Clearing The Shelf Of Opportunity (ft. Games Y Mas & Peter C. Hayward)

You know that moment when you look at your shelf and realize you’re collecting faster than you’re playing? We start there with Vic from the Games Y Mas podcast, breaking down the “pile of shame” pact that forces real table time and sparks honest mini-reviews of what’s been worth it and what hasn’t. From cozy roll-and-write vibes in Tend to the frustration of vague rulebooks, we talk about what makes a board game night land for different kinds of players.

Then a happy accident changes the whole vibe: designer Peter C. Hayward drops into the call a week early and jumps right into the deep end. We dig into Coimbra, dice placement, and the bigger question behind so many euro games: do you feel motivated by victory points, or do you want clean win conditions and a satisfying finish line? That thread runs through everything from tiny solo card games like One for Sorrow to big favorites like Quest for El Dorado, Clank, and Lost Ruins of Arnak, including why Arnak feels so “perfectly developed” when the systems are tuned just right.

We also go ambitious and weird with GMT’s Mr. President now in a digital Steam version, talk theme park obsession and Universal Studios stories, and close with a movie debrief that turns into a real conversation about what The Odyssey should be about. If you like tabletop gaming, game design talk, and pop culture that connects back to play, you’ll feel right at home. Subscribe, share this with a friend who has a shelf of opportunity, and leave a review with the one game you swear you’ll finally play next.

Transcript

Welcome Back And Today’s Co-Host

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. Back and better than ever. Today I'm not joined by Clay. Clay is off frolicking, doing God knows what. Today I'm joined by Vic from the Games Emos podcast. He is back. And uh one of our closest collaborators on the podcast. So thank you for agreeing to fill in and be the co-captain of the ship today. And uh we just kind of take some time and catch up with Vic, see what's going on at Games Emos, talk about some video games, maybe talk about some movies that we've been seeing lately, a little bit of an over-the-fense, a little bit of a debrief of games that we've been playing and uh kind of a grab bag with Vic. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Oh, I'm excited, man. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me back. Oh, and I love coming on your podcast. I feel like at this point, like I've been on the podcast with you guys, but like Clay's been dodging me. I feel like he just just wanted to collab anymore with me. I just I have to fill in with Clay. So what's what's going on with that, Clay? Come on, man. I thought we were thought we were homies. What happened with that?

SPEAKER_00 1:12

And I I feel like I had you booked to come on before Clay even bailed, so or before I knew Clay was bailing. So maybe it is. Maybe he's got beef.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

It's not looking so hot with you, Clay. I mean, come on, man. I mean, I'm sorry I said that you didn't like SETI or SETI wasn't good, but you know, I mean I I I don't know, man. I don't know if that you took it that heart to that badly, but either way, I'm excited, bro. I'm excited to talk, chat, and um always happy to be on Operation Game Night. Love the podcast, love what you guys are doing. You guys are amazing. Always promote you guys, especially on my podcast. I'm always promoting, we're always collabing. So um, yeah, dude, I'm excited. I'm excited to do this.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

This this and you you wear your OGN shirt every single day.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

I have to repent, yeah, every single day. I just wear it. Like, I never like I'm probably should wash it, but you know what? I feel like if I wash it, it's gonna bring bad luck. So I just have to wear it every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

So that's right. The success of our podcast depends on you wearing your OGN shirt every single day.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

So if you get negative views, it's probably because I took off my shirt. So that's probably yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

All right, fair enough. Uh let's jump right in.

Vic’s Pile Of Shame Pact

SPEAKER_00 2:13

I know that you've been playing some board games. I've been following your socials on the Gamesy Moss pod, and I will post some social links in the show notes. But talk to me about some of the games you that you've been playing that uh have been standing out to you.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Yeah, man, definitely. Um, so uh with the little context of that, yeah. I've been playing a lot of board games, but mainly because um Roel, um, he's a no stranger to our podcast as well. He's one of my board gaming buddies. I played a lot of board games with him. Um me and him made like a like a kind of like a pact kind of a deal where we're like, hey, listen, we have so many games on our pile of shame. Um my he calls it the pile of opportunity. I call it pile of shame. Um but uh yeah, he had we have a bunch of games, and for those of you listening, like what's a pile of shame? It's like game board games that we have that we keep buying, but we don't end up playing because we're just keep buying more board games. You know, it's uh it's not an addiction, it's just uh you know, it's just an opportunity. It's a it's a you know, it's it's uh it's an investment. Um and so we decided, hey, listen up, we gotta play these games, man. We're brought we're building up so much much pile here, we gotta play these games. So we decided every Friday or almost every Monday or almost every other Monday, we're gonna meet up at our local game store and we're gonna play one of our games. We choose so you know, one Monday I choose a game, the other Monday he chooses a game, and we just play it once and we see how it is, we go and then we just buy it down. And the pact is we cannot buy any more board games until we at least get half of our pile of shame down. Once we get it down, then maybe we can buy more games, but like we can't buy now. Granted, we we kind of haven't been following that that pact a little bit because I have gotten acquired some new board games and we can talk about it later. Um, but yeah, so I've been playing every Monday a couple games here. Um, and man, it's been a journey. So um I got to play Tend for the first time. Okay. Um, really enjoyed it. Played it with uh another buddy of ours. He didn't enjoy it as much. He actually did he actually disliked that game. He's like, I don't like this game. I'm like, why? This game is great. He's like, he's more of like uh he wants confrontation, he wants to like fight somebody, or you want to like more player interaction. I enjoyed it because you know I love Stardew, and I love this game. It reminds me of Stardew and reminds me you know, farming and stuff. Rolling rights are fun. So 10 uh yeah, by Ivy or V or 4 Studio. I for I don't know, I don't know what people call it. Ivy IV or Four Studio, whatever. Great game. I enjoyed it, it was fun. So we played that. Um, finally got to play it. It's on the back over here. My other I don't know if you can see it, but it's uh first Martians. Oh, okay. I had that for all the longest time, but I haven't played it. Got to play it finally, and um was a little disappointed in the game, to be honest. A little bit um saddened by the rules. The rules are very vague. Okay. Um, they even like revamped them and it's still vague. So um not the brightest spot. I still enjoyed it. It's still fun. I'm curious to know about the story. Go more. It's a campaign kind of game where you kind of work together. You're on Mars, you're working to do all these missions, keep your space your station afloat. You know, gotta make sure you're providing oxygen and um you're you're watering your plants and to you know create more food and stuff. So um yeah, I it was cool, but not a big um bright spot to me, in my opinion. Okay. Um, what else? We got to play Faya Swamp.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Okay, that's been all the rage lately.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Yes, I enjoy that game. It was very fun, um, very tight, I would say. It's very restrictive because like a typical Euro, you know, um you can't do a lot of actions um when you're with your ships. Um, and then in order to do actions with your ship, you have to be near an island. So you're very restricted on things like that. So but we got to play it. It was fun. I enjoyed it. Um, it was a good game. That was my buddy's game, that was his choice. He got that. And then we got to play uh Fortunes of Scoundrel Bay, uh, which we got to play it twice because the first time we played, oh actually, I played it three times because the first time we didn't finish, second time it was a two-player, and then the third time we did it with the three-player variant, see how it was. Um, I enjoyed it. I keep calling it pirates of scoundrel bay, but it's fortunes of scoundrel bay. But you are pirates, you are pirates, so uh okay. Um, but I really dig that game. Another euro, but it's very straightforward, very easy to learn. You know, you're just doing three actions, and um, you can't, you know, you have to do a different action each turn. You either sell, you raid, or you uh recruit, but you have to be careful because if you're recruiting a lot of pirates, you gotta feed them, and if you don't feed them, they go to the sick bay, and that's minus points to you at the end of the game. Oh, okay. Or if they if you can't feed them, they go to the graveyard. That's even more minus points at the end of the game. So um I enjoy that game. That game was really cool. You're versing creatures, you're going to harbors, you're going trading, you're picking up treasure, you're doing a lot of things. So it's very action selection, worker management, worker placement kind of uh um of deal mixture of that. So I enjoy that game, it's fun.

