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 29: Rummathon Royale, Five Tribes, & Card Games Built to Last
A fresh perspective on classic card games emerges as we discuss timeless favorites like Rummy and their modern adaptations. We dive into the creative process behind Rumathon Royale, exploring how nostalgia meets innovation.
• Reflection on classic card games’ enduring appeal
• Introduction and insights from game designer Bryce
• Overview of Rumathon Royale and its unique features
• Discussing the elements that make card games last
• Personal anecdotes and reflections on playing classic games
• Expectations for the game’s Kickstarter launch
• Emphasis on the social connection built through card games
Find out more about Rumathon Royale and stay tuned for its Kickstarter launch this summer!
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!
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Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. Oh my God, I just stole the God powers away from you. Welcome to the operation Game Night Podcast. What the hell was that Travis.
Speaker 2:Every week I come in here and I hit the start record button and then, out of nowhere, Clay leaves for one week, and I mean there can only be one Highlander and you left for a week and I took over and now I'm on the ones and twos.
Speaker 3:I think this is how the Roman Empire collapsed.
Speaker 1:Which we think about daily here at the Operation Game Night podcast. Welcome to episode 29 of the Operation Game Night podcast. I'm your host, travis Smith, joining us. Special honored guest Hall of Famer Clayton Gable. You're talking about me, oh, bryce. I know I was swerving on you. What's up?
Speaker 2:Clay, how are you doing? I'm doing good. I'm excited about our even more special guest probably a Hall of Famer in something. We got Bryce here from Romathon Royale, so it's going to be an awesome episode. We're gonna talk about classic card games. I'm kind of stealing your thunder now. Travis is the host, since you took my wow under the ones and twos guys so all right bryce your turn.
Speaker 4:You want to be, you want to be a host, bryce uh, sure, thank you guys for having us, or having me, on today. I'm looking forward to getting into, you know, classic card games, as well as tell you a little bit more about Run With Thumb Rail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really excited about it. Joining us is not a Hall of Famer, just a regular average Joe, Jared Erickson. How are you doing, Jared?
Speaker 3:Absolutely fabulous. I would hope that someday I could be like Hall of Fame in like some eating competition, something like that.
Speaker 1:But, I have a lot of what food would you be a Hall of Famer in if you're an eating competition Hall of Famer?
Speaker 3:I think maybe pie, pie. Yeah, I have won a pie eating competition once, pie eating competition once. I've won one competition where you had to find a piece of bubble gum in a pie tin of whipped cream before. Okay, um, but I don't think there's any hall of fames for that.
Speaker 1:so we're learning a lot of interesting facts. You have six fingers on your hands. You won a pie eating contest.
Speaker 3:This is great, let's keep it going but I want to know are we going to find out more about b? Where are you coming from? Where are you sitting right now in this country?
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm in Los Angeles California.
Speaker 3:Nice when at in. La.
Speaker 4:Porter Ranch.
Speaker 3:Porter Ranch. Okay, I know this much about LA. I know where Gabriel lived. Where did he live? Hermosa Beach, right? Is that where our buddy Gabe Redondo Beach?
Speaker 1:Bryce has no reference or like no knowledge of who Gabe is or where he lives.
Speaker 2:Did you know, gabe? He lived in LA once.
Speaker 1:Yeah, gabe. Oh, you live in LA. You must know, gabe. All right, that's enough of that. Today we're talking classic card games. We're going to debrief our weeks. We'll talk about why classic card games are built to last, what makes them great and unique twists on classic card games that are now springing up and Bryce has a game that he has designed that is a twist on a classic card game that we are loving and then we are going to go over the fence and talk about what we've been doing outside of board gaming. So, bryce, do you want to go first? You want to talk about your game and what you've been playing this week uh, sure, I would love to introduce you guys to rumathon royale.
Speaker 4:So, basically, rumathon royale takes the basics of rummy and then it like amps it up to like a 10. So what we did is we introduced strategic um chaos, so to speak, by adding special action cards into, like classical rummy. We also introduced us asymmetrical roll cards, so the game starts with everyone receiving a unique roll card, you know, allowing them to complete different runs and set combinations through a race. We got the name rumathon from rummy plus marathon um, and that's kind of like what it is.
Speaker 4:I feel like the game will appeal to like strategists, you know people who love to like plan ahead, but then also like party gamers, people who love a little bit of chaos, things that are a little bit unpredictable, risk takers, because we have like this element of declare a run with on Royale and you can like go for the high stakes and, you know, pass multiple rounds really quickly. We also have things that might appeal to like, you know, the classic Rummy lover, you know, just being the core foundation of the game, and then that's pretty much it in a nutshell nice clay had a chance to try this game out.
Speaker 1:Clay, what'd you think?
Speaker 2:yeah, I I mean, it's been a while since I played a rummy style game, like, like we'll get into. I don't want to, you know, delve too far down the rabbit hole of classic card games, but these were the type of games I grew up playing all the time and then when I started getting into board games, you know, I I kind of left some of that in the past and when I got the chance to play romathon royale, I remembered how much I love these type of games. Like there's something so satisfying about trying to create a run or a set and you know, drawing that card off the top and being able to add it and then put it down and then being able to play on other people's piles, and I think what you added with rumathon royale was a lot of cool stuff like that. That ability to push your luck and you know, spend points, you have to be able to draw more cards and potentially be able to complete multiple rounds before another player can complete one round is super interesting and I really am looking forward to playing it more. And also like the action cards you added with the block where you can stop people from being able to play on your stuff.
Speaker 2:That was kind of annoying. I played with my son and he put the block card out in front of him and so I'm sitting there and I keep drawing cards that I would be able to play on his stuff, but he's got his block card out. Prevent me from doing that. So that was another fun twist and even like the take that he stuff didn't feel too bad like a sabotage card.
Speaker 2:Sure, you got to give up your wild card, your flex cards, which are basically wild cards, but then they end up getting shuffled back into the deck. So you're probably gonna, you know, draw those again at some point. So it's not too punishing really. But yeah, I, I thought it was super cool and that what the asymmetric round goals that was something I haven't seen before. Where, you know, on my round one is was a run of nine and then like a set of three and Mason was over there. He had to get like three sets of two and a run of three. So it was cool seeing those different round goals and and they equal out over the course of the game. But yeah, I, I enjoyed playing this game and I'm looking forward to playing it some more.
Speaker 3:Are the starter cards? Are they randomized? Because I did like that. Yeah, people starting with different objectives, I like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so they're all random. So you have the six roll cards for each player and they're completely random. Throughout we tried to keep it a little bit balanced, but for the most part, like you said, everyone's going to end up playing the the same sequences, and so yeah I loved it.
Speaker 1:What? At what point did you decide to add the like take that mechanic or the? You know these different asymmetric player goals or anything like that that. I feel like that stuff comes along like later in the development process. You're like you know these different asymmetric player goals or anything like that. I feel like that stuff comes along like later in the development process. You're like you know how can we switch up Rummy and what makes it different? And then you start to add and add. That stuff seems like it comes later on. But what made you, like, spark that idea?
