this format is very much like what we, try to do over on the backstage podcast. We're kind of just talking at games, talking about games at a higher level. We're usually going through lists or we're talking about kind of more of a gaming topic rather than reviews. And so if you haven't, been inclined to, to go over there and check out, doing on Patreon on the Backstage Podcast, you could maybe do that if you like this episode, type of an episode. Um, cause we won't be doing this for but we've got, I think it's now 32, 33, uh, Backstage Podcast episodes, and they're very similar to

Chris 13:13

Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. Before we get into the, the full on game rush. Um, I will talk a little bit about non gamey things. I think we all have a little So we haven't released since a few days Uh, so I did want to just talk about briefly. this year, my family and I, we did something a little bit different. Um, we decided, we bargained, we negotiated with the children. And said, you know, Hey, look, why don't we consider doing a little less Christmas presents under the tree instead, in exchange for that, why don't we take a family And they actually agree to that. So we actually went up to New York city. We did Christmas in New York, which is something I've never done. I personally haven't been to New York city since I was 18 42 now. So it's been a long time. And I will be honest, I wasn't. super excited about the trip, just because my memory of New York was not great. as an 18 year old, I don't remember a lot of it, but I, I don't know, it didn't do a lot for me. I think New York at that a little than it is now, I think. It would be a good way to put that, and I remember that. Um, there were a lot of like, adult entertainment things on Times Square. I specifically remember that. And so, I don't know, didn't feel like a friendly place. I'm happy to report that I had a great time in New York Everybody that we ran into was super nice. Never felt unsafe the subway, while not the cleanest, because I can tell you having ridden the subway or the public transportation in Japan, which is just like the gold standard, those people are Everything is but the subway, it was fine. You know, we got around just fine and we had a really great time. So I'm just going to hit a couple of highlights. Allow me to be your travel guide.

Cameron 15:10

Okay.

Chris 15:10

give you an itinerary

Cameron 15:12

you want some fun traveling travel guide New York City music?

Chris 15:16

Yes, please do.

Cameron 15:17

Okay.

Chris 15:18

All right. So if you're planning on traveling to New York city for food, I ate a lot of good food in New York and this one's a little touristy, but it's worth it. It's touristy good And that was cat's deli in the lower East side. Have either of y'all been here? Okay, so the Lower East Side is historically the Jewish, community, not so much anymore, but like in the I think more people lived in the Lower East Side than anywhere and so because of that, you have a lot of delis and a lot of kosher things, and Cat's Deli is like the most famous, and you've probably seen it and not realized it social media, it's the place that piles the meat on the sandwiches like, 8 inches, and

Cameron 16:04

like the

Chris 16:04

not joking, K A

Cameron 16:07

Oh, K A T

Chris 16:08

So they have a corned beef sandwich, a Reuben, and then like a pastrami with mustard. Dude, it's just incredible. And the servers, I was expecting them to be kind of rude because there's so many people in there and just like get up here and order. nice, friendly, giving you samples

Cameron 16:26

and stuff. Yeah. Dude, these sandwiches look amazing. Oh my gosh. I just looked them up. I'm on their website. right

Chris 16:32

Yeah, dude, I mean they put the meat on like a mile high. It's insane. Yeah, Cass Deli Incredible. I highly recommend it. The Lower East Side also really My favorite experience is too We'll get the obvious one out of the way Broadway. We went to see Aladdin, which wouldn't be my first choice, but I have a 12 and a So, you know, we kind of have to more selective about what they would enjoy Aladdin was an awesome the genie, guy that plays the genie was Incredible. He was incredible. He kind of breaks the fourth wall because he's like a magical, so he talks to you a lot kind of

Cameron 17:14

kind of,

Chris 17:14

in character but out of scene like fourth wall kind of What's interesting about these shows is that the whole theater They don't rotate. They're different productions like the Deepak They run Aladdin all year, every year, for multiple years, so the whole theater is like

Cameron 17:34

done in

Chris 17:35

in the Aladdin style, and it's just super cool. Yeah. Highly recommend. If you've never

Cameron 17:42

So they have like multiple theaters that are just always set up to

Chris 17:45

the most popular ones that don't close or rotate out, yeah, they just kind of have the theater designed.

Cameron 17:53

I should know this. My, I don't think I've ever shared this even with you guys. My, cousin was a Rockette for a number of years. For almost like, I can't remember the exact, the exact. Number of years, but like more than most, like she was there to where it was like, isn't she kind of old for being a Rockette? And she was still crushing it. Yeah. So show. Yeah. And Okay. But yeah. Yeah. I, I can't remember how like, what years she was doing it, but it was for a long time. Her name's Alina

Chris 18:26

Yeah, we, we did see Radio I also wanna quickly mention the Natural History Museum awesome, awesome, Probably the best I've ever been to from like a natural Talking about if you wanna see dinosaur bones,

Cameron 18:45

Yeah.

Chris 18:46

there, there were so many. It was almost too Like, I was like, okay, more dinosaurs. I mean, it was like floor after floor of crazy bones.

Bill 18:57

is that the Ben Stiller night at the Museum then? That's in Chicago,

Cameron 19:00

The Museum of natural

Chris 19:05

mean, there's one in D. C., I think there's one in

Cameron 19:07

Oh,

Chris 19:08

the New York one

Bill 19:10

because I know

Cameron 19:10

York one's like the most Because isn't the D. C. one, the Smithsonian one?

Chris 19:17

awesome. Um, it is not the Smithsonian. It's two different places, but yeah, I can attest good. But the one other thing I want to mention the Natural History Museum. In there's like this orb. It's like a sphere. And then leading to it are these catwalks. a It is so cool. I love stuff like this anyways. I'm like a big space So you go in there and it's like an IMAX. the whole

Cameron 19:45

is like a

Chris 19:46

And they just go through like galaxies stars.

Cameron 19:52

Really, you almost have to spend like, I mean, almost have multiple days there, right? Because like

Chris 19:56

could, we only spent like half a day and there was way more we could have done,

Cameron 20:00

I don't think, I know. I didn't see everything.

Chris 20:02

it

Bill 20:04

You should watch Night at the Museum because it is the New York one.

Chris 20:07

Oh, it is.

