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 24: Harvest, A Feast for Odin, & Solo Games Galore (feat. Bo from PunchableGames)
This episode highlights the growing appeal and enjoyment of solo board gaming, featuring a discussion with guest Bo from PunchableGames (https://www.instagram.com/punchablegames?igsh=MWlkMzJ1N2Nrb2xiYw) who shares insights on solo game mechanics, recommendations, and barriers to solo play. The hosts also reflect on their recent gaming experiences, emphasizing the strategies that make solo gaming rewarding.
• The appeal of solo gaming during the pandemic
• Highlighting games like 'Wingspan,' 'A Feast for Odin,' and 'Long shot'
• Understanding the difference between input and output randomness
• Recommended solo games that are easy to set up and play
• Discussing barriers people face with solo modes and games
As always, come interact with us online, let us know if you have any feedback, and leave us a review/comment anywhere you get your favorite podcasts!
https://www.instagram.com/operation_game_night_podcast/
Welcome to the Operation Game Night podcast, episode 24, question mark.
Speaker 3:That's what I'm tracking.
Speaker 1:All right, joining me, as always, is Clay. How the hell is it still January, gable?
Speaker 3:Hey, what's going on, I'm doing good. Quick sponsor ad. Christy Metals is now a sponsor of the podcast. One of my brother's teammates' dad has a company called christy metals and I like their hat because it has like uh, looks like the uh tin man from wizard of oz, and I asked for one and he sent it. So I said, hey, you're gonna be our sponsor on the podcast. So, christy metals, if you need some custom metal work, uh, hit it up.
Speaker 2:Does he have Elphaba?
Speaker 1:No, no, elphaba hats.
Speaker 2:Where's our metal hats? Yeah, I was about to say Is he sponsoring?
Speaker 1:Clay Gable or is he sponsoring the podcast?
Speaker 3:I mean, I am the podcast Travis, Just kidding.
Speaker 1:Wow, Joining me, as always, the more important of my co-hosts, Jared. Can we please just make it to February Erickson.
Speaker 2:Yo, yo, yo yo yo. I don't know if you noticed this. I am also sponsored by. This is Guy Fieri hat. I think we talked about it a couple weeks ago. I wanted to surprise you. I wasn't wearing this a minute ago for the listener, and now I'm wearing my Guy Fieri hat and actually, now that I see it on the screen, it's fire.
Speaker 3:It's not coming off. You should wear that all the time.
Speaker 1:And we have a very special guest today. We have Bo from Punchable Games on Instagram. Bo, have you ever been to Flavortown? The Flavortown, yes.
Speaker 2:That's Guy Fieri, the guy who drives around America and goes to all these little diners, drive-ins and dives.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I think actually I've worked someplace where that was on in the background all the time.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 4:I haven't been to Flavortown. I live in Denmark. We don't do flavors Really, wow.
Speaker 3:Also, I'm not sponsored by anyone.
Speaker 4:So if anyone wants to sponsor, Try and get you a hat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Hey, we're pretty close to landing Adele and Taylor Swift with our 21 and 22 podcasts, right.
Speaker 3:Have they seen that?
Speaker 2:They didn't retweet us or anything.
Speaker 1:I doubt it, highly doubt it. So yeah, bo, thank you for joining us. Today we're going to talk some solo games. Bo's been playing a lot of solo games lately. He's preparing for the birth of his new child, in which case he will have plenty of time to play lots of solo games. Bo's been playing a lot of solo games lately. He's preparing for the birth of his new child, in which case he will have plenty of time to play lots of solo games. Hopefully, that's what our mission objective is going to be. First we're going to debrief our week, then we'll do the mission objective, then we'll go over the fence and talk about what we've been doing outside of board gaming. Clayton, take it away.
Speaker 3:Tell me what you've been playing this week. All right, I will gladly talk about what I've been playing. So played a lot of games, as usual. I'm lucky I got people that are willing to play the other night. Well, last night it was Mary was texting with the Spanglers behind my back and the next thing I know they've orchestrated a game night without me involved and I was like do they actually want to play games or do they just only think I will come over if games are involved? And either way, I got to play games, so good day.
Speaker 3:But the one I wanted to talk about tonight today on the podcast was Long shot, the dice game, which was in heavy rotation for our household a couple years ago. This came out in 2022. It was designed by chris handy and published by. It looks like perplexed on here, but that doesn't seem like the one I remember from my box. So I'm sorry, publisher, if I'm not giving the right shout out here, but anyway, this is like Camel Up, the Roll and Write, essentially. Jared, did we ever play this with you? I'm sure we did, oh big time, big time, yeah.
Speaker 3:Betting game. You see the little horses going across. Oh yeah, we got the horses, we got bets, we got dice rolling action.
Speaker 2:Is there some slingshot maneuver on this one too? I can't remember.
Speaker 3:So yeah, essentially one player rolls two die. One die has a face for every one of the eight horses. The other die tells you how far that horse is going to move. You roll those two die maybe goes three spaces, and then each horse on its card has like a secondary movement bar that after that horse gets rolled all the other horses that are selected on that secondary movement bar get to go as well. So you roll eight, you go three, maybe three goes one space, two goes one space and then, and then everybody, not just the player that rolled gets to take an action with the eight die.
Speaker 3:And so there's several things you can do. There's like this little concession stand grid where you can cross off that number and if you complete a row or column you get to get this special bonus which I think jared's talking about, the slingshot maneuver, where you can pick a horse that you want and send them forward three. You can even send horses backwards, which I don't know how that works in real horse racing, but you can also get money from the concession stand. Another thing you can do with that number is you could place some of the money, a bet, with some of the money you have on the horse that was rolled. So you know that horse just got rolled. Maybe you're feeling good about it. You place a bet on it and the horses all start with different odds of winning based on how many times their number is checked off on the other horse's secondary movement bar. So eights got very few check boxes to start off with on other horses, so it really only moves when its own colors rolled. One, on the other hand, has great odds to win because its number is checked off on a lot of different horses. So that's kind of how it starts out.
