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Episode 10: Our BGG Awards predictions
36 Plays1 month ago
Shane and Steve go through the list of games nominated for awards in this years BGG Awards. We pick 2 games each - the one we want to win and the one we think will win. At the time of recording, the awards had not yet been announced, and on our next episode we will score up who predicted better!
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Transcript
Introduction and Election Day Excitement
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Mate Let's Play. I'm joined once again by Shane. How are you doing, Shane? Very well, thank you, Steve, and good morning um and good afternoon and good evening to anyone else that's listening.
00:00:26
Speaker
It is morning for us, though. Yeah, and... It is morning and and i ask for a timestamp depending on how long it takes to get these edited and out. And there's a bit of a backlog of episodes at the moment. It's election day, which is exciting. So I think I'm not the only board gamer out there that gets fascinated by numbers and stats. So that's what tonight's going to be about for me. I'm not going to be playing games. I'm going to be watching the election.
00:00:50
Speaker
I think it's going to be a pretty pretty early call, mate. So I don't think you'd be watching it for very long. ah Yeah, ah I don't know. ah i'm If I was a betting man, I'd bet on I think it's going to be a minority government to Labor. That's what i was expecting.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, okay. But um either that or a Labor win. I can't see the Liberals making up that much ground. But, hey, who knows? sorry I think it's going to be a Labor whitewash, unfortunately. sir Okay, there you go. and I gave away my vote too then. I'm sorry so so i'm not i'm not going to say i'm unfortunate or fortunate. that I don't even tell my wife who I vote for it.
00:01:23
Speaker
So
Local Experiences and Rugby vs. AFL
00:01:26
Speaker
we'll wait and see. it And, you know, I'm i'm in a new electorate this time around. So um what's interesting is I am, you know, 1,000 kilometres from Cairns, but Cairns is also in my electorate.
00:01:37
Speaker
So... but I'm also buying a property in Cairns. So it kind of works out well. like yeah i'm not Even though I'm 1,000 kilometres away from where we're looking at buying, both are the same electorate. So, yeah, I have to look at it from the big city big city lights of Cairns to the outback of Bamaga and see who's going mould those two together perfectly. so Well, thanks to early voting, I voted ah about a week and a half ago now. Yeah.
00:02:07
Speaker
Got it out the way to save me sitting in queues this morning.
00:02:13
Speaker
I'll be voting today and I don't think there'll be much of a queue because, again, to live in Birmingham. But at the same time, um I'm annoyed that there's no there's no democracy sausages going on. like What? this It's happening at the school.
00:02:26
Speaker
Why wouldn't the school try and raise money by doing democracy sausages? so I'm a bit disappointed. So we're to have sausages for lunch. Nothing beats the sausage sizzle, mate. Nothing beats the sausage sizzle.
00:02:38
Speaker
But that's what's happening in the real world, in the board gaming world, which is obviously far more important. um I've actually had a pretty quiet week because I got – on Monday morning, I turn up to work and just do it my thing, first day back for the term.
00:02:54
Speaker
And ah half an hour in, I get asked slash told, can you go to Cairns because the guy who's taken the the under 11 boys football team has got a sick kid in hospital and you're the only non-teaching staff member that we can we can organize.
00:03:11
Speaker
So come Monday afternoon, I was back in Cairns and with 16 11 year olds, which is just outstanding, you know? Hang on, when you say football, what what let's see you know what what what are you meaning by football? Rugby league car rug ruby league. Rugby league, league, okay.
00:03:29
Speaker
Radio. You know, because it's... I thought actually... AFL is football for me, so yeah. And international listeners are going, what are you calling football? But yes, no, rugby league, mate.
00:03:41
Speaker
So it's all that up here. I was expecting the AFL to be stronger up here. It's got a presence, but rugby league is still king up here. Oh, yeah, absolutely up there. I would have preferred to be on a basketball trip, but that's all right.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, so I got back late Wednesday after having about six hours sleep over two nights.
Board Game Reviews and Mechanics
00:03:59
Speaker
So I've played only one game this week, and I'll quickly talk about that. And it's a game I have mentioned when we talked about our small games, um and that is Naar.
00:04:09
Speaker
So I've played Naar again. That's K-N-A-R. Oh, yes, yep. And just it just keeps going up in my estimation. Each play, you've got to get around this game, Shane. You'll love it.
00:04:22
Speaker
it's What it does great is that it gives you, you've got two different options on your turn, and then there's a third option that you may or may not take. And all three of them are great options. So the first option you've got is basically just playing a card from your hand down into your crew.
00:04:38
Speaker
And on the top of every card is like a little symbol. so And there's five colors. So if you put a yellow card down, you'll trigger every yellow card that you've got in your crew. So you might get some reputation, you might get a victory point, you might get a recruit, you might get a yeah ah ring. They all do different things.
00:04:55
Speaker
um So if you build that up, you can play one card and trigger like many benefits. But if you want to go exploring, you've got to send your crew. So you've got to reduce that bank of crew to explore these islands. But the islands give you victory points or extra benefits, extra little things like, you know, like I said before,
00:05:19
Speaker
um extra cards, a recruits in these silver rings. ah But and what they also do is once you place them in front of your board, they give you a benefit whenever you trade and you trade with silver rings.
