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 15: Conservas, Whale Riders, & Giving Thanks
Travis, Clayton, and Jared convene for a Thanksgiving special, where share our gratitude for our favorite hobby...board gaming! From Clayton's excitement over acquiring the rare Whale Riders by Reiner Knizia to planning innovative game nights with creative charcuterie boards, we celebrate the joy and camaraderie that board games bring into our lives.
Experience the thrill of uncovering strategic gems like Conservas, a solo game by Scott Almes, and the bustling fun of Circus Flohcati by Reiner Knizia. Our adventures don't stop at the gaming table; we also share insights on sustainability in board game production, offering fresh perspectives on mindful consumerism and eco-friendly practices. Plus, get a sneak peek into our off-table lives, including Clayton's upcoming travel plans and a nostalgic rewatch of Star Wars episodes.
Join us as we express our gratitude for the board gaming community, highlighting its role as a social connector and a wellspring of joy, especially for introverts finding their place in a bustling world. With stories about themed game sessions, shared laughter, and the ever-growing "shelf of opportunity," this episode is a heartfelt tribute to the enduring influence of board games and the vibrant community they foster.
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 and happy Thanksgiving. This will probably post to all of our social media to our Spotify, to our Apple podcast, to our YouTube on Thanksgiving. So be sure to give thanks to your fellow gamers and to your family and friends, and we have a great show for you today where we're going to talk about what we're thankful for in gaming. A great show for you today where we're going to talk about what we're thankful for in gaming. So joining me, as always, are my emotional support. Co-hosts Clayton Gable and Jared Erickson. How you doing, guys. Oh, we're fabulous. We're doing great here.
Speaker 1:Good, I threw you off with the joint intro, but yeah, thank you for being here.
Speaker 3:Thanks for joining me and I'm excited for what we have to talk about today. So, hey, you should never apologize for putting me and clay on the same level. I, uh, I feel very honored. I mean, I've seen how many uh, what do you call those crossfit thingies? Uh, duck unders or no? That's a wrestling move. You pull up and you go up and oh, muscle ups muscle-ups. Muscle-ups. Yeah, I mean, and he's got a dunk, a dunk, he can squat, I can tell you that.
Speaker 2:Hang on, Jared. It's been a while since I've done muscle-up, but I'm glad that you still remember me that way.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's kind of. It's kind of like your call sign Clay.
Speaker 1:Muscle-Up Gable Old Clay. Muscle Up Gable.
Speaker 2:Clay Muscle Up Wow.
Speaker 1:Jared, what's your signature fitness workout rep. What's?
Speaker 3:your signature move. It would be Jared Shavasana Erickson, the one where you just lay on the ground and recover. I like that.
Speaker 1:What about?
Speaker 3:you Travis.
Speaker 1:The dead bug, I don't know. I'm probably like a. I would have said like stair hop plyometrics, but after I tore my Achilles I don't think that's my thing anymore. So I'm going to go in like old Travis Ranger, clap Ranger claps. Love me a good Ranger clap, ranger clap, oh, ranger claps, love me a good ranger clap, or uh, what's that? The little man in the woods where you like crouch down, you like, drag your knuckles on the ground and then you jump up and do a star job.
Speaker 3:oh yeah yeah, those are good. I'm telling you we could spin off into a fitness podcast fitness podcast, movie podcast, tv show, board game podcast. That's what millennials do. Millennials do podcasts. That's what we do.
Speaker 2:When you're as good as we are.
Speaker 1:you can pretty much take this anywhere, that's right, the sky's the limit, the sky's the limit. So, anyways, today we have a great show for you. We are going to debrief our weeks. We're going to fall in on the mission objective, which is we're going to recount what we're thankful for in board gaming, whether it's the people we board game with or the trends in the hobby or whatever it is. Maybe it might be specific games that we're thankful for, but we're going to share some thanks and then we're going to go over the fence and outside the wire and talk about what we have been doing outside of board gaming. So, clayton, debrief your week for me.
Speaker 2:Alright, I've been so excited to debrief with you guys. This week. I got in Whale Riders, which is an out-of-print Reiner Canizia game that's been on my radar for a while and I, like always, I found myself on eBay and watching this item on eBay and paid probably double what it should cost. But it's out of print and it's Reiner Knizia and people said it was good, so I wanted to give it a whirl, and the fact that it's not available makes me feel special for having it. So that's not nothing. But anyway, whale Riders was put out in 2022 or 2021 by Grail Games, again designed by Reiner Knizia. It's got art by Vincent Dutre and essentially you're playing as these whale riders that are making a trip down and up the coast, stopping at ports, buying goods to fulfill these contracts.
Speaker 2:It's a super simple game where you have five actions you can take on your turn. You can move, you can buy a tile from the port that you're at, you can just get a coin. You can discard some of your contract cards or you can fulfill any number of your contract cards for one action. So on your turn, you can take two of those actions and it's okay to take two of the same action twice, and that's pretty much the rules of the game. So as you go to these ports, there's like a line of tiles and the tiles that are closest to you at the port are cheapest and the one that are closest to you at the port are cheapest and the one that is right next to the port is actually free. So you go there. You can get the tiles closest to you for free, and then as they get further away from you, they're going to cost more money. Up to maybe three or three or four coins is probably the most it'll cost. Yeah, you're just getting these tiles to fulfill these contracts on your cards. When you fulfill the contracts they'll be worth points at the end of the game, but you also get more money that'll help you buy goods for future contracts.
Speaker 2:So not not a lot there at like first glance, but as with most kanitsa games games, there's more to it than meets the eye. There's this whole tempo consideration that comes into play, because the game ends when you start at the top of the board at this sun port and then you make one trip all the way down to the bottom of the board and then all the way back up to the sun port and when one person gets back up to the sun port they can start buying these tiles at the sun port that are just victory points. So if you're the first one to get there, you can spend a bunch of turns just buying these tiles that give you victory points. But then again you've rushed past a lot of stuff and you spent a lot of turns moving where other people might have been spending their turns buying and fulfilling contracts. So it's an interesting pacing of when do I move on to the next port and when do I push forward to try and get up back to the sun port and try and get some of those victory point tiles.
Speaker 2:Because I've only played it twice. I played it once with Mary and Mason and Isaac, so it worked well as a family game for all of us. But Mary, she was nowhere near getting back to the Sunport. She took it nice and slow. She just stayed at a port and kept farming tiles and they would keep coming to her and she was fulfilling tons of contracts. Meanwhile I got back up to the sunport and I was getting all these buying these just victory point tiles at the end and she ended up winning. But then last night I played it with me tyler and brinna, and I did the same thing. I rushed back up to the, the sunport and started buying those victory points and I, I won. So you know, it's tough to say and there is a.