Speaker 3:You're placing bets. There's other things you can do. There's like a no bet line. You have to get a helmet for your jockey if you want to place a bet on a horse. After it passes this no bet line, there's a jersey that you can mark which allows you to then mark another horse on that secondary movement bar for the horse. So anyway, it goes pretty quick. It's like a 25-minute game. You're betting, you're betting, you're cheering. It's all the fun of Camel Up in a smaller, faster, dry-erase-y package. And I am glad it's been years since we played this and now I'm like, okay, we got to play this more often because we got whole new groups of people to play with and I think it went over really well when we played it the other night. So a lot of fun. Long shot the dice game.
Speaker 2:Would you call? This one a roll and write.
Speaker 3:I mean you roll and you write.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm going to call it that I don't know what this says about me, but I did not remember this game until you said the concession stand and I was like oh yeah, we definitely played this. I remember that. Yeah, this game is great.
Speaker 2:The concession stand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, there's your little writing thing. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. As you can see, you got your money, you're spending it, you're betting, you got wilds you can use, so it's a good time. Bo, have you played this?
Speaker 4:I haven't, but it's been on my radar for a while. It's been remade in an even smaller box. Really it was called Win, I think.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's even more portable, Dang okay.
Speaker 3:There's already little, isn't?
Speaker 4:there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this was a good one, but yeah, that's my debrief for the week. Awesome, nice, camel up, killer.
Speaker 1:Jared, what's been playing this week?
Speaker 2:So I don't think I've played anything in person. I did. We had a snow day over here in Alabama, in the deep south. We got a little bit of snow, so I did spend that time to reorganize my dune box and my arnec box. So I got these little card holders off of amazon to kind of rearrange the the decks and stuff so it's easier to get it to the table whenever that happens. Luckily, both of those games you can play a solo mode. Um, which I can maybe talk about later, uh, but I did want to talk about feast for odin. A feast for odin? I didn't know. There's an uh. Um originally came out in 2016. Ue rosenberg the man uh, is he? Is he the second to the doctor, or how do you feel about this?
Speaker 3:guys are you talking about like in, in terms of amount of games he's designed, or like my esteem of him, your esteem, uh no, he's not second to the doctor I, his games are all kind of the same to me, so I don't know about bony, wow shots fired I think it's hard to compete with a good doctor, at least because he's made so many games.
Speaker 4:But I think if you're going for a worker placement game, uwe is hard to get to top, I think if he's in a Greek of a caverna to some extent.
Speaker 2:Oh yes. What about for worker placement? Oh yeah, caverna to some extent. Oh yes, I forgot about.
Speaker 1:those are also Beetle Lacerda for worker placement. That's too heavy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's getting too heavy for me too.
Speaker 2:It sounds like we have future podcast topics already growing. Yeah, I like it, but I busted this one out on Board Game Arena with my good buds, hashtag Carlin, hashtag Clay, and sorry, travis, I am again leaving you out of games.
Speaker 2:Yeah thanks a lot. Actually, I don't know who set this one up. I don't think it was me. I don't think it was me. Actually, I think you have Carlin to blame. I don't know. I'm throwing her under the bus. She's not here so she can't defend herself. So this one's a great one. Worker placement. As we've said, I am a huge fan of this one. The first time I played it I had no clue what the heck was happening, and then, the second time I played it, I lost my mind. It was so cool. You're placing your little worker to. You know, travel around the? What kind of sea would you call this? Where are they traveling?
Speaker 4:Where do Vikings travel? They?
Speaker 2:travel everywhere, man, they're going everywhere. You get boats to go get more resources. You can get like whaling boats where you roll a 12-sided die. Like you get rolling, you get worker placement. So there's luck involved. Resources are ever-changing as you go throughout the game and one of my favorite mechanisms of Feast for Odin is the feast part. You guys know I'm a fat kid. You know I love the food.
Speaker 2:You have to feed your your vikings every round. Um, seven rounds of get them wheat. Uh, I don't know. Mead from a horn. You ever heard of that? Lots of good stuff going on in this game. It's like a choose your own adventure. Um, I did play for the first time in a long time, clay, unfortunately, I think he got rocked. Um, yeah, sorry. Well, here's the thing. I am a professional engineer in construction management, so I know how to place my workers All right. I know how to make sure they get to the right spot to be the most effective and, by the way, I remember to feed my vikings, unlike clay, um, where he takes a like a negative four token every time. He forgets to feed his vikings, like it was one time. Okay, yeah, I don't know if played a game with Clay, and he hasn't had to take that token.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:But it's a load of fun. I was going to shout out BGA for a second time because they have the Norwegians expansion for Feast for Odin on BGA. So, like the base game is awesome, norwegians blows your mind there's extra pieces that you can get to either feed I think I kind of glossed over the fact that you're supposed to also fill out, like you call it, a tableau. Would you call the big negative board the big negative board, like your home? You're trying to fill out your home base, essentially with these green and blue tiles. Here on YouTube you can check it out. You can also put money in there, or coal, another resource that you can get. But the key to this game is getting all these bonuses and then traveling to the extra islands with your boats up there in the top left. So I absolutely love this game because you can work your engine to the max. Okay, so there's all these different resources and you can upgrade the resources to put them on different locations. So the reds and the oranges are the lower resources and those ones you can feed your Vikings with, or you can put them on to sheds and what do they call them? Sheds and like little cottages. Yeah, but then you can upgrade those same tiles into the blue and green to fill out your, your main home base, as well as these extra islands that you can explore using your boats. So it's like it's got the everything that you love. You know it's. It's getting Travis, that, that feeling of being immersed in the game. It's giving me worker placement and engine building and Clay just likes a good time.
