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
Peter C. Hayward & Baba Is You Board Game Design
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We trade stories about the small games that save a night, from bluffing chaos at a wrestling convention to real-time trading frenzies that only work with the right group. Peter C. Hayward joins us to get honest about what makes a design worth releasing, how Baba Is You becomes a competitive board game, and why he built a board game career as a long-term plan to move to LA and write scripts.
• Cockroach Poker as a near-perfect late-night bluffing game for non-gamers
• Picking the right small box game for a new crowd
• Triangulation as a low-rules word guessing team game
• Stonk Market as a frenetic real-time trading party game
• Mr. President as an overwhelming, fascinating solo simulation
• Flip Seven With Vengeance and the “right level of mean”
• My City vs My Island and why legacy arcs work
• Designing around tension instead of theme or mechanics
• Why “it functions” is not a good enough reason
• Rolling Deep and the goal of making a game people remember
• Baba Is You design breakthroughs for a 2-player abstract campaign
• Risk aversion in creative industries and why ambition matters
• Peter’s visa journey and the shift toward screenwriting
• Things and Rings as a Zendo-inspired “vibes” deduction game
• Reading habits as a trainable attention skill
if you are listening to this podcast, do us a favor and subscribe to us on YouTube. If you're already subscribed, give us a like, leave us a comment, leave us a review
go ahead and hit us up on Instagram if you want to do a collab
Check out Peter's Blueprints for Life Podcast at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlK7TV83QHJ8vo6pfbgXA-DqiuaOQW-St&si=BZQU0ZAJ9EvzLjSs
As always, come interact with us online, let us know if you have any feedback, and leave us a review/comment anywhere you get your favorite podcasts!
https://www.instagram.com/operation_game_night_podcast/
Show your support for the OGN Crew by contributing to the OGN War Chest:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2396881/support
Welcome Back And Subscribe
SPEAKER_03Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. We are back, better than ever. And Clay has returned. Clayton, welcome back to the Operation Game Night Podcast. How are you?
SPEAKER_02I'm doing great. As always, you carried on with dignity and honor without me. You and Vic and our extremely early guest, Peter C. Hayward, had a great episode. I love listening to that. But now I'm back, so our quality has to take a bit of a hit for a week. But I'm sure I'm sure I'll find a reason to go away again soon.
SPEAKER_03Well, the good news is uh we are going to get a bump in quality here in about uh 25 half minutes, half an hour uh when Peter C. Hayward returns, his triumphant return to the show. Um, yeah, we kind of did these episodes a bit out of order. It would have been nice to just like kind of BS with him after a more formal interview, but he's coming back today. We're gonna grill him about not just his games, but life in general. We're gonna grill him and and really put him on the spot.
SPEAKER_02What's Peter think about things?
SPEAKER_03That's right. What does he think? Let's get his take. Uh, but first we're gonna debrief some games and then uh afterwards we're gonna maybe go over the fence if we have some time with Peter. And uh, but before we do all that, before we jump in, I just want to say if you are listening to this podcast, do us a favor and subscribe to us on YouTube. We're trying to get those numbers up a little bit. We are by the time this airs, we're gonna be like one week away from our two-year anniversary. We have been grinding, grinding this show for two years. I think we did we ever we took like a week off, maybe.
SPEAKER_02I think maybe one, maybe one week in two years. Yeah, I mean that's dedication.
SPEAKER_03So I I think people uh owe us uh a subscription a subscription on YouTube. It's free. Go ahead and help us out, help us juice that algorithm. And if you're already subscribed, give us a like, leave us a comment, leave us a review, help us uh reach a larger audience so that we can continue to make this podcast great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Travis, you promised me early on in this, you said, Clay, I know things are dire now, and nobody's listening to this except your mom. But if we stay true to ourselves and we keep putting out content, we will hit the tipping point. And I feel the tipping point coming, Travis. Two years in the making. That's right. And I think we're gonna make it.
SPEAKER_03That's right. Yeah, Peter's gonna take us there. You know, in like 10 years when we're like, oh my god, we're almost at a decade of doing this. Um, then you know, and we're still having minimal listens per week, it's gonna be real depressing. But yeah, uh, you know, by that time, we will have blown up, be the biggest thing since sliced bread. People be will be requesting us to make appearances on their podcast. So if you're down to collaborate, let us know.
SPEAKER_02Yep, we'll collab.
SPEAKER_03That's right. We're down to collab. Uh, go ahead and hit us up on Instagram if you want to uh do a collab.
Cockroach Poker Wins Over Coaches
SPEAKER_03But let's debrief some games, Clay. We missed you last week. I'm sure you've been getting that gaming in. Tell me what you have been playing.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, so much, Travis. I've played so many games, but I kind of want to talk about a situation in particular that a game really came through for me. All right. So I'm new in my I I got a new job for those of you who have been following along. We had a big convention last week. So I had to go to Baltimore with all my new colleagues. We were there for like seven days. I wasn't seven days, it was like five days, but we were staying the night. It was, you know, long days. And I took a I took a flyer. I was like, I'm gonna be around these people. There's gonna be maybe some downtime. I'm gonna throw a couple games in my backpack and just really unleash the full nerd on my on my new colleagues in the wrestling world. Um, so I mentioned it to one of our more extroverted um companions on the team, and he got pumped. He's like, Yeah, dude, tonight, it's the exhibitor social, it's gonna be awesome. Let's bring bring some of your games down from your room. I was stressing, you know, because I still don't know these people that well. I'm like, this is a big moment. What do I bring down? So I brought cockroach poker. Now we're dealing with a late night, there's a couple drinks, you know. We got wrestling coaches, everybody's having a good time. I was like, cockroach poker, this is gonna be it. So I pulled it out. This guy he gathered up a bunch of these division one wrestling coaches like, hey, this guy's uh got a board game podcast. Come play it, come play a game with him. So I'm stressed. I'm like, holy cow, the pressure is on cockroach poker. Please don't let me down. I haven't played cockroach poker in a long time, but it felt like the right move for the crowd. And I wasn't wrong. Okay, they loved it. Nice so in cockroach poker. If you haven't played it, it's just a straight up bluffing game. You've got all these creepy, crawly insects, and on your turn, you take a card, you pass it to somebody, and you say, Hey, this is a rat. That person gets the card and they have to decide whether or not they want to accept the card. If they accept the card, they have to make a declaration as to whether you told them the truth or not. So they don't have to accept it, they can just look at it and then pass it on. And they they can give it to somebody else and say, Yeah, it is a rat, or they can say, No, this is actually a cockroach. Now that person has the same choice to make. Are they lying to me? Can I call them out? And the goal is if you do call somebody out and you were right, they have to keep the card face up in front of them. And so when somebody gets four cards of the same type in front of them, they lose. So sending these insects around the table, and you know, somebody's got a bunch of flies, so you're like, all right, I'm sending a fly. All right, here you go. This is a frog. And you're hoping, you're hoping they they they call you out on it because now they're gonna take that fourth fly. But it's just a perfect late night game just to have a laugh. I had to pee so bad. I played one game, I ran off to pee, and they started playing again. They, I mean, they were in another game, and then it was getting late. Uh, I left, I was like, I got I gotta go to bed, you know, it's early tomorrow. And they're like, Oh, yeah, we're gonna play another round. So all these wrestling coaches just kept playing cockroach poker. They came down the next day. Everybody's like, Oh man, I'm gonna buy that game. That game was so much fun. So cockroach poker hit a home run at the wrestling coaches convention.
SPEAKER_03Excellent. Yeah, I feel like that's like the right mix. Like uh, everyone can do bluffing, and there's no literally like zero to no rules uh to explain. You just like you bluff, you either accept it or you pass it. The end. That's the game.
SPEAKER_02The end. Yes, yeah. Yeah, it was it was it was the it was the you know, it's all about the right tool for the right audience, and cockroach poker was the right tool. I also did play fruit fight with them. It they all like that too, but it did not go cockroach poker definitely won the night. Like that was the that was the one everybody couldn't stop talking about.
SPEAKER_03Did you hand out a bunch of OG and stickers? I didn't. I didn't, I didn't go that far, but I feel like I need to like start carrying them around with me because every time I'm like, man, I want to either put a sticker on there or on something or hand one out. I never have them with me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know. I I've got so many here.
SPEAKER_03And I I procured a uh a copy of Mountain Goat's Legacy uh this week on Facebook Marketplace for super cheap. No way, and yeah, and uh I wanted to give the dude a OG and sticker, but I didn't have any with me. I'm gonna have to start carrying them. I really want Mountain Ghost Legacy, Travis. Well, uh maybe I'll debrief it for you next week so you can live vicariously through me.
SPEAKER_02This is what we do. What do you got to debrief, man?
Rapid Game Debriefs And Party Picks
SPEAKER_03Well, uh I had intended on uh you know buttering up our guest host, Peter C. Hayward, because I played uh Triangulation, which is his new party game, and it is a kind of guess the word type team-based party game, akin to like a code names almost. But on this one, what you do is you have a secret little shield if you are the um person that is offering up these guessing points, and your team is looking at the words that you are writing on these cards it with a little dry erase marker. So I pick up a card and it says that I'm trying to get my get my team to guess. Um, let's say the example is like Velma from Scooby-Doo. That's like the common one that I've seen people talk about. Uh I write on a card orange, and I like show it to everybody, and people are like, what the heck, orange? Like it could be anything. I don't I don't know. And then I write uh glasses, and then people are thinking, like, oh man, there's a bunch of characters out there that like wear orange glasses or wear orange and glasses. I I don't know, but then I write like detective or something, and then I put that out there. My team, I'm trying to get my team to guess Velma from Scooby-Doo before the other team can guess it. So it's kind of like it's kind of like code names where I'm trying to portray information to get them to guess the right words without the other team guessing the word that I want them.
SPEAKER_02In that way, it's kind of like decrypto, right?
SPEAKER_03It is a bit like decrypto, yeah. And so you're trying to triangulate your team into guessing the right word before the enemy team guesses it.
SPEAKER_02And does your team have any advantage, or uh is it literally just the same information?
SPEAKER_03Well, I think you get you get like first uh you get first guess, really. That's the key thing. Um but yeah, it it's it's one of those party games, it's super light. You play it as many rounds as you feel like it. It's it's kind of like one of those games where you're just like you keep going, nobody's really keeping score after a while, and then you just put it back in the box. It's a cool game. It's uh came out with it. Actually, came out with grunts in that latest round of all play releases. So okay. Finally got this one played. Um, yeah, it's cool. It's it's a small box party game that is if you're into word guessing games like that, then this is right up your alley.