Speaker 4:No, I think that's a great question. So the first was you know, how do I make this game a little bit more competitive and edgy with a little bit more to take that on? I instantly came up with this sabotage card. I thought that would be like a really cool way for people who love to use like wild cards to get ahead, to kind of like balance them back out, you know, with the rest of the players. So that was the first one that came into play.
Speaker 4:And then, with classic set collecting, I thought maybe if we can block players from adding so that it makes it a little bit harder for them to go out, that might be like a cool, you know action to throw into the game. And then I'm trying to think from there which one came next. So we have the sabotage to the block. And then I was like a burden. A burden should be something that's like dreaded, like it's like, oh my God, I don't want this part. A burden should be something that's like dreaded, like it's like, oh my god, I don't want this card. Um, so burden.
Speaker 4:Then I was like if you got one burden, might as well double it up and do a double burden. So we have the two um burden cards, we have the block, we have the sabotage, we have the flex card which acts as a wild what, like a wild card of the deck, and then we have a bypass card which is just like your classic skip, skip a player, which I thought could be good. If someone's like taking the lead and you want to, like, you know, skip them. It could be a good mechanic to have. So that's kind of how the five developed. They all kind of happened over, maybe like two or three different game plays and testing it out, so it wasn't like far and that we were like, oh, I need another card. They came pretty quick yeah, I really like.
Speaker 2:I really like the burden card too, because when I first, when I was first reading the rule book, I was like, oh, this sucks, come on, somebody's just gonna give me a burden card and I have to just deal with that. But then the fact that you add on that if you complete that burden card, you get an extra 50 points, it's like, oh okay, so someone's actually taking a risk if they give me a burden card, that if somehow I do get complete this now. Now they've just given me more points essentially. So I thought that was a nice balancing mechanism there that, you know, made it not just a negative all the time to get a burden card.
Speaker 4:Yeah, for sure. And then being able to trade the points that you collect, get more cards, so you can kind of plan in the future for rounds that might be a little bit more tricky. Like you said, the run of nine. Sometimes it's hard to get nine cards, so being able to use your points in order to get more cards kind of helps and also makes it a little bit more interesting too yeah, that's great, and so tell us about when this game is coming out, when it's launching on kickstarter.
Speaker 1:Tell us about the future plans of Remathon Royale. Why don't you lay out your roadmap for us?
Speaker 4:Okay. So we're planning on launching it on Kickstarter this summer. We haven't officially released the date yet, but for sure this summer and I mean for now we're just trying to build the following for it. So we sent out the game to maybe over 300 content creators and reviewers worldwide to get their feedback. We had a few things in which we tweaked regarding the game in terms of display, just to make the overall game experience a little bit more enjoyable. So we have all our finished enhancements, I guess you would say, added into the final version, and now we're just starting to amp up our community so that when we do launch, we can launch really well.
Speaker 4:We partnered up with LaunchBoom, which has been really helpful and just guiding us through the process, and we're just trying to have fun with it. We have really fun silly content on our page with a lot of reels and just trying to bring the energy to what the game is. The game is a lot of take that, but it's also about the spirit of interacting with each other. The whole concept of how I got into creating Rumathon Royale is because I wanted to take it back to my childhood memories of growing up playing rummy with my family and my grandparents, my uncles and brothers and stuff and bring that to the generation today. You know who doesn't seem to play card games as frequently, but I had to appeal to them. So that's where that whole special action cards, the asymmetrical roll cards, you know, the take back mechanisms really come and shine and it's been received really nicely, like playing over the holidays. We had like several generations playing and everyone felt like they had a place. So it's been it's been good.
Speaker 1:That's great. That's like that's part of the best. That's one of the best parts of classic card games like that is, people can pick it up at any age and play, and we'll talk a little bit about classic card games later on, and we'll talk a little bit about classic card games later on. So, yeah, look for Rumathon Royale on Kickstarter coming this summer. Thanks, bryce, for sharing. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, love it.
Speaker 3:Before we move on, I just want to say I love the box. We at Operation Game Night love small boxes. Does it have a little magnet on there? I don't know, I didn't get a copy.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean it just looks so snap.
Speaker 3:Oh, you hear that. Okay, my only feedback is another thing that us on operation game night like is baggies, big baggy fans. But it's a guard, it's a card game, so I understand there's no real baggy play here, um, but if you, if you want to, in a future version, maybe somehow incorporate a bag, we're here for it so awesome.
Speaker 1:So the entire box in the bag, yeah you're set. Yes, yeah, all right, clay, are you going to debrief your week for us?
Speaker 2:let let's do it. Okay. So five tribes. This game came out in 2014, designed by Bruno Cathala and published by days of wonder.
Speaker 2:I've heard about this game many, many years and it's always been intriguing to me, because people talk about the Mancala mechanism of it all and that's just not something. Another classic type of game, not a card game, but Mancala is a classic game that not many board games have iterated on at least that I've played, and this was about that, and Mary always liked Mancala and she talks about it all the time. She plays like you know, little dinosaur Mancala with the kids sometimes. So I saw this and I was like maybe this is an opportunity to pitch a game to Mary that she might want to play with me, since I know she likes Mancala. So I got it and we've played it twice now at two players and it is super interesting. It is like nothing I've played before, like it has a lot of you know, similar euro mechanisms where you're just scoring points for different things. But the gameplay feels so interesting and I don't know that it's perfect. I I'll talk about it a little more later. There's some, there's some warts to it, but it it is so novel to me the way it all plays out.
Speaker 2:So, essentially, you have these 30 tiles spread across the board not spread across the board, they are the board. You set out these 30 tiles. They have different point values and they have different actions on them. And at the beginning of the game there's three meeples on every tile, randomly assigned, and there's five different colors of meeples yellow, blue, red, white, green and so on your turn, you pick a tile and you take all the meeples off that tile and you have to draw them on the distant tiles until you get to the final tile. And the main rule is that on that final tile, the meeple that you have left has to match the color of one of the meeples that are on that tile you're dropping onto. So if the last one in my hands are green, there has to be some greens on the tile that I'm dropping on. And then you take all the greens that are on that tile off the tile, including the one you dropped.
Speaker 2:So two things happen every time you take your turn. One, you get to activate the ability of the color meeple that you dropped off. So greens, let you buy these resource cards where you're trying to collect sets of different resource cards. So at the end of the game, if you have seven different of these resources, you get a bunch of points. Reds let you assassinate. Another meeple on a different square or a meeple that's in front of somebody else, another meeple on a different square or a meeple that's in front of somebody else. Yellows are worth points at the end, but if you have the most yellow meeples you get an extra 10 points.