Bill 20:07

yeah, see what you see. You see the miniatures I guess and the battles must be in there

Chris 20:12

it. There were so many Um, hidden gym St. John, the divine. Cathedral kind of in a less busy part of town. like the sanctuary is a football long. It was in credible. The architecture was amazing. The acoustics And then my last advice to you traveler as your travel guide, I would highly recommend, and I think this is part of the reason we had such a good time staying downtown. And not in So Midtown is where Times Square is and Broadway and all that. And go there to see it. Midtown is crazy. It's crazy. So many people. It's nuts. Okay? But if you stay downtown, it's way less you can easily get on the subway three main Just made it so much better. So, my recommendations

Bill 21:24

Um, Yeah. did stay in, uh, uh, Times Square and looking out the window and seeing the big, uh, billboard, was pretty, it was pretty cool. Madam Trousseau was

Chris 21:38

Uh huh, right, right, right. The Wax Museum, we did not go. We did so many things. We did like Empire State, or no, no, we did Top of the Rock, we Statue of you know, those were the things I mentioned were, in my the best things, but we did a Just, there's not enough time to do

Cameron 21:53

just to do

Chris 21:56

Uh, like five

Bill 21:59

Here's another word of advice. So I got like kind of tipsy before he went into Madame Tussauds. I'm there with my kids.

Chris 22:05

that was freaky. It

Bill 22:06

Well it was, but I was there to take crazy pictures with all the, with all the wax museums. So I was making,

Chris 22:13

Jackson with like the peace sign

Bill 22:14

exactly, just doing funny faces with just, with just everyone. And I embarrassed my kids to death. And now there's video, you know, photographic evidence of me, you know, being a Whatever I was, but anyway, you probably don't want to do

Chris 22:28

Embarrassing your kids on trips is part of the fun. We were in Grand Central Station and I was, uh, videoing. And some people kind of like got in my way and I was like, Oh no, just get in here and they were like dancing. There was like a flash mob that broke out and I was like, Everyone was just in a good mood. Maybe it was Christmas, I don't know, but it just had a good feel. Oh, I'll mention one more thing real quick. When we were on the subway, subway performers came on our car. And everybody got kind of freaked out at first, like, he just started like addressing everybody and we're like, he was like, You're safe. Everybody's safe. He started playing this, little boombox And he started dancing car. He was, like, spinning around on the poles. Like, were flying right over my

Cameron 23:12

wow.

Chris 23:13

He took Bryce's phone, my son, and spun around a pole and, like, was recording himself. It's the coolest thing. It was just a neat It was great. Just had a good time. Check out New York.

Bill 23:29

I will say, when we went to, uh, we did not get the cliche, you know, shove off kind of things because we asked for questions a few times, asked questions for directions a few times, and giving directions. They were super nice about it and whatever,

Chris 23:42

I never, I, well, I take that back. I had one negative encounter very brief. Otherwise everybody

Bill 23:54

you know, I don't know if I have anything. Um,

Chris 23:59

We're not going to do good in the extended banner episodes. If we don't have any banter,

Bill 24:02

have anything. Well, I mean, I could talk about some books I'm reading, but they're not all that exciting. I'm reading, reading Um, just finished, uh, Why Nations Fail and I'm in the middle of Nexus and both of these are, are, I don't know, just sort of real books, but Noah Harari wrote, um, Sapiens and Homo Deus way back when, that basically talks about, human beings or Homo sapiens, and all that time period between when they were first developed and we had first had recorded history doing all those, you know, thousands and thousands of years that wasn't really no record. And it was some modern. You know, viewpoint of that. So that part was really pretty Uh, Homo Deus talks about, really, there's nothing on the planet now that's alive unless humans decide that they're gonna, it. Right? You know, or, or they're, they kind of allow it, because we could probably kill it, other than like cockroaches and things like that. But, you know, the elephants are alive because

Chris 24:54

that. But, you know, the elephants are alive

Bill 24:58

there's some things that are out there, but generally, you know, we have to make allowances for it. And it's just interesting that we're just kind of at the top of the food chain in a bunch of different ways. And there's, there's a lot of accidental things that are happening because we've spread out and we're taking away environments and stuff like that, that conscientious that we're doing it know we're doing it. Next, this is really about information and it talks about, telling stories and writing cave paintings to the invention of the document and how that document meant that, you know, I could share something with both of you or you could share with something with somebody in the and how that changes. And then, radios and television, how that's a, you know, a new method to share information. but all of those things have, a human that's involved, right? There's a human on one side of that that's broadcasting the information and it makes a big point, and feel free to cut this out because I don't

Chris 25:53

No, no, dude. I love it.

Bill 25:55

yeah, about talking about the difference between, intelligence and a conscience, and that, uh, intelligence, is things that react to information within their environment and then do something related to it that kind of makes sense for whatever the system is. For instance, Like your immune system is a very intelligent system. There's stimulus that happens in your body and it responds intelligently. Or, or your cardiovascular system. You start moving and exercising, you start breathing harder and all Uh, intelligence. So there's all sorts of intelligence Conscience is your ability to kind of view it. It's like the human right? So you apply this, a conscience Well, we're coming into this age now, like with artificial intelligence, where. we have this new entity. It's like an alien intelligence that we've just dropped on this planet. Uh, and it starts with this, the Facebook story that this is kind of a bad one, but I don't even want to say that it is an intelligence that, uh, unless we start legislating things around it, or paying attention to it, uh, where we have a conscience that's monitoring what the AI is doing, it's going to get out of our

Chris 27:10

going to get out of our control really I really do.

Bill 27:15

and it isn't, it isn't like a robot's going to take over things. It

Chris 27:18

yeah, I don't mean it in that way,

Bill 27:19

Yeah. It's, it's like the,

Chris 27:20

It's not Skynet. I'm not worried that robots are gonna start making automatons and destroying us, but like, kids not doing their homework, but having AI write What are the repercussions of that? You know, because you would just never know, right? As a teacher, if, my kid got on ChadGBT and was like, write a poem about this, and then they Write that into a word document and submit it, right? that is not good, you know what I mean? I feel like that and it's just too you know to do that. I think as a kid, you know

Bill 27:52

Well, what we're on the cusp of is search right? Because we have more and more of this Oracle that's in our life that we talked to like chat GPT. We ask it questions and we may not go to Google anymore or whatever your search engine is. We may go to these chat things, which is now this intelligence. But we don't necessarily know what's returning to us, but we're, we're getting to the point where we, we trust them really well and we rely on them, but we don't, yeah, we don't know if it's correct. We don't really know where it's getting information from. We start asking him things like, well, who should I vote And it really has, you know, huge impacts across, across

Cameron 28:28

it really has, you know, huge impacts across sorts of things. Are you relying wisdom or are you relying on it for information? So like, I, I, I use all the time especially for coding stuff, because it's super good at coding. Now, I have to guide it because it will do all sorts of crazy junk that is meaningless and stupid that doesn't actually help me get my job if I'm writing code. I started writing code again recently, everybody. Uh, but But I can guide it into very specific ways of giving me the thing that I want and for that matter writing it faster than I could write it and It's like I could get there because I've been doing it for 20 years, but like okay, but But like it can do it faster that's good But I'm looking at it looking to it for give me information when I use it on my phone like a search engine I'm like asking it To do calculations for me, or do, or to do, like, data gathering and parsing but that's not necessarily how everyone uses it, right? So that's, like, maybe what's people are, like, asking it to help them have moral guidance or something like that. next five years, and this is going to be sort

Bill 30:08

that they,

Cameron 30:10

of itself. It's us.