SPEAKER_02Peter in the word games, you know, he's got he's got Peter's got word games, he's got things and rings up there, fiction, first class letters. I'm sure there's more. I didn't even know about triangulation. Yeah, probably should have studied our guest a little better. But yeah, that's cool. We'll ask him about that. We'll ask him why he's so into word games. So stay tuned. Stay tuned for when Peter pops on and he can answer for his crimes in word games. All right, what else you got, Clay? What else do I got? So I've played so many things. Um, I also played Stonk Market. Oh, cool. Yeah, so this is a new tiny box all play game. Apparently, this used to be called Weedle. This is a Kenizia game, and I think this is one Cole Worley says is like his favorite game to just take around. He has it with him everywhere, the Weedle version. So All Play just came out with this called Stonk Market, and it reminded me a lot of Pitt. If any of you have played that that old trading game, uh, there's a bell and you bang it. Um so essentially you just get dealt a bunch of these different stock cards, you know. So there's like nine hippo stock, there's you know, whatever. If it has a number nine on it, there's nine of it. And there's a couple stocks that have nine cards, there's a couple stocks that have seven cards, and there's some stocks that have five cards. And for the round to end, your whole hand has to consist of a majority of stock cards. Okay. So if I had five of the seven, whatever the company was, cards, chatterfly, five of the seven chatterflies, and then I had three of the five Slinkoes, and that was my whole hand, every card in my hand is contributing to a majority. I yell stonks, the round's over, and then you add up your score. And your score is if you have a majority of the stock, you get one point per card you have. If you have all of the cards of that stock, you get two points per card you have of it. And then if you were the one that yelled stonks, you get an extra five points. And there is one card in the middle that you can trade with. So everybody can at any time trade with a card in the middle, and whatever that card is left over at the end of the round, you lose a point for every card you have of that. Oh essentially, the game is you deal out the cards, and then it's just a real-time trading frenzy. Yeah, cool. Hey, uh anybody got any hippocampus or whatever? I'll give you some chatterfly, you know, and and everybody's just yelling over each other, making trades, boom, boom, boom. And somebody yells stonks, it's over. You play three rounds, it's you know, like a 15-minute game, but it's a lot of it's frenetic, it's fun. I like it a lot.
SPEAKER_03That sounds like a blast. That sounds like a game that uh Jared would love. That's a Jared game.
SPEAKER_02With the right crew, this game will be a highlight. Yeah. With a with a stuffy group, it might fall pretty flat.
SPEAKER_03Do all do all the stocks have the same number of, or do all the companies have the same number of stocks circulating? Like, how do I know that I have all of the chatterfly stocks?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that so chatterfly is a seven. Okay. So you know in the corner of every chatterfly it says seven. That means there's seven chatterfly cards out there. Okay. So as soon as I have you know, seven chatterflies, I know I have them all. So, you know, all the cards are out there. So I'm sitting there with like three chatterflies. I need one more to have a majority of that. I'm like, yo, who's got a chatterfly? I'll get you some Slinko, you know. And yeah, they're like, okay, well, you give me two Slinko, I'll give you this one chatterfly. And it's just that kind of trading back and forth, and it's just crazy and fun.
SPEAKER_03That's like kind of in the same vein as um space team. You ever played Space Team? Oh, yeah. That's that game is great. I that was like one of my very first game, like party games that I brought to the table. Yeah, and uh, I took it when I when I was on my first deployment, and we played that thing like crazy, and we were getting wild playing uh some space team.
SPEAKER_02That's uh co-op, right? Isn't that cool?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's co-op. You're trying, you're trying to resolve a bunch of malfunctions in your deck in front of you, and you have both events, you have both events and um space parts and dilemmas that you're trying to solve. So you flip your top one over and it says that you need these two parts. So everyone at the same time is trying to solve a dilemma. They're shouting, like, I need the thing that looks like the snail shell with a little like bubbler at the top, I need this like corkscrew. And sometimes it'll have the the name of the device that you need, and sometimes it'll just have a picture. And so people are shouting at each other all over the place. If somebody has the piece that I need and they're sitting across the table from me, they can't hand me the piece, it has to be passed person to person around to get to me. Once I have them in my hand, I can resolve that one. And then the events are like switch seats, switch hands with people. Um, the floor is lava, like you can't let your feet touch the floor for the rest of the game. And it gets it gets crazy. And you're trying to beat a timer to reveal all the spaceship parts to assemble them in the middle, and then yell space team and save the day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's pretty sweet. Yeah, I I highly recommend Stonk Market for for the right crew and for the nine dollar all-play tiny box, like keep it with you. You never know, you never know. Keep that in cockroach poker, and you're sure to start a party somewhere. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03We should play stonks with the crew at uh Pax and Boys. Absolutely. That's that'd be good. Do you play anything else, or were you just Peter? Well, no, I I have been dipping more into Mr. President, uh, the digital version. Holy cow! Like I cannot believe how many systems that they have included in this game. It is crazy, and not systems as in mechanics, but like there's just so much going on. I it's just so baffling to me that somebody would be like, I'm gonna simulate an entire presidency in a board game on cards. Yeah, like that just blows my mind. Um, so yeah, I'm still digging into that. And then uh I spent the week trying to learn. I had a uh recent shipman come in with Star Trek Captain's Chair, oh, which is having a moment right now, and uh it kind of plays like uh the Star Wars deck building game. It's got a little bit of that in there, so I am digging that, but I I don't I want to do it justice, so I'm gonna debrief that next week's. But uh yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, next week's gonna be a banger because I also have a sneak preview for what I want to talk about next week, which is the newest, hottest, goldest of the Kenizia games, Gold Country. Nice, yep. I got that and got one play of it. I want to play it again this week, and then I really want to talk about it for reels next week. So you uh you owe me Captain's Chair, and I owe you gold country. We're shaking on it right now.
SPEAKER_03All right, bet. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, captain's chair. I got the base version, and they have the boldly go, which is uh like uh expand alone with like different captains and different ships and different scenarios and stuff, and then they have um second contact, first contact, or something. Like there's like three separate boxes, and they're all kind of expansions and standalones to one another. Yeah, so yeah, I'm gonna I want to do that one justice because I that's getting some love right now, and I want to make sure that I do that justice as a re-implementation of the ever successful Imperium line. Yeah, no, that that is that a solo game, or is it it is two players, um, but the preferred and recommended way to play on BGG is solo, and that's kind of how I fought fell into it. Was like I follow a bunch of like you know solo board gaming pages, and they were loving it, and so I decided to pull the trigger and uh I ordered all of it because I can't help myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what are you gonna do? Are you a Star Trek man? Like, do you care about that intellectual property?
SPEAKER_03I have a uh kind of tangential knowledge of it, um, but I feel like it's one of those things where like I'm just gonna have to dive in one day and I want to get into it.
SPEAKER_02You want to do like a uh a watch party, me and you, and every week we'll talk about an episode.
SPEAKER_03So so Vic actually pitched to me this week uh that we should do like a TV show rewatch podcast, like a series of like, hey, we watched these three episodes, we run through them with the plot points and anything that stood out and standout characters and all that stuff. So maybe we recommend some Star Trek.
SPEAKER_02Uh I'm into it. I've it I've watched some of the newer one, like there's one out like right now, like Strange Worlds or something. Yep, it's really good. I just love the I love the whole vibe of like you just go to a new planet and it just could be whatever, you know, like they could be doing all types of things. The Orville is like one of my favorite TV shows of all time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh Seth McFarland's like spoof, but not really a spoof because it gets deep. Have you seen the Orville?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he started out as like kind of a slapstick, like, oh, it's kind of a spoof of Star Trek, and then it got yeah, emotionally uh entangled for sure.
SPEAKER_02It's so good. I love that show so much. So I definitely want to venture into the Star Trek world.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Uh I and Star Trek's having a moment right now, like uh Strange New Worlds and Below Deck are both wildly popular. Yeah. Uh so this is the right time to re-implement Imperium and slap some uh some much loved, some beloved IP onto that. Yes, that's that's how they yep.
SPEAKER_02Is that from Star Trek? That's Spock.
SPEAKER_03That's Mr. Spock. That's right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we know we know our stuff.
SPEAKER_03That's right. We are so knowledgeable. You got anything else to debrief?
SPEAKER_02Um, I played Flip Seven with a Vengeance. Okay. So if you're familiar with this, Flip Seven's been the wildly popular game that has just also taken the world by storm. Yep. That's everywhere, everybody's playing it. It's kind of push your luck, just trying to collect seven different cards, try not to try not to bust. Um, but with vengeance adds like a ton more action cards, a lot of negative cards, right? Okay, um, but some good cards, so it adds ones that oh like there's a lucky 13. So in the normal deck, the normal deck has like one, one, two, twos, three threes, four, fours, twelve, twelve. Yes, a pyramid deck, as Paul Solomon would say, and probably other smart people. But this one goes up to 13 now. So there's 13 13s, but there's a lucky 13. And the lucky 13, you don't bust if you get another 13. So the whole thing is the whole the fun part of the game for me is like, hey, the high numbers are good, they score a lot of points, but they make it more likely you're gonna bust. So now having like another number, which is 13, where there's even more of those types of cards, like just having more cards in the deck, it felt like you were less likely to bust. But there was also a lot more negative things people could do to you. So like even though you could score more points, it felt like when you did, you were eventually just gonna get like dumped on. You know, everybody would get like a minus four card. Boom. That's for you, that's for you, that's for you. So in some ways, it made it um, it could be frustrating to some people, you know, like you get ahead and then people just kind of bash the leader. But it was also nice that in regular flip seven, it felt like if someone got too far away, it was just like, yeah, it's pretty much over. Like they can just stop after flipping two cards and just keep going. But if you do that in this game, like people have so many cards they can throw on you, like you still have to keep trying to score points until the bitter end. So I thought it had some cool stuff. I'd play it again. Didn't feel like too mean. Nah.
SPEAKER_03Right level of mean.
SPEAKER_02It's just flip seven, you know. I don't take it seriously. I was the one that was the benefactor of all the negative cards because I got up to like 150 out of the 200 you need to win really quick. Everybody else was like below 100. And so for like five rounds, I didn't score any points. Either, either I busted or people were throwing cards on me, and it was fine. I didn't, I like it didn't bother me. It might bother some people, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Did you find this? Did you find this in like your friendly local game store?
SPEAKER_02My mom bought it, really. Yeah, yep, she brought it over. She's like, ah, I think she saw it somewhere, I don't know. But yeah, we played it, it was a good time.
