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 34: Azul, Expeditions, Armello, and Beginner's Guide to the BGG Hotness
We dive into the BoardGameGeek Hotness list to explore what games are capturing the attention of the board game community, while sharing our gaming experiences and insights.
• Jared prepares for the World Series of Board Gaming by planning to relearn Azul
• Clay reviews Expeditions, appreciating its unique action selection system and card-tucking mechanics
• Travis explores digital gaming with Armello, an app that gives Mage Knight vibes with a physical board game version coming in 2025
• We analyze the BoardGameGeek Top 50 Hotness list, from Orleans at #50 to Sanctuary at #1
• Despite our best efforts, we're completely stumped by Sanctuary, the current #1 hottest game
• Personal updates include Jared revisiting early podcast episodes, Clay finishing The Sopranos, and Travis following Nintendo Switch 2 news
Join us next week for another episode where we continue to explore the world of board games with our signature blend of enthusiasm and friendly banter.
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, episode 34. Joining me as always are my co-hosts. Clayton Gable how are you doing, clay?
Speaker 1:I'm doing good. I loved your guys' episode on Engine Builders last week. I really think our podcast is better when I'm not on it, so I'm going to start angling for the role of sole producer and you guys can just be the talent, because that was a good episode.
Speaker 3:You guys had a lot of great conversation about those engine builders check it out, if you haven't seen that one you even like that part where I threw you under the bus I I did it's.
Speaker 1:It's fair. I am not the engine buildiest guy, so it was. It was more into criticism you know what?
Speaker 3:Even let's just say, let's go into an alternate universe where you are the behind the scenes guy. You still have to come off, Mike, and you know, correct us. You still have to be. You don't just get to be completely behind the scenes, you still have to come in there when me and Travis are like hey, can you throw something up on the screen.
Speaker 1:And then you got a fact, check us and stuff. So yeah, what's? Our knowledge points go down about 15 to 20. If you're not on the podcast so yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 3:I'm not good at a critical role you're.
Speaker 1:You feel a critical role here. I feel like three's a crowd. It was really good banter between the two of you and I. Just I'm gonna muck it all up this week.
Speaker 2:So no, you're not I feel like the french have a term for three people, that uh go in on something together. But oh, come on anyways, we'll have that later. Uh, joining me as always. Co-host jared erickson. How you doing, jared?
Speaker 3:I was trying to do my best, sith lord impression. Uh, we're starting a little bit late because of me. I'm coming to you live from my daughter's closet again. I think that was maybe back in episode five or six or something like that. Um, but I'm doing good just back in the closet. Yeah, yesterday, uh, we did a little joint joint operations with our boy vick. Um, I think someone mentioned something about me being sweaty. I'm sweaty again, if anyone's wondering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, perpetually sweaty, it's okay, always moist. Speaking of moist, we have a great show for you today. We are going to debrief our weeks in gaming. We are going to review the BGG, that is, board Game Geek Hotness, which is the top 50 games by search engine on board game geek, and then we're going to go over the fence and talk about what we've been doing outside of board gaming. So, jared, I want to hear yours first. Let's, let's go, let's get your debrief for the week okay, well, not to.
Speaker 3:um, what do you put the cart before? The horse type thing? Um, I want to talk about azul here and uh, I think I'm speeding a little bit because azul here, uh, I didn't actually play it. Okay, great, I have sent a an invite to Mary to play it. Clay, if you could tell your wife, just text her real quick and say, hey, jared's waiting on you to accept. She hasn't been on BGA for about two days and so I sent her a little request.
Speaker 3:So this is what I'm going to do for the debrief today, because I'm a little chaotic. I'm going to tell you what I remember about Azul and then you guys, can you guys fill in the blank? Absolutely, you are best. So, from what I remember, azul here it's a good theme here where you have these tiles, these literal tiles, like you're tiling the floor of a beautiful spanish palace is, that is that I don't even know what kind of palace we're talking here.
Speaker 3:But, um, what you're doing is you're selecting these different types of tiles. There's is there five different types the blue, the yellow, the dark blue, even darker blue, blue and the red, and you're trying to fill out your pattern and score points. So you're trying to maximize the placements of those tiles but, depending on which ones you're grabbing, there might be waste. You might not be able to place them onto your tableau straight away, so you have to place them into like a waste area, if you will. As you're trying to make sure that you're planning ahead, your opponents are also going to be doing the same thing.
Speaker 3:If you can see, on the picture that's pulled up right now, there's these joint areas that everyone are selecting their tiles from. Some of them might have extra yellows and you're like shit, I don't need these yellows yet, or I don't want them right now, but it has a red that I really want. I really want that red. So you take that one, but then you got to waste some of the yellows. So not really engine building at all, right yeah, I would not say it's an engine.
Speaker 1:Well, actually in the point scoring by getting more tiles out on there, and the more connections you make, the more points you score every time you place a tile.
Speaker 3:So the main goal is to get passive engine builder passive engine builder. The main goal, from what I remember, is get as many rows and as many columns as you can. Columns and rows, that's how rows and columns work, and ultimately you do want to just fill out your entire five by five grid and, as you can kind of see right there in the middle, it goes horizontally as well. What are the rules on actually placing them once you grab them from those center sides on the right? Yeah, if you will.
Speaker 1:So you have the five different rows and there's space on the left that's like your staging area almost. There's space on the left that's like your staging area almost. So when you grab tiles from the middle, you have to put them into a row on your staging area and that row is made up of either one, two, three, four or five tiles and you have to fill up that staging area row with all the same color tile and once that's filled yeah, once that's up then you can move one of those tiles into the right side, which is your main objective over there where you'll score points. So, like the bottom row where you have to get five tiles of the same color to fill it up in order to move a tile over is usually a hard one to fill out. So if you see one of those discs that has like three or four of the same color tiles and you grab from that, that's a good opportunity to try and fill out that that bottom row there.
Speaker 3:Right, but then other players might be thinking the same thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's competitive for those tiles out there Right and so any and then between rounds, um whatever you don't actually fill up in your staging area, like in the on YouTube if you're watching in the middle on the left hand side, kind of that's your staging area to. Once you fill out your staging area now you can move it onto your actual um five by five grid. So whatever you don't actually fill out in your staging area you don't get to put into your, into your actual tile five by five tab below. Do those have to go to the waste area or anything like that?
Speaker 1:Or they just go, they just they stay, they eat up space for the next round. Okay, so you might, you might, work on filling out that bottom row over the course of a couple rounds. A couple rounds, yeah. How many rounds are played? It ends when somebody fills out an entire row and then that is the last round of the game.
Speaker 2:But this is what we're looking at here. That's like in-game, because that person filled out the bottom row.
Speaker 1:Which it seems like this might be might be a stage photo, because I can't imagine that would be the row that someone filled out, because, again, the bottom row is the hardest one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay mary's pretty good at this game right she is.
Speaker 1:That's why I don't play it with her, no more, that's why I want to play against her?
Speaker 3:because you guys got me hot on the World Series of Board Gaming in Las Vegas over Clayton David Gable's birthday weekend. We're going I think that might be kind of an overall theme of the Operation Game Night podcast for the next six months. Just preparation Training A World Series of Game Night podcast for the next six months. Um, as just preparation for training uh a world series of uh game night.
Speaker 1:So if you do the training montage, yeah, I agree to follow you around with a camera as you take your turns on the peloton, on bga, and we can put together a real nice documentary. It's gonna culminate with you getting the ring and the 25K from the World Series of Board Gaming.
Speaker 3:It's going to be nonstop trading. He was a scrappy young kid from Utah and here he is.
Speaker 2:He's trading. I can't wait. I can't wait for that documentary.
Speaker 3:Okay, guys, this is giving me purpose in life and this is. I mean, it's only been 24 hours since I even realized that this was a thing. The curl on the end of my smile has gotten even curlier. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm going to have to stop playing Feast for Odin now, because that's not on the 16 games. Anyways, now, because that's not on the 16 um games. Um, so, yeah, anyways, this was my debrief. I haven't played it yet. Have played it many moons ago. I realized I'm terrible at it, so I'm going to be training with the best, and that is mary gable. So, mary, uh, please kick my ass. Um, please teach me your ways, because I think this is in day one, so I need to crush day one. So, mary, please help me.
Speaker 1:I'll get her on it, don't worry. She really likes sizzles, so that might give her a reason to get back on BGA, because clearly the games I'm playing with her aren't cause enough for her to actually sign in and take her turn. They're not scratching the edge, yeah, okay, uh, this might do it though that's why you did a decent job debriefing for not actually having played this game in like five years. So I.
