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Episode 1: Welcome to the Table
115 Plays1 year ago
The new Board Members are welcomed to the Table in this, our first episode. Josh, Andrew, Heather and Drew talk about what drew them into board gaming and games we have enjoyed in the past.
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Transcript
New Podcast Identity and Hosts
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Corner Game Table, a podcast about board games, the people who play them, and the amazing experiences that are just waiting to be had when you sit down with other people around a game table. The group has assembled at the best table in the house and we've been saving a seat just for you. I'm your co-host Josh and I'm very excited today to present the podcast's new identity and structure with this, our first episode in the new format.
00:00:44
Speaker
Along with changes in the content, I'm pleased to present my three new co-hosts who have agreed to join in on our discussions about all things board gaming. Allow me to introduce my new co-hosts that are sitting around the virtual table here. I'm going to give each of them an opportunity to introduce themselves and give a little bit of background on how they got into the hobby of board gaming.
Meet Andrew from The Family Gamers
00:01:04
Speaker
First up is Andrew. How are you today, good sir? I have to go first. What's up with that? By the way, can I just say this beautiful mahogany table that you have here that we're all sitting around, it's wonderful. It is in fact solid mahogany. I know. It's fantastic, isn't it? It was brought over from the
00:01:23
Speaker
craftsmen and artisans of the finest European table makers. The finest European table makers making the finest mahogany table. I love it. I feel so special sitting around this table. I always walk into boardrooms and see long mahogany tables and wonder, how can I get a seat? And the answer is I need to know Josh. So here I am. Anyway, who am I? I am Andrew. I am a co-host of The Family
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. That was weird. I'm blaming the Scotch. Anyway, I am Andrew. I am a co-host of the Family Gamers podcast with my wife, Anitra. She's the better half of the show, I suppose. We have three kids. We've been board gaming for many, many years. And so about eight years ago, we said we should start a podcast, actually, to be honest. I said we should start a podcast. And my wife was exhausted because we had a newborn. And she said, fine, whatever.
00:02:12
Speaker
And sucker, we just released three hundred and forty six episode three forty six of our show. So we've been doing it for a while. We're having a ton of fun. And yeah, that's that's who I am. And that's what we do. You can go to the family gamers dot com. We have over 500 board game reviews looking at board games from a family perspective. Fantastic. All
Heather's Board Gaming Journey
00:02:37
Speaker
right. Well, next is our new co-host, Heather. Heather, how are you today?
00:02:41
Speaker
I'm doing great. Thank you for inviting me to the table. I'm glad to be here with all of y'all. We've been laughing so much before the show, so everybody's in for a treat. This is going to be wild.
00:02:57
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, I basically got started, I've been gaming my entire life, honestly. My siblings and I grew up gaming, so I've always enjoyed the community aspect of it. That's really what brought us all together. And it wasn't until about four years ago that I decided to kind of turn it into something a little bit and share my board gaming adventures with the world.
00:03:25
Speaker
So I created Board Gaming Mama and I started on Instagram and I just wanted to start by just taking pictures of any kind of gaming adventures I had or things just to kind of say, you know, here's what I thought of this game. And then it just kind of quickly grew and me sharing my thoughts about board games turned into companies wanting to send me games.
00:03:49
Speaker
review and then it turned into other platforms. I made sure I secured my name on other platforms ahead of time and I've quickly grown into streaming board games now and showing them off as well as my digital games that I do.
00:04:06
Speaker
Now, I'm all across on different platforms, Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube now even. That's just what it is. Basically, I'm just sharing my thoughts on all the different board games that I encounter, helping to spread word about upcoming games that are coming out, helping in any way I can.
00:04:30
Speaker
And my goal has always been just to hopefully be able to share a game that somebody will discover that they didn't know about and make it more accessible for them to learn about the games. And that way they can find their next favorite game. That's kind of always been what I wanted to do. And it's been my journey so far. That's excellent.
00:04:57
Speaker
That's the most important part, right? Like that's it. You've reached the pinnacle. You're here at the mahogany table.
Drew's Board Game Adventures
00:05:05
Speaker
And last but certainly not least is Drew. Would you share with the listeners a little bit about your start, Mahobby? Hello, hello. Thank you. Thank you for having me here. I'm very honored to be here and very much
00:05:18
Speaker
the least of the last. So there we go. Oh my goodness gracious. Here we go everybody. Oh goodness. But no, uh, again, thank you. I'm glad to be a part of this team. I'm glad to be here at this mahogany table, uh, and as well using meta going into the metaverse. So you didn't mention that part. That was the interesting part.
00:05:44
Speaker
That's right. We're all digital avatars in the new metaverse here. I can't stop being a cat. You guys see that video of that lawyer who couldn't filter off? Your honor, I am not a cat. Oh, goodness. Well, anyways, hello, everyone. My name is Drew. I am I've been a gamer for
00:06:13
Speaker
Pretty much my whole life, I didn't start taking tabletop gaming seriously until about almost 10 years ago when I had just gotten into college or probably about sophomore year of college. And so my roommates and I, we played a lot of board games. There's so many weekends that were gone just to board gaming and it was fantastic. Great memories, a lot of tables flipped. It was a wonderful thing.
