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Episode 30 - More games, and Helen materialises
62 Plays5 months ago
The crew is back again for more ramblings about board games
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Tapestry and Initial Experiences
00:00:17
Speaker
Board game, chinwag, DG, Steve, me, go. So tell us about tapestry. Tapestry is a fine game. yeah I know how to play it now, and I made poor choices in every other game, not knowing what I was doing. But I still second i still usually came second. it's even It's kind of a hard game to screw up, isn't it? Yeah. It's it's it's surprisingly yeah robust in terms of doing something and getting rewards other than what Luke would say, but yeah. yeah Well, how about Jim and you tell us about your tapestry experience? Because as I said, I think this is only the third time I played my physical copy. There's a lot of EGA games, but yeah, right up until, you know, mistakes were made. How about you? Tell us what you thought about tapestry. Okay. So I've, I think I've played it three times twice with you guys, not knowing anything. And now the rules were explained to me.
00:01:12
Speaker
It's quite a good game. i like I quite like it. It's a bit of a puzzle. You have to go up tracks to get more resources to push your thing to keep going up and up and up and all. Do you take your turn to get all your resources and stuff like that? The game on Monday, I was incredibly lucky. Like it was bullshit. Like, you know, I think like I think I got two trap cards and I had the race where if you get achievements, they give you resources in between. in between the errors and I just push the center. I got attacked twice and I used trap cards to defeat them twice getting two achievements.
00:01:51
Speaker
and then
Strategizing in Tapestry
00:01:52
Speaker
I turned and then I went into the military one for the era so whenever I explored I conquered immediately with the thing so I just did that like four times and then managed to have a pretty significant like I bled out turns for quite a while and I think I i still had an entire era before everyone else was finished yep and luckily pulled a few decent things at the end so
00:02:18
Speaker
That to me, I feel like that's the the key to tapestry is that if you can be the one at the end, you will generally win. Like if you're the one left playing, it's, you're generally the one who's going to be left with the victory. Um, I don't know. It just seems to go that way. I haven't seen many times where someone is like the first finished and also the Victor because you get the most stuff. Like you, you're taking more turns because you've got more resources because you've got more things out on the map. So more stuff equals more points. Yeah, I started playing another game, like just to keep the ball rolling. You know, I just didn't want to not play it for like 30 years. And it seems to be going all right. I'm far behind points with this other gentleman who's like 347 rank. And I'm on one. Despite playing two games. I'm pretty sure you get a point just for playing. You do, yeah. um So I'm working towards some goals.
00:03:18
Speaker
um Yeah, I really I think it's I think it's good. but I think it's incredibly from my limited viewpoint and very situational and what you're given like, you know, if if someone gets the right cards, they're probably going to beat you regardless of what you do. Yeah, there's an element to that. I think you can. strategize a bit and you can, if you've got crappy tapestry cards, you can go and get a few more, or if there's not good tech out, you can either avoid it or change strategies. Like I think it, it benefits you having multiple strategies and not just sticking to one thing to the exclusion of everything else.
00:03:58
Speaker
Because, yeah, but the limited player interaction that occurs, I think, can derail your entire game. Like there's even just little things like Dictator, one of the cards, when you play it, nobody else can go up on that track until you have another turn. So while it only stops you for a turn, it might screw up your game and you've got to do something completely different. in the meantime Yeah, especially if you've got like enough resources to only go up that track or something and
Mixed Feelings and Board Game Night Reflections
00:04:21
Speaker
you plan in for that. And then because that comes out, you're now have to take your income because there's nowhere else you can go or something like that. Or you got to do a suboptimal play and then you've lost that resource that you need to get up the next track or something like that. You want to keep pushing. You want to keep pushing like all the time, get more and more stuff.
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, so I think the the issue that occurred there does sort of too. I think mainly the one time, the other time that we played this game, both Luke and Troy didn't like the game. So it was ah it is reason to sat on the shelf for so many years because nobody actually wanted to play it because they don't like it. so We decided, I think G-Money decided we take the punt and get it out this time and actually give it a run before Troy was able to say no. like say And then, so we're playing through the game and Troy is focusing on the one track and and you'll know this one, Steve. When you get to the end of the tech track, the last option is put a cue back at the start of a track and get a bunch of resources.
00:05:25
Speaker
Now, in BGA, it actually deletes that cube, it sort of grazes it out and you can't use it, you can't interact with it. That track is finished, and you've still only got four cubes on the map. That one is locked away. So, where I didn't clearly explain that to Troy before he went to take his turn, and he's going to play a Tapentry card, which is take your cube back three spaces and then get the benefits of that. So as he's then learned that this rule exists and he can't use that card that he wanted to play, he was quite unhappy. And from that point on, I think he had, that was, there was his fifth, it was his fourth income turn. So he was playing his last tapestry card. And the one that he wanted to play was the one that goes back multiple steps.
00:06:17
Speaker
He then couldn't play that and go back steps, so he just refused to take any other turns. He just moved up other cues randomly that didn't have any any impact on the game. And then as soon as he'd taken his last turn, he didn't even bother doing last-income turn, he'd taken his last action and he packed up. and So what he also did was put the cards that he had on his deck and his tech cards back on top of the piles, which then G money redrew them. And then because he'd done that, one of the other players said, Oh, as soon as I've done my turn, I'll just pack up. I'm so far behind. I don't need to worry about final points or scoring or any of that. So we have, we started the game with five players. We finished the game with three players.
00:06:57
Speaker
And um absolutely no idea how G money's last couple of turns probably would have come out if he hadn't been redrawing cards that somebody else had put on the top of the deck. There you go. but And much abuse was held for shitty teaching and shitty game development. And, uh, you name it, many expletives were thrown in my direction. What a great experience. Yeah.
00:07:29
Speaker
wove a real tapestry together rich rich tapestry There is that weird feeling when you get you go into a game night and they're like, oh, we're gonna play this and you're like, I'm already here, but I really don't want to play this game. yeah So I can feel sorry for him from that point of view. I just want to put myself on autopilot and I'll check back in after this is over. If Shane was here, he could, he could, uh, we've covered it in the past, but that day that I turned up at his house and they're like, Oh, we've set up 1862. And I'm like, Oh, I live over an hour from here. So I'm doing this no matter what. Yep. This is it for me.
