Operation: Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation: Game Night
OGN Ep 6: Defenders of the Wild & Mastering Game Night
Ever wondered how you could turn a simple night with friends into an unforgettable game night extravaganza? Join us for a lively episode of Operation Game Night Podcast, where we kick off with an energetic celebration of Clay's birthday and his unmatched game night expertise. We sprinkle in humor by debating the size of chains, and introduce you to "Gateway Island," a fascinating game designed to teach various board game mechanisms through 21 mini-games, and thank our listeners for their invaluable feedback.
Dive into the woodland critter insurgency with Defenders of the Wild, where tactical area control meets cooperative machine-busting adventure. We'll guide you through the mechanics of the game, detailing the unique abilities of the four factions: the Order, the Council, the Coven, and the Sect. Whether you're battling machines or navigating the game's cooperative aspects, we'll share personal experiences, including the challenges of solo variants and the complexities that can lead to quick losses. This chapter is packed with insights that will help you master the game and enjoy every moment, despite its steep learning curve.
Finally, you'll hear practical tips for hosting successful game nights, whether it's choosing the right games for diverse audiences or creating theme nights to keep everyone entertained. Plus, we recount a memorable three-day game extravaganza at Clay's house, offering a blueprint for organizing your own epic game night weekend filled with board games, food, and football. This episode is your one-stop guide to making game nights legendary!
Clay knows how to put on a freaking game night.
Speaker 2:If you show up to every Thanksgiving dinner with a bag full of games thinking you're going to turn it into a game night, you're probably not going to and these people are going to think you're weird and they're not going to want to play games with you.
Speaker 3:very often, Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast, where the mission objective is to play more board games. Put your battle rattle on and mount up. Let's start the show. Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. We're back and better than ever. Welcome to my co-host, the man with the band, Dana Jared Erickson.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, thank you, thank you. I was trying to get these guys to clap for me just a second ago. They did not. They did not give me the love that I was looking, the respect that the five millimeter demands that's around my neck, but it's okay.
Speaker 3:Special welcome to the birthday boy himself, clayton gable.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday, clay hey, thank you guys. And, uh, I don't know why jared's acting like he's the only five millimeter man over there, because I got a special care package from alabama with my very own five millimeter silver chain that I'm sporting, so I've got a lot of energy here. I'm excited for the pod today.
Speaker 3:How dumb are you guys going to feel when I show up with an 8mm next week? We'll just keep going bigger, just bigger and bigger. We're just going to have big chains by the end For the listener.
Speaker 1:Travis is the biggest one. What are you like? 6'6", 6'5", yeah, like 6'6", 6'5", yeah, like 6'5". He's massive, this dude. You don't want to see this guy in an alley. And this dude's been doing jujitsu left and right. He's getting his ears all nasty. He's a stone-cold killer. He's a bad man. I think you deserve an 8mm I do deserve an eight millimeter. I do deserve an eight millimeter.
Speaker 2:Oh man Push gift from Rachel.
Speaker 3:Oh, the layered double fives, I like it.
Speaker 1:We could have that as a special topic on our podcast.
Speaker 3:So we'll table that Pages of chain and how to wear them. Table it Okay. So today we're going to talk about our plays and procurements, we're going to talk about tips and tricks for hosting game night, and then we're going to finish with our quick hits and then we're going to get out of here so that Clay can cheer on the Steelers. But before we do that, we have a couple of special shout-outs and I have a brief correction from last week. First, I want to shout out Cedric from Switzerland, who wrote us on Instagram, shot us a message and said just wanted to drop you a line and tell you that you have become one of the podcasts on my way too long podcast to listen to list.
Speaker 3:So Cedric, thank you for writing in and please, if you enjoy us, please share us around, tell your friends. And then I wanted to shout out. Sam hart, from new zealand, who wrote on spotify, said hey, just want to give a shout out, love the show. So thank you sam, thank you cedric, and thanks for shouting out from all over the world. We appreciate that it.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Jared, you want to do your shout-out first.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I will do my special shout-out today my brother-in-law, landon Hardy. He himself is quite a big podcaster and he has helped me specifically with my sound. So hopefully for the listener, it sounds like we have a lot of international listeners, which is awesome. We are getting better every week thanks to great people like Landon Hardy. He even has his he's got a little side hustle Supporter Sound Studios and you hit him up he might be able to help you start your own little podcast. He gave us some good tips and tricks on getting better. Hopefully that helps us provide good content for our people out there. What about you, clay? You got a shout out.