00:06:43
Speaker
I picked the hobby back up. After college, I kind of stopped for a little while and I began to pick it back up somewhere around 2019. As well, about two years later in 2021, I started recording myself and creating content through that. And it was just something simple of, oh,
00:07:08
Speaker
Let me tell you about the games that I've played this past weekend, and it ended up becoming something where it just pretty much consumed about 95% of my life. So, which is a fantastic, fantastic thing to say. It really is, it really is, because there's so many more tables out there that I need to flip. But thank you so much.
00:07:36
Speaker
It's because of the content creation. It's because of, it's because of tabletop gaming that I'm able to be here, that I'm able to have these lovely conversations, interactions, uh, with all of you. And so, uh, that led me to a lot of friendships too. And so I'm very, very thankful to be here. Well, fantastic. That is the best part of it, isn't it? All the people that you get to meet and the friendships that you get to make.
00:08:03
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And for those of us with families that have been successful in actually forcing your children, I mean, encouraging your children to play games, right? Especially during the pandemic, right? Like, having your own kids. Like, I always make this joke. It's like, I couldn't find a board game group, so I grew one. That's right. I say that all the time. I'm like, I just created more gamers. I created my own gamers.
00:08:27
Speaker
People sometimes ask me, why did you have four kids? And I said, because I had to make sure I had a couple of board gamers in there. Right. Right. You never know. Like one of them is not some of my games are players four to six. I need more. I have a game in for review right now that has minimum player count three. So like I can't even play with just my wife. Like I have to get right. They have to be involved. Yeah, absolutely.
00:08:53
Speaker
I wouldn't know, but we are expecting one on the way. Yeah, congratulations on the expansion pack, man. All right, that's right. I have a serious question, Drew. What's the other 5% of your life? Sleep? Well, that is a great question. About 3% more of it is the other nerd stuff that I like.
00:09:23
Speaker
You know, my, my, my spouse. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. My wife. Yeah. My, my spouse gets, uh, yeah. She's a part of the other nerdy stuff. Driving from board game group to board game group is 2%. So that's it. That's it.
00:09:42
Speaker
and then and then about maybe about 0.5% as well as is going on to Facebook and stalking any other board gaming stores and being like hey do y'all have a good gaming group there? I'm dedicated to the research I have nothing here.
00:10:03
Speaker
Now, the problem I run into there, Drew, is that when I'm on Facebook looking at those things, I end up in the Facebook groups where people are buying and selling and trading used games. And that is it. That is a rabbit hole that I try not to go down. Right. My dude, I have five boxes of games for the next board game sale. My house. Bad news.
Heather's Board Gaming Awakening
00:10:38
Speaker
All right, so question for the table. What was the first game? And I'm going to go ahead and exclude all the kids games that we all played when we were little kids, Chutes and Ladders and Candyland and stuff. What was the first game that really made you go, what is this thing all about?
00:11:00
Speaker
I'm going to cop out and say ladies first. Oh, OK. Don't mind if I do. Get used to this, Heather. I actually do have an answer for this. So the first game that made me realize, oh, I want to see more games, was Castles of Mad King Ludwig by Bayzier Games. Excellent. Up until then, I had really only played cards against humanity.
00:11:28
Speaker
like the more mainstream stuff, like you were saying, like life, like pretty, pretty princess, mall madness. You know, like my family's a phase 10 family. We play phase 10 and Yahtzee all the time. So like those are our go to games, you know. But it wasn't until I played that when I had a friend, Jamie, who brought that over and he was a big board gamer and I just really hadn't played anything else. And he brought it over. He was like, let's have a game day.
00:11:57
Speaker
We had just moved into town where he lived and when he brought it over and showed me what it was and then it taught us the rules. We started playing. I just didn't realize that games could be more comprehensive like that. I didn't realize there could be more strategy to it in a way.
00:12:14
Speaker
And the whole idea too of like building your castle was very much like I'm a Sims fan. I love the part of Sims where you just like create the house and like create everything and like design it and set everything up. And then I'm like done. And then I just like end the game. I don't play, you know.
00:12:29
Speaker
So it was very much maintenance, right? Yeah, so it's very much the creation part of that game really appealed to me and the whole like tile lane part of it where they could fit together and you could create the rooms like so that it was very appealing and that's when I kind of realized I was like wait a second are there more games out there like this and so that's nice that kind of tickled my fancy to kind of explore
Josh's Introduction to Strategic Gaming
00:12:51
Speaker
and see what else was out there and
00:12:52
Speaker
Man, I wish my experience with Castles was that positive. That was one of those games. I had a copy, and I tried to play it three or four times. And there was just something about it that just, I don't know, man. I just couldn't get into it. And I'm not that person who says this game sucks or whatever, because I didn't like it. You know what I mean? There's a game for everybody, whatever. That's awesome. Very clearly, Bezier has been super successful with that line.
00:13:21
Speaker
You know, this is very much like it's not you, it's me kind of a problem. I just like because I mean, everything about that game conceptually appeals to me, but I just it just never came together for me. So I'm very I'm always glad when I hear that about a game that didn't click to me that it worked for other people. So that's awesome. Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, I definitely feel like there's definitely a game out there.
00:13:41
Speaker
for everyone and you might like a concept of a game and then, yeah, there's been plenty of games where I've liked the concept and then I played it and I'm like, well, I don't know if I really like this game. I was kind of disappointed because I wanted it to be more, you know, conceptually.