Speaker 3:I did watch a YouTube on um Ark Nova, but no way in hell am I going to be able to understand or debrief that, and I still haven't played that one either. So I thought Azul was probably.
Speaker 2:I'm going to send it to you in the mail. That and White Castle. We're going to get it going while I'm there. Okay, I love it. I'm excited. That's awesome. I have two questions. One Clay. There are about 10,000. I'm excited. That's awesome. I have two questions. One clay there are about 10,000 different Azules. Is there one that is more popular than the others? Like I know that there's like Azul chocolatier and Azul spooky Halloween theme. Like, is there one that stands out above the rest?
Speaker 1:I think just classic Azul is the one that people like the most. I mean the the one. The chocolate one is the one that people like the most. I mean the the one. The chocolate one is the same, it's just a different like skin on it. But they do have done like summer pavilion and queen garden or something. Now they have azul duel. I haven't played any of those, they just look like more of the same, I think. I think basic azul is fine. I got rid of all my Azuls except for Azul Mini, because Azul Mini comes in a box this big. It's got nice recessed sections you can put the little things in. I'm like you know what that's good enough to have. It's like $15 or something. Perfect for traveling, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, thank you. Second question yes, jared. So, oh yeah, thank you, uh. Second question yes, jared, uh, for your documentary and your training montage. What? What is the? Uh, let's say the? The subtitle is like an underdog story. What is the main card title of your documentary going to be called?
Speaker 3:um, it's probably going to be like something about being slippery. Uh, just I don't know how about. I'll have to think about that one.
Speaker 2:You really put him on the side. Jared, does the world series subtitle one garden hose too far?
Speaker 3:No, guys, we don't really know how many auxiliary hoses there really are down there. Okay, like I said, I was born with 12 fingers, so that's two extra fingers. Who knows if there's two extra hoses down there? So I know, tay, he sent out a sweet alternate logo for us here at operation game night. Um, there, might, there might be some extra ones, who knows? We'll have to, uh. Um, yeah, we'll have to, and who knows?
Speaker 3:maybe it's just like so persistent that it just like recreated a pathway. I don't know, who knows. It's like a.
Speaker 2:Hydra. It's like the hydra you cut one hose and like two more. Just branch off, holy, all right, okay and these.
Speaker 3:This is the kind of banter that. This is why rodney, he can't, he can't come on our podcast.
Speaker 2:You know he's too busy flipping boxes to uh come partake in this shenanigans.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, all right, clay, hit me with your debrief yeah, do you want the big one first or the small one?
Speaker 2:let's do big one first.
Speaker 1:Hit me with the big one I didn't get approval for two debriefs, but I'm gonna do it. So, oh my, here we go. So paul solomon got me excited about a lot of things, but chiefly he got me excited about Expeditions, because that was another Stonemaier game that I let come and go. You know, I saw mixed reviews and it looked big, it was expensive and I was like I don't really know if I'm going to play this. So I got my Petri's bucks because I turned in like 100 games to Petri's and they had Expeditions. I was feeling I was feeling I was feeling spendy and got the ironclad edition, which is also yeah, I treated myself as I'm one to do and got expeditions.
Speaker 1:Didn't think I was going to get it played because I heard that it's long at four players. It's long at four players and Mary is my two player player and she expressed little interest in playing it. However, we made a deal. I made a deal with the devil and we were back home in Pennsylvania last week and we were at a wedding. The wedding ended at like 11 o'clock. Mary's like everybody was going out to some bar. If you know me, that's not my scene. I hate loud places. I hate, you know, all the commotion, paying top dollar for drinks no fun.
Speaker 1:It was not a board game bar, it was a bar bar. There was a line outside of it. I was like what are we 15 or I? She wanted to go. She's like probably not 15 either, but yeah 21, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 1:She wanted to go and you know we never get a chance to do stuff like that. All of our family and friends and stuff were out and I was like you know what, if you agree to play some of these unplayed games I have with me, I will stay out to whatever hour of the night you want and I will not complain. And so I made that deal and I held up my end of the bargain.
Speaker 3:I complained a little, but either way, I'm going to fact check that with Mary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fact check it. But we got back to Colorado and I phoned in this favor real quick and we played expeditions the other night and it was awesome. So expeditions has, like this hex grid that you form, there's like five or so tiles that are basic tiles, that are always there, and then there's like unexplored tiles that expand out from the base camp that you don't know what they are. So when you move your mech into there, you get to flip it over. It reveals some level of corruption and an action that you can take in the future. So, like Paul Solomon was saying, it's got a really cool action selection system. There's three things you can do on your turn and you always can do two of them, so you can move, you can gather or you can. What's the third thing? Oh, my god, oh, play a card. Yeah, so move, gather, play a card, and you have this cube that you cover up one of those actions and then you take the other two. So if I cover up, move, I can play a card and gather, and so that was a really cool system and the card play was interesting.
Speaker 1:So there was like three types of cards. There were cards that you could tuck underneath your board that were like an engine you built. Like this would jared I was thinking you this whole time engine building. There were these meteorite cards and when you melded it under your board it gave you an ability and then the next time you melded a card under there you triggered that card's ability and the other card's ability and then you could do that up to four times and kind of reap these actions. There were quest cards that required you to go to a specific location on the map and spend resources and then you could tuck those in the top of your player board and those gave you hearts, and hearts kind of multiplied your scoring potential at the end, kind of like inside how your popularity does at the end, kind of like inside how your popularity does. And then the third type of card were items and those got tucked on the right side of your board and gave you like ongoing abilities.
Speaker 1:So tucking cards was huge if you could do it, but it was hard to do because those were spaces that were out further in the hex grid that you had to uncover, that let you meld or quest or upgrade. Grid that you had to uncover, that let you meld or quest or upgrade, and they were also covered up by these corruption tokens that you had to use your resources of power and guile to vanquish. And so you're doing this. You're tucking your cards, you're playing cards. There's also this cool thing where when you play a card, it has like a general benefit that usually gets you some of your resources, and then it has like a worker on the bottom like yellow, purple, green or blue, and if you have one of those workers in your supply, you can put it on that card to activate that ability as well. So you're also managing the supply of different colored workers that you can use to get more abilities on your cards, and the game ends when you, just like scythe, you've got stars that you're trying to achieve objectives and they're, you know, similar things. Like you melded four meteorites, you did four quests, you have four upgrades I think one of them was five map tokens you have. So there's these different objectives you're trying to hit and when somebody gets four of their stars out on those objectives, the game ends.
Speaker 1:And I really appreciated what this game was doing. I don't know if I'll play it a ton, but it's just. It was just a game. I appreciate the design. It did a lot of things that were unique. But you know the things you've seen before. But just in a new way, you know, like the card display was not just like a you know doing Imperium card bro. The cards are actually displayed in gaps in the map so like when you're in a space adjacent to that card you kind of have access to potentially pick it up. So it just had a lot of cool thoughts in it and it played fairly quickly. And card you kind of have access to potentially pick it up. So it just had a lot of cool thoughts in it and it played fairly quickly and it was kind of streamlined to two players. It was like an hour and 15 minutes for our first play, so not too bad for a game of any photos it's pretty heavy, it's's 3.0.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just above medium, yeah, and it felt like it.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's medium heavy. Oh, look at those. Yeah, so, clay, you got the ironclad version like the big. Oh, you better believe it, okay, yeah. So I got this edition at Essen a couple of years ago and I have not played it solo, but I've heard good things about the solo mode on this one. So if you want to get the most bang for your buck out of this game that you invested in, I would give the solo mode a shot. I'm not sure how it differs, don't quiz me on that, but yeah, I read the. I read the rules like a year and a half ago when I bought this game, and I am definitely interested in trying this solo, if not getting it to the table more, because it does have some cool systems like it's nothing revelatory or anything like crazy new, but it's like engaging and and interesting and like just plus if you have the fancy version like the metal mechs look good on the table. They're nice and big and beefy and heavy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're so good. They're way bigger than the side mechs. It was a lot of fun. I really did think that it was interesting, the worker aspect of it, like trying to collect those workers of the colors that you need to activate your cards. Yeah, it was a cool game I. The only complaint is a production complaint. In the ironclad edition it comes with these silicone bases which I thought, wow, that's really cool silicone bases, nice rubber, snap onto the bottom. They don't fit and I looked it up and a lot of other people said the same thing like they just like loose and fall off. So I don't know. I mean, if you with two players, it wasn't that hard to remember which mech was yours out on the on the map. But maybe if you're playing with four players or something, it would be a nuisance to not know where your mech was. But that's a minor production gripe on what otherwise is a really nicely produced game.
