OGN Ep 21: Tiny Epic Cthulhu, River of Gold, and a Board Game Head-to-Head!

Clay breaks down the new hotness, River of Gold. Travis lays out the newest in the Tiny Epic series, Tiny Epic Cthulhu. Jared has a tough choice on his hands in the latest Board Game Head-to-Head. 

Planning a game night with six players can be both exciting and challenging. We explore the dynamics of engaging larger gatherings, highlighting the best games like Dune for deeper strategy and Zoo Vadis for interactive fun. Join us to discover your next favorite game night adventure!

• Exploring six-player game dynamics 
• Recommendations for engaging and strategic games 
• Breakdown of Dune's thematic gameplay 
• Analysis of Zoo Vadis' interactive mechanics 
• Tips for hosting a memorable game night with larger groups

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:15

Welcome to the Alpha Chess.

Speaker 1 0:19

I was not prepared for that. That was a sweet intro, oh my god.

Speaker 2 0:23

You ruined it, you, you ruined it, ruined it. Oh, we did that. We did that last week too.

Speaker 3 0:28

Pay attention, jared, I wasn't paying attention well it wasn't that there wasn't the video clips with it yeah, I didn't see that last last week.

Speaker 2 0:37

I thought it was like a live video and I was like I don't have a beard anymore. Oh oh, very sad. All right, welcome to the operation game night podcast, episode 21. We are back and cleaner shaved than ever, except for clay. Who's filling in for the beard representation? Yeah, somebody's the king of munchkin land himself, clay gable. How you doing clay?

Speaker 3 1:01

I'm doing great travis uh. Have you partaken in any Wicked in your free time yet?

Speaker 2 1:06

We'll get to it, we'll get to it.

Speaker 3 1:07

Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 1:08

I have another co-host to introduce. He's got his 5 milli, he's got his signature set. He's the bad boy of Shiz University, jared Fierro Erickson. How you doing, jared?

Speaker 1 1:22

I don't know if you should put me in the same ballpark as Fiero. I mean, have you seen his hips move? Hopefully we'll find out today if he has seen his hips move. I just want to say our podcast is old enough to drink now.

Speaker 2 1:37

That's kind of neat Congratulations. Should we do a toast or something?

Speaker 3 1:41

It's pretty early for me, but I'm not opposed to it.

Speaker 2 1:47

Yeah, something. Uh, it's pretty early for me, but I'll, I'm not, I'm not opposed to it. Uh, yeah, let's not bury the lead. Uh, this is your wicked minute me and rachel watched wicked this weekend. Oh, yes, yes, uh, so it. We enjoyed it more than we enjoyed the live play. Okay, we're not big theater people. I get it. The movie is more engaging. It's got more action. You feel a little more immersed. Uh, ariana grande is phenomenal in it. She's so good. However, I will say, uh, elfaba in what's her name?

Speaker 2 2:16

elfie, what's the actress's name in in or something yeah okay she was not as not as good as the one that was on the West end, alexia Kadeem. I wanted to shout her out, yes, because she was phenomenal on the West end. I guess she played wicked for a couple of years left, did a bunch of other shows and then came back for the first dual black lead rendition of wicked. So there's a black girl that plays Galinda and then there's a black girl that plays Galinda.

Speaker 1 2:49

Galinda Anyways this is a call out to all Galindas and Elphabas. We have an open seat at the table. Come to Operation Game Night. I mean I'll take Ariana Grande, if it so happens. It's fine, I hold space for that. I don't know if you guys get that reference, but please, ariana, please, come with me to the Operation Game Night.

Speaker 2 3:16

She can hold one of our fingers awkwardly on the couch, I mean they call me Sausage Finger for a reason.

Speaker 1 3:22

That thing is massive. You're going to have to use the whole hand. Here we go, I'm already off the train.

Speaker 2 3:30

Episode 21,. We are going to debrief our weeks. Then we are going to go on the mission objective, which is a head-to-head board game showdown. The category today is best at six players. Then we're going to go over the fence and talk about what we've been doing outside of board players. Then we're going to go over the fence and talk about what we've been doing outside of board gaming and then we're going to wrap this show up. So, Clayton, debrief your week for me.

Speaker 3 3:51

Let me debrief for you my week. Oh my God, I've already botched it. He's botched it.

Speaker 1 4:00

Just like the Steelers.

Speaker 2 4:01

Oh Wait, am I going, you're going All right.

Speaker 1 4:07

Hey, this is again. I said it last week flexibility is the key to air power. No surprise, here I got Camel Up, as Clay likes to call it CU. I will be calling it CU from now on. Thank you very much, you're welcome.

Speaker 1 4:19

So, alex Flory and Psycho Steve Larson they came, brought their wives and beautiful families. We got CU to the table, and then we also got a little bit of Super Make a Luggy Box. So, surprise, surprise, party game guy here. And I just want to say I do judge my game nights when I get CU to the table, how tall we stack the camels. And we got a five stack. Okay, nice, I think that's pretty excellent. It's not the best I've seen, but that is above average. You're definitely having a good night. You are screaming when you see a little five stacker Lots of spoilers. Screaming when you see a little five stacker. Lots of spoilers, lots of, like you know, people jumping on the uh, the red tiles and going underneath the stack, totally screwing my end game. It's fine, um, no, but I had a blast. So those, those guys were, uh, wrestlers with me and clay at the academy. We're all here, acsc, they're doing a special program while they're here and, and so we're all here at ACSC. They're doing a special program while they're here, and and so we're all here might as well play some board games, right, and uh, I had a blast getting that stuff to the table I also.

Speaker 1 5:34

I just want to debrief what happened about an hour ago. Okay, I'm not going to disclose their BGA names, but they were slow as tar. I was on on the bike, as you can tell. I'm maybe a little bit still glistening, but I got to my game of choice, obviously Arnak. These dudes, they're taking too long to make their moves. I was on the bike for an hour playing Arnak. I get a little itchy after 30 minutes. I'm like come on, we gotta get this done. And I eked out a win by one point at the very end, so it all made it worth it, I guess. Um, but yeah, I got a little sweat on right riding the bike and uh, got my arnak in for the. It's probably a daily Arnak at this time. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to wear my Operation Game Night t-shirt. Thanks, clay, came in the mail.

Speaker 3 6:30

Thanks, Amanda.

Speaker 1 6:32

Amanda.

Speaker 2 6:34

It was going to be a little embarrassing if we showed up wearing the same shirt, because I was going to throw that one on. But luckily my mother-in-law made me this nice Operation Game Night shirt, so we're not matching. But luckily my mother-in-law made me this nice Operation Game Night shirt, so we're not matching. But, jared, I have a question for you, shoot me. So I lent Camel Up to one of my friends here and he said that he is Cameled Up out. He's Camel Up for now because he's playing with his family. He's got two younger boys, he's got his wife. Two younger boys refuse to roll the dice. They're just going to gobble up all the side bets and just wait people out until somebody else takes initiative to roll. How do you mitigate that in your games of Camelot?

Speaker 1 7:20

Actually this was brought up during our game night because Steve is like Jared, why aren't you rolling? And I realized I'm a better, I don't roll.

Speaker 1 7:30

You're the staller I let the other people roll and I'm like I mean, I'm just going to keep hedging my bets. That is honestly a problem that I saw this week while playing. It is a lot of fun, though, to get the pyramid out, shake it up. I might have to come back to you on that one. They noticed after the second time they're like Jared, you haven't even rolled once. Then I just kept rolling because I was like, actually, you're right, it is fun to roll the die. There's a lot of excitement once it comes out. People are yelling.