Speaker 2:There is two like variants that I would call pretty essential. Honestly, if you're gonna play with people other than kids, one just adds some conditions that you're racing to fulfill that will get you extra points. Like first person to fulfill three contracts gets three victory points. First person to get down to the bottom port gets three victory points. So it kind of pushes you to do these things, which I thought was nice. And then the other one was these starting player powers. So mine last night was that I could move every turn one time for free. So that kind of pushed me to be the guy that was going to move my Whale Rider down and back the quickest. And Tyler had one that allowed him to buy any number of tiles from the port he wanted to for one action. So anyway, there's a nice little variety and ways to mix it up with those two modules.
Speaker 2:But Whale Riders I mean, it's what you expect from Kinesia. I love a game like this that feels like you can teach it in five minutes and there's still some engaging gameplay. I would almost call it like a super filler game because it honestly it took like 30 minutes, but it feels like you're playing a more substantial game than a 30-minute game normally would be, so it was cool in that way. I don't know that I'd rush to buy it on eBay for the double the price it normally should cost, but I'm glad to have it around because I think this is a great one to bring out for people that like as a gateway game, as something that is super easy to teach, and people will feel like, wow, I did something cool, I filled these contracts, got victory points, I'm playing a Canizia game.
Speaker 3:Well, can I ask what's the average points here that you're talking like your victory points? Are we getting like 30 or 50?
Speaker 2:It was up around like 30 or 50. It was up around like 30 to 50 last night. Yeah. So the contracts, like they vary how many points you get for them based on how hard they are to fulfill. So some are harder to fulfill than others and you get more points for that. But you can also get these like dinky ones that just require two goods and you can crank those out in no time.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, it's definitely light. So if you're, if you're playing it with people and you guys don't normally play light games you you might not enjoy this. It's definitely got luck to it with what cards you have in your hand, what, what contracts you need to fulfill and what goods come out into the different port markets. So there's that luck there For me in a 30-minute game I don't really care, it's just fun. And yeah, again, I think the additional modules are a must if you're playing with adults, because that just gives you a little more focus.
Speaker 2:And just a nitpicky production complaint is that the bag, that there's a ton of tiles and the bag is almost overflowing with them. So I wish the bag was a little bigger. But it's fine, like you can get, you can get by, but anyway, that's Whale Riders by Rainer Canizia. Hopefully this game comes back into print at some point. Apparently, canizia was beefing with grail games. I don't know what's what's going on, but yeah, it's a good one. I think it should be available for more people, because there you can't have too many games that are this approachable in your collection. I don't think, yeah.
Speaker 1:And a bite wing games. If you're listening to this podcast, which I know that you are, go ahead and just reboot this one. Refresh it, put a new skin on it, put it on kickstarter, yep absolutely so.
Speaker 3:I'll be this kinesia guy. Uh, where is he at? What's he doing? He's in germany. Well, haven't you? Why haven't you bagged him yet, travis?
Speaker 1:I. I looked for him at Essen. I was looking for the signature bow tie and there was no bow ties to be found. So yeah, I don't know what he's up to nowadays, but apparently he's launching a big trio of games on Kickstarter with BiteWing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's just out there designing constantly, constantly. I mean, does he have a social media?
Speaker 3:Why don't you guys go get him? Bring him on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have the godfather of board gaming come on the podcast.
Speaker 3:I mean, you are in Germany, you work on him a little bit. I am hopeful to move to Germany. I'll go over there. I'm not going to be anywhere to Germany.
Speaker 2:I'll go over there, you know? Yeah, I'm not going anywhere near Germany so. Yeah, we can all go to Essen together. I think that would be a good meet up.
Speaker 1:Yes, jared, debrief your week for me.
Speaker 3:So this one. As you can tell, I don't go deep on any of these games. I recycle a lot of them. So we're talking about Camel Up again. So my babysitter. Of these games, I recycle a lot of them. So we're talking about Camel Up again. So my babysitter. She lives down the street. It was Tuesday night After taco night. I got it a little squirrely. Her dad came to pick her up. I'm like you know what they would love, camel Up. So I ran in my house, grabbed Camel Up. They have five kids. They loved it. They said they played 10 games in the matter of like three days. No way.
Speaker 3:And they got a pretty good setup. They got a couple good games, probably like 30 to 40 games. These are serious board gaming family here. But I had to ask the Williams for Camel Up back because we had an impromptu game night Friday. I was going to try and get Quacks of Quiddlenburg on the table. Still haven't done that. I have it. I bought it on eBay. It's kind of becoming my mini shelf of shame, if you will. Shelf of shame of one game. Yeah, one game.
Speaker 3:You're doing pretty good man. Yeah, it went from. It was just going to be Adrian and I and Randy and Kevin and then it ballooned into like 10 people Got Costco pizza. Shout out Costco pizza. Got some crumble Crumbles. Lineup last week was insane. Okay, you missed a big one. Hopefully I mean Thanksgiving they bring the heat. But yeah, we got super mega lucky box no thanks on the table. But the best part was getting camel up on the table. But it was silent camel up so we had to be very quiet because Gemma was not going to sleep. So Adri in Gemma's room trying to help her calm down, go to sleep.
Speaker 3:All she can hear is Jared going yeah woo, like you know, getting all excited about camel up.
Speaker 2:Dang. Yeah, we had to do it quietly.
Speaker 3:We turned the lights down low and we had to roll the die very gently, like click the button softly onto the mouse pad. It was a blast. It was a lot of fun. That was my week in gaming. There's nothing new here about the games, but the experience is off the chart.
Speaker 1:Can you tell me? So I know that you're doing a boards and board gaming uh, get together coming up. So how are you planning for that? Are you just like recycling all the same games? People are bringing their own games. Um, how weight are you aiming for?
Speaker 3:So we are probably going to have around 12 people. Okay, total. Uh, we do have the foldy table we're gonna maybe bust into to the the crowd. My, my regulars love camel up. They will go hard on camel up. Then that's up to eight people. So that's a good chunk. And then I could take the top four competitive people who want to learn something new. I got a couple good ones in my pocket Arnak.
Speaker 3:Maybe, I don't know that one's a little stretchy, but I think I could get Quacks Equivalentberg to the table for my boards and boards game night.
Speaker 2:So we're inviting our friends over.
Speaker 3:We're telling them to make their own unique charcuterie board. So you know, don't don't just everyone bring meat and cheese, even though we love meat and cheese. Maybe someone brings, like, a cookie charcuterie board. Maybe someone brings, I don't know, a pastry charcuterie board dessert charcuterie board.
Speaker 1:Question are you giving out awards for the boards? The?
Speaker 3:board awards okay, well, I'm writing this down. Give me some the boards. The board awards Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm writing this down. Give me some more ideas. Board awards. Board awards Yep Most creative, most delicious, okay, best organization on the board itself. Board awards I might steal this boards thing.
Speaker 2:This is awesome, this is a good idea.