Speaker 3:Don't play it with Tyler Spangler, especially after a couple of brewskis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he wouldn't, he'd not be. I mean, this is probably a little easier to grasp inside, I think Well give it a try with him. You know, yeah, maybe I'll see what he's feeling, but yeah, that's Expeditions. I'll see what he's feeling, but yeah, that's Expeditions. My unplayed Stonemaier game list is down to, I think, pendulum. Is it just Pendulum? And that's it, and that's it. That's the only Stonemaier game I haven't played. It's huge. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:I guess I only played Charterstone stone once and it's a legacy game, so you're really supposed to play the whole thing but have you played all of the like scythe uh expansions no no, I hear good things though, yeah, they have some awesome ones like rise of fenris is, yeah, far and away like the most popular, and that one's pretty awesome yeah, that makes it into a campaign game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's like the big box expansion. Other ones are like the most popular and that one's pretty awesome. Yeah, that makes it into a campaign game, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's like the big box expansion. Other ones are like the individual factions and stuff that you can buy. Yeah, it's like a full box that comes with it and, yeah, it's a campaign thing oh, I haven't played euphoria either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so almost there almost got the whole catalog down jared, I can ship.
Speaker 2:I can ship you this one if you want to play this one too, yeah, so almost there, almost got the whole catalog down.
Speaker 1:Jared, I can ship you this one if you want to play this one too.
Speaker 2:Ooh, you would love the engine building going. Man, it was so cool, I'll take them all. You're going to get a crate of games and we're going to play them all while I'm there. Yeah, perfect, all right, clay what?
Speaker 1:else you got Real quick. Just want to give a shout out to this little ditty, pixies. I mean I wish we had this in our small box bracket, but again, there's so many good small box games. I hadn't played this one yet, but it will be in the next one because Pixies is from Pandasaurus. It's like a sea salt and paper size box, so tiny box.
Speaker 1:And my mom, she's on Board Game Arena all the time. I saw her playing this and she was waiting for a game and I just jumped in it with her. I didn't know how to play and she was waiting for a game and I just jumped in it with her. I didn't know how to play and I called her as we were playing and she kind of told me the rules.
Speaker 1:But essentially you have like a three by three grid, so one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. So you're trying to play cards to that grid I can find a good photo and you score points for three different things. So you score points if you have a card in the five spot and there's a card under it. So for a card to score its face value you have to have a card tucked under. So five with another number or five under, it is worth five points, nine's worth nine, so on and so forth. You also score points. There's like little squiggles on some of the cards, like a little circle spiral, and those are positive one point. If you have a card with a circle spiral on it and then there's cards with X's on them, that are negative one point. And the last way to score is creating a group of cards in the same color. So your biggest group of that color, or of any color, scores you a certain amount of points.
Speaker 1:Based on the round. It's kind of weird. So in the first round you get two points per card in the group. In the second round you get three points per card in the group. Fourth round four points per card in the group. So that gets more valuable as it goes on. Everything else stays the same.
Speaker 1:So, based on the number of players, if we're playing four players, four cards are put out in front of you and then one person start player picks a card If they don't have that space filled. So if I picked a three and I either didn't have any threes or I only had one three, I would have to put that in the three spot If I already had two, threes. Then I can take that card and place it face down anywhere else and then it could help you validate a card later on. And it's interesting because the distribution of cards is kind of skewed. So the middle cards, like four, five and six there's quite a few of them but seven, eight and nine it gets less and one, two and three it gets less.
Speaker 1:So nines are the most valuable if you can get two of them to validate it. But there's not a ton of them and usually the higher point value cards have a lot of x's on them. So there's some interesting trade-offs there and it's just a super quick game that like yeah, there's four cards placed out, you pick one, you put it in the spot really low thinking, but tons of fun. We played it when I was home over break with my grandma even and she's never even played more games and she only plays dominoes like Mexican train, that's all she plays. And we taught her this and she played it and we finished. I thought we were done. She's like are we going to play again?
Speaker 2:I was like oh my gosh, we got the grandma, the grandma.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, pixies, great little card game, it's on game arena, is super quick and light. The scoring is kind of annoying at the end of each round because there's a lot of counting on, like the spirals and subtracting. Other than that it's. It's a pretty slick little game and I'm I'm pretty hyped on it right now so the points stack.
Speaker 3:So, like you can tuck a card like in this picture, five gets five points for a tuck. But, like you said, you score points if it's like touching other green cards or something like that. So you could, but it's also like it looks like the number two is a wild card. I guess yeah, so there are wild, that's scoring point because it's touching and it's a wild card, I guess, or whatever. Yeah, okay, so you could really optimize your. Okay, well, you know, engineer brain is going off right now. Yeah, so I might.
Speaker 1:I like Pixies, you should fire up a BGA game. It takes all of like five minutes to play on BGA. It's so fast.
Speaker 3:It's given golf vibes too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were talking about golf a couple weeks back. That's a good connection. I like that. I like it. Yeah, it's good. I think Adrian would even like this one. I know she's probably the toughest to get on board with a game.
Speaker 3:She's got her couple, but I think you could see she's got quite the dry spell right now. I need to break her out.
Speaker 1:We've got to get her out of her shell and, apparently fun fact, this artwork is like somebody actually gets little things from nature and takes photos of these little things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a guy that goes out and he stages these acorns as little anthrop mary can't get enough of these photos.
Speaker 1:They're so cute. Sorry for the listener it's. I can't even describe what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2:It's it transcends a little goblin looking thing with a deer. Yeah, just miniaturized. All made of natural stuff, like an acorn with eyes. That is a creature.
Speaker 1:That's cool. That's pixies. That's great. I thought it deserved a shout out and a good travel game. It's a great travel game. I travel with it.
Speaker 2:well, before you switch screens, I'm going to start my debrief because I want to do this. I want a little bit of a build to this.
Speaker 1:Let's build it up.
Speaker 3:Can we get big?
Speaker 1:I'm going to get big.
Speaker 2:I had family in town last week, did not play a lot of games. We played some Onatama. We played some onatama, we played some splendor you know smaller, quicker games, games that we were familiar with. But then I was like I have all this time grandparents are watching baby, like I can get in some games on my own. So I played a lot of digital games the dune imperium app that just officially released so good, it's great, I love playing dune imperium on that. And officially released so good, it's great. I love playing dune imperium on that. And it's challenging and it's smart and it reacts to what you're trying to do in a smart way. Phenomenal, love it. Then, uh, I played some. What do you call that? Oh my god, what is that? I should have written these down traps, I don't know, I don't know. Okay then, oh well, this is separate, but I played root, root, oh, just released the marauder expansion oh on the app.
Speaker 2:On the app uh, new challenges, new tutorials, which I desperately needed to understand the Keepers in Iron and I don't know if I understand them, but I certainly am trying to, because that app is great at teaching you a new faction and getting you going quickly. The challenges for the Keepers in Iron and the Lord of Hundreds are great. Lord of Hundreds are just expand everywhere and try and hold those positions. It's pretty awesome. Keepers in Iron still still working on it. It's. It's tough. But then I played a game that is not an existing board game. It's called our mellow, and our mellow is an app that has come out a long time ago. I wish I could shut up the year, but I don't know. And our mellow I was like kind of digging a little bit heavier games. I'm kind of like getting getting in a little deeper playing some heavier games. And then I was like I'm gonna, I miss playing mage knight. And mage knight is like a one-person exploration rpg where you're kind of leveling up and going on quests and attacking castles and fighting monsters and doing all this cool stuff. Our mellow is basically like an app version of mage night, where you are in this kingdom. The king is like this evil person that is, you know, controlling the region and you kind of play as like this. It's kind of got like Robin hood vibes, but you're playing as like a Fox that is going out and fighting bad guys and capturing castles and taking lands and all this type of stuff. The reason I bring this up clayton cue the screen is because armello has a board game board game coming out in 2025. It was on kickstarter. It already closed a long time ago, but I am pretty stoked on this game. If you love games like Mage Knight, I highly suggest giving Armello a try. If you don't want to invest in a tabletop game, the app is great too and it's a great tutorialization of the game.