00:08:10
Speaker
He'd just like slowly walk backwards out the door. Shane could see it right from the start. He's like, I'm sorry, mate. I know this isn't what you wanted. This is what we're doing. I'm like, okay. It's like Dave making me play a horse racing game. Ready to set bed? Is that the game that we played? I was like, ugh. We all played that together. That was great. I know. And you won. Yes. Unsurprised that you won. Yeah, yeah. You won real money. We started a bit with real money. That's a dangerous slogan. No, look, honestly, we've all got those games, right right? And maybe that's a pretty good topic. Like, what is the game that you just regret going to the game day if you have to play? You know, I remember Shane's telling me about his shit, real confluence game, and he would never play that game against. Yeah, that was right. I was like, he's an arm. Yeah. You never forget the war. He did not want to play that game. He will never ever play that game again or anything.
00:09:10
Speaker
Tapestry might be on that bundle for Troy. I'm pretty sure there isn't a way that we get him to play that game again. It's interesting with Tapestry, because I've always liked it. But I played it once with um Dan Gluonora and his group. And um he, Dan was like, I don't like this game. I'm like, oh, why? Yeah, because there's tracks and there's like your techs and all this cool stuff. You know, you're doing some stuff. He's like, I don't like it because on my turn, I just, I just moved this one thing and I do some stuff and that's it. Like, it's not, and And I've never really thought of it that way, but I guess that is kind of it. Like you're not, you're not doing something that will help you push up tracks. You're literally just choosing which track you want to move up to move up. And you're doing the thing like, yes, you can chain. I've seen some amazing chaining turns, but it's not chaining in the sense that like.
00:09:56
Speaker
in other games, one thing will lead to five or six different other things and you sort of build towards that. It's kind of like, okay, on my turn, I'm doing this. But yeah, it was the first time I'd heard someone explain why they didn't like it. That wasn't just, oh, it's unbalanced and blah, blah, blah.
Family Gaming Adventures
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah. Like it's boring. I just move a cube up a spot. Yeah. It is not. I disagree. mean but Yeah, I disagree. I mean, I've watched a lot of people do huge turns in that game and go, what the fuck just happened? and Um, the thing I love about Tapestry is I just don't take it too seriously. So I never do the same track all the time. I always just go, what do I feel like doing this time? Like I always used to do, um, science first. And then I realized it wasn't actually that beneficial. So I started doing others. And the last game we played online, I did science, but I ended up getting to the end of, um, um, the red one as well. I should know this is one of my favorite games, military. Thank you. Um,
00:10:53
Speaker
And I ended up getting to the end. I ended up winning that game and I'm like, I swear, I thought I was losing bad because I was not playing. Yeah. yeah yeah so that happens yeah i guaranteed victory Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Except for wingspan, which I've just stopped playing altogether about two weeks ago. So I should probably get back on that one, but, um, oh yeah, remember that game. Um, I got COVID. Um, But yeah, that's what I like. i more often So my BGA license lasts and I haven't really gotten my next year's membership, so I can't play at all. genius I won play games that other people set up, but I can't play solo games. And that's probably used to do all the time. So I haven't played ah for a couple of weeks, but the kids and I have been playing one night, autumnal well off at dinner time. So trying to get more family time, trying to get less screen time. So that's been a lot of fun.
00:11:52
Speaker
But I'm looking, I might have to get some of the others because they're a bit, you know, over being the seer all the time or being, you know, and Hugo's hilarious. Cause like he'll play with me, my five year old, and he looks at the card and it's like the werewolf and he'll be like, Oh, and I'm like, dude, I don't think you get this. Or Liam will throw a face, like a ah silly like closed eyes face like this. Like, like, you know, So the people last, so he knows who they are when they open their eyes. Yeah. See people like that who don't know how to really play games. They just want to ruin it for everyone. Whenever we play any kind of social deduction game in our house, which is not very often, but when we do, we have these ridiculous rules on what to do when it's nighttime.
00:12:37
Speaker
And they all involve one hand so that the second hand can do whatever it needs to do without stopping. So you're like, well, we'll tap on the table with one hand, not two, because someone might hear that you're not tapping with one hand or the other. And, um, obviously your eyes are closed, but it's, it's, it's so, you can't talk, you can't do anything else because someone will tell a story and then they'll stop telling the story. They want to go, oh, you're awake. Are you? Cause you're not talking. It's just, it's become this ridiculous, the way to out metagame it has been literally just tap, tap. So yes, it probably takes a bit of the fun out, but yeah, necessary evil. Absolutely. One night I had a bit of a resurgence in their house as well. I think maybe, maybe that's where you got it from. My kids were playing. It affected your kids. Yeah, I don't know. They just try to pull anything off the shelf. Like I tried to get them to do junk art and Liam just kept rocking the table.
00:13:30
Speaker
So again, you can't play with people who aren't gamers because he just wants to ruin it for everybody. Um, but we did get in some games of Rapido. You write their day. Um, we got in some games of Rapido and that was really good. Um, fun, but again, Hugo didn't, you know, they didn't really give Hugo enough time to learn them, but, but we had some good stuff come out. He tried really hard. He made a window and stuff. It was good. I had minute work out in my table the other day with the kids and. again, that's one, you can't actually block the table. Otherwise it wrecks the entire game. So I was thinking, but we we sort
Discovering New Games and Experiences
00:14:07
Speaker
of left it set up and went and did other things. And about half an hour later, I heard my son go, ah Oh, what what happened? It's like, uh, the dog just ate one of the pieces. Oh my gosh. So we're chasing the dog. She took on a little man and she yes swallowed it. It's gone.