Speaker 3:And Adri even came up with a little invite. I mean I think she got it from that. There's like some From the TikToks Pretty much made it for you. But yeah, it's cute, you know, give a time out there. Both of my fellow co-hosts here. They did RSVP, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:See you there, man.
Speaker 3:You got to hop a flight next week to fly in and play some little Montgomery Alabama.
Speaker 2:I showed Mary that invite and she almost teared up. She was like, oh my gosh, I wish we could go to that and then when she found out, Adri did it. She was like oh my gosh, I cannot believe.
Speaker 3:But here's the thing about the I just used inspiration yeah, the impromptu game night was really driven by adri, so when adri gives me an inch. I gotta take a mile, okay, so I'm like oh I gotta invite my carpool group. I gotta invite my, my other group, work mashing them together. Who's bringing pizza? It was.
Speaker 2:It's a slippery slope with me okay, dang, I love to hear that. Jared, that's awesome. Glad you're out there gaming man. You may not be out there buying, but if there's somebody that can appreciate the fun of a board game, it's freaking Jared, and he loves his games, the go-tos, and will freaking make everybody else love them too. It's him.
Speaker 3:Or they can get out, yeah, if you did not have fun playing Camel.
Speaker 2:Or they can get out, yeah, if you did not have fun playing Camel Up. You can leave now. Yeah, that's right, you're out of the group, yep.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Travis.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:What you've been messing around with on the table.
Speaker 1:So I played a couple of solo games this week. I played Conservus, which is a 2024 release by salt and pepper games. Designer is Scott Alms. He is famous for creating a bunch of the mini Epic games many Epic dinosaurs, many Epic galaxies, tiny Epic, yes, oh yes. So he's got a bunch of small games. So a tiny Epic galaxies, galaxies, tiny epic dinosaurs, all those ones. He's got a couple of uh button shy games, like the food chain island, which I love, but he is great at creating a puzzle for people and I just learned I I don't know why I didn't put two and two together. He designed beer and bread, which I love oh yeah, so he's, he's a great puzzle maker, and conserva is no different.
Speaker 1:So conserva is a game about sustainable fishing, and conserva are high quality tinned fish goods that they sell in spain, like you picture sardines in a can. They're like that, but like higher quality, and so this game is a solo only bag building game. You've got a bunch of chips that have different, basically, suits of fish. So you've got clams and oysters and sardines and octopus. Then you've got a bunch of chips that have water, like little squiggly lines for water. It tells you what chips to put in your bag. To start the game, you lay out three upgrades, three different ships. You draw two ships and you pick one to start with, and then that's the whole setup. The different challenges that you're playing through are the different months of the year for fishing, and so in January you're fishing for only oh man, what, what is it? Sardines and clams or something. And so you put clams and sardines and water in your bag and you shake it up, and on your turn you're drawing five tokens out of the bag for each ship that you have, and once for the open water, like the open sea, and you get to pick which of those ships to allocate all five of those chips to. And then what you're trying to do is you're trying to maximize your profits without overfishing the waters. So every turn you can put sardines and clams, or whatever else you're fishing for, onto your boats, but those do not go back into the ocean. Those are being spent for upgrades and new ships and stuff like that, the ones that go to the open water card or below. I guess the open water card is for breeding. So if you have two or more sardines, you will get one additional sardine, or the number of sardines minus one. So if I had four sardines in one good grab, I would get three additional through breeding, and all those go back in the bag, plus the ones that don't make it onto the boat and are beneath the boats. And so what you're doing is you're trying to continue to pull these out and balance how much you're charging ahead on these like upgrades and the additional boats and the income without overfishing, because the second you start pulling out these tokens and they are a bunch of water or they're a bunch of like it's amazing how fast they run out in your bag, and so it's a really interesting puzzle and it introduces just a little bit of the randomness with the bag pulls, but you've got to really strategically place those tokens once you pull them out. So the art is beautiful, the puzzle is cool.
Speaker 1:I only played a couple of the challenges. Each month has different win goals. So it's not just money, you're not just trying to make money, you're trying to also have end up with a certain number of those resources in that bag. So, like january, the basic goal is to have 40 monies at the end, plus five, I think five clams and five sardines in the bag at the end. And that is like way harder than it sounds. And that's the basic level. Then there's an advanced challenge with additional money and additional fish that you can aim for if you're getting really good at the game. And at first I was like that's really easy. You're starting with five and five already, plus a bunch of water tokens You're starting with I don't know. I think you start with 10 monies at the beginning and it took me probably four tries to even beat the basic level challenge because I could not figure out how to allocate these resources to keep the fish multiplying and keep the bag filled. So it actually is pretty challenging.
Speaker 1:The art is beautiful, the art is by Jorge Tabanera Redondo and it's based off of real life principle of like these fishing villages in Spain where they go out and they catch these fish and make conservas out of them. Here's my big thing about this game, and I have a trend this week that you'll probably notice as I go along this game is overproduced. I love the art. I love the challenge. I love the spiral bound book. I love all that stuff the book came with.
Speaker 1:Or first off, it comes in this like kind of medium sized box, it's like maybe nine by nine inches. It came with a set of English cards and then a whole other set of spanish cards in the same box and then the spiral bound booklet. One side of all of the pages are in english, the other side are all on spanish. Okay, and then it comes in this big, like biggish box and the whole time I'm like playing this. I'm thinking like he's done so many other small box games that have a great puzzle to them. It's got like multiple components and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:He could have sized this down and made it look like a little sardine tin, like actual, like the conservance that they sell them in, and it would have been so cute and perfect and it would have been easy to transport. There's's like a mint tin or like an Altoids tin version of this game that I'm like, really excited about. But that is not a thing. They overproduced it and gave me Spanish cards for some reason, plus the English cards, so I don't know for something that's about like preserving the environment and, you know, sustainability. It's a little. It's a little wasteful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my big beef with this game, but the puzzle's great. I definitely want to play through the other challenges because they kind of ramp up in difficulty as you go along. The first one is only two of the suits of the fish tokens. It's like clams and sardines, but then it starts to introduce octopi and muscles, maybe something like that. So, yeah, I'll definitely give this another shot and continue on with conservice, because I am really enjoying the puzzle and I'm really enjoying the challenge so is this like a?
Speaker 2:is there a lot to do to play it solo, or is it pretty meant for solo? No, it's a solo, only game I must have missed that at the beginning yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Solo only, yeah, um, yeah, yeah, solo only. And setup is a breeze. Um, you just play it over like seven to ten rounds, depending on the month and the challenge, whatever's going on. Yeah, it's in and out. You can leave it on on the table. It doesn't take up all that up all that much space, so I'm really, really enjoying it. It was a Kickstarter that just delivered, maybe, maybe three months ago, and the the turnaround on Kickstarter was really fast because I I backed it, maybe this summer, and it showed up by the fall. So love to see that.
Speaker 3:So what's the the by the fall? So love to see that, so what's? The uh. The vibe on the bag is the bag size.
