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 32: Weeknight Games are the New Dinner Party
We explore the world of weeknight gaming, discussing how board games can transform mundane weekdays into memorable social experiences while balancing time constraints and life responsibilities.
• The group debates what makes a game suitable for weeknight play, considering time, complexity, and energy levels
• Clayton and Jared recount their recent epic game night featuring Incan Gold, Camel Up, 7 Wonders and Zoo Vadis
• Travis contemplates what games to bring to an upcoming session with gamers he doesn't know well
• The hosts reflect on how scheduled weeknight game sessions provided stress relief and community when they worked together
• Travis draws parallels between modern game nights and the lost tradition of weekday dinner parties
• Jared and Clayton discuss the dynamics of playing games with spouses versus gaming groups
• The group recommends Decision Space podcast for listeners interested in deeper game analysis
Join us next time as we continue exploring the tabletop gaming world with our unique blend of friendship, strategy, and occasional table-banging!
Also one of our favorite podcasts...AoM!
https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/food-drink/what-is-a-dinner-party/
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Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast, episode 32. Is this?
Speaker 2:really happening.
Speaker 1:My name is Travis Smith and I'm here alone.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 1:Joining me from a room of friendship. Far away are my friends Clayton Gable and Jared Erickson. How are you doing, gentlemen?
Speaker 3:We're doing great. I mean we're doing good, travis. I don't want to hammer it up too much because obviously it hurts to not be like the, the threesome that we should be.
Speaker 2:But trav, trav. Okay, hear me out. There's gonna be a couple days in alabama where there's gonna be a crossover for joint ops june. We might be able to sneak in a big boy special mission, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about this the other day and I was like if I ship some games to Jared, he can learn them and have them on the table when we roll into Montgomery. 100%.
Speaker 3:Or he can do like he likes to do and just wait to punch them when it's time to play it.
Speaker 2:Just have Rodney going while we're punching them out, or he can do like he likes to do and just wait to punch them when it's time to play Perfect, just have Rodney going while we're punching them out. He's like table set up, get out this character. All right, I'm going to start punching that guy out, I better get him out. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or I'll send you a bunch of games and I'll be like these are the ones I want to play, and then I'll show up and it'll be our neck on the table or something like that well.
Speaker 1:I'm glad to see you guys are having fun together. I cannot wait to hear about your epic game night and all the fun that you've been having together. Without me sad face, but we have a great show for you today. Today we're going to talk weeknight games games that you break out on the weeknights, and originally it was supposed to be date night games, but we're talking weeknight games. Maybe you are on on the weeknights and originally it was supposed to be date night games, but we're talking weeknight games.
Speaker 3:Maybe you are on a date, Maybe you're. We didn't want to be exclusive for couples only. You know we want to open it up. Everybody can do a weeknight game. You don't have to be in a relationship to enjoy a weeknight game.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you need a bro date. Sometimes you just need a work date, like invite your coworkers out to a pub and you break out Skull or something. I like that. Whoa, that's good, as long as you file the appropriate paperwork with HR before you go on the workplace date, all right. But first we're going to debrief our week, we're going to hit our mission objective and then we are going to go over the fence and talk about what we've been doing outside of board gaming. So, gentlemen, my odd couple, my two peas in a pod, tell me about your week in gaming.
Speaker 3:You know we'll build up to it. We'll build up to the Epic Game Night. I'm going to start out with a debrief of last week. One of our esteemed listeners was curious about Mary's favorite games and I said Castle of Burgundy, obviously. And then a close second is QB those Mary didn't listen to the episode so she had no idea that. I said that and, just like clockwork, tuesday rolled around, it's our couple's game night. I say what do you want to play? I was really wanting to play Grickle again because I had so much fun last week with that. She says Castles of Burgundy. I said that's at the Spanglers. She said Cubitos. I was like all right, we'll play Cubitos. So Cubitos is a awesome game.
Speaker 3:It came out in 2021 by AEG and designed by John D Clare, the designer of Dead Reckoning Really, yes, also the Cubitos designer. He's done a lot. He's done a lot of good games, but, yeah, I think Cubitos Space Base is probably his most well-regarded design. But Cubitos came out. It's kind of faded. People don't really talk about it much anymore. It was kind of hot there for a little bit. It stayed hot in our house. So essentially, the art drew me in.
Speaker 3:You have this cheese and lederhosen on the cover and really after that it didn't matter what the game was. I was going gonna enjoy it. But you're racing around a track. It's just a race to the finish and you're collecting all these colorful die that help you move around the track. So it's a dice pool building game.
Speaker 3:You start out with these gray die that maybe give you some coins if you roll them, maybe give you a couple feet and then, as you start getting these more powerful die, you get these combos where it's like, if the white die rolls a cat face and you have a freaking blue die that's also on a llama face, you can move six spaces. So you can start drafting these die to. You know, build these combos and on your turn you roll them out and any of your hits that you get, so they show a face you move them to your active pool. Once you have three dice in your active pool and you decide to keep rolling. So you you're going to be rolling nine to like 15 die every turn. So you roll those 10 die, maybe you get three hits and if you choose to roll again now, if they all come up blanks which will happen because I think most of them have one or two faces that have a symbol on it.
Speaker 3:So most of them are blank yeah, most of the sides are blank, yeah, but you have a lot of die. So you're kind of like, oh man, do I want to push it and try and get my purple die hasn't hit yet and that one is going to get me a lot of feet. So after you get three active and you roll and miss, then you bust and you move up this fan track. You get a reward, but you don't get to take the actions of your. You know, moving and buying that turn, and essentially you just keep doing this, buying new dice, getting fistfuls of die, rolling them until somebody crosses the finish line first. And it's a fun time.
Speaker 3:I mean Mary throttled me. I'm not convinced she wasn't. There wasn't foul play going on with what she was doing with her dice. All of a sudden I have three new die and I look over and Mary's got this colorful handful of all these different dies she's rolling. I'm like where did these even come from? But I guess she was exploiting something that I wasn't.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it's a good game the warts have been showing the more I play it of. Just it's kind of fiddly for what it is like. You have this like little sheet in front of you and you have, like I said, like maybe 10 dice and you're like rolling them and you're trying to keep track of. You have your roll zone, you have your active zone, you have your discard zone, you have your ready pool and you're your discard zone, you have your ready pool and you're just trying to keep track of these dice and all these different pools and then they all have the different abilities. So it gets kind of chaotic eventually, but at the end of the day, it's a lot of fun to just roll, die, and these colorful dice make it even more fun. So it's one that we'll definitely keep around because it's great. Although it's not one that I'm always drawn to anymore, it's still a good game.