Speaker 2:And the final shout out is to Mackenzie, who I met at Petri's at the swap night last week. He runs a YouTube channel. I don't know if he runs it, but he's definitely on it. It's SideGame LLC, so check that out. He puts out some great content, but I asked him for some feedback and he was kind enough to take the time to write us a nice email with a lot of feedback that we're going to take to heart and try and keep making this better for the board game community that we love.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah, if you have feedback, please reach out to us on Instagram, leave us a comment, a like, a rating on Spotify, apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. But before we jump into our plays and procurements, I wanted to add one more game to our list of many gateway games from last time. I don't know how you can do a whole list of gateway games to onboard gamers, to the hobby of board gaming, without mentioning gateway island. Gateway island was published in 2022. Designer is mateo boca, artist is sarah georia and it's published by gate on games and van rider games. So gateway island is a collection of 21 mini games to introduce people to different mechanisms in board gaming. What so? These 21 mini games all have different mechanics that you can play through Super fast, low complexity, and it'll give you a feel for work, replacement games for deck building games, for area majority games, for you name it. It's got a different mechanism and a different mini game for that mechanism. So shout out to Gateway Island. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:I never heard of that. That is so cool, I'm going to have to get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2:I am thoroughly onboarded, but I want that.
Speaker 3:With that we will jump into our plays and procurements. Jared, what are your plays and procurements this week?
Speaker 2:anyone have a under overrun if I procured anything this week that's a big no, yeah he, he didn't, he didn't, he tried though I wax equivalent burger is too expensive.
Speaker 1:Actually I went to target. It was I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't at my friendly neighborhood game store and at target it was like 60 bucks. So I just might have to go to amazon. I don't know, but we I am. That's probably my next procurement. My eyes are locked in. Give me a couple weeks and I will probably have it. So I had no procurements, unfortunately, but I did play no Thanks last night. One of my good friends from Korea. We were out in Korea together. He lives just down the road and he came up for last night and so of course I had to get the board game out, got the mouse pad out, you know, got to protect the table and we slung no thanks onto the board. I love no thanks. So, designer Thorsen Gimler, published by Amigo.
Speaker 1:This one's a great game. It has numbers 3 through 35 on these cards and you're trying to get the lowest score and these cards give you positive points. But the catch is, if you get a run of any, as long as there's adjacent numbers, you score the lowest number of that run. You score the lowest number of that run and so you can try and get all these cards to cancel each other out. But the catch is there's nine cards that are removed at the very beginning of the game, and so you don't know which cards have been removed. And you're going around saying no thanks by putting these little black chits. Shout out to the sweaty chit meister out there. There are lots of closed fists with wet hands and you use these little chits to say no thank you. So if there's a 33, that's a high value you put a little chit down and say no thanks, and you keep going around until someone just takes the card. I don't know what kind of mechanism would you call no thanks?
Speaker 2:It's kind of like a reverse auction, Like you're auctioning not to take these things yeah, I don't know if that's an official term, but you're bidding to not take that card and then eventually someone's just like I'll take the card because it's got all these chits which end up being negative points right.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, yes At the end of the game. Yeah, so you could have all the negative chits, but if you have a lot of positive cards you could still come out not on top. So it's a great game. It's like three to seven players. It's even rated for eight-year-olds to adults, so like I can easily see my nieces and nephews Definitely an easy one to pick up and play. So that's my play for the week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's tense because you don't know how many chits people have. So you get a big card that's out in the middle and everybody keeps putting those chits on the card and eventually someone might run out of chits and they're going to have to take that card, but you don't know when somebody is about to run out of chits. So it's fun, it's a good interaction, it's a fun little filler game.
Speaker 3:Clay, hit me with your plays and procurements.
Speaker 2:Played this week Wandering Towers, which I could see spanning into potentially in the future one of my top gateway games because I've really been enjoying it. I got it a while ago, played it a few times, but recently got it out to play with the kids and then my buddy was visiting from Pennsylvania and I played it with him and my kids and, yeah, it's just a great game. It was published in 2022 by Capstone Games, designed by the infamous duo Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer you might remember Kiesling I think it's Kiesling that designed Azul, so that's a big hit for him and Kramer is the designer of El Grande and together they've collaborated to design a bunch of games, this being one of them. Um, so, in the theme is pretty, it's a stretch, but you're trying to get these wizards to Raven's Keep and out. In front of you you have this circular board and on each space not each space, but there's probably like 20 spaces in the circle and there's nine towers that are on the spaces and your wizards are sitting on top of these towers and your goal is to get them to a certain tower. That's a black tower that has like a. It's like a cup that you can dunk your little wizards in, like you're shooting a freaking layup, and so on your turn, you have. You have three cards in your hand and these cards will either move towers or move your wizards, and so on your turn, you get to play two of your three cards. So maybe on my first card I'm moving a tower that my wizard's on and and I'm going to move that tower three spaces clockwise and that puts me close to this keep. And then my second card will move my wizard a few spaces and then boom, I can dunk my wizard into the tower. Every time someone gets a wizard into the tower, that tower is going to move around the board.
Speaker 2:The other thing you're trying to do you have four wizards that you need to get in this tower over the game to win, and you also have to fill five potions, and this varies on player count, sometimes it's four, sometimes it's five, but you're trying to get all your wizards in, fill all your potions. To fill your potions you have to trap other wizards by moving a tower on top of these wizards. So now they're trapped and then you can fill a potion. So you're going through, you're moving towers, you're creating these big stacks of towers Jared might be a little bit like Camel Up. You got these big tower stacks that you can start moving how many towers. But it's a fun game. There's nine towers and you can create some pretty nifty stacks in there.