Speaker 1:Good, um, the bag size. We talked about bag sizes. The bag size is honestly too large for the amount of chips that you have rolling around in there. The tokens are like smaller than a penny. They're like really small and wooden and you could probably cut that bag in half to fit it inside like a little mint tin and it would have been much more realistic. But the bag is nice, it's big, it's like nice and sewn. It's got little like water waves on it. It's cute.
Speaker 3:But I think we might have identified a hole in the market. Maybe we need to start a bag company, a uh board game bag company. Have OGN on there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we should just make the Operation Game Night publishing arm of this endeavor and start cranking out our own games, or just taking existing games or old games and buying the rights and miniaturizing them.
Speaker 1:That'd be all about that. There we go. But yes, the bag is nice, it's made of canvas, it's pretty. It's pretty nice and robust. You usually get like those cheap, like polyester stuff. This is, this is built to last for sure. Oh nice.
Speaker 2:We know our bags around here. Yeah, come to OGN if you want to hear a good bag review.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love, love a good bag, I love a good bag and I love a good bag builder. That's a must. Yeah, so that's Conservice by Salt and Pepper Games, published 2024. Clay, you want to go again? You got anything else, that's burning.
Speaker 2:Listen, I can go again. Also. Last night, when I went over to the Spangler household, I brought another Canizia game, because I have a problem, and that one was just a small little card game called Circus Floccati. Oh nice, yeah, it's just a little 25th century.
Speaker 2:Well, I think mine's from Plate, so I think it's been published a few times. There's one that looks super weird. I have the one that's from Plate, if that's how you say it. But yeah, there's a version of this game out there that has these fleas, but like lifelike fleas. I'm bringing it up on the screen share, but yeah, it's kind of alarming. Yeah, I would advise getting the plate version, or maybe 25th century version, because this one I'm looking at right now is a bit freaky. You guys should do yourselves a favor and look at it. But anyway, push your luck is one of my favorite. I'm not even going to say one of my favorite anymore.
Speaker 2:It is my favorite mechanism in a board game, because sometimes I'm not thinking so great and I just want the thrill of gambling and seeing if I can eke out a little more of uh of the game. So in circus focati there's a deck of cards and on your turn there will be cards displayed next to the deck and you can either take one of those cards that's displayed or you can flip a card off the top of the deck and keep doing that until you reveal a card that matches the color of another card out there. So there's 10 different colored cards and if you reveal one that's already out there, you bust and you don't get anything that round. So why do I want these cards cards? At the end of the game you score for the highest number card that you have in a certain color that's in your hand. So if I have a five, six and seven green card, I only score for the seven green card. At the end the five and the six are wasted and they go up from zero to seven is what they're worth. So that's one way to score.
Speaker 2:Points is at the end cards left in your hand. But also you score points if you get a set of three of the same number. So if on my turn I have three zeros, I can play those in front of me as a trio. That's worth 10 points at the end of the game. So if you have some of those lower value cards, a lot of times people leave them out there because they're greedy and they want the big value cards from the game. So if you have some of those lower value cards, a lot of times people leave them out there because they're greedy and they want the big value cards from the center. And so if you see a couple ones out there, you can just snatch a one. Snatch a one, then you have a trio worth 10 points and those ones weren't going to do anything anyway. So it's a fun little push your luck game.
Speaker 2:There's a couple action cards that'll let you almost go fish from another player, like give me a yellow card, and if they have one, they have to give it to you. And there's one that lets you just open up the deck and keep flipping until you would have busted, but you don't actually bust, so you have a bigger option. It plays in 15 minutes option. It plays in like 15 minutes. Super chill push your luck card game from Canizia that like gives you a couple of things to think about whether you want to try and get those high numbers and um score that way, or try and collect a bunch of trios. Uh, both are valid options. The game ends either when the deck runs out or when one person has all 10 colors of cards in their hands. They can call for a gala and then the game ends and that person gets an extra 10 points for having all 10 of the different colors. I can't get enough of little card games, and this is one that I'll probably be hitting the table more as I play it more.
Speaker 3:The artwork looks awesome and those are those little ants. Yeah, are you looking at the flea?
Speaker 2:stuff, or are you looking at the realistic one?
Speaker 3:I went to Board Game Geek and was just clicking around.
Speaker 1:I actually just got the 25th century version of this in the mail.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:And I have not played it yet. But yeah, it's good to hear that you enjoyed it?
Speaker 2:yes, very much, I think. Yeah, you should definitely get this one. Are your parents still in town?
Speaker 1:no, but rachel's folks just came back in, so maybe we'll bust it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, try it out on, yeah, all right, that's circus focati.
Speaker 1:Nice, yeah, I got um. Actually that came with the rest of the 25th century with, like, jacqueline Hyde versus. Scotland Yard and the Dracula versus Van Helsing, so I'm loving that Kickstarter that is really paying off with a bunch of small box games.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Anything else from the debrief for either you two. From the debrief for either you two.
Speaker 1:I have one more that I am. It's a little premature so I'm just going to go over it very quickly. I got the new expansion for War of the Ring, the card game, which I am stoked about. I got the Shadow and Bone expansion, which has a cooperative and solo mode, and so that one is pretty cool.
Speaker 1:I haven't played it all that much, but it allows for solo and cooperative play and it comes with nice little flow charts for what the bot will do when you are not playing. So you always play as the fellowship or the free peoples and then the shadow and the Mordor factions will go afterwards via bot flowcharts. So I love a good flowchart in a game, yeah, and that definitely has a great flowchart that fits on one of those little location cards, so that's pretty nice. And then the Fire and Swords expansion is the one that I just got and that is kind of like a hobbit-esque expansion. They have different versions of the uh initial journeys that you can go through solo or cooperative or you can play them competitively, and it has additional races. It's got locations like the lonely mountain and the dune to dine and all this stuff that I nerd out about via lord of the rings lore, so yeah I'm excited yeah, I'm excited to dive into that some more, but, um, that just ships.
Speaker 1:So I'm really excited to get that to the table and I'll probably talk about it next week awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, next week or whenever we, we can, whenever we reconvene. Uh, jared, did you play enough of Dead Reckoning to debrief us on that?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, I mean sure I can give it a college try, I guess. Well, this week, which is one of the things I'm thankful for online games so I could reach out and play with my friends we all hopped on a Discord, got on the tabletop simulator with cole. Um, unfortunately travis was sleeping, apologize.
Speaker 1:Uh, thanks for he's gonna be very upset I feel like I just keep on travis.
Speaker 3:This might be like just a thing your, your turn is coming.
Speaker 1:Next year your turn, your turn is coming yeah just wait till.
Speaker 2:travis and I are synced up on time zones. You're not even going to know what's going on. Oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3:so Dead Reckoning definitely a big boy game. You're a pirate discovering new islands, blasting each other. He's got this great cardboard cutout of a pirate ship that you drop little chits in to see who wins when you battle, and you can battle islands. You can battle other boats, you can battle the ghost boats or what are they called.