SPEAKER_03I feel like for as many copies as they printed of Flip 7, it's hard to find those like in the big box stores. Even even like local game stores, sometimes you'll find them here and there, maybe they're it's like past its moment, but like I feel like Flip 7 is difficult to find unless you're ordering it off of Amazon or one of the largest distributors online.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so affordable. I'm talking about all small games, man. If all you have in your life is flip seven, stonks, stonk market, and cockroach poker, you're you're a gamer and you're gonna rock and roll. People are gonna capital G gamer. You are killing it. All right.
Peter Returns With New Favorites
SPEAKER_02Let's get him on.
SPEAKER_03Hello, hello, Peter, Peter C. Hayward. Welcome back to the show. How are you?
SPEAKER_00Thank you. I'm very excited to be on here for the first time. First time you've ever been on the show.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's your first time with me, so that's fun.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Uh, so last week I arrived on time and you've been recording for half an hour. This week I asked if we could move it back half an hour and you've been recording for half an hour. So there's there's there's some shenanigans going on behind the scenes that I don't understand.
SPEAKER_03So last week we started like just a few like and then you popped in, and I was like, Oh, like pause the show. Here we go. Like and so yeah, typically we start uh you know on time, but you never know. We're we're kind of a flabber to the pants podcast for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now, Clay, you have set up a very flattering background. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, I see what you did there. You see how it's not like this every episode.
SPEAKER_02It really is. This is all I this is all I play. First class letters and career kitchen. That's it.
SPEAKER_00That's very kind of you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, how's it going?
SPEAKER_00How's things?
SPEAKER_02Good, Peter. I gotta say, I know what you're up to coming a half hour late because I listened to your blueprint blueprints for life podcast on making a friend, and you were trying to create some scarcity here so we can become friends. Am I right?
SPEAKER_00I have a call with my son every week. And last week, because I thought we were recording, I actually moved everyone else so I could be on time for the podcast. And this week I was like, I can't ask him a second time to move. So this time I was just like, Look, uh, you got an extra episode out of me by my own fault, and so you have to adjust around my son.
SPEAKER_02So it's not you creating scarcity, so we'll be friends forever.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I'm not saying it's not that, but uh the the on-paper excuse.
SPEAKER_02Okay, all right. Well, I'll I'll live in my own fantasy world.
SPEAKER_03Well, Peter, we're uh we're just wrapping our debrief of the games we played this week. Do you have any uh highlights that you played that you want to shout out?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I had uh a game night last night with my girlfriend, and we are three quarters of the way through my island. I don't know if you've played My City, My Island by Ranik Mitzia. Um, just just masterpieces. And it's very fun playing games with a girlfriend because she's not a gamer. Like she she learned about games through me, being like, Yes, I make games. She's like, oh, like Monopoly, like you know, everyone says.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and she's a production manager. So I started her on heavy Euros pretty quickly, and it's exactly her jam. She's like, Yes, I get to manage the production. Uh, and so it's it's very, very fun watching a non-gamer, a new gamer, I should say more accurately, because she now has as many games as I do, uh, kind of discover stuff in real time. Because we we got, you know, we're we've played through all of my city, we're three quarters of the way through my island, and we're packing up last night. She's like, I think I like this legacy thing. And I'm like, ah, welcome to 2008. Excellent. So uh there are more legacy games in our future.
SPEAKER_02Uh Peter, I gotta know because my city was one of my peak like gaming experiences ever. Like, my wife and I played through that, and it was just such god, just the chapters, just the subtle changes that just like gently nod you through this campaign. Uh, it's beautiful. But I never played My Island because I felt like people were like, uh, it's not as good as My City. Is it worth playing?
SPEAKER_00Going straight from My City to My Island, I think was a mistake because you kind of end at peak my city and then you go back to the basics. Okay. And so my island, the first maybe like it's uh 24 rounds or whatever, like 24 individual half-hour games made up of how many chapters? Eight chapters. And so the first chapter we were like, yeah, this is okay, but we wish we were playing my city. By chapter three, we were like, This might be better. Like it's it's just phenomenally good. I mean, it's it's it's Kenitsia, like it's hard, hard for that man to go wrong. Um, I will say we just hit like chapter eight, and chapter eight starts or chapter whatever up to, some some one of the late chapters, chapter seven, and it's starting to bog a little bit. Like we opened the next one at the end of our three-game session because we try to always play like one chapter each time we sit down and play. Um, and we did open up and be like, this is a lot of rules. But next time when we were fresh, maybe we were like, these will rules are all worth it. Uh, but genuinely, like the first two chapters are a little slow. We've hit a point of like, oh, there's a lot going on here. Everything in between, golden. Like, we are loving it. So, yeah, struct don't play it straight after my city, but it sounds like you've had a bit of a break. It's a great one to read.
SPEAKER_02All right, absolutely recommend it. That's what I needed. That's what I needed to hear. I I don't know why I've literally bought almost every other Kenizia game I've ever seen anywhere, but for some reason, my island, I was like, well, people say it's it's probably not as good overall, but the the middle chapters I think exceed it, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Like okay, like this is the obvious comparison. Have you ever seen the Brendan Fraser 90s film Blast from the Past? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so there is a solid half hour in the middle of that film, which is peak cinema, and everything before and after is just kind of like, why am I watching this? It's such a strange experience because you're like, Oh, yeah, they're trying a thing, and then for half an hour you're like, This is this is movie making, like this is one of the best films of all time, and then it dips again. So, my city might my island might follow that obviously. We were all thinking it. I had to be the one to say it out loud.
SPEAKER_03Nice, that's incredible. I uh man, we've touched on a lot of things that I have questions on. Are you ready to jump into our formal interview? Yeah, I'll be formal.
SPEAKER_00Uh, we also played um Sky Team, which my girlfriend is yet to find a co-op that she likes. We played Vantage and she was like, This is brilliant, I don't care. And I was like, Sky Team is such a different co-op that I was like, maybe. And at the end, she was like, I'd play it again, but I'd rather be playing something else. And then we ended the night with Zulkin. And Zolkin is just like it's it's a 15-year-old game now. And I'm like, genuinely, if it was published today, I think like two tweaks, and that's it. It's just incredible. Um it hasn't oh, you've got if if you like Euros, it's the king of Euros. It's just it's a slam dunk on every level. It's very, very, very slighted, slightly dated, but like if if uh if you can forgive, like it uses a kind of laborious upkeep system once, it's it's amazing. Really, really solid. Top top ten top ten of all time for me, easily. Wow. All right, Travis. Formally interview me, please.
SPEAKER_03I don't it's gonna say formal. Well, we have never done anything formal in our lives here at OG.
SPEAKER_00Just don't ask about the deaths. I'm I'm not legally allowed to talk about them until the court case finishes.
SPEAKER_02Well, we'll keep yeah, we've we've got that under control. Don't worry.
SPEAKER_00Where are the bottles? That'll be the after I leave. You'll be like, and now we're gonna dive into the 1992 travesty when Peter was five years old.
SPEAKER_03So you are a man of many hats. Uh, and I think in order to properly conduct this, we're gonna start with the board games and then maybe we'll stray into some of your other endeavors that you are uh dipping your toe into slash passionate about, because we are also people of many passions, and we uh I think we uh can find some common ground with you on uh your creative.
SPEAKER_00Last week when you were like, What are you up to, Vic? And Vic was like, Well, I go to Universal every day, I run a podcast, I have this day job, I've done and I'm like, How do you how do you sleep?
SPEAKER_03Like, yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't because I will like I'll respond to his text at you know six in the morning, five thirty in the morning here, and he is always awake. He's an hour behind me in California in Los Angeles, and he is he will respond to me any hour of the day or any hour of the day. So Vic. Freaking Vic.
Finding The Tension That Carries
SPEAKER_03Uh let's start with your design. You kind of uh mentioned very briefly last week that you like pulling systems apart and finding that like nugget in there. And you've said on other podcasts that you don't design around mechanics or themes, you've you find design around that point of tension. Yeah, so like how do you know that that point of tension that it you've hit it appropriately and that that is what's going to carry the game? Like that's a really good question.
SPEAKER_00The the the short answer is you do a lot that don't work, and then you've you kind of latch onto the gems. Um so I I could probably come up with 10 designs a week, and that's not to say I make 10 games a week, very, very different. I'll come up with an idea, and even just noodling it in my head for like five minutes, I'll be like, yeah, it's nothing. Do you ever read um the culture novels by EMN Banks? Yeah. Okay, so I've only read one of them. It's called The Player of Games, and it's really interesting because it's like this future utopian society. Uh, the culture novels, it's a whole universe of like galaxy, whatever of stuff. And the idea is that sentient robots run the world and everyone's happy. And the question is, how do you make that interesting narratively? And they they find ways. And so the only way I've read is the player of games, and the player, the titular player of games, he plays games. I say for a living because it's like future utopia where you don't need a job. He plays games, that's what he does. And so uh, this is in a world where no video games exist, so it's all board games. And there's a part that I always think about. He's on, I want to say a train, it might be some other mode of transportation. And he just, while he's sitting there, he's like, Oh, this could be an interesting game. And he just pulls out a pen and paper, fiddles with it for two minutes, is like, it works, like it's a functional game, but it doesn't do anything new, it doesn't add anything to the world of games. And again, what reading this book as a board game designer in a futuristic society where it's all board games and no video games was such an interesting read. Um, and so it's a little bit like that. Like, I'll just I'll come up with an idea and play with it in my head for five minutes and be like, I mean, it would probably work, but what what does it add to the world? Like, who who who would want that over a similar game? And the answer most of the time is not no one. And a lot of new designers I see, they don't they don't stop at that point. They're like, oh, I came with an idea and it works, therefore it must exist. And it's just kind of like, well, I'll I'll give you a really concrete example. I I took this one quite far in development. Um, the the pitch is you've got three dice, each dice has a different symbol on each side, so 18 different symbols total over three dice. You roll them, you get a word, and you have to get people to guess that word, but you're only allowed to draw those symbols, and you have to draw each of them once. So if I get circle, uh stick figure, and asterisk, and I'm trying to get you to guess a cow, I have to very quickly draw a circle, a stick figure, and asterisk, and then you get a guess. And it comes back to me and I draw another circle. Like, so I'm I'm it's a drawing, it's a real-time drawing guessing game, but the restriction is really weird. It completely functions. People have a good time. But does that game is it more fun than Pictionary? Is it more fun than, you know, uh caution signs or telestrations? And the answer is like, I wish it was, because then I would have a published game and get money and people would be like, Oh Peter, you're so clever and handsome, but I just don't think it needs to exist. Um and so that that game's on the on the shelf of abandonment. I do that process, but without making other people do it. I sit there and come up with stuff and I play it in my head a little bit, and I'm like, eh, that's nothing. Uh so and until I find one where the tension is there. Did that answer the question at all?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's beautiful, Peter. Yeah, I we we've been lamenting about that lately, you know, as being playing games now pretty religiously for you know close to 10 years. Yeah, it does feel like there's a lot of games that come. Just another one. Yeah, it's like okay, it's fine. You know, that that they found the formula. There's a formula that works, and you can put out a game and put a nice theme on it, and it's not offensive, but it doesn't really do anything for you, you know.