Surprise Drop In With Peter

SPEAKER_00 7:05

All right, so Vic, I gotta I gotta put you on pause for just a minute. We have a surprise guest.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

All right, yeah, lovely.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

A prolific name in the board game design space, and that is Peter C. Hayward. Peter, how are you?

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Hey, I am I am overly punctual, it turns out. I'm a full week early for our scheduled interview. So I'm so sorry, Vic. I didn't mean to come in and take the spotlight off you. Uh, this is this was in my calendar is this week, not next week. So I am I am early, is is the answer to how am I.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

We are honored that you would join us a full full week early, if at all. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

I'm just gonna be in this call for the next week.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

This is this is all I'm doing until our until our actually scheduled calls. So just stay in the studio for the whole week. That's right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

That's how much how many hours of podcast you're gonna get. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

That's a lot of editing.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

So, right now we're sharing uh games that we've been playing this week. Uh Peter, you've been playing any games this week that you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Yeah, so my girlfriend and I just played Coimbra last night, um, which has been on the on the shelf of opportunity for a while. Uh and we actually picked it because we're trying to clear that shelf of stuff. So I I I I have a very strict number of games I'm allowed to keep. So I can see behind Vic that you have uh stacks and stacks and stacks of games.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Uh imagine like two of those shelves. That's my capacity. I'm I'm only allowing myself to keep like that many games. Uh party games are separate, they're in a different room because I play with so many non-gamers. But in terms of like games games, so I have a strict one-in-one-out policy. And so above this carefully curated shelf is just a huge stack of games. And so we we unfortunately like games a lot. So the last few games we bought, the last few games we pulled off from that shelf, actually made it onto the shelf and had to get rid of something else. So this week I picked something that I was pretty sure I wouldn't like. And Coinbrus served that purpose. Um have you guys played it?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

I have not. I'm interested to hear your take on it though.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

It's it's a very dry euro. So you are thematically medieval Europeing, just general medieval Europe, and you've got coins and guards and cards and cards. And the the kind of central conceit is that it's a dice placement game. So you roll these dice and you each have these little plastic containers that you choose the dice and you put it in there to show that it's yours. Because the dice come in different colours, and it's really important that you know which colour you took, what number you took, and that it's yours. And then you essentially use the dice to place workers to priority bid on cards. So there's three rows of cards. If you have the highest number, you will get to buy a card first, but the cost of that card is the number of the die that you placed. So if you put a six there, you're gonna be first, but you're gonna pay six coins or six guards for that card. If you play a one, you know, you're only paying one, but there's a pretty good chance that either nothing will be left or nothing good will be left by the time it gets to you. And so it's just a it's a slick little system with like uh at the end of the round, the dice that there's these four tracks that you go up, and the dice colors that you pick determine which tracks you trigger and get income from that. And it's it's all very well integrated and it did not connect with me at all. It's a pity because I I liked a lot of the individual things, but as a whole, I was just like, just a lot of I don't like victory points. I just there's victory points that don't click in my brain. And this game was like, hey, look, this action's a little bit weaker, so also have three victory points. This one's a little bit stronger, so it's worth only one victory point. And I just I I just can't process victory points. Uh of my of my various published games, I think only five of them have victory points, and they're all co-designs. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

You're like typically a win conditions type person, like win conditions, method condition, check the box. Exactly. Game is over.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Spot on. That that's that's my preferred style because then I don't have to. There's a game, again, a very good game that didn't connect with me called Let's Go to Japan. And the the the designer is local, Josh. I know him. Uh, you know, very well received game, everyone loves it. And I found myself sitting there being like, okay, I need to sit here and calculate. Do I take this card or this almost identical card? And in 40 minutes when the game ends, the difference will be like one or two points. And there's just something about that that I'm like, I don't, I don't care. Like, I just I'm not incentivized by victory points at all. And so when when that's what kind of you have to do, like the point salady kind of stuff, it just it just doesn't click with my brain at all. So Coinbra is off the shelf and uh out of out of my life, but uh I'm glad I gave it a second shot.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Nice. I'm glad you got it played and uh thinned out your shelf of opportunity a little bit. Yes.

unknown 11:28

Nice.

Tiny Solo Games With Big Brains

SPEAKER_00 11:29

So I I had a pretty uh light game that I got to play, and that was uh called One for Sorrow, and that is a very small, like 18-card hand management game. And it's based on some old wives' tale or some rhyme that says uh one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, and four for a girl.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Free to get ready, then go cat go.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, yeah, that's right. And so uh it's a bit based on some I don't know, omen about seeing flocks of ravens while expecting a child and what it means for the sex of your child. And I don't know, it's kind of obtuse, but basically the concept is you have 18 cards, there's 13 raven cards, uh, one like red devil type character that's in the deck, and then you have four trees. And you start with all you play this game in your hand, so that all 18 cards stay in your hand the whole time, kind of like Palm Island or something like that, where you're holding it, you're kind of just reading the top card that gets flipped, you decide what you want to do with it. It is a solo game, solo only. So uh all 18 card ravens mix with the one red devil, and then you have the four tree cards at the bottom. And what you're trying to do is you're trying to put all those raven cards in order before um the trees get manipulated. So the trees will get like flipped, they'll get rotated, and then they get flipped. And the orientation of the cards matter because the cards will get flipped and have alternate um kind of abilities. So I flip a card, let's say it's like the three, the Raven of Three, three Raven or whatever it is, you can rearrange the bottom four cards in the deck. And so you uh pull out the bottom four cards, you kind of look at them, you can rearrange them in in any order that you want. Now, if I use that ability, the deck is in your hand.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

So some of it's like you don't know what's in there, so it's like a Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

So you don't you can't see what's underneath, you're kind of flipping one at a time. And the I the the goal is to get all 13 ravens in numerical order in your hand before the trees get rotated and flipped, all four trees. And it is really difficult to do because when that red devil comes up, he will manipulate that next tree and kind of jump through your deck to rotate. And yeah, it's a little obtuse to handle in your hand sometimes, like you know, sifting through cards and stuff. Yeah, but I think it's a pretty smart game. If you like those small uh button-shy games like sprawlopolis, like Palm Island, like um it kind of reminds me of like Food Chain Island, too, where all the different animals have different abilities. Um, you're kind of doing something like that, but it's all in your hand at the same time. It's like a print and play game. Um, you can buy a copy of it online through the publisher, but um it's 18 cards. You can print this out on some cardstock and just play it, you know, as you travel and stuff. It's kind of cool. I thought it was a neat design.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

I did you ever play numbsters from Button Shy?

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yes, it kind of reminds me of that.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

That's what I was gonna say as you're describing it. Um have you played that one, Vic? I haven't. No, I don't think I have it. It's it's really clever. It's just the numbers one through 18. And I think seven is the dangerous one because seven, eight, nine. Yep, and you're just trying to like get them in order before seven eats all the cards in your hand. And it's similarly, it's 18 cards in your hand solo game. It's about getting them in order. It's it's just really slick. Um, and each card has a unique ability. So, yeah, it feels it feels like it has a sister game in that.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

It is very is in that same vein and definitely inspired by Button Shy, but not published by Button Shy. And I'm gonna look it up real quick because I don't know the publisher off the top of my head. I'm gonna let Vic talk about any game that he has next while I look this