Speaker 2:Do you roll them into the lid of the game? I feel like there's going to be dice going everywhere.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's a scatter shot. It's madness out there. But I mean, it's so cute, there are all these little cube animals. It's madness out there. It's so cute, there are all these little cube animals.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:I also like that on those boxes they have the six box grid that shows you exactly what those dice have on them so that you can know your chances of rolling what you want to roll. I think more games need references like that so you're not looking through the different color die trying to figure out what it has on all the pips.
Speaker 2:I'm definitely a statistician. I want to know what are my chances here. You can do the math in your head.
Speaker 1:What's the?
Speaker 2:expected value of this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, love it. Yeah, so we also played with the Foul Birds or something foul. Yeah, there was an expansion called Foul Something and we played with that. It adds some new cards, some new abilities, so it was fun. It's an easy expansion to add in because it's just a couple more rules, but it doesn't really change the gameplay too much. Just more things to do and more different colored dye to fill your hands up with. But yeah, that's cubitos fun racing game if you like.
Speaker 3:If you like deck building, pool building and you like dice rolling, it's certainly worth checking out yeah, I found it interesting that mary uh, never mind, just keep going. I'm sorry no, no, carry on, I'm always interested in mary.
Speaker 1:No, I was gonna say I was interested that uh, mary like said that cubitos was her second most active or her second favorite game. Um, I hung up last week and I walked out and Rachel said I heard that my favorite game is Splendor.
Speaker 1:And I said oh yeah we, we play Splendor all the time. That's the one you always ask to play. And she said well, I mean, I guess that's one of my favorite games, but I think that, uh, what, what else did she say? Oh, she said. She said she said risk and katan risk. She has a special place in her heart for risk because she has quadruple yeah, she has quadruplet brothers and they love playing risk together and it's like super tense, great moments of the table and then I think I did know this, but this is coming to my attention again.
Speaker 2:They're younger or older than her.
Speaker 1:They're younger. So when I first met her yeah, when I first met her you would go over and they're all in like high school. It was like a high school sleepover every single night when we were at her house. Cause they're like playing foosball, they're playing video games, we're playing board games. Yeah, it was great, that's that's incredible.
Speaker 3:What turkeys yeah, well, anyway.
Speaker 2:Well, I just wanted to say point of order. We need to get our wives on this podcast Because they might need to come correct the story. Maybe we've been leading the listener astray, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I think we've spoken in overly generous terms about this.
Speaker 1:We've overstated their willingness to play games, play games for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean, there is sometimes, too, when I'm like adri, listen to this part of the podcast where I talk about you and then like maybe I turn around to grab jemma or something like that, and then I go turn around and then she's gone. She's not even listening. There's my sad phone just playing Operation Game Night to the void, you know. So we might need to get them on here. Yeah, we should.
Speaker 1:Mary made a voice appearance one time. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3:That's true. She didn't set the record straight, that's right.
Speaker 1:Small box game yeah.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, the last thing about this I hate teaching this game to new people just because of the different role zones, like for whatever reason. It's just so complicated to tell people because it it requires a lot of discipline to know. When you have dice in your role zone and they're active and then you bust, you have to move those active die to your uh discard zone and then you can choose to move dice from your roll zone to your discard zone. But you can't remove dice from your discard zone to your ready zone unless the ready zone's empty and it's just like oh, it feels like I might just do what you want, like I just add the dice, I don't care, because it just is like a little fiddly system. I feel like there's an opportunity here for electronic bowls.
Speaker 2:You can put the dice in the bowl and maybe they're green if they're ready to go. I don't know, Is this going a little too far? Maybe we can get AI on this. Talk to your buddy, Grok. Yeah, I'll talk to Grok. Let me put Grok on the case, we'll see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's it for my debrief of my game with Mary this week, but we also did.
Speaker 2:I do have other before we get into the last night's board game.
Speaker 3:I asked you before we start the show so I can have pictures pulled up, just briefly.
Speaker 2:just to mention, mike Leland came. He was still out there in Alabama. I busted out Lost Ruins of Arnak. The dude almost took me down. We pulled out my um BGA. I have 413 plays of Arnak and that still does not, uh, keep me immune to someone who's played it twice to come in and whack me. Uh, the only way I I won is like the very end. He had like 10 compasses going into the last round, the very end. Um, he, he did get his, his eyeglass to the very top row, yeah, um, but his booklet was lagging. He didn't know how to get the booklet up. He had like 10 compasses and so he was constrained to just the blue cards. So I think we did talk about our neck many moons ago. So if you want to learn about our neck, please go back to learn what the hell I'm talking about the eyeglass, compass, blue cards, all that. Anyways, have a lot of fun doing that one.
Speaker 2:Also want to just gripe a quick gripe? Okay, I was on BGA, I was on Delta. Okay, does free wi-fi for all customers? You just get on there. I'm on wi-fi. Oh, great opportunity to get in a quick terraforming mars. I naively chose a fast live play of terraforming mars. Well, I was 20 seconds late on choosing which card to use and they booted me and my what is it called? Elo? Or like my reputation, karma? My karma went down 10 points. Now people don't want to play with me because it's going to take a while to repeat your reputation.
Speaker 3:man, that's no joke.
Speaker 1:I lost internet access for a while I think we went on a trip or something and completely lost all of my games, got booted from all of them and my reputation suffered so bad. I went all the way down to like 70 karma and it took me it probably took me four or five months to get that karma back up, because Because for every game that you complete, you go up like 1% karma, and so it took me a while to dig myself out of that hole.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's brutal. Maybe I should write like a strongly worded email to the BGA admins, Like I couldn't help it Please.
Speaker 1:I think I will recover.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll recover, i'll'll be fine, but let's just say that's just setting the scene. Okay, I was a little low, you know, going in and then I land in the most glorious. I swear. I said it multiple times. I I think this is heaven. You know the the mecca of board gaming is here, colorado Springs. Absolutely. Don't look like that German boy. You know what we're talking about. You have felt the magic here.
Speaker 1:In Clay's basement.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, I don't know, did you have this when?
Speaker 3:Travis was around. Travis was an upstairs gamer with me.
Speaker 2:Once we moved it downstairs it got a little rowdy and Clay did have his spreadsheet out. He's got a big screen TV down here in the basement. He made sure that the schedule was up. Okay, Everyone was required to. So it was DoorDash Roulette. So everyone needed to make sure the DoorDashes were delivered between 5 and 5.30. No, 5 and 5.15. So then we can finish eating by 5.30.
Speaker 3:No, we were supposed to be starting gaming at 6.30. Listen to the man yeah, go ahead, no no. Listen to the man yeah, go ahead, no no.
Speaker 2:You know the schedule better than me, yeah.
Speaker 3:Gaming was supposed to start at 6.30. We got seven minutes behind. We never made it back up.