Speaker 2:It's simple enough to teach somebody. You literally just like all right, play two cards, move towers, move wizards, try and get your wizards in Raven's Keep. It's nice to look at on the table because you have these cool little tower pieces and you're stacking them up and that's fun to engage with. And also there's a lot of player interaction, because everything people do like if you're on a tower with somebody else and they move that tower, now you're now your wizards moving around and you you got to kind of recalculate how far you are from Raven's Keep. So there's a lot of interaction. It's simple, it's quick, it's a fun little game that anybody can play.
Speaker 2:Cons of it I would say are if you don't like memory aspects to games, because if you got four wizards out there, some of them are going to get covered up and you can't like peek to try and remember where they are. So you might lose a wizard under a tower and you can't remember where it is. So if you are opposed to trying to keep track of, you know, memory components. Maybe not for you, and it's definitely tactical. So there's not going to be a lot of planning ahead because everything shifts and moves in between your turns. So when it gets back to your turn you just have to evaluate the board and be like, okay, how can I trap a wizard or how can I get one of my wizards into Raven's Keep? But, all in all, really fun game. I look forward to keep playing it. Yeah, it's fun for gamers, it's fun for people new to the hobby. My kids love it. So, yeah, that's Wandering Towers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, travis, what you got for us this week. Okay, so very little procurements. There is procurements that I'm interested in. Maybe I'll talk that on a future episode, but I really want to dive into Defenders of the Wild, which I literally just finished playing before stepping in this studio office to record. So, defenders of the wild this is my first play of it. Uh, it's kind of climbing up the board game geek top 50 hotness because it is a kickstarter game that is now shipping to backers.
Speaker 3:This game is like a. It's like running an insurgency. Okay, it's a tactical area. Control meets fantasy adventure.
Speaker 3:It's a card driven cooperative game and it is animals versus the machines. Okay, so each player picks one of four factions. There's the order, council, the coven and the sect. So the order has scholars, fire makers, fire keepers, map makers, librarians. They have like different abilities that they can do. The council is all about tradesmen, guards, farmers, bakers, civil servants. They're the engineers and they're the support personnel. And then have the coven, which does a lot of uh, they're like the, the spies and witches, so they have like different healing properties and ways to move about the board. Then you have the sect, and the sect is miners, machinists, mathematicians and hackers. Hackers doesn't really fit with this game to me because it's like cute woodland creatures.
Speaker 3:So you have a big octagonal board. In the center you have the machine's headquarters I think it's called the factory. You have your little character on one of the hexagons of a modular board. So this board will look different every time you play it and on your turn, you draw your cards up to your hand limit, which can increase by doing certain actions, and you play a card, the card will have an effect that you do immediately and then it has a number of action points that's associated with that specific card. So you can move, you can destroy little robots that are out on the field, you can clean up contamination, you can blow holes in barriers and you can heal, you can do combat, you can do a whole bunch of other stuff. Once you take your actions, you can move around, you do all this stuff.
Speaker 3:Then you flip one of the encounter cards or the machine activation cards and the machines can do different things. You have these big engines that are already out on the board that have programmed paths so as they move they will place a wall behind them and once a wall completely encloses one of the hexagons, they're eligible to build a factory there when you flip a factory card. Next, the engines are pretty cool because they just kind of march around the board as you go. You have the factories that will then spit out pollution onto the, onto the tiles, and if the pollution builds up too much you'll lose the game. So you have to keep that at bay by continuing to clear out pollution. Then you have the little miniature robots that will activate. So the miniature robots are kind of positioned out on the field, on the perimeter of the board, and they are like hunting down the woodland insurgents. So they will march towards you. If they're close enough to you, they will engage you and potentially damage you. And then the main factory in the middle of the board has two snipers on it. So if you're within range of the snipers they're going to shoot at you to do damage.
Speaker 3:Now your character doesn't die per se, but when you take three damage at any time without being able to heal during your turn, you will take one of your defenders, one of your animal cards in your hand and put it in like a graveyard basically. And when you have two, two animals that died from the same faction, then you lose the game. I have kind of a unique take on this because I played it solo and so in the solo rules you're basically playing two-handed but you can mix and match which of the stacks of cards that you draw from. So I had two, and two of my defenders from the same faction die almost immediately. So it took me all this time to set this, this game, up and read the rules and get going and then almost immediately to, two characters from the same faction died. So I kind of fudged a little bit and picked a different, a different defender to to discard and I continued on, andged a little bit and picked a different defender to discard and I continued on. And then a couple turns later I had another event where I took a bunch of damage from snipers because I was too close to the inner factory and lost another defender of the same faction. So it's a fun game and I think it would be better with multiple people. It's a fun game and I think it would be better with multiple people.