Inferno And Chess Like Euro Tension

SPEAKER_00 15:15

up.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

Um, yeah, I mean, I think the last game that I played recently from the pile of opportunity um that I've been trying to narrow down, yes. Um, is uh played inferno. We played inferno with uh a buddy of mine. Um I enjoyed it, that was cool. Um I liked it a little bit more than uh fortunes of scoundrel bay, to be honest. Uh, mostly because it was very chess-like, and I'm a big chess player. I love playing chess so much. And the way you're pretty much it follows like the story of Dante's Inferno. Um, you know, as Dante's going down through the levels of hell, you're sending these souls down to the love through their levels of hell. You gotta send these little meeples down, they gotta land to their circle of hell, and then you lay down, then you get points for them. But when you send them, when you send them to the first purgatory, it's like all game, like everyone else can move that that soul too. So you have to kind of like strategize, like I well, if I move them one step down, then it leaves it open for the next player to move it down to their certain and they they claim the points. So, how do you mitigate that? Well, there's guardians you can use to kind of stop them. You can you know, there's like a Medusa you can use to freeze that that uh that soul, or you can use Cerberus to scare it off to like make it go. So there's a bunch of other uh guardians you can use, but um, I like the very action selection basic game. Um victory point led. So sorry about that, Peter. But that's a very victory point heavy game. Um I ended up yeah, that I I enjoyed that game a lot. It was very I just mostly the chess element, the main area of where moving your souls down. You have to like, you know, it kind of plays with like chess and checkers. So if like you know, you need to move a soul down to the lower, but there's other souls that were in there, you jump them, so you go further down. So you kind of have to like chain, you can chain it to reach the the level of hell that it is in. Um, but I I liked it, it was great. Um, so it we played that and uh fortunes I scondroy back to back, and uh we did a compare and contrast on those euros, and I liked Inferno a little bit more for the chess element, but Inferno is strictly based on like Dante's Inferno slash Greek mythology. Yes, yes, it incorporates like a lot of that. Like you play one of like these you play like a sp like a house, like uh this house in Italy, and um your job is to like accuse sinners as you do actions. So you like accuse a sinner and then you bring down souls and wherever like you were at in your action, you have a couple of actions you do, they're all color coordinated, so like pink is lust, and you know, brown is greed or seven deadly sins. Exactly correct. And so if you accuse if you have a worker on the pink section and you're accusing there, then you're accusing a soul there that was lusting or something, and so then you pull out a pink meeple, and now that's a pink meeple in the gates. You pay the ferryman, which I think his name was like Char Charon or whatever his name is. Yeah, yeah, Karen. You pay him, and then he sends the soul to to hell, and then now you got now. It's your job to like guide him down to the uh the its level of hell and stuff like that. You it certainly know the deeper you go, the more points it is. And then I think the game ends once Dante moves all the way down to the bottom um and reaches the like the frozen lake, um, where like the devil's eating like Judas or something like that. And so um, yeah, it's very interesting game. There's a lot going on on it, but it's not that hard. Like it's very intimidating when you see it because it's like a big board and like pieces everywhere, and you're just like, Oh, okay, what do I do? But when you get to it, you just do two actions and then that's it. Just do this, do your do your little action selection, which you did, and then move on to the next player. So um, yeah, that was that was fun. I enjoyed playing Inferno, it was a good one for sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

That sounds up my alley. I I think you might like it. I'm excited about that one. I like it. I'm gonna check it out.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

I don't know if it's new. I got uh Raul got it back when we went to Suchijukan, which was maybe three years ago, about three years ago. 2024.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

So definitely not new new, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

So 2024 published by Red Mojo designer is uh Fernando Eduardo Sanchez, artist is David Benzal and uh Christian Casado Otazu.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Interesting. But what a suitable first name, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Great game, great artwork. I mean, it's very aesthetically pleasing. I enjoyed it. It's cool. The little like uh souls that you said, they're color coordinated, and then in the middle of them have like a little symbol to represent their sin. So like so, like the greed one has like a little symbol of like a money bag in on their chest and stuff that you guess is it's it's cool. I like it. Um look at this board, yeah. Oh, that's the board. So if you look at the middle, so that like the first the first the first ring is purgatory, and then you send them down those chains, and you know, you're on your action. Let's say you move a pink one down to that pink layer, then it you lower down, and you get the points at the end. But again, they're anyone's game, anyone can move those those souls, so you kind of have to like figure out what what souls you're gonna move down, what ones are you gonna keep. Um, but yeah, it's a great game. That's that's uh I enjoyed it. It's fun.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

That sounds rad. I like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

You'll like it. I think you'll like it for sure, Travis.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Uh Peter, you got another game you want to share?

Deckbuilders With An Eight Year Old

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Uh so my son just came and visited for a week, and he is eight years old and the most ferocious eight-year-old for board games you'll ever meet. So uh we we've I got him into deck building. So uh I I mean I picked up a copy of Quest for El Dorado because I wanted to play it for research purposes, and he loved that. He he won his first game, so after that is all he wanted to play. And so then uh my son and my assistant were at a local game store, and my assistant is like the most lovely, normal person who has never played a board game before meeting me. Before meeting me, she didn't know that people could be board game designers. Uh, and then she's she's had such a specific kind of view into the world of board games that the first time we took to a game store, she was like, Oh, and everyone here is like a designer playing their own game. And I had to be like, Oh no, no, you only know the design part of the hobby, you have no awareness that people buy the games and play them. So she I I got into into games a little bit like Flip 7 and Hanamakoji, and then on this board game day after we played Quest for Aldo, she's Quest for Eldorado, she was like, Let's play something longer. And I was like, Are you sure? Like, that's pretty long. She's like, No, I want something longer. So I showed both my assistant and my son Clank. Yeah, and they loved it. The final scores were my assistant got 107, my son got 72, and I got eaten by the dragon. So they were both absolutely thrilled to have like not only played a like a big heavy game, beaten it, and then, and this is the game I actually want to talk about. Uh, we came home and my son wanted to play another deck builder, so I pulled out Ruins of Arnak, which is a CGE game that you would not normally think an eight year old would even be interested in, let alone. Beat his father at it, despite it being one of my favorite games of all time. So he won by one point. Oh, wow. Uh, which was very, I was very proud and frustrated all at once. Uh, we played again with my assistant, and my son won again on the tie break that time. So he is just like it's like a party trick. I just put him in front of a euro, teach him how it goes, and he's like, Oh, I'm gonna buy this, which will trigger that, and that'll let me go up this track, and that lets me play this card. It's just it's wonderful to watch. So that all three of those games are just like they're all deck building games with a with a uh board, which to both my sister and my son is like, oh, that's how deck building games work. And I it's hard to explain how they work without the board if you've only played them with the board, because they're like, Well, what would you do with the cards? And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, such a good question, and I don't know how to answer, but trust me, like they do exist without a map to go around.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

You are talking our language here at OGN because uh we talk about Quest for El Dorado all the time. Oh, really? Um, and I'm so rooms of Arnak, uh, our third leg of OG OGN, which is Jared, uh, has not been on in a while, but he that is his favorite game of all time. He consistently has two legs?

SPEAKER_01 23:16

How can you even walk around with only two legs? I don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised they just do the work with great struggle, yes. Um, but Jared, that is his favorite game. Uh, he has no less than like 12 to 15 games on board game arena going for Lost Runes of Arnak at any given time. Uh we flew out to Vegas to watch him compete in the World Series of Board Gaming for Lost Runes of Arnak. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

He's in the I also describe Arnak as the best developed game I've ever seen. Because like the core of it is good, obviously. It's like worker placement plus deck building with a cool theme and all that. But the way that CGE developed that game, I think, is what really magnifies it. So as an example, um, there's a lot of cards that you buy like any card that you want, but the rule is you don't just buy any card you want, you flip one more and buy any that you want. So A, you have like more options than just taking the action, and B, once you've bought a card, that's the one that comes in and fills it. So, like it's an act, it's a step that you're doing anyway. Just the the like so many things, the way the wand moves along the five rounds, and like every part of that game is just so slick. It's just it's I think it's a a masterclass in not only game design, but specifically development. I think it's so beautifully developed. I like it.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

Uh uh one of the buddies, one of my buddies, I I played with it uh with board games that were going through the uh um pile of opportunity. His hot take is that he preferred Endless Winter over Lost Ruins of Arnak. He thinks it's a more better ruins of winter. Yeah, he said it's uh I played it with them and it plays a lot similar like Lost Ruins of Arnak, except it's more caveman ice age kind of style. And he says it's a better fleshed out game than Lost Ruins of Arnak. I disagree with him. I think Lost Ruins Fleshed out. What are you talking about? Yeah, exactly. That's what that's what I'm saying. I was like, when he said that, I was like, whoa, bro, hold on, hold on. Let's pause, let's pause. Fighting rules. Um, it's a game, Endless Winter is a great game. It's fun. Oh, it's the design of Rurik. I really like Rurik. Um, great game, it's fun. There's a lot going on. There's a lot more going on in this one than Lost Runes of Arnak. Um, but I enjoy Lost Runes of Arnak more than this game. But this is a top second. It's just a pleasure to play.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

They they just recently announced the like final, final, final mini expansion.