Speaker 2:They're merchant ships, merchant ships.
Speaker 3:You can pillage the poor little merchants. It's resource building, so, like you know, resource gathering. So you got to get barrels to upgrade your player cards and then you upgrade your players as well, and it's a lot of fun. You get coins and there's treasure chests okay, oh yeah, and when you blast each other, you can dip into your buddy's treasure chest. It's super fun. There's like different game goals too, so once you reach a certain number of game goals, that's how the end game is triggered. So I mean, you can play all night and not get close to ending the damn thing.
Speaker 3:And you know sometimes you're just edging right on the edge of winning, but you're like hmm, maybe I want to go one more round. It is a blast to play in person, too. Round, it is a blast to play in person, too. That was one that we dressed up for back in our Colorado days, so that's always a good theme night one, and I don't know how popular it is, though, but I did see a guy in Costco wearing a Dead Reckoning shirt. I almost sh** myself. Okay, I've already sworn a few times today.
Speaker 2:I apologize you got flagged on YouTube, but yeah.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know how many people play this game either. I feel like it would be like up there with the roots and the you know Dune Imperiums of the world, but for whatever reason, I don't know if they didn't print a lot or after the Kickstarter, like that was it I. They ran another kickstarter for it, but it's super cool. I mean card crafting instead of deck building. I'm a big fan like just throwing these little translucent sleeves into your card to like upgrade them and give them more abilities as much as travis loves bags, clay loves sleeving.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2:I will throw those sleeves in there, but, yeah, someday. I don't know how long it's going to take us to finish this game on Tabletop Simulator with Cole, but we have started, it's still going on. You can save it.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm saying we might need to after this, sneak a couple minutes of Dead Reckoning or Dune Imperium on Tabletop Simulator. You can save it and then, whenever the stars align again, we can all sit down and play for a little bit. That would be awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did not get far. That was Cole and I's first time playing a Tabletop Simulator game. That was Cole and I's first time playing a tabletop simulator game, and so there was quite a bit of a learning curve with the interface there and it's not a very friendly game to be trying to manage that for the first time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you try to pick up little chits and drop them into this virtual treasure. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You're shuffling decks. You're flipping sleeves. You have to put in cards like it. Yeah, we got a couple yeah we got a few turns in and it was fun. It was great to get back in that world with jared and cole because they love it like oh yeah, if people are loving it, I'm loving it. It's fun.
Speaker 3:Well, we also did that one expansion where there's like a multi-game. So not only is this game just massive and complex and fun and interactive, there's like a six-part series that we were doing, where depending on how you did in that one game you can upgrade your player abilities for the next game and like it just builds upon itself until the very end. And then there's like a massive victory point thing that goes into that thing. Yeah, it was, that was epic. That took us like a year to get through those six games, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that and my City are the only campaign games I've ever successfully finished. It helped to have Cole. Cole will play. He will be confused learning Ticket to Ride. But if you throw a pirate theme on there, I mean that guy dove. I mean this game's gotta be over a 4.0 weight in BGG. And Cole, freaking, went all in on this game. He knows the rules better than either of us. We haven't played in a long time. He's like oh yes, you upgrade your thing in between turns and you can sleep. It's just amazing what the motivation you can get out of somebody when they're that into the theme. So hey, it says the weight's only 3.43 wow, that's surprising, because I mean it's not.
Speaker 3:The iconography is a lot of minutiae.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like we always ask the same questions about when you can battle and who wins a battle when certain things happen. So there's a lot of edge cases that you have to go back to the rulebook, but I guess the basic thrust of it isn't too bad. But yeah, Dead Reckoning freaking awesome if you see it somewhere and you're into those type of big epic games. It's freaking awesome if you see it somewhere and you're into those type of big epic games.
Speaker 3:I think back in your Cardboard and Clay profile you got a couple pictures of us all dressed up, so you might have to whip that out for the OGN Instagram yeah, I'll throw that out there next week when this episode goes live.
Speaker 1:Thank, you Perfect. Okay, are we ready to fall in on the mission objective? Let's fall, I'm ready, all right. So today's mission objective is we're going to share what we are thankful for in board gaming, whether that's our board game group or specific games, maybe it's a mechanic. Whatever it is, we're going to share some thanks, because this episode will air on Thanksgiving. So, jared, start me off. What are you thankful for in board gaming?
Speaker 3:Well, I was talking to Adri about it a little bit and she's like don't cry. So I'm not going to cry. I just go back to us being friends at the Academy and having this friendship that you can like for multiple years, play games together, just be friends, be there for each other. I mean Clay Gable over here helped me renovate my home. Travis, he carried me through my assignment at the academy because we were executive officers together and I didn't know what the hell was going on Our bosses they were always talking. It's just really neat to have friends that you can do podcasts with, you can play online. I just want to say and I probably stole everyone's thunder, but I just want to say thank you Right off the bat, right off the bat.
Speaker 2:To you guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just I don't know. Definitely, I want to thank Clay for getting me into board games. I mean, it was like I went to go visit him. Hell, this was like 2016, and he was making me play games back then and that's when his budding obsessive personality really took hold. So yeah, thanks for getting me into board games. Of course, I don't know what else to do with people anymore, so hey, give it 10 years Clay, he might be on to the next thing you know, I highly doubt, hopefully not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, clay, what are you thankful for yeah, so jared kind of hit on it in the main section and it kind of ties into jared's first point here. But digital games, bga, that ability to you're not always going to call somebody and say what's up, but knowing that I'm in a game with people, it just still feels like you're connected and I love that. Games are able to provide that connection even when we're apart. So people I'm not playing games with BGA with, they may still be my friends, but I don't think about them that often because I see Jared Ray's name every day when I pick up BGA and I'm like, okay, I'm freaking, taking my distilled turn, how'd Jared get 50 points? So it just keeps the people front of mind and I really appreciate that about digital games. And so, as much as I hate digital games like actually the gaming of it I do love digital games for that ability to stay connected with people Because, yeah, I'm just not good at keeping in touch with people otherwise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, during our digital games episode you talked to you like poo pooed all over digital games and how you don't like them. You wouldn't play them at all if it weren't for the other people, and that's your number one thing you're thankful for.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:How the tables have turned. Oh, how the turntables.
Speaker 2:Travis, let's hear it, let's hear something from you.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to stay on theme and I'm thankful that sustainability has become part of the discussion in board games and the production and the way that we produce games and the way that we use games and the way we recycle games is now in the discussion, because for a long time, you had people just churning out. Well, I guess still people churn out these gigantic games full of plastic miniatures, and now people are actually starting to take a look at the sustainability of that Shout out to like Earthborn Rangers. Earthborn Rangers just launched a big Kickstarter and shipped it and it has like sustainable packaging. You could take that whole box and throw it in the ground and it would disintegrate into dirt eventually Wow, disintegrate into dirt eventually, wow. Whereas a lot of these gigantic miniature games that are hitting Kickstarter every other day have a thousand plastic minis that will never degrade.