Speaker 2:This one's a good time, and when I say time, have some time ready to pour into this one, because it takes a long time. I think the first time we played with Mike and we were doing it on a school night. I don't think we got out of there until almost midnight. The playing time says 30 minutes to two hours, I think. So it would probably be close to the two-hour mark, especially because there's so many decisions to make. Complexity is like close to four, right. So it's a toughie, um, but trust me, it's worth your time. It it's. I think I put it number two or number one on my top five. I mean, now that I played it this week, it's back to number one, so and you can play solo mode on bj.
Speaker 2:Did you guys know that? Uh, yes, I did yeah it's incredible. Anyways, I, I uh, yield back my time hold on jerry.
Speaker 3:I want to say something real quick. This is the game that easily I'm the worst at that I like the most I did. I don't know how I'm this bad at it. I played it so many times and I have no idea how you get enough of those freaking tiles to fill out extra islands. I can never even barely fill out my own, like my starting negative board, and then you go grab more negatives and somehow fill them out. Seriously, I don't know. How Are you using cards Like what I will tell you? How are you making that happen?
Speaker 2:If you want, subscribe to the YouTube page and then I'll tell you. Just kidding, you can't be afraid of exploring into the unknown. I don't know how many times I've said that in this podcast. That was the first time you have to that.
Speaker 1:That was the first time you have to.
Speaker 2:That was literally the first time. You can't be afraid of going after those islands. In fact, iceland, right there that you see, is one of my favorite islands to go get, and it's because of the engine you need to build this engine by. So you place your little green and blue tiles, but if you leave those icons open between rounds you get that resource. And so getting a stone and a coal every round is super helpful. Getting one of those barrels is super helpful. Getting a fish to feed your um Vikings super helpful. And you're getting extra cash each time too. Um, it's, it's totally worth it.
Speaker 2:You, you do need to invest in boats early, so that's why everyone goes for the wood as soon as possible, because they want to get the boats. So this one is really key to get boats. But the norwegian expansion kind of flips it on its head a little bit. I have not fully flushed this one out. I think animals are really key in the uh norwegians expansion because, uh, base game, you get sheep and cows, but in the norwegians expansion it also adds pigs and horses, and so there's a lot more options for your animals. And between rounds, if you have multiple animals, they breed and you get more animals. So there's your engine just firing on all cylinders um. I could go on and on and on about feast for odin bo.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts on feast for odin?
Speaker 4:um, I've only played it on BGA, so I haven't played it physically on the table. I've never, ever had a game that took as long as it says on the box well if BGA does it all for you.
Speaker 4:I have this regular gaming group where we say that if it says 90 minutes it's two and a half hours for us. Yeah, I think it sounds a little like if East of Odin is a little all of Uwe's games combined. It has the sort of tile placement thingy from Patchwork and the whole Agricola farming thing, it's one of the top games, I think on BGA as well, and it is for a reason.
Speaker 1:I think it's a fantastic game it's probably the best way to play it yeah, it's got a lot of pieces in real life.
Speaker 2:It's yes, it does yeah, you got like a 3D printed little storage guy to help you out with it yeah, but I it only can be stored on it's um, it can't be stored vertically.
Speaker 3:And I stored it vertically and now I'm afraid to open the box.
Speaker 2:So, okay, yeah, there's. I don't know how you would manage without that 3D printed holder, because like there is, I'm telling, telling you like 20 different types of more than that, of these little tiles that you have to handle and manage and stuff. And playing in person is really satisfying though, because like you can actually feel them and like kind of move them around and stuff. Um, oh, that's a good way to store them right there, like in the fishing tackle box. Huge fan of that actually ding, ding, ding. That is actually one of the ways I store my arnack. Stuff is in this like little fishing tackle box thing that I got from the dollar store for a dollar.
Speaker 3:That was awesome, Awesome.
Speaker 2:Anyways, Feast for Odin man. I love it. I'm glad you're back on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Travis what did you do this week? I didn't get a whole lot of gaming done. We've been super busy and I have not been feeling well, so I played a little bit of Harvest. Harvest is a 2024 production by Keymaster Games, designed by Trey Chambers. Artist is Tiara Connor, and this is a cozy game.
Speaker 1:At its heart. It's a worker placement game where you are trying to place your little wheelbarrows out into these different areas in the town to get seeds and plant them into your fields. And so at the beginning of each round of which I think there are four, you have like a sunrise action, which is you pick those little tab cards. Rise action, which is you pick those little tab cards. You go around the table, you pick these tab cards and the tabs have certain bonuses and a number associated with it. The lower the number, the less bonuses you get, but the earlier you go in the round and then. So what you do is you go around the table and on your turn, you take one of your wheelbarrows and you place it in either the general store or the fields the general store, the farmer's market or the workshop. And so the general store you can buy seeds, you can refill your water bucket, get fertilizer Farmer's market. You can get different bonuses to include seeds and fertilizer. You can upgrade your bucket so you can hold more water. You can upgrade seeds that you already have in your stockpile.
Speaker 1:Then eventually you're going to need to go to the fields, and the fields is where you can plant your seeds. You can tend to your crops, you can reap your seeds. You can tend to your crops, you can reap your seeds. And then you can also, if you go to the trading post or to the workshop, you can clear out the forest on your fields and make more room to grow. And so really it's about making the most of these turns.
Speaker 1:I don't find that the worker placement is really that competitive, where you're not going to be able to do something that you want. Typically it's going to cost you like a coin or two if you're not one of the first people to those spaces. But really it's about like building out these six by six grids with your different um, your different crops and your different buildings that can earn you bonuses, and just trying to make the most out of every turn. Each of your characters has its own unique player ability and when you uh, when you clear out the forest. You get to roll the forest die. That gives you different bonuses and stuff, which is pretty fun. So this game is like a worker placement and little tableau builder that is not stressful. This is like the non-competitive version of Feast for Odin.
Speaker 4:I actually really like this one.