SPEAKER_04 25:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

And I I don't have any of the expansions because I'm still getting so much joy. I tend to play the base game a lot before I expand it. So I'm on I'm on play 10 or 15 or something like that. By the time I get to 20 or 25, I'll probably be like, okay, because everyone says the expansion amplifies it. I'm like, I'm having such a good time. I don't want to I don't want to skip good times because of potential future good times. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Peter, we're gonna we're gonna have you on when Jared gets back and you guys can talk about Lost Ruins because yeah, he is like right same track of mine, like no expansions. Purist likes to play the game. Really? Oh yeah, he he freaking loves that game. So um awesome. Great. Thank you for

Mr. President Goes Digital On Steam

SPEAKER_00 26:09

sharing. Uh I have one more game that I want to share, and I'm not gonna do it any sort of justice because I just got into it, but I was have always been intrigued by the game Mr. President, and it is published by GMT Games, they do a bunch of like simulated uh like civil war battle games, like troops on a map moving them around, like very tactical, very strategic. Um, designer is Gene Billingsley, and the artist is Donald Haggerty. Donald, Donald Haggerty. And um, the reason that I finally gave this a shot is because there is a digital implementation that is out there now that greatly streamlines the entire thing. For for reference, uh the weight on this game is 4.3 out of five on BGG. Whoa, one player only playtime is 360 to 600 minutes. That is six to ten hours. So this is not a game that you sit down, like you have to devote an entire day, or you have to leave it like in your basement for you know weeks on end as you play it. Yeah, so I was I've always been intrigued by the systems in this game. It's basically like it is nothing if not ambitious. It is trying to simulate everything it takes to be an American president and put it into a board game, and you're like trying to pass bills and you're trying to you know stop uh you know foreign conflicts and you're trying to you know maintain your economy and you're trying to oh my wow, good lord. So um they just I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

What what what platform did you play it on?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

So it is on Steam now and it's in early access. Um they have a couple of other GMT published games that are on Steam, um, but this one is just came within the last like month or so. I think actually I think it releases like 1.0 maybe this week. Um, but it vastly streamlines the game. Granted, I've never played the cardboard version. I am too intimidated by it.

SPEAKER_02 28:12

It takes it down to a mere four hours.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah. Um but like I've heard at least from the people that I've talked to that have played it or listened to podcasts about it, you open up the box and it has like eight instruction booklets on like you're like taking a civics class, like a collegiate civics class while playing a board game. Um, and that sounds intimidating to me, but sounds intriguing. So I was like, I might as well give the digital implementation of version a shot. And it is the UI kind of is clunky in places that cards would be relatively simple to read and manipulate. Um the UI is a bit clunky, but it at least streamlines the process and you can save it and put it away and not have to worry about it. Um the common thing that I've seen in the in the feedback that people are giving to GMT and the and the publisher of the digital version is that you need a log. Like when you log on to be able to pull up the log to see like what was I doing, what was I working on, and where do I want to go from here? Because it it throws you right into like right where you were when you close it.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

You need a pen and paper to take note. Wait, wait, Travis, are you saying you don't just sit there and play it as one single sitting? I think that's the idea.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

I have like a two-year-old running around the house. There's no way I'm sitting there for six to ten hours.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Teach the two-year-old to play this game. I don't I don't see the problem. How about have you finished the game yet?

SPEAKER_00 29:33

No, no, no, no. Uh I feel like I failed pretty terribly my first time kind of clicking around and trying to get used to the systems and stuff. And you know, you know, war broke out and I failed, and I was, you know, impeached or whatever it was, but um restarted and starting to work my way through it. But it's um yeah, it's a beast of a game. I cannot I cannot imagine people sitting down to play the cardboard version of this game. Like it is insane. The level of detail that is in this in these systems is so deep and wow, it's it is nothing if not ambitious. I will give it that.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Did any of you ever play Virgin Queen? No, I have not. That was I think the game that got me into the hobby, really, which is it's also GMT, it's also a simulation, it's a seven-hour war game based around the rule of of the Virgin Queen. And uh everyone plays a different nation and they're all pretty asymmetrical, where like you know, France is more concerned about marriages and England's more concerned about colonies, and like everyone's got their own stuff going on. The most interesting one is that uh the Netherlands is actually two factions. One is the ruling party, and one doesn't exist on the board at all. They're just trying to like uh what's the word I'm looking for? Stoke revolution, sort of like the in in um Root the Woodlands. Like, yeah, they they they don't exist, and they're just trying to get enough like populism happening that they can suddenly appear. So you'll be three hours into the game, and you'll be like, oh, the Netherlands is having a civil war, and there's a whole new faction on the board that wasn't there before. It's so so when when when you talk about the level of detail, I'm like, oh, I I know GMT, I know how much they love that simulation quality. It sounds like there's never play Virgin Queen again, but I played this four or five times as my introduction to the hobby.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Jeez, what an introduction. You start off on uh the right foot, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Yeah, true, true.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Yeah, Mr. President has uh similar systems like that where it'll be like you get your daily briefings or whatever, and it'll say a civil war is breaking out in the Congo or something. Yeah, and it's like, what do you want to do? And obviously, there's an always an option to do nothing, but that might spiral and like cause repercussions later. So keeping an eye on all the pieces and all the regions and all the countries and all like it's wild. It's yeah, it is wild to say the least. So uh if you are interested in this, um, you can wish list it on Steam.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

It's tickling my my game design brain because a lot of my designs are hearing an idea and just being like, How would I do that? Yeah, and sometimes I'll play the original, sometimes I won't. Sometimes it'll be like, How would I do that? And so I'm already like, Oh, how would I make it not a seven to ten hour experience and like still have the variety? And so yeah, you're you're tickling my brain.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Yeah, uh check it out. It's um I right now it's like 20-ish dollars on Steam. I'm sure it'll go on sale their GMT games.

SPEAKER_02 32:25

I only have a Steam deck, and I feel like it's not gonna be the best kind of game to play on a screen this big.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Uh actually, you know, I don't think it would be too bad because when I pull it up on my computer, it like has a smaller box inside, like it has like kind of borders on either side. Yeah, it's got borders that like are like your Oval Office or whatever. And if you clip those out, then you can just read. It might not be too bad.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

I'll I'll check it out. Yeah, it's definitely a given shot. You you sold it.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Okay, all right. Well, at least I can sell it to one person because I'm not doing it justice for sure.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Um you'll get your GMT commission, don't worry. That's right. That's right. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Nice. Got the check. Uh, do you does anybody have any other games? Otherwise, we're just gonna start rapping about other stuff that we've been doing.