Speaker 2:Basically, it gives me Mage Knight vibes where you are going around exploring, you are controlling one of four factions and each faction is good at different things in combat or exploration or managing interactions. And the first one that you start with is, let's say, the wolf up top and he's kind of like the warrior class right. So he goes out and he's just capturing castles, he's slaying bad guys that are after him, and you do that by accepting quests, and so these quests will be like you could go do this hard thing. That's kind of out of your way from the overall main storyline, or you could just continue on the storyline, and it kind of gives you this choice of like choose your own adventure as you go along, and then you get to these encounters where it's like you could fight them or you could not fight them. And as you go you're collecting loot, you're taking control of regions, you are upgrading your character, you are equipping different items that change the, the battle space, and so the app is really good at like doing the-night cycles.
Speaker 2:This game has day and night cycles. So let's say you're fighting in the day and you're fighting two of the king's bad guys. They're foot soldiers, and when you roll these dice, the dice have spaces, for each face is something different, and you get additional dice based on the items that you have equipped, and it's like a combat power, a defensive power. Uh. You get a sun symbol that is a hit during a day and a miss during the night, a moon symbol that is a miss during the day and a hit during the night, and you can like kind of build your own like dice pool that you're going to roll against these, uh, these combat encounters. So I really like this game.
Speaker 2:The app is great, um, but I am really looking forward to how they adapt this into the board game. I know there's tons of videos out there with playthroughs and stuff. I just uh, I haven't really explored all that that much, but if it's anything like the app version of the game, it's great. It'll be a lot of fun to play, especially for those that love adventure, rpg, sandbox-y type games where you can choose your own adventure, build your own characters as you go along, choose your own path to the end. Yeah, it definitely gives me Mage Knight vibes. The combat is so quick and snappy. You roll a bunch of dice, the enemies roll a bunch of dice and then you resolve. It's pretty simple and it is honestly not as hard as it sounds. So if you're looking for a simplified version of Mage Knight that you can get to the table, that is kind of a different shakeup of that framework. Armello is a cool alternative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like a lot. You said it's not, so I'll take your word for it, but it sounds like it's going to be. It's a 2.5. I don't know who's weighted that.
Speaker 2:And I will confess I have played this app a couple of times.
Speaker 2:Like I have continually downloaded and re-downloaded this game all like five or six times, and I'll get like halfway through the tutorial and I'll just be like all right and I'll fall off it.
Speaker 2:Or you know, I'm not like invested on my phone, like playing this game, but I decided to like actually dive in and give this a real shot and get through the tutorial and try some of the real systems and I think it really shines when you start getting into those deeper encounters, choosing those missions that you're going to go on.
Speaker 2:You can meet different companions and decide to invite them into your party and you have these temporary companions that follow you around and give you different boosts and can do different things for you. So it's got some deep systems that are widely managed by the app. So I'm surprised that this is so low of a weight on BGG, but it's. It's a cool game. It's worth a try. If you ever are interested in something like this, you can always give the app app a try and then, if you want to dive in deeper and invest in something like this, you can always give the app a try and then, if you want to dive in deeper and invest in something more physical, then our Medal of the Board game is coming out later this year, sweet.
Speaker 3:And you're, Travis, always a sucker for anthropomorphic animal games, I mean that wasn't the draw.
Speaker 2:I don't think that's ever really the draw. I'm not like oh, it has cute animals that are wielding swords. Let me play that game. It just so happens that most of the games that I enjoy also have animals. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean Mage Knight isn't anthropomorphic right, it is not no, those are real people, real people, real demons.
Speaker 1:Those are real people, real people.
Speaker 2:Real demons, not animal people. Yeah, I mean, it's got some cool quests and it's got some cool things to do and it's very sandboxy. I love being a good sandbox, something where you can just go and do anything you want and try and progress that way. This one has kind of the end objective of you and your faction are trying to take down the king, who is evil. It's giving me like Robin Hood vibes. It's giving me Mage Knight vibes. It's giving me sandbox. You know, go anywhere, do anything vibes. And yeah, armello. It's a pretty cool game, highly recommend.
Speaker 3:Is there a certain character that you like to play with?
Speaker 2:I honestly have not played with all of them. I'm most familiar with the wolf knight type character, but I know that they have rogues and the bear that you see there on the cover is a mage. He has spells and stuff that he casts and really it's just like different specs, like you're like you're adjusting like a dnd character, an rpg character right. Like you have your attack and your finesse and your agility and your, uh, magic power and stuff like that. So yeah, I haven't really fiddled around all too much with the other characters, but the wolf and the and the warrior class is fun enough and I'm sure that there will be once they've released this board game, depending on how it sells.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure it sold pretty well and funded quickly. I'm sure that there will be expansions down the road. So Armello is a game worth checking out. Check it out, right on. So mission objective today is we are going to review the Board Game Geek Top 50 Hotness. So the Board Game Geek Top 50 Hotness, or the Hotness as it's called, is largely driven off of searches on Board Game Geek. Check me on that, clay.
Speaker 2:I cannot confirm or deny any of that, I'm pretty sure it's most searched on BGG.
Speaker 3:Is it live? Could this change while we are giving our feedback and thoughts and feelings?
Speaker 2:on this list. I think it refreshes overnight Nobody knows how it works 24-hour cycle.
Speaker 3:Nobody knows how it works. It's just there. It's got red arrows and green arrows.
Speaker 1:That means it's trending down, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's day over day it changes and the arrows that you see are how they have moved over the last 24 hours, and so sometimes it jumps way high and sometimes things appear and some things slip off the list and we won't see those if they're more than 50, more than rank 50. You can go and you can see the top. You know bazillion games on BoardGameGeek, but this is the most searched, hottest 50 games out there on BoardGameGeek right now.
Speaker 1:This is what people are talking about.
Speaker 2:This is what people want. It is what's hot, it is the hotness. So let's just go like line by line. This is what people want. It is what's hot, it is the hotness. Let's just go line by line. We'll give our spiel about each game. We don't have to hit all 50 of them. It's going to take forever, but just the highlights Orlean's game came out in 2014. It's probably on there because it's I don't know, getting an expansion. It's always on there. It is getting a refresh. Do you know, Clay? Why?
Speaker 1:Orleans is on there. I have no sense of it. Can we do like a?
Speaker 3:have you played this game? Thumbs up at the beginning. No, I've never played this game.
Speaker 1:I have played it. I want to play it in real life because I played it on Board Game Arena. I had no idea what I was doing. It's kind of tough the sour taste in my mouth. I want to like it because, jared, it's a bag builder. You're stuffing stuff in bags and you're pulling them out you should have started with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dice, dice and bags.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm very keen to play this game in real life. It's been around a while. People this game in real life. It's been around a while. People love it. I just did not have a good time playing it without knowing how to play it on board game arena, so that's my only experience with it all right.
Speaker 2:49 quorum. Do we know anything about this game? Absolute black hole. Yeah, I, I honestly have not heard about this. It's 2025 release, so I imagine it's probably like a Kickstarter that's now shipping to backers. But I don't know a whole lot about this Marvel Champions of Card Game. It is always on the top 50. Always, and the reason it does that is because it is constantly having expansions or character expansions, ship, and so they just released, or just announced slash planning to release, the SHIELD expansion Agents of SHIELD and then they just did a big refresh with a bunch of the characters, like a revised Black Panther featuring Shuri instead of T'Challa, so they do these kind of refreshed characters. They're constantly releasing these mini packs of decks and this game will be on here forever until asthma day explodes or implodes on itself like a dying star. Marvel champions card game. Far away is number 47.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you talked about this yeah, I think it's getting an expansion too. I think I saw that somewhere, so I know it's been hot. I don't know if it was on the hotness. Um, this is my first time perusing the hotness, so it looks like it's got a blue dot, meaning that I guess it's staying put. Yep, that's where it's been. Um, but yeah, great game, great small box game. A lot to wrap your head around with the planning forwards and backwards. Yeah, but yeah, that's 47 number 46 is cascadia.
Speaker 2:I imagine that this game is pretty much always on the hotness since it released because this game is super easy and a good gateway game. But it also has two expansions coming out or two like revision, revised versions of cascading coming out you're talking about the wrong rights yeah what are those called?
Speaker 1:I think those are out now, okay, I can't remember. It's like rolling hills or yeah, something else, but yeah, those came out. I saw them at the store. But yeah, cascade is just endlessly pleasing. It'll always be up here and I'll always have it because it's just a good freaking game.