00:05:32
Speaker
So you've got to gain the rings to then trade. So the more exploring you do, the more trading you get for your for your rings. so And that's usually victory points and also a mixture of all the other things.
00:05:45
Speaker
So you really are torn between I've got this cool engine going down here with my crew and I just keep acquiring... goods after goods after goods. to But if I don't go and explore, I'm not going to get these larger victory point chunks.
00:05:58
Speaker
And then I'm also not going to increase my ability to trade well because my trade value is not going up. So it really is this every system is good, but you have to take from one system to gain from another.
00:06:10
Speaker
which I really, really like. And it's just, it's like, it's not first to 40, but it's whenever someone gets to 40, that triggers the end of the game. And um that's, it's not like you all play one more round. It's literally, okay, we just all make sure we've had the same amount turns.
00:06:24
Speaker
So if you're the last player and you trigger it, that's the end of the game right there. But so it doesn't outstay, it's welcome. It's like a 25, 30 minute game. and And it's just, it's so,
00:06:35
Speaker
engrossing because you just, you yeah not only when you play, so if I play a yellow worker into my crew, there's five spaces out in the in the neutral board and they're all based on a color, but they're not, so there'll be a yellow section, but it could have any one of the five colored workers there. So when I play my yellow card, I take the card that's in the yellow spot So if you're trying to build up a particular color, you want to look at what other colors you should play in order to get these.
00:07:03
Speaker
It's hard to explain. It sounds kind of weird. But no, it's i I played it a few times when I first bought it and I hadn't played it for a while. I got it back out with a friend of mine who came over last weekend.
00:07:15
Speaker
And I'm just like, why haven't I not been playing this? It's on BGA. So I'm like, sweet. I'm just going keep hammering this game. So good. So if you haven't checked it out, check out Nah. Little box. Doesn't cost much. And definitely you get plenty of hours of entertainment.
00:07:31
Speaker
You know, in my head, I'm seeing Raiders of the North Sea, the card game. without Without the fight. Yeah. Well, yeah, there is you't go out you know you don't go to pillage, but I guess you kind of do. You're trading.
00:07:48
Speaker
yeah Yeah, that's right. So it's it's really good. yeah it's i mean And I've said this before with Viking games. I'm not some sort of Viking fanatic. But many of my favourite games have the Viking theme. It just lends itself so good so well to board games like Feast for Odin, Reigns the North Sea, like you mentioned, even Blood Rage, you could argue. like it's It's the Viking lore.
00:08:12
Speaker
there's There's so many great games that use this theme, and this is another one. Sounds good. I'm actually away next week in Perth and Adelaide, and there's a few of my favourite game stores in both of those states, so I will pick it up.
00:08:29
Speaker
I will grab it when I'm over there and and learn it. Does it play solo?
00:08:35
Speaker
um I don't know. i i i assume there's a way to play it solo. haven't really looked. But, I mean, worst case scenario, BGA. You can always rack up a few games on BGA. So if anyone out there likes Na or has played it or wants to learn it, reach out because I'll happily get 17 games going on BGA if I can.
00:08:57
Speaker
Good. attack Yeah, if it does play solo, there's got to be a way. There's got a way to make it solo. Yeah, I just, you know, yeah I travel alone, so i don't, you know and there's, I don't know anyone at work that's into board games, so I can't really con them into playing playing a game with me while and away, but I will pick up a a physical version of it. Hopefully, if those stores that I visit do have it, so.
00:09:23
Speaker
It does say two to four. Okay. Maybe All right. But I'm sure BGA will have a version of something. That also gives me the opportunity too when I do get it to come up with a solo variant for it. So that's what like to try and do is create a solo variant.
00:09:37
Speaker
Um, mate, I have... A very own tertiary. Yeah. Hardly. Um, I've, haven't been playing anything, mate. I've been flat out busy with work. I've had no time.
00:09:50
Speaker
Um, I did 3D print myself a little box to hold all my Star Wars Unlimited stuff. Um, and and and all the nice fancy pieces. um But I have also watched, and I'm going to play it this weekend, and I'm going solo it.
00:10:08
Speaker
um I mentioned it the last episode. I think I mentioned it last. It was one of the last couple of like episodes where when I mentioned Carl Chuddyk. So I've got a game of his called Blood of the Northmen, so speaking of Viking themes.
00:10:21
Speaker
Yeah, yep. I've watched a heap of playthroughs of how to play it. Not one of them were the same. Every one of them had something, a rule or two wrong. It was interesting.
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, right. Because I've read the book, I've read the instructions of how play and then I thought I'd watch a few playthroughs and... You get five minutes in and don't know if you're the same, but when they make a blatant error and then they continue, and it basically changes the whole game when they make these errors.
00:10:51
Speaker
I'm like, nah, I can't watch you. I can't. I'm off. And they'll go and try and find another one. And I went through three and within five minutes, each one of them had, you know, one specific rule wrong.
00:11:03
Speaker
And, um, So um I'm going to solo it this weekend. I've got some time before I pack to to head away ah that I'm going to pull it out and play the solo variant.
00:11:15
Speaker
So really excited to play it. It looks great. it's It's basically beat them up. you just you're just going You're just beating each other up. It's a ah it's pretty nasty game.