Speaker 2:Blues are builders, and so you look at all the tiles around the tile you just pulled up from and every tile that has blue in the corner. You multiply that by the amount of blue meeples you took off the thing. It sounds kind of complicated but it's really not. After you do a couple times. And then the uh white ones are used to buy these genies that give you, like, ongoing ability throughout the game and they're also worth points at the end.
Speaker 2:So you take your meeple action, which sometimes is nothing, sometimes it's getting cards etc. And then you take the action of the tile that you landed on. So you know some of these. They like add a palm tree to the tile, which essentially just makes that tile worth more points at the end. Add a palace to it. A palace is worth more points in the palm tree, and then the other spots are purchasing resource cards from the market, so you can do that at some of them.
Speaker 2:And then the last thing you can do, based on a tile, is buy those genie cards if you have the white meeples in front of you. So every turn you're picking up meeples, you're dropping them off and then you're taking the action of your last meeple and you're taking the action of the tile that you landed on. And if you land on a tile and you are able to clear all the meeples off of it. So if there was like one red on a tile and you landed on that with a red, you would take all the red meeples off the tile and now it's empty and then you can claim that tile with one of your camels and then you score points for that tile at the end of the game. So there's so much to consider on every turn. It is brain-burning and not something I would normally like.
Speaker 3:But it's just so. Sorry, I'm a little lost right now. I said a lot of stuff. The person that you are playing, you are a camel and you are a certain color camel. The people, the meeplesples, are just agnostic. Yeah they're just pawns in this terrible uh desert ponzi scheme yes, yeah, we are.
Speaker 2:We are playing as camels. I I wish I knew the actual theme. I don't know that. They say that you're a camel, okay, but you do have colored camels in front of you and that's how you claim the different tiles got it.
Speaker 2:I'm tracking now yeah, but the meeples out there, anybody can grab them, anybody can move them around. It's like on your turn at the beginning of the game, when you have what? Three times 30, you got 90 meeples out there and you're you're like, oh my god, where do I pick from? So you just have to be like okay, right now I just want to like land on a green, a spot with a green meeple, so I can get some resources, and that's like all you can think about because it's overwhelming.
Speaker 2:But as the meeple start disappearing and you start to see these opportunities where it's like, ooh, there's a single yellow meeple over there. I could claim that tile if I can figure out a way to grab this stack of meeples here and meander my way over to it and land with a yellow meeple. So you start to see these like interesting tactical decisions pop up where you can, you know, make these cool moves and you know, claim these tiles. And yeah, it's a cool game and Mary really liked it. Yeah, it's a cool game and Mary really liked it. She wouldn't tell you that, but she did willingly play it a second time in the same week. So that's equivalent to a Rachel Run it Back award, a Mary Run it Back.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:It seemed more complicated than it would be at first, but really you know it's got a nice player aid that pretty much lays out all the rules. But really you know it's got a nice player aid that pretty much lays out all the rules. So, like once you know what the five meeple colors do and you know what there's like three different things that happen on the action tiles, when you know that it's a pretty simple game to get into and super tactical Like I, if you play with people that have trouble making decisions this could be an exhausting game to play because you can't really plan for your turn because everything that happens changes the board state so much in between your turn Like somebody grabs a stack of six meeples and starts dripping them all over the board, you now have like a whole different thing to consider. So you have to kind of like on your turn, be able to assess the board and like make a tactical decision about what's going to be the right move at this time. And I really like that tactical gameplay. So I enjoyed this a lot.
Speaker 2:There's one other interesting part of this there's a turn order track, so at the beginning of each round you can bid with your points to like try and go earlier or later in the round. So if you like see an opportunity where it's, you know there's a meeple on a tile you really want to claim, you could spend up to 15 of your points to ensure you go first. Or you could spend five and hope that nobody else is that motivated to take the lead from you. So that's an interesting twist. I don't know that.
Speaker 2:Two players, it was because at two players each round you each take two actions, so you're bidding twice. But I think at three and four maybe it's a more interesting decision because you only do get one action that round. But yeah, five Tribes. This game has been around a while and it has been talked about ad nauseum by people as being a super interesting fun game and I can attest to the fact that I'm glad I have it because I don't have anything like this, and it's been a lot of fun. We played it two players in like just under an hour both times.
Speaker 1:So and this, this game made the cut to be kept through the move Correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mary wasn't a fan of the shape of these.
Speaker 3:Ah, interesting, I don't know why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't know what she's talking about, but yeah, there's obviously Persian palaces.
Speaker 1:But yeah, some people Awesome, that sounds rad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a cool game. Yeah, it's good to get into an older one. You know, sometimes you overlook the older stuff and you know as, although it's not as old as R rummy, it is an older in the board game sphere. You know, 10 years old man, that's ancient times excellent jared deep review week for me well this week, not necessarily as classic as uh, what is it?
Speaker 3:manjula? Um, I'm sorry, mancala, mancala. Yeah, five tribes or card games. I mean I will be talking about Terraforming Mars. I'm sure Clay and Travis noticed I sent them a little board game arena request to please play with me, because the guy that sits next to me in class he's like hey, have you ever heard of terraforming Mars? And I'm like, yeah, I have, and I'm interested in it and I need to get smart on it so that I can play with him. Okay, all that to say, terraforming Mars, here we go. We're a resource gathering. We are building engines, tons of resources here to keep track of.
Speaker 3:I am going to butcher the trying to describe this game, but you're essentially trying to take these corporations from planet Earth to Mars and you're trying to build our world over there so that people can live there. You're trying to put plant life, you're trying to put oceans, you're trying to put cities, and all the while, they need power, they need the oxygen level to rise and they also need the heat. They need it to be somewhat livable. So, as you're competing with your fellow players, I think this game plays one to five. I don't know how crazy the single player version of it is, but I love the mechanism that you are kind of working together but you could be essentially backstabbing each other because you can play these cards that help build your engine that either help you maybe make more power or you make more money, or maybe you make less money and so there's opportunity loss, but you're gaining some other ability so that you can maybe put down more greenery, get more points, as you can tell on this beautiful screen that Clay's got up for us.
Speaker 3:Your point tracker is around the outside, but certain cards can't be played unless certain conditions are created. So you need to either have more oceans out or more cities, or maybe the oxygen level needs to be high enough to actually plant these cards or these types of greeneries. So I think it's pretty on point. Like you know, you're not going to put little I don't know fish into the ocean until there's ocean, or you're not going to actually have succulents growing aloe plants unless there's oxygen. So I love that aspect of it. I like the idea that you can kind of backstab people Not maybe backstab, but you can play a card where it's like you can take people's resources or you need to be able to spend three resources to play this card, but it doesn't have to be your resources, so you could go over to Clay's table and go. Thank you and steal it. Pretty rude Jared.
Speaker 1:I think I already did that once in our digital game.