Speaker 3:What's the main mechanisms here? I'm interested because it's World Series of board game. I never played it but, I need to get it on my rotation.
Speaker 1:You literally take a tile and expand your little ecosystem in front of you. So you're like building up this ecosystem. You're trying to score points by having large groups of like the same type of terrain matching. And then you get also, when you draft that terrain tile, you draft an animal tile that also goes on top of your terrain and all the animals have their different scoring criteria. So, like the bears want to be in pairs, the Hawks want to be all by themselves and not be connected to another.
Speaker 3:Hawks. So so Mary's good at this one.
Speaker 1:Mary's good at this, yeah.
Speaker 3:Is this one on BGA?
Speaker 1:It's puzzly.
Speaker 3:I don't think it is. I don't think it was either. Okay, so Mary needs to come down to see me in Virginia in July.
Speaker 1:She'll get you trained up man.
Speaker 2:That's right. Training camp Training camp starts now. Void Fall I am so interested in this game and so many times I have had my finger on the button to purchase this game, and it is even highly regarded in a solo game format, and this game just intrigues me and I'm so just itching to play this game. Have you played Voidfall?
Speaker 1:Is it Awakened Realms? No, if I played Voidfall, you would know about it. This would take up my entire month to figure out how to play it and set it up. So there's no way I would secretly play voidfall. Um, I would play it if somebody else did all the work. It looks like a lot of fun. But yeah, it also looks like a lot of work yeah, and it's a heavy euro.
Speaker 2:I think this one is like three points something weight. Yeah, it's pretty heavy. Um, just, I want to try it sometime and I think it just got a second printing, which is why it's up here on the top 50. Arkham Horror, the card game. This is another Fantasy Flight game where they're constantly releasing new expansions, new characters, new investigators, new scenarios that you can play through. It's like Arkham Horror, marvel Champions and Lord of the rings the card game are just constantly on the top 50 just because they are always releasing content and people are always trying to figure out what's going on with the next thing in these game series. So I love this game.
Speaker 2:I don't have all the expansions, not even close. You could probably spend 1500 to 2000 on all the expansions and characters and stuff. But uh yeah, it's just always involving and there's always stuff to check out. But if you are interested in a specific piece of these different living card games, the reddit subreddits of around these card games are phenomenal. People will do do deck builds and character reveals and in-depth reviews of the different announcements and stuff. Those subreddit communities are super involved and super active. Check those out if you're interested. Everdell Everdell's always on here.
Speaker 3:I have a confession to make here. I don't think I've ever played Everdell. Yes, you have. You guys mentioned there's a pop-up tree like Matt. I don't think I've known that.
Speaker 1:It's not a pop-up like Camel Up. You have to assemble a tree that kind of sits on the board and holds some things. I feel like when Travis got the big box we played Everdell. I don't know if you were in Korea then or not.
Speaker 2:No, he was not in Korea and I'm pretty sure he was there when we played it, or maybe it was like you mean Spanky or something, but yeah. Everdell. I imagine it's on here because Everdell duo shipped and people are still searching for Everdell. I imagine it's on here because Everdell Duo shipped and people are still searching for Everdell, but I feel like the Duo shipped Okay.
Speaker 1:Number 42, we got Finspan. You know how we feel about Finspan. I talked about it a few weeks ago with Sam from Mesmerome, newest Spanaverse, my favorite in the Spanaverse. After a few weeks ago with sam from mesmerome, newest spaniverse, my favorite in the spaniverse, after a few plays. Yeah, fish are awesome and it's a fun game why is it going down, though?
Speaker 3:I feel like it's brand new. You'd think it'd be the hotness.
Speaker 2:Hotten it up maybe we'll get a hint in the games that are above it, because there's always games coming out like molly house, clocking in at 41. Just last week when I checked the hotness, molly house was up at like number two because it was like just announced, it's like brand new, it's hot. Everyone's either it's just announced or people are like just getting their copies in their hands and they're looking up rules and threads and stuff like that. Molly House slipped all the way down to 41 this week. I don't know anything about this game. Great joy in the horror community in 1720s London.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm intrigued by the blurb right there Is this one of those Amabelle Holland games.
Speaker 2:Can you click into it? Let's check, let's see. Oh, it's Whirly.
Speaker 1:This is a Whirly gig game. Whirly, oh my gosh Interesting. It's certainly going to be a lot to chew on, but what an interesting theme. I know he's a mystery guy. Yeah, can's certainly going to be a lot to chew on, but what an interesting theme. I know he's like a mystery guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you go down to the photos? Yeah, it's like strictly card driven Interesting. It kind of looks like medieval Monopoly or like mid-century Monopoly. Is it like Victorian?
Speaker 3:Victorian Blown glass pieces right there yeah.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool high quality components, cards, a nice mat that kind of looks like a monopoly mat with little spaces. So yeah, I I don't know anything about this game. I have to check this one out swirly gig.
Speaker 1:I I'm I'm intrigued I don't know if it's I hear hear a lot about his games. Like I mean, we get the, the roots and the you know arcs of the world that kind of make it mainstream. But he also and those are still kind of offbeat, like they have weird design to them and I think he even gets weirder with whirly gigs. So I'd like to try one of them. I know, I know he he's a interesting designer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, clocking in at number 40, scythe. We have kind of beat that one to death, but that one's always on the top 50. 39 is Endeavor, deep Sea. Do you guys know anything about this one?
Speaker 1:Nope Been seeing people talk about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been on here for a while now. It's got a dash instead of a circle, yeah, so I think the circle is like just appeared on the top 50, oh, unchanged since yesterday.
Speaker 3:There you go. What is the circle? What do you do when you hover over a circle?
Speaker 1:new to the list. New to the list. There you go. So it happens when we are. This is our first perusal through the hotness.
Speaker 2:We're figuring it all out here yeah, I don't know much about that one, but I've seen lots of people talking about it. As with moon colony, clocking in at 38, moon colony is like that.
Speaker 2:This is like the new hottest people are getting this in their hands and people are loving it and basically it's like it kind of looks like a uh, like a fallout style game, but you're on the moon and you're building your colony. That is also going horribly wrong and people are getting sucked out into the vacuum of space and things are exploding and your colonizers are dying. So, uh, moon, moon, colony, bloodbath at 38. Do you know anything about?
Speaker 3:American Trash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is American Trash, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Don't know anything about 37, eterna or 36, echoes of Time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, echoes of Time looks like a pretty abstract game where you're controlling the flow of time, but I saw some pictures of it. I haven't heard much discussion about it. I don't know much about these.
Speaker 1:Well, I do know something about 35 Wondrous Creatures, because Amanda talked about it and then I got it because it sounded cool and it's a fun game. And you're it's, it's a fun game, you're. It's like people compare it to Everdell. I don't know if that's fair, but you are just collecting a bunch of cards with a bunch of tags, trying to meet scoring objectives, kind of race for these goals to get end game points. But the best part is you have, like this monster meeple that's huge, and then you have a captain that magnets on to the back of it.
Speaker 2:Oh so yeah, it's pretty sweet is this the one where you're like attaching different arms and limbs and stuff to your meeple? No, oh there. There was a game that was announced not too long ago that I assumed was wondrous creatures, where you are like changing out different parts of the meeple as you go like basically like a lego minifig, but it's like a meeple that you're playing with and you're attaching like yeah, I man, I wish I could remember what that one's called. But like your character gets like a tentacle arm or something. So you take a tentacle arm, you snap it on your meeple and it gives you different abilities.
Speaker 2:And yeah interesting Cool Cyclades legendary edition. This is a new release that is a re-release of an old game where you're trying to win the favor of the Greek gods, area control and auctioning. I have not watched any playthroughs of this one, but I have seen the older version of it and I've always been interested in this and it's mainly just theme. But yeah, I need to check this one out eventually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard it pronounced to ladies, so if you're out there, heard it pronounced Cyclades. If you're a listener out there.
Speaker 2:Cyclades or Cyclades that's probably the proper Greek pronunciation is Cyclades, cyclades, it's not Clay-des. Because it's Clay-a-des Clay-a-des, it would be C-L-A-E-D-E-S.
Speaker 1:Travis. I'm just telling you what I've heard from other people.
Speaker 2:You're the host of the show.
Speaker 1:So if you want to call it Cyclades, we can.
Speaker 2:All right, go on Talk about On Germina's Edge Go ahead.