00:11:26
Speaker
It can be. No, it is. It blatantly is. So what you're doing is you're... and trying to occupy tiles, you're laying tiles on the board, um so and those tiles, the first three tiles you must put out, and then after that every other tile must connect two sides.
00:11:44
Speaker
And you've got you've got a field, you've got sea, and you've got um ah mountains, and each one of those ah trigger a different ability for you to be able to do.
00:11:58
Speaker
So... um ah And then you've also got roads too. So roads, obviously, if you're you're on one road, you can move all the way to around to another road. um And then you can also loop the board.
00:12:09
Speaker
um Mountains ah allow you to fight. And lakes allow you to travel through the lakes. And then also to fields, you're adding players onto the tiles that you're laying, your Vikings.
00:12:23
Speaker
And so then whenever there's two Vikings in a tile, you can trigger the mountain action, you go to battle. And then the battling is pretty easy. flipping tiles, and whoever has the most mountain tiles,
00:12:37
Speaker
um mountain sides, wins the battle. That Viking goes back to the other player's board, doesn't die, he's out of the game. But then you move your Viking, you move a Viking over two points into your point scoring.
00:12:51
Speaker
And it's the first to score a certain amount of points, wins the game. So... Looks really good, really good. and There's like 120 tiles, so lots of strategy that's going to be involved.
00:13:04
Speaker
So looking forward to playing it Blood of the Northman, mate. Excellent. That's it. And that is a
Weekend Plans and Industry Insights
00:13:12
Speaker
solo game, right? No, it's not. Yeah. No, it's ah to four players, I think.
00:13:17
Speaker
Four players, yeah. Oh, okay. Four players, and there's an experience. It's just a solo, but it obviously can be soloed. It can be soloed. and they It was a two- to four-player game originally. they when they revamped it and put out an expansion, they brought the solo variant out as well.
00:13:33
Speaker
So i've got I've got the expansion too.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, nice one. Well, it might be a pretty short discussion on board games based both of our weeks, but still couple of, we'll just call the unofficial north Northman podcast today or the Viking podcast. Yeah, yeah, the Viking podcast. Based on that.
00:13:53
Speaker
Do you have any other games to chat about or do you want to get into some news? No, I've got no other games to chat about. um Although I must say I am liking El Paso a lot.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I've been playing a bit of it on VGA too. Yeah, me too. We're keeping it going. I've got a few games going on VGA and I must admit I'm looking forward to now my next game day with the boys to play Great Western Trail. Yeah, cool.
00:14:21
Speaker
I'm liking it. That's... I'd like to hope that's where we end up here, hopefully getting back to Great Western Trail New Zealand. But we'll see. It's hard because Raf, being Raf, being an 11-year-old, he looks at this and goes, well, why would I play Great Western Trail New Zealand now? I have a similar feeling in this small box where, you know, someone like us, we'd be like, well, you know, you might get more games. There might be more more to it, you know.
00:14:48
Speaker
It could could provide a more interesting experience because it goes for longer. But as ah as an 11-year-old, he's just like, well, why would I bother? I could get this great experience in a box. So I don't know. I'd like to think it gets us back to one of the bigger games, but I'm not confident. Just looking at Board Game Oracle, and it's there for less than $50. So it's such a cheap game for you know how much ah fun you can get out of it. And I totally recommend anyone that's ever wanted to jump into the Great Western Trail but have always been a little bit, don't know if I can devote that amount of time or brain space to learn it.
00:15:21
Speaker
um less than $50, jump into El Paso. It's good. And then you can play the heck out of it on BGA like we are. Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, I'm hoping it'll get back to the table this weekend. that We're going to have some people over tonight for some games while we've got the election on. So that'll be yeah one of the ones that's an easy enough one to throw out and teach pretty quickly. Yeah, you can teach it pretty quick. opposed to the bigger versions, which are a little bit harder to...
00:15:49
Speaker
to get people across everything that's happening. So yeah. Anything else you've been playing? No, nothing. Well, if that's the case, we'll shoot over to the news.
00:16:09
Speaker
Now, again, because I've been away tired after getting back, I'm not across a lot of news that's happening in the industry, so of of other than the ongoing yeah tariffs that we have already spoken about. So have you got anything news-wise to discuss? It's actually going to be a very quick section, mate, because no, um because tariffs tariffs is just – taken over the board game news at the moment and, you know, you're hearing of all these businesses folding, which is really sad to hear. And you're hearing of companies, you know, with ships on the water saying, turn back, you know. um
00:16:49
Speaker
And CMON's put a pause on any more ah games through GameFound or whatever they want to use and until they can deliver on what they've got out there at the moment. I believe if you're a zombie side, white death is on its way.
00:17:04
Speaker
Okay. and um So it's look, that's all that's I'm hearing at the moment is of the tariffs and even at all the podcasts I listen to. It's just tariffs, tariffs, tariffs and you know there's someone on there explaining what it means. and um So it's it's you know not kind of – look, at obviously the role on effect will affect us but at the moment it's ballgames, ballgames ballgames. But I think personally – until you know Until it's sorted out, I reckon we're not going to see any big, grandiose games for a while.