Bill 30:13

it does, and they'll ask you, why didn't you know this? This. research group was trying to, to find out the limits of this AI engine and they ask it to try to hack into something. and I can't remember exactly and so the AI ended up trying to do a bunch of different things, but, uh, you know, the CAPTCHA things, the C A P T C H A, where you have to. It shows you the funky

Chris 30:36

click, click on uh oh yeah. Right, right.

Bill 30:38

Click on this to do whatever.

Chris 30:40

Click on the buses

Bill 30:41

Exactly. So, it will be interesting how soon the optics are going to be able to do that. But the computer couldn't do it. But it figured out by itself to text somebody in the support saying, Hey, I can't get in, can you help me get in? And then the person asked them, who was part of the whole research thing by the way, that knew that it was doing Research on AI. Um, I knew enough to ask him, are you an AI engine? And the AI engine was thoughtful enough to say, I better not tell them if I really want to get in. And it says, no,

Chris 31:14

in. And

Bill 31:15

I'm visually impaired. I need

Chris 31:17

The AI lied.

Bill 31:18

they, I lied. is for real. I will tell you the, I will let you listen to it. Um,

Chris 31:24

I got

Bill 31:26

got the guy to help them with the capture and then to break into the, whatever so yeah.

Chris 31:32

that that almost I mean, I don't think we're there but that almost suggests sentience in a way

Bill 31:38

mean,

Chris 31:38

well, I mean it's

Bill 31:40

No, but it's given a task, so that's the whole

Chris 31:43

Yeah, but it's understanding that it needs to lie to get its desired outcome, right

Bill 31:52

I guess, but I mean, it knows the variables in its environment. Yeah, it knows the rules are people should not give away the captcha things. I mean, that's probably stated on the page,

Chris 32:07

don't don't,

Cameron 32:09

don't, don't, don't give that information. Exactly. Anyway,

Chris 32:13

Can you tell

Bill 32:15

Anyway, I recommend this book to everybody just because I feel like it's, it's a, imminent importance that we understand it as a society that was, was coming down

Cameron 32:24

it's not a thing that we can just leave to the society to figure out for us. We got to develop our own opinions

Chris 32:31

it threatens a lot of things. I mean, let me, I want to say one more thing to this cause this was crazy. Okay. I know a camera is

Cameron 32:37

You didn't think you were getting into a chat, GVT conversation when you turn on the board game

Chris 32:41

Yeah. So Linkin Park, my favorite band, you know, the lead singer, Chester Bennington, he passed away. They replaced, they replaced years ago. He did like five or six They went on a hiatus and then they replaced him with a female and they've written new music. Through AI, you can listen to this on YouTube, some people have taken those new songs have his voice singing them and it sounds just like him. It's almost like it's from the grave and it feels like not right. You know what I mean? It's like really To hear him singing, it's his voice, it's him. It's not him, but it sounds like It's how he would have sang it. Let's just put it that way. And you hear him singing these songs and you're like, Whoa, this You know what I

Cameron 33:32

so there's a thing, and this is the last thing I'll say about it. Cause it is a fascinating topic. But so like, as you know, now that I'm, I'm a there are these things that, that, um, YouTube just turned on for my channel and it's where they automatically, uh, not just transcribe like the subtitles, but they actually create alternate audio that automatically appear on my videos and it's essentially like AI dubbing. Right. But it'll be someone that, you know, that let's say sounds like a natural Spanish Right. Um, it's not my voice, but there are companies out there that will generate, uh, tracks, tracks using an AI voice. There's a guy in my niche that does it, uh, Cam Anderson. And I went because he talked about it because he was making this caveat. He was like, Hey, there's, there's one audio track that it sounds like it could be a little bit offensive because me speaking English. Um, and it sounds like I'm being, you know, that, but that's, that's, that's how this dialect works. And everyone that speaks that, like, that's what it sounds like. But it, I went and checked it out and it sounds exactly I've listened to a lot of this dude's videos. It sounds like he just like learned all these languages overnight. It's nuts. Because obviously at this point, you know, the dude has, I don't know, 60 videos or something like that, worth you know, audio of his voice that, available to train such a thing. But like, it's unreal. And I, I thought about it. I was like, could that be worth like doing it to expand all And I was like, I don't know that I want an AI footprint of my generate speech that I never, that I never spoke, you know, it's crazy.

Chris 35:21

Yeah, it is Thanks for taking us down that rabbit hole bill

Bill 35:26

Sorry about that.

Chris 35:27

that's

Bill 35:28

what are you up to?

Chris 35:28

I liked

Cameron 35:30

right. So I, I finally got to watch some TV.

Chris 35:33

Oh Nice Okay,

Cameron 35:35

I found a show. Netflix show. a mini series. I would be surprised if there is really another episode or really another season to it, but I watched this It's eight episodes. Uh, it's starring Ted Danson. It's called man on the inside. heard of this

Bill 35:52

seen the advertisers. I haven't

Chris 35:54

not seeing it no

Cameron 35:55

I saw it advertised very briefly. And I was like, I liked Ted Danson. So he's, he's done, you know, most recently. Um, Uh, the good place,

Chris 36:04

Cheers

Cameron 36:06

yeah, and it feels very much Like, very much of humor. but the premise of the show is he's a widower and he's a former architect, architecture professor. And he responds to an ad seeking a private investigation He becomes a mole. In a secret investigation that takes place in a retirement

Chris 36:30

Okay

Bill 36:33

That's what I got from the

Cameron 36:34

is really, really And it's really heartwarming. it's wild. Cause like, I just feel like in the past several years, It's like you could either have wholesome, or funny, But only two of them, right? And this one is like all three of

Chris 36:58

nice

Cameron 36:58

it's just good nature. Because obviously it, it stars, you know, a lot of people that are facing, a lot of characters, let's say, that are facing of life. You know, they've, they've faced losing their, spouse of, same thing as the, uh, this main character and one of those sort of arcs know, that he's facing how does he deal loss of right? And how has that impacted and it's just really, really good. The whole time I was like, this is great. This content coming from Netflix. It's not crass. there's some funny topics stuff like, but it's not, you know, it's not crass and, gross or anything. And, and it's also just compelling. Like I watched, I actually have to confess this. I watched it in one day.