00:14:27
Speaker
It'll come back. yeah I don't want it back. So yeah, my men at work copy is one man short. I love that. It does seem to be a surplus of men in the men at work box, so you should be fine. Yeah, it's still useful. Yeah. We had a cracking Saturday, week before last, Helen invited a couple of her work colleagues over and they were like, you know, that typical, oh yeah, we we don't mind board games and with, you know, we play Cards Against Humanity, we play you know, uh, phased hand, that sort of stuff. And so they were like, Oh, well, yeah, teach us something, just not something too hard or whatever else. And I pulled out a game that I picked up when I was overseas called noobs in space. Have any of you guys heard of noobs in space? It's fantastic. I've played it now. So I won't play it again because it's kind of like a one and done kind of thing. But
00:15:23
Speaker
It's this game where it starts when you've got a deck of cards and you yeah and it's it's got these five green cards. There are no rules. You literally pick up the card and read the card, and then it will walk you through how to play the game. It'll walk you through what you're trying to do. And essentially what you are is you're a bunch of pretty average people who are now in the space program because it's like 28, 38, and everyone's in the space program. So it literally says that you are one of those people who went to uni and was like, seize mean degrees. You know, that's that sort of person. You didn't strive to do big to excel. You just just coasted through kind of person.
00:16:00
Speaker
So you now what you're trying to do is pass your exams so you can go to space. So you've got to do all these, you've got to do all these little like mini games together on the table while also being the people who hold all the rules and the and out the guidelines. It's a little bit like one of those bomb squad kind of games where you're trying to cut the right wire sort of thing. But it's more than that because you're like you'll read a card and it'll say, ah for the yeah for this task, ah we need to align all of these numbers in an order, only the odd numbers, for example. And then someone else on a card two turns later will say, April Fool's, it was supposed to be the Evens card or whatever else. But you've got to be able to
00:16:41
Speaker
So many times you're like oh, I think we've got it because you have all these like these five little mini games going and then you check it against The solution and if it's correct you score so many stars and it's incorrect to score less stars or whatever else and I swear I think went for eight rounds, but after every round we're like we've nailed it This is we've definitely got it right and then you look at the thing you go. Oh No um that one's wrong and that one's wrong. And then you go back and try and figure out what you stuffed up and someone goes, Oh shit, we're only supposed to find one spaceship. Like you've read the cards, but everything has been forgotten. And it's just, it was so good. Each, each task, each round went for like 15 minutes and you are timed. So the faster you do it, the better you get, um,
00:17:26
Speaker
the better stars you get, but, uh, and if you, if you think you don't get wrong, you get a penalty. So you, you're trying to get it in the smallest amount of time, but, um, yeah. So generally each round went for about 15 minutes. We actually went through the entire thing, played it from start to finish. Uh, everyone loved it. No one had like, there was no real board gamers amongst them. It could have been played with anybody. It doesn't like it just, it was so well done how you just learned by flipping the cards over. And, um, there's callbacks to earlier rounds and later rounds and, It was it was just awesome. So we had that going on one table and then Raphael was teaching one of the couple that came. They had a younger daughter.
00:18:02
Speaker
So Raphael's got Rhino Hero Super Battle up going on the other table. So every now and then we'd stop and see this huge giant tower that they're building and that had crashed down. And then they got out ice cool and they'll flicking penguins around everywhere. And I'm like, what an awesome day. It's just that sort of out of nothing. It was fantastic. So yeah, noobs in space is an absolute recommend. I hope they bring out more in the series so we can try to get, it's like 15 bucks too. It's like cheap as chips. Nice. With those two kid games you just mentioned, are are they ones that kids can play without an adult? yeah You know what I mean? Because then they can figure it out on their own. To an extent. um There are rules, but they're loose. like You could just have fun building, ah essentially, a yeah ah house of cards with Rite of Hero, or you can put a few rooms together and flick penguins around.
00:18:51
Speaker
and make up your own rules. Raph showed her how to play, but that's only because he's played it a few times. You could easily, you could have a lot of fun irrespective of the rules. Yeah. And my guys have played a bit of Rhino here. We got that as well. It's not like there, there is rules that make it a game that adults can vaguely enjoy, but otherwise you just build a tower and knock it over and yeah. and on Yeah. I'm looking for more and more activities for the kids to do on school holidays. Again, just trying to reduce that screen time. So always keen for ideas of games that, you know, for that eight to 10 age group that I don't have to sit and walk them through all the time. Yeah. And there was definitely, a Raphael definitely enjoyed the idea of being the teacher.
00:19:41
Speaker
He's done that in the past, but he teaches games so that he wins them. yeah and This was the first time he's kind of taught a game to somebody with the intention of them knowing the game rather than him dominating the game. So that was good. ah Good to see. Love that. In that vein though, Helen, one that's always sort of regularly coming ah out as something for us to play with the kids, which is really easy space base. like gameplay space base really simply where you just roll the dice and you get points and it's not it's not super deep or complex it can be if you wanted to play it that way but there's it's really simple to play with the kids yeah okay awesome and then if you just skip those cards with the arrows and stuff like that on there too like just just take them out and then you can just it's just points coins and
00:20:31
Speaker
planets. Yeah. The charging ones, like they're a bit complex as well. So yeah, yeah you just thin the deck out a bit and you've got ah an awesome, you know, eight year old game. Yeah. Perfect. Awesome. Yeah. I don't know how Catan would go with kids. Well, I suggested space base to someone who has only ever played Catan before because although they are very different games, they do share that mechanism of making sure you do things with the more regularly rolled dice. Like it has some crossover. And I thought, well, that's an interesting way to go, okay, if you've only ever played guitar, here is a jump into the hobby that is not just the next civilization building game, you know, like gain resources and build things game. It's a bit different. And it might make people go, oh, okay, this is, I can see what else is there out there. It's like this. And there's no nastiness in space space really. like
00:21:27
Speaker
If you take up that one card. That one card, yeah. That can screw with people. Whereas with Catan, you can play it pretty mean. Like you move the robber around or you can, you know, play the cards that take other people's cards. Like it can be a bit rough, but yeah, it's, um, I don't know. Like we actually had a game of Catan not that long ago and it's fine. It was always fine. I don't think for me playing it a few times or getting into the hobby, it was fine. but it was never enjoyable. But there is people out there swear by, I saw they had the but Brisbane championships last weekend and there's 64 players and they sat there and they played all day. They played five games each and like, couldn't imagine anything worse. There's a junior version of Katana. Has anyone ever played that one? No, I've got it if you want it. I might borrow it from you.
