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 23: Western Legends, Tiny Epic Game of Thrones, Crokinole & Controversies
Finspan's launch has ignited discussions around creativity in board games, with players questioning whether it's a genuine evolution of Wingspan or simply a cash grab. The episode delves into these concerns while examining existing trends in re-skins, the financial realities behind board game companies, and the responsibility of designers to give credit where it's due.
• Finspan ignites controversy in the gaming community
• The impact of Wingspan’s success on the board game market
• Debating the necessity of re-skinning in board game design
• The importance of financial viability for small publishers
• Striking a balance between originality and proven mechanics
• Encouraging a supportive gaming community over negativity
Welcome to the Operation Game Night podcast, episode 23. I am your host, travis Smith, joining me. As always, he may or may not be a cylon play gable wow, hey, have you watched battlestar galactica or? What no? I just I was listening back to that episode. I got just no battle star.
Speaker 2:So okay, man. Well, hey, when you finally take the dive and watch one of the greatest sci-fi uh series of time, let me know, because I think you're going to. We're going to have a lot to talk about. But what is the best way to watch that nowadays? So it, right before it became available on Amazon Prime Video, I bought it all on Apple TV. Ok, then, like a week later, it came out on prime video. It's just like part of their thing. I think you still have to buy the mini series, which is like a three-hour two-part the way. It was a two-part mini series, but now you can watch it just as like one three-hour chunk. Oh, and you have to buy that to watch before, cause it's kind of like builds up to what happens at the start of season one of Battlestar Galactica. But yeah, you buy that, you rent it and then you got everything on Amazon prime video. So you can really get weird with it. This sounds controversial.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Speaking of controversy, we have a great show for you today. We're gonna debrief our weeks, then we're going to hit our mission objective, which is reskins and re-implementations in board games. Should they happen, should they not happen, how should they be developed? How should they be marketed, how should they be released? So we'll talk a little bit about a current controversy and where that all spans from, and we'll give our takes.
Speaker 2:Nice Spans from.
Speaker 1:Then we'll go over the fence and talk about what we've been doing outside of board gaming. So, Clay, debrief your week for me.
Speaker 2:All right, travis, I've played a lot of games. I've had a lot of games. I've had a lot of fun. The first thing I want to talk about is I've played the infamous Crokinole for the first time. I went to a little game day over at a buddy's house and one of the guys had a Crokinole board, complete with the carrying bag, the dust. It was a nice board, beautiful.
Speaker 2:I was excited to play this because you hear about it in the board game community from time to time to me. I don't know how I feel about being called a board game or be putting on board game lists. To me it's more akin to a yard game than a board game. But either way it's, it's talked about a lot and it is pretty freaking fun. Um, so in crokinole, I played it, uh, the team variant. So, uh, two players on one team, two on another and essentially you are just.
Speaker 2:You see the weight, it's a freaking 1.23 weighting of difficulty. Uh, I guess with the rules, the difficulty with dexterity, that is a whole nother thing, because I did not feel like I put my best foot forward at flicking these little discs. But you're trying to flick your disc into the center of this circle and it's these little peg guardians that are keeping your discs out of that circle. So you run into those. But after you have a disc in the center of the circle, now every time you flick you have to try and hit one of the opponent's discs first. So you're just banging each other's discs in and out of this circle and once everybody shot all their discs, you get points based on how close to the center you are. So like in the middle you get the most points and as you go out you get less. And if you get bullseye, that's great. That's worth the most points, obviously.
Speaker 2:But that proved to be quite difficult. Some of the people I played with were able to flick it in there nicely, but I mean it really felt like a shuffleboard the way like there was. Like I mean he had like sand around the outside so he could like really lube these things up and get them. Just the lightest touch would send it flying across the board. And yeah, it was way harder than I expected but also way more fun. Like we played three games in a row and just like switched up partners and it really reminded me of like cornhole, but inside with the, that team dynamic and you're like trying to cancel each out, cancel out each other's bags on the board. Yeah, it might be.
Speaker 2:Something that I need to invest in in my forever home is having that nice, beautiful crokinole board, on the wall displayed and able to bring down for just like a beer and pretzels type night. You just want to play a game, have fun, laugh and get into something not quite as serious as pulling out a board game and reading through rule books. So crokinole was fun, highly recommend. If you got somebody that has a Crokinole table around, give it a try because it was a blast. I don't know if the one-on-one would be quite as fun, because it was fun working with a teammate trying to keep your discs in the center while simultaneously smashing into the other person, other team's discs and, you know, knocking them out. But yeah, that's crokinole how, how big are?
Speaker 2:these boards. It was sizable I I'd like to give you a specific dimensions, but it would take up the whole width of a table. Oh, like, like my table in the downstairs, like it's pretty big. Um, let me see if I can find a picture of one on the table.
Speaker 1:I love all these custom boards too Like. I know board and the pirate board.
Speaker 2:Those are sweet, yeah, Like if this is a game you're going to play a lot, I think you know it would be pretty nice to get to get one of these to get one of these, but yeah, they can be pretty sizable.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, if you go to the youtube and watch this clip, there's a girl sitting at a table and it's probably I don't know three, four feet across, with the bumper on the end. So that's crazy.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize they're that big yeah, and and uh, I think he had a tracy board and then he did have a nice bag to carry it in. So that's the company I've heard of before. If you're looking to get one of these, I've now played on one and it felt very quality and I would recommend it. Tracy is the brand. Yeah, tracy, tracy boards.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:I have to look into that. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, a lot of fun I am. Yeah, I'm like the thrill of getting that bullseye it's. It feels just like cornhole when you sink one down the center. So, yeah, a lot of fun, a lot of standing up cheering, a lot of me cursing because I bashed it off one of those little rods in the middle and completely botched it for my team. But yeah, that was the first uh game I wanted to talk about this kid. Right here on youtube there's a baby playing Crokinole and he probably did a better job than me.
Speaker 2:What else did you get played? So in that same game day, we also played Western Legends, which, travis, this was on your top five, this was on my top five. Okay, it had been quite a while since I played Western Legends probably a couple years and so one of the guys in this game group had just gotten it and was excited to play it and I was like, heck, yeah, I'm going to freaking be there because it's been a while and this game is pretty freaking awesome. There because it's been a while and this game is pretty freaking awesome. I mean open world western game. Um, essentially, you are all these famous historical cowboys or people of the west. I was stage coach mary, we have wyatt erp, I don't know the other people. Uh, calamity jane. Maybe are these real people or are they just?