Speaker 2:I went and got a slice 420 chicken Parmesan pizza. Did you ever have a slice 420?
Speaker 1:No, I had a Walters 303, which is far superior.
Speaker 2:Dude. Well, I'm still here for five more days, so I might have to hit up a little bit of Walters. Yeah, anyways, food top notch, company top notch. I did have to ride in the trunk of Carlin's Mazda because there wasn't enough seats. We're standing at the olives. They live down the road, they do not live in Oak Valley Ranch, the Mecca of board gaming. But now am I going to. Would you like to dive into?
Speaker 3:I would like to dive into.
Speaker 2:Inca Gold. Let's talk about it. Was that the first round? That was the first round, so he broke it up into separate rounds. Okay, this is the first schedule. We had two tables. On my table we're playing Inca Gold. Push your luck.
Speaker 2:This one's the one that Mary. She's a daredevil. She goes deep as far as she can go. She doesn't care how many little hazards start coming her way, because once two hazards show up, the whole the, the cave, collapses in no more rubies for anybody. But you can pull out, take your rubies that are available at that time and you get the storm. You bank them, but then, uh, the people who stay in the tunnel. You're going deeper and deeper. You can keep getting more and more rubies, but you're seeing more and more hazards. Once you see the two of the same hazards, the thing collapses. No one gets anything. So if you hightailed it out of there early, you at least got something.
Speaker 2:So of course, I don't think there was any times where we backed out and it didn't collapse. Maybe once, maybe once or twice, I think. Maybe I got once or twice. Yeah, at least twice, but anyways. So the sweet thing is there was a time or two where it was just me and Scott, so there's only two people. So now, as you're going down in the tunnel, um, you're, you're splitting how much uh rubies are coming out. Let's say there's a card that has 15 and if there's still five people that are going in the tunnel, uh, that 15 gold has to get split between those five players. So each person gets three rubies. But let's just say there's just me and Scott, now we get to keep seven between the two of us. So big returns there when there's just you two going down into the tunnel by yourself. And then Scott left and it was just me.
Speaker 2:So here I am just freaking, going wild on the rubies. So I had a blast with Inca gold here. There are other like as the game progresses. There's these gold cards that get added to the deck and if you leave the tunnel and you're the only one who leaves during that time and there is a gold card in that has been shown face up and you're the only person that left that time, and there is a gold card in that has been shown face up and you're the only person that left that round, you can take that gold card and it's worth points at the end. But Clay was the one who always shuffled them and they were never seen. I don't know where they were. I think he kept them up his sleeve. It was a weird situation.
Speaker 3:Lots of hazards. Yeah, I mean round four. It's five rounds. Round four, I think that we drew uh, fire, fire or spider, spider, yeah, just right out the gate. Nope, instantly everyone died, yeah, uh. So yeah, it was interesting like that. And then the gold cards didn't really come out. So you never know. It's a 20 minute game, it can be a little random, but it's a lot of fun. And I that those timing considerations of like I want to leave, but I know spanky's gonna leave too, and now I'm gonna have to split all this stuff when when I leave with him. So you want to try and leave when it's just you, but you also get nervous about the potential of losing everything you've collected so far.
Speaker 3:It's a clever little game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe I didn't explain it very well too, because as you're splitting the riches, as you're going deeper, whatever's the remainder, whatever can't be split evening amongst you, gets left along the trail, and if you leave, you get to swipe it up as you leave the cave. So, but if multiple people also leave the tunnel at the same time, you have to split whatever's remainders on the floor, so that the like the mechanics of it are you have a go further or a leave the tunnel card, and that's it. It just that's the only decisions. Do I go deeper or do I? The tunnel card, and that's it. You, just that's the only decisions. Do I go deeper or do I leave? So it's. It's very simple mechanics, um, but the decisions could be very difficult. You know what I don't?
Speaker 1:know what year did you say that this was published?
Speaker 3:well, it was published a little while ago. This is actually designed, designed by, I think, the Ticket to Ride guy, maybe, oh, alan Armoon and Bruno Faduti 2005.
Speaker 1:2005. Man.
Speaker 2:Some of these photos look like there's probably been quite a few expansions to this thing, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just new additions. I think they've.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say that cover that you were showing. You could have told me that that was published in like 93 and I would have believed it.
Speaker 3:But that's it's also called. I think it's also come out as Diamant. I think that's what Yellow calls it in their line.
Speaker 1:But yeah, Inking Gold by Eagle Griffin I like the color scheme, like Scooby-Doo in this picture. Oh yeah, daphne.
Speaker 3:But it is in the Eagle Griffin small box line of games. It sits on the shelf next to For Sale and they look beautiful together. You see that, Jared. They're meant to be Botswana between them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I should put Botswana between them, just like the two of you, just like the two of you Meant to be next to each other. Whoa, stop, geez, all right. So how many people were at this epic game night? 35, 50, like 11.
Speaker 2:Well, there's children, Children too.
Speaker 1:Were the children playing games, because they only count if you're playing games.
Speaker 3:Well, they were around. Okay, they were there. They were playing their own games. Yeah, okay, yeah, so it was, yeah, 11 adults and five kids. Five kids, wow. So you had two tables running. Yes, let me take you through the rundown of just the games that were played and then we'll talk about our thoughts on the whole thing.
Speaker 3:So obviously, table one, the premier table, we were playing Ink and Gold in the first block, 637. The other table, run by mary, reluctantly, was playing flip seven and uh, reports are they had a good time on that, can't? They seemed happy. Yeah, they seemed like they had a good time and so as we ramped up into the seven o'clock hour, we stepped it up a little bit. You know, we went from our little light card games and push your luck into a camel up game on table one and a game of lamb on table two.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so I did. I ran the camel ups and so we did speak about this a little bit previously. I changed the um. If you go to drop a die, I went ahead and said, hey, you do that. You push the game along, you get two gold instead of one. See if that incentivizes it. And I was like hey guys, what do you guys think? And everyone was like I don't know what you're talking about. So the feedback was not uh, was it like groundbreaking? I personally felt like it was good. Uh, tyler, who's played a couple more times than the other people, was like yeah, there's plenty of times where I'm like, if I take that card, yeah, I could get one point, but obviously I'm gonna roll the die because I get two. Like it is like patently better to roll the die than to take a betting tile that's only going to get you one point and that just makes it happen quicker. It literally makes the game go quicker, which I want. More game now.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So after those two games in the 7, 8 o'clock hour we got a little behind because although jared says that his new rule made it quicker, the camel up table moving pretty slow. I think that wrapped up at 8 17 on the dot adrian.