00:22:26
Speaker
Well, it says it's for six to nine, so that might work. We had a friend in Konkari who she only played Katarn and when she came over to play board games with me once, she looked at my collection and she's like, you don't have Katarn. I'm like, yeah, not anymore. And she's like, how can you call yourself a board gamer and not have Katarn? I'm like, because I don't like it. I'm sorry, that's just I don't have much else to go on. It's like you say, DG, it's fine, but I'll never actively source it out. But it's, yeah, I mean, you can't deny it. It's, it's got to be the most popular modern board game, right? It's like the hobbyist monopoly, isn't it? You know, it's that base game everybody has normally. I don't have it either. I played it twice. I didn't mind it.
00:23:14
Speaker
I don't remember enough of it. It didn't sit as going, oh, this is, I want to play this every weekend, which like you say, people do, which is interesting. But I don't feel that way about any game. There's no game that I would want to play on a weekly basis.
Board Game Favorites and Classics
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah. Tell us about Gloomhaven, G Money. What about Gloomhaven? We've been basis for five years. It's the greatest thing that's ever been created by humans other than Jaylen.
00:23:45
Speaker
who's going to be available again soon. He's becoming a wicked fitter in the Gloomhaven box. I don't think one part of it wouldn't fit in the box and I'll leave that up to you. So Greg, it's Samuel and the time where does Frosthaven sit for you then? I think Frosthaven You can roll it into Gloom Haven, like you can just roll it into the whole thing. I think Frost Haven's a better version of Gloom Haven. Everything they did was better. Okay. But that's not to say it's not, that's not to say it's perfect. Is there anything? No, maybe. You walked into that one, Helen. if that There's all that Affleck stank all over there, but that'll take time to
00:24:38
Speaker
Washed away, but it'll be all right.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yeah, ble my kids pretty fucking special. On my TV, the photos from our US trip just rotate whenever it goes, like whenever it's been sitting on for a while and it's a screensaver. And every now and again, the photo of me touching JLo's ass in the Madame Tussauds photo comes up and they're like, what are you doing, dad? I'm like, I took that for somebody It's really hard to explain. and It just is what it is. Can we move on? Maybe delete it out of the rotation. Or just it should explain itself. like What else would you do? Look harder. You'll get it. Talk to me when you're older, boy.
00:25:22
Speaker
Actually, it's funny the lip log. I'm just off board games while we're we're clearly not on them currently. My daughter just finished up in a theater production of The Ladybirds. And I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Ladybirds, but it's, anyway, i I won't go into the story, but at one point, it's it's like an adult um play. it's not It wasn't a school production. It was with a theater company. And she played this sort of like the ah un the the the little the young girl, like the teenage girl who's joined this group of actors who's just oblivious. And um at one point they're talking about lesbians because they're doing a show about two women getting married and we're all there. So we've taken Raphael and Sebastian along to watch it. And one of her lines is, oh, my dad likes lesbians.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah. He downloads pictures of them off the internet and prints them out. And Raphael has just given me the death eyes from his seat, like, Oh, Dan, not me. Don't even have a printer.
00:26:28
Speaker
so i comment for minute Um, yeah. So how how old's your daughter? She's six 15. So I did, um, musical theatre growing up my whole life. So we did pantomimes and stuff. And we had, I was doing this production, I would have been like 12. And we were doing a production of Little Red Riding Hood and we had these muck up nights. So we'd get through the run and you know, you worked really hard. And so we'd have this muck up night where everybody was just said the most inappropriate thing in in space of their lines. And it was just like, I should not have been in that room. The amount of things that was said and done. It was just hilarious. But it's always stuck with me.
00:27:07
Speaker
nothing better than community theater. I love it. Yeah. It was funny. Um, it was actually good. It was, I gotta say that like, it shouldn't have been, but when you go to enough children's like school plays, you're not particularly hopeful, but it was, it was really funny. And we're like, oh, cool. And even Helen was Helen up to the director and she's like, I was really surprised that it was good. And I'm like, Helen, what are you saying?
Epic Gaming Sessions and Unique Challenges
00:27:30
Speaker
You don't say that to the director, but anyway, it was, it was, you know, Yeah, I didn't even need to play BGA or throughout it. It was fun. Get me entertained. Just to tie it back to board games. Yeah, I was gonna building on that. Talking about BGA, we didn't actually talk about our eventful night that we had the other night.
00:27:52
Speaker
ah The craziest, most full on BGA session I've ever had in my life. I love that. It's so much fun. How'd you go, G? buty You seem to be enjoying it slightly less. yeah
00:28:15
Speaker
It was madness, right? I did enjoy the part where someone had a break and they started another game and then everyone was like, if you have a break of games, you start another game. There's never a break. You're just, I don't ever want to see the homepage of BGA ever again. It's just next table. It came about by, I think I was a bit late and you guys had started up a game, but you weren't turn-based. so that you weren't waiting for me. And then by the time I came along, there was like three games going. And then, yeah, the rule came in. If you ever saw the home screen, you had to start a new game. So what did we end up with something like 14 games going at the same time? i Somewhere in there, I won a game of PAX for me. I remember that. That's true. We played the whole game of PAX for the year, dude, but I used to eat a bit at an hour. I got super angry at that. I was like, this is fortunate.
00:29:10
Speaker
statement Yeah, honestly, i think he more for my victory the united right away yeah yes i was picking cut I was picking cards based on the art. oh my god that's a look so nice card and the just one game was so shit like I i could not get a single thing was on that window in between the based on the art. I was picking cards based on the art.
00:29:43
Speaker
no you said the word in the discord so i must have been right even though you type something completely different so who won the night who won the most games since i wasn't playing oh bga won Yeah, I don't even know if he can count any of those games. And then the ill-fated Ark Nova game where I set it up and some other guy jumped in the game. And I'm like, I said, do that button where you say, you know, everyone pulls out of the game and no one loses any rep or whatever. I can't remember what it's called. I'm friendly abandoned or something. And he's like, no.