00:13:58
Speaker
Well, and for games with with larger player counts, too, sometimes it's the group you're playing with. You know, I've had some games where where I've played a game and it fell flat on its face and I just felt like, oh, I thought I was really going to like that. You know, and and then later I played it with a different set of people and it really it just jived, you know, and that's true, too. Yeah. Yeah. And other other games, it's like it's a season of life thing, right? Like I'll give you a perfect example. I had a copy of Twilight Struggle. Now that game.
00:14:25
Speaker
That game is legit. Has anybody here ever played Twilight Struggle for realsies? That game is awesome. But also, it took me two hours to get through the first turn of that game, the first time I played it. Because there's a lot going on. But the guy that I played this with, he was literally an American history teacher.
00:14:43
Speaker
And myself, we were like, OK, this is this is awesome. And we loved it. And it took us like five hours to play the game. Just the first time, like the second time, it took us two hours. It was fine. But like the reality of that. And it was like then he got married and had a baby and like I already had kids and it was like this game is never going to get played in my house. So I moved on from the game because I knew that that game could get loved by someone else. Right. Right. So like sometimes it's not just this particular game doesn't click for me as a person, but it's also like a period of life thing. Right.
00:15:10
Speaker
And I think you hear that a lot with people who like move on from a grail game and never regret it because they're just like it just sat on my shelf and I never played it. But now that I'm at a different period in my life, you know, I might I might play that again. So I don't know. Games are interesting in that way. And they're definitely a reflection of who you are at the time, right? Absolutely. 100 percent.
00:15:30
Speaker
I know at the time I only had one child, so we had some time to build castles. Right. Right.
Andrew's Early Gaming Experiences
00:15:39
Speaker
Josh, why don't you go next? Well, no, I'm going to show my age here because the the game that I'm going to talk about is pretty esoteric and I bet none of you have heard of it. So when I was a kid in the 80s, there was a kid in the 80s. You call me old.
00:15:59
Speaker
Well, oh, tension already. Episode one. Based on the other ages, the ages, the other people on this podcast, we may be on the older end of things. Don't make me reach over. Slap you in the metaverse.
00:16:22
Speaker
So there was a movie, maybe you'll remember it, Andrew, that starred Daphne Coleman called Cloak and Dagger. Do you remember that movie?
00:16:31
Speaker
I do remember that movie. It has not withstood the test of time. So don't go back and watch it. It is very terrible. Do not. But the premise of the game was there was this kid who was into playing video games, which at the time were also godawful, right? Because they were very 8-bit terrible home PC games. But the idea of the movie was that, and it was actually
00:16:57
Speaker
Henry, what's his name? Henry Thomas that played Elliot in E.T., which is probably also a movie. I'm getting blank looks from some people on this podcast. I've seen E.T. I've seen E.T.
00:17:12
Speaker
I remember riding the universal ride where he said my name. All right, good, good. Yeah, so the kid that played Elliot in that movie was the kid in this movie. And so anyway, the premise was he was big into this spy video game and Dabney Coleman played the spy. Well, they made a board game based on that. And it was actually, I want to say it was a Hasbro game, but don't hold me to that.
00:17:38
Speaker
Andrew saying no. I'm saying no to the existence of this board game, not it being a Hasbro game. So I have it on my shelf to this day. Well, I'm going to I'm going to put it like in the 1980s, it was either a Hasbro game, a Mattel game or a Parker Brothers. Right. And that's that's it. Those are options. Right. That's it. So but but.
00:18:00
Speaker
what really made it stand out. I mean, it was still definitely a mass market game, but what really made it stand out is they took the opportunity to create within the game experience
00:18:14
Speaker
better decisions for you to make as a player. Because basically the concept of the game was that you had a number of spies that were hidden across the globe and your goal was to travel to different countries and figure out who your contacts were and who the spies were.
00:18:36
Speaker
It was the first game that I really played that really made me recognize that a game doesn't just have to be like rolling move, right? It can actually have some consequential decision making. Do I go to Canada and check here to see if that's where that next contact is that I'm looking for? Or do I go to Europe and try to find this other thing that I'm looking for?
00:18:58
Speaker
And those were, granted, still aimed at much younger players. We were playing it when we were in our early teens. But at the time, it felt like you were given a set of, or you were given a sandbox to work in with some meaningful decisions to make. And I think that was the first opportunity that I had to recognize. Wow, there's an opportunity for board games to be more of an experience than just a throwaway of 15 minutes, and then you put it
00:19:27
Speaker
and put it back in your closet. Sure. Sure. What was it called? Was it called Cloak and Dagger? It was called Cloak and Dagger, the board game. Yes. Yeah. No. OK. OK. Very nice. They were digging deep for the name on that. Right. Yeah. Very original. Right. So I have a couple of thoughts about that. Number one, I'm validated because you said early teens in the 80s, which is not true about me. So you are older than me. I was born in the very, very early 80s. So I'm OK. There you go.
00:19:54
Speaker
Although that does technically mean I'm a millennial, which I will resent until the time. But I digress. Number number two,
Why is Decision-Making Crucial in Games?