Speaker 3:So well, it's tough on the digital game, because I don't know when you did it, cause I don't understand fully what's happening yet. Yeah, so you just keep that stabbing me as much as you can. The best part of this experience with my next door well, my next door neighbor, the guy that sits next to me in school, is at my library. At the school, they have Terraforming Mars, nice. So I will be getting terraforming mars from my local military library and playing with my, my buddy, um and uh. Who knows, maybe, maybe it'll make it to my, my, uh, my shelf, but I don't think so. But anyways, that's uh, terraforming mars. Uh, shout out. I mean, it's been around for a couple years, I think. Jacob frilix, published by frilix games 2016.
Speaker 2:Stronghold games, anyways man, freaking, terraforming mars exhausts me. This game, I, I love, I love. Like what's going on in the theme. This is like hard science, like chariot said. You know it's uh exactly how we are going to terraform mars from a scientific basis, but just the like the amount of card reading and like having to understand what the cards do, it's just exhausting to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I just wish it was a little simpler well, the guy, the guy that wants to play it, that's with me. He's a, he's a six. Two, he's a developmental engineer. Dude is wicked smart, beyond he's beyond smart. I think he's gonna kick my ass when we actually do play. But uh, it's right up his alley. Um, but yeah, there's a lot going on. I'll say that awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good one. It's also, yeah, very cognitively draining. You just like play. I need a nap afterwards. It's tough, man. Uh, what else you got jared anything uh, that's, that's it, that's okay I played a whole bunch of games digitally.
Speaker 1:I am loving Architects of Amethyst, which just hit BGA, as briefed to us by Paul Solomon. Loving that one. It's like a tic-tac-toe meets city builder on a little player mat. Loving that one. I played the Jest of Robin Hood digitally Hidden movement game where you play as either Robin Hood or the Sheriff of Nottingham and you're moving around. I played as Robin Hood in the one time that I played it, but you're moving your merry men around secretly to incite revolts at these different districts within Nottingham or Sherwood Forest. You're trying to hide Robin Hood from the Sheriff. You're trying to rob and give and you know the classic Robin Hood tale. Loving that one. But the one that I got played this week in person was Skyrise. Skyrise, published in 2024 by Roxley Games, designed by Gavin Brown, and artist is Andrew Bosley. So, clay, help me out. When you played this, were your buildings like the super fancy, deluxe building-looking buildings or are they big, chunky blocks of plastic?
Speaker 2:No, I'm a basic boy. I got the basic woodies.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I have the limited edition version of this, of course, you do, and man it is so freaking.
Speaker 1:Oh, it is so freaking beautiful. Everything has its own little special holder in the box itself. You pull these things out. The floating city that you're building is on these big platforms that float up above the player mat. Yes, look at those things Beautiful. Then you have these unique buildings that all are different from one. Um, yes, look at those things Beautiful. Then you have these unique, uh, buildings that are that all are different from one another, and the different shapes and values. Yes, okay, hold that right there. So hold it, hold it.
Speaker 1:I played this two player, which I got inspiration from uh, was it tanko, yeah, on Instagram. Uh, uh, who is coming to be a guest later on. But this game is great at two players. So what this game is is like a bidding auction game, where you are trying to build out this floating city to earn different bonuses and resources to earn points. In the end game. You have secret player cards, goals there's community goals, goals, there's community goals, and what you do is somebody starts off the auction by placing one of their buildings into a district. The districts are the different groups of small colored sections on these boards. Then the next player around the table will place a higher number building in an adjacent district and then the player since we played two player the other player goes and places a higher value in the following district, in the next, in the next, in the next, until somebody passes and then the last building to be placed in that bidding back and forth gets flipped over and stays in that district. All the other buildings come off and they go back to the person. The person that gets a kept, that got to keep their building out there, gets to take the resource chip that was on the district and place it either on their player board or on their character card and at the end of the game, the, the buildings that you're placing in these different districts will earn you bonus points. You can earn bonus points for runs, like, if I have three of my buildings next to each other in adjacent districts, I can earn a bonus. If I control the islands with the tallest buildings, I can earn bonus points. But basically you score all of your bonus points at the end of these two eras.
Speaker 1:Era one you are just using these like kind of lower number buildings. When you start era two, you get what are called wonders, and these wonders are these big buildings that are unique from one another. They are beautiful, um, and they have unique player powers that you can assign to these wonders. And so you get a couple of different wonder cards to choose from and, depending on what your strategy is going forward, you can select that wonder card to represent what your wonder will do when it is placed. It's a unique looking building. It doesn't play like the other ones. On the bottom, instead of a number that you would typically bid in these auctions, it's got a W on it and it just kind of trumps everything else any other number that is placed during the auction. And so once, uh, both players have placed all of their buildings, era two is over and you do the end game scoring. Whoever has the most amount of player points wins.
Speaker 1:This game's awesome. I I really enjoyed it. I mean, I've never played it three or four players, but even two players, like this kind of back and forth quick auction style where you're building out this floating city. I mean, it's a cool theme. The buildings are super nice, the components are super nice. I have a limited edition, so take that for what it's worth, but yeah, I just love how quick and snappy it is and I can see when you play with like three or four players, that auction becomes really tense and you can actually like direct which direction the auction goes. So, like you know, if I'm bidding next and maybe somebody wants to go towards this one specific resource that they need, I can bid in the opposite direction and force them to go kind of around. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's basically like an auction.
Speaker 1:It's like directionally. Yeah, it's like, uh, it's an auction that takes a physical shape as you kind of snake your auction around the board yeah.
Speaker 2:So like, right here you got. Somebody went out here with the 32, yeah, and this light blue player played a 61 in that adjacent region, and then the purple player was like, oh hell, no, I'm playing the 91 in this yellow spot, and then yellow comes back. They only wanted to play a 32, but now here they are with a 114. They must have really liked that little green patch of land over there, yeah, and they probably won that but then.
Speaker 3:But then they were in a hole there because there's nowhere else for them to go right. Yes, that's right is? Is that true, as?
Speaker 1:well.
Speaker 2:So that's an auto win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can basically like carve off these areas where, like, if there's one standalone district, if somebody puts something there and they can't build off of it, it's an auto win.
Speaker 2:That is not an auto win, though, because technically this one here is adjacent.
Speaker 1:Well, in this, in that one. But we had a couple in my game where like, uh, we played two player and we picked, you know, two of the different islands and some of them had like unique peninsulas that came off of them where, like the end, one was completely empty and so like at the end of the game, yeah, somebody placed it on there and it was not a win. So, yeah, super unique, a cool take on auction games played, played super fast at two players and I will definitely like to get this played at three and four players later on. Clay, what was your impression of this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just when you started talking about it, I looked at my tier ranking of all the new-to-me games from 2024. And this was the fifth highest ranking I gave of yeah, of all 92 games. I really like this game. It's it's simple to teach like, am I going to play a building that's higher than your building and in which of these adjacent spots? But yeah, just the directionality of it and the different resources you're trying to grab is a lot of fun and it it does look beautiful and I'm excited to hear that I can try and play the two players, because that's what's been keeping it off the table is.