Speaker 1:It's cozy, it's cute. You get to build out your own little farm however you want it. It almost feels like the Stardew Valley board game, but it doesn't take three hours to play. So I, yeah, I really enjoy this one. It's on BGA. You can play it solo against, like the town mayor who's a cow. Oh, yeah, I, I really enjoy this one. I, and I know, I know that they just released a expansion for it on kickstarter about it's called like the fall festivals or something, but the base game is great. I, I really enjoy this one. Man, have you guys?
Speaker 3:the aesthetics are killing me right now. I'm loving. What's going on with that. I don't know. Is that a skunk? What type of ant? A weasel? A badger? A badger with your coffee?
Speaker 2:I mean geez I mean nothing gets travis going like an ant and proformorphic how do you say that?
Speaker 1:more antropomorphic animal oh my gosh yeah, this game, this game's great. Oh, and I, I'm sending you guys an invite to this one on pga because this one is like, it's super simple to learn. You can play through it once and understand all your actions, and I, I, I really enjoy this one. It's nice and cozy. It's a good cozy game.
Speaker 3:It's been on my radar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, highly recommend, though have you ever played this?
Speaker 4:I haven't. It's a it's a very instagrammable game. Yes, it is. Yeah. Colors and anthropomorphic animals.
Speaker 1:I think yeah that's all it takes. Yeah, yes, it's very much like stardew valley that you have those three different phases. Um, and yeah, you're just tending your own little crops. You're not like there's not a whole lot of take that actions, you're just kind of building out little crops. You're not like there's not a whole lot of take that actions, you're just kind of building out your little tableau farm as best you can and, you know, refilling your water bucket and making sure that you have enough fertilizer to get your crops growing healthy.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I want to know more about the poo emoji.
Speaker 1:Yes, so that's your fertilizer, and so you use that to tend to your crops. Which is so. The wheat, I think, is the big yellow pieces that take up three lengths, those like, multiply by one when you tend to them. The strawberries will multiply by one when you tend to them. The blueberries will go from a bush to having the blueberries on there that then you can reap. And then the pumpkins are the most expensive, and those ones multiply when you tend to them, and so every time you tend to them you are getting more money in the long run, but you're losing your fertilizer. And then you of course need water to tend to your crops and stuff. So, yeah, this game is great. I think it's super cute and really fun. It's easy to pick up, easy to teach, plays quickly. So that is Harvest by Keymaster Games, published in 2024. Nice, all right, let's get to our guest of honor, bo. What have you been playing this week?
Speaker 4:I have been playing. I just got off of a game of the crew actually, but the game I really wanted to talk about is obsession. Yes, we got this recently. My girlfriend, I have been on a bit of a, a bit of a downtown abbey sort of binge, so I figured this game would, would slot, will slot right in, and and it has a lot of the uh. It has a lot of the mechanics that we, we really like the uh, the engine building of building the rooms and uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's just a lot of fun.
Speaker 4:I think, um, you sort of compete for money and prestige, uh, and to get to invite the Fairchild, I think twins who are extra prestigeful guests, and then you have to manage your workers, your employees, and there's sort of a little story to every card and that's probably the most fun part of the game. I think it's sort of coming up with little stories with why are these two going bowling and why does this character suck so much that it takes away reputation? There's one character actually who has negative reputation just for being American. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Of course, yeah, that checks out Makes, you see, it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I've heard some people talk about that it's multiplayer solitaire, but it doesn't really matter because there's just so much um, storytelling and, yeah, engine building and yeah, it's just, it's just a lot of fun, yeah and the, the whole, like, crux of the game is to build out your manner right, yeah, in the right way, to attract certain guests that get you more reputation.
Speaker 1:So at the end you can attract, like the, the big guests, which are the, the twins, right?
Speaker 4:yeah, yeah. And then there's there's guests. As you gain reputation, you can invite more prestigious guests who get you better rewards, and yeah, yeah the production?
Speaker 2:are these real people, like the people on the cards and stuff, or that you can trace it back to, like a historical character or something like that, or no?
Speaker 4:I don't, I don't think so, but I think and I'm this may be something I'm making up, but I'm 90% sure that that all the characters, all the pictures in the cards are from backers, from Kickstarter. Oh really. Made in just made into sort of uh of uh old-timey yeah, yeah that's not cool, crazy.
Speaker 3:I hope you're not making that up, because that's pretty sweet and we might be on the fake news uh outlets now yeah, I'll gladly, uh believe that, and I'm going to petri's right after this and picking this up, ben, because that's so cool. Yeah, that's awesome it is.
Speaker 4:It is very cool and it's it's. It's a game that dan I can't remember his last name right now they signed it who has actually been taking a lot of feedback from uh, from fans, in the development, also in making this uh, the second version, and yeah, and every, every family has the little uh colored box for their components.
Speaker 1:Love that. I also heard that they have an expansion that just came out that is really good and pretty well loved by fans. Have you played with the expansion yet?
Speaker 4:I haven't played with the expansion yet. I just got it two or three weeks ago, the base game two or three weeks ago, but I've heard the upstairs, downstairs expansion should be really good. Yeah, I would have to say I probably won't, wouldn't play this. We were talking about same games that took, take a long time. This doesn't take a long time if you two, but I think at four and I think with the expansion it goes up to five. That will take forever yeah, yeah, not great.
Speaker 3:I, that's what we played distilled the other night and I love distilled. But the two times I've played it with four players it's gone three hours and I'm like I do not want to be just playing distilled for three hours, like I do not get enough out of distilled to be playing for that long and I feel like, yeah, two player count is usually a pretty sweet spot for some of these games that are less interactive.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I agree, I love this Till. We played it five players once. Oh, I think it took it took an entire evening.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, yeah, wow, yeah, this this looks awesome. I want, yeah, wow, yeah, this this looks awesome. I want to check this out. I've heard a lot about this one and I I guess I've never really looked into it that closely or I've never seen it in my friendly local game store.