Speaker 2:Adrian was part of my board and she likes to. You know she's more of a touchy, feely gabber, likes to know how it's going, wants to know how you feel. She also really likes the, the speed up, the slow down tiles uh what the technical term for those are like the cheers and the distractions or whatever. Oh yeah, she's all about those um but, and then she left halfway through and cladeig came in. So Klaig actually played both games.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when I'm finished up pretty quick, I look over and I'm seeing the saddest thing over the camel up table Everybody's talking, nobody's gaming. I was like, hey, do we need an adult over here to get this thing going? And so, yeah, we got it. We got it sped up, but we still got behind the eight ball, yeah. And then in the eight o'clock hour, a lot of the spouses, they, they, they had enough of the games, so it was down to six players. So we took that opportunity to dive into seven wonders, the og, yes, boom, uh, because carlin still has that and she always is eager for a chance to play it. Great group to play it with. And then after that we played. Do you remember this?
Speaker 3:Zubatis yeah we played Zubatis. Get out of here. I was trying to make Jared see his mistakes and spoiler alert. I don't think he regrets choosing Dune over Zubatis in our pitch.
Speaker 2:So I did talk with him a little bit about it. Yeah, my attention span was not really there. I woke up at 2.50 Colorado time to get here, to come to the mecca of board gaming, okay, so my attention really wasn't there. There was soju around here. Okay, we've talked about this. I.
Speaker 2:I was thinking maybe the game was a little too complicated for me at that moment. Okay, I didn't quite understand the social aspects of it. I was like I have these hyenas, where do I put them? That's as far as I was thinking. And I'm like, oh, there's an open space, let me just put that one there. Uh, oh, there's an open space, put that in there. And they're like what are you doing? And I'm like, oh, I don't really know. And they're like that's obvious. And so, yeah, I don't know, maybe if I had a cooler head, maybe right off the bat, maybe we start that one at the first of the night. Yeah, because I know where you're coming at your angle.
Speaker 2:For me, for Zuvatis is bean trading, but it's an asymmetrical bean trading because each character has a different aspect or action that you're trading away In Beans. It's literally like I got Beans, you got Beans, let's do this. Sure Zuvadis is like I have a skill, that you need this skill, yeah, no one else can give this skill to you. In Beans everybody's got black Beans, everyone's got green Beans. I think maybe give me In beans everybody's got black beans, everyone's got green beans Okay.
Speaker 3:So I think, maybe give me another chance at it, yeah, but from my perspective, I thought, mistakenly clearly, that that game was a simple enough game and the right time for the right type of game to play at the end of the night, after everybody's had a few drinks. Sure, you just want to talk, smack and negotiate and try and get to the end. That was my thought process. It didn't play out like that. It was more of a bummer really.
Speaker 2:But but the voting part is weird to me too.
Speaker 3:You've got to get votes to leave. I know You're trying to be the star exhibit animal.
Speaker 1:So can I have you guys put a pin in Zubatis for me, because I'm going to bring it up in just a minute. But yeah, just put a pin in Zubatis and remember this discussion, but continue with your epic game night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so overall, what were your thoughts? Highs, lows.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously the high was coming here. Honestly, lots of emotions coming back to Colorado Springs. Um, clay is leaving, um, where, honestly, I consider home. Uh, colorado Springs has been really good to me and my family. I want to come back here and like retire. Um, definitely a high seeing all my best friends here in one spot Minus a couple people, sorry, continue.
Speaker 1:Fab Damn.
Speaker 2:Low spot was probably Slice420, showing up 20 minutes late.
Speaker 3:Not having Travis there.
Speaker 2:Not having Travis there.
Speaker 1:Not having Travis there, it's right there.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I don't know how do you improve what you got going on down here. Clay's got a great setup down here. If you can replicate this at your next location in in uh, pennsylvania, that's great. I don't know if you can. I don't know if you can do that here. He's got a great little spot. I don't know, it's tough yeah, tough to do.
Speaker 3:Well, here's my opinion. Yeah, I felt like the games paled, like it was almost I don't know. It was just so exciting seeing everybody again that it felt like the games were almost the low part of oh they like got in the way of the evening. I had fun but, as much as I hate to say it, like it just felt like, you know, amidst all the excitement, maybe that wasn't the right time to try and play eight different games, you know it was tough to corral.
Speaker 2:They were very light games. Yeah, yeah, I feel like I was still able to you know mix it up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I felt my favorite game of the night was seven wonders. I thought that was. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, that game just still impresses me with how quick it is and at six players to to play that game it was like 30, 40 minutes it's.
Speaker 2:It's an awesome one and you're not really dealing with um first timers here. I mean, yeah, we got some different strong players that like you can throw eight games at them in the night and you can handle them. So like I wouldn't, even I wouldn't critique you on less games, different games. Honestly, I would like to have seen spots, but uh, actually spots came out actually because they wanted to see Butthole Burt.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you he's the best so Spots did make an appearance.
Speaker 3:Scott just listens to the podcast so he didn't get to see the visuals.
Speaker 2:He wanted to see Lil Beth and Butthole, burt and Honcho.
Speaker 1:So which one was his favorite.
Speaker 2:Bitsy with the nips. I can't remember which one was his favorite.
Speaker 3:Bitsy the nips. I can't remember. Yeah, it was a good night. It was a good night, I stress about it. I really wanted to make sure everybody had something for their taste and could have a good time.
Speaker 1:It just goes to show you that the most important thing about hosting a game night is just getting people together, while we do love to cram as many games in as possible, because we love our games it's good to just let the night breathe a little bit. Let people reconnect, especially when you haven't seen them in a while.
Speaker 3:I gave everybody an hour and a half bit Let people reconnect, especially when you haven't seen them in a while. I gave everybody an hour and a half social that was in the schedule.
Speaker 2:Well, you should have talked when it was on the schedule.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was under the impression that everybody would be done catching up by 630.
Speaker 1:Game one over. You have five minutes to talk. Grab a snack, grab a drink, use the restroom.
Speaker 2:This is your conversation time. The conversations, if they must continue, please continue online.
Speaker 1:He's got a steam whistle that he blows when his game's out.
Speaker 3:Whoa.
Speaker 2:Operation Game Night Steam Whistles to start your games on time.
Speaker 3:I was really excited about this because I haven't had a big game night like this in a while. It's just been like couples, you know, like two extra players here and there having a game night playing a couple games. So this was the first big, like more than 10 people game night in a long time and it might be the last for a long time I don't know. You know what it's going to be like in pennsylvania when we move there, so you know it was good.
Speaker 2:it was good when travis comes up to dc and you come down to dc, I don't know. Let's say, uh, october, perfect, does that sound good?
Speaker 3:all right deal, let's do. Let's do it. All right, travis.