Speaker 3 8:04

Do you think they need to uh up up the uh price of that reward there?

Speaker 1 8:09

oh, we could do like a house rule, like that you get two goals, two, and if you end it maybe it's worth three if you end. Oh, I like that. That would be cool because, yeah, it's kind of finicky. Anyway, you take this pile, that's worth one anyway, so you might as well just take the coin. I don't know, we might have to work on some house rules here. I don't know what the expansion is like either.

Speaker 3 8:35

I thought Camel Up was a perfect game. Are we finding holes, cracks? Is it coming apart at the seams?

Speaker 1 8:44

The monolith is showing some signs.

Speaker 3 8:48

No, no, no, it sounds like it's a good day for you to get a new six-player game on your shelf.

Speaker 2 8:56

It's like the Washington Monument. It's just changing colors a third of the way. It's okay. We're just going to shift our focus a little bit. It's going to be better than ever on the way up. Okay, okay, okay. Before we move on from Jared.

Speaker 3 9:09

I just wanted to do you disclose to Psycho, Steve and Flory that you are a podcaster about board games. Like does that come up or are you private about it?

Speaker 1 9:20

Oh, I am very private about it, but I think it did come up. I don't up, I don't, I don't. I'm not a podcast ford, um, if you will, but I did mention that, like we talk about camel up all the time on the podcast, and so yeah that's that, did they have a good time they did I.

Speaker 1 9:40

I believe they had a good time. We had asian meatballs. If you know all the people out there like Jared, did you feed him? Hell, yeah, I fed him. Come on, asian meatballs. Really good recipe from a boy, dallin Tavoyan. It fed a lot of people too. So maybe next week, after we decide who gives me the best six-player game, you guys can pitch me food ideas Best six-player recipe.

Speaker 2 10:06

How about that? I want to know when you're gonna play these trick takers that I sent you, jerry, oh okay, I was about to say I did unbox undaunted uh this week.

Speaker 1 10:15

Oh, that thing is hefty. That thing weighs like a good 15 pounds.

Speaker 3 10:20

Yeah it's got a lot of chits in there.

Speaker 1 10:22

I know, but I but it looks awesome, I just need to find someone to get it to the table with me, Cause I'm excited. I read the the lore about it Like you're on the freaking moon and there's like the corporations are breaking down and now they're fighting. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 10:38

It looks freaking cool.

Speaker 1 10:39

It does. It looks very cool, which is one of my Travis super Christmas box that he sent there's a super mega lucky box. Super yeah.

Speaker 2 10:51

Yeah, Is that all you got for Debrief? That's my week Over. Awesome Clay. Debrief your week for me.

Speaker 3 10:58

All right. So we had a New Year's Eve party and in that party it was myself, mary and the Hedons and we played games from 5 pm until past midnight and it was an awesome game night. The lineup was this we went to Mlem first, got everybody pumped up. Mary made it to Deep Space all by herself. We all bailed. She had like one guy left and she made it to Deep space all by herself. We all bailed. She had like one die left and she made it to deep space. It was awesome moment she ended up losing the game because she refuses to ever get off the freaking off the rocket ship. But that was pretty cool. When she made deep space by herself, that was fun.

Speaker 3 11:42

Then we followed that up with river of gold, which I'm going to dive into a little bit further here in a minute. After river of gold we took on the kinesia classic auction game, modern art, which was a blast. And then we followed it up with a couple trick-taking games, one of which travis sent lunar and which was awesome. Uh, took a minute for people to get their wits about them, because in lunar you have a partner and one of you plays the suit and the other one plays the card value. So you really have to be in sync with your partner and and like you're just trying to like, get into this sweet spot of the amount of tricks you're supposed to take for the round. We had a ton of fun with that and then we followed up with a couple of rounds of the crew to keep the trick taking spirits alive. But to go with the the hotness here, to go with the hotness here 2024 release.

Speaker 3 12:45

River of Gold, designed by Keith Piggott and put out by Office Dog Games, this game has had my attention because someone who enjoys these type of games but really don't have the patience or time to learn and teach a freaking feast for odin to many people. You know, I just don't got that in me anymore and I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce the hedons to a new game and also myself and Mary to a new game. So in the River of Gold you're essentially traveling down this River of Gold and let me say the production is awesome because there is this gold foil like all through the board just shimmering. It's on the box too. It looks so cool. But anyway, you're traveling down this river and there's these five different regions and on your turn you can either sail one of your two ships down the river X amount of spaces and get the rewards from that region, or you can place a building in a region and then you own that building and will get benefits every time a person stops and gets something from that um, from that region. Or you can complete a customer card. So you have these customers that want a certain amount of goods and you complete them. They give you, like end games, end game scoring conditions and sometimes like ongoing effects, like you can upgrade your ship to this royal ship that has a special ability, and all the while you're doing this, if you notice the boxes on the right here, as you do things in these certain regions, you're like jockeying for influence in the certain regions and you will get more points at the end of the game based on who is further up that track. Who is further up that track.

Speaker 3 14:45

But the coolest part was at the end of your turn you roll a die. It's got six sides and what's on that die tells you what you can do on the next turn. So it really takes a lot of the thinking out of it. There are ways to manipulate it by using your divine favor and moving it up or down, but essentially you have a number and a region and you can take actions with that number or in that region. So if I have a one, and it's the tree region, I can either move one of my ships one space, or I can build in the tree region, or I can complete a customer for the tree region. So I really like it.

Speaker 3 15:26

It's almost like Castles of Burgundy-esque, where you have to like deal with the die that you're given and then like make the most of it, like okay, well, I've got this, now Maybe I'll build in that region over here. And you know, hopefully, people, this is a big region, people are stopping there. There's a lot of rewards, so I'm going to keep getting benefits as people sail their ship through there. I really like that too the buildings, the building setup, where the people that stop there get something, but also the person who owns it gets something. So, yeah, it probably took us an hour and 15 minutes to get through this on the first play, so it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 16:04

It it's on BGA, so really, yeah, so you can check it out if it sounds interesting to you. But great little game, I'm excited to play it more because again, it was just acceptably simple. Like it looks kind of like a lot when you see the board, but ultimately you're taking one of those three actions and a lot is dictated for you by what you roll on that die. So the decision space is smaller than you'd think, but you still feel like you can, you know, wiggle and maneuver within it to get what you want. So a lot of fun, river of gold. I can see why people like it. What's up, jared?

Speaker 1 16:40

so it are the buildings. When you place them, is it like no one else can build there Like you own? It's a monopoly, almost yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 16:49

Your houses and, okay, I like it, I was going to describe this as like Castles of Burgundy meets Whale Riders meets Monopoly, Because it's got like aspects from all three of those kind of meshed together and it sings man.

Board Game Reviews and Discussions

Speaker 1 17:04

It's a nice little game I also have another, uh, maybe a little bit more in-depth question. Uh, where is this happening in china?

Speaker 3 17:14

I don't know I have you heard of like the legend of the five rings or something. Yep, you, travis, you have. Yeah, I don't know if I think. I think it's a made-up place. It's like a fantasy world maybe, I don't know, but there's like a world of this legend of the five kings and this is like the rocugan, yeah, or something yeah, I just want to make sure that the ccp is not getting inside your head and making you think that they actually own the south china sea.

Speaker 1 17:41

I just want to make sure this isn't the South China Sea or, as my friends in the Philippines like to say, the West Philippine Sea. So just throwing that out there, this is a military podcast Information.

Speaker 3 17:57

Our views are our own. Rokugan is the fictional land it's set in.