Speaker 2:I played it twice at four. It goes kind of long at four players, like, yeah, it's probably over two hours, which I'm. I'm a guy that likes to be a 90-minute gamer. Two hours is getting up there for me, especially with four players, because usually the three other players aren't as into games as I am, so I know that they're probably waning in their interest by the time we hit two hours. So I try and keep the games a little tighter. But Mary likes this game and if we can play it quick at two players, that's a good uh, weeknight wine, wednesday game for us and this might even appeal to a real estate professional.
Speaker 2:Oh, how about it bryce?
Speaker 4:look at that, that sounds great this game is very cool.
Speaker 1:Definitely going to get it played again. Very cool table presence too. You can see people coming up to this. If you're playing this anywhere, public people would be coming up to see what this is because, especially the limited edition, those carved, unique, bespoke buildings are just so beautiful. All of them are unique from one another. Your small buildings buildings, it's not just. You have one different small building that is printed four times. Each small building is unique from one another, and so you end up with this like beautiful cityscape at the end of the game. So skyrise is definitely one that will be hitting the table again. And kept her kept around for a while. Cool, did we do it already to do the mission mission objective. Let's roll out out, all right. So, bryce, we're gonna give the floor back to you. We want to talk about classic card games. Uh, you love rummy.
Speaker 1:Obviously you're designing a game about rummy, but there's other classic card games that have withstood the test of time and have unique mechanisms or things that stick so in your mind. What are some games, some classic card games that stand out to you as being unique, that have staying power, that will be around forever?
Speaker 4:I would probably say spades, because you guys are familiar with spades. I just think it's just one of those games where it's almost like a rite of passage, you know, to just know how to play it well, you know, people can play it, but to play it well, I think it becomes really competitive in that aspect. And then there's also a team component to it, where you can, you know, partner with someone and play, you know, together. So I feel like I feel like that'll always be around, especially in our household oh, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Uh, clay, do you know of any other card games that you think will be around forever?
Speaker 2:I just want to double down on spades like that. That was the game growing up that I mean. I played that more than anything, and you know when, when you finally got that partner that you were like well dude, we got this.
Speaker 2:I know if I throw you know this card off suit, you're gonna know that that means I'm out, I'm off to the next part and you're gonna freaking set me up to get my tricks like and that teamwork I I I've played so many games since I grew up playing spades but I don't know if there have ever been moments that feel as good and tense as those moments that I had growing up playing spades when you had a group of people that all really knew how to get in each other's heads and, you know, knew how to bid right and man, those moments are awesome and I played so many and we're going to talk about it like spade trick taking is one of the types of classic card games that has had a flood of new interesting mechanisms surrounding it in the modern hobby board gaming world and honestly I don't. I I like a lot of them, but I don't know that any of them are as good as just classic spades there I was gonna say clay, like I.
Speaker 3:I grew up a little bit in california, a little bit in florida. Utah, I was a uh, my dad was in the. He was a contractor for the air force. So I grew up kind of all over but I went to wrestle at the air force academy.
Speaker 3:All these dudes from the midwest playing spades like since they were two and wrestling since they were one and a half, um, so not only are they kicking my ass, wrestling that, they like just dragging my, my face through the dirt when we're playing spades, like every free chance, you know, you're on the bus on the way to the airport, someone's pulling out a pack of freaking cards and they're playing spades, freaking, sandbagging me left and right.
Speaker 3:So I had the poor, unfortunate, you know, learning curve of getting myself into spades. But then, yeah, there is a definite like feel like love. Eventually, you know, at the end of it, uh, and I love that you said that clay like there's like a partnership or like you put down that card and like, oh, you already know, um, that I kind of miss that, you know. I miss that like simplicity because you know board gaming now is like so freaking complex. We pull up these giant. You know tv screens full of different icons and you do this, then this, and then board game, like rule books that are like 30 pages long, literally 30 pages long, but spades, man, just it's beautiful, it's a thing of beauty and I, I yield back my time I feel like it's like a regional thing too, right.
Speaker 1:So some people play spades, some people play hearts, some people get really into hearts, some people get the euchre. You know california, we played uh scum or like el presidente ore or whatever it's called in your region of the world. But I feel like people coming up into any sort of gaming have experience or exposure to this card game, trick-taking, whatever it is, these classic card games. So what is it about those card games, or what mechanisms or what attributes that these card games have that set them apart from others or make them last or make them have this like cultural prevalence, like what is it that has that staying power with these card games?
Speaker 2:You're asking the tough questions. I mean I think it's. I mean I don't know if it's all nostalgia, but it really. It really is a classic feeling that I don't know Like I don't know if you taught me spades apart from the memories like with my family and trick taking in general I think just gets into that like double think and you're in each other's heads and trying to assess what other people are doing, and I think that is something that is always interesting and fun and it rewards like getting deep in it. You know, like not like, uh, id, claire war or whatever, where you, everybody's played it. But no matter how many times you play, it doesn't really matter. You're just gonna flip the cards, flip a card for three hours and nobody's ever gonna win, um, but yeah, it does reward that repeated play and repeated play with a certain group, that, uh, that I don't know. I'm just making stuff up because I just really love the, the feelings I remember yeah, bryce, what do you?
Speaker 1:what do you think?
Speaker 4:um, I mean, what comes to mind is just like the interaction you know, it's like the rules of no talking over the table and you're trying to, you know, signal to your partner, like you know what you have going on in your hand. Or just like the pre betting, you know, so you don't sandbag. You know how you're trying to like, calculate, you know what do you think other people might have, or how strong your high cards potentially are in comparison to what else is out there. Just like the timing of when you play certain cards on, if it's going to be that winning card or not, or how do you throw out that bait card to get rid of their high card so that you could. I mean, I think it's, it's simple enough, the strategy isn't too complicated but it's, and it's also really easy to teach. That makes it feel as if it's more than what you're actually doing.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's it, I'm not really sure, but, um, it does stick yeah, I think I think it's got to do a lot with like social deduction and like when you play with the same people over and over again, like you kind of know how they're playing and what that means for their hand, that they're maybe they're bluffing, maybe maybe they're not. Like I know that this person plays this specific way and plus, I think it all comes down to like a deck of cards costs what, like $2 nowadays with inflation. Like it's something that is super cheap and easy and it can be passed down from generation to generation we talked about anybody at any age can pick up hearts or spades and sit at the table with with the big kids or with the grownups and play. And like it's inclusive, it it brings people together, it's quality time, it's cheap and, you know, it has a little bit of gamesmanship.
Speaker 1:There's like that very pure what is that Like game mentality or game theory, where you're like bluffing and bidding and playing the other person versus playing what you have in your hand. So I think that's what like makes them stick. But since these games have were invented, you know, 100 years ago, uh, they've been iterated on a bazillion times. So, like what are some cool twists that you've seen to these classic card games. Besides remathon royale, which we love, what are some like other twists on these classic card games that you've seen that like really stand out to you?