Speaker 1:I have nothing to say. It's a huge game, it's pretty cool. Pretty long I I prefer dwellings of eldervale more, but this is going to be hot for a while it I mean, it came out a while ago, but yeah, it looks like it's trending down at 33 here. But yeah, big space opera worker placement battling game. So check it out if it sounds interesting.
Speaker 2:Great Lord of the Rings Duel for Middle Earth Love it. We've harped on that one a lot. I'm still waiting for my copy. I pre-ordered this Before Gwen was born and it's still not here, and I'm sad about it and it better get here soon.
Speaker 3:What's going to happen when all these games show up to Germany and you're in Alabama?
Speaker 2:Well, then somebody else gets a lot of games that are very good and I'm going to be very sad. I don't know even how to pronounce this. Aridia, aridia, the Paths we Dare Tread. This is probably a Kickstarter that I don't know anything about and it's got a big campaign and it's probably a Kickstarter that's now shipping. Dune Imperium Uprising. Have you guys tried Uprising yet or are you guys sticking with OG Dune Imperium.
Speaker 1:I've played Uprising.
Speaker 3:I haven't played Uprising. It's good, it's on World Series. So I think Uprising, but it's good, it's on it's on world series, so I think I need to get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's it's, it's broad strokes, basically the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean they, they.
Speaker 1:They tweaked a couple of things, but it's it feels the same. It's still got the same tension and fun. I think it's widely perceived as an upgrade to dune imperium, but again, I have dune imperium and two expansions for it and I'm happy with that. Like I didn't feel the need that it was like that much better that I need to go out and get this, so yeah, I for a brief minute.
Speaker 2:While I was, while I was culling my collection, I took dune imperium and I said I'll just like buy uprising when I get back to the states. And then I just took imperium, put it back on the shelf and I'm like I'm I'm never getting rid of this game. It's so good, it's so good as is yeah can't do that. Plus, now they're doing this weird thing where, like, some expansions work with uprising and some don't, and it's very confusing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it might be on here, because I saw there's like a bloodlines expansion they just came out with.
Speaker 2:That's right, root probably on here because they're. They just did a big re-release of old components and stuff and new. What is that? What's that? The Hirelings, the Hirelings pack.
Speaker 1:Or the.
Speaker 2:Marauder expansion Root is perpetually on the top 50 and climbing to number 29. Number 28 is Castle Combo. Clay, you've played this probably more than most.
Speaker 1:I played it twice. I glanced at somebody a while ago. I thought I was going to see again soon, but you know, so I haven't got it back. I'm not throwing any shade. I knew I don't miss a game because I have so many and I'm glad to have other people get to play it. Hopefully he's played it Because it's a fun, quick little drafting game, kind of creating combos to build your city. It's worth checking out, especially on Board Game Arena.
Speaker 2:Nice, number 27, dune Imperium Not going to rehash that OG.
Speaker 1:OG is ahead.
Speaker 2:OG is ahead. It's higher. What? Two, three, yeah, number 26,. Fellowship of of the ring trick-taking game. Uh, I have a copy of this that I need to get it played asap.
Speaker 1:I I've been playing this and you're still loving it.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, it's good. Not so much, not as much as lord of the rings duel, though no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:That that's probably the best two-player game I have is lord of the Rings Duel, though. No, no, no, no. That's probably the best two-player game I have is Lord of the Rings Duel. Wow, wow. This is fun, though it's like the Crew, but Lord of the Rings themed, and yeah, that alone just makes it more fun for me and it feels like more of a campaign kind of. I mean, you're just playing a trick taking game, but it does kind of walk. It walks you through the story, yeah, so it's a co-op trick taker like the crew.
Speaker 3:Dang. I've only it was like a nerd. I think maybe she'd like this one. You got to get her nerded out a little bit, jared. Come on, she's just too hot.
Speaker 2:True, speaking of nerd stuff, do you have the Gifts of the Galadriel expansion? I don't. I don't think it changes all that much. It's like a small little Pokemon card-sized deck of cards that comes with it that adds some different stuff Wingspan, always on the top 50 and climbing to number 25. Just because, just because it's always on here and floats up and down right around 25 anyways, number 24, machines to the Sky. Race against time and build the ultimate sustainable arc and save humanity. Yeah, do you know anything about this? Nothing. We really need to keep up on our kickstarters if we're gonna, if we're gonna review the top 50 because, yeah, like half of these are kickstarters all the time. Yeah, not evolution we had. We talked about this one yesterday with vick. Vick is loving civilization from gamesy moss podcast, but, uh, you guys are not loving it.
Speaker 1:I don't know anything about it from a play perspective. I just saw that the YouTube video was really long to learn to play it and from other people I've heard talk about it. It sounds pretty darn heavy yeah.
Speaker 3:He said he had to play it over two days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a Steppenfeld game. You know, I will give Steppenfeld some leeway. Since he designed Castle of Burgundy, I'm willing to experiment with him a little more than I would maybe other designers. But yeah, this is another one like Voidfall. If somebody else has it and learns it and sets it up, I'll probably be happy to play it and have a good time. But I'm just at a point right now where I'm not into being the one that's gonna invest all that time and foisted upon people that probably don't want to play it with me.
Speaker 2:So yeah, just stick. If you know that castles of burgundy is getting to the table, just stick with castles of burgundy. Why, why, shake things up with civilization? Uh, number 22, forest shuffle. Number 22, forest Shuffle. Have you guys played this one?
Speaker 1:No, I've only heard good things about it, really, and it's on BGA.
Speaker 2:It is on BGA and I think it just released on BGA, which is why it's climbing on Board Game Geek. I think it's a cute little trick-taker, if I'm not mistaken. But don't quote me on that. It's not trick-taker.
Speaker 1:No, it's like a tableau builder. So, yeah, you're trying to gather cards and it somebody compared to like an easier version of arc nova, arc nova. So oh, and I did play this game actually on bga, but I it didn't even register with me that I played it because I didn't bother to read the rules and just click buttons. I'm sorry, took the old Travis approach. Yeah, travis approach, figured I'd learn it as I went.
Speaker 3:never learned it, so I've seen a lot of memes lately about like congratulations on like going through your work day. You clicked a lot of buttons. I feel like that's that's what you've been doing with your your board gaming as well. That's right. You're just clicking buttons, aren't you?
Speaker 2:I do click a lot of buttons, but I got to get it in somehow and it's like triggering something in my brain that makes me feel like I'm playing board games. So, all right, Good catch on four.
Speaker 3:Shuffle Clay 21,.
Speaker 2:Sky Team, Sky Team. Yay, this is climbing up to 21, probably because it's on BGA and also because I have searched for it a thousand times over the last week as Amanda from Emptiness Board, mama and I try and beat the same damn airport. We've tried like six times. Oh, which one? I think we're going to do it. Merida, merida, I think it's. Maybe it's Madeira, spain.
Speaker 3:What's happening? Are you losing kerosene?
Speaker 2:No, so we're not even doing any of those ones. This is literally just like at certain stages you need to bank. You're like going through mountains or whatever it is.
Speaker 3:We're not even doing any of the fancy ones yet. I'm still waiting for me and Tanner to create our Sky Team. Vietnam is but um geez, yeah, we're not even doing any of the fancy ones yet. I'm still waiting for me and tanner to create our uh sky team vietnam with our helicopters and machine guns. So I can't wait.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to place a die for, like suppressing fire from like the, the huey side gunner, 50 cats. Yeah, can't wait. Slay the Spire, the board game. Do you have? You guys played Slay the Spire? No guys, we're in the top 20 at number 20 Slay the Spire great board game. I have been recommended many times to include from Paul Solomon to play Slay the Spire the board game. I will probably pick this up at some point if it's not a bazillion dollars like it is right now.
Speaker 3:So I definitely want to get that played uh, number 19, you guys trying to, you guys trying to get me all revved up here yeah, we're going into jared land right now. This is jared land uh, number 19, jared.
Speaker 2:Why don't you take this one uh?
Speaker 3:lost ruins of Arnak World Series. Two World Series games coming up. Just a great Deck builder Worker placement game. What did we call it yesterday? The board builds out as you go. It's an adventure every single time. Shout out to Gamesy Moss. They did a great top shelf Episode. Episode on lost ruins, varnak. That made me fall in love with this one even more with carly board game. Buzz with who? Oh carly from board game buzz, yes.
Speaker 3:And then terraforming mars awesome engine builder uh, I mean, you don't even have to like space as much as clay to love this one. You're going to to mars and freaking, building out and putting people on mars.