SPEAKER_00So I I was on the phone with Joe from All Play, who's the publisher of Things and Rings and yeah, a lot of my other games. And I don't think you'll mind me saying this, but we're looking up a game, I won't mention it, obviously. But we were just like, yeah, that game existed. Like it came out and it sold probably about 30,000 copies, which is a lot of copies, and then it faded away, and no one will ever think about it again. And that's fine. Like, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But as a publisher and as a designer, we are very trying to move towards like, could we do more than that? Could we could we make a game that is someone's favorite game? And so this game that I'm talking about, like you've probably seen it, heard it, played of it, and not thought about it in five years. And it's maybe there's someone who it's their favorite game, but realistically, it's just another game, another game that came out. And so obviously, you know, making a game at all is is is a accomplishment. But I am definitely at the point in my career where I'm trying to not make a game, but I'm trying to make a game that does something that really like there's nothing else like it, or it's addictively compelling, or it opens up a new genre, or it brings people into the you know, something that not another game does.
Chasing Games People Remember
SPEAKER_02Speaking of addictively compelling, you got uh a real hot project with Bytewing, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've got a few.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, yeah, Rolling Deep is the one that I mean when you say addictively compelling, immediately comes to mind. Have you played it? I have not played it, but I backed it. You better believe I backed it. And I'm not even a solo gamer, but I was like, holy cow, I like Bytewing. Bellatro is taking the world by storm. It's so good. If this lives up to the hype, it could be it could be amazing.
SPEAKER_00It's uh I I don't I don't want to sound immodest, but that that that's the kind of game I'm talking about where like we've had multiple playtesters independently unprovoked be like, hey, this game will bring people who would never touch a solo game into solo gaming. And who knows? Maybe it'll release and everyone'll be like, ah man, the box was pretty, but that's that's all it is. But um the the the response we've gotten from playtesters' reviews and uh you know ever everyone who's played it, some people bounce off. I'm not trying to say it's a perfect game, but like people are responding very positively in a way that like a Bitewing have fully supported it. They are leaning into it, they paid huge amounts of money for this beautiful, beautiful art so that people could really experience the game. But the the hope is the goal is that it's more than just another game, it's something different, something that brings people in, something that sticks around, something that becomes someone's favorite game. Um you know, nobody knows anything, but that that's the hope, and that's what I'm and again, there's no way of deliberately doing this. There's no formula that can be like, ah, I'll just crank out amazing games. But the first step is definitely uh to Travis's original question, like finding that tension and seeing how far it sustains.
SPEAKER_03And I it's interesting because last week we talked and you said that you don't play video games. No, but it seems like um, and rolling deep was the original like impetus to have you on, like, hey, come talk about your new game. It was just announced, and then we kind of got pushed, and you know, whatever things got things got away. But then you had a second game that was announced that's also based on a video game. The first, you know, Rolling Deep is based on Bilattro. It has, yeah, I don't mean to say this in like a pejorative comparison, but uh it's heavily inspired by Bellatro.
SPEAKER_00It's it's explicitly heavily inspired by Bellatro.
SPEAKER_03But the artwork looks very much like Cuphead.
SPEAKER_00And oh yeah, if you have a character that was the publisher.
SPEAKER_03If you have a character with a dice for a head, you're gonna you're gonna draw that comparison a little bit, and then you have what is probably the most obtuse video game I've ever played. It's so good.
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm replaying it for the first time since 2021 because of all the discussion. I'm like, I should I should actually work through this game again. And I'm just sitting here like, I solved this puzzle five years ago, and I'm staring at it being like, maybe there is no solution. Maybe this is maybe I've got a buggy copy of the game where they accidentally forgot to put the solution in because like I'm just I know I've tried everything. I know I have.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's just incredible. I don't think we've said the name of the game, but it's Baba is you. Yes, which you play as this weird little stick figure sheep, and you can manipulate the world to solve puzzles that are almost word puzzles that become physical space puzzles. It's incredible. And uh, we talked a lot about ambitious board games last week. I cannot imagine the ambition that it required to undertake this game. Can you talk a little bit about your uh design process for this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah,
Turning Baba Is You Into A Duel
SPEAKER_00yeah, for sure. So I I just wrote up the design diaries, they'll be coming out on BGG soon. So go to go to board game geek and search for Barbara's U. By the time this releases, there should be one or two out. Um, but I as as mentioned last week and as mentioned by you, I don't really play many video games. Like it sounds like a bit because you're like, Peter, all you've done for the last month is release video game basically. Um but in 2021, I got really hooked on barber's. I got I got very sick. I basically couldn't get out of bed for a month. Okay. And so I just my brain was fine, my the you know, the the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak. So I just needed something to distract me. So I watched a whole bunch of No More Jockeys, which is a YouTube show by Alex Horn, the Creative Taskmasters, and I played a lot of Barber Is You. And that really got me through the month. Like it was one of those things where I'm like, oh, I get it now. And people are like, hey, you know, your thing got me through a hard time. I'm like, yeah, Barber is you consumed my brain for a month. And I finished it. I think I finished it in a month, like doing treating it like a full-time job, basically. And then I don't think I've played it since, but it obviously stuck in my head. Um, and so 2021 was also when that time you killed me came out, which is my two-player combinatorial strategy game, like a chess, time travel chess, basically. And so these two things in combination, like I really wanted to do more in that space. The the two-player abstract just really fits in my brain nicely. Um, and that time you killed me is unique among abstracts in that it's a campaign game, it's not a legacy game, but it has like four chapters, and each chapter unlocks new things, and you you really go on this like journey through time. And I was like, that's it's such a fun design space that no one else is doing, and I'm good at it. Like that game was that game was my breakout game, like it did very well, got well reviewed. It's what's what made Joe reach out to me from All Play and be like, hey, let's work together. And that then created Things and Rings, which is which was my my biggest uh hit so far. Um, and so I was like, what if you could do Barber is You as a two-player abstract? That would be so cool. Like me versus you, where we're changing rules and trying to win. And I I did the thing that I was talking about where I played it in my head, couldn't get it to work, just didn't work in my head at all. And I tried it a few times and I gave up on it. Three years later, start of 2024, I was driving and it's it's gonna sound so obvious and stupid, as as most good ideas do. In my head, when I'd been playing it, I was like, okay, so you've got like the rules off to the side, and on your turn, you can either take a turn on the board or you can adjust the rule. And it just didn't seem fun, it seemed really disconnected. The revelation I had that the breakthrough was what if the words were on the board and you pushed them around? Yeah, which, if you know the video game is literally the core concept of the game, and it worked pretty much immediately. Like from from, I mean, it's it's based on something truly brilliant. Like the abstract game, I think, is very good. The the video game is uh transcended. Like, I'm not even gonna claim to be in the same arena as that. But this idea that one of you is barbar, one of you is Kiki, who are the two characters from actually uh uh vent vamp for one second, I'll grab the box.
SPEAKER_02Okay, yeah, it's amazing. Look at that.
SPEAKER_00Uh so if you if you're watching this, I don't know if you guys do audio or just video. One of you is barba, and one of you is Kiki, and you uh on on a little five by five grid and you're trying to manipulate elements to make something is win and then move on to that something. And the the things that really made it coming together was firstly getting rid of the is in the video game, barber is a block, is is a block, and you is a block. And in a in a uh In a puzzle, follow the puzzle game, that's obviously brilliant, works amazingly, creates the most intricate, fascinating little uh puzzles to solve. In a competitive game, it's just too easy to break up. Like you just need to adjust any part of that. So the first thing we did was we put the is on the on the verbs, on the on the properties. So barber barber is a is a tile and is you is another tile. And then the second thing, uh I've forgotten. Nope, it's gone. Um, but the uh yeah, the the game, the game came together really quickly, really nicely. Uh, and then I play tested it endlessly. And just like that time you killed me, I was like, cool, you can't have 40 rules in the game like you do in the video game. That would be overwhelming. So every game you have two rules, and you just uh there's all these little worlds, uh mine are mine are open because I was proofing them, but there's all these little world envelopes, and you open it and you get uh oh, here we go. I can show you this because I haven't punched it. So you can see this, and this is a uh this is world one. And so until I I can see, but you can't what they actually are. So until you actually hit that level, you don't punch it, so there's no spoilers. So, like that time you killed me, there's this kind of campaign element where it's always changing and always shifting. Uh, the loser of each game gets to choose which of the two rules disappears and a new one comes in. Oh, and then once you finish the campaign, you can play with any combination of of rules, you can shuffle them, you can make your own sets, whatever you like. Um, but but the idea is that you are and and Bytewing did this, it was really clever. They split up like the game, they split up in all these different worlds. Each world has five levels. So the idea is you sort of like um I was saying with My City, we would always sit down and play a chapter, which is three half-hour games, comes to about an hour and a half. It's a really fun game night session. Uh, this is a world with five levels. So you can play one level and you'll have a good time, but it's designed so you can sit down and play through five levels, and by the end of it, one of you will have won the world, and you get these little uh little point tokens that carry over.
SPEAKER_02Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_00Uh, and so yeah, the the game, it's uh this this is all prototype stuff, so the colours aren't quite right, etc. But it's just this really beautiful little uh oops. Uh so one of you is Bob, one of you, Kiki, you're moving around, you're trying to trying to trying to make something win and push yourself onto it before the other person can. But obviously, it's not win for me, it's just win. So if I make it win and you jump onto it, you get to win. And without spoilers, there are if you play the video game, you'll know how how cuckoo the uh the keyword that the properties can get. That's absolutely true in the board game as well. You you start to unlock some really there's a there's an intro game, and they say if you haven't played before in in the um board game, always play the intro game. If you haven't played before, you can jump into any world except for world six and seven. Like we really recommend those are for people who have played through at least one or two worlds because that's where like it gets mind-bendy right from the start. But that's where the really head crushing, mind-bendy stuff is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So so clay, like the video game, it it's hard to explain, but it on like in the physical space that you're walking around in, there's a sentence on the ground that says Baba is you, flag is win. And so you take a you push a rock and you push it onto the space that says Baba, and so it says rock is you, flag is win. And now you are the rock, you are the rock moving around. What?
SPEAKER_00And then you get to star in Moana, you get to be a scorpion king, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_02It's crazy, it's crazy. Um, yeah, that's wild. I I had never heard of this.