00:20:01
Speaker
you know, you talk about decision space, right? Like, I think that's the 21st century term for what you're talking about. We talk about that a lot on the Family Gamers podcast. In fact, I'm going to toot my wife's horn for a moment here. Don't worry. This is family friendly.
00:20:13
Speaker
But one of the first things, I think it literally might have been episode one of the Family Gamers podcast where she said, quote, I would rather get stabbed in the face than play Candyland again. And I have a funny feeling that she wouldn't stand by that quote as an actual physical thing, but I think in concept. But she did write an article for the website, thefamilygamers.com, called Why I Hate Candyland.
00:20:37
Speaker
And I recommend any parent read it. And the reason why any parent should read it is because the moment your kids express an interest in something beyond Candyland, you need to understand everything that that article is talking about.
00:20:53
Speaker
And that is exactly what you're referring to, which is decision space. Exactly. And that's the inflection point on whether or not you're going to lose your kids if you want them to become a hobby board gamer. Because if they continue in board games where they don't get to make decisions, it will become boring and they will want to move on. Right. So I'm really glad you talked about that because that is one of the most important ways that you can engender the love of board games in your children.
00:21:19
Speaker
is to give them space to make decisions and feel like their opinions actually matter in board games. Mm hmm. Yeah, for sure. So anyway, let's.
00:21:30
Speaker
Well, and when you think back to all those simpler games that we played as kids, that was always the point where you gave up on them. Right. Was, you know, there wasn't enough to engage you. Even, you know, even a younger person, there wasn't enough to engage you for more than just a short span of time. And then you just threw it back in the closet and did something else. Unless you're winning. Right. Because everybody likes to win. Right. Well, there was. Oh, yeah. That was the kind of what most of that devolved into. Right. Was just for sure lording it over all of the other people that were losing at the time.
00:21:57
Speaker
Right. Right. But that's I mean, that's the miraculous thing about euros. Right. Is that everybody can play the game until the end. Right. And maybe you can tell who's going to win, but maybe not. Right. Right. That's cool. You never know. It could come back and be a surprise with those euros. So that's that's a great thing about it. And so.
00:22:17
Speaker
I haven't seen the euro yet where you draw the the the the the the gumdrop pile and you go to within two squares at the end of the game. That's. Hold on. We got an idea here. Your sister was was stacking the deck and you just didn't know. Right. And.
00:22:41
Speaker
Oh, we got, we got, see, we also designed games on this podcast. Yeah. Just speaking things into existence. It's all good. It's all good. Heather and I know people we can, we can get connected. Well, my board game design is on that shelf right behind me, right over here. I'm pointing at it. So someday I'll show it to you people. Yeah. Oh, please do. Who's next?
Drew's Tabletop Beginnings
00:23:10
Speaker
Oh goodness. Okay. Uh, I'm going to go with the easy answer and the cop out of it, but it was settlers. It was settlers of guitar. And that was the very first, uh, that was the very first game that I did play that was kind of above, uh, the more, um, more childish games, you know, monopoly Scrabble fill in the blank candy land, all of that. And,
00:23:36
Speaker
Um, I eventually branched out to more, uh, to very much more games out there. I can think of, uh, Camel up, uh, pandemic, uh, ticket to ride. Those were some of the very first beginning ones. The ones that the one that drew me in as, as strange as, as it is was, uh, horrified. That was the one that I was like, Oh, there's so much that's out here.
00:24:05
Speaker
that I can go to and As well as well going back to the discussion of pandemic for the longest time I played Pandemic just the regular pandemic, but then it was when once I got the legacy game
00:24:22
Speaker
And there's a funny story behind that, too. I picked it. I bought pandemic pandemic legacy season one. Had no idea what a legacy game was because I had just gotten on a list and saw. I saw that pandemic was on a list and I went to my local like it was like retro gaming slash tabletop gaming store.
00:24:50
Speaker
Uh, that was very close and local, like right down the street from my house. And I went there and I had no idea what a legacy game was. I was like, Ooh, this is how much, this is how much, uh, these, these board games are costing. Okay. Cause I was, cause I was working as, as in college, I was working and I, you got that board game money. I did not at that point colleges, board game, I had no idea.
00:25:17
Speaker
Yeah, my scholarship went towards that.
00:25:26
Speaker
Oh, no, no, let's see. Drew is out here borrowing books so you can buy board games. That's right. That's right. Hey, the college library is supposed to have every book you need. Right, that's true. So you can take that money. Plus, if you go to the library at the college, you can't get distracted. So just do your homework there and throw the book back in. Yeah, so y'all need to sign up for my financial class that I'm setting up, master class. So we've got that. We have Ramsey and board games right there. Yeah, that's right. That's right. But the funny thing was is I didn't know what the legacy was until I read it.
00:25:55
Speaker
I played pandemic the normal the normal way that like it was just an average game but i had this whole legacy game and it wasn't until about. Six months later that i was like hold up there's extra stuff in here what's going on what is this okay alright and yeah i played it and.
00:26:15
Speaker
saw the weight of my choices because I would just be like, ah, you know, it doesn't matter, you know, lose a game. OK, we'll play again and we'll just set up and I'll beat you this time. You know, no consequence whatsoever. And then in a legacy game, it's like what I do in this game is going to affect the next one. So every choice matters.