Theme Park Games And Gen Con Buzz

SPEAKER_03 33:11

Uh, I just want to do a quick shout-out, real quick, to uh our mutual friend, Travis uh Tiff. Yeah. Uh she'd been posting on her channel about 10 penny parks, and she got me intrigued, and it's sitting behind me right now, back there, right there. Okay. Um, I ordered it and it looked great. Whenever it's anything has to do with theme parks, building theme parks or you know, um, yeah, park building, I'm already in. I love theme parks. I mean, I own all the roller coaster tycoons, all the planet coasters. Um, so I just thought I spent hours. I have like over 800 hours on Planet Coaster itself just designing coasters because I just love that. That's that's like a dream of mine. So, anyway, she posted that and I was like, what is that game? I need to get that game. And I ended up getting that game.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

And it's on my Did you guys follow the uh many of the Gen Con announcements? We we're recording this on the last day of Gen Con right now. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Um, because uh All Play just announced their new game, It's a Wonderful World, or something like that, which is you it's it's in a theme park, but you are not building it, you are a guest, sort of like Let's Go to Japan. You're trying to get the most enjoyment out of the theme park. Oh is coming coming soon. It's from John Declare and Robert surname. Love meeting John Declare.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Yeah, yeah, that yeah, that one was exciting. That one sounds cool. Probably one of my top uh man, we we've been like just burning through all play games here at OGN. Like we play so many all-play games, whether they're the big box or the small box. And yeah, I just talked about Grunts the other weekend, which is a like tight little tactical skirmish game that plays kind of like uh rock, paper, scissors. Yeah, chess plus war game. It kind of reminds me of like the um general orders World War II that came out a couple years ago that was like really hot at Essen. Um but Vic, how do you feel about Zoo Tycoon?

SPEAKER_03 35:00

Um it was okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Okay, well, I have Zoo Tycoon the board game that is not getting played over here. So if you are interested, I might send it over.

SPEAKER_03 35:09

Send it over. I'll play anything that's Zoo Tycoon, anything park builders. I'm a big fan of. Like I said, I've played Zoo Tycoon. The reason I didn't like Zoo Tycoon is because Roller Coach Tycoon 3 came out with expansions about like the wild parks expansion. So that was pretty much Zoo Tycoon. So I'm like, why would I get another game if I already have it on Roller Coach Tycoon 3? So I do, but I do have Planet Zoo, and so I now's much a better, fun, interactive game that I enjoy playing on on Steam. And so um, yeah, I mean, if you want to send it my way, I'll play it. I'll get the crap out of it for sure because I do love me some Tycoon games. I mean, Arc Nova is like one of my favorite games I love playing so much because I'm like I'm building a zoo. That reminds me of Zoo Tycoon. Uh but yeah, 10 Penny Parks is back there. So shout out to you, Tiff. Thanks a lot for adding to my pile of of opportunity slash shame. I've been trying to knock it down, but you keep adding on to it. So thanks, thanks, thanks for that. But I'm excited, I'm excited to play it for sure. Although I did break the carousel thing that you build, like you build this little carousel that you use to spin, like uh it has like a spin, like a little spin mechanism. Like a lazy season? Yes, like a lazy Susan kind of. And I ripped it when I was building it, and I'm like, great. Oh no. But the designer said that it's a common occurrence, so they said just email them and they'll send you a replacement. So I was like, Oh, okay, cool. This is why you're not you haven't been trusted to build a theme park in real life, Mike. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's why I'm like that's why that's why I haven't gotten a job at Universal yet, you know. Countless, countless of tribes and stuff like that. One day, one day I'm gonna come before you Universal. I'll work there one day.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

For sure. Peter, you got any you have any other games you want to

Fabled Fruit And Resettable Legacy Design

SPEAKER_00 36:40

shout out?

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Uh I mean, my son was here, so we played a lot of fabled fruit. Have you guys heard of played that one?

SPEAKER_00 36:46

I've heard of it, I've not played it.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

It is probably my top five of all time, and it is a travesty that's out of print. So I'm talking about this and being like, hey, go pie, go pay secondary market costs. Um it's it's by Friedman Fries, who is who is a mad genius, and it's part of his fabled system. And what he was always trying to do with a fabled system was a resettable legacy game, basically. So they're always just cards or mostly cards, and you get this huge deck of cards. I think it's like 200, 300 cards, and you play with like a tiny, tiny part of them, and then after each game, you kind of like have burned through some of the top cards and you just progress your way through the deck. So over the course of I've been playing this with my son since he was five. So three years we've been playing this game, and we are like two-thirds of the way through the deck, so it is enormously deep. Like it is, it just keeps going. And and the good thing about it is it you don't it doesn't have to be with the same people, it's just the game is different every time. And if you've played it before, you're like, oh, I see what's different. If you haven't, it's just like learning the game for the first time. Like it actually doesn't make a difference, except that as you go further through the deck, the cards get more complex. So it's it's a really slick, really clean worker placement system. So everyone has one worker. Okay, there's all these little stacks of cards that are the worker spots. Each of them has an ability that you go there, so it'll be like draw two fruit cards. Oh, you you are you're making fruit smoothies is the theme. You're all animals making fruit smoothies. So you'll go there, you'll you know, this one will be draw two cards. This one will be like trade your cards with another player or something like that. Like just all these various things that manipulate the cards in your hand. But as well as that, every location has a recipe. So when you place your worker there, you can either do the ability of the spot or fulfill the recipe. And I mentioned that they are stacks of cards, that's because there's like five of the same cards. So once you've fulfilled the recipe, you take the top card, flip it over, it's now one of the smoothies that you've done. First of three smoothies wins. And then you draw the top card of the big deck I was talking about, and that comes out. So if it's if it's a type that already exists, you keep building that stack, or else it might be a new card. So depending on how you fulfill these things, you could end up with you know 10 to 15 locations in play or go all the way down to like five or six. And you could have cards that are out theoretically, you could have a guard come out at the beginning of the game and stay there for the entire run of the game, like all through the deck. Or if that one happens to deplete, then so right now, you know, the cards are numbered from one through 70 or 80 or whatever it is, um, and and stacks of five of each of them, then also there's hundreds of cards. And uh right now I think we've got mostly stuff in the 50s, one from the 30s and a few from the 70s, because just the way that like our specific game has been unfolding. And it's it's so well designed because any you know, no card breaks another card, and as you get deeper through the deck, the the effects they get a little bit more complex, but more than that, they get more interesting, especially in combination. So you have like a monkey token who lets you steal things, and you have like these wild tokens that come out, and it's it's just it's just wonderful. So I actually went and uh I'm like I said, I have a very strict shelf limit. I bought the expansion because I'm like, at some point we are gonna finish this, and because the game's out of print, the expansion's gonna be even more out of print. I want to make sure I get a copy of this expansion, and then of course you have to fill the card up to 150, so I end up buying a bunch more stuff, including just for you, Vic, a big uh roller coaster tycoon desk mat.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

Oh nice, yes, I I tied it all together.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

So yeah, fabled fruit. One of the many things I do is run a publish publishing company, and I'm genuinely thinking of like reaching out and trying to do a reprint because I just think it's it's such an incredible game. I'm friends with a designer called Alex Cutler. We made uh Critic Kitchen together, and I showed it to Alex, and he was like, Oh, this is really good, and it it helped him kind of crack the game he was working on, which just got announced, just got released at Gen Con, Mountain Goat's Legacy. So there's a little bit of fabled fruit in Mountain Goat's Legacy, and it's it's just a it's a magnificent game. If you can get a copy on it, don't blink twice, like grab it immediately because it won't be around forever, and it's absolutely worth it. I've been looking for that. Yeah, it's and yeah, the the expansion. Uh I can't remember what the theme is, but I'm I'm excited to like eventually and the thing is it's fully resettable. Like we could finish it and just go back to the start and keep playing as if as a new game and still have a good time. But I'm just curious where as a designer, where else he went with it with the expansion. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

That's incredible. I feel like Freedman Freeze is one of those ones where like people don't have like their Friedman Freeze shelves most of the time, especially not in like a local game store. You're not gonna have the Frieesman Freeze section, right? You might have the Reiner Community section or the All Play section or whatever it was, but yeah, like when though when those games show up, it's like they're they're kind of like unicorns, and yeah, in the wild issue. Yeah, I love it. I uh I had Friday for a long time and and I really enjoyed that one, like a solo only survive on the desert deserted island or whatever. That one's really cool, and I just wasn't getting played enough, so I handed it off to Clay actually.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