Speaker 1:I think some of them are real people and some of them are like legends, like Western legends, you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think they're all real people, okay. Well, either way, you take on this character and you are on this map of. There's two towns in the map and there's all these different spaces you can go. There's the saloon where you can play poker. You can head outside the town to mine for gold. You can go to the cattle ranches and you can either wrangle cattle and take them to the railroad to get rewards for that. You can go to the cabaret and revel.
Speaker 2:So it's an open world game. You can kind of choose your own adventure, how you want to go. But the interesting part is that there are things you can do that will put you on the wanted track and there are things that you can do that will put you on the martial track. So you kind of like choose your path, good or evil, and on the wanted track you get like a every turn. At the end of your turn you gain points for as long as you can stay wanted. So you really put a target on your back and the more bad things you do, the bigger that reward gets. So if you're on the second row of this wanted track every turn after your turn you're on the second row of this wanted track. Every turn after your turn, you're getting two legendary points, which are the points to win the game, and you play.
Speaker 1:And they're very hard to come by.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you play to 20. So if you got somebody on the wanted track and they're scoring two points every turn, it won't take them long to accrue enough to really run away with the game. And then, on the marshal track, you just gain money for like doing good deeds, like arresting somebody on the wanted track or defeating a bandit. Trying to think I think you get a marshal point if you wrangle cattle so you take them down to the railway. Uh, so you move up on that track and you get like instant bonuses, like you can get money and also get like legendary points instantly, depending on the space you land on on that track. And the only way you get off that track is if you decide to decide to choose a life of crime. Otherwise, you can keep, keep climbing on that track. So, yeah, so you're doing these things in this open world and you're fighting. Most of us fought like the NPCs. So there's a sheriff that will come around and arrest people that are wanted. There's a guard at the bank. So if you try and rob the bank, you have to fight the guard. There's bandits out and about and each one of them has a different ability, but essentially you just play a card against them and the person to your right plays as the npc that you're trying to fight. But the coolest part of this game is the deck of cards. I think I know travis probably talked about it, but everything hinges off of this 52-card deck just your standard ace through king or two through ace I don't know what the proper range you would call it is but you have your standard 52-card deck and when you get in a fight, you pick a card and you play it against the other person and whoever had the higher card, they win. The thing is, each of these cards has actions associated with it. So, in addition to being a card, you also have an action. So the high cards that are really good in a fight, like kings and aces, they have these crazy awesome abilities on them that you might want to use them for. So an ace, you could just play as an action your ace card and gain two points on a track, which is really hard to do. So you, you. It's this awesome tension of like do I use these cards for when I play poker, or do I use these cards when I get in a fight, or do I use them for these awesome abilities they have and, yeah, essentially you're just running around the town using these cards trying to get up to. You can play the 15, 20 or maybe even 25 legendary points before the game ends and it's a lot of fun. I mean you really feel like you're doing cowboy things out there. I was a goody two shoes on the Marshall track and I was. You know I like to kick back at the cabaret every once in a while to cash in some some of my hard earned money and some entertainment, cause that's one way you can get points is by you get legendary points based on how much money you spend at the cabaret. So anyway, it's just interesting to see how it unfolds.
Speaker 2:In the past, different people choose. We were really tough on the people that wanted to be wanted in this game. I mean they, as soon as they were wanted, we were rallying up to get the sheriff into their space and get them arrested. So it didn't necessarily pay off for those folks because, just the way things played out, the sheriff came to their spot pretty easily.
Speaker 2:Because it so happens, like every so often, you contribute to these story cards and when you do, the person who triggered that gets to move the sheriff and you're obviously going to move the sheriff. And you're obviously going to move the sheriff If you're the one that triggered it and you're not wanted. You're going to move that into a wanted person space and have them have to try and avoid getting arrested, which is really hard because the sheriff gets to draw four cards to choose from to play against you to try and arrest you. So anyway, it was a fun time, maybe a tad longer than it needed to be if I had to give any complaints, but again we chose the 20 point end condition, which maybe at 15, it would have been a little quicker, but it took us about three hours, but it was fun the whole time. You know getting into the, the theme of it and who was getting arrested where, and you know who was getting the cabaret again.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's just, I think that game really shines when people buy into whatever they're trying to do. Either you're the good guy and you're and you're one of the deputies the sheriff deputies or you're like life of crime, you're going all in, you're robbing banks. Every other turn you're stealing cattle. That's where that game shines, because if you get a bunch of people that just want to sit at the cabaret or they just want to keep playing poker hands over and over and over again at the, at the club or the saloon, the game can kind of drag. But like if you get people that really go hard on either life of crime or life of justice, that's where that game really shines. So I'm super glad that you got this played.
Speaker 1:I have the expansions for this one, and the expansions add some cool stuff. There's a traveling store that's like a cart basically that goes around you can buy upgrades from buy new horses, buy new guns, buy stuff for being out in the field if you're going to go outside of town, and you can level up your player that way. Or if you're a bad guy, you can go rob the stage coach and get uh, notoriety points that way. So, yeah, that game really shines with some of those expansions thrown in.
Speaker 2:They're so good yeah, I never really. I I really got hammered in the end game because I I knew but you get points, if you like upgraded your equipment and such. I never wanted to waste a turn going to the store to buy new stuff and as a result, I was I didn't have a horse, so I was slow moving around and I didn't have any like sweet equipment or guns to upgrade and I didn't get many points from that. So I don't know, maybe the right move is to not hoard your money for the cabaret, which I was doing, and actually go procure some freaking Mustang that you can ride around town. Some of these guys they could travel the whole map with their upgraded Mustang and like one move and I was taking like three moves to get from place to place because I was being frugal about spending money at the general store.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was, it was a fun time and it made me wish I played this more. It's like anything else, man. There's a lot of good games out there and if I could play them all all the time I'd be a happy person. But I'd be happy to play this one a couple of times a year and you year and have a good time getting to the theme of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is probably one of my favorite gaming memories is when we had a Western night. We all dressed up in our belt buckles and cowboy hats and we played some Western Legends. It's so good.
Speaker 2:And sipped on some bourbon.
Speaker 1:Sipped on some bourbon, reveled at the cabaret, played some cards at the saloon.
Speaker 2:It was so good. Yeah, yeah, that's a good game. So, yeah, that's uh, that was a big one I was excited to talk to you about because I know how much you love this game and the whole time I was like man travis gonna be so jealous that I was playing western legends that game looks at me on my shelf every day and I always want to get it to the table.
Speaker 1:That and root sit right next to each other and it's like my shelf. Of shame that I don't get played very often. That's why it's shameful.