00:26:37
Speaker
And so for me, that's I would say that it was the legacy games. If you want to be specific, it was pandemic. But that was the first that was the first time that I was like, ah, this this is this is a lot. I love a leg, but this is good. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. There.
00:26:56
Speaker
Uh, I haven't played any other legacy game since, but I'm not opposed to them. So I held off for the longest time. Cause I was like, why would you spend this much money on a game that you're not going to be able to play or like, I just didn't understand it until, yeah, it was mine was charter stone was my first one first legacy game. And I was a wonderful experience. My experience was just simply the reason why I held it off is because the first six months, I didn't know what a legacy game was.
00:27:25
Speaker
And then like two years, then I held off another two years from that point. And the main reason that I held off was because I was like, I'm going to be ripping up cards. I'm going to be doing all this stuff. You know, I was like, I don't want to do that. I want to, I paid so much money for this thing. Oh my gosh. I know, man. That first time you rip a card up, you're just like, Oh, what am I doing? It's such a dark concept. Yeah.
00:27:53
Speaker
They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing. That's something to hurt us. Like the fact that a board game can like extend in that way is just very cool. Mm hmm. Absolutely. So my first experience with that was with Rob Davio's first foray into that, which was the risk legacy. You played risk legacy. Yeah. And the game has a you know, a fold over leaf front that tucks into the box, right? Mm hmm.
00:28:21
Speaker
Um, and, and, and so there's a, there's a paper seal on that, the tongue of the box, right? That keeps it attached until you open it. And that paper seal says something like, um, caution. What can, what can, what is done can never be undone. And you know, as you're breaking that, see, you're like, Oh, this is going to be good. Oh my. That Rob Davio.
00:28:49
Speaker
All right, Andrew, you want to share yours? Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. So I think in a lot of ways, mine was also Catan. Funny story about Settlers. True story. Did you know that before Settlers and Catan, victory points in board games did not exist?
00:29:05
Speaker
Settlers of Katana was the game that invented victory points. I mean, they're in every game now, right? There's certain games, I think, that even though the board game hobby has passed them, in my opinion, they are still watershed games like Settlers is one of them. Dominion is another great example. Tick to Ride is another example of that.
00:29:26
Speaker
And all of those are the games that, you know, for me coming into this, I think at the beginning of what I would call the Golden Age of board games, all of those were games that I played.
00:29:52
Speaker
There's another Steve Jackson game that I played a crapload of. And by a crapload, I mean, I played it so much that we wore out our copy and had to buy another one. And that is the game Illuminati. Have any of you even played this game? Oh, I haven't played it. I have a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was very different. I'm pretty sure I've played it.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, so in Illuminati, you start as one of the Illuminati. I mean, it's a Steve Jackson game. So it's got Steve Jackson humor and all that dumb stuff. And what you do over the course of the game is you try to acquire all of these different fringe, almost cult groups, basically, to grow your power as whatever your Illuminati is. And you have to buy groups, and you can win them by attacking other players. And so you create this.
00:30:47
Speaker
like tree, right? Because you can acquire a group and then have that group attack another group. And so that group's power plus your Illuminati's power go against the defense of some other group. And if they have similar whatever, they're both liberal, right? Then you would get like a plus to your attacker. But if you have a liberal and a conservative, then there would be like, there's all these stupid rules about it. But the game was dumb.
00:31:11
Speaker
I played it a lot in college. That's where I met my wife. And we played this dumb game together. It's very stupid, but it was the first game that like it was like, all right, we're going to go play six hours of Illuminati on Saturday because homework sucks. You know what I mean? Like that was that was that game. Right. And that was the game that we really sunk our teeth into. So, you know, I think that was the one that it was the one that we constantly went back to a little bit. Nice.
00:31:40
Speaker
That was definitely a game where you realized, oh, I can poke my friends in the eye for four hours straight. But it's like the difference is that it's like it's poking your friend in the eye, but it's not like munch. Like, I don't know. There was something about munchkin that I just found super obnoxious. Like I just it was annoying and Illuminati had enough tongue in cheek humor to it. And I know munchkin supposed to be funny.
00:32:02
Speaker
But it just wasn't for me, and Illuminati was, because it was so ridiculous. Like, you know, Evil Scientists for a Better Tomorrow. Like, when you have a card called Evil Scientists for a Better Tomorrow, or Orbital Mind Control Lasers, which by the way, Evil Scientists for a Better Tomorrow, are really good at taking over the Orbital Mind Control Lasers.
00:32:18
Speaker
You know, it's just stupid stuff. Like you just say the words and it makes you laugh. Right. And that was that was what Illuminati did. And my wife and I both went to a pretty intense technical school. And so finding those opportunities for retreat and those opportunities for like, let's just be silly and not let our brain bleed out of our ears for six hours. Like that was a big part of our college experience.
00:32:44
Speaker
Just the best. Really crappy pizza and really dumb board games. And then my wife and I fell in love over compiling the Linux kernel in operating systems. Wow. Yeah, we are dying the world nerds. Anyway.
Board Games as a Bonding Activity
00:33:04
Speaker
Well, and I think that's what board games board gaming is all about is bringing you together over, you know, finding something that you enjoy just doing together. And it takes you out and away from the world for a little while, you know, in the way from whatever else you have going on, you can just take some time to just be in the moment together playing something.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm throwing this out there as all of us, we have our partners, our respective partners. Something that my wife and I started doing maybe two months ago is, and you know, your schedules might allow this, maybe not. Every Thursday morning, we go out for breakfast and we bring a two-player board game and we play a board game and we have breakfast.