Speaker 2:It's beautiful I love it slowly changing the survivable conditions and introducing wildlife and plant and flora and fauna and settlers and corporations to make terraforming Mars.
Speaker 3:You can even put pets on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't want Mars without a pet, that's right, and I imagine Lost Ruins of Arnak is moving up in the top 50 because of the big box expansion that's coming out. I saw that you guys sent that to me Two new boards, some new expedition leaders. Maybe that thing looks awesome.
Speaker 3:It's like 80 euros, though, and the tariffs are going to make it even more expensive.
Speaker 2:If you learn to read in German, maybe I'll source you one while I'm here and I'll bring it back for you.
Speaker 2:Number 17, spirit Island. This game is always on here. It has a great online subreddit community and the solo game community loves Spirit Island. It is consistently voted the number one solo game around. Like they, every year, a board game geek does like a list of the top 150 solo board games and spirit Island has capped that list since it came out in 2017, plus all the expansions and stuff Like it's. It's very popular Me and.
Speaker 3:Clay, I feel like. Tried to play this one a couple years back and I just didn't fall in love with it. I don't know. Yeah, it was too much. We need to give it another try. Honestly, I know. I've seen too many people love Spirit Island to not give it another chance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, true, it's great. It's great and it has a great app. It has a great Spirit Island app. If you want to give that a shot, it'll do all the fiddliness for you.
Speaker 1:That was my biggest beef. I don't like fiddliness.
Speaker 2:Number 16, heat Pedal to the Metal, new Tunnel Vision expansion coming out. That's probably why it's up here at number 16. Number 15, rebirth. We have gushed forever about Rebirth. Loving it, I played it last night.
Speaker 1:It's great and it was awesome, as always.
Speaker 2:Always shines, and it's up to number 15. Number 14, brass Birmingham. I feel like we're getting into World Series of board game levels because Brass Birmingham, terraforming, mars, like these games are probably being searched because you guys played this brass of birmingham this is the number one game on board game, geek, and I've not played it.
Speaker 1:I've never even thought about it I I don't know why I know it's pretty.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's pretty heavy, like when people came. When this came out, people were like all about it and I haven't heard much about it since, but I know that it's still a favorite. It's very economic. It's like an economic society. Engine builder Number 13, White Castle. Jared, I'm going to send you this one. I'll send you this one and the Matcha expansion, just in case.
Speaker 1:I bought that game, never played it, got rid of it. I hate when that happens.
Speaker 2:That's a shame. Number 12, deep Regrets. This is a Kickstarter game that is shipping right now. If you want to get a quick preview of what that looks like, I know that Amanda from Empty Nest Board Mama just got her copy and she did a big unboxing of it, so she got a super fancy new edition with a big bag and everything. So check that out. Number 11, stone Spine Architects. This is kind of a new hotness, uh, that just released on board game arena, right, yeah, yeah. So I might give this one a look, a look see with amanda here shortly because she invited me to a game. Number 10 harmonies abstract game, where you are drafting cards that show patterns, where then you are trying to put these tiles in the patterns to earn yourself points based on the cards that you're drafting. It's kind of weird and different and cool and it scratches that itch on your brain that says like pattern recognition and pattern completion clay you're giving me a dirty look.
Speaker 1:No, I, I was just looking at this new quacks cover. That's been quite controversial at number nine I know one.
Speaker 2:I I saw this cover, just the cover, and it says quacks right, and I was like is this like an expansion, is it a spin-off? Is this different? It's like a children's version. No, it's like literally the exact same version as quedlin yes it's quacks of quedlinburg. And they, just like, redid the art and retitled it. Quacks, don't know why, don't know how I know what's your take on the art.
Speaker 1:Do you hate it, love it?
Speaker 2:I don't I mean I if I was like looking at this game for the first time and I said, all right, this is quacks, it's quacks of quedlinburg. Right, like if I had no previous knowledge of what quacks of quedlinburg was. I love the art, it's great, but I feel like I've been playing quacks of quedlinburg since 2018 and I have grown to know and love that art and I don't know why they felt the need to rebrand so essentially, you like the old art better it's just like more prevalent in my brain than this new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know, it's like it's like when you see like the first, like the 3d version of the smurfs, and you're like that, like something doesn't work, like, yeah, fries my brain a little bit. So yeah, I don't know how I feel about the art, but they rebranded Quacks of Quedlinburg as Quacks. All right, number eight, ark Nova, also a.
Speaker 1:World Series of Board Game Jared just watch the video on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, you're creating your own zoo, building a little tableau, optimizing where you're putting your pens and your animals, and you're trying to like partner with universities and researchers and getting these tags. I, I think this one's super cool, the scoring on it. I I remember you mentioning the scoring, like the how you're trying to meet up and then it's like not even whoever scores them the most points, it's like whoever's past the the most points. It's like whoever's past the potential. Like yeah, you're like that is really unique and awesome to think about.
Speaker 2:It's like profitable and sustainable need to like yes, yeah, sustainability and then profitability.
Speaker 3:You, could be like a small zoo, that is, like taking care of the world, and that's what wins, not the big zoos that are not taking care of their animals and just selling hot dogs, like f you guys.
Speaker 1:So I'm excited to see what you think when you play this game, jerry, because I it. It has everything I think you would love. Yeah, I feel like I've played something similar. Ish you're forming mars is very similar. Yeah, I was gonna say you have been played something similar.
Speaker 2:Terraforming Mars is very similar. Yeah, I was going to say you have been playing something similar. It's called Terraforming Mars. Yeah, Number seven Arx. We love Arx. We've talked about Arx a lot. Love it, it's great, Cole Whirly. Thanks, Cole Whirly. Number six Elder Scrolls Betrayal of the Second Era. Now, this is kind of a controversial one because it is a Kickstarter. It comes in a thousand different boxes. I don't know if you've seen the mega deluxe backer version of this, but it's like a stack taller than like Marvel United Multiverse pledge. It is so many boxes, it's so much plastic. I'd love to be some Elder Scrolls, but I don't need gigantic dragons and stuff that come in these boxes. For those that love it, great. Good for you. Go enjoy your Elder Scrolls. Not really for me, when I can pick up a controller and play a game that came out back in 2013 and enjoy the same story. So enjoy your Elder Scrolls, everybody. Number five Flip 7. Clay, you've played this a lot number five flip seven clay.
Speaker 1:You've played this a lot. Yeah, love it. Great game push your luck in its simplest form. I mean I'm glad to see it up here getting getting its flowers at number five. I I don't know why it's so high. I feel like it was hot a while ago, but I get, maybe it's got a new addition. I think I saw like a small box where it's it's just a new edition. I think I saw like a small box it's just a card game, but it of course comes in a gaudy box that's too big.
Speaker 3:And I think I saw it was a smaller box. A lot of people are doing game nights. A lot of people getting potlucks together, people feeding each other, getting soju shots together, playing Flip 7.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I'm sure, based on what they've seen on operation game night, that's what they're. Yeah, that's what they're doing. Uh, key side, at number four, it's a 2025 release. I don't know anything about this one. This is like a pretty new to the list. I'm pretty sure it just showed up not too long ago and it moved down since yesterday but I'm sure I I mean, I've heard of all the key series of games.
Speaker 1:I think this is in it like key, flower, key, oh, whatever, all those and people like those games. I've never played any of the key games, so maybe that's something I'll check out. But I don't know anything about Keyside other than that it's potentially a new key game.
Speaker 2:Number three Seti Plays favorite game apparently.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like I've been telling everybody.
Speaker 1:This is my favorite game. I don't know why anybody would think different.
Speaker 2:You know, I like it a lot.
Speaker 1:I just I'm never. I'm never gonna play it enough to be like a favorite game.
Speaker 2:Uh, just because it's heavy and it takes a long time and the setup's long and but I enjoy playing it and I want to play it more but, as with everything, like I think it's getting a lot of press, like it's getting into the hands of people that are then posting about their feelings about it right, whether they love it or they hate it, and it's causing this like dissidence, where some people are like it's overrated and some people say you know, this game is far better than it needs to be, or best game ever, or whatever, and anytime there's discourse about that, about a, a game. It's going to climb the ranks because people got to check it out and see for themselves what they think.