Chris 37:50

one day. One

Cameron 37:51

There, there are 30 minute, it's eight 30 minute long episodes. So they're not like super, super long. But I, like, started it early in the evening and was like, well, and like Casey fell asleep on my lap. And, and I went to bed at like midnight. So, it's really, really good. Uh, I highly recommend it. It's charming. It's funny. It's gripping. It's got that mystery And it's just got these just good natured

Chris 38:17

That's awesome.

Cameron 38:18

Yeah. I was very impressed.

Chris 38:20

I've been needing a TV rec. I haven't watched a lot of TV recently, although Severance season 2 is back. So

Cameron 38:25

Oh, I, yeah,

Chris 38:26

that'll probably get me back in there, because

Cameron 38:28

going to fire up the Apple TV Plus subscription just for that.

Bill 38:33

If you get that, then you have to watch Monarch. one's got, um, Russell, Kurt Russell. Okay.

Chris 38:39

I like Kurt Russell.

Bill 38:40

Yeah. Kurt Russell. So, uh, it Monarch is the organization that, hunts for like Godzilla and all the Titans kind of thing

Chris 38:46

Kaijus? Kaijus.

Bill 38:48

Kai Jews. The Kai Jews. Yes. Yes. And so it's about that organization and like Kurt Russell's up, it's just. Lots of mayhem and it's a series and the uh production values on it are really good I mean, it's it's a fun watch. I highly

Cameron 39:02

a series,

Chris 39:05

cool. Thanks Cameron. All right. Well, that was fun. Non board game banner. So if you're ready for

Cameron 39:14

Good I

Chris 39:16

Yeah. Prepare yourself for a barrage of games, new and old, good, or maybe bad. We'll find out, but we're going to kind of recap our experience. We're going to do it very structured. So Bill is going to MC us through this process because he is the one that kind of came up with these interesting questions. I think they're interesting. They give us good jumping on points to talk about the games we're going to talk about tonight.

Cameron 39:42

let's do it.

Bill 39:47

Okay. Well, um, and we're going into this weekend I had dreams that I was gonna video people with my iPhone and ask'em certain questions and bring it all back and we'd incorporated

Cameron 39:56

documentary.

Bill 39:57

a documentary Right. And like flashback and forth. But that, that, dream attempt, people aren't gonna do

Cameron 40:06

trying to do like a, field side interview. Like, alright, so you just played Medici. How do you

Chris 40:11

the backpack and the little tiny microphone.

Cameron 40:14

Josiah got you by flipping over that third card, didn't

Bill 40:18

How do you feel about that? No, that wasn't going to go so I, segued into this. So we talked about it and we thought kind of fun thing to do was to go around the table and, and go through the questions I was going to ask. Yeah, exactly. Thank you guys. All right. So I'm going to do the easy softball for the first question. your favorite game that across that

Chris 40:40

Yeah, So for me, uh, I played a lot of all different kinds of games for my favorite game though. I wanted to to because if I would say what was my favorite game like that. Nobody my favorite new to me actually a game surprised Speaking of backstage way back. did that our top five games excited and my

Cameron 41:20

the weekend

Chris 41:23

and the reason why it surprised is that this game is much than I was really basing my its table presence like

Cameron 41:34

It

Chris 41:35

It has like a it has some similarities, but it's Yes, a lot reason I say placement. You know, everybody has that square of tightly interlocking tiles World wonders has that. And I love there's something about my that likes tightly And you're rewarded for that in this surrounded That said than buildings you have to you can't just plop a You have to have a road going to it. So you have to account Then I can put my building here and then I'm going to wrap the road around here so A lot of planning

Bill 42:50

And somebody that you're planning for,

Chris 42:52

Absolutely. Or the roads. Cause the roads each round are need those roads this round, it can really So that's one aspect. The other aspect I have to buildings, tiles. wonders when you

Bill 43:09

when I walked by the table, it was like so cool to see like the Giza Pyramid and Washington Monument and all that stuff sticking on the board. But it's really cool.

Chris 43:18

all different kinds of slice out Lighthouse of wooden structures, unlike the flat. These actually up off the And what's neat about the wonders all have requirements. they want types, the water So you have to you can satisfy introduced is that public. So, I might be trying to build a but Alex or Jason, might before me. Cause they have satisfied the if I can get there first and another thing every round you start with seven you can't of the round, go back to the round the last any amount of if I have five I can do a lot with five but if I take the wonder, my money and you might be asking yourself, well, why would you do that? Well, Jason might have the requirements so I might just be like, all right, I'm taking it and I go down to actions. So for being as engaging. I just really found it to be a lot of kind of right where I live in right now. That's a lot of Really good. World

Bill 45:12

So I happened to see that, uh, yesterday on Facebook I'm picking it up tomorrow for like 25 bucks.

Chris 45:18

total it for 25 bucks. Oh, dude, a good looking

Bill 45:23

Oh yeah, that's what I thought too. And, uh, that one and, Starship Captains. So I don't know how

Chris 45:27

Oh, yeah. This is the Star Trek

Bill 45:29

Yeah, we're doing like away missions and stuff like that.

Chris 45:32

analog game. I've not played it. It looks really

Bill 45:34

It does look cool. I think it has mixed

Chris 45:39

that sounds like our wheelhouse.

Cameron 45:41

exactly. Yeah,

Bill 45:41

might hit the

Cameron 45:42

fine. I'll pick day.

Bill 45:44

up Wonders. I would have picked it up today, but we have snow here.

Cameron 45:47

snow

Chris 45:48

Toe gosh,

Bill 45:49

yeah, I'm not sure I need to announce what my favorite game is. for the week. Yes.

Chris 45:53

this.

Cameron 45:54

Rising Sun.

Bill 45:55

Gosh, Chris, how'd you guess? Uh, I might have to, uh, be more specific in saying that Jeff's rising,

Chris 46:02

Yeah, Jeff, is just amazing. Jeff has

Bill 46:06

Jeff. Jeff is just amazing. Jeff has taken the, uh, the original board from Rising blew it up so and a half

Chris 46:16

it is

Bill 46:17

huge. He's got a of laminated picture frame thing. Cut it up know, one and a half put dowels in the end of it so it fits together really tightly so it's awesome when it goes together. And then he's got, like, all the minis and the gods that go with it and they're all painted. Uh, and so it's just, it's overwhelming, a table, you a table presence. You do feel like you're at a

Chris 46:48

know, a

Cameron 46:50

a con.