Speaker 3:Playing double-handed is not their solo rule. Adaptation of a cooperative game is not great. Most cooperative games you can play two-handed, no problem, but it's just the way that they integrate it in this instance, is really frustrating to me Because you can lose so quickly. This game takes a long time to set up. The storage options in the box are non-existent. They give you a bunch of baggies and there are tokens and meeples and chits and all sorts of stuff crammed into this box, but there's no organization for it. So setting it up took me 45 minutes and this is my first time doing it, so I was pretty unfamiliar and had to read the rule book while I set it up took me forever. And then the play. While it does promise 30 minutes per player, I was out in like 15 minutes.
Speaker 3:So, um, that was a little frustrating and I've heard the cooperative aspect of this is very strange, uh, when you play with multiple people because you, when you pick a character to play, everybody picks one of the cards from their hand simultaneously and then you play it blindly so nobody can tell what the other people are going to do, and then you flip your cards over to reveal the card that's going to be taking the actions and you only have one meeple out on the board, so they represent the character that you're playing, and one of the best takes that I saw on this was that you're picking these characters from these different organizations or these factions in the woodland that aren't typically working together, and so when you are picking blindly and playing face down, it's really what you're trying to do, is you're banning the, is you're banding these different groups together that don't normally cooperate and you're trying to come together to fight these robots for the good of the woodland or whatever, and so that's why you don't communicate when you pick your characters, which I can kind of see. The faction abilities were pretty interesting. They all do different things. I only played with two of them, so I don't have a good sense for what the other ones do. One of mine was basically destructo faction and they just went around killing off robots and blowing holes in walls and yeah, they're, they were the ones to do most damage, uh. The other one was, uh, more about like it was like the spies basically, and so they would regroup your character back to them and their camps. So, yeah, the faction abilities were interesting.
Speaker 3:I just I think I need a couple more playthroughs to to get a better review of it, but the art on this game is phenomenal. Right on the cover of the box they have a horned toad that's like in a steampunk hat with a robot arm and he's holding a Molotov cocktail. If that does not sell you on this game, I don't know what will. The art is phenomenal Anthropomorphic animals that are all dressed up. All the factions have different animals, every card is different and they all have great art. The naming convention on these animals is ridiculous and you have to sift through your deck this gigantic deck of these defenders for specific named animals to add to your deck. That's what took forever for me to. On the setup. It it's kind of a pain in the butt, but I think after a couple of times, if you find a good solution for organization, setup would go much faster. Um, yeah, I thought overall it was fun. I'll definitely give it another shot.
Speaker 2:Um, but I will probably try and play with somebody next time, because solo was just a little frustrating sounds super thematic from what you were describing like a pretty cool world that you described, I was like I could dive into that. Is what you're actually doing in the game complicated, or is it just the complexity of managing all the different pieces and, you know, doing all the actions for a cooperative game or, uh, yeah, a game that's playing against you? Like, as a person playing it do I? Are my choices difficult or is it, um, pretty straightforward?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, good question. I don't think the actions themselves are all that difficult. Some of them have some specific instances or like subsets of rules that you have to follow, like the section to describe your actions in the rule book is probably two or three pages. But your actions really are move, heal, regroup, which is go back to one of your encampments that you've set up, blast a hole in a wall that's like a barrier between you and moving across hexagons, removing robots or removing contamination. And those are your actions and you just pick from any of those and you can take them in any order.
Speaker 3:So the actions themselves are not that difficult, but it does get a bit fiddly because let's say I'm moving to a hexagon and I play a card to remove contamination and I'm right next to the central factory or whatever.
Speaker 3:I'll pull that contamination piece off and I'll put it in a little baggie or in my little chip holder, whatever. And then the very next encounter machine card that I draw can say put out more contamination and I have to just put that chip right back. So some of that stuff is kind of a pain and you're flipping, at least solo. I was flipping that card so often that it was like I was just putting chips back and forth from the side of the board onto the board back off the board, so that got a little fiddly after a while. But um no, the actions themselves are not difficult and it really does feel like you are playing against the game itself, like the robots are basically like programmed to do these certain things as you flip through their deck and you're just reacting to their movements and their actions. So in that instance it's very thematic nice what drew?
Speaker 1:you to back this. The uh kickstarter, is it the animals? You're kind of an animal guy. The anthem porphic, whatever the hell that is called I don't.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it was the art the artwork is pretty phenomenal in this game but really it was the. It was the theme and some of the mechanisms seemed really cool, like the individual factions, the variable player powers. Um, you can kind of stack your uh, your turn. So if I have multiple animals in my hand from the same faction or sub faction, I can play them both and stack their abilities and their actions together. So if I have a four and a three of grassland animals or whatever, I can play them both, take seven actions together. So you can be a little more efficient, like and do a little hand management as you go along to get the most bang for your buck on your game. Hell yeah.