Um I I had this game Flea, which is also part of the fabled system, and he did this small box one, and and that's uh flea and I have fortune, which I just started. And the thing about the small box fable games is that there is no rule book. You open the box, it's a deck of cards, literally nothing else. First card says, read me. You read it, it's like, hey, here's the basics of how the system works. Read the next card, here's some rules, here's some rules. So the rules come out in the deck. I love that. Like uh, it's it's it's again the man's a mad genius. It's brilliant plays.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Yeah, definitely brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

It kind of like you almost see a like a through line between obviously the fabled fruits and Mountain Ghost Legacy, but in between there, you almost see a little bit of like vantage in there where it's like you're working through this deck and it changes, and nothing is gonna break the other systems, but you're kind of going on this adventure as you go through it.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

And I would just love as much to get through the deck as you are to play the game, like that's right as a pure exploration.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Yeah, that's right. I uh I want to be like a fly on the wall when Friedman Freeze pitches some of these things publishers.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Well, I think he publishes his own stuff these days. So yeah, yeah. He's pitching to himself.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Makes the makes the job easy.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

He has a sorrow target himself.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Speaking of, uh, I do want to say that the um one for sorrow is self-published uh by it's self-published on the web by Kev Makes Games because the designer and the artist is both Kevin Newman. So one dude I think it's two people both called Kevin.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

I was like, what are the odds? What a great name. And then you're like Kevin Newman. I was like, what are the odds of meeting two Kevin Newman? Oh, and Kevin.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Oh my goodness. Uh

Universal Studios Backlot Stories

SPEAKER_00 43:23

okay. Are we ready to move on? Do we want to talk about other stuff that we've been doing outside of board gaming?

SPEAKER_03 43:27

I'm I'm ready for whatever, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Let's do it. Peter, take it away. What have you been doing outside of board gaming?

SPEAKER_02 43:33

Well, uh, I'm gonna continue with the theme park uh theme. Uh my because my son was in town. Um, okay, so I have been working on a negotiation game. Okay. And uh co designing it with a man named Aaron, Aaron Schwartz uh Schwarz, and he works at Universal. So here in LA, he works at Universal Studios, um, not on the theme park side, on the studio side. And so while my son was here, he very generously offered to take Me and my son and my assistant actually came with this as well. Uh on a backstage. Have you ever done the Universal like tour? Yep. Oh Peter, I'm I'm there every day.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

I live I live at Universal every day, man. It's so good.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

But instead of being on the like the tram with everyone else, just us on a golf cart and we could stop and walk around and take photos at any point of anything. So I got a full we got to see all the places that you don't get to see. We got like I my my life goal is to make movies, so I was just overjoyed to see like the actual good place set and the you know the back to the future set and the jobs, yeah, yeah, and uh Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives and just like go around take photos. And my son was very polite, but I think he was less excited about this stuff than going to the theme park. But then we went to the theme park and he had a great time. So I had I had a very, very wonderful day at Universal uh being shown around my friend. That sounds incredible.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Did you go when they were doing the technical rehearsals for the Fast and Furious coaster?

SPEAKER_02 44:55

No, no, uh, this was just two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_03 44:57

So uh oh no, yeah, it was like last week they just started opening up the Rife for Soft openings.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

When Vic says that he's the noble day, like he's there every day.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

I'm there every day, yes, yes. I I love one of my dreams was to work at Universal. Um, I really want I really like being involved on the rights like animatronics and you know tech and stuff like that. So I'm trying to work my way up there and been building up my skills, but yeah, I'm there every day with my wife. We're annual pass hold members, we're platinum members, so we almost every day. I love and half our half our friends work there. I mean, I don't want to like I don't want to like name drop and stuff like that, but I mean uh the VP is a good friend of mine, so uh yeah. I don't I don't know. He's he's offered a lot of things. I'm just like, I don't want to abuse your power, bro, but I'll do it. Can I that's the only reason you have friends, right? Yeah, exactly. I don't know why else you would.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

Yeah, exactly. Oh crap, it's gone. Yep, had a thought it completely vanished. Uh carry on. All good. That's cool that you got to go on the on the lot, though. You got to go on the goal. Yeah, it was really weird at a great time. Yep. And then my my son was feeling a little nauseous because uh I don't know, because it was hot and all that. So we didn't actually do a single ride. He spent a whole day in Universal with an eight-year-old, and actually I just walked around. Uh, we got because it's so immersive because there's the Super Mario world, and totally by chance, uh, he's eight now, so I was like, this is the right age to start watching the Simpsons. So while he was while we we had a month together over summer, we watched maybe 40 Simpsons episodes, and getting to go to Universal, they have Springfield there, which would have meant literally nothing to a month ago. And now he was like, It's Mo's, it's it's Mo's tavern. We're in we're in Krusty Burger. It was it was so delightful getting him to like see the the and and he's he's a he's a big Harry Potter kid, so we went to the Harry Potter land and like yeah, all of it. It was it was such a good time.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

Oh man, I'm jealous. That sounds so much fun.

SPEAKER_03 46:51

Hey, come on over, Travis.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

I know, I know. Uh so I have a whole bunch of stuff to talk about. Vic, I'm gonna let you go first. What have you been doing outside of board

Movies Gloomhaven And DnD Scheduling Pain

SPEAKER_00 47:02

gaming?

SPEAKER_03 47:02

Uh yeah, I mean, oh everything. I've been I've been all around. Um right now I've been on the jump. I'm on I'm on that Odyssey train. I've been riding the Odyssey, I've been watching the Odyssey. Got to see it in 70 mil, IMAX, and at City Walk. Um, so that was a journey. Ended up watching that at 11 a.m. So I mean 11 p.m. So I didn't get out of the movies until like 2 a.m. I was half asleep by the time that movie was done. Um, but it's funny because that I was coming from a game night that night. Um, and it's funny because you meant uh Peter, you mentioned Critter Kitchen. Um, I brought that and I brought Ready Set Bet, and I and I was pitching, I was pitching both games. I'm like, this is a fun betting game, and you know, you races, and then like critter kitchen. This is a very unfun kitchen. I was trying to, I was trying to so hard because I love critter kitchen, it's a fun game. Um I was trying to and I was trying to pitch, and I'm like, it's cool because you gotta make these dishes and stuff. You got the critter coming, and they're like, Well, there's eight of us, so we can all just play ready to set bet.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

I was like, okay, okay, I guess we can play this. The math, the math is on their side there.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

Yes, exactly, exactly. So I was like, and two of them have been wanting to play career kitchen. So I'm like, I brought it for you guys, but you guys are going for this one. All right, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

I mean, but I mean, I I'll never complain when one of John Declair's games gets played everyone. The man is a is uh not only a genius, but so lovely. Yeah, he's cool. Oh, he's a nice guy. I remember what I was gonna say. Um, Vic, do you know uh do you know any local game designers here in LA? Um the Aside from me, obviously. I mean, you're the only one. I should know that that's so so there is a designer, very, very lovely man called Scott Rogers. Uh he's he's at the playtest event every every week, every month. Um, he's made a bunch of games. Uh one of the alien games, I can't remember which one. Uh he did the Pantone game that came out a few years back. He spent many years as an imagineer at Disney. So if if you ever get a chance to meet him, he would very he's is one of the most lovely kind men you'll ever meet. He would very happily talk you through the path to becoming like that role, if that's interesting to you.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

Oh my god. I would definitely love that. Yeah, I have a co-worker of mine that I work with, and we're both like geeks about just like the engineering and like the he's an engineer, and I'm the technician, so we just geek out every time we see each other about like, did you see the new right? Did you see the new system that they did?

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Yeah, he he got married at Haunted Mansion because Haunted Mansion is his like his baby.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

Oh my god, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

Before that, it was in video games. So first time I met him, I found out that he worked on Oddworld, uh, Abe's Odyssey, which was my childhood. So I just sat there and just grilled him for an hour. And he is is so he's so generous with his time. He's always happy to talk about the stuff that the cool stuff that he's done in his life.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

I literally want to sit down with him and just pick his brain for like a day. Just like how he would he would love that.

SPEAKER_02 49:41

That's so lovely.