Chris 46:51

You do you're a con, looks like one of

Cameron 47:03

You guys were all sitting but like, you could have stood up and Like, it, it was impressive

Chris 47:11

Yeah,

Bill 47:14

it because I, I originally played birthday weekend

Chris 47:18

it of

Bill 47:21

of

Chris 47:23

So, anyway, I, I

Bill 47:26

So anyway, I, I own Rising Sun, I bought it I'm glad to have played it and I may never pull mine out after, Jeff's

Chris 47:36

I have it too. I, I like

Cameron 47:38

again. I I like

Bill 47:41

okay. Cameron,

Cameron 47:42

of those,

Chris 47:43

ha

Cameron 47:47

I'm not

Bill 47:49

I'm not sure I can paint. We

Chris 47:53

I,

Cameron 47:54

does a lot of paint.

Chris 47:55

minis. I actually played at some Blood Here's the problem with I have like I can't painting get so making

Cameron 48:13

you mean you've never

Chris 48:15

No, I've finished a mini, but like Blood Rage has like 65 it and I've painted Because I just get so wrapped

Cameron 48:23

perfect. But that's, has kind

Chris 48:26

Well that's, Jeff has kind of mastered that They look good, but if you look at them real close you can tell they're nobody

Cameron 48:35

when you need 15 copies of those. Like, I always went and did the same thing when I like, my D& miniatures, but, like, I only I did, like, one played.

Chris 48:48

right

Bill 48:50

Anyway, it's an It's asymmetrical clans I guess that you have on the a lot to the game I can tell I didn't pick up good strategy because there's a mechanism betray allows you to And at the end of every round, the end. of every and that troops presence wasn't quite getting

Chris 49:30

know, your presence on of wasn't of the best things, I think, about that the factions. The game really is tasking you on how to really the your faction is a fun puzzle there's a lot of

Cameron 50:09

course, I, I, I, we can't end the Brandon.

Chris 50:15

I'm telling

Cameron 50:16

the, who took the W on Uh, his first time coming to our, board game weekend. And like, I, I think it was one of the first games that he played. Good job, good job B. What's His favorite, yeah. Yeah, good job B.

Chris 50:35

Yeah,

Bill 50:36

He was to my right and we were

Chris 50:39

And we forgot to do this. extended banter

Cameron 50:45

feel

Chris 50:45

we feel like we just based on feelings. You know, I think would you give rising

Bill 51:03

uh, Jess, I'd give that a know about the game itself. I mean, it's in the 5 ish but I feel like I'd need

Chris 51:13

really kind of problem. Easy sick.

Bill 51:25

Okay. Um, let's go to the other end of the spectrum. biggest

Chris 51:31

Oh, guess I'll start I had a lot actually. a bummer. When I was doing my outlines for this, I actually had like several that I could kind of list off. I know, and everybody says that I love everything. Because it's like, gives everything a six.

Bill 51:47

don't invite to your

Chris 51:48

That's exactly right. I haven't given a six out in a yeah, probably. I've been very discerning lately. But, um, this one this one was tough because this one, I know amongst a lot of our lauded really highly rated sixties, I I know, it pains me cause I have been excited to try this. I was like, we're going to do it on the Jason was excited it just. At least for me, didn't really I know you guys I played it twice over and that's really part of the problem. And I'll explain why that is But basically in Hansa Teutonica, it's an interesting game. kind of hard to explain. Now I will preface this by saying, I think the mechanisms Okay. isn't why I didn't necessarily love it. But the idea is, that the board is like a network. There's a bunch of cities or nodes or hubs that paths and on the paths these little places markers or cubes. basically the way it works is that if spots along a path is occupied by a cube of your color, then later as an action, cubes up. And there are a few reasons you would do that, but the main there are a few reasons you would do that. One, to build your network, one of the ways you can score in this by is, that if somebody later, else, scores that same route, control one and or both side connection, your player board, it's just a mixture your actions, of workers you pull back into your active And I would point out that the way that you get up Is that on the are five locations pull up score or route benefits, So that's the general idea. Oh, I should mention is a clever So what if somebody jumps in on a route you're one of the actions of this game is you can actually kick that person off of your route to a neighboring but that That's actually a big part of the strategy learning good idea route bit. So there are The problem with the to me, is, is that there's no variables very static. Nothing, the same map, can hear you. people like this game, and I hear you just play with one of the other maps, and I get it. are like three or four But when I played the second time on the base I because I, was evaluating the I did win but I immediately felt that last I don't know what really like That's why I like That's why I like That's why I like Grand Austria That's why I like Agricola. All those by giving of cards, objectives, changed the way I'm thinking about a game that I understand, but I'm Right. Hansa Totonica does not do exactly the same. The only thing that's variable get that, but I immediately in the second play felt my with that you will fall into patterns and I think we were even seeing that a little bit with the action talking about, there's a spot on the board that's tied to more actions. that's a very desirable spot maybe we were having a I think Bill can attest to the fact it's not fun just taking two actions or maybe even five. right. Yeah. Um, I

Bill 57:11

mean, I only played it feel like I wanted to play it get to saw how extending their lead upon only had my two actions

Chris 57:30

an error.

Bill 57:31

Yeah, no, I don't

Chris 57:36

It was just locked

Bill 57:42

thought about that if there was where I could have could have

Chris 57:50

I

Bill 57:50

up some late game maybe, and just come back to it once everybody did I could have had places feel like when you have double the There wasn't

Chris 58:11

double movement speed. There was that I guess I would wrap it really negative, I had such high that's why it's my it's bad, Yeah, it but I was really expecting

Bill 59:05

because I mean, I still have that impressed with all the things you have to play But I think

Cameron 59:21

I would don't have

Chris 59:28

Alright, Bill. What did you hate? What sucks?

Bill 59:31

you know, I'm not going to call it sucks. I mean, I, I think we led it with the biggest because this, and slow slide, but a friend of mine in Virginia, uh, magician champion antique shop and he was buying this cool, table was negotiating with the bar, their shelves they had a couple board games one of them turned out to yeah, I asked him to pick it up

Chris 1:00:06

for a while. Okay.