Speaker 2:Killer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that is Defenders of the Wild, published by Outlandish Games. All right, now we're going to jump into our feature discussion, which is tips and tricks for hosting game night. I'm probably going to have to sit the majority of this one out, because I probably host less than either of you two. While I am not opposed to having people come over to play games, there's a level of stress that comes, and I know what works and what doesn't, because I've been to some bad game nights as well. Neither of yours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we could do some horror stories, the good and the bad, but I would say Clay knows how to put on a freaking game night. I just want to give huge props to Clayton David Gable right there. He puts a lot of energy and effort into it and really curates his game games, you know and he's got a good library to kind of pick and choose from. And he's so mindful of the people who are coming to his board game nights Because, like my wife Adri, she would not be caught dead doing anything that is a little bit complicated or you need to do any math. No, she's out. But Clayton knows how to get these more artsy, more intuitive games that are more party game-esque, I guess you could say. But I think that was kind of my first. My opening salvo, if you will, is just knowing who's coming and being mindful of that and prepping the battle space to go back to our roots. You got to know the enemy, know yourself and you'll go far in hosting your board games.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, know your audience is definitely probably the most critical tip of it because, again, all mistakes I've made is trying to force your agenda on people that are coming for playing. You know telestrations and you whip out root. Nobody's having a good time that night, you know you're not, they're not coming back and you're and you're going to feel bad about the time that you have with them. So yes, jared, definitely I have learned and I'm glad that you think I've done a better job of knowing my audience, who's coming and what type of games they might be interested in. Like that's step zero, step negative one is just an overarching opinion about game nights is another mistake I've made. Don't turn every event into a game night, you know just because you have.
Speaker 2:Just because you have all these cool games you want to play and you think playing games is the epitome of a social gathering, doesn't mean that everybody else does so. If you show up to every Thanksgiving dinner with a bag full of games thinking you're going to turn it into a game night, you're probably not going to and these people are going to think you're weird and they're not going to want to play games with you very often. So let them come to you and then go from there. But yeah, that's my step negative one and zero.
Speaker 3:Don't turn every event into a game night and know your audience when you do have a game night okay so so we talked a lot about like finding a game group and how to get the people to the table last time. So how do we approach which games to choose? How do you like weed out what games they've played, what they haven't, what their inclination might be like? How do we go about that? Jared you, you got anything.
Speaker 1:I mean I again I haven't hosted too many. I'm kind of like a one-shot kind of board game guy Like you guys come over to play this game, but Clay does a good job of almost having like some regulars, like regular games that you always get out like For Sale. That was an awesome board game that you know. You could get Mike and Hannahannah out there with the, the ericsons, and we could play for sale. We know it already, we don't need to do any learning. We hit the for sale but then clay would give us a little oh, here's something similar, um, and let me teach it to you real quick. So, but you'd only maybe teach us like, maybe one game. So instead of being all new games every time, you have a good rotation of hey, we like this one, and like you add in a new game and does everyone like it and maybe it becomes one that is a regular on the rotation. So definitely don't be afraid to introduce new games, but have some like tried and true for whatever that group likes or you really are passionate about.
Speaker 1:And I'm a big energy guy, you know, if I want to get camel up out there, I will get all. I'll get all the good vibes. I will get real excited about camel up. Get the little camels out and the little temple, the pyramid, and I can get people fired up about getting Camel Up out there. But that was kind of what I was thinking is have kind of like, have a good core that you can go back to. Also, maybe you can teach really easily and you're good at describing it and getting people to buy in and get the energy. But yeah then, don't be afraid to branch out every now and then.
Speaker 2:Yes, for 100%, for real. I go through phases where I have those games that are like 100% hit rate. I can teach them without looking at the rule book and they're going to be like a nice 15 to 20 minute filler. People are going to have a good time. Get warmed up to the idea of playing games. Yeah, right now I've been really liking Poison. Ryder Canizia game and Coloretto have been those games for me that you know.
Speaker 2:Let's open up the game night with a nice little appetizer. Maybe they know it, maybe they don't. Let's open up the game night with a nice little appetizer. Maybe they know it, maybe they don't, but even if they don't know it, it's going to be a quick teach. It's going to be a fun time, get people engaged. And then I usually have a menu of games curated to the group that I'm going to be playing with. If it's a group that I know has played a lot of mid-weight games and your wingspans and stuff, but hasn't really delved much deeper, I might pull out a few games in that genre or weight range and I'll read up on the rule books. I'll make sure I know the rules to those three games. That might be an option and then I'll just offer it up to the people that are coming and say do any of these look interesting to you? And whichever one they pick, I know I'm ready to go, I know I'm ready to teach it and I know it's probably going to be good for their tastes.
Speaker 3:I usually find mechanisms that they've played before or something that they're familiar with, so like I don't know when I, when I have family over or whatever, and they they have played I don't know Yahtzee before or whatever. They're familiar with dice rolling and press your luck and so maybe I'll get them into can't stop, and that's like something that they're familiar with, something to like warm them up and then you can move on to a little more complicated things. That's a good way to start.