SPEAKER_00It's it's it's on every platform. If you've got Nintendo Switch, iOS computer, like immediately buy it. Like, if you like puzzle games, it will consume your month. It's it's incredibly designed. And that's something with Joe this morning. Um, it gets more and more complex. So if you hit a point where you're like, this is too complex, just bounce. It's not gonna get less complex. There's no like I need to work through this complex get the easy ones. It just gets more and more. I played it right through because this is exactly my jam. Like, I love it. So I designed that, got I got the base system working, I made a bunch of keywords, got them working, and then I was like, well, this really has to be a barber's view game. Like, I can't, I can't like I did with Balacho, with Rolling Deep, like Rolling Deep started as a Balacho homage, but it's obviously dice instead of cards, and it's you know, this instead of that. And so I was like, well, I'll I reached out to um local funk designer Balacho, never heard back. I'm sure it gets a thousand inquiries a day. And I was like, okay, well, at least I can like file off the numbers and release it as a Balacho inspired game. Barbara is you, I I don't know how I would have done that. Like it's really hard to be like, yeah, my game's called Kevin Is Me. It's uh it's about moving to like it was it was so heavily inspired that it wouldn't have felt right. So I reached out to him, and quite fairly, he was like, I can't look at your prototype, random person. Like I said, you know, I'm I'm an award-winning designer, I made this, this, this. Like, I'm not no one. He's like, Cool, I don't like being on the receiving end of a lawsuit. So obviously, I can't look at this. And so I did something a little bit wacky, a little bit out there. But A, I respect this guy so much. Him Poole, um, uh Avi uh Takari Takari, I can't remember how you pronounce his name, uh, is the designer. He's like the solo dev, he did all the programming, he did it all himself. He's just this mad genius from uh Finland. And I reached out to him and I was like, look, firstly, I respect you. Secondly, if you don't want to do this, it's probably not gonna exist. So I will sign a document saying, like, you own this. This game that I made is now legally yours because I trust you not to like take it. And then and I mean, if you did, that would be very flattering. It would be financially devastating. But like, it's not like I spent two years on this. I I I worked on it hard and I was like, this is as good as I can get it. I don't want to go further without that. Sure. And so I said, Look, I will sign whatever you like saying you own it. I just want you to look at it. Like, honestly, I I don't I don't expect this to happen. And he played it. And actually, we have a mutual friend, I found out. Um, someone who is one of his local friends listens to my podcast. So he reached out to me and was like, Hey, I just played your game. It was really cool. I was like, You what? Like this game that exists on my hard drive. And he actually had some rules questions, I think, as they were playing. So it's a very funny. Uh, he must have jumped into the call with Arby and been like, Oh yeah, Peter's game. I know Peter. Um, and so he came back and he's like, Yeah, let's do it. And so I uh I pitched around eventually. Uh I settled on Bytewing because I I really like working with them. I think they're great guys. And uh the game's coming to Kickstarter in about a month, September 15th.
SPEAKER_02I'll be there. I pretty much back anything Bytewing does. I they've they've kind of cracked, they've they've cracked the code on like what works for me. So I they're they're they're in the I don't even have to verify, I just trust them.
SPEAKER_00They they they lean into high interaction, and one of my least favorite trends of mod gaming is low interaction. And so I I have one or two designs that are like pretty solo y puzzle. I mean, literally, I have a solo game, but I mean like I I have a few games that are, I guess a multiplayer solitaire, but for the most part, I play games, you know. If I wanted to play something with low interaction, I'd play a video game. I or you know, not Call of Duty, I mean something like Barbara's U. Um, if I'm playing a board game with you, I want to be playing with you. I want to be like watching what you're doing, all this kind of stuff. So Sky Team's a really good example of that. It's a really high connection game. And Bitewing have leaned so hard into high interaction where I feel most of the market is leaning way away from it. So they've kind of carved out a really cool niche, um, which made it weird when they started a solo line, but I wasn't gonna complain.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it worked out for timing wise.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but yeah, if you look at my games, like I'm looking behind you, Things and Rings, very like oh yeah, you you can't replace the Noah with a computer, it doesn't work. It's about okay, what does Clay think this object would go into? It's very personal. Criticitchen is like blind bidding, it's all about like, oh, how much do you want that carrot? Um, first class letter is a good example of something that is relatively low interaction for my catalog, but there's still this thing of like, depending on the group you're playing with, you can have five minutes to make a word or you can have 20 seconds. I know one guy who as soon as you roll the dice, he writes down a word, flips the timer. Because he's like, the the thing I come up with in zero seconds will probably be about as good as the thing you come up with in 30 seconds. So even though it is obviously low interaction, it's still got that interactive element that I I love in games.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I was trying to butter you up. I was trying to butter you up uh because I my debrief was triangulation today, and I just got that played. Uh it showed up with grunts and um the other couple other uh all play releases. Oh, and container and uh yeah, I wanted to make sure that I got triangulation played.
SPEAKER_00Oh, how'd you how'd you find it? It's okay to hate it. I'm oh it was cool, it was cool. I you know we it's been very divisive so far, so I wouldn't have been surprised if you were like, yeah, you can do anything.
SPEAKER_03We talk a lot about like what makes a great party game and like a a game to play with new people or families or people that don't play games, and it's always it always comes down to like that conversation that happens after the game is over, and like why did you think that this would lead to that?
SPEAKER_00You said it four times. Why wasn't that your guess? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So um, I I think this nails that, that's for sure. So yeah, I really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00Uh I I have a lot of games and I like a lot of them, but Triangulation and French toast are probably my two like two favorite. They they're just so so rule-free. I love I love a low rule game.
SPEAKER_02That's that's great. I hate rules. I've gotten so I you know, I feel like every new gamer kind of goes through the phase where you think that what makes you a gamer is being able to play games with lots of rules and you know, that just go on forever. And so I went through that phase and I was just like, I'm just not even having that much fun playing this game, you know? And I've I've really gone off the other end now.
SPEAKER_00The the good doctor is just the king of that. Like uh Medici is one of those ones where I just I learned the rules and I was like, that's it. And I played it. I was like, how does it have an arc? Like, how does it feel so different from round one to two to three to four with no rules changes, with no extra elements, with no even like it's just incredible the way that man does it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's beautiful. Well, hey, here's a tough question for you. Uh, you kind of you might have just answered it. You said you love French toast and triangulation, but I I find I'm not a creative like you. You're like uber creative. But in the few creative things that I do, I you know, this podcast being one of them, I enjoy the episodes I'm not on way more than the ones I'm on. Um, and you know, when I cook food, I always I never I'm never I'm never satisfied with it. So I'm wondering for you, do you actually enjoy playing the games you make, or is it always like uh it it never it didn't turn out the way exactly? Like you had to stop before you really wanted to be done with it. Like, do you actually go to your games and like, man, I like playing that game? Because I feel like I never could.
SPEAKER_00Two separate questions. Uh, so do I feel like they didn't quite do what I want? Very rarely. I yeah, one of the reasons I you if you look through my uh ludography, you'll see I work with the same publishers again and again and again. Like, I tend to have a good relationship with publishers because they know a, I trust them to execute, and B, they know that I'm a workhorse. Like, I will not rest until a game is done. And so I've I've got some games in my history that I'm like, ah, that could have been better. But like since since that time you killed me, like almost everything I've released, and I say almost because I'm sure there's some exception I'm thinking of, has been like, if I wasn't happy with something, I keep going. Um, again, I had like a three-hour call with Joe, so he's gonna get referenced about today. We're talking about one of the projects, and he's like, ah, don't like that part doesn't matter much. I'm like, Joe, every part matters. Like, I I understand what you're saying, and like there does hit a point where you have to stop working on it, but I'm like, I need to be at least like very happy with it. Even if not all the way happy, I need to be very happy with every part of a game. So that specific thing, no. The other part of the question is is do I enjoy my own games? And that is I have about an 18-month rolling window. And once once a game is more than 18 months, it tends to like just not be something I would design. My tastes change and my my skills improve. And so I look back and I'm like, Yeah, I see I see what I was doing there. I'm glad it exists, I'm glad people enjoyed it, but man, I would not make that game the same way today. And so, again, if you go through my catalog, you'll see a lot of sequels and like re-implementations. That's because I'm like, well, here's what I would change. Um, have you ever played a Hot of my game Village Pillage?
SPEAKER_02I did see it on your catalog when I read it, I read about it today, actually.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, all right. So it's uh it won the 2021 Mensa Select. It was my first, first, first game that anyone cared about at all. Uh, I'm really proud of it. I think it's it's it's one that actually like for the most part I like. And we've done four or five expansions, and then just recently came out the big box, which is every expansion. And that's when I was like, okay, let's go back to the original and just make those little tweaks that like so in in that game, it's a simultaneous play game like Critic Kitchen. And anytime you have a simultaneous gameplay, you need tie breaks, you just it happens all the time. And the village pillage tie break was like the number of turnips that you have, you're collecting turnips, and if it's still a tie, flip a coin. And we made the coin a chicken, so it's very funny. You get to flip a chicken, like we got away with it, but it's not a great solution. Like, it's just literally flip a coin. And that nowadays, you know, this this is kind of full 10 years later. Now I'm like, Peter, you didn't finish designing the game. You designed most of the game and you went, Oh, it's hard. I don't know, flip a coin. Like, ask your mom, I don't care. And now I'm like, no, like you don't just stop and go like, let the gods decide. You have to finish designing the game. Yeah, and so in the big box version, it has we call it the very big hat. We made a wooden meeple that's this big, that's just a hat, just a big purple hat. And at the start of the game, someone arbitrarily gets it, and then tie breaks from them to the left. But if you have a steal from that player, you also steal the hat. So now it's an active part of the game. It's it's like there's still the randomness of who starts with it. And and the game's chaotic enough that it's gonna feel kind of random, but it's not just like, uh, flip a coin. Like, who cares? Just just stop asking me questions, go away. And so, like a lot of my games are re-implementations of old ideas to like just fix the stuff where now, years on, I'm like, well, that's not done yet. You didn't finish the game, Peter.
SPEAKER_02No, that's awesome. Thanks for that. That's yeah, I always wonder those things because I I to the smallest extent possible, I've tinkered around with some game prototypes, and I'm like, I don't ever see how I would ever be happy. I don't, I like, I don't think I could ever get there with myself.
SPEAKER_00I I will say the stuff I was saying earlier about like, don't make games that are just not the game. That's when you're late in your career. When you're starting, if you're going with that mentality, you will never make anything. So don't don't feel like your first design has to like rock the world and bring your grandma into heavy games because that's not realistic, not gonna happen. At the start, just make stuff, just make as much stuff as you can. And like through that, you will build skills and develop. And then once once you're established, that's when you can start to kind of raise the bar. But at the start, like just another game is fine. The game that Joe and I were talking about was by two very established designers, and we were like, What are you what are you doing?