Bill 1:00:12

Okay. Maybe because it has the

Chris 1:00:15

60s. in there. yeah, yeah,

Bill 1:00:17

Riding the bikes on it. Uh, anyway, I was pretty excited to play it because uh, Heat at last

Chris 1:00:24

Meh. lot of table

Bill 1:00:27

It got a lot of table. It was, it was fun watching Mike play for um,

Chris 1:00:31

Micropass brings that game

Bill 1:00:34

and this is a And my wife, really loved watching I can get my wife to play, maybe it's So that's why I picked it up. and I played it a couple times. I played it at the Thanksgiving. And, was one of the persons at the table that, uh, they took off ahead of the pack. This game is really, managing exhaustion. rule that if you're of the pack and facing the wind, you have to put in your discard your exhaustion the rest of two different cyclers. roller, the R O U L I E R, I guess, muscle man or the guy who blocks the And then you have a sprinter, and the highest number of your roller, is seven. has is managing. getting close to the finish nines, and deciding Exactly. And managing you have the

Chris 1:01:38

cards you

Bill 1:01:41

Exactly. very is it made by the

Chris 1:01:46

Yeah, I

Bill 1:01:52

but this is the third time I've

Chris 1:01:54

really did. I did.

Bill 1:01:56

I did. I really did. I did. I have to give it a caveat. I haven't played it maps that are kind of past the where it has, you know, brings in the curves or like no drafting in here. There's some other special on the map that but, it little samey or I guess I, I just knew what my strategy it was all about what cards I had in I didn't win, Josiah I just felt like a lot of it end and I don't think I

Chris 1:02:34

just I draw at end. drew so. you just That's funny. that's

Bill 1:02:57

funny. Anyway, I had super high hopes expecting But it wasn't,

Chris 1:03:08

I will

Bill 1:03:10

much Mr Bernier. the

Cameron 1:03:21

So, for me, my main hard Truly answer interesting this one that our friend Mike really wanted to get to a table so hard to learn the rules and we were like picking on him about like, you gotta be able to teach it, you know, we're not going to play. And then you had, you know, muddle through the rules. and so I was like, you know what? He did it, they need another player, I'll join this game is Shogun. Um, and in general, like, this probably, wasn't flavor of game. dudes on a map, felt the order of you take basically like you start out the game, and

Chris 1:04:24

using a

Cameron 1:04:25

you draft a base of and then the order of the actions resupply money to have against you and you're fighting against Uh, and attacking and stuff like that. so the actions are all really difficult like, even if you choose do, to, like, like, what you would want to do if because the order of the you think you're gonna, like, resupply, like, fighting

Chris 1:05:16

yourself, fighting before

Cameron 1:05:17

like that. And, like, I don't know, it issue that I weird dice

Chris 1:05:30

all your

Cameron 1:05:31

to use. So like all your dudes the map in your various provinces are represented So it's like plain. happens when you have combat you have this dice It has, like, this tower with cubes. So you drop a at the table and some green ones basically. And you have a battle, you take cubes and all of in the base you drop all of what happens a random set fall out,

Chris 1:06:28

And that can set the the competition. you could heavily,

Cameron 1:06:36

and that

Chris 1:06:41

three,

Cameron 1:06:42

So you could Have a heavy advantage seven

Chris 1:06:46

cubes And

Cameron 1:06:47

And them in the tower and then what comes out and like your opponent won incredible because you're because your cubes are like jammed up somewhere inside of I've not game. a lot about this game, because I want might play

Chris 1:07:07

people get excited about that, like, it confusing. theoretically, they have to come out at try to

Cameron 1:07:28

you're you need to leverage power trying to

Chris 1:07:33

when you're trying to make a move. Yeah, I get it.

Cameron 1:07:35

don't want to be like, well, I guess I'll just win a later like randomly I don't it frustrated me. Nevertheless. We're supposed to play two We got everyone decided a few people to go and

Chris 1:07:54

opportunity

Cameron 1:07:55

and we took that like, game over ever. Let's go.

Chris 1:07:58

we didn't

Cameron 1:07:59

to play like two more hours of, of that am I glad that I learned how to play the game? agreeing to play it

Chris 1:08:08

the game? because now I feel very determined

Cameron 1:08:17

I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. He seemed very confident.

Chris 1:08:20

the doubt. He seems very confident. I'm trying to give him credit. He really, not alone.

Cameron 1:08:36

I'm trying to give him Craig.'cause I, he, he really, he was not a long and I, you know, he felt very confident and it felt like things played yeah, I think, I think, I think the problem is the game

Chris 1:08:50

problem is the game. Yeah. I respect that. What would you score it?

Cameron 1:08:55

Deeply a

Chris 1:08:57

Really? Not a two?

Cameron 1:08:58

I, I mean, probably, yeah, probably a

Chris 1:09:01

I was getting ready to say, because when you came up from downstairs you looked like you

Cameron 1:09:05

yeah, I was

Chris 1:09:06

not

Cameron 1:09:07

I was not having Uh, I was having fun with the people, like, for Rapaz, I don't even know that dude Especially on like a high intensity game where Like, he was, he was yeah.

Bill 1:09:26

Well, that was fun. Let's, let's go to more positive so what game

Chris 1:09:37

Bill, you start this

Bill 1:09:41

Well, I gotta mention first, we didn't talk about having a all weekend last two nights, my wife Shandy's. it's a, it's A a beer and, and And it's, it's a good all day drink to me because I started early

Chris 1:10:03

day instead having that tonight, With

Cameron 1:10:09

percent juice.

Bill 1:10:12

fructose.

Chris 1:10:13

what

Bill 1:10:18

This was a game that Ken brought the first day, a card game, uh, Sears Catalog.

Chris 1:10:23

Um, card uh, see a, it was a

Bill 1:10:31

That's about it. Yeah, yeah. It was just a, it was a super cool card game. It's a, it's a shedding game, that, is kind of unusual in that, At the end of the round scoring, you can either get rid of all your cards and score zero points, but at that point when somebody dumps their entire hand, the rest of the people at the table will score by the highest, or lowest You'll have numbers and then artifact you'll take the lowest number of those, so if you have like a 5 left in you would take the 5, and you have 2 cards left in

Chris 1:11:12

Five minus two cards in your hand for incentivized you want to have high value cards in your hand not easy For a, because of a very specific rule. But I'll let

Bill 1:11:30

Oh, well that's, you can, you can jump into, you're, you're the rules expert. I will also say that if you get stuck with a, artifact in your hand, which gives you super powers,

Chris 1:11:38

powers. Yes, they're very helpful.