Speaker 1:Another thing about kind of prepping the battle space is getting people aware of the mechanisms or the game before they show up, and tons of good YouTubers out there that will give you a down and dirty of how to play the game and they do an awesome job where you can kind of watch the video and know enough to. Once you show up and you see it come out of the box, you're like, oh, that's what that actually is. Or okay, now I'm feeling it in my hand and I can applying what I learned in my youtube to be more you know, you can be more effective, I guess, but you can actually play the game better that way yeah, I like, I think to your point.
Speaker 3:I think back to like the time we played, uh, Feats for Odin the first time and I came over and you're like, oh, it's pretty easy, We'll teach you Feats for Odin. And we sat down and it's like all symbols, no words, there's no player aid, and I just stared at this thing like what the hell does any of this mean? And so, like that onboard, like that ramp I wouldn't put that in front of somebody that has never played a game before but we had this kind of like rhythm going where we were playing heavier and heavier games. We were expected to show up on Thursdays, like ready to play whatever we had hitting the table. And you know that was like the ultimate groove that we hit was like we could bring people in from the game group, introduce them to a heavy game that night or send them the homework two days prior, like watch this YouTube video, read this rule book, whatever.
Speaker 3:People showed up, they onboarded and then we hit that one game for the evening and then we got out of there and that's like. That's like the pinnacle of the board game group is like once you can get those heavier games to the table every single week and people are prepared, that's one thing, but starting new people out or having a mix of those heavy gamers and those that have never played a board game other than like Monopoly or whatever, it's really hard to match those two up. So how do you do with the disparity between the heavy gamers and the younger gamers or the less experienced gamers?
Speaker 2:Are you talking about disparity in a single game night or like in separate?
Speaker 3:yeah. So like let's say, yeah, let's say you have, you're throwing one game night and you've got I don't know, maybe your core game group and then you have, like their spouses or their significant others or whoever that's coming that is less experienced at gaming. How do you like incorporate everybody, get them to the table, you always.
Speaker 2:You always go to the lowest common denominator, because I have games that even more experienced gamers will enjoy, that newer folks or people that aren't into games can also have a good time with. It's a recipe for failure. Trying to work someone in, that's just a spouse, and they're there just because they have to. And then you try and get them to play some crazy game. Just go with the lighter game, have a good time, know your audience. Tip number one and yeah, you know beforehand who's coming. You know if the spouses are wanting to play games or not, and if they are, that's what you're playing. You're not going to try and get them into Feast for Odin. It's just not going to happen.
Speaker 3:And I think what works really well there, especially if you have, you know, significant others of those that have are playing the heavier games on a regular basis Team games like put a more experienced player with their significant other or with a less experienced player and like let them talk about strategy together.
Speaker 1:If you can find something that has like open discussion, that they can, they can walk through together and collaborate on. I think that's a good recipe for success. On that disparity, where you get everyone, you can break it up boy, girls, you can break it up however you want and just that, watching the minds meld and I think those are really fun ones too, that you can again the lowest common denominator, like, or what did we talk about the other day? Code names is another great one. You know two different teams very accessible code names is another great one.
Speaker 2:You know two different teams very accessible. And that goes back to another point. Is communication beforehand and got this probably annoyed people I know it did when I was setting up game nights and I would want to know beforehand who was coming. You know, is your spouse coming? Are, are they interested in playing games? Because that changes the whole dynamic. Like if they're coming and they're just going to sit around and you know, chit, chat and drink a couple glasses of wine with the other people that aren't into playing games, cool. But if they want to play games, I'm going to make sure I'm ready for that game night. But if it's just going to be Jared, jared and Travis, now I'm going to make sure I'm ready for that game night. But if it's just going to be Jared and Travis now I'm going to be ready for a different game night. So just having that communication beforehand hey, are you bringing your spouse? Hey, do they want to play games? Sweet, all right, let's do it. I'll have some good games picked out Also in the communication beforehand.
Speaker 2:Back to Jared's point about game groups. Talk about food. Is this a dinner and game situation or is this just a game situation? And if it's just a game situation, can they bring snacks? Is there drinks they can bring? Just having that dialogue beforehand, making sure everybody's on the same page, just having that dialogue beforehand, making sure everybody's on the same page. How late are we expecting this thing to go? Some people are like early to bed. I get spanky over here and we're running a game past 845. He's not having a good time anymore and now I'm not getting spanky back to game night for a while. So, yeah, beforehand, just set out all those expectations. It sounds like overkill. Jared likes to fly by the seat of his pants and just feel the moment, but I like to know what's coming and try and make sure people have a good time.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I was going to say food is my only thing on my list, so I'm glad you brought it up.