Speaker 1 18:06

That's all about accurate. I suppose that we play this one live on a Twitch. I was getting my interest peaked when you're saying that.

Speaker 2 18:15

Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, I'm down.

Speaker 1 18:19

I love it.

Speaker 3 18:20

It's a date, Travis. What would you like to debrief?

Speaker 2 18:24

from your week? It's a date, travis. What would you like to debrief from your week? So I had all these big, beautiful games show up and watching them literally stack up on my dining room table was kind of giving me anxiety, because if I want to get these played, I have to open them, punch them, learn them, teach them, probably tear them down. And it just seemed like kind of a daunting task to do that for a lot of these bigger games, even though they're very simple or whatever. So I just needed to unstick myself a little bit. So I played a whole lot of small box games this week that I want to talk through. First one was Penguin Party. It's a reprint. 25th century games just did a reprint.

Speaker 2 19:12

Um, it's a renner kinesia game, whole bunch of different artists, but you're basically stacking penguins of different colors from your hand into this big pyramid and then any penguin that you can't lay down you get negative points for, honestly, not the, not the greatest game, not the greatest game and certainly not my favorite reiner kizia game. But you're basically building this pyramid that you can see on the youtube if you go and watch the youtube. But they're different colors. You lay them down. You can't leave any gaps between the penguins, and if you're putting one on a higher tier, it has to be one of the two colors that is beneath it. So you have a gap.

Speaker 2 19:46

You know a blue and a red card. Up above that, those two. In that gap, there can be a blue or a red card, and so you're trying to position your penguins based on what you have in your hand, to lay these down as quickly as possible to keep these kind of streaks of colors going to ideally lay down your whole hand. And if you lay down your entire hand, you get to return two minus points, two negative points, to the pool, and those don't count against you. Otherwise you take minus points for every card left in your hand. Super simple game. You could play this without thinking about it. It took us all of five minutes to play this game. Yes, clayton.

Speaker 3 20:29

I didn't know there was a card game version of this. I got for like $5 at Petri's. Shout out to Petri's. In the use section there's Penguin, but it's. Is it GoVertical? You stack these Penguins? Let me find it. It looks like it was. You stack these penguins, Let me find it. It looks like it was around the same time frame, but I play it with the kids every now and then. There it is. Oh, yes, you stack them like this. Oh that.

Speaker 2 20:58

And it's the same rules. It has to like match.

Speaker 3 21:00

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 21:02

So when you were describing this, I was like that's a way more interesting version of this, because penguin party is like you're just playing, laying these cards down. It takes five minutes to play. You could watch a tv show and be invested in the tv show and still keep this game moving. Um, it has a 1.13 out of 5 on BGG for weight and that is probably too high. So, yeah, not my favorite Reiner game and I will probably play it a couple more times or give it away or something.

Speaker 2 21:34

Next we played Yokai Sketch. This is a game that I got an S in last year. This was designed by Ignacy Ferry and artist is Vincent Dutrait, published by Devere games. So you'll kind of sketch, you are battling. It's a two player game. You're battling for these different piles of Yo-Kai that you are trying to draw into your notebook. You have these cards that are dual sided and the cards have, you know, one different color on each side that you play to the matching color Yo-Kai that you're trying to sketch. Okay, so once both sides have cards that equal the number that's on the back of the yokai. The numbers on the back of the yokai range from three to seven for each of the piles that you shuffle up. Once, let's say, I laid the second card down, but my opponent already had one on her side or their side, then that yokai goes to me because I had the majority. If there's ever a tie on both sides that yokai is scared away and they run to the bottom of the stack, we both lose those cards that are that are sitting there to the discard and then we continue to play. So on your turn you're just drawing a card and you can play up to all of your cards at once, so you can put together some pretty big combos.

Speaker 2 22:51

Some of the cards have these special symbols. One can put together some pretty big combos. Some of the cards have these special symbols. One's a handprint, the other is a little rice ball. The handprint allows you to take one of the yokai from a different color and move it onto the stack that you're competing for. So if you know that this person's going to like their they have the majority on this yokai, maybe they're going to score seven points you could play this special card to that stack and then move a lower value yokai there, so to prevent them from getting as many points. The other one is to distract the yokai, and that one is you take a card from your opponent's side, you flip it to the opposite color and then you play it to the matching new color stack. So really you're just like it's like a lane battler, where you're trying to get the majority on these different piles to score points based on the yokai that you complete.

Speaker 2 23:45

This one is actually pretty interesting. I I said it reminded me, I don't, I'm not sure why. I said it reminded me of Jiper, but it's not. The mechanisms are nothing like that. So I don't, I was just talking, I don't know nonsense, but this one's actually pretty cool. This one will stick around for a while and it's a. It's a fun, easy game, super light, super easy, so, and it comes in a really small box. It's like the size of a deck of cards. So that is Yo-Kai sketch is Yo-Kai's Sketch.

Speaker 1 24:13

Is Yo-Kai a mythical creature?

Speaker 2 24:15

It's basically like a Pokemon, it's like a mythical spirit. Basically, I think they're more spirits than they are creatures, but I think they take the form of creatures more often than not.

Speaker 1 24:29

I'm getting the lore. I like it.

Speaker 3 24:32

Better than Castle of Burgundy.

Speaker 2 24:36

So the next one that I played is For Northwood. This is a 2021 publication designed by Wilhelm Sue. Artist is Wilhelm Sue and it's published by Bad Boom Games, which is a self-publisher for Wilhelm Sue. So this is a cute little solo-only trick-taking game where you are trying to convince these animal creatures that are the kings and queens, the royalty of this kingdom, to fight for your side. There's no combat in this game. I'm not sure why they call it or why you're trying to convince them to come to your side, but you have these. These kings and queens are all laid across, uh, that have a different number beneath them, ranging between zero and seven.

Speaker 2 25:24

Okay, so random order. And what you do is you have a draw pile that's going to represent the conversation that you're having with this leader of this village or fiefdom or whatever it is, and so I draw my eight cards into my hand, then I try and figure out like I think I can win four tricks with this. So I go and I'm going to address the leader that's on the number four card, and so what I do is I take turns, flipping cards one by one from this conversation deck and trying to play cards against it to win exactly four tricks. If I do that, then I slide the card down. It says four northwood above it, and then I earn a certain number of victory points. The trump suit is based on the suit, that's on the animal that you're talking to, so there's like clovers and popper and some leaves and nonsense suits, but you're basically trying to win these different tricks, or when, the correct amount of tricks, based on the cards in your hand, and once you, once you play those eight cards down, then that round is over Win or lose, you move on to the next one. So it moves pretty quick.

Speaker 2 26:37

This one's pretty cool, though, because you have special abilities that you can use to help yourself out. So you have these four jacks that sit below that have special abilities on them, and as you go, as you do these rounds of tricks, you can use their special abilities once per conversation. They call them, and some of them allow you to swap leaders, some of them allow you to draw more cards, some of them allow you to discard cards, and so you're trying to like, strategically, use these special abilities to win the exact number of tricks needed to convince this leader to fight for northwood. Then, if you convince the leader to fight for Northwood, then if you convince the leader to fight for you, you can actually take them and move them down and use their special ability later on once. So like, let's say, I get one that allows me to just discard three cards I'm not sure if that's actually one, but I could take him, move him down Next round.