Speaker 3:So obsession, I'm gonna have to check this out yeah, yeah, it's great yeah, I'm hoping, I'm hoping I could lure mary in with the theme on this one, because she's she's dabbled in these type of uh what, what is it? Is it midi? What? What type of era is this called? Like a victorian? I think it's victorian. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, I've seen her poking around netflix about some of these shows, so, yeah, she might.
Speaker 4:She's a fan of bridgerton or downtown. Oh yes, bridgerton, that's the one. Yeah, yeah, this, this is right in there. Yeah, excellent, awesome. She's a fan of Bridgerton or Downton Abbey oh yes, bridgerton, that's the one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is a slot right in there. Excellent.
Speaker 1:Awesome, all right, are we ready to do the mission objective? Let's do it. Yeah, let's fall in. All right. Mission objective today is we're going to talk some solo games. How do you get into them? What makes for a good solo game mechanic? Some recommendations from Bo on games. He's been enjoying solo so.
Speaker 4:Bo, you are our guest of honor today. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into gaming in general. Yeah, like you said, I'm Bo. I do the Punchable Games Instagram that I've been doing since october 21, uh, so I started, uh I've been playing games since probably, I think, 2008, 2009, uh, but the more should we say hobby side of of gaming started in october 21, probably in connection with the pandemic, as I I think a lot of people got more into board games during the pandemic.
Speaker 4:I just looked over the first they call it shelfies. I think that I posted that had five, six games and now I'm up to 120-something games Wow, nice. And I sell a lot of the games that I buy because I don't get to play them all. So it's probably higher if you count all the games I've had to have through. But yeah, I actually got into solo gaming at the same time. You know, pandemic I was living on my own back then. I didn't have a lot of people to play with. Then it sort of took hold of me there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it was born more out of necessity than, like, I'm going to go out and find games that I can play by myself.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I think the way that board gaming hits a lot of people is with this feeling of, oh, board games can be this and I figured playing board games by yourself sounds a little sad. It turned out it was a lot of fun, uh, and there's uh, even games that aren't, you know, made for solo play can actually be played. So I've heard you talk a lot about sky team.
Speaker 2:it has an extra, oh yeah really an unofficial solo yeah yeah, okay, it's a completely different game if you play it solo, but but it's, it's a lot of fun I was gonna ask what was your like gateway game getting you into it solo, but it's a lot of fun. I was going to ask what was your gateway game getting you into board gaming Either solo mode gateway game or how did you get into board gaming back in the 2000s?
Speaker 4:I actually have the very first sort of board. I think it was either Kakasone or Bonanza they came around and entered my collection. And Great Gateway Games. They entered my collections for the same time, I think, and then we took. Have any of you played a game called Last Night on Earth?
Speaker 3:no, no no, it's a sort of zombie apocalypse game.
Speaker 4:Okay, uh, we played a lot of the pc game called left for dead oh, yeah, I figured this.
Speaker 4:This looks like left for dead the board game it's. It's by no means a perfect game, but it's a game that I can't get rid of because it's it just has so many good memories. Uh, the rules are written in a way that everything can be discussed. You sort of play, you sort of divide it into two teams. One team plays as the zombies and the other player plays as the humans. Oh, I like that.
Speaker 4:But the problem is that every card can. There's no language is so ambiguous that you can interpret it so that it means anything. And I remember we had a new guy coming into our gaming group and his first reaction after playing with us was do you always argue this much? So, and yeah, we do. But I think the game that took me from sort of those two to my hobby, gaming, was Wingspan. Actually. Oh nice, I just heard your discussion about the Span series. Oh nice, I agree with you 100%. But I think Wingspan is probably my favorite game. Oh yeah, it holds up. It holds up still. I think Wingspan is probably my favorite game.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. It holds up.
Speaker 4:It holds up still. I think During the pandemic I kind of took up birdwatching as well. Oh cool, I mean Wingspan makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3:But have you taken up dragonwatching yet?
Speaker 4:I haven't, I haven't, I haven't been able to find any Dag on All right, and watching fish is just not the same no a little bit tougher.
Speaker 1:So you got into solo gaming out out of necessity because of the pandemic. Were there any that, like you knew that you wanted to try first? Like you had a couple solo games you had your eye on. Maybe you had a couple games on your shelf that had solo modes like what was that segue like into solo gaming and where'd you start?
Speaker 4:I think I think it started with, as I said, with wingspan, probably. Okay, I found out that it had a solo mode. Uh, I don't don't know if any of you have played wingspan solo. No, yeah, I haven't. The solo mode doesn't get in in your way, it just it's sort of there, uh. And then I got a game called coffee roaster, which is, yes, I have that one that's a great one that's. That's probably my favorite solo game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sunday morning, cup of coffee and coffee roaster perfect and uh, for my, for my co-hosts, you are drawing the little beans out of your bag and putting them on the board.
Speaker 4:Of course, come on now you have to hit the perfect roast for the coffee. That was probably my first solo, only board game.
Speaker 1:It's just a cozy, cozy time. If you had to, if you had to guess how many solo games or solo modes have you played? Total like just ballpark ballpark.
Speaker 4:Uh, I would say two, 150 maybe okay that's a fair amount of solo fun. I don't know if it's 150, maybe only 100, but I played a lot of solo modes. I tend actually to look for games that have solo modes. Yeah, and that was a big thing last. No, the year before last. This one was trick-taking. Okay, and the big theme before that was solo modes. Yeah, because I love to play games and, luckily, my girlfriend does as well. She doesn't love it as much as I do, so I have to play solo, sometimes Same same.
Speaker 4:So if a game has a solo mode, I'm all there for it.
Speaker 1:Excellent. So what type of mechanisms or board game designs make for good solo games?