Speaker 3:And I didn't have to do it, nailed it. Tip number one one food, yes, yeah, no, I and I think that we've had, like when we really hit our stride with our game nights that we did weekly. I think we took it to another level when we introduced, like the pizza making competition and we bust out the uni and it was like pizza making competition and a board game night together, and that way, like spouses making competition and a board game night together, and that way, like spouses that didn't want to play or significant others that didn't want to play, they could just make pizzas, hang out, drink wine, whatever, while the people that wanted to play games got into. I don't know. We played something pretty heavy that night, I think. Or we had a thematic game night and we put on some country music and we wore our cowboy hats and our belt buckles and we played western legends for like three hours amazing so like shoot, have a theme night.
Speaker 3:If, if you're, if you're cruising into it because you know people have been dressing up and coming to like murder mystery parties forever, why not dress up and, I don't know, play a western game or put on some pirates? You know spooky alien music and play alien. Dress up like a pirate and play ahoy, or you know dead.
Speaker 1:Reckoning dead everyone.
Speaker 2:So yeah, theme nights are good too yeah, if you're into that if you're into that yeah, the last thing I I was gonna touch on was a a no kidding big game night. It hasn't happened often, but occasionally the stars align and all the different people that I like to play games with all end up here on the same night and there's like 15, 16 people that are here to play games and my stress level could not be higher. People that are here to play games and my stress level could not be higher. That is the pinnacle of anxiety for me. So I prefer I talked about this on episode one is having a separate table so that you can play those two different games with smaller groups. Because, again, you can play those two different games with smaller groups. Because, again, not a ton of games are going to be great at higher player counts and I certainly don't have them. So, just understanding if a lot of people are coming, if you have a way to, you know, offload some of that responsibility onto a second table. Somebody else can be teaching a game over there, maybe even a third table, get wild with it. But yeah, you gotta be ready for anything that might happen at game night.
Speaker 2:And my final point is don't be afraid to adjust on the fly If you get out of the game and it's not going over. Well, people don't seem to be having fun. It's, you know. You can tell by looking at their faces like they don't understand, or it's going long, just kill it, you know, pull out, no thanks, and play it, you know, because it's better to. Yeah, the sunk cost fallacy. Just because you started the game doesn't mean you have to finish it. And if people aren't having a good time yourself included if you're not having a good time, probably nobody else is having a good time, because you're the one that's there to make the good time happen if you're hosting a game night. So if you feel the vibes going down, just adjust, be agile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can change the goalposts. You get to decide. You know I'm going to stop. We don't have to go all the way to 20 points or whatever. Or you know we can call it after this next round, like. I love the fluidity that board games can provide, kind of like what, Travis, you're talking about your game today? You can. So what if I'm supposed to end the game? I'm going to keep going because I want to test some more things out. I want to keep having fun. Board games are about having fun, not about sticking to some strict. You got to have some rules, right, but it's okay to break them every now and then for fun. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 3:And when you and your game group have reached a high level of performance and you are continually playing games consistently, I would encourage you to organize a game marathon weekend. So host people over three consecutive days or longer. Make a list of all the games that you want to get played. Maybe clear out your shelf of shame, maybe play some of the great old hits, mix them all together, mix them one after the other in the schedule and just play through all of them. We did this twice in Colorado and it was phenomenal both times. Yeah, If you want to see a picture of all the games that we played, check out our operation game night Instagram, because we played a crap ton of games over three days at Clay's house and it was just a rotating door of people in and out all weekend sitting down playing a game. People would come and go, We'd eat some food, we watched some football. It was a great weekend.
Speaker 2:Dude, that was, that was peak stuff right there. There were spreadsheets, there was potty breaks timed in there.
Speaker 3:We were even responsible. Yeah, we were even responsible, and did a workout.
Speaker 1:You gotta keep that mind.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 3:I think we've given our listener a good idea of what to consider if they dare to embark on the mission of hosting a game night yeah, and if you have any other tips or best practices that you've learned over the years, feel free to comment on the episode or leave us a DM on on Instagram or comment on one of our posts and let us know, because we are always trying to improve our game nights and I think everybody would appreciate some tips and tricks when it comes to hosting game nights. Hell yeah, love it All. Right, are we ready? Are we ready to move on to quick hits?
Speaker 1:Hit me.
Speaker 3:All right, quick hits. What else have you been doing besides board gaming, jared?
Speaker 1:Well, this one's real quick and I'm glad that you brought up the uni, because my quick hit is about perfecting my crust, my pizza crust. I'm trying to do dough from scratch. Usually I go to my friendly neighborhood Publix down here in the south and I don't have, unfortunately, a Trader Joe's nearby. But Trader Joe's shout out to Trader Joe's they got amazing pizza crust that you can just go buy and they're super cheap, right, it's just like water and flour. So I'm trying to perfect my own personal pizza crust that you can just go buy and they're super cheap, right, it's just like water and flour. So I'm trying to perfect my own personal pizza crust. The ultimate goal is using some of Adri's sourdough. She's a big old granola crunchy, all about that sourdough life. But right now I got a couple kilos of some yeasty bread cooking up. Well, not cooking up, it's rising, it's developing gluten, it's building its flavor.