Speaker 2 27:31

I'm going along and I'm like man, I need to close this round out. I can discard three cards, move him down Next round. I'm going along and I'm like man, I need to close this round out. I can discard three cards, move him back up the round's over, I move on and then there's a sliding scale of victory based on how many points you end at the end of the game. This one's actually pretty cool. It comes in this really tiny box. It can fit in a backpack or a purse or whatever. Take it with you wherever you go. It's super easy to learn, to teach to play. It takes I don't know 20 minutes to play through all eight of the piles of tricks.

Speaker 3 28:03

I think you guys are actually going to like this one.

Speaker 2 28:05

It's pretty cool. The artwork is super cute and cuddly. Gwen loved it. She sat on my lap while I played it. It was that easy. It's like a kid's picture book. It's super cute. All right, I got one more Wait.

Speaker 1 28:17

we've got to play with a hand raised.

Speaker 3 28:18

So I'm super interested in this game. Yes, Does it have cascading challenges or difficulties or chapters you play through, or is it just like every time you play? It's going to be some variation of the same situation so this one does have, uh, additional challenges.

Tiny Epic Cthulhu and For Northwood!

Speaker 2 28:38

It actually comes with like two rule books. One just teaches you the basic rules. You play with just kings and queens up on the upper level, but there's this whole stack of other leaders that then you can mix in and add them in, so the leaders are different. And then there's a whole like booklet and I wish I had the copy of the game with me, I could show it to you. But there's a separate booklet that has challenge modes that you can go through and play. So I haven't dug into those hardly at all, but I know that it exists and there's a little bit of a way to shake it up if you get bored playing just the basic version little bit of a way to shake it up if you get bored playing, just the basic version and all that fits in that little box.

Speaker 3 29:17

Oh yeah, it's literally like the size of, maybe a little thicker than, a normal deck of cards because I'm not a solo gamer, but when I do, when I have gotten into playing solo games, they're usually small, yeah, little boxes, like my city, rolling right. I played the whole thing by myself and it just like going from one thing to the next like kept me motivated to keep bringing it back and then, like trailblazers, has these different scenarios and challenges that you can try and work through. So this is definitely one that probably could fit that bill, if there's, if it's, if you're not just doing the same thing every time, because I do like having a little bit of a. If I'm by myself, I want to be like challenged or, you know, trying to accomplish something, yeah, other than just play the same game over and if you are interested, maybe you don't want to commit to buying the game, even though it's not all that expensive.

Speaker 2 30:08

I know that there are print and play versions of this one that are out on the internet, so maybe track one of those down. You can print it out yourself and give it a try if you're not convinced. So yeah, that is For Northwood by Will Sue.

Speaker 1 30:22

It might need to get a sustainability medal now too. I mean, I like it Small.

Speaker 2 30:27

Love it. Yeah, clay, I think you'd dig this one. It's like you get kind of the same feel as a trick taker. It's not super complex or anything. You're like literally just comparing two cards that you're playing, but the powers are interesting enough where you get to kind of combine them. It kind of reminds me of like a solitaire trick taker mixed with like what is it? Food Chain Island. If you've ever played that one, I have not. Yeah, that's a button-shy game, but every time you eat an animal or whatever, you get to use its special ability that allows you to skip animals or rearrange animals. It's a puzzle mixed with some other mechanism.

Speaker 2 31:05

All right, I got one more brief real quick and that is Tiny Epic Cthulhu. This game just came out 2024 production, uh, designed by Scott Alms, maker of beer and bread, and plenty of button shy games and a bunch of the other tiny epic games. Artists is Susie O'Connor and Ian Rosenthaler, and published by game land games. So I have never played any of these tiny Epic games, but I've always been kind of intrigued by them. They always come in these tiny little boxes. There may be, like I don't know, four by six, and this is their latest publication that just released and is going out to backers Now this game. Clayton, pay attention, I think you. I think you like this.

Speaker 3 31:52

Yeah, this game, clayton, pay attention, I think you'd like this.

Speaker 2 31:55

He's clicking through the slides. I know I'm very distracted. I played this solo, okay, but it's a cooperative game in the vein of like a Marvel United. It's like Marvel United with a Cthulhu theme in a tiny box. So you have this pentagram in the middle with this little tentacle spinner in the middle and around it you have five different rooms or different areas of the village and you are moving your character, your investigator, around the outside to banish what do they call them Shamblers, which are basically like the minions or whatever in the thugs in marvel united.

Speaker 2 32:39

You're trying to pick up madness tentacles yeah, little tentacles that represent, like madness, that upgrade your character. And then you have the big daddy, which is the great old one, um, that moves around the board, that basically blocks your movement and does special things when you bust on these different tracks. So it's got two different phases. The first phase is you're trying to decode the Necronomicon. There's a lot of tongue twisters in this one. It's like the book of the damned or whatever the Necronomicon. And so you do that by going around and each of the rooms has a face-down green card in front of it. You get to it and one of your actions can be to decode it. Where you flip it over, you read it, you know what tentacles you have to pay for your madness chips or whatever to pay to decode the book. So, from your player board, you discard these ones that actually give you upgrades. You discard them to the discard pile. You decode the different books on these different rows and then, once you do 25 of those books seems like a lot, but it actually moves super fast because you're getting two, three at a time, every single turn. Once you do 25 of them and you're earning bonuses, as you, you know decode them.

Speaker 2 33:51

Uh, then you enter phase two, which is you have to seal the gates and shut away the great old one forever. I need to do that by paying different madness tokens and stuff. So it's got like a little bit of flavor of like Cthulhu death may die meets Marvel United and it's all in like this tiny four by six box. So that's crazy. I did, I didn't. Oh, how did I? I skipped over the best part. Uh, when you are putting out the scheme, like what would be the scheme tokens or whatever in marvel united, they're like the madness tokens uh, you have to draw them out of a bag, the little chips, little tokens that are you should have started with bags, little tentacles oh, you get to pull them out of a bag and put them on the room and then you, like you know you they get used up and you discard them to this like discard mat that's over here.

Speaker 2 34:45

But then when you get a bust, they all go back in the bag and you start fresh. Oh no, it's great. Yeah, so you're, you're, it's got push your luck. It's got cooperative play, it's got bag building, it's got upgradable characters, diverse character abilities. Yeah, I'm I actually. I actually like this game.

Speaker 2 35:09

I was pleasantly surprised by this game. I have the uh cult of the well, I don't even know what the expansion is called. There's like a cult expansion for it. It's got new rooms, it's got new characters, it's got new stuff. I haven't really dug into that a whole lot, but tiny epi tothulu, I'm kind of digging it. That's sweet. I also want to give a quick shout out because I was kind of feeling overwhelmed just pulling this game out and like setting it up and learning it. They have a dized app. I don't know if you've used this. Oh, you're, jared, I have. Yeah, they have a dized app and it's an app that like walks you through the setup and teaches you the game and it's interactive. So you like download the app, you click on the game and then it just like plays. It's like here's how you set it up pick any character you want, let's get started. And it'll say, like you, here are your options, what did you do? And it'll just like walk you through the tutorial of the game.

Speaker 1 36:05

So shout out to dies for not having me read the rule book and have to do this so it's like you set it up in front of you like in real life in 3d, and then you use the app to help walk you through it, so you're like visually learning it, like step by step.

Speaker 2 36:23

Yeah, it's basically like there's like a flow chart running behind the scenes in this app, but it'll show you like a interactive visual representation of what's going on on the board and what happens. Like it'll show you like a interactive visual representation of what's going on on the board and what happens. Like it'll say all right, what did this spinner land on? And I, you know, click a little tentacle or whatever that it landed on and it's like that means that next time, next phase, you're going to draw one more tentacle out of the bag than normal and it'll just like walk you through all the different steps. So super intuitive. I've used it for this game and for um the gloom haven buttons and bugs, and both tutorials were phenomenal on there.