Speaker 4:I was thinking. You sent me this question and I was thinking about it and I actually kind of landed on a sort of a dodgy dodging sort of answer, because it's sort of the same mechanisms that you enjoy in a multiplayer game. There are some, of course, that wouldn't work auction games, hidden movement games work very poorly, but I think, push your luck. Generally, we talked about Coffee Roaster, pulling the tokens out of the bag.
Speaker 4:Conservas is another conservas yes also pulling stuff from the bag and sort of pushing your luck and uh, uh and yeah, um. And I did a little research what people were saying on the internet and it seems and I agree with this that there's a difference between input and output randomness. It gets a little nerdy now, but input randomness is sort of that. You get, for instance, chits pulled from a bag, a dice, roll cards that are drawn. That's sort of the randomness and then you have to act on that. That often works really well in solo games, I think.
Speaker 1:What's an example of output randomness?
Speaker 4:Output. Randomness would probably be, and I haven't been able to find an example of this, but it would be that you take an action and then you draw a card. Oh okay, so you take an action but don't know what the consequences of that action would be.
Speaker 1:Jared, sorry, go for it.
Speaker 2:No, I was just going to say one of the things I mean going back to feats for odin. I do like the, the single player mode, that one. You essentially are just using the same exact board except for using two different colors of meeples, and so, like you can't, if you go there this round, you can't go there next round.
Speaker 2:So that that is a helpful way to like kind of block the the worker placement type, uh, solo mode games. But also it just makes like you're stringing together your moves like a whole, like a whole lot, like further ahead of time. You're like, do I take this now, or maybe I'll take it next time so I can do it again, or whatever. Um, but like, yeah it's, it's tough to find mechanisms that you, you like or that transfer over.
Speaker 3:I guess maybe I mean maybe, for, yeah, I it sounds like bow and travis are a lot well more well versed than jared and I I mean my extent of solo gaming is like my City Roll and Write and Trailblazers games that take two seconds to set up and like 10 minutes to play is kind of as deep as I can go. I have played out of desperation because it was all the hotness. I wanted to play Ark, nova and Mary and I got halfway through a game and it was like three hours in and I was like, yeah, we're, we're calling it, and so I I learned the solo rules for that and played it by myself a couple of times and it was fine. But I just have found that I yesterday, preparing for this conversation with you, bo, I wanted to impress you and the family was out doing whatever. Kids had a birthday party and I was there by myself and I was like stamp swap has a solo mode, I'm going to learn it.
Speaker 3:And I sat down, I got the box out, started flipping through the solo rules and I was like God, dang it, this seems like it's going to be more than I want it to be. And then I pulled up a YouTube video of someone explaining the solo rules and I was like god dang it, this seems like it's going to be more than I want it to be. And then I pulled up a youtube video of someone explaining the solo rules and 15 minutes later I was packing the box back up. I was like, yeah, can't do it. So I'm sorry, I couldn't impress you with my solo. You impressed me anyway with that nice head. That's right. There you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I feel like a lot of people bounce off of solo modes for that reason, like they start digging into the rules and it becomes too fiddly, or they feel like it's going to be more work than it is enjoyment. So what makes people bounce off games like that and how do they get past that?
Speaker 4:I think for me, the solo games that I bounce off, games like that and how do they get past that. I think for me, the solo games that I bounce off of, or solo modes that I bounce off is, are the ones that have a have a long setup time, because I think if, if I have to spend 20 minutes, half an hour, putting up a solo game, I've lost interest by the time I get to to the actual game. I think what people bounce off of is also that a lot of the reason a lot of things I like about board games is the story of the stories you tell afterwards and you have no one to tell these to. I mean, if I pull off an awesome move in a solo game and go tell my girlfriend, she'll be so, so, so you go, we're here for you, you can tell.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 2:If you have a sweet move, let us know.
Speaker 4:I recorded and sent it to you and the things that I think that it's. You kind of have have to be in the mood for a solo board game, and I'm not. I love playing solo board games, but it's not always that that's what I want. It's a bit hard for me to say what people bounce off of, because I think it's very from person to person, but I would say that the thing says there's two things that make me skip solo mode. That's one, the long setup or teardown time, or the second if there are some games where you just play two handed co-op, so you sort of play two characters, and if I do that I lose interest in at least one of them and I I them. I bounced off of Jaws of the Lion, the Gloomhaven, not the mini but the midi version. Because of that, I can't get into games where I have to play two characters.
Speaker 3:It has to be one, yeah that seems kind of cheap to me. It's just like if you want to play it by yourself, just be two people.
Speaker 4:Just pretend to be two people, yeah.
Speaker 3:Just pretend you're more than one person. It's like, instead of them conforming to you, they're making you conform to a multiplayer game. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4:Does.
Speaker 2:Root have a single-player game, a single-player mode.
Speaker 4:I think so.
Speaker 3:Actually, I think one of the expansions with the robots yeah, they have the clockwork expansions that yeah, they'll give you robots for all the other different factions. I can't imagine many people are doing that by themselves, but it's maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking like this yeah, oh, I was thinking like corvid, like you could be the corvid, and then just you, all the birds go to one spot, oh, ding, ding, ding, uh, and you like just put a bomb right there, boom, and it's like you're playing yourself. You're like, oh, you idiot, you fell into my trap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay yeah, so bo bo, do you tend to enjoy like games that are like designed for solo play, or do you think that you lean more towards multiplayer games that have a solo mode?
Speaker 4:I definitely lean more to, to multiplayer games that has a solo mode, really, especially because, especially because that way I get more, it feels like I'm getting more bang for my buck. Yeah, that's fair In both. But when it sort of became popular to develop solo modes, all games had to have them, and it's not necessarily all games that are good solo. Yeah, over my left shoulder, this Fractured Sky Fantastic game to play multiplayer. It doesn't work with any less than three players, so they have a solo mode, but it's basically me playing against two made-up opponents, me playing against two made-up opponents, yeah, so there's a lot of. It has a lot of ups and downs, these solo modes.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Some are great, some are less great. I think Expeditions, the Scythe, oh yeah. Follow-up, yeah, has a great solo mode Distilled actually does as well. I'm not just naming games from my shield now, but yeah, I think if a game can be played more ways and it works in all the ways, I think that's probably for the best.