00:33:46
Speaker
And that's great for two reasons. Number one, breakfast is cheaper than dinner. So I recommend it. It's a great date. And number two, it's just a little quieter, right? Like you go to a breakfast place and like, there's a bunch of old men talking about politics and that's fine. Like they can do that over the corner, but it's just like, it's a different vibe than like dinnertime. You know what I mean?
00:34:07
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, it's awesome. I it has been I'm not gonna say it's been like one of the best things for our marriage or anything like that because I don't think our marriage like needed work like that, but like it's just been It's been a great opportunity connecting that way. It's like literally like Like we're recording this on a Sunday night tomorrow is Monday. It's the beginning of a work week I will be looking forward to Thursday until Thursday. It is the high point of my week I highly recommend it for everybody
00:34:32
Speaker
I think that's a great idea. I mean, my husband and I did our anniversary was the beginning of May and we went out for our anniversary. We went out to our local. We have a brewery that's close by and just in the afternoon like we went and dropped the kids off at their great grandmas. And we just we brought a couple board games and we sat down and had drinks and ordered some appetizers and just played some board games. And it was really nice to be able to just like reconnect because, yeah, our lives are so busy.
00:35:00
Speaker
Totally. Totally. Especially with kids running around. We both got jobs. He works in theater. He's a technical theater teacher, so he is constantly busy. He's normally all the shows in the evening and everything, so he's super busy all the time. It was just so nice to be able to just sit and have that time together.
00:35:19
Speaker
to reconnect and just and like we just brought a couple of like smaller games like airland and sea and you know our hedgehog hop from you know seppy one of our friends seppy we brought that you know just some simple games to play and it was really nice and the cool thing too is that
00:35:35
Speaker
we had someone come over to the table and was like what's this thing you're doing you know like yeah so then you're kind of like you know people are interested that you're like oh they're busting out board games over here yeah there's like there's like three or four waitresses at this place that we always go like literally the name of this restaurant by the way it's family table i mean could you know how could you not go
00:35:55
Speaker
Of course. Well, the only thing I don't like about this place is that food comes out too fast. I feel like it's like one turn. Oh, yeah. Right. It is already there. But they come over and they're like, oh, what game are you playing this week? Like they know that we're going to come and we're going to play a game. Like it's a thing. Like we'd be doing it for us now. So highly recommend.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah, we, my wife and I, we tried that. We tried that. Um, we tried that, but you know, there's only so much of that where we're just like, yeah, we just kind of like to be left by ourselves. So what we did was is we, uh, we save any of the new games or any, uh, any, you know, with higher, uh,
00:36:31
Speaker
level thinking and whatnot. We save that for the weekend, but then we'll pull out something that we kind of have. We always look forward to Wednesday night. We call that Chipotle night because we go and eat Chipotle instead of cooking at home. See, but the difference is like that you don't have kids running around driving you insane, right? Yeah, it's a seasonal life thing. It's a seasonal life thing, right? Yeah, for sure.
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah, and so we'll play something like Point Salad, Tender Blocks, whatever we can really kind of think of. We did try that. We did try to play out in public at restaurants and stuff like that. But then, you know, we just kind of like to be left to ourselves for the most part. So we like to sit there and talk with each other and spend time with each other. No offense to anybody who does that. None whatsoever. How dare you.
00:37:23
Speaker
I'm scum, look. I'm the worst. It definitely has to be the right place, right? To Andrew's point, I find that when we try to do that, the food always comes out too quickly, right? And you're right in the middle of getting the things set up and going. And then here comes two large plates of food and you're like, all right, well, I guess I got to push this off to the side. Right.
00:37:47
Speaker
Well, we're at the point now where we kind of know that. So like we set the game up on the side. Like, like we get there. I mean, it's a breakfast thing, right? So like all the jam goes up on the shelf, you know, the tray of jam and like the napkin holder, like all that crap is gone. The second we sit down, we're like, we're playing a game over here. It's not happening.
00:38:04
Speaker
Yeah, we definitely want to institute that, because I think that's really good advice, Andrew. Because when we did that, we were like, this is such a great idea. We want to start doing this more regularly so we can have that time to display. You have to schedule it, right? You do. For us, that's why every week works. I am very, very blessed with my job. I'm full-time work from home, and I have been for years and years.
00:38:29
Speaker
Like, I don't have a commute in the morning. So like, even though I've got to kind of get back to work by like nine, nine, 10 or whatever.
00:38:36
Speaker
Like it's not like I'm driving into, you know, some city or something like that. So I have that opportunity and I understand that some people don't. And so I do want to be cognizant of that.
Are Board Game Dates Effective?
00:38:45
Speaker
But like regularly has to be scheduled in the sense that it's like for us, it's it's every Thursday morning and it might be every other Sunday afternoon or whatever that is. But it's worth it. Invest. I totally, totally can't say enough good things about that as a concept.
00:39:00
Speaker
Oh, for sure. Well, and I'm interested, um, when do y'all learn? How do y'all handle rules for new games? Like if you've got a new game, do y'all learn the rules ahead of time? Do you like learn them together with your partner, whoever you're playing with? Like, how do you handle rules?