SPEAKER_02You're better than this, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. I gave that feedback to um, I can't remember who. Someone I was playing with their game, and they were like, What do you think? And I was like, You're better than this, like it's a game, it works. Like, if you're a new designer, like, wow, well done, you made it, but like, you're better than this. And he was like, Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_03So hard. It's interesting. We we're we keep drawing these parallels between like the video game stuff and the board game
Risk, Budgets, And Creative Courage
SPEAKER_03stuff. And I've been listening to a lot about the board game or the video game industry right now, and these large corporations, these big mega quadruple A, triple A video game companies that put out gold for years and years and years now are falling back and cutting back everything that's not like exactly what they've been doing in the past. And you find this weird trend where like they're trying to play it so safe. Like, do we end up in a place where money is so tight for people in the board game sphere that board game publishers play it safe?
SPEAKER_00I I think some publishers definitely lean into that. Um, I I I don't again I don't want to name names that feels like special, but I can think of one big publisher who you're like, have you done anything that wasn't a spin-off of your big game for like five years? Like, is that all you do now? Are you just this one company? Uh I I'm very into movies, and so for me, Pixar is my favorite company. I have a whole YouTube channel just about Pixar videos and just about uh Pixar films, and I just feel like it's the last time a Pixar film impressed me at all was like 2020. And the last time I truly loved a Pixar film was 2015. And if you look at their slate, like they just did Toy Story 5, and they're probably gonna do Monsters like Monsters University 3, and it's just like Monsters Inc. 3, it's it's exactly what you're talking about. It's just like okay, cool. As as the budget goes up, the capacity for risk goes down. Did you ever read Creativity Inc.? Yes. So it's uh it's the behind the scenes of Pixar, basically. It's written by one of the um the founders, uh Ed Catmall. It's a it's incredible, it's a really, really incredible read. And they talk about like 15 years ago, 10 years ago, whenever like when they were very established, they had a they stopped the company for a week to have this big meeting about that they measure it in like man hour weeks or something like that. Like every film takes 20,000, whatever this unit is, and that's just literally how many hours of people's lives, how many weeks of people's lives it takes to make a film. And they're like, we're currently at 40,000. How could we get this down to 30,000? And rather than just have it be the head honchos have this meeting, they said, like, everyone stop, we're gonna have a whole get everyone together on campus for a conference to talk about this. And the thing that I was thinking about from that story is that one group were like, what would it take to do a 10,000 movie? Like, because you can do it, obviously. Like, you know, you can make a video game with one guy in Finland and it can be an absolute masterpiece. You don't need a whole thing, and I'm not saying that every film studio should just make little tiny low budget films, but like there is a beauty in that exploration, experimentation is what I'm for. When when the budget is not your entire, you know, if if this flops the company goes under, you have room to play. And I think play is obviously very relevant in my field, but I think it's such an important part of any creative field is just like just try a thing. Like when when people judge someone for having a flop or something that didn't work, I'm like, like, ambition is its own value, you know. Like, um, you see Babylon by uh Daniel Chazelle. Like I don't think that film worked, but I was there for three hours, riveted, being like, you're doing a thing, like it didn't quite work, it was a little bit too much, but had it worked, it would have been an all-time great, you know? And I I admired the effort. And and that's why this game that I've mentioned a few times, like it was clear that and I think they actually put up a design diary saying, like, yeah, we put together in a weekend. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, yep, you and great, you made it another game in a weekend that is its own feat, that is its own skill. But just what what if you'd spent a second weekend on? Yeah, what if you'd put a little bit more effort in and actually made it good and memorable? Because you have the capacity for that, you have the skill. I'm not saying I'm even as good as these designers, but like I am trying to like not just make every idea that I have, which I've done for years, and and some of them take off, a lot of them don't, which is fine, and just be like, okay, but is this worth not just my time, but like the world's time? Is this worth the printing and the shipping and the Kickstarter and the customer's money and the customer's attention? Is it worth it? And most ideas the answer is no, and you can obviously fall into the trap of saying everything is no, but then you'll hit the one where you're like, ah, I want this to exist so bad, I think this is worth it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, especially when money is tighter than ever and people are going to still charge premium prices on Kickstarter, and like you have to be, you have to take those swings and do something different to get people to invest in the thing that you spent your time on, right? Like, yeah, it's kind of a shame in the world.
SPEAKER_00And in such a saturated market, too. Like the only way to stand out is to be different and special, and yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, both video games and board games, like thousands come out every year, and people cannot play all of them, so they have to pick and choose. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Speaking of oh, sorry, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say it's so so many of them are like, oh yeah, we played it, it was fun, and then you never think about it again. And like having a game stick around for more than a week is its own challenge these days. Go ahead, Clayton.
Board Games As A Visa Strategy
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, no. I speaking of ambition, I don't wanna I don't want to make this all about board games, right? Because I to you to us, you were Peter C. Hayward, the board game designer. But it wasn't until I knew you were coming on this podcast that I found out you have ambitions beyond board game design. Like this is just one little piece of what you aspire to do. If that, like what tell us more about the other things in your life, like writing and screenwriting.
SPEAKER_00Well, so I already mentioned that I have a YouTube channel. Um the season four of Ted Lasso is airing right now, and I've had a Ted Lasso video on my hard drive since the third season was airing. So I'm really trying to get that out in time, but like for this to be to be contemporary for this season. It's it's kind of lit a fire under me in a good way. Yeah. Um, but my my my main my main passion, my my big life goal has always to be a screenwriter. Uh, since I since I learned that was a thing. When I was younger, it would be an actor, and then I was like, oh, people write this stuff? Oh, I want to do that. And so I've always, always, always wanted to be a screenwriter. So I spent probably close to a decade just trying to make inroads into TV in Australia. And I sat down with some of my friends who were like working screenwriters, and I was like, How do I do this? And they're like, You don't. Like, honestly, like you're coming to us as experts, we're making 30,000 a year, and like working as a staff writer on a TV show. We have no chance of getting our own stuff on, and 10 years later, they don't. And like, uh, there's a company called Working Dog Productions, who are like one of the big Australian film companies. They made um The Castle and The Dish and uh Russell Coit's all Aussie Adventures, and just like if it's In Australian pop culture, uh, two Australians, they've not like expanded past Australia, but most Australians have heard of one or all of those shows and probably the company as well. And I found out they can't get stuff made. Like they Australia is just so bereft of like cultural funding that because we have we have a tiny the population of Australia is about the same as the population of New York City. Like we are a tiny, tiny speck of people on a huge island, so we just don't have the the market, like when America makes a TV show, 350, 380, 400 million potential audience members in this country, and then it gets exported. Australia, we have 28 million, and Australian humor does not export very well. Like, I I'd be shocked if you guys had watched more than like one Australian TV show in your life. And so the Australian, it's very hard to break into it's very and and my taste 10 more American. Yeah, right. So after 10 years of like trying, and finally I sat down and was like, look, I need to do this, my friends. Like, get out of this country and do it, go to a country where they have an industry, which is England and uh America. And so I wanted to get into the US and uh spoiler alert, I'm here. This is the US. I'm in Los Angeles right now. You may have said Las Vegas. Yeah, I did it. Um, I don't have a college degree, I wasn't marrying an American, and so I needed to find a way in. So I found uh a visa, it's the O3, I think. It's uh it's got a very cool name. The alien of extraordinary ability. And it's like amazing. There are nine criteria, and if you achieve five of them, you can get in. It's like as simple as that. It's an application. Uh, and so for for I think eight straight years, every decision I made as an individual was with these nine kind of victory points in mind. Every everything I did, I would wake up and be like, what am I doing today? And I'd I'd almost like, I should have printed and put on the wall. Like everything I did was targeted towards it. And I wasn't gonna make it in screenwriting because I, you know, screenwriting is is even harder to crack. And I just started playing board games and fiddling with ideas and found out that I had a knack for it. Like, there's just nothing about my brain in board games that works. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna start a company for the explicit purpose of getting into the country and working towards these goals. So the Rube Goldberg machine of my life is that I wanted to live in Los Angeles to be a screenwriter, and so I started a career in board games and started a company. And so after I think four years, I had fulfilled the criteria, not for the alien of extraordinary ability, but for a business visa, basically. My my company was paying $250,000 to Americans, which is in the US government's perspective, making two jobs. So, like I was I was contributing one net job by being here. So I was able to move here on a temporary visa. It was temporary renewable, so it's a you know it was pretty easy just renew. And then uh two years ago, 2024, maybe end of 2023, I think end of 2023, I finally got the alien of extraordinary ability and I did it, and I am now a permanent resident, and in two years' time I will be a citizen. Uh, all of this to finally start screenwriting. And as I said, screenwriting is more competitive than almost any field. There's a famous quote: there are more players in the NBA than there are working screenwriters. It is harder to be a working screenwriter than it is to get into the NBA. And I don't, I don't know the exact numbers, but it is it is competitive. So after all of that, 10 years after I started trying to get here, I'm finally here and I'm finally, finally focusing on screenwriting.
SPEAKER_02Wow. That's so crazy. Uh, you're you're an amazing board game designer by accident.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Totally. I I I have I'm I'm not gonna be modest. I have a knack for it if it's my brain, but yeah, the goal was not to be a board game designer, it was to get into the country.
SPEAKER_03That's so wild. Yeah, I can't wait for the update of life where they have to you have to check five of the nine criteria for alien of extraordinary abilities. That's crazy. That's a board game in itself, yeah. Yeah, wow. Wow, talk about ambitious, man.
SPEAKER_00Very gameable, it was very fun. Uh, not fun, it was it was awful. I uh after I achieved it, I was on the call with my lawyer and she was like, You did it. I was like, Great, what are the next steps? She's like, No, no, you've done it. I'm like, okay, cool. So what do I do next? She's like, No, Peter, you've it's it's done. And I was expecting like an interview and another round of this, and she's like, No, no, you've you've done it, you've achieved the thing. And for two months, I didn't know what to do with myself because I had been so wholly focused on this one thing that when you achieve it's um there's there's a term for it with with people who get married, like when when you're a uh particularly brides, your whole life for a year is building up to this wedding, and it happens, and you're just like, Well, I I I've I've got no purpose now. Like, what am I meant to do? Enjoy my happy marriage. What am I meant to do? Just live in America. I I couldn't so I I focus on getting out of debt, which I just did last week. Hooray!
SPEAKER_02Awesome. Dang, wow, hey, you are winning. That is winning. Not all of us Americans are out of debt. Yeah, for real.