Speaker 4:um, recently I came across nine holes which reminded me of a classic a lot you know, but I thought it was very interesting. You know how they made it more relevant towards today. Yeah, I forget what the classic is of it that it's based off of, but I mean it instantly brought feelings of nostalgia.
Speaker 2:Are you talking about, like, uh, golf, or is it golf? Sorry, I know I mean no, I think there's no. I'm talking about the classic game that I used to play with a deck of cards. We called it golf. But now there's a game I think I've seen it too where it's like nine holes or something like that you know, and you're playing essentially the same game, where you have like a grid of cards in front of you and you're trying to get like matches, get them in an order.
Speaker 3:Well, you're trying to get like, if you have like two rows of three, you want the the left column to have matching numbers, because then they, oh yes, equal out to zero yeah, yeah, that's it yeah my sponsor mom at the academy played that and she'd have these cards that were like these, big, like almost the size of a sheet of paper, and she liked it because she could play with her grandkids and also with, you know, dumb young, hungry cadets. So like it worked great for me, yeah. And then, like the kings were like yeah, zero extra points or something like that.
Speaker 3:But if you got them in a row they'd cancel out. So like maybe you you risk it for the biscuit and you you take the I don't remember if it was a kings or whatever but yeah, you know you're, you're pushing your luck a little bit there. But no, heck, yeah, I, I do love that one. I was thinking of uno, random like I was, because I was trying to think back like what did my family actually play? We, we played roomicube a lot, but that's not a card game. But we did play Uno and the twists on Uno that I remember, like the weird little thing it would shoot cards out at you.
Speaker 3:You had to press the button.
Speaker 3:Little dealer thing, it's so freaking, gimmicky Uno, but you go back to like. That's why I think Uno is more just like that weird, I don't know weird, but like capitalistic, like I don't know. Like how do we make more money off of this? Whereas spades is like just pure. It's just like get a deck of cards, go play this game with your buds. So I don't know, I did, like you know, as a kid. I just like sit there and just keep hitting the button. I'm not even playing with anyone but myself.
Speaker 2:Just keep hitting the button until it starts shooting stuff and I, I didn't really answer you earlier, I'm sorry, I got too excited because bryce brought up spades. But just thinking of some other like classic card games, that, off the cuff, like you grow, grow up playing. We mentioned now golf, which or whatever you might've called it, where you have those, you know, holes. You're going through Rummy, obviously. We grew up playing. Uh, I didn't even know this was associated with Rummy, but now that I've learned more we called it Escalera and essentially you started with like it's basically just like phase 10.
Speaker 2:You start with like three cards and the first round you're trying to get a run of two and then you go to the next round, you get four cards and you're trying to get a run of two set of two and you go all the way up and back down and I mean we played a ton of that and I don't know what actual rummy looks like. So maybe bryce can explain if that's pretty similar to actual rummy or not. But it is okay. Yeah, we just called the escalera for some reason, I don't know, and that's like the thing with a lot of these games there's like a lot of like weird, like offshoots and house rules and like different variations that you can play, but yeah, rummy essentially. And then you have your poker style games. You know your texas hold'ems, etc. We played a game growing up called bs I'm sure everybody probably played it. Where you're like you're on the sixes and it's your turn.
Speaker 1:You're like three sixes but which is kind of like a twist on liar's dice.
Speaker 1:Right like you're like going around and kind of like trying to sneak as many cards in as you can. Yeah, it's like they're all kind of these weird crossovers between dice games and and social deduction and card games and yeah, there's so many like cool iterations on that stuff and Everybody has their unique name for it. Some people called it Scum, some people called it Presidente, some people called it whatever it is. That stuff's cool that it has its own regional thing. It's got its own family thing. People have their own rules they carry around or pass along. Every time you sit down you've got to be like how do you play this card specifically? Everyone's got their own little thing that has developed in these regional dialects almost.
Speaker 1:So what other like cool iterations have we seen lately, or twists on these games? I was thinking specifically I don't know why, but I was thinking about, uh, spades and how you're like playing with a partner and how you're like trying to read the other player. What was that game? Clay, that like? Was it silver and gold? Or like the one with the mouse and the dragon? The card game, oh yeah, oh, wicked and wise, wicked and wise.
Speaker 1:That's a cool game where you're like one player plays a suit, you know, plays a number or something, and like you're trying to play with your diagonal partner. That game was cool, but I think that's like a kind of a unique twist on that type of that type of mechanic I brought rational intel over here yeah, let's do it like iterations on games, let's do it.
Speaker 2:Obviously, rumathon royale, boom, the latest to the collection, but recently I like all play came out with these like tiny boxes and this one's panda panda, and it's not exactly like rummy, but kind of uh, it's like a interesting twist on it where the cards all have letters, so there's like a's, b's, c's, d's, e's, f's and g's, and they get rarer, so there's like 10 a's, 8, b's, 7, you know it goes on, and every round you can win in a bunch of different ways.
Speaker 2:But on your turn you either draw a card or discard a card. So you kind of are manipulating the size of your hand so you can go for like a big hand and get like the winning combination of like five A's and four B's, or you can start like discarding down and go for a winning combination of like a G and an F, which are two rare cards. So it's an interesting take on it where you, like can manipulate the size of your hand to try and get these winning combinations. But yeah, super quick little fun game that I've been playing with the, with the kids, and having a good time, but yeah have you played spades with the boys yet clay?
Speaker 2:I have recently introduced them to trick-taking games. And speaking of another show and tell, show me they love.
Speaker 2:Oh so, really yeah. So skull king's nice because, as awesome as spades is, you do need a partner that understands you and you do need four players. Skull king plays what I think it's like two to eight players, so you have a wide variety of in the player count and it's got some interesting stuff, like you, the. The trumping is a little more dynamic because there's pirates that beat everything, but yeah, but then there's a mermaid, that'll be all the pirates, and then there's a skull King that beats everything, but a mermaid can beat the skull King, and so you get like bonus points if you happen to actually do that and you take a skull King with a mermaid. And what I also like about skull King is that it ramps up. So you start with one card and you're all bidding on. You know that one single card and everybody's like okay, three, two, one. I think you're supposed to say yo ho, ho. One. I think you're supposed to say yo ho ho Yo ho Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah and, and then you know you bid you zero or one, and then the next round you all get two cards. So you're bidding on two cards. So it kind of this was a nice one to introduce to them because it starts out super easy with like, okay, we're going to play one trick, Do you think you're going to win it or not? And then it just ramps up as you go. So skull king's been a been a cool trick-taking twist game that I've really enjoyed, and I will seed the floor for a little bit because I could talk forever about about these type of like card game offshoots.
Speaker 1:I just love them how are you gonna bring bring these two small box games not even two weeks after we do our small box breakdown? We got to go back to the drawing board.
Speaker 2:We're going to do it again we got hit up on Instagram a couple times.
Speaker 1:Oh, you missed this game and this game and now I feel like a big idiot that we left out any small box games. Yeah, and Rub-a-thon Royale.