Speaker 2:I think it's Travis's turn. I think we'll let you talk. I guess 35 minutes into the podcast, we'll let him talk, yeah.
Speaker 3:Go ahead, travis, what?
Speaker 2:do you want?
Speaker 1:Okay so first, first things first. I have a procurement to show you. This is something that I had backed a long time ago and I want to show this to you. I'm going to give you a hint and you can see if you know the game.
Speaker 2:Is this Zuvadis? What is that? It's?
Speaker 3:a cock rooster tail. What is this? Show me more of a hint. Okay, that's a big wooden piece with a seven and a crown.
Speaker 1:Looking at the back of it, seven wonders, it's not seven wonders, but it is wonderful and way bigger than I ever anticipated.
Speaker 3:Look at this bad boy. Oh my god, I didn't even know that existed. Travis, Holy smokes.
Speaker 1:So they did a Ready Set, Bet reprint. Oh my gosh, this is the big boy edition.
Speaker 3:For the listener. Travis is holding what appears to be a box big enough to hold a small child in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this thing's probably like three plus feet across, maybe a foot and a half tall. I'm definitely going to do an unboxing video of this thing because it's got like neoprene mats and nice chips and stuff. Wow, yes, yeah, I'm super excited about that. Definitely going to bust that out at the next game night. Wow, dang. So that was out at the next game night. Wow, so that was my first debrief. Epic procurement that I was not expecting to show up. Second is I have a little bit of a different take. This is going to be kind of a pre-brief slash co-op selection. Oh, I have a game night with people that I don't know all that well tomorrow. Okay, okay, they, I, they have seen my collection. I have. I sent them a picture of my collection. They're like Holy crap, you have so many games, they have a handful of games and I want you to tell me what you think I should bring to this game night based on the games that they already own. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:That's a good so let the own Okay. Okay, that's good, so let's start. I'm okay with skipping weeknight games. Here we go. Catan, okay, catan, pretty basic, right, everyone's got Catan. Azul, easy, super lightweight. Sagrada Okay, a little bit of a niche thing. Ticket to Ride Europe Everdell, so they know, worker placement, wingspan, pretty simple, spirit island oh no, get a little crunchier they play these uh, they have played them yeah okay uh, I think they've played all of them actually wow, all right.
Speaker 3:I mean they've played spirit. I don't know what we're talking about, because that was the hardest game I've ever played. I'm convinced it can't be beat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, here's where it gets weird Ark Nova, oh, seven Wonders Duel, that's a big one. Yeah, onitama, do you know this one Clay?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like chess, kind of Just an abstract game.
Speaker 1:Q-Birds. Q-birds by Pandasaurus, sail they have Sail Horrified, captain is Dead, santorini, gloomhaven, jaws of the Lion, whoa, bananagrams. And then a whole bunch of small box games to include Cat in the Box, sequoia, some all-play games, fox in the Forest, etc.
Speaker 3:I mean, these people sound like gamers. They got quite a collection.
Speaker 1:So I think they're serious about it and they want to play something different. I'm kind of lost, based on what games they already have, as to what I should bring from my collection. What do you guys think?
Speaker 3:they sound like freaking omni gamers to me. Yeah, um, I would expose them to something new, because they seem like people that enjoy a variety of games. I didn't hear any kinesias in there, you know, maybe you could throw out a nice raw, or how many people are we talking?
Speaker 2:Just, it's four, total four.
Speaker 1:Yeah so and I wanted to put a pin in zoo Vadas, because Vadas was the one that came to mind Like, oh, maybe I should bring that, that might be something cool.
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know them well enough to start arguing with them and trying to finagle positions.
Speaker 2:I was pumping a few of these into Grok. You already said Wingspan. I didn't slip that one in. It said Wingspan. What about Scythe? Do you have?
Speaker 1:Scythe, I do have Scythe. I have all the expansions for.
Speaker 2:Scythe. I like Scythe because you get the worker placement feel. But then your tableau building. I love building the engine and interactions.
Speaker 1:I don't know how much they like the fight. There's a lot of resources that might be ambitious. Yeah, I'm also worried about the teach, because we're showing up and I've got to teach this and be ready to go. We're starting at 5pm, which isn't super late, but we also have a small child in the mix that needs some bedtime.
Speaker 2:Why don't you hit them with the freaking Ireland-Scotland game? Oh Rebirth.
Speaker 1:Rebirth, yeah, rebirth was definitely up there.
Speaker 3:I didn't hear any Canizzi games. I would bring Raw Rebirth River of Gold. Do you have?
Speaker 1:River of Gold. I don't have.
Speaker 3:River of Gold. That's a good one.
Speaker 1:Hmm, Okay yeah maybe I'll go with Raw.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think they would appreciate an exposure to something they haven't played. You know like, yeah, sure, you could play another abstract game, but it sounds like they kind of already have some games they like in that genre. They got sagrada azul, onitama, so hit him with another stonemaier.
Speaker 1:Uh, tapestry, oh yeah, I don't have that either yeah, I was also kind of wondering, like I don't really know these two people all that well, I just know that they play games a lot together, like as a couple, and rachel and I play games a fair amount together, and that's kind of a weird dynamic. Do you play like a 2v2 type game? Do you play like a free-for-all, do you? I don't know what the other dynamics are. A list of 20.
Speaker 2:2200.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Arcs, maybe Arcs no too much.
Speaker 3:Don't get yourself in over your head here, travis. You do have a baby. I don't want to see this go south. Pick something, you know, you know it well, you know it's going to be good and you know it's going to have a pretty solid end time.
Speaker 2:I like the idea of just hear me out here, hit him with a camel up and finish them off with a rebirth. I feel like that's an easy night. It's a fun party game to get them warmed up. Rebirth easy, kinesia, pick and play. You know what I'm saying? Yeah For the win, okay what's?
Speaker 3:for dessert, bring us a little card game to settle things down, okay.
Speaker 1:Something to cool off at the end of the night.
Speaker 2:What are you guys feeding? Taco night.
Speaker 1:They're making the tacos. I think we're bringing a couple sides. I grilled a little bit of corn Going to make some elote tomorrow. You already know what it is. Come on.
Speaker 3:We need this guy back in the States.
Speaker 2:man Hit him over here For real. He's on my Google calendar. Yeah, I know when he's coming.
Speaker 1:He's coming. I'm going to call you the second island in Baltimore. Start the countdown. All right, should we just go over the fence? Should we just forego the mission objective today?