SPEAKER_00It was uh again, I'm I'm very grateful to the to the board game industry for getting me into the country and getting me into debt and then out of debt again. Um and so I'm I'm still I'm still working board games, obviously, but I'm really dialing down on it. And I have enough releases over the next few years that I'm trying to basically treat screenwriting like a three-day-a-week job. Like I'm really trying to be like, I am a screenwriting and YouTube and like all my other things that I do that aren't board games. So board games have gone from like seven days a week to two days a week. So you won't notice for about five years just because of the the amount of backlog I have of games coming out. Like you said, you you had me on for Rolling Deep, and then shortly after that, Barbara's view was announced. Like, yeah, there's gonna be a lot of that over the next three years, but then after that, it will eventually slow down.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Wow. And then we can just start looking for your name at the end credits of TV shows and movies.
SPEAKER_00That would be nice. It's it'll it'll be it'll probably about 10 years before that happens.
SPEAKER_02But so we've caught you a peak Peter board game designer, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, it's it's uh but and and again, the new kind of philosophy of like, cool, let's focus on the games that matter mean that in terms of games you've heard of, it might actually stay the same.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But there is there is a pretty good chance that I'll go from like I signed 12 games last year or something like that. Like, I don't expect that to even close to sustain. It'll go down to to single digits for sure, but ideally with those games being better. Not that not that my existing games are bad by any means, but like they're uh some of them are another game, and that's okay. That that's fine. I just want to I want to move past that in my career. Yeah, I'm really trashing my next like three years of releases, aren't I?
SPEAKER_02I'll still be excited about them. Yeah, we'll be there for them for sure.
SPEAKER_00I won't tell you which ones are which. There we go.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. Clay, you got any other questions for uh Peter?
The Secret Behind Things And Rings
SPEAKER_02No, well, I do have a comment, really. Um, I don't know if this is your intention. This is just while I have you, the designer of a game that I've played a lot. So Things and Rings is like it is my stepmom's favorite game. Oh, that's I introduced it to her. She bought it for herself and she takes it everywhere and plays it. Oh, that's that's the goal. That's what I'm telling you about.
SPEAKER_00Like that's the the that's that's the goal. That's the um it it it's it's expanded past like gamers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. No, no, she loves it.
SPEAKER_00Not to make any assumptions about your aunt.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, don't yeah, she's not what you would call a gamer, but I've played that game so many times, and I don't know that I've ever I've won a few times, like I've got all my cards out first, but I almost never know what the circles are. I just go off of like where a lot of the cards are landing. Was that part of your design philosophy to give people that outlet for you know figuring out?
SPEAKER_00Have you played Zendo?
SPEAKER_02No, okay.
SPEAKER_00So Zendo was actually the Mentor Select winner of I think 2001 by uh Corey Heath, who uh unfortunately passed on a few years back. But he's the designer of Zendo and the gang. So if you played the gang, that was his final published game. Yeah, um, magnificent designer, uh, very very tragic that he he died. Um, and so Zendo is explicitly the inspiration for Things Rings. You'll you'll start to realize a lot of my games are directly inspired by something. Uh my collaborations are often inspired by my collaborator came up with an idea, and so we made that. But like I'm less the ideas man and more the execution guy. So Zendo is brilliant and very difficult to play, introduce people to, have a good time with. It's uh there's three types of shapes. There's like cylinders and rectangles and pyramids or triangular prisms or something. There's three different types of shapes, they come in three different colors and three different sizes. So you have uh actually, I think I think sorry, ignore the sizes. They come in, there's three different shapes and three different colors. The Noah equivalent, they're they're called the the Zen Master. Um, they have a secret rule that only they know. So it could be the the shape has to have something purple touching a triangle. And so they will make one sculpture that follows the rule, one sculpture that doesn't follow the rule, and everyone else will then take turns making a sculpture and learning if it follows the rule, it doesn't. And you win that game by naming the rule, by saying explicitly what the rule is. So if you say uh the rule is something blue touches a triangle, you win the game. Uh there's like four more rules beyond that, but that that's essentially it. And it's amazing. And the trouble with it is that in order to play, you need to understand what the rules can and can't be. So there are two rule books. There's the rule book, and then there's the rule book for the rules. And the rules are stuff like it can't have to do with position in the room, it can't have to do with who built it, it can't have to do with this, it can't have to do with that. Like there's just a a glossary of terms that you can use, terms that you can't use. And people sometimes say I'm overstating this, and I probably am, but like it the fact still remains in order to play the game, you need to understand what the rules can be. And so, my Things and Rings comes explicitly from me trying to solve the Zendo problem, where I don't want you to uh I want to have a rule game where you don't have to name the rule, uh but just like knowing vaguely the rule will get you there. So, what you're describing is kind of explicitly the point.
SPEAKER_02Like okay, good.
SPEAKER_00It's it's like vibes vent vibe vibes zendo. It was originally pitched as Vendo because it's like a Venn diagram. Zendo.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and and I think at one point we were discussing names, vibes was kind of considered even because it is yeah, like sometimes the the the word rule you will generally get explicitly, but the other two it'll be like look at something like this. So, for example, one of the rules, spoiler for things and rings, is bigger than a person or heavier than a chair. And if you had to name that rule, it would be insufferable. You'd be like, Is it bigger than you know, is it heavier than a table? And it's like, no, and now you're playing hot and cold, like you're playing French Toast, which is another lot of games from the same publisher. Um, whereas you you know, a dinosaur is an ant isn't. You don't have to know what it specifically is, you just have to be able to be like, oh, okay. And then it also allows for one of my favorite things in games. This is part of why I like Barbara's U so much, is discoverability. Barbara's you, I like I said, I'm playing through it again, and you'll get a rule, you'll get a second rule, but the way they combine, you're like the moment you work that out, you're like, whoa, my head is exploding. Yeah, and so sometimes people play things in rings by firstly reading all the rules out loud, and then it's just like which of these rules it is. Yeah, that's anathema to me. Like, it's your game, do whatever you like with it. I would never play that way because I want to have that moment where I'm playing, being like, I never even thought that it could have to do with this thing or that thing or this metric or that vector. And so, yeah, the thing you're describing is sort of the goal of the game, like of the design.
SPEAKER_02Okay, because I always feel dumb because I I can't say what the rule is at the end, you know. I I couldn't tell you, but I'm like, a lot of cards are ending up in this section of the Venn diagram, so that's where I'm dumping them.
SPEAKER_00Like it's not meant to just be majority, you should like have an a vague idea, a vague idea, but it's usually pretty vague. I I I was actually I played it um when when my copy arrived, Alex, my criticitation co-designer, happened to be here, so we sat down and played it. It's not amazing at two, and he was like, How are we gonna play this? You know all the rules. I was like, actually, I don't know the advanced rules as well. So again, spoilers for things and rings. The rule was it's a red context rule, which are the hardest, and it was like associated with fables and folklore, which is so vague, and so like that's why it's the hardest rule. Yeah, and I was sitting there being like, it's like it's kind of magic-ish, and magic-ish is not exactly the same, but it's clear it's you know, it's in the same vibes, so yeah, that that's that's the that's the aim. I got to experience that as a player exactly once, which was very fun for me. That's cool. Um, the sequel, which Alex and I co-designed, is coming out soon, Things on Strings. Yeah, and in that one, the Noah makes up the rules as you go because you're making a uh flow chart this time, and so we couldn't have prescripted rules because you'd be like, Oh, well, everything always goes here. And so I get to I get to have that experience of the player now of like, what is this? And then that moment of like, oh, of course, it's this, or like vibes, or yeah. Uh what when I played with Joe recently, Joe the the the third, the fourth member of this podcast. Um, and his rule was like frequently found in restaurants, so all the food was going there, but also candles. And we were like, is it that you could just eat it? Like you shouldn't, but you can, and so yeah, it was it was such such a fun experience to like get to get to play it as a real person for once.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's such it's such a good game. It's it's so fun. Like you see people thinking they know, and then and then the knower puts a a word somewhere and they're like, Oh no, I that completely like shattered my yeah, I know it's it always is such a good time. So I just want to give Things and Rings a shout out for being the party game of choice for my family as of the past year. So thank you for that. Awesome.
SPEAKER_00I'm very glad you're enjoying it. Say hi to your aunt from me.
SPEAKER_02We'll do.
SPEAKER_03All right, are we ready to go over the fence to talk about what we've been doing outside of board gaming?
Movies, Books, And Reading Habits
SPEAKER_02Let's do it.
SPEAKER_03Uh Peter, why don't you kick us off? What have you been doing outside of board gaming and writing and screenwriting?
SPEAKER_00Very proud of myself. Um I'm I'm one third of the way through a screenplay. My first ever proper screen. I've written a lot of TV stuff, like dozens of TV scripts. It was my first time trying a movie, and I'm having such a ball. Having a great time with it. Um, yeah, so screen screenwriting is my is my headline. Okay. Uh, and I'll I'll use this as an opportunity to plug my podcast that I think Clay mentioned earlier. It's called Blue Prince for Life. It's uh it's brand new. It's by Nicole Cutler and I. Nicole is um Alex is Nicole's wife. I don't like saying Nicole is Alex's wife. Alex is Nicole's wife because I I met her first and we were best friends. And so the show is uh we record every week and we release every two weeks so we can start to build a backlog. It's basically about how to make your brain work for you. So it's there in the title. It's like blueprints full life. Nicole and I use all these different systems to make sense of the world, and like it's it's a little bit, we're on the spectrum, it's a little bit just how my brain works, it's why I'm good with board games. Um, I guess on the spectrum is how my brain works. But uh the idea is that we found a lot of these models are really helpful for other people. So we've started sharing them on this podcast, and people uh people are reacting really well to it. So I just want to get the word out. If you if you want to if you want to learn to navigate your life better through systems from a blue-bearded individual and his very short friend, then uh please check it out. Blueprints.fm.
SPEAKER_02I thought she was a giraffe person.
SPEAKER_00She's absolutely she's a very, very short giraffe person.
SPEAKER_02I've I've learned a lot about about blueprints for life. I've listened to a couple episodes now. Oh, you enjoyed it. It's really good. Yeah, I like it a lot. Very good.
SPEAKER_00Do you explain giraffe person?
SPEAKER_02I'd be curious to get your giraffe person, they're they're your go-to people. They're people that you can just say, I need this thing done, and they take all the mental and execution work out of it. You just know they're gonna handle it, and they're giraffe people. Yeah. I I is that the thrust.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's perfect. Yeah, the the editing of the podcast is we try to make really actionable advice. So it's not only like what is it, but how to find a giraffe person, how to be a better giraffe person, how to filter for giraffe people. Um, yeah, I'm I'm very proud of the show, and so I'm just trying to get the trying to get the word out.