Speaker 1 37:01

so the dice what is that again?

Speaker 1 37:03

the dies d-i-z-e-d oh okay, I'll give that a google yeah not all games are on there, but uh, those that have the integration, it's pretty cool I was gonna say I did get a feedback, some feedback from a listener that's like hey, you guys talk about these games but I don't learn, like through sound or like I want to read something, so that like kind of cued me into. Like people learn games in so many different ways. Yeah, like so like if someone's more visual or tactile when they learn, that sounds like a great option. Or if people like to just sit down and read the freaking rule book, you can always do that. But I'm always interested in better ways to teach or learn games and stuff.

Speaker 2 37:49

Yeah, I wish that DICE had more games available. There's only a select that are on there right now. But, um, yeah, it seems like new games that come out pretty frequently have dyes integration. And, for the listener, if you are not hearing what we're saying or you missed something or like maybe you're not understanding the name of the game or description or whatever, I always put all the names of the games in our show notes and in the chapter links for our episodes. So go ahead and read the show notes if you'd like to learn more. I love it all. Right, are we ready to fall in on the mission objective?

Speaker 1 38:25

head board game throwdown best at six players could I interrupt and say why I requested this? Yeah, let's hear it. Challenge, I mean, and it goes. I've already kind of talked about it for a second. Um, it goes back to my game nights. Six players is a tough player count in my opinion. I don't know, clay's a veteran at getting people to the table and I'm just I'm getting there, I growing, and I want to know how do I get when I get two couples? I like doing a couple on couple and you, you also know that I have Adrienne. She's very specific about what kind of games she likes. I will not, I will not put that into my decision-making today, but I like having two different couples because there's really good interaction between me, my wife and the two couples. And then, yeah, I like six people. But six players is a toughie for me, unless we're just going strictly. You know party games and that's fine too, but I'm trying to open my six player aperture. So that's just a little lead in for today.

Speaker 3 39:33

Amazing, well it is hard.

Speaker 1 39:39

Go ahead, we'll be okay.

Speaker 3 39:40

No, no, I'm, I'm just I went you're right on track, Jared Like when, when we moved from just having Mike and Hannah over to you guys moved into town and it was like I had to start curating games for six players, I was like, oh my God, I was like watching all these YouTube videos good, six player games.

Speaker 3 39:59

It's tough to get outside of the party game sphere and do a six player game Like you're going to get a lot of social deduction games. You're going to get a lot of pretty much party games racing games sometimes. Hopefully we picked a couple to give you something to think about here.

Speaker 1 40:23

I like it. I'm sorry, travis. I'm open to party, or hardcore or whatever. I want you to give me what you got.

Speaker 2 40:34

You're mentioning Adrie playing as one of these six players and I'm like this is not the game for Adrie.

Speaker 1 40:40

This could be a challenge in of itself, and we could bring her on, I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 40:46

Do you want to do the coin flip, Jared I would love to.

Speaker 1 40:51

Let's see here. I can't stand up quite yet and I can't reach my coin, travis on the eagle, okay, and I'm not going to flip. Or should I flip Like when I catch it? Do I go like this?

Speaker 2 41:04

Yes, catch it, go like that.

Speaker 1 41:08

Oh no, eagle Looks like Clay's going first. Or do we defer? No, I get to pick, you get to choose.

Speaker 3 41:15

I am deferring to Travis. You may go ahead. Good luck, buddy.

Speaker 2 41:20

He lets me go and talk about these four games forever, and now I got to talk some more. All right, you need some water. I got some, I'm good.

Speaker 3 41:29

So I want to draw your attention to this right here, Jared so I draw your attention to this right here, jared.

Speaker 2 41:36

So he's already trying to put his finger on the scales, but let me send you to the world of arrakis. Okay, this is dune. Published in 2019 by gale force 9. This game has been remade three times. It's that good all the way, dating all the way back to the 70s, when Dune first came out.

Speaker 2 41:55

This game is meant to be played at six players Look at the best stat right there on BGG Because each of the six players plays a different faction in the Dune universe. I'm assuming you're familiar with Dune. Yes, let's see, you've got the Emperor. See, you've got the emperor. You've got the harkonnen. Atreides, the bene? Gesserit, the fremen and the spacing guild are your different uh factions to be playing as, and each of them gets to embody that role all the way down to their special abilities for their race and for their, their clan. Okay, so this game is played on this circular map that looks like dune. It's got these different areas, different regions, and what the object of the game is is, if you are playing just by yourself, without an alliance, you have to be holding three of the five strongholds by the end of your turn. If you're in an alliance with somebody and you can only make a one-to-one alliance. You have to be holding four of the five. Okay.

Speaker 3 43:04

And you both win.

Speaker 2 43:07

Yes, we'll get to that. Okay, we'll get to that. So what you do? You set up the game. Okay, we'll get to that. So what you do? You set up the game, you. There's a storm, a sandstorm that rotates around the board as it goes, so it's sweeping off all of these characters. It's bringing spice to the surface, which is drawing sandworms. Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2 43:26

And then and then the different factions are vying for power and control of Arrakis and the spice, because the spice must flow and whoever controls the spice controls the universe. So you have treachery cards and you have traitor cards that you are dealt. Traitor cards have one of the other factions leaders on it, so you're dealt four. You discard one. That is like your get out of jail free card. If you end up in a conflict with somebody and you get to play their trader card. Then you're just like get out of jail free. You don't lose any troops or whatever.

Speaker 2 44:04

Treachery cards are items that can be used later shields and blasters and you know nuclear weapons and thumpers and all sorts of bad stuff and good stuff for you. Some of it is pretty useless, some of it is super strong and you have to kind of really play when you use that. So the game is divided up into 10 rounds of nine phases, but they're pretty fast. Don't don't like overthink how many phases and stuff. Spice blows. Okay, you flip a card. It tells you where the spice is showing up. If you flip a card and a worm shows up, it goes to where the spice last showed up. Spice is coming to the surface for mining and collection. Okay, then you have a nexus we're not going to get into all this stuff. Then people get spice based on whoever's like behind in their spice game. Um, then you go into a bidding round, an auction, for the different treachery cards which give you special abilities and and different uh items that you can use in combat. Later on, uh, you can bring you people back from the dead and place your warriors out there shipping and battling. You redeploy your warriors, these different factions, for future battles.

Speaker 2 45:16

I want to get to this and what I, what I really want to impress upon you, is just the thematics of this game. Okay, where this game really shines is the inter-faction relationships. Okay, so, uh, the emperor, super wealthy. Okay, when people are bidding, when people are bidding on these treachery cards to give them advantages in battle, they don't pay the bank, they pay the emperor, because the emperor has his thumb on the scales of this battle for a rasp arrakis, okay, so he's super rich. Uh, if he's in an alliance with somebody, he can revive almost double their troops at any given time so they can get their warriors out there faster.

Speaker 2 46:00

The harkonnen are best at deception and trickery, baron harkonnen. He gets dealt four trader cards at the beginning that allow him to like get out of conflict for free. He gets to keep all four of those. When everybody else gets one Treachery cards the weapons and stuff that you earn throughout the game Everybody else's hand size is four. He's got eight. He can throw down some big numbers. He's a big boy. He's a big boy Everybody else when they buy treachery cards from the middle during the bidding phase. If he buys one, he doesn't get one, he gets two. So he gets some serious firepower when it comes to combat. And then if he's in alliance with somebody, they can use his treachery cards.