Speaker 1:If people have never played a game solo before or they're new to the gaming hobby, can you make a couple of quick recommendations on games that you would recommend to play solo?
Speaker 4:I would definitely recommend coffee roaster. Okay and um, a game called under falling skies yeah, I love that game shake games. Yeah, that's, that's great and it's it's quick to set up. The rules are not that complicated.
Speaker 1:It's like Space Invader, the board game. Yeah, exactly, some dice rolling. It's awesome.
Speaker 4:And when you place a dice that plays a die, it dies. When it's in good, that spaceship moves down and then you have to protect your base. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, that one's great. Um, and actually if, if people are playing, if we're talking to hobby gamers that are playing hobby games already, I would say take one of the games that you know already and try out their solo modes, because if you have to learn a new game and learn the game, solo mode, that adds another level of complexity.
Speaker 1:That's you, more often than not, don't, don't need yeah, and I think, like you, like you said, like I have a lot of games that have solo modes and I'll pull them off the shelves just because either I love the game and I don't get it played all that often or it kind of makes me feel like I get a little more bang for my buck because I can invest in these games like, oh, at least it has a solo mode and it might not get played any any more than typical, but uh, yeah, it makes me feel a little better about myself yeah, I actually heard a guy once.
Speaker 4:He had the whole, the whole argument that collecting board games and playing board games is two different hobbies. Um, but he said that if you have a board game on your shelf that you haven't played yet, technically you have a perfect board game sitting on your shelf. So I kind of think that applies to solo modes as well, I have a lot of perfect solo games sitting behind me Love it.
Speaker 1:Well, before we wrap up this conversation, you guys got anything with. You guys got any questions for Beau?
Speaker 3:anything with uh. You guys got any questions for bo? I just I'm glad you came on and after my failure yesterday with stamp swap, I am feeling more invigorated and ready to dive into a solo game. I'm gonna have to check out under falling skies because I have looked at that before and I was like, will I do it? But you know now that it's been talked about on our podcast and you've given it such a high recommendation, I think I'm going to try it out.
Speaker 4:It plays something like it plays in something like 20 minutes as well, so you won't be sitting, that's perfect it's like, uh, it's like worker placement, but with dice.
Speaker 1:So you roll a bunch of dice and then you're placing the dice down below in the subsurface base that earn you different bonuses and you're powering up your base and you're digging out new areas with this little construction tractor-looking thing and then it's moving the spaceships down to attack. It's pretty awesome. It's got some good replayability too, because there, because there's different cities, I guess that you can play as like aliens are invading all over earth and you can play as like los angeles and melbourne and whatever, and they've got like different setups and different, you know bases that you're building out and it has a campaign as well yes, it does.
Speaker 3:I had one more question for bow, kind of off topic, but I see some of the newest hotness up there on your shelf. Seti, yeah, give me a hot take. What do you like, is it good?
Speaker 4:I absolutely love it. Okay, it looks a lot more intimidating than it is. We sat down and I looked at some videos and read the rules and I figured this is going to take us all night and it didn't. Actually, it looks complicated and it is. It's not a simple game by any means, but once you get the hang of it it kind of flows really well. It has a bit of a sort of Lost Ruins of Aranac kind of feeling.
Speaker 3:I know, when I saw this come out I was like Jared's going to lose his crap if he ever gets a hold of this game.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm listening.
Speaker 4:It has the mostly used cards and you can only choose one action each round and it sort of has, you know, different tracks and it has a lot of. I saw someone describe it as the best of the Eurogames, just all meshed into one.
Speaker 1:I love it. Okay, beau, we're going to keep you around for the Over the Fence and you can tell us what you've been doing outside of board gaming. But before we end this conversation, why don't you give us a plug for anything you've been working on, anything you want people to go check out?
Speaker 4:uh, first of all, I would love if people checked out my my instagram page punchable games uh, that's where I spend most of my time, uh, my time, so you'll probably uh be able to reach me there, and I always like it when, when people say hi, so please do. Uh, I have some projects coming. I'm starting a blog, maybe a YouTube channel. Yeah, let's see but, like you said in the intro, I'm also having a kid in a little while, so I may be AFK for a while, but yeah, I'll be back.
Speaker 1:Busy times ahead. Yeah, go check out Punchable Games. He puts out awesome content, always has fresh takes, does great reviews and super fun to follow. So, yeah, thank you, bo, and you'll find the link in the description. Yes, link in the description. Link in the show notes. So are we ready to go over the fence, guys? Let's head over, clayton. Tell me what you've been doing outside of board gaming, clayton tell me what you've been doing outside of board gaming.
Speaker 3:So Since we're now esteemed YouTubers, I Was drawn to this Max Documentary about this Vlogging family that.
Speaker 2:No way you're taking my over the fence right now.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, do you want to go ahead?
Speaker 2:No, I don't know. I don't remember her name, or anything.
Speaker 3:Her name is Micah Stauffer Stauffer and they were a couple and they started like doing these family vlogs and they got really popular and then they decided to adopt a child from China. I don't exactly know what happens, but from the trailer it seems like they adopted this kid and like we're kind of using him as like the star of the show to get a bunch of views and all these like click baity things about oh, look look at her adoption from China. And then they just stopped posting about him and nobody really knows what happened to this kid. They suspect they might've sent him back, so I don't know. There's only two episodes out right now. I've watched them both. It's pretty interesting and just like the whole YouTube vlogging world is kind of interesting to me now the amount of followers that people get doing this stuff. But it's an interesting little documentary. If you have Macs and want to check it out, jared, would you like to uh tag onto my over the fence?