00:30:26
Speaker
And I'm like, dude, we haven't even started yet. We clearly don't want you here. He's like, oh no, we're playing this to completion now. And I will use all 48 hours per turn my turn. I will let it go all the way down the second. ha But yeah, it was what, two and a half hours, maybe three hours nearly. Yeah, that's how we called it. I can't even to remember what we played. We played A space. Yep, there's a space base. There's an arc there. We a whole game of ticket to ride. We played a whole game of space base. We played whole a whole game of arc nova. And game we didn't finish pass from here. Tapestry, there's two tapestries. We have a tariff on Mars going too. Yeah, we did. yeah And just one, which is good.
00:31:16
Speaker
and yeah So many games. Definitely something to do again. I would do it again. in haarkanna we played rest i yeah You'll have to join in next time, Helen. It was insane. yeah It sounds amazing, but you'll play all these games that I don't know how to play. No, that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You win. I literally won packs for me having no idea what I was doing. like actually You're actually doing it right. That's the, that's the correct way to do it. Don't think. happy you can have other to like yeah The job is to click as fast as possible. Nice.
00:31:54
Speaker
And the funny thing was is that you only ever see a new game started once you got back to the home screen. So I can't remember what game I started. I think I might've started just one. And ah about seven minutes later, D.G. goes, oh, we started at just one table because he's finally gotten back to the home screen. Had so many turns since then. like yeah I'd forgotten about it. Was there any game that you guys played that you hadn't played before or that you really liked?
00:32:25
Speaker
Well, I technically, I have played packs for me before, but not really. It was very seven minute game. So that, but I wouldn't say I don't know any more about it now than what I did. And I have no idea what's happening in tracking the world. I'm literally done. I figured as much. I thought you guys knew what you're doing because someone was down at Kruger and I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, I won't bother chasing that then. And then you left without. taking the Kruger card. I'm like, Oh, Oh, no one knows what they're doing. It says take to take a journey or do something else. And I don't know how to do anything but take cards. How do you cook anything else except take cards? It's actually, it's actually a bit ticket to write is that game. So the idea is if you, you have to move, if you've got cards, you have to move at the start of your turn. And then if you end up in an area,
00:33:16
Speaker
where there's one of the journey cards and you have the cards in your hand to meet the requirements of the card, you discard those cards and you take the journey card. And that's where you get all your victory points from. Otherwise you're just taking cards. Like you're not doing anything else. I'll book so many cards. I'm getting cubes. Cubes are good. Cubes are good. So like, that's like a majority thing. Whoever's got the most of each color gets victory points at the end of the game for having the most of each color. And the more of each color you get.
00:33:47
Speaker
No, that's good too because I think it's like three, five, 10 and 13 points for one, two, three or four of each. So you'll get multiple points there. But yes, it looks like I am the only person doing journeys. in the game. Shane's on zero, so he's clearly just taking cards. I was like jealous of how many cards he took. I was like, how do I get on this? How do I get in on this taking cards stuff? Yeah. And I think that's where the tapestry thing came about, G-Money, because you were just clicking buttons on that as early as it was going. Yeah. I don't know what to do in Distilled. I've never played it. Like, try to piece it together as I go. Yeah.
00:34:26
Speaker
Trying to get sorghum. Don't know how to get sorghum. Sorghum. I just bought some sorghum. Hey, how'd you get that sorghum? It was in the second row. Oh, do you need your special item that's sorghum? Is that what you're saying? I think the third one, like the one at the bottom, that's your specialized liquor needs some. So I just got to wait to see if I can find it. Okay. Well, that'd be, if it's your special ingredient, you have to like, there'll be an option to claim your special ingredient when you sell a drink. So yeah, look for that. There'll be an option to claim your special ingredient and then you'll have your sorghum. Maybe. I would like to learn how to play. It looks like a great game though. Yeah, well, I'm also failing hard in it too. So I'd probably get DG maybe to go over that one. You teach DG? No, I don't know. I can't remember. I played, I got taught once by Pastor Nick like two years ago. Helen, can you teach us how to play distilled? I absolutely can.
00:35:25
Speaker
Let me learn and then I'll teach you. Yep. Great. Why don't we just, why don't we waste each talking to each other? We just go straight to the source. like ah she just beat us and then she will feel bad yeah Alcoholic right here. I mean, I'm sure I can still some stuff for you. I would like to do a weekend. no and i don't drink Well, I reckon we do a weekend. I mentioned this on the board game cruise that, um, They suggested larping it after the game. So you make the drinks that you made in the game and drink them after the game, which could be interesting. We might have to buy some interesting bottles of like, um, what's like all the Japanese ones that you make in the game or depending on which regions you choose from. There's like many different drinks that I've never heard of. although I'm not a big alko. So here's a common, here's a fun one for you. Distilled means to heat a liquid until it changes to a gas and then to make it a liquid again by cooling it.
00:36:21
Speaker
Now we know. But speaking about drinks, I was telling Dave, you need to have jelly donuts, but on ice. So they're a shot, but you can have them just as a drink. And it's chambord, a shot of chambord with a shot of Baileys. Bloody delicious. Have it over ice. It's delicious. It's really yummy. Tastes like, literally tastes like you're eating a jam donut. There you go. Dangerous. It is.
00:36:50
Speaker
Good drink. Yeah. Well, good derailing there, Helen. We're... I know. I didn't start the conversation. We're running, Holt. Well, the the only other board game thing related issue I've got to talk about is Blood Bowl, because we started at Blood Bowl League as well. We had our first gaming session last Saturday. And
Blood Bowl League and Competitive Play
00:37:13
Speaker
so there'd be a you know few people that are friends of the podcast that were in it. And it's, you know, Andy, Lucky Phil and Troy and Luke and me and G money, a few other people, but it's just a mess. Like we, we had five games planned. Haig never showed up because he was still coming back from Iceland or something. He's he's also a spy. I'm pretty sure. Yeah.