Speaker 2:That is shameful. I have one more game I'd like to touch on quickly before I move to you, and that is Seven Wonders. So the game that started it all, seven Wonders, is now like an empire. It's got architects, it's got the duel, it's got the Lord of the Rings duel, there's expansions galore. I mean, this game really exploded, and you can see here it's ranked 99 overall. Did it win the Spiel des Jahresous there? Is that what that?
Speaker 1:says yeah, 23 2011 2011.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, I had played a lot of seven wonders duel. Before I ever played seven wonders and this was many years ago. I rented it from petries and we played it and it just didn't go very well. I don't know if it and it just didn't go very well. I don't know if it's. It was probably a combination of things. I think the main thing was that we couldn't freaking figure out how to pass our effing cards around the table without getting confused. It was like every other turn someone was like wait, were we supposed to pass four cards now? Like, how many am I supposed to have in my hand? And we'd spend an exorbitant amount of time trying to figure out okay, how many cards you have? Did you play one this round? Or? And so it just it got off the rails like that and they kind of took you out of what should be a pretty streamlined game. And then the other thing was it was pretty early on in our gaming journey, so it seemed more complicated than it really is looking at it after playing it yesterday. So Carlin's had this game for years, probably sitting on a shelf. She loves playing on BGA, but no one's ever played it with her. So we went over, we had six people and we played seven wonders and essentially it's like sushi go sieve building. All right, you're you.
Speaker 2:You, you go through three eras and you have a hand of seven cards. To start. Everybody picks a card simultaneously, passes the remaining to the left and then you reveal the card you picked and you pay its cost, if you need to, and place it as such. Every time you pick a card, you can either build it and then you get the ongoing benefit of that card. So there's cards that give you resources for the rest of the game. There's cards that just give you victory points. There's science cards that will score you points at the end of the game and also have these chaining effects on them. There's military cards, because at the end of each era you have a military conflict with each of your neighbors and if you win those you get points. If you lose those, you lose points. And then there's yellow cards that will get you money or get you discounts in trading. So you can build that card. For one of those reasons, you can use that card to construct your wonder. So each wonder has three stages to it and it costs a certain amount to build each stage and you don't use the card for its ability. You flip it face down, you pay the cost for your wonder and then you get either the points for that or an ongoing benefit. The third thing you can do with the card is just sell it for money. So everybody does that at the same time pass their cards, you pick another boom, boom, boom. That happens six times each round and then you do your military conflicts. So 30 minutes is probably pretty accurate.
Speaker 2:We taught it to people. I think four of us had never played it before and we still came in around 30 minutes with six players and it hummed along quite nicely. I didn't quite understand the science, the scoring for that, but that's neither here nor there. It's uh, I really leaned into getting the blue cards that just score you points and that did not work. Um, I had no military might and that eventually caught up to me because I got two negative points each round. So I ended up with six negative points.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, the points you get for winning military conflict grows each round. So in the first round, you get one point for each of the neighbors you beat. You get one point for each of the neighbors you beat. Second round, you get three, and then the third round you get five points. So it didn't seem like a good investment in the first era and then I felt like I was too far behind to really start investing in the second era until the third era rolled around. I was like holy cow, these people are racking up some points for this military stuff.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 2:And if you don't have the resources you need to build a card, you have to pay one of your neighbors that has that resource in their city.
Speaker 2:So if I needed a brick and I didn't have brick, I could pay Spanky two coins to use his brick, and he still keeps the brick, but I just get to use it in theory. But yeah, it was a lot of fun and I see why it's so popular. I'm sad that that first game of it kept me off of it for years, because I really do think like man, what a great game for six players. Like you're actually playing a game, you're just drafting cards, but you feel like you're doing something and there's not. I mean, I wish I. I'm glad I picked Zuvadas in our face off episode, but I really think this is one that, if you're going to be playing games with six players and you want to do something that's not a party game. This is a good one to have in your tool belt because it is quick, it is fun, it plays well at high player counts and it introduces you to a whole world of seven wonders.
Speaker 2:I mean you can really go down the rabbit hole. I told Carlin about Seven Wonders Duel last night and she was pretty excited about that. So yeah, I just wanted to give a shout out to this game from 2010,. I think it is.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I played this one on BGA, I believe, and it's been around for so long that I feel like the players that are still on seven wonders on bga are well practiced. And it matched me against somebody that had, like I don't know, a 350, you know, player score. Yeah, I was zero with the little pop-up that said like it's my first game, be gentle on me, or like, be patient, and that they just like thrash me. I think that there's a meta here that I would really need to dig into to understand what is going on, because I've played it a couple times and I've just gotten whooped every single time that's well.
Speaker 2:That's what carlin said about playing on bga. She said she never wins. Yeah, she thinks it's because she doesn't understand the linkages that there are between the cards. So those free cards you can get. Like, there are some cards that in the cost section just have a symbol and this is the same as Seven Wonders Duel or even Lord of the Rings Duel. But if you have a card with that symbol on it in the top right and then you get a card that has that symbol as the cost, you can play it for free. So if you understand the linkages of like, okay, if in era one I get this card with the, the clown face on it, then in era two I can play this three shield military card for free, and then that that also links to something in era in era three. So there are, there are those linkages to like really get meta about it. But I mean just for, like, the casual fun time of like, hey look, I've built my, my city, like this, and then you know, uh, I think it works just fine like that.
Speaker 1:But but yeah, I have a better chance at like Seven Wonders Architects, where everybody's pretty much on a level playing field. You take one of the cards and you do with it what you can like. The game that plays itself it's yes, that's my speed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that game has so little to think about, but I also love it for that. It's great. Yeah, that's my debrief. Three Awesome, three good games.
Speaker 1:Well, I have three games and one of them I'm going to kind of gloss over, but I played a lot of small box games this week to prepare for something that we have coming up on the show. But first I played let's Go to Japan and this game I got off of Kickstarter. I ordered it. I don let's Go to Japan and this game I got off of Kickstarter. I ordered it, I don't know, maybe two years ago, delivered not too long ago. I've maybe had it on the shelf for a year and I've never played it. But the Kickstarter edition is awesome because you open up the box and the box of the game is wrapped in this nice silk like handkerchief type thing. It's all bundled up. On top it's got symbolisms from the game and the different you know resources and stuff. On top it's got the little waving cats and like the little kabuki masks and stuff which is cool. And then it come. It came with some porcelain bowls, like some nice porcelain bowls that have like let's go to japan to hold your little resources and your chips. So super high quality production.