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. And and that yeah in a weird way, that might not be a bad thing. Like you mentioned, Simon, they've got like seven or eight Kickstarters that are in the works at the moment. yeah Maybe them catching up and being to a point where the next Kickstarter they put out is the only project they've got running.
00:17:51
Speaker
yeah might be It might be a good thing. and I mean, I'm not saying it's ah not saying it's a good result because people have lost jobs and companies have gone out of business and yeah and all that. It's shocking. yeah The silver lining might be that it might become a little bit less convoluted, I guess, out there.
00:18:06
Speaker
I worry about the convention season. um and and Again, that doesn't really affect Australia. But, like, how's Gen Con going to run? Yeah, Spiel is fine because it's in Essen, so it's in Europe and it doesn't have the same...
00:18:22
Speaker
tariff issues, but GenCon is all about new releases hitting in that August, September period. Well, they're not going to be there. So I'm very interested to see what happens there because the it's such a huge event for the industry and you can't imagine it's going to be anywhere near as big as it has been in previous years. So yeah, hopefully things get resolved before then. but Time will tell.
00:18:48
Speaker
Time will tell. It's a It was interesting, I was listening to a a news, and this is not related to board games, but the Australian wine industry is doing extremely well, back with you know over a billion dollars in China in exports.
00:19:04
Speaker
yeah they haven They haven't done that since pre-COVID. Yeah, right. So, not board game related, but hey, we're in Australia, we make good wine. Might as well comment it. That's It's quite funny when i remember when i was in the US and they were talking about how how great Australian wine is and they were drinking Jacob's Creek. And I'm like, no, it could get a lot better.
00:19:27
Speaker
It does get a lot better. But, you know, whenever you are struggling for a bottle of wine, just grab a Jacob's Creek or a Taylor's. You can't go wrong. What was the other one? The Yellowtail. had the Yellowtail. Hardies. Hardies. yeah yeah And they're like, oh, it's the Australian wine's so good. I'm like, yeah, it is.
00:19:44
Speaker
Just... Yeah, but there's other other ones as well.
00:19:49
Speaker
But sure, hey, who cares? They're helping australian the Australian market.
Personal Stories and Awards Discussion
00:19:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. And nothing wrong a good old Hardys wine either. That was my wedding wine. We had a whole stack of Hardys.
00:20:00
Speaker
Yeah. ah So it was a really nice wine. actually still got a bottle up in my cupboard because lauren's Lauren's dad made us all these wine labels for all our wine with a photo of us on there.
00:20:15
Speaker
And then he put a little palm on the back and he wrote it as as if it was a ah blend. It's a little bit of – Oh, that's very cool. Yeah, was really cool. So we've still got a bottle left. would never want to drink it though because it looks yellow.
00:20:30
Speaker
we yeah we We did something sort of similar. We we made him we made a mixtape. So we made the soundtrack, Helen and helen Steve wedding soundtrack. ah So that was that was really cool. And there was a few songs on there that were a little bit weird and quirky that meant something to us and no one else knew of. And we had a lot of people come to and go, never heard this song before.
00:20:50
Speaker
It's so great. I'm like, I just love the fact that you're in your car. Like, it's 2006. Everyone had CD players. No one had MP3 players. Like, you're in your car listening to the Helen and Steve soundtrack. We got the labels printed on the discs. We got the full cases made and everything.
00:21:04
Speaker
So it all looked legitimate. So, yeah, good times. Have you Spotify'd that? list yeah we do we do have a spotify playlist there's a couple of songs that aren't on spotify that we've missed out on but most of them are there so good that's great anyway that's uh we've really gone off topic you know we've got we've talked about weddings we've talked about uh wines we've talked about uh travel to cans elections and a smattering of board games throughout but let's get into some uh the the big topic of the day, which we haven't mentioned yet, um Shane actually came up with this idea, and I think it's a cracking idea.
00:21:39
Speaker
ah So it is the BGG Golden Geek Awards are currently open for final voting. So they've narrowed it down to the finalists in each of the categories.
00:21:51
Speaker
And at the time of recording, because I don't know when the the results get announced, but at the time of recording, no results have been announced yet. So Shane had the idea that we pick a couple each. And we see who can essentially score the most but out of the two of us. We have a competition on who gets the answers right ah for each of the categories. So what we're going to do is i'm going to go through a category, ah mention all of the nominees, and then Shane and I will both give our opinion on who we think will win. Are we going to go with who we want to win or who we think will win?
Predictions for Golden Geek Awards
00:22:22
Speaker
ah Okay. Maybe we'll get one of each. Yeah, yeah. so we could do who we think we will win will be our number two. Okay. Yep.
00:22:33
Speaker
And then who we want to win will be our number one. Yeah. Are we going to do it where we can't have the same answers? Yeah, why not? Why the hell not? So in that case, one of us will have to go first and then the other, yeah, yeah. So let's snake draft it.
00:22:51
Speaker
It's very efficient, this is. set it the yeah The Golden Geek Predictions Challenge. i think think And I think it's ah the votes end May. I thought I could be wrong. Oh, okay. so So, yeah, this should come out before it gets announced.
00:23:05
Speaker
Oh, no, voting closes May 4th, 2025, which is tomorrow. So I don't know when it gets announced. So we're recording this on May 3rd. So no shenanigans, we promise.