Speaker 2:I mean well, so the mission objective was weekday games, yeah, weekday games, Well, night, yeah, but I had a great story to tell about weekday games. All right, let's hear it. And it kind of ties back into the mecca of board game Okay, board gaming here, and it all goes back to big boy game night. When I think of okay, because I don't have the same kind of gaming relationship that you guys have with your spouses. So when I think of weeknight gaming, I think of playing BGA by myself against randos, so that's like any game can be a weeknight game for me. But when I think of what do I I really love? I think back to our big boy game nights where when me and travis, uh, and I mean clay was, he was an exec too, but uh, me and travis were big boy execs.
Speaker 3:Um, we were handling air force Academy, uh, level issues okay, it was easy dealing with Travis always telling me what to do and I didn't review these OPRs well enough yeah, I know, fix yourself, I just, but I did enjoy.
Speaker 2:On Thursday nights we're having a big boy game night coming up and instead of Travis sending me something on teams about like our bosses are pissed at each other about this thing, what are we going to do about it? He's like I'm so excited to play this game with you and I'm like it just relieved, like so much stress about being at work and I'm like, oh yeah, my gosh, like so that's what I just want to tell that story about. I just want to tell that story about weekday gaming. I tie it to my friends that can alleviate stress during the week and I just want to say thank you to you, travis, for being that friend for weekday gaming. But that's all I really could offer to the main objective, because weekday gamings are fees for Odin and it's intense. I hit it hard with the randos on the BGAs.
Speaker 3:You're wild with the randos man.
Speaker 1:See, I think we all have kind of a different perspective. Right, jared, you play mainly online games. If I'm going to break out a game during the week week, especially now that we have a young in here like our night consists of we come home, we make dinner, we wash bottles, we do bedtime and then we go to sleep, like that's it. And so if I'm gonna sneak in a game, it's gonna be like a quick card game, either by myself or like maybe we'll play jiper or something quick that we both know, something that takes like 30 minutes or less, while we have a show on in the background or something. And you know, gone are the days of the long three hour game nights where we're like all right, one more turn, one more round, one more game, and we're pushing till 10 30 on a Thursday night. You got to get up early tomorrow, friday, go to work. So yeah, I go ahead. Claude you, you have the best weeknight schedule, I mean you know one wednesdays and game night.
Speaker 3:Thursdays and weekend game nights I haven't played a game night weeknight with this and somebody besides mary since you guys left, you know, and and Jared just reminded me of that I'm like man, that that was awesome, Like it was so good to have something to look forward to in the week. I feel like a lot of times you just trudge through the week with nothing to look forward to, just waiting for the weekend. And he just even to have like one thing that you're looking forward to in the middle of the week, like yeah, I'm going to see my friends, we're going to play this game. I've really been wanting to play and I love playing games with Mary, but like it's always going to be what she wants to play most of the time, and if I do somehow get my way on a weeknight game with Mary, it's I'm. I owe her a lot. There's a lot of dishes being done. I'm having to vacuum not just the middles. I'm vacuuming the edges of stuff, Not just the Might have to pick up something and vacuum underneath it.
Speaker 1:I didn't know you could do that.
Speaker 3:Just the middles. I usually just vacuum the middles.
Speaker 1:That's where everybody's at every corner, every time, oh my god.
Speaker 2:But I was also say shout out to the ladies who let us do the big boy game nights yeah, well at that point, if we rewind back to, you know, 2021, 2022, before gwen and jimmy, like mary, did have to handle the two hellions you know upstairs. So shout out to mayor again um for handling them. So we could go a little crazy. I just feel true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel invigorated right now, like I want to start forcing myself to do things on weeknights again. Yeah, because I've just I've just like become resigned to the fact that, like weeknights, you know, kids go to bed 7 30, we watch an episode of the sopranos. We go to bed like yeah, and then I'm just like, hey, maybe we got game night on friday, like I'll look forward to that. I can do fun things during the week why not? Right, we're still young.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, maybe I don't know. Maybe this is going to help me too in a potentially tough job coming up. If I have something fun to look forward to on a, let's say, even a tuesday yeah, because you know I I'm also work for the weekend Kind of guy and maybe a Tuesday night game, but then we're dislocated again. So how do we Three here we're going to have to go online. Which is kind of my Expertise.
Speaker 3:You got Cole in DC. Cole was always down for a weeknight Game night. He never fussed. I look at him as somebody that would have been like you got Cole in DC. Cole was always down for a weeknight game night, that is true, he never fussed. I look at him as somebody that would have been like I don't know. He had tough jobs. He got up early and he would come over and he didn't complain very much. And I was complaining, it was at my house. I didn't have to tell him. I was like this is too late.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Clay, we had to do it at your house. You realize that was kind of like your stipulations.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I had the kids at the time. You know, it's true, having kids now makes me appreciate that just so much more. Because Gabriel was invited to the big boy in this party last night. Yeah, he did graciously call me and Adrian, he was like hey, dude, like I got the little, the little guy, he's going to night school, he's out of the military. Now, like, okay, I appreciate the phone call, like letting me know, like hey, you flew all the way over here. I'm not gonna be able to make it, let's try and link up, uh, before you leave. But like it's a lot of work and he lives like two hours like that way, yeah, coming down to play games, like moving your kid who, like my, I mean, I just know kids, they just don't sleep, and when they don't sleep, you don't sleep. So like yeah, I don't, I don't blame it at all, because I was like, oh yeah, just they're, they're kids, they sleep anywhere. No, they don't Kids.
Speaker 2:If you have a, you know what do they call those decoy babies like Jordan. Jordan's the most, he's a perfect baby. He just he can take, you can take him anywhere. I'm talking about Fritz. No, fritz, no, jordan, fritz too, fritz too. Okay, fritz was here last night. Cole, he's off wakeboarding down there in Texas doing I don't know what. Melissa was here with Fritz.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 2:And Fritz is the most adorable little guy. He's carrying around this football and that's his shtick.
Speaker 3:He's a footballer? Yeah, he's like one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he doesn't watch like Blues Clues or like I don't know what they watch. Oh, I know what my daughter watches, but I don't know what they watch. Well, I know what my daughter watches, but I don't know what boys watch. But he watches reruns of playoffs. He watches the AFC championship game. It's frozen outside. You know there's two minutes left on the clock. Tom Brady's out there, I don't know, so I was out there hiking the ball to him. Oh nice, it was incredible, he's like one and a half right yeah I if it was blowing my mind.
Speaker 3:when he yeah, he's like a little over one, yeah, but when she's telling me that all he wants to watch is football, I'm like surely you're kidding. She's like, no, I'm not kidding, like we have it on constantly at the house, it's just for him. Neither of them watch football, really, and somehow this little one-and-a-half-year-old just is obsessed with football. You should have seen him with this football. He wouldn't let it out of sight. Nope, that's crazy. Yeah, it's hilarious.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of. It's too bad he didn't get many football genes.