Speaker 1 46:45

If you're in alliance with a specific other partner, is there bonuses?

Speaker 2 46:51

if Bene Gesserits are with the fremen or whatever, because I know there's some, oh yes yes, so everybody else can use this like bonus for other, for their alliance to partner, which is pretty cool. So now we're getting to the interesting ones. Atreides has psychic abilities, so they get to look at all of the treachery cards before they're even bid on. They get to know what all of them are. He is also or this faction is the only people that can take notes during the game, so he's got this secret notepad where he's keeping track of where all these treachery cards are, so he knows exactly what everybody has and he could tell everybody, or he could take bribes from people for information. People can say I need to know what treachery cards this player has. What did they just get? It's going to cost you some spice.

Speaker 1 47:44

You could probably be deceptive and lie about it too. You could, I don't know, maybe.

Speaker 2 47:53

I know that they recommend like keeping your word and playing honest and stuff, but you know, when you're making deals like this, it tends to happen. So he also gets to look at the top card of the spice deck and know where the spice is going next. So he could be first to the to the battle to get the spice, um, and then when you go into battle, you have to. Let me explain how battling works. You have this disc. You have this disc that has the number of warriors that you're willing to bid. Okay. Then you have your treachery cards and they're all face down. Then you take one of your leaders which is worth different, uh, combat strength and you play that all face down and then you do this big reveal and everybody shows both sides and you're losing troops left and right and the treachery cards take effect and all this stuff and there's no combat intrigue like dune imperium there, there.

Speaker 2 48:43

The entry comes from the treachery cards.

Speaker 1 48:45

Really okay, you can't like all right now I can see what's happening. Oh, I have this, and then you like bump up just a little bit to win.

Speaker 2 48:56

The Atreides basically has that power because he can look at either their wheel or their leader or one of the cards. He can see ahead a little bit. Then the Alliance can do the same thing See what the other opponent is playing. Here's the best one and everyone's typical favorite the Bene Gesserit. They, at the beginning of the game, they predict who is going to win, what faction will win and on what turn they are going to win. They take those two cards, they put them face down next to them. If that player wins on that turn, as predicted, the Bene Gesserit steal the win from them and they win instead. So they are conniving. They're working with the different factions. They can do these little deals with each of the factions to influence the game in the long run, to try and get that person into power and to win the game, and they can steal the win if that happens. Yes, they can do a bunch of other stuff too. I'm not going to get too into it, but that's their main thing.

Speaker 2 50:02

The Fremen they live on a racket so they can move freely and they can ride the spice worm, and they can, just they don't get killed by it. They can ride it to another position. They can put out more troops. They do all this stuff and the spacing guild. Anytime somebody wants to move their troops across the map, the money that they pay to move those troops goes to the spacing guild. So they become super rich, super thematic. All the factions interact with one another. It's got combat, it's got press your luck, it's got bidding, it's got auctions, it's got secret roles, it's got secret powers. It's got all sorts of stuff super thematic. And there's a reason that this has been remade not once, not twice, but three times. Dune is here to stay. It only gets better.

Speaker 1 50:54

That is my initial pitch for dune 2019 it's like you know me because I've always seen dune, yeah, because I love doing imperium right, yes, but that's you know, for play, uh, and then I'm always just like this dune game I don't want. I know it's not doing Imperium like, but it always intrigues me. I have never actually dug into it until today. So I am, I felt like I got a good rundown, I have a good vibe on Dune, not one that Dree is playing, that's fine, but I do, I'm into it.

Speaker 2 51:30

And I will say, I will say the actions that you're taking themselves are not all that difficult. It says a weight of 3.99 because there's a lot of things to do and there's an advanced setup for the game if you want to get really into it and really into the rules and variations of the player abilities and stuff. But the basic game is not a 3.99. It's far easier to learn than that and you can get a lot of players really into this.

Zuvadas Zoo Animal Board Game

Speaker 1 51:56

The main goal, or sounds like, is you're moving these warriors around to battle and maintain territory, so yeah, and then everything else is kind of just like a kutraman to that it's like just extra theme laid on top of a area control warrior battling mechanism. I mean you, you do know me that I uh, yeah, I'm a sucker, I have to get. I. I love getting immersed. Um, okay, all right, I have my notes. I have my notes. I have no questions either. You were very thorough. Thank you for your.

Speaker 3 52:33

Yeah, I mean, jared, that was just the pitch. I almost fell asleep during that. Can you imagine trying to actually trying to learn this game, holy cow.

Speaker 1 52:42

I mean that's why there's Rodney. I'm sure he's got some kind of how to play.

Speaker 3 52:46

I doubt Rodney would touch this with a 10 foot pole. Oh, it says two to three hours and there is not a. I'd suggest you read through some of the comments or the reviews. This game can take upwards of six hours and I know as the father of a young child that may be uh difficult for you to get going. But the uh, just keep that in mind. I thought about your current situation in life and what games might actually realistically get played more than once a decade. It might be cool, but it also could be a giant flop if you try and bring this one to the table. Okay.

Speaker 2 53:33

I get kicked off and you're slandering my game before you even give your pitch.

Speaker 3 53:38

I slandered it hard.

Speaker 2 53:40

Yeah, did you see that he slandered?

Speaker 3 53:41

it hard.

Speaker 2 53:42

Yeah, did you see that? He removed me from the stage I know that does seem kind of suspicious Then he started slandering.

Speaker 3 53:50

You were froze up. I had to do what I had to do, wow, anyway. Yeah, keep that in mind. You want to talk about real theme in the game? Check this puppy out, jared. How about aminals?

Speaker 2 54:01

aminals for a theme zoo vadas.

Speaker 3 54:05

In this game, you are zoo animals that are competing to become the mascot of the zoo through a form of like political jockeying. So so, bonanza, you love Bonanza, say, you want that same feeling of Bonanza, where you're wheeling and dealing, making trades, but you want it to feel a little bigger. You've got a board, you've got these chunky meeples, you're moving around on it, but at the same time it's also probably simpler to teach than Bonanza. So you're playing a game, it's got a board, you got your people over and essentially you take on the role of one of these animal species that wants to be the mascot of the zoo, and you are trying to get them to the star exhibit and when they get there, have the most laurels. So how you do that is you always have to start on the bottom in the slums of the zoo exhibits, and then you have to get votes from everybody else in your exhibit. Well, not everybody else. You have to get a majority votes from the people in your exhibit to move on to the next exhibit. So if you're in there with two other players, you need at least one of them to give you votes to allow you to move up further down the zoo. Why would they do that? Well, you trade things. You say, listen, maybe you have a voting block up here in this part of the zoo and you got three of your critters in there. So anybody that wants to make it to the star exhibit is going to have to get your votes eventually. So you are, you know, you can promise votes in the future, or you can promise some of these laurel tokens, which are the end game points, um, in exchange for their votes you can to. There's also these neutral peacocks that are white that you can just pay off no matter what. So to get their vote, you just pay them a Laurel and you're good to go. You have their vote.

Speaker 3 56:11

There is Travis talked about special player abilities in Dune. You also have those in Zuvadas. In Dune, you also have those in Zuvadas. So each player has a very thematic ability in Zuvadas. So the armadillos can tunnel, take these tunnels from one exhibit to the other and not have to worry about getting votes. The thing is, you can't even use your own ability. You can only give it to somebody else, and when you do, you get laurels for it. And so you're bargaining with your own special abilities to give it to people and you're just trying to make it to this star exhibit with the most points. So you have to have at least one of your animals in the star exhibit to be eligible to win the game. So somebody could fill up three spots with theirs and then there's only one space left and anybody that didn't make it can't even win. So you have to make it down to the end eventually. But you also want to do your fair share of bribing and extortion throughout this little zoo game.