Speaker 1:But basically this game is like a pick and pass type game, where you are drawing cards. You pick one of them to play to your schedule and you're passing them on to the next player for them to draft. What you're trying to do in the game is to create the ultimate week in Japan, monday through Sunday, and each of the days on your little calendar in front of you have different symbols associated with them, and there's I don't know five different symbols, I think. And what you're trying to do is, when you draft, you're trying to match those symbols for bonuses, and up on each of the cards there's little, small symbols that will then match to give you bonuses, and they'll start to accumulate as you go through your week, which can earn you even more bonuses. The cards that you're drafting are in two different colors. There's a pink and a blue. I believe that pink is Kyoto and blue is Tokyo, and so because these are two separate cities, it's difficult to get both of them on the same day. So you're trying to line up the colors as much as you can, and if you can't line them up or maybe you need it you absolutely need a bonus on one of the days. You need a symbol to earn you in game scoring bonuses or whatever. You can always use one of the trains which you get a select number of trains based on the round bonuses that you get.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to get super in depth with the rules, but basically what you're doing is you're drawing cards, you play a card to a day and then the cards get passed around the table and then at the end of the round or the end of the week end of the you know, there's like a little round tracker. There you go If you're on YouTube, that's what it looks like as this round tracker. There you go If you're on YouTube, that's what it looks like as this round tracker moves to the end. Once it concludes, then you start your scoring and you have to go day by day and total up the different symbols and total up the different bonuses, and these little you know symbols that match the symbol on each day of your calendar will move across to get you in game scoring bonuses. So really the scoring and the play is super simple. It's on BGA. If you want to try it out and after I listened to another podcast that just talked about playing this on BGA, I want to give it a shot and the scoring goes so much faster on board game arena because it just does it all for you. You watch it like kind of march through the week. It moves your little tokens and then you get all your bonuses and that's the end of the game.
Speaker 1:I think this game is great. I love the pick-and-pass type mechanic. Matching the symbols is fun. It's kind of like a little puzzle where you're trying to suss out where things would fit best. When you put a card down, it doesn't have to be played on top of the one that's already there on a specific day. You can actually like tuck it behind if you want to keep that in game bonus. So I think this game is great. The art is cool. It really makes me want to go to Japan and check some of this stuff out. But that is, let's go to Japan. Published in 2024 by AEG.
Speaker 2:Dang Picking past time. You know that's seven wonders yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you literally just like draw cards, you take one of them and then you pass the rest on, and that's the interplay between. But if you're like, if you know somebody building up a I don't know a big, heavy day of Tokyo on a specific symbol, you might pick that one and fit it in somewhere in your tableau so that you can prevent it from being passed to them. So there's a little bit of interplay between players, but really it's more about the puzzle of how do you get these events to fit in your day to earn the most amount of bonuses. As you go along On Board Game Arena, I'm matched up with some people that are clearly more experienced than me, because they will be pretty good and I am just a rookie still. So this, this game, is pretty fun. I would highly recommend it, especially if you have a board game arena account. Go on and give it a play.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to know if it had the rachel run it back. Oh oh, seal of excellence.
Speaker 1:But no, if we get a game that has that stamp of approval, then you'll. You'll hear about it.
Speaker 2:Do you think she would like this game?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's simple enough. It's you're just trying to match symbols and trying to keep the days color coded. I don't I guess I didn't really pay attention, but I'm not sure if there's like a symbol that that shows like Tokyo or Kyoto on the top, there might just be color coded. So if you have somebody that's colorblind, oh yeah, on the picture, on the picture there's a little tag that says Tokyo or Kyoto on it. So, um, yeah, I guess it is colorblind friendly ish. But um, yeah, you're trying to color code your days. Score as many points you really want to like overload your weekend days. Uh, because that that's when you can really pile up all the symbols ahead of it and really score those big bonuses towards the end.
Speaker 1:The one other thing is, as you go to these different events, you have like personal energy, which is like that little on youtube if you see the real red symbol at the top of the cooking class. So you have this like kind of morale energy type meter that you keep track of, and so if you play a whole bunch of those negative energy like, you're being sapped of your energy and it's it's hard to you know, go climb mount fuji or whatever it is. You're doing so that your energy kind of decreases, and you can boost that with certain things. There's, like you know, go to a Japanese spa or whatever. That'll boost your energy there's. If you can't slot any of the cards in, you don't know what else to do. You can always take a walk, and taking a walk will help you boost your energy too, and you can slot that in anywhere. So, yeah, it's that is, let's go to Japan and it is a great game.
Speaker 2:All right. What else you got Travis?
Speaker 1:All right Then we played sausage sizzle, and sausage sizzle was a game from 2012 that recently was republished by 25th century games A game from 2012 that recently was republished by 25th Century Games, and I saw this game all over the place on Instagram like I don't know. Two, three months ago, it seemed like everybody was playing Sausage Sizzle and basically this game is like Yahtzee you have four dice that represent these different critters, and then you have four dice that represent these different critters, and then you have four dice that have that are brown and red, and those are numbered from one to five. The ones are the sausage um, I think the browns have two fives on them, and then the reds only have one five, but they have two sausages. And what you're trying to do is you roll all these dice at once. For your first round, you roll all eight dice and then each time you roll, you have to lock one of the dice. And so let's say you rolled a platypus, the pink platypus you can lock that one. You're like I'm scoring platypus this time, and then each subsequent roll, you are locking one of these dice.
Speaker 1:Once you've rolled all of them and you've locked them all you can't roll anymore. Then you score the number of animals that you rolled. Like, let's say, I rolled three platypus and then you multiply that by the lowest number that you rolled on the number of dice. So if you you know, let's say you're going for fives and you have three fives, and then that last roll you roll a one, you're going to score one times, however many platypus you rolled. So it's kind of a little bit of press your luck because you can pick and choose which ones you're locking. But the real press your luck comes from if you roll all four ones, all four sausages, that multiplier is now worth seven. So the max you can score is 28. For those that are doing math at home.
Speaker 1:But it feels really bad when you're like going for sausages and then you roll like a five because it doesn't get you anything at that point. It's then times the one and you can't like add the ones together. It's like, let's say, like I'm rolling and I have three of the sausages, I'm going for that last sausage and I roll a five. You then do like, let's say, four platypus times the one and you score four points and it feels really bad. There's probably like a house rule that would make this a little more fun, but it's super simple. It's more like a game of statistics and teaching youngins some statistics and rolling.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I'm not sure why this was like such a hit a couple of months ago, like I saw so many people on Instagram playing this game and it kind of fell flat. Maybe I missed something, maybe I'm not getting into it like I should, but I get the press, your luck, I get the dice rolling is fun and picking which ones to lock, but it just feels bad to roll that last one and you get not what you needed and then you're stuck with a super low score. The good thing is this game plays in five minutes. It's so fast, especially if you roll all eight and let's say you get two or three that you want to keep. Then it goes much faster. But yeah, it was very meh.