Speaker 1:So if you have a game that you love, go ahead and recycle it. Send it to somebody else that you love. If you're done with it, don't just throw it away. Re, reduce, reuse, recycle all of your board games and share the love. Buy used games where you can. If your friendly local game store does not have a used section, maybe talk to the owner about it and say, hey, can we do a game swap? Do you have a rental section that I can rent games from you? Maybe don't go out there and back the latest Kickstarter. There's plenty of games out there that are great that will not wreck the environment, be mindful.
Speaker 3:When are we talking about starting to hand out medals? Do we give out sustainability medal? Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1:I like that Sustainability medal for Earthborn Rangers.
Speaker 3:Wait, is that our first medal we've given out?
Speaker 1:That is, we've got to keep track of this, somebody.
Speaker 2:I'll write a citation.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There you go. Perfect, I'll put it in my deck.
Speaker 2:For meritorious service. Yeah.
Speaker 3:To the Earth.
Speaker 1:Yes, jared. What's your next thing you're thankful for?
Speaker 3:Yes, Jared, what's your next thing you're thankful for? I am also just going to lean a little bit on what you just said was Petri's. I want to be thankful to Petri's, even though when I wrote that down I'm like I don't know if I've even bought anything from Petri's. But I have been a receiver of many good things from Petri's. But I have been a receiver of many good things from Petri's. I've been there many times and the donut shop down across the parking lot Donuts and noodles.
Speaker 1:Yes, donuts and noodles. Who would have thunk it?
Speaker 3:They got some bomb freaking yeast donuts. I'll tell you that their maple bar is insane but giving us places to either gather or, like you said, trade games. Get used games, get games. Talk to someone who is passionate about it and can guide you through your hobby. I know it's tough and it's probably not the most lucrative business to run, but they help the hobby stay alive across the country, the world, everything. So shout out to Petri's and everyone's local game shops.
Speaker 1:Friendly local game stores. I think we can all be thankful for that.
Speaker 2:Yes, petri's was there for me when I was just starting out and didn't know what to do. I walked in there and Cam the owner, I would ask him. I'd be like, oh, is this a good game? He'd be like oh yeah. But this one's actually. I like this one better for this reason. So he was just always there to help and as I went back, week after week after week, now we have a tight relationship where it's hey, what's up?
Speaker 2:Cam, hey, clay, how many games are you buying today? I love that store. I think it's very welcoming. I've been in stores that don't seem that welcoming and so, yes, definitely thankful for Petrus as well.
Speaker 1:Is Cam ready to come on the podcast or what?
Speaker 2:You know, we should probably invite him.
Speaker 1:We should have him on, we can talk about, like, what it takes to start a game store or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be a cool topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am thankful for it seems a little weird.
Speaker 1:But I am thankful for it seems a little weird. But I'm thankful for my shelf of shame because it gives me stuff to look forward to and, like a good goal, to play through them. It might not be the best thing in the world to recklessly spend my money on all these games that just sit there on the shelf, but especially now that I have this goal to not buy games, uh, for a year, I am finding myself drawn towards games that I have not played or have been staring me in the face or that I've been, like you know, too daunted to. Oh, crack the rule before, or set up on a table or, you know, dive into. So, especially those games that are a bit heavier or a bit more complex, if they have a solo rule book, I'm taking the time to dig into that and see what it takes to play those solo. So, yeah, I'm thankful for my shelf of shame because it's going to sustain me over the next year and it's going to open my aperture a bit for the games that I have played.
Speaker 1:That's a good take, I like that.
Speaker 2:That's refreshing. Yeah, it's a goal. It's a goal, that's a good take. I like that.
Speaker 1:That's refreshing. Yeah, it's a goal. It's a goal. It's a shelf of goals not a shelf of shame.
Speaker 3:Let's relabel this one. We should figure we could workshop it.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I've heard shelf of opportunity before. I like that one too Opportunity shelf of opportunity.
Speaker 2:I like to live in my shame but of shame but jared what else, what else you got?
Speaker 3:um, I was also thinking about, uh, like rule books and player aids, iconography. That just helps you understand the game better. Um, I I think about, well, you talk about like dead reckoning. We always do have questions, but it's easy to find the answer. Like they, they set up the rule book in a certain way. That is very helpful. Or like you can freaking search anything these days to if everyone's stuck on a certain rule, you can just Google it. But if they have a good rule book, I I am very thankful for a good rule book. And then even better if they have like a little player aid that you can just pass out and everyone knows what's the process, what's the steps. You can kind of like you know people can be self-sustaining in their quest for board gaming. So that's what I threw out there. I'm grateful for a good rule book.
Speaker 1:I like that. That's great. Yeah, because when the rule book is bad, it becomes apparent immediately and people are lost and confused. You can't look anything up like you have these games that get mistranslated or something and it's just confusing to everybody and it becomes so painful and the game is unplayable. So, yeah, good, call out uh, clay, what else you got?
Speaker 2:I got a shout out for board game instagram. So a few years back I I didn't know other people in real life that liked board games as much as I did. I knew people that would play board games with me, but I didn't know anybody that would sit around and watch YouTube videos of people playing video games or top 10 lists of that type of stuff. So I felt kind of alone and so I started my Cardboard and Clay Instagram account to try and connect with other people that were also obsessed with this pretty niche hobby, and it was amazing.
Speaker 2:And now we have Operation Game Night on Instagram and I've found the internet can be a very toxic place at times, but everything I've experienced from the people in the board gaming Instagram community are nothing but friendly and nice and just want to see everybody having a good time playing games. And yeah, I'm super thankful for everybody I've connected with on there. I mean, I met Tara from Tara's Tabletop. We've played games together. She's come over to my house and played games with the family Amanda again, we talk about her games with the family Amanda again we talk about her. We got Mesmerome games people like that that are always there to comment on your stuff and make you feel like you're doing it for a purpose. But just a shout out to those people that make it a welcoming, nice space to be a part of. So Board Game Instagram those people that make it a welcoming nice space to be a part of.
Speaker 1:So board game yeah, that is. That is such a enriching feeling to like have people actually comment on your stuff or reach out to you and say, like, hey, I'm loving the show. We love seeing that stuff on our uh instagram feed. So, please, if you're hearing this, reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you. We want to have a chat with you. Dm us, we. We love getting that stuff. So we want to have a chat with you. Dm us, we, we love getting that stuff. So thank you to all of our followers and thank you to the board game community out there.