Speaker 3 57:14

But the actions are so simple. You can either add a new animal to the base of the zoo, you can try to advance one of your animals by getting the necessary votes, you can move a peacock, or you can move there's a zookeeper token that essentially lets you move from exhibit to exhibit without having to get votes. So three simple actions. You can teach this game so fast. Tons of player interaction. Again, it feels like a bigger game because you have a board. You have this cool situation going on with these animals moving through the zoo. People are getting into it, but it is, I think, in your wheelhouse. A game that will get played, will get a lot of excitement brewing in you and, by proxy, the people that you are playing with.

Speaker 1 58:03

So that is the weight was pretty low there, I mean yeah, it's not. It's not a difficult game the only actions you can do. There's like pretty simple actions as well.

Speaker 3 58:15

It is simple. The game is in the player interaction. You know the actual. The actual what you're doing when you turn is very simple.

Speaker 1 58:24

I'm so much of a wheeler and dealer, like you remember when, like one of the first times, we played Bonanza. Oh yeah, I'm trying to coordinate these three player, four player trades. Yeah, realizing Well, not realizing that that was not allowed by the rules. Can you do that? Can you do it? Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 58:44

Oh no, you can, and the only thing that's off limits is that if you make a trade to offer something up in the current action, you have to follow through on that.

Speaker 1 58:56

But promises in the future you can go back on those, I might give you a coffee bean next round, I promise, like yeah, oh okay, okay, okay, yeah so the the picture, the like the box art gives me. What's that like abc? Do you know that abc book that's got it's just like super beautiful and it's like alligators and it's got this crazy looking. Adrian's going to know what it is. I'll have to come next week with it, but it's very interesting and it plays up to seven.

Speaker 3 59:37

Yeah, this I think it might play even more than six. So, yeah, it plays up to seven.

Speaker 2 59:40

Yeah, this I think it might play even more than six, so it but yeah, it plays up to seven.

Speaker 3 59:43

Yeah it's got two sides of the board so it scales well. It'll be great at six?

Speaker 1 59:48

wait, it'll be great at six, but is this a dr reiner? Can it see again?

Speaker 3 59:53

it sure is brought to you by the good folks at bitewing. This was an old game called Quo Vadis, about like the Roman Senate or something.

Speaker 1 1:00:02

What the hell is Vines?

Speaker 3 1:00:05

I don't know, it's a Latin word of some sort, but you're just getting votes and you're you're trying to, you know, be the zoo mascot and it'll play in 20 to 40. You can play this like six times in the time it takes you to teach Dune and you already have Dune Imperium. So you know that kind of scratches, that itch. I was thinking about you and I was thinking about Bonanza. I'm like what can level up that experience for you? And I think it's just like you know, adding a board, making it feel like a little bit of a bigger affair, and I think you'll have a great time with it, travis oh, yeah, recently, uh, gemma has been.

Speaker 1 1:00:48

I don't know where she got it. It's probably from Mitch, right, miss Rachel? She's been asking everybody what's their favorite animal and, uh, I'm just wondering what's your favorite animal? Dog, dog, really Dog, generic dog? No, like what kind of dog?

Speaker 3 1:01:07

No, just any dog. Riggins Medium dog, medium to large, pretty much Riggins my dog.

Speaker 2 1:01:17

Clay started his pitch and it's either my internet or my computer just stopped working, so I heard nothing of clay's pitch. I'm sure he broke a bunch of rules and was very slanderous of dune, but uh, anyways sorry about that, well, I mean.

Speaker 1 1:01:35

So the only thing I need to know from you, travis, before we continue is what's your favorite animal?

Speaker 2 1:01:41

I don't know, did you hear?

Speaker 1 1:01:43

what clay said? He said a medium to large dog a medium to large dog.

Speaker 2 1:01:47

Well, my favorite dog is a slightly larger dog than clay's favorite dog large dog.

Curating Game Nights and Only Murders

Speaker 1 1:01:55

So we have medium to large and large dog and I I have used dog. When Gemma asked me what's my favorite animal, I said dog, and then Adrian was like that's a cop out, like you can't just say dog, and so I went with platypus. Platypus is a close second. I mean, who doesn't love a mammal that can lay eggs? Okay, I will. I think I'm ready. Are you guys ready?

Speaker 2 1:02:23

I don't even care, just send it.

Speaker 1 1:02:25

Okay, I do want to say yes, travis, I think he did break the rule. What he dropped? A Reiner Knizia on me, thinking that I wouldn't See right through that.

Speaker 3 1:02:40

Oh my god, he knows what he's doing?

Speaker 1 1:02:42

He's just playing his Reiner Knizia card again.

Speaker 3 1:02:45

There's a reason.

Speaker 1 1:02:48

I will give some constructive feedback. Dune was awesome. Just give it to me a little bit quicker. I was sold within 30 seconds, but I did get a good rundown of what each faction does.

Speaker 2 1:03:00

That's the best part.

Speaker 3 1:03:01

I am excited that is true.

Speaker 1 1:03:04

That is true. I honestly feel like I could play a dune right now, but I also I also feel like I could play zune vatis right now as well. So here's the thing I love the wheeling and dealing of Zuvatis. I love Dune Imperium. I'd love Dune. Okay, here's the thing, though you could totally do a themed game night.

Speaker 1 1:03:29

Everyone dress up as their Dune person. Okay, I show up covered in oil. I'm like that big dude, I'm liquidy. I knock on your door, I come slud. Big dude, I'm liquidy. I knock on your door, I come sludging in. What do you think about that? I love it. That would just blow your freaking mind. I mean, you do a Zuvadis night and it's just a blip on the game night. I don't know. Here's the thing, plus side Zuvadis. I could see Dree thinking about getting into that one. Okay, easy to get to the table. But here's, here's what you don't know clayton psycho steve larson married a real baddie. Okay, she is hardcore gamer. I didn't know this until they showed up. I was thinking the whole time she's into dune. She's probably played dune. Yeah, no way. Shout out to stara. She's probably never going to listen to this, but I will tell that we play dune. Okay, I'm giving it to do.

Speaker 1 1:04:33

Sorry, sorry, I uh wow you know the main things that you have to plus sides, the wheeling and dealing player abilities. I do like that, and you guys I mean honestly for both of you find a better favorite animal than a dog. Okay, that's your assignment.

Speaker 2 1:04:52

Can I be a T-Rex? That's an animal. Yes, I am okay with that All right, I'll be the Travosaurus Rex. I was surprised by that. I'll be the Travosaurus Rex.

Speaker 1 1:05:01

I'm surprised by that Not me, but you guys brought it hard today. I sprung a six-player challenge on you like 12 hours ago and this is what I got. I'm actually very impressed. I think there'll be a lot of our listeners that are interested in Zuvatis, so I like it it they should be like.

Speaker 3 1:05:23

They don't want to spend their whole freaking day fighting with a rule book the two-hour game clayton grow up as the crow flies I'm sure the group chat will be popping this week.

Speaker 1 1:05:36

Oh yeah, sending me all the the reviews.

Speaker 2 1:05:39

You were talking about a themed Dune game night and people dressing up. I saw a reel of just that. Really, yes, people were like the Fremen had the little nose tube that went underneath his nose and a hood and a big scarf. And then Baron Harkonnen had a bald cap and was all oily and gross. I'm going to do it. I love it.