Speaker 2:In this house I'm not sure we enjoyed this one much it sounds like it would be uh whoa in my house, because I am digging everything you've said and I am digging the aesthetic here, so I might have to keep an eye out for this one. There is no shortage of dice rolling. Push your luck. Small box games that can enter my collection, because I just love that type of stuff and mary does too. So that means we would get to play it, and a game being played is a good game.
Speaker 1:So well, don't don't go out and procure this one. Maybe this will be in your next game box that I send you.
Speaker 2:All right, I will stand by for the game box.
Speaker 1:But the highlight of this game is that baby Gwen actually got to roll a dice. She rolled a die for the first time. It was great. Yes, Her first game. Yeah, Rachel was trying to get one more sausage or whatever. Rachel was trying to get one more sausage or whatever, and Gwen. She held it out to Gwen and was like Gwen guess the die or whatever. And Gwen reached out and she grabbed it and then she chucked it and she rolled a sausage and Rachel scored seven points.
Speaker 2:No way, that was great.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, that's awesome Baby's first dice roll. And before you start calling CPA, we were there to supervise. You didn't choke on anything, everybody's okay. So, yeah, sausage Sizzle by 25th Century Games, nice. Last one I want to talk about is Tiny Epic Game of Thrones. I am not going to get super into this because I have not played it yet, but I'm so stoked about it because I watched a bunch of videos on how to play it.
Speaker 1:This is like an, a much larger game of thrones game packed into a tiny box. You play as one of the houses that have special abilities. At the beginning of each round, you roll four or five dice and there's one more die than the number of players playing. So there's one more die than the number of players playing. So there's an extra die floating around. The first player takes the two die that they chose and they take one of them and they put it on a mat and they get to take the action on the die and a bonus action. Actions are like March, recruit, plot events, all you know. There's a whole bunch of different things that you can choose from, but basically what you're trying to do is you're maximizing those two actions that you get to take before passing the die off, the extra die off to the next player. Then they have theirs, that they chose and this extra die and they can choose which actions to take.
Speaker 1:You're moving around, you're recruiting knights, you're claiming castles, you are managing your alliances with the other players and the other NPC-type houses. So you always add a number of non-playable houses on top of the ones that are being played by the players and then you can ally yourself to use their special abilities. You're earning gold and spending gold. The cool thing is like it's all about claiming castles. Because you claim more castles, you control most of the resources, you control Westeros, but the more castles that you maintain, the less gold that you have in your coffers because you're trying to maintain those castles and it costs money to run a kingdom. Your coffers because you're trying to maintain those castles and it costs money to run a kingdom. So like it's kind of this push and pull of like how much do I want to overstretch myself and control castles or how much money do I want to hold on to to then buy alliances with other houses? So I'm super excited to get this to the table.
Speaker 1:But that's tiny epic game of thrones. I'm on a tiny epic kick. I'm really excited about this one. Um, I got the expansion that's called fire and ice and that is a cooperative mode where you and the other houses that are being controlled controlled by other players are trying to fend off um the night walkers, the uh, the scourge from up north. So you're trying to defend the wall, defend the kingdom, as they try and march south and and take over westeros, and I'm pretty stoked about that. And then there's a solo mode that has tyrian lannister at the helm and you control tyrian and you're wheeling a deal. And I haven't really dug into that much, but this seems super awesome. I cannot believe that they fit so much game into such tiny boxes.
Speaker 2:Is this like a? Is this like a for sale size box? Yes, it is exactly that size that's stupid that they, that they can do that and for sale just puts a deck of cards in the same size box.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, like these. I actually stacked them on top. So the tiny epic game of thrones if you took one of the oink games scout and what was the other one? Oh man, there's another box. It's like that size, it's like three of the original scout boxes wide. This thing is like so tiny and they fit so much game into this game. Oh my gosh. The problem with these tiny boxes is I found that with this one and with tiny epic cthulhu, the second, you open them and pull everything out. You're like, unless you're an expert repacker, you're gonna have a little bit of lid lift, which drives me nuts. But they're so tiny you throw them in a box at the bottom of the of the shelf and you don't have to look at them.
Speaker 2:So you don't have to be appalled by that lift.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'm really stoked about this one. I'm pretty excited to open it up and really dig into it, Cause it seems far deeper and far you know better, than it has any right to be in such a tiny box.
Speaker 2:So that's intriguing. I didn't. I didn't even know this was on the horizon. This is new, huh?
Speaker 1:yeah, this is just going out to backers right now. It's a 2025 game. Okay, I don't. I don't even know who publishes these anymore. I shouted them out last week with tiny epic cthulhu, but, um, yeah, tiny epic game of thrones is hitting backers right now and I will probably do a more in-depth review once I get it played. Gameland games. There you go gameland sweet.
Speaker 2:Well, I look forward to hearing about that yeah, I'm stoked, uh.
Speaker 1:And then I played a couple other small box games like scout and cockroach poker and stuff like that, but we'll get into those later. Yeah, yeah, let's get into those later. Let yeah, yeah, let's get into those later. Let's fall in on the mission objective. Let's talk some controversy, some re skinning of games or republishing games or rebranding games. You know what? What deserves to be republished, what deserves to be remade? When should publishers put out another version of a game that they have already put out? Clay? Fill us in on the latest controversy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this has been taking the world by storm, or at least the 0.5% of the population that is following board game news. But Stonemaier, of critical esteem, has announced that Thinspan is coming out, a successor to Wingspan and a successor to Wormspan now, and that should be available for pre-order this week, I think. Until this episode airs it should be available to get pre-ordered from the Stonemaier website. So keep an eye out for that. I will expose my bias here. I do like Stonemaier Games. I am a fan of the company. I'm a fan of what they do, so that is my bias to this whole discussion. Fan of what they do, so that is my bias to this whole discussion.
Speaker 2:But this is a much bigger discussion than just this single game, finspan. I mean the amount of vitriol that has come out against Stonemaier Games for publishing a third game in the Wingspan world has been pretty rough. I mean, if you look at board game geek, it's already flooded with one star ratings of a game that they haven't even played yet and most of the complaints are calling it out for being a cash cow. Just no creativity, just a reskin. Yeah, yuck, reskinning is so lame these days. Make something original.