Speaker 3:We'll have to add it on next time we do it. Why don't we just actually play the games? Wow, I mean we could. That it could be a year-long endeavor.
Speaker 2:Oh my god I live day to day, man so bryce any.
Speaker 4:Any other thoughts on classic card games uh, the other classic that comes to mind is Solitary. It's a good one-player game.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that one's a real fun one too.
Speaker 3:I was going to say I was going to bring that up and I'm the guy that plays most of my games on Board Game Arena because my dad got Windows 95. Yeah, that's the only thing I knew what to do on the computer is just play the solitaire until I got it, and then the little, and I just sit there and wait until they covered all the screen like I felt so accomplished I think that's where the foundation of my confidence is is really Solitaire.
Speaker 3:I haven't played it since then since I was five Anyway, so I'm going to throw that in there.
Speaker 1:It seems like a reductive question, since there's like a thousand solo card games but any cool iterations on solitaire that you know of nothing comes to mind. I don't know it's kind of a hard one, right. It's like so simple that like it's been iterated a thousand times probably, but none of them like really pop. Um, but the one that I was going to bring out, because it is solo, it's not a solitaire game per se, but like regicide, solitaire card game played with a single deck of cards. Bryce, have you ever played regicide?
Speaker 4:No, but it looks interesting.
Speaker 1:It is actually like a card battler. It's a cooperative game. You can play with multiple players, but you're playing cards from your hand that are two through 10. And you're trying to take down the face cards, which are like the bosses basically, and each suit that you play will do the value of the card and then the suit does special things like uh, hearts will heal you and get additional cards back into your deck, spades will double the attack value and, uh, club clubs will, or clubs are like the base attack and different things like that. So, um, maybe the I think the diamonds are shields and will like prevent damage on the tail end. So really cool. Um, they actually have an app that's like pretty intuitive and and super easy to manage the game, because it's a lot to keep track of as you're playing it with just the deck of cards. But, yeah, it's like really intuitive when you run it through the app.
Speaker 3:So that one that you were telling us about. It was a couple of weeks ago with. It was like this really cutesy one that was a really small box, one sausage is for Northwood, oh, northwood. Yeah, that one was cool Wasn.
Speaker 1:Awesome Four Northwood.
Speaker 3:Oh, northwood, yeah, that one was cool.
Speaker 1:Wasn't that kind of solitary.
Speaker 3:Was that kind of solitary?
Speaker 1:It is a solo trick taking game. Oh, just where you are. Yeah, you like pick a village to visit and each village has a leader and those leaders have a certain value and you have to win a certain number of tricks equal to that value. And so, like, if I go to the twos out of this big deck of like conversations, I have to win two of those by playing tricks against them and you have special abilities that can help you like win or lose tricks down the road. It's kind of a cool mechanic and it's like an interesting take on trick taking where you are playing against yourself but you're playing against the deck to win a very specific amount of tricks. That one's super unique and super easy to learn. So I I really enjoyed four northwood.
Speaker 3:I think there was like a photo of it that made it look like it was solitaire.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's it, it's kind of set up that way. Right, you have, like your, your cards like it was kind of like laid out on top and then yeah yeah, you've got your conversations and the amount of tricks and stuff and then right in front of you you have your like special ability cards and then you've got your like trick-taking deck that you're kind of working against.
Speaker 2:So it's pretty cool one more type of game that we haven't talked about is like haggis. I've never played it, but you know games like scout, where these climbing games where you have to play increasing values of runs and sets to try and get rid of cards from your hand. So that's another type of classic game that, like, we have tons of them now. Another one from that all play line rainbow. It kind of combines for sale with that, which is super cool. You should check that out. Also, the gang cooperative text, texas hold'em style poker game where you're working together to try and like assess the, the order of your hand strength.
Speaker 2:Uh, another interesting twist on a classic game jekyll versus hyde. This is a two-player trick-taking game where one person's trying to make it so that you each win like an even amount of tricks. Like so Travis wins five, I win five, and the other person's trying to make it super uneven. So they want to one person to win 10 and the other person to win zero. So you're kind of like battling on this track, trying to tip the scales in one direction or the other. That was a cool twist.
Speaker 2:Cat in the Box I don't know that I love playing this game, but it's super interesting because your cards don't have suits until you play them, so they're all just black cards. And then there's this track that you can say like, okay, I played the, I played a three, it was actually the red three. And then nobody else can play a three and say it was the red three. So that's a cool game. And then Fantasy Realm is kind of a stretch, but it has the same feeling to me of like a Rummy style game where you are just drawing and discarding, drawing and discarding and you're trying to make this like magic hand of all these cards that work really well together and it plays super quick. And it has that awesome feeling where you know you create these combos that just pop off and you score a ton of points and I am done now just just casually holding up the deluxe edition of fantasy realms like it's no big deal it's like ten dollars on amazon, all right let's go.
Speaker 1:Uh, bryce, tell me what you've been doing outside of board gaming. Oh, and we want to hear like another shout out for your game. So go ahead, bryce outside of board gaming.
Speaker 4:It's just been spending a lot of time with my daughter. She just started her swim classes, so just trying to get her um to just perfect, you know, her skill. It's been really good how old is she? She's two. She's two, so I mean she's not strange to the water, because we've been trying it, you know, ever since she was little. But now then to see her, like you know, going out there and then flipping on her back and just her safety mechanisms, it's been really good, it's exciting. That's cool yeah.
Speaker 1:Excellent. So that's what I'm going to do, and I want to hear the playtesting for your app.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah yeah, that also has been something that's been taking up a lot of time. So taking Rumbathon Royale and then bringing it to iOS and Android has been's been a lot of play testing to kind of work out the kinks in terms of the engineering of the game. So that's been really fun. But then also you've got to push it a little bit beyond just playing it in real life. You've got to add that element of excitement, add coins and you know, daily spins and just like all those other kind of fun mechanics that like a mobile game would have versus like the physical game. So just working on that it's been really fun yeah, is that available yet, or are you?
Speaker 4:it's still in the beta it's not available yet, um, we're still trying to fine-tune it, uh, but it's. It's been a lot of fun to play, yeah that's cool. It will be available, but not yet.
Speaker 2:Okay, sweet.
Speaker 1:Awesome, clay, I have a hard out in 17 minutes what you been doing outside of board gaming.
Speaker 2:I think I'm going to talk for 17 minutes.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. Wow, I never know, I never know.
Speaker 2:I love card games.
Speaker 3:You? Really he wasn, I never know. I love card games. He's not getting paid by any of these people either, not that we're aware of.
Speaker 2:No, I'm definitely not.
Speaker 1:I don't know he has these secret sponsors that aren't sponsoring the podcast.
Speaker 3:Speaking of.
Speaker 2:I'm sponsored by Coors Brewery.
Speaker 4:Of course you are.