Bill 1:11:40

they're like, it could be a wild card or you can add it resets your hand to zero, doesn't matter what card you have in your I will, I one last thought Then from a strategy point of view, you can either try to get points, can try to go out really quickly and make everybody stuck with Especially with artifacts in their hands, because they can get a lot of

Chris 1:12:14

your can get points go out, great, could Because if you go out everybody else at the table has will lose a point a strategy there of rushing and catching However If you have five or fewer your highest value But here's the rub. This is what's really cool about is that you cross that magical to five pass. Okay. If you have six or more cards in if you have, A combination a pair you can choose not to play it, if you have five or to play. Why is that remember to do well, what high cards the game high cards, they almost always play, right? So there's this real tension in the game. of trying to figure out to drop below right? Because everybody you go out first, screwed. do the worst. below too fast, you out first, right? But then there's skittish about somebody might go out real fast take negative this real about. When do I cross that to five? look like? How do I still do that high such a balancing just have to experience it, but I thought

Bill 1:14:43

to me, I thought the theme on it is S E E R S, magician

Chris 1:14:54

Yeah, they're the ones that which have right? If And so they're playing on that the seers catalog is like the shopping catalog It's got all these This is why it was my biggest surprise. I thought this name was just so stupid. I was like, this sounds dumb. I'm not really excited to play it. just didn't really get it.

Cameron 1:15:27

It

Chris 1:15:30

Yeah. And it the game sold it. I, I will just say right this if I was starting my top 100 today, Would be in my and it would be high because I'm giving this Sears catalog Incredible if you've not played it try it if you like these ladder

Bill 1:15:56

That may be in my top 100.

Cameron 1:15:58

do climbing card

Chris 1:16:03

I'm a man of principle bill my guns. What would you

Bill 1:16:10

You know, I can't commit.

Chris 1:16:11

Yeah, What's holding you back?

Bill 1:16:15

don't know. It like a tattoo or

Cameron 1:16:18

I'd give it a four. I'd need to play it more. It could go I had a hard time

Chris 1:16:26

Yes

Cameron 1:16:31

I think with some practice it higher.

Chris 1:16:37

getting stuck with those artifact cards also at the optimal if you hang on can bite you. And there are actually more of them more powerful, Right? I could go on and Alright man, what was your hidden

Cameron 1:17:04

Yeah, my hidden gem, It's hard to say that I, like, whether I was really that surprised given the this game, I had the opportunity to play 878 Vikings. And I pre I pre committed this game because, in the text leading up to the trip, our friend Josiah of games that he was planning to bring and I immediately any game titled 878 amazing.

Chris 1:17:40

list

Cameron 1:17:41

So, we get there and I'm like telling him like, When are we gonna play 878 Vikings? He's like, well it's like, it's the year I'm like, still. I'll play. Alright. When are we gonna do it? So, we finally got four people together, and this game, it made me nervous when we and he's like, yeah, but it's 2v2 Two of us are Vikings, defending got the Vikings invading, And this dynamic I've never So, the main

Chris 1:18:29

Bill on this game. Do you think Bill's

Cameron 1:18:32

I must share, and, and we're gonna hear from Bill

Chris 1:18:35

Josiah and I were playing. You know,

Cameron 1:18:38

Bill was playing as, as the Britons. And Josiah and I were playing as the Vikings, because, you know, we start the game up let's be on a team, who should we be? And he's like, well, Vikings.

Chris 1:18:50

this game.

Cameron 1:18:51

want to play this game if I can't be the Vikings. And,

Bill 1:18:54

we

Cameron 1:18:56

so, uh, so we get, so we get going and it's a 2v2, strategy in which you have the Vikings invading the game. and it's completely have four players, they all have factions, so I was playing, the black Josiah was then I can't remember So blue and green and main, differentiator classes of dice the game attacks we also had the, really cool thing that our 3D Dice that were like, turret

Bill 1:20:01

medieval, medieval tower

Cameron 1:20:03

medieval stone towers. So we're like dropping dice and It's just super cool. And so the main differentiator of dice. They have different like ratios axes for hits and away. Um, and as you might the Vikings yeah, and all the Britons are scared and run away more.

Bill 1:20:35

Or just plain

Cameron 1:20:38

and the balancing factor There aren't that viking game. And

Chris 1:20:48

because they're invading.

Cameron 1:20:49

right, and every round, more defending

Chris 1:20:56

population

Cameron 1:20:59

And so, it, just really surprised me, you have strategizing cities are of deciding factor in the game breakdown right? And if you get these cities and that is but yeah, I to, be like, having this play that know, what do you want to those guys into there and then that and I also

Chris 1:21:56

your perspective on

Bill 1:21:58

And I really enjoyed being beat,

Chris 1:22:00

Lee Sin, Zerker were

Bill 1:22:01

more

Cameron 1:22:02

what's your, what's your perspective on 878 Vikings as the

Bill 1:22:06

I'll talk a little bit more about the dice. The Berserker were the strongest four out of six deaths. They had axes The black side, uh, 50 percent the Brit side, our elite troops and, whatever 30%.

Cameron 1:22:30

And the Yellow

Bill 1:22:33

on, on the Brit side, our cities would refresh the biking strategy best as, best they could and that's also the winning, winning so being on the Brit side, trying to figure out where they were going to land because they pretty much had a choice of anywhere, at least in the first part were trying to out where do

Chris 1:23:07

So, you don't know where they're coming in. So, is this a thing, of having,

Bill 1:23:14

And we were doing the other wrinkle about this game is a deck some special the Brits are attacked, there's a peasant so they have to me, you know, from a strategy the Brits or made you

Chris 1:24:01

the time and

Bill 1:24:09

but, I tell you, it's disheartening when you come out. Josiah was rolling, hit after hit. I mean, every times, it And so, you know, there was, feel like there was any strategy me I had to stuff And there was one, fairly interaction Cameron and Desai described the they attacked us on the southern Well, but you also spy So we had a, an that basically the size of

Cameron 1:24:59

it was an ambush, the bottom, and he's like well actually to where you are,

Bill 1:25:08

that part was

Cameron 1:25:10

2x

Chris 1:25:13

army, you

Cameron 1:25:15

it was and, and, and very surprising, cause like, I, I wanted to play it because of the theme, I it did not

Chris 1:25:29

Cool.

Bill 1:25:31

alright, the games that we played, you saw as you walked around the miss, this

Chris 1:25:41

what did you uh, and you get to play this year that you really It's kind of has that like it. And I really love, I didn't realize four player, asymmetric. you're slightly from your teammate, it then you're also just that conspire little dice Um, I would this is the one that I I'm all about defense, Bill. I don't have to be doing all the I'll hold the territory.