Speaker 2:Wingspan blows. It's just hateful stuff about a game that they haven't even played yet. But these feelings are clearly coming from somewhere deep inside that is upsetting people, that I think the main upset is coming that people think these companies, these board game companies, are just specifically Stonemaier Games in this instance. In lieu of coming up with something new and original, they are just milking that cash cow once again and trying to line their pockets off of a subpar game that's using the name of an already popular title for them. So, yeah, that's kind of what is driving this discussion. There's been lots to do about this throughout the week uh, people in defense of stonemaier games and yeah, and a lot, definitely lots of people voicing their concern about companies doing this.
Speaker 1:So having never played it before. Having never played it before, did you? This one is like a streamlined version of wingspan, correct? Like they changed a couple of mechanics in there yes, it's not the exact same game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to my, for me, I think this might be my favorite of the three, just based off what I've heard. One I love fish, so the theme is already doing it for me. And two, it's seems more streamlined from everything I've heard. Cuts down on a lot of the like. Different resources, like your cards, are the resources. So I think this could very well be my favorite version of the wingspan world. So I'm looking forward to it personally.
Speaker 2:But again, I want to make this larger than just looking forward to it personally. But again, I want to make this larger than just whether finspan deserves to exist, because I think, if you're being objective, there's nothing wrong with this, right? I mean, there's 45 ticket to rides, there's 16 different azules. Now there's 100 different clank clanks out there. I mean it's not, it's. It's not even just a reskin, because with Wormspan 2, they changed the mechanics. It's a different game, it's just. I mean, the core principles are the same. You're building a tableau on a mat in front of you, kind of engine building to score the most points, to score the most points.
Speaker 1:But yeah, what were your initial thoughts when you saw this and potentially heard about the backlash against it, so I come from more of a background of, like, I follow video games very closely, okay, and they do this with video games all the time they can. You know it's a little more complicated than like dragging and dropping code into some new cartridge and then putting it on a new system. Right, they have to tailor it and they have to make sure that it runs smoothly and all that stuff. But, like, I think, nintendo nintendo is like the biggest video game company in the world. They have sold super mario bros on every system since the dawn of time. Okay, like since the nes, all the way through. They have sold super mario bros on every system since the dawn of time. Okay, like since the nes, all the way through. They have sold super mario bros on every single system. Okay, and people continue to buy it because they love that stuff.
Speaker 1:People at stonemaier games have, you know, taken wingspan and they expanded on it. They made it a little more complex with worm span and now they've streamlined it. So you have like left and right of center of wingspan with these two different versions and people are mad about it. I don't understand it. Like I know it's a little short time between worm, worm span and fin span. Worm span came out in 2023. Don't quote me on that. Yeah, wingspan, wingspan in 2019, fin span now in 2025. But I I just don't.
Speaker 1:I don't understand the all the controversy. I I think it initially came across as like a joke. Like they published it on instagram. People were like this isn't real, like fin span, they they just did other span games. We have all the wingspan. You know expansions and everything. And now they're coming out with fin span and and maybe they just gave stonemaier their money for worm span and wingspan.
Speaker 1:But these are designers that are putting in some work on this game. They've probably played, tested it a thousand and two times. Like, even if this is not for you, it doesn't deserve the hate that it's getting and people need to be a little more positive about it. Like you didn't see, I take that back. People really jumped on aries games when they were using ai art on some of their terraforming mars stuff. But like they have a dedicated designer that worked on this art for FinSpan, they had designers that put a lot of love into this. Stonemaier Games has a pretty flawless record of putting out quality games and we have sung their praises many times on this podcast. So I just don't understand where all this hate is coming from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't either.
Speaker 2:I'm really trying to understand for the sake of, you know, not being to the other way about it, but I did.
Speaker 2:I listened to a really good YouTube video from Alex from board game co and he talked about this and it really he he really touched on the financial side of being a small board game publisher, which Stonemaier games is right, they have seven employees, one of which is Jamie, the head of it, so they're not a big company.
Speaker 2:To make profit in the board game industry is rare and very difficult is rare and very difficult. So if you're a company and you have a game like Wingspan that's evergreen and it's going to make you money, I feel like it's just the right thing to do for your employees and for your future creativity to try and keep making money on something that you know is probably going to sell, because it doesn't do us any good if Stonemaier Games goes under and then they can't come up with something awesome like Stamp Swap, which just came out and I loved. I mean that was certainly not a retread of any other game they have, and I think that these evergreen games are what really paved the way for companies to have the capital to be able to maybe invest in something that might be a little off the beaten path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great take. And Wingspan became like one of the hottest games during COVID. It was right up there with Catan. Like they sold I don't know, bazillion copies of Wingspan during COVID because people were sitting at home playing this game, loving this game, and got so many plays out of it. Do you feel like if this game had, if wingspan had become popular at any other point besides COVID, do you think people would be so negative about this one now? Like did they get their fill of this span mechanic game during COVID? And now they're like all right, that's enough, we've had enough of the wingspan, of the worm span, give us something new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, I do you. Do you think it might just be the name that really is that drives people crazier than the other games that are doing similar stuff? Like because, like, as I mean, as old has as old summer pavilion, as old. Like because, like I mean, azul has Azul Summer Pavilion, azul Queen's Garden, yeah, and it seems to just be like, oh yeah, another Azul, whatever, who cares? But is it like the fact that they've come up, like the Fin Span is, I don't know, just a crazy name, and it's drawn attention to it and might not help that wingspan?
Speaker 2:I know when it came out there was some controversy around its original release about not enough copies being printed and like, potentially, people calling stonemaier games out for, like, intentionally creating scarcity around their product, which I don't believe they they did did, do I think they. It was way more popular than they ever could have anticipated. It was going to be Um, but yeah, I, I just don't know that there are a few companies that seem to get away with just reproducing the same thing in a million different versions and nobody says boo about it. But three games in a popular game series is like the people have seen red over it. I just don't I.
Speaker 1:I wonder also if, like, they're trying to evoke the wingspan imagery with finspan right, yeah, you have the span at the end and it says a wingspan game, but, wingspan, you have this bird with its wings spread wide on the cover. Worm span, you have a dragon with its wings spread wide and then they put a flying fish on the cover, like if you want to put, if you want to put a big trout on the cover of this thing I just said, like fin span, it's got a big ugly trout or a big, big mouth bass or something silly on the front. Like I doubt it would have drawn I, it probably would have drawn controversy, but like it. Just I don't know, maybe it's the imagery that also adds to the fire a little bit like it's definitely memeable and it's definitely worth poking fun at.