00:23:16
Speaker
and well May the 4th be with you as well. That's, yes. And may, i don't know what, there's something about the fifth too with the Sith. can't know what that is. Yeah. yeah Okay. So two player games. yeah I'll give you the honors to choose first.
00:23:31
Speaker
ah So two-player game, you have Agent Avenue, Compile, Main 1, Dune, War for Arrakis, Flatiron, A Jest of Robin Hood, Ironwood, Kelp, Sharks vs Octopus, King of Tokyo, Duel, Lord of the Rings, Duel for Middle Earth, and Star Wars Unlimited.
00:23:54
Speaker
Okay. So what I want to win, Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth. Mm-hmm. Jewel. Yep.
00:24:05
Speaker
And what about what you think will win?
00:24:11
Speaker
Star Wars Unlimited. It's going to suck going second. Okay. All right, because I was going to have Lord of the Rings and I thought Star Wars would win. well yeah so Yeah, okay. Well, you could potentially say that's what you think will win.
00:24:27
Speaker
No, I'm going to go. only i I will say that... I want, wow. Um, Dune War for Arrakis. Yep. Definitely that one.
00:24:38
Speaker
That's for sure. Played that. Love it. Um, I do have it though. Um, and I'll say that I think Kelp will win. There we go. Yeah. Okay. Good one. They're four good games. a Really good games.
00:24:50
Speaker
Yeah. Um, All right. correct So now we move to the second one, and I've got the more open one, which is annoying. so that's But I've got artwork and presentation. so we've got ARX, The Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking game, Fromage, Harmonies, Kelp, Let's Go to Japan, Lord of the Rings Duel for Middle Earth, SETI, Unconscious Mind, Wondrous Creatures, and Wormspan.
00:25:20
Speaker
So... What I hope will win is ah probably Unconscious Mind. mean
00:25:33
Speaker
um And what I think will win would be oh probably SETI. I'll go with that.
00:25:45
Speaker
This could be like a Gloomhaven-ish year where SETI takes the cake for everything, but anyway. right, what have you got? um Can you give me that list again? Sorry. Arx, Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking game, Fromage, Harmonies, Kelp, Let's Go to Japan, Lord of the Rings Duel, SETI and Unconscious Mind, but you can't have them, Wondrous Creatures and Wormsmen.
00:26:06
Speaker
All right, let's... What I think will win... Arx. Okay. Okay. um
00:26:17
Speaker
And actually, no, let's reverse that. What I want to win is Arx. What I think will win is let's go from Arx.
00:26:29
Speaker
Yeah, it was up there. I was thinking about that. Hmm. All right, next up, co-op games. Back to you. So we've got The Seventh Citadel, Age Ammonia, Bomb Busters, Dead Cells, Fate Forge, Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking game, The Gang, Faraday, Revive the Wild,
00:26:51
Speaker
Primal the awake Awakening, Slay the Spire, Tidal Blades 2, or Wilmot's Warehouse. Yeah, and you know what? Stuff you, I ain't doing a TI4 right now, neither.
00:27:05
Speaker
Who came up with these rules that we had to have different answers? What an idiot. What I think will win will be Bomb Busters. What I want to win will be the gang. Yeah, that's some good choices.
00:27:17
Speaker
The gang. right. Well, um I totally think that the gang won't win or I don't want it to win, apparently. ah So I will go with the Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking game.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah. Actually, i'm might put that in the I think will win.
00:27:36
Speaker
And what I want to win, I'll put Slay the Spire.
00:27:43
Speaker
I quite like that game. So there we go. That's our cooperative. So we move on to... Oh, you get all the good ones. I've got expansions. I've hardly played any of these. So expansion.
00:27:55
Speaker
We've got Arx, the Blighted Reach expansion. ah Expedition, Gears of Corruption. Forest Shuffle Alpine. Forest Shuffle Woodland Edge. Gaia Project, The Lost Fleet.
00:28:07
Speaker
Here's my pick. Heat, Heavy Rain. Obsession, Characters Expansion, Sky Team Turbulence, Terraforming Mars, Predator 2, The White Castle, Mucha. So I will go with what I want to win will be Heavy Rain.
00:28:21
Speaker
And what I think will win, will go with Sky Team.
00:28:27
Speaker
Sky Turbulence. All right. How about you? What I think will win will be Arx. Expansion, that's a Lady Mazzere. Okay.
00:28:38
Speaker
And what I – actually, I don't want to say what I want to win because any other good choice here is Obsession. ah
00:28:47
Speaker
We've got two Forest Shuffle expansions, Expeditions expansion, Gaia Project. Yeah, let's do Gaia Project. Let's do Gaia Project. Okay. Okay.
00:29:00
Speaker
All right. Okay. Innovative. Okay. So you up you're up for this one. You've got Arcs, Bomb Busters, City of Six Moons, Fishing, Fromage, The Gang, Let's Go to Japan, Monkey Palace, SETI, and Wilmot's Warehouse.
00:29:19
Speaker
Okay. What I think will win?
00:29:24
Speaker
Fishing. Okay. What I want to win? Arcs. Ah, the ARX fanboy. All right. Well, good news is I'm going to go with the gang because I finally get one for the gang. yeah And what I think will win, I'm going to go with Bomb Busters.