Speaker 1:Uh, my next one is actually like kind of tangential to. That is like board game reddit. It is so helpful and so supportive and people are like always willing to offer suggestions. There's a reddit for every single game that you could possibly want to play and so supportive and people are like always willing to offer suggestions. There's a Reddit for every single game that you could possibly want to play. There's people will track deals going on across the internet for board games. People will like have discussion topics about upcoming games and what they think and what they think could be done better. People will like design a game and reach out to people on Reddit and people will offer sincere feedback. I'm just always impressed with the board game community and how positive, for the most part, people can keep it on the internet when it comes to discussing board games. So shout out to the board game community and the board game hobbyists that are out there engaging with one another.
Speaker 3:I bet you, the board game hobbyists, the online board gamers, are proud that community is probably the most supportive, least angry and difficult to work with.
Speaker 1:Like you, don't meet too many people that get get their panties in a wad, yes, and especially because the other follows that I have, or the subscriptions to other subreddits that I have, are largely video game related, and it's just such a disparity between the video gamers and the board gamers, because video gamers get so up in arms about every little thing and board gamers are always supportive and positive. So, yeah, shout out to that online community.
Speaker 2:If you're not being a productive member of that positive online community, please do. We paint a rosy picture, but I know I've seen BGG forums where people are just being hateful, so it's not completely void of it. But for the most part what I've seen is good, productive behavior in society and good people to engage with.
Speaker 1:And let's keep it that way.
Speaker 3:Hey, if we see someone who's doing the right thing, give them a good conduct medal. Maybe that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 3:It could be our second medal we give out. That's right.
Speaker 1:Jared, let's go around the horn one more time. Jared, what else are you thankful for?
Speaker 3:I think that this is probably a double tap. Actually, it totally is, specifically Board Game Arena, because that one has gotten me through many moons of being apart from my family. I think I've already mentioned a couple of times on this podcast my buddy, dallin Tavoyan. Have like a two-year Arnak game that I've been playing consistently with him and just having a consistency there. But also you meet a lot of people all over the world too. You realize that. You know there's people in far off distant lands, just this big online community.
Speaker 3:I was going to shout out the wives here as well, to be. You know they jump on the BGA every now and then Got to play tapestry with Mary. Yeah, but honestly, yeah. Let me just erase the last comment. I'm thankful for the wives that. Let us every week take an hour and some change to go talk on this podcast. Let us go put on board game nights, support our hobbies. They, uh, you're, you can't do it without them really. And now that we're all dads here, this is crazy. We started the podcast. Travis was about to be a dad. Now we're all dads board gaming, so got to think the little ones too. But anyway, that's right. That's my last thing, good one, but anyway, that's right. That's my last thing.
Speaker 2:Good one, Clayton last last shout out. My last thing that I'm appreciative of is all my friends and family that are not, uh, necessarily that into board games, but they all know I am and so they, they are all always willing to. When they engage with me, they're I don't even bring it up anymore because I don't want to be like, oh yes, I'm the guy that's coming over and we're going to play games. But they will ask like hey, what games you want to play? And you, everybody has kind of gotten on board with hey, if we're hanging out with this guy, he's probably going to want to be playing board games. And I just appreciate that. I don't take it for granted that my friends that would not otherwise be playing board games are willing to do that, to engage with me, because it's something I care about.
Speaker 2:And I'm sliding one more in because I had it on the list, because to me board games are like and this is an appreciation of board games they are a social lubricant for me. I'm kind of an introverted person and having that thing that's like tying everybody together, it makes social scenarios less intimidating for me, especially with I mean with my really close friends. No, but like if I'm just getting together with like a group of people I know from somewhere. Yeah, having that game to like lubricate the scenario almost, almost like alcohol. You get alcohol and games. No, now you're really lubricated and, uh, it just makes it easy for me. So I've really appreciated board games for their ability to, you know, bring people together that I otherwise wouldn't because of my introversion. So that's it for me. Thank you, friends and family that play with me. Thank you board games for easing me into these social situations.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do one big wrap up and say that I'm thankful for board games because people have dedicated their lives to developing, to illustrating to you know, revamping, republishing, to uh, trading, to selling to you know, this board, this hobby and it is a hobby as well as an industry in itself is unique and different, and we've talked about the differences between publishing video games and publishing board games and how different that is. You can sell digital video games all day long. Nobody will bat an eye, and you can develop and publish a digital board game and it might not reach the same market. And just its ability to bring people to the table and keep people engaged, to challenge people, to push people, to connect people.
Speaker 1:Board games are a unique hobby that probably doesn't exist anywhere else. It's a puzzle that you are solving either together or against each other, and there are a million iterations of that puzzle that that permeate throughout the years, as, as we continue to, to build this market, to build this hobby and and yeah, board games are just they keep you sharp, they connect people, they bring us, they brought us together, and now we we get to sit around in three different time zones all around the world and talk about board games every single week. So, yeah, I'm thankful for board games and I'm thankful for this podcast and I'm thankful for anybody that has listened to this podcast thus far or will listen in the future.
Speaker 3:Yeah, shout out to the listener, Future listeners.
Speaker 1:If you're listening one day from now or 10 years from now, we appreciate you. So thank you for engaging. Hell yeah, Nice wrap Travis. That was beautiful. I did my best.
Speaker 3:I think we should do this every week Just say thanks to everybody. The gratitude.
Speaker 2:It's just, we're glowing.
Speaker 3:I can tell we're just glowing after that experience. We're glowing.
Speaker 1:I can tell we're just glowing after that experience. It's hard not to be thankful. It's not a hobby that everyone can engage in. Not everybody has the expendable income to go out and buy board games all the time like we can. We are very lucky and blessed to have that opportunity, but there's plenty of other opportunities for people to play games. If you can't afford a board game, go support your local library. Go get a library card, check out a board game and sit down with your friends.
Speaker 2:Buy a deck of cards.
Speaker 1:That's right. Buy a deck of cards.
Speaker 3:Shout out to libraries. There's plenty of opportunities. I've seen a couple libraries stack the house with some board games. That's right. Support your local government, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, are we ready to go over the fence? Travis, I've been itching to hop the fence, let's hop the fence, Jared.
Speaker 1:what have you been?
Speaker 3:doing outside of board gaming? Well, I'll tell you. I look at my calendar up here. I've been grinding my booty off. We're getting close to the end of the semester. I still have 17 pages that I need to write, three different papers, and I'm about to get on a plane tonight. So, as far as fun things that I'm getting myself into, obviously I'm going to London. Did you decide on a plane I?
Speaker 1:think I'm going to London. Did you decide on?
Speaker 3:a play. I think I'm going to go to Hamilton, okay.
Speaker 1:Did you decide on which board game shops you're going to or which board games you're bringing with you while you travel?
Speaker 3:Okay, I was considering this this morning Spots I love spots, but the amount of dye in it makes it kind of heavy, so I'm thinking just llama Llama. Save the llama for your mama.
Speaker 1:Clayton, what have you been doing outside of board gaming so?