00:37:39
Speaker
So only four games got played and of the four, there was just a massive wide variety of results. I think Lucky Phil was exceedingly unlucky in like the first 30 seconds of the game and basically killed him. Um, but yeah, I'm pretty sure everyone enjoyed themselves. I think the winner on the day was gaming. I don't know that anybody walked out going, I can't do this for the next nine sessions that I've already committed to. so But it's, um, it's it's fine it's exactly what i remember having played it 10 years ago but it's it's a reasonable approximation of a sport game Steve i think if you're if you're got a real bit of a hankering and you can have a look at a version of it that doesn't require you actually spending money on miniatures and painting shit then it's worth a go
00:38:28
Speaker
We downloaded it. Um, and then I took raft down to the local gaming store here, which does mostly war hammer stuff. And they have the physical game down there. So I sort of gave it to him and had to look at it and have a look at it. I'm like, we can go home and learn this on the PlayStation if you want. Like I'm not going to go and spend $200 on this game unless we know that we love it. And it's free on the PlayStation. So we'll probably go through it together and try and learn it, um, give it a go. But I feel like I need to try it. It seems to. be a bit of a my wheelhouse kind of game. So um yeah yeah, it probably it's a bit like Thunder Road, I think with like just random crazy shit that happens that you can vaguely shape in a direction, but something that will just completely derail you and you know, your whole turns over your whole game's over. It doesn't matter what you do. Does it go for very long like each game?
00:39:21
Speaker
It depends. I think if you're and playing a full game on the tabletop, it's probably two, two and a half hours on the PlayStation, maybe 40 minutes. OK. But in terms of your hope of victory, it can last about six seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like me and my first game of Pipeline. You hope.
00:39:46
Speaker
Hey, weren't we earlier talking about games that you're like, oh, why did I come to this game night? Yeah. five blood So, no, pipeline's amazing. Yeah. It's one of the greatest things ever done, but it makes you hate yourself and everybody else in the six meters around you. The burning passion and then immediately do it again. Yeah. I'm very keen for it to come on a BGA. Yeah. It's almost here. Yeah. Oh, that's going to be something. See, I'd play it that way, I reckon.
00:40:19
Speaker
I go back to that night at Aspley. That was one of my favourite moments between you two, where Dave's come over, swearing, he said, I fucking hate this game. It's fucking shit. I'm like, oh, what are you going to do now? I'm going to play it again. Just set it straight back up. Because for ages, you and I got exactly the same scores every time we played at DG. Yeah. I think it was about five beans in a row. Yeah. We just kept getting, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing wrong or right. We change up the goals, and we change up the objectives. That's me in wingspan, hey. Like, I guarantee whenever this game of wingspan finishes, I'll score between 85 and 95. Pretty much every game I've ever played of wingspan, I've scored between 85 and 95. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, it doesn't matter. I fall within that 10 point radius every single time.
High-Level Strategies and Game Dynamics
00:41:09
Speaker
In fairness, I feel like that game does fall within that radius. Well, that's good to know because I just kind of like, I don't, it's almost like,
00:41:17
Speaker
In spite of myself, sometimes I'll be like, all right, I'll i try this then. No, 87. I'll totally avoid that next time. 91. It just seems to keep happening. Well played. Well, you're one of me. i ah G-Money and I had a few conversations about this, but I played a game of barrage the other day. I think I was telling you but against the the guy who had like the highest ELO I've ever seen, like 700 or something. so The game finished. Now, Barrage, good winning score on Barrage, maybe 100, 120. Like I've seen a few, 140s, 150s of massive score. So I got 90, which I was relatively happy with. go I got 203, I think it was. But like such a demolishing victory. G-Money actually went back and watched the game to see how he got to that point. It is an unheard of score for that game.
00:42:11
Speaker
Yeah. When I watched it, I was equally horrified and aroused.
00:42:17
Speaker
It's, it's an insane roller coaster journey that guy played that game. yeah It is just everything. It'd be like getting 200 points in ticket to ride. I'd imagine like it just, it can't happen. It shouldn't happen. And then it did. That's a funny game, Barrage. hey like We played that game the other week where GMoney won and I came second. And I feel like I played the perfect game at Barrage. And now we're playing another one. And I just feel like I can't do anything right. Like I am just stuck. I'm just in ah in ah and a funk where I'm like, one day, sometime between now and around five, I'll pump some water, I'm sure, at some point. Hasn't happened yet, but I'll give it a crack.
00:42:59
Speaker
yeah I don't know how you play games like that consistently well. that You need to know so much about it to be able to play it consistently really well.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah. And somebody, it wasn't me and it wasn't you, Steve. Somebody started up another Big Shoulders game. Yeah, I noticed that. Been a while. That's good. and there was There was a run for a while there. so I think there was a request to end the run as well. It may have come from me. I apologize. I'm enjoying it again. What happened? Oh, Deacon kept winning. No, it's it's just, it was kind of like, I forgot what games had started and finished because it was like the minute a game finished, another one started up again. I'm like, hang on, which company am I again? Am I, so what am I doing? Why have I gone back on the Star Trek? Yeah. It got to be, could have been much. Yeah. They all blew it together. I'm a delicate soul. Do you have money? like I can't take too much. Like, you know,
00:44:01
Speaker
Who said Shane set that up, didn't he? Classic Shane. Yeah, must've. I took BBC immediately just so DG couldn't have it. So you have to win with pigs instead of BBC for a change. I did my usual thing of just picking a company because, and then going, oh crap, I chose the same company that someone else has. And it's you, BBC. So yeah, I'm going to be losing because I'm in competition with. No, that's good. It's good. Cause I only sell like two or three goods. So we might be able to make it work.