Speaker 1:I'm super excited to get my pizza oven out tonight and sling a pie or two. If there's anyone, shout out to anybody in Alabama sweating their ass off like me. If you want to come over and play some board games and sling some pies, shoot us one of those little text message thingies. We have only ever gotten text message thingies from each other. The link in the show notes Fan mail, fan mail, fan mail. Yeah, yeah, in the show notes. If you're listening on Spotify, just go down, there's a friendly link. It'll open up your cell phone text message and you literally text us to say Yo, crushed it. Yo, jared, stop talking about food. It's obvious you're a heavyweight. Yes, we know, 285 pounds. I can't help it. That's my quick hit, thank you.
Speaker 3:All right, I have two quick hits, one every football season. I always do this. I re-download a phone game. I'm not much of a phone gamer but I really like this one. I play BGA and stuff on my phone, but it's called Retro Bowl. Retro Bowl is a I think it's free or it's like $1. It's pretty cheap, but it is a football game on your phone that is meant to mimic the visuals of the old tech mobile games. You don't need internet to play it. Once you download it, it's on your phone. You can play it forever.
Speaker 3:But it's got some pretty in-depth systems so you can manage your coaching staff, you can upgrade your players, you can trade them and draft every year and you can control the whole game with just one thumb. You hold the phone sideways, you swipe up and down, you do a couple swipes and that's the only controls. But it's got some pretty in-depth systems. It's got a weather system that will improve or decrease how your players play. It's got a weather system that will improve or decrease how your players play. Your quarterback gets injured and your backup quarterback is not a named character or a named player. He's just slinging the ball all over the place. His accuracy sucks. Your players are less likely to catch it. It's a pretty cool game and it's like super cheap and it's really addicting Super tense moments, really in-depth systems. It's called Retro Bowl. Everybody go download it.
Speaker 3:My number two is a new Netflix series called Monsters the Lyle and Eric Menendez story. So first off, let me put a disclaimer that this show is not for everybody. It does have some pretty gratuitous violence and if you are sensitive to any sort of mental, physical, sexual abuse, this is not the show for you. If you're unfamiliar with the story, this is Lyle and Eric Menendez back in 1990, killed their parents in Southern California with some shotguns. That walked into their own house, killed their parents with shotguns and then spent the next like seven years going through the legal system between lying and saying that the mafia had done it, getting caught and admitting to doing it, going through multiple court cases, and they are considering reopening this case after they were spoiler alert sentenced to double life sentences in prison. But this show is really, really phenomenal um, well-acted, uh, javier bardem, from no country for old men, plays the dad and he's really good and just like crazy. Um, and then shout out to cooper, cooper coke and nicholas alexander chavez, who play the two men and his brothers. This is nine episodes long and there is not a single episode where these boys or these men do not cry on camera and it is really believable and phenomenally acted.
Speaker 3:The audio design I wish I could shout out whoever did the audio design and the soundtrack for it, because the audio design and the soundtrack give it such a unique flair. They're committing these atrocities and things are really tense, but they play these poppy hits from the late 80s over the top of it. They give it this kind of unique spin. There's one where there's an episode where they're about to get caught and they play this music over the top. That is just like the pace of this soundtrack. It just gets you like your heart thumping. It is very good.
Speaker 3:I need to do a little more research into this trial altogether. I was pretty unfamiliar with it because I was not born when this first happened. But yeah, it's called Monsters, the Lyle and Eric Menendez story and it's on Netflix now. It is very good. Some of it is very hard to watch. There's one episode I think it's like half an hour long and the entire episode is one of them sitting in prison and he's sitting across the table from his lawyer one of them sitting in prison and he's sitting across the table from his lawyer and the entire episode is one. It looks like one single shot and it just zooms in on him slowly for about half an hour as he tells this monologue of all these atrocities that have happened to him and he gets into all the all the mental and physical and sexual abuse that he underwent from his father, reportedly or supposedly. And the way that they shoot this is that they'll do these flashbacks to things happening in the past and they will show it a different way depending on whoever is telling the story at the moment, and so you don't really know what the truth is as you watch this play out over and over and over again until you have to kind of piece it together yourself. So, yeah, really really well acted, really well shot, choreographed.
Speaker 3:The music and audio is phenomenal. So shout out to monsters on netflix oh, yeah, did we do it? Okay, we did it. Episode six of operation game night. If you like what you are hearing, if you like this podcast, please like, share, subscribe, follow us on Instagram at Operation Game Night, with all underscores yeah, leave us a note, shoot us some love. Let us know what we can do better. Thank you for joining us. I have been Travis Smith, he has been Jared Erickson and he has been Clay Gable, and we're out out. The Operation Game Night podcast was created, produced and edited by me, travis Smith, and co-hosted by my good friends Clay Gable and Jared Erickson. Thank you for listening and hope to see you again next week.