Speaker 2:I got Star Wars Rebellion from Petri's in the use section for $30. Okay, Star Wars Rebellion this is like a $100 game, Yep. So pretty excited about that Massive two-player struggle Apparently just Star Wars in a box. I've watched some videos. It looks awesome. The Rebels have like a hidden planet. Their base is on the Empire's trying to find them.
Speaker 3:Clay, this is over the fence, not board gaming.
Speaker 2:I'm getting there. I just wanted to set the stage for why I recently rewatched all of the Star Wars original trilogy with Mary Nice. I was trying to get her in the mood setting the mood that maybe she would want to slip into Star Wars Rebellion right after.
Speaker 1:That's a trap, yeah.
Speaker 2:She saw it coming a mile away, but anyway. So yeah, I rewatched the original trilogy, which was awesome. Last night we just watched the Phantom Menace, so now we're starting in on that. The Phantom Menace, so now we're starting in on that. Star Wars is just a great intellectual property and so much now out there. I have not seen a lot of the new Disney Plus shows on Star Wars. I think the Mandalorian is the only one I've watched on there, so I know there's a lot out there. The kids are into Star Wars Rebels, the cartoon show Nice, and, as we are going to Disney next week for Thanksgiving, ding ding, ding heading to the galaxy's edge, or whatever it's called, and Disney is going to be awesome.
Speaker 2:Isaac wants to make a lightsaber. I don't know how much that costs, but we'll might have to let them down easy on that.
Speaker 1:It's probably more than you're ready for. Yeah down, easy on that.
Speaker 2:It's probably more than you're ready for. Yeah, I know I'm not anticipating it to be a cheap expense, but anyway, just been diving in on Star Wars Excellent.
Speaker 1:I would recommend Andor. Andor is a great heist movie in episodes. It's pretty awesome. You've seen Rogue One before? Yeah, I sure have. Yeah, it's like a precursor to Rogue One, so I would recommend Andor as your next watch. If you like Mandalorian it's probably up there at that same quality. Some of their stuff is kind of hit or miss, so Andor is a great one.
Speaker 2:Cool, travis, what you been doing over the fence.
Speaker 1:Well, we've been watching a lot of TV and movies and stuff here, as always. So, um, I watched a documentary on netflix that just released. It's called buy now, bui now, and it's a documentary about corporations and their productions and how they're just basically rewiring our brains to buy more and more things, which is then hurting us as consumers and eventually the planet, which then hurts us as consumers because it's ruining our health. And it was the. The documentary is kind of weird. It's broken up into these different segments and it actually has this weird like overlaying ai voice. That's like supposed to be talking to you, like siri or alexa or something, but the documentary is has people that are high up in amazon, adidas and a couple other of corporations that are talking about like just their time and experience working for these big companies and how guilty they feel about the consumerism that they're generating through like legitimately rewiring our brains. So this like head of you know consumer relations or whatever. For amazon she said you know, we just want to streamline that process, make it as easy for you to click a button and have something show up to your house as possible. And they even played this not this game, but they ran this study where initially they said, like free shipping over $25 purchase and the $25 would be, you know, the $25 in that line would be a different color, they'd make it red and orange and green and blue and all this stuff, and they were running tests to see like which color would generate the most amount of money. And she says quote like every pixel on an Amazon page is designed to get you to buy something. Every color, every font, every picture, every like everything is designed to get you to purchase something. Right then and there. And yeah, they have a guy that works for oculus and designing those big headsets that are then like not recyclable and impossible to repair yourself.
Speaker 1:Last week I shouted out like tearing apart game boys and like upgrading them and stuff, and I mentioned I fix it and I fix it. They sell like custom screwdrivers and these tools to like help repair phones and tablets and old electronics. And I want to shout them out because it's really awesome, because they have resources online that will teach you how to repair your iPhone, your Xbox, your laptop, your tablet, your whatever. They have parts and tutorials on how to repair that stuff. They make it super easy. But that guy was actually the guy that created that company. It was one that actually lobbied for that repairability law that says that, like you can, if you're buying a consumer product like an iPhone, you have to be able to go in and make repairs yourself without voiding warranties. Because before that iPhone would just say, like Nope, too bad, you broke it, like buy a new one. And now you are able to go in and make repairs without voiding warranties.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I've been on like on a sustainability kick lately and I the reason I bring this up is because then I went to bgg and I was looking at that website and how tailored that is to get you to buy things and even just like the, the app version of it. Right at the right at the top on the app version it says like the name of the game when it was published, and then it says like buy or add to wish list and it'll like send you all these links on where to buy it. And then you go to like the, the hot 50 or the hot 100 or whatever on bgg right underneath that crowdfunding count countdown, and most of those crowdfunding projects are all like these giant plastic monsters that are trying to sell you a thousand minis in a box and yeah. So I've been really cognizant, especially with my huge shelf of opportunity, on what I should buy and how I should buy my board games from now on. So behind me, yeah, yes, I know, I know.
Speaker 3:I know, yeah, you're buying fast has really helped, you know, open your eyes to a new perspective. It is.
Speaker 1:It is because you think about like I buy, I buy game, I play it. I don't know 10, 20 buy game, I play it, I don't know 10, 20 times. I spent sometimes a hundred dollars on a game, whatever it is, and then you play it 20 times and you do what you trade it in. And then you buy a new game and, like, those games are never disposed of properly, they just like, circulate and then eventually end up in the trash somewhere. They get so wrecked that you can't play them or whatever it is. So I don't know. I've just been thinking a lot about that and the sustainability of my gaming habits well, let's, let's get on freaking.
Speaker 3:Uh, I mean talking about consumerism. Let's jump on um tabletop simulator. You know there's no waste there, it's a virtual reality that was also.
Speaker 1:My next thought was, like we talked about digital gaming and how it's emerging as this trend and there's it's more accessible than ever that that might be the most responsible way to buy games and like people throw a big fit like buying digital video games because they don't actually own that physical game, they own a license for it until that developer decides to pull the server or pull the license or whatever, but they could get a thousand plays out of it online without ever creating much waste. So yeah, I've just been thinking about that a lot this week and I would encourage you all to do the same. I don't want to think about it if facebook is listening.
Speaker 3:We'd still like to be sponsored and give us oculuses or whatever. That's right. You can still send it to us, though.
Speaker 2:We'll wear them while we do the podcast. We should?
Speaker 1:We should do that. On that positive note go out and recycle something and make sure that you recycle it properly, and go watch that documentary, because it made me really depressed.
Speaker 3:You might get a sustainability medal from OGN. That's right. That's right.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, this has been episode 15? It's 15. Holy smokes.
Speaker 3:Wow, we did it.
Speaker 1:Episode 15 of Operation Game Night Podcast. I have been Travis, he has been Clay.
Speaker 2:Have a great Thanksgiving, everybody. We'll catch you in a couple weeks.
Speaker 3:And he has been Jared. Hey, enjoy that turkey response for everybody. We're out.