Speaker 3:So when you come to uh, you know, come down on your monthly like voyage down to um, virginia to play with with uh Cole and I, we can get this to the table at three players. Maybe you're going to like it, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am eager to play it with you. I don't know if Cole will like it. It doesn't seem like he's more of a Cole's in the mirror trash guy through and through, so we might leave him out of this one.
Speaker 2:Number two Galactic Cruise. This was a kickstarter game that is now shipping. Uh, build and launch ships to send guests on luxurious space vacations sponsors are going off on this.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah. Crazy. And it looks beautiful.
Speaker 2:It looks like a lot, it looks beautiful I have seen this one and I saw that like, uh, blood bath, moon space base, that one uh, those have just been like blowing up my instagram feed lately and they're getting the hands of the influencers and people are loving it. So, galactic cruise at number two and at number one sanctuary. Build a modern zoo for animals and achieve conservation goals isn't this a lot?
Speaker 2:like art nova wow yeah, I, and I imagine that's why arc nova is climbing too is because this game is very similar and is drawing those comparisons for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's the same designer is this.
Speaker 2:This like a reimplementation or something, or a remixed version. It looks the same, it looks the same yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know what's going on here. If you know, leave us a comment. Yeah, reach out to us. We want to know what the heck is going on with sanctuary.
Speaker 3:It looks like a little less mechanics because Ark Nova, there's a lot going on, but it's just as heavy. It's shared tabloids, I feel like there's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you know anything about this game, reach out to us.
Speaker 1:How dare we do an episode on the hotness and we get to the hottest game and none of us well, and shame on me, because I literally just checked this, what yesterday?
Speaker 2:and I'm like, okay, I know these games, I got a good grasp on most of these and then, yeah, you were scrolling from 50 up and I was kind of blindsided by this one.
Speaker 3:How can it be the hottest game and there's only 14 comments about it?
Speaker 2:It's probably just announced, or it's on Kickstarter now, or it's like just you know, games get announced by these publishers and then they disappear for a while and then they come back and yeah, wow, 14 people have rated it, 14 comments.
Speaker 3:It is the hottest.
Speaker 1:Well, that's how we roll it Operation game night. We do an episode on the hottest games and we have no idea what they are. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:Hey, for Josh is getting a reprint and expansion. That's, that's good. Yep Excited about that and we're we're playing fromage with tiff from tiff's board games yeah, good, yeah, all right, let's go over the fence real quick. Jared what you've been doing so.
Speaker 3:Guys, I started listening to operation game night, episode two. Uh, it is beautiful to listen to us talk again. I miss the days when travis would intro us with his booming intro voice. Um, it's really beautiful to see where we've come from and uh, consistency over these weeks and months and uh, just shout out to my brothers here, we've gotten like really good at podcasting. We've gotten even closer as friends and I can't wait to see what the next 33 episodes brings for us. Um, it was really fun. I was really. I was like because we we kind of talked about doing like a what's our top 10 again. So like what was cause? We we kind of talked about doing like a what's our top 10 again. So like what was my top five? Cause? I kind of forgot, I said Camel Up and Wingspan. Like I haven't even played Wingspan in like a year and Camel Up has like slowly slid out of my top 20.
Speaker 2:I feel like well, I don't know, I love.
Speaker 3:Camel Up. But there's so many other great games that you guys have brought to me since we started this podcast, because that was episode two. Just so many bangers that you guys have brought me since episode two. I love you guys. That's my over the fence.
Speaker 1:I guess that's not outside of board gaming.
Speaker 3:Is it?
Speaker 1:It was. It's a podcast.
Speaker 2:I was wondering why our uh, our listens on the second episode went up by one like, or why our listenership went up by from one to two. And I I listen to these episodes, I do the audio editing and stuff, so I listen to it once then, and I listen to it once when it publishes, just to see, make sure everything like translated okay, but I've never gone back to listen, so I'm gonna have to go back and see there's a nice easter egg in episode two because for some reason remember the audio.
Speaker 2:Whatever reason, there's like a 30 second delay, that there's just silence in the middle of the podcast and I'm like that's what we were working with it's probably why people listen to episode one and then episode two and then they never listen to any of the other ones. We just hit publish.
Speaker 1:We just need to start on episode 33 yeah maybe not 33, considering we went through the hotness and didn't know what, why, what, what was hot or why.
Speaker 3:Wait, are we on 34 or 33? 34.
Speaker 1:We're on 34, 33 engine building.
Speaker 3:That's still pretty strong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just listen to 33. That was a great episode. I wasn't there.
Speaker 3:Oh, shut up, Probably whatever what's? What's your over the fence there, clayton?
Speaker 1:so, uh, man, I really wanted to be able to bring some finality to the situation with the sopranos, because I've been talking about it for months now. It's consumed my my nighttime hours and I have one episode left in the entire series tonight, so I will be watching the series finale. Mary just said last night that she thinks it's her favorite series of all time. Wow, and this came from people. Please, if you try to watch the Sopranos, stick with it, because we quit three times in the first season. Like three different years. We started it and quit, and now Mary ising it as potentially her favorite series of all time. So interesting. I'm pretty excited for tonight watching the sopranos also over the fence. After this, in like an hour, I'm going to see my buddy, chris chris dong. He sang at our promotion ceremony. He's in a production of Footloose, going to a little local theater. I always enjoy doing that. I'll let you guys know next week how it was.
Speaker 2:Break a leg, Chris and Clay. I want a separate episode of your interpretation of the Sopranos series as a whole to include the controversy with the finale. I want to hear your hot take on the controversy of the finale. I want to hear your hot take on the controversy of the finale.
Speaker 1:I'll go character by character. I'll tell you about their story arcs. Deep dive I love it, sure will.
Speaker 2:It's good. I have a couple things. The finale of White Lotus, season 3, is tonight. So excited about that. Lots of good fan theories out there about who's going to die. It's not a spoiler, because episode one they show you that somebody's going to die. In every single season Everyone dies. By the time this publishes, that will be already live. Then, if you're like man, I am needing something to watch. The Last of Us season two comes out next week, april 13th. I think it starts. So excited about that. Yeah, then I have one more. So this past week, uh, nintendo did their big release that said nintendo switch 2 is coming. Here's all these cool games. All right, it's got all these cool features, increased graphics and increased playability, and you know it does all this stuff. It's great. I'm so excited. Then, uh, liberation day happens. Yeah, donald Trump, tariffs the whole world. Okay, nintendo put a pause on the pre-orders for the switch to based on tariffs from the U? S.
Speaker 3:U S.
Speaker 2:US. I'm not going to get political about this, I'm just pissed because I was so excited it really put a damper on the Nintendo Switch 2 release, knowing that there was already some controversy, because they said coming June 5th, the day before my birthday, you guys should have already pre-ordered me one. It's in the mail, yeah, uh, june 5th release so excited. It's birthday present to myself, if I have to. And then they don't ever announce a price. Okay, then afterwards you go to the nintendo switch website and it's like 450 for this thing, crazy expensive. Okay, that's like almost as much as a playstation 5. People are not happy about the price, but what they're more unhappy about games are 80 80 for this thing. Yeah, people are like not happy. It's supposed to be this like family friendly thing and they're like the Switch itself comes without a game. If you want a game, if you want the new Mario Kart World with your Switch 2, $499. And that's with a discounted game.
Speaker 2:And so with all the peripherals and all that stuff people are going to to drop like 700 on this thing day one. So anyways, that lots of controversy and uh, I'm loving following it along as it develops because it's uh, it's all very interesting to me but hopefully things settle down a little bit. We get back to normal eggs are no longer eight dollars a dozen, and we can move on with our lives in al and Alabama.
Speaker 3:eggs have been fine, but I did see a meme that made me laugh. It was like after the Switch 2 announcement they just played the advertisement for Switch 2 where it's like they take the Switch 1 and make like all the cool upgrades. They just like played it in reverse. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm just going to go back to Switch 1. Yeah, I'm just going gonna go back to switch one.
Speaker 2:like, uh, yeah, I'm just gonna go back to switch one because switch two is just so expensive so, yeah, well, them delaying pre-orders was just kind of like a secondary punch to the price point, like I could not believe that if five hundred dollars for this thing as it is, plus $80 for every game. Anyways, that's my over the fence. I just wanted to talk about Switch 2 and how I'm excited and disappointed all at the same time. Alright, did we do it? Anyways, we did it. Episode 34 in the books, this has been Operation Game Night. Join us next week as we put together another riveting episode where we don't know what we're talking about. I have been Travis, he has been Clay and he has been Jared and we are out. Thank you.