Speaker 2:Like where's it gonna stop? And I've seen so many funny memes about where it could go from here. I wish I could remember them off the top of my head. But that's fine, that's just all fun, but the general hate is not fine. Just don't buy it if you aren't interested in it. I mean, nobody's holding a gun to your head and to go on and rate it one star before you've even played it or yeah, like it's just too much.
Speaker 1:Um which is really too bad, because for the most part, I feel like board gamers can be very positive and supportive and get behind these publishers that try new things and and it's so weird, Like what just triggers them into going on and review, bombing or like for for the longest time? What was the game that got a bunch of copies stolen at like Gen Con a couple of years ago? Oh, but there was that guy that that like stole the truck of maybe it was Lord Connor or something and like that just it wasn't more Connor man was that game, but that guy that stole the maybe it was like the guy stole a bunch of lor connor cards but then he had published the game previously and his game like skyrocketed on the bgg top 50 just because he was associated with this game. Like it seems so weird these trends that reviewers follow and it's just kind of off-putting to see people pile on to stonemaier games and this small team that puts such love into their products just because they don't like this flying fish on the cover or they don't like that.
Speaker 1:It's a reskin. You don't see them jumping on Hasbro every time they put out another version of Monopoly. Oh God, there's 10,000 of those right, Like, if you want to collect every Monopoly, good on you, right. It's not this community's board game of choice for the most part, but there's people out there that collect those things. Just live in your own little circle, live in your space circle. Live in your space, enjoy what you enjoy and just don't like spread hate because you don't like a flying fish on the cover of your latest stonemaier game yeah, I kind of wanted to just go down, like I wrote down beforehand, the the ways or the different ways new games come about.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, let's do do it. I doubt that this happens anymore and probably, like Cole Whirly and Whirly Gig Games and some of these real indie publishers might have like a novel idea with completely novel mechanisms that have never been seen before and they're just like the peak of creativity poured into this thing and those can do well, but you know, they probably take a lot of time, a lot of effort and are a lot of risk for the people involved. Um, and again, yeah, I think that's probably pretty rare. Then there's games that are made, you know, and they reuse mechanisms that are well-known and well-loved, like deck building, et cetera. Put a little twist on it. Then you have games that are spiritual successors, so like Andromeda's Edge is a spiritual successor to Dwellings of Eldervale.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Kind of in the same vein, really. I mean right in the same vein, really. I mean right, they're taking a game that was popular and they're they're not using the name of it, but everybody knows, hey, this is pretty much that game, but just in space, yeah, or like terra mystica gaia project. Uh, what's the latest one? Age of steam or age of innovation?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, age of innovation, innovation ultimate, or whatever yeah, yeah, but anyway, you have like that category of games where you take a game, you pretty much keep the mechanisms the same, you tweak a couple things, you call it a different name, but it's just an iteration on that game. Then you have like the series of games where they share the same name Azul, whatever, clank whatever, ticket to Ride, whatever and those are just quite obviously re-implementations of an already popular game, much in the image of another game, without giving credit. That that's where it came from, which another controversy has been the Fellowship of the Rings trick taking game, which is essentially the crew, but given no credit to the crew as inspiration.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Again, board gaming mechanics are not copyrightable or you know they can't be patented. So they could have very well come up with the exact same type of system for the fellowship of the ring trick taking game without having played or seen or heard about the crew, but it's unlikely. But again, you know that is another way a board game idea can come about. But again, that is another way a board game idea can come about. And finally there's and not finally, this is just what I thought of are the blatant remakes of games, where you put a fresh coat of paint on a game and republish it, which happens a lot lately with Kinesia Games and ByteWing. You got Zuvadas, you got they're putting out Ego as a reskin of beowulf. I mean, they tell you it. And these are games that are out of print. So I think it's good that they're being brought back to life and republished. But anyway, there's just, like all these different ways, that games are all just really a lot of games are really just iterations on another game or a previous game. So to me that's fine, like I watch tv shows and I want there to be another season of the office. Right, like I, if you enjoy it, you want to experience in a slightly different way. I kind of experience board games like another form of art, like TV, where I may only play a game one time for the experience of it. But I'll be interested to try another game that is like that and is iterating on those mechanisms or just has new components with it if it's just like a remake.
Speaker 2:So I don't know. Those are kind of my thoughts. I really don't see what any of the hubbub is about. I do see with that trick-taking game where that could be a controversy to to not give any credit like I mean even shout out to stonemaier games. They gave credit when they made red rising. Yeah to fantasy realms, like it's right there in the rule book, like this was inspired by the mechanism we love in fantasy realms and we wanted to put a red rising theme on it and add a couple extra things and so it's right there. But anyway, yeah, that's. Those are my controversial takes on the controversies at hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah I, and I think the one that really stuck out to me lately was everdell. Actually, everdell just put on kickstarter a, I don't know everdell slopes or something, it's a, it's a mountain version of everdale. Right, you're up in the mountains, you're same mechanic, you're placing workers to gather resources to then build a city in front of you. Okay, I saw that it was. You know they. They came out with the big mega box which sits on my shelf. Then they had far shore. Okay, they changed the mechanics a little bit, but for the most part it's place a worker, gather resources, pay the resources to build your city in front of you. Then they had Everdell Duo Same type of thing, except it's two players and there's a little bit of like hey, take that, I'm blocking you from taking the action you want. But then they had this mountain one and I was like that could be kind of cool If you're gathering resources to then use those resources to survive in this snowy environment or something. But it's not that it is so look how many everdales, yeah, silver frost.
Speaker 1:There you go and reading the description at least I haven't watched any playthroughs or anything. It seems like it's more everdale and they put out so many of these things. You had to scroll down to find it on bgg. So I I don't understand the the hate that something like fin span gets. I I get it's a little memeable, but there's other companies out there doing similar things and you know everdell. They clearly love their ip, they love the art, they love the mechanics that everdell brings, so they keep investing in it and people keep buying it. Same with wingspan. You know like they generated new art, they tested a new mechanic. They're putting it out there for those that love wingspan and worm span. So enjoy what you're going to enjoy and just stop spreading the hate. It's terrible, terrible. Yeah, seriously.