Speaker 1 1:06:04

So, Clay, you could do a themed animal night. I mean, what's the zoo game that Mary really likes?

Speaker 3 1:06:11

New York Zoo.

Speaker 1 1:06:13

New York Zoo. You could do that one.

Speaker 3 1:06:15

Get some Ark Nova.

Speaker 1 1:06:17

Ark Nova. There's some Shout out to Wild. Duo. Yeah, maybe we should do like a uh, one of these days a curated game night, like here's the theme, and then we each come up with a game to slip in there. You know, like I've always thought that that's probably what this could turn into. If we wanted to monetize this, we could do curated game nights, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:06:43

You hire us to ship you, or if we had enough games in our repertoire, we could package up all the games and send them to somebody as a package. You check out a game night in a box. It's got all of the curated games ready to go.

Speaker 3 1:06:58

It's got Camel Up. It's got Super Mega Lucky. It's got all of the curated games ready to go. It's got Camel Up. It's got Super Mega Lucky.

Speaker 2 1:07:02

It's got all the hard games. Has anyone seen Dice Miner?

Speaker 1 1:07:08

I had Dice Miner on the ready if there was people dropping out, because, again, do they have a six-player Dice Miner variant or anything? That would be a toughie because there would be too many turns between, I think.

Speaker 3 1:07:23

But I digress let's hop that fence.

Speaker 1 1:07:26

I got.

Speaker 3 1:07:26

Invincible to play oh shoot.

Speaker 2 1:07:29

We're going all over the fence.

Pokemon Battles and Game Crafter Sale

Speaker 3 1:07:30

Clayton, tell me what you've been doing outside of board gaming, been watching Only Murders in the Building, after being suggested to by multiple people. Yep, it took me a little bit to get into it, but now it's just like kind of a whimsical fun show that's. You know, you don't see the things come in and it's, it's fun. Uh, it's a good cast. I have enjoyed going through it. I think we only have like two episodes left before we've finished it. But yeah, only mirrors in the building has been our, finished it. But yeah, only mers in the building has been our, our show as of late. So shout out to selena gomez, steve martin and that other guy, steve martin. Wait, no, what's his name? Martin short, yeah, yeah, is that apple plus? It's on hulu, oh nice, yeah, adrian, have you seen?

Speaker 1 1:08:16

it jared. I think adri has watched a few of them I haven't seen.

Speaker 3 1:08:19

It seems like she would probably like watching that.

Speaker 2 1:08:21

Yeah, that's good, jared, hit me what you been doing outside the board yet this is my really quick over the fence.

Speaker 1 1:08:28

I installed myself a little foot pedal. From when I took down Christmas. I was like you know what? I can use that foot pedal and use it for my ring light, because every time I have to crawl underneath it and unplug it because it's got this like terrible standby light that if I turn it off right here it's just like and as you can tell on the youtubes, that is where I sleep and I did not make the bed, so that's, you can kind of see that when I move around. So I apologize, adri, but that is my quick one, but my main one. You guys got me turned on to Pokemon, okay.

Speaker 1 1:09:07

I'm over here opening packs. I'm fighting, but I want to. I have a. What is this Bad? What do you call those?

Speaker 2 1:09:18

Gambling addiction.

Speaker 1 1:09:19

Yes, no, like a not so good thing. What do you my?

Speaker 3 1:09:27

brain.

Speaker 1 1:09:27

My brain is broken, my hot take is oh, my hot take is I. I don't like playing people who pay for the the um premium version yeah they just throw out a zapados and you're like, well, I'm, I'm f, then okay. And or they bust out two meewtwos on you and I'm like oh, the Mewtwo meta is crazy.

Speaker 1 1:09:47

I don't know. It's fine and they're probably like a bunch of 10 year olds. But yeah, I've gotten really into it. I like battling, but I've started to notice all I'm hitting up against is like dudes with Mewtwos and I'm started to notice all I'm hitting up against is like dudes with mutes and I'm like this is dumb because I'm not gonna pay for it, but I do the ai battles.

Speaker 3 1:10:06

The battles are fun like they are there's a reason why ccgs tcgs are are so popular, because like actually making a deck and like playing with it is fun. It is, you know, the cards are coming, but yeah, I'm really.

Speaker 1 1:10:20

I'm anxious to see when they're gonna let us trade.

Speaker 3 1:10:23

Right, that's an option it's january, didn't it how?

Speaker 1 1:10:25

long has it been coming soon yeah, because I got some good cards. I have a lot of um, uh, what not fieros, whatever sparrow goes into farrow, farrow. I have like seven of those mother effers but yeah, um, but I need a. Okay, if anyone out there has a wheedle, hit me up you got it.

Speaker 2 1:10:48

Uh, so they just did that, that blast toys event with the solo battles, and I did the beginner and I did the advanced, and then you go to the no beginner, intermediate, advanced, advanced.

Speaker 2 1:10:59

He gets blastoids out there immediately oh yeah each of his, each of his attacks do 140 damage and he gets to keep all of his energy between and I was like there's no way I'm gonna have to do. I'm gonna be able to do this until I figured out there's cards that will swap him back to the bench. Yeah, right, and I used, uh, electabuzz, I think it was Electabuzz. He can damage players on the bench, so I built him down on the bench, hold on.

Speaker 2 1:11:27

So then I did the advance, I beat it, I'm like great. And then there's like an advanced advance, a turbo, turbo, whatever it is, and it's Blastoise EX and Arctocuno, and I was like there's no way, way, I'm gonna be able to do this. And I hammered him and I I did it first try.

Speaker 1 1:11:45

So no way no big deal.

Speaker 2 1:11:48

Got the reward special blastoise card. But yeah, that was heated, I was sweating, that's great.

Speaker 1 1:11:55

I was about to say I'm just sad that you, when you do hit damage to the pokemon in the back row, that it doesn't count their weakness. You know like I'm hitting you with a lightning bolt and you're a water Pokemon, why aren't you taking in an extra hit? Sorry, that's my rant. I'll get off my soapbox.

Speaker 2 1:12:14

I did not even realize that.

Speaker 1 1:12:18

Well, now you know, it's fine, it's fine. I I understand, but okay what did you?

Root Marauder Expansion and Retro Gaming

Speaker 2 1:12:25

do over the fence okay, I have a couple quick things to hit. Game crafter sale is going on. By the time this publishes you'll have like one or two days. People can go in and make their own board games out of all these different components and stuff, upload their own artwork. There's like miniaturized versions of all your favorite games. There's a mint tin version of mint night. There's a mint tin version of twilight Imperium. There's some awesome games out there. All these big publishers have all your money already. Go out and support the little guy having a good sale. There's some bangers in there that are like buried down in this website. So go ahead, click around, find in there that are like buried down in this website. So go ahead, click around, find some games that you like to buy them. Next, here's your root minute for the podcast marauder expansion coming to root digital in january. Excited for that.

Speaker 2 1:13:12

Then over the fence for me, I went back to work. I shaved my face. Two days of work really took it out of me and I'm tired, but my real thing is that I got my new Retroid device. This thing is like an Android-based retro gaming system that you can just sideload whatever you want onto this thing, and the screen is great. It's a cool little, easy-to-use thing. I haven't completely set it up yet, but when I do I'm going to show this off because it's pretty legit. You play Pokemon on it. I'm going to play some Pokemon on it. Come on now.

Speaker 3 1:13:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:13:52

That's my over the fence. I've just been tinkering with electronics and I went back to work Nice. This has been episode 21 of the operation game night podcast. I've been Travis, he has been clay, he has been Jared and we're out All right, thank you.