00:29:44
Speaker
All right. Light game of the year. Bomb Busters, Captain Flip, Castle Combo, Cities, Fishing, Flip 7, The Gang, Lem, Rebirth, and River City Glassworks.
00:29:57
Speaker
And I'm going to go with what I want to win is the gang. and what I think we'll win is Flip 7. Excellent. um What i want to win is...
00:30:12
Speaker
oh ah Let's go... Bomb Busters.
00:30:18
Speaker
Never played it, but... I know it's getting a lot of hype out there. and What I think will win, you've already said them, so...
00:30:30
Speaker
Captain Flip, Castle Combo, Cities, Fishing, Mlem, Rebirth, or Riz City Classworks. I've played Mlem, so let's put Mlem in there.
00:30:42
Speaker
Done. All right, next up, Medium, Game of the Year. Endeavor Deep Sea, Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking game, Fromage, Harmonies, Let's Go to Japan, Lord of the Rings duel for Middle-earth, River of Gold, Slay the Spire, Windmill Valley, or Wormspin?
00:31:00
Speaker
um What I think will win, Slay Spire.
00:31:05
Speaker
What I want to win is Lord of the Rings, Journey Middle-earth.
00:31:13
Speaker
Doola. Doola. Doola. I spelled that wrong twice. There you go. Okay, so that leaves me with, um I think, I would like to see Let's Go to Japan win.
00:31:30
Speaker
But I think River of Gold might win. I haven't played yet. I saw that being played of the other day at a game day. It looked good. Okay. Okay. All right, Nuvon, I wonder what you're going to pick here. um um Maybe I should steal it. i don't know. Heavy game of the year.
00:31:47
Speaker
So Andromeda's Edge, which I'm just putting in as my pick. Yeah, of course. That's going to be a list. um And then we've got Arx, Black Forest, Civilution, Ezra and Nehemiah, Inventions, the Evolution of Ideas, Inventors of the South Tigris, Men Nefer, Seti, and Unconscious Mind.
00:32:08
Speaker
Oh, Seti versus Arx. Which one do I take from you? Hey, look, let's let's TI i for it. I'm saying that Arx is going to win. Arx is going to win.
00:32:21
Speaker
ah Look, I am i'm going to go old school, and what I want to win is Ezra and Nehemiah. I've played that. It's quite a good game. And what I think will win, Unconscious Mind.
00:32:38
Speaker
Ooh.
00:32:46
Speaker
That's a good category, that one. There's lot of good games in the head. There's a lot of games. Next up is Party Game. Woo! ah um All right. ah Caution signs, courts courtesans, flip seven, the gang, gastrudis, gastrudis, I'm not sure, hits the bingo, landmarks, link city, things in rings and Wilmot's warehouse. What is Wilmot's warehouse?
00:33:12
Speaker
I've not heard of it. I need to look that up. Anyway. All right. um Given that we don't both know about Wilmot's warehouse, I'm going to make that my pick to win. so mean What I want to win is Flip 7.
00:33:28
Speaker
I'll leave you with the gang. Okay. So Wilmot's Warehouse is a total, pull out my arse pick. I know nothing about it. All right. So I'll go with the gang, obviously. And as far as one that I want to win, ah that I think will win, um
00:33:47
Speaker
I assume Hitchster Bingo is like a different version of Hitchster, which I don't mind. So I'll throw that in there. you didn' You didn't mind Things of Rings though, did you? You were playing that fair bit. Yeah, I don't think it'll win though.
00:33:58
Speaker
No, okay. This is my if it'll win thing. But Hitster was pretty cool. you played Hitster? It's the one where you scan the card and it plays the music and you've got to make a timeline of where the song fits. No. Yeah, that's very cool.
00:34:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Okay. Quite good as a party game because it had a decent range of music from like 40s and 50s right through to current music. As long as it have any country in Western, hey? It did. Yeah.
00:34:26
Speaker
So not a lot, not a lot, thankfully. All right, print and plays. This is where I'm going to struggle because I don't know if I've played any of these. No, I think we're just going to be both guessing here.
00:34:38
Speaker
So we've got 52 Realms, The Cubes of Europe. Oh. Dangerous Space, Forage, Grim World, Night, Koala Rescue Club, and Rome, Fate of an Empire.
00:34:50
Speaker
oo and I'm going first. Yeah. No, I'll go with, I think the Koala Rescue Club was definitely the best. agree. I agree with you there.
00:35:01
Speaker
And what I think will win is, well, just because I liked Fromage and Forage is close, I'm going go with that. ah quality podcasting professional.
00:35:11
Speaker
There go. All right. I'm guessing you're going with Rome for your pick. Yeah, Rome as my pick. What I think will win those 52 realms. Okay.
00:35:23
Speaker
All right. Solo game. So we have the Seventh Citadel, Civilution, Conservance, Forage again, Gloomhaven, Button and Bugs, I, Napoleon, Imperium Horizons, Kingdom Legacy, Rome, Fate of an Empire, or Slay the Spire.
00:35:41
Speaker
So of those, I'm going to'm trying to take... I'm first, Anna. No, me. You're first. Me, yeah. Yeah. I'll go um Rome, Fate of the Empire will win.
00:35:53
Speaker
My pick will be say they Slay the Spire. Damn you. That's like the only one I've played. Okay. So then I will go with Gloomhaven, one.