Speaker 1:The other thing I was going to hit on, based on your comments, I was going to go back to video games. Okay, so I think it's like 2K games or something they did Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War. Okay, lord of the Rings games, where you are playing as Lord of the Rings character that has the ghost of Celebrimbor inside of you and you are going around and you can bend orcs to your will, okay. So you sneak up on them, you basically like put your hand on them, like the hand of Sauron Saruman, and you can basically like turn them as an ally, you can interrogate them, you can do all sorts of cool stuff, and the cool thing about this system is that as you turn different orcs, they can influence a little circle of orcs that interact with them, and your influence starts to grow amongst the ranks of mordor. So you can like terrify them, you can make them your ally, you can get information from them, and they call it the nemesis system. Okay, it had very rarely been done something to this scale in a video game before 2K yes, that one Great picture. So they went and they patented the Nemesis system, so you can no longer have this interactive thing where these groups of soldiers are then being influenced by you, that then carry the story forward amongst their own ranks, even when you're not interacting with them.
Speaker 1:There are so many games that could do cool stuff like this with this mechanism, right, but they have patented it and it's not being expanded. They're not using this in any of their new games, right, it's these two games that they used it in, but people cannot take this cool thing that somebody built and expand upon it and change it and make it their own. So it lives in this little capsule from here on out. And I feel like that's the same with board games, right, like I don't want to patent trick taking okay, because that would put a monopoly on trick taking and it's already been done a thousand times before.
Speaker 1:So you, you stove, pipe this thing into your specific mechanic and that's not. Like if you love board games and you go ahead and you start taking these mechanics away from people, then you're just making the entire board game sphere worse off for it and it's not what these people are doing. I understand that, that, but people that are, I guess I don't really know where I'm going with that, but like I love the thrust of it, though, like righteous board game mechanics.
Speaker 1:Whether you're borrowing, whether you're borrowing it from somebody else or not, you should give credit where credit's due, right it? Somebody created a mechanic that you love and you're borrowing from that mechanic, you know. Shout them out and evolve on it. Don't just like copy paste, add some new art and then ship it right. Yeah, and and I can see where the controversy comes from with the lord of the rings trick taking, if it's really that similar. But I think they, the majority of the board game sphere and publishers do a good enough job of you know, giving credit where credit's due if they're borrowing from people.
Speaker 1:Because people, board games are expanding so quickly, like the, the community that exists now and the market that exists now was not the market that was 20 years ago. Right, board games are getting bigger, they're better. There's entire conventions now that are exploding because of it, and I think if we, as long as board game publishers, are expanding on mechanics and borrowing from previous projects responsibly, then I think it's all fair game and they can go for it. So that's my rant on board game republishing.
Speaker 2:I think we've planted our flag in the ground.
Speaker 1:Let's go OTF, but before we go OTF, stop spreading hate on the internet. Just enjoy what you're going to enjoy and stop spreading your hate on the internet.
Speaker 2:This is a small community right. This is a small community right. There's not a lot of degrees of separation between these publishers and content creators and reviewers, and so your opinions, whether they're positive or negative, get seen and heard and felt. So keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:Yep, ele, everybody love everybody.
Speaker 2:Yep. All right, let's go hey well, before we go over the fence, you want to give our viewers, listeners, a quick preview of what might be coming in the upcoming weeks.
Speaker 1:On the show we got some exciting guests, we got some other stuff, so yeah, so next week we are going to be talking with Bo from punchable games on solo games and what makes a great solo game.
Speaker 1:Then we're going to have Paul Solomon from game head games the new head of game head games and he is going to come on and talk about his new lineup. We heard a little bit about what's going on at game head from Amanda from empty nest board mama, but he's going to come on live in person and talk to us about what he's working on a game head and then we're going to have a small box game showdown and a couple of other interviews. So we've got some good stuff coming. We're going to try and post more live plays on board game arena for those that are interested, and so you can check us out on instagram or youtube or wherever you get your podcasts and hopefully you can partake in some of that stuff. And if you're enjoying what we're putting out, share us with family and friends, tell us, tell them about us and hopefully you can reach a bigger audience and keep spreading our love of board games.
Speaker 2:Yep, I'm excited about what's coming up. It's going to be fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got some good stuff, so Clay, go over the fence with me.
Speaker 2:I will gladly go over the fence with you, travis. I will gladly go over the fence with you, travis. So the Godfather and the Godfather 2 were enjoyed by Mary and myself after many years of thinking that I wouldn't like it. I stand corrected, but that did inspire us to revisit the Sopranos on max. So we started this show probably two, maybe three times in the past and never made it out of season one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know what I just maybe I was playing on my phone too much. I've been trying to be better about that. When I'm watching TV is like I do not need to pick up my phone while I'm watching a stinking television show. Just enjoy the show. Um, and maybe it's because the Godfather excited me about freaking mafia mobsters, uh, but this time through I'm really into it, loving the characters and it's only good stuff in the future, from what I've. I looked it up and season one's like the lowest rated of all the seasons. So I I have faith that it's only going to get better and each episode I get more into it. So watching sopranos digging it uh, I don't know if you can call it classic, but it's definitely a piece of television that constantly gets thrown around as being really really good, um, so I am committed to finishing it this time.
Speaker 1:Nice. Yeah, I was flipping around Max the other day and I actually watched the first episode again. Oh yeah, rachel was like are you starting the Sopranos? I was like I mean maybe, maybe we'll get another go. But I did the same thing I always get halfway through the first season and I bounce off of it. So maybe I'll do a rewatch with you.
Speaker 2:Yes, that would be fun. Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Catch up man.
Speaker 2:We Catch up, man. We're on like 10. Okay, man.
Speaker 1:I've got some work to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome, you got anything else.
Speaker 2:No, that's about as over the fence as I'm comfortable going. Okay, shout out to the Commanders. That was a pretty crazy game. I know your family is probably disappointed, as the Detroit people, but breaking Jaden Daniels out there, just taking the commanders to the NFC Championship game.
Speaker 1:I knew the Lions injuries were going to catch up with them eventually.
Speaker 2:Day of reckoning finally came. I didn't see that coming.
Speaker 1:For Over the Fence. We just got back a couple hours ago from Amsterdam and it was our first time going up there to the Netherlands. Amsterdam, um, amsterdam is awesome, it's really cool, uh, such. You know, we come from a very like secluded little area of germany and amsterdam has such variety and we ate some great food and we walked around. They have canals and bikes and tons of stuff to see, old cathedrals um, yeah, just a really cool city. I don't really have much to say other than that we went to Amsterdam and it was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, highly recommend let's go to Amsterdam.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's go to Amsterdam. So did we do it?
Speaker 2:I think we've got another one in the books Travis.
Speaker 1:All right, episode 23 of the Operation Game Night podcast. I have been Travis Smith, he has been Clay.