Speaker 2:well, clay, whatever you do, don't don't google her name because it'll spoil the uh documentary. But she, like this was. It was like, yeah, it was really good. I haven't been on mac, like I haven't looked on max in a long time and adrie's like last night she's like, oh, we should watch a watch a show. I'm like what's on hbo? Like we haven't. We haven't looked on that one in a long time. But it like very much gives me the uh mormon influencer vibes of like let me exploit my children for clicks and uh, get money off of. Like let me exploit my children for clicks and get money off of affiliate links and the worst one was like.
Speaker 2:I can now reconnect with this adopted child because of thanks to deft laundry detergent. I was like yeah, this is gross.
Speaker 2:But, that's just the tip of the iceberg for some people, which I mean that's fine and people really like that content, like for whatever reason. But oh man, but I was going to say if we really want to take off, you might need to get pregnant. That's a thing If you get pregnant or adopt a child, that's a thing If you get pregnant or adopt a child. So O Operation Game Night collectively. If we adopt a child, we might get more views.
Speaker 3:Well, Jared, didn't you have a failed vasectomy recently?
Speaker 2:Oh my god, adri would probably kill me if I got her pregnant.
Speaker 1:Oh my god Alright every.
Speaker 2:Operation.
Speaker 3:Game.
Speaker 2:Night, we'll give you an update on how my vasectomy is going.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, bo, save us. What have you been doing outside of board gaming?
Speaker 4:Preparing for the baby. It's probably a boring answer. I've been working quite a lot because you know I can be off on leave in from now until the next two weeks, so I kind of have to have a clear, an empty mailbox. That's a bit hard for me. So it's been a lot of working, a lot of preparing for the baby, installing baby seats in the car, that sort of thing. First, a hot tip.
Speaker 3:Got a lot of opinions on babies. Here I'll go first. What's the parental leave like in Denmark?
Speaker 4:I get two weeks after the baby has been born, and my girlfriend has been on maternity leave since the beginning of December. She has, I think, until August and then I get 11 weeks paid off. Oh, wow, awesome. And then we're paying for a month extra. That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Good for you guys. Is it your first baby? Yeah, it is. Here's a hot tip Make sure that the bags are packed before the water breaks, because I was throwing things in a bag in the middle of the night and we just about had our kid on the Autobahn.
Speaker 4:We have bags packed and actually we have a list that says list with everything that we need to bring that hasn't been packed yet and where it is. So I know where to go when we have to pack. Beautiful. I have a very structured girlfriend. That's an advantage when you're like me.
Speaker 1:Where do you work?
Speaker 2:at I was going to ask where you work. Where do you work or what do you do?
Speaker 4:I do communications for a small Danish municipality. That would be the equivalent of your counties. I would expect Communications for a small Danish municipality Nice that would be the equivalent of your counties. I would expect. Okay, we're sort of two people who handle all communications for the municipality. It's 24,000 people that we need to communicate to, so we have a lot to do.
Speaker 2:What's the primary means of communication?
Speaker 4:to do and then, yeah, it's the primary means of communication. Uh, it's uh facebook actually, and we have a newsletter coming out. Yeah, uh, the facebook thing has not exploded over here as yet, but, uh, we'll have to look at it if it does tiktok, are you doing dances? We should. No, actually, all Danish public employees have been told not to have TikTok on their work phones. Interesting so no, we're not doing a policy TikTok. We have been asked to several times.
Speaker 2:This isn't a political podcast, so we won't get into any of that.
Speaker 1:So I expect the next newsletter to go out. We'll have a blurb about Operation Game Night and how everybody okay, awesome, good. Well, congrats on your new baby. I hope everything goes well. Keep us posted. We're rooting for you. Thank you, I'm going to go over the fence real quick and tell you about a rabbit hole that I fell down and it's not really a rabbit hole, but I'm. I'm in trouble, your boy's in trouble, because, uh, I found out that the game balatro is available on your phone. I'm calling it right now.
Speaker 1:This is a game. It's a video game that was developed that will be remade into a physical board game someday. I'm calling it. Mark the date 26 january 1809, local, 1709 zulu.
Speaker 1:Okay, this game is based on poker hands that you are playing against a blind, okay, so you go to these different levels and it's like kind of run based. So you are dealt a bunch of cards, right, it's a typical 52 card deck and each level is a different blind or like a score that you have to beat, and you do that by playing poker hands out of your you know 10 card hand that you're dealt, and then, as you go along, you unlock these jokers and these jokers will do different things to your score. So, like it'll say, you score a different, like a three times multiplier for every heart that is played in your hand, or you get 10 bonus points for every face card that's dealt or whatever. And as you play more and more, you unlock these new jokers, you unlock these new decks that give you special abilities, and it has like the same effect as like playing poker basically, and then between between levels, you can like open up these packs of like tarot cards and these cards that will like improve your score and do all these things, and it's a serious problem.
Speaker 1:I need to probably get rid of this on my phone. I had played it before on like um on the computer and on my steam deck um, but now that it's available on phones, it's a serious problem because it's basically just playing poker on your phone. It's no, it's not real money or anything, but I'm telling you right now, this indie game is going to be remade into a physical board game someday in the future. Should we just do it a while?
Speaker 3:Should we what? Should we just do it a while? Is it time to start a publishing arm of Operation Game Night?
Speaker 1:I'm telling you, if you could get the rights to this game and make it into a physical board game, you would make a ton of money and it's great. So that is Bellatro, and it's available everywhere right now.
Speaker 2:So hop on in if you're interested. Nice, all right, did we do it I?
Speaker 1:think we did it. That's a wrap, awesome, beau. Thank you again for joining us. Thanks, that's a wrap, awesome bo. Thank you again for joining us. Thanks for having me for operation game night. I have been travis, he has been clay, he has been jared, he has been bo and we're out check out christy medals you.