00:36:08
Speaker
um And Civilution. So with this list, though, right, if you had Slay the Spire, the actual game itself, wouldn't you just play the app? if you're For solo, yeah.
00:36:21
Speaker
Like to me, the solo variant of Slay the Spire is play the app. Yeah, so really, does that should that qualify? I don't think it should because, yeah, I think anyone who plays – the beauty of the board game is you get to play Sly the Spire with multiple people.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah. Because otherwise you just play the video game. It's basically the same thing. You would not sit there and set up Sly the Spire if you've got the – same with me with Raiders of the North Sea. I'm not going to set up Raiders of the North Sea to play it on my own. I've got the app, so I'll play it. Yeah.
00:36:52
Speaker
um so You know what? No, I'm going to strike that off my list. i'm not I'm taking off my list. i'm going to pick something else if that's okay because I don't i think that's – That's fine because I'm just going to move it over to my list. You do whatever you want to do.
00:37:09
Speaker
what what What was on there again? ah Seventh Citadel, Civillution, Conservas, Forage. I'll go Civillution. You can't. I've already got it. Oh, I guess you went first. No, you went first. That's true.
00:37:23
Speaker
I will ah will take it off my list and I'll add Gloomhaven to what I think will win, which is not what I think will win. Okay. Thematic. Thematic game. Actually, what I think will win. That's a good question. I might change from Gloomhaven to Horizons. Oh, Imperium Horizons. Oh, no. I put Slay the Spy down as my game.
00:37:44
Speaker
and Okay. Next up, we have thematic games. You've got The Seventh Citadel, Arx, Dune War for Arrakis, Endeavor Deep Sea, Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking game, Let's Go to Japan, Lord of the Rings Duel for Middle Earth, Rock Hard 1977, SETI, An Unconscious Mind.
00:38:02
Speaker
I think as far as theme goes, of all of those games, which I've played a fair few of, the one that stands out to me for theme is Rock Hard. huh So I'll choose that. And what I think will win, though, is Endeavor Deep Sea.
00:38:17
Speaker
Good choices.
00:38:20
Speaker
So fair few good options left for you. Yeah, there are. um Let's go June War for Awarkis is what I think may win.
00:38:33
Speaker
And what I want to win is Unconscious Mind. Okay.
00:38:40
Speaker
And another category that we're going to struggle with, maybe not, and this is War Game. So you get to get first in this one, which I'm sure you're excited about. So we have Arx, Burning Banners, Dune Wolf Arrakis, A Gest of Robin Hood, I, Napoleon, Rebel Fury, Red Dust Rebellion, Tanto Monta, Undoated 2200, and Vijayanagara, the Deccan Empires of Medieval India, 1290 to 1398. Sorry.
00:39:12
Speaker
thirteen twelve ninety to thirty nine yeah sorry and What I want to win is a Jess for Robin Hood. Okay. What I think will win will be Arx.
00:39:26
Speaker
That's pretty good go there. I'm going to go with Undaunted 2200 for what I want to win, being one of the only ones played.
00:39:36
Speaker
um And what I will go for, I'll go for Dune or for Ruckus as what i think will win.
00:39:45
Speaker
ah Now, um unfortunately, we're not on this list, but the best podcast. We should absolutely be on this list. So who's going first here? Me. Okay. So we've got Beyond solidar beyond Solitaire, Blue Peg, Pink Peg, Board Game Barbecue, Board Game Hot Takes, Decision Space, Five days five Games to for Doomsday, Game Brain, Space Biff, Space Cast, Sporadically Bored, and Talk Cardboard.
00:40:12
Speaker
A few of them there that made our list not long ago. um What I want to win, look, I can't not vote for Board Game Barbecue here. I created the damn thing, so I'm going to say the Board Game Barbecue.
00:40:24
Speaker
That would be pretty cool if it won. And good luck to them. Yeah, good luck to them. Yeah, I don't think it will, though, but I think this is the third year in a row it's been nominated, so that's pretty cool. Oh, that's And I will go with Sporadically Bored.
00:40:37
Speaker
That's what I think will win. Okay, and I think... Whoops. I just had a child walk in, realized I was edit editing and walked out. I was recording, sorry.
00:40:48
Speaker
Okay, so what have you got? You've taken one out of my and of my ah my list of ballgame creators there. What I think will win, that's what I want to win actually, is Five Games of Doomsday.
00:41:01
Speaker
Yeah, I figured you'd have that one. Ben Maddox, is is he's hilarious. He's good. What else was there? So got Beyond Solitaire, Blue Peg, Pink Peg, Board Game Hot Takes, Decision Space, Game Brain, Space Biff, Space Cast, and Talk Cardboard.
00:41:20
Speaker
The only other one I've listened to is Beyond Solitaire. Let's go Game Brain. Okay.
00:41:30
Speaker
And last but not least, and West Board Game App. ah So you're going to go first here. So these are apps that have come out in the last year. and So you've got Clank, Codenames, Dune Imperium, Mountain Goats, Mythic Mischief, Point Salad, Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, Quilts and Cats of Calico, Stone Age, Summoner Wars Online.
00:41:56
Speaker
I have none of those. Hmm. You have won, think. You said you had Dune Imperium, didn't you? No, haven't downloaded the de the Steam app yet.