SPEAKER_03 49:42

I just want to soak it all in because I just love it. I and my wife gets mad at me because when we ride rides at Universal, I'm not even enjoying the like the scenery. I'm looking at like the track, I'm like, oh, that's so cool. How they did that in the trunk and that's so cool.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

I'm like, oh, I see why that costs three instead of four. Yep. You should do a very special episode. We just get him on the podcast and pick his brain about imagineering and board games. I would love that.

SPEAKER_03 50:05

That'd be great. That'd be a you got you better invite me for that, Travis. Uh, but uh other side of that, yeah. So we had the game that I went to Saw Odyssey. Great movie, three hours long. Um, and I mean I've been it's kind of almost in the board game row, but I've gotten back onto Gloomhaven, but the digital version, yeah, and I've been playing it, and I'm just like there's a reason I left to play this game. I'm like, this game is way too hard. Like, I feel like they just don't want you to win this game. Other than, or I'm just being dumb with my cards. Um, but we've been playing with some friends online, having a good time. We're trying, we're trying. I mean, and this is a big try, but we're trying to start a DD campaign. I have all the campaigns and things, but these guys can't commit, man. I'm like, come on, let's go. Let's I'm ready to go. They said, All right, let's do uh let's do Sundays. I'm like, okay, we'll do Sundays, we'll do like an hour, an hour and a half, you know, whatever. We'll get a session going. Okay, okay. First Sunday we did it. We ran a session, had some fun, great, great. Next Sunday, they're like, Oh, we can't meet up. Okay, whatever. Next Sunday, oh, we can't meet up either. Okay, I'm like, guys, what are we gonna meet up? We just did like half a session. We didn't even get past like the first mission. Like, what's going on? Oh, let's meet up every other Sunday. Okay, fine. Every other Sunday, every other Sunday rolls around. Oh, yeah, I don't know, just hard to commit. Like, okay, well then thanks for thanks for you know wetting my little appetite of wanting to play DD again. And I got all these campaigns, I got everything set up for you guys. I was ready to DM it. I was having fun. I even bought a voice changer so I can do different characters and stuff with the voice changer. Had some fun the first session, and then they're just like they just disappeared. And I'm just like, well, but but but when I mentioned, oh, let's play a board game. Oh, let's play Gloomhaven. Let's do it, let's do it. I'm like, oh, okay. You want to commit to board game? I mean, I'm not mad, I'm I'm okay with committing to board game, but let's play some DD, man. I want to play some D, you know.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

So I'm just like, I'm a little, I'm a little when Clay and I got ready to start our like initial campaign, our very first campaign, and uh we were kind of doing the the setup and like the character building and stuff. His brother-in-law, who is our DM, said the toughest enemy or the toughest uh beast that you will fight in Dungeons and Dragons is the calendar. Yeah, sure enough, yeah. The scheduling became an issue almost every week. We're always short somebody, so yeah, it's it's it's tough.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

Yeah, it is tough. I have an RPG group and we all travel so much that when we are in town, we're like every week, gotta do it because we know there's gonna be like a three-month stretch where we can't. So yeah, scarcity mode kind of helps us like prioritize it.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

See, man, yeah, I I mean hang out with your friends, Peter, because I'm my guys can't my guys can't commit to just a single session. I'm just like, come on, guys. So but it's been fun. I mean, I said it's been a journey. I've been trying to do that, and then mostly just working, working hard and um podcasting. The podcast is doing good. GameZ Mass fun. Um, had a lot of fun guests on the podcast. Had our good friends Kyle and Aaron from Big Squid Productions. Great, nice, great couple, a filmmaker and a producer, producer killing it in the horror genre and filmmaking. They're awesome. Um, got to talk to them about their micro horrors that they came out with called Autonomous. Uh, made me not to want made me not want to ride a Waymo ever again. Um, because they made a horror movie about that. Great, great, great couple. I love them. Um, but yeah, I've just been just board gaming and then just chilling, man. And and then Travis, I'm excited. We're we're continuing our Resident Evil series that we've been doing with our collabs. I can't, I think as time of this recording, we're gonna we're still aiming for Tuesday to finish off Outbreak File 2. And so um very excited to do that. And then I'm already before we recorded, you caught me, but I was playing Survivor, the next one. So I was getting ready to get ready to jump. I'm jumping at the bit, man, because we got till September before the movie comes out, bro.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

That's right. Yeah, we uh Peter, for your knowledge, we decided for the 30th anniversary of Resident Evil to play through every Resident Evil game.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

Oh wow to man, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:50

And so we are uh what five, six games in now?

SPEAKER_03 53:54

Yep. We're getting there. So far, right now. Um okay, I'm still going back to Outbreak. Outbreak's my favorite one. File is good. It's my favorite. I've never played any of them.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

It's one of them called Silent Hill. Is that a Silent Hill?

SPEAKER_03 54:08

Oh man, that's my other favorite series. I hear it's that educate you right now. Yeah, separate IP. Separate IP, yes. Yeah, Silent Hill is a great one.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

I'm not a video gamer, so I'm I'm good reaching around in the dark.

SPEAKER_03 54:21

Let us educate you, Peter. We'll educate you. We'll teach you. Silent Hill is another phenomenal series. That is great. That I feel like that's gonna be our next chapter, Travis. I think we're gonna dive deep into those games next.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

All right, let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 54:33

Yes, let's do it. I'm excited. Uh, but yeah, that's been that's been it for me for sure for right now.

The Odyssey On IMAX And What It Missed

SPEAKER_00 54:38

Okay, well, I'm gonna wrap up and say uh that I have seen a whole bunch of movies. We took the week off. We went to go see two movies on Wednesday and Thursday this week, and they were one, I just love going to the movies. It's just such a such a fun experience that we don't get all that often anymore. Okay, uh, so the first one was we saw the Odyssey, and we saw it in uh IMAX. And saw it the 70 millimeter, so we didn't have any FOMO.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

Greek gods intended, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Zeus himself built a temple around a 70 millimeter screen.

SPEAKER_03 55:12

As the Greek god Zeus Nolan intended, and Apollo's brother, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

And uh it was kind of cool because they didn't show any really previews besides Dune part three. They had like a special cut preview for Dune part three. The guy, like one of the employees of the theater, came out and like gave us the whole spiel about the movie, and like this is this has zero CGI, like Christopher Nolan wanted no CGI. He did this all kind of practical effects, and here's like how he made this special camera to film this, and uh and he gave us kind of like the whole background. And um I don't know how much you know about like the development of this version of the Odyssey, but uh and I'm not a classicist by any means, I do not speak original Greek, I do not like I have not read the original text. Um but I do know that this was based on Emily Wilson's translation, and the version like depending on what translation you read of the Odyssey, the message that you get is going to be different. And so Emily Wilson writes a very like down-to-earth, very like story almost narrative style uh translation of the Odyssey.

SPEAKER_03 56:25

Bro, she hated it.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

Did she?

SPEAKER_01 56:29

She hates the Odyssey.

SPEAKER_02 56:33

She feels like he missed everything that she was trying to bring out of the work.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

Yeah, really. Yeah, bro. You gotta look into that, bro. She hates this movie.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Big okay, because when I watched it, I thought like this is not what I have gotten. In I mean, uh yeah, there's themes of like the Xenia, which is like the guest right and the law of Zeus and all that. Yeah, there's themes of that. Uh, and it is a message to be taken away, but I don't think that is the most important lesson to be taken from the Odyssey. And like everyone's come out and had their own opinion of how they interpret the Odyssey. And like people have been arguing over this for 3,000 years. I'm not going to say anything new here. Yeah. Um, Ryan Holliday, you know, put out a good video comparing the different um messages throughout the Odyssey, and and he's far more a classicist than I am. But as somebody who has a tattoo of Odysseus on my chest, uh, I I think that they missed an opportunity to really drive home the relationship between father and son. And the the translation and the interpretation that I appreciate the greatest is by Daniel Mendelssohn, and he teaches collegiate courses on the Odyssey, on the classics. They read it in original Greek, they do all that stuff. And he wrote a book called An Odyssey, a journey between father and son. And I would recommend this book to anybody that is a father or son andor child of somebody because the way that he covers most people. Uh he tells a story about his his aging father that has a regret in life that he never uh read the Odyssey in original Greek. He had taken some Greek lessons through school, but never like got to the let to the actual class where they read the text.