00:39:16
Speaker
Just go straight into it. Don't look at the rule book. Why is that there? I think this is how it's played. I actually made it better. If I'm learning, everybody's learning. So well, that's an interesting question. So I mean, in the context of like a two player game, like usually one of us will flip through the rule book and then we'll have a general idea. But it's not like I know everything. It's just like.
00:39:41
Speaker
This is kind of how it's going to get set up, but we're going to refer to the rule book as we play. If it's a family game, usually what will happen is my wife and I will play a throwaway game of it just to kind of get the sense of it. Because if you're trying to work through a rule book with kids at the table, they're like, nah, eh, eh, timeout. Can I have a popsicle or something? They're just like, I'm out of here. Forget this. If you're going to pick up a rule book where you're trying to play a game with a family, you might as well just throw in the towel immediately.
00:40:06
Speaker
I've made that mistake more than a few times. I tried to sit my kids down when they were way. They weren't too young to play the game, but I set them down to play mice and mystics when they were young enough that the minute I started scanning through the rulebook to make sure I was saying something right, I lost all of them. My dude, it's so funny that you said my semantics, because I literally have right here the game that we are currently in the process of reviewing, which is degree degree from Plaid Hat, which I really like this game.
00:40:33
Speaker
And by the way, my only issue with this game is that it's a plathat game. And what I mean when I say that, it sounds awful. It's not. I don't mean it in a bad way. How dare you? Me having no ties to them. There's something special about the elegance of a game where the rules just make sense and you don't need to continue to go back to the rule book and figure things out.
00:40:56
Speaker
I'll give you a great example of a game that's complicated, but it works is Lacrimosa. I love that game. And one of the reasons why I love that game is there's a little bit of iconography to get over, but then the game just flows like the the icons point you to the next icons. Right. So you can you can figure out the flow of the game without constantly going back to the rule book. And I would say that, by the way, Hickory Dickory does the best job out of any play that game that I've ever played of working you through that. Like there's the whole chirp anagram when
00:41:24
Speaker
You make it to mid to 12 every time you get back up to 12 and that kind of helps you like okay These are the steps that you take them like that's great But you you cannot play this game without the rule book the first five times you play it Yeah, and it's constantly been my issue with plaid-eye games because they're gorgeous. They're well put together The mechanics are super smart. They're very very clever once you know the rules. They're fun to play. Yeah, but
00:41:47
Speaker
But they don't have that thread of elegance that pulls them together. And so no matter how good the game is in an abstract context, from a family perspective, which is exactly what you're talking about, Josh, I can't, you know, like when we review games, we do art, we do mechanics and we do family fun. And this game is like, you know,
00:42:08
Speaker
It's probably a nine on art. It's beautiful. It's probably like a seven and a half on mechanics, because I think a lot of that stuff makes sense. But family fun, I'm like, dude, I got to drag people through this thing. But the game's supposed to be a plus, right? Just the thread to pull someone through the flow of the mechanics is just not there with Plaid Hat games. And I've played almost everything that Plaid Hat has put out, like almost everything. And I run into this problem constantly.
00:42:38
Speaker
So I feel you on my semistics, man. I do. And as somebody who lives in constant fear when I play board games that I am telling somebody the wrong rules, it drives me bonkers when I feel like I have to stop and pick the book up a thousand times, right? Man, if I was worried about that. I don't remember that rule. Like, I think I remember that rule. Let me double check. Let me look it up again. I would have an ulcer if I had that concern.
00:43:02
Speaker
I must hate games or something because I don't get worried about rules, whatnot. I'm like, I made this game better with my rules. Well, I actually think that's a really good thing in a family context, right? Because frankly, like kids don't care if you get the rules perfectly. They don't. They just want to have a good time. So if you make an educated guess, like find whatever and fix it the next time. And if they're like, well, that's not how we played last time, you'd be like, well, I was wrong last time. What do you want?
00:43:29
Speaker
And see, that's the critical difference, Drew, between playing with your family and playing with your friends, because your friends won't ever let you off that hook. Oh, no, they won't. No, they won't. I have a group of people that I play friends with. They're like, you let us get to the end of the game and you told us wrong. I'm never going to let you forget that. And but that's I mean, knowing your audience is super important, right? Like, oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.
00:43:53
Speaker
Yeah, there's been times my son has brought me a game that he wants to play and I'm like, OK, and it's like one maybe I have it because, you know, we get them all the time as creators.
Engaging Kids with Board Games
00:44:02
Speaker
And so there's ones that I'm like, oh, let's try this new game and we'll get it open. I'm looking through the rulebook and I'm like, this looks a little lengthy for us to be playing right now. Let's let's maybe pick a different game and I'll learn this one so that we can play it next.
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah, we kind of instituted apology games for stuff like that. There are certain games that my daughter loves. My 14-year-old loves them. But we just don't play them that much. Because as parents, we're not super in love with them. But if we're like, hey, play this game with us. And she's like, I don't really want to. We drive to the table. And then we start to get into it. We're like, yeah, we need to figure this out more. We now have to play an apology game with you.