Speaker 2:Neither of them are real big people. Yeah, they'll have to break that to him. He'll be a kicker, he'll be able to gut, wrench and do a leg lace, but I don't know. I can work with him. He might be a safety Maybe.
Speaker 1:I read an article a little while ago about revitalizing the dinner party, the weeknight dinner party. Oh, and really what we've got here in operation game night and our weeknight weekday games is like we are bringing back the dinner party. It might not be quite as fancy where we're like standing around in our like cocktail dresses and you know, blazers and stuff, sipping wine and sports, discussing, discussing politics or whatever, but like wait, we have a like middle of the week something to break it up. We have good conversation, we eat a meal together and then we like gather around something central, we spend quality time together. Board game night during the week is the new dinner party you heard it here first what was, what was the shtick of this?
Speaker 3:um, how do we get on this tangent? No, no, I mean uh, of that article like. What was the article? It was just like what was his point of view. What was it trying?
Speaker 1:it's like the lost art of hosting a dinner party and like we have kind of lost that yeah specifically weekday, like a dinner party itself has to be a weekday, otherwise you're having people over for drinks and dinner and the weekend he's talking about specifically the 1970s You're inviting your neighbor down the street to come over for dinner and drinks and discussion on a weeknight and we've kind of lost that as we've gone through and gotten busier and more digital and more digital and really I'm saying is that the modern day game night is the 1970s dinner party yeah, uh, can you link to that article in the show notes for sure?
Speaker 3:yeah me, yes, you gotta check the show notes.
Speaker 3:That's cool, the show notes yeah, and if you're just if you're a busy parent, like all of us have been, slash are you know? And and you still want to play a game every now and then on a weeknight without having to host a dinner party and you got a spouse that well, I, I really am an advocate for something you know, something that's quick, because a lot of times your brain's fried at the end of the day. You don't want to sit down and spend 30 minutes setting up a game. Time's limited in the evening a lot of times. So you know it's got to be quick, it's got to be comfortable. You don't want to push yourself too hard on a weeknight, unless that's what you're there for, which I might get back to. There's a lot of ways to skin the cats, but we're saying just do what you want to do. There's a lot of ways to feed the cat. Oh yeah, why are we skinning cats? That's a weird thing.
Speaker 1:They feed two birds with one stone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, feeding everything.
Speaker 1:All right, are we going to go over the fence? Yeah, yeah, feeding everything. All right, are we going to go over the fence? Yeah, all right, jared, start me off. Tell me what you've been doing outside of board gaming.
Speaker 2:Well, outside of board gaming. I'm going on my world tour here. Spring break has arrived, I had it. I had it, dang it. I'm going to go to all my favorite foodie spots. While I'm going to go to all my favorite foodie spots while I'm here, obviously I hit Slice 420. We are going to get some. Where else are we going? Did you guys ever go to New Day Cafe? Yeah, we're going to get breakfast at New Day Cafe. Going downtown to King Chef's Diner? Oh yeah, big burritos Downtown Colorado Springs. Where else? Well, walter's is now on my radar. Adrian mentioned it, but Walter's 303 Pizza.
Speaker 1:Do yourself a favor. Do yourself a favor. The Keep Tahoe Blue Pizza, keep Tahoe Blue pizza, keep Tahoe Blue and the Dry Rub Wings Cannot be B, oh yes.
Speaker 2:And the B at the Broadmoor. You're going to throw a little B on my shirt. I'm going to be happy as a little clam. They have some amazing food there, a yard of beer. I'm not a beer guy, but tell me different.
Speaker 3:Oh, I got him, so he's got receipts. I got him excited about chorus with that uh, clear creek, rocky mountain water and then I do remember what I was actually going to do for my.
Speaker 2:I got him excited about chorus with that Clear Creek Rocky Mountain water, and then I do remember what I was actually going to do for my. Over the fence Tonight, wyatt Hendrickson is going to be wrestling for the national championship for the heavyweight weight division heavyweight class. He's wrestling Gable Steveson, which going to be a tough, tough battle tonight. He's a former Air Force Academy graduate. He got an extra year of eligibility because of COVID and he's at Oklahoma State now. They call him Lieutenant Hendrickson, so he's over there in Philadelphia tonight. So good luck to him. By the time this airs we will have known what the result is, and I hope that the Air Force Academy can add a little slice of national champion to their list.
Speaker 3:Would that count to them? I don't know. Would they put that on their wall?
Speaker 1:No but maybe they would put that on their wall. You better believe me.
Speaker 3:You think so. Is that fair?
Speaker 2:I mean he salutes at the end of his matches. So, that's kind of his thing. He does a backflip and a salute.
Speaker 1:Either that or they'll put him on the cover of Checkpoints, checkpoints.
Speaker 3:This is the first year. Usually I go to Nationals. My dad goes, like every year they're wrestling nationals and usually I go meet him up, meet up with him. It's good like bonding father son trip. This year I didn't go. Obviously got a lot going on. You know move in, freaking, trying to find a job, everything else, and we're going back next week jumping to my over the fence. Uh, we're going to pennsylvania tomorrow to my cousin's has a wedding and I got a lot of house hunting and, you know, trying to solicit companies to hire me out there. So it's going to be a jam packed week but it's going to be cool. Kind of get my foot back in the door in Pennsylvania and you know see what happens. But yeah, looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Nice. What about you, Travis? This past week I did the German Armed Forces efficiency match.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, you didn't drown?
Speaker 1:obviously I did not drown. The first day was a 100-meter swim in your uniform. You just had to use any stroke you wanted. You had four minutes to do it and I did. I think I did 100 meters in like a minute 20 maybe definitely not my fastest, uh, but then you had to, you know, float and take your, take your uniform off and then throw it out of the pool. Oh, and then day two was the german p test, or no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:What does it consist of?
Speaker 1:Day two was shooting a M18 pistol, which was like you're just shooting at a target 25 meters away from standing kneeling prone and you had to get as many shots as you could on target, just in the silhouette, and I got six out of six. On target, just in the silhouette, and I got six out of six. Oh, and then the next day. The next day was a german pt test, which consists of a shuttle run where you're like doing an up down between the down and backs. So you go, you run down 10 meters, back 10 meters, you go all the way down on your chest, clap your hands behind your back and do it again and you run that 11 times way harder than it sounds it wasn't any part of me that thought that sounded like fun then you go over to a pull up bar and it's a flexed arm.
Speaker 1:Hang for as long as you can. You just hold a chin above and a flexed arm. Hang for as long as you can. You just hold a chin above and a flexed arm hang for as long as you can. Uh, and then the last event is a thousand meter sprint and the day that we ran it was like it was like 20 degrees outside. It was miserable. That's probably why I'm not feeling well right now, but a thousand meters is not really a sprint, that's a distance race.