00:44:33
Speaker
I'll tell you, I i got Return the Dark Tower to the table last weekend again. It's been a while but and I, geez, that game is so good. It is, it's a really solid design. It's, you forget that the designers are Isaac Childress and Rob Davio. So it's like, that that its it's not nobody. It's the guy who made Gloomhaven and the guy who does all of the legacy games. So it was so much fun. I've been thinking about it all week because Raf and I played and it was rest at that age now where it's not just, oh, maybe I can get him into this game. It's like, he'll figure it out. um
00:45:13
Speaker
And we the first game we played, we barely lost. It was right on the cusp, but we we we ended up losing. And then we we played a second game straight away. And I was just getting my ass handed to me all game while he is just out there dominating everything. And I was just like, you are carrying us to victory. There was one point where i was like trying to I was trying to do all the missions, because every time I did a mission, I could kill something on the board. um but there wasn't enough missions to kill all of the wolves. There was, there was eight wolves out on the table. And, um, then this, um, event happened and it was like, all of the wolves come directly into your space. So I had eight wolves attack me all at once. like This is not going well. it's just I don't think we're going to win this. And then, and Raph's like, well, hang on.
00:46:02
Speaker
I think I can win it this turn. Are you serious? I am like on my last legs. And he's like, yeah, I think I think I can do this. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Yep. We won. I'm like, all right. Okay. I secede. You are the king. You can, you can choose the next game. Uh, it was, it's really, I don't know if neither of you guys have played it, right? None of you guys played it? So it's an app driven game, but it's, um, the app, all the time The only thing the app interacts with is at the end of each round, you drop a skull into the tower and then potentially events will happen and potentially they won't. Maybe the month will end. Each month there's an amount of turns, but you don't know how many turns there are. So you kind of keep trying to get as much as you can done before the month ends. and
00:46:47
Speaker
Each month you'll get a new, you'll get two new quests that you can go after. It's got like dungeon um exploration where you can, sometimes one of the quests will be to go into a dungeon and find something and you've got to like spend warriors and all that to try and find your way through, but you don't know what you'll need until you go in. And then if you go back later, what you've discovered is still discovered. So you can start again further down. it's It's just, it's like, it's got so many things that if you played Gloomhaven or if you've played i don't know, like Cthulhu Death May Dies, another one we play a lot. it's You can feel it's got all those kind of similar engines that you're you're sort of running with. ah hi It's not just a gimmick. The gimmick is awesome. The big huge tower in the middle that roars and spins and does all that, but the the actual gameplay is solid and and the app just makes it
00:47:39
Speaker
Like it's like, Jim, any, when you play, um, boom haven, like the physical version of frost haven, do you use the app to keep track of everything or do you just do fully natural? No, I just do it in my head. That's insane. after i use I use the app, like I use the tracker app to keep track of things like where the what monsters images and all that sort of stuff. that It's like it does all that, but it's all sort of built in. So you just worry about, okay, I'm going to attack this beast. um and Even the attacking system is it's very gloom-haveny like yeah yeah, okay I'm gonna attack this beast and it's a level four so It brings up eight cards and you have to choose four of them and then you have to respond to what the card said So it's not like you can go in there with a hundred warriors, but it's my you need six spirit to defeat this card and You're like, oh shit. I've got no spirit. All right. I'm gonna have to take a corruption and I'm and I'm screwed
00:48:33
Speaker
So you kind of got to be well rounded so when you go in there, because you don't know what you're going to be faced with, you'd be able to cover everything off. I just want to play it again and again at the moment. So I recommend if you can find someone with a copy. bring it out. The games don't take particularly long. Like there's six months yeah um is the, like in each month on average, I'd say about six or seven turns. And the first month there's only two turns. So oh one turn per player. And then after that, it's like, yeah, six or seven turns per month. So it it runs probably about an hour to 90 minutes. Yeah. but Sounds good. I'd love to play it one day.
Conclusion: Reflections on Tapestry and Future Plans
00:49:13
Speaker
Yeah, same. It's one of those rare ones, I think, that
00:49:18
Speaker
fell through the cracks on all of our local group, nobody that we know sort of picked it up above yet. I remember when I backed it, it was the most I've ever spent on a Kickstarter. And I didn't play it for so long. And I'm like, I really need to play this. i Like I played it before the weekend, but like it took me a while while to get it to the table. And I'm like, I can't have spent all of this money and not at least tried it. And I was so happy. I think I played it with Sean Cody um back in Springfield when I lived there. and I was just like, oh, this is it. This is what I wanted it to be. I'm so happy. I enjoy it. And um ah I think it's, I feel like I enjoyed even more now after playing it a bit more. So yes.
00:50:01
Speaker
So, uh, Steve, do you want to talk about your, um, BGA games that you're organizing with the group? I think ah it's said this weekend that's coming up. Oh yeah. Um, Friday. So, um, yeah, I, I like being part of the Brisbane board gaming community, and it's I kind of feel like an imposter because I don't live in Brisbane. um so um But I'm enjoying BGA, and I really enjoyed what we did last weekend. and I'm not going to do that again as the premise. But I thought, well, maybe I can schedule a game night, because you guys have plenty of game nights down there, but a game night on the North Brisbane Board Gamers Guild, or whatever it's called, the board game in Australia.
00:50:40
Speaker
um Discord channel so you can join in on Friday at 7 30 pm and we'll just regularly every week run through either depending on the numbers we'll have a few different tables going or ah just one depending on what we play and set it up like a normal game night like after a while if someone wants to play a particular game they can request it and other people can say yeah I'll jump on that table or someone can say hey I'm happy to teach a Feast for Odin so people can jump on and learn how to play Feast for Odin with someone actually talking to them rather than just click and hope Which is definitely a better way to learn Feast for Odin. Clicking and opening does not work. So yeah, that's kind of the idea. So got a fa I just threw it up on the Facebook page and got a fair bit of interest. So I've set it all up. Shane set me up with the channel on the on the Discord and we've got a like a sign up thing on there at the moment. I haven't checked today, but I think there's about five or six people currently signed up for it this Friday. So but of course this podcast will be coming out after this Friday. So whatever Friday it's going to be a regular thing. so
00:51:40
Speaker
If you're hearing this now, it should be there. It should be there on Friday. So come along and have some fun, and we'll just see how it goes. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, oh well, but hopefully it will. Yeah, nice. I think that's a pretty good note to end on. What do you reckon? Sounds good to me. Yep. Cool. Fin. Finny, yeah. Thank you much, Lee.