00:44:39
Speaker
And if you open it off the shelf, it's whatever you want, right? That's a good idea. My daughter is currently obsessed with, so for Mother's Day, they wanted to pick out a board game for me. My six-year-old at the time was like, I'm going to pick it out. And she picked out Don't Wait Granny, I think is what it's called. It's like the one.
00:45:02
Speaker
It's like you're trying to steal treats off of Granny's little train. She's like sleeping in her recliner and then you have to push the button. It's almost like don't wake daddy really. But you push the button and if she wakes up her teeth like fly out of her mouth and it's really fun.
00:45:19
Speaker
But that's a silly little game that like, you know, they just want to grab. It's easy for them to play quickly. They want they're like they either go to that or the other one right now is Panopo by Outset Media Games, where you have like different colored shapes. There's like of all kinds of different kinds and you are drawing cards.
00:45:42
Speaker
And the cards have words on them and you draw a card, you figure out what your card is, you roll dice that have colors on them. And those are the shapes you get to use to create your, to get people to guess the word that you drew basically. So it's just very creative and kind of, you know.
00:45:59
Speaker
very building for them, which is good and easy. But my daughter will just put the most random stuff together and be like, it's an umbrella. It like looks nothing like an umbrella. So like, no, I'm just going to guess. It's like the worst Rorschach test ever. Right. So, so, Josh, did you have did you have an agenda because we have destroyed your right.
Episode Wrap-Up and Gratitude
00:46:24
Speaker
I think this has become our agenda. How's that sound?
00:46:28
Speaker
Destroying Josh's agenda. That is the agenda. That's all right. That's all right. We can do that every time. All right. Well, this has been a great conversation and it looks like we're coming up on probably about the right place to stop today. This has been fun.
00:46:44
Speaker
This has been a lot of fun. I appreciate you all being able to get together today and kick this off properly. So with that, I think we're going to wrap things up here and we'll go around the table and everybody remind us where you can be contacted. Starting with Andrew.
00:47:01
Speaker
My gosh me again I Lost it Brady Bunch on this one takes the square whatever the references you're old I can make those
00:47:17
Speaker
No, you can find all of our stuff at TheFamilyGamers.com. If you want to find us on social media, you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at FamilyGamersAA. We have a Facebook community. Just go to Facebook and search for the Family Gamers community. We've got 600 plus members in there. If you
00:47:35
Speaker
play games with kids anywhere in your life, whether they're your kids or whether they're nieces or nephews or just random kids in your neighborhood and you want to lure them into your house with board games. You can get some good ideas. Please don't do that. I don't want to be legally responsible. But seriously, there's lots of great conversations happening in the family games community on Facebook.
00:47:55
Speaker
So yeah, those are kind of all the places you can also search for The Family Gamer's podcast on anything. It's Amazon Music, Stitcher, Spotify, obviously on Apple Podcast. You can ask your smart speaker. You can say things like, Alexa, play The Family Gamer's podcast.
00:48:15
Speaker
Nice. I hope that worked for somebody. It worked for me. There we go. But it is weird for me to say that. We don't have an echo anymore, but we used to. But I used to say that in the dining room. And it would play. And it's weird to hear my voice just coming out of the speaker. I don't know, whatever. Anyway, we're all over the place. You know you made it. It's not hard to find this. Yeah, right? Exactly. Exactly. I am important. Yeah. So that's it for me. Just a billion places. How about you, Drew?
00:48:46
Speaker
You can find me over on any type of social media. TikTok's the primary place, but you can also find me on Instagram, YouTube. You can follow my Facebook page, wherever that it is. The name is Welcome to Boredom. You can find as well on the website. I use card, C-A-R-R-D dot co a website that helps provide a link page to all of my stuff that is welcome to boredom.
00:49:12
Speaker
Dot card dot co and that is where you could find all the silly videos. I post daily every single day Short form content of whether that is board games that I've received my reviews how to plays as well Just some silly skits just being funny and silly and you can make fun of me all that you like talking about how I don't look at rule books Which I don't so they don't exist in my mind
00:49:39
Speaker
So feel free to go ahead and check me out on all those social media sites. Thank you. Excellent. And Heather?
00:49:47
Speaker
So you can find me, it's Board Gaming Mama across all of the socials, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram. I stream on Twitch as well. I stream a couple of times a week on Twitch. I play a variety of board games and digital games. And my website is solo, S-O-L-O dot T-O slash Board Gaming Mama. That's got all of my links.
00:50:14
Speaker
I try to put featured products on there so people might see something that I show off. I show off Board Games Weekly on my Twitch channel as part of my Board Game of the Week segment. Any of that stuff is going to be linked there and that's the best place to find me. Board Gaming Mama, just all one word. Love to see you all on the socials as well. Fantastic.
00:50:37
Speaker
And you can find my game publishing company, Salamander Games, at salamandergames.com. We're also on all of the social platforms as at Play Salamander. We also have new social media getting started for the podcast itself. There's not a lot out there at the moment, but you're welcome to join us, and we will be adding to it. We are on Twitter as at Corner Game Table, on Facebook at the Corner Game Table, and our website is cornergametable.com.
00:51:06
Speaker
We look forward to having you join us again to hear more conversation about board games and how they positively affect everything that we do in our lives. So we thank you for joining us this evening and we hope that you'll join us again in two weeks for another episode. And with that, we will say goodbye. Goodbye, everybody. Bye. Bye now.