00:42:08
Speaker
Ah, okay. ah No, I have downloaded the Steam app, but I haven't got June um Let me see. Let's go. what I think will win is Codenames because that's such a good game.
00:42:25
Speaker
and What I want to win is Dune Imperium. Okay. Okay.
00:42:31
Speaker
I will go what I want to win would be clanks clink.
00:42:38
Speaker
Uh, what I think will win. I think code names are win as well, but I can't choose that. So let's go with,
00:42:46
Speaker
um, I will go with the summoner wars online.
00:42:56
Speaker
Alrighty. And that is our list. So. Best possible score anyone can get is obviously just winning, getting one in every category, which will score someone total of that many. I can't count. What is...
00:43:11
Speaker
15, I think it's 14 or 15 categories. so that's yeah So I think eight might give give one of us the win. So we'll see how we It'll be interesting to see how many of them are what we think will win versus what we want to win. so Because, of course, we could have – we didn't, but we could have put the same answer down. Like some of them some of the ones I think will win are also the ones I'd want to win, but I've gone for two different answers. so Yeah, me too.
00:43:36
Speaker
Yeah, me too as well. So say you can bring another one in. um but Well, you know you never know, mate. It might be like the election that's happening today. It could be. It could be a landslide.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah. um we should We should have just had a different category, which is the ones we think was most likely not to win and just called that like the One Nation Party or something. um The legalised marijuana party.
00:44:01
Speaker
ah What's the new one? The Trumpets of Patriots? Oh, yeah. Gosh. Yeah. Yes, we've got weird politicians in Australia too. it's
00:44:12
Speaker
Well, ah that's that's that's about it. It's a pretty short podcast today, only 45 minutes. But um I guess the the big question that we always end with is ah what we're planning on playing that we covered a little bit earlier. But you got any plans for the week as far
Future Gaming Plans
00:44:27
Speaker
as games? You're travelling, so obviously you solo games, I'm guessing.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'll pack a couple of solo games and I will be playing Blood of the Northman today. Yeah. And solo games. i don't know what I'm going to pack yet. I might pack Final Girl.
00:44:41
Speaker
Just chuck a Final Girl and bring that along with me. and But then I will be looking at getting purchasing Gnar when I'm over there. So I'll let you know. about you?
00:44:52
Speaker
I still haven't gotten deep regrets to the table because of the week that I've had. So that's definitely on the cards for this weekend. And I really want to get Helen. Helen loves Ticket to Ride.
00:45:03
Speaker
Like is mad for Ticket to Ride. And I have a whole bunch of train games that are not Ticket to Ride that I have been sort of coercing her into trying out. And she's she's finally succumbed and decided that she wants she's she's happy to learn.
00:45:20
Speaker
So I've just got to decide whether I want to play Maglev Metro, Age of Steam, Shikoku 1889, Imperial Railroad, what's it called, ah ah Russian Railroads. One of those. So I don't care which one. I just want to get a train game to the table that isn't ticking to ride. That's my goal this weekend.
00:45:37
Speaker
Age of steam. Age of steam. Go big or go home, mate. Well, that's it. like And I wonder whether, because Shikoku 889 is like a mini 18xx. I'm thinking...
00:45:51
Speaker
I wonder which one she'd prefer. Like, does she want the cutthroat, I hate you nature of Age of Steam, or does she want the more difficult working out the shares and whatnot in Shikoku? So, yeah, but we'll see.
00:46:05
Speaker
Well, you've come a long way from when, I don't know if you, when you remember coming around my house. I remember. I Yeah. Yeah, it it is funny. I think about that a lot because when we played 1862, I think it was. Yeah. Something like that. You walked and you're like, how can I go home? Oh, yeah.
00:46:27
Speaker
But um like it' to be fair, I didn't dislike it. I just felt like it was two games pressed into one and I'd rather play either of the other two games. ah That was kind of my theory on it, but um which was Age of Steam and City the Big Shops. Yes.
00:46:42
Speaker
That's what the the feeling I got from it. But it was also the fact that it took five, six hours that really rubbed me the wrong way. So apparently Shikoku is a much less intensive 18xx game. So I don't know if that's true, but I'm going to believe it until I get proven wrong.
00:46:58
Speaker
So, yes. You have come a long way. maybe it is my yeah Maybe it is my entry into the world of 18xx. Who knows? Yeah. not that's um I think so. As previously stated, i I don't like country music, but there are two good songs.
00:47:16
Speaker
So similarly, there might be two good 18xx games out there. Yeah, get it. No, I do have the solo variant for Age of Steam, so that might even hit the table this weekend too.
00:47:27
Speaker
yeah I might even get that out. I like Age of Steam. It's really good. Yeah, it is great game. it was ah For the longest time, it was the highest-ranked game on my top 100 list that I didn't own.
00:47:39
Speaker
Wow. For a long time. So it might still be. Well, thank you very much, Shane. Have a great weekend. Enjoy your trip over to the other side of the country next week.
00:47:49
Speaker
And, yeah, we'll catch you next time we're on the podcast. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing the results and where we come out. Yeah. Have a good week yourself. Take care.
00:48:00
Speaker
Cheers. Bye. Bye.