00:52:10
Speaker
Yeah. And thanks for coming in late, Helen. It was, um, it's good to see you. I'm glad yeah you brought, definitely brought some tone to this evening that we didn't have otherwise. I'm so sorry guys. Honestly, I got into, I ended up cleaning both my girls bedrooms because they didn't want to sleep in the same room and it was this whole drama. I don't have to apologize i just completely forgot. I actually really enjoyed just breaking down tapestry for 20 minutes. Yeah. and We should do that sometime. Like what's a game that we all know that we can just all Yeah. I don't know. Just seemed, just seemed fun. i was Yeah,
00:52:44
Speaker
yeah well i for the five minutes that helen smi didn't work yeah yeah yeah you might need to piece some bits together. Well, speaking of which, I have a question that we didn't cover just on that. Someone who's played tapestry a lot more than I have can answer. Do you find this, am I wrong in thinking there's synergies between tech and science and then military and exploration? So like if you do military, you should do exploration as well. And if you do tech, you should do science as well. I've never found that. I think because with science, it it so dictates where you end up going, right? Because it gives you the free dice rolls. So it kind of pushes you along.
00:53:25
Speaker
Um, it also depends on what you end up getting too. Do you know what I mean? As your, you know, yeah as your food and stuff, are you getting mushrooms? out You know, and that really helps dictate as well. I think it's just about what you're trying to achieve. So like the game we just played, I was going very heavily for, I just wanted to fill my map up. There was no benefit. There was no reason for it. My car didn't say to do that. I was just like, I felt like going for building. So. I just went, well, no, I will be to other people on this track. So that's the one I'll go on. So you kind of get pushed based off where other people choose to go. Cause you don't want to spend the whole game following someone else through a chat channel. Yeah. i getting any of those back things or anything yeah
00:54:09
Speaker
um I definitely have seen ah people put people play it a lot better than I do because they're able to get really, really good starting cards. You know, in the, and this is where I'm not technical and so I apologize. I'm a bit too low at the moment. Dave, what are the cards you get at the start called? The civilizations. civilization So people can, you can get such good civilizations that can really just win you the game straight out. Right. Um, you know, or if you get a shitty one, you should maybe go, well, I'm going to go military. Cause that's going to give me a new one at the end of the track. You know, it just depends what you're really after.
00:54:47
Speaker
But, um, but yeah, I think to your point, Steve, you have to do exploration if you want to do military, but not the other way around. You can just do exploration by itself, but you can't do military because I did military in silence. Science didn't get a question at all. You need a couple of spaces to be able to get out. Otherwise you just do your three around your base and then you're done. Oh, I see what you're saying and resources and stuff. See for me, what the what happened for me is somebody else linked to me. So I then went through their, like, so I didn't actually explore ever, ever, but I was able to, someone else explored far enough to catch up to me. And then I was able to snake through their realm, if you like.
00:55:32
Speaker
So I agree. Yeah, you're right. You can't do military if you don't have anywhere to go or if you're trying to get to the center. Um, but yeah, some, some civil civilizations will definitely cater more to saying, Hey, do military or, or even, even your tapestry cards, you know, they can really dictate where you should go as well. Yeah. I got one cause I got the tech, the tech, um, I think one of they the inventors, I think last time where you could go and put a cube on someone else's tech. And then you bring it to your own board after you've done that. So I had those people and then so I had heaps of tech. And then I got a tapestry card that says, you cannot progress up the tech track this round. I'm like, oh, I'm not playing that. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And whereas I had tech that I just never
00:56:19
Speaker
I had a building and I never was able to build it because I, nobody got that square free for me ah to, for me to advance it. So, i and I didn't even think about it, you know? So that's what I was saying. I wasn't playing particularly well. I felt like I was the first to put my cards down the first, but I ended up, yeah, somehow winning. I don't understand what happened there.
00:56:44
Speaker
Karma. Well, that's the team. It's just science at this point, isn't it? Like, you have to win.
00:56:55
Speaker
I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but um I played a game once where a guy was like in the comments going, bug, bug. Um, I should have, I should have 10 civilizations, but the app is only letting me have yeah nine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just like, dude, what? yeah like did I don't think the game is designed for you to have 10 civilizations, even though technically maybe maybe all the other ones are gone and that's why you can't have more. That's what I mean. I've never seen, like that's insane. Like that's insane. Well, you know, we bookended with Tapestry this evening, so. Yeah. I look forward to the episode where we just speak the whole time talking about Monopoly.
00:57:41
Speaker
You know, what's the tone? You might be doing that at third by yourself, I think, Alan. I'm so joking. I hate that game. My kids love having a monopoly on it. My kids played it and they're like, I love this game. Can we take Monopoly? I'm like, what do you mean? What? Why? Why? There's nothing enjoyable about it. But I think I just divvied out. once they were allowed to, I think we just, I divvied them out and we're like, these are the ones you're allowed to buy based off the ones you got divvied out. So when when you're asking your kids to um like play games at home, Helen, and you've got all the games out that they can play. Have you just got like like a homage to the OC? Like you've got OC in the middle and all the other games around the outside. Like you should choose this one.
00:58:30
Speaker
I am looking forward to them getting to 14 so we can watch it and then they'll want to play the games. I'll have to buy a DVD player because they are CD based
00:58:45
Speaker
um Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me, I don't know if you've seen much of the Brothers Murph on YouTube, but um they've got this yeah collection of games and they're always culling games because they're going to heap the games and they try to keep the collection a bit tight. But one of the games they refuse to get rid of is the Justin Bieber experience. Nice. Just when you, the, your OC game kind of reminds me of their Justin Bieber experience game. They'll never get rid of. Yeah. And just so you guys know, Trekking the World is a 10 plus, so you really should have been able to figure out how it works. Jesus. where a Way to stab that dagger in right at the end. I was looking up family. This is fucking morons. This is why I always win, you bitches. yeah Get good scrubs. yeah