Speaker 3:That's like half a mile, that's more than that In track terms that is middle distance.
Speaker 1:I mean, he is the track expert I ran. He's a fielder. In high school I ran the 400. And one time my coach wanted to put me in the 800. And I said, coach, what is the strategy to running an 800? I've never run an 800 before. And he said you run a 400 and then you do it twice back to back. And that's kind of how the thousand was. I'm nowhere near good a shape as I once was, but it was. That was like honestly the hardest part. And then the final day. The final day was a was a seven and a half mile ruck with a 40 pound pack. This is quite the week. It was quite the week, yeah. And so we started outside and they picked a spot that was three ish kilometers away and you went down and back, down and back with your 40 pound ruck. You had two hours to do it and I did it in like a little over an hour and a half.
Speaker 3:Nice, I feel like you would be a rucking machine.
Speaker 2:Right, you got that big frame, long legs to just stride it out with the ruck, practicing with a 55, 50, 60-pounder or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely went down in weight for the event and that helped me. But I honestly wasn't like rucking every day. I got like a couple of sessions in just to make sure I knew what I was doing, but I never went above I don't know. Four miles, four and a half miles when I was training practicing. Seven and a half is quite a bit longer. My feet were hurting. I was a little sore the other day but I got my gold badge. They have three different levels. You have gold, silver, bronze. I got my gold badge, no big deal. Gold badge.
Speaker 2:I'm with a gold star, member of the German military, here you get to wear it on your uniform, what you get to wear it on your blues or anything yes, get to wear it on my uniform, so get to flex on everybody.
Speaker 1:But it was a cool event. I mean they had, uh, three 350 people sign up for it and I think only 120 got medals.
Speaker 3:So any medals? What about how many people got gold medals?
Speaker 1:I'd say maybe maybe 150. No, uh, if 120 got medals, I'd say like maybe 50 people got gold.
Speaker 2:Wow, we're with an elite freaking civil engineer warrior here and there's probably not too many civil engineers that did that. I, I, I know civil engineers that did that.
Speaker 1:I know civil engineers and it was like a joint thing, right. So like you had Army Navy Marines that all did it. Tons of Army privates, these young bucks that, like, grew up in the Army with a ruck on their back Already got Ranger tabs.
Speaker 1:Yes lots of Ranger tabs. I think there was one or two Guardians out there, nice Represent. There's not a huge guardian footprint out here, so proportionally they they showed up. Okay, um, and when you're above the age of 35, you get like a bonus bump to all your scores. Okay, I am not above 35. I am about to be 34. So I'm like I was doing it the hard way. I am not above 35. I am about to be 34. So I'm like I was doing it the hard way. I just want to have a little bit of credit that I did it the hard way.
Speaker 3:There's definitely a dip.
Speaker 1:There was a dip like all the privates and stuff, these young bucks that have been like that, are fresh out of basic and are still in good shape, lots of golds there. Then you had these like you you know lieutenant colonels that are definitely above 35, lots of golds there and there's this like bathtub effect between. So, yeah, it was cool to see, it was cool to do lots of like espir decor where we are out there just kind of enjoying each other's company training, sweating together. So it was a cool event.
Speaker 2:And then, after you did your event, you had to go back to work.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, so I rucked seven and a half miles, I took my ruck off, I went to the gym and showered and then I went into work. To go brief, a bunch of 06s.
Speaker 3:Talk about morale.
Speaker 1:It was a week, man. It was a week Dang Talk about morale.
Speaker 3:It was a week man. Thanks for showing up with the same host positive energy you always have, travis.
Speaker 1:It's been a week. I'm doing my best. I'm definitely coming down with something. Hopefully by next week I'm revitalized and ready to go.
Speaker 3:Can I pop over the fence real quick again, please? I just want to give a shout out. I started listening to Paul Solomon, our guest. He's on the podcast Decision Space. Yeah, I started listening to that podcast. And wow, I almost texted you guys and said we should probably just stop doing our podcast. Like those guys are intellectual about it, I mean, I hesitate to even tell our listeners about this. They might go listen to Decision Space and they'll be like wow, maybe it's additive, it's not subtractive.
Speaker 3:But perhaps if you like what we bring to the table. You might not like all the high-minded talk, but it's super interesting. They really talk about the mechanics of games and get in the weeds of it. It's a lot of fun to listen to Check it out.
Speaker 2:If you like us, please continue to listen please, please yeah, are you saying that I'm not?
Speaker 3:I'm not very intellectual are you trying to say intellectual?
Speaker 2:I need to tone down my party and turn up my uh, my analytics.
Speaker 3:Yeah, come on, give me one week. We should try and like just be really analytical about a game and just Talk about the minutia. Yeah, yes, I like it. Yes, you hear, when you draw from the market pile, there's a one in six chance you could.
Speaker 1:Is that what they get into? They get into, like, the stats of the decisions they get into a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3:It's cool. It's more about the feelings of all the decisions.
Speaker 2:But it fires something in your brain. They're doing something, right.
Speaker 3:It's different than the other podcasts I've listened to.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like that on our podcast.
Speaker 2:What parts of your brain are fired when you listen to this podcast?
Speaker 3:Usually just embarrassment.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, as someone who listens to this podcast, probably more than anybody else out there, I listen to this podcast probably five, six times an episode.
Speaker 2:So I don't want to hear it. Yeah, you have to edit out all the beeps and squeaks, travis. I just want to say I have not touched the mic once today.
Speaker 1:You did bang the table a couple times. You banged the table a couple times. Yeah, that podcast kind of reminds me of the Woodland War, the root one, where they're breaking down the different openings for the different classes and, like man, that stuff is so deep it's like dissecting chess, like I see you're doing the flying dutchman's porta potty, like you know they have like these different names they talked about fromage and I was like.
Speaker 3:I was like, yeah, fromage is cool. Like you all place a piece of cheese at the same time, boom, boom, boom, it's fine, it it's fun, it's quick. And they talked about it for 45 minutes. I was like, oh my god, wow, I need to start doing some research because it's pretty high on the hotness, isn't it?
Speaker 2:On the BGG, oh yeah, I mean it's up there.
Speaker 1:Well, they have the new Expand Alone from Mosh. Eo coming out. I backed it.
Speaker 2:Alright, did we do it? Are we done? I think we did it, we did it, we're done. I mean, there was a moment there where Travis almost wavered, and I think we got through it. I think we made it there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was struggling, so thank you for carrying the episode. Thank you guys for being here. I wish I was there with you guys. We do too. Hopefully soon we can have another big game night, maybe on a weekday for Operation Game Night. I have been Travis, he has been Clay and he has been Jared and we are out. Good luck, wyatt.
Speaker 3:You think he's listening?