Speaker 2:No, no, that's my over the fence. I went to the golden colorado uh coors brewery tour, which was a lot of fun. I did not realize all that went into making a beer, but it was pretty cool to see the factory. They got me pumped up about their beer. I'm sure that's part of the purpose of the tour, but they were talking about all the cores. Banquet beers are brewed right there in golden and all the water used for it is coming right down clear creek and is, you know, filtered underground like through natural mechanisms. So that's why if you drink cores, you don't get a headache, because there's nothing funny in the water. That's what they said. I'm repeating it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was half expecting you to say, like that's why, when I'm thirsty and like, that's why I drink cores.
Speaker 2:I drink cores light. Drink Coors Light.
Speaker 3:We're the Operation Game Night. We get thirsty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my God, but it's cool. I bought a bunch of Coors after I left there, so that was awesome. And also go back. I finished, for the first time in many, many years, a fictional book, although it was audio format. I finished the Way of of kings. I started that you did yeah, I started it how far did you get?
Speaker 2:like 30 minutes, okay. Well, hang in there, because the first few hours are kind of all over the place like world building, yeah. But once it settles in, there's like three main characters that you follow and it's worth the payoff. It's. It's a good story. And now I'm on the second book in that series, which is another 48 hours. So, yeah, deep in the brandon sanderson cosmere now.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna try and play some catch up. I gotta yeah good luck where you're at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's. That's my over the fence beer and brandon sanderson yeah, gotta support the little guys, right?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nobody's ever heard of Brandon Sanderson, or this beer called Coors.
Speaker 1:It's a. It's a microbrewery. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:All right, jared hit me, all right. Well, I'm going to go way back to last weekend. I did another podcast guys. No, another podcast guys. No um, with carlin all of our good friends of the podcast. Actually, it was a an assignment for one of my classes. We talked about middle leadership and, uh, leading from the middle, um, it was. It was a blast. Let me know if you guys want to want the transcripts or you want a copy of it.
Speaker 2:I definitely want a copy.
Speaker 3:She. I had to edit it considerably. She has just as dirty of a humor, you know, as me, so I had fun editing it. I just did it right here on SoundCloud. So next week I would like to start the podcast. If you could let me start the podcast instead of Travis or Clay, because I saw that at the beginning of the podcast. If you could let me start the podcast instead of travis or clay? Um, because I saw that at the beginning of the podcast, was it seemed to be a little bit of uh, conflict, um, but I digress. Also, he's grabbing this thing.
Speaker 2:He's grabbing this thing, travis oh, I touched it.
Speaker 3:I touched it. Um, I just want to say, bryce, my daughter is also two and we went to Birmingham over the weekend and she swam the length of the pool. She's learning to swim too Like she's never like swam that far with me.
Speaker 3:At least she goes to like with this, with her swim coach and stuff. I was blown away. I mean, it was a hotel pool, so we're not talking olympic style and you know she's taking her sweet ass time. She like flips over and hi dada, and like you know, she's like kind of floating around. But I was like blown away, it's no, she's, she's crushing it. And the last, very last thing, I had some amazing food in Birmingham, like best fried chicken sandwich. I had Saw's Barbecue in Birmingham, if you ever go, I absolutely loved it. I had amazing breakfast Cheese grits. It was huevos rancheros cheese grits Blew me out of the water. And real recognize, real the dude liked my chain. He also liked the shirt I was wearing, which is the diners, drivers and guys. Um, guy fieri, he's like dude, I love your shirt.
Speaker 1:I'm like real recognize he probably thought you were like with the team like oh is guy f'm about to walk in here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm like. Yeah, actually I'm the guy who toes around the Camaro. So yeah, Travis what up?
Speaker 1:Uh, well, we have family in town. Uh, we played a lot of games and yesterday I watched the new animated Lord of the Rings movie Lord of the Rings war of the rings, war of the rohirum, which I wanted to see in theaters but, uh, difficult, difficult to do when you have a young one running around and it was pretty good. I mean, uh, I'm not much into like the anime art style, uh, but it wasn't like super anime where, like somebody's charging up a punch for, like you know, half an hour and they're like do cuts back and forth. It was like a very cognizant story. It like moved along at a good pace. It feels like a lord of the rings movie. It's got lots of cool action, uh, and it's kind of a unique twist on a world that I love. So that's on, uh, hbo max streaming on max now, and I would recommend it to any lord of the rings fans. So, uh, so, bryce, give me one more shout out when can people find you on the internet?
Speaker 4:Okay, so we just got our pre-launch page up on Kickstarter, so you can find it by searching up Run With On Royale and hopefully you guys choose to follow it. We're also on Instagram, tiktok, youtube, the username Run With On Royale.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, we are super looking forward to that kickstarter launching. I know that I am signed up for notifications when it launches, so, uh, really looking forward to that and, um, yeah, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2:We really enjoyed our conversation today hey, uh, sorry, I want to go over the fence again. Quick travis I. I. I was very brief in my initial statement. You, jerry brock, carlin, it reminded me that we went to red leg brewery on thursday for an office trivia night and we didn't win. But I want to tell you why. One there was a trick question, so we were like it was six round, 48 questions in. We had gotten one wrong and we were in second place. We got another one wrong. I would like to contest the question, but anyway. So we were in second place going into the last round where you had to wager points, and that's basically the story. We didn't get the final thing right, so we didn't win. But there were 30 teams and we were in second place, which was pretty awesome. I just wanted to flex a little bit on the uh office trivia here.
Speaker 2:So hey, the the office trivia yeah, like the show, the office okay what question did you? Lose on they. They said what did Michael auction off at the charity or the auction Two Bruce Springsteen tickets? You know that's what a reasonable team would answer. But he didn't actually auction it off. He auctioned off Holly's yoga lessons. He never got around to auctioning off the Springsteen tickets, oh my.
Speaker 3:God I know, right.
Speaker 2:I was pretty pissed about that question VTOL. Yeah, off the springsteen tickets. Oh my, I know right, I was pretty pissed about that question veto, yeah. So anyway, we got that wrong and we got the name wrong of the it guy that michael thought was a terrorist oh, uh, oh man.
Speaker 1:I want to say like rashid, but it's not rashid, it's samir it's sadiq yeah, all right mary m.
Speaker 2:Mary threw us off on that one because she tried to say it was just a normal person. Not that Sadiq isn't a normal person, but she's like it's a normal English name, like Bill or George or something. So we really got off the Sadiq. But you know there we go.
Speaker 1:So, clay, was that worth like stepping over Bryce and, like you know, taking his thunder as the last thing to say in the podcast?
Speaker 3:Actually, I have one more thing to say actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't want to leave the podcast without bragging about how well we did in office trivia.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I'll cut that and I'll move it back to your over the fence.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:There you go, all right, well, well done. We did it for operation game night. I have been travis, he has been clay, he has been jared, he has been our special guest, bryce, designer of rumathon royale, and we will see you next week are you gonna hit the button?