SPEAKER_03No, it's a good we're gonna link uh that show in our show notes so that people can find blueprints for life.
SPEAKER_00Check it out. It's uh we we we finally got the YouTube search running. So if you search blueprints for life on YouTube, it will actually turn up now as it didn't before. Perfect. Uh what's what's what's your over the fence for this week? All right, Clay, what you got?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I'm late to the party. I heard you guys already go down this rabbit hole last week, but I too watched the Odyssey and Spider-Man in the past week. Um, and for what it's worth, I enjoyed them both. I I uh man, the Odyssey just I was so like at the beginning, I was like, there's no way. Like, there, how are they gonna keep get all these story beats in here and like get to a conclusion? Because it felt like there was so much ground to tread, but somehow they did, and it wrapped up, and I I thought it was an awesome experience. So I liked it. I'm not gonna be the you know Greek critic or you know film critic. I just sat there, enjoyed the experience. I watched it with my dad because I heard Travis talk about the father-son dynamic there. So it's just me, me and my dad on a date watching the Odyssey, um, watching Odysseus try and get home. So it was it was awesome. And Spider-Man, a brand new day, was just a fun time, too. My first time taking my kids, they're nine and seven, to see a Marvel, a Marvel movie in the theater. So they were hype, the whole family was hype. It was awesome. Tom Hollins, he he's he's my favorite Spider-Man. I mean, he's he's knocking it out of the park. So that's that's my over the fence.
SPEAKER_03All right, Peter, who's your favorite Spider-Man?
SPEAKER_00Uh, I mean, my favorite Spider-Man films are the Spider-Verse. Okay. The two and the third one coming up. I think they are they're they're probably my favorite animated film, my favorite Spider-Man film, my favorite comic adaptation. Like, I just think that they are pretty close to perfect. I do these Easter egg videos, and so when the third one comes up, again, I'm gonna use it as an excuse to really hustle, and I want to do every every difference between the universes in the first one, because I think there's some really subtle background jokes. Uh, my my YouTube channel, uh Peter C. Haywood, is just all about like hidden stuff in films. Like, I just love all that kind of thing. And the channel is about story structure. And so the the one I want to do for Spider-Verse 1 is every difference between the films because there's a lot of like really subtle stuff, even like NYPD to PDNY and stuff like that. And then the second one, I want to I want to go frame by frame and find every Spider-Man featured and talk about like where they're from, what else they've been, and if they'll made up the film, like all of it. I think that would be so fun.
SPEAKER_03Awesome. Um, yeah, that I I love those movies as well. Uh I get chills like just thinking about his like the leap of faith scene. Yeah, that gets me so worked up every time. I like get teary and oh man, incredibly done. The animation is perfect. I could not have asked for a better Spider-Man adaptation. But play to answer.
SPEAKER_00I chose the non-white Spider-Man, so I'm just saying, if if you choose a white Spider-Man, it's really gonna tell you something.
SPEAKER_02Listen, I man, you're so that's progressive. I I feel I feel bad now. You feel shamed. Good. I do feel shame. Screw you, Tom Holland.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you like the white blonde one. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02I am the worst.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, I was talking like just live action adaptations, but um the correct answer is Toby.
SPEAKER_00Um, yeah, he's he's they're they're all very good in their own different ways, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I and they've I kind of tweaked them like just ever so slightly as they go through their trilogies, and now Tom has a fourth one.
SPEAKER_00But um, Andrew Garfield's films are probably the worst, but he as a Spider-Man is one of the best, so it's really hard to like judge them against each other.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, he did not have much to work with, yeah. Right, yeah, he's clippy and fun. Yeah, uh well, I didn't really do much this week. I have really nothing to report, but uh Peter, you're talking about all these mental models. Uh yeah, are you familiar with Farnum Street? Farnum Street, no Farnum Street.
SPEAKER_00Is this your segue into the sponsor of the show?
SPEAKER_03No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02No, no, we're not sponsored.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Farnum Street. Uh, they have like kind of an online blog, and they have books that are called Great Mental Models, and they have them for like math and science and stuff like that. But the very first uh edition of this book is all about how we make decisions and how we like formulate things in our minds, and I think you would get a kick out of it. Yeah, it's really really interesting.
SPEAKER_00Turning ordinary moments into extraordinary results. Yeah, it's it's um it's on my Kindle list.
SPEAKER_03All right, perfect. Yeah, it's um the publications. If you get the actual physical book, it's really nice. It's like a nice soft uh like cloth covering. Um, it's like cloth bound.
SPEAKER_00So I'm I'm I'm a Kindle boy, I read everything on my phone. That's okay. Uh actually, speaking of which, I'm I'm reading Warbreaker from uh Brandon Sanderson's Cosmia series. Excellent. Um I I read all of Stormlight last year, like in in way too short of time. In two months, I read all five Stormlight books, which is too much reading for any human.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I I read about 200 books last year and or maybe the year before, and after reading those, I burned out and had to like I I stopped reading for literally a year, and I'm just now getting back into it because I got my sister Willow, if you've read my Rolling Deep Diaries, you'll you'll know about. Um, I got her hopelessly addicted to Cosme. So she's she's reading through in the right order. I read all the Stormlight, which is not the way to read it. Read more in the in the release order. And so she's now ahead of me in release order but behind me on Stormlight. So I'm trying to not trying to catch up with her, but I'm like, I want to read her thoughts and have them make sense to me. And so I'm very, very, very excited to keep reading these Cosme books. Um before that, I read The Emperor's Soul, which is one of the shorter ones. It's novella, possibly my favorite norm store light Brandon Sanderson book. It's just really it'll make you rethink. Thought. Like it's it's just incre in Will I describe it as beautiful, which I think is a good way to put it. It's a really beautiful book. So if you want to if you want to like a quick non-committal taste of um the Cosmere, which is his like overarching series, check out The Emperor's Soul. It stands alone amazingly, it has basically no connection to any other Cosmia book, and it's truly wonderful. I cannot recommend it enough.
SPEAKER_02That's incredible. I cannot believe you read all those books. I I went last year, I went through I read The Way of Kings and got halfway through the second one, and I I burned out. I and I liked it. I just I it's a lot.
SPEAKER_00I I do not recommend reading all five of them a month. You will yeah, I I literally went from reading 200 books a year to basically zero. Like it really truly burned me out on reading for a full year. So don't do that. Yeah, I read a lot. Well, since you're talking about and then I read too much stall night.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you do a lot, a lot. Yeah, for real. I don't know how you have the hours in the day. You must be like Vic. Gotta get whatever you guys are on. Uh, and just since we're talking about books, I am reading Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima. I mentioned this a couple weeks when we were talking with Paul Solomon. And speaking of beautifully written books, it is incredibly beautifully written. Uh, it's kind of like a romance, what I which I did not expect, but it is a modern uh Japanese classic uh translated directly from Japanese to English, and just the prose that this guy writes with is uh really striking.
SPEAKER_00Like he will just from 1969.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's uh so he wrote a tetrology called the uh the spring of fertility or something. Um I can't remember. The sea of fertility. The sea of fertility. Oh, yeah. Um, but the first entry is called uh Spring Snow. It's about uh a coming of age story of some kind of higher up in social class uh Japanese men and how they kind of navigate the proprietor pro the proprieties of society and um and what is expected of them as men and as these um upper class members and kind of their base urges as blossoming young men. And it's it's really interesting, not typically anything that I would read. Yeah, I I wouldn't like go pick this off a bookshelf typically, but I I'm kind of pushing myself this year, and this is um something a little different, and I'm kind of enjoying it.
SPEAKER_00So far, every book that I know you've read has either been that one nonfiction book or a translation.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yep, yep. Yeah, uh yeah, I I am also kind of pushing myself to read more this year. Um, so I always have at least one audiobook and at least one hard copy book. Um, I just finished um Fever in the Heartland, which is like a super quick read, but it was fascinating about the early 20s and um kind of like the KKK's immersion in uh or emergence in middle America and how one woman kind of stopped them from taking over the whole country, which is just bonkers. Uh and then yeah, Sea of Fertility, which is uh kind of grabbing me a little bit. I might I I'm not gonna go straight into the second and third and fourth one, but um yeah, I'm gonna give this one some time to breathe and maybe I'll revisit the later ones.
SPEAKER_00I'll I'll give you a little blueprints for lifestyle tip if you're listening and want to read more. Uh I I like a lot of people, I read through childhood and then stopped as an adult. Uh, the way I go back into it was I had a daily to-do item. Every day I would sit down and read for half an hour. And at the start of that year, it was like my I was flipping to Facebook every two seconds. Like, attention span, especially for reading, is a muscle that you can train and rebuild. So at the start of that year, it was like two pages bored, two pages bored, two pages bored. But by doing it, I mean this is standard advice, by doing it every day, you build that tolerance, you build that patience, you build that tenacity again. And now I can sit down and read a book like over two hours. Uh, it it is it is a skill that you not the speed of the reading, but the the persistence. You can just you can rebuild it, even if you're like, I used to read Ella, but I miss it. Cool. Set set a set a half hour alarm and read for half an hour, and it'll be weirdly hellish at the start. But within within just it's like going to the gym, within months, you will see the difference so quickly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you feel yourself becoming more focused and more aware and more like unable to immerse. Yeah, yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_00Uh I'm gonna share a fun fact from the Spring Snow Wikipedia page. Okay. Until shortly after World War II, Japanese people reckoned age by the number of different years that you lived in rather rather than by birthdays. Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_03Number of different years you lived in?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so my son was born at the very end of the year. So by the time that January rolled around, he would have been considered two in Japanese uh oh okay instead instead of zero.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, interesting. That's wild. I did not know that. I know that uh this author has a extremely um interesting story about how he came about writing this and um just like yeah, I I'm not gonna get into it now. We don't have the time, but he's got a very interesting story if you want to look up Yu-Gi-Oh Mishima. Um, but I have kept you long enough. We have kept the audience
Final Plugs And Goodbye
SPEAKER_03long enough. Let's wrap this podcast up. This has been the Operation Game Night Podcast. I have been Travis, he has been Clay, he has been the one and only Peter C. Hayward, thank you for coming on. We will see you next week, right, Peter? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just the host now, right? Yeah, yeah. Hey, we'll be coming friends so much for having me. It's been a delight. Yeah, make sure to check out all of Peter's board game designs. Make sure to look forward to his screenplay is coming to a screen near you. Uh, check out the Blue Prince for Lice podcast, check out the show notes. I will post the link there. Check out his YouTube channel. You have so much to do. Back that for sure. That's a that's a must back. So, Peter, thank you for your time. Thank you for coming on and answering our questions. And uh, we will see you all next week on the Operation Game Night, and we are out of the way.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