SPEAKER_04 58:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

And so he opts to um sit in on his son's class at this college. He's like 80 years old, sitting there with a bunch of 20-year-olds, and he talks about like the comparison between how his father interprets the text and the story versus the versus the kids, and he tells it in that kind of circadian uh storytelling uh way that Homer tells the original Odyssey. And man, it's phenomenal. I the line that I always think about is that uh it says no son can ever know truly know their father, but every father knows their son completely. And like and he to and he talks about this relationship and how he's kind of getting to know his uh his dad through him sitting in on this class and talking about the texts, he goes and talks to his father's friends, much like Telemachus goes and talks to people that had fought in the Trojan War with Odysseus. So I I think it's great. Um that's my preferred interpretation, that's my preferred uh translation is Daniel Mendelssohn. He just put one out. And if you want an appreciation for the Greek language and how it is interpreted through the Odyssey, he wrote a translation within the last two years, I think, and it is great. And it has so many, so much background info that you would never pick up on if you read it in English. So highly recommend Daniel Mendelssohn's The Odyssey and An Odyssey.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Um if you want the the father-son telling, you have to wait for Spielberg's version. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

And I thought I find it interesting, like everyone blew this one up. Christopher Nolan, obviously, a very prolific director. And yeah, and when he puts a movie, every movie he makes is an event, yeah. It's an event, right? Yeah, two years ago, uh there was another Odyssey movie that came out, and nobody saw it because it didn't have the Cyclops and the Whirlpool and the Sirens and all the adventure. The movie is called The Return, and it has Ralph Fines? Ralph Fines plays Odysseus, and it is just about his return to Ithaca and not about like all the other stuff before it. And um, yeah, it came out in 2024 and nobody saw it. So oh wow, it's another look if you want to uh take a look at that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:36

The Wikipedia page says The Return, a film adaptation of the Odyssey by Homer. And at a moment of like, I'm I'm sure he didn't adapt it. I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Oh, he's still around? Wow, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:49

It must be more recent than I realized.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:51

Oh, Homer Simpson talking about Homer Simpson. Yeah, I mean, what'd you think about the movie, though, overall?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

Like I so the direction and the cinematography and everything is great. As with any Christopher Nolan movie, the mixing leaves a lot to be desired because you lose the uh the you know the dialogue amongst all of the music, and he always has prolific composers that develop uh amazing soundtracks. Oh, yeah. Um, but sometimes that dialogue gets lost, and the dialogue is where all the good stuff lives in the Odyssey. So but I thought it was amazing. Some of the practical effects were incredible. Um you don't get movie making like that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Yeah, oh yeah, hands down. It was fun of a kind for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Yeah. And then uh the next day we saw Spider-Man, and that was like like whiplash between all CGI and no CGI.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

Oh yeah, yeah. It's actually that Spider-Man is is uh inspired by the Emily Wilson translation of the original Spider-Man. Yeah, and she hates it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

But I thought it was interesting to film that in the original Greek, which uh I wasn't expecting for a Spider-Man film, you know. I know, I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:09

Tom Holland speaking in Greek, I was like, wow, so authentic. It was impressive. It was great that they had he wasn't both of them, yeah. And Zenday and John Berthaw, they're all there. You got John Barenthal, yeah. Yeah, you got them all on there.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

They're having a moment, all of them. Yeah, and uh uh Robert Pattinson, he was also in another movie with Zendaya this year. The drama, yeah, the drama blown up crazy. So yeah, big.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

I still need to watch that one. The drama.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

All right, well, I've kept you guys long enough. We have been talking about board games and talking about movies and talking about culture and talking about theme parks.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

And we gotta break this podcast, sadly.

Podcast Plugs And Where To Find Everyone

SPEAKER_00 1:02:48

Peter, we will see you next week. I don't want to like spoil anything, but we're gonna pick your brain about design and some games that you have coming out.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:55

And uh let me let me uh you guys don't use the word sprue. Let me uh let me plug. Let me plug something at the end of the show. Um, so I I have my own podcast about game design called Fun Problems. That if you're interested in game design, we're at 102 episodes. Uh it's actually wrapping up very shortly. And so part of the reason why I'm doing I normally don't do podcast interviews, but I'm trying to promote my new podcast, which is called Blueprints for Life. And it is a productivity kind of podcast. It's it's about the models, because I'm a game design game designer, so I see the world in models and systems and like, and so obviously I do that within board games. I also do that to navigate life. So the show is Nicole Cutler, who is Alex Cutler's wife, um, and a person in her own right. And I get get together every week and we just talk about like different ways that you can view the world and different models that you can use to make sense of it. And it's very actionable, useful information for improving your life. So if you're a father or a son or a child of anyone, uh, or a parent of anyone, or a daughter or a mother, uh, or none of the above, you will you will definitely like the show. So check it out. Uh, blueprints.fm. It's blueprints for life. And it's brand new, so check it out.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

Incredible. Nice. And we have another, a third podcast to plug, which is the Games Emos podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:09

So, Vic, where can people find the Games EMoss podcast?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:11

Yeah, Games EMoss Podcast, a podcast dedicated to pretty much what Operation Game Night does. Uh board games, video games, pop culture, everything you name it. We love talking with everyone. I mostly created this podcast because I just love, love, love talking to people and just hearing their stories. I just love listening to their stories, and I just want to give them a platform to just talk. I have game designers, I have um, you know, uh Instagram influencers, I have anyone, you know, directors, products. I just love picking brains and I just like hearing about it. And for me, I'm mostly doing it just for me and myself. I just love listening to people and just hearing their stories, hearing their thought process, and I just get a joy kick out of it. It's fun. And that's how I met uh Operation Game Night, Travis, and the guys, and we love chatting board games and stuff like that. So if you want to check us out, again, we're on uh all socials and you can find us X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon podcast playlist or music or wherever you like to watch or listen to podcasts, you can find us at Games in Moss Pod. Um, yeah, again, if you guys enjoy the content that you like from Operation Game Night, you'll like our content as well. Um, Peter, I we gotta have you on the pod. I want to pick your own. I would love to pick your brain as well. Um, but yeah, yeah, definitely uh check it out. Check us out if you like, give us a follow and um chat with us. I check all my messages. Um, and I'd love to pick brains and just just listen. I just I just want to listen. I just want to hear your story. That's that's what fuels me every day, just to hear your guys' stories and stuff like that. So that's that's my dream of running universal. Yes, yeah, that's yeah, yeah, yeah. Me working on that Androminous Rex in the background, and while I listen to everyone's stories, that's that's my that's my dream right there for the big dream of fusion is the is the idea. Exactly, exactly. But yeah, and this and a shout out to Operation Game Night Podcast. You guys are amazing. Thank you for having us on. Um, you they everyone that's listening that for the first time here should be following them now. Um, they're amazing podcasts, they're great, great guys. Um, I love them, they're awesome. And uh yeah, thanks again.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:02

Thanks for letting me crash too. I realize I am uh take taken taking your episode away from you, but uh I'm so glad you joined, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:09

I'm so glad I'm like, let's go. I'm like, such a happy accident.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:11

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:12

Yeah, definitely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:13

My inability to manage a calendar worked out forever.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

That's all right. We we appreciate your time, we appreciate everyone's time. Uh, and we will post links to all of your podcasts in our show notes for people to find. Uh, and so if you are a um child of somebody out there and looking for a podcast, we've got three or four podcasts within this podcast that you can check out. So thank you both for your time for Operation Game Night. I have been Travis, he has been Vic. He has been the one and only Peter C. Hayward. Thank you for your time and attention, and we are out of the way.