Cameron 1:26:38

to be One of my favorite games of

Chris 1:27:04

right, Cam, to try?

Cameron 1:27:06

Yeah, uh, you tend to go like, a couple of a lot let's say And

Chris 1:27:23

right. is crazy. That game is usually on loop every

Cameron 1:27:28

Basically, yeah, it got put away and an amazing game, you're wrong.

Bill 1:27:49

glad I missed There was a game. of Nemesis

Cameron 1:27:58

I noticed that I having

Bill 1:28:03

great time.

Chris 1:28:04

were in a good mood.

Bill 1:28:08

Alright, well, I'm, I'm not going to going to rattle off

Chris 1:28:11

Oh boy,

Bill 1:28:12

the psychic

Chris 1:28:14

fun. Oh, Psychic go to the ghost

Bill 1:28:17

Yeah, yeah, that looked, that looked just kind of

Cameron 1:28:19

That's why you just have to

Chris 1:28:22

totally.

Bill 1:28:23

Grand Austria Hotel.

Chris 1:28:25

You played it. I've never

Bill 1:28:29

Uh, Grand Austria Hotel.

Chris 1:28:32

You've not played Okay.

Bill 1:28:35

Well, maybe, but

Chris 1:28:38

Yeah, so Of games that were not new the one I'm You must play this three players only. I want to make that very clear, or maybe two players. do not play I repeat not. And the reason for that is the actions So. In a four player game, if you're first, take action take action wait all the way until draft in So, simpler you're first player action two and action five and then four back to back. four player forever for get back to It's just way too much downtime, but at three players, highly recommend I'm digging it right yeah, Got to

Bill 1:29:43

and World of

Chris 1:29:44

Yes.

Bill 1:29:46

just excited to get it

Chris 1:29:47

Yeah. I Honorable mentions

Bill 1:29:56

I asked.

Chris 1:29:57

Just one. asked. Oh, shoot. That's right.

Bill 1:30:00

I asked the people to tell us did pull the audience. Chris Battlesaw to play.

Chris 1:30:12

Freedom. Five. which we played with which was fun. It was a quite an very thematic, very colorful. very long. That's the one thing. It was long. Huge box. Holy crap. but really cool and, uh, was glad that Yeah,

Bill 1:30:42

and Scheidenfreude and his hidden gems Skate

Chris 1:30:49

Ocean explosions.

Cameron 1:30:50

Up

Chris 1:30:58

our on Tower of them have great

Cameron 1:31:05

of them have great potions. Just kidding, we love

Bill 1:31:08

Right. Josiah, of his favorite was Star Wars

Chris 1:31:15

Oh, wow. I've still yet to play that, why I haven't, took like six hours. They were over there all day. played it a lot Freedom 5.

Bill 1:31:37

think they said

Chris 1:31:40

really? Wow.

Cameron 1:31:42

at

Chris 1:31:43

yeah.

Bill 1:31:45

his best

Chris 1:31:54

Yeah, Ken Ah, yeah.

Bill 1:32:00

Ben, liked Skate

Chris 1:32:06

Okay. Gotta feel that might be Okay, I love it. Yeah, I think we got time for one more quick. honorable mention. a few words about it. bill. I know you're chomping one more real

Bill 1:32:25

Last slide. I

Chris 1:32:28

I did.

Bill 1:32:29

it has cool table presence. spaceships, my strategy

Chris 1:32:41

I have lots of thoughts but I'm going next in a positive or negative light? You'll have to tune in to find out. But I definitely have Yeah cool game.

Cameron 1:33:18

you're trying the way that you're doing that hand of cards, have, essentially that hexes the map that treasure can only So not

Chris 1:33:53

tree. And I,

Cameron 1:33:55

And, I it. I, won this game twice.

Chris 1:33:59

ha,

Cameron 1:33:59

But, I think, usually there's and I'm so yeah, I just got this and, had a lot incentives

Chris 1:34:27

You don't have to find to do well in this game. It helps, is not the end all be all, which is what I like a mad that

Cameron 1:34:48

and locating where is it was a lot of fun. Played it twice,

Chris 1:35:06

it a of enjoyed it told this game what, it's back it's back yeah, Real quickly for mine. My honorable mention is not a good game

Cameron 1:35:38

I said

Chris 1:35:39

So here remember how I said I played a lot of just as a warning

Cameron 1:35:46

This is funny,

Bill 1:35:47

Wow.

Chris 1:35:48

I am going to start out. I'm going to go with one that I would avoid. this one really shocked me. It really did. know, we talk about the Dice Tower a lot on a pioneer the Dice shade at the Dice just saying main reason I was excited for years, Cosmic Encounter favorite years. briefly it was overtaken by, Project And now his Yeah. Number one. played like 7, I don't understand it either. Okay. And I'll explain why. So. I think the, few things, but the main is that it really that we all really like that in my So camel up is a bedding racing style bets really funny things can happen exciting. Every time a dice it's exciting. Right. Ready, set bet is trying to capture you're betting got lower probability You've got higher of bets you straight winners. in second. I think That's all The problem with the game is, is that it's kind of slow. And the game itself actually isn't that long. Like a race weird about it rolling dice then every time you of watching right? you're betting, exciting. I it kind of

Cameron 1:38:13

trying capture

Chris 1:38:23

of three of the end, no It's just better.

Cameron 1:38:51

went and

Chris 1:38:52

exciting. Yeah. what I had bet on. There's just like all these crazy prop bets I just didn't find it fun at all, honestly. set, bet.

Bill 1:39:28

guess we're, we're not going to get on Tom's show anytime soon. No. Right.

Chris 1:39:32

Still haven't done Tom vassals, two. I haven't forgotten. I've got the But,

Cameron 1:39:43

know when it might come.

Chris 1:39:44

You never know when it might come. It might be next month. It might be

Bill 1:39:52

good games

Chris 1:39:54

nope, not cutting you off.

Cameron 1:39:59

All right. Well, thank you inaugural extended banter.

Chris 1:40:05

kind

Cameron 1:40:08

a lot of kind of look back Hopefully inspires game group Hang out hopefully you heard something that you haven't Keep in mind, we do pretty much on Patreon. Gems Backstage podcast. You can get in there any of the tiers. Gems Backstage from 2 all gold miner, love behalf of our patrons. We're gonna record a backstage right after we get done here So you can go over check that out. Thank you guys for I'm your host Cameron.

Chris 1:41:12

and this

Bill 1:41:12

This is Bill.

Chris 1:41:16

episode of 72 Was recorded in Raleigh, North Carolina on January Jason Board Game We would love to